2016:
Lee's anemic. Has colonoscopy
Mom almost dies. Has a prolonged hospitalization and recovery.
Jake has a bumpy year. Moguls
My pelvis gets drilled. Thankfully not cancer in the bone.
Nothing is any better with a relationship.
It's been a rough year. A lot of the time I feel angry. I don't know why. I'm not owed anything.
I'm irritable. I don't know if I'm doing a good enough job with my kids. Mostly they are good, but they aren't perfect and when things fall short of perfection it irks me. One doesn't clean up after herself. The other has mediocre grades. One has a problem with honesty.
I harbor resentment at times. I give it to God and then I take back a tiny piece of bitterness. It's hard to unclench my fist. Maybe I'll never understand it.
Maybe it's menopause. I still haven't cried. I might need to cry all of 2017 to catch up.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Saturday, September 17, 2016
Love Letter to My Children
We've been dealing with a kid who doesn't want to go to school. I know that seems like a redundant statement. What kid wants to go to school? There is your typical run-of-the-mill "I don't wanna go to school" and then there is the flat out school refusal. We have the latter. To say that it's been a challenge is an understatement. After my residency in internal medicine, I completed a 2 year fellowship in adolescent medicine. Teenagers don't have a set of medical illnesses more so than the rest of the population so it's not like gynecology and it's not like doing a subspecialty in an organ system like cardiology or gastroenterology. Teenagers have teenager problems. The stuff we'd see as practitioners of adolescent medicine, that wasn't an STD or a gynecological issue, was mostly related to the psyche. And the teenage psyche is both complicated and not fully developed. So, you can have a fully grown man-child or woman-child but their behavior is more fitting of a 5 year old and yet they can speak in complete sentences, but so much of what they might say is completely irrational. The 2 biggest chief complaints that we would encounter in the adolescent medicine clinical practice were eating disorders and school refusal. At the time, I found the process of caring for a teenager/family with either of these problems to be ridiculously frustrating and tedious. While calmly laying out an interdisciplinary treatment plan that included a whole host of health care professionals I found myself, in the back of my mind, screaming: "Just f-cking eat!" or "Just f-cking go to school!". I knew it was never that simple otherwise these seemingly rational and normal parents would not be at their wits end and in our clinic.
Fast forward to my own adolescents living in my home. There is a reason God makes children cute when they are little. It's so you fall in love with them because once they hit puberty, they cease being cute (unless they are asleep and then you can still see some remnants, vestiges of their former adorableness). Sure there are lots of great things about having a teenager in your house. Generally, they are very witty. They keep you current in the humor department. You can have conversations with them about "big" topics (politics, religion, current events) and these conversations give you insight into the inner workings of their mind. But, as I think I've mentioned before, their hard-wiring is not yet been completed. There are incomplete circuits and routinely you will get inappropriate power surges. A packet of hormones might explode within them at the same time you are discussing feeding the dog and all of the sudden your kid has a volatile and tear-filled response to putting kibble in the dog's bowl. The dog is the innocent victim. And you are too. Getting hit with friendly fire is a daily occurrence as the parent of a teenager.
In regards to school refusal, I was texting my dad the other day and appraising him of the situation. It had been a particularly frustrating day and I just wanted a "You are an excellent parent. Teenagers are crazy. You go girl." At almost 70 years of age the distance between being both a teenager and the parent of a teenager is farther for him. "Just make him go!" was his suggestion. "Well holy shit dad! Why didn't I think of that?" It was unfair for me to think he'd have any solutions and I'm sure I just agitated him by proposing a problem with such an simple and obvious solution. At the end of the text dialogue he suggested that our kids were somehow more poorly equipped to handle the complexities of life because, as doctors' kids, they are coddled and have no grasp on anything other than first world problems. Maybe accountant's or plumber's or Peruvian villager's kids don't have problems similar to my own kids. Or maybe accountants and plumbers and Peruvian villagers are just better parents. Who knows? I'll talk to him (my dad) in a couple of days and he won't have any lingering resentment about the conversation or even remember it for that matter. He'll remember, but in his mind, it won't have the significance I've given it. "What, your kid won't go to school? Dammit, he has no choice. Doctors' kids!" He doesn't remember the bullshit I put my parents through because that was 35 years ago and, as the non-custodial parent, he wasn't in the trenches like my mom was. That poor lady had poo flung at her on a daily basis (by me, not my brother. He was a saint.).
I don't have a solution for the school refusal. We are working on it along with a team of professionals (which we can afford, for better or worse, because we are doctors) and every day is a new beginning but not in the inspirational meme sort of way. It the "Holy F*ck, what's gonna be behind door number 2 today?" sort of way. Seriously, I can go to work and manage a complicated patient with heart failure, diabetes, chronic renal insufficiency, hypertension and hepatitis C but this stuff reduces me to a weeping pile of rubble. I know one day said child, his father and I are going to look back and laugh and joke but right now it's like a million little daggers being thrust into my side with a generous heap of rubbing alcohol being poured on top for just the right amount of sting. You sit there and think, WTF is wrong with my husband and me that we can't get our kid out the door and into the school building? It's probably worse because we are doctors. That kind of hatred towards academics and goal setting has never been in our framework so not only is it maddening to not get them out of bed, it's absolutely mind-boggling that someone, someone that you made and has your DNA, does't get the same life-affirming fulfillment from completing assignments and having the teacher like you and making good grades. How could a child of mine not like to plan and make mental lists and organize? What is wrong with this person? That's the thing with parenting; it pushes you beyond your natural limits. I'd never, in a million years, choose this challenge. If this were a category on Jeopardy and I was a contestant, this would be the absolute last column I'd choose. For me, this is kind of like sky-diving or bungee jumping or getting a tattoo. I'm intrigued and have respect for people who fall into that category, but I just couldn't do it and not out of judgment or belief that it is right or wrong, but because I don't have to do any of those things to complete my tasks in life. I can detour around those options. But you can't detour around the option of raising your kid even when you feel entirely unequipped to raise that kid to maturity. In my mind, a pack of angry wolves would do a better job than my husband and I are doing right now. And at least they have the option of eating their young.
None of this is to say there is anything wrong with my kid (other than he doesn't want to go to school right now, but that is a temporal problem that will be solved. And in his defense, he's incredibly smart so he probably can miss about one third to one half of the school year and not really miss anything and still make good grades). And honestly, there is nothing wrong with Lee or me. I think most parents have this same dilemma a million times a day for a million different scenarios and at all stages of their children's lives. Some people quietly deal with it in their own way but not me. I need validation (back to the text conversation with my dad). I need validation from complete strangers and from my parents and from Stacey the mailman. I really am that insecure and maybe it makes a little bit of sense that my spawn might have some anxiety. I always have this internal dilemma of whether or not I'm going to post the stuff that I write onto a wider platform (because I am so insecure and crave validation) but usually I show it to a few people and the process of typing it out helps me make it sense of it all. Someday I hope my kids read this. They can read it now but it will make more sense when they are older. It's a decoder for them, in a sense; a key to why mom was the way she was. An archeological relic that helps you understand a society or a people. So Evan, Jake and Annie, I write this for you and know that if nothing else, you 3 are the best things in my life. Even in the most challenging of times and circumstances. I am prouder of producing you 3 than anything else I've ever done in my life. I know I've messed up along the way and will continue to do so but you 3 are all that matters. Take that with you to the grave and apply it to your own families and children. It's what keeps society moving forward. You will always be my greatest legacy. I love you.
