Words from The Crone

New Year’s Eve. The one night that marks the beginning of our numerical calendar of days, months, and years. Who knows why the calendar makers of yore picked that one particular day. It is after the winter solstice, after the Christian new year of Advent, after the Jewish new year of Yom Kippur, after Chinsese New Year and, before almost anything else. But, that is not the point here, it was chosen and, although adjusted from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar (or maybe it was the other way around) it is what it is. Tonight we start a new beginning.

Thus, tonight we ring in a “new” year. Ringing, I guess, came from some medieval practice of ringing church bells at midnight. I find there is some universal fascination with newness. Newness marks the beginning of a fresh start, a clean page, a different perspective, and perhaps something even more hopeful than what was old. We all share in the mystical, magical, mystique of almost anything new. I remember as a child I just loved Easter, not because I understood the resurrection, but because I always got a new pair of Mary Jane shoes and a new dress. I can even remember that the first scuff on those shiny new shoes marked them as “old” and they were no longer special. Even Christmas gifts don’t necessarily fall into the “new” category although they are new, but in the “getting stuff” category. New is in a category all of its own.

Newness doesn’t even have to be really new either. One can buy a pre-owned vehicle, but it is new to the buyer. Or, one may move into a pre-occupied house or apartment and it is new to the dweller. Even things bought in a thrift shop that were once to new to another, will be new in our home or on our bodies. New can also be a new experience, a trip to a place we’ve never seen, or starting a new job or hobby we’ve never tried before. New is many things.

New is also the concept of wiping the slate clean and starting over such as on Yom Kippur when sins are forgiven and Jews everywhere begin life anew. For me, I think that our Chrisitan penitential season of Lent would be a more appropriate liturgical new year. We reflect and repent of our sins, our soul is resurrected into a new beginning and we try ever so hard to live into that perfection that Jesus so desperately wanted us to be. I wonder if he realized that in our human imperfection we would never quite reach that pinnacle he dreamed for us. Lucky for us that we get a chance to try it year after year after year, however.

On New Year’s Eve many make resolutions to start a new way of living. We try to make these new starts better than whatever it was our old self represented. Someone once said that a new year’s resolution was a resolve forgotten a week later. I gave up on those years ago when I realized how unrealistic I was being. Lose 50 pounds by May? Come on! I am better at living into things like trying to find the good in every situation, or smiling more often, or throwing out random acts of kindness.

So, whatever “new” means to you, let us all celebrate the calendar “New Year” and, if nothing else, resolve to be the best human being we can be in 2012! We don’t even have to define it. Just keep asking ourself the question: Does what I am doing, or the decision I am making, make my life or someone else’s life better? Then choose! The happiness in your life will be reflected by the choice you make.

Happy New Year, my friends.

The tale can now be told. I am on the mend from the Christmas crisis, the staples are removed, the hand still works, and the good doctor told me that the pain would get better in three months. Sheesh! I hope it gets better sooner, but hey, at least I still have a hand. It wasn’t until after the surgery and I could move my hand that the doctor told my R that there was a chance I might have lost my right hand. Nice. No, not!

At any rate, the tale of Nurse Rachet can now be told. My R is the most loving, caring, sweet, and helpful human being I have ever known. From day one his main object in our life together has been to love, support, and take care of me. And, I might add, he has done a very admirable job of it. However, as everyone on the planet knows, a good thing can go a bit too far.

On day one home from the hospital R showed up with my meds and proclaimed that “Nurse Rachet” was here to take care of me. Okay, this is not bad, I thought. He brought me my meals, changed the dressing on my incision, plumped up my pillows, changed the TV channel for me, read me magazine articles, walked me to the bathroom, walked me up and down the stairs, helped me get dressed, pulled on my socks, and on and on and on. What a great nurse, right?

Well, for the first couple of days as I was healing and getting out of my drug induced fog, this was wonderful. All I had to do was blink my eyes and some comforting thing was done for me by Nurse Rachet. On about the third day however, Patient Crochety kicked in and all hell broke loose. Left to his own devices Rachet would have turned me into a helpless piece of vegetative flesh unable to do even the tiniest thing for myself. The battle line was drawn. It was Rachet vs. Crochety.

He would try to help, I would get crochety and tell him I could do it myself now. I was getting better I said, and the doctor told me (I even had it in writing) that I could do any of my usual activities so long as there was no pain or obvious sign that it would cause my death. No matter to Rachet, he knew best and for at least the next two weeks he was determined to take care of me. Hrrump! Crochety pouted, plotting how to find a way to sneak in an independent move or two. When Rachet was downstairs making breakfast, Crochety would sneak into the bathroom and take a quick shower. Rachet wouldn’t even leave Crochety alone in the house so this was a bit harder to accomplish because Rachet had also convinced DD2 that Crochety was now not only helpless, but crochety because of the pain I was in. Probably true, but R was relentless in ordering me to bed, to rest, to not lift anything, to not walk too far, to not this and to not that!

