Taking Care of Dad and Lloyd / Judy

Last Friday Lloyd had foot surgery. It was an outpatient procedure in which they removed a large lump on the top of his right foot. The podiatrist said he thought it was something called a rheumatoid cyst, since Lloyd does have rheumatoid arthritis. Anyway, he's doing very well now. We have pain pills on call, rented a pair of crutches, and of course have a wheelchair for use on occasion. In fact, I wish I could show you a picture of Dad and Lloyd side by side in their wheelchairs on Saturday. For the most part, though, Lloyd uses the crutches and gets around pretty well. He just has to be sure to keep his foot up as much as possible so he spends most of his time in the inclined lazy boy in front of the TV.

Taking Care of Dad, 4 / Judy

Some people might say that Dad doesn't have a very good quality of life at this stage, but he thinks he does. He gets to sleep all he wants, which frankly has been his goal most of his life. He looks forward to eating when he does get up and he enjoys his meals tremendously. He always thanks me "for that delicious meal." Occasionally he likes to watch TV or a movie (if it's short) with us. For example, he recently watched something on the BYU channel about the church in France during WW2 that he talked about for a couple of days. Also, he likes to see episodes of the old JAG TV show that we get from Netflix.

And he doesn't have to worry about the things the rest of us do, like paying bills or doing our taxes or keeping the house clean. He doesn't even have to worry about keeping himself clean because the aid that comes in does that for him.

He is still a "people person" and always like to visit with anyone who comes, although he tires easily so he can't do it for very long at a time. His 90th birthday was a week ago and we invited several of his old friends from Cal Poly and the church and the neighbors in to help celebrate. He LOVED it. (See the pictures that Hilary posted on her blog because I can't seem to get pictures onto this blog.) Unfortunately, he had another UTI a couple days later and is just now coming out of it, but he is coming out of it.

So he continues longer than anyone thought he could go and Lloyd and I consider every day a gift.