Radioactive

Toronto Townhouse

In My Bloodstream: Olmesartan Medoxomil, Omeprazole,Tamsulosin
On The Stereo:Woke Up This Morning, Dominik Hauser, (The Sopranos' Theme Song)

We head back to Toronto, and our first home, to flush out some additional details as to why we have become who we are.  Humor me, if you please.

Along came my "Little Girl", enriching our family with heartache and humor.  Kristin was born with feet that turned up, almost to the point of resting against her legs.  Kind of like frog feet.  Not enough room in the womb.  We had to attend to fixing the problem.

The doctor affixed a metal bar to her feet and ankles, separating them by about ten inches.  The idea was to hold them in place, until they reached a "normal" position.  The kicker was that someone had to spend an hour a day helping her, with corrective exercise.  Sounds simple.

The procedure included the removal of the brace, and then bending each foot back, as far as possible, until, eventually, the ankle would have achieve the ninety degree bend, and, as importantly,  the flexibility to walk upright.  This would take months.

 Each evening, before bedtime, during this exercise period, poor little Kristin would cry, convulsively, and scream in pain.  Our little baby had to endure, with no idea why.  Her mother's heart could not bare the hurt.  Kat could not participate.  So, I became the unhappy, tyrannical therapist.  I matched Kristin, tear for tear, day by day, month by month.  I thought she would remember this and hate me forever.  Thankfully, I think not.

As infants age, they feel the need to move, and they, naturally, begin to crawl.  And so did our Kristin.  The difference for her, though, was that she had to drag her legs with this heavy metal rod, holding her feet apart, and pushing her feet downward.  Every now and then, she would get flipped over on her back.  She did not have the strength to turn back over, so we would return her to the crawling position - much like you would do for a turtle.  Occasionally, we would know she had traveled to the kitchen, by the sounds made by her brace on the hard floor.  We thought of her as our Tiny Tim, from the Dicken's classic.  We spent unrelenting tears, Kath and I, as we soldiered through, all that time.

It is hard to explain our combination of joy and sadness.  Absolute psychological confusion.  We so loved our baby, and yet, we were forced to cause her such grief.  Inflicting daily pain on our child never became routine.  Each and every day, we dreaded our nightly task.  After about two months, her "locked" feet,  exhibited some small signs of flexibility, and that, somewhat, made us realize there was certainly improvement.  Little by little, we, all three of us, better tolerated the exercise program.  Kristin was going to be able to walk.

Both our babies had struggled as infants.  They may have been too young to remember their trouble, thank goodness.  But I know that Kath and I have not forgotten those difficult days, and I am equally positive, that we, by working together, with purpose, to serve our children, forged an even better and enduring relationship.

                                                          My recreation room bar

We did have our moments, as well.

Our infant girls had gone to bed, and we decided to wallpaper our front hall.  We had, earlier, purchased the paper and had been slow to tackle the job.  So why not, at eight o'clock, would we not start?  The paper was beautiful.  Small blue flowers on a white background.  Today, hideous would be a better descriptor.  Times do change.  Us, not as much.

                                        Hollywood and three babes from Timberbank collide

We struggled, working together and apart, trying to match patterns, and to take out wrinkles.  We became increasingly unsuccessful.  Our terms of endearment became edgier and questions like, "Why would you do that?", and "What makes you think that is straight?"came out of nowhere.  Hours worked and frustration levels, marched to the same beat.  At two am, we were nearing the end of our wallpapering and the beginning of our divorce proceedings.  I asked my darling bride if she would like a drink.  "My god, yes".  We stopped, sat on the floor and laughed.

One foot in front of the other.  That is how Kristin started her new ambulatory life.  And when trouble finds us, that is exactly what we all need to do to get through our lives.

We have always been fortunate with our friends.  And this home was a place of love and respite from the travails of life's daily grind.  For our friends and for us.  We certainly never had much money.  But we regularly entertained our buds, as best we could.

