Tag Archives: Life

Wow, how long has it been? Was I hanging with Angelina?

by

Hey, I originally wrote this in March but wasn’t ready to get back in the saddle. My hands are completely numb most of the time, so I’d say traction is calling!

NOT! Sorry if you only clicked to read about her, you know, Angelina Jolie. She’s been in the news a lot lately, AH-gain, but this time she hasn’t adopted anyone, she’s tried to avoid getting ovarian cancer. Something I wasn’t able to do.

In case you’ve wandered, that’s where I’ve been, not with Angelina, but on a journey she can now avoid. I was diagnosed last July. Did the whole chemo thing and now I’m in remission. And yes, I know the stats, 20,000 a year diagnosed, 14,500 die, so about 30 percent make it. Not odds I’d take to the casino but when those are the only odds you get, you take them. And, as my doc says, “somebody has to be the 30 percent!” I’m fine being in that group.

Yet as I’ve learned some wisdom from others fighting the cancer battle, folks in late stages of the shitty disease, nobody has a lock on time, you could die today, it’s just with cancer you often know the time frame a bit better. They also tell me everyone should have a bucket list, write your dreams down, then do it.

Once again it’s all about perspective. I thought I’d have a crappy spinal column as my life challenge, not feeling my foot for the last 25 years was my cross, but life has other plans, I’m a person that got to hear those dreaded words, “you have cancer”. AND I’m still living, every morning when my feet hit the floor I remember what a lucky girl I am.

As for Angelina, it will be good if she can bring some attention to the cause, especially if she can bring money to it. Most of the treatments are 30 years old, not a lot is new in ovarian cancer, unlike breast cancer, with research and new treatments, outcomes get better. There’s still way too many women dying from both but ovarian deserves some more attention.

It’s good to be back, thanks for reading.

Q and A

by

For some people so much of life is hard. People who don’t know that first hand should be on their knees saying thank you. So much of life is something we can’t comprehend, are we meant to ever understand. Are all the mysteries answered in the end? Is there a big question and answer session after we die, or is there more mystery, more discovery, more waiting to understand?

Some days, some times life is very predictable and simple, get up, go to work, come home, do what you need to do for the next day, be with family and go to bed and do it all over again the next day if you are lucky enough to do so. Other days your life experiences its own collapse, its own tsunami, its own personal September 11th. Your life blows up, maybe it just starts out as an ordinary Wednesday but by the end of it your life feels gutted, gone forever what ever you held most dear. Every day someone somewhere experiences that kind of pain, that kind of fear, that kind of despair. If you don’t know that, start counting your lucky days.

Just been thinking how much we all take for granted or how some folks just don’t seem to get it. They seem careless, not care free. They don’t seem to cherish the moments, the people who matter….maybe they don’t ever think about it….but some day their life will implode and they will be left on the side of the road wondering what the heck just happened. Hold tight to what you have, look up and say thanks to what ever you believe in and love more, do more, be more….we only go around once and the clock is ticking.

Did you ever leave early and regret it?

by

Did you ever notice the people who leave the baseball game in the top of the ninth or the basketball game with two minutes to go or leave church before the last prayer? Where do you think they are going? I know I’ve been tempted to leave things early because sometimes in a crowd folks don’t have a lot a patience for the chick walking with a limp. If I’m using a cane it’s amazing how many times it has been kicked out from under me or the back of my shoe has been stepped into causing it to come off, literally folks at my heels.

As I “celebrate” the second year of this blog, third year of traction, I think back about all the times I did want to quit. All the times I left traction early or cut out on some exercises, but just as many or more did I stick with it, I’m still here. Although I clearly understand my reasons for wanting to leave traction early, even leave it in the dust, I also know I’d be missing out on something. It’s so tempting to not finish something that is so not fun, so not entertaining, so not pretty, so not anything I’d ever wish on you or anyone. But it’s not a sporting event or chosen event and as a result, I won’t beat the traffic, I won’t get home in time for my favorite TV show, or make my dinner reservation. Life isn’t always a simple, neat little package you can plan and organize.

Sitting in traction and writing this blog is for me, I benefit most, I suffer most when I don’t do it, when I leave early, when I stop caring. Many of the subjects of these blogs have been about mind over matter. In these few years I’ve not found a trick or a secret or a magic wand, I’ve just hung in there, some days more gracefully than others, some days more painfully than others, some days wanting to scream or cry or laugh my self silly at this gizmo and the tediousness of it all.

Is that why people leave the game early, are they bored, are they in a hurry, or are they a control freak like me that wants to be in charge of everything? You will not find the answer here but you will have time to think about it. I’m taking what this experience is offering, sometimes that doesn’t feel like much but it is SOMETHING and when I forget that, I’m in trouble. So for now, I’m watching the last pitch, listening to the sound of the buzzer and saying Amen with the few stragglers left in the pew because I don’t want to miss a minute of this thing called my life.

