Flashing back to the last week: It's always challenging to leave home and my business for a week or more and the pre- departure preparation for this trip has been the hardest ever. I booked my tickets for this trip on February 19th when the Magic waters were calm, the Santa Cruz weather cool and I longed for a jungle escape. Round trip tickets between San Jose, California and San Jose Costa Rica were just a little over $400.00 and my friend Tabra would be in Costa Rica in early May. We made plans to meet, to stay in her cabin in the jungle and to travel up river to Tortugero for two nights.
What I hadn't counted on was that with property prices lower, and interest rates down, that we would buy a house in March and be in the midst of moving just when I was due to leave for Costa Rica. I also didn't know that our son John would tear his meniscus at the climbing gym in early April and require knee surgery just days before my departure.
Instead of designing jewelry, the past several weeks have been a blur of paperwork; loan applications, escrow papers and of course taxes. I've had the phone glued to my ear arranging for termite tenting, moving vans, doctor appointments, MRI's and X-Rays. I've learned more about the health insurance industry that I care to. For years, when my husband worked in the silicon valley, we had the luxury of a magic plastic insurance card that paid for virtually everything but John never broke a bone or required surgery. Our insurance is now under NASA, a major medical policy for the self employed and with our chosen $7500 deductible, it has not helped significantly with John's surgery. It has cost less to negotiate and pay directly for the surgery facility, the doctor and the anesthesiologist than to use the insurance. Durable medical goods is a new term for me and I never dreamed that ice therapy machines and locking knee braces were so costly. So, my few Dear Readers....I hope you still covet my jewelry, since we have some hefty medical bills to pay off this year..
I am impressed with the immediacy and the quality of care that John has had throughout his ordeal. Initially and by chance, a first class, sports doctor was recommended to us who saw to it that John's locked and injured knee received immediate attention. He took into consideration our planned trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos in late June, and helped us to secure an immediate appointment with a surgeon. The surgeon was equally sensitive to our situation and two days following our initial consultation, John was scheduled for surgery
John's knee surgery was at noon on Friday, May 1st. Art and I go with him to the surgery center and wait anxiously in the waiting room for many hours. Although the surgery reportedly goes well, John is sensitive to the anesthetic and it takes him many hours to come out of the fog before we can take him home. Eventually, John is released and we struggle to get him in and out of the van, his leg rigid in the brace. Still unstable from the medications and unfamiliar with the brace and crutches, John, unsteadily climbs the front porch stairs up to our Victorian house. Unable to scale the narrow stairway to his upstairs room, we settle him down on the couch in our living room, cluttered with packing boxes. Art hooks up his ice therapy machine and I scurry around making him comfortable and administering his medications. John is hungry since he hasn't eaten since last night, but he is nauseated and the pills make it worse., He is a demanding patient until the pain medication kicks in and he falls asleep. For the first weekend in several years we don't worry that John will try to escape out his upstairs bedroom window to go to a party.
Saturday morphs into Sunday, punctuated by 4 hour intervals of pain medication and refilling the ice therapy machine. John can't keep much food down and the antibiotics make his skin itch and the pain medication makes it difficult for him to pee. He is miserable and bored. Sunday morning I ask John if he would like me to read to him and he accepts enthusiastically. It's been sometime since my little boy has allowed me to read to him and I choose The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe. I have a hard-bound volume of "Tales of Mystery and Imagination," rich with illustrated plates and inscribed to my mother from her parents. I recall my mother reading to me from this wonderful book. She introduced me to Poe when I was a young girl and I surmise that the stories from this collection inspired some of the imagery of my work. John listens with closed eyes and drifts off to sleep before I finish the tale. Still, I continue to read, savoring the cadence and the imagery, and feeling an overwhelming love for my sleeping son.
I busy myself in my adjoining office, marking things off of my list in preparation for my trip and intermittently wondering if I should cancel my plans. It is obvious that John will not be going to school on Monday and I feel guilty leaving Art to tend to both our recovering son and the orders that I anticipate will come in during the week. Still, I have worked at warp speed for two weeks to anticipate and organize the upcoming events and I know that Art will be just fine. I imagine and rationalize, that he will enjoy a week alone with his son so I pack my carry on suitcase.
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