How long will I have her? How much time will I get to spend with him?

My wife during the worst of her recent nights of suffering. I am a bit confused, folks. Anyone who has followed this blog at all has probably figured out by now that I am one of those people who cannot stay in one place for very long, a person who, just when he starts to get comfortable gets up and goes somewhere else.

Being a photographer and writer, I have been able to make a living, even if a scary one, always on the edge of disaster, doing this. Through my wanderings, I have even raised and supported a family.

But I have been so often gone from that family.

And lately, in my head, I have been planning and scheming on ways to get out and go, go - go again, travel again, leave everybody behind again. I have talked it over with Margie and she has said, yes, that is how you make a living and that is what you must do and I miss you but I will be fine. We will all be fine.

And now she gets hurt again and needs my care both day and night. I know that she will recover. but still, it makes me think. I have no statistics to back it up but I suspect that by this point in my life, probably 60 percent of all the people that I have ever met are dead and gone.

My time is limited. Her time is limited. The time for all of us is limited. How much longer will I have her? And how much of that time will I spend galavanting here and there?

Without ever taking on another job, I have enough work to do right now that I could spend every day for the rest of my life here, in this house, in my office, writing, and pulling photos together for this and that, working on all these unfinished books that I have constructed in part or in whole, just to tear apart and start all over again.

And if I did nothing else, I could never finish them all but I would be home and I could spend that much more time with her.

"Well," she said, "when you are home, you are always out in your office, day and night, working, and I don't see you anyway. But it is nice when I do."

And yet... I so greatly enjoyed the five weeks that I just spent on the Arctic Slope, and I saw so much potential work that I have yet to do there that I want to go back, again and again. Then there is the rest of Alaska, every region of which I have done work in but not enough - no, not nearly enough.

And India!

How did I ever wind up falling in love with India?

Well, I did. And I want to go back. Again and again. And the pages of the calendar just keep flipping past.

And then the truth is I lack the financing to do any of what I want to do, whether it be to travel, stay home, go here and there taking pictures and gathering stories, or to sit in my office to blog and make books.

Financially, my life is a nightmare. I am always riding the razor's edge, bankruptcy a thread away, yet, somehow, so far, every time I find myself going under a hand always seems to grab mine and yank me back up to the surface - but not out of the current.

And then how about this guy, little Kalib? He has helped his grandmother through this ordeal. 

And every moment that I get to spend with him is joy to me, even when he gets naughty. Why would I ever want to leave him? He changed so much in the seven weeks that we were separated!

I, a person who walks everyday, or rides a bike, or cross-country skis (I didn't this past winter due to still being in recovery from my injury but I sure plan to in the months to come) have only taken two walks since I returned home and Margie got hurt. Both were very short and Kalib came with me.

On one, we saw this boy. I have no idea who he is. A woman who appeared to be his mother was following behind and we stopped to ask her and to give her the address to this blog, but she had a dog with her and that dog raised such a ruckus that both she and I gave up and took our little people off in opposite directions.

Yesterday morning, after taking care of Margie's needs, I left her under Lavina's watch and took little Kalib to breakfast at Family. It was our first such outing alone together - just the two of us. I hope to have many outings with him. For some reason, I often picture the two of us, paddling a canoe through the wilderness together, stopping here and there to pitch our tent and cook our fish.

We will have rifles with us and if the country is beginning to turn red and yellow and the moose are in season, or the caribou, we will shoot.

These things may never happen, but in my mind I see them.

I don't know what could be much better than that.

Driving on, all the way to Palmer, we spot a woman telling a story to a cop. He appears to be most interested.

Before we left Family, Kalib went to the gumball machine. I reached into my pocket for a quarter, but I did not have one.

He still left happy.

