Mrs. Bear Is Making Progress

 
Catherine's Surgery seems to ave went well. Our 2 week checkup on the incision was about a 75 minute drive each way interspersed with less than 25 minutes in the hospital. And the physiotherapist is happy with Cathy's progress. She's doing 20 minutes on the stationary bike (a Schwinn wind trainer) every second day and a series of exercises every day (or some one day, some another). She's supposed to be able to look at weaning down to one crutch or something like that around my birthday in September.

It will be quite a while until she is allowed full use of the leg and hip and quite a while until she's fully able, but I have hopes this is the steop that sets us on the road to a more active, healthier life. Winter coming isn't the best thing, but we'll both be on the wind trainer and we'll get the treadmill setup again too.

Meanwhile, we also have to see if we can get her signed up for at least one course this weekend or first thing Tuesday. I don't want her to waste the time if she can do at least one course in her Small Business Bookkeeping certificate program.

We're also getting ready for the first week of school during which we have MJ. That will be a new series of minor hurdles to get back into routine, but it will work out just fine.

I'm a lucky guy. There's lots of things that keep happening that could lead to a pessimistic perspective for Cat or I, but we're choosing to stay positive. We're choosing to recognize the wonderful things we have - each other, our families, and MJ and Diana. We're choosing to be better people than some we encounter because either behaving as they would or behaving in a fashion dictated by their actions would make us something other than who we are. I'm proud of Catherine and of MJ. Any individuals who don't appreciate those two are, in my opinion, without a clue.

I look forward to a good fall with the people I love, to Cathy getting back on her feet, to MJ wading into her challenges at school, and to getting my own health and life more back on track than they have been in a long while.

Life is good if you choose to look at it with a positive perspective. I do. We do.
 
 

Diana Chillin while Gordie Sings

Diana hangin with  Catherine and I watching the Tragically Hip's Kingston finale to their farewell tour.

Getting Fixed Up In Brockville

 

Today, Catherine, my love and my best friend, will go in to have her hip surgically repaired - patching a torn labrum (the soft tissue cup attached to the hip bone) and grinding off a bone spur/overgrowth on the top of the femur. The surgery will be done laproscopically.

The work will be done in Brockille. The surgery dates available were much better in Brockville than Ottawa.

She's nervous about the surgery and also wants desperately to stop hurting and to be able to have a more full life once again with her daughter and I. I have ever hope that this surgery and hard work on the recovery will take us there. I wish I could take away the pain that she has been experiencing and will experience tomorrow and beyond.

In a slightly unexpected twist, a hip replacement's recovery period is about 6 weeks. A laproscopic procedure, while less invasive, has a recovery period of up to 6 months. I believe the reason for the longer recovery is greater irritation to the joint. I am hoping it won't take her that long and that no complications ensue or no further injury is sustained while attempting to heal up.

She's a brave, tough, strong lady. In that respect, she reminds me of my mother whose courage over the years of agony since the awful car accident smashed her up is a true exemplar of carrying on and always trying to find the positives in tough situations. My father also, having had to learn to walk 3 times in his life (as a child, when his leg was smashed badly enough the foot was only hanging on by a thread while my mother was pregnant with me, and after losing the leg below the knee at age 78), demonstrated what courage and resilience are about. I am going to help Catherine manage as much of that as she can.

I have seen what incessant, significant pain does to people. It wears down their reserves of strength and will. It enervates their spirit. It eats at them and hurts and nothing seems effective without serious side-effects (if then). It makes them exhausted and deprives them of a normal life and often of a normal diet. I think this is pretty close to Hell on Earth and I've witnessed it with both of my parents. I've seen an only slightly less severe version of this over the last year and a half to two years with Catherine.

We all tend to take our blessings for granted, not recognizing them. Mobility and pain free living are key examples, but we often don't see that until they are a memory.

I have every confidence in the doctors and in Catherine. Whatever happens, she and I and MJ will get through it. We will because we must - we are a family. We'll find ways to make it work. It'll be easier if the surgery is a raging success and recovery time is short, but we'll deal with whatever comes. I'm not going to leave her hanging when she needs a rock. I'm not going to leave MJ without the sense of stability and well-being that a loving home with constancy and care bring.

I will do as I always do - pray for the best and prepare for the worst. I can't mitigate the surgical risks or the possibilities during recovery, but I can make sure all of the mundane stuff (or at least the critical parts of 'all') get done - feeding the family, laundry, household cleanup, maintaining the garden, getting MJ where she needs to go (through into grade 4!) and helping her deal with the emotions that come from having a parent hurting and not being able to stop that (I wish I'd had a bit of support here but my parents didn't recognize the effects it would have nor of how long lasting they would become) - I do and I certainly will help MJ deal with those tough moments and with any misplaces sense of blame she may direct her own way for not being able to solve the unsolvable.

As I have told Catherine on many occasions as life dealt us harsh bumps we didn't need during the last 3 years: "I would rather spend a bad day dealing with tough stuff as part of your life then any other day without you in my life (and that covers MJ too)."

 
 

Build It And We Will Garden

A true friend once remarked "Nothing says 'I love you' like back breaking labour" and I see the wisdom in his words (I hope he isn't reading this or they will have to widen the doors at his house to accommodate his embiggened ego).

This weekend, Catherine and I, with help from MJ and Angus, dug lilac and cedar roots from our vegetable-garden-to-be, chainsawed, sawed and axed lilac and cedar limbs, weeded around lilies and transplanted some to boot.

MJ and Cat started some Cat Grass seedlings. Cat helped paint garden stakes I made.....

....and I finished our Deck Rail Hanging Garden Lattice with some assistance from the rest of the team. The design was mine. And I had the idea to incorporate garden tool storage.

