Ward 23

Respect: A Basic Human Need

 

"Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl. "This porridge is too hot!" she exclaimed. So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl. "This porridge is too cold," she said. So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge. "Ahhh, this porridge is just right," she said happily, and she ate it all up.
            —The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears

            We don’t know how old Goldilocks was when she invaded the home and upset the lives of the Three Bears family, but she obviously hadn’t yet learned the lesson of respecting other people and their property. I wonder, when Goldilocks grew up, did she ever look back on that incident and reflect on her childish behavior? Did she seek out the Three Bear family and make amends for her behavior? Perhaps she lived out the rest of her life with the belief that an unlocked door is an open invitation. Perhaps she should have knocked and listened for a response.

            Respect has different meanings for different people. Some believe respect must be earned, others believe it starts at conception, others at birth. For some, respect is delivered based on age. Some people believe it is okay to pick and choose who to respect; they sift through other peoples’ beliefs, opinions, cultures, religions, or lives prior to allowing due regard for the person.

            When I think about Francis, one of my home health patients, I can’t help but think about her tangle with respect and how it helped solidify my own definition. Francis was 69-years-old and had just returned home from the hospital a few days prior following a pace maker insertion. Francis was staying with her daughter and would only sleep on the couch. In fact, Francis refused to move off the couch except to use her walker to go the bathroom. After four days of this behavior, her daughter was frustrated and immediately attempted to get me on her side in dealing with this issue.

            Her daughter’s approach was void of respect. For my benefit, her daughter demonstrated how the use of shame hadn’t been successful in getting her mother off the couch.

            Shaking her head, she looked at Francis and said, “She’s being stupid. It’s ridiculous the way she’s acting. She’s sleeping on the couch, eating on the couch. She needs to be walking around the block and getting her strength back.”

            Like Goldilocks, Francis’ daughter was barging through doors she hadn’t been invited to open and eating porridge that wasn’t hers.

            I felt my first step was listening to Francis’ side of the story. I was curious about what ideas might be contributing to her reluctance to increasing her activity. As it turned out Francis was scared. Scared that too much activity would stress the pacemaker. Scared that it would stop working and her heart would stop beating. She was scared that she would die.

            When her daughter heard this, she plopped into a nearby chair, sobbing.

            Most people inherit their ideas about respect and may never get to the place where they reflect on that inherited system where they can decide for themselves how respect should become a part of who they are as a person: how they hold it, how they express it, how they wield it.

            After acknowledging Francis’ fears, she was willing to relax and hear my input. We started with gentle range of motion three times daily (showing that movement did not affect the pacemaker). Then I taught Francis and her daughter how to take and record her pulse rate (a record would provide even more assurance of the consistency of the pacemaker). Finally, we made sure that Francis had follow up appointments with the cardiologist for regular pacemaker checks. This provided considerable peace of mind.

            Francis’ story could be a lesson of kindness, love, or encouragement. But to me it was about respecting another person enough to listen. Listening drowns out the external conditions we place on respect such as mannerisms, clothes, facial features, or color. Listening helps us address the gaps in the respect belief system we picked up in childhood. Listening ensures the other person is heard and validated.

            Respecting another human enough to knock on the door of their life and listen for the response . . . to me, this is respect.

 

Things That Happened To Him

Mornings he creates skittish chaos, flicking his Cheerio’s toward the dog dish, running his fingers through milk puddles. Mother sits across the table, fuming over the latest rumors in the newspaper. His bicycle waits on the lawn, his friends poke each other by the lamppost. Kennedy Campbell, you’re not going anywhere until you take the garbage out. I mean it. She doesn’t see the sun burning through the kitchen window, she doesn’t notice his obstinate slump.

A second need arises, the familiar urgency to shoo away time before father awakes, before today’s warning is displayed in large voices bigger than his ears. He prefers the smelly garbage and begins to build his exit. Bowl in the sink, fresh trash bag in the can, shoes double-knotted, ball cap pulled low. A portion of his day he spends avoiding the return home. But right now he is open to the beat of the escape. He pumps the bike peddles toward his friends, as he approaches they clap with welcoming permission.

 

Afternoons he hesitates, considering his doctor’s trumpeted cautions before stealing away for a tobacco fix. Tasting the comfortable rush of the high eases his mind, it’s a minor toll to pay. Breaking away from his private weakness, he returns to his desk, counts three messages on his phone, turns his attention again to the divorce papers. He taps the corner, runs his finger across the folded creases, letting them rest next to her name, the name he shared with her. He leaves work without the clear mind of a hard day’s work.

He sits in the apartment, the staunch fumes of the trucks on the thoroughfare meddling with his microwave dinner. His thoughts center around the faces of his children, then and now. He sips his beer, recalling only a handful of time with them, now it’s over, except for every other weekend. He makes the most of it. An unwilling pursuit, this making-the-best-of-things, but he does. Life is past and present, active and spent, victory and forfeit. He lights another tobacco stick.

 

Evenings he spends alone in his wheelchair. Until she comes, puffy and staunch, secure in her second-hand permission to invade his life. Now stop your fussing, Ken. This is what they pay me for. Folding his small glasses, setting them out of reach, cleaning his wet bed sore, putting him in the shower against his will.

While she changes his underwear, he squeezes his eyes shut, making himself an island. He used to stare into dusty corners, waiting for the healing taste of medicine, waiting for the final press of her hand against his forehead -- an envelope sealed, a job well-done! He lies in the cloud-soft bed, sheets and blankets protecting him from the world, the smell of soft soap cleaner with bleach swirling in the air. He hears whispers he can’t make out, then wonders if her hand on his head is the last human touch he will ever feel.

 

Ode to Dee

 

 

 

ALL THE WORLD IS A STAGE

Shakespeare wrote, “One man in his life plays many parts.” He knew that the division of life into stages helps us make sense of our personal journeys. When we consider the concepts of generations, life-cycles, and aging it can be daunting. It’s easier to think of life in chunks: childhood, young adult, middle age, older adult, and elderly. Sometimes it seems the life span of a human is nothing more than numerous random variables that share only an unidentified end point. 

Shakespeare's wisdom makes me think of Dee . . . 4 feet 8 inches of nervous energy. At 69-years-old, she had buried a husband and a son. She had one daughter, her only connection to the happiness of her past.

She lived alone in a well-kept apartment, with a homemaker who came twice a week to help with cleaning, shopping, and laundry. Dee required home health services for regular blood work. She had a heart condition known as atrial fibrillation and was on a medication that needed to be monitored monthly, sometimes weekly, with blood work. The day I visited with her in her apartment to admit her to home health she was apprehensive about having a new nurse and equally concerned about being stuck with a needle, even though it wasn’t the first time. 

"Don't lie to me," she said, "I want the truth. If that needle is going to hurt, just tell me. Don't shroud it in a lie, for heaven's sake."

Then she'd wrinkle her brow. "It's going to hurt isn't it?"

Most likely she had been skittish about life from the beginning. But the day Dee found out her daughter had breast cancer was one of the worst days of her life – it was a role she didn’t want to play. She was forced to cloak herself in a new role: a mother who may need to bury her only daughter. As I got to know Dee better, it seemed one thing remained consistent: her overriding dooms-day perspective fueled by her endless agitated energy. Regardless, she made me smile with the open and honest way she shared every thought that popped into her head. 

"Why do you do that to your hair?" She asked one day. 

"Do what?"

"Why is it all curly and frizzy like that? Why do you do that to it?"

"I didn't do it. It does it on its own." I said.

"You could straighten it."

"Why would I do that?"

"It might look better."

"That's rude." I said.

"I'm not a baker. I don't sugar-coat things." 

It is not uncommon that a family’s health status affects the patient’s overall health status as well. Dee had already played several roles throughout her life: daughter, wife, and mother. Homemaker, patient, and widow. As age shifted, so did her roles. As she shared about her life and her roles, it appeared that this fresh stress, as it related to her daughter, wasn’t any more unique than the stress of other roles she had donned and she reacted with equal tension.

"My daughter might die. I don't know what to do. If she's going to die, don't you think those doctors should just tell her?" Dee asked.

"I think you shouldn't say that to her when you see her."

"Say what?"

"That she's going to die. Don't say that to her."

Dee shook her head. "She should know."

"You don't have to be a baker and sugar-coat things, Dee, but you should bite your tongue once in a while."

Planning health education materials, scheduling appointments, and providing accessibility to a nurse were initial professional responsibilities to aide Dee, but they were never enough. In taking care of Dee, it was quite clear how the support and care we provide as nurses is truly circular in content, in keeping with the marching of time. But then there was Dee . . . Playing the role of a realist. 

My time with Dee prompted a tiny celebration of this non-sugar-coated, venerable, tough, little lady.

Ode to Dee

She begins as the infant, suckling

Seeking arms to secure and someone to stay

Then the fussy school girl, a knapsack in place

A morning jump rope fanatic, a hater of spelling

Swiftly becoming a lover, an edgy venture

She’s willing to take, a hill to follow

With eyebrows that rise and time standing still

Miserable serenades and cheap wine turn her

Into a mother

Coated in spit up, molding lives that will exit her own

Her son leaves by death, her daughter by choice

As eyes dim behind spectacles, youthfulness slips

The bearded jowls, the deep laugh, the spouse she knew

Now spent, his part played out

Life shifts, narrows again

She becomes wisdom-filled while sitting on sidelines

With only a handful of access to a world once familiar

The life of her daughter waxes and wanes

Her own health counting down the days

She turns again to the feeble seeking

Of someone, of secure arms

To be known, seen

Holding time, a warning of age

Her teeth absent, her spirit drained, the exit uncovered

Her oblivion now loud as her last scene descends

Thus ends this unusual obtuse history

Failure to Rescue

I had a patient in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) that I never actually met, but I’ll never forget. Fredrick was a 79-year-old status post CABG (coronary artery bypass graft) who was on an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) and was dependent on an external pacemaker to keep his heart beating. When I met Fredrick he was still sedated and had been back from surgery in the CVICU for less than one hour. I was gathering report and was minutes into my shift, when the IABP started alarming and the pacemaker lost capture. As I was checking the capture on the pacemaker, I also had to shout out for someone to call the surgeon, someone to draw up medications, and someone to start documenting. I remember this as one of the first times these actions felt fairly routine to me.

A few years earlier, when I was nearing the end of nursing school, I decided I wanted to work in the Pediatric Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (Peds CVICU). I had become enthralled with the skill and competence of the pediatric CVICU nurses. Their ability to handle complexity and uncertainty at a moment’s notice was a skill I wanted to master. At that time, new nurses had to work for one year in the adult CVICU before taking care of pediatric CVICU patients, that’s how I ended up taking care of Fredrick at 7:30 at night learning the ins and outs of quick judgement calls, mastering in-depth nursing skills, and recognizing the finicky dynamics of the cardiovascular system. What I hadn’t thought about were the consequences, what happens when skill and competence aren’t routine? What happens when these actions falter?

Within fifteen minutes the cardiovascular surgeon was at the bedside calling for the open heart cart – this meant he was going open the chest there in the CVICU and not take the patient back to the operating room. The open heart team had already gone home for the day and it was not unusual during night shift for the nurse at the bedside to be the assistant at the bedside. I remember leaning over Fredrick’s body feeling my own heart beating against my ribs and seeing my hands shaking as I held the suction tube near his heart.

“Don’t get it too close,” the surgeon snapped taking my hand and adjusting the position, ending with “hold it right there”.

The surgeon spent over four hours alternating between reaching inside of his chest and massaging the heart to provide circulation and meticulously placing wire after wire along distance of the SA (sinoatrial) node, the portion of the heart where the electrical impulses are generated. He used forceps to place the pacing lead into the heart, attached the other end of the lead to the generator, and turned on the generator hoping it would capture, hoping the heart would start beating. When it didn’t, he massaged the heart for a while, placed another lead about 1mm below the last one and turn on the generator again. After trying over twelve pacing leads, he massaged the heart for a very long time before finally removing his hand for the last time from Fredrick’s chest. The heart lie still and exposed, pacing wires strewn across Fredrick’s chest in an orderly fashion. The breathing tube was hanging from his mouth causing his chest to rise and fall, his hair was tasseled and matted against his head. Time of death: 1:43 AM.

Nursing is not unlike other professions in that we all face complexity and uncertainty in our chosen career paths. We all face the risk of failure. Initially we struggle to become adept at the critical capacities that keep us from failing at our jobs, then we tend to cruise into the sunset of rote performance. The difference with nursing is that the loss is often at the expense of human suffering and lives lost. As such, measuring outcomes in terms of patient lives saved, patient satisfaction scores, and patient readmissions is common lingo in healthcare. But that doesn’t keep us from losing lives on our shifts because people do die regardless of our most valiant and flawless attempts to save them. Perhaps a failure shouldn’t be measured in number of lives lost. Perhaps, failure should be measured according to the plan followed. As healthcare workers we have plans in place, trained responses to specific situations. Failure can happen when the wrong plan is followed or, at a minimum, when we fail to abort the wrong plan as soon as we recognize we’re going in the wrong direction.

