Be Nice to the Elderly and Infirm...

I'm back... And now you will be regaled with medical stories....

I am three weeks out from major surgery.  Whew! One really hard first week and now the long uphill.  

This was long planned, researched and considered and yet I still found myself unprepared for the complete invalid experience.  Because of the nature of my surgery (if you really want to know mastectomy with DIEP flap reconstruction),  I was looking at an 8 hour surgery with my whole torso being reorganized and shuffled around.  I knew I would be fairly useless. I stocked the house, cleaned and filled the DVR. Set up my bedroom for gimping around, set up Netflix and got a few good books.  I bought my Christmas cards and imagined myself quietly productive during my recovery.  Fool....  (After two weeks, which is not that long considering how involved it all was, I finally began reaching that point.)

 I have to say that, despite the pervasive feeling of having been run over by a semi, there wasn't really that much pain- which was a relief. However, I was blown away by how the cacophony of small miseries, all minor enough on their own, conspired to create a kind of sleep deprivation that was truly torturous.  The anesthesia left me so weak that I could hardly stand long enough to brush my teeth, the drains and incisions left me with no position that would bring sleep, the effort to eat made it seem not worthwhile and my greatest source of pain was a complete surprise.  My back was friggin' killing me!  My back had nothing to do with anything! WTF? But, not being able to lie flat or stand straight put sooo much strain on my lower back.  

My best friend was the medical recliner that we rented. But, it also completed the whole helpless invalid/old gnarled person picture.  I couldn't change the position by myself. My children would eagerly come running to prop me up or down- bless them.  (And they were dying to get me to uses the highchair-type eating tray. I refused.) To get up, I would struggle against gravity and then shuffle in the exact same manner that my 85 year old, osteoporosis stricken father would in his last few years. When I returned to my chair with a sigh of relief, I considered that I was living the compromised elderly life.  And I didn't like it...

Looking back, I was at my most miserable for a week. (Which seems reasonable.)  But that week seemed sooooo long because I just couldn't sleep and I felt sooo weak and now I have so much more sympathy for the elderly infirm.  I understand why they shuffle around in clothes with a stain.  It's soooo hard to change.  I get why they are crotchety and frustrated.  When it's a huge effort just to get a pillow into a comfortable position, I wanted to (and maybe did- just a little) cry.  When you have a way of doing things and can't do them, it's hard not to keep quiet as those around you are doing it "wrong".  And when sleep deprivation makes your brain too mushy for anything other than hour after hour of daytime TV, it's a little soul crushing...

(The moral here is: Be nice to those grumpy, stained old people in the store. Don't wrinkle your nose or get overly annoyed.  Everything used to be easier for them.  Someday everything will be harder for you.)

BUT, when I hit a full week, I felt the shift.  And just feeling things starting to improve made it all bearable.  Even though I knew it wasn't going to be like that forever,  I needed to start feeling it.  At two weeks, I feel sooo much better.  Still slow.  Still easily tired. (But I could sleep in my own bed!) My in laws went home and I muddled through the morning and evening routines.  It's a bit of a stretch but that's a good thing.  Like physical therapy.  

Every day is getting easier.  And these kids are finally being useful.  They were too spoiled.  (I blame the mother.) They are finally doing things for themselves and helping around the house. It's awesome! But, I've got to be careful not to slip back into old habits.  If I start to look more able, I don't know that they will be so willing to keep doing the chores. (That they should have been doing all along.)   I may have to hide my increasing "normality", doing things more easily while they are at school and then acting helpless when they come home. 


Seems deceitful but duplicity might be needed to really recover properly. Especially with the older, wily one.  One morning, I was helping a bit more with breakfast and the boy asked, (a bit too eagerly) "Are you going to start serving us again?'  The older one pounced on him and said something to the effect of, "SHHHHHH!  Don't say it!  We don't want her to notice she's doing it!"  So that's the way it's going to be?  Always the academic, she is going to use strategy to try and avoid any extra physical activity or chores.  Glad my brain power is coming back, I'm going to need it to fight off her powers or I'll find myself achy and sore from doing her bidding  The force is strong with this one....

Rambling On...

And now for some bad puns and then some random rambling:

Today is B-Day.
Ta ta to the Ta-Tas. (Good one, Vicki!)
All clear for take-off!

Ok,  I can't think of any more at this moment.  Today, for you, is October 8 and right now I am at the hospital getting ready or started.

Right now, for me, it's Friday October 4th. It's so weird to think that by this time next week it will be over.  I'm strangely calm.  I guess because, at this point, I'm locked in.  I've argued myself back and forth and around in circles and in the words of Jodie Foster, "I'm ok to go!"  I've spent SO much time thinking and worrying, I'm ready to just be done.

As a person, I'm a weird, messy mix of Pollyana and Woody Allen.  I am always looking at the bright side.  And then angsting about some other side.  If I were a cartoon character, I wouldn't have an angel and a devil whispering in my ear.  It would probably be some annoyingly chipper Care Bear and a big ass mosquito.  And no matter how happy that little bear is, the mosquito keeps grabbing my attention.

Here's an example. If YOU tell me you are going on a plane trip, I am so excited for you.  You'll have so much fun! If I am going on a plane trip, I'll intend to have fun BUT I'm pretty sure I'm going to die in a fiery crash before I get there.  If YOU tell me you are having surgery, I'm worry for you but I don't expect you to die.  If I am having surgery, it's time to start writing letters to everyone I love.

