Part 6, of 6: After five more days in the hospital, I receive the sermon of Jesse, a black cat

The Providence Children's Hospital sits on the third floor, adjacent to the orthopedic surgery ward. As soon as I was able, Dr. Duddy ordered me to walk. It was natural, then, that I would walk into and through the halls right next door, the halls of the Children's Hospital. Yet I tended to stay away. Those halls gave me a bad feeling.

After one has a bit of experience with a hospital, the sight, sounds and smells of the place will simltaneously evoke both the warmest and chilled feelings that exist in his soul.

My first intimate experience with Providence Hospital came on Christmas Night, 2007, and extended into the early hours of December 26. On that night, Sunflower and I positioned ourselves to the sides of Prickly Pear's bed as Toast Ed held her hand and massaged her back. She clutch-hugged a life-sized, stuffed, St. Bernard doll as she panted, groaned and sometimes yielded to a brief scream of agony.

Then came that first cry, tiny but strong, made by naked, blood-covered, baby Wry - our first grandchild. The agony that had distorted Sunflower's face was quickly replaced by a peaceful expression of love and she brought her new son to her breast. Joy and hugs filled the room. Tears, the good kind, were shed in abundance.

From that day forward, Providence Hospital would for me forever evoke the warmth of Baby Wry's birth.

Two months later I received a call from a good friend who told me that his brother and sister-in-law were at Providence right then, watching over their baby daughter, who was in critical condition.

I hurried over. As the mother collapsed to the floor in tears and the father bent over her and held her, I viewed that beautiful, precious, unique, little person, whose short experience upon this earth was about to end.

This had happened in the children's ward. From that day forward, Providence Hospital would also evoke the cold bitterness of that moment in the Children's hospital.  

Finally, though, I grew bored with the limited hallways of the orthopedic ward. Finally, I stepped into the Children's Hospital, just to lengthen my walk. I allowed myself to be charmed by the most wonderfully painted and decorated hallways of any hospital that I have ever been in. Walking through those halls is like walking through the great outdoors of Alaska. There are mountains and trees, waterways, animals and birds, dog mushers, a 3-d float plane, children of many origins frolick upon a dock - and there is a little playhouse.

In the window of that empty playhouse, I found the above cat. I knew that this cat had many stories - a multitude of stories given to it by each of the many the sick and recovering children who have ever sought or ever will seek pleasure and escape within the walls of the playhouse.

Isn't this getting ridiculous? Me going into surgery and then waking up later to look into the doting eyes of loving family members? But this time there was only two - Rye and Fire. Everyone else was in Arizona for the Apache Sunrise Dance. 

And yes, between the surgery and the greeting by these two, I had, as before first come to in the dim strangeness of the recovery room, where I again found myself tended over by a middle-aged woman determined to engage me in a strange, intense, conversation that I would never again be able to put together.

There was one big difference this time, however. After the first surgery, I had come to in a loopy, drugged-up state that was actually pleasant in a dopey kind of way. Not this time. This time, I came to in hell - the hell of excruciating pain.

Remember the nerve deadening block? This time, the doctor had ordered an even more powerful block, because he knew that the damage that he was about to inflict upon me in order to repair me would not only be greater than that of my first surgery, but would come directly on top of it. My pain would be severe. I needed the more powerful block, just to help me endure.

But this second block did not take. It was as if I had no block at all. So I awoke in hell. My IV included a morphine drip that I could release with the push of a button, but only after a specific amount of time had passed by. If I pushed that button before the alloted time had passed, nothing would happen.

I pushed that button. Nothing happened. I pushed it again. Nothing. Again and again and again. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Then finally I pushed and got a beep. I had received a dose of morphine. If that dose gave me any relief, I did not notice it. So I repeated the process, then just kept repeating it. Push, push, push, push; nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing - then beep. Push, push... For hours. All day. All night. 

I could not get enough of that morphine to take away the pain.

