Beantown and Beatdown

Just got back from Boston. Not impressed.

I dunno, maybe I just need to be around someone who really knows the place, but I just couldn’t warm to it. We were in Medford for graduation at Tufts, which in itself was fine, but SIL was a complete control freak spaz all the time, and at times shockingly immature for a woman of 53, and I wearied of it fast. I don’t feel like listing the rundown, but suffice it to say that I’ll be thinking twice, three, seven times before we go to Princess Entitlement’s law school graduation in three years.

Add to it MIL’s usual crap and, unusually, FIL’s crazy manic need to go-go-go the whole time. What the hell? Not a very good time.

We did hit the Adams National Park homes, something I wanted to do. Too bad our trolley got hit by someone who tried to cut him off, adding two hours to our sojourn. It all ended well, with me spending serious bucks back at the visitors center.

The best news of the trip? Boy is a fantastic traveler. We weren’t sure he would handle a non-stop, so we stopped in Chicago overnight each way. Turns out, he likely could have handled the non-stop, but to change the return trip would have been an extra $700+. Um, no. So we sucked it up. Anyway, Boy handled it all with aplomb, no more fussy than a normal 2.5 year old, but the travel and the initial schedule wore him down hard. A bomb could have gone off and he would have slept through it.

He is now fascinated as hell with planes, airports, you name it. It was a joy to see him take in a new experience and adjust really well.

~~

At 4:30 on the Wednesday before I left (May 16), I got the call that since Dad isn’t progressing, the facility was going to release him, and the coverage would run out last Saturday, and we needed to find another place for him. I was heading downtown to get Boy his Botox shots, and I called my sister in a panic; she said, “Oh, shit.”

What a scam! They give you less than three days – two business days! – to look for another facility that will care for him since he can’t safely go home. They know there’s pretty much no way it’s going to happen that fast, so lo and behold, you are conveniently offered the option to private pay until you find a place. Pretty slick setup, isn’t it? And they all do it, we all know they do.

All the while I’m pleading with the case manager that I need to see the doctor on staff because we need to do a meds check, and get stonewalled. Between the kick-out and this crap, I’m out of time to pack for Boston. For a few moments I thought that I wouldn’t be able to go; my sister said go – you’re burned out, you need the break, go pack and go to Boston; Brother 4 and I will handle it, you get out of here.

While I was in Boston, B4 did a splendid job. He had enough of the same stonewalling I encountered, and set up an appointment with his actual primary care physician (instead of trying to track down the elusive facility doc that I’ve never met). Dr P got Dad off of half his meds (Dad was past the point where the anesthesia should be affecting him but he was still acting high as a kite), so we’re waiting to see if this helps him come back from la-la-land.

B4 gets back from that appointment later that evening and hunts down the head nurse; he says here, this is what his PCP wants his meds changed into. They treated him like shit, with disdain, snickering, one apparently saying “You can’t do that!” The hell we can’t! He retorted, “He certainly can. He’s been Dad’s doctor for longer than you’ve been alive.” YEOUCH!! Go Bro!

The next day B4 showed up in uniform (he’d had to report to base that morning) and they sobered up. The PA “okayed” what Dr P ordered – well, jeez, thanks! B4 gave them a piece of his mind. They were basically writing him off and he called them on it. I wish I’d been a fly on the wall – what a sight. They likely cowered.

I get back yesterday to find the case manager (CM) acting all spazzy – she knows I know what happened and she’s very, very nervous. I sat on her as she faxed the facility release to the facility doctor (somewhere else, of course), but she “lost” the number, getting all crazy. I said, “flip that paper over!” “Oh!” I looked at her hard and said, “You sure you don’t want to switch hair colors with me?” Once she finally gets the fax off, I sit and watch her call the facility we’re moving to see if they’ll accept Dad without therapy orders, since Dr P’s office is closed for the holiday.

Suddenly, I feel this presence behind me, and there’s Dad, who scooched himself in his wheelchair to the CM’s office. “Daddy!” I hug and kiss that vague, medicated shell of a man, only to find he’s pissed himself, and obviously some time ago. I held onto my rage until the CM was done with what she could get done on a Friday attached to a holiday weekend. As I wheeled Dad back out to the corridor, I poked my head back in her door and said, essentially, “What in the hell? He’s sitting here, having pissed himself, and nobody cares?”

“Well, it’s the nurses—“

“No. This is how you present yourself and this facility? My dad’s sitting here in his own piss. What in the hell?” I make the big ‘wtf’ gesture with my hands and glare at her.

I stalked off down the corridor towards Dad’s room. A CNA said hello. I said, “who is Dad’s nurse?” She told me. I said “Listen, I came in just now to find Dad sitting in his own piss. He needs to be changed.” I tell you, I must have looked really pissed, because she jumped! She took him and wheeled him to his room, and immediately she called the other CNA for help, and he was cleaned up and changed in an instant.

I shouldn’t even have to do that. Holy crap.

~~

I’m so, so, SO mad.

This has turned into a nightmare. I wasn’t home two hours and the knots are back in my neck. And this is just the tip of the iceberg – I could write for hours. It has sucked royally. I can hardly imagine these poor sods who have no medical savvy watching their loved one being medicated into oblivion and written off.

So if you’ll pardon my intermittent absences while I deal with this mess, I will return later and give you a blow-by-blow as to how Boy is handling his Botox shots and all sorts of other things. I promise.

