2006 in Review

Cribbed from Mimi.

Go to the FIRST BLOG of each month for the past year.Copy-n-paste the LAST SENTENCE of each blog.That is your Year in Review.

January: Some people would just say I should be committed, period. And I'm beginning to agree.

February: At least when I die, I will lose the ability to sin. And that's a relief.

March: [Aunt Clara is] someone I keep in my prayers. She was so much more important to me than she ever knew.

April: It's in the Scottish New Testament, when Mary Magdalene sees the risen Christ and thinks He's the gardener, then realizes Who He is and reaches out for Him, and what does He say? Well, in Scots: "Quit grabbin' at me, woman!"

May: Thanks for listening.

June: So let this sum up all my days:"She lifted up her voice in praise."

July: I plan to take icons fo St. Marina and St. John of San Francisco with me. Meanwhile, prayers would be appreciated.

August: I have a dreadful suspicion that I will be fretting into eternity about great-great-great grandchildren -- or maybe I should just leave that to their great-great grandparents???

September: I think we'll stay put as long as we can. Hopefully, till it's our turn to move in with a kid. :->

October: And once everything is closed up and healed, I will be able to receive Communion again -- how I have missed that.

November: 100. Become a follower of Jesus Christ

December: 22. What do you leave for Santa? We've never done that. As a kid, I'd never heard of it.

Now, a note: This struck me as so uninspiring, as a Year in Review, that I had to keep checking the instructions at the top to make sure I was doing it correctly. Hope others have more success with this one.

It's Official:

"Grumpy" really is the new baby's nickname. What's worse, it suits him. I did try to defend him, till both his parents said, "Wait till he wakes up and watch him frown." Yeah, he looks like one grumpy old baby. ;-)

In other news, our son was home for Christmas. This is not as radical as if he were living in, say, Iraq, but it was nice for us. We spent last year at his apartment in PA, and it was such a bleak Christmas, compared to this year's, spent in our own home, where he grew up. And spending Christmas in the home where he grew up, he came to a decision: He's definitely going to look for work closer to home.

I should note that we would be happier about his living in PA if he were happy about it, but since his only reason for moving there was to be closer to his girlfriend -- who promptly dumped him -- and the only reason he stayed there was because he found his dream job -- and now he's gone as far as he can on this particular railroad -- well, naturally you want to see your kid happy in life, and at the moment, he isn't. All his friends and his family are here. The job is the only thing he has there. So yes, we would like him to move closer to home so that he has a life outside of work. I will not jinx his chances by commenting on the one prospect he has, but yes, he has a prospect. (Holding my breath waiting for it to come through....)

With one foot in both Orthodox worlds -- Old Calendar and New Calendar -- I had hoped to make it to the most local Old-Calendar parish, 50 miles away, for "Russian Christmas," as we used to call it when I was growing up. Yesterday our daughter informed us that January 7th will probably be "Grumpy's" christening day. The things we give up for our families....

The Year You Turned 18 Music Meme

Cribbed from Mimi's site: Go to popculturemadness.com and select the year you turned 18. Paste the list of the top 75 songs. (I could only find 40.) Bold the ones you liked; strike the ones you disliked; and italicize the ones you know but don’t exactly like or dislike. The ones you don’t know will stay plain text.

1964 Greatest Hits (am I dating myself, or what?!)

1. Twist and Shout - Beatles
2. Under The Boardwalk - The Drifters
3. I Saw Her Standing There - Beatles
4. Dancing In The Street - Martha and the Vandellas
5. You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling - Righteous Brothers
6. I Get Around - Beach Boys
7. I Want To Hold Your Hand - Beatles
8. Where Did Our Love Go - Supremes
9. My Guy - Mary Wells1
10. Chapel Of Love - Dixie Cups
11. L.O.V.E. - Nat "King" Cole
12. (Just Like) Romeo and Juliet - Reflections
13. Fun, Fun, Fun - Beach Boys
14. Dawn (Go Away) - Four Seasons
15. Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann
16. I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits
17. Oh, Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
18. Baby Love - Supremes
19. Time Is On My Side - Rolling Stones
20. She Loves You - Beatles
21. No Particular Place To Go - Chuck Berry
22. California Sun - Rivieras
23. You Really Got Me - the Kinks
24. The Way You Do The Things You Do - Temptations
25. Come See About Me - the Supremes
26. G.T.O. - Ronny & the Daytonas
27. You Don't Own Me - Leslie Gore
28. Last Kiss - J. Frank Wilson & the Cavaliers
29. Rag Doll - Four Seasons
30. Baby I Need Your Loving - Four Tops
31. Memphis - Johnny Rivers
32. The Girl From Ipanema - Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto
33. Viva Las Vegas - Elvis Presley
34. Bits and Pieces - Dave Clark Five
35. Harlem Shuffle - Bob & Earl
36. Everybody Loves Somebody - Dean Martin
37. You Never Can Tell - Chuck Berry
38. The House Of The Rising Sun - the Animals
39. All My Loving - the Beatles
40. The Leader Of The Pack - Shangri-las

