Always a Mom--Part 2

      For the last thirty-five years, being a mom has been just part of my identity.Unlike some, I did not feel that miraculously at the birth of my first child. Actually, it took some getting used to, but now motherhood is in my blood as surely as some bit of my DNA is in Justin and Melanie. The awareness of their happiness, or lack of it, is always there—as surely as the nagging feeling that somehow I am “responsible” for fixing things that have gone awry in their lives--things far beyond my control. (Hello cancer—why can I not wish, pray, or exorcise you from my daughter’s body?)

         Yet over the years, as they married making families of their own, it has gotten easier. Maybe it is their physical distance from me, or simply because I no longer know the details of their day in, day out lives. I have come to assume all is well unless told otherwise. While sometimes I miss the intimate involvement, even though my extremely grown-up evolved self (as opposed to my clingy immature mom self) realizes this is the way it is supposed to be and I am glad.

         Relaxing some of my mom vigilance that I probably held onto far longer than necessary, has become more my norm and probably one of the reasons I have written less on this blog recently. But suddenly this spring, all those old feelings came crashing back—a crisis that required protective thoughtful hands-on mom care. Only this time, I found myself needing to mom my own mom.

         I suppose I should not have been quite so shocked since over the past few years these parental emergencies have cropped up more and more frequently with so many of my friends. While checking in about the respective well being of each other’s children and grandchildren has been part of our conversations, now, my friends and I compare notes on aging parents as well. The news of falls, breaks, joint replacements, and the need for more help in their homes is a constant refrain. Will their money last or will we need to pitch in and help?  Several years ago, we went through it all with my mother-in-law, but then it was my husband who bore the brunt of the worry.  With my widowed mother living a fairly independent life in a retirement community surrounded by friends from childhood and a special gentleman friend downstairs, for the most part, I have sympathized from the sideline.  

         Last April though, the nightmares I had heard so much about became mine. My mom got sick and my life changed course--again.  She was wasn’t feeling well for a few weeks and seeing a new doctor (hers on vacation) who took her at her word that her congestion and cough were simply seasonal allergies.  With no change in her symptoms, a week later, he was still not concerned simply changing her over the counter antihistamine. It wasn’t until she said admitted that she was not “really” getting out of bed, that I packed my bags for a few day’s visit to N.C. to see for myself what was going. Before I got there, she was already hospitalized.

         Thus began a saga far too long, scary, and complicated to recount.  I will not bore you with details except to say that she ended up in 2 different hospitals, with 9 room changes, a week at a rehab hospital before being moved to nursing care in her own retirement community. Along with ever-changing diagnoses, and misdiagnoses and doctors unable to agree on the cause of her symptoms and best course of action, she was passed between specialists like a hot potato. As days blended into nights doctors came and went at erratic hours, and my brother flew in for four days to help make decisions. Finally a last ditch referral brought in Fabulous Surgeon who, while resisting surgery because of the many complications, took charge suggesting a less invasive procedure probably saving her life.

         Having packed for fours days, there I was stuck in hospital hell for three weeks, the sixty-four year old daughter (and health care proxy) forced to make decisions that parents usually make for their children.

While dealing with doctors proved exasperating, managing my mom became even more of a challenge to my frayed nerves. .” In her weakened, often frightened state, she became resistant to any suggestion from me.   “Mother, you MUST eat something or you will never get out of here.” Only to hear, “But nothing tastes good.” Just as when I had failed to provide good nutrition thirty years earlier when vegetables were an anathema around the dinner table, I resorted to cranky nag mom. (With basically the same non-results.) “The doctor says it is important for you to get up, let’s go down the hall.” “Justin, we are on a walk NOT a carry.”

         Fears and anxieties, echoing one particularly awful hospitalization for Melanie pulsed through my veins, “I am going to stand here right by this nurses station until someone gets my mom (my daughter) her meds.” There were days I thought I would crumble, but that was not an option any more than it was when both the kids and I had particularly awful stomach flu while Chris was out of town. Some days you just get through. Period.

