Sunday, December 3, 2017

Guess what Gene and I finally did??!!

Gene has always lifted Casey in and out of his chair and in and out of bed.  The nurses and I will try to time it for when Gene is here and available, or we will use the Hoyer lift.  The nurses and I are pretty good at it.  Each nurse and I have a routine of who does what.  There's a lot of fiddling around of equipment--like moving the cough machine, Tobii stand, IPV machine, or whatever happens to be in the area. It takes a certain finesse which takes a bit of time to acquire and sometimes we have it and it's a smooth run and sometimes it's a flub.  Casey has never been hurt but I'm sure sometimes we look like the Keystone Cops or the Three Stooges, hahaha.

Gene had always hated the lift.  He thought it was a pain and took too much time, blah, blah, blah.  We have always encouraged him to use it but he was stubborn.  Finally, he gave in.  His back and other parts have been bugging him lately so he's been having the nurse and I do the lift.  (It can be done with one person but is pretty tricky so it's way better to have two people).  Well, Thursday we had no nurse but Paula was coming to the house to do some school for a couple of hours and Casey needed to be in his chair so....we did it!  And we did it pretty smoothly.

We've done it a couple of times ourselves since and we're getting into our groove.  Pretty proud :)

Christmas Cards

Christmas cards are finding their way to our mailbox, so thank you. 

Christmas 2013 was the last Christmas that we had our Colin physically here with us.  It was also the last time I sent out holiday cards.  I enjoyed the whole process of holiday cards.  Making my list, joining a card exchange with SMA families, picking out cards, thinking up how to dress and pose the boys, and trying to get a decent photo :), writing out the cards and envelopes and even putting the stamps on each envelope. 

But without Collie, it's too hard.  I can't imagine doing all the above and not having Colin included in our picture.  I just can't. 

So you won't be getting a card from us this year (or in the previous 3 years)  Thank you for all of those that continue to send us cards without us reciprocating.  I know some of you have asked, especially our first year without Collie, if we wanted to get a card from them--most likely with a picture of their family.  I said "yes."  It was hard to see the cards come in that first year but I still cherished each one.