This blog is part remembrance, part promises to myself for 2010.
Now, in light of the past three weeks, the other day I said, "I just want to put this year behind me." But last night, I realized a few things, responding to a message from my newly discovered family member, Brenda.
There was some bad in 2009: I was pretty sick for almost a month, to only a month later have my sweet Cate hospitalized with viral meningitis.....a week of anxious waiting and watching. Uncle Virgil. There have been issues with my own medical condition; there have been issues in my marriage, which in and of itself have brought about a sort of grief that I can only describe as--yes, the grief that death itself brings. My cousin Vicky described it to me today as 'having a marriage that may be suffering from a terminal illness.' Whoa. Dead on the money.
But looking back over 2009......the expression, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away" has taken on a whole new meaning.
For, in 2009--March, to be exact, I realized with wonder......March, which usually begins a season of remembrance of my mother (a remembrance that is bittersweet, my relationship with my mother considered)--a relationship with the best friend I ever had was restored to me. A relationship that was restored not as if seventeen years had gone by....but more like seventeen minutes. And with Rebecca came her husband Steve, her daughter Katie and her baby Joey. I got the wonder of how two people--best friends for four years in high school, across all the years and miles--have somehow, someway, known almost down to a 'T' what the other's life has been like. Or how she named her daughter Kathryn Elizabeth, and I have a Caroline Elizabeth and a Sara Catherine. Coincidence? I think not.
I got the excitement of coming back into her life during the last trimester of her pregnancy with Joey. I teased her mercilessly about having sympathetic pregnancy--and wasn't that Steve's job, not mine? As the time for Joey drew closer, I waited to hear doctor's reports, ultrasound results, and worried right along with her that this would not be an early and difficult delivery, as she had with Katie. And worry had never brought me such joy.
On July 2nd, at 8:19 in the morning, Joey came by scheduled C-Section--a whopping nine pounds, four ounces and a perfect early birthday present for his Mommy. Rebecca--ever the trooper--was sitting up in a chair within hours of the surgery, and if I didn't have enough happiness at the very moment this happened to last me a lifetime.....the nurse came in to her hospital room; Rebecca in a chair and me sitting on the bed holding the baby. The nurse did a double take and saw Rebecca in the chair. "Hey.....is she your sister?" We shared a look, and Becca said, "Not by birth....."
It doesn't sound like it would be a blessing.....but I went to the hospital to sit with a friend for a day while her husband had an eight hour surgery for what turned out--mercifully--not to be pancreatic cancer. Kelly and I walked all over that hospital campus all day, laughing about old times, our lives now, and I think there may have been a few tears, too. It's a day I'll always cherish.
I went on a vacation for the first time in years.....and while in a few ways it was a bust--weather, hello?--I will always, always be grateful for those seven days, because......
It was on this vacation that I realized--or rather, re-discovered: that in spite of what I call difficulty in my life right now......I am blessed beyond measure with a family who loves me more than I deserve. I have many, many moments from that trip polarized in my mind now......
......sitting on my cousin Caryn's couch watching Full Metal Jacket with her, Eric, and my Aunt Crys and Uncle Lee--and all the funny commentary that went along with it. And last night, when I really got to thinking about the bad times vs. the good times of 2009--it occured to me: Caryn, whom I still see in my mind's eye waiting for the bus with us when we were kids, or drinking pickle juice.....while I may have had a few anxious moments over my baby in 2009--how much greater than mine were hers? My little cousin has sat and watched her baby have chemotherapy. The realization was very humbling, to say the very least.
I have the memory of my Dad, me and Uncle Lee at the gun range on a freezing cold afternoon laying waste to Dad's targets--and about a hundred pounds of ammunition. For a shining moment, I was fifteen again: when I was firing my Dad's AR-15, I decided to go ahead and 'open up on it'--as he would say--and could hear his, "Wooooo-hoooooo! ROCK AND ROLL, LITTLE GIRL!!" over the gun fire, while my Uncle Lee laughed.
Since that vacation, I don't think a day has gone by that we don't all communicate in one way or another. I didn't realize how much I needed them.....I sure am glad Someone saw fit to show me. It has been an amazing source of strength and inspiration; and both a reminder and affirmation of my own opinion as to just how fiercely a family could and should love each other. Home and family is a place I can go where I can still hear, "Now, Cheri Lynn Morgan....." where I am still someone's 'little girl', 'baby girl', and when I say, "I guess I'll be getting on the road....." my Aunt Crys will say, "Not before you've had breakfast, young lady." Some things never change--thank God for that. (Home and family is also where I can go to get the best biscuits and gravy in the world--thanks, Aunt Crys!!--and the world's best chili dogs, which are in downtown LaFollette at a little hole in the wall--plus you can buy them for a dollar--yes, a dollar--thanks Aunt Ann and Vicky for pointing me in their direction.) Where someone--when I deserve it--will take me down a peg or two, then take my face in their hands, kiss my forehead, look me in the eye, and say, "I love you," and I know that they mean it.