I could look out my window and see the silhouettes of people passing through a hallway in a wing parallel to mine.  These people struck me as shadows, living in a shadow world. 

I fall into one of my many brief, uncomfortable naps. Then I come to to see Fire and wife Stephanie. They think I am too groggy to notice. But I catch the moment. They do this kind of thing all the time. Perhaps someday, they will give us a grandchild. After that, I doubt that we will see them do much more of this kind of thing, probably hardly at all.

They bring me more fresh-baked oatmeal cookies, and Moose's Tooth Pizza - the best pizza in the world. I used to think New York City had the best pizza and then someone opened the Moose's Tooth, right in Anchorage, Alaska and New York City pizza fell to second place.

Shadow boy with spoon, across the way. In case you wonder, people walking through that wing can look over at the patient rooms - at my room, with the curtain drawn wide open - but they cannot see inside. It is the way the patient room windows are tinted. You can peer out, but you can't peek in.

From way down in Arizona, Sunflower places an order for daffodils, through Fire. Fire cannot find daffodils, but he does find yellow flowers to brighten my room. The beautiful woman in the reflection on the window is Tiffani, Rye's girlfriend. Stephanie picks lilacs and brings those as well. 

Sunflower is not scheduled to return to Alaska until June 28, but she cannot take it, and so books two flights for June 22, one from Show Low, Arizona to Phoenix and the other from Phoenix to Anchorage. Am I anxious for her to return?

Oh, geeze! Or should I say, "Oh, geese!"?

I make arrangements to have a chair that transforms into a bed brought to my room, so that Sunflower can sleep here the night after she arrives. Hopefully, I will be released the next day and then we can go home and hang out with the kitties. That will be good, but scary, too.

Hey! What gives??? Rye and Tiffani, playing hand games.

A scene from the wall in the Children's Hospital. In the afternoon of May 22, I get a call from blazing hot Phoenix. It is Sunflower. She is at Sky Harbor Airport, and she is about to cry. She had booked her flight from Show Low, a town that borders the White Mountain Apache Reservation,  to Phoenix on a commuter air service called Great Lakes Aviation.

About one hour before her scheduled departure, she called Great Lakes to confirm that she was coming. Only then did Great Lakes inform her that they had canceled her flight. It seems that no one at Great Lakes could be troubled to make a call to the few passengers that would have been on that small commuter flight, to let thom know that it had been cancelled.

By car, about three hours separate my wife's reservation from the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The scheduled departure time for her flight from Phoenix to Anchorage was in three-and-a-half hours.

She decided to go for it. Tryskuit and Nabysko drove her to Sky Harbor in a mad rush and then Sunflower checked in at the last possible minute, without a single piece of luggage to slow her down. She only had her purse as a carry on. Time was tight, but the lady at the counter thought she could make and so called ahead to the gate to let them know that one more passenger was coming.

Even as our daughters began the three-hour drive back to the reservation, Sunflower rushed to Security, but the line was long and slow. By the time Sunflower reached her gate, the doors to her jet had been closed. The engines had been fired up and the plane had begun it's roll to the runway. She had missed her flight back to me, here in the hospital, by only minutes - all because someone on the staff of Great Lakes Aviation could not be troubled to call and let her know that her flight from Show Low to Phoenix had been cancelled.

There was nothing for Sunflower to do now but to find her way to a nearby hotel.

Hospital staff took away the bed that they had brought to my room for Sunflower. The night proved long and lonely - both here and in Sunflower's Arizona hotel room - and now I would have an extra night to spend in the hospital, in addition to this one, that I had thought would be my last. 

Sunflower finally appeared in my hospital room the night of June 23. You can see how exhausted she was. Hospital staff returned the bed back to my room and that night, she slept beside me.

