Five years ago, when Edie moved here. I had to prepare her apartment. It was a fresh start with new furniture, new bed, new sheets, new towels. Everything new, except memories from the past of photographs, pictures, and letters, along side all the new. Her new apartment was perfect. It was only 850 square feet, but everything she needed was in a complete circle. If you walked through the front door into the living room,through the next door into the bedroom,then into the laundry room that attaches to the bathroom, through the next door to the kitchen and dining room which takes you to the front door. Everything was perfect but I had to make the bathroom safe. I called the manager of Edie's new apartment building to ask if they had handicapped railings for the bath. The manager was great and said he would order rails for each wall of the bathtub and would run two long ways, so Edie could hold on while climbing into the bathtub to take a shower. Edie doesn't like baths. She afraid if she got down, she'd never get up again. The rails went in and I decided also to get her a bath stool. Once in the tub she could sit on the stool and bath. They think of everything. Well Edie's here four and half years and I'm at her apartment cleaning. While cleaning the bathtub she tells me she having problems lifting her leg to get into the tub. So, I tell her to show me how she gets in. She goes to the tub, holds on to the handrail to get in, lifts her leg painfully over and then finally gets her other leg in. Now she's holding on to the handrail for dear life and tells me she holds on with one hand and washes with the other. I thought for a moment and asked "Don't you use the shower stool and sit down?" " Oh, no!" says Edie "I've never used it. I'm afraid I'll fall off. Hard to believe she never asked me to remove the stool. It was only in her way. Edie would probably say she didn't want to bother us. What next? | 
