Planning our trip Home

The signs may be small, but every day, progress is being made on Shirley's recovery.  She has not had to put on her knee braces the last two days to climb the stairs into Pete & Caroline's house.  She took a shower and didn't need to rest on the shower seat.  She took a more active role in making dinner last night than the night before.  There is still a long way to go, but the progress is very encouraging.

And with the improvements, we have scheduled a return trip to Portland. We have a meeting we are supposed to attend for a being host family for our exchange student (who returns next Sunday!) on Tuesday evening and we've decided this is as good as any reason to come back for at least a few days.  We are planning driving back next Monday night for what will be Shirley's first visit since February 13.

Our plan will be to stay in Portland until the following Monday, when we'll need to return to Seattle for another clinic follow-up visit. (Don't worry, Souang & Nic are still house sitting and will be there for Joy our exchange student).  I have the annual Portland to Coast Relay walk on Friday-Saturday and depending on how Shirley is feeling, she may either come over to the coast to join me there, or stay at the house.

It remains to be seen if this will be a permanent return home or if we'll have many more nights to stay in Seattle.  But it's a great start.  We are really looking forward to sleeping in our own bed, seeing the house, pets, and all our family and friends in Portland.

Shirley went in yesterday for a scheduled MRI on her back to see if the cause of her pain could be identified.  We haven't heard the official word yet, but was went in with her sister Betsy (a semi-retired Radiologist) and they came home with a DVD of the images.  They identified compression fractures on three of her vertebrae, which correspond to her pain points.  We'll wait for the official ruling and a determination of what they are going to suggest doing about them when she sees the doctors on Monday.