When bad news can be good news

"If you stand back and squint your eyes, you can see the perfect circle ..."
That was our orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Lowe, talking us through the newest batch of x-rays taken of MG's pelvis Friday morning.

 Every time I see the pictures, I'm stunned. There is just so much metal, and you wonder how screws that long can possibly fit inside the human body; bright white screws and metal plates that look more like a chain link bracelet dominate the otherwise shades of gray that are MG's bones and ligaments that show up in x-rays.

The "perfect circle'' Dr. Lowe was trying to get us to see is the circle formed on the interior of the pelvis. It wasn't that hard to see, but Dr. Lowe is such a perfectionist I think he wanted us to see it with the same sense of satisfaction that he saw it.

The truth is, we did. He showed us where the bones are growing back together nicely from all the breaks around her pelvis, and where the new bone is growing. I remember him telling me that eventually new bone would grow and the old bones would heal and all the metal would be superfluous. Not that they'd ever take the metal out, but that it would just no longer be necessary.

Of course, I couldn't let Dr. Lowe get away with the "stand back far enough and squint'' line. I laughed and said "Come on, Doc. If you stand back far enough and squint, I look 50 pounds lighter!''

But I could see how good his handiwork was looking, and seeing MG walk - not ride in a wheelchair or shuffle behind a walker but actually walk (with the use of a cane) - into the clinic was amazing. And the x-rays only reinforced that the pelvis is looking like a pelvis is supposed to look again.

However, that kind of progress means we can start to talk about some of the other injuries that, quite frankly, didn't seem as important early on.

Like the knee.

MG's left knee has not been right since she came home from the hospital. She can't bend it fully, and the inflammation has not gone down. It's been frustrating for her, because she couldn't seem to get anyone to address the knee. We did get a MRI of the knee, and the doctor just told us everything looked normal so not to worry about it - easy for him when he's not the one trying to turn over at night, or raise his hips to shift positions, or pick up a pillow that's fallen on the floor.

Now, however, Dr. Lowe suggested we actually see an orthopedic surgeon. He said doctors can't rely 100 percent on tests, that nothing replaces actually seeing a patient and putting your hands on an injury. Dr. Lowe is not a "knee" guy, in that he considers an injury like this a "sports" injury and his specialty is really trauma surgery. So we'll go see the best "knee" guy we know, David Adkisson.  

MG has been telling the doctors that her lower back - lower back as in her "bottom" - hurts, especially when she sits down. The pain has been excruciating and unrelenting, and the pain medicine that she's been taking has done nothing for it. Up to now, we feel like we've been ignored, that they keep saying it's just part of the pain of recovery.

This time, Dr. Lowe went back and rechecked the x-rays again, and came back to tell us MG had a fractured coccyx.

I don't think it's that anyone "missed" this fracture before as much as it was, given the severity of the other injuries, looking for a fracture like this just wasn't a priority. But now that everything else is starting to heal, Dr. Lowe checked over the x-rays more closely.

As painful as a fractured coccyx is (extremely), and as disappointing as it is that there is really nothing you can do about it but wait, and as pain as it is that the coccyx apparently doesn't heal quickly, this was good news in the sense that we finally had an explanation for the pain.

As MG said, now she knows it's not that she's a wimp or has been imagining it or whatever. This gives us a reason, and knowing 'why' is a huge relief - plus knowing that maybe, just maybe, the fracture will heal and the pain go away.
Of course, it makes me wonder what else might have been missed in the initial flurry of putting MG back together again.
I'm sure we'll find out, sooner or later.

More good news was that Dr. Lowe also cleared MG to take anti-inflammatory drugs, and our internist prescribed what he hopes is a good anti-inflammatory that he believes will dramatically reduce the pain. We're hopeful, and in fact Saturday was a better day. Now whether that's successful medicine or just optimism, we'll find out going forward.

I have to say I do get caught up in MG's optimism. Every day that she wakes up, she says her first thought is "maybe today the pain will be gone." I was not there with her for the first three or four months, because I knew it was going to take time. I heard over and over that this would be a year in the healing. So I have always tried to temper her enthusiasm by reminder her of that.
But now when I wake up beside her and we spend the first few minutes talking, then eventually I get her laughing, and then we start making plans for what we're going to do "a year from now, when everything if back to normal," I too think, "maybe today."
So far, that day hasn't arrived. But it's getting closer. I believe it.