Fast forward to my own adolescents living in my home. There is a reason God makes children cute when they are little. It's so you fall in love with them because once they hit puberty, they cease being cute (unless they are asleep and then you can still see some remnants, vestiges of their former adorableness). Sure there are lots of great things about having a teenager in your house. Generally, they are very witty. They keep you current in the humor department. You can have conversations with them about "big" topics (politics, religion, current events) and these conversations give you insight into the inner workings of their mind. But, as I think I've mentioned before, their hard-wiring is not yet been completed. There are incomplete circuits and routinely you will get inappropriate power surges. A packet of hormones might explode within them at the same time you are discussing feeding the dog and all of the sudden your kid has a volatile and tear-filled response to putting kibble in the dog's bowl. The dog is the innocent victim. And you are too. Getting hit with friendly fire is a daily occurrence as the parent of a teenager.
In regards to school refusal, I was texting my dad the other day and appraising him of the situation. It had been a particularly frustrating day and I just wanted a "You are an excellent parent. Teenagers are crazy. You go girl." At almost 70 years of age the distance between being both a teenager and the parent of a teenager is farther for him. "Just make him go!" was his suggestion. "Well holy shit dad! Why didn't I think of that?" It was unfair for me to think he'd have any solutions and I'm sure I just agitated him by proposing a problem with such an simple and obvious solution. At the end of the text dialogue he suggested that our kids were somehow more poorly equipped to handle the complexities of life because, as doctors' kids, they are coddled and have no grasp on anything other than first world problems. Maybe accountant's or plumber's or Peruvian villager's kids don't have problems similar to my own kids. Or maybe accountants and plumbers and Peruvian villagers are just better parents. Who knows? I'll talk to him (my dad) in a couple of days and he won't have any lingering resentment about the conversation or even remember it for that matter. He'll remember, but in his mind, it won't have the significance I've given it. "What, your kid won't go to school? Dammit, he has no choice. Doctors' kids!" He doesn't remember the bullshit I put my parents through because that was 35 years ago and, as the non-custodial parent, he wasn't in the trenches like my mom was. That poor lady had poo flung at her on a daily basis (by me, not my brother. He was a saint.).
I don't have a solution for the school refusal. We are working on it along with a team of professionals (which we can afford, for better or worse, because we are doctors) and every day is a new beginning but not in the inspirational meme sort of way. It the "Holy F*ck, what's gonna be behind door number 2 today?" sort of way. Seriously, I can go to work and manage a complicated patient with heart failure, diabetes, chronic renal insufficiency, hypertension and hepatitis C but this stuff reduces me to a weeping pile of rubble. I know one day said child, his father and I are going to look back and laugh and joke but right now it's like a million little daggers being thrust into my side with a generous heap of rubbing alcohol being poured on top for just the right amount of sting. You sit there and think, WTF is wrong with my husband and me that we can't get our kid out the door and into the school building? It's probably worse because we are doctors. That kind of hatred towards academics and goal setting has never been in our framework so not only is it maddening to not get them out of bed, it's absolutely mind-boggling that someone, someone that you made and has your DNA, does't get the same life-affirming fulfillment from completing assignments and having the teacher like you and making good grades. How could a child of mine not like to plan and make mental lists and organize? What is wrong with this person? That's the thing with parenting; it pushes you beyond your natural limits. I'd never, in a million years, choose this challenge. If this were a category on Jeopardy and I was a contestant, this would be the absolute last column I'd choose. For me, this is kind of like sky-diving or bungee jumping or getting a tattoo. I'm intrigued and have respect for people who fall into that category, but I just couldn't do it and not out of judgment or belief that it is right or wrong, but because I don't have to do any of those things to complete my tasks in life. I can detour around those options. But you can't detour around the option of raising your kid even when you feel entirely unequipped to raise that kid to maturity. In my mind, a pack of angry wolves would do a better job than my husband and I are doing right now. And at least they have the option of eating their young.
None of this is to say there is anything wrong with my kid (other than he doesn't want to go to school right now, but that is a temporal problem that will be solved. And in his defense, he's incredibly smart so he probably can miss about one third to one half of the school year and not really miss anything and still make good grades). And honestly, there is nothing wrong with Lee or me. I think most parents have this same dilemma a million times a day for a million different scenarios and at all stages of their children's lives. Some people quietly deal with it in their own way but not me. I need validation (back to the text conversation with my dad). I need validation from complete strangers and from my parents and from Stacey the mailman. I really am that insecure and maybe it makes a little bit of sense that my spawn might have some anxiety. I always have this internal dilemma of whether or not I'm going to post the stuff that I write onto a wider platform (because I am so insecure and crave validation) but usually I show it to a few people and the process of typing it out helps me make it sense of it all. Someday I hope my kids read this. They can read it now but it will make more sense when they are older. It's a decoder for them, in a sense; a key to why mom was the way she was. An archeological relic that helps you understand a society or a people. So Evan, Jake and Annie, I write this for you and know that if nothing else, you 3 are the best things in my life. Even in the most challenging of times and circumstances. I am prouder of producing you 3 than anything else I've ever done in my life. I know I've messed up along the way and will continue to do so but you 3 are all that matters. Take that with you to the grave and apply it to your own families and children. It's what keeps society moving forward. You will always be my greatest legacy. I love you.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Class of '86
I just returned from my 30 year high school reunion. I wasn't the most popular person in high school. I wouldn't say I was unpopular, just regular. High school is such a crazy time filled with sturm und drang. At no other time in your life are you filled with such uncertainty and anxiety. Physically your body is morphing into its adult version of itself and you have no control over the changes. Everything is hairy and pimply and weird and back in the 80s, we were just starting to talk openly about things, but mostly we hid our shame. Had your period at school and bled through your clothes? That was embarrassing shit that you just didn't tell anyone other than the school nurse. If your parents couldn't get you or bring you a change of clothes, it was a fate worse than death. It's not that boys had it much better. There is that pesky thing called a penis that has a mind of its own and erections can happen at the most inconvenient times; math class, lunch, homeroom, locker room. I'm not sure what is worse.
Anyhow, back to the reunion. Once you've lived long enough to make it to your 30 year reunion you've gotten to the point in life where you are okay with yourself. You've passed the point of caring what anyone else thinks about you (this happens at about age 40, like clock work). You go back and everyone is a doughier, wrinklier and sometimes hairless version of their 16 year old self. At the 5, 10 and even the 20 year (still not 40 years old yet) there is still vanity, though it is inversely proportional to the time it's been since you graduated. At the 30 year reunion, you're not interested in putting people back into their Breakfast Club category; criminal, princess, athlete, brain, basket case. Because you've lived your life (and gone through all the "adult bullshit" as one of my classmates so eloquently phrased it), you just want to actually know these people you've known forever. It's a shame because one or two nights is just a tease. How can you possibly search the soul of every single person in your graduating class when you only have 2-4 hours. I want to know every single person's story. The ups and downs, the heartaches and the joys, the disappointments and the victories. I want to know the names of your children and your grandchildren. I want to know how you've made your living, who you married, who you divorced. In essence, I want to know how you've lived your life. I want to squeeze it down to an ingestible form that I can swallow and digest and make part of my fiber. When you share history with someone there is a covalent bond, unseen and hardy. These are the people who share the most fundamental and intimate of memories with you, memories that you don't share with even your spouse (except for the rare exception of childhood or high school sweethearts); snow days, school trips, substitute teachers, football games, skipped classes, crushes, embarrassing moments, nights out. The memories are trapped in your head (and sometimes your yearbook) like a vault and no one else has access to these things except the people who were there when it happened. It's instant validation that these experiences actually took place and helped shape who you are. We shared the same air for several years. You are a part of me and I am a part of you. And when you are at your 30 year reunion and pushing 50 years of age, you are going to have the conversation with those people you wished you had talked to back in high school. We are each others people.
