Posts Tagged ‘Cyndie’
Little Things
In the long, slow transition to normal after an invasive surgical procedure like Cyndie’s hip replacement, little things like putting on socks and shoes, or climbing our spiral staircase become significant landmarks that have a huge impact on our perceptions. Yesterday we enjoyed a day that felt notably normal, other than the fact that I had to drive Cyndie to a hair appointment in Hudson.
She is experiencing increasing success in dressing herself and walking, as well as telecommuting to meetings at her school district job. Her sleep is greatly improved, which is giving her increasing energy and improving her overall outlook. Having Cyndie’s sunshine back is particularly rewarding for me, especially during this period when the weather has been nothing but gray. I am realizing how burdened with discomfort her countenance had grown in the months and years leading up to this.
While we were out yesterday afternoon, we stopped for an early dinner at Keys Café in Hudson. The restaurant boasts the byline, “the food you grew up with,” which is a good description of how it tastes, to our Minnesota-raised palates. Everything that we have eaten there in the half-dozen odd times we’ve been to the Hudson site has tasted like it was prepared by someone who cares like only a mother would.
I am particularly impressed by the fact that this is just a satellite location, 1 of 9. Their expansion to multiple locations has not led to any deficiencies in their kitchens. I wouldn’t describe the menu selections as fancy, but the food we have received is anything but simple. Every bite is “oh-my-gosh” delicious.
After a meal like that, driving home satiated to greet and feed the horses had us feeling overwhelmingly blessed and content with every little thing that has been going well in the last few weeks.
In the last seconds before needing to leave for that appointment yesterday, I finished setting out and filling the second slow feeder hay box I built. This time I was able to set it up while the horses were watching me. Sure enough, Legacy approached soon after I arrived to supervise my efforts more closely. I was very happy to allow them the opportunity to not be startled by the sudden appearance of this strange new object.
I ran up to the house to put Delilah in her kennel, get the car started, and guide Cyndie to her seat in the nick of time. As we descended the driveway past the barn, I turned to see if they were all up eating out of the new boxes. Nope. In that short amount of time they decided the grazing would be better out in the back pasture.
I chose not to take that personally.
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Making Contact
With Cyndie home doing a fabulous rendition of healing and rehab, I have plenty of distractions keeping me from my appointed rounds. I have bent over to pick things up off the floor for her more times than I can count, but her increasingly joyful energy around here is so precious I am more than happy to do it.
It doesn’t take more than a whim for me to give in and loll around the house for a few extra hours, sometimes at Delilah’s expense. Our poor girl would much rather be outside chasing anything that moves, but since we aren’t letting her run loose, she has to wait for me to take her walking.
Cyndie captured this image of us on the floor making eye contact as we negotiated our next plan of action. Delilah didn’t win the stare-down, but I still gave her the reward she ultimately wanted anyway. We walked, played catch with discs in the pasture, and then she supervised me working on building the second slow-feeder in the shop.
She has become a very willing assistant in the shop, quickly picking up cut pieces of wood that fall from my saw, chewing them up to make sure I don’t get them confused with useable material.
Unfortunately, I haven’t taught her to avoid walking through my swept piles of sawdust. Her intense fascination with what I am doing means I end up sweeping my pile several times before getting it into the dust pan, as she walks through it in circles around me so she can be close enough to wipe her tongue all over my face when I bend down.
She has a way of making contact equally well with her eyes and her tongue. How awesome it is to be the recipient of both.
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Progress Marches
One small step for Cyndie, one giant leap toward mobility without chronic joint pain. Yesterday, the visiting physical therapist rather quickly had Cyndie leaving behind the walker and using a cane to stroll around the house. Moments later, she was caning her way up and down the stairs to our basement.
It was fascinating progress to witness. What a blessing to have the guidance of the therapist to keep our patient moving forward with exercises and activities.
With a nod to the title of this blog, progress is relative. From an overall perspective, there is not a lot happening at Wintervale lately. I find myself repeatedly struggling with the decision of what I want to write about. At the same time, the progress Cyndie is experiencing toward recovery and rehabilitation seems huge. I’ll take that.
