Thanks......Giving......

Not at all a traditional Thanksgiving.

But I'm thankful all the same for so many things I can't even begin to name them.

Hope everyone's holiday was a happy one.

I plan to stay far, far away from the stores tomorrow.

It's a day for putting up the Christmas tree, watching football, and (I hope I hope I hope I hope) riding my bike.

A Whirlwind Day.....

I've been trying hard not to make my blog just about my mother-in-law's medical issues and the accompanying DIZZYING array of things that amaze/frustrate/anger/terrify/challenge me on a daily basis. But here lately that's what my life IS, and I'm not complaining. Just the facts, ma'am.

Today was one of those days that make me question my strength, my competence, and something so deep down inside that I can't even find a name for it.

Without going into a lot of details, mother-in-law has gone downhill lately as a result of her surgery (where 40% of the roof of her mouth was removed) and radiation. Her mouth is very sore, which makes it hard to eat or drink, and then she has battled nausea off and one for several weeks. She has lost almost 30 pounds since the summer, and she was fairly weak BEFORE this whole chain of events started.

She has been receiving i.v. fluids in the radiology clinic to help guard against dehydration. Yesterday they decided to give her a break from radiation for the rest of this week (but tack those two treatments on to the end of next week - sigh) and arrange for in-home nurses to administer i.v. fluids over the holiday weekend. We cheered and heaved a tremendous sigh of relief that someone would be coming to US instead of having to take her to the clinic.

I spoke to the nurse on the phone this morning, and she cheerfully said something along the lines of, "Oh, you're the one I'm coming to train to give the i.v. fluids!"

Uh...no. There must be some mistake. I don't DO i.v. fluids. I once toyed with the idea of going to medical school, but that was before I met Mr. College Calculus and Mr. College Chemistry and changed my major to one for which they would give me a degree just for reading novels.

Oh, not to worry, she said, it's easy. I won't leave you until I'm sure you can do it.

I was pretty sure she would be moving into the guest room, because I was pretty sure I could NOT do it.

Seriously, I was freaking out. Not in front of my mother-in-law, because I didn't want her to think I didn't WANT to do it, but to Hubby I was in tears. I almost called Frogger Blogger, also known as Nurse Jane, and asked her to drive the two hours over here to bail me out. I didn't because she's working two jobs and I knew she would do it anyway. I texted Sweet Girl, I texted Katydid, I stomped around the house muttering about my incompetence and generally fell apart.

I've watched them stick mother-in-law so many times now I can't even begin to count. And I know what a hard time they have on a GOOD day finding a suitable vein for anything. Draw blood, give fluids, whatever, it's a serious challenge for trained medical professionals to find a vein on mother-in-law, and they want ME to do it? With an afternoon of "training"?

I seriously began to question myself. What is it that made me freak out like that? I've never turned down a challenge. I've always said I could do anything I needed to do, with proper instruction (except scuba diving, but the lack of "proper instruction" may have had something to do with that too), and yet I could not convince myself this was something of which I was capable.

I didn't realize at the freaking-out time that they had no intention of having me insert the needle. Their plan was to put a needle in place and leave it for the five days mother-in-law is to get fluids at home. My job was (is?) to flush the catheter when the saline bag is empty, then attach another bag the next morning.

Well... MAYBE I can do THAT.

Maybe.

I still don't feel confident.

Plans sort of got screwed up anyway when the first nurse tried for an hour to find a vein, she called a colleague to come to mother-in-law's house, and when SHE was unable to find a vein, she called yet another nurse. Four hours and three nurses later, the i.v. was finally started.

A fourth nurse came to take the i.v. down, and she showed me how to flush the catheter and take it down. Because I haven't been properly trained for the beginning end of the procedure, someone else (a fifth nurse?) will come out tomorrow and show me what to do.

I hope.

And I'm still a little nervous about the whole thing. While I don't have to stick anything into a vein, I still have to make sure the vein doesn't blow (!) and check that the saline is flowing properly. I can do most things, but I'm a hands-on type learner. I need to do it a few times before I'm sure of myself.

We don't really have a few times to practice. She is only getting fluids a few times, and this isn't a time to practice.

I'm still trying to figure out my own lack of confidence in this ordeal. Part of me wants to say, "This is somebody's JOB, and I shouldn't have to do it." Another part of me wants to say, "I'm a family member, of COURSE I can do this."

