 20 January 2007:
I got a wonderful phone call from Auntie Lil this morning!
She has successfully watched her first Netflix DVD and she was bubbling over with thanks to all of us who collaborated to make this possible.
I think she is going to get quite a kick out of telling her pals at the Senior Center what her family did for her.
Larisa set it up for her and must have done an excellent job explaining to her how it operates.
She just couldn't get over how wonderful we all are to do such an amazing thing for her.
:) Success!!! By the way, she'll be 92 on the 30th of this month!
Wow! Last night we had a wonderful sushi dinner, prepared by Alyssa and
Amy at Larisa and Eric's apartment. Pictures
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12 March 2007:
Last week we had
13 people over for dinner and games! We played the new game Nate & Shea
brought with them, iMAgiNiff, (yes, that is how it is spelled) and it was a great ice-breaker. Tim found a way to play the mix of music on our iPod in the background, and Ella and Eliza were flitting around charming everyone.
Also visiting were Paul & Linda, Jon & Jannai, Larisa, Alyssa and Rob.
We had three wonderful Sundays in a row when I was lucky enough to get Dad's interest aroused in four DVDs about Woody Guthrie and riding the rails. Woody was one of his heroes when he was younger. He was so moved by the life stories presented on the DVDs it brought tears to his eyes, which amazed me, because I have never seen him cry. Not even when my mother died. (He was like a zombie then, paralyzed with grief.) I knew Dad used to play the guitar and the piano when I was little, and I knew he liked Woody Guthrie, but it never occurred to me that he was just as moved by a musician who reflected his thoughts as I have been. It was an eye-opening experience for me. Anyhow, Beverly and I bought him a four CD box set of Woody Guthrie recordings for his birthday tomorrow.
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As
all good things must sometime end,
Go forth with the love the Goddess sends.
For if your heart is always true,
The circle will come back to you. |
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~
Sandra
Kynes
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11 April 2007: "Cosmic,
comic novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84"
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When
the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here. |
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~
Kurt Vonnegut
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25 April 2007:
It seems like
things are starting to calm down just a bit from all the excitement of Josh's
visit, an overnight trip to New Hampshire, doing our and Grandpa's taxes,
and a day in Amherst (MA) visiting Emily Dickinson's house and then seeing Dave
Matthews & Tim Reynolds at the Mullins Center in the evening. Phew!
Amherst was a great place with lots of bookstores, coffee shops and unique
restaurants, and we happened to be visiting in the middle of a large Earth Day
celebration. The 90 minute tour of the Dickinson home and her sister's
home next door was very informative - I was entranced with the docent's stories
and mysteries about Emily's life, and Tim kept lagging behind studying the
various specimens of 19th century hardware in both houses. There was a
male high school senior from Texas on the tour, scouting out colleges in the
area and keenly interested in Emily's poetry. He wants to major in English
literature. We were surprised to learn that Emily had bright red hair!
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17 May 2007:
It looks like Flock Theatre is moving their summer Shakespeare-in-the-Arboretum at Connecticut College to Shakespeare-on-the-Pier at City Pier in Waterfront Park, New London.
As You Like It will be playing Wednesdays through Sundays at 8pm from July 18th to August 12. Another change is that it will be FREE. Perhaps they're hoping that the move will help to increase attendance. Although the Arboretum was a dreamy and beautiful setting I think that not too many people were willing to pay and then endure the mosquito attacks and trek through the dark to return to their cars.
As for Shakespeare-in-the-Park in Westerly, sadly, according to MySunLite.com: "The Colonial Theatre has announced the cancellation of this summer's Shakespeare Festival in Wilcox Park, with organizers saying they have not been able to reach acceptable terms with the Westerly Public Library and Wilcox Park, where the theater rehearses and performs."
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29 May 2007:
Tim took Friday off so we had a four day weekend, and we took the bull by the horns and finally removed the mold and that cottage-cheese style paint from the bathroom ceiling. What a job, but it was fun doing that part together! Tim then took great care to put on a layer of KILZ and then tried to even out the surface irregularities with spackle type stuff and then a layer of primer. He put a first coat of "lemon chiffon" paint on it this morning before heading over to Nate & Shea's for a shower and then to work. It will hopefully get its final coat tonight. So far my head is cooperating and rewarding my efforts to avoid the fumes.
I did some major weeding (with my face mask on) and planted some annuals and some more
veronica (my new favorite) in the garden and on the balcony. The irises and columbine are blooming big and beautiful! An anonymous feline has decided to make a latrine for itself in the middle of the vinca - this morning I put out some plastic forks, prongs sticking up out of the ground, and am hoping this will be a sufficient deterrent to any further deposits!
We splurged and saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End in a theater. Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley and Geoffrey Rush were all wonderful. I think Larisa, who saw it before we did, put it well when she said that it wasn't as funny as the second one but where it was funny it was very funny.
Loved it!
Yesterday I went up to Storrs to visit with Papa, Auntie, John & Beverly. We went to Kathy John's (without Papa, who was feeling rather poorly) for dinner and had a fish and chips special that was surprisingly very good! We also watched 3 episodes of Richard Attenborough's
Life of Birds. Some birds are pretty mean... I also got Auntie to write out Chomiak and Fusiak in
Cyrillic letters for the family history. Left for home while it was still daylight and had a beautiful waxing gibbous moon surrounded by blue sky to lead me home. On a sad note, however, I passed two does dead on the side of the road, one in Franklin and one in Preston.
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6
June 2007: Tim made it to Level 58 in World
of Warcraft last night! :)
9 June 2007: Tim made it to Level
59 in World
of Warcraft last night! :)
10
June 2007: Tim made it to Level 60 in World
of Warcraft this morning! In honor of the
accomplishment Paul gave him a Laughing Skull Cap of the
Invoker. :)
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Nathaniel
Philbrick
14 June
2007
Stonington Historical Society:
Richard W. Woolworth Library &
Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer House
Stonington, Connecticut
Tim
& Barbara and Larisa
A very interesting
lecture! Nathaniel Philbrick told us how
he had been raised in Pittsburgh but had a
fascination for the sea, and was especially
drawn to the story of Moby Dick. He
was inspired to extensively research original
written accounts of the true story which
inspired the whaling novel by Herman
Melville. The result of his research,
which included current scientific understanding
of oceanography, whales and human survival
capabilities, was the National Book Award
winning book, In the Heart of the Sea: The
Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, a real
page-turner I read a few years ago.
He also recounted his experience
in third grade, learning the story of the Mayflower,
Plymouth Rock and the first Thanksgiving.
He was astonished to learn later in life that so
much more went on in the century and a half
between those events and the American Revolution
- things that he never learned in school.
Most Americans know nothing or very little about
the Native American sachem, King Philip, and the
war that bears his name. It took Nathaniel
three years to write Mayflower: A Story of
Courage, Community & War. It
covers in detail the story of the Mayflower
passengers (not all of them were Pilgrims) and
their children and grandchildren, from the
events that led up to their departure from
England, their years in Leiden, Holland, the one
to two mile an hour trip across the Atlantic,
and the complex relationships they had with the
Native Americans during the fifty-five years
leading up to King Philip's War. If the
history books found in schools were half as
riveting and compelling as this book, we would
have a lot more people interested in history for
sure!
Some stunning statistics are
found about King Philip's War compared to other
wars. In World War II, 1% of the American
adult male population lost their lives.
The Civil War, 4-5%. King Philip's War,
close to 8% of the English adult male
population. After the war, the English
shipped King Philips's nine year old son off as
a slave to the West Indies, along with at least
1,000 other Native Americans. The Native
loss is estimated between 60-80%, including
those killed in battle or dying of their
injuries afterwards, those dying of sickness and
starvation, those shipped off as slaves, and
those who fled to tribes outside New England.
