Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2008. Mattie was in the hospital and recovering from his first limb salvaging surgery. That day we got him up, in a wheelchair, and to the child life playroom. He was surrounded by several of his favorite women..... Whitney (child life intern), Lesley (child life intern), and Jenny (Art Therapist). In order to get Mattie to use and clear out his lungs, post-surgery, they pulled out all the bubble making materials. Mattie and his side kicks were blowing non-stop bubbles. So much so that the room was a bubble mess! But the point is that Mattie's team rose to so many challenges and worked hard at making his life as good as it could have possibly been.
Quote of the day: To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it” is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularities of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to? ~ Jeanette Winterson
This morning I got up even earlier than usual in order to get my dad to the rehab doctor at the hospital. He sees this doctor every 6 months. My dad's physical therapists are seeing the decline that I witness in him and they have suggested that I talk to the doctor about in-home professional services starting back up with him. That way, he will get almost four sessions a week of therapy.
Getting my dad out the door in the morning is hard enough, but my mom is far more complicated. She needs to be managed and herded! Unfortunately my dad doesn't remember being hospitalized in March of 2022 for two weeks. Back then, he needed a pacemaker because he had a second degree heart block. That surgery and recovery was about a week. But a week lying in bed, is equivalent to like months for us. So he atrophied, he had trouble walking, standing, and doing anything independently. Back then I had to fight hard to get him transferred to the hospital's acute care unit versus going into a nursing home. Thankfully it was at that point, I met my dad's rehab doctor, who changed the course of my dad's future. Because I am quite certain if my dad was admitted to a nursing home, he'd never get out!
The doctor kept us waiting for about 40 minutes today. He had other medical emergencies to address, so we patiently waited. One of his patients was a young girl, maybe in her twenties, who came in with her parents. She was having trouble walking and was using arm braces. To me she had a progressive neurological disease and my heart went out to her and her family. Seeing what others are dealing with enabled me to have great patience today while waiting for the doctor to get to my dad.
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