Carla and I did our protocol and then our Morning Offering. Kathleen came by around mid-morning and took a look at Carla’s wound and gave Carla some relief on her catheter. Kathleen is such a blessing to us. She has been our visiting nurse for most of two years now and we rely on her for all kinds of supplies and support as well as her genuine friendship. Around mid-day a physical therapist came by to evaluate Carla and what kind of exercises that she might be able to do. Unfortunately in her process she injured Carla in the groin area and we agreed it was a little too soon to expect Carla to do much more than the walking that she is now doing to move back and forth between the beds in her bedroom and the living room.

I spent time outside getting our new cellar door painted with two coats and then I began working on the last of three flower beds around the side fish pond. I enjoy putting the different shapes together and am seldom pleased with the work while I do it, but when I come  back later to look at it I like it a lot better.

Gary reported a busy day in the L/L office:

• Left the mountains on Sunday after spending a great weekend with Steve and Trish (and seeing a momma black bear and her three cubs), stopped by a town in eastern Tennessee to visit two L/L-related friends, Seph and Sarah, the former in charge of the Glossary project, the latter volunteering to lead the prison ministry.
• Rewrote the basic blueprint of the prison ministry from scratch, and sent it to L/L's new volunteer, Sarah, who has graciously offered to take the reins of this service sorely in need of good stewardship. So grateful to have Sarah on board!
• Processed Homecoming material
• Wrote accountant
• Corresponded with Terry
• Processed, prepared, and shipped book orders
• Received a transcript of an interview with Carla from Wendy. It was perfect save that the speakers were not differentiated in the text. Asked Wendy if she could revise. Fortunately, she replied in the affirmative.
• Received a transcript from Jeremy for the Homecoming 2012 talks. Thank you Jeremy and Wendy.   
  

During the evening we enjoyed a block of NCIS. When it came time to check Carla’s wound area of her skin graft we were saddened to see that in a mere few hours the bottom part of the wound which had scabbed over was now oozing ominous fluids once again. We did our best to clean it and put more silvadean crème on it. We will send photos to the plastic surgeon tomorrow and we hope to see him soon as this situation is getting worse fast and needs some attention.

I said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Carla and I got her morning protocol done and treated her wound area of the skin graft. It does slowly seem to be getting better. The Clinitron bed and silvadean crème and lots of positive affirmations are our best treatments right now. She was able to take a couple of breaks from the constant vibration of the Clinitron bed and hang out on her old bed in the living room for a couple of hours.

I went outside a couple of times this afternoon and finished transplanting impatiens in the old herb garden in the back yard and then I dug up the area that is always under the Homecoming tent and got rid of the violets there. I plan to put a variety of colors of petunias there and though we cultivate violets for a green mulch in most of our other flower beds they just don’t look right with petunias in that area.

Our evening was spent watching the current inductions into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That gave us a chance to see a lot of our favorite artists from over the years. There are a lot of good new rock & roll musicians around these days and it is good to see the genre flourishing, but there really aren’t any great superstars around in the new folks like The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bruce Springsteen and the like. Carla said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Carla and I did our protocol and got her ready for her day. Her new Clinitron healing bed is both a blessing and a curse. The air is constantly being blown up from the base of the bed and moves the artificial sand against the one sheet between it and Carla’s body. So Carla’s body is constantly vibrating and she is constantly feeling the air pass around her body and this air cools her off while the overall effect of the bed is to create heat and make the rest of the room hot—and noisy. This constant vibration seems to be working well to relieve the damaged suture area but it is also wreaking some havoc to Carla’s bladder. So Carla takes an assisted walk twice a day to the living room to recline on her old off-loading air mattress and take a break from the vibrations.

This Clinitron bed is unique and  expensive. It would cost $35,000 to buy and it takes forever to get it through Medicare. Carla would not qualify since it is usually reserved for those who are bed bound. So we decided to rent it and were able to make a burst of  phone calls on Thursday and Friday which resulted in our getting the bed in one day. As expensive and difficult to deal with as this bed is it is the road to healing Carla’s skin graft. Hopefully another three weeks or so will see the healing that we are looking for.

I was able to make a quick trip to Avalon to get another load of creek stones that I will use to complete the retaining walls around the side fish pond. I got back in time to watch the Preakness with Carla. No Triple Crown winner again this year!

