the rainy season

I am no longer the ring master of my own 3 ring circus. We have at the most 1 and a half. I am not who I was because no one else is. Time swept away the elderly and the toddler. And the eldest appears to be on sabbatical from medical crises. The other offspring are near and far all at once. I watch the 5 leafed akebia take over the garden. It grows so fast. It never grew like that on the pergola in the woods. I thought it was a sedate plant so I took a few rootlings from the woods and put them in the garden. On purpose. It twists and twines and spirals up anything and everything and then itself when all else fails. It is doing battle with the rose-that-took-over-the-world (new dawn planted on a septic field). I quiver in the evening, holding on to my tiny pruners and simply whisper 5 leafed akebia over again. Hoping something will be clear to me now. My mother didn't know this plant - at least not personally. I introduced it to myself. It doesn't whisper back her name. It doesn't mourn this second spring without her.  I wanted to say first. It all feels like the first because the actual firsts were simply rehearsals for life without her.

What doesn't kill you...

If only! My perspective on this (full disclosure: I never was sure about it) has been evolving , or maybe fruiting as of late. Heavily influenced by the 96 year old and the 29 year old and even the 9 year old... also probably Mr 27 and Miss 25 and, definitely, my new desire for grandchildren. Or planning a 54th birthday in Disney World. Is this where age was supposed to get me? Or them?
 If suffering was supposed to make us stronger where was my strength, even supposing it is the spiritual inner strength for the spiritual inner suffering? I saw a response to a youngish mother's blog about being weary in dealing with elementary age and there was a comment encouraging her that after this she would be a strong (and possibly shiny, no that must have been shining) woman in the next "season". I had that expectation once. It was all an ever upward spiritual journey and my wisdom and peace would be be pretty much blinding by the end. Even some years ago I expressed doubt (some might say cynicism) that one actually could see evidence of all this renewal and spiritual growth in actual people who were, you know, older and therefore should be at least glowing by now.
Greek: e de hupomone dokimen, e de dokime elpida; 
Amplified: And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character [of this sort] produces [the habit of] joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation. (Amplified Bible - Lockman)
Barclay: and fortitude produces character; and character produces hope (Westminster Press)
Newell: and endurance a sense of approvedness by God; and the sense of approvedness works out a state 'of hope-
Phillips:  Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature (Phillips: Touchstone)
NLT: And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation.  (NLT - Tyndale House)

Strong's:

dokimé: (the process or result of) trial, proving, approval

Original Word: δοκιμή, ῆς, ἡ
Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine
Transliteration: dokimé
Phonetic Spelling: (dok-ee-may')
Short Definition: a trial, proof; tried, approved character
Definition: a trial, proof; tried, approved character.

Cognate: 1382 dokimḗ (a feminine noun derived from 1384 /dókimos) – proof of genuineness ("approval, through testing"), a brand of what is "tested and true." See 1381 (dokimazō).

Englishman's Concordance

Strong's Greek 1382
8 Occurrences

δοκιμασίᾳ — 1 Occ.
δοκιμὴ — 2 Occ.
δοκιμήν — 4 Occ.
δοκιμῆς — 1 Occ.

Romans 5:4 N-AFS
GRK: δὲ ὑπομονὴ δοκιμήν ἡ δὲ
NAS: and perseverance, proven character; and proven character,
KJV: patience, experience; and
INT: and endurance character and`
2 Corinthians 2:9 N-AFS
GRK: γνῶ τὴν δοκιμὴν ὑμῶν εἰ
NAS: that I might put you to the test, whether
KJV: I might know the proof of you,
INT: I might know the proof of you if

2 Corinthians 13:3 N-AFS
GRK: ἐπεὶ δοκιμὴν ζητεῖτε τοῦ
NAS: you are seeking for proof of the Christ
KJV: ye seek a proof of Christ
INT: Since a proof you seek
Philippians 2:22 N-AFS
GRK: τὴν δὲ δοκιμὴν αὐτοῦ γινώσκετε
NAS: But you know of his proven worth, that he served
KJV: But ye know the proof of him, that,
INT: but [the] proof of him you know


δοκιμή, δοκιμῆς, ἡ (dokimos];);
1. in an active sense, a proving, trial: θλίψεως, through affliction, 2 Corinthians 8:2.
2. approvedness, tried character: Romans 5:4; 2 Corinthians 2:9; Philippians 2:22; τῆς διακονίας, exhibited in the contribution, 2 Corinthians 9:13.
3. "a proof (objectively], a specimen of (Dioscorides (

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance

experience, proof, trial. From the same as dokimos; test (abstractly or concretely); by implication, trustiness -- experience(-riment), proof, trial

Riding on that self pity train,

Riding on that self pity train
It's the same old train that carried me here
And Lord, it's gonna carry me back home

... kinda like the New River train for the bluegrass crowd...but not.