Of interest to genealogists is
that in 2002 it was estimated that the Mayflower
passengers had thirty-five million descendants
living in the United States, about ten percent
of the population. And of interest to
those fascinated by existential "ifs,"
the young indentured servant, John Howland, fell
overboard off the Mayflower during a gale
and would surely have perished, but he found a
rope trailing the ship and hung on for dear
life, even though he was under water, until the
line was pulled in. He went on to marry
Elizabeth Tilley, and fathered ten children, who
gave him eighty-eight grandchildren!
Of course the highlight of the
evening for me was having him sign my copy of Mayflower.
I briefly told him about my grandmother's
fascination with her eighth great-grandfather,
Stephen Hopkins, and how much I enjoyed learning
about his story in the book. [Stephen
Hopkins had sailed for Jamestown, Virginia, in
1609 in the Sea Venture, but wound up
shipwrecked in Bermuda. The shipwreck of
the Sea Venture was the basis of
Shakespeare's play, The Tempest.
While in Bermuda, Stephen was convicted of
attempted mutiny and sentenced to hang, but was
given a reprieve when he pleaded for his life
for the sake of his wife and children. He
then spent two years in Jamestown before
returning to England.] I didn't have time
to tell him about the story in my grandfather's
family about an ancestor marrying a Native
American from the Nemasket tribe, and that Mayflower
was the first source where I have found even a
reference to the tribe, who lived in the area
located now in the town of Middleborough,
Massachusetts.
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15 June 2007:
Last
night Tim, Larisa and I went to the Stonington Historical
Society's library to hear a lecture given by National Book Award
winning author, Nathaniel Philbrick. I had a migraine all
morning and finally sniffed some zomig nasal spray in the
afternoon so that I'd be able to go. Slept for three
hours... Thanks to husband's and daughter's support I was
able to cope with the evening's excitement. On Larisa's way
here after work, the Tercel's check engine light came on, so after
the lecture in Stonington we took her car over to the garage in
New London and then drove her up to Storrs to borrow her Grandpa's
Taurus.
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18 June 2007:
Saturday we took a day trip to Dennisport to see Matt, who was up
there preparing 114 Depot St. for its first set of summer
tenants. We started off with breakfast and conversation at
one of Grandfather's old favorites, Bonatt's Bakery & Restaurant
in Harwich Port. Then we were treated to a tour of the
Thompson house, which Matt has been renovating with great care and
attention to detail. It's been decorated for tenants,
meaning nothing too personal in the decor.  However, striking
pictures of great-grandfather Sam White and great-granduncle and
aunt Ed & Flora Swift were allowed in the dining room and
entry hall. Also featured are several colorful modern
paintings by Matt's aunt (on his mom's side), Janet Johnson.
There is space to sleep ten guests! In the lamp above the
front porch, a couple of purple martins are raising a family, and
we enjoyed watching them feed the little ones. In the back
we saw the thousand daffodils--the flowers have bloomed and
disappeared--bordering a curvy flower bed stretching the length of
the property line. Matt's been carefully pruning the elm
tree near the street so that the electric company won't be tempted
to hack away at it when it gets too close to the wires. He
loves how it seems to hug the northwest bedroom and enjoys
sleeping there, tucked under the leaf canopy. We came home
with Grandmother's white wicker porch flower box and a couple of
boxes of papers and pictures to sort through. I've already
found a newspaper clipping, a lengthy obituary for Uncle Ed.
Now I have to balance my time between adding things to the family
history (not to mention finishing its reorganization and transfer)
and finishing the bathroom and other projects around here!
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25 June 2007:
We've
had some extraordinarily beautiful weather the past week or so:
sunny and breezy, in the 70s with low humidity. Thursday was
Midsummer and we headed up to Storrs for a barbecue on the
shortest night of the year. Beverly & John had outdoor
candles lighting the stairs from the front yard to the side yard,
making for an enchanting mood. In spite of two brief
downpours we were entertained with glow necklaces, sparklers,
bubble blowing, huge bowls of strawberry shortcake, and toasting
marshmallows over the open pit fire. I spent some time
indoors with Papa and Auntie Lil watching A Midsummer Night's
Dream. Little Eliza came in at one point, partly eaten
marshmallow on stick in hand, and said to me, "Grammy, I
burned my tongue." (Just like her father - stating the
problem in a matter-of-fact way.) "Does it still
hurt?" I inquired. A solemn nod, followed by a display
of the little tongue. We went into the kitchen and put an
ice cube in a plastic bag for her and she was on her way.
;) Aunt Lil was taken home after the movie and Jon, Jannai,
Ella and Eliza left not too long afterward. We tried to stay
up all night around the fire with Beverly & John, Larisa and
Alyssa, but Larisa had to work the next day so the girls retired
first. Tim & I made it to 2am, but finally gave up and
headed home, tucking ourselves in back here at 3am.
Saturday afternoon we went to check out a new specialty grocery
store in Groton, Asia Market. Looks like the perfect place
to find all sorts of things, from frozen octopus to
chopsticks! We then went to City Pier in New London, hoping
to see the arrival of the British tall ship Prince
William, but it seemed to have been delayed. We
headed back to Groton and drove down along the Thames River, and finally
did see the ship sailing up the river. We stopped and
watched it for quite some time, and when we finally turned around
to leave found that a first quarter day moon had risen in the blue
sky, and we got to admire it as we headed home. On Sunday
Beverly and Tim transplanted the flower carpet rose from John's
garden, where it had been staying while the outside of our
building was renovated, back home to my garden.
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11 July 2007:
On Saturday our attention was on global warming as we watched the Live Earth concerts on the internet, switching back and forth to the different cities.
I was thrilled to see Yusuf (the former Cat Stevens) performing in Germany.
He has aged well. He did one of his new songs, an oldie, Wild
World, and then a cover of Stevie Wonder's Saturn.
Back in the USA, we were both deeply moved by Melissa Etheridge's medley of songs and inspiring spoken words. Included was
I Need to Wake Up, which she wrote for the film An Inconvenient
Truth.
And then she introduced former Vice President Al Gore, who said a
few words.
Dr. Jane Goodall greeted the audience in "chimpanzee" and spoke a few words
about her hopes for a change in our approach to protecting the earth.
When Dave Matthews came out next with the band he said it was a great honor to follow Dr. Jane Goodall on stage.
My band played the exact three songs I would have chosen for the occasion:
One Sweet World, Don't Drink the Water and Too
Much. During the first song there was a problem with Dave's guitar, so he handed it back stage and sang without it until another one was handed to him towards the end of the song.
Carter was blowing bubbles like crazy. Before Don't Drink the Water there was a little musical intro that reminded me of the hauntingly
beautiful extended intro they used to the same song at the Vote for Change
concert on 1 October 2004 at University Park, Pennsylvania. Only this time the camera allowed me to see an
unusual percussion instrument that Carter was using, and LeRoi was
playing a Native American flute.
On Sunday our attention shifted to the American health care crisis when we went to Niantic to see
Sicko, the latest film by our favorite gadfly, Michael Moore.
Very well done, and it drew applause from the audience in the movie theater, which was surprisingly full.
In the credits, Moore thanked Kurt Vonnegut, who recently died, "for everything."
And we heard the well chosen Cat Stevens song, Don't Be Shy.
Yesterday we were stunned beyond words to learn that there had been a terrible accident in the wee hours of Tuesday
morning. Larisa and a large group of her friends went swimming in an abandoned quarry in Deep River after their usual Monday
evening gathering at the Griswold Inn in Essex for Sea Chanteys.
