Coping: Java with Prada

Quick update:  G'ma is still hanging in there.  The Priest came by Saturday night and truly it was a magical experience.  Although she apparently woke up Sunday morning and was angry because it didn't work.  Another funny thing happened when my aunts decided that my Grandfather needed to say goodbye.  You have to understand that my family is not very emotional.  I have never heard my grandparents tell each other they love one another.  So when G'ma said those three words, "I love you," my Grandfather responded with a, "Well, good luck." 

That still makes me laugh.  Really, you need to have a sense of humor to make it through this.

Another coping mechanism I'm employing is shopping.  I've discovered EBay.  Currently I'm leading on a cranberry slipcover for my couch.  (I think I'll lose, but it would be really nice to win.)  EBay is pretty amazing (and its a Utah company).  You have the thrill of competition and you really have to decide how much you want an item.

On Saturday I went shopping with one of my best friends.  The idea was to find designer clothes in second-hand stores.  We thought it would be ideal to combine it with coffee thus the outing was immediately dubbed:  Java with Prada.  We found nothing in the stores and wound up in Anthropologie.  I love this store.  I found a gorgeous pair of slacks and a sweater on sale.  However, buyers remorse caught up and I put it back.  (If my financial advisor is reading this I'm certain he is doing a small round of applause.)

My Mom just called.  G'ma died about 4 minutes ago. 

Catholic Etiquette???

I am a religious poser.  A wannabe, if you will.

Tonight I arranged to have a Priest perform the Holy sacrament of Anointing of the Sick for my Paternal Grandmother.  This is the new term Catholics call it.  I was used to Last Rites, but that is passe.  I've been online ever since trying to learn the details of this last sacrament.

To give you a bit of background:   I was yanked out of Catholic school when I was 10.  The itchy plaid jumpers and knee socks were replaced by pencil jeans and keds.  The nuns were replaced by polygamous teachers.  I kid you not, but Mr. Swapp still remains one of the best teachers I ever had...only in Utah.  But I never went back to church.  No more Sunday school, no more incense, no more studying the Bible for me.  Instead, my family spent our day of worship on the golf course.  I did make it through baptism, first Holy communion, and confession.  The last time I made it to confession it went something like this:

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.  It has been 14 years since my last confession.  My first sin is that I don't remember the Act of Contrition...." 

It just got worse from there.  The Priest was so taken aback he just told me I was brave enough to show up in the booth and that I was forgiven, no prayers needed.  The best part about that whole thing was I actually didn't feel guilty taking communion that mass.  However, I haven't been back since.

My Grandmother has bladder cancer.  She was a champ through the chemo to help reduce the size of the tumor, the numerous stint revisions, and the pain.  Two days ago I went to my Grandparents house for dinner.  People from hospice were packing her bags getting her ready to go to a nursing home.  She was there a little over 24 hours when she began to say her goodbyes.  She told my Mom what a wonderful daughter-in-law she had been and its been reported she had a very similar touching talk with my aunts.  My Grandfather even went there to say his goodbye.  As of tonight she has been moved to my aunt's home because she didn't want to die in a care facility.  My aunt is doing the vigil watch for the last days or hours as Grandma has been placed with a morphine pump. 

Grandma was the best Catholic of us all and requested a Priest.  I was the one with a direct connection through the hospital.  Tonight I called one of my dearest friends, our hospital chaplain, and before I knew it I was giving the Priest directions to my aunt's house.  Somewhere about 7:00 tomorrow night this mystical act of faith will be performed on my Grandmother.  It was her last request.

I feel really good that I was able to help in someway.  My only hope is that I didn't step on anyones toes.  If you've ever had a crisis in your extended family, you know what I'm talking about.  All the family dynamics rear their ugly heads and all of a sudden your 52 year old father is acting like he's 8 and the rest assume their positions of hero, scapegoat, wall flower, dictator, etc (add your adjective here).  The women are doing amazing work and unfortunately, the men are allowing this to happen without them.  What the guys don't realize is the valuable gift they are giving up. 

