Worthy of Love and Belonging*

 * - Brené Brown

Most of my readers probably know that I'm a psychotherapist (aka a counsellor). My practice includes adults age 16 and up, individuals and couples. 

What some might not know is that in training, student counsellors are taught that it is considered necessary for every counsellor to HAVE a counsellor. So yes, I have one. My therapist helps me stay on track personally, holds me accountable for important things I often forget when I am busy. In particular, such things include self-care, which is written into the Code of Ethics of my certifying body. In fact, it's in the very first article of that Code! 

Blossoms - free image from Pixabay

Since seeing this particular therapist, I've been taking more time to do some of the things I let slide before. I spend more time out in Nature, marvelling at the handiwork I see. I reach out to friends and to people that have touched my life in some way, even if just to say thank you (those are powerful words, just saying). I look after my emotional needs. I tell people that I care about how I feel about them. I spend time thinking about any unresolved feelings about past events that may be hindering me, and I work to clear those things the same way I help my clients do the same. (How can I help them to heal, unless I first heal myself?)  I take time to enjoy the relationships I have in my life.

The other day, I was outside on our property. Our pink weigelas are in a riot of bloom, and there is a honeybee hive not far from here. Coming in close to the bush, I could smell the gentle but heady scent of the flowers. And then I saw her. A honeybee had crawled into one of the weigela blossoms. I could only see the back half of her as the flowers are trumpet-shaped. As I watched, I could see her hind end rhythmically going up and down as she drank deeply the nectar that was inside of that flower. Time seemed to stand still. There was only the bee in the flower. And I marvelled at how bees have two stomachs: one for nectar and one for pollen. And I considered in my soul how the bee takes only what she needs to feed her body, and gives the rest to the hive to feed the colony. In so doing, she is nourished to be able to contribute to the good of all, and she tastes the sweetness of what she will give to her sisters at the hive. What a beautiful picture of self-care in the context of a natural care-giver! 

I've carried that picture with me ever since, in my mind's eye. It's okay to gain strength as I give to those who need some of that same strength. It's okay to look after me on a regular basis - it helps me to better help others. 

The secret - and I think the bee knows this instinctively without having to be taught (unlike us humans) - is in adopting and believing in a phrase that Brené Brown uses often: "[I am] worthy of love and belonging." The bee is a crucial member of the hive and knows instinctively her role and her worth. She is listened to when she returns to the hive to tell the others where to find nectar. She is believed. She is respected. She belongs. And ... just so ... in my new and renewed relationships with those who are my equals, I belong as well. I am valued. I am worthy of love ... and respect ... and friendship ... and belonging. That reality brings me such gratitude. 

These are thoughts that have been percolating in my mind lately. And these thoughts are the reasons why I have been reaching out to people who are in my life, letting them know how much I appreciate them, spending time with them, sending a note to connect with them, and realizing more and more that I grow in attachment with others. Not necessarily in a crowd (because that's not my style) but in individual connections with one or two people at a time. As I do so, I get to remember how very rich (not in dollars, but in the depth of those individual relationships) I am. I'm so thankful! 

The Long Dark

Ever since I was a child, I have been afraid of the dark. It held unknown things, monsters, the bogey-man, and shapes that in the daylight would never have bothered me. In the dark, though, those familiar shapes transmuted into my deepest fears: being eaten, being buried, being hurt or killed. My dreams haunted me, and when I awoke there was nothing in the dark but those fears. My heart thumped in my chest like a caged animal trying to get out. 

The band-aid solution when I was a child was to leave one of the lights on outside my room (usually the bathroom light), with the door ajar to let everyone else sleep. Yet the fear of the dark followed me into adulthood. 

As I have been "growing up on the inside" the last year or so, one of the things that has been coming to the fore is this fear. I'm finding that somehow, unbidden, it is less than it was. I awaken in the middle of the night and listen - not for monsters anymore, but for the gentle sound of people sleeping, for the furnace coming on to warm up the water in the pipes, and other 'normal' noises in the house. 

Free Image "Northern Lights Aurora"
by Hans Braxmeier at Pixabay

Plus, I am beginning to notice the things that can only be seen in the dark. The stars, the moon, the Northern Lights, these are all invisible at noon in full sun. Slowly I am arriving - I know not how - at the notion that instead of running from or railing at the darkness, I can appreciate the gifts that are available to me at night: the heavenly lights, the odd meteor shower, even the space station if it is overhead. 

I can remind myself that the morning comes. It always comes - whether gray and misty or bright and sunny - the day follows the night.  Being in an atmosphere of acceptance and love, as I have been lately, has a way of bringing with it clarity, purpose, and confidence. And the dark ... doesn't seem so bad now, even if (in the winter) it lasts longer than I would like. I just settle myself down and focus on some small thing - the ticking of the clock, the sound of my husband's breathing as he sleeps, or even my own breath - and before I know it, I'm waking up again, morning has come and the sun is not far from rising. 

Such an attitude helps me when I am waiting for some much-anticipated thing, or when I am undergoing some difficult experience, or when I am sick or lonely. The morning always comes. There is hope. There is something positive even IN the experience, even if I don't know what that is at the time. And I focus on my breath, and I am grateful for the things and the people that are in my life, and the darkness passes. It just does. 

Funny how that happens.

Do not pass go

I had an experience on Wednesday of last week (October 17, 2018) and it has taken me quite some time to be able to put that experience - and my feelings about it - into words.

Those of you who know me well, know that for the last few years I have been working toward becoming a counsellor. In the last year, I struggled to find a practicum site in my own province and found nothing that was available, which would accept my university's requirement to have me videotaped while I was in session with a client (so my distance-education professors could see me in action). I ended up looking in a neighbouring province and found a placement there. I therefore moved to that city and leased an apartment, essentially doubling my monthly expenses (and more) with my salary reduced by half so I had sufficient time to spend on my clinical hours.  The practicum, I told people, would last for 8 months, followed by my part-time employment with the agency for another year at least. The plan was set - I was living alone for the first time in my life, and managing. But I was quite homesick, and it took a lot of energy to just function.

