A ministry of cards

Early this morning I was going through all the cards that I have received over the past few weeks. There are literally more than I can count. It reminded me of a tribute that someone paid to Grandmother Cronise after she passed. Grandmother would send cards to people in church for birthdays, get-well, all different kinds of occasions. About two months after Grandmother’s funeral, one of the church members had something published in our monthly church newsletter. He made the comment that for the rest of his life his birthday would not be the same because for as many years as he could remember he had received a birthday card from my grandmother. In this small way she had touched this man’s heart with this simple gesture. As I look through all the cards again today, I thank you again for your words of strength, humor, compassion, and encouragement.

A day of visitors

Jim and Jim arrived from Baltimore last night. Their arrival into Jacksonville was slightly marred by late arrival at the gate and a valet at the hotel who hit their car. Luckily the damage is minor and the hotel, of course, it taking responsibility for it. A great day of reminiscing and visiting and picture gathering to start putting some more pictures out on the blog.

Therapy

This morning in PT the upper body strengthening continues. In chair push ups I was able to do full arm extension on 14 of 15 attempts. I have never been able to do even three before.

I also have some additional exercises that I can do on the weekend so the time is more productive.

Margo and Simon

Rick brought in a picture of Margo and Simon for me to have at my bedside. Already staff are asking about them. One of the social workers the other day mentioned that she also had a beagle. Incredibly enough, she got hers from the same breeder where we found Simon. It will be interesting to see if they resemble each other.

This weekend

Two friends are coming down from Baltimore to visit this weekend. Jim (blogmaster) and Jim (not blogmaster). It will be great to see them again.

Thursday therapy

Radiation today was my final radiation treatment. I received a certificate suitable for framing indicating that I had completed a radiation treatment program at Baptist Medical Center. There are also three tiny tattooed dots somewhere on my chest that indicate the parameters of treatment.

Therapy this morning included using the Wii. I did all the regular therapy so this was a welcome diversion. This afternoon I was on the parallel bars again. I went down the bars twice. The therapist did a lot of leg work today but none on the omnicycle. He also showed me some exercises that I can do on weekends when therapy does not take place.

When I came back from the morning session I discovered that my mattress had been replaced by an air controlled mattress to assist in healing the bedsores which are progressing well.

It's official

On Thursday June 26 Rick is officially retiring. He has worked for the state of Florida for over 30 years and has decided that this is an appropriate time to retire to devote efforts to my recovery and my care. He was at the office today cleaning and packing up, talking to staff. I know he’ll be sorely missed there but greatly welcomed at home. Rick is 59 and so he could have continued to work for a number of years but has chosen the path that he feels is most appropriate.

Bush's Baked Beans

So far there have been five dogs to visit – Margo and Simon of course, Spurrier, a pug belonging to one of our friends Michelle, and of course Wendy’s two goldens. Whenever Rick comes in to visit, people ask, “Where’s the Bush’s Baked Bean dogs?” Of the five dogs, the goldens are the ones that the staff remembers.

Visiting Westminster

Last weekend, blogmaster Jim and my sister Tina both happened to attend a graduation ceremony at McDaniel College – my alma mater. It was hotter than hell due to the unfortunate ineffectiveness of the air handlers. I was texting Jim during the graduation and I told him “Quick, get out of there, get to Hoffman’s.” which reminded me of a visit that I made to Westminster Memorial Day 2007 while working on a project at Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C. I toured the college campus, met blogmaster Jim, blogmaster Nancy, and one of my college roommates, Rolf, at Maggie’s in Westminster for lunch. It’s one of those restaurants that we college students used to go to when we had some extra money to spare, which of course we never did. The photograph that was taken at lunch that day did not flatter us to the point that I would post it on the web. We then stopped at Hoffman’s which is a quintessential ice cream parlor. I hadn’t been to Hoffman’s since graduation my senior year of college and when we walked back in it was as if nothing had changed. My favorite was always the peanut butter ripple and it was still the best damn peanut butter ripple I have ever had.

