Blog at http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/

May 25, 2006 (9:18pm)

Oops, how embarrassing. I caught another blooper. I should have written “Jesse wasn’t fazed at all,” not “Jesse wasn’t phased at all.” He may have undergone a phase shift, I don’t know. ;-)

Mail on Thursday afternoon – thanks to Ruby Juracek, Roland and Joyce Groteluschen, Norma, Donne, and, of course ;-), Gary’s mom. Someone in Gary’s family is going to have to explain the spelling of Gary’s mom’s maiden name, as Gary isn’t sure. I notice Roland spelled it as above, but some other relative spelled it “Grotelueschen.” I had been spelling it “Groteleuschen,” because Gary had told me it meant “great people.” From high school German I thought I remembered “people” being “leute,” so I got it in my head that to spell the last part of Gary’s mom’s maiden name with an l-e-u. But now I’m betting, given the above two spellings by family members, that there was originally supposed to be an umlaut in the name, “lüschen.” I don’t have my German dictionary, and can’t get on the ’net right now to check if “lüschen” is indeed a German word.

Oh, a shipment of four DVDs from Donne just arrived (Friday)!

And later on Friday, the hospital delivered an email from the Vaughans. More Car Talks are coming! Yea!

Thursday afternoon Gary came wheeling back from his male sexuality class with a big grin on his face. “Good news,” he proclaimed. “We can still have kids.” Funny guy. I never wanted them before, and I don’t want them now (which, of course, he knows). I asked him if he’d learned anything new. (I think we both basically knew the score well before this – not having movement or sensation below nipple level, having signals from the brain not make it through that T4 level as they did before, puts the kibosh on certain abilities, but kissing and cuddling can continue unabated and be as enjoyable as ever.) He said he’d learned there were drugs that had a certain noticeable side effect that would last 32 hours, and there was some kind of pump that could be used with shorter term benefits. I told him he’d have to time that drug very carefully, in terms of teaching classes . . . . Actually I was kidding about taking the drug at all – in general, I’m not a fan of taking drugs, and I wouldn’t want him to take them for this; he said that’s what he suspected I’d say.

We might have to look into that pump, tho . . . And there are other electrical devices . . . ;-)

He said he felt sorry for the young guys – a couple of the men in his class were in their twenties, another guy maybe about forty. “Sorrier for them than for you?” I asked. “Been there, done that,” he joshed; but he was serious that he thought it much worse for them. It didn’t seem to me that this was a significant blow to him – one more thing to accept as fact and make the best of.

In the afternoon he had another OT session – two hours worth, the first hour with a “tech assistant,” the second with an occupational therapist. First he did stretching of the legs. Then came practice at rolling. For some reason he wasn’t as successful at that as before. The tech said it might be because he was tired out, but I thought she didn’t have him positioned right and tried to hint how to change that. The tech he has isn’t, IMHO, as skilled as the therapists, but as she didn’t take my hints I didn’t feel I could very well be more forceful in my opinion as to how to try it differently.

The second hour the therapist took over. She started out by showing us how the portable hoyer works – this is the type of thing we may have to get for home for use during Gary’s continued recovery from the flap surgery, which can take up to a year (or longer, or significantly shorter, like three weeks – it just depends on how he heals). I really don’t know if this is something I’m going to be able to physically handle, as it needs to be pushed with him in it for a short distance – I tried it, and it didn’t seem too bad, but by evening my back felt worse. We may have to look into putting a track in the ceiling and/or hiring someone for at least the beginning and the end of the day until his flap heals – someone who could help get him ready in the morning for school or whatever, and help get him to bed at night. I need to see if there is someone here at the hospital who can help me find some help with my own back problems, see if there is anything more I can be doing so I can be in as good a shape as I can be to deal with this. I did mention to Gary that I could just keep him in the trunk of the car until he was healed from the flap surgery, but he seemed reluctant about that.

