100-Mile Thrift Sale Treasures

This is my favorite event that marks the kickoff of summer! I have blogged about this beautiful Mississippi River Valley area before, in my post about our Labor Day weekend tour of the Upper Mississippi River Valley and on Eau Claire Consumer, my 100-Mile Garage Sale post.

This year the weather was gorgeous--in the 70's and sunny--and we enjoyed a picnic lunch and hit most of our sales in Lake City, Minnesota, after stopping through the Alma and Nelson areas. I'm relying on these pictures to show you my treasures, as I seem to be a little short on words lately...

First stop on the 100-mile thrift sale route: Nelson Cheese Factory

Picnic lunch in Lake City, Minnesota

Scenic view in Lake City, Minnesota



1961 VW Single cab pickup that I want



Fifty cents for a book for my husband

Various thrift sale treasures: four bamboo place mats, baby sleeper, four wine stoppers, two new Ikea pillowcases

Score on baby clothes and blankets!

Twenty five cents for a baby album

The Fine Print

Please comment and/or "like" my essay - The Fine Print - on Open.Salon.com

If it gets enough interest, it might get published!

I published this previously on this blog, under the series Five Years Later, parts one through eight.

On the advice of my superb editor, Jill Costello of Costello Editorial Services, I revised this to be more of a personal essay than a piece of science writing.

I originally wrote this piece five years ago, and it has been interesting to see it evolve. In my opinion, it's the best it's ever been.

The Ambivalent Parent

I was never sure about having children. I always imagined getting to a point when I would “know,” as they say. But we never arrived at that perfect moment. I always thought, we need to make more money, we need a bigger house, we need established careers, the list goes on. All these things that needed to be neatly in place never quite were. I’ve also enjoyed our freedom…traveling, eating out, doing what we want to do when we want to do it. At the same time, our window of opportunity has been shrinking exponentially…

I feel like most people don’t give much thought to becoming a parent —they just have children and work out the details later. I always resented this. How can you have children if you can’t afford to take care of them? If you don’t have time to give them the attention they need? In our society, becoming a parent is a given, it’s expected even. I resent this attitude, and the strange looks I have received when answering no to that dreaded question, “Do you have children?” Once, while getting my hair cut, a couple of women took this even further and asked me what I did with all my free time. Did I manage to keep myself busy, even without children? I resent the attitude that not having children somehow means you can’t or don’t have a busy, productive, meaningful life.

Every day I’m confronted by reasons not to have children. For example, we live in a world where a female Ivy league graduate student could be murdered inside the “safety” of her own research lab (and in a cruel twist of fate, just days before her wedding). This story stuck with me. When this happened, I thought, really, who wants to bring a child into a world like this? Having a child means you have so much to lose, so much at risk. It makes me uneasy. Could I actually let my heart be that vulnerable? Do I have the courage to spend years raising and protecting a child and then release her into a world that could eat her alive, even in the places she is supposed to be the safest? Do other people even think about this?

I was 23 when my nephew Chris was born. Somewhere between baby and young man, during trips to the children’s museum and swimming lessons and Fourth of July fireworks, I had a glimpse of something I wanted. Something that was worth the risks and vulnerabilities. I watched my husband run up and down the drive way, holding on to the seat of Chris’s bike, until Chris could finally pedal away on his own. I remembered my dad doing the same for my sisters and me. I had the distinct feeling that—for us, at that moment—this was one of the most important things we had ever done.

I almost lost my mother when I was 29. Suddenly I was afraid of everything. Bears. Cancer. Heights. Bridges. You name it. For years I felt vulnerable, struggling to accept that we have no control over anything. But there was something about caring for a parent and seeing my parents’ commitment to each other that taught me something profound and unexplainable about marriage and family. I don’t want it all to stop here. I want more. I want to pass it on.

And so, we left our destiny to nature, God, the Universe, whatever name you’d like to put on it, and at the end of August, we are expecting a child. It still seems weird to say. And a little abstract (other than the fact that I’ve felt like puking my guts out every day for the past three months). And the decision to get here very winding and indirect. And scary. And someday, just like our parents, we will have to quit running along behind this little one, and just let go...

