Finding the Good Again
On Friday, my grandmother went to her doctor's appointment as scheduled. When they couldn't find a pulse or a blood pressure, they told my Mom to take her to the ER immediately. My Mom tells me now that she thought it was over at this point. I met them in admissions at the hospital and kept the two of them company while we waited for a room for my grandmother. She said she was feeling better. My Mom said she looked better.
She spent the entire weekend in the hospital. After giving her a drug to reduce the fluid in her lungs, she was breathing easier and feeling better. She wanted to go home. At 92 years of age, she is mentally as sharp as ever and smarter than about 99% of people I know. She also always tells me my hair looks pretty. My grandmother is cool like that.
On Sunday night, after a country club event that I had hoped would be so much more, followed by a birthday party for my friend and fellow warrior who has just had a relapse of lymphoma, I went to visit her. I was going to cheer her up. She was going crazy being in the hospital. Instead, it was her supporting me. We talked about mean people and she told me not to get down. She reached for me and hugged me tighter than she ever has and I let out a breath and simultaneously began to shudder and shake and sob on her shoulder.
I just can't imagine a world where my grandmother doesn't exist.
Today they sent her home from the hospital after taking a blood pressure reading of 91 over 50. They sent her home with oxygen, but no additional drugs to treat her pulmonary hypertension. I don't understand why they won't treat her and the only thing that I could think today when they sent her home is this. . .
They sent her home to die.
They wrote her off because she's 92. My grandmother still lives independently with my grandfather. She is an amazing woman and I can't imagine why they won't prescribe her a pill that could help her feel better.
Tonight I went to a board meeting and I'm fairly certain I went what could only be described as ballistic during one topic of conversation. I can't say for certain that I wouldn't have reacted the same way if I didn't have so much else going on in my head; but when I started on my little tirade, I could barely make myself stop. I am completely exhausted and feeling like a caged animal. I want to lash out. Tonight I think I did. Unfortunately, it didn't make me feel any better.
Last week, my dojo family raised hundreds of dollars in just a couple of emails for our friend, for his battle with lymphoma once again. This is the goodness I'd like to see happen in other areas of my life, and at the club where there are factions that seem to be just waiting for you to fail so they can say "I told you so."
Everyone should know the goodness that exists in a supportive hug from a grandmother you can't bare to lose, the goodness in a group of people who rally around one of their own to lift them up in support and help. It's becoming quite clear to me that my personal focus needs to change and shift. The things that are truly good in my life have taken the back burner and it's about time that changes.
One Thing Leads to Another
On Monday, the ominous cloud started following me around. After a productive week renovating the sports bar at the club, I was feeling positive about being finished on time, by March Madness.
Because we had a very generous individual donate a room's worth of flooring to us, I asked my helper guys to rip the carpet up on Monday. When I arrived, I was thrilled to see that it was already finished and then I saw the one guy's face.
"Come over here," he said. I knew it wasn't going to be pretty.
As a board member at the club, whenever I am there, if there is a problem, I always here "come over here" or "I want to show you something." There has been a whole lot of that since we started renovating this new bar.
This time, the "come over here" was brutal. Apparently, putting down our new flooring wasn't going to be as easy as we thought. Thanks to a clogged bar sink that had sat that way for years, the pipes underneath the floor had rotted. The floor had been wet and the floor was rotted through. It's a good thing we ripped the carpet up and found out.
Had we not, maybe some of our customers at the bar would have been taking a fast ride down to the crawl space. Thanks to this little find and the necessary fix required (including replacing plumbing that was rotted through), the floor sits idle and will until probably next week when I'm down to single digits until opening day.
On Monday night, I took Big I to ju-jutsu, feeling the weight of the day's find on my shoulders. And then I saw my friend from karate, the father of two who battled lymphoma so bravely and without missing a class, even in the midst of chemo treatments. He told me he's had a relapse.
Suddenly, the rotted floor seemed completely insignificant. I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I can only imagine how he and his family must feel.
On Monday night, while still mentally reeling from that news, my Mom informed me that she didn't think my 92-year old grandmother was feeling well.
Yesterday, I decided to go see for myself and took my grandparents dinner while Big I went to ju-jutsu again. My grandmother informed me that she deposited a large jar of change into her account. "I now have enough money to bury me," she said.
She went on to tell me that she doesn't need a Cadillac of a casket. She just wants something simple. She told me to make sure she's not buried with any jewelry on. She wants us to have it. She wants her wedding ring cut off if it can't be taken off. She told me about a small baggy of gold that she wants me to have melted down to make lockets for my girls. She told me she feels like "the walking dead" and it was almost more than I could take. She's 92. I have to expect that at some point, the end is inevitable; but I've spent my life thinking she would always be here and the fact that she seems to be preparing herself to die has really shaken me.
Someone sent me an email this week about a professor and golf balls. You've probably seen it before, but he basically fills up a big plastic container of golf balls and asks if it's full. When his students respond "yes," he adds small pebbles. This continues as he adds sand and eventually liquid coffee. At the end it says that the "golf balls" are the important things and people in your life. The sand is the small stuff.
I'm going to worry about the golf balls for now, and let the money pit of a sports bar roll off my shoulders. A girl can only take so much.
