Never Enough Fun

Larry has continued to make great progress. He started rehab yesterday, which consists of various physical therapy routines. They also are finally giving him a little more pain medication, which he really needs.

But tonight he showed some signs of overdoing it just a bit. It wasn’t the same kind of disorientation he had last week, but he was a little frustrated and confused as to why he wasn’t allowed to go home right now. Eventually he fell asleep. Hopefully he’ll get a good night of rest and be back on track tomorrow.

After a little setback yesterday, Geri arrived at the hospital this morning to what feels like a miracle: Larry has his memory back. He’s asking the kind of questions you would expect from somebody who wakes up in a hospital, and he’s remembering the answers. He knows the date. The doctors have forewarned us that his cognitive abilities might wax and wane a bit as he continues to recover, but for right now we’re celebrating.

There’s one downside: he’s now very aware of the pain, and he still can’t have any medication other than Tylenol. He reminded us this morning that Tylenol has never worked much for him. Though he doesn’t appear to have spinal chord damage, his legs are hurting  similar to how they did last December, so he’s probably really tweaked his back.

Not surprisingly, Larry seems more concerned about Geri than himself. She told him what a good job his boys have done at taking care of him, to which he replied “they need to be taking care of you.” But even Larry knows Geri well enough to know that taking care of other people is what Mom does best. We’ve all been joking about the fact that she’s filled up her University Hospital frequent diner card (a true fact).

All of us kids and grandkids are headed to a family reunion in Heber for a few days. Larry obviously wishes he could be there, but we’re glad that the reunion brought us all out here (from as far as Switzerland!) to be together for all of this.

For the past two days, Larry has been taking short walks with some help. There has been little change with his memory and disorientation, but it’s nice that he’s able to get up and move around a bit. He also had some real food for breakfast this morning, which he really seemed to enjoy!

They’ve moved him out of intensive care, but he still has somebody assigned to him full time (in addition to Geri or one of his sons being with him). Due to possible negative side effects with the head trauma, they’re reluctant to give him much in the way of pain medication. So, the ol’ farm boy is battling the headache, bruises, and broken ribs with nothing more than some Tylenol.

Jed here, Larry’s youngest son. I’m going to be taking over for a little while.

On June 25, while riding his red beauty to Mirror Lake, Larry was in an accident. We don’t know much, except that he passed an SUV on the left, just as it was turning left. He clipped it, and he and the bike went down. We all know what a safe rider Larry is, so we have to assume that he was not anticipating the SUV’s turn.

He was flown to University Hospital where he has been ever since. Fortunately, his trusty chartreuse helmet held up pretty well:

Aside from about 6 broken ribs, it appears he has no other fractures. The biggest concern is the head trauma; he has both a subarachnoid hemorrhage and a subdural hematoma. He can recognize people he knows, but struggles with short term memory and consequently remains disoriented. At this point there is no reason to believe that he won’t fully recover, but it will be a long road.

It seems like people in these situations always express how overwhelmed they are by the love and kindness shown by friends, neighbors and relatives. But we really have been surprised. Geri says “it’s like we’re famous.” Thank you all so much for your continued prayers, thoughts, and offers to help. Once Larry is home and able to accept visitors (and hot meals! ), we’ll let you know.

Participated in a tour organized by Richard Holzapfel, professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU. Flew into Tel Aviv (only 10 hours from New York — not so fun, but survived), and stayed at the Sheraton on the shore of the Med

Next day we began our tour, which included Mt. Carmel and Capernaum.

From there we got to see the Jordan River (north end prior to it’s entering into the Sea of Galilee),

and the Sea of Galilee,

including a short boat ride.

Next, it was on to Nazereth, where Jesus grew up

Finally, we arrived at Jerusalem,

where we visited the Garden of Gethsemane

the temple mount, including the courtyard and several other parts of the temple grounds,

and the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies

While staying in Jerusalem, we also visted the dead sea,

and Masada, where I hiked up to it.

We saw many other things and visited many other places. In sum, it was an incredible experience.

The minute I laid eyes on it, I knew that Earl would want me to have it in the spirit of getting the most fun possible out of being old.

Went to Sayulita, Mexico (a few miles north of Puerto Vallarta) to spend a week with Jed and Chelsey at the end of their 2-month Work outside the country experience. Unfortunately, my back began giving me fits at the beginning of the trip, so I was only able to walk around (slowly and not too far), but couldn’t do fun things like surfing and snorkeling. They rented a nice villa within a block of the beach.

Jed and Chelsey were able to do some surfing, which made me envious, but . . .

We also went to church, although it was all in Spanish

after which we did a picnic lunch on the beach going back home.

We had a wonderful housekeeper who agreed to come and cook some really good fish tacos one nite.

We also met some interesting friends who lived in a tree just outside our villa.

On balance, it was a good trip, even if I was restricted in what I was able to do.

Don’t you hope you’ll look this happy on your 89th birthday (:-}.

Actually, she was quite alert, but didn’t eat much of the birthday dinner we brought.

And nobody does it better than Grandma Geri

• Another first last week–20 minutes out of Salt Lake on Delta Airlines, the plane took a quick dip to the right and then down dropped all the oxygen masks — yup the unlikely loss in cabin pressure the attendants are always warning you about at the beginning of a flight. I suddenly wished I had paid closer attention to those demonstrations at the beginning of each flight on how to use those things. The flight attendant even said she has been on hundreds of flights and never had that happen. Anyway, we went back to Salt Lake, where we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . and finally got on another plane headed for L.A. and onto the Mexican cruise. It was “smooth sailing” after that, but it did add to the excitement of the trip. By the way, in case you haven’t paid attention either, be sure to yank on the clear tubing to get the the oxygen flowing. I had my mask on, but just about sucked myself inside out because the oxygen wasn’t flowing. No harm, though, just a headache. — Geri