4/3/10 - Not a Good Day

My Dad’s doctors decided to start monkeying with his meds and now he is paying a high price for their experimentation. It’s so easy to blame them for his discomfort. It’s so easy to point fingers, especially at hospice, and demand that it be fixed. Because to watch my Dad suffer like he has today is by far the most horrible part yet of this whole process. My Dad has had increasing swelling and pain in his joints, particularly his elbow, knee and ankle joints. After some blood work it was decided that he had gout. Over the past week or so his pain and swelling has been getting really bad and they decided to up the gout medication they had him on. Worst. Decision. Ever.

He could hardly walk today. He was shaking so badly he couldn’t hold a water glass. He was in intense pain and his stomach was screwed beyond belief. He spent most of the day in bed. I spent most of the day shooing the children outside or into my mom’s yoga studio to play and watch TV just to get them out of the house. And worrying. There was lots and lots of worrying.

The Girl is not any better and I knew I should take her far away from my Dad, especially given his sudden turn for the worse. But I could not leave him like this. So I’m staying and keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t compound this by giving him her sickness.

My Mom has been on the phone off and on with the on call hospice nurse all day in amidst sitting with my Dad and getting him to drink as much as possible as they think the shaking and chills are coming from dehydration. I’ve been sitting at the kitchen table mostly, feeling helpless. And feeling that I maybe don’t want to be around for this part. As awful as that confession makes me feel and sound, I don’t know if I can sit and watch him suffer like this as the end draws nearer. And I don’t know if there’s room at his bedside for more than one. I just don’t know.

Inspiration

I have a good friend here who is one of the most extraordinary women I know. She is the least afraid person I know. She decides what she wants and then she just flat makes it happen. She and her husband decided they wanted to live in an RV and take their two kids on the road. They’ve been talking about it for a while, but recently the just decided to make it happen. And the most incredible thing about it is that they did. They just made it happen. And I am in awe of their ability to do so.

My husband and I have been talking for years about the things we want to do, with and without the kids. But here we still are, in Colorado Springs, him working a job he’s very good at but does not love, me trying to figure out to be writer and struggling, and both of us trying to figure out how to juggle being the parents we want to be with “real” life. And I think what I love so much about L and her husband, is that for them, there is no “real” life. There is simply the life they create. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but regardless they consciously chose it and live so completely present in every single moment of that choice that it no longer matters if it works or not.

She has this amazing list on her new blog of 100 things she wants to do in her life. And I love it. Because it’s not all “climb Mt. Everest” or “go to cooking school” or other huge things. There are also things in there like, “get a facial” and “wear blue contacts” and have a pet turtle.” I just love it. And it’s incredibly inspiring. So I think I’ll get to work on my own 100 Things I want to do list. I’ve been so completely rooted in every day, which is a good thing, that I’ve forgotten a bit about letting myself dream, which is not a good thing. And I’ve lost some of my internal inspiration along the way. It’s time to get it back.

In Defense of Nest

My college roommate picked a fight with a bunch of moms on Facebook today. Which actually turned out to be a jumping off point for she and I to spend an embarrassing large chunk of time first IM’ing and then talking on the phone about the whole thing. It’s a really huge parenting can of worms. Or at least it’s been turned into a huge can of worms for modern day parents. I don’t remember it being all that big of a deal for my parents when I was a kid.

It’s the question of how old your children should be before you allow them to have a sleepover at someone else’s house. I remember the biggest issue being whether or not I was ready to be away from home all night or not. I remember having to call my parents at about midnight my first sleepover because I just couldn’t handle it. It turns out now the biggest concern is one of trust. Trusting the parents and children at whose house your child will be sleeping. Mostly in terms of safety. Whether or not the parents can be trusted to provide adequate levels of supervision. Whether or not older siblings will introduce your child to inappropriate things. Whether or not your child will be put in a position to be hurt in this surrounding. And to be entirely honest, the whole thing baffles me.

See, these other mothers immediately jumped to sexual abuse and molestation as an imminent and real threat. And my mouth just dropped at this. I think it’s the imminence these mothers see that shocks me the most. They essentially feel like they won’t allow sleepovers at all until they feel their children are old enough to be their own advocates. Which essentially means their first night away from home will happen when they leave for college. I don’t mean to be flip, but seriously. Can anyone truthfully say they were completely equipped to be their own advocates, not to be influenced by questions of social or emotional pressures, much before they left the nest? Or more to the point, until they had to create (and perhaps defend) their own nest?

Writing Crazy

Ok, so I figured out why I’m having a hard time rectifying these crazy stories I keep writing with who I am. Get a cup of coffee because this is going to be a little on the personal side.

I’ve spent most of my life having to convince myself and everyone around me that I am, in fact, NOT crazy. I had an exceedingly hard time growing up and racked up a pile of therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists. All of which threw diagnoses at me like clinical depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. Those are some pretty hefty diagnoses to be throwing at a teenager already carrying around the baggage life has thrust upon her back. I tried medication after medication and talk therapy after talk therapy session. Until at the end, I just decided to go to college and figure it out on my own. And it’s taken me until today to get to where I am now (funny how that works isn’t it?) and I know I will struggle with this whole “I just don’t exactly fit” thing for probably the rest of my life. But after 33 years, I’m ok with that. Truly. I’ve made peace with my own odd-duckness and I even have days when I embrace it with gratitude.

And then I try this experiment with writing fiction and a whole bunch of crazy comes streaming out of my head. Crazy characters, crazy stories, crazy self-doubt. A whole bunch of crazy that I had no idea was there. And it freaked me out a bit. To the point where I’ve been holding back in the stories, second guessing myself and my readers. Which is not really the point of this writing project is it? The point is to push my own boundaries, to make myself grow as a writer in ways that I simply can’t do other than by doing what I’m afraid of. It’s gotten to the point where I can more easily talk about my mental health history than to let a femme fatale serial killer have free reign in a story, how silly is that?

Well. Not anymore. The filter is coming off.

2/3/10 - This Parenting Thing Keeps Getting More Complicated

So, in the last week and a half, The Boy has taken first prize in his science fair, gotten 35 out of 50 words right in his class spelling bee and had four notes about his behavior sent home. I’m totally the proud mama on the first two and completely bewildered by the last one. He’s never been a behavior problem in any of his classes since he was two years old and bit one of his preschool classmates so hard he drew blood. Ever since then, he’s pretty much been an easy going kid. Even if he occasionally does have trouble staying in his seat or not chattering in between lessons. But that’s totally age appropriate, expected stuff and it’s never been a problem.

Now all of a sudden, it’s a problem. So I sat down with him tonight to talk it out. Determined to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. Because, maddeningly, the only thing the teacher actually said was “He is having trouble making good choices in PE and my classroom.” Which doesn’t tell me a whole hell of a lot. And actually served to piss me off more than anything. But The Boy and I sat down anyway. It turns out that he’s having trouble with a boy in his class constantly pushing and hitting him and then telling the teachers that he started it. Hence The Boy getting into trouble with the “making bad choices.”

I had several emotions immediately rise to the surface upon hearing this news. The first of which was rage. Rage at this boy for bullying my son and rage at this school for allowing it to happen right under their noses. Also rage at the teachers for taking one kid’s word over another without doing any further investigation. And absolute sadness that my sweet, super sensitive boy was having to endure this at such a young age. As The Boy crumbled into tears in my arms after finally getting this out, I was overcome with wanting to protect him from every cruelty in the world.

Which I can’t do obviously. But I sure as hell will write his teacher a stern email.

Writing Muscle Memory

I’m almost done with the Stephen King On Writing book and I’m not even remotely ready for it to be done yet. It’s not very often that I’m sorry I read so fast. Even books that I adore, it’s ok that they end so quickly because I know I can always re-read them again whenever I want. But for some reason I’m just not ready for this one to be over yet. So I’m only reading before I go to bed at night. And only one chapter.

I think the best way I can describe this book is exhilarating. I just find it absolutely exhilarating for some reason. As if through some sort of paper based osmosis he’s imbued this book with his talent and enthusiasm and simply by reading it, I then get that energy level transferred to me. I’m never ready to sleep after reading my rationed chapter. I’m ready to write. Which is a pretty cool feeling – well not the not sleeping part, I’m so tired lately that my right eye has started twitching uncontrollably, it’s rather annoying.

