Jun 25-30, 2007
I’m afraid I got zonked, and thus was derelict in my duty of blogging, so will try to recall some of the rest of that week’s happenings. Mom Gruenhage had to make a lot of decisions about what to keep for her much smaller place, what to throw out, what to give to Goodwill, and what would be auctioned off (the auctioneer later informed her a lot of stuff she had given to Goodwill could have been auctioned off, but I don’t think she was too worried about that). Norma and Phyllis helped her with the sorting, while Donne, Wayne, Bob, and the kids did the carrying of boxes and so forth. Gary and I wrapped dishware in newspaper on Monday, and that was about the extent of my help. My various pains acted up more than usual and I slept lousy the whole week, aided by the thundering herd living above me at the motel (surprise, surprise). As a result, Tuesday afternoon I felt a sore throat coming on, and it turned into a bad cold. I stayed in the motel by myself on Wednesday and Thursday. I discovered the juice machine in the motel’s dining area, so I drank a lot of orange juice on Wednesday and Thursday. Evidently they had accidently left the machine turned on, an error they discovered on Friday, and I got no more juice.
It was fortunate Gary is so much more independent now. He needed me for a few tasks in the morning and at bedtime, but other than that, when I was feeling too lousy to go to his mom's house with him, all I had to do for him in the morning was break down and load his wheelchair in the car after he transferred into the car, and unload the wheelchair and put it together so he could transfer into it when he returned in the evening. I told Donne I was going to miss him – he was the one who lifted the chair into the car for me all the time. (And as well he bumped Gary down the steps at his mom’s all the time, and he and Justin bumped Gary up those stairs all the time.) It was good Gary didn’t need me around much, because I would hate for him to get this cold, especially given the extra problem such a cold would cause a paraplegic. So far, he has escaped it.
On Tuesday enough of Mom Gruenhage’s house had been sorted through so that she could move her into her new place. After Tuesday’s dinner, Gary and I went to see it for the first time. At this time, paving stones lead from the parking lot to the back entrance, but she is having a sidewalk put in, so that will make it much more wheelchair accessible – especially in leaving, when going downhill, Gary’s wheels kept getting caught between the stones. The apartment is one-bedroom, with a living room/ dining room area, and a semi-enclosed kitchen off of that. The previous owner had put up something to block the view out of the kitchen into the living room area (and out the sliding glass doors of the back entrance), and we all agreed that was claustrophobic for anyone in the kitchen! So that was taken down and it really opened up the room. (And it would have been weird to be a guest sitting in the living room and talking to your host in the kitchen who you couldn’t see.) What I guess would be called the front door led to a hallway, down which were the entrances to the other residences and to common areas, like the laundry room, mail room, and dining room. A dinner is served around noontime every day (for something like $4, I think). Her apartment seems ideal for one person. But she sure had to get rid of a lot of stuff! (You would think that would motivate me to get rid of all the junk I keep, but . . . .)
I think on Wednesday they pretty much finished with the upstairs of her house and started in on the downstairs, and got that finished on Thursday. I rejoined them for a time on Friday so they would know I was still alive, hoping I didn’t give them my germs. Actually, I missed seeing Norma and her family off on Friday, because they left early. Bye, guys.
One nice thing that happened is Phyllis showed Gary (I wasn’t there) a photo of a sculpture that Carissa did for an art class. Gary told me her art class assignment had been to pick a person inspirational to her and make a piece representative of that. Carissa had chosen Gary and her piece had in it a wheel and a chain attached to a shoe. Gary said Phyllis explained it much better, but that it was supposed to represent how he wasn’t letting his disability prevent him from leading a full life. I asked to have the image emailed to me so I could put it up on the blog, but evidently Carissa doesn’t feel it’s finished, even though Gary thought it marvelous (and cried over it). So, when I get an image of it from her, I will put it up on the blog.