As the crowd of nurses and therapists dissipated from Fredrick’s room, the surgeon remained poised over his open chest. Since I was Fredrick’s nurse, I hadn’t gone far, not to talk to the family, not even to go to the bathroom. The surgeon lowered himself from the step stool and turned toward me, “What you’d do to him? He was fine when he left the operating room.”

The intensity of this particular CVICU surgeon was not new to me. A year earlier I would have crumbled into tears at the accusation. But I knew without a doubt that my initial actions with Fredrick were unmarred. I had followed the right plan of attack given the situation; I was certain. I leaned toward him, “I didn’t do anything. His pacemaker lost capture.”

The surgeon signed deeply, letting his body slouch against the wall, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. His voice softened, “That was the sickest heart I’ve worked on in a long time.”

“Now you tell me?” I snapped. “You could have shared that when he left the OR.”

Often what we intuitively think are failures in healthcare aren’t truly failures. I couldn’t pinpoint it until some years later when I read about failure to rescue (FTR) rates after CABG. Failure to rescue refers to the inability to prevent death after a complication develops. I am uncertain how long physicians have been using FTR as a quality indicator in surgery or for CABG in particular, but what this really means is that it’s not about the best facilities, the best physicians, or the best nurses possessing the best skills and, therefore, avoiding complications and death. Rather, it’s about the plan . . . the rescue plan.

In healthcare we talk about risk management, preparing for the worst, and limiting damage within the context of recognizing the proper rescue plan. These plans include knowing when to abort the current plan and choose another. If Fredrick’s cardiothoracic surgeon had shared with the CVICU nurses and providers his belief that Fredrick’s heart was one of the sickest he had encountered, would it have altered the plan when the pacemaker lost capture? Frederick’s heart was really sick, would I have done anything differently had I known this ahead of time? Most likely not, I knew to follow the plan.

Hospitals and clinics are where people get well, but also it’s where people die. There will always be risks and failures in healthcare. The good news is, when complications arise, there are plans in place to avoid losing a life, to avoid harming a life. A failure isn’t a life lost, it’s recognizing and choosing the right plan when complications arise. It’s knowing when to abort the wrong plan and take a different approach. The skill and competence of the healthcare provider is critical to choosing the right plan but the only failure is the failure to initiate a rescue plan. The real defining moment is the rescue plan. It’s there so we can give folks like Frederick the best possible chance for rescue.

 

 

Lessons Learned Through Practice

At any given time, in just about any hospital in the United States sick people may be unknowingly at the mercy of students: medical residents, surgical residents, nursing students, nurse practitioner students, respiratory therapist students, pharmacy students . . . you name it. It’s not that these students aren’t being supervised, they are, but often from a various distances.

Taking care of real patients is one of the best ways for students to learn because, unfortunately, it requires practice to learn how to take care of sick people. But the practice doesn’t come all at once, there’s a learning curve. Initially it comes with direct supervision and a plethora of questions. Then oversight widens into graduated responsibility and spot checks. This is called deliberate practice and it’s what turns conscious learning into unconscious knowledge. It’s what turns nursing students into nurses and residents into doctors. The reality is this: in medicine the learning curve presents more like a hamster wheel.

Over 20 years ago, I was a nursing student on the med-surg floor at a large teaching hospital. I was assigned a patient I had never met before and paired with a medical resident whom I was to follow and assist. The resident looked about 14-years-old, with shaggy brown hair, yet he assured me he graduated medical school. I followed him into the patient’s room. Without introducing himself, he walked up to the bedside mumbling a vague greeting while grabbing and pulling the sheet covering the patient. The patient screamed at the top of her lungs.

This patient had just completed abdominal surgery two days ago. It is very common to have numerous tubes protruding from the abdomen following these types of surgeries. She had two Jackson-Pratt drains, one T-Tube, and a Foley catheter, not to mention the surgical incision itself. Although the resident had missed the tubes and the incision and no harm was done, with a red face she yelled at him about how easily one of the tubes could have been pulled out by him yanking the sheet off of her.

Although the resident never actually taught me anything, that moment was teachable and memorable because it was a vital lesson for me: do not touch a patient without permission, ever! Needless to say, the emotional impact of the patient’s response is well imprinted on my hypothalamus. She had every right to be upset about the encounter.

I also learned a lot watching the resident attempt to recover from his gaffe. Professionals should immediately own up to their mistakes – lesson learned for me! This resident hee-hawed around a proper apology for some time. He kept trying to explain his actions to the upset patient, instead of immediately apologizing and starting over. The patient would have no part of his excuses (good for her, I say) and for several minutes things escalated because of the poor response of the resident. Trying to explain away your actions or words is never an appropriate response to an upset individual, let alone when that person is your patient. Perhaps this resident just needed more practice with post-surgical patients.

Practice and more practice, that’s what makes a solid medical provider but not at the expense of the patient. Medical ethics and public outcries insist that patients have a right to the best care possible above and beyond the objectives of those in training. However, there are studies that have shown that patients in teaching hospitals have better outcomes than those in non-teaching hospitals. This is likely related to a few differences.

First, students are more eager. They ask more questions and take more time. They are privy to the latest textbooks and research. They are more persistent and willing to spend additional time searching for answers. They haven’t yet lost the thrill of the hunt.

Second, there are just more people paying attention to the patient. The more the disease or condition of the patient is reviewed, the less likely something will be missed.

Patients benefiting from students may be hard to grasp because, when it’s all said and done, patients are the ones who have the most to lose from student mistakes. Mistakes are a part of practicing and practicing is what students do. On the one hand, if there were no students, healthcare would never have any experts. On the other hand, just like the med-surg patient with all the abdominal tubes, someone has to the pay those hefty learning tolls.

Now, twenty-some years later, I’m a student again -- a nurse practitioner student. Thanks to the shaggy-haired resident, I still approach every patient I encounter with an introduction and request for permission to touch them. I make sure the patients know that I’m a nurse practitioner student working with their provider. Practicing the act of medicine as a nurse practitioner student means I’m willing to let my preceptor follow and critique my actions. When the procedure I’ve just completed remains a mystery to me, I’m willing to practice more. I believe it’s not talent that makes a great nurse practitioner it’s the practicing, the consistent reaching for perfection, and the focusing on best outcomes for patients no matter where I am on the hamster wheel.

Healthcare: A Right or a Privilege?

 

Claire was a 14-year-old heart transplant patient and the first night I took care of her she was in full-blown rejection . . . again. Her body had rejected the first heart she received 11 months before. It’s a rare thing for someone so young to be able to have a second transplant regardless of the reason. However, in Claire’s case, the reason for her rejection was known by everyone -- she hated taking medication. I had been a Cardiovascular Pediatric ICU (CVPICU) nurse for about five years but, before I met Claire, hadn’t seriously considered rights or privileges in healthcare.

As I scrubbed in and geared up to enter her isolation room, I couldn’t help thinking about the cost of healthcare when an organ rejects. The expense of an isolation room in the ICU, the disposable gowns, gloves, and masks for every person entering. The specialty-trained doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists. The medications and fluids. The machines and monitoring. And all this times how many days? My head was spinning trying to calculate the cost.

Inside the isolation room I was shrouded in a yellow gown, mask and gloves, but it didn’t dissuade Clair in the least -- she was spirited and talkative, with clear, ebony skin and searching eyes. As we spoke, she seemed to have no idea of the connection between why she was here now in the Pediatric ICU and her refusal to take her medications at home.

By our second night together, Claire was feeling better (the medications were helping) and she was even chattier than the night before. After her mother headed home for the evening, Claire opened up. She hated feeling different from her friends. They didn’t have to take pills every day or stay home from school to rest. They didn’t have to wear face masks in public or eat healthy or go to doctor’s appointments. They didn’t have scars on their chests or trouble eating pizza. All she wanted was to hang out with her friends and go to school, and, above all, she wanted a boyfriend.

Claire smiled as she spoke about hiding pills under her tongue from her mother when she checked her mouth, then spitting them in the toilet. She thought she was particularly cleaver sneaking out of her bedroom window at midnight on Saturday nights to meet up with her friends, even though there were times she felt tired, cold and very alone.

Hearing her stories created struggles inside me. How did someone so unwilling to comply with the strict medication and healthcare regimen end up with a second heart? Wasn’t there someone else in line who was more deserving? More willing? More compliant?

Any discussion of healthcare access must include the inquiry of whether or not there is such a thing as a human right to healthcare services in the first place. It seems that the United States is the only industrialized country in the world still grappling with the question -- I suppose that's because a right makes no distinction between the deserving and the undeserving and this is where we get tripped up. A right doesn’t care if you work or don’t work, if you want healthcare or don’t want healthcare. It doesn't care what current medical condition you face or if your current needs are only preventative. It doesn't care if you take your medication or hide them under your tongue.

Is it possible that rights in healthcare are as much about our responsibilities as they are about our freedoms? No matter what we do in life to take care of our bodies and our health, at some point we will need the assistance of others for our healthcare. Just like someone who is able to maintain their car, they still require the help of others to maintain the roads and bridges. Perhaps the truth is that some privileges can only be obtained through shared costs and collective efforts no matter where you are in the healthcare line. 

One week later, I was wheeling Claire on a cart to the morgue. Her short and spunky life over; her second heart transplant failed. As we went up in the elevator to the seventh floor at 2am, I have to admit I cried for her. But I was also thankful that my colleagues -- doctors and nurses and medical personnel of all sorts -- had been busy working hard the last several decades so that we could be ready for Claire regardless of who she turned out to be: compliant or non-compliant, willing or unwilling, first or last in line. 

It may take several more generations to sort through the questions surrounding the rights and privileges of healthcare in this county, but in the meantime I plan to continue working and studying to close the gap between the first in line and the last in line.

 

Them vs. Us

“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” --Mahatma Gandhi

THE ORANGE STICKER

One afternoon, during my first week as the Admission’s Coordinator for a local home health company, I pulled up in front of a two-story home with a bright orange “Eviction” sticker posted on the front door. I’d been summoned to see a retired high school history teacher who’d lost his left lower leg and two toes on his right foot to diabetes. He was 68-years-old, the size of an eighth grade girl, with blood-dried gauze around his left knee stump, and a handgun peeking out from under his right buttock.

After yelling “come in” from the couch, the next thing out of his mouth when he saw me was a disturbing comment regarding his male anatomy and the shape of my lips. I won’t share the comment but he did manage to be sexist, demeaning, and grotesque in just a few words. As a writer, I could only hope for such brevity of words. I looked at him. I don’t know what I expected. Perhaps an apology? A strange laugh to transition toward the real reason I was there?

He looked away. Now what?

GAPS AND PRINCIPLES

As a nurse for more than 20 years, this wasn’t the first patient to test me. The test was not aimed at my patience but rather my ability to hold on my principles. In nursing, as in the wide scope of medicine, every life is of equal worth – a foundational principle that felt slippery at that particular moment. According to the annual Gallup poll at least 85% of Americans have rated the ‘honesty’ and ‘ethical standards’ of nurses as ‘high’ or ‘very high’ since 1999 (Gallup, 2017).  As the most trusted profession is the United States, the underlying theme of universal human value is paramount within nursing but that doesn’t mean that we always live up to the principle. Every nurse has faced this gap between the reality and the eagerness.

Even though it may seem like it, rarely is humanity completely corrupt or completely honorable. When I walked into Mike’s house that day, the amount of clutter and filth inside the home was outdone only by the sounds of vermin scurrying through the walls.

“They can’t get in,” Mike assured me.

He seemed to have cornered the market on repulsiveness, leaving me struggling to find a single thread of common humanity between the extremes of detestable and honorable. The profession of nursing has earned its badge of trust by nurturing her students to remain nonjudgmental and curious regarding our patients. But sometimes the opportunities to remain neutral and engaged can be hard to recognize, especially when they come with bright orange eviction notices and crude comments.

Nurses who’ve been around long enough have likely witnessed some people getting no or poor care due to any number of reasons -- skin color, lack of money, sexual preference, gender identity, lack of connections, questionable background – and we’ve felt shame for the profession as a whole. In our heads we hold tight to the basic principle that a construction worker and a Fortune 500 president should have equal chances at positive outcomes when facing open heart surgery. This is fundamental to our profession.

CONNECTING THROUGH CARE

My approach with Mike was one of firm curiosity and tolerance. He needed nursing care but it would never work if I didn’t take the time right then to show him were the lines of respect and safety should be drawn for both of us. As I took Mike’s health history and vitals, reviewed his medications, and changed his dressings, I inquired about his concerns and fears. He talked about his fear of losing his other leg and being alone. He talked about his daughter who was staying with him but was taken to jail only last night for throwing a glass at him . . . he had to call the police on her.  He talked and I listened until he willingly handed me his empty gun so I could remove it from the house.

Avoiding the ‘them vs. us’ mentality isn’t always easy. Every person you meet has a malady to discuss, a complaint to make, a history of non-compliance longer than your arm, and another poor life-choice waiting to be made just beyond the clinic door. People can be difficult and frightening, unfriendly and manipulative. And if they’re a safety risk, you walk away. But in the end, when the fight to hang on to your principles ends with a Rocky celebration, you may discover that people can also be charitable, accommodating, thoughtful, and even appreciative. In nursing we have brief but intimate encounters that afford us moments to ask our patients point blank what it’s like to be them, what are their concerns and their fears. We get the privilege of connecting through care because they trust us.

