2 I fell from a tree into the light of love A story of h ealing for everyone facing a daunting physical challenge, and the people who love them By Laurie F. Childers (cc) 2021 www.lauriechilders.com 3 Table of Contents Part I: Th e Summer of Laying Low The Fall in Spring 1 The Ambulance and the Emergency Room 2 Feeling the Love 6 Decisions, Decisions 8 Trauma and Triggers 10 Tenderness 12 Observations About Drugs and Other Treatments 12 Pity Party #1 14 Dream 14 Coming Home 15 This is How Bones Heal 17 Daydream 18 Attitude Preparations 18 Encouragement 20 Laughter 21 Spiritual Boomerang 23 Pity Party #2 23 The beautiful variety of ways that love came to me 24 Occupational Therapy 30 Physical Therapy 31 What do you do all day? 33 Takeaways from the Summer of Laying Low 35 Extras 36 I will walk tomorrow 37 Part II: Standing Tall Baby Steps 38 Bracing Myself 39 Morning Routine 40 When Did I Dance Again? 40 Physical Therapy 41 Setbacks 41 Outdoors 42 Braceless 43 Work and Travel 43 4 I am a miracle 44 Month 6: Not Quite Normal (Yet) 44 Month 7: All Restrictions Lifted 46 Part III: Stamina and Patience Month 8 47 Month 9 48 Month 10 48 Month 11 50 Month 12 51 Fall Festival: May 25, 2020 53 I was one that got saved 54 On Being Normal 56 Some Thoughts on Grace, Gratitude, Dignity 59 Human Relationship Mandala 61 Post Script 62 Amy’s Caring Bridge Letter 63 Judy’s Poem 64 European spinal physical therapy, in bed. 65 Video links: All-video Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoHmkD2QZW2xye- ViSG3fcWyde88ZrKAY “Bedaling” video and construction designs: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=PIboyc2YZUU&list=PLoHmkD2QZW2xye-ViSG3fcWyde88ZrKAY&index=3&t=98s My community college class sent me a video greeting, all of them adorably wearing rainbow-colored hair extensions 1 Part I: Th e Summer of Laying Low The Fall in Spring The tale begins on a beautiful morning, May 25, 2019, in idyllic, woodsy, semi-rural Oregon. I was at the home of some friends to help on an outdoor construction project. I wasn’t needed for the work for a moment, and my mind and eyes wandered upward. For seven years, I had wanted to climb this wooden structure on the property. Simple stairs of wooden planks on a notched log led up to a platform between tall tree trunks. Another set of steps led to a second, higher platform. I was just going for the lower platform, about 15 feet up, to enjoy the view, and to watch and listen to birds. My long-time friend B arry saw me crawling up the steps on all fours and hollered, “You be careful up there, girlfriend!” I made a sarcastic reply, because I’m always careful. Vicki, whose home we were visiting, said to me, “I’ve never even been up there.” “I love these things,” I hollered back. As I was getting to the top of the stairs I needed to concentrate, because there was no rail of any kind, nothing to hold onto. I noticed that the platform slightly overlapped the top stair steps, so I stood up carefully, perfectly balanced, placing my feet just off center of each of the two top steps, so I wouldn't trip on the platform edge when I stepped onto its floor. Except I never got that far. When I lifted my left leg, the plank under my right foot broke. I yelled and my hands grasped for anything; there was only air. My left shin scraped a step on the way down, and this lightly pushed my body backwards. I saw the trunks and foliage and then sky in motion, as through a window in a moving train, only vertically. I noted the moment I could have landed without injury but estimated that I wasn't halfway down yet. I surrendered to falling; I didn't know if there is a way one is supposed to fall so I just went limp. Barry told me months later that he saw me fall backward with my arms and legs upward in the air. I landed thwump on my back onto tall grass, blooming larkspur, and fertile damp loam near a singing creek. I gratefully sensed some life-saving cushioning in the soil that received me and expect I left a torso-shaped imprint there. Immediately I wished to rewind life 30 seconds and simply roll onto the tree platform when I was still on all fours. I knew the answer was “not possible” and didn’t repeat the request. My body’s response to the impact was tightly contracting Larkspur 2 muscles. It was a painful cramp, a strong spasm of my entire back, glutei, and hamstring muscles. Nothing could relax that contraction. My limbs, fingers, toes, shoulders, neck and head were all moving fine so I knew there was no paralysis. I thought, with a good back massage, everything will be OK. I also remember thinking, I’m 61, I’ve had a great life already; do I