Category Archives: Life

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

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…try, try again.

So, once again I will make an attempt to take up blogging again. I don’t know why I haven’t been, exactly.

Maybe because it’s been hot and humid, and I/we have to walk Quigley at night during the times I used to write my blogs. By the time we get back, it’s too late, I’m too tired, and it’s time to go to bed.

Or maybe because I’ve been doing the Flylady stuff more assiduously than before. I’ve been working on the morning and bedtime routines and sticking to them fairly well. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been doing it on a lesser scale than previously, or the fact that given the state I’m in, having a list of regular tasks to pursue is just what I need. They’re things that need to be done, and I don’t have to think too much.

Plus I tend to get sidetracked in the midst of them by unexpected developments, and they end up taking longer than I expected.

Or maybe it’s because I’ve just been feeling weird lately. Grieving? It doesn’t really feel like grief, though as I understand it, grief can take very strange forms.

Burnout? Possibly. Maybe even probably. I’m not sure I like the term “burnout”. Exhaustion — physical and mental — may be more accurate. Certainly once my mother’s house sold and all the immediate, deadline-type things were completed I spent a week or two doing a lot of sitting around staring out windows.  I even took a few naps.

I didn’t fuss at myself for doing it, either, because I knew that I was exhausted. And I have recovered a bit. I am doing things, after all. And don’t feel like everything is just way too hard to tackle, as I did there at the beginning.

Except for creative things. My novel under contract. My blog. Even card-making has been difficult. I made a birthday card for my sister last week and could only do tiny bits of work on it before everything went blank and it all seemed too hard. When she told me later that she’s felt the same way (she works in a rubber stamp store) I began to think it might be something other than… laziness or failure to be disciplined. Especially since I’m experiencing exactly the same thing relating to The Other Side of the Sky. I can only think about it for a teensy bit of time and then no more.

Regarding Sky, I have determined, in the small amounts of time I’ve been able to make myself get back to it, that the reason the first chapter (which is actually the second chapter, since I’m starting with a Prologue) has been so terribly hard to read, so… boring… is because it is. One of my writing books talks about how the writer often needs to use a bunch of words to tell herself the story and I suppose that is what I was doing. In any case, analysis has shown me the fact that it actually has structural problems. One of the parameters for scene construction is that you must start out with your character having a goal, which is then obstructed by some kind of problem and then conflict as the character attempts to overcome the problem and achieve her goal. Chapter One has lots of conflict and bustle and problems, but not really anything related to the viewpoint character. She has no goal. Stuff just happens and she has to deal with it. Which is why I find it boring. So I have to come up with some kind of goal for her.

And so far, I haven’t.

I have however, done a lot of decluttering around the house. In fact, I’ve been almost obsessive about it. But maybe I should save that subject for tomorrow’s post…  (Yeah, I know, I’ve said that before. Hopefully I WILL be back for tomorrow’s post. In fact… maybe I’ll go write it now…)

Yet More Reassurance

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 I finally got back to working on The Other Side of the Sky today!  For two hours. First time in three months. And even the few days I spent three months ago were themselves the first time in three and a half months, so I think it’s fair to say it’s been six months since I’ve really worked on the book.

But that’s not what I meant by more reassurance. No this was reassurance about my mother’s salvation  I recounted here the story of how I had one last chance to encourage my mother to believe in Christ the night before she died, and how she seemed to respond, seemed to be saying yes but not in any clear and definitive way. I related how after I’d left her and walked down the long, deserted main hall in the hospital a woman came toward me carrying three white lilies which I took to be God’s confirmation that my mother had indeed believed and received eternal life.

There was more of that sort of confirmation afterward. Like me picking up the birthday card my mother had given me in March to put it away (I had it on display) and, in turning it over, discovered that on the back was printed “Lilies of the Valley.” And finding out that her yet-to-be-born great-granddaughter was to be named Lily, a decision my son and his wife had arrived at well before the incident of the white lilies in the hall. But there was another weirder, but even stronger confirmation that I discovered some time after the actual events when I was rereading the entry I’d written in my journal of those last moments on the day she died.  Suddenly the names of all her caregivers who were around her that day seemed to leap off the page at me.  Dr. Bravo, former nurse Alva (the name means, in Hebrew, “brightness, exalted one“, Mother’s actual nurse of the day, Victoria, the technician Mary, all came to say goodbye to me. And when we arrived at Peppi’s House, the Hospice facility, Mother was delivered over to the care of a nurse named… Christy.  Christ.

