Jun 23, 2007
Today we traveled to Omaha. Gary had to get up at 5:45 in order to be ready to leave by 9. A few days earlier Gary had called David Martin, Sr. Specialist – Disabilities, Delta Airlines – that’s the guy who had “shown us the ropes” when we went on Shepherd’s airport outing – and he had suggested we park in the West lot, so that’s where we went. Luckily, just as we were driving around trying to figure out how we were going to get to the terminal from there, a porter went by with a cart. He said he’d be right back to help us. So Gary parked and I unloaded our baggage and the porter returned quickly. He loaded the baggage and led the way to the terminal. Fortunately it wasn’t too far of a push for Gary – not that it was all that close, either! The porter was very helpful, showing us how to get our boarding passes from the kiosks, and then he accompanied us to the baggage check-in. After that, Gary did an IC in the men’s washroom (while I whipped out my laptop in the women’s washroom and worked some more on my story). Next came security. Definitely not the relaxed affair it had been when we were on the outing. It was crowded, and I ended up not only being responsible for my stuff on the conveyor belt, but for Gary’s, ,and I found it frazzling to keep track of everything. It didn’t help that my carry-on had to go thru twice because I didn’t take my laptop out of it. (I have only flown twice in the past dozen years, and I forgot the laptop was supposed to go into one of those bins separately.) And the security lady asked who the 4 oz. tube of KY belonged to. Well, Gary was nowhere in sight, so I said it was with me and she said it couldn’t go thru security because it was over the 3 oz. limit. I mumbled something about thinking Gary had to declare it, then finally saw Gary and told her to talk to him. I found out later he told her it doesn’t come in any size less than 4 oz., that he needs it to do Intermittent Catheritization, and that he’d already used at least half of it, so it was under 3 oz. :-). She said okay, but I guess there’s no guarantee that that story will work in the future. I asked him later if security had made him lean forward and shift from side to side so they could check in back of and under him, as they’d told us on the airport outing they would do. They did make him lean forward so they could check behind his back. But they didn’t check under him. Worse, in terms of security, they didn’t check the pouch that is under the front of his chair and where he keeps the tools for the chair. They did, however, take out the hard copy pages of my novel that Gary brought along to read, and they ran those pages through the x-ray machine. I guess they wanted to make sure I hadn’t written anything explosive.
We got into the train all right, and although I was nervous about Gary being able to get off all right with the crush of people surrounding us, people were very nice and he had no problem. As we approached the gate, a man yelled out, “Gary?” Turned out to be someone (by name of “Alex”) sent by David Martin to see that Gary got on the plane all right. I mentioned that the hard part so far had been the getting from the car all the way through security, but of course got a “not my responsibility” smile (I’m not complaining about that). The plane was 45 minutes behind schedule. It turned out a tug had tipped in front of it (I assumed this meant a tug pulling the plane, but Gary thought it might mean that vehicle that carries baggage, so I don’t know), and that delayed matters.
It was a very small jet (“sardine can” came to mind), and we had to get on it by going out to the tarmac. Before anyone else was let on, Alex and a strongly built woman came to escort Gary and me on. Gary accepted being pushed, no doubt so we wouldn’t hold up the rest of the boarders. We took an elevator and went outside. At the plane they had a ramp set up – I don’t know if this is the set-up they would’ve had had they not been having to get Gary onto the plane. Alex wheeled Gary up the ramp. Near the top of the ramp, Gary was transferred (two-man transfer by Alex and the woman) into an aisle wheelchair, then backed into the plane. That aisle was tiny! We were supposed to be in the sixth row, but when the flight attendant asked if it’d be better if Gary was in the front seat, I thought it might be so said “yes.” We thus displaced a couple passengers, which caused a bit of confusion later – sorry about that, folks. Alex and the woman two-manned Gary into the aisle seat, which my knee greatly envied. The flight was uneventful.
We were the last ones off in Omaha, of course. This time Gary was two-manned by a rather petite woman and a young guy. Gary told the guy to hold onto his legs tighter. Gary’s wheelchair was right at the gate, so they then transferred him from the aisle wheelchair to his own chair. The young man then left and the woman accompanied us. She offered to push Gary through the terminal, but he declined. She asked if she could pull my wheeled carry-on for me, saying she didn’t feel like she was doing anything, and I said sure. I added that she could carry me if she wanted, but she evidently thought I was joking. She accompanied us first to baggage claim, and proved how strong she was by carrying all three pieces of our checked baggage (one of Gary’s was rather large and heavy, though on wheels), while I resumed pulling my carry-on. We then went to Avis rent-a-car, where Gary had already arranged for a car with hand controls, and did the paperwork. Then she hauled our baggage out to the car for us, helped load it, and helped me get his chair into the car after he transferred into the driver’s seat – which wasn’t trivial, as he hadn’t transferred into that side of a car before. The woman then said goodbye and headed off, but we called her back so we could tip her.