I have almost a whole photograph album full of what I have to be grateful for, in 2009. Pictures of me and Rebecca with our families and our beautiful kids. Pictures of my family--one of those--on Facebook, me and my four younger cousins (eeeeuuuw, girls, I realized that I'm the oldest one in that picture by at least three months!! NOT fair, LOL....)--really, all of them like sisters to me--I look at that picture and think of all the little stinkers we were, and see us transformed into the lovely women we have become. And I marvel that between the five of us--there are ten kids to go around!! (And my God, girls, those kids have 23 of our chromosomes--look out, world!!)
So, in the closing days of 2009, I think of the blessings this year has brought.
In 2010, I will take the love that has been restored to me--in the form of my family, which includes Rebecca and her family--and pay it forward. I will throw myself wholeheartedly into the planning of our family reunion--the first in over a decade!!--that my family is having in July. I will work on building a relationship with Dorothy, my father's amazing wife, and who--when I called her to talk to her the other day, said to me--and I think it's the first time I've ever heard someone actually say this: when I told her that she was right and I was wrong, she said, "No, Cheri, it's not about who is wrong and who is right. It's about understanding." Those words meant alot. It also made me realize: I have been held to the 'who is right, and who is wrong' standard for so long now that I've come to being too quick to point it out, too.
I will take council and advice from those who love me--and I know who that is. I also know that I won't get a pat on the head and a 'there, there' when I am obviously wrong. I will be corrected when I go to these people.....and it may be ugly, LOL, it may not be--but I will get the truth.
I will not work so hard on hiding my own weaknesses.....I will hold them up to those I trust; it's only through getting them out in the open that I can turn those weaknesses into strengths, both by my own effort in working on them, and relying on the strength I get from others to turn them around.
The words from the following song describe much of the way I feel about how I feel about the year that is so quickly passing us by now, and what I will do in the year to come:
Half of my mistakes I made stone cold sober,
Half of my mistakes I made at closing time,
Half the time I never saw it coming till it was over,
Half of mistakes I made with love on the line.
Half of my mistakes I swear I should have known better
Half of my mistakes....were just amongst friends
You get a little distance on it, the truth is clearer
Half of my mistakes--I'd probably make them again.
And if I had it all to do over,
I'm sure I'd win and lose just as much,
But spend less time on right and wrong,
And alot more time on love.
Half of my mistakes I made cause I was moving too quickly
Half of them I made 'cause my heart was moving too slow
Nobody can tell you a damn thing if you ain't listening...
Half of my mistakes I made cause I couldn't let go (let it go)
And if I had it all to do over,
I'm sure I'd win and lose just as much
But spend less time on right and wrong,
And alot more time on love....
Half of my mistakes I'd give anything to change how it ended...
Half of my mistakes--God, I wouldn't change a thing.
You can lean too hard on regret, but I don't recommend it...
Cause half the good things in my life came from half my mistakes
Yeah, alot of good things in my life came from half of my mistakes....
Merry Christmas, all. And bring on 2010.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
A hell of a man......
Note: These are my personal feelings and observations. Since it is very likely some of my family are to read this, I sincerly apologize if this hurts anyone or brings up something they'd rather not remember....it's not my intent. It's my tribute to him.....and I am very likely to digress along the way. What I write here is out of love to him.
I lost my Uncle Virgil this past week. And...even for a family as close as mine is, my reaction to his passing has, at times, been surprising even to me. I said to my cousin Vicky the day he passed that I wish I could cry right away at bad news--it's rare that I do. I've made up for it in the days since. When he died, I was mentally grasping at memories--anything--and for the first few hours as the news sank in, I was drawing blanks. They have since come flooding back......and all of them make me smile, even if I am smiling through my tears.
I was describing my Uncle Virgil to a very good friend of mine on the phone today. And this friend said, "He sounds like he was one hell of a man...."
That he was.
I was reminded of a verse I read in a book once, many years ago, when he died:
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang......but with a whimper.
Although his military days were long behind him, I somehow always thought my Uncle Virg would go out with a bang. He went seemingly with a whimper, if I am understanding correctly.
A hell of a man who went through a hell of alot in his 71 years. My Uncle Virgil survived much in his life, including two combat tours to Vietnam. He had a stroke when I was ten. The doctors told the family he'd be a vegetable. Uncle Virg walked out of that hospital--with the help of a walker, yes--but he didn't look much like a vegetable, I am sure.
