Contact: Facebook.
Annual History of James Andris and Stephen Nichols in 2022
No annual letter was posted for 2022, but now, 10 months later, I am attempting to remedy that situation. This was a difficult year, but perhaps not the most difficult we have experienced. Stephen had another stroke on Jan. 10, and because of the overload of Covid patients at the hospital, we decided in communication with Stephen's neurologist to treat the situation at home. I had no support during the first week or so, but amazingly we managed. Over the next couple of months with home health, physical and occupational therapy, we got back to a liveable routine. Stephen could walk, very slowly, with walker, but never again out of the apartment. His life revolved from bed to bath to breakfast chair to his power recliner, and something like the reverse in the evening. Since we had acquired an electric scooter, that permitted us two kinds of "excursions." On nice days we would sit on the patio for an hour or so. And almost every day we got Stephen down to the dining room for an hour or so of dinner and conversation with other residents. During the day, Stephen took courses in various subjects on his iPhone or listened to music, and in the evening we watched TV. And I'm always happy if I have my piano. Here's a selfie of us on Sept. 1, 2022.
Dependable help from home health care organizations was simply not consistently available, and believe me, we tried. We did have one dependable independant contractor for most of the year who made it possible for me to get away occasionally, to church or out to dinner with friends a couple of times a month. The one big exception was that I had cataract surgery in both my eyes in the summer, since I could no longer drive safely. The result of that is that I now have 20/20 vision in both eyes. When Stephen had to get out to the dentist or doctor occasionally, the result was a monumental production. I even wrote a blog post about one of our excursions: A Day in the Life. So we continued to exist in this very contracted life, but glad that we could still be together. We had occasional pastoral visits from the deacon and priest. I did the grocery shopping online. And we made the best of a difficult situation.And being so limited in our ability to get out, it was good that we were at Bethesda Gardens. The residents here were completely suppotive, and we felt that at least we weren't going through these challenges alone. Stephanie came for a short visit in August, but their busy schedules kept them otherwise hard at work.
In a way Stephen and I were lucky to have this whole year together. We spent a lot of time talking about really important things. Stephen was spending time reviewing his life and talking about things that could have gone differently in his life, and I was happy to help him think through some of these matters. We were able to talk about our time together and what a great and important time that was for both of us. A lot of times we were just grateful that we had made it to the end of another day without some major issue that had to be dealt with. And then, on the eve of New Year's Eve Day (Dec 30), Stephen had another stroke while sitting at the dinner table in our apartment. And so reluctantly, we went off to the hospital next morning to begin the New Year at Missouri Baptist Hospital.
Stephen Lynn Nichols died on February 7, 2023, at Manor Grove, a nursing home and rehab facility right down the street from Bethesda Gardens, but that is a story for next year's annual history.