Michele

I remember that day very clearly. It was December 15, 1997. One day before Michelle's 31st birthday. Michele is my sister-in-law, but I've always considered her the sister I never had. She was a single parent with three children, Chasden, Kendra, and Tierra. Michele had always worked hard to support her kids and give them a good life. She also battled a weight problem, although to look at her you would never know it. She also had a drug problem. Pot was her drug of choice, but she also popped a few pills here and there....mostly Xanax and Vicodin. One day, Michele confessed to me that she had been crushing ritalin and snorting it up her nose. It helped to give her energy and controlled her appetite. For those of you who are not aware of this drug, it used to be the main drug used for children with ADHD. It is an amphetamine, which will slow down a child with ADHD, yet speed up the average person. Michele had begun having seizures. She told me about her use of Ritalin after having one of her seizures. I thought it may be the use of this drug that caused them to occur. She had started seeing a neurologist in Jackson, which was about 40 miles from where we lived, and she was scheduled to go back to see him that day. I was driving her because we were afraid to let her drive.


We left her house that morning and headed towards Jackson. We had traveled through a small town called McKenzie and pushed on towards the next town over called Tresvant. Now, you have to understand the layout here. This is a little 2 lane road that comes down a hill leaving McKenzie, then into what we refer to as "bottoms", which is essentially a swampy area with no shoulder on the road and absolutely nowhere to pull your car off or turn around. We had just traveled into the bottoms when I noticed Michele had not answered a question I had asked. I looked over at her and she was stiff as a board with her eyes rolled back in her head and she began gasping for air. I was not yet a nurse, but I had been trained to do CPR. I knew I could not safely pull over and get her out of the car and begin CPR, so I did a quick u-turn in the road and headed back to the small hospital in McKenzie with lights flashing and gas pedal to the floor. As I turned into the ER I noticed Michele had stopped breathing. I pulled in front of the doors, jumped out of the car and ran inside to the desk. I quickly told my sister was in the car and not breathing. This spurred them into action. Immediately people came out of the woodwork with a stretcher, ambu bag, and various other items in their hands. they quickly loaded her onto the stretcher and began CPR. I heard a "code blue" called on the PA system. I was scared to death.


I called my mother-in-law to let her know what had happened and then my husband. They both got to the hospital quickly. We were sitting in the waiting area when a doctor came out to update us on her condition. He said she was "status epilepticus", which meant they couldn't stop her seizure...it was continuous. They had lost her and brought her back several times, and he asked if she had been doing cocaine. "NO!" was my answer. I knew Michele had not done anything like that, but I also knew Ritalin was an amphetamine similar to cocaine. I had told my mother-in-law about Michele's ritalin use, but was afraid to say anything to the doctor. Besides, I told myself, it's been several days since she used it. Eventually they her stabilized enough to lifeflight her to a larger hospital in Memphis. I looked at my mother-in-law and said, "I'm going with you...I'll drive".


We drove almost three hours to Memphis. When we got to the hospital they would not let us see her. They said they were having trouble controlling her seizures and were directed to the hospital chapel. Several hours went by beforre anyone came to give us an update. When the doctor appeared, he had a grim look on his face. Michele had been tranferred to the critical care unit and was in a coma and on life support. The seizure in the car combined with the other ones had caused a severe lack of oxygen to her brain. He wasn't sure if she would make it, and if she did, she could possibly be severely brain damaged. They just didn't know which way it would go.

The next day they ran some tests on Michele to determine her level of brain function. They did find some deficits, but it was unknown how severe they would be until she woke up. I stayed with my mother-in-law in the critical waiting room for a few days then went home, leaving her there. I cried every day for Michele, playing that day out in my mind each time. Had I done something wrong? Was there something I should have done differently that could have improved Michele's outcome? Should I have pulled her from the car and started CPR right there on the road? The more I thought it, the more I realized I had done the only thing I could do safely. A few weeks later, I was stand ing in the kitchen washing dishes and looking out the window thinking of Michele and starting to cry. Suddenly, I heard Michele's voice, plain as day, say to me, "Cheryl, don't worry about me. I'll be alright, I'm just fighting a few of my demons right now and then I'll be back". I suddenly felt calmer and more at peace with it all. It wasn't long after that that Michele woke up. She was transferred to a rehab unit for brain injured people. She had physical impairments as well as mental ones. It had affected like a stroke. Michele had to learn how to function all over again. It was like teaching a baby to walk.

