When Real Life Hits, Change Plans, Pick Up the Pieces, Keep Plugging

I’ve spent more time living abroad than I have been a US resident, so why now, fifty years later, after dozens of flights, was I scared to fly alone?

Walking through an airport after a traumatic brain injury (TBI), with the bright lights, loud sounds and noisy crowds, is like bouncing around in a pinball machine. Usually my Frenchman guided me through it, but Gerald washed his passport for the 2nd time in 4 years and his replacement did not arrive on time. Consequently, I flew solo from Geneva to Amsterdam to Minneapolis. After getting through customs, I fell into my daughter’s arms in Minnesota.

I did it! Euphoria was short lived.

With my health history, I never make plans ahead; I never know if my body can hold up for the event. Yet, this summer, I swore I’d return to Sterling to spend time with my 92-year-old mom and visit old friends from high school and college.

I never made it back home!

What happened? Another seizure? A stroke? Mega jet lag?

In the middle of the night, disoriented from sleep deprivation, I turned left instead of right coming out of the bathroom at Nathalie’s and tumbled. One misstep led to another bad fall and an ambulance ride to my least favorite place - the hospital.

Forty-eight hours after landing, I regained consciousness in Minneapolis’ major trauma center (HCMC). Bruised from head to toe, the ER doctor sent me for CT scan, MRI and X-rays, stitched my eyebrow, slipped my shoulder in a sling and strapped my neck in a Miami J immobilizing collar. Immediate action. Super efficient. Life saving steps.

As I lay on the gurney in the trauma bay, various specialists came in addressing my numerous injuries - subdural hematoma (brain bleed), scapula and acromion fracture (broken shoulder), broken rib, fractured skull - and explained they were admitting me to the hospital. I turned to my daughter and asked “are we going home now?”

Instead of taking me home (an absurd request now understanding the extent of my injuries) she called my sisters who swooped in bringing hope. They took turns holding my hand through the terrifying hospital nights. They advocated for explanations and requested more ice, more pain med, more pillows.

Meanwhile, my daughter communicated with my care team and translated medical jargon while trying to recover from the trauma of finding her mom in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs, and my husband fought for a space on a flight over the Big Pond.

A week later, with guarantees of round-the-clock care from my husband, daughter and sisters, I was released.

When I was finally well enough to look at Facebook, I saw photos of classmates gathered at the Railside Bar and Grill in Nelson and regretted the fun I’d missed.

I hold a soft spot in my heart for SHS class of ’75 and have memories frozen in snapshots of that interlude of adolescence.

After my high school non-reunion, I had planned on reuniting with “The Family,” my “sisters”, those besties sharing a townhouse during senior year of college. Though we never lived under the same roof again, we remained connected forever.

With such fun summer plans, why did I hang out in the hospital instead?

My French sister-in-law explained it best, “The angels were drunk the day you were born!”

Drunk angels or no, I never liked being told I can’t do things. If I couldn’t make it to my reunions, I was determined to get to the cabin and the healing waters of the lake.

The challenge? So many restrictions? “Don’t turn your head. Don’t raise your right arm. Don’t lift anything heavier than a coffee cup.” My neck brace, worn 24/7 could get wet, but then changing the pads required two people and an engineering degree. Oh, and I had to sit still. Not my forte.

“Biking, swimming and skiing are out of the question! But can I walk in the lake?” I asked. The doctor never answered, just chuckled.

My family made sure my wish came true. With my chauffeur at the wheel, I laid flat in the backseat squeezed between a cooler, guitar and beach towels.

When we arrived at the cabin, I stepped off shore and waded up to my knees, my waist, my shoulders. Then weightlessly, I slid one foot in front of the other.

With pain lancing through my skull and spine, I walked on water.

“You can do it!” I shouted to the heavens. My dad’s voice echoed back from the timbers, “You can!”

Every evening, as stars sparkled over still waters, I curled up on the couch listening to the stories of my ancestors. I drifted to sleep, holding mom’s hand, cocooned in a circle of love everlasting. Back in nature, surrounded by family, I processed my losses with hope renewed. Ready to begin my long journey to healing again.

Family helps with first walk

Wanted A Dog – Got A Chamois Instead

My best friend Skippy died the year I moved to Europe. Ever since I lost my childhood sidekick decades ago, I have longed to own a dog!

But ze Frenchman was adamant, “Dog or me!”

Well, that’s a no-brainer!

I’ll never forfeit my number one chef, chauffeur, work-out partner, hiking buddy, electro-technician and soulmate for a four-legged friend.

My pleas for a dog fell on deaf ears!

I got a pet chammy instead.

One day I looked out my window; there he was in all his majesty.

He hangs out in my backyard, which is actually the side of a mountain.

What’s a chamois?