really want to go through whatever is ahead of me? Then I was dreaming, very briefly; I only remember deep colors, vertical stripes. I was awakened by four heads right over me, my friends talking to me, there to help. Barry looked me straight in the eyes and said, “DON’T MOVE.” Someone called 911 and waited at the driveway to guide the paramedics to me. I so wanted to pull my knees to my chest to stretch my agonized back and hamstrings; we had minimal success there, which turned out to be a good thing. Carefully, at my urging, my friends removed my hiking boots. At the very least I ached to be able to move my ankles back and forth. They also brought a bench for me to rest my calves on, which gave some relief. The Ambulance and the Emergency Room I remember the ambulance paramedics leaning over me, then craning their heads up, guesstimating the height I had fallen from. Twenty feet? Fifteen? They stabilized my neck and were as kind and careful as could be. However, every jolt on the gurney and in the winding 20 minute ambulance ride seemed to re-intensify the acute pain of the muscles' contraction. thesaurus.com 3 From the moment the paramedics started to move me, I repeatedly used a coping technique I’d once learned to deal with extreme stress of any kind: tapping two fingertips on my chest, face, or wrist, to remind me to stay in the present but not get sucked into the intensity of the pain. Perhaps tapping works by giving the brain a 1 distraction, a second thing to attend to besides physical or emotional pain. In the ambulance, a paramedic pulled out a big syringe. “What’s that?” I asked. “Fentanyl,” he replied. “You’re going to need it.” “NO!” I responded, I begged for a muscle relaxant instead. “Are you worried about addiction?” he inquired. “YES!” I replied. Three times that very week I’d heard NPR stories about fentanyl addiction. “This isn’t the time to worry about that,” he told me. I bet every addict heard that once. I compromised and let him give me half a shot of fentanyl. As I was rolled into the ER, someone said, “This will be your ER doctor, Dr. Goldner.” I smiled and said, “Hi Al! I’m Julia’s mom.” Our daughters were friends in high school. I knew I would be cared for as a neighbor. I do love living a long time in a small city. The ER was a crowded place of continual motion. My gurney was constantly bumped. People were moving rapidly: they needed to find out what my internal injuries were. They cut off my clothing and asked me questions. Getting a CAT scan meant four transfers onto and off of a hard board. Ditto for the MRI that followed. Each transfer deepened and extended that tortuous spasm. I’m sure I screamed each time. On the way back to the ER, the orderly moving my gurney down the hall thoughtlessly pushed on my shoulder to scoot my body a little lower on the slab – unbelievable. I screamed. It must be noted that I understood that speed was of the essence in the ER; I am grateful for their attentive work. The imaging results arrived, and Dr. Goldner read them aloud. The L1 and L4 vertebrae, above and below the small of my back, suffered burst fractures. They shattered into many pieces. There was one worrisome arrowhead-shaped bone sliver pressing its sharp side along the spinal cord off of the L4. The spinous processes (the pointy parts that face outward) of 10 vertebrae snapped off, and I broke 16 ribs. Plus there was a tiny hole in one lung and a laceration in my liver, which he said would heal themselves and in this context weren’t concerns. I asked Al, “When will I.... dance a gain?” He looked at me gravely and paused, probably wondering if I’d heard him. “You are... broken . Your back can heal, but it will take a long time.” I learned about tapping in a workshop with Nadine Clare Hoover, author of Creating Cultures of Peace: A 1 Movement of Love and Conscience. I see now there is much theoretical information online about tapping, but I wasn’t concerned with where I tapped; that didn’t seem to matter. 