Posted on by Lawren McConnell · 6 Comments

My Storm Cloud

“No head injury is too serious to despair of, nor too trivial to ignore.”
— Hippocrates

I remember my last seconds of my life before epilepsy.  My great-grandmother had passed away, and my parents and I were making the three hour drive to help organize her belongings.  We stopped  for food.  I laid down in the back of the car.  My parents got out of the car.  Got back in.  Mom first *click* door closes.  Dad *click* door closes.

The next thing I remember were the first few moments of my life with epilepsy.  My mother had moved to the back seat, Dad was driving, speeding and swerving.  Mom had panic all over her face, and she was crying.  I asked her what was wrong, where were we going.  She told me we were going to the hospital.  I was shocked.  Why?  She said I needed to go.  Why me?  I was fine.  My heart started to pound in my chest.  This was a nightmare, this wasn’t happening.  When they sliding doors parted at the ER, nurses had a stretcher for me.  A stretcher!  There was a mistake, not me, what was going on?  Why were my parents in on it?  As they moved me to a bed, my dad grabbed my knee and said everything was okay.  They explained that I passed out and had a seizure.  No I didn’t.  Yes, I did.  No, I didn’t.  The doctor asked my dad about family history.  He said my older half-sister, his daughter, had epilepsy.  What?!?  No, she didn’t!  Then all focus came back to me.  I was shaking I was so confused and scared.  My whole body vibrated.  I started to understand that something was wrong with me when I realized that I didn’t know where I was.  Why were we in the car?  Why were we in a different town?  We were traveling?  When did all of this happen?  I kept asking questions as if I had entered a parallel universe.  Mom became noticeably worried.  I knew she was wondering if I had forgotten Nana had died.  I remembered that.  The doctor explained that short-term memory loss was normal, and it would come back.  Dad said everything would be okay, I would be fine.  Well, I had had enough.  I hate hospitals, being the one in the bed was a new and unwelcome experience for me, so I would be leaving.  The doctor said I needed tests, but that I should be fine to go.  I swung my legs around and hopped off the bed.  My legs were wet spaghetti.  Dad had to hold my elbows.  In that moment, I felt the split.  My body wasn’t mine anymore.  It had gone rogue, without my consent.  The shock wore off and I felt it.  Every muscle in my body hurt, my head hurt.  I had bitten my tongue pretty bad, and it was sore and stinging in my mouth.  Dried blood stained the corners of my mouth.

I was 14.

The tests that ensued made me feel like I was on the path to death, and they were just confirming it.  I’ve been through numerous rounds of tests since then, but the first round I remember as being the most scary, the most annoying.  Dad and his sense of humor and his fatherly obligation to make me feel safe, lifted my spirits.  Then my first neurologist called us in.  I had three oral medications to choose from.  All had side effects, but not bad, he said.  Two were the same, except one was extended release.  The other could cause severe liver damage, fetal deformities, but at 14, I was most threatened by excess facial hair growth.  Extended release it was.  Dad smiled and said, “See, all you have to do is swallow a pill a day, and you will be fine!  No seizures!”  As we left, my next appointment was put on a business card with a brain on it.  I was normal teenager, and then looking at that brain, I felt like I had a brain problem.

Our family doctor said it was best that I and my parents not tell anyone about my epilepsy, because of the stigma of the disease.  Epilepsy’s reputation, not it’s physical effects, would have more of a negative impact on my life, was the message we got.  So we didn’t.

I was 20 years old when I realized what absolute nonsense that advice was.  Eating one of my last lunches in Edinburgh before returning triumphantly seizure-free to my parents in the States, I had a seizure in a restaurant.  I knocked out my two front teeth.  That, and the giant blue bulge on my forehead were my souvenirs from face-to-tile impact.  Yeah, I was really upset about my teeth, and the embarrassment of seizing in a public place, but the look on my friend’s face haunts me still.  She was in shock, and scared.  She never asked to be put in this situation.  I should have prepared her for the “just in case.”  I didn’t trust to tell her, I thought she wouldn’t feel safe around me, she wouldn’t want to me friend.

