A new plan

In our last episode Stevo planned to go see a friend at work play drums at a local night club for New Years Eve ...

I ended up doing something much better, but first a story ...

The Geer family at our church experienced nothing short of a tragedy about 6 months ago. Carol, the mom, went in for a very routine abdominal surgery. She had a severe reaction to the muscle relaxant used as part of the anesthesia process. Her heart stopped for 18 minutes, leaving her in a coma and the doctors saying she would never recover. The family not content with this made arrangements for a regime of hyperbaric oxygen treatments down in Florida. A few weeks after starting the treatments hurricane Wilma came roaring through, cutting off power to the facility for almost a month. Despite the interruption, the treatments did wonders and she's now considered conscious and alert. She's clearly aware of her surroundings, shows emotions, follows all activity in the room with her eyes and even tries to talk. Unfortunately she still can't move her extremities to any extent and her muscles have atrophied as a result. To add insult to injury the insurance companies won't cover the treatments, considered "experimental", won't pay for nursing home care until she's moved into a "participating" facility, all of which in our three county area have year long waiting lists and Medicaid has rejected their application. This has resulted in a crushing financial blow to the family, so their friends have put on two fundraising dinner/auctions over the past few months to help "Meet the Need", raising about $30,000 or so. Seems like a lot, but I'm guessing the family has experienced at least $60,000 in out of pocket expenses at this point, so they are really hurting on all levels. Financial, emotional and spiritual.

I'm not able to make a dent in their financial situation, but I do have a spare 19" TV. Ironically enough, my grandmother used this very same set in this very same nursing home some 20 years ago. Dan, the son, has a spare DVD player and a huge movie collection. So he's going to fix Carol up with her favorite movies to help pass the time when the family at school and work and provide visual stimulation. I got to know Rich, the dad, a bit better while we set up the TV and rearranged some of the furniture. Sometime the next couple days I'm going to take over a set of shelves as well, so they have a place to put up some pictures and such. Right now the room only has a small dresser, one of those rolling tables and a chair. This the first time I had ever met Carol. Indeed she did look alert, studying this newcomer for a long while and clearly experiencing a lot of thoughts running through her mind.

I attended the second of the Meet the Need dinners. Afterwards, while helping tidy things up, Rich and Dan invited me to spend New Years Eve with them. They go every year to a friends house who doesn't mind seeing a few new faces turn up at the door. The friends house right near the place my folks church having their New Years party. I called up my folks and made the arrangements. In the end I went to my folks party from 7 - 8:30P, went over to the Geer party till about 10P. Went back to pick up my folks and took them home. Returned to the Geer party just in time to see the ball drop. The friends house really cool and the basement full of all the toys one would want. HDTV, pool table, air hockey table and one of those basket ball things. I'm not much good at sports but one of the guys, Brad, really got into the basket ball thing. I started watching and he eventually convinced me to give it a try. I never got over 51, but still had a fun time. Even though he much better, he got 136 one time, he never did make fun of me. When I got home I realized how much this meant to me. Most of my previous competitive sports experiences not so good. Brad goes to Hope along with his brother Brian. I hope I'll run into them again some day.

To my total surprise I also got invited to a third New Year's Party. One of the guys from my model train club invited me to come over to his place. He and his wife decided to throw a New Year's bash at the last minute. It turned out I couldn't squeeze it in with everything else going on, but it gave me a lift to think he'd go to the trouble to call me up and invite me. Hopefully the next time they throw a party the timing will work out better.