Life After Amputation

It has been a LONG time since I got the chance to sit down and enter a few of my thoughts... the big news this month is that Mike has just returned from the hospital after his second amputation. He is now a "BK" which means that he has a below the knee amputation - what a weird turn of events! No one should have to live through one amputation, let alone have to survive a do over and go through it a second time. The news that they wanted to go higher on his leg kicked Mike into high gear, I think that he needed to keep his hands and mind busy and so one of the tasks that we have had on our " to do" list finally rose to the top. We started a master bedroom renovation.
To get an idea of how monumental this undertaking was, let me give you some background. About twelve years ago, I got tired with the peach tones in our bedroom and decided that what I really wanted to do with the room was make it look very, very old fashioned. I bought some extremely expensive heritage wallpaper and invisioned huge, deep crown mouldings, eight inch mop board painted trim and a very lacy window and bed treatment, with carpet to accent the color of the wallpaper. The concept was good. The execution was disastrous! Mike HATED the bird wallpaper - so much so that he refused to complete any of the other stages of the renovation. We never got beyond a fresh coat of buttercream paint and the heritage wallpaper. It sat for the next twelve years, with Mike complaining to anyone that would hear about the ridiculous wallpaper and how he had to wear sunglasses to bed at night. It irritated him so much that it became a standoff. Until they told him that he was going into surgery...the very next day he was ripping and tearing.
For Christmas last year (2007) Mike bought me new hardwood flooring for the bedroom, but that little fall that imploded his fragile foot put him in the hospital for Christmas and out of commission for the rest of the year. The hardwood floor ( Nutmeg Oak) sat in the basement until the weekend after the announcement of the amputation. I came home from the Inn to find that Megan had moved us out of the room and the two of them had about 1/2 of the new flooring down. Then I started to take the wallpaper off and I quickly realized that the removal was going to be more than I bargained for. I started to panic and think that I never would get rid of the "birds". Not only did the paper not want to come off, when it did, it took off paint in some places and in other it took the top off of the drywall. Mike wasn't really helping me at first, and so I suggested that he drywall over the walls because it would be quicker. He told me that it would not give him the satisfaction of watching me struggle to get the paper off - after he had told me not to put it on in the first place!! What a brat!! We ended up having to get a drywaller in to fix and paint the walls because they were so badly damaged.
From this job, he went to help Megan put new hardwood down in her house and we BARELY got finished in time to move the bed back into our room, the night before the surgery. We had one sleep on our new matress set and off to the hospital we went. Surgery took place on November 21 and we came home on November 26. Since then, we have had a steady stream of company - Allan and Brad, Gloria and Joy and all of our kids and their girlfriends/boyfriend. Most meals have been 10 or more people and four extra people staying over. Plus, I was not finished for the season and still had three retreats before I was off on Christmas holidays. What a month!!!