The eve of New Year's Eve

I think this is a perfect day for looking back. Usually we go to an eve, eve party where we always share about our events of the year. Since it was cancelled this year, I'll share our major happenings of 2011 here.


Major Happenings of 2011:

1.  My husband, Bob, and I traveled to Amador County and Sutter Creek, CA with Manhattan Beach friends to taste some native zinfandel wines in January. On our first night there Bob fell and broke the three metatarsal bones in his right foot. Bob had foot surgery to repair and pin his broken bones together in February and had to be off his foot for eight weeks. He got around on a knee scooter (Rolleraid) or crutches. I was his driver.

Bob on his knee scooter (Rolleraid)

2.  On May 8 (Mother’s Day) my memoir Leaving the Hall Light On was released by Lucky Press.  My successful book launch reading and signing at our local independent bookstore, Pages, was held on May 12. A couple of weeks later we celebrated my birthday in Lake Oswego, Oregon with my sister’s family and their sister-in-law from Denver.

Madeline reading at Pages book launch

3.  In July we went to Reno, NV to celebrate the marriage of dear friends.

4.  Our great-niece Alyssa traveled from Denver on her own to visit with us for a week in August just before we traveled to Frankfurt and Berlin Germany, Stockholm Sweden, and Oslo Norway. Our first stop was to attend the Bar Mitzvah of the son of friends we met on our Northern European cruise last year.

5.  Our son, Ben spent four weeks at CBS studios in Burbank in November acting in a major movie called “7500” that will be released next August. He also passed the National Association of Sports Medicine test. Besides being an actor, he is now a certified personal trainer and a tennis coach.

6.  Ben’s wife, Marissa, appeared in a commercial for Transamerica Insurance. She also learned to be a Reiki practitioner and is now regularly seeing clients in her home studio.

7.  Bob worked sporadically at a small engineering company. He is now there until the end of the year.

8.  I still write and have poems published, and I am a regular contributor to three websites: Huffington Post, Naturally Savvy, and PsychAlive, besides writing for my blogs at Choices and Red Room. I also promote my book at book fairs, signings, and speaking engagements as part of my non-stop book marketing activities. And I am currently over 50,000 words into a novel.

Broken foot update

Today is five months and one day since Bob fell down a dark stairway in a Sutter Creek, California bed and breakfast and broke his foot. Those of you who follow my blog know the story – surgery two weeks later to pin the three broken metatarsal bones together because of all the ligament damage, months of his riding around on a scooter-like vehicle called a RollerAid, walking for weeks after that wearing the Boot, and months of physical therapy. Plus until he could get rid of the boot I was his chauffeur. Believe me, none of it was a pleasant experience.

So here’s an update. He is walking very well wearing New Balance extra wide shoes though his foot is still red and swollen. He does foot exercises and soaks his foot in ice water twice a day, he works out at the gym twice a week with a personal trainer and once on his own, and he has begun to walk for about thirty minutes each day.

I wish I could say that his exercise program is pain free, but that is not so yet. He’s thinking about going back to physical therapy to see if that would help ease the pain. However, he walks free from the back pain that was caused by his having to move around on the scooter and later the boot, putting his body totally out of balance.  So he is making progress. And he goes at a pretty good clip – he complained yesterday that I wasn’t moving fast enough for him.

Well, I improved my gait, and I take great pleasure in being able to walk with him again. But, because I don’t find those 30-minute walks enough exercise for me, we walk after I return from the gym.

However, since he picks the routes – different from the ways I usually go on my big long walks – I get to discover new things around my little beach city. I took a couple of photos of one of our new statues in the patio area between the Manhattan Beach police department, city hall, and library. The patio has four sculptures, but this one is my favorite. I don’t know the title, so I’ve named it Fire Lady. Anybody out there want to give her another name?

Fire Lady - front and back

He's given the boot the boot

The Boot - discarded along with all the rest 

of the broken foot accessories

I'm very happy to say the last piece of my husband's broken foot equipment is now ready to give away to Good Will. He discarded the huge, cumbersome boot just about two weeks ago, and he now wears his new wide (to accommodate some residual swelling) New Balance shoes full-time. The next thing he needs to do is get back to driving. I'm hoping that will happen next week.

It's been a long three plus months, but in the end it was worth the discipline and rigor of his recovery program. He's walking now like nothing ever happened. 

What a difference a week makes

Actually since my husband Bob started walking just less than a week ago our lives have changed considerably for the better. The scooter has been picked up (its real name is RollerAid by Footsteps), the crutches that were always at the ready on the bottom and top floor landings and the walker that he used for help in hopping in and out of the shower are now in the garage. The only implement still in use is the boot – though at his physical therapist's advice he's even wearing that less and less at home. Walking with the boot causes another malady – an aching back, so the sooner he can walk with a regular pair of shoes the better.  


He’s also been staying at work longer, he’s not reluctant to go out to dinner, and we even went to the movies and opera this past weekend. So, all in all things are definitely looking up – especially since I don't have to bring him his orange juice and paper in the morning. He actually went out the last two mornings and brought the paper in to me. (My only continuing job is being the family driver – and that chore couldn't stop soon enough for me)


Who would have thought a little spill down the stairs would have caused so many weeks of pain and immobility and the need for so many helper implements? My big question now is: should I take the crutches and walker to Good Will now or wait awhile? Really, what would I be waiting for?