So that's where we are today. As I said, it was good and bad, but mostly good to see the healing that has taken place.
It was very sad to see SB go back to college, because she's been such an encourager and practical helper to her mother all summer. I hate that SB didn't have a "normal" summer home from college (although she did a great job in her summer internship). I hate that SB feels so responsible and puts pressure on herself to try to make everything right - to take care of me, her brothers, the house, and of course her mother.
It's not easy, particularly when the guys of the house are not as considerate. I mean, the house looked clean to me!
So I'm happy that SB is back at school where she can be a college kid again. We packed up the old Explorer and she headed off with a new steering wheel cover - my going-away present to her. Look, when you're driving a 17-year-old car, a new steering wheel cover is a big deal; particularly when the original material seems to come off in your hands every time you drive.
That puts us in the market for a new car. We were going to need one anyway and had talked about it. But now the decision is: do I go for safety, which I'm inclined to do, and buy MG a big, hulking dump truck to drive that would take the impact of a Tahoe like a fly bouncing off an elephant? Or do we go for fun, which MG would like, and get another convertible?
 Or do I compromise and maybe get an SUV that offers both size and some fun?

MG is not quite ready to drive, but the therapist has urged her to start. I'm thinking I'll take her back to the church parking lot on a Saturday, when it's empty, like I did the kids when they were learning to drive, and put her through all the tests - forward, backward, circles, figure-eights, parking - that I did the kids.
I don't think MG will be gun shy, since she doesn't remember anything about the actual accident. But I am concerned the limited mobility could be a factor if she has to react suddenly or needs to turn to see something over her shoulder.
I'm not letting her drive until I am confident she'll be safe.
Of course, that might mean she doesn't drive for 30 years.
MG may not be gun-shy, but I am.
At least when it comes to her and her safety.

Watching for the wind

Every time I walk into church and see the shiny gold serving trays stacked prominently on the little table at the front of the church, I can't help but think:  Short sermon today.
It's a hold-over from when I was a kid. We celebrated "the Lord's Supper" or "communion'' - the act of symbolically eating Christ's body broken for me and drinking Christ's blood shed for my sins - once a quarter, I think it was. And because our church was pretty strict about the service not going much past noon (couldn't let the Methodists and Presbyterians get the jump in line at Morrison's), it meant the pastor would cut his sermon short.
It wasn't like Baptism. That was always done after the church service, so it meant you had to hang around a little longer - although for some reason I didn't really mind, even as a kid.  Maybe it was because we didn't really go to Morrison's for Sunday lunch anyway, so we didn't worry about getting caught at the end of a long line.
Recently, while on vacation, we visited the church my brother-in-law attends. We actually enjoy attending new churches while on vacation, to see what the music is like or the preacher. This particular Sunday, however, was both Baptism and Communion Sunday, which was disappointing because when you're just visiting a church, you want to hear the preacher to see what he's like and compare him to yours.

It struck me, on this particular Sunday, how Protestant (we are Protestant) church services can be so different. We went to a church in Daphne where the band was rocking, with a bass player who literally hopped around all over the stage while he was playing to the point of (for us as newcomers) being a distraction. We went to a church in the mountains of North Carolina where everyone showed up in jeans and shirts, very mountain casual, and the service reflected that kind of mountain, homespun, bluegrass attitude.
We've been to "high" churches with robed choirs and pipe organs and liturgies, and "low" churches that used videos and special lighting and props to enhance the service.
The church my sister-in-law attends in Memphis has a huge stage, with a kind of combo band on one side, a small orchestra on the far opposite side, a choir behind the orchestra, a small group of casually dressed singers in front of the band, and a casually dressed worship leader in the middle, with video screens above it all, and all of it going on at the same time. I know it sounds like chaos, but it actually worked.
And yet when it comes to something like Baptism or The Lord's Supper, all these churches tend to become the same. Whatever the attitude had been - casual and hand clapping or formal and stand-offish - when the pastor brings someone down into the water and says "I baptize you in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit'' or those shiny plates are distributed and everyone takes a piece of wafer or cracker and the preacher says, "This is the bread, broken as a symbol  ..." everyone seems to automatically hush into silence at the sacredness of the moment.
I've never known anyone who dozes off during a Baptism or during the Lord's Supper. I'm not saying everyone who participates is fully focused on what is going on, that everyone inherently finds deep meaning in the action, but even small kids who normally squirm and draw in the margins of the order of worship and dig through their mother's purses for a mint tend to sit up and get caught up in what is going on.