How To Beat Your Winter Funk

For weeks I’ve been completely unmotivated. It happens to me every January. The weeks of sub-zero temperatures wear me down. Eventually I find myself on the couch every night, watching way too much of my favorite programs, like TrueBlood or Dexter or Californication or whatever I can get my hands on.

I haven’t even cooked an actual dinner in weeks. I don’t feel like eating…nothing sounds good…I have no motivation to prepare anything. It is the time of year when I fall into my most unhealthy habits, and I feel like everything I love doing so much, like having a garden, canning/preserving food, cooking, eating healthy, exercising, is all so far out of reach.

How can I break out of this funk?

We all know the common things that we should be doing….exercise, get eight hours of sleep, eat vegetables, meditate, whatever. I know what I should be doing, I just don’t do it. It’s dark all the time. It’s cold. I’m always tired. And cold. I go home and put my pajamas on.

One night this week I did manage to pick up the book I’m reading, The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion (which, by the way, I am enjoying quite a bit…her story is about grief and hope and strength and reminds me of my experience with my mother and her stroke) instead of turning on the TV. I guess that is one step in the right direction.

How do you get out of your funk?

I’m reminded of a post this week on my friend’s blog, Fat Girl Fed Up, about setting goals. Maybe that is what I need to do. A weekly goal for blog posts. A weekly goal for reading. A weekly goal for the draft of my novel……I am going to start small so I don’t get overwhelmed, and then keep setting goals. Notice I am mixing business and pleasure for motivational purposes……..

Starter Goals:

• Make healthy Pumpkin muffins for our “breakfast theme” Superbowl party
• See a movie (I am REALLY intrigued by the preview for Sanctum)
• Finish KSurf Fiction Writing workshop assignments by 2/14. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. This weekend, catch up on lessons
• Finish my office…l’ll post some pictures in an upcoming post…finishing my own personal writing space is related to my writing goals!
• Finish “The Year of Magical Thinking” by the end of February and start a new book
• Paint my bedroom by the end of February

Five Years Later: Part 8

Fourteen weeks after the stroke she comes home, walking with a hemi-cane and an ankle brace, her lifeless left arm in a sling.

Winter is on its way out, leaving an oozy, muddy, rutted-up earth. We sit at the kitchen table, in front of the window. I am in the same chair where she sat on that night almost five months earlier. Framed by the squares of the window pane, the birds outside visit the feeder.

“Dad said I should make sure you know that when I cry, it’s not because I’m sad. It’s because I’m happy,” she says.

I stop chewing for a moment. I look at the bird feeder to see my first Robin of the season.

“You know that, don’t you?” she adds.

It seems like a good place to start. I’ve stopped measuring the future in terms of the past, waiting for myself—and my mother—to re-emerge the same as we had been, as if we’d just returned from vacation or woken up from a dream. We have only just begun to re-define ourselves and our family, one moment at a time. I’ve said goodbye to the familiarity of the past, and accepted the uncertainty of the future.

She starts reading her daily devotions, using a pink index card to help her follow the line. Her hair has grown in around her incision. I glance at her gratitude journal, lying open on the table.

“Our homes are our sanctuary from the world,” she has written. “Our lives are made up of all the little traditions and experiences we share with people. Cherish every moment.”

“Did I sign up for this?” Dad jokes, as he helps her walk to the bathroom. “I’m not sure this was in the contract. It must have been in the fine print.”

“You better make sure you have it in the fine print,” she laughs, turning to look at me.

And I think to myself that we are all in each other’s fine print, neatly inscribed onto lines containing our greatest liabilities. With every patient comes a family, sustained by their community and their faith in the medical professionals to whom they entrust the most precious pieces of their fine print. This is the year I am getting married, and all around me, I see love in fine print.

Five Years Later: Part 7

I am lying on a bed in a hospital gown, a Doppler ultrasound machine next to me, waiting to have a trans-thoracic echocardiogram with a bubble study. This test will reveal whether I have a hole in my heart--that patent foramen ovale that threads through the family lines.

