THE BLOOD-RED FEZ

It’s not there!  My head is buried in the bottom of the worn chest with the map of Africa burned into its battered lid.  Sweat drips from my nose splotching on the cedar.  I replace the heavy tray filled with slides, black and white photos and super eight movies grown brittle over time.  The lid thuds into place, and I pull metals hooks over the latches.  Dust swirls as I rummage through boxes not yet unpacked from our move, run my fingers along high shelves, sweep under beds.  I cannot find the blood-red fez.   I manage to lose it after it survives for 60 years.   Why does it matter? Husband Jim read that a fez represents the blood of martyred Christians.   He doesn’t understand what this particular one means to me.  

                                                         

 Kenya, East Africa 1956

         Dark and silent as a shadow, a thin figure moves out of the fog which envelopes him.  The morning is still.  The smell of wood fires hangs heavy in the air.    The red brick house with its high-peaked corrugated metal roof looms over him like an apparition.  The shadow of a young girl disappears from the attic window just below the rain gutters.  He steps onto the concrete porch as a sliver of light falls through the blanket of clouds.  His stomach is a bag of nails. He takes a breath and knocks.

       He smells of sweat and soot, standing in his ragged shorts cinched tight over the knobs of his bony hips.  Bloodshot eyes gaze through yellow sclera, swallowed by dark sockets.  He lives like most Africans; in a smoke filled hut with goats, chickens and cattle. 

A young missionary, green as grass, draws open the door expectantly.  A vivid widow’s peak introduces that striking coal black hair which frames a small delicate face.  Her eyes penetrate like needles but compassion bathes her diminutive features.  Daniel Chege, hardly more than a boy is not tall, but fine boned and austere.  He scrubs his shirt each evening on a rock until it is white as an elephant’s tusk.   Flashing a wide smile he blurts, “I cookie roastie.” He has practiced this phrase repeatedly as he walks barefoot along the dirt path towards the mission compound.  Memsahib Eby suppresses a grin and invites him in.

 There is an uneasy silence as they regard each other.  ‘Kuja hapa rafiki kidogo, come small friend,” Memsahib Eby says to put him at ease.  She leads him over the red-waxed concrete floor to a rough counter beside a wood stove that is radiating heat.  The warmth is welcome in the cool morning air at 5000 ft in the Kenyan highlands.  Washing her hands carefully, she instructs Chege to watch as she sifts ingredients, mixing, then kneading the dough with a fury. She has barely learned to make bread herself.  Isolated with her family far from Lake Victoria and any type of grocery store, she knows that if she wants bread she will have to make it.  Chege follows her tutorial, committing it to memory in the quick way that he had. He absorbs everything like a clay pot soaking up water.  No further instructions are needed.   Mom throws in another log and places the bread into the wood stove. 

        Chege makes bread two days later and it is every bit as perfect as the Memsahib’s.  She never has to show Chege anything twice. Chege’s grandmother brings milk each day in a dirty bottle with leaves stuck in the top.  Mom notices dirt in it so she shows Chege how to strain it through cloth and boil it until the foam subsides, hoping it doesn’t scorch,  It almost always does and is a far cry from American pasteurized milk.  I never grow accustomed to the taste.

      My sister Lydia and I hang around Chege like shadows coaxing him not to roll his Rs and he teaches us to roll ours amid roars of laughter.  Preceding his serving debut, Daniel Chege lifts the long white Kanzu over his bony shoulders, which rise like spikes against the rough material.  He carefully ties the red silk sash around his waist.  Gingerly, he places the red fez onto his shaved head and adjusts the tassel at a jaunty angle to the right of his round Kikuyu face just as Memsahib Eby shows him earlier that day. His small chest swells inside the flowing white.  His smile is blinding like sunlight on a tin roof.

      He pours the oxtail soup into Mom’s best china bowl, which survived the voyage in the hold of a freighter from Rotterdam called the Kenya Castle.   White robe swishing around his ankles, heart pounding, conscious of all eyes on him Chege stiffly carries the soup through the swinging door.   Bwana Eby, the memsahib with our baby brother on her lap, my sister and I watch as Chege sucks in his breath and ladles it into each bowl.  The bowl rattles against the saucer from his shaking hands.  A little slops out when he serves me leaving a dark stain on the tablecloth. 

