Heaven is a Fat Black Woman

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As part of my journey in living with heart failure, I have been open to all sorts of suggestions. So far, I’ve gone back to my therapist, I’ve attended a support group, I am working out three times a week with a trainer. I am trying to eat well, thank goodness I already quit drinking, I am praying and being prayed for, I am trying to do a better job at staying in the Word, and I have dabbled in meditation. It is actually quite effective if I can just do it.

Today the meditation exercise was to envision an experience which conjures up heavenly feelings that you can go back to when you need to go to your happy place. (I’m assuming without the aid of mind altering substances.)  It gave numerous suggestions and I went through various alternatives in my mind. First, I saw myself hiking up a mountain on the coast of the Monterey Peninsula, triumphantly looking out over the coastline. Next, I sipped a glass of wine while eating new lamb in the English Lake District. Lastly, I basked in the glow of the sun, something I haven’t done since we found out about skin cancer, while listening to live music. These are all things I’ve done in the past and can no longer do. While they are incredible experiences that I miss like crazy, none quite embodies the sense of nirvana I was going for.

Then it hit me. It was two years ago.  It was more of a sensation than an experience. It was a place of comfort and safety and compassion that I’ve never felt before or since. A feeling I wish I could bottle. And it happened, of all times, on the very day my father died. And the bearer of all these heavenly feelings was a woman I barely knew….Dorothy.

She was one of Dad’s two sitters during his last ten days when we brought him home to die. These sitters are gifts from God. Angels who know what death looks like and they help not only the patient, but the family, transition from this world into the next. Rick has an expression he uses to describe pleasantly plump people – they are built for comfort, not for speed. Dorothy was built for comfort. She had the 7 am to 7 pm shift. The shift while we were all awake. Janice had the nighttime shift. It worked out well, because Janice was not a people person. She cleaned out the refrigerator and talked on the phone. Dorothy, on the other hand, instantly became part of the family. She was fat, talkative, motherly, comforting, unafraid and funny. She told hysterical stories of other families that she had worked for that made us look like the Cleavers. When we were no longer on speaking terms with Dad’s girlfriend, she ran interference for us. She’s seen it all, the obnoxious stuff that happens when a family’s fiber is stretched beyond the breaking point.

Okay, back to heaven. When I heard the guys from the funeral home ring the doorbell, I ran down the stairs to say one last good-bye to Dad. By the time I got there, they had already zipped him into a body bag. I burst into sobbing, heaving, snotty tears and collapsed into Dorothy’s arms. This woman I had known for only ten days. I don’t have much experience with fat people or with hugs, but I tell you what, being enveloped in those arms and burying my head in her hefty bosom was a feeling I will never, ever forget.  It was the safest place I’ve ever been. It was heaven.

Magdalena Has an Attitude.

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Yesterday I went to the heart failure doctor to check in.  I haven’t been since July. He only sees patients on Tuesdays.  It’s usually over an hour wait.  It’s a good thing I don’t work, otherwise I don’t think I’d have time to be sick.  I bided my time in the waiting room talking to my nephew Christopher on the phone and taking selfies of my new glasses.  They’re really cool.  They’re reading glasses called Eyebob’s.  I had prescription lenses put in.  The frames only cost $75.  The lenses, however, cost $500.  It’s expensive to wear glasses.

Finally the nurse called me in.  She’s the check in nurse. She asks me to list all of my medicine, even though they are the ones who prescribe all of it.  She’s supposed to weigh me, but she was too lazy to do that.  She just asked me how much I weighed.  I lied, of course.  Then she took an EKG.  It said that I was having an acute MI. That’s heart attack in layman’s terms.  I asked her if she might not want to go get help.  She agreed.  She stepped out into the corridor and asked someone if we should be worried.  He said no. So we weren’t.  She then asked me where I got my outfit.  I told her in Wimberley.  I’ve had to get all new clothes since I’ve gained weight. She said, what size do you wear.  I told her. She said, no way, that’s what I wear and I weigh XXX (35 pounds more than me, but remember, I lied).  I said way.  She said no way.  We left it at that.

She usually bashes men.  Rick hates her, but Rick wasn’t there this time.  He’s out of town.  He’s in Santa Barbara on business.  I should have been with him, but because the doctor only sees patients on Tuesdays, I couldn’t go.  It’s just as well that Rick wasn’t there, because Magdalena was in a bad mood.  Without Rick there to bash, she complained about the doctors.  I complained about the wait. She said they’re just in it for the money.  I hoped not, but decided to keep my mouth shut.

Dr. Estep finally came in.  He’s too nice to get mad at.  Plus he will some day get me a new heart, so I have to stay on his good side.  I asked him about the EKG.  He said it’s just weird because of my pacemaker.  Whatever.  I didn’t feel like I was having a heart attack, but it was getting a little harder to breathe.

He asked me how I felt.  I told him.  He was particularly impressed that I can walk 2 miles on a treadmill.  No incline.  In air-conditioning. At a snail’s pace.  But he was never the less impressed.  I think I’m like a Ninja Warrior of the heart failure patients.  There should be a reality show.

