After spending a wild weekend camped out in the cold and rain, our boy returns: the hill, blossom at the top

Before my surgery, Margie would spend Monday through Thursday in Anchorage babysitting the grandsons. In time, both Jobe and Kalib found slots in daycare and then she was just babysitting Lynxton, for the most part.

Since my surgery, Lynx has been spending Monday through Thursday out here with us. He is just a delight to have around. So good-natured, growling happily so much of the time, very seldom ever fussing, almost always pleasant and happy.

We have gotten so used to having him here and are enjoying his company so much, that we have begun to see him as "our boy."

On Thursday, his parents picked him up and took him home. Then on Friday the whole family - Jacob, Lavina and the boys all went camping down at Seward.

All through the weekend, they sent us little text updates complete with pictures. It showed our three grandsons having a great time in the cold and in the rain, gathered together in the tent, drinking hot chocolate, moseying about the Alaska Railroad.

It was nice, but still the house felt kind of empty without little Lynx around. Then yesterday evening Margie drove us to Peters Creek, we met Lavina there and she transferred Lynx from her car to our car and then Margie drove us back home.

Once again, the house is filled with the sound of his happy growls. Once again he spends many happy moments sitting on Margie's lap, sometimes drinking formula, sometimes eating cookies or yogurt treats. Often he looks at me and smiles, he spends time in his little laundry basket playpen from where he also frequently smiles at me.

I wish I could pick him up and hold him, but even though I am now making good progress and feeling a bit better every day that is still beyond my capabilities.

Still, it is good to have him back here. It makes the house feel more complete. Lynx is our boy now. He can go home and visit his mom, dad and brothers, and they can come here and visit him. But make no mistake he is our boy now.

Margie is aware of what I just wrote and is scolding me now. "Don't say that!" she chides, "His mommy will come here and pick him up and take him home and never bring him back!"

Nah. She won't do that.

I take three stabs back toward normality: Abby's Home Cooking, man on mower, Metro Cafe

I flat out missed the picture right after Margie and I stepped into Abby's Home Cooking and took a seat at the one table with the chairs designed in such a way as to make them the most comfortable place in the restaurant for someone in my condition to sit. I had hoped this table would be open but it is a popular table and from outside I could see the restaurant was packed for breakfast and so it seemed unlikely - but it was the only table open. Right after we sat down, Abby came over, gave me a huge hug and then did the same to Margie.

That was the picture, but I was not prepared and could not get my phone out of my pocket in time to take it.

So I took this one instead. Margie ordered a western omelette and I ham, two eggs over easy, hash browns and two small pancakes. My plate was heaping, but, in keeping with my doctors orders to gain a bit of weight back and to eat more protein I consumed it all. It was delicious and satisfying and I feel confident that I was at least an ounce or two or three more as a result.

I had not been to Abby's since July 8, the day I came in to tell her my surgery had gone well, I was doing good, expected to heal rapidly and to order a small plate of eggs and hash browns. It was later that same day that I coughed, blew out my suture and then had to go back to the hospital for emergency surgery the next morning.

After Abby's, I took a real walk, not in the halfway, the driveway or around the house but out on the roads, all the way down to Wards Street. I found this guy mowing the grass alongside the road outside the shop where he and his partners build aluminum boats and do other metal working. I don't know exactly, but I suspect that round trip I probably walked over a mile. Not much for the normal me, but.considering that earlier in the week it was all I could do to hobble up and down the length of the hallway a few times, it was a vast improvement.

In the afternoon, Margie drove us to Metro Cafe, where I had last visited Saturday, May 7, to tell Carmen and staff how well my surgery had gone. Sadly for me, Carmen had taken the day off, but I did see Jackie and Shoshana,the young writer. Different readers had put smoothies into my mind, so, instead of coffee, I ordered a wild berry smoothie.

It was superb. Having been laid up for so long, I just wanted to go and go. Mostly, I wanted to work, to sit at my computer and put things together. I did sit at my computer for a bit, but it still hurts me to sit there and I began to fear I might get carried away, overdo things and set myself back a bit, so I stopped. I returned to the recliner that has also become my bed as well and did a little work on my iPad, but it is not as efficient a platform for doing heavy work as is my desktop. I then grew tired and stopped.

I will see what I can do today. I do not plan to post tomorrow. I have another task I hope to complete this weekend - one I planned to do weeks ago but couldn't. I am not sure I can yet, but I want to devote any energy, strength and endurance I can spare to that task.

My eyelids have suddenly become heavy. When this happens, I have no choice but to let them close. So I will. It is just half-an hour past noon. I do not want to sleep, I want to work. Usually when my eyes force me to let them close, I fall asleep - for an hour, two, three... If so, I will yield to it.

As Margie drives me to my doctor appointment, the image of the grizzly appears at the window - I now expect to get better and better; I become a case study

As Margie drove me to My doctor appointment in Anchorage yesterday afternoon, this tourist bus passed us and it was going fast - way faster than you would ever expect a tourist bus to go. It was good the bus driver was speeding, though, otherwise we would not have found the image of this bear peering through our window at us. Dangerous though they truly be, grizzly bears are good creatures and even though this one was just a commercially-exploited picture printed upon the side of a tourist bus, I decided to look at it as a good omen.