In all fairness to my young mind, I still deal with the stigma of the disease, as does everyone with epilepsy.  I am fortunate.  If I had been born in the 17th century, I could have been burned at the stake for being a witch or possibly exorcised.  As I was watching an episode of Mad Men, I admit to judging a character who seemed to be a swindler, possibly a drunk or drug addict, taking advantage of his poor sister. What a loser, I thought.  He had epilepsy.  Unable to get work, he was forced to take small change from strangers and live on the road.  No one to call a friend.  Fifty years ago, I might have had a different world to face as well.  Now, when I tell strangers face-to-face I have epilepsy, their arms cross.  I usually get either a couple of steps backward or at least a lean backward.  Some people try to compliment me and say that I don’t look like I have epilepsy.  A couple of people began talking to me as if I had a developmental disability.  All of them seemed paranoid, that I would drop to the floor that minute and they’d have to deal with it.  To be completely honest, writing this blog post is making me uneasy.

All my seizures have been tonic clonic (also known as grand mal) with no warning signs whatsover.  For me this means I wake up in a place I don’t recognize, no recollection how I got there or what I was doing, and with a bitten tongue, sore muscles and a migraine straight from hell itself.  In thirteen years, I can’t tell you how many seizures I have had, not because they are so many, but because I was never in the mental state to take notes after having them.  First comes denial where I battle whoever is with me as they try to tell me I had a seizure.  Not only do I not remember, but admitting I had one means that I failed somehow.  Which brings me to the second step:  guilt.  Having a seizure turns me detective – why did it happen?  My medication wasn’t taken, I didn’t get enough sleep, I did something wrong.  After guilt comes further investigation into what I did wrong.  Very rarely is a reason found, which depresses me.  I have absolutely no control.  Complete helplessness.  I can take care of myself, and still have a seizure.  Anytime, any place, without warning.  Then I’m angry, depressed.

After one particular seizure, I came out of it with my boyfriend wiping a wet washrag over my arms.  I asked him what he was doing.  It burned.  He said I had a seizure, I thought no, because that’s not right.  He took me to show me the kitchen as proof.  When I got up, my knees almost collapsed under me.  Dammit, he was right.  I hurt, too.  I found my kitchen floor covered in glass.  The door to the stove was busted open.  Apparently, I had a seizure standing up, fell backward and my head hit the stove.   He heard the noise and ran downstairs to find me seizing in a pile of broken glass and blood.  Well, we needed a new stove.  I didn’t tell him or my parents that every step of getting that new stove made me physically ill.  I was not ashamed of my illness, of that seizure, but sickened that he had to see me like that, lift me from the glass and  toggle the line of waiting for the seizure to stop or calling 911.

The first seizure he had witnessed was a close call.  He found me slumped over in the garage, behind the wheel of the car.  Car was turned on.  He told my years later that he cried he was so worried.  I remember coming to, arguing with him about me having a seizure.  Then, as my short-term memory came back, I remembered I was on my way to church, and the very last thing I saw was my hand going for reverse.  So many close calls, that even after time has passed, the fear of what could have happened or could happen could stay with me, but I don’t want to live in a constant state of paranoia.

Dad taught me to think positively, to have a sense of humor.  I do have a sense of humor about my epilepsy.  One time, a piece of tongue fell off as it was healing right as I was talking to my boss.  I spit it into a Kleenex and said, “Whoops, tongue.”  It gave her chills and made me laugh.  Also, the fresh scars on the edges of my tongue were great when you are waiting forever at a restaurant.  I could have just told the waiter how hungry I was and stuck out my tongue.  Mom didn’t think that would be funny.  Having a sense of humor about it not only put others at ease around me, but it put me at ease and reminded me that one thing I can control is my attitude.

I have been seizure-free for over three years, thanks to a new drug.  I give thanks to God and the fact that now over 20 anti-convulsive medications are available to those with epilepsy.  Thank you medical science.  The pills I was taking for over 10 years were eroding my bones and hurting my liver, plus all the medications I was taking to combat the side effects of the drug also put a cramp in it’s effectiveness.   The pills that have controlled my seizures now are a “cleaner” drug as my epileptologist would say.  I feel good, I feel confident.  It has freed me.

Because I have a type of epilepsy I cannot grow out of, this chronic illness will preempt every decision I make.  If I have to take a new medication to improve other areas of my health, epilepsy comes first.  Going out, lights, entertainment, sleep loss, stress, work, relationships, illness – all can trigger a seizure.  An epileptic seizure is an electrical storm in the brain.  The way I think of it is that epilepsy can cause lightening, but all other times it looms over me like a cloud, following me wherever I go.  I have to make sure I am prepared for any lightening that could strike.  Constantly trying to avoid getting hit.  But just like those unfortunate enough to be struck by lightening, you don’t know if you’re going to be hit.  You just have to just keep watching the cloud.

