I can’t keep up.
Due to having March in April this year…oh, I suppose non-Minnesotans and perhaps millennials don’t know what I mean by that. March is traditionally the snowiest month of the year. That’s a tradition, not a law of physics or meteorology or any other reason to panic when events don't conform to expectations and most of a winter’s snow doesn’t fall during the third month of the year. All it means is that if you add up the inches over a bunch of years, average them and compare them to other months, March frequently gets the most. On average.
I apologize if all this is common knowledge but these days I don’t take it for granted that University grads know what ‘average’ or ‘tradition’ means.
We got a ton of snow in April of 2018.
But no matter how much snow falls during April, the sun insists on getting higher in the sky and staying up there longer each day*so the snow can’t last very long no matter how much it’s enjoying the visit.
Three weeks ago we were under two feet of snow and the lakes here in town were still icy. Today everything is greening up as fast as a Wonderful World of Disney episode in time-lapse photography.
Like the lilac bush outside my window, I feel like each day is about 40 minutes long and I need to work at triple speed to get anything done.
Good news on my Dad’s recovery; despite a few setbacks, like a feeding tube that kept getting clogged and a fever that came and went unexplained, leaving him none the worse for it, he’s improving. Every day he regains more strength and mobility in his limbs.
One huge factor is that we got his CPAP back on him and working at night. That mystery fever sent him to the hospital again and while there, they found a mask that fit over the neck brace without interfering with the stitches in his forehead (those cuts, bumps and bruises are nearly gone now) and he got a good night sleep for the first time in ten days.
Ten days!!
I can’t believe we didn’t think of that before!!! I mean, for Heaven’s sake, what’s more important to healing than the ability to sleep? The surgeon even told us to bring in his CPAP and find a mask that works but like the bunch of idiots we are, we accepted the idea that he’d be okay without it until the bruises faded. Understand: he suffers from severe sleep apnea which means he doesn’t “have trouble sleeping”, he is incapableof getting any real sleep. The CPAP fixes that problem.
Dad’s been a bit loopy. Well OF COURSE!! If I were injured, in pain, on meds, couldn’t hear, couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep, I’D BE A FIRE BREATHING DRAGON AFTER TEN DAYS.
My father is a Saint.
He felt bad about telling all his sons they were useless when they refused to get him out of the hospital in the days following his fall. He apologized for snapping at Mom.
You want to feel the arrows of St. Steven, listen to an apology from a guy who’s temporarily paralyzed.
Immediately after getting a good night’s sleep, his voice was stronger and he was himself again. Every day, his arms and legs get stronger. Slowly, the nerves in his hands and fingers are beginning to respond to the signals from his brain again. Too slowly for him, of course. Yesterday he was complaining about his useless arms and hands, waving them around saying “I can’t do this”, stretching them out full length “I can’t do this”, twisting his wrists “I can’t do this” and doing all the things he was complaining of being incapable of except making a fist. Then he growled when everyone laughed. If he could have made a fist, he’d have punched someone.
I’ve tried to get over to visit him every day. I think I’ll spend an hour and almost invariably spend three. So far, I’ve never arrived to find him alone. Either Mom or one of my siblings or grandkids are there, reading if Dad’s napping or talking. Margy sent them an IPad, Katie is teaching Mom to use it for Face Time, watching Frasier and downloading audio books. Dad was half way through Grant, by Chernow. Mom tried reading to him but the book weighs a ton, so now the audio book is on the IPad, Dad has headphones and he can listen to his heart’s content.
You gotta love modern technology!!
We also need to find time to get over to the house to help de-clutter it and make it elder safe (yeah, that’s a thing) for the time when Dad is ready to go home.
Best case scenario: he regains full strength and use of all his extremities. In other words, to be in the same state he was in the night he tripped and fell. No more piles of books, small footstools or end tables to trip over. Using a walker, even if he thinks he doesn’t need it.
Meanwhile, everyday life is speeding by: Xena and Babalouie are growing like a pair of healthy weeds. Boopity Boop are walking, talking and exploring. Orders are flooding in as the snow birds return north with tons of ideas for projects. My weekly oil painting day comes around faster and faster…life is flowing is if down a mountain side, each day going faster than the last.
That’s what life does. It picks up speed.
*that actually is a law of physics pertaining to the movement of a planet with a tilted axis so feel free to panic if it changes unless you realize you're on the equator. Yes, geography is a real science.