The ordeal that my wife has so far faced - I wanted hospital care for her

Just today, the fourth day, the situation has begun to improve. I think we can reasonably manage it now, all on our own. But the previous three days and nights have all been hell; miserable, miserable, miserable; what little sleep could be had was for me always interrupted by Margie's screams of agony and for her prevented by the terrible pain itself. Simple, two minute tasks that everyone must perform have taken two, even three hours to carry out and it has taken the assistance of at least three strong adults each time. And very soon afterward, the task would need to be performed all over again.

To help get her through this, four adult family members have taken leave from work. It quickly became obvious to me and all the others here that she needed hospital care, at least for the first few days. The demands of caring for her in a way that would alleviate as much pain as possible were beyond our capability and facility. 

I will begin with the third night, when neither Margie or I got more than a few minutes sleep straight at any point. Every ten to fifteen minutes throughout the night - and I do not exagerate - Margie would scream out in terrible pain. This was how often the muscle spasms struck in her left leg. Each time one did, it pulled at her injured knee. This knee has been excruciatingly sensitive to movement and touch. The lightest touch upon her leg or foot could cause her to scream out in pain, as could the tiniest movement, often imperceptible to the eye.

This is why it would take us so long to perform those two minute tasks, for which we never moved her farther than one foot away from the bed.

So the third night passed with virtually no sleep for either of us - me, because the moment I would begin to doze would be the instant that her scream would jar me to full awake. Once awake, I was helpless to do a single thing for her. It is obvious why she could not sleep.

She took all her medications as prescribed.

Now I will bounce back to the first night, the first day, after we left the Taco Bell on Muldoon in Anchorage where I had bought her a burrito so that she could take her pain medication. I drove home, with her sitting in the back seat and, as usual, it took close to one hour. For her, it was a miserable ride.

Once I got her home I had to get her from the car into the house - but remember, the slightest movement, the slightest touch, would cause her to scream out in pain. We retrieved the crutches she had used after her last injury, but while there were no broken bones this time, whatever damage has been inflicted upon her ligaments has brought even more severe pain than did the break. After about 15 minutes of struggle, punctuated by scream upon scream, we had not succeeded in moving her more than a foot from the car.

We then decided that we needed a wheelchair, just to transport her, but we did not have one. So I came here, to my office, retrieved my desk chair and took it outside. Then, through many more screams, Jacob and Caleb slowly lowered her into that chair while I attempted to keep her leg straight and her knee from bending by supporting her brace wih my right hand just below the knee and her ankle with my left hand.

Once we got her into the chair, we could not really roll it because our driveway is not paved and the tiny wheels of my office chair would not roll over rocks, gravel and dirt. So we picked the chair up by its wooden arms, carried her into the house and sat her down in the middle of the front room. We padded another chair with pillows and placed her injured leg upon it in a way that would keep it straight.

She was now so exhausted by the pain and effort that she wanted to do nothing but sit in that spot without moving. So she sat there for about an hour, maybe longer, then decided that it was time to move to the single bed at the foot of our bed. This is where she had slept after I had I got my titanium replacement for the shoulder that I shattered on June 12, 2008. It is where she continued to sleep after she fell and broke her left kneecap and right wrist January 20, even before I had healed enough to share our bed with her.

So remember how last Saturday night, after I returned home from the Arctic Slope, I looked forward to climbing into my bed with my wife who I had not seen for seven weeks?

That night, last Saturday night, the night before she fell again, was the first night that we had slept together in our bed in fourteen months. FOURTEEN MONTHS! Who knows when we will next spend another night together in the same bed?

So we moved her slowly down the hall and then to the bed. Once at the bed, with me always trying to keep her leg straight, it took us three hours, again punctuated by many pained screams and shreiks, to place and position her.

No sooner had we accomplished this when she needed to use the restroom. We could not get her to the bathroom, but we did manage to raise her from the bed and we did manage to take care of the matter and then to place her back upon the bed - and again, the entire process was torn by the screams and shrieks and it took another two hours.

Altogether too soon, it would be time to do it all again. Any reader who has been with this journal for awhile will understand that I entered this new nursing job with its 24 hour shift followed immediately by 24 hour shift already in a state of exhaustion, yet it had to be done and so I did it. 