“Have you had an IV before?” the nurse asks me.

“No. But I’ve given blood,” I reply.

“Oh, well this needle is about a third of the size. Don’t worry—I’ve done this a couple times before,” she jokes, as she sticks me.

“At the end of the echo, we’ll be injecting agitated saline into your IV, and then we’ll watch it move through your heart,” she tells me.

Jason, the echocardiographer, attaches cords to my chest. “This is a Doppler ultrasound,” he says, applying a jelly-like substance to my chest and placing a flat, rectangular object there.

Suddenly my heart is on the monitor. It is stunning. A big oblong ball of pulsing light surrounded by darkness. It is heaving and thrusting and appears to be divided in two.

“See this smaller side?” Jason asks. “This is your pulmonary side. It goes right to the lungs. All your veins feed back to this side. The other side is your systemic side.”

He starts capturing pictures of my heart on the machine.

“Did you know the aortic valve is the point of highest blood pressure in the body? Look, the mitral valve looks like a fish mouth! Do you want to see your lung? Take a deep breath.”

I inhale. My heart disappears. I exhale and my heart appears again. I can’t help laughing.

“Our heart valves are actually like one-way doors,” Jason says. “Two of the valves contract at once and the other two relax. So it’s not really a pump. If your heart was really a pump, you’d only live five years and your heart would have to be three times as big.”

“My Mom has a hole in her heart,” I tell him.

“Ah, patent foramen ovale,” he says. “It means ‘the Window’ in Latin. It’s there so we can breathe without our lungs when we’re still inside our mothers. That explains why you’re having the bubble study.”

The nurse injects the agitated saline into my IV.

Instantly I see the right side of my heart fill with bubbles.

“See all the bubbles in the pulmonary side?” the nurse asks me.

Jason is suddenly quiet for the first time. “Wait, let’s do it again,” he tells the nurse.

“Why?” I ask, watching the bubbles on the monitor.

“I don’t leave any room for doubt,” he says.

He takes a series of digital pictures on the monitor. The muffled sound of my beating heart comes out through the machine as he captures the sound files for the cardiologist to listen to.

“So when do I find out?” I ask him when it’s all over.

“Next week,” he says.

But I don’t have to wait. I saw the bubbles move. I know I have my mother’s heart.

Five Years Later: Part 6

Five weeks after the stroke, the neurosurgeon says it’s time to put Mom’s head back together. He tells us that he will re-attach her skull using 4 millimeter screws and some metal plates.

“Will you be using a power drill on my head?” Mom jokes to the neurosurgeon, her voice soft and raspy. “I’m not entering any beauty pageants anytime soon so it should be fine.”

She alternates between humor and bouts of deep sadness that escalate as she becomes more aware of her physical limitations. At first, she could not even open her eyes or speak, so we held her eyes open while she used markers and a dry erase board to communicate. But with occupational, speech, and physical therapy, she went from bedridden to walking with a four-footed hemi-cane in a matter of weeks.

After her first brain surgery, Mom began taking blood thinner medication, which helps prevent blood clots, but also increases the risk of bleeding. As a result, her blood thinner medication is reversed before her second brain surgery, restoring her blood’s natural ability to clot. As a pre-caution, a radiologist places a small umbrella-like device called an inferior vena cava (IVC) filter in her abdomen to catch blood clots until she heals from surgery and resumes her blood thinner medication.

“The filter is in her abdomen, in the major highway known as the vena cava,” the radiologist explains. “We come up through the femoral veins, the major veins in the legs, which make a fork in the road and bifurcate from the vena cava, the main vein that empties up to the heart.”

Leaving only a minuscule incision, the radiologist positions the filter via tiny cameras and small catheters, all so Mom won’t pass another clot while they are screwing her skull back on. Doctors can now thread tiny catheters and devices through veins and arteries, transforming open heart surgery into minimally invasive procedures like angiograms, angioplasty, and stent placement, yet cerebral edema can only be treated by cracking open Mom’s skull and cutting out part of her brain. Modern medicine contains surprising juxtapositions of old and new, invasive and non-invasive.