Quick Update

Dad was in the hospital for 10 days; fracture treated like a femur fracture so no hip replacement. Unfortunately, he seems to have checked out mentally. Oh, he comes around, then lobs right to outer space again. He’s saying some wild-assed shit.

He is now in a rehab hospital, as of Tuesday afternoon. The first thing we’re working on is getting his days and nights straightened out – he slept through the night last night for the first time in two weeks. He’s got PT and OT and a gaggle of nurses looking after various needs. He’s weak and disoriented, although able to feed himself when he has an appetite, but has a cath. I’m afraid that the hip fracture is going to be the thing that topples the first of his precarious dominoes – what my brothers don’t seem to understand is that we’re fighting a multi-front fire, not just the stupid breathing treatments.

I know that for many elderly people, the trauma, strain and stress of events like breaking a hip (akin to getting hit by a truck, but with cleaner wounds), and being ripped from their comfort zone, can cause them to check out mentally as a coping mechanism. I’m hoping to God he checks back in, because we’re in for a very bad haul if he doesn’t.

Rains, Pours, Yadda Yadda Yadda

So, on top of all of Boy’s issues, Dad fell early on Easter Sunday morning (I got the call at 7:45a and the medics were already there), and it became obvious rather fast that he’d broken his hip.

I about shouted at a cloud with rage. Cut me some slack, Universe! What the hell?

So at this moment, my brother (Brother 2) is waiting with Dad (it’s 10 minutes to 10pm on 4/9) still waiting in pre-op to get into surgery. He was scheduled at 6pm. Yeah, not so good. Dad hasn’t eaten in more than 36 hours now because they keep pushing surgery off and off and off.

I can’t be there tonight because I’m solo parenting this week (DH is at the yearly corporate conference this week, and as a chief officer can’t skip out), it’s too late to call the ILs, and I can NOT sit there with Boy all night. B2 is all angsty and bitchy because he’s been there all afternoon and now all night and hasn’t eaten and wah wah wah (read: can’t smoke and can’t suck down a 12 pack at night like he usually does every night so he’s going through withdrawals on two fronts).

Well, welcome to my life when family health crises happen. I’ve been doing that for years. Suck it up, Big Brother.

My sibling conflict aside, send off good thoughts Dad’s way, would you? This incident is very bad for many reasons, and we all can use the good vibes.

I’ll catch y’all when things settle down a little; there’s much to tell about Boy but it’ll have to wait. Peace out.

I Hate Being Right

Don’t you hate it when you know something, and you’ve known it in your heart for awhile, but then you hear the same thing you’ve been suspecting from a doctor? And you’re surprised that the pronouncement hurts so badly despite you expecting it?

Yeah.

About that.

We went and saw Dr Segal, Boy’s orthoped this past Wednesday, mostly so that DH could hear what I’ve known in my heart to be true for several months now. I’m the one who watches all the therapies, takes Boy to all the appointments; I’m the one who reads all the heartrending experiences on the Yahoo Group for schizencephaly. I’ve been trying for months to get DH to acknowledge the awful truth, and be realistic instead of ridiculously optimistic and believing that there’s some sort of magic wand (fed by his parents, no doubt) and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

There isn’t, there just isn’t. I’ve tried to tell him, but he won’t listen. I know there isn’t, and he keeps closing his eyes and ears. So when he suggested setting up an appointment to chat with Dr S to talk about some sort of nighttime AFOs, I was all for it. It’s like he doesn’t trust me, it has to come from the doctor. He thought then that I was just cynical and pessimistic. I’m not; I’m a realist and he doesn’t like the reality. 

He took a sick day to attend.

I wanted the appointment also, because when it comes to seeing Dr S at the CRS clinic, it’s always chaotic and there’s never a chance to have a real discussion or get to the point of obtaining an opinion or a prognosis or whatever. It’s not Dr S’s fault; it’s just the nature of any state-run clinic.

So we get to PCH’s new east valley clinic right on time, beating the crowds; we waited maybe 10 minutes before we were called back. The nurse led us in, and said Dr S would be joining us in a minute – he didn’t have the notes from the clinic. He came in sans notes to keep on time. I tell him why we’re there – a chance to commiserate, a chance at a Q&A session, a chance for DH to hear what I’ve been trying to tell him. Dr S asked me to catch him up since the notes hadn’t arrived yet, then he examined Boy, and the talk began.

Since I’ve often written about Boy’s struggles and lagging in milestones and whatnot, I’m not going to repeat them again. I will, however, relay to you the devastating statement.

He said that the bottom line is, generally, if a child with these issues isn’t sitting independently by the age of two, that child isn’t likely to walk independently. “I want him to prove me wrong, and I have had some children prove me wrong,” he said, “and please understand, I want to be wrong.” But the reality is, he continued, that it’s not likely.

We then discussed this and that, things and stuff; a suggested change outside of the contracted company for his daily AFOs (Hanger sucks – they always have), the recommendation of Botox (via the Spasticity Clinic and Dr. Kwasnica) to release some of the hypertonicity in his legs/feet so that he gets the most benefit from the AFOs and benefit the most from the gait trainer, therapies, and whatnot. He gave us the contact number for Cascade orthoses, wants me to try and get into Dr Kwasnica earlier and doesn’t want to see Boy in the clinic until after we’ve seen her so that he can see how things are playing out.

