Ailment of the Day

I get cancer on a regular basis. It's the nocturnal variety that starts with a funny bump or a lump in my throat. It grows as the hours pass until, by 3AM, it's full blown. Fortunately, by that time I've already made some decisions about seeking medical care and what my memorial service should be like, so I am finally able to go to sleep. It usually disappears by sunrise.

I don't want you to think I'm a hypochondriac, because I am not. I certainly don't burden everyone around me with lurid accounts of all my aches, pains and terminal illnesses. No. I bear them in silence, bravely facing an uncertain future, with only the occasional wince or murmur, to indicate to the discerning observer my true condition.

I took my latest carcinoid complaints to my primary care physician yesterday, very casually, with much self-deprecation and laughter. I am not unaware of my healthcare foibles. I know I self-diagnose and usually only go to the professional for confirmation. Once again, I dodged a bullet, but I did come away with a just-in-case order for further testing.

Here's the problem. I have health insurance, but by the time I pay the deductible (starts July 1) and the enormous co-pay as well as my 20%, there goes a couple months or more of my retirement pension. Do I really want to do that for something that is most likely stress and/or allergy related? And what ever happened to being able to go have something checked out ---- proactive, preventive self-care ----- without breaking the bank? It's a fine mess we've got ourselves in when doing the sensible thing, like catching an illness or treatable condition before it becomes major, is out of reach EVEN WITH INSURANCE!

It reminds me of the situation with Mom and Alzheimers Disease. In order for her to have financial assistance, first she has to bankrupt herself, then go into the most expensive level of care, whether it is what she needs or not. Now, I do not object to using her money to buy her care. That's what it's there for, that's what she and Dad worked hard for. The trouble is, once it is gone and she needs assistance, she must go to a facility that takes Medicaid, and those are not always available or desirable or even sanitary. How much more reasonable it would be for the money to go toward letting people age in place, at home or with family, whenever possible and bringing care to them. Isn't that what you would want? I don't know anybody who just can't wait to get to a smelly, gray-colored nursing home and hang out with all the immobile people in wheelchairs and be cared for by an ever-changing cast of strangers. Oh Boy! Sign me up!

Do we need healthcare reform in the United States? Hell yes, we do. The Baby Boomers are coming down the pike as fast as our creaky knees will carry us. Even though we've been the bulge in the python for 60+ years, it is as though policy makers are suddenly waking up and rubbing their eyes and wondering where in the world all these old people came from. The numbers are out there. It's not a surprise. But the numbers don't convey the situation in a meaningful way. It is not until it happens to you or someone you love, that it truly hits home. And by then it's too late to overhaul the system.

I've lived most of my life with the completely unfounded notion that I'm going to live until I suddenly drop dead and nothing too terrible is going to happen. Life will go on as it generally has until it doesn't. Maybe our politicians and policy-makers are the same way.

 Tra-la, Tra-la. Ain't life grand?

Wait, what? Heart failure? Diabetes? Alzheimers? That's not for me, that's not for my friends, my siblings, my spouse. That's old people stuff and I don't think about old people stuff. I'm a Baby Boomer, emphasis on the Baby.

We're not ready as a nation. We're not ready as a society. We don't have the compassion, the financial structure, the worldview to embrace the tsunami that is coming. Selfishly, I'm glad I'm toward the leading edge. It's the tail end of the boomers who are really going to suffer. But I'll be dead by then. I hope.

Who's the smarty-pants now?

I got behind a pickup truck this morning that had a bumper sticker that read:

 MY BIRD DOG HAS MORE SENSE THAN YOUR HONOR STUDENT

I didn't see the driver, actually I didn't want to. If I had, I would have urged my dog to growl and bark at him ---- it had to be a him. Of course, Buddy growls and barks at any man he sees while we're in the car. Very protective of his mama.

I like to think of myself as an open-minded, take people as they are, kind of gal. Easy does it, you know? No sense getting my knickers in a knot over things that don't matter. But something about that truck and its bumper sticker and its probable owner, just stuck in my craw and I can't let it go.

What the hell? We don't need honor students? Our country is in such fine shape that all we need are guys with hunting rifles and dogs? That's what it sounds like. It's such a stupid statement that it makes me go all wiggy and want to slap somebody.

I know that we have a deep, abiding undercurrent of anti-intellectualism in this country. One has only to look at the movies, the television heroes, and the tea party, to see its current incarnation. But it has also been around for a long, long time, this notion that all you need is grit, rugged individualism, and the willingness to destroy all obstacles in order to be successful. That was probably a pretty good mindset at one time. People without fortitude didn't last long on the frontier. But it wasn't an unmitigated good, and it did not preclude thinking, organizing, planning and inventing. And in case you haven't noticed, it's not 1867 anymore.