Without going into the gory details, of which there are many, the placement didn't work out for quite a number of reasons, and I was "let go" (read: raked over the coals and told to leave and not come back) a little over a week ago. The ordeal took about four and a half hours from start to finish; it was very traumatic and hurtful, and struck to the very core of who I am. I had thought that things were improving after a rough start, so this development blindsided me and left me in shock for days. 

Photo "Sad Woman Sitting Alone In Room" courtesy of
FrameAngel at www.freedigitalphotos.net

I have been pinging around in the stages of grief ever since that day. At the moment, I am bouncing between anger and depression. I know that it will pass, eventually, but going through it is no picnic. The whole experience made me realize that I have never fully addressed my traumatic childhood and its ripple effects in my current life (hypersensitivity, insecurity, fear, suspicion, etc.) If the experience highlighted anything for me, it was that until I can put these issues to rest, I will not be able to fully be present for any future clients I might have. Any hope of resuming my graduate program rests, therefore, on my own mental health, which at the moment is quite frail.

I have spoken with my doctor to ask him to refer me to a psychologist, which he has done. Fortunately, my health care insurance company will pay for 80% of the cost of any sessions I have (up to a certain ceiling amount) - and knowing the depth of my issues, I foresee needing long-term therapy to delve into some of these very difficult traumas from my past as well as their fall-out in my daily life. 

In a major way, I feel like I've gotten a "Go To Jail" card in the Monopoly game of my life (Go Directly To Jail - do not pass Go, do not collect $200). I cannot proceed until I receive my "Get Out Of Jail" card. Until then, I will keep rolling the dice while others progress on their own paths.

I have had a lot of reactions to what happened, some healthy, some not so much. In a sense, I am somewhat grateful that this surfaced before I screwed up with a client or something. 

In another sense, I want the ground to open up and swallow me. Shame is my constant companion. Grief (from losing my future career, quite possibly) crashes over me and I sometimes cannot even breathe, it is so intense. The circumstances of my loss fill my nightmares, attack my character, condemn me for my naivete. Basically, I am keenly aware that I mortgaged my future and locked myself into a planned early retirement to do this, only to fail. True that my supervisor was the worst possible fit for my personality, but that takes none of the pain away.

Everything is an effort, and there is much to do. I have been trying to extricate myself from the life I have built away from my home - putting my apartment on the market again (hopefully sooner than later), cancelling my flight to Alberta that I booked for school, cancelling an order for furniture for my home office, etc. - and coming to terms with having to go back home in disgrace.

One of my close friends in the grad program asked me to tell her what she could do to support me. While her question is a valid (and sweet) one, I honestly don't know what to tell her. I cannot say when (or if) I will resume my graduate program. I told my professor it would be next September; I hope so, but I cannot be sure of that. This experience has shaken me to my roots. It has demolished the core of who I am and made me question everything I thought I was. It is by far the worst thing I have ever had to endure, and that includes losing my daughter five years ago. For that admission, I feel guilty as well, but I have also learned that trauma is cumulative ... which means that the more unresolved trauma you have, the worse it affects you every. single. time. 

I know that a lot of people will judge me for my failure, and for my reaction to it. They will judge me for my choices. They will judge me for my feelings. But I also know that those people do not know what it is like to be me, because they have never lived my life. What I need most from the people who are in my life is understanding, and support, and empathy. I need them to build me up, not kick me when I'm down. I had enough of that - in the last little while - to last six lifetimes. 

I tell you this, my readers, so that if I talk about my journey, whatever form that takes, you will recognize that this is just one more layer of Getting Unwrapped. This is one more (painful as it is) phase in my growing process. And hopefully, someone somewhere will find my raw musings to be helpful. 

I have also learned, over the years, that most people don't want to hear about tough stuff unless someone has already gone through the tough parts and came through to the other side, and can inspire them. I'll be rigorously honest. Right now, I cannot do that. Right now, my spirit is bleeding, and tender, and disfigured. Right now, I am not fit company to be around because I am super-sensitive to what people say ... and especially to what they think about me. I am not able to "bounce back" from this kind of devastation without help. I cannot put on a happy face when everything I am is pulverized, when everything I have built my self-perception on is in question. 

What I can be is genuine. What I can be is open and willing to do what is necessary to rid myself of the things in me that hurt others. What I can be is what I am: broken. In my brokenness, in my vulnerability, I have asked for help from those who are trained to help. I do not expect my friends and family to "fix" me ... but I hope that they will be gracious and understand that I am doing what I can to heal. 

Taking Shape

I think that using some of my saved-up vacation this month has been a godsend as I make the transition into my final year of my Masters degree in counselling. This is the "practicum year" and for me, launching out on this exciting but intense and potentially draining endeavour (because it IS so new) has meant that I have needed to devote more time to self-care in all things. 

Something as little as not opting to sign up for cable has had far-reaching results in my life. As most of you know, I had to move to a different province and leave my family behind while I do my practicum, and so, with a lower salary

Photo "Woman Relaxing With Her
Eyes Closed" is photostock, courtesy
of
www.freedigitalphotos.net

and increased expenses (rent AND mortgage, plus all the other expenses involved in living alone), I have had to make certain sacrifices and cable was one of them.  Yet, I can see that I now have more time to devote to feeding my spirit with positive, encouraging music in the mornings, and I have found that I have been dividing the extra time from being on vacation (AND not watching television) between spending a little extra time at my practicum site, and putting on the finishing touches to my apartment, while slowly ridding myself of the piles and piles of boxes, bags and Styrofoam inserts that have been cluttering my apartment's office all summer long (from the move). 

Today, I finally got my Internet up and running, since I will need that for school, for my practicum homework, and for my work (when I eventually start back at it again near the end of September). I had had a call into tech support and they had asked for a service call - but by the time the guy got here, I had figured out that the phone jack I was plugging the modem into was defective somehow, and relocated the modem to a room with a working jack in it.  When the guy got here, he told me that the first jack not a real phone jack at all, but a connector for sharing screens on two different televisions, which the previous tenants had set up. It was a small victory for me to solve my own problem rather than waiting for some white knight to come charging in.

