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Overkill (#80)

So tell me this: What does it mean when an otherwise fairly intelligent and verbally competent grown woman latches onto a phrase like "very extremely" and uses it aloud upwards of a dozen times per day?

Have I lost it altogether?

Posted by Katy on 08/16/05
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Exhale (#81)

Whew.

I know. Most people would put an exclamation point after the word whew. But an exclamation point implies some type of energy, even if it's only the type that's required to hit the shift key with my right pinky finger before hitting the exclamation point key with my left pinky finger.

As far as fingers go, I'm fairly certain pinkies lose their energy first. My index fingers are still somewhat functional, though, so I'll use those puppies to blog before I fall into bed until tomorrow.

Whew.

Today ends Extremely Long Day Number Six at the hospital with Mom. Between oncologists, neurologists, pulmonologists, and orthopedic docs, I've logged fifteen pages of handwritten notes. Throw in a few therapists and two social services ladies, and I've written a small book.

Whew.

Mom is one intense chick. Yesterday she requested (no less than four times) a gun with which to shoot others and then herself. Three nurses and a Man of the Cloth were definitely in her sights. My sister Bridget, niece Baillie, and I were pretty sure that we were, too. She wasn't amused when we said even WalMart--with low, low gun prices every day-- has a two-day cooling off period. She's been angry with nurses who are too cheerful and chaplains who are too holy and Eucharistic Ministers who are too quiet. She's not pleased with those who are unfriendly, but if they stay and chat a while they invariably stay too long and only want to talk about themselves.

Whew.

She was on and off the bedside commode with Bowel Movements From Purgatory three times in one hour today. Moving is very painful, of course, and moving fast became more necessary with each passing, well...you know. They got her back in bed, exhausted, after the third episode. She'd barely closed her eyes when the occupational therapist arrived to teach her how to give herself a sponge bath and dress herself with one arm. You can't imagine how thrilled she was.

Whew.

Tomorrow, if nothing worse befalls us, Mom will move into a nursing home for an undetermined length of time for the purpose of gaining strength and mobility through therapy. She's decided she does not want surgery on her arm, since the ortho doc could not guarantee that surgery would have a better outcome than no surgery. I agree with her decision completely. She also refused a bone marrow biopsy of her sternum which might give the oncologists the information they need to make a definite diagnosis of multiple myeloma. She clearly does NOT want to know if she has cancer. And that's OK, too.

The Lord has really given me grace this week. I think we're through the worst of this episode, although I'm not looking forward to when she moves back into her independent living apartment. I do hope she's as fully prepared for that as possible, so that she doesn't have to depend on her kids for too much more than she did before this fall. A girl can hope, can't she?

Without the wonderfully kind, encouraging, and entertaining comments you've all provided me, I'm not sure I could have kept my brilliantly positive outlook like I have. Honestly, I've been hanging on to thoughts of coming home, kissing my husband, thanking God for getting us through another day, and reading your remarks. You people are beautiful.

I'm going to bed now, because as incredible as it seems, tomorrow is another day--a day during which I plan to regain all my previous enthusiasm for exclamation points.

Whew and good-night.

Posted by Katy on 08/11/05
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Too Pooped To Pop (#82)

I'd love to write something profound, or at least entertaining, but it's not gonna happen.

We've just gotten Doug's mother settled after her near-death experience with abscesses on her diseased gall bladder and liver and the resulting surgery. I've got to say, she's done amazingly well for an 83-year-old lady. Her appetite is slowly coming back and she's in great spirits. She still isn't walking without her physical therapist at her side and a walker in front of her, but with continued therapy she may be able to lose the therapist and ditch the wheelchair.

Doug's two sisters had scheduled vacation for the same time, starting a couple of days ago, leaving us to be responsible for Adele. Normally that would be OK, but nothing is normal where my life is concerned.

Saturday, my mother fell in the lobby of her Funny Farm. She won't use the Lexus of Walkers that I purchased for her in February because it makes her "look old." She's absolutely going against medical advice by being so stubborn, because the bones throughout her body are at risk of spontaneous fracture. Plus she's often extremely dizzy--another big reason to use the walker.

She broke her left arm and a rib on her right side. At first, the ER folks only x-rayed her arm, wrapped it, put it in a sling and said, "Make an appointment with your orthopedic doctor cause you're probably gonna need surgery. In the meantime, though, you're outta here!!!"

The ER doc planned to send her home to her own apartment! This is a large lady--twice my size--who has a tough time getting out of bed even when nothing's broken, folks. There's no way under heaven she could have gone home without someone providing almost total care. Any guesses who that someone would be?

I looked at my sibs and said, "No way. They're admitting her."

Then I turned to Mom. "Didn't you say your right side hurts? I heard you tell the paramedics so..."

"Well, yeah, but I think it's OK now. Besides, I don't want to complain."

"Um...Mom, start complaining now and please, don't hold back."

Then I turned to the nurse. "Get the x-ray people back in here to look at her ribs. You can see she has a long history of compression fractures and other broken ribs. She's not going anywhere till we know the extent of her problems."

Sure enough, she'd broken a rib, too. And that minor detail got her admitted.

What's keeping me from being admitted, I can't exactly say. I just got home from Extremely Long Day Number Three (after Extremely Long Month of July With My Mother-In-Law) and I'm nearly in tears from exhaustion. Mom caught me yawning as I wiped the oozing green infection from my left eye right before I left the hospital, and here's exactly what she said:

"Katy, if you don't get better in very many areas, by the time you get to be 75, you're going to be a MESS!"

And then I said, "I'd be fine if I didn't spend my whole life taking care of old ladies."

Yes. I said those precise words. And it's not because I mind taking care of old ladies. But it is aging me before my time, and I wonder if the sacrifice I'm making means anything in the grand scheme of things. Mostly, I resent that Mom would intentionally risk falling, knowing that I must give up so much to help her when something like this happens.

"So," she said, "it's time for the old ladies to die off?"

"Not at all," I answered. "But it's time for you to start using your walker."

I feel like my mother has really taken advantage of the fact that she has nice kids who will drop everything for her, so much so that she won't even do the obvious things she's able to do to help herself--like using an assistive device to stay on her feet instead of on the floor. And I'm getting tired of bailing her out.

I guess that doesn't sound like I'm a very nice kid at all, but I just wanted to tell you how I really feel.

If you would like to leave me a profound or entertaining comment, it would thrill my very soul. Thank you.

Posted by Katy on 08/08/05
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Buying Time (#83)

When I get stuck waiting behind a long line of customers, I don't usually think happy thoughts. Nor do I do those inconspicuous bun-tightening exercises the magazines advise for my spare time. I don't peruse gossip rags to see what's up with Jen and Brad and the various Desperate Housewives. And I only rarely drool over the candy bars.

Most of the time, I just think about how I'm in the wrong line.

I'm compulsive that way, I guess. The minute I get in line with all the back-to-school-shopping crazies, I compare my position to the persons on my left and right. If they manage to inch forward in their lines faster than I do in mine--which always happens--I realize that once again I've managed to choose the check-out person who needs to change his cash register tape. Or fill her drawer with change. Or argue with a customer whose credit card gets rejected. Or call back to automotive for a price check.

Yesterday was no different. I found myself only four people back in a line that looked promising. The customers in front of me didn't have a lot in their carts. And the check-out clerk was female, which only matters to me if I'm buying lingerie or another similarly feminine item. (I'd hate to embarass some poor guy, much less myself.)

But my promising line did not move. Not once in ten minutes. The folks to my left and right had headed to Applebee's for lunch, where they laughed about the clueless lady in Lane Seven who never caught on that her clerk and the people in line in front of her were paid actors and she's on Candid Camera.

Time passed. Stomachs growled. We all fraction-of-an-inched forward.

When I was second in line, I got a look at the check-out girl. The customer had only purchased three t-shirts, all the same but different colors. The clerk scanned one, then began a process of folding it which I thought would take the rest of her natural life. She never raised her eyes from her task, never met the gaze of the customer, never responded to the giggles of the little boy who held his mother's hand.

She's retarded, I thought. Or maybe autistic. The expression on her face remained static, but her focus on her task was intense. She began repeating the episode with the second identical shirt. First the scan, then the laborious, painfully meticulous folding. Finally, the third shirt. And then the exacting chore of obtaining payment, all without looking up from the counter.

