jennethink

ON LOSING WEIGHT

December 2005 I went on a cruise with my mother and some of her friends.  I took the place of someone who – because of health reasons – had to cancel at the last minute.  What good luck!  I was excited to go.  Excited that I could go.  Excited that I had a career that allowed me time to go and a husband that was all like “Are you kidding me??? That’s awesome!  GO!” when I approached him with the idea.

I’m not sure why but on this cruise I decided to face a couple of fears.  I don’t have many fears.  The ones I have some consider a bit irrational.  I do not.  One of my fears, for example, is being eaten by a crocodile.  Not just because it would surely result in my death but because of the WAY crocodiles eat their victims.  They catch them, you know.  And then they roll them over and over again … sometimes letting them get away for a minute and then grabbing them again and rolling rolling rolling.  This results in your death by drowning.  Is that bad?  Yes.  That is bad.  But it gets worse.  After they capture you in their gynormous freakin teeth and roll the life right out of you they take your dead bloated carcass and stuff you under a stump or rock or somewhere underwater where you can rot.  And do you know why?  Because they LIKE TO EAT THEIR MEAT AFTER IT HAS ROTTED.  That’s how they are.  There is nothing good about a great bloody croc.  Nothing.  Boots.  Other than that, nothing.

Sometimes people, upon learning my crocodile fear, tease me.  They say Don’t you live in Missouri? Yuk yuk and I say, Yes. And they say, Is there a big crocodile problem in Missouri? Yuk yuk.  And I say, Whatever, Turd,  Because crocodiles can walk many many miles.  And it only takes one smartass flushing a tiny pet crocodile down the john and next thing you know I’m lunching on the Plaza and hey here comes my worst nightmare out of the sewer.  And I don’t mean a woman from Johnson County on a shopping bender.

So I prepare.  I think about whatever I would do if I ever came across a croc.  I have plans.  And contingency plans. And contingency plans for my contingency plans.  I have to, because my mother moved to Florida and expects me to come see her every so often.  And I do.  I even swim in her pool.  But I have a whole strategy laid out in my mind for when a crocodile on a rampage comes flying across the golf course, crashing through the screened porch and slamming into the pool. 

Because That. Shit. Happens.

My crocodile fear is NOT the fear I decided to face on the cruise with my mother.  In fact, that entire crocodile story has nothing to do with this post other than to illustrate how well thought out my fears are.  Because I want you to understand when I say I have a fear and I decide to face it I want you to really KNOW what I mean.  I’m at least a few lifetimes away from facing my crocodile fear.  I did, however, have an opportunity to go Snuba Diving.  And this, I figured, would be a good start to facing a fear I have about the ocean.  And if you think the crocodile fear is well thought out you should see the thing I’ve got going in my brain about the ocean.

Snuba is a poor man’s SCUBA.  Pretty simple, really.  You use a regulator to breathe just like in SCUBA diving but your tank of air floats on the surface of the water in its own little raft and a looooooooooooooong hose carries the air from the tank to you.  Because of this, you can only go down about 30 feet – which may not sound like much but remember that’s 30 feet UNDERWATER pulling air through a straw and not being able to go OH MY GA! outloud when you see something cool.  So there is some danger involved.  Not much, but some.  A group of us decided to try out this Snuba thing somewhere in the Caribbean where they are known for keeping all their equipment in tip top shape and never having accidents.  Well, it wouldn’t be facing a fear if it was TOTALLY safe now would it?

So I did it.  I went through the little crash course, got suited up, got my regulator, fins, etc. and got in the water.  The very first thing we had to kick kick kick and swim out a ways … pushing our little tanks in their little rafts in front of us.   This was important because the “really cool stuff” was a ways out.  So there I was. Pushing my raft.  And kicking.  And kicking.  And    kick   ing.   I have never kicked so hard in all my life.  And I felt like I was going exactly nowhere.  After about a thousand kicks I had gone a good 10 feet.   I was exhausted and absolutely sure I was going to drown.  And that was fine as long as no Caribbean crocodile was around to shove my corpse under a log.  I have to be honest, I was a little embarrassed.  Even with the big fins on my feet I was sooooo tired in just a nanosecond.  Man, I thought, I must be in worse shape than I thought.  But I’d come this far and my thighs spontaneously combusting wasn’t going to keep me from doing this, so I kept kicking.  And eventually was told I could stop kicking and go underwater.  Which I did.  I put that regulator in my mouth and went right underwater.  Down I went.  Glub glub glub. 

It was awesome.  It took some getting used to but man that breathing underwater thing is better than butter.  I loved it.  Loved it.   I could have stayed down there all day.  Except for that fact that, you know, I have to talk sometime so eventually, I came up. I hated coming up out of the water.  Because being underwater was so cool but also because I hated the idea that I was going to have to kick back to shore.   Shore seemed too far away.  I wasn’t sure I’d make it.  But I started anyway.

Kickkickkickkic………..k.

It was about this time one of the instructors said something amazing.  I had to ask him to repeat it as I could hear him over my own puffing.  What was that? I said.  Take off your weight belt!  He said.   

Now.  I don’t really know much about SCUBA or Snuba but apparently one of the things they outfitted me with was a weight belt and not the kind that supports your back so you can do dead lifts, the kind that has WEIGHTS in it.  I think this is so you can go down in the water – which makes sense because after all, that is the point.  I was reluctant to stop to remove my weight belt as I had a tiny bit of momentum but I stopped anyway and reached down and unhooked this thing around my waist and with the instructors help heaved it on the little raft and began kicking again. 

And I shot thought the water like a fish!

WOW!  I had no clue it was holding me back THAT MUCH. It was like a toddler around my waist had been cut free.  I had no idea how exhausted I was carrying that weight around.    Here I was thinking I was a bad swimmer when really, I just had this REALLY HEAVY THING holding me back. And now that it was gone – holy mackerel!  I felt weightless, limitless …. at ease.

It was beautiful.

This past Monday I stopped by my oncologist’s office to pick up a copy of the report from my PET scan on the Friday before.  I tried to act all nonchalant as I took the sealed envelop from the receptionist.  I wasn’t two feet out the door before I’d ripped the envelop open and began reading the 3 pages of information. I stood in the hallway just outside the on-site pharmacy and read each word.  Elevator doors dinged open and shut.  People walked around me.  I caused a log-jam at one point.  I couldn’t help it.  I was nailed to the floor.  My eyes flew around the paper.  Seeking.  Finding.  Seeking.  Finding.  Seeking.

Finding.

No indication…
Decreased mass…
No uptake…
Improvement…
No evidence.

And just like that I was back swimming in the middle of the Caribbean - effortlessly.  Each word was like dropping a weight.  A weight I didn’t even know was there.  Up until I read those words I had no idea how hard I’d been kicking to move just a few feet every day.  I had no idea how much effort it was taking to stay afloat, to enjoy the surroundings.  To breathe.  Of course I knew I was still worried about the cancer not being gone.  Of course I knew it was in the back of my head. 

Of course.

I just had no idea how heavy it was.

And now I’m weight-less, limitless.  Free.

WHY DOES THIS GIRL LOOK SO HAPPY?

PSYCHOLOGY 101

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday who just finished radiation therapy for breast cancer.  Prior to the radiation, she had chemo.  During chemo she lost all of her hair.   It has started to grow back now.  I saw her at church yesterday morning and rubbed her head.  It is so very soft that head of hers.  I laughed when I approached her because the second she saw me coming she tilted her head down toward me.  “FEEL MY HAIR!” she cried and I rubbed away.  “I LOVE IT!”  I said.  Because I know.  I know the joy of tiny newborn hairs and the pride and excitement that comes with those few hairs.  And she knows I know.  So I rubbed and she laughed.  And she looked up at me and we both grinned.

It’s like a secret handshake, a password, an entrance to the bat cave.  I’d throw a gang sign if I could.

After I got my fill of her velour top plate I asked her where things stood. 

Chemo complete
Radiation done
Burns healing

“And?” I said.

“And just take regular doses of herceptin and that’s it.”  She said. 

“That’s it?” I said.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean that’s it.  That’s the end of treatment.  I’m all done!”  She beamed.  And I beamed.  All done.  No more treatment.  We stood there beaming.  Wow.  All beams.  The both of us.  Smiling.  Beaming.  She and I.  Beam beam beam.

I was faking it.

In an instant hot, burning angry was pounding through me.  I had a smile on my face but I was furious.  It happened the moment she shrugged and said “that’s it!”  Not angry at her.  No no.  Not AT her.  I could never be angry AT her.  I was angry FOR her.

As we stood there beaming I was thinking,  How can they do that to her?  What’s the deal?  You don't just tell someone they have cancer, stop their life, make them put everything on hold, send their family crying into their pillows, have her question if she'll see her child grow into an adult, put her through chemotherapy, make her question her faith, sending her screaming at the top of her lungs - which only comes out in racking sobs – when she can’t do something as simple as climb the stairs without getting winded or stand in church without her knee buckling.  You don’t  make her husband worry,   put tears into the eyes of friends whom she's never seen cry, poison her with chemicals designed to kill, rip out the lining of her stomach, take away her hair, her hope and her dignity, put her though the crushing pain, make her feel embarrassed and  weak and embarrassed.  And weak.  Then one day, just one fine day tell her she's done.  It’s all over, there's nothing more to do.  You can't do that to her.  How do you expect her to go on?  What? Do you want her to just slide back into her life when every thing, every fiber, every thought is changed?  You want her to pick up where she left off?  You expect her to just go forward with renewed joy?  You don't do that to a person.  You can't just do that.  You don't do that. 

By this time she was inside church enjoying the service.
I was standing in the bathroom stall wiping tears from my chin and trying not to smudge my mascara.

I think it’s call projecting.

WHY THE NURSE WHO STARTS THE IV LINE WILL NEVER BE INVITED TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY. EVER.

BIRTH OF A WRITER

I really only remember one fight my parents ever had.  It was enough.  It was a doozie.  It was a traveling fight, starting in their bedroom, moving to the kitchen, spilling out the back door and across the paddock to the workshop where my father hung many of his tools along the walls in the narrow rooms.  They weren’t hanging for long.  My mother saw to that. Don’t want to listen to me?  Maybe you’ll listen to this!  And they came crashing down.  Back across the paddock, back into the house – this time through the front door, back into the kitchen. You want to make a mess of my space? I’ll make a mess of yours! and the next thing I knew a dinner plate took flight and slammed against the panty wall and exploded. 

Like I said, it was a doozie.

A few years ago I became somewhat of a regular at a Greek restaurant near my home.  The food is mediocre but the entertainment – which includes a belly dancer and the restaurant owner who could double as Johnny Cash’s grandfather walking around pouring Ouzo down your throat – is enough to keep you coming back again and again.  I love going there.  I love listening to the music, watching the dancer, joining in.  Every now and again the owner is overcome with such joy and alcohol that he begins smashing plates on the floor.  In a joyful frenzy he tosses one after the other at the feet of the busboys dancing in a line around the dance floor.  The intent is pure but the sound for a moment makes me seize up.  and I blame that, like most things, on my parents.  The sound of those many breaking plates in the Greek restaurant are nothing compared to my memory of the sound of that single plate smashing into the wall.  A cymbal crash, a sonic boom.  So loud.  The kitchen was small, enclosed and the crash echoed. That sound of shattering was frightful.  And I think it startled them both. It surely startled me standing alone in the living room.  The shouting stopped.  I watched my father turn on his heel and storm to the bedroom.  I expected him to slam the door.  But he didn’t.  Instead he came out with his keys. 

Oh God.  I stood completely still. For a hundred years I stood completely still.  I was made of wood, concrete, marble.  A statue. Let dust cover me and weeds grow up through the floorboards and root me to the floor.  I would not move one inch toward him or toward her.  If I just stand here I’ll be forgotten, unremembered, ignored.  And I won’t have to do what I’m about to be asked to do.

At the door he turned.  Are you coming?

And there it was.  The Decision.

It was never said, Do you side with me or your rake-throwing mother? But that’s the question I felt being asked.  It was an impossible situation.  If I went with him, my mother would feel abandoned.  If I stayed, my father would feel betrayed.  And although I’d never been faced with this choice before, I knew somehow that’s what I was being asked to do.  I was being asked to pick.