4 “I’ve never broken a bone before. Are we talking two months? Two years?” “It’ll be a long time .” How long, no one would say. I was hearing, and hanging onto, the confidence in “your back can heal.” The day of the fall was a long, difficult and constantly painful day. After the ER, in my hospital room, I waited five more long hours for pain medication, still begging for muscle relaxants, as my muscles maintained spasming. The nurses kept saying it was really busy that day. I buzzed them every 90 minutes, sure that they must have forgotten me. Eventually I asked, “Are there really people in this hospital worse off than me?” “Yes,” was the reply. I shut up. Vicki had kindly followed the ambulance and stayed nearby for hours, starting a tag- team of companions so I would not be alone. Vicki made calls on my phone as requested, the first to my husband John who was across the country. There were a number of commitments in the next week that I needed to cancel before I got drugged and forgot, including my band’s concert and an artist-in-residence program. I remember thinking, this isn’t how Vicki wanted to spend her Saturday. CAT scan of my lumbar spine 5 Once settled in Room 3201 of the trauma ward, I started to be more aware of internal imagery. In my mind’s eye, my whole back consisted of thick shiny black ropes that spanned from my shoulders to my pelvis, and with each spasm they contracted like super strong greasy springs, impenetrable as a shield. That first day, each excruciatingly painful spasm lasted 45 minutes, whenever those muscles had time and peace to relax at all. CAT scan What I saw in my mind’s eye: my back muscles during the contractions 6 Feeling the Love I can get through this, but I can’t do it alone. I wrote that late the first night in the hospital, starting a new memo on my cell phone. Exhaustion overwhelmed me, but it seemed important to write down that certainty before I slept. As I closed my eyes and consciously let go of the struggle of the day, I discovered an almost-liquid current of golden light already underneath me, supporting me. Effortlessly I floated, like a buoy with gentle waves rocking me. I could feel it and see it, and simultaneously see myself floating on it. I'm still never quite sure if it’s more like an ocean current or a river current, but it’s huge, wide, deep and strong. That current is the love of my family and friends in many places, prayers for my healing, and the mysterious divine light that somehow exists, as improbable as love or consciousness but comprised of both. In retrospect, welcoming every form of healing prayer and love sent my way made me whole, kept me present and engaged in the healing process, and connected me with my community. This felt true for me that first night when relatively few people could have known about my fall, and I wondered how that healing current could be so What I saw in my mind’s eye: myself floating on a current of golden light 7 strong already. I learned later that in an inipi prayer ceremony that afternoon, my friends had prayed fervently and emotionally for me for hours. I know of individuals, congregations and spiritual gatherings that lit candles, that prayed for me, in the ways they do, with the words that they use, over the next months. I am grateful for it all. Love speaks all languages. Several people told me in the ensuing months that whenever they focused on meditatively sending me love and healing energy, they sensed a huge force that they were joining. I too have experienced that when sending healing love. Polly, 2,000 miles away, learned about my accident almost a year later. She wrote that since love is timeless, she was adding hers to my support. Once I experienced floating on that enormous golden current, I felt no lack. I had what I needed at my core. My husband John was able to fly home from the east coast a day early, and arrived in my hospital room after midnight. His instant forgiveness for the coming hassles, and his can-do, creative attitude were huge gifts to my recovery. My growing window of consciousness: what I saw in my mind’s eye the 2nd day, and the 3rd day, when I wasn’t spasming. 8 Decisions, Decisions The biggest concern for the team of neurosurgeons was the two burst spinal fractures. Their location made surgical rods a less than ideal choice, because they would have had to immobilize at least half my spine. One of the theoretically compelling reasons for surgery would have been extracting that sharp-looking bone fragment pressed up against the spinal cord, but it would be tricky to remove without accidentally causing paralysis. Furthermore, infection is a serious risk with surgery, as it creates an open wound, one thing I did not have. However, three months of bedrest was originally dismissed, with the neurosurgeons on call saying “no one does that anymore.” This is because of inevitable severe muscle loss and three serious risks: blood clots (specifically pulmonary embolisms), Meditation: I’m seeing my body from the inside. Inhaling deep into and beyond my pelvis, I then exhale squeezing my pelvic floor and abdominal muscles, pulling energy into my lumbar spine and upwards. This energy appears as golden light shining from within my vertebrae, and I see them as whole and strong