Monday 12 January 2009
One of us (who should probably stay unnamed, except that she lives with us and is 5 years old) was having a bath across the side gallery from my room's back door whilst I was doing homework at my table. The door was open-- we never really close or lock doors round here. I don't know any family that really should. The little one had not closed the bathroom door all the way and I could hear her in there, singing and playing with a menagerie of floating toys. She must have been pouring a bucket over them or something for there was a repetitive sound of water cascading, accompanied by that pert little voice, 'Allllll done! Allllll done!'
Jessy was in her room too, listening her iPod I guess (we've both had them for Christmas) because she didn't hear it first. The singing abruptly stopped. Water moved. There was splashing and then the sound of a worried groan. I waited and heard nothing better. 'Lisa?' I called, to carry my voice out the door and across the gallery. 'Are you all right?'
'Hello?' she called, anxiously.
I got up at once. 'What is it?'
'Janine!' she called, recognising who would come. 'Help!'
I swung the door in to the room and peered round at the bath behind it. The water had run out and little Lisa was sitting cross-legged in the bottom, bent over the drain as though she'd dropt something down there. 'What did you put down there?' I wondered, almost ready to smile as though this was all the trouble there was.
'My hand,' she said, her voice quivering with anxiety.
I smiled then. 'No, I mean what did you reach down there for?'
'Nothing!' she insisted. 'My hand is stuck.'
My eyes went wide; no smile now. 'Your hand is stuck?'
She nodded, her eyes teary, and demonstrated by tugging on her hand now. There was a very final jerk on her shoulder-- her hand was halfway down the drain and not coming loose. 'Don't move!' I said firmly.
'I can't,' she said.
'Don't. Don't do anything.' I bent over, got half my body in front of hers and took her little arm in my hand. Gently I twisted it. Lisa complained. I could not see a thing past her wrist and I certainly wasn't going to snap it off. 'Do you have anything in your hand? Are you holding anything?'
'No,' she said, her voice cracking now.
'All right, relax your hand. Take a deep breath and then let it all out.'
'What are you going to do?'
'I will help you. Take a deep breath and then let it all out. Let whole your body relax.'
She did, somewhat theatrically. Again I tried to dislodge her hand. It swivelled till she cried out and I would not go further.
'All right, we'll run cold water on it. Hand me that soap.'
So we tried that too, though the soapy water did not make it easier to grasp her. The problem was that the corner of her thumb was caught below the rim of the drain pipe-- her little fingers must have been past the 'x' inside the drain. I reached down past where she was stuck and with my fingers I could squeeze her hand a little narrower. By this time she was shivering from the cold water running and splashing everywhere.
'This isn't working,' I fretted-- not the best thing to do in front of a child. I lifted my head up and yelled round the door. 'JESSY!'
She came in ten seconds. 'What is it?'
'Go get Daddy. She's got her hand stuck in the drain.'
Lisa whined then. 'Are we going to have to cut my hand off?'
I shook my head, probably too seriously, and shut off the water. 'I think we'd sooner cut up the bath with a chain saw.'
'A chain saw!' she wailed, and began to cry.
Jessy ran back down the gallery, followed by Daddy and Mother. 'What's happened?' Mother worried.
'Mummy!' she cried. 'I'm stuck in here and Janine says we have to cut it with a chain saw!'
I made a face. Daddy winced and displaced me without a word, leaning all the way down in front of her as I had been. I swear he was performing telekinesis with his eyes down there. 'Sit still,' he said softly, and closed his whole hand round hers. He didn't even put any more soap on it. With ten seconds of gentle squeezing he had freed her.
Lisa wailed, now out of relief, and Mother scooped her up, loud, naked, wet, and shivering, and I wrapped a towel round her. Daddy held up Lisa's wrist to examine it a few moments and then looked at me. 'Chain saw?' he asked wryly. 'Really?'
I shook my head, feeling like an idiot. 'I didn't know how to help her.'
Then he put a hand on my shoulder. 'You called me,' he said, and then kissed my head and went out.
Standing on the potty seat whilst Mother dried her, Lisa looked over at me. 'Thank you,' she said.
'Thank Daddy. He got you out.'
'Thank you, Daddy,' she called, that little voice surprisingly shrill for someone so small.
I kissed her head too. 'Try not to do anything like that again.'
Mother laughed. I suppose we all ought to have been laughing by then but some of us were still pretty disturbed by the whole notion. Bring chain saws into the discussion and it really seems serious. 'I'm pretty sure that of all the things you can think of to tell children not to do,' Mother said, 'sticking your hand down the drain isn't very high on the list.'
'Or licking a light bulb,' I said, recalling a true story someone had told me once.
'Or putting a wet rabbit in the dryer,' Mother said. I'd heard that story before too.
Lisa giggled at both of those and we all contributed a few more stupid examples, most of which I am sure we all made up. Not so cold now, Lisa ran naked round to her room and before Mother and I had stepped out of the bathroom she dashed back down the gallery to Jessy's room where Jessy was sitting back in her bed against the pillows with a book in her lap and her iPod going again. Mother chastised her for risking a cold and I only shook my head. The stamina of a little kid never ceases to amaze me.
...
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
12 January 2009
07 January 2009
I am sick
Wednesday 7 January 2009
This is a poem my stepmother wrote when she was 15 and staying with us as an exchange student. She had been sick for about three days-- blaming it on this weird American climate, I am sure! --and being the genius that she is she was able to depict the mad delirium of a high fever with a such wonder and compassion that anyone can feel her sense of utter helplessness... 'an intelligent being laid low in infirmity'.