       “Zuri sana,” I enthuse to encourage him rolling my r perfectly.  He manages a weak smile.  His breath comes in little whistles through his lips, a nervous habit that never changes in the many years he works for our family.  He loves us and we love him back unconditionally.  He whistles through every meal, that’s our Chege.

       Mom is a nurse so with Chege to help in the kitchen she can dress wounds from panga cuts, bandage the heads of babies who have rolled into the cooking fire during the night, and treat snake bite wounds.  She does this on the front lawn until Daddy builds her a small brick dispensary. 

Chege's Grandmother 

    There is an uneasy silence as they regard each other.  ‘Kuja hapa rafiki kidogo, come small friend,” Memsahib Eby says to put him at ease.  She leads him over the red-waxed concrete floor to a rough counter beside a wood stove that is radiating heat.  The warmth is welcome in the cool morning air at 5000 ft in the Kenyan highlands.  Washing her hands carefully, she instructs Chege to watch as she sifts ingredients, mixing, then kneading the dough with a fury. She has barely learned to make bread herself.  Isolated with her family far from Lake Victoria and any type of grocery store, she knows that if she wants bread she will have to make it.  Chege follows her tutorial, committing it to memory in the quick way that he had. He absorbs everything like a clay pot soaking up water.  No further instructions are needed.   Mom throws in another log and places the bread into the wood stove. 

        Chege makes bread two days later and it is every bit as perfect as the Memsahib’s.  She never has to show Chege anything twice. Chege’s grandmother brings milk each day in a dirty bottle with leaves stuck in the top.  Mom notices dirt in it so she shows Chege how to strain it through cloth and boil it until the foam subsides, hoping it doesn’t scorch,  It almost always does and is a far cry from American pasteurized milk.  I never grow accustomed to the taste.

      My sister Lydia and I hang around Chege like shadows coaxing him not to roll his Rs and he teaches us to roll ours amid roars of laughter.  Preceding his serving debut, Daniel Chege lifts the long white Kanzu over his bony shoulders, which rise like spikes against the rough material.  He carefully ties the red silk sash around his waist.  Gingerly, he places the red fez onto his shaved head and adjusts the tassel at a jaunty angle to the right of his round Kikuyu face just as Memsahib Eby shows him earlier that day. His small chest swells inside the flowing white.  His smile is blinding like sunlight on a tin roof.

      He pours the oxtail soup into Mom’s best china bowl, which survived the voyage in the hold of a freighter from Rotterdam called the Kenya Castle.   White robe swishing around his ankles, heart pounding, conscious of all eyes on him Chege stiffly carries the soup through the swinging door.   Bwana Eby, the memsahib with our baby brother on her lap, my sister and I watch as Chege sucks in his breath and ladles it into each bowl.  The bowl rattles against the saucer from his shaking hands.  A little slops out when he serves me leaving a dark stain on the tablecloth. 

       “Zuri sana,” I enthuse to encourage him rolling my r perfectly.  He manages a weak smile.  His breath comes in little whistles through his lips, a nervous habit that never changes in the many years he works for our family.  He loves us and we love him back unconditionally.  He whistles through every meal, that’s our Chege.

       Mom is a nurse so with Chege to help in the kitchen she can dress wounds from panga cuts, bandage the heads of babies who have rolled into the cooking fire during the night, and treat snake bite wounds.  She does this on the front lawn until Daddy builds her a small brick dispensary. 

 

Cleaning before suturing.

Each day she puts on a white nursing uniform and her stiffly starched nursing cap as if headed to the Mayo Clinic and swings her way purposefully to the dispensary to care for the sick.  Years later Chege will be the one to administer penicillin shots, malaria meds to the ill, many who have walked trails for over a day to reach the mission.

        Mom has a snakeskin belt, which she often cinches around her 22-inch waist. I find it in her attic years later.  Tall at 5’9” she has a way of walking that captures attention as she sweeps into a room.  Part of the reason for her thinness is the financial sacrifice that she and Dad make to pay for our tuition at Rift Valley Academy, a boarding school 200 miles away over grassy plains in a sleeper car on the East African Railway.  This leaves little money for food.  She raises chickens and learns to chop off a head with amazing determination and precision. She dips the hen in hot water, plucks the feathers, passes it through a flame to singe and chops it into pieces.

 

Cleaning before suturing.

 

Tomboi, the gardener and his two little boys.

