August 6, 2006
After we finished the morning routine over, I spent some time trying to make space in my car by reorganizing, and I also did as much packing up as possible at this point. I can’t believe they expect us to check out by 9am on Friday – somehow by then I am supposed to do all the cleaning up (and packing of the car, though the Kuperbergs are helping with that) on top of doing the morning routine with Gary. I have decided I’ll just do the best I can. I’ll do like I did at the Shepherd apartments, trying to clean up in the days beforehand, and if they don’t like it they can charge us a cleanup fee, because we are not getting up a whole lot earlier so I can get the cleaning done. Thank goodness the Kuperbergs are coming to help us with our move back (bringing both their cars!); no way could we do this ourselves.
Okay, bitching over for now ;-). Let me tell you we went on our first “real” outing by ourselves today! (“Real” meaning something that didn’t involve just pushing down the block.) We went to the “Prairie Home Companion” movie, which we both enjoyed, both being fans of the radio show (we each said our favorite part of the movie was the “bad jokes” segment). When transferring in and out of the car for the outing, Gary tried angling and positioning his chair slightly differently, and he discovered a new way to place his hands for “the push,” and all this worked great: with me aiding, he made his best ever transfers both into and out of the car ( a total of six transfers for the afternoon – I got lots of practice at disassembling and reassembling his chair). However, we discovered that even though we take off the shoulder belt on his side of the car for the transfers, he definitely needs to wear it during any trips, because otherwise he loses his balance and has to catch himself on the dashboard at any change in speed (yes, we know, one is suppose to wear those all the time – he forgot to put it on). And we also discovered it is very advisable to drive smoothly while he is doing any weight shifts during travel, again so he can keep his balance (if that weren’t possible, I would have pulled over while he was doing them).
In the theater, the last row (which fortunately wasn’t all that far back) had three groups of two seats, and wheelchairs could pull up in between the groups; we sat in the middle group.
After the movie, we went to Fresh Market to stock up for the next few days. Gary commented that while on his last “group push” to the T.G.I.F.’s right next door, he couldn’t believe how close the market was to Shepherd – on his first push it had seemed so very far away. The checkout person at the market greeted Gary warmly, saying that she was glad to finally meet him, that she knew what he ate, but she’d never seen him. She then asked where his ice cream was. I gave her a look – I’m trying to wean him off that! (For my sake.)
So, we had a successful outing. It did feel a little weird to me to be doing something “normal” with Gary again; it was just like real life ;-). I mentioned this to Gary after he said he’d had fun going out with me, and he said it wasn’t a wonder I found it strange – we haven’t experienced “real life” in a long time.
After we finished the morning routine over, I spent some time trying to make space in my car by reorganizing, and I also did as much packing up as possible at this point. I can’t believe they expect us to check out by 9am on Friday – somehow by then I am supposed to do all the cleaning up (and packing of the car, though the Kuperbergs are helping with that) on top of doing the morning routine with Gary. I have decided I’ll just do the best I can. I’ll do like I did at the Shepherd apartments, trying to clean up in the days beforehand, and if they don’t like it they can charge us a cleanup fee, because we are not getting up a whole lot earlier so I can get the cleaning done. Thank goodness the Kuperbergs are coming to help us with our move back (bringing both their cars!); no way could we do this ourselves.
Okay, bitching over for now ;-). Let me tell you we went on our first “real” outing by ourselves today! (“Real” meaning something that didn’t involve just pushing down the block.) We went to the “Prairie Home Companion” movie, which we both enjoyed, both being fans of the radio show (we each said our favorite part of the movie was the “bad jokes” segment). When transferring in and out of the car for the outing, Gary tried angling and positioning his chair slightly differently, and he discovered a new way to place his hands for “the push,” and all this worked great: with me aiding, he made his best ever transfers both into and out of the car ( a total of six transfers for the afternoon – I got lots of practice at disassembling and reassembling his chair). However, we discovered that even though we take off the shoulder belt on his side of the car for the transfers, he definitely needs to wear it during any trips, because otherwise he loses his balance and has to catch himself on the dashboard at any change in speed (yes, we know, one is suppose to wear those all the time – he forgot to put it on). And we also discovered it is very advisable to drive smoothly while he is doing any weight shifts during travel, again so he can keep his balance (if that weren’t possible, I would have pulled over while he was doing them).
In the theater, the last row (which fortunately wasn’t all that far back) had three groups of two seats, and wheelchairs could pull up in between the groups; we sat in the middle group.
After the movie, we went to Fresh Market to stock up for the next few days. Gary commented that while on his last “group push” to the T.G.I.F.’s right next door, he couldn’t believe how close the market was to Shepherd – on his first push it had seemed so very far away. The checkout person at the market greeted Gary warmly, saying that she was glad to finally meet him, that she knew what he ate, but she’d never seen him. She then asked where his ice cream was. I gave her a look – I’m trying to wean him off that! (For my sake.)
So, we had a successful outing. It did feel a little weird to me to be doing something “normal” with Gary again; it was just like real life ;-). I mentioned this to Gary after he said he’d had fun going out with me, and he said it wasn’t a wonder I found it strange – we haven’t experienced “real life” in a long time.
posted by Peg Daniels at 6:38 PM
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