Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Never Compromise Who You Are by Conforming to What Others Want You to Be

THE VORTEXIAN

A Journal of Vicarious Living

Travels with Teresa


Never Compromise Who You Are by Conforming to What Others Want You to Be

(True to Yourself, Vortexia) -- Summertime is the season of weddings; a roller-coaster ride of bridal showers, rehearsal dinners and wedding ceremonies. For those deeply invested in these glorious occasions, it also elicits a wealth of emotions. Brides-to-be and their mothers find out what panic attacks really are. Fathers-of-the-Bride grapple with the reality that they will no longer be their daughter’s “first-stop” counselor on issues they prided themselves being experts on.


The loneliness that seeps into a home on the heels of a child’s marriage, whether that child was living at home before marrying or not, is awful. Children will come back and visit, but it will be with spouses who have pre-emptive needs and desires. Of course, this barely tolerable situation for parents is mitigated by the future promise of grandchildren.



Of these things I am sure, because my daughter is getting married this month.


At her bridal shower recently, I found myself brain-dead when asked to jot down a “word of wisdom” for the bride in a little notebook being passed around. I kicked myself later. It’s not that we hadn’t had many “mother-daughter” talks about marriage, discussions that included the importance of a strong Christian faith. Still, I thought, “How could I not have come up with something to write in that book for her?”


A few hours later, alone in my car, the pre-wedding fog in my mind parted – ever so briefly – to reveal a visual banner that read: Never Compromise Who You Are by Conforming to What Others Want You to Be. Convinced it was divinely inspired, I shared it with my daughter who initially read into it all the things it was not intended to mean.


So, dear reader, I will clarify the phrase with you as well.


She thought it was some feminist manifesto, “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar” type of thing. Hardly the case, I told her. The adage works both ways; it applies to men and women. Then, she thought it I meant it as a blanket excuse for any kind of addiction, perversion or other besetting sin in a spouse. No, again; nor does the statement include the person of Jesus Christ, with whom we want to be conformed to.


Simply put, “who you are” is who – at your core – God wants you, and me, to be. Our “identity” includes all the unique qualities that make up our personalities; the positive, and even neutral, characteristics we were born with.


Obviously, some personality traits can be irritating or annoying to others. It’s sad how trivial some of them really are, such as the way someone talks or laughs, or the music they like to listen to, or the fact that they absolutely love animals or sports or old movies, etc. Again, I’m not talking about extremes (i.e. the husband who ignores his wife every football season or the wife who favors pets over her husband). I’m referring to harmless personal attributes, innocent likes and dislikes, mannerisms that have nothing to do with one’s core character.


It’s one thing to expect a spouse to change a truly bad habit that is adversely affecting a relationship. It’s entirely another to try to change someone else’s identity. I’ve seen far too many marriages implode because of it.


For example, berating a spouse who plods along in life more slowly than you would prefer is like trying to make an Arabian racehorse out of a Clydesdale. Clydesdales are beautiful as they are and function exactly as they were meant to. Conversely, constantly chiding an effusive, outgoing partner in the hope of changing them into an emotionless slug will only serve to suffocate them. Far better to be appreciative, respectful and, yes, even long-suffering with loved ones whose minor quirks and idiosyncrasies drive us half-mad sometimes. After all, treating others as they would treat us benefits all involved, does it not?


It may be easier said than done, but weddings can be a timely reminder that viewing spouses through God’s lens can go a long way in making marriages happy and durable.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Honoring Dads: Warts and All


(Imperfection, Vortexia) – Most men are deserving of the honor due them as fathers, but doing so is sometimes easier said than done. Problems can arise when mothers of children are in conflict with the father, or parents blow trivial problems in their relationship out of proportion. I know, because it’s almost Father’s Day and I am just now reconciling my emotions with my love for my husband.


It began with the weather.


I have very few pet peeves, just a couple actually, and I can honestly say I have developed patience for them over the years. But, when it comes to negativity, all bets are off. Whining, belly-aching, call it what you will, being in the company of naysayers is torture for me.


I’m not talking about the occasional venting session with close friends; if it’s of extremely short duration and has a clear beginning and end with some sort of resolution. That, I can handle. Nor am I referring to a one-time open and honest discussion with someone borne of professional or relational necessity. I’m speaking of being immersed in a culture of chronic complaining. It ignites my fight-or-flight hormones. My blood pressure rises. I feel chained, forced to drink poison while listening to a chorus of nails on a chalkboard, all at the same time.


