tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-115213432024-03-13T17:43:08.506-04:00Naked on RollerskatesThe frantic anecdotes of a scribbling single mom, with 2 young adult sons, 2 jobs, 2 dogs and one life to fit it all into!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger525125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-20277242797391044002019-03-18T06:39:00.001-04:002019-03-18T06:39:50.542-04:00Dear Walgreens, Go Battle Your Own Self "Beautifully!"<br />
<br />
<br />
Dear Walgreens,<br />
<br />
Look, I get it. You were trying to do a good thing. But you screwed the pooch on this one. That “Battle Beautifully” commercial you did? Yeah, well I have some thoughts about your latest advertising campaign. I have or I had or I whatever you call it when you’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer and you’re finished with treatment but don’t know if the cancer’s finished with you. I finished treatment a year ago and your ad brought up every painful emotion I felt during that terrible time. That’s what an ad campaign is supposed to do, right? Manipulate emotions?<br />
<br />
But then you show women wearing brightly colored wigs, having makeup applied, getting hugs from sympathetic pharmacists and you remind me, that as a woman, I can never get away from the relentless pressure to be “beautiful.”<br />
<br />
Tell me something, are you planning a campaign like this for men “battling” prostate cancer?<br />
<br />
Is it not enough that I worry every single day that the cancer is still inside me, or coming back, without having to worry about “battling beautifully?”<br />
<br />
The only thing you left out was the scene where the hapless breast cancer survivor walks off into the sunset with her Prince Charming. But I sort of think you left that part out intentionally. After all, how could a breast-less woman possibly attract, let alone seduce a man?<br />
<br />
And don’t tell me you wanted to pump up my self esteem. My breast was severed from my body. A coat of foundation won’t fix that. If cancer has given me anything, it has made me truly realize that self-esteem and confidence need to come from within. That’s the lesson we try to teach our daughters. That’s the tremulous tune we hum under our breath- “I am enough as I am.”<br />
<br />
Your emotionally manipulative ad campaign is a slap in the face to every woman fighting cancer.<br />
<br />
If you truly wanted to help, which I sincerely doubt, try this- What if you had cancer? What would you need? What would help you stay strong?<br />
<br />
Educate me. Tell me how to fight the nausea. Tell me what helps when your tastebuds change. Tell me it’s normal to feel terrified and grief-stricken. Recommend over the counter aids. Carry more turbans and headscarves. Tell me how to find financial aid. And yes, sympathetic pharmacist, by all means, touch my arm, look into my eyes, walk around from behind the counter and listen for a few minutes. But don’t you dare hand me a tube of lipstick and tell me to “Battle Beautifully.”<br />
<br />
Sincerely,<br />
<br />
<br />
Nancy Bartholomew<br />
<br />
P.S Oh, I guess this almost goes without saying...I won't be buying one single item from your stores- not an eye drop, not a tissue, not a toothbrush.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-2573108099301762372018-11-13T10:19:00.001-05:002018-11-13T10:19:58.743-05:00<br />
<br />
It never gets easier- coming back to Duke. Doesn’t matter if it’s a routine check or treatment- I still feel a low simmering anger at feeling afraid, at wondering if “it” is back, at having to think about cancer at all. Doesn’t help that the piano player in the atrium is playing all sorts of inappropriate AF music...”From this valley they say you are going...” and “Lullabye and goodnight...” WTF?<br />
<br />
There is nothing but waiting here. Waiting and watching the others- many frankly sick, wearing masks, trailing oxygen, sitting in wheelchairs while relatives try to make happy, light chatter. All while we listen to “America the Beautiful.”<br />
<br />
Everything about cancer is weird. Triple Negative weird.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-31748180668033549262018-10-24T20:52:00.001-04:002018-10-24T20:52:55.842-04:00TNBC- Or How I Spent My Year Not Writing...<br />
<br />
<br />
A year ago today I lost a body part to become cancer free. A year ago today also, my new daughter-in-law learned she had leukemia. Seven months before that, my other daughter-in-law had a massive heart attack and very nearly died. It's been a hell of an 18 month journey, but today all three of us are alive and, as far as we know, healthy. But health comes at a cost.<br />
<br />
I can't, and wouldn't, speak for my daughters-in-law experiences. Those stories are theirs to tell. But I will say this- they are two of the bravest, most compassionate and fierce women I know. Our bonds have grown stronger, tempered by our regrettable sisterhood. It is one of the "gifts" I've received from Triple Negative Breast Cancer. <br />
<br />
I have been loved, comforted and supported by my family and friends, in ways I find almost incomprehensible. If I ever doubted, in my darkest moments, that I was loved- that fear has been erased. For that, I am profoundly grateful.<br />
<br />
But as for all the other crap that comes along with having cancer- well, it can just kiss my ass!<br />
<br />
I remember my first trip to the breast cancer treatment center- the explosion of pink, the gift bag, the promise of free makeovers and massages, the smiling faces of the volunteers and staff. If I'd been dropped into the middle of the place, not knowing what it was, I would've mistaken it for a sweepstakes giveaway. Lucky you, they seemed to be saying, you have breast cancer!<br />
<br />
But the patients sitting in the waiting room knew- the ones who were there for treatment. The pink balloons, the adult coloring station, it didn't fool them. Was that why, I wondered, they escorted me and my entourage of family, into a smaller waiting room, separated from the rest by a glass brick wall?<br />
<br />
A squad of doctors, nurses, social workers, even a chaplain, all arrived to tell me I had a simple, small tumor- a minor almost-not-even-cancer, DCIS. A group of cells completely contained in a milk duct had formed a bond and needed to be removed. A lumpectomy would take care of it. I might only need radiation afterward and not chemotherapy. They chuckled when I asked about Triple Negative Breast Cancer- because, I knew. They didn't. But somehow, in some strange prescience, I just knew.<br />
<br />
They smiled at me, like I was a small child or an idiot, looked over my shoulder and spoke to my son and his wife. "You're mother's going to die- but not for a long while and not from breast cancer," the radiologist assured them.<br />
<br />
Three lumpectomies later, when they still didn't have a clear margin, they accidentally discovered the other 1.8 cm tumor that was indeed Triple Negative Breast Cancer.<br />
<br />
That's when I switched to Duke where I learned I would need a mastectomy and chemotherapy. There are no pink balloons at Duke.<br />
<br />
I was lucky in that my lymph nodes weren't involved and chemo was not as bad as the horror stories I'd heard. My hair fell out exactly on schedule- two weeks after my first treatment. In fact, I was standing in the senior center, talking to a patient and twirling the end of a strand of hair when it just came out in my hand.<br />
<br />
"Don't worry, honey," my patient said, eyes wide and clearly horrified. "Nobody saw and I won't tell a soul!"<br />
<br />
I laughed because, well, what else can you do? "You get bitter or you get better." I heard that phrase when a convict was interviewed about his experience in prison but I think it applies to cancer just as well.<br />
<br />
I went through the surgeries and chemotherapy in an almost numb haze. What else could I do? I needed to work. My daughter in law had leukemia; she was in way worse shape than I was. Besides, I'm the Mom. Moms don't lose their shit in ways they can't wipe away with a smile and a sniff.<br />
<br />
Still there were times, and there are times, when it hits me. My grief is the dark, dank cellar of an old house. The place you don't want to go see as a child because that is where the monsters live. And I have monsters.<br />
<br />
Cancer treatment ages you- and I think it's permanent. I have arthritis now. My stamina has returned, but it seems to have reached a baseline well below my former norm. The same thing is true of my cognition- although it's steadily gaining ground. I am not the person I used to be.<br />
<br />
I'm lopsided because I didn't want to do reconstruction, at least not until we knew whether I was going to be around for awhile. "And why bother?" I asked the surgeon. "I'll only look like a badly sewn football's been stuck on my chest." I'd seen the photos online. I'd read what others had to say about it. It's not me. Not yet.<br />
<br />
