November 4, 2005

Dear friends:

This week has been full of good, relieving news, so I wanted to give you a brief update on "What I Did on My Summer Vacation."

On Tuesday, November 1, my spinal surgeon in Minneapolis pronounced the bone in my back healed, the Swedish hardware in place (to set off airport alarms forever!), and my body brace destined for only 6 more weeks of use. I have been doing physical therapy for over a month to slowly rebuild my atrophied trunk muscles so that I can hold myself in place without external support.

I am so grateful, and never, and will never, take my ability to walk for granted. We have been given a second chance at life, and although we will always have some limitations, we appreciate every day with love and gratitude. Since returning from Sweden, we've walked an hour or two daily, really getting to know the neighbors and neighborhoods of Saint Paul.

On Thursday, November 3, exactly 5 months after the accident, Jack and I went to the Mayo Clinic, where he has been tested extensively. Our one and only car crash was enough for a lifetime, and we don't want to test any more airbags. Our final Mayo visit was with an interventional cardiologist who recommended that, despite the hole in Jack's heart (no smart remarks!), repair surgery is not called for at this time (extensive studies are in progress about the relationship of such PFO holes to stroke; we'll wait for the results). Meantime, it's aspirin therapy after he finishes his coumadin "fix" in December.

We were delighted and relieved, and so upon leaving the Mayo Clinic, we stopped to listen to the lobby pianist and a sort-of sing-along. We put down our bags and with me in my brace, fox-trotted across the lobby. Jack even did a gentle waltz-jump lift of me and a dip (I promise our days of flips and under the leg slides are over!). Despite our reticence(!) we took up the crowd's appeal to waltz. The tears and applause were not just those of the scores of onlookers-I was weepy too. (Jack, ever the romantic and sensitive, urged one man to throw down his crutches and take his wife out on the floor.)

So there we are. All the wonderful letters, prayers, meals, visits, coupled with your respect for our need for solitude and meditation, have been healing. Thank you all.

As one doctor said to me, "You'll be fine in two years," to which I replied: "But I'll be two years older." ''That's a problem,” he said. Such is life. We'll take it.

With love, Linda