Sylvia's Journal

Today, on waking up, my body feels as if a truck drove over it during the night. I woke up many times and could never get the right position; one that would not create great discomfort for one part of my body or another. This is of course not surprising given that I have been working all the offending/offended parts yesterday doing my many prescribed exercises. I also walked most of yesterday without any crutch. Painful progress?

I was heartened by the entry in the guestbook by Riitta-Liisa who wrote “the range increased every day and now I have forgotten about the surgery altogether.” My brain knows this is totally true. I have seen too many people over the last two months who have told me about their injuries and they all looked, walked and moved just fine. But my psyche doesn’t quite believe this talk and all this evidence. And on a night like this the journey is too tedious, the pace too slow, the view too constricted and the path too steep to be encouraged by a glimpse of the destination on the far off horizon or else be distracted by stunning surroundings along the way. It does remind me of my childhood vacations in the mountains of Switzerland and Austria and the early part of hikes that always went through the forest with its insects and heat, the sopping wet shoe because I misjudged the size of a brook and wondering (or whining) “how much further?” Of course all of this was soon forgotten once we broke out of the forest and reached the 1800 meter where the trees are gone and the views would make us forget the first part of the journey; where the slopes became more gentle and the destination visible at last.

Axel, on the other hand looked quite comfy and content with his pillows around him, his arm up on two pillows. He cannot move so if he is comfy he will stay that way; on the other hand, if he is not there is nothing he can do; the freedom to move is preferably to me but it has its down sides. Last night I had too many choices for sleeping and I kept making the wrong one.

Axel woke up given me a detailed account of his dream in which he was facilitating a group that was doing something mildly illegal as he remembers – maybe it had something to do with yesterday being international talk-like-a-pirate-day (no kidding, google it). Whatever they were doing he got them to talk together and solve a problem. With his eye and hand problems in the way of using his computer as a graphic designer he is reverting back to what he did before. Many of his conversations in the last week have been about facilitation and the skill of bringing disparate groups together to make good decisions that are supported by all and that will be implemented, in whatever setting, mildly illegal or not.

Axel had another grueling OT session yesterday and it took a good part of the day to recover from it. Rick drove him and they stopped on the way back at the Atomic Café in Beverly which I suspect will be forever associated with his OT routine; somewhat like the piece of chocolate I received as a child each time I had a vaccination. Bittersweet.

At noon time Patty Woodlock picked us up and drove us to the other side of Lobster Cove to visit our new neighbor Ellen Cross in the brand new and elegant shingle house. Ellen has her own foot Calvary which is as old as our oldest daughter. So we exchanged surgery, pain pills and physical therapy stories while Patty fed us her delicious blueberry muffins. We got a tour of the new house and admired the wonderful views, many of which included our house and beach.

I spent some time in my office catching up with my various teams in distant places who had responded to my “I am back” email by sending me reports on what they had accomplished on their own. Work-related emails are now coming in with greater frequency and require replies.

I had (foot) PT in the afternoon and was put on the stationary bike. I rode a bit more than a mile and started to fantasize about riding my bike again to Quaker Meeting in the near future. When I got home Axel had finally given in to his discomfort and popped a strong pain pill and took a nap. Ann Lasman dropped off two great meals (one experimental, she said, and we think she can put it in full production!) and we discussed next week’s meal plan. Ann advised us against going cold turkey and proposed a two to three meals a week to ease us off this our meals on wheels treatment that she, Sook and the calendar made possible the last month. Thank you all for serving us so well these last four weeks.

I have pondered a few times how I will know when to stop writing this journal. Someone said, well that should be clear, when you are all healed and there is nothing to tell anymore. Can our lives ever be like that, I wondered? Will they ever be so normal that there is nothing to tell? So normal that we would simply get up in the morning, dress, make breakfast, go to work, and all that without effort? In our slow journey of healing we compare today with yesterday and some days it feels like nothing has changed. And we quietly wonder, will we ever get there? Will this foot ever turn left, this arm lift up, these fingers grip, the wrist respond from a simple command from the brain?

