Health challenges

My stepmother, Renee, fell in the shower on Easter morning and is now home recuperating from surgery to her leg. I’m told her recovery will take quite a while. She’s always been strong and maintained an active, post-retirement lifestyle in California – golfing several times a week (including sometimes on the nine-hole golf course, pictured above, that's in their condo complex) – and so I imagine this period has been quite an adjustment for her. It may have also been an adjustment for my father, as – since his remarriage - he has typically been the one with health problems. He may be trying his hand at cooking again.Those of you who pray might pray for healing for Renee and for patience, strength, and creativity for both Richard and Renee.

P.S. I talked with Dad and Renee. Renee slipped and broke the bone immediately above her knee between her knee and thigh badly in three places in the bathroom at the condo complex gym/clubhouse where they have taken showers since they moved there. Luckily a young man was in the clubhouse and came to Renee’s rescue (dialing my Dad and 911 for her) after she fell – Otherwise, she might have been all alone for hours, in pain with her leg bone sticking out. Renee underwent four hours of surgery on Easter Sunday afternoon and now has pins, etc. in her leg. The doctor has ordered her to stay in bed at least until an appointment she has at the end of this month. (Apparently she has a walker to go to the bathroom.) At some point after that, physical therapists will start coming out to their condo to work with her. Her doctor and she expect that she will recover fully, including playing golf, but it will take a lot of hard work on her part. She said my father has surprised her by doing what the doctor ordered: cooking for her and bringing to her bedside three meals a day. He’s apparently still managing to do a little work on his translation into English of letters by 19th-Century Korean Catholic martyrs. But I imagine the two of them will come out of this with themselves and their relationship a little transformed. Unfortunately, both of Renee’s daughters are busy with school, work, or families, and although I’d like to help I’m not yet jumping on a plane to California.

P.P.S. Meanwhile, my Mom is attending a Florida American Association of University Women conference – the same state meeting that Stephanie or I have attended with her three times – at a hotel (pictured below) in Gainesville, the town where Penny and me grew up (which I tried to take Stephanie and Vincent to visit, once) (at a hotel not too far from where I learned how to swim.)

-- Perry