Reporting In From Sick Bay

That's a picture of a rhinovirus from the CIRI website. It looks like cheetos sprinkled with bits of dried chive, doesn't it? Which is amusing because that's exactly how my brain feels: like cheetos sprinkled with chives. I blame Wally because in October, I was in four airplanes (two of them cross country), trudged four days in cold rain; when I wasn't in the rain I was in crowded subway trains; not to mention October was a big month for H1N1 at work. I came home from my travels, healthy as a horse. Not even a sniffle. Six weeks later, Wally comes home and I get sick. My guess is the pod or barracks or whatever they call where he was living makes the toddler room at a day care center on any given day in January look like an OR suite just before a heart/lung transplant.

It's pitiful how this little virus has reduced me to a whining pile of mucusy goo. It's not like I have cancer or a ruptured appendix or Swine Flu or a brain tumor or even a psychotic episode--just a really bad cold. It's the sort of cold that makes you think God has you on the naughty list, right next to the Israelites when they were condemned to wandering the desert. But instead of wandering in a desert you are glued to your bed surrounded by snotty tissues, old soup bowls, cough drop wrappers and empty tea cups. Monday evening when my cold had reached it's nadir, wandering around a desert with a few scraps of dry bread sounded a lot better than suffocating on my own body fluids. Because I was quarantined in my bedroom the only audience I had for my whining were my invisible/imaginary friends. I was going on and on about my cold and woe is me and whine...whine...whine to the fifth power when one of my friends linked me to this hilarious video. I'm not smart enough to embed it so follow the link to youtube. I was almost this pitiful and if we had national health care I probably would have called 911.


I'll be back next week and maybe my brain won't feel like cheetos and dried chives.

Delusions Of Happiness

One of my favorite blogs is here. Gretchen provides tips on Wednesday and they are always salient and timely. This week was no different. I had such a bad day on Monday, I was still reeling from it by Wednesday. A sort of numb PTSD feeling like I experience after an emergency that doesn't go well or a difficult death. Because of HPPA, I can't go into the particulars but lets just say I spent most of a twelve hour shift in one room and it wasn't because the patient was unstable and the doctor unwilling to send the patient to the ICU. Nope, this patient was completely out of control and in order to keep him off the floor I had to literally sit at his bedside and reorient him constantly. If my other four patients needed anything, the charge nurse had to come to the bedside while I threw pills and whisked bandages off and slapped them back on my other patients. I could go into a rant about this situation and why the patient was out of his mind and who it is but I would be (deservedly) fined five figures and lose my job. Anyhow, early Wednesday, cruising my blogs when I'm greeted with the "9 Tips for having a good bad day"

"Where the hell were you on Monday" I mumbled into the screen as I begrudgingly started reading. Begrudgingly, because I was in such a place that "bitter" and "angry" was starting to feel like a baseline emotion. Basically, I dumped all the water out of my half full glass so it would be empty. To be really woo-woo about it: I was giving my power over to someone else, namely to a patient with self-inflicted dementia. Who frankly, given how they have cared for themselves don't deserve the level of expertise and compassion they have received in my hospital. Anyhow, by number three (ruminating) I was hooked and realized how fruitless hanging on to the "no good terrible day" had been. To clarify, I didn't spend Tuesday in the midst of whining and moaning about my day at Crazy's bedside. I forced myself out of the house and pulled weeds, deadheaded flowers and decompressed in the dirt. But I did find myself returning to Monday's events and wishing I never EVER had to work as a nurse again. Whenever I contemplate not being a nurse I get a little sick inside. This is my calling and I'm going to let one really fucked up alcoholic borderline personality push me away from the bedside? If I did this, shame on me, I would be giving him my power.

Wednesday afternoon, I looked to number 7: "Act the way I want to feel" Which wasn't hard because we had this unseasonably cool and humid day yesterday and before I even tackled Gretchen's tips, I had been in the garden overcome with joy we have tomatoes on the verge of ripening. But I had the nagging sensation of counting down the hours before I had to return to work on Friday and I did not want to return with dread and a heavy heart. I wanted to return with hope for a better day and a patient who had the right mix of psych drugs on board so his thoughts and actions were a little more organized.

Yesterday afternoon, after Wally and Beav cleaned the house for me (beautiful job they did, too) my Ipod gave me a wonderful song I just discovered and downloaded last week. Too bad it's from a regrettably sappy movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Bob Schneider is a few years younger than me and maybe he is being Gen X and ironic when he wrote these words but I have taken them at face value:

There is a universe that can't be seen
It's just a feeling if you know what I mean
A delectable dimension undetectable by sight
It'll fill up your heart in the dead of the night
Some say its an astral plane
Can't be described can't be explained

The world exploded into love all around me
The world exploded into love all around me
And everytime I take a look around me
I have to smile

Oh is our life just an illusion
There is no need to figure it out
The separation exists not in your love filled heart
But only in your mind
The real story's all around you
Even now it surrounds you
Even now I feel the power

The world exploded into love all around me
The world exploded into love all around me
And everytime I take a look around me
I have to smile

I contemplated these words for a long time yesterday and I felt my spirits (aka "vibration") lift. Since I have spent eleventy thousand dollars in therapy, I find it exquisitely simple to act the way I want to feel. Once upon a time I thought acting cheerful like some sort of Little Mary Sunshine--you just need to turn that frown upside down and it will be a sunny bright day and all your problems will go away!--sort of dreck was just that: dreck. How dare I live an unauthentic emotion! To feign happiness in the face of bitterness, despair or frustration was lying to the world. Maybe it is a lie. Maybe being happy when things look bleak is a form of delusion. Or perhaps its just a way of looking around the road blocks to the place where love is exploding and the love in one's heart is not separated by the hell living in one's head.

