Apr 22, 2007

On Sunday, after his exercising, Gary did the transfer from the futon to his wheelchair without telling me – this was only about the third time he’d even done it without me hovering over him! Since that time, he’s done that transfer without warning me, so now there is only one transfer that he normally does that I still have to aid him with – the transfer from the shower bench back to his wheelchair. I still have my hands on his hips when he does that one, but soon he thinks he’ll be ready to try it with me “just there.” (Although I’d first like to see him consistently not hit his head on the shower wall! (Not enough room in there!))

Apr 24, 2007

Yesterday Gary got information from the Shepherd Center concerning the Adventure Skills Outing in May. He is supposed to sign up for various activities, but they note that a person should allow at least a half-hour between the various activities, to make sure he has time to get from one place to another. In fact, they suggest that if a participant has a power chair it would be good to bring that along, because evidently the distances and/or terrain can be a challenge to cover.

So during the night he started worrying about not having time to make it from one activity to another and/or to change clothes (for example, in and out of his bathing suit – based on our experience at the Shepherd Center, that can take awhile!). When he told me that this morning, I said I would of course help him change clothes if he wants, but that unless my knee is better, there may be a problem with me helping him if he needs such help in being pushed from one place to another. Hopefully he won’t – he’s in pretty good shape for “pushes.” I suggested that some weekend beforehand, we could drive out to where the camp is held just to check the place out. And I told him to make sure to keep up his pushes now that he isn’t doing a push from the Student Activity Center to the math building after his weight training sessions (because he is driving). He said he’s still getting pushes in, and in fact today he did a push up the hill to the Telfair Peet Theater on campus – which is a steep hill! He said that since this was his first time up that hill, he took it easy, by taking three or four rests to get up it, but he thought that he could most likely make it in two or three. Unfortunately, he forgot that what goes up must come down – and the downhill was on the scary side! He said it was so steep he was leaning way back in his chair and had his hands gripping the wheels so he’d go down very slowly, knowing it would be easy to lose control if he got up any speed. He said an expert in wheelies would go down in a wheelie, but he is definitely not in that category (in fact he told me he hasn’t even practiced wheelies since we got back from Shepherd last December, that becoming good at them was so far out of his reach – like, not possible in his lifetime – that he thought it pointless to practice them).

Anyway, I asked him if his trip down had been so scary that he wouldn’t do it again, and he said, “I don’t know” – which I think is a measure of just how scary he found it! (Just not enough at first for him to call for help.)

Gary’s Adventure Skills Outing must have been on my mind, too. I had kind of a funny dream. It started out like the James Bond movie, “Die Another Day,” where Pierce Brosnan (a man I wish I could get in more of my dreams ;-)) is captured by enemy agents, finally released and returned to MI6, which accuses him of giving information to the enemy and so he must escape from them. In a parting from the movie, in my dream James Bond ends up at Gary’s Adventure Skills Outing as the outing director.

Now, if I could only figure out what international intrigue a group of paras and quads would be up to, I could turn this into a story ;-).

Our recent movies include: “Inconvenient Truth,” “United 93,” and to give us some relief from those heavy films, “Mrs. Palfry at the Claremont.”

Apr 25, 2007

Questions for the next Day Program:

How does a paraplegic catch a cat? (In order to take it to the vet.)

How many paraplegics does it take to change a lightbulb?

***
I had to take the cats to the vet today, and I joked that catching a cat should be on the list of Occupational Skills they teach at Shepherd, so Gary can take the cats for their checkups too. Fortunately, I caught Tigger unawares and stuffed him in one carrier. Blackjack would have been a greater problem had he put forth the effort to escape, but after taking a few steps he scrunched himself down into a ball and simply hoped he’d turned invisible. He hadn’t, and I was able to stuff – and I do mean stuff – him into the other cat carrier. The two of them let out mournful cries all the way to the vet. At the vet’s, I parked then lugged Blackjack in, set his carrier down on the waiting room bench, then went back for Tigger. By the time I got back inside the vet’s (a converted large old house), Blackjack, in his carrier, was up on the exam table in the exam room, a few steps away from the waiting room. The vet was there, and I carried in Tigger. The vet said, “Peg, next time you come just toot your car horn in the drive and we’ll come out and help you carry the cats in – I broke out in a sweat just carrying Blackjack from the waiting room to here.” We laughed about that, but I sure wished I had known they’d help me with the cats – I think I made my knee worse carrying Blackjack all the way from the parking lot. But they have a sign in the driveway that says, “Do not block the drive,” so I assumed that meant I wasn’t supposed to stop there at all.

