Summertime and the livin' is easy, finally!

Hello at last our friends

We are in Boston this week, seeing eye doctors and visiting friends.  We are staying with Beanie.  Thursday I spent the night with Margi and Daniel with his friend and stereo buddy Hugh.

I apologize for being so long in posting.  My brother-in-law Ben called yesterday to ask what’s up since it has been almost a month since our last post.  I started with a long story that he was able to summarize succinctly, “oh, you’ve been busy.”  We have been busy doing what I call “simultaneously moving in and moving out.”   We finally got all the boxes that we moved into the beach house from the Cambridge move sorted and put away.  All the pictures got hung.  All the cabinet and shelves organized.  And while doing that, all our personal clothes, files, and “stuff” got packed and taken to storage.  I’ve been pretty single focused.  I would get up at 7 in the morning and work through the day organizing, boxing, etc. etc.  Our friend Alice suggested to me that I would save energy if I’d use the wheelchair.   That worked well for me.  The wheel chair also allowed me to carry stuff from one place to another in ways I can’t do with my marginally balanced walking.  Daniel got depressed with all that had to be done.  He was not able to do much until the clutter started to clear - (other than drive me to my frequent doctors appointments, church, my daughters home - oh and buy, carry up the groceries, and cook most of our meals and lift the boxes that were too heavy for me - you know - what I call "not much").   I too found that the more progress we made the more energy I had for what needed to be done next.  By the last two weeks we were both working 12+ hours a day.

Our wonderful therapeutic body worker recommended a handyman Wes who was able to put together the Murphy bed in about half a day.  Once that was done, Daniel and I could see that we were going to be able, with Wes’s help, to get everything done by our June 13^th deadline.  Our school teacher friends, Jayne and Dick started cleaning and agreed to clean both houses weekly through the summer.  They recommended a family that lives on Oak Island to help with moving chores.  Susan came several times to help me work on high places I can’t reach because I’m too unsteady on a ladder.  She cleared closets and organized book shelves.  Her sons Kenny, Danny, and Casey carried our filled plastic boxes to the POD.  Son Eddie and friends helped Daniel consolidate the 16’ and 12’ POD into only the 12’ POD at the warehouse in Wilmington.  Wes, Scott, and Jennifer took my stuff, including a dresser and desk to Jen’s where I will use it this summer.  We did a lot in the last month, and for the first time in our many Oak Island moves felt we had adequate help.

I’ve decided not to go to California with Daniel this summer.  We were going to drive through St. Louis and Texas as well as Chicago.  While my energy has been getting better, the trip seemed too daunting for me.  Daniel will fly to California for six weeks and I will live with grandchildren.  While I’ll miss seeing Midwest friends and relatives, I am excited about being with the Pollards this summer.  Abi will go from saying words to speaking while I’m there.  Zac and I will be together every Tuesday and Thursday; he will go to summer camp MWF.  I will make serious progress on the book on MWF.  Luc and I will do art projects, dance, and go to movies.  Daniel and I will take over our beach house the first week of August; the kiddos will be with us there. 

Aug 5 is Zac’s eighth birthday.  The decision I am most proud of in my life is putting the grandchildren first in my life.  I know that attention away from work, along with the weakness of undiagnosed leukemia, led me to lose my McKinsey job in the downturn of 2002.  I would not have had the job much longer anyway since I left in May and was diagnosed in July.  Even that short time of leisure helped me greatly to adjust to life after diagnosis and cemented my commitment to grandchildren first.  When doctors think I’m dying, I know why I’m living.  I believe that this commitment kept me me alive over all odds over and over.

We spent Wednesday evening with our Cambridge grandson Jackson.  At four he can spell his name.  He recognizes most printed letters, and when he doesn’t recognize a letter right away, like Q, he sings the alphabet song until he comes to the letter, then he remembers it.  He is so cute.  He gave his grandpa the longest hug; I wasn’t sure he would ever let go.  It was so wonderful to see that sight, grandpa and grandson so adoring each other.  That was the highlight of my trip here.

