35 Years of Sobriety

On January 21, we celebrated a most vital anniversary together. I have been sober for 35 years! Briefly, Kathy was forced by my drinking to enroll me in a 90-day rehabilitation center in New Jersey; I had just been fired from my job, our car had been repossessed, and we had been evicted from the home we were renting.

We had Danny, our three-year-old, and Kathy was pregnant with Andrew. Her doctor was alarmed by her condition - she wasn't eating well, because our money went to my booze, not so much to food.

So, Kathy made all the arrangements, gathered family to help her move back to Vermont to her parent's home, although they were vacationing in Mexico.

And I went to the Keswick Colony of Mercy in NJ for 90 days. We reunited and celebrated 40 years of marriage. So, it just goes to show - love indeed does work wonders and miracles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dazed, baffled, but newly sober at the Colony

 

A typical activity - sitting by the fire drinking coffee. A LOT of coffee!

 

We also watched the swans chase ducks and geese

This is Peter "Pong," the best ping pong player in the Colony, until I beat him in a best of seven tournament. This remains to this day the only championship I have ever held

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

A White-ish Christmas

Taken on Christmas Day at my home, this is the only snow around - but it is snow, so we had a white-ish Christmas!

Kathy gave me a pillow with Babe's face

Neither Babe nor Willa seemed impressed, but I took the pillow to Maine Medical Center for my ten day stay, and it was a huge hit

Unable to carve the turkey myself, son Tim did the horrors - or honors

 

Posted with Blogsy

HOME!

The photo is grainy, but today, I am grainy as well. But Kathy brought me home, and I am on the mend.

I will be having home care nursing helping me for 6 to 8 weeks with antibiotics and chest tube care.

But grainy or clear, home is where the cats and my sweetie are!

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

This is what the doctor said

"Given your presentation at Critical Care in Respirtory Distress, and the history of your injury, I am not convinced that you would have survived another night at home."

There are five infectious disease doctors trying to figure this all out. I have two chest tubes and had surgery to clean out the whatever. I asked, is this life-threatening? Doctor said, "It was. I think we've got it."

 

Now I am looking out my window at this Italian Gothic building, the only piece of the original 1874 Maine General Hospital left standing.

 

I have so much to be thankful for.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Perfect Happiness!

After more than two weeks of pain and worry, of a growing sense of doom, of anticipation of yet another problem, I was granted the most perfect happiness of my life this afternoon.

 

Following the removal of a foot-long tube in my chest, and after five days of sponge baths of little worth, I was told that I could take a shower.

And here I am - sopping wet, dripping all over the fine furniture and costly rugs of my room, and brought nearly to tears by joy!

 

I was turned loose in a giant shower room and told to "enjoy!" I did, for forty-five minutes, under powerful streams of hot water, mounds of soap, and under the influence of some rather hideous singing that no one bothered to stifle.

 

It's the little things - really and truly

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

I was wrong!

Following my slip and slide with my Vespa, I joked that the main injury was to my pride. I was wrong. Although my condition didn't improve, it didn't get too bad - until late in the week. I began a few days of misery that landed me at the ED and straight to Maine Medical Center by ambulance.

 

The doctors called it Respirtory Distress. I called it "I'm too young to die!!

 

Four days later, I am the hight of fashion taking a breathing treatment. I had nearly two gallons of fluid removed from one lung, which collapsed. I am waiting for a CT scan to determine whether or not surgery is needed.

 

 

New Years Resolution: I will never play flippant until I get the whole story.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy