Bonnie Recovery

Long Road Ahead

It looks like we have a long road ahead of us as Bonnie works to recover from the surgery in her left eye.  Fortunately, after the third emergency surgery, it appears that Bonnie's cornea transplant is holding.  The epithelial cells she needs to grow are filling in on the area that was not healing.  The cornea surgeon and cornea specialists Bonnie sees several times a week are guardedly optimistic that the graft will succeed.

As the Graft vs. Host Disease appeared to be attacking the new cornea graft, the doctors conferred and agreed to increase her Prednisone back up to 60mgs. per day.  This is reducing the muscles in Bonnie's legs and arms, but hopefully will save her cornea and heal the sores in her mouth.

Bonnie has debilitating headaches almost all of the time and her operated eye continues to hurt despite all pain medications.  She snuggled against my chest for comfort last night and to try and get to sleep.  I can feel her tremble and shudder slightly as she copes with the pain in her eye and head.  She amazes me by how clever she is at finding ways to deal with the pain and manages to keep a sense of humor much of the time.

Misery!

It has finally happened.  After more than five years of being sick, I’m now miserable with pain:  in my eyes, my mouth, and well all over.  I’m grateful to have gone so long without this, and now I will cope with it.  My eyes will heal and that pain will be gone.  The sores in my mouth are getting worse, but they will get better eventually.  I have both mouthwash and prednisone pills to fight the graft vs. host causing the sores.  I’m facing the challenges of so many people who are ill, the challenges of pain.

Eyes and Ears, Tongue and Throat, Head, Shoulders Knees and ....

Our grandkids sing a song that teaches them to point to their Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes, Eye and Ears and Mouth and Nose.

The only parts that are not causing Bonnie pain or some distress today are her toes.

We hope to see what can be done for the growing sores in her mouth, on her tongue and inside her cheeks.  Her throat is now sore;  It hurts to chew, it hurts to eat.  Cooking and eating have been Bonnie's great focus and relief.  She uses it as her in-life zen practice, though with more joy than maybe allowed in some zendos.  Cooking is a form of exercise to keep Bonnie on her feet and ahead of the Prednisone.  Eating is keeping flesh on her bones.  I see that Bonnie is eating defensively, against her fear of another period when she can not eat.

This morning we saw her eye surgeon and based on her fellow's (resident) exam report, Dr. Colby started out by saying she thought we would have to do another surgery to stitch human tissue (placenta) over Bonnie's cornea and then sew her eye shut.  We were both silent, like contact bridge players.  Neither of us were buying more surgery. 

I Need a Miracle Everyday

 So go the words of a famous Grateful Dead song.  I may not quite need dynamite to get me up in the morning, but in the evening a bit of dynamiting might help me stay up past 7pm!

Events and conditions of my life in this world aren’t quite to the level of Job, but have that character.  On Valentine’s Day I’m scheduled for my fourth eye surgery at 2:30.  Dr. Colby will be putting a human tissue from placenta as a covering on my left eye. It will be glued and stitched and then she will sew the eye lid closed for two or three weeks.  She will re-evaluate her decision about the surgery on Tuesday.  The epithelial layer was smaller on Friday than the previous Tuesday.  Eye docs believe that if a patient is not getting better, she is getting worse.  I understand that the problem is that my eye has been uncovered too long and we cannot wait longer.  Please pray with us for good progress on epithelial tissue growth so I can avoid this surgery.

At 3:30 on Valentine’s Day we have a court date in NC on our precious beach house, the one we’ve so lovingly remodeled and have loads of our cash invested in.  Wells Fargo is authorized to deduct mortgage payments from our bank account and to increase the deduction to cover increases in taxes and insurance.  We upped the insurance on both our houses there, both mortgaged by Wells Fargo in what are identical loan agreements.  Wells increased the withdrawal amount for one house but not the other.  I check each month to make sure that the payment is being made, but frankly didn’t pay any attention to the fact that one withdrawal had gone up but not the other.  Wells sent Ron (in whose name the 4923 loan is listed) several form letters and left a couple of garbled messages on his answering machine with inadequate call back information.  Wells Fargo sends out an incredible amount of marketing materials.  Not imagining that anything could be wrong, Ron ignored this communication. 

