Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Tuesday, October 19, 2021 -- Mattie died 629 weeks ago today. 

Tonight's picture was taken on October 22, 2008. Mattie was in the hospital recovering from his first limb salvaging surgery. As you can see Mattie was in a wheelchair and couldn't even wear clothes/pajamas. As moving his limbs hurt and he was hooked up to all many different machines. We took him to the child life playroom that day because it was important for Mattie to move around and use his lungs (in order to recover effectively from surgery, without getting a build up of fluid or a portion of his lungs collapsing). That day we had a bubble machine going and were trying to get Mattie to blow bubbles. We came up with all sorts of fun ways for Mattie to use his lungs, but as you might detect from this photo, Mattie's journey with medical traumatic stress was beginning.  

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 45,107,626
• Number of people who died from the virus: 727,729

Sunny had his second physical therapy appointment today. His therapist is in Leesburg, which takes me 45 minutes of driving each way. So between walking Sunny and meeting his needs today, I lost the day. Again! Since I have moved to this house, I can't get anything done and this is beyond frustrating for me. I miss my former way of life, the bustle of the city, and the ability to have undisturbed time to focus. 

When I got back from physical therapy, I learned that Peter is headed to North Carolina tomorrow for business. I can't tell you how I would love to pack up and get away from here. But that isn't going to happen as I have to focus on Sunny's recovery and another plumbing team is coming tomorrow. We are on week three of dealing with the phantom smell in the bathroom drains! In between chores, I baked a banana cranberry bread. The bread was the highlight of my day.