The Burrow

I usually celebrate my Birthday Month.  Once the calendar gods conflated Washington and Lincoln into Presidents it seemed only right that I continue the tradition of celebrating all through the month of February.  Or, it might have started when the Cuters were very small and I was feeling invisible and unappreciated, giving all the time and not finding much in the way of personal rewards.  Not that I didn't love being their mother.  Not at all.  I was just missing the fact of being ME.  No labels, no attachments, no roles.... just the girl who was born on the 27th of the month. G'ma liked to tell the story of my birth this way : "And when I felt you coming 2 days early I said ' No! Just wait a little longer and you'll be a leap year baby' "  I rued my impatience as a child, and I think I still do, today.  One blow-out celebration every four years - what fun!  "How old are you" would take on new meaning.... do you mean how many years have ...

( This post is also syndicated on BlogHer ) It occurs to me that my best therapists may be unaware of the importance of their role in my life.  Since I like to think of myself as a thoughtful person, as one who lets people know when I think that they have been wonderful, this concerns me.  Allow me to rectify the situation forthwith: I cannot recover without you, denizens. No way. No how. Without a doubt, you are my best therapy. The media frenzy left me physically drained and mentally exhausted and strangely comforted.  Sometimes shocking, sometimes comforting, always provocative.... the process of explaining myself in soundbites led me to evaluate my situation in ways I might not have considered without the questioning. Forced to be concise I became precise.  I thought about my words before I said them.  I talked to everyone, telling the same stories over and over again.  I was never alone and I hardly slept - there were always opportunities to thin...

Thanks to Little Cuter, I don't have to think this morning.  My aches and pains move around randomly.  Sometimes it's my mid-line seam, sometimes it's the exit wound on my thigh, today it's my lower back.  Exercising is a good thing.  Less numbness is a good thing.  The tingling and throbbing which result from exercise and less numbness.... not so much. Sitting still and typing requires being able to reach the keyboard.  Right now there's not a comfortable connection between Nellie-the-Notebook and my forearms.  I can't lean it on my abdomen today and I can't sit at the desktop.  I don't want to take pain meds if a simple change of position will alleviate the sensation.  But I do want to write to you. Enter Little Cuter and her fancy-schmancy camera and cloudy late afternoons in the desert.  Following on the heels of yesterday's post about vistas, these photos seem to fit right in. I'll be back tomorrow at about noon with somethi...

I had breakfast at my kitchen table this morning.  For a woman who's been couch-bound for 6 weeks that was a real accomplishment. My L.A. SuziSitter made us oatmeal and set the table with placemats and I read the comics and Ann Landers and listened to her tell me about her new car.  There was a pause in the conversation which she punctuated by commenting on the serenity of the view from our windows. It was just that view which sealed the deal for us in buying this house.  We searched for two years, all over America, looking for the perfect place to live.  We needed a university town with good local sports, an airport which had direct flights to our kids (TUS used to fill that bill nicely, but that's another post), a community with spirit and a real sense of place, and the house needed a vista.  Not a view, necessarily, but a vista.  I needed space. Returning to Long Island after my freshman year in Ithaca, I remember being struck by how flat everything ...

(Taking a break from the all-I've-been-shot-all-the-time-network today.  Big Cuter commented on my obsession, acknowledging that I write from the heart and that my heart is filled with "my condition" but wondering if I ever had any other thoughts at all.  Yes, kiddo, I do.  Here are some of them:) 279 years ago today Mary Ball Washington gave birth to a boy child. He went on to become a surveyor, a land owner, a distiller and, oh yes, the first President of the United States of America.  Unlike many of the stories surrounding this man (think cherry trees and coins across the Potomac and standing up in an open boat as it crossed the Delaware) this is an indisputable fact.  Mary was not in labor on the third Monday of February.  She produced her child on a specific day - the 22nd day of February.  His birthday didn't move around with the vagaries of the federal holiday calendar. Nancy Hanks Lincoln met her second son, Abraham, 202 years ago on Februa...

Things look different when you're immobile.  For example: Six weeks.... 42 days.... the time frame in which television begins advertising up-coming new programs..... the amount of time remaining in my non-weight-bearing status.  A month and a half isn't really that long, but from my perch here on Douglas it seems endless.  Little Cuter was trying to get me to focus on the fact that this is the downhill portion of recovery, that every day is one day closer to the end.  Of course she's right.  Of course that's good news.  Of course that's the way to think about it.  I just wish I could get away from Six weeks.... 42 days.... the end of March..... the snowbirds will be packing up their rental condos and returning to their frozen tundras, the hikers will be looking for higher and less steamy climes in which to climb, and I will be able to walk down my block.  Maybe.  Unless it stays cool until then it will be too late to put in my tomatoes, and...

