My beautiful, wrecked daughter

heads touching

tears mingling

shoulders shaking

we hold each other

unable to fix

I can only hold on

unable to stop

you can only hold on

hearts breaking

I see the baby

that was placed 

in my arms

and you?

who knows

a smell, a touch

something familiar

drugs coursing

through your body

fear soaking

your brain

my baby gone

replaced by you

my beautiful,

wrecked daughter

I have to go to a meeting today with Katie's agency.  Not sure what will happen which makes me anxious.  One of the guardians of Katie's roommate has complained about Katie.  The cannabis has failed to help her as much as we hoped it would.  I'm not sure why. 

When I was a young woman I worked at a place called Michener Centre.  It was an institution where people with mental disabilities were warehoused.  I worked on a women's unit.  There were forty-five women in each half of our building.  The building was two stories and there were eight or ten buildings on site.  It was a warehouse and as such had minimal staffing, maybe three or four staff per side.  Most of the clients/patients were kept drugged into oblivion, at least in my opinion.  They were drugged enough so that they would sit or pace all day in a locked room with forty-four other women.  They were drugged enough so that they would eat their meals quickly, thirty minutes to serve and feed ninety women, including two cups of coffee each.  They were drugged enough to sleep in huge dorm rooms.  It was an awful place and I only lasted a year there.  Everything was locked and all the staff carried big old fashioned skeleton keys.

I volunteered for every outing that there was, dances, swimming, walks, drives, you name it.  I tried but that place sucked the life out of both staff and clients.

And that's my worry with Katie.  I know times have changed but still in the back of my mind is a drugged woman, sitting in a chair, drooling, oblivious ot what is going on around her.  Drugged into submission because it's easier, because it's convenient.  It's why I fight so hard to find something that will allow Katie to be herself, to exist as herself.  There are two women in my mind.  The Miss Katie that I carried in my arms, the one who always smiled, and the Miss Katie who screams and cries and hits herself and others.  I can't reconcile the two. 

I want Katie to enjoy life.  I want her to be free of anxiety, as much as is possible.  I want her to be in public because she loves people.  I want her to be safe.  I want her to feel safe.  I just don't know how to do this. 

I had a young man as a patient yesterday.  He was not quite thirty.  He has Burkitt's lymphoma;  it is one of the fastest growing cancers and has a special fondness for the central nervous system.  He's partially paralyzed as a result of the cancer.

He came down to have a new central line put in and his old line pulled out.  He was a terrified little boy in the body of a heavily tattooed ex-con/drug addict.  It took a long time to get everything sorted out.  His platelets were low, there were questions that needed to be answered but we finally got him in the room.

I was ready not to like him.  When he first came to us another nurse had said he was kind of an ass.  But then I met him.  I talked to him.  I listened to him.  He wasn't an ass, he was just scared.  I imagine when he was first admitted he was pretty angry.  Nobody would believe him when he was complaining of symptoms while he was in jail.  Burkitt's lymphoma is a rare cancer, only 1-2% of all adult lymphomas.  Then he had severe back pain and partial paralysis.  And now he is with us.  We have three young men right now with Burkitt's and all are either partially or completely paralyzed.  They come to us and stay with us for months on end while they receive treatment.

I told him yesterday that this will be the hardest thing he will ever go through.  He is terrified of needles, terrified of pain.  I don't know what he's been through in his life but I'm guessing it can't have been good.  The last young man who was terrified of needles like that had found the body of his best friend's dad with a needle still hanging out of his arm.  That image has stayed with him his whole life.

Yesterday reminded me to not prejudge people.  I try and I fail and then I try some more.  We are such a messy species, us humans.  Perhaps wolves and elk are just as judgmental as us but they just don't beat themselves up over it.  Or maybe they do.  Who knows.  It's one of my traits that I most dislike about myself.  I know it's part of being human.  That judging is probably an old trait that helped keep us safe and probably still does but it's also a very poisonous trait that keeps us from truly seeing each other as the same.  Because we are all the same really.  We all have fears, pasts, wounds.  We all suffer, we just express it differently.  We all carry our past on our backs with us and it colors everything we say and do.

It's hard being human.

I'm liking my counselor.  She's older than me, a cancer survivor: she's also kind and wise.  We're talking about my childhood now which makes me cry.  I've always felt like a disappointment to my family, to my ex-husband, to my children, just kind of a failure in general.  I've made lots of mistakes in life, as have we all but I have defined myself by those mistakes instead of my accomplishments or strengths.

My counselor asked me a question on Wednesday which I had never asked myself before.  What do you like about yourself?

Here goes.

I have a very good sense of humor, all kinds of humor.
I'm hard working.
I'm willing to look at myself and my flaws.
I'm smart.
I love word play.
I love play in general, especially the kind little kids enjoy.
I'm compassionate.
I'm empathetic.
I'm loyal.
I love looking at the world.  My memory is all visual and I love just looking, soaking the world in.
I'm a good baker.
I'm a hugger.  The world always needs more huggers.
I love learning new skills.
I'm love to read and learn.
I'm quite willing to look foolish to make others more comfortable.  At work I often play the fool for my patients, to make them laugh.
I tend to love hard, if that makes any sense.  It does to me.  Fiercely might be a better word.


