You never told me THAT

.. this new life means talking, talking talking.. and not for fun. Double-checking, fixing, arguing, explaining, misunderstanding, understanding only too well ... advocating, shouting, speechlessly-goldfish-mouthing, trying, failing and sometimes getting the point across..

.. M would need me so badly or leave me so easily!

.. I'd be moving out of my house against my will, fixing up a teeny flat against my will, and LOVING the reason why .. and discovering that you can replicate many things in your temporary second home, but not your favourite mug, your pillow or your cat..

.. I could manage with only two perfumes in the stash (today) ..

.. I'd dream of being bored..

.. I could travel so far without moving; learn so much without trying, or do so many things I can't do ..

.. having friends is one of the most undervalued, underestimated, crucial and crazy blessings to not even know you deserve..

.. catching up with schoolmates I barely remember, 35 years on, could be so much fun..

.. I'd write like this without blushing.

[Day four and except for bits dropping off the wheelchair; moments of terror and FAR too many towels to wash, all is well.]

A Miracle on Home Street!

M was discharged from hospital on Monday, 20th February 2012. Two years and one month exactly to the day since The Accident.

Life as a couple can resume. Purrfumed and purrfect, as always!

Could it REALLY be true...?

We were told on Friday that it's about time for us to go home. For M to go to our local hospital to continue general rehab, for me to resume life in our home with our cat and the garden... and for all of us, to get on with the next stage of adjusting to a very changed life.

Mad packing and swinging emotions as we get ready to leave, because what we have here is so known now... tonight, as we sat together in his half-stripped hospital room, reflecting on the last nearly 14 months, we suddenly started to think of things we WON'T mind not knowing! Some of the routines, the smells, certain behaviours by certain people... the endlessness of long-term rehab, with the teeny-tiny advances. And the utter, utter boredom of contemplating either the hospital food trolley OR any of the many local food outlets. Been there, DONE THAT!

So here we come, housie, cattie, friends and old familiarities, we want to get blase about you all over again.

News like this can only be brought to you by Gucci, or Prada. So I've worn too much of both of them, one yesterday, one today. If I could find Essence de Home, I'd never wear another...

Reflecting on enough..

Hi there neglected bloggie, how are you under all that dust???

We're still here. We 'celebrated' eleven months to the day since M's accident on Tuesday. Eleven months! How wonderful, WONDERFUL, it is not to know the future. I can't tell you how I've managed it, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to know, at the beginning, that this could be the reality.

Times have been very shaky. My M has had physical, emotional and psychological challenges which have stripped him of independence, flesh, ability, dignity and strength. He's been back to ICU twice, with dangerous collapses and arrests. I've had to have the 'how much cardiac resuscitation does the family want?' conversation several times. I've had a long visit home, during which I did nothing but grieve for 18 of my precious 21 days. The last three days I spent in wonder, looking at the exploding garden - the drought has well and truly broken! The roses are magnificent and I so enjoyed taking a huge bunch of them back to the ward. They lasted nearly 9 days and were a wonder to behold in so many ways. ENOUGH.

I have had a trough of sadness lately, to dig through my thoughts and feelings and try to find something to feel optimistic about. But today, as I schlepped through the mall, again, trying to remember why I'd gone there, again, and not just because of christmas, I suddenly thought this: enough. Enough of worry and uncertainty and helplessness and insomnia and broken plans and sad faces. And spending, and thinking about christmas, and what's for dinner and why won't the last noisy pub patrons go HOME so I can get some sleep (if you value your quiet nights, don't live in a pub!).. enough. I can do this. M has no choice; he is suffering very badly from such a very long and fraught hospital stay and he keeps going. Not as sweetly as usual, but he does it. Day after day. And, somehow, so do I. ENOUGH.

I don't have to cook, clean, garden, change the cat box, deal with doorknockers, ring the plumber, put the bins out or do anything much for anyone unless I feel like it. The expectations others have of me are very simple - stay standing and keep writing. Come home when I can. ENOUGH.

A large chunk of my extended family visited us this afternoon, and we all sat in the ward courtyard and sang carols.. with kids wearing blinking Rudolph noses, other patients wheeling around, and the breeze cooling us in the humidity. Spontaneous; simple; ENOUGH.

Tonight my step-daughter and I shopped for some extra food to take into M tomorrow. And what a delight to IGNORE christmas foods and plans and must-haves, and realise that all we wanted was the makings of a fairly simple picnic, largely from the deli and fresh food sections. A quick bottle of bubbles and some plastic champagne glasses. ENOUGH.

We will stay with M til we are sated with unwrappings and the humour of what the hospital will serve for lunch. We will do his washing even though 'it's christmas' (we still need clean jox, right?). We will share our goodies and sing together for whoever is around. We will nap in his room after the sun makes us sleepy, and later the two of us will go to the beach to lie and sigh on the sand until we have had... enough.

And on Sunday, the world will begin to turn again, and all the things we usually do that didn't happen won't matter, and all the new things we did will, and I for one will continue to feel so very lucky in my family and friends. Because this year, if nothing else, I have learned that when it comes to love, there is always ENOUGH. It doesn't run dry, go away or leave you dangling. It doesn't criticise or restrict you. Love in all small and large ways, is how we roll from one day to the next, cradled in the concern and hopes and wishes of loving people.