I'm raising 3 teenagers of my own right now. I don't remember adolescence being this hard. I remember adolescence being exactly this hard. You remember the feeling and the emotions (Oh the emotions. So many, many emotions) like a distant cousin. It's all oddly familiar and yet at the same time, so inconvenient and maddening and fast. How can this person who lives in my home, who I call my child and who calls me parent act so odd and alien? How can they be filled with so much angst about something so inconsequential? Do they truly think the earth orbits around them as though they are the anchor of the universe? How can they be so sweet and then so evil? I took my 14 year old kid with me to one of the gatherings. He was mildly amused at first and then infinitely bored. I'm glad he came with me not just because I like to spend time with him, but I hope on some rudimentary level he absorbed the inconsequentialness of temporal worries. You grow up, you move on, you reconnect. You glean the ripeness out of every situation and you keep going. These people who show up to things. They are good people. All 3 of my kids, they will encounter hundreds if not thousands of good people who have a different set of burdens. Their burdens may be lighter or heavier but they are burdens nonetheless and everyone has their own breed. I hope that he, and my other 2, are respectful of that; we all have our junk. People are fragile and exercise caution because even though you may not see it on the outside, everyone has stuff on the inside. And while each person's poop may be different, it's also the same. We all have poop and that's what makes every single one of us vulnerable. And vulnerability is not bad. I just hope it doesn't take them 30 years to figure it out. It's gonna be okay. It's all gonna be okay. Even when it isn't okay, it's still gonna be okay. You got lots of other passengers on your ship with whom you can share and ask for support. Weakness can make you strong.
Thanks Class of '86 Chamblee Peeps (and Class of '81 Huntley Hills) for setting the mold. XOXO
Anyhow, back to the reunion. Once you've lived long enough to make it to your 30 year reunion you've gotten to the point in life where you are okay with yourself. You've passed the point of caring what anyone else thinks about you (this happens at about age 40, like clock work). You go back and everyone is a doughier, wrinklier and sometimes hairless version of their 16 year old self. At the 5, 10 and even the 20 year (still not 40 years old yet) there is still vanity, though it is inversely proportional to the time it's been since you graduated. At the 30 year reunion, you're not interested in putting people back into their Breakfast Club category; criminal, princess, athlete, brain, basket case. Because you've lived your life (and gone through all the "adult bullshit" as one of my classmates so eloquently phrased it), you just want to actually know these people you've known forever. It's a shame because one or two nights is just a tease. How can you possibly search the soul of every single person in your graduating class when you only have 2-4 hours. I want to know every single person's story. The ups and downs, the heartaches and the joys, the disappointments and the victories. I want to know the names of your children and your grandchildren. I want to know how you've made your living, who you married, who you divorced. In essence, I want to know how you've lived your life. I want to squeeze it down to an ingestible form that I can swallow and digest and make part of my fiber. When you share history with someone there is a covalent bond, unseen and hardy. These are the people who share the most fundamental and intimate of memories with you, memories that you don't share with even your spouse (except for the rare exception of childhood or high school sweethearts); snow days, school trips, substitute teachers, football games, skipped classes, crushes, embarrassing moments, nights out. The memories are trapped in your head (and sometimes your yearbook) like a vault and no one else has access to these things except the people who were there when it happened. It's instant validation that these experiences actually took place and helped shape who you are. We shared the same air for several years. You are a part of me and I am a part of you. And when you are at your 30 year reunion and pushing 50 years of age, you are going to have the conversation with those people you wished you had talked to back in high school. We are each others people.
I'm raising 3 teenagers of my own right now. I don't remember adolescence being this hard. I remember adolescence being exactly this hard. You remember the feeling and the emotions (Oh the emotions. So many, many emotions) like a distant cousin. It's all oddly familiar and yet at the same time, so inconvenient and maddening and fast. How can this person who lives in my home, who I call my child and who calls me parent act so odd and alien? How can they be filled with so much angst about something so inconsequential? Do they truly think the earth orbits around them as though they are the anchor of the universe? How can they be so sweet and then so evil? I took my 14 year old kid with me to one of the gatherings. He was mildly amused at first and then infinitely bored. I'm glad he came with me not just because I like to spend time with him, but I hope on some rudimentary level he absorbed the inconsequentialness of temporal worries. You grow up, you move on, you reconnect. You glean the ripeness out of every situation and you keep going. These people who show up to things. They are good people. All 3 of my kids, they will encounter hundreds if not thousands of good people who have a different set of burdens. Their burdens may be lighter or heavier but they are burdens nonetheless and everyone has their own breed. I hope that he, and my other 2, are respectful of that; we all have our junk. People are fragile and exercise caution because even though you may not see it on the outside, everyone has stuff on the inside. And while each person's poop may be different, it's also the same. We all have poop and that's what makes every single one of us vulnerable. And vulnerability is not bad. I just hope it doesn't take them 30 years to figure it out. It's gonna be okay. It's all gonna be okay. Even when it isn't okay, it's still gonna be okay. You got lots of other passengers on your ship with whom you can share and ask for support. Weakness can make you strong.
Thanks Class of '86 Chamblee Peeps (and Class of '81 Huntley Hills) for setting the mold. XOXO
Friday, September 2, 2016
The Middle
Hi friend!
I miss you. Life gets so busy with the ‘musts' and ‘shoulds' that it's easy to get bogged down; water logged with responsibilities. While you have been busy raising your babies on the other side of the world, I have been doing the same over here. Neither one of us has an easy job. Toddlers and 3 year olds are just as complicated as teenagers. The fear over their physical safety and development is every bit as real as the fear over their physical safety and development.
I've been burdened with worry over my child. The worry has been smoldering for several years and on the eve of matriculation into another phase of adolescence, I am anxious that I have waited too long to take action. The only problem is there is no clear path. It's like trying to carry soup in a paper bag.
This kid of mine is not like the others. He is of me but not like me. I don't know how to decode him. It is pushing me past the natural limits of myself.
Not sure when I wrote the above. It must have been in the spring. Now it's the fall. And things are no better. We've been to see the psychologist as a couple, individually and he's seen her. We've been to 3 different psychiatrists and we are starting a third medication. I am sick with worry. My husband is sick with worry. We don't know how to reach this boy. Some days he is with us. Parts of days he is with us, but mostly he is detached. The latest medication is supposed to treat an underlying depression which is probably the result of unrecognized anxiety. Once the medication takes affect and the depression lifts, then he'll want to engage. Hopefully.
This is the kind of fear like no other. When they were little I'd worry that they'd harm themselves unintentionally. Now I worry about him harming himself intentionally. He assures us and the mental health professionals that he isn't suicidal. He told me he could never do anything to make me sad. He doesn't realize the irony of that statement. He has no idea the depths of my sadness. How can I be happy or have peace when my boy is in turmoil.
The beginning of the school year has been rough. He doesn't want to go to school. He hates school. He's certainly not stupid. The standard model of schooling doesn't fit him. It's uncomfortable and constricting. There is no room for independence and questioning and movement. I get it but I don't get it. I've always been a rule follower. Give me a set of rules and I'll follow it to my death and get a gold star in the process. I'm also very creative but that creativity has been more active as an adult. I guess in many ways I was stifled as an adolescent but I was too scared not to follow the rules. I feared consequences. This one doesn't. Or maybe he does, but he is so anxious/depressed he can't make himself follow through.
