As a matter of fact, it is brain surgery.

The family caravan to the OR.

On January 4, 2012, I wrote a blog post entitled Tales from the Waiting Room. Today is June 4, 2013, and I’m sitting in the exact same spot as I was one year and five months ago ... waiting. 

I feel like in the past few years I’ve learned more about the human body and various things that can go horribly wrong with it than I ever thought I’d want to know. I’m not complaining – it’s actually interesting, but a little disconcerting when it’s going on in the body of someone you love. 

What I am complaining about is how someone can live her whole life trying to eat healthy, exercise regularly, take vitamins and do all the other things you’re supposed to do to keep your cholesterol down, your blood pressure down, your weight down, your skin out of the sun, your muscles toned, your heart healthy … then all that gets thrown out the window by some random seemingly insignificant ache or pain that ends up rocking an entire world. 

In retrospect, it’s been a blessing how things have happened (as hard as it is for me to admit that.) It began with a nagging backache that just wouldn’t go away, which after various treatments, led to a CAT scan, which revealed a cancerous kidney. Kidney cancer? It doesn’t run in our family and there were no symptoms other than a backache, yet the resulting nephrectomy (told you I knew all these big words now) showed a kidney the size of a small football and one amazed surgeon.

Maybe because of her healthy, active lifestyle, doctors were again amazed when she left the hospital only two and a half days after having a kidney removed. Even more spectacular, she got on a plane to Florida less than six weeks later. Not much keeps this woman down. 

But there was more in store. A routine, follow-up CAT scan six months after what we call “the kidney incident” confirmed my belief that if you look hard enough, you’ll find something. Test after test finally revealed cancer. Again, not hereditary. In fact, one of the rarest of all gynecological cancers out there.

This road wasn’t quite as cut and dried. After much research and discussion, weighing of pros and cons and consults with doctors and nurses alike, a game plan was reached and we all tried to settle in to a “new normal”, which now consisted of other words I don’t normally toss around like “carboplatin,” “doxil” and “CA125.”

It’s tough to watch someone go through chemotherapy, especially when it’s for a disease you really don’t see. You don’t know if they’re getting better. You don’t know if the poison being dripped into them several times a month is doing its job or making things worse. You worry that quality of life is being sacrificed for something that may come back. Which it did. Chemo, Round 2. Life’s not getting any easier, and I see that optimistic spirit and energy tempered by a feeling of “enough already.” But her oncologist said, “I’ll tell you when it’s time to stop fighting and it’s not yet time.”

At one point another doctor told her, “Hey, at least you’re OK from the neck up.” That was before the splitting headache that came out of nowhere. The vomiting. The feeling that her skull was being ripped off her head. The trip to the ER. Another CAT scan. Another MRI. An angiogram. And now, as we sit here in the same waiting room we occupied almost a year and a half ago, brain surgery. 

It will be fine. She’s in the best place she could be for what’s called an orbital zygomatic craniotomy. I think that is by far the best series of words I’ve learned in the past two years. She was told she’ll be here for two weeks. She negotiated seven to 10 days. I’m predicting right now that she’ll be home in five, six tops.

She’s worried about the scar, and how she’ll cover it with her hair. She’s worried that because of this she’s going to miss her last round of chemo (which she will.) She’s worried about her family and feels bad that we’re sitting here … waiting. But there’s nowhere else we’d rather be right now. 

Our family is strong – from the matriarch to the patriarch and everyone they brought into this world.  We rally together during times like these and I can’t imagine what I would do without a family like this.  Now that I think about it, despite these challenges and the seeming unfairness of it all, we are lucky. She is lucky.

It’s not brain surgery. Well, yes it is. But after writing this blog, I realize it’s not brain surgery to realize how blessed I am to have the family I have, with strong wills, unconditional support and sometimes a little inappropriate humor. It’s those things that get us through times like these … sitting here in this little room … waiting.