The acceleration on the hand controls seemed to be calibrated differently than on our van – in other words, every once in a while Gary took off like a bat out of hell, and I ended up with my bottle of spring water all over my clothes. Gary said at least that would cool me off. (I also had problems with that accelerator while driving.) He drove about halfway to his mom’s and I drove the rest – it was about a two hour drive. We first checked into the hotel, so Gary could make sure he could set everything up conveniently for bowel and bladder programs. After I’d brought everything in and he’d gotten things somewhat settled, we went to his mom’s for a while. I ended up breaking down and putting together his chair five times that evening, starting with after he transferred into the car at the Omaha airport, and I tell you, it was a hell of a lot easier and less painful before I messed my knee up.
To get into his mom’s, there are four (I think – I don’t quite remember) steps to go up. Gary’s brother Donne and Donne’s son Justin bumped Gary’s chair backwards up the steps. I wasn’t about to volunteer to help much, with this knee, but I stayed in front of him and hung onto his knees. He then turned around at the top and did a small wheelie to get over the last little step-up into the house – I chided him because he did the wheelie almost faster than I had time to get behind him and he had forgotten he didn’t have his tip bars on. I put them on immediately when we got in the house. Gary’s sister Norma and her family hadn’t arrived yet, but Donne’s family – wife Phyllis and children Carissa (a college student) and Justin (high school student) – were all there, as well as Gary’s brother Bob and of course his mom.
We talked of this and that for a while: our trips here, what Gary’s been up to lately, pet stories (Donne’s cat has him even better trained than ours do us, waking him up every day between 2 and 4 am to be let out, this having gone on for eight years I believe he said; everyone else in his family hears the cat scratching at the door, but they all wait for Donne to see to kitty’s needs). When we went to leave, Donne bumped Gary down the stairs – he said that was a lot easier than going up them! We got back to the hotel about 9:30. I had lost track of time and couldn’t believe it was that late. Fortunately Gary skipped taking a bath, but as it was he wasn’t ready for me to make a last check of him until close to 11 (we were pleased to note the trip didn’t seem to have had any detrimental effects on his flap). I hadn’t had time to fit in a hot bath before then, so I took it then. Then I put an ice pack on my knee, another one under my butt, and a heating pad under my back. Fog rolled through the room as a result. (Just kidding.) A short time before going to bed I had tried to pull the curtains closed, but they didn’t budge. So I put on an eye mask and then I put a pillow over my eyes, but I still knew that light was out there. Between that and the elephants that had evidently moved from Shepherd to here, my sleep wasn’t all that great so what else is new. I of course shot awake at 4 thinking Gary was calling (he wasn’t) and the last person in my hotel room had set the alarm clock for 6, so just about when I’d finally gotten back to sleep that woke me up. I drowsed some more until Gary called me on the walkie talkie about 9.
He then informed me there were some inner curtains that could be pulled in order to shut the light out (peg crosses eyes).
I spent a while working on the blog and stuff, and around noon we met the others for lunch at a buffet in town. After that, Gary and I did a little shopping, the list being zukes, bottled water, and antibacterial wipes. We were a little worried when the grocery store didn’t have the wipes, but the nearby WalGreens did.
We returned to Gary’s mom’s, and as Donne and Justin went to bump Gary up the stairs, Donne noticed the handle on the back of Gary’s chair seemed loose. And then it pulled right out. A screw had evidently sheared right off at some point in time. At least that didn’t happen AS Donne was pulling on it to get Gary up the stairs – that could’ve been a very serious problem (as in, control could’ve been lost of the chair and Gary could’ve gone tumbling down the steps). Without that handle, it was harder to get Gary up the stairs, though Donne thinks he’s figured out a better technique to try next time. Gary will have to call his supplier on Monday and perhaps have a new screw Fed-Exed here so we can put it on, assuming we can get at the place where it needs to go. So tonight when Gary gets out of his chair we will have to look at it and see if the back removes easily. It looked to me like it did, but I’m not sure.
A little while later, the Norma and Wayne and their kids Megan (just graduated high school) and David (in the military) arrived. At some point the talk turned to needing to decide just what Mom Gruenhage was going to take with her and what would be auctioned off and what would be thrown out (helping her with this move – she is moving to the new place on Tuesday – is the ostensible reason for the gathering of the family at this time). The others, I believe, convinced Mom Gruenhage that throwing the pistols in the trash was not the proper way to dispose of them. Who knew?
