Saturday, January 28, 2006

Valley Medical Center

On Thursday I went to Valley Medical Center where Dr. Shem
was telling everybody about new SCI therapies.  They have
a bunch of studies they are always doing and they're always
looking for volunteers, it was very interesting.
I was talking to one of the guys after and he is
trying to get me to try scuba diving, they do it almost
every Friday in Los Gatos.  I'm going to go and watch
and who knows?  I'm afraid of water but I would like to
get over it because they have a bunch of events that they
do almost monthly like whale watching or just cruising
around the bay.

Every time I go to one of these I get really inspired
and excited, I keep saying to myself that I'm going to start
going back to the support groups and the one-on-one peer
meetings, every Wednesday we go in groups of two room to room
at Valley Medical and talk to the patient's and families
and the answer any questions they have and maybe even
plan something to get them away from the hospital.  I love
sharing my home so that people can see it is possible
to live alone and to have a great life after a traumatic
injury.

Yesterday my mom and I met my Aunt Cathy and Ellen
to see the movie Brokeback Mountain, it was a really good movie.
After that we were going to go get something to eat but it was
getting late.  We're going to try to do that maybe once a month.
I love to go to the movies and out to eat but if I go by myself
I have to bring my attendant and pay her hourly, hey for the ticket
and a meal or popcorn and soda, it can get pretty expensive... plus,
she doesn't even put out ha-ha, just kidding.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

New computer

We ended up having a really nice visit in David
stayed until Friday. On Sunday Juliette cooked
a roast with some vegetables so we didn't have
to worry about what you have for dinner so we
just hung around and visited.

On Monday we set out to find a computer.  I guess
they're phasing out computers with serial ports
and because of all the programs on my computer
I need one so they were easy to find.  We went to
The Cheesecake Factory for lunch, I love that
place.  And we made it home right before the battery
on my chair died.

The rest of the week was basically installing everything
on my new computer and getting rid of this that I
don't need any more, I have about three books full.

David is going to come back in March with his
brother-in-law in this time it's going to be all fun.

My Moms water softener
broke so we went to get her a new one and JohnPatrick
and I got last, we were supposed to meet them at
Sears but we were waiting out in front of Macy's.
We ate dinner at Red Robin and came home.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Brothers visiting for the weekend

My brother David had talked about coming here in January to fix me up with a new computer,mine has not been working very well for several months. He called on Thursday to say he would be coming either Sunday or Monday and called back today and said he was coming tomorrow, Sunday. When Stanley found out he decided to come to as he has Sundays off so I am very excited. I think David is bringing JohnPatrick and they will stay until Wednesday afternoon but unfortunately Stanley has to work on Monday so him and his family will be going home tomorrow evening. It is always so nice to see everybody but unfortunately the time goes by way too fast. My neighbor told me about a really good restaurant in San Francisco and it looks like that is where we might go to get the computer so I want to give it a try.

One of the chambers on my bed, it's an alternating mattress, quit working last weekend so I called Hill-Rom and they came out on Tuesday to fix it. Of course I worked really well for a day or two and of course wasn't working again Thursday evening so I called them Friday morning and they said they were busy but they would be out, they never made it. Hopefully I will see them early next week and they will just bring me a new mattress.

Sunday, January 8, 2006

The weekend

I cannot believe how tired I am after the vacation. I did a lot of sleeping last week which felt really great because I generally don't sleep very much but it just seem like were ever I went I couldn't wait to get back home and back into my bed.

I didn't sleep very good last night and I slept a little bit this morning but mostly I just took a bath and played cribbage and gin on Pogo. I met a lot of really interesting people and my friend Jeff from Stockton came in and played for a little while, he is always a lot of fun. He teases me about cheating and usually makes everybody else in the room laugh. Mostly we played cribbage and he teases me about bringing tomato juice because if you get skunked he says tomato juice takes the smell a way.

I promised myself that next week I was going to go see a movie at least three times, I always say I'm going to but I never do. If I believed in New Year's resolutions that would probably have been one.

Monday, January 2, 2006

Disneyland Vacation

We started out on Monday morning. Not as early as we would have liked to because we were having a little problem trying to figure out how to work the lift on the van, Keith came over to help us and we were out of here by 9 a.m. It was really nice to have the bigger van so I can actually see outside where we were going, I love watching out the window as we're driving. We ended up staying the night in Palm Desert because it was taking us a little longer than we thought, three kids, two dogs and a wheelchair can slow you down a little. Our first couple choices of places to stop and eat were not very good but we did pretty good after that. We found some really good places to eat.

The next day when we got to Arizona and my cousin Michael was outside waiting for us. We had a really nice visit with everybody and walked over to the park to let the dogs and kids expand a little energy. The next day we came over for the day. My aunt Bobby made a really nice breakfast, Janet made a really good dinner and we had plenty of time to visit. When I got there Steve was just leaving but I got to say hello and it was really great to see him, it has been probably 20 years. The next morning Grandpa took us all out to breakfast, we went shopping at the outlet and then headed off to Disneyland.

We got to our hotel pretty late only to discover it wasn't as accessible as they promised us it would be. The threshold on the door was really high and I had to use my portable ramp which we had to partly stick in the flower bed but I made it inside, the room next to us had a pole in the middle of the door. We went to ask them for a different room but they were booked up and all the rooms were pretty much the same. We took the table and chairs out of the room and it served its purpose, we didn't plan on staying in the room any longer than to sleep. The mattresses were very comfortable, they have that memory foam on the top and everybody slept really well.

We got up early the first morning and spent the whole day at Disneyland. It was very crowded because of Christmas and their 50th anniversary but we all had a great time. We found a really nice place to eat, saw a couple shows and then went back to the motel exhausted. The next day we decided to sleep in a little so we could stay up until midnight and see the new year. It rained  untill we decided to go to eat about 5 p.m. and then it stopped and was nice for the rest of the evening. We decided to go to California Adventure and that was a really good choice, everybody was over at Disneyland so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We went to a couple more shows and the kids on a couple more rides and then we found a place by the water to watch the fireworks. They shot the fireworks off from a box in the middle of the water and it looks so beautiful reflecting off of the water into the sky. It rained most of the way home but I'm glad I waited for our vacation to be over. I think next year I'm going to try a travel agency, somebody told me they can take care of things for you much better than trying to do it online. I saw a beautiful hotel right behind California Adventure that I would like to try to stay next time.