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 .

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 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.

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.

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.

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.