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Blog – Top of JC’s Mind
Mind? What mind?
I’m up in the middle of the night again. Theoretically, I could write a post from the backlog of things I have queued in my head or draft folder, but I don’t have enough sustained focus to do so. Instead, what follows will be (part of) the swirl that constitutes the “top” of my mind at the moment.
* I wonder if I will get my pre-election open letter to Governor Cuomo written before the election. It would be about the fracking moratorium, of course, the emerging science, the threat we feel here of being a sacrifice zone, the need to chuck the current outdated and corrupt draft SGEIS, etc.
* Ebola. Seriously, people in the US, get a grip! Other than a few dozen people, your chance of exposure to ebola is non-existent. If you want to do something useful for your health, get a flu shot – and catch up on any other immunization you might need. Millions of people have died from flu complications around the world over the years. It is easy to catch and transmit. Flu vaccine works partly by having lots of people immunized, creating herd immunity to help protect people who can’t be immunized and the percentage of people who will develop flu despite being immunized, who will generally have milder cases because they were immunized than if they had not been.
* So much war and violence. I don’t actually know if I could write a post about this. People are – and should be – so much better than this by now.
* The confusing muddle of the synod of the family and evangelization, which will be continuing at least for another year.
* The comfort that the beauty of a glorious Northeast foliage season has been in these past few weeks of dashing about on caretaking duty.
* The rest of my planned follow-up to Smith Alumnae Chorus event posts.
* More chapters to My (Feminist) Story.
* Poetry, which is the one thing I have committed to making progress on, despite the swirl going on in my head. Truthfully, I’m not doing everything I had intended to with it, but I have made all three meetings of the poetry critique group I have joined and where I have found welcome, help, and acceptance, begun the five-week fall semester of Binghamton Poetry Project, and may even attend, though probably not read at, my first ever open mic next week. I don’t have the time to do the research I need to figure out submissions, I owe a thoughtful email to a poet friend, and I wish that I had time/brain to write and edit more, but I am giving myself a pat on the back for making some progress.
* At some point, I really will get some of my Hawai’i photos – from May! – in shape to post FB albums and to re-post blog entries with some photos added. I hope to do this before our next visit to the Islands…
* Spiritual matters. There is so much going on – experiences with our elder and younger generations, a recent parish mission, studying Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond, missing contact with my spiritual mentor/companion and other friends with whom I can share soul-conversation.
* An update to my empty nest post. Something along the lines of when the sandwich generation goes open-face…
Maybe I should attempt some more sleep before dawn. Or attack the mounds of mail that arrived this week… At least I attended vigil Mass yesterday so I don’t need to drive about and try to be attentive for church this morning. And B. promised to make us a nice Sunday breakfast this morning.
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SoCS: sad shape
It’s actually Friday and I just read the prompt which is the word “shape”. I figured I needed to write now, because my time is very unpredictable these days, so here we go.
My mother-in-law is in sad shape. I don’t know if that is a term that people are using now or not. I remember hearing it when I was growing up.
A backache she woke up with on Sept. 7 tuned out to be from a compression fracture of her L1 vertebra. By the time we got to the neurosurgeon and they did an MRI, the vertebra had collapsed. She spent two days in the hospital in order to have a procedure where they inject bone cement to stabilize the bone fragments. If the procedure had been done when it was still a compression fracture, they would have put balloons in and injected the cement to stabilize and shore up that vertebra, but once it is collapsed, it isn’t possible to retain the function. Also, the chance for fast pain relief would have been much better.
As it is, progress is very slow. She is on strong pain meds and does best when she is lying down, except that she needs to be up and about to get stronger so that she can start physical therapy and build her core muscles and leg muscles so that she can function and perform daily tasks. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a big appetite before and this has reduced her to not having an appetite at all, so she has lost weight. It’s all turned into a muddle of meds and side effects and one thing making another thing harder to do.
As you might expect, my spouse and I have been up there a lot and have been bringing her to appointments and running errands and talking to the health professionals and trying to get her to eat and helping with laundry and bringing in the mail and so forth.
This afternoon, I kind of hit the wall. I can’t tell the whole story – privacy and such – but I do think that I may finally have gotten her to realize that she has to be the one to actually make up her mind to get better. She has to stop saying “I know I need to eat and drink more” and actually do it, instead of making excuses. If she doesn’t, she isn’t going to maintain her weight, much less gain what she needs to. She has to want to get stronger and make up her mind to do it, instead of putting energy into self-pity.
We can’t do this for her. She has to do it for herself.
I am exhausted by it all and really wanted to have a good cry about it, but couldn’t quite manage it. The eyes watering while cutting up some onions to make ham and scalloped potatoes for dinner doesn’t count. Maybe later…
This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. Join us! Find out more about it here: http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-october-1814/
Badge by Doobster @Mindful Digressions
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Mytwosentences 77
I started following this blog recently and love how it combines beautfiul photography with exactly two powerful sentences to accompany it.
She stretched outwardly above the mirror to get a better view of the prismatic vivid visage that was now ablaze upon her colorful autumnal torso.
She admired the growth of her glorious gown which gleamed with snazzy seasonal sequins, and found herself captivated by the flaring foliage of her rhythmic reflection.
(Photo: Edward Roads)
Written by Edward Roads
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One-Liner Wednesdays: e. e. cummings quote
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
~ e. e. cummings, whose birthday was yesterday
Please join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Details here: http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/15/one-liner-wednesday-amusing-nonsense/
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Blog fail times two
After working through most of the aftermath of my parents’ medical misadventures in August, I had the foolish idea that I could make plans for the fall. The problem wasn’t making the plans as much as executing them…
In the rule of things happening in sets of three, the third member of our family’s elder generation has had medical issues which have necessitated major time commitments and the further jettisoning of things from my already pared down but still lengthy to-do list.
