Starting over at almost 50 years old isn't easy. I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but it IS dramatic to move over 1000 miles away from your home and friends and life and begin work on a new home, friends and life. It is dramatic to move from hot, humid, conservative southeast Texas to cool, humid, decidedly more liberal northwest Indiana.
It's a dramatic change at any age, but I believe it's moreso at 50. At 50, you're supposed to have everything all figured out. You're supposed to be rising in your career, near to finished with your child rearing, coddling your grandbabies and counting your stash of retirement gold. At 50, you're not supposed to be sitting on your front stoop at 2:00 a.m., sobbing and worrying because your spouse hasn't found a new job, you don't have any friends and the beautiful old house you bought needs a new furnace. Life is supposed to get easier at 50...or at least that's what I always thought.
On the other hand, change is good. Drama may not be good, but change is. Change presents challenges and challenges bring fresh perspectives and new ideas on how to tackle old problems. So, your spouse is still going to need to look for that job and your old house still needs a new furnace, but you can figure out a new way to make friends, which is what I did.
No matter what anyone tells you, I am, at the bottom of my heart, a friendly person. I do want people to like me. Truly. It's just that I want them to like me for me. I won't put a lot of effort into trying to make and keep friends. I cannot force you to like me. I can be my funny, bizarre, ADD-riddled self and I can be kind and considerate and compassionate, and if you like me, GREAT! If you don't, it's your loss. I won't spend a lot of time agonizing over your lack of interest or trying to convince you why I'm so great or trying to remake myself into something else so that you'll have to like me. I am great and fun and really cool, and if you're smart and funny and want to be entertained, you'll figure that out about me.
The thing is, there are not a lot of opportunities for people in their 50s to make friends. It's not like when you were a kid and your mom set up playdates with the neighbors or made you go to church and you met other kids there. It's not like you're in school and you can hang out with other kids after class, go out to movies, or bars or clubs, sit and talk and get to know each other. When you're 50 and don't belong to a church, that potential avenue for friend finding is closed. When you're 50, you're probably not attending classes or going out to bars. If you're like me, you've probably discovered the wisdom of keeping work relationships at work and home relationships at home.
So, my challenge was how do you meet people and make friends if you're older and you're starting over in life in a strange new place? My answer was simple. I decided to search for friends on the Internet. I know it sounds weird and possibly unsafe, but I went onto a social website that allows its members to search for other folks in their geographical area who meet to pursue hobbies or share interests. It's true that this particular site might be better suited to young, single folks because they generally have more flexibility of schedule and find it less daunting to pursue socializing with complete strangers. But I dug up some courage and I spent a huge chunk of time searching for a group in which I'd be comfortable, and when I didn't find one, I simply created my own group by deciding that my little corner of Indiana needed a supper club. Through my supper club, I met someone who directed me to another group for women in my area to get together a night or two a month for wine or dinner or book discussion. Thus began my slow process of making new friends in my new home place.
It took several months and some false starts. I attended meetings and dinners looking for what my son aptly called my "Sex in the City" girls, i.e. other smart, funny women who had the potential to become my new best friends, friends who could be counted on to cheer me up when I was sad or lonely, friends who would support me when I felt insecure, friends who could meet me for a drink or a movie or lunch, friends who would let me be ridiculous.
I think I've found a friend or two who fits that description. Of course, I fully realize that it takes years to build a true, solid friendship based on mutual love and respect, but at least I've got a potential foundation started. It's very exciting but more than that, it's hopeful.
And hopeful is really, really good.
Really.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Changes in Latitudes/Changes in Attitudes
So, I came back here to "my blog" recently when someone reminded me of my failed Roller Derby Goddess foray and realized that I haven't really written anything new in about two years now. Yikes. Two years flew by, and, while my life isn't always the most exciting, things certainly have been happening that are worth mentioning and discussing and figuring out.
Two years ago, I worked as a crew scheduler for a major airline. I was promoted from that poisition to the position of crew coordinator. During this time period, my company merged with one of its competitors, which necessitated me moving my home and family from Texas to Northwest Indiana. I am almost 50 years old. I was born and raised in Texas. I grew up, attended high school, college, got married and had babies, buried a father and a father-in-law, all in the Great State of Texas. To say that there was some culture shock involved in this 1000 mile move across the country would be an understatement.
But along with the culture shock, I saw and still firmly believe that there was and is a huge opportunity, the opportunity to learn, to grow, to become a better person. As I characterized it to my husband and friends, and to anyone else who would listen: How many times in your life are you given the gift of an opportunity to completely remake yourself? This sort of opportunity is both extremely exciting and a bit daunting, but I remain hopeful and positive that the very best part of my life is yet to be experienced. So, I'd like to chronicle some of the thoughts and experiences I have here in the Midwest...as soon as my fingers thaw out and my teeth stop chattering.
Two years ago, I worked as a crew scheduler for a major airline. I was promoted from that poisition to the position of crew coordinator. During this time period, my company merged with one of its competitors, which necessitated me moving my home and family from Texas to Northwest Indiana. I am almost 50 years old. I was born and raised in Texas. I grew up, attended high school, college, got married and had babies, buried a father and a father-in-law, all in the Great State of Texas. To say that there was some culture shock involved in this 1000 mile move across the country would be an understatement.
But along with the culture shock, I saw and still firmly believe that there was and is a huge opportunity, the opportunity to learn, to grow, to become a better person. As I characterized it to my husband and friends, and to anyone else who would listen: How many times in your life are you given the gift of an opportunity to completely remake yourself? This sort of opportunity is both extremely exciting and a bit daunting, but I remain hopeful and positive that the very best part of my life is yet to be experienced. So, I'd like to chronicle some of the thoughts and experiences I have here in the Midwest...as soon as my fingers thaw out and my teeth stop chattering.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Airport Airhead
Recently I was cutting up with some friends and I was reminded of this delightful little moment in time in my life. There are moments in your lifetime that are etched into your memory because of their profundity or their sheer wonderfulness. This was NOT one of those moments. No, this moment will forever remain in my memory because of its idiocy. For once, however, I was not the one being the idiot. That honor would have to go to the other player in my moment, the random stranger at the Washington, DC airport who foisted her dumbness upon me for that one brief shining moment in time.
It went down like this. I was returning from spending a couple of really not good days with my family in New York City. The weather had been hot and muggy, the teenagers had been cranky and surly and my mother had been challenging. I have since discovered that my mother's personality and mine do not mix well while traveling. I tend to be a fly by the seat of your pants traveller and she is, well, not. During this particular trip, though, I hadn't come to that realization, yet. That little nugget of wisdom was still forming in the recesses of my brain.
Anyway, as I have mentioned before, I work for an airline, so my family and I always travel stand by. If there are seats available on the aircraft, we go on our merry way, winging merrily to distant climes and exotic locales, like Jacksonville. If there are no seats available on the aircraft, we sit at the airport, waiting...bored...frustrated...irritated. I don't know exactly what we're irritated about. We fly for free, dammit, you'd think we'd be thankful, but I guess we just have gotten spoiled over the years. This particular trip, after having been irritated for the better part of 48 hours in New York, we were stuck, irritated, on our homeward bound journey in the DC airport.
We sat and waited for several hours. Planes came in, planes took off, we remained grounded. I checked flights and tried not to become hysterical, but when it became apparent to me that we might be trapped in DC until the end of time, I decided that drastic measures were in order. I left my children and my mother in the gate area and went back through security to the ticket sales counter for my airline. I was given information on upcoming flights and some possible remedies to get unstuck from DC. I then proceeded back through the security area to get back to my family in the gate area.
