On March 20, a big rain fell in Wasilla; Margie's latest orthopedic visit; contemplative barista

Not March 20, 2009, but March 20, 2006. It was a really big rain, the biggest that I ever saw in Wasilla. I wondered how high the Little Su had risen, so I drove down and saw that the Schrock Road bridge was under water - the road must be at least 15 feet over the river on a normal day, maybe even more than that.

Now it was under water. But the water over the road didn't look to be too deep, so I drove across. A bit later, I drove back. That was when these kids came pedalling toward me. The bridge is a ways around the bend behind them.

They enjoyed the flood. I enjoyed their enjoyment.

This morning, I had to drive Margie in for her latest checkup. Dr. Black took a look at her knee. He said for her to keep doing as she has been doing, and scheduled her for physical therapy, beginning August 28. 

Little Miller's, just before 5:00 PM, where I just ordered a mocha frappe. I wonder what she was thinking about?

I take a trip to Anchorage - bikers blast past me, cloud dancers dance atop the clouds

I had a to take a disk of photo proofs into Anchorage, to deliver to a client. As I returned on the Parks Highway, two men on a Harley and Kawasaki blasted past me so fast and loud that I could not even react to snap a frame. If this is the case, you must wonder, then how did I get this picture of them in my rearview mirror?

It was in a highway improvement construction area, where the speed limit was 55 and signs warned that double fines would be given to all speed violators. This fellow was in the lead. When he had put about 300 yards between he and I, his friend right behind him, he suddenly braked and began to pump his hand up and down over the road, his fingers spread out and his palm facing the pavement.

There was a cop ahead, sitting off to the side of the road, waiting for double-fine candidates.

The other biker slowed down, waved a thank you and then both pulled right, out of the fast lane and into the slow. Now I passed them, which did not worry me because I was doing 55. Now, they could not have been going more than 45. 

A bit of an overreaction, I thought.

But maybe they felt like cop targets.

Maybe they are cop targets.

They stayed behind me for a few miles, then, still in the 55 zone, decided that no more cops lie in wait ahead and, once again, blasted past me. I was now pushing my luck, doing 59. It felt like I was sitting still when they passed by.

Hey, Sandy - I bet you would like a bike like this, wouldn't you? What a sight you would be, roaring through Bangalore, the fabric of your saree - cut and tailored especially for motorcycle riding - rippling in the wind. 

And just a little bit before, back in Anchorage, I had to stop behind these guys while they worked out whatever problem it was with the driver of the car in front of them that had caused them to stop.

I think they performed a good deed, that the driver ahead had experienced car problems of some kind and they got him going again.

This is pure speculation on my part, because right after I stopped, they got back in the car and, flying the Stars and Stripes with the Confederate Flag painted in triplicate on their roof, hood and trunk, set back off to wherever it was they were going.

And shortly before that, I was passing near the Anchorage Park Strip when I looked up and saw two people dangling below a hang glider.

"What kind of idiots are these?" I wondered, even as I wished that I could be up there with them.

Then I saw that it was not idiots at all, but fabric people, cloud dancers, dancing with the clouds from the tail of a kite.

And this was even earlier, in Wasilla, as I waited at the stoplight at the corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways to change so that I could continue on to Anchorage.

I drop Margie off for her MRI, see sights, big man gets stuck in children's slide, a femur fracture is found

"No, Royce!" I shouted as the old man orange cat ran through the door and dashed outside. I was about to drive Margie to town for her MRI and I wanted him to stay in the house. Even so, he went outside. After I helped Margie into the car, I picked Royce up and put him back inside the house.

"Where do you want to eat?" I asked Margie, once we got to town. She mentioned a couple of possibilites but when I noted that we had not yet feasted at the any of the Fourth Avenue hot dog stands this summer, she got excited.

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed. "Let's go for hot dogs."

