One of my very dearest male friends (through amateur radio since 1997) is a married man named Ryan. He and his wife and I have broken bread together several times during our retirement years. I was never as close to his wife Bonnie as I was to him, but we weren't strangers.
Bonnie had a way about her. She was an avid reader, movie watcher, and water-color painter. She even taught others how to do water-color painting. She had an artistic flair that couldn't be denied, as well as a good-paying job that often kept them afloat. Ryan is a somewhat laid-back, passionate kind of guy. Bonnie, however, had a sharp-tongued sense of humor that often bordered on the sarcastic. (Okay...more than "often" perhaps.) Based on things that Ryan told me and his other radio buds, she came to be known as Hurricane Bonnie behind her back. (Once, years ago, I had a garage sale that Bonnie participated in. My daughter, after spending a day with Bonnie at the sale, said, "I just love Bonnie. She's such a bitch!" She meant it in the nicest way. Bonnie didn't hold back. She wasn't nasty. She wasn't profane. She was just...well...Bonnie. No nonsense. )
To be fair, ham radio is an overwhelmingly male hobby. Non-ham wives can be skeptical--even resistant--to the amount of time and dedication (and money) that their radio-smitten husbands expend on the hobby, to the degree that one could buy t-shirts at the annual radio convention that used to be held in Dayton, OH, that said, "My wife tells me if I transmit one more time, she's going to leave me. Over." Or "My wife told me that it's my radios or her. I'm sure going to miss that woman." A male radio operator once asked me how he could convince his wife to be as passionate about the hobby as I was. I had to tell him, "You probably can't. I don't have a spouse who could be jealous of the time and money that I spend on the hobby. You do. Women often just don't understand the attraction to radio. You'll just have to find a happy medium." Hurricane Bonnie was one of those women. She saw radio as a vacuum that sucked out their time and finances, and I'm sure there were other issues, but she hung in there.
Ryan told me once, even in the throes of wishing his life were different, "I would die for Bonnie. I would die without Bonnie." And now, many years later, his dedication to Hurricane Bonnie is being tested because the hurricane is now just a fog. Bonnie was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia a number of years ago and is a mere shadow of her former sarcastic self. I've broken bread with them several times after the diagnosis. Today marked the first time in a year or so that I joined them for a breakfast with other friends. I had heard from my neighbor that Bonnie wasn't doing well, but I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't good, but it wasn't dire. Yet.
The first thing I asked Bonnie was if she remembered my name. She didn't. I told it to her, knowing she wouldn't remember it. Before the food came, she exhibited quite a bit of anxiety...hunger...thirst...who knows? When the food came, she wept over her behavior before it did. Ryan assured her that no one was judging. (What was to judge? I've often considered crying when I was hungry and my food wasn't coming fast enough!) When she got her food and desired drink, she said she was feeling better and devoured everything in front of her.
I am no expert on dementia of any kind, but I spent a number of years trying to help my sister get through my brother-in-law's Fronto-Temporal Degeneration years. I didn't really understand it all until late in the game, but God knows I tried. Sitting next to Bonnie this morning felt comfortable to me. I know her. I care about her. I care about her husband. The waitress knows them and understands. Nothing to fear there.
If I coughed, Bonnie patted my arm. If I asked her a question, she always answered. Once or twice, she said she loved me. (She did that to others, too.) At one point, she looked at me and said, "You're so pretty!" Look, folks: I'm not stupid. If even a demented person thinks I am pretty, it's going to endear me to him/her, hands down!
She was getting anxious to leave because it was time. She and I waited at the door while Ryan paid the tab (thanks, Ryan!). I helped her zip her jacket. She seemed happy to have that accomplished, and told me, once again, that she loved me. And then she chuckled, "I don't know who you are, but I love you anyway". She saw the irony in what she said. It was both funny and sad. I love you, too, Bonnie. You just won't know it!!
If I understand nothing else about people suffering from dementia, I do know that the essence of who they are still lies beneath the surface, and what they are losing by way of mental faculties terrifies them. Consider putting yourself in the shoes of the sufferer, knowing that he/she is losing ground but powerless to change it. The result can be depression, anger, combativeness, tears...and alienating those who are taking care of you.
And what I know about caregivers is that they give and give until the afterburners are out of fuel. There is no happy ending. This is one of those progressive things that only ends with the loss of a loved one, cognitively, long before he/she is gone, physically.
I love my friend Ryan, and I love his poor wife. I don't feel that I am in a good place to help them much, but I hope to God a light bulb will come on over my head if I can. When it comes to the stresses of illness of one spouse, the only understanding is that they promised to care for one another "in sickness and in health, 'til death do [they] part". I have SO MUCH respect for what Ryan is doing for Bonnie right now, I could cry. God bless them both!
Friday, March 9, 2018
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Traveling Handicapped
Not so long after I retired, I began to have problems with walking...problems that seemed to stem from my back. I didn't do much about it--which will be the subject of another post. Suffice it to say that, along about 2011, my daughter suggested that I get a handicapped placard to make it easier for me to travel. I was really, really resistant. I still felt able and didn't particularly want to be classified as old and disabled. Yet, the facts were there, and my cardiologist had no qualms at all in approving not only a handicapped placard, but a PERMANENT handicapped placard. Still, I only used it sparingly. I wasn't flying any more because my family had moved back to the Midwest. I could drive to see them. But I just couldn't walk that well.
Then the family moved to Seattle. In order to see them again, I was going to have to fly. The only way I could do airports was to have handicapped support--which means wheelchairs. Again, it was personally embarrassing but necessary. Airports are big. I can't stand for long without leaning on something, and walking long distances can be a big problem. The only way for me to get from Point A to Point B in an airport is to request handicapped support. No one has ever questioned me on the need, nor do I have any doubt that I could provide whatever proof is required. Without it, I simply would not be able to fly. Period.