My parents had an amazing relationship.  Up until this point I’d barely seen them argue.  I’d seen them disagree, but I’d always seen them figure it out too.  Our home was bursting with laughter and teasing and all the things that made my house the one that all my friends wanted to come to after church even though there was just as much stall cleaning as there was story telling and banjo playing.  I always felt secure in my home.  Even though I grew up knowing my father had a terminal illness it never worried me, not really.  I never really thought about it.  Girls at school – talking about their own dysfunctional families - once asked me who I would go with if my parents got a divorce and I answered. I picked one of my two parents.  I made a choice. But I didn’t mean it.  I only answered because that’s what everyone was doing – choosing a side, but I knew deep down I’d never really have to.  It was just a game.  And now, here I was.  Actually being asked to make a choice – a momentary choice, but a choice nonetheless. 

Mom’s pride and joy

Or Daddy’s little girl

Which?

I, of course, went with my father.  Not because I liked him more, understood him better or sided with him in the argument – hells bells I don’t know now nor did I know then what the fight was about – but because he was less forgiving than my mother.  He was faster to anger and slower to remorse.  This is the truth.  And I supposed deep down I knew it would be easier to get back in mom’s good graces than back into Dad’s.  Besides, I had the silly notion if I went with my father, I could negotiate a truce between the two of them.  And I tried.  I laid out all the reasons why he should apologize as we tore down the gravel driveway.  I counted off reasons on my fingers why this was no big deal.  I told him to remember how much he loved my mom and I told him that it couldn’t be so bad.  It’s not so bad, right? I said.  And I remember him driving.  Facing forward.  He never looked my way.  It was like riding next to a stone.

I pressed on.  Determined.  I explained why mom was probably so upset and I asked him to see it from her side and, believe it or not, I told him about a time at school when I was mad at a friend and how we worked it out.  Eventually, after a very long silence, he spoke, This isn’t something you could possibly understand, he said.  And I turned to look out the window.  I was hurt by his comment.  He acted like I didn’t know anything.  Like I wasn’t paying attention.  As if.  I let two or three fields go by before I spun back around and shouted, I’m not dumb you know, I’m not dumb, maybe YOU’RE the one who doesn’t understand!  He said nothing.  He’d returned to rock.

It’s an impossible situation to put a child into. 

We ran some meaningless errand taking the long way to town and the longer way back.  We didn’t speak another word to each other. When we got home I bolted from the car and ran inside as fast as I could.  My mother was sitting at the kitchen table.  Before I could get one word out about anything my father came up behind me and quietly asked my mom if he could speak to her in the bedroom.  Together they went in.

And closed the door.

Up to this point, this story is nothing remarkable.  Truly.  I think everyone can recall at least one horrendous fight between their parents.  At least one – maybe the remarkable thing is that I can recall ONLY one.  Parents aren’t perfect.  I’ve just recently realized they are human and we, as parents, are not given a handbook of any kind or initiation into sainthood upon the arrival of our children.  Although I’ve said it before and will say it again, any woman who can push an 8 pound anything out her hooha deserves sainthood.  At least.   The remarkable part of this story comes in what took place after that bedroom door opened back up. 

They apologized.  Not too each other – although I’m sure they’d done that already – they apologized to me and to my sister.  Sat us right down on the couch and apologized.  Apologized for the fight, for arguing in front of us, for making us worry.  My mother apologized for raising her voice and my father apologized for yelling at our mother and breaking her dishes – and he then told us that the first dish he pulled out of the cupboard was a old plastic plate we had and we all laughed thinking of what a fizzle it would have been for him to fling that plastic excuse for a plate across the room only to have it clatter wimpily to the floor.

And then we all got back to being a family.

Sometime later when we were alone and working side-by-side in the barn my father said, I want you to know I appreciated what you had to say to me in the car.  It was good, he said.  It was good stuff Jen Ben.  And it was then my turn to be as silent as stone.  I didn’t want to break the spell.  Good golly molly, tell me that every moment of every day and it still won’t be enough.  Give me that kind of positive feedback and I'll shut up forever.  It was awesome.  Of course I knew then as I know now that I wasn’t responsible for the resolution of my parents’ argument.  I knew more likely than not my father was just trying to affirm me, validate me, make sure he and I were okay – that I wasn’t injured by what he said, by his telling me I couldn’t possibly know what I was talking about.  But there was a tiny grain of a thought in my brain that maybe something I said HAD helped.  Maybe my talking and presenting my ideas to my dad DID change things.  Maybe I WAS in a tiny, tiny way responsible.  Maybe it mattered.  It was weird to think something I said could actually change the way adults behave.  And thrilling.  And it was the first time I can remember thinking,

Maybe I have something to say.

