Guest Post -- Monday Mission

Hey, you up there with the snow making machine, will you cut it out already! I've had as much as I can handle. In fact, my handle is all over sweaty hand marks because Mary G got too hot this afternoon and took her mittens off. Snow shovels are not supposed to have sweaty handles. It's getting ridiculous. Dig, dig, dig, morning, noon and night.

This afternoon I got scraped and thumped on the garage apron and had to lift over a foot of snow. That stuff is heavy, eh? This is after the tractor was supposed to have cleared it out. Yesterday it was decks and porches. And more decks. And more porches. Then I had to make a trail from the house to the barn (and that's a loooong way, baby!) so that JG could get the tractor started.

You want to see what I have to put up with? There I am, just after she finally put me down, this afternoon. I tell you, this is no job for wimps. See those big piles of white stuff. I put 'em there, by cracky.

But 54 centimetres (foot and a half, about) is too dern much. I can't take it any more! I'm leaving for Florida, or maybe Arizona. Yeah, Arizona would be good. Catch you later... much later. There's more white stuff due tomorrow night.

Note from MG -- some of those piles were made with a front end loader. This guy is not the most truthful mouth on the block.

Bloggy Birthdays

N at justmakingitupasigo is much better the last few days. She is sitting up and feeding herself, albeit very slowly, and, says her husband, is very much herself. He told her about all of the messages the blogging world sent and she is touched and pleased. I hope it won't be too long before she can get on line herself and rejoin us. She's not out of the woods yet, but the trees are thinning.

Today is the first anniversary of my very first post -- Them's My Sentiments is one year old today. I had planned on writing a thoughtful post about everything I have learned about the mommyblogging world, about your generosity to newbies, your warmth, your caring for one another, about the sheer fun it is to swim in this sea. I made notes; I started off several times. However, it is now late at night and the anniversary post is still not written. Maybe tomorrow after I shovel a foot and a half of snow off the decks. Again. I don't know how deep this fall actually is, as the wind is now sculpting it into impossible drifts and the power has flickered several times. But I have shoveled the front porch off twice today, it has disappeared again, and the piles around the porch are higher than my head. Again, after JG took them down with the snowblower. Twice.

The man is muttering about figuring out how he can get onto the tractor tomorrow and clear snow -- this two weeks after a complete knee replacement surgery. If he tries, I am going to hide the keys. Or hide all his coats. Or maybe both. I think he is kidding. I hope. We have a good neighbour who will come and dig us out sometime tomorrow, and even if the power goes, I have two wood stoves, a generator, plenty of food cooked and lots of good friends close by. One of them barreled through the drifts this evening to find out if we were all right. My real neighbours are as wonderful as my on line community.

So, before a tree falls on the hydro lines, what I want to do is to say thank you. Thank you to the people who welcomed a newbie in, gave her instructions on how to do the basics and encouraged her fledgling attempts with warmth and praise. Thanks also to the hard working folk who do the award thing every month, who devise the Monday Missions and Hump Day Hmms that allow me to exercise my rusty writing and make me think. Thanks to those of you who urged me on to confront the rude sales clerk and followed the story. Thanks to those of you whose humour and grace brighten my days, whose gorgeous photographs and art work are things I look forward to seeing and appreciating, to the BlogRhet group and to those of you who turn up to read what I write. Love you!

Thanks also to my daughters, who let me write about them and about my granddaughter. I'm so glad you're cool about this.

Here's me -- in all my wrinkly glory. But it isn't the photo that's me; it's what I write that tells you who I am.

We got 20 cm of snow today. This is an antidote.

Some Notes on Pain

I have had a mushed disc in my spine since I was 21, the result of a badly executed layout dive from an untested diving board. I have a cartilage tear in my left knee, the result of playing basketball and consistently stopping on my left foot, swiveling on my left foot, etc. Both these injuries are now the sites of osteoarthritis, as are other less abused joints, and I hurt a little bit, most of the time. Usually I don't notice it; it's just background noise. Climbing stairs carrying a load (Little Stuff, who is not so little any more), too much hiking on uneven ground, wearing even a two inch heel, sleeping on too hard a surface, all these things bring the soreness to my attention. I love hot tubs; once in water, I don't hurt at all.

