Middlesex Home Health Care called yesterday to alert Susie to the fact that Anthem will be paying for a home health aide to come to our home two days a week. That will be in addition to two-days-a-week of physical therapy, and the same for occupational therapy. The home health aide will help Susie take a shower, safely, and wash her hair, among other things. The neck brace makes washing her hair a two-step process. I have already bought and installed a special shower hose, which is attached to a special fitting which I installed between the existing shower head and the water pipe for the shower. Once the special shower hose is attached to the fitting, the water flows only through the special hose, and not through the existing shower head. Once the special hose is detached, the water again flows through the shower head. Technology can really be nifty, when you really need it.
I continue to "camp out" on our back porch, with all the windows open. I'm sleeping in my sleeping bag, on one of those mats which inflates by just opening the plastic valve. It's not real thick, but does the job of cushioning the body from the hard floor. Russell, Jamie's cat, loves camping out with me, no matter how hot it gets on the porch, which we keep un-air-conditioned. When I wake up in the middle of the break to take a restroom break, Russell is usually sprawled out on my legs at the bottom of the sleeping bag, or crouched by the porch windows closest to the floor, looking for birds to "stalk," at lease virtually. Since I dislike the cold of air-conditioning, while Susie depends on it for her summer sleeping comfort, I'm actually enjoying the fact that Susie can't have me with her in the bed at night, nor during the day for that matter, during her very painful recuperation. And I'm looking forward to the day when my grandson, Liam, is able to visit us and I can offer him the chance to "camp out" on the porch, with Grandude and Grand-Cat (Russell). In our new house, I look forward to "camping out" under the stars on our back deck, either without a small tent, on starry nights, or in a small tent, on rainy nights. Eventually, of course, if I get lucky, Susie will want me to return, at least occasionally, to our marital bed, but that'll probably only be if the pain in her derriere which my antics cause her is not so great that she prefers me "camping out" on the back porch or the new house's deck.
In the morning, as I write my blog or reply to e-mails from the previous day, in the den below our bedroom, I wait for the sound of Susie saying, "Bob," and then, quickly, take the steps upstairs, two at a time, and enter the master bedroom. Susie is still in sufficient pain, as she continues to have to lie flat on her back the entire night long, without even once rolling over onto her side, that she needs me to hold onto her right hand, with my left hand gently under her neck brace, as she slowly, painfully, pulls herself up to a sitting position, and then swivels her legs to her right to gain contact between her feet and the bedroom floor.
Several of you have told me that your experience with Oxycontin is such that you find it hard to imagine being on the stuff 24/7. I've been told by you that that medication can really "zone a person out." Plus, Susie needs to take Dilaudin, as needed, to reduce the pain and discomfort of spasms in her neck from having her neck held straight, without turning. Hopefully, tomorrow, the neurosurgeon will take another x-ray of Susie's neck and recommend that she replace the present hard neck collar with a more flexible, smaller version. Only time will tell.
Susie still has a LONG way to go to get back some semblance of her pre-injury condition.
Well, that's the end of today's Susie Update. If you are by any chance in reading a discussion of the possible Constitutional Option by which the president can raise the public debt limit, even in the absence of a compromise political solution to the crisis, you can click on the link to my blog, Bobs Blog, and read my column in today's Bobs Blog. See link, here----
Thanks for reading about Susie's progress. And thanks for all the prayers, meals, and visits. They give her, and me, strength to carry on, and continue living in the meantime.
Best,
Bob
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