My earliest memories of him are of when I was a kid: Saturday nights and my Uncle Virgil, Aunt Tena, Uncle George, Aunt Lola, and various cousins--usually Dave, Dianne, Vicky and others around Aunt Lola's kitchen table playing poker. Of shooting BB guns off the deck of his house with my sister and my cousin Jeff, pinging them off an old tin roof of the barn across the narrow road in front of his house. Of shooting in the field across from his house with him, my Daddy, and my Uncle Lee.
When I was a teenager, hearing Dad tell him how I loved history and how I could talk about it for hours, he gave me a huge stack of history books. I still have them. They are now so precious to me. We argued politics during the Clinton Administration. I took him to a couple of VA appointments years and years ago, and he tried to convince someone he bumped into that I was his girlfriend. The memory makes me smile.
The minister who presided over the service for him made mention of--in our dying hours--God will send his angels to comfort us and to take us on this last journey we make. I believe this--my mother was convinced in her last hours that first a woman with long blonde hair--and then her grandmother--were there in the room with her. Her agitation with the rest of us--that we couldn't see them, too--was great. I'm sure they were there for my uncle, too; and the thought of what his angel might have said to him to make him follow also brings a smile.
I made mention of this to someone--someone who happens to be a Christian. The opinion of this person was that it's not angels at all.....it's the deterioration of the physical mind. I steadfastly refuse to believe this.....and found myself not for the first time at loggerheads with this person's opinion. But then.....my anger and irritation with this edict--that it is the physical and not the spiritual that causes a person to 'see things that aren't there'--turned to pity. What is faith if you can't have something hopeful to hold on to; in this case, the idea that God will give us ease in those final hours? Hope is supposed to be central to the Christian faith. Just as I have hope of Heaven; being only human, I do fear death a little. I pitied that, in spite of the faith this person is supposed to have, he believes that God would do nothing to make the end easier for us--since we have to make that journey without having a loved one--those we leave behind, to put an arm around us and cross over with us. Just as I have hope of Heaven and eternity, I have hope that God is going to send someone for me.
We who are left may not have an angel to guide us and help us through parting with the person we have lost--at least, not in the way our finite minds think of angels.
Our angels are in the form of our family. We are left behind when someone dies, but we are left behind with people who loved the departed as much as we ourselves did. Our families and loved ones are our touchstones to whom we have lost. We share the memories of that person, we share the love both for the deceased and for each other.
My angel was my father, who I watched lovingly pin his big brother's ribbons and medals on his chest just before the service began.
My angel was my Aunt Lola, who placed a Bible in her little brother's hands.
My angels were my cousins, some of whom I hadn't seen in years (and the irony here is--just like my mother in her final hours hadn't seen her grandmother in years....her grandmother was there to ease the pain at her passing) whom I shared memories of my uncle with.
My angels were family members I didn't even yet know I had: my cousin Jeff's wife, Brenda.
My angel was my sister......who I put my arm around, and who put her arm around me, as we leaned our heads together and looked for the last time on this Earth at Uncle Virg through our tears.
My angels were my Aunt Ann, who wrapped her arms around me in the parking lot of the funeral home, shushed me gently and said, "He's not hurting anymore, baby....."
My angels were all around me at the cemetery: Aunt Ann to my left, Amanda to my right, arms linked (Amanda, who used to run around at three years old telling us she'd give us an uppercut)--my Aunt Crys behind me, her arm around one of my shoulders, and Misty with her arm around the other. And Ginger, standing on the other side of Aunt Crys.
My angel was my Uncle Lee, kneeling to give my Aunt Tena the flag Uncle Virg earned.
My angel was my son, saluting his Aunt Tena.
My angels were the kisses, the hugs, and the 'I love yous' given to me by each and every member of my family in attendance.
My angel was Vicky--who called me only minutes after I got the news, who talked to me for about half an hour, and who gave me a truly heartfelt, "I love you, Cheri," before we hung up.
My angel was Rebecca, who emailed me to tell me she loved me and was praying for me.
So......God sent His angel for Uncle Virg, I am sure--because He certainly sent them to me.
Uncle Virgil--I love you. Every single memory I have of you brings a smile; every last one of them a bright spot that nothing can take away from me. And if you ask me--that is the measure of a life well lived. Perhaps your angel was someone you knew, just as Mom's was her grandmother. Maybe--and the thought brings a smile--Mamaw came and tugged your ear with a switch in her hand, just as she told me she used to do at your bus stop when you were a little boy.
And I hope you haven't strapped dynamite to any trees up there yet.