Of course, the more Rachet-y he became the more crochet-y I became and for that first week home it was often times not very pretty. Gratefully, I slept a lot and, when I was really in pain I was thankful for the help and attention and the meds. Rachet, patient, loving, kind soul that he is, kept chalking my crochet-y-ness up to my pain and just smiled at me which, of course, made it worse. How we survived is one of those unsolvable mysteries in life, but we did. Somehow, as time went on, he racheted back and I crochet-y-ed less and less until, two weeks later things are pretty much back to our normal personalities. He still won’t let me drive to work, but I think next week he’ll get tired of that and I’ll be back behind the wheel.

But, God bless him, this wonderful man just wanted to make my life easier and my healing faster. And, thanks to his patience and understanding he has reached his goal. Mission accomplished. Patient Crochety has now disappeared into the woodwork taking Nurse Rachet with her!

This year would be different. Thanksgiving was early so I had plenty of time to get ready for Christmas. Both of my girls would be home for the holidays and my sister, P, and her brother and sister-in-law would also be with us. It was going to be a joyful day full of gift giving, good food, and lots of from-the-belly laughter as we celebrated the special birthday boy’s day. I dug in and got started on November 25th. Good thing.

I discovered “Cyber Monday” and spent the day at the computer buying one bargain after another until I was exhausted and spent. Literally, spent, and spent, and spent. But, oh how good it felt to have all but a handful of gifts ordered, wrapped, and shipped all with the tippity-tap of my keyboard. WooHoo, what a way to shop. No malls, no tired feet, no aching back, no toting heavy bags, to trips to the post office, no pain, but much gain. I was rather smug about all of this early preparedness.

On Friday, December 9th all of this preparedness paid off in a really weird turn of events. As planned I entered the surgery center for a catherization procedure through my right arm down into my right leg to insert a stent. A total blockage prevented the usual through-the-groin approach and the cardiologist thought maybe he could unblock it this way and put in the stent. Didn’t work, slapped on a bandage, and sent me home to recover before another approach or by-pass surgery. Sigh.

Hah! No way Jose or any other guy. The “Crisis before Christmas” had begun and no one saw it coming, least of all the victim. On Saturday, December 10th it was my R’s birthday and we celebrated with dinner at “Le Club” a.k.a. Baywood Greens. All seemed to be going well although my arm did seem to be swelling a bit.

By Sunday afternoon the swelling was worse and so was the pain, but I was determined to go to a clergy Christmas dinner. Not good. Dumb decision. With the first nibble on my appetizer a pain shot up my right arm and I sent R scurrying to the car for pain relief drugs. I managed to get through the dinner, but was not in any champagne sparkly frame of mind and we were among the first to leave. Drat.

By Monday morning we were in full-blown crisis mode and I found myself checking into the ER at our local hospital. I couldn’t even wait to see the doctor in the p.m. the pain was so severe. They wrapped my arm in an ace bandage, loaded me IV drugs (morphine I think) and admitted me. I was bleeding out of an artery into my arm forming a huge blood clot. For three days a new ultrasound was done to see how much the bleeding was progressing. It was not huge, but not small either, and the hard mass and pain was growing.

What was the delay in treatment, I wondered? My Dr. wanted to perform a prothrombin injection to clot the hole in the artery and stop the bleeding on Monday. But, the hospital protocol said he couldn’t do that unless I had been off my Plavix and aspirin for a week. What nonsense is that? After three days of arguing with the powers that be, my Dr. discharged me from the hospital and sent me upstate to a doctor he knew who would perform the procedure without the restriction. Ah, some relief may be on the way, I prayed. By this time I was hoping that either my arm would fall off or I would die, anything to get relief.

By the time I was checked into the ER and whisked off for the injection it was now day six of the ordeal. The injection procedure was done and, guess what, didn’t work. Oh crap. Now what? Surgery, they declared, and off we went at 6pm to cut my arm open and see what was going on in there? Well, if nothing else I was eager to be put under general anesthesia where I knew I would be pain free.

Later that night I was told that a grapefruit sized clot was removed from my arm, another clot removed from the artery itself, and a piece of nearby vein used to repair the hole in my artery where the leaking was occurring. I was put on IV Oxycontin and moved into a really nice private room. The crisis was over. I began to thank God that Thanksgiving was early, that I had discovered Cyber Monday and thanks be to God, I had even wrapped most of the gifts that had arrived before December 9th. All I really had to worry about now was Christmas dinner and I had lots of help with that.