Now, as nearly every travelling person has experienced, the security area at any airport presents its own challenges, challenges that range from being merely inconvenient to profoundly stupid. Seasoned travellers know to remove their shoes and to place all toiletries in a quart sized ziploc bag, and to place their cellphone and change in the little dish, and to watch and wait for their turn to step quickly through the scanner, retrieve their belongings and get out of the way of those following them. Seasoned travellers do all of these things automatically, without even thinking about them. Seasoned travellers limit conversation and pay attention. Inexperienced travellers, or, maybe they're just naturally annoying people, just don't seem to get the general flow of things in the airport security area. They chat to each other or on their cellphones, fail to pay attention and move forward when it's their turn, fail to take their shoes off, fail to get the hell out of the way when others are behind them and passing through the scanner...well, you get my meaning.
So, on my way back through security, I had removed my shoes and placed them and my cellphone in the plastic tub and stepped through the body scanner. I was waiting on the other side of the scanner for the plastic tub with my belongings to appear when I heard a female voice over my left shoulder say, "So...are we going to get to see pictures of the baby on the monitor?" Now, I have mentioned before how much I despise random people trying to make chit chat with me, so I attempted to ignore the voice, but when no one else responded to her, I, with a feeling of deep foreboding, a feeling that told me that this situation could not possibly end well, turned my head to the left, indicated with my right hand toward my chest and queried, "Are you speaking to me?" A lady, a complete and utter stranger to me, bobbed her head in the affirmative and queried again, "I said, are we going to get to see photos of the baby on the monitor?" and indicated toward my abdomen that she thought I was pregnant.
Now, before I go any further, perhaps I should discuss what I was wearing that day and maybe why this woman had the unmitigated gall to address me in such a manner. I was wearing travelling clothes. When one flies standby often, one develops a sort of uniform for travelling, something that looks nice enough to be worn in first class should one be fortunate enough to be upgraded to first, but something that is relaxed and comfy enough to spend hour upon blessed, stinking hour in the waiting area of an airport. That particular day, I was wearing an oversized, longish blue sweater that I had purchased in NYC from a trendy, upscale, overpriced retailer, a pair of basic black travelling slacks and my comfy black walking shoes and socks.
Furthermore, I was well into my forties at this point and had not been pregnant for a number of years, my youngest was 14 at the time. I will admit that I'm overweight and was so at the time of this event, as well. In fact, I've admitted this on any number of occasions and take a certain amount of delight in calling myself "fat", becauses "fat" is a funny word. "Obese", "heavy set," or "big boned", on the other hand, aren't funny at all, and "fluffy" is just dumb. So, I suppose that the bulky sweater and extra weight could possibly have made it appear that I was with child...maybe. But, I learned a long, long time ago that unless you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a woman is indeed pregnant, you do not so much as breathe a word of inquiry in that regard towards her. You go behind her back and ask her friends.
Now, maybe, just maybe, this was God's way of telling me that I needed to get my health under control and make weight loss a priority. Perhaps, He sent this "angel", and I use the term ever so loosely, to shock me into the nearest WeightWatcher's meeting like He used the big fish to shock Jonah to hightail it, covered in fish spit, to Ninevah. Or, on the other hand, maybe this was God's way of showing this dumb lady that nosiness is NOT next to Godliness, and that she needed to learn to keep her opinions and her observations a little bit closer to the vest. Either way, all I know is that perhaps the Devil stepped in at that moment, compelled me to turn around and confirm that the question was indeed directed at me, and then look the woman dead in the eye and in the most deadpan, straight faced, don't-screw-with-me-sister voice I could manage answer her by saying, "No, ma'am. I'm not pregnant. I'm just FAT."
Queen DumDum of the Dumblefusses looked shellshocked for a fraction of a second, but instead of having the good grace to maybe mumble "sorry" and turn away, she decided to try to cover herself by blathering on and on about how neat it would be if the airport scanners could actually "see" a baby in utero and display it on the screen for everyone to enjoy...like pregnancy is some sort of freaky sideshow that random, travelling strangers need to have the opportunity to participate in and discuss again at their leisure. I quickly retrieved my belongings from the scanner's conveyor belt and turned on my heel and stormed away, whipping out my cellphone along the way so that I could call my husband and scream at him about stupid, nosy noodleheads, while I walked down the concourse and back into the gate area.
I arrived back at the gate area and relayed my experience to my mother and children. My mother stared at me, horrified, and exclaimed, "Sherri Lynn!! I can't believe you said that!" My comment to her was:
"Well, Mom, a really stupid question deserves a really smartass response."
It went down like this. I was returning from spending a couple of really not good days with my family in New York City. The weather had been hot and muggy, the teenagers had been cranky and surly and my mother had been challenging. I have since discovered that my mother's personality and mine do not mix well while traveling. I tend to be a fly by the seat of your pants traveller and she is, well, not. During this particular trip, though, I hadn't come to that realization, yet. That little nugget of wisdom was still forming in the recesses of my brain.
Anyway, as I have mentioned before, I work for an airline, so my family and I always travel stand by. If there are seats available on the aircraft, we go on our merry way, winging merrily to distant climes and exotic locales, like Jacksonville. If there are no seats available on the aircraft, we sit at the airport, waiting...bored...frustrated...irritated. I don't know exactly what we're irritated about. We fly for free, dammit, you'd think we'd be thankful, but I guess we just have gotten spoiled over the years. This particular trip, after having been irritated for the better part of 48 hours in New York, we were stuck, irritated, on our homeward bound journey in the DC airport.
We sat and waited for several hours. Planes came in, planes took off, we remained grounded. I checked flights and tried not to become hysterical, but when it became apparent to me that we might be trapped in DC until the end of time, I decided that drastic measures were in order. I left my children and my mother in the gate area and went back through security to the ticket sales counter for my airline. I was given information on upcoming flights and some possible remedies to get unstuck from DC. I then proceeded back through the security area to get back to my family in the gate area.
Now, as nearly every travelling person has experienced, the security area at any airport presents its own challenges, challenges that range from being merely inconvenient to profoundly stupid. Seasoned travellers know to remove their shoes and to place all toiletries in a quart sized ziploc bag, and to place their cellphone and change in the little dish, and to watch and wait for their turn to step quickly through the scanner, retrieve their belongings and get out of the way of those following them. Seasoned travellers do all of these things automatically, without even thinking about them. Seasoned travellers limit conversation and pay attention. Inexperienced travellers, or, maybe they're just naturally annoying people, just don't seem to get the general flow of things in the airport security area. They chat to each other or on their cellphones, fail to pay attention and move forward when it's their turn, fail to take their shoes off, fail to get the hell out of the way when others are behind them and passing through the scanner...well, you get my meaning.
So, on my way back through security, I had removed my shoes and placed them and my cellphone in the plastic tub and stepped through the body scanner. I was waiting on the other side of the scanner for the plastic tub with my belongings to appear when I heard a female voice over my left shoulder say, "So...are we going to get to see pictures of the baby on the monitor?" Now, I have mentioned before how much I despise random people trying to make chit chat with me, so I attempted to ignore the voice, but when no one else responded to her, I, with a feeling of deep foreboding, a feeling that told me that this situation could not possibly end well, turned my head to the left, indicated with my right hand toward my chest and queried, "Are you speaking to me?" A lady, a complete and utter stranger to me, bobbed her head in the affirmative and queried again, "I said, are we going to get to see photos of the baby on the monitor?" and indicated toward my abdomen that she thought I was pregnant.
Now, before I go any further, perhaps I should discuss what I was wearing that day and maybe why this woman had the unmitigated gall to address me in such a manner. I was wearing travelling clothes. When one flies standby often, one develops a sort of uniform for travelling, something that looks nice enough to be worn in first class should one be fortunate enough to be upgraded to first, but something that is relaxed and comfy enough to spend hour upon blessed, stinking hour in the waiting area of an airport. That particular day, I was wearing an oversized, longish blue sweater that I had purchased in NYC from a trendy, upscale, overpriced retailer, a pair of basic black travelling slacks and my comfy black walking shoes and socks.
