ellenspictures

Category: memories

  • Every time I have that memory…

    Every time I have that memory…

    It was a long time ago, now. Sixteen years. It was the grimmest of grim. We held on to hope when there was very little to hold onto. Every single day, and the days between those, every visit from each of the doctors pushed us up and down the emotional roller coasters.

    Now I understand that people who are relatively balanced don’t freak out. Well, some do. The actual mechanics of surviving tough times involves breaking the experience down into edible chunks – the brain can only process so much at once – that’s how we roll. Here in 2021, we have to do this to try to adapt and keep adapting to the uncertainty that we have going on at this moment. If we think about the macro, it’s just too much.

    That was what it was like in 2005, in Rob’s final days with us. We couldn’t think about the macro too much – the micro was changing every day with unexpected tribulations popping up at every turn. In the nearly six weeks in the hospital we had changing prognoses, surgeries to face, prayers for recovery, when recovery wasn’t coming, listening to theories and hearing the words, “we’re in uncharted territory…”

    What were we supposed to say? Give up? I’m not a “give-up” kind of girl – wasn’t then, and am not now. I wanted them to give everything to helping Rob survive the situation that can only be described as a huge medical debacle. But, we don’t give up on 17 year-old kids – not mine, at least. I was in that mindset the whole time.

    Maybe the doctors went around the corner and shrugged their shoulders, but at least they didn’t do that in front of me. You see a lot when you’re practically living in the hospital with someone. You begin to adapt to the milieu. I was trying to make the best of things for Rob – get him what he wanted – what he needed – and be his mama-tiger advocate – always.

    We had endured having to move all our stuff out of his room when he went off to surgery – because they needed his bed – my response was “where are we going to put his things? all the things that have been keeping him sustained for the last month?” The answer came back, “We’re sorry, we don’t have an answer for you… You will have to move them out…” I said, “He’s going into surgery! Our house is an hour away! You expect me to do this NOW? What can you be thinking?” The people were acting like I was becoming violent or something because I didn’t just say, “OK, thanks…” It was maddening to think that they had so little empathy for a patient – even financially, they had made lots of bucks off of his stay – that was my cynical thinking at the time… He was an “insured” patient…

    Finally, the charge nurse and the nurse manager came in and said we could store his things in their store room – possibly they could get me a bed at the Ronald McDonald House, if there was room… So, that is what I did… I was so shattered by then, I could hardly tell what time of day it was. That’s what happens when your child has surgery that takes hours long – and you come out and it’s the middle of the night. You don’t know where they will take him or where you will find him next… It’s very unsettling for families.

    I tried to be nice – and mostly was – but I also got very frustrated at the chaos at times. I mean, how could they possibly keep making screwed-up mistakes? Grrrrrrrr.

    Maybe they weren’t but, my baby just wasn’t getting any better… C’mon…

    He survived that surgery, and eventually was put back into a regular room. Little did we know this would be temporary. Time sequences become confusing in memory.

    In trying to balance the days and nights, sharing the only bed in his room, by trading off, it was each time, when leaving – agonizing. Returning, each time, there was the re-entry and orientation to what the latest situation was – trying to get information was sometimes like pulling teeth. If only, the iPhone had been invented then… Handy recording could have helped.

    Rob was moved to a “step-down” which was actually a “step-down” from the ICU. More like a critical care unit. For the last days of his life, he was there. It was a large room, and visitors were permitted. His friends came to visit a couple of days before he died, but we didn’t know that he was close to his final day – he was just sleepy and non-responsive. That should have told us something.

    One night, as I was leaving to hand off to his dad, Rob said to me while I was hugging him to say good-bye, “Mom, I want you to be with me when I die.” It took my breath away. My reaction was saying, “You’re not dying… sweetie… you’re going to be okay once we get through this…”

    He was less in the present, and visiting the path to the future, as we did not understand, but I now know. I remember washing his hair – helping him shower – and he was barely awake – so weak at that point. He had not really eaten much food in days. They had begun to give him TPN (which is nutrition via IV). In fact in retrospect, the sequence of events that happened over the next few days led to his event horizon.

