Friday October 9 - Grandparents and Children

Quinn and I slept in until 7:45AM. Quinn seems much better. No hives. I start to wonder if the hives were from the strawberries he and Tara had last evening. We’ll have to investigate this theory sometime, meanwhile, no strawberries for Quinn.

Angels won last night: LAA 5 vs BOS 0. Yeah!

Marianne visited and told us about her visit with you yesterday. She was pleased to see you were doing well.

We ate breakfast and I tackle the chicken pen. Just as I start, Harold, our neighbor you had a stroke, came over and offered to help finish the pen. While we were working, he shared some of his feelings and perceptions about visitors in the hospital and how tiring things can be. This seems very relevant to you at this time.

The pen looked pretty good when we were done. Tara, Quinn and I put the chickens into their new home. The bedroom box has a straw bed. The chickens are really curious and hesitate to even leave the box. The door from the bedroom leads to the pen. We placed the whole pen on part of the compost pile. When the chickens finally mustered up courage to leave the bedroom, they were delighted to discover a new world of plants and dirt and, best of all, bugs. They are happy chickens now.

Harold said he would look after our chickens, your fish and the cats while we are away in Halifax for the weekend.

While Harold and I were building the pen, Tara and Quinn take on the laundry duties. I had to persuade them with the promise of payment. They needed no other encouragement. By the time I was done with the chicken pen, they had folded, sorted and put away the week’s worth of laundry. They also made their beds and packed their things for Halifax.

We sing in the car. Tara kicked me out of her choir because she says I can’t sing. She said you would have to audition, but she didn’t think you would make the cut either. We will just have settle and be an enthusiastic audience.

I pointed out to Tara that I used to sing her to sleep when she was a baby. Her response: “I didn’t have laugh juice in me to kick you so I fainted. What’s why it looked like I was sleeping!”

When we get to your room, DeeDee and Grandpa are there. The children are happy to see them. Dick wastes no time and goes right into teasing mode. “How is your teacher, Madame Burger?” Tara jumps right in and starts to tease him back.

This started when Tara was a baby – she didn’t like it then – now she embraces it. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since they have seen each other, they pick up the teasing almost exactly where they left off. It’s an on going conversation between them.

You are awake and quite responsive. You get to hear all about that movie we saw a few weeks ago about the Book of Kells.

The GI resident comes with 3 med students in tow. I must sign a consent for the PEG tube placement. He dutifully lists off all the possible risks with their percentages of occurrence attached.

I’m not worried about this procedure. You are not a statistic – you have already lived the outside of the Bell’s curve. Risks are risks – but nothing compared from where we came.

Possibly the PEG will be scheduled for next Thursday. The PEG should improve your time in recovery for now. You can be bolus fed. You can still eat with it but it will allow you to top up the calories you are not able to take in by mouth until you can eat enough.

You whisper that you have pain. A headache. You also say shoulder. We call the nurse, Serena, to get you some pain medication. While we are waiting, I ask you more questions about the pain. You say “DeeDee’s shoulder is sore.” You are concerned about DeeDee’s shoulder. You are worried she is in pain. We explain to you that she will have shoulder surgery soon.

You are itchy – I give your back a scratch. As I scratch your back, I suggest that you are going to owe me a lot of back rubs in the future in payment for all the attention you are getting now. You said “You still owe me some.”

On the way to Mary and Stuart’s house – we go to Michael’s to look at beads and jewelry making things. Inspired by the special beaded hair clip that Megan had given her and the art of beading that Andrea has ignited, Tara has been wondering how she can make more. We are on a bead quest. Quinn is not very enthusiastic but he humors us.

At Michael’s, Tara has small revelation. Instead of always saving her money and always thinking about what it could be. She decided that she should spend some of it on something she wants to do.

We had always drilled the skill of saving money into the children. But Tara had a good point, what’s the point of saving it when there are things that she could enjoy using it for something. In about 3 minutes she went from “Will you buy this and this for me?” to “I have some money, it’s not doing me any good in my wallet, I should buy some beads with it then I can make something and it will be fun.”

We get to Mary and Stuart’s house to get to bed. We are all tired. We all go to bed.