Bonnie Recovery

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

What do you appreciate most about Bonnie?

I am in sunny, fragrant California.  My spiritual home.  Bonnie is in Wilmington taking care of her grandchildren, and writing her chapters in our book.  Uplifting days for all.

I just came from my mother's home where I replaced her 20" iMac G4 (white luxo lamp-like flat screen computer) with a iMac 24" screen which is much more responsive to Mom's mouse movements etc.  It is incredible to me that my 88 year old mother is an avid Mac user. 

Anyway, as I now have two weeks "distance" from Bonnie for the first time in many years, it is interesting to see how my mind holds her, and my arms look for her in the middle of the night. 

Nearly lossing Bonnie so many times, and having such close calls in the last year has had me thinking, alot, about Bonnie's essense, and what I find so compelling about her.  

There are her quick turns of mind, and ability to reframe a situation or concept, her sense of humor, grace under fire, baby like skin, smiling eyes, beautiful breasts -- so many different aspects of spirit in a woman's body come to mind. 

Yet, I think what captures me most about our Bonnie, is how she is a den mother to many people in many walks of life.

I think this picture captures the spirit of Bonnie, radiant hair and all.

Here Bonnie is on a Persian rug, reading to our grandson Lucas, who is holding his new kitty.  Luc has two more books in the queue on Bonnie's leg.

Bonnie, teacher and den mother, taking joy in unfolding new worlds with others. 

I love these yous, Bonnie.  /Daniel for BanD

Still Crazy (and Smiling) after All These Years

Wasn’t that last post of Daniel’s lovely?  What a guy!  This November we’ll be celebrating our 21^st anniversary.  That is something of an accomplishment considering both what we have faced and what rugged individuals we are. Our circumstances and our personalities have created stresses in our marriage, but our love holds us together.  As I’ve thought about love and marriage, mine and others, I have come to believe that what holds us together is our appreciation of each other and gratitude we feel that we found each other.  As long as we have that gratitude exceeds our difficulties I expect we’ll continue to surf successfully the tides of long term marriage.

I was observing to Daniel that this is the longest time we have been apart.  He sort of laughed and reminded me that while that may be true for me, I was in a coma almost as long as he will be in California.  Sleeping through the separation is yet another reason I’m thankful for my coma.  It allowed me relief from all kinds of pain and trauma.  I am reminded from time to time however that Daniel, Jennifer, and Ron went through that trauma and all have some residual pain from the experience.  I can only hope that they are recovering from those experiences as fast as I am regaining my ability to walk.  I’m not well, and neither are they, but life does have a way of healing.  I’m hoping that Daniel’s time to be Daniel in California will help him heal and that being with Jennifer daily will help her.

 I took the ferry to Southport on Sunday to attend my church there.  Rev. Barry greeted me as a miracle.  I’m a bit embarrassed by that and yet I know that part of God’s purpose for me is to witness that miracle.  In 2003 after my first rounds of chemo, heart failure and dialysis, I asked Ken Ireland what one should do who has been blessed with such a miracle.  His response:  “advertise it.”  I’m trying; Lord, I’m trying!

 

Life is sweet for me here in Wilmington.  Zac left with friends for an overnight trip to Myrtle Beach.  This morning before he left we bought and put together a house for the Hermit Crab he captured yesterday at the beach.  Putting together that plastic crab house was such a pain.  At times Zac was crying in frustration.  I realized how wonderful it is to be as free as a child to express anguish and frustration that way.  I wish I still could.  Maybe I’ll try.

Love to you,

Bonnie for BanD