    That was a term he described once to me while he was looking at the string of pulmonary function test results graphed together… This was ahead of his being approved for the transplant. He said back then, “I’m getting close to zero – that’s when I end.” That one got me. He was a very analytical guy – but insightful and emotional – just like me.

    This time of year I cannot help but revisit the memories of the past – those days leading up to his final day and the end of his earthly journey. I try not to feel badly. That’s hard because, I’m human, and I’m his mom, and we are selfish as humans – we miss our loved ones when they go – and if it is our babies or our big kids – that especially hurts…

    So that wish was his command. I was with him when he passed on, holding his hand, lying across him in his final hospital bed in the ICU. It broke my heart. The drive home was the longest drive – I was alone – I drove the route the last time from his hospital room back to the last place he lived. Sometimes, I wonder how I did that – how did I muster the strength in the wee hours to make that last journey, when just a few hours before, I was driving like the wind to get down to the hospital where he had been taken to the ICU and placed on life support…

    I didn’t get to see him that day, conscious, or where he would be able to respond and say goodbye. I found him ready to leave. Systems on idle. Ready to shut down for the big sleep for the journey to his next place in the universe.

    Dragonflies

    I often think when I see the dragonflies that visit me, “why dragonflies?” Because of their beautiful furious short lives, maybe? Because they are ferocious, yet gorgeous? Because they are friendly to me? Who knows? But dragonflies tell me that he is okay – he is still okay – and will always be okay.

  • wow. insight into the human behavior during a pandemic. dateline 2005.

    wow. insight into the human behavior during a pandemic. dateline 2005.

    Here is an article for you to read from the Texas Standard, a news organization local to these parts with sharp insight and often featured daily information on public radio. It discusses how the behaviors of players back then are serving as a predictive precursor to human behavior in pandemic situations.

    World-of-Warcraft was a very popular game – one of the first “MMOG’s” and those who played it back then were pioneers in the craft, my son being one of them. Being that he had lots of health issues, his world shifted in his last years of life to computer gaming – or station gaming, but as those evolved, “heavily online”. In 2003-2005, as World-of-Warcraft overtook some other popular games that evolved over time – Dungeons and Dragons, Doom, etc. the community grew for the online gaming to what is now, today one of the largest, if not the largest entertainment sub-verticals in that industry, ahead of movies, television, and streaming service programming.

    The byline quoted below, is by their reporter, Kristen Cabrera who posted the article, and the link leads to the Texas Standard website – the audio content in the player below, has the whole interview with Omar Gallega, the Texas Standard Tech Editor.

    “In 2005, a highly contagious disease spread within the fictional world of the massive, multiplayer online game. Scientists later studied players’ reactions to understand how humans might react in a real-world scenario. “

    https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/what-we-can-learn-about-epidemics-from-the-world-of-warcraft-online-game/

    To the point related to our current pandemic and how WOW in 2005, listen to this segment on The Texas Standard…all rights reserved to that organization.

    From The Texas Standard – What We Can Learn About Epidemics From The ‘World of Warcraft’ Video Game.
    Texas Standard. A service of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin

    The picture below is of Rob’s character, Jarulf and his pet, Ham.

    The alternate reality where Rob played, unconstrained…

    As we go through this experience, the simulation of this experience fifteen-years ago, we can check to see how that parallels what is transpiring. We cannot actually predict this behavior – too many triggers, and too much change that cannot be foretold.

    14-March-2020

  • it’s 2020. it’s 2020. can’t believe it’s yet another decade.

    it’s 2020. it’s 2020. can’t believe it’s yet another decade.

    The year started as it usually does. New Year’s day. Another birthday. Friends birthdays… and as always, new possibilities for the new decade.