And sometimes they trust us enough to surrender their weapons.

Reference

Gallup. (2017, December 28). Nurses keep healthy lead as most honest, ethical profession. [Press Release]. Retrieved https://bit.ly/2D9jTPV

 

January 9th

Today is my 56th birthday and I am Barium, a chemical element with an atomic number of fifty-six. Barium is soft and silvery, tarnishing easily in air or water. Today I feel I’ve just begun to live -- only to realize there is less life ahead than behind.

On a crisp January 9^th morning several years back, I spun my way through the countless hallways of an extended-care facility until I came to Ray’s apartment. As the Admission’s Coordinator for a small home health company, I was the first nurse Ray would meet after being discharged from the hospital. I was careful to address him as Mr. Kendall and respectfully requested permission to call him Ray. However, I quickly discovered that although he gave me permission to address him as Ray, this did not mean we were on a first name basis.

Five months ago he moved from the home he had shared with his wife of 49 years. After her passing, his health began to decline and a swollen prostate condemned him to monthly catheter changes. There he sat in his brown recliner, in the center of a white-walled room cocooned by everything that had ever meant anything to him—an over-sized curio cabinet with delicate glassware, unopened boxes stacked in piles of threes and fours, two coffee tables scattered with magazines, papers, and photo albums. Against the wall was a small counter top with one sink, a tiny refrigerator, and a windowless corner for a bed. A closet with a door that wouldn’t latch, and a miniature bathroom completed his new home.

At 86 years old, Ray was Radon, a chemical element with an atomic number of 86. Radon is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. A radioactive, noble gas with the ability to heal or kill depending on how it’s used. Ray was a US Veteran, a union pipe fitter, had married his high-school sweetheart, and raised three sons. Although he had his kids late in life, he didn’t retire until all three sons finished college with tuition paid in full. I could see in his eyes, Ray was all too aware that his life had come down to this colorless room, these noble items, and a painful monthly event.

“It hurts every time they change this dang thing. And it won’t be any different with you,” he snapped. Unfortunately, he was right. Getting a catheter past a swollen prostate is awful. He moaned, even screamed at the pain. I observed his suffering with the realization that less than a year ago he had been in relatively good health, living in his own home with his wife. At 86, did he finally have too many days behind him? Had his luck run out?

I cannot say I’ve never felt my own luck had run out. In my 40’s I thought I might die. A diagnosis of cancer and a long tousle with radical surgery and radiation produced more mental trauma than physical leaving me with enough fear to paper the walls of my office. I wish I could say the fear merely pinpointed holes in the “happy to have lived at all” quilt, but that’s just not me. Fear can taint life, turning a noble gas deadly.

Before leaving Ray alone in his crowded room, I asked about his sons. He showed me pictures of them and his grandchildren, all of whom lived out of state. When his face softened, I inquired about his fears as he saw them that day. He had no stories of remorse, nothing he had left undone that haunted him at night, no past regrets. He said most days his mind would dwell on the countdown to the day of the catheter change; he dreaded the pain. But “worse than that,” he looked down at the carpet, “is the loneliness.” Before our goodbye, he pulled from his shirt pocket his most prized possession: a picture of his beautiful wife, taken the day he married her. His eyes twinkled as he clutched the snapshot, his fears and loneliness suddenly absent from the room. 

Perhaps it is just the nature of humans to tarnish a bit when exposed to less life ahead than behind them. 

Fifty-six! I can hardly believe it.

#goredforwomen

 

Equality isn’t an idea, it’s a practice. In the field of health care, it’s a practice we can no longer afford to discount.  The fact is: Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, causing 1 in 3 deaths each year. That’s approximately one woman every minute (Women and Heart Disease Fact Sheet, 2017). We have been in this game long enough to know that heart disease doesn’t affect all women alike, and the warning signs for women aren’t the same in men. What’s more: These facts only begin to scratch the surface.

Regardless of these statistics, only 24% of participants of heart-related research studies are women. In addition, for the last 50+ years, women have been treated for heart disease based on diagnostics created for men. The medical arena, with its legions of intelligent, strong, and nurturing women are in a unique position to promote equality in heart health.

As a women and a healthcare provider, I would like my feministic instincts to do more than decry paternalism toward women in health care. I hope to see more dollars spent in the United States on the treatment of women with heart disease. I hope to see more women participants in heart-related studies. I hope to see more women who know their heart numbers. I hope to see more lives saved.

This February, help the women in your life protect their heart by sharing the KNOW YOUR NUMBERS link from the American Heart Association:  http://bit.ly/2Etgafg   

#goredforwomen

Julie

 

 

References

Women and Heart Disease Fact Sheet. (2017, August 17). Retrieved from  http://bit.ly/2igX4RL.

 

Your Witness

Something in the urgency of life
Something about the unspeakable touches
Something about a needed word
Makes me a witness of your worth

Something in the cloud cover of our days
Something about being your twin heart
Something about coloring our passion
Makes me a witness to your soul

Clever and cuddly
Winsome and witty
Talented and true

Something in the merge-able moments we share
Something about the oceans we’ve yet to cross
Something about our timeless love
Makes me a witness to your heart

Cake and Death

 

 

When love comes, one can forecast

That cake will be the next thing to find.
Because it is plentiful and sweet,
Cementing the mysterious meet,
Hiding you together behind its blind.

When love develops, one may splurge on
A cake for two . . . or one hundred and two
Because it treats both our lips
Leading to a heart eclipse
Ushering in love’s stately debut.

When love happens, one never expects
That cake will be the thing to regret.
Because it fills the hole,
Creating a punch bowl,
Making you turn away the baguette.

When love retreats, one can only hope
That death will be as tasty as the cake
Because it moves with unmatched melancholy
Perusing the path of the last trip trolley
Toasting our end without heat or mistake

Sit. Knit. Cope.

Sit. Knit. Cope.

An Essay by Julie Webb

Last year, I received a diagnosis of breast cancer.  I had no idea what I was in for. No one does.  No one tells you that it isn’t the diagnosis that gets to you; realizing the big ‘C’ has his grip around your throat is now a fact of life that is out of your hands. What is in your hands---or rather on your needles---is learning how to live with it.

                The first several weeks, you’re recuperating from shock, bad dreams and late-night pity parties.  Your world becomes very small and self-absorbed; you’re living inside the Fun House at the carnival. There are walls, but they’re moving. There are windows, but you can’t see out. There’s a fluorescent bulb glaring on your new world screaming “pay attention, this is serious”. You can’t help but look back to catch a glimpse of your old life . . . just as it blacks out and goes limp. Your body, perhaps painful and still plotting against you, trumps all. You must find a way through this; you must survive.

                You will cope. You will learn skills to cope.  I had to learn a skill to cope. I had to practice coping. I picked up a pair of knitting needles. I fondled a ball of wool. There was no end to the coping; I needed to know that I was still valuable, that I could still contribute to this crazy world, that there were people out there who were glad that I was coping . . . even if that meant knitting.

                In response to all that coping, I got a sweet demonstration of one of life’s best blessings: giving is better than receiving. I practiced the knit stitch on size ten needles with a ball of chunky weight. My youngest daughter hovered nearby, precious and sacred, observing as my coping produced an ordinary scarf. She soon had it around her neck.

               I tussled through a knit two, purl two pattern with a hank of fisherman’s wool, the tasty oatmeal color pleasing my senses. My oldest daughter came home for a visit from college, claiming the patterned scarf and I understood, for the first time, what it must have felt for her to think that I might be at home, lifeless and meek letting ‘C’s grip press the final ebb and flow of life from my body.

                I worked my first cable stitch with a medium weight colorway of dark blues, rich oranges and bright reds. It made me think of the forest floor on an autumn afternoon; that familiar place I’d run off to after school too long ago. It felt good having an excuse to let my thoughts reverse time for a while each day. I had chosen a vivid yellow cable needle and relished each moment of slipping the next three stitches, passing the needle to the back, knitting the next three stitches from my needles and at last knitting the gorgeous colorway off of the cable needle. It sounds tedious now; I’ve discovered that most knitters hate using a cable needle, too time consuming.  But handling the daybreak-bright cable needle in the middle of every row was the articulation of symmetry that my soul craved.  That scarf was the perfect Christmas gift for my sister.

                Through the strains and turmoil of doctor visits and blood tests, I needed something more.  I found just the right pattern: an entrelac stole made from the most lavish yarn I had yet to invest in. I decided to pour my being into this project, purchasing not only the luxurious wool but new needles that I had spent costly time lusting after. The splurge freshened my spirit.  I had learned the knit stitch, the purl stitch and the cable stitch, I was ready. I signed up for the class. I was the only student.

                “You want to make the entrelac stole, huh? How long you been knitting,”

                “A few months,” I wonder now if I should have lied---“ a few years” may have softened her heart.

                “You ever knitted entrelac before?”

                “No.”

                “You’ve got your own book with the pattern, don’t you?”

                I pulled out the book, opening it to the right page.

                The women, whose skin was the color of Christmas peanut brittle, began slapping papers around and tossing hanks of yarn into bins, “I’m the last one here. It’s six o’clock, time to close the shop. Start casting on, I’ll be right with you.”

                As I began to cast on, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was having a rotten day or maybe, like me, it had been an especially tough year.

                When she came back to the table, she brought her finished entrelac stole and whooshed it out across the table, the tilted squares bending perfectly into each other. My breath tripped over my awe.

                “That’s beautiful,” I said, tentatively outlining the edges of a few of the diamond shapes with my finger.

                “I made it for me. It’s all mine.” That matter settled, she rubbed an open palm over the surface of her stole. “ Who you making yours for?”

                  I shrugged, looking up at her as she pulled it around herself in an audacious display of visceral confidence.

                “It’s too much work for a daughter-in-law. Make it for yourself or . . . maybe your own daughter. But no one else.”

                That’s when it hit me. So far I had given away almost everything I had made. Of course I could make something for myself. Something elegant and superb. That stole was her piece of splendor in this world, a glaring suspension of cellophane wrapping her intentions in crystal-clear passion. And it was ok. All I had wanted was a way to cope. All I had needed was to learn to knit, ascertaining comfort from each stitch and every project. But maybe, real coping has less to do with the motions and more to do with the motivation.

                “You ready to get started?” She interrupted my thoughts.

                I nodded.

                “Let me help you make something worth keeping.”

 

THE DISTURBED PERSON

This piece was writen several years ago. It is an attempt to honor and imitate the late writer David Foster Wallace.

Wallace was an amazing talent whose work continues to speak with vivid freshness to all who dare to bite off chunks and slurp down the flesh and blood of life exactly as Wallace experienced it.

THE DISTURBED PERSON

By Julie Webb

The disturbed person was in a ridiculously rigid amount of emotional turmoil. The pain was so paramount within her it was unexplainable and the impossibility of sharing the depth of it contributed exponentially to the horror of experiencing it.

Although those around her disagreed, withdrawing was her only hope of sanity. Because it was within where she discovered that being able to express even a tiny portion of this pain – the stench of it, the rattling and the filth, its deformed posture – could perhaps lessen the distressing pressure of it upon her soul. Thus, the disturbed person opted to record the pain, locking the feelings as best she could onto the page with words.

The disturbed person began, not at the beginning with a childhood that floated through her life unrecognized, nor with the distracting and mistake-burdened life she had lived thus far, but rather with today – the awkward weight of others in her life, more specifically, the mix of persons her counselor named as her Support System, which consisted of those closest to the disturbed person who are undisturbed themselves: family, a psychiatrist, the counselor himself. They are undamaged people who regard the disturbed person as stoutly afflicted and broken, often taking in the disturbed person through a long gaze of sadness and pity. Regardless they were well-chosen, an honorable group. They were available to help the disturbed person gain perspective and find her footing during the slippery moments. The disturbed person was always careful to apologize to the group for dragging them down, for the despair that swung in their heads after talking with her, for the inward self-pitying and boringness of herself that she shared. The group often functioned in unison, “How are you?” and always responded warmly when the disturbed person’s reaction was less profound, less intense, when it could be experienced by the group as a passing surface tension, controlled and distant.  But on those rare occasions when the disturbed person pulled back the curtain of her soul revealing the true expanse of her depression along with the intensity of vexations that haunted her, the group, being human and fragile themselves, wore a collective expression of repulsiveness, frequently retreating quickly to their vibrant, long-distance lives for refuge.

The disturbed person learned to be very careful about the dealing, the sharing, the distribution of her internal, disturbed self. Although she believed with all her heart that any of the persons in the group could themselves become victims of this disturbance given the right recipe of life and mix of mind, not once did she wish the pain upon them just so that they could enter into a greater understanding of it, and thus become comrades with her, falling into step among the remote areas of disturbance where she resided.

The feelings of shame and inadequacy the disturbed person felt when talking with the group about her burdens, her clumsy attempts at forward steps, or the swelling emotional agony that bloated her insides, often left her exhausted. The disturbed person found it difficult to communicate with anyone, even her counselor, about how devastating it was to have her fingers clinging to the pant cuffs of the group, how horribly isolating it was for her to sense helplessness within the group’s long silences, to feel the anguish within their encouraging clichés, or to see within their wincing reactions that she was a joyless burden. 