After the surgery, she is awake, but groggy. Iodine is lightly smeared on her right cheek, mixed with blood. She wears a turban of gauze. She says she can’t find her thinking brain.

“This brain says bad things,” she tells us.

“Like what?” I ask.

“That maybe it should be like ‘Million Dollar Baby.’”

I think for a moment and then explain the allusion to Dad. “It’s a movie about a boxer who asks her coach to euthanize her after she becomes paralyzed.”

We are quiet.

Despite tremendous physical healing, I can’t help but think that another type of healing—much more elusive, hard to treat, and slow to heal—has hardly begun. With physical rehabilitation has come a devastating awareness of her physical limitations. We have been well trained in the use of wheelchairs, hemi-canes, and leg braces, but we are unable to deal with our own grief. I fear random, unpredictable things, like the brain not having enough room to swell, or a clot smaller than the tip of a pencil causing a stroke. When it comes to mortality, we have a natural suspension of disbelief, and mine had been forever shattered.

As we try to chase her bad brain away, on the other side of the curtain dividing Mom’s room, an oncologist is telling Mom’s elderly roommate, the primary caregiver for her diabetic daughter with kidney failure, that she has terminal liver cancer.

Five Years Later: Part 5

“We detected some right-to-left shunting, consistent with PFO,” the cardiologist says, discussing the hole in Mom’s heart.

“Her mother and two of her brothers had that too,” my sister remarks. As a nurse, my sister understands exactly what the cardiologist is talking about.

PFO. Patent foramen ovale. A hole between the chambers of the heart that allows blood to travel through an unborn baby’s heart and body, while bypassing its developing lungs. At birth, when the baby’s lungs become functional, blood begins to flow through the lungs, and the foramen ovale soon closes. However, medical research suggests that in about 25 percent of the population, the foramen ovale remains open, and is associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke. Doctors believe that the PFO can allow blood to bypass its normal route, acting as a window that can shunt blood headed to the lungs, which filter chemicals and blood, back into systemic circulation, and on to the brain or other parts of the body. According to the American Heart Association, if this counter-flow carries a clot, it can cause a stroke, and clots can even form in the PFO itself.

My mother is the youngest of four siblings, including two brothers who died of strokes at ages 62 and 70. For us, this is an important clue: family history of PFO and stroke. And there are other clues.

The stroke was caused by a blood clot lodged in her right carotid artery, obstructing blood flow to her brain. A deep vein thrombosis (DVT), also known as a blood clot, formed in Mom’s leg sometime after she broke her foot. One neurologist suggested that part of this clot traveled to her right carotid artery, causing the stroke. Another neurologist speculated that the stroke was caused by a clot that likely originated from the PFO.

And there is another clue. A blood test reveals a clotting disorder called lupus anti-coagulant. A propensity to clot. A broken foot combined with a DVT, PFO, and a clotting disorder. A perfect alignment of rare circumstances.

Five Years Later: Part 4

Lori is different than many of the nurses in the critical care unit. She talks to me. And she uses words I understand. She tells me she has worked as a flight nurse in Detroit and that she’s been a nurse since the Florence Nightingale days.

Mom’s head is wrapped in a turban of gauze and tape. Her brain is so swollen that her right eye is bulging, like someone punched her. Intubated and on a ventilator, her tongue is bloody, crusty, swollen, and sticking out of her mouth beneath the endotracheal tube. Her chest heaves and a muffled, junky cough comes out through the ventilator, triggering an eerie, honking alarm.

We are hopeful. Last night Mom put her right hand up to her mouth and touched her breathing tube. Throughout the day, she wiggled her toes and fingers on her right side to command: thumbs up, thumbs down, and a wiggle of her pinky. Purposeful movements.

But now it is just before 4 am and her blood pressure is erratic. Alarms are sounding. She’s terribly congested. Her temperature is almost 102. Lori puts ice bags and a cooling blanket on her.

