Tales of the Grinch

It’s been a hell of a rough ride lately. I had surgery on the fourth of December, early in the morning. It went well enough, and I went home in the afternoon. However, once I stepped out of the car I immediately vomited, and was projectile vomiting through the afternoon. Howard, God bless him, was charged with the task of cleaning up after me, stumping around with his broken foot in a boot, mop and bucket in hand. If I ever doubted his love for me (and actually I haven’t) I now can have none. When we got married for better or worse, I guess this was on the “worse” list that he signed up for. He cleaned up after me graciously and without complaint. In the evening I finally remembered I had some anti-nausea medication left over from chemo so I took some and my life immediately improved. So did Howard’s.

I took the week off from work and seemed to be mending well. Surgery was on a Tuesday and by Thursday I felt well enough to attend the company party, which was held in a very elegant hotel with lovely food and a great swing band. David was my date (invited for his many sterling qualities, such as his ability to find his way around without my direction) so I even managed to dance. I felt great and wondered why that surgeon had insisted that I not return to work until the following Tuesday.

The next day I found out. I was exhausted. It was back to recovery mode, a good day followed by a bad day. I was down for the count. I laid low that day and the next. On Saturday I went to my weaving class at Quest and that was fun, but tiring. The next day we had a big party because Mark Ettinger came and gave a house concert. It was a delightful evening and it was so fun to see him again and hear his new songs. I stayed up late (for me). The next day, well, I was tired, but better than I had been.

That was Monday and I went to see the surgeon. The top half of me was looking pretty good, but the site on my thigh where the skin graft was taken from looked sort of gruesome. The surgeon had taken a large smile shaped chunk of skin about three inches long from my upper inner theigh. Instead of sewing it back together, she sort of super-glued it. However, I have an allergy to adhesives, so my body rejected the glue and the wound was starting to gape open. She said that it wasn’t a huge problem, but if it got much worse, I should come see her.

I went back to work on Tuesday and had a great day. It was wonderful to be back. I was a little disoriented having missed a whole week and of course the paperwork had piled up, but life was okay. I taught my class, I saw clients and I felt great. I took the Max home and walked from the station to our house because the bus didn't come fast enough and I felt some urgency since I had agreed to drive my housemate to OHSU to see his doctor because he was in a health crisis. I got home with no time to spare so I skipped dinner and drove him there. In getting out of the car at OHSU, I turned on the seat and I felt my wound open even more. We spent some time waiting, then seeing the doctor and finally it was time to go home. Then the same thing happened when I got out fo the car after driving him home: I opened up the leg wound even more when I got out of the car. It was late, about 9 pm when I hobbled in and I still hadn’t had dinner. David had made some soup so I had a bowl even though I hate to eat late. Then I went to bed, but it was a lot later than I had intended.

I woke up Tuesday at 5 am and started the next day. That day was okay, too, but I was moving a little slower. By Wednesday morning however, I realized that I was in bad shape. I went to the doctor’s office, intending to stay there until I could see someone, but they made an appointment for 11 so I decided to go to work in the interim. I went to a meeting and then back to OHSU to see my surgeon’s colleague. The nurse practioner came in first, took some information, and then asked to see the wound. Her eyes got big and then she said that she thought the surgeon should see this. I heard her out in the hall with him. I couldn’t exactly make out their words, but she sounded a little alarmed. The surgeon and the nurse practioner entered the room presently. He took a look and said, yes, these things happen sometimes but that the body can heal it from the inside out. I expressed my concern that it was just getting huger and huger and deeper and deeper. It looked like an enormous crater in my leg. And it hurt. He said well, no, it didn’t hurt him at all. What a smartass. I told him that he wasn’t the one I was worried about. He advised me to do a wet-to-dry bandage on it. I could clean it with soap and water and run water directly on it, then put wet guaze on it with dry gauze over it and tape in on, twice a day. The Nurse practioner showed me how to do this, gave me some bandaging supplies, and off I went, back to work.