The Lost Art of Writing

 

I love to write. I mean, it's my thing, right? There's nothing better than well-written prose, whether you're sitting down to a juicy novel that you can't put down or repeating a jingle you heard on the radio or being captivated by a movie or TV show. From the greats that brought you To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye and Seinfeld to the geniuses behind "Just Do It" and "Don't leave home without it", good writing is STILL the cornerstone to anything worth reading, watching or listening to.

Trouble is, not everyone gets cc'd on that memo anymore. The further we get into the technology age, the more writing becomes this archaic skill akin to desktop publishing and talking on the telephone. I mean, who does that anymore? Better yet, why do we need it when we have all these other technologies like texting, tweeting and instant messaging to divert our attention and and show us shiny things quickly?

Sigh.

It's hard to get people to appreciate the skill and talent it takes to write. I'm not tooting my own horn - or wait, maybe I am. Because I am a good writer. I know what I'm doing. I can write for most any audience, in most any tone, for most any application. I can. It's what I do. I can't design stuff, I can't fix stuff, I can't go out and sell stuff. I write. And I've been around long enough that I can put myself in the place of my reader and know what they want to hear.

I've used this example before. Years ago, the agency I worked for had a medical account. The surgeon wanted to be very involved in the marketing process, but being a surgeon, he was way too busy and really didn't have the expertise. When we explained to him that he needed to trust us to do our jobs so he could do his, he finally said, "OK, deal. You don't do surgery, and I won't do marketing."

The problem is, everyone thinks they can write copy. Don't get me wrong - some people can - and that's great. When I was job searching a few years ago, it seemed every writing job I encountered wanted to know if I "did design." Finally, I enrolled in a few design classes at ICC. Boom. Now I can design. Can I design WELL? Can I design QUICKLY? Uh, no and no. Design is an art unto itself, and it's a disservice to those talented individuals to have someone without those skills messing in their world.

Like design, it's important to not overlook the art of writing when you're creating something that is going to be "sold" to the masses. If you're going to spend thousands on a website, or an ad campaign, or even come up with marketing strategies and branding, DON'T SKIMP ON THE COPYWRITING. Seriously. Don't. It's kind of like trying to fix the huge leak in your house versus calling a plumber. You might be able to patch it so it's OK for the short term and saves you money right now, but in the long run, it probably would have been better to shell out the bucks and have the expert take a look-see (as evidenced by the flood in your basement.)

Where would M&Ms be without "Melts in your mouth, not in your hands"? Shoot, look at K Mart with "Ship my pants." GENIUS to a fledgling company! You think the programmer thought of that one? No offense to my programming friends, but PROBABLY NOT. And where would Saturday Night Live be without all those comedy writers behind the scenes? You think Hans and Franz, Church Lady, Stephon and The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation with at a Party just invented themselves???

Copywriters don't get the glory, nor do we want it. We're not in all the high level meetings, we don't shake the hands and don't go to the lunches. We don't always see the fruits of our labors. But that's OK. There's nowhere I'd rather be than behind a laptop, typing at 80+ words a minute, telling someone's story. That story might be an article, or a website, or an ad, a script, or a speech, or a comedy routine. Doesn't matter. It's me, becoming them, and telling their story the way it needs to be told to their audience.

I still write letters to my kids every year on around their birthdays. Hand-written. With a pen. In those letters, I relive the past year, good and bad. Their accomplishments, their struggles, my struggles and reiterations of how I feel about them and how lucky I feel to be their mom. I then seal them and put them away. Someday, I'll give these letters to them - when they need them. And they'll have this tangible record of their lives in their mom's handwriting, in their mom's words, from their mom's heart.

Lost art. The generations behind us aren't writing letters - in fact, they're barely learning cursive. It's so sad. At some point I think our communication is going to be a series of acronyms and abbreviations - and that's too bad. We have so much to say and we forget that we really, really need to say it, and say it well. 

Writing? Yeah, it's my thing. It may not make me a gazillion dollars, and it may not make me the most important person on the marketing team. But someday, I'm going to be in the right place at the right time to the right people, and the things we accomplish together will be amazing.

Does everything really happen for a reason?

I'm sure I've written on this topic before, but it begs being revisited because it seems to be my go-to mantra quite a bit lately.