I was of course by no means as sick as this yesterday (just had a tummy-ache and sleeping most of the day helped) but I think of this poem often and thought I might share it in my blog.
...
Lewes, Delaware
24-26 September 1997
I am sick.
Deprived of energy, devoid of strength, depraved of will,
enveloped in the strange world of the fever
where temperature
and density
and thirst
and aches throughout my body
are all my sensation.
Eyes water,
with a stinging sadness;
I weep for pain, or to relieve pain, I know not;
so I shut them:
I see not.
Ears rumble,
thick and loud like thunder upon my head;
and so I ignore everything:
I hear not.
Mouth burns,
with a hot anxious constriction,
every swallow a briar down my throat;
and so I dare not part my lips:
I speak not.
I know nothing, feel nothing, want nothing,
but from within.
I rest.
Stretched upon this couch with hands crossed above my chest,
like a Queen in state,
dead to the world behind the rosecoloured glasses
of my mad mind's eye.
My head spins,
slow, dull spirals downward, ever downward,
with no end in sight.
Unworldly thoughts drift by,
like vagrants from the city street
with nowhere to call home
but the vague recesses of my mind
where they beck and call to me,
nagging, nagging, nagging,
for answers I cannot provide
like strange alien torture
to an intelligent being
unused to grave weakness
laid low in involuntary infirmity.
When I am strong enough to reply
they will be gone,
unanswered, eternally a mystery
why they ever appeared and posed a question.
That they would be gone,
I try to imagine things of my own will
as if to show my waylaid mind
that I still have control.
But my will is but a page
against the army of my sickness.
Little girls run hand-in-hand to the beach:
their vivid colours searing in my sight,
their bright voices piercing in my ears,
their happiness incomprehensible.
What girls?
What beach? What colours? What words?
Boys hang a swing in a tree,
dangling daringly above the ground
like dauntless acrobats,
dizzying to me,
frightening to me.
What boys? What tree? What swing?
Is it sunny? Cloudy? Cold? Warm?
Day? Night? Dream? Reality?
Angry, I demand an image
of the swells of the sea
rising and falling with animate regularity,
that it might be a lovely vision of contentment.
But not for me.
What sea? What colour?
What weather-- sunny, hot, cold, wind, calm, rain, day, night?
Am I afraid or at ease?
Am I happy or sad?
Do I swim or sail?
Would I drown? Would I care?
Can I ever know rest with these questions in my head?
For the first time in my life
I take sleeping-tablets
and worry that I have taken too much
and that the last tenants of my mind
are these wild tortured contrivances of my madness.
I sleep.
Still they will not leave me,
haunting my repose
like pins and needles upon the receptors of my brain
nagging me, nagging me, nagging me
that they have required my soul
at a cost too dear
to make Death itself look awful to me.
Eternal sleep:
would that it might overwhelm me!
like a kind dream
in which I know no sickness, no weakness, no madness,
only sleep, beautiful sleep,
floating upon some buoyant bright cloud
while all the saints smile and whisper,
'Isn't she content?'
There I might know no weakness or infirmity,
no sensations,
not even my own mind,
only peace.
I wake.
Joyful sunlight bounces in the windows;
I hear the cheers of the sea-birds
and the gay whistle of the kettle
and I embrace the loving scent of soup on the cooker.
I am warm-- nay, hot,
and toss back the coffin of my blanket,
drained, but refreshed
despite the soilies so vile upon my body
and the knots of my hair resisting my hand's tenuous rake.
Sweat clings like some horrid vine about my skin
but I can sense it
and dislike it
and know it for what it is,
the last vestige of my illness,
that mad mindless state
in which I lay for three days' fast
like a forgotten doll upon the couch.
I wonder what I have missed of the world
and then, care not
for I have survived,
and can face anything now
that I have my mind again.
...
This is a poem my stepmother wrote when she was 15 and staying with us as an exchange student. She had been sick for about three days-- blaming it on this weird American climate, I am sure! --and being the genius that she is she was able to depict the mad delirium of a high fever with a such wonder and compassion that anyone can feel her sense of utter helplessness... 'an intelligent being laid low in infirmity'.
I was of course by no means as sick as this yesterday (just had a tummy-ache and sleeping most of the day helped) but I think of this poem often and thought I might share it in my blog.
...
Lewes, Delaware
24-26 September 1997
I am sick.
Deprived of energy, devoid of strength, depraved of will,
enveloped in the strange world of the fever
where temperature
and density
and thirst
and aches throughout my body
are all my sensation.
Eyes water,
with a stinging sadness;
I weep for pain, or to relieve pain, I know not;
so I shut them:
I see not.
Ears rumble,
thick and loud like thunder upon my head;
and so I ignore everything:
I hear not.
Mouth burns,
with a hot anxious constriction,
every swallow a briar down my throat;
and so I dare not part my lips:
I speak not.
I know nothing, feel nothing, want nothing,
but from within.
I rest.
Stretched upon this couch with hands crossed above my chest,
like a Queen in state,
dead to the world behind the rosecoloured glasses
of my mad mind's eye.
My head spins,
slow, dull spirals downward, ever downward,
with no end in sight.
Unworldly thoughts drift by,
like vagrants from the city street
with nowhere to call home
but the vague recesses of my mind
where they beck and call to me,
nagging, nagging, nagging,
for answers I cannot provide
like strange alien torture
to an intelligent being
unused to grave weakness
laid low in involuntary infirmity.