Today we traveled to Omaha. Gary had to get up at 5:45 in order to be ready to leave by 9. A few days earlier Gary had called David Martin, Sr. Specialist – Disabilities, Delta Airlines – that’s the guy who had “shown us the ropes” when we went on Shepherd’s airport outing – and he had suggested we park in the West lot, so that’s where we went. Luckily, just as we were driving around trying to figure out how we were going to get to the terminal from there, a porter went by with a cart. He said he’d be right back to help us. So Gary parked and I unloaded our baggage and the porter returned quickly. He loaded the baggage and led the way to the terminal. Fortunately it wasn’t too far of a push for Gary – not that it was all that close, either! The porter was very helpful, showing us how to get our boarding passes from the kiosks, and then he accompanied us to the baggage check-in. After that, Gary did an IC in the men’s washroom (while I whipped out my laptop in the women’s washroom and worked some more on my story). Next came security. Definitely not the relaxed affair it had been when we were on the outing. It was crowded, and I ended up not only being responsible for my stuff on the conveyor belt, but for Gary’s, ,and I found it frazzling to keep track of everything. It didn’t help that my carry-on had to go thru twice because I didn’t take my laptop out of it. (I have only flown twice in the past dozen years, and I forgot the laptop was supposed to go into one of those bins separately.) And the security lady asked who the 4 oz. tube of KY belonged to. Well, Gary was nowhere in sight, so I said it was with me and she said it couldn’t go thru security because it was over the 3 oz. limit. I mumbled something about thinking Gary had to declare it, then finally saw Gary and told her to talk to him. I found out later he told her it doesn’t come in any size less than 4 oz., that he needs it to do Intermittent Catheritization, and that he’d already used at least half of it, so it was under 3 oz. :-). She said okay, but I guess there’s no guarantee that that story will work in the future. I asked him later if security had made him lean forward and shift from side to side so they could check in back of and under him, as they’d told us on the airport outing they would do. They did make him lean forward so they could check behind his back. But they didn’t check under him. Worse, in terms of security, they didn’t check the pouch that is under the front of his chair and where he keeps the tools for the chair. They did, however, take out the hard copy pages of my novel that Gary brought along to read, and they ran those pages through the x-ray machine. I guess they wanted to make sure I hadn’t written anything explosive.
We got into the train all right, and although I was nervous about Gary being able to get off all right with the crush of people surrounding us, people were very nice and he had no problem. As we approached the gate, a man yelled out, “Gary?” Turned out to be someone (by name of “Alex”) sent by David Martin to see that Gary got on the plane all right. I mentioned that the hard part so far had been the getting from the car all the way through security, but of course got a “not my responsibility” smile (I’m not complaining about that). The plane was 45 minutes behind schedule. It turned out a tug had tipped in front of it (I assumed this meant a tug pulling the plane, but Gary thought it might mean that vehicle that carries baggage, so I don’t know), and that delayed matters.
It was a very small jet (“sardine can” came to mind), and we had to get on it by going out to the tarmac. Before anyone else was let on, Alex and a strongly built woman came to escort Gary and me on. Gary accepted being pushed, no doubt so we wouldn’t hold up the rest of the boarders. We took an elevator and went outside. At the plane they had a ramp set up – I don’t know if this is the set-up they would’ve had had they not been having to get Gary onto the plane. Alex wheeled Gary up the ramp. Near the top of the ramp, Gary was transferred (two-man transfer by Alex and the woman) into an aisle wheelchair, then backed into the plane. That aisle was tiny! We were supposed to be in the sixth row, but when the flight attendant asked if it’d be better if Gary was in the front seat, I thought it might be so said “yes.” We thus displaced a couple passengers, which caused a bit of confusion later – sorry about that, folks. Alex and the woman two-manned Gary into the aisle seat, which my knee greatly envied. The flight was uneventful.
We were the last ones off in Omaha, of course. This time Gary was two-manned by a rather petite woman and a young guy. Gary told the guy to hold onto his legs tighter. Gary’s wheelchair was right at the gate, so they then transferred him from the aisle wheelchair to his own chair. The young man then left and the woman accompanied us. She offered to push Gary through the terminal, but he declined. She asked if she could pull my wheeled carry-on for me, saying she didn’t feel like she was doing anything, and I said sure. I added that she could carry me if she wanted, but she evidently thought I was joking. She accompanied us first to baggage claim, and proved how strong she was by carrying all three pieces of our checked baggage (one of Gary’s was rather large and heavy, though on wheels), while I resumed pulling my carry-on. We then went to Avis rent-a-car, where Gary had already arranged for a car with hand controls, and did the paperwork. Then she hauled our baggage out to the car for us, helped load it, and helped me get his chair into the car after he transferred into the driver’s seat – which wasn’t trivial, as he hadn’t transferred into that side of a car before. The woman then said goodbye and headed off, but we called her back so we could tip her.
