Mac and Jill

Our Riley - certainley is growing up

Last night we got to see our Riley in real time on Skype, you can probable sense the excitement in our kitchen when the Skype phone rings and there is a mad panic to press the buttons and see Riley. Nicole sent us a couple of photos yesterday and he has certainly grown. Thank heavens for SKYPE. Jill is excited that we will get to see Riley on his first sleep over. They are coming up on Friday and are here for the weekend. Jill has her Brag book to show anybody that visits and we keep adding photos as they are sent to us. I will have the camera in full bloom next weekend. I might take a quick online course in “How to Photograph Babies” before he arrives.

We have continued with Jill’s exercise with a new physio (Izzy) and Emily. They have both given Jill a few new exercises to concentrate on. I showed Emily that I had reintroduced the Crazy Fitness Machine into Jill’s regime. She showed Jill a few extra exercises that she could do while on the vibrator. Sitting in the wheel chair with her feet on the vibrating plate this works the various muscles in her legs. Sitting on the vibrating plate and lifted her legs alternately of the floor, again works on different muscles.

Jill has her good days and bad days. Days when she gets up and everything just goes so well – walking with the gutter frame, walker and exercises just are easy and then on Wednesday and Thursday last week when I am sure she had wished she had stayed in bed.

We have had a couple of visits from a speech therapist and she reintroduced us to the exercises we were doing before. She is going to organise an intensive program similar to the one we did in Albury a couple of years ago. It will involve a couple of hours a day, 5 days per week over a 4 week period. It is based on the Lee Silverman Voice system which concentrates on volume. Think LOUD. She has to set her diary so that this can happen, so we are not sure when this will actually start but it is a positive move. We are back to saying LOUD “AHS” as long as she can.

Michael was here last weekend and Jill and Jill had her hair cut and coloured. Michael has started using and organic hair treatment system and Jill was one of the first. I was amazed as there was no chemical smell. When I had applied dye to Jill’s hair in the weeks between Michael’s visits the smell and fumes really were noticeable. The hair following the new treatment was certainly much softer and the colour was very good. Michael said that the product is about twice the price of conventional treatment. So I guess he will eventually increase his price. Perhaps he will get an extra roast dinner when he visits.

Time to go – Macca almost finished.

See you next week on the net.

The mornings have certainly cooled down several below zero and maximum is under 13C. We had a phone call from Allison & Chris who are spending the school holidays up north. They are on Frasier Island, spent the first week at Cathedral Beach Caravan Park and fished the open ocean. They caught tailor, dart, and flathead. Jill would have loved to be there. Then off for a bit of luxury with a couple of days at Kingfisher Resort then back to the mainland.

We have a quiet couple of weeks, no doctors’ visits. We get our Skype visits from Riley which keep us going. Exercising is our main activity. I was asked how much time we spend exercising – after some thought probably 1-2 hours a day plus preparing to do it. The ramp and deck has made using the Gym easy to access and Jill is keen to get out there each day and she surprises the physios when they visit by her determination to exercise. We will have a new physio next visit as Thalia is off to the Royal Melbourne Hospital rehab department. They have had Jill practicing using the 4 wheeled walker and she is improving but her arms ache because she puts so much pressure on them. I have been looking at a new walker which is called a U Stepper – from USA. I have contacted the distributor to see if we can hire one for a few weeks to make sure Jill can handle it.

We had a surprise visitor yesterday. Pat and Keith arrived – Keith was walking well following his knee replacement surgery two weeks ago. He is still in a fair bit of pain. But considering Jill’s operation was about 18 weeks ago and she has only stopped her final lot of pain killer this week, we have slowly weened her of them.

From the MSA internet group a set of exercise videos has been posted on U tube.The location is: ?http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=BF35CE33E23D41DB

I have decided to incorporate some into Jill’s routine. I have been going to produce a set of exercises with pictures and description and when Chris is home we may be able to video them. Chris sent me another U tube video which was impressive. Have a look at this and think back to what our old phones used to be able to do.