When I am strong enough to reply
they will be gone,
unanswered, eternally a mystery
why they ever appeared and posed a question.
That they would be gone,
I try to imagine things of my own will
as if to show my waylaid mind
that I still have control.
But my will is but a page
against the army of my sickness.
Little girls run hand-in-hand to the beach:
their vivid colours searing in my sight,
their bright voices piercing in my ears,
their happiness incomprehensible.
What girls?
What beach? What colours? What words?
Boys hang a swing in a tree,
dangling daringly above the ground
like dauntless acrobats,
dizzying to me,
frightening to me.
What boys? What tree? What swing?
Is it sunny? Cloudy? Cold? Warm?
Day? Night? Dream? Reality?
Angry, I demand an image
of the swells of the sea
rising and falling with animate regularity,
that it might be a lovely vision of contentment.
But not for me.
What sea? What colour?
What weather-- sunny, hot, cold, wind, calm, rain, day, night?
Am I afraid or at ease?
Am I happy or sad?
Do I swim or sail?
Would I drown? Would I care?
Can I ever know rest with these questions in my head?
For the first time in my life
I take sleeping-tablets
and worry that I have taken too much
and that the last tenants of my mind
are these wild tortured contrivances of my madness.
I sleep.
Still they will not leave me,
haunting my repose
like pins and needles upon the receptors of my brain
nagging me, nagging me, nagging me
that they have required my soul
at a cost too dear
to make Death itself look awful to me.
Eternal sleep:
would that it might overwhelm me!
like a kind dream
in which I know no sickness, no weakness, no madness,
only sleep, beautiful sleep,
floating upon some buoyant bright cloud
while all the saints smile and whisper,
'Isn't she content?'
There I might know no weakness or infirmity,
no sensations,
not even my own mind,
only peace.
I wake.
Joyful sunlight bounces in the windows;
I hear the cheers of the sea-birds
and the gay whistle of the kettle
and I embrace the loving scent of soup on the cooker.
I am warm-- nay, hot,
and toss back the coffin of my blanket,
drained, but refreshed
despite the soilies so vile upon my body
and the knots of my hair resisting my hand's tenuous rake.
Sweat clings like some horrid vine about my skin
but I can sense it
and dislike it
and know it for what it is,
the last vestige of my illness,
that mad mindless state
in which I lay for three days' fast
like a forgotten doll upon the couch.
I wonder what I have missed of the world
and then, care not
for I have survived,
and can face anything now
that I have my mind again.
...
12 October 2008
Over the bridge and far away
Saturday 11 October 2008
Today marks the eighth anniversary of Mommy's passing. At some time in the wee hours of the morning of the 11th she sat up in her hospital bed, caught my father's hand, and said aloud, 'I see stars!' And with that she proceeded to our loving God who submits even all things unto Himself. When Jessy and I awoke that morning Daddy was leaning over the bed-- for we had slept together that night for being so anxious about how she was doing-- and he told us that Mommy was 'out of danger'. Having both seen 'Sense and Sensibility' we knew how most people would have taken that line, but we knew also that in his faith Daddy meant it entirely another way. Mother (our nanny then) wrote that day calling our reaction The Wailing. 'I do not know how it could ever stop,' she wrote. And it did go on, if not as a sound of tears then as a cold empty pit in our souls, for quite some time till we realised what she had actually prayed for, that there could be some form of happiness without Mommy, not in spite of her absence nor because of it, but along with it. Mommy abides in Heaven, and we abide here, and we are both happy because we simply must be. There is no life without hope, and as Gran says, 'As long as there is life, there is hope.' The two are interrelated, because that's the only way life makes any sense.
I spent a little time in prayer this morning before I actually got out of bed, because I had slept through the actual moment that marked the event and I have promised myself I will never begin an October 11th without remembering her. I know this does not matter to Mommy. She is happy where she is and smiles down upon us all with confidence that we will all be all right. As Daddy has often reminded us, mourning is for those who are left. Pity for the one who has gone on is pointless-- she is the happy one, happy at home in the arms of God, and we are left to carry on in the cold cruel world.
Sometimes, even here, where Mommy never lived, I will walk in to the kitchen and for a moment imagine her standing there in her church dress and apron cleaning carrots or mixing cake batter and I will get a sudden pang down inside when I realise it's only what I might like, not what will ever be. And then I worry that I will forget her smile, or her scent, or the sound of her voice. I know Jessy believes she already has. But then we will watch her on a home video, look over our photos and revisit some of the toys and dolls she gave us, and we know her all over again as we always have. Those who leave us in the body do not leave us in the heart. This is why we call our stepmother 'Mother', like Maria gets called in 'The Sound of Music' (which is where we got the idea) and never 'Mommy' or 'Mum' like Lisa calls her instinctively. Mommy is not replaced at all-- indeed we live on with her, all of us, even our stepmother who loved her like an older sister or even a second mother... as Jessy and I love her in turn. Without Mommy having been what she was to each of us, none of what we have now could have been possible. It is really this profound-- even Mother when she was still our nanny wrote, on the day of her engagement to Daddy, that Mommy was her own saviour, the perfect sister, wife, mother, and friend, a lamb without blemish who suffered a painful and incurable condition and at age 33-- if you can believe that symbolic coincidence-- died to allow us all a new life.
...