And between running errands at the stores, rearranging my kitchen supplies, putting up wall decorations, and taking the extra trash out the last couple of days, I noticed today that I am not taking the stairs so slowly ... unless I have a super heavy load to carry. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless. (No pun intended).

I am also eating more sensibly. All I had to do when I was living with my family was just mention some whim I had for this or that sweet or salty treat, and it magically appeared within a day or so. Now, I have to buy everything myself, and not only that, actually make the trip to do that. In a strange city, I find I hesitate before going out, especially in the early evening. This evening, I took off to go to the Wal-Mart - but I got lost and ended up about six exits away from where I needed to be. Out came Siri (my i-Phone's GPS), and after I convinced her I wasn't going to the town of New Brunswick in New Jersey (haha) she got me to the Wal-Mart. And she got me back home again - in the dark - so if I am learning anything, it is to recognize when I am out of my league and ask for help. This too is a positive thing.  Of course the main reason I went was for a certain item - and I completely forgot it - but at least I got there and back! 

All in all, everything is taking shape - from the apartment, to my practicum, to my activity level, to my eating, to my self-care. I am tired at the end of a day, but it is a good kind of tired. I find myself looking forward to my practicum days - even though they are intense and action-packed - wondering what I will get to do that day. It is hard, and wonderful, and nerve-wracking, and exciting, and stressful, and I am reaching the end of each day knowing that, as my supervisor puts it, (1) nobody got hurt today, (2) nobody wanted to hurt themselves today, and (3) nobody wanted to hurt anyone else today. 

Yes, things are taking shape. And so am I, from the inside out.

Careful Watch

He has done it for decades without calling attention to it. He has been our guardian - our protector. He has set a careful watch over our little family and he has been the go-to person in times of crisis ... unless he was in one of his own. He has soldiered on for years, uncomplaining, when he really should have asked to have his own needs met. 

Like about two and a half years ago, when he was shoveling snow off the deck. His shovel hit a nail and he felt an immediate searing pain in the front of his right shoulder. But he didn't seek medical attention. He figured it would heal. Sure, he was weaker in that arm but he was getting older, right? 

Then, a year and a half ago, he playfully whiffed a snowball overhand at our daughter during one of the first major snowfalls of the season - and felt that pain again. This time he could not hide it. We insisted that he mention it to his doctor. He did - two months later - after we would not let him forget it. 

An X-ray, an appointment with a specialist, and an MRI later (all of which took about 8 months) they booked him for surgery to repair the place where he had partially torn his biceps muscle out of his right rotator cuff. (He's right-handed). 

Just after he got back from the recovery room.
So relieved to have the surgery behind him!!

And this morning, he finally had the surgery. All went as planned and he even got the first slot for morning surgery, so the OR was spotless and he was done in jig time. 

After he was out of recovery, they watched him and gave us instructions for post-op care. Within about an hour, we were back home and we got him all set up in his recliner, which we'd rigged with a "remote" so he could use his left hand to operate it. He got comfortable and then started drifting in and out of sleep, without the benefit of pain medications. 

And now he is still doing the same - trooper that he is. The air conditioning is on, and we are pretty much at his beck and call until he is able to get out of the sling - to our surprise he will only be in it for 2 weeks before he can start physiotherapy, which is far better than we anticipated; before the surgery, the doctor had told us that it could be as much as six weeks before physio. That tells us that things went well and there were no unexpected events... which is great news, and we are very relieved! 

As a result, I feel a bit more confident in leaving when I go out of province to start my practicum in another couple of weeks or so. He will be all healed up and strong again by American Thanksgiving!

But in the meantime, instead of being the person who watches over others, we get to watch over him - and it is a privilege to have the opportunity to return the favor to him. He deserves it - and more - so we continue our careful watch.

2017 in review - Gratitude month by month

Every December 31, I take the calendar out and transfer birthdays, anniversaries, and appointments onto the next year's calendar before storing the current year's calendar away (I have calendars going back several years, which would come in handy were I ever to write my memoirs, haha!)

If I could choose a word to describe what 2017 has been for me and mine, it would have to be 'miraculous'.  Rather than theme by theme, I thought I'd take it month by month to show you how that has played out in my / our life.

January

January 4 - My brother had surgery to remove about five inches of bowel due to having stage 1 colon cancer. The surgery was successful; they got it all, and he did not have to have chemo. While he was in the hospital, he had a gall bladder attack and because of the recent surgery, they only put in a drainage tube instead of removing the gall bladder. He still has the tube... but more about him later.

January 9 - I had surgery to remove my reproductive organs due to some pre-cancerous cells inside my uterus (discovered the previous October via a biopsy done under anesthetic). I was off work for about 5 weeks. After the initial recovery period, I discovered that I had more energy and slept better at night than I had been. 

February

February 16 - I returned to work after my surgery January 9. I had been team leading since October so was returning to that - what a wonderful experience! 

February 27 - My post-surgery consultation / followup - my OB/GYN told me that everything was fine and that I had far less chance of getting other kinds of cancer (e.g., breast) now that my uterus was gone. :) 

February 28 - I celebrated eight years in recovery from codependency (see my "What is Codependency" tab). It might seem like a small thing, but my life is so much better now that I am living a more free lifestyle.

March

March 14 - my husband had an MRI on his right shoulder to determine the cause of his shoulder pain and weakness that he'd had ever since a shoveling accident last winter.

March 25 - my husband celebrated 8 years in recovery from alcoholism. Every day is a celebration really, but this is one of those landmarks we remember every year. 

March is a hard month usually; we have had our fill of winter by the time New Year's rolls around, so in March, with winter showing no sign of abating, things can get pretty exhausting and discouraging. A couple of well-timed vacation days near the end of March tides us over until the next long weekend - Easter (which was in April this year.)

In mid-March, my brother had to go into the hospital to stabilize his sugars (he is an insulin-dependent diabetic and the sugars, due to stress, were around six times what they should have been). He was home again in a few days, but while he was gone, we had to rely on extended family members to take up the slack of caring for my mother. Some of these family members got tired of doing that. It was the beginning of the end of a lot of things - though we didn't know it at the time.

April

April 14 - Good Friday - A day-visit to see my mom and brother showed us how badly Mom's dementia had deteriorated since our last visit a few months previous. I was seriously starting to worry that she might burn the house down by leaving a burner on or something.

April 17 - Easter Monday - My brother again had to go to hospital to deal with a cardiac incident. He was only in the hospital for about a week, but while he was gone, those extended family members, who I mentioned earlier, put their sinister plan into motion.

April 19 - Due to lies told to a Social Worker, Mom was taken to hospital "for her own safety" since my brother was still in the hospital and the extended family members didn't want to care for her. As a result, she became a "court-ordered" patient and wheels were put in motion to keep her in the hospital until she could be placed into a nursing home.  

May

May 26 - My husband had his appointment with an orthopedic surgeon regarding the MRI he had undergone in March. The surgeon told him that his bicep muscle had mostly torn away from his rotator cuff in one spot and that he would need surgery to repair it. The wait times for this would be about a year or so. They finally settled on August 2018.

May 29 - My brother received a writeup of the allegations that put Mom into the custody of the province.  He showed me a photo of each of the pages. Everything they said was either a bald-faced lie or a gross exaggeration and misinterpretation of the facts. He had no money to fight it in court. We advised against fighting since it was the province (not the extended family members) who would gain financial control over Mom's affairs.

June

June 9 - After two years of talking about it, we finally got our tub "replaced" - we used Bathfitters and we were very pleased with the results! This was a big deal because the old tub (a purple one from the 1970s) was such an eyesore and so was the badly done tile job around it. Now we have a sleek, easy-to-clean tub and shower surround. 

June 16 - I started seeing a counsellor to help me deal with the stress of the situation with Mom and my brother. The therapist and I immediately clicked!

June 20 - My husband and I celebrated 36 years as husband and wife. 

July

July 10 - I headed out to Calgary for a 2-week intensive finale to my Group Counselling course. A good friend of my daughter's picked me up at the airport and drove me to campus. My room-mates were pretty good and even took me to the grocery store that afternoon so that I could have food for the coming week. Such a contrast to the last year I was there!

July 13 - That friend and her partner had me over to their house for the BEST steak dinner I have EVER tasted - and the partner even helped me with a computer problem I had been having. :)  They offered to take me out to breakfast on the 16th - Arielle's birthday (she would have been 25). 

July 15 - A classmate contacted me and drove me out to Canmore - close to the Rockies - and I saw the mountains up close and in person for the first time ever. NO comparison to only seeing pictures!! it was a spiritual experience for me mostly because Arielle had seen a similar sight when she and a friend drove to Calgary from Edmonton about a month before she died. 

July 16 - Breakfast at Denny's - what more needs to be said?  It was busy because it was a Sunday morning, but the food was great and my daughter's friends put themselves out to make the day a little more bearable for me.

July 21 - The flight home. My daughter's friend's partner drove me early to the Calgary airport, so I spent a LOT of time waiting at one airport or another. I was supposed to arrive at 11:10 pm, but due to the absolute worst thunderstorm of the year on the Eastern seaboard (affecting flights leaving LaGuardia in NY), my connector was delayed.  It arrived two and a half hours late in Toronto, and then when it finally took us to the Maritimes, the same storm was affecting our ability to land in PEI (five inches of rain on the runway). We diverted to Moncton, spent an hour inside the plane while the pilot was on the horn with officials in both places, and then finally took off to land in PEI around 3:15 am. I could have kissed the tarmac when we landed here! 

August

I spent more time than usual in the sun. After my time in Calgary and the intensity of Summer Institute, I welcomed the chance to relax whenever I could. Aside from a dental filling and a couple of birthdays, there's nothing written on the calendar for this particular month. 

However, my daughter did decide to take a course through Athabasca University online, a precursor to eventually transferring the credit to UPEI. It was a big move for her psychologically, and although she was anxious, we were confident that this was a good move for her.

My brother was diagnosed with cataracts.

September

I began a four-month hiatus from school. No courses that I needed were being offered in that term, so I paid my program fee (to hold my place in the program) and then prepared to fill the time with something else. I must admit that I didn't know WHAT I would fill the time with, so September I spent a lot of time lurking on Facebook, playing computer games, and watching television: luxuries I only sipped in moderation when I was taking classes.

I took to calling Mom about 3 times a week, and my brother at least once a week. During this time, he was learning how to manage a household on his own for the first time in his life, so I was giving him tips and tricks to getting things done and bills paid on time. I also helped him stick-handle through the process of trying to get quotes to put in an oil-fired furnace to replace the wood furnace he could no longer tend (he had qualified for a grant for this).

October

Photo "Young Plant" by amenic181 at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I rediscovered crochet in October, and began one birthday project for my brother, and started my Christmas projects. Finally there was something productive to do with my evenings and weekends!

October 9 - Thanksgiving - We had friends over and I cooked a turkey with all the trimmings, including some deep-dish pumpkin pie I made myself. The food was good, but the company was better!

October 26 - What was to be a trip to NB to take my brother to an ophthalmologist's appointment (pre-surgery) ended up with me going to the Moncton hospital after learning he'd had a heart attack the day before. Fortunately the damage was minimal. Yet he was still having chest pain.

I remember having a great visit with him, including telling his kidneys to return to function, and telling his pancreas to behave themselves, in preparation for an upcoming cardiac procedure. 

While I was there, I visited my mom, who was still in the hospital awaiting placement, and who thought she'd only gotten there about a week ago (it had been over six months.) It was a good visit, not at all like I might have feared.

October 30 - My brother had his cardiac procedure and it went perfectly! They put in two stents in the vessels on his upper heart muscle because there was a 90% blockage in one and a 70% blockage in the other. His kidneys didn't fail and his sugars actually improved with the decrease in stress.  Within hours, all the pain was gone - just gone!! - and he was able to get a full breath and even was able to walk for more than 50 feet by the end of the following day!

He was still waiting for the furnace project to get going, however, after he got back home. He was keeping the electric thermostat on 58 degrees and using the blanket I had crocheted for him to keep warm when the temperatures started dipping. The hospital stay gave him a reprieve from that, but the weather wasn't getting any warmer and with a badly insulated house, things were pretty chilly.

