by Judy Handley | Jul 22, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 203: Small World
Date: Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Weather: Mostly Overcast, Morning Rain; High Temp 74, Low 64 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Mark and I met Dick and Claire Wiklund in 2003 when we started living aboard Windbird in Boston. They lived aboard a beautiful trawler during the week and returned to their home in North Falmouth on Friday afternoons. Dick was the head of OR at Mass General and needed to be at work in the wee hours of the morning, thus commuting from the Cape was just not an option. And it was Dick, after reading my log in December of 2011 when I announced that Mark had been diagnosed with colon cancer, who contacted me immediately and got me in touch with his best friend who was head of surgery at Mass General. During the years when Mark was battling cancer, we lost contact with Dick and Claire, but I still think of them often. This afternoon I attended a Family Forum at Bridges, and a woman came up to me that I didn’t recognize at first. It was Claire. Dick has been at Bridges for two years. It really is a small world.
I spent my morning getting my sister’s health insurance transferred to Massachusetts and I started working on a spreadsheet outlining her monthly finances in her new ‘home’. Then after the Family Forum at Bridges and a visit with Patsy, I met up with Jane Woodin, and we went to an event at Woodwell Climate Research Center. It was good to spend some time focusing on something other than my sister’s issues.
by Judy Handley | Jul 21, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 202: Ups and Downs
Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Weather: Sun, then Overcast, Windy/Thunderstorms; High Temp 78, Low 64 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
My morning started at Bridges with my sister. We had a nice, but short visit before the physical therapist came to do an evaluation. Halleluiah! I have been trying to get this done since Patsy’s first week at Bridges, but insurance issues complicated the matter. The young woman who came was wonderful with Patsy and prescribed a plan to try and get her walking again. She says Patsy has the strength, just not the will. But at least we now have a plan. The problem of keeping her falling out of bed is trickier. In order to have a bed rail, you have to go through a lot of red tape and are not normally successful. Memory care facilities cannot restrain residents and installing a bed rail does just that. If I understand correctly, you have to get permission from some state office. So, alternatives were offered. One is to get a hospital bed with a specific type of mattress. I think that costs a couple of thousand dollars and I have already spent $1800 on her current bed, mattress, waterproof mattress covers, sheets, blanket, etc. The hospital bed will be a different size, so I will have to buy all of the stuff again. I will begin to figure this out tomorrow and see where the search takes me. So, the upside is that Patsy is fully capable of walking again, but the downside is just how to make that happen. And in the meantime, we have to find a way to keep her from falling out of bed and fracturing something.
After leaving Bridges, I went home to change into beach wear and then did something for myself. I went to the beach. By the time I got there, it was overcast and windy, but I didn’t care. I was sitting on the beach for the first time this summer and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Then it was back home to change and then go back to Bridges for a Family Support Group meeting. I am not sure I will go to another one of those. There were eight of us, all women, and only one other person caring for someone other than a spouse. It was heartbreaking to hear their stories. Some are caring for husbands at home, and four others have husbands at Bridges. The hour and a half with these women convinced me to go home and celebrate Mark’s life. He fought cancer for 5 years, but the stories these women were telling made the cancer battle sound like a walk in the park. Dementia is a demon.
The first thunderstorm happened before I left Bridges and they have continued throughout the evening. Right now it is pouring rain, accompanied by a chorus of thunder. We need the rain, but not buckets of it all at once.
by Judy Handley | Jul 20, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 201: Chocolate Brooklyn Babka
Date: Monday, July 20, 2026
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 80, Low 64 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
A little Chocolate Brooklyn Babka goes a long way. Let me explain. I got up too early, unable to sleep because I was worried about my sister. I worked all morning talking to various health care entities, PT, primary care, memory care family support, and by noon I was exhausted. So, I actually went outside with Shadow and sat in sun. Of course, I fell asleep until I hear Shadow bark and another ‘dog’ bark back. As I awakened, this continued until I finally realized the other ‘dog’ was my neighbor Andy. We had a nice conversation, and I then went inside to have lunch. I was on the phone with memory care family support again, when I heard knocks on the front door and then someone walked in. I do have a ‘walk right on in policy’, so that didn’t seem weird. It was a book club friend delivering a goodie package. She put the package down and we waved as I continued talking on the phone. But when I got off the phone and read the note on the package, I learned that Dena had brought me a Chocolate Brooklyn Babka from Trader Joe’s. I had no idea what that was, but it ended up to be the most delicious thing I have had to eat for weeks. It was just what I needed to jolt me out of the doldrums I have been experiencing. Thank you, Dena.
This evening Indivisible Falmouth, Falmouth Immigrant Rights Coalition, and Latinx in Action hosted a vigil for all of the victims of ICE violence. I was proud to be MC for the program with speakers from the faith community, local government, the immigrant community, and the Falmouth Immigrant Rights Coalition. It was just the right number of people and just the right speakers who said just the right things. So grateful to be a part of this wonderful community.
by Judy Handley | Jul 19, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 200: World Cup Final
Date: Sunday, July 19, 2026
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 81, Low 57 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
The World Cup is over, so I will have to find a new excuse to hide from reality. In the past couple of weeks, when things with my sister were just too much for me, I would watch another soccer game to escape for a couple of hours. I’ll have to find a new diversion. Congratulations, Spain!
by Judy Handley | Jul 18, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 199: No Words
Date: Saturday, July 18, 2026
Weather: Cloudy, Cooler Day, Stormy, Rainy Night; High Temp 76, Low 69 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
My blog site, handleysail.com, says I have posted 7,139 posts since the fall of 2005. That represents a whole lot of words. But tonight, I have no words. What I am going through with my sister’s situation is just too painful for me to write about. So, I am taking the night off and hope I find my voice by tomorrow night.
by Judy Handley | Jul 17, 2026 | 2026 Life Logs |
2026 Life Logs, Day 198: Baby Steps Back to ‘Normal’
Date: Friday, July 17, 2026
Weather: Sunny Day; High Temp 81, Low 65 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I am not sure I would ever refer to my life as ‘normal’, but today I took the first baby steps to get back to some sense of normalcy. Since the beginning of April when my sister was hospitalized with Covid and double pneumonia, my already busy life started bordering on insanity. And it hasn’t stopped. But yesterday, I made a decision to find some way to start getting my life back. I thought I would spend the day today working in the yard today, but that didn’t happen. But, I did take a nice long walk with Shadow this morning after doing all of my back exercises, and I ate breakfast and lunch. That is something I haven’t done for weeks. I have been eating a late afternoon lunch and a very late dinner with no breakfast, or breakfast and dinner with no lunch. I also spent time outside with Shadow this afternoon, and I at least looked at my garden of weeds. I changed the settings on my phone so that it only alarms when sister’s blood sugar number is extremely high or low because for the past two days since I started following her, it was dinging constantly. I still ended up spending much of the day dealing with my sister’s issues, but I did it more slowly, trying not to drive myself crazy. I found out at noon today that she fell again last night after she got back from the hospital, but I was never notified. Yesterday that would have put me over the edge, but once I found out that she is okay, with my new mindset, I calmly made calls and wrote emails to people at Bridges to find out why her financial Power of Attorney was called, but not me, her Healthcare Power of Attorney. I am realizing that these incidences are not going to go away. I just need to take it all in stride, and baby step, by baby step, get back to life as normal as it can be for me.