Today marks the eighth anniversary of Mommy's passing. At some time in the wee hours of the morning of the 11th she sat up in her hospital bed, caught my father's hand, and said aloud, 'I see stars!' And with that she proceeded to our loving God who submits even all things unto Himself. When Jessy and I awoke that morning Daddy was leaning over the bed-- for we had slept together that night for being so anxious about how she was doing-- and he told us that Mommy was 'out of danger'. Having both seen 'Sense and Sensibility' we knew how most people would have taken that line, but we knew also that in his faith Daddy meant it entirely another way. Mother (our nanny then) wrote that day calling our reaction The Wailing. 'I do not know how it could ever stop,' she wrote. And it did go on, if not as a sound of tears then as a cold empty pit in our souls, for quite some time till we realised what she had actually prayed for, that there could be some form of happiness without Mommy, not in spite of her absence nor because of it, but along with it. Mommy abides in Heaven, and we abide here, and we are both happy because we simply must be. There is no life without hope, and as Gran says, 'As long as there is life, there is hope.' The two are interrelated, because that's the only way life makes any sense.
I spent a little time in prayer this morning before I actually got out of bed, because I had slept through the actual moment that marked the event and I have promised myself I will never begin an October 11th without remembering her. I know this does not matter to Mommy. She is happy where she is and smiles down upon us all with confidence that we will all be all right. As Daddy has often reminded us, mourning is for those who are left. Pity for the one who has gone on is pointless-- she is the happy one, happy at home in the arms of God, and we are left to carry on in the cold cruel world.
Sometimes, even here, where Mommy never lived, I will walk in to the kitchen and for a moment imagine her standing there in her church dress and apron cleaning carrots or mixing cake batter and I will get a sudden pang down inside when I realise it's only what I might like, not what will ever be. And then I worry that I will forget her smile, or her scent, or the sound of her voice. I know Jessy believes she already has. But then we will watch her on a home video, look over our photos and revisit some of the toys and dolls she gave us, and we know her all over again as we always have. Those who leave us in the body do not leave us in the heart. This is why we call our stepmother 'Mother', like Maria gets called in 'The Sound of Music' (which is where we got the idea) and never 'Mommy' or 'Mum' like Lisa calls her instinctively. Mommy is not replaced at all-- indeed we live on with her, all of us, even our stepmother who loved her like an older sister or even a second mother... as Jessy and I love her in turn. Without Mommy having been what she was to each of us, none of what we have now could have been possible. It is really this profound-- even Mother when she was still our nanny wrote, on the day of her engagement to Daddy, that Mommy was her own saviour, the perfect sister, wife, mother, and friend, a lamb without blemish who suffered a painful and incurable condition and at age 33-- if you can believe that symbolic coincidence-- died to allow us all a new life.
...
21 September 2008
Recuperation
Sunday 21 September 2008
Gently she pushed the hair of my forehead and I opened my eyes. 'Hey,' she whispered, smiling down at me.
'Mm,' I sighed, and rolled over onto my back, neglecting the covers. It was a little past 7.30 but not chilly.
Jessy was sitting naked on the side of my bed, reaching over to rearrange my hair. 'How is it?' she wondered.
I got to one elbow and we both craned our necks to look at the thick bandage on the side of my breast. 'It's still there,' I said, of the bandage.
'Does it still hurt?'
I thought for a moment. 'Not really.'
She made a cute pouting face at me. 'I wish I could help more.'
I looked up at her and then laid a hand on top of hers, on the bed. 'But you already have helped, so much.'
She nodded. 'Do you want to have a shower before church?'
I shook my head. 'I just want to find something I can wear, you know.'
We stood together in front of my wardrobe for a few minutes and finally decided I could wear a kind of snug tanktop instead of a bra and then something over it. Jessy helped me pull on the tanktop and shirt over my head. I did not look conspicuous and not having to have a bra strap cross right over the bandage was a relief.
After church Daddy wanted to drive over to the airport, just for a ride, and I offered to go with him. Jessy went along because I did. We wandered round the airplanes, Daddy pointing out this and that on each one and Jessy and I wondering if now he wants to get an airplane for himself. Finally Daddy turned to me and said, 'How are you holding up?'
I stopped and looked at him. "I'm fine; why?'
He shook his head, absent-minded, and then turned to wander on a little. We followed. 'I'm sorry about it,' he said. 'I shouldn't have--'
'Wait, Daddy,' I interrupted. 'It's not your fault. If it's anyone's it's mine, because I couldn't carry the thing right.'
'I shouldn't have made you carry it at all.'
'Now Daddy, who else was going to help you?'
'I could have got your mother to do it.'
He always refers our stepmother as 'your mother', even though Mommy was always 'Mommy' to us with him. 'Daddy, no offence, but I am probably stronger than Mother is.'
Jessy nodded at that. 'She is,' she said.
Daddy thought for a moment and then smiled. 'I guess you might be right.' He walked on a little more and then said, 'The stupid contractors should have put the thing away like I asked them to.'
We both nodded at that. He's not usually into blaming other people at all, but as long as he can find a cause for something bad that's happened he can accept it and move past it.
At home I sent e-mails to my friends from HOH and also Audrey and some other cousins, had a nap, helped Mother bake yellow corn muffins and a cake for dessert, and finished my homework for Geometry and German. I ran a bath and Jessy came in to help wash my hair while I held up the plastic under my arm with tape like before. Little Lisa came in, sat on the potty lid with her feet dangling off the floor, and prattled on and on about this and that, not really paying much attention to why the three of us had to be all together and why I even had to be having a bath to begin with. I expect to be able to wear at least something presentable tomorrow for school. I just worry now if I will have a scar, but that is a worry I will NOT share with Daddy.
