It is early and Nancy is still sleeping. This week’s first three days have gone well. At PT on Tuesday she worked hard and has sore muscles to show for it. Her heart rate and blood pressure behaved properly and have remained so. We have remained active by walking inside buildings such as the grocery store and others. Outside – not so much. Literally, the weather is frightful. Just west of us, in the Cascade Mountains, a major snow storm is adding to the snow (aka – late season irrigation water for Yakima Valley fruit growers). Here the little snow we are getting is going sideways – headed to Idaho, I think. The sustained wind is in the mid-30s and gusts are expected as high as 50 mph. Today is a music play-day for Nancy and friends so she will be active (upper body) and happy. The new Physical Therapy place and Medicare came up with a 4-wheeled walker on day one. She can walk nicely without holding on to it but it provides a seat for an occasional rest. We returned the borrowed one and thereby made a return visit to the folks that got her off her back, out of bed, and mobile – they are now an important part of our memories.
We dropped our horse-trailer-pulling truck off yesterday so she had to drive, and will again, when we pick it up today. Following open heart surgery one is warned not to do things that might stretch or pull on the stitches, such as whipping the steering wheel around and sliding through a hairpin turn. However, because she was very ill in addition to the operation, by the time she could walk and move around those potential post-operative issues no longer were issues. So my concern about her being alone while driving was more about the possibility of the car quitting. She is good about taking her cell phone along, so there is less concern about this sort of thing than there once was. Still, new and nearly new autos we have owned in the past have mysteriously stopped in the middle of nowhere and such are not fun to deal with even when there are no other worries. (With a life involving field trailing, horses, and expanding our geographic knowledge and photo collections, we frequently have found ourselves in the middle of nowhere.)
The deli at our favorite grocery store makes a good chicken salad. For Nancy they are now providing some with slight adjustments, namely they hold out onion and green peppers, package a pound for her, and then they continue with their makings. At home I add hard boiled egg and a bit of shredded cheddar. Okay, it’s not as good as a grilled steak but it’s not too bad, and most importantly Nancy eats it. Is it too soon to claim this eating issue solved?
An interesting take on “knocking on wood”:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9801E2DD1E39E633A25756C1A9649C946596D6CF
And for expressions around the world: