Monday Musings: December 27. 2010

We’re almost through another ‘holiday season, and all I really know is that the year may end, but laundry and housework go on forever. So, too the toxic parenting styles. Dealing with my 93-year-old mother this last week has been, uh … challenging. She decided not to participate on Christmas because we ‘stole’ her car out of the garage up at the retirement home. Rather than calling and telling me this, she simply decided to not answer the phone. When I got the manager to check on her, she told him that the phone could ring until hell froze over.

Ma, I’ve got a New York Strip roast in the oven and guests arriving. Take your drama elsewhere.

Actually, we’d been telling her for weeks that the car needed to be smogged and registered before the end of the year. Since she’s not driven it since her ‘accident’ a couple months ago, we took an opportunity to go get it. Shame on us. I’ve tried reasoning with her, that driving is not in the picture anymore. She couldn’t possibly get her walker in and out of the car on the best of the best of days by herself. This is where sheer fantasy meets up with that river called ‘denial’.

So, despite threats of calling RPD to report that I’ve stolen her car, I’m going to register it and then promptly sell it. That money will more than pay a months rent at the retirement home, and the savings on car insurance - which has gone stratospheric since the accident - will be substantial as well.

Whatever your familial holiday dramas, know that we all have them. It’s just something that you survive. Like laundry and housework.

Ooooh, the backyard bird feeding has produced something new! Nut Hatches, which I’ve seen often up in the Sierras, have never graced my acreage until now. A Red-breasted Nut Hatch was out working the suet feeder day before yesterday.

For about the last two months, I’ve been talking to a local breast cancer patient who reached out to me. That in itself was a damn gutsy thing to do. You’d be surprised how many can’t. The sad thing was that she was Stage IV … really serious. After long conversations on the phone, over lunch and by email, it’s become apparent that the cancer community in Reno failed her miserably.

With an oncologist who is a well-known heartless ‘prick’ with a smarmy, less than professional bedside manner and the complete lack of a coordinated effort within the cancer community, it seems that it’s all just been too little too late. I encouraged her to go to another oncology group - which she has, reporting it to be much better - and we even made plans to go to the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center for a second opinion. The appointment was made, she got donated miles on the airline, and I made reservations at the hotel I stay at as well as a non-revenue reservation for myself on Delta.

She can’t make it. It’s all too much at this point. She fell and really hurt herself, and that could point to a condition far more serious than even MD Anderson can reasonably be expected to offer a ‘good’ or hopeful outcome for.

As I’ve watched the local hospitals unfurl banners and big marketing programs touting better breast cancer programs, at the end of the day, it’s simply not working well beyond the confines of a particular ‘campus’.  No woman should have to engage in a struggle of this magnitude, not to mention alone. I’m fairly certain that I would not have survived my own Stage III breast cancer were it not for the support of my husband and our financial ability to go wherever for the best treatment. I can’t imagine how horrible it would have been were I divorced.

Here’s the problem: Unless a woman can know to pro-actively go to an accredited ‘breast center’ - such as it is in Reno, Nevada - before she’s routinely sent to the surgeon, it’s all just a thought exercise. Women are still going from their OB-GYN or primary physician to the imaging center (which might be an independent, stand alone enterprise), and with a ‘bad’ mammogram, she’s sent to a surgeon here. What do surgeons do? They cut. Call it biopsy - excisional or otherwise - it’s the same.

These women are frightened beyond belief and they want it gone now. Sometimes that is exactly the very worst thing they can do.

Recently, another acquaintance told me that his wife was getting her double mastectomy in a week. Huh? What? Oh, yes … she’d gotten a second opinion. At the hospital in Truckee. Yup. A well-known center of breast cancer excellence. There were so many things ‘wrong’ with what I later heard about the decision making process in this case, that I finally had to just stop listening/stop thinking about it or ‘lose it’ entirely.

I’ve distanced myself from the breast cancer fight here in Reno pretty much because I can’t stand hearing stories like this and not be able to really help. I’m just emotionally exhausted by it. I’ve lost too many women I cared for. This has to be a war waged pro-actively - BEFORE women get the scary mammogram. Women themselves have to be informed about what the right steps are - upon diagnosis - so their fear doesn’t get the better of them and set them on a course that allows no ‘do-overs’. It isn’t just about finding the lump. Making sub-optimal medical decisions after the lump is ‘found’ can be just as tragic as never finding the lump in time!

