It's really not about me, but...

So, when all around you are experiencing sad, life-changing events, how do you shake it off and remember that it's NOT about you? I sure could use some tips. The ongoing saga of my sister, added to a week of sad news from folks around me have left me feeling sad, tired, and depressed. My daughter even suggested that I get my doctor to prescribe a larger dose of Zoloft! Here's what the recent weeks have brought:

• Christine, who after checking herself out of one skilled nursing facility, called 9-1-1 a mere 36 hours later to return to the hospital because of excessive pain. Two days later she was released to a different skilled nursing facility, and without any input from me, it is less than a mile from my office! She was there a week, getting some rehab, but it was slow because she can't put any weight on the right hip with the rod in it. Then, last Tuesday, they transferred her back to the hospital because she has an infection in her wound. They opened her hip back up and debrided the wound, left it open with a wound vac, and began administering mega doses of antibiotics through a port. Yesterday evening they moved her back to the SNF near my office. The infection is localized, but tough to kill (or so the doctor told me). Hers is an ongoing story...


• My dear brother, Bob, who has Hepatitis C, has had numerous problems with his liver and is now participating in tests for a new drug that has left him sick and tired and angry. If the drug works, his liver will stop deteriorating and will have a chance to regenerate. Meanwhile, he has to get through the tests, which are scheduled to last a year or so! Yesterday, while visiting my sister, I asked if she has spoken to Bob. She said yes, and mentioned to me that he had been fired! When I showed my surprise, she got all worried that maybe she shouldn't have said anything--Bob probably didn't want to worry me. (ha!) I still haven't spoken directly to him about this, but he had been working at this particular printshop for at least 8 years!


• Yesterday morning, I spoke to my friend Frazier. She and I have a mutual friend, Beryl, who lost her long battle with breast cancer Friday (and I have always poo-poohed stories of Friday the 13th). She was 57 and leaves behind a loving husband and a bright, and loving 12-year-old daughter. Beryl used to work for me in the late 80s in my pre-Texas days. I had only seen her a couple of times since returning to San Diego--once at Frazier's wedding 2 years ago. Beryl, Joe, and little Frazier (their daughter was named after Frazier) came to celebrate the event. Beryl was in chemo and pushed through her exhaustion and pain to share the day with her friend.


• On Sunday the 15th, my employee & friend, Rosemary, called me to tell me her significant other of 10+ years had been critically injured in a bicycle accident. He was riding through La Jolla, his bike hit a rock or something that stopped it--he was thrown off and hit his head. He was not wearing a helmet! He was brain dead by the time they got him to the hospital. They harvested his organs on Sunday. He was healthy, vibrant, brilliant (truly a genius), and 44 years old. A celebration of his life will be held at the beach he loved on Sunday afternoon. (The picture above is not of La Jolla, but of an area of Big Sur that I took on my recent drive--it IS of the same ocean.) Here's a little info about Alan: http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/cse-people/alumni/alan-nash.html


• Yesterday, another of my employees, Vaughn, received a call from his aunt who lives in Texas. Vaughn's mom had had a cerebral aneurysm and had been brought to the hospital. Her prognosis is good, but guarded. Vaughn is on his way home (Houston). His mom's surgery was planned for this morning. She did talk to him on the phone yesterday, so we're all hopeful that this event will not mark the end of her life. She's at St. Lukes in the Medical Center in Houston, so I'm pretty sure she's getting good care.

So, I'm ready for this to all be done. As you can see, it's not about me. But even when I know that, it sticks to me and makes me sad. Life is precious. Life is good. But it's not always easy.

My favorite sisters aren't related to me

Many of you know that I have a disabled sister whose life is nothing but drama. I won't bore you with the details of her mental state, but I will share with you the last few days.

Friday was her birthday. She turned 49. I have been distant with her lately (that's another long story), but I had arranged to take her for a birthday lunch on Saturday. However, Friday morning, at about 6:30 a.m., she called me from her local hospital (she goes so often they all know her by sight) to tell me that she had fallen and broken her hip. Just like her: not only the fall, but on her birthday!

Later in the day she calls me to tell me that she needs surgery right away because of all the pain she is in. By the time I can leave work, she is scheduled for the surgery. There's not much I can do that evening, so I decide to check in by phone and visit her the next day. I wish her well before she goes in and I call the hospital often to check on her. She's in surgery for a couple of hours and all is well.

The next day, I visit her around lunchtime. She is in high spirits: Everyone is WONDERFUL! Everyone treats her well, and the nurses even come in with a cake for her at lunch and sing her Happy Birthday. She is ebullient and manic in a good way and talks nonstop for 45 minutes about how her world is perfect and her life is grand and she is planning to lose weight, get a job, and make something of her life now that this has happened. This is THE thing that has finally set her on the path of success, blah, blah, blah. (Do you get the idea that I've heard all this before?)

So, I stay for a little while and it really isn't a bad visit except that when I tell the nurse that I am her sister and need to be put on her chart as being able to get reports (HIPPA and all that, you know), my sister hems and haws and doesn't agree. (That's a warning sign immediately. She always suspects that I might put her in a home so she avoids letting me be her health advocate. Sometimes, I have come close!)

The plan is to have her spend a couple of days there and then go to a rehab center to help her get back on her feet (pun intended). So, Sunday comes and goes. I don't visit, but I call her a few times. She is in Heaven. She is waited on and catered to and she's in a single room. (All rooms in this hospital are singles--it's a new place and quite nice as hospitals go.) My plan is to go to her home on Monday and get some things she needs (glasses, cellphone, robe) and then visit her after work.

