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.

It is Thursday and this means one more week till my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon. I am counting the days, even though I am trying hard to live in the present, but as far as my leg cast is concerned, the present sucks.

It was another restless night of trying to sleep comfortable with this hard thing on my right leg. As I am writing this, Axel is busy trying to reposition his left arm which is his problematic body part (one of several). My problematic leg is on his problematic arm side so we are not well matched up for the night.

I had a series of bizarre dreams that had little to do with planes, healing, legs, or arms. I remember snippets about having to elect a Catholic Church official. I vaguely remember thinking during the dream that this was odd because I am the daughter of a fervent anti-catholic and I don’t know anything about the hierarchy or its election procedures. Nevertheless I favored some old African (Kenyan?) sister who had done much for teenagers. I did not stick around for the results so I don’t know if she made it. The only connection between my current situation and this dream that I can see is the word saint. We are surrounded by saints.

One of those saints who appeared yesterday was Mary Scofield who completed the refrigerator work started by Carole the day before and cleaned out the freezer. Chuck joined her and together they rid us of assorted canisters with undistinguishable frozen substances and the broccoli that had been used to ice painful backs. Chuck checked the garden with the order to get any tomatoes that were sufficiently ripe to attract the attention of our huge and well-fed chipmunk population. Mary’s aged dog Lillie did little to chase them away, the rascals.

Axel had not even awaited the arrival of Chuck and took an early morning nap. This too is discussed in the book “The Art of Being Idle.” He slept till we woke him up for the visiting nurses. Once again we tried to sort out the problematic night time pillow construction. And once again it seemed so easy, they have such a way with pillows and making their patients comfortable, and yet, at night we can never reconstruct it.

Axel was read the riot act (as well as the exact doctor’s orders) about his left arm. He is not to do any active stretching, which is of course what he had done the entire day before when he was using his left arm to carry an assortment of items. It is hard to wean him from this. The left arm has to be picked up by either his right arm or by someone else before it can be repositioned. We will be working more on this new discipline today.

After a delicious light summer lunch that Mary had brought and my first locally grown melon Roger Warner took over and invited Axel to select no less that 7 (seven!!) new eye patches since Sook and he decided black just wouldn’t do. They got the eye patch cottage business owner on the phone a little later and she is stitching hard to get Axel at least some of his new patches by Sunday. I know one is with fish and another with baseballs.

Ellie Cabot brought my hairdresser Bonnie Burgess who gave me haircut ‘en plein air’ looking out over the cove, while Chuck, Roger, and Axel were joined by Gary for some contrasting male banter in the background. Gary offered Axel two walking sticks that are pieces of art in their own way.

Sita’s friend Brian showed up with some perfect veggies, followed by Diane Neal Emmens with a container of freshly picked blackberries. And while Roger and Diane discovered a common name in the network of overlapping circles, the Lashes arrived, as announced on the calendar and started cooking in the kitchen. Toni Boisvert from Waring came by with his son Campbell to see us and Tessa and while we waited for Tessa to get back from work Campbell fed our homegrown carrots to Tessa’s bunny. This is one lucky bunny and very convenient for kids: carrots and bunny all available in one place.

We invited the Lashes to stay and join us in eating their meal which made for good company and minimized the amount of leftovers.

After dinner I joined a telephone meeting with the Board of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference with people calling in from Australia, and both American coasts. It was my first act of not being idle and I managed to stay connected throughout the hour and a half meeting. It was nice to be brought back to the real world out there which has shriveled up a bit for us and hear all these dear and familiar voices. Sita called while I was on the phone and I was sorry to miss that. Later nurse Tessa oriented nurse Jim to the complexities of putting Axel to bed, and I joined them after my call was completed. It remains a nightly challenge, but onward we go.

This is a long journal entry and needed to be entered in 2 parts due to space limitations.

Part 1 – The night was better than the one before, although sleeping with several pounds of cement fortified sandpaper on my right leg (this is how my cast feels) can never be comfortable. This will have to wait until the middle of September or whenever this cast comes off and I get something better.