I was part of my Pop's last hours on this earth.  I helped push his morphine button, made sure he was comfortable, told him stories, and reconciled on so many levels.  The most important and intimate minutes of anyones life is their birth and their death.  If you can be present for either of those, consider yourself blessed.  It may sound macabre, but coming from a girl who has watched hundreds die, I'm speaking from experience.  It is a gift, simple as that.

For Sale: False Icons of Happiness

There is nothing more frustrating than finances.  I have always had my self-worth wrapped up in my bank account balance.  No wonder people always say they want to win the lottery.  But here's the reality:  the bigger the account, the bigger the expenses become, and you are right back where you start.

I watched my Father do the whole yuppie thing.  He built a house on a mountain with a commissioned architect, drove the luxury cars, bought a powerful recreational boat, did the country club membership, and went to several social events.  I've never seen a man so unhappy to be that successful.  He was on a treadmill that never slowed down, not because he was trying to obtain more, but because he was afraid he would lose it all.

Recently I bought my staff the book, What Happy People Know.  If you haven't read it, I suggest it highly.  The majority of my staff read it as though it were a medical journal article and tore it to bits due to its simplicity.  What I thought is the funniest part is that they completely missed the point. 

Dr. Dan Baker sites 5 things that people chase because they think it will bring happiness.

1.  A life of leisure.  Perhaps.  But what is the meaning of the existence?  One of the best gifts is to help someone feel a sense of purpose.  It can be done just by allowing others to help you.  They feel they made a difference.  Leisure doesn't exactly provide this purpose.

2.  Status.  How many famous people do you know who just can't wait to get in front of the cameras to air their personal lives?  Status generally equals fame.  With fame comes a loss of privacy control.  Besides fame is like looks:  there will always be someone higher or prettier than you are and someone who is less so.

3.  Possessions.  Oh yeah, let me tell you how many people on their deathbeds cry out to see their BMW or silver tea set.  None.  They recall their relationships.

4.  Financial security.  Ok, I'll admit it.  I thought this one was a shoo in for me.  If you think about it, security is a myth.  There is not one of us who can 100% guarantee safety.  It doesn't exist.

5.  Worldly power.  Remember the saying, "Its lonely at the top"?  Power just equals more obligations.  People who run their own lives don't need to run others'. 

Other falsehoods that people think are magic cures for unhappiness:  trying to resolve the past, compensating for weaknesses, and trying to force happiness.  Instead, remember the wisdom of your past mistakes and move forward, focus and develop your strengths, and realize that in life's natural balance one must feel the full range of emotions.  This is a great philosophy to run a buisness with incredible human capital.  I'm telling you, this is a fabulous book.

So in the end, although I'll be eating mac and cheese for the next two weeks, I need to remember the positives (vs. my negative cash flow).  It will be a challenge and an opportunity to live life frugally.  (See, its all in how you reframe things.)   The reality is this:  in two weeks some magic figures will appear in my checking account only to match the bills in my mailbox.   Emotions, like money, just recycle.

 

 

Secret Gardens

Several of you have called/emailed me about the site.  Its been nice to see how many of you really enjoy the writing.  One of the biggest questions that follows is, "But what do your parents think?"

Yes, yes, I've always been a bit too honest for my own good.  In my days of teenage emotion and poor young twenties judgement, my best sounding board was my Mom.  We would be out to lunch and her face would twist to horror and shock as I relegated tales of boys, sorority, and the French Quarter.  It took her a few years to realize that I didn't really have an edit button to delineate the roles of parent/friend.  She smartened up though and finally would stop me at the beginning of the story with a simple question:  Do I really need to know this?

My life, for the most part, has been an open book with those I care about.  One main reason:  I can not lie well.  I fidget, I pause, my eyes wander up and over the person I'm talking with, and generally I can't keep my own story straight.  In short, I would be a terrible CIA operative. 