Tragically her friend from UConn, Devin Gaines, drowned. He was 22 and had just graduated from UConn in May with five degrees, the first and only
UConn student to ever have done so. We never had the chance to meet him, but by all accounts he was a brilliant yet unpretentious polymath and Larisa thought very highly of him.
She is devastated. It all seems so unreal. Life is so
very precious.
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I am not an island
I am not alone
I am my intentions
Trapped here in this flesh and bone |
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~
Melissa Etheridge
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13 July 2007:
Even
though we had never had the chance to meet Devin
Gaines
we know that our Larisa thought the world of him and we are
feeling the loss of her very special friend intensely. It
still doesn't seem real.
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22 July 2007:
Fran
was here for almost a week and together we managed to visit each
one of our children, which made for several very busy days.
(Tim and Dan had to work...) On Saturday Erica and her
boyfriend Alex drove up from Virginia with Fran and arrived here
at the same time David arrived from Boston, where he is now
living. We all went over to Jon & Jannai's for a
barbeque, and enjoyed watching Ella and Eliza play with their
"cousins" in a huge plastic swimming pool, while Jon
manned the grill and most of us played Apples to Apples.
[Ella and Eliza's aunt is married to Dylan and Emily's
uncle.] After dark we all walked a short distance down the
hill to the Thames River for the best viewing of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation Fireworks
(Sailfest XXX) ever at the bottom of Baker Ave. David drove back to Boston
that night.
Sunday we wound up in Niantic at the Book
Barn, everyone
finding books to interest them at one or both stores, and had
dinner at Dad's Restaurant and dessert at Cold Stone Creamery back
in Groton. Monday Erica and Alex left for New Hampshire and
Fran and I did some errands.
Tuesday Fran and I met David for lunch where he lives in
Jamaica Plain (Boston). After dining at JP Seafood Cafe,
David drove us to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge,
America's first landscaped garden cemetery, where we
visited the unmarked graves of E. Ambrose & Georgianna
(Rodgers) Webster on Hawthorn Path. We then traipsed over to
Bellwort Path so David could take pictures of R. Buckminster
Fuller's resting place. (He invented the geodesic dome, and
there was a picture of one carved into his gravestone.) We
then parked the car on Halcyon Ave., followed Catalpa Path up a
very steep hill and found the grave of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow on
Indian Ridge Path. Much to our dismay the whole plot was
being watered with a sprinkler and we wondered why it was singled
out for this attention. After gingerly making our way back
down Catalpa Path we wandered over to Lime Ave. so that I could
see where Oliver Wendell Holmes lies buried. It was oppressively
humid that afternoon, so we stopped at that. We were quite
impressed with David's Boston driving skills as he navigated us
through six miles of heavy city traffic back to his apartment
without us ever once having to flinch!
Wednesday we had a pleasant evening here with Nate & Shea
and their nephew, Julius. They brought IMAgiNiff with them
and we played after dinner and had a lot of fun at each other's
expense. ;) Thursday we met Larisa and had lunch at
Oriental Cafe close to where she works in Storrs. She's looking exhausted and is
naturally still grieving the death of her good friend Devin, but
she was in good spirits and looking forward to Erica and Alex's
visit that night, and then to a weekend trip to Maryland with Eric
and Alyssa the next day. After lunch Fran and I enjoyed our
usual shopping trip to Bestemors in Mystic before picking Tim up
from work. Early Friday morning Erica and Alex returned from
New Hampshire and Larisa's to pick up Fran and then left for
Virginia.
It's amazing sometimes that no matter how well you think you
may know another person there is always something new to
discover. (Back in 2003, when Tim & I were on the road
to New Jersey to see our first rock concert together, I was
astonished to learn that he had never been to one before!)
Somehow one evening Fran and I got to talking about dreams and
made the startling discovery that we both have had the same
recurring spider dreams! While having this dream we are both
convinced that we are awake and keep pointing (sleep-pointing?) to
the spider as it moves across the wall or ceiling, trying to
convince whoever is in the room with us that it is actually there
and being frustrated that the other person can't see it. If
alone in the room, a blood-curdling scream brings someone in soon
enough. Jokingly I theorized that in past lives we must have
both been eaten by a spider and were somehow destined to be linked
in this life by marrying two brothers. Fran decided that we
had been flies. :)
I have now finished reading Sophie's World: A Novel About
the History of Philosophy, by Jostein Gaarder.
26 July 2007:
Found
out that my ex-boyfriend died back in February. He was 51.
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4 August 2007:
It's
been three and a half weeks since Devin drowned. The pangs
of grief are still sharp and I still find myself holding back the
tears several times a day. It's difficult to comprehend what
his friends and family must be going through now. But I've
also come to realize some things anew. How many times in our
own lives have we taken some foolish risk and had a close brush
with death, but never really had to pay the price for it?
It's so hard to accept that such a bright, kind young man met such
a tragic end.
When I was little, my parents told me many times that
when a wild or domestic animal is hurt, it doesn't understand when
someone is trying to help it and so will likely lash out at the
person. It was a lesson I also have applied to wounded
people as well. In her unbearable grief, Devin's mother
lashed out at his friends, and Larisa is particular, accusing them
of something malicious. When my adult children responded to
Devin's mother's distress with compassion and sympathy for her
agonizing loss, I became aware, with more profound satisfaction
than ever before, that Tim & I have succeeded in raising three
kind and compassionate human beings, which, along with happiness
for each one of them, is all I had ever hoped for.
At the wake Larisa met
many of his other friends for the first time and went out with
them afterwards to celebrate Devin's life. Many of them
hugged her and assured her that none of them blamed her or any of
his friends at the quarry that night for the accident.
Larisa and Devin shared an unusually intense and intellectually stimulating friendship,
and both of them attracted lots of different kinds of people into
their multiple circles of friends. Larisa told me that Devin
understood her better than anyone ever had, and
that he felt the same way about her. The
last words Devin wrote on his last MySpace entry before he died
expressed his anticipation of seeing Larisa that evening, a
beautiful testament to their friendship:
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OMG, I GET TO SEE MY LARISA TONIGHT!!!
THIS MAKES MY WEEK
COMPLETE
...that and drinking while singing Irish Sea Shanties never hurt
...and it's only the beginning! *leaps and flip*
Devintae out! |
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6 August 2007:
Sunday
turned out to be an all too brief but wonderfully refreshing
respite from this oppressive humidity. Did some speed
gardening before taking off for Storrs. Tim met Larisa for a
chat and I brought some papers from Uncle Ed's & Aunt Flora's
lives up for Papa, John & Beverly to peruse. Included
was a picture souvenir book from the 1894 California Midwinter
International Exposition in San Francisco. Beverly used her GPS
expertise to try and locate a "Woods Hole Cemetery"
where a death notice indicates Aunt Flora was buried.
Beverly remembers visiting (as a small child) and being impressed
by the landscaping around Uncle Ed's & Aunt Flora's
graves. Six years ago Jon, Jannai, Ella, Tim & I
searched the whole cemetery of the Church of the Messiah on Church
St. (on a tip from Grandfather) and found the graves of Uncle Ed's
parents and other Swift family members. But where Uncle Ed
& Aunt Flora are buried remains a mystery. Beverly and I
are thinking of visiting Matt in September and perhaps stopping in
Woods Hole on our way to Dennisport to see if we can find this
other cemetery.