On a tight budget, we often served spaghetti and cheap Italian red wine, for many of our dinners.  We called them Godfather Nights.  We played the movie's theme all through dinner.  Every dinner.  One evening, our dear friend, Tom MacMillan, in the middle of the meal, jumped up, said he had had enough, went to our record player, removed the disk and broke it over his knee.  "That's better", he said.  The women at the table went berserk.  How could he do such a thing?  Things did not look good.  Truth is, Tom had gathered the men, and told them of his prank idea.  They all thought it funny.  He had money for the replacement in his pocket.  The wives, for the most part, didn't quite enjoy the play as much as we did.  In a few weeks, we dined again, and played the same music again. Only this time, we all laughed at Tom's very funny gag.  (This week's song is a tribute to those fondly - remembered nights)

                                                  Tom breaks a record and returns to the table.

In 1981, we finally decided to go back to my long lost dream of living downtown.  We listed our house for sale and rented an old house on Albertus Avenue, in Toronto.  We had just had a financial setback, when my mom's car gave out in the entrance to our parking garage, and we had to have it towed and eventually replaced by another bucket of bolts.  We were a week from closing.

We had a massive freeze, followed by a power outage, and eventually its return.  The water pipes had frozen and, when the heat returned in the house, they burst in the intake in our basement.  All hell broke loose.  Hot water flooded the floor and damaged the wall.  We needed plumbers and a carpenter to replace the wallboard.  It was a horrible, soggy mess to clean up.  We had to be gone in two days.  More money issues.  We would get through it.  We left, on time, and with less money than we had coming in.  We looked forward to great days in our new house.  We managed to put some tough days behind us and we were now all buoyed by the possibilities which lay ahead.



            Maggie, Kristin, Stephanie and Matthew Trafford on our front porch.  Albertus Avenue.

This Week's Update

Thursday was a regular visit with my GP.  Nothing consequential to report.  Friday was more interesting, as I drove to Moffitt Cancer Center, in Tampa, to the dermatologist.  Naturally, there was work to be done.  I had five biopsies taken, and the wounds cauterized and bandaged.  That done, the resident froze an ungodly number of precancerous spots.  I look delicious.  Burnt meat everywhere. If I had taken in a bottle of chianti with me, Hannibal Lechter would have tracked me down.

Laughter is a much better solution than complaining.

Since I had taken the car, Kathy was picked up at school by Robin Hanna, and then delivered to Urgent Care.  She was seen by a doctor, given an assortment of meds, and told to get a chest X-ray.  I drove directly from my appointment in Tampa, to gather her, and took her to the drugstore and then home.  As it was now, almost 8pm, we grabbed a pizza on the way.  Kat took the first of her antibiotics before we ate, and promptly threw up.  An empty stomach and strong medicine collision.  She recovered shortly thereafter, and we moved on with our evening.  

We drove, Saturday morning, to our local ER for her Xray.  I had been quite worried, as her cough has been persisting for nearly six months now.  I had not mentioned the possibility of cancer to her, but it was most certainly on my mind.  Her mother had died of lung cancer, but her doctor had told us that her death was most likely the result of smoking.  I still worried.  

The results were good.  The doctor called her to advise her that her lungs were clear, and she believed Kath has chronic bronchitis, made somewhat difficult to treat, due to her auto-immune disorder.  

Dave Hanna replaced my broken flag pole early on Saturday morning.  It had snapped during a freak windstorm two weeks ago.  Robin Hanna made, and delivered, a slow-cooked stew for our meal, that night.  She thought Kath needed some serious rest, and knew I was not at my best, either.  Thank you my friends.

Monday morning, and I began with my first facial application of a combination of two creams, designed to treat damaged and precancerous skin.  I will do that twice a day for four days, and then move to another target area, and so on, and so on.  The second cream is a newer addition to the protocol.  Combined with the first, it strengthens and accelerates the process.  Several of you, or a friend, perhaps, have done something similar.  Just when I am feeling healthy and happy, I decided to inflict some more punishment on myself.  The child bride believes me to be crazy.  May be some truth there.  Trying to keep my docs happy.  And avoid a portion of my almost certain future surgeries.  And keep me alive a little longer.  Now, and for the foreseeable future,  I am confined to quarters.

Will return to Moffitt in two weeks for the results of the biopsies and to check on the success of my new make-up.

And the beat goes on.

Would love to hear from you

Comments are most welcome at https://www.jrobinmullen@gmail.com