calherewecome

It has been a challenging weekend to say the least. On Saturday, we were scheduled to go up to Rob Morris Chapter in Santa Monica. We strongly encouraged Mary to come along. We didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone for about eight hours. Our plans were to leave at 2pm. Paula had been asked to do Ruth at an initiation ceremony. So we were committed on going.

We figured it would take us at least an hour to get from San Pedro to Santa Monica. It seemed that everyone in LA was on the 405. Where are all these people going we thought? Certainly not to work on a rainy Saturday afternoon. We were supposed to be there at 3pm for a rehearsal. As it turned out, we were late leaving. It takes a great effort to get Mary ready and loaded in the Jeep. So we arrived at the Masonic Center at about 3:30pm. By the way, we do have an HP placard for Mary.

Here’s where my discussion turns to HP access. We had never been to the Santa Monica Masonic Center before. We were told that there was an elevator and HP parking. So far so good. What we weren’t told was the HP parking was in the back of the building and the elevator was in the front of the building.

There is a back door, but only steep stairs to the 2nd floor where the lodge room is located. So Paula goes on ahead up the stairs while I take Mary around to the front. The walk for her was totally exhausting. If I wasn’t there with her I think she would have just laid down and died. So the lesson learned when checking our HP access. Ask detailed lessons about HP parking and location of elevators and the like.

So I got Mary up to the Lodge room and got her settled so she could recover. We got through the initiation. Normally at one of these affairs there would be a collation or meal at the Masonic center. This time the plan was to go out to a nearby Mexican restaurant. Okay by us, but we neglected to check on HP access. Our bad.

The restaurant was about 5 minutes from the Masonic center. No HP parking but they did have valet parking which is a good substitute. Here’s where the trouble started. Our group had a reservation and our tables were upstairs. NOT GOOD. No elevator. So slowly, very slowly Paula helps Mary climb the stairs. It might as well have been Mt Everest.

We had a nice dinner and good company, but truth be told the food was mediocre. Finished up at 8 pm and headed home. Pulled into the garage at about 9 and put Mary to bed.

Lessons learned: Be specific in asking questions about HP access. It can make a big difference.

Mary got up this morning and had breakfast but she decided not to go to church. Just as well. She needed time to recover from Saturday’s ordeals.

It also gave Paula and I time to talk over the recent events. The subject of a putting Mary in a nursing home came up. We’re not quite there yet. But we are approaching the point where caring for Mary could become more than we can handle. We are going to need to start some contingency planning to identify suitable facilities. We are hoping that Mary recovers somewhat from her pain and her ability to get into and out of bed.

Now we’re off to LA Harbor Lodge Chili Cookoff. We will probably do take-out for Mary.

This entry was posted on July 19, 2015 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Aging. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Aging, HP Access, Mary, OES