Sylvia's Journal

7/31/07 Joe here.

A gem from yesterday:

Sylvia: “Axel, do you have internet connection here?”

Axel: “Internet? Around here a good BM is a real accomplishment. We don’t do Internet.”

The Axel update: Davis Optometry in Beverly gladly rehabilitated Axel’s crash-proof glasses. He is seeing the world clearly once again through his current prescription thus recovering one more bit of personal power. Rehab Road now includes more moves more times per day. Axel is sitting up in his wheel chair and moving around more – still with the tortoise shell and neck brace. The sling is off the left arm, and a new splint adorns his left wrist to keep it extended. Trios of pretty young therapists have been observed prodding him around the deck. He has opted for practicing using one eye at a time, rather than wearing the pirate patch. Alas, all fashion fads come to the end of their run.

Today I was asked if Axel was my father. I’ll just leave it at that.

From the Lobster Cove Office of Calamity Management:

(LoCo CalMan for acronym lovers)

Calamities, like everything else, have a life cycle. As Sylvia alluded to in her post, this family and attending networks (you and I) have moved beyond the “Disaster Phase”. We are all now in the middle of what I call the “Clean-up Phase” – the stretch when everything gets stabilized and the dust settles. At this point we’re beginning to get a sense of what the next few months are going to look like. The prognosis for everyone’s injuries is becoming clearer, and fortunately good news is emerging daily. Stitches are coming out, bruises are fading away, and some household routines are rebooting.

At the same time, the adrenaline supply has run out, and long days of care giving, driving to and fro, and shouldering other’s routines of daily living plus new routines of home nursing are exacting their price from everyone. Sita and Tessa are making life/work adjustments and considering options for the next quarter or two. Medical bills are starting to arrive daily.

Soon, probably upon Axel’s return home in about two weeks (if we’re lucky), we will enter the “Recovery Phase.” This is the relatively longer and less dramatic stretch of Rehab Road. Each of these phases has a different personality. The tone and content of our Journal entries and your Guestbook entries reflect the transitions.

In the Recovery Phase we’ll move from patient management to project management. The vision: returning the Magnuson-Vriesendorp family to its robust and resilient state – better than before. This takes patience and persistence on everyone’s part.

In the next day or two we’ll be developing checklists of household actions that recur every day, every week, and every month, plus special appointments – all of which must get covered somehow. The goal of these lists is three-fold:

1) Provide whoever is supporting the household on a given day a quick reference for what needs to be done – this helps keep the house running smoothly. Crossed off items give everyone something to celebrate.

2) Make it easier for Sylvia and Axel to stay focused on healing rather than domestic engineering – this will be important as they begin to feel the pressure to take up the yolk of work life when they should be resting/healing. Recover as fast as sensible but no faster.

3) Make it easy for all of us to a) see what needs to be done, and b) step up to do it. With checklists, those of you who have time and energy to contribute can arrange to cover specific tasks on specific days or weeks (some tasks are local, some will be remote). This helps spread the love more evenly over the coming months. Flowers are nice, hours are nicer.

We’re looking into online tools to make it easy for this global network to continue to focus until the job is done – that being restoration of this family to full productivity. None of use can afford to have such important players off the field for long.

A reflection: It appears to me that networks of people periodically need something to focus upon, to flex their collective muscles, and to realize their network’s power for good. It’s an arduous task to act as that focal point in a global network exercise like this, but Axel and Sylvia are doing it with grace. The exciting thing is that once a network discovers itself, that it can coordinate and move resources, there’s no end to what it can accomplish. It’s important to participate because it might be your turn to play focal point next time.

Let’s see how quickly we can restore the Magnuson-Vriesendorp extended household to “better than new” robustness and resilience. It makes us all stronger. After which there should be one hell of a party!

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“It ain’t over till it’s over.” – Yoggi Berra