I guess mostly his writing makes me feel like I can write. And that in and of itself is just a really freeing feeling. It just brings fully into focus the fact that I am the only one holding me back. Do I have a lot to learn about the craft? Absolutely. Do I desperately need a ton of practice? Without a doubt. But, and I know I’ve said this before but I think saying over and over is something akin to muscle memory at this point, it’s only my fear that’s held me back. Because the resources are out there, I just have to be willing and able to track them down. And then I need to just start writing. Playing with words, format, tone and tenor. I have to be willing and able to just write, without paying attention to rhyme and reason. Just character or mood or situation. Just because it’s there to be written.

So that’s my goal for this 3^rd upcoming week of writing on 52 –playing with the words that are already there. Unearthing the characters lurking below.

The Other Side of Stephen King

My mom has been touting her love of Stephen King for years in my general direction. She’s tried everything under the sun to reel me in – he’s a fantastic writer, not EVERYTHING he writes is horror, he has a wonderful sense of humor, he cusses with abandon! And I’ve read one or two of his books. Mostly the ones that were absolutely not even in the same city as horror and they were great. But I don’t do horror. Ever.

But then yesterday my mom pushed a little book he wrote about 10 years ago in front of me. It’s a book he wrote on writing. I picked it up today as I was waiting for the lunch hour to arrive and I have to admit I’m completely sucked in. He is a fantastic writer. This is not horror, not even really how he wrote horror. He is very funny. And he does, indeed, cuss with abandon. His writing actually reminds me a bit of my own writing thought process when I am at my best.

Interestingly enough, the biggest theme thus far is to write without fear. Which I find a bit ironic considering that is the sole cause for me not writing more often and sooner. Fear of not being good enough, of not having anything worthwhile to say, fear of being rejected, fear of not being able to adequately translate what is in my head into words on paper. You name it and I was pretty much afraid of it. Those fears have served as all the necessary reasoning I could have ever asked for to not write. And they’ve worked well. Until now.

See, now? After this last year? I don’t give a damn whether I’m any good or whether anyone reads it. I just know that I must write. It is no longer a choice. For so long my only tangible motivation to write was for recognition in some way and since my fear shortchanged that motivation, the only option left was simply not to write.

Well, that’s bullshit. So hopefully the book will have some other helpful tidbits to offer and if nothing else, it really is very funny.

Mix Anxiety with Guilt and...

I am feeling guilty. Because I desperately want to go home with my husband tomorrow for a few days until he was planning on coming back to my parents’ house on Thursday anyway. I would love to sit in my house and just enjoy the quiet. I would love to not have to do anything except catch up on my DVR’d TV shows from before I left and watch any and all of the copious movies we got/gave for Christmas. I would love to delve into my music wish list and spend some of the iTunes gift certificates I got. I would love to take some time to start researching and writing notes about the first story in the new blog I’m going to kick off on New Year’s Day. I would love to take three days and just be in a bit of solitude and utter quiet.

Here is the problem. I feel totally guilty wanting that right now. Ridiculously guilty. At this point where my one and only priority should be spending as much time as possible with my dad. At this point where I should be last on my priority list.

I have this sort of double-edged anxiety that sets in when I think about leaving, even for just a couple of days. Anxiety that my mom will call in the middle of the night and tell me my dad has died and I wasn’t there. Anxiety that if I don’t take some time for me, to refocus and decompress that I will very soon lose my footing here and start taking it out on my parents and children. I know the whole theory “if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else.” I know that. And I am even willing to concede that it’s true. But I also know that in situations such as these, where my role as mother and daughter far outweigh any role as individual, that little nugget of wisdom simply does not apply.

So I am struggling right now. Trying to figure out what is the right thing to do and hoping like hell that I am right, whichever way I choose.

Purpose

I’ve pretty much spent the entire last 18 months in constant drama and trauma. There have been tremendous amounts of upheaval, fear, anger, sorrow, frustration and discouragement. There have been countless days of feeling like I was walking through life in a coma of heightened emotion. Where it felt like I had reached my own personal threshold for feeling; as if there was no way I could possible feel anything else. I have fought and clawed my way back from insanity and apathy so many times I’ve lost count. And it feels like my very DNA has been irrevocably changed forever.

I have had to open myself in ways I didn’t even know were possible. I’ve had to confront and dismiss demons that have plagued me for more years than I’d like to admit. I’ve had to re-learn how to trust, both myself and others. I’ve had to redefine what joy and love and hope mean. It’s as if my very being has dilated.

So where does all of this spiritual pontificating leave me?