      She has a garden in the back tended by Tomboi and his two little boys.  It once produced a tomato six inches across.  The soil is dark and rich in the Kenya highlands.  The entry to the mission station cuts through a large British Tea Estate that thrives in the fertile soil and moderate temperatures.

      In the evenings, we crane our heads towards the small black radio listening to the crackling news from BBC if it comes in.  A British newscaster reports news including that of Kenya, a British protectorate at that time.    Numerous stories end with a favorite phrase in crisp English, “No foul play suspected.”   Foul play is the norm after the MauMau rebellion.  Many in Chege’s village were strung up by their thumbs when refusing to take the bloody MauMau oath. This is mild compared to the 100s who were savagely murdered by crazed Kikuyu MauMaus.  

      Mom becomes concerned, as Chege seems pale, difficult for a coal-black African and thinner than ever.  She checks his blood and finds that he has extreme anemia and TB.  It becomes her furious campaign to restore him to good health.                          

         My father built a U-shaped Bible School, which Chege attended.  Chege later becomes a pastor and marries a young Kikuyu girl named Kedsia.  They will have 10 children. He eventually directs the mission work in Kenya for the entire mission organization… “our cook!” He was as fervent a pastor and administrator as he had been a cook.  He is now with the Lord who I can imagine saying, “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” as Chege flashes that wide smile.

March 2014

      Searching for a wrench in the back of his truck, Jim notices something like a brown rat crushed under the tools.   It’s the formerly red, now brown fez!  I am disconsolate.  I seek out my Mom, (Memsahib Eby) who is 88 and resides at Bayside Nursing Home.  “Take it to the cleaners and have it blocked and cleaned,” she utters matter-of-factly through her gums.  She lost her teeth again.  Vick’s Cleaners makes me sign a release since the fez is now as stiff as a beaver’s tail and bent completely closed.  A week passes without a word. Worried, I call to check on it.  The attendant regrets that they are unable to clean it.  Probably no one can, she maintains.  I sob like a baby in the car wondering what in the world is wrong with me.  They package the fez in a little square box, like a coffin. True to my tradition of unconditional support of lost causes, I decide someone, somewhere, can fix Chege’s fez.  I’m going to find that person.

Tomboi, the gardener and his two little boys.

Riviting Nocturnal Story-unedited, illustrating the depths to which I have sinked, sunk,...sunken...arrived

4 AM I stumble to the bathroom for one of my frequent nightly visits. Pausing at the scale, I step on. I’m awake, why not? 107 stares up at me in glaring red which I can read even without my 300 strength reading glasses. A horrifying thought permeates my weakened mind. I address a remark to the scale. “Maybe I’m dying.”

Jim is out of town, doing God’s work, no doubt, without my unwavering support to bolster him. I begin to weep. As I reflect on my impending demise, my weeping escalates into heaving sobs. Anxious to share the heartbreaking news (I know how I’ll be missed), I make my way down (19 steps) backwards on all fours as is now my custom. My daughter Whitney, asleep downstairs will be devastated, I’m certain. Daughter, Natalie is in Peru.

I sink heavily “sort of” onto the side of her bed. The sobs emanating from my emaciated form are reaching decibels that would wake the dead, whose numbers will soon increase by one. Her chest continues to rise and fall as she enjoys a peaceful sleep.

Disappointed, I begin my painful trek to the kitchen, spoon instant coffee into a giant cup and add hot water. I pour a large glass of milk, gulp down a bunch of vitamins & meds and start the long process of getting up the stairs with the coffee.

I stop in my office halfway there and bring up facebook to which I rarely make a contribution, but this news really needs to be shared with my 50 or so friends, well maybe 100, some whose names don’t sound overly familiar, but I’m sure they are friends.

My fingers fly over the keyboard with my stunning announcement, this important “breaking” news.

Slowly I make my way up the remaining 8 stairs, down the coffee, and grab a legal
pad to share this story for those I will leave behind.

Later in the day:
At my computer to check e-mails. I see facebook open. Now fully awake and pretty sure I’m not going to eternal bliss today, I’m somewhat horrified by my nocturnal facebook post, even though I’m enjoying the verses and words of comfort from the very few who seemed to care one way or another. I am touched deeply by my faithful friends; somewhat small in number who seem genuinely concerned most likely for my mental state more than anything else..