I don't want to make too much out of this. I realize anything that's out of the ordinary will catch your attention, and because we don't do Baptism and Communion every Sunday it becomes out of the ordinary and maybe that's all there is to the attention we give it.
But I wonder if there isn't more.
You don't see the Spirit of God when it passes, any more than you see the wind when it blows through the trees. You know how it is - you're standing there and suddenly see the tops of the trees start to sway and you don't say "what's going on?" You say, "Ah, the wind."
You see a boat out on the water, going nowhere. And then suddenly the sails stretch out and the boat starts to move and you don't say, "How'd he do that?" You say, "It's the wind."
You walk along a street and your hat suddenly jumps off the back of you head. You don't ask if your head or had suddenly changed sizes; you think "Wow! The wind ..."

You don't see the wind. How do you know it came through? You just do. You see the result of the winds' passing.
It  see that with people, too. You've known them for years, going about their lives, acting the way they've always acted, and then suddenly one day they're different. It's like they found a purpose, or a goal. You don't know what happened or why or why now and not six months ago or six months from now; you just know it happened.
Maybe it doesn't stick. Maybe it comes and goes or maybe it is only there for a little while and then the person gets beat down and loses whatever it was.
But when I sit and watch someone up there with their arm on the preacher's forearm and he asks why they are their and they say they want to make a public identification with the life of Jesus, or when I watch people silently take that small piece of cracker and cup of liquid and treat it with such sacredness, bringing a moment of solemnity to lives that are soon right back to catching up on the latest gossip or worrying about paying bills or fighting with their kids or going to work ... I can't help but notice.
Maybe it's because those are visible acts that are the result of our faith.
And maybe anytime we actually see someone acting out what they believe, we realize it's special and we have to stop and watch because - unfortunately - it seems all to rare that get the chance to witness that.

Remember your baptism. Remember that moment of tasting.
If you're like me, you'll forget from time to time, maybe more often than you'd  like.
But on those Sundays when you walk in and see those shiny gold serving trays stacked so neatly down front, or the lights go down and you hear the swish of water as the pastor steps into the baptistery, you remember.
Just like the wind.

In support of President Obama

In the wake of the recent tragedies in Colorado and Wisconsin, the President said we need to do something to stem this trend of violence in America, that it can't be allowed to go on.
He's right.
It's a complicated issue, with no simple solution. But in the spirit of supporting President Obama, I can think of one grass-roots effort that would be easy to do and could be implemented almost immediately.

In every classroom in every school in the country, I can see us posting a sign that says, "Thou Shalt Not Kill."

To make it have an even greater impact, I'd put it on a sign that resembles a tombstone - you  know, one of those rectangles where you round off the top. I realize a lot of people are used to seeing crosses in cemeteries, but I don't want to offend anyone with such an obvious Christian symbol, so I'm thinking the old-fashioned tombstone would suffice.
The great thing about this - the tombstone-looking sign with the words "Thou Shalt Not Kill"' emblazoned on it - is that you could leave more room for more, similar sayings.
Things like "Don't lie."
"Don't steal"
"Obey your mother and father."
And so on.
I'd bet you could easily come up with, oh, eight or nine such saying. Given the popularity of David Letterman's "Top Ten" list, maybe we should just decided to come up with a popular round number like 10.

Ten good sayings that we could agree are pretty good words to live by, that if taught early enough might help stem the tide of violence that the President - and all of us - are concerned about.

Now, I don't for a minute think this idea is original with me. There are very few truly original ideas. I wouldn't be surprised if someone, somewhere, hadn't thought of this a long time ago.
I know they have signs that say things like "Just say 'no' to drugs'' in schools.
Why not something similar for killing people, and lying, and stealing and not showing proper respect to authority?

It's just an idea.
After all, I really want to help President Obama in this instance.
I think we all do.

A vacation of all shapes and sizes

Before ''the accident,'' I was almost ready to start running.
Well, maybe jogging.
Or just walking at a slightly faster pace.
At my last physical, I told this wonderful doctor that I'd found in Gulfport that I needed to lose about 20 pounds. He told me, "Why don't you just start with 10 and see if you can stay there for awhile." See? I told you he was wonderful.
So anyway, I was losing weight, going on an almost-nightly 45-minute, roughly 4 mile walk down through the Gulfport small craft harbor and Jones Park. I was starting to feel pretty good - like I said, almost ready to start speeding up some.
Then came "the accident." I feel like I aged three years in three months. I put on the weight I'd lost and then some. And forcing myself to exercise became very difficult.