The disturbed person herself often recoiled upon contemplating the amount of detailed, emotional pandemonium she had revealed to her counselor and her doctor. Although she was always trying to explain how hopelessly insecure, how devastatingly pathetic she knew herself to be, it was never truly recognized by either of them. This caused increasing anxiety within the disturbed person that carried over from session to session. The disturbed person often felt urgent about righting the wrongs within herself, as if time was running out and the clock would stop and she would be left with a legacy so despicable -- tainted with faceless monsters and sudden despair and the drumming of clutter inside her head, irreversible damage, permanent injuries.

Although the disturbed person couldn’t imagine a day when not needing her counselor could be a reality, she would often implore him to halt the sessions, to stop the constant revelations of ugly truths that constructed her inner world. She knew deep inside that the downward spiral of her being ensured the conclusion of her life, and knew there was no point in prolonging it. Many months ago, this level of deprivation had required that the disturbed person cross the threshold into the world of antidepressants. She swallowed the pink and white pills daily knowing that they would leave her suitable for nothing more than curious observation, demoting her to some mental, misshapen oddity that would have no choice but to fall into the bowels of existence, remote and alone.

On the day when her will was at its weakest and her spine grieved at its lowest point, she became frozen and discouraged. While facing the reality of deformity and mutilation, of becoming a freak with no idea of who she was anymore, the disturbed person figured that the only way to endure the guilt and hopelessness of the position she now found herself in was to go deeper within herself. She had grown weary of her shattered emotions -- traumatized, wicked and embarrassing -- infected with transparent reflection. And although she had always feared abandonment – a feeling she loathed – she resigned herself to the fact that life had finally succeeded in executing her spirit leaving her relinquished and unable to respond.

The disturbed person obliged to the group and indebted to the counselor and the doctor, had no choice but to continue turning inward day after day, secretly feeling the contempt, the judgment, the repulsion that surrounded her life – all of this contributing to the excruciating pain of being disturbed. Having been rendered voiceless by life itself, she could only dream of asking the group sincerely, honestly, desperately what was wrong with her. She didn’t want assessment or reassurance, but rather a no-holds explanation to the soundless hell she existed in. But she knew they didn’t have answers. They themselves being undisturbed, couldn’t possibly explain how far-reaching the crashing pain, the mass of dripping wounds or the termination of hope could feel. The disturbed person, therefore, urging herself to do what she could to ease the loneliness, tucked her true self inside herself, closed the doors and windows of her soul and waited, knowing that only in the grave she could become undisturbed.

The Dance

2011 Blue Ridge Mountain Writers Conference FLASH FICTION First Place Winner by Julie Webb

 

“How will we get home?” I asked. 

Huddled and still on a stripped mattress, tucked into the curves of my mother's body, I felt lost in the Cambodian countryside. 

She would pull me closer and begin humming in a lazy way. With her song strolling through my mind, my heart could feel the familiar swell of the bongs and the clicking of the cymbals. With my eyes closed, I could see the flow, the color of time and the scent of sweet rhythm as it pushed and pulled my mother from one movement to the next. Even in my thoughts, she was the most beautiful dancer I had ever seen.

It was the civil war that changed things for us. I remember the week before my twelfth birthday -- April 1975 -- when the Khmer Rouge took over, closing the university and forcing all of Phnom Penh's residents out of the city. 

I heard my father talking in the dark that the Khmer Rouge promised not to murder any former government officials. But my mother was not so trusting and wasn't quiet about it. Besides, she argued, every palace dancer is leaving. She was convinced that her association with royal traditions would get all of us executed.

Some of the dancers and musicians went as far as crossing into Thai, but our family found underground refuge in the northeast Cambodian countryside near my father’s cousin. I felt pinched between the greenish-blue forests that grew under and around us and the abandoned outbuilding we hid inside day after day.  In the evenings, with the sun almost out of sight, my mother would coax me out of hiding into the center of the room. Her throat would swell with song.

Lifting my arm in a gentle sway above my head and arcing my body to one side, she would whisper in my ear. “The wishes and prayers of the king and his country are inside this dance. Feel it here, my little one.” 

As she patted my chest, I could feel the pride of each bend and the authority of each bow as it affirmed the connection between earth and heaven, between mother and daughter, between past and present.

“This dance must never be lost, Jorani. It belongs to all of Cambodia. It is not ours alone."  

And when we finished, I would ask, “But how will we get home?”

Tall and Whiskered

A study in second person narrative. By Julie Nyhus.

He is tall and whiskered, with the sort of masculinity that has cutting edges and sharp lines. He opens doors, reaching in front of you with a smile, happy to do it again and again. His arms are solid and hard, but feel like comfort around you. And when you cry, he is awkward and strange but doesn’t turn away. And it is then that his arms do what his words cannot: reinforce the lack of distance between you.

When you’re teetering on reality and feeling like someone who stands outside a drug store all day smoking cigarettes, he’s still there when you come home. And you look at him with question marks dripping from your eyes and you want to ask, you want to know why he’s still here. But you don’t ask. You swallow the fear of not knowing if he’ll stay and you concentrate on the scent of his nearness and the cadence in his voice.

And when you see him across the room, his head nodding in time with his friends and his capable frame shifting his stance from foot to foot, you smile at his laughter and you wonder if he thinks of you the way you think of him, with warmth and desire, with thoughts that make his mind race and his heart quicken. And you consider for a moment the weight of the pain should you ever discover that he doesn’t. And as the stabbing sensation loosens your senses, you step backward. You retreat even though you’re screaming inside yourself: don’t withdraw. Then he looks over at you, marking you with a solid gaze as if you belong to him, as if there could be no other in the world for him but you. It stops the retreat. But not the stabbing.

At those times when he takes you away for the weekend, you go willingly. You visit restaurants with dead fish on the walls, you drink beer and talk about how expensive everything is here. Somewhere between the haze of noise and the buzz of the alcohol, you know you should tell him you can’t do this anymore. But instead you nod and drink another beer while he tells you of his global excursions and his finished girlfriends.

And when you leave the bar, all of that stays stuck between you but you’re not sure why. Later that night in bed he loves you and each touch makes you feel like a stranger in a foreign land as excitement mixes with all that is still unknown in him. And you try desperately to figure it out, this pull of distress that is weighing on you. And when he turns over on his side and tucks his arm beneath his head, you say, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Why not?” He asks, slanting his brows to attention.

And in a split second you decide that he should never know that there are days when you’re riding the train and you’re straining to remember the last time he said he loved you, but you can’t recall and so another fear deposits itself into the soles of your feet. And before the train stops you’ve realized instead that when he talks of politics, you think of romance. And when he watches football, you think of marriage. And when he cooks dinner, you think of leaving.

Instead you say, “I’ll have my things out by the end of the month.”

And after your belongings are packed, you forget to mention that the movers are scheduled for that morning. And he comes home for lunch and when he sees the truck he asks you if you’re sure you want to do this. You look up at him, plunging into the warmth of his dark eyes once more and you tell him again that you can’t do this. Do what? He questions. I need to feel safe. I need to feel loved. You struggle with the invisible truths that sit between you. But again, leave them tucked away.

He shakes his head as he wraps his hand behind his neck and rubs it back and forth. It sounds like a dog scratching and you wonder if he’s ever really loved you. You think back to the beginning of you and him. Your mind wanders in and out, following the weave of moments that created a false sense of we. The time he looked away first, then pulled you tight against his chest. The day he forgot your middle name, so he made up a new one. The little things that didn’t mean much to him then or now.

And as his head stops shaking and his scratching hand returns to his side, you step closer and say I’m sorry, because you can see the pain pulling at the corners of his mouth. And you question for a split second if you’re doing the right thing but you know inside there’s no going back. So you look up at him, tall and whiskered, and you pull every detail of him into your mind one last time daring not to breathe in the chemistry of him as the wrong type of quiet settles between you. And when suddenly his form breaks, you see that your closeness is nothing but a slapping farewell. He steps away, retreating out the door. And you leave with the moving truck.

More Than

By Julie Nyhus 

What I wanted was to move my body
Beyond the frail routine of life
To a place high above
Radiated help
Away from the idea
Of cancer.

But I could wait, I learned,
For treatment and time
To maneuver my disease.
Folding it over, splitting it in two
Creating
Tilting digits and diagrams
Of cancer.

Though I developed a great capacity of mind,
I was fearful of the scraping and scaring.
Of the lengthy symptoms that idled my days,
Of becoming chronically scant
And rolled up tight.

What I wanted was to move my self
Beyond the blended side of misery
Further along the typical
Trail of hope
Far away from the aim
Of cancer.

But I learned in waiting
For needles and pills
To decorate my body.
Coaxing remission, inviting release
Revealing
I am more than a diagnosis
Of cancer.

his triumph

by julie webb

 

love asked me:

see the castle we built from sand? 

i told love, we built it with the power of our own hands.

love asked:

see the chariot we race through time?

i replied to love, we thought it better not to climb.

love queried:

see the swords we swing around us?

I said to love, it is his triumph.

 

love shook his head, bowing to me

turned away, taking his key

wait, i called, scared of his drifting side

love halted, turning on his heel

lifting his head, ready to hear.

 

i strained toward love:

you are the tangled mass i unravel each day

you are the lightening that sparks my way

you are the weight that drowns my fire

you are the unexpected flavor that fuels my desire

 

love stepped in close and whispered this time, 

do you see the swords we swing around us? 

I said to love, it is his triumph.

“We are all failures- at least the best of us are.”
― J.M. Barrie

I Told Him

by Julie Webb

 

I Told Him

I Told Him Everything

how i peeled the wind from around my shoulders

how i scrapped the droplets from atop my head

how i doused the wisp of light that warmed my life

to see before me someone new

awake

alert

and marveling

at who she is

and what she knows

and how she could be brave enough

To Tell Him

To Tell Him Everything

A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

by Julie Webb

 

According to Successconsciousness.com, a few ways that a positive attitude is manifest are through positive thinking, optimism, not giving up, having purpose, and thinking accurately. 

To fully appreciate how to define a positive attitude, it’s helpful to explore the some of the elements that create a positive attitude.

 

Positive Thinking

Self-talk, according to Mayo Clinic, is the stream of thoughts that course through our minds every day. These unbidden thoughts can be negative or positive, contributing to a positive or a negative attitude. Some self-talk comes from the areas of logic and reason within the mind; other portions of self-talk are robed in misconceptions due to lack of or wrong information. Negative thoughts will lead to a pessimistic outlook or negative attitude. Positive thinking will lead to optimism or a positive attitude.

 

Optimism

Do you see the glass as half full or half empty? Answering this question will help you understand the realm of optimism. Your point of view allows you to look for solutions to the problems or look for reasons that the problems cannot be solved. Optimism says “there is a way to solve this problem; I just haven’t found it yet.” A positive mind will find the way to get it done; a negative mind looks for ways it cannot be done.

 

Not Giving Up

Bad things happen to everyone, but we get to choose the response to everything that happens. Success in achieving your goals is not always realized instantly, but having faith in the outcome can make a difference. The Napoleon Hill Foundation says that faith is the awareness of and belief in the universal powers, an active state of mind that will not bring you what you desire but rather show you how to go after it for yourself.

 

Purpose

You are in charge of your destiny – no one else! Success and progress to achieve your goals in life begin and end in knowing yourself and where you are going. What are your burning desires? What ideas and plans dominate your thinking and hold your consciousness captive? According to the Napoleon Hill Foundation, the starting point for full achievement is the development of a life purpose. Your purpose, when lived out in your conscious mind through repeated emotional efforts can be taken over by the subconscious and acted upon by the thoughts which turn to actions which turn to results.

 

Thinking Accurately

Your thoughts have the power to direct your actions and your actions have the power to determine the course of your life. A positive attitude allows you the choice to rid yourself of thoughts that damage your mind and gather thoughts to yourself that empower you – this allows you to control your emotions. You do not have to allow any thoughts – political, religious, opinion, etc. – until they have been analyzed and accepted by you. Persons who think accurately will separate the facts of information they receive into two groups: important and unimportant.

Although one cannot find a definition for ‘positive attitude’ in a dictionary, the Napoleon Hill Foundation says that a positive mental attitude in the right mental attitude in any given situation.

 

 

MEETING

by Julie Webb

 

When I met you, it wasn’t just two people meeting.

The size of our hello 

Like a snap of thunder

Sent us sprawling

And spinning

Sweltering for more.

 

When we met, it wasn’t just two bodies feeling.

The sounds of your smile

Like a lamppost switching on

Swallowed our hearts

Suspending 

and shaping

the seconds that followed.

 

Everything

was familiar

Everything

was strange

Everything 

in time and space

slurred

and stung

slaying our souls.

 

When I met you, it wasn’t just two lovers moving.

The simple splashing of our hearts into each other

Like two clouds melting into one

Surfaced things we still don’t know

Stiffening

and scooping

out the essence of us.

 

So now I bend in close

To this meeting of ours

Near enough that

Breath doesn’t know

Which mouth to fill.

 

A FEW WORDS TO THE NEWCOMER

by Julie Webb

Welcome to this place. We all want you to know that you will be happy here, even though happiness is not always rolling around in the hallways.

