Thursday - Aug 7

I apologize, I've been neglecting the followingjerry community and I know some of you worry when you don't see a post for awhile. Everything is going well it's just been busy, by the time I have free time to post it's late at night and I usually opt for bed.

Things are starting to fall into place. For months now I've been feeling like everything is going to be better when Jerry receives all his equipment ...when Jerry gets into his new room ...when Jerry's nausea goes away. Prayers have been answered, Jerry is struggling less and less with the nausea. I wouldn't say the nausea is completely gone but it's at a much more tolerable level and he does have extended periods of time when he's not nauseous. Jerry does have a bad nausea day on occasion but it's getting better.

Jerry had two appointments on Monday, one with his doctor and the other with his dentist. The dentist was great about accommodating Jerry. We didn't have to transfer into the dentist chair, she moved the chair out to make space for the wheelchair and she worked on Jerry standing up. Both appointments went well.

Jerry's friends from Florida came for another visit and brought their mom along this time. We canceled PT and OT on Tuesday and SCI-FIT on Wednesday so Jerry could spend some time with them. Tuesday we went to Henry Cowell State Park, for those not familiar with the park you can check it out here, the girls loved the redwoods and were amazed at the beauty of it all. It's nice that Jerry was able to do the hike, the trail is flat and smooth and the wheelchair handled it just fine. We left Henry Cowell and headed for the Board Walk in Santa Cruz. We walked the board walk and I gotta say it's a little different experience with a wheel chair. There were so many people, it was a little challenging for Jerry to manuever through the crowd. Wednesday we drove to San Francisco, I was a little surprised they didn't have better handicap parking accomodations. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, parking is horrible for non hadicap vehicles as well. It took us about 45 minutes to find a parking spot, our van was too tall to go into the parking garage which surprised me. The lot at the end of the wharf was full and didn't even have one handicap spot. There was a wharehouse to park in on the pier which only had three handicap spots, of course they were taken. We were allowed to park in a non parking spot which would accomodate us dropping the lift so it worked out. We had a wonderful time in Frisco, we had crepes on pier 39 as well as clam chowder and Ghridelli Chocolate, mmmmm sooo good. The girls were amazed at the hills in frisco, they are so steep and long, we drove up Hyde Street and down Lombard Street (America's crookedest street). There are a lot of tourist standing at the bottom of Lombard Street watching the cars come down. It was kind of funny, the tourists at the bottom of the hill were amazed to see such a big van come down that windy, narrow street, when we reached the bottom the whole crowd cheered and applauded, we kinda felt like celebrities. I'm not gonna lie, it was a little scary when we first started down the hill, the pictures don't do it justice to show how steep it is. I havn't put the brakes through that rigorious of a test, I was hoping they would hold out, we survived.

Thursday the girls went to Santa Cruz with Jessica while Jerry and I went to Dominican Rehab. We had to exchange our FES hand bike appointment for an appointment to pick up and adjust Jerry's permanent power wheel chair. We were bummed for sure for missing the hand bike, it seems like every time Jerry rides the hand bike he gets a little stronger. We were excited on the other hand to get Jerry's permant power chair. Jerry was pretty thrilled with the chair and says he feels so much more comfortable in the chair. The chair was custom made to fit his body and he can really feel the difference. We spent 2 1/2 hours making adjustments to the chair and didn't finish so we have another appointment next week to finish. The chair has some really cool features the other chair didn't have like electric foot rest. The chair also has tilt and recline before he only had tilt, there are some other cool features as well.

Today we are off to SCI-FIT so I will rap it up as I still have to finish getting Jerry ready and out the door in the next 15 minutes, yikes. I'll leave you with a couple pictures of Jer in his new chair.....



Katie