Miracle at Elmwood Rehab Facility ...

While visiting Dorian at Kaiser Permanente post-surgery,  she mentioned that back at the nursing home where she'd been living for the past several months recovering from fractures of both legs -- there was a plastic bag containing soiled laundry which needed picking up.  Since I pass through Berkeley on my way to my home in Richmond, it was convenient to stop by and relieve her concerns.


Dorian shares a room with another patient who has only been under treatment for a few weeks, and who had never been communicative -- always with the curtain drawn when I visit with Dorrie -- and, though my gregarious daughter knows the names of every C&A, physiotherapist, RN, and social worker in the facility, she did not know that of the woman who shares her room.  Very odd.  Dorian, who is developmentally disabled, has the personality of the Great Dane puppy and romps in her wheelchair about the halls and visits constantly throughout the building. 

I probably should tell you that our roommate is taken by ambulance 6 days a week for dialysis, and is rarely out of bed, but I have no idea what her ailment is, though she is obviously in pain much of the time, and her legs are visibly swollen ... .

When I went in to pick up the laundry I was surprised and delighted to see the room filled with sunlight (curtain between the beds was drawn back) and the patient was busily crocheting on a beautiful bed coverlet.

"Oh, so you're an artist, too," says I.  How lovely that you and Dorrie have this to share."

She smiled and said, "Oh, no.  I didn't know how to crochet, your daughter taught me to do this.  I never made nothin' so beautiful.  It's for my daughter."

Dorian is not only brightening up the home with her handmade presents to staff, visitors, and patients, but she's teaching!  I may go broke buying skeins and skeins of yarn, but I'll go happy.  She gets such pleasure from keeping her little book of "commissions" and taking orders for these lovely colorful gifts of love. 

Photo 1:  Happy roomie!
Photo 2:  Dorian and one of her latest projects.  This was taken 3 days after her second surgery and one day after her return from Kaiser Hospital to Elmwood Rehabilitation Facility. I'm heading out to see her in a few minutes -- and she's progressed to the point where she's again cruising the halls in her wheelchair and no longer bedridden.  It's been less than two weeks (3/31) since the corrective surgery was performed.