Then last week we went on our family vacation. MG insisted that we do something to get away as a family before the older kids went back to college. She wanted to go to the beach, but me being either practical or cheap (depending on your point of view) I said we couldn't be sure MG could take a full week away and we'd run the risk of renting a place at the beach and only using it for half a week, so why didn't we go to St. Louis instead?
Now, St. Louis is where six of MG's seven brothers live and work, and one of her two sisters. (Yes, if you are counting, there are 10 kids in her family). "The brothers" as we call them are in real estate development, and they have downtown lofts we knew we could stay at, or we could go up to the lake house.
I was naturally concerned as to how MG would take riding in the car for a roughly eight-hour trip, so we rented a large Tahoe - ironic, because it was a Tahoe that hit MG, and standing in front of that massive SUV as well as sitting behind the steering wheel looking out over the hood gave me a new sense for just how much force hit MG that Saturday morning; one more reason to be thankful she remembers nothing about that day.
We made as much of a bed as we could in the middle seat, and MG laid down while the boys alternated riding in the passenger seat next to me and riding in the third seat with SB. I don't know why SB didn't take a turn riding up front with me. She should have. It just didn't happen.
It was not an easy trip, but it was definitely worthwhile. MG got to see her brothers and sister, their spouse and children. MG's Dad came up for a few days and all of us guys went out and played golf one day in 105-degree heat.  It might as been as close to heat stroke as I can ever remember.
The first night was one of the most memorable, however.
As a family, we were sitting on the outside patio of MG's sister's restaurant (Blondies, on the corner of Washington and 13th), laughing and enjoying some amazing dessert. Two girls who looked to be probably college-age or just older came by on bicycles, and we joked with the boys about these two girls, who rode up to the intersection with Washington Ave. where a crowd was gathering.
I had my back to Washington Ave, but was facing my sons, and suddenly I saw their eyes get big. I turned around in time to see one of the girls pulling off her shirt, and to see that the other already had her shirt off.
And suddenly, a stream of people on bicycles came rolling by, down Washington Ave., in various stages of undress.
Turns out, it was the annual "Naked Bike Ride'' through downtown St. Louis. I don't know how many people rode by, but it had to be close to a hundred. Many were in their underwear, but quite a few women were topless and quite a few men and women were completely naked.
Now, I might be an old man, but I'm still a guy. And even as I write that, I think "wow!" But the truth is, the reaction was more like "whoa!"
Being a guy, you say "naked bike ride" and you think "naked bike ride of gorgeous super models."
Instead, it was the naked bike ride of very ordinary people, mostly male, and mostly people you didn't really want to see naked (if you're the kind of person who likes to see naked people at all).
It was kind of like the time we were on a cruise ship, and docked in some Carribean port next to a ship that had a "nude sun bathing" deck. The ship I was on was taller, so we - myself and a couple of the guys I was with - were looking down on this ship.
And rather than the "nude sun bathing deck of European super models'' that we hoped for, what we saw was the nude sun bathing deck of elderly, sun-dried and shrivled grandmothers.
Another friend of mine who has traveled extensively told me about how anxious he was to see one of those nude beaches in Spain - until he got there and saw images of body types that he can't get out of his mind, no matter how hard he tries.
Still, on this night in St. Louis, everyone lining Washington Ave clapped and cheered as if riding a bicycle naked through downtown St. Louis took some special skill.
I admit I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I felt like I should have been appalled. On the other, I was in college during the hey-day of streaking. In fact, I was at the University of Georgia when they supposedly set the record for largest "streak,'' thousands of college kids who met at the quad, took off their clothes, and ran through campus.
I wasn't one of them, by the way.
However, one night I was in a girls' dorm room on campus (which was allowed) when we heard this huge commotion outside. We - my friend and I - looked out, and it looked like every guy from the guys' dorm next door had stripped and was circling the girls' dorm where I was. And then, apparently, girls started taking off their clothes and 'flashing' the guys from their dorm room windows (which, of course, I couldn't see since I was in the girls' dorm at that time, and needless to say the girl I was with didn't participate).
I figured the best reaction I could have to the naked bike ride was to simply laugh it off.
Needless to say, it was quite a welcome to St. Louis.