That was 11 years ago, and now Michele is living in a home for other people like herself. There are three people to a house and they all share responsibilities and are overseen by a caretaker. She has come down a very long road. Her children all graduated from high school with excellent grades, and are productive members of society. Tierra got married in October, Kendra is going to college this fall, and her son Chasden joined the military and is giving her a grandchild in June. Our family is once again complete.

The Pursuit of Happiness

I just finished watching a wonderful movie entitled "The Pursuit of Happyness" starring Will Smith and his son Jaden. It was an inspiring movie about a man named Chris Gardner whose wife left him to raise his son alone. He was poor and he wanted more from life. Believing he would suceed, he entered a six month internship at Dean Witter. During those six months, he and his son became homeless and penniless, but he was determined to make it. At the end of his internship, he was offered a position with the company and about six years later he founded his own investment company called Gardner Rich. He became a millionaire. He said that Thomas Jefferson was a very smart man when he added "the pursuit of happiness" as one of our basic human rights in the Declaration of Independence. Everyone pursues happiness, but is it always a pursuit? or does one finally reach a point where they feel they have found it? What exactly is happiness? I guess happiness has a diferent definition for all of us. For the homeless person on the street, happiness might be a good meal and a warm bed. The rich man who lives in a mansion might say happiness is someone to love him and not his money. For me, happiness is time. Time spent with those I love. Time to say and do the things that are important to me and to those I care about. I say that because for some of us, time is short. No one knows how much time we have on this earth, and we should all make every minute of every day count. Chris Gardner made every minute of every day count and he became a millionaire.

Favorite Quotes

These are some of my favorite quotes by famous people:

Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young. Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. Mark Twain

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Marie Curie

To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. Henry Drummond

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. Josh Billings

Reason is our soul's left hand, faith her right.
John Donne

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
Isaac Asimov

Spring!

I'm glad it's spring! I love to see the grass get green and the trees begin to get their leaves. I planted a few stargazer lillies and they are starting to poke their little heads up to look around. I'll be starting my garden as soon as I can get my son to come over and till up the dirt for me. He says he's going to, but I know how that is. The down side is that now I have to mow my yard on a weekly basis. Ugh! But that's ok. I just hope we don't have a drought like we did last year. I watered my garden faithfully every day and it still died, along with my grass! With all the rain we've had so far this spring, maybe it will be ok this summer. To me, spring is a time of new beginnings. A time to plant seeds and watch them grow, a time to start fresh.
I'll be starting my new job at the Cancer clinic in a few weeks. I'm looking at it as a new start for me. I'll be working with some really amazing people and the patients are awesome! I think this will be a very rewarding career move.

A Bad Day

I'm considering a new position in a clinic associated with the hospital I work for. It's a cancer clinic. When I mention that I'm considering the move to this new position, most people want to know why. "Why would you want to be around all those depressing people?" they ask. I see those people every day as a nurse in radiology. I start their IVs, draw their blood, answer their questions, and give them encouragement. And these people, who are battling cancer, are not depressing. Far from it. They are upbeat, and happy to see the sun rise each day.
Today, I asked one woman, who I knew was on chemotherapy, how she was. Do you know what she said? She said, " I'm having a good day because I am alive and breathing, and able to spend one more day on this earth." It gives one pause to think. I used to think a bad day was not being able to get my Starbucks coffee for the day. Now, I think a bad day would be not waking up at all.
We need to learn to slow down in our lives and appreciate the simple things, such as a child's laughter, the sunrise or sunset, flowers poking their little heads up through the ground in the spring, the smell of freshly mown grass, or quiet times spent with loved ones. Learn to appreciate each day for what it has to offer, and remember, if you think you're having a bad day.........it could always be worse!

