Good news: I'm doing fine, and more support coming out of the woodwork. I am so lucky.
Bad news: None
I went to bed with my body pounding away from the shock of that late-night phone call. Thought, "Now, how am I ever going to get to sleep?" Applied my meditation skills, eased my body back to a relaxed posture, and fell asleep. That was a scary moment. I do not want to repeat two years of insomnia, which happened after my father died.
I set the alarm for 6:00 am so I could make it to Bikram. I hit the snooze button once but pushed myself up. This was the first morning my rising time was dictated by an alarm clock in over 6 weeks. I made it through the class without any breakdowns. My big problem is my back. This problem set in some time around week 3 of Mike's hospitalization. I'm not sure if it was because I was trying to do passive movement with Mike on my own, without any training, like raise the bed before you lift a limb, or from stretches, I did in the shower that changed the alignment of my back. It certainly isn't from my hip, which has no cartilage.
The doctor who looked at my hip X-ray asked how I was even walking. Surprise! Maybe the problem isn't with the hip. Yes, the X-ray clearly shows I have severe arthritis, but I have made improvements over the last 10 years since it was diagnosed. I appreciate that not many people are willing to go my route. I've been slowly, very slowly, been making changes in my body over the ten years. When I first experienced severe pain, I couldn't sleep more than 15 minutes without having to shift, and I couldn't make it to the end of the driveway without being in pain. No more. Why? No one really knows, but I think arthritis carries too much of the blame for the pain.
There's a joke story that illustrates this idea: A man comes across someone crawling on their hands and knees in the dark, obviously looking for something. He offers to help. "What did you lose?" "My keys." "Where did you lose them?" "Over there," pointing to a spot several yards away. "Why are you looking here if you lost them there?" "The light is better."
While my hip is well illuminated and offers an easy solution, the misalignment of my back and muscles do not. They require slow, deliberate changes requiring concentration on everything I do, how I sit, stand, lie, cut onions, etc. Every move I make has to be changed. I enjoy the unspooling of the problem. I do love details. Have you noticed?
Because of my back, I still have to be hauled up off the floor at the end of the class. It took two men yesterday. Jeff, one of the students, figured out how to do it alone today. After slowly moving myself to a kneeling position from a prone one, Jeff hooked his arms under my armpits from behind and lifted me up. By the way, it is not my lower back, which hurts. It is some muscles on my left side between my hip and my ribs. Go figure!
The 10th of the month is my date for giving Elsa her heartworm and applying the tick and flea protection. I managed to give her the heartworm yesterday but not the protection. Opening her collar is a problem for me. That was Mike's job. I took on the challenge and did it with ease. She wasn't keen to sit on my lap and have a cold liquid poured onto the back of her neck, but she sat still and didn't complain.
It spent most of the day working on the obituary. It was done by the end of the day except for some information about Mike's Ph.D. from Columbia. (Ph. D. number one.) I had done the basic framework. Cylin looked it over, made a few changes, and pointed out a lot of missing dates. Damon and Cylin pronounced it adequate but boring. It was sent to Jean to add some information that she might have had. She put in some of the meaningful comments about Mike being a good person who cared about others. That is more true than words can possibly convey.
Judy and Paulette came over in the late afternoon to help me decide upon the readings for the funeral mass. Clarence, the head of the diaconate program for Hawaii who will be delivering the homily, sent me some suggestions. Judy had done her research before coming over and had three selections to offer for each reading. I picked the ones that were the most meaningful to me. Working with them was fun. All these difficult activities are fun because I'm not doing them alone. Not only I'm not alone, but I am doing them with people who loved, and love, Mike, and know me well enough to like me if not love me. I'm benefitting from the love overflow since they don't have Mike to shower it on anymore. I'll take it. It's genuine. That's good enough for me.
I got rid of Mike's underpants, undershirts, and socks. These are things second-hand stores don't take. Judy and Paulette work with the homeless here in Hawaii through the church. Once a month they prepare a huge meal for I don't know how many people. I asked them if they thought underwear would be useful. I gave them two large bags. Mike had everything in abundance.
They also checked out my freezer. Mike, with his need for abundance, always packed the freezer to overflowing. We were warned that overloading the refrigerator and freezer could cause it to break down. I tried to restrain him. I would be successful for a while, and then . . . Judy thinks I have enough food in there for a year. We're planning a joint feast for Friday. The meal will be cooked here in Mike's kitchen.
We redid the kitchen when we moved here. Mike loved to cook and was good at it. He got the kitchen he always wanted. I am so happy he had that. There are so many things that worked out well for both of us with this move to Hawaii. We had a spectacular contractor/ builder, Ken Kilkuski, who designed and built the kitchen with Mike and me. I don't cook. It is wasted on me. But anyone who wants to come over and cook a meal is welcome, as long as I can be included in the guest list.
Everyone who knows me is concerned about getting me fed. Cylin said that Damon, Mike's son, can prepare a freeze some food for me while he is here for the funeral. Good luck finding enough room in the freezer. Maybe by then, I'll have emptied out something. I'm still working on the food Brenda brought me my first night home. I have most of a roasted chicken left and the second quart container of soup. I also have a little bit of the Thai food Sandor and Mealiinani brought over the night they scanned the pictures. I hope people don't give up on me. Cylin, God bless her, said she doesn't know what she would do if Damon wasn't there. Another woman who doesn't cook. But August, his son, is learning from Damon as Damon learned from Mike. I guess August will have to find a woman who can't cook too.
I ate dinner, a big bowl of salad, which I couldn't complete and put half back in the frig, some leftover Thai food and some chocolate covered mac nuts. Yvette came up to do some bodywork on me. She now does Graston. She's going to work on me a few minutes every other night. It feels great. Let's see if we can resolve those trouble midback muscles. I walked Elsa and went to bed.