Settling in last night was dicey. Axel couldn’t get his shoulders and neck right and Tessa had to be called up several times. He was ready to give up and quite desperate and I felt sad as there was nothing I could do to reduce his suffering. As I am writing this he is still asleep and looks quite peaceful, so I hope that Tessa’s last attempt got the pillows right. These are the really desperate moments when I don’t know what to do and I can only cry to relieve this mixture of sadness, impotence and guilt. It could have been an omen for a bad night but we didn’t let it be one, one lesson we learned from a new person in our life, Joe from Lanesville who is a long time jazz guitar teacher at Berklee but more recently a healer. Hoping or fearing is about the future while knowing is about the present. We know we will all be OK he reminded us of. Using a mixture of Qi Qong, Tai Chi, Polarity and other energy-based traditions and focusing on The One Mind, Joe encircled Axel and later me, during the evening while dinner was being prepared, and re-aligned energies and all that was out of wack in our bodies and heads. This is the lay person’s description, but you’ll get the gist (or may be not).

Yesterday was like Christmas, we were showered with an avalanche of gifts. We are experiencing the notion of Abundance in the Universe in unimaginable ways: anything we need is delivered. It was a very productive day filled with a whirlwind of people and fix-it activities that we all dream off when we make our to-do list. So this is going to be a long entry.

First, we got ourselves out of bed, dressed and fed. Tessa prepares everything the night before so we can do all this on our own while she sleeps as long as she can.. She left at 9 and Marin Imm from my Quaker meeting showed up. Martin is also a new person in our life. I had discovered only shortly before the crash that he is a pilot and sailor and we enjoyed talking and had made plans to fly together. Axel did not know Martin at all. Martin has many talents which we are discovering. For one, he can fix things which don’t work. This came in very handy and we presented him with a long list as he walked into the house. When he left after lunch many things worked again plus Axel had gotten to know Martin better, and we had some wonderful conversations. As a bonus, we learned that Martin used to run a health insurance firm. He gave me a brief health insurance 101 and this took the edge of my fears about the bills that had started to come in. We explored the BCBS website together and he left me confident enough that I spent one hour on the phone with Rachel from BCBS and sorted out the bills and how to handle the new ones coming in and how the airplane insurance figures in all this. During this process I learned that my room and board at the Umass medical center was over 40.000 dollars (not including any doctors’ fees, X-rays, scans, ambulances, mediflight, etc.) for one week. I can only begin to imagine what Axel’s bill was for a week ICU on top of that and a visit at another hospital before he arrived at Umass. Do I need to make a case for having catastrophic health insurance? To be continued in part 2.

A night full of uncomfortable positions, sleeplessness, dreams that included flying and frequent wake ups, cold and hot sweats. Not a good one. Was it the real beer and the small glass of Pinot Grigio that I had at dinner at the Kneissel’s? Having been off the heavy meds for a week I thought I could try but I am not so sure now. I think I’ll stay away from alcohol some more.

Although in general our recovery is a line upwards, yesterday was a dip for me. Maybe the weather had something to do with it: overcast, fall in the air and this sinking feeling that summer is over. Although in many ways it is among the more beautiful times of the year, with its clear cool nights, the announcement of fall depresses me. And so that is how I felt. This was compounded by watching Axel with three different VNA visitors: the occupational therapist (working the parts of him above the waist), the physical therapist (below the waist) and the nurse spent, in succession, most of the morning and part of the afternoon with him. I watched all this and couldn’t help crying over what I had done to this man. This is a recurrent theme and I am glad that I can’t see Joan going through this because it would compound things. Both Axel and Tessa tried to talk me out of my sadness and guilt but it is not something others can talk out of me that easily. Lately I have started to revisit again the moments just before the crash, my decisions, and each time I have a physical reaction and such a feeling of dread. The urgency of finding a therapist is clearly presenting itself and I will take some action today. This is not going to go away by itself.

Compounding things even more, some very big four digit bills started to arrive indicating the post-BCBS balance from various specialists in Worcester. The routine is that we copy them and sent them to the plane insurance company and keep our fingers crossed, invoking magic, but they do worry me.