We enjoyed a block of NCIS for most of the day and then we ended our day watching Austin City Limits where Arcade Fire was playing. They were an interesting group with many layers to their sound and they even had a melody tucked away in all that sound. Carla said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Carla and I did her protocol and got her pillows fluffed for what may be the last time. We spent most of today completing the task we began yesterday: getting all the people necessary to sign off on a new healing bed for Carla and getting that bed delivered. After a slew of phone calls spreading out in all directions the bed was delivered about 3:30 in the afternoon.

We cleared out Carla’s old bed and put it and her in the living room as the guys delivered the new Clinitron healing bed. This bed is made for people who are bed bound or who have had recent skin grafts. It combines air which moves very quickly from the bottom of the bed and moves 600 lbs. of artificial sand beads and makes it look like water before you put the cover sheet on it and then your regular flat sheet before lying upon it. It gives Carla a constant massage from her lumbar wound on down to her feet.

This bed is very noisy and therefore the television needs to be turned up so we live in a much louder environment now. Also, the cats can’t come into the room for as long as this bed is here because  one claw puncturing the air pockets that surround the bed will cause all the sand to spew out onto the floor and it’s beach party time. We are sad to have to keep the kitties out and they aren’t real pleased either, but we are glad to go through all this if we can get the healing on Carla’s skin graft from this bed.

While waiting for the bed to be delivered I was able to get some dahlias, coleus, portulaca, and blood wart flowers transplanted. Our evening was spent getting Carla  settled in to her new bed and watching television with the sound turned up as high as it would go. If our hearing survives this type of therapy and the therapy works we will be happy campers indeed. I said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Carla and I did her protocol and got her pillows fluffed so she could be more comfortable today. We took a look at her skin graft after she spent her first night on her left side for the first time in three weeks. The plastic surgeon said that he thought the skin flap could take the pressure now and that she needed to get off her left side because the pressure there had caused the sutures to come apart and put that area in jeopardy. He felt the area was savable by putting Silvadean crème on it three times per day. But this morning we looked at the entire area and noticed a general reddening of the area and a spreading of the necrosis from the damaged suture area. It looked like everything was in worse shape from her new position. After trying some creative solutions of positions we decided to try for a new type of mattress.

 There are two mattresses that are better than what Carla is on now and one stands out as the type that patients are usually put on after skin transplant surgery and it is called the Clinitron which is a combination of the air therapy and sand, somehow! Medicare won’t pay for this because it is usually prescribed for people who are bed bound and cannot walk at all. It will be expensive to rent for the next couple of months but we need to give Carla the best chance to heal and so we are hopeful that this mattress will be delivered tomorrow.

Gary spent a very busy day in the L/L office:

• Did my routine with QuickBooks. Processed some Homecoming stuff, some email stuff, some Bring4th stuff, some IMU stuff, some accounting-related stuff, and a lunch, sort of, with Jim and Carla. Headed off now to spend the weekend with L/L's Webmaster/BFF in the mountains, along with my amazing fiancée.

Well, he looked busy. I wasn’t too busy today as we pointed our efforts at getting Carla up once per hour for 10 to 15 minutes to keep the blood circulating in her skin graft. Once we get the new mattress we won’t have to do this as much. We enjoyed our evening by watching a block of NCIS. I said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Carla and I did the morning protocol and then got her pillows fluffed for a couple of hours before heading out to see the plastic surgeon. First Kathleen came by and took labs for two of Carla’s doctors through her Power Port. Around 11 am we got her pillows transferred to the car so she could make the trip downtown and see the plastic surgeon so he could see the upper left part of her wound that she has been lying on so she would not lie on the skin flap that has been feeding blood to the skin graft.

We made the trip in good time and in relatively good comfort. We had to wait fifteen excruciating minutes until the plastic surgeon came in. He determined that the area was savable but not by adding more sutures. He gave us Silvadean crème which is supposed to help such damaged skin heal with directions to apply it three times per day. If the crème doesn’t work then he will have to do another, smaller skin graft over that area.  He also said that the flap looks good now and she can lie on it and stay off the suture area which means lying on her right side now. So we made all those adjustments when we got home and are contemplating moving the beds back into their original position after experimenting a little with her new position.

I trimmed some of our hedges in the afternoon and cleaned up a few leaves in my one hour outside today.

