by Allison Moore | Oct 6, 2014 | Day by Day, Uncategorized |
What a day! What a weekend! Where to start?
I feel I should start this post with some kind of disclaimer about my emotional state. What a Ball of Feelings I am today! I’m all over the place…
First off, I had a perfect getaway weekend in Seattle. The weather was so warm and sunny, I kept wondering if I was indeed in Washington—it just didn’t feel right to my sensory-memory for this time of year. But no complaints, it was great to walk around without a jacket and still feel the crisp in the air and see the turning leaves.
My sister’s family is always a pleasure to be around. Cambria and Shon are the quintessential hosts and consistently grill the best salmon I’ve ever had. And my nephews are growing way too fast. How cute are these little guys?
Though I don’t have the big-camera pictures at the moment to prove it, I had a very special time with my high school chums, Lucy and Cindy. It had been about 15 years since we had all been in one space together, and it was as if no time had passed. I’m glad I was able to get up there alone, free of responsibility. We had a lot of catching up to do, after all, so we had to make the most of our time, even if that required my character talking-a-mile-a-minute (on Seattle coffee to boot!)
The best thing about longtime friends is that when you are with them, you remember who you have always been. They will remind you, because that will always be how they see you. I find it brings a wonderful kind of perspective. A rare gift to look in that kind of mirror and to hold that mirror up for another. To know you are loved still the same way you were once. No matter how much you think you have changed, you realize you still have your ‘sameness’ intact. I think it takes the Longtimers to help one remember that sometimes.
But I’m afraid my getaway was too short. I was away JUST long enough (three days) to start to relax and remember what its like to be fancy-free. Although I missed the children and couldn’t wait to see them, it felt too soon to get on the airplane yesterday.
I had a window seat and was treated to browning views the whole way home. But it was when the pilot flew us over Catalina that the inevitable began to sink in. I was nearly home. Back to reality.
By the time we hovered over Huntington Beach, that was it. I started to weep…as quietly and hopefully, snotlessly, as possible.
Why? I’d had such a fantastic weekend, so full of laughter and love. In Seattle, I had felt happy in the moments. Now I was realizing I’d left my survival-mode for the first time in over four months. The way I’d learned to do life on an hour-by-hour level. And I didn’t want to go back to it. Until now, on the ground, it had been fine; it was my “new-normal”—totally do-able with just a little help from my friends. NOW from a new vantage point (literally) it looked depressing and overwhelming. My complicated future stretched out before me: one-sided visits to a comatose Vernon, pretending I could tutor Maki in 8th-grade algebra, looming dental appointments, moving house again, etc, etc. By the time we landed, I had pretty-much decided my next big project would be to become a kidney-donor to my husband. Needless to say now, I had a full case of the blues…
…which (although I loved seeing the kids and giving them their travel-presents and catching up on our three-way weekend together again) lasted through the night and morning and was still with me as I drove in a broken air-conditioner through record October-heat to the hospital today. (I am not actually looking for sympathy here; I am trying to set the stage. You’ll see…)
Vernon was still at St. Jude’s. I had received a call over the weekend that a bed had indeed been secured for him at Kindred, but that he had been given some hefty antibiotic just that morning that the doctors felt they should watch closely over the weekend. So the plans for his transfer were dashed once again.
I was still wiping tears away when I reached his ward today. The poor nurse, Ivy, tried to console me before I went in. I’d never seen her before, but she was sweet enough to rub my back and offer a hug. I said: “Forgive me. I really am stronger than this most days. But it would be great if you could get him a speaking valve, please just have some heart. It feels he’s gone completely backwards, and I’ve got a lot going at home. I would love to hear my husband talk for a change. He’s been so quiet since he’s been here.”
She looked at me closer then. “No. He’s talking. He doesn’t need a valve. Go in and see him.”
Ivy was right. He was talking up a storm WITHOUT a Passy-Muir contraption. I could hear him. And if I told him that I couldn’t understand him, he would speak louder until I could. It broke my heart in two to feel so sorry for myself and be so surprised by his speech at the same time. I can’t exactly explain it except to liken the experience of communicating with him to discovering a frozen specimen of a man from another time, someone trying to find his bearings, someone trying to direct us to make him as comfortable as possible in this strange world. When I showed the videos to Maki later, he put it in the best words: someone “independent.” Someone able to express himself even if he doesn’t know where he is or what he is doing there.
