Comas Come With Gifts: A Case of Misdiagnosis Continued

"Six Feet Under" was on and before the coma it had been one of my favorite shows, but now I was having a hard time looking at the screen.  There was a body on the gurney and tubes were draining the blood from it while others replaced the blood with, I assume, formaldehyde.  Our children were asleep in their bedrooms, probably dreaming about their birthdays that were just a few days away.  Our daughter would be turning eleven and our son would be turning six.  The show ended and my husband kissed me goodnight and went to bed, he had work in the morning.

I was filled with an eerie feeling and couldn't bring myself to close my eyes just yet.  The house was quiet and dark now, except for the one light in the room.  For a moment, I wondered if I was really alive.  Maybe I was a ghost, sitting in the living room of my house, watching over my family as they slept.  A chill ran through me.  I sat there for a long time, thinking about the past week.

A week ago, I awoke from a coma.  The first thing that I saw, was my husband's face.  He was unshaven with several days of beard growth and he looked worried.  My first thought was that he must be worried about work.  I thought he must be missing work because I'm in the hospital and maybe the office is giving him a hard time about it.  For me, this was a natural thought because at this stage of our lives, with two growing children, our marriage had taken a turn.  He spent most of his time at work, working up the corporate ladder, trying to provide for his family in a difficult economy.  He had a mortgage to pay and family expenses, while I had chosen to be a stay-at-home mom.  On the other hand, I was consumed by my children and their lives.  I was their PTA president, I was my daughter's Girl Scout leader, but most of all, I was their mom.  I didn't even consider that the worried look on his face was for me.  I think that speaks volumes.

There were tubes coming our of my nose and there were tubes stuck into the side of my neck.  I felt confused and frightened.  I remembered that I went into the hospital and that the doctor said they were going to do laproscopic surgery to find out if my appendix was infected.  They also had said that if they couldn't determine what was wrong through laproscopic surgery, then they would open me up and do exploratory surgery.  So I assumed I was now waking up after surgery . . . but I wasn't.

My husband was saying something so I tried to focus on his words.  "You're a bull!  You are so strong!"  I didn't feel strong, I felt very weak.  "This is the best birthday present you could ever give me!"  He was smiling now, he was very excited and his face was very animated.  I was trying to figure it out but it didn't make sense.  "You've been in a coma and on a respirator.  They tried to take you off of the respirator yesterday, but they couldn't.  They said you might be on it for another week, but today your numbers were better and they were able to take you off!  Yesterday was my 40th birthday . . .you're breathing!"

That night, I spent my first night in the I.C.U. awake.  The I.C.U. is not a place you want to be awake in, it's better to be in a coma in the I.C.U. at night.  There was a storm and the staff was short on nurses.  My nurse, John, told me he had three patients including me.  I was in isolation because they didn't want me to be exposed to any other infections and, I suppose, they didn't want anyone else exposed to mine.  When they had finished the surgery, they had found infection throughout my body cavity.  They washed out my organs and left the incision open in case they had to "go back in."  So now, between the open incision and all the tubes, I couldn't really move.  John came in to change the fluids that were being pumped into my neck.  He wasn't wearing gloves, so I asked him, "Aren't you supposed to be wearing gloves?"  He was annoyed by my question and replied, "I don't have time for gloves."  That scared me, but what could I say?  I certainly didn't want to get him mad at me, since without out him, I was probably going to die.  So I didn't say anything else.

I tried to fall asleep, and I suppose that I did.  I remember floating in a hallway or a tunnel.  There was a ceiling of some sort above me and I was flying.  There were children under me all along the "hall" and they were laughing and playing and pointing up at me.  There were colors swirling around me, purple and gold.  I remembered somewhere in my brain that purple and gold were the colors of my children's elementary school.  There was a light at the end of the "hall" and I was flying toward it.  But then I woke up.

In the I.C.U., patients are hooked up to machines that send out automated voice warnings to indicate that something is wrong.  I later found this out and that they say something about "reset."  But that night, I didn't know that.  I heard this voice and I thought it was saying, "Theresa is dying.  Theresa is dying. Theresa is dead."  (Reset sort of sounds like Theresa, so maybe that was what I was actually hearing.)  Morning was coming when I saw a red button on the wall opposite me.  In my mind I thought I had to press that button to get help or else I was going to die.  I thought about my children and I knew that I would do anything to live for them.  But I couldn't get to that button without pulling out the tubes.   So I yanked at the tubes that were going into my nose and down my throat to my lungs.  They had been there to administer oxygen to my lungs to help them work.  When I pulled those tubes out, my machines went haywire!  Nurses came running through the door.  After that, they just gave me an oxygen mask.

There was a nice nurse during the day and she let me talk to her.  Everyone kept telling me that I was lucky to be alive but that I "wasn't out of the woods yet."  I had a devastating bacterial infection that had an 80% mortality rate.   It was early 2002 and no matter how much I wanted to get well and go home to my children, I didn't feel worthy of it.  Only a few months before, I had put my Kindergarten son on a bus to go to school on a beautiful clear September morning.  I had then walked into my house to see an image on the television of a tower burning.  As I watched, a second plane hit the second tower.  In the days that followed, I found out that three fathers from our neighborhood had died in that attack.  Thousands of parents died in that attack.  Parents who deserved to go home to their children who needed them.  Why should I get to go home?  A nun came in to talk to me since it was a Catholic hospital and I was catholic.  (There's another funny story in there that I will tell, quickly.  When they were getting ready to take me into the operating room, a nun came up to me to pray over me.  I thought she was giving me last rights, so I yelled at her and threw her out of the room.  I have a sister-in-law who thought that was really funny and when I did finally get flowers from her -- no flowers allowed  in the I.C.U. -- the card said, "Don't throw any more nuns out of your room.")  Well, anyway, this nun (who may have been the same one????) was really nice too and she and I prayed to St. Therese, the little flower, to help me.

I spent lots of time crying and just not feeling worthy.  I spent the next few days in the I.C.U., the nights were still scary, but the days weren't too bad.  It was hard that I couldn't talk to my daughter because there wasn't a  phone in the room.  (No phones in the I.C.U. either.)  I knew she would be worried.  She was old enough to know that something was really wrong.  I had been with her every day of her life and now I was just gone.  They told her I had my appendix out and that was why I was in the hospital.  I knew she had to know better than that, and she did.  She knew they were lying to her and she was worried.  The nurses agreed to let her come up to see me for just a few minutes.  This was against the regulations since she was under twelve.  But they let her come up anyway.  I was sitting in a chair now and I no longer had the oxygen mask but there were still tubes sticking out of my neck.  As scary as I must have looked to her, she smiled when she saw me.  She finally had proof that I wasn't dead.  Those were precious minutes.

When I left the I.C.U. after a few days, I went to the cardiac floor.  The nurses on the cardiac floor have many patients, so it was time for me to do things on my own.  This meant getting out of bed and using the bathroom without help.  Not an easy thing when I still had a vertical open incision across my stomach.  But I was as determined as ever to get home to my kids and unless the doctors had proof that my kidneys were working again, I wasn't going to get to go home.  The first morning that I woke up on the cardiac floor, I opened my eyes to see a familiar woman standing in front of me.  It was my grandmother.  But my grandmother had died over thirty years ago and when she had died, she didn't have her legs.  She had had diabetes and had stubbed her toe.  That had turned to gangrene and her foot and then her leg was amputated.   Then the gangrene spread to the other leg and they had cut that one off too.  So to see her "standing" in front of me was a bit shocking.  She didn't say anything, she just stood there.  I closed my eyes and said (maybe out loud?) "Don't take me now!"  I opened my eyes and she was gone.  I knew then why I was alive.  There were things I had to do.  My grandmother had divided her nine children through her actions, and I was going to try to unite those who were left, and the grandchildren who never had a chance to get to know each other.  That summer, I held a reunion, and there were many stories and tears shared.

But back to the hospital.  On the cardiac floor, you can get flowers.  While my nun was there talking to me, the first bouquet of flowers arrived.  It was from my children's school.  In the middle of the flowers, was one red rose.  The nun told me, "Look at this!  St. Therese answered your prayers.  She always answers with roses and here there is one single rose to make sure you know she heard you."  Later that day, I received a call from the principal's secretary.  She was crying on the phone.  She said, "We were so worried about you! Get well and come back!  We love you."  Now that alone is very nice, but you see I had just spent a year and a half as President of the PTA.  During that year (please read the post, "Sticks and Stones (Reposted)" for the details), my life had been a living hell as PTA President.  So for those flowers to be the first ones I received, and to hear the secretary tell me that I was loved, was a true gift.

When I did finally get to go home a few days later, I still had an open incision that was left to close on it's own, I was still feeling weak, and still feeling like I didn't deserve to live.  There was a knock on the door and there was a delivery man with flowers.  Then there was another knock on the door and there was a delivery man with a basket.  This happened all day.  Then the mail came and there were cards from everyone.  Friends started stopping by and telling me that they were happy I was alive.  Finally, a neighbor stopped by.  She held a schedule in her hands.  The PTA moms had volunteered to cook dinner for my family every night for months to come.  I was overwhelmed.

That night, when we were alone, my husband cried.  He told me how scared he was.  He told me that he didn't know how he could tell our children that I wasn't coming home.  He told me how much he loved me and I realized how much I loved him.  Not just because we are the parents of our children, but because we love each other, for each other.

So now I sit in my living room, a week after awaking from a coma, while my family sleeps.  I am a ghost in my own house.  I have been present at my own funeral.  I have found out that I am loved and appreciated and yet I still don't feel worthy.  So I make a promise to God.  I tell him, "I know you saved me for some reason and I don't know what that is."  I think about St. Therese who was known for the little things she did, she never did anything grand in her life, they were just little things."  So I say to God, "I will just try to keep my eyes open so that I can see those little things that you put in front of me and I will do my best."

(That night was twelve and a half years ago.   I'm still here, still keeping my promise, and still looking for those things, God.  So keep them coming and thank you for giving me these cherished years to see my children grow-up.)

Sticks and Stones (Reposted)

The thing about learning a life lesson is that when you are learning the lesson, learning it is the farthest thing from your mind.  You are too caught up in the drama, the pain, the fear, and the anxiety to say to yourself, "Someday this experience is going to be a valuable lesson that I can share with others."  But that is what ends up happening.

It could be a little thing like when I was worrying if my son would ever take his first steps.  He was already fourteen months old and getting way to big for me to carry around everywhere.  Even though someone told me, "When he gets married, you're not going to have to carry him down the aisle."  I still worried about it.  But low and behold, within that month, my son was walking around and getting into trouble taking apart anything that was within his reach.  So the lesson was, everything will come in its own time.

But sometimes the lesson is bigger.  When I was PTA Co-President for the elementary school that my children attended, I learned that the rhyme we learned as children, "Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you," simply isn't true.  Sticks and stones may hurt you on the outside, but names and words can hurt you even worse on the inside.  This is something that bullies learn early and by the time they are adults, they are very good at it.  Names and words have the power to destroy a person's reputation, regardless of if they are true or not.  And just like children, other adults are afraid that the bully's attention will turn from the victim and onto them, so they hide behind their fear.

As a young mother who had a college education and who had worked for years before having children, it was a difficult transition when I decided to become a stay-at-home mom.  I missed having the feeling of accomplishment and respect that I had enjoyed in the workforce.  I loved my children, but I also needed something for me.  So I turned to volunteering to be able to use my creative and organizational skills to help within my community.  I thought that as a volunteer I would be able to "make my own hours."  But what I found was that those hours were 24 hours a day.  All the time that I invested was rewarded with parents calling me at all hours to complain about everything from their children buying erasers at a book fair to the policies and procedures of the Board of Education.  I never heard a word of thanks for my efforts from anyone.  I didn't know that when I decided to take a position on the other side of the table at those PTA meetings, that I would become the object of every one's anger and frustration.

A month into being co-president, a child fell from a piece of old playground equipment and broke his wrist.  Our PTA had a committee that was in the process of asking for better ground cover under all playground equipment.  The mother of the child was understandably upset and wanted to hire an inspector to come in and evaluate the playground equipment to see if it was up to standards.  She went to the Board of Ed and they told her that they had the playground equipment inspected every year and that they would not give her permission to hire her own inspector.  At the mother's request, I went to the Board of Ed and asked them to allow the PTA to hire an inspector.  They told me that if I hired an inspector and that inspector trespassed on school property without their permission, that they would arrest the inspector and anyone who had signed the check hiring him.  Then I called several superior members of the PTA within my town, county, and state.  I was told that if I signed a check to hire this inspector without the permission of the Board of Ed, my school would lose its PTA charter and that all the money in our account would be taken away and spread out to other PTAs.

