Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2002. Mattie was 7 months old. Though Mattie liked movement, he never crawled. In fact, Mattie truly did not like sitting on the floor and forget tummy time. Mattie disliked any sort of position that curbed his ability to move freely. Since he did not have the muscle strength while on his tummy, to turn over and sit up, this was frustrating for him. He and I did spend time sitting on the floor, playing with his toys, and as you can see I had pillows all around him because he did not have the muscle strength at at time would topple over. It is hard to believe this was 23 years old, as I can remember it as if it were yesterday.
Quote of the day: You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
In order to juggle the day's event of taking my parents to see their rehabilitation physician, I needed to get myself up at 5:15am. Here's the funny part about all of this, before my parents moved in with us in 2021, I was NOT a morning person. I am not sure I am a morning person now, but I have no choice. Juggling all of this on my own means I have to think strategically.
The doctor we visited today is a peach. He is originally from Brooklyn, NY and he has enough NY attitude to be able to manage my mom and the push back she sometimes gives him. I met this doctor in 2022, when my dad was admitted to the hospital for an emergency pacemaker placement. Because my dad was so debilitated after a week in the cardiac unit, he was unable to return home. They wanted to shuffle him off to a nursing home for rehab and I fought this tooth and nail. I networked my way throughout the hospital and realized the hospital has its own acute rehabilitation unit. It was in this unit that I met today's doctor. We have been connected to him since 2022, and I have my parents visit him every three months. He has been super helpful in securing in-home physical therapy for my parents throughout the year, and he was the only doctor who would help me with my dad's current pressure sore!
No visit to this doctor's office is ever complete without him asking me how I am. As he has seen me during very stressful times with my dad's hospitalizations! Keep in mind that my dad had two hospitalizations this year alone! Any case, in our conversation today, he wanted some ideas about cooking meals. He apparently cooked eggplant for his wife, and it was a disaster. So we chatted through what exactly he did! On the way out, he said.... thank you for talking food with me.
Because this is a rehab office, there are many patients there who have mobility issues, and of course their caregivers are in tow. I spoke to two of them today, and seriously going into this office is like entering another world. A world in which people want to converse, they want to help, and we all just understand each other based on the roles we play. In fact, one fellow in the office jumped up to help me with the doors as he could see I had my mom in one hand, a tote bag and cushion in the other, and I was providing supervision for my dad. He let me know that he is his mother-in-law's caregiver. To which my mom and I said.... we hope you love your mother-in-law. To which is reply was.... she's a great lady and it's an honor to assist her. How do we clone this fellow???!
When I got home today, I jumped from one task and chore to the other and then at 6pm, had to stop in order to contend with dinner. When I get to the end of the day, I literally have to dig deep to muster the energy to cook, serve dinner, clean it up, and eventually get my parents to bed. Thursday is another 5:15am wake up as I have Steve, my outdoor guru, helping me shut down sprinklers, winterize my bubbler garden fountain, and replace broken lights. Each day, I hope for strength, stability, and a glimmer that life will get better. So far, I haven't seen it yet.
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