Merry Christmas

To all who love Joy as I do, we wish you all the best in the New Year. May you be blessed with good health and prosperity. 

Here's a picture of Joy using a mirror to check out her new hat (a gift from sister Susan) and her scarf that was knitted by our dear friend Jackie Hill:

A very 1960s hat, to be sure.  But having lived through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and the aughts, we are comfortable in any decade.  

Love to you all . . .

A Christmas Blessing

Joy and I got up at 3 a.m, this morning (12/22) to go to the hospital for her angiogram procedure scheduled for 7 a.m.  But before I tell you about that I want to tell you about other events this week.

Joy had a fall yesterday.  She was in the bathroom being dressed by nurse Susan.  Sue had bent down to help put her shoes on when Joy lost her balance and fell between the toilet and the wall.  The right side of her face bumped against the toilet.  Because of this,  she has a bit of swelling and blackeye-ness around the edge of her right eye socket.  She had a small abrasion on the top of her head and another on her cheek plus a scratch on her hand.  I got there a minute after it happened and she looked bewildered but not noticeably in pain.  Sue was very upset, but accidents will happen and we were probably due for one.  It's difficult to be alert to such possibilities every second of every minute of every day.  Joy has fallen twice before, both times outside the house and both times was rescued before she could hurt herself.  We will be more attentive now.

Sister Susan's son (and Joy's nephew) Jonathan Fowler came for a three day visit this week with his wife Jennifer.  They were here for the holidays last year when Joy was first in the hospital, but couldn't visit because Jon had the flu.  But they had spoken to Joy on the phone in her room before the stroke felled her.  Joy and I went over to Susan and Paul's for dinner on Monday night so that Joy could see Jon and Jen.  Joy was cognizant of who they were and the love between them flowed.  You could tell she knew they were family.  Here's a picture of the gathering:

Jon and Jen are both graduates of UC Berkeley.  Jen has a doctorate in physics and astronomy and is a professor at the University of Denver.  Jon also is an instructor in physics there and teaches physics for the Princeton Review.


Now the really good news:  Joy's procedure went so well it has further convinced me that some one up there is indeed looking out for us.  All of you who are praying regularly for Joy have my gratitude.  A couple of months ago, Dr. Sanchez told us he thought that Joy's aneurysm, the one that had bled and caused her stroke, was growing again and that the growth was "not insignificant."  He based that on viewing CT scans, MRI and MRA images.  He thought he might have to install a stent of some kind, that Joy might have to take blood thinning drugs for several months and that her recovery might be set back for a while.

This morning when I spoke to him, he was also very concerned about Joy's head injury due to her fall and ordered another CT scan before the angiogram procedure.  I was dreading the outcome of the procedure and what the next few months might bring when he called a very short hour after she went into surgery and said that the angiogram had shown that all her arteries and both the clipped and the coiled  aneurysms were in very good shape, that there was no sign of internal injury from her fall,  and that nothing needed to be done.  Wonderful news!  He further explained that the scans and images really don't give them a very good view and that you really can't see what's going on until you get inside to get a closer look.  He suggested we do another procedure in a year, just to keep an eye on things. 

I could not have asked for a better Christmas present.  I said last winter in emails that Joy always tried to give presents that were more than the recipient was expecting and she did it again this year with the gift of her stable angioplasty diagnosis and improving health. Now it's back to facilitating her recovery as best we can.

Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year to all friends and family of Joy.

Love,

Doug and Joy

Waiting For The Procedure

Dear family and friends of Joy:  

We had a great Thanksgiving with enormous amounts of food and too much  football on tv. Sister Susan perfectly roasted yet another holiday turkey and the side dishes were all delicious.  Below a picture of the celebration:

 
Lots of smiles all around.  From left:  John, Mary Anne, Joy, Sue, Susan and Paul.

On December 4th, Joy and I went by ourselves to a Christmas party down the street at the house of our good friends Jackie and Craig Hill.  At first Joy saw all the cars outside the house and didn't want to get out of our car, but I persuaded her otherwise and as we got inside she was enveloped in the warmth of all her old friends in the community.  Of the 25 people or so who were there, half had not seen Joy since her stroke and all were overjoyed to see her out and about.   We ate heartily of the Christmas Chili and casserole and later from a dining room table filled with every conceivable kind of dessert.  It was our first night out together in a long time. 

Sue Thomas regularly takes Joy into town now for shopping trips and an occasional lunch.  Her constant interaction with (and devotion to) Joy is the reason that Joy is continuing to recover at a slow but steady rate.  One day we took Joy upstairs to our second floor master suite for the first time in a year and Joy got to visit her walk-in closet which contains clothes and accessories she had gathered over the past 40 years.  This was a thrill for her and her smile indicates how pleased she was to be there: 

 
It was wonderful to see her go up the stairs.  She did it fairly easily and surprised us.  We were hoping she would carefully take one step at a time and put both feet on each step, but she insisted on taking each step with one foot. She had a little problem with balance, but compared to the first time we tried climbing the stairs, she was very adept.  Two months ago she struggled terribly to get up the stairs to the landing halfway up.  When she got to the landing, she became afraid and decided she didn't want to continue on.  So we sat her down and slid her back down the steps on her rear. This time she was much more sure of herself, intrepid and determined.  It was yet another sign that she is improving, often in ways that we don't see until something dramatic like this happens.

I found this old photo of Joy and me and thought some of you might like to see it.  It was taken a few months after we met in 1991 when Joy was living in Los Angeles and I was in Oakland.  Back when we were courting, you might say.   She'd fly up to see me once a month and I'd fly or drive down to see her once a month.  This photo was taken at her condo at Rancho Palos Verdes which is just below all the beach towns in LA:

 
It was taken just before we went out to dinner at some fancy restaurant.  Joy looked stunningly beautiful that night.

Back to the present:  Joy's angioplasty procedure will take place this coming Thursday the 22nd, precisely a year and a day after she was struck down by her aneurysms last December.  I am feeling the dread I always feel before these procedures, although I feel she is in very good hands with Dr. Sanchez-Mejia.   We have to leave the house at 4 am to check in at 5 am at Scripps Green in La Jolla.   Surgery is scheduled for 7 am.  Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. 

The landscape around here is often dramatically beautiful this time of year and I have a couple of photos to prove it.  The first shot is looking north out our backdoor at the San Bernadino Mountains at around 7 in the morning.  The sun had not yet risen above the mountain to the east of us.  The day before a moderate-sized Pacific storm had passed through.  The tallest peak in the San Bernadino Mountains is Mount San Gorgonio at around 11,500 feet:

Here's one of our house at sunset with the full moon rising and then another closeup of the full moon above the hills:

We live in a beautiful spot and we are grateful for it.

I will try and update everyone as soon as possible after Joy's surgery.  They think she might be able to come home after a night in the hospital and I hope that is the case.  We are also praying that her recovery is not interrupted in any serious way, that she can quickly regain her equilibrium after general anesthesia, although Dr. Sanchez has warned us that her recovery could be set back.

Merry Christmas to you all and may you have a happy and prosperous New Year. 

Love,

Doug and Joy