Ariel gets a personal trainer

Ariel has a gym membership and a personal trainer now instead of Physical therapy. The first day she did things she had never managed before. The semester going fine. She is typing better, trying to write an article and even sent of an abstract for a conference in April.

Her father died Thursday. He was 87. He was badly injured in a fire 9 years ago, and almost died then and several times since. We visited him there in June, because he seemed to be fading. She loved him very much.

Here they are together in Hania, Crete, in 1998 (we bought him a ticket to come with us

I have up a second blog with some of his artwork here

Birthday outing

The Antiques Roadshow came to town today, so I got tickets as an early birthday present for Ariel.
Here is the photo of her at the ARS site


We got there around 9:40, got in line until 11 for our sixty seconds with an appraiser. Pushing the wheelchair with one hand and carrying the rug in the other went fine until the cell phone rang.

The "Kazakh" carpet we brought turned out to be Qashqai, about 75 USD per square foot. So its not quite the precious object it might have been. She'll get her picture on their website though (along with 4000 others).

Road trip to Geneva

Ariel standing next to Douglas, from the original "house of Bob" and Hobart & William Smith College.


Sara Rappe, who had a nice dinner for Ariel when we were in Ann Arbor



Stopped along the way to see Granite City, Ariel's dad's childhood home. The home is gone, but the mill is still there.

Two years on

Ariel had a good OT evaluation this week, the two year anniversary of her stroke. This mostly an increased range of motion in her left arm, and a better ability to turn over her hand at the wrist.
She is on hiatus form PT for insurance reasons, but will return sometime this spring I hope. She has a new cane, replacing the cane pictured above (which looked like a small walker). It's jsut a regular cane with a four footed base,
Teaching is going better this term. She can lecture more fluidly than previously, and stands to write on the board from time to time. Her schedule is better than last term's, which forced her to stay an office for four hours three days a week until i could come get her after the HS day ends. WSU continues to harass her, however: the Grad School demoted her to associate status. She has a temporary reprieve, since she is directing a thesis at the moment (which she cannot do as an associate member).
I am beginning to worry about the mirgraine meds, because they are contra-indicated for people at risk for stroke heart attack. The work so well (Maxalt MLT) however, I am reluctant.

She wants to go to CAMWS in AZ in April. The above is from our Christmas trip to San Antonio. My sister gave her a new winter hat.

photos from the past year

Ariel at a Reacting to the Past Conference at the Center for Hellenic Studies DC in June 07

Ariel with a student who dressed up in a chiton for the last day of class, May 07.

Christmas last year with my niece Emily (and Bindy the doglet) in San Antonio.

You can see how much progress she's made by comparing these photos with the one below.
We only take the wheelchair for long distances, she does not use it at home. She taught 1 class in Fall 06, two in Spring 07, three in Fall 07 and so on this term too.

Ariel recently

This was taken in Waterloo NY Dec. 2 07 at her father's bedside.

The smiling OT

Two important things this week: in Occupational Therapy (OT) this week, the OT (Martha) was so happy with the progress in Ariel's left arm that she beamed at her. That is, she was using a different part of her arm to do the OT exercises that she could not before, and that, it seemed to the OT, (who are not typically given to effusions of optimism) that her arm was waking up.

In PT, she walked an outdoor obstacle course: sidewalk, coble stones, sand, gavel, grass, then up and down cement stairs. All this she did without balking, with little help from PT (Sue), other than blocking her left ankle from time to time.

Saturday, she walked into the kitchen and practiced opening drawers with her left hand (i had to put her fingers in the pull, then she would open and close it), the refrigerator and the kitchen door (with her right).

Saturday evening, we went to a party (Philosophy Dept. friends; there are never history Dept. parties), with much bigger obstacles than in therapy. She had to negotiate the front steps with no railings at all, down narrow hallways with various kinds of rugs on them, past other guests, bounding dogs, etc. After an hour or so, we left the way we came in. Going down stairs is much trickier than going up. But down we went. I held her arm, the gait belt and a friend (Ray) held it from behind.
Then i got the wheelchair and took her to the car.

One year ago, she came home from the rehab hospital.

An old photo of Ariel in Delphi in 1998.