(ps, I should run thru this entry again to make sure it makes sense but again, that’s not what this is about, I need this blog to be here for me just as it is, to ramble, to whine, to laugh, to be. To help me get thru and today I don’t feel like making sure it all makes sense, does that make sense 😉

Summer skiing

by

As I was sitting in traction this morning pulling my neck with a ten pound bag of water I was watching a video on YouTube. If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know that I’ve done a lot of things to distract myself while I’m sitting there passing the time. My neck hurts today, my fingers are numb and when I finished traction my back wanted to punish me. As far as life goes I had a good weekend, as far as my spine is concerned just seeing a snow less ski slope invokes a feeling of cruel and unusual treatment. Although I enjoyed time with family and watching my niece graduate surrounded by the Green Mountains of Vermont I also knew what was ahead for the week, recuperation from the travel, i.e., many hours lying flat on my back.

For me the ordinary things require a lot of me, I’m not feeling sorry for myself, it’s just the way it is. From walking across the room to pulling laundry out of the washer, any activity that requires standing, holding a pen or even the telephone these days for more than a few minutes leads to my arm feeling numb and painful. Things aren’t going in the right direction for me in terms of my cervical and spinal conditions, but I’m trying, I’m not giving up. I’ve written before about the importance of that, how in moments that seems like victory enough. I’m ready for things to get better for me physically but unless I experience a miracle they probably won’t. I’m losing ground and sometimes that feels frightening, sad and frustrating but after watching a video of others experiencing their own challenges, surviving to tell their stories, I feel better. We aren’t alone in this fight, that gives us courage, it gives us the freedom to tell the truth. I’ve said this before and it’s worth stating again, life stinks, more than stinks and pushing forward a second at a time is a freaking victory.

Let’s do this thing people.

No dessert in the desert

by

Here we are as February is coming to a fast end, two months will soon be over in 2012. I’m going to sound old, heck, I feel old while I’m sitting here hanging in traction but time always marches on, ready or not. It seems I just decided what I was giving up last year for Lent and now I’m in the midst of another. Last year I tried this sort of funky thing where instead of giving up something I told myself I’d do more. I tried to study more, pray more, give more, do more, you get the idea, the things that were difficult I tried more, not less. It sort of fundamentally sounded like it went against the sacrificial aspect of Lent but it truly was supposed to be a penance to do “more of” the things I didn’t like or at least, felt like the things that didn’t like me.

That was too complicated in the end so I’m going traditional this year, I’m just trying to show up for Lent, I’m going to try to remember it’s Lent. When I want to go to the drive thru to pick up something quick and easy to eat I’m going to try to remember I do have food at home and I can eat that when I get there. When I want something I’m going to try to remember my little girl friend in the orphanage in Port-au-Prince that would literally find a crumb on the floor and instead of gobbling it down she would divide by however many others were in the room. A small child and she knew more about sharing and giving of herself than I’ll ever know. This might sound selfish and delusional but traction it seems to me is like Lent, it is about showing up, remembering, completing the task at hand, no room for BS, no forgetting, no I’m too tired, no I don’t feel like it, no, it’s not fair. In addition, Lent is doing what you said you’d do but not making a big deal about it, or as my Mom would say, “no broadcasting it.” There’s no need to go on about saying no thanks to dessert, passing on seconds or giving up the fancy morning coffee. Lent is being out there on your own, no fuss, no frills, no extras, no pity parties, real life stuff, just you and God. AND, the last time I checked there wasn’t any chocolate growing in the desert.

Yep, I’ve not found sacrifice a bowl full of fun but if you stick with it you do find something new. I owe Lent for any ability I have to sit here in traction, the more I grow to understand Lent the easier the traction gig is for me. When it comes down to it really, isn’t it just about taking away life’s distractions and excuses, learning more about your true self, therefore, knowing more about God.

Action Traction

by

I’m sitting here thinking that I’m 2 plus years into the cervical traction gig and I wonder how many times that actually translates into sitting here. When I started in July of ’09 I was told to do traction five times a week, more if needed. Then I was dropped down to three times a week and now I maintain a two-day a week schedule, but if my symptoms return I bump it up one or two times more a week. Frankly, I don’t know if I’ve done traction 300 times or 30 times, it’s a routine now and even though it has its moments where it’s uncomfortable and even painful you do what you have to do to maintain feeling in your arms and hands, right people! It’s such a simple thing without much work involved but the results produce much action. A day or two of tingling fingers, arms that feel like they are two pieces of string blowing in the wind, that motivates me, or probably would anyone, to get back to traction pronto.