~~

I love Dr S for his honesty and gentleness and professionalism. No arrogant asshole doctor, he.

His statement, though, no matter kindly couched, no matter how much I expected it, still rocked me terribly. By the time I got Boy to his swim class, my mind and heart were very dark and sad. I’ve been depressed ever since.

But I’ve known it was coming. Yes, Boy is making his progresses, building block by tiny building block, but not fast enough. He’s growing so fast that he’s half grown out of his orthoses by the time the order is filled. He’s slowly gaining the idea that upright is the place to be, but has no idea of balance or correcting for a weight shift. I’ve watched him and his therapies and his day-to-day, and I have known the truth. It still hurts so much,  so so so much.

I didn’t think I could mourn any more, not after how much I wept and mourned for Boy’s losses after the initial diagnosis almost eighteen months ago. But I have, and I am. I’m back to the WHY WHY WHY and WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE THIS phase. There are a lot of dark thoughts, a lot of bitter tears. Again.

I was sitting at an intersection in a parking lot yesterday, waiting for someone to move their damn car, when I idly glanced through a window where, inside, young children were gaily practicing their Tae Kwan Do. And my thought was involuntary: Boy will never do anything like that. He’ll never have that experience.

I have the same general thoughts when I see kids in a soccer field, or upcoming Easter events, or anything like that. Boy won’t ever have that, he won’t have that full life experience. And it kills me.

And it’s almost worse knowing there’s nothing we could have done to change where we are now, and change the prognosis in that regard. Boy is two and a half on Wednesday (4/4); six months ago he was nowhere close to sitting independently, no closer than he is now. When that sense of balance is non-existent, when there are no reflexes, no amount of stretching or practice is going to change that. We can kill ourselves with “should haves,” but the truth is, anything we could put under that column would not have changed one damn thing.

Don’t get me wrong – we’re not going to turn turtle and quit. There’s much to do and many goals to hit, too much work to be done with our sweet small innocent son to even think of quitting. Ambulation with some sort of assistance is absolutely doable; he won’t necessarily be wheelchair bound. Quit? Good God, no.

~~

I don’t know, though. Lately I feel like a doomed person who just looks patiently at the bore of the gun, knowing there’s nothing to do, nowhere to run, knowing that killing blow is coming. There’s no fear, no resistance, but just dread and acceptance. I don’t dare ask the universe “what else?” because I just don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know. I can only deal with things one day at a time, and don’t dare look forward.

 

Scrap and Crap

I caved.

I agonized for months as to whether I should get it, but in the end… I caved.

I got this.

Now I’m playing with it and learning how to use it. I suspect it will be just like my iPhone – I’ll wind up using just a fraction of its potential, but in the meantime I’m having fun.

I try to be judicious – the fun is shopping for the Big Shot dies, but the larger alphas can be insanely expensive. I want the XL Bigz alphas (Serif Essentials, etc), but quail just at the thought of the price. I’ll wait, and until then will lurk and hunt for Sizzlits and the Tim Holtz alphas that, while smaller, will suit the purpose right now.

I’ll also haunt the clearance racks… one of the local HobLobs had a bunch of them in their clearance section last week, and I decided to hold off on them for now. I could have gone nuts, but then DH would have put me in time-out and that would be sad.

~~

I’m finally about ten layouts away from finishing Boy’s first year scrapbook.

Well, hell – he is almost 2½.

~~

My little brother (Brother #4) has managed to get himself stationed in a nearby city, come early summer. It should be interesting – ever since Asshole Brother (Brother #3) started to meddle with everything, our relationship has gone to shit. But if we’re going to live under the same piece of sky, I suspect we need to have a pow-wow, just him and me, so that we’re not at each other’s throats when he yanks my chain or I do something with Dad he doesn’t like.

~~

My brother-in-law (my sister’s husband) hadn’t seen Dad since that horrendous Thanksgiving a year and a half ago. Until this weekend, that is, and he was appalled at the deterioration. Add to that shock, Dad managed to rip the pinky toenail off of his left foot as he put his jeans on Saturday morning, blood everywhere… and he’s a diabetic… and yeah, the weekend went from mild to high alert. Brother-in-law nearly freaked – his dad was a very bad, uncontrolled diabetic who got a minor sore on his foot that he ignored, then a week later he lost a toe, a week after that his foot, and a period later he lost the leg and died soon after.

Since Dad’s a controlled diabetic and has been for years, I don’t think the situation is that dire, but it’s still nothing to mess with. We’re monitoring the thing – as of this morning, it’s still cool, normally colored, and no streaks; I think we’re at the point where now we just have to watch it heal correctly. Open wounds on a diabetic’s appendages can go to shit really fast, as evidenced previously.

Sigh. I’d really like to catch a break somewhere.

~~

Anyway, back to scrapping – I’d like to go to the local Creating Keepsakes convention next month, then in October fly to Ontario for the Big One. I’ve never been and I’d like to just poke around and get ideas.

I’m enjoying the hobby enough to take it seriously. Do you know how long it’s been since I took a serious interest in any outside activity since the disaster with the religious secular order five years ago? Wow. Time has flown. Guess it’s time to return to the world a little.