The medical community has to take some sort of responsibility for its own conduct, too.

Sub-prime doctors are still tolerated and given a pass. As are those who ‘don’t play well with others’, which is a death dealing downside of our vaunted ‘free market’ free-wheeling capitalism when it comes to health and well-being.

I know women are afraid to read article after article about breast cancer, and what to do if they ever get that diagnosis. I know I didn’t want to read that stuff, and didn’t. It would’ve killed me had not educated, informed friends intervened, and we had the means to take bold action. But the alternative can kill them.

I’m always telling cancer patients that they only have one first chance to get it right in so far as their treatment. They didn’t get cancer overnight, and it won’t matter if they take a week or even a month to really understand their disease, get a second or even third opinion ( really out of the area if possible!), and devise a comprehensive treatment plan they can truly understand and believe in - and live with.

I wish I knew how to get that message across better, but I don’t.

-maven

Thoughts on Asta, Ma and the rest of it

When it comes right down to it, I’m doing this post in order to get that picture of Asta further down in the queue. I nearly come unglued each time I look at it.

Oh boy, do we miss the little shit. I came home just a bit ago and went into the bedroom to put stuff away, and automatically went to turn on the lights and ‘check on Asta’. Uh, she wasn’t home.

Atheist though I are, I do believe she’s in a ‘better place’. She’s no longer in pain, confused, deaf, startled (in a bad way), angry and frustrated. (Taking another sip of wine here, because I’m choking up) She isn’t waking up caked in her own excrement and having to endure a dreaded ‘bath’ with me in the shower every morning. I did use the fancy-schmancy people shampoo.

The reason I’m telling you all this, is because I’m hearing from so many other friends - and I want to thank all of you that have been offering your condolences, that’s huge - that they are facing the same decisions with elderly pets.  If I can offer a bit of painful wisdom, I’m happy to do that. (Oh, Ladybird Kat just jumped up here on the desk).

I’m exhausted. I just got home from my ‘job’ today … it was the day of doctor visits with my 93-year-old Mom.

The neurologist is truly perplexed by her myoclonus. And this guy is one of the best. I’m sure he’ll be writing a paper on this. But we got a new med to try. I hope this one works, because if it doesn’t, she can no longer live independently. The risk of fall and serious injury is too great.

Melissa Shelley at Sierra Nevada Cardiology is on to Mom. She’s great, managing both Ma and her congestive heart failure.

But, Ma just wears me out, even on a good day, when she’s actually trying to be nice and cooperative. Unfortunately, I can’t answer her big question of the day: “If I just didn’t go to all these doctors, wouldn’t I just wake up dead one morning?”

The thing that’s different lately, and I could really see it today, was that she is tired. Kind of like Asta was really tired.

So I said something like “Fuck, Ma! How do I know? Ask the other old people up at the joint tonight. Where do you want to go to lunch?” Hey, there’s some thoughtful wisdom, right?

So we go to GastroPub 775 over in Meadowood Mall. She’s always saying “take me somewhere that I can get something … something I can’t get at the home!” I figure fancy Basque-style food ought to fit that bill. Plus, I had a Groupon …hehehehehe.

We had the Schnitizel Sliders and the steamed mussels. She really can’t get either of those at the home.

She went through the mussels, and ate one slider. I’m not sure how the dribbled mussel broth - as tasty as it was - blended with her coffee, which she refused to move to one side and out of the route of travel from mussel bowl to mouth. She really liked the coffee - mussel broth and all. And she’s fussy about coffee.

“How’d you like it, Ma?”

“Well, it sure was different.”

‘Uh, what does that mean? Different in a good way or a bad way?”

“Just really different”

“Do you want to go back there?”

“I don’t know, it’s really different”

There you go. That’s pretty typical of our conversations anymore. And that was typical of the interactions we were having with Asta. They were two-way but failing to meet in the middle. Neither party was really getting what they needed. But it seems to be a universal condition.