When Axel got discouraged some days ago, his occupational terrorist, as he calls her endearingly, told him to not look for the kind of progress that is visible from one day to another because it wouldn’t be there. She reminded him to look two weeks back or even a month. It was good advice. We are encouraged by progress that shows up when we look at pictures taken in early August or even late July; or when a friend comes for a visit who hasn’t seen us for a month; or when we read a journal entry from long ago.

Yesterday I started physical therapy to help increase my range of motion in my neck and right arm. The PT takes measurements at the first visit to serve as a baseline. Baselines are good because they show that there is progress even though it doesn’t feel like progress. She sent me home with lots of exercises which, added to the ones for my foot, begin to claim a good chunk of the day, starting with exercises in the shower, followed by icepacks, heating the foot, exercises, more ice packs; then the hot and cold footbaths and exercises during, then exercises with my right upper arm, preceded by heat packs and followed by icepacks. Our refrigerator is full of these things, crowding out ice cream and other goodies and relegating our frozen reserve meals to the fridge in the basement.

Axel had blood work done in the morning to determine whether his iron level is back to normal and he can stop taking the iron pills which he detests because they constipate and they produce pitch black turds. The rest of the day Axel was quite busy and remarkably like his former self. He spent much time talking and writing with Jody Morse first, and Joe Sterling later about sustainability of towns, urban planning and the politics of economic development as applied to a small town (Manchester) and a big city (San Diego).

I sent off a series of emails announcing to my colleagues and leadership teams around the world that I am back in the saddle. I was heartened by their enthusiastic responses, not just about having me back but what they accomplished while I was out of the game. It is both worrisome and very satisfying that the work continued just fine without me.

Gail Gall came by at lunchtime with a lamb stew for dinner. She and Axel spent some time catching up on news about her career and kids as he was napping during her last visit. In the afternoon Axel went to Andrew’s house to work on computer stuff and in the evening he went to a meeting of the town democratic committee. I have a feeling that the time left open by his absence from school this semester will be filled with involvement in town development and politics.

I am waking up later and later these days. It was 7 this morning, a far cry from those early mornings in Augustus when the nights were uncomfortable and it was a relief that the new day had started and I could prop myself up with pillows and forget my discomfort through writing, at 5 AM or so.

Axel was already awake at 7, not up, since he cannot get up without help, but awake, contemplating the dreams of the night. He did a verbal body check on me: belly scar? OK, but still tender; right foot? Still tingling, still stiff; shoulders and neck? Stiff and itch under my left shoulder blade. Getting to the itch used to be simple but now my range of motion is too limited and I need Axel’s help. This requires maneuvering up to the pillow hedge and positioning myself within the range of his good (right arm). We are quite a sight in the morning. At least we already have an idea what things will be like if we live another 30 years together!

Axel is fasting this morning for blood work at the doctor’s in an hour, so no breakfast for him. I get him into his carapace and he is up and running, emptying my night bucket and his urinals, putting the icepacks back in the freezer, rebooting the router so I can post, checking his mail, and starting my coffee.

It is funny how, in our slowness, stiffness and with our physical limitations, we are living the life of people at the end of their life, rather than two who are just at the beginning of a new life that was miraculously handed to them. Being so dependent on each other as we are now has been an unexpected gift, our infirmities a reason for much tenderness, our vulnerabilities a source of joy. There is much laughter and much love in this house these days. There is also much pain and plenty of hissy-fits as Axel calls them, but the laughter and love diminish them and put them in their place.

My first day ‘back at work’ was uneventful. I have a list of projects I am to get involved in, some virtual work, some writing, and then catching up with our facilitator teams in Swaziland, Nepal, Azerbaijan, Guyana, Kenya, Guinea and Cambodia. It was a light work day and easy to combine with managing our care network.

