Grate and Greater

Stan Here:

Let me start with a joke. I think this one might be a little old but somebody told me once that things are sometimes good when you start with a Joke.

This guy walks into a vet office and he is carrying a limp dog. He is yelling "HELP, HELP". The vet staff immediately gets the dog on the table and the vet comes in and examines the dog. He backs away and somberly tells the guy that the dog is dead.  The guy says that this just cannot be and demands a second opinion. He says this dog has just been running around in the back yard less than one hour ago. So the vet goes in the back and gets a cat. The cat sniffs up and down the dog and retreats a couple of feet and just shakes it's head.  The guy ask for yet another opinion and the vet goes and gets a black lab out of the back and the lab also looks over the dog and backs away and shakes its head.  The guy, finally gripping that his dog is dead offers to pay the bill and the vet says it will be $650.  $650 the guy says, that seems like a lot for 10 minutes worth of work.  The vet says it would have only been $50 if you took my word for it, but the cat scan and the lab reports are $300 each.

Now I am not sure why I wanted to tell that joke. Perhaps only because we have sort of learned that cat scans and lab reports do add up and one of the good things that we have is solid insurance.  Not sure why but somehow cat scans they charge $150 after insurance and I am guessing there have been about twelve of those things in this all.  I do have some good news though.  The smile report is a little more optimistic.  These last few days I have seen the corner of Deb's mouth curl up a little more and the smile is coming back a little.  I think that is coming from enjoying a few good meals and the social nature of at least  sitting down at a table with our family and friends and enjoying the experience of eating again. Things are going pretty well but still plenty of pain. Slowly but surely life is looking a little more normal. As reported earlier this whole experience takes some serious grate but some confidence is returning that getting over the grate will make things greater. I will tell you there has been plenty of grate. (Is that a word?)

On another topic we moved my parents to Freedom Village yesterday.  We had most of the family help. Many hands makes light work and some of the grandchildren are so strong that dressers are picked up like feathers. The rest of the stuff looks like toys in the hands of young strong movers and we had the thing mostly done in 4 hours.  My mom and dad have always been real nice to the grandchildren and I think the kids all wanted to show them that they could help them out as well. I drove the truck, the grandchildren loaded the stuff and even Deb came over after and chipped in with a few things to help them get all settled in.  The new place looked so good when we where done that my mom said it felt like home. In that way it was a great day. Kind of fun to work with everybody and we did not break one thing.  It is a huge transition for anybody to move from a home of 23 years to any type of care facility and it all went as well as could be imagined. Plus we had a nice sunny day.  How can you beat that?

One of our friends is bringing over a meal this afternoon.  Thanks Deb B!!!   She is bringing meatloaf.  That is the first meal Deb made in our home some 38 years ago.  At least now we have 2 people here who can eat it.  All in all moving from grate to greater.  Progress is always fun. Maybe also a while before we have to worry about cat scans and lab results.

Stan