Month: July 2014

Janet, A Success Story. July 5. #TSJ Final Saturday

As expected, 5:45am came quickly and Janet, even in the fog of sleep knew it was time to get up and watch Genie Bouchard play for the Ladies Championship at Wimbledon. Sadly Genie lost, happily there’s lots more tennis to come this year. We never made it to the Futures event at all today as Janet’s wheelchair developed a problem that took the rest of the morning to temporarily resolve and that put us way behind schedule.

Janet did some good walking and stair climbing throughout the day and a lot in the morning because she didn’t have a wheelchair for most of it. That was a good lesson in how much Janet still needs the wheelchair as it’s fine to think she doesn’t when you have it but it’s a whole other ball game when you don’t. Janet’s best walking came at church as she walked down and then up the aisle unassisted and got a standing ovation from our friend Carol. She was standing and waiting to greet us when we got to our seats but that still counts in my book.

Tonight we watched the movie The Butler and really enjoyed it. Janet was impressed with how much history the lead character lived through and she remembered a lot of it, mostly from the mid seventies on. When asked to name the date and her meds tonight Janet got it all correct with no prompting at all! She even thought that was pretty good.

Praying for a rejuvenating sleep and a productive Sunday.

PS. This will be the last blog update from a Friday or Saturday as I’m finding it too time consuming to do this when Janet is home. My plan is to stop the daily updates as soon as Janet is home full time so this is a way of weaning y’all off. Of course any earth shattering developments will be posted promptly no matter the day.

Janet, A Success Story. July 4. #TSJ Tennis Babe

Early this morning Janet “woke up” repeatedly asking me for my “ticket”. She was very much in a dream yet appeared to be awake. It was a little unnerving and when she did snap out of it all she could explain was we were all heading “home” from somewhere. Not as fun as the cruise dream but certainly Janet was deeper into this one.

After breakfast we went to visit John for a bit as we hadn’t seen him for a few weeks. Janet was able to tell him some wedding and travel stories and we all talked soccer and tennis. Janet was pleased we went as she believes John is always happy to see us. Who isn’t?

Since Janet has been enjoying tennis on TV so much I decided to take her to see some live. There is a Futures tournament on here now and never having seen live professional tennis before we decided to check it out.

Intently watching the action.

Intently watching the action.


It was a lot of fun and we both were impressed by the intensity of the players. You see it on TV but feel it when you’re there. The semi finals are tomorrow and we may go back as we will be on a tennis high after Genie Bouchard wins Wimbledon.

I allowed Janet to walk around the house as she pleased today in line with what Tez said yesterday and she did well. There was no leaning on anything and she tackled the open areas with reasonable confidence. She did an awesome job on the steps to and from the garage, hardly using me at all. Overall, a good day.

Praying for a restful night of sleep and a fun Saturday.

Janet, A Success Story. July 3. #TSJ

I got my phone call from Janet much earlier than typical today as she very excitedly called me right after Genie Bouchard won her semi final match at Wimbledon. Janet watched the last half of the match during her breakfast and was super excited Genie won, so much so that we are getting up early Saturday to watch the Championship live. Janet is liking both the game of tennis (“it’s played in a nice warm, clean place”) and the person that Genie seems to be (“a nice and intelligent good looking person”).

Another thing that got Janet all excited today was getting to come home for the weekend. Garrett commented that Janet really took the initiative in regards to her exercise routine this morning by walking up to him on a couple of occasions and asking if she could do something. According to Janet she was motivated by not only wanting to get them done but by the prospect of coming home. Whatever works.

Tez was in the building today and offered a few tips on walking. I’ve been nagging Janet to stop hanging onto walls and furniture while walking freestyle and Tez says not to worry about that as long as Janet isn’t leaning onto things for support. If it’s for security purposes its fine. I asked him about Janet walking barefoot for a few steps and he thought that wasn’t the greatest idea but if Janet wants to do so using her cane and carefully stepping out with her right foot so it lands flat on the floor, fine. We brought the cane home in case she wants to try. The motivation for this is to refrain from using the wheelchair as much as possible including first thing in the morning and when going to the bathroom after having gotten into bed at night or after a nap. Sounds like it may be a little too soon to really go after.

Janet was a big help at dinner time tonight, preparing a veggie stir fry by herself except for getting the very heavy frying pan out and turning on the cooktop. I could have sat back and drank wine while she cooked. Maybe tomorrow.

Praying for a long night of reenergizing sleep and a productive Friday.

Janet, A Success Story. July 2. #TSJ Sailing Away

Yesterday,Garrett and I had tried to persuade Janet into going sailing with a few people today. She of course was having nothing of the idea but couldn’t argue with Garrett this morning as the weather was great and we had worked her enough that she felt she had to go. I don’t like pressuring Janet to do something she doesn’t want to do unless I feel its good for her and to venture out with people she likes into the sunshine is good for her. Later on she told me the sailing “wasn’t so great” but they all went out for coffee after and “that was fun”.

As it turned out, Janet could have pretty much stayed at the yacht club all day as the Sailing Association invited all of its users to a BBQ in honour of the naming of their new boat this evening. I met Janet and the gang there and we spent a nice couple of hours on the waterfront complete with food and wine.

The gang and Janet with her wine shooter. #thatswhatboatingisallabout

The gang and Janet with her wine shooter. #thatswhatboatingisallabout


There really wasn’t time to do much when we got back to Connect so I took Janet for a speed walk around the place. She wasn’t very happy about it but did very well, walking faster than I can remember and not stumbling at all. She did a good amount of freestyle walking as well including the trip to get her meds when she answered all of Chelsea’s questions as to what she takes correctly without help for the first time ever. She even got the day, month, date, year thing a hundred percent. High five!

Praying for a night of restful sleep and for more progress tomorrow.

Janet, A Success Story. July 1. #TSJ New Hair

There wasn’t much going on for Canada Day in Lake Country tonight so it was a good thing Connect took a bunch of residents over to the festivities in the park this morning. Janet was super excited to tell me she’d seen “some doggies doing a show”. Sounded like a Super Dogs kind of thing and she loved it.

They spent pretty much the whole morning over there which meant all of Janet’s gym work had to be done after her nap. She did have a nap today and was refreshed enough to not protest going to the gym. I did insist that she arrange it with Garrett by walking down to the kitchen area first and told her I’d meet her there. This was the first time I’ve left her unsupervised walking at Connect and I was more than a little nervous about it. Janet clearly was not though and made it down in good time, cheating a little bit by hanging onto the wall for the last few feet. Garrett and I told her if she keeps doing that she’ll have to wash the walls each day. I don’t think that will actually deter her but I do hope she stops doing that soon. Garrett ran her through the Shuttle and some stretching then I supervised the bike ride. Janet did well with them all.

The rest of the evening was pretty quiet with Janet walking a lot on her own, completing a Standing Frame session and watching a little TV. The most exciting thing today was the surprise I got when I went to get Janet up from her nap and saw her hair in a ponytail. I knew her hair was getting long and am glad we are now able to do something different with it.

Rockin the Pony

Rockin the Pony


She loves it too so now I have to learn some new tricks. If anyone wants to give lessons let me know. Praying for lots of sleep and a fun Wednesday.