Chamois are medium-sized, goat antelope, a bit larger than deer. Native to the mountains of central and southeastern Europe, they stand up to 31 inches tall at the shoulder and weighs 25–50 kg (55–110 pounds)

White contrasting marks on the sides of the head with pronounced black stripes below the eyes, a white rump, and a black stripe along the back are distinct, identifying characteristics. Even more telling both sexes possess vertical horns that hook sharply backward at the ends.

These quintessential mountain dwellers can jump 2 m (6.6 ft) vertically into the air or over a distance of 6 m (20 ft). Chamois, perfectly adapted for their challenging alpine home, can scale the near-vertical rock face. Exceptional climbers, their strong fore and hind legs give them great jumping power. Their split hooves, with sharp outer edges and a soft inner section, provide perfect grip on wet rocks and ice.

Like deer, chamois change colors to blend into their habitat. Their rich brown-colored coat of fur turns light grey in winter. As members of the Bovidae family, their lineage traces back millions of years to common ancestors of cattle, goats, and sheep. Their distribution spans several major European mountain ranges and extends into parts of Asia.

The agile acrobats of the Alps hold a special place in the folklore and traditions of mountain communities. Seen as symbols of agility, freedom, and the untamed spirit of the mountains, chamois have a tuft of hair from the back of their neck, called the gamsbart (chamois “beard”). It is traditionally worn as a decoration on hats throughout the alpine countries.

Chamois are social animals. Females and their young live in herds of up to 15 to 30 individuals; however, adult males tend to live solitarily for most of the year. They can run at 50 kilometers per hour (31 mph).

Their milk and meat are good, but they are best known for their hides. The soft, pliant skin of the chamois is made into the original “chammy,” or “shammy,” leather. It is used for cleaning, buffing, and polishing because it is smooth, absorbent and won’t scratch,

On a cold day in April, when the last snow melted and the sun slinked behind the mountainside, I bid farewell to my favorite four-legged friend.

In Europe, chamois disappear into higher levels to spend their summers above the tree line. They prefer high-altitude environments between 800 and 2,500 meters. But when winter rolls around, they’ll come back down to lower elevations to live in forests areas dominated by pines.

Fortunately at about the same time the chamois fade into the clouds, farmers here haul truckloads of cows up to graze in lush green mountain meadows for the summer season. I will miss seeing my favorite chammy, so now I’m adopting a cow! Ssshhh Don’t tell ze Frenchman.

Surviving Driving in Europe’s Mountains

My dad, once a driver’s ed instructor, taught me to drive on the backroads of Illinois and Wisconsin. I’ve never had a collision as a driver, but as a passenger, I have been in major accidents, one for each time period of my life from adolescence, to college, to the pro’s, to living abroad.

I thought passing my drivers license in Paris France a decade after my basketball career ended in a car accident was the scariest thing I’d ever done. But getting behind the wheel after a major brain surgery in Switzerland takes balls.

Four decades after a traumatic brain injury, I have to learn how to drive again. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I take my driving lessons in the Jura Mountains where we now live.

The drive from Nyon, down by the lake, is a six and a half mile climb on a treacherous road with sixty curves, six of which are hairpin turns.

73 injured and 4 dead

marks the number of accidents

Before we begin the ascent, a sign warns that 73 were injured and 4 people died in the last decade. At every sharp turn, road markers remind driver where an accident or death occurred on the Route Blanche aka the corkscrew.

On weekends youth play motorcycle madness, a type of Russian roulette where they attempt to see who can beat the record for the fastest up or down.

If that isn’t challenging enough for other vehicles, the rugged route is also a favorite for hardcore bicyclists.

Luckily, I can practice my skills on the route d'Arzier, the other road from town that has wider turns and loops through villages.

“Allez, allez … faster!" Gerald insists.

“I know,” I answer, “I am going at a speed where I feel in control.”

“Okay, Pat, but we haven’t left the parking lot yet!”

When I turn onto the highway, clutching the steering wheel, Gerald insists that I loosen up and use finger tip control. I hit the brakes before every curve, lean into every corner.

“Focus straight ahead. Don’t look at cars coming the opposite direction!” Gerald barks. “If you keep swerving into the field, you’ll hit a cow!”

Invariably as soon as I see another vehicle approaching, I jerk the wheel and hit the brakes, as if I am on Mr. Toad’s wild ride at a Disney park.

“Don’t cross your hands when turning the wheel, you could lose control,”
he reminds me,“If you squeeze the steering wheel any harder, you’ll break it. Besides, it's is illegal in this country and could cost you CHF 120 a ($135) fine.”

“Relax. Lean back. You’re sitting on the dashboard!”

Arrhhh.