Sita spent much of the morning getting ready for her trip and left after lunch for Dallas, leaving our care in the hands of Tessa. We had few visitors today but a few people called us. More books arrived and so the reading continues. All choices are so very thoughtful, thank you. Woody showed up for a brief visit in the morning before all the therapists arrived and Abi came for a brief chat at the end of the day and we made appointments for next week’s massages. We sent her off with a plastic bag and instructions to help herself to our garden’s bounty.

The highlight of the day was our first eating out event. Tessa loaded us in the car, wheelchair and all and drove us all the way to our next-door neighbors, where we were treated to drinks looking out over the ocean (as opposed to a cove) and then a delicious swordfish and fresh corn meal by Ann and Bill Kneissel. This is why I couldn’t resist the beer and the wine. Axel did (since he is still using some of the heavy medication). Bill also got us each a book and we were touched by his very thoughtful choices. Thanks for a wonderful evening and a distraction from the sadness and depressing thoughts.

I used to move a lot in my sleep, right shoulder, left shoulder, arms up and over, down, etc. But now I mostly sleep on my back with occasional pillow supported attempts to sleep on my right or left side. The wound on my right wrist is scabbed over but very tender and limits the ways I can position my hand. And then there is the stiffness and limited range of motion in neck and right upper arm. This makes going to bed not all that much fun. Axel is even more limited. He has a 30% wedge under his shoulders and head and has to be positioned just so with pillows around him that he is properly supported as he sleeps without his turtle shell/body brace. His left hand and lower arm in is a specially-casted brace to keep his hand form becoming a claw as his radial nerve is still regenerating. A bedsore type of wound at his left elbow requires another pillow arrangement. His legs are up on pillows as well to keep him from sliding down the incline. Compared to him I can move a lot. So try to picture this. Not very romantic. I can hardly reach him over all the pillows. But we go to bed when the kids tell us to; they tuck us in and then have the house to themselves. A total reversal of our nightly routine some 20 years ago.

Some good news is that Axel can now move his left fingers in ways he could not a day ago. He was demonstrating to the visiting nurse what he could not do when he discovered he could move his fingers a bit. This was such a surprise that he could not believe it at first. Clearly, the nerve is regenerating.

Sunday morning Chris made us blueberry pancakes and Tessa slept in. Our neighbor Ted has taken over the yard work and is keeping our lawns and himself trim. Late in the morning Fatou showed up with another fabulous West African meal, this time in a quantity that seemed minute to her but was just right for us. Many of the visitors who showed up in the afternoon ended up sampling her dish which got the highest ratings of any food brought us so far. And while she was with us she showed another one of her talents and gave Axel a haircut, with Chris, Tessa and myself sitting around Axel and cheering her on to cut off more and more. He no longer has that half shaven half long-haired hairdo which gave him away as a crash victim, although Axel has not quite gotten used to his new style. We think he looks great and actually looks a bit like his cousin Phil (the New York Phil). After the haircut Tessa learned the ins and out of doing the shower routine, which is quite tricky because of the brace.

All this excitement had tired Axel so he took a nap in the downstairs bedroom while the house filled up with gardeners, cooks and visitors. Ann Lasman and Sook arrived for a harvesting/cooking trip and harvested whatever was ready in our garden and transformed this harvest into a 3 course meal: zucchini curry soup, salad, potatoes, spinach which we complemented with the leftovers from Fatou’s meal.

Amy-Simone and her son Mohammed brought Dutch cheese straight from the mother country and Mohammed fed carrots from the garden to Tessa’s bunny until he realized that these carrots were pretty good to eat himself. Amy-Simone helped me out with some challenging parts of the puzzle but it turned out doing this with a 2-year old at large was even more challenging. Then Sita and Jim returned from out West and the general commotion woke Axel up.

It was a day that was filled with friends around us. That in itself is not unusual. What was unusual is that we were expected to be simply there, being served, soaking up all that was offered to us, by Chris, by Fatou, by Ann and Sook, by Amy-Simone, by Ted and by our children. We were not running in and out of the house, multi-tasking, taking care of others: they were taking care of us. It is still something we are trying to get used to but it left us feeling so grateful.