“Let’s just see what the next hour brings and then go from there,” Lori says. “This is the way it is with neuro patients. It’s like walking a fine wire fence. They could go either direction at any time. All we can do is read the symptoms and treat each one.”

We go through each night like this, walking the fine wire fence. Wiggle your toes. Squeeze my hand. We read to her, paint her toenails, and play her CDs. I realize that we have the same ridges in our fingernails, and that my toes are exactly like hers in their size and shape.

The noises haunt me. The whistling compression of air as the Venaflow sleeve contracts on her right leg, preventing the formation of blood clots. The beeps and clicks and alarms on the IVs and on the monitor that measures intercranial pressure. So many alarms.

For 13 days she walks that fine wire fence, the mysteries and miracles of critical care unfolding each moment. Medications support her blood pressure and for a while she doesn’t breathe above the rate on the ventilator. We watch fearfully as her intercranial pressure increases. Her heart rate and temperature are persistently high. She receives antibiotics for pneumonia. CT scans check for bleeding and swelling in the brain. A feeding tube is placed and so is a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC line) for drawing blood and administering medicine arterially. She has high blood sugars so she is on an insulin drip. Her raw and scabby fingers are poked often to test her blood sugars. Her blood is drawn frequently to monitor delicate levels.

We have lost our center. On good days, we are giddy with hope. On other days, we cry and wander and try to prop each other up. We are in the embrace of friends, family, co-workers, and hospital staff who bring us meals, cards, flowers, and prayers. We are disoriented. We lose things—our vehicles, our coats, our minds. We are relieved to find Mom’s wedding ring at home. And life goes on. There are bills to pay, plants to water, pets to feed. We have divided Mom’s life among us, and still we cannot keep up.

One night, a family is standing around the bed of a new patient in the critical care unit. All the lights are on in the room. Moments later, an alarm sounds.

“Code blue, CCU…Code blue, CCU…” a computerized female voice repeats.

A woman screams. Footsteps pound down the hallway. “NO!!!!” the woman sobs.

More footsteps pound down the hallway.

In the middle of the night, I linger alone at Mom’s bedside, in this world of machines and monitors, where the sound of grief is profoundly louder than the combined chorus of many alarms. Where strangers don’t introduce themselves, bringing machines they don’t explain. I am terrified of the code blue. Terrified that we’ll have to bury our mother.

Five Years Later: Part 3

“Can you wiggle your toes?” a nurse asks. Mom moves the right side of her body on command, but there is no movement on her left side.

The nurses in the critical care unit check Mom’s neurological status every hour, shining a small flashlight in her pupils, pressing on her fingers and toes, and asking her to follow commands. But as the morning advances, Mom no longer responds.

At noon, when the nurse shines the flashlight in Mom’s eyes, she leaves immediately.

“We’re losing her, aren’t we?” Dad questions the nurse in the hallway.

“Her pupils are uneven. I’m calling the doctor.”

Within minutes, the neurologist arrives with a neurosurgeon. The neurosurgeon is tall, with a boyish face—big brown eyes and dark hair. He wears a knee-length white coat that has “Brain & Spine Institute” stitched on the left breast pocket.

“You have to decide,” the neurosurgeon says. “You don’t have time to call anyone. You’ve got to tell us now. If we don’t operate immediately, she’s going to be brain dead in a few hours.”

When the brain is injured, like any part of the body, it swells—a condition called cerebral edema. Injury to the brain results not only from the infarction itself, but also from the resulting cerebral edema, which peaks 2-5 days after the stroke. Because the brain has little room to swell, as cerebral edema increases, so does intercranial pressure (ICP). The optic nerve is located close to the brain stem, so pupillary changes can indicate that ICP is at a deadly level, compressing the brain stem, which controls all vital functions including heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing.

The doctors explain that Mom’s cerebral edema is causing the damaged right side of her brain to shift over and compress the healthy left side and the brain stem. The neurosurgeon wants to perform a craniotomy. He will remove a large portion of her skull and remove the infarcted brain, to make room for swelling and to relieve pressure. Her skull will be stored in a sterile bone bank until it can be reattached.