Axel was driven to occupational therapy by our neighbor Ted and came back in considerable pain (this had nothing to do with Ted); unlike my physical therapy, which consist of ultrasound, warm footbaths and gentle soft tissue massage, his are heavy workouts during which much pain is inflicted. He had a therapy-at-home session with Paul and then puttered around the house while Jim and I went to the shopping mall to get some warmer elastic-waisted pants now that the mornings and evenings are getting colder. They are of course pajama pants or workout pants but it will have to do for now. Dinner, a delicious beef curry, was dropped off by Jody Morse who we had not seen for awhile; she and Axel had some time to catch up while I went to my PT session in town, driving to and fro by Debbie Black who was thereby relieving Jim and Ted of their driver duties. After dinner we watched an old Woody Allen movie that David Byer had lent us and went to bed at 10 PM.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Sometime in early August I was asked when I thought I would be ready to handle work again. I made a guess and said mid-September. That moment has now arrived and I believe that my guess was a good one. Today I feel alive and well enough to tackle work again. In preparation for this big day (which feels like a going-back-to-school-day) I reclaimed my office yesterday. It had been turned into a sick bay first (I spent my first three weeks at home sleeping there) and then became the spare bedroom and the place where we store things we don’t know what to do with.

I packed up the bottles of saline solution, gauzes and creams for wounds and lacerations that have completely healed now. You can still see where they were and they are still tender places, but they don’t need any special care anymore. We have come a long way.

I consolidated all the clean pots, dishes, trays, platters, and Glad- or Tupperware in or on which our meals of the last few weeks have arrived and thought about the owners of these objects and the wonderful meals they cooked and the company in which we ate those meals. I pushed Sita and Jim’s stuff out of the way and marveled at how they put their life in Amherst on hold to move in and take care of us.

I put a low table next to my desk chair so I can elevate my right foot while I sit at my desk, cleaned away papers that were no longer relevant. And then I sat there for awhile contemplating what would come next. I have never been out of work for 9 weeks and the projects I was busy on before the accident (the BU course, the work in Zanzibar and Tanzania) have come and gone or were handed over to others. Axel asked me how this back to work was going to happen. I told him that I would have a clean desk, a sharp pencil and a blank piece of paper and would be sitting waiting by the phone until work came in through a wire.

It will come in very quickly, said my colleague and friend Sarah Johnson, who drove up from Boston yesterday and took me to Quaker Meeting. She left the New York Times for Axel to keep him occupied while we were communing with higher powers. When we came back she harvested Swiss chart from the garden and then cooked a chart omelet served with fresh bagels. Sarah left mid afternoon after a wonderful visit, sitting by the Cove in the sun, catching up on what was happening in the office, all part of my preparations for my return. Sarah assured me there is plenty of work and it may gush in faster than I can handle. Of course I have no idea what I can handle but I am ready to explore this in the next few days.

The rest of the afternoon was a gift. We settled in the sheltered part of the yard, near our vegetable and flower garden, Axel in a chair, writing notes and me lying on the grass finishing another book, for hours. With a perfect blue sky and a warm sun, it was heavenly and only disturbed once by a big wet yellow dog that had strayed from the beach and wanted to play with me. I had no interest and he got the message quickly.

The St. Johns had signed up for dinner and we decided to make it a field trip to their house in Essex. We sat around the fire and contemplated, once more, all those good things that have come our way. We schemed about ways to make the intense experience of being part of a lively community a permanent part of our lives; if Axel and I were the first project of the new and expanded community, what would the next project be? It wouldn’t have to be a calamity like ours, but simply a part of the community, a family, a person with a need that, together, we could easily take care of. We have tested this oldest of concepts, communities coming to the rescue of their members, and we expect and hope that it will remain an essential part of our lives.

