Monday, 6:00 pm

Hello to all!

I am sitting here at home enjoying peaceable kingdom napping around me as I watch the evening news on TV. It has been a day or so since I posted and I wanted to catch back up with my blog.

Yesterday, I arrived home around lunchtime. One of the first positive things that happened was a very needed haircut from a wonderful neighbor and longtime hair stylist, Marta. Marta and Miles came up and visited. I felt like a new man after the cut.

It wasn’t much later when Rachel and Scott brought over a wonderful home cooked meal for us to enjoy for dinner. All that I can say is a resounding thanks for the efforts of these neighbors.

I knew that I would have to adjust to my surroundings with changes in my mobility and that has gone well. Mary and the boys have been great in getting the house situated for my new move back. PawPaw came by this afternoon and updated us on MawMaw. She had dialysis today on a regular schedule and takes therapy at the Glancy Rehabilitation Center. She was so sweet in wanting me to have the Images of America edition of Duluth. This book is proving to be chockfull
of Duluth history.

The surgery was one week ago today. Glad to be alive!

Mike Green

Here it is, Saturday, and I did not get to check out of Northside Hospital. I was very eager to get back home, but it is always better to err with caution. I know that my doctors and their staff have my best interests at heart. It will also be best if we don’t have to deal with incision drainage at home. Tomorrow, I am told will be the day. Even if it is not, I will not be controlling that, either!

I feel good, wished I looked better, and am happy to be alive!

Mike
Saturday, 2:50 pm
September 17, 2011

There was excellent news to report today from my world today.

Physical therapy went well today. Heart rate issues did not preclude any therapy today. I was able to do steps and troll down some hallways. I was able to clean up a bit, so that I felt a little more human. My dad and Will came down to visit and I loved it.

Last night, I had three funny, loving ladies visit: Jamie Golemi, Traci Kuykendol and Dianne Bussey poured cheer into my room. Tonight, Merry Willis came a’visitin!’

I am so glad that I was able to as much as I did today. I am very happy that Mary and Will were able to get tickets for “Wicked” at the Fox Theater tonight.

Relief for many things…thank you, God!

The Fuzzy Side of Life

The post will be short, friends. One of the most important things to tell you is that pain meds are good!

I’m afraid that I can’t go too far in a report except to tell you that it is Day 2 post surgery and I am progressing well.

My doctor is happy with my progress and is considering letting me go home over the weekend.
Love to all!

After I was diagnosed with cancer, sitting easily became something of a quest. Upholstered furniture didn’t give me the support that my unstable back required. Lying on a sofa or in the bed was not approved SeizeTheDay behavior. I couldn’t be trusted on a high, backless kitchen barstool.

Mary suggested getting the Brumby Rocker back home from its latest duty at my parents’ house. I believe that it had been sent to Duluth for active convalescent duty with my father, Bill Green, after his hip replacement of 2008. It had served him well. The hip replacement had been very successful in helping PawPaw return to a high level of functioning. The old Brumby could deploy to Milton, Georgia for active duty with me. I am enjoying a great working relationship with the veteran rocker.

The Brumby is a robust rocking chair. It does not look shy, but gives a look of permanence and strength. There is beauty in the deep finish and graceful runners. Sitting empty in a room, it invites you to come introduce your body to a very commodious chair. A six footer, weighing over 200 pounds has ample room for a pillow or two to aid in his rocking, sitting, or nodding-off comfort.

We acquired our Brumby rocker before Evan was born in February of 1984. Mary’s mother, Sara Donley, gave it to us, since she thought we needed a good rocker to rock babies in. I am positive that NaNa was well-versed in just what made a good rocker succeed. It has served us well through Evan and Will’s babyhood, quieting our boys and their rockers about equally, I’d guess. I remember waking up in the chair with a sleeping baby boy, snug in a blanket, on more than one occasion. Fortunately, I do not recall awakening while baby boy crawled on the floor as Daddy took his repose in the Brumby.

The Brumby Rocker has a distinguished past. I believe that President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalyn Carter required the comforts of Brumby Rockers in the White House. Mr. and Mrs. Carter must have been keenly aware of the need for active deployment of Brumby Rockers for stress reduction in that hot box of politics.

The Brumby Chair Company, founded in 1875 in Marietta, Georgia, is the exclusive handcrafter of the Brumby Rocker. The rocker has been described as “an authentically American, yet distinctively Southern, collector’s item.” The rockers began to appear in post-civil war homes around North Georgia. Although, we no longer have it, I can almost swear that I heard my grandmother, Nellie Mae Mills Liddell, refer to the old painted white rocker on the screened porch of the new house, as the Brumby from the old plantation house that had been torn down.

The Brumby rocker became known worldwide. It was all about the quality of the design and manufacture. All of the rockers have been handcrafted for generations from Appalacian red oak and are famous for their durability. The company has a web site for further information. Here are some images from the company and from me.
Mike Green
September 11, 2011

September 11, 2011
8:47 am

About an hour earlier, I had a swell little pity party here at home. It’s awfully good that you missed its sorrier moments.

When two strong personalities clash over the most insignificant argument, and over-generalized, designed-to-cut statements are made that hurt, the recipe concocts a deadly serving of meanness. I dished that out to my son this morning. I tried get it back and throw it away, but I’m afraid that he and Mary got a taste of my bubbling, mean, resentment pie this morning.

I won’t reveal the contents. I will just work harder to be kinder. I will not overgeneralize a cutting remark until it takes on a life of its own and bears no resemblance to any truth. No supporting excuses are offered.

I am sorry for my mean spirit this morning, Will and Mary. Pardon the trash all up in my head.

