walking

Janet, A Success Story. July 6. #TSJ Good Friend

This morning was the opposite of Saturday as we both slept in rather than getting up early to watch tennis. Janet had a shower and is manoeuvring around the bathroom much better than when we first attempted showers here. I can remember practically carrying her in some cases, now I’m just a bit of a support.

It was just after ten by the time we were out making breakfast and we put our recorded version of the Gentlemen’s Championship of Wimbledon on. We let it play while we made and ate breakfast then Janet had her weekly Skype session with Mary/Gaga then we focused on the tennis. Janet impressed me over and over with her increasing knowledge of the game as well as her understanding of what was happening moment to moment. Her best comment came in the third set when she observed that Roger Federer was making most of his first serves and Novak Djokovic wasn’t. Brilliant.

I wasn’t planning on sitting through the entire match but Janet was really enjoying it and it was an amazing battle so we only sped through a small portion of it with Championship Point coming just as Kiko arrived for a visit. Janet initiated this get together as she had some questions coming out of Tim’s message at Trinity last week and thought Kiko would be a good person to talk to. She’s right, they enjoyed a nice afternoon together chatting away and sipping wine with Janet feeling really happy about it all afterwards and Kiko saying to me how impressed she was with Janet’s memory and social skills. There has been a very steady improvement in those areas the last little while and Janet is always at her best when she’s with people she cares about.

Sunday afternoon with a good friend.

Sunday afternoon with a good friend.


After a very brief nap to recoup a little we enjoyed a Chinese food dinner then made the sad trip back to Connect. The wheelchair was not used at all after breakfast today except for when I went to pick up dinner. Janet walked well, mostly with assistance today as I wanted her moving at a quicker pace and she did a great job on the steps multiple times.

Praying for a long night of healing sleep and an energetic Monday. Thanking Jesus for blessing us with amazing people in our lives.

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 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.

Janet, A Success Story. June 30. #TSJ

June left with a bang today as Janet showed amazing progress on the cognitive side of things. She called me after she’d finished her lunch and I got a sense that she was having a good day right away. She was laughing and speaking very clearly. Her first question was “did I catch you at lunch?” Usually there is no question at all, I am often expected to ask questions. She then launched into a speech about how she’d done all her exercises and been sitting in the sun and how excited she was that everyone from the house was about to walk over to the beach. All that with no prompting.

I fully expected to find Janet sleeping or at least about to get up from her nap when I got to her room at Connect. Not so, she was just wheeling out of it, saw me, and waved with a big smile on her face. She happily told me she didn’t have a nap and I figured that would come into play later. It did, as this was not Janet’s best night physically but that didn’t matter as it was stellar cognitively. She did manage a good walk to the kitchen to set the table. There was too much reliance on hanging onto things as she walked around but the job got done with just a few reminders along the way. We sat in the sun until dinner was ready and our conversation flowed well with Janet initiating sometimes. She did a great job in chatting with Andrew on Skype after dinner, sounding loud and clear and finding key words with a minimum of hesitation.

Janet continues to be a little frustrated with her reading skills and tonight did well as long as I helped her look all the way to the right. She definitely now lasts longer before the frustration sets in. The best part of the day came at the end when I always ask Janet to give me a rundown of her day. Most often she’ll get the first few things then kind of give up and say she doesn’t remember. Tonight she went non stop from getting up to going to the beach before I got there. Very impressive and encouraging. I’m praying Janet realizes the progress she has made and is continuing to make and that there is no stopping until she is fully healed.

Janet, A Success Story. June 29. #TSJ Relaxing

For once I felt totally OK in not having anything planned for the day and allowing the goal to be relaxation and it worked well. After quite a busy Friday and Saturday Janet had a relaxing and enjoyable Sunday which of course made it really difficult to take her back to Connect tonight.

Janet had a great Skype chat with her mom this morning and as I listened in from a distance I noticed Janet needing a minimum of cueing in answering questions and she stayed on topic really well. She performed equally well as we chatted with Scott and Nora from Chicago this afternoon. Janet was thrilled to discuss the wedding and family with someone else and loved seeing and talking to two awesome people. She even thinks its cool there is technology that allows us to do such things. We are blessed.

Slowly I am gaining confidence in my ability to back off and let Janet walk around the house on her own. She did that a lot today with varying degrees of success but never a hint of falling. I’m trying to give her space in hopes she’ll feel more free and her confidence will increase. So far I’d say its working as each time she reached her target area there was a big smile on her face and I don’t even have to ask her to walk anymore, she knows to do it and even said tonight that she “makes herself” do it. Love it!

Our relaxing day ended at Connect with Janet accepting she needs to get back to “work”. The fact she will now be coming home for weekends on Thursdays helped just a little too. Praying for a fun, progressive and productive week.

Janet, A Success Story. June 26. #TSJ Early Weekend

When Janet called me after lunch today I could sense right away where she was steering the conversation to. Yesterday she repeatedly asked if she could come home early for the weekend since its going to be such a busy one. I made her the usual deal of getting all her therapies done by lunchtime then we’d talk. She couldn’t tell me fast enough that she’d done just that then asked again if she could come home. How could I say no and why would I?

Janet agreed to a nap before I picked her up though and she was just getting up when I arrived. We are having some of the Connect staff over for a BBQ tomorrow so there was work to be done as soon as we got home and getting dinner was first up. Pizzas are a good project for Janet to help with and she loves eating them so that was dinner tonight. We are developing a good routine around pizza making. Janet, in her wheelchair, is able to get a lot of the ingredients and turn the oven on and she’s awesome and putting the sauces on before building the actual pizzas. It used to be that half of her toppings would end up anywhere but on her pizza. Not so now, she is creating masterpieces.