Epilepsy is a chronic illness, and there is no cure for me yet.  I’m reflective enough to know that epilepsy has given me lessons about the importance of taking care of myself, empathizing with others, and the strength of finding yourself under a disease with an awful stigma attached.  Would I refuse a cure because of the lessons?  Hell, no on that one!  First, epilepsy has been a huge burden for my parents.  I’m an adult now, but they hate the idea of me being alone.  It is a huge weight for them, one they have carried since I was diagnosed.  If my child inherits epilepsy, I will be the one holding him or her, watching the blood trickle down their chin and their lips turning blue, praying that each second be the one where they take a breath and it’s over.  My child will learn to share their gifts, strengths and compassion with the world, but that they also have to do it under the context of epilepsy, that they will have to tell others, and the reaction of the world is something they cannot control.  Now, just for me, the worst thing about not being cured is the “what if.”

I had my hand on reverse.  If that seizure had hit 10, 20 minutes later, I could have hit someone with my car.  That is something I can’t imagine trying to carry.  I am fortunate today that my cloud looms above me, and although threatening, it does not crush me or others.  Hurting someone else, even if I had no control, that complication from my epilepsy would crush me.

I am so blessed, and well, lucky, that I am seizure-free, and that epilepsy hasn’t stopped me from going after my dreams, but not everyone with epilepsy is so lucky.  I can take care of myself, some cannot.  I can think, read, write, learn, communicate, and some cannot.  Some have seizures, and some have seizures every day.   Our doctors need a better understanding of this incredibly mysterious disease.  Three million of us in the United States alone have it.  Chances are, you have met someone with epilepsy and just didn’t know it.

I have many blessings, and can give back by telling my story.  It’s tough, but my old family doctor is wrong.  We need to let people know that epilepsy is an awful disease full of fear, moments of helplessness and paranoia, but with medical advances we can conquer epilepsy day by day, and by talking about it, we can conquer the unfair stigma that this disease can carry, day by day, person by person…until the cloud disappears for good.

For more information on epilepsy, here is a good article.

Posted on by Lawren McConnell · 4 Comments

The Worse One

Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.  ~Lord Chesterfield

I’m not a diabetes cop.  I’m not!  I’m a recovering diabetes cop.  Watching my father eat tamales makes me twitch.  I can’t look.  I have to focus on my own food, something else.  Anything else.  Anything to bite my tongue.

My dad appears in my posts quite often.  Poor Dad, I’m always talking about his diabetes.  I don’t remember his diagnosis, but I don’t remember him not having diabetes.  As a child, I didn’t understand his type 2 diabetes.  I knew there were types, I had heard doctors talk about it.  He went into a study when I was a kid to try to better control his blood glucose levels.  He was tired.  Tired from trying, and he wanted to be healthy.  I thought as a kid, whatever type he had, Daddy has to have the worst type ever.  It made him sad, it made him angry, it made him sick, it made his laugh go away.  It made him stomp out of the room in frustration.

My Dad still jokes that all his family left him was diabetes.  He could have prevented his type 2 diagnosis, yes, and if time machines were available, I would go talk to my Dad in his twenties and say, “Listen, I’m from the future.  Creepy how much I look like you, but forget that for now and focus!  Diabetes is awful, and you’re gonna get it!  Do everything you can now!  Find a doctor!  Eat less tortillas and exercise!  Cut out the drinking now, not later!  Go back to the doctor!”  Now having had it for decades, we as a family know that we have to do the best we can.  Dad doesn’t lack for exercise.  He is way more physically active than I am.  He landscapes constantly to this day, spending hours outside doing manual labor.  I remember as a kid, when Dad would have a high blood glucose reading, he would march outside to bring it down.  I’m maniacal with my diet now (another post, possibly), analyzing everything I eat, but Mom didn’t cook like Paula Deen.  We could have been healthier, sure, but everyone is allowed missteps in the form of an unhealthy treat now and then.  My Dad learned over time, what foods were going to spike his blood sugars, and he worked to avoid them.  Never more so than after his heart attack.  Before his heart attack, he had an A+ physical.  Cholesterol – GREAT, lower than mine.  Blood pressure – wonderful!  Boom, heart attack.  Then, he became as crazy as me, afraid to eat anything at first, without reading and re-reading and calling me.