I will  have to edit the About Me section. No more walkers. No more elderly until I get there myself. Grandma care continued to expand. Then she went to be with my sister for her rotation. Only we knew she wasn't likely to be back. And she isn't. Almost 2 weeks gone now. So now I need to journal this whole grief thing which somehow has slain me as armored as I thought I was. One more day at a time. I may need these.
.

Blowing Bubbles

When I was young, a long long time ago, everyone thought I'd be a writer. My teachers did, my family did, I'm pretty sure my friends did. Certainly I did. I'm not saying the idea that I'd be a good writer was universal, just the writerly expectation was. I must have kept exuding this whole English major vibe for while because once an "educational expert" working for the 2 most pompous neurologists we ever saw (and that is a very competitive category) told me she was sure I could teach my son all about "Shakespeare and books" but we should let the "professionals" take care of the math.
 Guess who taught him math? OK, his father did, but that was only because of a patience issue I had...
As for wiring my novel, I had this idea that I would save up my words for when I was older and had more life experience. (You see I always wanted evidence.)  At that point they would pour forth like diamonds etc etc. So now I have the "life experience" (can I quote myself?), only the diamonds are missing. Everything I thought I knew seemed to float away. And far from diamonds, words that I was sure would cut through anything, I have bubbles that drift, and burst and shine in the sun and blow away in the wind. The stories I wanted to tell when I was younger no longer interest me very much. Mostly I don't believe them.
 We found a letter the other day dated 1916 written by my mother's mother. That was 2 years before Grandma's birth and 3 years before her mother's death from the last of the Spanish influenza epidemic. It was a letter written to Grandma's grandmother. And it had my mother's turns of phrase in it. In fact the kinds of phrases I would have used, my mother would have used... "I had but just found him again..." she says of her fiance (Grandma's father, you are keeping this straight?). Is there a gene for that?
   My mother's family also expected her to be a writer. She said it was because her father pushed her she didn't do it. She never pushed me. That's why I didn't. Only I don't think that's true anymore than I believe her excuse. I believe it's genetic.
Now Grandma is at the house her father built in 1938. And now it doesn't seem to me 1938 was that long after her mother died. What's 19 years? I can see why her step-mother still didn't quite fit in. My (underemployed) daughter is with Grandma. Everyone has always known math is that girl's strong point. I wonder if she'll find the diamonds?

Screens

..can't live with 'em, can't live etc etc. Or more accurately I can't sleep with them (electronic) or see through them clearly (any).
 Tomorrow Grandma should be back. My offspring are mostly unemployed and at least 2 people are very possibly ignoring my Facebook friend request...while I am only ignoring one. I find I use one sort of screen for what I say  blogging and another on Facebook. Not so much a different size mesh as a different sort all together. Sort, get it?

And universities are less and less interested in adjuncts, at least the universities that pay well are less interested, at least mine. (Note the irony that I think of them as "mine" but they don't really think of me as "theirs" at all).
Also glue guns are a fast but inferior method for putting on all those badges you have to transfer to the Webelo uniform.
And my true age still baffles me. And even reading glasses don't help to see out the window. You can remove the screen of course but the bugs are pretty bad. (Oh, that was terrible... bugs!).
Metaphors are really only slightly removed from puns if you think about it.

Happiness is the truth

... is probably the dumbest line in a song I've ever found myself singing any way.

 So instead of learning about responsibility and the harsh realities of the real world my daughter got a job interview within 24 hours of irresponsibly ending her job and it is exactly what she (thinks) she wants to be doing. Teaching math to high-schoolers... you forgive me for the snarky "think" now don't you? And she has a half way decent chance of getting it since apparently they are desperate (referring to their willingness to hire someone with no class room experience not my child per se).

