for any devoted grey's anatomy fans, you'll understand my reference in the subject line. in one amazingly brilliant episode, a patient comes into the hospital bleeding out and most likely to die if not for the actions of a young EMT played by christina ricci who instinctively put her own hand inside his chest to stop the flow of blood rushing from his heart.
her actions are somewhat heroic; the doctors are all amazed at her quick thinking to save the patient's life. that is, until they discover the patient whose heart she is holding is determine to have a live, homemade grenade lodged in his chest cavity. one that could detonate at any moment. with or without provocation.
that's how i feel right now. this blood clot in my leg is that live, homemade grenade wedged inside my calf at this moment, waiting to dislodge and travel to my heart or my lungs, cutting short my so-called life.
when this happens, when they know that it is a grenade that she is touching, her anxiety is palpable, her fear tangible as christina ricci acted her ass off in those scenes. so the moment when she decides she can't handle the pressure any more, good ol' meredith who is always a bit on the risky side, slides her hand in place of the young EMT. stupid move, some say when one false move could blow the building to smithereens. or pink mist, as the hunky bomb squad captain called it, as in the only thing left after detonation if you're the unfortunate one holding the bomb at the time.
the rest of the show is filled with nail-biting moments of anxiety and preparations to prep the hospital for the removal of the device. much like now, when i swallow 4 pills of blood thinner a day, trying to keep my blood thin enough while i wait for my body to dissolve the clot. much like now, there is confusion and uncertainty and moments of sheer anger at the helplessness of the situation.
and there are moments of sheer delirium when faced with challenge that you are able to muddle through, like meredith standing at the hallway watching the hunky bombsquad captain slowly make his way out with the building holding the device, freeing her from servitude to it. i was meredith yesterday after i successfully gave myself an injection, that's my "just in case" medicine.
in case the pills aren't working as they should (which they haven't) to prevent me from becoming my own version of pink mist.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
livestrong
it's quite possible that you won't meet someone who hasn't had a friend, family member or associate battle cancer. the lance armstrong foundation is working to inspire and empower cancer victims - no, survivors - by supporting research, education and advocacy.
my good friend dan mccole is taking part in the philadelphia portion of lance armstrong's LIVESTRONG challenge. please support him in his ride and his goal to reach $500 in donations before the race on september 10, 2006.
to donate, click here to reach his personal page on LIVESTRONG.
c'mon, put your lance face on.
my good friend dan mccole is taking part in the philadelphia portion of lance armstrong's LIVESTRONG challenge. please support him in his ride and his goal to reach $500 in donations before the race on september 10, 2006.
to donate, click here to reach his personal page on LIVESTRONG.
c'mon, put your lance face on.
meet virginia
meet virginia. virginia gives me perspective as i lay here in this hospital bed watching the hands on the clock moving at their own lazy pace during my own private pity party.
she doesn't say much. her main communiciation she shares with me is her guppy-like gasps for air. wheezing high-pitched and soft, wimpering sounds of a puppy, blind and searching for its mother's teat follows each gasp.
occasionally, she'll moan when the nurses come to poke and prod her. forgetting that inside the mask-like creature still beats a heart all by itself -- at least for today. a dramatic difference from the rest of the mechanical tools needed to continue her existence. but for now, her heart still fills itself with her warm blood, filling nerve centers still active and alert although her mind no longer is.
the first night, i heard her cry out. i imagine behind the thin curtain that separates our beds that her hands are crossed prayerlike at her chest with her body twisted to the side. i am not sure if it is real or if i am just reliving how i first saw her. before the orderly wheeled my bed next to hers and pulling the curtain shut, as if the busy abstract pastel cotton sheet would separate us before joining us together.
in her sleep, oh how her mind must race. she shouts for "beverly" and cries out as to where she is going, to wait for her. so weak when "awake" yet how vividly her mind recreates memories of people and places. i believe that before we die, our friends and family come to ease our journey into the next life or whatever comes next. they join us on our deathbed and make the transition less frightening because of our trust in them. i believe beverly was there for her that night. her mind in its little shell, burst out of her age, her illness and dementia to make one last call out for help on her journey. it would be her last words spoken.
i feel honored to have been a witness.
meet virginia. she isn't gone. her body lay still in that hospital bed, family pushing doctors to do things they wish they never had to do. well-meaning but ignorant, the sons push for answers for reasons that being 90 years old and suffering from pneumonia and dementia in a life that is no longer your own will not satisfy as an answer.
