Christmas 2011

For some reason, this Christmas was a sweet one in spite of losses and sad occurrences.  Mother starred as the angel in my Christmas card.  This was the first draft--as if she were being presented on a tray at the Ritz.   I later added her flying in the window from Berkeley Square and in place of the statue you see in the background and at one of the tables in the foreground.  Since there are twelve days of Christmas, I'll continue that tomorrow. 
My gift to the family--Kathy, Jonathan, Suzy, David, Dana, Erik, Karl, Becky, Jamie, and Megan--was a memory book full of photos of Mom from babyhood on and copies of the tributes people wrote on blue sky-white clouds paper.  But there's a lot I need to add to those, already duplicated and bound.  I'm going to insert additions.

  About David:  On December 10, his birthday, he had (euphamism) digestive issues, so I stored the chocolate birthday cake I'd made for him, and we started our messages back and forth to plan a later celebration, which turned out to be the Wednesday of my final exams--after the two in Comparative Religions and Western Cultural Values but the day before the last three--Government and Politics of the Middle East, Demystifying the Middle East, and Intro to Islam.  The cake was still good, but David had trouble getting up the steps of Suzy's house, and he was very spacy. 

Suzy wrote to Mary Scaler at Garfield and said that we were all shocked at how much he had gone downhill as far as his ability to walk and even his ability to maintain himself standing. His legs had clearly gotten much weaker since he'd been using the wheelchair and his sense of balance had disappeared.Then she got a call from Ann of Garfield, and she said that they found that David had elevated liver enzymes. The numbers in the parentheses are the norms.) 

Friday:

ALT 94 (7-52)

AST 45 (13-39)

Alk Phos 129 (34-104)

They came down somewhat by Saturday's blood test.

Saturday:

ALT 73 (7-52)

AST 40 (13-39)

Alk Phos 124 (34-104)

Ann said that elevated liver enzymes are usually due to toxins, and in David's case, it's most likely meds, but I suspected chew, which he holds in his mouth as long as he can and often swallows.

The doctor was thinking about changing his med to Lacosamide, whatever those were, and it wasn't clear whether she meant change the Felbatol to that or the Depakote or what.

At that time she said David was showing no signs of feeling ill and had no other symptoms.  Later that day (December 19), Dr. Morrell said not to worry about the elevated enzymes.  He might have just caught a bug.  She suggested doing the blood tests again in a week, and there was no change in meds.

As far as his mobility issues were concerned, Mary said they would be "implementing physical therapy" asap.  David would make the transition fromt he wheelchair to the regular walker by way of the merry walker.

Suzy was valiantly dealing with all these communications between the Garfield staff, the doctor and Jonathan and me.  She had originally expressed a desire for all the turkey side dishes without the turkey, but on Dec. 20, she said she was getting a cold and something simple like soup sounded good.  Dana had sent a rubber turkey lift, which I thought we could make the centerpiece--the lift with out the turkey.  We decided against Tofurky.  We set our dinner for 2:00.   Suzy liked the cookies I made the day we celebrated her birthday in SF and asked for the recipe, which I'd gotten for Mom on October 8, the morning of the day she choked (not on the cookies, thank God) and was taken to the hospital.

Jonathan and I planned the menu:

Green beans, potatoes, stuffing, mushrooms, cranberry sauce and cranberry jelly.  yams, salad makings.  

Then on the morning of December 22, Suzy got a call from Ann at Garfield. David's ammonia levels were high, which explains his seeming so spacey. So they increased a med he had to take daily to a higher dose to deal with getting the ammonia out of his system, but the way it got out was through diarrhea. He had two bouts of diarrhea after starting the medicine.  Ann thought it would continue and wondered about Christmas.

One option we always had, I said, was to go to see David there at Garfield and make it as festive as possible.  I couldn't see skipping or even postponing Christmas.   We could always visit him there, and then the three of us could continue here or just have wait until December 27.  I just couldn't imagine having Christmas Day without seeing one another and David.

Suzy agreed that he'd rather be with us than not.

Then David threw up right after lunch. His temperature iwas normal, he said he felt ok (he never complains except for the occasion "Fuck you!"), there were no other signs of illness, or so said the nurse.

"If he is feeling fine today and isn't vomiting or having diarrhea, should we consider having him home for Xmas, assuming, of course, that he's also fine all the way up until I pick him up tomorrow?"  Suzy asked us.  "If he isn't fine today, ie, he has diarrhea or vomiting, perhaps no matter if the report tomorrow morning is a positive one, it'd be too big a risk, since it'd be just for the first part of the day and anything could happen in the second part?"

If we needed to go there on Christmas Day, it'd be much easier to take something with us, and maybe not a whole meal. It could even be a nice pie, for example, plus his gifts and Jonathan's music ideas.

We decided not to do the whole Christmas thing for us all at Garfield. Suzy would like to come to SF, possibly before seeing David rather than after him so he could sleep in.

