By Loretta Humble/Around the Town
Here it is June, and since late January, best I can tell, I’ve only written two columns that weren’t about either “O’Keeffe!,” the Bartlett House, or Cedar Lake Nursing Home. Once the Garden Club decided to bring the play here, I dived in and gave it everything I had. Three days after the performance, I got my knee replaced, then checked in to Cedar Lake Nursing Home for rehab, then after graduating, I fixed myself a nice little apartment next door where I plan to stay a while. Since that is all I’ve been doing for nearly six months, it is all I’ve had to talk about.
I skipped last week just to give you a break.
But I got my last home health Physical Therapy visit today from Mark Sulak of Cedar Lake Home Health and Hospice and will soon be released to roam the world as I please. I will really miss Mark’s visit. He is the best. He has pushed me hard to get my knee strong and back better than it has been in years. Mark is a pretty amazing guy. Let me tell you what he has been up to.
In January 2012 Mark started having symptoms that led to the discovery that he had a brain tumor. In July they removed the tumor, but in the course of the surgery, he contracted miningitis, and nearly died. We thought we’d lost him. Pretty soon, however, he made himself get up and around, but he wasn’t really his old self. Visiting one of his doctors, his wife Cathy ask, “When am I going to get my Mark back?” The doctor told her she wouldn’t, that he would never be the same, that they should be grateful he was alive at all. Mark just sat there, didn’t say a word, but later told his wife Cathy he was going to come back all the way, and he’d show that doctor. And this year, on the same day many of us were going to see “O’Keeffe!” he did it. Mark and Cathy, after months of training, joined thousands of other bikers in the MS 150, making a 150 mile ride from Austin to Houston, raising funds to cure MS. When he sent out notes thanking all his supporters, he made sure he sent a note to the doctor who told him he would never be the same. He got no reply. But that’s all right. He showed her. Later this summer Mark is going to participate in the “Hotter than Hell” ride in Wichita Falls. Cathy is staying home for this one, but one of his daughters is going to ride with him. I can’t imagine doing that if you’d never been sick, but to have been in the shape he was in such a short time ago, and now doing all this—totally unbelievable. It made it hard for me to complain when he made me walk around the building. But I complained anyhow.
To make more living space for myself here, I’ve had clear out a room of junk, and I’ve uncovered some good stuff. I found some important pieces of molding that had been lost off a piece of antique furniture in the dining room. We had finally noticed how bad it looked without them and were going to replace it. Now David had replaced them, and now it looks perfect.
Also, I found some copies of Living Well, a magazine kind of thing I used to publish when I owned the newspaper. I used to use a lot of pictures of my grandkids, for cover art, and sometimes in advertising for our companies. On the back page of one of them was an advertisement for Cedar Lake Home Health and Hospice, with a sweet picture of an old lady and a blond little girl of about five or six, busily stirring up something in a bowl. It said, “Sometimes a little help can make all the difference.”
That little girl is Ariel Humble, now the sophisticated and capable young woman who recently flew to Washington D.C. to represent her employer, The Lighthouse for the Blind. It reminded me how time does fly. It also reminded me that I used to write really good ads.
The other thing I found was boxes of books. I’ve been trying to give books away for some time, but I seldom get takers. I did get Faith in Action to take a box of nice Bibles, and I think they are going to take a box of Christian Studies books. I’ve got a whole box concerning Short Stories, both stories themselves, and books about how to write them. I’ve got a big box of westerns, but we’ll probably keep them, as our Mr. Moser reads them pretty fast. However, we have a lot we could trade you if westerns are what you are looking for. I’m going to take a bunch to the library to see if they want some of them to sell, but we have lots more, and we would love to share. I have a shed full at the farm, and lots in storage up here. Talk to me. Let’s share these things.