Greetings Friends and Family,
Some of you already know about Dave’s ordeals during 2009, so I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version. In April, Dave was hospitalized for three days with blood clots in his lungs. We feel very lucky that they did not cause a stroke or heart attack. Dave was put on the anticoagulant Coumadin, and sent home to recuperate. He was feeling pretty good, and even felt strong enough to judge a concert band competition in Harlan, Iowa on May 8. The judges were asked to get up on a platform for a better vantage point. However, there were no steps, so Dave declined to get up on the platform. People there said they would help him if he would just step up on a folding chair. Bad idea. As he tried to step up on the chair, the chair held, but his quadriceps tendon tore away from his kneecap. Dave knew that he was in pain, but he had no idea about the extent of the damage. They set up a table and chair on the gym floor instead, and he actually judged one band before requesting an ambulance. Dave was taken out on a gurney and transported to the Harlan hospital. Their x-rays showed nothing, so he was dismissed. Fortunately, Jon Peterson was judging choirs at Harlan and they had ridden together, so Jon brought Dave directly to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Lincoln, where they were able to diagnose the torn tendon. Dave came home for a few days until surgery could be scheduled for May 19. However, he developed a hematoma above his injured knee on May 17, so I called an ambulance to take him back to St. Elizabeth’s. The surgery on May 19 went well, but the rehabilitation required that he spend eight weeks in a variety of institutions, first the hospital, then Ashland Care Center, and finally Homestead Rehabilitation Center here in Lincoln. I kept a blog on the Caring Bridge website for four months. You can read all the details at Caring Bridge if you are interested. After Dave’s dismissal from Homestead on July 11, he still required several weeks of outpatient physical therapy at Lincoln Orthopedic Center. The good news was that he was ready for band camp on August 10. He was still wearing a leg brace and walking with a cane, and he had to have a tall chair toted to the practice field since he could not stand very long. Dave got better and better as the weeks progressed and he was able to arrange Joe Curiale’s music and write the drill for the Lincoln Southeast marching band as well as attend most of the band’s morning and evening rehearsals. He did give up teaching at College View Academy, but he kept his job teaching Marching Band Techniques two days each week at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Dave doesn’t quite understand the concept of retirement, even though he celebrated his 70th birthday on June 9.
My decision to take a one-year leave of absence from Nebraska Wesleyan turned out to be a good one. I had intended to do some writing and spend more time in Schuyler visiting Mom and helping her with some projects around her house, but obviously my “skills” were needed helping Dave through his recuperation. It was truly a blessing in disguise. I finished teaching classes at Wesleyan right around the time of Dave’s knee surgery. Then I had to ramp up to be the administrator one last time for the Nebraska Wesleyan Kodály Certification Program. I had been working all year with the University of Nebraska at Omaha so their music department could take over this specialized instruction for music teachers and make it a part of their master of music degree beginning in 2010. We had the highest number of students this summer (23) and everything went quite well. We spent the first week at Wesleyan and the second week at UNO to facilitate the transition. It was very difficult to let go of something I had loved and nurtured for ten years, but for many good reasons the move to Omaha will be best for the future of Kodály training in Nebraska.
By the middle of October Dave was back to being independent, so I was able to attend the Midwest Kodály Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for three days with Linda Hulsey, our Level II Kodály Methods instructor and current supervisor of music education for Omaha Public Schools. She is a great friend, but also a key player in transferring the Kodály music education curriculum from Wesleyan to UNO. We had a great time mixing business and pleasure.
Since Dave was doing so well by himself, I was able to spend ten days in San Diego in November, first attending the National Association of Schools of Music conference for music executives at the Hyatt Hotel located right on the ocean, and then spending six days including Thanksgiving with Pam Warnock at her home in Rancho Bernardo. Pam and I went to the beach twice and also visited the San Diego Botanical Gardens. It was really tough coming back to snow storms and below freezing weather here in Nebraska.
Dave and I have had a doozy of a year. The silver lining in all this is that we were able to spend a lot of time together. Besides all the time spent recuperating from surgery, we spend a week in a condo at Table Rock Lake near Branson, Missouri in October. We had spent a week together in Washington, D.C. back in March attending the National Kodály Conference before all of the excitement began. We still play together in the Westminster Brass Quintet, Dave on baritone and me on trumpet. We celebrated big numbers this year, as well – my 60th birthday, Dave’s 70th birthday, our 30th wedding anniversary and Zach and Tyler’s 12th birthday. And just when it looked like everything was back to normal, Dave had to have a tooth pulled one day and carpal tunnel surgery the next day (Dec. 2 and 3). He has now recovered the use of his right hand, and we actually think we are almost back to normal. OK, that’s never going to happen, but we are happy with the obstacles we were able to conquer this year, and we are hoping for a moderately uneventful 2010. I am so confident that all will be well, that Pam and I are planning a trip to the Czech Republic and Hungary in May. I will return as chair of the music department at Nebraska Wesleyan in mid-July, and Dave plans to continue as assistant band director as Lincoln Southeast High School until I retire in about 6 years. For now we are looking forward to attending the Bellevue East Band Reunion at the Varsity Sports Bar in Bellevue on January. Ya gotta have hope . . .
We wish you all much joy and many blessings in 2010!
Jeannette and Dave
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