As I swerve around curves, cling to the mountain side and try to maintain the 50 mile an hour speed limit, I scream, “Wheeee, I feel like a race car driver!”

Obstacles abound: logging trucks, farm vehicles, train crossroads, pedestrian crosswalks, motorcycles, buses, cars, campers and bicycles.

But the greatest distraction is the incredible view. The spectacular Swiss panorama makes it difficult to focus on the highway. To my right the snow-covered Alps rise above Lake Geneva. Mont-Blanc, the majestic crowned jewel, reigns over the land. If I look to my left, cows graze in green pastures and golden rapeseed fields wave in the wind.

Honestly, I don’t think I will ever master driving in Europe.

I’ll keep practicing, but the world will be safer, if I just ride shotgun daydreaming, window gazing, writing stories about my sublime Switzerland.

The Fine Art of Cleaning à la Swiss

When my sister, a neatnik, first visited us in Switzerland decades ago, she was delighted by the orderliness.

“Wow the streets are so clean you eat off of them!”

Almost.

Switzerland is the only place I know where sanitation workers regularly sweep the streets, pick up litter and blow leaves away from fountains and monuments.

The sight of the bright orange clad service technique (technical branch) brushing leaves off the forest-lined highway leading to our village was so remarkable, I wanted to stop the car and snap a photo.

Unfortunately, tidiness may be a lost cause for a Pig-Pen, pack rat like me. The Swiss inherit the “clean gene” as a birthright. My sister was the only McKinzie born with that chromosome .

In Switzerland garbage is verboten. Litter taboo.

Citizens pay a trash tax and also must discard household waste in special designed bags that cost 3 dollars a piece. Most towns and cities have garbage collection service, but in our village, there is no garbage pick up for people living in chalets and single family dwellings. Most residents carry their rubbish to dumpsters, housed in mini chalet-like sheds, dispersed throughout town.

Our state of the art recycle center is so efficient, it could become a tourists attraction. Surrounded by pine trees, our disposable hub could win awards in cleanliness and sanitation. With the Swiss flare for organization, waste materials are separated into labeled compartments. Citizens drive to our wooden-framed building carved out of mountainside to recycle bigger items of glass (by color) wood, paper, electronics, batteries, metals, plastics (two categories), aerosols, paints and oils.

Litter is extinct. The propre en ordre “clean and orderly” is ingrained as part of one’s civic duty. Training starts at a young age. Even tiny tots learn how to pick up trash and recycle. In front of our primary school, blue, green, red and black colored Crayolas-shaped bins help teach children to discard plastics, papers, and disposables items in separate containers.

Switzerland is the only country I am aware of where the city’s technical department employees regularly sweep sidewalks, blow leaves, pick up litter and wash the lamp posts’ light fixtures.

Snow plowing in our mountain village is also impressive. With every fresh snowfall, we can hear plows out at 4 am to clear the streets.

The government is fully committed to conserving energy and preserving the environment. They require new homes and buildings to use renewable energy sources like solar panels, heat pumps and pellets. Natural gas and oil furnaces are banned.

Get this! 24 Heures (Swiss newspaper) recently reported 40% percent of its residents even clean their homes before the cleaning lady arrives! No kidding!

This country looks like a postcard. Tidy Swiss chalets with flowered window boxes and painted shutters dot the countryside. Villages, like ours in the Jura Mountains, offer gorgeous, pristine views of the woods, Lake Geneva and the Alps.

Natural resources are precious resources and Swiss folks do their best to keep it that way.

The sheer beauty of the land inspires people who live or visit here to respect nature and protect the spectacular vista.

As for me, my house remains a cluttered mess, but I have learned to automatically remove my shoes before entering any one else’s home.

Easter Tradition in Normandy

Though Gérald and I will dine tête a tête this Sunday, our hearts are filled with memories of holidays past when our children were younger and we were surrounded by family. As with every celebration in France, Easter begins and ends à table.

Normandy is appreciated the most at mealtime when land and sea are perfectly marinated. Mamie cooks the traditional Easter favorite, leg of lamb. At the head of the table, Papie carves the tender meat fresh from a newborn romping on the rolling green hillside only days before. But back up, each course is an event worth savoring.

toasting champagne

First a toast of champagne and a light aperitif. Next is naturally an egg based, a soufflé as light as cotton candy, followed by a platter of seafood: shrimp, crab legs, clams, oysters, something for everyone’s palate.

The main lamb course is always served with flageolet, a mini lima bean, that reminds me of the word flatulence and of course, bean jokes inevitably enter the conversation, sending the children into gales of laughter. Mamie always has a special dish for every family member, so a garden of vegetables -beans, broccoli, potatoes, spinach, tomatoes - also grows out of the linen tablecloth.