Slowly people began to leave, with Fatou, Ann and Sook returning to their homes, Amy-Simone off to visit Joan and Morsi and Chris returning to DC. After that it got very still. Axel and I sat quietly looking out over the cove having our pretend beers, while Tessa and Sita and Jim took care of their own things. For Sita that meant a long soak in various herbal concoctions while listening to the closing chapters of Harry Potter. In the evening we all watched Cold Case on TV, followed by the now familiar bedtime ritual supervised by nurse Tessa.

Remember our party of Thanksgiving next Sunday, from noon on!

Did we become ‘new’ persons or are we so set in our ways that all the old flaws and impatience and quirks and whatnot are coming back as soon as our bodies allow us to act these out again? I have pondered the question of how the accident has changed me and I have not been able to answer it. I thought Joan and Axel had decided they were changed. Now that I am living with Axel again I watch him and part of me is re-assured, I got the old Axel back with his old charms, quirks and flaws, in short everything that has made him the man I love so much. I think this is a good thing, why would I want a new Axel?

Yesterday he was as active and impatient and wanting to start all sorts of things at the same time and vented his frustration exactly as before, except he can’t do it physically in quite the same way. He is still adjusting to being so totally dependent on the kindness of others, and since Chris was our only caretaker after Sita and Tessa left for the day, it was Chris who had to attend to every need we could not take care of ourselves. For me that means moving furniture (the place is cluttered with tables and chairs), fetching things that are either upstairs or that I cannot hold while wheeling myself around. For Axel is it anything that involves bending or that requires two good hands. So, Chris had his hands full: he did all the fetching and bending and he also shopped, dug up potatoes from the garden, picked the spinach (we prefer that Axel eats real spinach instead of the taking the constipating iron pills), cooked our meals, served us, filled our glasses (with milk, water or pretend beer), and helped me get to a standing position at the top of the stairs. He even had to help unplug the toilet which frequently gets constipated as well. So, when you sign up for duty, this is what you can expect. Luckily, Chris, who is a birder, also got some distraction from the birds that visit us in Lobster Cove and he made frequent trips outside with his binoculars and recover from all the chores.

After a particularly hectic Friday, Sita was officially off-duty and slept in late to prepare herself for a weekend with friends and then her one week trip to Dallas. Tessa left early for her estate care taking job and after that for her beloved leather shop in Rockport. If you live in the neighborhood you have exactly 2 weeks left to experience Tessa trying to sell you leather goods. It is quite an experience and I highly recommend it (Bear Skin Neck Leathers in Rockport with its lovely garden in front).

Our neighbor Ann Kneissel visited for awhile and brought us a treat for lunch: a pound of lobster tails which Chris turned into a wonderful lobster salad, as well as a quart of wild blueberries. I suspect there will be blueberry pancakes this morning.

After Axel supervised Chris cleaning out the ‘dead-flowers-in-vases cemetery’ outside by the ramp, the visiting nurse showed up and we had an extraordinary visit with her which lasted about 2 hours. It was in our view healthcare at its best with the emphasis on care. She was funny, irreverent, caring, and knowledgeable and so completely engaged with both of us about our post-accident bodies and psyches that it felt she was part of the family. We were sad to see her go. She also is a landscaper at the Beaufort Mansion in Gloucester (remember Alison?) and has a gardening business. She limits her nursing to the weekends, as anything more creates too much paperwork.

All through this I worked on the 1500 piece puzzle Anzie brought me a week ago and got no help from Axel or Chris (neither one gets it). The puzzle is now 2/3rds done. I puzzled so much that in my dreams everything showed up as puzzle pieces.

Tessa came home about 9 PM and Chris and Tessa completed our evening ritual which included a brief philosophical exchange about how we are or are not changed, pills, pillows, water, commodes/pee-bottles, vitamin E applications on scars, kisses and ‘I-love-you’s. It was a great day and we feel blessed with everything that has come our way.

How different everything (EVERYTHING) is on the other end of the withdrawal tunnel. I think I have emerged and had a wonderful pain free and comfortable day. If it wasn’t for my cast and the tenderness of the belly stitches I could have fooled myself about the crash and believed that it was all a bad dream.