Mike
September 11, 2011

September 10, 2011
12 Noon

The rocking chair that I attached to my morning entry is a tease for a little story that I plan to write today. Every picture tells a tale, right?

We love family associations that involve a little background history to the furniture and objects that collect around us. I can’t imagine living with just stuff of no meaning. If you are lucky enough to know the former owner of a piece of art or furniture, you have some provenance of the item. I like the word, provenance. It’s just a high faultin’ word for telling a tale.

More on the rocker to come…

September 10, 2011
7:30 am, Saturday morning

After my wee hour blog posting, I am looking forward to a delicious Mary Green breakfast!

The peaceable kingdom composed of Brody, Charles, and Chester have loyally presented themselves this morning. The personalities of the pets has allowed a bulldog and two cats to remain on friendly terms with each other, but more importantly, with their hosts.

The sun is shining into the gardens and the porch inviting me to walk, but the walking will keep until surgery and recovery makes it safer to do so. Here are some pictures of the porch inviting me to come outside and the rocker saying stay close.

September 10, 2011
12:55 am

There’s no place like home.

That phrase is always accompanied by a syrupy sweet and nostalgic mental movie soundtrack. It is scratchy from being frequently played upon the return from vacations or necessary trips away from a place that is part of my mental movie location, home.

Friday afternoon , home scared me.

Having been cocooned quietly in my hospital room for four days, moving around physically very little, I realized that I had slowed all of my movements down. I moved with a walker a few feet to a sink or restroom. I had iPad, TV remote, water bottle, phone and nurse call button within reach. I was comfortably confined and reasonably free from falling. I was unlikely to destabilize my spine further. I was losing weight and muscle tone. I was safe.

Transition time.

I had to go home because I needed to be released from Saint Joseph’s Hospital so that I could be admitted to Northside Hospital two days later on Sunday. I would be having back surgery 8:00 am, Monday morning at The Spine Center at Northside Hospital. This is the home base for my team of neurosurgeons, Peachtree Neurosurgeons.

Home caused concerns. I didn’t have every item I required within reach of my arm or a call button and I didn’t want to bother my family with requests. Having not walked or bent much for several days, I was weak. Afraid that I would fall and cause further damage, I quit thinking about the “what ifs” and walked into my home, mental soundtrack accompanied with walker-scrape.

I found a new perch upon which to rest and recreated a comfort zone. Looking around the gardens and the rooms, I moved slowly, but with a new flash of joy. The fear has left me and I blog away, thinking about that exotic mail from Tunis.

The goal of the surgery Monday is to stabilize the vertebra above and below the collapsed T9 vertebra. The T9 vertebra was the one destroyed by the isolated Plasmacytoma cancer lesion. After my eighteenth radiation treatment today, all of my doctors feel that most of the lesion has been destroyed. The surgery Monday will also take care of obvious, remaining lesion tissue, if present. The stabilization surgery will involve the installation of titanium bracing and the implantation of bone morphogenetic proteins as a collagen matrix that forms bone. The BMPs are a new product of recombinant DNA that has been a breakthrough for orthopedic applications. Back in 1994, my C3/C4 discectomy utilized a transplant of my pelvic bone between the vertebra. This painful component will not be used in 2011.

Dr. Max Steuer performed the 1994 discectomy on me when he was just establishing his reputation as one of the best, high profile neurologists in the Southeast. I was getting started as a new school principal in the Cherokee County Public Schools. Dr.Steuer went on to perform several high profile neurological procedures that received favorable notice in the media. He is the senior physician in Peachtree Neurosurgeons. Dr.Thomas Morrison, Dr. Steur’s colleague, will lead the operation Monday as this fusion surgery is his specialty.

I find it reassuring that seventeen years after an important surgery, there will be so much competence and technology at work during my new back surgery. I can only know that there is a guidance, direction, and care that has fallen into place and mystifies me. Deeply, I know, that the union of technology, hope, and a higher power have aligned to help me in a time of great need.

After, I settled for the evening at home, reassured that I was in my best place with the people and hope that nurture me, I went into the heaviest sleep that I have had in days. Awaking with some confusion, I decided to “send the mail” and write an updates post. It is late, but I am happy again, with the mental movie soundtrack of “There’s No Place Like Home” fading into the background noises of a house that I know so well.

Mike Green

September 8, 2011

A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel —
A Resonance of Emerald —
A Rush of Cochineal —
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head —
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morning’s Ride —

Emily Dickinson

This poem broke with any rules, or conventions, of what poetic verse should be in nineteenth century American literature. It still appears as an explosion of vivid images on a page. It takes flight, blurring color and bringing mystery from the flight of a hummingbird.

The days at Saint Joseph’s Hospital have been significant for me. Looking back over the past three days, I feel that so many of the word pictures from this little poem provide a backdrop of mental images for the times, events and decisions that have resulted here for me.

The scans lead to doctor assessments…The plasmacytoma on T9 is responding and shrinking well. The spine is unstable because of the missing majority of T9 and cracks in the vertebra above and below it. This has resulted in decreased mobility and increased pain.

Fusion Surgery to stabilize the spine will occur in the next few days and is a “big” surgery, no “easy Morning’s Ride,” of course. It involves the use of titanium screws and braces and a product that builds bone replacement.

The outlook for the stabilization is good. The recovery could involve some physical rehabilitation. I will have a filter for blocking potential bloodclots implanted tomorrow. I will get to check out of Saint Joseph’s Saturday, September 10th for a night at home.

The day was filled with images. Friends and family like Mary, Evan, Sarah and Merry visited and brought sweet treats.

“And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head–”

Mike Green