Sunday, August 30, 2009

Winston's nervous breakdown

The other day we took our dog to the vet and asked, in addition to the examination, if they could keep him overnight so we could sleep.
Winston, our basset of some nearly 10 years, is having a nervous breakdown. Or at least a very severe anxiety attack.
Even the pills many people give their dogs during monsoon season to sedate them during thunderstorms don't work. He spends his days and nights panting, pacing, whining and trembling.
I think this summer of detox, pain pump surgery and the subsequent trial of rejiggering Ken's pain med mix have taken their toll on Winston.
He's always been very emotionally sensitive and needy, like the rest of us.
He's been the steadfast, tail-always-wagging, emotive dog that follows Ken's every move and could sit beside him 24/7 having his back scratched or his head petted.
But lately, he's taken a turn and it's not been good. His tail is frequently down, not wagging. He has poddy issues, as in he goes on the carpet. Frequently. Yesterday he couldn't even gather the wherewithal to jump up on the couch, something in the past he would have done enthusiastically. He spent the day panting, whining and staying as underfoot as he could as we followed us from room to room.
The vet concurred that he's got something that in canine language is akin to anxiety. He's on some kind of doggie Xanex that won't probably really take hold, if it does, for a month. He gets it twice a day.
But, as with Ken, there is progress. Teeny, tiny progress.
And I've decided rather than homicide, I will be understanding and reassuring.
Last night, he was able to jump on the couch, although he stood up on the cushions and faced away, not even understanding that it's customary to sit on a couch, curl into a nice ball and/or lay your head on your mistress's lap.
Eventually, hours later, he assumed the normal dog-on-the-couch position. And for a while quit shuddering.
Last night he slept through the night. He only paced and panted for a few minutes.
This morning, as if he forgot that he's suffering from anxiety attacks, he wagged his tail and for a moment was the old, happy-go-lucky, happy-to-see-you-and-be-alive-in-this-world Winston. Then he remembered and began panting, the sight of a doggie bone being offered him too much to cope with.
We're a house of healing this summer. Stepping our way to healing one little jump-up-on-the-couch at a time.

The last brother

Saturday morning I watched Ted Kennedy's funeral from 7 a.m. until maybe almost noon. All of it. Even the dead TV time when the rain spattered the streets of Boston outside that big, solid Catholic church that looked much more splendid inside than outside.
I noted the new brick and slate sidewalk approaching the church steps and then all the unlikely mix of people extending themselves to each other the way you do at weddings and funerals when strangers or adversaries or exes wind up sharing a pew or a dinner table because celebrations and mournings eclipse, even now, grievances and positions.
And my heart felt a familiar sag remembering earlier Kennedy funerals. A kind of televised history we baby boomers share from the time many of us were in junior high and watched Jackie, Bobby and Teddy walk -- the two brothers in mourning suits -- behind JFK's riderless horse-drawn casket (with the riding boots in the stirrups backwards.)
I -- forgive me Catholics -- rolled my eyes at the priest's lame, hollow-sounding, self-important homily and found it not surprising that people leave this institution although at the same time I respected the Kennedy family's embrace of the faith and the church.
I tried to sort the faces and names and stories of the Kennedy clan, noting the sweetness of the children each asking for Ted Kennedy's passions: a health care system that worked for all and a people who embraced one another or at least respected one another regardless of gender, nationality and who they chose to love. We all prayed Hear our prayer -- those unlikely seatmates (Hillary next to George. Bill grabbing face time with Barack. Nancy Pelosi talking to Jimmy Carter and Rosalyn (still seems such a sourpuss.)Orin Hatch. Caroline. The Smith boy who was accused of raping the girl. That whole sordid moment. Jean, the last sibling. Was that Joan Bennett Kennedy? The blonde with the sort of unfortunate facelift. I had these catty thoughts while transfixed and sad at the passing. The careful watching of Vicky whose countenance seems to deserve a more noble name.)
And then Obama's eulogy, pitch perfect.
And when the family walked out beside the casket of the man who was father to too many of them I wondered where Vicky would sleep that night.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Cool mornings

This morning I sat in my garden with a cup of coffee and the morning pages I've been doing fairly faithfully since Margot and I went to a conference in Sedona with the Artists' Way writer, humorist and sage, Julia Cameron. (She was married to Martin Scorcese, something that somehow added a great deal of heft to her words.)
And to my point: it was cool. Sweet, sweet cool air with just a hint of moisture. The sky, of course, was cloudless blue and the sun bright. But the air was cool. Refreshing with a promise that this back-breaking heat was finished. The afternoons may be in the triple digits, but the mornings were cool and cool mornings make all the difference. It allows for a time to regroup, gather your energies and be still.
The heat 24 hours is relentless. When they say it saps your energy, it's true. There's no regathering time.
Soon, we'll be able to eat dinner outdoors again. But for right now morning coffee in the garden is sufficient.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