I noticed, from my still limited vantage point, that the girl's neck was as thick as her head, and that her wrists were the size of her upper arms. Yet she didn't seem to be overweight at all. The customer in front of me picked up her bag and I moved to put my things on the counter. I pushed my cart forward then, so that I stood in front of the clerk.

Before I looked up, I said, "How are you today?"

No response.

Could she be completely deaf or mute and hold this job? I didn't think so, but why would she not respond?

I lifted my eyes and found the answer. Covering her entire face, neck, arms, and hands were hundreds--no, thousands--of tumors. The smaller ones were the size and shape of peas, raised from the surface of her pod-like skin. The large ones were like marbles, nearly the size of her sad brown eyes.

I waited a bit before trying again. We had plenty of time, she and I, since the t-shirts were on sale and I'd selected quite a few.

"Is it always this busy in here?" I asked. She kept looking down, but shook her head from side to side. It was a start.

"Because I've never seen it like this, except at Christmas time. I mean, I don't get over here all that often, but--" I figured she'd get sick of listening to me soon, and maybe, just maybe...

"They came for the DVD players." Her voice muffled into one of my t-shirts.

"I'm sorry. The what?"

"The DVD players. Hundreds of people showed up at the opening for five crummy DVD players. I could have told them we wouldn't have enough..."

"They came for the towels, too, you know," I said, amazed that sometimes small talk isn't so very small at all.

"You're right," she said. "I've seen a lot of towels go through here. Kids leaving for college, I guess."

"I came for the men's dress shoes," I said.

She opened the box and held them up. "I didn't know about these. My husband needs some shoes to go with his suit. I'm going to go back there and look. Twenty bucks is a great price. Thanks."

She didn't smile and she never really looked up. But we talked. In some strange way, we even connected.

Who knew I was in the right lane all along? To think the check-out girl turned out to be worth way more than the wait.

"Thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot in thee." Song of Solomon

Posted by Katy on 08/04/05
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Fear Factor (#84)

If fear were a person, I picture it being like a good buddy who puts on about a pound per month, year after year.

Now when I put on that kind of insidious weight (eating a mere 100 calories a day more than I need), it takes nearly a year before my clothes are too tight. People stop complimenting me on the old bod along the way, sure, but no one's exactly laughing behind my back, either. At least, I don't think so.

And I sure wouldn't judge a friend if it happened to her.

Like a chick whose jeans still have a little room to spare, fears start out manageable enough. When I first notice a new one, I tend to tell myself the thing I'm afraid of doing isn't something I'd want to do if I were courageous, anyway. So there.

I am a pro at making excuses for fear, for giving it the benefit of the doubt. I figure if I treat it nicely, it'll return the favor.

Besides, no responsible wife and mother with insufficient life insurance and two herniated discs in her neck would really consider bungee jumping, would she? And bungee jumping is tame compared to the extreme sports of these days.

I'm scared to death to even think about the kind of stuff they do on Fear Factor--in fact, I'm so freaked out, I won't even watch the show--but since my particular interests and inclinations don't tend toward the physically adventurous, why does it matter?

I believe it only matters if an insignificant fear (a fear of doing something you have no desire or need to do) gains a substantial amount of weight--so substantial that your emotional and spiritual health is affected.

What if a fear of driving during rush hour on the stretch of highway your friends were killed on turns into a fear of driving at any hour on any highway? What if a simple (and common) fear of MRI machines turns surreptitiously into an irrational fear of suffocating after they seal your casket?

Unfortunately, fear gains weight little by little, so slowly that its loyal friend doesn't notice until she tries to dress her fear up in something pretty for a big night out and nothing fits right anymore.

Not that it would matter much. By the time your fear puts on that much weight, you're too frightened to leave home after dark.

Posted by Katy on 08/03/05
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Why I Finally Purchased A China Cabinet (#85)

I keep my head behind the china cabinet, just so I know where it is. Now I wish I kept my breasts there, too.

When you keep your body parts behind the china cabinet in an enormous white envelope, they're available to you at a moment's notice. Believe me, a moment's notice is all you'll ever have.

Then, when your primary doctor or specialist or an ER doc directs you to have new films made, you've got the comps in your personal possession. You pull them out from behind the china cabinet, take them with you, and the interpreting radiologist has everything needed to figure out what the heck is up with you.

Alas, I've neglected to add my previous mammograms to the MRIs of my head behind the china cabinet. I am stupidly, negligently comp-less.

If you don't keep all your important films and medical records in your personal possession, you'll end up like me---waiting.

I got a letter from my new imaging place on Saturday. My mammo showed a problem of some sort. They'll have to request my previous mammos from another imaging company. It'll take a while, the letter said, a good long while, but we'll send you another letter after we get the films and have compared the pics. Not to worry!! Oh, we've sent the radiologist's report to your doc, in case you're interested in knowing more...We'll be in touch again, soon!

They don't know me too well. I'm not looking for a pen-pal and junk mail about something this important just doesn't work for me. I had my doc on the phone at 8 am Monday morning.

"You have a nodule," he said. "Most of the time, these turn out to be benign."

He knows me well, by the way. He knows that "most of the time" odds rarely work out in my favor.

"It'll take about two weeks for them to get your previous films and compare them to the new ones. Then we'll decide what steps to take next."

"I think I'll just go to the old joint, get my films, hand-deliver them to the new radiologist, and wait for his report." Yeah, my panties were in a bundle.

"If you've got the time, that's not a bad idea."

Time? TIME? We've all got a little less of it with each passing day, and I'm sure not going to fritter away two weeks waiting for a courier to show up. I don't mind spending a bit of that precious commodity if it ends up buying me even more.

So I called the new imaging place to tell them I'd be picking up my old films and by some twist of calendar, the delivery had already happened. My case caught the courier at just the right time in his cycle. She said they would send me a letter within a couple of days about the comps.

A couple of days I can handle. I think. Then again, I may drive over there right now...

Posted by Katy on 08/02/05
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Do You Remember Where You Were When…? (#86)

If you're as old as I am, you have no problem remembering where you were when you first heard of JFK's death, or Robert Kennedy's, or Martin Luther King's.

If you're younger, you probably still remember when you heard that Princess Diana had died, or Mother Teresa, or Erma Bombeck. I'll confess right here that I cried more over Erma than Diana or Teresa, but I know that's probably just me.

Here's my question: Do you remember the first moment you realized that you could read? Were you hooked on phonics before it cost money? Did you sound out two consonants and one vowel all by yourself in Sister Sheila Ann's first grade class and come up with the word "cat"? Or "Mom" or "Dad" or "God"?

Reading the name of "God" all by myself was a huge spiritual revelation to me, because it meant that I would not depend only on what others told me about Him, but also on what I read about Him on my own. Reading His name was the beginning of getting to know Him.

Do you remember exactly how it felt when you discovered you could read not only one isolated word on the page, but also the very next one and then the one after that? At St. Elizabeth's School, our primer featured David and Ann, whose five-word adventures I could not wait to read day after day. They became, in a very real sense, my new best friends.

Of all the mysteries--solved and unsolved--creation has to offer, I can't imagine one more rewarding than cracking the code of letters and words, sentences, paragraphs, and books.

Do you remember where you were when you first put word and word together? Can you still feel the thrill?

Posted by Katy on 07/28/05
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And I Don’t Have To Go Right Now (#87)

Yesterday was Cram-All-The-Medical-Tests-Into-One-Long-Session Day.

The schedule of events called for an 8:30 pelvic ultrasound (to check out those pesky ovarian cysts I've sprouted my whole life), followed by a 9:00 mammogram (to which I bring nothing to the table), then a 9:30 MRI of my head (to check for a recurrence of brain tumors), and finally a 10:30 bone density scan (to see if I've inherited my mother's osteoporosis).

I was instructed to begin drinking 32 ounces of water at 7:30, so that my bladder would be full to bursting by 8:30. I informed Doug upon awakening that I knew too much about my own itty-bitty-bladder syndrome to follow the written instructions.

"I'm only drinking 16 ounces, starting at 8:00. Believe you me, my bladder will be the fullest one they've ever seen in their entire bladder-seeing careers."

"Are you sure?" he said. "You wouldn't want to arrive half-empty and throw off the schedule of events."

"Trust me. I have to take Xanax at exactly 8:30 to get relaxed enough to be able to survive the 9:30 MRI. But if I'm relaxed when the sonographer is pushing the thingie around on my pelvis and my bladder's too full, I'll pee on the table. Then where will I be?"

