Oprah’s 10th Anniversary Special Edition of her magazine was dedicated to “Living in the Moment.” Oprah magazines are perfect for airplane rides, and I picked up a copy in the Denver airport on my way to Savannah a couple weeks ago. I was actually looking for a book to read, but nothing was jumping off the shelves.
Two flight attendants were standing nearby, discussing the titles on the shelves and some of their favorite reads. I had to jump in, because David Sedaris’s book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, was on the shelf. I grabbed a copy and turned to one of them and asked, “Have you read this? It's my favorite book.”
“I've heard him speak on NPR,” the tall, blonde one said. “He seems pretty funny.”
“He's life changing,” I replied, with a touch of drama. “I'd like to be the female version of David Sedaris, at least in the literary world I mean.”
A few years ago I went to one of David's readings at the Met Theatre in Spokane and stood in line to have him sign my book. I approached the table, handed him my copy, and said, “I've sold many of these books for you. I kind of lurk around in airport bookstores between flights and peddle them on your behalf.”
“That's very generous,” he said. “I'm glad you're doing that.”
He took my book and scribbled on the inside cover and handed it back to me. I opened it and read his inscription as I made my way into the theater. “Carrie, Thank you for making me rich. –David.”
“Are you a writer?” the blonde flight attendants asked. “You look like you have a very interesting job, whatever it is.”
That caught me slightly off-guard. “No. But, I'd love to be a writer,” I replied. “I have all kinds of jobs, really. I'm a patient advocate in prosthetics, I like to do public speaking now and again, I write to entertain myself, I’m a mother to two boys and I'm a surrogate mom, currently,” I say as I pat my big, round belly.
“Wow,” the other girl said. “You do have an interesting job.”
“Have you read this?” said the blonde, handing me a copy of Eat, Pray, Love.
“I tried,” I replied, “But…”
“I know!” the other girl interrupted with a look of disgust on her face. “It's nauseating, right? Like who can get divorced and pack all their stuff and head to Bali to find herself and meditate with Yogis and live in an Ashram and stuff? I started reading it and I was like, ‘Oh lucky for you Elizabeth Gilbert’ but that's not reality.”
“Yeah I guess that's true,” I said. “When I got divorced, I didn't know how I was going to work, raise my sons, pay the heat bill, maintain my sanity… I suppose if I could've gone to Bali that would've been nice, but…”
“Oh we gotta go,” the blonde said to the other as she looked at her watch. “Good luck to you with everything” she said to me. With that they took their roller bags and clip clopped away in their high heels. (Sorry David - I missed the sale).
With none of the books grabbing me, I plucked an ‘O’ Magazine off the rack. Interestingly enough, it was one article, “Failure Is the Only Option,” by Elizabeth Gilbert that resonated with me.
Her premise was that women are “stressing themselves sick over the pathological fear that they simply aren't doing enough with their lives.” I find myself falling into this fear pattern regularly. I chronically create lists of things I want to do, like learn to play guitar, travel, learn to speak Italian, write a book, create a motivational speech and go on tour, but then I also fill that same list with things I have to do like, fix the boys bathroom toilet, replace the fence boards on the fence, clean out the garage, and fill the holes that the dog dug in the backyard.
My list of tedious “have to tasks” grows, and it's those that get picked off first, maybe because they’re easier and there is less chance of failing at fence board replacement than there is at learning a foreign language. Learn to play the guitar has been on my list for five years. I even had a special prosthetic device made in order to strum with my left arm, but it hangs on the stand where the guitar sits and has sat quietly for years collecting dust. Sometimes, I’ll pass by it and look at it and think, “I’m such a failure.” Why, knowing that it’s something that I really want to do, have I not just done it already? Because someone might twist their ankle in the backyard in the dog gone holes?
Somehow I think if I don't get all of the little things done, everything will collapse around me. If I'm not the perfect mom, the perfect friend, the perfect volunteer, with a perfect body, I am somehow failing. Elizabeth Berg's point that failure is the only option, rings true; especially when you set yourself up, the way that I do.
It is in our failures, where we learn our true way. “This is how maps get charted,” she writes, “by taking wrong turns that lead to surprising passageways that open into spectacularly unexpected new worlds.” This is how we map our lives.
If I had stayed married, today would be my 15th wedding anniversary. Fifteen years ago today, I walked down the aisle and pledged my love and loyalty to someone that I shouldn't have. But I wanted to be the perfect daughter, hosting a perfect ceremony, for my perfect friends, all the while knowing that I was making a perfectly huge mistake. But in that failure, was my only option to receive the most wonderful gifts of my life; Davis and Chester.
Though, my marriage was a failure, by taking that wrong turn, I opened a passageway to learning who I am and what I'm about. I still try to be too many things to too many people and I focus too much on my list of things to do versus my list of things I want for me, but I'm working on it.
Right now, I need to stop feeling like my life is on hold. I am guilty of doing this with the surrogacy. I need to start being better at living in the moment, and appreciating these moments more. But, for cryin’ out loud, it's hard to appreciate heartburn, gas, exhaustion, and cellulite. There’s not much I can do about it right now, so I need to just figure out a way to relax into this a little bit.
At my doctor's appointment last Monday the nurse who weighed me in asked me, “So are you enjoying this pregnancy?”
“Ummm, I enjoy my boat in the summer and cold beer and bikinis more,” I said.
She half smiled and looked at my chart. “Oh, you are due right in the middle of August. Your summer will be kind of…”
“You can say it,” I replied. “Screwed?”
“I was going to say, ‘short lived,’” she said.
“Yeah. That too,” I replied.
I feel like I want time to move by faster right now so that I can get back to “my life” but the reality is, being a surrogate and being pregnant right now is my life and I just need to find the content space to allow myself just to be in this moment, without thinking what this moment could be if I weren’t pregnant. It’s hard though. It goes back to “I want to be the perfect surrogate” that doesn’t complain, that is happy to be pregnant, etc. and I try to tell myself to feel that way, but it’s not how I feel and I feel guilty for that. Ugh.
And so I call Busse, the one person I can complain to because she knows exactly what this is like. “I’m trying to enjoy this moment and embrace the experience,” I tell her dryly.
“Dude, when you’re walking through fire, you don’t stop to smell the roses, do you? It’s OK to not like being pregnant. You’ve worked harder and longer at this than you did your own kids. I HATED being pregnant. It’s OK to admit you’re not enjoying it sometimes,” she says. “We get so wrapped up in this cosmic notion of finding the lesson in everything, but sometimes, the lessons don’t come until much later. So, go ahead and complain, dude. You’re so hard on yourself!”
She is a great one, my best friend, because she can speak to me in a way that gives me permission to be me; more permission than I give myself sometimes. She absolutely knows me better than I do and it is very refreshing that she can bring me back into my skin and tell me it’s going to be alright if I just let my guard down now and again.
“You gotta let yourself relax and just be OK with not being OK sometimes,” she says.
I know this is true because I put so much pressure on myself to be everyone’s everything that it’s exhausting to keep a happy face on all the time. I feel like I can’t talk to Max and Bob about my “woe is me” moments because I volunteered to do this! And, when I complain to Max, his stress level and anxiety goes through the roof and it makes me feel worse. I can’t complain to Tim, because I have taken him along on this ride whether he likes it or not and for me to admit that some days, I want off this ride seems so selfish because he can’t get off either, and he never wanted on in the first place.
I have to have a conscious attitude adjustment and talk myself off the ledge multiple times a day. I want nothing more to be the strong, admirable woman who sacrifices her own needs for others’, but damn it, sometimes, I just want my life back. And, here we come full circle back to the point that there is no “getting my life back” because this is my life now. I’m charting the plot as I write this.
There have been so many comical and heartbreaking turning points and so much uncharted territory that we've traveled, that not only is this helping to create the map of my life, but its mapping all of our lives, as well.
I think of Chester, who comes home after school and greets my belly with a shake, placing both of his hands on either side and pushing his forehead against my stomach. “Hello little baby! Hello you fat, fat mama,” he says looking up at me. “I love this belly!” he says as he pats it and wiggles it around in his hands. It was just two months ago that he was navigating through his feelings and anxieties about this pregnancy and now, he’s in a very good space, happily poking and patting my stomach and smacking my big behind.