Earlier on the 23rd, as I waited for Sunflower to return on her rescheduled flight home, I took a walk through the halls of Providence. I soon came upon on an open office door beyond which lay the scene above: a figurine crafted into the form of a sleeping cat, at rest in the glow of a lamp. It reminded me somehow of the moment that I had stepped, all alone, into a viewing room of a mortuary in Murray, Utah, to look upon my mother for the first time since life had left her.

The scene brought back another memory as well, one from the early 90's. I had gone Christmas shopping in Anchorage with Sunflower, Tryskuit, and Nabysko. Shortly after we stepped into a mall gift store, I heard a shout. "Oh! Cute! Oh, Daddy! Look! How cute! Daddy! You must get one for each of us - for you, too, Daddy. And Mom. Buy one for Mom."

There, being petted, caressed, stroked, and fawned upon by my young daughters were perhaps the most realistic cat figurines that I had ever seen. They came in sizes from tiny to to as large as a small cat and they were charming. "Yes!" I thought, "I will buy one for everybody."

Then I looked closely at these stuffed kittens and saw that their fur was real - real cat. Here was calico - just like Chicago, who had yet to come to us - there, tabby - just like Little Clyde Texaco - here, black - like my own Little Guy - and there, orange and white boy - just like our beloved Thunder Paws. I ushered the girls out of the store.

Sometime afterward, I saw a TV news special, about how cats in China were being killed by the thousands so that their fur could be sewn into cat figurines that would then be sold in the US and Europe.

On the door to the room with the still, lamp-lit, figurine was a picture of a woman surrounded by cats and other animals, complete with wording that called upon all who saw to laugh and find joy. 

Elsewhere in the office, there were other cat pictures and knick knacks. I could tell that this was the office of a gentle woman, a woman of good heart, who loved and admired cats. Arleta Hefler soon returned to her office. I introduced myself. I told her how I could see that she was a person who loved cats. I told her about this blog and how I would like to take some pictures for it.

I also told her about the mixed feelings I had felt upon seeing the cat figurine. She agreed. The figurine had been a gift and she found it adorable, but had also been worried about the fur. She had inspected it closely and had determined that it was rabbit fur, not cat.

I looked at it closely. It did appear to be rabbit.

She brought me into her office, where she showed me pictures of all four of her cats, one of whom was 22 years old. She told me that besides being a counselor, she was a preacher; had a chapel and a congregation.

Another of her cats was black. His name was Jesse. She told me how Jesse had once inspired her to write down a sermon that she delivered to her congregation.

The internet being what it is, Jesse's Sermon wound up traveling through cyberspace to chapels in all quadrants of the world. She received many comments from parishioners as far away as Australia who had been inspired by it.

I told her that I would like to have a copy of Jesse's Sermon. "I'll bring you one," she said.

I was lying in my hospital bed early in the afternoon of June 24 when Pastor Arleta Hefler showed up with a copy of Jesse's Sermon. Attached to it was a photograph of Jesse himself.

I want to share Jesse's Sermon with you, my billions upon billions of readers, but I am going to wait just a little bit, until I am more recovered. I will then have Sunflower drive me to Anchorage and I will visit the good Pastor and her cats. I will photograph Jesse myself and I will drop a number of his pictures into the inspired words and thereby let Jesse deliver his sermon himself.

It is an excellent sermon. It will be worth the wait. I promise.

Finally, in the mid-evening hours of June 24, Dr. Duddy came by, and released me from the hospital. A young woman wheeled me to the elevator, down to ground level and then out the main entrance, beyond which Sunflower waited with the car. I took a seat and she buckled me in. "Could you roll down your window?" I asked, just as she was about to drive away. She did. Again, I photographed the statue of Jesus.

As we crossed the flats on the way home, a military transport passed overhead. 

We pulled into the driveway. There, straight ahead, was My Little Pistol-Yero in the front room window. I knew that the rest of the Kracker Cat gang waited inside.

Part 5 of 6: About to lose my shoulder, left alone with just the cats, I feel sorry for myself and get depressed

A short burst of cat combat - Royce vs. Pistol-Yero.