And both parts of me are pointing fingers at the other part and saying, "YOU figure this out."

Expressing Thanks.....

Image from slotanna.com

I'm either jumping on the bandwagon about 20 days late, thanks to all the overachievers who have been expressing their thanks on Facebook for every freakin' day of this month, or I'm early for Thursday.

I'll go with the latter.

Maybe I'll be "creative" (read: lazy) and stretch this thanking thing out for several days, hence several blog posts. Expressing my thankfulness suits my scattered state of mind tonight anyway.

• I am thankful for Roger Bailey, my high school English teacher, who refused to accept less than my best. I'm also thankful that it's almost gymnastics season, when I get to see Roger at every home meet.
• I am thankful that I got SOME of my mother's strength (but not her inflexibility - much) and SOME of my father's humor (but not his penchant for getting a laugh at the expense of others).
• I am very, very thankful for my three surviving siblings and the brother I lost when I was only 11. I wish we lived closer to one another, but perhaps not in the same neighborhood.
• I am thankful that when my ex-husband shot our house up that I resisted the temptation to set it on fire with him passed out on the couch. Not because I would have regretted it, but because Hubby and I would have had a difficult time getting married with me being in prison and all.
• I am thankful for living in the South, where we can experience many different seasons all in the same day. I'm thankful that when I put on a sweater in the morning when it's 40 degrees and it later reaches almost 70 degrees, I have a t-shirt I can change into.
• I am thankful for the Internet and every single establishment that has wifi. Particularly free wifi.
• I am thankful that Hubby and I are able to live (mostly) debt-free.
• I am thankful for Hubby, who accepts me (as my mother would say), "warts and all."
• I am eternally thankful for the daughter who made parenting so easy that even a lazy person such as myself could accomplish it. 
• I am thankful that I never stop learning.
• I am thankful that my father's vasectomy didn't work. (Sorry if that's T.M.I.)
• I am thankful that I spent enough years in a profession that I could retire at an early age, and well before the point at which I started to hate all teenagers. I only hated SOME of them.
• I am thankful for the absolutely unconditional love (and short memory) of a dog.
• I am thankful that my football team has risen to #3 in the nation with an outside shot (VERY outside, but worth mentioning) at playing for the national championship.
• I am thankful I have not suffered a stroke during a sporting event.
• I am thankful for books. Lots and lots and lots of books.
• I am thankful for the forgiving nature of sweat pants.
• I am thankful for the wonderful people I've met through this blog. If we never meet in person (but I hope we do), please know that your comments, your support, and your friendship are very special to me.

Getting Lost in My Own Hometown.....

It is widely known that I am directionally challenged. If I go into a building, I have no idea how to get out. I can't sit in my living room and point to the state park that is across the road from where we live. I can follow directions to get anywhere in the world (well....), but I can't simply leave and go back the way I came. (Thank you, thank you, thank you sites like Google Maps and Mapquest that give you the "reverse directions" option.) My GPS is my best friend.

This past Saturday, I finally made good on my promise to myself that I would take my bicycle to our tailgating spot and burn some of that pre-game energy by riding my bike. It would have made way too much sense to do that on one of those days when kickoff was at 3:30 or 4:00 or 7:30. No, I chose to (finally) take my bike on a day when kickoff was at 1:30. That meant I needed to be back around 12:00 so I could get ready and leave for the walk to the stadium at 12:30. That meant I needed to ride my bike around 10:00 or 10:30. That meant it was around 40 degrees.

I don't DO 40 degrees on my bicycle.

But after I hauled it all the way to Athens, I felt obligated to ride it.

I have been wanting to ride the North Oconee River Greenway, a bicycle/pedestrian trail that I knew was near our tailgating spot. Gus and I left walking one Saturday trying to find it, but while I could find the river (I'm directionally challenged but thankfully not stupid), I couldn't find the greenway. Then Rozmo and I did a ride in Athens about a month ago, and we found the beginning of the greenway. Smug in my new knowledge, I took off on Saturday (40 degrees, remember) for a short ride on the greenway.

My short ride on the greenway turned out to be about three-quarters of a mile. Because that's when I lost the path. I know the town, however, so I didn't feel "lost" so much as "confused" about how I lost the path. And so quickly. Then I became determined to find the path again, and I kept riding.