BlogHer wants to know.  My sister wants to know.  Friends from college who disappeared from my life in 1973 want to know.  Frankly, I want to know, too. It's an interesting question from many perspectives.  Physically, I am healing at a rate that amazes my physical therapist and my orthopedist and the ER doctors I met last Sunday.  The exit wound on my thigh has healed with healthy flesh; it was so deep the trauma docs were convinced that it would "necrotize"... and let's not go there, okay? My shattered hip is less painful everyday, and those (somewhat neater) scars are clearing up as well.   I have scars from incisions made to examine all my organs, and they are calming down, too.  I'm supposed to be rubbing creams on them to reduce the ugliness, but that would entail looking at them and I'm not up to that yet.  I have mastered the art of showering without observing what I'm washing.  I am adept at dressing without noticing the hol...

Megan. among others, has inquired about purchasing one of the white "Remember 1-8-11" bracelets that I was wearing on tv last night (and which I've been wearing since they were first created.)  The Student Government at Ironwood Ridge High School (another triumph for my local school district!) is selling them.  The website can be reached by CLICKING HERE . For convenience sake, I'll save you the trouble of clicking through by including the contact information here: (520) 407-4270 or sburgin@amphi.com The bracelets are $1.50 if you want them mailed to you.   Send checks made out to IRHS Student Government to: Ironwood Ridge High School Attn: Samantha Burgin 2475 W Naranja Rd. Tucson, AZ 85742 The students are donating proceeds to the victims' assistance funds.

For those of you who want to see it and missed it last night, HERE is the link to the interview with Juan and his classmates which ran on Katie Couric's newscast Wednesday night. Thanks, Roomie, for finding it.  It takes a village to raise a child, and, apparently, to create a truly interactive blog as well. A "real post" will follow later today; I will not hide behind my injuries and think that this might be an adequate substitute.  I have too much respect for my denizens to do that!

I've been hugged by POTUS and FLOTUS.  I've chatted about New Jersey with Brian Williams.  The Director of the FBI sent me a hand written "glad you're out of the hospital" note.  Strangers, visitors from Minnesota and Montana, shake my hand and wish me well in restaurants.  I've received crocheted comfort shawls and a Native American healing blanket and a hand-made quilt. Each and every one of those things has been wonderful and has filled my heart with love and joy.  But yesterday afternoon I was in the presence of a superstar, and I'm still aglow.  Listen....... Linda Solomon is an author and a photo-journalist.  She called the house ten days ago and charmed TBG with her enthusiasm and compassion.  He thought I'd be interested in her project, and passed the handset to my outstretched arm.  That was the only part of me which was out; the rest was snuggled under the aforementioned quilt, trying to avoid thinking about what had happened t...

There is nothing I can watch any more. I lie on the couch, unable to concentrate on anything longer than a Billy Collins poem.  Novels are beyond my abilities.  Where once I was able to drift along with the story line, becoming the characters, feeling their slippery shoes on an icy path, now my mind begins to wander before I turn the first page.  Sometimes I just drift into a nothing-ness of hikes gone by, flowers photographed up close and personal, road trips with the Cuters.  Sometimes I wind up in a much darker space.  Either way, neither way is conducive to finishing something longer than a page and a half. Long blog posts are beyond me as well.  Anything which requires thinking is a major stretch. There is music all around me.  Friends and teachers and strangers and relatives have sent cd's created just especially for me.  For weeks, they sat stacked one atop the other near the stereo (how dated is that?! ) blending their mixes one to ano...

Apparently Little Cuter was not alone in wondering what the story is with my leg.  Short answer - no one knows. Long answer - I changed clothes after lunch at Tohono Chul Tea Room with Heidi and noticed splotchy red rashiness and swelling of my wounds and lots of heat in the thigh.  Nothing above or below the thigh, but the front of the thigh itself was interesting enough to warrant a call to the Home Care nurse.... who apparently doesn't exist on Sundays. Heidi said to call the ER and they told me to drive down.  TBG was out enjoying a carefree day..... well, I took care of that quickly enough :( After quickly being triaged, we waited in the ER until I couldn't sit any longer and promoted myself into a space with a bed and doctors.  By that time - 2 hours after I first noticed it - there was nothing left but a small red line .  The ER docs were baffled.  They probed and pushed and prodded and nodded and finally said that maybe it was vascular (but t...