Before meeting for lunch I had taken the opportunity to go to Emmitsburg to visit the Provincial grounds of the Daughters of Charity, Southeast Province. This is one of the sponsoring organizations of Ascension Health and the place where St. Elizabeth Ann Seton founded her ministry in the United States. The grounds are beautiful, peaceful and tranquil. The original buildings that were there during Mother Seton’s time, while restored and moved, are still in place. I was even able to visit with Sister Camilla Harent, D.C., one of the sisters that I have known my entire time with the organization. I had inquired after her at the Provincial House. They said she was on site that day but they weren’t quite sure where she was. As I was touring I headed toward the gift shop. There was a sister inside in full habit with her back to me. As she turned around I saw immediately it was Sister Camilla. We had a pleasant visit.

Oh my God, it happened again

A number of years ago, Tracy and Mark, both of whom I have known since second grade, Jim, whom I have known since twelfth grade and myself were having lunch at the Phoenix in Ellicott City. Tracy and Jim had never had any issues with weight. On the other hand, Mark and I have often struggled with it during our adult lives. I had been working hard at trying to lose weight and made a comment at lunch that I had finally gotten below that magic number. Mark looked at me as if he knew exactly what I was talking about. Tracy and Jim on the other hand had no clue what I meant. When I explained that the magic mark was 200 pounds, the looks on their faces were priceless. I think Tracy may have been just the tiniest bit more aghast than Jim. We had a big laugh about it but here’s where the “it’s happened again” comes in. On the way to therapy today they put me into a seated scale and now, for the first time in more years than I can recall, I am once again below 200 pounds. The official weight is 197.4. I’m not happy about how I have lost the weight but I am not surprised that I have started losing some.

Local friends

One of the things that I have discovered from this process is just how very strong a group of friends locally and nationally I have. As with most people, they tend to fall into different groups and categories. One of our little groups is Doris, Michelle, Rick and myself. Michelle is a current coworker of Rick’s. Doris is a retired coworker of Ricks. We get together for birthdays, dinners, and many other excuses throughout the year. Two years ago on my birthday weekend we decided to go to Savannah for two very specific reasons. Mercer House was now available for tours, and I wanted to eat at The Lady & Sons owned by Chef Paula Deen. I’m a Food Network addict and even though her food is hardly heart healthy, eating it one time certainly couldn’t hurt anyone. Typically the line wraps around the building before the restaurant even opens for lunch. There must not have been anything going no in Savannah that weekend. We got there at 11:30 and pretty much we walked right in. She offers a full menu but it was her southern buffet that I wanted. Her fried chicken is amazing and her macaroni and cheese is about the best I’ve ever tasted. We just had a great time exploring Savannah that weekend.

One of the other traditions of this little group is that we have an annual un-Chanukah dinner. Doris holds a traditional one for her family and then serves us one later in the season just because we love the menu – beef brisket that is the tenderest, potato latkes, blinis, and noodle kugel. I look forward to it each year.

Therapy update

Some improvement in results today. On one or two of the chair pushups I was able to push myself further out of the chair than I have in previous attempts. I’m trying to push myself into a standing position from the chair.

In the afternoon session, the omnicycle numbers improved form 95% on the left leg and 5% on the right to 86% left and 14% right. I very intentionally concentrated on that weaker right leg.

One more radiation treatment to go.

Popcorn party

Aunt Naomi’s Fisher’s Popcorn from Bethany Beach, Delaware arrived yesterday. Rick and two other friends, Scott and Leslie, were visiting this evening so we had a brief Fisher’s caramel popcorn party. Aunt Naomi had also included a photo of herself in a variety show earlier this year dressed as Mae West. It was quite a sight to see! The popcorn tasted every bit as good as it did all those years ago on the boardwalk.

Flower delivery

During Christmas holiday freshman year, Jim and I had the opportunity to make deliveries for a local florist. They were going to pay $1 per delivery and we figured we would clear enough money to make it worthwhile. Once again my brother’s van makes an appearance in a story. Unfortunately it was acting up and if we turned it off it would not restart. The florist was Reidel’s. We felt we would clean up at first when we went to the delivery room and discovered a large number of arrangements due to be delivered to St. Agnes Hospital. We crammed the van with as many of those arrangements as we could and took off for St. Agnes. This was during the time where a number of the arrangements had the ‘un-candles’ – those glass vials filled with wicks floating on top of vegetable oil and water. As we pulled into St. Agnes we realized too late that there was a speed bump immediately ahead. We had the choice of either going over the speed bump as smoothly as possible or the wrong choice, which was to put the foot on the brake. After the van came to a stop, I asked Jim “How bad does it look?” Jim replied, “Really bad.” For some reason, Reidel’s had actually filled all the un-candles. We cleaned up the arrangements as best we could, probably transferring parts to other arrangements. After we dropped the arrangements at the volunteer desk we beat feet from the hospital, hoping that some pink lady (for the pink jackets that they wore) wasn’t relieved of her volunteer duties for screwing up all those arrangements.

