Mom 2

Lately, probably because of all the heap, I've been introspective. This self-indulgent pastime is a contact sport. As you may recall, in my texts with my mom, I stated that I'm always trying to prove my worthiness and I know this is rooted in deep-seeded insecurity. The human condition is such an F'ed up thing. Why, at the age of 44, am I still rearranging the puzzle pieces of my life?

So this is it. Illegitimate. If you look up the Merriam-Webster definition in the online student dictionary it says; 1: born of a father and mother who are not married and 2: illegal. The regular dictionary gives you this definition:

il·le·git·i·mate, adjective \-ˈji-tə-mət\

1: not recognized as lawful offspring; specifically : born of parents not married to each other

2: not rightly deduced or inferred : illogical

3: departing from the regular : erratic

4 a : not sanctioned by law : illegal b : not authorized by good usage c of a taxon : published but not in accordance with the rules of the relevant international code

with following synonyms: baseborn, bastard, misbegotten, natural, spurious, supposititious, unfathered


What if you are 19 years old and it is the late 1960s? Do this word and its synonyms have a negative or positive connotation? If suddenly you find your situation described as "not legitimate" by your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and community how do you feel about yourself? What if the setting is a deeply Catholic and traditionally Mexican small town? What kind of vibes do you unwittingly pass off to your adorable little bundle? Especially if everyone is playing hot potato with you and your tiny little baby? At 19-20 years of age, you are probably conflicted by all the negative energy that is swirling around your piece of the universe. You love your tiny baby and think she's awesome, but people keep sending you mixed messages. "Your baby is adorable, but you are a f-up. And we need to send you away and pretend this never happened." Even if they aren't saying those exact words, this is all you hear. Everything gets filtered through the lens of condemnation. Kind of hard to recover any shred of self-esteem from this situation and to move forward in a positive, constructive manner. Fast forward 44 years and look back at those texts from yesterday. That 19 year old is the same kick-ass lady who is sending me those positive affirmations. More to come...sorry to put you all through this...this online, literary version of dissecting a garbage disposal, but I warned anyone who might read, this is not for you...it's for me (and maybe my kids someday. If they care)

Mom

Are you ever tired? Bone tired? Not just today or even this week, but deep down, every fiber of your being tired?

I had a text message exchange with my mom today that was simply lovely. I forget how fortunate I am to have her in my life.






















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Projects

My husband said we need to start our own business called "Third Grade Projects Done in an Hour; Guaranteed to Look Like a Third Grader Did It!"


This is our interpretation of what our daughter's Lincoln Memorial project would look like had she actually done it herself. I think she'll take at least an 89 on her lack of effort.

Lee and I must be the worst parents on the planet. She's been telling us about this project for weeks. Lee even texted about 37 different photos of the actual Lincoln Memorial from their recent trip. All along we had planned to photoshop a picture of daughter's face onto the Lincoln statue. We had it all planned out except for the actual execution.

At 9 o'clock while we are laying (lying?) in bed she suddenly freaks out. "Oh my God! What day is it?!"

"Sunday," I reply.

"No, I mean the date?" The full on girl hysterics complete with waterworks and hyperventilating are about to begin.

"My project is due tomorrow!! What am I going to do!?!?!"

Obviously, we didn't have any of the instructions for the project/paper, but thankfully my friend bailed us out, immediately emailing over her kid's copy. Meanwhile, our daughter is wailing because she thinks that forgetting about a 3rd grade project is a tragedy akin to the sinking of the Titanic.

Lee and I had hoped that tonite might be the night we'd actually get to have a conversation, but we both just sighed as we talked our 9 year old down off the ledge knowing that our evening was going to be spent figuring out how to make a model of the Lincoln Memorial using duct tape and paper towel rolls. Between the 2 of us we have more than 20 years of graduate level education and here we are staying up late on a third grade assignment. I think I've pulled just as many late nights on elementary school projects as I did studying in medical school. Seriously. And if you did a side by side comparison of my grades in medical school against the grades my kids have made on the innumerable projects they've (I've) completed in the past 7 years, you'd wonder how I ever made it past the 3rd grade in the first place and you'd be glad medical schools don't ask for 3rd grade transcripts or require their students to do reports on the history of the cadaver with concomitant paper mâché models.

Now I'm sure that all 3 of you who are reading this are clucking and tisk-tisking about the bawdiness of my overt disregard for assignments and the honor code and self-sufficiency in children. And wondering where my daughter is going to land in 10 years if I'm rescuing her at this minor level. My response to all of you haters out there..."I have no frigging clue if I'm doing this correctly and I hope to God I'm not causing any kind of irreversible damage."