So here I am on Labor day when we celebrate those that work and I’m trying to do my part to keep active, to keep moving, to keep working because that’s what us humans do best. We labor, we move, we produce, we manage, we provide, we are action. Even in the slightest ways of moving, an infant in a car seat doing their job by wiggling their toes and flailing their arms and smiling their toothless grins, a person left to a nursing home bed can move mountains with their courage and the compassion they bring out in others……I gotta remember even if I’m not skydiving I’m working, I’m living, I’m in action, I’m alive and well.

Home Remedies

by

I was walking down a long corridor last week and an older gentleman came up next to me and said, “Excuse me Miss, mind if I ask why you’re limping, you seem like you’re in such pain.” The man had my immediate attention because he called me “Miss,” there could have been a time in my life where I wouldn’t have liked that term, but now I consider it a solid victory if someone doesn’t refer to me as “Mam.” He then quickly went on to add that he too has a limp and he wondered if my issues were related to my spine, he starts to tell me about his situation and then waits for me to answer. I briefly describe my problem, in part because I’m still a little thrown off by a complete stranger stopping me and asking me basically what feels like, “what’s wrong with you?,” but yet that has happened before, I’m really more interested in NOT standing in the hallway since standing is pretty much my least favorite thing on the planet. After I answer him he sympathizes and goes onto to describe his spinal surgery. As we end the conversation and I turn to head down the hall he wishes me well and says he’s sorry for my trouble. It sometimes feels weird to know what to say. I guess I do have “troubles” yet everyone does, mine just might be more obvious sometimes, but he was just trying to be kind or “help” in some way or at least that’s how I prefer to take our exchange.

Recently I’ve been encouraged to try a couple different home remedies. One is to prepare a cup of water like you would for tea but rather than adding your favorite flavor, add two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and a spot of honey. Another one is to pour GIN over a cup of golden raisins and count out 11 every day to eat. The recipes come from folks that want to “help” and although I’m not sure I’ll be downing gin soaked raisins anytime soon I do feel some healing by the great compassion I’m shown.

I’d rather think of that while I’m sitting here in traction than all the crap going on in this world, don’t you just want a break from all of it, I’m so tired of hearing bad stuff. I’m overwhelmed by the news of horrific natural disasters, misery, suffering and economic world woes; everyday it seems there’s some awful thing worse than the day before.

So I’m asking, just please dear world, take a freaking time out and be nice!

ENOUGH already, come on, give the planet a break for a minute, let it rain where the ground is so cracked and parched it’s causing severe droughts and famine, sprinkle some tolerance and peace over massive parts of the world. Please help everyone to suck on a Pollyanna pill, calm down and be kind to one another for a day or two. “Help” each other, stop and talk to someone, just let us have a moment where we can still believe there is more right with this place than it being one giant mess, give us a splash of hope, please. Who knows, maybe a simple home remedy will make a difference.

In the meantime I am going to go sip some hot apple cider vinegar honey “tea” and try to think of something besides the negative, and then I’ll wait for the good to come, because I still have to believe it’s bigger than the bad. Cheers!

Yours truly, Pollyanna

What I’ve overheard lately

by

My hearing isn’t what it used to be, but lately I’ve randomly overheard bits and pieces of some crazy stuff. Each time I catch the middle of something in line at a store or a snippet of something as the elevator door closes I think, you know, somebody needs to write a book about what they’ve overheard. It’s wild.

The other day I heard this man say that “if it’s murder, they will find out.” Okay, well I certainly hope so! You also often hear the mundane, “I don’t know, why are you asking me?” sorts of stuff. Yet the kind that catch your ears like, “don’t you think you should tell her who her father is” just make it hard to concentrate on the task at hand. Oh, yeah, what floor am I going to and what button do I push to get there.

Couple days ago just as the elevator doors were about to close a man got on and pushed the button for his floor and then went to the rear of the elevator and began to read aloud from a poster on the wall to his left. The poster was advertising a car wash fund-raiser on behalf of the Susan G Komen Foundation which had to be postponed because of rain. He read the entire poster aloud, even the part about why early detection is so important. As another person exited the elevator and I was left alone with the reader I was left to think, well at least when I sit and do traction I’m alone with my own thoughts and although they are often random, silly and boring, they are mine.

Bubbles, I’m not talking about Michael Jackson’s monkey

by

I saw a little girl crossing the street today along with another girl about her age and two woman. The women were also both pushing strollers so it seems that the girls maybe big sisters. They crossed the street at a busy intersection filled with lunch time traffic. As they crossed the street they stretched out and moved along the cross walk in a line rather than as a group. The slow poke girl was at the end, taking her time and enjoying the moment, blowing bubbles as she pushed her sunglasses up on her face. She looked like she was about five years old and seemed oblivious to the congestion surrounding her. There she was, stopping every so often to gently blow more bubbles. It was the sweetest thing to witness, she definitely seemed to be walking to the beat of her own drum. Traction seems here to stay but it’s now Summertime, filled with happy children, bubbles blowing and good things right before your eyes if you look.