November

After involving the NB Ombudsman as well as some creative plans to get the furnace work done, the grant people finalized the agreement with an installer to put in the furnace. They started the work on my brother's birthday, near the end of November. 

Interestingly, the nights didn't get as cold as they usually did that time of year. 

He also made arrangements through Social Services to get transportation to and from medical appointments. This was a big relief for everyone!

My daughter decided to attend UPEI as an "unclassified student" while she was taking some upgrading to qualify for a program there: the Kinesiology degree. This was a huge deal for her.

December

December 3 - My brother's first delivery of furnace oil happened early that Sunday morning and he texted me, "Sis, it's 68 degrees and so warm." 

December 8 - Mom was moved into the nursing home. At last count she seemed to be settling in, but the staff was discouraging visitors that she would associate with her going back home. As yet, we have not yet seen her.

December 11 - Many discussions with UPEI Registrar and Student services later, we had the joy of seeing our daughter register for a Kinesiology course at UPEI to start January 3, 2018. 

December 13 - My brother had an appointment with his surgeon (the one who did the cancer operation). She's been monitoring his creatinine levels to give her an indication of how well his kidneys are doing. Before the cardiac procedure they were at 600 (the high end of normal is 113). He told me on the 13th that even though the doctors could not explain how, his creatinine was now at 225, and that he was in the best shape he has been in for several years! What a great Christmas gift!

December 23 - A good day-visit to see brother - we gave him his Christmas gifts. He cooked a scrumptuous meal and enjoyed our company to the full!  He still has his drainage tube but now has a target date for the surgery to remove it (and the gall-bladder): March 2018. That is quite the relief. We are still waiting for word from the ophthalmologist on the date for the cataract surgery. They want to talk to his cardiologist first. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.

December 25 - This was the first Christmas we have spent alone (with just the 3 of us) since Arielle passed away. It appears we were ready for it - a quiet one with just us - and a good turkey dinner to share and lots of leftovers!

December 26 - Shepherd's pie with friends who came over for supper and the evening. A good time was had by all! Precious memories built and exchanged, and nobody left the table hungry, haha.

December 31 - Today. We are planning a quiet evening at home with a dear friend.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2018

The year ahead looks bright with many significant changes coming up and lots of bends in the road ahead. Yet all we have seen, as R. W. Emerson said, leads us to trust our Creator for all we have not seen.

I wish my readers all the absolute best of all things for 2018.

The Last Person

I started a transformation journey in 2009. Part of that journey was learning that other people (and that I) had boundaries, and that nobody had the right to cross those. Nobody. And, that in some cases, even with the other person's permission to do just that, it's not a good idea.

But one of the hardest facets about this journey - and it has many facets, like any jewel - has been learning self-care and self-compassion.  I tend to be way harder on myself than I am on others.  As my expectations of other people have lowered to reasonable levels, you'd expect that my expectations of myself would also decrease.  Mmmm, not so much.  If I hit anything less than perfection, I am the first to criticize myself and beat myself up inside over not living up to how well I wanted to do something. So learning self-compassion has been ... shall we say ... a process rather than a destination. I get better at it, then slip back, have to learn the same lessons over and over, and eventually, the marker for "normal" moves a millimeter.  It's progress, but to me it seems glacially slow! 

So, sometimes I have to force myself to do things for myself that I would not hesitate to do for a friend. In fact, Dr. Kristen Neff said something in a video I saw this past summer that stuck with me. She said something like this : if you wouldn't treat someone you loved and respected a certain way, then why would you treat yourself that way? Being compassionate toward yourself, she said, connects you with humanity because as you give yourself a break when you make mistakes, you can be more compassionate toward others when they mess up. (For more information on this, visit www.self-compassion.com ... somewhere on the site are the videos I watched; each one is about 10 minutes. 

Photo "Mirror" courtesy of Arvind Balaraman
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

And self-compassion goes hand-in-hand with another similar term that I've been learning about too: self-care.  Self-care can be just as much doing nice things for myself as it is in not doing (or saying) bad things to myself. So it can include staying away from individuals, groups or situations that are bad for my (mental and/or physical) health, but it can also mean taking steps to look after my needs for sleep, nutrition, and activity, among other things. Lately, I have been taking time out for myself - not to "do" anything in particular, but just to recharge and to follow that old McDonald's slogan: "You deserve a break today..." I don't always practice this, but I find that if I don't, I end up being more irritable and more overwhelmed by the basic day-to-day of life. I cannot give away what I don't have. And so, I need to cultivate a friendship with the last person I expected ... me. I need to be my own friend.

That flies in the face of everything my own culture drummed into me when I was a child. Others first. Self-sacrifice. And as noble as those things sound, I have found them to be fundamentally flawed, because I used to live like that. I was the last person to eat, the last person in line at the store because I would let others go first, the last person to speak up or to speak out.  And by the time I got around to looking after myself, there was nothing left, and there was no energy left in me ... and I just didn't. Or I took the leftovers of what everyone else didn't want. And I got more and more stressed, resentful, and burnt out. 

When I started giving myself permission to look after me first, lo and behold, I had more energy to give to others, and my stress and resentment went way down! It amazed me how that worked. Instead of becoming more selfish, I became more able to be there for someone who really needed me when the time came, less distracted by my own needs and more able to concentrate on theirs. (Huh. How 'bout that.) 

Moreover, I found that I was better able to accept others' care for me instead of brushing it off and saying I didn't need it. Quite effectively, that gave my loved ones the gift of being able to pour into my life, a gift I had been denying them by trying to be too self-sufficient. And I've been learning that when I accept their care for me, and say "Thank you," I give them the added gift of feeling pleased because they had made a difference in my life. Because they love me. And that is so amazing to the last person who would have expected it: me.

All in - chronicles of an in-patient

It's been quite the unusual start to the year. My brother and I had surgery within 5 days of one another - his was for a resection of bowel due to stage 1 colon cancer, and mine was for a total hysterectomy due to pre-cancerous cells in the uterus.

In both cases, excellent surgeons (his in his province and mine in mine) removed the faulty plumbing (so to speak) and cauterized the blood vessels that were nourishing their respective areas. All is well. 