Furthermore, I was well into my forties at this point and had not been pregnant for a number of years, my youngest was 14 at the time. I will admit that I'm overweight and was so at the time of this event, as well. In fact, I've admitted this on any number of occasions and take a certain amount of delight in calling myself "fat", becauses "fat" is a funny word. "Obese", "heavy set," or "big boned", on the other hand, aren't funny at all, and "fluffy" is just dumb. So, I suppose that the bulky sweater and extra weight could possibly have made it appear that I was with child...maybe. But, I learned a long, long time ago that unless you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a woman is indeed pregnant, you do not so much as breathe a word of inquiry in that regard towards her. You go behind her back and ask her friends.
Now, maybe, just maybe, this was God's way of telling me that I needed to get my health under control and make weight loss a priority. Perhaps, He sent this "angel", and I use the term ever so loosely, to shock me into the nearest WeightWatcher's meeting like He used the big fish to shock Jonah to hightail it, covered in fish spit, to Ninevah. Or, on the other hand, maybe this was God's way of showing this dumb lady that nosiness is NOT next to Godliness, and that she needed to learn to keep her opinions and her observations a little bit closer to the vest. Either way, all I know is that perhaps the Devil stepped in at that moment, compelled me to turn around and confirm that the question was indeed directed at me, and then look the woman dead in the eye and in the most deadpan, straight faced, don't-screw-with-me-sister voice I could manage answer her by saying, "No, ma'am. I'm not pregnant. I'm just FAT."
Queen DumDum of the Dumblefusses looked shellshocked for a fraction of a second, but instead of having the good grace to maybe mumble "sorry" and turn away, she decided to try to cover herself by blathering on and on about how neat it would be if the airport scanners could actually "see" a baby in utero and display it on the screen for everyone to enjoy...like pregnancy is some sort of freaky sideshow that random, travelling strangers need to have the opportunity to participate in and discuss again at their leisure. I quickly retrieved my belongings from the scanner's conveyor belt and turned on my heel and stormed away, whipping out my cellphone along the way so that I could call my husband and scream at him about stupid, nosy noodleheads, while I walked down the concourse and back into the gate area.
I arrived back at the gate area and relayed my experience to my mother and children. My mother stared at me, horrified, and exclaimed, "Sherri Lynn!! I can't believe you said that!" My comment to her was:
"Well, Mom, a really stupid question deserves a really smartass response."
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Weaving Life's Tapestry
There are many times in our lives when we ask the question, "Why?" Why did this happen and not that? Why did this happen to me? Why did this happen now? Why did I make a left turn instead of a right on that particular day? Why? Why? Why? Asking why is a particularly human thing to do.
I am not a philosopher nor am I overly religious. I can't ever come up with a good reason why a specific event unfolds in the manner it does. My mother or someone who is equally faithful would say, "Well, that's just the Lord's will." And, it probably is. That explanation, though, has always been unsatisfying for me, not because I don't believe in God, but because it's so difficult for me as a human being to accept the thought that there are many, many things that occur in my life that I have no control over. I like to think that this is a normal, human reaction on my part, but I do admit that it's one that probably labels me as "not quite as good" a Christian as some others.
Anyway, I was given a gift of opportunity recently to think back on a series of events in my life and see why certain things worked out the way they did. I had a conversation with an old friend, P., whom I had not had contact with in many, many years. In fact, this particular friend was an old boyfriend, a guy whom I dated briefly in college. I "bumped into" P. again through Facebook. On a whim and in reference to a conversation I was having with my brother, I searched P's name on Facebook and was startled when his profile with a photo of his handsome, smiling face popped up. The fact that this handsome, smiling man was standing next to a beautiful, smiling woman wasn't lost on me and it tickled my sense of familiarity.
At any rate, I sent P. a little note exclaiming that I was so happy to find him and asking if he remembered me. He replied later that yes, he did remember me, but that it took some looking through my photos to jog his memory. We exchanged a series of e-mails in which I gave him some background on myself and what I had done with my life in the last 20+ years and he did the same. He asked at one point if we had dated, which left me a little nonplussed, but then, you know, my memory's not so great either, so, it would be unfair for me to judge him too harshly for not recalling events that occurred almost 30 years ago. I mean, I like to think of myself as memorable, but I have been humbled on more than one occasion to find that, alas, I'm not. Oh, well.
In the course of our conversation, P. asked me how we had met and I recounted the story of a study session with some mutual friends that he happened upon in one of the university's many study areas, his subsequent introduction to me and my breathless delight at his charm and wit. I was 18 years old and from Tomball, Texas, y'all. A charming, urbane, witty guy showed me some attention, and I became a bit breathless. I'm easy that way. Sue me.
As I recalled this brief strand of time that occurred during my youth, I started thinking how P., although a relatively minor player in my life overall, actually had a huge impact on how the tapestry of my life was subsequently knit together. P. introduced me to a group of friends with whom he frequently socialized, one of whom, C., later became a boyfriend of mine with whom I was totally besotted but who subsequently broke my heart.
While I was dating C. and was deep in the throes of being besotted and smitten and totally goo goo eyed, he introduced me to Jeff. Or, rather, Jeff introduced himself. Or rather, Jeff thrust himself upon the two of us, helplessly imploring that we assist him in studying for an upcoming Chemistry final, which we begrudgingly did simply because we couldn't think of a polite way to tell him to shove off because we wanted to be alone. Like a fly that buzzes through a perfect spring picnic, this guy, Jeff, was truly annoying.
Eventually, however, C. grew tired of me and I bid him a tearful, heart rending farewell.
So, then, history happened. Events transpired. Years passed.
And, Jeff and I grew up, got married and had two beautiful, perfect children. Together.
For many years, I have mistakenly attributed my introduction to the love of my life to the man who broke my heart. To appreciate how the entire strand of events came together, though, I need to go back to before my heart was rended asunder. In the beginning, there was just a friend who introduced me to another friend who introduced me to another friend. Kind of a six degrees of separation thing. And, that strand was woven into the fabric of my life, made more beautiful by memory and more precious by the anticipation of what happens next. (The fact that Jeff now teaches Chemistry to high schoolers amuses me to no end. It's one of the great ironies of life and proves that God, in His infinite wisdom, has a wicked sense of humor.)
And, now, I look back on that time so long ago and say, "Oh. That's why."
I am not a philosopher nor am I overly religious. I can't ever come up with a good reason why a specific event unfolds in the manner it does. My mother or someone who is equally faithful would say, "Well, that's just the Lord's will." And, it probably is. That explanation, though, has always been unsatisfying for me, not because I don't believe in God, but because it's so difficult for me as a human being to accept the thought that there are many, many things that occur in my life that I have no control over. I like to think that this is a normal, human reaction on my part, but I do admit that it's one that probably labels me as "not quite as good" a Christian as some others.
Anyway, I was given a gift of opportunity recently to think back on a series of events in my life and see why certain things worked out the way they did. I had a conversation with an old friend, P., whom I had not had contact with in many, many years. In fact, this particular friend was an old boyfriend, a guy whom I dated briefly in college. I "bumped into" P. again through Facebook. On a whim and in reference to a conversation I was having with my brother, I searched P's name on Facebook and was startled when his profile with a photo of his handsome, smiling face popped up. The fact that this handsome, smiling man was standing next to a beautiful, smiling woman wasn't lost on me and it tickled my sense of familiarity.
At any rate, I sent P. a little note exclaiming that I was so happy to find him and asking if he remembered me. He replied later that yes, he did remember me, but that it took some looking through my photos to jog his memory. We exchanged a series of e-mails in which I gave him some background on myself and what I had done with my life in the last 20+ years and he did the same. He asked at one point if we had dated, which left me a little nonplussed, but then, you know, my memory's not so great either, so, it would be unfair for me to judge him too harshly for not recalling events that occurred almost 30 years ago. I mean, I like to think of myself as memorable, but I have been humbled on more than one occasion to find that, alas, I'm not. Oh, well.