Oh yeah, she was worried that her report wouldn't be long enough because the teacher wants a full page. Guess how we fix that little problem? Increase the font size. Voilà! It's big enough for Helen Keller to read, but it's a full page!

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Norovirus

Oldest kid is home with a wicked case of Norovirus, likely contracted while he was on the school trip. He's mostly on the mend, just needing some TLC.


His little brother thought he could capitalize on big brother's unfortunate turn of events. This morning middle kid was specifying his symptoms; nausea, belly discomfort, sensation of imminent vomiting. I had signed off on another absence and was assuring him of his likely need for summer school and I guess he decided he needed to throw in another symptom just to solidify his case. But, he picked the wrong symptom-shortness of breath. Mom, "It's hard for me to breath." At that point I knew he either was suffering from Ebola virus or he was full of sh*t. My pre-test probability for bullsh*t was high. It might have been reasonable for him to be coming down with the same highly contagious GI illness, but throw in respiratory distress and you either need an ICU bed or a day of school. After tossing him a Tylenol and a Zofran, we were out the door and suddenly he was cured.



Middle kid during President's Inauguration. The flag next to the pool of drool signifies his patriotism.

My friend is tired of helicopter parenting her college age child. I'm fairly close to the college student and friend wants me to inquire of student's progress acquiring a summer internship, review student's personal statement and advise student that he/she should quit relying on adults in his/her life to get things completed. Hmmm?

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Truancy

Show of hands...do you let your 5th grader skip school to study for his 9 week cumulative math test? His father is advocating a day home from school (with me as the enforcer and coach of said studying). And apparently I'm rude for disagreeing and having an opinion. The problem is multifactorial; a) he missed 2 days of school last week because he was "sick" and too "sick" to study b) he is in DC for the inauguration this weekend and he legitimately hasn't had any time to review his math (his teacher graciously gave him an extension on completion so he can finish on Wednesday when he returns to school) c) he has no knowledge of what might be covered on the test and denies existence of study guide or any kind of review that might have been provided by the same gracious teacher who has twice postponed his tests d) no amount of cramming is going to fix his lack of effort.

My husband is nervous and doesn't want our kid to fail, which is admirable, but I kind of feel like the 5th grader has dug himself a pit and to rescue him at this point would be robbing him of a valuable lesson, which as my friend Vanessa calls, "getch yo head outta yo ass, son!"
Of the 3 children this is definitely the kid who requires healthy doses of tough love. Otherwise, charming as he is, he is prone to sloth-fullness.

The other issue is how to communicate with husband so he doesn't just here "screech, screech, screech" from the evil bitch mom/wife. Compounding his anxiety over our son's math test debacle is his overwhelming tiredness from chaperoning the middle school field trip to DC and his lack of preparation for his own presentation this Thursday. Wrongly, he assumed he'd have time to work on his power point presentation. He is the one who needs to play hookey from work this Wednesday so he can prepare his slides.

My biggest problem is timing and sensitivity. If I hadn't been such a bull in the china shop when he called, I would have responded differently to the exhaustion and anxiety in his voice and words. Instead I tried to discuss reason with an insanely tired man.

So, that's it for the night...survey says a) yes he stays home or b) he goes to school?
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Tamoxifen

The data from the ATLAS study have me in a funk. I've been in a horrendous black cloud of depression all day. The results suggest that premenopausal women with ER positive tumors who take 10 years of tamoxifen rather than standard 5 years of therapy decrease their mortality and disease free interval, especially after the 10th year of medication. Tamoxifen hasn't really bothered me and I don't mind taking it for another 5 years if that is what is suggested by my oncologist. I'd stand on my head and chew gum while reciting the Declaration of Independence if she told me it was good for me. But some of the statistics are a real buzz kill, like: the cumulative risk of breast cancer recurrence is 21.4% in women who stay on tamoxifen for 10 years (versus 25.1% in women who only take it for 5 years) and breast cancer mortality (meaning death due to breast cancer) 5-14 years after diagnosis is 12.2% in the 10 year group versus 15.0% in the 5 year group.