On the other hand, if God requires tree pruning services in Heaven--He's got one hell of a man for the job.
Again.......I love you. And I'll see you later.
I lost my Uncle Virgil this past week. And...even for a family as close as mine is, my reaction to his passing has, at times, been surprising even to me. I said to my cousin Vicky the day he passed that I wish I could cry right away at bad news--it's rare that I do. I've made up for it in the days since. When he died, I was mentally grasping at memories--anything--and for the first few hours as the news sank in, I was drawing blanks. They have since come flooding back......and all of them make me smile, even if I am smiling through my tears.
I was describing my Uncle Virgil to a very good friend of mine on the phone today. And this friend said, "He sounds like he was one hell of a man...."
That he was.
I was reminded of a verse I read in a book once, many years ago, when he died:
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang......but with a whimper.
Although his military days were long behind him, I somehow always thought my Uncle Virg would go out with a bang. He went seemingly with a whimper, if I am understanding correctly.
A hell of a man who went through a hell of alot in his 71 years. My Uncle Virgil survived much in his life, including two combat tours to Vietnam. He had a stroke when I was ten. The doctors told the family he'd be a vegetable. Uncle Virg walked out of that hospital--with the help of a walker, yes--but he didn't look much like a vegetable, I am sure.
My earliest memories of him are of when I was a kid: Saturday nights and my Uncle Virgil, Aunt Tena, Uncle George, Aunt Lola, and various cousins--usually Dave, Dianne, Vicky and others around Aunt Lola's kitchen table playing poker. Of shooting BB guns off the deck of his house with my sister and my cousin Jeff, pinging them off an old tin roof of the barn across the narrow road in front of his house. Of shooting in the field across from his house with him, my Daddy, and my Uncle Lee.
When I was a teenager, hearing Dad tell him how I loved history and how I could talk about it for hours, he gave me a huge stack of history books. I still have them. They are now so precious to me. We argued politics during the Clinton Administration. I took him to a couple of VA appointments years and years ago, and he tried to convince someone he bumped into that I was his girlfriend. The memory makes me smile.
The minister who presided over the service for him made mention of--in our dying hours--God will send his angels to comfort us and to take us on this last journey we make. I believe this--my mother was convinced in her last hours that first a woman with long blonde hair--and then her grandmother--were there in the room with her. Her agitation with the rest of us--that we couldn't see them, too--was great. I'm sure they were there for my uncle, too; and the thought of what his angel might have said to him to make him follow also brings a smile.
I made mention of this to someone--someone who happens to be a Christian. The opinion of this person was that it's not angels at all.....it's the deterioration of the physical mind. I steadfastly refuse to believe this.....and found myself not for the first time at loggerheads with this person's opinion. But then.....my anger and irritation with this edict--that it is the physical and not the spiritual that causes a person to 'see things that aren't there'--turned to pity. What is faith if you can't have something hopeful to hold on to; in this case, the idea that God will give us ease in those final hours? Hope is supposed to be central to the Christian faith. Just as I have hope of Heaven; being only human, I do fear death a little. I pitied that, in spite of the faith this person is supposed to have, he believes that God would do nothing to make the end easier for us--since we have to make that journey without having a loved one--those we leave behind, to put an arm around us and cross over with us. Just as I have hope of Heaven and eternity, I have hope that God is going to send someone for me.
We who are left may not have an angel to guide us and help us through parting with the person we have lost--at least, not in the way our finite minds think of angels.
Our angels are in the form of our family. We are left behind when someone dies, but we are left behind with people who loved the departed as much as we ourselves did. Our families and loved ones are our touchstones to whom we have lost. We share the memories of that person, we share the love both for the deceased and for each other.
My angel was my father, who I watched lovingly pin his big brother's ribbons and medals on his chest just before the service began.
My angel was my Aunt Lola, who placed a Bible in her little brother's hands.
My angels were my cousins, some of whom I hadn't seen in years (and the irony here is--just like my mother in her final hours hadn't seen her grandmother in years....her grandmother was there to ease the pain at her passing) whom I shared memories of my uncle with.
My angels were family members I didn't even yet know I had: my cousin Jeff's wife, Brenda.
My angel was my sister......who I put my arm around, and who put her arm around me, as we leaned our heads together and looked for the last time on this Earth at Uncle Virg through our tears.
My angels were my Aunt Ann, who wrapped her arms around me in the parking lot of the funeral home, shushed me gently and said, "He's not hurting anymore, baby....."
My angels were all around me at the cemetery: Aunt Ann to my left, Amanda to my right, arms linked (Amanda, who used to run around at three years old telling us she'd give us an uppercut)--my Aunt Crys behind me, her arm around one of my shoulders, and Misty with her arm around the other. And Ginger, standing on the other side of Aunt Crys.