This kind of thing does not translate into 'pain' for me; pain is what happens when you put the iron down on your hand, stub your toe against a wood block and break it, or have to get your system restarted after having a baby. Pain is what motivated JG to go and get his knee joint replaced; pain that was severe enough at times that he could not walk around Canadian Tire, pain that would cause the knee to buckle on him at unexpected moments. Pain is what he has now, with the newly repaired joint. Pain when he tries to turn over in bed, more and greater pain when he does the exercises to flex the joint, even greater pain when he has to navigate stairs. We are assured that this pain will go away, after a while. But my heart aches for him as he works through it.

The pain and his determination remind me of our elder daughter. She was a gymnast in high school and in University, competing in the inter University League. She loved gymnastics. She did very well indeed. She loved the competition, also. In her last year as a University competitor she fractured a bone in her foot a short time before the Canada wide finals. There was no question of her dropping out; the foot was taped, her coach monitored it for further injury, and she went ahead. I still remember how she looked as she did her 'flying' dismount from the high bar, a dismount that has to be landed on both feet, firmly. A 'solid' landing, they call it. She knew that the landing would be agony but down she went, solidly, onto the injured foot. For herself, for her team, she just accepted the pain and mastered it, her face a serene mask.

In hospital, they ask you to rate pain on a one to ten scale. I find that a very difficult task. In relation to what? I suppose they intend that 0 is no pain, but what is ten? Do you include duration? Area? Is ten the point where your will gives way and you start to scream? I have a clear memory of telling a nurse, 24 hours or so into giving birth to the ED, that I did not know how much more of it I could take. But of course, labour is not something you can opt out of. I finally got an epidural, about eight hours after the comment. The whole experience did not amuse me. When I got pregnant again, I found (this was 1966) a book written about the Lamaze method of breathing in labour. I memorized large chunks and managed the YD's birth with no pain blocks. The book was called 'Thank you, Doctor Lamaze', a sentiment that I echo. But to put it on a one to ten scale? I have no idea.

That's physical pain -- the ordinary kind, not chronic, severe pain which I suspect is debilitating in a different way. Mental pain, I believe, is different. It can fill your mind and your world, sap your will, destroy your capacity for joy. Mental pain and fatigue are a lethal combination. When my mother was dying, I remember losing control of how I behaved -- having the world 'grey out' is the only way I can describe it. I was angry with my family, who were trying their best to help me, I was angry with the well meaning staff of the hospital who were advising me to pull back and give myself a rest, I was most of all angry with myself for not coping, not being competent, not being able to fix things. It took me a long time to come back from that grey world, a long time and a lot of help.

Given a choice, I would take labour and childbirth over mental pain, anytime.

Hello? Hello? -- Monday Mission

Painted Mapole's Monday Mission is to write a post in the form of a voicmail. Please drop in to her site and see who has done it this week. It's a lot of fun, and I urge you to join in!

Hello, I'd like to speak to your City section editor. He's in a meeting? Fine, give me his voice mail if you would, please.

Mr. Jones, my name is Mary G and I am one of your subscription readers. I'm calling to complain about the quality of the writing in your paper. Specifically I would like to complain about the use of 'meet up with', when 'meet' would do, the inability of your writers to distinguish between 'lie' and 'lay', the misuse of commas to separate a noun in apposition, and the erroneous use of 'it's' instead of 'its' for the possessive. I know that you get the youngest, beginning writers and that you are pushed for time to correct them, but if I see much more of this nonsense, I will cancel my subscription. I also know you know what I am talking about. Remember your Grade 10 grammar class? If you don't, I do. And I've still got the text book, if you want to borrow it.