Gave me chills to see all that. Still does. But there was one name I never looked up, that of Dr. Clements who had really been a blessing to me. He was the pulmonary specialist who drained the fluid from Mother’s lungs so she could breathe better and be a little more comfortable. He was the one I could talk to, and did. He always made me feel better, even when things were dire. He was clear, he made it all understandable, he worked with dying patients all the time. He was the one who told me on Saturday that Mother probably wouldn’t last twenty-four hours, the one who wrote the order for Hospice when the brilliant but flaky gastroenterologist forgot.  He was the one who told me to call my sister and tell her to come ASAP.

Lately I’ve been wondering… what does his name mean?  It seems like a plain, vanilla English name. Probably has no meaning, right? Certainly not anything significant like the others.  The question kept niggling at me so last night I finally looked it up.

It means “merciful.”

That gave me chills, too.

God is Faithful

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Well, one way to increase the odds of posting this next installment in my catching up on what all’s been happening to me as my mother’s “Personal Representative” (they don’t call it Executor any more) , is to start it right after publishing the previous post.

Yes, I did say that I got in a car accident the very morning of the big yard sale. My son and his wife had returned to Tucson to help out with the sale on Saturday and also to celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday. We’d spent Friday getting stuff boxed up and ready to put out on Saturday. Saturday morning I took my Jeep and went around placing yard sale signs in the medians. I was on my last sign,  pulled out of the empty lot I’d been parked in and headed down the road, focused on where I was going to place my last sign and where I’d have to park to do that. It was about 6:50am, and traffic was very light. I entered the intersection about thirty feet up the road from where I’d left the parking lot, and suddenly this black Ford pickup truck was barreling toward me from the left.

“What is THAT doing there?”  I thought in shock and disbelief. I threw on the brakes but soon realized the truck was going too fast and  I wasn’t going to be able to stop in time and so I hit it.

It pulled my car around in a half circle, and left me there in the intersection as it  ran over a small sign with a safety reflector on it in the median, continued on up the road and finally pulled over to the side. I sat in the Jeep, unhurt, but stunned. How could that have happened? “Lord,” I prayed, “what are You doing? How could You allow this today of all days?”

Well, it did have positive repercussions in areas I’d never have thought of…

But first I have to finish my story and get me out of the street. As I said, I was unhurt — bumped my head against the side window at the moment of impact but that’s all. The place where I’d run my head into a cabinet door the day before hurt worse. Within seconds an ambulance pulled up behind me and a paramedic was at my door, asking if I was okay. Turns out they were only two cars back when the accident occurred, though their view had been hampered by other cars so they’d not really seen what happened. He did ask if I remembered what color the light was… I had no memory of the light at all. Just the parking lot on the other side of the street and that big black truck coming fast where it wasn’t supposed to be…

He and his partner held back the traffic while I drove the Jeep into the nearest parking lot and right about then a police cruiser pulled up. Turns out the City of Tucson police department no longer issues citations for collisions where no one is hurt, nor do they do accident reports. They just hand out insurance information forms to each party to fill out, act as a go-between for the exchange of the filled-out forms. The participants’ insurances will have to duke it out as to who is responsible and if they can’t decide, then we split it. Terrific.

At least I got to use my cell phone. The crazy thing is that my husband’s Jeep was already out of commission that weekend with an overheating problem due to an undetermined leak. So he had to come over by bicycle. Before he arrived, the policeman, learning that my car was still drivable, escorted me the block or so back to my mother’s house where everyone came out to view the damage and commiserate. My poor Jeep. Its whole front had been shifted sideways. It did not look at all good.

