The Valentine's Day Gift

I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of telling the story about the year Don gave me a fifty gallon gas tank for Valentine’s Day. Whatever made him think that I’d be bowed over by his generosity and slobber kisses all over his face or hug him silly over a gas tank, I don’t know. I am the practical type and I’ve liked my share of practical gifts, but this was just a little bit too practical and, well, too macho male. I’ve never expected anything out of the truck I drove back in those days other than to have it start when I turned the key. I wasn’t into add-ons---flashy or practical---plus we live in an area of 600,000 people and we have gas stations at very predictable intervals. A fifty gallon tank seemed like over-kill to me but Don is a guy and sometimes male logic defies a woman’s ability to answer that burning question: What was he thinking?!

The next winter I found out what he was thinking. My brown Chevy short box and I became the 'gas station' for all the other trucks on the mall where we plowed snow. “Yes, sir, Texaco Woman has arrived to pump your gas!” It makes my teeth chatter, now, just thinking about hopping out of a truck to stand in the cold, winter nights pumping gas. I also carried all the extra oils, windshield wipers and hydraulic fluids, so I was in demand. I was a regular little traveling bomb shell, and not the blonde kind with big boobs. I was really worried someone would side-swipe me and I’d go up in flames. Ca-boom! There goes Jean! No more snow angel drills where we’d all park our snowplows in a circle and lay down in the snow, flurrying our limps. No more snow bunny union either; we girl snow plowers once wrote up a contract designed to keep the guy drivers from peeing on our tires.

Thinking back over the thirty-five years of Valentine’s Days we’ve been a couple, Don has taken the sweet, the sentimental, the traditional, the girl impressing route many times. I’ve gotten Joy perfume, the heart-shaped candy boxes, fancy greeting cards that come with their own boxes, plus an assortment of artwork. Don was at a disadvantage, though, when it came to buying flowers for me because I could buy them wholesale for the first twenty years. Even after I quit the floral business, I didn’t care if I saw another flower for several years afterwards. By the time I did start putting them on my wish list again, the die was cut: Don didn’t buy flower. Old dogs don’t learn new tricks.

Years ago, Don and I took a little neighbor girl to the rodeo with us. It was an event our home town sponsored every year and that year Dale Evans was the featured entertainer. This five year old had the biggest crush on Don and she wasn’t too happy when she found out that I would be going to the rodeo with them. Her mom had the solemn job of trying to explain that I was the girlfriend; Don and I were a package deal. Earlier that year, she also got her cute little nose out of joint when she found out that Don had bought me a bigger heart-shaped box of candy than the one Don and I had bought for him to give to her for Valentine’s Day. Debby is 30-something now and she says she still has that heart-shaped box. All little girls should get a cool Valentine’s Day gift from their first crushes. And all big girls should get one big turkey of a gift---like a fifty gallon gas tank---so she can good-naturedly rub it in for the next hundred years.

Jean Riva ©


Painting: Romeo and Juliet by Sir Frank Dicksee

The People's Media Awards for 2007

Last February I submitted an article for publication at Associated Content, an on-line media site with over 100,000 registered members (include 23,000 published content producers) and nearly a million site clicks each day. It was about my husband's massive stroke and how it affected our lives. I just learned that it won a $1,000 People's Media Award for being one of the best text articles submitted for 2007. This is a prestigious and coveted award from a site that publishes literally thousands upon thousands of articles. This year alone they gave out $10,000 in prize money split between the nine of us winners. I'm very proud that I could write an article about my husband's stroke and have it so well received. Having the topic of a stroke showcased in this way can, hopefully, help give the general population a better understanding of how a stroke turn lives upside down. And that is good for all of us in the stroke community.

In the right hand column, see the 'PMA Awards' section for links to my winning article, How my Husband's Stroke Changed my Life and to my acceptance speech, What It's Like to Win One of the People's Media Awards at Associated Content. The third link is to the announcement article that includes a list of all nine of the winners in the 2007 awards. ©

Jean Riva
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Lost at Yahoo Questions and Answers

It's embarrassing that it's taken me so long to update this blog. I have but one excuse. I've become seriously addicted to answering questions at Yahoo. Oh, yes, it's like eating pop corn in a movie theater---so hard to stop the mindless action! No matter how fast you can type, it's humanly impossible to keep up with the endless and daunting flow of questions on everything from politics to relationships to disabilities to you name it. In a short period of time I've racked up 7,146 points and replied to 1,604 questions. It's like playing the slots, hoping your answers will get picked for the extra ten points as THEE best. My time on the computer goes so fast at Yahoo. But all good things---and I use that term lightly here---must come to an end. Or in other words, I've decided it's time that I get back my pre-Yahoo life where I spend my computer differently, where I'm not so entranced staring at the monitor that I don't even want to get up to go to the bathroom. Help! Is there a ten step program for people hooked on Yahoo Questions and Answers?

When Don came home from the hospital (after his aorta aneurysm surgery) he bounced back fairly fast. He's had his post-opt CAT scan and blood work done and all looks well. We still need to get him started back up with his exercise program. He's lost most---but not all---of the improvements he'd gained through the aquatic pool and land therapy this fall. Thankfully, though, we did that work to build up his core body strength before the surgery. Without it he would have had a much harder time in the hospital.

I've slowed down since the surgery. I guess those crazy-busy months we've had beforehand finally caught up with me. I'm worn out but slowly rejuvenating, coming out of my fog. If the temperature outside would just get warmer, that would help. I'm so tired of being cold. But that's another story and I've been bitching long enough. I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm back and I plan to stay. In a few days I'll have some exciting news to share. Come back then and I'll tell you all about it.…..©

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Lucky Saturday

Finally, Don is home from the hospital...but with strings. They've signed him up for home physical therapy to get him back to base line. Base for him is independent transfers from his wheelchair to where ever and back. He's not quite there yet---I need to stand by to be sure he's safe---but I'm hoping we can build up his strength rather fast, given that he was doing so well after this fall's round of aquatic pool and land therapy.

I know all the rules that social services has to follow, now, before releasing people from the hospital are well intended, but it's still a scary thought that someone other than me can determine if I'm capable of caring for my husband at home, or not. The nurses at the hospital, in packs of two, all struggled to transfer Don but when I was there I was able to transfer him all by myself. They just didn't know his little quirks. Quirks like how he always has a false start the first time trying. They would tug and pull on his gate belt on his first try where if they'd have just given him a chance to try again, he would have done most of the lifting and shifting under his own power. It didn't do any good to tell them because each day it would be a different set of nurses and aids. And each day they'd fill in that little line on the nurse's notes "moderate or full assist" and thus social services has to follow up with our going home plans. Oh, well. At least he's home and we'll get our lives back as soon as Don proves that he can be as safe as I know he can.

Day Seven

Strange how quickly we can fall into different patterns in life. Don's been in the hospital seven days now and already my days are in a rhythm that dovetails with his. By eight o'clock I'm up to shower and have a Slim-Fast for breakfast before taking off for the hospital on the other end of town. I stop for a Starbucks's caramel macchiato when I'm almost there and carry it into the hospital and by the time I've reached the fifth floor it's gone. The empty cup gets tossed in the waste basket by the guest lounge but not before reading the bit of writing that is printed on the side. Today it said: "Secret santas and soup-kitchen elves walk amongst us. Are you one of them? If so, we'd just like to say, 'Way to go.' That's what the season is all about." I'm not one of those but I second that thought although I was slightly disappointed that their usual bit of philosophy got set aside for that holiday message. Sometimes their mystic words stay with me all day long.

The mornings go fast in Don's room with succession of professionals coming and going. Today it started with two physical therapies who got him out of bed and wheeling his chair up and down the hall. Then the head of the rehab department came down to talk to us about the possibility of moving Don to their floor to get him stronger for transfers before releasing him. The social worker came next to interview me about our needs at home. "No, we don't have steps." "Yes, we have grab bars." As soon as she left Don had urgent business to do in the bathroom which took two men and a truck to get him on the toilet. His lunch came next and then a nap.

I went down to the café while Don slept. Chicken again. Already I'm bored with hospital food. Then I took a side trip to the gift shop to read the magazine covers before heading back upstairs. The afternoon was quiet as I read Barack Obama's book, "Dreams From my Father" until it was time to order Don's dinner and go back home to a sleepy, old dog who looked as if he hadn't moved all day long.

