From duck to zebra

Mom decided to stay another couple days, thank goodness, and Joe is also still here so the house is nice and full with Grandpa and Tilly as well. Mom and Grandpa went shopping at Home Depot this morning, than tag teamed with Tim and I as we left Tilly home and headed for Seattle for our first follow up appointment.

Way beautiful ground floor for the outpatient building at Harbor view Medical. Instead of each floor being called the orthopedic floor, ophthalmology floor, psychiatric floor, and otolaryngology floor, they are called things like "connection", "discovery", "communication", and "understanding" or something like that.

The stuffing was ripped out of Tim's duck puppet bit by bit until his naked arm remained. 

As Tim worked hard to hold very, very still, the last bit of bandage was taken off and we could finally see his excellent stitches.

Our physical therapist gave the wounded limb a little spa treatment, then headed for the ribbon caddy full of bandages, Velcro, and other excellent supplies. Tim's arm now has its own cozy little sock, complete with custom cut thumb hole.

Next, the physical therapist put his art skills to work, making a template using Tim's good hand, finessing it to fit the bad hand, roughly cutting it out of special plastic that then went into a tub of boiling water until it became clear and soft, then carefully molding it around the wounded hand that Tim was working hard to keep relaxed and still.

The final effect could really use some googly eyes, maybe a couple little ears, a tail... but its looking pretty good and gets a lot more breathing time than the old hot and stuffy cast. Now Tim is working on his physical therapy so that in about 6 weeks he should be able to hold a cup of water in his left hand and spend time without his superhero sidekick in full getup. Looks like we have many more commutes ahead.

Hopefully life will slowly start returning to normal now.

"Days Off"

Lets see.. where did we leave off? This week started out with Tim and Zac hauling furniture around the house while I scrubbed kitchen cabinets. Zac headed back to the mainland so we could put the finishing touches on getting the house reading for Grandpa. We only had a few days left to work and a lot to do! I made up a detailed list; hang the light fixtures and buy more for the new spots, clean the windows, install the downstairs toilet, buy a fridge, replace the upstairs sink faucet, make up the beds...

Wednesday morning (I think), Tim was hanging a light fixture of questionable beauty which he was quite proud of after spending more than an hour tediously cleaning the glass droplets and little lights. After hooking it up and having only a couple of the many bulbs click on, Tim went in to do some tinkering and repairs, and as he was taking the light fixture down he suddenly jumped off the chair with a yelp clutching his hand. He ran for the door, briefly flashing me the exposed innards of his wrist.

I helped him to the car while calling 911 and frantically looking for my keys. The operator had me use my shirt for a temporary bandage as the sirens got closer. The medics brought Tim up for a seat in the back of the ambulance while I grabbed keys, shoes, wallets, and phones. With a last glance at Sad Tilly locked in her little room, I shut the doors and got Tim from the medics. Their bandages were unable to stop the bleeding nearly as well as Tim's thumb, so he pushed hard and I drove us the agonizing distance to Whidbey General Hospital in Coupeville. The doctors there gave some local injections of painkillers, a shot of antibiotics, and spent an hour on the phone locating a hand surgeon before sending us back to the car with strict instructions not to stop until we reached Harborview Medical in downtown Seattle and not to feed or water the Tim until we had talked to a surgeon.

After a couple painful bandage changes, the bleeding stopped and we were ready to leave Whidbey General

Meanwhile, I had sent a cryptic text to my dad in Alaska: Can you find our neighbor's phone number a few houses down and ask them to take Tilly out? I don't know their address or last name. He used his Dad superpowers and got right on it. In no time, she'd been rescued from our horror house of broken glass and blood and brought to play with her favorite friend, Sandy. I had thought it would be a few hours to get patched up and checked out at the local hospital, but this was quickly turning into a bigger deal.

A long, rush-hour, dark, I-5 and down town Seattle, bumpy, painkiller free drive later, we got Tim into the Emergency room, where we were quickly set up in a room and attended by a stream of doctors and nurses. Some life-long family friends of Tim's from Seattle, Bill and Julie, stopped in to see us, and eventually the surgeons came around. After more poking and prodding and excruciating pain, the hand team declared Tim in need of repair, with severed veins, tendons, and nerves, mostly in his left pointer and thumb. The hand team also declared we could now eat until midnight as surgery wasn't likely until at least morning. With less than an hour left on the food-clock, our nurse made it top priority to get us settled in our room for the night with something to eat as quickly as possible. We were hooked up with a shared room in the Burn Unit with another guy and a tasty turkey sandwich for Tim.

The door to our room

After a long night of painkillers and a long day of watching cartoons and waiting, Tim was grabbed for surgery and whisked to the basement surgery unit. I waited and watched the monitor for Tim's number to be up and to see him back in our room. After a couple hours, he was set free and wheeled back up to our room where his nurse lost no time getting him discharged. Julie hung out with us while we finished up the last of the paperwork, scheduled our follow up visits, and carefully dressed Tim around his new cast.

Tim heading into surgery, thoroughly drugged.

Watching the screen while Tim was in surgery.

We headed up to Bill and Julie's house to stay near the hospital and to keep the drive short. They supplied us with every extra blanket and pillow in the house for propping up Tim's arm. Every three hours all night and all day, we kept to the schedule for painkillers. The following day, Joe had already planned on heading to Whidbey before the accident and stopped in on his way up to feed us and visit. My mom, grandpa, and uncle were all also already on their way to Whidbey and also stopped in on their way up later that night. We spent one more night in our Seattle suite before climbing back into the car for the long ride home, this time with pillows and painkillers.