and happily glowing with this life force. Bones are alive. (cc) Laurie F Childers 9 pneumonia and bedsores. Days of debate followed, awaiting the return from vacation of the best neurosurgeon to conduct the surgery, if I were to have it. Bob, a retired doctor friend, told me on Day 2 that he’d contacted his neurosurgeon friend in another state. She’d suggested that if my doctors wanted to operate, that I should ask for a second opinion (it would have been a fourth opinion!), that the additional risk of infection from surgery was worth avoiding if the bones were so well aligned. I was ready to have the conversation. Although I don’t remember it ever being decided (by Sunday I was kept rather drugged and slept through some conversations), apparently there were preparations made for surgery on Day 4, Tuesday May 28, when the best neurosurgeon would return. In preparation, I’d been fitted for a standard brace on Sunday, by someone who apparently didn’t know what they were doing. The straps were twisted and this soon created numerous welts on my torso. I was still aware of back and rib pain but oblivious to the new skin injuries. When Dr. Chris Noonan appeared early Tuesday morning, he spoke confidently. “Here's what we're going to do. No surgery. You'll spend three months horizontal. This will give you the best chance of full recovery.” Several times he said to me, “Your bones are in perfect alignment. If they are like that at the end of three months, I will be ecstatic for you.” Bed rest gave me an excellent chance for recovery, he said, provided I avert the known risks. If it wasn’t enough, surgery would be done later. 2 This treatment came with responsibilities. I needed to always keep my torso and hips aligned, to prevent any twist in my lower spine. I needed to be rolled every two hours: from side, to back, to the other side, keeping that alignment. This may seem troublesome but I was always ready to be moved to a new position, as fluids seemed to settle. Rolling me required two people slowly lifting a folded sheet under me. After a few weeks I was able to carefully roll myself holding onto the bedrails. I loved achieving that autonomy. And, it let everyone else sleep all night. Multiple doctors told me to never get on a ladder again. I’m not allowed to fall again, ever. It won’t be me anymore on the roof sweeping leaves and twigs, clearing out the gutters, pulling off the moss, and enjoying the view. Bicycling will have to give way to tricycling. I’ll be choosier than ever about shoes. There was one near-disaster at 4 AM during the fourth night, when two orderlies arrived to sit me up in a wheelchair and take me for “post-op X-rays” that had been ordered, no doubt at a time the previous doctors presumed I’d be having surgery. I The choice to let bones heal on their own was apparently quite unusual; months later my husband 2 met a neurosurgeon from Johns Hopkins on a plane, and he said, “We would have surgically placed rods in her entire back,” effectively restricting my movement for life. My team told me that it’s quite rare to be as broken as I was and have all the bone fragments perfectly aligned. 10 was trying to convince the orderlies that I had not had surgery and needed to stay horizontal, but they had already injected my belly with strong painkillers and even I could tell my voice was feeble and inarticulate. Without my friend Susan staying overnight, waking up and going to persistent efforts to stop them - even having to get my chart from the nurses’ desk - they would have simply ignored my drugged protestations and I would have been deformed for life. Trauma and Triggers In the first week after my fall, I learned a lot about triggers, as I seemed to have suddenly developed an odd assortment of them. If anyone bumped the bed, or a nurse made a rapid motion with the sheets or blankets, or if anyone touched me; or if people on either side of the bed passed things to each other above me, or if someone took a cup out of my hand, or even when I saw someone enter from the left side of the room and walk across the foot of the bed - all these would trigger painful muscle spasms, sustained contractions down the back of my torso and legs. Although I was drugged with opiates in the first days and had a small window of consciousness, I was highly motivated to prevent the tormenting spasms. I used what energy and focus my core observer self had to be attentive to what the doctors were saying about my case and to use my analytical mind as a tool to solve the spasm problem, which had taken root in my subconscious mind. John was highly motivated to do his part and learn