So, I followed my plan. At 8:30, I scooted my pants down on the sonographer's table and she covered me with goop. Two seconds later she said, "Oh-oh. You must be dehydrated. The water you drank isn't getting to your bladder. See?" She pointed her screen to me to show how my bladder was only one-tenth full. "You'll have to sit in the lobby and drink some more--a lot more."

Doug was waiting in the lobby. My eyes got big when I saw him and I shook my head. "Foiled again. Hand me that water bottle." I ran down the hall with it and my purse, which contained a Depends Adult Undergarment. I velcroed that puppy to my behind in the john before I guzzled another 16 ounces in two minutes flat.

There's no way I can hold that much water when I'm on relaxation medication. You know what they say. "This is your bladder. This is your extremely overfull bladder on Xanax." Not a pretty picture.

I ran back to the waiting room. Doug said, "They called your name. They're reversing the order of the tests while they wait for your bladder to fill."

So I scurried back to the mammography room, where the very kind technician flattened my breasts between two steel rectangles first horizontally and then--after I said thank you very much it's been real I'm outta here--vertically.

I slapped my blouse back on and opened the door in time for the sonographer to greet me with a smile. "Come on back. We'll get you taken care of before my next appointment arrives."

By now the Xanax had kicked in big-time. I kept hoping it wouldn't wear off before the MRI began, though. I'd had several panic attacks just thinking about the tube, since my experiences with claustrophobia are legion.

I didn't even mind advertising to the sonographer, as I eased down my jeans, that I'd resorted to Depends in case I'd had to wait any longer for the test. She rubbed the thingie across my pelvis and said, "Oh, you're filling up nicely now. Not quite enough yet, though...A little more water and you'll be all set."

A little more water? Had she lost her mind?

I yanked my jeans up again and ran back out to Doug. "Not yet. Where's that bottle?" I took another pill, just in case what I'd already taken started to wear off before the MRI ended. It was already 9:30, and I still hadn't done the 8:30 test.

The door opened, and the bone density scan lady called me back. "This will only take ten minutes, and then you'll be ready for your ultrasound." I didn't have to take any clothing off, so she never knew about the Depends, unless I had a tell-tale Depends-line and didn't know it.

By the time she finished with me, I was desperate to pee. I mean, I couldn't wait one second longer. But the door to the sonographer's room was firmly shut. Her new patient had arrived.

I scurried back out to Doug. "It's going to be another half-hour! I can't wait to pee! All the water in the universe has come home to roost!" The attendant behind the desk said, "Can you go to the bathroom and just let out a tiny bit? And then stop? Because if you let out too much, you'll have to drink some more..."

I'll just say it right here, since I'm saying everything else. The whole start-and-stop thing isn't my forte. Once the works are turned on, the Energizer Bunny scampers across the stage. But I had to TRY to go just a tiny bit and then stop, or I would die of a Burst Bladder.

When I was eight years old, my grandmother told me a story of a young lady whose suitor came to call. (You may think this is a digression. Trust me, it's not.) She went with him in his horse-drawn buggy before using the outhouse first. The fellow was serious about courting and the ride turned into an all-afternoon affair. The poor girl was too embarassed to tell the gentleman that she needed to go BAD, and she died of a Burst Bladder.

My entire life, I've let that story be a lesson to me. That is NOT how I plan to go.

Thirteen minutes after I went just a little bit and then stopped, the sonographer called me back. This time, my bladder was filled to absolute perfection and she completed her job before I ruined my Depends. Which is good, because even though I was allowed to go to the bathroom after the ultrasound, an hour in an MRI machine is a VERY long time.

The MRI was the least stressful I've ever had, perhaps because the events leading up to it were so frantic. I may have even taken a nap in the machine, Xanax-induced though it would have been.

Then Doug and I had omelettes at a breakfast dive before coming on home.

The rest of the day--one of those days when you're commanded not to operate heavy machinery like the washing machine or the vacuum cleaner or the cordless phone--I found myself relaxed and, um, relieved.

The piece de resistance of the whole kooky day came right before bedtime, as we watched the teasers for the local news.

"Giant rats are running rampant through Brookside, and residents want them gone. Plus, why does this man keep an amputated foot in a bucket on his porch?"

Yeah. Yesterday turned out to be a lot more fun than I expected. We even laughed outselves to sleep.

Posted by Katy on 07/27/05
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Another Weekend, Another Wedding (#88)

There's a strange period in life that starts when you're approximately thirty years old and ends around your forty-fifth birthday. Most people won't do you the favor of giving you advance notice about this phenomenon. But I'm not most people.

Before the age of thirty, it's likely that you and a ton of your friends will get married and have children of your own. During those fantastic years of youth and vigor and charm and beauty when you're in your twenties, you'll go to a wedding every weekend all summer long. You'll throw showers and bachelor parties for your buddies, and cycle through enough bridesmaid dresses and tuxedos to open your own gently-worn boutique.

While you're totally occupied with the raising of your own children, though, you'll find yourself invited to very few weddings. Very. Very. Few. You'll feel a little out of it, frankly. "Why don't I get invited to anything fun anymore?" you might ask. It's because all of your friends are in the same boat, that's why. If you ask around, none of them are partying down, either. They don't own a single dressy outfit that fits, except for the one they keep on hand in case some old-timer croaks.

The years will pass. You will not have time to glance in a mirror during your thirties and forties, and perhaps that is for the best. And then, finally, when the first peer of your oldest child becomes engaged, the invitations will start flowing again and won't stop until...well, I'm not sure when.

Even I'm not that old yet.

Here's the really strange part about all this: When the invites start trailing in--slowly at first but picking up speed as all your own children reach marriageable age--you won't quite realize how much time has passed since you were the cute thing in the halter dress catching the bouquet or the handsome young man peeling the garter from his bride's leg with his teeth.

In fact, unless you're paying attention, you'll put on your party clothes, look in the mirror, and believe with all the sincerity in your heart that you're a genuine hottie. You'll see the same gorgeous thing smiling back at you that you last took a good look at fifteen years ago.

You'll imagine--trust me on this--that no time at all has elapsed since you first took on the world. You will not realize until you arrive at the wedding and find that your entire generation has been displaced by young, vigorous, charming, and beautiful specimens--all of whom are your children's ages--that you are over the hill.

When this happens to you, as it surely will, do not despair! All is not lost! Console yourself with your fond memories and a few fast dances. Remember this: for all its wants, maturity has the distinct advantage of having experienced every age up to and including the one you're experiencing now.

Who else but an old chick can remember when she looked really good and, at the very same time, imagine that she still does?

Posted by Katy on 07/23/05
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Jesus, Mercy… (#89)

This morning I heard a siren out on the main road. We don't live within city limits, so sirens are few and far between.

It must have startled me back to my childhood in the city, when sirens were much more of a rarity there than they are now. I found myself instinctively reacting like a little girl.

Back in 1959, when I started school, Catholic children learned that when a siren rang out, we should pray the words, "Jesus, mercy." And not only that: We were trained to bow our heads each time we uttered the name of Jesus.

So I prayed for the situation out on the main road, for the person in trouble or in pain. Just those two words, really. "Jesus, mercy." But I bowed my head when I spoke His name out loud.

And then I wondered: How often do I truly bow my head--or my heart--to the beautiful name of Jesus? How often do I simply cast myself upon His tender mercies which--the Scripture assures me--are new every morning?

I felt like a little girl again when I bowed at the name of Jesus. I saw myself wearing my blue sashed party dress with the crinoline petticoat, curtsying before the King.

Posted by Katy on 07/22/05
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When Duty Calls, Do You Let It Go To Voice Mail? (#90)

Twenty-six years ago this month, long before any episode of a TV show was billed as one which would "change your life forever," I got addicted to The Guiding Light.

Scotty had just been born the month before. As newborns go, he was one unhappy camper. And the two of us had endured a traumatic birth experience. Many weeks went by before I could sit without my plastic donut beneath my derriere.

Looking back, if I'd only had two choices--Scientology or the Brooke Shield's method--I would have skipped out on the tax-exemption and gone straight for the drugs. But neither of those paths were de riguer in those days.

In the old days, soap operas were the drug of choice.

I watched The Guiding Light for five guilty years, until baby Kevin turned six months old. That summer, Scott wondered why he still had to go into his room for "reading time" in the afternoon, when he clearly didn't intend to take a nap like Carrie and Kevin.

