The day our lives changed.

It is time for me to write about the patient who most touches my heart and life. My daughter Marsha. Together we traveled through the maze of cancer treatment.

She was 31 years old, a wife and a mother to an almost 2 year old. She had been suffering with a cough, weight loss, fatigue and chest pain for six months. Her Dr. kept treating her for allergies.
I was at her house one day to use the computer and she was talking on her cell phone walking around her living room. She became short of breath and had to lean over the counter in the kitchen to breathe.

I had no idea that she was so sick. I took her to the hospital right then. After a chest xray and a CT we went from peaceful existence into full battle.

The chest xray will be forever imprinted on my mind. The mass filled her right lung. I could no longer feel my body. The noise around me became muffled. Knowing I could not faint in front of my daughter, I focused on moving forward.

We needed a biopsy, a diagnosis. I wanted no gap between this day and treatment. This was July 10th 2007.

I drove Marsha home from the hospital that night; I watched her walk into her house and close the door behind her. I don't know what went on behind her closed doors that night but when I got home, I sure gave in to my own emotions......and then the anger.

How can a Dr. let 6 months go by without blood work or xrays. Again my own profession fails me.

Tonya was there in the kitchen waiting. Those who know me will think this odd that I felt embraced by the kitchen as well as by Tonya. This kitchen has seen me and my family through some amazing and painful times.

It looks different now, light blue floors, and a cool counter waist high that I draped over while I cried and raged and moaned.

July 11th Marsha and I went to see the pulmonologist and scheduled a biopsy for the 12th. More pictures to live in my memory. Oozing pus and necrotic tissue. I think she will lose a lung. But we can live with one lung. We can do this.

David and Marsha came to hide out at our house for a couple of days. Away from people asking them questions they had no answers for.

In 3 days we had a preliminary diagnosis of Non Hodgkins lymphoma. I had an appointment with an oncologist the next day. On the 24th of July Marsha had her first Chemo treatment. Fourteen days from her ER trip to treatment. The battle was on.

Just the beginning. I write this for my own therapy so if it sounds a little me oriented that's why. I'll write more another day. This is hard but I think it will be good for me.

My inauguration story

There will be many stories from inauguration day this year. I found mine as I watched the older Mr. Bush walking with his wife Barbara. I noticed his cane and then I saw his small steps. The old man shuffle was there.

He reminded me of Dad. Mr. Bush was smiling, looking around and seemed to be really having a good time, but he was having trouble walking for sure. Daddy could walk best when he had nothing else to distract him. But if there was something he was looking at all his body parts came to a halt. Even standing became difficult for him.

I continued to watch Mr. Bush as they came to the stairs they would have to go down and I got a little nervous for him. Barbara was going down the stairs ahead of him and I wanted her to take her husband's arm instead and stay closer to him.

Protective feelings for my Dad were coming out all over poor Mr. Bush. He passed between the two guards who were saluting him and I held my breath until he took hold of the railing going down the steps.

As I let out a breath, Mr. Bush stopped, smiled, let go of the rail, reached back with his right hand.......and patted the butt of the guard at the top of the steps!!!!!

As he continued down the steps, I started crying and laughing. Daddy was at the inauguration!!!! You go George!!

At least George USED his cane.

I miss you so much Dad.

Experience counts.

I'll take compliments where ever I can get them.

I went into a patient's room to begin care and her husband was sitting at the bedside.

He looked at me as I introduced myself and said, "I like old nurses best. They really know what they are doing."

Also with that "experience" comes some very dark moments.

Moments when I feel like I can't do it another day. I feel too much. Feelings, emotions, coming at me, almost as if thrown at me.

Patients becoming too real to me

A quadriplegic who could look at me, study my every move, but she could not move or talk.
I felt fear.... To be like that, alone, unable to move or cry out.

I feel too much. Make it stop! I fear they may all be me. All the sick, the mangled, the dead.

Only moments. But those will always remind me to treat each one as I would want to be treated, for they are all me.

Thanks Wendy

A man was having chest pain one day. I was staying by his bed, giving him Nitro and talking to him, trying to calm him and help him relax. His wife was sitting in a chair beside his bed. She told him he had to be okay because his dog would miss him.

I asked him what kind of dog he had. He said, "A Pitt Bull".