Knit Two, Purl -- Well, One, Actually

While ds was home for Thanksgiving, we asked him for his Christmas list. Now, this is the same kid whose dearest wish, at age two, was "butter bears" -- a particular kind of cookie, and that was all he wanted for Christmas! He's always been that kind of minimalist. And this year is no exception. What he wants, more than anything, is a pair of hand-knit socks.

It has been years since I made socks. I haven't forgotten how, but the thing about socks is, once you make one, you have to make another one. Two isn't optional. So sock-knitting gets really old, really fast, and I've been buying socks for at least 15 years. (I do buy good-quality socks.) But what mom can resist the heartfelt plea of her offspring, especially one whose usual Christmas list consists of, "I have everything I want"? I got out the needles, and went shopping for Ragg wool, a particularly thick and warm wool that makes wonderful socks.

Obviously, I had left it too late in the season, and all that was left was a sock wool, dress-weight, made of half wool and half -- are you ready for this? -- bamboo. How do you make yarn out of a tree?!?!?! And I cast on 84 stitches, having measured the circumference of the leg in question (12") and the length from heel to the ball of the foot (8" -- the ball of the foot is where you start the toe decrease).

One of the really real down sides of hand-knit socks, and Ragg socks in particular, is that you have to rib the whole dratted leg. With dress socks, you can liven it up a bit, and I have three books of the most wonderful German socks with clocks and cables and little windowpane-style decorations to make the heart beat faster (and the work more interesting); but Ragg socks are work socks, and made with marled wool, so there's only one option: ribbing. Ribbing does have the advantage of elasticizing the garment, particularly desirable in socks, but the question is, what kind of ribbing is most elastic?

Elizabeth Zimmermann, the late knitting guru, thought that the ultimate in elasticity was knit 2, purl 2. Her daughter, Meg Swansen, maintained that knit 1 purl 1 was more elastic, and that was also my experience, till I once had to cast on an odd number of stitches and found that the only way to rib it effectively was -- knit 2, purl 1. Now, that is elastic. The single purl stitch pulls the two knitted stitches in so tightly that you wouldn't know there was a stitch in between them, yet the garment itself is not tight; it has a wonderful give. These days, I do all my ribbing in knit 2, purl 1; the other thing I like about it is its trinitarian aspect. When even your clothes have the Trinity as their foundation, the rest of you is more inclined that way, too.

So! 84 stitches, cast onto four double-pointed needles of 21 stitches each, ribbed in knit 2, purl 1. (You knit with a fifth needle -- this is German-style knitting, and that fifth needle gives you a truly circular shape, as opposed to the English/American knitting off a triangle of three needles with a fourth.) I spent an entire week trying to make that dratted bamboo yarn work, before putting it down and telling myself, "I'll get to it Eventually." My jaw would clench every time I picked it up to knit.

Chris telephoned last night, and I had to tell him that he probably wasn't going to get his socks in time for Christmas. The disappointment in his voice was so painful that after I hung up, I decided I had to try again. Then it dawned on me: The whole trouble was that bamboo yarn. I don't know why, but it just doesn't feel right in my fingers. So I ripped out the whole inch I'd succeeded in gritting my way through, scavenged in my wool box for some other sock yarn, and had my second brain wave: Put the two together. Came back out, combined the stupid bamboo yarn with some honest sheep's-wool yarn, and cast the 84 stitches back on.

I already have an inch and a half. He probably still won't get his socks in time for Christmas, but at that rate, there's at least a possibility he'll take them home with him when he goes back again after spending his Christmas break at home. Feels good!

Christmas Meme

Cribbed from Mimi's blog:

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? It'd be eggnog, if we weren't fasting and all the store eggnog (which is pasteurized) is gone by Christmas Day.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Oh, they get wrapped, of course!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? We've had both. Currently it's colored lights. The first time I saw white lights was in Germany in 1968, and I thought they were so boring. Now I really like them.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.

5. When do you put your decorations up? The day before St. Nicholas, December 5 -- that way, he knows ours is a Christmas house and he can visit it. ;-) We leave them up till "Russian Christmas," as we used to call January 7 in New York.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Babka. You can have it both Christmas and Easter.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child: Probably the year I turned 15, my first ever Midnight Mass, and my first ever glass of wine. I was sitting on the sofa admiring the Christmas tree through a mildly alcoholic haze when my mother gasped and said, "Oh, I forgot all about your birthday!" And I said, "Oh! Yeah! I did too!" (It's December 24.)

