Category: Family

Liverversary

~ Linda Wright

Three years ago today, I was wheeled into surgery at 6:30 in the evening. I had been on hold in the Intensive Care Unit of Florida State University’s Hospital. During those eighteen hours, I was acutely aware that I was waiting for one person’s life to end so that my life could be saved. As I watched the clock move forward, I had time to sit with the choice I had made to have a transplant, then consider the choice some family would be making to donate the organs of a loved one. It felt like I had been given a gift I was not worthy to receive and that someone else had received a punishment they did not deserve.

I was also aware that I was not alone. Robin had slept on a day bed in the room with me the night before. More than forty friends and family members had signed up to be with me virtually through my hospitalization and recovery period. Some of those folks kept in touch with me through text messaging and well wishes online. Some of those folks lived close enough that they checked on our house while we were away. Many would help me once I returned home in more ways than I can count. I was overcome with gratitude and still am today.

When the transplant surgeon came to my room earlier that morning he asked me how I was feeling about the surgery. I said, “Excited and terrified.”

Since my blood did not clot without infusions of clotting factor, I was an unusual challenge for the surgical team. I was not the only person who was anxious. The nurse coordinator blurted out one day, “I’m sure you are almost as worried as I am.” I imagine she meant to say that the other way around. Hours of meetings, weeks of testing and re-testing were done to reassure everyone involved that this procedure could be done successfully. Still I’m pretty sure we all had our lingering doubts. Like a rollercoaster ride there was something risky and something thrilling about to take place. Something that would be written up in the medical journals no matter what the outcome.

Robin was in the waiting room that night for almost eight hours. It was 2:05 am when the doctor came out to tell her all had gone well. That wasn’t the end of the story, but it was a new beginning.

Tomorrow will be my three-year liverversary. I will never know about the person who was born with the liver that is now in my body. This is not a happy anniversary for that person’s family. I wish I could offer them sympathy. I will never know all of the medical specialists who read the results of tests I took or who were consulted on my unusual case. I wish I could say thank you to all of them. I don’t remember the faces of all the nurses or names of the respiratory therapists who assisted me when I needed them. I will always be grateful for their compassion. They taught me about the way kindness ripples out further than any one of us may ever realize.

Topsyturvey-World

~ Linda Wright ~ 1 Comment

When a song gets in my head and I just can’t seem to stop hearing it, I wonder why. Today that song is Natalie Merchant’s “Topsyturvey-World” From the album Leave Your Sleep. This song speaks to my inner child, the child who was born with blood that would not clot. My world could be tipped upside down by a tumble onto the sidewalk. People didn’t understand what I could do safely and what I could not. Many tried to confine me, others pitied me, some avoided me, a few were frightened by me.

Isolated at home with an injury until it healed, I did the things I could do, things I enjoyed, things I was skilled at. I practiced problem solving while other children my age practiced raising a hand before speaking. I wasn’t afraid.

Of course I preferred being with other children, but when I could not, I learned to reach out to friends on the telephone, laughing, joking, even playing magic tricks. These moments of joy sustained me until I could rejoin the outer world. I wrote letters to aunts and uncles, pen pals and one boy who I didn’t know. He was a friend of a friend who had broken his back falling from a horse. He was in a hospital bed and might never walk again. He didn’t feel sorry for me and I didn’t feel sorry for him.

In many ways I feel prepared for the Covid-19 virus that is bearing down on my part of the world. I know more than many of my friends about ways to cope when I am afraid, or lonely, or uncertain.

The lessons I have learned in my lifetime have given me an advantage in this time of pandemic. I believe for most of us uncertainty is the norm. It means we are human and the one thing we can count on is change.

I have never met anyone who has not experienced a disaster or a loss that turned them upside down. That doesn’t stop us from experiencing joy. Joy, bursts up in unexpected moments. You don’t need to cling to it, just notice it.

Joy can unstick you from anxiety and propel you into action. Joy is your super power. It can lead you to do the next right thing, the most compassionate thing, and for now that is stay home.

“Inside the word “emergency” is “emerge”; from an emergency new things come forth. The old certainties are crumbling fast, but danger and possibility are sisters.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

Pondering Pandemic

~ Linda Wright

Even though I no longer have a television and only listen to the radio when I am driving, the news comes to me without me looking for it. So I already knew about the virus predicted to kill globally, I was surprised when I went out to lunch last week with friends I hadn’t seem in three years. I was taken aback that no one would touch me, no one hugged me, no one would even do a fist bump. They were all afraid of getting COVID-19. All but one of us was over sixty years of age, and most of us had serious medical weaknesses. The consequences were in deed worrisome.