Since things were so much in the air, I said I'd definitely  like to have some Christmas Day time with Suzy and Jonathan before or after taking Christmas to David if that’s what we wound up doing.  But if that was the case, I thought it might be more fun to eat out—my treat—and have our more “traditional” Christmas fare with Kathy and Tom on Dec. 27.  Thinking that David would be here, I’d planned to start cooking that day, but maybe I would hold off until the next day.  But early on December 24 I told Suzy that she was welcome to come here before or after our meal if we did eat out.  

Then we got a message from Suzy saying that here was the thing:  She had a could.  She had thought I'd nipped it in the bud the week before, but then she had gotten laryngitis for the first time shse could remember, and her nose had begun to run, so she wasn't sure it'd be so smart to bring that into Garfield, so there was one quandary right there. And she thought Jonathan and I might not want to be exposed. She had looked forward to being at our house for Christmas b/c it's so pretty, and b/c she hadn't decorated at all and figured we would have. But she understood that it would make more sense to eat out on her side of the bridge, where Garfield is. But she really wanted to download the second part of Room from my iTunes Library.  "At first I didn't think I'd like to hear a story almost entirely in the voice of a child, but I got caught up in it, and it's one of those that's broken up b/c of size, and I only have part 1. I'd like to get the other part. It's really interested to hear about his experience in the outside world."

She asked us what we thought, and before we could asnwer, she sent another message:

"Just spoke to Garfield. David had no diarrhea yesterday and none so far today. He only vomited the one time yesterday, not again. So it's looking really good for David's being able to come. I'm happy about that b/c I know he'll love coming to your house.  As for her cold, the laryngitis seemed to be gone, so she just needed us to say whether we were concerned about catching it. She really, really would not be hurt if we said yes "because  OMG, it's miserable."  She'd cancelled plans with a friend who'd just gotten done with a really protracted cold and  didn't need to be getting sick again -- or even running the risk of it. But unfortunately, for the Christmas Eve  great rest cancelling out of her plans might have led to, "the sofa-on-the-sidewalk neighbors had put up a massive 'tent' of plastic and warned her of the party they'dbe having that night. "GRRRRR.... But of course people should be able to celebrate."  She asked that we please be honest with her about her germs, and she would continue to give us updates on David.

I wrote back that we'd love to have her with us and were not worried about the cold! 

Jonathan said he was glad to hear that David was doing better and was totally fine with risking catching the cold. "Hopefully you won't be contagious anymore, and we can wash our hands a lot and everything. If we do get sick, getting better will be a good feeling to go with the early days of the new year :)"

To that Suzy said "Oi vey!" and thanked us for making her feel wanted, germ-spreader though she might be.

"I will check in with Garfield tomorrow mid morning, and then again right before I go get him at 1:00, " she said.  She would see us at 2:00 the next day, "barring any bad news." 

But the bad news wasn't barred.

On Christmas Day morning she got a call from Ann at Garfield, saying David had thrown up his breakfast. He had been sitting at the table, very spacy, and Ann helped him eat some breakfast, but then he threw it all up, including his morning meds.  We didn't think it made sense to take him out.  He might just be too out of it to even really enjoy it for one thing, and for another, there was the possibility--even likelihood--that he'd throw up. 

 I suggested that we go by the way we would if he were in the hospital--to visit and let him  we were thinking of him but not with food.  Then, after we visited, we could  come back here, where we had a LOT of food!  I'd made the mushroom stuffing the day before, and on Christmas morning I'd baked a cake at 3:00 am.  (Realizing we were out of flour after I started the nutmeg cookies, I'd made a Bisquick pumpkin cake.)  I woke Jonathan up to ask his opinion, and we decided that we should keep preparing here and have Suzy in for Christmas dinner at 1:00 and then cross that bridge when we came to it and see David at 4:00.

We had a really nice Christmas dinner here and unwrapped presents from one another.  Suzy cried when she saw the card I made, and she cried when she saw the memory book.  I make people cry.  We had a nice time talking, though, including about our way of handling illness.  Suzy and I both just want to die and can't quite grasp how people go on with illnesses more painful and serious than the common cold.  I admitted that I just curl up in the fetal position and say, "Okay, God, I'm ready."  Then we got in two cars and headed to Garfield together, Suzy following Jonathan but not when we missed the right exit.  

But David was so totally out of it.  He didn't recognize the Beatles when Suzy gave him the Beatles puzzle.  I think he said, "Puzzle," and the act of tearing tissues off the gift made him short-winded.  "Indians?" she said, when he saw the picture of the Beatles.  After a very short period, we said this Christmas would be continued when he was feeling better.  I told him we loved him and wheeled him out.  "Do you want to go to the TV area or to your room?'  I asked him.  He said, "Room."  He lay down fully clothed and came pretty close to that fetal position I use.

To be continued