I was in a horrible accident about two and a half months ago which ended up putting me in the ER, ICU, hospital and rehab. The cause - though hard to believe - was a man on his bicycle running me down and giving me cuts and bruises on my body and a cracked head and brain bleed. The bottom line is that I've recovered almost completely with no residual after effects. I'm doing everything I used to do before the accident. What I'm trying to do now is write about the details of the accident. I've written six pages, but I only plan to share the first two pages here today. Please comment after you've read it. I'd love your feedback. With huge thanks. The Man on the Bike On Saturday, September 24, 2022, at about nine-thirty in the morning, I was walking back to my apartment in Playa Vista as usual. I had just about finished my daily ten thousand step walk and was ready to cross at Bluff Creek Drive and Westlawn, a corner I crossed every day, so I could reach my apartment entrance on … [Read more...]
COVID even strikes without a positive diagnosis
The following is another piece I wrote in my Zoom writing group meeting. The prompt was: "Who did I meet this year who surprised or delighted us? I decided to change the "who" to a "what" and this is what I came up with. Needless to say the recent death of my husband after his long stay in hospital and rehab care was on my mind. COVID was the huge surprise this year. After a slow and quiet beginning it came upon us like gangbusters – so much so that we didn’t know how to behave in its presence. First we were told wearing masks didn’t help. Later on masks were mandated. And though staying six feet from others was recommended it wasn’t enforced very much. How does one stay six feet apart at the grocery store or even on the street. Another rule was to wash our hands for twenty seconds many times a day. But how does one monitor that. We washed using the honor system I did stay inside especially when the numbers of victims and deaths started to rise and the science doctors – and … [Read more...]
A final report – hopefully!
The last time I reported on my husband, Bob’s, health was July 31. At that time he was still in hospital for the second time in less than a month. I finally brought him home on August fifth, but I must say I didn’t see much improvement until late last week. He was sleeping a lot during the day and night, not eating much, and finding it very hard to get around even with his walker. It was very discouraging - such that I kept telling him I didn’t know how to take care of him. I did, however, keep feeding him. I would make him a smoothie first thing in the morning using Boost with twenty grams of protein, fresh fruit, yogurt, and some sorbet - all flavor coordinated. At first that was enough breakfast, but after a few days he asked for more food - like a couple of fried eggs, a piece of toast with cream cheese and jam on it, or some cheese and crackers. That was the first good sign. As a matter of fact, he started talking about what foods he’d like to eat later in the day. I … [Read more...]
From good to bad overnight
I’m glad to say this month is over. It’s been an awful one. Of course this summer has been hard for all of us now that the coronavirus is reattacking us, but we’ve had other health issues in our home. Yesterday I had to call the paramedics to take my husband Bob to the hospital. His second time there this month. And yesterday’s episode was such a shock. Just the day before he was feeling pretty good. He was eating again, able to walk fine with his walker and go up and down the stairs all right, using his cane. And he even had an online conversation with his doctor who said he looked so well, he didn’t have to see him again until October. When I tried to get him up yesterday and get ready for an in-person doctor’s appointment, he lay there in bed for another hour dozing. I finally had to force him out of bed, and he did manage to get out and use his walker to get to the bathroom. He even gave himself a sponge bath. But afterward it was hard to get him to get dressed. I brought … [Read more...]
A progress report
In John Lennon's song, Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy), he sings: Life is what happens when you're making other plans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_j-tpmdPlI My mother always said something similar: Man plans, and God laughs. Well, life was sure happening to me last week. I worked diligently on my book, as I said I would do in my previous blog post, for the first three days, and I actually made some great progress. Then boom! It all fell apart. My husband, Bob, woke up early last Thursday morning with shortness of breath. I took him to urgent care and he got an EKG. With those results the doctor there said take him to emergency at our local hospital. And we were off and running. Two and a half days later and tests to rule out a heart attack, pneumonia, blood clots in his lungs, and congestive heart failure, he was feeling better. So they sent him home. Less than 24 hours later, he was short of breath again even worse. This time we called his own doctor (who had … [Read more...]
