By skillful medical attention, practiced patience, prayer and amazing Grace, Bonnie is back and being Bonnie. Our Full-On Bonnie.
Bonnie is now arising at 6 or 7 AM. It takes her an hour of careful attention to deal with her eyes, scleral lenses, myriad medications, mouth treatments and skin treatments. I get tired just watching her get ready for her day and then again for bed each night.
Bonnie walks steadily around the house on her tiny 7" toe-less feet. By 8 AM she is facing dual monitors and editing our book in her office. Bonnie is peaceful, deeply grateful, and ambitious again. Bonnie drove herself for midweek bible study, and for a new haircut and to the eye doctor. Yesterday she went out to the local supermarket to shop for ingredients for a corn salad recipe we are trying to perfect. We need something better than baked beans to go with our apple wood-smoked pork pulled-pork shoulder. We now have our own East Carolina apple vinegar-based "dipping" sauce. But we are still dialing-in the sweet corn salad recipe. We have learned that it needs a full-flavored olive oil, red and green peppers, red onion, lots of cilantro and some lemon juice, but there is a missing flavor. Anyway Bonnie is definitely back in the kitchen!
This morning Bonnie whipped up dutch pancakes which rose perfectly in her new 9" Pyrex pie dishes. She bought eight such dishes so she can serve breakfast to the whole extended family. Now Bonnie is putting away her Stuben crystal and white china, which she had stored in the lock-off closet for the summer. Bonnie simply re-purposed her wheelchair into a hotel baggage cart, loaded it up with boxes and pushed it to her destination. Why wait for Daniel carry stuff?
Bonnie is expanding her relationships with our 3 grandchildren at Jennifer and Scott's house. Each one notices that Bonnie is much more "in the world" than when they last saw her 6 weeks ago. Bonnie now sees with both eyes, and sunlight no longer causes her headaches. If our eyes are windows on the soul, imagine what having your left eye open means for human contact.
Lucas suddenly beamed when Bonnie went in to his pre-school room to pick him up. He immediately noticed that Bonnie had a new haircut. She looks like a tennis player. No more chemo-fried patient look for Bonnie! Abigail goes wherever Bonnie is so she can huddle with Bonnie over a book or her "babies". She makes delighted sounds as she draws with Bonnie and then they explore alternate uses for her new Pink Boston Red Sox lunch bag/purse. Zachary loves talking with Bonnie about bigger subjects. He asked recently at the dinner table what is Jewish? Zac was only too happy consult with Bonnie about what would make an appropriate birthday present for his brother. He has to think about it and will consult with Bonnie when he has had time to fully weigh the matter.
This month we have been knee-deep in the chronology of Bonnie's chronic illnesses. Bonnie is now hammering down some 600 pages of weblog entries. This exercise brings home an African saying "It takes a village to raise a child /human being".It is said that this thought was expressed in the Nigerian Igbo culture and proverb "Ora na azu nwa" which means it takes the community/village to raise a child. The Igbo's also name their children "Nwa ora" which means child of the community. Whatever the origin of this thought, Bonnie and I have become children of our communities. That means you and a thousand "others", without whom Bonnie would have disappeared over the horizon have constituted our web of help. Most of Bonnie's doctors have told us that their treatments were necessary, but insufficient; and that in their view their treatments do not fully account for her recoveries, particularly her last one.
We are currently laboring to ensure that our book sheds more light on the discussion around health care. We have come to understand that institutions, doctors, drugs and insurance are only a fraction of what it takes to produce a liveable life in the face of chronic illnesses. And that is the Good News. The true hope in the next century of health and care for the developed and developing worlds is that it takes a village.
In the next few posts, I will illustrate the village / community that we relied upon to bring Bonnie back from the precipice for the 4th time in 7 years.
We are deeply grateful to our family and friends, and doctors, and nurses, and social workers, and housekeepers and ministers, monks, rabbis, midnight pharmacists, rehabilitation specialists and total strangers, who have each had a hand in Bonnie's return to being Bonnie.
There is no greater gift to receive than Bonnie in her natural state.
/Daniel for BanD
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