         And if you are lucky, and I was, it gets better. Slowly my mom began to improve; after a month, I was able to come home. Today, she is back to her retirement community, only now in in assisted living. As an avid walker before all this happened, her physical health bounced back remarkably quickly, but the long hospitalization has left her mind less resilient. They call is diminished cognitive functioning. She is getting along fine, happy to be back with her friends, her sense of humor coming out, but has moments of confusion. Life feels more complicated to her. We talk every day and now my visits are more frequent. From a distance, I run interference with doctors, staff, and insurance companies, pay bills and fall at the knees of my cousin who picks up the loose ends regularly.

          Life seems to be reversing itself. Daily conversations revolve around gossip about the other ladies at her meal table, the latest musical offering down the hall, the failing health of her gentleman friend. Like my friends, I wake wondering if my mom is ok.  Is she is afraid in the night? Is life too hard?  It is care taking at a distance, not perfect but the best I can do.

         It all feels so familiar. I know how to do this and yet, part of me rebels, not wanting to go back in time. But, like so many others, back I go, because she is my mom. It is what we do. It is part of who I am--always will be. Always.

        

        

         

It Is All The Dogs' Fault

It has been weeks—no change that to months, since I have been able to settle down to write or do much of anything that requires quiet reflection. Keeping busy has been the order of most days. Since returning from two weeks in Israel on May 10th, we have done a kitchen renovation as well as painting the majority of the living area of our home. Then there was the ten day trip to CA—six of which Chris and I spent taking care of the four and 18 month old grandkids so Justin and Farr could celebrate their tenth anniversary—with Melanie and Ben joining us for the last three days of family time.

With the hot beautiful weather our boat has served as a virtual bed and breakfast -- friends and family aboard cruising to destinations far and near. It has been a full time and yet I have been unsettled, edgy and, I have to admit, not easy to live with. Pinpointing the source of my malaise is not a problem. All I can say is that it is all the dogs’ fault.

If you have known me in the last fourteen years, then you probably know that Chris and I have been dog owners for that time. In 1998 we adopted our first Black Lab, Farland, from Guiding Eyes for the Blind. We called him our “flunky” although the official status was  “released”.  An eighteen-month-old feisty guy, Farland was always his own person. An incredibly handsome strong-willed soul, he became our early boating companion, earning the title “best boat dog ever.” From the very beginning, he went to work with me every day, settling down under my desk, surprising parishioners as they came into my office. Gentle with children, he became the office mascot and always knew to remind me to take a break once in a while.

Then in 2003, Chris and I completely lost our minds as we adopted a second eighteen-month-old release dog named Opal. While also a Black Lab, in many ways she was the opposite of her brother.  More delicate in stature and constitution, she was a love bug wanting to cuddle and be close while her brother kept his own space. Right away, Opal joined forces at work and it was Opal who would cuddle with Melanie when she came home from her hospitalizations. While never comfortable on the boat the way Farland was, she loved to dive off swim platform—preferably on top of Chris when he surfaced. Underway, she was happiest shadowing me as I put our fenders and lines before settling down under my feet on her pillow.

Most weekends, summer and winter, Chris and I would walk with our two pups in tow. Covering miles no matter the season, we hiked through the woods and along the harbor, often riding home on the ferry.  They boated with us everywhere, and since we only travel by foot once we hit the shore, they tagged along, swimming out to retrieve a stick or sitting on a patio as we grabbed food. And everywhere we went they introduced us people.

Farland and Opal
Waiting for dinner on the boat

Last summer, at age fourteen, Farland began to slow down, neurological problems causing him to stumble. Gradually over the fall he declined and could no longer take our long walks. Watching Farland slowly failing, we were not surprised when he died late last November, just shy of his fifteenth birthday. He was an old guy and ready to go and while Chris and I prepared ourselves for months for the inevitable, for days afterwards we walked around wondering at the shocking realization that a life could be so very present one moment and gone the next.