Meanwhile I was in full fretting mode so I forgot to check on the seizure med status after the Hey-mom-I'm-having -a-seizure-at 2AM guy called in the refill only to find it was time for a yearly renewal and the neurologist's office hadn't yet responded according to the hated mail order pharmacy (Express Scripts -I may hide my childrens' names but these guys I want you to know) who told me erroneously they no longer do expedited shipping but it arrived 6 hours prior to none left  and before having to call the neurologists (them I like) again.  Take a breath here.

 Numbers wise: Grandma is back in 6 days and counting and I've watched the Taylor Swift video "Shake it Off" 4 times in the last 3 days, which is a little weird.  And "Anaconda" 1 time, which I deeply deeply regret. Don't do it.  Being culturally informed is not worth it.

 So today I worked on clearing and organizing the basement and figuring out the secret to a happy marriage. I got the latter. Being happy -of course both of you have to be happy at the same time at least occasionally.
Still that's pretty much it as far as the secret goes. This is easy with a sailboat. And at least some money. And nothing to make you unhappy.

 A good marriage is another thing entirely.

Shopping...photos

So, here's a family update I might not put on Facebook (which I swear I'm going to sign up for (on?)): {is this too much punctuation?}
  The 24 year old girl QUIT her job. For all excellent reasons... to her. OK, so the parents aren't happy about it. You know that program where they have high school girls walk around with baby dolls to find out about how much babies change your life? I want some version where you have to pretend you are all the way grown up (like I do every day)  and, after your years of hard experience, the baby does NOT LISTEN to you... but (here's the kicker) you KNOW THEY SHOULD. You think the hard part is over but...listen closely - it NEVER really is. That would scare off those teen pregnancies!

I have practice typing in all caps from all the texting the day she told us she'd ALREADY quit.
Clearly ALL caps is very effective.

The picture is just days before she took her leap- don't you love a good photo metaphor? And it is photo-shopped since my diet is not working out well due to not doing it. We are holding hands.

Now I will have to tell Grandma the good news -she can stay at her house longer than just a weekend when she comes back to us next week, and I will have to tell her the bad news that it is because her ONLY grand-daughter is UNEMPLOYED. And Grandma is going to be UPSET and lose sleep trying to figure out if it is her fault since I am HER baby. It is probably because she had to QUIT breast feeding me when her milk dried up. Or that she was too old to have me -a two-for since I am even older with MY youngest.

I was going to blog about just meeting the eldest son's new neurosurgeon since the old (in pretty much every sense) neurosurgeon flaked out on us (after 29 years, to be fair) and left the country. About how this new guy pretty much just said, "Nice to meet you. Send me his shunt scans. Pick up my card on the way out." I kept pulling him back to give information that seemed pertinent. Like I'm just doing the talking because of the stammer but your new patient does have an associate's degree, and he has grand mal seizures, and he can go south very quickly from shunt failures and even your nurses here have missed that when he was in your flippin'  ICU but they weren't watching and thought drooling/incoherence was his norm... that might be helpful to know. On the way out I heard the doctor dictating "I just had the pleasure of meeting...."  On the plus side we had time for a nice Mexican restaurant on the way home. I forgot surgeons aren't interested in anything non-surgical. Just our beloved-but-flaky-leaving-the-country one WAS.

i am all done with caps now.

If I get on Facebook will you be my friend? And other age inappropriate questions.

Is  it OK if I post my son's girlfriends's selfie if it is upside down and 2 of my own children are in the frame (and my back)?
If my mother says she doesn't want any more blood transfusions but then I hear she is going to have another one should I ask her if she really meant it?

When my 4th grader admits on the way out the door that yes he is wearing the same shirt he wore the 1st day of school, and the 2nd, and that he slept in it both nights and this is the third day of school should I have made him change it?

Is it acceptable to spray Downy Wrinkle Release (insert trademark thingy) directly on clothes being worn by persons also about to leave the house? If they are all over 18 and consent can be assumed because they are bigger than I am and could have stopped me if they really wanted to?

If my mother doesn't make it another 2 months will it still be alright to go to Disney World for my birthday?