The rest of the day we gathered as many grouped deliveries as possible, all the while burning through gas like Sherman across Georgia. When we returned for one more pickup the only items left were for Elkridge. We weren’t terribly familiar with Elkridge but we glanced at the addresses and most of them seemed to be deliveries to Race Road. Little did we realize Race Road stretches across most of Howard County with multiple breaks and twist backs, house numbering that makes absolutely no sense, and in some instances houses labeled completely incorrectly. By the time we finally finished this money-making idea we figured we really hadn’t cleared very much at all but it certainly was a fun experience. In these days of GPS devices we might have gotten up to twelve dollars each.

Medical update

Ten radiation treatments done, two more to go. On the last treatment I’m actually going to receive a tattoo. It will be extremely small. It will simply make a permanent mark as to where treatment had taken place. I never thought that I would be an inked man.

I do have an appointment with my oncologist next week. We had to wait until the radiation treatments were complete in order to do that. And then I’ll have an appointment with my neurologist a month after the radiation treatments are completed.

One minor setback. In the interest of being fully truthful about everything, it was discovered yesterday that I have two small bedsores that we’re now working diligently on getting healed.

Physical therapy update

The morning upper body training continues to go well. Tension was tightened down on the hand bicycle today but I was still able to complete 20 minutes without slowing or stopping. In addition, weight training with the arms continues daily in order to strengthen my upper body. In the afternoon session, we practiced chair-to-other surface transfers again so that I’ll be able to move from chair to bed, chair to wherever. I was also using a piece of equipment called omnicycle. This is a therapy version of a lifecycle that gives amazing immediate feedback. After my initial surgery, my right leg was considerably stronger than the left. Right now the left leg is considerably stronger than the right. Of course the radiation treatments can be having a significant effect on that. And after those treatments are complete we’ll see what kind of changes in feeling and strength occur.

While I have sensation from the chest down - I am able to feel touch, heat, cold - there’s still a definite heaviness that I’m hoping will dissipate as PT continues.

But back to the omnicycle. Once your legs and feet are secured in the bicycle portion, they’re able to set the cycle so that it automatically turns the pedals. This was set at 10 rpm. My task was to see how much additional effort I could apply to this and the cycle is able to measure how much effort is coming from each leg with instantaneous response. During the 20 minutes on the cycle, the highest my right leg achieved was 18% and at times it would drop to zero as that leg tired. By the time the 20 minutes was complete it gave a summary report showing that on average my left leg was doing 95% of the work and my right leg 5%. It also showed how much of the total effort expended on the bike was generated by the bike and how much was generated by me. The total effort expended by me was 98% of the movement for those 20 minutes.

I am able to wheel myself easily around the facility and had a haircut on Monday. I am no longer using pain killers at all. As I actually have a pretty high threshold for pain.

My second family

After news started spreading of what had happened to me on the 22nd, one of the first people that wanted to immediately come to Jacksonville was Rick’s sister Wendy. When I met Rick, his entire family welcomed me with open arms. I know a lot of the comments and memories so far that have been posted here seem to revolve around food. And my very, very favorite meal of the entire year is Thanksgiving. At home in Baltimore, it was the one meal of the year that we had more carbs than a human should be allowed. There would be as many as twelve to thirteen people crammed around the dining room table, three kind of stuffing - oyster, sausage raisin, and of course the traditional sage stuffing for the turkey - and every side dish known to mankind. Grandmother Cronise always insisted on getting what she referred to as “the part of the turkey that went over the fence last”. The only thing we didn’t like about Thanksgiving dinner was the cleanup. With a family as large as mine of course everyone had to kick in with the chores. It seemed to take forever to get the dishes done. It was also one of the few times during the year that we used the Jewel Tea dishes. I did discover that sauerkraut at Thanksgiving is not a universal dish! Actually we would have sauerkraut and spareribs at Thanksgiving.

