Tuesday, August 31, 2004
A strange and busy day is ending...
...and I'm bushed. We really are going to Mesa tomorrow. Believe it. We'd better. I made arrangements with MCF to meet us there since she has the day off.
The tow guy showed up earlier than we expected, a little after 1330. I hadn't given any thought to the fact that getting Mom into the cab of a tow truck might be a problem. Neither had he. The two of us tried and Mom struggled. Finally, the tow guy suggested that since the front tires of the car hadn't lost much air (thank the gods we bought the tires we did), he'd check their pressure, fill them up to the maximum psi, pick up another car along the way and follow us to Costco for security purposes. That worked well. He made three tow fees on one trip. As Mom and I were driving to Costco, followed closely by the tow guy, I brought up this particularly lucrative trip of his and speculated that maybe it wasn't the tire stealers who punched nails in many tires in our neighborhood last night; maybe it was the Prescott Towing Guild. I'm assuming that most of the people who ended up at the Costco tire garage today had the same level of membership as us which covers free tire maintenance whether you bought your tires there or not (we didn't). Lots of people don't have towing coverage, though. We do because we've had so many unhappy experiences getting our cars repaired up here and then having to have the job redone. A few years ago I searched out extended tow coverage through AAA and our car insurance to cover all the miles from our house up here to our trusted mechanic in Mesa. Then again, it could have been the Policeman's Guild. There isn't a lot of trouble in a town like Prescott, or, if there is, no one considers it troubling enough to report.
I'm thinking I'll probably start yet another statistical journal as an adjunct to this web effort. The idea came to me today when we were doing Mom's therapy exercises. There is one upper body exercise done with weights with which she's been having particular trouble: An exercise where you hold a free weight in your hand, place your hand over the opposite hip bone, lift the weight in a circular trail to just above the shoulder of the arm holding the weight then bring it home along the same circular trail. The object is to increase shoulder flexibility and strengthen the upper arm. Mom doesn't quite have the feel for this exercise. She has been lifting the weight primarily with the power of her forearm diagonally across her body, barely using her upper arm and not rolling her shoulder joint. Today I decided we'd spend some days simply practicing, without the weight, circling her arm across her body, up, around and back across her body, so she'd get a feel for what she needed to do in this particular exercise. This isn't the first time I've modified one of her exercises to allow her body to learn what it's supposed to do. I've also tweaked a few others in order to encourage joint flexibility and added two exercises, one to increase strength and flexibility in her knees and the other in her hips. As well, I've completely modified how we do her routines, shuffling lower body with upper body exercises. I've also got her standing through some of the exercises through which the SNF had her sitting. Of course, they apparently thought she was not only going to be homebound for the rest of her life but wheelchair bound as well. Anyway, it just seems that I should be recording not only her progress, but the modifications I devise in her routines.
I'm pleased to report that she is getting better at "stepping up to the plate" when she walkers. I didn't have to remind her nearly as much today as I have in the recent past. Maybe that day of rest and lounging did some good.
I do want to note that she mentioned today that she "doesn't like to go to Costco". I was a little surprised but I think I get it now. It's not much fun to plod around on a concrete floor in a warehouse set-up without specific purpose. I explained to her that now that she's moving around she'll still have to go because I am going to see to it that she goes almost every place I go now, just to keep her moving through life rather than sleeping and sitting through it. Earlier, though, on our way to Costco as we crawled by the town square she mentioned that she's always wanted to spend time "sitting there and people watching". Hallelujah! We've done this in years past but, of course, those visits are lost in the chasms of her short term memory. I've been suggesting to her that we should spend time, several days a week, leisurely walkering around the square, maybe window shopping the surrounding local enterprises. She's expressed only polite interest. Now, though, her curiosity is beginning to kick in on the heels of her increased energy and she's reconsidering at least one of my suggestions.
At Costco we also ran into a member of the book club to which I/we belong up here. We haven't attended a meeting since January of this year. When when we ran into my reading comrade today she talked so enthusiastically about this month's selection that I assured her that yes, of course, we'd try to attend September's meeting. So, M(y)D(ear)P(rescott)F(riend)A(nd)B(ook)C(lub)C(omrade) trotted over to the book section, picked up a copy of the book and brought it to us. Tonight Mom and I discussed reading it and it looks as though we are going to use this book to reinitiate evening out loud reading.
