Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2014 21:21:38 -0700
From:
marigoldediting [at] yahoo.com
Subject: John Judge Update - April 6
To:
Dear FOJ ~
I just checked the website John Geraghty set up for John at
Click here to support John Judge's Recovery by John Geraghty
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Click here to support John Judge's Recovery by John ...
Our beloved friend John Judge suffered a stroke last week and is currently in recovery. We're fundraising to help pay for John's recovery and also to help...
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View on www.gofundme.com[/TD]
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It has collected $6,514 for John, as of this writing. Thanks so much to everyone who has donated! I haven't had time to look up all of your e-mail addresses and write to each of you personally, but please know we deeply appreciate your gifts. Some of you donated anonymously, so I will never be able to thank you, unless you are receiving this update. You know who you are. Thank you for your kindness! And a very special thanks to the two people who donated $1,000 and $500 anonymously. What a huge difference you have made in getting us to the goal John Geraghty set!
Many of you have sent contributions by mail for John, too. I'm trying to send thank-you notes to all who sent donations, but I'm having trouble keeping up. I promise I will send you an acknowledgment. Because of you, I was able to pay John's March bills and will be able to pay his April expenses. We never understood how far-reaching John's influence was, until this crisis arose. We send our love and gratitude to all of you.
John's progress is slow but steady. Every day brings new challenges. I haven't seen any therapy sessions recently, so any update on what the professionals are doing with John will have to wait awhile. I will probably miss his Monday morning sessions also. But I can tell you that he had a couple of good afternoons with me over the weekend.
On Saturday, he sat up in a wheelchair in the activities room for over two hours, before getting tired out and needing to return to bed. We went over all his bills, and I reassured him that I could pay them with no problem. He seemed relieved by that. We also looked at all the new cards and letters that had come in recently, which made him smile. Some of your cards are so beautiful! After that, we looked at some magazines that had come in the mail. We checked out his University of Dayton alumni magazine, looking to see what news there was about folks in his 1969 graduating class. We also browsed through his favorite periodical, Lapham's Quarterly, which has "Revolution" as its topic this month. Reading dense fine print is still a challenge for him, so we looked at the pictures and charts, and I helped him read captions, so he could get a general idea what the issue contained.
On Sunday afternoon, John was able to sit up even longer in a wheelchair ~ over three and a half hours ~ before getting uncomfortable and tired. He chatted with some visitors for awhile, and we also worked on the alphabet on his iPad. I thought it would be easy for him to copy what I typed, but that turned out not to be the case. I typed HELLO, I LOVE YOU and IT IS APRIL. It took him quite awhile and considerable concentration to find the correct letters on the keyboard and type those three phrases below my examples. And yet, several times in the last few days, he has grabbed a piece of paper and started writing words to express what he wants to say. The first couple of letters are usually clear, and then the word kind of trails off into a scrawl, but in some cases I have been able to figure out what the words were. As it turns out, it seems to be easier for him to write words to express original ideas, than it is to duplicate already-written words using a keyboard. I'm not enough of an expert on language skills to know why this is so ~ but it is! Maybe for some reason it is easier to write than it is to type. Or maybe it's because John is so original that he can create, but he can't comprehend how to copy!
Early Monday morning, John will probably have a CT scan. He had one of his head when he first went into the ER, to diagnose his stroke. This one will be of the rest of his body, in particular to check his arteries for signs of serious narrowing. He has a good, strong pulse in each of his feet, but the top of the big toe on his left foot is discolored, like a very dark bruise. The CT scan is to make sure he has adequate circulation in his legs and feet, and also (I believe) around his heart.
Also on Monday morning, John's friend, Lou Wolf, will drive me around on a tour of three possible subacute rehabs that might be the next step for John: The Washington Home, The Methodist Home, and Ingleside Presbyterian Nursing and Rehab. I hope Lou and I will find one of them appropriate for John, and they will have room for him. If it all works out, Tuesday could be a turning point in John's recovery, as he moves out of the hospital rehab and into a more home-like setting, where he can finally see the outdoors again.
I'll try to write at least a short note when we know where John is going and when.
Thank you all again so much for all you are doing for our dear, sweet John ~ Love, Marilyn
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass