When Will I Long For Snow

We made the decision 8 days ago.

We've been talking about it for years. It only makes sense, really. We have a beautiful place in Fort Myers. No, it's not on the beach. Four miles from the Gulf. And every winter, we say, "Someday" with a dreamer's whisper.

Someday, we won't rent it out to Snowbirds and hope they don't use an ink pen near the beige leather sofa.

Someday, we'll escape this God forsaken land of Indiana winters and motor our way south just after Christmas.

Someday, we'll head back north just at the time of year where Indiana becomes a beautiful blooming, sweet smelling, land that smells of ripe tomatoes, sweet corn in the field and where the golden finches sheds their drab colors of winter for that bright sunny coat of feathers.

Someday, we can enjoy the place that feels a little like home for only a week or two each year and some other couple settles in for a couple of months while we slip on the ice and curse the dreary February days.

The decision was made last week when I was driving into work thinking about Bob.

Six years ago we were closing on this new coach home. I was just recovering from double whammy health issues and starting with a new client on a long term project. Bob was traveling down to Fort Myers getting the place in shape, buying decor. Yeah, I can trust him with that, we actually nearly always agree in decorating. I think he has a bit of Queer Eye in him.

The builder had not thoroughly cleaned the tile floor of the grout. We had the furniture delivered the day after closing so we didn't have time for them to come back in with their industrialize-size cleaner. Bob scrubbed the tile floors for four days. Yeah, he also cleans.

When he got home he began complaining about his ankle. Months went by and he sees a few docs. They think he hurt his Achilles' tendon. More months, still issues. More months still issues. About three years ago he had me look at his right calf. I had not realized that his right calf had grossly deteriorated. He went back to the docs, they did an MRI of his spine, the neurologist thought his calf muscle had been destroyed by the injury cutting off the blood supply. We didn't ask for a copy of the MRI. Big mistake.

One quack said he needed to cut the muscle in half and reattach it. I'm not sure what that would have accomplished other than maybe the doc wanted to buy a new boat. Thankfully Bob didn't take his advice.

About 10 months ago Bob realized it wasn't just his calf that had deteriorated but also he could now be called a half assed man and he couldn't take offense. Obviously THIS wasn't the result of an ankle injury.

Back to the docs, another MRI. This time we got copies of all the records. The MRI indicated something about a spinal tumor not have grown much from the MRI from three years ago.

Yep, he had a tumor on his spine found in an MRI three years ago and we were never told. Does that happen nowadays? I cannot for the life of me understand why the neurologist didn't think it was important enough to tell us. Sure it's benign, but it's in his spine and his leg is deteriorating.

She did an EMG on the muscles in his legs and said they were very sick. At one point she said dead. Not something you want to hear. Her best guess was that maybe a nerve in the L5 area (low back) was being pinched from a small extrusion in a disk. She sent him on to a spinal surgeon to get his opinion. When Bob mentioned the neurologist the spine guy noticeably kept his opinion of her not looking into the tumor three years ago to himself.

The tumor appears to be about the size of the end of your little finger, but it appears to be blocking most of the spinal canal. And it's unlikely he will get any of the damaged muscles back. They have been starved for too long.

They have to cut out his L1 and L2, remove the tumor and screw the bones back together. The hospital stay is three to four days, so this isn't a minor surgery. In all this time, Bob has never had any pain,just a slowly progressing limp which is starting to affect his ability to stay upright.

We'd like to say that we realize that life is too short, but in truth, we never realize it. It has always been about "someday". I realized the other morning that its highly likely in a couple years we will need to move from our two story home here and downsize to a ranch. And we may need to decide whether we need to keep our beloved place in Fort Myers that we don't get to enjoy.

So it's time. It's just been hard to walk away from a steady income from clients, to say either I work from home or I only work a few months a year. But realistically we need to call it now or never get to enjoy what we have while we are still healthy and able.

Surgery is scheduled a week from Friday.