Large flakes of fluffy snow are falling outside my window. The sky is bright, however, and the temperature is mild. If this is the March lion, it is a fairly tame one. One of my neighbours has declared that this snow presages an early spring. I do hope she is right, as we are all heartily sick of winter in eastern Ontario. It came early and it has dumped close to a record fall of snow on us since November. I can't wait to put the shovels away.

I am also feeling springlike, joyful in fact, because N of just making it up as I go is awake and aware, off the ventilator and talking. Such good news! She still has a source of infection that the medical team has not found yet, and is catastrophically weak, but she's fighting hard. Here's part of what her husband had to say:

In order to prepare to remove N from the ventilator, they needed to give her two units of blood. This is in addition to the unit she received last week and the blood products that she received in the early days in ICU in order to keep her alive. A very small percentage of people donate blood on a regular basis. But I can attest first hand how important it is to the people who need it. I am a regular blood donor and I promise you that it is an extremely easy mitzvah (good deed).

In more medical news, JG is up on two canes and doing his road work, including stairs. If things go as planned, he will be home on Monday. The YD is on shift today at the hospital, making sure he is doing his exercises and generally behaving himself. Had she not chosen another career, the YG would have made an excellent drill sergeant; I, for instance, have been ordered home to rest today, in no uncertain terms. I do love her, a lot!

I've been reading, with great interest, some of the Hump Day Hmm postings on assertiveness. It certainly is something you need in the hospital. As I chased down nurses to get JG's overdue painkillers, watched residents who are incapable of listening, waited for physiotherapists who did not arrive and inspected meals that were less than inspiring, I really wished I had more of it. The surgical ward where JG has spent the week is horribly noisy, the rooms are so cramped that there is no place to put anything down except on the bed or on the windowsills on top of the heating vents, there is little continuity in the nursing care and the staff is stretched to capacity. Although a couple of his nurses were excellent, some of his physiotherapists were careless and out of their depth. There does not seem to be any system -- the hospital is at capacity and beds are not available where and when they ought to be. A patient without an advocate may fall into the cracks.

This is really a sad state of affairs. I am pretty sure most of the blame rests with hospital management and the scarcity of beds, which is a provincial responsibility. Our provincial government has lately set up a new level of medical management, called a Local Health Integration Network, which divides the province into compartments in which all levels of care are supposed to be managed efficiently. Our Community Health Centre out here in the hinterland has already encountered problems with these LHIN's, as we straddle the boundary between two of them. The LHIN we are not in has been trying to put all of its Mental Health Support Projects into one management, which would make the chart look really efficient, but which would also tear the MHSP that we manage in half. It's a pity they aren't tackling some of the hospital problems instead of trying to look good.

I would love to make each and every LHIN Board member spend a week on a surgical floor with their leg tied to the bed. And the Hospital Board members, ditto. Things might change for the better after they were let out.

Monday Mission -- My 'When Pigs Can Fly' Award

Painted Maypole's Monday Mission is to write an acceptance speech for an award you have been given.

When I was in my mid forties I went back to school, to my local Community College in fact, and took a two year diploma course in Creative Advertising, as it was then billed. The majority of my classmates were the same age as my children; the next oldest in the class was all of 25. There were about forty of us that started and most finished and came away with a diploma and a job. We had a party at the end to celebrate; I did not get there because I was looking after my mother, who was very ill. But my classmates gave me an award in absentia, a humorous one, a certificate that said, in effect, that Mary was off to conquer the world, as soon as she had made JG's lunch, ironed the napkins and taken her father to the dentist.

I loved that piece of paper. I thought I had it safely stored somewhere and was going to scan it into the post, but a short hunt in the obvious places has not turned it up. I wish I had been there to make an acceptance speech, but since I could not do it then, I am going to do it now.

Thanks, you guys. Thanks so very much. I am honoured that you think I have the right stuff, even if I don't have much time left to work on it. And I would like to point out that I have found time to attend pub night (sorry I worried you about my ability to drive home after a few beers; I made it just fine), hang out in the smokers' den and teach most of you sorry lot how to use a word processor.