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? My mother told me on my 7th birthday. She said she was afraid I'd hear about it at school.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Didn't used to as a kid, but now we do.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? With a variety of Christmas ornaments, colored lights, and "garlic" (garland). I like the white garland best, because if you get just the right kind, it really looks like snow.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Both, actually. I love the way it looks on the trees, especially the wet, "floompy" snow. But I hate shovelling it!

12. Can you ice skate? No, and I wish I could!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Probably my piano. It's as old as my son.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? The birth of our Lord, of course.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? German stollen! Buttery, nutty, smothered in powdered sugar -- sheer heaven.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? My stepfather is Polish, and on Christmas Eve, we all break a piece of oplatki, a thin wafer like a Catholic Communion wafer. Each person gets a piece, and then you share it with everyone around the table and wish each other a blessed Christmas. You never eat your own oplatek, but it's supposed to be gone by the time you leave the house.

17. What tops your tree? An angel, who invariable lurches to one side or the other. We've decided she's on a permanent bender.

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving, actually. I can never wait to see people's faces as they open their gifts.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? Nothing that anyone would recognize who wasn't Orthodox! It's "Today the Virgin gives birth in a cave." There's something about "He Whom the heavens cannot contain is contained in a womb" that blows my mind every year. But if I have to give a more commonly known Christmas carol, it'd be "Carol of the Bells," hands down.

20. Candy canes: We never have them, but I like the idea of them.

21. Favorite Christmas movie? "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Carol" -- Alastair Sim version only -- are tied for first place.

22. What do you leave for Santa? We've never done that. As a kid, I'd never heard of it.

"Grumpy"

I met my new grandson today. He was born on Monday of this week, and one of the many, many things I'm thankful for is that he didn't choose the middle of Thanksgiving dinner to make his entrance. I'm told, by his father, that my daughter went into labor at 1:30 a.m. Monday morning, and gave birth in the back of an ambulance at 2:00 a.m, right outside Westbrook High School, on the way to the hospital in Portland (ME). "So what goes on his birth certificate?" I asked. "Westbrook, or 'the back of Fire and Rescue Ambulance #1'?" (Portland -- the hospital of record.)

He is a pretty placid kid, in that at four days old, he does nothing but sleep and eat. The only time he makes his discomfort known is when they are changing him -- apparently, he hates to be cold, and face it, a wet diaper is pretty cold, till you get a nice dry one on (especially in Maine in November). However, when he is awake, he seems to do a lot of frowning and making little squeaks and grunts that indicate he's trying to decide whether to make a Statement about current conditions.

My daughter blogs about both writing (her profession) and family life. Her oldest son has been dubbed "Hamlet," for reasons of privacy, and also, as she said, because "his tantrums are positively Shakespearean." We've recently been trying to decide on names for Son #2. Banquo? MacDuff? Jaques, from "As You Like It"? Today, the baby's father grinned and said, "I think we should just call him Grumpy." I have a horrible feeling that it will stick.

Welcome to your weird family, Grumpy! ;-)

One. Word.

Cribbed from Philippa:

One word, and only one word, so here goes!

Yourself: musical
Your partner: loyal
Your hair: red(dish)
Your Mother: Catholic
Your Father: dead
Your Favorite Item: wool
Your dream last night: none
Your Favorite Drink: cawfy! (That's "coffee" in Brooklynese)
Your Dream Car: Mini
Your Dream Home: cottage
The Room You Are In: office
Your Ex: none
Your fear: heights
Where you Want to be in Ten Years? here
Who you hung out with last night: family :D
What You're Not: organized
Muffins: corn
One of Your Wish List Items: floorstand
Time: whazzat?
The Last Thing You Did: shopped
What You Are Wearing: conservative
Your favorite weather: rain
Your Favorite Book: Horologion
Last thing you ate: muffin
Your Life: full
Your mood: peaceful
Your Best Friends: phenomenal!
What are you thinking about right now: husband
Your car: blue
What are you doing at the moment: blogging
Your summer: yecch!
Relationship status: married
What is on your tv: music
What is the weather like: cold
When is the last time you laughed: yesterday

Sundowning

That's what dear old's condition is called.

I went to the rehab center to see him, and on my way to his room stopped at the nurses' station to talk to someone. Yesterday when I was there, one of the nurses had asked me if he had ever seemed "confused" to us while he lived with us, and I said, "Not that I can recall." Today, of course, I said, "We had evidence of that last night." She nodded and said, "Good, I'm glad it wasn't just me," and went on to explain that dear old has had Jekyll-and-Hyde episodes: "One minute he's a very sweet old man, the next he's confused, and a little while later he's downright nasty." Yep!

