A lot of you got "mass e-mailings" early in the year regarding Mallory's horrendous hospital stay following a back operation in early December to fuse part of his spine. For those of you who don't know the story I'll repeat it briefly. Early signs right after the surgery were wonderful, until just before Christmas when he began to have severe pain. Being the holidays, the doctors were not available until January 3. The surgeon took one look at him and immediately sent him to the emergency room. I was told later that he was very near death. After more than two weeks of treatment, when I slept in his hospital room, he was sent home. The reason for his difficulties were never found but he felt slightly better and they said he could be in pain at home as well as in the hospital!
So the weeks went by and, bit by bit he began to make some small improvements. But then he again started to feel worse and became severely bent over in pain. Finally, about a week ago, the surgeon took yet another x-ray and discovered that the vertebrae right above the fusion fractured andwas collapsing. The current opinion is that this had begun on a microscopic level shortly after the December surgery, at least partly causing the crisis in January, but we don't yet know, and perhaps never will.
Up until about a month ago, we were still hoping somehow to come to Ojai. Sadly, that won't be the case. Just about the time the fair is happening they will be fusing his entire spine below the neck (replacing the metal implant put in before, in what is now being called a "failed surgery"). He will be recuperating for from a year to eighteen months! Chances are that the Skeleton Crew Pirate Band will be on a long hiatus. Mallory and I may try to do some light recording during this period, perhaps with our two super side men Patch and Cannonball adding tracks, but for what seems like a very long time, the SCPB will not be performing live while its Captain gets ready to return, very straight and tall. We are hoping that others will continue to sing our songs and buy our CDs!
In the meantime, we have been victims of a very nasty fraud. We have been swindled out of all our money and probably our house unless the money can be recovered in the next month or so. Briefly, we had hired someone to invest the proceeds of a mortgage (all that we had) and handle our money matters while Mallory was ill and my attention was totally with him. Unfortunately, there was some bad blood in there somewhere, and they just took our funds and stopped paying our creditors. We can only hope that the law gets to them in time to save our house. We are costume, musical instrument, prop, and collectable pack rats and my moving us out of a cluttered two story Victorian house while Mallory is in the hospital is a thought I simply cannot confront.
This is just a Reader's Digest version of our trials and normally I wouldn't cry in your soup, but so may nice folk have asked about us, so we decided I should send out this letter.
If you are wondering how you can help, well, if you are a multi-millionaire and want to support a couple of ol' pirates, give us a buzz. Otherwise, tell your friends about our PiRATE PRiMiTiVE project: body adornments inspired by the classic theatrical Caribbean pirates. All are hand-made and most are suitable for all sexes. If you like, link to us at www.MalloryandMcCall.com/PiratePrimitive. Making these pieces has helped to make us a tiny bit saner and we are proud of the results. Moonstruck and No Quarter Given also sell them at various events. We want to thank you all for your care and interest. And don't worry. Though we have a long and difficult sail ahead, in time we'll make it 'round the horn.
Cheers!
Jan
Mac the Wife