So I told the mother of the child that I couldn't sign a check to hire an inspector.  I also told her at a PTA meeting that if she still wanted to hire an inspector, we could ask other parents to voluntarily donate cash to her to help her pay for the inspector.  She refused, she wanted me to sign that check and nothing else would make her happy.  But I couldn't do that.

Over the next two years that I was co-president, she spread around to the community of parents that I didn't care about the safety of our children.  Every PTA meeting was hijacked by her bullying and people stopped coming to meetings.  People on the PTA board started to resign.  The Board of Ed and the principal of the school told me to get this woman under control.  The principal even accused me of "letting the tail wag the dog."  So the parents turned against me and the administration of the school turned against me, but there was nothing that I could do.  I wanted to quit too, like the rest of the board was doing.  But the PTA told me that if our school didn't have a board consisting of at a minimum, a president, and treasurer, and a secretary, they would take the charter away from our school and, again, all the money in our account away from our children.  So I stayed.

I cried every night and I lost a lot of friends and felt very alone.

But I knew who I was.  I knew that I cared about every child in that school and every child in this world.  I knew that I had done everything that I could to help this woman in spite of her bullying, name calling, and accusations.  So I kept on going.  I did what had to be done and worked very hard to make sure that the PTA programs still went on as they were needed.  It was always difficult to get enough volunteers to help at these programs and now it was even more difficult.  But I kept them going.

Time passed.  The twin towers were attacked and life changed for all of us.  I became very ill, but somehow survived.  Thank goodness I didn't die, because all of a sudden the PTA parents surrounded and supported me.  They made dinners for my family, they sent flowers, gifts and cards with words of encouragement.  They took over all the programs and kept things going for the kids.  Even the principal and administrators sent me flowers and cards with words of thanks.  Okay, so maybe I had to almost die to get those feelings of accomplishment and respect that I had missed from my days in the workforce.  But it did feel good to finally hear that people had seen what I was doing and how hard I was working and that they appreciated all that I was trying to do for their children.

Eventually people saw for themselves who I was and who she was.  They made their own determinations based on their own experiences over the years.  In the end, I learned that in time the truth comes out in the wash if you keep putting one foot in front of the other.  It is very easy to quit and hide when your reputation is attacked and lies are spread about you. But the only way people will know the truth is if you show it to them every day with your head held high.   It was one of the most difficult life lessons that I have ever had to learn.  The experience changed who I am and how I live my life.  That is what a life experience does.

Time and experiences change people.  From the outside you may still look the same, but on the inside, where those "names" injured you, you change. So here I am sharing this with you and hoping that my life lesson helps you realize two things.  First, that words do cause injuries and, second, that if you are a victim of bullying, even if everyone else deserts you, stand up for yourself and don't give away your power to the bully.  Because if you do, the bully wins.

If you are depressed, don't read this.

If I was depressed, I wouldn't listen to it.  So if you find yourself in a pretty good place right now, I have something to tell you.  "Live Life on Purpose."

I just found this sign hanging in my daughter's bedroom.  She was just home from graduate school and she must have put this sign up while she was here because I don't remember it being there before.  As I was changing her bed, the sign hit me like a ton of bricks.  Not literally, but figuratively.  If you haven't seen the movie, "About Time," you should see it.  Between the sign and the movie, I have had a new "a-ha" moment.

We all have had times in our lives when maybe we didn't make the best decision or we didn't appreciate something or someone like we should have.  We'd like to go back and do those times over and, hopefully, do them right this time.  But the truth is that if we are aware of it . . . if we can live our lives with the understanding that we can never get this moment back again . . . if we are careful about what we say and what we do so that we can be our best selves, then maybe we won't ever think, "Gee, I wish I had done that better."

Instead, "Live Life on Purpose."  A simple thought, but one that encompasses so many thoughts.

The Spectrum of Thinkers

I remember standing on the stoop of my friend's house when I was about ten years old.  I was glancing out sideways into the distance and thinking about something when I heard her ask me a question.  She said, "What are you looking at?"  I said, "I wasn't looking at anything, I was just thinking."  That is the first time I realized that not everyone thinks the same.