38 Years

Yesterday we observed our 38th anniversary. Ken bought me black pearls. A 72-inch strand of black pearls purchased from the neighborhood jewelers from a catalogue they seldom ordered from.
The jewelry lady was impressed that the pearls at that price looked this good. They do. I appreciated the story about how impressed she was that you could get 72-inches of black pearls at "that price'' because we'd agreed, or I had stated, that we weren't getting any presents for each other.
A card would do.
And it would have.
But it's 38 years. Thirty-eight years. This summer has felt 38 years long.
So last night we packed Ken's walker into the car and made it to the 7 p.m. showing of 500 Days of Summer. We had movie theater popcorn for dinner. Perfect. And we watched this very clever movie about love. Unrequited love. (You learn that from the outset so it's not a spoiler.)
One of the lead's friends has known Robin, his girlfriend of years, since they were in elementary school. There's a line he says, which I can't recreate, that describes the girl of his dreams. She has fuller breasts, likes sports more and something else. But that in the end Robin is better b/c that's who he loves.
Ken and I met in 2nd grade. It's a tale I have told at a lot of dinner parties. I offered him a quarter to draw me a squirrel. He had sketched an amazing pencil squirrel. Very detailed and perfect, especially for a second grader. And a quarter was a high price given the times and that I didn't have an allowance. It was my ice cream money. He refused. One of what would be only a handful of times he would refuse my request. But he was smitten with Patsy Crarey at the time and couldn't be bothered.
But we were in second grade together. We had Miss Kraner, a first-year teacher whose classroom was completely out of control. Ken and I dated in our sophomore year of high school, but I didn't really like him. Then we began dating in earnest our senior year. I had to really work hard to woe him. I walked him home after school -- something you did in Kokomo, IN, in 1966 when only about a dozen kids in high school had their own cars. We were not among those.
We journeyed down memory lane last night. Not back to second grade but to our wedding day. I'm in contact with all but one of my four bridesmaids. Amazing really. Ken is in contact with two of his. We wondered at his choice of groomsmen. We remembered who he'd asked to be ushers. That Melissa Moore and Beth Shagley had served cake, a disaster because they thought they had to dissemble the tiered cake to cut it. We remembered the Phi Delt fraternity brothers who'd come and who had seranaded me when we returned to my parents' home for an after-reception reception where we could serve wine and beer since you couldn't do that at the First Presbyterian Church where we'd had the reception in the fellowship hall. That Ron and Sandra had been there. Sandra in black pants, a first for a Kokomo wedding and something probably still rememberd in some circles. Our children's godparents and such a fixture in our lives now and then merely wedding guests.
And I thought that then both of our fathers had been alive and my grandmothers and great-grandmother. And that these souls -- Amanda and Lucas -- who would enter our lives three and seven years later and transform them -- were not even in our imagination.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Julie and Julia

I read the book and couldn't wait to see the movie.
I had no idea I would weep through much of it.
If I had only one movie to take to the island this might indeed be it. I love food movies, but this is much more than a food movie. It's like An Affair to Remember (the one w/ Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr) meets Babette's Feast. Only different.
I think Nora Ephron nailed this. Just like I thought she nailed it in Heartburn, one of my other favorite movies.
This is a love movie on all kinds of levels. Certainly food, but more fundamentally the joy of life. Of relationships. Husbands and wives. Sisters. Friends and the bone deep pleasure in food. Its preparation. Its mystery. Its chemistry. Its soul-satisfying goodness and the joy of sharing a meal with friends and family.
My friend and colleague, Karen Fernau, admitted that she too wept almost without restraint when she saw the movie and vowed that she was going to end her relationship with low-fat Mediterranean diet and embrace butter. And that she was going to live each day with much more joy than she had allowed herself.
It was that kind of sweet, sweet movie.
At the end of the movie, they applauded in the Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, movie theater where I saw this. I didn't really notice because I was so transported to the world that Julia Childs created with her husband, Paul.
I think as much as this movie celebrates French cooking with its butter and its sauces and its heart-stopping flavors, it also celebrates marriage. Soul-satisfying, deeply known to another marriage.
And it made me weep in tender appreciation.
(The critics are right. Don't go to this movie hungry. Get the medium-size popcorn at least.)