Papa, Tim & I then watched For All Mankind, which
followed the thoughts of the astronauts on Apollo 11 as they
prepared for and embarked on their voyage to the moon. At
least one of them was having mystical experiences. (It was
hard for me following just which one was commenting...) But
the funny thing was, back in 1969, I remember so vividly watching
this historic moment on TV, cozied up on our beds upstairs in the
barn in Dennisport with our parents and grandparents... and
as exciting as it was, Dad feel asleep and missed it!
(Everyone else must have been so entranced that they didn't notice
him sleeping or give him a poke!) Well, as it happened,
yesterday Tim & I were so riveted to the screen (well, Tim's
attention was equally divided between the DVD and a game of World
of Warcraft on his lap...) we didn't notice that Papa had fallen
sound asleep! Again! Guess it wasn't meant to be.
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8 August 2007:
Eric's
beloved Oma died. Summer of sorrow...
12 August 2007:
Tangent, one of Tim's characters, made it to Level 65 in World
of Warcraft last night! Larisa went sky
diving this morning!
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14 August 2007:
Perfect, lovely weather today! Jannai brought Ella and Eliza
over for a swim in the pool, and because the humidity was low I
was able to sit in the shade at the pool and watch the girls
swim. I get such a kick out of listening to them call me,
"Grammy, Grammy, watch this!" And they both had
quite a few tricks to show me. An afternoon to remember.
We have discovered a new (to us) Faeroese Viking folk-metal
(can you imagine?) band from the Faeroe Islands named Týr.
Utne magazine described them as "a mail-clad foursome who
crank out ancient Faeroese ballads, heavy-metal style."
Tim showed me one of their music videos last night. Very
different - I'm sure all the Viking "charm" will win me
over sooner or later.
18 August 2007:
BOLTON LIONS
GOLF TOURNAMENT Twin
Hills Country Club
Tim, Mike, Jim and Steve [GOLF]
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28 August 2007:
How is it that a skunk can spray outside at 3:30 a.m. and the smell can permeate the house and wake me up when all the windows and doors are closed?
Am I fooling myself to think that spending August until frost enjoying the great indoors will protect me from the dreaded weed pollen in the air? For the past two days it has been a very high pollen count. Well, staying indoors last week worked very well, and feeling fantastic and foolishly invincible I ventured out with Tim and Beverly for a pleasant Sunday afternoon in Niantic, getting fish and chips at Dad's Restaurant and browsing through the
Book Barn.
Paid the piper Monday with a headache that eventually needed a Zomig.
Never learn...
Greece is on fire. Saturday night Beverly and I stood in front of the TV, staring in astonishment at the evening news.
(Tim was working an overnight shift.) Last night Tim & I saw the satellite images. These fires can be seen from space!
In 1973 Beverly and I went with most or all of the Athens International School students on a field trip, making a big circle all around
the Peloponnese. At least 63 dead so far. Thousands are homeless and at least 7 suspected arsonists have been arrested.
It was too cloudy here to see the lunar eclipse this morning.
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3 September 2007:
Tim made it to Level
68 in World
of Warcraft last night! :) Tim's comment:
"Now I can tag along with the big guys."
Saturday morning there was quite a bit of excitement here when the biggest ship ever to enter the Thames River, and one of the world's largest cruise ships,
Explorer of the Seas, made a port call in New London. It's more than 1,000 feet long, 157 feet wide, 208 feet off the water, higher than the masts of the Coast Guard Barque
Eagle, 4,000 passengers, and too tall to go under the Gold Star Bridge.
The harbor pilot boarded the ship south of Montauk, New York, before dawn.
In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Royal Caribbean has a simulator that replicates the handling characteristics of the ship.
Videos of New London harbor were loaded into the simulator and the pilot got to practice handling the ship, while seeing a simulated 360°
view from the simulated bridge. The ship turned around down by Fort Trumbull where the river is wide enough, and then backed up the river and to the pier.
If all goes well it will be back September 15 & 29 & October 13.
We had a much smaller cruise ship, Holland America's Maasdam, make port calls
here in recent years, which was impressive, but this is incredible.
State Pier is 30 feet deep at low tide, Explorer of the Seas needs 29 feet.
Shea got some great pictures as it arrived in the
morning and posted them at
photos @
nateandshea.com in the album labeled Explorer of the Seas.
They were taken from the Groton side of the river, on the northern
part of Thames St. The ship left in the evening, just as Tim
and Shea were getting off work. Tim picked me up and we raced
down to spot on Shore Ave., and, joining the crowd, climbed on the
rocks to watch it leave. The ship gave a long low blow on the
horn and everyone on the banks of the Thames waved her on.
Shea made it down to Eastern Point Beach, which was mobbed, but she
got some more fantastic pictures to add to her album!
Read about Royal Caribbean's collaboration with the University of Miami's
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science,
"using state-of-the-art technology to study the ocean and atmosphere and to provide an exciting new venue to increase the public's awareness and understanding of our planet."
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4 September 2007:
I
finished reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd,
and enjoyed it very much, all the mystical happenings... I
kept wondering why there was no sister named July... April, May, June and then August?
I love the way this author puts things, for example, "Sometimes
things of magnitude settle over you with excruciating
slowness." Don't I know it! Another example, "not
believing in it so much as daydreaming it and running it through a
maze of wishful thinking." But my favorite line in
the whole book, a thought in the mind of 14 year old Lily Owens
after being astonished by an experience of synchronicity: "I
realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but
mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor,
browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it."
I like Lily. She intuitively knew the bees were sent to
her. I often wonder why some people have mystical experiences
and others don't. Lily summed up the reason well enough.
She woke up her abusive father and dragged him to see the bees in
her room, but when they got there, "they'd vanished back
into the wall like they knew he was coming, like they didn't want to
waste their flying stunts on him."
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8 September 2007:
Here I
go again - compulsive reorganizing. An endless search for the
"perfect" presentation? Creative restlessness?
Whatever it is, I'm not the only one. Lately others and their
projects pop into my mind. My grandmother fussing over her slides,
cropping and arranging and rearranging. Even while showing us one
of her prepared slide shows, little details would capture her attention
and she'd make notes to fix them. My son's drawings and writings,
re-done and re-done, never completely satisfied with the results.
Every time I think the computers are all set up and serving their
purposes well, Tim sees still more room for improvement in one or more
of them and so then the parts are shuffled around and added to and so
the computers become ever more useful. For a little while,
anyway. My granddaughter used to like to arrange and rearrange the
cards in the game of Candy Land, choreographing how each
"game" would turn out. (It took me a while to see that
she wasn't trying to secure a win for herself, but liked to create
interesting patterns of play.) Then we have Walt Whitman, who only
wrote one book in his life, Leaves of Grass, but kept revising
and adding to it. Edvard Munch often painted over his paintings,
struggling to get an accurate portrayal of what he wanted to
express. It's been fascinating watching Dave Matthews change the
words of many of his songs as he evolves. I've got several live
versions of Sugar Will, apparently a work-in-progress, and they
all have different words, but the chorus is the same. So far.
While working on reorganizing the genealogy pages, ideas about the
rest of the website kept coming. I decided that the web site had
too many pages... suffering probably from over-categorizing.
The holistic part of me was bothered by the choppiness of it all.
So the idea now is to make this journal a running commentary on any
aspect of our lives, and to index it on another page, Links &
Lists. Simplicity.
This summer has not been typical. No Shakespeare-in-the-Park or
Shakespeare-in-the-Arboretum. No amphitheater concerts.
Several deaths. The weed pollen count has been Very High for well
over a week now. Tomorrow they are predicting it will drop down to
High. My sinuses are not happy.
16 September 2007 (11:45 p.m.):
Tangent, one of Tim's characters, made it to Level 70, while
playing in Mana Tombs in World
of Warcraft!