...
Gently she pushed the hair of my forehead and I opened my eyes. 'Hey,' she whispered, smiling down at me.
'Mm,' I sighed, and rolled over onto my back, neglecting the covers. It was a little past 7.30 but not chilly.
Jessy was sitting naked on the side of my bed, reaching over to rearrange my hair. 'How is it?' she wondered.
I got to one elbow and we both craned our necks to look at the thick bandage on the side of my breast. 'It's still there,' I said, of the bandage.
'Does it still hurt?'
I thought for a moment. 'Not really.'
She made a cute pouting face at me. 'I wish I could help more.'
I looked up at her and then laid a hand on top of hers, on the bed. 'But you already have helped, so much.'
She nodded. 'Do you want to have a shower before church?'
I shook my head. 'I just want to find something I can wear, you know.'
We stood together in front of my wardrobe for a few minutes and finally decided I could wear a kind of snug tanktop instead of a bra and then something over it. Jessy helped me pull on the tanktop and shirt over my head. I did not look conspicuous and not having to have a bra strap cross right over the bandage was a relief.
After church Daddy wanted to drive over to the airport, just for a ride, and I offered to go with him. Jessy went along because I did. We wandered round the airplanes, Daddy pointing out this and that on each one and Jessy and I wondering if now he wants to get an airplane for himself. Finally Daddy turned to me and said, 'How are you holding up?'
I stopped and looked at him. "I'm fine; why?'
He shook his head, absent-minded, and then turned to wander on a little. We followed. 'I'm sorry about it,' he said. 'I shouldn't have--'
'Wait, Daddy,' I interrupted. 'It's not your fault. If it's anyone's it's mine, because I couldn't carry the thing right.'
'I shouldn't have made you carry it at all.'
'Now Daddy, who else was going to help you?'
'I could have got your mother to do it.'
He always refers our stepmother as 'your mother', even though Mommy was always 'Mommy' to us with him. 'Daddy, no offence, but I am probably stronger than Mother is.'
Jessy nodded at that. 'She is,' she said.
Daddy thought for a moment and then smiled. 'I guess you might be right.' He walked on a little more and then said, 'The stupid contractors should have put the thing away like I asked them to.'
We both nodded at that. He's not usually into blaming other people at all, but as long as he can find a cause for something bad that's happened he can accept it and move past it.
At home I sent e-mails to my friends from HOH and also Audrey and some other cousins, had a nap, helped Mother bake yellow corn muffins and a cake for dessert, and finished my homework for Geometry and German. I ran a bath and Jessy came in to help wash my hair while I held up the plastic under my arm with tape like before. Little Lisa came in, sat on the potty lid with her feet dangling off the floor, and prattled on and on about this and that, not really paying much attention to why the three of us had to be all together and why I even had to be having a bath to begin with. I expect to be able to wear at least something presentable tomorrow for school. I just worry now if I will have a scar, but that is a worry I will NOT share with Daddy.
...
20 September 2008
Owww
Saturday 20 September 2008
This place is not really finished, especially the lawn and yard which still need manicurement and cleaning-up. Whilst we were in England the workmen were working mainly under Daddy's directions over the phone and e-mail, and a lot of stuff was left lying round for them to move later, or in some cases they were just sloppy and never picked it up. Mother (our stepmother) decided that today would be clean-up-the-yard day and so we were all pressed into service from about 9.00 onwards.
A lot of it was raking, trimming, or moving potential firewood (Daddy will burn nearly anything in a fireplace). Jessy and I moved logs and scrap lumber for probably two hours straight. Mother served us iced tea and then we all went right back to it. Then Daddy asked me to help him with something. There is a rack that the workmen used for painting the storm shutters with epoxy paint. It is about ten feet long and two feet wide and made out of two-by-fours and some skinny metal pipe. We picked it up and manoeuvred it onto the yard trailer which Daddy towed over to the other side of the garage. Back there is some other junk leftover from the construction including a not-so-tidy stack of scaffold planks, some with ugly rusty nails in them. This is not a place Lisa or little J.J. ever go, so it is not especially a safety hazard. But in lifting the painting rack off the trailer and manoeuvring it in beside the back of the garage we had to pass pretty closely to some pretty nasty-looking spiky stuff.
I had one end of this rack and had to press it up to like shoulder-height to get through the gate and past some other stuff. Daddy was carrying the other end walking backwards. 'Don't push at me,' he said several times, and though I was losing the strength for this I was trying very hard not to let him trip over his heels. At one point we were very close to the scaffold-plank pile. I felt like I would lose my hold on this rack at any second. 'Just another moment, almost there,' he said.
'Okay,' I struggled. I wobbled a little and the thing was so unwieldy and heavy that it tended to sway on its own. I bumped sideways right into the side of the scaffold-plank pile, felt something jab me and heard my t-shirt rip, but soldiered on in some pain till we could put the thing down.
The second my arms went below my shoulders I felt the pain and couldn't hold it. Fortunately Daddy was able to guide the rack over to one side as it went down with a clatter. 'Owww,' I said then.
Jessy had been behind me and came over. 'Your shirt is ripped,' she observed.
'That's not all,' I said, and peeled it up under my right arm. There across the skin of the side of my breast, near the bottom, was a very nasty gash about two inches long, stinging from the dirty nail and wood that scraped me. Blood oozed down my ribs from it.
'What happened?' Daddy asked, coming towards me from the other end of the rack. 'Did it bite you?'