The next day I was even more exhausted but I soldiered through. However, by Friday I was completely out of it. I found that I couldn’t even write a simple note. I didn't have the ability to write full sentences anymore. I had supervision and my clinical supervisor took one look at me and wondered why I had bothered to show up. I was so far gone. The crater in my leg wasn’t healing, I hadn’t slept well for a long time. I ended up staying late at work because I couldn’t figure out how to go home. I got stuck in traffic on the way home and almost had a meltdown, but decided that would be too time-consuming. I made it through, battled my way to Fremont, and picked up groceries for dinner.

I got home at 7 pm and found my dear friend Deborah, her daughter and her daughter’s two little girls had been waiting for me since 3 pm but I hadn’t had time to pick up messages so I hadn't realized they had gotten in so early. I got a hasty Shabbat dinner on the table by 7:30. We had eight at the table for dinner. I’m pretty good at crude but effective meal preparation and I was in fine form even in the midst of overwhelming exhaustion. I was too tired to move after dinner and Deborah cheerfully cleaned up the kitchen.

She was leaving for Florida early in the morning to take care of her mom who had just had surgery for sinus cancer. Deborah had driven up from southern Oregon and her daughter Beth had driven down from Port Townsend to my house so that Deborah could give Beth Christmas presents to take home. Deborah had spent lots of money getting together toys, clothes, and bedding for all them because Beth doesn't have a lot of money. I didn’t realize that all of the stuff had been put in Beth’s car. Had I been more on top of it I could have told them not to leave anything outside in a car because it will be broken into, probably by one of my future clients. Well, in fact it was broken into, all the Christmas presents stolen, the side window smashed, the speakers ripped out, all before midnight. Deborah woke me up in tears. It was such a disaster. I had only slept a couple of hours and there was no sleeping after that. I stayed awake until it was time to drive her to the airport at 5 am.

I am amazed at the resilience of human beings. All her hard work for nought, Christmas ruined for her family, the car window smashed, the speakers ripped out, Deborah rallied and was calm and gracious, apologizing to me, of all things, for waking me up and “imposing” on me. I felt so awful that I hadn’t thought this out and warned her about car prowlers in this neighborhood. That’s the price of exhaustion. The brain just doesn’t make the connections it should and my dear friend and her family suffered for it. By the time I let her off at the airport, she was smiling and upbeat again. She gathered her suitcases and went into the terminal and I went home again and got a couple more hours of sleep before I woke up again to make breakfast for Beth and the girls and look for someone to repair the smashed window. David came down to help with that task and we soon found someone to come to the house to fix the car. It turned out that Beth had no insurance at all so we insisted that she drive Deborah’s car to Port Townsend and leave hers here until insurance could be arranged. Otherwise, if she got in a wreck it would have had huge repercussions. There are still some logistics to work out to get her vehicle home. I called William (Deborah’s husband) and he is willing to handle that end of things.

So, as we keep telling ourselves, it was only stuff, no one was hurt, and we still have many blessings to share this season, even if the little girls won’t have their new dolls, warm clothes, and Beth won’t get her new bedding. The truly valuable items, the golf clubs that were passed down from Deborah’s mom, were ignored by the thieves, and a couple of presents were dropped in the street and were retrieved so all isn’t a total loss. There was really nothing among their ill-gotten gains that had much value to the thieves except, perhaps, the stereo speakers and that may garner them as much as a couple of hours of intoxication.

I spent the day alternately on the couch and in my bed, really too tired to move. It reminded me a lot of the old chemo days. David was ill with a cold so we were in parallel stupors, moving through the day. He was tired but was able to help me out, water plants, carry the Ancient Beast out to pee, and, God bless him, make dinner for us both. We ate it in front of the television, something we never do, and watched the George C. Scott version of a Christmas Carol, which turned out to be the absolute best version that I have ever seen. It’s quite a refutation of George Bush’s version of America, his words deliniating the conservative Republican philosophy. The writing, straight from Dicken’s book, is astonishingly powerful when handled by the talents of such a great actor. It was a nice way to end a day that started so inauspiciously with such a thoughtless and mean-spirited act.