We were sitting in the waiting room at Sierra Nevada Cardiology late this afternoon, and happened to overhear the following, from a woman talking on her cellphone as she stormed out of the waiting room:

“Okay … your dad is officially a pain in the ass and won’t go to the hospital, so you can fucking figure it out!”

Whoa. You could see eyeballs rolling around the waiting room, and smirks. But you could also tell that folks had heard one version or another of this conversation before. Perhaps over the kitchen table in their own homes. Just to test my theory, I asked Ma if, perhaps, I could get some ‘help’ to come in on a daily basis - say for a couple hours in the morning - to help with a bit of personal care, breakfast and light housekeeping.

Ah, I think the answer was “hell, no! I don’t want that and won’t have it. I’ll let you know when I need that!”

So there you are. None of this dealing with the aged and elderly is ever easy. Dogs or people. I’m pretty sure that Ma would actually consider a shot of pentobarbital at this stage of the game. We can deal more fairly and squarely only with our beloved pets than we can with people.

At least I’m still at that stage where I can drink. This leaves us with the only positive news here - that we can take charge when our pets truly need us to. It’s the least that we can give them in return. You should know that when faced with a similar circumstance.

Regarding your elderly parents, or fucked up shirt-tail relatives that are on disability and the economic ragged edge … and now want financial advice … well, you’re on your own. Let me know.

-maven       

Real doctoring: About more than a 'condition'

“How are you today, Mom?”

“I’m sitting in my chair.”

“No, Ma … I said HOW are you?”

“I’m sitting in my damn chair. That’s how I am. It’s all the same.”

This was me checking in with my 93-year-old Mother, prior to picking her up for a visit to the cardiologist that afternoon. Mom isn’t a happy camper, not that she ever was. I’m sure that life at 93 isn’t what she might have envisioned it to be, but if anybody could take a bad situation and make it worse, it’s her.

I feel sorry for doctors that treat my mother. Really. One actually asked me if it would be alright if he just didn’t anymore. “I feel utterly exhausted after just five minutes around her” said one Family Practitioner. He should put in an afternoon with her. When a mutual friend joked with her own doc about my mother also being his patient, the doctor actually buried his head in folded arms on the exam table in maybe not-so-mock weeping.

She just brings sunshine where ever she goes.

That’s why I did a sharp sucking in of breath when her cardiologist, Dr. Kosta Arger, of Sierra Nevada Cardiology Associates, decided to explain to Mom why she shouldn’t really be driving at her age, and might want to strongly consider giving it up. I was waiting for the blinding flash and the explosion.

It never came. He was on to her, cooing and smoothing the ruffled feathers back down before she could get a good head of steam up.

This is real doctoring. As in taking in the entire patient, not just their ‘condition’ or symptoms.

She has congestive heart failure and needs careful monitoring to stay out of the hospital, which will be tough, since she doesn’t hear, doesn’t listen, pretends to pay attention, and just ain’t ‘going there’. Not exactly the model, compliant patient.

But for just a short time, there’s somebody who really is treating the whole person, with a level of respect, dignity and patience that she probably doesn’t deserve. I think Dr. Arger finally got through to Mom what I just haven’t been able to. We can hang up the car keys. I owe him big time.

He reminded her that she has people in her life that are probably happy to give her a ride wherever she needs to go, looking past her to me. Miss Sunshine said “Oh, her. I don’t know how long she’ll be here.” Dr. Arger never skipped a beat, suggesting in that case, there were always taxi cabs.

I nearly bit my finger off trying not to laugh.

-maven

Friday Fish Wrap: August 13, 2010

Do rats swim? Are there rats inhabiting Truckee Meadows wetlands? I think the answer is “yes”, and I saw it.

Yesterday, I was cycling over in the Damonte Ranch area, and took my ‘wetlands cutoff’. It’s a nifty little couple of miles around a wetlands, where I can usually spot some interesting waterfowl while bumping my mileage up to 18 or 20. In this case, I was able to observe a flock of Pyramid Lake pelicans feeding. And a swimming rat.