And so it continued. Lots of talk about Norway, especially. The weekend nurses had wondered if he was indeed Norwegian before I explained. He seemed to want to know the name of every new person entering the room and would repeat it again and again so he wouldn’t forget. When I asked what kind of food he would want if I could get him some (he’s still not ready for food, by the way) Vernon clearly said: “Dairy Cream from Norway.” We deduced that this was some kind of ice cream (though Synnove, when I asked her later, had no specific idea of what he meant.) He may be totally confused with various memories coming up through his speech at once, but suddenly he is COMMUNICATING! When we complimented him on this, he said: “I have to. Because you don’t understand me.”
Needless to say, on my way home, I was still tearing up. The air conditioner wasn’t working, I had a list of unfinished things to get back to, I longed for another holiday, but this time, my sad tears were mixed with wonder and humor and joy. What a marvelous journey today has been. I have something exciting to look forward to again!
by Allison Moore | Oct 1, 2014 | Day by Day, Uncategorized |
Around this time last year, Vernon was supposed to go to Seattle for a type conference. Ticket was bought, bags may have even been packed, but he managed to injure his leg playing soccer with the weekend team. He felt too injured to do the trip and conference, so he cancelled his ticket and hobbled around on a jaunty cane for the next couple of weeks.
This may be the only picture I have of the man with cane. Perhaps you can see it if you squint.
Every once in a while throughout the year, I would vaguely remember there might be a ticket out there worth redeeming. Once I’d asked Vernon if I could use it to go to Texas for my High School reunion in July, which I’d reserved an event ticket early. It was in his name but he was certainly willing to give it up.
July came along. I still wasn’t ready to leave Vernon at the hospital even for a weekend. My good friends, Cindy and Lucy, pals since high school, whom I’d made plans to stay with, went on without me.
Fortunately, around the time Vernon transferred to Kindred, I remembered to look into the ticket again. Turns out I had just a week or two before it would expire. I called the airline and was told I could still have a grace period, but would have to use it by mid-October. So without thinking much more about it, I texted my sister Cambria and my friend Lucy, who both live in Seattle, and arranged to have the ticket changed for this coming weekend.
And here we are! If Vernon hadn’t hurt his leg last year, I might not have even thought to take this weekend getaway, which now that I have it planned, feels like a necessary vacation. The kids are looking forward to their weekend arrangements as well, but they aren’t going with me.
To make matters even better, Cindy is flying from Texas to spend the weekend with Lucy and me as well…so a personal HS reunion will happen after all. These girls have travelled all over to visit me at various stops in the past 25 years, I must add, and this visit has been too long in coming. I also can’t wait to spend some quality time the wonderful Cambria, Shon, and my three nephews.
So I’m looking forward to good friends, good food, crisp fall air, rain, and lots of coffee. It looks like perfect timing…Vernon actually ”shoo-ed” me away with his good hand the last couple of visits. Maybe he needs a longer break from me too. Or maybe he just is trying to tell me: “Go! You are fine! I don’t need you right now.”
He needs a little more speech therapy before I actually know for sure!
by Allison Moore | Sep 30, 2014 | Day by Day, Uncategorized |
Vernon’s new temporary catheter seems to be working fine. When I went to visit today, he was in the thick of being dialyzed. Though these sessions wear him out, I expect he is starting to feel somewhat better.
As for Vernon’s spell at St. Jude’s, its seems all their work is done. He has been fixed up, medicated, and cleared for transfer.
BUT now there are no available beds at Kindred. So we wait until one opens. Could be today, tomorrow…who knows. Apparently its a game of musical beds.
The seeming state of limbo continues. And this is how we creep forward.
And sure enough, even waiting will end…if you can just wait long enough.”
