Sylvia's Journal

I can’t help making comparisons between the before and the after (the crash). I used to wake up at 5 AM. Axel used to comment on how instantly I turned ‘on’ in the morning, my brain springing into action, my body swinging itself out of bed, all in nanoseconds. Now it feels as if I slowly swim to the surface of awareness. With each inch that I get closer, I am getting also more conscious of the 1000 little aches as the body wakes up. Sometimes it takes me 30 minutes to wake up like that.

Yesterday Axel’s therapist Paul showed up, on Sita’s request. We sat outside looking at the Cove slowly filling in with the tide and I talked, cried, discovered while Paul mostly listened and from time to time pointed out things that I had overlooked. Such as, that in time of crisis or hardship (not really having experienced any trauma like this in my life), the first person I’d turn to is always the person who is my very best friend, Axel. Yet in these last 3 weeks he was the one person I had not spent even a second alone with. We could not hold each other; we couldn’t even talk privately as our two best sides matched up with his ear that could not hear. Try to have an intimate conversation when you have to communicate by shouting, with all sorts of caretakers and random hospital roommates around you.

When I asked Paul about the billing for this conversation he smiled and said, did you not read the conditions in my brochure? It says that for people who survived a plain crash I don’t send a bill. Thanks Paul, it was a most wonderful conversation.

Then came Jono, President of MSH, who discovered not only this most beautiful part of the world but also that the big stone house across the cover is the house of his college mate George Putnam III. We chatted while the Cove continued to fill up. Jono is no stranger to getting phone calls after work hours about staff and plane crashes, but luckily this one ended well. He has been cheering the three of us on from that fateful Saturday when he showed up in the hospital and he can only see progress. Thanks Jono for coming all the way to see me; I know time is precious to you and I deeply appreciate your gift of time and attention.

After a quick visit from the VNA nurse, who will discharge me next week as I return to my usual care provider in Manchester Tessa took me to see Axel. This was going to be the private visit while Joe and Sita and Tessa had lunch and their last powwow before Joe headed back to San Diego. Axel and I sat in our wheelchairs facing each other. It is a bit awkward, you can’t hold each other, or snuggle up with breastplates, plaster casts and fingers that don’t work on their own but we touched, held hands and cried a bit and then the private moment was over as doctors and therapist filed in and succeeded each other in quick succession with a focus on the needs of the body, rather than the mind. Nevertheless, all the things they talked about are very important to us, such as, will the nerve damage be for good or temporarily and how can we avoid a trip to Worcester.

After all, we had had our few moment together alone. We are changed now in that we are grateful for small mercies and our needs are simple. Just being together is a treat.

In the evening Sarah and Elena from work showed up with a delicious chicken/salmon salad, including wine for the girls and strawberries and cream, plus office stories and greetings from everyone.

Funny, only a month I was trying to lose some excess weight and now everyone is cheering me on (“mangi, mangi, mangi!”). Much emphasis on my GI system and the need to get those pounds back on. By the way, the news from the GI front is good, even though it is a battlefield of chemicals vying for victory, the white team putting the system to sleep and the yellow team rousing it to do its noisy and messy work. Yellow is slightly ahead!

It was a good day. Special thanks to our dear friends Carol and Chris from Seatttle/DC who provided for ongoing massage support for the caretakers just when we wondered how we could get that to continue. We are immensely grateful. The universe is providing to us with such abundance that it fills us with awe.

It is Thursday morning. Joe is leaving today, a piece of reality that I ignored until I saw him getting that ramp in yesterday without taking a break – as there was no break to spare. Then it hit me. Joe has been getting us through the transition from immediate disaster relief to project management and helping the girls organize (for) this unimagined new life for the next couple of months. They hadn’t expected to care for their parents just yet.

Joe, I don’t know how to thank you for what you have brought, value definitely, some levity, your understanding of networks and how to help them focus and provide value, tons of expertise in calamity management and an endless supply of love and patience. We are humbled by your selflessness and hate to see you go. Have a wonderful trip to Europe with Rita. We know you will follow us via this site. Thanks.

Ann Buxbaum came for a visit in the morning and helped me shower at the neighbors and after that we just sat and talked and gossiped in the way we have for nearly 20 years at MSH. She brought a sushi lunch which we ate outside. Later Abigail Axelrod, a massage therapist from Gloucester showed up and gave Sita and Tessa a badly needed yoga massage, to get their muscles to relax and some of that tension out. She will come back once a week to work with them.

My physical therapist showed up and discharged me after checking my use of the ramp and showing some more exercises. There is not much he can do with me until my cast comes off. I used the walker to hop from the sitting area in the yard to the bathroom inside and back, which is probably why I was completely exhausted by the time Tessa took off for Salem. I had planned to go with her but did not have the energy. I heard about Axel’s good progress from all those who saw him.