So, while Margie waited in the car, I bought two reindeer dogs. As the vendor prepared them, a guy roared by on a loud motorcycle. "What's this guy who comes by here everyday at the same time on his motorcycle going to do when winter comes?" the vendor asked.

I did not have the answer.

"I don't understand people who have to drive loud bikes," he continued. "Who are they trying to impress? I drive a bike, but it's not loud. A bike doesn't have to be loud."

I handed the money to the pretty young woman who works with him and who might be his wife and he handed me the hotdogs. I took them back to the car, along with Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and original Lay's Potato Chips. Margie and I sat there and ate them as the rain drummed on the roof.

It was the nicest time that we had experienced since she got injured and the dogs were delicious. I must go back and have another, but I think I will get beef next time, or maybe Kosher Polish.

I could not accompany Margie to the MRI room, so I dropped her off. I was told that the MRI would take 25 minutes, so I headed off to see what sights I might see. I had not gone far before I saw a young man push a woman in a wheelchair across the road as another man crossed in the opposite direction, carrying what appeared to be two cups of coffee.

The rain fell upon them all, just as the Bible says it does.

It didn't fall upon me, though, because I was in the car.

But not for long. Lisa had left her driver's license at Penney's, Penney's had sent it to us, so, as Margie lay in the MRI machine, I took it to the Alaska Native Medical Center's Family Medicine Clinic where Lisa works and brought it to her.

She then took a break and followed me back to the car. We then stood in the rain for just a little bit and discussed important things.

We hugged. "Bye, Dad," she said. I drove away.

To kill time, I circled the Alaska Native Medical Center itself and as I did, an airplane came flying by. At that very moment, Margie was in the tube, getting her knee cat-scanned. She did not like it. She felt claustrophobic, she kept her eyes closed and focused upon mental images of Kalib, running, laughing, playing. She saw him pull the telephone book off of the tiny table that it sits on, place it on the floor and then dance upon it - just the way he did yesterday.

She saw him pull Kleenix's, one after the other, out of the box and smile ever so sweetly and mischievously, as he drop them to the floor - as he did just a few months ago. She saw him at just a few weeks of age as he sat in his car seat in the back seat of the rental car and she and his mom drove across the Navajo Reservation to introduce him to his other grandma and a host of aunts, uncles and cousins.

She saw him as they drove on to the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, and then how happy her own mother had been when infant Kalib met his only living great-grandparent.

She replayed scenes from his whole life thus far in her mind, right up to that moment when we stood outside the door to the birthing room and heard his first, beautiful, cry.

Next I drove up onto the campus of Alaska Pacific University, where I saw these children, gathered in a circle.

I then returned to ANMC, parked the car, and headed toward the building. There is a children's playground just outside the door to the emergency room, where I would enter the hospital. I saw a small child climbing into the slide, helped by his Dad.

The small child's mother scolded the dad. "He's not going to like it!" she warned. "He's going to be frightened." Just the same, the dad gave the small child a shove and down into the tube he disappeared.

His mother readied her hands to catch him.

Then the small child began to scream. He had gotten stuck, somewhere in the darkness within the tube.

So the dad climbed in, to see if he could unstick him.

The small child got the hang of it and came out with a smile on his face. Now the Dad was stuck. He could not go up. He could not go down. Why... look at the kid! It's my own grandson, Kalib! He had come to ANMC to greet his grandmother when she came out of the MRI tube. That must mean that the dad stuck in this tube... is my own son... Jacob.

Jacob wiggled a bit, and finally he slid out. Kalib headed back, ready to go again.

Margie had not yet exited her tube. I strolled through the hospital, looking at the art, reminded of what life was like in Alaska just a short time ago.

Finally, Margie hobbled out into the hallway and headed for the car. She did not know that Jacob, Kalib and Lavina were behind her.

"Kalib!" she squealed when she discovered them. "Thank you! You got me through the MRI. I kept seeing you in my mind and that's what got me through."