― William Faulkner
by Allison Moore | Sep 27, 2014 | Day by Day, Uncategorized |
One perk of Vernon being in another hospital is that they have more relaxed rules about visiting children. Although there is a sign at the entrance of the step-down ward that suggests no children under 12 should enter, the staff I spoke to understood that emotional importance overrode the guidelines. So Justine and I took advantage of the situation and visited Daddy this morning, mocking up child-sized safety gear with scissors, rubber bands, and a paperclip. We do things MacGyver style.
Vernon seemed to be feeling better physically than he had earlier in the week. His temporary-tube procedure had gone well and he had received his much-needed dialysis. He seemed pleased enough to see Justine, who hadn’t been allowed to visit for at least a month, but his memory seemed to have gone elsewhere for today.
We asked if he knew where he was or what had happened. He shook his head. He called (or rather, mouthed) me by his ex-wife’s name. No harm done, I hear this is common. Basically the papers of the file cabinets of his memory are still spread out and mixed up all over the proverbial office of his mind since the tornado of the accident. (No wonder they call it storming!)
Justine took the initiative to explain he had “fallen off his Vespa” and that he had been there for a long time. I’m not sure he understood today (he seems to have understood this before.) But once the news was given he was ready for us to leave.
She also found it hilarious that Vernon couldn’t remember anything about recent life today.
“He only remembers who he is,” she giggled.
Because I brought Justine up with me today, it was as if SHE was the main event. Otherwise, I might have been saddened by Vernon’s state of awareness. But instead, after treating her to a hot dog and french fries in the cafeteria, I saw that we’d had special day out. I thought the kids would be a great way for Vernon to find his recovery, but apparently they are helping my perspective too. What a gift.
by Allison Moore | Sep 26, 2014 | Uncategorized |
“Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.”
― Robert Browning
The other day, I saw this older couple on the beach, walking alongside each other like they probably have for years and years. I thought: wow, that sure is something that gets taken for granted too often—that people grow old together and, on top of that, still enjoy each others’ company.
And on that note: here is a story about a couple overcoming difficulty and near-death and growing closer through it. A friend sent me the link today…it is the second time this week that someone mentioned Bob and Lee Woodruff. (Bob was the journalist whose face was shattered and brain was injured by an Iraqi bomb explosion some years back.) I haven’t read their book, but Lee’s words in the above link are moving. I especially liked this bit:
I’m supposed to agree here that “things happen for a reason” and “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” but I cannot. The truth is that awful things regularly befall good people … The beauty is that we get to decide how to move forward. You can choose your response: bitter or better? Quite simply, it is a choice.
One never knows when something catastrophic can happen in life and change everything. On the battlefield or a block away from home. These things change us, obviously. But we get to decide how to move forward: bitter or better?
by Allison Moore | Sep 25, 2014 | Day by Day, Uncategorized |
I think these notes must have been left up on Vernon’s room-board from a few days ago because as far as I understand, several of these things have already changed. First of all, he wasn’t discharged in 1-2 days, and it is certain (not just possible) that he will have a Quinton (temporary) catheter placed in his chest tomorrow.
Apparently, the idea was to change out the dialysis catheter, where the latest infection had been found, and if all was clear, virus wise, he would be transferred back to Kindred and get a new tube placed there. But MRSA virus was discovered and that is serious enough for the hospital to keep an eye on longer. Now Vernon already had experienced this in his sputim (phlegm) a couple of months ago, but that is under control. The hospital needs to make sure that the virus is treated while he is still there.
Dialysis patients are 100 times more likely than the general population to contract the MRSA so it isn’t a huge surprise that he has gotten sick this way. Unfortunately, this week’s procedure and testing/waiting for results has kept Vernon from getting the dialysis he needs every other day. So today when I saw him, he had a double dose of illness in his body: the virus as well as being filled with toxins that have not been dialyzed. Needless to say, he was not feeling well. He was unfocused and very tired.
He will be getting a temporary catheter put in tomorrow (a more permanent one will be placed when the infection is gone) so that he can receive dialysis again. I know that will be a relief for him, but the staff tells me that it will take a few more rounds of the process before he feels more like himself (less toxic) again.
I write this as a journal but also as a means to update the people who care about Vernon and our family. He needs your prayers…yet again. It seems I’ll just keep asking until this is over. Thank you, as always, for lifting him up in love. Medicine isn’t the only way to bring healing.
