Happy Birthday, Carol!

This evening we had a birthday party for Mom at Autumn.  They set up the conference room with tablecloth, balloons, paper plates etc. and punch and water, and Chris baked a zucchini cake for us.  Aunt June brought a floral-decorated cake. Aunt Susan brought a veggie tray. Lots of folks came down from the Akron area:  Aunts Peggy and June, Uncle Ted and Cheryl, cousin Pam, second cousin Phylis, and great-aunt Garnet.  Then from this area, my brother Charlie, his wife Susan, daughter Amy and fiance Mike, daughter Sadie and boyfriend Kyle, me and Dad and Benji.  Guests from the home were a pastor, a pianist and a new friend, Mina.

We had a prayer, piano music, old Miller Sisters cassettes, and readings.  Mom asked Sadie to read the adages and quips from a book neighbor Betty Ford made and sent to Mother.  Mom read Bible verses from a set that Faith and family sent as a gift.

Mother received a lot of really nice gifts: fall decor from Aunt Peggy, one of those puffy bulletin board things with ribbons from Pam, pretty fluffy warm pink socks from Aunt Garnet, pink PJs, books, posters by Sadie of all the Miller grandkids and great grandkids, lots of other things I can't remember, and tree book (for her rain forest), quilt books, and a Treasure Chest from me.  Mother has been telling us that The James named her, "The Treasure", and that she has lots of treasures, so I found a box sorta like the hat-box style, decorated with butterflies and with a handle and clasp a little like a Treasure Chest.

Earlier in the day, Chris had come down and brought Mom some pretty new birthday clothes and PJs.  She and I decorated Mom's room, and Chris set up closet organizers and a small chest of drawers.  Mom had neighbor visitors this afternoon, too, and got her staples removed from her incision.

If you had looked in on us at certain times this evening, and from a certain angle (in Mom's case), you would have sworn nothing was going on with Mom's health or mental state at all.  Chris had combed her hair in a center part so that hair fell over to cover most of her incision, and it doesn't look nearly as ghastly as it did, and the hair around it is growing back.  She was doing amazingly well today.  She is starting to take a few breaths so that you can converse with her, actually get a word in edgewise, and she was able to run the show, telling us what she wanted to do next and when, and she read the Bible verses Faith sent, which were hand written.  She may have known them almost by heart, though.

At other times, she still told stories and said things that didn't make any sense at all.  Chris said she complained of not being able to see as well this morning and repeated lots of stories, some we had not heard since she was at the James, and some of them she told twice without knowing it.  She comes into the building from outside and doesn't know which way her room is, although she has taken a lot of walks and entered from outside many times already.  And her belly is bruised from the subcutaneous shots of short-acting blood thinners she continues to get.  When she's not calling herself, "Carol, the Treasure", she calls herself "Carol, the Cheetah", because her belly is so blotched with large dark purple bruises from the injections.

Her walking is stronger and stronger and she sometimes forgets to bring Evinrude along, which is against the rules.  When she does something bad, she slaps her mouth lightly and says, "Bad Carol", then her fanny, and says "Bad Carol", again, like a little kid might do.  She has stopped asking about going home, which is puzzling considering how much hell we caught about taking her to Autumn instead of home, and how much she has wanted to go home. It will probably come back, though.

One of the things she enjoyed today was taking the chocolate-covered strawberries that Doris and Jane sent special delivery to folks around the home.  She set them on Evinrude's seat and carried them with her that way.  A friend brought her a little bag to hang on Evinrude's handle, so she can carry things there, too.  She has a TV and VCR, as well as the cassette player in her room now, too, so she's getting pretty well settled in.

Party pics!