September 15, 2006

I drove Gary to therapy this morning only to find it had been cancelled, the receptionist somehow having forgotten to notify us until too late. Gary’s therapist had a family emergency yesterday and might not be in for the next two weeks. The receptionist said she would call Monday if they got someone to take over for her. As we drove away, I got to thinking it wasn’t a good idea for Gary not to have therapy for two weeks if they couldn’t find a replacement. Gary agreed, and said that since all he was doing there was weights, and he knew the routines, maybe they’d let him come and do them himself and just have somebody else in the gym change the plates on the cable machine for the different exercises. I said that if they were too busy for that, I would do it for him for the next two weeks. He called them on his cell phone while I went into the medical supply store to pick up some “skin prep” he needed. They told him that his therapist was the only licensed occupational therapist they had who comes on MWF, and that even thought doing weights was also physical therapy, since he didn’t have a doctor’s script for physical therapy, none of the physical therapists could oversee him; this of course meant I couldn’t oversee him, though Gary joked they should call Shepherd – after all, it’d been the occupational therapist there who had joked that I shouldn’t do their jobs so well because it would make them lose theirs . Evidently the place here has a licensed OT on Tuesday and Thursday, however, because they said he could come in then, so that’s what he plans to do.

So, anyway, I took him to the university and dropped him off. When I got home near lunchtime, Janet Rogers, who’d come about 9, was still up working in the attic. She had a list of things to ask about, but I don’t think I was all that helpful (“Do you want to keep this?” “I don’t know.” “What about this?” “I don’t know.”). Of her written list of about twenty things, Gary and I (mostly Gary ;-)) decided this evening on all but a few things. But of the things NOT on that list, I’m afraid my answer is still “I don’t know.”

So, anyway, looks like we have a few more things to give away to grad students or to the Thrift Store or Goodwill.

Jack Rogers came after his morning class and helped removed a leaf from the dining table (it hadn’t been removed in about twenty years and there was no way Janet and I could do it!). Gary was thrilled when he came home to find he could maneuver in the dining room again – between the large table and all the shelving in there, he hadn’t been able to much farther than the doorway before. He’d like to reclaim the room as an office/study.

When I got there, Jack had left to bring him and Janet some lunch, and after that Jack left and Janet returned to the upstairs, her goal to clear a path so that volunteers can drag down some of the large things from the upstairs. Originally I think she planned to be in our home a short time this morning, but she stayed until mid-afternoon until I left for writers group! She continues to astound.

When Gary returned home, he told me that since he hadn’t had therapy, he’d gotten some exercise by wheeling from the math department to Haley Center. Since there is construction for a new student center going on in the vicinity, he said it hadn’t been easy. He’d gone around the women’s dorms, been directed up a ramp, and so forth. It was mostly uphill, and he said it took him over twenty minutes. Only about ten on the way back, however.

Gary got a nice card and letter from his old friend Marilyn Foreman. In it, she called Gary a fighter and me a saint. Thanks, Marilyn, but I am sure I am not a candidate for canonization ;-). But thankfully Gary is a fighter.

To anyone who sent me emails last weekend, they seem to have disappeared into cyberspace, so please resend them. I’ve had three people tell me they sent me emails, and I didn’t get them (I did get the ones Janet and Jamie re-sent).

To finish, Janet came across a couple of our wedding pictures, one containing my brother, Joe. I uploaded the pictures to the blog, http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/

And if a certain someone calls me a hippie wannabee again . . .