Soon thereafter, Margie, Lynx and I found ourselves in the examining room with Dr. O'Malley, my surgeon, who had just returned from his vacation. Dr. O'Malley felt badly and sad about all that I had faced since I last saw him. He had not expected anything like this to happen to me. He said there had been a few other cases recently among other colon surgery patients, apparently treated by multiple doctors, where patients had suffered setbacks and complications similar to mine. He told me he and some other doctors were going to make a case study of me and them and seek to come up with procedures to spare future patients these little agonies.

Beyond that, he said that all appeared to be well in the fundamental surgery - the colon removal - and healing. The suture, which became infected early on and then dehisced, blew apart and then after the emergency surgery to put it all back together again still kept coming undone, has likely been the source of all the complications and problems. Now, the sutures are staying tight and appear to be ready told hold throughout the duration.

I have written about the device he implanted in my abdomen after the emergency surgery to serve as a brace to prevent me from dehiscing again, should I again cough violently. I have written about the four poker-chip like buttons placed as anchors to that device in a box shape upon my tummy (yes, I did take a picture of the this, with the chasm of my surgical wound running through it, but the picture is just too gross for me to post here). That device had loosened up a bit and so the doctor who stood in for O'Malley while he was on vacation tightened it a bit at the beginning of this week. My pain then rose to the most excruciating levels I have experienced during any of my out-of-hospital moments since this ordeal began.

To reduce the pressure, Dr. O'Malley removed one of those buttons. I could feel a slight difference almost immediately, but the overall pain remained undaunted - yet I felt a huge sense of optimism that I had reached the verge of true and steady improvement and the worst elements of this ordeal had fallen behind me. O'Malley told me he plans to remove the other three buttons in one week and relief should then be almost complete.

Oddly enough, the circle of flesh upon which the removed button had been anchored stung and burned in a most maddening way throughout the rest of the day and into the night, but I awoke this morning to find the overall level of pain greatly reduced. Pain reamins, but at much more bearable level.

Best yet, I feel a strong sense of optimism that this time I have finally turned the last corner - that now any setbacks will be small and part of the normal up and down of recovery and I will soon be up and about, working, shooting.

I have lost 33 pounds. The doctor was a little dismayed about that. He thinks I can let most of that weight go, but wants me not only to stop losing weight but to gain back at least a few pounds. He wants me to eat more - especially more protein.

I am happy to oblige.

In some ways, it scares me to express such optimism and causes me to look for wood to knock on, but it is time to let optimism prevail.

I need to blog something new, so maybe I will turn to something old

I fear this blog is becoming a pretty boring place. Day after day, I mostly post one iPhone picture along with a few words about my latest trial as I work my way through what has become a much more complicated recovery process than it was supposed to be. This has just got to get boring after a while. In fact, my readership numbers bear this out. Except for a significant upward spike for my "800 Sarah's Way" post, the numbers have been on a steady decline.

I have a remedy in my mind. It is something that I have actually wanted to do for a long time, but have never gotten around to doing. In November, I published my last Uiniq magazine.

There are many stories and photographs in it, in previous Uiniqs and in the many other publications I have done over the years that I have long wanted to rework for online publication. Perhaps if I could publish a couple of those stories here every now and then, instead of just lamenting about what I am going through, it might liven-up this blog a bit. At the moment, the task is too difficult for me. It will require that I sit at my desk for significant periods of time and sort through various hard drives, do some real picture editing, write new text to fit the blog format and so on.

Yesterday, I had to do a little task that could only be done sitting at my desk on my computer. So I sat down, turned it on and did that task, but after sitting at my computer for about 20 minutes, I was left in such pain inflicted by the sitting position that I had to come back into the house, take my place on my recliner, adjust it into the most comfortable position possible, and then just lay perfectly still still for an hour or two to let the pain subside.

I feel certain all this extra pain is being caused by Monday's tightening of the brace apparatus my surgeon implanted in my gut during my second surgery. My surgeon is back now and I see him this afternoon. I hope he might be able to do something to loosen it just a bit, and ease this pain. If so, then maybe by next week I will be able to sit at my desk for longer periods of time and do a little work. I hope so, because in so many ways, I need to get back to work.

Shadow me shuns the road and takes his walk around the house

As I have noted, I am under doctor's orders to walk, which is something I like to do anyway. During my three stays in the hospital, I would get up and walk laps around the nurses station a few times a day. At home I have been taking little walks down Sarah's Way to Seldon and then down Seldon to one or two intersections and then I turn around and come back.

But after I returned from my doctor's visit on Monday in such excruciating pain, I could not do it. I could not walk on the road. It was all I could do to hobble down the hallway and back. I could not sit, lie down, or get up without help and even then it was very hard. I could not raise nor lower the toilet seat. I even had to be isolated from Jim, as I could not take even the lightest contact with him. It hurt just to talk.

Late in the day, I managed to step outside and walk the length of the driveway to Sarah's way and then turn around and come back. It was hard, but I knew I had to walk for the good of my digestive system and so I did it.

Yesterday, the pain was still great but I was a little better than Monday so I walked five laps around the house a couple of different times. Shadow Me followed.

Today, the pain has eased off a bit more and I believe it to be waning, but it is raining which limits what I can do outdoors. Still, I walk out there a little bit but Shadow Me does not come along. He hides out, ducking into the shadow of the overcast. A brand-new sort of pain is rising in my stomach, but I hope and think it may just be an after effect of the Milk of Magnesia that I took before I went to bed last night. It worked very well, and seemed to do so gently.As of today, my surgeon, Dr. O'Malley, is back from his vacation. I have an appointment to see him tomorrow afternoon. I hope something good comes of it.