jmgoyder

wings and things

Oct 19

The suffering conundrum

by jmgoyder

I just don’t get it. Why does one person cop multiple illnesses? And why does this seem to happen to the beautiful people?

Later this week I will be travelling to Perth to meet my friend at the airport, after which we will spend two luxurious nights at a resort. During the days, I will take my friend to her medical appointments; in the evenings we will sip wine, eat pizza, and reminisce.

She was the first kid to say hello to me on the bus to school after my family moved from PNG to Australia. Since then, we have had years of little contact due to busyness, geography etc. but, more recently, have reconnected.

‘How is it possible for you to still laugh?’ I asked her on the phone tonight, to which she replied with her laugh.

My friend suffers severe eye conditions and an unhealed broken foot and yet she can still maintain laughter within her suffering. How does she do this?

I haven’t mentioned her name because she is very private but I so wish I could salute her publicly because she is amazingly philosophical and pragmatic.

And maybe she and I will make a bit of sense out of the suffering conundrum when we see each other in a couple of days. I can’t wait!

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Sorry about that image. Prince always seems to want to give me the back view. Here is a better view.

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Oct 18

Cycling!

by jmgoyder

I have discovered a route around this countryside that is hopefully truck-free; I have bought a new bicycle pump; I have dusted the cobwebs of my bicycle; I have made myself determined ….

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Argh!

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Oct 16

Full of beans!

by jmgoyder

A long lost dream is coming true via a tall man with red hair, named Dan, whose business is called Full of Beans. Thanks to him, my vegetable garden is being created! If it weren’t for being invited to join the gardening group I would never have known about him, so I am very grateful. Ironically, I can’t attend tomorrow’s get-together because Dan is coming back to do the planting and I want to learn.

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One of the things that really appeals to me about Full of Beans is that it provides an ongoing maintenance service for gardening novices like me.

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Okay, so gardening friends far and wide may see this as a kind of cheating on my part (employing someone to make me a vegetable garden) but oh well. I am already crazy about what Dan has begun to create and can hardly contain my excitement.

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Anthony was an avid gardener, despite not having much time, with milking the cows and looking after his mother. Nevertheless almost everything he planted, over 50 years ago, still survives. But he was never the least bit interested in growing vegetables. A couple of years into our marriage, I asked for a vegetable garden but he said there was no room. I argued that there was plenty of room (5 acres around the house!) to no avail.

And, as Ming grew up into an adolescent, he formed the same opinion. It was just a small dream of mine but neither of them would have a bar of it. That’s okay; they just weren’t interested and maybe didn’t realise how much I wanted the vegetable garden. I couldn’t do it by myself so one year my brother came out and dug me a patch and every single gigantic zucchini gave me a thrill. But that went by the wayside in the face of Anthony’s mysterious deterioration in health (we didn’t know about his Parkinson’s then) and the fact that I was working full-time that year.

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Now that Anthony is no longer cognisant of our shared reality; now that Ming is in a fantastic relationship; now that I am learning how to be completely alone, a vegetable garden seems profound.

A long lost dream is coming true via a tall man with red hair, named Dan, whose business is called Full of Beans.

http://www.fullofbeans.com.au

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Oct 13

Ordinary

by jmgoyder

For the last several weeks I have been making pot after pot of pea and ham soup, freezing it in little batches, or serving it to friends and family, but mainly eating it myself. I just can’t seem to get enough of it!

I take it into the nursing home and share it with Anthony often. He is a ruthless great food critic. Some of my experimental additions weren’t very successful; for example, the addition of chilli, mint, capsicums and curry powder didn’t work. I mean it was edible, but it just wasn’t pea and ham soup the way it’s supposed to be, you know?

Having run out of my last batch, I over-enthusiastically over-filled the slow cooker and had to transfer half of the ingredients to another big saucepan before the kitchen floor became a lake of pea and ham soup. So now I have two simmering pots filling the empty house with aroma.

The usual ingredients are split peas, chopped vegetables (onions, garlic, celery, but not capsicums) and, of course, a ham hock. But I do have one extra secret ingredient and I think this makes MY pea and ham soup superior, ha!

Tomorrow, the answer to this conundrum will be posted, as well as a photo shoot of the finished soup. I am hoping that, universally, kitchens, restaurants, food journalists, and people with nothing else to do, will clamour at my blog-door.

But that probably won’t happen because I’ll take a small batch of this big new batch of pea and ham soup into the nursing home and Anthony will taste it and just say, “Not bad” and then we will have the following argument:

Me: What do you mean ‘Not bad’? Why can’t you ever say it’s fantastic or wonderful?

Anthony: Because it’s, well ….

Me: What?

Anthony: Ordinary.

