Save the date: Sunday, August 26th @ noon. Fatu had the idea of having a big party/fundraiser at the house. Something like $10 (?whatever you can give…a quarter pays for parking, after all) gets you an afternoon of music, tons of delicious food (African, BBQ, etc) and a bonfire (plus, of course, delightful company). Axel should be home on the 16th – so this gives him a week to get used to being back on the homestead. I think by then the two of them should be able to last through the day, and will enjoy seeing as many of you as possible. They’ll also be close to their beds, so they can retreat if necessary.
So – speaking of music and parties – if anyone knows of any bands that might be fun (who are willing to donate their time) please let me know. I will try to arrange for my musical compatriots to come and play, but I think we could have lots of people play. My father mentioned Lark’s band – send ideas my way (I’ll act as entertainment coordinator).
I realize this is going to take place on a Sunday, but this is the only day that works – I arrive home on Saturday night (midnight) from Dallas, and Tessa leaves for Canada on the 31st – hopefully there is enough time for people to make it happen.
This makes me think, too, that it might be a good idea for people to email me/tessa and let us know if they are going to come. This way Fatu won’t make food enough for 10,000 when only 10 people are going to come.
Also – if anyone wants to – you are welcome to stay and camp out at the house (assuming good weather)…I think we have some late night bonfire/guitar playing around the fire planned…(we also have 2 bedrooms available for guests – one with a full futon and the other with a single bed).
Archive Page 279
Sita came back from a weekend in Goshen and on her way back stopped in Gardner. A souvenir hunter she is. She brought back two small pieces from the plane: one from the windshield and one from de fuselage. She described the scene and how landing in any other spot would probably have been fatal. Then, Antony from Azerbaijan sent me a link to a BBC report of a light airplane crash in Britain where all four passengers died because the plane could not get enough lift, brushed the top of trees and came down and exploded. So, here is how bad luck changes into good luck.
More abundance coming our/my way yesterday: Fatou found us after having lost track for many years and then found us in this state! She works at Salem hospital and lost no time in checking us out and cheering us on. Fatou, in my mind, is associated with Senegalese hospitality and large quantities for African food. She will be keeping an eye on Axel and is plotting something that involves food and lots of people.
Mary Wright showed up as the day nurse giving Tessa a chance to see her dad. She handed over my care to Lynndsie after lunch while I was taking a long post lunch nap, so I never said goodbye and thank you, so here they are. Lynndsie brought more meals and we spent a glorious late afternoon that felt like fall together until Sita came back. Earlier Diane Neal Emmons with her husband Curtis Prout showed up and we explored the pros and cons of sleeping upstairs and downstairs. We are starting to research a lift that could ferry me and Axel up and down the stairs. It is appealing to be able to return to our regular bedroom when Axel comes home: at least some sense of normalcy.
Martin Ray from North Shore Friends Meetings showed up with some scones and we nibbled on those while sitting by the cove. Martin had not realized that the photos that Sita has been posting are not under the Photo tab but in her Flickr account. The link to her account is in the Links section.
I was so rested that I was able to stay up and watch Sherlock Holmes and for the first time asked for and enjoyed a plate with deserts: fruit (the remainder of the extraordinary edible bouquet), whipped cream and chocolate. All this while Sita and Tessa were describing the suspicious contents of the many small drawers in the barn/studio/Axel’s office and concluded that Mr. Cabot (the owner of our house pre 1950) was a particular kind of (mad?) scientist, and let their imagination run away with them, as they can do so well. I had to press a pillow hard on my belly to keep the laughing from hurting too much.
Sita was working on the calendar last night and I noticed she posted a link in the journal to test out. Please try and let her know what is working and what is not. Thanks for the continuing flow of cards and flowers, prayers, Reiki vibes and all that. We are indeed getting better each day. Tessa says Axel is no longer shuffling but really walking now. Joan is walking with a cane and I can take a shower on my own. We have already come a long way from that Monday three weeks ago!
