Ode To A Lost Child.....

 Steeped in the alcohol of your mother's womb

Brain cells damaged, dying. Indomitable spirit soaring. Born, life, laughter, generosity

Limits.

The laugher of girlhood, the gift of smiles, laughter, mischief. 

The curse of demon impulse, thoughtless, careless. 

Passing to your child love, life, laughter, happiness.

Forgetting in a careless moment that all that can be snuffed out, denied, deadened, killed.

Can I do less than offer him the chance at better than what you were given, whatever the cost to you, beloved little child of my heart? Can I do less than stand for him, against the damage done to you (Oh, not your fault, my beloved, NOT YOUR FAULT!! But still, your responsibility!) to care for this innocent one, this beloved of mine and yours, and offer him better??

Oh, GOD! To make me choose between the child I love and the child I have not met, and choose...a better life for him, I hope, I pray, oh LORD I pray! Please!

Let this little grandson, whom I have never seen, let him live a life of grace and peace with a family who clearly already loves him, and will care for him all of his life. Let my beloved girl learn to love him enough to keep him safe.

Give the courts the gift of sight for him as well.  And give us all peace.

Amen.

DeeDee

Nine of Sixteen?.....

 Nine years ago today, Babygirl got her new kidney.  Miraculous, life altering, amazing, wonderful. It's all of those things. It ended a terrible era of freedom limiting dialysis and suffering.  We are grateful.

It began a lot of other things: Immunosuppression. Headaches (both the literal and figurative type). Severe, undiagnosable infections and (thankfully mild and reversible) rejection episodes. All of these have been controlled.

But it began something more subtle.  A countdown. The life expectancy of a transplanted deceased donor kidney is 10-16 years (add 5 more if the donor is living).  The record so far celebrated 50 years in 2019. He was a 72 year old man in England who's brother donated a kidney to him when they were young (the brother later died of a heart attack at age 38!).  

No matter.  We don't know.  Babygirl does an absolutely amazing job taking care of Jorge's kidney.  I met another fairly young transplant reipient recently, and she is quite pleased, after 6 years, that her creatinine is 1.4.  Jorge's is 0.8, which is excellent.  (In case you aren't sure, lower is better.  And 1.4 is early kidney failure, no matter how you look at it. Babygirl is doing well.  But 10 years? One left. Sixteen? Then 7.  Fifty? Well, we don't have England's National Health Service, but barring any gaps in care?  It's something to shoot for.

DeeDee

Ten Years Ago.....

 Today is my Mom's birthday. If she hadn't gotten lung cancer, she'd be 83, and so far into her dementia that she'd likely not know us.  But she'd still like lasagna for dinner, and cake.

Ten years ago today I was in the hospital.  Somewhere in the middle of the headache hell that started out of nowhere, halfway into a month or more of high-dose steroids, I had an episode of severe chest pain, cold sweats and dizziness.  The fact that this all happened WHILE I was in the shower made it more epic.  Hubby drove me to the hospital, soaking wet, dripping conditioner all over the place, and ready to vomit. I was admitted for a couple of days' observation, and had a stress test on the morning of Mom's birthday.  I thought I'd done pretty well, honestly:  I finished the entire thing, no problem.  But when you've finished running, they inject you with this radioactive stuff and scan your heart.

A couple of hours later, a cardiac nurse who could not have been more than 22 came in to give me the news:  You failed the test.  You need cardiac catheterization.  You get to go home, but they want you back the day after Christmas for that test.

(I don't know if you've ever been on steroids.  As near as I can tell, they are something like bipolar disorder mixed with menopause in a bottle.  You can't sleep at night because you are too warm and too busy cleaning corners and wrapping individual sticks of gum for Christmas stockings.  And you REALLY want to call random people at 3 AM.  And then you crash unexpectedly for death-and-resurrection naps, which, if you don't get them, you cry for no reason. Or you cry anyway. Or shout at someone. )

So I started to cry. Not the pretty kind - the blubbery, snot-producing kind.  "It's my Mom's birthday. There are going to be 20 people at my house for dinner. And tomorrow is Christmas Eve and they are coming back for that and I direct the choir fot THREE church services AND THEN CHRISTMAS!!!!"