“We have to give her every chance,” Dad says, looking at me. “Don’t you think?”

I imagine the neurosurgeon drilling open her skull and cutting out her dead brain. I want to scream. With all of our medical advancements, it seems so invasive, even primitive, that life-threatening cerebral edema can only be treated by drilling open Mom’s skull and cutting out part of her brain.

I know what we need to do. I just hope it’s what she would do.

Dad signs the consent forms. They take her to surgery. In the waiting room, someone hands me a small plastic container containing Mom’s diamond earrings. Grandma tells me her friend has been dreaming that “Josie lost her jewelry.” We realize we don’t know where Mom’s wedding ring is. We panic. We wait. Trying to make sense of things. Someone tells me about a 26-year-old girl who stepped off a curb the wrong way and broke her ankle. Two weeks later she died of a pulmonary embolism—a blood clot in the lungs. I wish I had heard the story sooner.

Five Years Later: Part 2

“It appears your wife has had a massive infarction,” the doctor says, looking at Dad.

I stare at the doctor’s ID badge, which says “Neurologist” below his name. He is a thin man with straight brown hair, carrying a brown leather bag over his shoulder.

“We’re bordering the critical window,” the doctor says. “So it’s now 10:15 pm and you say the last time you saw her functioning normally was between 7:30 and 8:00 pm?”

“Yes,” Dad answers, putting his hand to his forehead, re-running the numbers in his mind.

Ischemic stroke occurs when a blood vessel becomes blocked, prevents the flow of blood to the brain, and thereby creates an infarction, or death, of brain tissue. Within three hours of the onset of a stroke, ischemic strokes are treatable with blood thinners or anti-coagulants such as tissue plasminogen activator (TPA), which restore blood flow. After that timeframe, the risk of fatal complications, such as bleeding in the brain, increases significantly.

The doctor escorts us across the hall, and shows us CT scan images of Mom’s brain.

“I’m going to ask you again,” the doctor says, pointing to a darker spot on the right edge of the brain. “Are you absolutely sure about the timeframe? Because the damage I see here is so advanced that it’s typical of an infarction at least 6-8 hours out.”

We tell him again. We are sure. He ushers us back to the small waiting room.

“Look,” The doctor says. “When an infarct occurs, it’s like stepping on a hose. All blood flow gets shut off. The brain tissues start to break down and die. At this point, if we anti-coagulate her and get the blood flowing again, it would be like running over the hose with a lawn mower and then turning the water back on. The water is going to leak out everywhere.”

I feel like I’m deflating, all my vital air whistling out and the ground about to come up fast beneath me.

“What would you do if she were your wife?” Dad asks.

“I would give her the best possible chance,” the doctor replies. “I know I said before that we might do the TPA, but given the magnitude of the infarct and the critical timeframe, TPA would be contraindicated. Her biggest risk in the next 2–5 days will be cerebral edema.”

Dad crosses his legs, puts his hand over his eyes, and faces the corner of the room.

It’s like I’m watching a foreign film without subtitles. Is he saying there’s nothing he can do? Is he talking about my mother, who just turned 60—a thin, non-smoking vegetarian who exercises every day?

“You should call whoever you need to,” the doctor says. “She may not be conscious in the morning.”

Five Years Later: Part 1

At about 9 pm on the evening of November 9th, 2005, my phone rang, and, with the events that soon followed, cleaved my reality into a distinct “before” and “after.” It took years to let go of the “before” that our lives were, and years to accept the “after” that our lives became. I still cringe a little when the phone rings late in the evening, reminding me of how unpredictable life is, and how little control we all have. But gradually my fears have given way to gratitude—I give thanks each time that phone rings and I find out my friends and family are still safe and healthy.