In my opinion, there are three categories of  "thinkers" and that those categories are overlapped in some cases to make a spectrum of thinkers.  The first category is "Practical Thinkers." These are the people who know what they have to do and they do what they have to do to accomplish an end.  The second category of thinkers is "Philosophical Thinkers."  They think about why they are doing something before they do it. Sometimes they get caught up in the "What does it mean?" and have trouble getting to actually doing it.  The third category is "Dreamers."  They rarely do what they need to do to accomplish something, they may not even think about what they need to do to reach an end, they simply dream about what they want and expect that it will happen if they "envision" it.

Now I may not be the first one to think of this, my philosophical education started and ended with Philosophy 101 a zillion years ago in college.  But it is what I've been "thinking" about today.  I would have to say that my feet are squarely planted in the category of "Philosophical Thinker" but I, thankfully, do have some "Practical Thinker" abilities that allow me to find a way to proceed.  Still, there is definitely a part of me that is a "Dreamer" and if it was left to the Dreamer in me, I would just write and never take the steps necessary to become a writer.

To take the idea of this spectrum of thinking a little further yet, I think that when it comes to people getting along with other people or even partnering up with someone in marriage or business, where each person is on the spectrum matters.  I have to thank my husband for being more of a "Practical Thinker" than I am. Without him, I would not have the luxury to be the "Philosophical Thinker" that I am.  On the other hand I have some really good friends who I consider to also be "Philosophical Thinkers."  I love spending time with them and talking to them, we can talk and talk and talk for hours about things and when we get together the next time, talk about the same things again and again.  I love that, really love that!  And I feel I am very fortunate to have these friends.  Finally, there are the "Dreamers" in my life.  I am drawn to them and I want to help them to stop "spinning their wheels" and find a way to actually get to what they want.  However, these relationships often end when I get frustrated and find that I cannot get them to move in a positive direction.

I am wondering now how much of this is genetic and how much is environmental?  Can we change who we are and how we think through our experiences?  Ah, there I go again, thinking about "What does it mean?"  What do you think?

A Case of Misdiagnosis

Continuous pain shot down through the nerve networks of my arms.  The only way to ease the pain was to keep them immobile.  So both of my arms spent as much time as possible in arm braces.  I remember that I cried when I realized I couldn't braid my daughter's hair because my hands were swollen to twice their size.  I remember getting my first assignment to cover a Board of Education meeting for the local newspaper.  I bought a special ergonomic pen to help me take notes.  I struggled through the meeting and collected the notes through the pain.  In the hallway outside the auditorium, I ran into an old friend.  I told her about the pain and swelling that I was experiencing.  She looked at my hands and said from experience, "It could be your lymph nodes."  She had had cancer and experienced a similar side effect.  That touched off warning gongs (forget bells) in my head because my father had died of lymphosarcoma.

I made an appointment with my general practitioner for the following week.

A few days later, continuous pain shot down through the nerve networks of my legs.  My ankles became swollen and heavy.  It was painful to walk.  I finally went to my appointment with my doctor.  He looked at my hands and then looked up into space, he reached up in the air for a term and picked out, "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome."  I said, "But my legs are swollen too."  He ignored me and wrote down his diagnosis.

Weeks went by and no matter how many times I visited my doctor he would just look back on his chart and point out that I had "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome."  After all, he wrote it down, it must be so.  Christmas came and I remember laying on the couch as my children opened their gifts.  Santa had been extra generous that year because somehow he and I thought this might be my last Christmas with them.  I couldn't help them open their gifts or play with them.  I could only sit there and watch and smile while trying not to move.

My doctor had finally agreed to allow me to take more tests.  He had me call a neurologist to set up an appointment to be tested for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.  But it was the holidays and everyone was busy and so I couldn't get an appointment until January.  I began to realize that I now knew how it felt to be old.  To live with pain and discomfort every moment of the day and night.  To be limited in my mobility by the pain that movement caused.

Three weeks later, before I had a chance to see other doctors, my son was home from school with a sore throat and fever, and I began to have pains in my stomach.  A couple of days later, I had a body temperature of 93.4.  My husband brought me back to my doctor's office and I saw another doctor on the staff.  He thought I might have appendicitis and that my body was going into shock, he instructed my husband to take me to the hospital.  What I ended up having was Streptococcus Type A Toxic Shock Syndrome caused by regular strep that had invaded my blood system.  I believe that the pain I was experiencing in the months before was some type of viral or bacterial infection that went undiagnosed and untreated.  This infection must have compromised my immune system and the strep was able to take over because the primary infection was never treated.  I can't prove this, but it is what I firmly believe.

