Tonight's picture was taken on August 6, 2009. The day after we learned Mattie's cancer diagnosis was terminal (as his cancer spread throughout his body). While in clinic, Mattie sat at the art table with his good buddy Jocelyn (far right) and her two sisters. Jocelyn knew what had happened the day before and she and her sisters wanted to do everything possible to make Mattie's time in clinic that day positive. We met Jocelyn early on in Mattie's diagnosis. Jocelyn understood what it was like living with osteosarcoma and Mattie gravitated to Jocelyn because she had a way of being honest about the disease while also being funny and humorous at the same time. I know that doesn't seem possible, but Jocelyn, like Mattie was a special and memorable person.
Quote of the day: Tonight's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.
- number of people diagnosed with the virus: 5,737,398
- number of people who died from the virus: 177,179
After numbricks, I introduced a memory game. Today's was to read a sentence or two, retain the content, and then a minute or so later, try to answer a question pertaining to what he just read. This was greatly challenging, but I don't let him give up. We persist through it so that he sees he can do this with some concentration and focus.
Right after brain games, Jon, my dad's physical therapist arrived. They worked together for about an hour. My dad went up and down our house stairs four times. After which, he walked the entire circumference of the house four times. He did this in ten minutes. Jon wants him to be able to walk twenty minutes everyday and to build up stamina. Walking around the house means going on concrete, grass, and even stepping stones. Walking on different surfaces is challenging.
Before we headed to lunch, we ran chores. The first of which is we had to get a document notarized. I brought several pieces of the document with me, but when I got there, they wouldn't notarize my forms, because I did not bring every single page with me. So I had to get back in the car, and retrieve all the pages at home. I was livid. Then drove back to agency to try the process again. I thought it was particularly ironic that the notary never really looked at all the forms, and truly wanted to say.... really? You have me go back to get all the forms, and you don't even look at them. The fellow helping us actually gave us a hard time. As the document is in my dad's name. So he wanted to know where my dad was (he was in the car waiting for us)! I told him the form did not NEED TO BE SIGNED BY MY DAD! Instead the form was for his spouse... my mom. He said the forms did not say that! I was ready to crown him on the head. So I grabbed the forms and READ THEM TO HIM! I had little to no patience with him.
I dealt with the notary after interfacing with my dad's podiatrist office. They called my dad this morning asking WHERE WAS HE? That he missed his appointment today! I literally got on the phone and gave it to this office. I know exactly what date and time the appointment was (this Wednesday at 11am), because I made it in June. So you can't put one over on me or bamboozle me. The receptionist said my dad had TWO appointments this week, Monday and Wednesday. I said, "why on earth would I make two appointments for the same week?" She had no answer. Then she did some digging and realized that the doctor was going to be in surgery on Wednesday, so his staff canceled our Wednesday appointment and changed it to today, but NEVER contacted us. I lost it! I asked her how were we supposed to know the appointment was rescheduled if the office did not call us!????
On top of that, I am balancing getting my parent's car repaired and working with an electrician to come up with a more user friendly system that manages the automatic gate from the street onto their property! Right now I waste more time opening and closing the gate for all visitors who come to us daily. However, we are on a flag lot. So the neighbor can control the gate too! Major problem. Case in point, this morning, I had pushed the button inside the house to open the gate. I walked 500 feet from my parent's front door to the gate where the street is, I had my hands full of garbage. When I got to the front gate, instead of finding it open, it was closed! I had just opened it!!! Why was it closed? Because our neighbor pressed the button at the same time. So I opened it and she closed it. Therefore, when I got to the gate, my hands were full and I couldn't open the gate. As there is no button near the gate to open it. This gate is my nemesis and it has to be fixed.
I put in 12 hour days here and frankly do not know how things function when I am NOT here. It is a true worry, and going back to Washington, DC is no bargain either, as I find it much harder to manage things from 2,500 miles away.
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