I blame part of this aversion on my stoic Midwest childhood. My parents, farmers’ stock who soldiered their way through the Depression, never griped and I wasn’t allowed to either. If I complained about being bored, I found myself scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets. If I was caught saying something nasty about someone, I was subjected to a lecture on not saying anything if I couldn’t say something good about someone. If I dared to grumble about food served to me I was summarily banished to bed with an empty stomach. After all, beggars can’t be choosy; grin and bear it.


My husband, however, had an entirely different childhood. Cloaked in humor and exacerbated by perfectionism, complaining was elevated to an art-form in his home. Because his highly cynical father never forgot the victimization he suffered during the Depression, my husband’s world-view was colored by would-have’s, should-have’s and if-only’s. The result often manifested in the grass looking greener on the other side of the fence.


I and my husband – definitely my “soulmate” if there is such a thing -- share many things in common; faith, family, friends, and a long, fulfilling, exciting history together. All things considered, we are a perfect fit except for one – make that two or three – things. He is a pessimist (he would use the word “realist”) and I am an optimist (he would use the word fantasist). He loves to swim and relax in the sun. The sun is not my friend and I don’t swim. He is an engineer who isn’t passionate about reading or writing. I am a bookworm; writing is my profession.


Are we the only couple who wrestle with these issues?


Our differences got out of control a few months ago when Oregon experienced one of its worst springs in history. Northwest winters are cloudy, rainy and cool (as opposed to cloudy, snowy and freezing in the other areas of the country, I remind my husband), but springtime is typically a mix of lessening showers, increasing warmth, and fabulous rainbows. Summers in Oregon are paradisiacal; generally dry and hot with blessedly cool evenings. This spring, however, consisted of nearly three straight months of unseasonably cool temperatures, record-breaking rains, and leaden skies. Newbie Oregonians, particularly California transplants who are spoiled by some of the most perfect weather in the entire world, made like the Israelites in the desert, crying that they wanted to go back to “Egypt” -- wherever that might be.


My husband complained incessantly. I grew to dread the start of each new day, not because of the weather, but because I knew – and this is no exaggeration – that I would be subjected to an endless litany of meteorological facts and statistics comparing Oregon’s weather to Hawaii, and countless threats of selling our house and moving thousands of miles away from our children just to have sunshine in the wintertime. All of this whining was accompanied with theatrical sighs and unhealthy doses of feigned morosity. I turned into a shrew.


It became a great source of contention between us.


Now, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate a sunny day as much as the next guy. Who hasn’t dreamed of vacationing in Hawaii or the Caribbean in the dead of winter? But the fact is, weather doesn’t dictate my state of mind or control my emotions. When I “see” Oregon, I don’t see rain. I see beautiful swirling fogs, myriad hues of green, dense primeval forests, magnificent mountains and a spectacular coastline. Apparently, that makes me a freak. Most Americans evidently live their lives tethered to the sun. Since there are few countries on earth where citizens have the luxury of arm-chair quarterbacking situations they have absolutely no control over, I fear it might be true that I am the “odd man” out.


Still, I doubt Dalits in Calcutta obsess over how many cloudy days they have in a year, just as I’m sure the majority of Africans don’t entertain relocating to a place where they will be able to enjoy more sunshine. Any day they’re alive is a beautiful day to them.


We are incredibly blessed and not just a little bit spoiled.


For me (and my husband actually came up with this motto when we moved here) Oregon is our “Promised Land.” Undeniably, God Himself led us here like Abraham and Sarah, even though we weren’t aware of it at the time. This is where I rededicated my life to Christ, became a mother, raised my children and built a home. And that is the key, at least for me. This is my home. It’s not just four walls and a roof that can be bought and sold on a whim. God pointed to this place on the map, and “Pow!” in went my stake. To date, He has not directed us anywhere else.


The outcome of all this is…you ask? Well, we didn’t kill each other and we’re still happily married. Our sparring is part of the Tango that is our dance. It’s mid-June and after announcing that Oregon experienced the wettest June in it’s history already, the weatherman is promising warmer, sunnier days. We’ve had a few intermittent ones already; enough to placate my husband…for now.


The mountain between us shrunk back down into a mole hill, and with Father’s Day looming, I am reminded of just how good and wonderful my husband is, how much he is loved by his children, and how faithful, hardworking and steady he is. It's a good thing, Father's Day. If we lay all the small stuff aside and focus on the man who is the father, we can regain our perspective.


At least I learned something: Mountains are not insurmountable.



Thursday, May 6, 2010

Surviving Motherhoods' Many Incarnations



(Mamatopia, Vortexia) -- I am entering a new phase of motherhood; one I’m not entirely familiar with yet, but which evidently comes with the territory when one reaches a certain stage of life. For me, that stage is the upcoming marriage of my youngest child.