So, I entered the land of prosthesis. A group of old ladies made me on of my originals, a "Knitted Knocker." I unwrapped the box and found two yellow and pale blue knitted, triangular shapes. Two minutes later, as I returned from tossing the box in the recyclable bin, I found my dog had already destroyed one of his new "toys." Then my first day back at work after surgery, the other one fell out on the floor of the restroom and was retrieved by one of my coworkers. "Um, is this yours?"<br />
<br />
I've evolved onto other, more fitting blobs and bras but continue to struggle with their tendency to move on their own, creeping upward or sideways. It's not a boob, I tell myself, but it's not cancer either!<br />
<br />
My hair is growing back but with "chemo curls" that give me an aging, Little Orphan Annie look. My hairdresser thinks they'll become the spiral curls I used to long for but I have my doubts.<br />
<br />
And I am scared. Every day. Every time I have a twinge or get short of breath, I wonder, is it back? And what, if anything, can they do if it is? There isn't much for TNBC- but they assure me new drugs are popping up everywhere. "In five years, we'll have something," my oncologist assured me. And my neurotic self worries, do I have that much time? And my very <i>most</i> neurotic self worries that worrying about cancer will cause me to have more cancer because all the doctors tell me- you must avoid stress!<br />
<br />
I don't eat red meat-mostly. I cut out alcohol-almost completely. I worry about the lowfat organic, grassfed yogurt I eat for lunch. I read that I shouldn't eat asparagus or eggs, and the list of do-nots goes on forever. But when I went through chemo and even sometimes now, I just eat plain old comfort food because it is exactly that- a comfort.<br />
<br />
I read everything I can get my hands on, but make sure it's a well-researched journal article or otherwise well-respected source. Then I bookmark the article and promptly forget 99% of what I've just read.<br />
<br />
Still, there is the <i>other </i>side of me- the side that is profoundly grateful to be alive, the side that loves and savors more every kindness given, every moment spent with the ones I love, every new day and second of it. Part of me sees the humor in virtually all aspects of this journey. I'm not why-me-ing this because, I mean, why not me? <br />
<br />
It's just that on some moments of some days, the smiling face slips a bit and I taste grief in the back of my throat, rushing in like the tide.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-40114357750455610532016-06-17T11:11:00.001-04:002016-06-17T11:11:32.469-04:00Luther and Max- Farewell and Surrender<br />
<br />
Sometimes I don't understand how a person can die and the world keeps turning. I understand, I truly do, that there are big losses. There is Orlando. Paris. 9/11. But today there is Luther- a small, wizened man who disappeared from this planet yesterday afternoon without anyone seeming to notice.<br />
<br />
Luther's mother and grandmother were moon shiners and didn't seem to notice when he and his brother and sister played hookey beneath the bridge leading into town. They wiled away their days eating pilfered candy bars, roaming the abandoned houses and woods on the edge of their small town, playing hide and seek with the truant officer.<br />
<br />
They were in and out of foster homes- a tiny band of loyal misfits- who in the waning days of childhood, turned to alcohol and cigarettes.<br />
<br />
Luther married once, he told me. "But we never had sex. She left me after six months for a woman. I ain't had a girlfriend since. I think that's what I need- a woman."<br />
<br />
But Luther never found love. Not in human form. The love of Luther's life was his cat, Max. The last time I saw Luther, he'd been placed in a nursing home for rehab after a near-death six week episode in the hospital. He looked at me, a frail memory of his smart-aleck self, and said "I feel sad."<br />
<br />
"Why, Luther? Why sad?"<br />
"Because it's all my fault I had to go to the hospital and leave Max. I shouldn't have fallen."<br />
<br />
The aide who came Monday morning to help him get ready to go to the senior center found him lying unconscious on his kitchen floor, sick with pneumonia, dehydrated and near death.<br />
<br />
"Luther, you didn't fall. You were sick. Don't you remember?"<br />
<br />
But he didn't remember and he didn't believe me. He blamed himself for leaving Max alone. I tried to reassure him, told him that the staff at the center and his friends had all seen to Max, for months, and would continue to watch over the little, white spitfire until Luther's return. This encouraged Luther a bit but it was too little, too late.<br />
<br />
Luther had one other love. After his stroke, he'd let drinking go but couldn't bring himself to imagine life without his four pack a day cigarette habit. Even after 6 weeks in ICU, Luther returned to cigarettes. Luther never was one for rules.<br />
<br />
When the doctor told him he had to have his liquids thickened to prevent another life-threatening bout of pneumonia, Luther chose quality over quantity. When an aide offered to keep Max, Luther let go of the only tether holding him here. A week later, yesterday, he died.<br />
<br />
His brother, wheelchair bound and barely able to make himself understood, broke the news. "My brother died," he said, "yesterday." His expression was flat, his tone a matter of fact reporting of the news. "I'm gonna get his house."<br />
<br />
I rubbed his shoulder and murmured my numb condolences.<br />
<br />
"Will you keep Max, too?" I asked.<br />
<br />
He shook his head.<br />
<br />
"Oh, that's right," I said. "I forgot, you have a little dog."<br />
<br />
Bill shook his head. "No, I had to put him to sleep. He had a bad heart." Bill stared up at me for a moment. "I don't want anything else living. No dogs or cats or anything. I just want to be by myself."<br />
<br />
I nodded and rubbed his shoulder again. "I understand," I said.<br />
<br />
I found the social worker and the director under the social worker's desk, screwing a new computer attachment into the cheap particleboard. They smiled when I entered the room.<br />
<br />
"Did Luther die?" I asked, not so much for confirmation as for a partner in sympathy.<br />
<br />
The smile never faltered. "Yes," she said, still turning the screwdriver.<br />
<br />
"Yes, he's dead," echoed the director, as he turned back to the task at hand.<br />
<br />
"Poor Luther," I said softly to the backs beneath the desk. "I loved him."<br />
<br />
It's not that they didn't care for Luther. We all loved Luther. He was funny and teased us mercilessly when he felt good. But in the medical community, where we lose more than we keep, we find our own ways of dealing with grief and goodbyes. They plug in computers and I talk to you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-35637506376449396392015-12-01T18:04:00.001-05:002015-12-01T18:04:18.715-05:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- A Yellow Post-It Note Labeled "Bertha"<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
would like to think Heaven has walls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not a total enclosure but perhaps just an entryway to hold up the Pearly
Gates. A firm buttress of granite held in place with mortar- because mortar is
fallible and granite is not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mortar
slowly erodes, like we humans do over time, only maybe Heaven’s crumbling wall
could allow a few, bright beams of golden light to slip out, so those of us
still waiting down here might have hope in times of darkness. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I'd also like to add a small pad of Post-It notes and a pen, lying on
a wooden stand beside the wall. This is where you’d go to tag and store the
pieces of your heart when they broke off. Here, between the rock and the bits
of crumbling sand, you’d wedge your tender losses tight and walk away. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Maybe
goodbyes would be easier to take and love easier to give, if we knew for
certain it was never wasted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If our
hurts and losses were named on folded squares of paper and basked in a golden light
on one side, while keeping darkness at bay on the other, wouldn't we feel better? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
this were true, I would walk up to the wall tonight, rip off a yellow square and
write Bertha’s name in bold, red letters. “Here, God,” I’d say, shoving my note
deep inside an especially shiny chink. “This it the part of me that didn’t want
to let her go. The selfish bit that wanted more time to laugh and hold
on and hear what it was like to grow up in the country almost 80 years
ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s the woman who helped me more
than I ever helped her. Here’s a whole big wing of the house that is my
heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d like to have it back someday.