Last night the mercury dipped below 50 degrees for the first time. It is getting cold in New England. This means we have to start thinking about winter clothes. My cotton drawstring pants are a bit flimsy for cold weather. The many washings have shrunk them and they leave a big part of my leg bare. I have started to wear airplane socks to cover this up but soon I will need something a bit warmer. Of course I have plenty of warm clothes but there is something that makes me want to hang on to these familiar and comforting clothes a bit longer Axel has also been wearing the same pants, cotton plaid pajama pants of the kind that teenage boys in the shopping center wear, with tee-shirts that don’t necessarily match. The only difference between him and the teenage boys is that his pants are pulled up high over his brace while theirs hang low. Axel wanted to wear real pants (and look a bit more normal), pants with a zipper and a button. But with the brace in place this is not possible. Now the big question is should we get him a new set of flannel pajama pants of the same type or hang in there until the brace comes off, hopefully three weeks from now.

Yesterday morning was another milestone for me as I did the laundry. First I kicked the laundry basket at the top of the stairs over and let the laundry spill down the stairs. Using my crutch I plucked pieces of laundry from the stairs and whipped them further down as if I was playing field hockey or lacrosse. At the bottom I assembled all the laundry in one big wad using my crutch and then pushed it to the basement door. We have no rugs in the house so this is very easy and kind of fun. I repeated the process down into the basement where I haven’t set foot in 9 weeks. The washing and drying was easy; the machines do that for me. The whole process took hardly longer than before. So scratch the laundering off our ‘tasks-we-need-help-with’ list.

In the afternoon Carol Williams picked us up to take us to Edith’s and Hugh’s housewarming party in Ipswich. Their very old but newly renovated house is nearly done (or not nearly done, depending…). It was the first time that we went to a social event that included a lot of people. It also included steep stairs and many opportunities to fall or trip. That we did not do any falling of tripping is because we were at all times surrounded by people who looked out for us. Edith and Hugh had even stocked up on non alcoholic beer. The liquor stores may have noticed a trend this summer.

The party turned out to be a trip down memory lane as we re-acquainted with many of Tessa’s Kindergarten classmates’ moms from West Newbury (1985-1993), vague recollections of last and first names coming into focus. Axel was in his element and Carol and I had to practically pry him loose, he was having such a good time. We briefly visited Carol’s house, also renovated after their fire, and talked about emdr, trauma and fire while Axel helped himself to Carol and Ken’s discarded book pile bringing more stuff into our house.

I was sore and exhausted after the party, more so than Axel (who had taken a nap beforehand). Part of my problem is that when I stand too much my foot starts to hurt and swell and when I sit too much my belly scar starts to hurt. Lying down in a hot bath and going to bed is the solution for that sort of discomfort. Axel stayed up watching a movie and talking with Jim. We got another email from Sita who is enjoying her explorations of Shanghai. Her work starts today.

I woke up to a rainy drizzle which is good for the new grass in the backyard. It is the kind of rain that is not good when you are feeling low. And although I did not sleep through the night this time, I am not feeling low this morning because my right ankle woke up with the rest of me more limber than yesterday. It was a little like Axel doing a double take when his fingers suddenly extended themselves in ways they had not been able to do before. I went to bed with a very stiff ankle and great discomfort along my belly scar and all that was miraculously gone. I have already written the alphabet twice with my right foot to make sure I am not making this up.

But then again, maybe I was making this up. While being distracted by Axel who needed some fine tuning of his position in bed, the ankle reverted back to is former stiffness and the belly scar became tender again. I have learned to accept that we are on a zigzag/up and down rather than a straight-up trajectory. As it turned out, my first waking experience was one of those leaps forward followed by regress. But I celebrate these small victories while they last and before they evaporate like many of my dreams.

If there is something that I learned over the last two months it is to recognize that there is poetry in experiences like this because it wakes me to my senses (body) and feelings (mind/heart) in ways I wasn’t used to before. Life isn’t straightforward or up and up and up (or backwards and down and down and down). It is as much a walk through impenetrable deep grasses that cut and obscure, or puddles that can swallow you whole as through flowering hills and spectacular mountain passes that take your breath away and make you want to fly. But these highs can be spoiled by sunburn, thirst and biting bugs while the lows can lift your spirits if you notice the small wonders that live there.

