It’s been a pretty good month since the last update.

 

Carter stayed with us for his last week before starting school. Linda and Phil met about halfway between our homes on Friday, August 16 to get Carter to Menomonie. Carter played a lot with Kaeson Thomas and also spent a couple nights at Jen, Jon and Metella’s. It was great having Carter here for a week. Hopefully there will be many more.

 

Visitors included:

We also had family visitors including Friday night, August 23, when Phil and Cassie came up for the weekend. Jen, Jon and Metella also came over this weekend as well as September 7, when they spent the night and gave Linda a break from getting up in the middle of the night.

 

Bob Colson continues to do a great job helping Phil. This month’s task for Bob included reinstalling our stairway railing. The railing had come crashing down when the bracket broke in half.

 

Bob also has been cropping Phil’s photographs for the Elk Mound Craft Fair in which Phil will have a booth and attempt to sell some of his photos. He’s not real optimistic about selling much, since it is a Craft Fair rather than an Art Fair, but it will be a good experience. He will try an Art Fair in Eau Claire in February, regardless of how the craft fair goes. Phil even broke down and finally joined Facebook. He needed someplace where people could see his photos. He also joined Instagram. Phil would gladly welcome any Facebook friend requests or instagram follow requests.

 

On Wednesday, August 21, Phil went to Rochester and had a cystoscopy to check if he has any more stones in his bladder. Everything looked good and he doesn’t have to go back for a year. Wednesday night we met Jen ,Jon, Metella and Carter at River Prairie to listen to the band.

 

Jeff and Alice Heinzen got a couple more ramps. They now have four of them bolted together so it’s much easier for Phil to get up and down onto their deck. Though he did still struggle a bit on the way down after having dinner on their deck.

 

The neighbors are still doing a great job bringing desserts over for Phil. Lynn Fekete brought some of our famous banana split dessert which is one of Phil‘s favorites. She also brought some cinnamon rolls. Anita Hakes brought apple bars. And Joan Leubner brought apple crisp. They were all wonderful.

 

Phil has continued to do the standing frame. He has had great help from Larry Wengel, Chris Leubner, Duane Hofland, Jeff Heinzen, Mike Fekete, and Bob Colson. Phil has improved his personal record for standing from 61 minutes to 62 to 65 to 67 to 70 to 72 to 85 to 91 minutes! Also, he has not stood for less than an hour since August 28.

 

It’s been over a month since Phil has done any of his exercises at home other than by himself. He is looking for a college student or high school upperclassman who could help Phil with the exercises for three days a week. If anybody knows someone who would be willing to do this please let Phil know. Thanks.

 

The end of summer came way too quickly as it always does. Phil only had three or four bonfires and he’s hopeful that he will have some in the fall. If anyone is interested in coming over this fall for a bonfire please let Phil know.

 

A new concrete sidewalk and concrete apron for the driveway was poured on Friday, August 23. It really looks good. Next week new gutters will be installed above the front entryway. Hopefully even if we get a lot of snow we won’t have the ice build up that occurred last year.

 

Linda has had a couple of eye doctor appointments and saw the orthopedic surgeon for her knee. Thanks to Lynn Fekete he for taking her to one of the eye doctor appointments.

 

Linda will see the eye doctor one more time and then is tentatively scheduled for eye surgery on October 11. She has macular pucker. Hopefully the surgery will improve the center portion of Linda’s vision in her left eye.

 

Linda is scheduled to have knee replacement surgery on December 2, bringing her total number of surgeries in 2019 to three. She is hoping for a speedy recovery and appreciates all your well-wishes!