Happy Mother's Day

Since I know so many adorable mommies-to-be, I thought I would give them a shout-out on my blog and wish them all a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! No, your babies aren't outside in the world yet, but you are all taking great care of them and being wonderful mommies already and I am so happy for you. I hope you (and your husbands/families) realize that this Mother's Day does indeed "count" for you!

This year is a little sad for me because I can't be with my mom. Because of my work schedule, I'm unable to visit her up in St. Louis. The wonderful thing is that my sister ("Bruther" - I'm slowly introducing everyone's nicknames) surprised her and flew in from New York City to be with her this weekend. They've been having a great time and I'm so, so glad.

Yemma - you are simply the best. Throughout my life I have never failed to see the love you have for and pride you take in me. I love that we are girlfriends. I love that we call each other freaking out about the SAME things but can always help each other see reason on our respective "turns" to need a chill pill. I love that we laugh and act goofy together - you are a true Lucy Ricardo and have taught me to be the same. You have sacrificed everything for Mary and me, and now you need to know that it is okay to need us too. We will all come out of this battle as better, "schlexier" ladies!

Gra - the unfailing warmth of your hands is a perfect reflection of your heart (and only you could have inspired me to write something so corny and poetic). Not a day of my life has gone by without the security of knowing that if I have nothing else, I have your love and support. Thank you for letting me use your old typewriter and for saving all of the silly stories I wrote on it as a child. Thank you for teaching me the importance of education and PROPER GRAMMAR! I love that we've taken turns editing each other's papers for classes. You have taught me the importance of staying young and having an open mind to always learning new things.

Mimi - it's been almost eight years now. I miss your homemade mint tea and hot curried fruit. I miss watching in awe as you sewed the most beautiful creations I'd ever seen. I miss stopping for peach ice cream on the way to Myrtle beach, you speeding down the highway with your radar detector on. I miss going to the Love Feast at the Moravian church in Winston-Salem every Christmas Eve. I even miss your insistence that we listen to Dr. Laura on talk radio in the afternoons. What I would give to do it all just ONE more time. I can't wait to see you again.

Yemma V, I love thee! You have always been so welcoming and fun. I love your giggle and the fact that you actually say "Good grief." You have raised a family who definitely uses ALL of your brains - you guys are the most logical AND the most creative people I know. It's not fair. I need some of that. Thanks for putting up with Josey and me. We were too loud EVERY time I spent the night. Thank you SO much for being a great friend to my Yemma.

Lory - you raised a wonderful man and prepared him well to be my husband. Thank you for your extreme dedication to seeing him grow to walk with God. Thank you for being such a wonderful prayer warrior. You don't take any request lightly and it is such a comfort to so many. I am glad we are making such wonderful memories on all of the fabulous vacations we've been on together! You give so abundantly in so many ways.

I am extremely blessed to know such incredible women. Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

This has nothing to do with anything, really.

So, if any of you are wondering about the slight cliffhanger I left at the end of my "Las Vegas: Day 3" post...the reveal is coming. It involves pictures that are trapped on my laptop, which has no battery and has stopped responding to Ryan's laptop charger (my cat chewed through mine so I've been using Ryan's, which keeps it alive while I'm using it but doesn't actually charge the battery). We have ordered a new charger so I will get to show you my last Vegas adventure when that comes in. :)

Also, have any of you heard that they're re-opening the Statue of Liberty's crown? How exciting! She really gives me the creeps, but I'm looking forward to being able to go up in the top. I won't have to look at her scary face if I'm actually inside it. It won't be open when I go in June, but Ryan and I are going again in November so maybe I'll be able to go then (if not before).

While in a patient's room tonight, I saw a segment on the news about summery things going on in New York. I am SO excited to go back!!! I will be there from the 5th to the 10th of June. My sister and I will have an awesome time. She just moved into a new apartment in Hell's Kitchen - perfect walking distance to so many wonderful places (including Central Park, where I STILL swear I'm going to live under a bench if I have to).

Anyway, enough unrelated thoughts for today. Happy weekend! I'll be working....

Adventure in the Air.....

So. My next few weekends (read: until the end of June) are all full of traveling and working. I'm working this weekend, going to Chicago next weekend, then working, then working AGAIN, then New York (!!!!!!!!), then working, then St. Louis for the wedding of two very dear friends, then working. Then it's July.

Phew. It'll be a busy month-and-a-half. All this and I'm still trying to figure out how to make it up to St. Louis to be with my mom as often as I can. We're stopping in on her on the way to/from Chicago and of course I'll see her during the wedding weekend in June, but it's not enough when my mommy's sick.

