when your life falls down the stairs

Long ago and south and east.

We went to the Riverside County Fair, known by most as “the Date Festival.” It was February, there were honest and true people in costume (the ladies in harem pants and the gentlemen in red fezzes). In  one of the animal barns a future farmer of america (FFA) was showing his rabbit. The future farmer was about nine years old. He stood, stalwart and firm, in front of a judge’s table, trying to show a completely recalcitrant rabbit. The farmer would show a rabbit paw, the judge would examine said paw, and the rabbit would go apeshit. It would try to jump and get out of its owner’s grasp. But the grasp of the boy was greater than the madness of the bunny. The boy held and petted the bunny, calming it down. Then he would show another paw or foot or other body part, and the whole song would begin again. 

The judge kept the straightest face in the world.

It was Philip’s great day. His mass was sung at St. Paul’s. I think I speak for the whole choir, we   sweated blood all over the damn thing. Being a Schoenbergain, his chords were hard to learn. But it was a good performance, a good first pass and the usual suspects collected at the house to eat and drink and celebrate.

I did not see it happen, thank blessed Jesus. Everything had been eaten (I didn’t make enough) and the children were out on the front porch getting high. From the house I heard a problem on the porch. The problem was my life, lying on the ground and turning a color that does not exist in nature.

They, all the saints, tried to get him up the steep stairs. But he is 6 feet 2 inches tall and over 200 pounds. As dead weight, that’s hard to shift. Christopher cushioned Philip’s head in his lap. Tania, nephew Sean’s perfect sweetie, called 911. Her mother Anna is a nurse and they were standing stones in the river of panic that was overtaking me. My life was being put into an ambulance and taken to Highland Hospital, trauma center of the north county, known to some as The Saturday Night Knife and Gun Club. Nephew Sean took me to said club because I was not fit to drive and it was only going to get worse. 

We got to emergency and I said I wanted to see my husband. They said that he was in a CT scanner and I could see him in 45 minutes. And I got worse. They sent me a very nice social worker and I was rude and dismissive. The ward nurse, the person in charge, saw madness in my spinning eyes. She excused the nice social worker and explained why my life was at Highland Hospital rather than at our Kaiser (which is 5 blocks from our house) because of trauma. Trauma, head trauma, he fell downstairs and they had to check for back, neck or head trauma. By this time I wanted to burn the damn place down. I have always gotten angry when I am frightened. The older I get the worse it gets. I was terrified. I didn’t want a nurse, no matter how thoughtful and kind. I wanted a doctor to tell me when I could take my life home. Well, I could just go ahead and want.

They got Philip into a bed after the CT scan and neck x-rays. Then they gave me a ward pass with one extra that could be passed to one of the many who wanted to see him. The lobby was filled with our people. My in-laws from Cupertino with said nephew Sean with sweetie and sweetie’s mommy were the first wave, and Philip’s brother Steven joined me at the bedside. There was my life on a hospital bed with a neck brace. He was not breathing well because of the brace but they didn’t know that. They were looking for neck trauma.

  It was so good that the nurse came in to remove the brace within two minuets of me sitting down. (By this time the word on the ward was I was completely mad and must be treated gently.) His head was getting really stuffy because of the neck brace and the flat bed. She gently (I don’t remember anyone’s name except for one Dr. named Gilbert) removed the brace because the neck x-rays were clear. No neck trauma

And so it went. Doctors and nurses came, went and tried to calm me down. I was the apeshit rabbit. Family and friends came to check in. First was brother Steven and sis-in-law Betty, then came Christopher K., musician extraordinary, who cradled Philip’s head in his lap as we waited for the EMT’s. It was Christopher who saw Philip fall and Christopher who discovered my life’s super power. As described, Philip fell on the first of 7 steep steps, turned into a barrel, and rolled down the stairs. He never hit his head nor did his neck get out of whack. But nobody knew that, so that’s why we were at Highland. (Do you hear the rabbit?)

Tonia was sitting with us and the rabbit was almost calm when a triage nurse came in with not the best confession. I had checked the yellow plastic bag of Philip’s belongings. There were the shoes, there was the tie and there was the little wallet. But where were the money, the keys and the phone? In fact where were his clothes? After a check with emergency the triage nurse came in. She was very apologetic but not only were Philip’s clothes cut off of him (he was compos mentis and could have cooperated in getting them off), they were thrown to the ground, cleaned up and thrown away. This information set the rabbit off. I frightened a triage nurse at Highland Hospital in Oakland CA. I am not proud of this fact.