Motherhood, I have learned, goes something like this. When children are:


Newborn to Age Five: “Mother” means Food and Love. The simplicity of our role as mothers of infants, in retrospect, is staggering. But as children reach the age of two or three, we are gob-smacked with our first reality check: They aren’t always the angels we assumed they were.


Yes, our children still adore us, but they can turn monstrous at the drop of a hat, screaming horrid epithets when they don’t get their way. As we bask in the false notion that their adulation of us will last forever, the title Disciplinarian is added to our job-description.


Five to Ten Years-of Age: Our moniker is now synonymous with “Slave.” It’s difficult to determine when, and why, our children’s perception of us changes, but school most definitely has something to do with it. Their peers have become the center of their egocentric little universe. We, still trusting in our indispensability, cling blindly to the remnants of their need for us, ignoring the alien creature inside of them raring to hatch. If only we knew what lay ahead, we might just decide to sell everything and move to Antarctica. There, at least, there would be fewer casualties from their soon-to-be uncontrollable hormones.


Pre-Teens and Teens: Seemingly overnight, we are "The Enemy.” Unprepared for this demonization, we hit the panic button, yet no matter how hard we kick against the goads, we are sucked into the black hole of teenage hormonal hell. Our children are embarrassed by our very existence. They are mortified to be seen with us in public to the point of pretending they don’t know us. Everything is our fault. In their eyes, we are domineering harridans; stupid, old-fashioned, irrelevant road blocks to their future. On our worst days, we imagine our reflection in the mirror verifies their opinion of us. It’s flat out gruesome. Where has the time gone? What’s happened to our babies? Who ARE we?


Young Adults: If we survived our children’s teen years, the name “mother” may now mean “Friend…sort of, kind of… but not really. This is a nebulous time of life for mother and child, at best. Neither one is quite sure how they arrived at this ceasefire -- this unverbalized truce -- but all parties breathe a sigh of relief that the worst is, hopefully, behind them. We see our children in a new, more mature light. And they see us as maybe having some brains after all. Time to leave Antarctica and come back home.


Married Adults: The rewards of motherhood take on new meaning here. We hear our name spoken with a semblance of admiration, if not reverence, as if “mom” means “Dear Trusted, Wise One Who Never Gave Up On Me.” The phone calls become more frequent (depending on if the child is a son or a daughter) asking for recipes or advice or just to talk. The restoration of our identity as mothers coming full-circle bringing immeasurable satisfaction. It’s actually possible to smile at our gray hair and wrinkles in the mirror because it no longer represents loss; it reflects triumph.


This is the stage of motherhood I am in now; a parent to married adults. I know nothing of future incarnations -- that of grandmother, or great-grandmother – but I am convinced it will be wonderful despite the predictable speed bumps along the way. And, though I could hear you chuckling with me during this satirical journey through the incarnations of motherhood – and I know you realize the joys and privilege of motherhood are worth every sacrifice -- we mothers share a common bond: We love our children with a love that passes all understanding.


So, to all you mothers (and mother’s-to-be someday) I leave you this for Mother's Day: be strong, be persistent, and be blessed. You are beloved whether or not you know it or feel it. Because when it's all said and done, really, your name is: You Can Do It; All Things Are Possible With God!”

Friday, April 30, 2010

Dave's First Massage; A Gaffe Riddled Milestone





(Gaffes Galore, Vortexia) -- By his own admission, my husband Dave has no tact. He’s a wonderful man – talented, warm, and gregarious – but his off-the-cuff comments have made for many, shall we say, “memorable” moments. Usually his slips-of-the tongue are laughable and innocent enough. Sometimes, however, they are mortifying.


While everyone else might be gob smacked by his gaffes, Dave is completely unfazed. In his eyes, he is simply being plain-spoken, straight-forward. I suppose there is an element of virtue to being forth-right. After all, our daughter Rachel says she knows which parent to go to when she wants an honest personal assessment.

It isn’t me.


Rachel, who is very much like her father, recently took the bold step of getting us a gift certificate for a double massage at the Oregon Gardens Resort. It was her way of nudging him into planning something special for our wedding anniversary. Having had several massages in the past, I was greatly appreciative. But Dave, having never had a massage before, was apprehensive.


“Oh, trust me, you’ll love it dad,” Rachel gushed, after he muttered something about how weird it would be to get a massage. “You and mom should do something different for your anniversary this year.”


Feeling the pressure from me -- and now Rachel --for the first time in our marriage, Dave planned a weekend getaway for us. I knew it wasn’t easy for him to put it together, what with the stress of his job and other commitments. I was elated and so proud of him.


