He Stood for Two Minutes on His Own

     

    Tuesday morning a couple of friends came over to do some much needed yard work. We dug up the old carrots, and cleaned out the blueberry and strawberry patches. They told the children to not step on the green plants. I gave them some Otter Pops from last year that were left in the freezer. The children loved them. The adults politely declined.

    Tuesday afternoon Bruce went to visit central school to set up a time to visit. He figured there would be chaos if he just showed up one day so he met with the teachers to see how to arrange a visit. Central school sent some coupons for me, how thoughtful!

     

    Jean brought over a very nice lap quilt for Bruce. She and Teija made it as an easy first project sewing experience. I might snuggle with it when he doesn't.

     

    Bruce with his feet elevated showing off the beautiful lap quilt.

    Wednesday we went to Boise. Our friend Tony helped us drive. Our son Duncan had an orientation to become a registered have me health care provider. It took us three hours to get there. We had a rest stop on the way there. We met with Dr. Montalbano for ten minutes. He showed us the X-rays of the surgery. And explained the vertebrae were removed and a metal mesh was screwed into place. He asked us if Bruce was taking vitamin B6 (and we said no) and said Bruce should take it, it would help with nerve regrowth. He also said he would see us in eight months and he wanted Bruce to walk through the door. Well needless to say we liked that.

    We went to visit a friend, Del in SWIACH. A short visit and many hugs and smiles from the nurses. I think Del recognized Bruce.

    Then we went to Access Vans where we traded our Idaho license plates for another set of keys to the van. We mentioned we couldn't find a driver manual and they said did we look in both glove compartments? What? So guess what we found in the top glove compartment? I thought it was the air bag...

   Three hours later we made it home and headed for the church Spaghetti feed and dessert auction. Our friend Lynette bought us two desserts. Bruce likes pie and she bid on the lemon raspberry and got a maple bacon spice cake for Andrew. She wanted to do that for us.

    Thursday morning we were up early for pool time. Bruce was a little bit worn out from the trip so we were slow to get moving.

   Our friends came back to gather up the yard debris and to finish another corner of weeding and cleaning out flower, garden beds. Thank you! The children remembered the Otter Pops and I found them some more.

     

    Otter Pops and giant carrots. We put them in five gallon buckets to give to some horse friends.

   Friday Bruce had an hour and a half of OT and it wore him out. He did get to stand in the stander with no help for two minutes. That is without braces and standing on his feet and leaning on his elbows! The helpers were there within arm reach but they wanted him to see he was doing it on his own! That was the highlight of the week!

    On Saturday I escaped to a women's church meeting in Baker. It was fun, Bruce wanted to go and I told him I needed the time away. So he stayed home and rested. He is a church leader and was invited to come. We skipped the welfare project, cutting fleece into blankies although I did bring one has me to work on. We stopped at the quilt store in Baker for some retail therapy. 

   Our friend Sandra brought us a delicious meal to end the day!

   Thank you for the gifts, food and fun memories! We have a schedule now. It is still a very difficult thing we do. Some days are hard and some are harder.