We ended up getting two rental cars and as it turned out, the insurance decided to fix my Jeep… it will take 25 days, and they will cover the rental. So I’ve been driving a little silver Dodge Caliber about. It’s kind of fun.

All that went on during the yard sale, which, despite fears and even prognostications of disaster, turned out to be a resounding success. We were quite pleased with the money we made, and the stuff we got rid of, but we still had a LOT of stuff left. The jigsaw puzzles for example. My mother had almost 200 of them squirreled away in various closets, and we sold only about 3 that day. Fortunately Bookman’s Used Books took quite a few of them off our hands, and even paid us for them. But there are still probably a good 75 of them left…

Three days after the yard sale we met with the realtor, who’d been recommended to me by the lawyer. The lawyer I found on the internet while looking up ‘probate’. He’d written several articles on the subject which were quite helpful and his office was not only in Tucson, but not far from my home. It seemed an unconventional way to choose a lawyer, but would the yellow pages be better? Did I really need to interview various lawyers and do a bunch of research? The truth was, I didn’t exactly have the brain room or the time to do a lot either. I just prayed for guidance and gave it over to God. Anyway I am quite happy with the lawyer, and when we got around to discussing when we could put the house on the market, I asked if he could recommend a realtor. He did and when I contacted her, it turned out her mother in law lived in the same neighborhood as my mother had, so she was very familiar with it. I counted that a confirmation that God was indeed orchestrating all this things.

Throughout all this I’m learning more than ever and in a more hands “on” way than ever  that it’s God who does the things in my life, not me. I just have to let Him. So maybe I should have said I’m learning in a hands off way.

In any case, He’s been coming through every time.  And continues to do so.

The realtor was thrilled with my mother’s house and we had it on the market the following Saturday and after a week we’ve seen a lot of interest and as of last Friday already had two offers.

But back to the car wreck. Who’d think that could turn out to be a blessing? But it did.  Gas prices being what they are, the Dodge Caliber is the better car to have when one must drive about town all the time, dropping things off here and there… It’s an even better car to drive to Phoenix and back in… I made it the whole way up on a quarter tank of gas!

But that’s tomorrow’s tale.

Now the Legal Stuff

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Well, hello, everyone. Sorry I’ve been away for SOOO long. The time seems to have flown by. It’s already a little over a month since my mother went to be with the Lord and it seems like yesterday.

I don’t think one really understands what all this caregiving at the end of life stuff is about until one goes through it. I certainly didn’t. There is so MUCH that floods into your mind, that you have to see to and tend to. And the weird thing is that it doesn’t end upon the death of the one you are caring for. At least not if you are the Executor, as I am. Not just the Executor, but a clueless executor. 
 
My mother made a very simple will back in January when we did all the stuff with durable power of attorney and health care POA. I also had her put me on her bank account as a joint holder and that was a wonderful bit of advice I received from the clerk that has saved us tons of trouble. In any case, she doesn’t have very much (but she does have a house, which is the complicating factor) and she left it all to me and my sister to be divided equally. We naively thought that we’d just transfer the title for house and car to me, sell them and split what is left. Ha. I went down to DMV about three weeks ago, expecting to transfer the title to the car (this after having called ahead to ask what I was supposed to do) only to learn that  I had to wait until a month after the person had died. That was so everything could go through probate. “What’s probate?” I asked. The clerk didn’t know, only that I had to wait a month and if my mother owns a house, that means she has more assets than $50,000 and so must go to probate. I drove home wondering how in the world I was supposed to get us through probate when I had no idea what it was. Who would I even call? Wouldn’t someone call me?
 
Apparently not. I went on-line, learned that it’s the legal process of establishing the validity of a will, and in small estates doesn’t usually require court appearances, you just have to file the papers. Since I also had to look up “equity” I decided I would probably be better off having a lawyer do all this filing, since it’s supposedly somewhat non-intuitive. You can get the forms (where??) but then you have to know which ones to fill out and how to fill them out and what the weird terms are … so… About two weeks after my mother’s death I hired a probate lawyer and am very glad I did. I have NO idea how I would have figured out how to fill out the inch-high stack of papers he had for me to sign before filing. Plus he’s there to email if ever I have questions. He got me a tax ID number to open an estate account into which I could transfer my mother’s funds and deposit refund checks addressed only to her…  I have learned an awful lot about all that stuff in the last month. It’s kind of mind-boggling.