Anyway, the vet had already given Blackjack his shot (I took them in for their annual shots a few months ago, but there is a new vaccine that has only become recently available that they needed to get), and she reached into Tigger’s carrier and gave him his too – I was surprised she didn’t have to take them out of the carrier. Evidently the cats didn’t believe that was all that was involved in this visit, because while I paid the bill, the two of them kept hollering away – they had quite a duet going. It was kind of funny, because usually they’re silent once actually in the vet’s office. The vet commented that while I was getting Tigger, Blackjack had been at full voice until she reached in for him, and then he started giving “wimpy little meows.” I should have told her that I’d be happy for her to remove his vocal cords completely.

While she was giving them their shot, she told me she’d just gotten off the phone with a client who asked if she could bring her German Shepherd in. The vet said yes, and asked when they’d gotten the dog. Turned out they’d had the dog a long time, but had never brought it into her – though they’d always brought their cat in – because the vet has a sign that reads, “Small animals only.” LOL! I told the vet that it’s possible that I only knew that “small animals,” in the vet sense, refers to cats and dogs and “large animals” to horses, cows, etc. because years ago when I first met Gary he took his cat to the vet school’s clinic and they had separate clinics for large and small animals. I joked that had I not known this, I might have thought Blackjack too large to be seen by her.

My knee has been worse this week. Unfortunately it seems that adding in new exercises and doing the old exercises with ankle weights, as the PTs told me to do, aggravated it, and it’s not much better than it was to begin with. Sigh.

Oh, and as far as the paraplegics and lightbulbs, I don’t have a punchline for it. We were just wondering how a paraplegic would be independent and change bulbs like those in our dinette, which are in a fixture that hangs from the ceiling. Guess you’d have to modify the fixture so it can be raised and lowered.

Apr 26, 2007

This morning I walked down the hall toward my bathroom to cut a piece of soap off from a large slab of glycerin soap I have. Gary met me in the hall and began, “Would you – ”

I brandished the knife in my hand.

“Um, what are you doing with that?” Gary asked.

“Waiting for your next request,” I replied.

“Oh. I was going to ask you to undo the fitted sheet on the far corner of my bed, but never mind.” He hurriedly wheeled down the hallway past me.

I smiled.

(Of course, later I undid the sheet.)

Apr 21, 2007

Oops. Gary’s gotten so independent lately I nearly forgot about him and left him in the van. After we went to Kroger, we switched positions and I did the driving to the ice cream shop, so that later Gary would be able eat his ice cream while I drove home. I’ve gotten use to him driving, and when he does, upon reaching home I just go inside and he makes his transfer from his specially built driver’s seat (which, important for the transfer, rotates) to his wheelchair and rolls out of the van and into the house. But when I drive, I have to help him with the transfers: since the passenger seat doesn’t rotate, we have to do the other kind of transfer where he slides (or hops) down (or up) the transfer board, the ends of which I place on the passenger seat and the seat of his wheelchair. Though he can make such a transfer on his own when in smaller car, he can’t do so in the van, because the angle of descent (or ascent) is too steep.

And of course there is no possibility of him making this kind of transfer if I haven’t taken the wheelchair out of the van!

Anyway, I obliviously left him and his wheelchair in the van for a while. I’m sure there was no danger of him having to stay in there long-term. I would have noticed later this evening that he wasn’t there watching a movie with me. Maybe I would have noticed even earlier, at dinnertime, that he wasn’t there.