Fate. God's will. Destiny. Whatever you want to call it, some people rely on this ultimate conclusion to every decision they make. But how true is it, really?

I am firm believer in "everything happens for a reason" but at times I question it. My belief is that God has this Grand Plan for all of us - he alone knows where we're going to end up. He's privy to every choice he gives us along the way, and he gives us these "predicaments," for lack of a better word, as learning experiences in order for us to grow, learn, understand and appreciate.

Everyone has a scenario where they can say, "Well, looking back, if I hadn't done (this) then (that) would never have happened." True. I'm divorced, and sometimes I wonder why God put my ex-husband and I together in the first place if that is how things were going to end up. But then I look at my two boys and think, "That's why." God wanted them here. He needed them here. He has a plan for those two boys and the only way he could get them here was to put the two of us together. I'm OK with that.

It's hard to see at the time. I remember standing on a beach in Florida when things were literally going south in my life and thinking, "God, WHY did you put me in this place? WHY did you bring me here and have me do all this and come all this way to have THIS happen? Why would you do this to me?" I still don't have the full answer to that, but I do believe that if we are never faced with the tough times, the tough decisions, then we're not going to be prepared to appreciate when the good ones really come along. We learn from our mistakes. We make what we think are good choices and they fail, but maybe they fail for a reason.

Or is relying on this method of understanding just a crutch? Is it just a way to validate a bad decision in the hopes that God had a hand in it in order to bring something good our way in the future? To me, that's where faith comes in. Because here's the deal. Try explaining heaven to a child. "What will I feel in heaven? Won't I miss my friends and my family? Will I get to eat as much candy as I want and watch as much TV as I like?" It's easy to say, "Sure! In heaven, everyone's happy." But that's too hard to understand. Why? Because like God himself, it's an enigma that is just way beyond our comprehension or understanding or explanation. We are stupid, silly, ignorant people muddling through life making good decisions and bad decisions and hoping for the best. The only recourse we have is to trust that there is a Higher Power looking out for us and guiding us to make those decisions, good or bad, to stay on track with the plan God has for us so we can end up in this magical place and finally say, "AHA! Now I get it!"

Steven Hawking said, "I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined and that we can do nothing to change it look before they cross the road." OK, I see your point, Steve. It's easy to say that we have this free will, which we have, and that we're regularly screwing up our own lives by the bad choices we make. But I'm not talking about buying the almost-expired steaks that made you sick just to save a little money versus going to the butcher. I'm talking the TOUGH decisions that keep you up at night. The ones you struggle with for days, weeks, or years wondering if you're doing the right thing. The ones that cause many people to FINALLY turn to God for when they have nowhere else to go.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

I don't mean to go all holy roller on you - that's not me. But think about a tough decision you made once that, looking back, you realized, "If I hadn't done that, I'd never be here today." Taking that job. Not taking that job. Moving to a new city. Not moving. Ending a relationship or a marriage. Starting a new relationship too soon or to quickly, or taking too long to tell that person how you really feel. Deciding to have a child and losing that child. Deciding not to have a child and becoming pregnant. Everyone asks why at some point but the kicker is, there is no answer. You will never in this life come to a full understanding of it. So you can wallow in your "did I do the right thing" mentality forever, or you can hope that the reason you made that decision was that God was at the helm, guiding you like a mouse through the maze of this crazy thing called life, searching and searching for that cheese. We may not think we'll ever find it, but He does.

And sometimes, that's all we have to hold onto. So why not just hold onto it?

'Just wait until you have kids of your own..."

When my mother said this to me years and years ago, I wasn't  sure if it was a threat, a warning or a premonition. Maybe a little of all three. I didn't get it. I couldn't have gotten it. I was just a kid whose life revolved around me and who couldn't see any further into the future than a psychic with short-term memory loss. And now, here I am decades later, saying the same thing to my kid.

It's not so much a warning or a threat. It's more of a wistful plea that someday, at some point, he'll look at me and say, "I get it, Mom." That someday he'll realize why I am the way I am. Why I worry. Why I nag. Why I persist. Why I pray. Why I drive him crazy and he drives me the same.