In case you've forgotten – this is the best mobility

device ever – the RollerAid (AKA scooter)

http://www.rolleraid.com/

Foot injury update

Well the "step down" day arrived and it went as we had hoped. Though Bob felt a lot of apprehension last night that he still wouldn’t be allowed to walk on his foot, today's x-ray showed healing has progressed as expected six weeks post surgery. And, the redness and swelling have subsided considerably.

So as of noon today, Bob took his first steps. And though he must still walk with his boot, he can take it off at night. He can also go back to taking showers rather than tub baths that have been easier for him during this recovery time. 

The next thing he wants to do is start weaning himself off the scooter. He’s asked me to bring him one crutch for getting around at the gym with his personal trainer this afternoon. And, I must say I won't miss lugging that thing in and out of the trunk of the car and up and down our stairs. He can't be weaned off of it fast enough for me.

I know he is anxious to be walking again, and I'm anxious to have him walking, but I hope he doesn’t go too fast and furiously. If he listens to the doctor who says he should walk with an awareness of pain and only walk if his foot is pain-free, all should be well.

The next hurdle is getting him back to driving. However, he cannot drive with the boot, so his going back to driving is about three weeks down the line. Guess what that means? I’m still the chauffeur. Well, at least it's not as bad as yesterday, and I expect tomorrow to be even better. 

One more thing. He needs to go to physical therapy twice a week for the next six weeks. Bob tried out the idea of having his personal trainer work with him, but that got nixed. The doctor feels that trainers can get a little too aggressive. Well, duh?


He's made such good progress up until today, what's another few weeks to ensuring a completely healed foot.?

One month already

At a formal wedding last Sunday (with scooter)

My husband fell and broke his foot one month ago today. And two weeks ago he had surgery to fuse his bones together with ten stainless steel pins. Now two weeks post op he's feeling healthy again -- his appetite is back, he's free of infection, and his spirits are up. All he needs to do is stay off his foot for another four weeks - for a total of eight weeks. It's a tall order for the patient and his prime caregiver (moi), but we're committed to his complete recovery - so that's what it will take.

I wrote a poem early on about the fall. So in honor of this month anniversary, here it is:

Even A Broken Foot                       

Accidents are just that

Accidents

Yet some can be avoided

like my husband’s the other night.

He walked willy-nilly toward a dark room

that the hotel should have had well lit.

And while groping in the dark

for a light switch

he fell down a short flight of stairs

and was rewarded with immediate pain

in his foot and ankle.

Perhaps a quick application of ice

gave us false hope that it would take

no further care but

elevation, an Ace bandage, and ice.

But more swelling, more pain

indicated x-rays were in order.

The prognosis, a broken foot

not to be walked upon for four to six weeks

Now enclosed in a cast

and crutches prescribed for mobility

there’s whining and demands already.

So I wonder

where it says in the marriage vows

for better or worse

and a broken foot?

There's no whining about a broken foot

I’ve had a lot on my plate for the last week and a half. I haven’t been neglecting my blog, I've just had too much going on. First and foremost, my husband Bob fell down a short flight of stairs last week while we were on vacation in California’s Gold Country. We were there to take in a little history and sip some of the fine zinfandels that flourish in Amador Country. Then we were to go to a zinfandel and food tasting in San Francisco and spend our last two days touring the city – a place we’ve always loved to visit.

Unfortunately his fall and the broken foot that resulted cramped our style. We still tasted some fine zins, but the only touring we got in, in San Francisco was a movie theater where we saw the wonderful “Biutiful” with Javier Bardem. I highly recommend the movie but you don’t have to have a broken foot to enjoy it. We also had a couple of great meals – one with a dear friend whom I met years ago at Esalen.

I had intended to start work immediately upon our return on the final review of my up and coming memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On. Janice, my Lucky Press publisher emailed the galleys to me and I was raring to go, But a series of doctor appointments and chauffeuring assignments made the review very slow going. (Bob broke his right foot making driving on his own impossible.) However, I’m happy to say that as of today I’m just about finished. I want to make one more pass through it to check section breaks and page numbers on the Table of Contents, but I’ve got to brag right now that this is one good looking book. Janice designed it brilliantly, especially in the way she integrated the subject matter into the look and feel of the book.

And that I’m almost finished is a good thing. We have more doctors’ appointments next week prior to Bob’s foot surgery on Thursday. His doctor fears there is so much ligament damage from the break that he’ll have to fuse the small bones in his foot together. If all goes as planned my husband will be walking on crutches or scooting along on his little wheeled cart for at least six more weeks after the surgery.

Right now I’m thinking he needs a driver – someone like Morgan Freeman who drove Miss Daisy around. Having my husband in the passenger seat is trying every last drop of my patience.

I must also whine about one more thing. We had decided to have our floors refinished while we away last week so we wouldn’t have to live with all the dust the sanders create, but like most house projects, the job took longer than planned. When we arrived home last Saturday evening, we could not access the entire third level of our tri-level house – the level where our kitchen and dining room are. And we were told our furniture couldn’t be moved back in until today – one day less than a week from the time we returned home. That necessitated eating all our meals out with hobbling Bob in tow – even if we brought food in we didn’t have a table and chairs where we could enjoy it.

Okay. Enough whining for now. I am so thankful that all Bob broke is his foot. When I saw him crumpled in a heap on the floor I thought hip, leg, knee, head. It could have been anything. Six weeks of an immobile foot we can life with. And I must say, my Bob is the same high spirited guy I’ve always known. Broken foot or not he’s making the best of it – especially with his little scooter. And I assure you, so will I.