;-)

(In case you are worried, Mom Gruenhage, it couldn't have been more than five minutes that I abandoned him – I had to bring in the groceries, after all, and I discovered him still in the van :-))

Apr 18, 2007

What the man will do for ice cream.

Gary suffered through the ordeal of having to go get a new driver’s license. First he had to convince them that he did not, in fact, need to be examined by the state medical doctors and have another driver’s test (I guess the person he spoke with did not comprehend the piece of paper he had from the State Vocational Rehab Office, which said it was in lieu of all that). He then had to get a number and wait. He was number thirteen. He didn’t think that was too bad. Until he found out they were on number seventy-seven and the numbers went up to a hundred. After waiting close to two hours, they finally reached number 100. Evidently the people there felt sorry for him and at that point waved him in ahead of the other dozen people.

After getting his license, he went to the Court House to get handicapped plates and a handicapped placard. Amazingly, he was the only one there! (I joked that they were all over at the other place). So in a few minutes he had our new plates. He pointed out to me that if we had had to do this last month, I would have had to go with him for all this. I’m grateful, I’m grateful!!!

(So, Norma, I hear you would have preferred that I had had to go with him, so you could read my complaints about it on the blog.)

But he thought it was wonderful (and so do I) that he could go all over the place and do this all on his own.

(But he notes, ironically, that he can wheel from the Student Activities Building where he does his weight training to the math building faster than he can drive there – because of the time it takes him to do the transfer into the driver’s seat and get situated.)

After getting his license and the plates, he decided he deserved ice cream. At first he was going to go to the drive-in window, but then he realized that if he did that, having to hold the ice cream cone in one hand would mean that he would have only one hand to do everything else, namely, steer, brake, accelerate. Fortunately he decided not to chance that (I did point out there was a drink holder in the dashboard, but since he hadn’t tested that out ahead of time, he didn’t want to chance that the ice cream cone would stay in it when he drove from the window (and given his jerky driving, who knows if it would : -) – he said we’ll test that when we go to Kroger this weekend ;-)).

So, to get the ice cream he would have to transfer out of the driver’s seat and wheel to the service window. (Well, I told him he could have told the people at the drive-in window that he was just going to sit there blocking traffic until he’d finished his ice cream.) Unfortunately, after he transferred out of the driver’s seat, he realized he’d left the keys in the ignition, and he couldn’t reach them. So he had to transfer back into the driver’s seat and get the keys (he noted he won’t be making that mistake very often). Then he transferred back into his chair (he got lots of transfer practice today), and wheeled out of the van to the service window.

Finally he got his ice cream.

Now, I ask you, was that worth it? ;-)

Apr 16, 2007

This entry will be all over the map.

I got some test results back from the doctor today. Somehow since the last time the tests were done a couple years ago my body has managed to become very low in vitamin D and my thyroid is “mildly low.” I didn’t talk to the doctor, but the nurse told me the prescription for the thyroid is usually taken for life. CRUD!!!

(Well, at least “low thyroid” may now give a possible explanation for why since we got home from Shepherd last August I started putting on weight. I couldn’t figure it out, since it didn’t seem to me I was eating any more, and though I’ve been trying, I can’t lose it.)

Gary and I discovered over the weekend that though I had thought I had e-filed our federal tax return last year (when I raced home from Birmingham three days after his accident specifically to do so), apparently the IRS never got it. Oh, great. Gary told me not to worry, that he's written a letter to them explaining the situation. He said he wrote, “It’s all Peg’s fault. She should be the one to go to jail, not me.” Funny guy.

Today I had my third therapy session for my knee. They added in another three exercises (I had gotten an additional three last Friday). I didn’t get to use the biofeedback machine – or “dinger,” as they call it – this time, the machine designed to tell you if you’re contracting the proper muscle strongly enough. I was disappointed I didn’t get to use it. I like the feedback. Although on Friday when the one PT yelled across the room, “Professor, I don’t hear any dinging,” I muttered, “You’re going to hear some dinging in a moment.” (Namely when I popped him in the head.)

I want to thank Gary's Uncle Norman for his wonderful Easter card. It was absolutely beautiful and greatly appreciated.