This is me. Now you know why Mom encouraged my writing.

It's amazing the circle of life. Not a day goes by that I don't think of my mom with awe at how she got (and still gets) through some of the things we kids put her through - and there are four of us! I remember when it dawned on me why she took baths in the middle of the day. It made NO sense back then - I mean, who lounges in the tub for an hour at 2:00 in the afternoon? An overwhelmed, overextended mom with four kids, that's who. Thirty years later I say, "DUH" as I sit crouched in the laundry room quietly pouring my second glass of wine before dinner hoping my two won't discover me next to the pile of dirty socks and underwear.

"Just wait until you have kids of your own." It's the only recourse moms have. That someday, when their kids are older and procreate they'll have that almighty "aha moment" and realize that mom wasn't the blithering idiot they thought she was all along. But it's not so much the satisfaction we'll gain in finally having our kids understand all of our worries and fears despite their best attempts to reassure us that they "know what they're doing." (We sure as HELL know they don't know what they're doing. But the only way they're going to KNOW what they're doing is NOT know what they're doing and make a mistake so they KNOW how to do it in the future.)

But I digress.

Above and beyond all that "mom knows best" stuff, "Just wait until you have kids of your own" to me means that you will never, ever know how much you can love another human being until you have a child of your own. You cannot ever imagine the amount of joy, pain, pride, frustration, hope and worry that someone can can cause you to have until you are responsible for the rise of this child from innocent infant to tempestuous teen to (hopefully) admirable adult. You can't fathom that for once you will not have all the answers and that you will more often than not question your validity as a parent yet you will still be compelled to tell your child that you do know best even when you're not sure you do.

"Just wait until you have kids of your own" is no different than the quote (paraphrased), "Being a mother is deciding to forever have your heart go walking around outside your body." It's going from being able to completely focus on one task to doing ten things at once and knowing at a drop of a hat that your son is right now giving a presentation in 4th hour and saying a quick prayer that his nerves are calm and he doesn't have toilet paper stuck to his shoe. It's the difference between cheering on your favorite sports team and making a deal with God that you'll never ever say another curse word again if your son connects with the ball just this one time. It's watching him drive down the street and holding yourself back from running alongside the car shouting for him to wear his seat belt, use his turn signal and watch for deer.

No child knows how overwhelming it is to be a mother. And I don't mean overwhelming in just a negative sense, because for every hour of angst there can be sixty seconds of joy that completely negates that other 59 minutes - do you know what I mean? If you're a mother you do.

If not, just wait. 

Women’s intuition: Is my sixth sense on the fritz?

I do truly believe in women’s intuition. I believe it is inherently a woman thing, and I believe that for the most part we should trust it. Problem is, as we get older, we (read “I”) seem to have so many other issues that cloud our ability to listen to this internal judgment that we often turn a deaf ear and miss the mark completely.

I’ve had some first-class incidents where my sixth sense – or women’s intuition – whatever you want to call it – has kicked in high gear. A part of me attributes those to “guardian angel moments” – you know – like when you make the last-minute decision to go a different way to work and find out there was a horrific accident on your normal route. Is that necessarily women’s intuition or God at play? I don’t know.

Where relationships are concerned, I’ve often mislabeled my intuition as “red flags.” You know, those little things that kind of hit you like a ton of bricks and make you go “Ewww… uh no.” At first, I was the queen of finding red flags. If you chewed your food with your mouth open, that meant you were obviously raised by wolves and had no business having a relationship that could potentially lead to procreation.  After my divorce, any man who remotely did anything (read “breathing”) like my ex-husband was automatically put on the “watch” list, because obviously THAT hadn’t worked out so I must try to find something COMPLETELY different that will. (Note: I got over that. Sort of. Still workin’ on it.)

 

As I mellowed with age and wisdom (haha), I learned to relax what I considered these red flags and rely on this gift that God had apparently given me and all women – this intuition thing. While red flags would give me pause, intuition nagged at me like a cranky child with a wet diaper. 