i lay silent in my bed, waiting, wishing, wanting to disappear or become invisible to their pain. activity rushes in the room. hushed voices. beeping and clicks. the whrrrrl of machinery now pushing breath into her lungs since they can no longer expel the air on their own. the heavy, sweating man pushes his way into the room and the air around us cannot expel him. he leans over and whispers to her that he is there to help her and gives her last rites. anointing of the sick with oil. grade school sacraments flood my memory.
but the priest in sneakers and black t-shirt doesn't understand. these are not her last rites. virginia has no rights. her decisions are not her own. her last rights were taken from her a while ago. these are a feel-good motive to absolve her of her sins but what sins could she commit?
blessed are those who care for the sick, who take care of the elderly. the young nurse who comes in soon after, chases the family from her side. she slides the curtain around to give some dignity while she provides her own last rites. the water sloshes in the tub and the smell of dove soap fills the room. clean and refreshing to chase the smell of death and tubes that permeates in this room we share. i hear the nurse squeeze the droplets of water from the washclothe. another son bursts into the room and rips the curtain open.
the nurse yanks it right back and clears him from this sacred space. "you can sit with her after i am done giving her a bath," her kindness with virginia contrasts greatly with this newly tapped anger and frustration. but her movements continue, water still sloshes until virginia is clean and reborn.
a little while later i am moved to a new room, a single room where i won't be witness to a families' pain and woman's last breaths. a few more days later, i am able to leave the hospital that virginia won't be allowed to do.
they say there is no dignity in dying and i believe them -- meet virginia.
she doesn't say much. her main communiciation she shares with me is her guppy-like gasps for air. wheezing high-pitched and soft, wimpering sounds of a puppy, blind and searching for its mother's teat follows each gasp.
occasionally, she'll moan when the nurses come to poke and prod her. forgetting that inside the mask-like creature still beats a heart all by itself -- at least for today. a dramatic difference from the rest of the mechanical tools needed to continue her existence. but for now, her heart still fills itself with her warm blood, filling nerve centers still active and alert although her mind no longer is.
the first night, i heard her cry out. i imagine behind the thin curtain that separates our beds that her hands are crossed prayerlike at her chest with her body twisted to the side. i am not sure if it is real or if i am just reliving how i first saw her. before the orderly wheeled my bed next to hers and pulling the curtain shut, as if the busy abstract pastel cotton sheet would separate us before joining us together.
in her sleep, oh how her mind must race. she shouts for "beverly" and cries out as to where she is going, to wait for her. so weak when "awake" yet how vividly her mind recreates memories of people and places. i believe that before we die, our friends and family come to ease our journey into the next life or whatever comes next. they join us on our deathbed and make the transition less frightening because of our trust in them. i believe beverly was there for her that night. her mind in its little shell, burst out of her age, her illness and dementia to make one last call out for help on her journey. it would be her last words spoken.
i feel honored to have been a witness.
meet virginia. she isn't gone. her body lay still in that hospital bed, family pushing doctors to do things they wish they never had to do. well-meaning but ignorant, the sons push for answers for reasons that being 90 years old and suffering from pneumonia and dementia in a life that is no longer your own will not satisfy as an answer.
i lay silent in my bed, waiting, wishing, wanting to disappear or become invisible to their pain. activity rushes in the room. hushed voices. beeping and clicks. the whrrrrl of machinery now pushing breath into her lungs since they can no longer expel the air on their own. the heavy, sweating man pushes his way into the room and the air around us cannot expel him. he leans over and whispers to her that he is there to help her and gives her last rites. anointing of the sick with oil. grade school sacraments flood my memory.
but the priest in sneakers and black t-shirt doesn't understand. these are not her last rites. virginia has no rights. her decisions are not her own. her last rights were taken from her a while ago. these are a feel-good motive to absolve her of her sins but what sins could she commit?
blessed are those who care for the sick, who take care of the elderly. the young nurse who comes in soon after, chases the family from her side. she slides the curtain around to give some dignity while she provides her own last rites. the water sloshes in the tub and the smell of dove soap fills the room. clean and refreshing to chase the smell of death and tubes that permeates in this room we share. i hear the nurse squeeze the droplets of water from the washclothe. another son bursts into the room and rips the curtain open.
the nurse yanks it right back and clears him from this sacred space. "you can sit with her after i am done giving her a bath," her kindness with virginia contrasts greatly with this newly tapped anger and frustration. but her movements continue, water still sloshes until virginia is clean and reborn.
a little while later i am moved to a new room, a single room where i won't be witness to a families' pain and woman's last breaths. a few more days later, i am able to leave the hospital that virginia won't be allowed to do.
they say there is no dignity in dying and i believe them -- meet virginia.
black and blue
it's funny, my bruises are never really black and blue.
they start out a vibrant green tinged with yellow as they radiate out from the spot where... well, where if you touched me too hard, if i bumped myself or carried something too heavy, anywhere you apply pressure to my body, they can form.
it's not immediate reaction, like "ouch, owww, that hurts." like a fine wine, they develop over time, leaving you to wonder days later what slight movement or touch gave birth to this one. i know some people in my situation who like to keep journals of each potential touch gone wrong but i refuse to drive myself to that level of distraction. my illness takes a large enough toll on my fragile resources, it will not claim my sanity as well.
bubblewrap girl.
i joke that i need it to protect myself from my surroundings, but in all honesty, the bruises are the only outward sign of the raging battle within. the bruises are like the smoldering battlefields left behind after the battle is over -- singed and scarred rememberances of power. the ebb and flow of the positive and the negative forces surging through my blood without rhyme or reason, or concern for the cells surrounding or the greater life force in which it is contained. it's greedy and myopic.
the bruises tell a silent story of something amiss that in looking at me you just would not hear otherwise. sure i look paler, move slower and more cautiously, but to the unassuming eye, those could all be explained or reasoned away as eccentricity or genetics.
my husband dreads moments when the bruises are especially large or well-placed. he gets the sly glances of disapproval, the disgust. he carries the burden of shame, undeserved and unspoken, that strangers cast on him. "how could he beat the girl? look at those bruises on her arms, her legs. someone should give him a taste of his own medicine. mmm - hmm," they tsk and shake a finger to themselves and occasionally at me.
"girl, don't you know better than to let that man take advantage of you like that? you don't need someone who hits you." my protests otherwise sound too familiar, like the fish that got away.
"no, he's a good man. he doesn't hit me." all told countless times by real victims protecting their abuser. only my story is true. but to the hardened souls, my words have no effect on their judgement. it's the bruises that do.
i'm not battered, just black and blue.
they start out a vibrant green tinged with yellow as they radiate out from the spot where... well, where if you touched me too hard, if i bumped myself or carried something too heavy, anywhere you apply pressure to my body, they can form.
it's not immediate reaction, like "ouch, owww, that hurts." like a fine wine, they develop over time, leaving you to wonder days later what slight movement or touch gave birth to this one. i know some people in my situation who like to keep journals of each potential touch gone wrong but i refuse to drive myself to that level of distraction. my illness takes a large enough toll on my fragile resources, it will not claim my sanity as well.
bubblewrap girl.
i joke that i need it to protect myself from my surroundings, but in all honesty, the bruises are the only outward sign of the raging battle within. the bruises are like the smoldering battlefields left behind after the battle is over -- singed and scarred rememberances of power. the ebb and flow of the positive and the negative forces surging through my blood without rhyme or reason, or concern for the cells surrounding or the greater life force in which it is contained. it's greedy and myopic.
the bruises tell a silent story of something amiss that in looking at me you just would not hear otherwise. sure i look paler, move slower and more cautiously, but to the unassuming eye, those could all be explained or reasoned away as eccentricity or genetics.
my husband dreads moments when the bruises are especially large or well-placed. he gets the sly glances of disapproval, the disgust. he carries the burden of shame, undeserved and unspoken, that strangers cast on him. "how could he beat the girl? look at those bruises on her arms, her legs. someone should give him a taste of his own medicine. mmm - hmm," they tsk and shake a finger to themselves and occasionally at me.
"girl, don't you know better than to let that man take advantage of you like that? you don't need someone who hits you." my protests otherwise sound too familiar, like the fish that got away.
"no, he's a good man. he doesn't hit me." all told countless times by real victims protecting their abuser. only my story is true. but to the hardened souls, my words have no effect on their judgement. it's the bruises that do.
i'm not battered, just black and blue.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
this is war
wednesday, july 12
isn't it ironic? after nearly a decade of worrying that my body would relapse and betray me by bleeding out, it changes the rules of engagement by now deciding to clot.
i discovered my recent leg injury was caused not because i had twisted an ankle or pulled muscle. my leg pain was caused by a blood clot.
once again in the war for control, my body has found a way to play dirty.
now i sit anxiously waiting to know more. i know i have been through a lot and came out stronger for it. but now i want answers. i want drugs. "let's move it, people," i silently plead with passersby who refuse to look at me while quietly shaking their heads and wondering why a young woman sits alone in this er.