When I trim my oldest son's beard (he can shave himself but when you can't stand unassisted and can't see worth a darn it's kinda awkward so he let's it grow) whose job is it to clean the bathroom?

Should I worry about my new smart phone being hacked since I took a selfie in a sarong skirt and bikini top?

How many hours on Candy Crush is really too much?

If we put a small refridgerator by my mom's bed when she comes back in 2 weeks from my sister's to make keeping her drinks cold can we use the extra space for beer?

Please send replies in with a small processing fee. Or post them on Facebook when you friend me....

Ageless Wisdom

The question is how smart was I to get this picture? I put the camera in a repetitive shooting mode and then I waded through the hundreds of images to find the 2 that caught a strike. I was standing on the dock. The thunder was thundery, the wind was bowing -towards me as I'm taking these pictures but a little towards the far end of the dock. It doesn't sound very smart. Kinda risky. But when I was a kid my mom and I would stand in the "backyard" which was the river side and watch the storm approach, dashing in only when we were already about soaked. She would get us in off the water when the storms got too near... or at least try to. I remember more than one time in our little rowboat (with an outboard) that we "ran before" the storm and I'd huddle under the bow. My mom always did think I was pretty wimpy to really be her daughter. In any case she would have stayed on the dock longer than I did.

 That;s probably why she's 96 and I'm not.

If you are interested here's an interesting article
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/sunday-review/the-boomers-biggest-challenge.html?action=click&contentCollection=Technology&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

That is it's interesting for baby-boomers or for those studying them. Turns out time is a completely unexpected phenomenon. I will tell my mom how much easier aging is for her since she knew about time passing and not being young forever (the poor boomers had this hidden from them, possibly by the government). Aging will also be easier for everyone else from now on because we (I mean them, since I might be in the we that's the boomers) can learn from them (I mean us).

 Sometimes it strikes closer to home...

OK, Who Stole August?

This guy?

Let's see in August the oldest went kayaking for several hours -that means for several hours he was not in the basement on his computer or doing his exercises -which he is very faithful about. If only I could convince him to put that OCDness into working on some kinda future of his own. But, hey, no seizures and other than one long visit to the ER to find the chest pains were from the exercise and not the shunt I just let it all go...

 The 9 year old learned to ride a bike. Yes, I know he's 9. But he had convinced himself that he never would be able to do it so really it was very exciting.

 I have no idea what the situation is with Grandma's blood. She may need more. We can only hope it's from a young person because if she was a rat this would apparently make her younger -or at least it made the rats look younger. I'm not entirely clear on how that worked.

 So in fact all that was really missing was your typical August weather so if this guy did steal that we'd all say thanks.

And the summer hasn't even really rushed by - and neither has my 3 month break from elder care - because I still have a WHOLE month of left. Whoo hoo.

I know there is something wrong with my raccoon like delight in getting every last seed from this feeder. Life is funny. All the years I thought I couldn't bear to lose my mom and now, well. I'd forgotten what it was like to just be able to make plans that were barely plans at all... and I am going to enjoy it while it lasts. It doesn't seem often that NOBODY has medical crisis in this family.

 And I'm STILL going to DisneyWorld. Am I tempting fate? I am aren't I? Good thing that's one thing I never believed in.

Selfies for the ages

I was told that, on average, people take 5 selfies a day (by people I am assuming female, American, smartphone owning and young). This is so narcissistic. You should either get it right the first time or have someone else take the picture (self portrait by proxy).

This is me -shocked to find I am enjoying a moscato. My daughter's moscato. I should confess to her that at my wedding (her father's too, although I think he'd deny this part) we drank our toast with Asti Spumante - just as sweet with the added bonus of being bubbly.

 This is also me on the bow of a sailboat in my cover-up, over my skirted but hot pink bathing suit. I am sporting a pony-tailed baseball (type) hat to keep my hair out of my eyes and as extra protection for my already shaded eyes. Also I just used the word "sporting".

Plus here I am with my 9 year old who still wants to cuddle whenever he is tired. Also on the boat was a friend who's a little younger than I am and his son and daughter-in-law. At least no grand children.

