"A beautiful weekend in Fairfax"

With the change in dosage to one of Dar's meds I saw quite a difference in her attitude over the weekend.

Dar's Zoloft was increased slightly on Thursday. By Saturday when I arrived Dar was in much better spirits. Although still having dfficulty with vocalizing words her attitude and demeanor were much improved.

As I have mentioned in the past the fact that Dar's neck muscles are so tight she finds it difficult to speak. Dar'sneck muscles are like that of a snapping turtle. When he rneck is withdrawn inward it is very difficult to speak. Try it, suck your neck into your shoulders and you will see and hear the difficulty Dar is having.
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After stretching and relaxing the neck muscles Dar has an easier time of vocalization. Again this is why we are looking into the Botox injections for the neck. I hope we get it approved.

We spent lots of time on the deck and Dar was very happy to be with Mav and other friends of the facility.

It was a great weekend and a joy to see Dar happy and content. Pain issues are at a minimum when not in therapy but even then Dar is such a tropper that her pain is only short lived.

I have come up with a plan that will enable us to keep our travel trailer and with some modifications I believe it will work very well in meeting Dar's needs. The front of our trailer is the master bedroom with a raised queen size bed. Under the bed is outside wall to wall storage. My plan is to remove the bed and pedestal to the floor and this will leave a space approximatley 51x100. This will allow me to either put Dar's hospital bed across the room from wall to wall or length wize in the room. A hospital bed is about 36x80. I will start looking on Craigs list for a bed soon.

Fortunatley for us our trailer has two entrances, one in the back to the kitchen and one in the front to the bedroom. The doors are a little over 24 inches wide and if I take the outer hand ring off Dar's wheelchair, we will be able to roll her right into the bedroom. In the event that it is too close I have spoken to our dealer and it appears it would be not too much trouble to put a larger door to the bedroom. Maybe make it 3o/32 inches wide. I will probably use some sort of portable ramps to take Dar in and out. Something similar to what we use to load the Polaris Ranger on the truck.

I think it wiser to keep what we have rather than try to sell and re-purchase during these hard economic times. Besides Dar loves her trailer. If you have any suggestions or thoughts feel free to comment.

Well the work week has started and I will keep you up to date as we learn more during the week. Dar's mom,dad and little sister from Oregon are coming this weekend so I am thinking about taking a day or two this week before school starts and have a little "fish time" possibly on the Sac River. See if I can coax a couple of buddies to drift the Lower Sac and do some fly fishing. I do miss time on the water. We'll see.

Love to all, please stay in touch,

Dar/Danny/Mav