We know you have sacrificed much to be here and we would ask no less of you.

We know that every time you come to this place you will be asked to give more and more of yourself.

We know that there will be days when you’ll have to set aside your own turmoil to be in this place, while this place will cause its own turmoil for you.

We know that some days you will do a great job and on other days you will have done only your best.

We know that you’ll be helped, watched and ignored in this place—never all at once and not always on purpose.

We know that there will be times when you’ll be the first one to show up and the last one to leave this place.

We know that some days you’ll be asked to do it ALL by yourself and then you’ll have to let it go.

We know you’ve come here with your own set of priorities—–we’ll exchange most of them for you.

We know you will have many questions about this place and this place will create even more.

We know that some things that happen in this place cannot always be fixed but can always be forgiven.

We know this place will stretch you, change you and challenge every thought you ever had.

We know that we have a lot of faith in you, even though your faith in yourself has not yet bloomed.

We know that sometimes you will feel powerless in this place, but know that by being here you are a part of something powerful.

We know that one day when you step away from this place, you will no longer be a newcomer here.

We know that what brought you to this place—is what will keep you in this place.

Welcome to parenthood, we’re so glad you could join us.

 

 

 

How To Assess Pain in Breast Cancer

After a diagnosis of breast cancer, every pain is alarming. Knowing the difference between cancer and non-cancer pain can aid you in understanding what to do.

Metastatic breast cancer (advanced, stage IV) is where cells travel beyond breast tissue and lymph nodes to other areas of the body, growing and multiplying there. All breast cancer has the potential to spread to other body parts. The most common regions of metastasis are bone, lung and liver.

When cancer has spread, experiencing pain is common, and further evaluation is crucial.

      First Steps

      Metastatic disease is frightening. Every twitch and ache can send your imagination into overdrive. Do not prolong the anxiety. It's important to ease your mind and validate your concerns. Discuss any changes in your breasts or body and all new or persistent pain with your doctor. Be prepared to provide details: when did the pain begin, where is it located, is it constant or intermittent? This information will help your practitioner decipher the cause, which is the first step to treatment and peace of mind.

      Breast Pain

      Only about 10 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer experience breast pain as a symptom. However, you may experience moderate to severe pain due to inflammatory breast cancer--cancer in the skin around the tumor. Pain may also arise from a tumor-related ulcer or sore in the skin of the breast. If you do experience breast pain and it gets worse, see your doctor.

      Skeletal Pain

      All bones can host cancer cells. If cancer has spread to the bones, it may surface as back pain or hip pain. The pain may initially be dull and infrequent, and worsen in time. Spinal cord involvement may show up as severe or radiating back pain with arm/leg weakness.

      Visceral Pain

      When cancer affects the internal organs the surrounding soft tissues may become painful. For metastasis to the lungs or adrenal glands pain may present as chest pain or a dull ache in the back. If the liver becomes infected, pain may begin in the upper right abdominal area.

      Other Causes of Pain

      At times, cancer treatment can cause pain. For example, radiation or hormone therapy for bone metastasis can cause the cancer to temporarily swell, putting pressure on the bone's nerve supply. Additionally, surgery, chemotherapy, recovery or even non-cancerous breast changes (i.e. fibrocystic tissue changes, hormonal changes, or infection) can cause pain.

 

A Delicate Join

by Julie Webb

 

You ask how I can know if there should be

a you and me . . . an us . . . 

 

You spin and drift, you untangle my soul

Then place doubt inside each part.

 

Such deep silence

Between our bodies

Have you ever heard such a noise?

 

Such heavy longing

Between our hearts

Have you ever felt so flimsy and frail?

 

You say love is a struggling turn

A place floating with aching moments

 

You say this is how falling should be 

The slow crashing of you into me

 

I look in your eyes, you hold your breath

Can you trust were this goes next?

 

You scrub the light to make it brighter

You move the puddles to make a shore

 

And like a chain of corners that turn and bend,

Your love for me is a delicate join. 

I Don't Know

by Julie Webb

 

I don’t know where love goes

or what it does to those who find it.

 

The friction of discovering may not be worth

the taste of knowing

 

And yet . . .

 

The act of leaning into it

is a brave tendency

no doubt

on the forefront of fright

and a citadel of both 

 

But then . . .

 

I don’t want to miss where love goes

or lose out on what it offers those who find it.

 

The oppression of aching may alter

the next longing 

 

And yet . . .

 

That brilliant moment when love breaks in

Can’t be ignored

shortened

or dismissed

 

When it unravels a heart so gently

Discharging fear and pain

When it reaches inside so quickly

Wiping a soul of stains

 

It’s then I believe I know where love goes

And what it does to those who find it.

 

And yet . . .

 

The risk of love remains large and looming

Diminishing what I see

 

 And once again . . .

 

 I don’t know where love goes

or what it does to those who find it.

 

Lauren and The Star

I wrote this story for my oldest daughter, Lauren, when she was 9 years old.

by Julie Webb

 

One snowy Christmas Eve, Lauren opened her eyes, a noise had woke her up.  The glow from her small Christmas tree chased away the shadows as she looked around her bedroom.

Was it Christmas morning, she wondered? Or was that Santa she’d heard?  No, it couldn’t be, there’s no such thing as Santa, she remembered.

She heard a noise at the window.  She went over to take a closer look.

Lauren pulled back the curtain and there, smashed against the windowpane, was a star.

She opened the window and asked, “Are you hurt, little guy?”

Then, without warning, the star dropped onto the windowsill with a tiny thud.  He sat up onto a crumpled point.  

“Oh my aching points,” the teeny star moaned.  He looked up at Lauren.

She thought he was rather dull looking for a star.  There were no glittering beams shooting from his five points.

“Could you help me, please?” He pleaded.

Lauren gently gathered the star in her hands and sat down on the carpet.

“What happened?  She cuddled him to her.  She wanted to smooth his hurting points but rocked him instead.

“I fell,” he said.  “Just look at me.  How will I ever get home now?”

Lauren thought she saw tears in his eyes.  “Don’t worry.  I’ll help you.”

“But how?”  The star stretched his points with a sigh.

“I’ll lift you up high, really high, so you can fly back up,” Lauren said.

“I can’t fly.  The long fall burnt up all of my twinkle,” he explained.

“How do you get more twinkle?”  Lauren asked.

The star thought for a moment.  “I don’t know.  I’ve never lost it before.”

“Maybe you need a good nights sleep to get your twinkle back,” Lauren suggested.

“Maybe, yes, but I just woke up a while ago.  I’m not sleepy.  Stars stay awake all night you know.”  The star shook his points trying to arrange them.

“Maybe you need a sandwich and a glass of milk.  That always helps me,” Lauren said.

“Stars don’t eat,” he answered.  “But thanks for trying.”
The star slouched deeper into Lauren’s palm.  She could barely feed him.  It felt like he was fading away.

Lauren frowned.  She looked around her room.

“I know!”  She exclaimed and jumped to her feet.

She ran over to her Christmas tree and held her little friend in the stream of its shimmering lights.

The star squinted and squirmed.  Lauren felt his points press into her hands like the claws of a tiny kitten.

“It’s working,” she proclaimed with a smile.  “I can feel your points straightening.”

“What are you doing?”  The star asked, his eyes closed against the glistening tinsel of the Christmas tree.

“I’m sharing some twinkle with you,” she explained.

Lauren unplugged her Christmas tree.  “Let’s see if it works.”

Her room brightened.  A gleam flashed through her fingers, flaring in every direction.  Glints of light beams fell to the carpet and onto her nightgown.

“You did it!”  The star shouted, proudly stiffening his points.  “Thank you.  Oh, thank you.”

Lauren opened her window again and lifted the star to the sky.  She felt him flutter, ready to take off.

“Wait,” she pulled him to her.  “What made you fall?”

“It’s Christmas Eve and . . .” the star paused and his cheeks glowed.  “And I wanted to see Santa Clause.  But I got too close to the sleigh.”

“Santa Clause?”  Lauren’s eyes sparkled.

Then in one gleaming streak the star blazed toward home.

 

Zinc – The Unexpected Antioxidant

Worried about getting enough zinc in your diet? No? Maybe you should be. 

 Without zinc humans would be unable to perform over 300 metabolic functions within the body. Zinc is a trace mineral that is essential to all forms of life; it is found in every tissue and organ in the human body. As far back as 1991, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported the link between severe zinc deficiencies and impaired immune function.1

 Now, the Institute of Immunology in Germany claims that “even marginal zinc deprivation can affect immune function.”2  Recent studies indicate that zinc is required for cell-mediated immunity. In addition, a zinc deficiency can impair multiple aspects of immune function including specific immune components such as lymphyocytes, monocytes, macrophages, neutrophils, and natural killer cells – the body’s front-line of defense against disease and sickness.

 Symptoms of zinc deficiency include loss of appetite, poor growth, weight loss, lack of taste or smell, poor wound healing, skin problems, hair loss, night blindness, white spots on the fingernails, lack of menstrual period, and depression. But since even a minor zinc deficit can disrupt the ability of the immune system to protect the body before symptoms surface, it can be hard to discover the lack. Blood tests are used to measure zinc levels, however, according to Penn State Live, only severe zinc deficiencies will show up in blood tests.3 

 Zinc is an essential mineral, provided to the body through the foods we eat. But it can be supplemented; it is recommended that adults take 8 to 11 mg. of zinc daily. However, to increase the amount of zinc in your diet you can soak beans, grains or seeds in water for several hours prior to cooking them. Sprouting allows for increased bioavailability of zinc. Empowering your immune system with this unlikely antioxidant is really nothing to worry about after all.

 

Eating Disorders

Does your teen know there are more than two types of eating disorders? Mine didn’t.

When she asked after school one day if there were any other eating disorders besides anorexia and bulimia, my ears perked up. Hmm, I thought: overwhelm her with health facts? Or cut off a small cube of information to whet her appetite?

The cube approach won. 

 “Yes,” I assured her, “there are more eating disorders than starving yourself or binging followed by purging.”

 “Like what?”

Hmm, when she asked about Santa Clause I simply followed her lead. It worked then, it should work now.

“Like binge eating or over eating, both of which do not include vomiting. And there’s not eating in the morning and then binge eating or overeating at night, that’s called night eating. And then there’s fixating on certain foods and eating only those foods. But that goes way beyond just being a picky eater. And some eating disorders involve exercise routines that get out of balance.”

 “That’s all, right?”

 “Usually, when someone is struggling with thoughts, feelings, or behaviors concerning food or eating, it helps when they can talk to someone who can help them figure out what’s going on. Like a parent, a teacher, a doctor or nurse.”

 She was silent, staring at her cell phone in her hands.

 “Does that answer your question?” I asked.

“Then you don’t have to be really skinny to have an eating disorder?” She began poking at her phone.

 “Nope. You sure don't.”

 She swung her legs, jumping off the counter top where she had been sitting. I could hear her on her phone as she headed back to her bedroom.

 “Hey, Maranda. Remember what we were talking about today? The eating thing that's been bothering you?”

 I couldn’t stop the tears choking my throat. My little girl wasn't so little anymore. 

 

New Short Story --- Losing Myself

by Julie Webb

There is something, anyway, in getting through the day without losing my mind. It is a rumination I often calm myself with, letting it stab my insides over and over until I eventually relax into it.

And now, I didn’t even care that the day wasn’t over yet, I let the rumination begin. After closing the door behind the last client, my hand gravitated to the back of my head. The familiar feeling of muscles bulging and bobbing with tension beneath the nylons of my neck and shoulders confirmed that I needed to let the words swirl through my body. Yet, what’s intriguing, but unknown to everyone else, is how the life I’ve chosen is of the substitution-of-one-crutch-for-another variety. Every evening I can feel that truth afresh, lying deep in the sinews of my muscles as I repeat, there is something in getting through the day without losing your mind, Andy.

I checked the clock: twenty-three minutes until my next client. One more appointment and I’d be done for the day.

I lay down on the couch in my office. The brown leather couch that every client thinks is reserved for them alone. I wondered what Marge would think of my lying down here where she sits, cycling through her thoughts with a droning voice that tries to rock me to sleep each Friday. My weekly meetings with Marge always left me sad, terribly sad. Although we’ve never discussed it, we both know there is nothing more I can do for her. After thirteen months in therapy, we are past sharing an understanding nod or a sympathetic look that might bring comfort. We are past the transference, the projection and the dependence.

In today’s session she had said, “I am forty-nine years old. I have been seeing psychiatrists and therapists since I was thirteen. I’ll probably never get married. I’ll never have children. I am a misfit. I am alone. I have no talents and no special skills. I will always work in a menial job and will always be poor, spending the majority of my paycheck on psychiatric care.”

She paused, looking straight into my eyes, as if daring me to challenge her. I stared back, unblinking, toying with the idea of ignoring what I was truly feeling in that moment: shame. Not shame because I was calloused toward her litany, rather, shame because I agreed with her.

I thought about Marge, the two Marge’s -- Marge the woman and Marge the idea.  She often shared the idea of who she could have been and what she would have become if only her father hadn’t . . .

