Been a long time since I've updated the blog on Jackie's recovery, I wanted to move it over here to this site because Jackie's reached a few milestones and it seemed appropriate to continue the story in a new venue. I started this blog ten years ago when I was making a kind of recovery myself, trying to reimagine myself and my life, to recover from a professional setback, and keep it from becoming an economic disaster. I got laid off from the Federal Reserve Bank on Dec. 31, 2005 and I gave myself three months to come up with a plan and three months to implement it, and I managed to get the job of my dreams as an Interpreter for the National Park Service on Alcatraz Island and at Fort Point. I started my new job on August 6, 2006, just a little past six months of unemployment right after the last check was deposited, whew ! Thanks, NPS.
But enough about me, I hope you were able to follow over to here, Jackie's story will be more like a regular blog, new updates stacked on top so you don't have to dig through from the beginning to get to the latest episode, real chronological order, but if you haven't kept up you'll have to read backwards. This was suggested to me by Tim & Julie, Jackie's brother and sister-in-law, and encouraged by Stephanie, who asked me how this episode all started.
November 13 marked ninety days since Jackie's surgery, and those first weeks were very difficult, as I have written. A journey to a new life like the blog heading says is not that far from the truth, but Jackie persisted, overcame the obstacles and is keeping her new life on track. It would have been cool to have her story transition to this new site in November, but we got here eventually. The three month recovery period was under the supervision of UCSF then Jackie went through a successful transition back to Kaiser, her primary health care provider.
The really big deal about three months was Jackie could go back to work so she started back half time as the science resource teacher, I might have covered this already. Anyway the half time schedule seems to be acceptable, and it's always good to be busy with something you like to do and teaching has been that for over 20 years for Jackie. I try to provide something good to eat and lunches and a ride.
Jackie has been undergoing regular lab tests and medical consultations at Kaiser hospital locations since then and in spite of everything there were a couple setbacks in Jackie's recovery process, did you know you can develop an infection from your own personal bacterium or virus ? The immunosuppression drugs Jackie has to take so her body doesn't reject Terry's kidney lower her resistance to disease from outside her body, but also to the rapid growth of bacteria or virii inside of her body, her own private, personal germs! When this is revealed through the blood tests the doctors have to introduce some new medication and jack around with all the rest. It becomes a day to day process adjusting to all the medicines, the changes and the effects of the microbiological war going on inside her, but Jackie persists.
Jackie continues to develop the science curriculum for her school, Dr. Charles Drew, she was explaining tome how to produce chalk and salt from baking soda and calcium chloride then proving it with vinegar but I failed college chemistry, actually I quit after spilling molten sulfur, breaking the test tube and burning my fingers, so her explanation went a little over my head, but the kids are excited to do the experiments and have an understanding how things combine together to produce different things. Right now she's showing the really little little kids about how goldfish are what they are, how they're made, and what they do, under water, with fins, gills, a tail and big eyes. They get to observe the goldfish and draw them, thinking about their little fishy shapes and interpreting them through their own eyes. She demonstrated jet propulsion using balloons, straws and string and made fountains by injecting air into bottles causing water to bubble out.
Jackie had her six month series of tests at the Kaiser lab in February, they took eight tubes of blood for a whole battery of tests and everything came out at goal or within the acceptable levels, and progressing in the right direction. February was an event filled month, Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day, President's Day, Black History Month. a lot of events for a short month, but this year was also Leap Year.
We dropped by
1300 On Fillmore one night to see Jackie's friend from school sing with her band. Great performer, Shamila and the band do Jazz, Soul, R&B and hip-hop. Had some appetizers and drinks, pretty snazzy joint. Shamila is there every First Friday, we saw this place on Check Please San Francisco and wanted to go for dinner, so next time we will.
Since the beginning of the year Jackie has been able to travel a little so we took a couple trips to Palm Springs and San Diego, it takes a lot of preparation for Jackie to organize all her stuff, then there's the whole food and eating on schedule thing to be on top of, I tend to be a little less able to be supportive when we're not home, so I get all knotted up, but we had a lot of fun and right now I'm ready for another visit to some place warm and dry, speaking for myself of course.
Last week I had the great idea of driving down the coast for some food, I guess I had tiny head on fried
smelt on my mind. I passed up some places I like but haven't been to for a while like Barbara's Fish Trap and Cameron's, and places I've been to that time forgot like Nick's in Rockaway, and places I don't think I'll ever get to like Sam's Chowder House, and didn't give a thought to all the traffic coming up the Cabrillo Highway until we turned off on Pescadero Creek Road and it was flooded ! Dang, no smelts ! So we continued South and let Gazos Creek and The Highway 1 Brewing Company glide by cuz we were just there and Davenport was crowded as usual so like criminals returning to the scene of the crime we drove out onto the Santa Cruz Wharf.
Mussel On A Rope ? So Jackie ordered something billed as fresh pacific black mussels but they had untrimmed beards, Hipster Mussels, I didn't take a picture but this is what they looked like, some kind of tough green fibrous I don't know what, a whole bowl full. The mussel itself was like a wonderful creamy pink puff of oceanic musselness, but I mean couldn't the chef take a minute to snip that off ? I mean, you don't know where that beard has been. She sent them back, they musta come from the Oregon Coast by way of Portland.
No comments:
Post a Comment