On Monday Bonnie had four medical appointments before we could leave for Boston.
Bonnie's doctor took one more look at her infected leg gash, and the CAT scan of her lungs. Her leg wound was now healing and her chest shows no signs of pneumonia. So Bonnie was pronounced fit enough to travel to Boston for her artificial Cornea Transplant. Hurray. All that remained was packing and carrying down 4 suitcases, two cases of food, two containers of stereo gear, pillows, comforters and two briefcases of computers and a box of medical stuff so we could take off for two weeks in Boston.
The only remaining issue: the Southeast was in the middle of a snow storm that had closed the schools and many businesses. We had the Costco all to ourselves. I drove for 4 hours on I-40 at 25 - 45 MPH. We saw over a dozen cars off in ditches. I really had to focus. North Carolina is not known for it's speedy snow removal, and this year's snow removal budget has already been exhausted.
We arrived to Paul and Sue's home in Norfolk VA by noon on Tuesday.
Bonnie got out, walked around the car and fell. This time she went down face first on a concrete aggregate sidewalk. She broke her glasses. On plastic lens has deep furrows in it from scraping on the sidewalk. Bonnie fractured her right cheekbone and broke her right wrist.
But as Bonnie lay on the sidewalk, she was impatient and wanted to get up before I has carefully checked her out to see the extend of her injuries. Her face was bleeding, and badly bruised. She extender her arms and said "Pull me UP!" She was mad.
When there is a disaster, everything slows down around me. I get calm. I said, "No, not until I see the extent of your injuries."
I checked out her face to see if there was any glass in her face under the blood, and I check to see if her neck was okay before. I saw her right hand was bleeding and purple with bruising. Her hand was at a bad angle.
I asked Bonnie to move her wrist and fingers. It really hurt. She clearly had a broken wrist. What if I obeyed her command to "Pull me up" when she extended her arms to me? No what matter is going on, Bonnie wants to be in control and giving orders. I understand her point of view. Yet my job of "Driving Miss Daisy" includes saying No! from time to time. Miss Daisy does not like to lose her independence.
So I helped Bonnie back into the car and we went to an Emergency Room in yet another state. It took 5 hours to get the results of Bonnie's new CAT scan of her head and the X-rays of her wrist and to get her wrist put into a splint.
We now have more high tech medical images Bonnie's body parts than the London Times has photographs of Queen Elizabeth. The CAT scan revealed that Bonnie cracked her skull at the right cheekbone. The X-Ray showed that she had a "badly broken" wrist. They wanted to send Bonnie to an orthopedic specialist in Norfolk VA, the next day, because they thought her wrist would need need pins or screws to heal properly.
But we had no time to linger over an broken wrist. We had to get on to Boston for Bonnie's eye surgery. We asked to have the CAT scan and X-Rays burned to a CD and got the reports of their findings. We returned to Paul and Sue's home and had a lovely lasagna dinner, though Bonnie had a devil of a time eating with her left hand.
At dinner Tuesday night Bonnie was quite a sight. The right side of her face was badly bruised and scraped and partially bandaged. The left side of her had a bandage over her left eye, which is sewn shut. But her one good eye was full of light and expression and good humor. Later I told Bonnie she still looks beautiful to me. She rolled her good eye and laughed. And in that moment I think she could see her animation and what I continue to find so attractive about our Bonnie.
Wednesday morning Bonnie awakened in Norfolk with a hell of a headache, and 2 degrees of fever. There was a heavy winter storm blanketing the east coast from Philadelphia to Boston. Bonnie said she was too sick to drive 16 hours to Boston in one stretch, only to have to eye surgery and more pain inflicted on her body. I understood. We had to call the doctor to see if we could put the surgery off until the following Thursday.
I gave Bonnie some pain medication and a latte. Sue brought up some orange juice, tea, and toast with jam and sat with Bonnie.
At 11 AM, I called the attending doctor at Mass Eye and Ear to see if he would agree that we should not risk traveling with Bonnie running a fever and a severe headache from a new trauma to her head. I explained that she was still recovering from a leg infection, strep throat and bronchial infection. I read him the hospital discharge summary and the CAT scan and X-Ray reports.