He sneaked into the living room during my "story" one day and witnessed Reva in bed with Josh.

"This isn't a kid's show, Scotty," I said, flipping off the TV. "Your quiet time's not over yet."

"I don't get it," he answered. "Why is it OK for you to watch it, but not for me?"

He had me there, folks. I went cold turkey that hot July day.

The Guiding Light didn't change my life forever, or maybe in some weird way, it did. Two lines were spoken almost every day on that show (and on every other soap opera, I'm sure) which have stuck with me all these years.

"I'll always be there for you" and "I need to get on with my life."

I used to laugh out loud at both these lines, spoken as they were by shady, non-committal characters who had no intention of being "there" even tomorrow, and who didn't have a "life" to get on with, either. Sometimes, one character would spout off both of these cliches in a single episode, making me wonder why someone didn't come up with a third, middle-of-the-road alternative.

I've wondered ever since. In some twisted way, my entire life has consisted of bouncing back and forth between "I'll always be there for you" and "I need to get on with my life." And I'd hate to admit how often I can swing from one to the other in the course of a single day.

It's a dichotomy, isn't it? The commitment and desire to "be there," wherever there turns out to be, for our loved ones when they need our care and support can turn into a life's work, precluding even our own health and welfare if we aren't careful.

On the other hand, "getting on with our lives" smacks suspiciously of the kind of selfish and lonely pursuit which, if it means leaving others and their needs behind, can't end well. Or can it?

I'm sure there's a balance, and I'm sure I haven't found it. Have you?

If the year was 1979 and you found yourself addicted to The Guiding Light, which character would you most identify with--the one who says "I'll always be there for you," or the one who says "I need to get on with my life"?

Or have you found the balance? If so (or if not...) please share!

As for me, I stopped laughing at those two soap opera lines years ago. Because as silly as they sounded, they both ended up changing my life forever.

Posted by Katy on 07/21/05
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She Speaks, Therefore I Blog (#91)

I haven't kept in very good touch with my own siblings these past few weeks, because of Doug's mom being so ill. I do, however, talk to my mother every other day, and she fills me in on who's doing what.

My brother John and his wife moved three weeks ago into a fabulous house they've built. I haven't seen the place since it was still under construction, but Mom's keeping me current.

"John says that they've already found one 'mistake' in the house. The master bedroom closet is way too small. It's the size of the bedroom John had growing up, which sounds big enough to me, but he says it's a problem."

"Well, that's too bad," I say. "I'm sure they'll manage somehow."

At this point in the conversation, I figured we'd pretty much covered John's closet shortfall, but no.

Mom pressed onward. "I asked him whether he'd taken out a mortgage, and he said of course, they had."

"Well, yeah..."

"And then I told him for a lousy two dollars per month more, he could have had the closet of his dreams."

"Actually, that's not too far from the truth..." I agreed.

"He laughed at me when I said it, like I don't know how the world works. Does he think I've lived this long for nothing? So then I told him, 'Forget you. I'll tell Katy my idea and she'll blog it.' So there."

I might be her new favorite.

Posted by Katy on 07/18/05
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Perspective (#92)

Doug's mother is out of the hospital and back in her assisted-living apartment. They're giving her tons of extra help and importing both physical and occupational therapists to get her moving again. So far, she's using a wheelchair to get around, but I expect that may change this week.

A couple days ago, Doug's sister Nancy was at the apartment helping out. My mother-in-law said, "Gee, I hope I get my strength back soon. It's just not right to be so weak and dizzy and sick when you're only 53."

Nancy (who's 50) waited a minute before she said anything, hoping Adele would self-correct. Finally, Nancy said, "Well, Mom, you're not 53. You're 83."

"Oh," Adele said, "that explains a LOT!"

Posted by Katy on 07/18/05
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Who Moved My Panties? (#93)

I know, I know.

I've promised time and again not to fixate publicly on various and sundry articles of underwear, but sometimes exceptions to even wonderful rules must be made. Believe me, I only make exceptions when it is in the best interest of humanity at large--and of my readers in particular--to do so. That's the kind of woman I am.

For the sake of the common good, then, I will proceed with telling you the story of how all my underwear went missing--and not just mine. My husband's, too.

You should know, first of all, that we have long since moved past the underwear "salad days." Remember those lean times, when you were young and had just recently struck out on your own, and weren't being paid peanuts? Remember when you could barely keep body and soul together in the food department, you were so darned poor?

When you can't afford a couple boxes of macaroni and cheese and some saltine crackers, you sure can't afford new underwear. Time was when I only owned a few pair myself, and pretty chintzy ones at that. But that was then.

These days, I'm panty-rich. I'll bet I've got upwards of two dozen pairs. Panties are no object, you might say. So imagine how mystified I've been the past week or so as I've watched my pile of panties on the closet shelf get smaller and smaller until finally today I put on the very last pair.

I've made a couple trips to the laundry room, where a pile of recently laundered undies should have been, but no. Not a single pair. I've peered into the hamper and only seen a scant load of clothes, not a bit more, and figured not enough had accumulated for me to worry about it yet.

Besides, who has the time for domesticity? Doug and I have been busy with runs to the hospital every day for the past nineteen, and we've barely (ouch!) met ourselves coming and going. I haven't kept up with the laundry, and yet--weirdly-- none seems to be accumulating, either.

That would be my idea of a welcome miracle right about now, if only I could figure out where my panties are.

"Doug, I'm on my last pair of underwear."

"Me, too."

"Where do you suppose they've run off to?"

"You got me. Hanging out with the stray socks, maybe?"

"Do we have that book, 'Who Moved My Cheese?' Maybe it would give us a clue about our underwear." Yeah. A business book. That's the ticket.

"That reminds me. I've been craving a little something from the cheese family again..."

"Babe, forget your cheese! We have bigger fish to fry! Pretty soon we're going to be wandering around like the Rainman, muttering 'Definitely not wearing my underwear...' What's happening to us?"

He opened the dryer. "Here's a load that never got folded. Do you remember washing the whites?"

I looked at him like he was crazy. "You're kidding, right? I don't remember my name anymore. You think I remember doing laundry?"

He pulled the clean load out and counted. Six pairs for him and seven for me. So far, so good.

Then I got a bright idea. "Hey, what about those bags we kept packing to spend nights at the hospital?" Between plastic grocery bags, brief cases, computer bags, totes, duffels, and purses, we unearthed five more for him and eight more for me. Plus several missing toothbrushes and a couple $20 bills.

"We're still coming up short," he said, bending over the half-full hamper for a look.

And then it hit us. Doug's mother went into the hospital right after Kevin moved out, taking all his laundry with him. Since then, our pre-worn outer garments have been slung over a clothing rack in our closet and the underwear alone had ended up in the hamper. Without Kevin's dirty clothing overflowing the hamper to give me the incentive to do the laundry, our dirty underwear had languished for nearly two weeks.

I dug through the hamper and came up with the missing panties, folks. Mystery solved. Now if I could just find my own deoderant, I wouldn't have to smell like Right Guard anymore.

Posted by Katy on 07/12/05
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First Date (#94)

Twenty-nine years ago tonight, Doug and I had our first date. We went to an all-you-can-eat joint called Joe's Barn. Doug shelled out four bucks for each of us, but I'm afraid he lost money on me.

The last thing a girl wants to do on her first date with the man she's going to marry is eat all she can eat.

Yeah. I knew he was the man for me the minute we met, fully 2 1/2 years before our first date. Our first date, by the way, was our only date before we got engaged six weeks later. What did we do during those six weeks, you might ask?

Burned up the phone lines between Missouri and Scotland, that's what. By the time I returned home, Doug must have thought he'd made too large of an investment in our relationship not to pop the question, cause he didn't waste five minutes proposing.

This morning I reminded him of today's memory. "Too bad Joe's Barn isn't there anymore, or we could go celebrate."

"True," he said, "but 29 years ago, we didn't have Starbucks. Now we can celebrate every day."

And then he pulled me into his arms and kissed me, way more romantically that we could have gotten away with while carrying our own trays of fried chicken and cinnamon rolls at Joe's Barn. His enthusiasm nearly took my breath away.

"We didn't do THAT 29 years ago today," he said.

"So, you think we've got it better now, huh?"

"Oh, yeah."

From the minute we met, I knew.

