Becoming an adult . . .

I guess I always knew this day would come.

Wednesday, I assumed the role of the parent of my parents. I knew it would be hard, but I had no idea it was this hard.

My mother was transfered to a nursing home from the hospital. She was informed that she would be there until such time as she could get out of her wheelchair and walk at least three steps. It may be that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but that second and third appear daunting.

As I stood by her bed at the home, she and my father both making chatter to the nurse, the inescapable weight that she might never return home settled on my shoulders. I saw them for the first time as two people who could no longer fend for themselves. It drove me deeply into thought. . . .and dread . . . and anger.

On the long drive home, I had to fight constantly with the anger. Why had they let this get this far. Why didn't they take action when they first talked of it three or four years ago. Why did they leave it to me to make the decisions none of us want to make. Why did my life so suddenly suck.

When I arrived home and talked with Diana, I began to turn the corner on the anger, because I realized that I was not alone, that I would have support.

This will not be an easy journey, now I know. I will be distracted, quick to outbursts, sullen and moody. But I will get through this with the support of my family. I apologize in advance for being an SOB at the worst possible times.

And you thought kids were hard . . .

Render unto God that which is God's

In April of 1986, I began a journey with a number of other candidates to become a Roman Catholic. I was not engaged to a Catholic. I was not even involved with a Catholic. In my conversations with the Sister in charge of the program, I thought I began to understand how I was being called to the faith, how many things in my life brought me inexorably to the decision, how God was moving in me.

At the Easter Vigil in 1987, I was baptized. It was a wonderful and warm moment. The sense of community was so strong, so compelling, that I was truly filled with joy. And for my part, knowing that I made these decisions without a sense of obligation to another person made me even more sure that what I had done was the right thing for me, and for me alone.

Over the years, many of the most wonderful moments in my life occurred within the walls of a Catholic Church. As the Best Man at my cousin's wedding, I was able to take communion with he and his bride. Later, I became godfather to his first child, as well as godfather to another dear friend's first child.

I married my best friend in the world in a Catholic Church and was welcomed into an entire new family.

Now I have come to realize, 20 years after becoming one, that being Catholic was not the end of the journey for me. My struggles with Vatican doctrine, with what I can only call wholly unchristian acts of some church leaders, have brought me to a crossroads. I see, most clearly, that when God moved in my life so many years ago, he called me to become a Christian. The Catholic Church was a means to that end, but it was not THE end.

I believe, that in his teachings, Jesus really wanted us to love each other. He taught about compassion, understanding, forgiveness. Hate the sin, love the sinner kind of thing. He also spoke of resistance to the evil in our lives, even if that evil is present in the form of powerful governments and institutions.

Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.

Each of us must choose our own way in this life. We must ultimately be true to ourselves if we have any hope of salvation. In understanding this, I know there are many Catholics who disagree with statements made by the Vatican or made from the pulpit, yet find the Church a spiritual beacon in their lives. They may feel they cannot turn from the church because of their deeply held beliefs that it is better to agitate change from within rather than leave. While it saddens me, I do not feel that way.

Maybe because I was first politically aware and then spiritually aware, I have ALWAYS believed that religious beliefs may shape our political decisions, but they should not dictate them. The principle on the separation of church and state is central to my belief of what is just and right in American Society. It protects me as a Christian, just as it protect Jews, Muslims and Atheist, from persecution. If Congress passed a law stating that anyone who wanted to live in this country must be a baptized Christian, I would have to leave it even though I am Christian, in short, because it would be just wrong.

I can no longer participate within an organization which preaches love on one hand, and espouses hate on the other; one which allows it's Bishops to protect the "brotherhood" at the expense of our children; or bars homosexuals from the priesthood, insinuating that the child abuse inflicted by priests is solely due to those with that particular sexual orientation.

So I render unto God my belief that he will continue to move within my life, even if the rest of my important moments occur outside the walls of the Catholic Church.

May God be with you in your journey, as well.