I was reading my Face book page and saw an entry about how brave people are. It made me think that I am probably the luckiest person because I live and sleep with the most courageous and brave person I know. She went to China for stem cells and then went back again for a second round and has continued to do anything that gives her hope of finding a cure for this lousy disease. Like any family we have our tears but she is always ready for the next round.

Well, Macca is almost finished and our next round of bed exercises is about to start.

See you next week on the net

A bit late this week as the Blog site has been down for a few days and Chris managed to rectify the problem this morning. Sorry down again, Chris is going to upload a new version, so we will change the layout a bit.

We have just had our regular talk with Riley on Skype. He has grown, put on weight and I am certain he notices us on the Skype screen.

Riley and his caterpiller

We have had a pretty good couple of weeks, lots of physio and a visit to Burrumbuttock to see Keiran and Louise’s new home.

Keiran & Louise's new home

 We had lunch there with Pat & Keith. Keiran and Louise gave us roast goat for lunch. It is the first time we have had goat and I am very certain we will be back. We did a tour of the new house and were impressed with the work they had done.

Keiran, Jill & the KID

Keiran herded the goats down towards the house and caught a kid which he brought down for Jill to pat.

Tuesday we had appointment for blood tests followed by a doctor’s appointment. Jill got some good results – all her blood tests were okThursday was quiet until lunch time when a storm hit, branches, shrubs, garbage bins and anything that was not nailed down flew up the street. Our power went out and was out for about 4 hours. A few branches down in the garden so will have a clean up next week.

New Physio here on Friday, she went through all the exercises that Jill does and was impressed with Jill’s ability. We are working on a new piece of exercise equipment. It will involve cables and pulleys which we have been looking at on U Tube.

Keith (brother in-law) when into hospital on Thursday and had his right knee replaced and appears to be going pretty good. His surgery was scheduled for midday which is the same time the storm hit. The power to most of Wangaratta went down and Keith said thankfully that the backup generator kicked and the operation continued. Jill knows exactly how he feels and we hope he is back on his feet soon.

Well this is late – Monday evening, Jill is watching her favourite TV program            “Master Chef ”

We will be back on the internet next week

You may be able to guess who I have as a screen saver on my laptop. We are totally besotted with our new grandson. Every person that comes gets a full account of our visit to see Riley. I could never understand the emotions that various friends showed when they talked about their grand child – but I certainly do now. Thank heavens for Skype as we get our regular RILEY fix every couple of days.

I was looking at Face book and saw a comment by a friend about how Jill’s smile of happiness was there. I have not seen Jill so happy in the last 5-6 years. She seems to have forgotten about everything else and RILEY is all she talks about.

We went to Chris and Nicole’s on Sunday and Marg was there as excited as us. After unloading the Jeep we headed into the hospital and our first visit. The excitement built as we walked down the corridor to room 48. There was Nicole on the bed resting, Chris watching Riley in his crib. He looked so content lying there. All Jill wanted to do was cuddle him and within a few moments her wishes were granted. The smile has continued since then. She has told everyone about her Riley and seems to have forgotten her voice problems She usually looks to me to speak for her but the arrival of Riley has helped for forget the other things. We spent the rest of the afternoon there taking lots of photos and finally we had to leave. We went back to Chris’s where Marg had prepared an evening meal for us. We sat and talked about Chris, Nicole and Riley. Downloaded pictures onto the computers and compared photos of Chris and Nicole as babies to Riley. Next morning after we had got cleaned up and the car loaded we headed back to the hospital for another Riley fix. More cuddles and lots of emotions before we finally headed back to Wangaratta arriving about 7pm.

We have contacted all the family and sent photos of Riley. I have mounted some photos in a frame in the Family room.