"Ask him," she said, "if he remembers calling you last night. I bet he doesn't." And sure enough, he didn't! Apparently very old people get this thing called "sundowning," where they get phenomenally confused about everything in life once the sun goes down; and while the sun is up, they are their normal, rational selves. I'd heard of this, but hadn't realized it was kicking in with dear old.

Now I'm glad I kept my patience, and kept my visit with him friendly. Glory to God for granting me that patience, and the visit with the nurse beforehand; but these doctors, who keep insisting that living into your nineties is a good thing....!!!!!

When I got home, I called dh at work and told him the nurse said not to bother visiting his father, because dear old won't remember it. Dh was shocked, to say the least, but yeah, that's consistent with sundowning, too. Oh, and it's exacerbated by alcohol -- the smile on her face when I told her about the phone call, and his "tippling" habits (I wish it were only tippling!) was priceless. I feel bad for dh, but at least we know dear old really isn't playing with a full deck.

Brought Up on Charges

At least, that's what Dear Old Dad is threatening to do to dh and me. Why? Because his son didn't visit him last night.

The day after my last post, we went to church. Now, dear old, being 94, doesn't see the need to go to church anymore, since he went for the first 90 years of his life (doesn't seem to have done much good), so he was planning to stay home. Well, since he can't stay home by himself, we got someone in from a local organization to stay with him. He was NOT happy. Didn't see why he couldn't stay by himself. (Possibly because on Saturday evening, he got panicky when dh was working in the cellar and I was working in the office, and he thought we had left him alone???)

So the next day, after we get back from church, dear old decides to take himself for a walk. The conversation went like this: "I WANNA GO FOR A WALK!" "OK, let me get the cars washed and I'll take you." "I WANNA GO BY MYSELF!" "OK, but just stay in the driveway." So dh helps dear old down the steps -- he can't get down steps by himself -- comes back into the house to get a pail of water to wash the cars, and by the time he's back outside, dear old is halfway down the block.

Well, you know the rest. He turned to come back, and on his way back, fell. It was plain he couldn't move his left leg, so we called the EMTs, and they came and assessed him. He about had them convinced it was just sciatica when they asked him if he could stand ono the leg, and he said No; so they took him to the emergency room, where, you guessed it, an x-ray showed he had broken a hip.

He spent all last week in the hospital, and dh worked from home half days so he could concentrate on getting dear old's finances in order, in case we needed to pay for any of his care (also so that we could afford assisted living for him!). The last couple of days, dear old was getting quite cantankerous about being there; he'd had enough, and wanted to come home. Instead, he went to a rehab facility on Sunday.

We visited him there both Sunday and Monday, but yesterday dh went back to work in Boston, and I went to the rehab facility by myself to see the social worker in charge of dear old's case -- there were a couple of things I thought she should know about his condition, among them the fact that we were considering assisted living once he's out of rehab. When she heard what dh's ghastly hours were, she said he shouldn't bother coming to visit his father on the days when he works in Boston, since dear old has plenty of company and is quite wiped out by his physical therapy. (We could see that!)

So last night, at 9:00 p.m., we're getting ready for bed and the phone rings. It's dear old, threatening to swear out an arrest warrant on us for "abandonment." Let's see, dh gets home at 7:00 p.m., still has to have his dinner and wind down from the day, but is that a good enough reason to just stay home and RELAX?!?!?! Evidently not! I plan to take myself off to the rehab center today, tell one of the nurses, or maybe the social worker, about this latest development, and see if they will support my telling off dear old, in no uncertain terms.

It feels lousy to do such a thing. He's old. He's alone. We're his only family, besides his grandkids. ("And whose fault's that?" whispers my baser self.) But I'm sorry -- when you live with other people, consideration all around is pretty basic, even at 94.

(An amusing aside: At one point, a Catholic priest came to visit dear old in the hospital. He supported dear old's decision not to attend Mass anymore. This past Sunday, meanwhile, my Orthodox priest gave a sermon: "Whether you're 16 or 86 -- or 96 -- you still have to struggle. The spiritual struggle is part of our salvation." Right now, I'm struggling not to wring dear old's neck!)

When I'm 94

The Beatles had a great tune called, "When I'm 64," to which I can't remember all the lyrics, mostly because the year it came out, I was occupied with wedding preparations, and 64 seemed like the back side of the moon. Now that it's imminent, well....