But the experience of going "all in", of committing to the process, of facing the unknown? That's terrifying. Literally. 

I would daresay that nobody knows better than someone with multiple health issues (not the least of which is obesity) the terror involved in facing the prospect of undergoing a general anesthetic (not to mention the whole notion of someone cutting into your body). They explain the risks to you in no uncertain terms; you have to sign a waiver releasing them of any legal repercussions should you die on the table. That's serious stuff, and not "just a formality." Needless to say, that should be enough to give anyone cause for concern.

Add to that my own private terror of The Needle (more specifically, the Intravenous) - the knowledge that not only is someone going to take a hunking two-inch-long steel needle and poke a hole into your vein, but then take a tube (which by definition is BIGGER in diameter than the needle) and slide it into the vein along that same needle - and the pain involved in that process (especially if they MISS), and you have a recipe for the screaming meemies!  As a matter of fact, THAT was the thing that scared me more than dying on the table. Let that sink in for a minute.

And even though they numbed the area with some cream in advance, the pain of their first attempt left me writhing and calling out for my higher power on the bed as they held my arm down and tried to force the tube into a vein in my hand that was no longer yielding blood. So they had to start all over again somewhere else - first the cream and then a repeat of that experience on my opposite forearm ... and with another nurse. This time, she realized that it was a dud with the tube only half-way in - and removed it. "We'll wait for the anesthetist," she stated. "He's really good." 

And he was. He told me what he was going to do and when, he took his time finding a vein, and true to his word, he used a pediatric (child-sized) needle - and from the time of the initial pin-prick until the tube was in, was only about three seconds and the most painless I had ever felt. My jaw just dropped - it was so the opposite of what I had endured the previous two attempts!! He told me that he was going to wait until I was under the anesthetic before putting in an adult-sized intravenous tube - for which I thanked him. 

And then I realized that this was it. That hurdle was behind me, and I was now caught up in a process in which the only way out was forward. There was no turning back now. I was all in. 

The too-much-information details

They had put compression stockings on me to keep me from getting blood clots - which only confirmed to me the fact that I would be "out" for longer than I had ever been before (an estimated 3 hours compared to the 1 hour in previous surgeries elsewhere) and that I would be on my back for almost 24 hours after that. And the stockings were still there, although rolled down a bit, when I awoke in recovery over four hours later.

My first thought - I'm alive! My second thought - I'm awake! My third thought - my mouth is so dry! I spoke that thought out loud, and a nurse moistened the inside of my lips with what looked like a tiny water-filled sponge on the end of a stick. After a while they gave me an ice-chip. It was glorious!

I was surprised how little pain there was - compared to my expectations that is - and I remember feeling some cramping in my belly area, about a five out of ten.  They suggested something for the pain - and I said yes - they mumbled something about Fentanyl as they pushed it into the IV tube (wow that stuff is strong.)  Apparently the 'good drugs' loosened my tongue (and according to the nurse who was looking after me, I was a "delight." Whatever that means.) And I noticed how much it felt like I had to urinate. "That's the catheter," someone said. "You're doing okay, just let it happen, it always feels like that." Oh. Oh good. Good to know.

This image, entitled "I Am Here To Help You"
is by stockimages and can be found at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

After I was settled in my room, which was in the maternity ward (oh how ironic since they'd just taken my uterus OUT) I remember them cleaning me up, using plenty of water to do so (one of the best, most decadently cared-for experiences I have had in a long time!), and then changing my sheets with me in the bed and the IV still hooked up to my right hand. That they could do this completely amazed me. (Obviously the Fentanyl was still having an effect on me...)

I remember my family suddenly being there and other sensations - the most disturbing of which was my panic reaction when the pregnant lady in the bed beside me got an ultrasound and I could hear the baby's heartbeat. I wasn't prepared for that fight-or-flight reaction. With all my heart I wanted to be anywhere but in that room. The emotions were raw, wrenching, horrific. With every beat of that baby's heart, I could remember the last time I had an ultrasound and heard that noise - all the while knowing in my current situation ... that my youngest daughter would never return to me. I was instantly transported into grief, as fresh as the day I learned she had died in that car crash over 3 years ago, and all I wanted to do was escape that noise: blooka-blooka-blooka... on and on.  I said something about earplugs - and my oldest daughter (who was visiting along with her dad) reached into her pocket and handed me a set of earplugs that so happened to be there. (I looked at her like she was magic, and inserted the earplugs. They stayed in my ears except for nurses' visits, until I gave up trying to sleep around 6:30 am.) My roommate was discharged the next day.

I did sleep a tiny bit that night, but only for five to fifteen minutes at a time - not enough for my body to get any rest. I was afraid that I would drop the call button (not realizing - because of the drugs - that I could tell them about that so they could tie its cord to the bed rail). In my mind, I was responsible for keeping track of that button because it was my lifeline to getting help, so I spent the whole night holding onto it. Not being a back-sleeper, I found that position very uncomfortable (even more so with that huge iron bar under the mattress at the level of my upper backside) but I could do nothing to change it. Makng any movement at all on my own was exhausting; I felt like I'd been run over by a truck or something. Everything was sore ... and I was so tired!  I remember once complaining about the bar underneath of me, and two of the staff moved me (sheet and all) up toward the head of the bed. Then they adjusted the bed to take the pressure off my lower back.It helped a little, but I am short, and gravity is a thing, so soon I was back down on the bar again. I would need to endure this for another 12 hours.  (Only today - four and a half days later - is the bone bruise from this iron-bar experience beginning to show through my skin.)

The next morning, around 7:30 am, they gave me a heparin shot - I stopped the nurse and asked what it was for before the needle went in - and probably I seemed a little paranoid about it (given my experience with sharp objects, it seemed perfectly valid to me!) Heparin is a medication that prevents blood clots - often referred to as a 'blood thinner' but it just stops the blood from clotting and doesn't actually thin the blood. The shot stung, but not as much as I expected. Then the nurse got this empty syringe and headed toward me. I asked her what that thing was for, and she said it was to take my "Foley" out (I had to look it up just now to understand what the syringe was for - thanks, Wikipedia!) I asked her what a Foley was and she said it was my catheter. She hooked the empty syringe up to the tube beside my bed (where the urine-bag was), withdrew some clear liquid, and then pulled out the catheter. Just like that. Interesting sensation, that was. It was no wonder I always felt like I had a full bladder. (Shudder!) Within three hours - since I was still on the intravenous fluids - I had to go to the bathroom!