The search and destroy method of civilization not only allowed our "pioneer forefathers" to fulfill the country's Manifest Destiny, it also led to the destruction of untold numbers of human beings and their societies, plus ecosystems that will never be recovered, and natural resources that have been wantonly used up or left for dead.

After I pulled around this truck and on to my own destination, the daycare where my mother goes every day for stimulation and tender care in her demented state, I thought about how different that bumper sticker would sound if it said "My bird dog has more sense than my honor student."

Now that could be funny. It probably would have made me smile. Oh, teenagers. They can be troublesome, even the really bright ones. And who wouldn't think that the dog sometimes has more sense than a kid? If you want to say that about your own kid and your own dog, it is amusing ---- as long as it's a joke and not something you really believe. But to say that my dog ---- clever as he may be ----- is smarter than somebody else's honor student is not funny. It's just not. The owner of the truck might think it is a chuckle, but it's mean-spirited and it labels him as an intolerant yahoo who has a chip on his shoulder. At least that's what it said to me.

I know. Intolerant yahoos gotta live too. I just sometimes wish that the really smart, educated kids got as much acknowledgement and acceptance as the just-us-folks "Real Americans" with the gun racks and conviction that their God-given right to be wrong is more important than thinking things through and being reasonable.

Ouch. I must be channeling my 8th grade self today. Being a smart kid always makes you feel like you've got a target on your back.

Treasures or Trash?

One of my father's favorite jokes:

"This is the  hatchet that George Washington used to chop down the cherry tree. The handle has only been replaced five times and the head has only been replaced twice."

I thought of that when I heard a story on NPR the other day about an art exhibit featuring things seen and not seen. The artist described several installations, one of which was an ordinary podium that he had taken to a witch to be cursed. He was interested in how that story affected the way people were willing to interact with the podium  ---- would they be hesitant to touch it? Be afraid? Be brave? Scoff?

The meaning of objects is always of interest to me. Our house is a virtual museum ---- or curio shop, depending on your point of view. We have one room dedicated to the preservation of family antiques. The chairs and marble topped table belonged to my great-grandparents and are about 150 years old. The secretary was one that mom and I found almost 40 years ago in a used furniture barn in England. Two sets of dishes occupy the corner cabinet, several shelves contain books dating as far back as the 1830s.

Now "antiques" ---- bona-fide old stuff --- have some intrinsic worth of their own. These pieces have the added layer of family history. I have photographs of these chairs in front of the fireplace at Edgewood Farm on the west end of Albia, in the house that my great-great grandfather built. Photos, books, paintings, furniture, dishes, all have the meaning invested in them by the stories that are attached. If we were to abandon this house today POOF! just like that, someone might come in and find monetary value in some of it, but they wouldn't know the people, the stories that make them come alive.

And it's not just the antiques. In fact, I'm almost more interested in what happens to things that I attach value to, that nobody else would. I spent the day cleaning the upstairs room which I refer to variously as my writing room, my studio, my refuge, the guest room, and lately as Buddy's room. He's pretty much taken it over.  It is filled with things that have meaning for me, but probably would be Goodwill truck to somebody else. I know where the hideous clock came from and why it's there. I know why there's a tin ear horn on the bookshelf. Those are the Tarot cards I bought in San Francisco, the cat statue that Ashley gave me, the broken silver-plated bank that was a baby gift from a special friend. Four shelves full of books would likely not be of more than passing interest to anybody else, but some of them I've had since I was a kid, some were instrumental in my awakening as a young radical feminist in college, or spoke to my longing for beautiful prose or pure entertainment, or professional development. For me, they have meaning beyond the words they contain.

A lot of this makes it difficult for me to throw things away. I know that the very ordinary cup in the kitchen was the one that Jill made me coffee in every morning when she was still living in the duplex. She has a barrel glass that belonged to her grandmother. It would fetch a dime at a yard sale, but for her it's priceless.

I know my years of owning things are diminishing. As I grow closer to the end of my life, I'll try to find worthy homes for the most valuable of my possessions, the ones that carry not only a dollar value, but family history. We'll inevitably have to downsize more than once over the next fifteen or twenty years. I hope I can be graceful about letting things go since I obviously can't take them with me. I've seen my grandparents do it, then my parents ---- that's how I wound up with a lot of this stuff. I guess I'm a conduit for passing these things along. But nothing lasts forever does it? And someday, some descendant will pick up my grandmother's collection of photo postcards and say "I don't know who any of these people are." and they'll all wind up in the trash, right along with my AA chips and the Christmas ornaments I made when I was too poor to buy any.

