Holy wind!

I often wonder, if it were I in Bob's position and he in mine, would he even notice my absence in the house? Since he's been gone—no, make that since he's been ill, which is officially a year now—I have found out exactly how much he did around the house, which was pretty much everything. Makes me wonder what the hell I've been doing all these years . . .

I raked the yard over the past few days, which has been a work in progress. . . I've decided I hate trees. At least the ones with leaves . . . weed-whapped the few spots in the yard that continued to grow in spite of the season changes, cleaned out some gutters (while dangling precariously from a 10 foot ladder on the deck, simultaneously overlooking the 20+ foot plunge to the backyard below), picked up dog poo, wrapped the outside AC unit with a tarp and twine (which was an infuriating, f-bomb-ladened endeavor all its own, like wrapping a huge, awkward Christmas present), changed the furnace filter, refilled the bird feeders and baths . . . last night, I dragged all the patio furniture into the garage, a preemptive strike in preparation for the hurricane-force winds that are reported to descend upon us in the near future.

Now all I have to do is put plastic on the windows, weather strip the doors, hope for at least one more nice weekend to do some touch-up painting around the house outside, clean the outsides of our windows, maybe clean the garage—move the snowblower to the front, the lawnmower to the back. . . I'm tellin' ya, our next house will be a townhouse.

So, I took Rocco on a romp in the back yard yesterday and came upon a tree that had bark torn from the bottom of its trunk all the way up at least ten feet. The bark lying on the ground below the tree was absolutely shredded, like someone or something had violently ripped it from its rightful place on the tree. I stood in horror for a few moments before snapping a few pics with my phone's camera. It's so freaky, I can't even begin to imagine what caused it. It didn't look like another branch had fallen against the tree, didn't look like a woodpecker's work . . . had to be other-worldly, and I couldn't wait to show Bob what I'd found . . . when I got to the hospital, I whipped out my phone, pulled up the picture and said, "Look at this picture of a tree in our backyard! I have no idea what could have done this! The bark was shredded, almost all the way around the tree. . . it has to be the work of a chupacabra, or Big Foot—"

"Or a buck scraping its antlers on the tree," Bob says so matter-of-factly. Oh . . .ummm . . . nevermind . . .

Long days at Bethesda. They work Bob hard, for sure; he may be "advancing" to two sessions of PT and OT a day starting sometime this week. Tough as the once-a-day sessions have been, the therapists think he's ready for more. "I guess that's why I'm here, to get stronger, so I can go home," he said, though his voice betrayed the exhaustion of his body.

Had his wound vac dressing changed today. Every week, they take pictures and measure the wound—depth, width and length. The length hasn't changed much, but already, with the use of the vac and the MIST therapy (an ultrasound wound healing treatment that I'm not even going to try to explain; I've included the link so if you're interested, you can read about it), the depth of his wound has decreased by about half and the width has closed considerably. In just two weeks of being at Bethesda. Pretty amazing.

The dressing change (he's on a 3x/week schedule) is a pain in the ass, because it has to be squeezed in between everything else. On Tuesdays, it's especially chaotic, because that's when the plastic surgeon on staff makes his rounds to see all the wound patients, and they can't put the vac back in place until he arrives, which isn't until later in the day. So Bob's at the mercy of so many others' schedules, who are all trying hard to fit into his already tight schedule. Today, it was "wham, bam, thank you, ma'am" kinda day, with everything starting right away in the morning, and not much time to rest in between: out of bed, dressed, breakfast, meds, vac and dressing removed, MIST therapy, temporary dressing in place, PT (all before noon) then lunch, a short break before OT, then a visit from the plastic surgeon, dressing back on, vac back in place, and before he knew it, it was dinner time. May not sound like a whole lot, but right now, it takes three times as long to do everything, and I didn't even include bathroom breaks in there. . . as Bob likes to say, "Takes all day to do nothing."

I left the hospital early today, while it was still light out, as the winds were picking up. I at least wanted to see any flying debris if it hurtled my way . . . so far, no large limbs have been dropped upon the deck, the roof seems to be intact, and both dogs are accounted for. Tomorrow's an early day; doc makes his rounds around 8 or so, so off to bed I go. xxoo Love! to all . . .