Forty

When I was a little kid, I would listen to my (late) sister’s music, and in her collection she had a tape of one of Harry Belafonte’s fantastic live concert recordings. In his classic audience sing-a-long song “Matilda,” he calls out various groups: men, women, scholarship students, etc., to sing out the chorus… and then calls out, “Women over forty!”

There’s a gap, then the deep, tone-deaf, almost cigarette-voice response of all these women: “Muuuhhh-” which made the audience die with laughter before the word was finished.

I remember thinking, “Is forty all that bad?”

~~

I turned forty a month ago today. And you know, I don’t feel a damn thing.  It’s a number, it’s an age. I know women who freaked over turning thirty; when it comes to the age itself, I shrugged and said, “meh.” Age is a matter of the mind, the saying goes: if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

But… it’s still a milestone, a time to sit and think.

I’m not sure “here” is where I expected to be. I’m not one for grandiose yearnings – that’s not the way I’m wired. I think in my ‘younger years’ (so to speak) I expected to have school age children, work full time and be at a certain point in my career, do this, do that, been there and done that, all by forty. I certainly never expected to be a stay at home mom to a special needs two year old and mind my fading almost-83 year old father, constantly on the move and always doing something that isn’t exactly pleasant. I expected the normalcy and busyness of a typical toddler, to be busy in that way. That wasn’t my fate.

I never expected to be and feel so isolated. Much of it is due to the fact that as soon as Boy’s diagnosis was made common knowledge, my “friends” all slunk away, even “T,” my friend of over twenty five years. It’s difficult and bewildering – I always thought they had more fortitude and character, but I guess not. It’s not like I made my burden theirs, as I take care of my own self, issues and problems. I never called them 37 times a day, whining about everything. But T’s defection hurts the worst – she is also Boy’s godmother, and she never even calls or even emails to check on how he is… and it hurts. Funny how one little thing can change the dynamics of relationships. It’s strange – these “friends” always called me in crises, where I was a solid resource from everything from minor tiffs with the boyfriend of the week and I-hate-my-job beerfests to late-term miscarriages and divorces; but when I’m in crisis, they all run like jackrabbits. Eh?

I didn’t expect to be still living in this armpit of a metro area. I’ve resigned myself to never leaving here as long as my mother in law lives, for DH will never have the courage to cut the umbilical cord. It depresses the hell out of me. I’m so done with this place.

Many of my high school classmates are having big bashes as they turn forty this year, too. Not me. Not so much that I wanted one, but it’s more that nobody really gave a damn. Hell, even DH forgot my birthday, and scrambled at 10pm that night to get two dozen roses and other flowers. I’d already gone to bed, depressed and dejected. I saw them the next morning, and thought it was sweet, because I know it wasn’t a malicious thing. It still upset me terribly and made me sad.

Two people remembered my birthday – my asshole brother, who I don’t want to hear from, and who is only marking the day he ceased to be the youngest of the family, for which he openly admits he resented me for… and still does (a serious WTF… and why did he text me at at all, on all days? weird); and a person who fell off the face of the earth six months ago and left me a vague one-line message on FB. My dad didn’t, my sister didn’t, my husband didn’t and none of my “friends” did. Not even T, whose birthday is five days after mine and with whom I’ve celebrated my birthday for years. Yeah, it hurts.

But I buried it and hid it as I always do, because I know my reaction is partially just ego. Yet it’s also normal to feel that way, and I also feel marginalized and unimportant. Then the days ticked away, and now it’s just a vague soreness of an old muscle pull. I’ll get over it. I always do.

~~

My vision is changing. My left eye has gotten very weak – what’s up with that? Traitor.

My hair, which has been a nice darker red-gold shade since I was a kid (that turned bright blond after being in the sun), decided to turn towards a brownish color starting about six months ago. My sister noticed it when she was in town in December, and my cousin Ashley noticed it last month when she saw me at Auntie’s memorial: “What happened to your blond hair?!” My sister in law thinks I’m coloring it. Nope – it just decided to turn darker once I turned 40. Nothing I can do about it, and I’m not going to start augmenting it. No thanks.

My joints? Well, they’ve been going to hell since I was nineteen; nothing new about that. But they sure are creaking and popping and hurting more than they used to. Getting my fat ass on the floor to be with Boy is a challenge.

Speaking of my fat ass, I know I need to lose weight, but it’s hard to do when I’m pinned to a seated position so much all day because a certain loved small person depends on me for everything. A meal takes 30-45 minutes, cleanup another 15-20 – that’s over three hours a day right there. We drive somewhere every day. I have to sit in on the therapies –it’s negligent to leave the room while it’s in session. He has something nearly every day. And, while he’s in this phase of not consistently sleeping through the night for whatever reason, it’s impossible for me to get up early and do something about it… my get-up-and-go went MIA in the last two and a half years.

And a couple of weeks ago when I was invited by an acquaintance to a (sorta impersonal) get together at a bar, I discovered that my alcohol tolerance has diminished severely. Two beers (usual size) now knock me on my ass and make my head thump, where I used to just enjoy them and have a distant, pleasant buzz. Now I wonder if I should bother drinking anymore.

Meanwhile, my periods are still dead on regular with every phase of the cycle happening as it should throughout the month. Damn thing is not only treacherous, but cruel – not ever going to get pregnant, and certainly not at this late age, so eff you, uterus.

~~

But you know, not everything is so negative. I’ve done a lot and experienced unique things in my life so far. If Boy’s challenges aren’t the path I ever wanted (who wants it? Hello!), well, it’s just a new and unexpected adventure.