I would also like to acknowledge my staunch friend, Vicki. Vicki, you sustained me with your frequent emails through those months Gary was hospitalized. I am so sorry for the loss of your mother.

Apr 14, 2007

“So, how ya doing?” I asked Gary at lunchtime. “Fine,” he replied. Moments later, he said, “I just remembered, today’s the fourteenth (the anniversary of his accident).” “You did?” I said. I was well aware of that fact and it was why I’d asked him how he was doing. “So, how ya doing now?” I asked. “Still okay,” he said, then went on, “Tears came to my eyes when I remembered, but I’m okay.”

At bedtime I asked him if he’d gotten through the day all right. He said he hadn’t thought any more about it, except to note that not only would it have been impossible for him to make the Alaska cruise last July, as the people in Birmingham said he should be able to do, but it doesn’t seem likely that he’d be ready to do something like that by even *this* July. And that one thing we hadn’t taken in to account was that I’d have to go along too.

Well, we certainly didn’t know all what was involved at that stage of the game (last May).

I suppose I should have something profound to say to mark the day, but I don’t. I’m just very happy to have him still with me.

Apr 13, 2007

After going to a colloquium today, Gary had his first fully independent van-transported restaurant outing (actually, first independent van-transported outing of any type other than going to and from school). He drove himself to and from the restaurant and made the transfers on his own. He said he had an audience when he left the restaurant for home – a bunch of the math people wanted to see how he got himself wheeled into the van and transferred into the driver’s seat. “The pressure was on,” I joked when he told me this. He said he’d said the same thing, and thought, “This better be a good one!” (meaning the transfer into the driver’s seat; evidently it was good enough ;-))

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of his accident.

Apr 09, 2007

Today (Monday) Gary successfully made his transfers and drove himself to and from school! Huge step in his independence, and I congratulated him. Now I’m waiting for him to do our grocery shopping himself ;-)

Monday morning at 10 I had an appointment with an orthopedic physician. I finally got in to see him about 11:15. One of my pet peeves is waiting around in doctors’ offices. (Another one is standing in lines, so I guess the common denominator is “waiting.”) These days I usually bring a hardcopy of my story to work on the revision if I think I’m going to have to spend time waiting, but I was at a sticking point in my story (and have been sort of stuck there since April 1st) and found it hard to concentrate on it in those surroundings.

Anyway, I finally got in to the doctor, and “Dr. Bob,” as he calls himself (I should have introduced myself as "Dr. Peg"), looked at my x-rays and at least gave me the good news that there is no sign of arthritis in the knees – nice big gaps between the bones. The bad news is he thinks I have torn the meniscus (cartilage between the bones). He gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory. I couldn’t read his writing, and after I filled the prescription I realized it was just naproxen which I probably could have bought OTC cheaper! He also set me up for physical therapy. They have the PT in the same office, and when I went over there to set up an appointment, they said I could have my first appt. right then, if I wanted it, which I did. They attached sensors to the muscles around the knee and took me through four exercises during which I was supposed to make this little monitor beep. I was surprised at how tough the exercises were – I thought they’d start me off easier, but the exercises were quite tiring and they made my shin ache. Actually, the PTs said they were starting me off easier because when they asked of my health history I told them I had CFS, though it was not as severe as it had been. All throughout one of the exercises, one of the PTs kept asking me about CFS. First of all, I’m not much of an exponent for anything, but even less so when I’m trying to concentrate on something else. I should have told him that some of my symptoms are cognitive, and in particular, I cannot keep my mind on two tasks at once – in this case, I couldn’t keep track of the number of reps I was on while talking to him. “I have no idea if that is five or ten,” I said at one point. “Guess you’ll have to start over again,” he said. He kept talking. I have no idea how many reps of that exercise I actually did.

They gave me a sheet with the four exercises on it and told me to do them daily. I will see them again on Friday. It was after 1 p.m. when I was finished, so I went home, had lunch, and then it was off to the chiropractor at 2 for about an hour – so Monday morning was shot taking care of my right leg and Monday afternoon was shot taking care of my left leg!