I have gleaned wisdom from this small incident…….we all need to keep learning, I always say, even me. Never post in the middle of the night….or in my case at any time day or night. Apparently, I’m about the only one devastated that my razor sharp mind will not be contributing to the betterment of mankind much longer…(run-on sentence). I guess I’ll just stick around another 20 years or so. Also, don’t write on a legal pad at 4 AM and believe that it’s brilliant.

Postscript…..
Please don’t be offended by my irreverence. I really am married to a man who is faithfully doing what God has called us to and trying to take care of me too.

I want to thank my friends who have provided me with endless prayer support, encouragement and real words of wisdom. I love you. My knees are much better after cortisone injections and I’m in much less pain.

July 2012 First Three Days

This is the short side of the property which is on the beach.

They stole the string,” Jim pauses to let his words take effect.  “I don’t get it, I say, fingering a string of mango caught in my teeth.

      The day before, day two, he and Jasmine, the founder of the orphanage were able to identify the four corners of the 13 acre new property and stake out the wall and where the gate would go. Samaritan’s purse was working on the road as agreed and said they will help dig the footer for the security wall which was a mood lifter for Jim.

      Jim had hammered in the stakes and strung 3000 feet of string for the bulldozer to follow. I look at Jim incredulous.  He couldn’t mean what I thought he meant.

      He looks at me with a mixture of amusement and exasperation adding.  “Sadly some people thought they needed the string more than we did and took it right off the stakes in the night. The night watchman was there.”Does anything ever change in Haiti?

Just a few of the kids eating at Jasmine’s.

      Jasmine (story at the bottom of our website), is founder of an orphanage which is little more than a jumble of wood frame buildings arranged haphazardly in the dirt surrounded by a block wall topped with a foot of curled barbed wire.  The buildings, bleached and weathered two years after the earthquake are connected by 4 ft. strips of plywood that rattle when you walk, but keep your feet out of the mud in rainy season. The orphanage has been the victim of theft, stones hurled over the wall, and other indecencies too numerous to mention here. 

      There are 52 children, from babies to teenagers.  Jasmine’s husband Greg is currently in the US taking care of business so Jasmine and a staff of 11 Haitian women, care for the children.

      There is always a horde of volunteers at Jasmine’s.  There are about 25 now, mostly college girls cuddling and cooing at the babies, teasing and laughing with the older ones.  Most have hair stretched back severely and look drained from the unrelenting heat and humidity.  Youth triumphs, however: and there is still a lot of good humor all round.

       I sit in a square covered area with four benches that face each other.  I notice one small boy, face deformed from a birth defect wandering among the others, longing for attention.  A sunburned volunteer scratching her bites utters with a sigh that most of the children have small boils on their heads in spite of frequent baths.  I see what looks like a fungus that has cleared a patch of hair from a shiny black scalp on the baby she is cuddling.

       Most of these children are not orphans as Webster defines it, which was upsetting to me when I learned of it our first year working in Haiti.  Mothers give away their children because they simply don’t want them, perhaps can’t feed them, or prefer not to keep one that has a defect of some kind.  Orphanages have become an institution in Haiti, relieving parents of their responsibilities.  Adoption is a long drawn out legal process, but 30 are in the process at Jasmine’s orphanage.  She has the required license.  The Haitian government prefers this way over private adoption which is far more difficult.  It is a way for them to collect more money.

Back to arrival day.

 I sit on that plane with dread weighing on my chest like a cannonball waiting to be launched.  How many times have we done this?

      From my window, the terminal shimmers in the heat.  I give my packaged plane food to the graying Haitian lady seated next to me.  Earlier, she spills milk on her paperwork.  She and I blot it up with our napkins trying to salvage her customs form.  She cannot read or write so she must be helped with her forms.

       I pull my hair up into a ragged knot preparing for the heat, dreading the hustling, the shuffle of bodies, and the mad dash for luggage. 

       We file off the plane, walking a long corridor to customs.  I make a beeline to the bathroom through crowds of first timer volunteers, beaming with their high hopes, chattering to each other excitedly, decked in their matching t-shirts. I envy their enthusiasm and breathe a prayer asking God to give me the joy of a first timer.  I sit leaning on the wall on the first suitcase Jim pulls from the gyrating black conveyor belt.  My arm is asleep from the backpack slung over my arm and my knees hurt.