I got my #1 lifetime desire almost three years ago, and that was to go to Ireland; if it wasn’t under the circumstances I expected, well, hell – I’d be ungrateful to bitch about it. I was there, I got to go, and maybe someday I’ll get to go back.

As much as he’s driving me crazy lately, I’m so damn lucky with DH. There aren’t many men like him in my generation.  He’s a great husband, a achingly beautiful father to Boy, and just an overall great human being… who has his failings. So what? Everyone has failings.

And my sweet angel pie Boy – he is a great gift from God. He keeps me humble. He makes my day with his smiles, his giggles, and… well, just the way he is. I can’t imagine my life without him.

I have much to be grateful for.

Is everything perfect? No. But it’s certainly liveable.

~~

I had this post in an earlier form delving into my deeper, darker self and views, but I got depressed editing it. Screw that. I deleted it.

It’s time to be positive. That’s the greatest gift I can give to myself as I mark Milepost 40.

Still Here

Been crazy busy and solo parenting. I’ve started three posts and didn’t finish a one. Don’t worry, I’ll post something soon. Be back later!

PS: Oh, I’m getting several hits for Salami Tsunami, Dusty Scott’s blog. I haven’t the slightest idea what happened. Just one day… BOOP! Gone. *shrug*

A Light Has Gone Out

This morning, Boy decided he wanted to play at 3am. I came in, quieted him, turned him on his side, and we both went back to bed.

He decided that no, he really did want to play, so I let him… but I stayed in bed and kept my eyes closed, dozing intermittently, listening for the distinct sound of oh no nobody’s coming to play so I must wake everyone up. He didn’t do that until 4:30, when I came in again, changed him, turned him on his side, and went back to bed. Again.

I tried, oh how I tried to doze back off. I only went to bed at 12:30am (because my brain was full of what’s below), so I knew I was toast if I didn’t sleep. At 5, I gave up, and cruised the internet and started this post.

He woke up again at 5:30.

Shit. Going to be a long day.

~~

What I was expecting yesterday was a call from my dad saying that my niece made a safe entry into the world, as last I’d heard, Brother #4’s wife was scheduled for a c-section. Instead, the call started with a statement that his niece, my cousin A, had called. Aunt E died yesterday morning.

On her 99^th birthday.

A few days after my previous post, Cousin A had called Dad to say that Aunt E had been in the hospital and was going to hospice. Two days later she was home. She did it again! She’d been sent to hospice a few years ago and bounced back. As another cousin said, the next thing we know we’ll get the news she’s walking on water. She’s always bounced back.

Dad has been itchy since then about going to the shithole on the state line to see his sister, but something has always come up. Boy’s therapies or clinic visits. I’m sick. DH is sick. Dad got a nasty cold. Boy has the sniffles. Yeah… you can’t go and visit someone who is extremely elderly who just got out of the hospital for a respiratory infection and pneumonia if you’re sick yourself.

I was literally on the verge of calling Aunt E’s house to a) wish her happy birthday and b) to ask if we could set up a visit, when Dad’s call came through.

Naturally, I’m sad and heartbroken. Aunt E has been part of the fabric of all my life, something many of my paternal cousins can say; she was the thread that bound that side of the family together. And in the last two years I had wanted to get to the inconvenient city she lives in (just outside of three hours away), not only for the pleasure of seeing her but to have the pleasure of her seeing my boy, and getting a picture of it.

Dad, understandably, is devastated; he is now the last of what had been a large family. He had promised his sister he’d visit, but wanted me to take him as she was always reticent with any of the boys around for some reason, but sang like a bird with me around. While I think he initially blamed me for failing to take him and therefore breaking his promise, I did point out that in the past three weeks there had not been opportunity or a gap when any of us were not sick. And there’s no way that we could have been around her with even a garden-variety cold. He knows this in his heart, but his mind I think is not accepting. There’s nothing I can do about it now. I’ll be sorry if he wants me to be sorry, but I’m not. That’s just life.

~~

My cousin M, the daughter of another paternal aunt (Aunt M), had been very close to Aunt E. M had lived with Auntie for several periods while growing up because of her mother’s difficulties. She just adored Auntie, who was really to her a second mother, a true mother. Oh, and never mind that M’s birthday is the day after Aunt E’s. So close, they talked all the time; they even shared this morbid fascination as to who would die first, E or M, as M has had several health problems for years… instead of being weird, it became a rather funny running joke.

So, when M’s husband asked M what she wanted for her birthday, she said she wanted to drive out to see Aunt E, an even longer drive than what I have. Yesterday, she called to not only wish Auntie a happy birthday, but also to check and see if Auntie could handle a visit. The granddaughter who had been living with Auntie (and was her caretaker) answered, and said sadly, “I’m sorry to have to say this, but she just passed away.”

“No, no, no…”

The first person I called after Dad called me yesterday was not any of my siblings, but Cousin M, knowing that she would be completely shattered by the news. She told me that Auntie had been sharp as a tack to the very end; on the last day of her life, she was just very tired, still not feeling well from the cold that had nearly killed her, and went to bed early. Around 7:30 yesterday morning, the granddaughter came in to check on her as she always did, and found that Auntie was gone – must have just died, in fact, because her hands were still warm.

