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!

Two days before Christmas and it certainly going to be a different Christmas for most of us. We are certainly going to miss Steve. Linda and Steve often came to PA for a few days and Sandy and I have talked about some of the funny stories that Steve related about his senior friends at work. Linda went out of the hospital for the first time today. She was accompanied by two therapists and another patient on a trip to a pizza parlor. She didn’t want to go but did because she felt she had to go to make everybody happy. She did ultimately have a good time. We didn’t want her to have her first outing to be the memorial on the 8th. Currently she feels that she is not making progress at the pace she did earlier. She is concerned that they are pushing her to get her out by Feb. 1. They told her that they would not push her out if she wasn’t ready. This was comforting to her but she still feels that she needs to be further down the road. We have been told that we will be trained over a period of 4 days in January on those things that we need to know in order to bring Linda to Thorndale. To say the least we are looking forward to Linda coming but we are scared. We are looking for a wheel chair van so we can go places with Linda. If anyone knows of one available let me know. The rehab. is ordering all the medical equipment and having it sent here so we can figure out what we need to do to accomodate Linda. Sandy and I will be having a quiet Christmas with Kevin and Jess, Eric and Jill. We wish you a wonderful Christmas and a safe New Year.

I am sorry this website has not been updated for awhile but Linda got a new room and a new phone number but it wasn’t working for a few days and we did not talk to her for about four days. Linda tends to spend a lot of time running around in her wheel chair and is not in her room too often. Her new room number is 702. She continues to make slow but steady progress. Most of the progress that is visible is her face and the paralysis therein. She was able to make her right eye open a little today and was able to see her lap and for some of us seeing our laps is a big deal. She is still hoping to get more from the eye specialist. She can feel her eye blinking a little. She is swallowing better and is one step down from a regular diet, eating cold cereal, meats and other such delicacies. She is learning to turn side to side with the momentum of her shoulders. She is looking into a wheelchair van, a Hoya Lift and other medical paraphenalia that she will need when she comes to Pennsylyvania. She gets a lot of pain in her ribcage and still has the pain caused by the “tight band” around her chest. This is a common sensation for people with thoracic paralysis which should eventually go away. A reminder about the memorial service. It will be on January 8th at 2:00PM at the UCC church in Ipswich. Let’s hope the weather is cooperative. Sandy and I are going up to Boston on January 6th and staying until the 11th when we fly home with Ruth. Ruth will be back in Boston on December 18th.

Sandy and I have opened the possibility to Linda to come to Thorndale with us for an indefinite period of time. Most of the downstairs is relatively handicap accessible with a few modifications necessary. We have two bedrooms, a family room, laundry room, sun room/kitchenette and a handicap bathroom all on the ground floor.
Linda was very optimistic today and realistic about the future. She understands that going back to her house on Bunker Hill Rd. may not be practical. Again time will tell. She used a hand wheelchair today and did well. She is hoping the insurance will pay for an electric wheel chair and buy a hand chair herself if necessary. She feels she wont be able to use a non-electric for any length of time. Her short term memory is still not very good. She can remember who visits but not what she ate at her last meal. She knows her financial status and has a good memory for numbers. During rounds today she was seen by four doctors and made the comment that “where else can you eat breakfast, sit on the pot and have a house call from four doctors all at the same time.” The hearing doctor will see her tomorrow, and the eye doctor by the end of the week. She is anxious to hear from them both.

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.

Tiny steps will get you there just as surely as big ones. It may take some time but you will get there. In that light, Linda has managed to open her right eye with the help of some strategically placed adhesive tape. She said that her vision is quite clear our of her right eye which is the better of the two under normal circumstances. Linda is really enjoying the cards, letters and emails that she is recieving. Ruth will be in Boston until next Tuesday and then she will be returning to Hellertown to Muffin who is missing her very much. Seems Muffin is spending a lot of time alone lately. Conversly, Jingles is loving the attention she is getting with Ruth being at the house.
I was working outside today and suddenly I heard a voice inside my head telling me to paaak the caaa in Baaston yaaadd. I truly will miss Steve. I am glad we had a chance to visit in September. Sandy and I have some really neat memories. Sorry, I can’t see what I’m writing anymore. Check in again soon.

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.

Sorry for the delay for the update. We were a little slow on setting up our account on the blog website.
As for Linda’s update; As of today Linda was able to “eat” some custard which is the first “solid” food in more than 34 days. She does not have pancreatitis as originally thought. The eye doctor saw her and wants to give her another month or so to give her cranial nerve time to allow the swelling to go down. The eye doctor said there is a way of putting a gold piece in her eye that will allow her eye to close once she initiates the move herself. Again he wants to wait until more of the swelling goes down before attempting any procedure. They are planning to try to irrigate the ears to increase her hearing but again they feel the crainial nerve is part of the problem. She is really enjoying the company she has been getting. She was very concerned about what people would think since her paralysis is noticable. Stacy and Shane have been going over in the evenings. They have been teaching her how to assist in the transfer from bed to chair. She seems to have a positive attitude. Thank you for all the prayers and visits and keep those cards and letters pouring in. Mom (Ruth) will be flying out of Philly for Boston on Sunday for about 9 days.
Sandy and I will do our best to keep this up to date and we hope we can do just half as well as Eric did in the first month.

At 9:30 tomorrow morning an ambulance will take Aunt Linda to Mount Hope Airport. At 10:30, a lear jet will take her to Bedford, MA. The flight will be about 50 minutes. From there she will be transferred by ambulance to Spaulding Rehab.Mom, Dad, and Gram will get into Philadelphia Airport at about 5pm.

It looks like she will be going to Spaulding Rehab in Boston on Wednesday. Her right side is starting to do a little bit better. At this point, it would seem that she is going to be paralyzed from the chest down. There is a small possibility for improvement. In the recent past, they put in a PIC (sp?) tube in — essentially an “always-on” IV. They also put in a PEG (sp?) tube — a feeding tube.Mom, Dad, and Gram (Aunt Sis) will be headed back to PA after Aunt Linda is transferred.

Absolute plans should be made some time tomorrow.