Davis constantly jokes about my weight and yesterday, he hid a pan of brownies from me before he went to school because he knew if he didn’t, they’d be gone when he got home. He also taped a note to the fridge that said, “No Ma!” and taped a bag of Doritos to the door that I could eat instead of his brownies. I later found the brownie pan in the linen closet upstairs, but I didn’t touch them. But he and I laugh together about my belly and my butt and my “eating habits” and it has brought us into this funny bantering phase that offers an entertaining element to our relationship. Maybe going through this with me will make my boys more understanding and patient as their wives go through bearing their babies.
And Tim. Talk about uncharted territory. I could not be more grateful for this amazingly generous man that I have. About five years ago, we talked about having a baby together. He would be an incredible father, as kids just gravitate to him. He’s this giant, kind hearted, sweet man with a knack for engaging children. At night, he places his hand on my belly as we lay next to each other in bed and tells me how proud he is of me. I wonder if it hurts him that this baby isn’t his. He doesn’t show it, if it does. He is absolutely my rock. Our lives have completely done a 180 degree turn because of this. He takes it in stride and I try to stay strong for him so he doesn’t have to carry me all the time, though he does willingly and without hesitation, always concerned for my happiness and state of mind.
We’ve all taken a detour and the detour that will hit Max and Bob in four months will change the course of everything for them forever, as kids will do. They are anxious for time to pass so they can hold their daughter and I am anxious for time to pass so I can return to my routine, though if we all just take a step back for a moment, we can see that we need this time together to transition into the next phase of our lives.
So, maybe my map will take me on some exotic vacation when this 22 month pregnancy comes to an end and my feet have cooled from walking through this fire, like it did for Elizabeth Gilbert when her marriage was over. Or maybe it will take me to a publisher who will help me write and share my stories one day, or to a musician that will help me learn to play Moon Shadow on my guitar. Or maybe, I could just relax a little bit and see what this moment holds and not punish myself for wanting time to pass while at the same time, not losing the moment entirely by wishing it away. I need to just “chillax” as my sons would say.
It’s a very fine line, but it sounds good for now. And, you know what else sounds good?
Brownies.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Eleven
Whenever anyone asks me what my favorite number is, I always reply three, seven, 13 or 31. My birthday is 7/31, Davis’s is 3/31, and Chester’s is 7/13. Combinations of those numbers are acceptable as my favorites, too – like anything with the 1, 3 or 7 - like 33, or 17, or 37 - but never 11. Eleven is a number I've stayed away from for years.
On the 11th day of October, 2001, the boys and I woke to big plans for that morning. I was going to take to the Dallas Children's Museum and spend the afternoon doing arts and crafts, playing grocery store and doctor’s office, dress up, hide and seek - you name it and it was on the agenda.
Both boys had taken a bath in my master bathroom, and as was our routine, once they were out, dried off and diapered, they jumped up on my bed to roll around and play. I remember talking about all the things that we have to look forward to that day as they scrambled atop the mattress tossing pillows to the floor and scrunching up the covers. We had just purchased a new sleigh bed, and they loved how high up they were. Though they were still such little babies, I think they felt like big boys in such a big bed.
I was sitting at the head of the bed, putting on my socks, when out the corner of my eye I saw Davis go off of the end. I didn't see him hit the ground, but I was up and running for the foot of the bed before he started to cry. I lifted him in my arms, pulled him close, and sat back down on the bed with him soothe and calm him. He was howling a strange cry like I'd never heard before, and I thought he may have broken a bone. His head fell backwards as he screamed and cried and I ran my hands up and down his arms and legs trying to find the source of his pain.
One thing that always calmed Davis was his blanket, which was in the dryer right down the hall. “I'll go get your Frane, baby.” (He called his blanket “Frane” which I think was his version of “Friend.”) “I’m just gonna lay you down here and I'll be right back, okay Dae Dae? Mommy will be right back.” He was crying when I hurried out of the room.
I ran down the hall to the dryer, grabbed his blanket, and went racing back to the room, noticing that I was not hearing him cry. When I burst through the door, I found my baby boy lying on his side, his eyes open in an empty gaze, taking sporadic and labored breaths. “Davis? Baby?! What's wrong? Davis? Listen! It's Mommy. Baby?” I held his little face in my hand and tapped his cheek. “DAVIS?” I cried.
I scooped him into my arms and his head flopped backwards, his eyes still open. I ran from my room, screaming to Doug to call 911. He flew out of his office and looked over the catwalk from upstairs to see me laying our son on the dining room floor, his motionless arms and legs splayed out in what looked like such a grotesque, unnatural way for my boy who is just giddily playing on my bed. He looked like a baby bird that had fallen from a nest. I tried to right his position and I straightened his body so that I could watch him breathing. I put my cheek to his nose to feel for his breath, but there was nothing. He made another horrible gasp for air, his eyes still open and lifeless.
“Baby, wake up!” I screamed, but he was not responding and his breaths were becoming further apart. Doug ran down the stairs and asked me what was going on; I can't remember how I answered. I was holding two shaking fingers to the pulse on his neck and watching him randomly gasp for air. His pulse was slowing and I was preparing to perform CPR, waiting for him to take his last breath on his own. I heard sirens approaching. As an impulse, I plugged his nose, wrapped my mouth over his and gave him two resuscitative breaths just as the paramedics arrived. They pushed through the door carrying medical bags and supplies and I quickly moved out of their way. They knelt down beside him and began to go to work. “What happened?” one of them asked me.
“He fell off the foot of my bed,” I answered with a shaking voice. “I didn't see him hit the ground, but I thought he might've broken something. What's going on? Why is this happening? Is he passed out? Why won’t he wake up?” I screamed.
One of the paramedics began to bag him, and another looked at me and said, “Sometimes, when children fall hard, they can collapse their esophagus and it's difficult for them to breathe.”
Another paramedic, who was listening to his heart with a stethoscope, looked up with fear in his eyes and said, “Call Life Fight!” The man standing next to me immediately picked up his radio and called for the helicopter. At that moment, I felt my life falling away. Why were they calling a helicopter if he just needed to catch his breath? I could feel my throat closing; I was beginning to lose my ability to breathe. My knees were weak and I felt like I might faint. I turned to see Doug holding Chester in his arms who was silently sucking his thumb with his head curled under Doug’s chin, watching his big brother fighting for his life. I realized that Davis might die on the dining room floor. My life would be over.
I have never felt as if I had words strong enough to capture the terror, pain, hysteria and dread in that moment - I still don't think I have them. As I sit here in my kitchen writing this, I am also reliving it. My throat feels as if I'm being choked and I cannot stop the tears from pouring.
They strapped my tiny baby to a huge man-sized board, cinching bands around his forehead, chest and legs, continued to bag him with oxygen, and wheeled him out the front door toward the ambulance. They wouldn’t let me go near him. As they rolled down the driveway, I realized that I might never get to hold my boy again. I might not get to see him grow up. His life could be ending on that board in that truck at that moment.
I could hear the helicopter in the distance, but I could not believe that it was coming for my son. Outside my front door there were police cars, fire trucks, an ambulance and a far-off helicopter making its way across the sky to carry my boy away. It had been raining in Dallas for days, and as I turned back to look at the scene where Davis had been just moments ago, a frantic pattern of muddy footprints was all that remained. Davis was gone.
Like a scene from a television hospital drama, I tried to push my way past one of the firemen to get to the ambulance that they had put him in. “You can't go near there, ma'am. We are doing everything we can for your boy. You have to trust us.”
The deep ache was swallowing me. I have never been more terrified in my entire life.
I called my parents. “Dad, Davis has been hurt. He's in an ambulance right now and they are landing a helicopter in the street. I don't know what happened. I don't know if he's alive. I don't know what to do.”
“We are on her way. We will be there as soon as we can get there,” he said. He hung up the phone and my parents were on their way to the airport.
I didn't know it then, but in the ambulance Davis had been intibated and connected to a machine that was breathing for him and keeping him alive. As the copter landed, I watched the rescue personnel wheel him from the ambulance to the awaiting Life Flight helicopter. He was attached to IVs and machines that were being carted by paramedics and I realized that this might be the last time I ever see my boy. I collapsed into the arms of one of the firemen. “DAVIS!” I screamed and then broke down crying.