We've looked at alternative forms of education. We've toured 3 different schools in the past 2 weeks of school. Nothing is the silver bullet. The issues are still going to be there but they'll just be housed in a different environment.
Reluctantly on my part, we are starting an selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor on him. It's funny because as a physician I don't mind prescribing these drugs and I can extol the virtues for my patients and even for myself. But, when it's my boy, I am paralyzed by fear by the "what ifs". What if he becomes suicidal? That's my biggest fear.
No one can prepare you for how much you will love your children and how much you will agonize over them. How your heart will break in ways you didn't even know was possible. How you will pray continuously and not even know for what you are praying. How you will loose sleep, imagine the worst, hope for the best, plead with God. How you'll love your spouse and also hate them because you have a b s o l u t e l y n o c o n t r o l o v e r a n y t h i n g and the only thing you can lash out at is the one you love the most. You can't believe it will happen to you. Not your kids. They will be different. No evil will befall your house. How you'll fold laundry and wash dishes with a blind ferocity because at least by doing this you are accomplishing something.
All I know is I love him but I don't know how to love him. My best efforts are lost in translation. Again and again, I offer him up to God like Abraham did with Isaac. "He is yours, God. He is yours.", is my breathless chant. I get some small glimpses now and again of my boy and I cling to that and to His promises. Meanwhile, my heart aches and I am waiting for the skies to clear.
I miss you. Life gets so busy with the ‘musts' and ‘shoulds' that it's easy to get bogged down; water logged with responsibilities. While you have been busy raising your babies on the other side of the world, I have been doing the same over here. Neither one of us has an easy job. Toddlers and 3 year olds are just as complicated as teenagers. The fear over their physical safety and development is every bit as real as the fear over their physical safety and development.
I've been burdened with worry over my child. The worry has been smoldering for several years and on the eve of matriculation into another phase of adolescence, I am anxious that I have waited too long to take action. The only problem is there is no clear path. It's like trying to carry soup in a paper bag.
This kid of mine is not like the others. He is of me but not like me. I don't know how to decode him. It is pushing me past the natural limits of myself.
Not sure when I wrote the above. It must have been in the spring. Now it's the fall. And things are no better. We've been to see the psychologist as a couple, individually and he's seen her. We've been to 3 different psychiatrists and we are starting a third medication. I am sick with worry. My husband is sick with worry. We don't know how to reach this boy. Some days he is with us. Parts of days he is with us, but mostly he is detached. The latest medication is supposed to treat an underlying depression which is probably the result of unrecognized anxiety. Once the medication takes affect and the depression lifts, then he'll want to engage. Hopefully.
This is the kind of fear like no other. When they were little I'd worry that they'd harm themselves unintentionally. Now I worry about him harming himself intentionally. He assures us and the mental health professionals that he isn't suicidal. He told me he could never do anything to make me sad. He doesn't realize the irony of that statement. He has no idea the depths of my sadness. How can I be happy or have peace when my boy is in turmoil.
The beginning of the school year has been rough. He doesn't want to go to school. He hates school. He's certainly not stupid. The standard model of schooling doesn't fit him. It's uncomfortable and constricting. There is no room for independence and questioning and movement. I get it but I don't get it. I've always been a rule follower. Give me a set of rules and I'll follow it to my death and get a gold star in the process. I'm also very creative but that creativity has been more active as an adult. I guess in many ways I was stifled as an adolescent but I was too scared not to follow the rules. I feared consequences. This one doesn't. Or maybe he does, but he is so anxious/depressed he can't make himself follow through.
We've looked at alternative forms of education. We've toured 3 different schools in the past 2 weeks of school. Nothing is the silver bullet. The issues are still going to be there but they'll just be housed in a different environment.
Reluctantly on my part, we are starting an selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor on him. It's funny because as a physician I don't mind prescribing these drugs and I can extol the virtues for my patients and even for myself. But, when it's my boy, I am paralyzed by fear by the "what ifs". What if he becomes suicidal? That's my biggest fear.
No one can prepare you for how much you will love your children and how much you will agonize over them. How your heart will break in ways you didn't even know was possible. How you will pray continuously and not even know for what you are praying. How you will loose sleep, imagine the worst, hope for the best, plead with God. How you'll love your spouse and also hate them because you have a b s o l u t e l y n o c o n t r o l o v e r a n y t h i n g and the only thing you can lash out at is the one you love the most. You can't believe it will happen to you. Not your kids. They will be different. No evil will befall your house. How you'll fold laundry and wash dishes with a blind ferocity because at least by doing this you are accomplishing something.
All I know is I love him but I don't know how to love him. My best efforts are lost in translation. Again and again, I offer him up to God like Abraham did with Isaac. "He is yours, God. He is yours.", is my breathless chant. I get some small glimpses now and again of my boy and I cling to that and to His promises. Meanwhile, my heart aches and I am waiting for the skies to clear.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
"You Dance Good"
He was Cuban, homeless, and a Tolkienian dwarf of a man; round paunch, bulbous nose, bald-head but plenty of hair around his ears and on his face. I sent the student in to interview him but he shooed her away and continued to shuffle back and forth in the hallway making a nuisance of himself and hogging the community telephone. Earlier that day he and his wheelchair had taken a tumble down some stairs. His knees were bloodied and his back was sore. Drawn in by his charm and his elfin impishness, I needed to know his story. As for my patient, finally, he had a captive audience.
His father, a military officer, bought him a car, “because you make good grades!”
He said to his mother, “But I don’t even have a license. I’m only 14!”
Her response, “Everyone knows you are my son! That alone will vouch for your character!” As if character was sufficient experience to drive a car.
With his new car, he drove straight to the whorehouse. And back and back and back he went. At 77 years of age, he had fathered 17 children with 16 different women. Once, when he was 18 years old and in New York City (pre-Castro), he looked out his hotel window and an older woman, in a hotel across the street, waved back to him. The next day he looked out and she was standing naked in the window. The third day, he stood naked in his window while she stood naked in her window across the street. On the fourth day he went outside, grabbed her by the wrist and took her to his room and they proceeded to make love for 4 hours. She, the older woman, had been with a Negrito (his words, not mine), her boyfriend, on the day he grabbed her by the arm. Several years later he discovered she had returned to Cuba with the Negrito and given birth to his son. Before immigrating to America, he met this son while he was in jail. Comically, he had judgment in his voice as he lamented his son’s incarceration. As though he would have been the better parent. My patient, too, had been to jail, for gambling. The judge gave him a choice; serve 4 years or forever be banished to Florida with all of his family. He chose the latter. His family never arrived in Havana to sail with him on that steamer ship to Miami. The judge had lied. That had been 41 years earlier and he never saw his parents or his family again.
He had 3 wives. I couldn’t tell if the 3 wives had been consecutive or concurrent, but it didn’t really matter. His children lived in Miami and Orlando and New York and San Francisco and Germany but he spoke with none of them. Not only did he have wives but he also had a series of girlfriends with whom he’d have sex for hours. “I never have troubles getting an erection. Every morning I have an erection. I don’t know. I just never have troubles.” He wasn’t bragging. He was simply stating a fact, a piece of medical history for me. He sold newspapers for $50 a day and some nights he’d go downtown on Main Street and dance with women for $10 a dance and on these nights he could earn another twenty to thirty dollars. He could dance the tango, the salsa, the mambo, the cha-cha-cha. But what he liked the best was Benny More and the danzon.