So that is a blessing – Auntie died in her own bed, without pain, in her sleep, something everyone wants but not what everyone gets. She never got over losing her husband nigh on thirty years ago, and so now she’s reunited with him. God rest her soul.

~~

She lived exactly 99 years, January 26 to January 26. What a life! Born in 1913, one of five children, her early childhood was during the privations and stresses of World War I. She was about seven when her mother, my grandfather’s first wife, died of tuberculosis. Unlike her eldest sister Aunt P, who resented her stepmother/my grandmother from the day she married my grandfather, Aunt E embraced and adored her stepmother, eventually naming her second daughter after her; later, her eldest daughter would also name a daughter after her step-grandmother. All her life, Auntie kissed the ground her two baby brothers, the two children my grandparents had together – of whom my dad was one – walked on, despite the age difference.

Auntie’s late husband, who she married when she was seventeen, had been a dentist, so they were comfortable. That wasn’t satisfying to her; in a day and age where a woman was expected to stay home, she had her own paint store in Tucson instead, very much a trailblazer thirty-plus years before Women’s Lib was big.

She had a heart the size of Texas, too: at various points, she took in this niece or that nephew or this or that grandchild for extended periods of time. This too had its heartache: when Cousin M’s eldest brother “Buddy” was having severe behavioral problems, Aunt E took him in, loved him, and got him turned around – unfortunately, when his mother, Aunt M, decided to ‘play mother’ again, it wrought havoc in his life; it would be one of Aunt E’s great sorrows when Buddy, who was still living with Auntie at that point, went back to her house after a fight with his mother one day, went into his room, and put a gun in his mouth. It is a mark of strength that it didn’t break her. I don’t think I could have handled that.

It had to have been hard to watch those she loved go before her. While her three children are still alive – the eldest is 80! – she’s witnessed the loss of all of her siblings save one, her “baby” brother (she called Dad that in every single birthday card), all of her siblings-in-law save one (Uncle J’s wife, who is 88 and failing), and so many others beloved to her. It’s the curse of being elderly, something Dad is experiencing, too. Yet while she mourned, sometimes bitterly, her spirit was unbroken.

~~

The last ten years have been hard on her, with the loss of independence – first it was the encroaching deafness, then the macular degeneration that slowly took her sight, and then in recent years her physical endurance failed, forcing her homebound. Her courage, however, never failed, no matter how hard the loss of her sacred independence was on her.

But I suspect something broke in her with this latest issue. Remember, she was signed over to hospice – and she had been at least twice in the last five years and came through to live a few more years – and she was well enough that when she insisted on going home, they released her. Yet I think this last time took some vital essence out of her, weakened her, and depleted her will to live.

Cousin M said that Auntie had said in the last six months, in her indirect way, that she was ready to go. Therefore, really, there’s no reason to cry – she was ready, and it was her time.

If they did an autopsy (which they won’t, but just saying), they’d probably find she’d just died of old age.

~~

She was a sister and a dear friend to my mother for the almost fifty years of my parents’ marriage; Mom’s death broke her heart, and she couldn’t speak of Mom without choking up for the longest time.

She had a horror of the though of outliving her baby brother, my dad. At least she doesn’t have to live through that.

~~

In many ways, to me she was the grandparent I never had (all of them died before I was born, the curse of being a late child of a late child), and a link to them outside of Dad. Cards for birthdays, checks sent for major life events despite a severely restricted income (somehow Uncle B didn’t leave Auntie with much in her old age), always an open phone line and a great correspondent. I think if her eyesight hadn’t failed her so badly in the last fifteen years, she might have enjoyed email as a fast way of communication.

While I am sad, it’s really no surprise. I shed tears, of course, but there’s no need to wail: she was 99, after all, and her death, while mourned, is hardly tragic. She had a full life, with all its highs and lows. And I don’t think she ever spoke ill of anyone in her life – oh, she had people she definitely liked and disliked, but she usually just smiled and moved on with the latter; I know that’s something I never mastered. She was a rare human being, and her like will never be seen again.

The next to last chapter of the seven siblings is done. It remains to be seen how the the last chapter, and the story, will end.

~~

As I alluded to in my previous post, now I have to watch my dad’s mental state. I spent most of the day with him yesterday, both to talk his grief out and to keep an eye on him. He’s stoic – you won’t see him weeping and wailing, a failing I have as well. However, I had a hard time keeping a lid on my sorrow so I didn’t upset him more than he already was.

Since it’s my understanding that Auntie wanted no funeral and no memorial, but just going to be cremated and interred in Tucson with Uncle B, it’s going to be hard to have closure in some ways. I think I might just hit up Cousin M, get together, and remember and toast an amazing woman and amazing life.

Depressing Reading Ahead

(You’re warned… just sayin’)

I haven’t posted lately because it’s another round of Dad-not-doing-well mixed in with the usual nuttiness of Boy’s schedule; throw in a ninja cold that knocked all three of us on our asses, plus one funeral of a family friend, and right now I’m a candidate for a silent retreat at a monastery/nunnery/mountain retreat. It’s been so crazy my personal journal is stuck at around December 16 (now a month behind again, dammit) and I still have most of the Christmas stuff up… but the tree did come down this weekend before it went FOOM if we turned on the lights.

