The Lift

The last time a social worker came to assess Dennis, she decided we needed a lift to help move Dennis from one place to another. Yesterday a representative came out to show us how it works, before he started the insurance paper work process.

"I hate it, I hate it, I hate it," Dennis yelled throughout his visit.

The man understood. He told me he generally gets that reaction from customers.

I ordered it, anyway, much to Dennis' chagrin. "It's for me, not for you," I told Dennis. I explained it was for my back, the PCA's backs and to help prevent any further bruising of my body.

"It's out of the dark ages! It's barbaric. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it."

I do too. It's huge, it's a lot of work, it's ugly and it takes up too much room. However, I know even if we do not need it right now, we will need it soon. And since the wheels of government dollars runs so slowly, we should take it when it is offered, or we may not have it when we really do need it everyday.

If the days do not come when we need the lift, it will most likely mean Dennis isn't around anymore. I know enough about this disease to be assured that this will be the case. I don't mean to be maudlin or even discouraging, but it is a fact that Dennis isn't going to become easier to move and position as his disease progresses.

So, in a way, we are stepping back to the dark ages. We are dependent on what is available, and the lift is not the most innovative pieces of equipment I have seen. It's not computerized, it's not even operated by batteries. Some days we simply need to be grateful for what is at hand, even if it isn't up to our normal standards.

Until late,
Ann and Dennis


(View the video above if you want to see what this looks like and how it works.)

Freezing

Every once in a while, Dennis freezes and is incapable of initiating a move. Today he had one of those episodes. Naturally, we were outside in the first rainy day for the past 30 days.

This time, he could not lift his foot to get into the car. He just stood there, rain pouring down on both of us, completely unable to move. After standing there for a ridiculous amount of time, I tried to lift his leg by grabbing his calf. I couldn't budge it. I attempted this same rescue a couple of times, before finally succeeding by grabbing the tab on the back of his shoe. I was able to move his foot up and into the car. He was then able to get the rest of his body moving, and into the car.

This is a short post. Either blogspot is working funky or it's the Vista, again.

Until later,
Ann and Dennis

New Electronics

Six years ago, Dennis purchased a large screen, high definition TV complete with surround sound. It was so huge, and our living room so small, that when you walked into our home, all you would see is the television. But it was what everyone else secretly desired to own, or so Dennis thought, and he loved the heck out of his set-up.

Over Christmas, Hamed, my nephew, pointed out that our picture was washed out and lousy for watching football. This got Dennis' attention. I think it was because our old, expensive, and state of the art TV was a rear projection model, and our new windows, full of sun, sucked all of the life and color out of it. That and a $350 lamp that needed replacement hadn't been changed for a while.

We set the end of February for the date to purchase a new one. Last Friday, however, our bedroom TV simply stopped working. It had never been a great TV and neither of us were surprised when it died. Saturday, Dennis told me we had about $2,500 in our checking account to spend on whatever we wanted to purchase. We decide to buy a new TV for the bedroom and we might as well buy the living room TV at the same time.

So, Saturday we went shopping. We bought a new TV for the living room and the bedroom. But it doesn't ever stop, with electronics, does it? We are the proud owners of a BlueRay (the next generation of DVD) and a fancy, schmancy outlet, that cost a pretty penny. Supposedly, all of this stuff will pay off in great pictures and preventing burnout of the television.

Life has changed dramatically, hasn't it? Almost everyone reading this will remember black and white TV. Some of us will remember the console TV. Some of us will even remember life without TV.

It's amazing how far we have come with electronics. Now if we could make some movement in brain disorders....

Insurance - Yuck

Yes, you should be hearing the results of our visit to the movement disorder neurologist at Mayo today.

But you will not here anything about new tests, or anything of that nature. Dennis' insurance decided that they would not cover the visit. They decided that he does not need to go out of network, since there are in-network doctors that are specialists, too.

I guess they don't know me very well. I will not give up without a fight.

So, I took the two days off, spent time on the phone and writing emails. Dennis made an emergency appointment with his neurologist here for tomorrow. We are also working through the research part of Mayo to help us out.

In the meantime, it is off to Rochester next Monday and Tuesday for that long put off radio active test. At least we will have a final decision on whether Dennis has Shy-Drager or not.

Until Later
Ann and Dennis