The best thing for MG was the pool at the top of the building where our loft was. One of The Brothers turned up the heater on the pool to 91 degrees so it was like bath water. It was the middle of the week, so nobody was up there except us, and MG was so excited to get into the pool. She was able to float and for the first time since the accident was pain free. She moved and did her exercises and floated and felt, well, 'normal.'

But eventually MG had to get out of the pool, and when she did the pain came back. At times it was horrible. Other times it was just unbearable. It's a helpless feeling to lie in bed at night next to someone you love and hear her cry and know there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Still, it was a great week. And now we're back home. Roecker is already back at school. SB leaves soon. Gray starts his senior year of high school this week. I am back on the coast during the week.
It is amazing how independant MG has become. She is walking with the cane and sometimes without the cane. She still has drop foot, but has begun out-patient therapy and we've been to a neurologist to get a baseline of nerve damage to the leg, so we know what we're looking at.
People ask us continually what they can pray about, and I'd always say the pain: if MG could just get the pain under control, could just not hurt every minute of every day, the rest of her disabilities (which I still believe are termporary) would be bearable.

The timing of all of this has been amazing. I've written about this before, but there was a time when SB was going to intern in South Carolina, but I pushed her to take an internship in Birmingham that I thought would be better for her resume. We thought Roecker would be gone all summer doing basic training, but it turned out there wasn't a place for him so at the last minute he came home to Birmingham and we were fortunate that he was able to get an internship in Birmingham as well.
The accident occured in late spring, before the kids were out of school. But by the time MG came home from the hospital, SB and Roecker were home. The whole family was there, and it made a huge difference in the care-giving while MG recovered.
All along, we knew the day was coming when SB, in particular, would have to go back to school and we prayed that MG would be in a place where she wouldn't need round-the-clock care. Sure enough, as we near the time of SB's leaving, MG is sufficiently independant so that she can be alone at night, or at least where Gray can care for her.
God is good. I can say that in the midst of all that has happened, because even in this horror, we see His Mercy, His reminder that He continues to look after us. As I've said, I believe in God's permissive will, meaning I don't think God caused this accident but rather allowed it to happen because He has given man free choice and this man that hit MG made a bad choice. But I do believe that even in the midst of those bad choices, God's will won't be thwarted and His presence can't be denied.

When we left St. Louis, it was the day before yet another niece would be born, so we have one more reason to get back as soon as we can.
I told MG that when we returned, we'd be riding bikes down Washington Ave.
But don't worry; we'll keep our clothes on.
I'm a long way from being anybody's fantasy.

You can take the boy out of Alabama, but ....

"I was born a poor black child ..."
Hopefully you remember that line from Steve Martin's movie, "The Jerk."
That's kind of how I feel right now.

A few weeks ago, my boss realized we were going to need press cover at the National Association of Black Journalists. I was chosen to go, although after the decision was made I heard my boss mumble, "Could we be sending anyone any whiter?"
Later, I was in Houston at the same time as the NAACP convention.
Now I find myself in New Orleans, working the Urban League convention.
Today I was manning a booth in the Exhibition Hall, having a great time meeting and talking to people who came, mostly looking for career help.
 There was a great young man from Dillard, a Communications major so it was right up my alley; we talked, I looked over his resume and gave him my free advice (worth what he paid for it). Turns out he'd worked some in sports information, so we had that in common. And then I told him if he was willing to move, I knew a couple good companies that were advertising for PR/Communications help that he should try.
There was an older man, who had been a nurse. He was tired of the hands-on nature of nursing, and was hoping to find something medical related. We talked about options - industrial health, primarily. But as we talked, he mentioned he had a Business Administration degree. We started talking about ways he could combine those degrees, and he actually kind of got excited because he hadn't through of that.
That's kind of how it went, and it was fun. I enjoy talking to strangers, and have learned how people really just want someone to bounce ideas off of, to listen to them, and then to have some sense of optimism restored. It wasn't that I could offer or promise anything, but I know from being in the job market myself sometimes you just need some encouragement, some renewed sense of hope.
One guy was thanking me for taking the time to help him, and I said, "Hey, in this economy, we have to help each other. If I can help you get a job, let me know. In three months, I may be calling you."