Cheers,
Sylvia
The dishwasher drama Tessa described is one of those moments that my inability to do much of anything comes sharply and painfully into focus. I can’t jump out of bed, run up or down stairs, and really be of any help other than telling what I know. Coming out of sleep, my brain did not function all that well. Anyways, I am glad to read that Axel did not experience any such handicap and was able to give wise counsel from afar. I am also happy to know the cause of this mishap and waking up this morning without seeing water seeping over the threshold. I may further contemplate sleeping upstairs again, after Axel comes home. But that is another story.
John Gorsline, the father of Tessa’s best friend Sarah, surprised me with an hour of his undivided attention. We knew each other only slightly through our daughters and a couple of Christmas get togethers. We may never have exchanged more than 20 words in our lifetime. And yet, we sat in the yard and talked as old friends. We talked about this tendency of the mind to rewind the story over and over. I was deeply moved by his generosity of spirit.
Pauline and Alberto Haddad showed up with their little children and an enormous Lebanese mezze. It was the biggest meal I have eaten so far (with this sort of food I forget about limits). We had a wonderful time, talking, eating, watching the children, as if nothing had happened to me. Just one of those great summer gifts: friends, great food in the most beautiful place on earth. Sallie Craig showed up minutes after the Haddads with Gado-Gado, an Indonesian vegetable dish which we saved for the evening. Sallie Craig’s presence released the girls and all took off to run errands and do things they needed/wanted to do.
Sallie Craig took me to Axel and we had another nice visit. Not having seen Axel for nearly two weeks, Sallie Craig was quite surprised to find him in great sprits and not so much looking like an accident victim. He is not wearing a Johnny anymore but a regular T-shirt. And of course, no braces. Sallie Craig withdrew to the rehab’s lovely deck and read her book, so we could be alone for a bit. Thank you for all these gifts (food, driving, privacy, company, etc.)
These trips to Salem exhaust me and I think I ought to be taking them earlier in the day and may be not each day, as much as I like to see Axel. I am counting the days until his return home, maybe another 10 days or so.
I was thrilled to see Joan’s appearance in the guestbook. I am encouraging her to write in the journal as well since this calamity happened to three of us, not just Axel and me. I also hope that Joan and Morsi will use caringbridge to indicate their needs as I imagine Morsi must run out of steam now and then.
An interesting night tonight after a good day full of great food and guests. Steve and I came home from a little lawn mowing gig in Manchester (thanks again Catherine!), ate some dinner, put mom to bed, installed a grab bar for her in the bathroom (she’s taking showers at home now), and were settling down for the night when I noticed a strange sound coming from the dishwasher, I looked at the ground and saw a little water, it was only a bit, so I threw some towels down and began preparing mom’s breakfast. I turned to the sink to toss a knife in, and stepped in water spewing from the angry dishwasher. I turned the dial off, but still water continued to rush forth, I then opened it up to see water pouring from the inside of the washer out onto the floor. I ran and grabbed steve who went downstairs to find a water shut-off after checking for one upstairs, bad news… the water was pouring down into the basement and there was water everywhere. I started seriously freaking out and woke up mom, which only freaked her out (bad approach on my part). I then ran next door to see if Ted or Charlie knew where the water shut off was. It was late, but thank goodness Charlie was up watching t.v. So Charlie woke up Ted, who came stumbling into the house, mom rolled out eyes wide with panic, and Steve amazingly got dad on the phone, and calmly and quickly performed all the actions dad instructed him to do from across the bridge in Salem. phew what a night. The water stopped and the dishwasher was cleaned out (somebody has been putting paper labels in the there), and things soon settled back down. Sita and Jim missed quite the Saturday night in Lobster Cove.
t.
Mike Morris talks about guilt. You want to fight about who has most? I am not a catholic but in this round I may win from you.
Thanks Joe for the exercise. I am going to postpone it though. Later. I first have to go to this dark place, no matter all the advice from everyone about not going there. When Axel’s fatigue kicks in and he looks frail and tired I am overwhelmed with guilt and ask myself ‘what did I do to him?’ I can’t see Joan in that situation but the same question pops up, and then the tears start flowing and the regrets burst over the levee and the film starts to rewind with all the possibilities of not making those mistakes, doing the correct landing and going on with life as planned (I would have been on the plane to Dar es Salaam as I write this).