David Byer, our night nurse, treated us to a bagel and lox breakfast accompanied by music, gave Axel a shower and dropped me off at my therapist. He then took Axel to his appointment and they ended his night shift late in the morning at the Atomic Café in Beverly with coffee and talk. In the meantime I had an intense therapy session, making connections between my experience of the crash and other experiences in my life that were more similar than I had ever imagined. I am exploring and (re?)learning what being strong means and how to give form to all the emotions that are tied up in coping with adversity and examining early life experiences that served as my blue print and need some adjustments here and there. Cousin Barbara picked me up and left me at home with a bag of bars she baked and which she told me to cut in half (I did not and regretted this for about one hour afterwards). I had Beirut gazpacho for lunch, had my hot and cold footbath and read for a couple of hours in the sun. Later, Axel and I even tried to do some weeding together, each being able to do something the other cannot do; real team work but oh so very slow and largely ineffective given the scope of the task.

Jim returned from Western Mass, Sita emailed us from Shanghai about her first China experiences and Tessa clocked in at dinner time as usual. Jim’s mom Helen and Ed dropped of a wonderful dinner which Jim embellished with some grilled veggies from the garden. I went to bed at 9 PM while Axel puttered around the house until the wee hours and put himself to bed leaving his brace on. Which caused the interruption during my writing this morning (he wanted it off) and led to the reversion of my ankle fortunes and thus to my musings this morning, showing once more that everything is linked to everything else and nothing can be interpreted in isolation.

I woke up with a cough just as I was about to put a Dutch delicacy in my mouth (roggebrood met kaas). Darn! In my dream I had just managed to exchange a slice of American bread for a slice of this traditional Dutch (rye) bread and I had found the right cheese to put on it. I was at some large gathering that included many hungry (American) children who had not been fed their school lunch. The mother with whom I did the exchange was as happy as I was because her child would surely reject the funny looking bread.

It was probably just as well that I did not get to taste it because I am not allowed to eat anything until I have a CAT scan later in the morning. I am two drink two bottles of barium instead. A lousy exchange!

The CATscan has been ordered in order to figure out why I am having these pains around my belly scar. The piece in my belly button that feels like gristle is probably the tail end of an internal stitch that got irritated and hasn’t dissolved yet. Apparently it takes months for these stitches to be absorbed by my body. The doctor compared it to a pimple and assured me that if it bothered me it could be taken care of easily. He was more concerned about the other pains. So today was supposed to be an appointment-free day but I am off to the hospital with neighbor Ted as my chaperone and driver.

Sita left at 4 AM for the airport and is hopefully on her way to Chicago now and then Shanghai later today. Now that she is so intimately involved in our life, these partings are difficult. I was moping around yesterday a bit the way Axel and I mope around when one of us is leaving on a trip. We are all joined at the hip now.

Our friend Lynndsie came down from Amesbury for the day and started driving Axel to his appointment at 8:30 AM, followed by a shopping expedition. After that she did what she pays someone else to do in her own house and cleaned and laundered most of the day until it was time to drive me to various appointments. Lynndsie put new sheets on our bed. For the first time in more than two months our two sides of the bed matched and this made our bedroom look less like a calamity hideout. She did try to hide the multitude of pillows with assorted (and non-matching) pillow cases as that would spoil the effect upon entry into the room. Now, after a night of sleep, I am afraid the effect is gone but we are still appreciative.

Andrew came by in the afternoon to help Axel finish the set up of all his graphic design equipment in his temporary office. Carole O’Neil dropped off two meals that will see us through Thursday night. Axel went out on the town last night to attend a meeting of the Planning Board. He managed to stay throughout the meeting and came back tired but in great spirits. He too is easing back into the world.