Ten Easy Steps

I can do it in 10 easy steps. I have learned to go from being a homeschooling mom to being a rehab nurse in 10 easy steps.  How do I do it?  Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, etc. It takes ten steps to go between our kitchen table, the base of our homeschool work, to our living room couch, the seat of our rehab efforts. 

All jesting aside, Richard’s time with the speech therapist yesterday was fruitful.  She was impressed with his improvement since she had last seen him on the Tuesday before.  She asked if we had photo albums from our past.  She wanted to give Richard an opportunity to tell the tales behind the pictures.  In a flash we had the photo album chronicling the restoration of the old Missouri farm house we moved into in 1993.  Richard enjoyed telling the tale.  Tomorrow she will be back, and he is armed with the photo collection of the construction of our office-guest house in Thamaga, Botswana.  African construction techniques will fuel lots of talk time since the African way was different from the American way of construction.

The other event on Monday that seemed to have an impact on Richard’s rehab was a visit to the Missouri Veterans Home (MVH) in St. James, his place of employment.  He called it bitter-sweet.  The sweet was in the warm greetings and encouraging words of the staff, his co-workers.  The bitter was in the stark reality of the time pressure of leave-time, the economic risk of disability, and the brain demand of the environment.  “It reminded me of how far I had to go,” he said, “and of how far I’ve come.”  The cherry on the top of that visit arrived today in the mail – greeting cards signed by what looked like every employee at the St. James MVH.  I tell you he is pumped to keep working.