Posts Tagged ‘Cyndie’
Monumental Improvement
Tuesday morning I received the most wonderful news from Cyndie as she made her way down the hall from the bedroom after waking. I expected from the sound of her voice that the message was going to be good, but she caught me by surprise with how good.
It wasn’t simply that, for the first time since her hip replacement surgery over two weeks ago, she had gotten a good night’s sleep, it was the best she has slept in years! I do believe she is experiencing the improvement that so many people have described to us after having gone through their own similar surgeries.
The pain from that old arthritic joint is gone. Her description of the improvement helps me to better grasp how much pain she has been living with, and for how long she has been struggling to endure it. As often as I witnessed her pain in person over the years, I still lacked an accurate sense of what exactly she was dealing with.
She hasn’t even enjoyed a good, full night of sleep in years. Her amazing ability to cope with it as well as she has all this time had led me to interpret it as not being that major a problem. The sudden return of the light in her eyes and joy in her voice has opened my eyes to the fact of how much her spirit and energy have been repressed for far too long.
She seems so much better now that I am wondering if maybe I should look into a lower back replacement for the days my degenerating discs make me uncomfortable. She’s doing that well!
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Relative Calm
For the most part, calm prevails on the ranch as we settle into a routine of rest and healing for Cyndie. With neither one of us needing to go anywhere, we can operate at a very comfortable pace, guided by the regular intervals of animal feeding times which I must act on.
Cyndie is capable enough now to take care of many things herself, so I don’t need to constantly be in her immediate vicinity. Plus, we continue to be blessed with the added assistance of her mother’s occasional visits, or the home-care nurses and physical therapist.
We received a dusting of snow after last weekend’s melt, making our views a bit more photogenic again, at least for this time of year. I was going through a bit of a picture-taking drought for a while there.
After walking Delilah yesterday morning, I grabbed my camera and headed back outside to see if I could capture some of the scenes that had caught my eye moments earlier.
The horses were so content, messily chomping away on the hay in our two feeders, that I was moved to take some extra time and linger among them. Both Legacy and Dezirea had rubbed their manes into a tangled “braid” that defies logic. I have yet to see how they do it, but it is a recurring phenomena —more so for her than him. They tolerated my interest in detangling their hairdos, continuing to munch at the feeder while I worked.
Delilah patiently waited for me in the barn, where I left her while getting hay. It’s a good day when she quietly waits for me there while I feed the horses. Too often I feel rushed to get back because of her sharp barks of protest for being left longer than she wants.
The only other thing that has disturbed the peace and quiet we’ve been enjoying is an invoice that came in the mail from the city of River Falls. In addition to needing to pay for the towing and repairs to the truck after Cyndie’s little rollover accident, we are also responsible for paying the public service emergency responders for responding. It costs $500.00 to have an accident in River Falls. It adds insult to injury.
Don’t do it, folks. It is not worth it. That money is better spent on groceries. It irks me to no end that they show up and park their cars with flashing lights while the tow truck works, and then bill you five hundred bucks. If they are going to charge you, they should at least inform you, and give you a choice of having them respond or not.
Talk about a dis-incentive for calling for help. Something is seriously messed up if our tax dollars are not sufficient to fund public services. And they have a monopoly. We should have a choice of more affordable options. If they want to charge for services, then privatize it and let us shop for a responder who charges the fairest price.
I told Cyndie that she is not allowed to have any future accidents in or around River Falls, WI. We can’t afford it. We’ve got horses to feed.
Speaking of the horses, that reminds me, it’s time to go back to grazing. I’m going to return to that place of calm. I don’t have to pay an extra fee to do that.
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Coming Home
Cyndie will be coming home from the hospital today! All the small rugs have been removed from the floors and I’ve cleaned away unnecessary clutter in preparation for her return. I’m heading to the hospital early and hope to have her home by noon. She’ll need to negotiate three steps to get into the house, but then she should have minimal hazards for life on our main floor. I haven’t been able to eliminate all hazards. For instance, Delilah will be so excited to see Cyndie that she will want to jump all over her.
I will be happy to have her home, but not quite as excited as Delilah. I had a couple of days of free sailing with Cyndie receiving full-time care at the hospital. With her home, I become the person responsible for her care, in addition to my other duties maintaining our property and tending to the animals. Luckily, I will have some occasional support from Cyndie’s mom and maybe even a home-healthcare nurse who can check on how the incision is healing.
Any amount of time I can safely be out of the house will now be spent constructing a couple of slow feeder boxes. Yesterday, I picked up the grates from “my welder.” They look just like what I was hoping to get. They should, since they were custom-built to my specifications.
At the rate the horses have been dumping hay all over the ground around the present feeders, I feel a strong urge to get these boxes built as quickly as possible. I sure hope my plan to scrounge enough wood for two boxes will work out.
For all those times I have saved leftover lumber at the end of a project, it would be nice to finally experience some justification for the practice, and actually find a productive use for it.
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Modern Miracle
I will admit to generally taking modern conveniences for granted, but I have a whole new respect for the modern miracle of joint replacement. 
Cyndie is looking great, just one day after having a bone in her leg sawed off and a metal rod forced into the end of it. Sure, she is experiencing residual discomfort, but she reports it as mainly feeling like tenderness of the muscles around her hip and pain from the incision.
I joined her for lunch yesterday and was able to witness her first session of occupational therapy. They are teaching her how to dress herself and move around while protecting the new hip, something she must do for the next 6 weeks of the healing process. No crossing the legs!
If a person decided to ignore every word I write here and just looked at the pictures, they would probably draw the wrong conclusion after seeing this image and the one of her upside down pickup truck, just one week apart.
Her physical therapist was rather shocked to hear of the recent rollover accident, when asking for Cyndie’s recent history.
Many thanks to all who have been sending us love from afar of late. Cyndie is absorbing it all and progressing wonderfully, just a day after completion of this miraculous modern medical procedure.
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All Good
The hip replacement surgery was a success! The only thing that I didn’t really think to plan for was the possibility that the surgeon would be held up with a prior case that went into overtime. Cyndie’s turn started about 2-hours late.
Unlike the incredible experience we had when we went to a different hospital to have arthroscopic surgery on this same hip joint, this time they whisked Cyndie away without me for the pre-op processing. I waited and waited in the lobby until almost the appointed time for her surgery, before they finally came back for me. It was ostensibly a moment for me to wish her well and send her on her way.
I was a little confused when the nurse then brought me a chair. I sat with Cyndie while she nodded off due to the prolonged wait while snuggled inside her Bair Paws forced-air warming gown. When I sensed there was some sort of holdup, I asked if we would have any warning when our case would be allowed to proceed. The nurse adjusted a monitor so that we could see it and pointed out the status icon for the surgery Cyndie’s doctor was involved in. It was a scalpel. When he finished, the icon would change to little stitches. Then they would ask Cyndie to use the bathroom one last time before wheeling her off to the operating room.
Minutes changed to hours. Lunchtime arrived. Eventually there were no other patients but Cyndie. I started receiving text messages from supporters asking how the surgery had gone. At 12:20 I finally saw the icon change from scalpel to stitches. When they ushered me out in order to wheel Cyndie away at 12:38 p.m., I found the waiting area empty. There wasn’t even a receptionist. Apparently they don’t schedule any afternoon surgeries.
I stepped out for lunch and then killed a couple of hours alone in the lobby, the last 30-minutes pacing, until the doctor came out to give me his report. No problems, very straightforward, old joint was in very bad shape, new hip is very stable. It’s all good!
I began to get a sense that he stays focused on his immediate contribution after he stated the procedure took 1.5 hours. Obviously, there was another hour of someone’s time in addition to his work. He then said they were moving her to recovery and would come get me in an hour. Over a half-hour after he said that, a nurse came and told me they had moved her to recovery now and it would be another hour before she would be ready for me to come back. Maybe the doc forgot about the time it takes to finish things after his work was done.
By this time, it was getting dusky outside and most of the professional folks had made their exit from the building for the day. If I had to wait another hour, it was going to make me really late for getting home to tend to our animals. The nurses bent their rules and let me come back to see Cyndie in recovery. She looked good, yet out of it, and in a fair amount of pain. All completely expected.
I made it home after dark and found all our animals safe. They were very happy to see me. Cyndie made it to her room in the hospital and her parents and a brother arrived to provide support. Her brother mentioned she was “coherent, but in and out.”
The doctor told me it was going to be too late by the time she got to her room, for a physical therapy session, but they would have her up first thing in the morning. I can hardly wait to see her walking again.
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Waiting Day
This will be my waiting day. It’s the day when all the action happens, but all I can do is wait for it to be completed. My mind has been contemplating the possible ways our plan could be thwarted, and then either planning ways to avoid pitfalls or summoning thoughts of all the ways it will proceed flawlessly.
I will feed the horses, dog, and cat, and then put Delilah in her outdoor kennel for the day. We head out in rush-hour traffic for the hospital in the Twin Cities, and then I find ways to kill most of the day waiting for news from the doctor that Cyndie’s hip replacement surgery was a complete success.
Once that has happened, I leave Cyndie at the hospital with her family for support, and dash back to Wintervale to feed the horses and let Delilah out.
In a few days, I will bring her home and we’ll focus on recovery and rehabilitation. The next thing you know, she’ll be ridin’ horses or something. I’ll be happy just to see her walk pain-free again. That will be an incredible gift.
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Finally Time
Today is the last day in our long countdown to Cyndie’s hip replacement surgery. This surgery is something that could have happened a long time ago. She was directed to try a variety of alternative treatments for the arthritic joint over the years, with the intent of delaying the inevitable artificial hip for as long as possible. None of them have been as effective as we would have liked.
The time has come.
It is interesting to observe the ever-determined woman working to execute her plan of organizing everything in her life in preparation for the weeks of recovery that lie ahead, while already being virtually incapacitated by the pain and suffering that currently limit her ability to function.
We’ve operated in the mode of her recovering from a surgical procedure enough times to pretty much know the drill now. I will need to do all the driving for her for probably 6-weeks. I become full-time dog walker, which isn’t a big change, as her ability to do that has declined over the days.
Delilah is beginning to reflect the change in primary care-giver by fixating on me more often than on Cyndie. Hopefully, that will reduce her tendency to jump up on Cyndie in search of affection during the recovery period. I’ll just need to stay on my guard as the target of that energy and be sure to get her outside at frequent intervals to run around and wear herself out.
Today she can be outside watching me clear the little bit of snow that fell yesterday. We got just enough to cover everything, but hardly enough to justify plowing. Still, it needs to be removed to keep surfaces clear and safely navigable. In a few days we’ll end up bringing Cyndie home from the hospital with a new hip.
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New Normal
Wednesday brought a return to normalcy at Wintervale, as Cyndie ventured out in the rental car in the early morning hours and drove herself to work. A form of “getting back on that horse,” if you know what I mean. I don’t know what that was like for her, but her safe departure brought a return to the usual weekday routine for the animals and me at home. Although, it was ‘usual’ under the guise of our new normal which involves WINTERY weather!
The horses appear to have adopted seamlessly, and happily paw the ground in the back pasture to reveal grazing available that still interests them. Regardless, I have begun to increase the daily ration of hay that we put out in the paddock to assure they have access to all the fuel their bodies require to be comfortable in the cold temperatures.
I suppose I should probably increase my daily intake of peanut M&Ms to help my body beat the cold, as well.
I finally made it to the bottom of the pile of split wood that my very generous neighbor helped create, moving it all into the woodshed. Now the stack of logs remaining to be split stands out a little more. I was too busy with other priorities in my race to prepare for the impending snow last weekend, to accept his offer of returning to finish all the splitting.