In the course of our conversation, P. asked me how we had met and I recounted the story of a study session with some mutual friends that he happened upon in one of the university's many study areas, his subsequent introduction to me and my breathless delight at his charm and wit. I was 18 years old and from Tomball, Texas, y'all. A charming, urbane, witty guy showed me some attention, and I became a bit breathless. I'm easy that way. Sue me.
As I recalled this brief strand of time that occurred during my youth, I started thinking how P., although a relatively minor player in my life overall, actually had a huge impact on how the tapestry of my life was subsequently knit together. P. introduced me to a group of friends with whom he frequently socialized, one of whom, C., later became a boyfriend of mine with whom I was totally besotted but who subsequently broke my heart.
While I was dating C. and was deep in the throes of being besotted and smitten and totally goo goo eyed, he introduced me to Jeff. Or, rather, Jeff introduced himself. Or rather, Jeff thrust himself upon the two of us, helplessly imploring that we assist him in studying for an upcoming Chemistry final, which we begrudgingly did simply because we couldn't think of a polite way to tell him to shove off because we wanted to be alone. Like a fly that buzzes through a perfect spring picnic, this guy, Jeff, was truly annoying.
Eventually, however, C. grew tired of me and I bid him a tearful, heart rending farewell.
So, then, history happened. Events transpired. Years passed.
And, Jeff and I grew up, got married and had two beautiful, perfect children. Together.
For many years, I have mistakenly attributed my introduction to the love of my life to the man who broke my heart. To appreciate how the entire strand of events came together, though, I need to go back to before my heart was rended asunder. In the beginning, there was just a friend who introduced me to another friend who introduced me to another friend. Kind of a six degrees of separation thing. And, that strand was woven into the fabric of my life, made more beautiful by memory and more precious by the anticipation of what happens next. (The fact that Jeff now teaches Chemistry to high schoolers amuses me to no end. It's one of the great ironies of life and proves that God, in His infinite wisdom, has a wicked sense of humor.)
And, now, I look back on that time so long ago and say, "Oh. That's why."
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Roller Derby Goddess in My Mind
If you're like me and...ahem...in your 40's, you have probably at some point had at least a tiny bit of what is popularly known as a "mid-life crisis". A mid-life crisis, even a tiny one, is that moment when you realize that you will never be 25 or a size 6 again. You look in the mirror and sigh at the bags and sags and you vow to do something drastic to CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
That moment came for me a couple of months ago. I joined a popular weight loss program and started exercising...again...for AT LEAST the 14th time. The trouble was as it always has been that I HATE EXERCISING! With a passion. With the white hot passion of a thousand burning suns. With the white hot passion of a thousand burning suns in a desert during a drought. Do you get my meaning? I find no joy in it. It's hard. It involves discomfort and sweating and huffing and puffing. I like to huff and puff if it's during the commission of something fun, like, say...sex or maybe...bank robbery, but otherwise my motto has always been: I huff and puff for no one nor for any reason. And, sweating? Even if it's to the oldies, or in my case to the 80's, it should only be done by men who have Adonnis-like bodies and who are employed in mowing my lawn and doing other manly chores around my yard without the benefit of their shirts and while wearing very tight shorts. Otherwise, sweating, like huffing and puffing, is right out.
So, we've established that I detest physical movement due to its unfortunate tendency to force me to sweat and become red in the face. Unfortunately, we also need to address the fact that fat, once it finds its way to the posterior portion of my body, my sit-upon, my bum, my ass, my heinie, if you will, it is completely impossible to make leave of its own volition. I could eat a single baby carrot per day and drink nothing but water or Diet Sprite for the rest of my natural life and my ass would still approximate the size of a small state, like, maybe Rhode Island. So, it is essential in my efforts to get the fat to shove off my butt for me to get some form of exercise along with my consumption of calorie and portion controlled, good for you, delicious, i.e. tasteless, diet food to further my weight loss efforts.
You see my conundrum, don't you? Surely, you do. How does Sherri Lynn regain the svelte, attractive silhouette of her youth if she hates to exercise, but exercise is essential to her weight loss efforts? Well, truthfully, I probably won't regain the exact body of my youth because I've had kids and that particular natural feminine phenomenon does horrendous things to your muscles and ligaments that most ladies just don't snap back from. (We're not even going to address what it does to your sanity. That's a whole 'nuther can of worms that we just don't have time to delve into right now.)
Anyway, got lost there for a second. Several months ago, I hit upon the most brilliant idea of my lifetime (there's a touch of sarcasm there) to easily and happily lose weight and get into shape and start a lifetime love affair with a new hobby. I decided, quite on the spur of one whimsical moment, that joining the Roller Derby would not only fulfill the exercise portion of my weight loss goal, but it would provide me with an outlet for that...um...shall we say...sanity problem I spoke of earlier. I researched the roller derby leagues in my area and around the country and found that it didn't matter that I was fat and 40-ish. I could still be a real bitchen mama on the rink. And, even though, my darling husband, Jeff, greeted my aspirations with, "Sherri Lynn, have you lost your freaking mind?" I was bound and determined that I was going to be a Roller Derby Goddess...or at least a Roller Derby Queen...ok, well maybe just a Roller Derby Princess, then.
I chose my official roller derby name: Ima Whino. I went out and bought roller skates, the quads not the inlines. You can't roller derby on inlines. I bought the protective equipment, pads and a helmet. I even thought of dying my hair blue and getting a tattoo or two and maybe another piercing...yeah...yeah! That's the ticket. See, I got sucked right into the roller derby fantasy. I imagined myself flying around that rink, knocking other, less coordinated skaters around and leading my team to victory after victory. I imagined the beer parties afterwards. I imagined the leagues of adoring fans. I imagined the congratulatory kisses of those Adonnis bodied men...
OK, so I have quite the imagination.
On a bright spring morning, the day after I purchased the skates and pads, I went for my first practice skate at a local county park. The park has a very nice blacktop WALKING trail. Notice how the word "walking" in the previous sentence is in all caps. That will become important later in the story. Trust me. So, I drive my big old lady Buick to the park and park it neatly in the third space from the entrance. I don all the padding from knees to elbows and I carefully laced up those beautiful, white, sexy skates with the purple wheels. I latched the helmet onto my noggin. I was ready. I did a couple of glides back and forth around my car and happily noted how flat and smooth the parking lot was and how my skates worked so perfectly and how I COULD SKATE JUST LIKE I DID ON MY BACK PORCH WHEN I WAS TWELVE AND WEIGHED 88 LBS AND DIDN'T WEAR PADS OR A HELMET OR PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT OF ANY KIND, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!
I carefully made my way over to the WALKING path (see, right there, "walking" automatically capitalized itself). I carefully started "skating" down the path. As I skated, I began to notice how difficult it was to skate on this particular path. I began to notice all the flaws in the blacktop. Like, you know how blacktop gets really, really hot in Texas in the summer so it expands, and then in the Texas winter, it contracts, so pretty soon, your perfect blacktop has little holes in it and cracks approximating the size of the GRAND FREAKING CANYON and other minor flaws that might not mean anything to a WALKER or a RUNNER or a BIKER, but can wreak havoc for someone like, you know, a SKATER?? Yeah. I think you are beginning to see where I'm going with this.
It was as I was nearing the first bend in the path that I started thinking that perhaps this wasn't the most brilliant idea of my lifetime. Perhaps this was really not a good idea at all. Perhaps this was the stupidest thing I had ever attempted. Perhaps I should maybe turn around and go back the 200 yards to my car and... Whoa. WHOA! WWWHHHHOOOOAAA! (Imagine both arms windmilling backwards almost faster than you can see.) WHAM. CRACK. OOF. OW...