I grow tired of this "injured" series of my blog. I felt like I needed to do it, but I also knew that I would grow tired of it, so I decided to limit it to four segments. I thought that I would lay them out quickly, get myself out of the hospital for good and then move on with both blog and life.

Instead, it feels like I have been trapped in this series forever. I can't stay, I must get out of this place. And yet, I have expanded the series from four segments to six. Last night, I went through the pictures of the Kracker Cats that I had taken on June 19, the final day that I spent utterly alone with the cats. On that day, I sought to prepare my mind for the fact that early the following morning, I would undergo my second round of surgery in one week and I would lose my right shoulder.

So last night, when I looked at the June 19 pictures of the cats, me all alone with them, I felt that I must give them their own entry. That is why there are now six segments instead of four. And really, my four-day hospital stay deserves its own post as well. But I promise you, waning readers, that afterward I will get myself out of the hospital and will then move on for good. 

June 19, my final day with my natural shoulder, was a day of internal warfare for me, a day when I zig-zagged up and down between periods of near-suicidal depression and of soaring optimism.

During the depressed times, I felt that this was it for me, that this incident would destroy me - economically, physically and spiritually; that when the final toll came due, Sunflower and I would be forced to surrender this house in which we raised our children and all these Kracker Cats. I felt that our lives would forever after be grim and dismal until, at long last, life ended.

During the periods of soaring optimism, I felt that this accident was not an end, but a new beginning; that it was a message to that it was time to break the shackles that bind me and to at long last claim my freedom, to finally make good on the tremendous potential, largely squandered until now, that my creator has given me.

See the two cats at the top? Royce and Pistol? As I was trying to figure out how to photograph what looked to be a minor dispute between them, they suddenly leaped into vicious battle - more vicious than any dispute that I had ever before witnessed between them. That is the kind of battle that my soul did with my spirit, June 19, 2008.

Fortunately, the battle between Pistol and Royce lasted but a second and was then over. I think the battle of Grahamn vs. Grahamn will last much longer. I root for Grahamn. I believe Grahamn will win.

Martigny - at rest in the same battleground.

Three Kracker Cats observe me.

Chicago upon my lap. She does this often, but don't ever try to pick her up. She is not a pick-up kind of girl.

That's a clip of Tiger Woods, winning the US open with a severely injured knee. Jim seems pretty darn interested.

Royce wants outside.

Royce in the backyard.

 Jim comes out, too. He is a house cat who loves the outdoors. He can only come out when I can chaperone. Chicago never comes out. Were the door to suddenly open, she would turn away and dash deeper into the house. If she were to go against character and suddenly try to go out, I would do all within my power to stop her.

She stepped outside once - back in June of 2001. We never want her to go outside again.

Chicago and Jim. 

Jim licks his lips.

Pistol chills.

Chicago sure enjoys her watermelon! She also sure enjoys cantaloupe and corn - especially that corn that still clings to the cob once a human has gnawed the big, hard-to-chew stuff away.

Remember that watermelon, the one that thumped so good that I bought it? Here is a challenge for you:

Buy a good thumping watermelon and then, if you are right-handed, try to cut it with just your left hand. I had quite a time with that watermelon. I will not issue the same challenge, but in reverse, to the left-handed among you. Lefties tend to be more ambidextrous than us righties, so it might not be as a big of a struggle for you lefties.

By the time I get the use of my right hand back, I will be ambidextrous!

I also had a terrible time when I tried to cover the left-over pieces up in clear, cling-wrap plastic.

It could well be two days, possibly three, before I publish segment six. It will feature a preacher cat, a cat whose sermon has been delivered all across the world. That cat's sermon was even delivered to me, as I lay in my hospital bed during my final day at Providence, in Anchorage, Alaska.

Part 4 of 6: An injured man in the midst of his children; Nabysko's allergic boyfriend snuggles cat: big mistake!