My angel was my Uncle Lee, kneeling to give my Aunt Tena the flag Uncle Virg earned.
My angel was my son, saluting his Aunt Tena.
My angels were the kisses, the hugs, and the 'I love yous' given to me by each and every member of my family in attendance.
My angel was Vicky--who called me only minutes after I got the news, who talked to me for about half an hour, and who gave me a truly heartfelt, "I love you, Cheri," before we hung up.
My angel was Rebecca, who emailed me to tell me she loved me and was praying for me.
So......God sent His angel for Uncle Virg, I am sure--because He certainly sent them to me.
Uncle Virgil--I love you. Every single memory I have of you brings a smile; every last one of them a bright spot that nothing can take away from me. And if you ask me--that is the measure of a life well lived. Perhaps your angel was someone you knew, just as Mom's was her grandmother. Maybe--and the thought brings a smile--Mamaw came and tugged your ear with a switch in her hand, just as she told me she used to do at your bus stop when you were a little boy.
And I hope you haven't strapped dynamite to any trees up there yet.
On the other hand, if God requires tree pruning services in Heaven--He's got one hell of a man for the job.
Again.......I love you. And I'll see you later.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Doctors and other dumbasses.......
Now--let it be said here that I absolutely do not believe all doctors are dumbasses. And granted.....they have, on the average, about three minutes to spend with a patient. And there's no doubt--there are patients who are living proof that Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest (and I'm going on the assumption here when he said 'the fittest'--he meant they had some modicum of intelligence as WELL as being sound in terms of evolution) was a load of shit.
But sometimes.....
Today was the second time in a week I have been turned away from my doctor's office as 'there's so much flu.....' and try Urgent Care or my ER. (Um--and you think these places have less flu because.......?)
So I made my way to Urgent Care--not so affectionately called a 'doc in the box' by my sister. Usually, I am pretty pleased with the treatment I get there. They always give me the opportunity to just get it over with and take the shots: one for each cheek--ceftriaxone, and dexamethasone. Antibiotic for the infection (and in my case right now, that would be 'infections', plural....vacation's hangover: sinuses, bronchitis, ears, and kidney/bladder--in other words, I'm just f---ed) and steroid for the swelling and inflammation in my face, throat and ears. And--even if it's up in the air whether or not I'll sleep for three or four days (steroids)--at least I'll be awake and stir crazy without the throbbing in my head, and I can pop my ears again already.
Again, my emphatic disclaimer--not all doctors and/or healthcare professionals are morons. But--I have met more than a few in my day that I have wanted to sucker punch in the head--in the head because I already suspect: a blow to the head won't do too much damage.
But a trip to the doctor's office or an ER is ALWAYS good for sheer entertainment value. I'm serious here......ask anyone who works in healthcare. My sister calls me with some of the most fantastically funny and stupid shit I've ever heard.
For example, where else will you see a person who is covered from head to toe in tattoos faint dead away because the nurse drew a little blood?
I once watched as Bill--in with a patient with the door open--and she was about four drinks past giving a shit what HIPAA was, if she even knew such a demon existed--examining a patient who was obviously near less than conscious, and she dumped the contents of her purse onto the exam table--which was complete with about a dozen pill bottles and a fifth of what appeared to be Beefeater gin. Bill began picking up pill bottles and handing them back to her.......and that's when the lady slid off the table into the floor. Bill helped her up and came out into the admit area, shaking his head. And whispered to me, "Booze, hydrocodone, alprazolam, Prozac......and that's all I saw!!" I looked at him in disbelief. "Uhhh.......911, dear." He looked at me. "You think?" I closed my eyes and nodded.
One of my favorites: my Dad, admitted to the cardiac floor with chest pains a few years ago--after suffering a near-fatal heart attack the year before --was brought--IN THE HOSPITAL--fried chicken for dinner. On that one, I wasn't so nice. At seven months pregnant and incapable of bullshit, I snatched it away from my protesting father, taking it to the nurse. "Fried chicken for a cardiac patient? Really?" I went up the road to a grocery store with a salad bar and brought back a salad. Dad was less than amused.
In labor with my first child....I was being wheeled into the delivery room, which was full of doctors, as I'd had an episode with my heart, and Christopher was beginning to show signs of distress. So--there was the doctor, nurses, a resident, cardiologist, perinatologist and three pediatricians for the baby as I was wheeled into the delivery room. And one of them--in a chipper voice that made me want to rip out his vocal chords--asked, "How are you feeling today?" Not nice that time, either. Irritated and tired after 21 hours of labor, I pushed myself up on my elbows and bellowed, "Well, I've had better days!!" He's lucky he didn't get, "Come here and let me show you, asshole!" because that's definitely what I was thinking. I also didn't get it that everyone in the room thought that my 'better days' comment was hilarious.