~~

It’s really disconcerting to see Dad deteriorate after a “routine” surgery, such as his stent surgery last month. He’s still disoriented, time-wise. He’s having short term memory issues (he asked me three times where the taco sauce was on Christmas night… three times in a row). And for someone who hated his wife’s shunning of all medical stuff, who himself was particular about getting in for his quarterly blood draws and all that stuff, almost has to be nagged if not dragged in to do it.

Very disconcerting.

Not helpful either is Brother #2, who means well, but in his inimitable style, fucks things up in the end. Take Dad’s meds for example – to help, he volunteered to load up Dad’s weekly medication tray. Wonderful! Great! Makes life easy for me, especially after I untangled that unholy mess that had been on the vanity last month. So I check the trays at his request on Monday, and not only are the pills across the week inconsistent, but there are pills that we had set aside when we weeded some out with the doctor. It’s obvious he’s just guessing.

What in the hell, dude? Does he not understand that we’re messing with blood thinners here? Too little of these meds, and the blood gets too thick, risking another heart attack and possibly stroke; too much, and Dad will bleed like the proverbial stuck pig doing something as simple as brushing his teeth. He said he understood that when that whole mess happened last month, but B2 has ever been a little dull in the brains department, and obviously something didn’t stick… making a bigger job for me.

I can’t be there to oversee Dad’s stuff and Boy’s, too – if Boy didn’t have his issues, then yeah. But he does and I can’t deal with two people heavily dependent on me in two different houses. I can’t run two houses right now – I can barely keep tabs on my own, even with help.

I’m almost at the point of pinging his doctor’s office about perhaps a nurse coming in weekly to check on these things. One thing I am doing when I have a minute to breathe is insisting on a pow-wow with the doc and airing the deep concerns that have arisen this past week.

~~

Yesterday was the funeral of a family friend. “Aunt P” was the wife of one of my dad’s two childhood friends from Tucson who all went to college, went in the military, married and moved to the area I grew up in, all around the same time. Aunt P and her husband, Uncle B, were the godparents of my third brother, but I wound up closer to them than he ever was, more because of time and place rather than anything else. Aunt P was a hoot (her ashes were in a brightly decorated, child’s cookie jar, for God’s sake!), but she was also the type to nag the pastor at church and tell him how to run things. She was a constant in our lives. My parents would run into her at the store, at restaurants, at wherever. She and Uncle B, along with Uncle J (the second childhood friend) and his wife Aunt J, who were my fourth brother’s godparents, were at the yearly Christmas party and major family events without fail.

Aunt P, who was strong and stoic and pretty much had seen it all, came to my mother’s funeral drenched in tears – they’d been close for years, and Aunt P had helped and comforted my mother through a miscarriage in the early years of friendship which had sealed their connection, as Aunt P had gone through many miscarriages. By the time my mother died, the friendship had thrived almost fifty years. In the five years that had followed Mom’s death, Dad saw Aunt P here and there. It seemed she would probably outlive Dad, as she seemed eternal, despite being five years older (therefore 87 when she did die last week).

Her death ended a circle of Dad’s friends – my parents, Uncle B and Aunt P, Uncle J and Aunt J, and the later addition in the early 1950s of my godparents Aunt N and Uncle R - were inseparable despite miles and time. My godmother died of breast cancer in 1992, then, heartbroken and lonely, Uncle R drank himself to death four years later;  Aunt J died of cancer a few years later, then Uncle J of myriad health problems two years after that: Uncle B was the shocker – he had just gotten a clean bill of health and had gone up to his cabin to close it for the season, when on the way home on the highway he had a massive heart attack – he was dead by the time the car rolled to a stop at the side of the road… that was the fall before my mom died in 2006. Since then it’s been Aunt P and Dad left. Now, days after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, Aunt P died.

Dad initially didn’t want to go; I offered to take him and he accepted. But by the time I got him home, he was upset. Not mad-upset, but emotionally upset and he basically grunted as he got out of my truck and into the house. It is upsetting. He’s the last, the only survivor. It’s ironic in that he was the one with the worst habits and smokes like a chimney, yet he survives all of them, even Mom.

It is the end of a family era.

~~

However, worse has crossed my mind, if my suspicions and fears have foundation after talking to the doc when he can spare 20 minutes: it might be quite the “race” to see who survives the last circle in his life, almost 83 year old Dad or his 97 year old sister who once said to him, “You can’t die and leave me alone! I can’t bear to be the last!”

~~

So yeah, I’m not a lot of fun. Sorry.

But the Boy is truly a joy and is working oh so hard to improve. Sweet little pie guy. Such a joy. I gotta go… I’ll write more later.

Holiday Aftermath and Adoption Thoughts

Christmas went all right – there was hope my eldest brother would join us for the first time since Mom’s funeral over five years ago, but that fell through. My SIL tried to run Christmas night and I said no, let me relax a minute, and I called when we went in for presents. Dad was standoffish but much better than last year’s rude rush out. Overall, it went well with no big drama, and that’s my #1 aim.

I played up the excitement of Santa on Christmas morning, and although Boy’s only 2 and lags developmentally, he seemed to ‘get it.’ He knew something good was in those wrapped boxes and colorful bags, and that they were for him. After tearing the paper a few times on the first box, he was off and running – he made a splendid mess. “Santa” held off on getting Boy all the stuff “Santa” wanted because “Santa” knew he was going to make out like a bandit later in the day (the grands and the auntie went nuts!). Nevertheless, Boy got lots of loot… and it was so much fun. He latched on to the little Clifford the Red Dog sent by DH’s aunt and to the Fisher-Price telephone (the one we ALL had as kids, just with big black Manga-type eyes instead of the blue rimmed ones in the classic version) that Santa brought – his big thing is telephones right now. It’s great. What fun!!

