2.7.2007

 I think I will follow up on my previous entry by continuing to complain for a while.

wbhammerSo while WB was in the home—while all that was going on—and after too, Joan refused to face the fact that she had to leave the house on Delridge Lane.  It’s off in the middle of nowhere.  And partly because of her stroke and her obstinate refusal to listen to anybody, she had fallen down on more than one occasion, and WB being too weak, an ambulance had to come out and they had to pick her up.  This happened more than once; and they made it clear at one point that this falling down and their coming out to pick up business could not go on forever.

So that was one thing.  And we were not sure either about what our legal responsibly was, if any.  Steve was concerned that WB, when he was still there, would go out and even though he was nearly 100% blind from macular degeneration would climb up to the roof, fall off and accidentally kill himself.  If he did, was that our fault somehow?  Hell, we didn’t know anything about this territory.

Joan kept falling down and finally the brothers found a place for her down in Escondido, with a hospital right across the street.  She had a large and plain room and down in Escondido she was able to get herself ferried over to where WB was so she could visit him nearly every day.  She was getting about in this really ponderous electrical wheelchair.

Then I forget what happened.  But she ended up in the hospital, and when they went to release her, she got herself released into the care of a woman who had previously been their care taker, and what do you know, but over all of our expressed concerns about her moving back out into the middle of nowhere, she managed to get herself back into that house, upon which her health began to decline.

I had a long talk I remember with the care taker saying that Joan was just sitting there in her chair unresponsive and that she the care taker didn’t know what to do and that medical issues like this were outside of her range.  And then one night around then Joan fell and got stuck between two pieces of furniture and completely unable to move had to lie on that tile floor till past dawn when the caretaker came, saw her flopped on the floor, had to break into the house and called the ambulance to take her to the hospital.  Seems as if, from later reports, she had a real bad bladder infection and it had affected her brain in some way.  

Who knows?  But that ripped it.  No more Delridge!  So when she got out of the hospital, the brothers got her shipped off to a nicer place than the one she had been in before.  She didn’t have her own room, but she had three squares a day, and the place was clean, and what with brother Steve dropping by regularly and brother Dave too when he could, the staff was not going to just ignore her.

But that place was not cheap.  5000 a month, plus medicine, plus incidental doctor expenses.  5000 a month!  That’s not chump change.  So we had to move to step 2: sell the Delridge property.

 

That’s WB in the picture standing out in front of the house at 10194 Ramona Drive.  He must have just got back from church because that was not his usual apparel.  I don’t know what the hammer is for. He put the brick face on the front of the house and poured the walk way, and a little in front on him, you can see the footing upon which he erected a stone wall about 3 or four feet high.  And in the dirt right by his toe stretching back to the side of the house he put down flagstone, though, as I recollect the flagstone pooped out and he never finished laying it clear to the edge of the house.

This is February 7.  The day WB died a year ago.