As though this had been the most fantastical part of his story, his dancing abilities, I asked him to prove to me he could dance. The student was trapped in our interaction, this dance of our own, and I made her fetch my phone. I played the music he mentioned; the danzon and the Benny More that just a minute before I thought he had been confabulating. And we danced.
“You dance good” he told me. “Give me your phone number so I can take you dancing.”
“My husband wouldn’t like that.”
“But your husband is a modern man. I’ll talk to him. It will be okay.”
After 30 seconds of dancing he was winded; short of breath with a twinge of chest pain. We had to stop. Once again I was the doctor and he was the patient. We were no longer in Havana but room 7 of the ER. My shift ended that night and I signed him out to the following provider. I looked up his record the next day, to see what had happened to him. He had been kicked out of the ER like he had been so many previous times. I’m sure he’ll be back.
For the record, I don’t think most of his story was true. It wasn't the many wives or the sexual prowess or the innumerable children that made me suspicious. If his story had been true he wouldn’t have needed that nitroglycerin while we were dancing. No one on Main Street is going to pay $10 for half a minute of dancing.
His father, a military officer, bought him a car, “because you make good grades!”
He said to his mother, “But I don’t even have a license. I’m only 14!”
Her response, “Everyone knows you are my son! That alone will vouch for your character!” As if character was sufficient experience to drive a car.
With his new car, he drove straight to the whorehouse. And back and back and back he went. At 77 years of age, he had fathered 17 children with 16 different women. Once, when he was 18 years old and in New York City (pre-Castro), he looked out his hotel window and an older woman, in a hotel across the street, waved back to him. The next day he looked out and she was standing naked in the window. The third day, he stood naked in his window while she stood naked in her window across the street. On the fourth day he went outside, grabbed her by the wrist and took her to his room and they proceeded to make love for 4 hours. She, the older woman, had been with a Negrito (his words, not mine), her boyfriend, on the day he grabbed her by the arm. Several years later he discovered she had returned to Cuba with the Negrito and given birth to his son. Before immigrating to America, he met this son while he was in jail. Comically, he had judgment in his voice as he lamented his son’s incarceration. As though he would have been the better parent. My patient, too, had been to jail, for gambling. The judge gave him a choice; serve 4 years or forever be banished to Florida with all of his family. He chose the latter. His family never arrived in Havana to sail with him on that steamer ship to Miami. The judge had lied. That had been 41 years earlier and he never saw his parents or his family again.
He had 3 wives. I couldn’t tell if the 3 wives had been consecutive or concurrent, but it didn’t really matter. His children lived in Miami and Orlando and New York and San Francisco and Germany but he spoke with none of them. Not only did he have wives but he also had a series of girlfriends with whom he’d have sex for hours. “I never have troubles getting an erection. Every morning I have an erection. I don’t know. I just never have troubles.” He wasn’t bragging. He was simply stating a fact, a piece of medical history for me. He sold newspapers for $50 a day and some nights he’d go downtown on Main Street and dance with women for $10 a dance and on these nights he could earn another twenty to thirty dollars. He could dance the tango, the salsa, the mambo, the cha-cha-cha. But what he liked the best was Benny More and the danzon.
As though this had been the most fantastical part of his story, his dancing abilities, I asked him to prove to me he could dance. The student was trapped in our interaction, this dance of our own, and I made her fetch my phone. I played the music he mentioned; the danzon and the Benny More that just a minute before I thought he had been confabulating. And we danced.
“You dance good” he told me. “Give me your phone number so I can take you dancing.”
“My husband wouldn’t like that.”
“But your husband is a modern man. I’ll talk to him. It will be okay.”
After 30 seconds of dancing he was winded; short of breath with a twinge of chest pain. We had to stop. Once again I was the doctor and he was the patient. We were no longer in Havana but room 7 of the ER. My shift ended that night and I signed him out to the following provider. I looked up his record the next day, to see what had happened to him. He had been kicked out of the ER like he had been so many previous times. I’m sure he’ll be back.
For the record, I don’t think most of his story was true. It wasn't the many wives or the sexual prowess or the innumerable children that made me suspicious. If his story had been true he wouldn’t have needed that nitroglycerin while we were dancing. No one on Main Street is going to pay $10 for half a minute of dancing.
Glass Houses
The potassium is 5.9 and the lungs are clear but only because he can't take a deep breath. It's a tough call, but not really. His legs are edematous and his abdomen is tense with the fluid distention. He feels like retching and no matter how many layers he wears, he can't get warm. He can't urinate. He hasn't been able to pee in 2 years. Maybe some drops but not a stream. The stream stopped long ago. And now he has this catheter that is tethered to his chest like a leash. It's a shitty existence, running up to the hospital every 4 to 5 days. Begging to have your body rid of its toxic waste. To him, the rules that have been made are arbitrary and make little sense. And he's a pariah. Some people are accusatory. Obviously he is sabotaging his kidneys to get dialysis. Someone saw him eating McDonald's french fries last time he was here. He probably loaded up on bananas early this morning. He ate the bananas before he arrived at 5 am this morning. He arrived at 5 am because he knows that if he gets there at 9 am all the chairs will be full and he'll have to sleep sitting up one more night, drowning in his own urine. It doesn't matter that he used to be a landscaper; that he worked his whole life to provide for his family. The only thing that matters now is that he is trying to get something for free when he has no legal rights for anything. At least that is what it seems like to him every time he goes up there and he has to justify the severity of his symptoms. On a scale of 1 to 10 he feels like a 100 on an average day. On the days that he makes the drive to the hospital he feels a logarithmic degree of crappiness. But it's the Hunger Games of health care and he didn't pay a mule $5000 25 years ago to come to this country to get sacrificed in the arena.
If she had the chance, she do the same thing all over again. Her daughter needed that kidney. Her crystal ball didn't tell her that she'd develop cancer in her remaining kidney and they'd take that one out too. And then there'd be none. Having none kidneys is a problem. Even with a 3rd grade education, she could tell you that. One of life's cruel jokes. No good deed goes unpunished. When you are missing a limb it's obvious. But when you are missing both of your kidney's you feel like you're the urban myth everyone talks about; you went to Mexico for vacation and you woke up in a bathtub full of ice and you had a huge scar across your abdomen and both of your kidneys were gone. Except you're from El Salvador and you had to leave because your ex-husband tried to kill you. You had been working as a housekeeper to send money back home to the daughter in possession of your good kidney but the frequent trips to the ER started to irritate your employer and you were let go. Now you live with your aunt who has health problems of her own but she dutifully carries you up to the hospital every time you get that unmistakeable nausea and you start vomiting. Your potassium never goes above 4.5 so often times you get sent right back home. It's the worst when the doctor just looks at the numbers and doesn't ask you any questions. You know you shouldn't but sometimes you cry. The tears add emphasis and emphasis gets you the golden ticket to the 6th floor and the hemodialysis unit.
Sitting in that triage room you sit on the throne of judgment. It's an onerous task. The guidelines are meant to be a tool to make the job easier, or at least more objective. But objectively, when every single patient has a GFR of 2 they all meet criteria for hemodialysis regardless of their potassium level. Everyone is volume overloaded. Everyone is uremic. The greatest common denominator is a lack of documentation of legal entry into the United States of America. We can split hairs over the politics of this all day long. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and Gregg Abbott and Rick Perry and Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey and the Pope can all sit down in that triage room with me or any other provider for 3 days in a row and then we can have a nice round table discussion. It's hard to tell someone with that much desperation in their eyes, "Too bad!" Even the most soulless of individuals have a hard time telling an 80 year old grandfather or a 23 year old son or a 46 year old mother to go home. "Sorry sir or ma'am. There will be none for you today."