I can’t help myself. It is as if I have to go there to place an offering on the altar of the god of regrets, to appease him (her?) and get this out of my system. I am drawn there even as I am fully aware of the blessings and the goodness that seems to have come from this and which I might not have seen in its full glory if all things had gone as planned. There also would have been blessings and goodness – maybe of a different character – but blessings nevertheless – had I not crashed the plane and life had gone on as before. It’s not as if it had been dull or without friends and joys. Those images also spin through my mind: together harvesting our new potatoes, the tomatoes, the morning omelets with fresh chard, the kayaking, the daily walks, mussel picking, a flight to Maine to see Andrew and Katy Blair, the things we had planned, were planning for the summer.
Yesterday a letter came from the FAA. Sita said it was written by a robot, which is why she insisted on calling the robot later in the day as she wanted to give it a piece of her mind. The letter was rather blunt about my incompetence as a pilot and that, unless I called within 10 days to make an appointment for a practical flight test, my license would be suspended. It was like the small stone in a bowl of soft rice, the piece of eggshell in a fluffy omelet or the cherry stone in a cheesecake. It hurt. The contrast between all the gushing about how great, courageous, brave, strong, etc I am and this assessment was quite stark. I had to swallow a few times, even though I know the assessment was correct and I already knew that I would have to sign up for another check ride. But still.
Cary from MSH was my first visitor. She was one of the MSH crew who stepped in to teach the course at BU that I was supposed to start teaching the 17th. Gratefulness mingled with regrets, I had looked so much forward to this teaching. The course was a success and hopefully will be repreated for a third time next year.
Larry and Amy from DC showed up as well as Annie from West Newbury whose presence allowed the girls a break. We sampled another variety of gazpacho and then drove to Salem where we watched Axel shuffle up and down the hall. Progress again, further, steadier. Then they left me alone with Axel (“get into bed with him!” said Annie) and we started to talk, maybe for the first time, about the crash and my feelings. More tears, and also more admonishments to not go there. But I did and probably need to for some time. How can I not?
Things are going really well, on Wednesday dad got his neck brace taken off, and he now only has to wear his back brace when he is sitting fully upright , and he is learning how to put it on himself. Sita and I bought him a pirate hat and hook to celebrate the good news… the pictures (which are amazing) should be up on her flickr account.
Thanks to all of Joe and Sita’s amazing organizational skills we are beginning to fall into a nice system, aided by the new nurses station that Sita set up in the foyer of the house.
Thank you to everyone who has contacted me about finding Steve a job, unfortunately though, after a long internal debate then longer external discussion, it has been decided that the amount of stuff that has to be taken care of in Canada is greater than the few things that can be taken care of down here. No one (including Steve) is very happy about this, but it makes the most sense given his situation. He will stick around for another week to help finish off some minor household projects that need to be completed and then take a bus back home.
Thank you again to everyone for all of your love, support, kindness and generosity, it truly touching, and greatly appreciated.
-tessa
I am currently setting up a group calendar – and it would be very helpful if anyone interested in helping out with visits/etc would post their email as a comment in the guestbook. this way Tessa and I (and whoever we enlist to help us entering emails into this calendar thing) can easily look here and copy/paste into the invite list for the calendar. If you feel uncomfortable posting your email here, you can email me (and copy tessa) with the subject heading ‘Calendar Email.’ We have already begun to populate this with appointments/scheduled visits/my work schedule etc. I think this will be a very helpful tool for everyone – and once we get folks in the system we will post a link to the site from the links section here.