When we reached the car, Margie handed me her crutches so that she could climb in. Kalib took the crutches away from me and handed them right back to her. 

So she put them on the floor and then climbed in. Kalib was very pleased, for he knew that he had done something good for his grandmother.

Kalib, Jacob and Lavina then went off to do some house shopping. Margie and I met Melanie at the Title Wave Kaladi Brothers coffee shop, where we discussed the airplanes that fly over her new house, renovations that she wants to make, the dogs that come and pee in her yard, her cats and other important things.

It was even better than sitting in the car, eating hotdogs. It was, in fact, the most pleasant experience that I have shared with Margie since she got hurt, and all the more pleasant because Melanie was there, encouraging her mom not to be discouraged. "It will be better, soon," Melanie soothed.

It already seemed quite a bit better, although we did not know what secrets the MRI would reveal.

Shortly after we said goodbye to Melanie and began the drive back to Wasilla, we got a message that Margie's doctor wanted her to call, so she did. The doctor had taken a look at the MRI and had immediately discovered something the original x-rays had not. 

Margie did break a bone when she fell. Not her knee cap, but her femur, right on the outside where it meets the knee.

"Try not to put any weight on it," the doctor said.

We have yet to get a report on any ligament damage.

It still rains and as I sit here typing this on my computer, I hear the whistle of a train, passing by miles from here. It seems kind of odd, but sometimes when it rains around here, sound really travels.

Back to ANMC - Margie's first time out of the house in over two weeks

I had been a bit worried about how we would get Margie out the door, down the two steps and then up into the Escape, which sits pretty high off the ground and is averaging 23.1 miles to the gallon, but the process went fairly easy. She pretty much did it all herself. 

Then we took off for Anchorage. As I drove, I noticed a young man pass by on the left. He looked at us and then started laughing. I figure this was because Margie was in the back seat and me in the front. The young man probably thought that he understood the situation - that my wife was mad at me, and refused to sit in the front seat with me, or perhaps he thought that I had picked up a hitchhiker and had made her sit in the back seat.

Or maybe he thought that my name was James, that I was the hired driver and that it was mighty strange for a chauffer to wear a t-shirt and drive a red Ford Escape.

We pulled off the freeway in Eagle River to get something to eat. We went through the Taco Bell drive-through and then parked next to a police car. It is the first one that I have seen with this picture of Anchorage stenciled into the word, "Police."

Yesterday, Margie got a call from someone at ANMC who asked her to come half-an-hour before her appointment so that she could get new x-rays shot first. So we did, and then we waited an hour before the x-rays were shot.

"It's so good to finally be out of the house," Margie said.

Margie getting her x-rays shot. I had to stand in this room for my own protection.

Margie's knee. The Physicians Assistant, a camera shy woman, who would attend to her would tell us that her bone structure is not good; she has osteoporosis, which means she can more easily fracture her bones.

When she was a child, Margie's family was poor and there were many times when they had little more than flour from which to make tortillas and tennis racket bread (cooked over an open fire on a homemade grilling device that looks like a tennis racket - very tasty). She seldom had milk or other dairy products, although her grandfather had a wagon and a donkey and on occasion would take her up the hill to the trading post and buy her an ice cream cone.

She greatly enjoyed that, but it just wasn't enough calcium for a growing girl.

Her bones have been a bit weak ever since. One time, right after we were married, we were playing in a park when I wrapped my arms around her and twirled her in a circle. We were both laughing, but then a rib cracked. She suffered pain for weeks.

That was when we first found out what the childhood lack of milk had done to her. We haven't thought about that for awhile. Now we have to think about it, because she's getting older and its getting worse, so we must do what we can to arrest it.

Damnit! This should not have happened to my Margie! She should be able to hike through the mountains with me, and run down the downhills, but she can't.

As we wait for the PA, I examine a fake knee. We didn't learn much, because, despite all her improvement, Margie was still too sore and tender and could not bend her knee far enough for the PA to make a good exam. The PA scheduled her for an MRI Friday, so that they can take a good look at her ligaments.