I know that having a very mature student in your midst has not always been easy for you and that you found my split second schedule and preoccupation with housework a bit weird. I didn't 'get' housework when I was your age, either.

But to get serious for a minute, I hope you get some benefit from hanging out with me these two years. In the classes on demographics I know I sometimes annoyed you when I hissed and complained that the age categories only went up to 60 years old. But you are going to be working in a world where the baby boomers will reach that age, in 2005 and following, and the + 60 category is going to be worth courting. When you have to write copy for 'golden years' seniors, remember me! And don't try to sell the old folks nothing but face cream and power lift recliners. They are people, with a thirst for adventure and fun, love and laughter, just like you. Wrinklies just look old, they don't feel that way.

I came into this program very worried that I would not be able to keep up with you, to learn fast enough and well enough. When I got that sociology paper back with 100% on it, I was very, very relieved and happy, no matter how humble I tried to look. I know you got some amusement out of my fight to memorize terminology and patterns. My short term memory is not so great, these days. But my associative memory is a lot better than it was when I was your age, and I think I found the theoretical stuff easier than most of you. Keep it in mind, when you think your middle aged boss is all wet, that he (or she, not that that's likely) may have a broader view than yours. This means that while you can make a wax doll of him and stick pins in it, do it in private. But listen to him. You may also find that your parents have improved.

It's been a lot of fun, being part of this group. You have all been very kind to me, and thanks, also, for all the help. And I love the certificate, especially the flying pigs, which are very cute. (I have a very good idea who is responsible for those pigs. Prepare to die!)

When our twenty fifth anniversary rolls around, I hope we will have a class reunion and a big party. With beer, hmm? In 2012 you will all be in your forties, as I am now, juggling what I hope will be splendid jobs with a spouse, a family, a mortgage, elderly parents, cars that need servicing, community work and not enough time or energy. I intend to be there, with or without a walker. I might even apply some wrinkle cream in anticipation. And I will come armed with a bunch of certificates that say "Welcome to the sandwich generation, and congratulations on your well earned gray hairs!"


My Grad picture. This is the proof. For reasons which should be obvious, I did not order one.

Some Updates

N at Just Making It Up As I Go delighted her family by opening her eyes and smiling at her husband yesterday. First sign of recognition of anyone. Huge relief at Chez G. Also, her body is showing some signs of regaining function although she still has the fever that indicates the infection is not beaten yet.

I am doing the hospital run myself for the next while as my husband had knee replacement surgery yesterday. He'll be in hospital for a while, learning to navigate on the new joint, but the surgery went very well and so far he's not having much pain. Just now the YD has gone off to visit him taking his morning papers and getting 'good' coffee for him. The hospital seems to supply a cup of warm water and a tea bag; not JG's favourite morning drink.

The coffee thing is hilarious, actually. I am a Tim Horton's fan (a Canadian coffee chain that's hugely popular with us, American readers, mostly because it sells super sugary doughnuts). The YG is a Starbucks addict. (The ED does not drink coffee -- her addiction is Diet Coke. Where have I failed?) JG loves coffee, provenance unimportant. He assured the YD that there was a Starbucks outlet in the hospital. When we got there, we found it to be a 'Second Cup' -- a different chain. 'It's all the same,' he said, when we pointed this out to him.

The coffee kiosk is not set up for wireless internet, either, much to the YD's annoyance. There are five networks shown for the hospital but they are all restricted. YD thinks someone is really missing the boat in not providing it. In my experience, hospitals are really not good at providing any sort of comfort or consideration for people using them. Not the patients, and certainly not the general visiting public. Understaffed, with shabby and inadequate infrastructure, overbooked; our hospitals do not do us proud. The people who work in these conditions try their best, but when a surgical patient who has been scheduled for four months cannot count on having a bed ready post surgery, no one is well served.

