Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Exile Day 1


WOW.  I did not know my body could be quite so tired. Getting out of the house with all the necessary supplies and cleaning out the entire downstairs of the house was not easy.  As we stood in the empty house waiting for the floor contractor, I silently fretted that he would not show up. I had no reason to think that other than fear.  Can you imagine? We would have been up the proverbial creek.  He did show up, right on time, and started filling my house with his equipment.

Maggie, Steve, Brisco (the dog) and I headed to the east bay to stay at a friends’ vacant, but furnished (!) house.  We drove downtown in separate cars so Steve could leave his at his office and drive across the bridge with us. I have to have another person in the car with me if we are driving very far because Maggie needs assistance.  We arrived, unloaded the car and then took Steve to the BART station so he could commute back to the City to go to work. We did not even bring Maggie into the house at first. 

Getting Maggie into this house was not as easy as I imagined it would be. There are only five steps, and then it is all one level. I knew I could not get her up five steps in the chair. I thought once I took her out of the chair getting the chair up those steps would not be a problem. Wrong. I could not get it up the stairs by myself. Steve laid out these two planks to roll the chair up. Classy, right?  I am sure my new neighbors are quite impressed with the new kids in town. 


Note -- this would NOT be done with Maggie in the chair, which would be extremely unsafe and probably impossible.  

Even using the planks, I could not do it. It was too steep of a pitch and the planks were too narrow. Finally, I took all the equipment off the back and pulled chair up backwards.  That worked but it was a very physical endeavor.  I had to  carry Maggie in (76lbs), pull all the equipment off and carry that in (50 lbs) and then hoist the chair up (105 lbs) backwards  Very hard on my decrepit shoulders. I did it twice on Monday and will likely have to do it twice every day. Maybe not, though. Once we are out, we could stay out or at least keep the chair out until dinner. We can bring Maggie in for her treatments and meds and leave the chair in the back yard.

Speaking of the back yard – it is fantastic. Amazing. Yesterday we sat under a tree near the pool and I dozed in the chair. The yard is big enough and nice enough to hold a wedding. That is where you will find me every afternoon this week. It is a bit overcast in the morning but yesterday the sun was out by noon and it was a perfect afternoon, probably high 70’s with just a hint of a breeze.

Mercifully, nurses for both shifts showed up so I got some sleep last night. If I can do that another couple of nights I will recover, and then we can move back into our house.   That might start the exhaustion all over again, but not necessarily.  Other than the basic furniture, there is no rush to get everything back together.  We can do that leisurely.

And I am into leisure.  

3 comments:

  1. Oh, I hope you can relax in that back yard and not go anywhere until you absolutely have to --

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  2. Why don't you guys pack up and head out to Las Vegas for a couple of days? You can stay with us in our sugar shacks since we have so much room. LOL!

    Seriously, it looks fun! I love the swimming photo from yesterday and the place looks gorgeous.

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  3. Why don't you guys take this opportunity to pack up and come down to Las Vegas for a couple of days? You know we have plenty of room in our little sugar shack. LOL!

    Seriously, I love the photo from swimming yesterday and the place looks amazing. Hard work done! May it all be downhill (in a good way) from here.

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