Now. Imagine me sitting there in all my big assed glory. On my butt. In my little skater's outfit. In a county park. As bikers and walkers calmly navigate around my broken armed self. I sat there stupidly contemplating my skates. Thinking to myself that I should not panic just because I couldn't feel my fingertips. Trying to reason with what I think is a very smart brain that I needed to get back to the car and drive the hell away from the park, but thinking also that in order to do that I would have to get the bloody skates off and...
Did you know that you can't remove lace up skates with only one working hand? Um...yeah. This one I know from experience.
Pretty soon, while my pathetic, broken armed self was sitting there, just sitting there, enjoying the gentle breeze, enjoying...well, really, NOT enjoying the numbness spreading up my right arm from my fingertips, I looked out across the soccer field and saw, wonder of all wonders, a golf cart with two little County guys swiftly approaching like knights on an electric, wheeled steed come to rescue the fair young maiden...okay, so really not so fair at this point and not young and not lithe or full of grace, either.
About 20 yards from me, they slowed their mighty steed and inquired, "Fair maiden, doth thou require assistance?" No, really, what they said was, "Ma'am...are you hurt?" To which I replied, "No...just thought I'd sit here with my big posterior planted firmly on the hot asphalt and enjoy this particular view of the park, while cradling what I accutely surmise is a broken right arm." No, really, I wasn't in any position to be sarcastic, what I said very calmly was, "Yes. I seem to have broken my arm." Like...really, dude, I have NO EARTHLY IDEA how it happened. Pay no mind to those stupid, ugly, crappy assed, wheeled death monsters on the end of my legs with some of their wheels still spinning...happily...crazily...maniacally, if you will.
"Can we give you a ride to your car?"
"Yes, that would be good. But first, I need help getting these effing skates off." OK, so maybe the "effing" part was only said inside my head.
And, so, they hopped like good little County hobbits out of their magical golf cart steed and popped my skates off like they did it every day, flung the skates in the back of the cart, gallantly assisted my hobbling, completely humiliated 40-something self slowly back into the front seat of the golf cart and went winging away across the soccer field to my vehicle like Pegasus winging toward Mount Helicon, where they helped me out of the cart and assured themselves that I wasn't suffering from a head injury and wasn't intent on suing the County for my own stupidity.
Then, they winged away again from whence they came and I stood there in my sports socks in the parking lot. Dumbfounded in front of my old lady Buick and wondering just how the bloody hell I was going to drive home with a broken arm. I will spare you the details of how I called my younger brother and broke down and sobbed on the phone to him, all bravery completely escaping me now that the general public no longer needed to be fooled that I was calm, cool and copasetic, and begged that I needed him to come and take my stupid ass to the hospital because I had just broken my arm roller skating in the park.
And, when my darling husband, Jeff, asked later, "Did you see what you tripped over?" I was able to answer him confidently through the drug induced haze of some really interesting legal pharmaceuticals, although I might have slurred a bit, "Yeah. Some big ol' stupid air molecules got in my way."
Thus, a lesson learned. It's called a WALKING park for a reason.
That moment came for me a couple of months ago. I joined a popular weight loss program and started exercising...again...for AT LEAST the 14th time. The trouble was as it always has been that I HATE EXERCISING! With a passion. With the white hot passion of a thousand burning suns. With the white hot passion of a thousand burning suns in a desert during a drought. Do you get my meaning? I find no joy in it. It's hard. It involves discomfort and sweating and huffing and puffing. I like to huff and puff if it's during the commission of something fun, like, say...sex or maybe...bank robbery, but otherwise my motto has always been: I huff and puff for no one nor for any reason. And, sweating? Even if it's to the oldies, or in my case to the 80's, it should only be done by men who have Adonnis-like bodies and who are employed in mowing my lawn and doing other manly chores around my yard without the benefit of their shirts and while wearing very tight shorts. Otherwise, sweating, like huffing and puffing, is right out.
So, we've established that I detest physical movement due to its unfortunate tendency to force me to sweat and become red in the face. Unfortunately, we also need to address the fact that fat, once it finds its way to the posterior portion of my body, my sit-upon, my bum, my ass, my heinie, if you will, it is completely impossible to make leave of its own volition. I could eat a single baby carrot per day and drink nothing but water or Diet Sprite for the rest of my natural life and my ass would still approximate the size of a small state, like, maybe Rhode Island. So, it is essential in my efforts to get the fat to shove off my butt for me to get some form of exercise along with my consumption of calorie and portion controlled, good for you, delicious, i.e. tasteless, diet food to further my weight loss efforts.
You see my conundrum, don't you? Surely, you do. How does Sherri Lynn regain the svelte, attractive silhouette of her youth if she hates to exercise, but exercise is essential to her weight loss efforts? Well, truthfully, I probably won't regain the exact body of my youth because I've had kids and that particular natural feminine phenomenon does horrendous things to your muscles and ligaments that most ladies just don't snap back from. (We're not even going to address what it does to your sanity. That's a whole 'nuther can of worms that we just don't have time to delve into right now.)
Anyway, got lost there for a second. Several months ago, I hit upon the most brilliant idea of my lifetime (there's a touch of sarcasm there) to easily and happily lose weight and get into shape and start a lifetime love affair with a new hobby. I decided, quite on the spur of one whimsical moment, that joining the Roller Derby would not only fulfill the exercise portion of my weight loss goal, but it would provide me with an outlet for that...um...shall we say...sanity problem I spoke of earlier. I researched the roller derby leagues in my area and around the country and found that it didn't matter that I was fat and 40-ish. I could still be a real bitchen mama on the rink. And, even though, my darling husband, Jeff, greeted my aspirations with, "Sherri Lynn, have you lost your freaking mind?" I was bound and determined that I was going to be a Roller Derby Goddess...or at least a Roller Derby Queen...ok, well maybe just a Roller Derby Princess, then.
I chose my official roller derby name: Ima Whino. I went out and bought roller skates, the quads not the inlines. You can't roller derby on inlines. I bought the protective equipment, pads and a helmet. I even thought of dying my hair blue and getting a tattoo or two and maybe another piercing...yeah...yeah! That's the ticket. See, I got sucked right into the roller derby fantasy. I imagined myself flying around that rink, knocking other, less coordinated skaters around and leading my team to victory after victory. I imagined the beer parties afterwards. I imagined the leagues of adoring fans. I imagined the congratulatory kisses of those Adonnis bodied men...
OK, so I have quite the imagination.
On a bright spring morning, the day after I purchased the skates and pads, I went for my first practice skate at a local county park. The park has a very nice blacktop WALKING trail. Notice how the word "walking" in the previous sentence is in all caps. That will become important later in the story. Trust me. So, I drive my big old lady Buick to the park and park it neatly in the third space from the entrance. I don all the padding from knees to elbows and I carefully laced up those beautiful, white, sexy skates with the purple wheels. I latched the helmet onto my noggin. I was ready. I did a couple of glides back and forth around my car and happily noted how flat and smooth the parking lot was and how my skates worked so perfectly and how I COULD SKATE JUST LIKE I DID ON MY BACK PORCH WHEN I WAS TWELVE AND WEIGHED 88 LBS AND DIDN'T WEAR PADS OR A HELMET OR PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT OF ANY KIND, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!
I carefully made my way over to the WALKING path (see, right there, "walking" automatically capitalized itself). I carefully started "skating" down the path. As I skated, I began to notice how difficult it was to skate on this particular path. I began to notice all the flaws in the blacktop. Like, you know how blacktop gets really, really hot in Texas in the summer so it expands, and then in the Texas winter, it contracts, so pretty soon, your perfect blacktop has little holes in it and cracks approximating the size of the GRAND FREAKING CANYON and other minor flaws that might not mean anything to a WALKER or a RUNNER or a BIKER, but can wreak havoc for someone like, you know, a SKATER?? Yeah. I think you are beginning to see where I'm going with this.