A cursed podium? George Washington's hatchet? The baby basket I bought in Morocco? All moving down the chute, meaningless in the end.

Off the couch and into the woods

It is odd to think about the little turning points in life. When I was out engaging in some retail therapy a couple of weeks ago, after a pretty nice little royalty check, I decided to buy Buddy a new collar. Doesn't everybody go to Pet Smart for retail therapy? So I splurged on a Gentle Leader, which had been earnestly recommended by several friends, but I hadn't paid any attention because it was too expensive and I didn't see how it could actually work.

See, I have this dog love going on, a new experience for me. Ever since this pup showed up on our doorstep 18 months ago, straggly, cold, hungry and kind of snarly, my life has not been the same. I've grown unreasonably attached to him and also done what I always do in a new situation: learned stuff. I've checked out books from the library, watched training videos, talked to friends, tapped Jill's many years of experience with dogs, watched tv shows and most of all played and interacted with him every day since Christmas Day 2010. Now that he's almost 2, he's grown strong and single-minded. When he wants to chase a squirrel, that's what he's going to do, and being on a leash is no deterrent. It had gotten to the point that we couldn't even go for walks anymore because it was too much of a struggle. Hence, the Gentle Leader.

It works. I went home and watched You Tube videos, one after another, before I realized that it came with its own instruction video. All the claims, even though they were right in front of me in video, still seemed too good to be true. But when I put it on him, exactly as instructed, within 5 minutes we were trotting down the street having a good ol' time. Squirrels? He stops to look, but a slight tug and a command of "Let's go" and we're walking again, loose leash and all. I'd do a commercial for them any day!

And why is this a turning point? Well, you don't actually know a turning point till it's behind you, but I will say this. Ever since Buddy has been able to take enjoyable walks, we've been walking. Now, I've lived here for 25 years, here being Wake County NC. In all that time, there have been a couple of parks that I would go to with kids and family for picnics, but I really didn't have time for such things. I was busy working and raising kids. I heard there was a Greenway system, but all I knew was that occasionally there would be a report in the news about a flasher or a mugging on a greenway --- not often, just once in a while. I decided never to go on a greenway because it was dangerous.

But now, Buddy and I can go for walks and I am retired. I'm no longer too busy to get outdoors for the joy of it. Every morning during the week, we drop Mom off at daycare and pick a park or greenway to explore. As soon as we get into a wooded area, Buddy starts to whimper and jump around in the back seat, anxious to get into the new scents of grass and trees. Jill has one day a week off work, so she gets to come with us on those days. We got ourselves some expensive all-terrain shoes (real retail therapy) and  now I feel ready for whatever we find.

This is what I've found. Even at my all-time highest weight, I love my body. I love the way I feel when I'm using my arms and legs, eyes and ears. Memories are awakened from long ago. Raleigh is not hardcore urban living by any stretch, but being surrounded by forest, hearing birdsongs and running water, feeling sun and breeze, smelling soil and flowers and vegetation, all bring childhood back to life for me. Back then, I played outside a lot. I used to lie in the grass, roll down the hills, run through fields and wade in creeks. I dug in the mud with sticks, scratched hopscotch into flat dirt and used stones for playing pieces. I took my beloved books outside and read in the shade of a tree.

In those days, before I hit the age of self-consciousness, I did love myself exactly the way I was. I loved the feel of sun on my skin, wind in my hair, rain on my face. I had no fear of what others would think of my too-small shorts, my uncombed, crooked-bangs hairdo, my protruding tummy or short, stubby legs. I loved myself from the inside out, instead of reviling myself from the outside in.

Being a full-time caregiver for someone with dementia is a difficult task. As my mother regresses, I see my teenage self reflected in much of what she says and does, and it makes me sad for both of us. She's stuck in a world of needing to look right, even though she will put on unmatched shoes and not tolerate having her hair washed. She pines for a boyfriend, mourns the loss of self that the admiration of men has always brought her. Her sense of self-worth was always fragile, dependent on the approval of others, but now it is almost non-existent, and she doesn't know why. Through all of this, I watch and see parts of myself that need healing, that actually are being healed. It's utterly painful at times, but strengthening as well. I still have time for a salvation, of sorts.

I'm off the couch these days, thanks to a four-legged trainer and the Gentle Leader collar. The self that I bring back to the house, to the couch, is a much more centered and available one ---- ready to be caregiver to Mom and loving wife to Jill. All on account of a little ol' collar ---- that is not too expensive anymore.