Christina's mom sent me a message on Facebook this morning.  Chatty, news-filled, information sharing and lovely, it put a giant smile on my face which caused water to drip out the corner of my mouth as I was drinking.  Note to self : stop smiling before drinking.  But the dribs and drabs on my t-shirt are nothing but reminders of her caring nature and the strength of our friendship; there's not a bit of rancor in the 6 paragraphs she found the time and energy to type.  There are many remarkable people in this world; she and her husband are at the top of my list these days. My wounded leg decided to become rashy and swollen and hot yesterday afternoon, and my current SuziSitter. Heidi, knew that I should call the ER and check it out.  "Come on down" was their recommendation so we piled into the car, called TBG and told him to meet us there, and off we went.  She's used to driving in upstate New York where, apparently, there are no other cars on the road a...

It's amazing what a short sentence in a personal blog can accomplish these days. The Scene: Sitting at my desk (yes! sitting! in a chair! progress is being made!) yesterday morning, watching a coyote rub himself on something scrumptious in the middle of the road and feeling calm and comfortable for the first time in a long time.  No one else in the house - TBG having decided that I can be left alone for an hour while he goes to the gym - and feeling no pain.  Life was stable and almost good. Then the phone rang.  I wasn't in the mood to be disturbed but I'm incapable of ignoring the pleading ringing.  Caller ID is my new best friend; I'm never surprised.  CHASE was staring at me from the window.  Hmmmmmm....... what now? Had I missed another payment?  Was there another problem?  Semi-aggravated, I picked up the receiver and said hello. Christine identified herself as a manager.  My anxiety began to rise; I must have done something rea...

I am alive... and my friends' 9 year old is not. I am achy and shattered and unable to get comfortable on Douglas, the world's most comfortable couch. Friends and neighbors have brought us dinners and salads and desserts, and none of them have been chocolate. There are no degrees at all in Chicago as Little Cuter waits for her bus in the gloom. Big Cuter has a broken foot, TBG can't shake his cold, and I am perforated. The sun comes up every morning and I am here to see it.... from a wheelchair, through a window, frightened to take the walker and cruise the backyard. My bookshelves are full, JES has sent me an Amazon gift card, the library is around the corner and I cannot concentrate on anything longer than Dear Abby. Billy Collins read a poem just for me, his fiancee commented in The Burrow, and I cannot come up with anything but whining and complaining and wondering to share with you. Does it make any sense?  Not really.  Is it my reality?  Absolutely....

So much good... so much evil... so much confusion.  It's hard to sort it out. For example: The nurse who told me that I wouldn't become addicted to the hydrocodone or the oxycodone the doctor preferred that I take over the ibuprofen because "You are too strong a person to allow that to happen.  You are motivated."  Is she the last person on the planet to understand that addiction is a disease and not something you choose?  Narcotics over analgesics...... strange. The restaurant which places the handicapped spots in the corner of the parking lot.... and puts the only curb cuts there, too.  Dropped off at the front door, my walker and I were confronted with an 18" high curb..... and blustery winds.... and the fear was tremendous.  Architecturally strange. The hospital bedside commode that accommodates patients who are 5'3" or taller.  The rest of us have our feet dangling, vainly searching for the comfort of the floor.    The young man deli...

Brother was the latest in a series of marvelous SuziSitters who have come from far and wide to insure my safety and comfort.  The man hates to fly, never flies, G'ma even remembers that he doesn't fly, but bullet holes in his sister trumped his phobia and he allowed the FBI Victim's Compensation Fund to pay for his air travel.  He spent a week fixing and toting and caring and laughing.  He flew home through Dallas, which airport opened just so that he could make his connection to his girls back in Maryland.  After 5 days of home repairs and buttering toast all the way to the edges and filling G'ma's bowl with Kisses, he sent me this in an email. Read on...... I think you'll see why I am the luckiest sibling in the world. What I Learned This Week: That getting perforated and filleted hurts.  A lot.  That some nurses are much better than others.   That it is good to have “Chief” on your doctor’s name tag. That you should write thank you notes t...

Driving from the northwest side down to the Arizona Inn was an instant replay for TBG of the countless trips he made over the 10 days I was hospitalized.  Down First and over to Campbell, trying to avoid the traffic on Ft. Lowell and failing, as it moved ever westward, inexorably challenging buses and passenger cars alike, he railed at the bumps in the road as he looked anxiously to his right, worried beyond measure about his sweetie and her aches and pains.   I tried to be brave, but the outside world is a scary place for me right now.  Unintended consequences do happen.... short Jewish girls do get shot.... the guy crossing the street could turn suddenly and ......  It was a struggle to stay focused on the big blue sky and the cold fresh air buffeting my fragile self.  Brother was in the back seat, on his way to the airport and the (other) women who love him and he kept up a steady patter of chatter designed to keep me distracted.  It almost worked...