End of October Update from Linda

Dear friends,

It seems like it would be good to let you know how Graham is doing these days.

He has finally got caregivers who are helping as he needs the help, though he is still on the lookout for more as they need relief sometimes! He also needs a new weekend caregiver soon. Thanks to members of the church and other friends, he is also getting regular visits during times when caregivers are absent. Things are definitely more settled in his life. He is even getting regular physiotherapy from the caregivers and we believe this is helping to strengthen his muscles and body in general.

He has been going through some of his many, many boxes and culling and sorting to make more room in the second bedroom so that visitors or possibly a relief night caregiver will have a room in which to rest/sleep.

We feel that the apartment has been very good for Graham. He still is learning how to deal with things there, but has come a long, long way from where he started 21 months ago. Being in his own place really means he is finally LIVING his life rather than having things decided by someone else's schedules. The ceiling hoist has really been wonderful to move him around from bed to chair and so forth. The ramp, desk and table are useful items to make his life easier. He has gadgets to help turn on lights and so forth, and we are hoping soon for a new gadget that might help him get his computer on for him. Of course, he always needs someone to put his headset on, so that is not as imperative as other aides. It would be nice if he could open and close his own door eventually, and also change the television channels! However, all in all, he has got a pretty nifty set up.

Graham is about to start doing some abstract work for ABC-Clio, so that means that after a year in California he has finally reached a point of being able to do what he set out to do so long ago -- do something productive rather than simply being entertained! We are all very proud of his efforts to reach this point and very thankful to the California Department of Rehabilitation for all their hard work to help him. I doubt Graham would be where he is today without their unending assistance.

Thanks also to the friends who continue to help Graham. If you have not visited him yet, do think about going along some afternoon. It is probably best to phone first to make a time so that he is around and not off at some medical appointment or in the local area with another visitor!

I am planning to visit again for Graham's 60th Birthday -- actually I will be flying on the actual date (29th January) and stay for about 3 weeks. Perhaps we could have a celebration for him at the church when I am there??

Kind regards to you all,
Linda

A message from our FL Graham

9/15/2006

Dear one and all,

There is no end to the mysteries of computers to me. Why this e-mail message should began three lines from the top is a puzzle; however, given that this message was based on Airasa's last update, there probably is a relationship between the extra space at the top and my deleting the rest of her message. For the record, I used her last message so that I could get the many e-mail addresses that she had in her list of people to contact by using the reply all option.

This voice recognition software is rather good but today it seems to be a bit cranky with respect to recognizing what I am trying to say. Therefore, I am having to make a lot of corrections and even that process has been a little quirky today. I am torn between simply dictating my message and letting the errors be puzzled out as best as you can or simply laughed over and the process of correcting everything as I go along, which would probably make for a short communication. Of course, between the weakness of my voice and the fact that this update is only 10 days after airasa's, the message may be short in any event.

The celebration of Airasa and Ian's wedding last month that Goleta Presbyterian Church was especially rewarding in that there were so many people from so many different parts of my life and, even more so, so many had traveled such a great distance to wish them well. I was also touched are you the presence of people that I had not seen in some time and whom I had no idea would be attending this marvelous occasion, such as Sue and Art and Rosemary and Phil. My one regret is that I had not made a greater effort beforehand to think of appropriate words to mark the occasion; in retrospect, I also wish I had made some effort to circulate among the crowd. Fortunately, these lapses of mine did not diminish the enthusiasm of the participants and the love that they obviously showed to my daughter and son-in-law.

Airasa is very generous in her description of my meeting the challenges that seem to crop up every day as being calm and working through them without going off the deep end. In truth, many times I am quite worried about how things will develop, especially with respect to caregivers. The one who lives with me is marvelous and quite a precious person, but I have been sometimes overwhelmed with the difficulty of getting reliable ones to look after me in the morning, roughly 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at present, we have engaged the services of a freelance caregiver at a significant cost per hour to solve this problem. We've managed to scrape the money together to keep going for two or three weeks but the situation cannot go on indefinitely and I really have no idea what I'll do when the money runs out if I don't have another caregiver through in-home supportive services, which is a county program to assist poor people who have this need. Admittedly, the morning part of my daily life is the most involved, what with eating, medication, toileting, bathing, getting me dressed, and getting me into my chair to carry on the rest of my day.

Hey! I figured out how to get rid of those extra lines! This may seem like a minor matter, but I have learned with the e-mail messages that I have been writing this week to practice the voice recognition software that error correction is a primary aspect of its usage. This will be no small matter when I start doing abstracts for my former company, a prospect that both excites and intimidates me. As with everything, I basically will have to take things one day at a time, sometimes even one hour at a time.

My life is made up of requests it seems so it is appropriate at that time he make a request here. I made your pride shacks that I have only made a stab at so far is to get my house in order, which primarily means going through all the many boxes that have all my stuff, primarily books and magazines and cassettes and compact disks, doing severe culling so that I can make some sense and room out of the second bedroom. I would greatly appreciate the help of any one of you who might have a couple hours on an afternoon without something terribly exciting to do to come by and give me a hand in this project.

It's been an hour and three quarters that I have been working on this communication and I am pooped so I am going to close with the thought that if each paragraph represented a short entry abstract I should do fairly well when it comes to that challenge! Please keep in touch as you will; I always appreciate hearing from important people in my life, even if I cannot keep in touch or reply as fully as I would like.

Love, peace, joy, the works,

Graham