We spent the first night of our Anniversary weekend at the Oregon Gardens. Dave had made reservations to have our massage at 5:00 with dinner following at 7:00.


“I’m going to wear my golf shorts,” he informed me, as we prepared to head down to the spa. “I refuse to be naked when I get a massage.”


“What? You don’t have to strip down,” I assured him, humored by his naïveté. “There’s nothing to be nervous about.”


Grudgingly, he complied.


When we arrived at the spa, two uniform-clad women met us, ushering us to a dressing room where they gave us luxurious robes and told us to strip down to whatever we were comfortable with.


“Whatever we’re comfortable with!” scoffed Dave, his face full of foreboding. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”


We were then issued slippers and escorted to a waiting room where a woman who had just received a massage was being seated.


“Drink this water,” her masseuse instructed, handing her a bottle. “Go ahead and relax here as long as you want, and when you’re ready you can get dressed.”


The woman, who was in her 60’s, snuggled into her seat, pulled her bathrobe collar up around her neck, tilted her head back and sighed, “That was wonderful. Then, she rolled her head to one side, opened her eyes, and looked at us. Laughing, she declared, “I look a mess, but I really don’t care.”


Well, her tousled hair did look like she’d just had electric shock therapy. It stood nearly straight on end. Dave anxiously touched the back of his head, no doubt wondering what his hair would like before the hour was over. I returned the woman’s smile and said, “Actually, you look like you’re completely relaxed.”


“Oh, I am,” she replied, running her fingers through her hair. “You know, my favorite part of the massage was when she worked on my scalp.”


She lowered her gaze to the floor near Dave’s slippers and her smile widened. “You can stop tapping your feet,” she said to him. “I take it you’ve never had a massage before?”


Body language. She had read right through him.


Dave stiffened and grunted something in response just as another woman entered the room and sat down. Her face was flushed, her hair wild. She, too, nestled down into her seat and sighed.


“We’re sisters,” they explained to us, noting they met once or twice a year in a location halfway between Seattle and Eugene to do something special together. They both looked at Dave and giggled knowingly.


“Mr. & Mrs. Neumann, you can come with us now.” Our crisp, very professional masseuses guided us to the spa room where two side-by-side massage tables awaited us. They went through their procedures with us, informing us that after they asked us some questions, they would leave. We were to disrobe and lie face-down on the tables with a blanket covering us before they came back in to begin the massage.


‘Is there any part of your body you don’t want touched during the massage?” my masseuse asked me before excusing herself.


“I’d like you to work on my neck, shoulders and upper back,” I said. “That’s where all my tension settles in.” I assumed Dave would take the cue and tell his masseuse what area he needed work on.


Dave’s masseuse asked him the same question. “Is there any part of your body you don’t want touched during your massage?”


In all seriousness, he replied, “My groin area.”


Her eyes widened. I’m sure she was repressing her shock. After all, who in the world would be so unnecessarily blunt? “Why, of course!” she blustered.


Left alone to climb beneath our respective blankets, I hissed, “I can’t believe you really said that, Dave! These are professional masseuses; what are you thinking!?”


“It’s a reasonable request. She asked!”


I knew the only reason Dave was having a massage with me was because our daughter had paid for it. I also knew he was nervous because he had never been in a spa before. But I was determined to enjoy my message, so after the masseuses returned, I put his gaucherie out of my mind and tuned him out.


Less than two minutes into our massage, Dave said, “Teresa! Is she working on your back?”


No reply.


A moment later: “Teresa! This really feels good, doesn’t it?”


No reply.


An hour later, peeling ourselves off the massage table, I looked at Dave. His hair was a mess. His eyes had a far-away look in them. We didn’t say anything as we were escorted into the waiting room to drink some water and regroup. One other man sat in the room, waiting for his massage. I think it might have been his first time, because he looked a little….nervous.


I looked at Dave and he looked at me, smiling.

Friday, March 19, 2010

It’s the Gifting, Not the Gadgets, That Produce Miracles in Life



(Mom's Kitchen, Vortexia) -- A luthier once told me that the ability of Russian violinists to perform with excellence on woefully inferior instruments was a testament to their legendary greatness. I know it to be true, because I recall a former violin teacher from the Ukraine showing me photographs of her family playing their violins at funerals held outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures; an environment guaranteed to render a violin nearly useless. They knew it was the spirit behind the fingers, not the instrument itself, that could made their music what it was. That teacher, and her daughter, played so exquisitely on their non-descript violins, I could only marvel at it.