Recovery II

After nearly three months of detox, there's a light.
Ken has gotten himself off oxycotin. He weaned himself from pain pops. And then was told he could go back on them and now we are waiting for his pump refill. Same cocktail ingredients, different proportions.
He had his morphine levels goosed up and now he walks, with the help of a delux walker loaned to us by a neighbor, back and forth from the bedroom and dining room with ease. We've put up the folding couch in the den, a sign that he doesn't need three crash spots throughout the house, just one.
He went to the movie with Lucas and dinner at Durant's. He takes long naps but he is no longer bed-ridden.
He can make coffee, let the dog out and remind me where I left my glasses.
The trip to London to visit Amanda and Michael that we thought at one point might be out of the question is now back in the very real realm of possibility.
He gets his pump refilled with the new mixture next week.
It will be as close to what the doctor thinks is the right mix as we've had.
The doctor expects that Ken will indeed be headed to London to visit his daughter and son-in-law in early September.
We may be on the other side of this.

Recovery

It rained in Wisconsin. Sweet, blessed rain.
The natives were not happy, but I was. Six weeks of record-breaking dry heat, relentless sun and no monsoon to speak of made me nearly dilirious when the rains set in for almost two days at Powers Lake, the site of my break.
It was a weekend of rain, sweatshirts, conversation, wine, Scrabble, great food and the nonstop distractions of life at this Wisconsin lake.
Lucas was tending to his father, pruning the back garden and vacuuming a summer's accumulation of bougainvillea leaves. He also had my car detailed and helped his father pick out a sports coat at Dillard's outlet at Metrocenter.
They saw Julie and Julia and so did Melissa, Sandra and I.
More on that later.
I slept uninterrupted. Ate uninterrupted. Read uninterrupted and danced and sang hymns and show tunes with my daughter-in-law. Sweet.
The break I didn't think I needed.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

My wise children

Thursday afternoon I'm headed to Powers Lake in Wisconsin.
My daughter-in-law Melissa will pick me up at O'Hare. She will drive me to the lake. She's already picked out the music she knows will trigger a spontaneous sing-along (she's the only person who actually encourages me to sing). We will arrive at the lake where Sandra, our children's godmother, will have a light snack and a bottle of wine ready.
Thus will begin a weekend get-away I balked at acknowledging I even needed.
But my children are far wiser than I.
When this was first proposed by Lucas and Melissa a week ago they anticipated my resistance and said that it was already a done deal.
Ken and I had been through what we later understood to be Ken's withdrawal from pain pops coupled with the crippling pain he was experiencing waiting for the pain meds in the pump to reach a level that gave him relief.
But when Lucas, Melissa, Amanda and Michael join forces they are formidable.
Melissa had proposed my break. She'd heard the depression in my voice. The frustration and the exhaustion. So she got the brunt of my resistance. This was too expensive (they footed the bill) and too spontaneous. "Next time check back in before you decide I need a break, " I'd snapped to her.
But I took my daughter's lead. "Your children love you, mom. Enjoy yourself. Have a good time. I wish I was there.''
I still could not fully admit that I needed a break.
It wasn't until Sunday morning that I knew I needed to call Melissa and apologize and say thank you. You were right. I do need this.
She wondered what took me so long.

Corner turned

Ken called Monday at 1:49 p.m. and announced he had "turned the corner.''
He was pretty sure that the last seven days of anquish had been actually withdrawal from the pain pops he'd been sucking since he'd eliminated daily doses of oxy cotin. These little "pain pops" are Oral Transmucosal Fentanyl Citrate. He'd pop them in his mouth. Rub the nub of opiate inside where it could absorb quickly and soon it was backing the braying dogs of pain back into their pen.
But on Tuesday, July 28, our son's 31st birthday, Dr. Lieberman told Ken that the pain pops were undermining the pain pump's effectiveness. He had to stop them.
Ken didn't know if he could. He'd already been reduced to rubble by the six weeks of detox. The pain pops -- at least three a day -- had been what had gotten him through.
But he stopped them. He knew he had no choice.
Ken would now probably say he had bottomed out because he has such new-found empathy for people whose bodies clamor for relief in whatever form it comes and however destructive.
The days ahead were difficult.
At one point, when we were in the swimming pool hoping that the near bath-water temperatures of the pool water and his bouyancy would relieve some of the pressure on his spine, he said "I think this is withdrawal. I don't think it's the pump."
I had not clued in on the pain pop factor. I just knew that the man who had talked to me for a solid 60 minutes and been the animated guest at a dinner party the previous weekend was reduced to near monosyllables and could not sit up longer than 5 minute stretches a week later. We seemed to be spiraling downhill. I kept teetering between taking him to the ER and distracting him with ice cream.
By Sunday, he said "I think I was addicted to the pain pops. I think this was all withdrawal.''
Now he's left with pain that reminds him of the original surgery 11 years ago. But somehow that all seems manageable. Hopeful. With each adjustment of the pain relief cocktail he will experience more relief.
Or that's the hope.
Meanwhile, on Sunday he talked for 90 minutes straight. A lucid, detailed conversation about a science fiction book he was reading. Not something I normally would have lasted through for more than 10 minutes. But when I said, "You're losing me.'' He said, "But it helps me not think about the pain."