All I know is my heart is full and love is exploding all around me. Thank you Gretchen and Bob.

Spinning

"Zippy" November 22, 2008 by Bill Griffith



Spin /SPIN/ VERB to contemplate on a subject in a negative manner which could lead to needless anxiety and worry. Synonym for “beating a dead horse”

In a rare moment of lucidity, my psychotic ex-girlfriend, aptly pointed out my penchant for this sort of spinning. Admittedly, it was my hobby. I’m not as prone to spinning as I once was and now it resembles a slow twirl versus a vortex of self recrimination and regret. It’s more like wandering in a circle. This week I have been wandering around in my head. Aimelessly, I might add and I find myself listlessly staring into space. This would be all well and good if I were say Elizabeth Gilbert in India. But I’m not a wealthy and self-indulgent writer. Nope just a self-indulgent wanna be. Eating in Italy, meditating in India and fucking off in Bali isn’t in my future. Can you tell I don’t think much of this book? I loved it when I read it but I‘ve had almost a year to consider it and now I think it‘s dreck.

Saturday, I was reminded how much I dislike this book. I was helping a patient--easily the angriest woman in the world-- wash her hair. Some of her anger is understandable: she suffers from both chronic pain and is disabled. However, X is more debilitated emotionally than physically but that‘s another story and a HIPPA violation. She is bed bound and it was tricky to set up the room so I could create a sink of sorts behind the bed. Much to her consternation I did manage to move things around and so I could pour the water, catch the water and wash her hair, away from a sink or a shower. It was a relief for me to slow down for a few minutes and despite her grumbling protests, X appreciated the attention.

I‘m such a Piscean creature so water always settles me and even through the gloves, the water trickling over my fingers was calming. As I washed her hair, my free floating ire was falling away and the room took on a Zen like silence. (Whenever this happens with a patient, I’m about to have an epiphany or learn a lesson.) I’m pouring water over her head and meditatively massaging shampoo into her thinning hair, when I saw it: Eat, Pray, Love on her bedside table. The Zen left me. I felt my eyes roll and I sighed.

“Oh, I bet you can really relate to Gilbert’s angst ridden drivel?” I smirked, my voice dripping with sarcasm because I was the second angriest woman in the world.

“God, don’t get me started. She should trade places with me for five minutes. This--all of this--would make her long for her ‘loveless marriage’. And we would never have to hear about how much she hated to meditate ever again.“, She spat back. *

This week, I have mulled over many parts of the time I spent with X and this conversation came back to me again and againa because I think about trading places with other people, a lot. It's a terrible habit and some days envy moves to bitterness. Which is pointless for so many reasons. I believe the dis-ease of bitterness can put the body in harms way and lead to illness. It’s also pointless from a more pedantic point of view. We see other people’s lives only from a single dimension. We can’t see history or fight their internal battles. Usually, the people who spawn the dreaded bitterness are strangers, usually imaginary friends. I do think there is a fine line between wanting a life like someone else’s and wanting to trade with them. Wanting a life that looks like someone else’s can be a creative start. If I'm not mistaken part of Gilbert's appeal is just this.

For years, I wanted my life to be just like my dear friend A’s, who is a remarkable woman; she is extraordinarily talented, drop dead funny, creative, a great mom, intelligent and gorgeous. If I didn’t love her so much, I would hate her. She was also married to The Perfect Man. He too, was funny, smart, good looking and very successful (whatever). Sometimes, I’m not really quick on the uptake and it took about 10 years to see the cracks in that myth I had written about Mr. Asshat Esq. He traded her in on a foreign model. Now she is navigating the unsure waters of being single in her fifties. Damn. No thanks. I mean it was enough to navigate being single--and embracing the fact I‘m a lesbian--in my forties. But to do it again? Um…No. Besides, if my wrinkle in the time space continuum occurred and I had stepped into her life, I wouldn’t have had the privilege of watching her grow the last two years. And what pure grace that has been, too! I know sometimes she is awash in bitterness because her life doesn’t look the way she mapped it. Does anyone’s? I mean really. When I was thirty, if you had told me in seventeen years I would be divorced and in love with a woman; I would have done the Elaine thing: slapped your shoulder and said: “Get out!”

I do find myself scratching my head when I look at my map. In 2002, I discovered the map was upside down. Of course, I spent time rolling around in bitterness. Now I avoid what ifs and regrets. Isn't that why I spent thousands on therapy? My baseline happiness quotient doesn't call for regret, either. A delightful friend pointed out an upside down map turns hills into lush valleys. I threw away my map this week because I'm sick of trying to plot out the details of my life. Especially, when what happens is a million times more delightful than the plans I make.

I’m thankful, I don’t have to leave home to find myself. I’ve been here all along and I don’t really need a map. Besides, I will miss something surprising and wonderful if I continue to look down at the map. Rascal Flatts says it best ". . .thankful for the tears I've cried with every stumbled step that led to you and got me here, right here. . . "


*please say a prayer of peace for this woman. She has so much left to offer this world and my prayer is she discovers this before it is too late.