If this had happened to me, and I needed an MRI, notwithstanding the $100 thousand plus dollars that I have spent on my insurance, I can tell you from experience that the insurance company would find the way to get out of paying most, perhaps all of the cost, and I would be set back several thousand dollars more.

This fear of further financial setback is keeping me from going to the doctor for things I ought to go to the doctor for, from taking medications that I am supposed to be taking, and from getting checkups that I am supposed to be getting.

American Indians and Alaska Natives paid a terrible price for the health care that the government is now obligated to give them, but the good thing is, unlike my private insurer, her federal insurer will make good on all expenses involved. Furthermore, if something is bothering her, she need not fear what a trip to the doctor will do to us financially, the way I, who have paid a modest fortune for my health insurance, must.

You see, Sarah Palin, screamers, et al, these panels that you try to whip up so much fear about are already active and are denying many Americans the care they need right now, even as they drive them into a financial pit - but they don't work for Obama or the federal government. They work for the insurance companies. 

And so do you.

Can you feel my rage?

Catch-up #3: Margie's latest injury - how it happened

The day began well. You will recall that I had stated that I wanted to sleep ten, 20, perhaps even 40 years, with Margie at my side. As it turned out, I only slept for about six hours, but it was a pleasant six hours, there, in bed, with my wife snoozing soundly beside me, Jimmy, the black cat, curled atop my shoulder and Pistol-Yero, the tabby, coiled up alongside my ankles.

After I arose, I still felt extremely tired, because one cannot push himself for as long and hard as I have done, sleeping as little as I have slept, even going 40 hard, physical hours with no sleep at all, with no catch up, and then recover with six hours of sleep - no matter how pleasant that six hours might have been.

But I was not worried. I had not taken a day off since June 13 - when  Melanie and I took our little hike up in Hatcher's Pass - but I figured that I would now take two or three days off and I would nap, rest, walk and bike ride at will.

So I got out of bed, looking forward to a pleasant day, and went into the living room where I found the expectant mom, Lavina, looking quite pleasant and cozy herself, cuddled up on the couch with two cats and her iPhone.

Back in Anchorage, Melanie was about to close a purchase on a house with a basement apartment. Margie wanted to go in and help her move. I wanted to do nothing but lay around and be lazy, but she assured me that I could lay around and be lazy at Melanie's new place and watch everyone else do the work.

I did not believe this, but I decided to go in, anyway.

I regret that decision. If I had stayed home, I doubt that Margie would have taken her fall. It is not that anything that I did directly caused her to fall, but by going to town, I created a different dynamic for the day then if I had stayed home. 

Had I stayed put, Margie would have arrived on the scene a few minutes later than she did, for I drive faster then she does. The jackets that she carried down the steps would have already been taken down. They would not have blocked her vision. She would not have missed that extra step just after the turn out of the stairwell. She would not have fallen.

I do not blame myself; I just wish that I had stayed home to be lazy. Then everything would have turned out differently.

True, there is a tiny possibility that things would have turned out even worse - say, for example, that Margie might have collided with a big moose in a terrible crash with a much worse outcome, but this is a remote possibility and I do not believe it would have happened that way.

I think she would now be healthy and happy, rather than in misery and pain.

But I did climb into the Escape with her, I did take the wheel and I did drive toward Anchorage. Even before we left Wasilla, a freight train came rolling by, headed towards Fairbanks.

I was thrilled to see it and shot a frame of the engine as it rolled past.

Not long afterward, the caboose rolled past, too. I could not allow such a momentous event to pass by unphotographed.

After we drove into Anchorage, we headed toward the Duck Downs apartment that Melanie would soon vacate, but less than a block before we would have arrived, we came upon Melanie and Charlie driving away in his pickup truck. So we followed them to the house. I was amazed to see it, for it was much bigger and appeared to be nicer than I had expected.

