Today was, all things considered, quite a good day.

With that update out of the way, let it be known that this blog, like all human endeavors, will one day come to an end. It is perfectly feasible to track and record Tanja’s progress through life on a daily basis but, realistically, given what we’re learning about recovery from spinal injury, the daily updates will become more and more granular and repetitive. There’s a reason the neuro team only wants to see her every six weeks–they like a little narrative progress, the better to separate the trend from the noise.

That said, tonight is not the night for ending. I figure, just for symmetry, we’ll stick with this through the collar countdown and then maybe a couple days after because I imagine you, like Tanja, are anxious to see what life without the collar is like. (My conjecture is that there will be an immediate and noticeable improvement–to go nautical for a second, I think she has hit a squall of considerable force and it has battered the ship considerable, but she’s now hove-to and making little apparent headway, but is safe, riding out the storm, and all the while repairs are being made so that when the moment comes to pull the reefs out and fill the headsail, this ship will fairly leap. But that is just conjecture.)

So, if the collar comes off on the 23rd, as we hope, and it is now the 5th, as we know, then we can calculate that there are 18 days left, more or less–that’s the thing about about math, there’s no one right answer–plus some additional days to document subsequent sea trials.

So many more stories to share, not to worry.

Part of what made today so great, in my view, is not just what Tanja did, not even what Tanja did, but, rather, how she did it.

She walked 3.5 miles in the morning, and at an improved pace of something like 16.5 minutes per mile. Great start.

Then she busted out the Wednesday Jumble, no prob.

Then she did her OT, throwing around those adorable 1 lb. weights. At one point she cast them aside and proceeded to double her lift, carrying on as if it were no big deal.

They she went shopping at New Seasons. Then she napped hard. Then she ate lunch. Then she read an article in the The Atlantic until she got to a paragraph that began, “If you haven’t read To the Lighthouse stop reading now.” Then she went downtown and went shopping in Powell’s emerging with To the Lighthouse and The Illustrated Man. Then she came home and read until friends showed up. She chatted for a good 2.5 hours, which is a new record, post 3/3/23. Then she watched a very dramatic TV show. Now she seems to be asleep.

So that’s what she did. But she did it all with the energy turned up a notch and just a little extra glow, as if there were a furnace within that had gone from embers to flames. This was especially evident as I watched her talk with friends. Her arm movements, her body language, her smile: She seemed more… herself.

When I mentioned this to her she did not disagree.

“And it’s funny,” she said. “Because I woke up so tired. We were up late, I woke early and I had a little trouble sleeping.”

“Why do you suppose you couldn’t sleep?”

“Sometimes I just wake up, like one does, and before I can fall back asleep I suddenly realize who’s sleeping next to me,” she said. “And then I just lie awake counting my lucky stars.”

“That’s sweet,” I said. “And, you know, sometimes I just make stuff up, to pad the blog out.”