Paul's Update - 10/03/07

Dear Friends:

Monday morning Dad, Dora & Paul headed out to see the Laser Eye Specialist. This is the doctor that our regular eye doctor recommended to look at Paul’s floater in his right eye. After dilating Paul’s eyes he examined Paul and said he couldn’t see any floaters at all. He isn’t sure what our doctor was seeing. This doctor is the top in his field ... only two doctors in the country even do the procedure to remove floaters by laser surgery. He didn’t even charge for the visit since he couldn’t find anything. I stayed at home (it was my day off) and did some cleaning. We have family coming this weekend and I wanted to take the opportunity to get the house in order. After they finished with the eye doctor they headed home and got lunch. Paul watched TV with Dad & Dora while I worked. It was a quiet evening. At 8:30 it is time for meds. Dad got the medicines and took them to Paul. Paul refused to take them. Dad tried to convince him to take them but he absolutely would NOT open his mouth. Finally Dad said “do you want to wait a little and tried again and Paul took them without a fuss!! He usually doesn’t do that but every once in a while he just needs to be “in charge”!!

Tuesday after breakfast Dad asked Paul if he wanted to go to the gym. He said “no”. When he asked “do you want to get out of the house?” he said “yes”. They decided to take a drive up to Skyline Drive. Uncle Jimmy came by for a little bit. He opted out of going on the drive since he would not be able to smoke in the car ... nobody smokes in our car. They headed out about 11am. They stopped at McDonald’s before going up on the mountain and got lunch. Paul has a pass for disabled folks and they get into the park for free. They rode for about five hours before heading home. After getting home Dad decided to take a nap. Dad said he thinks Paul napped a bit too. I didn’t have any meetings to go to so after dinner I decided to go to the grocery store and stock up on some foods. Paul’s snacks were almost gone and we were getting low on most of our dinner foods. Dad & Paul always enjoy shopping day ... we have lots of choice for snacking that day!! LOL Later in the evening Dad had the movie “Blazing Saddles” on. It is a classic and we enjoy it but at 10pm it is time for “House”. Dad asked Paul “do you want to watch the movie or House?” and without hesitation Paul said “House”. He really likes that show. At 11:30pm Dad was ready for bed. He got Paul up and headed down the hall but when they got to the entrance to Paul’s bedroom he turned around and came back to the living room. He really wasn’t ready for bed. Dad thought about leaving him in his recliner and going to bed but instead he waited a few more minutes and tried again. Dad finally got him to go to bed about midnight.

Wednesday is therapy day. He went to OT at 9:30am. She worked on sitting and standing. She hopes to strengthen his ability to sit and stand by himself. It also works on balance ... He sat at the edge of the workout table and had his feet were on a step. He had to lean over and pick up balls and reach up to hand them to Dad. This makes him bend, reach and turn. She has a piece of material that has snaps, buttons, Velcro etc. She had him unbutton all the buttons ... he did them ALL with ONE HAND! Then she had him do snaps. There were four snaps that she asked him to undo. Then she had him put them back together by folding the snaps over and doing them with one hand as well! She asked him to redo the buttons but he told her “no” Speech is right after OT and today was the last session that we’ve been authorized to get. She worked counting. She had him identify some common utensils, spoon, cup, straw. She asked him “what do you do with a straw?” and he took the straw and put it in the cup. Paul practiced writing his name ... she wrote his name backwards on a piece of paper and had him trace it on the other side. He did OK ... he is getting a little better anyway. She also had him trace a circle ... he did a little better on that. Paul no longer has private insurance and only has Medicaid so that will limit what therapy he will get for a while. The Occupational Therapist wants to get Paul signed up for Physical Therapy to encourage more physical activity. After therapy they went to lunch and headed home. Dad ran errands in the afternoon. When he went to pick up Paul’s medicines he was told that Medicaid would not pay since it is not listed as the primary insurance but the primary insurance was showing as “cancelled”. We had to put in an emergency plea to our social worker at the department of Social Services to get her to update the computer showing Medicaid as primary. Oh boy ... so many things that can be problems! We got the problem fixed and got Paul’s medicines. We all went to dinner at Yorkshire Restaurant. The special for the night was Pot Roast and we all had that. Paul worked hard to eat it all but the plate was too much for him! Bill & Ronda came over after we got home (they didn’t eat with us tonight :-( ) and we had coffee. Bill had to take a look at my laptop computer ... it got something spilled on it over the weekend and now it doesn’t work! It looks like we may be in the market for a new one! The rest of the evening was spent watching TV. At 11:30 Dad asked Paul if he was ready for bed and he said “no”. He went to bed about midnight again.

Have a great day! Lynne & Carl