Sleepy Village, World Hub

Regular readers are getting to know our sleepy little community, Winona Lake, that surrounds its namesake body of water.

Life is easy; life is slow. Today, even at 4:30, the summer heat is a bit much for us so we're inside. I'm on my next puzzle.

This evening, we'll drive back to Kokomo as Mike has an appointment. Then, returning with us will be my buddy, a freshly retired teacher, who is just dying to teach me how to play bridge.

Anyway, a stone's throw from our lake is Warsaw, Indiana. If you drove through, you'd compare it to most mid sized Midwestern cities. However, many make this a destination: Warsaw is the world headquarters of 3 of the 5 makers of artificial replacement joints. It calls itself, rightly, the Orthopaedic Center of the World.

Now what does that mean? For starters, Warsaw has a very low unemployment rate. A neighbor who works on the line can work 7 days a week, if he wants to. My brother-in-law, a local technical educator, says that the three companies are a source of money and technology to the local schools.

And then there's one founder, Dr. Dane, who adopted Winona Lake about 20 years ago and with historical grant money, has lead to a renaissance on the lake. We looked up one day and all of our utility wires were buried; our street was newly paved over improved sewer lines; new curbs and lots of plantings.

Last year, Winona Lake gave every resident 2 trees, free, if we would let the Boy Scouts plant them on our property. We said, "Well, sure." The place is looking good.

Also, these three businesses invest lots of money in 'Quality of Life' activities for their employees and for the rest of the city. So, Friday night, as the sun was just thinking about setting, the hub and I sat on the grass in Warsaw's Central Park, for BLUES AND BARBECUE. The featured performer was Duke Robillard and his band. Further back in the park, at the edge of Central Lake, large BBQ half drums were smoking and cooking. The ribs were also gratis.

This week it was Depuy. So, thanks, Depuy!

FIRST Week of Chemo Vacation

Summer, really nice Midwestern summer, has arrived around our lake.

The nights are clear and pleasant. The dawn....who knows as we are on lake time.
The days see temperatures climb to the mid-80s without all that bothersome humidity.
And as the sun sets, a cool breeze takes the temperature back down to the low 70s.

Windows open at night for great sleeping.

We've settled into a routine. We decided that we should 'kinda' do things like chores in the morning, cutting it off at noon. Then, after a nap, we should climb into the boat and motor about the lake, stopping in the middle for a swim. Then, back to the dock, thinking about a light dinner that becomes something like salad as we sit on the porch.

Life is good. Life is slow and good.
Currently, and my children will find this amazing, EVERYTHING works on the boat. (This is so 'not us.')

We will drive back to Kokomo for Mike's next appointment with his doctor. Hopefully, we'll learn that the transfusion has kicked in and his numbers are headed north. Then, we'll be back to our life around Winona.

A few nice things got inked in on our 'calendar.' Brother-in-law Steve will drop by for a few days. Then, as the month ends, there's the family wedding in Raleigh. As soon as I get back, THE BOYS are coming for the next week.

Then, can you believe it? My school starts August 9.

August 9!

And finally, we've got another birthday celebration to plan for the end of August.

My. It's almost 3. Time for my nap!

...and the rest of the week was a wash

We were both pretty beat come Tuesday. The headache was gone but with no sleep, we lazed around even more than usual.

By Wednesday, Mike was still feeling rung out. I happened to brush his forehead (kiss!) and realized that he was hot hot hot. Time for the thermometer: 103 degrees.

Because chemo messes up the immune system, Mike is susceptible to infection. And we have instructions to go the the hospital if he runs a fever. I reminded him.

"I want to go back to Kokomo, to my doctor's hospital," he said.

So we called ahead to let them know. (On one 'emergency' visit, we sat among the coughing and sneezing, in the waiting room for an hour. Mike's doctor insisted that this would not happen again.) It took 80 minutes in afternoon traffic but I DID hit all green lights. Inside joke.

Again with the tests: various fluids, X-rays, CAT. The hospitalist, a tiny man from Pakistan who looked 18 (face it, when you get to be my age, they all look like kids.) It was late late late when he said Mike would be admitted; I drove home for a restless night.

By mid morning Thursday, with fluids in and fever down, the hub was looking much better. On a regular diet, he took two trays; then friend Tome brought him a large Frosty and the nurses kept him supplied with lemon ice.

Here's where we are: his oncologist sat on his bed and said, "Mike, I don't want you to EVER leave this earth. But, I sure don't want to write 'infection' on any certificate." So, since Mike has had two infections since March and because his WBC is very low, the doctor announced that he's getting a vacation from chemo.