What do you like about yourself?  Please tell me.

My mum at seventeen which would have been in 1942.  World War II was three years old.  She had met my father two years before this photo was taken.  She looks so young.  When I was visiting my aunt in September, I spent a lot of time with my cousin.  She told me about my granny, mum's mother.  I only met my granny twice in my life, both times were in the 1970's so granny would have been in her seventies.  She seemed like a stern, scary old lady. 

I listened to my cousins tell stories about granny and mum.  What I found out is that my granny looked like a stern old lady but apparently she was a lovely old lady with a great sense of humour.  Granny had resting bitch face.  My mum had a great sense of humour as well and I think that is the greatest gift she gave me. 

My cousin grew up on a farm in southern England and granny lived in a small house down the road from them.  When mum visited she would stay with granny but they would spend a lot of time at the farm with my aunt and cousins.  In the evening, after supper, mum and granny would make their way back to granny's house, down a dark country lane.  My cousin was sent to watch them and make sure that they made it home safely.  My cousin told me that watching the two of them walk home was like watching two drunks walking home;  they were laughing so hard that they staggered.  Mum and granny loved each other very much.  My aunt told me that when mum left for Canada after the war it almost broke granny.  I can imagine.

It's wonderful to hear these stories. 

 

I have a friend with breast cancer.  Actually I had a patient with breast cancer who became my friend with breast cancer.  She was first diagnosed twelve years ago.  The cancer has now spread.  It's in her bones, her brain and other places I can't remember.  Yesterday she was in for a CT scan which involves drinking two litres of water with contrast.  Just as she was about to go in for her scan she vomited everywhere.  I go back to the waiting room to find her vomiting in a garbage can, vomit all down the front of her;  she's soaked.  She said she was fine and would have the scan done soaking wet but her husband and I vetoed that.

Her husband got her a clean gown, pants and housecoat and I took her into the bathroom to get cleaned up.  I washed her and dried her and helped her put her arms in the gown.  She sat on the toilet while I took off her shoes and changed her pants.  As I was kneeling in front of her, putting her shoes back on her I asked her if she was always so easy going and she said yeah, pretty much. 

As I was laying in bed this morning I realized the difference between her and I, and probably why I love her so much, is that she is not suffering, despite all that is going on in her body.  She can't change what is happening to her but she is not a fly trapped in a spider web, struggling to escape.  She just accepts what happens.  She gets up and lives her life.  It's much slower now than even six years ago when I first met her but she sews, she visits friends, she enjoys her life.  And most importantly to me, she isn't suffering.  I am in awe and I am thankful she is my life.

And my suffering, my suffering is in my head which for me makes it harder because the part of me that I need to use to reduce my suffering is also the part of me that causes so much of my suffering.  Today is a better day.  I'm watching the sun rise as I write this.  A new day brings hope and a chance to do better.

I had a wonderful day yesterday.  I helped a doc insert an arm port, the first ever in Edmonton.  The doc is an amazing man whom I love working with.  He is kind, dedicated and extremely knowledgeable, mostly though it is his kindness which shines through.  He helped a patient yesterday, a young woman who is dying of cancer;  he made her life a little better

I got news that there is an agency that is willing to take on Miss Katie as a client;  strangely enough it is the very agency I had hoped for.  The big guy and I meet with them next Monday and Katie could move in to a new home in five weeks.  Her behavior, or rather her mood has improved radically on the valproic acid.  She can pay attention longer, she's less anxious overall and she's enjoying life much more.  I am thankful. The new agency will care for Katie alone at first, implementing the behavioral strategies as advised by the behavioral consultant before moving a roommate in with Katie.

It's not just Katie whose behavior has improved, I am also working at changing my behavior around her.  The big guy pointed out to me that unless I am looking at Katie, I am in effect plugging my ears.  She signs and uses body language to communicate so you need to be looking at her to "hear" her.  Only took twenty-six years for me to learn that but I guess better late than never.  I have been working at paying much closer attention to her, looking at her, looking into her eyes and she's much better.  He's right.  Of course he's right, he's often right.  He pays attention to people.  He pays attention to Katie and he notices things I can miss.  I've also started singing to her more as suggested by the behavioral consultant.  Katie likes music but it's not really the music she likes, she likes to be sung to, she likes the interaction and if the song makes no sense, she likes that even better.  She understands humor, gets that it's the disconnect between what is expected and what is delivered that is funny.  And she has a beautiful laugh.

I'm also on holidays for the next ten days which is lovely so I'm sitting here, writing, thinking about taking the dog for a walk before it gets too hot.  Right now both animals are curled up on the chair beside me, fast asleep.

Time to fold laundry, walk the dog, paint a wall and some trim, maybe even work in the yard a little.  Happy Friday.