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On
Monday, September 17, 2007, at about 8:50
p.m., Tim had a heart attack. He was flown by a Life Star helicopter to
Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he had triple bypass surgery the following
morning.
A week later he came home.
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Tuesday, 18 September 2007 (5:00 a.m.):
Last night Nate drove Tim and me to Pequot Health Center in Groton, where he was treated by Jon C. Gaudio, MD, of Eastern Connecticut Cardiology Group.
Dr. Gaudio determined that it was necessary to fly Tim down to Yale-New Haven Hospital in a Life-Star helicopter.
Nate, Shea and Jon drove me down, an hour by car. Larisa met us in the parking garage at the hospital and
so the five of us together went up to the cardiac intensive care
floor. By the time we got there cardiologist Dr. Joseph J. Brennan
had already put in a stent and had found several other blockages.
Larisa drove me home in the wee hours of the morning and we wondered at
and were comforted by a shooting star we both saw on the way.
We just got in so we're going to get a couple hours of sleep before returning to New Haven.
Later on... We couldn't sleep so Larisa and I headed back to Yale-New
Haven Hospital and were caught off guard because they had an unexpected
slot open for surgery and were already preparing Tim for his triple
bypass, which was performed by Sabet W. Hashim, MD, Director of Cardiac Valve Surgery.
We didn't get to see him before he went in. It was finished by
about 2:30 p.m., and by then Nate & Shea and Jon were waiting with
us in the waiting room of the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit.
We weren't called to see Tim until about 4:00 p.m., and I wasn't
prepared for what I saw. (When I went with my mother to visit my
grandfather after his bypass surgery many years ago, he was awake and
joking with his doctors. They must not have allowed family in as
soon back then...) He was still unconscious, hooked up to a
respirator and many other things, and was totally motionless except for
the respirator breathing for him. He looked like a corpse in a
coffin and I fell apart, leaving the room in tears with my kids
supporting me.
It took me a while to get it together again, and so the next time we
went in was at 6:20 p.m. and he was awake, but unable to speak because
of the respirator. His hands were twitching like he wanted to
write something, but he couldn't hold the pen the nurse was trying to
give him. All I could do was hold his hand for the five minutes we
were allowed to stay. At 8:30 p.m. we tried again. This time Tim
moved his index finger as if it was a pen he was writing with.
Shea was a able to figure out that he was spelling out, "Am I
supposed to be breathing?" The nurse said that he should keep
trying to. After this I decided I was staying until Tim could
actually talk to me. Larisa stayed with me and the others went
home to get some sleep.
At 10:30 p.m. we went in and found that the breathing tube and
respirator had been removed. Tim told me that he had a dream about
Wilton. He was having some unbearable pain in his left shoulder
blade, in fact he gave it a "10." I tried to explain to
the nurse that it couldn't just be after surgery pain, and that Tim was
normally a silent sufferer. She never understood.
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Wednesday, 19 September 2007:
Larisa and I slept in the waiting room at the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care
Unit and I woke up at 4:30 a.m. with a migraine and took a
Zomig. After it kicked in I fell asleep again, and then we
went into Tim at 10:00 a.m. and found Dr. Hashim talking to Tim
about the pain in the left shoulder blade. He thought one
of the drainage tubes might be sitting on a nerve, so he had
them removed and added something more to the pain meds.
Thankfully, it worked.
When I got home for a shower there was an email from Josh
(in Scotland) saying, among other things, that he'd
"be there in a heartbeat, but for the circumstances."
Tim found his choice of words amusing.
On this day Tim had a wonderful nurse, Eileen. What a
difference! It's kind of bizarre. Tim started taking walks and was zipping right along. They have a heart shaped tile in the floor every ten feet in the hallway, so he can measure how far he's walked. But he still can't move himself around on the bed or sit himself up.
He sleeps most of the time.
Written by Larisa:
Wednesday, 19 September 2007 (2:00 p.m.):
We spent last night at the hospital. Dad was out of surgery around 2:30 p.m. yesterday and they said everything went well.
It ended up being a triple bypass. He was in a lot of pain last night.
This morning they were able to give him some different medicine and remove some tubes which seemed to help the pain a great deal.
He was more attentive and could speak of things other than the pain.
We told him about the e-mail Josh sent and his offer to fly over if it would do any good.
Dad smiled and said "Please do if you're willing to donate." (a
heart) :) We are hoping that the worst is over and that everything else will go smoothly.
Nat's with him right now and Mom's packing up stuff for another night or two at the hospital.
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Thursday, 20 September 2007:
Larisa and I slept in the waiting room at the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care
Unit again, and I again woke up with a migraine and took a Zomig at 7:45
a.m. We had another wonderful nurse today, Barb, and she had a way
of holding Tim's ribcage while he coughed which made it more comfortable
and helped get the stuff up. Erik & Liz stopped by and Erik,
who has had bypass surgery, gave Tim some encouragement about recovering.
Tim was up and took three walks through the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit.
Later in the evening Barb had some trouble drawing some blood from Tim
for a test. After she gave up she called on Katrine, who was known
for her vein finding skills, but she finally gave up, too. Finally
they called a young fellow, Rake, who found a vein in no time. It
was amazing. Decided to sleep at home tonight, feeling more
assured that Tim is in good hands now.
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Friday, 21 September 2007:
Last night I tried sleeping
here at home, but woke up this
morning with still another migraine, so I stayed home and am trying to
recover somehow. Jon went to the hospital without me. Tim was moved
out of Cardiothoracic Intensive Care and into his room and Jon told me that Toby & Noris stopped
in for a visit. Nate went very reluctantly with Shea to Provincetown as they had originally planned, and only because Tim told him he would be upset if they didn't go.
:) Later Larisa went down and relieved Jon.
Beverly took me out to do errands to get a decent meal at Ruby
Tuesday, where I had the most delicious strawberry lemonade - it
hit spot! Then we went to Borders where I bought a heart-healthy cookbook.
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Saturday, 22 September 2007:
Last night we put a movie in the DVD and I fell asleep
instantly! Woke up early and started looking at the cookbook and am now feeling quite overwhelmed.
I never enjoyed cooking, but Tim is very repentant now about his eating habits and I would do anything to support his recovery now that he is serious about making changes.
Beverly drove me down to the hospital and visited with Tim for a minute.
Aunt Em called while we were driving down to encourage me - she said Uncle Andy had his first heart attack and by-pass surgery in 1977 when he was 57.
He obeyed the diet and exercise instructions and did not have another heart attack until 1994 when he was 74.
He had another by-pass then and lived until 2002, when his final heart attack killed him, at age 82.
The point is that even with a genetic disposition to heart disease there is hope for a longer life if one is careful about sticking to the diet and getting the exercise.
Tim had asked for his laptop so Beverly and I dragged his laptop bag down there, but he
was too weary to do anything but look at it, and his voice was hoarse because of irritation from the respirator.
Paul and Linda stopped in for a while. He's still not hungry, which seems to be causing the doctors some concern, and his blood count is low, so they gave him a transfusion
this afternoon. It took two hours to drip into his vein, and during that time his skin changed color from very pale white to bright pink.
Jon said he ate some Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast this morning, but
tonight all he wanted was cream of tomato soup.
In the evening he walked down to the family waiting room and made an appearance for Ella and Eliza, who brought him flowers they had grown in their garden, a stuffed cow and a stuffed puppy and a card on which Eliza had signed her own name.
(She was quite proud of doing this for her Grandpa!) Jon and Jannai
said this was the first time she had put the letters of her name all
together in one word. Seeing them did him a world of good.