On the morning of June 17, my second day home from the hospital, feeling bleary, puzzled and suffering physical pain, I step into the living room from the hallway to see that the front door is open just a crack. This dismays me. Suddenly, I see Jim dash to the door, push it open further, then dash onto the porch. 

Given such an opportunity, Jim will always take it, but he is a house cat and is never to go out unless supervised. He does not know how to live in the outdoors. I do not trust his navigational skills. I follow to find him socializing with Royce, who has been plying the outdoors for about 15 years now. Royce is very good about staying in the yard and is well-behaved out there. Should he get in a jam, both his survival and navigational skills are excellent.

Just beyond, I see Prickly Pear Blossom carrying little baby Wry Kracker as she speaks into her cell phone. "It's Mom," she tells me. "Want to talk to her?" I nod. "Dad's here now," she speaks back into the phone. "I'll let you talk to him. Here he is."

I take the phone and usher Jimmy back inside. Then I hear Sunflower's voice. She speaks from the Sunrise Dance encampment just down the hill from Fort Apache - the real Fort Apache, not the bronx. "Hi, Kid," she says. In the background, I can hear the Apache drums, the Apache songs.

The official Sunrise Dance will not start until the morning of the 20th, but the pre-dance activities have long-since begun. There has been much cooking in the camps of the two families and now they have just fed each other. Sunflower enjoyed carrying the food to the other family, serving it to them and to the medicine man.

But it is hot and she does not like the heat. She is exhausted. She is worried about me. "Everyone here feels bad about what happened to you," she tells me. "They can't believe you are not going to be here. Janet said, 'can't he come, anyway?'"

But I can't.

Throughout the day there is much activity in the Kracker House as the kids get ready to leave for Arizona themselves, but I do not participate. Mostly, I lay on the bed, drifting in and out of sleep. Whenever food is fixed, I eat it. It seems odd to me, but neither the accident, the surgery nor the drugs has diminished my appetite.

At some point, Toast Ed takes me to the store where we buy over a week's worth of food for me to prepare for myself while I am home alone - most of it micro-wave ready. I also buy apples and bananas. I find a small watermelon that thumps real good. I buy that, too. 

In the evening, Nabysko and boyfriend Bryce show up. I am surprised to see him come right into the house, right into the midst of cats and dander. He never does this. He stays away from the house. If he does come here, he dashes in, then dashes right back out again.

Now Bryce sits down on the couch with Nabysko - the same couch where cats so often curl and sleep. Right now, there are cat hairs on that couch. Jim comes prancing by on the table, in pet mode. I see Bryce look at Jim, as if he wants to pet him.

"What will happen if you pet that cat?" I ask.

"I don't know," Bryce answers. "I think I will be all right. I'm all right, so far."

"If you swell up and explode, then we will know you really are allergic to cats," I note.

"I won't explode. I want to pet him."

"I don't know. You better not. You might die," I warn.

"But I love him. I want to pet him," Bryce says.

Then Bryce pets Jim. Jim then steps onto Bryce's lap. This is too much for Nabysko, who pulls Jim onto her own lap. Bryce keeps petting him, snuggling him. "I love Jim," he explains. "I just love him."

 

Jim moves on. A bit later, I see Bryce standing in the corner, by the table, rubbing his wrists together. "Do you itch?" I ask.

"A little," he answers. "I'll be all right."

Please take note that Bryce is wearing a Batman shirt.

Next I spot Bryce standing by the kitchen sink, running water over his hands and wrists.

Then Bryce rubs the water all over himself - and through his hair, too.

Bryce is suffering!

Bryce scratches here...

Bryce scratches there. He really is allergic to cats!

Unable to take anymore, Bryce flees to the open air outside. A transformation seems to be overtaking him. I worry that he might be going mad. If you click on this picture to blow it up, you will notice little Pistol-Yero in the corner of the front room window, as he observes the unfolding of one of the most unusual series of events any of us Krackers have ever beheld.

