My mom is doing IV antibiotics at home for a bacterial infection in her toe. Her recent hospital visit was scary for us all, being her first hospital stay in five years, when she was hospitalized for four months after a stroke. I think she felt—and we all felt—like this recent hospital visit was going to be like it was before, the way we felt when she first woke up and she couldn’t even open her eyes or talk and we all felt completely helpless and vulnerable. At that time, we held her eyes open and she wrote messages with colored markers on a dry-erase board. She went from bedridden to walking with a four-footed hemi-cane in a matter of weeks….but there was still so much healing to do—physically, emotionally, spiritually. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the healing goes on long after you leave the hospital. And this recent hospital visit reminded her of how far she has come. She can ask for what she needs, she’s not afraid to be alone, she speaks up for herself, and she’s much more independent.
I just hope that antibiotics take care of this infection. Every day, I ask the universe for two things: for my family to be safe and healthy, and to be able to realize my “personal legend,” to do the work I’m meant to do, whatever that may be.
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| Slide-Tape Recorder |
For now, I’ll leave you on a humorous note. You can learn so much about people and past times by looking at their things. I’ve enjoyed looking at old church cookbooks for this reason. I find myself working in a place that seems like a museum—containing relics of the past. I’m uncovering all sorts of crazy gadgets that I’ve never seen before. This is a slide-tape projector. You put your slide carousel on the top and an audio cassette in the slot and it projects the slides on the screen with accompanying audio. I imagine this was quite an improvement to the standard slide projector.
Pictured below is some sort of primitive teleconferencing unit called a “Darome.” Note the dust. Oh, how far we’ve come.
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| Darome Teleconferencing Unit |