.

.

OH MY

If there is a better use for YouTube, I'd like to know what it is.

I'D BE MUCH MORE CONCERNED ABOUT HER CHOICE OF READING MATERIAL WERE IT NOT FOR THIS CONVERSATION

Online chat between me and The Kid last evening.  Please keep in mind, she’s 8.  Also, please insert a good 5 to 7 minute pause after I respond before her response – each time. “It’s hard to find the keys, Jenné!” 

I copy and pasted the chat here EXACTLY as it was – other than, of course, changing our screen names.  I’m not that dumb.

TheKid: you there?

TheStepmom: yes i am!

TheKid: well  then,guess  what

TheStepmom: what?

TheKid: i   learned a  NEW  word

TheStepmom: you did? a brand new word?  will you tell me what it is please?

TheKid: yes  i  will!  it's  petroglyphs 

And that’s when I fell out of my chair.  I mean seriously.   Petroglyphs?   That doesn’t even show up as a word on spellchecker!  She’s a genius I tell you.  A genius.

And a fashionable one at that!

EVERYTHING'S COMING UP ROSIE

I used to have one dog.  That dog was named Rosie.  Rosie was a basset hound and a darn good one.  When she was little, she would drink water and her ears would hang in the bowl.  She howled when sirens went by.  When she would run, she would sometimes topple over because she tripped on her big brown ears.  She barked with a cute little woooooff wooooooff, her doggie mouth in a perfect O, at strangers, friends, even me when I arrived home.  At the time I lived in Midtown in a 6th floor apartment.  No yard – no problem.  Our walks around my (somewhat sketchy) neighborhood were some of her favorite times.  There was SO MUCH to sniff.  New smells daily.  New people, new tossed McDonald’s bags, new empty beer cans, new homemade crack pipes.  Always something! Rosie was leery of new people and would often give a low warning wooooooooff when we were passing someone she considered suspicious.   Keep your distance, she seemed to be saying.  We don’t know him, she’d warn me.   Watch that one.  She was good company.  I don’t know that I’d walk those streets without her.

One night Rosie started acting strange.  Instead of trotting everywhere around the apartment and getting underfoot, she was laying very still.  She wouldn’t get up when I called her.  Her eyes, which always looked a little sad, looked downright forlorn.  She got worse throughout the night. By 4 a.m. I knew something was very very wrong.  With much effort, I loaded her up and took her to the emergency vet.  Diagnosis: a blown disc in her back.  Rosie needed surgery. 

Surgery was successful.  The disc was repaired.  However, she couldn’t walk.  Not initially.  That would be something that would come back in time.  “It may be a few months before she has full use of her back legs,” the young vet told me.  I didn’t care.  Rosie had seen me though a lot.  I wouldn’t let her down now.  It probably would have been harder to deal with but Rosie didn’t seem to care or notice that her back legs didn’t work.  Within days of surgery she was pulling herself all around my hardwood floored apartment.  Rosie apparently had a lot of upper body strength and could easily haul her own weight around - a trait I highly admire seeing as though I can barely lift my own spirits without getting winded.  Pullpulllpull into the kitchen … pullpullpull – into the bedroom …. Pullpullpull WOOOOOOOOFfff – someone is at the door – I could hardly keep up with her. 

Unfortunately, she couldn’t pull this same move outside.  Outside, where there was grass and – more often – concrete, Rosie was stymied.  This was a bummer.  I hated it that Rosie couldn’t enjoy her walks like we used to.  Hated it.  I considered going out daily and gathering up some of her favorite items to bring them back to the apartment to sniff.  But to be honest, a white girl gathering discarded trash and hypodermics in my neighborhood might appear a bit – oh I don’t know – suspicious to the regulars.  So I crossed that thought right off my mental idea list and went back to thinking.  And then I landed on an idea.  I bought a wagon – a red radio flyer wagon.  She might not be able to walk, but she could ride.  Once a day I’d load Rosie in the wagon and we’d go traipsing off around the neighborhood.  Occasionally I’d stop so she could lean her big head over and take a whiff of the ground.  I was hesitant at first but you’d be surprised how much crack dealers love a dog in a wagon.  I’d never felt safer.