The lattice will hold 6 box planters each 30" long, tool storage, and later some extra plants in pots may hang from it. 

Deck-Rail Herb Trellis

Construction is select-grade 2x4s and 2x6s held together with 3" #10 wood screws. The coating is one coat of Thompson's Water Seal with a sort of grey tone (the card in the store looked much grayer than the final look with one coat, but a second coat may darken it down).  The structure is semi-permanent (movable if I untie a rope to an anchor point on the house wall and the bungee attaching it to the porch pillar) just as a precaution against a need to work on the porch.

For now, herbs are the starting point : Rosemary, Sweet Basil, another Basil, Dill, Mint, Sage, Lemon Balm,  and Stevia from seedlings. We will add, from seed stock: Chives, Garlic Chives, Microgreens, Cilantro, Parsley and Lavender.

Lemon Balm, Basil, Dill, Rosemary 

Sage, Stevia, Mint, Sweet Basil

The tool storage came in the form of screw on rails with spring clamps to hold implements and a bag to hold other things (we are going to make a lid to help protect the contents versus inclement weather...). It'll let us store common garden tolls mostly out of the weather (if rain come sideways, maybe not as much) and in a handy location. 

Tool racks and a utility storage bag

Rakes, a fork, hoes, a manual cultivator (non-branded Garden Weasel), and a Dandelion puller plus the broom for MJ's trampoline with gloves and hand trowels in the bag

Given we just bought a hose that's 37.5' with pressure off and 100' when pressurized, I might need to mount a hose storage rack somewhere on the back side too as an enhancement. Maybe another bag off the bottom of the bottom rack or off the top rack and the house rack in the other location. 

I worked, I tore up my left shoulder (shoulder-breaking is close to back-breaking), and it made Cathy happy.I check one off in the win column!

It is great to do projects with Cat, MJ and Gus. We are trying to reclaim about 1000 square feet of garden from the likes of stinging nettle, burdock, dandelions, grasses, a runaway lilac and it's ground cover, creeping cedars, Manitoba maples, and lilacs from across the back fence, and the list goes on. It's not a one year proposition nor is it entirely cheap, but if the house eventually is sold, it'll help the resale value a lot not to have all that garden space over-run by weed, hedge, bush, and sharp things that burn your hands and legs and stick you with burrs all the time.

We've reclaimed about 200 square feet for a vegetable garden which we should see planted in the next 2-3 weeks (a bit late, but we've still been getting frost on recent nights) and have partially reclaimed about another 250 square feet for flowers. About 100 sq ft is in the back (in a former sandbox cum flowerbed and next to the vegetable garden and the other 150 sq ft in the front. The front has Hostas and the back has some Hostas and Lillies. 

There's about another 400 square feet of back garden mostly dominated by burdock and stinging nettle. Roundup is our friend! It seems to work on the nettle and the burdock will likely take a 3rd and 4th dosing as it is a hardy plant. Then to help wage that war, we have 12' x 100' 6-mil black plastic I plan to double (12-mil thick then, 6' wide, 100' long) and I'll lay that over the burdock and nettle once I have finished nuking it with Roundup and then mowing it near to the dirt (and/or tilling it in). The black plastic will starve the remains of sun and water.

Next year, we can either haul that soil out and get totally new soil down about 6" or we just get some 4x4 and build a raised bed (say 12-18") and get all new soil and leave the burdock and nettle root buried under the new bed and the 12 mil black plastic so it doesn't come up again. 

The side garden needs rebordered - it has overflown historical borders but we've decided just to reborder around its new extents for the most part. We can cut back the huge lilac there after the Robin moves along (we found a nest yesterday). 

The garden along the fence near the shed has another lilac that needs some trimming as well as a lot of dandelion, burdock and other greenery that must die so that something else may one day take its place (even it if is just mulch around the lilac. 

And then there's the fence repairs, building a cat enclosure to give her outdoor days, plumbing work on the back faucet, electrical work on all outdoor sockets, flamethrowing the patio (plus Roundup too), and then the garden beds along the wall behind the back patio.... and finding a way to cause about 12-15 small stumps of trees coming up under the fence or next to it to rot away (and the same to some other stumps leftover from large trees). Then there's putting a raised bed around the big tree in the front. 

Yes, Catherine my Love, I hope you too understand that nothing says I love you like back-breaking (shoulder-wrenching) effort! ;0) 

The Excitement of Self-Sufficiency

Yesterday Catherine, Marissa Jane and myself had been busy - a tree went up, lights went on, ornaments were hung, and a true mountain of gifts were wrapped.

It had been a late night Friday as the three of us took in the remake of Annie. We all liked it though it had a more streetwise modern sensibility. MJ was up late...

In any event, we were all a bit tired as dinner time arrived, but had no plan for a meal. We contemplated picking something up and MJ wanted McDonalds.

It was then that I pointed out she could buy her own dinner having earned a gift card by hard work at school.

Marissa then realized she could buy everyone including her grandfather (Opa in German} dinner.

I have never seen a child so excited to be able to buy dinner. This was likely her first time. She raced off to loudly ask Opa if he'd come out for a free meal!

When we arrived at the restaurant, she told her mother "Leave yoir purse in the car, you don't need it!".

As it turns out, she hasn't quite grasped the entirety of costs, so her $20 gift card would only feed her and Opa, but it was the glee we all saw at being able to treat her people that was magical.

Self I sufficiency is indeed a glorious feeling. I am glad she is discovering that as well as the gift of giving.

She has been setting aside about 25% of her allowance for a month and a half for Christmas charity donation.

She's a good kid. I am lucky to have her in my life to be able to share these moments.