In addition to all that, we had to stop the magazines, the newspaper, the credit cards,  notify her friends about her passing, think about a memorial service… We didn’t have a funeral, in part because she was cremated and in part because she was a private person, not given to ceremony. Will we write an obituary? She told my sister that if we did, we were NOT to put a photo of her along with it. 

I spent a week trying to determine the worth of her various works of art — indian arts and paintings.  Also working through the insurance bills — one for the last hospitalization came less than a week after she died, a letter that informed me they’d talked to the insurance company which had confirmed we owed such and such amount. The only thing was, I knew she was fast approaching her out of pocket maximum and wasn’t so sure she’d have to pay the whole thing. I decided to wait until I got an Explanation of Benefits… I’m still waiting.

Then there was the matter of going through her things. Our initial foray into that was just to throw away the obvious junk, and anyone who wanted something could take what they want. Adam and Kim stayed an extra day and a half that first week. Kim went home with my mother’s set of blue enamel cookware… very nice stuff, but both Deb and I have what we want and didn’t need it. We also raided her rubber stamp supplies and that was fun. Actually we had a lot of fun, being together, discovering photos, reminiscing. Adam went through her extensive CD collection and tried to organize them somewhat. We found one she’d kept with a sticky note on it that said “Not Good” and we all laughed at that. The fact that she didn’t like it, yet kept it… 🙂
 
The downside, though, is that when I bring stuff home, it’s there. My house has no holding space for new things. If something new comes in, something old has to go out, but there’s been no time to figure out what the old thing is going to be. Or, if I do know, I’m still trying to arrange how to get the stuff moved out. First it was a lot of art supplies that I’d gathered in preparation for donating to  the watercolor guild. That took about a week to actually make the connection with a guild member to move the stuff out.  

Then came the yard sale — I got in a car accident the very morning of the sale, while I was out placing signs. But that’s a story I’ll save for another day… This post has gotten too long already. Hopefully I’ll be back to continue it tomorrow.

FLYing Again and other stuff

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Well, my sister left for New Mexico last Thursday (the 17th), so I’ve been back to taking care of my mother on my own. “Taking care” is an overstatement. Mostly I’ve been checking in once a day (in person), talking to the two therapists who’ve been coming (on alternate days), paying bills and doing small things that need doing. Mostly she’s been doing well, getting her own meals, taking her meds, even drinking her 8 glasses of water, cleaning up, etc.

Exercising  hasn’t been going so well for us, though. Her physical therapist wanted her to take a walk down the street all last week, but she kept refusing. On Saturday, though, she agreed to go with me to the grocery store when I did her shopping. She walked using the cart for a support and while originally I’d envisioned her walking only one or two aisles, she ended up walking through the whole store and only sat down once we’d reached the checkout. She said she felt fine.

But it was too much and she paid for it the next two days with painful feet and legs. Also, her back has started hurting again as a result of yet another fall she took when my sister was here — no passing out this time, she just decided to reach down and pet my sister’s rabbit and lost her balance. She’s not been using the walker or even the cane. If she needs support, she uses furniture, counters, the walls, etc.

We aren’t sure what to do about the back. It may be a result of misalignment of the spine due to the compression fractures.  I guess if it keeps bothering her, we’ll have to call the primary care again…

I have really had it with the parade of doctors. I think since January she’s been under the care of 17 different doctors or physician’s assistants. All with their own idea of how things ought to be done.  I am not eager to go back to yet another (if we have to see someone who specializes in back issues) for an 18th viewpoint…

Beyond that, though, things are starting to acquire a bit of normalcy. I went back to doing some of the Flylady.net system again about a month ago, figuring, finally, that I needed to come up with a morning routine to complete before I went off to help my mother. That way the basic necessities are done before I leave the house and get sidetracked with other issues, or end up too tired to make myself do any house chores once I get back home.

