Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Bernie & I Visit from Colorado

Hi everyone! Well, we made it back to Colorado safe and sound – never fun to return to work after a vacation especially after such a long day of travel. Bernie (my husband) and I got to visit with my dad daily Wednesday thru Friday and then again on our way to the airport on Monday afternoon. In between visits we went to Bernie’s brother’s wedding up in Alden which is near the famous Batchelder Rd. in Bellaire, MI so we chatted with Dad a bit about that (although we didn’t make the pilgrimage to the sign this time).

I was happy to see that the guest book that I left earlier in July was a big success and in addition to daily visits from Katie (wife) and frequent visits from Maura (daughter), Scott (son) and Lori (daughter) my dad has also received multiple visits from lots of friends and family:

Bill Delange; Danny Akers; Richard & Dick Batchelder; Patsy, Mike & Annie; BJ Franzen; Gwen & George Neumann; Dennis Wiese; Nick & Ed; Lem Harsen; Barb & Tom Korneffel; all of Katie’s family (which is a lot!); and a few others I’m sure who didn’t sign in or visited before the guest book was there.

It was great to see what everyone had to say and heart warming to see that he has been getting visits from friends at least every other day. Please keep up the visits as it breaks my heart to think of my dad in that room all day by himself – although I must say – he seems more content than I could have imagined. He is happy to have visitors and lights up when people he knows come in. During my visit we looked through some magazines and tried to name the items in the pictures; watched a little TV; went for a stroll in the beautiful court yard downstairs (he’ll instruct you exactly how to get there); named some colors and tried to tell time – little things to help the language center come back. It is a slow process for sure but I do see some progress. Some things he has trouble communicating, but then others it is surprising – we told him we bought a new house and he asked who our mortgage lender was – clear as day.

I also brought him a smoothie (a healthy one) and he really enjoyed it. If you are going to visit around lunch or dinner please bring a meal for yourself as it is nice when he doesn’t have to eat alone. Or you can bring him a healthy meal too as some of the food could be better, typical hospital fare.

Dave’s aware that his right side isn’t working but every day he gets better at over coming that challenge. I only wish it hadn’t been raining so much so we could go outside more – nice to get out of that room and get some fresh air. While we were there we also saw Katie, Maura, and Scott. I heard from Dad’s sister Marilyn that she will be visiting in August along with her husband and Dad’s brother Milan.

Hope to visit soon....keri

No comments:

Post a Comment