I shook my head, relieving it of the heavy thoughts of Marge and looked at my watch. I had seventeen minutes until my new client. A young man who sounded desperate with agony on the phone yesterday. He is of the generation who interviews prospective therapeutic relationships prior to committing. He left a message with my receptionist that he wanted to talk with the doctor before making an appointment. Even though the conversation lasted for less than ten minutes, he agreed to come and see me. Ah, the encounter. The very heart of psychotherapy. Where the deeply human meeting of two individuals results, ideally, in an authentic experience that provides some level of comfort for both. Too bad the rudimentary reality is that as I bear witness to my client’s lives, I am more likely to be constantly improvising and groping for direction and too often wobbling for balance. Regardless, I changed the mantra playing in the background of my head from getting through the day without losing my mind to a more positive one: it’s the relationship that heals, it’s the relationship that heals, it’s the relationship that heals. I truly believed this and let the words drift through me.

As I was taking in some deep breaths, I heard the outer door open and close. It was Fred, I was sure. I sat up. He was seven minutes early. That’s a good sign. Or was it? 

I rose from the couch and straightened my tie, then straightened some of the paperwork on my desk, then straightened my glasses. I need to get a screen to separate my desk from the counseling area. I had thought about it numerous times, but have never acted on it. I wondered why, then went out into the waiting room to get Fred.

In the waiting area, my receptionist was shrugging on her fuzzy, white coat as Fred stood to greet me.

“Leaving early today, boss. Remember?” She asked.

“I do. Thanks, Rae. See you on Monday.”

I extended my hand to Fred and shared some pleasantries about how it was good to meet him. I locked the door behind Rae, then smiled at Fred, explaining that he was my last client of the day and I didn’t want anyone to disturb us during our time together. He remained quiet on the way to my office. I motioned for him to sit on the couch as I lowered myself into my black chair. 

He unbuttoned, but didn’t remove, his coat as he positioned himself like a stick figure onto the end of the couch. Fred stared at me. His hair was perfectly trimmed around his ears and combed neatly. His plaid shirt appeared crisp beneath the heavy leather coat. It distracted me for a moment. Then, when I realized he wasn’t talking, I decided to take the lead. “So, what’s on your mind?”

“I broke up with my girlfriend last week. We were together for almost two years.” He rubbed his open palms on the top of his thighs, looking at me, perhaps waiting for a response.

“That must have been very difficult for you. Would you be willing to tell me about it? Like, what led to the breakup?”

He stared at me, then blinked and dropped his gaze to his hands and began rubbing them harder against his legs.

I waited.

“She killed our baby.” His words landed heavy on the floor between us.

Something caught inside me. “How . . . um.” I cleared my throat. “How did she do that?”

He was quiet again. I was staring at him now. Waiting.

He sniffed in a shallow breath and blurted, “She had an abortion without telling me.”

His hands went to his face then as sobs began to morph his body from stick figure to trembling gelatin.

I suddenly became aware of my heart beating in my ears and how it was muffling the sounds of his crying. I sucked in a few deep breathes, getting control of myself. I knew I couldn’t hide the entire truth of what I was feeling but hoped I could at least control its outpouring so that Fred would notice merely a trickle of the reality inside me instead of the full-blown story. This is about the client, not about me. Stay present. It’s the relationship that heals.

It didn’t seem to matter what I told myself, instead of focusing on Fred as he sat mumbling and grieving into his hands, I clutched at this time, as if it were my own, in order to tend to my own issues of pushing away the memories of Paula and the tears that wet her face. I was trying to shove closed the file in my mind of that day over eleven years ago when she . . .

“Doc?” Fred had regained control of himself and was blinking at me.

“Yes.” I straightened in my chair and tried to put on the “I’ve been in deep thought regarding your grief” mask.

“Could I have a tissue?” He pointed at the empty box on the side table.

“Of course.” I sprung from my chair and grabbed the box from my desk, handing it to him. 

He said thank you and filled both fists with several tissues. “She didn’t talk to me about it. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. We weren’t trying to have a baby or anything and, well, really we never talked about having children. We’re both still in school and responsibilities like that, like children, well, that’s for later, for sometime down the road. I mean, sure, our relationship was serious and all and I certainly agree that we are not . . .” He looked down at the carpeting, “. . . we were not ready for next steps like marriage or children. But that didn’t give her any right to kill my child without even talking to me. Without even letting me know?”

Fred was rocking slightly side to side, his dialogue keeping pace with the movement. 

As he continued, I nodded periodically at him allowing visions of Paula to flash between us. Paula wiping her tears with the back of one hand and taking my hand with her other. Paula’s words bouncing toward me: Andy, please understand. I had to do this. Paula’s face twisting at my response: It was my baby too. You had no right to make a decision like that on your own.

“But we aren’t married. That’s what she kept saying. We aren’t married, Fred, we aren’t married. This wasn’t a joint decision. And she kept insisting that it was her body and her choice. And all I could think was, how could she do this?” Fred shoved all of his tissues into one hand now and was rubbing the other hand on the top of his leg again. “I never thought she was the type of person who would do something like that. We were together for two years for Christ’s sake. I thought I knew her.”

Inside I could feel the persistent march of past images turning to thought then tugging and trying to twist themselves into language, into some logical form that would allow me to get a hold of my inner world. But the rich, fleecy texture of Paula’s presence filling my mind, even with all its flexibility and nostalgic hues, refused to be crammed into a language I could grasp.

I recalled then something my own therapist had told me, all those years ago when I was sitting where Fred is right now. He said, “One reason we can never fully know another person is that we are selective about what we choose to disclose.”

“So, are you saying that if I had disclosed more about myself to Clarissa she might of talked to me about the abortion first?” Fred asked.

“What?” I fumbled with my pen and paper and re-crossed my legs.

“You said that we never really know somebody else because we’re selective about what we share with that person.”

“I said that?”

“Are you okay?” Fred asked, his eyebrows pressing against themselves.

“Sure,” I nodded. “I guess what I was trying to share with you is that perhaps it is our ideas of a person that we recognize when we see them and not really them at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe, Clarissa . . . is that her name?” I asked. 

Fred nodded. 

“You asked, how can she do this? And you stated that you thought you knew her. Well, perhaps Clarissa only revealed to you portions of herself, pieces of who she really is. It would be something like watching a movie with several portions clipped out. You’d still be able to follow along with the characters but the plot would be a little tricky to put together.”

“But I thought I knew her.” Fred mumbled.

I thought I knew you, Paula had spat at me. I thought you would understand. I thought you would be on my side. My mind received the images of her anger, her final look, her leaving. I remember sitting there for a long time after she left, letting my mind reverse the sequence of explanations she had offered, scripting her excuses into images that my brain could process. But the translation never took. The loss was too great. The loss of my child and of Paula all in one moment.

“You’re right. I don’t think I ever did know her. Not really. I must have packed her full of attributes of my own choosing.” Fred was sitting on the edge of the couch, his left foot tapping a rhythm only he could hear, his head shaking with realization.

“We’re all guilty, Fred.”

“How so?” His quizzical look suddenly grounded me, halting Paula’s storyline.

“We’ve all endowed someone with our own desires, our own ideals and then gone on to fall in love with them. It happens.”

“And it hurts.” Fred said, sitting up straight and tapping his foot.

Fred was bright. He was sharp. Something inside me knew that eventually he would be okay. At the end of the session he shook my hand and asked if he could return next week to continue processing his grief. I had to constrain my initial reaction: a resistance that stretched out into the future entwined with a fear of being found out. Regardless, I set another appointment with Fred and released him into the world. 

And then, closing the door behind him, my fingers reached again to the back of my neck, pressing against the prisms of pain sliding in circles beneath the surface of my skin. I returned to my office and dropped onto the couch while flashes of Fred’s tears heaved at my mind like the remnants of the final hours of the flu. 

So much blocks the knowing of another person. How had I ever thought I could do this without losing myself? And after all these years, how is it that I am still questioning? 

The image of two minds pressed tightly together, directly exchanging thoughts and images filled me. Before the stethoscope was invented, a physician would listen to the sounds of a patient’s heart and intestines with an ear pressed against the patient’s rib cage and abdomen. This perfect union of immediate and direct transfusion of thought seemed idealistic and sophomoric.

I chuckled and reminded myself: There is something, anyway, in getting through the day without losing your mind.

The Throw-Away Room

by Julie Webb

 

The day will come when

You finally realize what to do,

And you begin,

Though the giant voices yell

Though the entire room shakes

Though you feel the old sorrows,

Pressing, parting your mind.

Within you hear the truth,

“I am stronger than I know.”

You don’t stop.

 

 

You know what you have to do

It doesn’t matter 

How late this night has become,

With fingers tight around the knob

You push the door wide --

The discard room already full,

Accumulated regrets

Lost time

Smeared love

Sorrows of a lesser kind.

 

 

Little by little

You toss away

The falsehoods,

The shame, the guilt,

Each appointed feast that never

Should have entered your belly.

With every abandon, every surrender,

You’re quieting the big noise,

You’re stilling the walls,

You’re feeding the reunion 

Of your soul and yourself.

Each release a revelation.

 

As you step away 

from the throw-away room

Into a world 

Captivating and clear

Your unfinished life is there 

Waiting, you know you have done 

What only you can do –

Your grip pulls the door

Eternal locks slide into place.

You’re done.

Don’t exhale, don’t move, don’t run away

Hope advances, pauses, considers

Your soundless soul

Willing to be restored.

 

Member Spotlight

Just in case you missed it in May, check out Skimble's Member Spotlight featuring ...... me!

New Short Story .... Shit on a Stick

Shit on a Stick

by Julie Webb

I remember the first time I pretended Kent’s hand belonged to someone else. 

I was lying on my side in bed imagining myself at his funeral: rain, black-clad figures gripping black umbrellas, the uniformed dispersal of the family wading through mud with silent tongues. I could hear the sloshing of feet and the sucking of deep breathes, when his hand brushed my back. I pretended to be asleep as a vision of Ben exploded in my mind and it was his thirst reaching for me. And I had no desire to stop it.

In my daydreams it is always Kent who dies, never me. His unfortunate demise, although difficult and untimely, releases me, each and every time, into a brand new life. One where I can set the thermostat on any number I chose. One where I can make pancakes for supper or hamburgers for breakfast. One where I sit in a room void of bickering and brimming with peace and quiet.

It’s not that we aren’t happy. After twenty-three years of marriage and months of counseling, anyone can learn to be happy. What I crave is the passion. I miss the hunger in his eyes. Hell, I miss the urges inside myself that used to move me out of the recliner and into his lap. I guess all the little nit-picky stuff eats away at you until you look at the man across the dinner table from you and say, What happened to the person I married? And he looks at you like your head is green and you were just dropped out of a space ship into his front yard. I giggle and reassure him, Just kidding. He laughs and asks me what’s on TV tonight.

 I questioned the counselor, How had we stalled? What had gone wrong? He asked me to repeat the question so he could understand it better. I squared my shoulders: I get the sense that my marriage has stopped. 

 He stared at me. I laughed nervously then tried to get myself off the hook by saying: fuck, the truth is now that it’s stalled, I’d be thrilled if it shifted into reverse and headed backward at full speed, at least we had lots of sex in the beginning. The counselor looked at me as if I were the oncoming atrocity that had crashed into and damaged our marriage. What? I demanded. What’d I say wrong?

 I always felt he liked Kent better than he liked me. There is something about human nature that makes each one of us want to be the one who is better liked. But then, why would he like me at all? When we were going to the counseling sessions I looked like shit on a stick. But don’t all people whose marriages hit rock bottom look colorless and indifferent? I didn’t realize it then, but my life had already fallen apart and my disregard was a symptom. Like a sore throat precedes the flu, my disgust for Kent was scratchy and irritating. There were so many days I wanted to get on with the high fever and the retching just so we could get it over with. But there was a process to manage. Hoops to jump through. Counselors to be paid.

 One day in session Kent started crying. He didn’t want our marriage to end. He couldn’t imagine his life without me. He wanted us to work harder at counseling and harder on our marriage. He didn’t want to lose me. He couldn’t bare it. He just couldn’t. As the counselor helped Kent explore his feelings, I excused myself to the bathroom. I excused myself often, mostly because I was bored out of my mind and partly because I hated feeling like I was eavesdropping on Kent’s personal counseling sessions. The empathy of the counselor toward Kent turned my stomach more than once. Although I never threw up in the bathroom, it was a nice place. I did like sitting in there, letting the white noise envelope me while I imagined all the things Kent was saying about me that made the counselor not like me even more.

 The whole counseling thing was Kent’s idea. He found someone who came with all the bells and whistles: plenty of letters behind his name, decades of experience and even the religious world view that Kent had embraced in his early twenties until exchanging it for his favorite beer. Kent told me he knew this counselor could help us. We can get our lives back on track, he said. We could renew our vows at the church and take a second honeymoon. I wasn’t as enthused. The only reason I agreed to go was for the same reason most people go to therapy, to get an assessment. All I wanted was a quick in and out. A lifting of the hood along with a deep look inside. A tinkering of sorts that resulted in a checklist of what needed to be fixed. Then we could take the list home and decide what parts, if any, to spend our hard earned money repairing.