Not quite yet, Miss Rita, giggled the devil as I was sent home on Saturday, December 17th, with a nice stash of Percocet for any residual pain. You see, with a four-inch incision covered by 19 staples there is bound to be a bit more pain in the healing. Yeah, well by Sunday night the arm was coming along, but I was hanging off the ceiling fan, whirring around the room, my joints aching, having chills, then fever and often positing very confusing abstract ideas. At least that is what I have been told. I was not, as one would say, “myself.”

It was my youngest daughter who found the answer – she remembered that I had acted in a similar fashion after back surgery some five years earlier when sent home on Oxycontin. Could we be on to something here? Oh, yes. Off the drugs that very minute, head cleared up by morning and the birds began to sing. Thank you Jesus, it is all downhill from here and all I am coping with is a bruised, swollen arm, and residual pain. I also have an inability to feed myself with my right hand because the swelling prevents my hand from reaching my mouth. I am learning quickly to be ambidextrous!

We still haven’t solved the blockage in my leg and I’m not looking forward to that prospect, but for now I think Christmas day will be joyful occasion. Twas the Crisis before Christmas and I pray that it is over. It was not expected nor welcomed, need I say. But, a big thank you goes to my Rector, boss, and priest who had the wisdom to tell me to stay home from work this week and rest. Being who I am I would have dragged myself into work and probably been a basket case. Thanks, J, you’re the best.

My R, who calls himself “Nurse Ratched” is another blog and with me being “Patient Ms. Crotchety.” it will be some tale to tell!

The other night I tried to blog, then I didn’t, then I did, then I didn’t. Our electricity went out, then on , then out, then on, then off for many hours. We called our illustrious Delmarva Power and were informed that 1600 homes were without power until midnight. It is now 9:15pm. Thank God for laptops with batteries. I am sitting in the dark, with a panicked dog hanging onto to my neck, writing. I was going to tell you about my new boyfriend, but without power it got me to thinking about lights and power and electricity.

We are so dependent on Mr. Franklin’s discovery of electricity that without it we are almost reduced to a blithering mass of jelly. Whenever power goes out in our house the first words out of anyone’s mouth is “O my God, we have no power.” It is as if the world were about to end. And, I guess in a way we do lose a big chunk of our everyday world. No TV, no Internet, no light, no washer, dryer, dishwasher, radio, no heat, no gadgets, no chargers revving up our electronic gismos, no stove (unless you have a gas one) no dishwasher, no life. Nothing. Nada. Nil. Dark.

As I sat in the dark I was reminded of Genesis 1:1-4 which says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And, God said “Let there be light, and there was light. God saw that the light was good and separated the light from the darkness. So here in the dark there is nothingness and nothing to do, but then we find light from a candle, a flashlight, or even the glow of a not yet dead smartphone. This strange sense of life springing out of that darkness comes over me. We call it light, day, brightness. No wonder God decided that was the very first thing this planet needed. And, voila, God saw that it was good. I imagine God let out a big WOOHOO, for it is indeed good.

Light gives me life. Without light we have no life and would just sit in darkness forever, not moving, not thinking, not seeing, just being. We, might however, wonder a bit about what comes next. But I imagine we are afraid to move into some unknowing nothingness. It is no wonder that the bad guys always wear black and the good guys always wear white. Did you ever see an angel dressed in black. Did Jesus ever wander the desert in a black robe? Darkness is blackness. Lightness is white. I know that my spirit needs light to exist.

With the light of the day we can grow food, move around, see God’s creation, see other people, be alive. But, before the advent of electricity we were limited to daylight, candles and oil lamps. Just enough to read or sew or clean a gun in the evening. Not enough to run our machines, our toys, and our gadgets. For that we need to generate many kilowatts of electricity and, indeed we do. Just as God liked light, so do we and we gobble up the kilowatts as if they were peanuts that we couldn’t stop eating potato chips where we couldn’t eat just one.

When our family went away for two months and turned off all our appliances and computers I thought we’d save a bundle on our electric bill. Hah, not so. With nothing seemingly drawing any power our electric bill was still $79. Even pulling out all the plugs during another six weeks away our electric bill was $65. Seems all of our appliances, gadgets, computers, DVR’s, and what not have little tiny standby lights and the pulse of electricity goes on even in the darkness.

Guess God knew those sparks were out there just waiting to light up our life. Thus, there I sat in an almost primordial darkness, lit only by the glow of my dimming computer screen as the battery power drained. Yes, God, I’m with you; the first thing I would create would be that wonderful, glowing, blessed light. Let the lights come on I prayed and prayed. Oh, forget it, I’d already missed Harry’s Law and it didn’t look like I’d get to see Revenge either.. I went to bed and hoped that by dawn Delmarva would have the problem fixed. It didn’t, but that’s another story, or rant, for another time.