Speaking of things that piss you off

Okay, this is the first of what I want to call something like "Why the f...?" You'll recognize this as what most people now call rants. But I'm of a different generation, and I'm made of . . . well. . . coarser stuff.

So my first is . . . Why the f... can't manufacturers get together and make all the AC adapters they send along with their little electronic devices work with all the other devices? I mean, is this really difficult?

I don't have that many "personal" electronic devices; an iPod, a cell phone, a digital camera and a Palm Pilot. But my life is a freaking amazon of various cords and wires. And why is this? Because every manufacturer has their own "special adapter".

Personally, I feel like if they were all that special, they'd do something besides charge/power the device they were plugged into. Maybe something like . . .act as an emergency lighting device in case of power failure. Think about it. The next time the wind blows out your power, instead of stumbling through a dark house to find a flashlight only to find that the batteries are shot, you'll have all the little ac adapters in your house helpfully lighting your way.

Only in my house, I'd need switches to turn the lights off, because it would be brighter when the lights went out.

Anyway, you can go to Radio Shack and buy one that fits almost anything. Why can't they just supply them? Why can't they all get together and fix on one plug? Hell, why can't one manufacturer decide on one plug. I've had three Motorola cell phones in my life and they've each used a different plug. Why is that?

Think about the resources used for all these adapters. Think of the man hours, the packaging, the toxic waste, the MONEY.

And don't tell me that they create jobs. It the adapter was standardized, we'd have another whole industry grow up around creative ideas of how to intergrate these adapters into our everyday life, our home wiring, or our car wiring. Things would be BETTER. And then we'd all be marketed to to buy generation 3 of the "new" smoke detector / ac adapter. Jobs for marketers, commercial producers , shippers & manufacturer's.

Why the f... not?

Okay, there is intelligent life?

Finally, we have made contact.

Through the cold, silent vacuum of health care, we have received a message. We are working feverishly to decipher it, but we have been able to ascertain that it is a friendly message. It reads something like . . . "Oops, someone misunderstood what we were doing."

Apparently when doctors have an ultrasound done on a person's arm to check for veins (or is it arteries . . . nope veins) suitable for dialysis, that does not mean that they intend to PERFORM dialysis.

Our bad. Turns out they were looking IN CASE they wanted to PERFORM dialysis.

Okay, here it is. Technically, Mom is in renal failure, but that means, in this case, that her kidney function is abnormal. This translates to her having 20 percent function. That is not as dire as it sounds, but it is serious. They expect that once they get the blood infection sorted out, she should rise to around 35 percent function. And with therapy, they should get it even higher than that. None of these levels are such that they'd have her hooked up to the aforementioned DIALYSIS machine.

So they will be moving her to a nursing facility so that they can monitor her antibiotic IV (since Medicare will not pay to have the drip done at home (broken, broken broken healthcare). Now, I have to get her a cell phone, because the nursing home does not have phone in the rooms.

Say what?

I guess this is so we can put our elderly parents in home and not have to feel guilty when they call to talk to us? WTF?

This adventure continues . . . but I do have one piece of good news that comes from all this. This morning they were going to move Mom to the nursing home and she told them she wasn't going anywhere until they got the doctor in to tell her what the heck was going on.

I guess she's going to live after all.

. . . whisper down the lane

Well, maybe I spoke too quickly . . .

After work yesterday, Diana and I had decided we'd drive to the hospital and visit Mom. We called just to make sure she hadn't been moved, and after some trouble, the hospital informed us that she was still there, just not answering her phone.

We arrived to find her sound asleep in front of the TV, so Diana suggested that we talk to a nurse to find out what we could. I guess we looked like we needed help, since one of the nurses on the floor came up to us right away and asked if we needed help.

I may not be the only one writing blogs about the state of the health care system.