time is precious and i am scared. sitting in this waiting room i am reminded how alone i am. everyone around me is sitting in pairs. even the chair i pull towards me to rest my swollen leg upon is joined to two others. the dingy carpet shows the ground up remains of stains left behind by others who sat here like me, possibly alone, or more likely not, as judged by the sampling of people that surround me now. dark rings show the cleaning staff's ill-fated attempts to remove the evidence of the stain that the person who sat in this chair where i am sitting now left behind. for all i know, this dark ring could be the only thing that remains of the person who put it there in the first place.
but i am tired of looking down at the carpet but yet i still don't trust myself to look up at others around me or to look into their eyes.
i want to scream - not again! this can't be happening. haven't i had my own fairshare of freak things happen to my body? others my age aren't burdened with worrying about ptt levels and platelet counts and half of the other maladies, symptoms and side effects that swarm inside my head. i know this flustered feeling of uncertainty, of shock, an almost emptiness that sits at your very core knowing before you is two choices -- push forward and fight or retreat and concede the battle.
a decade ago, i sat in this very place when the doctors first told me they had a name for what was ailing me. a name to call my illness. finally. the disbelief of others was over. and my new disbelief was only starting.
almost five years of misdiagnosis, claims of fakery, accusations of domestic violence. they had a name, goddammit. i had a name. i.t.p. those three little letters started two long years of pills, pain, mood swings, anger and fear. lots of fear.
but yet, that battle has long since ended. victory was mine after i dropped my own version of an a-bomb on my body to end it. imagine doing something so drastic as to remove a piece of yourself in order to cure yourself. have someone reach way deep down inside of your sleeping self and cut away that which harms you. it would be almost biblical if i believed in a god.
now a new challenge presents itself. a new fight. every cell in my body tingles with fear, with anticipation. ready to be called up to fight but still unsure as to whose side it will fight. this is really nothing new to me.
i have been training for this all of my life.
i am a warrior and this is war.
isn't it ironic? after nearly a decade of worrying that my body would relapse and betray me by bleeding out, it changes the rules of engagement by now deciding to clot.
i discovered my recent leg injury was caused not because i had twisted an ankle or pulled muscle. my leg pain was caused by a blood clot.
once again in the war for control, my body has found a way to play dirty.
now i sit anxiously waiting to know more. i know i have been through a lot and came out stronger for it. but now i want answers. i want drugs. "let's move it, people," i silently plead with passersby who refuse to look at me while quietly shaking their heads and wondering why a young woman sits alone in this er.
time is precious and i am scared. sitting in this waiting room i am reminded how alone i am. everyone around me is sitting in pairs. even the chair i pull towards me to rest my swollen leg upon is joined to two others. the dingy carpet shows the ground up remains of stains left behind by others who sat here like me, possibly alone, or more likely not, as judged by the sampling of people that surround me now. dark rings show the cleaning staff's ill-fated attempts to remove the evidence of the stain that the person who sat in this chair where i am sitting now left behind. for all i know, this dark ring could be the only thing that remains of the person who put it there in the first place.
but i am tired of looking down at the carpet but yet i still don't trust myself to look up at others around me or to look into their eyes.
i want to scream - not again! this can't be happening. haven't i had my own fairshare of freak things happen to my body? others my age aren't burdened with worrying about ptt levels and platelet counts and half of the other maladies, symptoms and side effects that swarm inside my head. i know this flustered feeling of uncertainty, of shock, an almost emptiness that sits at your very core knowing before you is two choices -- push forward and fight or retreat and concede the battle.
a decade ago, i sat in this very place when the doctors first told me they had a name for what was ailing me. a name to call my illness. finally. the disbelief of others was over. and my new disbelief was only starting.
almost five years of misdiagnosis, claims of fakery, accusations of domestic violence. they had a name, goddammit. i had a name. i.t.p. those three little letters started two long years of pills, pain, mood swings, anger and fear. lots of fear.
but yet, that battle has long since ended. victory was mine after i dropped my own version of an a-bomb on my body to end it. imagine doing something so drastic as to remove a piece of yourself in order to cure yourself. have someone reach way deep down inside of your sleeping self and cut away that which harms you. it would be almost biblical if i believed in a god.
now a new challenge presents itself. a new fight. every cell in my body tingles with fear, with anticipation. ready to be called up to fight but still unsure as to whose side it will fight. this is really nothing new to me.
i have been training for this all of my life.
i am a warrior and this is war.