Meanwhile, Ryan is working on the trailer for "Greyscale"....then it's off to our producer in LA to get shopped around for distribution. Wow. I can't believe it's almost time for that already. We have no idea what is going to happen. It's all very exciting. The "worst" that could happen in this stage is that no one decides to pick it up for the time being and we end up bringing it to different film festivals around the country. Dang it....traveling with my husband, seeing new places...that would be the pits. ;)

Everything feels unstable right now, but I know that it's not. This is why:

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

I believe it.

I definitely smell adventure in the air.

Another Yemma Update

Yemma went to the doctor today to review the pathology results and get some more info about the game plan. (She also got her staples removed.) We found out that the cancer is Stage 3C, which is pretty far along but not the worst it could be. They confirmed that the origin was in the ovaries, and then it spread to the rest of her reproductive system and up into her abdomen. The only cancer that the doctor was not able to remove was some granules (eww) in the omentum. That's what the chemo is for.

Speaking of chemo, I'm sad to say that they've decided that the best course of action is to inject the drugs not only into her abdomen, but also intravenously. I don't know what changed their minds. The nurse told my mom that she will lose all of her hair after the second round. I'm not sure why, but they weren't told and didn't ask how long the chemo will take. It will be six rounds, but I'm not sure if it's one round per week or what. She's going to a chemo info session in a week or two and will find out more at that time.

My grandma (Gra) asked the doctor whether the cancer was in the lymph nodes, and the doctor said she wasn't sure and that it would have taken another hour of surgery to figure that out. I ask myself, "So what? Isn't that a pretty important thing to figure out?" However, I'm only hearing bits and pieces of info so I know there must be things I'm missing. I also know this doctor has done this before so I'm guessing she has no reason to think that it is in the lymph nodes. That answer was kind of offputting to me, though.

I'm glad that my mom and I are being so open with each other through this. We talk about how we are really leaning on our faith during this time and (thankfully) have a lot of peace about it, but of course it's still scary at times too. For the most part, we are feeling okay, but whenever we hear people tell us how scared/worried they are, or when they call one of us sobbing, that's when it's easy to start freaking out. I know that people have our best interest at heart, but I also kind of want to know what they think they are accomplishing by telling my mom that they cry themselves to sleep over this. Maybe they think she will take that as a sign of concern, but for her, it has more of an "Oh, so should I be scared too? Does this mean I'm no-doubt-about-it-dying?" effect. On the day I found out about the cancer (actually a couple of hours after), I got a call from someone crying their eyes out. It was like this person was already mourning my mom. THAT was scary.

I'm not targeting anyone specific whom I know reads my blog, but I would like to politely request that all communication with my mom be generally optimistic. Of course it's okay to be realistic and talk about fears too, but it doesn't do any good to play the "What if?" game. I would also advise anyone to stay away from Google when it comes to this. Ryan shared with me an article in which the person had had a loved one with ovarian cancer and that person went on to live as it if had never happened. In the article, the author stated that she believes that more people go onto the internet with horror stories than with positive stories, so it only looks like it's all terrible. I thought that was a good point and I'm hoping she's right.

I guess we will just continue to take it one day at a time and, as always, pray, pray, pray. Thank you all so much for your continued concern and support.

Call me Jeeves. Actually, please DON'T.

I will never understand how it is that I can come into work a little before 7pm, be seen multiple times throughout the shift by my patients, and still, in the wee hours of the morning, have them ask me things like, "Is it raining?"

I am working on a response that is sweet and polite but still conveys the point that I want to make (but look like I made it inadvertently): "Let's think about the fact that we both know I've been up here on the fourth floor in the middle of a hospital for the past eight hours and you just asked me what the weather is like outside...especially when you have three windows in your room and I have none at the nurses' station." I know that sounds horribly rude, but for some reason, there's always been a part of me that maybe not-so-secretly wants people to know when they have just asked me a question that they know I don't know the answer to any better than they do.

Again, I know that sounds SO rude, but I promise, I'm not! I feel stupid all the time. Jokes, satirical comments, puns....they fly feet over my head on a daily basis. My desire is NOT for people to feel stupid, because I know what that's like and it's yucky as can be. I guess my desire in situations like these is for people (in this case, my patients) to see me as another imperfect human being just like them, and not as a robotic supplier of every object and piece of information they need.

Maybe these questions frustrate me because they are in conjunction with the call light ringing out at 3am because a patient's tissues are just slightly out of reach or their pillows have flattened and need to be fluffed, and they absolutely NEEEEEEED me. After awhile, the questions they so easily assume I can answer without considering my situation look more and more like the times that something is slightly inconvenient and they need me to swoop in and save the day. It appears that patients have begun to think that if I can give them a pill to make their pain go away, help them to the restroom, and dress their wounds, then certainly they can count on me for everything they need around the clock, nursing-related or not. I suppose that this should be a compliment - people seeing me as useful and beneficial - but after awhile, it gets very old having to let people down. It even gets depressing being surrounded by so many people who have no problem having someone wait on them hand and foot for things that they are capable of doing themselves. Don't they want their autonomy? Even if I could give them everything they asked for, I wouldn't - because it doesn't do them any good to not do anything for themselves.