I have been doing the exercises at home, and they seem easier – not because I am getting better at them but because I don’t have some little machine I am supposed to make beep, and even though I try not to ease up on the exercises, I know I am – I give in to the aches when there is no taskmaster beeping at me.

Apr 11, 2007

Tonight I finally finished that scene in the story that had been giving me problems since April 1st. Even though I like it, I wonder what my critique group will say about it. It is the darkest scene in the story, I think. Originally it was only four paragraphs long, but now it is about eighteen double-spaced pages long. I wonder if they’ll find it too dark. Another potential problem is that it is a flashback, and I think there is some unspoken (or maybe, spoken) rule about not having long flashbacks. On the other hand, it is a revealing moment about one of the characters.

It is strange how sometimes I can like what I’ve written and then later not like the same passage – and sometimes later read it again and like it again.

I have problems figuring out locations for the scenes. Like, I decided I needed to have something occur in a rural area not too far from Los Angeles. So then I had to go online and figure out some place near L.A. that was rural. Then I had to figure out what might be on such rural property, what the surroundings might look like. I had to go online and look at real estate properties. I couldn’t find one for the original area I chose, so I had to keep looking around the internet until my requirements were met.

I can’t even describe a scene in a house without getting out a book I have on housing floor plans and picking out a house to use. This seems weird to me that I need to do this, but I am frozen in writing the scene until I do.

I also have problems with technical stuff. I don’t see how writers come up with scripts for movies like The Thomas Crown Affair, or the James Bond movies. I’d be stuck at, “But how does that really work?” In other words, I am not good at winging anything.

My desk is apparently not big enough. My cats have decided they are indispensable sources of inspiration to me, and that they can best perform this service by sitting on the desk next to me. Now, Blackjack alone is not too bad – he’ll usually leave a reasonable amount of space between the mouse and his head. Tigger, however, has to put his head right on the mouse, so that his head gets rubbed when I click the mouse. This he does whenever he is not trying to walk across the keyboard (I have lots of iuxp’s and other nonsense words in my story on account of him). Since Tigger will not ever let Blackjack be anywhere close to me without him trying to horn in, the real fun begins when the two of them are up on the desk curled up as close to me as they can get. It is very distracting to be trying to write and having two furballs in such proximity. And it doesn’t work to close the door on them – they will scratch at the door and/or howl until I let them back in.

*Sigh* I think I will have goldfish for my next pets. If they get obnoxious I can flush them down the toilet.

Apr 8, 2007

Happy Easter!

And it was a much better one this year.

Gary’s flap is pretty much back to normal – yea! I was scared about it last weekend (Gary said he’d known it was something to worry about when upon seeing it last Saturday night I’d yelled out, “Jeez O Pete!”) I think the combination of him staying off it earlier in the week and not driving enabled it to gradually heal back up – though it is not quite as good as it was before the trip.

Gary spent time today practicing transfers between his wheelchair and the driver’s seat of the van, without me being present (but both of us with our cell phones on). He has something to prove to the local bus drivers. He told them he wouldn’t need their services after the conference, and they have been saying to him all week, “I thought you were driving on your own starting this week?” But, he didn’t get in as much practice on the transfers as he would have liked, and thus still felt he needed me to be there “for the confidence factor,” that is, he felt more confident in making the transfer if he knew I was standing right there in case he didn’t quite make it over on his own. Yesterday when we went to Kroger I stayed in the front passenger seat rather than standing by him when he made his transfers. Today I stayed in the house, and he practiced the transfers in the van in the garage. He did three successful transfers, and he now feels confident about doing them on his own.

So, tomorrow will be another milestone! He is going drive to school on his own in the late morning, and then return on his own in the late afternoon – the important part being he will make the transfers unsupervised (of course, I will have my cell phone on!). This will also be the first time he has driven on his own, but he has been confident of the driving part for a couple weeks now.