Woooooo whoooooo!!!!!

So for the next two months, no trips to the oncology center, no needles, no poison. She wants hims to build back up and he will.

ALSO, she said that his latest CAT shows "no change." That means

NO CHANGE.

Woooooo whoooooo!!!!!

Friday, they let him leave after a transfusion. It was about 6 PM and we both decided to crash at the home base, driving back up to the lake on Saturday.

Saturday was to be the big fireworks. The day, hot and humid, had been one big blue sky. Town folk were setting up their places for the show. Then, out of nowhere, the wind picked up,the sky turned dark and the sky opened up again, complete with its own light show. The storm lasted until almost midnight.

So this evening, 24 hours later, I see a clear sky, I see the barges on the lake, and I see our chairs, waiting for us on the pier.

We know, friends, that so many of you pray for us. And that's one reason that I want to keep you in the loop.

Tonight, all is well. I hope, like us, you'll have a great Independence Day.

Monday Night Was Brutal

Monday was Chemo Day. By now, we’ve got a routine. Once the treatment is over, Mike finds he’s hopped up for the rest of the day. It’s akin to that supposed burst of energy that pregnant ladies get just before delivery. So I’ve heard.

Since we are north mostly, perhaps you’re curious about Chemo Effects. So far, except for our initial problem with low blood counts, Mike is breezing through. He has experienced no nausea. And his hair? (Everybody’s interested in the hair) Well, he’s not lost any. The chemo HAS made his hair softer and wavy. Really nice to touch.

We were both in Kokomo; I had a list of errands and finished about the time Mike arrived home from the hospital. As the weather was spectacular, he announced the travel plan. He would take his motorcycle and I could bring up my Caliber, loaded with new projects. He left several hours before me so I could catch up on laundry and so forth.

When I arrived at the lake, he greeted me with a most pained look on his face. “Where have you been?” he asked. “I thought you were coming right up.”

“Ivy was off touring the neighborhood,” I explained.

I thought that it would be no big deal as this would be energy night. Alas, it was not to be.

Mike’s face took me back almost 25 years ago. It was how he looked when he was getting a migraine headache. He hasn’t had one in all these years.

Now, let me explain that I was not always the most sympathetic to headache suffers. I was raised by an Army nurse. At my house, you needed to be bleeding from your ears AND mouth to stay home from school. I’ve learned recently that her hard line was partly for our good and partly because she really didn’t want to have a kid underfoot when she had other projects on her agenda. It’s OK, Mom. It made us tough.

When friends would get to stay home from school with a headache, I’d think, “Give me a break. A headache?”

In my limited experience, I had not seen a migraine sufferer. Until I married this man and he went to law school. I would come home from school to find him utilizing what worked for him: he would be submerged in the bathtub with only his nose and mouth in the air. He would rest there until the headache went away or until he ‘lost his lunch,’ which also seemed to speed the pain away.

Why should Mike develop migraines now?

Since marriage, I’ve increased my knowledge of many things, including internal human anatomy. The only way I survived Freshman Biology at Wheaton was that I sat next to this Red-haired Hoosier who let me, um, copy what he saw under the microscope. I never saw anything but blurs. (Bacterium moves fast!)

I know that you can drive a motorcycle with your left wrist broken in two places. I’ve seen the doctor ‘insert’ a tube into a collapsed lung. I know where heart caths go and what ERCP stents look like, new and used. And the human neck. Fascinating piece of equipment.

Mike might work this into any conversation. “When I broke my neck…..” “My broken neck….” “The break in my neck….” much to the surprise and horror of the listener. I mean, a broken neck? Then, you’re paralyzed. Or dead. But here this guy is. So what gives?

In case you, too, struggled in the sciences, let me speak slowly. If you were to look at a cross-section of the neck, you’d see three openings. The big round one in the middle and two ovals, one on each side.

And yes, Mike broke his neck. His doctor called it a ‘lucky break.’ He cracked one of those ovals. Except for an occasional humid day when tissue swells, he hardly notices it.

How did he break it? Do you have time? About 10 years ago, he was racing mountain bikes with our nephew Caleb. They were each trying to out-do the other. In the woods, on untried paths. Up. Down. Watch out for the tree. You get the picture.

At one point, Caleb flew across a shaky bridge that took you over a stream. Uncle Mike was right behind. But he slipped. His bike went over the bridge and he fell, head first, in the muddy bottom of the stream. That’s when the vertebrae cracked. And as they say, it could have been worse. Had Mike been alone as he often was, he might have drown, stuck in the mud and his head underwater.

