Sylvia's Journal

Saturdays are still important milestone days because our lives changed on a Saturday. Like a baby’s age in its first half year, we still count in weeks. Today we have reached the 11 week mark and this moment has become a milestone of sorts. With a brief pause every morning, as I write before I leave my bed, the weekly pause is not all that different, just the view a bit bigger. We have come such a long way!

My therapy session also became a stock-taking session. Ruth reviewed what I had wanted to work on when we started out, five weeks ago. At that time I was still reliving my failed attempt at landing and my body would react in a way I could not control. A windsock was a trigger for an emotional reaction and I could not bear to think how Axel was carried out of the plane wreck. All that seems far away now. I can acknowledge every piece of the experience without getting all obsessed, teary or uptight about it. The EMDR therapy did its good work already in addition to raking loose some other insights that are helpful to me.

We had breakfast with our night nurse David. He arrives late the evening before and gets up early to cook us breakfast and take Axel to his appointment. Since we can get ourselves into and out of bed now, David’s presence as a night nurse is redundant but as a friend we’ve decided to keep him on. So he will continue this tradition for awhile longer. His little dog She-Ra gets to spend the morning in the bunny pen and have the illusion of chasing chipmunks. Of course knowing that she is penned in, the chipmunks now tease her and all the animals are having fun.

Sita’s has started to nag Axel (and I sometimes chime in) once an hour to do his exercises with his hand and arm. On Thursday he finally complied. She even had him set his watch to make hourly beeps. The impact was swift and total: his occupational therapist complimented him on Friday morning. The results were clearly visible.

After OT Axel went to a memorial service in town. He was dressed in suit, dress shirt, tie and real shoes. Putting it on was not easy (nor was taking it off later in the day) and required assistance. He looked very smart and not at all like the trauma patient from just a month ago. He got to see many friends and acquaintances but realized he is not quite ready to stand in a reception line as long as he did. He paid dearly for that the rest of the day and the night with various back and neck aches. Nevertheless, he would not have missed the event. We are learning that pillows and chairs need to come along on his public appearances. Woody brought him home and hung out with him while I was enjoying my new found car freedom and drove myself to my appointments.

I have added a new dimension to my recovery with acupuncture. My first session was quite remarkable compared to my previous acupuncture experiences. With needles in place, lying on my back in a dark room, it felt like I was poked all over with a cattle prod in a rather sloppy way, with sparks careening through my entire body. The activity at my right ankle and shoulder was particularly intense. At one point my right and left ankle seemed to be in conversation, “Hey, how are things streaming at your side?” “Oh all is hunky dory here, but your side looks rather taut and swollen, what’s amiss?” It is this image of the two sides talking that made me smile and made the pain bearable, the body healing itself. At the end of the session I felt like a variation on the truck that had driven over me. Now it felt like a truck had driven through me.

We had a quiet dinner cooked by Sita and Axel. After dinner we all got busy: I took a bath to soothe my aching body, Axel returned to his exercises and Sita resumed working on her gigantic drawing assignment that is spread out all over the living room floor.

Later Chris and Jay came back from Boston with Jim. Jay is a new pilot like me and we talked for a long time about flying. It was wonderful to talk about flying again. My dreams were full of it that night.