Dear people,
It has been MONTHS since we gave you a what’s-going-on update. Some of Hanna’s writing appeared here in December, but before that the last update was back in October while Hanna was in South Africa.

This is Marc writing. I’ll do my best to give you the important facts, woven with words from Hanna. And I’ll mix a little unimportant but entertaining stuff, and well… update you.

Feeding tube: Pipe for Eating Good

If you read “A dying girl goes to grad school,” you have a sense of the ways in which Hanna’s physical condition is changing. The biggest change since then is this: on January 31, Hanna had surgery for a PEG feeding tube. There are different kinds of feeding tubes. Hers is a PEG, which stands for “Pipe for Eating Good.” No, that’s not right. It actually stands for three US$20 medical words, but the key part is that word “tube.” Hanna has new plumbing.

Before the tube, chewing and swallowing had become such a chore, it was tiring to consume enough oatmeal, yogurt and lasagna to achieve the goal for daily nutrition. “I’m tired, but I have to keep eating.” That energy tax is a dear thing to pay when the daily energy budget is low. It’s energy Hanna would rather use for connection and creative work.

The hope was that the tube would allow Hanna to eat for pleasure while getting sufficient nutrition through the tube. That’s sort of true, but Hanna’s reaction to an earlier draft of this paragraph went something like this: ”Too rosy. It’s a chore to adjust to formula, my bowels are loose, and I can get nauseous. So there’s still a double labor of food and formula.” One rose: Hanna no longer needs to pass full glasses of ass-flavored medicine across her taste buds.

The two weeks after surgery were terribly difficult. Hanna says “devastating.” Here’s what she says….

Hanna, 7 February 2024

Dear ones, this is the week where I feel defeated by this illness. I feel like I am on a reality TV show, “Medical Marathons,” where the aim is to break the spirit of the patient before the body breaks. There is the post-surgery pain, nausea and healing, the steep learning of wound cleaning and feeding with a PEG, new medications, at least ten more medical professionals and two more companies to establish relationship and interact with (omg, please stop asking me questions!).

But then there is also the fact of ALS: while healthy folks return to the same level of functioning after surgery (or illness, or travel), we don’t. I am contending with significant and frustrating changes. While I could use my phone some before, my hands are too shriveled up to use my phone. while I could turn around in bed (I am a side sleeper), I can no longer turn on my side – for lack of strength and because my right shoulder is often in great pain that will not allow me to go back to sleep. While I could wipe my bottom before, I can no longer manage that either. Communication with my board, tablet and computer is becoming more and more difficult, as if I am moving in a sludge of snow. I am quick to cry and short tempered. I turn into a tantrum after 10pm. These losses compound—to not sleep well, to not stay connected, to not have time to be quiet, to not work at my craft….

And the people around me keep showing up, keep smiling, reading to me at 5am, administering scary pain-meds at midnight and then again at 4am, massaging my sore fingers, bringing me food, brushing my teeth, scraping my tongue. Figuring out systems to helps us learn, tirelessly teaching each other to feed me through a tiny tube, making videos with Honey Dew, a teddy bear body double, to socialize a good way to wipe my bottom. How unlucky and lucky we are—to love a dying being and nurture a growing community.

Sometimes people ask about finances

It’s difficult to describe the labyrinth of systems, policies, agencies and gatekeepers traversed by a few dear people close to Hanna. And and and the surprising well of gifts and grants, offerings and flows. I’ll mention a few of those blessings, then mention where we are with paid care—the real potential money sink.

Hanna has qualified for both Medicare and Medicaid (well, provisional emergency Medicaid; we are reapplying this month), and has policies under both programs. For those not living in the US, this means she is covered by insurance that is mostly designed for “old people” and “poor people.” Being covered by both means most of Hanna’s devices, medications, and doctors’ care is provided at little or no cost.

Thank you to the many who have given to Hanna’s fund through the links on this site. For the most part we have held this money in reserve for future costs of care. We’ve used some for need-it-now supplies or devices, and expenses in support of Hanna’s communication, writing and publication.

Hanna is also benefiting greatly from the many ALS-specific nonprofit organizations, as well as some State of Pennsylvania programs. There are so many kind people who give their time and expertise to people living with ALS. I’ll show you some of the results below. Shoutouts to Team Gleason (portable electric chair and communications tablet), Adam Rossi of adamsolarrides.com (electric trike), and Rahel’s sister Molly for the loan of a wheelchair-ready, ramp-extending, fully modified van.

The biggest costs are yet to come. It’s already the case that, some of Hanna’s needs exceed the capacity of our group of loving volunteers. We’ve started to pay for care from people who do that for a living, and this will surely increase. We’ll never stop being with Hanna every day, we’ll never stop showing up to care. But we’ll need more dedicated care providers as time goes on. That can become remarkably expensive.

So how is the financial situation? I’ll say it’s okay. And as I say that I have a serious look on my face as I gaze toward the horizon. It feels like something expensive is over there….

Postscript: cheerful or sad?

Surely you notice the difference in tone between Hanna’s writing and mine (Marc). I’m speaking cheerfully. Hanna is reporting the first-person reality of living in a dying body.

Everyone who experiences this season is experiencing heartbreak. Myself included. We are each, alone and together, learning the art and practice of making a place for sorrow in the much larger home of our being. The pain in Hanna’s shoulder, the curve of her fingers, the weakness of her tongue and entire body will not be ignored. For her the loss is manifest in each moment. She has no choice but to inhabit it.

The rest of us have more choice about the source of our expression. We can speak from our sorrow. We can speak from our experience of life’s glad gifts. We must speak from both, and from the place where the two meet. Hanna still does, despite it all. And I, now writing to you, choose to speak from wonder.

Here’s how this showed up in a recent Zoom session with people from both the US and South Africa, gathered to talk about the practices of healthy relationship with loss.