I got a new contact lens prescription.  The folks at Boston Foundation for Sight are incredible.  I have had many wonderful docs, but none that go so far out of the normal course of medicine to take care of men, and the hundreds of patients who come from all around the word to get Scelerial lens that end the pain and blindness of severe dry eyes from GVHT or because their eyelids have been burned off in an explosion in Iraq.

We saw Dr. Cutler and PA nurse Dubeau at Dana Farber.  Like other doctors, they are in awe of my ability to stay alive.  We love seeing how much they loved seeing us and celebrating that I’m alive and even walking.  My NC doctors like me and take good care of me, but I’ve noticed a certain ownership that doctors have who have brought a person through a life threatening experience.  Cutler and Dubeau look at me in ways of joy and appreciation that no others do.

On Monday Daniel flies to Chicago for a few days with his Mom and sister. On Tuesday I see Dr. Colby about an operation on my left eye that I hope to have here in August.  Beanie will then take me to the airport and it is back to Wilmington for me.

We hope that you are having a great summer.  We are.

Love and peace,

Bonnie for BanD

Comments

[betsy]

Do you know Bonnie that you wrote this wonderful letter on the summer solstice...Fitting time of the year, most auspicious.... These sound like good decisions for you and for Daniel to have different adventures for 6 weeks. I hope that they exceed both of your expectations and that all the grandchild energy continues it's healing magic. I am beaming and my soul shines as I read all you say.
I love you Bonnie. You know that. Love thinking of you with Beanie. Travel well,
betsy

[Donna]

Bonnie,
so good to hear from you again; I'd begun to wonder. So glad your eye surgery seemed to go well and you've been able to get so much done. Hope you have a good summer with your family. I'm so glad you have that focus with all your health issues. I've been back from my mom's hip surgery and that's what bothered me the most I guess is she seems to have no focus on why to have her health; she seems to have no interest in her great-granddaughter (my granddaughter) (like my grandmother had in my son - he still remembers her so much) oh, well maybe if we ever get her well - she came through her hip surgery - now we're back to her eye (except now we're also dealing with her bladder infection) I'm glad you brought up about our guys in Irag - I never thought about their eyelids - yikes! but we realized that's my mom's problem with her dry eye problem which we've realized may be her real problem - she had Bell's Palsy several years ago and had to have surgery then on her lower eyelid that may have to be redone. I call a doc tomorrow about it.
Anyway have a good summer!
Donna

[Melanie Wright Bradford]

Hey Bonnie,

Your comments about your decision to put your grandchildren first in your life reminds me of what prosperity is, after all. My sister has no children so I hear from her how that is the greatest sadness in her life. She looks at my grandchildren and tells me how it hurts to never have the honor of being called "mom" and "Grandbee" (my grandmotherly name). I just now have the time to reflect on the feeling that word honor intones. I was so busy feeding, chasing after, seeing about, watching over and being "mom" that I didn't have the energy to reflect on how much one is truly honored with progeny.
And of course in the face of catastrophic illnesses such as yours, each grand child and each year with each grand child is all the more precious. You've made me look at my grandchildren with new eyes.
So glad you're up and around but getting some help with it all. More love from Texas, Melanie

[betsy]

Grandchildren-healing Bonnie-energy! By now you are back at the beach with your brew of sweet child medicine and lots of us are smiling from afar. Hoping this journey for both you and Daniel is "what the doctor ordered". I am winding down work in Germany and eager to fly home to "my next" where great niece Marlo (closet I have to grandchild) will turn one on July 8th. Keep that love-a-flowin Bonnie,
love, betsy

[betsy]

How did meeting with Dr. Colby go? Will they do surgery? If so when? Seems like you've been at the beach about 5 days? Is that working out? Thinking of you. I fly home from Germany tomorrow. Eager to see Gene and Nate. Geoff thriving in Thialand and IN LOVE with "hot oil massages....." .....that's my boy! love, betsy