We did have a little problem as a result of his practice today. He decided he should move the wheelchair closer to the passenger seat while making the transfer, so he can catch himself on it if he should fall forward. Well, in moving the chair to this different position, he tugged so hard at it he caused the back of it to go out of whack – it wouldn’t lock into place in the upright position. I couldn’t fix it with him in it, so he had to transfer out of it so I could fool with it. I broke it down (i.e., took off the arm rests and the tip bars and the wheels and the cushion) and then flipped it over and stared at the bottom of it. And stared at it. And stared at it some more. I had no idea why the frame wouldn’t lock upright – I freely admit I am not mechanically minded. All I could see was the left side was locking in fine, but the right side wasn’t down far enough to be in the proper position to lock in at the same time. I was ready to give up pretty much right away (“Let’s call Wlodek!” I said, since I knew he was mechanically minded – he was the one who helped us out with Gary’s wheelchair when he came to visit at Shepherd). Gary seemed reluctant, so we stared at the bottom of the chair some more. I finally noticed the two sides weren’t sloped at the same angle, though the difference was slight. Gary then noticed that there was hole showing around a metal plate under the bolt on the right, but the hole was covered by the plate on the left. So I got out the trusty set of wheelchair Allen wrenches, and loosened the bolt on the right and then moved the frame so the hole was covered by the plate. I tightened the bolt up, put the chair back together again – and then noticed the back of the chair was now sloped too much forward. I had moved the wrong side of the frame. So I had to break the chair down again and adjust both sides in the other direction. I suppose I could have figured this out at the beginning if I were more mechanically minded.

Anyway, after close to an hour I got the chair properly adjusted. Gary crowed, “We did it ourselves!” I wondered what this “we” business was ;-). I *was* a little proud of fixing the chair, I admit, but I also lamented wasting so much time doing it!

Now, if I could only figure out how to do taxes.

Actually, Gary is taking me through that too this year. I would have been a mess (or rather, even more of a mess ;-)) if he had had his accident a bit earlier last year and I would have had to try to figure the tax stuff out on my own.

I talked to my sister Janet today. She told me some about their trip to Australia and New Zealand (she had emailed me lots of pictures!). I told her about how the cats are doing (ever since we returned home from Shepherd last August Blackjack has had a phobia about going in Gary’s room for some reason, though the cat is no longer afraid of the wheelchair – in fact, Gary wishes Blackjack were more afraid of it, since now the cat won’t even bother to move out of the way when Gary is trying to get by him (I can always tell when this is going on, since I hear Gary saying, “Beep, beep!”); Tigger has, as far as I can tell, stopped peeing in undesirable places). Janet in return told me a story about her cat Morrie. Morrie was having terrible allergic reactions to something, which caused him to bite out his fur and scratch himself until he bled, and the vet put him on a rare foods diet! Now, I know about such diets for humans, but I had no idea they did that for cats – in fact, I had no idea cats could be allergic to their cat food. So, anyway, the vet gave Janet the choice of putting Morrie on a diet of rabbit or New Zealand venison or Australian kangaroo! Evidently the venison was the cheapest, and after a few weeks of this, Morrie is all better! Janet has to keep him on this diet, but it didn’t sound like the food was all that more expensive than regular canned cat food.

When I later told Gary about this, I said, “Remember when I tried a rare foods diet?” He said, “How could I forget? It made you really, really sick.” When I had all the gut problems concurrent with the CFS, I was trying to figure out what foods I could eat that wouldn’t cause a reaction, and I came across the theory that it was the foods commonly eaten that caused the problem, so one should first clear oneself of the allergy symptoms by eating only foods one never or seldom ate. While this is a successful approach for many people – and evidently cats – it very much backfired for me. I ate some leafy green we’d gotten at the Atlanta Farmer’s market (maybe cassava leaves? I forget). Pretty soon I felt like I was filled with acid from head to toe. I was so sick! I told Gary to remember what I ate in case he ended up taking me to the emergency room to have my stomach pumped.

Anyway, that little experiment totally backfired and I suffered the ill effects of it for a *long* time. Glad Morrie didn’t have to go through that ;-).

Apr 2, 2007

Thanks Judy, Ronnie, and Dimitrina for sending words of en-courage-ment on Sunday.