Whether we notice or not, progress is marching along.
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Just Acting
It’s not that surprising to me that simultaneous to the “routine” I described yesterday, I am also feeling a bit of chaos around here. There is no longer a clear reference for what day of the week it is. With Cyndie not leaving for work Monday through Friday, there is no reference for week or weekend anymore.
We have pulled out the holiday clutter, …I mean, decorations; covered counters and table with baking supplies and delicious final products; and rearranged furniture to accommodate Cyndie’s recovery period. I am trying to keep up with my usual duties while also filling in on tasks normally provided with unparalleled style by Cyndie, and I find it getting more frustrating as time goes on.
It is easy to act as the head cook for a day or two, but keeping up the charade for weeks on end becomes rather daunting. When I write “act,” I don’t mean as in doing the work, I mean literally pretending to be a cook.
Luckily, beyond my escapades in the kitchen, we have had a lot of support from Cyndie’s mom, who has cooked meals and prepared food I can simply heat and serve.
Yesterday, we were blessed by a visit from Elysa and her friend, Anne, who provided a very excellent meal on a day their visit was a surprise. It was the first day I had planned to be away from Cyndie since the surgery, without having provided cover during my absence. It didn’t feel right to me.
When I received a message from Elysa that they decided to come, I was able to relax and enjoy a movie and meal on the far side of the Cities with my precious cycling friends.
By the way, I highly recommend the movie, “St. Vincent,” with Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, and the young Jaeden Lieberher who does a fabulous job in his role. Moved me to tears.
It was nice to see some actors who could really pull off the job convincingly.
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Morning Routine
We are in the third weekend since Cyndie’s surgery and things are going really well. Struggles have been minor and triumphs have been many. This morning I am experiencing a bit of a longing to be able to sleep in. Normally, weekend mornings are Cyndie’s chance to greet the horses she has been missing during the week, allowing me the opportunity to wake slowly, linger in bed, and compose my weekend blog posts.
I’ve long heard stories about dairy farmers who needed to get up early every day of every week, without exception, to milk cows. I am feeling an increased appreciation for that commitment.
My morning routine has normalized for all of us and is flowing very comfortably of late. Delilah has pleasantly announced her waking with soft mutterings, remaining stretched out on the bed in her overnight crate after she hears sounds of me getting up. I switch on the kitchen light and she lolls in place luxuriously while I get myself dressed and ready to take her out and feed the horses. It is a very soothing pace to start the day.
We step out and locate the horses during our stroll to the barn. It takes the herd no time at all to sense our approach, whereupon they begin something of a controlled stroll toward their morning feed. It is as if they don’t want to appear too eager.
The one variation in the pattern happens as they select who gets which feed pan. Some days it is very straight forward, and sometimes it becomes a complicated exercise of gamesmanship as the chestnuts take turns flaunting domination by driving each other off one pan to another.
If it is windy, or something else has them already on edge, feeding under the roof overhang is fraught with multiple emergency response drills as they all erupt in a hasty dash out from under cover whenever any one of them even flinches at the slightest thing. Just as quick, they seem to figure out it was a false alarm and come right back, but that doesn’t stop another panic from happening 20-seconds later.
It’s interesting that my presence is sometimes a contributor to their alarm, but more often completely ignored. I need to stay alert to be out of the way when they panic, and they surprise me that they don’t react at some of the clanging and banging noises I make when I am fumbling about.
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While they are focused on the feed pans, I wander over to the hay shed to fill the wheelbarrow with flakes that I distribute to the two feeders. As soon as the horses have licked the feed pans clean, they come munch hay. Hunter most often chooses to wait until the other three dive into the first station I have filled, then he chooses the other one. Sometimes another horse might meander over to join him, sometimes not.
After horses are fed, Delilah and I head out on an exploration of our trails. I will often let her choose the route, and I just follow along, stopping wherever she chooses to linger, examining the source of some scent that has dramatically grabbed her full attention.