In upcoming postings, I plan to reflect on this experience as it unfolded, including everything we struggled with and everything we have to be grateful for. I believe that it is our responsibility—as hard as it is in the heat of the moment—to grow and evolve no matter what challenges come our way. Sometimes writing can help you figure these things out, help you figure out how you feel about things. And as much as I wish I could undo my mom’s suffering, I have accepted the “after” with my whole heart and I am a better person because of it. It seems to me that this is everyone’s journey.

The following is the beginning of a series of excerpts from my essay, “Josie’s Window.”

****

She slumps in a chair at the kitchen table, an invisible weight tugging at her left arm. Behind her, the white borders of the window pane create a checkered backdrop against the evening vista.

“I’m fine,” Mom insists. “The floor was slippery…I couldn’t get back up. Get my crutches so I can go back to bed.” Only the right side of her mouth moves, while saliva dribbles from the left. Her voice is raspy and muffled, like it’s lodged in her throat. Her eyes are only slightly open.

Dad holds out her crutches, but she doesn’t reach for them.

“She has a field cut,” he says, waving his arm in a vertical motion. “She can’t see anything to her left. I think she’s had a stroke.” He starts pacing, picking up the phone and then putting it back on the receiver.

She leans over and vomits on the floor.

I know what he is debating. Twenty miles of country roads to the nearest hospital, an ambulance will take too long. I lean over and hug her tight. I feel a pop and a hiss, as if I’ve punctured an air-tight package—the feel of something brick-hard becoming malleable in my hands.

We ease her toward the back door, her left leg dragging in its black orthopedic boot. She grabs the door frame in protest.

Personal Legend

I just haven’t gotten back into my routine yet. Ever since I went on vacation and then started a new job, I’m still sorting things out. Often I’m so tired I just can’t seem to make writing a priority. I have to figure out a way to change this. Maybe I need to enroll in a writing workshop. I also can’t seem to motivate myself to do re-writing or more query letters after a round of rejections….I did get a little inspired the other night when we began reading The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho, which talks about the importance of finding your “personal legend,” or realizing your dreams. I’ll keep you posted on that.

My mom is doing IV antibiotics at home for a bacterial infection in her toe. Her recent hospital visit was scary for us all, being her first hospital stay in five years, when she was hospitalized for four months after a stroke. I think she felt—and we all felt—like this recent hospital visit was going to be like it was before, the way we felt when she first woke up and she couldn’t even open her eyes or talk and we all felt completely helpless and vulnerable. At that time, we held her eyes open and she wrote messages with colored markers on a dry-erase board. She went from bedridden to walking with a four-footed hemi-cane in a matter of weeks….but there was still so much healing to do—physically, emotionally, spiritually. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the healing goes on long after you leave the hospital. And this recent hospital visit reminded her of how far she has come. She can ask for what she needs, she’s not afraid to be alone, she speaks up for herself, and she’s much more independent.

I just hope that antibiotics take care of this infection. Every day, I ask the universe for two things: for my family to be safe and healthy, and to be able to realize my “personal legend,” to do the work I’m meant to do, whatever that may be.
 

Slide-Tape Recorder

 

For now, I’ll leave you on a humorous note. You can learn so much about people and past times by looking at their things. I’ve enjoyed looking at old church cookbooks for this reason. I find myself working in a place that seems like a museum—containing relics of the past. I’m uncovering all sorts of crazy gadgets that I’ve never seen before. This is a slide-tape projector. You put your slide carousel on the top and an audio cassette in the slot and it projects the slides on the screen with accompanying audio. I imagine this was quite an improvement to the standard slide projector.

Pictured below is some sort of primitive teleconferencing unit called a “Darome.” Note the dust. Oh, how far we’ve come.



Darome Teleconferencing Unit

Silver Lining

The last few weeks have been such a whirlwind. I had a rejuvenating vacation with friends in Portland and Sacramento. Upon my return, I started a new job, which (so far) seems to be one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time. I knew I needed a change, but I didn’t realize how badly I needed this change. I already feel so comfortable and welcome in this new role—everyone has been so supportive and appreciative. It was long overdue.