After Farland died, everyone asked if Opal was sad; we could honestly say that she did not seem to be. While together all the time, the two pups had never cuddled with each other, choosing instead to bond with us. In fact, if anything, she seemed to perk up. After having to slow down with her brother for so long, at nine, she became positively puppyish, prancing around with her toys that that we normally kept put away since Farland had a tendency to just chew them up. Every morning all I had to say is, “Opie, where’s your toy?!” and off she would go to find one charging back, willing me to chase her. We walked, every morning for miles, and she became my shadow. If I went into my room to meditate, I knew that within moments, she would jump up on the bed settling in for a half hour nap. When I was sitting down, she was at my feet and when Chris and I went out, she slept on the carpet beside my computer chair.

I won’t go into the details of her demise except to say that while her vet was beginning to get worried about her kidney function, on the day we left for Israel, she and I walked three mile and she seemed energetic and happy.  But four days into our trip we began to receive worried messages from Heidi, who with her husband Mark and their two boys, watched over our dogs for years. Opal was refusing to eat; as the week progressed it was clear she was getting sicker. After ten days, many emails, and phone calls with her Heidi and her vets, she had to be admitted to the hospital; Opal was dying.

Chris and I made the decision to leave our trip three days early and return home. Heidi and Mark (saints throughout this whole ordeal) brought her to their house to give her more loving until we could get home. After almost twenty excruciating travel hours, we rushed from the airport to find her curled up on their couch. Barely lifting her head, Opal gave us only the smallest of tail-wags. Carrying her home we arranged her in her usual place in our bed right next to my head the three of us sleeping fitfully through the night.  With pain overtaking her, we took her back to the animal hospital that had treated her since she was a pup. We put out the word; staff members were welcome to stop by where she lay on the floor flanked by Chris and me. Lab techs, vets and even the front office ladies drifted in to give her hugs and say goodbye. Opal died on May 11 only five months after her brother.

Now for the first time in thirteen years, we no longer hear the jingle of collars and patter of feet when we open the door. Since Opal died, a part of myself has been shut off. For weeks in the middle of the night, I would put out a hand to pet her head waking only to feel emptiness. I filled my walks with phone calls so that I would not have to think about who is missing. When the two Black Dog flags on the front of our boat shredded on a recent trip, I could hardly breathe. Even with all the hubbub of the last two months, life feels dulled and sadder.

Of course there have been so many moments of grace as friends dropped notes or just listened to us talk. Our kids sent flowers as did our animal hospital. A friend slipped me a tiny metal token with a paw print on one side and the words, “Always With You” on the other. A wise vet offered words that helped explain the deep nature of the sadness I feel saying that the death of a pet is different from so many other deaths, because the nature of our relationship with our animals is one based on dependency. Unlike other human relationships, animals are never supposed to grow up and move away. The relationship is predicated on constancy and presence; separation is not really part of the equation. But of course, ultimately separation comes with the finality of death.

It is gradually getting a bit easier now, just please do not tell me to get another dog to make me feel better or get over it. We may, or we may not, eventually do that, but right now, I just need some more time to heal. Writing this is a step. Walking quietly is another. Maybe this week I will even be able to pray again.

Happy Cancerversary—Again

It has been far too long since I have written but today I need to do that—even if it is going to be short and yes, a bit repetitive.

Chris and I leave today for fifteen days in Israel and tomorrow is Melanie’s eight-year cancerversary. Last year when I was posting more regularly here, I wrote about the journey to learn to celebrate a day that fills me with such a mix of feelings and memories. There is still sadness, anger, frustration but now, even more, there is joy. And there are prayers—prayers of thanksgiving and prayers for those who are just starting on this cancer journey. (There is a post coming but today my new friend Elaine and her daughter, Kathryn sit close to my heart.)