As I've matured I've learned that there are secrets that you must keep to yourself.  Every person should have his/her own secret garden.  The fact of the matter is some secret telling can just be for your own conscious vs. the best interest of the other person.  However, there can also be a freedom and wisdom in sharing information that you hold close to your heart.  Your experience just may free another.  This can be a tricky tightrope to walk.

I wrote in my "about me" segment that I have had a journal since I was 6.  I also had two people I trusted violate that secret space.  One ex actually waited for me to go to work, open my moving boxes, read the journals, and retape the package.  (He confronted me on the content when I got home which just landed him a solid KO from my reflexes.)  Turns out he wasn't even interested in the present recordings, but was after the secrets locked three years prior.  After this kind of violation one might ask why I continue to keep these logs.  There is freedom and release in watching the ink soak into the pages with your confessions and thought processes. 

Without fail, I have had every boyfriend ask to read them.  I have denied every single one of them.  I'm not really clear why I keep them if no one will read them besides myself.  It is a nice way to observe patterns for me and perhaps my children will be left a key to a safe deposit box in my will opening my secret garden to them.  I'd like to think that I would let my future husband (???) read them decades from now, but I'm not certain if information might hurt him.  I will never deliberately hurt someone I love.

Back to the issue of my parents.  I love them very much.  What I wrote is nothing they don't already know.  I gave my Mom the link with an emotional disclaimer.  We talked about it after.  Although the truth stings, it also moved our relationship forward and what we had was a very healing experience.  My Father claims he cannot surf the web.  He would find this site to be boring and again, its information he already knows.  As a whole, my family is the kind that tells the truth no matter how ugly it is.  (Those of you who have been fortunate enough to have sat at our dinner table knows this first hand.)

My family can be a breath of fresh air in the fact that we don't sugar coat things, we allow emotion, and no excuses are made.  I have more than once stomped off from dinner, we have called each other names, and it is perfectly acceptable to burst into tears.  My Maternal Grandmother is like this as well.  She doesn't bat an eye when we play the fortune cookie game "in bed" and will talk about other unsavory topics while swirling her martini.  (I love this about her.)  There is no such thing as a functional family.  We all have our brand of disfunction.  It is familiar.  (Note:  familiar stems from the same root as family, go figure.)

Families can be about an image or they can be a place where you feel safe to be yourself (both the good and bad parts).  They can drive you crazy, give you great material for blogs/journals, and ground you. 

Yawn...counting sheep?

My boyfriend has an impeccable ability to go into dream sequence while I am talking to him on the phone at night.  At one point in time he asked me how I did a procedure on the left ankle when I was just finished asking him a question about his family.  It is at that point in time when I know whether I like it or not, the conversation has ended.  I have had hour-long talks with one my girlfriends while she has been completely unconscious.  The only way she knows she was asleep is because she will glance at the caller ID in the morning and call back wondering if we had spoken.  I do not have these problems, unfortunately.  Instead, sleep eludes me. 

I have always had a problem with insomnia.  It comes and goes and usually is directly related to my inability to turn off my brain.  Thoughts circle and I usually do my best problem solving as I try to fall asleep.  Typically it takes me about 30 minutes to an hour to fully fall asleep.  I wish I were kidding.  It is a conscious process for me to go to the land of nod. 

I have rituals to help me wind down.  I take baths, I read, I drink milk.  When I was little I abandoned counting sheep and instead began to try and recount every birthday party in chronological order (the waterslide, the tea party, the sleepover, etc.)  What is ironic is that I find children's birthday parties to be depressing I (or downright terrifying if they had clowns involved) including my own.  At times in my adulthood, I still find myself going down this mental ritual.  I am also pretty good at imagining I'm on a roller coaster (I love thrill rides) and try to get that body sensation in the dark.  That also gets me to sleep.  I found that music does little to help me relax (I read too much into the lyrics' poetry) and I can't keep my mind from wandering during meditation tapes. 