“So, type 1…that is the worse one, right?  Or, er, is it the other way around?”

“Well, actually, they are two different illnesses, that share the same complications *enter elevator speech on autoimmunity*.”

With JDRF, my world became type 1.  I know more people with type 1 (include the care takers, the type 3s in there) than without it.  It boils my blood when people say you can prevent type 1.  It angers me just as much when people say that if only those with type 2 weren’t so lazy…

Dad has a healthy diet, Dad has oral medication, Dad has two blood glucose meters, Dad has insulin, Dad has a team of doctors.  We’ve been working at this together for a long time.  It hasn’t gone away.  Type 2 has a tendency to progress, and when it continued to do so despite our best efforts, Dad went back on insulin, and he’s been crashing in the middle of the night.  Sometimes during the day.  He shares short-term complications with type 1 now, too.  Dad’s insulin producing beta cells are tuckered out, but he still produces insulin.  Not enough, and his body is resistant to it.  It’s erratic, and we weren’t given a schedule to follow for that, so sometimes he’s high and sometimes he’s low.  One thing for certain, I’m consistently worried about him.  Just like anyone with diabetes, anyone who loves someone with diabetes. 

I know people with type 1 who are complication-free, active, healthy and I love hearing about it!  I know people with type 2 – same thing.  Some of these people work hard at managing their diabetes.  Some don’t at all.  So even though, a healthy person with diabetes makes me happy for them, I am still angered by the disease.  Not fair.  Diabetes doesn’t play fair.  Any type.  Everyone has their own, not just their own type, their own diabetes in general. 

I’m a cure crusader, I want type 1 off the planet, goodbye and good riddance!  I also get chills about the research in treatment and complications.  It means a great deal to me as the kid.  I want these things for my Dad, and pray that he will be able to benefit from them.  So he can dance with me at my wedding, and do it pain-free. 

Dad eats about one tamale a year.  The last time I witnessed Dad eating a tamale I also witnessed his blood sugars going through the roof and him feeling truly ill.  Then it’s the inquisition for him.  Did he take his pills?  When?  What else did you eat?  This quiz then moves forward into the second stage of what to do to correct the high.   A sacred culinary tradition, the tamale should be loved for its heritage, its incredible tastiness and its mystical ability to bring people together.  Instead, to me, the tamale = evil starch and fat vessel determined to KILL DADDY.  But Dad still thinks of the tamale in the old way.  So Dad ate his annual tamale at Christmas Eve dinner with the family.  He didn’t spike, not at all.  Why?  Have absolutely no idea.  That’s the world diabetes creates for us.  There is no worse case of diabetes.  Every case is the worse case.  Just because it’s ours. 

 

Posted on by Lawren McConnell · 3 Comments

Holding My Hand

God lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.
— C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity

I was raised a Christian, and in describing myself, I think first and foremost to be a child of God.  It is who I am, the essence of my very being.  Any blog posts on my faith are not meant to offend or exclude anyone.  Like all my posts, they are a reflection of me, and this is who I am.  I am not ashamed to call myself Christian, because although some who call themselves Christian give us a bad rep, and some set incredibly high expectations, I am not sheepish in writing that I am a constant work in process.  I fall from grace (many times a day) make mistakes both small and large, and because I do all these things I am not a hypocrite for calling myself Christian, I am human.

I never asked, “Is there a God?”  as a child because I was told early on.  I attended a Christian kindergarten, elementary school, middle school and high school.  Same school.  Bible was a subject just like history or math, and we had chapel every Wednesday.  I was eight years old when I gave my life to Christ.  Before then, I was worried I didn’t do it right.  “Give my heart to Jesus” as my teachers would say.  So before an outstanding performance of Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego (rave reviews poured from Mom and Dad), I sat in the car in full costume, looked to the sky and prayed.  This is it God, I give you my heart.  I opened up my hands to receive salvation.  Little did I know that yes, salvation was mine, but giving my heart to God needs to be repeated as necessary.  Little did I know period, I was eight years old.  At nine, I met with my pastor to be interviewed.  He wanted to make sure I understood the significance of my next step.  That year I was baptized on the same day as my dad. 