I knew that if she was going to get the care that she needed to keep her pain and suffering at a more tolerable level, she needed to go back to the hospital and be admitted. Yet, she had been through too much, suffered too much and was too exhausted to try now. The car was parked just outside the front door - less than a minute walk away out the bedroom, down the hall, through the front room and then outside - but it felt as far away and inaccessible as the moon.

It was late now, well after-hours, and there was nothing to do but to give Margie a chance to rest as best she could - which would not be much rest at all - and then see how we could get her back to the hospital. In the meantime, I decided to call the Alaska Native Medical Center, explain the situation and see if there was any kind of advice or help that I could get.

I called the main number and was transferred to the emergency room. I explained the situation to the person who answered. In an impatient tone of voice, she told me that she could neither offer any advice nor connect me with a doctor, nurse, or anyone who could, as it was against policy to make any kind of diagnosis or give any kind of advice over the phone.

The remainder of the first night and of the wee and early hours of the morning passed with many shrieks and screams of pain and with almost no sleep.

Come the second day, I was so exhausted that I could hardly function; I had strained my back in two places, but still my wife needed my help. I felt guilty for thinking of my own comfort and fatigue when I knew that what Margie was going through was so much worse.

Over the course of the next day, we spent some time on the phone with various people at ANMC, all of whom were most courteous and all expressed a desire to help. In the end, concerning the matter of further hospital care, a gentleman called me back and we engaged in a fairly lengthy discussion. This was the gist of his message: the chart for your wife has been examined. This is not the kind of injury that warrants hospital care. You can bring her back in. She will then have to be reexamined - the examination will mean we have to move her leg around and bend her knee. This will aggravate her injury even more. Then we will almost certainly send her home again and she will be in worse condition than she is right now.

This was followed by two more days of no sleep, of multiple two-hour, even three-hour, screaming ordeals. Her pain killer was changed and strengthened, yet not much seemed to change. 

This is me, late last night, lying on our bed not far from the one where Margie lay in pain. As he always is, Jim was there to help me through the ordeal. Not long afterward, an amazing thing happened. Margie improved dramatically. The two hour ordeal dropped to 20 minutes, her pain became bearable and her screams ceased. My help alone became sufficient to get her through it. Come morning, Jacob was able to drive back to Anchorage and return to work.

Lisa works at ANMC and had been busy serving as a go between to help her mom at least get a prescription for a stronger pain-killer, plus muscle relaxants. Perhaps that is what finally made the difference. Thank you, Lisa. And thank you Jacob, Lavina and Caleb for what you have done to help us get through this hard ordeal to this point.

On one of those miserable nights, Kalib looked out the door into the backyard and spotted a bull moose in velvet.

The bull moose, in velvet, in our backyard.

And so passes this recent chapter of our lives, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

Kalib goes away - I wonder how he will have changed when next I see him, six or seven weeks from now? (Part 2 - and then some more India)

When we leave Auntie Lisa's to return briefly to Auntie Melanie's, Kalib rides with us, holding his teddy St. Bernard.

Up the stairs to Melanie's Duck Downs apartment.

Kalib climbs into a kitty tunnel. He meows and purrs and swishes his tail.

Soon, we are the airport, where he looks upon the stuffed remains of a once wild Kodiak brown bear.

Kalib tries to sneak on with the baggage. Jacob grabs him.

He was with his dad in the bookstore, but then he saw his mother.

His dad kisses him goodbye.

Then the three of them head for security and out of sight.

Poor Jacob! He drives away separately from me but does not get far before Lavina calls him. Kalib does not have his teddy St. Bernard. It was left at Melanie's place. Jacob drives over. Melanie runs out to meet him and gives him the St. Bernard. He rushes it back to the airport. He can see Kalib, Lavina, and Margie on the other side of the security barrier.

A security man comes forward. Jacob gives him the bernard. He takes it back to Kalib. The flight is on.