Caleb pulled him out and brought him to the cottage. The mud was the least of his problems. He was blue and trembling and sister Lisa knew he needed to get to the ER.

And so, technically, he broke his neck. If he strains it, OTC usually makes it better.

However, Monday, on his mighty bike and the back roads, the hub bragged that he had traveled, um, a bit faster than the posted limit. And, without a wind shield, his face (and neck) took the brunt.

So the pain radiated from the neck to the head, all over.

I filled the tub. I got the ice bag. I grabbed our assortment of analgesics. It was a rough night.
Nothing really touched the pain. And although Mike’s not been nauseous from his treatments, he made up for it, 10 or 15 times.

In between the trips to kneel at the porcelain throne and runs to the kitchen for water, ginger ale, and so forth, he nudged me and I was up. Then back. Sometimes, he wanted me to massage “GENTLY” his neck, right where that break occurred. As the night wore one, I would doze off in mid rub.

Now, I’m not complaining. This is part of the deal, after all. It just was a brutal night followed by a day of feeling like we’re sleepwalking.

Tuesday night, after a clear sky day, the temperature dropped to 55. Windows open and blankets.

Good sleeping. And a brighter day tomorrow.

The Weather and Such

It‘s been a weird week for weather in northern Indiana.

I know. Talking about the weather? Next thing you’ll be working jigsaw puzzles between spells of sittin’ and rockin’.

Yeah, that’s us. When nephew Brian, all of 34, comes by, he and the hub BOTH age about 30 years as they ponder and reminisce, all while rocking. (Except, of course, when they take to racin’ in the lake) And me? I’m on my third puzzle.

So back to the weather. Last weekend we had very hot and humid. That’s one reason I made such progress on the puzzle. Not much desire to move around when it’s so hot.

Then, Monday brought darkening skies and temperature drops. We went from sticky hot to shivering cold, along with a clammy sense that a storm was on its way.

Except no storm.

The gray and cold continued onto almost the end of the week. When Mom showed up to spent the night, instead of wondering if the fans would be enough, I went digging into the blanket closet and fetching hoodies for my guests.

So, when Wednesday dawned with no visible dawn, we expected another cold day. But then the clouds began to churn and the wind kicked up a bit: harbinger of storm.

Our cottage faces WEST, in the direction of most storms; as such, we can usually sit on our outside deck and watch the rain tap its way across the lake and move inside with plenty of time to avoid a soaking: one little game we play.

But this day was different. After several empty threats, the sky formed a solid and down came ‘ropey rain.’ Heavy, straight plaits that drenched the earth. 5 minutes later, the rain stopped, the sun came out, and within 30 minutes, sidewalks and other pavings were dry.

About an hour later, the sky grew dark again. A sudden gust of wind that died as quickly, and heavy droplets fell --- plop plop plop – for about 30 seconds and then stopped.

At which point, our neighbor Jenny walked by and said we should come over for pie. Sounded like a plan. She and Hal are full time residents. Their home faces out the lake from a glassed-in porch that opens to a large deck. They are good friends who live only a few dozen yards from us PLUS they had pie so we were off to their house.

As we sat outside, talking about the weather and munching on warm peach pie with vanilla ice cream, the sky began to churn again so we moved indoors to finish our dessert in the dry. Again, a cloud burst of sorts, this time with some sideways wind.

I finished my pie first (!); Mike and Hal were all about some discussion of the weather report on The Weather Channel, so I excused myself to stroll back to our porch. I walked as the sun again dried the ground.

Inside, (really this is going somewhere), I had just taken my seat in the puzzle corner when the wind/breeze stopped, dead still. Then there was an enormous CRACK of thunder and a WHOOOOOOOSH that shook the house. I ran to crank in our windows that take the brunt of eastern winds as the skies opened again, this time with a torrent AND the wind.

That initial ‘whoosh’ took another swipe at our red maple in front. Island trees have shallow roots and the last time we had a big wind storm, our tree developed a bit of a lean. Now there is a crack at the surface: it may be a loss.

And then Storm 4 was over and the whole Island Neighborhood was out to survey damage. A few limbs here and there and then onto Hal and Jenny’s home.

Down the street, that gust uprooted a much larger, mature tree. It left a 5 foot hole as it leaned toward many houses.

It fell squarely in the middle of the street. Not a single residence was damaged. That's Hal and Jenny's home, behind the tree.

It DID crash onto Hal’s truck. He loves his truck. It also scraped his ‘vintage’ van.

Clean up began almost immediately but it will require some finesse as certain heavy equipment is not permitted on the island. No one was hurt and all but that truck can be duplicated.

