One hundred percent
James was completely finished with his therapy when I arrived today. The all-seeing video eye was removed from his room! He has graduated to independent living.
I have made myself a Friday night cocktail so I am a bit daft. Plus, B is purring up a storm and making a circle on the desk--behind the monitor screen and sashaying around the front by the keyboard, whipping her tail in my face. She is protest pooping outside the catbox. She wants James to come home and she's had just about enough of my poor attempts at affection.
James's brother Chris asked me tonight to gauge the percentage of James's return to the old Jim standard of measurement. It is a difficult question to answer. I feel as if James has been present through this entire process. When he first entered rehab, he promised to tell me all the thoughts he experienced while in the NICU. He has no memory of the NICU now.
James and I discussed how far back he can recall regarding the recent history of his illness. James told me he remembers the ambulance ride to dreaded Woodhull Hospital. That is where it ends. I told him the preposterous saga of Woodhull today--the overflowing trash bins, needles bundled in napkins because there was only one pic-jug for the unit, the kids busted for synthetic pot possession with leg cuffs waiting for their drug tests before jail time, the isolation room made up of fluid stained plastic deli curtains, and his doctor that acted as a go-between to relay messages from me to the Bellevue neurological emergency room staff. He could not believe any of it happened to him. It does seem straight out of a documentary film.
I try not to tell him too much in one conversation because it is so overwhelming and I have a tendency to forget myself while talking and become far too intense. I try to make it seem somewhat comical. It has a happy ending.
There is so much I have not shared on this blog. It is truly dreadful.
James is fragile now, tentative, moving his toe into the ocean to gauge the temperature of the water. It is damn freezing, Pacific cold. A volunteer cruised by James's room this evening to offer her meditative services. She was a petite Asian woman and I knew that James would say yes. She guided us through a short fifteen minute meditation. I liked her voice although, it was making me laugh inside a little because she was talking about breathing into kindness. James was uncomfortable in his chair so he could not really focus enough. It would have been a better session if he was in his bed (he probably would have fallen asleep). I have been trying to encourage him to use meditation to battle his insomnia. I think it is part of the cognitive dissonance that makes him incapable of wrangling his thoughts--he has a tendency to follow them, take their lead. I wish he had the capability to read--Henri Michaux would be just about perfect right now.
James does not have his short term memory returned to him yet. Every day that passes brings more of his immediate past to the forefront. One of his students, Sandy Henkin, painted a incredible portrait of Imogen. I printed the image she sent to me and showed it to James today. He looked at it and asked, "Who painted this?" I said, "Sandy" and he said, "Wow, she does not normally paint portraits." I thought this was an incredibly good sign that James remembered his student--he did not recall he was a teacher a few weeks ago and did not recognize any of his students from photographs. Now, he is able to recall the type of painting Sandy worked on in class. He told me, "Tell her I loved it, it's great!"
James wants a laptop to be on Facebook--I would say that is a return to normalcy. There are theft issues at the hospital so I cannot leave our apple laptop with him overnight. I promised him that he may have a nice, long session with Facebook tomorrow! I will bring a portable DVD player we have and leave it with him. He has enough stamina now to watch a film. He still cannot really watch regular television--it is overly stimulating. I think watching films that he has the ability to recall will be more beneficial.
James has a gesture he uses all the time now which is a wave away of disgust with his hand--as in--I do not want that--enough. He waves away the tv.
The results of James's MRI were stable--nothing remarkable beyond the fact that he had major brain surgery almost two months ago. He will have another MRI in a few weeks. We are still waiting and hoping that nothing further will develop. The infectious disease doctors weighed in on my concerns of his teeth being a source of further bacterial infection and their belief is I need not worry at this time. Well, that's impossible.
James is not one hundred percent and he never will be. Neither will you or I be one hundred percent ourselves. We are in Heraclitus territory again. The essential thing that I loved about James has not changed. He is still in there, so far, no effect to his kind nature and sense of humor. He is recognizable to me. Yet, he has changed. He has been reborn into this person without aspects of memory and the capability to control his emotional states. He is vulnerable and frightened which is a fairly new phenomenon. I have witnessed various states of James over the years so I am able to sympathize with his fears and inability to venture beyond certain emotional states. I acknowledge his experience as completely real to him.
I am able to enjoy his unfiltered love for me which has the layers of bullshit that have accumulated recently from middle age angst sanded away. I appreciate this immensely, despite the fact that it is the residue of a horrific infection on his brain and soul. I would not mind it if his unconditional love for me and lack of irritation of my Jennie ways becomes permanent. I have my doubts though.
I know that I should be part of the movement that shuns Woody Allan but I love the film Manhattan. It has too much history for me and James to revise our feelings about it. I often think of the final scene in Manhattan when Woody tells Mariel Hemingway that he has changed his mind and he does not want her to go to London. He says, "I just don't want that thing I like about you to change." Mariel responds, "Not everybody gets corrupted, you have to have a little faith in people." Here's the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKi2yQt5kcc
I have more than a little faith in James.