Zoe

I have a daughter. Not too many people know about her because she was placed for adoption. Rick and Joanne, the sweet couple who adopted her lived in New York and had a farmhouse in Pennsylvania. Let me tell you how this all came about.
I left my first husband because he was an alcoholic who liked to come home and use me for his punching bag. The boys and I moved in with Lisa, a friend I grew up with. I started dating a man named Don. He seemed very nice at first, but eventually his ugly side began to show. One night, he wanted to have sex and I said no. He took what he wanted anyway. Yes, I guess you could say I was "date raped". As a result, I became pregnant and he somehow found out. He threatened to take the child from me when it was born. I knew there was no way in hell I would let this man have this child. So I ran.
I loaded up my children, their toys, and our clothes in my old station wagon and left town. I drove to Tennessee, hoping I could stay with my ex-inlaws until I could get on my feet. I had $100 in my pocket, and that was all. When we arrived in Tennessee I stopped and called my in-laws to tell them we were coming. Once at their house, I was told they had no room for us to stay because their daughter had left her husband and was staying with them at the time. We slept in the station wagon at night and during the day I took care of business. Within a week I had a job and we were in an apartment in the projects. It wasn't the nicest apartment, but it was quiet and it was a roof over our heads. Needless to say, we had no furniture. I found a small mom and pop type furniture store that sold me a sleeper sofa on credit. By day it was our couch, and at night it was our bed. Brian was only 2 and Robbie was 1 at the time. We were the 3 musketeers, and we would survive!
As time went on, my stomach got bigger. I knew I had to find someone to adopt this child. It wasn't that I didn't want it, I just couldn't see raising another child on welfare in the projects. What could I offer this child? I had nothing. I made $4.25 an hour and got help with daycare and foodstamps from the state. Besides, I knew there were plenty of loving couples out there who would love it and give it all the things that I could not. I was scouring the local paper one day, when an ad jumped out at me. It was a couple wanting to adopt a baby. What the hell, I thought, I would call them and talk to them and just see what they were like. So I did.
The first time I spoke to Joanne on the phone I knew she would be the one. We just clicked immediately and it was like talking to an old friend. Before long, she knew my whole life story and I knew hers. Rick was sweet too, but I didn't get to speak to him as much as her. When the time came for them to admit me to the hospital and do a c-section, I callled Joanne to tell her. They flew down immediately in a private plane and arranged to stay with some friends of theirs in Jackson. The next morning they were there for Zoe's birth. My daughter, the daughter I had always dreamed of having. I was reluctant to see Zoe after she was born, because I was afraid of changing my mind about the adoption. I did go to the nursery and see her through the window. she was beautiful, and I began to cry. I had to get back to my room. The day after she was born, I filled out all the necessary paperwork and spoke with my lawyer. I knew I would go home the next day and I was tearful. Not only because I was losing the daughter I always wanted, but also because I felt as though I were losing a friend. Joanne and I had become very close over the past several months and I treasured our friendship. I knew I would never again have one of those long telephone conversations to look forward to. I missed her already, and she wasn't even gone yet. The evening before I was discharged from the hospital, she came to see me and I hugged her and cried like a baby. She misunderstood my tears and thought I crying because she was taking Zoe. She began to cry too, and pulled a ring off of her finger. It was a beautiful diamond ring, and she offered it to me, saying " you have given me something precious, now I want you to have something precious". I shook my head, tears rolling down my cheeks. "I'm sorry, I can't accept that," I said through the tears. Finally, it dawned on her that what I wanted was her continuing friendship. But we both knew that was not to be.
I left the hospital the next day and went home to my boys and little apartment. A few days later the phone rang. It was Joanne. She just wanted to see how I was feeling and let me know I would be receiving something from her in the mail soon. It was good to speak to her again, but I knew it would be last call I would get from her. A few days later an envelope arrived in the mail. It was letter from Joanne and a picture of Zoe. She's 18 now, and I still have that picture, just in case she ever looks me up. I hope someday she does, but I also hope she's having a wonderful life with Rick and Joanne.

Seven Years!!

I heard on the news this morning that you can now finance a car for as long as seven years. Seven years! Can you even imagine having car payments for that long? I can't. I bought my first new car in 1985 when I was 19 years old. It was a Ford Escort and I loved it!My dad co-signed for me, but I was responsible for the payments and insurance. The car was about $7000 and my monthly payments were $169 monthly. Nowadays, you can't buy a new car for less than $18,000. People spend as much on their vehicles these days as we did buying a house in the 70's. It's just crazy!