    As we experience in winter, it brings shorter days. Struggling with the gray days. Seeking the sunlight as much as possible when they present themselves – sometimes we’re lucky and get stretches of brightness.

    Glorious High Clouds

    Breathing fresh cool air is wonderful, but I get a bit freaked out when we have crazy tornado weather in early January, and the flowers are blooming, and the birds who normally act okay are flying into windows and not coping well with the unexpected near-summer temp days that string themselves intermittently amongst the “normal” for winter days. Strange? A bit.

    But, it has happened before, maybe, but not in our lifetimes so much. We maybe weren’t here then. I looked up the history… but the fires. Those are truly what is the most concerning. That and the knock-on effects. The droughts. All the stuff we living in a “privileged first world country” don’t see, that I have seen and you can’t “un-see or not remember” what you see that looks like that. You can’t, if you have any empathetic bones in your body… Or any sort of wired-in alarms within your soul.

    What we see and witness is being blasted out every minute of every day. Citizen witness-reporting. Citizen scientists commenting. We observe the culture. The culture of our childhoods is not the culture of today. It is change. “Life is change. How it differs from the rocks…” BUT… guess what? Rocks change all the time. They move, oblivious to the life standing on them, or growing around them…

    Rocks, shells, wood, sand… seaweed – elements recomposed.

    The law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system’s mass cannot change, so quantity can neither be added nor be removed. This means that your fine automobile was something else at one time, and now has been recomposed into your fine automobile until such time that it, and all its parts, are dismantled and again go through the process of returning to the earth or being recomposed into something else.

    Think about it. What this does not address is that during the times of decomposition, transition and recompilation multiple processes are at work – natural processes or human processes – but then, think again – humans are “natural” unless… and then the possibility arises that humans evolved from “something else” that joined with a natural being and a number of theories come from that. Religion. Science. Lore. Extremely compelling ancient evidence that points to early in human existence, beings having the ability to view from high distances – the evolution and migration is quite well documented in rock records, as well as in ancient texts – even if those are cuneiform on rock scrolls – and in artwork in caves – interesting depictions.

    Fascinated by timelines stacked on top of one another of what happened simultaneously on the earth, these continue to change as new discoveries are made.

    Geology and geophysics – the science says: Rocks shudder under the weight of oceans and other rocks. Driven by energy coming from the core of our planet. Soft squishy humans and other animals are affected. We are supposedly the “intelligent” leaders and stewards of the orb. Despite this tag, sometimes we don’t act like it. Earthquakes can surprise people living in areas where faults have not been identified – this can introduce catastrophic outcomes. Geologists and geophysicists and their sub-professions are humans, first, scientists – and the “tools du jour” are what enables them to make discoveries.

    1920’s Geologists

    We measure – we alert – we sometimes do not get the alert in time. Kind of like ants, we are… milling around. We try. We work at improving all the time. But we’ve lost our abilities to get along in the process.

    Have we not taught our children that getting along is important? Self-focus is not. We really cannot afford to not share and consider our impact on others. Each time you toss something away, it’s on its way to entering that process of decomposition – a long process indeed.

    Being a good citizen of the planet is about looking after others everywhere. It is about considering the impact of being cruel and how it will, no question, come back to haunt you – at least it will if you have a conscience and morals. The selfish politics rising in popularity over the last decade and a half, is not healthy for our continued existence in the end – it will destroy us. Guaranteed.

    Teach our children and grandchildren well. Like the song of the sixties tells us to do. But, extending this to all of our family members, and young friends – teach our nieces and nephews that our planet and everyone are worth getting along.

    Please. Where you do technology, balance with hand-made art. Where you listen to digital music, get out a guitar and a drum – or a ukulele or a banjo! Sing out loud! Read books! Real ones with pages! Draw pictures of what you see. Never forget how to do those things by hand and that the digital representations are just that… representations.