Dear old Dad has been with us for two weeks now, and this morning was about typical: DH is making coffee and we're chatting quietly when suddenly we hear a roar: "I NEED A SHOWER!" This is supposed to be the signal for DH to drop everything and going rushing in to help his father, not the easiest thing in the world when you are making brewed coffee and in the middle of counting out the appropriate number of scoops. "JUST A MINUTE," yells back DH. (We have to yell because dear old is deaf, and won't wear a hearing aid.) "HELP ME WITH THE SHOWER!" "IN A MINUTE!" Coffee counted out, DH runs to the bathroom to help dear old into the shower, explain to him -- yet again -- how to turn on the hot and cold water, and where the grab bar is.

Then breakfast. He shuffles out, clean and spruce, sits down, and starts worrying about mail that came for him yesterday. Now, at the same time, he also wants his juice, his oatmeal, his bread and peanut butter, and his coffee, in that order -- but he wants us to see to his bills, too. Right now. The Boss (me) steps in: "JIM IS MAKING BREAKFAST. WE WILL WORRY ABOUT BILLS AFTER BREAKFAST." "OK," he mutters, and subsides.

We are hoping to take him with us later today while we shop for a new sofa. My brother has offered to take our old sofa for his son, newly graduated from college and in need of "real" furniture, and we had decided, while I was convalescing, to get a new sofa; dear old's arrival put a crimp in those plans, but since my brother is coming to collect our sofa on Thursday or Friday, we kind of need something to put in its place. So shopping with dear old in tow is something of a necessity, since we both need to be comfortable with this thing.

We are also hoping to hold off putting dear old into assisted living till sometime after Christmas. It doesn't seem fair to move him up here and toss him into a home just before the holidays. But if we ever doubted it before, today's episode has made it crystal clear that he really needs assisted living; I don't have the physical strength to deal with his frailties, and DH can't be home all the time.

And meanwhile, we are hoping that we can survive dear old's arrival into our household. He really is as demanding as a three-year-old, and as needy as a three-year-old, but without the resources to entertain himself for any length of time. Yesterday he was complaining to DH that he needs to get out more often. (He was upset that I wouldn't take him grocery shopping with me.) But when they went for a walk, 2/10 of a mile down to the post office, DH found that he had to hold the old man up on the way back. I can picture me struggling with groceries, a cart, and holding up at 94-year-old grown man who's taller than me.

Anyway, assuming we survive this Presence in our household -- not all caregivers do -- we have also begun to take steps towards getting long-term care insurance. I hope never to need it; but if I do, I don't want to do this to my children. Neither, bless him, does DH.

Things I've Done...

...are in bold face type. Swiped this from Philippa. I hate swiping stuff, but when it's this good, how can I resist?

What have you done? Or not, as the case may be?
01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain (if you count the gondola car to the top of the Zugspitze....)
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula.
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you’ and meant it!
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s nappy
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Drunk champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse.
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Scored a winning goal
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Visited all 5 continents
40. Taken care of someone who was drunk
41. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
42. Watched wild whales
43. Stolen a sign
44. Backpacked 4
5. Taken a road-trip
46. Gone rock climbing
48. Midnight walk on the beach
49. Gone sky diving
50. Taken a train through Europe
51. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
52. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table, and had a meal with them
53. Milked a cow
54. Alphabetized your CDs
55. Sung karaoke
56. Lounged around in bed all day
57. Gone scuba diving
58. Kissed in the rain
59. Gone to a drive-in theatre
60. Started a business
61. Taken a martial arts class
62. Been in a movie (not to my knowledge, but having worked in NYC, it's possible I was in one a hundred years ago without knowing it....)
63. Crashed a party
64. Gone without food for 5 days
65. Gotten a tattoo
66. Got flowers for no reason
67. Performed on stage
68. Been to Las Vegas
69. Recorded music
70. Eaten shark
71. Buried one/both of your parents.
72. Been on a cruise ship
73. Spoken more than one language fluently
74. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
75. Walked a famous bridge
76. Had plastic surgery
77. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
78. Wrote articles for a large publication.
77. Tried to lose weight seriously
79. Piloted an airplane
80. Petted a stingray.
81. Broken someone’s heart
82. Broken a bone
83. Eaten sushi
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Parasailed
86. Skipped all your school reunions (not, I hasten to add, by choice -- they all took place around family events)
87. Shaved your head
88. Caused a car accident
89. Pretended to be “sick” (who's pretending? I call it "sick and tired leave")
90. Swam in the Pacific Ocean
91. Saved someone’s life.
92. Fainted
93. Been in the room while someone is giving birth
94. Hitchhiked
95. Adopted a child
96. Been caught daydreaming
97. Been to the Painted Desert
98. Called off a wedding engagement
99. Donated your blood
100. Become a follower of Jesus Christ

Senescence. Oy.

