Bonnie Recovery

Bonnie and the grandkids here at the Beach.

The house is quiet except for the attic-vent tubine spinning in the wind.  Bonnie is napping with Abigail all curled up in the Master Bedroom.  Lucas is asleep in the kids bedroom.  For 40 minutes I could hear them horsing around when they were supposed to napping in their bedroom.  Instead they were stuffing there favorite cars into GrandBe's colorful clay vase, giggling and padding around their bedroom in their bare little feet.  

I picked Abi up and put her in the other bed with GrandBe.  Neither protested too much.  Ah, silence at last. 

The ocean is white and whipped up with winds going this way and that.  Bonnie was in such pain that she was up at 3:30 AM and calling our wonderful Chiropractor, Joy, at 8 AM.   The kids stayed with me, asking every 20 minutes, "where's GrandBe"?   Abigail successfully used the toilet again and we all cheered.  She used her step stool to wash her hands. 

Then she and GrandBe cooked up pancakes and sausages.  Abigail had to have her step-stool pulled up and standing by the counter to help Bonnie whip up the batter and then taste-test each batch of pancakes as they come out of the pan.  Huge grin, as she would munch on pancake after pancake.  Periodically, Abi sprang off the stool into my arms insisting that she is an "Ahh-plane". 

Bonnie is sleeping on an icepack.  She opened her eyes dreamily when I came in to kiss her.  I flash on years and years of Bonnie opening her eyes to see what the nurses or I am about to do to her when we come in and awaken her.  There is still a tiny bit of apprehension when someone comes up on her.  Bonnie remembers where she is and looks over at her grand daugther asleep in her bed and pulled the comforter up around Abi's shoulders.  Bonnie breathes softly, smiles and drifts back to sleep.  Bonnie is so happy, the house fairly glows with her contentment. 

And at night Bonnie is in such pain she is beside herself.  Ice, lots of Nuprin, even rum over crushed ice does not bring her relief; she tosses and turns and whimpers in pain.  It is painful to be around Bonnie as there is little or nothing I can do.  I put my hand on her chest when she is crying out in her dreams.  When she is awake all I can do is remind her that if she goes and gets her L5 vertebra adjusted every other day and keeps to her icing her back, 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off, she will get relief in a few days or weeks. 

The only thing that seems to bring Bonnie distraction is to play cars with the kids or cooking with Abi, and then reading to the kids and drifting off to sleep.  Both kids had 2 baths today.  They love GrandBe's attention.  The simplest things, like plastic tumblers to fill and then empty in the tub bring them joy.  When they are dried off, they all end up on the couch, coloring and singing.  The three of them seem to be in some shared magical space as they orbit around each other.  Wherever Bonnie goes, she has two planets circling their sun.    

Today, Luc showed Abi how to wrap up her sausage in her pancake to make "pigs in a blanket".   So breakfast was an event, each one wrapping and re-wrapping their link sausage and considering the look and feel and taste of pigs in a blanket.  When play is creative, no one corrects their table manners.  Such is life with GrandBe at the Beeeeach. 

While Bonnie was trying to get them to go down for their nap, I had a contractor over to face the realities of replacing the roof, and central air units.  Each was replaced in 2002 or 2003.  The "30 year shingles" were fine, but the ocean salt air has rusted the heads off of the roofing nails.  On the front row of the ocean we needed "hot zinc, double dipped" nails.  The previous owner must have "economized" on the nails, and to compound the problem, the steel nails were tacked too close to the leading edge of the next shingle, allowing salt water blown under the shingles to attack the nail heads.  Everywhere the head of the nail is rusted off, there is a hole in the roof to leak.  No way to repair it with caulk we are told.  The shingles are fine, it is the nails that have to go. 

Our "10 year Trane" A/C units are fine, ("you can't stop a Trane") but after 6 years the ocean's salt air has corroded the aluminum block where the fittings enter the unit, and oh yeah, the coils on the A/C unit are about shot due to the salt.

I asked how to prevent this from happening next time.  The A/C specialist  said wash the units with a garden hose every time you think of it.  I suggested that we simply install a bunch of Rain Bird lawn spray heads that pop up and thoroughly rinse the A/C units every other day.  The A/C guy said with surprise, that would work very well.  Then he wondered aloud why no one has thought of this remedy before.  If hurricanes or storm surges do not wipe the house off the beach for a decade, we may see how my strategy works. 

In the meantime, we will lift the platform supporting the exterior A/C units up another 4 feet, so it will be 12 feet above the sea level.  We will enclose the A/C  units on all four sides to reduce the amount of salt air that blows through them, and have the Rain Birds wash the units clean every other day. 

So the rough beauty and magic at the beach come at a big expense.  The wind and the salt air keep reminding us that all things are so very impermanent. 