 This past weekend we took other friends to my mother's home (and home of the boat) whose son is the best friend of the life jacketed one here. Plus their 3 younger children. My husband and I are completely oblivious to the age difference we know exists until we're reaching for the ibuprofen and/or remark on some song we remember from high school but is clearly in the category of historical artifact. Still, we share a lot of the same musical tastes  (thank-you awesome 70's music) -far more than we ever did with anyone close to 20 years our seniors (it was just amusing on Happy Days).

It is confusing. I am the age of the ladies at church when I first joined who were known as "the older ladies" in the bible studies. Granted our church was a new "plant" and skewed young but this recollection still makes me wince. I liked and admired many of these women but I don't think I ever thought of any of them as exactly friends. They were in my mind almost a different species. In a vague sort of way I knew I was headed to the same place in life but not really. And apparently I was right because they were, well you know, kinda old, but hey, if I don't have someone there to do it for me I still take selfies and everything.

I'm goin' to Disney World again and stuff I never thought I'd do

Never was I going to be one of those Disney vacationers. Never.

I'd never change my hair color

I'd never post a picture of myself in a questionable ... bathing suit.

Never ignore my youngest because he was being whiney, never be desperate for a break from my own mother, never buy a smart phone, never forget (and barely be bothered about it) a medical appointment for the eldest, never look forward to an empty nest, never find chocolate more irresistible than my husband.

Never thought I'd dislike my own children (of course I don't mean you dear, the other ones) even for just a day or two.

Never thought I'd be one of those pushy moms (although I'm not saying I should be surprised).

Never thought that in my 50's I'd still worry about who likes me enough to respond right away to emails or texts. And never thought I'd be texting -even after all the teenagers were doing it I didn't think I would.

 Never thought I'd still want to be popular (because if they don't respond what does that mean?). 

I didn't think my yard would ever get this overgrown or my basement this cluttered...again.

I didn't think my mother would live this long at that some of my friends would not.

... maybe I just didn't think... think so.

Peace out

I don't think the gray on the beard is so noticeable in this shot. Until now that I've said it. Now you are thinking, oh, that's not blond or lighting. You probably still haven't noticed the chest hair is gray too... until now. Still the unfairness of it all is he really doesn't have gray hair on the top of his head. Neither of them do.
 A few years ago at a preschool event (so, it was a few more than a few) my mother-in-law suddenly reached over and tapped my head and demanded, "What is this?" It was the gray roots growing out (right in the center of my forehead*).  Mean while, there I was suddenly yanked from the life of all the other moms (young) back to reality (old).
 The words make you notice. We are just one month into our 3 month turn of not being grandma-caretakers but every few days a friend will ask, often with a little hesitation, "How's your mom?" (I tend to assume the hesitation translates, "Is she still alive?") The answer is, other than, "She's still alive," that I'm not sure and I'm trying to keep it that way. But thank you for reminding me. The thing is, I tend to have kind friends. And while I prefer them to the sort who don't care about one's life I'm trying to pretend right now my mom is not my life. For 24 years I have had the same feeling about, the "How's your son?" query. If you have a child with those oh so special needs you begin to notice the special inflection on the "how". If you want advice on how as a friend to show your concern ...I have none because if no one asked, or acknowledged this wasn't just your usual, "hey, how're the kids?" I'd be offended too.
 In case you did the math, I'm not including 5 of the eldest's 29 years. That's because since around the last set of shunt revisions everyone knew that either things were stable or I'd be emailing everybody. With the 96 year old they don't assume stability (smart friends).
 In conclusion: I can touch-up my gray hair , I can even use a side part to hide it nicely (my own comb-over) but there is no escaping that it's there. Just don't point it out on the sailboat -and don't tell my mother-in-law I told that story on her.

*if asked for a bed time story my mother was notorious for replying, "There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the center of her forehead. And when she was good she was very very good and when she was bad she was horrid." I was convinced this was written just for me. And now I think it caused the gray...

time travels

When I wrote my "about me" it was all about the "phase" (women love this word) I was passing through. Except I think I forgot I was only passing through it. We do that. We think it's who rather than where we are. Mind you the crutches and the wheelchairs are still here, and on occasion we've added oxygen tanks and syringes and things too fierce to mention. On the other hand the car-seat seems long gone and (for now) there are no more teenagers. In fact even when I wrote that "about me" there wasn't much left of teenagers.

