Monday, June 8, 2009

The Glamorous Life

It’s hard to believe that it has now been two weeks since the Mighty Ted left Marion Joy to begin the next steps of his journey to recovery. This past week and weekend continued his (and our) busy social schedule.

During the week he connected with Dr. Glen Nelson and began a long term relationship as having a regular physician. They get along well and Ted is comfortable with Glen and his “Doctoring” style.

The outpatient sessions began in “full force” on Wednesday and Friday with intensive 2 hour sessions. In physical therapy focus is on improving the strength in his left leg including lots of work on stepping up with the left leg (reminds me of my aerobics step classes – too bad I gave away my old bench and the risers!). On Friday he worked to improve his “gait” using a walker rather than the cane. The walker should help to make a more even “swing through” on the left leg rather than a step-touch approach. (We want walking not 8th grade ballroom dancing here).

The use of electrodes continues to help stimulate both his leg and arm muscles. His left arm is much stronger and he can control how it behaves when he walks. Prior to this the arm just sort of “came along for the ride” and he could not easily keep it from bumping into things when he walked.

The weekend brought our usual busy schedule. Saturday afternoon we had a ‘road trip’ to Peoria to see the Corn Stock Players’ production of the Producers. Since Mary (as in our Blog Mistress) was our hostess on the trip and has, no doubt, already posted much about this trip I won’t give the details. We thank Mary and her son Bob as well as our good friend Carl for making the trip possible. Ted was in theater heaven regarding the trip and the production as well as dinner at Agatucchii’s (my apologies if I misspelled it!)

On Sunday we made it to church where Ted was, once again, the center of attention with many, many choir and church friends coming by to say Hello and see how he is doing. In the afternoon Ted, Sharon Place, Sandy Roberts and I went downtown to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to enjoy the last of our 3 concert “Beyond the Score” series. (So for you DGUMC Choir members, we were not snubbing you at the banquet – we had another engagement). The concert exceeded our expectations with a wonderful program in the first half that used a narrator, two actors, a wonderful Contralto and the CSO to set the context of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. The actors portrayed Dvorak and various people in his life, the CSO and singer played themes from music that influenced the symphony and from the symphony itself. The narrator pulled it all together helping us understand the meaning of each of the movements, why there is what may seem to some as repetition when in fact it is “remembrance” of the themes and the culmination of all the elements via the final movement. Magnificent! We highly recommend this series and have already renewed for next year. To celebrate our wonderful experience we dined at Rhapsody – the restaurant within the Orchestra Hall building. Wonderful Walleye, lovely surroundings, great company and a fabulous server (Ask for Alexandra when you dine there!). Rick took the “day off” from the crazy Waltmire schedule and stayed back in Oakbrook Terrace after church making sure the Cubs hung in there and got another extra inning win. Thanks Rick!

While all these good times meant we did not get home in time for the start of the Tony Awards DVR recorders are a wonderful thing. We did not make it through the entire ceremony so please don’t “give away the ending”.

Also thanks to Rick for all his support since Ted has come home from Marion Joy. Rick will be leaving us this week on Thursday to go back home to Florida and get ready for the trip to South Dakota for our niece’s wedding on June 20th. Ted and I will be attending as well – not as the wedding musicians as was originally planned but attending none the less. We have a bit of work to do to understand the logistics re: traveling with Ted’s wheelchair but Ted is confident this will all happen. We expect to have a grand time!.

That’s it for this update. Stay tuned for a request for assistance re: life after Rick goes home.

Thanks as always for everyone’s support!

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