Posted by Katy on 07/08/05
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Personal blog of christian writer & fallible mom Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri Katy is represented by Greg Johnson at WordServe Literary Read more Katy at LateBoomer.net Follow Katy on Twitter Follow Katy on Facebook 123 Recent Posts Try Becoming Brenda Starr Off Beat Scattered That’s It So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What? The Spoon Sciatica Sweetheart A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices. As with everything in life, balance is key. Slow down, you move too fast… Yeah, I know. I have issues. Search Advanced Search Syndicate Login E me at katy @ ngenius.com	Overkill (#80) So tell me this: What does it mean when an otherwise fairly intelligent and verbally competent grown woman latches onto a phrase like "very extremely" and uses it aloud upwards of a dozen times per day? Have I lost it altogether? Posted by Katy on 08/16/05 Permalink Exhale (#81) Whew. I know. Most people would put an exclamation point after the word whew. But an exclamation point implies some type of energy, even if it's only the type that's required to hit the shift key with my right pinky finger before hitting the exclamation point key with my left pinky finger. As far as fingers go, I'm fairly certain pinkies lose their energy first. My index fingers are still somewhat functional, though, so I'll use those puppies to blog before I fall into bed until tomorrow. Whew. Today ends Extremely Long Day Number Six at the hospital with Mom. Between oncologists, neurologists, pulmonologists, and orthopedic docs, I've logged fifteen pages of handwritten notes. Throw in a few therapists and two social services ladies, and I've written a small book. Whew. Mom is one intense chick. Yesterday she requested (no less than four times) a gun with which to shoot others and then herself. Three nurses and a Man of the Cloth were definitely in her sights. My sister Bridget, niece Baillie, and I were pretty sure that we were, too. She wasn't amused when we said even WalMart--with low, low gun prices every day-- has a two-day cooling off period. She's been angry with nurses who are too cheerful and chaplains who are too holy and Eucharistic Ministers who are too quiet. She's not pleased with those who are unfriendly, but if they stay and chat a while they invariably stay too long and only want to talk about themselves. Whew. She was on and off the bedside commode with Bowel Movements From Purgatory three times in one hour today. Moving is very painful, of course, and moving fast became more necessary with each passing, well...you know. They got her back in bed, exhausted, after the third episode. She'd barely closed her eyes when the occupational therapist arrived to teach her how to give herself a sponge bath and dress herself with one arm. You can't imagine how thrilled she was. Whew. Tomorrow, if nothing worse befalls us, Mom will move into a nursing home for an undetermined length of time for the purpose of gaining strength and mobility through therapy. She's decided she does not want surgery on her arm, since the ortho doc could not guarantee that surgery would have a better outcome than no surgery. I agree with her decision completely. She also refused a bone marrow biopsy of her sternum which might give the oncologists the information they need to make a definite diagnosis of multiple myeloma. She clearly does NOT want to know if she has cancer. And that's OK, too. The Lord has really given me grace this week. I think we're through the worst of this episode, although I'm not looking forward to when she moves back into her independent living apartment. I do hope she's as fully prepared for that as possible, so that she doesn't have to depend on her kids for too much more than she did before this fall. A girl can hope, can't she? Without the wonderfully kind, encouraging, and entertaining comments you've all provided me, I'm not sure I could have kept my brilliantly positive outlook like I have. Honestly, I've been hanging on to thoughts of coming home, kissing my husband, thanking God for getting us through another day, and reading your remarks. You people are beautiful. I'm going to bed now, because as incredible as it seems, tomorrow is another day--a day during which I plan to regain all my previous enthusiasm for exclamation points. Whew and good-night. Posted by Katy on 08/11/05 Permalink Too Pooped To Pop (#82) I'd love to write something profound, or at least entertaining, but it's not gonna happen. We've just gotten Doug's mother settled after her near-death experience with abscesses on her diseased gall bladder and liver and the resulting surgery. I've got to say, she's done amazingly well for an 83-year-old lady. Her appetite is slowly coming back and she's in great spirits. She still isn't walking without her physical therapist at her side and a walker in front of her, but with continued therapy she may be able to lose the therapist and ditch the wheelchair. Doug's two sisters had scheduled vacation for the same time, starting a couple of days ago, leaving us to be responsible for Adele. Normally that would be OK, but nothing is normal where my life is concerned. Saturday, my mother fell in the lobby of her Funny Farm. She won't use the Lexus of Walkers that I purchased for her in February because it makes her "look old." She's absolutely going against medical advice by being so stubborn, because the bones throughout her body are at risk of spontaneous fracture. Plus she's often extremely dizzy--another big reason to use the walker. She broke her left arm and a rib on her right side. At first, the ER folks only x-rayed her arm, wrapped it, put it in a sling and said, "Make an appointment with your orthopedic doctor cause you're probably gonna need surgery. In the meantime, though, you're outta here!!!" The ER doc planned to send her home to her own apartment! This is a large lady--twice my size--who has a tough time getting out of bed even when nothing's broken, folks. There's no way under heaven she could have gone home without someone providing almost total care. Any guesses who that someone would be? I looked at my sibs and said, "No way. They're admitting her." Then I turned to Mom. "Didn't you say your right side hurts? I heard you tell the paramedics so..." "Well, yeah, but I think it's OK now. Besides, I don't want to complain." "Um...Mom, start complaining now and please, don't hold back." Then I turned to the nurse. "Get the x-ray people back in here to look at her ribs. You can see she has a long history of compression fractures and other broken ribs. She's not going anywhere till we know the extent of her problems." Sure enough, she'd broken a rib, too. And that minor detail got her admitted. What's keeping me from being admitted, I can't exactly say. I just got home from Extremely Long Day Number Three (after Extremely Long Month of July With My Mother-In-Law) and I'm nearly in tears from exhaustion. Mom caught me yawning as I wiped the oozing green infection from my left eye right before I left the hospital, and here's exactly what she said: "Katy, if you don't get better in very many areas, by the time you get to be 75, you're going to be a MESS!" And then I said, "I'd be fine if I didn't spend my whole life taking care of old ladies." Yes. I said those precise words. And it's not because I mind taking care of old ladies. But it is aging me before my time, and I wonder if the sacrifice I'm making means anything in the grand scheme of things. Mostly, I resent that Mom would intentionally risk falling, knowing that I must give up so much to help her when something like this happens. "So," she said, "it's time for the old ladies to die off?" "Not at all," I answered. "But it's time for you to start using your walker." I feel like my mother has really taken advantage of the fact that she has nice kids who will drop everything for her, so much so that she won't even do the obvious things she's able to do to help herself--like using an assistive device to stay on her feet instead of on the floor. And I'm getting tired of bailing her out. I guess that doesn't sound like I'm a very nice kid at all, but I just wanted to tell you how I really feel. If you would like to leave me a profound or entertaining comment, it would thrill my very soul. Thank you. Posted by Katy on 08/08/05 Permalink Buying Time (#83) When I get stuck waiting behind a long line of customers, I don't usually think happy thoughts. Nor do I do those inconspicuous bun-tightening exercises the magazines advise for my spare time. I don't peruse gossip rags to see what's up with Jen and Brad and the various Desperate Housewives. And I only rarely drool over the candy bars. Most of the time, I just think about how I'm in the wrong line. I'm compulsive that way, I guess. The minute I get in line with all the back-to-school-shopping crazies, I compare my position to the persons on my left and right. If they manage to inch forward in their lines faster than I do in mine--which always happens--I realize that once again I've managed to choose the check-out person who needs to change his cash register tape. Or fill her drawer with change. Or argue with a customer whose credit card gets rejected. Or call back to automotive for a price check. Yesterday was no different. I found myself only four people back in a line that looked promising. The customers in front of me didn't have a lot in their carts. And the check-out clerk was female, which only matters to me if I'm buying lingerie or another similarly feminine item. (I'd hate to embarass some poor guy, much less myself.) But my promising line did not move. Not once in ten minutes. The folks to my left and right had headed to Applebee's for lunch, where they laughed about the clueless lady in Lane Seven who never caught on that her clerk and the people in line in front of her were paid actors and she's on Candid Camera. Time passed. Stomachs growled. We all fraction-of-an-inched forward. When I was second in line, I got a look at the check-out girl. The customer had only purchased three t-shirts, all the same but different colors. The clerk scanned one, then began a process of folding it which I thought would take