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| Charlie Freschl with Jean |
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| Lindy Ruddiman, Jean and Anne Having a picnic at the Zen Hospice |
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| Jean with her mom Sylvia and Lindy's mom Betty Prairie Home Companion Norway Cruise, August 2007 Photo provided by Lindy |
There are
many things to say about that PHC Norway cruise, and some pictures we can post
on the blog. Here's a little on the
background. Sylvia and Jean are both Garrison Keillor fans, but Sylvia hoped to
convince her late boyfriend Ben Creech (Karen's dad) to go on the cruise with
her. But then Bed died suddenly of heart failure in April 2007, and Jean went
back to Ann Arbor to pay her respects and comfort Sylvia. While she was there, Sylvia asked Jean to go
with her in Ben's place, and Jean was persuadable. This was during the time when Sylvia began
showed unmistakable signs of dementia, and Jean was a devoted daughter. Even without considering the cruise, it was
not unusual for her to spend six weeks a year in Ann Arbor helping out -- in
stark middle-class terms, that meant every day of paid vacation she earned on
the job, and then some.
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| Anne Lewis and Melba Elguezabal Cranialsacral therapy |
Charlie
Freschl and his wife Melba Elguezabal visited in the evening. Charlie and Matt
have worked together developing software at Bank of America since 1986. In
years that's over a quarter century, but Matt likes to think of it in terms of
life events. When they met, Charlie and
Melba were recently married, wanting to start a family. Now they have a son and daughter in
college. Guille, the daughter, is in a
pre-med program at UCLA, and recently sent us an encouraging email discussing
her volunteer work with patients with life-threating diseases.
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| Flowering plant from Charlie and Melba |
Melba has
also become an old family friend. She
has had problems with migraines, and as luck would have it, Anne has learned a
technique called Cranialsacral therapy that could possibly bring her some
relief. Cranialsacral therapy is based
on cranial osteopathy, and is practiced by massage therapists and chiropractors
as well as radiation oncologists such as Anne.
The photo shows Melba getting the treatment, which she seemed to find
pleasurable. Melba said she would tell
us if it caused any change in her headaches.