My Inspiration

Tonight on American Idol, the contestants sang songs that inspired them to reach for their dreams. It gave me pause to think about something that inspired me to enter the medical field, albeit not the exact job I originally dreamed about.
It was Thanksgiving eve of my junior year in high school. I had gone out with some friends that night, returning home around midnight. As we pulled into the drive, I immediately knew something was wrong. Every light in the house seemed to be on....very unusual mom and dad to leave all the lights on. Before I even made it to the front door, it opened and there stood one of our neighbors. "Your mom's been taken to the hospital," she said, "and I'm supposed to take you there now." As we got into her car I began asking questions, but she either didn't have the answers or didn't want to give them to me. We arrived at the emergency room and I was quickly escorted into a small room beside the chapel. My dad sat there holding his head in his hands as my brother cried. "What's wrong with mom?" I asked. "I don't know," dad said. He explained she had been sitting at the kitchen table eating a piece of pumpkin pie and suddenly vomited and fell backwards in her chair. He was unable to get her up off the floor and she was unresponsive. he called an ambulance immediately. About that time, the doctor entered the room. He explained that mom had an aneurysm burst in her brain and she had a lot of blood in her spinal column. He told us that he didn't expect her to make it through the night. I asked if I could see her. He led me into a small area with a curtain around it. There she lay, on a stretcher with lots of tubes and drains. Her eyes were closed and her body limp. I began to cry and took her by the hand. "Mom, if you can hear me at all, I want you to know how much I love and need you," I said through my tears. Then I did something I never done before.
I dropped to my knees and began to pray. I prayed for God to prove himself to me and save my mother's life. I wasn't a religeous person, hell I hadn't been to church for ten years or more. I can't explain what possessed me to do that, it just entered my head and I went with it. I prayed as if my very life depended on it. The next morning, when the doctor entered the room, he was just shaking his head in amazement. "I just can't explain it," he said. "By all rights she should be dead. This was nothing short of a miracle." He then went on to explain that 96% of people who have aneurysms rupture in the brain will die. Mom was one of the lucky 4%. She was alive, but comatose, and remained that way for over a month.
It was Christmas eve and the snow was really coming down as I looked the window of her hospital room. I had ridden the bus to the hospital every day after school to see mom in the hopes she had awoke. Now it was Christmas and I was far from being in the holiday spirit. All I wanted for christmas was my mom. I started to cry as I watched her lifeless form lying in the bed with IV fluids infusing, and her feeding tube protruding from her nose, and the ventilator quietly breathing for her. I turned to the window and for the second time in my life, I began to pray. I asked God to please, oh please! Give me my mom back! It was all I wanted for Christmas and I was very hopeful He would.
The next morning, Christmas day, my dad, brother and I piled into the car and made the trip to the hospital. As we entered the room, we noticed mom was awake! She wasn't lucid, but she was awake and pulling out her feeding tube. I noticed the ventilator was gone and she was breathing on her own. We called the nurse, who immediately restrained her hands and replaced the feding tube. She explained that mom had woken up the night before and they had been able to remove the ventilator. She also explained that mom was still a little confused, and the restraints in place as a precaution to protect her from injuring herself. It was the first step down a long, hard road to recovery for her. But little did we know, the worst was yet to come.
About a week before mom was to be discharged, a routine chest xray was done. A tumor was discovered in her left lung. She was kept in the hospital while they performed a lobectomy, removing the lower two lobes of her left lung. It was lung cancer. They claimed they got it all and she should be fine. She wasn't. About a month after coming home from the hospital, she began to have severe headaches. Fearing another aneurysm, dad took her to the doctor and had tests done. It was a brain tumor and inoperable. Apparently the tumor from her lungs had spread to her brain before it was caught. She bravely went through multiple radiation treatments while dad, Jim, and I cared for her the best we could at home. There was very little she could do for herself and we watched as she deteriorated a little more each week at home. After five long years of being sick, she finally went to sleep one night and never woke up. She knew it was her time. That night, as we were getting her ready for bed and tucking her in, she suddenly had a lucid moment when she looked at me and said, "always remember how much I love you." Those were her last words to me as she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Caring for mom at home led me to my calling as a nurse. I wanted to be a doctor....to be able to unlock the mysteries of cancer and possibly change the world, but it was not to be. I am a caregiver and I firmly believe I was put on this earth to make a difference in someone's life.

