Call Oprah!

May 15, 2013

Whirling off into wild dreams about hideous nurses in powder blue scrubs and echoing clogs barreling down on me with exceedingly long thick needles is unnerving. The medical team’s assurance of powerful tingling and a strong darting sensations up and down my lower leg, as the pain block wore off, never came to fruition. No pain nor discomfort though I have been religious about taking narcotics and muscle spasm meds every four hours, setting the timer throughout the night. Stomach is churning but no number two yet so prunes, prunes, prunes are on the menu! The darned stool softeners are not kicking in. Aren’t you amused I “tell all?”

Farting around (no pun intended!) has never been my forte so these days of innocuous conversation with myself is difficult. Leg alarmingly high above my heart, succumbing to dozing off now and again, scanning a novel, practicing my questionable texting skills and staring out at the top of the willow out back makes for a week-long day. All pets are in the little room with me, hiding my pill bottles and sucking on the plastic bags. One cat in particular should be on that television program about weird habits. She also howls in strange murmuring tongue when she is about to vomit. Perhaps the critters assume I need the companionship and realize if they left me alone I would go flying off the handle.  

Decided it is time for me to work on putting this blog in order and getting it into book format. I believe we are all six people from someone important like the President. So, if anyone knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows Oprah, please forward their contact information! Ms Winfrey is an incredible Master at bringing authors to light. Since I am way down in the bowels of the tunnel of the unknowns I need all of the search and rescue help I can get!

If you hear consistent disconcerting burbles from a faraway place, have no fear, it is my stomach.

Surgical moves

May 13, 2013

Surgery jitters took me outside for a walk with Dylan, a perky and active tri-colored Border Collie. Headed to the giant bowl park in Richfield to pick up trash and chase sticks for an hour, guess which I did, yep,, three bags full. We were accompanied by a handsome and busy German Short-haired Pointer that eventually disappeared behind a neighboring house. I scampered away and disappeared around the corner since I would have felt responsible for him had we gotten back to the house, enormous dog in tow.

No flashy jewelry, body lotions, flammable hair spray, colorful make-up, much missed deodorant, fragrant perfume, cover-up nail polish nor pregnancies allowed. I thoroughly scrubbed down left thigh-to-toes with glowing pink soap last night and this morning in the tub. Set the timer for five minutes while scrubbing the surgical sites and dreamt of better days to come. I was nervous and inflexible about my anger and being held victim to circumstance. My good friend, Margie phoned me to murmur a prayer together which was helpful. Surrounded by friends and family, supportive calls and well wishes I eventually shook off the grave sight face and dread.

Donned a fashionable hospital gown opened at the back, fancy blue slippers and matching hairnet that would have caused a stir in the street had I chosen to escape. Reluctantly decided to remain indoors and undergo an operation. From the time I entered the facility, greeted by an elderly man fastened to a wheelchair with an Elks Club look about him, assisting lost and introspective patients at the information booth to scooting out the front door with the tender nurse, to my edifying follow-up call just now, I was catered-to, joked with, calmed, informed and taken well care of. My numerous questions were answered and all of the women expressed great interest in the story of my injury in Brasil. Or maybe I am just making that up! They were humoring me.

I was hot, so steamy and uncomfortable under the blanket with a hose attached to a machine that blew tropical air into it. Difficult to imagine myself parked on the beach. The nurse suggested my hands were too cold to tap my vein so I couldn’t continue to pretend to read my book because she hid my hands under the warm blowing breeze. Read the same page over and over without an iota of an idea of the storyline. So many nurses, doctors with clogs and tennis shoes, identical blue scrubs and caps entered and exited at a furious revolving door pace. My blood pressure bleeped on a monitor, fluids entering my vein and my mind in pursuit of answers to questions I couldn’t formulate.

Wonderful Nettie was there to pick me up, insisting on arriving early and since the surgery started an hour later than scheduled and went over half and hour, she had to sit and linger. 