I only looked up, still holding the t-shirt up under my arm, and he leaned over and looked at it. A bra might have taken some of the direct hit but I hadn't worn one for this sweaty work and the cut was much deeper for my oversight.
Daddy actually laid his fingers to the flesh nearby to pull up my breast and examine it. It stung and bled more. 'Owww,' I said quietly.
He winced. 'Right. Get in the car.'
'Are you taking her to the hospital?' Jessy asked innocently as he stomped past her to the garage. That didn't need an answer.
'I just want to wash it first,' I said quietly, and turned, carefully laying the t-shirt down over it. 'Can you come with me?'
She nodded. 'I haven't had a shower.'
I made a face. 'I don't think I can have one right now,' I said.
At the clinic in Accomac we sat for another hour waiting for a variety of other scruffy-looking people. Jessy had dressed my wound with antiseptic ointment and a thick gauze bandage with tape, all of which the nurse told me to take off, which hurt a lot. By now the bleeding was mostly stopped although it still stung awfully. The nurse looked at it for a few moments and then the doctor came in. It was a male doctor. I immediately blushed. But they didn't have a female doctor on this shift.
Daddy was ready to back out of the examining cubicle-- he doesn't like stitches, and also he won't ever compromise the dignity of a lady, even one of his own daughters. I knew that looking at it behind the garage was as much as he would do. But Jessy would not leave my side even after the doctor told her she was in the way. She sat on my left and held my hand securely while I lay on the table with my other arm over my head and the t-shirt pulled up, almost TOO far, and got treated.
He asked how it had happened, on what I had gouged myself, and I told him it was a nail, and he gave me a shot for that. He said it would not need stitches but he did use some really strong tape to draw it closed and told me not to take off the tape for several days. I winced. 'How will I have a shower?' I wondered, since I was already a foul mess from working all morning.
'Take baths,' he said, and smiled a little. 'After about Tuesday you can take it off.' And he gave me a prescription for stuff to put on it after that, as well as the one for antibiotic, and told me to take Tylenol Extra Strength for the 'discomfort'', which really meant 'PAIN'.
Jessy had brought me a clean t-shirt and stood guard while I changed it after the doctor left the cubicle. I didn't know what I would do with the other one and carried it out. Daddy met us in the corridor, got the report from the doctor, and then leaned in and gave me a hug. 'I'm sorry, sweetheart,' he said.
I hugged him back, hard. 'It wasn't your fault.'
He made a face, not convinced of that. 'You're a good trouper,' he told me, which is what he always says to us at times like this.
'She didn't even cry,' Jessy said.
'I cried,' I said.
'Not out loud,' she said. 'I would have bawled my eyes out.'
I gave her a hug too.
As soon as we got back home I went up stairs for a bath. Jessy came in and helped me, mainly by washing my hair while I held a plastic bag taped under my arm to keep the bandage out of the water. I did not put on a bra yet and wonder how one will fit around, not over, the bandage. I will have to go to school in the morning without a morning shower.
The only good part of this is that the doctor provided me with a note to keep from participating in PE this week. So I can actually wear makeup and something reasonable.
...
This place is not really finished, especially the lawn and yard which still need manicurement and cleaning-up. Whilst we were in England the workmen were working mainly under Daddy's directions over the phone and e-mail, and a lot of stuff was left lying round for them to move later, or in some cases they were just sloppy and never picked it up. Mother (our stepmother) decided that today would be clean-up-the-yard day and so we were all pressed into service from about 9.00 onwards.
A lot of it was raking, trimming, or moving potential firewood (Daddy will burn nearly anything in a fireplace). Jessy and I moved logs and scrap lumber for probably two hours straight. Mother served us iced tea and then we all went right back to it. Then Daddy asked me to help him with something. There is a rack that the workmen used for painting the storm shutters with epoxy paint. It is about ten feet long and two feet wide and made out of two-by-fours and some skinny metal pipe. We picked it up and manoeuvred it onto the yard trailer which Daddy towed over to the other side of the garage. Back there is some other junk leftover from the construction including a not-so-tidy stack of scaffold planks, some with ugly rusty nails in them. This is not a place Lisa or little J.J. ever go, so it is not especially a safety hazard. But in lifting the painting rack off the trailer and manoeuvring it in beside the back of the garage we had to pass pretty closely to some pretty nasty-looking spiky stuff.
I had one end of this rack and had to press it up to like shoulder-height to get through the gate and past some other stuff. Daddy was carrying the other end walking backwards. 'Don't push at me,' he said several times, and though I was losing the strength for this I was trying very hard not to let him trip over his heels. At one point we were very close to the scaffold-plank pile. I felt like I would lose my hold on this rack at any second. 'Just another moment, almost there,' he said.
'Okay,' I struggled. I wobbled a little and the thing was so unwieldy and heavy that it tended to sway on its own. I bumped sideways right into the side of the scaffold-plank pile, felt something jab me and heard my t-shirt rip, but soldiered on in some pain till we could put the thing down.
The second my arms went below my shoulders I felt the pain and couldn't hold it. Fortunately Daddy was able to guide the rack over to one side as it went down with a clatter. 'Owww,' I said then.
Jessy had been behind me and came over. 'Your shirt is ripped,' she observed.
'That's not all,' I said, and peeled it up under my right arm. There across the skin of the side of my breast, near the bottom, was a very nasty gash about two inches long, stinging from the dirty nail and wood that scraped me. Blood oozed down my ribs from it.
'What happened?' Daddy asked, coming towards me from the other end of the rack. 'Did it bite you?'
