Monday, April 11, 2022

Monday, April 11, 2022 

    I woke up terrified. So alone. I have no one who has to be there for me.  

    Dorothy detailed her recovery from THR. Her daughter took off from work and stayed with her for about a week. Dorothy needed some help preparing for surgery. Other than that, she said she needed Karin for two days after surgery but appreciated her staying longer.

   Who could stay with me for two days? I can’t expect people to give up their lives to do that. I called my Long-Term Insurance company to see what my plan covered. It only covers licensed therapists, nurses, or employees of a certified care company. I suspected I wouldn’t get what I needed here on the Big Island. I called the three companies I found on the Internet. Two were out of business. One was a lone woman who said she didn’t have time to talk now because she had to take care of her patients. She also said she didn’t have the staff she needed. This was scary. I was so alone. If Mike were here, he would be glued to me throughout the process. 

    I called Jean, my hanai sister. She was out, and I spoke to John, who was very upbeat. His daughter visited him the other day, and he had a wonderful time. Jean was at PT. She got herself there with her scooter. She lives in a retirement community. The skilled care facility is on the grounds. They gave her a four-wheel scooter. She was happy as a clam.

    I called Jean, my friend, to bemoan my circumstances. Boy, Mike and I didn’t think all this through. We made assumptions about our circumstances that didn’t pan out. After sympathizing with me, she told me of her own problems. That was comforting. Listening to someone else talking distracts me from my thoughts and feelings. This didn’t work for me when I was younger. I can only be grateful for small gifts. 

    Jean, my friend, just bought a ticket to come out and visit with her daughter and grandkids. I knew she would be here right before my surgery. My niece Shivani will be visiting with her five-year-old son, Sidney. We planned to do a beach day, so all the kids could play together. Jean was scheduled to return to the mainland on June 2, the date of my surgery. She proposed changing her return flight so she could be my caretaker as I recovered. That would be great. While I am not counting my blessings yet. This is quite a stretch. However, just having the offer made me feel better.

     I had my reading and writing office hour this morning. Two Step-Up tutors had signed up. One had canceled before the start of the class. The other woman came on late. She had only had three sessions with a ten-year-old girl who only spoke Spanish. The tutor said she spoke some Spanish but not enough to help the girl. She planned to ask the Step Up administrators to find a more suitable match for the girl. Good luck!   

     They had done math in the sessions, but the girl wanted to learn to read English. I’m a trained and certified English as a Second Language teacher (although they don’t call it that anymore.) However, I never liked teaching beginning speakers, but I knew enough to give the tutor some ideas. I recommended the Starfall site. When I checked it, I saw it provided videos covering numbers, colors, and some animals. The student can listen to those videos on her own. I recommended she start with My name is. . ..... I showed her she could expand this simple sentence to include, My sister’s name is  . . . . . etc., using the family relationship and name of everyone in her family. I also showed her how to access my 5 Stories and Phase I of The Phonics Discovery System. 

    She said she needed clarification about the long and short vowels. I gave her a short lesson on what they were and how to identify them. The tutor was a college student at the University of Southern California. She couldn’t be a slouch. I looked through my Appendix for the vowel chart included there. It’s a fifty-page document with a ton of information. The first part is information on the English phonemic system. A vowel chart is buried somewhere in this tome.

   I was calmer, at least on the surface. I have to deal with the combination of grief and aloneness. I don’t like it. If I had to, I decided to stay in a rehab facility on Oahu or here, on the Big Island. 

   I called TJ, who helped me locate medical equipment to borrow. She knows everyone through the church. She might know some way to deal with this. She told me what I thought. We could find someone through the church who would spend two days with me if necessary. She thought to call Judy and Margaret, both just had hip replacements recently. The medical establishment must have pushed a spring sale on hip replacements to church members. Don also had one a little earlier. But first, I had to find out what Kaiser had to offer me.

  I had a session with the M & W sisters. I found first-grade M’s missing story. We worked on editing that. She added something to it. We also reread her second story. We added titles to both of them. She was full of energy. She said she wasn’t tired today. She was more energetic than I had seen her before. She also stayed focused. Usually, she bounces around. I often don’t see her face on the screen.

   Fifth grade W and I worked on decoding multi-syllable words and comprehension. She wrestled with a bad bout of tinnitus. I asked if she had ever told her parents she had this problem. I didn’t know all the causes of that problem, but I knew some of them could be serious. No, she hadn’t. She thought it was a result of ear wax. Apparently, it was a problem she had. She often cleaned her ears by pouring vinegar or hydrogen peroxide into an ear, holding the liquid in her ear for ten minutes while  lying on her side. The wax floated to the surface. I had never heard of this solution before. Very interesting.

   W  made no mistakes with multisyllabic words, but she did with one sight word. She still confuses some of them. I have to think of a way to break the grip of an old memory. Despite not feeling her best, she was fully present and cooperative.   Given the change in both girls, I suspected it might have something to do with the mom’s absence. Mom was away for work. M even talked about her never coming back again in an upbeat way. She didn’t sound distressed. Dad told me yesterday the mom yelled a lot about house cleaning, as her mom had done with her. Both girls had commented on this too. Could it be the mom’s behavior that is negatively impacting their work? So sad.

   I got a call from Karen, Dr. Salassa’s appointment secretary. She laid out my schedule in preparation for the operation: an appointment with my primary, blood work, EKG, and a consultation with the anesthesiologist. I also have to call the travel department to arrange my flight to Oahu and back for me and my caregiver. Kaiser pays for these flights. They won’t release me from the hospital unless I have someone pick me up. I fly home the day after the operation. If I have any questions, I should call the support service. I have tons.

  Isaac called; could he come over to print a shipping label and visit? I told him he didn’t have to visit. He can just come to print. If he wasn’t flying home on June 3, I would have him be my pickup person. He said he’d love to visit Honolulu when he heard I was going. I thought, why not? We could go over together, and he could do his visiting. He’d at least have an afternoon there. He was uncomfortable with the idea of abandoning me. It was just his sense of propriety talking. I would be okay with him having a good time.

  I watched another episode of Madame Blanc Mysteries. It’s pleasant but not terribly good. The mysteries are weakly written, but the relationship between the two main characters is a delight.