I've got to get to bed. I think 0600 will come much earlier tomorrow morning than 0530 came this morning.
Later.
The tow guy showed up earlier than we expected, a little after 1330. I hadn't given any thought to the fact that getting Mom into the cab of a tow truck might be a problem. Neither had he. The two of us tried and Mom struggled. Finally, the tow guy suggested that since the front tires of the car hadn't lost much air (thank the gods we bought the tires we did), he'd check their pressure, fill them up to the maximum psi, pick up another car along the way and follow us to Costco for security purposes. That worked well. He made three tow fees on one trip. As Mom and I were driving to Costco, followed closely by the tow guy, I brought up this particularly lucrative trip of his and speculated that maybe it wasn't the tire stealers who punched nails in many tires in our neighborhood last night; maybe it was the Prescott Towing Guild. I'm assuming that most of the people who ended up at the Costco tire garage today had the same level of membership as us which covers free tire maintenance whether you bought your tires there or not (we didn't). Lots of people don't have towing coverage, though. We do because we've had so many unhappy experiences getting our cars repaired up here and then having to have the job redone. A few years ago I searched out extended tow coverage through AAA and our car insurance to cover all the miles from our house up here to our trusted mechanic in Mesa. Then again, it could have been the Policeman's Guild. There isn't a lot of trouble in a town like Prescott, or, if there is, no one considers it troubling enough to report.
I'm thinking I'll probably start yet another statistical journal as an adjunct to this web effort. The idea came to me today when we were doing Mom's therapy exercises. There is one upper body exercise done with weights with which she's been having particular trouble: An exercise where you hold a free weight in your hand, place your hand over the opposite hip bone, lift the weight in a circular trail to just above the shoulder of the arm holding the weight then bring it home along the same circular trail. The object is to increase shoulder flexibility and strengthen the upper arm. Mom doesn't quite have the feel for this exercise. She has been lifting the weight primarily with the power of her forearm diagonally across her body, barely using her upper arm and not rolling her shoulder joint. Today I decided we'd spend some days simply practicing, without the weight, circling her arm across her body, up, around and back across her body, so she'd get a feel for what she needed to do in this particular exercise. This isn't the first time I've modified one of her exercises to allow her body to learn what it's supposed to do. I've also tweaked a few others in order to encourage joint flexibility and added two exercises, one to increase strength and flexibility in her knees and the other in her hips. As well, I've completely modified how we do her routines, shuffling lower body with upper body exercises. I've also got her standing through some of the exercises through which the SNF had her sitting. Of course, they apparently thought she was not only going to be homebound for the rest of her life but wheelchair bound as well. Anyway, it just seems that I should be recording not only her progress, but the modifications I devise in her routines.
I'm pleased to report that she is getting better at "stepping up to the plate" when she walkers. I didn't have to remind her nearly as much today as I have in the recent past. Maybe that day of rest and lounging did some good.
I do want to note that she mentioned today that she "doesn't like to go to Costco". I was a little surprised but I think I get it now. It's not much fun to plod around on a concrete floor in a warehouse set-up without specific purpose. I explained to her that now that she's moving around she'll still have to go because I am going to see to it that she goes almost every place I go now, just to keep her moving through life rather than sleeping and sitting through it. Earlier, though, on our way to Costco as we crawled by the town square she mentioned that she's always wanted to spend time "sitting there and people watching". Hallelujah! We've done this in years past but, of course, those visits are lost in the chasms of her short term memory. I've been suggesting to her that we should spend time, several days a week, leisurely walkering around the square, maybe window shopping the surrounding local enterprises. She's expressed only polite interest. Now, though, her curiosity is beginning to kick in on the heels of her increased energy and she's reconsidering at least one of my suggestions.
At Costco we also ran into a member of the book club to which I/we belong up here. We haven't attended a meeting since January of this year. When when we ran into my reading comrade today she talked so enthusiastically about this month's selection that I assured her that yes, of course, we'd try to attend September's meeting. So, M(y)D(ear)P(rescott)F(riend)A(nd)B(ook)C(lub)C(omrade) trotted over to the book section, picked up a copy of the book and brought it to us. Tonight Mom and I discussed reading it and it looks as though we are going to use this book to reinitiate evening out loud reading.
I've got to get to bed. I think 0600 will come much earlier tomorrow morning than 0530 came this morning.
Later.