I am writing this on the YD's laptop and cursing quietly as I struggle with the touch pad, high keyboard and the Windows nanny who wants to do a restart after updating. Ah well, I will have my own well loved rig back very soon, as I am going to be commuting as long as the good weather holds. We have a simply gorgeous winter weekend out there -- and if I could navigate this beast of a machine properly, I would put a picture up of the skating on the Rideau Canal. Drat this infernal machine. Photo is now added and I have updated her version of Explorer to give me the link list option. But Microsoft Nanny now wants to install 98 updates. Sigh. This is not the machine YD usually uses and so I guess it is feeling lonely and neglected.

Bug off, Microsoft!

Ah, that feels better. But I still am cursing the touchpad.

Hereditiy is Hell

10:30 am

I've just got off the phone from a long chat with the YD, she lolling about in bed and me wrapped in my new Valentine red velour robe, unwashed, household tasks not even started. Tsk. What a pair of slackers. I ended the conversation by apologizing to my daughter for the procrastination genes she has clearly inherited from me. Funny thing, inherited character traits. Her sister and father are two of the most organized people you would ever not want to meet, should you be an ordinary, get it done sometime, kind of person. They have task lists that they actually read, schedules they meet, places they put things on a regular basis -- they draw lines through the things on the lists that they have finished. What a concept!

I am very good at getting a single task accomplished in limited time. If visitors are expected, I can clean the house with the speed of greased lightning. If you need something written at the last minute, I'm your go to person. That's the upside of being what I think of as an 'adrenaline junkie'. Pull an all nighter? No problem. Get it done way in advance? Not me. I can find any number of non essential things to do that will fill in the time until emergency mode is needed. And boy, do I resent being told that time is ticking on and I had better get to it. I still clearly remember being furious as a teenager when my mother would mention some job or homework assignment I had not started. I would have to choke down rage, knowing even then that it was an inappropriate emotion. And I have never grown up enough to stop feeling that way. Even when the miserable sod telling me this is myself.

I've read all the advice. Pored over the self help books. Given myself so many lectures that I've stopped listening to myself. You know the expression about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? I can look back up the road and see very fine paving indeed. But here I sit, writing a post that is the very opposite of essential when I have a full day alone to accomplish something useful. To get some exercise. To get the muddle cleaned out of my bathroom cupboard. To get my volunteer job papers sorted and into their binders. To get the laundry done.

(It'll be lunch time soon; I won't get anything much done between now and then and so I think I'll just enjoy blogging until then and start after lunch.)

Okay, now I'm just staring at the computer screen, thinking about nothing much. And not coming up with a way to put a punch into the ending of this post. Maybe if I wait long enough, a bolt of lightning will strike me and I will turn into a different person altogether and leap up and start sorting laundry. No? You're sure? Backbone transplants not available? How very sad for me.

Besides, it's very cold outside. Blowy and snowy and not a good day for exercise on the ice patch that Sunday's thaw made out of our laneway and roads. Does anyone care about the bathroom cupboard but me? No, indeed. Is there any underwear left in the drawer? Yep, several days' worth. Can I wing the meeting without organizing the paperwork? Of course! Plenty of time to see what the blogging world is up to today.

And I'm sure I will come up with some equally compelling rationalization after lunch.

(If you're reading this, YD, at least you're out of bed and downstairs at the computer. Love, Mom.)

A Guest Post

Although it does not fit Painted Maypole's theme all that well, this morning I am posting something that just making it up as i go wrote. It started as a newspaper article, and she reposted it on her blog last February. I am repeating it here because it's one of her best. Just Making It Up is the blogger who is so very ill, and for whom we are soliciting prayers and positive thoughts. (Thanks so much, LM!)