More often than not, I can look back and see where my intuition kicked in and I ignored it until it was too late. Repeatedly making excuses for my behavior or for someone else’s, thinking things like, “It would do me good to change this or that about myself instead of arguing or debating” and “Well, all the other parents let their kids do that, so maybe I’m overreacting” had me backpedaling more than I’d care to admit. I think I was (and still am) lacking confidence in my ability to make the right decisions when my intuition more frequently than not seems to go against the norm.

Parenting is probably the only example where my intuition perhaps goes into overdrive. Maybe it’s because I remember being a teenager; maybe it’s because I’m a control freak, or maybe it’s because I am somehow uncannily (and uncharacteristically)confident that I know my son more than he (or anyone else) thinks I do. 

So far, my intuition has been almost dead on in occasions where others thought (and voiced) opposite assessments. Somehow, when it comes to intuition and parenting, I have this subconscious confidence that allows me to listen to what my insides are telling me instead of poo-pooing them as an overreaction. That isn’t to say that I know what to DO about it – believe me – this parenting intuition gives me many a sleepless nights full of worry. Maybe I feel like my intuition is all I have to hang on to in that area sometimes. 

That’s where I get confused. If I can be so sure of my inner voice when it comes to parenting, why does it seem so whackadoodle in other parts of my life?

Do I give a potential new relationship a chance or cut my losses early and run? Are the celebrity impressions he does charming or a sign of a deep neurosis? Am I worried about my job security because I have cause to be or am I just overreacting and reading too much into things? Do I need to “let go and let God” where my financial worries are concerned or should I try to pick up more freelance to further ensure a solid financial future for myself and my children? I have surface feelings about each of these things – common sense feelings – then that vexatious pit in my stomach that never quite seems to leave. Maybe women’s intuition is one of the leading causes of ulcers in middle age? 

No matter what you call it – women’s intuition, sixth sense, instinct, or just a gut feeling, I’m still learning to fight back the insecurities that keep me from embracing and fine-tuning this powerful tool that may one day cause me to put my head on the pillow and drift off into a peaceful sleep thinking, “Yep - I did the right thing.”

It takes a village to destroy a child - and we're doing a great job

In the past few weeks, I’ve read an abhorrent number of stories about teenagers doing unspeakable things. From two separate incidents of alleged rape of intoxicated teenage girls – resulting in the suicides of those girls, to beatings, shootings, stabbings, bullying and bomb threats.

I read these stories with horror at the grievous behavior. Disbelief at the lack of decency, humanity, compassion and morality of these young people. Bewilderment at what seemingly makes this OK in this society today and what has changed from 10, 20 or 30 years ago. 

Some comments in these articles echo my sentiments. I have to weed through the blatant violent threats against the perpetrators and the sickening rants of idiots who think that whatever was done to these victims was “deserved” in order to get to the incredulous responses from what I can only assume are people my age who say that this kind of behavior would have rarely if ever happened “back in the day.”

And they’re right. It wouldn’t have – or it rarely would have. And though I realize that my parents probably used that same sentiment about my generation, I’m sure they’re all shaking their heads at the state of our teenage society today. 

But here’s the rub. Who is to blame? If you read the comments, it’s the parents. It always goes directly to the parents. Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza? Nancy Lanza’s fault. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the pair behind the Columbine High School massacre? Parents again blamed. And these teenage boys shaking in their boots as they await Anonymous.com’s threat to publish their names for assault, rape and possibly manslaughter of that now deceased teenage girl? Read the comments. Here’s one: “Parents are what has happened to our kids or more accurately lack of parenting. Some parents are no better than just substandard baby sitters, wrapped up in their own trash too much to notice that something very bad is happening to junior.”

I’m not going to disagree that parents may be part of the problem. Kids live in homes where both parents are working long hours and often stay connected to work via phones and computer long after they leave the office. Kids are home alone way too much and left to their own devices. “Babysitters” like TV, video games and other technology are utilized to keep kids occupied when those technologies are in my opinion one of the BIGGEST contributors to the decline of the family unit.  

