My large family is joined in prayer with others in the Caring Bridge website community as we follow the progress of my nephew's young son. Guide the hearts and hands and minds of those who care for him O Lord. He's had what's called a Fontan procedure, the last stop on a trail of heart surgeries to reroute his circulation. His Mom's and his Dad's hearts have had their circulation rerouted too. Mom says her heart now walks around outside her body.
Bryan and Marcie, now Collin's Mom and Dad. I have a mental picture of them during their courting days, snapped as they arrive at a family picnic looking all sun kissed and carefree. Here comes Ken and Barbie, calls one of their cousins. With a smile, Bryan snags a cold beer and toasts the group. Marcie's dressed in a coral top and khaki shorts, and her long, blonde hair is pulled back by a matching coral scarf, some gauzy material looped into a bow.
After a fairy tale wedding they settle into married life and Collin is born by c-section following an uneventful pregnancy. After they meet and greet him, baby goes to the nursery and they celebrate with calls and e-mails to friends and family. He's here and he's beautiful!
Their pediatrician sticks his head in. I'm sure it's nothing, but he seems a little dusky. I'm going to have another doc take a look. He smiles reassuringly.
The new pediatrician isn't smiling. His heart needs to be checked out. I think he needs to be seen by Mayo. Stunned, they ask how soon they'll need to take him there. They're coming here. By helicopter. Now.
That was four years ago. Four years of joy and worry and triumphs and sleepless nights. If the fontan can be done, blood with a better path to his lungs will pink his cheeks and lips, and each beat of his heart will send more oxygen to power little arms and legs that long to keep up with other kids. Your gift of abundant life heals and sustains him. He is renewed and restored by your Son's holy presence and the working of the Holy Spirit in his life.
The surgery is over, but he's not out of the woods. Keep praying!
As I get older, it's harder for me to understand why some little ones and their families have to go through so much. I remember an image from The Blood of the Lamb (1961), by Peter DeVries. Anguishing over the death of his child, the protagonist speaks of the question why as a fish hook in the human heart.
There's a new entry in Marcie's Caring Bridge journal. Collin is doing well! To those of us who read her journal, who witness their journey, the postings are an occasion of grace.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Transitions
I'm sometimes startled by depictions of 'elderly' characters in novels and short stories. Not so much by what the author has to say about them, but who it's said about. In the example that sparked these thoughts, the 'elderly' woman was all of fifty five. What happens, I think, is that the author projects herself forward to some age barely imaginable to the young and weaves a character from a bundle of notions about what that age might be like.
Where do our notions about aging come from? As a young adult, I remember reading an article about changing fashions that included speculations about what the well dressed woman would be wearing as she stepped across the threshold of the twenty first century. It occurred to me then that I'd be fifty seven years old at the turn of the century and no longer interested in the minutiae of clothes and hairstyles.
Who knew? Fashions haven't changed nearly as much as the author predicted, and I'm still trying to lose 10 pounds and shopping for hair color.
There's seems to be a persistence of vision at work, an afterimage that lingers long after the observed phenomenon has faded. At the turn of the last century, fifty seven was old. That notion has been slow to change. Personally, I have a long history of being younger than sixty. Growing old gracefully is trickier than I used to think. Apologies to any woman I silently judged for clothing or make-up that hadn't kept up with her years!
Where do our notions about aging come from? As a young adult, I remember reading an article about changing fashions that included speculations about what the well dressed woman would be wearing as she stepped across the threshold of the twenty first century. It occurred to me then that I'd be fifty seven years old at the turn of the century and no longer interested in the minutiae of clothes and hairstyles.
Who knew? Fashions haven't changed nearly as much as the author predicted, and I'm still trying to lose 10 pounds and shopping for hair color.
There's seems to be a persistence of vision at work, an afterimage that lingers long after the observed phenomenon has faded. At the turn of the last century, fifty seven was old. That notion has been slow to change. Personally, I have a long history of being younger than sixty. Growing old gracefully is trickier than I used to think. Apologies to any woman I silently judged for clothing or make-up that hadn't kept up with her years!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Power of Thought
Long before The Secret (Rhonda Byrne, 2006, Atria Books) made it's appearance, I spent a day revited to the pages of Magic in Your Mind (1961). In those pages, U.S. Andersen proposed that reality isn't hard and fast facts at all, but a many faceted gem that reveals different aspects from different points of view. Then there was Joseph Chilton Pearce, who elaborated a similar philosophy in The Crack in the Cosmic Egg (1988). His contribution: we are all involved in a reality construction project and changes in world views change the world viewed. Both books are alive and well and living on Amazon-- and, from the reviews I just read, still changing lives.
Those books and others like them, widened the arc of my compass, even loosened its pointy end from religous moorings in the Catholic Church. I'm still grounded there, though not as firmly--it's the place where if I have to go there, they have to let me in. But Unity calls to me, as does Ernest Holmes in the Science of Mind and Helen Schucman in the work book of A Course in Miracles.