I’d like to have all the pieces back, along with a giant bottle of Gorilla
Glue.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bertha
used to tell me “God’s not through with me yet. I’ll know when He is.” She
worried her almost 50 year old son couldn’t take care of himself and that her
husband wouldn’t live long without her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She wanted to know her daughter’s cancer was in remission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wrote a hymn to comfort her family and made me promise to sing
it at her funeral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bertha gave and gave
and gave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
while I know she had cancer, I prefer to think Bertha’s heart quit beating not
because of sickness or old age but because she finally gave every piece of it away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-23330386363433299142015-09-11T21:18:00.002-04:002015-09-11T21:18:52.758-04:00Crooked Halos<br />
<br />
When I reach Bertha's hospital room, she's sleeping. A tiny figure in a big bed, hooked up to machines that blink and flash with each beat of her heart or intake of breath. I slip into a chair beside her and watch her lips purse into a small "O," then puff out soft, pillowy exhalations. It's not fair, I think. Not fair to have Stage IV Lung Cancer, with a tumor the size of a cantaloupe sitting on top of her heart, only to fall and fracture her pelvis- And all because she wanted a bit of macaroni salad before bed.<br />
<br />
Her hair is growing back since they stopped the chemo. It sways in wiry, gray tufts like new grass atop a dying hill. I have known and loved this frail woman for what seems like an eternity but is only a few minutes of her lifespan. I made my entrance when the six children were raised and gone, the husband finally sober and the trailer as elderly as its inhabitants.<br />
<br />
Two weeks ago she brought me a hymn she'd written and taught me to sing it. She sang it, she said, at her sister's funeral last year and at a granddaughter's funeral six years before that. She wanted me to write down the words and the music so it wouldn't be lost. We both knew why she wanted me to learn the song but neither of us mentioned it. We sat in my office and sang- her voice a creaky whisper and mine soft and faltering as I tried to match her melody note for note.<br />
<br />
Today we were supposed to be learning a second hymn but instead the call came about her fall, so I found myself wandering through the long corridors of an unfamiliar hospital.<br />
<br />
Bertha fell asleep with her glasses on, so when she wakes up, startled by the arrival of a dinner tray, her dark brown eyes are magnified pools of confusion and anxiety.<br />
<br />
"Is something wrong?" She whispers.<br />
<br />
Her aide and I assure her everything is fine. The aide tells her she fell asleep staring out the window at an approaching thunderstorm and slept right through the thunder and lightning. The aide is perky, young and cheerful. She wants Bertha to eat some of her all-liquid supper and bustles around peeling open lids on the soup and juices. Bertha pushes the containers aside and says "Wait a minute. I've got to see..." But she isn't looking at the food. Her gaze travels around the room. She looks up at me, then at the aide. "Is everything all right?" she asks.<br />
<br />
I tell the aide we can manage without her, turn back to reassure my frightened friend and find her staring up at me, her brows furrowed.<br />
<br />
"You're sure everything's all right?" She asks again.<br />
<br />
I smile my most reassuring smile. "Yes, it's fine. You are fine. I mean, you broke your pelvis but you're okay."<br />
<br />
Bertha nods, unconvinced. She's still scanning the room. When her eyes return to my face, she studies me for a long moment. "So, I'm okay," she says in a tentative whisper, "but am I dead? Is this...Heaven?"<br />
<br />
She is no doubt disappointed to find Heaven has a 18" TV mounted on the wall above her head, playing a rerun of "Bones."<br />
<br />
When I tell her no, she's not dead, her confusion doesn't entirely vanish.<br />
<br />
"I'm sorry," she says, giving me an apologetic smile. "But I can't quite place who you are." She keeps looking behind me, like she's expecting someone or something to be standing there.<br />
<br />
I give her my most reassuring smile and reintroduce myself, like I think it's completely normal to forget someone you've seen every week or two for four years.<br />
<br />
"Oh!" she cries, suddenly clear. "Oh, I see you now!" She grabs my arm and pulls me down into a tight hug. "You must think I'm crazy!"<br />
<br />
I tell her of course I don't, she's on a lot of pain medicine and was startled out of a deep sleep. She nods yes, this must be the case, but when she thinks I'm not looking, I see her craning to look at my back again. I turn and show her my backpack purse, still attached to my shoulders and she laughs so hard it ends in a spasm of coughing and choking. It's a full minute before she can speak again, her voice coming in short, breathy gasps.<br />
<br />
"Oh, honey, here I thought you were telling me everything was all right because I was dead and you were an angel!"<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-34206540078954581602015-07-03T21:41:00.002-04:002015-07-03T21:41:19.435-04:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- Family Tradition<br />
His forearms are tanned, the kind of tan that's lifetime-lasting, the kind that comes of hard work done outside in all seasons. The tattoos are World War II vintage, faded navy blue and bleeding into the fine lines of his skin. He's 85, toothless and sitting ramrod straight in his high-backed wheelchair. He is my "just-one-more-please-if-you-could" before the holiday weekend sucks me out the door of the senior center. He's the new guy.<br />
<br />
The social worker told me "He and his wife got into it and she says she's leaving him. She called up here cussing and yelling." Linda rolls her eyes. "Apparently it's not all her. We've had two aides quit cause he cussed them. He's given almost everybody a hard time. I haven't been on the receiving end yet but I'm sure it's coming." She gives me a "poor thing" smile and says. "He was really close to his daughter and she died of cancer a few months ago. She was his caregiver most of the time and he's having trouble adjusting I think."<br />
<br />
I wheel him into a nearby office, slide my bag behind my chair and tell him, "No, really, I'm in no hurry. I wasn't going anywhere," because already his eyes are red-rimmed and he's twisting his hands nervously and...well, how could you leave him?<br />
<br />
"They want to put me in a rest home," he says. "Me and my wife been together 86 years. We don't want to be separated."<br />
<br />
I don't correct how many years they've been together because I'm sure it does feel like his entire life plus one.<br />
<br />
"We fight and argue one day, make up the next. But they don't understand that here. My wife called 'em up and talked out of her head. She was just upset. We was fine the next day. It's always been like that. She's tired. I bet she ain't slept a wink since my daughter died. She don't even try and sleep in the bed no more. She can't. She's on the couch in my son's room."<br />
<br />
His son, it turns out is quadraplegic and living at home with John and his wife. "He was the kinda boy, if he was a driving down the road and seen an old person mowing, he'd stop his truck and go mow their lawn." John gives a short, disgusted snort. "I was mowing out near the road and the dang mower flipped over on top of me, still running, and people just rode on by. That's how folks is these days."<br />
<br />
His eyes well up with tears as he tells me his son had a series of strokes that left him on life support. "When the doctors took him off of that tube, he just kept right on a breathin' and then he woke up. They wanted to put him in a nursing home but my wife said, "No you don't. Not my boy." And we brought him home. He's been there ever since. Thirty-seven years. That's why my wife sleeps on the couch. If he coughs he's gotta be suctioned right then or he'll die. She's the only one can do it now. When my daughter was living, she was helping but then she got sick."<br />
<br />
He tells me about the pain she was in, the way she suffered but tried to keep going. "The doctors up at the hospital said the day she died they was a in there with her and the nurses and she was just a laughing and a cuttin' up with 'em and said they left for just a minute or two, walked back in and she was dead."<br />
<br />