“He's on his way to Dallas Children's Hospital,” he said. “You need to go. Now!” The helicopter lifted off the ground and I felt like my head was in a vise. I couldn’t hear anything and I felt like I was paralyzed. “God, please help him. Don’t take my baby. Please don’t take my baby!” I felt hopeless. Why would God listen to me? I didn’t go to church – for all I knew God had no idea who I was. Now, when I needed a God the most, I hoped He would be merciful and spare Davis’s life and, if he didn’t, I prayed He would take me, too.
At Dallas Children’s, I ran to the doors of the emergency room and the receptionist at the desk jumped to her feet and said, “Are you the mother of the little boy who fell?”
I frantically shook my head yes and she whisked me past the desk, through a set of double doors and down a hallway. At the end of the hall, doctors and nurses are running in an out of a room that I was sure belonged to Davis. I picked up my pace and started running for the door. There was a man in a suit standing outside of the door, and as I approached he caught my shoulders with his hands and said, “Are you this boy's mother?”
“Yes,” I said, as I tried to push his hands off of me and move around him to go inside.
He prevented me from going any further and said, “I need you to come with me. I'm the hospital chaplain.”
I broke away from his grasp, backed away from him pointing my finger at him screaming, “Don't talk to me! Don't come near me! I do want to talk to you! Get away from me!”
You know that when the chaplain is waiting for you, he's there to tell you that though they tried everything they could, your son has passed. He’s there to tell you that your baby is at peace; in a better place. “Get AWAY from me!”
“No, Miss. They're working on him and we need to stay out of their way. Come with me. It’s going to be OK. Please, come with me,” he said calmly.
We were taken to a small room that had a love seat, a chair, a side table, and a small lamp. The walls were blank and I felt like I was in a dream. I had to surrender to the expertise of the staff, though every fiber in my body begged to break free and get to Davis any way I could. The chaplain said he would stay with us until the doctors arrived to tell us about Davis. We didn’t talk much during that time. I sat and cried, mostly, envisioning Davis with tubes and IVs, hooked to machines, alone with strangers and barely alive.
When the doctor arrived, he informed us that Davis was stabilized and was trying to pull his tubes out of his throat which was a good sign. They were moving him to the intensive care unit and we could be with him soon.
How could this happen? I opted to be a stay-at-home Mom so that I could protect my children from anything like this ever happening to them. I didn’t trust anyone to care for them, so I quit my job and became a full-time mom. And, here I was in this hospital room, waiting to know if my boy was going to survive our morning.
By the time he'd been moved to ICU, he no longer needed a breathing tube. He was breathing on his own, but had suffered terrible head trauma as a result of his fall. He was heavily sedated and sleeping peacefully when I saw him. Though his eyes were closed and he was motionless, he looked alive – there was no question in my mind after seeing him at that moment that he would make it through. His neck was braced and he was sitting at an angle, propped up in a bed. I touched his arm and kissed his forehead and broke down crying again.
The severe damage to his brain was what they would expect to see from a child who had fallen from a two-story window. They didn't know what kind of long-term damage he would have and we were living moment by moment. I guess we really still are, as our experience taught us that life can change in an instant.
My parents had arrived by about 11 PM that night (another 11). Close to midnight, a woman dressed in a business suit, holding charts and clipboards came into our room to check on us. She looked friendly and helpful. “Hi. I'm the hospital social worker, and I just wanted to come by and check on you to see if you are okay. You’ve had quite a day.”
I was grateful for her kindness and thanked her for coming into our room. She asked if she could speak with us in the hall and I left my parents to watch over Davis as we stepped out. I noticed two uniformed police officers to my right and looked at her confused. “They just have a few questions for you,” she said.
“We'd like to speak to you and your husband separately,” said one of the officers.
“Sure,” I said, “Of course.” I knew what this was about. I had been in secondary education, my mom was a teacher, and my dad was a former state trooper. I knew they had to rule us out as the reason for the injury, though it really felt like I had to prove my innocence rather than being assumed innocent until proven guilty.
I was led down the hall into a room. “Please have a seat,” one of the officers said. With that, the other began to read me my rights. “You have the right to remain silent…” I couldn't believe what was happening. Was I under arrest? I stopped them and asked if I could go get my dad. They agreed and I went back to Davis's room. “Dad. They are reading me my rights,” I said with a shaking voice, as the tears started to flow. “I think they think I did this.”
“Come on,” he said, as we made our way towards the interrogation room again.
Doug and I were questioned off and on for two hours that evening and eventually had to sign off our parental rights to the boys and sign temporary custody of Chester over to my parents while Child Protective Services did an investigation. The humiliation of being investigated for child abuse was always in the back of my mind, as I felt that every nurse and doctor suspected that I had done this.
I didn’t eat or sleep for five days and I never left Davis’s side. While he slept, I watched him breathe and placed my hand over his heart to feel it beating. I stroked his head that was so terribly damaged on the inside and I silently prayed to God to heal it and take away his pain.
While he was awake, I sat in his hospital bed with him, watching cartoons or reading, but mostly just holding him and marveling at my miracle boy. He was such a beautiful baby, with soft wispy blonde hair and enormous blue eyes. I could see in his eyes how much his head hurt and sometimes, he’d just roll over onto my chest and weep, holding his tiny hand to the side of his head. I spent a lot of time crying with him, feeling helpless to take his hurt away. During our time in the hospital, I rarely took my hands off him. He had come so close to slipping away from me. I almost didn’t want anyone to come near him.
Though the investigation bothered me and I felt like everyone assumed I was guilty, at that point, I felt I could handle anything that they threw at me. They could accuse me, investigate me, charge me or put me in jail. It didn't matter. I could live through any of it, but I could never have lived through burying my son. My baby was alive, and that was all that I cared about - and it is still all that I care about, today, my sons.
Five days after the start of the investigation, after numerous interrogations and evidence examination, Child Protective Services determined that the evidence was “inconclusive” as to whether or not we caused his head injury. It turns out that 31 children died at the hands of their parents that year in Dallas, and I understand completely why they investigated us, though it didn’t make it any easier. It would have been more tolerable if their finding had been “innocent,” but the investigator explained that they never report “innocent” and that “inconclusive” was the best they could do. It didn’t matter. I had my boy.
They released Davis from the hospital on October 16th and we went back to our lives, though nothing has ever been the same since. I fear head injuries like a lunatic and constantly ride the boys about wearing their helmets for sports. If I had my way, they’d be in them all the time – for breakfast, for riding the bus to school, for brushing their teeth.
The brain is such a fragile organ. One three foot fall almost took Davis’s life. Imagine crashing on a motorcycle, receiving a powerful hit in football, smashing to the pavement after falling from a skateboard. All of these can so quickly change life forever. My boy loves anything with wheels, though, and playing ball with his brother and part of being alive is living, so I must let him do the things he loves.
Eight and half years later, after the head injury that almost took him from us, Davis is a happy, healthy, loving, wonderful boy that gives me joy and inspiration every day. He has struggled in school with learning difficulties, but we will never know if that was a result of his traumatic brain injury or if it's just part of being Davis.
He gets frustrated sometimes because things don’t come easily to him, the way that they do for others, but we work through those frustrations and challenges the best we can. We can deal with any challenge that comes our way, as long as he is here. I’m grateful to have the chance to struggle this way. The alternative scenario would have not only taken Davis on October 11th, 2001, but I’m quite sure it would have killed me, too.
Six days ago, Davis celebrated his 11th birthday. And on March 31st, I thanked God for eleven.
Friday, March 26, 2010
My Body is a Castle
Sunday, March 21, 2010
A Standing Ovation Fixes Everything
Wednesday night Tim and I were laying in bed talking when somehow, our conversation turned to the topic of reality shows. We are faithful Survivor watchers and I was thinking of adding another reality game show to our repertoire. “We should start watching The Amazing Race,” I said.
“I don’t want to watch The Amazing Race,” he replied.
“But, what if I get the chance to be on the show someday?” I said. “I need to know what it’s about.”