 Now I surely know this is a phase. This one is flying by as surely as the airshow they were watching. Already my little guy left the  teddy bear he had carefully dressed in an aviator costume in the van. But I knew it was there.

 And I know where the handle bars are for the toilet when/if my mom comes back in September. The way I have always known summer will end, That at least hasn't changed.

 Now I have to get busy calling around for a new neurosurgeon because the one we saw for 29 years (that only sounds like a long time) has moved to Germany. I was going to ask the neurologist today but the little guy woke us up at 5am and then went back to sleep and the subject of the appointment can't actually get ready to get out the door in less than 30 minutes* so I had to beg for a new appointment after we all slept in.  Oh, ....maybe it isn't a phase.

* if you think this is because he is slow try getting dressed and leg braces on sometime when you have to do it all on the floor because you can't stand on 2 legs much less one and OK you are also a little bit obsessive about folding everything perfectly. I personally seem to approach this as a new revelation everyday.

All in a row in the medical time zone

 Why do we want all our ducks in a row?

 So last week we had 2 medical false alarms. One more false than the other and one genuine alarm but slightly removed. Followed immediately by an offspring's breaking up with his girlfriend. This also may have been a false alarm but I'm not entirely sure yet- all I know is that while I really don't care for getting older I have no desire to be young again. Once was enough thank-you.

That and our friends spending their week in a hospital reminded me of all the time zone changes involved in crises. There is a special time zone for ERs and hospitals. And a special time flow- but  "flow" makes it sound somewhat linear and it definitely is not. It's not just that the people who work in a hospital mean something else entirely by words like "soon" and "8AM rounds" or "lunchtime" or "morning" than people do outside the hospital. It's that crisis mode changes time itself for the patient and immediate family (defined as the ones who are immediately at the hospital with them). Days of the week cease to exist, mealtime had no meaning, the calendar hanging on the refrigerator loses all functionality. It feels odd when people not in crisis mode remind you of some event in their time zone.On the plus side my to do lists dissolve and I kinda like that mealtimes are no longer the order of the day. In crisis/medical mode I no longer worry about who will eat what when - my usual mom (and daughter) pre-occupation. On the negative side I gained 10 pounds last time my son's shunt caused a prolonged medical adventure. Still, it was nice not to think about house work for a while - until the crisis was over and the calendar glared at me and the  pile of laundry pushed through to my consciousness again.

 I ponder all this because we were only almost in crisis mode. So I had no good excuse for wanting to throw out the lists, and the cooking, and the laundry, and the work schedule last week. It was only a feeling that since my friends, and my sister and mother, and for a little while a son or two, were there I must be in crisis-time too. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? How can I be sitting around the pool, or drinking wine or thinking about grading or (more likely) doing absolutely nothing, when people I love are not?  I wasn't sure how all week. But I'm working on it.

Also these are geese, not ducks at all.

It's not all about me... except in my blog

....maybe not even then. So we have all our own craziness but our friends all have normal, not crazy lives. We tell them about our crazy medical adventures while they sail and kayak with us. They have a nice normal dog and their children are all smart and good looking. That is the way it is supposed to be. I am not supposed to be waiting to hear how their emergency triple by pass went. And I most definitely am not supposed to be thinking I'm glad we didn't know about the 99% blockage last weekend while we were floating around the creek. That would have made it hard to relax.
   But this is my blog after all. I have tried to pray unselfish prayers but in the end I have to justify my totally selfish fear of losing someone who we depend on to come and play with us at my mother's river side relic and never complain about the bugs or heat or sketchy plumbing (in fact helps to fix said plumbing) with the knowledge that if he is still around for us he will conveniently still be around for like his wife (aka the supplier of books and cross-stitching support for our kids) and his kids. So I'm not being totally selfish. Not totally. Also my husband can't sleep waiting for recovery news so I'm thinking of him too. I wonder how their dog is doing? She can't be happy either. See? I don't just think of me.

arrgh... but we're all fine now.