We left on Saturday morning. The people at the airport were very helpful. The Avis people dropped me off at the terminal (they had to drive, and with our luggage, it wasn’t going to work for both the guy and Gary and me to be in the car, and since Gary had been driving, for him to now be the passenger would have meant putting together his chair so he could transfer into the bucket seat on the passenger side, then breaking the chair back down and loading it in the car, and I would walk – much easier for him to wheel!). We met up on the curb outside door 2 of the Omaha airport. Gary went inside to get a porter, but meanwhile a porter showed up to help. The guy got our boarding passes for us and our luggage checked – we didn’t even have to wait in the long line that had formed! Gary did an IC, then we had lunch. In security, they again didn’t check the pouch under the front of Gary’s chair. I did discover when I got home that they went through my checked-in bag (they left a note saying so). I’m not surprised – it was oddly shaped. Wonder what they thought when they opened it and found a slow cooker, a large tin of rice, and other foodstuffs.
When we got to our gate, we found the plane was going to be delayed an hour and a half! Grrr! They didn’t give us “a tug fell over in front of the plane” excuse, so I don’t know what the delay was about. This time Gary did all the transfers involving the aisle wheelchair himself! (Instead of having two people lift him.)
Gary was thrilled to have been able to make this trip. He fared far better than I did.
When we got home, our cats let us know they really missed us. It’s been funny. For the past three days they keep making all this noise, keep checking to make sure we’re still in the house, and Tigger ran out anxiously to the car when Gary and I made to go to the grocery store on Sunday as if he didn’t want us to leave. It's hard to be too mad at Blackjack, but he keeps making all these strange, loud ululations that we’ve never heard before (Gary told him to put a sock in it, but the cat didn’t accede to the request). They didn’t make this much of a fuss after our trip to Missouri or to Day Program, nor did Blackjack act up like this when we came back that first time from Shepherd. Have no idea why this seems to have been so traumatic for them!
And to finish this entry:
Throughout Gary’s stay at Shepherd, he would say he could never repay me. I told him yes he could. He could read my stories and give me his honest feedback on them, but he had to be honest because my critique group certainly would be, and he wouldn’t be doing me any favor by not being forthright – even if that might be hard on us both. Well, he finished reading my novel while on the trip, and said it is absolutely his favorite of the fiction I’ve written. I will spare you from giving you the details of all the nice things he had to say ;-) I hope everyone (or at least, lots of people ;-)) will feel the same way as he does about it. :-D
(Which is not to say I am perfectly satisfied with it yet. And, as didn’t surprise me, he had a couple sections he thought should be shortened “to get back to the main story.”)
I’m afraid I got zonked, and thus was derelict in my duty of blogging, so will try to recall some of the rest of that week’s happenings. Mom Gruenhage had to make a lot of decisions about what to keep for her much smaller place, what to throw out, what to give to Goodwill, and what would be auctioned off (the auctioneer later informed her a lot of stuff she had given to Goodwill could have been auctioned off, but I don’t think she was too worried about that). Norma and Phyllis helped her with the sorting, while Donne, Wayne, Bob, and the kids did the carrying of boxes and so forth. Gary and I wrapped dishware in newspaper on Monday, and that was about the extent of my help. My various pains acted up more than usual and I slept lousy the whole week, aided by the thundering herd living above me at the motel (surprise, surprise). As a result, Tuesday afternoon I felt a sore throat coming on, and it turned into a bad cold. I stayed in the motel by myself on Wednesday and Thursday. I discovered the juice machine in the motel’s dining area, so I drank a lot of orange juice on Wednesday and Thursday. Evidently they had accidently left the machine turned on, an error they discovered on Friday, and I got no more juice.
It was fortunate Gary is so much more independent now. He needed me for a few tasks in the morning and at bedtime, but other than that, when I was feeling too lousy to go to his mom's house with him, all I had to do for him in the morning was break down and load his wheelchair in the car after he transferred into the car, and unload the wheelchair and put it together so he could transfer into it when he returned in the evening. I told Donne I was going to miss him – he was the one who lifted the chair into the car for me all the time. (And as well he bumped Gary down the steps at his mom’s all the time, and he and Justin bumped Gary up those stairs all the time.) It was good Gary didn’t need me around much, because I would hate for him to get this cold, especially given the extra problem such a cold would cause a paraplegic. So far, he has escaped it.
