Maintaining John’s health requires planning.

Tomorrow is Thursday. Normally we go to “Sit and Get Fit” exercise class but we’re skipping it because Thursdays we also have Bill Markland’s country couples dance from 4:00-5:00 and we need lots of energy for John to be able to make it to an afternoon event. One event a day is plenty. We have to space out our activities. I want him to make it with energy to spare.

[Note: I ended up feeling rotten all day so we didn’t go to the couples dance hour anyway.]

In February, on Tuesday, the 20th, I’m in charge of the Michigan Club Pizza Party. That day will be a challenge.

In the morning, I have to go pick up the salad makings, the cupcakes, etc. I can do that alone (unless I find someone to ride with me to Sam’s Club.) John’s always gone with me for the morning purchases, but I think this time, he’ll be better staying home. I hope I can buy a lot of stuff from the grocery list before the 20th.

I’ll drop off everything at the clubhouse. I’ll go home for lunch and I’ll relax from about noon until 3:00 then I’ll head back to the clubhouse by golf cart.

At 3:30 my workers will start arriving to help with the party set-up. John will plan to arrive about 3:30 by car. The party starts at 5:00 and ends at 8:30.

John will head home when the party with all the activities ends (about 8:30) with clean up completed at 9:00.

We’ll both be pooped, by the time it’s over.

We need to be sure John’s oxygen generator has enough battery power. Generally, if he’s not moving much, he can go about 2 hours on a battery charge and he has two batteries. That will mean that if he’s at the party from 4:30 to 8:30, he’ll be out of power unless he takes it easy. We’ll bring the wall charger, so if necessary, he can set by a wall plug and re-charge.

So you can see that every event we participate in, requires planning around his need for energy, battery power and oxygen.