The only thing required to fly as a person in need of handicapped assistance is tip-money. The service is free. Tips are optional but appreciated. Once upon a time, a trip to Seattle from Indy was a two-legged trip, which meant that I needed to have cash to tip a wheelchair pusher in Indy, then at the connecting airport upon arrival, then again at the destination...and the same on the reverse trip. If I took a cab from Indy International to home at the end of the trip, that was another tip. Frankly, I never considered it a problem to travel as a disabled person. Yes, I paid a little bit more in tips than normal travelers, but I also got a couple of perks in the process. And then Alaska Airlines, just last May, offered a non-stop flight from Indy to Seattle, and back. What a relief! Seats are assigned (which they weren't on Southwest flights), and checked bags cost $25 apiece (which they weren't on Southwest flights), but flights are only ONE leg, and save hours and hours waiting for connections. I was glad to fork over a few funds just for the convenience!
Just last week, my daughter booked a flight for my grandchildren's paternal grandmother and me to fly to WA to see our granddaughter perform in her school's musical. It will encompass Mother's Day. Grandma Judy and Grandma Peggy are friends. We attend the same church. We have many of the same interests. We adore our grandchildren. In short, when our children said their "I do's", so did we...except we didn't divorce each other when our children did. When we determined that we were going to fly together and share a motel room for eight days, we found the meaning of "love".
I told Judy that I would require handicapped support at the airport. She resisted taking the same support, even though she has one artificial knee and another one that hurts. I believe she thought she would be taking away something that other people needed more--like taking up a handicapped parking spot when other people might need it more. (She's that kind of person!) I explained to her that she wasn't going to take anything away from people who were more handicapped by asking for help. The airlines provide this service. Since our seats are assigned, she will have absolutely no advantage over others except to be loaded on the plane earlier to be out of everyone else's way. Finally...FINALLY...she accepted the service. Yay, Judy!
Our flight doesn't occur until early May. Still, there are things to consider...and we will deal with those. In the meantime, I'm really excited about being with my family again, even if not staying with them overnight. It will be a semi-expensive trip for me but totally worth it. I hope my snoring doesn't keep Judy awake at night. I don't have a history of staying with her. We'll make it all work, somehow!!
Then the family moved to Seattle. In order to see them again, I was going to have to fly. The only way I could do airports was to have handicapped support--which means wheelchairs. Again, it was personally embarrassing but necessary. Airports are big. I can't stand for long without leaning on something, and walking long distances can be a big problem. The only way for me to get from Point A to Point B in an airport is to request handicapped support. No one has ever questioned me on the need, nor do I have any doubt that I could provide whatever proof is required. Without it, I simply would not be able to fly. Period.
The only thing required to fly as a person in need of handicapped assistance is tip-money. The service is free. Tips are optional but appreciated. Once upon a time, a trip to Seattle from Indy was a two-legged trip, which meant that I needed to have cash to tip a wheelchair pusher in Indy, then at the connecting airport upon arrival, then again at the destination...and the same on the reverse trip. If I took a cab from Indy International to home at the end of the trip, that was another tip. Frankly, I never considered it a problem to travel as a disabled person. Yes, I paid a little bit more in tips than normal travelers, but I also got a couple of perks in the process. And then Alaska Airlines, just last May, offered a non-stop flight from Indy to Seattle, and back. What a relief! Seats are assigned (which they weren't on Southwest flights), and checked bags cost $25 apiece (which they weren't on Southwest flights), but flights are only ONE leg, and save hours and hours waiting for connections. I was glad to fork over a few funds just for the convenience!
Just last week, my daughter booked a flight for my grandchildren's paternal grandmother and me to fly to WA to see our granddaughter perform in her school's musical. It will encompass Mother's Day. Grandma Judy and Grandma Peggy are friends. We attend the same church. We have many of the same interests. We adore our grandchildren. In short, when our children said their "I do's", so did we...except we didn't divorce each other when our children did. When we determined that we were going to fly together and share a motel room for eight days, we found the meaning of "love".
I told Judy that I would require handicapped support at the airport. She resisted taking the same support, even though she has one artificial knee and another one that hurts. I believe she thought she would be taking away something that other people needed more--like taking up a handicapped parking spot when other people might need it more. (She's that kind of person!) I explained to her that she wasn't going to take anything away from people who were more handicapped by asking for help. The airlines provide this service. Since our seats are assigned, she will have absolutely no advantage over others except to be loaded on the plane earlier to be out of everyone else's way. Finally...FINALLY...she accepted the service. Yay, Judy!
Our flight doesn't occur until early May. Still, there are things to consider...and we will deal with those. In the meantime, I'm really excited about being with my family again, even if not staying with them overnight. It will be a semi-expensive trip for me but totally worth it. I hope my snoring doesn't keep Judy awake at night. I don't have a history of staying with her. We'll make it all work, somehow!!
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Ain't English Fun?
I spent 40 years of my adult life teaching English to English speakers. The last 19 years were devoted to HOOSIER English speakers, which is a whole different animal. But I was dealing mostly with children at 5th grade and above. I never taught classes below 4th grade, and would have been terrible at it if I had.
I was never into Early Childhood Development. In fact, at one time, when I was employed as an elementary school librarian (11 years), I told the Kindergarten teachers not to leave me alone with their classes because I didn't speak their language. Case in point: I would try to dismiss the KDG class by tables to go pick out books from the shelves. After two attempts, with no results, the teacher whispered in my ear, "Say 'the orange table'." I did, and the kids hopped up to do as I'd asked. Whaaat?
Then again, in that same capacity, before we got the computerized circulation system and were still using the card check-out system, I looked at one card for a book a Kdg student was checking out. His name was perfectly spelled on the card--perfectly readable--backwards. It wasn't just that the name was backwards; so were the letters! Perfectly! Oh, please save me!! In other words, even though I taught English and was a mother, I still had very little knowledge about how language develops in children. To this day, I think it is just magic!