God bless that nurse. She pulled her shoulders back, pointed her finger into my face, and VERY sternly said, "Do you know what you need to DO??"

'Wh-wh-whaat?" I blubbered.

"You need to go home, and act like a man with a COLD!" she scolded.

Oh my freaking goodness.

I never turned crying to laughing so fast in my life. It remains the single best piece of medical advice I have EVER been given.  And I followed it.

But I remember thinking, at the end of 2010, how horrible the last few months had been.  How grateful I was that the year was behind me, and how hopeful I was that the next would be better. I had no idea on earth that 2011 would be an endless horror, and 2012 almost moreso.

The struggles we have had. The blessings.  How do you untangle it all?  Babygirl's struggles with dialysis were going on as we welcomed our precious little Boo. Babygirl's transplant came right before Squeaker did.  She needed antirejection treament when a little Rose came our way, and little man came into the world the same week my mom left it. 

2020 was hard for a LOT of people.  Job loss and insecurity, sickness, loss of family members and friends.  The general political shitshow, the unkindness, social isolation, the endless home learning.  People are REALLY wanting this year to be DONE, and here we are cleaning up the biggest snowfall on record while anticipating an epic flood.

(Personally, my bad.  I didn't plan on making lasagna this year.  So Mom arranged it so I HAVE to make it.)

I've reached a point, however, where I'm just riding the ride.  If I've learned anything at all from the past 10 years, it's that I have precisely zero control over what's around the next bend.

DeeDee

Telling Right From Wrong.....

 Election Day was 2 days ago and we don't have a declared winner.  This does not distress me. 

Our Commander in Chief had begun litigating the undeclared outcome.  This does not surprise me. 

What does surprise and distress me is how close the numbers are.  This indicates to me that the country is divided almost exactly in half, and EACH half is ABSOLUTELY convinced that the ENTIRE OTHER HALF does not know how to tell right from wrong. At. All.

This would be easier to cope with if I could just explain it away as a "low IQ" issue, or a "lack of education" issue, but I'm a doctor, and have colleagues living in a "blue state" who have voted on both sides.  

How is this country going to recover from believing that HALF of everyone around us is so....wrong? Stupid? Stubborn? Misinformed? When they believe the same of us?

Lord God, grant us grace.

DeeDee

November and Thankfulness......

 I'm pretty sure I skipped expressions of gratitude on the Blog last year, and I'm not sure why.  There are plenty of reasons to be grateful, for sure.  Babygirl is all grown up, and she is doing very well from an overall health standpoint. She is taking nearly full responsibility for maintaining her health these days, and it's a pretty impressive thing.

But we shared a really BIG rite of passage together yesterday.  We went together to vote early in what was her first presidential election.  (My first was Carter. Lordy, I'm old.) She's been voting 3 years, since age 18. She actually registered to vote on the street during Porch Fest at a Get Out The Vote outreach (proof that these events are worth doing, folks - keep up the good work!). We've had some lively conversations over the past year about the candidates, the parties, the issues, Supreme Court Justices, and what matters to us in the long run. 

Neither of us is happy about the ages of the two men running. But someone online said, "It's not a prom date. It's a chess move." That seemed like a pretty profound way to look at it, in reality.  Which of these ridiculously elderly men gets us closer to whatever goal we have in mind? 

As we finished waiting in line, and were about to step forward to sign in for our ballots, I looked her in the eye and said, "May the odds be ever in our favor!"

We went in laughing.  I came out praying.  

Babygirl is going to need healthcare for a long, long time. Getting her that care has been an ongoing battle.  May the odds, indeed, be ever in our favor.

