Midnight and a quarter.
MyMondayMuse beckons me to show up as my writer self before I hit the hay.
The trouble is I’ve been awol all day.
My 92 year old mama lost her lunch and dinner Saturday and then her breakfast Sunday morning. She’d fainted in her chair earlier in the afternoon Saturday and had a rattly cough. Fearing dehydration we decided to take her to Kaiser’s Emergency Room.
The gal at the nurse’s desk, when I called about mom, was kind enough to request a non-emergency transport to pick us up AND bring us back, so I got to ride shot-gun with TWO very cute, very young EMTs... one of whom has a lot of friends who work at The Painted Turtle. (He’d noticed my husband’s Painted Turtle hoodie as he and mom’s care-giver Ellen were preparing to follow the ambulance to Kaiser.) So we talked about camp. The ride-back-driver was into military reading - all about the Navy Seal who trained the team of six who took out Bin Laden and how this guy was an adrenaline junkie and LOVED his work and was soooo very good at planning security raids. Wow. I learned things I’d never be privy to had I not gotten to ride shot-gun!
Meanwhile... back in the ER they tested and poked, drained and filled, EKG’d and otherwise observed Mama Barbara for 10 hours and sent her home with anti-biotics for some infection of unknown origin. Her lungs are clear... maybe her teeth... maybe a UTI. She surely perked up with the saline drip, some Tylenol for the fever and some antibiotics in her IV. We sang some songs, but mostly she snored.
One way I passed the time was by reading aloud from my book, “When the Body Says No” by Gabor Mate, which explores the stress/disease connection. VERY wonderful book. The last chapter puts forth Dr. Maté’s Seven A’s of Healing. As a preamble to that list he encourages some negative thinking - meaning that if all we do is “positive thinking” we relegate all our shadow material to somewhere deep in our body where it can wreak havoc - particularly repressed anger. Turns out there are behaviors that predict certain diseases... like being overly nice all the time to everybody is associated with ALS; while repressed anger can lead to cancer and autoimmune diseases. (Now, don't do as I did and start self-diagnosing, chastising and berating yourself! Read the book! It's about having compassion for the little kid in us who derived the best survival strategies s/he could!)
Rats who are aggressive when kept in too close quarters with other rats have much lower tumor growth rates than those who are more docile. Anger (number three on the A list) when expressed can jump start the immune system. Fascinating!
The other A words include Acceptance, Awareness, Autonomy, Attachment, Assertion and Affirmation. It’s not the words that count but the exploration of how we came to certain beliefs early in life which may not be useful to us now - and actually may be killing us slowly! Got to explore the dark to get to the light, eh? (A?)
I’d only got half way through Autonomy when the ambulance came to take mom and me home. I’ll finish the book tomorrow... along with all the other tasks that went undone today.
Mostly I’m relieved she IS home and eager to see how she fares tomorrow with gatorade and antibiotics. yum. Mark made a delicious dinner for me! Sure tasted good after a day of nuts, raisins and crackers from the bottom of my purse!
From the bottom of my heart I thank all those EMTs, RNs, MDs and assorted specialists who helped an old lady and her even older mother Sunday.
Thanks so much for showing up and sharing your story! The book you are reading sounds so interesting, would love to read it when you're done. BTW, when did you become an old lady?
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