DAY 94

The snow finally stopped and the sky turned a lovely blue, with bright sunlight.... A lovely day! It IS cold, tho. Pete said it is 7 degrees out... a real warm up from the minus numbers we were having during Stan's last two weeks in the hospital. It really warmed up for a couple of days as he came home....unfortunately that brought the snow and difficulty driving. Isaac shoveled the deck that day, so we could get Stan to the door!! Today, I was expecting a Home Health Aide to come help me bathe Stan, and we had over a foot of new snow....so I shoveled the deck to make it possible for her to find the door without wading knee deep. It froze my hands...they hurt pretty bad. I am wondering if I got a light case of frost bite on them sometime in the past....because it doesn't take much to make them hurt these days. Whenever I scrape the car windows, etc. it is my hands that can't handle the cold. The rest of me is plenty warm, so I don't think about gloves until I am hurting....and then I am half done, so why bother. But THEN I have to warm them up carefully.............. Someday I'll remember to put on gloves even though "I'm tough!" My hands don't even touch the snow!! So I don't understand why they get so cold!!

As it turned out, the HHA made it to our road, but it wasn't plowed so she couldn't get here. She called to say she'd reschedule for next week. The bad part is, the phone was in use so I didn't get her call, and spent almost two hours watching for her....making me anxious about vacuuming and "other" things, for fear I wouldn't hear her come or call.

Pete spent a lot of the day downtown.... chiropracter, Stan's meds (the pharmacy originally didn't have enough of one pill and gave Pete the wrong kind of another,so we had to get that fixed), Phil's work and school (they are sharing the truck....Pete had the car last night and it took he and Isaac hours of shoveling snow as they got stuck often coming home....so he didn't want to even consider taking the car today. The truck is four wheel drive.)

We are getting the changing and feeding a little more organized now, but they are still quite a chore to accomplish. Stan is so very patient. It was the same at the hospital....very traumatic for him....lots of turning this way and that, and it hurts his hip and knee to be "rolled" so much. We did give him a good bed bath today, and then Phil, Isaac, Pete, and I hoisted him in the lift over into his recliner (the first time he's sat in it since his birthday, Nov. 13!!) while we changed his sheets etc. We removed the bubble thing that came with his bed that is supposed to help prevent bed sores. It is a rubber mattress liner with a motor that inflates and deflates the baseball sized "bubbles" all over it to keep him from lying on one spot too long. We were told he would still require frequent turnings....
The action caused kind of sharp ridges on the edge of the bubbles that hurt him....so we decided we'd just depend on the frequent turnings...

The hoist is pretty neat, and I am sure he enjoyed a time in his chair. We wrapped him in the soft comforter Cheri made him so that the hoist sling wouldn't cut into him like it did at the hospital when we used it to get him into the shower. It is more than a one man show, tho!!

Deryl and Rick both mentioned the proposed Bible study here at the house with him once a week. I know he will really enjoy that!! Thanks, guys!!

I get my own Bible study from Molly each day, and she always has just the scriptures and dialogue that I need for the day. Sure wish she were here in person!!

All of your "welcome home" emails, prayers, and encouragements are so wonderful. Thank you all!! I am relating them to Stan. We are hoping to get his computer down stairs and some kind of device so that he can use it in bed. There is a lot of "figuring out" stuff yet before we have this down to a workable science.

I've had a couple of "sticker shocks" lately... a bill from the first hospital that doesn't make much sense, and the cost of Stan's meds after medicare and aarp!! Wow~~

Thank you, Jeff, for the clear driveway tonight!! And thanks to Brian for taking care of what Jeff's truck can't get. Our road is also now plowed, so if it doesn't snow again, we are once again able to come and go with ease.

I am off to bed.....Love, M