 It only took two, maybe three, months before I realized I didn’t like this guy. I fucking hated the way he sat in his chair with his folded hands between his legs and his plastic smile on his face. Kent ate up that shit, but not me. I fucking hated all of his Time magazines in the reception area and my world being narrated by some droning voice on talk radio while we waited. What I hated the most was the way he acted out his emotions, cycling through surprise and sadness and understanding over and over again. He was like talking to an inanimate object.

But I suppose I owed it to Kent. After all these years, I had to make some effort to fix us. So I went . . . until, like a slap in the face, my fiftieth birthday came and went. 

 It’s not like it came out of nowhere, I just wasn’t expecting it to be so painful. I started waking up at night with something pressing on my chest, a sad sense of urgency. My time was running out. And every night all I could think about was If I came down with some terrible disease, who would I want beside me to live out those final days? Who would help me make sense of my life--this is who I am. This is what I know. This is what I love. Whose breath did I want whispering in my ear? Whose face did I want to be the last thing I ever saw on this earth?

 For a while I stuffed my life with distractions: picked up some overtime at work, went hiking with the girlfriends, talked Kent into having sex. Then, one day during a counseling session I excused myself to the bathroom. My stomach was whirling and it wasn’t Kent this time. I leaned over the sink, letting the white noise serenade my upset insides when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Fuck. I looked old, so sad. I hadn’t washed my hair in three days. I had been wearing the same pair of jeans all week. Who is this person? 

And that is when I hit the brakes. Stopped everything and listened. Listened for me, for my voice in all this. But all I could hear inside was screaming. Loud anger. I was angry with Kent for dragging me along side his life for two decades. And angry at myself for letting him. 

I went back into the session and looked Kent in the eyes, announcing that I had made a decision. I realized then that I couldn’t blame the counselor, he was just doing what he was being paid to do--save marriages. And I couldn’t blame Kent. I think at some point in our marriage he had actually come to love me and that’s why we were in marital counseling in the first place. What I had been doing was wasting my days on things that are not my life: work, television, laundry, marriage counseling, Kent. For the first time I saw that my life wasn’t about me at all.

 That’s when I quit trying. I let go of the anger. Let go of the feeling of wasting so much time. Kent kept wanting to talk to me but there was nothing inside me to say. I wanted to explain it to him, but there was only nothingness. And I welcomed the nothingness, letting it lull me to sleep at night and daily feeding it indifference, letting it swell like bread dough rising. For a while, drowning in nothingness was a scary place. I know now that nothingness floats like a phantom around every life, numbing our senses and deluding our minds if we let it. 

 I remember the first time I saw myself in the mirror again. 

 I was lying on my side in bed, the day Kent moved out, imaging what my funeral would be like: sunshine pouring down the backs of black suits and dresses, beads of sweat dripping from the reverend’s sideburns. A sparse group of acquaintances swaying around the gravesite, so quiet I could hear their hearts and hold each beat in my hand. That’s when the thought of my mother losing her youngest daughter made me tearful. I went into the bathroom for a tissue. The night light was next to the mirror and bright enough for me to catch a glimpse of myself. Fuck. My voice exploded inside my head. It told me to be proud that I was no longer burdening myself with the thankless task of fixing what couldn’t be fixed. It told me it was okay to feel again. And then, I laughed when it told me I no longer look like shit on a stick.

Moving

Sometimes when he kisses me slowly, I can feel the crazy wrapping of his life around me and, for all the wrong reasons, I can barely breathe. I think about how each year together has entangled us further and further until all that’s left is a whispering of me.

 

When I push him aside and look away, he questions, he searches. I hear the wobbly rocking of me and him and us and realize this has become the song I have to play. I wrestle with it. I examine it, letting it pass over me like a stiff November air settling in the ridge by the house. 

 

Then one day, in an ordinary moment, when the ‘we’ we used to believe in was long past, when the house we used to mistake for home was forgotten, I came to. I felt the drawing of life, the pulling of myself past the oaks in our yard, past the squared street corners, past all that we’ve gathered and created in two decades. And I knew. I knew I could speak of me once more and make myself proud.

 

Now there are no lines drawn around me. The invisible boundaries that had been keeping me from myself fade as I step up to my life and announce my return. As if on a bike I can hear the uphill tick of my pedaling. But as the distance between us doubles and straightens, I can sense the downhill whir of speed, the flapping of my jacket and the clicking of the wheels. 

 

Eventually I’ll stop along side the road -- the one beside my life -- and sit on the grass while I consider what else my voice can speak and who else my soul can love. But now, as the wind brushes across my cheeks I can’t help realizing that I’ve finally became like a flag on a flagpole or branch on a tree, something moving that cannot be moved.

CAN YOU SEE ME?

Can you see in me what I cannot see?

The truest truths or the pitiful pleas?

 

Can you see in me what I do not know?

The most fearsome fears or hollowed holes?

 

Can you see the illness, the bruises and waste?

Will you see in me what’s been misplaced?

 

Will you look inside and see what’s me?

Decipher between what would and could be?

 

Will you notice? Will you take the time?

Will you take my hand and make the climb?

 

 

 

 

The Dark Side of the Moon

It amazed me. Just prior to sunset, the moon sat cloaked in the heavens. It was as if a definitive shadow had stepped up behind her, pressing her orbital form toward mankind while breezily blanketing the waxing part of her with a murky overcast -- it was strange how I could see the whole of her by observing juxtaposition of the light and the dark parts next to each other.

As I studied the dark side of the moon, I felt like I was looking at something I wasn't supposed to be looking at. Maybe because it was something I had never really seen before -- the specific outlining of the dark side. It's strange how darkness can't really be seen, yet there it was -- with its expressive shape, evident color and unique feel. And this dark side -- so much like the darkness of my own days -- arrested my attention.

If I could have gotten a bit closer, I am sure I would have caught the faint smell of the somber side of the moon -- maybe the aroma of cigars, the mix of bitter and pungent that stabs your eyes and takes your breath away. I'm not sure why I thought of my grandpa's cigars, maybe because the faint outline of the moon at that moment before sunset reflected the perfect shade of deep pecan shells, the color of my grandfather's eyes.

Funny how it is impossible that the moon should smell at all and how equally impossible that it could smell of anything except something within the realm of my own experience and nothing else. But maybe darkness is like that, even when we see it from various angles within our own lives, it's impossible to experience it in any way other than what our own life experience brings to it.

Finding You

By Julie Webb Kelley

 

I could ask you, beg you even,

“Teach me what you know.”

I could believe your glance,

your silent words

reveal all that I can hold. 

But it’s not enough,

Where can I find you?

 

I could quote your softest truths.

I could reveal what makes you smile.

I could settle in and make demands,

Refuse to miss 

Discovering you.

Yet, it’s meager.

How can I find you?

 

I could ignore and push away,

Your sanitized attention.

I could affirm your influence,

your distant nearness

is enough for me to savor. 

But there are nicks inside my soul.

When can I find you?

The Thing

by Julie Webb Kelley

 

If I’ve ever loved before, I didn’t know. The thing,

resembles brooding and tribulation,

follows loneliness and misery,

feasts upon desire and pleasure.

Labeling itself as love, the thing

drives, confuses, exhausts.

My reaching approach so silent,

the thing is a tough quit.

 

If I’ll ever love again, I don’t know. The thing,

deciphers hearts and souls,

wrinkles days and songs,

fights death and life.

Releasing itself as love, the thing

breathes, sucks, inspires.

My lengthy scars ever present,

the thing has written on me.

 

 

 

Cancer is Not a Battle

Reposted from 2010

by Julie Webb Kelley

This is not one of those essays about how empowering it is to deal with cancer. You’ve read all of those. Those stories are laid out like this: mother of three gets a diagnosis of breast cancer. She undergoes surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. She loses her hair, forgets her husband’s name, and misplaces her mind. With just enough healthy cells remaining in her body to allow her to drag herself out of bed each morning, her doctor sprinkles the fairy dust of “remission” over her medical file, and she is entrusted with the title “cancer survivor”. She has just knocked the ball out of the park for women everywhere, whether they’ve had breast cancer or not. She lifted her sword; she fought bravely; she won the battle -- although she knows deep inside there’s no definite cure for breast cancer.

Guess what? That’s not me. So as you read these words, don’t assume that I’m striking a blow for my girlfriends across the globe, don’t think that I’m courageous or gallant, and, above all, do not presume I’m in a battle with cancer. However, you can feel free to stop reading and go find cancer survivors; there are plenty of women who balance on that pedestal. But not me, I am not your poster girl, let alone an example of an exemplary solider.

So, why write about myself and my cancer when I’m sick and tired of the finger being pointed at my breasts? Because “cancer survivor” is one of those annoying terms that we need to get rid of, but can’t. Because cancer is a disease not a battle.

Follow me for a moment; let’s wage war against this battle metaphor. The outcome of a battle is life or death. Surviving, according to the National Cancer Institute, is one who remains alive, one who continues to live. Aren’t the days of every woman numbered whether she has cancer or not? Does that mean that nobody really survives, regardless of whether she hears the words “remission” or “metastasis”?

How can it truly be a battle when there is no hope of fully winning? If none of us will remain in our bodies forever, what does winning look like? How have we let the term "cancer survivor" distract us from this truth: we all continue to live –survive -- through rotten childhoods, broken hearts, and the loss of loved ones. Could it be that, from every angle possible, it doesn’t take a disease to make you a survivor?

For me, I will not let cancer draw a line through my life, dividing into before and after the battle. I do not want my identity wrapped around the chaos of mutant cells that refuse to cooperate with the real me. I have no desire to lower myself to the war-like mindset of diseases or humans. Nor do I see myself as a worthy opponent against this monstrous disease. Cancer sideswiped my existence, kicked my butt to the curb, and left me to pick up the pieces. The emotional upheaval of cancer – the diagnosis, the disease, the treatment – is brutal, traumatic. We don’t survive it, continuing to live on the way we were -- we’ve undergone trauma and, the truth is, it changes who we are.

If breast cancer is a battle, then you might as well say that Olivia Newton-John won and Elizabeth Edwards lost. But you won’t hear me say that. Too many women the world over have had their brains fog over upon hearing the word “cancer”. I applaud and admire these women because I know that the days come and go when fear is thick, tears are heavy, and hope is low. That the moments come and go when faith rings powerful, laughter is easy, and peace runs deep. Together these days and moments mingle into a life that is uniquely hers, with a beginning, a middle, and an end that holds a story far beyond surviving life or battling a disease. I don’t think life is to be survived any more than I’m convinced that cancer is a battle. Our bodies are not the enemies, there is no white flag of surrender, and cancer cannot be reduced to an agonizing combat. My life alone may not prove to anyone that “cancer survivor” is a tired and dirty term, but maybe it will, with the help of a few choice words, allow others to understand that you don’t have to go to war in order to be a hero.

 

Sit. Knit. Cope.

Wrote this a few years back and think I've already posted it.......posting it now for a dear friend from Colorado!

Sit. Knit. Cope.

by Julie Webb Kelley

Last year, I received a diagnosis of breast cancer.  I had no idea what I was in for. No one does.  No one tells you that it isn’t the diagnosis that gets to you; realizing the big ‘C’ has his grip around your throat is now a fact of life that is out of your hands. What is in your hands---or rather on your needles---is learning how to live with it.

The first several weeks, you’re recuperating from shock, bad dreams and late-night pity parties.  Your world becomes very small and self-absorbed; you’re living inside the Fun House at the carnival. There are walls, but they’re moving. There are windows, but you can’t see out. There’s a fluorescent bulb glaring on your new world screaming “pay attention, this is serious”. You can’t help but look back to catch a glimpse of your old life . . . just as it blacks out and goes limp. Your body, perhaps painful and still plotting against you, trumps all. You must find a way through this; you must survive.

You will cope. You will learn skills to cope.  I had to learn a skill to cope. I had to practice coping. I picked up a pair of knitting needles. I fondled a ball of wool. There was no end to the coping; I needed to know that I was still valuable, that I could still contribute to this crazy world, that there were people out there who were glad that I was coping . . . even if that meant knitting.

In response to all that coping, I got a sweet demonstration of one of life’s best blessings: giving is better than receiving. I practiced the knit stitch on size ten needles with a ball of chunky weight. My youngest daughter hovered nearby, precious and sacred, observing as my coping produced an ordinary scarf. She soon had it around her neck. 

I tussled through a knit two, purl two pattern with a hank of fisherman’s wool, the tasty oatmeal color pleasing my senses. My oldest daughter came home for a visit from college, claiming the patterned scarf and I understood, for the first time, what it must have felt for her to think that I might be at home, lifeless and meek letting ‘C’s grip press the final ebb and flow of life from my body.

I worked my first cable stitch with a medium weight colorway of dark blues, rich oranges and bright reds. It made me think of the forest floor on an autumn afternoon; that familiar place I’d run off to after school too long ago. It felt good having an excuse to let my thoughts reverse time for a while each day. I had chosen a vivid yellow cable needle and relished each moment of slipping the next three stitches, passing the needle to the back, knitting the next three stitches from my needles and at last knitting the gorgeous colorway off of the cable needle. It sounds tedious now; I’ve discovered that most knitters hate using a cable needle, too time consuming.  But handling the daybreak-bright cable needle in the middle of every row was the articulation of symmetry that my soul craved.  That scarf was the perfect Christmas gift for my sister.