       One by one, Jim locates each piece of luggage, which I guard expertly, sweeping my eyes from side to side, trying to look like someone a thief would be afraid to tangle with.

        With luggage stacked around my feet, Jim negotiates with a policeman for one porter to pull two suitcases.  We will get the rest.  Negotiations complete, we have procured a porter with a wide white smile, merry eyes and a stiffly pressed shirt.  He grabs the two largest, pulling them behind us.  Jim and I lug two 50-pound cases heavy with food and tools, our carryon’s stacked on top and backpacks slung over our shoulders.

       Indian UN workers roam among the crowds with their weapons, some affecting a swagger as they keep the peace.  I wonder how they would walk without a weapon.  Many Haitians blame the Indians for the cholera attacks.

       Through the gate, Jim presses some bills into our porter’s eager hands and for once there is no arguing, just smiles all round.  It has been a relatively easy arrival.  They have made some improvements at the airport.  My mood is improving.

       We look hopefully for our driver, who is nowhere in sight.  Jim seats me on a low piece of filthy concrete on a flyer I find buried in the dirt.  Haitians press around him, offering assistance, encouraged by the prior exchange of bills.  I swat at flies and strike up a conversation with a narrow jawed man with a shiny pate, sallow skin, eyes rimmed in red.  His nose dips sympathetically toward his chin.  He is dressed in a dirty blue shirt and wrinkled khaki pants.  He gestures wildly using smatterings of Spanish, Creole, French and English, making a valiant effort to converse with me.   I manage to decipher that his car has broken down and he is waiting for a mechanic.  I nod with genuine sympathy. “ Lo Siento,” I utter.

       Two hours later, our driver appears.  He left the Haitian Queen at 12:30, ample time to make the airport run.  I suspect he took care of a little personal business on the way.  Jim grabs my hand and I pull myself to my feet, an exploit not as easy as it used to be.

       We drive through the bowels of Port Au Prince through a haze of dust, the same old sewage, tin shacks and men relieving themselves by the road in plain view.  The driver makes his usual financial appeal, to finish his house, he says.  He is one of the lucky ones, with a good job, volunteers that lend him a hand, a continual recipient of lumber and supplies.  I guess it never hurts to seed the clouds, a Haitian pastime.

       Smoke spews from trucks, cars and motorbikes, the traffic a gnarled, honking morass. Jim remarks that things have improved.  I crane my neck eagerly inquiring, “Where?”  I do agree with him though.  On the radio, a sportscaster shouts play by play a soccer game in French.

      After reunions at the Haitian Queen, we eat, push our luggage under wood bunk beds, tie up the mosquito nets and make the beds.  The cold shower feels welcome especially with the new shower head that I brought with me than takes weak pressure and makes it feel like more.  We fall into bed, only to toss and turn most the night.

First day…

         We eat a can of tuna with instant coffee, don hats and walk the mud road to the clinic to check on the large orange truck, our allotted vehicle and we need it ASAP at Jasmine’s orphanage.  Parked in high grass, it is covered in cobwebs which we beat off the doors and windows with a stick and pull open the doors.  The engine roars to life, but the brake pedal is flat on the floor.  The morning air hangs still and heavy as we trudge back to the house in quest of another vehicle.  It feels as if the earth is boiling underfoot.

Assembly line to bring metal through the wall and onto the property to stack.

Jim last on the line and the stacker.

       At the current orphanage, there is an urgent need to transport the metal framework for 27 bldgs. from the property next door to Jasmine’s property.  It will save a $700 charge for storage.  She plans to have us load the truck multiple times and unload inside the wall onto the orphanage property.  Since we have no truck, Jim suggests making a 2-foot square hole in the wall, pass the materials through to her property, form an assembly line of volunteers to pass each piece along and then Jim will stack in piles.  Everyone loves this idea since it will save time and energy and the wall will be easy to repair.  It takes about four hours.

Roadwork that keeps us detouring.

       Jasmine joins us as we drive over to the new property, on roads that seem like a maze.  Deep trenches are being dug on each side of the narrow roads leaving a sliver down the center for dump trucks of gravel to be unloaded.  We drive in and then back out of road after road, trial and error,  negotiating numerous dead ends filled with potholes, water and mud,.  We finally arrive at the site.  I ask Jim if he will remember the way tomorrow.