Some time ago, I blogged about the possibility of having my father-in-law moving in with us. Well, it's happened. Last week, he nearly fell while grocery shopping, and he sounded so panicky that my husband -- his only child -- went racing down to NJ on Thursday and brought his dad back on Saturday -- just packed a few clothes, two (!) radios, and two large boxes of oatmeal (at FIL's insistence, of course -- like we didn't know what oatmeal was in the Wilds of NH), and up they came.

People have been trying to make out like we're saints or something for having him here. WE AREN'T. There simply is no other choice. He's 94, blind and deaf, and he shouldn't have been living on his own as long as he has. But it wasn't till June that he consented to move in with us, and of course after that, we had our own difficulties.

It's already looking like we will have to consider assisted living for him, mostly because my husband finds he can't sleep at night -- keeps waiting for his dad to get up out of bed and fall to the floor. Then there is the drinking. Apparently my FIL is accustomed to downing half a pint of scotch every evening. Half a pint, in case you missed this in arithmetic class the way I did, is an entire cup of scotch. Not at one sitting, mind. He has 3 oz. for his first drink, 3 oz. for his second drink, and the remaining 2 oz. as an after-dinner "aperitif," as he describes it. My husband and I just looked at each other, as the pint-size bottle he brought with him got lower and lower. I'm wondering what he will say when he finds that the bottle of scotch he thought came up with him, was never packed.

I hate to ask for yet more prayers, but they would be appreciated.

I'm Done. :D

Today was a "killer" day for appointments -- three on the same day -- but here are the results:

1. Wound Clinic, 8:45 a.m. I am done with this. Discharged. The doctor started to scrape at the scab covering the incision and said, "There's no point my trying to do anything with this. It's healed." Checked the two drain sites and said, "That's skin growing in there." Was it just five weeks ago that we all thought this would take until Christmas?!

2. Infectious Disease doctor, 12:30 p.m. "You look so much better than the first time I saw you. As long as you're not having any fever from the removal of the drains, I don't need to see you again."

3. Coumadin Clinic, 3:00 p.m. (theoretically -- I didn't get in till after 3:30). No change in the dosage, and apparently, the blood clot I got from the PICC line will dissolve itself over a period of about 3-6 months. Once my clotting level stabilizes, these appointments will gradually decrease from weekly to monthly.

Oh, and the best part: I get to take a shower again. If you hear a faint rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus clear the other side of the country, around 6:00 p.m., that'll be me.

I GOT MY LIFE BACK!!!!!

Ahhhhh.

OK, picture this: You start out with a lengthy tube that is inserted into your abdomen somewhere in the region of your navel. A few weeks later, feeling as if you are at death's door, you find out that you have not one, but two abscesses, one each side of your abdomen, that need to be drained of the fluid in them because it contains a potentially lethal infection, so two more tubes are inserted into these, attached to plastic drainage-collection bags that have to be emptied every four hours or so. Now you have three tubes sticking out of your abdomen.

As of today, all three tubes are gone. The center one was removed about three weeks ago -- or was it only two? Seems to me it was three, but I know I haven't been sleeping in a bed that long -- when the incision became so small that there was nothing left for the wound vac to suck off. That is continuing to shrink, and I will know its status when I return to the wound clinic next Tuesday. The two side tubes came out today.

Relief is spelled "Ahhhhh." I'm trying to imagine what it will be like to lie down to sleep, something I've only been able to do in the past ten days, with no tubes to be careful of. I have yet to conceive of actually being able to take a shower, instead of a sink bath -- that won't happen till all the holes are closed over, and that will be at least another week.

But oh my gosh, THE END IS IN SIGHT. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not an oncoming train. Time for a prolonged happy dance!

Well, Shut My Mouth and Call Me -- Something

After a day of doctors’ appointments, I have to share this:

1) The incision that opened up after surgery is finally closing up. I am off the wound vac, and the depth has gone from 4 cm to 0.3 cm! And the length has gone from 8 cm to 5.2 cm (that’s 5” to something like 3”).

2) Also saw the infectious disease control doc this afternoon, who says that I may have to take antibiotics for just one more week, and no more than two – the MRSA I was hospitalized for in September appears to be dead. All my most recent blood work is in the normal range, except for my albumin count (protein) – she says I need more protein. Since I’ve been consuming hardly anything but, that was almost laughable. So I guess I’m not giving up my breakfast eggs any time soon.

I am absolutely floored. Was it three or four weeks ago that the wound-care doctor said healing would take a lot longer than originally projected, and now -- he says it will be completely healed in 2-3 weeks, which is pretty darn close to his original projection. The drains that I have in place to drain off the two abscesses are a little dicier, at least till I have another CAT scan, but the last CAT scan looked pretty good, so I'm hopeful the next one, later this week, will show that both abscesses have collapsed, and that will mean they can take these drains out at last. You have no idea how "interesting" life can be when you have three lengthy tubes coming out of your abdomen....