I got to hold Eliza's hand on the walk from Tim's room to the parking
garage and Jannai drove me home. Jon spent the night with Tim.
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Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass. |
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Emily Dickinson
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Sunday, 23 September 2007:
Up and downs - it's all getting to be a blur, but Tim's recovery seems to be headed in the right direction.
Dr. Hashim is planning to discharge him tomorrow (Monday) at 9:30 in the
morning. It's strange, though, that he can't move himself around on the bed or pull himself up into a sitting position.
After I pull him up to sitting, then he can swing his legs around to the floor, stand up, and then he's off to the races.
He takes his walks and does his lung exercises and sleeps the rest of the time, which is good.
He still tends to fall asleep mid-sentence. Larisa and I headed down
to relieve Jon, but she got a migraine and I wound up driving us back
here after a short visit.
I've "known" for a long time that Tim would eventually have a heart attack - I believed what his doctor was warning him about and what I had read about
it, but mostly my intuition was right on the mark. Still, this
whole heart attack/coronary bypass surgery experience has been surreal
and I suppose that I have yet to grasp the scope of what has happened.
Frozen in my memory is kissing Tim goodbye that morning and how much we were looking forward to a "date" we had planned that night.
He came home from work and we had supper, then a glass of wine... We played three games of backgammon and were talking intimately about many things and then
were having an especially wonderful time making love. Soon after
we finished Tim stood up and said that he must have pulled a muscle in his arm.
My first thought was, uh oh, heart attack. The moment I'd been
dreading for a few years. He began pacing around the room with his arm up in the air, trying to work out the "strain",
and saying "come on, arm, come on."
I started putting on my clothes and told him I thought he was having a heart attack.
He snarled at me, "It's not my heart, it's my arm!" Then he got very nauseous and went into the bathroom to vomit (but never did), asking for towels - the sweat was pouring out of him in buckets.
(I must have kept handing him hand towels because I kept finding them
strewn about for the next few days...) I do remember giving him one towel and told him I was calling an ambulance.
"No!" he ordered. It's funny the weird things people do when
sensing danger. I went to my laptop, did a search for heart attack
symptoms and printed out the first list that popped up and went back to the bathroom and read them to him.
He had every one of
them, except chest pain. Just call Nate, then, he said
reluctantly.
So I did and then got him to take an aspirin and threw him some clothes and blew out the candles and Nat arrived in a flash (I suspect faster than an ambulance would have).
When we got to the emergency room the receptionist told him to take a seat and he did.
I couldn't believe how stubborn he was being. I told her I thought he was having a heart attack and she immediately jumped up and got the appropriate person who whisked him away while he glared at me for being such an alarmist.
(By now he thought perhaps he had the flu or something.) Anyhow, they hooked him up to all kinds of monitors and started giving him clot busters and when the cardiologist,
Dr. Gaudio, arrived he asked Tim what he had been doing when the symptoms started.
Tim started hemming and hawing, so I jumped in and told the doctor straight
out. (Later when I told the kids, they all thought it was rather amusing.)
As the doctors and nurses were coming in and out of the room they would occasionally ask Tim to describe the pain and he gave these very precise descriptions.
Dr. Gaudio glanced at me during one of them and said, "He's very analytical, isn't he?"
You don't know the half of it, I said. When they were arranging for the Life Star helicopter to come get him, Tim sheepishly asked the cardiologist if he was really having a heart attack.
Yes, you most assuredly are. Tim looked at me and said, "I'm sorry. You were right."
Dr. Gaudio admonished him that he did well letting me call Nate, but that he would have done better if he had let me call an ambulance.
I can't help wondering that if this had happened while he was home alone he would have toughed it out until he passed out or died, and I would have come home to find him dead on the floor.
As it was they were able to bust that clot out before the heart was damaged.
Time was of the essence and we beat the clock. The kids kept saying, "Good call, Mom."
Written by Tim:
I remember having a very nice time with a glass of wine and playing Backgammon with you on the bed in our bedroom.
This being followed with an especially nice round of sex. I remember feeling a bit more tired or exhausted than usual and getting out off you and laying down.
At that time my left arm started to hurt from the back of the hand all the way to the very top of the shoulder.
The next 5 to 10 minutes went very quickly with you being very concerned
from the start of my mentioning the pain in my arm. I didn't feel any pain in my chest until maybe in the car with Nate, but even that was very small and I thought
it was just nervousness from what was happening. The events when we arrived at the
emergency room happened as you have already written. They were very quick to get me on my back and the drugs into me to try and loosen the blockages.
I remember at first they said they would have to send me by Life Star to Yale-New
Haven, which alarmed me. I think it was at this point that I asked if I was really
having a heart attack. It was with mixed emotions that I accepted his answer.
Relief that this was not a false alarm and therefore not having to feel
embarrassed about taking up their time, but also weird as heart attacks happen to "other people".
I always considered myself as having a strong constitution, being a superman of
sorts. So to be told I was having a heart attack took me back a step or two.
For the most part during my whole stay in all this I played the obedient patient, accepting tat the doctors and nurses knew more than I did so I never questioned them.
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Monday, 24 September 2007:
A bit of excitement today in Tim's hospital room - the kid and the older man secretly smoking and covering for each other - security was called....
Nate and I stopped at IKEA and got a Poäng footstool for the Poäng chair for Dad to keep his legs up when he's sitting.
I think I'm going to fall asleep soon. Tim was very disappointed that he couldn't come home today - he can't wait to get those small wires off his chest and take a real shower.
I can't wait to snuggle up beside him.
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Tuesday, 25 September 2007:
Well, Tim finally made it home! His irritated voice box (from the
breathing tube for the respirator) seems to be what is bothering him the most, so we're trying to get by with nods and shakes of the head and paper and
pencil.
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Thursday, 27 September 2007:
In spare moments I've been browsing through a book Erik sent me
(Eater's Choice) and an article Beverly gave me (February 2007 National
Geographic, "Healing the Heart"), and pondering the various things the cardiologists said to me while treating Tim.
It was in January of 2003 that Tim was diagnosed with hypertension, high cholesterol and metabolic syndrome.
His doctor said it was such a good thing that he didn't smoke (another risk factor for heart attack) and put him on Lipitor for the cholesterol and Altace for the high blood pressure and advised him to change his diet and start exercising.
He took the pills (most of the time) and ignored the rest of the advice.
What we didn't know then, however, was what scientists are just beginning to understand, that there is a genetic factor that was putting Tim at even greater risk.
As one cardiologist said, a person's heart attack risk is "50 percent genetic and 50 percent cheeseburger."
And it isn't just one gene, but several different ones that combine in various ways, some affect "arterial integrity," some inflammation, some the processing of fats and cholesterol, etc.
The cardiologists at Yale-New Haven were very curious about Tim's genetic history.
At the time I only could recall that his maternal grandmother died of a heart attack in her 50s.
This morning I pulled out her death certificate, which I had obtained quite a few years ago for genealogical purposes.
There it was, what the doctors were looking for. She died at age 54 of "cardiac failure."
She was diagnosed with arteriosclerotic heart disease "3 yrs." prior to her death, about age 51.
Tim was diagnosed when he was 50 and had this heart attack at 54. Very sobering.
And we would have lost him without all the current medical technology.
So I passed these thoughts along to Tim's brothers and our
children. Because the genetic risk factor they may have inherited cannot be changed, it is even more important
for them to lower the other risk factors that can be changed.
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Friday, 28 September 2007:
Got an email from Erik saying that he was interviewed and examined by
Ludovico Balducci, MD at H. Lee
Moffitt Cancer Treatment & Research Institute in Tampa on Wednesday.
