Sylvia's Journal

This is the first time I am waking up to a dark sky and a thunderstorm brewing not far away. It can’t always be the gorgeous summer weather with the sky pink and Lobster Cove sparkling. A vague feeling of dread transports me back to my high school years, after the first school days are over and the excitement of seeing friends again and exchanging stories and comparing tans has taken place. It is that feeling that next Monday, when you wake up and say, oh, school again and the next vacation seems so very far away. It felt like that waking up this morning.

Through the night, and even more so on waking up, my body is aching all over, shoulders, hand/wrist, upper back, left and right arm and of course always that right foot. When people see us again after a few weeks they always say how much we have improved and in some ways we have; but the line is not always upwards and in our day to day experience it sometimes feels as if we move 1 step forward and then a couple backwards; the sense of improvement will come from seeing a doctor or therapist who hasn’t seen us for a couple of days, weeks or a month and who proves that we are getting better because they took X-rays or measurements earlier and we can see the difference. But the aches always seem to come back.

After having completed his night nursing duties Andrew took off before we even saw him but Katie Blair carried her duties far into the day. Kathleen from MSH came over in the morning from her home in Salem and stopped by the Atomic Café to get us coffee and pastries. Katie Blair and Axel made a chard (from the garden) frittata and together these ingredients made for a wonderful breakfast with wonderful people. After Kathleen had left Katie Blair and I examined the garden and harvested beans, squash, spinach, tomatoes and carrots. We left the peppers and eggplant to grow a little longer.

Sula and Jacek stopped by to check in on us. While the rest of our part of Massachusetts suffered record temperatures we enjoyed a cool breeze sitting overlooking the cove. When everyone had left we settled for several hours of quiet times; Axel went upstairs for a long nap and I settled into my chair hammock and finished another book.

When the tide was low Roger and Sook came over to hunt for mussels and caught a few after which Sook set out to put finishing touches on the meal she brought. The night duty nurses Joellen and Phil arrived a little later with complements to the meal. A tired Fatou emerged in the middle of the thunderstorm, returning from work in Brookline, to check in on us and fell, as we say in Dutch, with her nose in the butter, or rather a great meal and fun company.

After dinner and clean up Sook, Roger and Fatou left. Joellen and Phil helped move lots of items from the upstairs refrigerator to the downstairs, making room for a whole new week of meals that have announced themselves on the calendar. I gave Axel a shower and was able to do much of the bedtime routine, leaving only the final touches (ice packs) to the night duty team.