The children eat with the adults where they risk being reprimanded to sit up straight. However, I never notice table manners; my fork and knife are usually in the wrong hands. Softhearted Mamie excuses the grandkids early and they scamper upstairs to read Lucky Luke or Astérix comic books until called for dessert.

Each course is accompanied by wine, a light white Burgundy for the seafood starters and then a heavier Bordeaux for the meat and cheese. Every big meal is followed by a green salad and cheese platter with triangles of creamy local cheeses like Camembert and Pont L’Evêque.

family feast

Dessert always includes seasonal fruits, which in the spring means luscious strawberries. Like little elves, the children reappear to gobble up berries dipped in fresh cream. The kids magically disappear again when they smell the coffee brewing. Papie ceremoniously opens the antique Normand hutch and pulls out his bottle of Calvados offering, “a little taste.” True Normands swear that the fiery apple brandy aids the digestion. During weddings and christenings, the “trou Normand,” a shot served on sorbet in the middle of the feast, is customary.

boy with easter basket

Throughout each course a lively repartee of sarcasm, word play and arguments ensue that to a soft-spoken Norwegian American sounds like verbal abuse, but is only part of the French art de vivre and their love of language and debate.

Just when you think your belly will burst, Mamie rings a bell and the children race downstairs, for in France, bells, not bunnies, deliver eggs. As a token of mourning for crucified Christ, church bells remain silent from Good Friday until Easter Sunday. On Easter, when the chimes ring again, children rush outside to see the bells fly home to Rome, after dropping chocolate Easter eggs from the sky.

The children crowd onto the wrought iron balcony to find eggs tucked behind the potted geraniums and tulips. While they devour the chocolate figurines, the adults, too, savor a delicacy from the local chocolate shop . Everyone moans of stomachaches and swears they will never eat again, but a few hours later after a stroll by the sea, we are à table again discussing the favorite French topic, food.

Happy Birthday to Me, E.T.

Oh dear, how do I tell my 91-year-old mother that she gave birth to an extraterrestrial being? What else could explain my extraordinary quirks, peculiar ailments, and uncanny ability to survive against all odds?

I’ve recovered from accidents that no mortal should have survived. I suffer from maladies so bizarre that no one has ever heard of them before.

Then again, how many people survived a rabid skunk bite as a toddler and lived to tell the tale?

My latest episode involved the right side of my mouth festering until my gum line resembled the embers of a dying fire. A thread under my lip pulled my gum away from my tooth, exposing the root.

My Swiss dentist pried open my mouth and exclaimed in awe, “Très intéressant! I’ll do a frenectomy!”

Frenectomy?

In the past, when diagnosed with other strange ailments, I had no idea what my American, French, German, Greek and Swiss doctors were talking about.

I’ve always been different.

After all, I was born in Sandwich.

“Which kind? Baloney!” friends teased.

According to my mother, I was the only planned baby of her four children.

Good grief! Who in their right mind would have planned to birth an extraterrestrial being?

Fortunately, back in Sandwich in 1957, I was a bargain baby! The doctor who delivered me charged my folks only 50 bucks.

Since then, I’ve cost a fortune!

Braces, glasses, orthodontia, orthotics, and umpteen surgeries. Disintegrating discs, temporal mandible dysfunction, neuroborreliosis. I had strange conditions before they became common knowledge. My treatments, considered controversial quackery at the time, have become part of standard care, like chiropractic and TMJ dental treatment.

Why me?

Blame it on that rabid skunk bite!

My poor mother! How did she survive my childhood?

My poor Frenchman! How does he endure my adulthood?

After each calamity, he picked up the pieces, paid medical bills and waited for me to heal. With his help, I am still ticking, albeit slowly.

Today, doctors suspect I was born with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS). EDS? Huh? It’s part of a group of genetic connective tissue disorders, which could help explain
my proprioception issues and propensity for falls.

We’re all unique beings, trying to move forward, stay strong, and beat the odds.

No one chooses their family, the genes they inherit, the beliefs they assimilate, or where they grow up. No one can predict what physical, emotional, and mental challenges they’ll face.

Wouldn’t it be easier if we didn’t see ourselves only as Democrats or Republicans, Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, Indians, Australians, Muslims, Jews, or Christians?

Could we live better harmony if we didn’t identify so much with one religion, nationality, race, or ethnicity, but more as tiny specks in the universe?

What if we all came from somewhere beyond Earth?

How’s this for conspiracy theory?

What if we’re all aliens?

Who knows?

I am here still questioning, still yearning, still learning.

Time is running out. I may never get it right. For now, I exist in a state of grace, warts and all, grateful to be here even during these troubled times.

Thank you, my beloved mother, for bringing me into existence and guiding my path!

Merci mille fois mon courageux français for staying by my side.

Happy Birthday to me, E.T.