And then came my "jerk'' moment, when I realized not only just how "white" I am, but how Southern, how you can take the boy out of Alabama ...
A nice lady came up to talk. I went over, introduced myself, we started the conversation, and then I saw her T-shirt with the sparkly "Bama 12" on it.
So of course I said, "Are you an Alabama fan?"
She said, "What?"
I said, "An Alabama fan - you know, Roll Tide!"
She looked at me like I was an idiot.
I said, "Your shirt - it says 'Bama' on it."
She looked down and then back at me and said, "It says Obama."
Sure enough, it was an Obama t-shirt. The "O" was that usually colorful circle, but it was also kind of bent around her chest where it didn't line up exactly right, and the "b-a-m-a" were in all caps. And I remember when 'Bama fans were celebrating 12 national championships ....
And I felt like an idiot.
"I'm sorry,'' I said. "I'm from Alabama. Even when President Obama was running in 2008, the first time I saw one of his bumper stickers I thought it was 'O-Bama,' not "Obama.'"
She didn't see the humor.
Truthfully, at that point neither did I.

But never underestimate the power of Alabama fans. They are everywhere.
At that very moment, a gentlemen next to her leaned over and said, "Here you go - Roll Tide!" And he pulled out a pendant he was wearing around his neck - a crimson Alabama "A" with a national championship logo.
He went on to say, "Anybody from Georgia to Alabama to Mississippi would see it the same way."

Chagrined, I smiled and finished the conversation with the nice lady as best as I could, and then slinked away.
At that point, it hit me.
You can take the boy out of Alabama, but you can't take the 'Bama out of the boy.

What a jerk.

Still so many limitations

The writing comes in spurts.
But then, that's because when I stopped writing for money I was determined not to be bound by the pressure of deadlines or expectations. I made up my mind to write when I felt like it, selfishly for my own enjoyment more than anything else.
Then came the accident, and I began to write as a way to process what I was going through as well as to keep family and friends informed. The blog apparently resonated and went far beyond that limited scope, and I'm thankful that people identified and cared and - most importantly - prayed. We've felt that support.
It also connected me to a wide range of people who have shared and are sharing their own sometimes difficult journeys. As an example, I encourage you to follow my friend Andi in her story here at AndiAnswers (formerly Wifeandmomuniversity).
Fortunately, we're out of the critical part of the journey, and we're settling into what I'll call for lack of a better phrase the "discovering normal" phase. There is not that much to report every day or every week, and yet for family and close friends I realize I made this the place for updates, so I need to provide those updates.
So here goes:

I slept with MG last weekend.
And by "slept" I mean that for the first time since the night before the accident, my wife and I slept in the same bed. The hospital bed that had been her uncomfortable nest since May 12 - the day she came back home - had become increasingly unbearable to the point of feeling nearly uninhabitable, so we decided to try a night in the "big bed" (as The Heir said when he walked in the next morning: "Mom! You slept in the big girl bed! Good for you!")
By the time I got home again from my weekly sojourn to the coast, the hospital bed was gone. Our once-over sized bedroom that had grown so small with all the extra furniture again felt big. MG was sleeping on her side of the bed again, a great sign of returning to some measure of "normal."
She's finished in-home physical therapy and begun to go to out-patient therapy, another huge sign of progress.
She's walking with a cane - sometimes a walker - but not using the wheelchair for anything other than just minimal needs now.
We bought a new orthotic that is smaller and lighter, and we're hopeful it will give MG a few more options in shoes (if you don't know the shoe story, see "Hell on heels'' here. )
We've run errands, driving to the store. MG has walked through stores and shopped with me and friends. She tires quickly, and there is a constant tension between "going" and "going too far." MG knows she needs to build up muscle, but at the same time she has been told not to push too hard. It's just that no one can tell us where that fine line is.
MG has taken to coming out and sitting on the sofa in the living room, and on Saturday's sits and watches old westerns with me on those high-number cable channels where you can find classic shows like "The Rifleman" and "Bonanza." I've introduced her into the addictive joy of analyzing the personalities on "The Big Valley" and the amazing problems that one family gets itself into episode after episode.