I think I’m starting to get it, too. I’ve got an existing morning routine that I’ve been doing for awhile, to the point it’s definitely become a habit. I can get up, get dressed, wipe down the bathroom, make the bed, start a load of laundry, dust mop the floor and do tricks with Quigley without hardly thinking about it. (One of the disadvantages I’ve found with that is that I end up thinking I haven’t done anything, even when I have).  However there are a few other things I’d like to incorporate, but so far they’ve always seemed to fall by the wayside after breakfast.

But now I’m seeing the importance of adding only one new habit at a time and giving it a good month to get set. I’m also appreciating the importance of setting things up the night before. If I get to sleep early, then I’m not so inclined to lie in bed past my ideal wake-up time in the morning, nor too tired to keep myself from getting sidetracked. In fact, I’ve even been waking early enough to even do a bit of morning pages.

I’ve been using my timers for fifteen minute intervals on a lot of things, even writing. Yes, I’ve actually, finally been working my way back to Sky. I haven’t yet figured out exactly what my hours on that will be, but I’m also not demanding that I do so, either. I’m still in the learning and observing stage. And today I learned that when I don’t get to bed early enough, I end up too tired to use the late afternoon hours well. 

And I’m thinking too, as I mentioned that not enough sleep might also contribute to my sometimes breath-taking distractibility.  For example, I may start out eating breakfast, then open my journal to write, then decide to go into the bed room to get a pen, but, looking at my rubber stamps on the desk decide to stamp something into the journal, which necessitates looking for the proper stamp, and the proper ink, then in looking for a stamp I find something that needs fixing and start to work on that until I have to go to another room for another tool… and maybe 45 minutes later I return to breakfast, which is now utterly cold. And what happened to the morning?

So I’ve been doing less of that, but getting a clearer picture of why I do it. And since, as I said, one of the reasons is that I don’t get to bed early enough, I’ve been trying to address that. Which is partly why I’ve not done as many blog posts as I’d like lately. My new rule is to turn off the computer by 9:3opm, and since more often that I’d like to admit that’s been my start time for writing a blog post, it’s taken a bit of adjusting to get back to blogging before then.

And since I’ve just noted the time and see I only have 15 minutes to finish up here, guess I’ll end this post now. I still have to stretch before I can go to bed…

Home Health Aide

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This is my new job description. Home Health Aide. The Lord has made it very clear that this is what He wants me to be for the next two and a half weeks. For the last week, as I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been living with my mother, making her meals, giving her her meds, cleaning her house, waking her so she will drink her water on schedule, and watching to see that she doesn’t fall (or rescuing her when she does, as she has twice now. God’s grace was in evidence on both occasions as she sustained no injuries — I’m glad that I can rest in the truth that He’s the one who ultimately protects, not us, despite what our safety-obsessed society would have us believe.).

I’ve also conversed with her physical and occupational therapists, who alternate the days on which they come. And I’ve taken her to her doctor’s appointments… the PET scan, a trip to the hospital to get fitted with a twenty-four hour ambulatory blood pressure monitor, another trip the following day to have it removed and its readings downloaded, still another on Thursday to see her primary care physician. Finally we have something concrete. He burst into the examining room with confidence and conviction, announcing to her that she should take no more blood pressure medicine — her numbers are stabilizing, but on the low side now.  He told her that she looked good — good color, bright eyes, hydrated… that she was fighting a horrific disease and doing very well with it.

I’ve learned a lot about monitors, blood pressure, and orthostatic hypotension. We also had news on the PET scan — “marked reduction of activity” at all the cancer sites and no new ones, which was good news indeed. However, the chemo-induced fatigue and neuropathy in her feet, legs and hands has worsened with every day. It hurts to stand. She cannot walk any distance even with a walker and must use a wheelchair to get to and from the car for her appointments. She can hardly use her hands at all. Her feet keep her awake at night.  And I am amazed at how exhausted she becomes over the littlest thing. Sitting at the table eating breakfast and trying to figure out what she wants for lunch for an hour does her in for the entire morning.

