Thursday, April 5, 2012, Home, 1326 North Rendon Street, New Orleans, LA


We're home in New Orleans, I've been too busy to blog.  All told, we were in Houston 3 1/2 months.  Richard was in three different hospitals for 10 weeks.


People in hospitals in Houston told me to try to lighten up and save myself for when we got home.  They were right, at home you have to do all the stuff the hospital staff did and take care of your home.  Still, things are settling down, Richard is getting stronger, and is now able to do a lot more for himself.


Richard's trach is out, he's enrolled at Touro Rehab Center as an outpatient and is working with a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, and a physical therapist.  His work with the speech therapist to regain the ability to swallow is promising.


We are much indebted to the people who helped in Houston and to get us home.  The Howell family gave me a place to stay for more than a month, and I very much enjoyed their company.

Gwen and Anne Turner Howell

Gwen and Don Howell visited Richard at TIRR

Our friend Patty Ingold and her cleaning lady cleaned 3 months of dust and grime at our house.  Our friends Lawson and Clint Allen arranged for a private plane to fly us home.  Our friend Ronnie Kohler flew to Houston, drove my Prius home stuffed to the roof with all our stuff, and unloaded it on this end.  Our friend V Ingold met us at the airport in New  Orleans,

drove us home, helped us get settled in, and gave me fish to eat.

Richard's occupational therapists at TIRR helped us figure out what we needed to enable Richard to function at home and how to get it.  Richard's physical therapists at TIRR taught him how to go up and down stairs and how to get into the private plane (no mean trick -- narrow stairs, no railings). 

Hector Toro, occupational therapist

I probably won't be blogging any more.  At this point, it is just a matter of time before Richard gets back to normal.  Someone told me that for every day a person is in the ICU it takes a week to regain one's strength.  This would mean the end of May at least.  The drama is over, it's now just the work of rehab.


Pretty much every late afternoon or early evening, Richard and I drive up to City Park near our house, and go for a little walk at the Big Lake, a wonderful promenade much used by New Orleanians.  We walk a bit, Richard with his walker, and then we sit and people watch, and then we walk back to the car.  I think that soon Richard will not need the walker.