My grandson is a perfect example of this. I had gone up to Muncie, IN, for a weekend visit with the family. My granddaughter always dictated what I needed to bring (usually "fwoot" and "canny") and would sleep with me when I was there...but it was my grandson, 15 months younger, whose language development absolutely fascinated me. One morning, I got up to greet everyone for breakfast. Somehow, the topic of beautiful hair came up at the breakfast table. My gray, unbrushed, curly hair was sticking up all over, and I jokingly asked my two-year-old grandson how my hair looked. He exclaimed, "Noodly!" We all laughed, but I was absolutely fascinated. To him, my gray, unruly hair looked like noodles. Kids of that age can be expected to use nouns like that...but he actually changed a noun into an adjective, and used it properly. Wow! Magic! He's been a linguistic whiz-bang ever since!
My son-in-law is Russian-born. He is quite fluent in English, but once in awhile he gets hung up on an expression or two, and we never miss the chance to tease him about it. (Sorry Denis!) I've told you before about his tangling "hippopotamus" as "hippo-puh-thomas", many times over. There have been a few times when he has referred to toes as fingers and told his wife, via text message, that he had once had to endure a dental procedure without "anastasia". Yet his grammar is generally perfect. I will never, ever forget the day that we were in King, WI, seeking a Civil War statue on the grounds of the Veteran's Home there, while looking for where my ancestors were. We had sent him off to the fire department on the grounds with a picture of the statue, hoping they could help us find it. He came back with a big grin on his face. I asked what he was smiling about. He told me, "They said 'That ain't here no more' ". What a hoot that even HE knew what he had heard wasn't proper English! He is a champ!
Learning the lingo isn't always easy, and certainly never fun...but somehow, even with challenges, it still seems like magic to me. It takes children 2-3 years to speak English in a way that is generally acceptable to mainstream parents, but I studied French for five years in an English environment and never really got it right. I can still read French but would have trouble following the spoken word. But it's been 50 years since I was expected to do so. Big consideration!
I still think it's magic. My son-in-law had English lessons while in school in Russia, but his biggest boost to becoming fluent was all on him. He did 95% of it on his own. Wish my students would have been so dedicated. Who knows how much different the world would be if we were all bilingual!
Monday, March 5, 2018
Things I Just Don't Get
In my 71 years of age, I have come to know understanding as a two-pronged fork. Either you do, or you don't. Yet even that is complicated. There are things we understand at a cognitive level--things we can see or have been proven. That is the intellectual side of us that concludes that we understand a given issue based on what makes sense. Then there are things that we understand on an emotional level. This is where the heart trumps the brain with things that, if we were honest about them, wouldn't happen because they don't make sense, cognitively. Sometimes, making decisions about issues prods one part of us to accede to other parts of us...with disastrous results. If I truly don't understand a situation, I can say, "I don't understand"...which means, "Please fill me in with more details that make more sense to me"--things that fit into my experience that can help to fill the gaps in my level of comprehension. Sometimes, no amount of details or explanation will help, and that is when I say, not "I don't understand", but "I don't get it". That means that I don't understand, and no amount of explaining will help. It means I've tried to understand but it hasn't happened yet. It doesn't mean that I've given up--only that...well...I'm just not there yet and don't know that I ever will.
The first time I came to understand the "I don't get it" thing was back in the late 90s when I determined that I wanted to become an amateur radio operator. (How I came to that conclusion is a whole other post.) Suffice it to say that I was fascinated about the invisible things in the physical world that I wanted to be part of. Amateur radio geekdom was a whole other culture and brotherhood that I needed at the time. And I did it. I passed the tests by memorizing the answers. Truth be told, even though I TAUGHT electromagnetic waves to my elementary school students at one time, I didn't understand it all, myself. I resisted the old-time ham operators notion that you had to know how to take a radio apart and put it back together again to be a good radio operator. (I mean, you don't have to know how to fix a car in order to be a good driver. What's the difference??) In those days, I relied a lot on my other radio friends to do the stuff to help me that I couldn't do. They were wonderful in their support, sometimes in ways that saved my skin in life--not only in radio situations. I supplied the enthusiasm. They supplied the technical knowledge. It was a wonderful marriage of the minds. But to this day, I simply do not get how it all works, technically. I've studied and studied, but am convinced that I will never, ever really get it. I have the highest radio license possible. I got it honestly, but if I'd missed ONE more question on the FCC test, I would have failed. (What do you call the person who passes the medical class test with the lowest grade? Doctor!) And so it was/is with me.
Another thing I simply don't get is how to solve a Rubik's cube. Yeah, I know it isn't a big deal in life, but my grandson is really into cubing competitions. He's not in it to win but keeps shaving seconds off his "solving" time. Rubik's cubes have been around for a looong time. I have never, ever been able to solve one. My grandson can solve one, professionally scrambled, in about 18 seconds. That isn't even a record, but it blows my aged mind. He has tried to show me patterns in solving, that he can see in five seconds of pre-competition solves, but I simply don't think I can ever get it. God bless my grandson, he gave me a 3x3x3 cube for Christmas, which now sits on its stand on top of my computer hutch. I've thought about scrambling it and trying to solve it, but I don't believe for a second that I could do it...which means that the cube will stay in its pristine condition on my hutch until/unless he comes to visit to save me from a scrambled cube! It's like Big Bang Theory's episode about the Schrodinger's cat experiment. The cat, put in a sealed box, cannot be understood as alive or dead until the box is opened. I'm afraid to scramble my cube for fear that I can never solve it unless my grandson is here to do it!!
More problematic in the idea of understanding is trying to "get" what is not in your own experience. On the top of my list is depression/anxiety. My first introduction to someone with chronic depression was through my former in-law's friends, Delmas and Beulah. Beulah had been through everything known to medicine at the time to relieve her depression...even shock therapy...to no avail. My in-laws didn't understand it...and I didn't understand it. And then it hit my own family, from several angles.