I had signed up for Blogging 101, reasoning that, even though I have been blogging for a year, I still struggle with some of the mechanics of blogging and could use some help. While I managed to do a few assignments the first couple of weeks, I haven’t had time to even look at the site since then, so Blog Fail #1.
Yesterday, I read the email and pingbacks that Some Kernels of Truth had nominated me for the “One Lovely Blog” Award with a touching paragraph about Top of JC’s Mind. I am so honored and humbled, but I know that I can’t do justice to fulfilling the requirements of acceptance. Blog Fail #2.
While a large part of these failures is lack of time, the larger problem is lack of brain power. Even when I can get online time, my mind is running through medical information and planning practicalities for the coming days.
I would urge you to click on the links above and check out the truly lovely Some Kernels of Truth and all of the listed links. It will be at least partial redemption of Blog Fail #2.
JC
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SoCS: Simple
I could really go for some simplicity right now. I haven’t been able to devote much time to what I had intended to be a simple daily schedule becuase life has been complicated by my mother-in-law’s backache which over the course of a month became a diagnosis of a compressed vertebra which then collapsed and then got treated with an injection of bone cement which entailed an unexpected two night hospital stay. We just brought her home yeaterday and spent the rest of the day there. We will be heading back up shortly with some ginger creams that my husband is baking becuase we are trying to give her tempting things to eat to help gain back the weight she lost while dealing with the back pain. She is pretty lightweight to start with, so Ensure Plus and as many calorie dense things as we can come up with are in order, as her appetite is also tiny.
Maybe this is simplicity though. Take care of what has been presented to us this day. Drop everything else.
Simple.
This is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Join us! .http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-october-1114/
Babge by Doobster@Mindful Digressions
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One-Liner Wednesday – Ziglar quote
“Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart.”
– Zig Ziglar
This part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday. Join us! http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/08/one-liner-wednesday-dangerous-driving/
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A Birthday Walk
As I wrote about last week – for SoCS and as a personal reflection – my birthday was on Saturday. We were able to get away for a few hours to the Ithaca area for a walk along the Gorge trail to Taughannock Falls, followed by dinner at Taughannock Farms, where we had a table overlooking Cayuga Lake with some of the trees showing their autumn colors. It was a wonderful break from our recently expanded eldercare responsibilities.
A few photos from our walk:
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54
Today is my 54th birthday. Not usually considered a milestone birthday, but it is a poignant one for me. Fifty-four is the perpetual age of my friend Angie.
Angie called us “October babes.” She was born in 1950 and I in 1960. It didn’t feel like we were ten years apart in age because we had children in the same grades in school, although – bonus for me – she also had a child who was two years ahead of my elder daughter in school, which meant that I had a preview of coming attractions.
We were different in a lot of ways. I’m 5′ 1.5″ and Angie told people she was 5′ 12″ because she thought it sounded less daunting than saying she was six feet. Angie was raised in New York City and thought of our mutual home now as small. I was raised in a New England town of 200, so our current hometown of 20,000 was as large as the city I traveled twenty miles each way to attend high school. She was a trained artist and skilled in decorating and entertaining, with a great and quirky personal style, which included rocking her signature look – overalls. (Trust me – it was amazing.) I am not known for any of those things. She had a great talent for storytelling, complete with different voices and accents for the characters. I am better with the written word than the spoken word. She had a vast array of friends in various circles of the community and was well-known, while I had far fewer friends and was more comfortable working behind the scenes.
We were, however, both personally dedicated to volunteering, and met when I joined a site-based decision-making team at our district middle school. Angie had already been serving as one of three parent representatives and we quickly became friends. She helped me navigate the surprisingly intricate educational world and introduced me to a lot of new people and ideas.
Even though she had many friends, she was near and dear to all of them. She was a wonderful listener and a wise advisor. She was unfailingly kind and generous. The kind of person everyone hopes to have in their life.
Because her husband was a doctor, she had many friends in the medical community, but had a heightened awareness of the possible health calamities that happen to people of various ages. She talked about being worried about turning 50, because she had known so many people who succumbed to medical problems in that decade. When she turned 49, I gave her a box with a penny from every year of her life, which meant that I gave it to her with fifty pennies in it, and the promise to give her a new penny each year on her birthday. I thought already having fifty pennies in the box might help ease her into her next birthday.
Within weeks of her 50th birthday, a nagging cough turned into a diagnosis of stage 3 lung cancer.
It was a shock. Angie had never smoked, but through some combination of factors – growing up in a congested city when vehicles still used leaded gasoline? lung damage from infections? genetic vulnerability? secondhand smoke, as she was growing up before anyone had even thought of smoke-free rooms? – here she was with a frightening diagnosis.
Treatment was aggressive and achieved a remission. There was a big 50+1 birthday party, which served as a charity fundraiser. But, as we all feared, there were metastases that developed and more treatment with some short breaks but then the next problem and the next round of radiation or chemo until finally around the time Angie turned 54, there was nothing else that could be done.
After the new year started, I began searching for a 2004 penny for her box. We knew she would not live to see her 55th birthday and I hoped to get the penny to her while she was still able to realize it, but even the coin shops did not have them available so early in the year. Angie died in March.
When I found the penny later in the spring, I sent it to her husband to complete Angie’s box.
I still miss Angie and honor her memory. One of the ways I do that is by donating to the fund set up in her memory which raises money for scholarships and for the LUNGevity Foundation, which supports both lung cancer research and patients and their families.
Another way is to spread as much love as possible and to dedicate as much time as possible to caring about and serving others.
And for this year, Angie and I will both be 54.
Joanne Corey 