It's even worse now. The resources are more limited. There are less chairs. No one is happy. The patients aren't happy. The nurses aren't happy. The doctors aren't happy. The administrators aren't happy. An undocumented, ESRD patient who happens to fulfill the arbitrary requirements (can we all just admit we are playing God and we're not half as convincing as Morgan Freeman) that sorts him or her into the "NEEDS EMERGENT HEMODIALYSIS" pile is more contagious than Ebola or meningococcal meningitis. We'd all just as soon let the next person deal with the patient. Inevitably you're going to be stuck calling the cranky renal fellow or stuck calling the transfer center to arrange for your patient to go to Galveston or San Antonio or Conroe or the hospital across the street (because there are no more hemodialysis chairs in your hospital). Meanwhile your patient would do anything in the world to sit on the toilet and take a pee just one more time. Or not have a garden hose flopping out of his chest. Or not have skin 80 shades darker than the deepest tan she ever had. Or not wear a winter coat and a wool hat in the middle of July. Or beg for mercy every time he comes to the hospital. He's not trying to game the system. She's not trying to manipulatively score hemodialysis. They are just trying to live one more day so they can drink coffee on the patio with their spouse or walk in the park or go to the birthday party or the family gathering or the grandkid's high school graduation. We need to get over ourselves and our hierarchical mind frame. Some day we might be the dog begging for the table scraps. And we are going to want mercy. So lets all put down our rocks and clean the windows our our glass houses.
If she had the chance, she do the same thing all over again. Her daughter needed that kidney. Her crystal ball didn't tell her that she'd develop cancer in her remaining kidney and they'd take that one out too. And then there'd be none. Having none kidneys is a problem. Even with a 3rd grade education, she could tell you that. One of life's cruel jokes. No good deed goes unpunished. When you are missing a limb it's obvious. But when you are missing both of your kidney's you feel like you're the urban myth everyone talks about; you went to Mexico for vacation and you woke up in a bathtub full of ice and you had a huge scar across your abdomen and both of your kidneys were gone. Except you're from El Salvador and you had to leave because your ex-husband tried to kill you. You had been working as a housekeeper to send money back home to the daughter in possession of your good kidney but the frequent trips to the ER started to irritate your employer and you were let go. Now you live with your aunt who has health problems of her own but she dutifully carries you up to the hospital every time you get that unmistakeable nausea and you start vomiting. Your potassium never goes above 4.5 so often times you get sent right back home. It's the worst when the doctor just looks at the numbers and doesn't ask you any questions. You know you shouldn't but sometimes you cry. The tears add emphasis and emphasis gets you the golden ticket to the 6th floor and the hemodialysis unit.
Sitting in that triage room you sit on the throne of judgment. It's an onerous task. The guidelines are meant to be a tool to make the job easier, or at least more objective. But objectively, when every single patient has a GFR of 2 they all meet criteria for hemodialysis regardless of their potassium level. Everyone is volume overloaded. Everyone is uremic. The greatest common denominator is a lack of documentation of legal entry into the United States of America. We can split hairs over the politics of this all day long. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and Gregg Abbott and Rick Perry and Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey and the Pope can all sit down in that triage room with me or any other provider for 3 days in a row and then we can have a nice round table discussion. It's hard to tell someone with that much desperation in their eyes, "Too bad!" Even the most soulless of individuals have a hard time telling an 80 year old grandfather or a 23 year old son or a 46 year old mother to go home. "Sorry sir or ma'am. There will be none for you today."
It's even worse now. The resources are more limited. There are less chairs. No one is happy. The patients aren't happy. The nurses aren't happy. The doctors aren't happy. The administrators aren't happy. An undocumented, ESRD patient who happens to fulfill the arbitrary requirements (can we all just admit we are playing God and we're not half as convincing as Morgan Freeman) that sorts him or her into the "NEEDS EMERGENT HEMODIALYSIS" pile is more contagious than Ebola or meningococcal meningitis. We'd all just as soon let the next person deal with the patient. Inevitably you're going to be stuck calling the cranky renal fellow or stuck calling the transfer center to arrange for your patient to go to Galveston or San Antonio or Conroe or the hospital across the street (because there are no more hemodialysis chairs in your hospital). Meanwhile your patient would do anything in the world to sit on the toilet and take a pee just one more time. Or not have a garden hose flopping out of his chest. Or not have skin 80 shades darker than the deepest tan she ever had. Or not wear a winter coat and a wool hat in the middle of July. Or beg for mercy every time he comes to the hospital. He's not trying to game the system. She's not trying to manipulatively score hemodialysis. They are just trying to live one more day so they can drink coffee on the patio with their spouse or walk in the park or go to the birthday party or the family gathering or the grandkid's high school graduation. We need to get over ourselves and our hierarchical mind frame. Some day we might be the dog begging for the table scraps. And we are going to want mercy. So lets all put down our rocks and clean the windows our our glass houses.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
I am Weird
Sitting in my car on a blustery Saturday afternoon on the last official day of winter, I hide from civilization. I have invisible walls that surround me and protect me from having to make conversation with others. It makes me uncomfortable; pleasantries. I suck at it and I'm ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that I'm ALWAYS the awkward, weird one. It doesn't help that I didn't shower this morning, I have greasy hair and I'm wearing my sweatpants that make me look butch. To top it off, it's Houston cold and I'm unprepared for this inclement weather and I happened to have a fleece in my car but it's the one from work that has the university logo and my name with MD and MPH on it so I look like a complete poser/tool. A completely unclean, greasy, butch poser/tool.
I shouldn't care because I'm supposed to be a selfless entity because that's what mothers are supposed to be: completely selfless. My mother is. I am not. My oldest has a water polo tournament and there are other parents that I have to talk to but I don't have anything to say and no one really wants to talk to each other. It's forced niceness. It's like sitting next to the stranger on the airplane. Everyone just wants to bury their nose into their own world but this is worse because a flight is only a couple of hours and you never see the person again. At your kids' sporting events you have to see the same people with some frequency and you don't want people thinking you are a complete asshole.
The worst are the other parents that you know from tournament teams or summer leagues. You are thrown together for a weekend or a summer and so you know each other but no more than you know the kid who bags your groceries and yet you have to smile and make fake conversation. It's the absolute worst. Why can't we just say what we're really thinking?
"This whole thing would be A WHOLE LOT MORE TOLERABLE WITH ALCOHOL!"
Or
"You're the asshole that pressures your mediocre kid so much that I WANT to wet my pants."
Or
"I've spent $5000 on my kids' extra-curricular activities and it's only March. How much are you in the hole?"
Or
"I wouldn't look like a greasy, man-hating lesbian if I wasn't constantly driving my kids around to their expensive activities and I had time to shower and put on clean underwear."
Or
"How long has it been since your last shower?"