When you first discover that someone you love is struck with depression or anxiety, the first reaction is to rush in to help, because it's just momentary, right? Oh...well...that didn't work. So the next step is to try harder...but it is never enough. You can say, "Buck up" or "Get off your butt and do stuff" or "You need to do this or that or blah, blah, blah"...but all of that is from a place of not understanding what it is like for the sufferer. YOU don't experience it, so YOU don't understand, no matter how much you love the person who is down. It's a pretty useless feeling for both sufferer and helper. It doesn't help to point out how they are wrong about their perceptions because their perceptions are their reality. Even worse is a person who suffers from it but doesn't accept it, trying to support someone who truly does. Anxiety is a physical/psychological response to an imagined threat to one's own well-being. It doesn't matter that the threat isn't really there. It doesn't matter that the sufferer is loved and supported in every way possible. It is their reality, and that reality is all they can feel. And sometimes, the anxiety-sufferer has already found ways to hide their fears and cope long before anyone else ever knew how he/she felt. And there's the rub. How can you help something you neither know nor understand? I don't get it.
That doesn't mean I don't care. It only means that I don't understand...and maybe I never will. But it doesn't mean I will ever stop trying. Old dogs DO learn new tricks. I just never give up. I will maintain my FCC radio license in spite of my technical ignorance. I might try to solve a Rubik's again some day. And I will continue to try to understand those of my family who are anxious.
I admit, I don't always get it, but I'll go to my grave trying!
The first time I came to understand the "I don't get it" thing was back in the late 90s when I determined that I wanted to become an amateur radio operator. (How I came to that conclusion is a whole other post.) Suffice it to say that I was fascinated about the invisible things in the physical world that I wanted to be part of. Amateur radio geekdom was a whole other culture and brotherhood that I needed at the time. And I did it. I passed the tests by memorizing the answers. Truth be told, even though I TAUGHT electromagnetic waves to my elementary school students at one time, I didn't understand it all, myself. I resisted the old-time ham operators notion that you had to know how to take a radio apart and put it back together again to be a good radio operator. (I mean, you don't have to know how to fix a car in order to be a good driver. What's the difference??) In those days, I relied a lot on my other radio friends to do the stuff to help me that I couldn't do. They were wonderful in their support, sometimes in ways that saved my skin in life--not only in radio situations. I supplied the enthusiasm. They supplied the technical knowledge. It was a wonderful marriage of the minds. But to this day, I simply do not get how it all works, technically. I've studied and studied, but am convinced that I will never, ever really get it. I have the highest radio license possible. I got it honestly, but if I'd missed ONE more question on the FCC test, I would have failed. (What do you call the person who passes the medical class test with the lowest grade? Doctor!) And so it was/is with me.
Another thing I simply don't get is how to solve a Rubik's cube. Yeah, I know it isn't a big deal in life, but my grandson is really into cubing competitions. He's not in it to win but keeps shaving seconds off his "solving" time. Rubik's cubes have been around for a looong time. I have never, ever been able to solve one. My grandson can solve one, professionally scrambled, in about 18 seconds. That isn't even a record, but it blows my aged mind. He has tried to show me patterns in solving, that he can see in five seconds of pre-competition solves, but I simply don't think I can ever get it. God bless my grandson, he gave me a 3x3x3 cube for Christmas, which now sits on its stand on top of my computer hutch. I've thought about scrambling it and trying to solve it, but I don't believe for a second that I could do it...which means that the cube will stay in its pristine condition on my hutch until/unless he comes to visit to save me from a scrambled cube! It's like Big Bang Theory's episode about the Schrodinger's cat experiment. The cat, put in a sealed box, cannot be understood as alive or dead until the box is opened. I'm afraid to scramble my cube for fear that I can never solve it unless my grandson is here to do it!!
More problematic in the idea of understanding is trying to "get" what is not in your own experience. On the top of my list is depression/anxiety. My first introduction to someone with chronic depression was through my former in-law's friends, Delmas and Beulah. Beulah had been through everything known to medicine at the time to relieve her depression...even shock therapy...to no avail. My in-laws didn't understand it...and I didn't understand it. And then it hit my own family, from several angles.
When you first discover that someone you love is struck with depression or anxiety, the first reaction is to rush in to help, because it's just momentary, right? Oh...well...that didn't work. So the next step is to try harder...but it is never enough. You can say, "Buck up" or "Get off your butt and do stuff" or "You need to do this or that or blah, blah, blah"...but all of that is from a place of not understanding what it is like for the sufferer. YOU don't experience it, so YOU don't understand, no matter how much you love the person who is down. It's a pretty useless feeling for both sufferer and helper. It doesn't help to point out how they are wrong about their perceptions because their perceptions are their reality. Even worse is a person who suffers from it but doesn't accept it, trying to support someone who truly does. Anxiety is a physical/psychological response to an imagined threat to one's own well-being. It doesn't matter that the threat isn't really there. It doesn't matter that the sufferer is loved and supported in every way possible. It is their reality, and that reality is all they can feel. And sometimes, the anxiety-sufferer has already found ways to hide their fears and cope long before anyone else ever knew how he/she felt. And there's the rub. How can you help something you neither know nor understand? I don't get it.
That doesn't mean I don't care. It only means that I don't understand...and maybe I never will. But it doesn't mean I will ever stop trying. Old dogs DO learn new tricks. I just never give up. I will maintain my FCC radio license in spite of my technical ignorance. I might try to solve a Rubik's again some day. And I will continue to try to understand those of my family who are anxious.
I admit, I don't always get it, but I'll go to my grave trying!
Monday, February 12, 2018
Well, here we go...
Back in 2015, I made a post about my failed Prom experiences as a young lady, as I remembered them. I write this stuff without much hope about any interaction about what I write. Usually, that is the case.
A few days ago, I clicked on some button that produced comments on my blog...comments from YEARS ago that I had somehow never seen. And one of them was from a fellow that had broken my heart over a Prom experience in 1965. He remembers things differently than I, but he was asking for my forgiveness...and that was in 2015. It is now 2018, and he had never heard from me about that.
