January 2011 thru May 17, 2011

Thought that I would take this way to post about our lives these past few months.

January was a very busy month as all of our snowbirds were back in Florida from up North. I spent many hours working on a committee doing an audit of the Leisure Lake Financial books, did a weekly visit as a mentor to a high school senior girl, counted money at church on Mondays, did readings during the weekly mass on Mondays and a couple of Sunday masses. At the end of January we went on a 5 night cruise to Mexico with a large group of people who live in our park. A wonderful trip on the Royal Carribbean Cruise lines Radiance of the Seas ship. Meanwhile Philip stayed very busy playing a lot of music with his brother (& wife) and his friend Don who are all here for a three month season. They are renting places here in the park. He also plays alot of golf with his brother and other friends here in the park. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus. With the 4th he is in charge of bringing a meal each month for all the guys...this he really enjoys as it gives him a chance to show off his cooking skills. In addition to all this we have alot of other activites within the park that we are involved with. Makes me tired just listing all of this. This is why I decided to slow down and uninvolve myself with many of the things that I am doing. So next season (October thru April)my life will not be quite so hetic.

February: Coming back from our cruise we were joined for 3 weeks by Martha and 2 weeks by Jim. Really enjoyed their company and it was fun to do things with them. They were good about entertaining themselves when we had doctors appointment etc that were already scheduled before we knew that they were coming. One Sunday we all went to a Polo Game...a first for the Jansens. Knew that Jim would enjoy it as the halftime entertainment was a parade of vintage Porche cars. A good time was had by all that day. We had several days where family members came in to visit with everyone. Another Sunday Phil put on a Guitar Jam for guitar players from Florida gathered at our park for an afternoon of great music. He has put this on now for 3 years. After the Jansens went back to California we hosted a dinner for all the people in the park that came to Florida from the midwest states...about 80 people in all. The park has three special dinners each year..one for our Canadians and Eastern States another for everybody from the state of Michigan and the one that we hosted the Heartland Dinner.

March: Another very busy month with...as I look at my calendar...so filled with events in the park and doctor appointments. On Fun Day the parade theme was circus and Phil turned our golf cart into an Elephant...it took first place. Of course all the things that I talked about happening in January were also on going during February and March.

April: At last things are starting to slow down abit. Many of our snowbirds are leaving to go back north and Phil's brother and friend have also gone home. He still is playing music on Saturday morning coffee hour and has started giving guitar lessons to a fellow who lives near us. Phil is teaching himself to play the large organ that is at the clubhouse and is getting quite good on it. I have had to do quite abit of running with my sister Betty this month as she is going thru a bunch of test and will have surgery on April 20th. The surgery went well but she developed heart problems and ended up in ICU for many days. By the 25th she was so bad that her daughter flew in on the 26th. On the 27th Phil called me from the golf course saying he was in the middle of a heart attack. As he was very close to the VA medical clinic he got himself to it and they took over taking him to the hospital where they determined that he needed a triple bypass heart surgery.

Early morning on the 29th he had his surgery so now I had 2 people in the same hospital but on different floors... both in intensive care units...
By the night of the 30th Phil was doing much better and my sister had moved to a Rehab Center. To my releif Phil's son Todd and his wife arrived on May 3rd. This was a long planned vacation trip for them that worked out so good for us as they were a big help to me with having Betty on the other side of town. On May 4th Phil came home from the hospital. On May 9th I spent the day at Betty's apartment supervising a moving company in packing up her things for a move north to her daughters home in New Jersey. The next day I picked her up and spent the day doing things with her before putting her and a granddaughter on a plane for New Jersey.
As I said having Todd and Joyce visit at this time was such a big help to me. Meanwhile life goes on as we try to stabilze Phils sugar.

I have continued since last year with my plant based way of eating. I did add yogurt & cheese back into my diet but otherwise have stayed true to my vegetatrian way of eating. Maintaining my weight and controlling my diebetes has been a great motivator to keep on doing my thing.

During Phils stay in the hospital his sugar and parkinson got so out of control it was scary...he was having lots of problems with both until I got him back home and on a schedule. He is now eating a mostly plant based diet with a small amount of chicken and we have his sugar back in a good place with a greatly reduced amount of insulin needed to keep his blood sugar in control. Am sure he is tired of me telling him what to do all the time but it seems to be working as today he had his last visit from the home nurse who said he is doing great..in fact he said that his wounds look like he is 4 weeks out from surgery and not just 2 1/2. So guess I must be doing all the right things and will continue to push (gently guide) him in the right direction.

Well think I have just about come to the end of my tale. Tonight one of the fellows picked Phil up, as he can not drive for another 2 weeks... and 4 more weeks after that before he can even think about playing golf or carrying any muscial instruments around. Anyway he got to go to his monthly music group gathering so he felt good about that. We did have another sad event in February as we lost a baby great granddaughter who was stillborn with Potters syndrome. Sad time for the family.
If you look at the pictures posted below this blog you will see pictures from several of the activities that I have talked about in this blog.