Tears are rolling down his cheeks. "Now it's just the three of us. My wife gets short with me. Who could blame her? She's just tired." He leans toward me, his voice husky with tears and urgency. "Ma'am, please don't let them take me away. I can take care of myself. They send a boy to help me three mornings a week and I can take my own medicine. I told him, just roll me out the front door and I'll wait til the bus comes to get me. It won't be no more than a half hour. I can do that."<br />
<br />
It takes me awhile but eventually I have all the pieces to realize there is an aide coming to bathe his son and help with his care three mornings a week, the same mornings John's new aide comes to get him ready to come to the senior center. Their house is so small, John can't leave without going through the room where his son is. He doesn't want to compromise the small bit of privacy his son has left by rolling through the room with an aide in tow, so John wants his aide to roll him outside early and let him wait for the bus that comes to pick him up.<br />
<br />
I imagine a house so small the only hallway is "four by five feet."<br />
<br />
"He's a good boy," John says. "He lays in his bed and sings along with the radio. He knows all the old country songs. He's got a pretty voice. I mean, you can't understand the words but I know what he's sayin'." He is pleading with me to understand. "I can't leave my wife. We've never been apart except a few times when she left cause I was drinkin' and a runnin' around like men do before they settle down. But we love each other. She can't take care of that boy all by herself. If they'd a let me in that room over yonder," he says nodding toward the physical therapy suite, "I could get on that bicycle they have where they can strap your legs in so they stay put and I told that doctor woman I know I could get stronger. Maybe I could even walk one day. And my arm will get stronger, so see, I can take care of myself."<br />
<br />
I tell him not to worry, that I understand his wife doesn't really want him gone and that I will talk to "them." He apologizes for being hard to understand but says "They're getting me some new teeth and the dentist said I'll be able to talk real good then. He says I'll look like normal."<br />
<br />
I think about the tiny house and the woman struggling to keep from losing another child and the man fighting to keep his world from blowing apart and I tell him I understand every word he's said.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-63749633950608216602015-06-14T16:49:00.000-04:002015-06-14T16:49:03.266-04:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- Stage Notes<span id="docs-internal-guid-5b16a478-f3bb-a7fe-18fe-22416c84ce60"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bertha is dying. Full-on, Hospice dying or as she calls it, "Transitioning."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 2.4; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Whenever I call one of my relatives to tell them I got lung cancer, they want to know what stage am I in.” She shakes her head softly and waits for the small, portable tank at her side to pump enough super-oxygenated air into her lungs to make another sentence. “Finally, I got so sick of it, when the next one asked I said, ‘What stage am I in? Why, all the world’s a stage, honey. We’re all just a playin’ on it!'” </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 2.4; white-space: pre-wrap;"> She chuckles at her own joke, then lifts her tiny, bird bone shoulders in an understanding shrug. “I shouldn't a done that. They only want to know so they can plan when to take off work to come to my funeral, that’s all. And I can't tell them that answer. Nobody can. All I know is, it’s not time yet.”</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-75550648033865008852014-05-13T22:25:00.000-04:002014-05-13T22:30:40.583-04:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- Keeping it Together<br />
The man with no legs keeps a pink pan by his side in the narrow hospital bed. It contains what's left of his life- a church leaflet with his name listed as a member to pray for, a paperback romance someone left behind, three, small yellow legal pads filled with illegible notes he's made about his day-to-day life and two rolls of Scotch tape.<br />
<br />
"What's the tape for?" I ask.<br />
<br />
He doesn't miss a beat. His eyes twinkle as he says, "That's how I keep it all together!"<br />
<br />
When I chuckle and say "Yeah, sure," he shrugs, smiling as if I've seen through him and he's conceding defeat.<br />
<br />
"Or maybe," he says, "I use it to patch my broken heart."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-69927077845365120242014-04-15T20:55:00.000-04:002014-04-15T20:55:02.761-04:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- Angry All the Time<br />
<br />
When the social worker came into his room to do her quarterly assessment, she asked him what the date was today. He raised up on an elbow, glared at her and said "If you don't know what f**king day it is, what the hell are you doing in my room? Go look on a g**damned calendar!"<br />
<br />
The nurse practitioner says she thinks he's depressed but his nurse says "There's nothing wrong with him. He's just a grumpy old man, that's all."<br />
<br />
I look at the chart. It says he can't walk because he has sores on his heels that won't heal. He's diabetic. He has dementia and he's only in his early 70s. His demographics say he has a graduate degree and worked in accounting.<br />
<br />
The social worker says "Good luck!"<br />
<br />
The first time I walk in his room, he's asleep. A frail, white-haired man with baby-smooth cheeks and a death-pale complexion.<br />
<br />
They bring his lunch tray but he doesn't wake up.<br />
<br />
I circle the hall. I walk in on one of my patients and find him covered in feces, his colostomy bag split open. It's all he can do to press his call button and I wonder how it is his lunch tray can be so recently placed before him without anyone noticing his distress.<br />
<br />
I talk to another patient who tells me he's been shot in Korea and is a prisoner of war.<br />
<br />
I visit a man who's lost his wife and hopes his daughter will sign a release to let him leave the facility to have lunch with his buddies. "She's a little over-protective," he says, sighing.<br />
<br />
I walk back into the grumpy old man's room and find him awake, staring at me with intense gray eyes, his expression unreadable.<br />
<br />
I adopt my cheerful fairy godmother face. I'm just here to check in and see how he's doing. He stares at me, gives me a quarter-smile so phony and angry it takes my breath away. So, I cut the crap.<br />
<br />
"Are you depressed?" I ask.<br />
<br />
A simple "yes."<br />
<br />
Every time I ask a question there's a long, empty space before the words come out, as if he resents himself for humoring me.<br />
<br />
He liked to read before he came into the nursing home. He enjoyed mysteries. "A forensic writer," he says. "I can't remember her name."<br />
<br />
"Patricia Cornwell?"<br />
<br />
I get my first somewhat genuine smile.<br />
<br />
"She went to Davidson," he tells me.<br />
<br />
"Did you?"<br />
<br />
"No. I couldn't afford it."<br />
<br />
"So, where'd you go to graduate school?" I ask. I'm not so much needing to know as I am out of gas. Part of me stands there talking while the rest of me just wants to run out of the nursing home and never, ever come back.<br />
<br />
"Union Seminary," he says.<br />
<br />
Seminary? He's a Presbyterian minister...really?<br />
<br />
"Were you ordained?" I stumble.<br />
<br />
Long silence. "Yes."<br />
<br />
"Did you have a church?"<br />
<br />
Another long pause. "Yes."<br />
<br />
I nod. Okay. He's been where I am. He's been where all of us are and now he's on the other side, stuck in a bed while unhelpful helper types pigeonhole him and patronize him with questions about his hobbies and today's date. No f**king wonder he's angry.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-22755615144419548702014-03-18T18:36:00.000-04:002014-03-18T18:36:23.373-04:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- The Little Things<br />
<br />
The new aide caught my attention when she poured the Tuesday "red juice."<br />
<br />
The drink is a staple of the Snack Lady's visits. Every Tuesday she pushes a metal cart up and down the hallways of the nursing home, representing the charitable good wishes of the local Women's Club, church or whatever do-gooder organization it is that sponsors her. Almost a candidate for admission herself, this little woman trundles in to the rooms bearing cookies, candy and always, red Kool-aid.<br />
<br />
For whatever reason, this week the Snack Lady was absent, so the job fell to the aides to dispense the juice sans treats. I was sitting behind the nurse's station desk, perched on a black, swivel stool, writing notes when the aide began to pour a cup full of the Tuesday liquid.<br />