A few months ago, at the Amputee Coalition of America Annual Meeting, I was talking to my friend Katy, who also works with me in the prosthetic field for Hanger Prosthetics. In addition to being a patient advocate for lower extremity patients (she was born without both of her legs above her knees), she’s also an amazingly talented actress, having just wrapped a run on stage in Chicago in The Long Red Road, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
She lives in L.A. and is also a working actress, currently in the process of filming a reality series pilot about her life with her husband, who is a paraplegic and stand up comic. Over cocktails one evening, we were talking about the series and she mentioned she was friends with the one of the producers or executives from The Amazing Race. Sara Reinerstein, the first female, lower extremity amputee Iron Woman was a contestant one year on the show and my other friend, John, an above knee amputee was a finalist in the selection process, but didn’t make it.
“You always see lower extremity patients on these shows,” I said. “Survivor had Chad, The Amazing Race had Sara, but you never see Wingers (aka upper extremity patients). We need some representation!”
“Oh, with your surrogacy story and your arm, I could probably help you get in front of the people at The Amazing Race,” she said. “I couldn’t promise anything, of course, but you’d be great on the show – totally what they’re looking for.”
“Well, maybe when this baby thing is all worked out, we can talk about it,” I said. At that very moment in June, I was in the middle of working the ACA trade show booth in Atlanta, simultaneously miscarrying Max and Bob’s baby.
The stress of traveling, putting on a happy face for the Hanger Booth, the melt down of hormones that comes with the shedding of a pregnancy and the fear of starting over (which I had agreed to do) produced a giant, painful weeping and oozing cold sore in the corner of my lip that left a scar that is still here today.
To say I was a hot mess is an understatement, but this little nugget of potentially being considered a valuable contestant with an interesting story on The Amazing Race as my reward for all I’d put myself through was a little ray of hope in what felt like a dismal place.
“You can’t go on The Amazing Race,” said Tim. “That’s crazy.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t support me if I was accepted on the show? It’s like thirty days,” I whined. “It’s not that long.”
“Yeah. Thirty days that you’d be away from the boys, thirty days that I wouldn’t get to see them. Sorry, but I’m not in support of that. You’re going to consider leaving the boys for thirty days in the midst of the biggest turmoil you’ve ever experienced with their dad?” he said.
“Well, it wouldn’t be right now,” I said, suddenly feeling very defeated and powerless. I got quiet and thought about it for a while. Even though this is my life to live, that really isn’t true. Though I signed up to carry this baby, I never knew how much it would dominate my life. And then, once you have kids, everything that you thought was "your life" really isn't.
In the last fifteen months of my life, I have done things to my body that I would have never imagined; seventy needles in my ass, countless shots in my belly, estrogen patches and rashes and a stroke-like incident that led to CT Scans, weight gain, fear, pressure, anxiety. I’ve felt like everything is regimented, planned and scripted, in addition to trying to maintain my sanity and not let this affect my family's life and while I lay there fanaticizing about a great escape and a wild adventure, I’m faced with the reality that my life isn’t yet mine. My life belongs to my kids, my guy, my mortgage, college funds, retirement plans, responsibilities etc. And I know now is not the time to be flitting off to other parts of the world, but I also know that there may never be a time that’s right.
“What if I could win a million dollars?” I said.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said, and rolled over and went to sleep.
I laid there for a long time, feeling very trapped, until sleep took me out of my somber state. My alarm went off at 4:00am and I rose to get ready to catch my 6:00am flight to San Jose. I had presentations scheduled for Thursday and Friday to the Niles and Saratoga Rotary Clubs, hoping to get those men and women to open their pocketbooks and assist the Inner Wheel Foundation to fund the Myoelectric Arm Project; a philanthropic project to purchase myoelectric arms for kids whose parents cannot afford them. Hanger partners with this organization and prosthetists volunteer their time to assist. Since 2004, the partnership with Inner Wheel has provided over $600,000.00 worth of prosthetic devices to kids in need.
When I got off the plane in San Jose, I inhaled the “smell of California” in the spring. Every time I arrive in California, I get a little nostalgic about the life I lived there. The scent of the pink jasmine in bloom always takes me back to the days in Rancho Santa Margarita, in a cookie cutter neighborhood called Castile that was my life for so many years.
We were totally living a lie, but we were in a place that was so warm, sunny and inviting that it almost made it bearable. A lot of Southern California is a lie, just look at the collagen puffer fish lips, the gigantic taut tits, the people mortgaged to the hilt to keep up with the neighbors’ and all their plush toys. It’s a different mindset in Orange County. All of our neighbors had incredibly dysfunctional marriages, but the women of our group formed strong survival bonds that we still have today. All of us are divorced and living in different places now, but ironically, I still miss parts of that crazy life; well, just the women and the weather, really.
My presentation Thursday went off without a hitch and the Rotary Members we very surprised when I twisted my left hand off of my forearm and held it in my right. I love getting their attention this way. It blows their minds that I don’t have an arm, which is a perfect segue to why this myoelectric project is so important. It allows kids to be anonymous; to walk into a room and rather than being noticed for what they’re missing, to be seen for who they are.
Thursday night I went to dinner with Tim’s sister Melissa and her boyfriend, Brian, and had a wonderful time. We went to a beautiful little brewery in Los Gatos, and enjoyed the food, the atmosphere and each other’s company. On the ride home, Melissa shared with me her story of how a young girl from Rock Creek, Montana packed up her car and hit the road, knowing that she was destined for bigger things than Rock Creek could offer. I admire her for her courage and independence and thought about this as I faded off to sleep that night. What would it be like to pack up my car and head south?
Friday morning, I sat outside on the patio by the pool at the Airport Holiday Inn and continued thinking. “If I could,” I thought, “I’d head out to someplace warmer.” The “stuck feeling” was becoming oppressive, as I thought more about how my life really isn’t my own. Just then, I got a text from Max. “We put $300 into your account, but I think we might owe you more. How are you feeling?”
I began my reply, “Thanks. I think you’ll owe more but we’ll figure it out Friday. I got another bill from Inland Imaging. I feel like I’m on a runaway train speeding toward a mid-life crisis.” Send.
The phone rings, “What’s going on?” he asks. “I’m just on my way to Starbucks to get a piece of pumpkin bread.”
And so I invite him to my pity party and give him a pointy party hat with the elastic rubber band strap that pulls all your little chin hairs out as it rolls along the underside of your face. I hand him a Woe is Me balloon and offer up all kinds of venom spitting from my tongue. “My life isn’t really my life,” I say. “Seriously, dude, once you have kids, it’s over. Forget about making decisions for yourself, forget about freedom, forget about choice. It’s over once this kid gets here.”
“It seems like that now, I’m sure, but it’ll get better,” he says. His optimism drives me crazy sometimes, especially when I’m in the throws of a full fledged Debbie Downer moment.
“I know. Listen, if I were you, I’d buy a whole pumpkin loaf and go park on the side of the road and just down it. That would be irresponsible and you should capitalize on these opportunities to be irresponsible before everything about you belongs to somebody else – mortgage payments, car payments, overwhelming responsibilities of providing for a child. It would behoove you to start liquidating and downsizing now, before this kid gets here. It’s gonna fall through those frickin’ stairs at your house.”
Stunned silence. Which makes us both crack up. We begin the tirade of doomsday scenarios, each one-upping the other’s and I am crying with laughter over how incredibly stupid I’m being. Of course I can’t run off and do what I want right this moment. I was getting all pissed off over a game show that I haven’t been offered a spot on – whose producers don’t know I exist. (Yet.)
I’m fat, pregnant, hormonal, feeling like I need a vacation or an escape, feeling like I need a HUGE freakin’ vodka martini, but after talking to Max and laughing til my sides hurt, I realize how grateful I am to be stuck in this moment. I love that guy, I love my guy, I love my kids, my family, my friends – I am truly blessed – Amazing Race or not.
Hell, I am in an amazing race right now. I have no idea what the finish line looks like or where it is, but I know all of the people who will be there when I arrive. I don’t need a million bucks or sunny, sweet smelling California. I just need them.
Later that afternoon, concluding my presentation to sixty or so Rotarians, I got a standing ovation. Looking around the room at all of those smiling, encouraging people who were clapping for me I thought, “I’m really so lucky.” Afterwards, a frail, hunched over man, supported by a walker, shuffled up to me to shake my hand. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been coming to these weekly meetings for years and your presentation was the very best that I have seen.”