We keep learning of more restrictions this flap surgery can result in :-( . I or someone else may have to be quite involved in some of the other personal care issues that Gary will eventually be able to take care of on his own. When the doctor who is performing the surgery came to talk to Gary in the afternoon (Thurs), Gary asked if the doctor wanted to check the sore, that maybe it had improved (he said hopefully) and he wouldn’t need the surgery. The doctor told him there was no reprieve (and then joked how he, me, and the nurse were going to go out partying until the early hours of the morning but that we’d be back in time for Gary’s 7:30 am operation; I don’t think Gary was in the mood to appreciate the doctor’s jocularity). Later in the afternoon Gary again brought up with me the topic of restrictions. He detailed more things I might have to do for him, and I joked that he was testing the limits of my love. He said “I’m afraid so.” I lightly told him not to worry, the limits of my love were beyond these new tasks. He choked up. I hadn’t realized until he choked up that he been seriously concerned about how all this information about the restrictions due to the surgery was affecting me. Hugs were in order.

It is now 9:30 am of Friday. The doc came shortly after nine to tell me the surgery went well and that the sore had been much deeper than it had looked so we’d (the all-inclusive “we”) made the right choice in having the surgery. Gary should be back from it in about a half hour.

This coming Weds some medical people will come to take casts of Gary’s lower legs and feet. He will wear the casts for a day, then they will be cut off, the cuts made down the sides, to make “molds.” At night, he will have to wear these molds in order to keep his ankles from dropping. (Lie down in your bed or whatever, relax, and check your feet. They are probably pointing fairly upward. Gary’s are pointing significantly downward, which evidently is a common side effect of spinal cord injury. Since this would make it difficult to sit in a wheelchair if they become fixed in that position, the molds are to train his feet not to drop.) At Birmingham he had special boots to wear for this purpose, but they can causing skin breakdown because they are not specially tailored to him as the casts will be.

Gary returned from the surgery. He’s doing fine, but is sleepy from the anesthesia. I read E.H.’s email to him for its entertainment value. It is an understatement to say it certainly did keep us entertained, detailing the events of her date (she will probably never write or speak to me again once she sees this has made it to the blog). By the way, E.H., after hearing your adventure, Gary asked me if I would have thought it strange if he had wanted to take me to a cemetery after “the first thing we ever did together socially” (I write it that way since I don’t think we ever had an official “date.”) Seeing that that first thing was to see the movie “Friday the 13th” (I hadn’t admitted to him that I didn’t like scary movies) I would have thought it more than strange. And I wouldn’t have gone.

And tell your mother, E.H., that there are other females who never did anything approaching going out with anyone until they were twenty-four (in fact, they never had any intention of getting married at all). And they have been happily married for nearly twenty-five years. So she doesn’t need to push you ;-)

Bob and Rosina Stephenson and Bob’s sister Alice Stevens came for a short visit in the afternoon, but that was pretty much all the activity Gary could handle today. He seemed sleepy for most of the day. At night, we watched a little more Dylan, and then the nurse came to put him on his stomach to try the proning (he did it for about two and a half hours the previous, Thursday, night). Since he was face down, I read another chapter of Jimmy Carter to him, and then we called it a night.

I couldn’t help thinking when Gary’s night nurse, a huge woman, flipped Gary over onto his stomach, that he looked like this limp rag doll laying there on its tummy on the bed. I feel so sorry for him seeing him lie there. And this seems almost like starting over again, like time is dragging its feet. . . .

Well to finish up, reading about E.H.’s date made me think of my beginning time with Gary. So if you are only interested in reading about updates of Gary, exit this entry now ;-)

This is how we met. I went to an appointment with Ben Fitzpatrick, the head of the math department at the time, to go over what classes I should take. I was interested in topology, having had a couple of Moore/Texas style courses in it as an undergrad. Dr. Fitzpatrick didn’t know how much I had had would overlap with what Dr. Gruenhage would be teaching, so he suggested I take my notebooks full of my coursework up to Dr. Gruenhage’s office to show him so that he could decide if it was appropriate to be in his course. I kept wanting to give Dr. Gruenhage’s name the German pronunciation, so asked Dr. Fitzpatrick for the correct pronunciation. I then proceeded up the steps to Gary's office, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, Grune, Hague, Grune, Hague. Had to be some sixty year old with white hair and a goatee. Left, right, Grune, Hague.

I got to Gary’s door, knocked, went in. He turned from where he was seated at his desk.

Those eyes. That smile. Wow. I’d never believed in love at first sight, but . . . But surely this was some graduate student in the professor’s chair? But would a graduate student be so bold as to do that? “Are you Doctor . . .” I’d lost the correct way to say it. “Grünhage?” I asked, giving the name the German pronunciation.