the rest of her natural life. She never raised her eyes from her task, never met the gaze of the customer, never responded to the giggles of the little boy who held his mother's hand. She's retarded, I thought. Or maybe autistic. The expression on her face remained static, but her focus on her task was intense. She began repeating the episode with the second identical shirt. First the scan, then the laborious, painfully meticulous folding. Finally, the third shirt. And then the exacting chore of obtaining payment, all without looking up from the counter. I noticed, from my still limited vantage point, that the girl's neck was as thick as her head, and that her wrists were the size of her upper arms. Yet she didn't seem to be overweight at all. The customer in front of me picked up her bag and I moved to put my things on the counter. I pushed my cart forward then, so that I stood in front of the clerk. Before I looked up, I said, "How are you today?" No response. Could she be completely deaf or mute and hold this job? I didn't think so, but why would she not respond? I lifted my eyes and found the answer. Covering her entire face, neck, arms, and hands were hundreds--no, thousands--of tumors. The smaller ones were the size and shape of peas, raised from the surface of her pod-like skin. The large ones were like marbles, nearly the size of her sad brown eyes. I waited a bit before trying again. We had plenty of time, she and I, since the t-shirts were on sale and I'd selected quite a few. "Is it always this busy in here?" I asked. She kept looking down, but shook her head from side to side. It was a start. "Because I've never seen it like this, except at Christmas time. I mean, I don't get over here all that often, but--" I figured she'd get sick of listening to me soon, and maybe, just maybe... "They came for the DVD players." Her voice muffled into one of my t-shirts. "I'm sorry. The what?" "The DVD players. Hundreds of people showed up at the opening for five crummy DVD players. I could have told them we wouldn't have enough..." "They came for the towels, too, you know," I said, amazed that sometimes small talk isn't so very small at all. "You're right," she said. "I've seen a lot of towels go through here. Kids leaving for college, I guess." "I came for the men's dress shoes," I said. She opened the box and held them up. "I didn't know about these. My husband needs some shoes to go with his suit. I'm going to go back there and look. Twenty bucks is a great price. Thanks." She didn't smile and she never really looked up. But we talked. In some strange way, we even connected. Who knew I was in the right lane all along? To think the check-out girl turned out to be worth way more than the wait. "Thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot in thee." Song of Solomon Posted by Katy on 08/04/05 Permalink Fear Factor (#84) If fear were a person, I picture it being like a good buddy who puts on about a pound per month, year after year. Now when I put on that kind of insidious weight (eating a mere 100 calories a day more than I need), it takes nearly a year before my clothes are too tight. People stop complimenting me on the old bod along the way, sure, but no one's exactly laughing behind my back, either. At least, I don't think so. And I sure wouldn't judge a friend if it happened to her. Like a chick whose jeans still have a little room to spare, fears start out manageable enough. When I first notice a new one, I tend to tell myself the thing I'm afraid of doing isn't something I'd want to do if I were courageous, anyway. So there. I am a pro at making excuses for fear, for giving it the benefit of the doubt. I figure if I treat it nicely, it'll return the favor. Besides, no responsible wife and mother with insufficient life insurance and two herniated discs in her neck would really consider bungee jumping, would she? And bungee jumping is tame compared to the extreme sports of these days. I'm scared to death to even think about the kind of stuff they do on Fear Factor--in fact, I'm so freaked out, I won't even watch the show--but since my particular interests and inclinations don't tend toward the physically adventurous, why does it matter? I believe it only matters if an insignificant fear (a fear of doing something you have no desire or need to do) gains a substantial amount of weight--so substantial that your emotional and spiritual health is affected. What if a fear of driving during rush hour on the stretch of highway your friends were killed on turns into a fear of driving at any hour on any highway? What if a simple (and common) fear of MRI machines turns surreptitiously into an irrational fear of suffocating after they seal your casket? Unfortunately, fear gains weight little by little, so slowly that its loyal friend doesn't notice until she tries to dress her fear up in something pretty for a big night out and nothing fits right anymore. Not that it would matter much. By the time your fear puts on that much weight, you're too frightened to leave home after dark. Posted by Katy on 08/03/05 Permalink Why I Finally Purchased A China Cabinet (#85) I keep my head behind the china cabinet, just so I know where it is. Now I wish I kept my breasts there, too. When you keep your body parts behind the china cabinet in an enormous white envelope, they're available to you at a moment's notice. Believe me, a moment's notice is all you'll ever have. Then, when your primary doctor or specialist or an ER doc directs you to have new films made, you've got the comps in your personal possession. You pull them out from behind the china cabinet, take them with you, and the interpreting radiologist has everything needed to figure out what the heck is up with you. Alas, I've neglected to add my previous mammograms to the MRIs of my head behind the china cabinet. I am stupidly, negligently comp-less. If you don't keep all your important films and medical records in your personal possession, you'll end up like me---waiting. I got a letter from my new imaging place on Saturday. My mammo showed a problem of some sort. They'll have to request my previous mammos from another imaging company. It'll take a while, the letter said, a good long while, but we'll send you another letter after we get the films and have compared the pics. Not to worry!! Oh, we've sent the radiologist's report to your doc, in case you're interested in knowing more...We'll be in touch again, soon! They don't know me too well. I'm not looking for a pen-pal and junk mail about something this important just doesn't work for me. I had my doc on the phone at 8 am Monday morning. "You have a nodule," he said. "Most of the time, these turn out to be benign." He knows me well, by the way. He knows that "most of the time" odds rarely work out in my favor. "It'll take about two weeks for them to get your previous films and compare them to the new ones. Then we'll decide what steps to take next." "I think I'll just go to the old joint, get my films, hand-deliver them to the new radiologist, and wait for his report." Yeah, my panties were in a bundle. "If you've got the time, that's not a bad idea." Time? TIME? We've all got a little less of it with each passing day, and I'm sure not going to fritter away two weeks waiting for a courier to show up. I don't mind spending a bit of that precious commodity if it ends up buying me even more. So I called the new imaging place to tell them I'd be picking up my old films and by some twist of calendar, the delivery had already happened. My case caught the courier at just the right time in his cycle. She said they would send me a letter within a couple of days about the comps. A couple of days I can handle. I think. Then again, I may drive over there right now... Posted by Katy on 08/02/05 Permalink Do You Remember Where You Were When…? (#86) If you're as old as I am, you have no problem remembering where you were when you first heard of JFK's death, or Robert Kennedy's, or Martin Luther King's. If you're younger, you probably still remember when you heard that Princess Diana had died, or Mother Teresa, or Erma Bombeck. I'll confess right here that I cried more over Erma than Diana or Teresa, but I know that's probably just me. Here's my question: Do you remember the first moment you realized that you could read? Were you hooked on phonics before it cost money? Did you sound out two consonants and one vowel all by yourself in Sister Sheila Ann's first grade class and come up with the word "cat"? Or "Mom" or "Dad" or "God"? Reading the name of "God" all by myself was a huge spiritual revelation to me, because it meant that I would not depend only on what others told me about Him, but also on what I read about Him on my own. Reading His name was the beginning of getting to know Him. Do you remember exactly how it felt when you discovered you could read not only one isolated word on the page, but also the very next one and then the one after that? At St. Elizabeth's School, our primer featured David and Ann, whose five-word adventures I could not wait to read day after day. They became, in a very real sense, my new best friends. Of all the mysteries--solved and unsolved--creation has to offer, I can't imagine one more rewarding than cracking the code of letters and words, sentences, paragraphs, and books. Do you remember where you were when you first put word and word together? Can you still feel the thrill? Posted by Katy on 07/28/05 Permalink And I Don’t Have To Go Right Now (#87) Yesterday was Cram-All-The-Medical-Tests-Into-One-Long-Session Day. The schedule of events called for an 8:30 pelvic ultrasound (to check out those pesky ovarian cysts I've sprouted my whole life), followed by a 9:00 mammogram (to which I bring nothing to the table), then a 9:30 MRI of my head (to check for a recurrence of brain tumors), and finally a 10:30 bone density scan (to see if I've inherited my mother's osteoporosis). I was instructed to begin drinking 32 ounces of water at 7:30, so that my bladder would be full to bursting by 8:30. I informed Doug upon awakening that I knew too much about my own itty-bitty-bladder syndrome to follow the written instructions. "I'm only drinking 16 ounces, starting at 8:00. Believe you me, my bladder will be the fullest one