Much of what’s left is little stuff that will be easy to do by hand, anyway. Not that that would have stopped him. I look forward to using my fancy Swedish Smart Splitter to split a few logs at a time, and working on getting that shed filled to capacity. Everything going in there now is for burning next winter. Right now we’ve got barely half the amount of seasoned wood I’d like to have available for burning this year.
Who knew winter would arrive so early?
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Cyndie’s Magic
My favorite scene from yesterday, out of the many fabulous moments, is without a doubt the one where Cyndie magically solved a problem when a branch became stuck in the chipper.
Cyndie and I work in very different ways, and even though it drives me nuts, I am aware that it is a blessing. In simple terms, I am concrete-sequential and she is abstract-random. She also seems naturally able to believe that dwelling in possibility will derive whatever good outcomes she imagines, while I more often find myself bound by laws of physics and a recognition of the probability that what can go wrong, will.
She offered to pull branches out of the brush pile and stage them for me so I could feed them into the chipper. Great!
She suggested we bring the truck down to catch the chips directly in the back of it. Brilliant! I wish I would have come up with that idea.
Things were progressing nicely, despite my frustration over her random version of staging, when one rather large branch became tightly wedged in the narrowing feeder chute of the chipper, bringing things to an abrupt halt.
I tried a couple of pulls and pushes, quickly deciding to shut down the tractor engine for a closer look. That, and my angst laden appearance, brought Cyndie over to view my attempts to wrestle it free. With both of us wearing hearing protection, we weren’t doing much in the way of conversing. She stood by politely while I pulled with all my might. I leaned in closer to determine the primary issue. Moving it from side to side did nothing to release the pressure of the knobby knot that had become pressed hard against the metal.
I bent over to see what hardware I would need to remove in order to take the cone off the chipper. When I stood up, Cyndie was standing there holding the branch that she had pulled out of the chute.
I was dumbfounded, staring wide-eyed in astonishment at her accomplishment. Without speaking, I walked toward her, sensing her confusion over what I was about to do. I got close and reached up to squeeze the muscle of her arm.
She smiled.
My attempts had probably loosened it for her. Yeah.
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It’s Beautiful
It was Saturday, and Cyndie was home, so I wanted to take advantage of having a potential assistant. Despite my wishes, there are some tasks that demand attention, particularly when it is essential they be completed before another task is able to occur. During the week, while the landscaper and fence crews were working, my attention needed to be on their activities, and I postponed chores like mowing the lawn and managing the manure pile.
The landscaper is done and the fencers are off for the weekend, so Saturday was a chance for me to catch up, regardless of the fact the tasks were the ones I try to save for when I have no one around to help. I absolutely needed to rotate the composting manure piles to create space for dumping the fresh daily collections. Production never stops, and I was running out of places to put it.
It worked out well that Cyndie chose to spend time with the horses, doing some grooming and then exercising them in the round pen, before turning them out into the hay-field to graze. Our activities kept us within sight of each other, so it felt like were working together, despite our different tasks.
It also worked out nicely for me that Cyndie had scheduled an afternoon fall-color drive with a friend, so I could get after the over-due mowing while she was gone.
Well in sight of the middle of October, and I am wondering if this is the last time I will need to mow for the season. I set the mower to cut the grass short and am hoping that will be it. I’m conflicted between wanting the new grass I planted in the drainage swale to grow and the lawn grass to stop growing.
The place looks great with the fresh, close-cut green grass complimented by the colorful leaves of fall. We are in the midst of a series of warm, sunny autumn days with cool nights. I want to be sure to give this pleasant weather as much attention as the wet and cold days usually get.
It would be nice if I stopped and took a few pictures to capture the beauty, I suppose. Maybe I was just working too hard yesterday, but I neglected to pull the camera out even once, even though I had it in my pocket all day. You’ll just have to trust me. It’s really beautiful here right now.
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Relative Something 