The next couple of months were crazy.  Thankfully, the apartment had an elevator.  However, there were still steps that had to be climbed in order to get outside.  Rosie not being a small dog and neither of us having good backs proved to make things a little challenging.  Necessity as they say is the mother of invention.  You wouldn’t believe the crap I invented in order to get that 70 pound dog up and out of that apartment.  But I did it.  And every day we’d go for a “walk”, every day we’d hear “here come that dog in that wagon!” from our neighbors and every day she’d get a little better.

One day I was walking from the living room to the kitchen.  Rosie decided to come with me.  Instead of dragging herself, she did the amazing – she hopped up on all fours and walked.  Two steps.  Only two.  But she did it.  Upon completing these two steps, Rosie’s backside flopped over again and she paddled her way the rest of the way into the kitchen to get the 20 biscuits I fed her while I told her what a brave and strong dog she was!  That was a turning point.  Each day she’d walk a few more steps.  Pretty soon she was walking more than dragging and within a week we parked the red wagon once and for all. 

Our inaugural walk sans wagon was one to behold.  We proudly paraded up and down the broken sidewalks of our neighborhood. I was as puffed as a pastry and Rosie trotted with her head up and NOT sniffing a good 30% of the time – a huge amount to say the least. I wondered, ignorantly, if we’d get a reaction.  Of course we got a reaction.  And the reaction we got was hysterical.  That basset got cat calls.  Everyone was very impressed.  Very impressed indeed.  There were a few iffy moments when Rosie would topple to the side and groups of people sitting on the porch or standing on the corner would collectively groan.  But quickly enough, and un-phased, Rosie would be UP!  And the crowd would cheer!  YAY!  And then they’d laugh.  And I’d laugh.  We’d laugh at ourselves and our hero basset, who remained un-phased, untarnished and would trot ahead to the next deliciously smelling hunk of garbage by the curb.

Everybody loves an underdog.

Soon after that, I got a puppy.  Another dog to keep Rosie company.  It was the vet’s idea – something to help Rosie stay active.  It was a good decision.  But this dog brought a whole new set of issues – not the least of which was dealing with the reaction from the neighbors.  I spent the first few walks telling the neighbors about the puppy’s role.  Then I had to explain my reasoning.  Then I had to defend my decision.  They didn’t like this new dog – this rowdy puppy that ran in circles and didn’t need a wagon.  “Where’s that other dog?” they’d call when I’d be out with the just the Puppy.  And I’d tell them.  And they’d shake their heads and turn back to their conversations.  They resented the Pup.  They didn’t like this new addition to our walks.  And quickly enough, my neighbors stopped talking when we walked by.  When I was without Rosie, they no longer asked about her and when I was with her, they no longer cared.   Rosie went back to sniffing 100% of the time and I went back to looking straight ahead at nothing when I passed a crowded corner.

Within a few months I moved from that neighborhood.  Once Rosie had a yard I forgot about those walks.  Forgot about how people bonded over an injured dog.  Forgot about how illness and vulnerability can bring people together.  How people let their guard down when someone else is hurting. 

And I forgot that sometimes, when the crisis is over, that guard comes back up.

TIRED

I’m so tired.
You know that tired when you are so tired that all you can think about is being tired?
So tired.  Tired like only a really tired person can be.  So tired that the only word I can think of for tired is tired.  So tired that when I think of not being tired it tires me out.  That’s because I’m tired.  I’m so, so tired.
Now do you want the bad news?
I’m not sleepy.

Sigh.

ALTHOUGH THE WORLD IS FULL OF SUFFERING, IT IS FULL ALSO OF THE OVERCOMING OF IT. --HELEN KELLER

I have chronic back pain.  I’ve had it for years.  I have a condition call spondylolisthesis or as I like to call it spondoblah-blah-blah.  It is NOT scoliosis, although I have that too.  A vertebrae in my back is cracked – snapped through in 2 places – and the vertebrae has shifted.  It’s making a break for it, I guess.  This puts my spinal cord at sort of a bend.  And radiates pain out from that place of dysfunction to my hips, legs and low back. 

Sometimes, the pain is considerable.  Other times it is just gnawing and annoying.   