One of the interesting side effects of being without pain, I discovered, is that my horizon leaps far away into the future. The length of our recovery path, from my current vantage point, looks endless, and disappears over a horizon that is covered in snow. Being without pain also freed my mind to wander and I fantasize about us being our ‘old and healthy’ selves, scampering up and down the yard to the cove, in and out of the water, the kayaks, drinking a martini as the sun sets behind the Putnam trees and snuggling up to each other at night. I know the doctors say all this will come back, but right now it feels like a big loss (beads on the regrets necklace).

Axel spent the first half of his first day at Lobster Cove by sleeping in till noon after the bed/pillow reorganization event that took place at 4:30 AM. While he was sleeping Sita was busy setting up follow up appointments with various specialists and straightened out incomplete drug prescriptions with a reluctant pharmacist and a not so friendly doctor. She also straightened out some miscommunication between Shaughnessy and the VNA nurses and lined up all that was needed to get Axel in the best possible shape to continue his recovery. Tessa had gone off earlier to do her two jobs in order to make up for the lost income from the tree planting in Canada.

All the while I was quietly puzzling away, something that Axel simply does not get (why spent all that time putting 1000s of pieces in the right places and then when it is done you break it all up and put it back in the box?).

The New Dishwasher was delivered early in the morning by Adam Doyon who is the brother of Tessa’s best friend Val. You could tell that from a mile away by his smile which resembles hers. Tessa called Jack Manderson the plumber who sent us his son Titus and his friend Paul. They showed up after lunch and spent a couple of hours installing it. We think this is magic: you call a plumber in the morning, and someone shows up a few hours later and it was all a gift! Thanks a million Jack, Titus and Paul!

The intake nurse/PT from the VNA arrived while Axel was napping outside and so the consultation was done under a tree in the beautiful afternoon light that is so special at Lobster Cove. She was very thorough and this is how a few loose ends that Shaugnessy did not catch were noted for immediate attention: a bedsore kind of wound on his elbow and the section of his head scar that is till open. She also helped Sita and Axel sort out the going-to-bed-routine and clarified some things about the arrangements of foam wedge and pillows that had puzzled us the night before. Much advice and encouragement, in short a great visit.

Sita did a yeoman’s job juggling her roles as head of the Patient Advocacy team, the Household team, the Finance team and getting ready for her work assignment next week in Dallas. For her going off to work next week may actually be more like a vacation from the most extreme multi-tasking challenge she has ever had. For both girls, doing some real (paid) work is probably good therapy. A labor of love, which their Parent Project is, can only go so far (and it has already stretched into 5 weeks!).

Axel’s oldest (but not old) friend Chris Kessler arrived from DC to spend the weekend with us and I could tell that Axel was very moved to see him. Sita and Tessa had a hard time to drag him to bed. In ordinary times Axel and Chriswould drink beer and banter late into the night at each reunion. Trying to mimic the experience Axel had two O’Douls and as far the banter goes, they simply cannot help themselves! Thanks Chris for this visit, it lifts all our spirits.

The night was pretty good, and only had one interruption: covering cold toes, closing windows and emptying pee bottles is not something we can do ourselves. We had to wake Tessa up and realize our extreme dependence on having someone close by to help us manage the nights.

We read in the guest book that a Meals on Wheels campaign is being organized by Ann and Sook. We are very grateful for this as the flow of food has been hard to manage and the refrigerator was full with leftover dishes, some quite old. Over the past weeks everyone in the house has been eating at his or her convenience, cafeteria style. Now we are trying to eat together as a family again. Jim has started this next step to normalcy by cooking us some nice meals lately.

Once again, thanks for all the cards, emails, gifts and encouragements. We are all moving in the right direction. Thanks Joan for your frequent postings. I am looking forward to the day we can actually see each other again in real life!

There’s not much to add to Sita’s very complete account of yesterday, except for the 4:30 AM repositioning event when I had to wake Tessa up to get Axel comfortable again. It was his first night out of a hospital bed and there were no buttons to call people or change the angles of the bed. Tessa brought a hot pack for his back and patiently reconfigured the mountain of pillows around him until it was right.