Yellow butterflies

Well, my brother Jim and his wife laurie came down from Fishers, Indiana this weekend with their son Reid. It was nice because I hadn't seen them in three years, since we buried our dad. Dad's death was hard for me. He was very ill for quite a while and on dialysis three times a week. I didn't get to see him much because he lived in Florida and money was tight. When my stepmother made the decision to stop his dialysis and bring him home under hospice care, I really couldn't fault her for it. He was tired, miserable, and ready to go. I drove to Florida and arrived just a few hours before he came home from the hospital. We all knew it would only be a matter of days without dialysis before all his body functions shut down. He was in pain from the bedsores he had acquired and barely lucid. I told him I was there and I loved him. He told me he loved me and that was the last conversation we had. Jim arrived a day or so later. Dad knew he was there, but wasn't lucid enough to speak. I kept him on morphine (provided by hospice) around the clock. That Friday, May 13th, I finally whispered to him that it was ok to go...that mom was waiting for him. My mom passed in 1988, but that's a whole other story. A few hours later he was gone. I went out to the carport and sat down to cry and lit up a cigarette. It was late...around 9pm or so....and dark outside. As I sat there crying and smoking, I wondered if he was with mom. Just then, two yellow butterflies came into the carport and began fluttering around. It almost looked like they were dancing with each other. I knew then that was my sign that mom and dad were together again. I thought of those butterflies as my parents spirits, together again at last. Today, as I was talking to Jim outside my son's house, a yellow butterfly flitted between us. I had been thinking about dad all morning, and again, I think that was his way of letting me know he was there with us.

When I Was A Kid............

I remember summer vacations when I was a kid. We always went to my grandmother's house in West Virginia. It was just a wide spot in the road called Cairo. Dad always dropped us kids off at the store in town on our way in. We each bought an orange sherbet push-up for fifteen cents apiece and then we would walk the short distance to grandma's house. I remember the old marble factory in Cairo. We used to walk to it and pick up the marbles from around the factory that they considered rejects. They were treasures to us. One time we were invited into the factory for a tour. It was really neat watching them make the marbles. Times were very different back then. We were more afraid of getting in trouble with our parents than we were of any stranger. We played all day long in the creek building dams and catching tadpoles or minnows. We even caught a snake or two! There was no such thing as video games or computers, or even cell phones, much less cordless phones! Our parents didn't HAVE to worry so much about where we were or what we were doing, or even who we were doing it with. As long as we came home before the streetlights came on, we were fine.
All the kids in the neighborhood knew each other, and as a result, so did the parents. You could bet that if you got in trouble at a friend's house, your parents would know it before you made it home! I can remember playing in the woods near our house. Some friends and I started a campfire one evening and someone brought some cigarettes. That was a big no-no back then! Even though you could ride your bike to the store and buy cigarettes for your mom or dad, you better not get caught smoking any of them! Anyway, there was three or four of us sitting around this little fire smoking like we were grown, and suddenly we hear this deep voice at the edge of the woods, "young lady, you better get home now!!! And I'm calling all your parents, too!" It was my friend Tracy's dad! I almost peed on myself I was so scared! And when our dog got knocked up, we knew exactly who's dog did it, and my mother called the people and told them their dog got our dog pregnant. They apologized for it and were present for the birthing, then helped us find homes for the puppies. Try doing doing that these days.......
It just goes to show you that whoever said "It takes a village....." well, they were right. It at least takes a neighborhood.

Let Me Introduce Myself.....

Hi! Welcome to my first blog! This is something new to me, and I have a lot I want to tell people, so bear with me. Let me start by saying I am a 40-something year old nurse. I love what I do and wouldn't trade it for the world. Besides, what other job will let you come to work in pajamas (scrubs) everyday? I've learned alot in my years as a nurse. My patients have taught me many things. I've learned how to listen, really listen, to what people say. Sometimes you can hear what they aren't saying. I've seen people at their very worst, and very best. I've seen tears of joy, and tears of sadness. I've learned what is to be human, and to be humane. Ok, enough about my job. Let me tell you about my family.
I am married to a wonderful (when he wants to be!) man named Rob and we have two beautiful boys. Brian is twenty-two and Rob, jr. (Robbie) is twenty. My boys worry me alot. Brian lives with his girlfriend, whom he has a son by. Michael is just one month old and a joy in my life! I never realized how great it could be to be a grandmother! It can be heart wrenching at times too, though. Brian and Kailey (his girlfriend) tend to fight alot. I worry aboout what will happen to Michael. Only time will tell, I guess. Robbie and his girlfriend, Vanessa, live together too. I wonder how the hell they will ever make it in life. I have to give Robbie some credit though, he is working two jobs to support her lazy butt! She won't get a job, doesn't seem to clean house or cook, and her mama does their laundry for them! Oh, by the way....she's pregnant too. Yeah, another one due the end of September. Makes me feel old.