He wrote:
As I have cancer in two sites, and the nodule on my lung is an unknown cancer, my case is a bit "complex".
Their tumor and surgical committees meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, so Dr.
Balducci will call me (in his very heavy Italian accent) next Thursday with results of the consultation.
However, we have already schedule on Oct.10, an appointment with a surgeon, Dr. Sommers.
We have been told that Moffitt has on its staff some of the finest thoracic surgeons in the country..
We think this is in preparation for lung surgery to remove the small nodule and do the pathological analysis to determine what kind of cancer it was.
He also guessed that they would recommend treatment with the new drug Torsel.
We shall know more Thursday or Friday.
Otherwise, I feel fine. Just a little anxious about next steps, but generally very encouraged by the really
excellent facility I'm lucky enough to be able to use.
On a sad note, while we were at the hospital, Liz's brother Bill passed away.
He had been at home, under hospice care and had been seriously ill for some time.
Since we were in Tampa, we were able to visit with Marlene, Bill's partner for the last 26 years.
I hope everyone's well, with a special wish for Tim's uneventful and full recovery from surgery in the next month.
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Saturday, 29 September 2007:
I want to hug Tim so badly, but I'm making do with squeezing his hand and petting him.
Yesterday there was a slight improvement in his voice, but by bedtime it was pretty messed up again.
I suspect each night of sleep will eventually get the healing done.
I've since learned that the breathing tube for the respirator is inserted right through the vocal chords - eek.
Nate took me food shopping today... Clyde's Cider Mill, Puritan
& Genesta, CVS, and Big Y. Tim sat in the car, but went in at
CVS to see the new store and count it as one of his walks. I wound
up taking a nap in the afternoon and when I woke up Tim was sitting in
the kitchen directing Nate as he cooked up some spaghetti and meat sauce
in the way I usually make it. :)
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Sunday, 30 September 2007:
Today Nate & Shea came over and prepared a chicken and
asparagus feast from one of the heart-healthy cookbooks we're all getting acquainted with.
I got a migraine and took a Zomig (magic!) and a nap and was able to eat
dinner with everyone. After taking the week off from work and classes to help out, Larisa is playing catch-up with her assignments.
Jon exhausted himself spending his nights at the hospital with Tim and is catching up on his sleep and time with the little ones.
Tim & I feel very blessed to have their love and amazing support.
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Monday, 1 October 2007:
It's no wonder that heart disease the single leading cause of death in America today.
We felt doomed by all the cancer in the family medical history, but if you smoke, you're more likely to die prematurely from heart disease than from cancer.
I was shocked to learn that. We don't have to give up, though, we can all support each other's food choices and try to do more active things when our families get together.
I don't think Tim will ever forget the pain he endured and he now understands what he is dealing with and how close to death he was.
Nate & Shea have quit smoking. I'm slowly feeling less overwhelmed by the diet changes - I'm starting to think I can handle it.
Have to.
Tim's voice is still coming and going and sounds better for slightly longer periods each day. He's good about taking his walks and eating according to the diet.
Can't hug him yet - the surgeon said his sternum will take 3 months to heal completely and could "crack open like an egg."
Tim separated it a bit during a coughing spell in the hospital. They took an x-ray and said that the separation wasn't big enough to justify going back in to fix it.
Handle with care.
While all this with Tim has been going on another medical problem with Aunt Lil has been brewing.
Poor Beverly. Something is wrong with Aunt Lil's eye and she is scheduled to have four hour out-patient surgery on it in Norwich on Thursday.
Beverly has an important lab/field trip with her students that day which she is trying not to miss, although the other geology professor is willing to do it for her in a pinch.
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Tuesday, 2 October 2007:
Tim's coming along, still having ups and downs. Still asking for painkillers, which make him feel well enough to play World of Warcraft at odd hours.
:) He's good about taking his walks, he's up to 7 minutes around the parking lot, and we usually check the mail and/or take the garbage out at these times.
And he's getting himself up and down and around on his chair by himself.
Yesterday he dried his own toes after his shower for the first time.
Still black and blue all over, but I'm giving him Vitamin C to help with all the repair work.
His larynx is still messed up, although his voice sounds normal for longer periods of time each day.
When he's tired he can't speak without gasping and squeaking. We're both camping out in the living room.
Looking forward to a new PBS series which explores the heart and how
we cope with coronary diseases:
The heart is the engine of human life.
Beating almost 100,000 times a day, more than 36 million times each year, it endures abuse and trauma with extraordinary resilience.
Yet, as more nations become prosperous and lifestyles change, heart disease has become the world's number one killer of men and women alike.
In America alone, approximately 3,000 people each day die from cardiovascular disease.
THE MYSTERIOUS HUMAN HEART, airing Mondays, October 15, 2007, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET and October 22, 2007, 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET on PBS, is a new in-depth, comprehensive television series from award-winning filmmaker David Grubin about the heart: how it works, what can go wrong with it and how we treat it.
The three-part series follows the true, compelling stories of men and women, young and old alike, whose hearts have led them to a brush with mortality.
Through these encounters, the series explores the most common misconceptions about this unique organ and documents the latest scientific and medical revelations -- discoveries that have transformed our understanding of the heart and given us new insights into the best ways to prevent heart disease and treat it when it does occur.
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Wednesday, 3 October 2007:
For Tim's walk yesterday we went to Mystic and walked to the Grey Goose Cookery store and bought a little mortar and pestle and two pastry brushes and a citrus juicer.
I'm making my first low-fat crockpot today. :)
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Thursday, 4 October 2007:
(16 days after bypass surgery)
Tonight
we took a ten minute sunset walk on the Sculpture Path by the Sea leading to the
Avery Point Lighthouse. (UConn's Avery Point
campus here in Groton.) Five minutes from the car
to the lighthouse, five minutes back. Tim enjoyed
seeing some of the sculptures along the walk that he
hasn't seen for a while, especially the "egg
cart," - we didn't get a picture of it,
though. The weather is unbelievably warm for
October and we've been running the air conditioning off
and on for the past couple of weeks.
Yesterday he surprised the folks at the Old Mystic
General Store by walking in for a quick visit. He
usually walks there for his lunch when he's working in
the Old Mystic office. They were all amazed that
he was up and about and listened intently to his story.
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Friday, 5 October 2007:
We went food
shopping at Big Y, Tim's first trip to the grocery store since the surgery.
It was fun today having him read the labels and make the choices. He's doing well for the
most part, except that he is still bothered by his larynx.
He also has two areas, one on his chest and one on his leg, where he has no sensation.
He's losing weight, about 20 lbs. so far. We will likely need to get him a new wardrobe before he returns to work!
He is accepting all the dietary changes without protest and is still enjoying his walks.
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Saturday, 6 October 2007:
Dan
& Fran arrived for a visit!!! Larisa was here for a bit, and
after we ate lunch and she left we took a walk with Dan & Fran at
Avery Point. It was beautiful, as always, and now we're trying to
convince Dan that he'd really rather retire here than in North
Carolina. Think of the sailing! When we got back Jon &
Jannai, Ella and Eliza dropped in for a good visit. After they
left and we ate dinner Tim decided his next walk was going to be in
Mystic. So we walked down the west side of the Mystic River and
admired all the sailboats and yachts, and walked through town, and wound
up standing right near the drawbridge, a bascule bridge (a type of drawbridge with counterweights), just as it was opening. Then
we found seats at Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream and Tim had a blackberry
sorbet - good choice. When we got home Dan and Tim watched Hot
Fuzz, a movie Dan brought with him. Both
agreed that the movie only deserved a "C" rating.