Yet there remain so many limitations.
The nerve damage in her left leg remains. We've been to a neurologist who did tests to establish a baseline, and the results were mixed: there was sign of impulse in some areas that feel dead, yet there is indication that more nerves were affected than we thought and, as of right now, are not responding.
The good news is that we can go back to the neurologist in a few months for another test and see if there is progress being made in the nerve rejuvenation. As the neurologist said, when nerves are damaged or stressed, they get angry and tend to stay angry for a long time, and three months is not really long enough (as much as we'd like it to be).
But the big issue remains the pain.
The pain is constant. At night, in particular, it's worse, but apparently it never goes away. It hurts to sit, it hurts to lie down, it turns to turn on the right side, it hurts to turn to the left, it hurts to walk.
It's depressing. It is easy to see how people who deal with chronic pain consider extreme measures to deal with that; how it can even lead to consider drastic measures (that MG is not considering, just to be clear, but it is understandable).

People are well-meaning. We had a guy from a local church who knew nothing about what had happened to MG, nothing about the extent of her injuries, who saw us out one day and asked us if he could pray for MG. We, of course, said yes, and the young man immediately put his hands on MG and prayed fervently for the pain to go away; he even commanded the pain "in the name of Jesus" to "not just move to another location, but to leave the body completely." He was sincere and I assume prayed in full faith.
When he finished, he asked MG if she was still in pain.
She was.
He was disappointed.
Maybe it was my fault, because I was dubious from the beginning. Not that I don't believe Jesus can remove pain completely, but God wasn't willing to spare Jesus of the pain of the cross, so pain must serve a purpose. I believe pain is there to remind us that things are not right ... whether it is simply age or injury, pain tells us things are not right, that we live in a fallen world, and there is only one ultimate cure.
That isn't to say I want MG - or anyone else, for that matter - to be in pain. I pray constantly for the pain to go away, or lessen, or that God see fit to give MG some relief even if only temporary.
And that leads into a whole discussion of faith .... is my faith not strong enough? Was this man's faith outside the bounds of what God wants?
All I know is that I do believe. However, I also felt bad for this guy who was so sincere and so disappointed that his prayer didn't "work." And I was bothered that he'd stop us like that without knowing anything about us and decide to 'fix' what he knew nothing about.
That's why it seems to me so important to develop relationships. You just can't drop in and with one prayer or one offering or one project 'fix' someones life. Well, you CAN, but I've found it to be very rare. Instead, we need to be willing - as many of you have with MG to my eternal thankfulness - to walk alongside during the journey.

We're a long way from over, I hope. I still hold to what people first told me, that this could be eight months to a year in recovery. When it comes to MG, I am an optimist, and I always have been.

The kids go back to college in a few weeks. The house will suddenly be very empty for MG. That's frightening. Not that we don't have people willing to stay with her because we do. But it won't be the same.
But I figure we have three weeks before we get there, and I'm not going to worry about tomorrow when today has worries enough of its own.