It was as I was nearing the first bend in the path that I started thinking that perhaps this wasn't the most brilliant idea of my lifetime. Perhaps this was really not a good idea at all. Perhaps this was the stupidest thing I had ever attempted. Perhaps I should maybe turn around and go back the 200 yards to my car and... Whoa. WHOA! WWWHHHHOOOOAAA! (Imagine both arms windmilling backwards almost faster than you can see.) WHAM. CRACK. OOF. OW...
Now. Imagine me sitting there in all my big assed glory. On my butt. In my little skater's outfit. In a county park. As bikers and walkers calmly navigate around my broken armed self. I sat there stupidly contemplating my skates. Thinking to myself that I should not panic just because I couldn't feel my fingertips. Trying to reason with what I think is a very smart brain that I needed to get back to the car and drive the hell away from the park, but thinking also that in order to do that I would have to get the bloody skates off and...
Did you know that you can't remove lace up skates with only one working hand? Um...yeah. This one I know from experience.
Pretty soon, while my pathetic, broken armed self was sitting there, just sitting there, enjoying the gentle breeze, enjoying...well, really, NOT enjoying the numbness spreading up my right arm from my fingertips, I looked out across the soccer field and saw, wonder of all wonders, a golf cart with two little County guys swiftly approaching like knights on an electric, wheeled steed come to rescue the fair young maiden...okay, so really not so fair at this point and not young and not lithe or full of grace, either.
About 20 yards from me, they slowed their mighty steed and inquired, "Fair maiden, doth thou require assistance?" No, really, what they said was, "Ma'am...are you hurt?" To which I replied, "No...just thought I'd sit here with my big posterior planted firmly on the hot asphalt and enjoy this particular view of the park, while cradling what I accutely surmise is a broken right arm." No, really, I wasn't in any position to be sarcastic, what I said very calmly was, "Yes. I seem to have broken my arm." Like...really, dude, I have NO EARTHLY IDEA how it happened. Pay no mind to those stupid, ugly, crappy assed, wheeled death monsters on the end of my legs with some of their wheels still spinning...happily...crazily...maniacally, if you will.
"Can we give you a ride to your car?"
"Yes, that would be good. But first, I need help getting these effing skates off." OK, so maybe the "effing" part was only said inside my head.
And, so, they hopped like good little County hobbits out of their magical golf cart steed and popped my skates off like they did it every day, flung the skates in the back of the cart, gallantly assisted my hobbling, completely humiliated 40-something self slowly back into the front seat of the golf cart and went winging away across the soccer field to my vehicle like Pegasus winging toward Mount Helicon, where they helped me out of the cart and assured themselves that I wasn't suffering from a head injury and wasn't intent on suing the County for my own stupidity.
Then, they winged away again from whence they came and I stood there in my sports socks in the parking lot. Dumbfounded in front of my old lady Buick and wondering just how the bloody hell I was going to drive home with a broken arm. I will spare you the details of how I called my younger brother and broke down and sobbed on the phone to him, all bravery completely escaping me now that the general public no longer needed to be fooled that I was calm, cool and copasetic, and begged that I needed him to come and take my stupid ass to the hospital because I had just broken my arm roller skating in the park.
And, when my darling husband, Jeff, asked later, "Did you see what you tripped over?" I was able to answer him confidently through the drug induced haze of some really interesting legal pharmaceuticals, although I might have slurred a bit, "Yeah. Some big ol' stupid air molecules got in my way."
Thus, a lesson learned. It's called a WALKING park for a reason.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
"There's no place like home!" Thanks, Dorothy.
I am currently in the hospital with my youngest child, Robin. She has been very ill with gallstones. Rather than having a simple, straightforward case of gallstones, she had "escapees". Several of her gallstones, which were rather larger than normal, escaped from the gallbladder and were milling about in her bile duct area causing tremendous pain and a fair amount of havoc to Robin's digestive tract.
If the stones had been small enough, they might have passed through the duct and out of the body through the intestines like regular waste does. However, because of their large size and irregular shape these were unable to pass and had to be removed during a surgical procedure. This procedure was a fairly simple one with a very long complicated name: Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP, for short).
The procedure itself involved sedating Robin with general anesthesia and then inserting a tube with a camera attached to its end into her mouth, down her esophagus, into her stomach, then into the duodenum, the gateway to the small intestine. A catheter was then inserted into the duct leading to the pancreas and gallbladder. Once the stones were located, the surgeon scooped them out with an instrument called a basket and removed them from her body. The stones were large enough that Robin is now somewhat of a celebrity among the gastrointestinal surgeons. (I guess everyone really does get their 15 minutes of fame at some point.) Photos were taken during the procedure, too, and we were given a sampling of those in full color. Not really anything you would want to add to the baby book, I don't think, but interesting to look at and quite remarkable to some of the medical personnel.
Now that the escapee stones have been removed, Robin is scheduled for a second surgery on Monday to remove her gallbladder. That surgery is expected to be routine and will be done laparoscopically, meaning very small cuts will be made in her abdomen and a laparoscopic scope and surgical instruments will be inserted to clip the gallbladder out and remove it from her body.
I gave all that background to set the tone for the comments I feel it necessary to make about our hospital experience. I have never had to spend an extended period of time in the hospital with one of my children. I was in the hospital for about a week some time ago with my own health issues, but that was different. All the procedures, all the communication, all the interaction with the staff and other patients was because of me and my medical issues during that previous stay. It definitely makes a diference in how you experience the events related to the hospital stay if it's your kid who is the cause for the procedures, communications and interactions.
I can deal with my own pain. It's scary to be in pain and to not know if the doctor is going to be able to figure out what's wrong with you or if he can answer the question of whether you're ever going to feel better again. However, it's a thousand times worse if it's your child who's in pain and those same questions are roiling around in your brain. You try to push them away, you try to ignore them, but when you hear your baby cry in fear or see her grimace in pain or hear her moan in agony, those questions will not be answered quite to your satisfaction, and you will not be comforted with simply a pat on the back and a kind word. Those questions seep into the very fiber of your being and haunt you...no matter how strong your faith is. You become a slave to the morphine that the nurses give to ease your child's pain every bit as much as the child does.
And, hospitals are not for the faint of heart in other respects, too. When Robin and her daddy and Grandma arrived at the hospital, after a harrowing ride downtown with Grandma driving and Daddy in charge of the vomit bucket, they were greeted in the emergency room waiting area with a veritable sea of other folks who were living their own versions of the sick child drama. The awareness of fear and worry are palpable in this area and have a cloying, disagreeable scent all their own, one that's sharper than any disinfectant and more challenging to dispel than any bacteria.
I had the opportunity to experience it, too, when I rushed in to meet Robin et al in the emergency room later, arriving there immediately after my 16 hour shift at work. I was aghast at the sheer number of people who were sitting, reclining, standing and otherwise occupying just the waiting room area of the emergency room. I was even more appalled to find that although many of these individuals did indeed have sick children, not all the children were really ill enough to require emergency care. It seems that the healthcare system in the United States is so broken that those who cannot afford regular preventative healthcare either use the emergency room personnel as their means of treating commonplace illnesses like colds or tummyaches or they wait until their child is so ill that the emergency room is their only option for treatment.
Surely, I cannot be the only one who thinks this way! It just seems to make sense that there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a way to treat those who are not critically ill but cannot afford insurance or regular healthcare, without their having to resort to crowding into the emergency room of their local hospital and slowing down the service necessary to those who are experiencing truly emergent conditions. I shudder to think what would have happened if Robin's illness had been life threatening. As it was, she was in more pain than any person big or little should have to endure. I just cannot imagine what would have happened if she had been having trouble breathing or staying conscious. I would like to think that we would have been moved to the top of the list and would not have had to wait almost five hours to be seen and given morphine induced pain relief, but I just don't know.
Another unpleasant aspect of hospital care is unsympathetic staff who seem determined to make a very stressful time in a family's life even more stressful and horrible than it already is. Although the majority of the doctors and nurses with whom we interacted were perfectly pleasant, compassionate, friendly and warm individuals, there was that one nurse who made Nurse Ratchett seem like the Easter Bunny. It was she who had the unmitigated gall to tell Robin that "Hospitals were not made to just lie around in. They are for people to get better in."