I am sorry I didn't get her name, as this nurse was very nice and very helpful, probably more helpful than she should have been from the hospital's viewpoint. She described the difficulty that patients AND nurses have trying to keep track of doctors. From what I could gather, hospitals now employ doctors full time on staff, called Hospitalists. These doctor have no practice other than the hospital's patients, and they, or members of their "group" perform the rounds and speak to patients. Needless to say, the individual patient may see five or six different doctors from one group during their stay, and may never see the same doctor twice. Additionally, if as in my mother's case, the patient may see a number of specialists. As may also be the case, one specialist may decide that the patient's malady may be outside their specialty and refer them to another specialist. This, of course means that you could see a doctor once and never again. Add to this the number of staff that enter a patient's room for any number of reasons (meds, blood samples, vital statistics, etc.) and you have a situation where the patient, even if alert and clear headed, becomes easily confused.

Much of this could be avoided if the various doctors involved would explain clearly what was going on. Perhaps they can't . . . maybe it is too complicated for even them to keep track of all the patients, all the results. all the stories. In any case, confusion reigns in today's hospital beds.

After first explaining that she really couldn't give us information without my mother's permission, the nurse told us a number of things that were both informative and distressing. My mother is in some level of renal failure, and apparently she was unaware of this until the nurse herself told her that just a few hours earlier. Mom has a number of things wrong with her, but this is potentially life threatening. But the nurse was not able to tell us (because she did not know) what that meant in terms of long term care. She did not know whether it was permanent, how long she'd have to stay in the hospital, when or if they would perform dialysis.

At one point she shook her head, acknowledging how hard it is for patients to keep track. She was openly annoyed that the doctors had not explained this condition to my mother. She felt like people of my mother's generation never learned that they needed question their doctors. or what kinds of questions to ask, but obviously felt that the doctors should understand that.

She took a lot of time with us, wrote down a few numbers and explained to us how to navigate the system to try and find out information.

So here, on day seven of my mother's hospital stay, I still do not know the full story. As Diana mans the phones and begin the process of tracking down the doctor with the most recent version, I am reminded of the child's game refered in the title and wonder . . . will we ever get a clear picture of what is going on? Will the story translate from one set of lips to another, until such time as the last person to hear it blurts out something that bears so little resemblance to the original as to actually be in contradiction to it?

Maybe you've heard the comment that an elephant looks like an animal made by committee? Our healthcare system is the elephant in the hospital room we all need to talk about.

I thought everyone knew that bureaucracy was inefficient . . .

Tapping time.

I'd like to follow my last post with a loud sigh and let you all know that everything is fine with my Mother. And I almost could, if it were not for the lingering doubts in my own mind about what has gone on over the last week. In short, I don't feel like I have all the facts, ma'am.

I was never a patient child. I literally struggled with my impatience for as far back as I can remember. I can remember fighting with one old girlfriend because I was tapping my foot as she was talking to a friend in a parking lot outside church on one Christmas Eve. Well, between that and the loud sighs, she wasn't really very happy with me.

And I haven't improved much with age. When I find myself in this particular position - one where I must bide my time until medical tests are in, or for the doctor to show up, or some other stinking little roadblock - I can feel many of the old demons crawl into my consciousness.

You should see me in traffic . . .

Mom has a UTI (urinary tract infection for us mere mortals) that somehow developed (they think) into a blood infection.

"Uh, Doc . . . how does that occur?"

They don't know how, or really even if, this occurred. They do know she has an infection that needs treatment, so they are transferring her to a nursing care facility so that she can be kept on intravenous antibiotics for 10 days. So now they are, one of these days, shipping her off to one of three possible nursing homes in the immediate area. Maybe today . . . maybe tomorrow . . .

I keep thinking that they perform surgery and send you home the same day, and they will be keeping my mother for nearly two weeks for an IV drip.

Tap, tap, tap.

Okay . . . look. It isn't that I don't believe that she needs the care, but this is very frustrating. She's had something like 5 different doctors look at her; a urologist, an endocrinologist, an infectious disease specialist, a cardiologist and . . . hmmmm . . . there was another one . . . . Anyway, with all this speciality, how come we aren't getting any closer to an answer?