The worst characteristic of the pain is that it is constant.  Now I understand how a small stream can, over time, cut a path through a boulder.  Consistency.  I once had an un-empathetic doctor ask me “Does it hurt so bad you feel like you’re going to take a gun and shoot someone?”  I didn’t say “Other than you?”  as I wanted to.  Instead I said, “No.  It doesn’t hurt so bad I feel like I’m going to take a gun and shoot someone.  But,” I leaned across the paper covered table and lightly shoved him in the shoulder with three fingers, “does this hurt so bad you want to take a gun and shoot someone?”  I didn’t wait for an answer, “probably not.  But imagine I followed you around 24 hours a day, every day and did this,”  I shoved him again,  “just like this,”  shove, “24 hours a day, 7 days a week…” 

He rolled away – out of my reach.

Point made.


Through the years I’ve tried a number of different things to deal with the pain. 

I’ve tried physical therapy
I’ve tried visiting a chiropractor
I’ve tried medications.  I’ve tried a few too many medications.
I’ve tried inactivity, I tried activity
I’ve tried regular shots of some kind into my spine which were supposed to deaden the pain
I’ve tried a TENS unit which is suppose to confuse the nerve endings and redirect the pain signal
I’ve tried changing mattresses, sleeping with a pillow between my knees, using ice, using heat, using wine

I’ve tried a lot of things. 

You know what worked best?  Cancer.

During treatment I had a couple of friends who know about my back problems ask me how it was going.  “How’s your back doing?”  My reply?  “Uh.  It hurts I guess.”

Because it did, I guess.  My back still hurt.  But somehow the rest of what I was dealing with took the focus off of my back.  That makes sense.  When you’re huddled over a commode, you don’t really think about if your back is burning.  When your struggling for the next breath, you don’t wonder if laying this way or that way will make a difference.  When you’re fighting for your life, a little bit of never-ending gnawing pain goes almost unnoticed. 

Which is cool.  I think it is cool that pain in one place can be helpful to pain in another place.  And surprising. Athough, it shouldn’t be.  My father tried to convince me of this theory every time I complained of an ache or pain of some sort.  Always the problem solver,  my father would offer to stomp on my toe so I would forget about the other pain.  “Want me to stomp on your foot so you’ll forget about the paper cut on your finger?” he’d say.  I always declined.  And usually ran from the room.  But now I see maybe it’s not such a bad strategy after all.  Maybe not for me with my paper cut, but if the one pain is so intense, so awful, so bone crushing, maybe it is good to have pain somewhere else. 

Maybe pain in one part of the body eases pain in another part of the same body.

Relatives of one of my dearest friends are in the midst of a battle.  On Feb 28 they found out their darling 2 year old daughter has stage 4 cancer.  An awful cancer.  A horrible, awful, cancer.  They thought she had a tummy ache.  She has cancer.  She’s riddled with it.  Treatment started the same day as diagnosis.  There is no time to waste.  I read their updates daily.  I read weary words from her broken parents who are clinging desperately to hope as they cling tenderly to their daughter.  My spirit is nearly crushed.  I can hardly bear the weight of it all.  When I read the updates I find the air in the room getting heavy.  My skin crawls.  I read about the details of her treatment and vomit rises in my throat.  I have to fight through each word.  I have to make my eyes move across the screen.  It is almost too much. 

I cry.  Each time I read about beautiful Anna I cry.  Often I put my head down on my desk and try to take deep breaths.  If my dog is near I grab her and pull her head into my lap and bend to touch my forehead to her nose.  For comfort.  It is so heavy.

My friend wondered if I should be reading the updates.  Actually considered not telling me about the whole thing, “I thought maybe it was too soon, too raw for you to know this.”  It is too soon.  It is too raw.  But I WANT to know it.  I HAVE to.  And I will continue to read.  Every day.  Every word.  Because I have hope. Hope in her healing.  Hope in her recovery.  And hope that the hundreds of tears I shed will somehow ease just one of theirs.  I know we are all part of the same family – we are all connected, and maybe the pain I feel over here in Kansas City will some how ease the pain they feel, in that hospital room, stroking their baby’s sweaty head and gathering golden hair as it falls out in clumps. 

We are one body.  And I will shoulder up next to them and share this burden any way I know how.

Be well, dear Anna.
Stay close, dear Lord.