Wow, Toots. Thanks ever so much for those earth shattering pearls of wisdom. A day after surgery and you're all ready for my kid to jump out of bed, yank the morphine IV out of her arm on her own and run around the hospital like she's entered into the Boston Marathon, are you? You do realize, do you not, that each person is different from every other person? We each have our own physiology, our own morphology that makes us unique. A byproduct of this uniqueness is that we each require our own amount of time to recover enough to function normally. Or, did you miss that lecture in your drunken nursing school days? Out for a little toot that day, were you?
Perhaps you also missed the lecture that consisted of someone older and and much wiser than you explaining to the class that YOU ARE NOT A DOCTOR. You simply do not have the medical knowledge or experience to tell me or my child that you're just going to order up some simethicone for what you believe to be gas pains instead of administering the morphine that the DOCTOR ordered be given in 3 mg increments EVERY THREE HOURS and not whenever you jolly well felt like it. So, you can stand there in all of your 12-year-old arrogance and make your happy pronouncements, but don't expect me to give a tinker's damn about anything you say. Actions speak louder than words, Toots. Bring the child more morphine now and while you're out there, check your abominable attitude at the door.
If the stones had been small enough, they might have passed through the duct and out of the body through the intestines like regular waste does. However, because of their large size and irregular shape these were unable to pass and had to be removed during a surgical procedure. This procedure was a fairly simple one with a very long complicated name: Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP, for short).
The procedure itself involved sedating Robin with general anesthesia and then inserting a tube with a camera attached to its end into her mouth, down her esophagus, into her stomach, then into the duodenum, the gateway to the small intestine. A catheter was then inserted into the duct leading to the pancreas and gallbladder. Once the stones were located, the surgeon scooped them out with an instrument called a basket and removed them from her body. The stones were large enough that Robin is now somewhat of a celebrity among the gastrointestinal surgeons. (I guess everyone really does get their 15 minutes of fame at some point.) Photos were taken during the procedure, too, and we were given a sampling of those in full color. Not really anything you would want to add to the baby book, I don't think, but interesting to look at and quite remarkable to some of the medical personnel.
Now that the escapee stones have been removed, Robin is scheduled for a second surgery on Monday to remove her gallbladder. That surgery is expected to be routine and will be done laparoscopically, meaning very small cuts will be made in her abdomen and a laparoscopic scope and surgical instruments will be inserted to clip the gallbladder out and remove it from her body.
I gave all that background to set the tone for the comments I feel it necessary to make about our hospital experience. I have never had to spend an extended period of time in the hospital with one of my children. I was in the hospital for about a week some time ago with my own health issues, but that was different. All the procedures, all the communication, all the interaction with the staff and other patients was because of me and my medical issues during that previous stay. It definitely makes a diference in how you experience the events related to the hospital stay if it's your kid who is the cause for the procedures, communications and interactions.
I can deal with my own pain. It's scary to be in pain and to not know if the doctor is going to be able to figure out what's wrong with you or if he can answer the question of whether you're ever going to feel better again. However, it's a thousand times worse if it's your child who's in pain and those same questions are roiling around in your brain. You try to push them away, you try to ignore them, but when you hear your baby cry in fear or see her grimace in pain or hear her moan in agony, those questions will not be answered quite to your satisfaction, and you will not be comforted with simply a pat on the back and a kind word. Those questions seep into the very fiber of your being and haunt you...no matter how strong your faith is. You become a slave to the morphine that the nurses give to ease your child's pain every bit as much as the child does.
And, hospitals are not for the faint of heart in other respects, too. When Robin and her daddy and Grandma arrived at the hospital, after a harrowing ride downtown with Grandma driving and Daddy in charge of the vomit bucket, they were greeted in the emergency room waiting area with a veritable sea of other folks who were living their own versions of the sick child drama. The awareness of fear and worry are palpable in this area and have a cloying, disagreeable scent all their own, one that's sharper than any disinfectant and more challenging to dispel than any bacteria.
I had the opportunity to experience it, too, when I rushed in to meet Robin et al in the emergency room later, arriving there immediately after my 16 hour shift at work. I was aghast at the sheer number of people who were sitting, reclining, standing and otherwise occupying just the waiting room area of the emergency room. I was even more appalled to find that although many of these individuals did indeed have sick children, not all the children were really ill enough to require emergency care. It seems that the healthcare system in the United States is so broken that those who cannot afford regular preventative healthcare either use the emergency room personnel as their means of treating commonplace illnesses like colds or tummyaches or they wait until their child is so ill that the emergency room is their only option for treatment.
Surely, I cannot be the only one who thinks this way! It just seems to make sense that there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a way to treat those who are not critically ill but cannot afford insurance or regular healthcare, without their having to resort to crowding into the emergency room of their local hospital and slowing down the service necessary to those who are experiencing truly emergent conditions. I shudder to think what would have happened if Robin's illness had been life threatening. As it was, she was in more pain than any person big or little should have to endure. I just cannot imagine what would have happened if she had been having trouble breathing or staying conscious. I would like to think that we would have been moved to the top of the list and would not have had to wait almost five hours to be seen and given morphine induced pain relief, but I just don't know.
Another unpleasant aspect of hospital care is unsympathetic staff who seem determined to make a very stressful time in a family's life even more stressful and horrible than it already is. Although the majority of the doctors and nurses with whom we interacted were perfectly pleasant, compassionate, friendly and warm individuals, there was that one nurse who made Nurse Ratchett seem like the Easter Bunny. It was she who had the unmitigated gall to tell Robin that "Hospitals were not made to just lie around in. They are for people to get better in."
Wow, Toots. Thanks ever so much for those earth shattering pearls of wisdom. A day after surgery and you're all ready for my kid to jump out of bed, yank the morphine IV out of her arm on her own and run around the hospital like she's entered into the Boston Marathon, are you? You do realize, do you not, that each person is different from every other person? We each have our own physiology, our own morphology that makes us unique. A byproduct of this uniqueness is that we each require our own amount of time to recover enough to function normally. Or, did you miss that lecture in your drunken nursing school days? Out for a little toot that day, were you?
Perhaps you also missed the lecture that consisted of someone older and and much wiser than you explaining to the class that YOU ARE NOT A DOCTOR. You simply do not have the medical knowledge or experience to tell me or my child that you're just going to order up some simethicone for what you believe to be gas pains instead of administering the morphine that the DOCTOR ordered be given in 3 mg increments EVERY THREE HOURS and not whenever you jolly well felt like it. So, you can stand there in all of your 12-year-old arrogance and make your happy pronouncements, but don't expect me to give a tinker's damn about anything you say. Actions speak louder than words, Toots. Bring the child more morphine now and while you're out there, check your abominable attitude at the door.
Ahem. I digress into a temper tantrum by blog because to do so in front of my child and in front of the hospital staff would probably not have had the desired effect. Robin is rather sensitive to my moods and often misinterprets when my words of frustration and anger come bubbling forth. She sometimes thinks that I'm angry with her when, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. She is my heart and the very best of me, as is her brother. Suffice it to say, that this experience has been one of the most nerve wracking, thought provoking, frustrationally challenging experiences of my life, made doubly so by a mean nurse, a broken healthcare system and truly gross hospital cafeteria food.
And, oh, they don't have coffee in this hospital that doesn't require a fifteen minute trek through the bowels of hell or the seas of humanity to retrieve.
Friday, August 7, 2009
"All Standbys for Raleigh Approach the Gate"
I am extremely fortunate to work for an airline. I love my job. I love my friends at my job. I love the office building in which I spend the majority of my life. And, toiling in the airline industry does have its definite advantages. As in many specialized industries, there are all sorts of discounts and special deals that airline employees are privy to. The thing is, though, most of the traveling public is under the somewhat mistaken impression that we airline folks get free, unlimited air travel, wherever, whenever. While it is true that we are lucky to get very reduced cost or in some cases, technically free, travel (depending on length of employment), it is by no means any less true that there is a price to pay...there is always a price.