I am not above using the pharmacy for aid as well.  I have done a number of sleeping agents (always supervised by a MD) although I'm always afraid of getting dependent.  So I try switching things up.  Antihistamines, NyQuil, etc..  Again though, the whole fear of dependence gets me.

I've had a few suggest a nightcap.  That doesn't work as I wake up usually about 3 AM wide awake.  I'm finding the older I get the more alcohol negativelyimpactsmy circadian cycles.  That sucks.  No longer am I the 22 year old party girl body surfing the crowd while drunk and then miraculously home to pass out.  Those days are gone.

I think the worst part about sleep issues is the whole waking up in the early hours of the morning with your body having the idea that it is normal hours.  I did this last night.  I had some dream about work that got me all worked up for a very difficult meeting I have next week.  I literally woke up sitting in bed yelling some brilliant line in the sand to my nemesis.  (This one sided strategic conversation is no longer in my recall ability now.)  After that sleep was out of the question for another 1.5 hours as I tried to qualm my anxieties and talked my irrational beliefs down that now was not the time to be conquering the world in my mind.

Work definitely stresses me out, but you know when I was on medical leave I just found family issues to be the source of anti-sleep anxiety.  This just leads me to believe that there is a genetic component.  My mom is notorious for her early waking habits.  It is not uncommon for her to get up at 4 AM and finish out client's bank reconciliations until 7 when she will finally make a cup of tea.   I always told her this was just plain sick, but now I'm unwillingly following down her same path. 

Here is my plea before I sign off for the night:  if any of you have any brilliant ideas or old home remedies your grandmother taught you, please let me know. 

In the Eye of the Beholder

Last night as I was watching one of the many award shows (tis the season), I was also perusing a magazine article.  A woman was describing how to achieve true beauty.  Her words of wisdom:  try to look your best as infrequently as possible.  I found this to be ironic as I watched several movie stars with their hair just messy enough to look sexy and their gowns as sheer as lingerie.  But it did get me thinking.

 

This woman, a contributor to Real Simple, stated, “However you look, people get used to it.  If you accustom them to a very high standard – your hair and makeup are always perfect, your clothing is expensive and fetching – you are just setting them up for disappointment if you make a mistake or, God forbid, get lazy.”  She likens the occasion of when you do dress up as a chance to exercise your right in choosing the time to blossom.

 

I asked a good friend of mine what he thought about this.  He thought it was a risky piece of advice, especially to those who are not exceptionally pretty but overall he agreed with the statement.  I have to say, this shocked me coming from a guy who values beauty very much.

 

In my invalid period I watched a fair amount of Oprah.  One of the more interesting shows was about a typical 30-year-old female in various parts of the world.  I had no idea that Mexican women think working out in the gym is crazy and that men should adore us eating enchiladas because it accentuates our curves.  This was of course coming from one of their top soap opera stars. By the way, the French women also agreed with this statement.  I also had no idea that a typical Cuban woman has had 4 abortions by the time she was 30 and divorced at least once.  Oh, and ladies, you think dating in the US is bad, go to London.  There, women outnumber men 3:1!!!  I was beginning to feel quite attractive in my scrubs and glasses living in America (and at the time mostly surviving off of cinnamon rolls).  Hey, it was au natural with minimal effort!

 

It never fails:  you always have a great hair day the morning you have an appointment with your stylist.  Or you feel sloppy the day of a really important meeting.  Beauty, or more importantly, the feeling of being beautiful can strike indiscriminately. 

 

Ever since I was a little girl, I adored baths.  What I really relished were baths in my parent’s jetted tub.  I would secretly pull my hair up into this yellow shower cap (pretending it was a short glamorous bob) and sample my mother’s dark lipstick.  I would sit amid the bubbles and pretend I was some foreign student with an exotic accent telling some man to just, “leeve mee alozne.”  All dolled up and nowhere to go.  ( I can’t believe I’m confessing this!)

