An Update as of 11/10/12

This has been a busy and full week with getting settled back into life at home, with doctors appointments, therapy assessments, and lab tests to get to. To see the astonishment on the doctors’ faces as they interact with Bob, has confronted me once again with what a miracle it is that Bob survived at all, much less that he is walking around and functioning as well as he is.

The world that Bob has come home to seems strange and unfamiliar to him. In addition to cars looking different to him, clothing styles also seem strange. These memory issues have provided some moments of laughter as well. On his second night home, Bob wanted to know where his “regular” toothpaste was. When we offered him a tube of Colgate, he protested that he wanted the kind with the pump. We had to let him know that that company had been out of business for years!

As much as anyone who knows Bob knows he loves technology, it has been fun to share Bob’s delight to discover things like how he can advance pictures by sliding his finger across the screen on his phone. Last weekend as Evan, Michelle, and Everest were getting ready to leave, we began to assemble the tripod to take a family picture. As Bob came to help, he asked, “Is there enough film in the camera?”

Fortunately, Bob’s personality and intelligence are intact. He is loving and kind and thoughtful. He has actively tried to pitch in to help with some of the things he has always done. But he has needed some coaching to do even simple things like making our morning tea or loading the dishwasher. Bob is actively working on his memory issues. One afternoon, he spent time walking through the house opening cupboards and closets to try to learn where things were. His memory is slowly improving so that he is less likely to repeat something that he has just said, and more often can remember things that have happened earlier in the day. And he aced all of the logic puzzles that they gave him as part of his evaluation for services at outpatient therapy!

[Amy] While he has needed help in being reacquainted with some mundane everyday life stuff, I (Amy) have marveled in his ability to carry on with some things that show he is still the same Bob – like untangling the mixed up phone lines so that Line 1 and  2 again rang in their appropriate spots on every phone in the house.  Megan might have preferred for him to wait until he was feeling better but since I have a special familiarity with what he is experiencing at this point in his recovery I allowed him to “run with it” so to speak and complete the task as he was able and enthusiastic to do so.  Of course this probably was the reason why he had an “episode” afterwards but I know that there is a fine line between testing yourself and overdoing it. Megan is doing a yeoman’s job of allowing Bob the freedom of testing himself without becoming too anxious about the potential to inhibit the recovery process.  These last few days have been a true, sweet blessing for me in ways that I cannot express in ways succinct enough to hold your interest but perhaps I can try to write about them and share at a later date.  Suffice it to say that Bob and Megan are a testament to the benefits of a life well lived and I am so glad our paths have crossed again. Ok back to Megan….

[Megan] Some of our favorite music from the 1970s and 80s has resonated with Bob. Last night he woke up in the middle of the night humming a tune from Inti-Illimani, a Peruvian group we enjoyed early in our marriage and had recently rediscovered. By the time I woke up this morning, Bob had dug up not the CD we had purchased last year but a cassette tape of their music that he found in a drawer somewhere and had blaring from the stereo!

Despite how unsettling and scary this whole experience is for Bob as well as the frustration of continuing to struggle with “episodes”, he has also persisted in his deep, deep gratitude just to be alive. We have been so blessed to have our friend Amy visiting from Ohio. She and Bob have particularly been glorying in the amazing birdlife and wildlife in our area. This morning they got up early and went down to the dock to watch the birds, with the Blue Herons, the migrating yellow-billed cormorants, and even a bald eagle. This afternoon they sat on the back corner of the deck for several hours, again enjoying the eagle, a Pileated Woodpecker, and many other beautiful birds. The simple pleasures of life have taken on new meaning and significance as we know more deeply what a beautiful gift they really are.

[Bob] Yes, this is me again. What pure pleasure and mystery it is to be coming back to this life from “other more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world where everything began” (David Whyte). The process is ongoing with incredible highs and lows. One minute you think, “I am back and everything is fine,” then the next minute the depths of confusion and the full flush of an “episode” return. Wave after wave. A whole new moment of life on the edge of goodness and grace, terror and transformation.

I know, for sure, that this experience is changing me in positive and permanent ways. You can’t go to the brink of death itself without noticing that life has a way of coming back to itself. Then, having noticed, you pay attention to even the smallest things with thanksgiving and love. My sense is that I am becoming a more sensitive and caring soul, even though those were qualities I intentionally cultivated before. They now have a deeper, more spiritual nature. My marriage with Megan is going to end up the better for our having gone through this even though it has been so hard and miserable for us both. And we are definitely going through this together.

When, in marriage, they talk about how the “two are one,” this is what they mean. We share the highs and lows and this sharing is transformational. We use that word so casually, “transformation.” But transformation is tough. If you make it through, nothing is ever the same. Life is better. Life is good.

Those of you who are interested will read a lot more about this in the book that will emerge from this experience. “Seized by Life: Recovering Wholeness One Day at a Time.” I can hardly wait to start writing and yet there is absolutely no hurry at all. In fact, that is the most amazing part of my current reality. There is no sense of time or responsibility. I am just here, now, in the present, being all that I can be, as best as I can be. And right now the moment is perfect as the music plays and my friends and family sit all around, like that great cloud of witnesses that surround the angels in heaven. Thanks for sharing this moment with us on the trek of life. J I love you all.

Megan, Amy, and Bob