Through the strains and turmoil of doctor visits and blood tests, I needed something more.  I found just the right pattern: an entrelac stole made from the most lavish yarn I had yet to invest in. I decided to pour my being into this project, purchasing not only the luxurious wool but new needles that I had spent costly time lusting after. The splurge freshened my spirit.  I had learned the knit stitch, the purl stitch and the cable stitch, I was ready. I signed up for the class. I was the only student.

“You want to make the entrelac stole, huh? How long you been knitting,” 

“A few months,” I wonder now if I should have lied---“ a few years” may have softened her heart.

“You ever knitted entrelac before?”

“No.”

“You’ve got your own book with the pattern, don’t you?”

I pulled out the book, opening it to the right page.

The women, whose skin was the color of Christmas peanut brittle, began slapping papers around and tossing hanks of yarn into bins, “I’m the last one here. It’s six o’clock, time to close the shop. Start casting on, I’ll be right with you.”

As I began to cast on, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was having a rotten day or maybe, like me, it had been an especially tough year.

When she came back to the table, she brought her finished entrelac stole and whooshed it out across the table, the tilted squares bending perfectly into each other. My breath tripped over my awe. 

“That’s beautiful,” I said, tentatively outlining the edges of a few of the diamond shapes with my finger.

“I made it for me. It’s all mine.” That matter settled, she rubbed an open palm over the surface of her stole. “ Who you making yours for?”

I shrugged, looking up at her as she pulled it around herself in an audacious display of visceral confidence.

“It’s too much work for a daughter-in-law. Make it for yourself or . . . maybe your own daughter. But no one else.”

That’s when it hit me. So far I had given away almost everything I had made. Of course I could make something for myself. Something elegant and superb. That stole was her piece of splendor in this world, a glaring suspension of cellophane wrapping her intentions in crystal-clear passion. And it was ok. All I had wanted was a way to cope. All I had needed was to learn to knit, ascertaining comfort from each stitch and every project. But maybe, real coping has less to do with the motions and more to do with the motivation.

“You ready to get started?” She interrupted my thoughts.

I nodded.

“Let me help you make something worth keeping.”

The World Beyond (Part 3)

Searching for Persinger’s Lab

 

The sun was low in the sky and I knew it was too late to be starting out across Ligare march. I had only a few hours before darkness would engulf every possible trail, muddy-ing my chances of discovering which one would lead to Persinger’s lab. Maybe if I moved fast enough. Maybe if stayed low and quiet. 

I was sure of one thing: I couldn’t stay the night in this cave.

Within an hour, I reached the clearing. I was careful not to go into the clearing and charge down the first trail head I saw. There were many choices and I knew if I wasn’t careful I’d end up wasting my time on the wrong ones. 

I crouched behind the thick brush of the clearing, staring at the trail heads and remembering . . . letting my mind drift back to the day I first met Persinger.

It was during a stay at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Zion, IL. I was in the cafeteria waiting in line for a grilled cheese. With my headphones in one ear, I was doing my best to stand still and pay attention. First I moved my empty tray from one hand to the other, then pulled my left sleeve over my hospital wristband. 

As I moved the tray back to my other hand, I felt a tap on my foot. I looked down to see a much larger grey Chuck tapping the tip of my own grey Chuck tennis shoe. 

“Great patients think alike.” The owner of the shoe said.

I looked up into a pair of dark, bright eyes. The yellow mask across his face couldn’t hide the smile behind it.

“I’m David.” He reached out his hand.

“Julie.” His grip was strong and sure.

He rubbed a hand over his bald head and asked me what I was getting. We spoke briefly about good things to eat here when we have no appetite, which is often for both of us.  

Then we exchanged cancer diagnosis’s. His is a rare sort, hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma. He had been through six rounds of chemo with no changes yet. But as a United States Marine he was determined to fight with everything in him. I could see the resolve in his eyes.

“It’s tough some days.” He nodded.

“You’ll beat this, David.”

“How do you know?” He leaned in close as if not wanting to miss the answer.

“I know it takes courage to be willing to face treatment after treatment with no guarantees. It takes courage to be authentic about how hard it is and still be willing to reach out to others. You’ve certainly got what it takes to kick cancer’s ass.”

We shook hands again, wishing each other strength and hope for our journeys. David tapped the toe of my grey Chuck with his once again before slipping away.

As the grill cook wrapped up my grilled cheese and passed it to me with a smile and a nod, a distinguished older gentleman in line beside me whispered, “Compassion heals in ways no medicine can.”

“Definitely.” I smiled at him. “Do I know you?”

“Not likely, young lady.” His chuckle spread around me like a fan blowing fresh air my way. 

“I’m sorry. It’s just . . . you look like someone--”

His laugh exploded, drawing stares and nods. Then, he looked around casually, eventually settling his gaze on the grill cook. The only thing left of that outrageous laugh was a dangling split between his lips.

“Are you Persinger?” I asked, shaking my head, disapproving, smiling, all the while pretending I was preoccupied with some inward effort. Then, gathering the ends of my self, I leaned toward him and whispered, “I know.”

The words startled the smile off his face. He finally looked at me. Our eyes locked in a looping tone that only we could read.

“Parking Lot 4.” He said.

----

Parking Lot 4. That was all I had to go on. 

I remained still and silent in the brush, shaking aside the thoughts of Persinger and studying the trail heads once more. The sky was turning the color of fire, casting shadows on the trails. Except for one. 

I scooted around to get a better look. The long shadows of the setting sun seemed to blaze toward a particular trail head. I scanned the clearing. All was quiet. I darted toward the trail and within minutes was standing at the opening. Jags of red rock and black iron erupted from the landscape creating synaptic spaces along the entire trail.

This had to be the way.

The World Beyond (Part 2)

Leaving Ligare Marsh 

Soon after I escaped the Dominus tribe, I holed up in a cave about three miles south of their base camp.

It had taken me all morning to outrun the split-men and outwit the marsh creatures. As I dropped my knapsack on the ground and sank into the smooth shadows of the cave, the frantic residue of the day pressed through to the surface -- prickling my skin, weakening my legs, and rattling my hands. Risk and fear are inseparable . . . and exhilarating.

It’s good to be free. No, it’s great to be free. It’s great to be alive.

Laughter spilled onto each word. Free. Great. Alive.

I sucked in the sooty cave air and closed my eyes, letting the wonder of it all sit beside me. The sky would blacken soon enough and the marsh creatures would come sniffing around. And by tomorrow the split-men would widen their search. But right now I was free. And grateful.

As I curled up on my side pulling the knapsack under my head my stomach groaned for attention. Hunger. Life. Although I could do nothing about it, it made me smile. 

Shifting my weight toward the wall of the cave, the ground beneath shuffled. As I pressed an open palm to the floor, feathery ribbons of presence rustled through the air. Beneath me were pages and pages of wafer-thin paper. I picked one up turning it over in my hand. Both sides were filled from edge to edge and from top to bottom.

Beneath me were mounds and mounds of the stuff. This is it. This is where they keep them. I stared at the creased sheet I held and knew -- this is not a copy. I picked up another, then another, and another. Each one I touched brightened with energy, sending a crackle of life through the cave that sounded like the distant approaching of a mob.

I dropped the sheets, letting them drift back to their resting places then wiped my hands on my jeans. But I could still feel it. Each entity coiling around my fingers. Each soul still longing and seeking just as they were when stripped from the bodies of the Dominus tribe.

I grabbed my knapsack and wiped my hand across the thread of tears on my face. I had to get to Persinger’s lab.

The World Beyond (Part 1)

New Series -- The World Beyond

You may remember the short-lived television program (1978) of the same name starring Granville Van Dusen & JoBeth Williams. After Van Dusen survives a motor cycle accident that leaves him clinically dead for several minutes, he awakens to discover that he now hears voices from the world beyond that direct him to different locations and people just in time to help them. Unfortunately for Van Dusen, there is no rest, no sleep until he listens.

The World Beyond me seems to be unfolding in a similar fashion. My own deadly experiences with my health in recent years have left me wide awake to the new creation inside myself as well as outside of myself. And the world beyond is the next adventure I’ll be tackling on this blog. 

You will get to experience every single peak and valley, each neutral moment and charged detail right along with me. I promise, reading about it will be just as great as living it. How do I know?

The truth is the brain makes no distinction between reading about an experience or living it in real life -- the same neurological regions are stimulated either way. I love that!

Your First Spin into The World Beyond

On a recent excursion through Helen, GA (to visit my lovely and brilliant 23-year-old daughter), we landed in a quaint shop called  Tim's Wooden Toys.

The scent of wood shavings squeezed the air around us as children pushed wooden ducks on sticks. Well, that’s what my 23-year-old child was doing, all the other children were aiming wooden guns and swords at strangers. The creative results of ancient wood shop puttering surrounded us.

For a place that occupies such small ground on this planet, it is stuffed with enormous amounts of expectation. So much so, I couldn’t resist.

Near the door was an entire bin of handmade wooden tops. I love tops about as much as I love the idea that the brain makes no distinction between reading an experience or living it. Tim even had numerous purples for me to choose from -- all I had to do was sift through and find one with just the right tip. Of course Tim had a spot near the window for spinning the tops. (He obviously encounters wooden top connoisseurs daily who need to be sure. I wasn’t the only one trying them out. The only adult maybe, but not the only one).

I ended up with the perfect purple wooden top. It is on my desk now -- spinning it’s purple ambition between red and purple gum balls, knocking down my little Lego woman holding her cup of tea, and landing with a thunk on top of my Mattel Lightening McQueen race car. What a wonderful addition to my work environment. (No, that’s not a contradiction).

So, did you feel it? The brain regions in your head that just lit up like the 4th of July as you mentally followed the purple top across my desk are the same ones that were firing in my brain as I experienced it -- all 347 times today.

The World Beyond

If you’re up for it, I invite you along to explore the world beyond me, the world beyond you that is calling, crying, needing, seeking, becoming . . . 

We’ll discover The Art of Absence and the true difference between C-major and C-Minor Chords. Together we will see for ourselves how compassion heals in ways no medicine can and that it takes genuine courage to be imperfect.

One final promise -- The World Beyond will be the closest thing to scratch-n-sniff writing you’ll ever find. So, be sure you come back!

 

 

 

Pumpkin Classic

Participating in the 2 Mile Pumpkin Classic tomorrow!

My goals:

1. Finish

2. Run the whole way

3. Get a best time

4. Have fun

I can do this!

National Safe At Home Week

Did you know Monday has the highest mortality rate of any day of the week?

It's National Safe At Home Week. Check out my article at Kelley Construction Contractors, Inc.

Keepers . . .

"Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive, because your words become your behaviors. Keep your behaviors positive, because your behaviours become your habits. Keep your habits positive, because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny." (Mahatma Gandhi)

BORROWED HOPE

by Julie Webb Kelley

 

In a meek spread of understanding, each careful charge is sprung ----

First one hand and then the other---

Brushes the air between us,

Possibility is hung.

 

As if they had manners all their own---

One guiding finger marks my empty heart,

While his open palm frustrates each false start.

 

Do these hands know the transfer of truth they allow each day?

 The passing of promises or the flow of faith they display?

 

As if they held a feast for my spirit---

His curving fingers calm my fading control,

While a tender reach wipes the libel from my soul.

 

In a quiet abandon of power, no remarks left to grope---

First one hand and then the other---

Navigate the shift between us,

Passing on borrowed hope.

Vegetarian Diets Combat Oxidative Stress

"A recent study found that vegetarian diets help prevent oxidative stress, compared with non-vegetarian diets. Researchers tracked the diets of 100 healthy men and women, 40-60 years of age, for one year. Half of the participants have been following a vegetarian diet since birth and the other half were non-vegetarians. After one year the vegetarian group had significantly higher blood levels of Vitamin E, Vitamin A, and glutathione peroxidase - a selenium-containing enzyme that serves as an antioxidant, compared with non-vegetarians. Blood tests that measure levels of lipid peroxidation (when a fat cell reacts with oxygen to make it an unstable molecule) were significantly increased in non-vegetarians. Reasons for better values among vegetarians maybe due to higher and regular consumption of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, plant oils, fiber, and complex carbohydrates."

Somannavar MS, Kodliwadmath MV. Correlation between oxidative stress andantioxidant defence in South Indian urban vegetarians andnon-vegetarians. Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci.2012;16(3):351-4

Copied from Food for Life -- an award-winning Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) program designed by physicians, nurses, and registered dietitians that offers cancer, diabetes, and kids classes that focus on the lifesaving effects of healthful eating.

 

The Freedom to Blog

"There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure."

--Dwight D. Eisenhower

Happy Independece Day!

Thank you to every Veteran--past and present--who has made it possible for me (and you) to have the freedom to blog!

And thanks too for that other freedom thing that makes it okay for me to write whatever I want and say whatever I want . . . what's it called again? It'll come to me . . .

God bless you Veterans! 

Happy birthday, America!

(hereinafter referred to as "AUTHOR")

It's official!! Julie Webb Kelley has contracted with Leslie H. Stobbe Literary Agent for my book, Darkness Trembles.....and many, many more books to come!