Where all this is leading is a look at the view our culture holds about aging.
Those books and others like them, widened the arc of my compass, even loosened its pointy end from religous moorings in the Catholic Church. I'm still grounded there, though not as firmly--it's the place where if I have to go there, they have to let me in. But Unity calls to me, as does Ernest Holmes in the Science of Mind and Helen Schucman in the work book of A Course in Miracles.
Where all this is leading is a look at the view our culture holds about aging.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Senior Moments
Then there's the memory kind of senior moment. What a friend of mine calls 'brain farts.' "Now, why did I come in here? What happened to my...keys, watch, book...? Give me a sec and I'll remember that name that's right on the tip of my tongue."
They're like snowflakes, little annoying flaky bits that don't amount to much, but send a tiny shiver before they melt away. Nuisance snow. At what point might the tiny flakes begin to stick together, cluster, clog? And how can I chase away the lowering clouds?
When I first started looking for information about preserving brain function, I had to work hard to find it. Now that millions of baby boomers are looking at milestone birthdays, the topic is big news and big business.
The task of sorting through it is made easier by my stint in grad school, which was less about gaining knowledge peculiar to my profession of nursing, and more about learning to discern whether writers and speakers actually knew what they were talking about. A lot of what I'm seeing and hearing about keeping functions such as memory intact is repetitive--the same few nuggets packaged in different ways by those who have a way with words (or not).
Here's what I now think I know for sure:
1. What's good for the body in general is good for the brain, especially including getting aerobic exercise, eating a balanced diet that includes sources of healthy fats such as fish or fish oil, and taking serious precautions to avoid falls.
2. Be wary about the effects of alcohol and other potentially mind-altering substances such as presciption medications. We all need to take the medications we require to keep us in good health (nurse talking) but we should get lots of help to manage them and evaluate their effects.
3. Maintaining social connections is a BIG deal.
4. There's great news about the brain. It's a lot more flexible than once was thought and capable of adding neurons all our lives. While these findings suggest ways to build better brain function, it's not so easy to figure out what's effective and what's not. A guy named Dr. Gary Small seems to know what he's talking about and is creating a useful body of work about beating brain aging. I particularly liked a multimedia kit he did with Dr. Andrew Weil.
5. Even if the body is lagging behind, the mind can help us find the path to wellness and wisdom.
They're like snowflakes, little annoying flaky bits that don't amount to much, but send a tiny shiver before they melt away. Nuisance snow. At what point might the tiny flakes begin to stick together, cluster, clog? And how can I chase away the lowering clouds?
When I first started looking for information about preserving brain function, I had to work hard to find it. Now that millions of baby boomers are looking at milestone birthdays, the topic is big news and big business.
The task of sorting through it is made easier by my stint in grad school, which was less about gaining knowledge peculiar to my profession of nursing, and more about learning to discern whether writers and speakers actually knew what they were talking about. A lot of what I'm seeing and hearing about keeping functions such as memory intact is repetitive--the same few nuggets packaged in different ways by those who have a way with words (or not).
Here's what I now think I know for sure:
1. What's good for the body in general is good for the brain, especially including getting aerobic exercise, eating a balanced diet that includes sources of healthy fats such as fish or fish oil, and taking serious precautions to avoid falls.
2. Be wary about the effects of alcohol and other potentially mind-altering substances such as presciption medications. We all need to take the medications we require to keep us in good health (nurse talking) but we should get lots of help to manage them and evaluate their effects.
3. Maintaining social connections is a BIG deal.
4. There's great news about the brain. It's a lot more flexible than once was thought and capable of adding neurons all our lives. While these findings suggest ways to build better brain function, it's not so easy to figure out what's effective and what's not. A guy named Dr. Gary Small seems to know what he's talking about and is creating a useful body of work about beating brain aging. I particularly liked a multimedia kit he did with Dr. Andrew Weil.
5. Even if the body is lagging behind, the mind can help us find the path to wellness and wisdom.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Who's Aging?
So who's aging? Me? You don't look it, but could you possibly be eligible for a senior discount?
I'm riding the bus, hanging on to the strap, minding my own business when a young man glances in my direction and jumps up to offer me his seat. How nice, I think, people must be getting politer. Politer and politer. A young nephew offers me his arm on a snowy sidewalk. A coworker reaches to take a box and ask where I want it--and it's not even all that heavy.
Then a kid at McDonalds charges me for a senior coffee without even asking if I deserve it. My first real senior moment. I smile and say thank you.
I'm riding the bus, hanging on to the strap, minding my own business when a young man glances in my direction and jumps up to offer me his seat. How nice, I think, people must be getting politer. Politer and politer. A young nephew offers me his arm on a snowy sidewalk. A coworker reaches to take a box and ask where I want it--and it's not even all that heavy.
Then a kid at McDonalds charges me for a senior coffee without even asking if I deserve it. My first real senior moment. I smile and say thank you.
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