We Get By with A Lot of Help from Our Friends

When my left hand fell apart in July I was in big trouble. I couldn't cook or bathe myself. Dennis, God bless him, stood by me and kept me going. When it was time for his annual trout fishing trip, he took me to Colorado Springs, where our daughter Nancy and granddaughter Cleo gave me loving care.

Back home I still had more than two weeks before surgery and it was time for Dennis to return to work at the university. No family members were available to help, but friends showed up with food, with encouragement and with loving concern. I cried often, grieving for my lost capability, but also in thankfulness for the kindness of others to me.

Dennis was home with me for my surgery and three days after. Then Kathy arrived. When Kathy and I are out together people often assume she is my younger sister, and truly she has been a sister to me for more than forty years. This time she showed up with bags and boxes and a cooler full of food and a suitcase. She cooked, helped me bathe, consoled, took me to the doctor and kept the house running. She even watered the gardens. Here she had just placed a sprinkler in the arid strawberry bed.

She stayed five days and then came back the next week for three more. A more generous person never lived and I am forever in her debt.

Others who stepped up to help include Kathy T. and Bill, Cheryl, Pia and Uli, Laurie and Greg, Linda, Joanie, and Tracy, who refers to herself as my "personal assistant." Sincere thanks to all of you who have helped me through passage back to health and functionality. You have helped both at home and by ferrying me to and from physical therapy, the grocery store and other errands. (I can't drive with just one hand.) What's more, Leslie, Barbara and repeat helpers are waiting in the wings to be called on; for the safety net you provide I'm also grateful.

In addition, friends have sent cards, flowers, e-mails and Facebook comments, all of them supportive and encouraging. This, too, provides a source of strength in my recovery.

Through it all, Dennis has been my mainstay.

With all this help I've gone from being a woman who didn't care whether she woke up after surgery to being a woman who is free of pain and who expects to lead a productive life.

The Golden Rule comes to mind: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." If we know someone who is in a tough situation, let's give them a helping hand. Care-giving is an affirmation of interconnectedness and love. Someday, sooner or later, every one of us will be in need of care. True friends will do whatever they can to ease the burden, make us feel that we are not alone and give us hope. Trite but true, a friend in need is a friend indeed. I never fully understood that saying before.

From "The Mummy' to "Dr. Strangelove"

I had three-hour hand and wrist surgery on August 25 and spent the next two days in a narcotics-induced haze, floating in a briny sea, breathing through gills again. Then, having called it quits with oxycodone, I swam to the shore of reality and gazed in awe at my mighty left paw.

The half cast and dressings seemed to weigh five pounds. It rested on two pillows beside me, keeping my hand above my heart.

Six days later a nurse removed the bandages and cast, revealing a bruised and swollen hand adorned with Frankenstein black stitches. Then came a splint molded to hold my fingers straight. Under the splint I wear a Dr. Strangelove glove to help reduce swelling.

With the splint came instructions for faithful exercising of fingers four times a day. Last week the stitches were removed and new, more difficult exercises became my routine. My fingers become a bit more dexterous every day. I'll have to wear the splint, which essentially makes me a one-handed person, for three and a half more weeks.

Looking back at older posts I marvel that just a year ago I was making jelly and working in the garden, sewing and preparing meals. Maybe someday I'll be able to do such things again but for now I'm learning to depend on others to help me through each day.

Next time I'll write about the wonderful people who have helped me get this far, people to whom I am deeply indebted.

Linda's Wisdom

My friend Linda is a marvelous combination of left brain/right brain fusion. She's an artist and a microbiologist. She's emotional and rational all at the same time. Here she is at the West End restaurant when she visited me in Galveston in 2010.

Linda commented on my last post ("I'm Mad As Hell) with suggestions about actions we could take to correct some of our problems. (This in contrast to my rant, which consisted of bitching about problems.) Now, on Facebook, she has another suggestion, which I have shamelessly lifted:

We need jobs. I suggest the government tax the rich and start 50 (one in each state), let's call them "Health Grant Colleges," to train thousands of new doctors and health care workers. There would be more high paying jobs and we could start to solve the health care crisis.

I hope she comes up with more ideas. Maybe she should run for president.

I'm Mad As Hell...

and I have to speak out.

1. Hello, Supreme Court, corporations are not human beings. What were you thinking?

2. Does "No Child Left Behind" really mean that children who cannot speak and require diaper changes must be "mainstreamed" in middle school classes with those who are capable of learning?

