You don't decide when you go..

That was pretty much the summary of my conversation with my grandma. Spent an hour with her on the three day trip. Wish I could spend more time with her. Grandma never sat up and walked after her surgery more than a year ago. 

My conversations with grandma have the usual points (from her or me)

Her points :

1. Grandpa is gone. I have no reason to live. Just praying that God takes me soon. (understandable given she got married to him at 5, started living with him at 13, had 8 kids, had a long and happy married life for 65 years and he passed away)

2. the doctors did something to me after the surgery. I try to move my body but it doesn't respond

3. I am doing my best but it is not working

My points :

1. you don't decide when you go. 

2. as long as you are here, might as well try to do your best and do the rest room thing yourself

we have had the same conversation twice in the two one hour visits over last year and this year. 

She is still sharp and is probably the most progressiver person in the family given her age and situation. She always wants to know if the kids are still practicing music. Never asks about their academics or school.. Only "are they still learning music? are they practicing?"

The woman truly believes that the only thing worth leaving our kids is art ! Sometimes I actully agree with her. 

Hopefully, next year when I see her, she will be up and walking to the restroom on her own! She is trying... 

Missing the golus

This year the wife, MIL and kids made it to all the golus over the last 2 1/2 days while I slept at home after taking painkillers.

We did manage some photographs of the kids in their new Paavaadais before they stepped out of the house. When I get back to regular typing speed or proficient mouse use will upload those photos.

Did not get a chance to eat all the lovely sundal or take photos of the golus. So here is a request to those relatives and friends who have let me photoblog their golus over the last 5 or 6 years. Please email me or Sangeetha a Photo of your golu, even if it is taken with your grainy cell phone and we post it all here next weekend.

Next year there is hope that daddy Narayanan will get to visit all the golus in good health and cheer and blog about it!

Thanks to all for your wishes. The hand is making nice progress.

Brush teeth - check
Take a bath on your own - check
Wear your own clothes and zip up pants - check
Eat with spoon - check
Write with pen - check
Type slowly with both hands - check

Driving and lifting heavier objects with right hand to be checked off tomorrow. Yoga plan from thursday. Then we will be back to the old normal routine.

Plan to go to work tomorrow and test out a few things as well!

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Nice progress for two days

Making good progress after surgery in last two days. Mostly slept through the first 48 hours.

Switching to Ibuprofen from Vocodin is more difficult than I thought. Planning to pull through the weekend with a lot more sleep.

One handed typing is time consuming as well and it looks like the Dragon Nuance files from old laptop did not get copied to new laptop. No motivation to reteach the voice recognition software from scratch!

Thanks to all for your wishes..

Pics from Jr. and little one, both of them initially grossed out but have now come to accept the hand as some kind of science experiment that needs periodic observation..

(skip if you are easily grossed out)

On a side note, the plucked chicken shaved feel on the right hand feels good. Used to wonder if all those men in yoga class with that copper looking muscle tone lost all hair because of yoga? Maybe they just shaved?!

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The plate and screws are out!

The right hand is finally rid of the metal plate and screws!

Recovering after surgery..

Will be back to posting in a week.

The road to getting back the strength in the right hand is very visible now!

In a couple of months expected to get rid of pins and needles and the sudden loss in sensation in fingers as well.

So far so good!

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Castaway

For starters this post is being typed with two hands..(okay, one hand with the occasional assistance from the second.

The cast did come off and there was much amusement and happiness!

The kids would have loved watching this, but they had to go to school. They have to watch this video to see how it was done.

The hand has made much progress over the last six plus weeks according to the doctors. I was not happy with the range of motion. For example I can type with the fingers but cannot move my wrist on the laptop. It has to be physically placed on the laptop with the other hand. How to describe it? Remember the plastic hands that were attached to Natraj pencils so you can use it to scratch your back? The hand is like that, unable to bend at the wrist.

The doctors were happy after measuring various angles with protractors etc. and are telling us that I may be from another planet or am extremely thick for expecting too much too soon. So the next month of various exercises, to be performed with same religious fervor as Sandhyavandhanam should apparently do the trick.

That crazy looking picture is all the dead skin, which was the stuff the little one was pulling out of the cast a few days ago!

The cast was offered to us as a memento but we said "no thanks"! People use them as flower pots to remind them of the fracture, we were told. We decided the video blogs would remind us plenty...

Learnt a lot about fractures today. Apparently, the entire body directs all regeneration efforts to that single broken location in the body. That explained the 3x faster nail growth in the right hand, the weird hair on the fingers, the dandruff looking extra skin growth, etc., which were all part of this regeneration.

One more month of exercising, and things should be back to normal.

This whole experience has taught the whole family many things at many levels...

In other news, now that I can look over my shoulder, drove to daughters school (2 blocks away) with left hand and picked her up this evening. Made tea this evening and buttoned my own pants!

Thank god for small favors...and more importantly, thank you all for your wishes and encouragement. Now it is time for me to make progress as fast as possible to make the family happy..

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