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The good. I was expecting a fluid breakfast on the morning following my surgery, but they brought me toast, a boiled egg, some sort of shiny glutenous mass that looked something like watered-down oatmeal (it was.) They also had lots of fluids: milk, water, and hot water with a teabag and some sweetener, as well as some diced peaches. I could barely see over the tray because I was so far down in the bed that only my shoulders and head would raise when the head of the bed was raised.  I got someone to help me with that, and was finally able to see my food.  The peaches tasted good and so did the egg! I was grateful for the food and made sure to only eat as much as I would have eaten at home - which was about half of the toast, almost all the egg (which by then was tepid), all the peaches, and a few bites of the oatmeal (ugh! even with the teensy bit of brown sugar they gave me...) I used half the milk to make the orange pekoe tea easier on the stomach. There was no coffee. I asked for ice chips and ice water. 

I drank a LOT of water, and even more so after the catheter came out.

Medication time rolled around: the nurse gave me my diabetes pills, a large blue pill they called apo-naproxen that was supposed to help with the cramping, and there was also a stool softener. And at about 10:30, I saw the on-call surgeon, who apparently had assisted with my operation. He explained to me what they'd done, how I was going to be feeling, and when I might get discharged. He said it might be later that day if I was feeling up to it, and that if it was, the nurses could contact him for the paperwork.  (Given the discomfort I was in because of that iron bar under me, I grabbed onto that possibility like a drowning man grabs a buoy.) He drew me some diagrams and talked about the unexpected hernia repair they did - they had not known I had an umbilical hernia and that affected the length of the surgery since they had to check to see if they could still use my belly-button as an entrance port for the tube that contained the micro-camera. They could. Then after they were done doing what I was booked for surgery to do, they had to repair the hernia. The visit was very informative and I got a lot out of what he said. The diagrams helped. The biggest grin came after he said that I would never EVER have to have another pap test AGAIN! 

Soon afterward, the nurse came and blocked off the IV tube and put a "saline lock" on what was still attached and inserted into my right hand. If I would promise to drink water, she said, they could take out the IV tube in a few hours. (Another amazing motivator - since I'm right-handed!)

Every new step I took: getting out of bed, going to the bathroom, getting washed up [mostly] by myself, getting dressed, putting on my socks and shoes, going for a walk, sitting down, standing up, lying down, turning over in bed - all of it took every ounce of strength I had in whatever moment I was doing it.  I was (and HAD to be) totally committed to the task at hand, and when I would finish one small thing and feel "all in," I'd rest a while and then start another. 

There were a few bright spots. I had an amazing nurse and personal care worker.  Plus I surprised my husband and daughter by being dressed and taking a short walk in the hallway (more like an amble, really, quite slow!) when they came in to see me that day, the day after the surgery. Lunch came and they stayed while I ate beef barley soup, half a rubbery breast of chicken, diced carrots and mashed potatoes with margarine. No salt. And instead of the tea, I just used the hot water and milk to make a warm milk drink I used to drink when I was a little girl. Again, I was grateful for the food, and for the company. 

Shortly after that, they removed the nasal tubes they'd been giving me oxygen through. Having that thing off me was wonderful!

I discovered a little seating area in the unit - rocking chairs and a coffee table, by a south-east facing window.  I spent some time there, and even got a chance to visit with a friend for a few minutes - but had to do so outside the unit because at my invitation, she came during the rest period, which I thought started at 2 (it started at 1:30. She arrived at 1:45 and stayed until 2). 

The bad. By that time (about 2 pm), I was so exhausted from having been up (either walking or sitting) ever since 10:45 that morning, that I wanted to lie down. The level of bone-weary tiredness I felt gave new meaning to the expression, "all in." I wearily asked my friend if it would be okay if I went back to my room - and she walked me back to the unit and left me at the door. 

Every step - even though slow - was an effort. My belly felt incredibly tired. Sometimes it cramped with air - apparently when they do surgery by laparascopy, they inflate the abdomen with air. Some of the air gets trapped in there and somehow manages to work its way into the intestine, where it travels - not so quietly and definitely not painlessly - into the colon and out of the body. This is far from comfortable! And it had been happening ever since I woke up from surgery. After a while it just wears you down.

As I was saying, I wanted to lie down and rest, so I slowly walked back to my room, which was at the opposite end of the unit from where my friend dropped me off.  However, a visitor to my brand new pregnant room-mate was wearing some sort of artificial vanilla scented product (either conditioner or deodorant or hand cream or something) and she was sitting right in front of the bathroom door inside my room. The chemical was so overpowering to me that I could not even go into my room. 

I was at the breaking point. It ... wasn't pretty.

The ugly. With the discomfort, plus the frustrations of the previous day, the insomnia and the fatigue on top of it, this was when my patience ran out ... and I began to be what the nurses would have called "difficult" - but only when I was out of earshot.  I told them about the scent problem. "I don't smell anything," a staff member told me. I sighed. "It's not the smell. It's the chemical!!! I can't go in there. I'll have a reaction."  

I wandered the halls for an hour while my roommate and her visitor blithely visited with each other, and even after the visitor left. I even used the washroom in another semi-private (unoccupied) room - which for some reason upset them more than my complaining did! - and I got frustrated and sighed heavily.  I said I was tired of explaining my sensitivities to every single person (even though I had not explained it to the people to whom I was talking) because nobody understood what this was like for me. I felt like I'd explained it to so many people since being admitted the previous day, that something MUST be on my chart. It was on my allergies bracelet, I reasoned to myself. Were these people stupid or did they just not care that I'd been up for hours wandering around? When I rolled my eyes one more time and said I was tired of explaining my sensitivities to everyone, one of the nurses - annoyed - told me that I hadn't explained it to her.  I said that was true, but I felt like I had to explain it to every single person every single time, and I was tired of it. So ... she said that she wasn't going to ask me to explain it to her. (Yeah I guess I had that one coming, in hindsight.) 