I successfully transferred my care from Worcester to local specialists and care givers and so I am pleased that I don’t have to make that trip again. We are still working on Axel who has been called in for a follow up in Worcester but we are making sure this is not going to happen and find him a spine doctor and other specialists locally with the help of Shaughnessy and our own family doctor.

Sometime in the morning a box with moldy stuff arrived from the FAA. An eerie sight: it contained our personal effects from the plane: Axel’s backpack and notebook, his camera, my cell phone, my flight bag and some clothes. I had given up on those and had already ordered a new cell phone. The camera contained the pictures from our day’s outing. It’s good that we don’t know our future. We all look so happy and are having such a good time! I will ask Sita to post these pictures on her Flickr site.

A rough night, waking up a lot, dreams which much movement, which had to do with having to get back to work and being driven by a boy scout on vacation who is having a fun time and not in the least concerned with me getting back to work. Alison, I did read your email and Skype and have not responded because I don’t know what to say, too overwhelmed by the questions and the realization that I am out of commission for awhile. Call me and ask me one question at a time and I will try to answer.

I cried, Birgit, when I read your posting in the guestbook this morning. Thank you so much (it was a good cry, of the blessed kind). Thanks to everyone for your continuing prayers and support and your writings in the guestbook, it is the first thing that I read in the morning and it props me up and gets me through those long early morning hours when the house and the world are so still.

Some moments I get a glimpse of this abyss or precipice. I shuffle close by, thinking I am ready to peak in and then I can’t, my brain wills my mind’s eye away. It is the abyss ‘of alternative outcomes.’ Why do I want to go there if we accomplished the most desirable of all outcomes is a mystery, but something is tugging at me.

There are a series of before/after images that play themselves out like a film: Axel and me putting our gear into the car that fateful Saturday, all excited about a new flying adventure. The departure from Beverly, the glorious day that was shining over Essex and neighboring counties. I think off the first trip in which I shuttled Morsi, Neveen and Ahmad from Gardner to Montagu, then flying back with Ahmad to pick Joan and Axel up. Everyone snapping pictures like crazy. It was such a wonderful day, I felt confident in the plane and if there was any hesitance on the side of Joan, Morsi and the kids, they were quickly able to enjoy the view from the sky. We had a great picnic at the Turner’s Falls airfield.

And then comes the part I want to rewind and do over. The part where I want to take the pilot error out. The part that changed everything (EVERYTHING). Images of us ‘stuck in the mud’ – how long it took for me to come to that momentous and most frightening realization: that we should/could have died in that crash, or one or two of us could have; how I screwed up and dragged our own and Joan’s family into this – and then trying to figure out what this ‘this’ is: a nightmare? An endless series of blessings? A costly mistake that will suck us all dry? An incredible burden placed on people I love so much? A series of pains (in the neck, in the gut, in the belly, in the ribs, in the arms, feet, hips, etc.)? A gigantic mess-up of Axel’s school and career plans, Joan and Morsi’s summer plans, Ahmad and Neveen’s dream trip to the US, etc.

The crash site, in my mind still has a yellow police ribbon around it which says ‘don’t go there.’ Part of me complies and another part is trying to sneak past it when no one is looking.

I can’t believe I wrote ‘contraception’ rather than ‘contraption.’ thanks for pointing that out Ann; clearly, we can’t help ourselves after so many years of editing and working in the field of reproductive health, the fingers typing the word on their own ignoring signals from the brain that another word was wanted.

Sita and I left at 7:15 AM for Worcester this morning and returned 11 hours later. We are both exhausted. It was an ordeal that I would like to spare Axel and Joan. Tomorrow we are going to find local orthopedes for myself and Axel in and around Beverly so that no one ever has to do this again.

My last stitches were taken out. Sita will probably be able to show for some time the imprint of my nails as I dug deep into her palms during the removal of my knee stitches (both sides). These stitches were left in for a full two weeks because of the placing of the scars. After two weeks the skin had almost completely healed over the stitches. The doctor was pleased. Now it’s just a matter of vitamin E and staying out of the sun. The belly incision has also healed well, much better than the scar of one of the young nurses at the fourth floor of UMMC who had had a similarly near fatal accident (in a car) some 13 years ago and offered good counsel and a view of her badly scarred belly.

I got a new cast, much lighter and fashionable. We had many choices: Hazard Orange, Neon Green, Barney Purple, OSHA Yellow, something that looks like the uniform of nursing aides (pastel hearts and happy faces), soccer balls, and Camouflage without or without the American flag. Sita and agreed immediately on Denim Blue to match my eyes. The cast maker was from Accra and we had a nice time talking about Ghana. He’s the first one who told me that he is going back to help his people. All the other West Africans we met at UMMC (mostly from Ghana and some from Nigeria) had no plans of returning to their broken health systems.