Just a heads up: adrenaline is a powerful drug. I am not used to it.  I started to crash and just wanted to get in the bed with Philip and go to sleep. Finally my life was transfered to Kaiser (did I say 5 blocks from our house?) everyone else was sent to their own beds and I went home to get clothes, books and reading glasses for my life. Chad had asked to sit with his dad if said dad needed to spend the night at Kaiser. The son came over, picked up the bag and got bad instructions to Kaiser emergency. (For those of you not from Oakland, Kaiser has finally finished a new place between Piedmont and Broadway. I forgot.) 

Five minutes after Chad left, Philip called to say Kaiser wanted him to go home. They looked at everything, figured out that he had fainted, nothing was broken and would you please take him away. Thus, rather than having to spend the evening with his father in the hospital, Chad was allowed to bring him home. After kisses and all love, the perfect son went to his own hearth and I put my life into his own bed. I did wake up several times in the night just to check he was there. My perfect boss gave me Tuesday off in addition to my normal Monday, and I came to work on Ash Wednesday almost straight.

I am the rabbit and my atheist Baptist Philip holds the rabbit and pets and calms me down, even from his hospital bed. And through him, despite his unbelief, Christ holds the rabbit. The love and support of my Lord was manifested in so many. Sean with his careful attention and clear head was a manifestation of Christ. The friends, the Muffletumps, who cleaned up after the party so I came home to a sweet house, they were manifestations of Christ. The love of Christ fell on me like rain that day.  

Christ is also the judge, working hard to keep a straight face while the the rabbit goes apeshit.

West Linn and Portland

Please find the patient, doped to the gills, being patient with his doting Elizabeth. 

All I did was ask for a smile.

We will begin this report with the technical stuff. Kirk and his doctors, who are many, have agreed that there will not be more surgery any time soon. Kirk’s cancer is now considered systemic and it will be fought with a medication that fits the profile of its own private madness. The good docs of OHSU (Oregon Health and Science University) have mapped the genome of the cancer and matched it to an existing medication called Dasatinib. He started taking it on 12/07/14 where upon it turned his stomach and gave him horrible headaches. Both of these symptoms have calmed down, he soldiers on and we wait for a negative to be proven.

  There are many saints who made this trip possible. Vickie, Richard, Liz & Tim, you know who you are. Saren and Jake, who simply rented our guest room, took us to the airport. We are standing in a rainbow of love. Because of all of this help we arrived at Portland International at 7:55am and were in Kirk’s hospital room by 10. It was so easy! We went downstairs and got our bags, two of which carried our sleeping bags, and went to the trolley which took us downtown. The connection to the #8 bus took about three minutes and we were on our way up the hill to the hospital. I love traveling in Portland, it’s like traveling in Europe, so easy.

OHSU is on a steep hill on the west side of Portland that was given to Oregon University at the beginning of the last century by a railroad baron named Jackson. It was a hill, he couldn’t lay rail on it. On said hill there are multiple hospitals, a VA, a Shriners and OHSU which is by far the largest. It is in fact huge. We got lost and mightily frustrated but finally achieved our aim, that being, Kirk. He was as you see him, full dressed, with his lung tube already out and waiting for his iv tube to be removed. 

We parked our bags in his room and I began to fidget. That’s what I do in hospitals. Although deeply appreciative of the excellent care they give, what I want from hospitals is to get my beloveds out. Kirk had a splendid nurse who really knew his stuff. This was good because getting the iv shunt off of K’s hand was rather difficult. Basically nail polish remover was used to get rid of the adhesive. I questioned if we needed to get same on our way to Kirk’s abode. No, said the grandpa Philip, the girl loves nail polish and has her own remover.

Kirk was finally released about 2pm. This surprised the patient and the patient’s father. They were expecting about 6pm. I am so glad that they gave him to me when they did. It’s a very good hospital and it would have been just awful if I’d had to burn it down. As has been previously stated, “Just give me my beloved and nobody gets hurt.”

Once out in the world, Kirk took us the pretty way to his home. Our way wound along Terwilliger until we got to the 5, down to the 205 and thence to the great metropolitan center of West Linn OR . West Linn is a lovely little town and Kirk’s place is very cozy. This pleased me no end and I took my grandma place, straightening up the kitchen. People who work or are trying to wrangle a 6 year old and cancer cannot make a workspace the way I want. It was so easy to make sense of that little galley kitchen.