Gary was his usual busy self in the L/L office:

• Stopped by PO Box to pick up mail
• Put together monthly Merchant Express report
• Scheduled a visit from the electric/gas company to run an energy efficiency analysis on the house. I asked if they would test the efficiency of the movement of metaphysical energy through this house, and they said last time they tested this particular location, their love/light meters broke because the signal was too strong.
• Received a nice follow-up from Scott Mandelker after the trip to Taiwan. Responded him with gratitude for his help while there and the great day Trish and I shared with Scott.
• Sought help from Sarah, a friend who had previously volunteered for the prison ministry in December of last year but who wasn't chosen at the time due to two who seemed uniquely suited for the work. As the two who took the ministry up were forced, it seems, to throw in the towel, I wrote Sarah asking if she would still be interested in leading it.
• Looked into an termite traps systems for the house.
• Got the Staff Meeting pictures put together and shared with the group
• Responded to Mish in discussion of formatting questions. She shared with me this person's vision of a "vegetal city": http://vegetalcity.net/luc.html
• Worked my way through a long email from Jochen, and had to separate a portion of it! Seems he's got the verbosity bug that I have. He is a man of many dreams, possessing the will, the faith, the knowledge, and the capacity to manifest them into physical reality. Each of those hopes is centered around serving spiritual seekers using, as foundation and structure, the Confederation philosophy. He reports on meetings that German seekers are already having, his ongoing work with the translations, his development of a more formal study association or academy of sorts, his thoughts for a Law of One ashram that are informed and sophisticated enough (given his background in living in ashrams, managing social situations, serving in government, working in corporations, etc.), that I will make use of them should a more involved effort manifest on our end toward a similar goal. Though analyzing and responding to his most excellent blueprints is a task for another day.

Our evening was spent watching a  block of NCIS on television. We finished our day watching the Colbert Report for a little humor. I said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Carla and I did our morning protocol and pillow fluffing to get Carla set upon her day with as much comfort as possible. Then we did our Morning Offering and had our breakfast. Carla is a big fan of Cheerios and I prefer granola, so we are both into grains to begin our day. The Physical Therapist came by at mid morning and did an evaluation of Carla’s needs. She was impressed that Carla was able to walk with assistance three times per day, getting a little further into the kitchen each day.

I spent my afternoon weeding our various flower gardens and as this was my fourth time to weed this spring I was able to do the entire yard as I am actually up with the weeds. This doesn’t usually happen until the middle of August, so retirement does have its benefits.

Gary reported another busy day in the L/L office:

• Received the "rough draft" version of the 2010 Homecoming video from Renee. Shared the video with Jim and Carla. Talked it over. Did a detailed analysis, and sent back a report to Renee.
• Continued working with Steve and Edgard involving workflow
• Learned that one of the BBS shows I uploaded was five minutes! Apologized and uploaded an actual full session.
• Learned from a volunteer transcriber that the "free" transcription software was actually a 14-day trial. Did some research and replied with what I hope is the actual free version.
• Did some great work with Austin regarding Bring4th
• Read through all the Questionnaire responses from last year's Homecoming in order to improve and refine this year's. Among the great ideas was a suggestion to structure our initial Round Robin to answer four simple questions.
• Jim took dictation from Carla in her first response to her new IMU student. Posted to the IMU forums.

We enjoyed our evening watching the season  finale of NCIS and are properly on the edge of our seats for the entire summer wondering who it was that Gibbs shot in the last scene. I said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Carla and I did her protocol and then got her pillows fluffed for a more comfortable cruise through the day. Kathleen came by for a late morning visit and decided that the sutures on Carla’s upper left side of her wound had come apart enough that Carla needs to see the plastic surgeon. Kathleen sent pictures of the sutures to the surgeon and then we got an appointment with him for Wednesday at noon. He will do a little stitchery and send her back home. Carla has become much stronger in the last few days and is walking with assistance a little further each day. Kathleen was very impressed and arranged for a physical therapist to come by tomorrow to assess Carla’s abilities and needs.

I mowed the grass in our yard and cleaned up some branches here and there. I also ran a few errands and tried to keep up with the various details that pop up here and there. It’s a good thing that I actually can juggle.

Gary reported another very busy day in the L/L office:

• Worked on some moderator issues in the morning
• Corresponded with IMU to look into downloading the course material to the computer. No go it seems.
• Began setting Jim up with a structure that will enable him to work with Carla in her role as teacher of the IMU course "Basic Principles of the Law of One". Carla has the whit and presence of mind to fill this role, but the body she inhabits does not allow working with a laptop whatsoever at the moment.
• Worked with Edgard and Steve on edits to transcripts and fine-tuning the process between us three whereby information is published to the website.
• Visited the local canopy place to rent the 30' x 30' Homecoming tent! Always fun when I get to do that each year. I keep hoping that some year the tent people will remember me, and offer me cookies for being such a loyal, albeit annual, customer. I am sad to say, this has never transpired.
• Got great news during a phone call placed to an accountant regarding our employee status. It seems that if we can each learn instruments, and make songs that break into the Top 40, we will be set, and be able to spend more time meditating.
• Watched a sample of the video Renee is putting together using footage from the 2011 (or 2010?) Homecoming. Shaping up!
• Twas decided that instead of every ten sessions, the German Law of One will be published as whole books when Jochen is able to produce them. (Note: the Intro and first eleven sessions not yet on site. Edgard is climbing uphill.)
• Corresponded with Terry in further discussion of a Chinese L/L Research website and he as an official L/L representative.
• Did something I always enjoy doing: connected a Polish seeker with a Romanian seeker. Someday historians will list advances in transportation, telecommunication devices, the microchip, Facebook, and then Gary as the principal means whereby people were brought together and made closer.
• Processed Homecoming stuff, including the registration of a certain northern-living, audio-listening, bundle-of-sunshine volunteer I am very excited will be attending!
• Responded to various email. Processed our single book order of the day that Jim then shipped.
• And, on a personal note, I sold and mailed the tickets to see the Dalai Lama this upcoming Sunday in Louisville. : ( I wouldn't have gained any new information, per se, by attending, but I would have loved to see the person. He is a truly global figure clothed in world history, a fighter for human rights, a lover of ochre robes, and emblematic of his people and the possibility of spiritual potential, he embodying his universal message of compassion to a superlative degree. But an opportunity arose to spend a weekend with the BFF (also L/L's webmaster) in the mountains, so I opted for my good friend, something I am also much looking forward to. I was surprised to see that people were selling their tickets on stub hub in my section for $100 – 200! I didn't think it right to sell above face value.

Our evening was spent watching a block of NCIS on television. We then became again as kids and played with an energy exchange of smiles and laughs. I said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Carla and I did the protocol and pillow fluffing that launches Carla into the wild blue yonder of her day in a confined space. We are still happy with most of the sutures and wound on her back with a definite look of concern at those few sutures at the top left of her wound where constant pressure of lying on her left side has caused separation of the wound and sutures. Our saline flush from Saturday night seems to have stopped the oozing of fluids there, so we will await Kathleen’ visit Monday morning to decide upon further action. Then we did our Morning Offering.

It was a day of Burn Notice on television for us as the USA Network alternates the series which it shows in blocks for most of the day. It was a great day for me to go outside for a couple of hours and finish off the second of three retaining walls around the daylily gardens around the fish pond. Now I will have to wait further stone work until I make another trip to Avalon this coming Thursday.

Our evening was spent watching television and tending to Carla with another protocol and pillow fluffing. We also take the opportunity in the evenings to measure the bodily fluid output from Carla’s two JP drains located on the left side of her wound. In previous attempts to close her wound two years ago there was only one JP drain and it clogged up each time and further infections set in. We are hoping that the two JP drains will solve that problem. Carla said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Carla and I did our protocol and pillow fluffing to get her set for the day. Her day went well and she was able to read from her Kindle for the first time since her operation. The comfort that she is feeling on her bed has increased and she is getting stronger as she gets up three times per day now to walk with assistance to the door and back. We’ll go a little further each day to keep getting her body back in shape.

I ran a number of errands this morning, buying some puncture proof tires for the front of my riding mower and dropping off some chains and blades to be sharpened. Avalon has too many thorn trees to expect to get out of there without getting the tires stuck. Hopefully, the rear tires are thick enough to resist the thorns.

My afternoon was spent refurbishing the little retaining wall on the west side of the fish pond. I have a couple more days of work on these little walls and I will miss this kind of work when it is all done.

We did a special check on Carla’s sutures today because we have noticed that at the top left of the arc of sutures there are four or five that have come loose and the wound has opened up there. We found some body fluids there so we cleaned the area with a saline flush and put new steri-strips over it all. We will ask Kathleen, our visiting nurse, to come by Monday to take a look and see if there is more that we can do at home or if Carla needs to see the plastic surgeon. 90% of the sutures are healing very nicely, so we need to keep an eye on these few sutures that are located in the area where Carla has to lie upon all day long and put stress upon the sutures.

We ended our day by watching Austin City Limits where the Shins and Dr. Dog were featured. We enjoyed their unique melodies and rocking rhythms. I said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.