Gulped water, chatted about I don’t know what and passed out.

Mom's Day

Mother’s Day 2013

To everyone who is sans a mother:

I don’t have a mother. I have multiple mothers, women who stand, sit, race, stagger, dance and wander to help me and the people of the planet thrive. We mothers and women of the world are tireless supporters so much so that often we forget just how fabulous we actually are!  We disappear until another woman mother reminds us just how much of an impact we actually make each and every day and then we buck-up and do it all over again.

Go Mothers Go!

Pre-Mother's Day dribble

May 11, 2013

Well my bags are packed, I’m ready to go, standing here outside your door..oh, that’s someone else’s story!

My trusty laptop will be left behind this weekend as I prepare my duplex for the move-in, celebrate Mother’s Day with my little chicken then head to the operating table on Monday. Therefore I will post both today and tomorrows at the same time.  Forgive my jumping the gun.

Anticipating the deception of “everything will be alright.” The alright comes after lethargy from narcotics, pain, physical therapy strain, enduring and an overpowering sensation of stuckness. The inability to drive a car let alone bear weight on my foot is enough to drive me to journaling, soul-searching and frantic sympathy-seeking phone calls to my friends for commiseration.

The perspective from a bed or chair with a lot of slick floor or carpeting, stairs or grassy slopes in between me and whatever I am aiming to do…like going to the toilet makes me realize just how powerful want and need are. For so long I worked with bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound Hospice patients with sympathy and compassion. It is a different dance to be immobilized myself. Oh I can whirl around in crutches yet it is glaringly apparent that the freedom I once had has limits now. October 23^rd, my initial surgery, is still fresh.

How to steel myself for the up-and-coming six to ten weeks? Lots of comfort food, books, laptop accessibility, movies, music, family and friends. Forget it, no knitting, croqueting, quilting, embroidery, sewing, stained glass making, pottery or painting for me! I am strictly a writer artist and that is that!

Sore loser

May 10, 2013

Life is being alone in a group.

Have to dig deep where I am and not slip off elsewhere. To be clear in the moments of ankle throbs, angst regarding fiscal accountability, joy in the shenanigans of the silly playful dogs who insist on following me from room to room, cats that chase small pieces of plastic straws tiring of the game and tossing them into the yawning toilet bowl, horses who get excited about feeding time and canter around the ring and nibble at my head as they stop short of barreling into me.

The sunshine on my face is glorious as I await new tires and ever so grateful the frank mechanic explains the squeaking and churning noises that occur as I turn the vehicle. Time to turn inward as I read and visit the local Thrift Store waiting for my car to be serviced. Procured a pre-owned coffee table and set of eight drinking glasses today for my future multiple guests at the new residence. In need of far too many household goods to generate on a single list. Taelor isn’t a great fan of yard saling so I will have to solicit friends to go along.

I wonder how much the Auto Shop clerk will ring up on the till in the end. Since they don’t have any dishes to wash and I can only change oil, switch-out spark plugs in a pinch, flush and replace radiator fluid, complete a brake job with the owner’s manual and swap out wipers, I will have to cough up the dough!

Gracious indignation is a balance I tend to adjust and cater to. The consequence of gaping days ahead with little income give me the chance to create from absolutely nothing perched on my bouncy bed, lawn stool, director’s chair, loveseat, swivel office throne, park bench or the wood floor (though that is very difficult to stand up from.)  Have to remember to switch on the electricity and gas, fire up the internet, change addresses, do a run-through for the washer/dryer and remind my daughter just how good she is at driving a five speed! Though Taelor is used to a wagon and a manual transmission, she should be able to adjust easily to an SUV for the time being. In the future I may have to sell the bulky car and swap-out for a (gulp) automatic, depends upon how my foot is healing after 10 weeks time.