SBMS-A Real Syndrome, A Real Problem
Filed under: Board of Directors, Mental Strain for Mama
I once worked for a very cranky man who suffered from short bald man's syndrome. It was not a pleasant time in my life. In addition to suffering from SBMS, he also had a real problem with chauvinism and thought that if you were a girl and working for him, then it was perfectly ok for him to run his hand up the back of your leg. Man, how I wish I had known how to do a good back kick back in the day.
The other day, I was at the club, helping Big I with homework and finishing up the last couple bites of my dinner after putting in an 8 hour day of working on the new bar area, when I was approached by a man with this syndrome, except add "fat" to it which mulitplies the problem ten-fold. In addition to SFBMS, he also had a problem with close-talking.
I happen to despise close talkers. It's probably because of the night that Hanshi spent a great deal of time talking about proper distancing and what to do with your hands when someone is coming at you aggressively. I like my space and you'll probably notice me backing up to reestablish my space if you're getting too close to me.
This particular man approached me, stood too close and said "You're on the board right?" and then proceeded to act like I had said or done something to ignite his temper despite the fact that he was upset about things that had happened before I was even born. He ranted about craziness for quite some time and I listened respectfully while also playing a whole lot of Devil's Advocate with him. He reminded me he voted for me as if he was the only one who had; I reminded him that a lot of other people did too.
It is becoming very clear to me, why some board members don't spend much time at the club. It is absolutely impossible to have a quick conversation with someone while there. It is impossible to eat your dinner without interruption.
I am wondering what this summer will be like, when I'm spending my time at the pool with the girls. Will I be bombarded with craziness all summer long too? Will I be able to enjoy any time with my family without having to discuss issues related to the board?
I am quickly approaching becoming the not-so-nice version of myself that is going to tell people to put it in writing and send me an email instead of taking up my time with my family. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm already there.
Wipe Out
This morning I expected to see a bunch of snow on the ground again but we only got a light dusting. I left a little early for campus, wanting to get to the classroom a couple minutes early to get my powerpoint presentation up and ready.
I arrived on campus 10 minutes early and got out of my car. The parking lot wasn't even coated with snow, except for one area. I incorrectly assumed that it was just snow and walked at a decent pace right onto an ice arena of hell.
It was a banana split fall of epic proportions.
My right foot was on the ground one second, and the next it was flying straight up in the air in front of me. I heard myself say "Woah" and then I took the name of the Lord in vain as I slammed onto the ice. . . hard.
Two teachers walking about 10 feet in front of me stopped and asked me if I was ok. A car behind me in the parking lot stopped and a girl actually got out of the driver's side to ask if I was ok. Turns out she was one of my students.
Perfect.
I got back to my feet, said I was fine and then I looked at my hands as another faculty member brushed off my icy butt. I had two bloody hands and the one was dripping pretty good.
I slowly made my way into the building where I teach and followed the one woman to financial aid where she outfitted me with first aid cream and bandaids.
I arrived two minutes late to my class. My student who had witnessed the fall had a look of concern on her face. "Oh my God," she said, "Are you OK?"
I assured her that as soon as I got my hand to stop bleeding I would be fine. And then I did what any good teacher does. I poked fun at myself throughout the class and used the topic of falling on your butt in public as a speech topic. Sometimes, when God knows you're lacking material or motivation, he finds a way to give you some I guess. That God is a funny dude sometimes.
A couple hours later, my hands are cut up and my right hand is extremely sore. My butt is also feeling a bit cranky, but apparently I did a decent breakfall. I smacked my hands on the ground with such force that I ripped them up a bit. But I didn't land on my elbows, wrists, or horror of all horrors, my head.
And I managed to keep my open school bag that was already threatening to spill pre-fall, and purse on my shoulder the whole time. Clearly, I am talented.
Clearly.
Buried
Filed under: Board of Directors, Mental Strain for Mama
I haven't been blogging much at all. In fact, I haven't been doing much of anything blog or martial arts related lately. The screw in my knee is protruding more and more and I need to make an appointment soon. I just am delaying entering back into that world of knee crap again. I don't want to go there, understandably so.
Instead of doing what I should be doing, I've been throwing myself full force into the board position at the country club. The sports bar pitch I made on Monday night was voted through, so now all the getting quotes and meeting with contractors has shifted to ripping down wallpaper and supervising the project so that everything turns out as planned. I am both excited and nervous. I am constantly thinking, "if you build it, they will come" and am really hoping this is true. If we spend the money, build it and they don't? Well, it'll be my head on the chopping block for sure. I've stretched my neck out far for this one, used all my persuasive skills, and am holding out hope that it will all turn out ok.
In addition to being buried by country club business, we've been buried. . . literally. . .
The side of our house. We actually had to go out in the storm to clear our furnace vent because the snow drifts were so high.
We were so thankful to friends and neighbors who showed up to help with the digging out. It was pretty intense.
That would be our extremely buried mailbox that took Mr. BBM several hours to dig out.
The snow piles from the street. . .
The snow drifts off our rock wall that are waist high on adults. . .
Half of our holly tree with the nearby butterfly bushes completely covered.
The snow drifts on our patio and our covered patio table. . .
Needless to say, we are not thrilled about the prospect of another 6 inches on Monday night. My class at the university is quickly turning into an independent study course. This is truly insanity.
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