Then Bryce is suddenly high up a tree!!!

Bryce climbs that tree - as if he were a cat!!!

And little Pistol-Yero witnesses it all!

Later, after a degree of sanity seemed to return to him, Bryce descended to the ground.

"That was pretty amazing. Have you always been good at climbing trees?" I asked.

"No," Bryce answered. "I have never climbed a tree before me my life. When I was little, my friends used to tease me because I would not climb trees with them. I can't believe I just did that."

Bryce then looked up at the tree that he had just topped and purred with satisfaction.

Since that time, there have been numerous, unverified, rumors about a young man of Bryce's description, dashing in short bursts all about Anchorage, climbing trees, where he has performed many daring rescues. Afterwards, he has been observed to curl up and nap. His grooming habits are strange, they say, and an old lady swore she saw him cough up a hairball.

When Nabysko returned to Alaska from Arizona, she was very disturbed to find that Bryce had ripped the toilet out and had replaced it with a sandbox. She made him put the toilet back in.

I think I know what happened. Remember when Peter Parker got bit by the radio active spider and became Spiderman? I suspect that Bryce underwent a similar transformation after he exposed his allergies to the Kracker Cats.

As good super-heros always do, Bryce has invented a cover story. When people see him come down from a tree, he now tells them that he has always been a very good tree-climber; that as a little boy he could climb more trees faster and higher than could any other kid in the neighborhood; give him a belt, he says, and he could speed-shimmy up any tree just like that. This is something he has always done, no big deal. As to this stuff about purrs and the furball, nonsense... or so he says.

Not long after Bryce came down from the tree on the night of June 17th, my house was empty of all humans but me. The children who had shared the day and evening with me had all gone to catch various jets bound to Arizona so that they could join Sunflower and our extended family on the Apache side at the Sunrise Dance. I did not yet know that my surgery had fallen apart and that in less than three full days I would be back in the hospital, again under the surgeon's knife, to surrender real bone for plastic.

I would not learn this until the following morning. For now, I believed myself to be alone with just the cats and that we would be together - just the cats and broken me - for the next week to come.

I am a person who does good with solitude. Sometimes, when my career was at its best point, I would leave home in my little airplane, bound for someplace out in the hinterlands of Alaska, but before I could reach that place, I would land somewhere else; someplace lonely and wild and would there retreat for a day or two, to be alone, to visit no one, to walk and pee in the woods, to turn my camera away from the beauty before me, because I did not believe any photographer with any camera could do justice to that beauty.

I thrived in the lonesomeness of it all. In loneliness, I took solace.

But tonight, as I shut my bedroom door upon the cats who so wanted to come in and sleep with me, as I slowly and carefully eased myself down onto the mattress and onto the stacked pillows, seeking physical comfort that was not mine to have, seeking to escape pain that could not be escaped but only managed, I found no solace at all in the lonesomeness of it all.

The loneliness only felt...                      lonely.

Part 3 of 4: Did a beloved cat cause me to lose my shoulder? If so, no hard feelings, cat. Still love you, cat!

Toast Ed and Wry visit me in my hospital room, the day after my hand returned.

I woke up to find that my right hand was gone. Half gone, anyway. My ring and little fingers were missing altogether, half of my middle finger was gone, while my thumb and pointer were still there, but numb and stingy-tingly. My elbow burned right at the funny bone and hurt terribly. Sharp pain had embedded itself into my arm, just beyond my wrist. I could not see my hand, for it was hidden by sling and bedsheet.

I struggled to wiggle my fingers, to see if I might detect motion that would prove that the missing digits were still there, afterall. Even through the numbness, the movement brought pain to the fingers that I could feel, but no sensation whatsoever to the ones that seemed to have vanished. 

I tried to touch the missing fingers with my left hand, but even then they did not seem to be there.