I remember a time when doctors made house calls. (Yeah, and they did walk uphill, in the snow, BOTH WAYS) All right, no they didn't, but you did feel like they took ownership of their patient's care. In this age of managed health care and specialized medicine, it feels like we have more doctors and less oversight, more tests and fewer answers, more information and less understanding.

I don’t think that doctors are any less committed than they used to be, or that yesterday’s doctors were better or more educated than today’s. But I can’t shake the feeling that in the days that Doc Bucher lived down the street, and dropped by the house on his way home for dinner, somehow we had more faith in our medical care.

I do want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers on behalf of my mother. It meant a lot to me.

Age, condition and ultimately . . . price

I've had the distinct advantage, in my life, of having had both parents throughout 100 percent of it. They were always together. They were always healthy. They were always there. Even at the times when I'd do something so completely stupid as to risk my life, and the lives of friends by driving the back roads of Hunterdon County in a rainstorm in the middle of the night after four Tequila Sunrise at the Shady Lane, just three months after crushing two vertebrae, my parents stood by me. Oh, they did NOT take the bullet for me, but they did support me through the tribulations I brought upon myself.

My mother was not Harriet Nelson. She did not appear at dinner with matching bracelets and earrings dispensing Rockwellesque meals on a long dining room table covered in clean, ironed linen. My mother worked outside the home. She worked for a local auctioneer, preparing the location of the next auction. She moved furniture, she emptied attics, disassembled kitchens and then she recorded each and every transaction on sale day. She was a laborer and she labored daily.

She also was a businesswoman. (I do not like the politically correct notion of calling everyone a "person", as it assumes that you believe being a woman is inferior to being a man.") She ran an antiques business for many years, and extended to me a love of things old and things almost forgotten. I know she didn't make a lot of money, as some do in that business. But it was her passion, and she plied that trade for most of my childhood. The tales that rose from her interactions with her colleagues used to be the main portion of all conversation that occurred in our house.

My life was filled with the characters of my mother's sideline. Odd men in dusty, work clothes would appear at our door with items they had procured at some auction in some town of which I'd never heard. Even stranger men in filthy coveralls smoking stinking ropes of cigars would pick her out of the crowd in auctions to ask about her last antique show. Eventually all these people would turn their attention to the day's purchases. Together they'd paw through boxes of items wrapped sloppily with newspaper and discuss ages, condition and ultimately, price. Sometimes these sessions would evolve into trading sessions. Sometimes explorations of discovery. Most often they ended with a smile and a wave as the visitor would back his aging truck out of our driveway, or disappear into a knot a people bunched around a fast talking auctioneer.

In my entire childhood, I never understood the attraction. In those days, the farms and old homes that went under the gavel were the places of previous generations, my parent’s parents and my parent’s grandparents. The stuff was old, and often dirty beyond recognition. And many times, its purpose was a mystery to me.

Those who know me will understand how far I've traveled since then.

Some years ago, my mother's arthritis robbed her of the pastime she reveled in through so much of my own life. No longer able to get through the crowds or sit for long periods in front of the main auctioneer, she began experiencing this love from greater and greater distances. I think that every once in a while now, she will attend one particular auction, but that is a rare event indeed. Coincidentally, my own interest waxed and I began to experience an unremembered joy of discovery of diving into box lots procured at nominal prices. My relationship with my mother morphed into one of mentor/student as she would check to see whether or not I had her eye. Alas, though she never told me this, I did not. But she still takes such pleasure in the conversations about age, condition, and ultimately, price.

Last evening my father called at 10:30 as my wife and I sat reading in bed. The convenience of Caller ID takes on an ominous nature when the hour is late and the caller is a parent. True enough, he related shortly, Mom was in the hospital and they did not know what was wrong with her. Pain in her chest, difficulty breathing, coughing, fever . . . all non-specific enough to make you freak at the prospects, yet all innocuous enough to let you convince your self that it’s nothing. With reassurances that the morning would bring more details, my father and I hung up and I drifted off into a quiet sleep.