 

Its funny, the one time I did actually get “dolled up” post-op was when I was visiting my boyfriend.  Hair done, makeup on, I never felt ready.  The makeup looked forced, too shimmery perhaps, and my hair began to resemble a TV anchor no matter what I did to it.  Even the Ann Taylor clothes looked wrong.  And then I realized how uncomfortable I felt in a situation forcing beauty.  I had a deadline to look pretty!  Damn it, we had to be there with bells on to shmooze the MD world by 6:30!!  I wasn’t able to “choose” my time of blossoming.  We never did go to the Christmas Ball.  We ended up dancing in our pj’s by the kitchen sink while reheating leftovers.  There, in that moment with the makeup washed off and hair pulled back, I felt beautiful.

 

**Bonus!!  Other moments when women are effortlessly beautiful.**

1. Women who go naturally gray or at least blonde. Ladies, its God’s way of giving you a makeover!  (Wrinkles are too harsh for dark hair.)  My Mom is very pretty with her silver locks.
2.  Post-coital hair.  (enough said)
3. Women who cry with makeup on.  It’s your emotion, not your perfection that makes you pretty.
4. No makeup at the gym.  (Really, who wears diva lipstick to the spinning class?)
5. Confidence (no MAC artist can give you this look)
6. Kissing…you always feel beautiful kissing.
7. (Add your own here…or add your comments at the end of what you think makes someone beautiful.)  J

Mission Impossible: This Message Will Self-Destruct

Never underestimate the power of a good psychiatrist.

Several of you have heard stories about this guy.  I get more work done in a 15 minute session than I did with my therapist.  Note:  past tense, I fired the guy after our sessions became more entertainment value for him and boundaries crossed.  This psychiatrist has more than a big ego and Rx pad; this guy has insight.

To be a therapist's therapist would be difficult.  You have to be able to cut past all of the intelletual defenses and call them on the carpet.  I'm very good at self-diagnosing a la DSM IV, justfying irrational beliefs, and playing each session like a chess game.  Basically I'm scared and its easier to hide.  I can't do this with Dr. C.

I haven't seen this guy since October, but the first thing on my mind was my parents.  How do I draw boundaries?  Ever since I got ill, I had to become more dependent on them.  Couldn't drive, various appointments, foggy on narcotics, etc..  And thus the cycle began, they too became more dependent on me.  One day my mother decided to "unburden" herself on me.  (This was done over a drop-in with Starbucks the day before they were ruling out ulcers...I knew the visit was more for her than me right off the bat.)

The issue:  finances.  She was trapped in the relationship where my father refused to work and they are going broke on her self-employment.  My father left his job "early retirement" at the age of 48.  He doesn't have a college degree and just has life experience to get him to the VP level.  Naturally he is intimidated by going back out in the workforce.  I really don't know if I should be more angry with the man or pity him.  They were a yuppie role model of the 80's and now they are facing downsizing again and selling the country club membership.  What really got to me was that each of them felt helpless and were resigned to it.

I suggested therapy to Mom.  She ho-hummed it saying that she couldn't afford it.  I've already done the route of rebuilding Dad's resume and doing mock-interviews with him.   Anytime I talked with Dad and Mom about it, Dad turned into a 4 year old.  "I won't work and you can't make me."  Mom would just tell me that by bringing it up I was making it worse.  By bringing me into the picture drew their focus away from the real issue between them,but I recognized that I was being manipulated.  So, the question remains:  How do you watch someone you love self-destruct?

I realized right away bringing my brother into the issue was a problem.  He began to sell one of his I'll-save-them plans.  He also took it personally that they were selling the membership.  Like I said, bad idea.

Dr. C pointed out that the more I try to help, the more I create dependence and really, if I don't let them self-destruct, how will they know how to be self-reliant and solve the problem themselves?  This insight seems like a, "well, duh," but I was clueless.  By the way, most individuals do not have to learn this lesson of let-them-go until they have teenagers (unless you are a parentified child like me.)