I was absolutely stunned.
We were all such children in those days. We move on. He read what I had written in 2015, finding me (somehow) as a classmate that didn't show up at the 50th reunion of our class. (Long story.)
When I saw his comment on my post, I "found" him on Facebook and gave him my forgiveness--which is kind of a joke because he really didn't need forgiveness from me, although I very much appreciated his request. It's all about doing our best and wishing we had done better.
The biggest jolt from hearing from him three years ago--not realized until now--was that he lives a mere 30 minutes from my daughter in Washington State, in a place where my family and I went crabbing on the public pier in November! God works in mysterious ways....
A few days ago, I clicked on some button that produced comments on my blog...comments from YEARS ago that I had somehow never seen. And one of them was from a fellow that had broken my heart over a Prom experience in 1965. He remembers things differently than I, but he was asking for my forgiveness...and that was in 2015. It is now 2018, and he had never heard from me about that.
I was absolutely stunned.
We were all such children in those days. We move on. He read what I had written in 2015, finding me (somehow) as a classmate that didn't show up at the 50th reunion of our class. (Long story.)
When I saw his comment on my post, I "found" him on Facebook and gave him my forgiveness--which is kind of a joke because he really didn't need forgiveness from me, although I very much appreciated his request. It's all about doing our best and wishing we had done better.
The biggest jolt from hearing from him three years ago--not realized until now--was that he lives a mere 30 minutes from my daughter in Washington State, in a place where my family and I went crabbing on the public pier in November! God works in mysterious ways....
Monday, February 5, 2018
Old Age Sleeping
From the TV show, Big Bang Theory:
Dr. Jeffries (actor Bob Newhart, playing an aging scientist who has answered his door in his bathrobe in the evening) to Sheldon Cooper (actor Jim Parsons, playing an eccentric weirdo scientist, standing at the door of Dr. Jeffries house).
JEFFRIES: Sheldon, what do you want?
SHELDON: I hope I'm not bothering you.
JEFFRIES: Of course you are bothering me. I am 83 years old. It's almost 7:00 PM. I need to go to bed because, in about three hours, I will have to get up, pee, and wander around the house.
Big laugh! Big laugh at the expense of old folks!
But oh so sadly true!
I don't know why or how, but ever since I retired in 2009, I have never had to set an alarm clock. I have no trouble falling asleep, ever, but I can't seem to STAY asleep. My body somehow wakes up 2-3 hours later. Like clockwork. I used to blame my nightly wine libations, but I stopped drinking, long term. The pattern didn't stop.
I am one of those people who thinks that lying in bed awake is actually harmful to the effort to fall back into slumberland. I get up, piddle, and...well...wander around the house. At some point, I usually--eventually--go back to bed, but the result is never the same as if I'd had a full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. If I get five hours of sleep, I consider myself lucky. It's usually much less. At the same time, at that time schedule, the nights get very long...
I'm not a superficial-symptom pill-taker. I will NOT take sleeping pills. I do, however, take a tablet of Melatonin at night, if I think I need it...but all that does is, supposedly, make me sleepy when falling asleep is not my problem. Ugh!
What this whole thing about getting old does for me, however, is help me to understand why there is a common joke about old people going to eat dinner at a restaurant at 4:00 PM. Maybe they've actually been UP since 4:00 AM, and are hungry before the evening's routine gets started. If there were still a regular routine about work, stress, family, and sleep, it would all work.
When I was still teaching and keeping a home for my daughter and grandchildren, I was exhausted all the time. (Actually, I was exhausted all the time even before they moved in with me. Teaching is very stressful!) My only free time, in those days, was filled with propping my daughter up in her college classes and doing endless, endless loads of laundry. I longed for the day that I could retire and not have to meet a rigid schedule of responsibility. And when it happened, it happened BIG TIME. I retired. Then I had a heart attack. The day I got home from that, my grandson suffered a head injury from a bike accident that got him sent to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis from a hospital in Muncie, 90 miles away. And scarcely a month after that, my daughter gave up custody of the children to their father on an hour's notice, and left for California with a new love three months after that. I haven't really slept well since.
I can't blame my insomnia on all of those stresses. I wish I could. I just think the timing was a perfect storm. I have back problems and other aches and pains that go with that, some of which keep waking me up at night. And fear about wondering what will happen to me during the night. And, apparently, the need for less sleep due to less physical activity every day. And, also apparently, the fact that old people have problems staying asleep at night. (Which goes to explain why my grandparents no longer slept together in their later years. She had problems with pain. He snored horribly.) Combine that with the other life-stresses, and you have the recipe for an inability for quality sleep. So, here I am retired with no work responsibilities, unable to sleep in, which was my dream for when I retired!
Unlike Dr. Jeffries, I am usually not awakened by a need to use the bathroom. (That is an advantage of being female and not having a prostate.) But I do get up after three hours and wander around the house. It is what it is. So laugh all you want about old people being up at 5:00, eating lunch at 11:00, supper at 4:00, and being in bed by 9:00. Ha ha ha! But the joke will be on you, someday.
That's not a curse, by the way. Just a prediction. I won't live long enough to know how it works out for you, but I'll meet you in Heaven's Coffee House in the hereafter so we can discuss it!
Dr. Jeffries (actor Bob Newhart, playing an aging scientist who has answered his door in his bathrobe in the evening) to Sheldon Cooper (actor Jim Parsons, playing an eccentric weirdo scientist, standing at the door of Dr. Jeffries house).
JEFFRIES: Sheldon, what do you want?
SHELDON: I hope I'm not bothering you.
JEFFRIES: Of course you are bothering me. I am 83 years old. It's almost 7:00 PM. I need to go to bed because, in about three hours, I will have to get up, pee, and wander around the house.
Big laugh! Big laugh at the expense of old folks!
But oh so sadly true!
I don't know why or how, but ever since I retired in 2009, I have never had to set an alarm clock. I have no trouble falling asleep, ever, but I can't seem to STAY asleep. My body somehow wakes up 2-3 hours later. Like clockwork. I used to blame my nightly wine libations, but I stopped drinking, long term. The pattern didn't stop.