Just as a reminder, here is a bit of what I wrote last year.

“It has taken some years, but gradually I have come to celebrate Melanie’s Cancerversary. Her A.C. (after cancer) life has been full and rich. (Even as I know that is not so for many who live with cancer) Here is a little of what A.C. can look like.  Two years teaching; one year as AmeriCorps volunteer, doing environmental work; becoming certified as a Wilderness First Responder; leading countless Outward Bound trips and pilgrimages in Maine and WA; sailing with a crew of eight on 32 foot open scow boats from the Florida Keys to Rhode Island; becoming an aunt—twice; falling in love; earning a Masters degree in Education; helping get a non-profit, True North Treks, up and running; leading other young adult cancer survivors into the wilderness; having two more tumors removed; hiking; camping; climbing; snowboarding, writing letters that make her parents cry; starting a new life in Seattle; soon getting married.”

It is hard for me to comprehend just how full another year of A.C. can look but  check this out. Last May, Melanie and Ben did get married by the ocean surrounded by family and friends who just could not stop smiling. Then as in past summers, the two of them spent three months separated (hoping for sightings if each other on the trail) as they lead Outward Bound and other groups. The fall followed with changes for both of them as Ben began school to complete prerequisites for a career in nursing (at the same time becoming an EMT), while Melanie began a new career as the in internal guide coordinator for First Ascents International—a job that utilizes her skills AND has health care benefits that cover her Sloan Kettering visits.(Woohoo!!)

Just a few days ago, on her 32^nd birthday, Melanie wrote on FB, “Thanks everyone!!! I did quite a lot of living this past year, and it's always nice to stop and celebrate that :)” And live she did, in the wilderness telemarking, hiking, climbing, travel to Israel, camping, boarding, celebrating weddings, throwing potlucks….Well you get the idea. It was a good year—a very good year—and my heart is full to hear her say that she is celebrating life.  Is the cancer gone? I wish I could say it is, but watching my daughter thrive, I count my blessings and so does she.

So once again Melanie, I say, “Here’s to you!!” This mother could never be more proud!! Melanie, happy eighth Cancerversary to You!! 

Always, 

Mom 

The week my body tried to run away and take my soul with it...

It all started fairly innocently after catching an edge going down a laughably easy slope in Utah. Creating the classic skier’s yard sale, I splattered on the snow—popped-off skis landing several yards away.  Sprawling on the snow, poles still strapped around my wrist, my thumb wrenched backwards. Embarrassed and at first thinking only of my bruised ego, I shook off the incident skiing down a few more times before succumbing to the pain and the urging of our friends to get it checked out. At the clinic, conveniently located next to the base lodge, I was x-rayed and passed from doctor to doctor the last of whom made a splint and bandaged my right arm turning it into an unwieldy awkward appendage. Diagnosis--a torn tendon, a small fracture, and instructions to see an orthopedist as soon as I got home.

Within a few days, my thumb not hurting much, I convinced myself the clinic was wrong; it was probably just a sprain; surely the doctor would just have me wear a splint for a few weeks, at most, before returning to normal activity. Arriving home, that hope quickly shattered as an orthopedist –a man of few words—took one look at the x-ray, did a few simple tests (which hurt like hell) and began writing out instructions for surgery the following week.

Having been with Melanie during her cancer surgeries, and with two surgeries of my own in the past few years, I remembered what a difference it makes to actually prepare for any kind of assault on the body so for one week, I meditated, prayed, read about the surgery and recovery, asked around about the doctor I was using, while also clearing my calendar.  As the day approached, feeling confident with the doctor and my own ability to cope and grateful that Chris would be by my side throughout it all, I just wanted to get it over with so I could begin to heal.