they've ever seen in their entire bladder-seeing careers." "Are you sure?" he said. "You wouldn't want to arrive half-empty and throw off the schedule of events." "Trust me. I have to take Xanax at exactly 8:30 to get relaxed enough to be able to survive the 9:30 MRI. But if I'm relaxed when the sonographer is pushing the thingie around on my pelvis and my bladder's too full, I'll pee on the table. Then where will I be?" So, I followed my plan. At 8:30, I scooted my pants down on the sonographer's table and she covered me with goop. Two seconds later she said, "Oh-oh. You must be dehydrated. The water you drank isn't getting to your bladder. See?" She pointed her screen to me to show how my bladder was only one-tenth full. "You'll have to sit in the lobby and drink some more--a lot more." Doug was waiting in the lobby. My eyes got big when I saw him and I shook my head. "Foiled again. Hand me that water bottle." I ran down the hall with it and my purse, which contained a Depends Adult Undergarment. I velcroed that puppy to my behind in the john before I guzzled another 16 ounces in two minutes flat. There's no way I can hold that much water when I'm on relaxation medication. You know what they say. "This is your bladder. This is your extremely overfull bladder on Xanax." Not a pretty picture. I ran back to the waiting room. Doug said, "They called your name. They're reversing the order of the tests while they wait for your bladder to fill." So I scurried back to the mammography room, where the very kind technician flattened my breasts between two steel rectangles first horizontally and then--after I said thank you very much it's been real I'm outta here--vertically. I slapped my blouse back on and opened the door in time for the sonographer to greet me with a smile. "Come on back. We'll get you taken care of before my next appointment arrives." By now the Xanax had kicked in big-time. I kept hoping it wouldn't wear off before the MRI began, though. I'd had several panic attacks just thinking about the tube, since my experiences with claustrophobia are legion. I didn't even mind advertising to the sonographer, as I eased down my jeans, that I'd resorted to Depends in case I'd had to wait any longer for the test. She rubbed the thingie across my pelvis and said, "Oh, you're filling up nicely now. Not quite enough yet, though...A little more water and you'll be all set." A little more water? Had she lost her mind? I yanked my jeans up again and ran back out to Doug. "Not yet. Where's that bottle?" I took another pill, just in case what I'd already taken started to wear off before the MRI ended. It was already 9:30, and I still hadn't done the 8:30 test. The door opened, and the bone density scan lady called me back. "This will only take ten minutes, and then you'll be ready for your ultrasound." I didn't have to take any clothing off, so she never knew about the Depends, unless I had a tell-tale Depends-line and didn't know it. By the time she finished with me, I was desperate to pee. I mean, I couldn't wait one second longer. But the door to the sonographer's room was firmly shut. Her new patient had arrived. I scurried back out to Doug. "It's going to be another half-hour! I can't wait to pee! All the water in the universe has come home to roost!" The attendant behind the desk said, "Can you go to the bathroom and just let out a tiny bit? And then stop? Because if you let out too much, you'll have to drink some more..." I'll just say it right here, since I'm saying everything else. The whole start-and-stop thing isn't my forte. Once the works are turned on, the Energizer Bunny scampers across the stage. But I had to TRY to go just a tiny bit and then stop, or I would die of a Burst Bladder. When I was eight years old, my grandmother told me a story of a young lady whose suitor came to call. (You may think this is a digression. Trust me, it's not.) She went with him in his horse-drawn buggy before using the outhouse first. The fellow was serious about courting and the ride turned into an all-afternoon affair. The poor girl was too embarassed to tell the gentleman that she needed to go BAD, and she died of a Burst Bladder. My entire life, I've let that story be a lesson to me. That is NOT how I plan to go. Thirteen minutes after I went just a little bit and then stopped, the sonographer called me back. This time, my bladder was filled to absolute perfection and she completed her job before I ruined my Depends. Which is good, because even though I was allowed to go to the bathroom after the ultrasound, an hour in an MRI machine is a VERY long time. The MRI was the least stressful I've ever had, perhaps because the events leading up to it were so frantic. I may have even taken a nap in the machine, Xanax-induced though it would have been. Then Doug and I had omelettes at a breakfast dive before coming on home. The rest of the day--one of those days when you're commanded not to operate heavy machinery like the washing machine or the vacuum cleaner or the cordless phone--I found myself relaxed and, um, relieved. The piece de resistance of the whole kooky day came right before bedtime, as we watched the teasers for the local news. "Giant rats are running rampant through Brookside, and residents want them gone. Plus, why does this man keep an amputated foot in a bucket on his porch?" Yeah. Yesterday turned out to be a lot more fun than I expected. We even laughed outselves to sleep. Posted by Katy on 07/27/05 Permalink Another Weekend, Another Wedding (#88) There's a strange period in life that starts when you're approximately thirty years old and ends around your forty-fifth birthday. Most people won't do you the favor of giving you advance notice about this phenomenon. But I'm not most people. Before the age of thirty, it's likely that you and a ton of your friends will get married and have children of your own. During those fantastic years of youth and vigor and charm and beauty when you're in your twenties, you'll go to a wedding every weekend all summer long. You'll throw showers and bachelor parties for your buddies, and cycle through enough bridesmaid dresses and tuxedos to open your own gently-worn boutique. While you're totally occupied with the raising of your own children, though, you'll find yourself invited to very few weddings. Very. Very. Few. You'll feel a little out of it, frankly. "Why don't I get invited to anything fun anymore?" you might ask. It's because all of your friends are in the same boat, that's why. If you ask around, none of them are partying down, either. They don't own a single dressy outfit that fits, except for the one they keep on hand in case some old-timer croaks. The years will pass. You will not have time to glance in a mirror during your thirties and forties, and perhaps that is for the best. And then, finally, when the first peer of your oldest child becomes engaged, the invitations will start flowing again and won't stop until...well, I'm not sure when. Even I'm not that old yet. Here's the really strange part about all this: When the invites start trailing in--slowly at first but picking up speed as all your own children reach marriageable age--you won't quite realize how much time has passed since you were the cute thing in the halter dress catching the bouquet or the handsome young man peeling the garter from his bride's leg with his teeth. In fact, unless you're paying attention, you'll put on your party clothes, look in the mirror, and believe with all the sincerity in your heart that you're a genuine hottie. You'll see the same gorgeous thing smiling back at you that you last took a good look at fifteen years ago. You'll imagine--trust me on this--that no time at all has elapsed since you first took on the world. You will not realize until you arrive at the wedding and find that your entire generation has been displaced by young, vigorous, charming, and beautiful specimens--all of whom are your children's ages--that you are over the hill. When this happens to you, as it surely will, do not despair! All is not lost! Console yourself with your fond memories and a few fast dances. Remember this: for all its wants, maturity has the distinct advantage of having experienced every age up to and including the one you're experiencing now. Who else but an old chick can remember when she looked really good and, at the very same time, imagine that she still does? Posted by Katy on 07/23/05 Permalink Jesus, Mercy… (#89) This morning I heard a siren out on the main road. We don't live within city limits, so sirens are few and far between. It must have startled me back to my childhood in the city, when sirens were much more of a rarity there than they are now. I found myself instinctively reacting like a little girl. Back in 1959, when I started school, Catholic children learned that when a siren rang out, we should pray the words, "Jesus, mercy." And not only that: We were trained to bow our heads each time we uttered the name of Jesus. So I prayed for the situation out on the main road, for the person in trouble or in pain. Just those two words, really. "Jesus, mercy." But I bowed my head when I spoke His name out loud. And then I wondered: How often do I truly bow my head--or my heart--to the beautiful name of Jesus? How often do I simply cast myself upon His tender mercies which--the Scripture assures me--are new every morning? I felt like a little girl again when I bowed at the name of Jesus. I saw myself wearing my blue sashed party dress with the crinoline petticoat, curtsying before the King. Posted by Katy on 07/22/05 Permalink When Duty Calls, Do You Let It Go To Voice Mail? (#90) Twenty-six years ago this month, long before any episode of a TV show was billed as one which would "change your life forever," I got addicted to The Guiding Light. Scotty had just been born the month before. As newborns go, he was one unhappy camper. And the two of us had endured a traumatic birth experience. Many weeks went by before I could sit without my plastic donut beneath my derriere. Looking back, if I'd only had two choices--Scientology or the Brooke Shield's method--I would have skipped out on the tax-exemption and gone straight for the drugs. But neither of those paths were de riguer in those days. In the old