The outings of course were monumental undertakings which left her completely drained. And even though the Oncologist’s physician’s assistant said that she almost certainly will not be getting any more treatment, the scope of effect of the last dose remains to be seen. After two weeks, nothing has changed except the pain she reports which has increased. She has willing begun to take some pain meds for it, which is a huge change for her.  When she’s not having to get up to go out for some test or doctor’s appointment, she spends her time lying on the couch, mostly sleeping, sometimes just lying there. No TV, no reading, nothing but lying there. I have to wake her up to drink her water, which she does not appreciate, and prod her to do her exercises, which she doesn’t appreciate, though she does do them. She is, at least, eating better, and I’m hoping that next week will show some improvement.

The physical therapist has begun a series of infrared treatments on her legs and feet, which in some patients provides relief — but not all.

With all the sleeping she does, I’ve begun to slip away at times to go to the store, take a walk, go home to see Quigley or take a shower or to get something I forget. Why shower at home? Because for one there’s a big tub-transfer bench in her tub and for two, her hot water is merely warm and the pressure is way too low. It’s only five minutes and I’d rather just take a shower in my own bathroom where all my stuff is. Right now my hubby is with her, so I could come home and do just that, as well as get in some work on the computer. She has no internet hookup and no interest in getting it either, so it’s been interesting being cut off like this. Kind of like a weird sort of retreat.  I’ve been reading Lions of Lucerne by Brad Thor. Almost done. Tomorrow I’m going to try to find the next one in the series…

There’s been lots of talk about getting help to relieve me from various agencies — there are official home health aides who’ll come in and sit with her for something like $100 for 4 hours, which insurance doesn’t cover. If you want them to do any more the price goes up for each added task. There are other agencies but I’ve not really been in a good place to research, and not moved to do so, either. I believe the Lord will put the pieces into place when the time is right. And right now, He’s got me doing something I’d never dreamed I’d be doing. But I have a feeling some of it is going to end up in the next book. In fact, I’m almost certain of it… 

Okay, I see my time’s almost up, so I’ll sign off for now. Probably won’t get another post in for a week, but one never knows. Thanks to my readers for all your prayers and support.

Not Giving Up

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Well, obviously I’ve missed by five-day a week PostADay goal these last two weeks, but I’m not giving up. It may be a bit messy in the weeks coming up as well, but eventually I think I’ll get back to regular posting. I’m going to try to do short things this week, as I will continue to be busy caring for my mother, just not as busy as last week. 

As it turned out, she wasn’t released on Tuesday the eleventh, but Wednesday. That was the same day my sister returned, so we had someone to stay with Mother at home that night and every night since. We’ve also got a cadre of home health nurses and physical and occupational therapists coming by. When we had the opportunity to have that back when she had the rod put into her leg, it sounded unnecessary, but I’m finding that I’m really valuing their assistance this time.

The biggest concern we were having since she came home is how much she has slept and how weak she’s been. She gets tired so easily, falls asleep sitting at the table and then would fall out of the chair if someone wasn’t there to catch her. Today we learned that when you lie around and do nothing, you lose whatever strength and conditioning you had at a ratio of about 1 to 3. So for every nothing day, you have to spend 3 days working your way back to square one. This ratio is even worse for someone who is elderly and had medical problems — something like 6 -12 days of recovery work for every day of downtime.  My mother has just spent two consecutive weekends, both four-day stays, in the hospital, doing nothing beyond getting up to go to the bathroom. And in the second stay, she didn’t even do that because they put in a catheter, fearing she might fall if she tried to get up.

The PT’s are working slowly to help her regain her strength and endurance, as well as balance and ability to do everyday things. They also help with the neuropathy the chemotherapy has produced in her legs and hands. And they told us we should not let her sleep for hours, but wake her up after short naps to do something active, however little that might be.