On Tuesday enough of Mom Gruenhage’s house had been sorted through so that she could move her into her new place. After Tuesday’s dinner, Gary and I went to see it for the first time. At this time, paving stones lead from the parking lot to the back entrance, but she is having a sidewalk put in, so that will make it much more wheelchair accessible – especially in leaving, when going downhill, Gary’s wheels kept getting caught between the stones. The apartment is one-bedroom, with a living room/ dining room area, and a semi-enclosed kitchen off of that. The previous owner had put up something to block the view out of the kitchen into the living room area (and out the sliding glass doors of the back entrance), and we all agreed that was claustrophobic for anyone in the kitchen! So that was taken down and it really opened up the room. (And it would have been weird to be a guest sitting in the living room and talking to your host in the kitchen who you couldn’t see.) What I guess would be called the front door led to a hallway, down which were the entrances to the other residences and to common areas, like the laundry room, mail room, and dining room. A dinner is served around noontime every day (for something like $4, I think). Her apartment seems ideal for one person. But she sure had to get rid of a lot of stuff! (You would think that would motivate me to get rid of all the junk I keep, but . . . .)
I think on Wednesday they pretty much finished with the upstairs of her house and started in on the downstairs, and got that finished on Thursday. I rejoined them for a time on Friday so they would know I was still alive, hoping I didn’t give them my germs. Actually, I missed seeing Norma and her family off on Friday, because they left early. Bye, guys.
One nice thing that happened is Phyllis showed Gary (I wasn’t there) a photo of a sculpture that Carissa did for an art class. Gary told me her art class assignment had been to pick a person inspirational to her and make a piece representative of that. Carissa had chosen Gary and her piece had in it a wheel and a chain attached to a shoe. Gary said Phyllis explained it much better, but that it was supposed to represent how he wasn’t letting his disability prevent him from leading a full life. I asked to have the image emailed to me so I could put it up on the blog, but evidently Carissa doesn’t feel it’s finished, even though Gary thought it marvelous (and cried over it). So, when I get an image of it from her, I will put it up on the blog.
We left on Saturday morning. The people at the airport were very helpful. The Avis people dropped me off at the terminal (they had to drive, and with our luggage, it wasn’t going to work for both the guy and Gary and me to be in the car, and since Gary had been driving, for him to now be the passenger would have meant putting together his chair so he could transfer into the bucket seat on the passenger side, then breaking the chair back down and loading it in the car, and I would walk – much easier for him to wheel!). We met up on the curb outside door 2 of the Omaha airport. Gary went inside to get a porter, but meanwhile a porter showed up to help. The guy got our boarding passes for us and our luggage checked – we didn’t even have to wait in the long line that had formed! Gary did an IC, then we had lunch. In security, they again didn’t check the pouch under the front of Gary’s chair. I did discover when I got home that they went through my checked-in bag (they left a note saying so). I’m not surprised – it was oddly shaped. Wonder what they thought when they opened it and found a slow cooker, a large tin of rice, and other foodstuffs.
When we got to our gate, we found the plane was going to be delayed an hour and a half! Grrr! They didn’t give us “a tug fell over in front of the plane” excuse, so I don’t know what the delay was about. This time Gary did all the transfers involving the aisle wheelchair himself! (Instead of having two people lift him.)
Gary was thrilled to have been able to make this trip. He fared far better than I did.
When we got home, our cats let us know they really missed us. It’s been funny. For the past three days they keep making all this noise, keep checking to make sure we’re still in the house, and Tigger ran out anxiously to the car when Gary and I made to go to the grocery store on Sunday as if he didn’t want us to leave. It's hard to be too mad at Blackjack, but he keeps making all these strange, loud ululations that we’ve never heard before (Gary told him to put a sock in it, but the cat didn’t accede to the request). They didn’t make this much of a fuss after our trip to Missouri or to Day Program, nor did Blackjack act up like this when we came back that first time from Shepherd. Have no idea why this seems to have been so traumatic for them!
And to finish this entry:
Throughout Gary’s stay at Shepherd, he would say he could never repay me. I told him yes he could. He could read my stories and give me his honest feedback on them, but he had to be honest because my critique group certainly would be, and he wouldn’t be doing me any favor by not being forthright – even if that might be hard on us both. Well, he finished reading my novel while on the trip, and said it is absolutely his favorite of the fiction I’ve written. I will spare you from giving you the details of all the nice things he had to say ;-) I hope everyone (or at least, lots of people ;-)) will feel the same way as he does about it. :-D
(Which is not to say I am perfectly satisfied with it yet. And, as didn’t surprise me, he had a couple sections he thought should be shortened “to get back to the main story.”)
posted by Peg Daniels at 8:21 PM
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