In coming back to Iowa to be with my ailing father (who still lives in the same house I grew up in many decades ago), I discovered a domestic application to that phenomenon. I found it in the kitchen.


My mother was, by any definition, a great cook. Before Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooling hit America, my mother was putting butter and half-and-half on our oatmeal and making us home-made hot chocolate using melted dark chocolate, vanilla, sugar and cream. (Note: Did I say we were a family of ten? Six girls and two boys in a three-bedroom, one-bath house? And, yes, we were Catholic.) Perhaps her moxie was the result of being raised in a Depression-Era orphanage or maybe it was from marrying into a family of farmers and dairy producers. Regardless, mom made everything from scratch; breads, caramel rolls, pies, cakes, and cookies. Her culinary mastery wasn’t limited to sweets either. The best, most succulent meats, casseroles, soups and salads I’ve ever tasted have come from my mother’s kitchen.


You could say she personified Babette in Babette’s Feast. Like Babette, she could take a pot of water and a pound of meat and make it taste like heaven. Since her passing on April 8, 2006, those who knew her still rave about her cooking. Preparing food was her love medium, and to this day I can taste her love for me.



Here, back home in her Iowa kitchen, unchanged since she died, I am reminded that my mother set a bar that is personally unattainable. This revelation came when I opened the cupboard to retrieve a pan to cook dinner for my father. I panicked. There were no copper-bottomed, stainless steel skillets or state-of-the-art, non-stick cookware to choose from. No sturdy, shiny cooking utensils; no superfluous gizmos or gadgets. No Kitchen Aid mixer or food processors, definitely staples in my own scullery. Mom cooked with the cheapest accoutrements, with no one -- not a mother, or even the ubiquitous Food Network -- to guide her. Her accomplishments were sheer gifting.


As I prepared my father’s dinner that night using a battered old Teflon frying pan and a chewed-up plastic spatula, I wondered how I could possibly produce an edible meal with such poor quality cookware. Even following all of my mother’s recipes to a “T,” and relying heavily on modern gadgetries, my cooking never turns out as good as hers. Never. But, to my utter amazement, dinner turned out delicious. It was a miracle – it was as though it wouldn’t have mattered what I made. Somehow, I thought, whatever I prepare in my mom’s kitchen will be good.


I will return home having learned the metaphorical lesson; a lesson that brings me hope. Gifting needs no gadgetry to bloom. It is what it is. Use it, be confident in it, and it will blossom. Whether the gift is cooking, painting, writing, dancing, building, finances, nursing, teaching, praying, etc., if it is put into use, even without the trappings we think we need to excel, it will manifest.


After all, it’s not the instrument that produces excellence, it’s the Spirit within.



Monday, February 1, 2010

PART TWO: The Conversation I Had With My Kidney


The Dynamics of Dread, the Power of Pain, and the Conversation I Had With My Kidney


Part One


(Out of the Blue, Vortexia) -- My New Year’s resolution for 2010 was that life would return to “normal” after a year of sickness and death in my husband’s family. But, on January 4 – having never experienced a serious illness in my life -- I discovered blood in my urine and knew with sobering certainty that my life would be anything but normal for awhile; maybe forever.


“Tests show no sign of infection,” my doctor announced. “Even though you’re not experiencing any pain, I’m ordering an ultrasound to check for kidney stones.”


Two days later, he called back. “Well, the good news is the ultrasound showed no stones in your kidneys. The bad news is, we need to take a different test to see the inside of your bladder. I’m referring you to an urologist.”


Having done my homework on the Internet, I knew that heavy bleeding without pain was symptomatic of bladder cancer; ergo, the thought of waiting two more weeks to have the next test was unbearable. A dear friend who “happened” to work for a premier urological medical group came to my rescue. He set up an appointment for me with a first-rate urologist immediately. Miracle Number One.


I know, it’s futile to worry, but telling someone being tested for cancer not to worry is like telling a dog not to cower from fireworks on the 4th of July. I succumbed to an endless mental litany of “what-if’s” and “if-only’s”: What if I do have cancer? Maybe that’s why God arranged for me to get seen so quickly. What if it’s advanced? Untreatable? If only I had gone to the doctor sooner. If only I had watched my diet more. If only I hadn’t snapped at my husband the other day…


Later, listening to my urologist tell me the test on my bladder was negative for cancer, I scolded myself. Silly girl.


“See?” my husband beamed. “You’re going to be just fine.”


The urologist, however, wasn’t so convinced. “Something is causing the bleeding,” he said, noting that during the test he had located the source. It was my left kidney. “I want you back in two days for a CAT-scan,” he ordered. “We need to get to the bottom of this.”