What struck me is that in times like this, when “it could have been much worse,” we talk of coincidence.

If I’ve learned nothing else in the last two years, I know that for God’s people, there are no coincidences.

Transitions

It’s a trick to change residences. What to bring? What to buy? What about mail? And so forth.

Son Zach is at the homestead often enough to stack the mail and we will be in town for treatment often enough to keep up with bills.

What to bring? We already are in the habit of two sets of contacts/glasses/wetting fluids/toothbrushes/deodorant, so not much problem.

As for clothes, well, it’s the lake. Casual to swim suit is de rigueur.

What to buy? How many bottles of ketchup do YOU have?

The news is that Mike had another chemo treatment Monday. Sister Jan had arrived late Sunday night and we spent the next morning on errands and such. Then, we all came north.
Chemo jumps the hub and he finds it hard to sleep the first night. So on Tuesday morning, when Jan heard someone up before dark, she assumed it was her formerly early rising sister and came downstairs to find Mike up and dressed. Not sure what they did, something about a trip to the woods. Sister Lynne stayed abed until about 8:30.

Later, Jan left for Michigan and will return today. Also on the way are my brother Ken, his wife Janelle, and my mom. All will converge tonight and then Ken and Janelle will leave to Illinois, with Mom and Janis following on Saturday.

Whew! This is the most scheduled we’ve been. Today, cool air and all, we slept until

(wait for it)

9!

As for lake life, we’ve had several whitheringly hot days. Since we have no air conditioning, we are at one with the temperature. For those too young to remember life before central AC, what that means is that you, by necessity, slow down. Sit a lot. Eat a lot less. Chewing generates heat, I've heard. Drink more water.

I have found a spot on the screened porch where I sat up a jigsaw puzzle table. I have a history with jigsaw puzzles and will save that story for another time. On a hot day with an occasional breeze, I can sit, not move much, the work my brain a bit. Then, as a gust of lake wind flows, I can just sit, refreshed by the cool.

After several weeks here, when Mike had fixed everything he plans to/can fix, he was getting a bit restless --- some of us are better suited for sitting than others.

“I need something to do,” he said.

Wouldn’t you just know it? Just before the move, he had announced that he was done with big furniture pieces and started making wooden boxes. These found a place to cure, right on top of my dishwasher.



So I asked him what he needed up here to make boxes.

He thought for a moment and then, “I wonder how much an inexpensive table saw would cost?”

“Why don’t we go and see?”

Truck Trip!

As it turns out, the saw was rather cheap. He said, “I could make boxes if I had my small tool bench.”
“Why don’t we bring it up?”
What a team.
So, Zach loaded it up in the truck and now it’s on the front porch, near the Puzz Table. We can both play and keep each other company.

Mike is merrily cranking out boxes. There’s more to it, of course, than the saw; his finish work takes my breath away.



As does he, every time.

Lake View

Living here almost full time, there were several things I wanted to do. One was to stock a bird feeder and invite our chirpy neighbors to drop by.

Such a good idea. However, I'm beginning to think that my other neighbors have given up luring birds to their yards. We fill up this tube and within 60 minutes, it's empty.

Yes, we are seeing lots of birds and the squirrels can't reach it. But these are rather tame birds and they have attitude. When the feeder is empty, some of them, especially the male robins, perch on our fence and complain. They stop only if I give the feeder a second fill

Mike and our nephew Brian have resurrected Last Call, the Cocktail Class Racer that Mike made. Brian has built a small hydroplane and together, they are racing around the lake.




I hear that last weekend, the Conservation Officer, Nathan, (always good to be on a first-name basis) pulled them over for some silly thing like speed or registration.

I hear that the offenders have addressed the issue.




Back at the cottage, my other goal, since I can be here daily, is to keep my window boxes vibrant. In the past, I planted what I hoped were hearty flowers that had to survive 4 or 5 days without water. Usually, when we arrived on Friday, they were all wilted and drooping. I'd drown them and sometimes they would spring back.


However, now I can water daily. I may have lost the BLACK THUMB for which I am so famous.





Also, my big treat is my single tomato plant. It's very easy to grow tomatoes in Indiana. The problem is bugs and critters who also like them 'maters.' So, this year, I plunked my tiny seedling into a pot, clearly 2 feet above critter reach. I placed a intimidating bright yellow cage around it and daily, I'm watching it reach up to the sun.

"When might we expect some tomatoes," asks the hub.

"August, near the end of the summer," I brag, assured.


So here we sit and watch the lake and the sunset. Peace.