Sunday, November 18, 2012

We’re in Santa Clara, CA

 

11/18/12                                                                                                                                   Chuck’s Report

First, Lorraine and I both wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.  I hope everyone stops and gives thanks for what they have.  Even with all the medical issues we have had the past couple of months, we still can give thanks that we haven’t had worse problems.  We all know of folks who have more problems, at least we can still travel and enjoy our lifestyle. 

Lorraine is not going to write her normal report this week.  She is keeping busy with our grand daughter plus she doesn’t want to task her brain too much writing.  She finds it almost as hard to write (type) as she does speaking.  What is amazing is she can still do math and spelling as well as before her problem started and doesn’t have any remaining physical issues either.  So like I said earlier, it could be worse. 

We are back here in the Bay area with our daughter, grand daughter and son-in-law for a couple of reasons.  We had planned on being here for Thanksgiving anyway so that hasn’t changed.  We have been here for the past 5 Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks, ever since we’ve been on the road.  And I hope that being with our grand daughter helps Lorraine too, I do know she was getting excited to see them and it’s only been two weeks. 

The other reason we are here is to have Lorraine see another doctor.  We have an appointment to see a family doctor with a degree in Geriatrics.  We are hoping with that background/training he may be able to help her with her speech issue or at least recommend someone who can help.  We picked this guy from the yellow pages and see him on Tuesday. 

Lorraine is better but I still see/hear some problems when she talks.  She sometimes still has a problem finding the  correct word, sometimes she points and says “thing”.  I don’t allow that and try to insist she say the correct word.  She tells me she knows the correct word, can “see” it in head but just can’t get it to come out right.

Just this morning, she asked me to put the ice on the counter.  I didn’t understand so she pointed to the front of the coach and said “the ice”.  I still didn’t understand and asked her what she wanted to do with it.  Finally I understood what she wanted, we have 1/2 rack of sodas stored under the steering wheel when we are parked and she wanted me to put them on the counter so she could replenish the stock in the fridge.  She knew what she wanted, knew the correct word but it came out as ice vs. soda. 

The speech therapist she saw in the hospital told us it is a good sign that she knows she isn’t using the right word, that makes it easier to work with.  I’m hoping to get some suggestions from the doctor or new speech therapist about what I can do to help her.  I try to not complete sentences for her but help her find the words she is searching for.  I’ve done some research on the net but still would like to have a professional teach me the right way to help her. 

At least she isn’t giving up!  And I am going to do my best to help her get back to normal.  It may take awhile and we may not see signs of recovery every day but we both will give it our best.  And any prayers and best wishes from family and friends will be appreciated too.  So once again, I’ll ask for that help from anyone who will help us. 

We were in Laughlin, NV. for the past two weeks.  The second week we spent time with our friends Joe/Alice, went to a casino or two.  Can’t say either of us had any luck but overall I think I was down less than $20 for the two weeks.  Not that losing is good but it could have been worse, those machine were pretty tight.  But we did have a good visit with Joe/Alice and looking forward to seeing them in Palm Springs in two week. 

The trip from Laughlin to here was ok but sure reminded us about the need for road repairs on some of the roads in California.  Boy did we get our teeth rattled in a few places.  The worse was bridge approaches and after the bridge.  There are lots of places where they have resurfaced the main road but they stopped at the bridges or under the overpasses, creating very rough, uneven, washboard, bouncy, teeth rattling and overall bad designed/engineered fixes. 

I usually try to not get political when I write our blog but I wish all the stimulus money our federal government gave away would have been used to update/repair the roads and such across the whole US.   That would have put the money back in circulation without just being a gift and put lots of people back to work.  They would have then spent their wages on items that would allow others to hire more workers.  As these workers spent some of their wages on cars, that would have kept the automakers in business without the government giving them stimulus money and we would have more people working and better infrastructure too.  They would also be buying houses and that would help our economy too.  If that had happened, our national unemployment numbers would be much better, our economy would be doing better and maybe our government would not be spending us deeper into debt.  And companies would be building stuff that consumers wanted instead of what our government is pushing (read “green” here).  Of course, that is just one man’s opinion and nobody has ever elected me to any office so what the heck do I know.

We stopped at the Orange Grove RV park in Bakersfield on the way here.  We were there two weeks ago and the oranges were showing signs of turning orange but they were not ripe.  This time, I found a few that were getting ripe but did find a grove of tangerines that were ready to pick.  Those are really good, tree ripened and fresh off the tree. 

We did drive through some rain, more on Saturday than Friday.  And last night we heard it really pour during the night, a real gully washer.  But this morning the skies are bright blue with a few clouds, temperature in the mid 60s now, expecting mid to high 60s for the rest of the week.   

The weather in Laughlin for the past week has been cooler than the first week we were there.  We were seeing highs in the 70s but the wind was blowing hard enough that we didn’t/couldn’t sit outside very much.  And that’s one of the reasons we were there too, shoot. 

We have reservations at 1000 Trails in Palm Springs starting Tuesday after Thanksgiving.  We will be there for two weeks before returning back here to share Christmas with our daughter, grand daughter and son-in-law.  Then it will be back to Palm Springs for two more weeks in January. 

Of course, all this is dependent on the doctors suggestions.  We can stay right here at the Elks in Santa Clara if needed.  They have a two week maximum stay but make allowances for medical needs.  So if we have to stay in the area, at least we don’t have to worry about a place to park. 

Lorraine took some pictures on our drive from Laughlin to here so I’ll add a few and get this posted. 

This is just pictures of the desert with some cactus and mountains.  There sure aren’t too many trees out here.  But there was plenty of blue skies and it wasn’t too windy this trip.  

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And now to get this posted. 

 

Thanks   Chuck

 

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