With genuine gratitude, I placed my hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes that held years of experience and stories of his own. “Thank you for that, Sir. That means so much to me. You have no idea. Thank you.” He nodded, touched the top of my hand, smiled, then reached for the handles on his walker to make his way out of the room.
At the airport, I texted Max. “There is nothing that a standing ovation won’t cure” was all I wrote.
“How did you know I was standing up and clapping for you right now?” he replied. This made me smile.
“Because you always are,” I thought to myself.
“I don’t want to watch The Amazing Race,” he replied.
“But, what if I get the chance to be on the show someday?” I said. “I need to know what it’s about.”
A few months ago, at the Amputee Coalition of America Annual Meeting, I was talking to my friend Katy, who also works with me in the prosthetic field for Hanger Prosthetics. In addition to being a patient advocate for lower extremity patients (she was born without both of her legs above her knees), she’s also an amazingly talented actress, having just wrapped a run on stage in Chicago in The Long Red Road, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
She lives in L.A. and is also a working actress, currently in the process of filming a reality series pilot about her life with her husband, who is a paraplegic and stand up comic. Over cocktails one evening, we were talking about the series and she mentioned she was friends with the one of the producers or executives from The Amazing Race. Sara Reinerstein, the first female, lower extremity amputee Iron Woman was a contestant one year on the show and my other friend, John, an above knee amputee was a finalist in the selection process, but didn’t make it.
“You always see lower extremity patients on these shows,” I said. “Survivor had Chad, The Amazing Race had Sara, but you never see Wingers (aka upper extremity patients). We need some representation!”
“Oh, with your surrogacy story and your arm, I could probably help you get in front of the people at The Amazing Race,” she said. “I couldn’t promise anything, of course, but you’d be great on the show – totally what they’re looking for.”
“Well, maybe when this baby thing is all worked out, we can talk about it,” I said. At that very moment in June, I was in the middle of working the ACA trade show booth in Atlanta, simultaneously miscarrying Max and Bob’s baby.
The stress of traveling, putting on a happy face for the Hanger Booth, the melt down of hormones that comes with the shedding of a pregnancy and the fear of starting over (which I had agreed to do) produced a giant, painful weeping and oozing cold sore in the corner of my lip that left a scar that is still here today.
To say I was a hot mess is an understatement, but this little nugget of potentially being considered a valuable contestant with an interesting story on The Amazing Race as my reward for all I’d put myself through was a little ray of hope in what felt like a dismal place.
“You can’t go on The Amazing Race,” said Tim. “That’s crazy.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t support me if I was accepted on the show? It’s like thirty days,” I whined. “It’s not that long.”
“Yeah. Thirty days that you’d be away from the boys, thirty days that I wouldn’t get to see them. Sorry, but I’m not in support of that. You’re going to consider leaving the boys for thirty days in the midst of the biggest turmoil you’ve ever experienced with their dad?” he said.
“Well, it wouldn’t be right now,” I said, suddenly feeling very defeated and powerless. I got quiet and thought about it for a while. Even though this is my life to live, that really isn’t true. Though I signed up to carry this baby, I never knew how much it would dominate my life. And then, once you have kids, everything that you thought was "your life" really isn't.
In the last fifteen months of my life, I have done things to my body that I would have never imagined; seventy needles in my ass, countless shots in my belly, estrogen patches and rashes and a stroke-like incident that led to CT Scans, weight gain, fear, pressure, anxiety. I’ve felt like everything is regimented, planned and scripted, in addition to trying to maintain my sanity and not let this affect my family's life and while I lay there fanaticizing about a great escape and a wild adventure, I’m faced with the reality that my life isn’t yet mine. My life belongs to my kids, my guy, my mortgage, college funds, retirement plans, responsibilities etc. And I know now is not the time to be flitting off to other parts of the world, but I also know that there may never be a time that’s right.
“What if I could win a million dollars?” I said.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said, and rolled over and went to sleep.
I laid there for a long time, feeling very trapped, until sleep took me out of my somber state. My alarm went off at 4:00am and I rose to get ready to catch my 6:00am flight to San Jose. I had presentations scheduled for Thursday and Friday to the Niles and Saratoga Rotary Clubs, hoping to get those men and women to open their pocketbooks and assist the Inner Wheel Foundation to fund the Myoelectric Arm Project; a philanthropic project to purchase myoelectric arms for kids whose parents cannot afford them. Hanger partners with this organization and prosthetists volunteer their time to assist. Since 2004, the partnership with Inner Wheel has provided over $600,000.00 worth of prosthetic devices to kids in need.
When I got off the plane in San Jose, I inhaled the “smell of California” in the spring. Every time I arrive in California, I get a little nostalgic about the life I lived there. The scent of the pink jasmine in bloom always takes me back to the days in Rancho Santa Margarita, in a cookie cutter neighborhood called Castile that was my life for so many years.
We were totally living a lie, but we were in a place that was so warm, sunny and inviting that it almost made it bearable. A lot of Southern California is a lie, just look at the collagen puffer fish lips, the gigantic taut tits, the people mortgaged to the hilt to keep up with the neighbors’ and all their plush toys. It’s a different mindset in Orange County. All of our neighbors had incredibly dysfunctional marriages, but the women of our group formed strong survival bonds that we still have today. All of us are divorced and living in different places now, but ironically, I still miss parts of that crazy life; well, just the women and the weather, really.
My presentation Thursday went off without a hitch and the Rotary Members we very surprised when I twisted my left hand off of my forearm and held it in my right. I love getting their attention this way. It blows their minds that I don’t have an arm, which is a perfect segue to why this myoelectric project is so important. It allows kids to be anonymous; to walk into a room and rather than being noticed for what they’re missing, to be seen for who they are.
Thursday night I went to dinner with Tim’s sister Melissa and her boyfriend, Brian, and had a wonderful time. We went to a beautiful little brewery in Los Gatos, and enjoyed the food, the atmosphere and each other’s company. On the ride home, Melissa shared with me her story of how a young girl from Rock Creek, Montana packed up her car and hit the road, knowing that she was destined for bigger things than Rock Creek could offer. I admire her for her courage and independence and thought about this as I faded off to sleep that night. What would it be like to pack up my car and head south?
Friday morning, I sat outside on the patio by the pool at the Airport Holiday Inn and continued thinking. “If I could,” I thought, “I’d head out to someplace warmer.” The “stuck feeling” was becoming oppressive, as I thought more about how my life really isn’t my own. Just then, I got a text from Max. “We put $300 into your account, but I think we might owe you more. How are you feeling?”
I began my reply, “Thanks. I think you’ll owe more but we’ll figure it out Friday. I got another bill from Inland Imaging. I feel like I’m on a runaway train speeding toward a mid-life crisis.” Send.
The phone rings, “What’s going on?” he asks. “I’m just on my way to Starbucks to get a piece of pumpkin bread.”
And so I invite him to my pity party and give him a pointy party hat with the elastic rubber band strap that pulls all your little chin hairs out as it rolls along the underside of your face. I hand him a Woe is Me balloon and offer up all kinds of venom spitting from my tongue. “My life isn’t really my life,” I say. “Seriously, dude, once you have kids, it’s over. Forget about making decisions for yourself, forget about freedom, forget about choice. It’s over once this kid gets here.”
“It seems like that now, I’m sure, but it’ll get better,” he says. His optimism drives me crazy sometimes, especially when I’m in the throws of a full fledged Debbie Downer moment.
“I know. Listen, if I were you, I’d buy a whole pumpkin loaf and go park on the side of the road and just down it. That would be irresponsible and you should capitalize on these opportunities to be irresponsible before everything about you belongs to somebody else – mortgage payments, car payments, overwhelming responsibilities of providing for a child. It would behoove you to start liquidating and downsizing now, before this kid gets here. It’s gonna fall through those frickin’ stairs at your house.”
Stunned silence. Which makes us both crack up. We begin the tirade of doomsday scenarios, each one-upping the other’s and I am crying with laughter over how incredibly stupid I’m being. Of course I can’t run off and do what I want right this moment. I was getting all pissed off over a game show that I haven’t been offered a spot on – whose producers don’t know I exist. (Yet.)