with me. Spasms are the worst and they are triggered in the weirdest ways. My mind has been calm and focused, and my body frightened and screaming. Trying to integrate everything with the healing matrix of love I am receiving, I texted friends. I noted patterns and made suggestions. Analyzing the context helped tremendously. • Jolting the bed had to have been a re-traumatization from the fall and ER activity. John stopped everyone entering the room and gave instructions. We asked visitors not to touch the bed or me; eventually, I was able to slowly initiate touch without spasming. • Some triggers had similarities to that defining moment when the plank beneath my foot broke, reliving the sensation of my physical connection slipping away. Maybe deep down I needed some participation in controlling the action. So I suggested to the nurses, “how about I pretend to help you remove the sheet?” Like many routine things, for me not to spasm this had to be done at a glacially slow pace. Slowly, slowly, locking eyes and connecting energetically, and moving the sheet together, the nurse and I could retrain my body/mind not to react protectively with a spasm. 11 • To hand a cup to John, we both held onto it fully for a moment, and then I slowly let go. • I learned to close my eyes when someone entered the room. As I heard their footsteps when they walked passed the foot of my bed, I knew where they were; however, my body did not spasm without the visual. I have vague memories of instances in the ER seeing someone enter from the far left corner at the same moment as some painful transfer or activity like removing my clothing. • I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see nurses hand things to each other over my body. I definitely remember this being part of the ER experience. Finding ways to reduce the impact of each of these triggers was immensely empowering. Everything I suggested worked. By Day 6, I came to realize that those excruciatingly painful spasms, including the first one there on the forest floor, had been holding my very broken bones, especially the two shattered vertebrae, in perfect alignment. They were making it possible for me to fully recover. To discover gratitude for those agonizing experiences changed my relationship with them. Their sole purpose was to protect my injured spine so it could heal properly. Had I been given the muscle relaxant I kept begging for, who knows what would have happened? As the spasms diminished in intensity and frequency, that image of the dark coiling springs faded away. I saw a very different image in my mind's eye. I can't explain it. It looked quite gentle, like a patchwork quilt of pastel colored squares, and it sparkled and moved like it was hanging in the breeze. As my spasms faded in intensity, the image I saw in my mind’s eye changed to something like a sparkly patchwork quilt. 12 Tenderness The best nurses were able to instinctively meet the energy level that I needed: to lock eyes with me and connect, to move at that glacially slow pace with complete patience, presence, and a deep well of tenderness. To my eternal gratitude, Ariel, the young nurse my first night when I needed it most, was absolutely extraordinary in this regard. (She had only been nursing for eight months!) Friends and family would surprise me too. Making eye contact definitely helped. I learned so much in those early difficult weeks about the power of tenderness. I wanted - and I still want - everyone in the world to stop for just a moment, and do a small act of tenderness, of kindness, for another human being. Surely the human-caused horrors of the world would immediately and permanently cease. Observations About Drugs and Other Treatments The routine was that every two hours - soon reduced to every four hours - the nurses took my vital signs and asked about my pain level. In the hospital room hung a pain scale chart with cartoon faces to assess one’s pain level from 1 to 10, 10 being unbearable. When asked, I would tell them, “It’s 2 or 3 right now, but when I spasm it’s 15.” It seemed I could have gotten any amount of opioid painkillers I wanted, all 12 days I spent in the hospital. I wanted less medication, not more. There is an informative aspect to what we call pain. I did not want to lose sensation to the point where I might move in a damaging way. When, after a protracted discussion, I finally agreed to the second three-day Fentanyl patch, I told them definitively that it would be the last. The doctors didn’t believe me then and they didn’t believe me when I wouldn’t let them replace it, but in truth I never missed it. This is