I should interject here that I am notoriously leery of being over-exposed to x-rays. When I told my eldest daughter, a medical professional, of my intent to cancel the CAT-scan appointment because I was sure everything was ok and the urologist was just over-reacting, she had a fit. “Don’t you dare cancel that appointment,” she shrilled. “That’s your old 'hippy-head' talking mom!”


I indulged her, grudgingly, but not without telling the technician who did the scan that I was in mourning because my “virginal kidneys were about to be violated.” A joke, of course.


The joke, as it turned out, was on me. A half-hour later, as my unsuspecting husband and I sat with the urologist in front of the computer displaying the first of my CAT-scan x-rays, we heard the dreaded words: “See this shadow here in your ureter….and this spot on your left kidney? I’m concerned. I’ll be honest with you, I’m afraid you could have a rare form of kidney and/or ureter cancer. There’s no way to know for sure unless we do a ureteroscopy. If it does turn out to be cancer, I think we may have caught it early enough to simply remove the kidney and avoid any chemo or radiation, but we need to schedule the procedure as soon as possible.”


On the way home I broke down and told my husband that my two greatest regrets in life – if I were to have cancer – were that I might not live to see my grandchildren and that I’d surely have to bless him to marry someone else. “You’re too young to be widowed for 30 years,” I choked, failing miserably at feigning both humor and courage.


He wouldn’t hear of it. I was being “premature” he cautioned. I was going to be “fine,” he said. Nevertheless, this pragmatic, type-A personality, former Girl Scout, was determined to be prepared for the worst. At the same time, I was equally determined to keep everything in perspective so as to prevent despair from swallowing me alive.


Rolling out the carpet of the mind; a typical reaction to fear, isn’t it? The length and breadth of life unfurls, expanding into eternity, revealing the stark sum of our past and the imminent sentence of our future existence. It’s an inescapable reality check; a virtual checklist of personal foibles and misappropriated affections. Why had I wasted so much of my life burdened with trivialities and spent so little time really living? Suddenly, I see my husband as unsurpassingly beautiful, perfect. My children are precious beyond belief. Nothing else matters.


The following day a 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti. There’s perspective for you. Lying on the operating table, ready to go under general anesthesia, I told the surgeon and the anesthesiologist, “I can’t stop thinking of the poor Haitians trapped in buildings, suffering such unspeakable pain with no food, no water, no doctors, no medicine. I almost feel guilty being here.”


The next thing I knew, my husband was holding my hand telling me that my kidneys were perfectly healthy, that I was cancer free – Miracle Number Two --and that the doctor had found a small kidney stone in my left kidney and removed it.


The procedure effectively ended my fears of cancer, but gave birth to a week of excruciating pain unlike anything I had ever experienced. Of course, I couldn’t have known that then, sedated as I was, intoxicated with thankfulness for my clean bill of health.


If ignorance is bliss, I was blind, deliriously so, to what the future had in store for me.

Part Two


Searing Pain: Unnatural, suffocating, a ruthless exercise in faith and self-control. If fear expands one’s scope, pain retracts it, reeling in the panoply of life so that nothing exists but the pain itself. Time stops; there is no past, no future. All that is left, all that exists, is the brutal reality of “now.” Worse yet, no amount of reasoning, comfort, cajoling, distractions, or positive thinking can alleviate it. In essence, nothing – absolutely nothing -- matters anymore but the numb hope that the pain will go away and never return.


You think, perhaps, that I’m referring to the pain of torture, of childbirth, or of a broken bone, or a mortal wound of some sort. No, I refer to the pain of passing a kidney stone.


During my surgery the doctor had to insert a stent through my bladder and ureter and into my kidney. It was necessary, he told me, to keep the kidney draining correctly for awhile. It was tolerably painful (with pain medication), and after four days of immobility and walking about like Quasimodo, I was primed to have it removed. Removing the stent was a simple matter, the urologist assured me. His staff agreed that I would feel great immediately and that I would “bounce right back” to health.


Well, I left his office that morning in excruciating pain, assuming it would subside during the hour-long drive back home. A half-hour into our drive, writhing in pain, I shouted at my husband to pull off the interstate. Nauseous, light-headed, breathing shallowly, my heart racing, there was no position I could get into that would lessen the pain. Finally, thanks to my husband’s wisdom and sensitivity, we somehow made it home.


Shortly thereafter, my husband broke the news to me – hesitantly, as though I’d bite his head off -- after he talked to the doctor’s nurse on the phone. “She says you must be one of the very few who react this way when a stent is removed,” he said. “Your ureter is going through spasms as though it’s passing a stone, even though there’s not one there. She says you’re in for a rough 24 hours and after that it will get better.”