Now, if I can just start going to church again! I've only been once in the last two months. But I'm hoping to go again this coming Sunday. And once everything is closed up and healed, I will be able to receive Communion again -- how I have missed that.

xx Years Ago I....

Cribbed this from Philippa's blog http://philippaalan.blogspot.com.

25 years Ago I...
- Was 34
- was living in Waltham, MA
- had a 2-year-old and a 6-year-old
- experienced my first real New England autumn

20 years Ago I...
- Was 39
- was working at Harvard University
- together with my husband, bought our first (and to date only) house
- moved to NH

15 Years Ago I...
- Was 44
- became Orthodox
- watched the fall of communism in the Soviet Union with a feeling of utter disbelief
- worked for an educational assessment firm

10 Years Ago I...
- Was 49
- was attending college, at long last, to become an accountant
- was stunned to learn that my mother-in-law had died suddenly
- was thanking God that 1995 was over

5 Years Ago I...
- Was 54
- was struggling with depression
- was dealing with the loss of my mother, the transfer of my spiritual father, and the marriage of my daughter
- was fired for the first time in my life -- from a volunteer job!

4 years ago I...
- Was 55
- rediscovered cross stitch
- finally figured out the sequence of Matins and Vespers
- broke my wrist in a fall down a flight of stairs, and had it healed by the Kursk Root Icon of the Theotokos

2 Years Ago I...
- Was 57
- lost my son when he moved to PA
- went to Jordanville for the last time (there's always next year!)
- had the kitchen updated and renovated, at long last

1 Year Ago I...
- Was 58
- took the train to PA to visit my son
- started a cross-stitch piece as a gift for him, a steam train rolling through the mountains at evening
- finally realized that it was OK to power down on activities -- I've earned my retirement!

Yesterday I...
- read Matins at home
- finished the last of seven books lent to me by our priest's wife
- listened to the rain
- cooked my first meal in two months (dh has been cooking since my surgery)

Today I...
- hope to get back into cross stitch
- plan to wash towels
- need to find something else to read
- gear myself up for marathon doctors' appointments all week

Tomorrow I...
- visit the Wound Care Center w/r/t the healing of my incision
- visit the Infectious Disease Control doc to see what's up with MRSA
- get ready to visit a doctor I no longer have any confidence in (on Wednesday)
- try to remember that at some point, all this will end

Tag: To anyone who wants to pick it up.

Mrs. A., I Presume?

Uh, not exactly. More like MRSA, which stands for something along the lines of methicillen-resistant stapholococcus something-or-other. It is a particularly nasty staph infection, highly resistant to all the usual antibiotics, and it lurks in, of all places, hospitals. And it is what I have been coping with ever since September 6th.

Yes, I am just back (actually got home two days ago) from yet another hospital stay, this one rather longer than the first. A nurse friend of mine maintains that if I'd been kept longer the first time, the hospital may have caught this thing, but I don't see how, since it only just surfaced a month after the hysterectomy. The Infectious Disease Control doc maintains that the germs implanted themselves in my body during the surgery (leading me to wonder about asepsis at this hospital!!!), and have been quietly growing colonies ever since. Be that as it may, when I went into chills and fever on September6th, my husband took me to the Emergency Room, I had a CT scan at midnight (talk about an ungodly hour!!!), and was admitted early the morning of the 7th. The CT scan showed two abscesses in my belly. Those have been draining ever since the 7th, though I think they are beginning to peter out, and once they do, at least those two holes can be closed off.

Wait, it gets better. Because IVs can't be left in place for more than a couple of days, and I would be in the hospital for 10-14 days, they inserted a PICC line into my right arm, which is basically a very long IV that goes right up through your vein. (Yes, they use a mild anesthesia, thank goodness.) Four days after inserting it, they did an ultrasound to make sure that all was well with the PICC line, and -- it wasn't. I'd developed a blood clot.

I'm telling you, between staph infections and procedures that create more problems than they solve, hospitals are dangerous places. Now I am on two more medications: Bactrim, the one oral antibiotic that can overcome MRSA (the other antibiotic, vancomycin, is given intravenously), and Coumadin, a blood thinner that is supposed to keep the clot from getting any bigger. My question: Why don't they just bust up the clot?! Doctors make no sense whatever.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

...before I will ever see the back of this affair. After the latest examination, the wound-care specialist said, "What was my original estimate? 4-6 weeks? I probably shouldn't have said that." "Meaning," I said, "it'll take longer." "It'll take longer."

Actually, it's beginning to look a lot like never at this point. I think I will just give up hope of ever having a normal life again -- that's the safest route. Well, I see the oncologist this Friday for the final (presumably) exam, and we'll see what he has to say about anything. With my luck, he'll recommend a few rounds of chemo just to add to the overall misery. Why not?