Almost every day, I go in and sit next to Ants, watch television, chill out, answer emails, wrestle with my iPad, for several hours – and he and I have these strange, fragmented, haphazard, conversations. Sometimes it seems really lazy to just sit there with him, always with my hand on his arm, watching Dr Phil then going back to our current series, West Wing.

He is sleepier and sleepier every day this week. I wonder what next week will be like apart from a surplus of pea and ham soup.

Next week will be ordinary, and ordinary is a joy.

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Oct 12

Wings

by jmgoyder

The weather here is warming up rapidly and the five peacocks are madly competing for the attention of the three peahens. (I definitely need to replenish my stock of hens but don’t tell Ming!)

Every Spring the guys do their display thing, flirting with everything from the old dairy shed, to the car, to the windows of the enclosed back veranda. They also flirt with the peahens of course whose indifference is hilarious.

For most of the year, King Ken and Prince are the best of friends but during Spring they become bitter rivals:

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King Ken: Don’t come any closer, kid.
Prince: Sorry, Uncle.

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King Ken: And stop copying my moves!
Prince: I don’t mean to, Uncle, it’s just sort of automatic.

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Prince: I bow to your majesty. You have to believe me, Uncle!

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Then, all of a sudden, they flew up and at each other with claws and wings arrowed. I wasn’t quick enough, with my phone camera, to capture this brief struggle; also I had to break it up! King Ken skedaddled with the other Kings so I comforted Prince with a bit of bread.

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………………………………………………………

Sometimes I wonder why I write these little stories, put fake words into the mouths of these beautiful, wordless birds via captions. I think it’s something to do with the way I first began to cope with Anthony’s Parkinson’s – the birds we accumulated – guinnea fowl, peafowl, various poultry…. In the beginning it was such a joy.

Then, as Anthony’s health deteriorated, and Ming needed spinal surgery, and I had to resign from my job at the university, the birds became symbolically, and realistically, a source of incredible comfort.

Wings.

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Oct 6

Swings and roundabouts 3

by jmgoyder

We had a couple of family gatherings on the weekend. On Saturday it was my first great niece’s birthday party. Neve, my oldest brother’s first grandchild, is already, at 2, very stylish, so I bought her a multi-coloured tutu which her mother says she loves. The finding of this tutu was somewhat serendipitous because on the day before the party, my friend (E. from the nursing home, who I wrote about a few posts back), had set up a stall of her crafts, including tutus! And, just before she packed up I found the perfect one for Neve. I am kicking myself for forgetting to take a photo of that tutu – oh well.

Then, on Sunday, we had another family gathering at the home of another crafty person – my mother. One of the purposes of this pizza + cheesecake lunch was for family members from down south, and in-laws from Scotland, to get their first glimpse of my first great nephew, Spencer. And it was a great glimpse as you can see in this photo of my youngest brother with his first great nephew.

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Like E. (oh to hell with anonymity – her real name is Ellen) my mother, Meg, is talented in the art of craft, her own speciality being hairpin lace. Here is a picture of Spencer in his Meg-made baby shawl.

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And the above scanned picture is a newspaper article from a few years ago that featured my mother’s hairpin lace baby shawls! I thought she was going to get famous (I was going to be her rich agent!) but I guess baby shawls are not in the category of investment, especially if they are burped upon.

There are two more babies-on-the-way in my family now so my mother will be busy with hairpin lace once again. In the last 12 months around eight of the nursing staff have had babies and we gave them all a shawl; I paid for the wool and my mother did the craft.

Okay, I need to bring this to a coherent conclusion but I can’t be bothered with coherent. Prince is still trying to impress the indifferent chooks to no avail….

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The last time Anthony came to a family occasion was about two years ago and it was a horrible experience – the wheelchair taxi, my family’s empathy, my tears on his departure. When I look back, I am in awe of how we tried always to include Ants in every family gathering … until it just became impossible.

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Martha: She’s forgotten to get the laying pellets again.
Mary: What? I’m starving!
Prince: Will you two just shut up!

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Happy birthday, Neve!
Happy arrival, Spencer!

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Oct 5

Swings and roundabouts 2

by jmgoyder

The two photos I put up in yesterday’s post had absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote and I only added them because, having been on the phone for nearly two hours, trying to get the internet back from its little holiday, I could! So here is my attempt to interpret what those two photos (and a few others) actually mean.

CAST OF CHARACTERS:

Prince – white peacock
Martha and Mary – the two white chooks
Whoopie – the new chook with the fancy hairdo

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Prince: What the hell?
Mary to Martha: Quick! Hide! There’s a huge creature on the other side of the fence!

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Martha to Mary: I think it’s okay. He just did this little purry thing in his throat. Anyway, we’re safe in this yard.
Mary: A purry thing! Martha, do you not realise that he is probably flirting with us?
Martha: Yeah, but you have to admit he is kind of cute.
Mary: Cut your beak off, Martha!