<br />
"You'd think they could do better than the same thing week after week," she muttered. "They're sick of it."<br />
<br />
That got my attention. I looked up and saw the woman wrinkling her nose in disgust. She shook her head and looked at me. "I can't tell you how many of them have told me to get out of their room with this stuff," she said. "They say it's the same thing all the time- red juice. How much would it take to do something different for them?"<br />
<br />
I stared at the offending plastic pitcher and nodded. "Yeah," I agreed. "What would it take to do orange or grape now and then?"<br />
<br />
"It's hard enough being in here without this kind of mess," she sighed and I realized she was referring to the patients, not herself or her low-paying job.<br />
<br />
"Do you work on this hall?" I asked, indicating the one behind us. "Do you work with Mr. Marsh?"<br />
<br />
I asked because I'd overheard her being pulled aside by another aide who was clocking out and wanted to brief her about my patient before she left. I'd thought it unusual at the time because it seems only the nurses brief each other about patients but here were two aides talking with concern about a patient. It's rare. They're underpaid and overloaded. They just don't usually have the time or the energy.<br />
<br />
At my question, the aide's eyes widened. "Oh, yes," she said and abruptly backed away from the desk. "But I'm new. I've only been here two days. I don't know anything- not really."<br />
<br />
Before I could tell her I almost always valued the aide's opinion of how a patient's doing more than the nurse or doctor's, she'd practically run off down the hallway and left me to my pile of paperwork. <br />
<br />
A few minutes passed and the 108 year old woman who rarely speaks wheeled up, cradling a baby doll and a stuffed black dog.<br />
<br />
"Is this your baby?" she demanded of another resident, terrifying the elderly lady.<br />
<br />
"Nooo," she answered, shrinking away.<br />
<br />
"Well, is it mine?" the 108 year old barked. <br />
<br />
The other woman wheeled hurriedly away and the 108 year old turned her attention to the stuffed dog and plastic baby in her lap.<br />
<br />
"They don't do a thing for you around here. But don't you worry," she crooned to her little family. "I'll take good care of you."<br />
<br />
Before I could get up from my seat, a physical therapist popped around the corner, wheeling a silver-haired man, two other wheelchair-bound patients emerged from the dining room and a traffic jam ensued.<br />
<br />
"They're all crazy," the silver-haired man growled to his therapist. "You know, everybody tells me they don't know what they're doing, but look at this mess! I think they do it on purpose!"<br />
<br />
I could've sworn the 108 year-old smiled.<br />
<br />
Every Thursday I see an 83 year old grandmother who recites the events of her week in great detail. At the end of every session, without fail, she sighs and says, "You know, it's never the big things. It's the little ones that make or break you."<br />
<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-48118320408231818352014-03-06T18:23:00.000-05:002014-03-06T18:23:09.867-05:00Fixin' to Quit<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I'm trying to quit cake. Cold Turkey. Haven't had a bite since February 15th. I tell myself, if I can go three weeks without it- without a crumb crossing my lips, without looking at a new recipe or perusing pictures on Pinterest, I'll be in the clear. That's just two more days away. Everyone knows if you do something for three straight weeks it becomes a habit, right? I know this. It's a mantra I repeat every morning in the mirror and every night as I switch out the lights in the kitchen and head up the stairs to bed..."Three weeks," I whisper. "I can do anything for three weeks."<br />
<br />
Then yesterday I read an article in the Huffington Post that said the Three Week Habit rule is nothing more than a myth.<br />
<br />
I haven't stopped thinking about cake since.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-18585650013820314112014-03-03T17:13:00.002-05:002014-03-03T17:13:50.265-05:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- The Truth in Goodbye<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Tuesdays are not good for self-pity. I can feel like the loneliest woman on the planet at 10 a.m and utterly ashamed of myself by two in the afternoon. That's how it was last week. I came dragging into the home, miserable and I left, well, I left more miserable...but somehow more grounded. <br />
<br />
My last patient of the day was new and I did the intake sitting on a stiff-backed chair between him and the bed where his wife lay dying.<br />
<br />
I knew her...Well, had known her a year or so before- back when she was angry at the disease trapping her inside her uncooperative body. She was angry at her husband, too, for bringing her to the nursing home against her will and insisting they both live out the rest of their days there. <br />
<br />
Now she was almost free. Wasted away to a bony skeleton of her former self, her mouth stretched open in a round O as she breathed in deep, irregular, crescendos of sound that are the hallmark of active dying. Periodically, she would stop and every time I would silently pray that this wouldn't be her last breath. Not just yet. Not while her husband sat quietly crying by her side and telling me the story of their 63 year marriage.<br />
<br />
"She had a way of making her will known," he said at one point, chuckling softly. "It wasn't always easy being married to Doris, but we made it work." <br />
<br />
When I asked if the hospice nurse had been helpful, he nodded. "Oh, she's an angel," he said. "She's been so good to us. But she's brutal. I told her I was praying Doris could get healed and the nurse just looked at me and said Doris had less than 48 hours left to live." A tear spilled over onto his cheek and he wiped it away with a shaking hand. "She tells it like it is and that's good. At a time like this, you need to hear the truth."<br />
<br />
I nodded and sat quietly listening to Doris breathe. <br />
<br />
I suppose we all need to hear the truth spoken when it's time to say goodbye- we need to soak it in until our minds can make sense of it. We need to let it echo in us until it resounds in our hearts, until finally, the pain of our goodbye is overshadowed by the peace of memory.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-89048903503858282662013-12-17T19:29:00.003-05:002013-12-17T19:29:59.608-05:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home: Deep Subjects<br />
<br />
<br />
When I stop by his room, Freddy's up in a Gerry chair- a sort of rolling lounge chair for people who can't sit up in a wheelchair. It's the first time in months, since his double, below-the-knee amputation, that I've seen him out of bed. He's got his new upper plates in. His hair's been cut and he's been to physical therapy and had lunch in the dining room. A big day, surely, but Freddy looks glum. He stares down at the watch on his wrist, the one he bought from the Avon catalog during happier times at the retirement "hotel," and sighs.<br />
<br />
"Are you feeling down?" I ask.<br />
<br />
"What?" His face wrinkles like maybe he didn't hear me, something he's taken to doing since his return from the hospital.<br />
<br />
"Depressed," I say. "Are you depressed?"<br />
<br />
He just stares at me through thick-rimmed, black glasses and shrugs. "Well, sure. Wouldn't you be?"<br />
<br />
There's no other accessible chair in the room, so I sit down on the hard linoleum floor beside him, so we're closer to eye level with each other. <br />
<br />
"What's got you down?" I ask this like I don't know the answer because it's what you do when you're the social worker. You don't assume. But really I ask because what the hell else is there to say? And he answers with exactly what I knew he'd say.<br />
<br />
"Oh, I don't know. My condition. Being in here. Where I used to be. Who I used to be. The loneliness. Missing my wife. Christmas. I guess that's about enough."<br />
<br />
I nod and wait for some wonderful piece of solace to fall out of my mouth, only it doesn't. Instead I feel myself sinking right down with him because really, what can you say to that? So, what do I finally say in all my therapeutic wisdom?<br />
<br />
"Well."<br />
<br />
He glances at the Avon watch, then at me. "Deep subject," he says.<br />
<br />
I sigh softly. "I wish I had a magic wand," I tell him.<br />
<br />
"Oh, you do do you?" His eyes twinkle a bit and he half-smiles. "What would you do with that?"<br />
<br />
"I'd start off by waving it over you."<br />
<br />
