Tag: time

Shock

On Monday, I posted about some re-prioritizing I was doing here at Top of JC’s Mind as I prepared for a busy spring.

Somewhere, the Fates were snickering behind their hands.

Monday afternoon, I wrote poetry with my friends at Sappho’s Circle. Just as I was preparing to drive home, I got a call from B. He was at the hospital, waiting while his mother, known here as Grandma, was in the heart catheterization lab. She had had a heart attack.

I was not far from the hospital and got there as quickly as I could to wait with him.

The cardiologist was able to remove the blood clot that had caused the heart attack; there was no need for a stent. The nurses got her settled into the cardiac intensive care unit and we were able to spend several hours in her room, as she gradually woke from the sedation and B and I answered dozens of medical history questions on Grandma’s behalf.

We left the hospital at about 8:00 PM, with Grandma stable and resting under the watchful eyes of the ICU staff. We all expected a few days in the hospital, maybe a short stay in rehab, and then back to her cottage at her senior living community.

We didn’t sleep well. At 6 AM, B’s cell phone rang. Grandma’s blood pressure had dropped, but they had been able to raise it back to an acceptable level. Then, she became short of breath, but it was difficult to address it. They might need to put in a breathing tube as a short term measure. We dressed and headed to the hospital. It turned out that, as we were en route, Grandma’s heart had stopped.

We waited near the nurses’ station as they continued efforts to revive her, but they were not able to.

Less than 24 hours after her heart attack, Grandma had died.

Shock.

There just isn’t any other word for what we have all been feeling since that moment. Everyone that we have had to tell, everyone who has spoken to us, we are all in shock. “But I just saw her at the movie on Friday.”  “But she was here Monday morning, after her PT session.” “But she was at dinner with her friends on Saturday.”  No one quite seems to be able to wrap their brains around the fact that death can be so quick.

Everyone is grateful that there was not a long period of pain and suffering. It was one of the things that Grandma had feared the most. She loved her cottage in the retirement village and did not want to leave it to live in the Health Center. We are grateful that she did not have to do that.

But we are still in shock.

And we are sad.

B and I have been doing our best to talk to people and deal with paperwork and start sorting and make lists and not miss anything that is important to do.

It’s been less than 72 hours at this point, but it feels so much longer. I have to remind myself what day it is.

And that it is Holy Week for most Christians, including my denomination.

As I write this, it is very early on Good Friday morning.

I had tried to sleep, but couldn’t, so I got up to write this.

Before I go to bed, I want to go to the website for my friend Angie’s memorial fund. It has been eleven years since she died. In 2005, March 25th was also Good Friday.

I don’t quite understand why I am not crying.

It must be the shock.

Re-jiggering

Friend to bloggers everywhere, Opinionated Man of HarsH ReaLiTy and A Good Blog is Hard to Find, both of which I highly recommend you follow if you aren’t already, has long advocated splitting blogging time in thirds, one third each for writing, reading, and commenting.

It’s a good idea, although not one that I have been able to follow very meticulously.

Lately, though, things have gotten unbalanced, even for me.

I have been spending tons of time reading, liking, and commenting, but not so much time writing. I also have (many) tons of in-person commitments coming up this spring, so I’ve decided to re-jigger my blogging priorities a bit.

Step One:  I’ve separated my blog email from my personal email.

I’m hoping this will make my personal inbox easier to handle, with less likelihood of personal notes, poetry notifications, and, oh, bills and statements, getting lost in the shuffle.

Step Two:  I will also try to spend more time with posting, even though that will mean less time for reading and commenting.

Which is sad, but necessary at this point.

One of the things I am making time for in the coming weeks is my first ever MOOC,  Psychology of Political Activism: Women Changing the World, from my alma mater, Smith College. I’m hoping it will generate some posts here at Top of JC’s Mind.

Stay tuned!

SoCS: hitting the pause button

It’s been a busy couple of months. Ummmm…maybe more than a couple. OK – 2015 was a busy year.

This weekend, I just want to hit the pause button and rest. Not worry about planning anything. Being anywhere.

Just be.

Soon enough, it will be Monday morning. My husband’s 6 AM conference call with his colleagues in India will be back on. A lot of other obligations will be back on the calendar. I know. I spent a good chunk of yesterday copying dates onto a 2016 calendar. I’m still old-fashioned enough to keep a paper calendar rather than an electronic one. Well, two paper calendars. One on the dining room side table near the phone. Yes, landline. Still have one of those, too. The other a pocket calendar in my purse.

All those obligations waiting for my attention, starting Monday, January 4th.

But this weekend, a pause to catch a few more moments of unstructured time with B and T. Maybe a nap. Or a fire in the fireplace. Some hot cocoa with the last of the Christmas cookies.

Who knows?

Just being.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is: “pause/paws.”  Join us! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-jan-216/

SoCS badge 2015

http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/02/just-jot-it-january-2nd-pausepaws-socs/

JJJ 2016

SoCS: clocks

I like clocks that have faces and numbers and hands, also known as analogue clocks. They are elegant in their simplicity and, for me, a much faster way to tell the time.

If I look at a digital clock, and it reads 12:38, my brain has to process, okay, so it’s halfway between twelve thirty and quarter of one. If I see the same time on a clock face, I can see the proportions of the circle and ascertain the information much more quickly.

In most cases, I don’t need to know the exact minute.

I know that people in medical training are having to adjust to not having watches with second hands. It used to be that someone taking your pulse would just glance at the second hand on their wristwatch to count the pulses in a given time and then multiply. Now, many people don’t wear watches and do time on their cell phones. Presumably they have an app that counts down seconds for them so that they can calculate a patient’s pulse.

But it’s more complicated than in the days of the handy-dandy analogue wristwatch.

