Daily Love - Electric Wheelchair

10/13/04

Hi,

My first writing on how my 'good daily love' is expressed and manifested.

luv, JOY

Love today for me is expressed in harsher, heavier, bulkier,  blacker tones.

The tone of The Electric Wheelchair.

My  compassion for my husband is wanting for him to have what is best for him.

My love is my persistence in not giving up. Just as his is not giving up. He is a champion of life.

It is a sin in Judaism to commit suicide.

He does not want to live with the pain, suffering, prisoner setting of paralysis and metastatic carcinoma.

Yesterday I had brought to the house- had delivered by the manufacturer's rep. and medical equipment company owner- a big, black tilting, reclining, non-shearing, custom, power, electric $25,000 wheelchair. I had thought it would be only up to $18,000. Bells and whistles…

It made it through the front door after we slowly removed the manual controls, into narrow hallway, and even made it into the bedroom by pressing open the door. On its first try did not scratch the furniture or walls in it's tight squeeze. Amazingly this newly designed mechanical thing spins like a dreidle, 360* in it's space. Luckily, because it is not much smaller than the size of the room.

I will have to move it out of Marcel's bedroom each time I serve a meal in his hospital bed, or answer his call, or check on him. Thus, I will just leave it in the middle of the small family room when Marcel is not in it for the two hours each day that he is moved out of bed where he lies because of the debilitating lymphedema.

Today the men (mentioned above), and I bring it to the hospital so that Marcel while hospitalized, can be fitted by the hospital physical therapists (PT) for the right electric wheelchair.

It is good he is in the hospital because we have run out of home physical therapy and nurse visits paid for by insurance.

Love. Minutes before this last hospital admission (6th this year), I called the PT Dept. to advise of his coming  and wrote a letter requesting this action be taken immediately to proceed with medical necessity orders for equipment. (Typically, of course, it was not acted upon until I called again a few days later.) In addition to other cancer complications needing hospitalization again, patient thought that maybe there was a new tumor on his shoulder because of the pain last couple of weeks, where he can feel pain. Turns out that with MRIs, that pain is not a new tumor but pain is probably due to nerve impingement because of his using his manual wheelchair to push himself, to ride to the next house up the hill and back. That is good news because Marcel most likely would have become quadriplegic if so, beyond his paraplegia. Although Marcel has been in the wheelchair for the last year and a half, being in the hospital most of the time, he has not been able to exercise his arms by turning the wheelchair wheels, so the exercise finally took it's toll.

So for my "daily-good" love, I will put up with the big heavy (ugly monster) electric custom powered wheelchair in the middle of my family room where I live. But it ain't gonna be colored black! And you know what color I love.

(Now I am off to physical therapy because my daily love for moving things around for Marcel, has done it's damage to my body and I am taking the time to help myself.)

One love, shalom and abundant blessings of health and joy to you,

Joy Krauthammer

"Serve G*d With Joy"

PS
Marcel only got to sit in his brand new fancy black electric wheelchair a couple times. It was not allowed to be used in the facility where he recuperated from the hospitalization, needing great care, and daily pain drug evaluation. It didn't even fit in the Access transport vehicle.

Marcel did get to ride the wheelchair at our daughter's wedding. He danced in it until the evening ended.  

Angels spun that chair with Marcel in it, like a dreidle on the wedding dance floor.

~