There are times you don’t want to stand out from the crowd, when you want to be like everyone else. Unfortunately, this was one of the them.


I spent the next 24-hours having “stoneless” kidney attacks every five hours. The pain meds the doctor had prescribed didn’t even begin to touch the pain. When the attacks continued after 24-hours the nurse told my husband that “sometimes they can last longer; up to five days.”


Are you kidding me?


They prescribed an anti-spasmodic medication to control the spasms, instructing me to take them along with the strong pain medication I was still on. They provided no relief whatsoever. The screaming pain brought me to my knees -- unbearable, incapacitating. It was like being stabbed in the kidney over-and-over every two or three seconds for up to an hour at a time. During an attack, I couldn’t talk, move, be touched, or listen to anything. All I could do was focus on enduring and mastering the pain.


I began to despair. People were praying for me, I knew, but the peace I felt when I wasn’t in pain fled the moment the attacks started, and each one progressively left me weakened physically and mentally. I felt like a Russian wooden nesting doll, as though the real me was shrinking inside of myself…as though I was looking at myself from the inside out. As a result, I began relating to the pain in an almost clinical way. It would start as a dull ache in my left kidney and go from 0-10 (10 being unbearable pain) in five minutes, where it would remain for 30-minutes or so, and then begin to fade at varying rates depending on my ability to relax.


Here’s where it got dicey. If the pain didn’t recede to an absolute 0, the spasms would start up again and I’d go through the cycle all over. It took every ounce of strength and concentration for me to subdue the pain at that point. I knew I had reached a 0 level of pain when I was either, 1) so relaxed I couldn’t feel the left side of my body or, 2) I fell asleep.


On the third day, during another attack, my despair turned to desperation. The peak had passed, but I was still struggling at about a stage 2 level of pain. I tried to think of sounds that I found calming and immediately thought of the Italian language; it has always had a soothing effect on me. As I tried to remember waking up in Italy to the voices of Italians in the street, a voice inside my head said, “Your prayer language has the same effect on you, you know.”


It was a eureka moment for me, and as I began to breath the tongues of angels my pain vanished. Just like that.

I had prayed that would be my last attack, but still they continued. The following evening I suffered two back-to-back. Writhing in agony, I suddenly envisioned the film The Passion of the Christ and my heart broke with the most rudimentary understanding of what a battle Jesus must have been engaged in with His pain. How could He carry on a conversation with the thieves on the cross? How could He care about His friends and family or anyone else for that matter, while he hung there on the cross?


I was so wasted at that point I couldn’t concentrate enough to even pray anymore. Then out of nowhere I had a mental picture of our new kitten, Bo. Spoilt rotten, she had kept us up several nights whining and crying, scratching incessantly at the door because she wanted to be fed and coddled. Delirious with pain, I placed my hand on my back over my contracting kidney/ureter and began to speak to it.


“Kidney,” I said, “I get it. You’re mad. You’re throwing a fit because you’ve been messed with. You just want to be held. Well, here. I’ll massage you until you calm down.”


“It’s pointless for you to continue like this,” I continued. “You’re stuck with me and I’m stuck with you. We’re in this together, like it or not, and as long as you’re not happy nobody’s happy. So go ahead and keep throwing a fit because you’re just hurting yourself.”


Immediately, the pain began to subside. I kept rubbing my back, speaking to my kidney until I felt the spasms stop. I was too exhausted to marvel – or even care -- at what had just happened. It had been the worst attack yet and had left me feeling nearly paralyzed on my left side. I even wondered for awhile if I had suffered a stroke during it. Desperate times had called for desperate measures.


It was my last attack. Miracle Number Three.


As I write this, a week later, I am a different person. Pain, and facing the inevitability of death in a visceral way, have left me enormously grateful. Grateful, because unlike thousands of others every day, I was spared a positive test result for cancer. Though I dodged the bullet, I was left with a fresh reminder of my mortality. And the next time I’m waiting in an emergency room or hospital lab, surrounded by bedraggled, unkempt people who look distant or worried, I won’t entertain smug thoughts of how I would never go out in public wearing my pajamas and slippers with my hair uncombed because, indeed, I would have during one of my attacks. Instead, my heart will break for them. Miracle Number Four...the greatest miracle of all.


Friday, January 29, 2010

The Dynamics of Dread, the Power of Pain, and the Conversation I Had With My Kidney


The Dynamics of Dread, the Power of Pain, and the Conversation I Had With My Kidney


Part One


(Out of the Blue, Vortexia) -- My New Year’s resolution for 2010 was that life would return to “normal” after a year of sickness and death in my husband’s family. But, on January 4 – having never experienced a serious illness in my life -- I discovered blood in my urine and knew with sobering certainty that my life would be anything but normal for awhile; maybe forever.