partly because of the advice of a doctor friend. Mari, a sleep specialist, is my ER doctor’s wife, and she was an early visitor the second day, bearing flowers, sympathy, and knowledge. “Oh, Laurie, I’m so sorry, Al told me all about it, the L1 and L4 burst fractures and all the broken ribs! ... I suppose that breaks all rules of confidentiality but we figured you wouldn’t mind.” I happily assured her I was glad he 13 told her. She offered some advice. “Get off the opioids as soon as you can - they stop the digestive system and your body can’t absorb nutrients that you need to heal those bones. A quarter mile away is a CBD-only store. So many of my patients swear by them. ... And they can help you sleep at night “— I finished the last phrase with her in unison — "which also helps healing." She noted that because of federal rules the hospital couldn’t prescribe nor administer CBDs but said they were commonly used in the hospital. People bring their own. All cannabis products are legal for adults in Oregon, but it was helpful that my husband heard her suggestion. About an hour later, a bottle magically appeared. Full doses of Tylenol (acetaminophen - particularly good for bone pain), topped off with CBDs, became my new little helpers. It was such an improvement to have a clear head, to be able to track important conversations with the doctors without falling asleep, and to have a functioning digestive system. No small feat, the latter. That took weeks. After about five days in the hospital I asked, “Could a person get a toothbrush around here?” It was ironic that opioids were offered to me frequently but never a toothbrush, and I had to ask for a sponge bath too. Frustratingly, any food and supplements sent up by the kitchen contained milk ingredients to which I was allergic. We learned to not request or accept anything from the kitchen: they simply couldn't learn. A post-nasal drip cough would have been miserable as well as dangerous. One thing offered to me was a wonderful surprise. A team of osteopathic doctors (DOs) offered a treatment that sounded a lot like cranial-sacral therapy, which I’ve appreciated as part of massage treatments. I learned that cranial-sacral comes from the DO tradition. At the time they offered, I could barely initiate movement in my right leg and couldn’t at all on the left. When I awoke after their treatment, I could move both legs at will. The second time they came, I was more alert and observant. The three of them floated into the room like Jedi knights, like a cohesive energetic unit. I happily accepted a second treatment. Suzanne, a professional friend, performed this treatment over the next several months. Reiki treatments, with hands held a few inches off my body, were perfect in the first week when I was too sensitive for touch. DeeDee was able to hold that healing attention amidst the constant medical motion and talk in the hospital room. And then this appeared! 14 Eventually, massage from our friend and home health care nurse Kathy helped integrate the recovering muscles and renew feelings of bliss and relaxation. Massage has similar effects on muscles that exercise does. It became an almost-daily part of my horizontal recovery. Pity Party #1 It was my fifth night in the hospital, and the first in which no one slept in the room with me. Still quite weak and drugged at night, I was log-rolled into a new position (back, left or right side) every two hours. Around midnight, two nurses rolled a very groggy me onto my left side but didn’t reposition the nurse call button where I could reach it. Usually they would place it in my hand. Sometime later I awoke quite uncomfortable, with my straight knees pressed against the bed rail. I was so close to the edge I couldn’t adjust my position. At least I was facing the door, so I yelled “HELP!” a number of times, but to no avail. I considered making myself “fall” onto my back, but that was unappealing. Then I tried pushing myself away from the rail with my right knee. Instantly I experienced a sharp new shooting pain in my right hip and screamed. That got the nurses in. It also got me crying for the first time since I’d arrived. It was terrible to feel so helpless, and worse, it seemed I’d just caused further damage. (It took several weeks for that new nerve pain to totally subside.) The new nurse, Caleb, improved my position and then stayed with me for some time. I asked him what was ahead for me in the long run, because I had no clue and hadn’t received answers when I asked. “Do you really want the truth?” “Yes, I really want the truth.” He hesitated, then told me that at the end of my