Saturday, April 12, 2014

At Long Last

Hello to friends and family who might still be checking this blog on occasion. As you can tell I'm not a devoted week in/week out blogger.  But I will try and pick up the pace some in the future.

 We meandered through the winter and are now having a lovely spring.

Since her shunt was replaced in September, Joy's health has been good considering all she has been through.  The only difficulty is a somewhat gnarled foot that is due to muscles on one side of ankle and leg being more paralyzed than those on the other side. This causes her foot to twist under a bit and her toes to bunch up.  Her middle toe sticks up some and rubs against her shoe.  This caused a bunion which we had removed last week.  It happened gradually and we finally realized that it seemed to be bothering her quite a bit.  We are working on getting shoes for her that will not cause that problem again.  Because spring has sprung and the weather is beginning to warm, she can now wear open-toed shoes regularly. She seems much more comfortable since she's been treated. 

There is little change in her ability to do tasks.  The best way to describe it is to say she can help somewhat in rinsing and putting the dishes in the dishwasher, but she would be unable to prepare any kind of meal for herself.  We still worry when she's around a hot stove.  She remains dependent on her nurses for basic hygiene and just getting around.  She walks regularly and eats well.  In general, I would say she's healthier than she's ever been since the stroke occurred in January, 2011.  She's smiling more all the time and looks beautiful which is not only due to her natural beauty but to the the ladies who care for her.  When  they dress her, put on her make-up and jewelry, she always looks lovely.      

We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on Wednesday April 9th.  I remember the fun we had planning our wedding back in early 1994.  When it came to picking the date, I chose 4/9/94, since it would be easy for me to remember.  Joy agreed and we forged ahead.  She made most of the arrangements.  It was the first and only wedding for both of us.  I had just turned 46 and she was 42.  We chartered a boat and with fifty of our best friends cruised out on San Francisco Bay toward Angel Island.  The island had been the location of the immigration processing center for San Francisco in the 19th and early 20th century.  It's now a state park and a great place to hike. It's about a mile north of Alcatraz Island and is many times larger than "The Rock."

We decided to be married near the island because it was the location of our first date.  We had taken a ferry out there and hiked the island on June 3rd, 1991.  Joy and I had met at a wedding of our friends Larry and Esther on May 5th (Cinquo de Mayo) of that year in San Francisco.  She was living in L. A. and I was in Oakland.  She flew up for that weekend in June.   We still have a photo of us (that Joy set up and took with her automatically-timed shutter) sitting among the branches of a huge coastal live oak tree.   

Sailing on our wedding day out to Angel Island from Alameda in our chartered 60' motor yacht, we hit some rough water due to strong westerly winds blowing in through the Golden Gate.  There were white caps all across the bay.  So the Captain of the motor yacht determined that we could take shelter in a little cove behind the island on the east side and hold the ceremony there.  It was still a little rough and I remember Joy walking down the aisle with bouquet in hand being knocked slightly off balance by a small wave that rocked the boat. Later in the day, the wind subsided and the bay calmed which made  the sailing back delightful. It was a wonderful day, no one got seasick, and many of our friends said it was the best wedding ever.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Afterward, we took off for four days at Waikiki and then a six more out on the end of the archipelago at Kauai.  I'd never been to Hawaii before and I was stunned by how beautiful it was.  My initial reaction was, "This is the United States?  What a country!"

We went out to a Chinese Restaurant for our 20th anniversary with the Kilker sisters, Sue Thomas and Mary Anne Schetter.  Sue is Joy's head nurse and has been a gift from above to us ever since we brought Joy home in May of 2011.  Here is a photo of Joy and Sue taken on that evening:

 
  Joy can eat by herself, but it can take hours for her to get through a meal, so at times it's tidier and more efficient for her nurses to feed her.


These are not very good pictures of Joy on our special occasion but they are all I've got.   Most of the time she was smiling broadly and fully enjoying herself.  She still loves to go out on the town.


We are doing some remodeling on the house.  We ended up with a 1 bedroom house due to changes Joy made during construction.  But we are considering selling the place now and to get a decent price for the house it needs to have three bedrooms.  We will probably move to Texas within a year or two. In Texas  we can buy two homes of similar quality for what we should get for this one.   So I've walled off the east end of the house opposite the kitchen and cut a doorway in through where the coat closet was.  That will be the second bedroom and Joy's old office will be the third.  The second bedroom was in the original floor plan before the house was built, but Joy decided she liked to have the space open with the morning sun coming in the wall of windows at the east end of the house, so we eliminated a partition wall temporarily. Now we are back to the original plan.  Those of you who stayed here over the past 8 years (yes, we've been in the house for that long) might remember the lack of privacy in our guest accommodations, but I hope we made you comfortable despite that.   

Here's a picture of the new second bedroom under construction:  



I had enough materials around that I only had to buy sheetrock and some gun nails. Sue's brother John Kilker donated his expertise and masterfully re-wired everything.  I will have to buy an entry door for this bedroom and hire someone to finish the drywall, since it requires a special kind of texture to match the rest of the house, but I'm doing the rest of the work myself.

On Washington's birthday, I was persuaded by my friend Phil Burke who lives in the neighborhood to climb the mountain to the east of us.  I've always looked up at the mountain and longed to climb  it.  I'm not in the best shape these days but we made it to the top and back down in about five hours.  The picture below was taken about two-thirds of the way up and shows the view to the southwest.  If the fog was not out there in the distance, you would be able to see the ocean:

 
Here's a picture of the oak trees in the meadow at the top of the mountain (elevation around 4000 ft) :



I hope all is well with all of you and that you are enjoying life to the fullest.  We continue to adapt and are content.  I look forward to some excitement and new beginnings if and when we move to Texas within the next year or two.  We will keep you posted.

Love,

Doug and Joy 

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