Anyway, I mentioned needing a place to lie down, and possibly using the cot in the family room across the hall from my room because I still couldn't get near my room even though the visitor had left over ten minutes previous to that.  (The chemicals used in making fragrances, as I've often mentioned on this blog, linger long after the person has left.) Nobody said anything. I made my way to the end of the hall and turned into the family room. I headed toward the cot, wearily. I started to get on the cot. At that point, their frustration with me showed through, and the PCW told me that the family room was for use by new mothers and their families (nobody was using it at that time) and that I was not allowed to lie down on the cot because the cleaning staff would not be in until the next day. "You can lay down in your room," she said glibly. "No I can't. I can't get near that room."  "I can't smell anything in there, and I've got a good smeller," she told me. 

Sighhh. The "care" in "health care" seemed sadly lacking at that moment. It sucks not being believed, and I have had that experience way too many times with my chemical sensitivities.

I went to the seating area (at the opposite end of the unit) and sat for a while, close to tears, staring at the floor. The sun had gone around the side of the building, so it wasn't warm there anymore - not nearly as comforting as I thought it might be.  After about 20 minutes, I decided to chance another attempt, and walked slowly back toward my room, passing by the nurses' station on the way. My nurse was standing there and asked if she could get me to sit so she could take my vital signs since she had been getting ready to go to my room anyway. I sat and she took my blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen levels. I told her that I had been up ever since they got me up, and that I would really like to go home. She said she would try to get in touch with the on-call surgeon but that he'd been delivering babies all day, it might be a while before he was able to get away. She said she was going to take out my IV tubing once I got settled there. The IV tubing was only supposed to be in there for 24 hours. It had been about 27 hours at the time.  I got up and made my way toward the room. "I wonder if they will reach the doctor tonight or if I'll have to spend another night on that awful bed," I said to myself.

As I neared my room, I could hear the voice of my second pregnant roommate in a row. She was crying out, sobbing in pain, amid other female voices. At least two staff members were with her, trying to make her comfortable. The baby was pressing on her sciatic nerve, and she was in excruciating pain. I silently went into the room and tentatively tested the air. The chemical had dissipated. It was okay for me to stay. I grabbed my pillow, tucked it under my waterproof butt-pad, and then took my rumpled-up blankets and made a pillow with them for my head, and slowly lowered myself onto my side in the bed with one hip on the pillow area, laying on my side for the first time in over 36 hours.  

Illustration "Sketch Of Woman Crying"
by luigi diamanti at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

My roommate was crying aloud with her pain as they tried to find a way for her to get out of her bed and go to the bathroom without her pain intensifying exponentially. She was crying loudly and begging them to stop, to make the pain go away; ten feet away, beside her and unknown to her, I was crying silently in my own kind of pain. The frustration and tension of the day welled up in me and I wept - as uncomfortable as it was for my belly and as selfish as I felt (and ashamed as I felt for my selfishness) - on my bed. All I wanted was to go back home. So, I quietly sobbed into my makeshift pillow. My sobbing was muffled by my roommate's.

Nobody saw; nobody knew. Nobody. There was just me on one side of the curtain and two or three staff members with my roommate on the other side of the curtain. 

After my roommate got settled - about 20 minutes later - with some Dilaudid, I slowly got up and went out to the hallway. People were still busy. Nobody had heard from the doctor yet. I went back to my room and sat on the chair beside my bed. The food services lady came with my supper - that same beef barley soup, a couple of crackers, and the most disgusting macaroni and cheese. Still, it was food and I was grateful. I tried a bite of the cookie that came with it, but it had coconut in it, so I left it alone.

Around 5:30 or so, I found my nurse and asked if I could get a couple of extra pillows and a sheet or two for my bed, so I could lie down on my side and maybe catch a nap. At the time, however, all the staff were busy with a new influx of babies and moms, so she pointed me to the cart and showed me where everything was: pillows, pillowcases, and sheets.  So I took what I needed to my room - and I made my bed.  Me.  Not supposed to lift anything above 5 pounds, intravenous "saline lock" still attached to (and into a vein in) my right hand, and here I was, making my bed. Desperation does funny things I guess. Anyway, I got it done and I laid down again, on my side, waiting for my nurse to come in and keep her promise to take the intravenous tubing out of my hand.

I vaguely remember her coming to my bedside at one point, and asking me how long my doctor told me that I would be off work. I said, "Three to six weeks," and she said, "Awesome, I'll tell the on-call doctor..." and she was gone. My IV tubing was still in my hand. I rested my right hand on the bed in front of me. 

And so, this part of the saga ends... and another begins

I must have drifted off, because it was 6:50 pm when I opened my eyes and my nurse was sitting in front of me. "The doctor got back to me and I have your papers here, including your doctor's note for work."  I slowly sat up and she went over the post-surgical care information with me, after I texted my family to let them know I could come home.  They promised to be there around 7:30. The nurse finally removed my IV tubing. It felt so good to be free of that thing!  I was so grateful to be able to get out of there and to not need to spend another night on that iron bar!   

As I gathered together my belongings, I saw the young lady who had been crying in pain earlier. She seemed more comfortable but very groggy - her partner had been in and told them that they gave her twice as much Dilaudid as she was used to. The medication made her feel overheated, so she had a cold cloth on her forehead. We chatted for a little while, swapped stories. She wished me the best and I did the same for her.  

Soon afterward, my family was in the room and we were getting ready to leave. We stopped by the nurses' station on the way out, and they noted the time of my departure. My daughter insisted on wheeling me out in a wheelchair; I did not argue! My husband went ahead and brought the car up to the entrance.  We got me in the vehicle and my husband drove to our pharmacy, where the pharmacists know the whole family. My daughter went in to fill the prescriptions the doctor left for me. Then we drove home ... an exercise in enduring pain from jostling over the potholes and failed repair attempts that riddle our little city's roadways every few feet. When I finally got out of the car and slowly made my way through the cold, bracing air up the deck stairs and into our house, I was so relieved that my whole body relaxed so much that even my family noticed it.

I was finally where I belonged: home.