I think I am out of withdrawal from the heavy narcotics. I woke up feeling so much better than yesterday and had another fairly good night, albeit interrupted by my new roommate a few times, but such interruptions were of the good sort. It was lovely to wake up this morning for the first time in 5 weeks in my own bed, Axel on the other side of the hedge of pillows and a view on the cove. Axel commented on the quiet and peacefulness of the place. We used to take that too for granted, but after 5 weeks of hospital stay, the quiet and peacefulness of Lobster Cove is a novel experience again.

I received a package from Islamabad from my dear friend and new MSH colleague Chantelle with two books I am eager to start reading. Diane Midura, also from MSH, sent an extraordinary recording of Beethoven’s Sonata in B minor by flautist Julius Baker that helped me through some of the more uncomfortable parts of the day. I cried when I read your note, Diane, it was as beautiful as the notes you play, and cried again when I read it later to Axel. Sometimes I get so choked up about all the love and support people are sending us and the choice of their gifts that I am totally overwhelmed.

It is such a blessing that Axel is home and Joan is home and all of us are doing better. Yet when Axel walked into the house, very slowly, with his cane, on his hospital socks, with his turtle shell on and squinting one eye, and a hairdo that still has souvenirs from the crash hidden in it, I couldn’t help myself thinking what I had done to this man, and the ‘what if’s’ and ‘why’s’ and ‘if only’s..’ pop into my head. They occasionally do that when I haven’t seen Axel for some time. When he was not around I kept fooling myself with mental images of the pre-crash Axel. He’s telling me he is a better person now.

No shakes this night. After some consultation with my doctor we settled on Tylenol with codeine for bad periods, and plain Tylenol for mild discomfort. It worked; I had a fairly good night. It is an odd reality for me to be writing so much about nights when I, in my pre-cash life, I took nights entirely for granted. It is the same with limbs. Pre-crash I had taken them all for granted, but now, with my right leg in a cast, uncomfortable and useless, I am acutely aware of what it cannot do for me. Joan called me ecstatically from Worcester saying “I have my left arm back!” Such a great gift. We are all anxious to have our limbs back.

Edith Maxwell took over morning duty from the girls and drove from Ipswich with a special blend of her granola breakfast and home-made muffins. She showed up at 6:30 just when I had gotten myself dressed. She is recovering from hip surgery, but has made great progress in getting her mobility back. I watched her walk with envy. The rest of the day was overshadowed by the continuing pain management challenge so it was good there were no visitors as I was not in a good place for most of the day. I tried to postpone bedtime as long as I could, fearing a difficult night (which it wasn’t). I watched a bunch of silly movies while Sita was doing the household’s administration, trying to keep costs under control. I did not think we’d done a good job teaching our kids about financial management but it appeared, after all, that we did, or else she picked it up someplace else. I am astounded at her organizational skills.

Tessa had a few setbacks dealing with vets and Canadian banks and found solace in a trip to the mall. She returned among other things with more pillows so that we can build Axel a multi-pillow nest like mine.

I started a new challenging puzzle and am looking forward to tackle it with puzzle enthusiasts. I also made some promises to my colleagues at work about starting taking on a few tasks come mid September. I should be out of my current cast and I hope the ribs have healed by then.

The new dishwasher did not materialize as we had hoped but it got delivered in my dreams instead. We hope it comes today as we are adding a new member to the household.

We got more cards, so the postman’s arrival is an event each day. Tim and Iris manage to find the most outlandish cards and send these with great regularity. A package arrived from Hala and Bill with goodies for the girls and an eye mask for me and more. Alistair and Birgit sent us their love from Beirut with an extraordinary gift. We are humbled by all your attentions, expressions of love and gifts.

Our summer neighbor Debbie came to say goodbye as she leaves for her regular homestead and told us some great stories about dog spas in the East Village in New York and how to apply for a spot (private room or suite). I wished Alison had been there to hear them. She also left us with tons of mixes for smoothies and huge bags of coffee. Thanks Debbie for all your support and encouragement.