When he called again at 8:30 and spoke with Diana, I could tell he was having trouble talking without breaking down, though from her half of the conversation, I could tell that Mom was still with us, so I waited until I received the phone from her and was able to hear his side of things. My father has become a very emotional man in his later years, or rather . . . I have come to recognize this aspect of my father in mine. Slowly, he relayed the glaringly insufficient information he had, that the doctors were looking for blood clots in her lungs, that she didn't want visitors, that she was uncomfortable and sick.

If he was nothing else, my father was a steady presence in my life. As predictable as the 12 noon fire siren in my hometown. Now I was trying to shore up the crumbling foundation of this rock as he caught a glimpse of life alone. "She'll be fine . . . she's in the best possible place she can be if something happens. You know her, she's too much of a pain in the butt to . . . "

But for the first time in my life, I caught a glimpse of life without her as well. And I guess the fact that it made my thoughts grim instead of teary made me know that I'd truly become my mother's son after all these years.

I spoke with her myself shortly afterward, and found that the comfort level of speaking with her is, as it always was, greater than that with my father. But we do not speak of the bad things that can happen. We are both aware of what they could be so we move on to other things.

I might not recommend this to my kids, or my wife, or even complete strangers. But this is how my relationship with Mom has always been. To my recollection, my mother has never uttered the words "I love you." to me. And I have only told her that only once in my life (the aftermath of the failed trip home from the Shady Lane that rainy night.) But I have never felt anything but loved by her. I have never required verbal confirmation of the continual act of love that was my life with her. I know as I write this, that I will have to break down and tell her one more time, and probably sooner rather than later. But as I look back on fifty years that always had my mother's presence as the first foundation of my existence, I know that if I don't ever get that chance, at the point when our souls once again reunite, she is more likely to ask if I ever finished that old postcard collection than why I never told her I loved her.

Age, condition, and ultimately . . . price.

My mother's love was for my entire life, abundant and . . . free.

I am quite certain she'd be uncomfortable with that conversation.

For those that do that sort of thing, prayers for her comfort and peace are greatly appreciated.

Hmmmmm . . . now what?

This . . . is a random new experience. As I watch the young'uns delve deeper into cyberspace, I feel strangely out of it. As I guess my parents did when I first brought my 128k Mac into the house and logged on with MacTerminal and played my first text-based adventure game.

Maybe this happens with all parents when the family disperses . . . I feel as if I'm slowing down my pace, just as they accelerate theirs.

Still, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I feel less like I need to watch over them now. I think they will do far better than I ever dared to hope, whether that is making a fortune or making a difference. And that makes me proud. Not proud of anything I did, as by the time I came along these guys were well on their way to being adults. But I am proud that they are such . . . well its sounds corny . . . but nice people. And this is a pretty great reward for my kind of lucking into the family.

Anyway, I digress. So now, so soon after my son-in-law starts his blog, I begin one of my own. There is a story to go with this, and I'll relay here is, mostly for his benefit. I got his email announcing the launch and I went to it to see what he had to say. (He has such interesting . . . uh . . . interests, and I like that about him) I was going to post a comment to his post, and somehow ended up creating my own blog. Yes, it was a freakin' accident!! This is one of the reasons I feel so out of it. I mean . . . is this hard? Couldn't I have simply posted without creating a whole damn Blog? Life, I'll tell you. It just keeps happening, no matter what you do. But I decided that like so much of my life, I'd just go with it.

So there it is.

We'll see what happens . . . Stay Tuned!

Oh, and the title. This kind of sends me back to those Saturday serials they played for kids on TV during the 50's and 60's. Like "The Lone Ranger" or "Sky King". You know where good always won over evil. And the good guys quite literally wore white hats. I kind of wanted this blog to be that perspective, coming from a time when we thought we really could stop all the bad things in the world, just by being, well, good.