6/14/04 7:49am
Good Morning to all of you,

Sorry not to have written last week, but I was kinda busy running the folks to the doctors. I had 3 appointments last week. Dad had 2 and Mom had 1. Dad's were with the hand/bone doctor and mom's was with the cardiologist.

Let's see, I took Dad to the family doctor the week before (June 3rd) and she didn't like how his hand was looking in the cast so she wanted us to see the hand doctor. Their office is just accross the hall in the same building, and even the same floor. So we went over there and Dr. L was in Korea doing Mission work and wouldn't be back in the office until the 8th. So they referred Dad to their partner's office so we got an appointment on friday the 4th. That hand doctor decided the cast needed to be gone, so off it came. They said they wanted Dad to see the therapist at Dr. L's office on Monday, June 7th and to keep the June 8th appointment. So off Dad and I went to see the therapist on Monday. She didn't like the fact that Dad was only is the cast 3 weeks and taken out with out a splint. So she put Dad into a splint and wanted to see what Dr. L said the next day. So Dr. L wants to keep Dad in the splint for another 3 weeks and then start therapy. This splint immoblizes the middle, ring and pinky fingers. Oh, and the other MD. Dr. Harvey took x-rays of Dad's hand after he removed the cast and noted that the middle finger was also broken in the same place as the ring finger.

Mom had a trip to the cardiologist on Thursday the 10th and we loaded Dad up too. I got Dad his PT/PTT drawn and they did Mom's too. The Cardiologist thought Mom looked well and said we didn't have to come back (except to do the PT/PTT monthly) for 6 months.

Mom is really doing pretty well. She is much more alert and she is tollerating sitting in the wheelchair much more. She is keeping her head up pretty well and is starting to do a bit of magazine reading. She was also pretty glued to the TV watching the Reagan Funeral. On Wed, when they were moving the body from Ca. to DC, she was just fixed to the tube. In fact she "threw" me out of the room, that day. She looked at me and started waving her hand at me to go and doing the crying thing, so I left the room and she calmed down. I guess I was making too much noise reading my magazine while sitting on Dad's bed.

We are working on trying to get Mom her own wheelchair. We are currently renting one, and it not the best for her. In order to get Medicare to pay for one it is an act of God. There is a big Medicare fraud, here in Houston, for the electric wheelchairs and Medicare is not really paying for them for many people. In fact, there has only been less than a dozen granted in the past 6 months. We found this guy who is helping us with the chair and he feels that Mom could use an electric one, so we are going to try and get one for her. Mom answered his questions from him with pointing to the yes or no board we have for her and he felt she is very capable of using one.

I will keep all of you posted on the progress with the wheelchair. Oh, and the girls are now having Mom in the wheelchair at the dining room table for her meals and mom is feeding herself and she doesn't have to have her food ground up. I tried having her use a fork the other day and she did well with that. She usually uses a spoon, but I had some cake for her and it wasn't working well with the spoon, and I asked Ola, if she could use a fork, and Liz said, lets give it a try. And Mom did well with the fork. It is hard to eat with a fork with your left hand if you are right handed! I have tried it and it is not the same, it is hard. Way to go Mom!.

I better get back to work.

Love and hugs from all of us here in TX.

Mary