 Look, if you straighten out the horizon in this picture it only gets tiltier. Like my life...  Grandma went to the other daughter last Wednesday - still without the injections she needed, but it wasn't my fight. Not wanting to do without a fight I called Robert's Oxygen to pick up the auxillary tank (big, heavy, ugly and dangerous) and they said, "No." -they preferred to leave it here. I said, "No." They said, finally, they could pick it up - but if they did they wouldn't redeliver another tank later. I questioned their ethics and asked for the policy in writing. They said they'd pick it up. They changed their mind(s). I called to say I would leave it on the road with a large sign saying Roberts won't pick this up, followed by letters about their ethics. I was bluffing. They hung up on me. I called another number. They said they'd pick it up in a few days. I said you'll find it on the front porch. OK. I know...but I'll be dang-gummed if I will be Roberts' unpaid storage facility. Plus everytime I see it I wonder if my mom will make it back and I think of all the ERs and ICU's and hospital rooms with all their oxygen and all of my life spent maintaining medical stuff and I become extremely self-pitying. Can you imagine? Me? Self pitying? Sad, but true.

  Speaking of which when we returned from the sailing trip the eldest child (that term is so inappropriate) informed us of chest pains that had been constant and worsening all weekend. The neurosurgeon did not call back. Our friendly neighborhood (well, at least same county) nurse came and listened to his chest to rule out something respiratory so at close enough to midnight my exhausted husband headed to the ER. Given that the shunt drains into the heart this was not an over-reaction. The ER ruled out the shunt with xrays, then found bloodwork evidence of a possible pulmonary embolism - ruled that out with a CT scan, then admitted for a cardiac stress test. Meanwhile the good dad slept 3 hours in the car and then stayed all day waiting for the cardiac test which was done promptly the moment he left the hospital to get some lunch. Everything was ruled out but muscle sprain and home again with naproxen.
   Now if there was no shunt this would have been our first guess and there would have been no ER trip, but as, recently reminded, shunts can kill when malfunctioning so you do what you have to do. I supported the effort by texting people and feeling sorry for myself pretty much all day. It was exhausting.

Oh, and the neurosurgeon, who has been the neurosurgeon for almost 30 years now, called back at 8;30 am and said it "shouldn't" be the shunt and glad we got to talk because he wanted to tell us that this happened to be his last day practicing medicine in the U.S. because he was flying to Germany (today) to start a new job. He'd send us the medical records. He had no real suggestion for another doctor until pressed. So long and thanks for all the fish.

Proof

http://www.boston.com/health/2014/06/25/study-women-who-give-birth-later-live-longer/Cv8BbewIVA6Cmi4DZ4KfWI/story.html

Trying to see the big picture

 We had a great time, mostly, with my mom  at her house. There are the walls behind her that her father built (well supervisedly) in 1938 and there is the river that she loves. And there is the oxygen that keeps her "tethered" as she says. She was comforting herself that while she was unsure of the day she still knew the date for the battle of Hastings.
 The gift of the short term memory was when the weather was lovely the day we left she forgot she had been miserable and melting between a window AC unit and a fan several days before. Also my cooking constantly is new and wonderful to her and completely innovative. She has at times even complimented me on thinking of something "she never would have thought of" -even though I learned it from her. Admittedly she hasn't forgotten all her cooking and still identifies many tricks I got from her. Just not all of them.
  And I didn't share with her our week long struggle with Caremark -a division of CVS (and I hope they find this) because after having told me to expect her medicine for the anemia by Thursday -Friday at the latest on Monday (last Monday) I find Friday, after doctor hours that , oh, they probably should have told me but they didn't have the paperwork after all. There's no point in recounting the many hours since then on hold, talking to the doctor, the phamaceutical company, Sylvia, Mark, Heather, Sylvia, Tamara and many other "friendly CareMark representatives." And darned if they weren't friendly. Every last one of them. And so many of them! Because although they tell you a name they can NEVER reconnect you to the same one so I get to repeat everything (generally more loudly just in case that helps) over and over and over and... you get the picture. It was almost funny when then they added to all their missing paper work the "expired" Rx -they said it expired the 21st - that would be the Saturday after we were supposed to have already recieved the medication. Meanwhile my mother's bloodcount continues to drop -the best they can hope for is to get it by next week so meanwhile she will have to have another blood transfusion and I just keep getting louder and louder...
  Except in just a few hours my sister will be here to pick her up because my turn is over (actually it ended Monday but my sister cleverly got the my-husband-has-kidney-stones extension.
We go back to the river this weekend.  I will miss my mom... and I will not...and then I'll feel bad about that.