And here she is:

I am 34 years old. Yesterday, I welcomed a new sibling into the family, and I have to confess, I am just a little bit jealous.
It isn’t as weird as it sounds. My father hasn’t found himself someone else and decided to start a whole new family. My parents have been happily married for more than 35 years.
Instead, they have gotten themselves a puppy. His name is Winston.
My parents have had dogs before. I grew up with a boxer named, of all things, Rover. They inherited him from my grandmother when my grandfather died.
He lay around the house, an untrained lump who allowed the children to jump on him and pull hi ears. He was walked whenever someone mustered up the energy to be dragged down the street with him wheezing and frothing at the mouth as he strained at his collar. That wasn’t often.
After Rover when to doggy heaven, my parents waited a few years before the answered a “free to a good home” ad in the paper and brought home Toby, a mad little Cairn terrier who barked at everything that moved and tore the newspaper to shreds if he was lucky enough to get to it first. Toby was walked more often because he was small enough to control on a leash.
As he grew older, he would become abruptly exhausted half way through his walks and simply lie down on the road, requiring whoever was walking him to carry him back home.
A few years ago, Toby also died, leaving my parents dog-free once again. This time, worn out from having to get up at 4:30 am to deal with the urgent needs of an aging dog’s bladder and frustrated with having to find someone to look after him while they went on vacation, my parents declared themselves animal-free. No kids, no dogs: the good life.
Still, I was not enormously surprised when, this past spring, my mother announced that they were once again getting a dog. But this time things were different.
My parents, while they have always been ‘dog people,’ have up until now treated their dogs like dogs. However, Winston is clearly, in their eyes, no mere dog. Winston is a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Cavalier King Charles spaniels, I have been informed, are small, quiet, polite dogs. This is a dog they can take camping with them. He won’t back at the mail carrier or knock their grandchildren off their feet in his exuberance. He will be smart and calm. My parents have found the perfect dog.
I am almost inclined to accuse my parents of using Winston to deal with empty-nest syndrome now that all their children are happily married off, but trust me, my parents do not have empty-nest syndrome. They could hardly shove us out the door fast enough. I can come up with no better answer than: my parents have gone crazy.
They found a breeder and met the puppy’s mommy while she was still pregnant. They learned his entire lineage and brought home pictures of his parents, pointing out their remarkable beauty. They then went back and visited the newborn puppies, picking Winston out from his siblings when he was barely big enough to open his eyes.
They came up with the name Winston long before they had the puppy – sort of like people do with their unborn children after discovering the sex on the ultrasound. They carried around photos of him the same way people carry around ultrasound photos, to present to anyone who showed the slightest interest.
Winston came home yesterday. He arrived with his blanket to a house equipped with his own bed, a cage, baby gates to stop him from falling down the stairs (or peeing on the carpet) and his own toys. The floor used to be good enough for Rover and Toby to sleep on. They never even knew what a dog toy looked like. Not little Winston. He already has two balls, a stuffed animal and a rope to chew.
My father is building a fence across the open part of the backyard to keep Winston in. the other dogs were just tied to a chain. My own children – my parents’ precious grandchildren – regularly make mad dashes for the road through that open area of the backyard when they visit, but I just have to watch them like a hawk. No fence for them.
I have to take their word on this. I have not seen Winston yet. My grubby children and I are not allowed to visit until my parents declare him to be totally settled in and ready to receive visitors. Hence, you see, the little bit of sibling jealousy. I’ve been banned from my childhood home by the new baby. Do you think if I started peeing in my underwear and throwing temper tantrums, I could get their attention back?

A Friend in Need

In last week's Hump Day Hmm we were thinking about what is ethical to post and I wrote a bit about a woman I know, a blogger, whose illness is breaking my heart but whose identity I did not feel comfortable revealing. I've got permission from her family to do so, now.


This wonderful blogger, just making it up as i go, is a very sick woman. How, exactly, it came about I am not sure, but she has a perforated bowel. She's in intensive care and has, as I write this, improved slightly from the 50/50 chance of living through her illness that she was given last week. Her family is arranging for daily updates on her condition to be available to those of us who know her and her work; I do not have one for today but as of yesterday she was still deeply sedated but breathing on her own.

If you can, please go and read a bit of her blog and, if it strikes you as a good thing to do, leave a message of encouragement. She is a hugely talented, entertaining and inspiring writer. Just thinking that her voice may be stilled forever hurts. A lot.