sita@klompje.com
tessamagnuson@gmail.com
It’s hot here today, the kind of hot that makes waking up difficult, and chores even more difficult – luckily we had some visitors today who brought some good company and a new batch of delicious cold gazpacho! Sylvia was carted off for another visit with her hubby and Tess and Steve took a much needed break during the day to take care of a million personal things – and to try and sort out a way for Steve to get back up to Ontario (if anyone knows anyone who is headed north, let us know. We’re looking for ride shares or cheap bus/plane tickets). I have been busy updating the nurses station (will take a picture of this very helpful improvement to the house and post it on my Flickr site later), and I am pleased to announce that we are slowly checking things off the list (although as soon as a space is made on the whiteboard, another thing takes it’s place!). So, as Joe mentioned, we are trying to organize ourselves so that in the coming weeks and months it will be easier for folks who want to help to know what needs to be done. We have divided the work into groupings as follows:
1. Housekeeping: This covers the daily/weekly chore list of things to do around the home including, but not limited to things like laundry, dishes, trash, vacuuming, general clutter management, meal preparation, grocery shopping, fish and animal care, and most importantly yard maintainence (this may be where some help would be appreciated). Ted has done an amazing job watering the flowers and garden everyday, but there is still a lot of stuff that might be good for people to sign up for. Here is the list:
Weeding/flower maintainence (deadheading, etc)
Lawnmowing (this needs to be done once a week – let’s say every Thursday, since Steve just did it yesterday)
Lawn watering (with the sprinkler that seems to have vanished – this obviously requires not much work after all the sprinklers are in place – but currently we have none). If anyone has extra sprinklers that we could borrow that would be amazing – and if anyone has passion around setting this up/helping us find some sprinklers, we can make a chart here at the house that has info about when they need to be turned on, so anyone who is visiting can just turn the hose on, then turn it off. Simple. I think my father said (since the grass is rapidly dying) that once a day for 20 minutes should do it for now.
Then, coming in October we will need to start thinking about winterizing the property, which is going to be a lot of work – but we can deal with that later.
Another thing that we will need to start thinking about sooner than later is getting the house ready for another patient – which will require some more furniture moving/organization including bringing down the other twin bed from upstairs, or taking Diane up on her offer of the extra queen bed that she and her husband have. Either way, there will need to be some more clutter removal and heavy lifting (maybe taking some of you up on your storage offers) that will need to happen soon (in the next 2 weeks it looks like).
2. Patient Advocacy: This includes things like:
Precription filling/picking up
Appointment making/rides to appointments
Calls to MSH HR and BCBSMA to figure out when paid benefits from their health insurance starts to stop (VNA), and possibly what other types of services are included in their coverage (accupuncture/alternative healing/massage therapy etc ???)
Nutrition – we need to begin to think about what the best type of food is during the recovery time – my guess is that they are going to need to eat certain types of food more than others so that tey are getting the right nutrients/vitamins in their systems (especially since they are not moving around much). I think we’d rather have them eating spinach, for example, instead of taking vitamins/pills for Iron defficiency (I don’t know a thing about this stuff).
Occupational Therapy/Physical Therapy (knowledge of what the people who come here to do with them do, and what we can do to keep Axel and Sylvia working towards goals set by the O/T and P/T folks when they are not here)
Therapy – this comes in the guise of ‘professional’ therapy with Paul, but also includes therapy with friends. There is going to be a real need to talk through a lot of what has happened, and Paul has already been a great asset, but talking to friends is very important too. When they are ready, a nice quiet afternoon sitting by the ocean and listening might be a nice gift that any of you can offer.
Other advice (medical, emotional, etc) Some of you have already offered this, and we may take you up on this soon. Joe, for instance, has a lot of experience to share in going through crisis – and in fact this helpful list was brought to life with his help). This is a bit of a vague area, but as we all know, knowledge sharing is good. I’ll leave it at that for now.
In the interest of not making this a 90 page entry, I’ll move on to category 3.
3. Counseling/Coaching This has already been addressed a bit, but the whole moving forward piece is going to be quite important. We have included Career Counseling and Transition Managemet in this category. How do we move forward, what affect will all this have on our careers/schooling. What pieces of our lives do we pick up and resume and what parts of our lives need adjusting. This event has been and will continue to be a life changing event, so how do we deal with this/what are the implications of all this? I think this will get tied into the Therapy piece, but this may also be another set of conversations that needs to happen at some point. I know that my mother has been already a bit overwhelmed by people asking her when she is going to come to work, and if she can do this project and that – and it’s just too early. This recovery is going to take a long time, and any rushing forward to get into the old swing of things just isn’t a good idea right now.
