You know I’ve been in this state of mind where someone could tell me right this minute that things look better and I just want to respond, “and then what?” Because honestly the way things look for mom is that we can get through this hump but the true come to Jesus is waiting in the wings. When her brother died of cirrhosis of the liver decades ago, they had told him a year earlier…
I went to the hospital early to see if I could help calm my mother’s anxiety as they were trying to back her off the vent completely. She was breathing too fast, so they kept her where she was and upped her sedatives again. In the meantime, I kept leaning in and saying, try to relax, breath deeply – and she kept trying to mouth complete thoughts through the tape and tube and I couldn’t…
When the adoption failed in May, we were dejected and did what any adults would do, we sought consolation in distraction – we planned a trip to Portugal. Little did we know that this disappointment was the beginning of a summer full of oh my god’s, one after the other. Now that the trip – prepaid – to Portugal is hanging on the delicate balance of whether my mother can segue out of the acute…
The lung doctor told me that patients who come into the hospital with living wills asking not to be resuscitated seem to have a propensity once they have a vent down their throat and are given a choice that when it is pulled out they will die, all decline to die. The stubborn clinging to life. I watched T taking care of her 78 year old mother and I see the same thing I recognize…
The sky is filled with big puffy clouds and the bayou is glassy and dark, very mysterious looking. Today one of my neighbors wrote about the Disney ducks and the mess they are creating on the other side of the bayou from me. Hail hail. Meanwhile, the writer also went on to note the plethora of canoes that are now in some form or another lining the bayou making the banks of the bayou look…
Why is it that you can simultaneously have an overarching desire to smash the head of a teenager while wanting to save the life of your bad-girl mother? How come life doesn’t come in Goranimals – easy to mix and match emotions as well as people? My conversation with my friend who has a teenage niece gave me perspective on our visitor. My conversation with mom’s lung doctor today gave me perspective on what to…
I got disgusted with Olay having so many line extensions that they had taken over massive amounts of shelf space and left loyal customers like myself confused and resentful. Corporate greed. What wrong with one good cream? Meanwhile, I signed up for Dermitage after finding some recommendations online, but honestly I want some pleasure in my skin care regime – the smell, the feel, the results. I found none with this product so it was…
The meditation of the Tao te Ching today is #11, which I think needs a little more meditation for me. Even though I get what it is trying to say, I also know that the center, the emptiness, the inner space are all areas that are not easy to access. #11 We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot,…
I don’t have much peace in the morning anymore because I wake up and try to figure out what to do to help my mother and I obsess about what might come next and what came before. I’m trying to find a way to go about every day while my mother remains in limbo in the ICU – will she get better? will she have to stay in the hospital? – the sad reality is…
I want to believe that zoo’s are around to help people learn about animals so that they can help them. Is that true? It’s been so long since I’ve been to a zoo because honestly I have a hard time with all those animals behind cages, even fish zoos tend to get me a little down. So yesterday I took my niece and our 14 year old visitor to the New Orleans Zoo, which is…