July 6, 2021

 It is my sister Joanne’s 75th birthday today.  Hard to believe and the older we get the more we marvel and wonder where all the years have gone. 

We have been blessed to have the Burgess family with us this past week and it has been busy, exciting and fun. They are our first in house guests in a year and it is just nice to have our family back in our home including Cindy’s family. Sayde had her CP camp with Anna everyday and the rest of the family kept busy. They went shopping, raspberry picking at Krause Farms, to the drive-in movie, to Whiterock beach and to the Chiliwack water slides. The girls bought Chinese food for Canada Day and everyone came here to eat including Ross and Sarah. Bryson did quite a bit with Jack and the Hardy Family accompanied them on several adventures. Brendon came down after work on Wednesday and he did a great deal of work around our place. He trimmed our cedar hedge and other trees and painted the trim on our back deck roof. He and Liza mowed and trimmed our grass and Liza trimmed our bushes. The place looks lovely and we really, really appreciate their help as Tom is not allowed to do such things right now and we feel a little hindered in our capacities. We have been independent all our lives and it is difficult and humbling to require the help of others.

Tom had his blood test on Friday and his PSA and testosterone levels were good but potassium and creatine levels were up. His is still suffering with sciatic pain due to his herniated disc and we would like it to improve so he could get off all the painkillers he is now on. We do a very short walk with him each day and he does exercises Justin has given him. Liza had him buy a large wedge to use under his legs for at least for part of each night. He moves around the house but has to sit down if his pain becomes bad. He is so patient and so sweet with all that is going on. He has a physiotherapy appointment and an appointment with a pain specialist.

I drove the Tesla to Costco today by myself as Tom was waiting for a delivery of extandi to arrive. Tom was determined that we were also going to visit Roger today “in person” no matter how he was feeling and we did. He had committed to be there today and nothing was going to stop him.

We suddenly received the go ahead to have church as normal this week and it was a little shocking for many of us. Zoom is continuing simultaneously, for the time being anyway. We stayed home and probably will next week too, easing ourselves into the transition. We had the music organized and the organist and chorister ready to go. There are still concerns with covid variants so we are uncertain if we have an end to the virus in sight yet. Many countries are still in the midst of the pandemic. This has been an uncertain and ever changing year. Nothing we had planned for but hopefully our life experiences had prepared us for.