“Tests show no sign of infection,” my doctor announced. “Even though you’re not experiencing any pain, I’m ordering an ultrasound to check for kidney stones.”


Two days later, he called back. “Well, the good news is the ultrasound showed no stones in your kidneys. The bad news is, we need to take a different test to see the inside of your bladder. I’m referring you to an urologist.”


Having done my homework on the Internet, I knew that heavy bleeding without pain was symptomatic of bladder cancer, ergo, the thought of waiting two more weeks to have the next test was unbearable. A dear friend who “happened” to work for a premier urological medical group came to my rescue. He set up an appointment for me with a first-rate urologist immediately; not something that would have been possible under socialized healthcare. Miracle Number One.


I know, it’s futile to worry, but telling someone being tested for cancer not to worry is like telling a dog not to cower from fireworks on the 4th of July. I succumbed to an endless mental litany of “what-if’s” and “if-only’s”: What if I do have cancer? Maybe that’s why God arranged for me to get seen so quickly. What if it’s advanced? Untreatable? If only I had gone to the doctor sooner. If only I had watched my diet more. If only I hadn’t snapped at my husband the other day…


Later, listening to my urologist tell me the test on my bladder was negative for cancer, I scolded myself. Silly girl.

“See?” my husband beamed. “You’re going to be just fine.”


The urologist, however, wasn’t so convinced. “Something is causing the bleeding,” he said, noting that during the test he had located the source. It was my left kidney. “I want you back in two days for a CAT-scan,” he ordered. “We need to get to the bottom of this.”


I should interject here that I am notoriously leery of being over-exposed to x-rays. When I told my eldest daughter, a medical professional, of my intent to cancel the CAT-scan appointment because I was sure everything was ok and the urologist was just over-reacting, she had a fit. “Don’t you dare cancel that appointment,” she shrilled. “That’s your old hippy-head talking mom!”


I indulged her, grudgingly, but not without telling the technician who did the scan that I was in mourning because my “virginal kidneys were about to be violated.” A joke, of course.


The joke, as it turned out, was on me. A half-hour later, as my unsuspecting husband and I sat with the urologist in front of the computer displaying the first of my CAT-scan x-rays, we heard the dreaded words: “See this shadow here in your ureter….and this spot on your left kidney? I’m concerned. I’ll be honest with you, I’m afraid you could have a rare form of kidney and/or ureter cancer. There’s no way to know for sure unless we do a ureteroscopy. If it does turn out to be cancer, I think we may have caught it early enough to simply remove the kidney and avoid any chemo or radiation, but we need to schedule the procedure as soon as possible.”


On the way home I broke down and told my husband that my two greatest regrets in life – if I were to have cancer – were that I might not live to see my grandchildren and that I’d have to bless him to marry someone else. “You’re too young to be widowed for 30 years,” I choked, failing miserably at feigning both humor and courage.


He wouldn’t hear of it. I was being “premature” he cautioned. I was going to be “fine,” he said. Nevertheless, this pragmatic, type-A personality, former Girl Scout, was determined to be prepared for the worst. At the same time, I was equally determined to keep everything in perspective so as to prevent despair from swallowing me alive.


Rolling out the carpet of the mind; a typical reaction to fear, isn’t it? The length and breadth of life unfurls, expanding into eternity, revealing the stark sum of our past and the imminent sentence of our future existence. It’s an inescapable reality check; a virtual checklist of personal foibles and misappropriated affections. Why had I wasted so much of my life burdened with trivialities and spent so little time really living? Suddenly, I see my husband as unsurpassingly beautiful, perfect. My children are precious beyond belief. Nothing else matters.


The following day a 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti. There’s perspective for you. Lying on the operating table, ready to go under general anesthesia, I told the surgeon and the anesthesiologist, “I can’t stop thinking of the poor Haitians trapped in buildings, suffering such unspeakable pain with no food, no water, no doctors, no medicine. I almost feel guilty being here.”


The next thing I knew, my husband was holding my hand telling me that my kidneys were perfectly healthy, that I was cancer free – Miracle Number Two --and that the doctor had found a small kidney stone in my left kidney and removed it.


The procedure effectively ended my fears of cancer, but gave birth to a week of excruciating pain unlike anything I had ever experienced. Of course, I couldn’t have known that then, sedated as I was, intoxicated with thankfulness for my clean bill of health.


If ignorance is bliss, I was blind, deliriously so, to what the future had in store for me.