In the hospital I was in congestive heart failure, respiratory arrest, and renal failure.  I was operated on and infection was found through out my body and surrounding every organ.  They took out my appendix, just in case it was the culprit but it was infected from outside in, not inside out.  It was a few days before they knew it was strep but they had already put me into an induced coma on a respirator for life support and were pumping me with major antibiotics.  I spent a week in the coma and on life support.

When I was taken out of the coma and off of the respirator, I was disoriented.  I will tell you about my spiritual experience during this time in another post.  I will only say that I am no longer afraid of dying.  But the real miracle was that my arms and legs no longer hurt.  Whatever had caused the pain I had been experiencing had either worked itself out on it's own during this time or had been cured by the mega-antibiotics that had also saved me from the strep.  One day in the I.C.U. I was walking with a physical therapist past the nurses desk.  All the nurses were staring at me.  I asked, "What is it?"  One of them said, "You don't understand, we don't see people who come in as sick as you were get up and walk past us a week later."  I spent another week or so between the I.C.U. and the cardiac floor before being released.

I never once saw my original doctor during this time, although my husband said that I was visited by a young doctor who seemed barely out of medical school who had visited me in his stead.  A few days after getting home, I received a phone call from his office. They asked if I had kept the appointment with the neurologist who was supposed to test me for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.  I had a hard time finding my voice but finally I said, "Does he know that I was in the hospital?  Does he know that I almost died?  No I didn't keep the appointment.  I was in a coma in the I.C.U."  She said, "Oh, I'm sorry" and hung up.  

I've never gone back to that doctor again although he still has a local practice in my neighborhood.  Instead, the Internist who saved my life in the hospital, has become my doctor.  He was very proud of me, by the way, and he even presented me to a group of doctors at a conference.  He told me I was "a save."  I told him, so is he.

I will miss him . . .

Have I done my job?  I'm about to find out.

The things I am cramming into this last week with my son:

1.  How to do laundry.

2.  How to put checks in the bank.

3.  How to sew a button on a shirt.

4.  How to iron without burning his clothes or himself.

Have I forgotten anything?  I guess I will find out soon enough.  At least I know the school will feed him.  If he had to cook for himself beyond heating up frozen White Castle hamburgers, we'd be in trouble.  But the meal plan will save him from starvation.

The real test will be in how he manages his time.  Meeting new friends, joining clubs and organizations, leaving enough time for his school work, and doing laundry at least once a semester . . . this is a lot for a boy who has had a full time mom for the first eighteen years of his life.

It's funny, but I remember when I was about to get married and realizing all the things I didn't know how to do because my mom had always done everything for me.  I remember grabbing her arm as she made sauce so that I could measure the ingredients before she put them in the pot so that I would know how to cook.  I remember thinking that I would make sure my children were better prepared for the real world when they left their nest than I was.  Somehow, that didn't quite happen the way I had planned.

I've had "the talk" with him . . . no, not that one . . . but maybe I should have that one too . . . I have told him that I expect him to get an "A" in every class.  He may not, but I still expect him to.  I've told him if he doesn't do well, he is wasting his time and our money.  It is not enough to get a college degree anymore.  It needs to be in a subject that leads to a career, you need to do better than everyone else, and you need to get internships and experience along the way.  And yet, this is my son who has never held a job beyond feeding the neighbor's cats . . .

Yes, college is a time of transition.  A time between being home and being on your own.  A time to learn how to be an adult and learn all of the things your parents didn't or couldn't teach you.  I am so very proud of him.  I am so excited to see how he changes over these next few years from the boy who is leaving now.  He is starting his journey and my heart is so full of love for him.  That love is what tells me I know I have done my job, because in spite of him being an eighteen year old teenager, I will miss him.