The little red rubber ball! I would try to squeeze the little red rubber ball! This was given to me by the middle-aged lady in the recovery room and although I remember that experience only as a strange dream, I remembered her telling me that I should squeeze that ball often, especially if I felt my fingers growing numb or tingly.

I grabbed the ball from my little table with my left hand and put it in my right. Strange! While I had the sensation of being able to feel the ball, it was as though it was no longer round, but only half-round. In my thumb, pointer and that part of my middle finger that still had sensation, I could feel the texture, curve and shape of the ball, but at my middle finger, that curve seemed to steepen and then level out into a flat surface that would have cut right through the middle of the ball. 

I called for the nurse. She felt my fingers and informed me that they were all there and that they were warm - that meant I had decent blood circulation. She suspected that perhaps my "block" was beginning to weaken. "Block." I then remembered the middle-aged lady saying something about a block, too.

Just before the surgery began, an anesthesiologist had gone right to the end of the main nerve to the affected area and had completely deadened that nerve.

"The surgery that you had is one of the most painful surgeries there is," the nurse now told me. "Without that block, you would be screaming right now. It usually lasts 24 to 36 hours - sometimes 48. As that block wears off, you are going to experience all kinds of sensations, including numbness and tingling in your hand.

"We will stay on top of it and will keep your pain under control."

Personally, I believed that what I was now experiencing was being caused by the fact that the edge of my sling seemed to be drawn too tightly right over my funny bone.

The nurse helped me out of bed and I used the restroom as she carefully watched to make certain that I did not take a head-dive onto the floor. I didn't care that she watched. In fact, I was comforted. By the time I was done, the feeling had returned. The missing digits were back and the ball was round once again. With the help of the nurse, I laid back down. I could feel the pressure of the sling tighten against my funny bone.

I again slipped toward sleep, but by the time I got there, my fingers had again disappeared and the ball had become half. There was severe pain in that part of my palm that I could still detect.

This time, the nurse put some real time and effort into making adjustments to the sling and into positioning pillows around me in a way that alleviated the pressure on my funny bone. This did the job.

There is much more to say about being in the hospital, of course, but I feel tired of the hospital right now and I want to leave it for awhile. Plus, I took many pictures on the second day and the third morning that I do not have anymore. I must have thought that I had downloaded them when I hadn't. I must have erased the images forever.

Among the vanished images are some that show the same board pictured above. In the "What's Important?" box (for notes left by the nurses for my doctor) is the same drawing of the cat, made by Nabysko, but there is no St. Bernard in the "Today's Plan" box.  This top drawing was added later by Toast Ed, who wanted to make certain that his dad knew that there was another, very important critter at home, awaiting his return.

I always like to see what kind of pictures I can take from a moving vehicle, and so I took this one, late Sunday morning, as Toast Ed drove us out of the Providence Hospital parking lot toward Granny B's for breakfast.

It was Sunday, June 15. I had mixed feelings about leaving the hospital. Doc had told me that my surgery had gone well, but that there was a 10 percent chance that it would fail and he would have to go in again and give me an artificial shoulder. "This means there is a 90 percent chance it will succeed," he reassured me.

I knew that it would be much more pleasant at home, but I felt vulnerable, reluctant to leave the safety of this place, where there were good nurses and PCT's ready to care for me at all times. I missed the cats, but I knew that they posed certain dangers as well. At home, I would be blessed by the care of my children for two more days only. Then, on the evening of June 17, all but two would leave for Arizona, to join their mother and the extended Apache side if family at the Sunrise Dance, and I would be left alone to fend for myself until their return, late on June 24.

Rye would stay home, but he works all night, sleeps most of the day and spends his few non-work, waking hours smacking golf balls or hanging out with his girlfriend.  Typically, I see him for about five minutes per 24 hours. Fire and wife Stephanie live 50 miles away. They promised to make a couple of visits, but if they made too many, or stayed too long, they would not get their work done.