I have to say--when Cate was in the hospital with meningitis.....the doctor who was in the Northside-Cherokee ER: what he lacked in bedside manner he more than made up for in the brains department. And the doctors at Scottish Rite--there, boys and girls, are some people who have definitely got their shit together. VERY impressive staff there. Outstanding. However, I was less than blown away by her pediatrician--who, in a follow up appointment asked first (I assumed she'd read the chart the hospital faxed over....but that's my fault, 'assume'--and therefore made an ass of me...) "Why did they think she had meningitis?" And I did it.....the eyebrows went up, and there was more than a hint of sarcasm. "Ahhhh......a positive spinal tap result?" Call me crazy.
And--if some of my nursing professors are correct--and some of them are doctors, kids-- and readily admit: my opinion and esteem of doctors will wax and wane in my career.
It's really not meant on my part--at least, not always. I am sure--and Carey will probably back me up.....my brain works fast, and sometimes, my mouth works faster. (My father's diagnosis of this is cerebral rectumitis.....) But Carey--my fellow nursing student, will probably attest to this: I have probably made a professor or two a little nuts. For example, with my mind on four tracks one morning in class (one on the professor, one reading over my notes making more mental notes, taking notes, and processing the big picture in my head--and believe me, I got tired just explaining that--walk a mile in my shoes).....I was jerked out of my four-track mind with this statement from the professor--lecturing on the autonomic nervous system: "Reflexes never reach the brain."
Huh? What? But what about.........?? I went quickly back up through the notes and looked up, frowning at my own understanding--or apparently, my lack thereof. Dr. Bern looked at me. "Cheri, are you with me?" "Aaah....no. If reflexes don't reach the brain, why does lack of a reflexive response or a hyperactive response sometimes indicate something is seriously FUBAR'ed in the central nervous system and the brain?" Deer in the headlights look from the professor, which gave way to a thoughtful look, nodding of the head, and the maddening answer I've been given since I was three years old: "That's a good question....."
But--I digress.
Urgent Care just got a fabulous little device in their waiting room called a zero-gravity chair. In the hour and fifteen minutes I sat in the waiting room, I saw three different people, all flushed and glass-eyed with obvious fever, sit in the zero-gravity chair. The receptionist--whom I vaguely know from school (and is that still an acceptable title?)--and I will admit, her heart was in the right place--having seen the symptoms I signed in with, and probably because of the obvious wince on my face--said, "Honey, you might feel better in the zero-gravity chair....."
And I might get the swine flu FROM the zero-gravity chair.....!!! Of course I didn't say it aloud. I smiled and assured her I was fine.
I was amused and disgruntled at the same time with even being there: this far into life, having had three kids and more bladder and kidney infections than I can count, why, oh why, can't I just call doctor and tell them the piss pipe is acting up again--Bactrum, please? I'm about to pay $20 for you to tell me what I already know.
But, alas, this isn't to be. I took the little cup and very generously parted with my pee-pee, and went in to wait for the doctor.
Dr. Bradford was there tonight, and she gave my Mountain Dew a dirty look (remember, I stipulated that patients, including yours truly, is prone to the asinine. Hey, it's fluids, right? I'm just hoping now that my kidneys will prove to be among Darwin's aforemenioned 'fittest'....) I like Dr. Bradford. She's from the Ukraine, even if I think I did get off on the wrong foot with her the first time I saw her. I remarked on her accent--which is beautiful--and she asked me to guess where it was from. I guessed Russian, which was close, but no cigar. She was pleased that I got the vicinity, but less than thrilled at my verdict that would have confused her with what she obviously thinks of as those dirty Ruskies. Apparently, there is a Russian/Ukranian rivalry that hearkens back to Romanov Russia...which was also Romanov Ukraine--so the tsars might be the reason I hit a nerve. I digress again.....see, those steroids are already kicking like a mule....
Dr. Bradford has seen me enough to know that I don't fuss alot, and I will always take the shot ("Tech zhe szhot......") and calls me 'Tough girl...." ("Tuff gull......" I get a real kick out of her accent, guys.) And she examined me, and tonight it was me who almost fell off the exam table....
And, like I said, I'm stoic. She listened to everything and then started beating on my back in the general vicinity of my kidneys (I'm wondering at this. I've had doctors--when visiting for a kidney infection--who do everything from the lightest palpations, asking "Hurt here?" to a firm massage around.
