“We’ve fallen into the medical hole,” we told each other the year Wally was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly the focus of our world turned inside out. The calendar filled up with appointments, until it seemed a rare day when there wasn’t a test or a doctor or a prescription to factor in. We were no longer a comfortably retired couple with little more on our minds than what to have for dinner.

The time in that hole lasted just about a year; Wally died almost to the day of his diagnosis a year earlier.

I promptly did what I’ve learned many people do when they lose someone to a protracted illness: get all the medical gear, the drugs out of the house, pronto. I did it when my dad died in our front room one March morning, heaving the commode right out the front door into a snow bank. There. Gone.

Forgetting that my young boys would see it there when they got off the bus that afternoon, telling me before I could tell them, that Grandpa must have died.

The fall into the hole can be gradual; we’d known for some time that Wally’s possibly benign blood condition could go the wrong way. I think he knew. I managed to pretend. But just as often it’s a sudden plummet: an accident, a heart attack, stroke, or as happened to my son and his wife, sitting with their 3-year-old in Waldo County ER one Valentine’s day, a devastating CAT scan that changed their lives. A year later little Andy, along with his mom, who’d spent every day at his bedside, emerged back into the world of snowball fights and birthday parties and figuring out what to have for dinner.

Right now, though, it’s actually me in that hole, not as a caretaker, but as the patient. And how different the view is from here! My bunged up, arthritic knee is gone, a shiny new one in its place. It’s been two and a half weeks since I eagerly limped into PenBay for the surgery I’d been waiting for since February. I was more than prepared with a couple of months of knee strengthening PT behind me, reading about the surgery, studying pictures of the device, talking to everyone I knew who’d had this done.

“A hip is way easier,” everyone said.  Well, that was helpful. But people eagerly rolled up their pant legs to show off their scars, pirouetted in front of me, danced a jig. One guy claimed to have played golf two weeks post-op, another has gone back to paragliding. Surely I’d breeze through. And perhaps I am. Walking, bending it a little more each day, even driving since I’ve sworn off the drugs.

What I didn’t count on was the depression. The ennui. The days when nothing got accomplished except naps and reading and looking forward to going back to bed. No appetite. No knitting. No writing. And especially, no gardening. For the first time in 50 years, I’m not planting a garden.

“You’re healing,” says nurse Tracee, massaging my feet with nice lotions, reminding me to use my cane. “What do you expect?”

And of course, she was right. Each day is a little better. Thank you to Mary Schulein for her enthusiastic endorsement of Louise Penny’s mystery series; I just finished the 12th book, reading into the wee hours last night.

A knee will get better. Maybe I won’t be playing basketball again, but I have a more humble goal: to kneel beside my garden beds pulling up weeds and rummaging in the soil. That’ll be enough for me.

Pizza for Pete’s Sake

Plans are coming together for this coming Saturday’s work party and pizza for Peter Thomas. Randy Stearns is marshalling a wood cutting bee at Pete’s house, to put away next winter’s wood, enlisting Pete’s fellow Masons of King David’s Lodge as well as the wider town. If you can help out Saturday morning contact Randy.

Meanwhile, Rose Lowell will be making pizza in her wood-fired oven that Pete built several years ago, taking orders for either a Margherita or Pepperoni pizza, 1-6 p.m. at Dolce Vita Farm, 488 Beach Road; order at 323-1052. The pizzas are $17.50 each; there will be other baked goods available and, Rose says, possibly some pulled chicken and pulled pork for sale as well. All proceeds from the day will go to help Pete with his mounting medical bills.

Speaking of the medical hole, Pete has fallen into the Mammoth Cave of medical holes. A relatively routine surgical procedure back in December went wrong, then wrong again, and again. He’s currently in Maine Med battling one issue after another, and facing yet more surgery and rehab. Pete’s son Zack has started a GoFundMe page for his dad. If you’ve never donated via GoFundMe it’s a quick and easy way to send some help.

When Wally came home from a long hospital stay five years ago this week, it was to brand new ramps and shower bars for a man who was shockingly (to both of us) relegated to a wheelchair. Pete and Zack had worked long hours to get the place ready for him, including an elaborate ramp and platform so he could wheel out to the back deck and enjoy summer visits (we called them “wine o’clocks”) with friends and neighbors.

“We’re all here to take care of each other,” Rose told me this morning. “I’m so grateful to live in this town. We don’t sign up for the hard stuff, it just happens.”

Memorial Day

The day actually falls on Monday, May 31, this year. As we gradually move out of covid restrictions the day will be marked by a simple ceremony at 11 a.m. at Veterans Park, located between the Library and Breezemere in the Center. Then at 11:30 the honor guard will be at Frohock Brdge at the Beach to commemorate those lost at sea. Next year the parade will return!