Reading pros and cons

For the last several months I've been a reader for the online and print magazine, "Memoir (and)." After they published a couple of my poems they asked if I would be a volunteer reader for the next issue or so. And, of course I was honored and said, yes.
However, this volunteer job has become a bit of a push given that I work full time and the reading assignments come in once a week like clockwork. This morning I submitted 10 critiques that had been in my queue for that last several weeks. Now I only have five more pieces left to read and critique - over my holiday break.

But, the plus side of this exercise is how much I learn from it. So many of the entries come in with typos, overwriting (my writing guru always said to "write like you talk)," lack of organization or a set topic, no dialogue, telling and no showing. Some of it looks like pages full of random ideas.

But, to be fair, I have found a few good pieces, and a few pieces that could be improved with some heavy editing, Mostly, though, I've seen nothing to write home about – so to speak. This encourages me to keep on reading. I'm learning from it, and it really makes me think I’m a pretty good writer after all.

By the way, "Memoir (and)" is an excellent magazine. In the end they pick out the cream of the crop to publish. I'm honored to be a part of this magazine. Check it out. You'll see my name on the masthead.

Time heals

In less than two weeks my husband fired me as his driver. He had had just about enough of being tied down to my schedule. He didn't want to wait until I had the time to take him where he needed to go.

Well, one would think a person post op from partial knee replacement surgery would not have a lot of places to go. Well, my guy defied the odds. One week after his surgery he declared he was ready to go to work and thus began our little routine: get him there by 8:45 am, pick him up sometime in the noon hour so he could go home to ice and rest, take him back to work after that, etc. And so it went Monday through Thursday -- many trips back and forth while I was trying to complete the professional responsibilities of my own job as well.

When I dropped him off at his office on Friday without the credential that allowed him to get in the building where he worked and without his regular glasses -- he had left them in the car -- and he couldn't reach me to come back to help him for over an hour, he was done with our arrangement. He demanded his car keys and off he went, acting like he had never had a surgery at all.

And, you know. I was very pleased to hand the keys over. I had had enough too.

Road to recovery

I have only to look at this photo of my dear friend, now in a rehabilitation hospital, to know that I have not a thing to complain about.

I wish her a speedy and complete recovery and many more walks on the beach with me.

A heavy week

This past week has left me exhausted. I can feel the weight on my shoulders and see a drained and old look on my face.

It started with Bob’s knee surgery which, it turns out, has not been so bad an ordeal after all. He had a couple of hard days, but sometime on Wednesday night he decided to abandon his walker, and he’s been almost self sufficient ever since. That is, he can shower, dress, change his bandage, and turn his refrigeration machine on and off by himself. However, he is still not able to drive, so besides keeping up with my own work load and being the chief cook, I am the chauffeur now as well. And that job got a little busier since he decided to start back to work today.

But, then things can always be worse – not for us, but for some folks we know and love.

One of my oldest friends – we went to high school and worked on the high school newspaper together – was in a terrible automobile accident on Saturday. It was a one-car accident – the car she and her husband were driving in went out of control and rolled over several times while they were driving through New Mexico. I understand they were both wearing seat belts – luckily; otherwise who knows what would have happened?

He was uninjured. She had severe injuries to her neck – such that she needs to be in a neck brace, called a “halo,” for 10 to 12 weeks and heavily medicated for pain. And, once she is released from the hospital in the next day or so, she’ll be medically taken to a rehab facility near where she lives in Arizona. He has been sending us long emails describing her progress though we haven’t spoken to him (or her) yet. He says her cell phone is MIA.

Another one of my old friends – in fact the first friend I made when I moved to California in 1961 – has been updating us on the illness and treatments for her son. He has had heart problems for several years and recently has been hospitalized for rapid and irregular heartbeats. Today he is undergoing an ablation, hopefully to correct the problem that is now affecting his liver, once and for all.
Our friend keeps asking that we hold the LIGHT for him. Believe me, I’m holding the light. I know so well how hard it is to mother a sick child – even if the child is an adult.

Well, today is Monday. Maybe things will get lighter in this new week.

Two days post op

Well, it hasn't been as easy as the doctor said. The surgery went perfectly on my husband's right knee but the recovery is going much slower and with more complications (swelling, loss of appetite and nausea, and drowsiness) than we were led to believe.

Thank goodness for the ice and compression machine, the pain medication, the walker, and his calm and caring wife -- without us all where would he be?

After this is over I'm going to need a good long girls only vacation.

Any suggestions!?!

Back from Denver -- there's no place like home

I was expecting cold, and what I got was COLD. And today, my last day to be there, it was so snowy, that I decided I had to get out FAST.

After a few quick calls to the airline and family members, I changed my flight to the 1:00 instead of the 4:30. But until we were in in the air -- after an hour and a half wait to take off -- I really had my doubts that I'd make it out of town in time to take Bob to his date for knee surgery tomorrow.

Even so, the visit with family was wonderful. It's just their choice of a place to live that I find a problem. As I've said before, we all make our choices. And, it's very clear, some folks make choices that are not necessarily in sync with our own. But, that's a story for another time. Right now I'm relaxing on my family room couch, blogging, reading the Sunday paper, and glad that I won't wake up tomorrow to a snowy landscape yet again. Sure, the snow is beautiful, but not in my backyard.

Finally a choice -- after too long a delay

Today is a special day.

I decided to take the day off so I could go with my husband for his appointment with his knee surgeon in Santa Monica. The appointment started at 8:00 and after xrays, an exam, and much conversation, we decided to go ahead and book Bob’s surgery for Monday. How's that for making a decision!!! How's that for finally choosing to act rather than living with pain and the inability to walk more than a block without discomfort.

Also, the prognosis is very good. He only has damage on the inside of his knee – no more cartilage there so the bones are rubbing against each other and causing him the pain and his leg to bow. So, he only needs a partial replacement. Before I saw the xray I was definitely an advocate of full replacement, but not anymore. Plus, recovery time is much less with a partial.

Anyway, he’ll have the surgery on Monday, they’ll get him walking the same day, he’ll go home the second day, and he will be able to go about his business almost immediately after that. The doctor says he should be able to walk a mile without any pain, limping, leaning to the right and with a straightened leg within three to four weeks. Amazing. Really amazing.

It’s just too bad he didn’t choose to do this two years ago when his first doctor offered him corizone to ease the pain instead of telling him the benefits of surgery then. Think how much pain and knee and leg damage he would have avoided.

Well, he says he was scared. He needed a push to go forward. That his sister had a successful back surgery in the last year pushed him a bit, but I think my saying over and over that I couldn’t travel with him until he could walk distances again was the actual springboard.

Hopefully, he’ll have a successful time of it, and he’ll stop calling himself an old man once he can walk normally and long distances again -- without any pain!