Once back to the house, both she and Pequenita are served their breakfast, after which there settles a wonderful calm over the house.
When Cyndie gets back to full mobility, and we get back to the old weekend morning routine, that calm moment will be about the time I think about finally getting up.
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Stitches Out
We traveled to the big city yesterday for Cyndie’s follow-up appointment to have the surgeon’s nurse inspect the incision and remove the two stitches in the long wound. The way modern medicine closes surgical wounds in this day and age amazes me. Everything looks good and Cyndie says she is a lot more comfortable having that sticky bandage finally removed. Her movements have improved visibly as a result.
This morning our farrier, George, is coming to trim the horse’s hooves. It was scheduled on his calendar after the last appointment, but I had completely lost track of it. Luckily, he sent a text alerting me. Suddenly my morning routine is squeezed a bit.
The horses were in good spirits when I showed up to serve their a.m. feed and put out hay. I’m hoping they will be cooperative for me in an hour, because Cyndie will not be able to do more than offer moral support as I take on the role of chief handler for George as he works.
Delilah is another challenge. She has been hyper-focused on critters out the window and doing her worst to destroy glass and window trim to claw her way after them from inside. We have tried resorting to instant “time-out” when she loses control and jumps at the window, bringing her back to the spiral staircase and leashing her in place for a spell. After the second instance in a row this morning, instead of lying down in acceptance of her fate, she took to boldly barking her defiance.
I tried the “ignore” technique, because I was busy trying to write, but that didn’t help Cyndie. She couldn’t stand it. I understand that totally. There are plenty of times when I absolutely can’t tolerate the bark. It’s interesting that I was determined enough to try to finish my task with the looming appointment in the barn creating a tight deadline, that I was fine in this instance with letting the loud bark float in one ear and out the other.
The dog will unfortunately be restrained in her kennel during the hoof trimming today, since we don’t have enough hands to tend to everyone at once. Sadly, I think her time in the kennel while we were gone yesterday is the reason for her rambunctiousness today. It just means I will have to give her extra attention this afternoon.
I have taken to letting her run off leash inside the pasture fencing, while I toss discs for her to chase. The fence has worked well to keep her from giving in to the urge to dash off into the woods after some tempting scent, even though she can finagle under it if allowed. The lowest strand is not electrified, and I think she has figured that out.
Time to go prepare the horses for their hoof-icure appointment!
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‘Tis Seasonal
I am truly living a storybook life here, folks. The season is upon us when decorators of the world pull out everything they have saved for years that has anything to do with December holidays and inundate their surroundings with color and lights.
Our place looks like Christmas magic all of a sudden. The only thing missing is little kids in footsie pajamas running around with eyes like saucers, over-anxiously waiting a visit from the guy in red who travels by reindeer.
We were blessed once again with a visit from Cyndie’s mom who worked tirelessly for the entire day yesterday to provide her exquisite skills in bringing the spirit of the season to life in our home.
She went beyond the call of duty before even arriving by taking time the day prior to shop for baking supplies and accoutrements like garlands with lights. With barely a pause to catch her breath, yesterday she cooked and baked and decorated, then helped me run an errand to drop off a car for service, then helped get Cyndie down to the barn for her first visit with the horses since the surgery.
She is a superwoman!
The best highlight of the day —among many— was having Cyndie get bundled up to be outside, her walking part way down the driveway with crutches, then hopping in the back of her mom’s car for the rest of the distance to the barn, and finally communing with the horses that had come up to the barn to see her.
They were a little freaked by her crutches and walker, but very happy to see her after all this time she has been away.
Back in the kitchen, Cyndie and her mom moved into full production mode for a while and cookie smells were mixing with the home-made caramels and Chex mix snack that had just come out of the oven.
What could I do? You can’t fight this kind of momentum. I went upstairs and put on the holiday music, came down and set about testing the goods coming out of the oven.
I told you, it’s a storybook life I’m livin’!
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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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Relative Something 