The people that she was buying the house from had not yet moved out of the top floor and so she and Charlie planned to carry the few things that they had loaded into the back of the truck down into the basement apartment. They would then wait until another day to do anymore moving.

I explored the apartment, determined that if I go bankrupt and lose this house (a continual worry of mine for the past 27 years - and always with considerable justification, especially right now) that it would suffice until I could publish a best-seller and put us back in the black.

I then climbed back up to see what I could carry down and, as I approached the truck, saw Margie carrying some jackets. That was all she intended to carry down.

I grabbed a couple of pairs of cross-country skis and then headed back toward the house. As I neared the top of the stairwell, I heard Margie shriek. Then I heard her cry in that desperate, painful, pitiful way that she had when she had fallen in the street in Washington, DC.

"Dad!" Melanie, who was with her, called from the lower doorway. "Come quick! Mom's hurt!"

I found her lying on her tummy, crying, and screaming out in pain.

We talked, she calmed down, rolled onto her back. She then decided that, although it hurt, she was okay and just needed a few minutes to pull herself together. She pulled her right knee up and then tried to do the same with her left.

This caused her to scream once again. She could not bend that knee.

I knew then that we had to get her to the emergency room.

It was a struggle, accompanied by much screaming, but we raised her from the floor. Charlie then picked her up and carried her in his arms up the stairs and to the car.

As we tried to figure out how to get her into the car, Jane, the woman who Melanie is buying the house from, showed up with a wide strap of webbing and announced that she was a physical therapist and has a great deal of experience hoisting hurt people about.

So she put the strap around Margie's waist. I went to the other side to help pull her up from the driver's side as Jane and Charlie hoisted her into the front passenger seat.

Melanie came with us as I drove Margie to the emergency room at the Alaska Native Medical Center. Lisa met us there. Eventually, we got Margie into a wheelchair and then inside, where she was sent to X-ray.

We were relieved to learn that she had not rebroken her kneecap fracture from January. My first thought was that this meant that she would be fine - just sore for awhile - but I was wrong.

Denise, the physicians assistant who examined her, told us that, judging from the extreme pain Margie was suffering, there must be ligament damage. An x-ray cannot look at ligaments. It would take a CAT scan. Before this could happen, she wanted Margie to go home and get some bed rest for about one week to give the inflammation that had caused her knee to swell to watermelon size to subside a bit and her pain to ease.

She expected Margie to be laid up for a total of about six weeks.

Denise examines Margie's leg.

Margie in excruciating pain. To help her deal with it, Denise asked what kind of pain killers Margie had been prescribed for her original knee injury. Our minds went blank, so she started reading off a list of pain meds, until she came to Tylenol-Codeine. 

We both remembered Margie taking those, so that is what she prescribed. What we had forgotten is that this came later - hydro-codeine, a more powerful painkiller, was what had come first.

As it would turn out, Margie would need all the pain-killer power she could get. She was also prescribed Motrin, to help reduce the inflammation.

We picked up the drugs from the pharmacy and then left, Melanie riding with us, Lisa following. Margie could not take her drugs until she ate something, so we stopped at the Taco Bell on Muldoon and placed an order for a bean burrito.

As we progressed through the drive-through toward the bean burrito (and a few things for me, as well), I looked in the mirror and saw this little dog behind us.

As for what lay ahead, well, hell. That's what is has been - hell. 

I must say that the US Indian Health Service and the Alaska Native Medical Center has been of great benefit to this family over the decades. Great benefit. They have my gratitude.

I trust that in this case, they will yet prove to be of great benefit, but as to what was about to come, they failed my Margie. If their job is simply to read what is written down on paper and follow procedure, then they succeeded.

But if their job is to look at a real, injured, human being and then do all that they possibly can to minimize the pain and suffering of that individual, then they failed miserably - and it is Margie who has had to bear the misery.