I only looked up, still holding the t-shirt up under my arm, and he leaned over and looked at it. A bra might have taken some of the direct hit but I hadn't worn one for this sweaty work and the cut was much deeper for my oversight.
Daddy actually laid his fingers to the flesh nearby to pull up my breast and examine it. It stung and bled more. 'Owww,' I said quietly.
He winced. 'Right. Get in the car.'
'Are you taking her to the hospital?' Jessy asked innocently as he stomped past her to the garage. That didn't need an answer.
'I just want to wash it first,' I said quietly, and turned, carefully laying the t-shirt down over it. 'Can you come with me?'
She nodded. 'I haven't had a shower.'
I made a face. 'I don't think I can have one right now,' I said.
At the clinic in Accomac we sat for another hour waiting for a variety of other scruffy-looking people. Jessy had dressed my wound with antiseptic ointment and a thick gauze bandage with tape, all of which the nurse told me to take off, which hurt a lot. By now the bleeding was mostly stopped although it still stung awfully. The nurse looked at it for a few moments and then the doctor came in. It was a male doctor. I immediately blushed. But they didn't have a female doctor on this shift.
Daddy was ready to back out of the examining cubicle-- he doesn't like stitches, and also he won't ever compromise the dignity of a lady, even one of his own daughters. I knew that looking at it behind the garage was as much as he would do. But Jessy would not leave my side even after the doctor told her she was in the way. She sat on my left and held my hand securely while I lay on the table with my other arm over my head and the t-shirt pulled up, almost TOO far, and got treated.
He asked how it had happened, on what I had gouged myself, and I told him it was a nail, and he gave me a shot for that. He said it would not need stitches but he did use some really strong tape to draw it closed and told me not to take off the tape for several days. I winced. 'How will I have a shower?' I wondered, since I was already a foul mess from working all morning.
'Take baths,' he said, and smiled a little. 'After about Tuesday you can take it off.' And he gave me a prescription for stuff to put on it after that, as well as the one for antibiotic, and told me to take Tylenol Extra Strength for the 'discomfort'', which really meant 'PAIN'.
Jessy had brought me a clean t-shirt and stood guard while I changed it after the doctor left the cubicle. I didn't know what I would do with the other one and carried it out. Daddy met us in the corridor, got the report from the doctor, and then leaned in and gave me a hug. 'I'm sorry, sweetheart,' he said.
I hugged him back, hard. 'It wasn't your fault.'
He made a face, not convinced of that. 'You're a good trouper,' he told me, which is what he always says to us at times like this.
'She didn't even cry,' Jessy said.
'I cried,' I said.
'Not out loud,' she said. 'I would have bawled my eyes out.'
I gave her a hug too.
As soon as we got back home I went up stairs for a bath. Jessy came in and helped me, mainly by washing my hair while I held a plastic bag taped under my arm to keep the bandage out of the water. I did not put on a bra yet and wonder how one will fit around, not over, the bandage. I will have to go to school in the morning without a morning shower.
The only good part of this is that the doctor provided me with a note to keep from participating in PE this week. So I can actually wear makeup and something reasonable.
...
29 August 2008
I am sick
Thursday 28 August 2008
This morning we drove way down over the bridge to Norfolk to shop for school supplies, mainly stuff for our art classes-- Jessy and I are both in the same class, plus choir-- and leotards for Lisa's dance class. Little J.J. was very good for the ride and insisted on walking most of the day. We no longer take a stroller anywhere for him-- he will walk at least half the time we are out and when someone has to carry him he is tired enough that he is no bother. He is actually a very affectionate little guy and is very good to us all.
On the way back up the Shore in the van I started feeling ill. This is unlike me-- I am hardly ever sick in any way. We'd stopped for cold drinks on the way down and I'd had to get a Pepsi, which I hate, and other than that all I had was Burger King when we stopped for lunch. Normally I can handle that, and we have not gone for fast food in at least a week. But I felt full and sluggish and heavy in the head. When we got home I went up to lie down but it wasn't getting any better and finally I had to go into my bathroom and get rid of it, which was very messy involving both ends. There is nothing worse than having to clean up the sink after yourself, you know. When I could stand upright I took a very warm shower, dried off only a little, and collapsed on my bed without putting on anything.
There are three ways into my room. Over in the corner is a door leading to my parents' dressing room, actually one of their walk-in closets, but it's bolted and we never use that. My parents' room is above the dining room and their door is in the front stair hall. Round the mezzanine above the front hall, my room is above the parlour with a door opening off a little lobby. This is the door to be used in case this room ever becomes a guest room. The front gallery connects from the lobby and leads into what gets called 'the children's wing', where Lisa's and Jessy's rooms are. The third door from my room goes directly from the hallway outside Lisa's room into my little dressing area where my closets and bathroom are.
I lay still on top of the mussed sheets of my bed, in what Daddy calls the 'dead dog' position, on my left side with my head on the pillows and my arms and legs extended partway out towards the edge. It was the only way I had got comfortable. I was staring straight through the dressing area at the half-open door when it swung into the room and Daddy appeared. 'Hey,' he said softly.
'Hey,' I said hoarsely, as my throat still hurt from its ordeal twenty minutes before.
He came in and leaned over me, pushing a strand of sweaty hair off the side of my face. Of course my daddy has seen me undressed plenty of times, but he's always looked right at me-- meaning my eyes-- and it's stopped being awkward. The other day I showed him a bug bite on my bottom. He looked at it, because I couldn't, and said to put Anbesol on it. That was about as awkward as it got. 'What happened to you?' he asked.