We celebrated C’s birthday last weekend with a beautiful canoe trip on the St. Croix River between Taylors Falls, Minnesota and Osceola, Wisconsin. On our way home we stumbled onto the most unique sculpture garden. However, our day trip had an unexpected ending. We stood in the ditch and laughed and appreciated the fact that our car died in the most opportune location: right when we got back home, within sight of the VW dealership, which meant it would get towed for free by AAA. You have to appreciate your blessings in every form. Find the silver lining as they say.



Yesterday I saw this: “A big shot is just a little shot that kept on shooting.” – Anonymous

I am trying to keep on shooting. Although I am happy about the changes with my new job, I’m a little down about a few other things. My mom has a bacterial infection in her toe which has been lingering—despite numerous treatments with oral antibiotics—for several months. Yesterday she was admitted to the hospital to begin IV antibiotics. I’ve now received two rejections on the most recent article I sent out to get published. I haven’t heard back from one place but I’m assuming I won’t at this point. The news about our car has gone from bad to worse. It sounds like it may cost more to fix it than the car is worth.

Sometimes it’s hard to understand why things happen. For example, why my mom should have to suffer any more than she already has. Five years ago she had a stroke that resulted in a craniotomy, loss of function in her left arm, weakness in her left leg,  vision problems, and more. When I start thinking this way I have to remind myself what I learned back then. Accept it for what it is…don’t question it or resist it and flounder in “why” and “what if’s” –this will only lead to more suffering.

I Won the WQOW Mother's Day Contest for My Mom

So my previous post said that I submitted an essay to the Mother's Day Contest at a local TV station, WQOW....and I won!!!! My mom received a $450 prize package, including a fountain/birdbath from Bobolink nursery, 12 rounds of golf at Hickory Hills, and $100 worth of meat from Sailer's meats. She had alot of fun picking out her merchandise. Here are a few snapshots of her birdbath/fountain and her freezer full of meat...

Happy Mother's Day

I entered the following into a Mother's Day Contest at a local TV station...guidelines were to submit a 250 word essay on why your mom is the best...

“Do you know what the secret to life is?” my mom asked, squeezing my hand and towering above me as a large, strange dog rapidly approached. “Don’t ever let them know you’re afraid.”

Even in one of my earliest memories, my mother spoke courageously, giving me this secret weapon that I would always carry with me. My mother acted courageously even through the greatest challenge of her life. In November of 2005, just a few months after she turned 60, my mom suffered a massive stroke, enduring several brain surgeries, four months in the hospital, and extensive rehabilitation.

Learning to swallow, walk, talk, and live with the use of one arm were only a few of her challenges. This strong, independent woman, who was the first of five children in her family to earn a college degree, had to let my dad, two sisters, and I learn to take care of her, and much earlier in life than she ever expected. We all learned to reinvent ourselves, taking on new roles, especially my mom, and she did so with grace, courage, and strength.

My parents just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. They enjoy traveling, gardening, reading, and catching up with friends and family—especially their eight-year-old grandson. Their commitment to each other and to their family is my cornerstone.

My mom is the best because her life is a model of what it really means to be courageous. Because of her I know that I can do anything.

My Birthday

My husband presented me with these three vials and I got to play something like a game of deal or no deal. I picked a vial, opened the scroll, which revealed "50% off the bike of your choice." My curiosity got the best of me--as much as I wanted that new bike I decided to trade this in for another vial. I opened the next one and and got a weekend getaway of my choice, including two outfits from Anne Taylor Loft (my favorite). I stuck with this option.

I did get to open the last vial, just to see what it was....a landscaping project of my choice! That would have been a good one too, but I'm glad I stuck with Anne Taylor and the weekend getaway. Ah, he knows me so well.

My mom and dad made "better than sex" cake and Easter dinner and it was wonderful...ham, potatoes...It was the first holiday that I can remember in which our whole family was together and my mom and dad were able to host dinner. It's been almost five years since my mom had a stroke, and things are still settling in to the new normal. In the following picture with my mom, taken this past Easter, I'm wearing the "rabbit ears" that I was given on Good Friday in the hospital, just after I was born.