Sunday, April 25
We found a prospective buyer for the car in San
Francisco, so we drove the Explorer up to meet him there.
I stayed in the car while Don rang his doorbell.
As I sat there waiting, another SUV came barrelling down
Jackson street and sideswiped the driver's side outboard
mirror with a Bang! I nearly jumped out of my skin. The
mirror housing was knicked, but the mirror was undamaged.
The car drove off before I got my wits about me.
The young man, named Ted, examined the car carefully, and
then offered $6,500. That is much less than I would like
to accept for it. Nevertheless, I agreed to fax him the
service station report on it and get a AAA mechanic to
check it out.
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Monday, April 26
An unhappy day. Don entered Angelone's office excited and
happy, but left upset and depressed. Don was elated that
his employer had agreed to hire him part time on an hourly
basis. He had been doing some research about his benefits
and discovered that if he maintained 30 hours a week, he would
get dental coverage. Then he asked if Angelone had read the
poems he had given him.
"Yes," Angelone said, "but they were all written before your
stroke, weren't they?"
Don said that they were. I pointed out that the second half
of "Headache" was written after.
"So these are not what you can do now," the doctor pressed on.
"I have a concern, and Dr. Forrester has a concern, that you
not go back to work if it only causes you stress.
She cannot approve a return to work
until I have done an evaluation, and I cannot do the evaluation
until you have written something for me."
"The stuff on MSM was nothing but ads," Don protested. "It's
the worst of the internet. We'd never write an article based
on that."
"But that is not the point," Angelone said. "We still don't know
what caused your hemorrhage. Maybe it was high blood pressure
brought on by stress at work. I'm not going to okay going
back to work until I'm sure it isn't going to just cause you
stress. I can tell that right now, I cannot approve of you
going back to work 30 hours a week." He turned to me.
"Do you think he is ready to work 30 hours a week?"
He did it to me again. If he keeps putting me on the spot like
this to back him up, I'm not going to sit in on these sessions.
I wrung my hands. "No," I said, "I think 30 hours is too much."
Don had gotten very still and was looking at an intermediate
distance just above the floor. This is the look he had when
I had spoken out at the "V Team" meeting two weeks ago. He
had gone into child mode again.
"I'm going to be like a father, now," Angelone went on, "and
tell you that you are not ready for that kind of stress yet."
I wondered if Angelone realized what emotional freight went
with Don's notion of "father."
It also seemed to me that the two of them were talking at cross
purposes. Don was saying that he didn't think the writing
assignment lead to a good article, but Angelone wasn't interested
in a good article. He just wanted to see if Don's synthesis
and organization skills were recovered enough to make work a
reasonable expectation - both for Don and his employer. So
Don wasn't understanding what Angelone was asking for. Angelone,
on the other hand, wasn't understanding Don. Don wasn't asking
to go back to work for 30 hours a week. He was trying to plan
his future at DMK (now called WebMD)
and was excited that it looked like they still needed and wanted
him.
The session ended unsatisfactorily. Angelone felt he hadn't
really made his point and Don felt the doctor had crushed his
hopes. Don was silent as we walked to the outpatient therapy
appointments at Kentfield. I wondered if he was angry with me
for agreeing that 30 hours was not realistic, but I didn't
say anything.
After the therapies, Don returned with me to Mountain View.
We were trying out a new pattern: Don staying overnight on
Monday and catching the Tuesday morning train into The City.
He was quiet most of the rest of the day, but later that
afternoon, while he was sitting on the couch and I was working
on the laptop in the dining area, he talked about his feelings.
Again, he prefaced what he said with a disclaimer: I shouldn't
feel like I had to "fix" it for him. I tried my best not to
feel responsible - an interesting exercise for me. I moved
over to the sofa and sat with him as he talked about his
disappointment. I was glad to be there for him, even if I
couldn't fix anything.
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Tuesday, April 27
Don caught the 8:18 train to San Francisco. He is now spending
more time with me, which I like, but almost no time at home in
Bolinas, which is worrisome.
Is this his way of easing out of what to him is an
idyllic settling
into more of a city lifestyle? His friend Jessica has offered
a free apartment in Oakland that would make commuting to his
job and his therapies much easier than it is now. Nevertheless,
it worries me that he
spends so little time at home.
When he's on the road like this, he has no opportunity to
use his home computer, and that means he's not only not
getting familiar with the interface and the operating system,
but also that he's not doing the ThinkFast exercises Angelone
has given him. Plus I don't like the lack of stability it
implies. It's too much like being homeless.
He called me this evening to talk. I reminded him that Angelone
wanted a written sample by tomorrow. He said he'd printed one out
at work. He was unhappy that it wasn't really a finished
article. In e-mail, he said it felt good to be at work, but
depressing at the same time, since Angelone was so "dismissive"
about his plans to work part-time. Don was also disappointed that
Angelone didn't see the poems as a gift. "I feel I'm caught
up in the machinery of disability again," he said.