Plunging into last minute instructions-shaving my leg, scrubbing down several layers of skin, removing any trace of nail polish and embarrassing toe jam. Though I am certain the surgeon has seen it all, I don’t aim to be the one to make him or the nurses gossip after check-out. The nurse who phoned to give me the third degree, ask twenty questions and spell-out directives was pleasant and cheerful, who wouldn’t be since she is not the patient going under the knife?

Won a Bahamas Cruise!

May 9, 2013

Feel short of brain cells this morning. I’m running on a few unsound hours of sleep so while the temporary homestead family run in circles preparing for a long drive, night in a hotel with full breakfast privileges then the daunting ride back I meander around the house in a daze. Verbal instructions for medicines, food and suture care are worthless so I jot everything done I can recall in a few short moments frozen in time. Plans are changing hourly these days so my mind cannot keep up with the staggering pace. I know I had it altogether at one point in my life, must have gotten in the wrong damned line again somewhere!

I question the imbecilic conversation I had with the auto mechanic who claims to have made a “boo boo” and ordered the tires from the wrong place so they wouldn’t be in until the morning. A subsequent question regarding the size of the tire made me wonder why I feel I am on a Tilt A Whirl with no one at the controls. There are some clanking noises in the clutch and grinding on the sharp right turns so The Expert will evidently check into those problems at the same time.

Tyrus is thoroughly exhausted from our pre-dawn excursion and he didn’t move a thing! I, on the other hand, could run 16 miles if given a new foot since I gulped far too many cups of Dunn Brothers fresh-ground coffee. I caught myself sniffing the granules from the jar last night in anticipation…perhaps an intervention is in order!

Win a Bahamas Cruise! Obtain a Gold Credit Card! Take out a risk-free $1000 loan! Join Match.con to find your Man! Free Credit Score! Instant approval on a New Home! Win a Free Airline Ticket with purchase of a New Car! Free College Education! Be a Nurse! Free Venus Razor! Be a Dental Assistant! Free Smart Phone! Be a Teacher! Take a survey and win $100 Free Walmart Card! All under the disguise of a job opening heading in my “In Box”…sad!

Moving rain

May 8, 2013

It’s Carol’s birthday!

Moving like the Clampetts with a barn-red horse trailer towed majestically behind a truck. The majority of furnishings are actually my daughter’s so I grumble in despair as the rain begins to pour down on our heads soaking us and potentially damaging the cushy yet handle-less mattress (there outta be a law!) holy-cow-this-is-heavy dresser, prudent desk, 70’s couch, colorful and practical must-be-Finnish design director chairs with matching end tables, and a gigantic black desk chair I could use as a vehicle around the house when I can’t walk!

I had already driven the hour plus each way in the early morning to meet the landlord with his newish baby in a carrier and stubborn enough not to tell me her age (3 to 4?) year old girl. We cased the spacious joint from top to bottom to discover the numerous items needing to be removed from the premises, concurred regarding thorough cleaning reimbursement, touch-up and kitchen painting, debris-filled lot clearing and extensive lease agreement details (no guns allowed-darn it!) The landlord seemed pretty amenable to my suggestions then grandiosely turned over the keys.

So, later in the competitively longest day of my life, we bear down on the duplex from Princeton to Isanti to traffic-ridden St Paul to West St Paul, taking wrong turns (oops, my bad!) and getting stuck in the middle of a long slope since a shredder service truck stalled dead center. Pull up to the right house (finally!) only to discover I left the keys behind way back at point A! Oh god. Fortunately the sun porch fit everything like a puzzle and I begrudgingly made the trek back at the crack this morning to schlep it all into the house, save the darned sofa. Arms quaking with exhaustion I couldn’t budge the lengthy monster in through the double doorway. Tyrus was certainly no help at all, he meandered around in the yard and scared the upstairs neighbor to death by just glancing her way. Thought I made enough shocking post-dawn noise to wake the block so I unloaded a few boxes of treasures to find a spot later and made our way back home (Princeton for the moment) in the rain.