Even the peace and quiet in the house will only last another hour or so.  Then the kids will stand by GrandBe's bed and put gently 4 tiny hands on her face to wake her up.  When she smiles at them, they say  "GrandBe, let's play cars!"   Five minutes later the silence will be rent by squeals of her kiddos running to catch their cars as they karoom along the 8 foot plastic ramp GrandBe rolls out for them. 

/Daniel for BanD by the sea.

The Fall Incident

Today, October 19th, is the first anniversary of what I've come to call my "fall incident." 

It has been QUITE a year for us.  In many ways it hasn't been my worst year; I still believe the worst year of my life was 1999.  I call that my year of "four funerals and a wedding."  That year my cat, my mother, and Daniel's father died.  I suffered traumas associated with each of these deaths as well as the deaths in 1998 of my sister and best friend.   I personified the closing of a start up company my research company has founded, saying I suffered the death of  "Rocket" a game character my company had created, and with the closing of the girl's game company, Purple Moon, I lost hope in the research company where I worked, and also my career.  I wrote about the personal impact of this loss of hope in the Maundy Thursday post in 2006 (At the time of that post, we were waiting to hear about whether there would be a stem cell donor for me). Maundy Thursday Post '06

2009 has not been as bad for me as 1999 simply because I have changed, and Daniel has changed.  Speaking for me, I have a better since of values.  In 1999, I would fall into deep bad moves if my material situation worsened even slightly.  Over the last ten years, primarily because of my recurring illness, I have learned.  My sense of myself, of Daniel, and of life is deeper and more stable, and more joyful because of that. 

In the 1990’s I would wonder at Jesus’ observation that if God took care of birds, God would take care of us.  Oh, yeah.  I couldn’t imagine how that could be true.  Yet, God has taken care of us.  Even this year when we watched the savings on which we live tumble, I haven’t panicked as I would a decade ago.  I am go grateful that I got to this situation before I died.

The anniversary of events of a year ago are stressful for me, and I think at least as much for Daniel.   I slept twelve hours last night and I’m still sleepy.  This is the kind of drowsiness I typically have before I see the doctor.  So what is the anxiety here?  I don’t know.

My back pains continue, a month now.  I have to think that this anxiety has something to do with that persistent pain.  I’m seeing a chiropractic three times a week and getting a therapeutic massage at least 90 minutes a week.  The pain will go away.  Who knows, once I get through this anniversary, it may be instantly gone tomorrow. 

Love to you all; thank you for your loving support,

Bonnie for BanD

Well, Well, Well . . . Pain Disappeared

In my last post I speculated that once the anniversary of last fall’s trauma (Oct 19) was behind me, my leg pain might disappear.  It appears that has happened.  On Oct 20, my pain was much less and on the 21 and 22, I had no pain at all.  My back, hip, and leg felt like they did before this pain incident started four weeks ago.  Today (Oct 23) my left leg is a bit more sore and numb feeling today, so we shall see if the pain relief is truly that or just a temporary reprieve.  I’m looking forward to a great 90 minute massage later this morning.  (Update Oct 24: Great massage; I have a little pain, but nothing to write home [blog] about.)

Still, it is curious that my condition changed so quickly, with little explanation except that Luc and Abi were here the 21st and 22nd.  Their visits always help Daniel and I feel better.  We made Halloween cookies using the cookie cutters I bought last year but never used. I have an appointment with a  psychiatric therapist next week to discuss trauma associate behaviors . . . this may be one.  I am determined to do whatever I can to keep my promise have a hospital-free decade.

Mommy took the kiddos to see the 3-D movie “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” This picture is a bit grainy, shot in low light.  The sight in my left eye is getting so good I hope to see a 3-D movie in the next year.



With 2008 taxes behind me also, I am looking forward to concentrating on our book again.  The chapter in front of me is the one on last falls incident and recovery from that.    of the 600 pages of blog text, 225 were written during this period.   This chapter will be the last of the narrative;  after drafting it, I’m on to a unit of “reflective/instructive” chapters in which we take each of the seven competencies one at a time.

Today I went to my first training session to join the Daughters of the King, an Episcopal prayer society with some national coverage though mostly in the South.  Our rector’s wife is leading the sessions.  She told me that she wanted the session to be in our library to introduce people to the library I put together and got installed in the church before my fall incident.  It was heartwarming to get to talk about it and have people be so enthusiastic.  One new gay member said that when she and her spouse were church shopping it was this library that convinced them St. Philips was a church where they would be welcome.  Wow.  It was so good to hear that.  There were twenty or so books that had been donated over this past year that I will now proceed to catalog the.  And I will finally write the article for the church newsletter officially announcing the library and its background.  

We are looking forward to a good week.  All three kiddos come on Thursday afternoon for 24 hours.  We are loving our beach house.  Even though it is small by American standards, it seems to be a perfect fit for us.  As winter approaches the sky has more clouds and the sunsets are more and more amazing.

Love and peace, Bonnie for BanD