A day at the beach

Terri crosses

 another bridge with son, Anthony, in Brunswick.

Beachgoers take cover from the hot at Old Orchard Beach.

OLD ORCHARD, Maine - It wasn't the warm water, beautiful women, comfort food or the scorching sun that made Monday's family outing at a crowded Old Orchard Beach on July 4 so spectacular.

What made this such a banner day for the Blasis, besides celebrating the nation's birthday with thousands of tanned beachgoers, was watching my courageous wife swim again.

Anthony knows how to keep his cool at OOB.

It was worth the 20-minute drive around side streets and a fusillade of obscenities to find a vacant parking spot to avoid paying $20 to leave the car with the local shyster. I can't justify parting with 20 bucks when a quarter-of-a-mile walk from the car to the beach works for my pocketbook. I can cope with huge crowds, long lines and put up with messy public restrooms, but handing over $20 because I don't want to walk a few blocks is insanity.

While other men might have been checking out other women, I couldn't keep my eyes off my wife as she tackled wave after wave. 

Just seeing Terri swim without pain or fear was a damn miracle. 

Beachgoers avoid the heat and stay in the water at OOB.

Last year, my wife was recovering from six hours of life-saving back surgery - with no guarantees. The risks were high and we were still dealing with the death of my mother and the slow onset of my father's Alzheimer's disease.

For nearly four months before her surgery, Terri needed a cane or a walker to limp through the day. She missed six months of work. Her pain was endless as her failing back made it impossible for her to enjoy life. This is a woman who walks, swims, hikes and lifts weights. She is a ball of fire, but she was about to burn up as her conditioned worsened.

Eleven days after my mother's death and on her birthday - she would have been 74 on April 19, 2010 - Terri under went nearly six hours of back surgery for a disk that was about to sever her spinal cord in her neck. But there was more to this complicated procedure. Doctors also had to correct spinal stenosis in her lower back.

According to the Mayo Clinic's Web site: "Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of one or more areas in your spine — most often in your neck or lower back. This narrowing can put pressure on the spinal cord or spinal nerves at the level of compression."

Terri was terrified and my son and I were apprehensive about the entire operation.

We were fortunate to find a gifted neurosurgeon - Dr. Guillermo J. Candia, who works at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. He is a dedicated doctor who is forthright and doesn't take the long way around the barn when explaining the pluses and minuses of any operation.

Anyone who has endured the high anxiety of sitting in the waiting room when a loved one is under the knife knows that hours seem like days. And when you see a nurse racing the down the hallway with a crash cart, you leap to your feet and pray it is not your wife who needs a jump start to keep her from leaving this world.

Well, the operation was a success and Terri survived thanks to the capable hands of Dr. Candia, who gave us back our lives and Terri's health. 

Back on the beach

The sweltering heat brought huge crowds at Old Orchard Beach. The traffic was mind-numbing, but the water was warm and clear and bright sun lit up this pristine beach and all its beautiful people.

Terri couldn't stand sitting in the hot sun and headed for the water despite a strong undertow and huge waves.

She wasted little time diving into the strong waves and came up smiling each time she surfaced. She handled OOB's powerful surf with ease, and that was a milestone for her.

A year ago she was using my late mother's walker to inch around the block, but on July 4, 2011, Terri Blasi didn't miss a step or a stroke when she splashed down at OOB and made her own waves.