I have made myself a Friday night cocktail so I am a bit daft. Plus, B is purring up a storm and making a circle on the desk--behind the monitor screen and sashaying around the front by the keyboard, whipping her tail in my face. She is protest pooping outside the catbox. She wants James to come home and she's had just about enough of my poor attempts at affection.
James's brother Chris asked me tonight to gauge the percentage of James's return to the old Jim standard of measurement. It is a difficult question to answer. I feel as if James has been present through this entire process. When he first entered rehab, he promised to tell me all the thoughts he experienced while in the NICU. He has no memory of the NICU now.
James and I discussed how far back he can recall regarding the recent history of his illness. James told me he remembers the ambulance ride to dreaded Woodhull Hospital. That is where it ends. I told him the preposterous saga of Woodhull today--the overflowing trash bins, needles bundled in napkins because there was only one pic-jug for the unit, the kids busted for synthetic pot possession with leg cuffs waiting for their drug tests before jail time, the isolation room made up of fluid stained plastic deli curtains, and his doctor that acted as a go-between to relay messages from me to the Bellevue neurological emergency room staff. He could not believe any of it happened to him. It does seem straight out of a documentary film.
I try not to tell him too much in one conversation because it is so overwhelming and I have a tendency to forget myself while talking and become far too intense. I try to make it seem somewhat comical. It has a happy ending.
There is so much I have not shared on this blog. It is truly dreadful.
James is fragile now, tentative, moving his toe into the ocean to gauge the temperature of the water. It is damn freezing, Pacific cold. A volunteer cruised by James's room this evening to offer her meditative services. She was a petite Asian woman and I knew that James would say yes. She guided us through a short fifteen minute meditation. I liked her voice although, it was making me laugh inside a little because she was talking about breathing into kindness. James was uncomfortable in his chair so he could not really focus enough. It would have been a better session if he was in his bed (he probably would have fallen asleep). I have been trying to encourage him to use meditation to battle his insomnia. I think it is part of the cognitive dissonance that makes him incapable of wrangling his thoughts--he has a tendency to follow them, take their lead. I wish he had the capability to read--Henri Michaux would be just about perfect right now.
James does not have his short term memory returned to him yet. Every day that passes brings more of his immediate past to the forefront. One of his students, Sandy Henkin, painted a incredible portrait of Imogen. I printed the image she sent to me and showed it to James today. He looked at it and asked, "Who painted this?" I said, "Sandy" and he said, "Wow, she does not normally paint portraits." I thought this was an incredibly good sign that James remembered his student--he did not recall he was a teacher a few weeks ago and did not recognize any of his students from photographs. Now, he is able to recall the type of painting Sandy worked on in class. He told me, "Tell her I loved it, it's great!"
James wants a laptop to be on Facebook--I would say that is a return to normalcy. There are theft issues at the hospital so I cannot leave our apple laptop with him overnight. I promised him that he may have a nice, long session with Facebook tomorrow! I will bring a portable DVD player we have and leave it with him. He has enough stamina now to watch a film. He still cannot really watch regular television--it is overly stimulating. I think watching films that he has the ability to recall will be more beneficial.
James has a gesture he uses all the time now which is a wave away of disgust with his hand--as in--I do not want that--enough. He waves away the tv.
The results of James's MRI were stable--nothing remarkable beyond the fact that he had major brain surgery almost two months ago. He will have another MRI in a few weeks. We are still waiting and hoping that nothing further will develop. The infectious disease doctors weighed in on my concerns of his teeth being a source of further bacterial infection and their belief is I need not worry at this time. Well, that's impossible.
James is not one hundred percent and he never will be. Neither will you or I be one hundred percent ourselves. We are in Heraclitus territory again. The essential thing that I loved about James has not changed. He is still in there, so far, no effect to his kind nature and sense of humor. He is recognizable to me. Yet, he has changed. He has been reborn into this person without aspects of memory and the capability to control his emotional states. He is vulnerable and frightened which is a fairly new phenomenon. I have witnessed various states of James over the years so I am able to sympathize with his fears and inability to venture beyond certain emotional states. I acknowledge his experience as completely real to him.
I am able to enjoy his unfiltered love for me which has the layers of bullshit that have accumulated recently from middle age angst sanded away. I appreciate this immensely, despite the fact that it is the residue of a horrific infection on his brain and soul. I would not mind it if his unconditional love for me and lack of irritation of my Jennie ways becomes permanent. I have my doubts though.
I know that I should be part of the movement that shuns Woody Allan but I love the film Manhattan. It has too much history for me and James to revise our feelings about it. I often think of the final scene in Manhattan when Woody tells Mariel Hemingway that he has changed his mind and he does not want her to go to London. He says, "I just don't want that thing I like about you to change." Mariel responds, "Not everybody gets corrupted, you have to have a little faith in people." Here's the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKi2yQt5kcc
I have more than a little faith in James.
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