ENOUGH.

...

except... I DID buy some more perfume. Vivienne Westwood 'Let It Rock'. Indeed!

Muddling along...

Howdy. It's all a bit of a f**'n shambles, as my friend Wilf the old fart across the hospital hallway used to say..

The lovely old 1940's flat had major rising damp (carefully hidden behind furniture, which I moved; I was MOST unimpressed) so I left a week after I moved in. Dreadful waste of energy and hope.. I retreated to the dear old Lodge, and tried their patience with the large amount of stuff I put into their very little bit of storage space.

My M has moved too, from ICU to the rehabilitation ward. Initially he only lasted 5 days there before having a major setback, but after 3 weeks of careful extra monitoring and masses and masses of chest physio (he has continuing lung/breathing problems) he returned to rehab and hasn't looked back. Recently he's had a problem with a haemotoma on one calf, but was only stuck back in bed for a few days until he was able to start getting out again for a few hours each day. He's tried about six different manual and electric wheelchairs so far, as the OTs gradually work through their differences and sort out what will be best for him long-term. He'll have one of each, eventually. As he says, Manuel in the morning when he's fresh, and Electra in the afternoon.

He is now spending 5-6 hours a day in active rehabilitation - physio, gym, OT, wheelchair training, body movement strengthening, fine motor and strength skills, etc. We are all tremendously grateful that his hands and arms have regained far more dexterity and mobility than is generally found with his level of injury. He's able to use a mobile phone and laptop, and is feeling more connected to the world after so many months of four grey walls and not a lot to feel good about.

I am currently house-sitting for a family friend, in an old house extremely close to the hospital. This house-sit also comes with resident burmese, Sir Fritz to you. He has taken to me as if we've been together for years. He has a loving purrsonality and a strong prefurence for laps and beds. The loud yowling that comes with a failure of service and comforts is most entertaining! There was, briefly, a chance I could stay on here indefinitely, living with the owner, but sadly that is not to be. I was about to begin searching for a chic little studio apartment with water views, when my dear friends (of my first, long house-sit) announced another overseas trip and it seems I am to have the privilege of another stay in their sunny haven. The three flights of stairs will be very good for me, won't they?? I think this means I'm not homeless again until at least halfway through November. What a very strange life.. we won't be home for quite a few more months. As I thought from fairly on, we'll be here all year and then some.

I've gone through the process of gathering quite a bit of household stuff, using it, not using it, storing it without a backward glance, and lugging it all back home. Now I'm in pared-down mode, having got well and truly over the sore back that comes with every load of woollies bags that has to be shoved into the car. Oh, about the car! A couple of months ago my brother visited me to help me buy a car. We had a couple of very entertaining days toying with car salesmen, until I settled on a small wagon, and bargained for as much extra as I could. I did very well! My new Hyundai Tucson and I fit very well together and importantly is very easy to drive the longer trips home and back. I've loaded up the cd player with lots of rock n roll, and some exquisite classical pieces, for private car karaoke on the highway.

Our house will have to be extensively modified to make it wheelchair-accessible. By a stroke of fortune, the existing back yard pathways and garden beds are pretty much ok, just need a solid surface rather than the scoria we have. The deck will be extended and I think will become a sunroom/garden room. Nice. NOT so nice is the major re-fit including widening the hallway, demolishing an existing bathroom, moving the front wall, and door.. and, sob, the end of my existing kitchen, which was renovated with great love and care only 6 years ago. I am fighting a rearguard action against the insurance company's project manager, who is blithely walling-in doors, demolishing cupboards, and announcing that we won't have a kitchen table any more. Oh yeah??

Unfortunately this planning process means I must go home nearly every week, for I think at least the next six weeks, which is terribly tiring and a great strain on us both. For various good reasons, family members and friends are not so able to spend time here supporting us, and I find myself thinking that round about now would be a good time for me to be cloned. M needs me; I need to be with him; I also need to be at home being business-like and purrfessional and making the right decisions. Without my M to add a note of reality to my wilder fantasies (height-adjustable benches come in marble don't they?); talk over colour and texture and generally be a delight to have around, I'm stuck with my demons and my somewhat over-organised inner self. I've been looking at home gorgeous magazines, and most of the 'simplified' modern kitchens come in under $90,000 . Surely we don't need all that??

Somehow or other, through all of this; with exhaustion, heds of deth, M's fragile return to better health and mobility; with responsibilities unwanted and many; homesickness and cat-withdrawal and being lost most of the time if I go further than one kilometre from wherever I'm living; purrfume has stayed on the agenda. I gave myself a very VERY fabulous Jo Malone 'Wild Fig and Cassis' candle for my birthday recently. Bliss. And the discount chemist on the corner has some quite desirable purrfumes on special, so I've lashed out and tried two new scents - HER, by fcuk (that's french connection united kingdom to you, thanks), an interesting sort of dry floral which has oomph without sweetness; and a new unisex Bvlgari which treads a very fine (and successful) line between a powdery citrus after shave and a fairly intense acid/floral freshness. I like this one particularly, as it tends to draw comments when I wear it, which suggests it isn't nasty, and probably that it suits me. I have no statistics from the general public to confirm or deny, but it feels good!

Keep thingers and fumbs crossed for us please.