A very small update on the very big upheaval In Len’s and my life

11/7/2021

We are doing pretty well. Len has 46 staples in his head – the rehab admitting person counted them. Not sure if I wanted to know, but now I do.

His mind, brain, coordination, balance, and motor movements all seem to be exactly the way they always were. Twice he has politely helped the professional therapists who are helping him – unscramble some confusing things on their computers.  

The rehab hospital meets to design a plan for what to do and learn and when a patient can leave. They have assigned him a release date of this coming Friday. He is doing that well.

His main challenges are regaining his strength. He has pretty much turned into a cat. If you need him to talk or do something, he can. If you leave him alone ten minutes, he falls asleep.

This is what I have been thinking.

We are on day #13 of this difficult, scary, unwanted adventure. There have been a number of times when Len has been in a little to a lot of mortal danger. Most of his nurses have been people I get teary thinking about; such compassion and smarts. Seriously. I do not want to call them heroes or angels because I don’t like overused clichés. I want to say that there are powerfully skilled and caring people, mostly women, in our medical institutions - and they are worth telling your children and grandchildren about. Do it. Okay?

And then I want to say this. I feel as if we were airdropped into a nice, competent, modern city that we know nothing about. Let’s say Montreal. I’ve never been there. It is functional, it has places to get care, food, gas for the car, company, and everything one might need. But there is no map of Montreal. No one has it, no one can hand it to you, it isn’t on Google maps. You have to just keep looking, thinking, and knocking on doors of busy people you don’t know about where to go next. You have to keep doing Montreal and after a while you sort of know it. Just about then, they move you to a slightly different part of Montreal (a different floor of the hospital, a different hospital) and then you have to learn more about Montreal

Everyday we have been somewhere in Montreal.

We still do not need things. The freezer was already crammed wih at least twenty small meals in it before this started. Len is allergic to flowers. He has no taste for sweets.

What we would love is to get short 2-3 sentence messages telling us what you see in a day, what small adventures you are having. We totally missed the high-flying flocks of sandhills cranes this year. Did you see them? Have you gone fishing? Big fish out there? What is the coolest thing you saw or encountered today?

We are locked in Montreal. We miss knowing what is going on in our friends’ lives.

Thanks.