I wound up on a 4-lane highway that I knew ended at another 4-lane highway. A U.S. highway to boot. The greenway didn't show up on my GPS (see, I was never really lost), but it did show up on my iPhone. It showed up near the intersection where the two 4-lane highways crossed. (Wait...is that redundant?) I kept riding, looking for a gate or a sign or some indication of the greenway, and I found myself inside a huge flea market-type thing where people rent tables and sell their worthless junk items. That wasn't where I wanted to be. Checking the iPhone again, I saw that I had passed the greenway and evidently see it. So I turned around, more alert and observant this time. I noted the name of a road that would indicate I had gone back too far, and yep, there it was. I checked the iPhone again, and what I thought was the greenway on the screen was actually a railroad. An actual railroad. One that trains use. I could have turned on it to get back to town, but I'm really not that good.

I was faced with two unpleasant choices. I could A) turn right on the busy 4-lane U.S. highway; or B) turn around (again) and go back the way I came. For some reason, I am against backtracking on my bike. Ultimately I chose that option, though, and returned to our tailgating location almost the same way I came. (I told you I can't go back the same way.) I got back to the intersection nearest our parking lot, flung my left arm out confidently to indicate a turn, and then realized the lot was straight ahead. (See what I mean?)

It wound up being only about a 13-mile ride, which wasn't bad considering the amount of time I had (some of which I spent stopped on the side of the road, scratching my head and scrolling along a RAILROAD on my iPhone) and the chilly temperatures. I know now where I made my mistake, and we have one more home game this Saturday for me to try again. Maybe I can manage TWO miles before I miss a turn.

And kickoff is at noon. Maybe I should leave tonight.

Interesting Phone Call.....

I had an interesting phone call Friday morning. I guess it actually bordered on shocking, but the surprise has worn off and the intrigue remains.

Let me give you some background first.

My parents divorced around 1967, when I was only 6 years old. I don't remember many details of life when they were still together, and the ones I do remember weren't very pleasant.

I wasn't very close to my father after about the age of 8 or 9. I guess that's when young girls start having friends and sleepovers, and going back and forth to my father's house every other weekend wasn't my idea of fun. He once resorted to bribery to get me to come live with him full-time. He told me he would buy me a pony if I would come live with him. I was only 8 years old, so I agreed. He didn't want me to live with him; he just wanted to stick it to my mother. She wisely allowed me to go stay with him for the summer, confident that I would want to come back home before school started. She was right.

My father remarried in 1976, when I was 15. We didn't see each other much, and I was of course all about ME at that age (I finally grew out of it sometime last year). My step-mother's name was Doris, and when I DID see them, she was always very kind and welcoming to me.

Doris had never been married before she married my father at the age of 39. My sisters and I asked each other repeatedly through the years why she would wait that long and then marry HIM. She was much too nice a person to be with our father. He never seemed to appreciate her goodness, although she was apparently important enough to him that he stayed sober as long as she lived. When she died in 1998, my father immediately returned to the bottle.

Back to the phone call.

The man on the other end of the phone said he was the baby that Doris gave up for adoption in 1964. She would have been 27 years old at the time, much older than most single moms these days, but of course it would have been scandalous in those days for a single woman to have a baby. (I wish it were scandalous these days instead of being a rite of passage for some.) He and I don't necessarily have any connection, except for the fact that if Doris had raised him, he would have been my step-brother.

The man had apparently talked to Doris before her death, and they had made arrangements to meet. She had to cancel one time, though, and he had to cancel another time, and I suppose life intervened. When he thought to look her up again, he learned she had died in 1998.

He wanted to know what kind of person Doris was, and he wondered if anyone had pictures. I was ashamed to say I didn't know a lot of details about Doris, but I could assure him Doris was much too good a person to have been with my father. I only had a couple of pictures, one taken at Frogger Blogger's house sometime in 1997 (I think) and one from my wedding to Sweet Girl's father in 1982. He also wanted to know how Doris died, and unfortunately it was from lung cancer. She had quit smoking for 3 years when doctors found the first spot on her lung, and she wound up having part of her lung removed. She did okay for several years, except for being easily winded, which didn't in any way impact my father's habit of walking too fast for her to keep up, but then the cancer returned with a vengeance.