These streaks of resentment disturb me.
I recall that paranoia is one of the side effects
of right brain injury. I hope that is not what I am seeing.
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Wednesday, April 28
I sold Don's car today!
And not to Ted, but to a graphic artist named Dave,
who bettered Ted's offer by a thousand dollars. I accepted at once.
What a relief!
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Thursday, April 29
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Friday, April 30
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Saturday, May 1
I proposed to Don today. He turned me down. He said he thought
our relationship was too one-sided now to make such an
important decision. He wants to wait until he's more independent.
"But let's keep the topic open for discussion later," he said.
Good enough for me.
I asked him to proof read the web pages that would go with the
FieldTester applet on Glyphic's website. He found two places where
the flow of ideas wasn't clear, and made a practical suggestion on
how to fix one of them. I was doubly pleased. Not only did his
suggestions improve the pages, but he demonstrated that the skills
he'll need to go back to work are still there.
A bit later, we did some home-improvement chores.
I picked out some impatiens
at a nearby nursery, and we spent the afternoon planting two beds.
I did the pitchfork and heavy stuff while Don filled in some
bare spots in the hedge border with readwood chips. We both
worked at loosening the soil - no mean feat, considering it's
as hard as adobe in places - then worked some soil conditioner
into it. Then Don dug holes at 12" intervals while I followed
behind, planting the seedlings. If they survive our efforts
and the roughness of the soil, I should have a decent bed of
colorful flowers around the ornamental plum and along the side
fence by mid-summer.
After cleaning up, we headed up to Oakland, where Jessica and
Kent were to meet us and show us the apartment they were offering
Don. The gardening had taken longer than I had thought it would,
and we were a half hour later than we thought we'd be,
but we still arrived before Jessica and Kent did.
They thought this might happen and arranged for us to see the
"guest house" anyway.
It wasn't a separate house, as Don had imagined it, but was
instead a fully converted basement with a complete bath and
kitchen. Despite its being mostly below ground level, the light
was surprisingly good in late afternoon. There's even a
computer room in the back, where we noticed a teacup with a
teabag still dangling in it. It had been there for some time.
Mold was growing across the surface of the tea and over the bag.
"Now, I know I did not do that," Don said
with some amusement.
Kent and Jessica arrived shortly after our inspection, and we
sat down to cheese, beer (Kent and I), and apple juice (Don
and Jessica). They both talked about their upcoming participation
in the California AIDS Ride, Kent with enthusiasm and Jessica
with considerable trepidation. The contrasts in their personalities
is very amusing. Kent spoke of training with a blond Swiss guy
whom he described as "gorgeous," and Jessica spoke of her fear
of accidents, sleeping conditions, and getting along with a bunch
of strangers.
We had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, which gave Don a
chance to scope out the neighborhood. I must say I was impressed.
Two excellent groceries, three coffee houses, and an art movie
theatre. The Piedmont Avenue neighborhood has all the features
I would look for in an urban setting. And BART is within walking
distance a half a mile away.
Jessica and Don discussed the formalities of the arrangement. I
missed most of this, since Kent and I were engaged in conversation
on the other side of the table. From what Don told me later, the
apartment will be available at the end of May. Although they had
offered it for free, Don negotiated a monthly rent that was well
below what he's paying now in Bolinas. And they agreed that this
was a "trial" arrangement, to be reconsidered in five to six
months.
Don got up to go to the bathroom. "Send out a search party if
I don't come back in an hour," he quipped, then headed towards the
back of the restaurant.
When he was out of earshot,
Jessica turned to me with an earnest look and asked,
"How is he? Do you think he can do this?"
"He's doing amazingly well," I said. "I think he can handle this.
He's really grateful for your offer. And I'll feel a lot better
when he's closer to emergency medical care."
"Is there anything we should watch out for?"
"Well, you noticed when he filled his teacup, didn't you?" As
usual, he filled it too full and it overflowed.
"Yes," Jessica said, "I've seen that before."
"And his sense of direction is pretty shot," I said. "If he
enters a strange store, he won't remember when he leaves
which way to turn to go home. It takes him a couple of times -
more than you or I would - to get a good mental map of a place."
Later on, I mentioned one more thing for her to be aware of.
"Things take longer than you might expect. He'll say he's
going to do something, but it can be weeks before it gets
done."
Don was quite cheerful as we drove home to Bolinas. Having a
place in Oakland that will let him get to work without relying
on a fragile network of rides from friends and neighbors is
very encouraging. "I'm beginning to see my own life again," he
said. "I'm really blessed in the friends I have."
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Don Proof Reading My Webpages
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