Arriving at the outpatient surgical center, all went as expected. The excellent staff of nurses and anesthesiologists could not have been more professional or upbeat. Still it was in that prep time that I began to be suspicious that my body was in for something new. It began with the nerve block injected into my shoulder and arm. My arm lying across my lap, the anesthesiologist asked me to look away, which I dutifully did, until he told me it was okay to turn back. Looking down for my arm still across my lap, I found it had gone missing. I could feel it resting there and yet searching around, I spied it lifelessly hanging down beside my leg. Even with Chris reassuringly holding my other hand, it felt like my arm had decided to go it’s own way without my permission.  

A few minutes later after being wheeled into surgery the world went blank until waking to find myself being wheeled to the recovery area. Soon, fully awake I once again began searching for my wandering arm (which I still thought was lying peacefully across my body.) There it lay beside me on the bed only now it was wrapped two or three times it’s normal size in a hard cast.

Preparing to go home I had a glimpse of the challenge of the next few weeks. Getting dressed with a cast is just plain awkward but getting dressed with an arm that takes no instructions from the brain is ridiculous. It waved around going wherever gravity and inertia took it while the nurse and I maneuvered my body into some semblance of propriety.

The last orders of the day were instructions that came with the prescriptions they required Chris to get filled while I was under the knife. Pulling out two large bottles of drugs, Vicodin and Oxycodone, I was told to take them that night when the feeling started to come back into my arm.  She wanted me to “get ahead of the pain” and continue that for a few days.

The next three days were, as they say in doctor speak, “uncomfortable” but certainly manageable with the Vicodin. By the fourth day, the pain had subsided to the point where I stopped taking the drugs.  A few hours later I was not sure what was going on but there was unspeakable tiredness, watery eyes, no appetite and even more disturbing a black cloud of depression creeping over me and it only got worse the next few days. A few mornings later I woke in bed thinking I did not have one reason to get out of bed --ever. Only Opal’s big kiss and wagging tail forced me up that morning while Chris was a work.

Shaken and realizing something was very out of whack and suspecting the connection between the drugs and my feelings, I turned to the Internet, Googling “ Withdrawal from Vicodin. ”  Low and behold, I had classic symptoms of withdrawal.  It was downright scary and sad to read story after story of desperate people trying their best to kick this habit-forming drug.  After only a few days of use, I might be feeling lousy but these folk’s worlds were crumbling as they lost families and jobs and a piece of their souls. While it took several more days to feel like myself again, I was lucky to realize what was happening fairly quickly and do what I needed to do for myself in the meantime.

Now I cannot stop thinking how interconnected our minds, and bodies, and souls are.  I also realize how much my brave daughter taught me over the years about handling assaults on the body with resiliency—the need to pay attention, to know your body and honor what it is telling you, as well as when to let people take care of you as Chris did during my recent “couch days.” Knowing that Melanie is the only one who truly lives with cancer, I have learned about myself in the process of living with her disease. Of course, I would trade every speck of that knowledge for a cancer-free daughter; there are other ways to get that wisdom and knowledge, but my guess is most of them involve suffering as well. I wish I knew why it has to work that way, but that seems to be the way it is in life. So for now, I am simply grateful--grateful for the healing that has happened in her life and in mine as well.

  

 

It's the kind of news that makes you pause...

It was a short, but oh so sweet, conversation this morning.

“Hi Peeps.”

“Hi Mom, what’s up?”

“I just needed to hear your voice.”

Then there was a pause, “Oh right; we’re fine. I have to go now but I’ll call you later.”

Some days it would have been a frustrating conversation, but not this morning. It was true, all I needed was to hear my daughter’s voice something that I knew four other moms, and dads, and husbands would not hear today. You have probably heard of the two avalanches that killed four people over the weekend in Washington State. Four competent, savvy, long-time skiers or snowboarders were killed while skiing out of bounds adjacent to ski areas. They were smart and aware of the conditions but decided to go for the joy of the ride. Today, I mourn for their families.