3. Why does a cell phone recharger cost $33.3% more than a new cell phone and an identical recharger?

4. Mega-rich people pay lower tax rates than the people who work in their offices. Why do we refuse to  ask them to pay their fair share?

5. Why is health insurance such an expensive morass in the United States, while it works perfectly in Switzerland and other countries? (Crone's disease medication costs $75 a month in Switzerland, but $2,000 in the U.S.)

6. Do we really have to argue about whether "global warming" is human-caused?  That's just a semantic obfucation to avoid the fact that we are shitting in our nest and ruining this beautiful planet.

7. Does the United States really need to be a world power? Can we support military bases all over the world forever? Come on; it is impoverishing us.

8. Can't we make anything anymore? What happened to that great, proud slogan, "Made in The U.S.A.?

9. Will we continue to knuckle under to tea partyites who strive to impose their religious views on the entire nation? Will we defend the separation of church and state?

10. Is it possible for our culture to sustain rational thought?

Oh, Lord! Maybe I've become a cranky old woman, but I can't understand why our nation is on this self-and-world- destructive path.

Cleo's Inheritance

Last November I bade farewell to my last pair of fancy shoes. (Goodbye To All That, Nov. 1, 2010)

Then Nancy commented that my granddaughter Cleo has inherited my love of shoes. That got me wondering whether the shoes would fit Cleo and whether she would like them. As it turned out both answers were "Yes."

Here's Cleo at home in Colorado Springs today.

She's a runner and tennis player and totally sweet. Am I proud to pass my treasure on to this lovely girl? Darned tootin'!

Seeking A Modus Vivendi

Decades ago a news article said that Israel and the Palestinians must find a modus vivendi. I loved that term and, in spite of not having studied Latin, intuitively knew that it meant “a way of living in a difficult or intractable situation.” Somehow the term has stuck with me over the years, maybe because I associate it with the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict we've all grown disgusted with.

Living with rheumatoid arthritis for nearly 26 years has been a lot like the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I've watched parts of my skeleton fall apart, cartilage eaten up by inflammation and, consequently, bones coming apart -- sort of what happens to skeletal structure when a corpse decomposes. Like the Israeli building projects, rheumatoid arthritis has claimed a lot of my territory.

Small joints are especially vulnerable, producing the stereotypical rheumatoid arthritis fingers that turn sideways from the hand.  Feet are affected, too. I’ve had so many toe repairs that my feet look like they belong to two different people. Still, I can walk just fine.

My hands are almost totally shot, though. I've had four finger joint replacements; all have broken and remain in situ. The biggest problem is that both wrists have fallen apart, and there are a lot of bones in one’s wrist. Just look at a diagram of the hand. Bones everywhere!

Since arthritis struck 25 years ago I've devised many ways of doing what I want to do using defective mechanisms -- my hands. I've become adept at using tools to do what normal people do barehanded. I have a wardrobe of hand and wrist supports. But using my hands became ever more difficult.

Recently my left hand (I’m left-handed) has blown up. All the bones in my wrist have come apart. The entire hand is painfully sore and swollen. I can’t do the things I love any more. I've always been a maker of things by sewing, cooking, baking, gardening, making art, preserving food, and much more. I’ve done these things in spite of pain for so long, as if I would never have to face reality, that I am having great difficulty imagining a way of life that does not include them.

Reeling from the realization that I can no longer live as I wish to, I am seeking a modus vivendi. Wrist surgery is in my near future. How much it will enable me remains to be seen. In the meantime, achieving peace of mind is my goal.

Heat Wave II

The heat goes on, 103º as I write this at nearly 7:00 p.m. We've lost count of the number of days over 100º. I personally blame Cynthia and Dick, who came here from Austin last month bringing scorching temperatures with them. They forgot to take the heat back home.

Adding insult to injury, grasshoppers have totally consumed the fragrant autumn chrysanthemum Pam gave me.

No fragrant blossoms this year. I've lowered my expectations and just hope it doesn't die!

One bright spot is that Bill and Carol, who are moving away, gave us their bird bath. It arrived just in time to save many thirsty birds. Chicken Creek has run dry, so this became a life-saving oasis for our birds. Birds came in by the dozen. A waiting line formed on nearby tree branches. Four juvenile robins just developing red breasts hang out all day at the bird bath, splashing and drinking. Others who come are cardinals, bluebirds, phoebes, titmice, song sparrows, and others I haven't identified.

Birds are shy, of course, so all I have to offer is a photo of an empty bird bath. You'll just have to take my word for it.