You see, the price that airline folks pay for air travel is called traveling by stand-by or non-rev(enue) travel. In general, this means that we show up at the airport, bags and kids and husbands, or wives as the case may be, in tow, and in many cases armed with vodka and/or mild barbituates, at the absolute butt crack of dawn for the very first flight of the day when we want to visit Grandma in Tulsa or Aunt Sally and Uncle Buford in Poughkeepsie.
We then wait, which could be a little while or could be all damned day, until a sometimes pleasant, but very oftentimes rude, surly, snide, power crazy, gate agent deigns to call our names and hand us the magic boarding passes to paradise...or, more accurately, to the coach section of the aircraft, which is probably going to be hotter than the ninth level of Tartarus and is where we invariably will be seated next to either a screaming, ill behaved heathen brat who is torn between repeatedly and rhytmically kicking the seat in front of him or yelling full voice for mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, or next to an extremely large, mouth breathing, florid faced man, who is radiant in his fried chicken/mashed potatoes and gravy aroma and resplendent in the sweat stains down the sides of his shirt and chicken grease on his face and fingers and whose massive quantity of flesh insists on encroaching into our space.
Recently, I had the dubious pleasure of exercising my privilege to non rev ecstasy on my company's last flight to Raleigh. Wow. Even as I'm reading that it seems somehow movie-like. "Last Flight to Raleigh"...starring Liv Tyler and Johnny Depp. Anyhoo, I digress.
I like to watch people. Airports are perfect places in which to observe the human condition. Since I have the opportunity to travel by air more often than the average person, I have lots of time in which to people watch. On this particular excursion to Raleigh, I was seated at the gate in one of the marginally comfortable chairs, next to my beautiful, almost 16-year-old daughter while we awaited the announcement that our flight was actually going to depart, and that our happy butts would be planted in the empty, leftover seats in coach next to the rude child or the fat man. If you have never spent two hours of wait time with a bored 16-year-old whose iPod's battery is failing, it is what you could call a character building exercise.
While we were waiting, my mind began to wander and I noticed the older lady seated directly across the aisle from us. I noticed her because she was speaking, quite loudly, to someone on her cell phone. I noticed her because she kept saying she was at the Dallas airport and I felt compelled to continue eavesdropping to ensure that I was hearing her correctly. As a subject for a people watching aficianado, she was a true treasure.
She was 60-ish and dressed in a dashiki type top, colorful baggy bottoms, adorned with lime green, vinyl crocs on her feet, and graced with a lovely, shiny nose ring, which glittered in the florescent lighting like the proverbial jewel of the Nile. I continued to eavesdrop on this poor unfortunate's cell phone conversation because I felt that she was confused about her exact location on my home planet. You see, I know that when my butt touched down in the seat across the aisle from her that it was convinced that we were currently occupying space at the big Houston airport, and I was kept busy musing in an attempt to decide whether my daughter and I may have somehow inadvertently disrupted the space time continuum and had landed, big hair and large bottoms first, in Dallas. Thankfully, Ms. Aging Hipster finally realized her error and told her cell phone that she was, in fact, at the Houston airport, which finally put my mind at ease. I am quite certain that Hipster's cell phone was relieved at this news, too.
At that, it was time to board the aircraft, two hours late to Raleigh. I took my seat next to the fat man, took a 10 dollar bill out of my purse and at the first opportunity flagged down the harried flight attendant to request two of those delightful little bottles of wine. The cost of the two tiny bottles of wine would exactly equal the amount of money changing hands, thus elimating the need for the flight attendant to make change. And, I figured, two bottles of wine would just about smoothe out the rough edges enough for me to endure the the ninth level of Tarturus for the two and a half hour duration of the flight.
I then gave the fat man a wink, smiled my best East Texas, big haired, cheerleader smile, and said knowingly, "Hold on to your drumsticks, honey. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."
You see, the price that airline folks pay for air travel is called traveling by stand-by or non-rev(enue) travel. In general, this means that we show up at the airport, bags and kids and husbands, or wives as the case may be, in tow, and in many cases armed with vodka and/or mild barbituates, at the absolute butt crack of dawn for the very first flight of the day when we want to visit Grandma in Tulsa or Aunt Sally and Uncle Buford in Poughkeepsie.
We then wait, which could be a little while or could be all damned day, until a sometimes pleasant, but very oftentimes rude, surly, snide, power crazy, gate agent deigns to call our names and hand us the magic boarding passes to paradise...or, more accurately, to the coach section of the aircraft, which is probably going to be hotter than the ninth level of Tartarus and is where we invariably will be seated next to either a screaming, ill behaved heathen brat who is torn between repeatedly and rhytmically kicking the seat in front of him or yelling full voice for mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, or next to an extremely large, mouth breathing, florid faced man, who is radiant in his fried chicken/mashed potatoes and gravy aroma and resplendent in the sweat stains down the sides of his shirt and chicken grease on his face and fingers and whose massive quantity of flesh insists on encroaching into our space.
Recently, I had the dubious pleasure of exercising my privilege to non rev ecstasy on my company's last flight to Raleigh. Wow. Even as I'm reading that it seems somehow movie-like. "Last Flight to Raleigh"...starring Liv Tyler and Johnny Depp. Anyhoo, I digress.
I like to watch people. Airports are perfect places in which to observe the human condition. Since I have the opportunity to travel by air more often than the average person, I have lots of time in which to people watch. On this particular excursion to Raleigh, I was seated at the gate in one of the marginally comfortable chairs, next to my beautiful, almost 16-year-old daughter while we awaited the announcement that our flight was actually going to depart, and that our happy butts would be planted in the empty, leftover seats in coach next to the rude child or the fat man. If you have never spent two hours of wait time with a bored 16-year-old whose iPod's battery is failing, it is what you could call a character building exercise.
While we were waiting, my mind began to wander and I noticed the older lady seated directly across the aisle from us. I noticed her because she was speaking, quite loudly, to someone on her cell phone. I noticed her because she kept saying she was at the Dallas airport and I felt compelled to continue eavesdropping to ensure that I was hearing her correctly. As a subject for a people watching aficianado, she was a true treasure.
She was 60-ish and dressed in a dashiki type top, colorful baggy bottoms, adorned with lime green, vinyl crocs on her feet, and graced with a lovely, shiny nose ring, which glittered in the florescent lighting like the proverbial jewel of the Nile. I continued to eavesdrop on this poor unfortunate's cell phone conversation because I felt that she was confused about her exact location on my home planet. You see, I know that when my butt touched down in the seat across the aisle from her that it was convinced that we were currently occupying space at the big Houston airport, and I was kept busy musing in an attempt to decide whether my daughter and I may have somehow inadvertently disrupted the space time continuum and had landed, big hair and large bottoms first, in Dallas. Thankfully, Ms. Aging Hipster finally realized her error and told her cell phone that she was, in fact, at the Houston airport, which finally put my mind at ease. I am quite certain that Hipster's cell phone was relieved at this news, too.
At that, it was time to board the aircraft, two hours late to Raleigh. I took my seat next to the fat man, took a 10 dollar bill out of my purse and at the first opportunity flagged down the harried flight attendant to request two of those delightful little bottles of wine. The cost of the two tiny bottles of wine would exactly equal the amount of money changing hands, thus elimating the need for the flight attendant to make change. And, I figured, two bottles of wine would just about smoothe out the rough edges enough for me to endure the the ninth level of Tarturus for the two and a half hour duration of the flight.
I then gave the fat man a wink, smiled my best East Texas, big haired, cheerleader smile, and said knowingly, "Hold on to your drumsticks, honey. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."
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