Bye Bye, Marie!

We found out this week, that Marie Callender's has just closed their restaurant on South Broadway near us. Big disappointment. Huge. :-( Their tasty hot comfort food has sustained us through many a cold winter evening.

Company!

Our good friend Sher arrived today for a short visit!

Home at last

Welcome home, Kristan! The garage stairs were easily navigated this first time: I carried her up, piggy-back! :-) Probably can't do that every time, but it worked fine, once.

Coming home

Kristan's coming home today! I get to pick her up after dialysis tonight, and bring her home.

Snow snow snow

The snow's really coming down, forecast is maybe eight inches tonight. Silly me: I quickly shoveled the two inches of accumulating snow off the driveway and Mandy's spot on the grass. Took Mandy out for a quick pee. Gathered up the mail. Jumped in the car to go visit K at Cherrelyn. And just remembered this is her dialysis night. She's probably snoozing away, over across town at DaVita right now. So I decided to stop here (Romanos), for a nice hot Italian dinner at our favorite local place. :-)

Home Eval

I picked up Kristan and the two Physical Therapists at lunchtime, and took them to the house for a home evaluation. Good news: once inside, she can get around inside the house with her scooter, and use all the necessary facilities. Bad news: she can't navigate the stairs from the garage into the house on one foot. Good news: she can skooch up one stair at a time right now, so maybe she can come home sooner rather than later. Better news: I may be able to have a vertical lift installed, and then she would be able to ride up. I'm meeting with the Accessible Systems guy in a half hour, to find out if it's possible, the way our garage is laid out, and if so, when they can get it done. Best news: Mandy was ecstatic to have her home in the house, even if it was for only a few minutes.

PT

Mandy and I watched K doing physical therapy yesterday. Randy the PT worked her pretty hard. We're very disappointed that she has to go through at least two more weeks of this, before she'll be safe to come home.

Two more weeks?!

K said tonight that her Doc at Cherrelyn is thinking two more weeks, which is a huge disappointment, but not a big surprise. Maybe she'll be home by the New Year. John and Michelle are in town for a few days. We saw "Young Adult" last night; what an uncomfortable film! I think they went out of their way to make us squirm at every scene.

17th not likely

Well, it seems we officially have no idea when K will be coming home. The 17th was an artificial, though official, date from the beginning. The local Doc at Cherrelyn recently admitted that the 17th doesn't seem reasonable any more, given the various interruptions that are preventing her from making progress. On a more positive note, Mikele has been making tremendous strides on helping us with the insurance transition... I'll take the good with the bad!

Thanks Sher!

Thank you, Sher Bear! Now K has a gimpy stuffed bear buddy! Same leg!

SSA Interview

We had an informative interview with the SSA guy. He'll be submitting her Medicare application this week.

S still sick

Still feeling sick after four days. This sucks. Back to work anyway, though. And I need to run over to Cherrelyn later this morning, so I can participate with K in a phone interview with SSA.

Treat

Bummed that I missed our HOA Christmas party last night. Happy to find a care package on the doorstep today.

A bit better

Still a bit queasy, but making the effort to get out for the "breakfast and walk" routine... at Dekoevend Park.

Missed the sim

Bummed that I had to cancel today's session in the simulator. Maybe feeling a little better, but not enough.

S not well

Oops. Not feeling well today. At all. Even dry toast is too much. Think I'll skip the walk, and go back home to bed. Good thing today's Jury Duty was canceled.

Thanks Hickes!

Thanks to Jill, Jim, Sean, for the white dog-shaped flower arrangement!

Meeting

A very nice and helpful Social Worker from KP Special Services met us at Cherrelyn today. We exchanged some helpful information, and she helped us finally get a medical power of attorney on file. We've hated thinking about that, and have been putting it off for years.

Brrr

Wow. Minus 2 degrees tonight. So it had to be *this* evening, that I'm popping in and out of the car a half dozen times, running errands for K. Brrr. Next time I go out and about on a night like this, I'll wear a jacket. I visited K in dialysis tonight. It was nice to see that Cherrelyn had given her a dose of her pain med "for the road" to dialysis this time.

Ouch

Twas 7 degrees this morning. So shoveling this latest fluffy few inches of snow should've been easy, except... Ow. My back hurts. No more transferring K from bed to chair, by bending over her, and lifting and carrying her, like I did last night. I'm sure the bending over part got me. Next time I'll get her to use her arms around me, to take some of the weight off my upper back.

Wounded Dog

Mandy did pretty well today, walking in 18°F... right up until her back legs fell through a slotted rain grate that was hidden under a fluffy layer of snow. She climbed right out in the blink of an eye, and kept walking at first. Then pulled up short, a couple blocks later. Probably the cold and trauma together were just too much. So I carried her inside my coat the rest of the way back to the car. Nothing seems broken, and what I thought was a streak of blood down her leg turned out to be just a shadow. She seems ok now, cuddled up under a blanket on the sofa, watching the downhill race at Beaver Creek. Very peaceful moment for the both of us.

Dropped the ball again

I sat with K at dialysis for a few hours tonight. She was very tired after staying awake all last night. Cherrelyn dropped the ball on pain management again. Gave her a dose before she left, but didn't do anything about the one that would obviously be needed while she was in dialysis for four hours.

Disaster

Well, last night was a disaster. The System dropped Kristan through the crack, as they transitioned her from hospital to rehab. The hospital was so focused on getting her out, they didn't notify the rehab facility in time, that she was transferring. So Cherrelyn didn't know she was coming, and didn't have her meds ready. She went for 12 hours without getting the pain med she normally gets every three hours. She was in overwhelming pain for hours, before they finally got their act together, and started giving her the tiny dose she's supposed to have. I left at 4am, after it looked like things were finally settling down.

Moving!

Kristan just texted me that she's enroute to the Cherrelyn rehab facility!