Happy Hour.

October 15, 2017

I have been a bad blogger, informer, and keeper-upper. I admit it. I’ve definitely stolen some time back into my life, and well, the time had to come from somewhere I guess. Also, as I think I’d mentioned before, life has settled down a bit for us. I’m not quite counting hours anymore; sometimes it’s a day, or days on end. Sometimes I look back and a week has gone by. From a pure health standpoint, that means Abby Trotter Grant is having non-event days, and that’s a good thing. Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of things occurring everyday to keep it, let’s say, “interesting”, and appointments, and health insurance challenges, and gobs of paperwork and other fun things. But I’m also finding myself kind of missing when I was keeping track of the minutia, of writing things down so I didn’t forget something, since something new was happening in what seemed like every hour, every minute, that I just couldn’t keep track of. I feel a bit more disconnected I suppose, since Abby is doing more herself, which is what we want, and what the docs/nurses say should happen too. It’s been sort of a natural progression, wellness order of things, and that’s good, and wouldn’t want it any other way. She’s better, especially when I think back to the horrific first 6 weeks or so- it’s almost surreal to think we were living like that hour-to hour, day-to-day; learning, crying, doing, coping. Was that really us? I was on some sort of autopilot I realize now; functioning at a high level but following the course, or trajectory maybe, that was laid out in front of us, and just trying to keep the wheels from flying off the wagon.

So we are starting week three of no chemo/radiation. Abby gets rescanned on Nov. 7th, and we meet with the head honchos on Nov. 9th. Until then, we put the gear in neutral, parking for Palliative Care appointment at MGH Boston which was I think was helpful- doctor was very nice, thoughtful, almost- therapist-like. She asked a lot of good questions, made some good suggestions, and we’ll regroup with her after Abby's scans and results. It was a nice mind/body hookup basically, though i know when you mention “Palliative Care” many people think “hospice” which they do a good deal with, but that’s not what we were there for, thankfully. Abby has a couple of more appointments in the next few weeks, but it pales in comparison with the last few months of feeling like we were part of one long TV medical drama with no commercial breaks.

The last few weeks have had it’s ups and downs; some crying, some laughing, some arguing (Abby actually writes angrily when she’s pissed- her normally readable handwriting suddenly veers into the “bad fake script font you downloaded for free”) and I have to ask her what it says then she rewrites but this time is even more pissed so her words degrade into the incomprehensible and I still can’t read it and well then she just tap taps the pen tip on the words as if that will miraculously make them come to readable life. Mostly, as in is the case with many of us long-married couples, the argument wasn’t worth the breathe, or the paper it was written on, so to speak. So we both move on, just file it under “unknown” in the argument archives and close the vault. We did have “one of those days” last week, which started with me hearing Abby padding around the house at about 4am. Now I’ve been letting her do most of her nighttime suctioning herself- she was ready, willing and able, and my sleepy self was two weary thumbs up. I still wake up a lot, but don’t necessarily have to get up, and there’s a big difference between the two. But anyway, Abby is doing something, and I finally got up about 4:15am to see what fun was going on, as I never want to be left out of a party. And what a party it had been, though Abby had done much of the after-party clean up and I was left trying to figure out the what why how. Essentially, another feeding tube/food flood. On the comforter, the sheets, soaked through to the mattress; on the floor, under the dresser, to grandmother’s house we go again. But like I said, Abby had cleaned much of it up. But yes, there was still plenty to clean on the floor, on the electrical cords that connect all the machinery, on the iPhone cord, on the surge protector, on and on and on. And this “food”, Abby’s nutrition, is, in a (few) words, like a frappe gone bad. Too thick, smells a bit, becomes glue-like if left on surfaces. But hey, we were mostly laughing. So then I stripped the bed and carried it to the laundry, way down yonder in our basement (old house that we have). Dogs were somewhat interested in licking the goo that came off in the process, and well, I just didn’t give a shit- have fun pups- pre-dawn snack. On my way back upstairs through the entry hall, I stepped on the rug, or should I say wet spot on the rug. No, not from goo/food, but from one of the dogs who must have decided the rug was better than the lawn, and much more convenient. So, clean that up, and hey, what’s that on the counter over there? Why yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and cats like to leave hairballs wherever they like so better warn Santa to be careful when sneaking around your house in a couple of months. Oh, but we do love our animals. And oh, sometimes they have the craziest ways of showing us how they love us back.

By now it was around 6am or so. And so much accomplished already! A bit of snarkasm, sorry (and no that’s my new word not a typo so stop autocorrecting me please Mr. Dictionary). So now there’s no sheets etc. for the bed so need to deal with that, and well we all love making our beds it’s just so much fun I can’t stop doing it over and over again. By 9 I realized I had already done 3 loads of laundry, vacuumed, changed the kitty litter, emptied the trash, fed our animals, went to Starbucks and checked my emails. Then because I was feeling bored, I accidentally knocked over a glass of red wine I had left on the top shelf of the fridge (don’t ask)- dripped through every shelf and drawer inside, and somehow came through outside as well. I was tempted to lap it up myself and grab an early morning buzz but then I remembered that I basically had to pull everything out and clean. And I don’t know if refrigerators technically have orifices, but I will tell you right here that they do, many of them. Too many of them actually. And now I know them all very intimately. Yes, too intimately. When you have a day/morning like that, you take those lemons and you make lemonade, as they say. Just make sure you fill half your glass with Tito’s before you drink it.

