Sylvia's Journal

I slept through the night with only one brief wake up at midnight! I cheated a bit by taking Tylenol PM which has Benadryl in it. When I woke up in the middle of the night I found Axel wide awake reading Vanity Fair. That too was different, and reminded me of our pre-crash days. I’ll find out later whether this was a good thing or not for him.

Our morning sitter was Nancy Coffey from my Quaker meeting. My Quaker F(f)riends have come through in a big way in this calamity, each in their very own way. Nancy’s way was sitting quietly with us while we were all reading. It was a welcome change of pace for Axel who enjoyed this reading time, rudely interrupted for him by his PT who put him to work while Nancy and I read on. About an hour later, after some final exercises with his (bad) arm – ‘she put the thumbscrews on my hand’ – he was left in the downstairs bed and did not emerge until nearly three hours later.

This meant Axel entirely missed the lunch shift by Gail Gall, the mother of one of Sita’s best friends at the Waring School who I had not seen for many years. Gail is the FP/STD clinic director at ROCA in Chelsea which is a group that MSH has worked with in the past, another overlapping circle. Gail’s tales about the health system’s approach to serious accidents in the 70s made me feel a whole lot better about my current situation, at home with a cast rather than months in the hospital in traction.

I discovered something new about my injuries. It is funny how we thought we all knew what we had (from the discharge papers and doctors’ orders) and then discover other smaller things that came from the crash, not as we had surmised from our various hospital and treatment experiences since. The hole in Axel’s elbow which we thought a result of carelessness in Shaughnessy and which according to the nurse looks like someone put a thumbtack in his elbow, was probably from the crash; he must have hit something sharp as we hurtled down. Joan is finding things like this too. And the PT finally abused me of the notion that my pins and needles toes on my right leg are a byproduct of the cast (and therefore would stop as soon as the cast comes of). More likely is nerve damage of my toes caused by my Birkenstocked feet slamming into the foot pedals (should have been wearing my clogs!). The PT showed me a simple exercise which consist of (someone else) cupping my toes for a couple of minutes. It sends nerve pulses through parts of my leg and feels good (but wash your hands after that! The inside of the cast is starting to smell rather ripe).

Since I am starting to run out of adjectives for my descriptions of the meals people are bringing, suffice to say that Gail’s lunch was exactly what the doctor or nurse described and our appetite craved (spinach, water melon, goat cheese, olives, chicken and a brioche). Gail was relieved by Debbie Black who is one of the midwives who delivered Tessa at the Beverly Birth Center some 22 years ago. This illustrated a piece of my conversation with Gail about living in one place for many years versus orbiting around the world moving from posts to posts. Tessa was of course very disappointed that she had missed Debbie, but she lives in town and we’ll make that connection some other time. How often do you hear a phrase like this: “the last time I saw you is when you came out of your mother!” Debbie also came at the exact time that some other transaction in my life had suggested that I might consider getting a lawyer and that my very frank and very public account of our accident on Caringbridge can also be used as evidence in a lawsuit. I know I live in a litigious society and I always (naively, some might say) choose to ignore this fact. As it turns out Debbie is married to a lawyer who knows our family and so we will have this conversation soon.

Martin Imm showed up to finish a fix-it job and in overlapping shifts we suddenly had three sailing enthusiasts in one place. And there were more discoveries as people from one circle in our life discovered connections with people from other circles.

Debbie was relieved by Carole O’Neal whose grandmother was Penny’s (Axel’s mom) sister and shortly joined by her mom and dad Barbara and Ken who brought a meal that rates high on the comfort scale. Andrew swung by to show the pictures of his daring and wonderful Maine Sail Installation after he helped Axel shower and smell like a rose again. Tessa came home with a few potential replacements for my crashed Birkenstocks and I picked myself a pair of which only the left shoe will be in use for some time. The bedtime ritual was not as painful as previous nights and nurse Tessa was soon released from her parental duties to hang out with her friends Cassie and Christian downstairs, hopefully putting a dent in the triple offerings of deserts that entered our house in the afternoon.