Yesterday (Sunday) in the car I alternated between sitting on one of Gary’s cushions, for the sake of my left leg and butt cheek, and not sitting on it, for the sake of my right knee. Gary still drove some, but when he was not driving he tried to spend as much time as he could on his side and off his flap. We made it home about 4:30 and after unloading the car and getting my dinner I waited for the hours to go by in all their minutes so I could go to sleep. Gary spent most of the time after we arrived in bed and off his flap. He commented that provided he hadn’t permanently damaged his butt nor I my knee, the trip was worth it. I told him I’d have to get back to him on that. JUST JOKING. Or at least, half-joking. I know it was extremely important for him to go to this math conference. And as he says, he doesn’t know the next one he’ll be able to get to. Conferences coming up are in inaccessible foreign places. And the next spring conference is in Milwaukee, and he says (thank God) that that is too far to drive to (in fact he says that if it’s not a special conference, as this one was for him, driving two days to a conference isn’t worth it – we’ll see if he changes his tune should the opportunity arise again). He’s not too keen on flying to the one in Milwaukee, because of all the stuff we have to cart around, and it would be “we,” because at the least I’d have to rent a car to get him around – unless he wants to rely on public transportation or the conference shuttle, which he does not. Maybe with his greater experience the next time he won’t need me for the other stuff I helped him with this time (the night before last I even had to catch him and heave him back on the bed when he landed too close to the edge of the bed during his transfer – that was the first time in a long time he would’ve ended up on the floor if I hadn’t been there; I commented to him, “Well, that was exciting.”).

But his family needn’t worry about the summer visit to Nebraska. The new plan is for us to fly, and we will ship our supplies there ahead of time or possibly prevail upon Norma et al to bring stuff for us.

During Sunday’s drive, having finished Alan Alda’s book-on-CD (which we really enjoyed though it was not comical as we at first expected it to be), we started “Marley and Me, Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog.” And from the tales John Grogan tells, this dog really does seem to be the worst, the antithesis of Joe and Dolores’s dogs. So now when I start moaning about something, Gary says, “Cheer up. It could be worse. We could have Marley as a pet.”

Speaking of obnoxious pet behavior, Tigger twice peed in places he shouldn’t today (Monday) – once on Gary’s bed, once in my bathtub. I don’t know if he was excited to see us, or expressing his anger at us leaving him, or if he was mad because at the time I wasn’t giving him attention, thinking it more important to help give Gary his bath (silly me), but I hope his behavior doesn’t continue. I know such behavior can be a sign of a medical problem as well, so I hope it’s not that.

He is such a jealous cat. He always pounces on Blackjack whenever he thinks Blackjack is getting some attention, and always kicks Blackjack out of wherever he has decided to take a nap so HE can take a nap there. You’d think that Blackjack, who at 17 lbs outweighs Tigger by 3 lbs, would throw his weight around, but Tigger has him cowed. And ever since we returned from Shepherd last summer, Tigger is jealous whenever I go into Gary’s bedroom to do something for him (wash his back, get his clothes out, get him settled into a prone for the night). Tigger always comes in and meows and wraps himself around my legs until I give him attention. I guess he’s trying to prove to Gary that there can be only one alpha male, and he, Tigger, is it.

And again on pets, while we were driving Sunday, Gary called out, “There’s a cat!” I had no idea where to look, but then I noticed cat eyes calmly staring at us from the SUV passing by. I thought that was unusual, a calm cat in a car. Our cats go nuts just going the few blocks to the vet in our car.

We also passed by a van with a cat/dog carrier strapped on the back bumper. Seeing that it was pouring rain at the moment, I told Gary that I hoped there wasn’t an animal in there.

We discovered Gary’s reflexes are good. A car started pulling into our lane while he was driving and his immediate reaction was to push in on the hand brake – no inclination to try to slam on the brake with his foot. He said in a way that aroused pathos in me that he thought this was because he is totally used to his feet not working.