The MEEI doctor, knowing the tenuous nature of Bonnie's left eye, asked which side of her face had been fractured. When I told him the right side, he was thoughtful for a moment. Then said "Well, we are operating on the left side. I can not recommend letting Bonnie's surgery wait even one more week, unless there was a "true emergency". That he did not classify anything Bonnie had going on as an emergency, cast a different light on the her fall, infections, broken wrist and the current danger of her eye problems. He said we should try and get to Boston for surgery in 24 hours, though he acknowledged that it would not be easy to make what is normally a 13 hour drive, given the ferocity of the snow storm that was closing in the Northeast.
The pain medication, latte and breakfast seemed to help Bonnie "buck up", get dressed and make her way down the stairs. By 1 PM we were off to Boston. We carefully watched the storm path using my iPhone's MyWi capability with Bonnie's Mac open to the Weather Channel website. We chose a route that had us avoiding the storm in the afternoon, and at night arriving after they had plowed the interstates. The height of the snow banks plowed up along I-95, the Garden State, I-84 and the Mass Pike was amazing.
I drove for hour after hour watching for black ice as we drove through the night. Bonnie took her pain medication when her pain got to be too much. It was a delicate operation helping Bonnie get out of the car to use the bathroom every few hours as she had only one good arm, one good eye and tennis shoes on her truncated 6" feet. I drove up on to a plowed sidewalk at a rest stop to get Bonnie close enough to the entry doors.
The night security attendant raced to a window to see if someone was trying to storm the building. We we came in, I was walking behind Bonnie holding her up, and doing the hokie-pokie walk, with her bandaged eye and badly bruised face and arm in a sling. The security attendant looked pale. I explained my wife was handicapped, and could not walk alone on ice. He reached for the phone. I imagined he was going to call the State Police. I asked him calmly if he had a problem with my handicapped wife using the public bathroom. He put the phone down.
We arrived in Boston at 3 AM. Bonnie had to undress and change the bandages on on her leg, arm and face. With only one good arm, she needed help and we had to be very gentle. I think we got to sleep at 5 AM.
Getting up, and dressed and ready for surgery the next morning was the same slow process, in reverse. Bonnie was very sore but now she could wiggle her fingers. The pain medication helped as she got dressed.
I let Bonnie do everything she wants to do on her own. I do not even watch as it makes us both crazy as Bonnie has to go very sloooowly. But Bonnie needs and wants to do as much as she can herself. I see her pushing back on years of infirmity and disability. So in the end, all I could do was help her pull her shirt over her head and arms, and pull up her pants and put on her socks and shoes.
Because Bonnie was running 30 minutes late, and MEEI wanted Bonnie to arrive 3 horus before surgery, Bonnie insisted on getting out of the car and going across crosswalk that still had snow and ice on it. She would not let me go around the block and let her out where the medical attendants would open the door and even put her in a wheelchair and take her up to surgery. She argued that it would take to long to go around the block. Fortunately, two people in the crosswalk took Bonnie carefully across the street and along the snowy sidewalk to the front door.
Sometimes Bonnie's desire for independence and her anxiety about being "on time", (in this case, at least ONE HOUR EARLY) has Bonnie insisting on doing things that are just plain crazy. Even after she slammed her own car door on her leg, and even after this week's fall, Bonnie INSISTS on doing things that are too risky for her survival. We are going to go see a family therapist about our conflicts over this. I am again too stressed by the effort it take to try and keep her safe. And Bonnie simply wants to be act without constraints imposed by her disabilities. I understand her frustration and need to be independent, but her track record of staying upright and healthy over the past 2 years is not very promising for living a long life.
While she was in surgery, I went on to get her prescriptions filled and to get our 2005 Honda Odyssey serviced. Our car has developed an electrical problem that causes the battery to drain. And the car was overdue for a major service at 120,000 miles. Another set of non-elective issues to take care of.
I picked Bonnie up at MEEI after her surgery and helped her get dressed. We heard that the surgery went well, but we will not have any idea if she will have sight until tomorrow's 8 AM unveiling of her new bionically enhanced left eye.
By 9AM we may know if she will have any sight in that eye. If so, it will still be a year or more before we know if her left eye will continue reject this bionic cornea as it did the previous two cornea transplants. While the plastic cornea is less likely to be rejected, it is more likely to get infected.
I went to our beloved Trader Joes and got a lovely curried chicken salad, fresh organic pea sprouts and brussel sprouts, which we heated up in our hotel room.
We are up in 5 hours to see what if Bonnie can see. It is late. Please excuse the errors in this post and it's rambling nature. I am too tired to re-read and edit now.
/Daniel for BanD
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