I’m fat, pregnant, hormonal, feeling like I need a vacation or an escape, feeling like I need a HUGE freakin’ vodka martini, but after talking to Max and laughing til my sides hurt, I realize how grateful I am to be stuck in this moment. I love that guy, I love my guy, I love my kids, my family, my friends – I am truly blessed – Amazing Race or not.
Hell, I am in an amazing race right now. I have no idea what the finish line looks like or where it is, but I know all of the people who will be there when I arrive. I don’t need a million bucks or sunny, sweet smelling California. I just need them.
Later that afternoon, concluding my presentation to sixty or so Rotarians, I got a standing ovation. Looking around the room at all of those smiling, encouraging people who were clapping for me I thought, “I’m really so lucky.” Afterwards, a frail, hunched over man, supported by a walker, shuffled up to me to shake my hand. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been coming to these weekly meetings for years and your presentation was the very best that I have seen.”
With genuine gratitude, I placed my hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes that held years of experience and stories of his own. “Thank you for that, Sir. That means so much to me. You have no idea. Thank you.” He nodded, touched the top of my hand, smiled, then reached for the handles on his walker to make his way out of the room.
At the airport, I texted Max. “There is nothing that a standing ovation won’t cure” was all I wrote.
“How did you know I was standing up and clapping for you right now?” he replied. This made me smile.
“Because you always are,” I thought to myself.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Swimmin'
“So like, do you swim in circles?” he asked, through suspicious eyes.
Sean, my classmate and third grade nemesis, stood before me with his hands on his hips, waiting for my response. “Another recess ruined,” I thought to myself. Just moments ago, I was pushing my friend on the tire swing when Sean and his band o’ buddies sauntered up looking for a target. Like most days, I was the easy bull’s eye.
“Hey, did you hear me? Or are you deaf, too? Do you swim in circles are not?” This time he was much louder. He had my attention, as well as a few bystanders’. His voice was rough and mean and I could tell he hated me, but I wasn't sure why. I wasn't going to back down though.
I bowed my head and scanned the ground, searching for my girlfriend’s tennis shoes, trying to gauge how close she was to me, so that we can take them all on together. I was terrified when I couldn't find them, and glanced up briefly to see her casually chatting with some other girls and wandering off toward the other side of the field.
I pulled the sleeve of my sweatshirt down, past the two metal prongs and cables and rubber bands that were my left hand, opened my hook and tucked my sleeve inside, covering up as best I could.
“Because, with only one arm, I bet you just go round and round in the pool, huh?” he said with his minions snickering behind him. They were standing, like a wall, before me. I was trapped in a mean-boy cage. I’d have to face him alone. I took a deep breath, puffed up my chest a bit, raised my head, and looked Sean dead in the eye. I began to speak to firmly, showing no emotion at all to him. Telepathically.
It was a technique I'd seen demonstrated on my favorite show, That's Incredible. Funny, that show baffled me and terrified me at the same time. In one segment, an old man was bending metal spoons with only his brain power. He was also able to send lengthy telepathic messages to his cousin in Albuquerque. The camera zoomed in on the long-distance cousin, with the split screen of the old guy feverishly concentrating, and miraculously, the cousin recounted the message exactly. Incredible!
In the next segment, a frizzy haired woman told of her experiences with an alien abduction. How she’d noticed the flash of the aliens’glowing eyes in the corner of her bedroom and the flashing lights outside her window and she’d known they were there for her, AGAIN.
This show was both interesting and horrifying for me as an eight year old, but I watched it religiously and spent many nights sleeping at the foot of my parents’ bed, convinced that aliens were trying to take me, too.
“Leave me ALONE and Sean! Find someone else to pick on today, you ASS!” I said very firmly in my head. I was still staring him down.
“What? Now you can't talk, too? You got a hook for a hand, your deaf, and you can't speak?” he said.
Oh, I was speaking. “Idiot! You jackass!” I shouted in my head. “You're fat faced jerk!” I screamed, and my brain started to pound. And then, when he didn't show that he had heard me, my telepathic voice in my head became pathetic. “Please?” I whimpered. Then softer, “Please?” My face was hard and stoic. “Dead eyes,” I thought. “Dead eyes don't cry.” From the outside, you'd never know that there were tears behind my eyes.
“You're obviously the death of one, ASS” I said, wondering if he could hear my telepathic slam. I assumed he would've reacted to my responses, had he been in tune with his Extra Sensory Perception. Since he wasn’t phased, I knew I was speaking with someone who had not recognized his psychic potential like I'd seen on TV.
“Was your dad Capt. Hook?” he continued. His wall of follower friends snickered and whispered. My blank face showed him that I was not riled by his questions, though if my hair were not long he can see the burning rage, hatred and bitterness I had for him in my red hot ears.
“Oh holy crap!” I thought. I had also seen a segment on Spontaneous Human Combustion on That's Incredible. One minute a person is just fine, minding his own business, maybe eating a TV dinner in his living room and the next, he has burst into a ball of flames leaving only smoldering shoes and scraps of crisp clothing behind. “Is this how it starts? In the ears?” I wondered. I could hear my heart pounding. My body was talking, along with my head.
“He's a jerk!” said my ears.
“But he's scary, too,” said my throbbing heart.
“Don't let him see. Don't let him know he has any power,” said my head.
Feigning apathy I waited for the next question. “I think I might buckle,” said my knees. “I'm not sure how much longer I can stand here.”
“Give her a minute,” said my head. “She will find her voice.”
This battle and my body raged on. My jaw twitched. My teeth were clenched hard. “Oh my God! I think she's trying to break me,” said my molars.
Ever so seriously in my last ditch effort at ESP I said in my head, “Come closer Sean. Let's find out what my daddy, Captain Hook, taught me about war.”
Suddenly, I heard my mom's voice. “Ignore them, Honey” she told me. She always said, “They don't know what they're saying. If they are teasing you, it's because they don't like themselves. Just ignore them.”
“It's so hard, Mom,” I said in my head.
I didn’t need Sean to use me to learn that he didn't like himself. Ironically, I desperately wanted him to like me, though. If he didn’t know what he was saying, why did I believe him when he made me feel sub-human? Why did I cover my hook in his presence? I hated me as much as he did, I think. I was the mutant offspring of Lindsay Wagner, the Bionic Woman, and the feared and loathed Captain Hook.
I shoved my hook further into the pocket of my painter pants, a genius multi-pocketed fashion movement perfect for the girl who wanted to hide her hands. I was looking down at my pocket, when I saw him lunge at me from the corner of my eye.
He reached for my arm, pulled it out of my pocket, and swiped his hand across my hook. He took that hand and smeared it across the shoulder of one of the boys behind him.
“Carrie’s germs, no returns!” he called as he ran in the opposite direction. The stunned victim, the one who had been plagued with my germs, looked at me with disgust and wiped his own hand across his shoulder, effectively removing my germs from his shirt.
The crowd of boys scattered and the infected boy chased after them, palm outstretched, far away from his body, looking for someone else to pollute.
My feet were glued to the playground. All around me, kids were running and screaming, laughing and playing. The band of boys made their way across the field.
“Whew, that was a close call,” said my ears. “For a minute there…well, you don’t want to know. Knees? You OK down there?
My body started to relax a bit, having been set free from the human cage. Still though, I was ashamed. “I hate myself,” said my head. “I hate my body. I hate this hook. I hate being different.”
“We know,” my body replied in unison.
“I’m aching,” said my heart.
“I know what to do,” said my head and with that, I took the whole experience and bundled it up in a tight little package in my mind’s eye and bent a big ol’ metal spoon around it with my brain.
Call it magic, call it special powers, call it what you will; I was able to erase that experience. I shoved that bundle of pain and anxiety so far down in me, past my heart, past my voice, past all the things that made me feel it, and put it in a place that felt nothing.
Over time, that place grew larger and wider and occupied a very deep space in me. I became so accustomed to not feeling pain, that for many years in my life, I felt nothing at all. I just stop feeling all of it; pain, joy, love, fun because it became easier.
And it was later in my life that I realized that yes, in fact, I did swim in circles. I was stuck in a cyclical pattern of feeling pain, getting angry, worrying about what others thought of me, hating myself for not speaking up, and then very neatly packaging all that up and stuffing it away until the next time.
At times, I felt like I'd never break out of that vortex. But, I had to remember that I was a bionic bad ass. And, I was really good at ESP - at least in my own mind and body. My heart heard every word I said; the truth and the lies.