Thank you, Lord, for the right to vote.

DeeDee. 

Dog Poop and Political Discourse....

 Apropos of nothing kidney related...

There's a house in the neighborhood that's been for sale for a while.  So long, in fact, that I attended an open house there pre- Covid. If I recall correctly, the weather was warm when I toured the house, so it had to have been about a year ago.

It finally sold. The new owners built a nice new deck to the side of the house.  And they added a Trump campaign sign on the lawn in front of it.

They aren't common in my neighborhood. Biden/Harris signs are everywhere. And it's no great secret to anyone who knows me that I'm not a Trump fan, even if my yard hasn't got a political affiliation.

But, hey. People are entitled to put up their campaign signs, and, in my opinion, they are entitled to have their signs left unmolested by others who disagree with them.

But as I was passing, I noticed that someone had made a statement, as it were, about the sign.  Right in front of it was a large, bright blue pooper-scooper bag full of doggy doo. 

As a political statement, I had to admit, I agreed. And it made me laugh out loud.  

But it took about 10 seconds for me to do the math on it.  Do I really want my new neighbors "welcomed" to the neighborhood in this way? And do I, in my heart of hearts, really feel that level of disrespect for the political process?

I added the bag to ones I was already carrying and finished my walk. 

DeeDee

PS I'm not at all ashamed that I laughed.  I'd've laughed if it was in front of a Biden/Harris sign, although I doubt anyone would have had a red bag handy for that.

Floral Memories....

 When my Mom died, my girls discussed getting matching tattoos in her memory. This is still on the table. Designs have been tossed about on various occasions, but all apparently agree that the tattoos should be floral, to reflect Mom's love of gardening. But what flower?

The Princess and Babygirl were discussing this last while she was home. The problem for Babygirl is that her memories of her Grandma are narrower than all of her sisters'. She's the youngest. She recalls Dementia Grandma in detail, Gardening Grandma, not so much.     

But my Mom was always a gardener. In the home I grew up in there were numerous flower gardens - a side bed, a large front bed full of poppies and irises, the bed by the front door; and, in some years, a vegetable garden.  I remember a patch of hens-and-chicks, thickly surrounded by forget-me-nots (a most incongruous pairing!). Tucked by the shaded back door there were lily-of-the-valley.  Large clumps of peonies had pride of place near the front door, to be picked each year and donated for the church altar and high school graduation. Wild violets graced lawn, I was taught early the difference between a daffodil and an jonquil. 

In the home she had when the Princess was a child, she had a large shady garden, so the peonies had to move to the back yard. The deer there ate any and all bulb flowers, but bleeding hearts grew in abundance at the front door, with impatiens and giant begonias.

At her last home, things got a little wild. She had clematis growing up the side of the porch, and later, wisteria. There was sweet pea in the back, and the bleeding hearts made it into the woods. But the poppies reined in front, and peonies marched down the entire side of the property.

She was a lover of wildflowers as well. Babygirl and I took a hike today, and I got some snapshots of a large variety of flowers, not all of which I could ID, but I know my Mom could have.  

When we needed to set up email for her, I asked her to make up an email address.  She couldn't come up with anything on the fly, so I named her CooCooLady.  She went with it for a while, but later asked for an upgrade. She started with flower suggestions, but single flowers, peony among them, were all taken.  She finally got "PoppyAster" to stick.

Poppies are out of season. Here's an aster for you.

Babygirl and I are on a girl's weekend together, camping.  I miss my mom.  She was never the type to take the 4 mile hike through the woods (to be fair, we weren't intending to go that far.  It was a lovely ramble but we were lost for a minute), but she taught me to SEE the little flowers, learn their names, appreciate the beauty around me, as well as how to keep your sense of humor while you wait for the camp coffee to be done. 

So, Mom? Thanks for being that Mom who did the Girl Scout camp outs, the cross-country trips, and the repetitive weekend camping at the lake.  Memories. 

DeeDee