Your personal incontinence counselor

When your spouse is basically bedridden for two months, only able to sit up and walk for limited amounts of time during the course of any day, most of your time is spent sitting or lying around the bedroom, watching TV.
The good thing about The Trophy Wife is she loves sports, so we watched the College World Series, the Women's Softball College World Series, the NBA Playoffs, the French Open, Wimbledon, Olympic trials ... anything of significant competition.
But good, live sports are not 24/7 (I'm sorry, I don't consider soccer "good, live sports"). So eventually you have to channel surf.
I've told the story before about how we, as parents, were very careful in what our kids watched. The Heir used to complain, "999 channels and I only get to watch three!" That wasn't quite right, but it was close.
In the last few months, I've discovered a lot of what fills those other 996 channels.
There is a lot of competition out there for the various shades of ESPN.
We've watched something called "Say Yes To The Dress,'' which is a show where these young girls who apparently crave the approval of their family and peers round up 8-10 of the most dysfunctional and discordant people she knows and brings them to this wedding dress store where the future bride hopes these basically unhappy and opinionated people will come to some agreement on what dress she should be married in.
My guess is the only reason she's even getting married is peer pressure. And if that sounds judgemental,well, that's pretty much the theme of the whole show - being judgmental.
The bride's posse typically includes the bride's mother and step-mother, who haven't spoken to each other since the bride's father left her mother for this other woman who is now her step-mom; sometimes she brings the groom, whose idea of the perfect wedding dress is more likely found in the winter catalogue of Victoria's Secret; there is often a grandmother who envisions her precious grandchild walking down the aisle wearing something more like what the Mother Superior wore in "The Flying Nun;'' then there are the "friends" who are either jealous that they aren't the one getting married, upset they will have to spend several hundred dollars on bridesmaid dresses they know they'll never wear again, or just plan ornery; and occasionally the bride will bring along a "wild card" that - seriously - one time was a gay ex-figure skater who wound up trying on wedding dresses himself (and deciding he looked better in the dress than the bride did, and I'm not making that up).
Needless to say, hilarity ensues.
Another great show is something called "Holmes Inspection,'' which stars this guy Holmes who resembles one of my favorite actors, Brian Dennehy (a great character actor who I always think of as either the bartender in "10" or the bad-guy-turned sheriff in "Silverado" or the beaten down but doggedly determined cop in "F/X").
What happens in this show is that a young couple have bought a house that resembles "Tara" after Sherman's Army left it for Savannah. Because of an inspector that must have been part of Billy Idol's entourage on that infamous Thailand tour where Idol trashed so many hotels the government reportedly called in the Army to tranquilize Billy and carry him out strapped down on a stretcher, the young couple managed to get a mortgage on this hovel.
But now they realize they have problems, so they call this guy Holmes. He comes in like a tough-guy, looking real disgusted at the condition of the house and just appalled that the Billy Idol-entourage survivor turned home inspector allowed this hovel to qualify for a mortgage "as is." Holmes walks through the house swinging a sledgehammer, saying things like, "Look at how easy this sledgehammer goes through this drywall! It's a tragedy!" and "Who puts single-pane glass in windows? See how easy this breaks? It's awful!" and goes to the basement where he pulls the dryer vent off the wall while the dryer is running, causing the room to fill with lint, at which point Holmes says something like, "This is tragedy waiting to happen. Imagine being down here cooking up some crystal meth when the burner tips over. Do you know how easy this would ignite? I can't believe this house passed inspection!"
Then Holmes gets this real serious look on his face, puts his arm around the young couple, and promises to "make things right'' -- which means bringing in every high end union contractor he knows, gutting the house, and refurbishing with the appliances from Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's former house at Heritage USA, stained glass windows from the Vatican, and so much granite you'd swear the back half of Stone Mountain has been cut away. What is never made clear is just how much it cost to "make things right."
And again, hilarity ensues.
There are other great shows, too. You'd never know cooking could be a competitive sport, but there is this show called "Chopped,'' where four chefs no one has ever heard of try to cook food to impress three chefs no one has ever heard of for a prize of $10,000. The catch is that the host starts each round by opening up a basket and pulling out these random items that the chefs have to use in making their dish.
What is amazing is that as the host pulls out random items - "Today we have garbanzo beans, three-day-old salmon, kiwi, and a shoe lace" - these chefs don't even bat an eye but immediately start running around cooking things as if they have been making dishes with this stuff their entire lives.
This is actually the one show I'd like to be on because I know how I'd win. No matter what came out of the basket - "prunes, platypus liver, micro fiber and granny's blue hair dye" - I'd roll it all in flour, deep fry it and wrap it in bacon. Let's face it, it doesn't matter what you serve, if it's fried and wrapped in bacon, it's going to taste great.
Which reminds me of this other show I watched one time, which might be the greatest gig on TV. There is this guy who looks and sounds like an emaciated version of the evil villain "Dr. Evil" from the Austin Powers movie. He gets total strangers to make him desserts every day. The first four competitors make him four desserts which he gets to eat all of, then he eliminates one and the remaining three guys whip up three new desserts which he gets to eat and then eliminate one more, only to have the final two put together two more incredible desserts which he alone gets to eat and then declares a winner!
Dr. Evil even gets to name the items he wants the desserts made from - how cool is that? I'd be sending out "cookies and cream ice cream, buttery pound cake, sprinkles, and syrup." I mean, what difference does it make? Dr. Evil is the only one who gets to eat any of it. The contestants are basically his personal dessert chefs.

Then there are shows about people going off to buy their first home; shows about people who can't decide whether to keep the house they live in but spend a small fortunate to redecorate it or sell it and move to a better house that already has all the done; and a show about people who leave the United States to find a new home in some third-world country, except they always make the third-world country sound like paradise.

Then there are the commercials. My favorite is the one for incontinence products, the one that says if you call in, you'll be able to talk to your very own "personal incontinence counselor."
I swear I'm not making that up.
Who knew there was such a thing as a "personal incontinence counselor?" Does it require training? What kind? Do you have to get licensed? Is this what tipped the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Obamacare?
All I know is the first time I heard this lady on TV tell me they had these people available to talk to me, I laughed so hard I nearly wet my pants.
Good thing I now know where to find my own personal incontinence counselor.