He smiles, taking pity on me probably and we sit in silence for a few moments. "Well," he says.<br />
<br />
"Deep subject," I answer.<br />
<br />
This dance with Freddy reminds me of being in church, I think. The priest says a line- then the congregation gives their rote response. And all most of us ever seem to hope for is a tiny bubble of faith to surround and protect us- just long enough to carry us safely through from one moment into the next.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-80031055688011886812013-11-14T22:14:00.003-05:002013-11-14T22:14:52.965-05:00Sequins Before Five P.M.<br />
I love my new home. I love my new neighborhood but perhaps I failed to truly appreciate how wonderful it really is. Today I came home and was standing outside with the dogs when I caught a glimpse of someone moving toward me, someone who sparkled in the late afternoon sunshine.<br />
<br />
I was fiddling with a solar light when he rounded the corner. When I saw the boy, dressed in a little, black, sequined cocktail dress, black men's dress socks and little, if anything, else, I looked away, pretending to focus all my attention on the glass jar in my hands. I used the moment to adjust my expression, to assimilate the information streaming into my consciousness and as quickly, let it go. I looked up, met his level gaze, returned his slight smile and said "Hey."<br />
<br />
"Hey," he said, his smile mirroring my own as he walked by, strolling casually down the street.<br />
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<br />
I know what I did next was wrong. I leaned out into the street, fumbled with my cell phone and snapped this picture. And in the moments that followed I thought of all the things I should've, could've said...<br />
<br />
"You totally rock that dress!"<br />
<br />
Too much perhaps.<br />
<br />
"Aren't you cold? If you'd hold on a minute, I believe I have a jacket that would fit you."<br />
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"What size shoes do you wear? I have boys. They left some snow boots here. I know they don't go with what you're wearing, but you must be cold."<br />
<br />
"Are you okay? Can I give you a ride somewhere?"<br />
<br />
This wouldn't have been the effect he was looking for perhaps. He wasn't searching for a mom. I don't know what he was looking for but it wasn't a mom.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-35383498870564554722013-10-28T18:32:00.003-04:002013-10-29T22:31:06.564-04:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- To Have and to Hold...<br />
<br />
Last week he arrived alone for the first time. Pushing the throttle on his electric wheelchair and advancing toward me I thought he seemed somehow smaller. I followed him down the hallway and into my office, took a seat and waited for him to speak. Marriage counseling is at best a risky proposition. Couples usually wait to seek help until they are one breath away from divorce, out of options and seeing my office as the last depot stop before court. But when a couple has been married for 67 years, as Bill and Louise have been, the task seems even more daunting. What possible help or advice could I have to offer?<br />
<br />
They had been squabbling, they said, and this wasn't their way. But in the past few months, as the day wore on, Louise would, without fail, begin to snipe at Bill. Bill would react by retreating into his office. Once there, he'd sit staring at his stacks of file folders, all meticulously organized to contain the facts and figures of their lives- past, present and future.<br />
<br />
"She says she wants to move back to our old house. She doesn't like the apartment. She doesn't like the woman they send in to help her get dressed in the morning. Even worse, she wants to get her driver's license again." Bill would smile ruefully and shake his head. "She's not being logical. She's not thinking about her own safety, let alone that of the other drivers out on the road. Her memory's slipping. Since the stroke, she can barely use her right leg. I ask her how she's going to be able to manage getting in and out of the car or working the gas and brake pedals and she just tells me to mind my own business!"<br />
<br />
Louise, when given her turn, would rail against the rules imposed upon her in their "Catered Living" facility. She talked about having raised four children while Bill worked long hours and how he just didn't seem to realize she was a strong, competent person and didn't need him or anybody else telling her what to do.<br />
<br />
"I miss the intimacy," Bill sighed. "It's hard to hold your wife when you're both in wheelchairs or hospital beds. You probably think I'm a foolish old man but I still have feelings. I miss being touched but I don't think she misses that part of our relationship at all."<br />
<br />
We worked for months, tweaking, adjusting, reframing, explaining and finally we arrived at a happier day-to-day atmosphere between the two of them. Shortly afterward Louise got sick and nearly died.<br />
<br />
When she came back to their upscale retirement community, she was put into the skilled care facility and Bill was stuck going to visit her two and three times a day.<br />
<br />
"They won't let me take my electric wheelchair in, so I have to transfer to a regular wheelchair and try and push myself down the hallways to get to her room." He smiled wistfully and pointed to the boot on his left foot. "It's kind of hard to propel yourself with a broken foot and one arm that won't work. It takes me a while to get to her but she really counts on seeing me."<br />
<br />
I sighed inwardly and thought about the foolish regulations facilities make and rigidly maintain. I looked at Bill, seeing tears spring to his eyes as he talked about missing his wife. It was as if the years had fallen away and the 88 year old man sitting in front of me was suddenly a small, lonely boy, grief-stricken and afraid.<br />
<br />
"Are you sleeping?" I asked eventually, feeling inadequate and knowing there were no words adequate enough to soothe a pain 67 years in the making.<br />
<br />
Bill shrugged and gave me his fleeting, familiar half-smile. "Oh, I sleep alright...as long as I turn my face to the wall and don't look back at the empty bed across the room."<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-36186260916040636702013-10-21T22:30:00.001-04:002013-10-21T22:30:12.265-04:00True Love at the Five and Dime<br />
<br />
They say you'll never find true love if you go looking for it and I'll confess, I wasn't looking. In fact, it was almost the last thing on my mind. What I needed, I thought, was a new car battery but what I found in the Auto Department of the Kernersville Walmart, was true love.<br />
<br />
I entered the store through the grimy Customer's Entrance of the Auto Department, prepared to do battle because this is what women do when they're on unfamiliar and allegedly unfriendly turf. I was prepared to be oversold and lied to, even though this was only a battery and somewhat straightforward. I had researched the brand, the model and the price and no grease monkey type was going to con me.<br />
<br />
The man behind the desk was a few inches shorter than me, with a three-day old stubble of white facial hair, glasses and a friendly smile. He listened politely as I told him which battery I wanted, checked his computer, walked over to the stocked shelf and returned to declare they were all out of that kind but had it's slightly less well-rated cousin.<br />
<br />
"That's the kind I put in the car my wife drives," he said, as if knowing this would sell me. "I always make sure she drives the best car because well...because she's my wife." He shrugged and smiled at his computer screen. "She drives a Toyota now too. Took me the longest time to get her to take it too." He shook his head and chuckled. "See, she's short and we couldn't figure how to get the seat up high enough for her to see over the steering wheel. Buddy of mine showed me." He shook his head. "You know, there's a..."<br />
<br />
"Lever on the side," I finished, because I have a bad habit of finishing other people's sentences despite my best intentions not to. I nodded wisely. "How long've you been married?"<br />
<br />
"Gonna be 51 years next week. We got engaged on April 1st, can you believe it? April 1st!" He chuckled and shook his head.<br />
<br />
"Did she think you were kidding?" I asked, forgetting all about the stupid battery.<br />
<br />
"Oh, no. She says 'The joke's on you 'cause I said yes!" He smiles like he's the happiest guy on Earth. "We still get along, you know? We talk and do stuff together. We still like each other. Got 4 kids. That part, well, if I was to do it all over again, I'd just have a cat, but we're happy."<br />
<br />
"You look like you're happy," I say, smiling at him.<br />
