Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2009. Mattie was in the hospital hallway with Anna, his physical therapist. What you are seeing was a typical therapy session. Anna learned early on that Mattie's sessions would require creativity, a level of competition, and a lot of cheering to be successful. In fact, Mattie never did a particular activity without one of us demonstrating it first! Smart fellow. As you can see, Anna was showing Mattie what she wanted him to do with his feet! To basically stomp down on this air pedal, which would send a toy rocket into the air.
Also notice Mattie's IV pole. There was NOT one day without Mattie's pole being decorated. Our friend Junko and her mom made Mattie two different sets of origami cranes. Each crane was made with great thought and prayers for Mattie's healing. We loved these cranes so much that we literally brought them back and forth from the hospital with us. They always hung on Mattie's IV pole, up to the day he died. Now one of the sets with 1,000 handmade cranes is on display in my home office. These cranes mean a lot to us.... for the time and effort it took to create them, to the fact that they symbolize incredible community support and love.
Quote of the day: Our connection with our intuitive self is ever present and always a part of ourselves. ~ James Van Praagh
While at the restaurant yesterday, Dawn (one of the servers we love), brought my dad a cupcake! The reason for the cupcake was she was trying to reward him for good behavior at Friday's meal.
My dad can be like a broken record. He will ask Dawn the same questions over and over (such as.... is the food fresh, can I see the resume on my server, does the restaurant still allow tipping). He is so repetitive with her, that I began to do games at the table.
It was a game but it was also was one of our holiday gifts to Dawn. Friday before Valentine's Day, I launched '$5 pre-valentine day.' Again with every silly or repetitive thing my dad said to Dawn, she earned $5. That day, she received a $75 valentine's day gift!
Today was not one of my finest moments. I dragged myself out of bed and did my usual routine. When I got upstairs to wake up my dad, I started by trying to get into their clothes closet to pick out items for my dad to wear after his shower. However, each morning trying to get into the closet is a nightmare. Why? Because my mom insists on working out of the closet. In fact, she stands right behind the closed closet door (there is a mirror behind the door). There she puts on her makeup and gets dressed. I frankly don't get this since she has her own bathroom and dressing room to use. I don't get why she doesn't use it, but prefers to stand in a closed closet where the lighting isn't great.
In any case, this morning I was in no mood to dance around her in the closet, so I started screaming. Again, not nice, and not patient. Just exhausted and at my wit's end. I think I aggravated her so much from my screaming that for the rest of the morning she was nauseous. Of course that wasn't my goal and I have to learn to be calm. MORE CALM. For the most part I am, but at times, I am only human and can handle just so much. My mom likes to pepper me with the fact that she would like to move out, because she doesn't like how I curtail her freedom (to drive specifically), or better yet I love it when she tells me that her life is so different now and she isn't happy. There is NO acknowledgment at all on how this daily caregiving schedule impacts me.
In between the usual juggling act, I went back to creating the Foundation Walk's webpage. I am trying to tackle a little of it each day, as I want this site launched in March.
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