We are also noticing a shifting of mental ability — at times she’s totally clear and sharp. Other times, not so much. But today I think there was more sharpness than I’ve seen before. And it is likely that as the swelling of the brain from the blood-pressure spike decreases, and her fatigue lessens much of her confusion will ease. At least that is what we are hoping (and in my case, praying for).

Another Update

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I’m a little late on today’s post because yesterday (Sunday) when I went over to check my mother’s blood pressure before going to church, I discovered her still in bed, confused, weak and speaking gibberish. I called the oncologist who said to get her to the hospital and if I didn’t think I could get her into the car, to call 911. So I called.  As I hung up, the dispatcher said to go back and be with her (we don’t have cell phones) and if anything changed to call back.

So I went back into the bedroom and discovered she was having a seizure. I tried to get her on her side and then she just stopped, eyes wide open, skin gray. I thought she was dead, freaked out, ran in to call 911 again, had to be told to take a deep breath… to go unlock the doors, then go back into the bedroom and… about then the paramedics arrived.  They took her to the nearest hospital, and that’s pretty much where I’ve been ever since. Today I’ve begun driving back and forth from the hospital to her home to make meals to bring to her, since she’s been cleared to eat and won’t accept hospital food.

Turns out it’s not a stroke, as they first thought, nor metastasis in the brain, as they thought second, but… high blood pressure. Whereas our previous hospital adventure (see my earlier update) was said to be caused by…low blood pressure, anemia and dehydration. Go figure.

They might release her tomorrow.  And that’s pretty much all I know. Except that she’s very clear about what foods she wants to eat (potato salad tonight) and very much looking forward to it.

I don’t think it’s coincidence that I just found and posted the full version of that Serenity Prayer!

An Update

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As many of you are aware, I didn’t post much through the end of last year, my goal of four times a week falling off to once every two weeks or so. I had a lot of things happening, and that intensified through the end of the year with Christmas and then New Year’s.

We put up a real Christmas tree for the first time in something like ten years, had an early Christmas with our son and DIL (Daughter-in-Law) and then exchanged presents on Christmas day itself just with my mother and sister. After that we took off for five days in LA.

Our plans took a shift right off when we encountered a freeway sign not far out of Tucson that advised of major delays west of Phoenix and told all CA traffic to use I-8 through San Diego. It was a bit longer that way, plus we had no maps, and no idea where to stop for food, both of which added time to the trip. We got in around 10:30pm, considerably later than we’d hoped.

We came back the same way, spent some time with Adam and Kim again as we passed through San Diego, and got back around 11:30pm New Year’s Eve — to discover a phone message from my sister, who’d been in town with my mother while we were away. I called her immediately: she’d just left the hospital where Mother had been admitted two days before for confusion, fatigue and fainting, possibly as a result of dehydration. Saturday morning, instead of sleeping in, I was up early and heading for the hospital, where my sister had already arrived. We were there pretty much all day and into the night.

The doctors had done all sorts of tests on my mother’s heart and head and so forth, but could find nothing wrong except dehydration, a low white blood cell count and a really low red blood cell count — anemia brought on by chemotherapy, compounded by lack of eating and drinking. It took two days and multiple bags of fluids and still she wasn’t recovering so late Saturday morning the doctor’s recommended a  transfusion of “packed red blood cells” which is blood with the plasma and platelets removed. At first she was resistant, but upon reflection and discussion decided to go for it. The results were dramatic, as had been promised.

One doctor (the on-call oncologist)  thought she might also have a heart problem or a neurological problem and advised consultation with a cardiologist or neurologist. Another doctor (the emergency room attending physician) thought it all a result of the dehydration and anemia. We still have to follow-up with the primary care and her regular cancer doc (actually his Physician’s Assistant since he’s on vacation).

We saw the primary care today, and he really hammered her with the importance of staying hydrated and eating nutritious food. He said the chemo causes her to not be able to taste anything but what the tongue tastes (sweet, salt, sour, bitter) and thus all the food tastes pretty much the same. But she needs to eat regardless, and especially to drink.

Dehydration not only causes confusion and fainting, but also makes you sick to your stomach and not wanting to eat, contributes to bladder infections, makes you drowsy and foggy, and destabilizes blood pressure.