Meanwhile, I've come up with a scenario for my little sucky buddy, though it only works if you're into sci-fi, as I discovered when I pulled it on the nurse today, and she had no idea what I was talking about. I decided -- this all comes from the appearance of my navel, with this big black THING sucked into it -- that the "vac" is actually a tricorder that is recording all kinds of information about me, and when I plug the vac/tricorder into the wall outlet ostensibly to charge the battery, it starts relaying the info back to the Mother Ship. These particular aliens aren't into anal probes, but prefer navel probes -- one thing to be thankful for, at least.

Hey, I need some kind of self-generated insanity to keep me sane.

Moving Right Along, or In, or....

An anonymous poster to my blog asked about the reasons for my father-in-law's moving in with us, whether for health reasons or practical. The short answer is, yes. ;-)

It's a little of both. He's 94 years old, for one thing, with macular degeneration and substantial hearing loss, and he should not have been living on his own all these years (ten, since my mother-in-law's death). Try to convince him of that, however, and it was only this past June that my husband got his father to agree to move up with us. Sure, he lives in a retirement community, and sure, the ideal thing would be for him to live in his own place and us nearby. But we don't live nearby, and are not about to move down to NJ, and -- well, he really shouldn't be on his own.

A funny aside to all this: Just before my surgery, I got a frantic phone call from an old family friend, landing on us about how he shouldn't be alone and what were we thinking, not having him with us, etc. etc. When I could get a word in edgewise, I explained that his moving in with us had been in the works, till my own health became an issue, and that it would be back in the works as soon as I was recovered. Oh. Then the Old Family Friend explains that she has been Talking with my FIL's next-door neighbor, and I see what's really going on: The next-door neighbor is the one he depends on for rides to church and to the doctor's, and she's getting sick and tired of carting him around! And well she should, but this has been his "escape route" for not having to move!!

It gets better. Last week he mentioned to the Next-Door Neighbor that he would be moving up to NH before the end of the year. By the next day, he had offers for his house from all over Leisure Village (the retirement community)! At least we know it will sell easily....

Sometimes I think about moving to a retirement community. My in-laws were younger than we are now, when they did that. It was just the thing for my MIL, lots of Activities, and not having to take care of their property but still owning the roof over their heads; bus access to church and shopping; opportunities for travel, which incidentally my FIL hated. But then I think about being with a lot of other geezers, and being pressured to Take Part in All the Activities, and would we have bus access to stores and church -- plus, I would hate to be a part of the trend up here, which is the ruination of Maine by people moving up from Massachusetts.... And then there are all the people we know here, and we know all the short-cuts around heavy traffic....

I think we'll stay put as long as we can. Hopefully, till it's our turn to move in with a kid. :->

It Sucks, It Really Does

I'm referring, of course, to my wound vac, "vac" being short for Vacuum-Assisted Closure. I got hooked up today. It looks like I have the navel of a space alien, with this big black blob (that's the sponge) compressed by the "negative pressure" (read vacuum) over my more normal human navel. A tube leads out of that and into a canister, and through vacuum pressure the drainage that is keeping the wound from closing is sucked out and deposited in the canister, which is changed when it's full and disposed of as medical waste. At the same time, the vacuum sucks up healthy cells from elsewhere in the body and deposits them into the wound cavity, which speeds up healing (by how much, I'm not entirely sure. Weeks, anyway).

The rest of the machine consists of a large battery pack that has to be charged up twelve hours out of 24, which leaves me with quite a bit of freedom, providing you don't mind toting the battery-pack-cum-canister everywhere you go. I'm most concerned, at this point, with how to manage the drainage tube when I settle down for the night, since I'm still sleeping in a recliner, and I don't want the tubing to get caught up in any of the chair mechanisms -- if it does, I run the risk of breaking the vacuum seal, and I don't want to do that because I'm not sure, yet, how to fix it.

It's not particularly painful, thank goodness, just a definite sense of pressure in the area of my navel, but I guess I'll get used to that. Nor is it especially noisy, which was one of my concerns; however, the noise it does make resembles nothing so much as, well, a quick fart. Do I really want to tote this thing into church with me??? ;-)

The alien-navel sponge gets changed three times a week; the canister is changed whenever it's full of drainage (they think that might happen once a week, with my wound); the whole healing process is supposed to take two months tops, which is just about the time I should be completely healed from the hysterectomy, or, as I've taken to calling it, the "hystericalectomy," because it just gets weirder and weirder. And once the procedure is complete, and I can confidently expect to resume what passes for my own life:

MY FATHER-IN-LAW WILL MOVE IN WITH US!!! Ain't life FUN!!!