So here I am up again pre-dawn, which wouldn’t be so bad if bedtime had been, say 10pm instead of 1am. To circle back around to the bed story from earlier, we now have a new bed, which we honestly would not have been able to spend $$ on without all the fundraising that’s happened. Our old mattress was honestly disgusting after 2 food floods, and one blood bath, plus the fact that it was 20+ years old we were finally convinced by friends that “it was time” to put the old mare down. Mattresscide anyone? We actually upgraded from a full size (yes, hard to believe we’ve been squeezing into one all these years) to a queen. My theory to part of a successful marriage is when you have a small bed like that, then cram it full of animals too, there’s just nowhere to move, no room to get mad and gesticulate with your hands; why you can barely turn your head to look askance at your loved one. And usually if you want to storm out of the room, it just takes too much physical energy to pry yourself out of the mix. I mean you really need strong stomach muscles to elevate yourself when covered with cats, limbs, paws and the like. Sometimes it’s just easier to just simmer and stew and by then you’re so exhausted from it all you just fall back to sleep. Marriage tip #264- no charge.

We bought the bed last Sunday, and were lucky enough to be able to get it all delivered Monday. Of course I haven’t really thought it through, because now I had to break down our old bed (an antique 4-poster, Abby’s great aunt’s bed), move that out, and oh honey do mind sleeping on the mattress on the floor with all your equipment and accoutrements? You’d prefer not? No folks, I did not ask her to do that, though I will admit to having that idea flash through my mind. So anyway, I had to move the suction machine, the humidifying machine, her food machine/pump, the side table, the night tables, the drawers under the bed, and basically anything not nailed down that would inhibit the arrival of the new bed and the “out” with the old bed. With Abby now settled into Ben’s old room (now my temporary room), Craig the gypsy moved his couple of possessions into Aliza’s room for the night. On Monday the nice mattress men arrived around 11am, came upstairs and looked at the room to see what they had to deal with, came back downstairs and looked at the stairs going up, and the angles and turn(s) they’d have to make. I could see ????? popping up all around Mr. Mattress Man’s head, but out he went to get the box spring with his helper. As they began carrying it upstairs, that first turn was a doozy from the entry hall base-of-the-stairs going up. As the queen box spring basically sat there suspended in mid-air, hung up between the railing, the ceiling, and the wall, I could tell I was about to get a somewhat distressing take on the situation from Mr. Mattress man. “Sir, there’s no way this is going up the stairs with out a fight, and we can’t be held…” I kind of let the rest of what he said trail off and just shook my head, knowing that we would not be getting our new bed today. Long and short of it: we had to buy “splits” for the box spring- basically a queen split into two singles. So off they went, and luckily said we could get everything tomorrow (Tuesday). Buh bye for now new mattress that never got off loaded from the truck. And away they went, so one more night for Abby, and myself, in our respective temporary rooms. A year ago this would’ve been pretty irksome, disruptive, and a bunch of other words that Facebook will not allow. Now, WTF, oh well and a “we’ll get ‘em next time”, or at least tomorrow kind of attitude.

I want to send a hearty thank you from the bottom of our hearts and top of our brains to everyone who made the last Mission on the Bay fundraiser such a success. I wish I could list everyone here who helped put it together, and I know I will leave people out no matter how hard I try. But in a rambling non sequitur of a sentence here goes: Marlene Conroy, Julie Rainer Cummings, Kimberly Tibbetts, Lois Lane and the Daily Planets (who humored me once again playing “Whole ‘Lotta Love to close their set), Ilene Podgur Vogel and Sarah Walker and Susan K. Moulton, Steven L. Katzen and Harryette Kaplan Katzen, Jim, Nicole and Danielle DeVellis, the amazing waitstaff, bartenders and owners of Mission on the Bay, everyone who donated auction items (and bought them), everyone who came to support us and helped prop me up emotionally (and maybe a bit physically by the end of the night), our great kids Ben Grant and Aliza Grant, Abby’s mom Margie Hancock who hung w/Abby the night of, and of course, my wife, Abby Trotter Grant, who has been the silent but vocal-in-her-own way participant, the same trooper that I married, positive spirit, fighter in her own weight class, who has given me reason to pause, slow down, appreciate what we have, what we had, and what we will hopefully have again but no matter what we still have each other, yes through thick and thin (and this is thick, mucous thick, not in the wedding vow thick).

Finally, I had bought tickets back in March to see the Psychedelic Furs at the Paradise last night. Abby had begrudgingly agreed to go with me as my love for 80s “new wave” is a bit stronger than hers, well ok, a lot stronger than hers though the Furs really came about in the late 70s British post-punk era so that’s what originally turned me on to them, not their much. much later mainstream sound. But anyway, needless to say I couldn’t go, so was happy to have my ‘ol pal Ken Soltz take our tix and go and represent, and as promised, he sent me a couple of video clips so I could have my retro fix late last night. It’s funny how a singer can maintain a gravelly, cigarette and whiskey-infused voice through 40 years, and have it still sound pretty good (George Thorogood you too). So maybe next time they come around we can try again, and Abby will humor me once more. Maybe I will even break out my skinny, piano-keyboard black and white tie for her. Then again, if I want her to stand within 10 feet of me, maybe I will leave it in the closet next to the Halloween stuff.

Love to you all, please keep keeping us in your thoughts, and we will continue to fight the good fight.