I gave a little shrug. Lying like that it probably only looked like I was wiggling one shoulder. 'I guess something I ate.'
He nodded, glancing over once to see that I'd opened one of the windows, and then bent down again to lay the back of his hand against mt forehead, and neck. I was not very warm now, after the shower. 'Do you need something to drink?'
I made the shrug again. 'Jessy will get me something.'
He smiled then. 'You're lucky to have each other,' he said-- he says that to us often. 'Well-- no one's expecting you for supper. I think we were just going to have leftovers. We have some of that macaroni left.... Just let your mother know if you want anything.'
I smiled. I know it was for our sake that he began referring to our stepmother as our mother, and not by her name any more, after the wedding. But we had been calling her 'Mother', because that's what Liesl calls Maria in 'The Sound of Music', almost since the engagement. Maybe she is not my mother, really, except if you count motherhood as being the person who guides you, supports you, cares for you without question or condition, because she loves you more than herself... then of course she is very much my mother.
'Okay,' I said softly.
'Don't dehydrate. I'll send Jessy down for something cool for you.'
'Okay.'
Then he leaned down and kissed me on the side of the head, turned, and went out, leaving the door as he'd found it. Out in the hall I heard him asking those other two to be quiet around me. Neither of them had been making much sound at all. I smiled a little. But he is always very gentle with us, even to the point of overcompensating a little. I suppose having a slightly overindulgent daddy is not the worst thing!
It's 12.05 Friday morning as I type this, so apparently I've got better.
...
This morning we drove way down over the bridge to Norfolk to shop for school supplies, mainly stuff for our art classes-- Jessy and I are both in the same class, plus choir-- and leotards for Lisa's dance class. Little J.J. was very good for the ride and insisted on walking most of the day. We no longer take a stroller anywhere for him-- he will walk at least half the time we are out and when someone has to carry him he is tired enough that he is no bother. He is actually a very affectionate little guy and is very good to us all.
On the way back up the Shore in the van I started feeling ill. This is unlike me-- I am hardly ever sick in any way. We'd stopped for cold drinks on the way down and I'd had to get a Pepsi, which I hate, and other than that all I had was Burger King when we stopped for lunch. Normally I can handle that, and we have not gone for fast food in at least a week. But I felt full and sluggish and heavy in the head. When we got home I went up to lie down but it wasn't getting any better and finally I had to go into my bathroom and get rid of it, which was very messy involving both ends. There is nothing worse than having to clean up the sink after yourself, you know. When I could stand upright I took a very warm shower, dried off only a little, and collapsed on my bed without putting on anything.
There are three ways into my room. Over in the corner is a door leading to my parents' dressing room, actually one of their walk-in closets, but it's bolted and we never use that. My parents' room is above the dining room and their door is in the front stair hall. Round the mezzanine above the front hall, my room is above the parlour with a door opening off a little lobby. This is the door to be used in case this room ever becomes a guest room. The front gallery connects from the lobby and leads into what gets called 'the children's wing', where Lisa's and Jessy's rooms are. The third door from my room goes directly from the hallway outside Lisa's room into my little dressing area where my closets and bathroom are.
I lay still on top of the mussed sheets of my bed, in what Daddy calls the 'dead dog' position, on my left side with my head on the pillows and my arms and legs extended partway out towards the edge. It was the only way I had got comfortable. I was staring straight through the dressing area at the half-open door when it swung into the room and Daddy appeared. 'Hey,' he said softly.
'Hey,' I said hoarsely, as my throat still hurt from its ordeal twenty minutes before.
He came in and leaned over me, pushing a strand of sweaty hair off the side of my face. Of course my daddy has seen me undressed plenty of times, but he's always looked right at me-- meaning my eyes-- and it's stopped being awkward. The other day I showed him a bug bite on my bottom. He looked at it, because I couldn't, and said to put Anbesol on it. That was about as awkward as it got. 'What happened to you?' he asked.
I gave a little shrug. Lying like that it probably only looked like I was wiggling one shoulder. 'I guess something I ate.'
He nodded, glancing over once to see that I'd opened one of the windows, and then bent down again to lay the back of his hand against mt forehead, and neck. I was not very warm now, after the shower. 'Do you need something to drink?'
I made the shrug again. 'Jessy will get me something.'
He smiled then. 'You're lucky to have each other,' he said-- he says that to us often. 'Well-- no one's expecting you for supper. I think we were just going to have leftovers. We have some of that macaroni left.... Just let your mother know if you want anything.'
I smiled. I know it was for our sake that he began referring to our stepmother as our mother, and not by her name any more, after the wedding. But we had been calling her 'Mother', because that's what Liesl calls Maria in 'The Sound of Music', almost since the engagement. Maybe she is not my mother, really, except if you count motherhood as being the person who guides you, supports you, cares for you without question or condition, because she loves you more than herself... then of course she is very much my mother.
'Okay,' I said softly.
'Don't dehydrate. I'll send Jessy down for something cool for you.'
'Okay.'
Then he leaned down and kissed me on the side of the head, turned, and went out, leaving the door as he'd found it. Out in the hall I heard him asking those other two to be quiet around me. Neither of them had been making much sound at all. I smiled a little. But he is always very gentle with us, even to the point of overcompensating a little. I suppose having a slightly overindulgent daddy is not the worst thing!
It's 12.05 Friday morning as I type this, so apparently I've got better.
...
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