Day 168 – Mr. Ed in New Britches

Last night I rested my hand on Jeff’s head as we lounged.  He took advantage of the opportunity to scratch his head by pressing into my fingers and moving his head back and forth.  It reminded me of a horse having a good scratch on a fencepost.  Those darn chemo lines on his fingernails are so weak that they fold over when he tries to scratch or do just about anything with his hands.  The splits catch on his hair and fabric.  He wears gloves when he does most chores and always has Band-Aids on the worst of his fingers.  His big toe now has half a thin nail; he always wears a Band-Aid on that one.  Two other nails are looking like they are separating, too.  It makes my blood run cold to think about it.  This annoyance is probably his number one complaint right now, followed closely by his alligator skin that requires lotion once or twice a day.

For several months I have offered Jeff gentle suggestions that he might need smaller underwear.  Tonight he proudly showed me his latest purchase, new britches one size smaller than his old droopy drawers!  He showed me the packaging and assured me that he would look like the guy on the front when he put them on, six-pack and all.  Even after buying them, he still wasn’t sure he needed the smaller size so he tried them on.  Perfect!  And, I have to say, he does have the cute “Pippa-butt” he brags about.  He’ll have to work on the six-pack, though.

Jeff has done a few projects in the last couple of weeks which have stretched his strength and stamina.  He cleaned up the pumpkin sale and repaired a section of fence at church, installed a door-knob on a new door and did some basement flood clean-up at my parents’ house, and checked a roof leak at church which required the use of a ladder.  Ladders are tricky to handle if you only have one good hand/arm and Keith and I came home to find the ladder on the floor of the garage instead of hung on the wall.  It seems Jeff finagled it down but could not put it back up. 

Sometimes when people hear Jeff is doing better, they indicate that they have projects waiting for him whenever he is ready.  He won’t be doing custom cabinetry anytime soon but these small projects give him a chance to figure out how to adapt.