Then I opened the refrigerator. Two big foil pans, one of Culolias mac & cheese and one of barley and chicken. In the freezer was rigatoni and ragout and something else my poor brain can’t remember. Where in the world did all of that food come from? Who brought such love to my son and granddaughter? Her name is Nancy Nicholas Culolias Tyree and she is the younger sister of my best friend. The two Culolias girls put their gorgeous heads together in order to take care of Kirk. Nancy lives in Boring, about 25 minutes from West Linn, and just showed up. Kirk’s roommate Alison told the story. It was in the morning, maybe after nine, when there was knock on the kitchen door. Alison opened it and there laden with food stood Nancy. Alison had never met Nancy, Kirk had never met Nancy. This saint introduced herself as Liz’s sister, deposited her gifts, and went on her way. (Now I must describe Culolias mac & cheese. In a béchamel, multiple cheeses are melted and cooked with sausage and pasta. If you want to make someone strong after illness, feed them Culolias mac & cheese. With that and some salad, one can heal the world.)

Mathilda knew her grandfather very well and was happy to have him back. She is a smart girl and, sadly, has made the connection between her daddy being sick and her grandfather coming to visit. I was pretty new to her. She kind of remembered me from our Thanksgiving visit two years before. For the first day or so, she checked me out. But I was with Grandpa, so I must be ok. 

It was Thanksgiving and the real problem was Mathilda’s father. Kirk has known me, and well, since he was 10 years old. We are two Piceans who have been swimming around each other for 25 years. That knowledge made my son a trifle over-careful on the subject of Thanksgiving Dinner. He was quite concerned that I wanted to make a turkey dinner, with St. Cranberry and all fixings. So I cornered him in the kitchen, gave him the Mammy Yokum single whammy and asked, “What do you want?” What he wanted was steak, New York Strip for him and Spencer for us, scalloped potatoes, brussels spouts, orange and red-onion salad etc. We bought some nice wine, dined well and comfortably. I was so thankful to be able to cook for my family.

Friday it rained cats dogs and wildebeests. We went, en famille, to the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry. This is a terrific place, probably the best of its kind I’ve ever seen. Set in the industrial area right by the mighty Willamette, there are so many hands on displays and things to see and do. Kirk in his wisdom has a membership and the Girl never tires of the place. There is a blue screen interactive display where the youngsters can put on their very own invisibility cloaks. After our science experiments we went to a cozy watering hole of Kirk’s knowledge. He and his father drank very good beer, the Girl drew pictures while dining on really good mac & cheese. I had a good martini and the best burger I’ve ever put my teeth on.

Now I must speak of rivers. I am afraid of rivers. I know the Sacramento, both at her magical source in Redwood Park, Shasta City, and her broad delta that feeds so many. I have seen the great Colorado as a green ribbon, cutting through the Grand Canyon. It was a mile down so it seemed safe. My fear comes from what rivers, big rivers, can and will do. The destruction they wreak is difficult to describe. With all of her locks and controls, the mighty Missouri/Mississippi can cover the middle part of our nation with water. She has done it in the long past, she can do it again. Portland is a city of rivers.

We went to Kirk and Mathilda’s closest city park. Let it be known that there are three parks in the city of West Linn (pop. 25,425) and Willamette Park was Kirk’s choice. While the grandpa did his best impersonation of Charlie Lau and the Girl really hit the ball, I gingerly walked down to the River. This park is where a smaller river, the Tualatin, joins her mother Willamette. The water, in late fall, is grey green and inexorable. The Tualatin, like all of her sisters, must go to the Willamette and She must go to the great mother Columbia and the Columbia must go to the Pacific. They are all scary as hell and so beautiful. What shall I do? 

Sunday we got a lovely visit with Fay and Frank in an handsome and delicious little bistro close to their place. They live very close to the Episcopal Cathedral of Portland. There is good music to be made there and in the larger city.

Portland is no longer an unknown for me. It is a beautiful city with family, friends and real live rapid transit. I am so tired of the stasis of applications and interviews that lead to silence. Ok Portland, what do you need? Give my man a job and we will come.

the Putnams glorious

the Putnams glorious