Since I’m feeling pretty good, he decided not to start all that pre transplant testing.  That’s fine with me.  I figure that by the time I actually need a new heart, we’d have to repeat it anyway.  But I told him that  I would like to know more about what has caused my heart muscle to self destruct.  Also, I want to get some idea of how rapidly it is happening.  Is that too much to ask?

So, we are going to try to establish some baselines and to see if a more accurate diagnosis can be made.  The mother lode of diagnostic tools was the MRI and that was inconclusive because of the shadow cast by my pacemaker.  We’re going to try a biopsy in a couple of weeks. That means another trip to the Cath Lab.  My ninth or tenth.  No biggie.

He also upped some of my medicine and will closely monitor my kidneys and liver.  That means returning to the office to give blood and pee in a cup.  Giving blood samples has become a routine part of my life. I’m a pin cushion.  No biggie.

So, you’re caught up.  I’m still here. I’m functioning fairly normally. It’s all good. Thanks for the prayers and concerns. Maybe we should add Magdalena to the prayer list. She’s not happy.

Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword

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TO A HELPLESS FOUR YEAR OLD BOY…IT IS NOT OK

My mother stopped hitting me when she could no longer make me cry. For David, it was when he could physically wrest the hair brush out of her hand. Mom had a short fuse. Our house was filled with land mines and the three of us became experts at navigating the treacherous landscape. One of us would volunteer to get up first and assess the situation. A trial balloon so to speak. Then we would adjust accordingly. It was all about not annoying her. We had to be perfect or invisible. We did not spill our milk or shuffle our feet or pout. We said yes m’am and no m’am. We were polite and deferential. We sat quietly in the church pew. We did not get our clothes dirty. We did not get underfoot. We blindly obeyed and kept our thoughts and opinions to ourselves. But then we grew. We got bigger. One day, as mom was out of control, I glared at her with a combination of mocking and disdain. The more she hit me, the more intense my stare of contempt.  I stood my ground. I did not cry.  I won. She never hit me again. I think she was afraid. I might have been eight.

Better Now

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I just dropped Rick off at the Monterey airport.  He’s going back to the salt mines in Houston for a four day business trip.  I’m going to miss him.  I crave my alone time.  I need it like oxygen.  But since I’ve been sick, I’ve come to depend on him in ways unimaginable the first 29 years of our marriage.

We ate a nice dinner at the Golden Tee, the time warp of a restaurant in the airport.  I had the prime rib, as usual, and Rick the chicken parmesan.  We ate early and the place was packed with locals and their little kids who came to watch the private jets take off and land.

Then we parted ways.  I went to the short term parking lot and he went to his gate.  I could have been sad.  But on my way out, I greeted the ticket taker with my usual southern enthusiasm, “how are you doing today?” And he said, “better now.”

With those two little words, he made my day.  He changed the course of the evening, heck, maybe he changed the course of the next four days.  After thanking him effusively for the corny compliment, I drove down to the beach and watched the sunset. The surfers rode their last waves, families were building bonfires and couples were drinking wine as the sun set over the Pacific. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. And I’m better now.

I Did it Again

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I did it again.  Got sucked into a TV series and binge watched it straight through. or fru, truf be told. This time it was an hysterical British/Welsh sitcom called Gavin and Stacey.  It’s only 20 episodes and it is wet your pants funny.  I finished it yesterday and I still miss em. You know, Gavin and Stacey.  And Pamela, and Mick and Smithy and Nessa.  It is a delightful escape.  Sort of like Freinds meets Seinfeld, but set in southern Wales and Essex.  I’m so sad it’s over, but I’m going to watch it again.  And again.

I Had to Save the Pope

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“In was 1944, Germany….I had to do it.  I had to save the pope.”

Rick and I were walking home from church.  We were in our Catholic phase, going to St. Anne’s on the corner of  Shepherd and Westheimer. I’m not sure the word Alzheimer existed in 1985.  We just called her the crazy lady. She had a shopping cart and she would patrol the street talking to herself.  On this fine spring morning she was saving the pope. She must have had some cogent moments, however, because she managed to call the police and have my car towed one time.

We were living in the downstairs unit of an old duplex in Montrose that Rick and his best friend, Jeff, bought before we were married. Jeff lived upstairs. It was Three’s Company.  Each day we would carpool to our downtown bank jobs, resplendent in our navy suits and briefcases.  At night, I nuked an extra Lean Cuisine  and Jeff would join us for dinner. When we weren’t all putting in weekend face time at work, Jeff and Rick watched  WWF and Planet of the Apes on TV.  On Sundays, Jeff entertained us with stories of his nocturnal exploits.

I was spending a lot of time in Toronto for my job with a Canadian bank.  Huge chunks of time, sometimes only coming home for an odd weekend visit. This was one of those times.  On Saturday morning I got up early to run some errands and went outside to hop in my car.  It wasn’t there. We didn’t have a garage, so the three of us parked in the driveway or on the street.  My car just wasn’t there.  When I asked Rick about it, he swore it was in front of the house, on the street.  Only when I opened the front door and asked him to show it to me did he agree that it, in fact, was not there.

I called Jeff to ask him about it.  “Hey, do you know where my car is?”  He said, “It probably got towed because of all the tickets on it.”  “What? Are you kidding me?  You saw tickets stacking up on my car and you didn’t mention it to Rick”.  Jeff moved to the top of my shit list, giving Rick a momentary reprieve. But Rick was not about to get off the hook that easily. I called the police to report my car missing and they told me that my car had been towed as an abandoned car TEN DAYS AGO. That’s right, you heard me, TEN DAYS AGO.  Rick instantly replaced Jeff in the dog house. We found my car in the impounding lot and had to pay $200 in storage fees.  Put that in today’s dollars.

Finger Bowl

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I was the “new” girl at Hutchison.  It was a moniker that stayed with me until graduation. I entered in seventh grade whereas so many of the girls had started together in kindergarten.  They formed an impenetrable group fondly known as the Twelve Year Club.

One of my new friends invited me to go with her family to Florida for spring break. Before I was allowed to go I had to meet her parents. This was quite intimidating as they lived in some huge mansion in the fancy old part of town.  They made it quite clear that I had to audition for a spot on the  traveling squad.

I was pretty wowed by the stately old antebellum home in the historic    Garden District.   I was just a simple middle class girl who wanted to fit in.  I didn’t even know how to pretend to fit into this world of eleven foot ceilings, maids in proper uniforms and formal seated dinners.  I got a little tripped up when the maid walked around the table with each serving dish, displaying it to our side.  Was I supposed to grab the spoon and dish out the mashed potatoes myself or would she do it for me?  I think I held my own until confronted with a small bowl of warm water.  What the hell was it?  I stared at it for a couple seconds too long.  I looked around to see what everyone else was doing.  They were sticking their fingers in it.  Go figure.  I did the same.

I thought I had performed reasonably well but I didn’t get a call back.  Oh well.  This was going to be harder than I thought.  Going to a new school is never easy.  Falling into an alien universe is just plain impossible.

downton abbey

 

 

Small Penises

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I hate men with small penises. You know who I’m talking about.  Men who drive expensive sports cars, who hire hookers, or if they can find their own dates, go for big tits and small minds.  Men who smoke cigars, play poker, cheat on their wives. No matter how high their golf handicaps, they play from the tips and they play for big money.  They never, ever play golf with women or in co-ed tournaments. They have never changed a diaper, gone to the grocery store or made dinner for the family. They talk loudly and buy rounds of drinks to impress. These kind of men so disgust me that they have made me jokingly threatened to go lesbian.

 
And what inspired this rant, you may ask. A guy I saw at the gym today.He flipped on the overhead light as he walked in the gym, even though there were already people happily working out in the natural light.  I heard him over the music in my headphones before I ever saw him.  He was hollering instructions to his buxom girlfriend as if she had  never stepped foot in a gym. When he wasn’t playing Svengali with her, he was showing her how strong he was.  He set the weights heavier than he should, sacrificing form for some crazy notion of cave man strength.  These kind of guys never re-rack their weights.  The guy was wearing a gray wife beater sweatshirt.  He was bulked up, his arms sticking out in the way those roid heads’ do. He had acne scars and wavy slick backed hair. Some people might have refered to him as a guys guy.  I would just call him a prick.

When Rick picked me up from the gym, I told him that I had seen a man who had inspired me to write a blog entitled, “Small Penises”.  He said, “I saw him, gray cut off sweatshirt”.  I said, “that would be correct.”

Admit You Have a Problem

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Help, I’m binge watching Pretty Little Liars.  Is there a twelve step program?  In case you’ve been wondering why I am not posting more blogs, and yes, some of you sweet people have actually missed them, I have been busy watching 103 episodes of this tween trash.  Save me from myself.

Epilogue.  I am now all caught up.  Going through withdrawals. 

Too Good to Last

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I’ve been feeling great the past six months.  So great in fact that it has been possible to forget there’s anything wrong with me.  Ever since I got the Bi-ventricular Pacemaker, I’ve been able to make it through the day without napping.  I haven’t had any ventricular tachycardia; I have had lots of energy and my color has been good.

But this week has been different. Declines in my heart function usually show up first in my emotions.  Like some psychic bell weather.  A general feeling of doom and malaise. An overwhelming fatigue. A lack of interest in anything and anybody.

And there are also changes in my behavior. It’s become routine for Rick to drop me off at the curb and then go get the car to pick me back up.  I haven’t felt like helping with the groceries or meal planning. I’d rather find play dates for Rick than have to engage in social activities.  I’ve been hitting the wall mid afternoon, feeling so weak that I can barely stand.


It’s hard to stay upbeat.  To get up each morning and put on a happy face and fight the good fight.  This morning I told Rick that we need to seriously discuss my care.  There will be a time when we will need outside help.  When we will need to hire someone to relieve him.

Not surprisingly, he said we are far from that. That I’ll get a new heart before then.  Maybe. Maybe this bad patch will pass.  Maybe it’s just beginning.  Maybe it’s just the heat or allergies or aging. Maybe.