But I gotta tell ya – I have a teen that is in the throes of this crappy, violent, insolent society. I hate what he is up against and all my attempts to shield him from it feel fruitless. I found a job with a flexible schedule so I can be home shortly after he returns from school. I limit his exposure (at home) to technology and make sure it’s safely tucked away out of his reach at night. I even have a block on our TV so he can’t get into any “inappropriate” shows that are so prevalent on the myriad of channels we’re provide through cable. How many parents of 15 year olds do that? 

Does it matter? Nope. Not at all. Have you checked your kid’s Facebook lately? If you’re lucky, he or she is posting pictures of unicorns and rainbows and having discussions about homework problems and play practice. Unfortunately, the teen Facebook scene is really more like a porn site. Seriously, check it out. 

Language fit for a sailor, BLATANT drug and sex references, outright bullying and general inappropriateness of epic proportions. Want me to name names? I could – just to see if the parents even have a clue. Oh, and don’t just look at your kid’s Facebook page. Because they can create them under ANY guise they want to. And they can be friends with anyone they want to. And they can be whoever they want to be, and whatever age they want to be. Look at their Facebook messages. Check them out. Again, if you’re lucky, it’s a discussion on the latest “who likes who.” If you’re not, it’s much, much darker. 

Do you know what they watch on TV? Have you watched TV lately? Just listen to some of the programs and see if you can go a whole minute without hearing a “bleep this” or “bleep that”. See if you can watch a program without something being blurred out, or something without a sexual innuendo, or violence. Just try it. 

And yeah, here I go with the video games again. Too bad. Don’t give me that crap about promoting dexterity and coordination and tactical skills. Math, science, reading and sports do all that. Not first-person shooter games where you can earn points for bigger and better weapons and BONUS you can play with people you’ve NEVER EVEN MET. WHAT A GREAT IDEA. 

One of the biggest issues I see in my experience with teens is that for some reason, they seem to think that they are on the same level as adults. Like it’s an even playing field. This astounds me. When I was growing up, no matter how “mature” I thought I was, my parents were in charge. THEY were the adults. They weren’t my buddies. I respected them regardless of how much they pissed me off because I thought I should be able to do something they weren’t letting me do. 

That sentiment is virtually gone now, and I don’t know why. It seems to start around middle school – this “mistaken maturity.” And it’s evil and deadly because they’re NOT mature. They’re NOT ready. And they MUST be parented. The problem is, as author Jane Cowen-Fletcher said and Hilary Clinton revisited, “It takes a village.” And there’s no village anymore. It seems to be a bunch of tired, overwhelmed parents trying to do the right thing in the midst of a society that could really give a shit about the morals and values of our young people. And since they can’t beat it, many join it. They stoop to their teen’s level and embrace the video games and the inappropriate TV. They allow the excessive technology and access to God knows what on the Internet. The kids are exposed to these poisons LONG before their brains can handle it, and it takes its toll in the form of desensitization. Desensitization to true feelings – to compassion – to morals and values and those incredibly important things that make people GOOD. 

How do we get back to GOOD? Can we get back to GOOD? Can we somehow stop the influx of degradation and smut and violence and somehow protect our children from being exposed to this too early – if at all? Who is the “they” who allow these evils to be so readily accessible and how can we make them stop? How do we instill in our children morals and values and more importantly, how do we get them to stick so when they’re faced with the bad in the world they can turn and walk the other way? HOW???

I'm befuddled beyond belief and don’t have the answer. I don’t think I’m a bad parent. I’ve done everything I can to raise my children in a proper, Godly way and I feel as if it is being stripped from me every single day. I feel powerless and hopeless. I feel as if I am on a constant, fruitless and desperate search for the smallest sliver of goodness pie in society that I can go and curl up in with my kids all safe and sound. 

That sliver of pie exists for some – I don’t know how, but it does. You families are the lucky ones. For others, even the BEST of parents, the outcome is not as optimistic, especially if your child has been exposed. If he or she has, it’s like a virus that spreads like a flesh-eating bacteria. Unfortunately, this parent with the best of intentions and the defensive nature of a momma grizzly bear can do nothing but  stand by with a bowl of chicken noodle soup and some Band-Aids and hope that someone comes up with a cure before it’s too late.