Dr. Bradford placed the side of her fist to my back, reared back and before I could say a word--delivered a sound, "Whack!!" to her fist that was placed over my poor kidney, and the air in my chest left in a rather loud, "D'oh!!" What the hell? Do we now diagnose kidney infections not only by the nasties that show up in the specimen--but by gauging our reaction to a sucker punch to the back? I see it now: diagnostic criteria for severity of a kidney infection: a wince means we'll be back in the saddle (ouch--the thought of a saddle makes me ache) after a couple of glasses of cranberry juice. A dead faint would be grounds to put you on a transplant list.
But, apparently I fell somewhere in the middle. Zhe szhots and zhe Bactroom for me. ('Ahh, you tuff gull, I szhend zhe nus in vwith zhe szhots, mmmm? And I vrite you prescreepshun for the antibeeotics, too, yesh? You be better szhoon.....")
But sometimes.....
Today was the second time in a week I have been turned away from my doctor's office as 'there's so much flu.....' and try Urgent Care or my ER. (Um--and you think these places have less flu because.......?)
So I made my way to Urgent Care--not so affectionately called a 'doc in the box' by my sister. Usually, I am pretty pleased with the treatment I get there. They always give me the opportunity to just get it over with and take the shots: one for each cheek--ceftriaxone, and dexamethasone. Antibiotic for the infection (and in my case right now, that would be 'infections', plural....vacation's hangover: sinuses, bronchitis, ears, and kidney/bladder--in other words, I'm just f---ed) and steroid for the swelling and inflammation in my face, throat and ears. And--even if it's up in the air whether or not I'll sleep for three or four days (steroids)--at least I'll be awake and stir crazy without the throbbing in my head, and I can pop my ears again already.
Again, my emphatic disclaimer--not all doctors and/or healthcare professionals are morons. But--I have met more than a few in my day that I have wanted to sucker punch in the head--in the head because I already suspect: a blow to the head won't do too much damage.
But a trip to the doctor's office or an ER is ALWAYS good for sheer entertainment value. I'm serious here......ask anyone who works in healthcare. My sister calls me with some of the most fantastically funny and stupid shit I've ever heard.
For example, where else will you see a person who is covered from head to toe in tattoos faint dead away because the nurse drew a little blood?
I once watched as Bill--in with a patient with the door open--and she was about four drinks past giving a shit what HIPAA was, if she even knew such a demon existed--examining a patient who was obviously near less than conscious, and she dumped the contents of her purse onto the exam table--which was complete with about a dozen pill bottles and a fifth of what appeared to be Beefeater gin. Bill began picking up pill bottles and handing them back to her.......and that's when the lady slid off the table into the floor. Bill helped her up and came out into the admit area, shaking his head. And whispered to me, "Booze, hydrocodone, alprazolam, Prozac......and that's all I saw!!" I looked at him in disbelief. "Uhhh.......911, dear." He looked at me. "You think?" I closed my eyes and nodded.
One of my favorites: my Dad, admitted to the cardiac floor with chest pains a few years ago--after suffering a near-fatal heart attack the year before --was brought--IN THE HOSPITAL--fried chicken for dinner. On that one, I wasn't so nice. At seven months pregnant and incapable of bullshit, I snatched it away from my protesting father, taking it to the nurse. "Fried chicken for a cardiac patient? Really?" I went up the road to a grocery store with a salad bar and brought back a salad. Dad was less than amused.
In labor with my first child....I was being wheeled into the delivery room, which was full of doctors, as I'd had an episode with my heart, and Christopher was beginning to show signs of distress. So--there was the doctor, nurses, a resident, cardiologist, perinatologist and three pediatricians for the baby as I was wheeled into the delivery room. And one of them--in a chipper voice that made me want to rip out his vocal chords--asked, "How are you feeling today?" Not nice that time, either. Irritated and tired after 21 hours of labor, I pushed myself up on my elbows and bellowed, "Well, I've had better days!!" He's lucky he didn't get, "Come here and let me show you, asshole!" because that's definitely what I was thinking. I also didn't get it that everyone in the room thought that my 'better days' comment was hilarious.
I have to say--when Cate was in the hospital with meningitis.....the doctor who was in the Northside-Cherokee ER: what he lacked in bedside manner he more than made up for in the brains department. And the doctors at Scottish Rite--there, boys and girls, are some people who have definitely got their shit together. VERY impressive staff there. Outstanding. However, I was less than blown away by her pediatrician--who, in a follow up appointment asked first (I assumed she'd read the chart the hospital faxed over....but that's my fault, 'assume'--and therefore made an ass of me...) "Why did they think she had meningitis?" And I did it.....the eyebrows went up, and there was more than a hint of sarcasm. "Ahhhh......a positive spinal tap result?" Call me crazy.