4. Caregiver Support This is a category that many of you have already helped out in, which includes:
Respite for Tessa, Steve, Sita, Jim and anyone else who comes to stay to look after Axel and Sylvia and take care of the house. We all need a break sometimes, and if people want to come and spend the night sometime, or take over for the day, or drive mum/dad to appointment – that would be great. Just call and let us know when you want to come (or we will post dates that need to be filled – which I will begin doing after I post this long novel of an entry). This also includes Filling in for me when I’m off working. I currently have some work coming up in Dallas and will be gone from the eve of August 20 (Monday I think) until midnight on August 25 (Saturday?). Tessa and Steve will still be here, and Jim will be here (but probably working during the day – we still have to sort out where (some of you should expect a phone call next week)) – but we will probably need some extra help that week. Please let us know when/if you are available to come for the day/night. I also have accepted some work in Shanghai for September. As many of you know, Tessa and Steve will be gone as of August 31st. She has to start school again in London, Ontario shortly thereafter. So, I will in general be needing a lot more help after that, but I will be gone for about a week (the week of the 17th I think? The dates aren’t nailed down quite yet) in September and will need someone/various folks to take turns spending the night/day. It is very possible that my mother’s sister from Holland may be coming to visit suring this time, but nothing is ironed out yet.
Moving on…
5.) Finances We have already had a lot of help from Andrew & Katie Blair in setting up an account @ Manchester Savings Bank where people can donate money if they feel like it. Please understand that this is in no way being asked of you, but Andrew made a point that, for some people, this may be something they want to do. This has already been a big help, but I’m not sure how many people are aware of this, etc – so some communication about this might be nice. (Note – my parents are very open with their finances and are willing to talk about this, so don’t feel that you need to beat around the bush if you want to talk about finances with them – although I think at this point my father isn’t quite ready/doesn’t need to start thinking about this aspect yet). The main thing in this category is that we need to seek the advice of an accountant. (I have yet to get in touch with the one my family uses – this is on the to do list).
Better systems of bill paying – managing account balances, dealing with receipts etc…this is really a management job…
Fundraising (Joe’s logo idea comes into play here…) The account at Cape Ann Savings is really wonderful, but we thought there might be some more (fun) ways to get some cash flow into the house – like a nice dinner outside here at the house, or a raffle for a weekend/week (at a later date) staying here in the house and kayaking/enjoying the beach with homemade meals (kind of like a B&B idea)…haven’t really thought this one through, but there might be something fun that we can do, that everyone in this community can take part in if they want. These are ramblings at this point, and my fingers are tiring…
6. FUN! What you’ve all been waiting for…
we will need some monotony breaking!
This includes:
Movies
Game night
Spa/Massage treatment at home
etc…I’m sure you can think of more…
So – there is is. This is the result of some early brainstorming with Joe. Obviously, a lot of this is stuff Tess and Steve and Jim and I will take care of – there is no expectation that anyone is going to come and empty the commode every morning, or to pay our bills for us, but I wanted to share this list with all of you so you understand what’s going on here – in the interest of keeping this whole recovery process transparent – and because I am sure there is stuff on the list that I assume we have to do ourselves that someone may say ‘hey, I can do that!’ and then take a big load off our shoulders. One thing that is currently on the ‘Top of Mind’ board at the nursing station is to create a comprehensive list of names/numbers of people who are available to come stay for the day/night/bring food, etc. We are going to make a book that we can leave on the table, so it is easy to sort through and call people. It would be nice to have some sense as well what the best day to call would be (things like ‘sunday’s no good, Wednesday is best for me…etc’).
Ummm. I’m sick of writing – this was enough for today. I will make Tessa write an update about the folks and how they are doing. Check out the flickr site for some more folks – Annie is going to send me a nice photo of mum & dad at Shaugnessey today, and you should really check out the pirate photos from yesterday if you haven’t already. Tessa and I got him some props at the Pirate Museum in Salem.
Love,
Sita
sita@klompje.com
tessamagnuson@gmail.com
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