I am one of those people who thinks that lying in bed awake is actually harmful to the effort to fall back into slumberland. I get up, piddle, and...well...wander around the house. At some point, I usually--eventually--go back to bed, but the result is never the same as if I'd had a full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. If I get five hours of sleep, I consider myself lucky. It's usually much less. At the same time, at that time schedule, the nights get very long...
I'm not a superficial-symptom pill-taker. I will NOT take sleeping pills. I do, however, take a tablet of Melatonin at night, if I think I need it...but all that does is, supposedly, make me sleepy when falling asleep is not my problem. Ugh!
What this whole thing about getting old does for me, however, is help me to understand why there is a common joke about old people going to eat dinner at a restaurant at 4:00 PM. Maybe they've actually been UP since 4:00 AM, and are hungry before the evening's routine gets started. If there were still a regular routine about work, stress, family, and sleep, it would all work.
When I was still teaching and keeping a home for my daughter and grandchildren, I was exhausted all the time. (Actually, I was exhausted all the time even before they moved in with me. Teaching is very stressful!) My only free time, in those days, was filled with propping my daughter up in her college classes and doing endless, endless loads of laundry. I longed for the day that I could retire and not have to meet a rigid schedule of responsibility. And when it happened, it happened BIG TIME. I retired. Then I had a heart attack. The day I got home from that, my grandson suffered a head injury from a bike accident that got him sent to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis from a hospital in Muncie, 90 miles away. And scarcely a month after that, my daughter gave up custody of the children to their father on an hour's notice, and left for California with a new love three months after that. I haven't really slept well since.
I can't blame my insomnia on all of those stresses. I wish I could. I just think the timing was a perfect storm. I have back problems and other aches and pains that go with that, some of which keep waking me up at night. And fear about wondering what will happen to me during the night. And, apparently, the need for less sleep due to less physical activity every day. And, also apparently, the fact that old people have problems staying asleep at night. (Which goes to explain why my grandparents no longer slept together in their later years. She had problems with pain. He snored horribly.) Combine that with the other life-stresses, and you have the recipe for an inability for quality sleep. So, here I am retired with no work responsibilities, unable to sleep in, which was my dream for when I retired!
Unlike Dr. Jeffries, I am usually not awakened by a need to use the bathroom. (That is an advantage of being female and not having a prostate.) But I do get up after three hours and wander around the house. It is what it is. So laugh all you want about old people being up at 5:00, eating lunch at 11:00, supper at 4:00, and being in bed by 9:00. Ha ha ha! But the joke will be on you, someday.
That's not a curse, by the way. Just a prediction. I won't live long enough to know how it works out for you, but I'll meet you in Heaven's Coffee House in the hereafter so we can discuss it!
Thursday, February 1, 2018
What To Say To Someone Who Is Grieving
Once upon a time, on the day after my birthday, I had a doctor's appointment to examine a growth that had cropped up beside my nose near the corner of one eye. It was right about where the nose piece of my glasses hit, so it wasn't really noticeable, but it wasn't supposed to be there and had developed rather quickly. Thus, I had decided to see the doctor about it.
My sister and her husband were in town for my birthday the day before and were still here, so my sis accompanied me to the appointment. Honestly, I didn't think I needed that much support, but then I had no idea what was to come.
The first thing the doctor did was to shoot that part of my face with lidocaine, or whatever it is that they use to numb tissues. I won't lie: those injections hurt on their way in. I think my eyes watered, but in short order, the whole side of my face was numb. Couldn't feel a thing. Likewise, I couldn't see what they were doing while they were doing it, which was probably merciful. Then, the doctor shaved off the growth level with the skin and whisked the sample off to the lab to be biopsied while I layed on the table, waiting for the results before I could know what would happen next. Shari and I chit-chatted until the doctor returned with the news that the bump was a squamous cell carcinoma. Skin cancer. I'd had a cancerous lesion removed from my nose years before, so I wasn't really concerned. Besides, there aren't many options. If you have a cancerous lump on your face, you have it removed. Period. Worry about the rest later.
To this day, I'm not sure how it all worked. The doctor removed the area around the bump in order to get it all, then he had to "borrow" skin from the rest of my face to cover the hole. He followed the line of my nose to the best of his ability, stitched me up, put a bandage patch that covered part of my left cheek and up over my nose, then sent me home with a prescription for pain killers. I didn't even get a look at what had been done until the next day when I removed the bandage. Yikes! I had ten very black stitches running from the corner of my eye and down the side of my nose, for about two inches. I had gone to the doctor looking like a normal middle-aged school teacher and came out looking like Frankenstein's monster!
I was happy to be rid of the cancer, but I'm a woman. Much of how I feel about myself is based on how I look. I mean, I have to be out in the community with my students, their parents, and my fellow teachers. I hadn't given anyone any warning about how I would look when I returned to school because I'd had no idea the day before. In fact, I'm not sure anyone knew that I was taking the day off for a doctor appointment. Thus, I was traumatized. The stitches on my face were an affront to my self-esteem. I didn't cry, but I sure felt like hiding, so I took the day after the surgery off, just for reasons of vanity.
By the second day after surgery, when I returned to school, my left eye was nearly swollen shut and bruised. I looked awful, and I knew I looked awful, but I wasn't in pain. Although I had filled the prescription for the pain killer, I never took it because even after the numbness wore off, the area didn't hurt. (I don't know why I am blessed like that. I've had some serious surgeries before that just didn't cause physical pain during the healing process.) I was concerned enough about the appearance of my eye that I stopped at the doctor's office on my way home from school just to ask if the reaction was normal. He declared that it was somewhat atypical but nothing to be alarmed about. He gave me a cortisone shot in the area, and home I went. The swelling and bruising went down quickly. Before long, all I had were the stitches to reveal that anything had ever happened to me.