Raw. And with the ability to be utterly, profoundly present in every single moment. I never could have imagined that this combination would leave me with much but a teary short attention span. But instead it’s given me an intimate understanding of faith, which is an animal that I’ve been chasing for all my life. And once that level of faith had entered my being, any feeling of impermanence simply vanished. I always imagined being rooted in the moment would make me long for the big picture view, but I never dreamed that I’d get a picture in picture perspective.

And in the end I feel like I’m getting closer to my purpose. And it has nothing to do with any of my previously preconceived notions. It means having the audacity to be unabashedly me in every single moment. In all my different incarnations, wearing all my different hats, using all my best voices, strutting in my favorite shoes, laughing and crying with abandon and utterly embracing life as it arrives on my doorstep. Giving myself permission to simply love, without fear, because it’s what I’m the very best at doing.

On the way to dinner

“What did you do in school today?”

“We had a sub.”

“Was Mrs. E sick?”

“No, someone in her family passed away.”

“Do you know what means?”

“No.”

This was a conversation that took place on the way to a splurge dinner out after The Boy’s winter program at school. It was a nearly tortuous event that took entirely too long given the age range and time of evening, but we showered The Boy with praise because I could literally hear him singing in the very back of the gym.

He chose to ride with me on the way to dinner and this was the beginning of our conversation about what it means to die. And as I was coming to fully understand the gravity of the can of worms my innocent questioning had just opened, I realized one of the biggest reasons I’ve been avoiding, this conversation with The Boy. I just wasn’t sure how to answer his questions. I’m not a religious person. I haven’t ever been. I just cannot bring myself to buy wholesale into any one dogma or another, so that leaves me without a religious home if you will. I consider myself a very spiritual person, especially after this past year, but not religious. So I had to kind of make the whole thing up as I went along.

“What happens when you die?”

“Well, when a person dies it means that your body stops working. But the part of you that makes you, you, your laugh, your ability to love, all the things you’re good at and all the good you’ve done goes back to the universe. To the stars and sky; it goes back to where it came from when you were born. It goes back to the beginning.”

We talked quite a bit about how your body can stop working and what parts of you go back to the stars.

“Will my toys go to the stars with me?”

“No, baby. Those stay here with your body. But remember how you gave your sister that pink bear you won tonight because you saw she was sad and wanted her to feel better? That will go with you.”

A Little Bit of Information

So I’ve known since Thursday that my dad probably has cancer. I thought I was pretty well prepared to deal with it as soon as I had all the information. Unfortunately, that’s just not how medicine works. With modern medicine, you find out there’s a problem. And then you find out it’s a big problem. And then they run tests and you wait. And then the results come in that the big problem is indeed a big problem. And then they have to run more tests to see how big of a problem it is and what or if they can do about it. So you don’t ever really a full picture until you’re sufficiently freaked out and overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge by the huge amount of thinking you’ve had the time to do while the doctors were getting their ducks in a row.

My dad got the biopsy results back today. A day early. He has adenocarcinoma. What does that mean? Well given the research I’ve done thus far, it doesn’t mean a lot until they do the PET scan and can figure out if the cancer has metastasized to other parts of his body, from there they will be able to determine what stage the cancer is in. But long story short, he has lung cancer. A particular lung cancer that has a 17% survival rate beyond 5 years, even with surgery, chemo and radiation. So the odds are not good.

And I am scraping and clawing to keep level headed. I am demanding that my brain not go down oh shit rabbit hole of doom. I am chaining myself to reality. Because it’s not just me that I have to worry about. I have to figure out how the hell to tell my children that their papa is going to leave them forever. I have to figure out how to maximize our time with my dad. I have to do whatever I can to help my parents make some hard decisions and make sure that whatever time my dad has left is exactly what he wants it to be.

I have to be brave enough to stay present with this.

And Next on the Agenda is...

My mom called me around lunchtime today to tell me that my dad was in the back of ambulance being taken to the hospital because they had discovered he was in Atrial Flutter and his blood pressure was soaring at a routine visit. I mean, the fact that my dad was actually at a doctor’s office was anything but routine. This is the first time I can remember him being at a doctor’s office voluntarily for probably 10 years or more. But this persistent cough he has finally got to him and in he went. Little did he know that he would walk in there under his own volition and his body would betray him and land him squarely in the holding hands of modern medicine.