I love my solar-cell powered watch and hope to wear it for a long time. So much more elegant than my old flip-phone…
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “-clo-” Come join us! Find out how here:   http://lindaghill.com/2015/12/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-1215/.

SoCS badge 2015

 

A Thirty Hour Day

Yesterday was loooooong.

Our alarm rang at 4 AM so we could get to my parents’ place so they could help shuttle us to the airport for the first flight – a 6 AM to Philly. Yes, I know that at most airports we would have needed to arrive at the airport by 4 AM or sooner, but BGM is not like that.

We were delayed a bit by fog, but got to Philly in plenty of time to switch terminals and get breakfast before boarding a flight to Phoenix, which arrived early. So there was lunch and walking about the terminal and browsing the shops and finally boarding our flight to Honolulu, which also arrived early at about 5 PM Hawai’i Standard Time.

The rub is that HST is six hours earlier than Eastern Daylight Time, so our bodies felt like it was 11 PM – and we had gotten up at 4 AM.  It took a long time to deplane, get baggage, wait for the shuttle bus to the rental car lot, finish paperwork, drive to the hotel, and deal with check-in and parking garage issues. We were fading fast…

Fortunately, our daughter E arrived with dinner, a delicious pasta salad with zucchini, Parmesan, and almonds that she had prepared and a loaf of fresh Italian bread. We are staying in a condominium hotel, so we had a fully equipped kitchen and a table for supper. Seeing E for the first time since they visited for Thanksgiving last November – and the food – helped revive us despite the length of the day, although I collapsed into bed a bit before 9:00.

Adjusting to time change is not one of my better skills, but B and I managed to sleep until 3 AM and then to snooze off and on until 6:00.   It’s now 4:15 PM and I admit to being a bit tired. But E will be done with her work day soon and we plan to go out to dinner and visit for the evening, which I hope will keep me going until a reasonable bedtime.

I’m hoping to get settled into Hawai’i Time sooner rather than later.

SoCS: What I would like

I would like to spend a leisurely time writing an amazing SoCS post. I would like to snap my fingers and get everything organized and accomplished because there are many appointments and obligations coming up in the next week and a half, including helping a daughter move to another city for her summer internship.

Obviously, snapping my fingers isn’t going to cut it.

So, short and sweet and on to the next…
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This week, Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “ke.”  Use the letter combination at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the word you choose to base your post on.

Join us! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/05/22/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-2315/

socs-badge

Ten years later

2005 was a difficult year. I lost a great and good friend, my long-time church community, and my father-in-law all within a few months.

Today is the first of the major tenth anniversary dates. Ten years ago today, which was Good Friday that year, my friend Angie died from cancer, leaving behind a husband, two sons, a daughter, her mother and siblings, extended family, and many, many, many friends.

I’ve written about Angie before, including here, so I won’t go on too long about her awesomeness. Her legacy includes not only her wonderful family and friends but also a charity fund that gives scholarships, supports cancer patients and their families, and supports The Discovery Center, our local children’s museum, which Angie blessed with her artwork. There is an art gallery, memorial tree, and butterfly house dedicated to her there, as well as an art gallery near the African Road/Vestal Middle School auditorium, which I will always think of as Angie’s Auditorium because it was a long-time dream of hers that she helped fulfill when she served on the Board of Education.

What I am thinking about today, though, is the ten years we have been without her physical presence.  The high school graduation of our daughters, the college commencements, her son’s law school graduation, passing the bar, getting married. All the little moments – hanging out in the kitchen, going out for lunch, taking the dog for a walk, attending seemingly endless committee meetings.

Because I do believe in the eternal life of the soul, I believe that Angie is still able to be present in our lives spiritually.  For those who don’t believe, Angie is still present through her role in shaping the people whom she loved and who loved her, as well as through the art she left for us to enjoy and the legacy projects I’ve already mentioned.

In some ways, we have been without her for ten years. In other ways, she has been with us all along.

Poem for the turn of the year

For the new year, I’m reposting a poem I wrote for New Year’s Eve 2013. The sentiment still applies.

December 31, 2013
– by Joanne Corey

Tomorrow
is not a New Year
anymore than
August 14th
or November 29th
or April 4th

Midnight promises only
the next day
the next hour
the next minute

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Linda is promoting Just Jot It January or JusJoJan, for short. I am trying to participate some, although likely to be more disJointed and Jumbled than the envisioned version of daily posts with cute badge attached. (As in, it dawned on me somewhat later in the day that I could add the pingback http://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/ to make this post part of JusJoJan, even though most of the jotting of this post happened a year ago.)  Join us! Details at the link above, plus pingbacks to all the participating posts. EnJoy!

Everything is awesome!

I have a confession to make.  I really like The Lego Movie!  I realize as a 50-something-year-old woman, I am not the demographic group that was targeted, but every time we saw a preview for it, B and I were always laughing, so we went to see it when it was in theaters and both enjoyed it.

I have been known to break into a chorus of “Everything Is Awesome” now and then.

I admit that I felt a bit sheepish being so drawn in by a (non-Pixar) children’s movie, but that was cured by reading Richard Corliss’s “Best of Culture 2014:  Movies” wrap up in the Dec.22/29 “Person of the Year” edition of Time magazine, which listed The Lego Movie third of the ten films mentioned.  That means I have some sense of taste/style, right?

In my haphazard approach to Christmas gifts this year, one thing I did manage to buy for our family was the DVD of The Lego Movie, which we watched this afternoon. And it still makes me laugh, which is great because this hasn’t been the jolliest holiday season ever.

We will probably watch some of the special features this evening. There is a sing-along version of “Everything Is Awesome!”  Singing such a bouncy, optimistic song can only help…

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