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Prince: I’m not sure whether these strange, short, ugly things are my cup of tea after all.
Mary: See, Martha, not only does he talk to himself, he’s insulting. Ignore him!

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Prince: Okay, so I’m not that good at introductions, but to be rejected so soon by these two whatever-they-ares is very disturbing.

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Prince: Indifference hurts.

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Whoopie: Is the coast clear yet?

Note 1: Whoopie was given to me by a friend who breeds beautiful poultry – thanks so much, Jane!

Note 2: When I first began writing this blog, Anthony was still at home, but ailing. We started to accumulate guinnea fowl and chooks because Ants remembered having these as a young boy/teenager and I wanted to cheer us all up. But then I got a teensy bit carried away with the whole bird thing (as past blog posts reveal ha!) It’s good, now, to begin again with just a few chooks…. even though this bewilders the peacocks!

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Oct 4

Swings and roundabouts

by jmgoyder

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Yesterday I said, rather blithely, “I refuse to be sad” (about Anthony’s Parkinson’s disease etc.). This morning I realised why it’s possible for me to say this.

Anthony isn’t sad!

It’s as simple as that. Okay, so saddish moments come and go, and the first year of him being in the nursing home was a hell of mutual sorrow. But, in retrospect, it was me shedding most of the tears, not Anthony. In fact often, when I left to come home, he would comfort me.

But it’s now that matters and in-the-now neither of us is sad, which is a bit of a miracle really. The weird irony is that I would not be able to cope with Anthony’s illnesses if it weren’t for his own emotional resilience. I’m not very good at emotional resilience, but Ants is.

People often think that the person in the nursing home is the vulnerable one and that he or she is the one in need of comfort. But sometimes it’s the other way around; it’s the visiting spouse or daughter, or grandson, or friend, who is in need of comfort.

Anthony comforts me!

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Oct 3

The ‘climate change’ of Parkinson’s disease

by jmgoyder

I sometimes joke with various staff that Anthony’s ‘thermostat’ is faulty. I’m not sure why I do this jokey thing because it’s not funny and it’s one of the things that I worry about most.

Mostly, Anthony is freezing cold during the day – regardless of what the temperature is outside – and boiling hot during the night (again, regardless of the temperature).

So, as we enter Spring, it might be humid outside, and cool inside the nursing home. But, regardless of whatever temperature it is in reality, Anthony’s body temperature is almost always uncooperative/opposite/unpredictable.

When Ants was still at home, we lit the fireplace fire, the Aga, turned multiple heaters on, and even got air conditioning in the living room. But I could never get him warm enough!

During the days, all of this heating would be on and I would cover Ants’ knees with a blanket, light the fire etc., but he would still be cold.

Conversely, during the nights, Ants would be so hot and sweaty that I would have to take his blankets off and put the fan on.

A couple of the staff have told me about how hot and clammy he is when they put him to bed, so I bought a bunch of singlets in the hope they they will ‘magic away’ these temperature fluctuations.

It really bothers me though. Apart from me worrying about whether Anthony is too hot or too cold, I also worry that he has now reached the stage of not being able to tell anybody that he is too hot or too cold.

Anthony never complains about his illness, about being in a nursing home, about staff, about anything; he is the most resilient person I know.

I wish I could show the world what Anthony used to be like – LOUD, gregarious, kind, generous … and a zillion other adjectives!

PD doesn’t have to be sad. Okay I am struggling with Anthony’s PD and trying to figure a lot of things out, like this thermostat conundrum, but I refuse to be sad ….

…. because I have met some friends now who help me to cope and their kindness is extraordinary – the staff at the nursing home!

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Sep 30

‘Who’s that silly old fool?’

by jmgoyder

I showed Anthony these photos just after I took them with my phone the other day. They’re a bit blurry and way too close-uppish but I wanted to show him what he looks like sometimes.

The first photo shows his usual facial expression. This is often termed the ‘Parkinson’s mask’ and is due to the fact that the facial muscles aren’t working very well.

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Anthony: Who’s that silly old fool?
Me: It’s you!
Anthony: Ghastly.

So then I tried to make Anthony look me in the eyes by shouting “Look me in the eyes or I’ll bop you!” Ants and I have discovered that this rather dramatic method works well.

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Anthony’s smile, trapped for so long inside that Parkinsonism mask, has, as I’ve said before, begun to occur more and more.

Ming disagrees with me because he says that whenever he enters Anthony’s room, he is greeted with that smile. What he doesn’t realise is that his visits are excitingly unexpectedly haphazard, whereas mine are (perhaps) boringly regular.

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When I showed Ants that last photo of his smile, he took my hand in his and kissed it exactly ten times before saying…

Anthony: Who’s that silly old fool?

Me: My hero.

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