My brother was transferred to another hospital yesterday, a facility that specializes in, among other things, wound care. No one with professional medical knowledge seems willing to offer a firm estimate of the length of time he will be there, but he seems to think it may be a month or more. That suggestion of some certainty (at lease from him) gives me at least a small window in which I can commit to start projects that, heretofore, I was unwilling to start for fear of abandoning them in mid-stream so I could return to Houston on his release from the hospital.
So, onward. Back outside to recommence my efforts to strip, repair, and refinish the deck. I expect to complete the project before my eightieth birthday.