And just how did people at school react to my looks?
1. I ran into the principal in the hall. He asked if I'd been in a car accident. (He had been in a really bad one many years before so was sympathetic to what he imagined had happened to me.) When I told him that it was all just due to a medical procedure, we both just went about our business.
2. My high school students were curious but seemed not to care much. I had one student who hid her eyes and said, "I can't look at you! It looks like it hurts!" I assured her that it didn't, so we got down to the lesson of the day.
3. In the hallway, I talked to colleagues about various questions and issues at hand. Interestingly, none asked what had happened to my face. Their reactions came in three categories.
Category A folks talked to me, all the while pretending that they didn't see anything different about my appearance. What's up with that? Do I normally look so bad that they didn't feel the need to mention it? Did they think that mentioning it would remind me of the trauma, so they were trying to be merciful? Or did they just not know what to say so said nothing?
Category B folks were the ones, when told the story of how my face came to be all stitched up, looked at me and said, "Oh, it doesn't look so bad." Whaaat? Are you kidding me?? Okay...in that case, let's put these stitches on YOUR face and see if you still think it doesn't look so bad!
Category C consisted of one--ONE--reaction that came from one of our down-to-earth, older educators who took one look at me and said, "OMG, Peg. They really did a number on you!"
Can you guess which of the category responses I appreciated the most? Ding, ding, ding! Yep...it was Category C, the one that acknowledged how bad I looked (and how much like a victim I surely felt). She didn't pretend that nothing was different about the way I looked, nor did she attempt to minimize it by suggesting it was okay. She took one look and called a spade a spade, which validated how I was feeling. I just wanted to put my head on her shoulder and blubber, "Yes, they did! They hurt me!" But I didn't. I wrote it down in my mental book of memories, never to be forgotten.
A month after my surgery, everything was back to normal. The scar, which is now simply a white line, can be successfully covered with makeup and my glasses. No one even notices it. At all. And the cancer has never come back. Win!
I have written about this before. Why, then, am I writing about it again? Two reasons. One is the fact that my daughter had some unexpected minor surgery on her bottom lip yesterday. She went to the doctor about a lump that came up on her lip after some dental work. The ENT specialist determined that it was a mucocele and decided to remove it. Thus, she has stitches on her lip and the tissues just on the back side of it. Her lip hurts and is quite swollen, and today she has some appointments that will take her out in public feeling like a freak. Oh, I do so understand!! The other reason has to do with the lessons I learned, both as a victim and as an observer, in dealing with people who have experienced some form of emotional trauma. What should you do? What should you say?
My experience is that people--good people--want to express their sympathies to those who are grieving some kind of loss. (Yes, having your face carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey counts, even if only a temporary condition.) The problem comes in knowing what to do or say to help. Perhaps talking about the incident or the death of a loved one will cause the sufferer to hurt more. Perhaps it is best that they just try to forget about it. So they say nothing, or very little. Perhaps the sufferer will take comfort in knowing that what happened to them or their loved one is for the best. Maybe telling them that the scar doesn't look so bad or the deceased person is in a "better place" will ease those awkward moments of not knowing what to say. (I don't think so, but I would be a rich person if I could collect money for every time I heard that. I jokingly mention to people that they should not suggest that I'm in a better place after I die because they don't know what type of life I've lived!)
It's actually good for people to talk about their feelings in a traumatic situation. It's probably better to say SOMETHING rather than nothing at all, but it is insensitive to suggest that a person suffering from trauma isn't justified in feeling as they do. People often feel relief when a suffering loved one passes, but they also understand that their lives will never be the same again. They are scared and hurt, and worried about how things will happen in the future. Telling them that things are "for the best" may very well be true, but it doesn't help.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my French teacher's husband died suddenly from a heart attack. Mrs. Saroka was Jewish. I had heard that people of the Jewish faith "sit shiva" for seven days, accepting visitors into the home of the deceased. I wanted to pay my respects to Mrs. Saroka. I took a friend with me and showed up at her apartment just to tell her that we missed her at school and hoped she was well. (I'm not even sure that I called to say I was coming!) I had no clue what else to do or say. I was a kid. I just knew I was one of her students, and I wanted her to know that I cared. I will never know if my visit was appreciated or just annoying, but I did something.
I guess that's the answer to the question about how one should treat those around them, especially those who are suffering. You may not be able to change the circumstances, but the person will always remember how you came and sat with him/her for awhile. Listen. You don't have to say much, but say something. Don't ask for them to contact you if they need anything, because they won't. If you know there is something you can do for them, do it. Do something. It can--and will--be you sitting in the sufferers place some day.
My sister and her husband were in town for my birthday the day before and were still here, so my sis accompanied me to the appointment. Honestly, I didn't think I needed that much support, but then I had no idea what was to come.
The first thing the doctor did was to shoot that part of my face with lidocaine, or whatever it is that they use to numb tissues. I won't lie: those injections hurt on their way in. I think my eyes watered, but in short order, the whole side of my face was numb. Couldn't feel a thing. Likewise, I couldn't see what they were doing while they were doing it, which was probably merciful. Then, the doctor shaved off the growth level with the skin and whisked the sample off to the lab to be biopsied while I layed on the table, waiting for the results before I could know what would happen next. Shari and I chit-chatted until the doctor returned with the news that the bump was a squamous cell carcinoma. Skin cancer. I'd had a cancerous lesion removed from my nose years before, so I wasn't really concerned. Besides, there aren't many options. If you have a cancerous lump on your face, you have it removed. Period. Worry about the rest later.
To this day, I'm not sure how it all worked. The doctor removed the area around the bump in order to get it all, then he had to "borrow" skin from the rest of my face to cover the hole. He followed the line of my nose to the best of his ability, stitched me up, put a bandage patch that covered part of my left cheek and up over my nose, then sent me home with a prescription for pain killers. I didn't even get a look at what had been done until the next day when I removed the bandage. Yikes! I had ten very black stitches running from the corner of my eye and down the side of my nose, for about two inches. I had gone to the doctor looking like a normal middle-aged school teacher and came out looking like Frankenstein's monster!