The truth was, I was mad at myself for hating myself. I was sad that I was incapable of letting my true voice speak up. I had to start liking the body that I came in and start talking to myself differently. “You are strong! You are powerful! You are destined for great things,” I told myself, even though I didn't always believe it. In fact, sometimes I was lying to myself just to get by - living by the motto, “You gotta fake it, to make it.”
Are these my lives or my truths? It doesn't matter, really. Let them be my life preserver that pulled me out of the failure funnel that tried to suck me down when I was a child.
I can hear the audience in my head now, from that old show I used to watch. They've seen the segment on the girl whose telepathic talks to herself changed the entire course of her life; taking her from a place of fear and self-doubt, of approval seeking and pain, to a place of pure internal strength and power. On cue, they shout, “THAT’S INCREDIBLE!”
And I believe it. With my whole body and being. Yes. I believe it.
Monday, March 15, 2010
A Pain in the Back
Chronic pain is depressing. Last Monday night, I was hit in the back by a bolt of lightning (AKA pinched Sciatic nerve) and I’ve been yowling out in pain at random times for a week. I swear, it’s the worst pain in the ass (which is a true statement as my ass seems to have spread out to the lower part of my back) that I have ever experienced.
Tuesday evening, I was sitting at the dining room table working on a project on my computer with Chet quietly sitting next to me working on his homework when suddenly, I shifted my weight in my chair ever so slightly to my right and this flash of piercing pain shot through my lower back and down my right leg.
“Aaaahhh – OH MY GOD, oh my God!” I screamed. Chet jumped out of his seat, screamed and threw his pencil across the kitchen. I held on to the side of the table with my head bowed, breathing heavily and trying to “blow away the pain.”
“Jeez Mom! Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Chet said, gasping to catch his own breath.
“Chester, if you knew the intensity of the pain I’m in, you’d never be asking me that! It’s like daggers, like burning swords plunging into my spine and then spreading pain poison with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns all through my back!” I said. In other words, “No, I’m not being dramatic.”
This pain has been piercing me for days and it’s making everything that involves movement very scary. The pain has me rather paralyzed with dread and that is getting really depressing. I went to lunch with my friends on Wednesday and I must have shrieked out loud and jumped six times during our conversation.
“You know, that’s my chiropractor over there across the restaurant,” said Maggie. “Maybe you should call him?”
“No. It should go away,” I said.
When I was pregnant with Chet, I had sciatica around 16-17 weeks. It was my first indication that I might be pregnant again. At the time, Davis was nine months old and I was teaching school full time. I was constantly exhausted, but just figured it was the first time mom drowsies.
I was a zombie passing through my days, really. I’d be up with Davis during the night nursing him, then I’d get up at 5:00am to get ready for school, nurse and feed Davis again, then head off to work. During the midmorning break at school, I’d close my windows and lock the door, set up my “Medela Pump-In-Style” breast pump and express milk for 10 minutes or so, pop it in the cooler, then open the doors to my classroom to teach two more classes before lunch. At lunch, I’d jump in my car, drive home and nurse Davis, drop my expressed milk in the freezer, then haul back to school as fast as I could to teach two more classes.
This became my life. On weekends, I’d try to catch up on as much time with Davis as I could, playing on the floor, going for walks, and exploring our surroundings. I remember kneeling down to take his picture one afternoon and I had this intense pain shoot down my leg. I fell to the floor and Doug looked at me like I was crazy. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“My leg gave out,” was my reply, but I knew that this pain was too familiar, as I had the exact same pain when I was pregnant with Davis. I started thinking about it and I realized that I could possibly be pregnant again. I had, after all, been working out religiously trying to lose my baby weight, but I was at a standstill. In fact, my pants seemed to be getting tighter.
A few days later, I snatched up an old pregnancy test from Davis’s pregnancy and took it. After holding it in my “urine stream” for 5-10 seconds, I placed the cap on the collection space, set it on the back of the toilet and walked away. Some time later, I went into the bathroom to check it and was horrified to see two blue lines. I called my friend Knicole immediately. “So,” I said, “Is it possible to have a positive pregnancy test, like when you are nursing, because your hormones are all messed up?”
“OH MY GOD, NO!” she squealed. “You’re pregnant! Congratulations!”
I broke down in tears.
The following day, I went to have an ultrasound. “How far along do you think you are?” asked Dr. Stadler.
“Quite honestly, I have no idea,” I said. “I can’t quite believe that I am actually pregnant again. Maybe a few weeks? I don’t know. I haven’t had a period since I delivered Davis.”
“Well, let’s get you in the ultrasound exam room and have a look,” he said.
(*Readers, note here – no matter what you may have heard - you CAN get pregnant while you are nursing. Chester Joe is proof.)
The ultrasound tech inserted the wand and began probing around, searching for what I expected would be that little kidney bean shape you see at about five weeks gestation – complete with it’s blinking little heartbeat, its tiny little yolk sack inside an itty bitty amniotic sac.
“Oh my God! What is that?” I exclaimed, knowing full well that I was looking at a giant head.
“We’re not going to need this,” she said as she pulled the wand from between my legs. “We can just go right over your belly.”
The minute the probe hit my belly, I could see all of Chet; his arms, legs, hands and feet. He had a big ol’ head and a round belly and he was a perfect little person. “Looks like you’re going to have this baby in about five months,” said Dr. Stadler. I broke down crying again.
This time, the tears were more happy tears than scared tears – or maybe they were an equal combination of both. Five moths later, after a really intense and difficult labor, Chet joined the planet – all 8 pounds 13 ounces of him. I birthed a monster baby – one that periodically kicked me in the spine and sent shooting sciatic pain through my back and down my leg. I forgave him. Eventually.
The shooting pain in my sciatic nerve with Chet was never constant, like it is with this baby. I called to talk to a nurse at Northwest OB/GYN to see if there was anything I could do. “Did you have this with your other pregnancies?” she asked.
“Yes, but it wasn’t like this. I can hardly move without pain. I can’t bend over, I can’t sit down, I can’t get up, I can’t twist. I’m totally incapacitated with pain,” I said, trying to hold back tears.
“Oooohh,” she said. “Looks like this is going to be a loooong pregnancy.”
She obviously didn’t get the memo entitled “What Not to Say to Carrie” that Max consults before calling me. This was not what I wanted to hear. “Can I take anything for the pain?” I asked. “I haven’t slept in two nights and I have anxiety when I go to bed because I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep.”
“Well, you can have Tylenol,” she said.
“K. Thanks,” I said, feeling helpless and defeated. I hung up and called Maggie’s chiropractor. When I arrived at his office, my palm and feet started to sweat. The thought of someone touching me, let alone reefing on my back filled me with panic.
He touched my back in a few places, causing me to wince and gasp. “Wow,” he said. “This might take some time to get this pain under control. Your baby is pushing right on this nerve here and all we can do is try to get the compression in your spine relaxed and open again.”
He commenced cracking and I commenced screaming and puffing out a bunch of “Oh my Gods.” Ironically, the Christian Radio station was playing over the speakers in the office and I thought of the irony; the religious zealot types saying that me surrogating a baby for my gay friends would send me to hell, my ex-husband trying to tell my kids that the Bible says it’s wrong, the pain in my back and the “Jesus loves me” music playing as I pray for this pain to go away.
It’s Monday, and I’m still hurting and it makes me sad. I have two appointments a day, every other day with the chiropractor this week. I’m hoping that this pain will play out like it did when I was pregnant with Chet, though that was ten years ago and I’m a lot creakier than I used to be.
“Our baby is being a bad baby,” texted Max.
“It is!” I texted back. “And for its punishment, it will get only one Oreo McFlurry today.”
Tuesday evening, I was sitting at the dining room table working on a project on my computer with Chet quietly sitting next to me working on his homework when suddenly, I shifted my weight in my chair ever so slightly to my right and this flash of piercing pain shot through my lower back and down my right leg.
“Aaaahhh – OH MY GOD, oh my God!” I screamed. Chet jumped out of his seat, screamed and threw his pencil across the kitchen. I held on to the side of the table with my head bowed, breathing heavily and trying to “blow away the pain.”
“Jeez Mom! Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Chet said, gasping to catch his own breath.