Well, I was delighted to hear that. We got to talking about "our" dogs and before we knew it, his blood pressure was down, his chest pain was gone, and I hadn't given him any more nitro.

What helped? The medicine or the dog?

Thankyou, Wendy, where ever you are. You were mine for as long as you were with us and you taught me so much about love and respect.

Who doesn't respect a Pitt Bull? And she gave me a connection to help this man's chest pain go away.

I always knew mothers were magical.

A mother brought her son in with a painful ankle and foot from an injury playing soccor.

She said, "We put ice packs on and I levitated his foot all night"


Tonya and I have great plans. We are building a new garage soon. She will have a better place to create her masterpieces. We are paying off the house and both our names will be on the deed. It feels like a union to me.

Now if we could just figure out how to hook up our VCR and DVD players we would really rock. We called a Nerd and they wanted $300 to come out and do it for us. They really know when they got you don't they. Screw them. We'll go without.

Up all night.

What grandparent hasn't kept a grandchild overnight and found that sleeping wasn't going to happen?

Now I expected to be awake a lot and very watchful when I kept my grand"babies", but I had hopes that when they got older, we would have a good time all day and actually go to sleep at night. Well.........

Elijah and Cameron came for a couple of days during the summer. We had a great time until one day I put in the movie I love and wanted to share with them... Lord Of The Rings.

Now these boys grew up watching Star Wars and what I thought were some pretty violent movies. They loved having light saber fights and pretend to cut off each other's arms. I thought Lord Of The Rings at least had some awesome creatures and magical stuff to enchant the boys. I was right and wrong.

We spent the day watching, and the night trying to get them to go to sleep.

Cameron said he was having bad dreams which I couldn't figure out since he wasn't sleeping.

I tried getting in bed with them and that helped, but as soon as I got up to get in my own bed, they woke up and started in again.

I did make it into my own bed at last. Then there stood Eli and Cam, hand and hand. "Grammy, we can't go to sleep. We're scared."

One last try......Worn out, they finally went to sleep.

At 5AM, I hear a few noises. I got up to find the boys in the living room watching------Lord Of The Rings!!!!!!!

"Hair of the dog that bit you" came to mind first. Then I thought they may be innately moving through conquering their fears; or they may be just boys who are drawn to risky behavior and new thrills.

I was kind of proud of them in some sleep deprived way. But I took the movie out and turned on the Disney channel.

And I have a great story to tell their own kids.

I can still be amazed at times.

Just when I thought there were no more surprises out there, in walked Mr. so and so. He said his wife fell and he was trying to lift her up when he heard something pop and had severe pain in his back. I put him in a gown and helped him onto the stretcher..I asked him if he drove himself here and he had.

He needed pain control but he said he had to drive home so after some Tylenol and no relief from pain we discovered he had a compression fracture in his back.

He began making jokes and telling me if I didn't have that ring on my finger he'd ask me out. Now this kind of talk is not surprising to me... But wait, the surprise is coming.

I was instructed by the Dr. to start an IV and tell the patient that he would be spending the night in the hospital. The patient signed admission consent without comment. No surprise there yet.

As I was getting supplies to start his IV, I noticed that there was another patient with his same last name on the patient board. A female.

Surprise number 1.
Mr so and so's wife is here. She came in by ambulance several hours after Mr so and so arrived. She has a broken hip from her fall.

I went back to Mr so and so and began to start his IV. He talked a lot. "I'm an old sailor and I know all the dirty jokes there are" No surprise there.

When I completed my chore, you see I waited until all the needles were put away before I approached the subject of his wife. He said "Oh, she must have called 911."

I said, "Didn't you know she was hurt when you left her?" He said "Well, yes, I left her on the floor"

Surprise number 2 begins.
Mr so and so told me he layed in his wife's bed awhile after he tried the lifting her off the floor part. Then he took a hot shower thinking that would ease his back pain. Then, when nothing helped, he got in his car and drove himself to the hospital.....Leaving his wife on the floor!!!!

Four hours after his arrival I'm learning these facts. I asked him why he didn't tell us his wife was home still on the floor. He said, "Well, I gave her the phone before I left".

When I left his room, I went to his chart and found an order for IV pain medication. One of the other nurses asked if she could give that for me. I said no. I think I'll wait a couple of hours, I need a nap and maybe a hot shower first!