They did a CT scan and found an 8 centimeter large mass in his lung which is pushing up into his aorta causing all sorts of serious problems. The first of which is the Atrial Flutter, which they cannot get to revert back to normal sinus rhythm. The second of which is full body edema and his blood pressure is through the roof as is his heart rate. His oxygen saturation is way down and he also has fluid in the lower lobes of both lungs.

Is this fucking year over yet? Seriously.

Anyway, they’re now waiting for the cardiologist and the pulmonologist to make an appearance so they can look at the CT results and make a recommendation for what to do now. To me it’s obvious that the mass has to come out. But my mom wasn’t sure if they would want to run more tests first or just go ahead and get him into surgery to take the sucker out.

So for now, I am breathing and trying to just stay present. We’ll tackle this as it comes and until we know more, I’m just sitting still. I’m not planning. I’m trying not to think. I’m just being. I’m kissing my babies and holding them tight. I’m indulging in some serious brain candy with Thursday night TV and maybe having nothing but popcorn and Snickers for dinner. I’m breathing in and out and waiting for news.

Not Ok

I am not feeling romantic or wistful or any of the other things I’ve been feeling lately. Today I am angry. I am angry because the son of a friend of mine is laying in the PICU at Denver Children’s Hospital fighting for his life. He came home with a sore throat and fever a week ago and is now on a heart/lung bypass machine fighting for his life. And I am angry because the doctors should have been able to prevent this. I am angry because I keep hearing about how H1N1 is pretty mild and the only danger is in overwhelming the medical system and then this sweet boy gets it and is living hour to hour. But mostly I am angry because there is an entire hospital 90 minutes from my doorstep full of nothing but children in danger and the world is still turning. People are still going grocery shopping and going to work and paying bills and driving around like that is ok. And it is absolutely the hell not ok.

I have another friend whose daughter is also at DCH right now and while she is not in critical care, she is also not healthy and got a life altering diagnosis not too long ago that turned their whole world upside down.

And The Girl has a pediatric cardiologist appointment in just over a week to see if we can add a few more things to her little plate.

And none of this is ok.

Will there ever be a way to reconcile children dying or getting horrific sicknesses or being born with disastrous genetic syndromes? I know all the arguments for natural selection and fate and what makes us stronger. And in the face of a sweet boy being kept alive by machinery I declare all of that to be bullshit. There is just no reason for this much pain and sorrow. These parents have done nothing to deserve being made stronger in this way. These children should be romping with their friends and siblings. Being silly and having fun.

There is no excuse. And it makes me angry in a way that I can’t contain or justify.

Nightmares

I sometimes feel like I’m not very good at this whole day-to-day life thing. It just feels like my process for living is just not all that compatible with the rest of the world’s population. Or maybe I’m just totally thrown off-kilter today because of the horrifically bad nightmare I had early this morning that I just can’t quite get away from.

It wasn’t one of those dreams where you wake up screaming or sweating or even bolt straight upright in bed. I just simply opened my eyes but the images were so vivid and so awful that they still flowed in front of my eyes. And I realized that I was awake and it was indeed just a dream and when I tried to go back to sleep the dream just kept going, in my waking mind. Going back over the worst parts again and again. I dreamt that The Boy was killed in a truly frightening way. And I was there, watching the whole thing. And the two points that stuck out the most was the sheer quantity of blood and the absolute feeling of desolation after I knew, in my dream, that he was gone forever.

I haven’t had a dream like this since I was pregnant with The Girl. That’s actually usually the only time I ever have dreams like this is when I’m pregnant, but since that is definitely not the case right now I’m going to have to chalk it up to stress and my subconscious wanting to supplement my waking stress with some dreaming stress.

When the kids came in to wake us up, The Boy crawled in next to me and I immediately started crying. Am still crying looking at him now as he’s playing superheroes with The Girl on the floor with NFL Countdown on in the background. I just can’t quite seem to shrug off the sorrow of this dream.

Which is really screwing with my plan for today to bring myself back from the solitude seeking, brain candy book immersed, disengaged place that I’ve been in for the last several days. This dream makes me want to crawl right back in with renewed commitment.