And--if some of my nursing professors are correct--and some of them are doctors, kids-- and readily admit: my opinion and esteem of doctors will wax and wane in my career.
It's really not meant on my part--at least, not always. I am sure--and Carey will probably back me up.....my brain works fast, and sometimes, my mouth works faster. (My father's diagnosis of this is cerebral rectumitis.....) But Carey--my fellow nursing student, will probably attest to this: I have probably made a professor or two a little nuts. For example, with my mind on four tracks one morning in class (one on the professor, one reading over my notes making more mental notes, taking notes, and processing the big picture in my head--and believe me, I got tired just explaining that--walk a mile in my shoes).....I was jerked out of my four-track mind with this statement from the professor--lecturing on the autonomic nervous system: "Reflexes never reach the brain."
Huh? What? But what about.........?? I went quickly back up through the notes and looked up, frowning at my own understanding--or apparently, my lack thereof. Dr. Bern looked at me. "Cheri, are you with me?" "Aaah....no. If reflexes don't reach the brain, why does lack of a reflexive response or a hyperactive response sometimes indicate something is seriously FUBAR'ed in the central nervous system and the brain?" Deer in the headlights look from the professor, which gave way to a thoughtful look, nodding of the head, and the maddening answer I've been given since I was three years old: "That's a good question....."
But--I digress.
Urgent Care just got a fabulous little device in their waiting room called a zero-gravity chair. In the hour and fifteen minutes I sat in the waiting room, I saw three different people, all flushed and glass-eyed with obvious fever, sit in the zero-gravity chair. The receptionist--whom I vaguely know from school (and is that still an acceptable title?)--and I will admit, her heart was in the right place--having seen the symptoms I signed in with, and probably because of the obvious wince on my face--said, "Honey, you might feel better in the zero-gravity chair....."
And I might get the swine flu FROM the zero-gravity chair.....!!! Of course I didn't say it aloud. I smiled and assured her I was fine.
I was amused and disgruntled at the same time with even being there: this far into life, having had three kids and more bladder and kidney infections than I can count, why, oh why, can't I just call doctor and tell them the piss pipe is acting up again--Bactrum, please? I'm about to pay $20 for you to tell me what I already know.
But, alas, this isn't to be. I took the little cup and very generously parted with my pee-pee, and went in to wait for the doctor.
Dr. Bradford was there tonight, and she gave my Mountain Dew a dirty look (remember, I stipulated that patients, including yours truly, is prone to the asinine. Hey, it's fluids, right? I'm just hoping now that my kidneys will prove to be among Darwin's aforemenioned 'fittest'....) I like Dr. Bradford. She's from the Ukraine, even if I think I did get off on the wrong foot with her the first time I saw her. I remarked on her accent--which is beautiful--and she asked me to guess where it was from. I guessed Russian, which was close, but no cigar. She was pleased that I got the vicinity, but less than thrilled at my verdict that would have confused her with what she obviously thinks of as those dirty Ruskies. Apparently, there is a Russian/Ukranian rivalry that hearkens back to Romanov Russia...which was also Romanov Ukraine--so the tsars might be the reason I hit a nerve. I digress again.....see, those steroids are already kicking like a mule....
Dr. Bradford has seen me enough to know that I don't fuss alot, and I will always take the shot ("Tech zhe szhot......") and calls me 'Tough girl...." ("Tuff gull......" I get a real kick out of her accent, guys.) And she examined me, and tonight it was me who almost fell off the exam table....
And, like I said, I'm stoic. She listened to everything and then started beating on my back in the general vicinity of my kidneys (I'm wondering at this. I've had doctors--when visiting for a kidney infection--who do everything from the lightest palpations, asking "Hurt here?" to a firm massage around.
Dr. Bradford placed the side of her fist to my back, reared back and before I could say a word--delivered a sound, "Whack!!" to her fist that was placed over my poor kidney, and the air in my chest left in a rather loud, "D'oh!!" What the hell? Do we now diagnose kidney infections not only by the nasties that show up in the specimen--but by gauging our reaction to a sucker punch to the back? I see it now: diagnostic criteria for severity of a kidney infection: a wince means we'll be back in the saddle (ouch--the thought of a saddle makes me ache) after a couple of glasses of cranberry juice. A dead faint would be grounds to put you on a transplant list.
But, apparently I fell somewhere in the middle. Zhe szhots and zhe Bactroom for me. ('Ahh, you tuff gull, I szhend zhe nus in vwith zhe szhots, mmmm? And I vrite you prescreepshun for the antibeeotics, too, yesh? You be better szhoon.....")
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