For the third time, that sounded SO rude - but you need to understand that on my unit, people aren't "hospital sick." They've come off the acute care units and the point of them being here is to start doing as much as possible for themselves so that they can go home and care for themselves again. RE-HAB-IL-I-TA-TION. We've recently had an increasing number of people treat us more like room service in a hotel than as nurses. This is NOT for ONE SECOND to say that I mind helping people in need (IN NEED). If it is someone who has had a hip replacement and their box of Kleenex is on the floor, I am absolutely going to come in and pick it up for them. We just need to gently teach these people to come out of the habits they've developed on the other floors of beckoning their nurses at the drop of a hat, which is a little more appropriate when one is still in the acute phase of his/her illness.

I guess we rehab nurses can be viewed as the "bad guys" in that we are helping our patients best when we basically communicate, "I'm not doing that. Do it yourself." (Of course, we never word it that way - maybe some do, but I'd be appalled if I heard it.) A nurse in pretty much any other area of practice would be snotty for saying that, but the point of our floor is to supervise and support people as they rebuild their strength, relearn activities of daily living, and basically become independent again. They don't always like it - okay, they hardly EVER like it - but we know that, deep down, it means a lot to them to be able to fend for themselves. They don't have to tell us that.

Wow, I started this post thinking, "I'm posting about my annoyance regarding weather questions. How short and pointless is this going to be?" Now look what it's become! I guess I had a few things on my mind....

Hannah's Baby Shower

On Saturday, I had the privilege of taking pictures at my dear friend Hannah's baby shower. She is glowing and absolutely adorable! Baby Israel is due in just over a month. We are all so excited!

Hannah's sister Kendra, who hosted the shower in her lovely home, painted pictures for Israel's room to go along with the airplane theme. How cute!

We had a very yummy brunch.

Hannah somehow got away with an extra ration of cute. I hope I'm half that adorable when I'm expecting!

Hannah has such precious nephews....(Wade is not pictured, but he is very handsome too) :)

And such a lovely niece!

Both grandmas-to-be were radiant :)
The gift table:

We guessed Hannah's tummy circumference for prizes! Here she is measuring ;)

A great time was had by all.


I'm so honored to have been there on such a special day for Hannah. She will be a wonderful mommy!

Enya

Okay - before you read any further, I need you to do me a favor. If you have iTunes, open it up and go to the store. Search Enya's "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and listen to the 30-second clip. It is almost necessary for the following story to be worthwhile (if it is worthwhile at all). Don't think something is wrong with your computer; for the first few seconds, it's silent. It's from the beginning of the song. Waste of part of a 30-second sample, but at least you hear what I am referring to in this story.

We have no idea why, but magically, after every latest song my husband buys on iTunes, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" by Enya starts to play. Somehow his Purchased playlist has gotten messed up or something. It's kind of become a joke between us because I tend to moan, "Nooooo" when it begins to play. It's too weird for my taste and there's no escaping it.

You might know that recently I came to the conclusion that if the Statue of Liberty were a real person, she would be Enya. They both seem to be off in their own worlds that no one else will ever understand. (I must admit that my judgment of the statue is based solely upon looks in this case. Of course I know what she represents; it's not about that here. It's about her face. Her thoughtful, somber, incredibly intimidating (to me) face.)

So tonight, after the latest song my husband has purchased ended, the song, of course, began to play. I put on my most solemn "you will never understand" face, raised my make-believe torch and my left foot, and began to lip-sync along. My husband cracked up. He must get it, too. Either that, or I looked incredibly stupid. In any case, the conversation that ensued went something like this:

Me: "I'm telling you, she's just not normal!"
Ryan: "That's not very nice."
Me: "I'm not trying to be mean; I'm stating it as a fact. (In my mind) she does nothing but take baths with flowers floating in the water."
Ryan: "I should find an interview or something on YouTube with her acting like a totally normal person."
Me: "If you ever find that, don't tell me."
Ryan: "Really?"
Me: "Yes. It will ruin her in my mind. She's too other-worldly to...go to Wal-Mart."

So, tell me...am I crazy? Or can any of you see what I'm talking about?

(To be fair, I doubt Enya goes to Wal-Mart even if she is "normal." I'm not rich or famous and I won't step foot in the awful place.)