       The property is almost devoid of trees but has a fine view of the beach. (see top picture) The coastline is a mixture of the sublime and the wretched but the view is breathtaking from a distance.  The property is a long rectangle with the short side on the beach.  We walk the property, about 13 acres and chat with the bulldozer operator who has started the access road.  The property, formerly gardened is covered in trenches that will have to be leveled with a bulldozer.

Tractor and heavy equipment operator from Samaritan’s Purse

       Jasmine explains to Jim what she wants and where the security wall should be placed.  The pitiless sun rises to its zenith.  We are running short of water and head back for lunch.

       Next morning, I awake to the crowing of roosters and Haitian’s shouting over the fence, laughing uproariously over some inside joke.  There is a violent shift from shadow to light as the day begins.  I roll off my damp sheets, pad to the kitchen, fill the kettle and heat water for coffee.

Jim stretching the string between stakes for the footers to be dug
for the third time.

        The day pans out much as the one before with much accomplished and string stretched again from the stakes for the wall.  Heading back to headquarters, Jim accidentally hits a dog that runs in front of him.   Haitian’s drive with total disregard for the reality of death.  You have to drive the same in self-defense if you dare to drive at all.  Generally, dogs are not domestic in Haiti, but are small feral looking mongrels, with pointed snouts, all ribs and yellow eyes.  They are not wild, but don’t elicit much regard among Haitians.  Still, you don’t stop on the road in Leogane when something like this happens, lest a stoning or some unsolicited third world development occurs.

       Jim is rolling out more string from his stakes that were also pulled out during the night for the rest of the footer trench.

Standing on the new road into the orphanage on the property.

       We have settled into a rhythm and each day seems filled with hope and sometimes despair, but overall things are going well.  Below you can see that by Day 12, the road is in, the footer is 2/3 dug.

       Next week 20 trucks of cement, 20 of Gravel, and 3 trucks of sand will be ordered for the wall, also 3 of each for the columns.

Mario who broke his foot when his
motorcycle overturned.  He is from
Cartagena, Columbia and is staff.

 Every day is a series of events such as Mario, house staff from Cartagena, Columbia breaking his foot on Sunday when the motorcycle falls on it, vehicles stranded, a lady failing to give us change and me losing it completely…the frustrations piling up…the daily hurdles magnified by the heat, but some victories too, including attitude adjustments orchestrated by GOD.  

Jim loading everything to take back for the night so it won’t be stolen.

Off the Bed and Out of the House

I sit low in the car and stare through the Florida haze. face taut with strain. I open the door a crack, lift my legs with my hands and pivot. My hands grip the top of the door; knuckles white and hoist myself up. My breath is ragged as if I’ve been running. The sliding doors reflect the afternoon sun. One foot in front of the other, I make my way over 100 yards of tarmac and through the yawn of doors. My eyes focus. They are on the left. “The riding carts.” I hobble over to the closest one with a hangdog air, grimacing from the tortuous pain.

Grasping the handles, I slump into the seat. “How do these things work?” Press the on/off button….nothing happens. The machine is plugged in so leaning way back to the side, legs in the air, I yank the plug. Sitting on the cord, pushing the button with my right hand while clutching the lever, I jerk forward, slamming into some shopping carts. Heads turn. I smile awkwardly and stammer, “My first time.”

I have sunk to new depths. I rode a cart around Lowe’s today. Yes, the ones I see at Wal-Mart, and often smugly and unkindly remark to Jim that “the rider” would be healthier walking.

Unrelenting, mind-numbing pain humbles you. Pulling myself, literally from bed each morning groaning and moaning, my knees feel like thumbscrews are being tightened by some invisible force. They pop, swell, and throb. A wimp through and through, I huff and puff like a woman in labor.

Gone are those perceptions of myself as the strong woman striding through the jungle while others fall by the path. Medicare is just seven months away and all those MRIs, PET scans and other acronyms will be possible….. Old is something to embrace… “JUST GET RID OF THIS PAIN.”

I have arthritis. “That’s all?” you say. “There are people far worse off than you.” Sadly, my tolerance for pain is not as tolerant as previously assumed.

A nurse practitioner with a smoker’s voice prescribed Celebrex and something only temporarily for pain, not that addiction tops my list of concerns at this moment.

In the midst of my depression, I started to call a friend that is older by a few years, knowing she would be sympathetic and offer good advice. Turns out she had fallen and broken her femur and is in the hospital. That put things into perspective.