Wednesday, July 9

The flying nun lives--the one who swoops in and rescues you from Medicare hell--and in Millville, yesterday morning, she took the form of Jo at the trim little house on Rte. 26 with the State Farm agency sign out front. That is one of the great things about living in a small town; unlike DC, where, when you have an emergency, you can plan on spending hours getting it solved (three-fourths of which will be spent listening to elevator music while on "hold"), in Millville you make a call, and they say come right in, and you do, and someone whose name you already know sits down with you and says, "How can I help you?" In this case, I said to Jo, "Please spell out Tommy's Medicare and Medigap coverage for me, and think of it as 'Medicare for Dummies'" and she said, "You got it." Thank you, Jo!
In the afternoon, Tommy's daughter, Karen, arrived with her husband, Paul, and oldest daughter, Jenny, and we all headed up to Milford to see Tommy. When we arrived, he was in the gym, seated in his wheelchair next to a therapist, Catherine, who was helping him to write his name on a board with a big magic marker. She was guiding his right arm as he concentrated, and as his hand moved tentatively, mostly under her power, I could discern the characteristic choppy way he makes the two "m's" when he signs his name, which was gratifying to see. Also gratifying was the fact that, for the first time, he was awake and alert late in the afternoon. Karen--a chip off the old block--brought him a wooden model of a Bay boat, which he held in both hands for several long minutes, using his right hand to simply cradle it while, with his left, he gingerly touched its rich brown hull and topsides and all the little metal parts.
We had dinner with him in the cafeteria (pureed fish--yuk--which he rejected by simply not opening his mouth; but also vegetable soup, which he polished off, followed by chocolate pudding and sherbet, which he always loves); and after dinner, as we do every evening, we took a stroll down the hall to the aquarium, which is filled with a variety of colorful fish that are endless fun to watch. Returning from the aquarium, we passed his RN, Kristen, at the nurses' station (a lovely young woman, she often says to Tommy, "Mr. Long, I'm going to get a smile out of you before you leave here!"). As we rolled Tommy past, she called out, "Hi, Mr. Long!" And Tommy, after an afternoon and evening of saying nothing but "Mm-huh" and "Mm-uh", answered, loud and clear, "Hi, Sweetie."