Yup. I had hiked down through the brush to get a closer view of the pelicans, and saw something swimming. At first I thought “John Ensign!”, then “otter!”, uh, “muskrat”. No, rat. A big Norway Brown rat paddling back and forth along the shoreline. The tail was awesome. Wish he’d have been predictable enough to get pictures. He couldn’t have cared less about me. I thought he was kinda cute. Scruffy but cute.

Hmmmm. You’ve gotta love the entire natural world.

Click to read more ...

Monday Musings: May 10, 2010

Today is my mother’s birthday. She’s 93 years old. That’s damned old by anybody’s standards. She still drives around town, does her own ‘thing’, and can’t go 15 minutes without informing all that she won’t live to see another week, not to mention another year.

“Momma lived to be 96, but I don’t think I’m going to get there.”

While having the big whipped cream covered waffle at Heide’s restaurant in southwest Reno, yesterday - Mother’s Day - (more about Heide’s later) she regaled us again with stories of back in the day. Actually, some of them are pretty good.

On going to school for the first time: “the local school teacher used to drive by our gate with her horse and buggy. I couldn’t have been more than about four, and would run out and wave and tell her hello. She would stop and talk. Finally, one day, she asked Momma if I could go to school with her, and Momma told her sure. It was about a month later when the school board found out and said I was too young to be in school. They called us in. The school teacher gave me a book to read in front of them. They never said any more, and I continued in school.”

This is Mom’s explanation for my supposdedly being able to ‘read’ at age two. Highly unlikely, but it entertaining.

On having black friends: “we only had a few black kids in school, and they had to sit in the back of the room, in the corner. They never said anything, and the teacher never asked them anything. I felt sorry for them.”  … (seque to Miami, Florida in the 1950’s when I was little) … “Then there was that day I was sitting in our kitchen having coffee with that black woman who came in to do the ironing. That neighbor whose husband was in the Klan, let’s herself in the back door with a fresh pie in her hands. She looked at me and the black woman, and without saying a word, turned and went out the door and never came back.”

My mother may have been raised in Kansas, but never, ever had time or patience for racism or bigotry. Her worldview, aside from that, is pretty limited - in large part from being raised in the worst of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. She never, ever got past it. Having a job, money, and eating whatever was in front of you, was more important than anything else - including any possible joy.

It’s a bleak worldview for the most part, but it’s got her this far. And, remember, she won’t last another week. She still can’t imagine what makes her feel so tired and achey these days. She thinks it has to be fibro-myalgia. I tell her it’s possibly “93-myalgia”.

She says I’m not funny.

Click to read more ...

The end of Kodachrome comes home for Maven

We’re still sitting in bed, drinking coffee and watching the Today show when I was amazed to see one of those warm and fuzzy human interest stories about a place that I’m very familiar with.

Parsons, Kansas.

That’s where all my 92-year-old mothers family is from (although technically born in a sod house in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma in 1917). Both my brothers were born in Parsons … at home BTW. All the men in the family worked for the railroad, since that’s what made Parsons … the MKT or “Katy”. Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad began in Kansas City, Missouri and ran to Houston, Texas. Parsons was the mid-point, with big railroad shops that employed a lot of people there in Labette County. The town was named for the founder of the railroad.

I digress.

The piece on the Today Show is about the last remaining kodachrome processing lab IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, which is in Parsons. It’s Dwayne’s Photo and they will cease operations at the end of 2010, so if you still have a few lonely rolls of it in the back of a drawer, send them in now.

Here it is:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Dwayne’s Photo

415 S 32nd St, Parsons, KS 67357

(620) 421-3940

Life is never dull at the Maven residence

Well, let’s see what’s going on: I got a job offer that eclipses the one I was actually angling for, and have accepted- thanks LC!; Natacha’s father is arriving tomorrow from Cotonou, Benin, Africa where he was the mayor. He doesn’t speak much English, my French dates back to high school and Natacha is busy with work and the TMCC mini semester which starts while Dad is here for three weeks. If the maven&meddler isn’t quite as content rich as usual, I hope you’ll understand.

Click to read more ...

Taking the sugar where you can get it

This isn’t the blogpost that I originally had in mind for tonight. The real one was more in line with the Great American Novel as it applies to the rumors about Steve Fossett.

I jest.

Actually, my Mother gave me one of her rarest gifts today: a compliment.

Click to read more ...