I have so many questions, but of course there is no one to ask. My father has one surviving sibling, my aunt Joyce, but she was as floored as I was, so I'm sure she doesn't know any details. My father knew of the child's existence, and according to his NEXT wife (grrrrrrrr), he "never forgave Doris." Yep, that sounds just like him, holding something over her head that happened before they ever met. My father died in 2002, so i can't ask him either.

That must have been a terribly difficult decision for Doris to make, and yet she was one of the kindest, gentlest, most loving people I've ever known. I guess it gets said a lot after someone is gone, but I wish I had appreciated Doris more while she was still alive.

Doris and my father, sometime around 1997. I have no idea why Doris's eyes are closed.

Doris and my father (far left), my mother, me and my first husband, his parents. Yes, I'm that short (5'2"), but he's also that tall (6'10"). You can probably tell where he got his height.

Isn't life interesting?

Room by Emma Donoghue.....

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my friend Jennifer (she's also my "boss" at my volunteer job) for mentioning this book.

Room by Emma Donoghue is about a woman who has been held captive in a room for seven years. The story is told from the point of view of Jack, her son, who is five years old and has never been outside this room.

Jennifer told me almost exactly that much information about the book as I have revealed, and I'm so glad she did. The story seems a tad bizarre at the beginning, and I might have been lost if I hadn't known part of the story's origin.

I think Emma Donoghue did a terrific job of telling the story through Jack's eyes. I think it was genius the way she revealed very adult themes through the language of a five-year-old.

A couple of examples of Jack's precocious (and precious) use of language:

"Houses are like lots of Rooms stuck together, TV persons stay in them mostly but sometimes they go in their outsides and weather happens to them." 

"The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it's going to be the next minute."

"The little cards with numbers all over are called a lottery, idiots buy them hoping to get magicked into millionaires."

I left out a couple of my favorite quotes from Jack because they might reveal too much of what happens in the book. I hate it when someone does that to me, so I don't want to spoil it for anyone else.

I love this little guy so much. And it's not JUST because he shares his name with my brother AND with one of my blogger pals. He's honest, he forces grown-ups to be honest, and he is true to himself. 

Definitely a good read. Make that a wonderful, awesome, well-worth-your-time read.

Going Cold Turkey.....

I am embarrassed to have to write this post.

I have gone cold turkey from playing a stupid GAME on the computer. And it's momentous enough that I'm writing about it.

Katydid got me playing this particular game (sort of like Farmville, from what I understand) in which one plants crops, tends animals, makes and sells products, loads boat shipments with some of those products, and generally wastes about as much time as it is possible to waste doing something senseless.

I knew I was spending too much time playing this game. I haven't finished the book I'm reading. I haven't worked on my quilt. I hadn't ridden my bike in 22 DAYS until today. Yeah, it was that serious. (It's not the ONLY reason I hadn't been on my bike, but it can't be entirely coincidental either.)

I got up at 4:30 and 5:00 AM to play this game. Sure, I told myself I was already awake and I may as well get up, but the painful truth is that I wanted to see if I could get that boat loaded completely before it sailed, thus earning some random stars, some pretend coins, and a voucher or two. (Which can only be traded for pets, which have to be FED and AWAKENED.)

I mentioned in a previous blog post that I found myself spending REAL money on this game, paying to get "diamonds" that I could use for things I didn't have, or to speed up a process that was going to take too long to get the #$!*#$ products on the #!$*#*! boat.

It's not like I spent the grocery money or anything, and the $17 I spent isn't going to force me out of retirement. It was the thought that something mindless had taken over my mind.

I wasn't rude enough to play the game on my phone when Hubby and I went out to eat, but what was the harm in checking on my chickens when Hubby went to the bathroom?

I didn't neglect my volunteer work, and what was the harm in seeing if the pigs had produced the bacon I needed, as long as it only took a second?

I had all that time to kill in various clinics, so what was the big deal?

I really wrestled with myself about this issue. On one hand, it is harmless, free (**ahem ahem**) fun. On the other hand...there are a billion other things I can be doing with my time and energy.

And I know how I am. It wasn't enough for me to tell myself, "I'm going to stop playing this silly game." No, I had to sell off all my products until my barn was completely empty, then I deleted the game from my iPad. And my iPhone.

It felt so ... liberating.

I knew it was the right thing to do when Hubby said, "I'll be happy to get my wife back."