TheRuths.net

My Dad’s service has come and gone. It was in the middle of a blizzard, as he planned it to be. Some of my father’s ashes lay above his parents grave in Amesbury, the rest of him now back to Mother Earth as he always wished. The music was beautiful and the eulogies simply perfect!
As for Grams, Aunt Sandy and Uncle Ron, they are safely back in PA. Aunt Sandy and Uncle Ron spent most of their trip up here with mom learning her daily routine. Afterall in about three weeks she will be making the tranisition down to their house to live with them for 3-6 months.
Mom has been doing well. As always she has her good days and bad. She has been thinking about Dad alot and often misses him. Tuesday was an especially good day - mom put on both her shoes and tied them herself:) Today she traveled to Mass General to have a ‘permanent cath.’ put in. She is doing fine.
Overall the Riley Family is pulling through with the love and support of our wonderful family and friends. As always keep the email and mail coming to mom, it seems as if it’s almost like magic potion…. appluading the tiniest victories and hugging the biggest hurts!

Christmas for the Riley’s went well this year. Grams, Shane and I spent the day with Mom. We opened presents and enjoyed the day together. Although it wasn’t like our “normal” Christmas with the family, it was still nice. Hey, Christmas comes once a year…. We have many more! Well, here is a pic of the family on Christmas Day! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Yay for Mom, she has finally graduated to ‘regular food’ !!! Meaning she can now have things like toast, nuts, and raw vegetables. She also gets her meat or chicken as a whole and is required to cut it on her own. Mom continues to be in high spirits about her recovery but like everyone, has some down days. She is mostly concerned with her eye sight and frustrated that they aren’t healing as fast as she would like. Her therapists continue to work her hard and even on the tired days her goal to achieve independence gets her through that one last session.
This holiday season has come so quickly and soon enough the hospital will need it’s own mailroom for my mother. She has recieved so many wonderful letters and emails from people! As for Shane, Grams and I, we will be spending Christmas day with mom at the hospital. Although Christmas may be a little difficult this year…. we still have each other, and that’s what the holiday season is truly about!..
The new year is right around the corner and that means Dad’s service will be here before we know it. For those who do not yet know or would like a quick reminder, the service is January 8, 2005 at the First Church in Ipswich at 2:00 pm. There will be desserts provided after the service at the church.
My apologies for the delays in updates but life is quite busy for us all. I hope everyone enjoys the holidays! Merry Christmas!!

**** If anyone is interested in brinigng a baked good for after the service feel free to do so. If anyone has any more questions about the service you can email me at MusicianSR@Hotmail.com .

Article in the Ipswich Chronicle

So Mom, Shane and I have finally set up a date for Dad’s memorial service. It will be Saturday the 8 of January, 2005 at 2:00 pm at The First Church in Ipswich, 1 Meeting House Green, Ipswich, MA, 01938.
As for today, mom was up and about working as hard as usual. Today is her second day eating ’soft’ foods, such as pancakes, french toast, eggs and meatloaf…. which of course she is enjoying VERY much! She loves the visitors and mail she is getting, very happy to have a visit from the minister that married her and Steve. She’s maintaining a positive attitude and although times can be hard for her she continues to keep on fighting.

Sandy spoke with Linda this morning and she was in good spirits. Rick and Robin had just come in for a visit. Yesterday she was in a chair for 5-6 hours but she had a lot of company and she didn’t tire too fast. Among the visiters were Gail and Jennifer from the Chicopee area, Sherri and Kathy and of course Stacy and Ruth. Ruth is scheduled to fly home on Tuesday and as of yet has not scheduled a flight to go back to Boston. I am sure Muffin is missing her “mother”. Linda opened both eyes today and did not have double vision. Of the many things that concern Linda one of the biggest is her vision. Just a reminder, since Linda is unlikely to see this website emails should be sent to her via the link at the top of the Riley page. Any emails that show up here will be forwarded to her but it is faster if you use the link that takes you to the form to fill out. That allows the emails to be delivered directly to Linda.

Thanksgiving finds Linda in good spirits (maybe because she doesn’t have to cook). She is doing more and more for herself including washing. She was watching one of the Thanksgiving Day parades. Her right eye is open for now and she can see fairly clearly. She can see the TV but still has trouble reading. Perhaps books on tape would be a good idea for the time being. Shane brought in her prescription glasses and that has made a difference. She is going to reinstate her cell phone contract which was cancelled after the accident until such time as she would want to renew it. So you may end up getting a phone call someday from Linda. Stacy is bringing food from work and Ruth and Shane are stopping at Boston Market and taking that in to have with Linda as Thanksgiving dinner. The nurses were getting her up around 10:00AM and she is hoping that she wont be too tired later when her family comes in for dinner. She loves the cards and letters and email because they brighten her day. The therapists are saying she is making terrific progress and by the time she leaves Spaulding she will be able to do everything but transfer herself from chair to bed and back.

Ok most of you are going to read this and say “that’s it?” There are times when there is not a lot to say. Ruth flew up from Philly today (go Eagles!) and was picked up by Barb and Tony who visited before driving back to Chicopee. Linda was glad to see her mom again, after all it has been about 9 days. Linda’s cousin Robert from Rhode Island stopped in for a visit today. There have been some highs and lows with visits. This weekend Linda did not get many visitors except for Stacy and Shane and this got her down a little. We tried to explain that this is going to happen but when she can’t see to read or watch television the quiet times can be a little too quiet. She is kept busy during the week but they do very little rehab on the weekends. A rehab specialist is making a visit to the house in Ipswich tomorrow to determine what would have to be done to make the house suitable for Linda to live in once she can leave Spaulding. We suspect the changes are going to have to be extensive and perhaps prohibitive, but time will tell.

Hey everyone, thanks to Eric I can now add daily updates to The Riley site.

Another good day for mom…. she had a chat with her doctor today about how far she has come in the past week and a half and the possibility of her going home to attend the memorial service for my father (which we have no exact plans and dates for yet). She had no visitors during the day but enjoyed the time to herself to take a nice nap and rest up between her therapies. She washed her hair by herself today and is really looking forward to seeing her mom tomorrow. She is so excited for her to see how incredibley far she has come in such a short amount of time!
My mother, brother and I are working on arrangements for my fathers service so as soon as we have definites we will be sure to let you know.
We would also like to say thank you to everyone of you for your love and support throughout these difficult times. We especially thank Aunt Sandy, Uncle Ron, Grams and Aunt Pat for doing so much!
Keep the email and mail coming because it sure does bring a smile to my moms face at the end of a long, hard day.

They made the mistake of giving Linda a sleeping pill last night and that is exactly what she did, until about 2pm this afternoon. They did what they had to do and she just kept on going back to sleep. She had real food today and enjoyed it thoroughly even tho it was pretty well ground up so she could swallow it without choking. She is getting her sense of smell back. Her spirits continue to be high even though one of the nurses put her eardrops in her eye. This could have had bad consequences had they not irrigated it right away. Stacy’s friend Elmy, who is a nurse, found a small pressure sore on Linda’s foot and brought that to the attention of the nurse. They put pressure sore boots on her and it cleared up nicely. There are 7 patients/nurse so it is not like Canada where Linda was a one-on-one most of the time she was there. Shane and Stacy continue to alternate visits. It is possible to email Linda through the hospital website which can be accessed by the link on this website. Unfortunately she can not respond at this time.