<br />
"I met her on March the 17th and proposed on April 1st. See, I was in the Service and I wanted to make sure...So we wrote letters until I got back and we got married. People thought I was crazy, you know, getting engaged after just two weeks. My pals said, 'What're you doing? Are you crazy? You don't even know her good!' But I just said, 'Tell me somethin', you open up a bag a marbles and there's a diamond sitting in the middle of them. How long does it take you to figure out you want that diamond?"<br />
<br />
He smiles up at me. "That shut 'em up and we've been happily married over 50 years."<br />
<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-60606470442865690102013-10-15T19:59:00.000-04:002013-10-15T19:59:04.521-04:00Halloween Beginnings...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-995656049914285352013-10-15T18:32:00.000-04:002013-10-15T18:32:20.672-04:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- Between and Beyond<br />
<br />
This morning a patient I'd been seeing for the past 15 or so years didn't show up for his appointment. I can only remember one other time when he hadn't shown and it was within the past few months. He'd been struggling with poor health for several years, so I wondered if he was sick again and had forgotten. After 15 years, you tend to know someone fairly well, especially in my business, so I just knew something was wrong. I remembered how frail he'd seemed in our last session and how I'd thought of the Indian saying about fragile people's souls being light to the ground.<br />
<br />
I didn't want to bother him if he was sick, so I sent a brief text asking if he'd forgotten me. When his daughter from South Carolina called back a few hours later, sounding like she had a cold and asking me to call her as soon as possible, I just knew.<br />
<br />
Tom didn't believe in God. Didn't believe in an afterlife. "When you die, that's it, Nance. You're just dust." He said this when his father died, said his father believed the same thing. Yet a few months later, when he'd gone out for a pre-dawn walk, he'd seen his father standing at the end of the walk. "Maybe it was just a guy who looked a lot like him." But the man vanished as Tom approached and while he wouldn't admit he'd seen his father, I could tell he'd wondered.<br />
<br />
Tom was hovering between here and there his daughter said. She said they didn't know why he was dying, only that he was. The doctors couldn't understand what was causing him not to respond to their treatment or what had caused such a buildup of fluid. "But they know he won't come back," she said. "He's going."<br />
<br />
She sounded so matter of fact, so composed and I listened, remembering the trials and tribulations of her adolescence, how aggravated and frightened he'd been and how proud he'd been of the woman she'd become. I felt oddly detached, as calm and removed as the voice on the other end of the phone, as if none of this were truly real and happening.<br />
<br />
I told Tom's daughter I'd come to the hospital as soon as I could, by six at the latest. Then I hung up and returned to listening to a book by the Long Island Medium- not because I'm a fan but because I wanted to hear what a woman from Long Island who channeled dead people, sometimes in Bath and Body Works store or in Nordstroms sounded like. I thought I could use a character like her in a story...because that's just what writer's do- we steal people.<br />
<br />
The Medium talked about how people sometimes send symbols or appear as a symbol. She told a story about a cardinal appearing to a woman who'd lost her husband. And while I may believe this is possible or even true, something about her brash, confident manner was off-putting. Like she knew for a dead certain fact what happened and how everything worked on the other side. Like Marissa Tomei in "My Cousin Vinny," only without as much heart.<br />
<br />
At 4:30 I saw my last patient at the house and as we spoke, Tom died.<br />
<br />
At 5:30, as she was leaving, the woman stopped on the porch and pointed to a corner of the screen. "Oh look," she said. "There's a bird trapped on your porch. How'd he get in here?" She looked around. "The door was closed and there aren't any holes anywhere. That's weird." She shrugged. "Oh, well. See you next week."<br />
<br />
I propped the screen door open, closed the door into the house and gently shooed the little bird out and on its way.<br />
<br />
"There you go, Birdie," I said, watching him soar off toward the trees. "Fly on home."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-42591250491922279552013-10-11T09:47:00.003-04:002013-10-11T09:47:50.814-04:00Tuesdays at the Nursing Home- Kind Betrayals?<br />
I punch in the code to enter the locked Alzheimer's unit and hear Daisy's wails echoing down the long hallway. She's almost deaf, so communicating with her is tenuous at best. I take a seat beside her in the common room, aware of the circling patients all around me, swirling into and out of their own delusions and fleeting memories.<br />
I touch her arm, stroking her gently and realizing she's lost too much weight since my last visit. "Remember me?" I ask, knowing this is an impossible question, yet relieved when she looks into my eyes and nods, mouthing something that I take for acknowledgement. I look into Daisy's eyes trying my best to communicate everything I can without saying much at all. "I'm sorry," I murmur. "I'm going to do something about this."<br />
But really, what? I remember her from the other, unlocked, assisted living side, remember how terrified she was the time they put her over on this unit for punishment because she'd shoved her roommate in an argument over the thermostat setting in their room. I remember her eventual full-time transition to this unit and the way she'd seemed to accept the inevitability without protest. Now this, hours and hours of inconsolable crying.<br />
Without warning, a stout, bald man wearing a sweater vest rises up behind us, clutches the half-wall divider and peers out at the crowd before him. "I've got $104, can I get $105. $105, do I hear $105?"<br />
Daisy doesn't hear him. Everyone else ignores him. He turns, taps the man sitting beside him. "Come on, buddy, it's $105 to you."<br />
In a room down another corridor Faye sits in a rocking chair, eyes wild, mouth drawn up tight, her fingers so tight on the wooden arms the knuckles have blanched white. "Crystal's got a gun and she's gonna shoot me!" she says. I tell her I know she got "sent out" recently and put in an unfamiliar psychiatric facility where they changed all of her medications and sent her reeling further into psychosis. "They made a mistake and sent you where the doctor didn't know you. I can get Dr. Jones to help get things right again."<br />
Faye glares at me. "I know what you're trying to do," she says, her words rushing at me through tightly controlled anger. "You're trying to cheer me up. Don't you dare try and cheer me up! I know who that doctor is- he's Sanford Haynes, a known Communist and a hired assassin. So don't try that on me! I'm not going to the hospital."<br />
I leave her for the relative sanctuary of the nurses' station and order her to be "sent out" again, this time to her usual psychiatric hospital and her familiar psychiatrist. She will hate me for this, I think, and maybe fight the police if they have to come and take her. She will wonder why she's been betrayed again and then, at some point weeks from now, she will return, cheerful and sane, to await her daughter's weekly visit and fast food sack full of bad-for-you goodies.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-32037613572855721342013-07-06T09:54:00.001-04:002013-07-06T09:54:28.043-04:00Writing PromptsI saw this:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hOgwwZyyz2Q" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
And then I thought...what if this?...<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook";">She had lost so much weight. Her skin was waxen. Her eyes, dark and
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<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook";">In desperation, the Pirate did the
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well-meaning, thankful father had presented as a token of his
appreciation. When he was sure they were
out of sight, the Pirate led his mute, compliant captive through a carefully
concealed break in the chain-link fence and into a waiting sedan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook";">He couldn’t say later how he came up
with the church. He only knew she used
to love it- loved the way the stained glass colored the dust motes floating in
the late afternoon sunlight, loved the tender smile on the Virgin’s face as she
stared into the face of her newborn son.