days, soap operas were the drug of choice. I watched The Guiding Light for five guilty years, until baby Kevin turned six months old. That summer, Scott wondered why he still had to go into his room for "reading time" in the afternoon, when he clearly didn't intend to take a nap like Carrie and Kevin. He sneaked into the living room during my "story" one day and witnessed Reva in bed with Josh. "This isn't a kid's show, Scotty," I said, flipping off the TV. "Your quiet time's not over yet." "I don't get it," he answered. "Why is it OK for you to watch it, but not for me?" He had me there, folks. I went cold turkey that hot July day. The Guiding Light didn't change my life forever, or maybe in some weird way, it did. Two lines were spoken almost every day on that show (and on every other soap opera, I'm sure) which have stuck with me all these years. "I'll always be there for you" and "I need to get on with my life." I used to laugh out loud at both these lines, spoken as they were by shady, non-committal characters who had no intention of being "there" even tomorrow, and who didn't have a "life" to get on with, either. Sometimes, one character would spout off both of these cliches in a single episode, making me wonder why someone didn't come up with a third, middle-of-the-road alternative. I've wondered ever since. In some twisted way, my entire life has consisted of bouncing back and forth between "I'll always be there for you" and "I need to get on with my life." And I'd hate to admit how often I can swing from one to the other in the course of a single day. It's a dichotomy, isn't it? The commitment and desire to "be there," wherever there turns out to be, for our loved ones when they need our care and support can turn into a life's work, precluding even our own health and welfare if we aren't careful. On the other hand, "getting on with our lives" smacks suspiciously of the kind of selfish and lonely pursuit which, if it means leaving others and their needs behind, can't end well. Or can it? I'm sure there's a balance, and I'm sure I haven't found it. Have you? If the year was 1979 and you found yourself addicted to The Guiding Light, which character would you most identify with--the one who says "I'll always be there for you," or the one who says "I need to get on with my life"? Or have you found the balance? If so (or if not...) please share! As for me, I stopped laughing at those two soap opera lines years ago. Because as silly as they sounded, they both ended up changing my life forever. Posted by Katy on 07/21/05 Permalink She Speaks, Therefore I Blog (#91) I haven't kept in very good touch with my own siblings these past few weeks, because of Doug's mom being so ill. I do, however, talk to my mother every other day, and she fills me in on who's doing what. My brother John and his wife moved three weeks ago into a fabulous house they've built. I haven't seen the place since it was still under construction, but Mom's keeping me current. "John says that they've already found one 'mistake' in the house. The master bedroom closet is way too small. It's the size of the bedroom John had growing up, which sounds big enough to me, but he says it's a problem." "Well, that's too bad," I say. "I'm sure they'll manage somehow." At this point in the conversation, I figured we'd pretty much covered John's closet shortfall, but no. Mom pressed onward. "I asked him whether he'd taken out a mortgage, and he said of course, they had." "Well, yeah..." "And then I told him for a lousy two dollars per month more, he could have had the closet of his dreams." "Actually, that's not too far from the truth..." I agreed. "He laughed at me when I said it, like I don't know how the world works. Does he think I've lived this long for nothing? So then I told him, 'Forget you. I'll tell Katy my idea and she'll blog it.' So there." I might be her new favorite. Posted by Katy on 07/18/05 Permalink Perspective (#92) Doug's mother is out of the hospital and back in her assisted-living apartment. They're giving her tons of extra help and importing both physical and occupational therapists to get her moving again. So far, she's using a wheelchair to get around, but I expect that may change this week. A couple days ago, Doug's sister Nancy was at the apartment helping out. My mother-in-law said, "Gee, I hope I get my strength back soon. It's just not right to be so weak and dizzy and sick when you're only 53." Nancy (who's 50) waited a minute before she said anything, hoping Adele would self-correct. Finally, Nancy said, "Well, Mom, you're not 53. You're 83." "Oh," Adele said, "that explains a LOT!" Posted by Katy on 07/18/05 Permalink Who Moved My Panties? (#93) I know, I know. I've promised time and again not to fixate publicly on various and sundry articles of underwear, but sometimes exceptions to even wonderful rules must be made. Believe me, I only make exceptions when it is in the best interest of humanity at large--and of my readers in particular--to do so. That's the kind of woman I am. For the sake of the common good, then, I will proceed with telling you the story of how all my underwear went missing--and not just mine. My husband's, too. You should know, first of all, that we have long since moved past the underwear "salad days." Remember those lean times, when you were young and had just recently struck out on your own, and weren't being paid peanuts? Remember when you could barely keep body and soul together in the food department, you were so darned poor? When you can't afford a couple boxes of macaroni and cheese and some saltine crackers, you sure can't afford new underwear. Time was when I only owned a few pair myself, and pretty chintzy ones at that. But that was then. These days, I'm panty-rich. I'll bet I've got upwards of two dozen pairs. Panties are no object, you might say. So imagine how mystified I've been the past week or so as I've watched my pile of panties on the closet shelf get smaller and smaller until finally today I put on the very last pair. I've made a couple trips to the laundry room, where a pile of recently laundered undies should have been, but no. Not a single pair. I've peered into the hamper and only seen a scant load of clothes, not a bit more, and figured not enough had accumulated for me to worry about it yet. Besides, who has the time for domesticity? Doug and I have been busy with runs to the hospital every day for the past nineteen, and we've barely (ouch!) met ourselves coming and going. I haven't kept up with the laundry, and yet--weirdly-- none seems to be accumulating, either. That would be my idea of a welcome miracle right about now, if only I could figure out where my panties are. "Doug, I'm on my last pair of underwear." "Me, too." "Where do you suppose they've run off to?" "You got me. Hanging out with the stray socks, maybe?" "Do we have that book, 'Who Moved My Cheese?' Maybe it would give us a clue about our underwear." Yeah. A business book. That's the ticket. "That reminds me. I've been craving a little something from the cheese family again..." "Babe, forget your cheese! We have bigger fish to fry! Pretty soon we're going to be wandering around like the Rainman, muttering 'Definitely not wearing my underwear...' What's happening to us?" He opened the dryer. "Here's a load that never got folded. Do you remember washing the whites?" I looked at him like he was crazy. "You're kidding, right? I don't remember my name anymore. You think I remember doing laundry?" He pulled the clean load out and counted. Six pairs for him and seven for me. So far, so good. Then I got a bright idea. "Hey, what about those bags we kept packing to spend nights at the hospital?" Between plastic grocery bags, brief cases, computer bags, totes, duffels, and purses, we unearthed five more for him and eight more for me. Plus several missing toothbrushes and a couple $20 bills. "We're still coming up short," he said, bending over the half-full hamper for a look. And then it hit us. Doug's mother went into the hospital right after Kevin moved out, taking all his laundry with him. Since then, our pre-worn outer garments have been slung over a clothing rack in our closet and the underwear alone had ended up in the hamper. Without Kevin's dirty clothing overflowing the hamper to give me the incentive to do the laundry, our dirty underwear had languished for nearly two weeks. I dug through the hamper and came up with the missing panties, folks. Mystery solved. Now if I could just find my own deoderant, I wouldn't have to smell like Right Guard anymore. Posted by Katy on 07/12/05 Permalink First Date (#94) Twenty-nine years ago tonight, Doug and I had our first date. We went to an all-you-can-eat joint called Joe's Barn. Doug shelled out four bucks for each of us, but I'm afraid he lost money on me. The last thing a girl wants to do on her first date with the man she's going to marry is eat all she can eat. Yeah. I knew he was the man for me the minute we met, fully 2 1/2 years before our first date. Our first date, by the way, was our only date before we got engaged six weeks later. What did we do during those six weeks, you might ask? Burned up the phone lines between Missouri and Scotland, that's what. By the time I returned home, Doug must have thought he'd made too large of an investment in our relationship not to pop the question, cause he didn't waste five minutes proposing. This morning I reminded him of today's memory. "Too bad Joe's Barn isn't there anymore, or we could go celebrate." "True," he said, "but 29 years ago, we didn't have Starbucks. Now we can celebrate every day." And then he pulled me into his arms and kissed me, way more romantically that we could have gotten away with while carrying our own trays of fried chicken and cinnamon rolls at Joe's Barn. His enthusiasm nearly took my breath away. "We didn't do THAT 29 years ago today," he said. "So, you think we've got it better now, huh?" "Oh, yeah." From the minute we met, I knew. Posted by Katy on 07/08/05 Permalink Page 40 of 84 pages « First < 38 39 40 41 42 > Last »


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Personal blog of christianwriter & fallible momKaty McKenna Raymondin Kansas City, Missouri

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