Quaranteen at home

I had a friend look over email for me. Evidently some of you check here for updates to avoid disturbing me... Thank you... and thank you for understanding when I don't write or call back. I will be back eventually...

Good news:
--The condition I described in the post Working Hands has been "cured" by my enforced rest after back surgery. I paid $50.00 to get a secret code to get me in to see my hand doctor when it flares up again, instead of having to wait four months for an appointment.

--It's been raining and my water cisterns have overflowed into the basins created for that purpose. The garden has handled the weeks of neglect, as far as I can see. I had two ripe red tomatoes that the birds deigned to leave for me for a fresh garden basil and tomato salad when I got home from the hospital one or the other time.

--Default bulletpoint for all the stuff I am too weary to list: care and concern from friends, etc.

Bad news:
--Little One has strept, and so, probably do I... but I can't take antibiotics because...

--My Wunderdokter primary care provider is 98% sure I have C-Difficile A-gain, an intestinal infection brought on my too many antibiotics (I had a UTI one of the last two hospitalizations so the Cipro on top of the intraoperative antibiotics did their little tango in my guts). He's so sure that he wrote me a prescription for Flagyl, pending results from that little sample I turned in to the lab today, but...

--The pharmacy needed to call for clarification on two of the drugs he prescribed and his office closes early on Fridays so it will be Monday at the earliest before I get started on treatment, so...

--I am voluntarily putting myself under quaranteen, after the memories of the biohazard garments, gloves and masks the hospital staff donned and doffed when coming into my room while I was in for this condition. No visitors allowed.

What's Next
I will be returning to my cozy bed to lie on one side and then the other, with minimal groaning (oh, heck, I'm alone, so maybe I'll really lay it on thick) in the transition, and exist. Still can't read, my laptop power cord conked out (what business to I have being on the computer anyway) and my own bed is the only place in the house or on the property that I want to be. So no movies. Still on this retreat.

And yet, all is well, all will be well. It turns out I can survive pain. It turns out there is more to learn from utter helplessness. It turns out I may actually have a reason to exist even now.

Don't worry, friends... this, too, shall pass. But maybe I won't be my crazy-busy, moving at the speed of light, insane old self anymore. Maybe I'll move slowly and meander along and really enjoy how it feels to walk without wincing and sleep on my back and pick up my kids to waltz around the living room. The first hike I take up to Romero Pools (one tangible visualization that keeps me going during Physical Therapy) will evoke tears of gratitude and laughter at all the memories from that place. (Cathy, this is for you: alternative uses for socks, what to do with all that extra pasta, how to hike down switchbacks again after snapping an ankle, the BACK way up to the main trail, "That LADY told me to move...", pickle juice... I chuckle to think of all of that except the snapped ankle, Brian... That's an owie.)

Until next time,
H