The Pirate only knew this had been her sanctuary once upon a time. So he stationed two of his men in front of
the chapel’s thick wooden doors and led his lady down the center aisle to
settle her beside him on the wide, front pew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook";">She never questioned him but then, he
didn’t expect her to, not really. She
hadn’t said one word to anyone since her release. Hadn’t even acknowledged their presence. Still,
when he leaned down and pulled his guitar out from beneath the bench, he’d hoped
she might recall it. But she just sat,
staring down at her hands as if she didn’t recognize them either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook";">“Remember this?” he whispered
softly. “Before they…before you
were…” He broke off, clearing his throat
with a sound that even to him was half-sob, half-cough. He glanced over to see if she’d noticed but
Elizabeth was still staring down at her fingers, slowly pleating the fabric of
her wrinkled, cotton skirt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook";">“We used to sing this,” he said,
trying again. “I wrote it for you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook";">He hugged the guitar closer to his
chest and felt the tissue-thin membrane between despair and hope rip
apart. It was as much for himself as for
her that he began to sing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-41607301595220202912013-06-29T23:08:00.000-04:002013-06-29T23:08:01.491-04:00Saturday Afternoon with Loveseats<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There is a saying hanging on the wall in my kitchen that just about sums up my thoughts on the meaning of life...<br />
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"There are things you do because they feel right and they may make no sense and they may make no money and it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other's cooking and say it was good."<br />
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Today four sweet pranksters came to help me pick up a sofa I'd purchased. They wouldn't let me pay for gas, even though it was a 60 mile round trip. The blew me off every time I tried to thank them for taking their entire Saturday afternoon to help me. They cut up and carried on the entire way there and back. They sat on every sofa and chair in the store, made faces, snort-laughed and chased each other like ten year olds. <br />
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We laughed the whole way to Winston Salem and back. But more than anything- they made me feel so lucky and loved.<br />
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What more can we ever ask for in life than to know what it is to love and be loved?<br />
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Lucky, lucky me.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-34782227393371123742013-06-25T22:24:00.001-04:002013-06-25T22:24:39.357-04:00Tuesdays at the Nursing HomeI'm on the locked Alzheimer's Unit this afternoon when an attractive, petite woman walks up to me. "Tell me," she says, "what's missing on me?"<br />
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I look at her carefully. I'm weighing this question, giving it serious consideration even though I know she's got dementia. I study her, take in the bright green peasant top and jeans, the chic haircut.<br />
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"I don't know," I say finally, "but I love your hair."<br />
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She screws up her face and I realize she has no teeth.<br />
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"No, what?" she says. "What did you say? I can't hear you. Look at me. What am I missing?"<br />
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"Your teeth?" I ask, completely forgetting for the moment that she has dementia. "Did you forget to put in your teeth?"<br />
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She shakes her head. "No, I don't think so. Something's missing on me. What is it?"<br />
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The symbolism of the moment is completely lost on me as I struggle to answer. <br />
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"I don't think you're missing a thing," I tell her.<br />
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She shakes her head and leaves me to wander up to the next person. "Come on," I hear her say, "what's missing on me?"<br />
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I spend the next hour sitting with a woman who's new to the unit. She's driving the staff nuts because she keeps asking for her daughter, sure her girl's disappeared and needs her.<br />
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"Please, please stick with me," she begs. "Please help me find my daughter. She wouldn't just go off and leave like this."<br />
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I soothe. I lie. I tell the truth. And nothing helps. Nothing matters. Thirty seconds later she clutches my hand, her eyes filling with tears. "Please help me find her," she pleads. "I'm so lonely here."<br />
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I hate broken heart Tuesdays.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-61014965697762284532013-06-17T10:57:00.000-04:002013-06-17T10:57:17.123-04:00<br />
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This weekend I accompanied the Youngest and his girl on their move to New York City- the land of Law and Order's crimes against humanity and Midnight Cowboys. I know...and Breakfast at Tiffany's and a host of other wonderful places and people...but this is my baby we're talking about. I wasn't just watching him leave the nest to fly gracefully around the tree...he did that in college. Now he's soaring like a hummingbird heading to South America for the winter of my discontentedly anxious, watching-from-afar, ever-changing motherhood. And as I must realize, over and over again, he will be fine because he is one of the most competent, savvy human beings I know.<br />
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So, his place wasn't surrounded by junkies and homeless people. It was even better than my first apartment in Philly. A colorful fruit and flower stand marks the corner where he now lives. We set his belongings out onto the sidewalk and no one rushed up to steal them. A couple pushing a stroller did stop but only to argue about the state of their relationship. <br />
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"No," she said, stopping to face her young husband. "I want to talk about this...You always brush it off but this time we're going to talk it out." I carry a box into the building and return to hear her say, "Fine then, I'll just call a lawyer! Is that what you want?"<br />
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By the time I came back for the next box, they were gone. <br />
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The neighbor across the hall had to open his apartment so we could get the new, not huge couch into the boy's studio loft. It's that small but cozy and inviting, with a lovely view.<br />
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My brother's family came up, seasoned New York visitors and residents. My brother and I spent the day making up the backstories of every interesting person we saw, including their current dilemmas and hopes for the future...The biker bouncer with the long beard stuck guarding a Porky the Pig-esque figure outside the bar. He makes no secret of his disgust for the Pig but like people and their dogs, he favors the porcine mascot. His wife taunts him about this late at night when he comes home drunk and wakes her up. She once told him his performance and accompanying body parts made it difficult for her to tell him apart from the fiberglass oinker. <br />
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Two transvestites worked the corner, their feet swollen and painful from the unaccustomed height of their new heels. "You know, Nance, it only takes one minute and 32 seconds to be in agony in heels that high."<br />
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"You should buy better shoes, John," I tell him.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11521343.post-715346902560970032013-05-16T14:39:00.003-04:002013-05-16T14:39:37.048-04:00It's Happened Again!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Five minutes ago we were here...</div>
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And now, suddenly, we're here?!<br />
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How is it this keeps happening? First the oldest gets married and now, not a month later, the youngest graduates from college...with two majors and a minor, a successful comedian, a boy becoming a man...<br />
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I know, this is how life's supposed to go. One moment you're feathering the nest and trying to wrap your mind around this fragile, new creature that is <u>your</u> baby- the next second- they've flown the coup and the sudden silence is deafening.<br />
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A few minutes ago I was in charge of their well-being- now I must watch nervously from the sidelines. I know only as much as they share but I feel and imagine so much more. <br />
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They don't need me like they did and this is a good thing, I remind myself. It means they are launching, soaring into their futures with strong wings and brave hearts. I am so proud of the men they're becoming...etc, etc, etc...And yet- I miss my babies with all my heart. <br />
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Selfish, but true, and all a part of the process...Dammit. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1