Every day I go down to the hospital thinking this will be the day Don will come home. After all, it was only suppose to be one night in the hospital. But INR readings were keeping him hostage at first and now they've added his physical ability to get back to his 'base line' as a second criteria to meet. Base line for Don is independent transfers. Part of the trouble at the hospital is that all the bathroom grab bars are set up for left side disabilities and Don is right side disabled. I requested a room change thinking they'd have reverse set ups in other rooms like they do every other room in motels. But this beautiful, brand new hospital has absolutely identical rooms through out. Identical rooms, I'm told, are supposed to make the nursing staff more efficient. Maybe so, but it sure puts all the right side disabled stroke survivors at a disadvantage and in Don's case it's making him look more caregiver-intense than he'll be at home.

Tomorrow we're expecting another snow storm to come through so I'm not looking forward day eight's commute.

Jean Riva ©

Christmas: Past, Present and Future

It's Christmas Eve and feelings of happiness that Don's aorta aneurysm surgery was successful are intermingled with fleeting feelings of fear and sadness. Fear of a future filled with loneliness should Don, at some point, cease to be before my time on earth has ended. Sad at past loses and flowing tears.

I left the hospital today, came home to an arthritic dog with cataract encrusted eyes and he reminded me even more of how fragile life can be. Don, the dog and going back and forth to the hospital couldn't help but bring ghosts of another holiday season not so long ago when I held my dad's hand at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve and shortly afterwards he ceased to be. Dead while the rest of the world rollicked in colorful wrapping paper and ribbons. Dead while shiny stars stood tall on the tops of twinkling trees and gazed down on laughing children who were too young to understand or care about the pain in my heart.

I had no Christmas spirit this year. No cards went out. Short of a wreath on the front door, no decorations shouted out their joy around our house. I barely was able to open greeting cards that arrived in the mailbox. I felt guilty cheating Don out of the traditions we've carved out for ourselves, living here these past few years since his stroke. But buried deep in the corner of my mind was the fear that Don would die or be forever lost in the maze of disabilities that would finally put him in a nursing home. It was a secret I couldn't share that I knew I couldn’t have come home, if the worst had happened, to a house with Christmas decor. It would have mocked me for being so presumptuous that Don would beat the odds once again. And it would have forever sealed the association of tinsel and boughs of holly with death. But the worst didn't happen and I am grateful that in a few days I'll no longer have to look across the empty space that Don usually occupies beside me in the bedroom.

The dog is doing what dogs do---begging for treats and his little toenails clicking on the Linoleum keeps the fear of the future and the sadness of the past at bay as I watch "It's a Wonderful Life" for the umpteenth time in my life. That old black and white movie with James Stewart and Donna Reed is Don's favorite Christmas film. It seems quite appropriate as I end this essay that I should hear Clarence, the angel-in-training, sum up the entire message of the film in two sentences: "Each man's life touches so many others' lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he."

Jean Riva ©

Success!

Don was on the operating table for four hours, in recovery for two and in ICU for four hours after that. He came through the aorta aneurysm repair very well, with no complications, and when I left the hospital tonight he seemed to be back to his old personality. He'll be in the hospital at least until Monday morning which is a couple of extra days more than they usually keep people when they do the stent through the groin. But he has so many stroke related issues plus the heart A-fib that the surgeon wants to be careful he doesn't fall and undo his work. Plus his INR blood work has to check out okay for them to release him, which it doesn't right now.

After it was over the surgeon told us that the aneurysm started just under the heart and went all the way down the stomach and into each leg. We were shocked to hear that. I was visualizing a ping pong shaped thing, not something the shape of a football and that long. I commented to the doctor that "I don't know how you guys have the guts to do stuff like that" and he answered back, "I was up at four this morning wondering the same thing." I'm glad I was blissfully ignorant about the size of that thing going into the surgery. I was nervous enough thinking it was smaller.

Thanks to everyone who sent their prayers and good thoughts our way. I've been up since three with very little sleep before that so I'm off to bed.