Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
A Bit of Beethoven
30 January 2025
I took some sheet music from the piano bench and put it in my briefcase to take to Golden Heights today. The idea was to see if I could get Joyce to play the piano.
My plans were a bit optimistic. The Pacific Room where the spinet resides was booked from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for staff only. It turns out some character had a Jan. 30 birthday and stacks of pizza boxes and towers of cola were accompanying a cartoonish version of Happy Birthday playing for three hours on the room's sound system.
So I bided my time.
We rolled around the facility and stopped in the gym. She found the SciFit too painful to use this time. Dressing the wound without the non-adherent petroleum gauze protecting the wound lets the foam grate like sandpaper on the raw flesh, causing bleeding. You can see the blood travel along the clear tubing to the Wound VAC itself, in fact.
So we spent some time on the Spirit Cycle, which is a hands-and-arms device. I had the bright idea to suggest she count revolutions as an incentive. She did three sets of 20.
There was still half an hour to go.
So we went back to the room and watched Tamron Hall with Bob Mackie and the Detroit guys who restored Aretha Franklin's home.
The things you do for love.
Eventually 2 p.m. rolled around and I rolled Joyce into the room in her wheelchair. I pulled the piano out far enough to get her wheelchair into place and she went through the sheet music.
She was pleased with herself and played a few pages before getting tired. But it was enough for me to hear the music again.