Stones

She lay in bed letting the darkness of the night engulf her, hoping for relief from the stresses of the day.  But her dreams were restless and all through the night her thoughts went back to the difficulties in her life.  Her son had been born with a syndrome that caused severe irregularities in his breathing and weaknesses in his heart. (As she slept, she felt a heavy stone laid on her chest.)  At first, she spent her days caring for him while her husband went to work.  But one day her husband came home and said that he wasn't in love with her anymore, he wanted a divorce so that he could go on with his life.  (Another stone crushed her ribs.)  Her mother moved in to help her as she took on a job as an aide at the local school to help pay their expenses. After all, the astronomical medical bills were piling up.  She worked all day while her mother cared for her son.  Then one day while getting ready for work, she felt a lump in her breast.  (The stones were getting heavier.  It was getting harder to breathe.  Was she still asleep?)  Her brother called her one night and told her that he thought she was taking advantage of their mother.  He said some awful things to her in his anger that could never be taken back.  (Another stone on top of the others.)  When the school budget was cut, she lost her job.  (The weight was so much now that she could no longer move her arms and legs.)  She lay there in the darkness and thought that maybe this wasn't so bad.  She could just stay in bed under a blanket of stones and never get up again.  

The morning came and she could hear the birds singing outside and the roar of a neighbor's lawn mower.
Life was going on in spite of her burial under the stones.  Perhaps she should stay here in bed.  Choose not to face the day and to leave it to her mother and son to figure it out.  But then she thought of how much she would miss.  Her son's smile.  Afternoon tea with her mother.  Simple things, but each so valuable and precious.  She pushed away the blanket of stones and stood on her own two feet and walked into another day of her life.

Body Image

Lily stood in front of the full length mirror and untied her robe.  The robe opened and silhouetted the image in the mirror, an image that she didn't recognize.  This body was rounder, softer than the one she remembered. There were lines like those in a map, blue and white ones that traversed her breasts and her belly and brown ones that ran vertically across the center of her body, surgically separating her left from her right.  She lifted her arms and as the robe fell away she saw that the skin no longer held fast to her arms, as if the glue that had once held it in place had dried up and the skin had come lose.

She stepped closer and lifted her hand to her head.  Slowly she pushed her fingers through hair and revealed the graying roots.  Her fingers left her hair and traced her face.  Tiny lines reached out from each eye and the corners of her mouth. She frowned.  Even her hand didn't seem to be hers.  There were blue veins that were barely covered by her brown spotted thin skin.  She turned her face from the image in the mirror.

Her husband came into the room and saw his wife standing naked in front of the mirror.  He walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.  He saw that she was crying.  She said, "I am old.  Don't look at me."  He looked at the image in the mirror.  He lifted his hand and he traced the blue lines on her breasts and her belly and said, "These are the children that you gave me."  His hand moved and played along the brown line at the center of her body, "This saved your life."  He brought his hand up to her hair and ran his fingers through the strands revealing the gray roots, "This is the worry we shared for our children as they grew."  He traced the lines on her face, "This is your smile."  He covered her hands with their veins and brown spots, "This is the hand that has held mine through good times and bad, through joy and pain, through my successes and my failures."  He lifted her face to look up at his image in the mirror standing behind hers, surrounding hers.  "You are the most beautiful woman in my world.  Without your image in front of mine in this mirror, I would have nothing, because you are my everything."

Lily reached for his arms and he cradled them around her.  His body silhouetted hers, as the robe once had. She smiled and the crinkles in her face deepened.

Backstage at Jones Beach with Fogerty's Band

We got "Top Secret" backstage passes last night to meet John Fogerty's drummer, Kenny Aronoff, after the show.  Shhh . . . did I mention that they were "Top Secret."  We were the only guests as the roadies took apart the stage.  Sitting at a table with Kenny and the bass player, James LoMenzo, we relaxed and talked about the show and other people that Kenny had played with over the years, including the love of my life, Paul McCartney!!!  Kenny told me that as a boy of ten he became a huge fan of the Beatles and to have played with Paul and Ringo Starr at the Grammy Awards was like his life coming full circle.

First of all, let me tell you that John Fogerty is an absolutely amazing performer!  Without a break, this 70 year old rock star legend and lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival, played for two hours and never slowed down.  His voice was strong throughout the show as he entertained the crowd, dancing and jumping around the stage with the other musicians, including his son, Shane Fogerty, on guitar.  Jackson Browne, who had played earlier in the night, even came out on stage to join Fogerty for one song.  Together, they rocked the house, it was an incredible night!