So basically, for a full week, it would be just me and the cats.

Breakfast at Granny B's. Please click on this image, to enlarge it. I caught myself in the mirror and you can see a bit of the technique that I have had to use to shoot pictures ever since my accident. You can see that I hold the camera upside down in my left hand - pretty unstable; difficult to maneuver, hard to change settings. Poor Nabysko! She has been working so hard, missing so much sleep, but never does she forget her dad.

 Everybody is tired. Prickly Pear Blossom naps on the way home.

At home - Chicago.

Royce. 

Jim and Pistol. Martigny stayed hidden from my camera. Muzz stayed in town with Fire and Stephanie. 

Finally, bedtime comes. Almost always, Jim and Pistol sleep with Sunfower and I. If the door gets open, I sometimes wake up buried in cats. Sometimes, if the door gets open and all the cats come in, I am awakened by a sudden and frightful squabble - because these cats do have their rivalries!

I give orders that on this night, no cat is to sleep with me. I close the door tight, take my pain pills, make myself as comfortable as possible on the bed and atop the pillows that I have stacked near the head, close my eyes, feel the light breeze through the window and wait eagerly for sleep.

Finally, sleep comes. Just as I seem to be pleasantly engulfed in it, I am suddenly awakened by the loudest, most-frightening, cat squabble ever - right beside me. My reflexes take over. I push off the mattress with both elbows to sit bolt upright. Excruciating pain shoots through my right elbow, arm and shoulder.

I scream out in pain - my first scream of this entire process.

In time, the pain subsides, but a certain cold, clammy, tingle lingers. Toast Ed places a bucket and a large, plastic, kitty litter container filled with stones in front of my bedroom door. Hopefully, this barrier will prevent whatever cat it was that managed to work the door open from doing so again.

I go back to sleep - sort of. After I awake, I call the surgeon's office. They schedule a Wednesday checkup for me - just to be on the safe side.  It is Monday.

Come Wednesday, most everyone is in Arizona. Rye sacrifices his sleep to drive me to Anchorage. I get new X-rays. Then I sit in an examinging room. Dr. Duddy comes in. He looks grim.

"The sugery has completely fallen apart," he tells me. "I have to go in again. There is no other choice." This will happen Friday. Large parts of my bone will be removed, to be replaced with plastic.

I want to cry. I almost do. 

Maybe I did cry. Two tears, maybe.

Okay - I still have "Part 4" to go, but I am terribly weary of all this hospital stuff. So I will take a short break and throw in a few Fourth of July photos.

As already noted, I like to see what kind of pictures I can take from a moving vehicle. July 4 proved to be a very hot day, here in Alaska's Mat-Su Valley, so in the afternoon, as Toast Ed stayed home to care for baby Wry, Sunflower took Prickly and I out for a drive, to get icy drinks and ice cream cones.

As she drove, I found myself afret with worry that those whom we passed would all take bad falls and break their bones. Here are three of the images that I shot, holding my camera upside down, shooting through auto-glass, as Sunflower drove:

In the evening, Sunflower, Toast Ed and Prickly Pear Blossom grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, peppers and a mango, prepared a red potato salad and a goop salad. Then, joined by Kracker Cats Royce and Muzzy, we all ate and celebrated the Fourth as the inside Kracker Cats peered longingly out from various windows:

So far, my daily walks have all been very short, and often I have felt weak and drained at the end. On July 4, accompanied by Toast Ed, Prickly Pear Blossom, baby Wry and Muzz, I pushed the distance to about a mile-and-a-half: not much by my pre-accident standard, but a big leap now. Along the way, I spotted a cat. I shot one frame and then it was gone. 

I lacked the energy to go knock upon the nearby door to see if I could learn something of this cat's history. I expect to pass by this same place in the future, full of energy, and then I hope to learn it, because...

Like every cat, this cat has a story: