Kate and I are seated at a table at Barnes & Noble where I have been checking email. She is working jigsaw puzzles on her iPad. It is rather peaceful here. That is an improvement over this morning when we were at Panera. That has nothing to do with the place but with Kate’s problems working her puzzles this morning. She must have stopped a dozen times because she kept hitting a button that took her out of her puzzle. Each time she would close up the cover on her iPad and put it down on the table. She never once asked for my help. Each time, I reached over to pick up the iPad and get her back to her puzzle. She was very discouraged. In fact, I thought that she would give up and want to go back home. That never happened. Finally, it was getting close to 11:20; so I suggested we go to an early lunch. She accepted.
As we walked out, she walked very slowly. Her facial expression looked as though she were struggling to make herself walk. She didn’t speak on the way to lunch, nor during lunch. I didn’t speak much myself. I just let her relax. As she so often does when we are out to eat, she closed her eyes and appeared to be going to sleep as we sat there waiting for our food.
She pulled leaves for a while after getting back home. It didn’t last long. She came inside and worked on her iPad in the family room, something that doesn’t often occur. I was finishing up a letter to a doctor at Kate’s family practice. He is actually the one who started the practice. I have been trying to contact her doctor since June 26 without success. Something strange is going on. I decided to write the senior doctor to ask his help. I first knew him as a neighbor. Later we had contact in connection with my service on the hospital’s foundation board. I have to believe I will hear something by early next week. He won’t get the letter until tomorrow or Friday. My concern is Kate’s salivation problem. Kate still is not swallowing her saliva. Even as I said this, it dawned on me that I have not seen her spitting out any saliva while we have been here. That is a good sign. It may indicate that she only spits it out when she thinks about the saliva.