After I regained my composure from being told there would be no touching, my first thought was “We’re all going to die anyway.” I don’t want to live my life in voluntary seclusion. I get energy from being with people. In my childhood I spent days, sometimes weeks, confined to a bed and wondering about what my friends were doing in school or at play. Over my lifetime I have learned to adapt when I needed to be hospitalized but, I never learned to enjoy social distancing.

I also have considerable experience being told I would not live long. At a young age I not only knew I was going to die, I thought it would happen soon. I’ve meditated on my own death, a spiritual practice that help me gain some perspective on my minuteness in this world. I’ve developed a rather cynical sense of humor. I’ve recently read “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory,” It’s a book I recommend. The author, Caitlin Doughty is on a mission. She also has a blog and a podcast because she is serious about normalizing death or as she puts it, “Accepting that death itself is natural, but the death anxiety and terror of modern culture are not.”

It still astonishes me when I’m confronted with death deniers. I chuckle at folks who believe that mid-life is age fifty. In a way, I understand. My imagination isn’t broad enough to fully comprehend a world where I do not exist even if I know that will happen. Knowing I will die sooner rather than later leads me to think about what I want to do while I am still alive. It does not make me want to crawl under the bedcovers.

What startled me last week escalated into a swirling vortex of anxiety as more and more friends began expressing concern when I said I intended to do little to protect myself from getting the virus. Peer pressure has made me reevaluate my attitudes. So yes, I am taking precautions now.

I’ve always been a planner, trying to anticipate what could go wrong and taking steps in and attempt to prevent injury. At the same time I recognize the limitations of any plan. To quote President Eisenhower, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

The only thing I can have the possibility of controlling is my mind and that is challenge enough for me. The worrier in me wonders about random things. All of the presidential candidates are in the high risk category. What will happen if they all die? What will happen if all the children are asymptomatic but infect their caregivers? How many sick people will hospitals be able to help before they become over burdened and can not accept any more patients?

“Breathe,” I tell myself with a bit of sarkiness, “while you still can.”

Hallelujah! I have lived more than seventy years and it has been mostly a great life, full of love, and caring. Perhaps it would be for the best if vast numbers of we old people and those with weakened immune systems did die off. Would it help to save the planet, at least temporarily? Would it give the younger generation a chance to do a better job than we have?

“In the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?”
— Jack Kornfield, Buddha’s Little Instruction Book

Halloween Nights: A Journey Through Costumes and Memories

~ Linda Wright

Tonight is the night that the ghosts and goblins get to party. The specter of death is all around us but we are not spooked. In fact we are celebrating. Young and old are dressed up in funny or scary costumes. They are out wandering in search of a good time. Children are allowed to beg for candy tonight. Instead of lighting candles in the graveyard they carry flashlights.

Our doorbell has not rung once and I do not expect it to, since we now live in a part of town with no sidewalks. In another time and another place we would be dropping bite sized chocolates into paper bags for hundreds of tiny beggars wearing masks. I miss those little imps dressed as Harry Potter or Cinderella. It was a demand I often wished I did not have to fill, but now that I not longer had Trick or Treaters at my door I can and remember those times fondly.

Day 31 (of 31 days of free writing)

Understanding Pain Signals: Listening to Your Body

~ Linda Wright

Today my writing is focused on pain because my ankles hurt each time I stood, freezing me momentarily, locking my stride in a halting limp. Pain is a signal, telling me to pay attention. It’s a warning that there is a blockage in a nerve. Some part of my body’s operating system isn’t getting enough of what it needs to work smoothly. There’s a kink in the wiring. It is worrisome and annoying, like the sound of a smoke detector. I’ve learned it should not be ignored or overridden. It’s natural to think about turning it off by taking a pill or finding another way to dull the ache. It’s tempting to keep busy with distractions. When I was growing up that was not an option, so I practiced the old-time techniques of rest, ice and elevation.

I’ve learned that low level pain is eased by paying attention to it. Ignoring it gives me the impression that it is incessant. When I really stop to listen it actually comes and goes. The wail, lightens to a squeak, then to a chirp, there are pauses, and bits of silence. As I listen to the pitch and volume modulate I feel relief.

Day 30 (of 31 days of free writing)