Mystic River Drawbridge Webcam
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Sunday, 7 October 2007:
The
morning was spent relaxing with Dan & Fran and then Tim and Dan went
out to exchange Dan's rented car which was having a problem of some
sort. Fran and I drove up to Angie's for dinner, and Dan and Tim
made it there a little later. We have finally got some cooler,
crisp autumn air! What a feast Angie prepared, spaghetti and
meatballs, salad, eggplant parmesan and cheesecake, made by Nana, for
dessert. Tim was chilly and ate moderately. I, on the other
hand, pigged out because Nate & Shea had made me special meatballs
with hormone-free beef and rice crackers (instead of wheat), and boiled
me my own pot of wheat-free noodles. Little Julius charmed us all
with his antics - we had a great time. Unfortunately Fran had to
work on Monday, so she & Dan had to leave at 3 o'clock to get back
to Virginia at a reasonable time. Tim & I left, too, and when
we got home I tucked him into bed under a pile of blankets and he slept
a solid three hours. Later he said he had probably overdone
things, but was glad that he did...
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Monday, 8 October 2007:
Larisa
had the day off of work so she came down in the afternoon and she and I
did some shopping together. The last stop was Auto Zone, where she
literally picked up two new batteries, one for the Tercel and one for
the Echo. That girl has some wicked strong arm muscles like my
sister. Amazing... We picked up Nate, who was pleasantly
tipsy from his hard cider, and he came over
and showed her how to replace the car batteries in both cars.
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Leif Eriksen Day, 2007:
We went to a 10:40 a.m. appointment with the physician's
assistant at Dr. Gaudio's. Tim got a flu shot and
was told he could now drive. He's still losing
weight and seems to be right on track. Afterwards
he drove us to Stop & Shop, where we haven't shopped
in years, so we could check it out and compare prices
that we've been hearing a lot about from Nate &
Shea. Came home with a full load of groceries and
carried them in myself, much to Tim's frustration.
He was pretty tired when we got home. I had fun in
the kitchen while he dozed, baking a new (to us) baked
codfish dish, Zesty Tomato-Garlic Fish.
Scrumptious!
Wednesday, 10 October 2007:
Woke
up with a migraine and took some Zomig. Jon came over and visited
with Tim while I went back to bed. But we had a wonderful romantic afternoon...
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Thursday, 11 October 2007:
Woke
up with another migraine and took a Zomig and made it to Tim's 10:45
a.m. appointment with Dr. Ducey, our family physician. Tim got to
tell him his story and ask a few questions. We were
wondering how the leg was getting its blood now that the main vein had
been used for two of the coronary bypasses. Dr. Ducey said it was
as if I-95 had been closed down and we now had to rely on local highways,
like Rtes. 1, 12, and 184. Much of the pain in Tim's leg is
probably caused by scar tissue being tugged on by the more elastic skin
and muscles. Dr. Ducey also compared the heart attack to coming
abruptly to a stop sign. Now it's up to Tim to decide if he'll be
turning left or right. He asked Tim if he had hit the wall
yet. Apparently a while after a heart attack and bypass surgery
some survivors suddenly realize emotionally (not just intellectually)
just how close a brush with death was had. The weather was drizzly
and much more October-like, so we took a walk at the Waterford Commons
and ate lunch out at Ruby Tuesday. The strawberry lemonade was as
good as I remembered it to be, and since Tim didn't like his too much, I
wound up drinking his as well. Tim ordered a salmon salad and chamomile
tea. :) In the evening Larisa came down to check out
a used car in Groton, and wound up taking an entourage (Tim, Alyssa,
Nate & Shea) with her. I think the consensus was that it was
overpriced.
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Friday, 12 October 2007:
Jon
came over to visit Tim in the morning and the three of us took a walk in
the Birch
Plain Creek Wildlife Area, behind our condo complex. Pictures
Watched the Eric Clapton
interview on Larry King Live on CNN.
Oslo: THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR 2007
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.
Saturday, 13 October 2007:
A
quiet day... In the afternoon we went to Clyde's Cider Mill in Old
Mystic. It was mobbed!
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Monday, 15 October 2007: We
did a few errands and took a new walk on the Poquonnock River Walkway.
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Saturday, 20 October 2007:
Yesterday we got some badly needed rain. In the afternoon we
picked Al up at the New London train station and drove him up to Storrs
to for a long weekend with Papa. He is now an octogenarian!
(I can't help noting that I am now older that he was back when he was my
high school earth science teacher in Greece!) He and Tim compared cardiac notes. Tim and John had a good chat in
the kitchen while Papa, Al and I watched several episodes of Meerkat
Manor. (Sean Astin, who plays Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the
Rings movie trilogy, is the narrator.) Tim was sore from all
the driving, so I started out driving home, but some very heavy rain
forced us to switch off somewhere in Franklin. (I can drive okay
in rain or darkness - but not both together!) Today we plan to
stay pretty quiet and let the healing continue, with perhaps a little
trip to Clyde's for more cider for Tim.
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Monday, 22 October 2007:
Saturday morning Dad was making himself a sandwich in the kitchen when
he fell, breaking his hip and pelvis and a rib. He did not want to
go to the doctor and so it took John and Al an hour to get him back in
bed. When Beverly arrived home from her field trip she tried to
make him comfortable for a while, but when he started having tremors she
called an ambulance and he was finally admitted to Windham
Community Memorial Hospital in Willimantic in the wee hours of Sunday
morning. He's in a lot of pain and the doctors (general
practitioner, orthopedist and cardiologist) still haven't decided on a
plan of treatment for him because they're trying to figure out if he
lost consciousness before he fell and if his heart would be okay for
surgery. He's well doped up on morphine and has been getting all
sorts of tests and the waiting and uncertainty is just very very
hard. Tim was supposed to start his cardio rehab today but he
postponed it until Thursday.
I went down with Dad to get a CAT Scan this afternoon and because two
trauma patients from a car accident, a mother and her little daughter,
needed to be scanned first I waited in the hall for a little while with
him lying on the stretcher. Looking at him as he slept there I
started thinking about my mother and how sad it has been for him not to
have had her comfort these past sixteen years since he had to watch her
die. I thought of a quote I read recently by Andrew Harvey:
"To be in a body is to hear the heartbeat of death at every
moment." And I would add, having come so precariously close
to losing my own beloved, to be in love with another is to hear two of
those heartbeats, knowing one of you will be left alone when all is said
and done. To have to be the one to go first or to be the one left
behind, equally terrible positions.
 Alone
with Papa in that hallway the tears started to flow, and as I mopped
them up I wished him some peace and the healing power of love,
telepathically I suppose. He did seem to relax. It reminded
me how the Universe seems to send a comforting sign to me whenever I
have to witness the suffering of someone I love. When Jon was
hospitalized back in 2000 it was the breathtaking beauty, looking up
from underneath of a huge cherry tree, in full blossom in April, at the
entrance to the hospital. When Tim had his heart attack it was a
shooting star blazing across the sky over Larisa's and my road
home. And with this crisis with Papa it is the irises in my
garden. The wonder of it all is that they are blooming starting
yesterday. And it is October! Now perhaps I unknowingly got
hold of a re-blooming variety, or perhaps this is the result of
record-breaking above normal temperatures for October and the irises are
confused, but this is the only time these have ever bloomed in the
fall. Tim got the picture for me this morning with Beverly's
camera. Amazing!
On the way home from the hospital tonight in the car, the iPod, set
on random select, somehow appropriately chose a Death Cab for Cutie
song, What Sarah Said. I'll end this with a few words from
the song:
'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that "Love is watching someone die"
So who's going to watch you die?..
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