Along the same lines, but not really, I have FOMO for my kids. Recently I learned this term from the residents that I teach. FOMO is fear of missing out. It leads you to do stupid stuff. My life is completely ruled by guilt and by FOMO. My kids have FOMO by Proxy. It's the reason I live such a scattered shit-storm of a life. I don't want ANYONE to EVER be upset or disappointed with me so I say yes to as many possible people and situations as possible. You think I'm kidding. I'm not. I'm a total people pleaser. It's pathologic. My psychiatrist just got pissed off at me recently because I canceled 5 minutes before our session. She charged me and I knew she would but somehow she thought I'd be mad about this and left me a message and told me she was going to charge me and "don't have a shit fit." I left her a message apologizing and extolling my responsible character reminding her I'd only cancelled last minute about 3 times in 20 years. For me last minute is literally last minute. She considers last minute to be within 24 hours. Apparently I cancel within 24 hours with some frequency (and with some frequency I mean about 6 times in the past 12 months). She never charged me for those other times but let me reschedule even though the policy is to charge if you cancel within 24 hours. She's been lenient, I get it. Who is NOT gonna try to pay less and not get charged for something that doesn't happen? But she's just as guilty as me. So when she left her message and told me not to have a shit-fit because she was charging me it seemed a little unnecessarily harsh. I might be cheap, but I'm also an adult and I get it. So I tried to defend myself to her when I left her a voice mail. THEN, she emailed me and reminded me of all my egregiousness this past year and it's hard to read tone in an email, but she was definitely snappy. I tell you all of this because it's a great example of me trying to have everybody like me. SHE tells ME not to have a shit-fit (unprofessional and inappropriate, right?) and I try to gently defend myself rather than calling her on it and she gets all uppity and then what do I do? Send her a huge apology email about how much I value her. Dayum I'm so weak! She should be giving me a free session for being so rude on my voicemail! Who is the mental health professional?
My daughter is ridiculously social. If I am to social situations like a CAT is to water then she is to social situations like a FISH is to water. She has scads of friends and invites and places to go and people to see. Any she's not even officially a teenager. My problem is that I try to compensate for my non-existent social graces and instead of using a healthy dose of "NO" to the affairs to which she is invited, I say "YES" almost 100% of the time. I'm already an absolute nut but this just magnifies it. It's a sickness. I do this with my boys too but they aren't as wildly popular as my daughter and I find it easier to say "NO" to them. I'm some subdued version of the Texas Cheerleader Mom. But I'm not gonna take a hit out on someone.
Well the whistle has blown and I gotta go sit in the stands and pretend like I understand the rules and cheer on my kid's team. But I draw the line at spirit gear. I will not wear spirit gear or any t-shirt that describes me in sequins or other bedazzled bling as "____ - mom" where you insert said sport of your child. I'd rather be a tool and wear my god-awful fleece that has the hospital logo and MD on it, proclaiming to the the world that I am incapable of being sorted into the mainstream.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I shouldn't care because I'm supposed to be a selfless entity because that's what mothers are supposed to be: completely selfless. My mother is. I am not. My oldest has a water polo tournament and there are other parents that I have to talk to but I don't have anything to say and no one really wants to talk to each other. It's forced niceness. It's like sitting next to the stranger on the airplane. Everyone just wants to bury their nose into their own world but this is worse because a flight is only a couple of hours and you never see the person again. At your kids' sporting events you have to see the same people with some frequency and you don't want people thinking you are a complete asshole.
The worst are the other parents that you know from tournament teams or summer leagues. You are thrown together for a weekend or a summer and so you know each other but no more than you know the kid who bags your groceries and yet you have to smile and make fake conversation. It's the absolute worst. Why can't we just say what we're really thinking?
"This whole thing would be A WHOLE LOT MORE TOLERABLE WITH ALCOHOL!"
Or
"You're the asshole that pressures your mediocre kid so much that I WANT to wet my pants."
Or
"I've spent $5000 on my kids' extra-curricular activities and it's only March. How much are you in the hole?"
Or
"I wouldn't look like a greasy, man-hating lesbian if I wasn't constantly driving my kids around to their expensive activities and I had time to shower and put on clean underwear."
Or
"How long has it been since your last shower?"
Along the same lines, but not really, I have FOMO for my kids. Recently I learned this term from the residents that I teach. FOMO is fear of missing out. It leads you to do stupid stuff. My life is completely ruled by guilt and by FOMO. My kids have FOMO by Proxy. It's the reason I live such a scattered shit-storm of a life. I don't want ANYONE to EVER be upset or disappointed with me so I say yes to as many possible people and situations as possible. You think I'm kidding. I'm not. I'm a total people pleaser. It's pathologic. My psychiatrist just got pissed off at me recently because I canceled 5 minutes before our session. She charged me and I knew she would but somehow she thought I'd be mad about this and left me a message and told me she was going to charge me and "don't have a shit fit." I left her a message apologizing and extolling my responsible character reminding her I'd only cancelled last minute about 3 times in 20 years. For me last minute is literally last minute. She considers last minute to be within 24 hours. Apparently I cancel within 24 hours with some frequency (and with some frequency I mean about 6 times in the past 12 months). She never charged me for those other times but let me reschedule even though the policy is to charge if you cancel within 24 hours. She's been lenient, I get it. Who is NOT gonna try to pay less and not get charged for something that doesn't happen? But she's just as guilty as me. So when she left her message and told me not to have a shit-fit because she was charging me it seemed a little unnecessarily harsh. I might be cheap, but I'm also an adult and I get it. So I tried to defend myself to her when I left her a voice mail. THEN, she emailed me and reminded me of all my egregiousness this past year and it's hard to read tone in an email, but she was definitely snappy. I tell you all of this because it's a great example of me trying to have everybody like me. SHE tells ME not to have a shit-fit (unprofessional and inappropriate, right?) and I try to gently defend myself rather than calling her on it and she gets all uppity and then what do I do? Send her a huge apology email about how much I value her. Dayum I'm so weak! She should be giving me a free session for being so rude on my voicemail! Who is the mental health professional?
My daughter is ridiculously social. If I am to social situations like a CAT is to water then she is to social situations like a FISH is to water. She has scads of friends and invites and places to go and people to see. Any she's not even officially a teenager. My problem is that I try to compensate for my non-existent social graces and instead of using a healthy dose of "NO" to the affairs to which she is invited, I say "YES" almost 100% of the time. I'm already an absolute nut but this just magnifies it. It's a sickness. I do this with my boys too but they aren't as wildly popular as my daughter and I find it easier to say "NO" to them. I'm some subdued version of the Texas Cheerleader Mom. But I'm not gonna take a hit out on someone.
Well the whistle has blown and I gotta go sit in the stands and pretend like I understand the rules and cheer on my kid's team. But I draw the line at spirit gear. I will not wear spirit gear or any t-shirt that describes me in sequins or other bedazzled bling as "____ - mom" where you insert said sport of your child. I'd rather be a tool and wear my god-awful fleece that has the hospital logo and MD on it, proclaiming to the the world that I am incapable of being sorted into the mainstream.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Thoughts have been swirling in my head for days. I can't keep denying the urge to write. I don't know if I'll post this one. Everyone has a blog now. Everyone writes their thoughts. In some ways its good and in some ways nothing is sacred any longer. I've been ecclesiastical in my thoughts lately. Everything is perplexing and everything is for naught. We all scuttle around this earth and none of it really matters. Everyone is looking out for themselves and their own best interest.
I have family who live in the same town as me and yet we might as well be in different hemispheres. I have friends in a different hemisphere and I'm closer to them than the oceans and time zones that keep us apart. I spent years of my life afraid to speak my mind and feeling unvalued and invisible. Now I freely speak my mind but others don't always value my thoughts and/or appreciate my transparency. I want my actions to speak louder than my words but most days my words cast an opaque shadow over my actions, distorting or obscuring my intentions. I don't want my children to want for anything but in giving them everything I fear they will lack hunger for relevant things.