For the BBQ Janet was pretty insistent on having a dessert and wanted to make a carrot cake, her favourite. My baking past is not pretty so I was a reluctant participant in our effort tonight but I must say the end result looks pretty good and the icing is awesome. Janet broke eggs and mixed things together for the cake really well then decided to chat with Laurel for a bit while I figured out the icing. After catching up a little on our So You Think You Can Dance watching, Janet iced the carrot cake before going to bed.

Because of all the kitchen work, Janet was in her wheelchair more than I would’ve liked tonight but that is the best way for her to be able to help. She did stand to ice the cake and had to walk up the two steps from the garage when we got home today as I’ve taken away the wheelchair ramp. There is a grab bar on her left side and using that she effortlessly got up both steps. High five! I may not put the ramp back if going down the steps is just as good.

Praying for a night of reenergizing sleep and a fun Friday.

Janet, A Success Story. June 25. #TSJ

The lunch time phone call today came from Janet who said she had everything done including sitting in the sun a lot. I was glad to hear that and could recognize the energy that had given her. She said she wasn’t going to nap today and asked if I could come out a little earlier than planned as Jess wanted to talk to me. I arrived just after three, talked to Jess as she was leaving, went to Janet’s room to find Curtis helping her get ready for a nap. Now she was tired. Sheesh. Jess was giving me the heads up that there is an opportunity to go hiking on July 26. The CRIS Program would be leading the day and Janet would be pushed in a wheelchair adapted for rough terrain. She of course isn’t wanting to go but so far the calendar is clear then and I think I can convince her to try, she used to love that sort of thing.

It wasn’t much of a nap and when Janet woke up she immediately asked to go to the bathroom. I like it when that happens. After a little sun soaking Janet set the table for dinner then went back outside to warm up. We are having a hard time with the air-conditioning always blasting at Connect and don’t understand why people think its necessary. It wasn’t too bad during dinner but a nice walk in the sun afterwards made Janet feel good. Up until that point she had been walking freestyle the whole time and continues to do better than when holding my hand. A perfect example was going through the door to the patio with me and moving side to side so much she bonked her head on the door jam. Janet still wants to hang onto me for security sake but I’m trying to convince her to fly on her own.

Angie has a 3D TV that we moved out into the living room so people could watch Avatar in 3D. That was a new experience for Janet and although she didn’t really get the movie she enjoyed watching it in 3D and was impressed that it looked so cool. Unlike her.

Janet's Ray Charles impersonation.

Janet’s Ray Charles impersonation.


Unfortunately when she was done watching she habitually tried closing the glasses not knowing they don’t close. There is some damage to one arm that I might be able to fix. I hope.

Praying for a night of uninterrupted sleep and a happy Thursday.

Janet, A Success Story. Wedding Special. Video

Wedding day could not have gone any better from Janet’s perspective. She woke up too early but easily nodded off again for a good long sleep in. There was no way she would get a nap that day so I was glad she slept in.

After a shower and breakfast it was time to start getting ready. Courtney did a great job with Janet’s hair before I took her over to Heather’s where all the girls were getting beautified.
JanetHairClose
The plan was that Janet would hang out until Heather had her dress on so that the Mother of the Bride could get a sneak peak, but in true girl fashion, things were running behind schedule so that never happened. Laurel applied some make up on Janet, she totally doesn’t need it, and after watching the bridal party get primped it was time for us to gather some of the rest of the family and get out to the wedding venue.
LaurelJanetMakeUp
The weather was perfect and the Britannia Yacht Club surprisingly beautiful. I had no idea there was such a beautiful spot in Ottawa.
LarryJanetYachtClub

The guys were on time and the girls fashionably late and no one seemed to mind as we took in the scenery. Janet had long set the goal to walk at Heather’s wedding and she achieved that in spades. I thought she might be able to walk part way down the aisle with Heather during the ceremony but there really wasn’t room to do that and Heather wasn’t feeling too stable in her shoes to support Janet if needed. The compromise was for Janet to meet Heather at the front and take a few steps with her to meet Allan. That part worked well and was all Janet really wanted as she got a nice hug from her new son in law and said “goodbye honey” to her daughter which brought peels of laughter from everyone gathered. A solid Janet moment.

I walked with Janet down the aisle after the ceremony so we could congratulate the newlyweds and Janet stayed on her feet for a good half hour after that as we took pictures and visited with family. The reception was held on the upper floor of the yacht club and since their elevator was not completed yet Janet had the use of a human elevator to get up the long flight of stairs. Four of us carried her in her wheelchair like she was Cleopatra and got her into the party where she wasted no time in getting a glass of wine going. The room was the perfect size and decorated nicely, the staff were very professional and friendly. Janet ate a good dinner and was pumped up to give her surprise speech. She wrote and had been trying to memorize a speech for Heather and Allan for about a month now. I was confident she could get it locked into her memory and practicing in a quiet room she was getting close. In a room buzzing with the excitement of a wedding there was no way. Even with the written speech in front of her Janet was too excited to stick to the script. She made her point well though and earned another standing ovation.

The highlight of this day for me in relation to Janet had to be when we got to dance together. The “official” first dance was just ending and no one had joined in as they had been invited to so I grabbed Janet and out onto the floor we went. Heather and Allan were thrilled someone was willing to get things started and Janet got more comfortable after the dance floor filled up. She was able to get a little hip action going as well as move her feet while holding my hand. It was very exciting and something I’ll never forget.
FirstDance
As the party got louder and the room hotter Janet called it a night around 10:30 or so. She did amazing all day and I know she will remember this day for a long long time as it meant so much to her.

AllanHeatherDance

JanetLarryKiss

Praying for a life filled with love and happiness for Heather and Allan and thanking Jesus for Janet and all she is able to do.