Kalib goes away - I wonder how he will have changed when next I see him, six or seven weeks from now? (Part 1)

Very early this morning, Kalib (and his mother Lavina and grandmother Margie, my own dear wife) boarded an Alaska Airlines jet and headed for Phoenix. From there, he and Lavina were going to a workshop in Flagstaff and Margie would meet her sister and head back to her native home, the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

Later, Lavina and Kalib will join them. Jacob will go down, too.

Shortly before they boarded the plane, we all met at the home of Kalib's Auntie Melanie in Anchorage.

Kalib found a stool to get under.

Those are Charlie and Melanie's tomato plants behind them. Tomotoes don't work around here if you plant them outside - the growing season is just too short. So they planted them inside.

We were all going to go to Arizona for an Apache Sunrise Dance that Margie's sister was going to be a Godmother for, but a relative of the medicine man died and so it has been put on hold for a year.

Margie had not secured her ticket yet, but I still had mine from last year, when I didn't go because I wound up in the hospital. That ticket had to be used this month or go to waste, so I gave it to Margie.

After giving Kalib a diaper change, his dad tossed him around a bit.

They will be gone for three weeks, but when they come back, I will be on the Arctic Slope until late July. So I will not see them for at least six, maybe seven weeks. I hate to think of all that I am going to miss. He will practically be grown up by then; he will be reciting poetry, and batting a baseball.

I will wonder where the time went and how I missed it all.

Kalib and Diamond.

We all decide to go and check out Lisa's new apartment. Kalib is first to the door.

He walks away from Melanie's Duck Downs apartment toward the car.

He does not get into the car, but onto his dad's shoulders who walks over with Charlie. It is still hard for Margie to walk very far, so we drive. Melanie comes with us because she knows where the new apartment is and we do not.

Immediately after this scene falls behind us, we hear Kalib scream in grief. He did not like to us drive away without him.

Inside Lisa's empty kitchen, Kalib watches Juniper go for the fake mouse. Lisa and Bryce moved because they have not had water in their old apartment for the past month. Their landlord ignored all their pleas to get the problem fixed.

So they moved. Now, the next battle will be to get their $1000 security deposit back.

Before we left, Kalib tipped over a box and out came this cat thermos. Melanie was amazed. The thermos is her's and she has been looking for it for awhile. She was a little chagrined with Lisa. Lisa said that she had planned to return it sometime when Melanie was not home.

Then Melanie would have returned and there it would have been. She would have wondered if she was going crazy.

Meanwhile, back on Sarah's Way in Wasilla... (I will return to the wedding and India, shortly, after one more Wasilla-Palmer post)

The night before last, at a little after 9:00 PM, I accompanied Jacob, Kalib and Muzzy on a short walk. And for you, any of my Indian friends and relatives who might be reading this, yes, you read the time correctly. The sun would yet go down, but it never would get dark. It does not get dark here this time of year.

That part of being in India was a little bit hard for me. The days were so short for this time of year. I can take short days in the winter, but come spring and summer, I can hardly bear a dark night. This is a little hard for some people to understand - until they live through an Alaska winter.

As for the mirror, it is attached the baby pack and Jacob uses it to check and see how many mosquitoes might be biting Kalib.

The walk did not begin with the mirror shot. It began right here, on Sarah's Way.

Down Seldon we go.

Then we turned onto Tamar.

Jacob does a mosquito check. The mosquitoes have not gotten as bad as they soon will, but they are bad enough. It is okay. Kalib needs to get lots of bites, so that he builds his immunity and they don't bother him anymore.

Jacob did not agree with my philosophy and wanted me to do my own mosquito checks and brush the little creatures off of my grandson's head.

Back home, Jacob unloads Kalib from the pack.

Kalib spots the dog across the street and heads over in its direction. There are no cars coming, so Jacob let's him, but follows warily. This is one of those pictures that I think you should click on, so that you can see the dog and Kalib's face a little better.

Jacob herds Kalib back to the house, as caught in the reflection of his Tahoe.

Kalib heads for the door.