His flap was still an angry red Monday morning. I wanted him to stay in bed and off his butt the day and possibly longer until it looked improved. He said he had to go in to prepare for class the following day (Tuesday), and he’d also been thinking of doing his weight training. I told him I didn’t think he should be messing with this. He said it should be all right to sit on it because the redness was on the flap, not the sitting bones. I told him I still thought it’d be better for him to have nothing covering/touching the area or putting pressure on the area, that if he had flap surgery again they were going to have to cut skin and muscle from his hamstring to pull over his butt (which is what they’d do). I guess that was enough to convince him to stay off his butt as much as possible. He did go in to prepare for classes for about an hour (I dropped him off, then unfortunately had to go grocery shopping, and then picked him up), but most of the rest of the day he stayed in bed and off the flap. It didn’t look any improved at bedtime, so he promised me he’d call Shepherd on Tuesday.

Which he did, but the bridge nurse is out for the week. Fortunately the flap looked better this morning (Tuesday) – bright pink instead of dark red. And it is not as scaly so maybe the antifungal cream, which I again started to put on it Sunday, is helping.

Last comment for Monday: Gary’s mom is now walking on her own with a walker and should be able to go home next week! Bob will stay with her for a while.

Apr 3, 2007

Gary received an Easter email today (from Marilyn) and asked me today if this Sunday was Easter. I said it was. He said hopefully this Good Friday will be better than the last one (last year’s Good Friday was the day of his accident), that that day hadn’t exactly been a good one. I told him it hadn’t exactly been a good one for Jesus, either. Gary said it was unfortunate he himself hadn’t risen three days later, that it took him more than a month, and at that he didn’t rise very far. I told him from that we could conclude he wasn’t Jesus.

His flap looked significantly better this morning, and I felt in significantly better humor (and not just because of the flap, but on account of having caught up on some rest). But I still didn’t think Gary should be up as much as he normally is, and he agreed and cut the afternoon short by a couple hours to get back in bed and off his flap. He got up for dinner but then got back into the bed.

When he called his mom, I heard him tell her I am making sure he is taking care of his flap, that I take good care of him. That was a better light on it than I had been thinking – I thought he might think I was being overcautious and tyrannical in making him stay in bed. (“Peg,” he whined, “can I get out of jail?” “No!” I replied. “You’ve been a bad boy.” Just kidding. Well, not kidding that that was a conversation we had, but I did put down the hospital bed rails so he could get out.)

I made an appointment to see an orthopedist next Monday about my knee. I had my massage appointment today, thank God, and Connie unscrewed my right leg from the 360 degree twist it had somehow got in, plus she pulled my knee out of my thigh, where it had somehow got lodged. The knee still hurts like the devil, but at least she doesn’t think I’ve torn anything.

Didn't mean to worry anyone :-). We're fine (relatively speaking ;-)). I was just so worn out I couldn't even make the effort to blog Sunday evening or yesterday. I intend to make a fuller entry this evening.

Apr 1, 2007

We’re in bad shape at the moment, as Gary says – and I wish that were an April fools joke but it isn’t. It is Sunday morning, and we still have half the trip to go. After my bit of driving yesterday, I was in significant pain with my knee. When Gary got into bed last night and I got a look at his flap, I was appalled – it was a bright angry red and looked very dry along the right side of the flap. You may recall I had thought it looked quite inflamed after the first night of our drive to the conference and no better the second night. It seemed to improve during the conference, but not go back to pre-conference condition. Last night it looked so bad I really don’t think he should be sitting. And this morning, while slightly improved, it is still pretty bad – which would seem to mean the driving is making it worse. I guess something about the seat, the way it puts pressure on this area, is giving him the first stages of a pressure sore.

So what this means is we are going to have to lay the passenger seat down so he can lie on his side or put him on the floor for today’s journey. In other words, little to no driving for him. Which means I have to do it which means my knee is going to be cursing me. The way the van has been modified is just not good for me – my legs can’t get comfortable while driving. (And another thing, I didn’t realize that the non-ramp door would be so difficult to open and close. Joe and Dolores’s van simply requires that you start the door to close and it automatically shuts on it own. Our van’s door I have to heave closed, and often it doesn’t close hard enough and I have to do it again. This has not been good for me!)