I was happy to be rid of the cancer, but I'm a woman. Much of how I feel about myself is based on how I look. I mean, I have to be out in the community with my students, their parents, and my fellow teachers. I hadn't given anyone any warning about how I would look when I returned to school because I'd had no idea the day before. In fact, I'm not sure anyone knew that I was taking the day off for a doctor appointment. Thus, I was traumatized. The stitches on my face were an affront to my self-esteem. I didn't cry, but I sure felt like hiding, so I took the day after the surgery off, just for reasons of vanity.
By the second day after surgery, when I returned to school, my left eye was nearly swollen shut and bruised. I looked awful, and I knew I looked awful, but I wasn't in pain. Although I had filled the prescription for the pain killer, I never took it because even after the numbness wore off, the area didn't hurt. (I don't know why I am blessed like that. I've had some serious surgeries before that just didn't cause physical pain during the healing process.) I was concerned enough about the appearance of my eye that I stopped at the doctor's office on my way home from school just to ask if the reaction was normal. He declared that it was somewhat atypical but nothing to be alarmed about. He gave me a cortisone shot in the area, and home I went. The swelling and bruising went down quickly. Before long, all I had were the stitches to reveal that anything had ever happened to me.
And just how did people at school react to my looks?
1. I ran into the principal in the hall. He asked if I'd been in a car accident. (He had been in a really bad one many years before so was sympathetic to what he imagined had happened to me.) When I told him that it was all just due to a medical procedure, we both just went about our business.
2. My high school students were curious but seemed not to care much. I had one student who hid her eyes and said, "I can't look at you! It looks like it hurts!" I assured her that it didn't, so we got down to the lesson of the day.
3. In the hallway, I talked to colleagues about various questions and issues at hand. Interestingly, none asked what had happened to my face. Their reactions came in three categories.
Category A folks talked to me, all the while pretending that they didn't see anything different about my appearance. What's up with that? Do I normally look so bad that they didn't feel the need to mention it? Did they think that mentioning it would remind me of the trauma, so they were trying to be merciful? Or did they just not know what to say so said nothing?
Category B folks were the ones, when told the story of how my face came to be all stitched up, looked at me and said, "Oh, it doesn't look so bad." Whaaat? Are you kidding me?? Okay...in that case, let's put these stitches on YOUR face and see if you still think it doesn't look so bad!
Category C consisted of one--ONE--reaction that came from one of our down-to-earth, older educators who took one look at me and said, "OMG, Peg. They really did a number on you!"
Can you guess which of the category responses I appreciated the most? Ding, ding, ding! Yep...it was Category C, the one that acknowledged how bad I looked (and how much like a victim I surely felt). She didn't pretend that nothing was different about the way I looked, nor did she attempt to minimize it by suggesting it was okay. She took one look and called a spade a spade, which validated how I was feeling. I just wanted to put my head on her shoulder and blubber, "Yes, they did! They hurt me!" But I didn't. I wrote it down in my mental book of memories, never to be forgotten.
A month after my surgery, everything was back to normal. The scar, which is now simply a white line, can be successfully covered with makeup and my glasses. No one even notices it. At all. And the cancer has never come back. Win!
I have written about this before. Why, then, am I writing about it again? Two reasons. One is the fact that my daughter had some unexpected minor surgery on her bottom lip yesterday. She went to the doctor about a lump that came up on her lip after some dental work. The ENT specialist determined that it was a mucocele and decided to remove it. Thus, she has stitches on her lip and the tissues just on the back side of it. Her lip hurts and is quite swollen, and today she has some appointments that will take her out in public feeling like a freak. Oh, I do so understand!! The other reason has to do with the lessons I learned, both as a victim and as an observer, in dealing with people who have experienced some form of emotional trauma. What should you do? What should you say?
My experience is that people--good people--want to express their sympathies to those who are grieving some kind of loss. (Yes, having your face carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey counts, even if only a temporary condition.) The problem comes in knowing what to do or say to help. Perhaps talking about the incident or the death of a loved one will cause the sufferer to hurt more. Perhaps it is best that they just try to forget about it. So they say nothing, or very little. Perhaps the sufferer will take comfort in knowing that what happened to them or their loved one is for the best. Maybe telling them that the scar doesn't look so bad or the deceased person is in a "better place" will ease those awkward moments of not knowing what to say. (I don't think so, but I would be a rich person if I could collect money for every time I heard that. I jokingly mention to people that they should not suggest that I'm in a better place after I die because they don't know what type of life I've lived!)
It's actually good for people to talk about their feelings in a traumatic situation. It's probably better to say SOMETHING rather than nothing at all, but it is insensitive to suggest that a person suffering from trauma isn't justified in feeling as they do. People often feel relief when a suffering loved one passes, but they also understand that their lives will never be the same again. They are scared and hurt, and worried about how things will happen in the future. Telling them that things are "for the best" may very well be true, but it doesn't help.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my French teacher's husband died suddenly from a heart attack. Mrs. Saroka was Jewish. I had heard that people of the Jewish faith "sit shiva" for seven days, accepting visitors into the home of the deceased. I wanted to pay my respects to Mrs. Saroka. I took a friend with me and showed up at her apartment just to tell her that we missed her at school and hoped she was well. (I'm not even sure that I called to say I was coming!) I had no clue what else to do or say. I was a kid. I just knew I was one of her students, and I wanted her to know that I cared. I will never know if my visit was appreciated or just annoying, but I did something.
I guess that's the answer to the question about how one should treat those around them, especially those who are suffering. You may not be able to change the circumstances, but the person will always remember how you came and sat with him/her for awhile. Listen. You don't have to say much, but say something. Don't ask for them to contact you if they need anything, because they won't. If you know there is something you can do for them, do it. Do something. It can--and will--be you sitting in the sufferers place some day.
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