three months in bed, I was going to look back and see that as the easy part. The loss of muscle would initially make standing and walking, even holding up my head, really difficult. It takes time for the body to relearn how to pump blood and other fluid against gravity. I thanked him, and we talked for some time. This knowledge helped me recalibrate my endurance attitude. I was grateful to finally have even a vague idea of what the long-term process would look like. This knowledge motivated me to exercise as I could in the coming months. Dream June 4 text to a friend: Had an amazing dream last night in which my body was something of an organic or cyborg Rube Goldberg contraption and people in my “village” had each taken on the different sections to repair/heal. It was a group effort with the lively energy of a creative contest. 15 Coming Home I stayed an extra four days in the hospital because our insurance company wouldn’t approve paying for the bed that the doctor deemed medically necessary to prevent bedsores. They only provide that after a patient has bedsores! John later learned that 3 the mattress was available on Amazon.com for $250, but while John talked to supervisor after supervisor, they were willing to pay almost $10K for those extra hospital days. The insurance company delivered a bed without side rails, that had to be hand cranked up and down, and would not tilt. John rejected it. Five perfect beds with the needed mattress were in a warehouse in town, but were bureaucratically reserved for hospice patients. John ultimately bought a suitable hospital bed on Craigslist, rented a trailer, then drove 7 hours one day to retrieve it. There was an epic effort to get the giant heavy beast of a Stryker bed into our house, with a number of strong people coming to the rescue. The addition of a gel mattress pad (with perforations) was a huge improvement. June 5 th , I got to come home. Something deep inside me could relax, being in a familiar safe place, even if most of what I could see was the ceiling. Any return to normality, no matter how small, was a source of joy. The bed was placed in our living room, next to a southern wall. Picture windows face a peaceful scene: the tops of camellia bushes overgrown with Concord grapes and looking up into a canopy of heritage Oregon White Oak trees. I watched squirrels run gracefully along the branches. (How did they never fall?) Robins, jays, flickers, and nuthatches flew and rested among them. The grape vines had tiny starburst flowers when I arrived home, and all summer I watched them transform into tiny and then larger green spheres, knowing I would juice the ripe dark purple grapes in fall. At night I could see the moon travel its low summer arc through the trees. I could also see the sky, blue or cloudy or starry, through a large skylight. Likewise, insurance would only pay for scuds once a patient has already had a pulmonary embolism. Scuds 3 are inflating devices that massage the calves and prevent blood clots that then travel to the lungs (pulmonary embolisms). These can be fatal. We purchased scuds. What happens to people without the resources? The view out my window, and a visiting songbird. 16 Placing the bed in a pleasant living room made it much more comfortable for visitors than the reclusion and implied privacy of a bedroom. With the large windows, it was more like a visiting parlor. A card table with a tablecloth and flowers alongside the bed made a nice enough dining table for shared meals. So what if one of us was laying on her side to eat? Plus, starting a week after my homecoming, we could accommodate my weekly RiverRocks band rehearsal in the bigger, brighter room. I couldn’t play piano, but I could sing into a microphone, and eventually play guitar a bit in my horizontal position. I credit the weekly exercise of two hours singing for keeping my lungs clear of water or phlegm, thereby averting the risk of pneumonia. The hospital had sent us home with hand-held plastic lung exercisers, but frankly they were boring and awkward to use. Singing vibrated my torso and impelled me to inhale deeply and then squeeze out every last air molecule on the exhale. I am so grateful my band members stuck with me, bringing love and joy and music – and normalcy - every week. We invited visitors to tie a ribbon on the structure at the foot of the bed. Those colorful reminders, gifted stuffed animals, and a clipboard with a rotating gallery of Rachel’s many postcards and Lydia’s handwritten blessing, were wonderful company. RiverRocks: Tracy on percussion, Bill on bass, Mina on guitar, Michael on violin, me on vocals