Finally aloud to eat, cozy at Bill and Julie's house

Our neighbors had been putting up with an unexpected sick puppy for a few days and were well past their good neighbor quota for the year. I got on the phone our first morning at Bill and Julies and called in search of reinforcements. She's too young to go to a kennel, having barely gotten her shots, plus being sick and needing to go out every half hour, so I called my vet desperate for ideas. The AMAZING girl who answered the phone took pity on me and remembered Tilly from our recent visit and her full-body wiggles of delight and offered to take in the poor beast until my mom arrived.

Tilly freshly laundered before our arrival

Since getting back to the house, and reuniting with Tilly, it's been a blur of waking up for frequent pills and taking the sick puppy out all night. Lots of napping, or taking it easy watching funny movies in bed. I can't imagine what it would be like if we'd gotten home to no toilet and a puppy without my mom, uncle, and Tim's dad waiting for us to pitch in and keep us going.

The remains of the light fixture after my uncle's careful disassembly 

Kitchen

As you can see, the living room is looking wonderful after yesterday's cleaning frenzy, and by morning, the kitchen will have followed suit. Our kitchen downstairs is becoming cluttered and full of beautiful things as the upstairs becomes stark and pristine. I've been scrubbing every surface in sight, inside and out, and carrying armload after armload downstairs, siphoning away the abundance. Tim and Zac did their part following my directions to "bring everything outside, inside" which meant trying to figure out if the washing machine and oven that have been outside for months still work (looking good on both accounts after much unexplained beeping), stacking doors against every wall, and making a large pile for tomorrows dump run. Tilly was a lucky pup and got to go to the vet yet again today, for her last batch of shots between now and getting spayed. Woohoo! She is now safe from parvo and rabies, what could be better for a dog? Unfortunately, she came away from it with the runs and has been making frequent dashes for the grass, looking up at me desperately with those eyes until I understand what she needs and comply. Hopefully it is a short term side effect. After our Holmes Harbor Rod and Gun Club orientation meeting, Tim took Zac to Seattle while I continued my scrubbing efforts. Before leaving and amid the cleaning, Zac took us out to lunch and insisted I pick the place, so we all discovered our new favorite restaurant; The Basil Cafe, full of delicious Asian foods with a friendly guy running everything and reasonable prices. The man who seems to own the place offered to let us wash dishes for dinner next time. We are hoping he's serious and planning to follow up. 

Living room

While Tilly and I were out on our morning walk, where she cried and refused to leave our neighbors house until they came out and went for a walk with us then played with Sandy until she could hardly stand, Tim and Zac were back at the house busy moving all the heavy things from upstairs to downstairs. Once I got home, Tilly took a nap, the boys headed for Seattle for Zac's job interview, and I got busy cleaning the upstairs living room. There is now one less dusty room in this house and one more room ready for Grandpa. Downstairs, we now have a couch and chair in our "living room/dining room/kitchen" space. I realize I haven't taken hardly any pictures of our house yet. Part of that is a lighting problem of now being downstairs without skylights, with smaller windows, and with very few working light fixtures. Hopefully this week Tim will help me get all the lights on in the house, or maybe we will wait and pick fixtures out with Mom next week.

House hunting

We had another long driving day today as we took Zac to a few open houses around Seattle as he searches for an apartment. After living on our quiet island, Seattle seems so loud and busy and diverse! This morning, Tim and I went to the UU church by our house, where the topic of the week was money and the message talked about how much of the world lives on a dollar or two a day and doesn't have retirement accounts to manage like most of the congregation. Tim and I were the odd ones out not being rich and retired, but we were greeted with warm welcomes and cake all the same. Next week the topic is food and someone is coming to talk about food security on the island which sounds very interesting. 

Juneau Migration

The big news of today is that another Alaskan has escaped from Juneau to settle into a Refugee life in Washington, in this case, Seattle. Our friend, Zac, flew down on the same flight my mum is taking to Tennessee to help my grandpa with his move to Whidbey. Tim and I made the drive to Sea-Tac to welcome our friend, and then headed south to Tacoma to have a little reunion with another Juneau-ite, Drake.

Tilly was an excellent house guest, settling into the best seat and staying out of trouble - what a difference in the last six weeks or so of having her! I'm glad Tim is getting to spend some time with old friends after being a little isolated on our not-yet familiar island. We are getting there, but we haven't found a lot of young guys around.

Home

This is the amazing view I opened my eyes to this morning! From my bed, in my house, in my room, I can see the ocean, the field, and our new floors. I arranged the furniture nicely, but then Tilly wanted to snuggle and be up on the chairs with me, so we pushed them all together - much less trouble that way.

During our morning walk, we joined Sandy, Fay, and John and headed over for some coffee. They are getting ready to replace their stairs to the beach. Our stairs, four doors down, follow a relatively gradual hill down 160 steps. This is looking from the edge of their yard down approximately the same distance, but in a matter of feet; quite the drop off.

Eventually I promise to start posting about things other than Tilly, like farming and such, but until then, I can't help myself, she's just so precious! And she has Sandy, who's the perfect babysitter.

 

We did manage to do something useful today other than stare lovingly at the little one. Tim built an awesome workbench from left over wood to get our shop up and going. We made some progress on moving the upstairs down like sweeping the floor, scrubbing the sink, and scraping bits of toilet sealer and plaster out of the new flooring compound so we can eventually reattach the toilet - wouldn't that be a nice thing to have!