Not much to add to Joe’s narrative. He gave a faithful account of the day. Let me fill in the part between returning from Salem and this morning of the last day of July. A thousand whiplashes is what I am feeling this morning. Some days my body isn’t so prominent in my mind but this morning every movement I make hurts, no sharp pains, but sore sore sore everywhere.

We have so many different dishes in the refrigerator that we could have a daily menu offering many choices. I dined on Diane’s vichyssoise, Carol’s beans and fresh beets from Mary that Sook cooked. Joe had the pesto and pasta and Sita, Steve and Tessa are on another schedule. I don’t know when they eat or sleep. Sita came back with a car load of stuff which is being stuffed into the studio.

Thanks Caty for the zoethout tea and the heads up about the Dutch company. With my frequent flights through Schiphol I have managed to handcarry such items throughout the years.

Thanks for those of you who suggested workplaces for Steve and Jim, all sounds promising and they’ll follow up with you. Steve, being Canadian, has to sort out work permit issues we just realized, but Jim should be OK.

Today Sita and I are going on a road trip to Worcester. I am not looking forward to this, especially since we have to get on the road at rush hour for the Manchester-Turnpike stretch early morning. Thanks Bob Buxbaum for his suggestion of an abdominal binder. It is a very (very) watered down version of the plastic contraception that keeps Joand and Axel steady. It made the road trip to Salem more comfortable and will do the same today to Worcester.

I wll be seeing the orthopedic surgeon and the trauma folks at the surgical center. I hope they will open the cast and explore why I am having these pains in my heel. There is also an X-ray to be made of my right chest to check on the ribs and continuing pains there. Sita is going to get all our X-rays and scans and what not so that we can move our care to local doctors, so this should be the last of our trips to Worcester.

Arne from the flight center came over and helped me fill in the NTSB forms, all 9 pages of them, which included things like where the center of gravity was, what the pressure altitude was and annual inspections of the plane. Another mishap at the flight center (this one only serious for the plane, not the pilot) meant that they are two planes short after an accident-free existence for the longest time. Thanks Arne for helping me through this chore. We also talked about flying again and that I will need another checkride with an instructor before I am let loose again. Of course, I would not want it any other way.

Dear ones, near and far, thanks again for the outpouring of love and support. As you can read from our journal we are absorbing as much as we can for use right now and putting the rest in storage. Joe is sitting down with the girls to begin charting the next few months and moving us from being trauma victims to being a project for our daughters and sons-in-law. Caring, compassion and gushing love is always good but as a project we will need to be managed, a different set of skills, which requires planning, organizing, implementing and of course monitoring progress and evaluating what works and what is not. Thanks Joe for your guidance. I think MSH published a book about this, by the way!

Happy birthday Axel! I have the feeling that this is going to be a very different year than all the ones preceding this birthday. I am so grateful that we are all alive and on the mend. My mind sometimes drifts into contemplating the other unspeakable outcome (or anyone of a number of scenarios) of our failed landing, but then all my muscles contract as if to prevent access to this thought and I stop in my tracks.

Things are looking good, even through the veil of rain outside. It’s a droopy sort of day but I don’t feel droopy at all. Nurse Tessa is making my breakfast, counting my pills, making coffee and putting the finishing touches on Axel’s birthday cake…wonder woman!

I went to bed after watching Miss Marple in Bertram’s Hotel with Tessa. Right there two accomplishments: watching through an entire movie without asking Tessa too often for extra explanations, and going to bed at 10:30. Tessa massaged my hands and shoulders, a treat each time. I took the triple dose of Oxycontin and had a painless night as a result although I keep waking up many times. For a habitually sound sleeper like me these cut up nights are still hard to handle.

I spent several hours with Axel at the rehab on Sunday and saw him progress from sitting up in bed to standing up in a walker and finally sitting down in a wheelchair, all this without fainting or sweat drops on his brow. A true pirate, patch firmly in place.

In the meantime Tessa’s Steve with his friend Roy were building a mini-ramp that will allow me to get in and out of my bedroom on my own. The threshold is about one inch high and the ramp is an elaborate construction from shingles that have been fiber glassed for strength. There is another set of ramps that need to be built later which would allow me to go outside and then back in again. I’d have to bridge 8 inches, a dazzling height for me at this point.

Jim and Steve have both changed their (summer) plans so that they can be with us. Jim is giving up his job in Amherst by moving into the studio across the driveway with Sita and Steve wants to postpone his return to Canada as long as possible so he can support Tessa. As a result both are without income. If anyone in the Essex county area can think of work that could provide them with some revenue while they are here, I would be so very grateful. They are caring for me and Axel as if they are our sons and they are providing support to Sita and Tessa in ways that no one else can. Steve is looking for work for the month of August. He prefers working outside; he loves animals, and is strong as a horse. Jim will need work that continues after Labor Day.