Finishing off the night sitting with these guys and having our daughter with us was perfect.  Kenny was fascinated to hear that she had just returned from the Amazon and asked her about her research.   As the proud mama that I am, I sat there and listened to her explain to these famous musicians her interest in researching the effects of the environment on remote cultures and was so impressed with her poise and intellect that tears almost peeked out of the corner of my eyes.   Last night was one for the memory book, one not to be forgotten.  Thanks Kenny and James!

The Changing Environment of Women and Education

My grandmother was born in Italy in 1892 and came to America in 1901 at the age of eight.  Her situation as the oldest child in the family did not allow her to be a child for long.  Educating a girl back then was thought to be a waste of time and effort.  Girls like my grandmother went to work in sweatshop factories to help provide for their families.  At sixteen she was married, at seventeen she was a mother, at eighteen after the death of her father, in addition to her own children, she and her husband became responsible for her mother and younger siblings.  There was no time for education in that era.

My mother was born in 1922 in Brooklyn, New York.  She did graduate from high school, but the high school she attended taught girls skills that were useful to them.  She learned how to cook and sew in school. She worked for a brief time in a sewing factory and then she married and for the next two decades produced children while she cooked and sewed.  The thriving post-war economy in New York led to families moving farther from the cities and created the "suburb" where children went to school, fathers worked, and mothers stayed at home.

I was born in 1958 in a suburb of New York City and was the fourth out of five children.  Not unlike my great-grandfather and grandfather, my father thought education was a waste for girls.  In spite of that, my sister did attend junior college and became a nurse, but she paid for her own college.  I followed her and also chose to attend junior college and became a secretary while working part time jobs. Both were very acceptable and practical careers for women in the 1970's. Later, while working full-time, we each continued our college education and received Bachelor's Degrees.   Our ability to attend college was due to the acceptance of women in the workforce that came out of necessity during World War II.  For the first time, women were able to work and pay for their own education and through this, thoughts on educating women started to change.  

We had the choice to go to college even if it meant having to work and pay for it ourselves.  I remember being in college and enjoying classes in Anthropology, Archaeology, Psychology, Astronomy, Sociology, Philosophy, and Literature.  But since my college career lasted twelve years in order to receive a four year degree, as the years passed, dreams of pursing careers in these fields had to take a backseat to making money in order to be able to afford to own a home and raise a family of my own.  In the 1980's the economy took a nose dive and the cost of homes and the American Dream increased tremendously while salaries lagged far behind.  Yet our generation was determined to give our children, even our girls, the education and choices that we didn't have.

My daughter was born in 1991 (almost exactly one hundred years after my grandmother's birth) and is now pursuing her Ph.D. in Environmental Anthropology at a well respected university.  She travels to distant and remote places to study indigenous people and their cultures.  She is in essence living my dream and I am so proud and excited for her and her future.  I only hope that young women today take a look at how far women and education have come in this last century and encourage them to understand and appreciate the choices that they enjoy today.

The Tin Box Trilogy Website

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About Love - A Letter to my Children

A long time ago, I wrote a letter to my daughter on Valentine's Day.  I wanted to write it to her before she fell in love for the first time.  My thought was that once she was in love, she wouldn't listen to me anymore. What I wanted to tell her then, and what I want to tell my son now, is that love is not a race.  Love should be built on a foundation of respect, friendship, and attraction.  If you are lucky enough to find someone that you can share all three with, then you need to build the next level.  An appreciation of each other's differences, a willingness to support each other's dreams, and an understanding and commitment by each person on how to share the responsibility of sustaining that partnership now and in the future.

Love changes over time.  That doesn't mean that it fades, it means it changes.  At the beginning of a relationship there is an urgency that sometimes blinds you so that you can not see the challenges that will come.  But as time goes by, those challenges rear their heads until you can no longer avoid them.  Life changes. Responsibilities change.  You change.

No matter how hard you try to keep on track, you will veer off at times.  Hopefully, you will meet again at a crossroad and choose to continue on together. Communicate.  The importance of that cannot be overestimated.  Even more important, listen.  Be willing to change.  If you cannot or are not willing to change to make things better, than as sad as it is, it's over.  But if you can, and if you value the other person, than you can have the happily ever after that you want. Appreciate and show your appreciation.  Don't take it for granted that the other person knows you love them.  Live and love like it will all be taken away tomorrow and then you will see how beautiful it can be.

Love,  Mom

P.S.  Trust enough to be vulnerable; love enough to give the other person your strength when they need it.