It turned out that though there was overlap between what I had done in my coursework and what Gary would cover, there was enough new stuff that he thought it would be fine for me to take the course. Lucky me. I confess, I had the occasional lapse of concentration in class when my attention would wander to how good he looked in his jeans, especially this one pair he used to wear that were on the tight side . . . . But of course such lapses were rare.

In those beginning days, I couldn’t believe he was as nice as he seemed.

As time went on I realized he was as nice as he seemed.

(He still is.)

Somehow (surveillance work probably; I don’t remember) I discovered he ate lunch at the War Eagle Cafeteria.So I ate at the War Eagle Cafeteria. Yuk. But a person’s got to do what a person’s got to do. I saw him eating with Jo. It hadn’t occurred to me he might be married. But how could he not have already been snapped up? I had to investigate this. I somehow managed to work his marital status into a casual conversation with Margie Fitzpatrick (I was staying at the Fitzpatricks after having fled the abode of the toga-party-loving roommates my dad had somehow managed to fix me up with; however, the cows mooing at 4 am and trains going by through the night on the tracks near where the Fitzpatricks lived on Gold Hill weren’t an improvement on that, so I looked to find another place). I found out Gary was single. Somehow I determined Jo was married. Good deal.

Gary played racquetball. I took up the sport. Not that I would ever be in his league to play him, but at least I had a quasi-legitimate reason for seeing him at the courts. A friend visited me over Christmas vacation and we devised a plan. We managed to time it so we came off the courts the same time Gary and his partner, Butch, did. We talked. Just as I opened my mouth to suggest we all go somewhere to eat, Butch invited Gary – and just Gary – out for pizza. :-( .

By spring break it was clear that Gary was still oblivious to all my machinations, and I couldn’t bring myself to being more direct (what if I was rejected?). So I recruited my parents. They came for the break and invited Peg’s professor out to eat so they could meet him. (I was there too, of course.) Gary told me later that at this affair it was the first time he finally got the inkling that I was interested in him other than mathematically. (Much later I worked up the nerve to ask him what he’d thought of me up to that point. He said the only thoughts he’d had about me were that he really wanted me to go into topology so he could direct me through a masters and Ph.D. (And for those of you who don’t know me very well, for instance, Gary’s current students, he wanted me to be his student for *mathematical* reasons. Jack Brown (my other graduate course professor at the time), you’ll back me up on this, right?))

I think that when someone who doesn’t know me very well reads here about how Gary and I got together, they must get the completely wrong impression of me (I sound like some stereotypical schemer). This kind of behavior was so out of character for me. Up to this point I hadn’t been interested in more than friendship relations with males because even if I could find one who was interested in me (there hadn’t exactly been a plethora of such), 1) he couldn’t possibly meet my standards, and 2) even if he did, such as Gary seemed to, he wouldn’t be able to put up with my idiosyncracies (I still haven’t figured out how Gary has managed to do so; the mysteries of love
;-)).

Anyhoo, sometime soon after that we went to that movie – neither of us remember how that happened, but it wasn’t a formal asking – it never was. I remember someone from the math dept showed up in the ticket line soon after we did and started talking to Gary. Gary moved about five feet away from me. I remember thinking there might be a problem with this student and teacher thing. (As Gary said when I tried to prod his memory about this today (not that he knows I’m writing this), “It shouldn’t have happened. Those things tend not to work out and then it’s a big mess. But after twenty-five years of marriage, I’m comfortable with the decision.”) I remember that over that weekend long ago I thought about the kosherness of the relationship, and knew I really didn’t want to wait until after I had a Ph.D to pursue a relationship with him. But it would have to be his move – I’d practically had to hit him over the head to get him to notice me, but now he knew.

And obviously he must have decided it was okay with him. (When I asked him some time later, he said he too had spent the weekend thinking about pursuing a relationship with me and decided he wanted to continue seeing me.)

Well, time to wrap this up. Anything more I want to relate? Oh, yeah. I made a lasting impression on him the first time I went to his house. I ripped off my jeans in his front yard. Why? you ask. Overcome by lust? you speculate.

“You’re standing on a fire ant hill,” Gary said.

“Oh?” I replied, wondering why he felt the need to point out an ant hill.

I found out.