And I don’t get it. I don’t get the urge to enter untracked steep terrain for the thrill of it, but I know that Melanie and her husband, Ben, do;  they were in skiing backcountry this weekend not far from where those skiers died.  As Ben wrote so eloquently today on Facebook,  “Heading out in the Back- or Slack Country to score breath taking turns in deep powder - the kind of thrill many live for - also means entering the kind of terrain that can kill you…. I’d lie if I didn't say I did all this too in and around Mt. Baker ski resort, not far from Stevens over the past three days. Its the kind of news that makes you pause...”   It also made this mother pause to read those words.

I guess you could say that Chris and I are at least in part responsible for Melanie’s love the mountains. After all, we were the ones who strapped skis to the bottom of her tiny five year-old feet and took her to the mountains for the first time. We were the ones who bundled her up, and with her brother, Justin, hit the slopes first thing in the morning, only leaving with the fading light and last chair lift ride.

While Justin and Melanie quickly discovered the speed, and thrills, and great beauty that is downhill skiing, I was the reluctant skier. The reluctant part came from an ill-fated ski trip when Chris and I were first dating.  Assured that lessons were not necessary, I innocently allowed myself to be taken to the top of a N.C. ski mountain. While gamely persevering all day, as only a smitten girl might, in the end my severely bruised legs were the outward signs of a very bruised ego.  Secretly (and later after we were married, quite vocally) I swore I would never subject myself to such lunacy EVER AGAIN. But as with so much in life, things change—especially when children come along. It only took a few Albany, NY winters that began in November and often did not quit until April cooped up inside with two little shake my anti-skiing bias.

Seeing families skiing happily together even when the kids became teens, I was convinced to give it a try. But I had conditions. I would take a lesson and then I would spend as much time as I wanted/needed on the smallest slope until I began to get comfortable. There would be no spousal coaching or urging to higher peaks. Period. With Justin already able to ski we set off with five year-old Melanie and my thirty-three year old skeptical self.

Of course, while Melanie took to the slopes quickly, I can only say, I was not a natural. That first year skiing several times a month, my competency and confidence grew slowly, eventually reaching the point where making it down a gentle green run typically named “Bunny Run” was almost pleasant. Still, for the longest time, my first thought driving home was gratitude that no one was hurt. We all survived in one piece.

While took a while, eventually I began to actually enjoy myself.  Progressively going higher and higher on the mountain and after safely maneuvering Melanie (whose little legs could only reach the ground by jumping) and me off the chair lift, I began to look up and out—as opposed to vigilantly surveying the trail for the least bump. The mountaintop’s vast horizons stretching for miles, whispered of joy, and freedom, and great delight.  And once while skiing fresh powder in Colorado, I swear I heard God laugh at the absurd beauty of the day.

Of course, there were also those bonding moments when a fall happened, or we got separated and spent hours finding each other, or I ended up on some icy black diamond mogul field that had me swearing at the ridiculous nature of the sport. There were days of skiing in trash bags in the rain and terrifying drives home in the fog and ice. But blessedly in all those years we skied together, none of us ever sustained any injury more than a bruised ego, until last week in Utah I when managed to break that streak tearing a tendon in my thumb requiring surgery. (Melanie was the first to say that we have skied now for twenty-five years without an injury—not a bad track record.)

It has been years since I really worried about an injury; my thumb is more annoyance than anything else, but the deaths this weekend, remind me just how lucky we have been and how desperately I want for it to remain that way. Melanie and Ben are careful and smart backwoods adventurers. (Smart enough to ask for Avalanche courses and transponders for Christmas. Just the gift a mother dreams of giving her child.) I love that they feel and share that miraculous freedom of the mountains; I want them to continue to know the joy that feeds their souls.  But today I am reminded that most of all, at the end of the day, I want them always to be able to innocently pick up the phone, “Hey mom, hey Susan, so what’s up?” That is all I need to hear.