I have thought about every crazy possibility that won't happen. At this point, I've imagined  it all. Including, thanks to Grey's Anatomy and ER, earthquakes, hostage situations and mad bombers.  Ok, not those last few but only because I am trying to dial back my crazy. But I am crazy.  I WAS worried about having a weird Frankenstein torso by choice but THEN I started worrying about dying.  And that's where all the bad TV medical dramas stepped in! [Doctors shaking their heads.   How did this happen? Should've been routine!] All those things that make riveting TV are bad in the dark at night...

(Now, it's Monday the 7th.)

So I rode the crazy train all the way to the end.  Then reversed it back up the track.  I have to say that the last two weeks were not as bad as the earlier weeks.  When I was still wrestling with the choice I had made.   Even though I knew it was the right decision, I kept looking for a reason to change my mind.  For someone to say, this isn't necessary.  But everyone agreed.  It was like the time I told my mother I was going to run away and instead of talking me out of it she said, "Ok.  Where can I reach you? Should I help you pack?"  This time, I kept thinking, "I'm going to do this.  Don't try and stop me!" WTF?!  No one's going to try to stop me?!   (Even the insurance company was all, "Sounds like a plan.")  It was harder to get here than to be here. 

So I'm squishing the mosquito (for now) and listening to the happy Care Bear... (Here comes the rambling....)

I know I will be fine and not die and not look like Frankenstein and even if I do a little bit it will be worth it to not have to worry anymore.  AND it's nice to NOT have to wait to be sick to know how wonderful my family and friends are. ( I practically have to beat you people off with a stick.)  I promise I will ask for help if I need it.  I just don't know what I need yet.  And, actually, you have all done exactly what I needed already.  On my journey through this life, I have had such wonderful people by my side.  The people that I count as friends always make me feel AWESOME.  We may not always see each other but I am honored to know you all and lucky our paths have crossed. And we chose to be friends.  You make me feel better by just being. 

Now, friends are the family we chose for ourselves and I have made a great bunch.  But I am blessed to the Nth degree that the family I was given is incredible. I was born into a great extended family with lots of cousins and aunts who help fill my mother's shoes.  My husband and kids are awesome.   BUT right now, I am sooooo grateful for my wonderful in laws.  At EVERY point in my life that I have needed them, they were there.  They dropped everything to watch my kids when my parents were dying.  For weeks.  Not having to worry about my kids at that point was huge.  And they are again putting their lives on hold to help and cook and stay here.  I don't have to worry about juggling the kid's schedules and meals.  That's huge. (My wonderful mother in law even does laundry!)  

I am SOOOO enormously blessed to have them AND so happy that they are such a big part of my kid's lives.  When I try to thank them, they say, "Of course, we're family!"' But it's so much more. My kids don't understand that not everyone has this. And while I'm glad it's a given for them, I realize not everyone is so blessed.  I know people who's own parents aren't so willing to help or as involved in their kids lives.  J.'s entire family feels like mine. Like I was born to them.  And having that as a given makes life so much easier...  

Friends, family and the good kind of in laws? I am lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky... [to infinity]

So, I'll see you all on the flip side! 

Wait...I'm Who?!

Remember back in your youth you would feel deep connections to your music?  Quoting the lyrics.  Writing meaningful phrases on your notebook. (Or clothes.)  Usually it was lines expressing heartache, anger at the world or at the "establishment".  Eff the man, man!

Recently, one of my children got in trouble with me for some schoolwork neglect and ridiculousness. It was a repeat performance so there was much anger on my part. Ranting, raving and, the cherry on top, banning the offender from electronics for the remainder of the week.  Oh, the humanity!  (In the old days, I wouldn't have been able to play Intellivision.  Now it's the iPod, the computer, video games...). The child accepted the punishment quietly because it was deserved.  The project was finished and life went on.

The next morning while getting ready for school, another child who lives here (names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved), yells down to me, "What does the bathtub say?"  Huh?  [Confusion- the bathtub talks?] After some back and forth, I go investigate.  There are words scrawled on the tub. In bathtub crayon.  (In case you were wondering, the orange one.)  It circles the tub.  Some of the words look rubbed out but I can make out a few   "... own depression- (Metallica)".  Metallica?!?  Someone is trying to quote  Metallica in bathtub crayon!?  Reading further, there is another sentence, "misfortune comes in life with punishment." How dramatic!  Sitting in the tub scrawling angry words AND misquoting Metallica! For just a few minutes, I am alarmed just like my mother would've been.  That level of emotion-yikes!  But then I am a little excited. What an awesome kid.  Using songs and words to express emotions and rally against the powers that be!  Speaking out against injustice!  Against the establishment!  Against the "man"!

[Record coming to a screeching halt] Hold up a second!  Am I the man?!  I HAVE to be the man in this scenario.  Yes. I'm the establishment?  I AM the establishment.  A member of the two-person governing party.  Wow.  I know I am a parent and a grownup but to be "the man".   It's kind of weird.  It's also odd to understand a bit of the anxiety of our parents generation.  Our music sounded so different and angry.  It was hard for them to not be concerned about some of the dark "messages" and we dismissed them with "It's no big deal!"  I had a flash of that feeling as well...  Surreal! I still can't believe I'm the grownup now...

Well, most Saturdays my husband wakes before everyone and putters around listening to music and doing bills. The Saturday after the angry graffiti incident, I came down and he was listening to Rage Against the Machines "Killing in the Name".  Just as I come downstairs the end of the songs peaks with, "F__ You, I won't do what you tell me" repeated over and over.  Arg!  I became "the man" again and announced, "For the love of all that is holy, turn it down before any kids get up!  I don't want to find this written in the bathtub next!"  Idea for a new band name? Rage Against the Mom...  Sigh...