Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
Home for Lunch
25 June 2025
Today's adventure was to bring Joyce home for lunch. She'd done what stairs Golden Heights could muster and walked to her appointment at Kaiser so she had proven herself fit enough to walk to the front stairs, climb them and make it to the table in the dining room.
But I hadn't gotten a pass from "the doctor." I have no idea who "the doctor" is at the moment. Dimaano was the doctor but I only saw her once when Joyce was first admitted. No one could tell me the name of the doctor who had order the most recent MoCA test but it wasn't Dimaano.
When I told Julian I was taking her home for lunch today, he broke the bad news. "You need a pass from the doctor."
I'd been through this with my mother, of course. Someone at the nurse's station would print out a pass and get a doctor to sign it and give me a copy that no one ever wanted to see.
So I was going to take her home for lunch doctor's pass or not.
But Julian got the OK as Joyce was getting dressed. So off we went, leaving the wheelchair behind and walking with the trekking pole to the car parked in a handicapped spot by the back door.
She wanted to know which way to turn and how much further it was and would I bring the car in to the front desk but we managed to get to the car and she managed to sit in the passenger seat. And off we went.
At the house she walked to the stairs where there's one step up to a concrete platform on which the stairs sit. She handled that after some negotiation and then began the walk up. Doing nine or so steps up at once is a bit more challenging than the four up at Golden Heights and she needed a rest but she made it to the threshold.
I suppose I should have carried her over the threshold. But I'm an old man now.
Unfortunately to stepped up with the wrong foot (it's "Up with the Good, Done with the Bad" when it comes to leg disabilities) and got stuck. I helped her back off but she was really in danger of falling backward just to get her foot off the threshold.
Fortunately, she was wearing the big leather belt I use instead of a gait belt, So I was able to stabilize her until she got both feet back on the Welcome mat and went up with the good leg.
She walked to the table and sat down without a problem. So I turned on the stereo before making lunch.
I'd given her a Bryan Adams CD titled Tracks of My Tears which I found on Haight St. a while ago. Just the song titles (old favorites of his when he was learning the craft) are suggestive. Any Time at All, She Knows Me, I Can't Stop Loving You, Kiss and Say Goodbye, Lay Lady Lay, Rock and Roll Music, Down on the Corner, Never My Love, Sunny, The Tracks of My Tears and, finally, that tear jerker God Only Knows.
Well, they were all, under the circumstances, tear jerkers.
I warmed up some Trader Joe's clam chowder (which she must have eaten a cup of), gave her a high protein Boost and cut up some French bread to dip in the chowder (she never eats the bread at Golden Heights but this piece she ate). Afterwards we had cappuccinos.
"I love this house," she said, very happy to be home. She wanted to sleep here but I told her we were already in enough trouble with the doctor, whoever they were.
She was afraid to get up and walk through the house and go down the stairs. But she was afraid to get up and walk to the parking lot to begin with. I led her to the front door and we went down the steps on the bad leg one at a time.
Until the last three when she screamed, "I can't do it!" I calmly reassured her she was doing fine, had done eight or so steps already and there were just a couple more. But she sat down on the stairs.
Could I get her up? Ah, the belt again. And the fact she only weighs 109 lbs. now. I was able to get her on her feet and then, bravely, she put the bad foot forward and made it to the concrete platform. One to go.
But she practically leaped down it without a thought. And from there we strolled to the car.
We'd done it. Lunch at home. And she really enjoyed being home. Marveling at all the stuff. "Fifty years worth," I pointed out. And the photos. They hang on the walls and stand on the furniture tops but they are all imprinted on her soul.
I told her we'd come back. She'd shown she can do it.