I'm set for surgery on Thursday

Dr. Colby is concerned that my left eye might precipitously "melt" because the epithelial layer has still not grown over the whole cornea, though it did grow well since Friday.  She has had good experience gluing and stitching a human tissue (from a placenta) as a covering on the cornea.  She will stitch my eye mostly shut for two or three weeks.  It will be ugly, but I can live with that (with my pirate patch in public).  Surgery is at 2:30.  I will have a "block" as I did for the last surgery; I'm not afraid of that anymore.  Dr. Jacobs (one of my contact doctors) assures me that this is just a covering and that we should not be concerned about another human biology introduced to my system.  The pre-opt doc reminded me this is very minor surgery.  Daniel is staying in town another week to be with me.  Your prayers are very much appreciated.

The surgeon says Bonnie's 4th eye surgery went well.

Dr. Colby says that Bonnie's 4th eye surgery went well.  They were able to glue and stitch in a tissue from a human placenta and then sew a third of Bonnie's left eye shut.  We will go to see the surgeon tomorrow at 8AM to check on how the surgery is holding.

Bonnie was cheerful enough and loving today.  But I can see that this is all wearing on Bonnie.  Having to fast for 12 hours and having yet another surgery and recovery period is just getting old.   

The anesthetic did not completely block Bonnie's vision nor numb her eye this time.  Her eyes are very photosensitive.  The light for surgery was very intense and inescapable.  Bonnie says she felt some of the stitches being put in to close her eyelid.  She said all of this matter of factly, as if reporting on something she read in the New York Times.  Then she asked "When can we get out of here?  Do you want Chinese for dinner?"

But her tough Texan thing is eroding.  She was crying out loud and moaning her sleep just now.  I reached out and touched her and was able to settle her down without awakening her.

My bonnie Bonnie has had quite enough of this now. 

Hello, God, can you hear me.  Dyanu. Dyanu, Dyanu!

Dyanu being Hebrew for "enough" as in "enough blessings"

Speaking of "enough",  would you like to hear the current state of play on the Wells Fargo Foreclosure mess? 

In the North Carolina Beach House tonight - 3 grandkids tomorrow.

Bonnie asked her eye surgeon if she could fly to NC for a week to see her grandkids, now that her eye is safely sewn shut.  The doctor hesitated, but said yes.  Bonnie was so happy she could hardly get to sleep last night. 

When we got to the Beach House she crawled into bed and was asleep 10 minutes later.

Bonnie was radiant at dinner.  She had arranged tomorrow's ferry trip to go across the river to see 3 of our grandkids and setup Sunday brunch at a good old pancake restaurant at the beach on Jennifer's side of the river.  Later we go to watch the kids play in their own environment.   Bons has us bringing the boys, age 6 and 2, back to our house for the night.  Monday being a holiday, we get to keep the boys at the beach until Mommy Jennifer gets home at 4PM. 

Tuesday we work with the lawyer to see what has to happen to get Wells Fargo their check for $2653.69 and to stop the foreclosure.  This is so dumb it defies logic. 

Later we get bids on painting the other house inside and out, and replacing the wooden window trim that the ocean has eaten into and is causing to rot in just 5 years.  We also have to replace the Central A/C as the effects salt air has finally brought it to a halt.   The forces of nature 70 feet from the ocean are amazing.   So is seeing dolphin swim by and loggerhead turtles climb ashore to lay their eggs.  A few months later the hatchlings crawling back into the sea under the light of the full moon. 

Wednesday we begin our 2 day drive back to Cambridge for a check up with the eye surgeon early Friday morning. 

Life here is good.  Thank you for your prayers, kind thoughts and e-mails

/Daniel for BanD

Posting from Cambridge

Thank you for all your emails and phone calls of concern that we have not posted in TWO weeks, yikes!  We are as OK as we might be.  Here's a quick synopsis of what we've been up to.

We had a VERY fine, though short, time in NC.  We got to keep Zac and Luc overnight on President's Day.  And we went on Tuesday to see Zac sing with all his first grade at a little school recital.  On Wed we saw the lawyer on the foreclosure issue, and we had contractors come to look at our other house to get bids on painting and minor repair. 

We discovered that the window trim had not only rotted, but had let water into the walls, rotting the siding.  It was of course discouraging to hear that we would have that additional expense.  Mary Lou and family are arriving to occupy the house at the end of the month.  Yikes.  However, we got bids and have engaged our good contractor who has already begun to tear off the 30 year old siding, put in new insulation, sheer wall, and vinyl siding.  We even have a permit already!  Things are looking good for now on the renovation front.

We left Oak Island at 4pm on Wed, planning to drive as far as we felt comfortable driving.  We were rolling along with a beautiful full moon.