Anyway, they let her out on Sunday in another orchestration of bureaucratic absurdity where we had to wait around for hours because no one seemed to know that we were supposed to be leaving.

First we waited for the final doctor to see us, only to learn he’d already come in and wouldn’t be seeing us.

Then we waited for a case worker to arrive and tell us there really weren’t any home health care services of value that her insurance would cover, and probably we didn’t need them anyway.  Then we had to wait for another nurse to return from her supposed 30 minute lunch break — which ended up being closer to an hour… I didn’t get home until almost 5 on Sunday.

So. I’ve hardly had time to breathe sine we’ve gotten back…. and yet… I’ve somehow managed to do three blog posts. Amazing.

Okay, time to go eat dinner. V is on tonight! Looking forward to that.

Let’s Try This Again

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Well, what can I say? Even once a week seems to have become an impossible goal for me to meet with regard to blogging lately. It didn’t help that I was sick again.

Last time (before Thanksgiving)  it was some sort of digestive flu thing. This time (after Thanksgiving) it was a Perfect Storm of a cold. I still have the last dregs of its symptoms even now at day 12. 

The timing was perfect though. The first two days, when I was still not sure it was a cold, I had to drive my mother to the doctor for a white blood cell stimulating shot. I did that wearing a mask. Saturday, when I usually take her to the store, it turned out she didn’t need to go, which was a good thing because symptoms had begun by then and I don’t think the mask would’ve been up to containing them. Sunday was unbelievable. I could barely function for the sneezing and nose running. My hubby has it now. I hope and pray I won’t get it again. I don’t think I can unless the virus mutates…

Anyway, between that, and trying to catch up on the catching up I was doing when the cold hit, my time and energy for blogging have been more at a premium than ever. And the last time I worked on Sky was last Tuesday. I am at least continuing to move along with The Artist’s Way. I’m starting Week 10 today.  Though I have yet to complete today’s Morning Pages, nor did I do an artist’s date last week (unless wandering around Bookman’s Used Books for an hour looking at books counts) (I guess I can say it does). I did none of last week’s tasks — we were to read our morning pages for the first time since starting them, highlighting insights and actions. I only got the first week’s worth read and never got back to it.

And believe it or not, I’m still fighting about writing the pages. I don’t think I like having to write 3 pages whether I have anything to say or not (although I do always seem to come up with something). And then later, when I do have things to say, there’s no space in the journal that I’m using (specifically designed for morning pages, with three page increments marked out and quotes from the topics of each week’s reading used to embellish the pages) so I have to add overflow pages…  On the other hand, I’m kind of thinking that just the process of writing three pages of stream of consciousness might well be beneficial, just not in the way one would think.

God seems to do be doing a lot with me  along that theme lately… That the purpose in things done or things that occur is not what people see, or what I see but something else entirely. That God’s way of molding us into the image of His son is not anything like man’s way would be (not that man could even do it, but we seem to think he — we — can). That the sufferings we endure change us in ways we can’t really perceive and maybe can’t even imagine, and certainly are not changes we would be able to work in ourselves no matter how much we might want to.

That’s partly come out of the things I’ve been learning from The Artist’s Way.  I think I’ve mentioned that I’ve been highlighting, underlining and writing in the wide margins of the book’s pages as I’ve read and Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion was heavily marked in.

Dare I save further comment on that for tomorrow? Well, one of the “guidelines” I’ve been following lately is “Try it and see.” So I will.

And hopefully I’ll be back to write some more tomorrow. Here’s a teaser, the first paragraph from that chapter:

“One of the most important tasks in artistic recovery is learning to call things — and ourselves — by the right names. Most of us have spent years using the wrong names for our behaviors. We have wanted to create and we have been unable to create and we have called that inability laziness. This is not merely inaccurate. It is cruel. Accuracy and compassion serve us far better.”

 Those who know me or have read this blog for any length of time will recognize not “laziness” but “indisciplined” as my term of choice for why I have been unable to create.  Which is perhaps just another word for the same thing, and just as wrong…