Sylvia's Journal

We have just started our 11th post-crash week. It will be an important week because Axel will see the spine doctor tomorrow. We expect he will order an X-ray and then make some pronouncement on this state of his compression fractures, and thus answer our most burning question, how much longer the brace?

I will see my ankle doctor later this week and hope to be freed of my boot. I have already cheated a bit and walked around without it, against doctor’s orders, but it’s too hard to keep that foot packed up when it wants to move on its own. The wheelchair, the crutches, the cane, the walker, and soon the commode are pushed into out-of-the-way areas in our house. I am not quite ready to return them or hang them up in the attic but some of these devices have not been used in weeks, some not in days. The exercises are beginning to show their effect. Axel is becoming more of a two-handed person although eating a lobster last night was still a bit beyond his reach.

Yesterday started quietly (with Quaker meeting) and slowly build up to a rumble and then to a grand finale towards the end of the day. It was a day full of surprises. Sula and Jacek visited Axel and established themselves on the point so they could better see the various WWII planes that flew overhead from their temporary weekend base at Beverly Airport. WWII, or any other old airplanes have a bit the same effect as bluefish and stripers running after the baitfish, they get all the guys in the neighborhood out of their houses. I also look at planes but a different set of synapses are fired. I go for the cute little new planes, without turrets for gunners or bays for bombs.

Alison Ellis, our dear Cape Cod adventurist and discoverer, showed up at the end of the morning with an extravagant brunch which we set out on the picnic table. Having tired ourselves on eating as much of the food as we could, we all settled into hammocks, comfy chairs and beds and napped or read for a couple of hours while the day continued to be a ten plus New England fall day. I sat with Ann Lasman for awhile who had come to dig out the remaining potatoes from our garden. After a harvest of a couple of pounds she decided to let the still healthy potato plants live a little longer and produce more of the small potatoes that was the reason for planting potatoes in the first place. We talked about gardens and made a plan for planting some asparagus crowns before the winter. It is an old wish but I have never gotten around to it. This is a good time to plan for asparagus in the spring of 2009.

I joined the nappers and readers after Ann left and was about to finish another book when suddenly everything changed. First Arne from the Flight School showed up with a cooler filled with lobsters. He gave us eight which we gratefully accepted (it was meant to be leftover night) and put down on the kitchen floor for some entertainment. Then Fatou arrived, coming in from China town, with a friend and a Chinese duck (all cooked and ready to eat, the duck, not the friend). The duck had its head and feet still in place, especially for Sita, to remind her of Shanghai. And just for the fun of it, Axel grossed her out by nibbling on these parts. We settled into an ever widening circle of friends as more expected and unexpected visitors joined. Martin Imm stopped by after his sail out of Manchester harbor and disassembled with Jim the front ramp that had been so lovingly built by Joe Sterling nearly two months ago. Another step back to normal: a normal entrance to the house. We are still holding on to the back ramp for a bit longer, even though we don’t need it now that the wheelchair has been retired from service.

And then arrived the visitors we had actually expected. Dick and Suzie from Charlottesville, who were in the area for a family event, had expected to see only us and found us in a crowd. We had not seen them in over a year and so it was great that they had managed to sneak away for a bit from their family obligations. We tried but failed to keep them for dinner. We managed to snare Andrew and Katie Blair for dinner and with Jim and even Sita, who claims not to like lobsters, we consumed 6 of the eight lobsters. Thus we made a little dent in the abundance of food that rained down on us this last week. However, we still have the duck, the lasagna and a bunch of frozen meals, so we are all set for the next few days. Thank you all for your continued support, rides, efforts, food and company. It has brought us to where we are and it keeps pulling us along on the slow but steady path to our full recovery.