Rollercoaster Ride

Today has been an up and down sort of day. I’ve been struggling the past several days with this whole bankruptcy thing. I welcome and cannot wait to embrace the clean slate of freedom it will bring us, but it’s still filing for bankruptcy you know? I still see it as a failure on my part to protect and provide for my family regardless of how irrational or untrue that may be. So I’ve pretty much handed the whole process over to my husband, thinking perhaps if he takes it under his wing perhaps he can shepherd it into a much safer port than I’m capable of. So I’ve been working mightily to strike some sort of balance between curbing my needless self-berating and staying as present with whatever arises as possible. I was already failing in that pursuit today when it was time to take The Girl to the doctor this morning.

I fully expected this appointment to be nothing more than a 10 minute in and out visit so that we could touch base with her doc on her asthma management. I’ve been pretty happy with our progress so far. Her doctor came in and we chatted and caught up a bit and then he dutifully listened to her lungs and heart. Got quiet, flipped through her electronic chart and said that she had a heart murmur and wanted us to get in to see a pediatric cardiologist as soon as we could. I adore this doctor for many, many reasons and one of them is because through everything we’ve been through with The Girl he has always been there to keep me grounded if by no other means than he sees so much worse the majority of his days. But today he looked at me and said he was worried.

The rest of my day has been lost to a haze. A haze of fear and uncertainty with me somewhere in the background attempting to bring myself back down to some sort of rational level. Because really we don’t know anything. Just that we need to follow up on these newly presented symptoms.

And so we will. And I’ll keep you posted.

Fear and Anger

Here’s something I haven’t quite figured out yet – how do I get far enough away from the fear and/or anger in a situation so that I can be active in the problem solving?

We’ve had this whole money problem thing dogging us for years. It all started when I quit a really toxic job not long after we moved back to Colorado. I got pregnant with The Boy soon after that and even though I was still looking for a replacement job, no one wanted to hire me when I was already pregnant and would be leaving for maternity leave so soon after being hired. My husband lost his job when The Boy was 6 weeks old and with both of us essentially being unemployed (I had started my consulting business by then but was nowhere close to bringing in a consistent paycheck) we drained our savings and racked up a suffocating amount of credit card bills. That was more than 6 years ago now and we’ve been seriously struggling ever since. There have been times of respite, when my consulting business was going gangbusters or when my husband was on hurricane catastrophe duty and getting doubled paychecks with all the overtime. But essentially it’s been a constant struggle.

And with each passing year the options available have lessened and become less solutions and more choice between two bad alternatives. I’m just not a big fan of being pushed into a corner, especially when I’m the one who has done the pushing.

It pisses me off that we haven’t been able to visit my husband’s parents since The Boy was about 18 months old simply because we can’t afford it. It pisses me off that I’m about to ask The Boy to choose between a birthday party and his guinea pig birthday present because we cannot afford both. It pisses me off that I can’t put The Girl in preschool this year. It pisses me off that we don’t get to have date nights nearly as often as we need them.

But under all that pissed-offedness is fear. A deep fear that my family will be living in a cardboard box in the near future.

Deja Vu Panic

Speaking of barking. The Girl woke up with a big, bad, barky cough this morning. She has a low grade fever. And I was immediately filled with the panic that filled most of this past winter and spring. We immediately did a nebulizer treatment with her, which didn’t seem to have any immediate effect. We’re out of the liquid steroid we usually give her when she has the croup. The only solace that I’m taking from this is that, to date, her bouts of pneumonia haven’t ever stemmed from the croup. And that her fever is not currently rising. Other than being a bit whiny and obviously feeling a wee bit punk, you wouldn’t know she was sick other than when she coughs this horrible, gut wrenching bark.

So we’re going to have to stick close to home for the day in an effort to de-rail the bark and keep her fever low. My husband is washing dogs and I am putting that panic on a very short leash because as of right now, there’s not much to worry about. We have weathered more croupy outbreaks with The Boy than I can remember. Until this past winter, I was never really afraid of the croup. It was totally manageable and not a source of fear. But now every time The Girl feels just a bit warm, or her nose starts running, or heaven forbid, she starts coughing even just a little, I spin into déjà vu panic.

But I am just trying to keep present. And realize that this is now and that was then. That just because she had one febrile seizure does not mean she will ever have another one. That just because we’ve only had about two months with her being healthy does not mean we are in for another nightmare repeat.

That I just have to keep on with this whole year’s worth of lessons: patience and having the courage to just be entirely present in whatever moment I find myself in. I have to be patient with the process of this life and with the moment. And I have to be present enough to see the fruit of that patience.