After I moved to Florida, Thanksgiving at Wendy’s became a new and wonderful tradition. At first when people would ask me where I was going for thanksgiving and I said, “Wendy’s” you could tell from the puzzled look on their faces that they thought I was having burgers. In fact, Wendy lives in Gulfstream, Florida just above Delray Beach. Her home is always a wonderful place of solace for Rick and I to go to. They get up early in the morning and sit on the back porch and solve the world’s problems with their coffee and act when I get up at 7 a.m. that somehow I have slept the day away.

Well, the first Thanksgiving we were together, I offered to cook and Wendy offered to clean up. Little did she know how my family cooked Thanksgiving and just how many dishes were going to be there after dinner to wash. To this day each year we always joke and laugh about what a mess I made of the kitchen.

Thanksgiving Day always starts out with Rick and Wendy deciding how long the turkey needs to stay in the oven – typically by the X number of minutes per pound formula. I tend to believe that the people who produce the turkey have more accurate information as to how long it should stay in the oven. So after they’ve come to their determination how long the turkey should stay in, I put it in for the amount of time that it actually should be. Over the years we have culled down the number of dishes to a Thanksgiving more appropriate for the three of us that it usually is. By the time we sit down to dinner, the only thing left to be washed are the plates we’re about to eat from.

The day after Thanksgiving, Rick and I typically get up early and head out for the after Thanksgiving sales just because we like to. We’re back by noon and spend the rest of the weekend enjoying each other’s company. I count Wendy as a much loved sister and am grateful that she was part of the package deal with Rick.

Their parents Ted and Nonnie have since passed, but I was fortunate enough to get to know them also in a very loving and caring way.

Statue of Liberty

One thing that I am finding of particular interest in all of this is some people are actually providing me with suggestions of stories to post. One such request came in today and so I figured I’d take the opportunity to relay this funny story.

Years ago, when the Statue of Liberty was being restored, Lee Iacocca sent out contributions requests and I made a modest contribution. As you would expect, a certificate (suitable for framing) arrived in the mail. Throughout my life people have either spelled or pronounced my last name incorrectly – including many college professors which I don’t quite understand. When I opened the certificate, I was shocked to discover that whoever recorded my contribution let their finger slip off the W in Whiteley and of course left out an E, and my certificate proudly stated, “Here let it be known, that Barry J. Shitley….” Imagine my horror. I figured this needed some immediate attention so I sat down and wrote Mr. Iacocca a letter. After the appropriate introductions the basic content of the letter was,

Dear Mr. Iacocca,
My name is not, nor has it ever been Shitley. I would like to request an immediate correction to this obvious error. Sincerely yours….

P.S. I’m grateful my name is not Whitehead.

Years later upon visiting the Statue of Liberty I looked it up just to be sure and sure enough, it had been corrected.

Mary Poppins

I am trying to move forward in many of my memory stories but there still are so many childhood ones that are worth remembering. In a family of seven kids, there’s always likely to be someone who is sick – a cold, a stomach ache, or chicken pox or measles. Grandmother Schuhart planned to take my sisters out one Saturday for a trip to downtown Baltimore. Serendipitously, one of my sisters (I believe it was Charlotte) was not feeling well that day and so I got to go as the substitute. The special trip that day was to see Mary Poppins at the Hippodrome – one of those huge old time theaters. Grandmother also took us to lunch at the one of the local department stores, either Hutzler’s or Hochschild Kohn’s, both long since shuttered or absorbed by Macy’s. We also went to the candy store where Grandmother would always stock up on those special candies that only grandmothers seem to have. It was a day to remember. So thanks, Charlotte, for being sick that day.

Therapy update

Physical therapy this morning was the same types of exercises that were going before. After a weekend off I was afraid it was going to be a lot harder than it was but the strain in my left arm has healed and things went well.

Afternoon therapy practiced transferring from wheelchair to other surfaces. Still not feeling 100% comfortable with that. I did one more walk down the parallel bars but still have a very long way to go.

I have only three more radiation treatments left. I’m actually going to miss them because they’re a daily field trip out of the facility.