“Chester, if you knew the intensity of the pain I’m in, you’d never be asking me that! It’s like daggers, like burning swords plunging into my spine and then spreading pain poison with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns all through my back!” I said. In other words, “No, I’m not being dramatic.”
This pain has been piercing me for days and it’s making everything that involves movement very scary. The pain has me rather paralyzed with dread and that is getting really depressing. I went to lunch with my friends on Wednesday and I must have shrieked out loud and jumped six times during our conversation.
“You know, that’s my chiropractor over there across the restaurant,” said Maggie. “Maybe you should call him?”
“No. It should go away,” I said.
When I was pregnant with Chet, I had sciatica around 16-17 weeks. It was my first indication that I might be pregnant again. At the time, Davis was nine months old and I was teaching school full time. I was constantly exhausted, but just figured it was the first time mom drowsies.
I was a zombie passing through my days, really. I’d be up with Davis during the night nursing him, then I’d get up at 5:00am to get ready for school, nurse and feed Davis again, then head off to work. During the midmorning break at school, I’d close my windows and lock the door, set up my “Medela Pump-In-Style” breast pump and express milk for 10 minutes or so, pop it in the cooler, then open the doors to my classroom to teach two more classes before lunch. At lunch, I’d jump in my car, drive home and nurse Davis, drop my expressed milk in the freezer, then haul back to school as fast as I could to teach two more classes.
This became my life. On weekends, I’d try to catch up on as much time with Davis as I could, playing on the floor, going for walks, and exploring our surroundings. I remember kneeling down to take his picture one afternoon and I had this intense pain shoot down my leg. I fell to the floor and Doug looked at me like I was crazy. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“My leg gave out,” was my reply, but I knew that this pain was too familiar, as I had the exact same pain when I was pregnant with Davis. I started thinking about it and I realized that I could possibly be pregnant again. I had, after all, been working out religiously trying to lose my baby weight, but I was at a standstill. In fact, my pants seemed to be getting tighter.
A few days later, I snatched up an old pregnancy test from Davis’s pregnancy and took it. After holding it in my “urine stream” for 5-10 seconds, I placed the cap on the collection space, set it on the back of the toilet and walked away. Some time later, I went into the bathroom to check it and was horrified to see two blue lines. I called my friend Knicole immediately. “So,” I said, “Is it possible to have a positive pregnancy test, like when you are nursing, because your hormones are all messed up?”
“OH MY GOD, NO!” she squealed. “You’re pregnant! Congratulations!”
I broke down in tears.
The following day, I went to have an ultrasound. “How far along do you think you are?” asked Dr. Stadler.
“Quite honestly, I have no idea,” I said. “I can’t quite believe that I am actually pregnant again. Maybe a few weeks? I don’t know. I haven’t had a period since I delivered Davis.”
“Well, let’s get you in the ultrasound exam room and have a look,” he said.
(*Readers, note here – no matter what you may have heard - you CAN get pregnant while you are nursing. Chester Joe is proof.)
The ultrasound tech inserted the wand and began probing around, searching for what I expected would be that little kidney bean shape you see at about five weeks gestation – complete with it’s blinking little heartbeat, its tiny little yolk sack inside an itty bitty amniotic sac.
“Oh my God! What is that?” I exclaimed, knowing full well that I was looking at a giant head.
“We’re not going to need this,” she said as she pulled the wand from between my legs. “We can just go right over your belly.”
The minute the probe hit my belly, I could see all of Chet; his arms, legs, hands and feet. He had a big ol’ head and a round belly and he was a perfect little person. “Looks like you’re going to have this baby in about five months,” said Dr. Stadler. I broke down crying again.
This time, the tears were more happy tears than scared tears – or maybe they were an equal combination of both. Five moths later, after a really intense and difficult labor, Chet joined the planet – all 8 pounds 13 ounces of him. I birthed a monster baby – one that periodically kicked me in the spine and sent shooting sciatic pain through my back and down my leg. I forgave him. Eventually.
The shooting pain in my sciatic nerve with Chet was never constant, like it is with this baby. I called to talk to a nurse at Northwest OB/GYN to see if there was anything I could do. “Did you have this with your other pregnancies?” she asked.
“Yes, but it wasn’t like this. I can hardly move without pain. I can’t bend over, I can’t sit down, I can’t get up, I can’t twist. I’m totally incapacitated with pain,” I said, trying to hold back tears.
“Oooohh,” she said. “Looks like this is going to be a loooong pregnancy.”
She obviously didn’t get the memo entitled “What Not to Say to Carrie” that Max consults before calling me. This was not what I wanted to hear. “Can I take anything for the pain?” I asked. “I haven’t slept in two nights and I have anxiety when I go to bed because I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep.”
“Well, you can have Tylenol,” she said.
“K. Thanks,” I said, feeling helpless and defeated. I hung up and called Maggie’s chiropractor. When I arrived at his office, my palm and feet started to sweat. The thought of someone touching me, let alone reefing on my back filled me with panic.
He touched my back in a few places, causing me to wince and gasp. “Wow,” he said. “This might take some time to get this pain under control. Your baby is pushing right on this nerve here and all we can do is try to get the compression in your spine relaxed and open again.”
He commenced cracking and I commenced screaming and puffing out a bunch of “Oh my Gods.” Ironically, the Christian Radio station was playing over the speakers in the office and I thought of the irony; the religious zealot types saying that me surrogating a baby for my gay friends would send me to hell, my ex-husband trying to tell my kids that the Bible says it’s wrong, the pain in my back and the “Jesus loves me” music playing as I pray for this pain to go away.
It’s Monday, and I’m still hurting and it makes me sad. I have two appointments a day, every other day with the chiropractor this week. I’m hoping that this pain will play out like it did when I was pregnant with Chet, though that was ten years ago and I’m a lot creakier than I used to be.
“Our baby is being a bad baby,” texted Max.
“It is!” I texted back. “And for its punishment, it will get only one Oreo McFlurry today.”
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Fart in First Grade
The following story was written by my nine year old son, Chester. He and I share a very similar sense of humor. I think he's got a gift for writing and I look forward to watching him grow through words. He's a funny lil nugget, and this piece was written for a fourth grade personal essay assignment where the students were asked to write about a small moment in time that stands out for them. It's really funny whe he reads it aloud. You
The Fart in First Grade
I had chili for breakfast that day and from the start of eating that chili, I knew something would be wrong. I was in first grade and my teacher was passing out our grades. She called my name. She had to walk over to me because she was clear across the room. I held the fart in.
Then she called Elizabeth, so I knew I could let it rip. Good thing it was silent, but it was very deadly. Next she called Evan, who sat right next to me. I got worried, like I had done a crime and I knew I was guilty.
The teacher walked past me to Evan then she sniffed and, trust me, I thought what she did next was wrong. She said, "Boy! It really stinks over here."
I immediately looked at Evan and pointed at him. The teacher said, "Evan, what have you been eating?"
Evan clearly did not know what was going on. He looked confused. "What did I do?" he said.
I made a sign to Evan to be quiet.
"Chet did it!" he said. So much for him covering for me. It seemed like he ratted me out.
"Who ever did that can go to the bathroom on the way to recess!" my teacher said.
I do not want anyone to know it was me, so I walked past the boys bathroom and out to the playground.
The Fart in First Grade
I had chili for breakfast that day and from the start of eating that chili, I knew something would be wrong. I was in first grade and my teacher was passing out our grades. She called my name. She had to walk over to me because she was clear across the room. I held the fart in.
Then she called Elizabeth, so I knew I could let it rip. Good thing it was silent, but it was very deadly. Next she called Evan, who sat right next to me. I got worried, like I had done a crime and I knew I was guilty.
The teacher walked past me to Evan then she sniffed and, trust me, I thought what she did next was wrong. She said, "Boy! It really stinks over here."
I immediately looked at Evan and pointed at him. The teacher said, "Evan, what have you been eating?"
Evan clearly did not know what was going on. He looked confused. "What did I do?" he said.
I made a sign to Evan to be quiet.
"Chet did it!" he said. So much for him covering for me. It seemed like he ratted me out.
"Who ever did that can go to the bathroom on the way to recess!" my teacher said.
I do not want anyone to know it was me, so I walked past the boys bathroom and out to the playground.
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