Monday comes. We speak on the phone a few times in the morning. She tells me she is being transferred to the rehab/nursing center that afternoon and that I should visit her there. My Monday becomes busy and I don't get a chance to check my cell voice mail all afternoon. At about 5, when I am ready to leave work, I see that I have FOUR URGENT calls from her.

I listen to the voice mails...they begin with concern. "Linda, I don't like this place. Please come and get me." Then, the next two become more rambling...she is panicking and she talks and talks, repeating that I must come and get her right now! She is in HELL. She has a roommate that she cannot stand. Her nurses are too busy to take care of her. Her bed wasn't ready (no sheets?). They don't have a walker (she left one at the hospital and she has two at her apartment). Someone is leering at her through a window and a man is walking up and down the halls groaning at the top of his lungs. Someone even told her that they do cavity searches on all new patients! (Now, I admit, that would have prompted me to leave, too.) And the stories go on...(I thought I had a limit on how long voice mails could be, but apparently not.)

As I listen to each successively more manic call, my own brain is leaping ahead. Should I go straight there? Is she hallucinating? Is it really that bad? Is she exaggerating? Did they put her on a mental ward? Will I need to force her to stay? My guilt quotient is rising unchecked and I am already envisioning the scene we'll have when I get there....

Then the final voice mail begins. "Lin, never mind. I've taken care of it. I'm going home. I'll see you there." Oh my!

So I drive to her apartment. Sure enough, in those 4 hours that I was unavailable, she had been transferred, thrown a fit, demanded transpotation home, checked herself out (against doctor's orders), and gone home.

What a gift! No scene. No decisions to make. No actions to take. I just drove to her house and helped her get situated on her bed. Of course, the drama isn't over. She needs rehab and physical therapy and who knows how she'll get it. But, it's not my problem. She didn't get an immediate response from me and she took care of herself. She really is self-sufficient when she wants to be. And, that's what I have always prayed for. To not have to take care of her. And, not feel guilty that I don't.

I'm sure this tale isn't over. She may have complications from the surgery. Who will change her bandages? Who will see that she gets the proper post-surgical care? Nonetheless, she did so well yesterday that I will save my own sanity and let her take care of herself.

It's her life, her decisions, and her sickness. It's a full time job to not make them mine.

Words don't do it justice...

So, I'll post some pix of my drive down Hwy 1 along the California coast and let them speak for themselves. (BTW: Those are elephant seals hauled up on the beach at Piedras Blancas. See the Friends of the Elephant Seals site for more info about these incredible creatures.) It was a perfect day.

Acceptance

I was just doing a huge pile of dishes that had accumulated this week (that's right, I'm one of the 47 people in the U.S. who does NOT have an automatic dishwasher) while listening to Garrison Keilor's A Prairie Home Companion. I spent a lifetime in Duluth, MN, one winter, and still have tons of ex-inlaws who live there (check my Facebook relatives!), so I really appreciate the jokes about Minnesotans.

ANYWAY, during one of his monologues, he said "when I was young, we accepted the world as it was given to us." Something about that statement hit home with me. I grew up in the 50s and 60s, and I considered myself lucky most of the time, even though, in retrospect, I lived in a semiconstant state of fear and unpredictability. .

Like many others who were raised by WWII vets, I had an alcoholic dad who could vacillate from caring and supportive to cruel and abusive. I took it as my lot in life and managed to find ways to live and thrive in spite of it. I knew that events in and around school and church would be approved, but regular socializing wouldn't. So, I made church my social outlet.

I had perfect attendance at the local Friends church for more than 7 years (and I have the pins to prove it!). I wasn't really a Quaker, but it was the only church that was within walking distance of my home. That way, I could get there on my own. So, Wednesday evenings, Sunday mornings, and Sunday evenings, I had permission to leave the house and do something that I didn't get in trouble for doing.

I don't remember the names of any of those lovely people, I just remember that they were loving and kind and that we had the best hymns ever! Somehow, the hymns we sang in the Episcopal church my mom would occasionally bring me to were never the type I could take home and play on my accordion (another secret revealed--thought you'd like the cartoon).

As I got older, I became less accepting. I wanted what I thought others had. To me, my friends seemed to be happy; their families were more like the families I saw on TV. Of course, now with the wisdom of 60+ years I know that no home was perfect. No parents were infallible. Even children who had seemingly functional families grew up to have problems, do drugs, and maybe even spend time in jail. And, many of us from dysfunctional families thrived as adults, succeeded in education and work, and did all we could to give our children a steady, loving, "normal" life.

I don't know if today's children "accept" their lot as we did. They've been taught to report anyone who disciplines them, uses inappropriate language, or sells products that are subpar. We wear helmets and seat belts and everything we use has warning labels telling us to do the most obvious things (my favorite is the label on the windshield sun reflector telling you to remove it before driving). .

I have a hard time remembering the really bad stuff that happened to me when I was young. But I do remember the times of fun and light. I remember that life is given to us, and what really matters is how we react to what is given. I don't advocate complete acceptance of what life brings, too much is still harmful or abusive. Rather, I believe that we must learn to have aspirations that rise us above mere acceptance of what's given. Nonetheless, there is something to be said for "accepting the world as it is given to us." For in the long run, every moment is a gift. It's up to us to determine the best way to use it.

My new favorite place

A few pix of my new, improved home office!