~~

BB picked up her blog again and has posted about her new blessing.

~~

Twice in the last week, DH has brought up the thought of a sibling for Boy: once at DH’s friends’ house as he was enthralled by their six year old son, and the other as Boy latched onto his cousin, my sister’s son. DH is getting to the point of saying “Yeah, it’s gotta be done.”

As I’ve posted before, I’ve been ready for the last several months to start the whole arduous paperchase all over again. I have to be patient. I think the time is about right, since (as it stands now) Boy will be starting preschool next fall a couple of times a week.

~~

Speaking of adoption, I came across this article tonight. Parts of the article bother me. – scratch that. The article bugs the shit out of me. I don’t care for the tone. It’s also the  in-your-face attitude of her having money to throw around (see: references to oysters, the cavalier “What price family?”/adopt at all costs attitude, etc.) which is completely irrelevant to the adoption scenario and the point she might be trying to make, and the fact that Rosa (can I call her Rosa?) lays out blatant misinformation in an article that is published for all the English speaking world to read.

She lays out her failed placement out as if that awful scamming scenario is rampant – oh, it’s definitely out there (sadly), but not all facilitators are lazy, complacent dumbshits who don’t do their homework and screw their clients over. The other issue is where does the blame lay here – the facilitator for being suckered, or Rosa for her implied desperation in blindly overnighting a check? Only further down does she say they “learned a facilitator is not a licensed adoption agency.” Whoops. Someone who worked so hard to give the impression she’s sophisticated and is even world traveled admitted she and her husband didn’t do her homework. That was an expensive mistake, eh, Rosa?

I think what bothers me most is that Rosa does not give a positive public image for potential adoptive parents – in fact, I think she comes across as the stereotype of the desperate infertile woman in the tone and verbiage… the exact type of person the anti-adoption faction complains about, and rightfully so.

She also gives a bad rap to any mother giving up her child – she devotes many lines to the crazy scammer, but nary a word of the woman who gave her the gift of Nina, other than stroking the mother’s hair during labor. She devoted not one single word of public gratitude.

The article is has the words ‘truth and lies’ in its headline, but I see not a lot of truth and several… well, if not lies, then misleading and uninformed statements.

According to Rosa: 1) Adoption is a long, harsh road. 2) It is also expensive. 3) The process to become certified is invasive and annoying. 4) It’s normal to just blindly send off a check for someone for two months’ rent and expenses. 5) Birth mothers are crazy and demanding. 6) There is no reparation for scam situations. 7) Adoption is an industry – possibly a evil, bad one. 8) All adoptive parents have a “heart rending, mind-bending story to tell.” 9) The world is defined by California law. 10) Legal proceedings are unofficial.

According to me:

1) Agree, it can be; I don’t think anyone would ever describe it as a cakewalk.

2) Not always, but you will get burned if you don’t do your homework… and yes, placements can fall through, sometimes causing the potential adoptive parents to forfeit a lot of money. And by the way, Rosa, private domestic adoption does NOT necessarily run $30-50K – in reality, private adoptions are generally much ‘cheaper’ (in quotes because adoption isn’t cheap in the least) than agencies.

3) Most who have been through it would agree; we were lucky that we had a classy case worker who did her best to keep it from being obnoxious as she could.

4) Not only no but hell no. This action reeked of desperation and bad judgment.

5) No, not all. I’d even venture to say it’s likely the opposite.

6) A comment following the article dispels this assertion, but it has to be done in a timely manner.

7) If you’re going through an agency, I’d likely agree with you, which is why I heartily support private adoptions. Agencies can be a monstrous ripoff.

8) While we did have a borderline-traumatic placement with Boy, I’d say that for every one grueling placement, I’ve come across 8 to 10 that are so heartening that it restores my faith in mankind… and that’s saying a lot for an old cynic like me.

9) Huh. My state is smart – a facilitator as Rosa described cannot make a placement (they’re actually illegal here); a licensed agency, a social worker representing a licensed agency like ours, or an attorney has to.*  I’d certainly agree that facilitators are a potentially expensive pain in the ass, and God help you if you get a bad one.

10) I only came across this discrepancy/false assertion/lack of attention to detail the sixth time I re-read the article as I wrote this. The term I think she meant was ‘formality.’ Without the legal proceedings, you can’t have baby, not yours…  it’s OFFICIAL at that point. That’s a dangerous mistake to make in an article and in a world where people are already amazingly ignorant about adoption and its processes.

Rosa comes across as selfish, whiny, a little ignorant, entitled and snobby.  The constant descriptions of her expensive lifestyle was irrelevant to the story, taking away from whatever valid point she was trying to make.

The editors at MSN would do better to find a better writer for the face of adoption in their lifestyle page.

~~

I know that We Three will have a lovely time up here in snow land, and I hope all of you have a joyous celebration of the new year. Laterz!

_________________________________________

*NB: I used the term/title “facilitator” in Boy’s story for the person who ‘managed’ our placement, but she was not one in the sense described in the article. It was just the best term at the time to describe her services