I am writing this and have totally forgotten the events that led up to the arrival of Riley. Friday we decided to get takeaway so I headed to KFC. It was dark and wet and I parked in the car park, headed inside to be greeted by a huge line up so I eventually decided to leave and go somewhere else. I climbed into the Jeep and commenced backing and suddenly the sound of a horn followed by a crunch. Bugger I had backed into the rear of a ca which had driven behind me. My inpatients was the cause so after surveying the damage to the other car and exchanging details I headed home. The next problem happened about 8.30pm.

Jill had a new catheter fitted by the nurse on Thursday and the comment by the nurse was that it was a different size but ever thing should be OK. Ring me if there is a problem. Late on Friday evening Jill said the catheter had slipped out. Too late to ring the nurse we headed to outpatients and after a new one was fitted we arrived home at about 11.30pm. Early next morning we had a call from Chris to say they were in Hospital as Nicole’s water had broke. The waiting seemed endless as we waited for the next call. Still nothing and then about 3.30 pm we had the most exciting call of all. We decided that we would head to Melbourne on Sunday. Loaded the Jeep, Jill on board and I backed out of our drive into the side of a Ute parked opposite. Twice in two days I could not believe it. Finally we were on our way and I had to compose myself and slow down and make certain that we arrived in one piece.

Riley , Chris and Nicole are finaly settled in at Home.

Jill has just called Macca has finished and she is ready to shower.

We are going back to Melbourne on Tuesday for another RILEY fix.

More photos o follow – see you next week on the net

At 3.28 pm  Saturday the 29th of May 2010

Riley James Keenan

was welcomed into this world

byhis proud parents Chris & Nicole

Congratulations and Thanks

Mum & Dad ( Grandma & Grandpa Keenan)

Added on the 1st May 2010

We went to Melbourne to visit the proud parents and of course our beautiful grand son Riley.

More weeks of concentrating on exercise so that Jill can obtain her goal of getting to Chris & Nicole’s place for the arrival of our grand child. As before each day includes various exercises to get Jill moving. Some days appear easier then others. Jill has reduced her pain medication over night and we are hoping that it will not hinder her progress.

Each time the phone rings we think it is Chris and tend to be upset when it is a sales call and I am becoming very rude just to get them off the line. They still seem to call at meal time as did a couple of chaps from the Mormons last night 7pm. The physio arrived on Monday with another walking frame for Jill to try. Jill seemed to cope with it but she tiers quickly. The physio said to try to use it each day for 5-10 minutes. We have prevailed with it but her arms and shoulders give her a lot of pain. Knowing Jill she will not give in. In our gym we have a set of stairs in the corner with two different height steps. She has been doing the low step each day and that has been going well, yesterday she insisted on doing the high step which is similar to the height of the step into the Jeep. She seemed to handle it better than the low step, so guess she will be doing it again today. We spend about an hour in the gym each day as well as the bed exercises and the walks up and down the passage.

Next week is full of appointments, Monday; X-ray to see how the knee is, physio after lunch, Tuesday orthopaedic surgeon, Wednesday physio and continence nurse, Thursday, dentist and Friday is FREE except for our own exercise regime.

Last Sunday I did the final clean up of our driveway for the return of our caravan. Loaded up the Jeep with the rubbish and then turned the key and it was totally dead not even a sound. I tried our battery power pack (not fully charged) and still nothing. I left the rubbish in the Jeep and waited over night for the power pack to charge but no avail still nothing. I rang RACV (probably the second time since I joined some 40 years ago). They arrived and after some attempts they were convinced that the battery was totally extinct. So $250 later I was back on the road and was able to empty the rubbish at the tip. I am convinced that the battery died due to the fact we only use the vehicle to go shopping small trips – 2 to 4 km per trip. I went on EBay and purchased a battery charger which I can use to give the battery a boost on a regular basis. I can also use it on the caravan battery system. The charger is a CTEK Multi xs 15000 and reading the instructions will do every thing but slice bread. Ordered on Wednesday evening from South Australia we had it delivered Friday morning – Freight Free.

Macca is almost finished and we will need to get into the shower.

See you in a couple of weeks on the net.