So, with that I left the office.  I left a bit unburdened and realized that the dependency factor is inherent in my relationship with my parents.  I also realized I have control over it. 

Will my parents self-destruct?  More than likely.  Its not a pretty reality, but I've decided to not accept the challenge of mission impossible:  save your parents.

Meaningful Moments

Statistics say that 50% of all psychologists have some hidden trauma that drove them to their profession.  I would bet that almost every healing profession has the same odds.  It doesn't need to be a huge trauma, but a life changing interaction. 

I have met more nurses who's had a family member in the depths of chronic illness and more physicians who have been "cured" of pediatric cancer.  Such is the same with social workers. 

I didn't know my staff all that well when I was a co-worker, but in an advisory role I find that the supervision sessions always bring up counter-transference from their past into current cases.  (Its a nice fancy way of saying that old feelings from the past get put into present time.)  I have social workers who have been displaced by DCFS, those who have gone through therapy in rough times, and those who are healing families when their own couldn't be saved.  Note:  there is a very fine line of those therapists who need therapy more than they should be giving it...its my job to sort these people out. 

I too have my own story, but that is not the purpose of the entry.  The fact that I know what is in my past and am self-aware is very important.  What I wonder about is what moments am I creating for others to choose this particular helping profession?  I think back to the most rewarding moments in my career and one really tops the list. 

It was a multi car MVA (car crash) that happened in Southern Utah.  The family was traveling from DC to LA for their first Disneyland vacation.  The two adults were lifeflighted to SLC with their younger son.  The oldest daugher (10 years of age) was flown to Phoenix.  This familiy was devistated.  The father was released the first day to be with his son who was on my unit.  His wife was still in intensive care.  I worked and worked to coordinate a transfer so that the family could be together.  In the meantime I provided notes to employers, insurance agents, phone cards for long distance, meal passes, transportation to get the luggage, charity flights to get them home once everyone was discharged, temporary housing, etc..  I had one of my favorite doctors in the Emergency Dept agree to do a doc to doc transfer and went up to our life flight offices to explain the situation myself.  It took 18 hours, but the daughter was transfered to our PICU (pediatric intensive care unit).  The father cried, the mother came to visit me in a wheelchair, the kids made me thank you notes and bought me a mylar baloon...I still have these in my desk.  The next week I was transferred to administration.  This was in August of 2003.

Before this incident I would have told you that my best career moment was when I was president of Tulane University's School of Social Work...I felt as though I was making a meaningful change in that role of leadership.  That was in 1998.  Now I can honestly say that it is the family moments that mean the most.  I have had countless traumas, deaths, and miracles in my professional life.  Only a few stand out. 

You never know in any interaction who will be the one most affected, the one most deeply changed.  I don't know where this family is now, but I hope they know how much of a difference they made in my life.  They reminded me of my roots and passion of why I chose this field in the first place.

Why Blog?

First entry:  I should probably introduce myself and why I decided to start a journal.  Here goes nothing...

Being single, not of "the" faith, and professional at the approaching age of 30 makes me an odd man out.  Here in Utah, one could become an old maid by the time she was 24.  My adventures include:  liquid junkie parents (aka alcoholics), a jack-of-all-trades brother, a history of several non-committal men, a current long distance boyfriend whom I have known since I was 8, becoming a new homeowner by abandoning over romatic ideals of real estate, a mass village of friends who have been swallowed up by husbands and children or who happen to not live in the same area code, and my new role as a director to people who graduated with their masters the year I was born. 

I am a typical Gen X'er in the sense that I multi-task very well, I'm too independent for my own good, and I'm pretty scarcastic.  However, I am not lazy, tech savvy, and I've actually been with a company for over 5 years.  I'm finding I'm in an odd time in my life.  I like the success of being a single professional but I'm still a hopeless romantic.

I like to share funny stories of life.

This will hopefully be a nice window into my journey.