The acceleration on the hand controls seemed to be calibrated differently than on our van – in other words, every once in a while Gary took off like a bat out of hell, and I ended up with my bottle of spring water all over my clothes. Gary said at least that would cool me off. (I also had problems with that accelerator while driving.) He drove about halfway to his mom’s and I drove the rest – it was about a two hour drive. We first checked into the hotel, so Gary could make sure he could set everything up conveniently for bowel and bladder programs. After I’d brought everything in and he’d gotten things somewhat settled, we went to his mom’s for a while. I ended up breaking down and putting together his chair five times that evening, starting with after he transferred into the car at the Omaha airport, and I tell you, it was a hell of a lot easier and less painful before I messed my knee up.
To get into his mom’s, there are four (I think – I don’t quite remember) steps to go up. Gary’s brother Donne and Donne’s son Justin bumped Gary’s chair backwards up the steps. I wasn’t about to volunteer to help much, with this knee, but I stayed in front of him and hung onto his knees. He then turned around at the top and did a small wheelie to get over the last little step-up into the house – I chided him because he did the wheelie almost faster than I had time to get behind him and he had forgotten he didn’t have his tip bars on. I put them on immediately when we got in the house. Gary’s sister Norma and her family hadn’t arrived yet, but Donne’s family – wife Phyllis and children Carissa (a college student) and Justin (high school student) – were all there, as well as Gary’s brother Bob and of course his mom.
We talked of this and that for a while: our trips here, what Gary’s been up to lately, pet stories (Donne’s cat has him even better trained than ours do us, waking him up every day between 2 and 4 am to be let out, this having gone on for eight years I believe he said; everyone else in his family hears the cat scratching at the door, but they all wait for Donne to see to kitty’s needs). When we went to leave, Donne bumped Gary down the stairs – he said that was a lot easier than going up them! We got back to the hotel about 9:30. I had lost track of time and couldn’t believe it was that late. Fortunately Gary skipped taking a bath, but as it was he wasn’t ready for me to make a last check of him until close to 11 (we were pleased to note the trip didn’t seem to have had any detrimental effects on his flap). I hadn’t had time to fit in a hot bath before then, so I took it then. Then I put an ice pack on my knee, another one under my butt, and a heating pad under my back. Fog rolled through the room as a result. (Just kidding.) A short time before going to bed I had tried to pull the curtains closed, but they didn’t budge. So I put on an eye mask and then I put a pillow over my eyes, but I still knew that light was out there. Between that and the elephants that had evidently moved from Shepherd to here, my sleep wasn’t all that great so what else is new. I of course shot awake at 4 thinking Gary was calling (he wasn’t) and the last person in my hotel room had set the alarm clock for 6, so just about when I’d finally gotten back to sleep that woke me up. I drowsed some more until Gary called me on the walkie talkie about 9.
He then informed me there were some inner curtains that could be pulled in order to shut the light out (peg crosses eyes).
I spent a while working on the blog and stuff, and around noon we met the others for lunch at a buffet in town. After that, Gary and I did a little shopping, the list being zukes, bottled water, and antibacterial wipes. We were a little worried when the grocery store didn’t have the wipes, but the nearby WalGreens did.
We returned to Gary’s mom’s, and as Donne and Justin went to bump Gary up the stairs, Donne noticed the handle on the back of Gary’s chair seemed loose. And then it pulled right out. A screw had evidently sheared right off at some point in time. At least that didn’t happen AS Donne was pulling on it to get Gary up the stairs – that could’ve been a very serious problem (as in, control could’ve been lost of the chair and Gary could’ve gone tumbling down the steps). Without that handle, it was harder to get Gary up the stairs, though Donne thinks he’s figured out a better technique to try next time. Gary will have to call his supplier on Monday and perhaps have a new screw Fed-Exed here so we can put it on, assuming we can get at the place where it needs to go. So tonight when Gary gets out of his chair we will have to look at it and see if the back removes easily. It looked to me like it did, but I’m not sure.
A little while later, the Norma and Wayne and their kids Megan (just graduated high school) and David (in the military) arrived. At some point the talk turned to needing to decide just what Mom Gruenhage was going to take with her and what would be auctioned off and what would be thrown out (helping her with this move – she is moving to the new place on Tuesday – is the ostensible reason for the gathering of the family at this time). The others, I believe, convinced Mom Gruenhage that throwing the pistols in the trash was not the proper way to dispose of them. Who knew?
posted by Peg Daniels at 1:58 PM
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