Do

Mike's progress has been very good the last few days. On Monday he was suddenly up on the walker quite a bit -- yes! And this evening he was talking about being able to get himself to the physical therapy appointment tomorrow. Um, no, I don't think we're ready for that leap yet (no pun intended).

Overall scorecard:

Movement: improving
Pain: well managed
Sleep: still a bit out of whack

So the next milestones I imagine are walking unassisted, carrying something (like taking a plate from the counter to the table or hey, from the table to the dishwasher), stairs unassisted, longer distances (perhaps walking all the way through Costco).

Go Mike go!

Don't

A few days ago in the guest bath, "Please don't be reaching for the towel bar as a grab bar. This bathroom isn't set up for you to use."

Today I hear "crash," which is just giant sirens in my head at this stage of recovery, followed by, "I'm okay."

So yes, you guessed it, he grabbed the towel bar AND the paper holder, pulled everything down. Evil eye from me, and from him "I'm SOR-ree." I just put the whole mess in the tub, deal with it later. "This bathroom isn't set up for you."

Missed Birthdays

"The legends of missed birthdays"

Legend #1:
In a great Northwest land lives a wonderful Grandmother who we will call Gma. She has several grandchildren, but we focus on the third, "B3."

Gma and Gpa were pilots, so they had the opportunity to travel quite a bit. In the winter they would often go to Mexico and camp on Baja. (That's the peninsula south of California, for those who need a reference.) In the summer and into fall, they would travel to British Columbia and camp next to one of the wonderful wilderness lakes. (B.C. is in Canada. Google "Canada" if you need to know where it is. Then sue your former school district.)

When you vacation in Canada, they say you are "on holiday" which can be a bit confusing to us Yanks at first. But Gma and Gpa usually traveled around the holidays: Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day. July 4 is not celebrated in BC of course, but July 1 is Canada Day -- and they sing "my country tis of thee" with different words, so strange ; )

Grandchild "B3"s birthday is around Labor Day, and she would feign exasperation, "You're ALWAYS gone on my birthday, Gma." This year, for the first time, B3 will be on a trip during Gma's birthday. Sounds like Cat in the Cradle! Google those lyrics, too, if you need.

Legend #2:
In the 70's, Gma's grandpa-in-law put together a family geneology book, and Gma did all the layout and calligraphy for it. Lots of beautiful but tedious work.

At the end, after printing I believe, we all realized she put the wrong birth year on her youngest child!

And so end the stories of "missed" birthdays.

Oh wait, there is one more:

Legend #3:
When Gma turned 39, a big surprise birthday party was put together. Family and friends came from far and wide. Gpa distracted her away from the house for a few hours, and when they got home she assumed all the cars were some other neighbor having a big party. Then when she saw her brother-in-law skulking around the garage, her first thought was "Why is Tom here and why is he trying to hide behind the car?" Lots of fun.

Later she asked someone (I think Aunt Char), "So why did you do all this for this birthday?"

"Well," Char answered, "because it's your 40th."

"NO I'M NOT, not until next year!"

Oops.

picture changed

Hey, I changed the header picture. Aren't you impressed. Now to get some quality time, and quality thoughts, for a new entry. Maybe I will share the inside family joke about missing birthdays : )

A story of Brad's passing

This story is not mine to tell. I will have some of the facts wrong, because it was told to my mom who passed it on to me. But the stories I have, directly, are too heartbreaking. So I will tell this love story:

When a nurse told Heidi that Brad was close to passing, Heidi called her mom (who had their son, Lato) and told her they needed to come immediately. When they got to the hospital, Lato ran in, ran up the stairs and into the room. He hugged his dad and said, "Daddy, Daddy, I love you, I love you!"

After a few moments, the nurse gently said, "Lato can you move just a little? I need to listen to his heart." Brad's heart had stopped. The nurse said, "He gave you his last heart beat."

The chaplain came with a lump of clay and asked Lato if he would make it into a flat sheet, very smooth, and showed him the dimensions. He did, and turned it over to make the other side smooth also. "Now we are going to press your Dad's handprint into this. And anytime you want to hold his hand, you can put your hand here. And as you grow up, your hand will fit into his hand."

Brad used to write Heidi and Lato a note every night, and he would sign it "Brad/Dad." Lato put "Brad/Dad" under the hand print. At the top, on one side, he drew a peace symbol, and on the other side he drew a heart.

(If you are not crying by now, you must not be human.)

And I admit to, and not apologize for, shedding tears while I type.

Ride on, Brad, ride on.
below: Lato, Heidi, Brad, Ocho

Bike ride

Yes, first ride of the season. Well, not a ride especially; how about a short excursion? Test run? Just three miles round trip to Fred Meyers, very flat. I wasn't sure if I had the legs to do the 8 mile loop, plus it was COLD this morning (about 40 degrees).

So I'm sort of off and rolling!

Next week will seem like a breeze, no?

This was a very tough week. My cousin Heidi's husband Brad passed away, but I'm not up to talking about the details right now. Luckily our extended families are close and supported, so she and their son Lato have had a huge amount of love surrounding them these last few days.

I've been trying to work on an audit, and totally expected I could breeze through it on a "regular" timeline, unlike my last audit which had major roadblocks and had to be worked on over the course of 18 months. But oh no, the day after the entrance (that's the kick-off meeting with the department I'm going to audit) we found out Mike would be scheduled for knee replacement!

So okay, regroup, I'll get as much done as I can in two weeks and then come back to it full force after being home with Mike for two weeks. But oh no, three days later I confirmed schedules and availability with my assigned liaison, only to send an e-mail the next day and get an out-of-office reply: she is in training for three days. Seriously. Snuck up on her.

So okay, Monday is a new week to really buckle down for at least one week. But oh no, out of the four staff in the area I'm auditing, one has been on leave, one was taking a week's vacation, then a third called in sick!

So working around all this, I met with their counterparts in the City's department one day, and met with the information systems people another day to get briefed on their tracking systems and interfaces, security, back-ups, etc.

Then yesterday their elected official called our elected official with a request for help in a different area. Whatever. I helped on that today, I can do a bit on Monday, then I'm off for two weeks. Paul and Linda in our office will carry on and finish the rest of that special work.

When I come back, I can plow through my original job with fresh energy, right? I am serious, there's no reason not to, and the days will be getting longer, and the flowers will be blooming!

Jerky and cockroaches

Mike sometimes talks when he naps. He didn't used to do this, and it seems to be related to the Parkinson's and the medications.

Some weird stuff can come out of his mouth. Many times he seems to be reliving some story from his old police life. Some times I can only pick out random, muttered words.

This morning is a great example of weird stuff. And maybe someone can tell me if it's a true story or just a really active imagination. Here's the closest I can come to a transcript (I was driving, so I couldn't capture it at the time).

"Last night on the TV news they were talking about preparing for disasters. And there is some jerky that cockroaches really seem to go after. The silicone plastics on some packages they gnaw, eat right through. So you have to find something to store your food stuffs in that the cockroaches can't get into."

Strange. We don't have any jerky (we do have MRE's, believe it or not). And we don't have cockroaches.

So there you go, random thought for the day.