I went running on the bayou today to try to clear my mind. I always go back to my same spot where I gave all of this mess to God 6 years ago. I was silently praying with my head bowed at my favorite tree and when I looked up, there was a butterfly (could have been a moth, but I'm fairly certain it was a butterfly) almost exactly where I had left my pink, plastic breast cancer awareness bracelet offering 6 years ago. Butterflies are reminders of my cousin Rebeca who died 11 years ago. I think I've written about this somewhere before, but at her funeral, her younger brother, my cousin David, relayed an incident that had occurred at their house the morning of Rebeca's funeral. When her immediate family went out into their backyard that morning there were thousands of monarch butterflies in the woods behind their house on their southward migration and David took those butterflies as a sign from Rebeca that everything was going to be okay and every time any of us, her siblings and cousins and parents and aunts and uncles, saw a butterfly, everything was going to be okay and she was right there with us watching over us. I'm not making this up and it couldn't be any more perfect. Literally, the moment I lifted my head from that prayer, in the exact same spot that I had left my offering 6 years earlier just days after my diagnosis when I was so scared and my future seemed do uncertain, there it was - a perfect butterfly. And it just sat there and flapped its wings and didn't move for several minutes. I thought it might have been a moth, because it was kind of old looking and a little battered, but I'm fairly certain it was a butterfly. I even reached out and placed a little kiss on it, transferred from the tip of my finger to its wing and it didn't even move. It just sat there and fluttered its wings. I was about to take a picture of it with my cell phone and it finally flew away. At that moment, I knew everything was going to be okay. It was the exact same spot 6 years ago that God had promised me everything would be okay. If people don't believe in God or don't believe that he speaks to you, then slap me silly and call me a fool because I couldn't have made the situation up and it couldn't have been any more significant. And I think the fact that the butterfly was a little old and part of it's wing was missing was just God's way of emphasizing not only am I gonna be okay, but I'll probably be around for a long time and I'll be a bit tattered, with parts missing and out of place and not so pretty when it's finally time for me to go. And just like that butterfly, when it's time for me to fly away, it will be on His terms, not mine and I'll fly right on out of here before anyone can even stop to take a picture.

So numbers or not, I'm going to be okay and Rebeca, I love you and thanks God.

Water Polo and the ER

Currently I am sitting in an aquatic center located 266 miles from my home. I got up at 4 am and drove 4 hours this morning so my 12 year old could come to an all day water polo training. Of all people least likely to care enough about athletics to drive this far for practice, I am probably it. I love my kid. That is the only reason I'm happy to be here and already calculating the volume of 5 hour energy drinks I'll need to consume to make it back home tonight.


My kid isn't the best but he loves the sport and I think this will be good for his ego/self-confidence. Who could have ever explained to us the things we would be willing to do because we love our kids so much, the sacrifices we'd be willing to make. As I mentioned, he's 12 and the youngest one in his grouping here so he wants me to stay-8 hours on the bleachers watching him practice. But he's my baby, so even though I'd love to sneak away for a couple of hours, each time he steals a glance up here and smiles, it's worth it.


I worked in the ER a couple of days ago. I was called over to help out in the shock rooms towards the end of my shift. During my residency, fellowship and early days of practice I didn't mind taking care of the critically ill patients that were brought into the emergency room. But, it's been about 7 years since I've done that sort of thing so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. And I've never taken care of trauma patients, just patients with heart attacks, strokes and altered mental status. A large volume trauma was coming in and they needed all hands on deck. Lucky for me and the patients, I only had to triage minor injuries. However, the whole experience left me rattled. It reminded me just how fragile life really is. One minute you are going over the grocery list in your head and the next minute you are gone. You could tell a lot of the younger doctors and trainees relished the thrill of it all and the rush of adrenaline. Maybe they went home later that night and contemplated the sanctity of life, but mostly it seemed like a thrill ride for them. That's not bad, just shows you what a few years and a few life experiences will do for you. The experience affected me for days afterwards. I couldn't stop thinking about the fragility of our existence and how, as a health care provider, I'm entrusted with so much.


That night when I got home my 9 year old daughter was still awake. She had been waiting for me and it had been a rough nite for her, arguing with her brothers and subsequently getting in trouble with her father. While she was in the shower with me, letting the hot water carry all our burdens away, she detailed her list of offenses. Mostly, she was to blame and she knew it. She realizes she incites her brothers to anger and can incur the wrath of her father with just a look. Actually, she seemed quite pleased with the control she possesses but at the same time was saddened by its frequent negative outcomes. I decided to tell her about my evening in the shock rooms. At first she was flippant, but as I continued to talk she soaked it all in and for the moment she understood that most squabbles don't matter because life is precious.


That night was God's display of Newton's Third Law of Motion. In one part of the world one family was trying to make sense of the incomprehensible and elsewhere that life, though unknown to her, was being honored by a little girl through her realization that you can't take the people you love for granted. God bless hurting people everywhere and let us be mindful of the precious little time we are gifted.
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