The area of my circle has become overwhelming. The formula never changes; πr2. There is a constant and a variable. When you are increasing the radius by an exponent of two, even the slightest adjustment significantly changes the area of your circle. I keep pushing that radius just a little bit more and suddenly my landscape is a venn diagram of overlapping crop circles. The problem is the landscaping is killing me. It's just too much maintenance. I've no sooner mowed down one area when another is so overgrown that I no longer need a mower but a machete. The grass is so tall and dense that I loose my bearings and I never remember to bring my compass. I find my way home, but I'm dehydrated and my legs are all scratched up and I'm covered in insect bites.
And yet I have everything I need within the distance of an outstretched hand. I need to put the binoculars away because I've been looking through the wrong end this whole time.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
I have family who live in the same town as me and yet we might as well be in different hemispheres. I have friends in a different hemisphere and I'm closer to them than the oceans and time zones that keep us apart. I spent years of my life afraid to speak my mind and feeling unvalued and invisible. Now I freely speak my mind but others don't always value my thoughts and/or appreciate my transparency. I want my actions to speak louder than my words but most days my words cast an opaque shadow over my actions, distorting or obscuring my intentions. I don't want my children to want for anything but in giving them everything I fear they will lack hunger for relevant things.
The area of my circle has become overwhelming. The formula never changes; πr2. There is a constant and a variable. When you are increasing the radius by an exponent of two, even the slightest adjustment significantly changes the area of your circle. I keep pushing that radius just a little bit more and suddenly my landscape is a venn diagram of overlapping crop circles. The problem is the landscaping is killing me. It's just too much maintenance. I've no sooner mowed down one area when another is so overgrown that I no longer need a mower but a machete. The grass is so tall and dense that I loose my bearings and I never remember to bring my compass. I find my way home, but I'm dehydrated and my legs are all scratched up and I'm covered in insect bites.
And yet I have everything I need within the distance of an outstretched hand. I need to put the binoculars away because I've been looking through the wrong end this whole time.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Yup...
"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." C.S. Lewis
I have my mom here in my house with me after a prolonged hospitalization. She's never been what I'd consider frail and as I see her now, she has never been weaker or more dependent. I was terribly anxious before she arrived. Would she be too needy? Will I be able to juggle, simultaneously, my most demanding roles; wife, mother, daughter, doctor. I unabashedly admit that my family has been subject to a few ugly outbursts lately. Let me clarify that statement; my children have been casualties of the not-so-friendly fire. When things are spinning out of control you grasp on to what's closest for some sense of stability.
I recently had an episode of vertigo. I've diagnosed it plenty of times but I had never experienced it myself. Any time I'd make a sudden movement or lie back in my bed the room would orbit around me so rapidly that I'd have to stop and cling on to anything in my proximity to reorient myself. The worst of the symptoms lasted for about 2 weeks and for those 2 weeks I was desperately grasping for stability in my own shaky world. It's kind of a good metaphor for what's been going on with my mom. And it's kind of clever of God to have put my mother's medical predicament on the heels of my own case of vertigo. Quite simply, with my mom's illness, I had the rug pulled out from underneath my world and I've been in free fall ever since. I've prayed for A LOT the past 3 weeks and, mostly, my prayers have been unspoken. One night, when she was in the ICU and I could no longer take looking at her monitor and all the abnormalities and flashing lights or listen to the chaos of alarms and buzzers and bings and pings, I walked down to the hospital chapel at 3 am. There was one man in there praying, but he soon left and it was just me and God and the 4 walls and I had no words. And even though I was terrified, I didn't even have tears. I don't have a beautiful voice. I sing at church, but always in subdued tones because I don't want to offend people since I'm so out of key. But that night, I didn't care. As I said, it was only me and God and so I reached for the hymnal and sang out loud with as much volume as I could muster. As I sang the words, these hymns of my childhood, they became my prayers.
As a human, I'm prone to human frailties such as trying to establish order in a disorganized world. Lately, because I can not control my circumstances I've been attempting to control other people and situations, mainly my children. Things that are seemingly small or have little significance have taken on distorted proportions. It's as though they are my minions and their programming has gone haywire and ...
I m u s t b r i n g t h e m b a c k t o s u b m i s s i o n. It's never good when you look for an outside solution to an inside problem. You gotta fix the inside before you can focus on the outside. Luckily my kids (and my husband) are pretty cool so they recognize when I'm getting my broom out of the closet and they take cover.
The past 2 days I've been to bible study and with respect to and regardless of anyone's belief system, my faith is my anchor. I've been moored in shallow waters lately and that's a good thing. The God of the universe is bigger than all of this and he's bigger than you or me or our hopes for today or worries for tomorrow. His grace is sufficient for me today; for this moment. He is in the boat with me. He awakens when he hears my cry. He is enough (and I don't need to have my kids organize their binders or closets or create a chore chart to bring order to my world).
I have my mom here in my house with me after a prolonged hospitalization. She's never been what I'd consider frail and as I see her now, she has never been weaker or more dependent. I was terribly anxious before she arrived. Would she be too needy? Will I be able to juggle, simultaneously, my most demanding roles; wife, mother, daughter, doctor. I unabashedly admit that my family has been subject to a few ugly outbursts lately. Let me clarify that statement; my children have been casualties of the not-so-friendly fire. When things are spinning out of control you grasp on to what's closest for some sense of stability.
I recently had an episode of vertigo. I've diagnosed it plenty of times but I had never experienced it myself. Any time I'd make a sudden movement or lie back in my bed the room would orbit around me so rapidly that I'd have to stop and cling on to anything in my proximity to reorient myself. The worst of the symptoms lasted for about 2 weeks and for those 2 weeks I was desperately grasping for stability in my own shaky world. It's kind of a good metaphor for what's been going on with my mom. And it's kind of clever of God to have put my mother's medical predicament on the heels of my own case of vertigo. Quite simply, with my mom's illness, I had the rug pulled out from underneath my world and I've been in free fall ever since. I've prayed for A LOT the past 3 weeks and, mostly, my prayers have been unspoken. One night, when she was in the ICU and I could no longer take looking at her monitor and all the abnormalities and flashing lights or listen to the chaos of alarms and buzzers and bings and pings, I walked down to the hospital chapel at 3 am. There was one man in there praying, but he soon left and it was just me and God and the 4 walls and I had no words. And even though I was terrified, I didn't even have tears. I don't have a beautiful voice. I sing at church, but always in subdued tones because I don't want to offend people since I'm so out of key. But that night, I didn't care. As I said, it was only me and God and so I reached for the hymnal and sang out loud with as much volume as I could muster. As I sang the words, these hymns of my childhood, they became my prayers.
As a human, I'm prone to human frailties such as trying to establish order in a disorganized world. Lately, because I can not control my circumstances I've been attempting to control other people and situations, mainly my children. Things that are seemingly small or have little significance have taken on distorted proportions. It's as though they are my minions and their programming has gone haywire and ...
I m u s t b r i n g t h e m b a c k t o s u b m i s s i o n. It's never good when you look for an outside solution to an inside problem. You gotta fix the inside before you can focus on the outside. Luckily my kids (and my husband) are pretty cool so they recognize when I'm getting my broom out of the closet and they take cover.
The past 2 days I've been to bible study and with respect to and regardless of anyone's belief system, my faith is my anchor. I've been moored in shallow waters lately and that's a good thing. The God of the universe is bigger than all of this and he's bigger than you or me or our hopes for today or worries for tomorrow. His grace is sufficient for me today; for this moment. He is in the boat with me. He awakens when he hears my cry. He is enough (and I don't need to have my kids organize their binders or closets or create a chore chart to bring order to my world).
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