And Ode to E

My friend E is one of the most amazing women I know. She has this innate sense of community and family that is so heartfelt and honest. She is strong and creative in ways that I deeply appreciate. And she is struggling right now.

She is pregnant with their third baby right now and going into it she knew that it would be a high risk pregnancy. But she got some news a couple of weeks ago that really drove home how high risk it is right now. So her mind took off in a gallop of worst case scenarios that has her reeling from a prognostic future that is much to her dislike. The prospect of having a premature baby, of her getting sick, of the baby stopping growing before he or she should are all swirling around in a cloud of fear and stress. Having to plan now for an imminent prescription of bed rest and extended time off of work only adds to the burden.

And while my heart goes out to her in this time of upheaval, what really gets me the most is that in the midst of all of this, she is still just glowing. She is gorgeous and determined and dedicated to the health of her family no matter what the future holds.

So I listened today while the kiddos played in the background; our daughters at their sweetest plotting together different ways to come and tell us how much they loved us. And gave her tissues and told her that hell yes she should be scared while sharing my own personal mantra – we all are exactly where we’re supposed to be.

I hope she was able to gain some comfort from being able to vent and cry and I hope that I was able to help her see things in a smidgeon of more positive light. Because this woman, and our friendship, mean the world to me. I adore her and her family thoroughly and I would do most anything to be of help to them. I hope that she always remembers that.

And I am glad she reads this blog, because this one is for her.

Lighter if Not Better

Everything’s going to get lighter, even if it doesn’t get better…

That is what I am hoping for more than anything right now. I don’t foresee it getting any better for a while yet, but if it could just get a little lighter, I think I’d have a fighting chance of getting through it all with some grace.

The last time I felt this way was right after college. I had just spent 4 years working my ass off to get a triple major done in the normal 4 year time span and was getting ready to start another 6 years towards a PhD. I was daunted and burnt out and exhausted. Now I’ve been working diligently for the past almost 6 years to raise my amazing son and 3 years raising my gorgeous daughter and through one reason or another, I’ve spent the last 6 months afraid for them. And fear takes so much energy. Energy that I couldn’t spend on work and thus we are in the financial situation we are in currently. Energy that I couldn’t spend on recharging myself and my passion. Fear for your children is an all consuming thing that takes every ounce of energy you have.

Probably a mother more enlightened than myself would have given up the fear a long time ago and came to the realization that regardless of whether they are on the playground or in the hospital, they are individual beings that each have their own karma to live and work through and even though I can stand by them to guide them, they will have to walk their own paths. The sickness and pain over the last several months are part of that path and all I can do love them through it. The fear does no one any good.

So here I am. Feeling a bit dramatic, but trying not to show it. Struggling through the daily grind while being grateful for every “normal” day. Resenting the non-change of every moment while relishing the inherent gifts. No wonder I’m burnt out. No wonder I’m so tired. It’s like living a dual life. And even though I’m a Gemini, I’m not that good.

6/22/09 - H Day 2

“I am sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother is having a heart attack.” – ER doc

P and I had gotten mom on the ambulance and raced to her car to follow them to the ER. We got to the hospital, found our way around and waited for someone to get us as they were “still working on her.” We both uneasily, but thoroughly, convinced ourselves that it was food poisoning or indigestion or a panic attack. Even in the face of text book heart attack symptoms, we worked hard to find all remotely plausible alternative explanations. But they led us back to her room, where they were indeed still working on her, and the very nice ER doc kneeled down before me and crushed my illusions with a huge frying pan of reality.

P and I looked at each other and immediately started in on planning mode. How would we get my dad here? Where should we have her transferred to (the hospital didn’t have the facilities she needed for treatment)? What mode of treatment should we authorize immediately?

In the end we chose a brand new cardiac unit about an hour outside of Denver, where they would transport her to and a blood clot busting drug called Retavase which would be her best bet given how much time had already passed. I was going to book my dad a plane ticket for first thing in the morning and P would pick him up from the airport in Denver. J would help me pack up our hotel room and book the ticket. I would follow P in my mom’s car to the new hospital.

So many details and nowhere in any of those choices was there an answer to the simple question of whether my mom was going to be ok. The hospital in Laramie didn’t even possess the facilities to tell me the severity of the heart attack. Only that immediate action was warranted and they wanted her on the road ASAP.

I ticked through my check list as quickly as possible and got in the car, trying not to think, chain smoking and trying to figure it all out.