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.)
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.)
posted by Peg Daniels at 2:28 PM
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