Since then, I have not followed the routine sometimes associated with being a Christian.  Going to church at least once a week, praying every day, committing time to devotional study, etc.  Also my mind is not always focused on how to better serve God, but how to get pretty things, where I want to go, romance and falling in love and food.  If I get truly brave, I might write a blog on food later.  I praise God and pray for forgiveness, yes, but the major theme of my prayers has been a request for guidance.  I pray His will be done, that it is made clear to me.  But, He knows that deep in my heart, I really do like my own ideas.  I know my dreams are influenced greatly by the world, and well, might not pan out in joy and success for me anyway, but it’s difficult letting them go.  Giving my heart back.

When I feel close to God through prayer and learning I feel like myself.  The Holy Spirit gives me…me.  Lately, I feel lost.  I’ve lost myself in my job and my professional and social goals.  I also haven’t been to church on a regular basis in three years.  How can someone have a close relationship with someone they stop learning about? 

Three years ago, I did have a church family.  It was the church I knew growing up, but my family and I didn’t attend regularly until I started singing in college.  I was that girl.  Special music girl who attended early Bible study and sang gospel.  It was a small church. 

After my move, I knew I needed to find a church.  Coming from my teeny country church to attending large churches, I had a bit of a culture shock.  Really nothing against the really large churches, because they reach many in many ways, but I could not find fellowship.  One youth Bible study group never asked me my name.  I couldn’t find a smaller group in another church because I got lost on “campus.”  When my grandmother died last year, I held it together pretty well until we were at the actual cemetery.  It hit me that I was putting her body to rest in my past.  So I not only cried, I wept.  I turned around and there was my pastor and his wife.  I fell into his arms and sobbed, and he held me tight.  He stayed with my family during the afternoon and uplifted our spirits, and we laughed together.  He was the one who gave my father a Bible, who baptized us, who helped me remember that my ministry was in my music.  He says to not call him “Reverend.”  We preface his name with “Brother.”  At the churches I visited after my move, I even had a hard time tithing.  Usually the hard time for me would not be having cash on me, and then feeling guilty, hoping nobody was staring at me.  During the recent visits,  feeling that I had not given back to the church withered as I passed a Starbucks on my way in and a gift shop on my way out.  We cheered when my pastor was able to lease a new used car, so he could return to making home visits.  And that comparison stuck in my mind.

I do like the idea of a larger church, because I’ll be more likely to find fellowship with those my own age, the music tends to be better during the service which inspires and uplifts me, and there are more ways to find lessons you need and some you didn’t know you needed.  I’m just lost.  Figuratively and literally.  I had a hard time parking, finding where the services were taking place, and even finding my way out again. 

So instead of praying for guidance in my career, in my finances, in my love life, in my travels, in my community service, I must pray for guidance back to Him.  Therein lies fulfillment and direction.  I will find a church, I will find the time, but He needs to hold my hand.  And I need to let Him take it.

A special thanks to my mother who always reminds me where to turn.

Posted on by Lawren McConnell · 2 Comments

2012 Another Pilgrimage Ahead

“We will open the book.  Its pages are blank.  We are going to put words on them ourselves.  The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” 
~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – when we can brush off the old, and embrace the new.  Every day offers this opportunity, but the feeling of renewed hope and determination to reach our goals and experience our dreams is exemplified in a full 365 days, more time to do more – the New Year.

Do you have New Year’s resolutions?  I have read over and over, from famous writers, philosophers and my friends that making resolutions is, well, for lack of a better word…nincompoopery.  Resolutions set you up to fail and lower your self-esteem.  They are lost in a few weeks.  New Year’s resolutions are ridiculous based on the idea that we should strive to accomplish our goals as part of each day, not in the spirit of confetti and turning the page on a calendar year.

Well, I refuse to be placed in that category of the foolish making resolutions!  I resolve to not make resolutions!  Instead, I’m simply going to write a list of things I would like to do or accomplish next year.

The most important item on my list of “Things to Do That Are Not Called ‘Resolutions'” is to be grateful!  Each day brings its own opportunity to do something utterly fantastic.  Life is filled with so much opportunity, it’s true, that it is too easy to forget the hill I’m sitting on and dream about the other side, you know, the one with greener grass.  Metaphorically, I need to run my fingers through the grass on my hill and praise God for what I have and what I can give others.

I also must be grateful for the opportunity to dream about new adventures, and most importantly, the opportunity to take them.  This is basic.  Breathe in my lungs and days I am given.  Sure, wanderlust can be a curse, but it is also a gift.  The thirst to learn new things and meet new people will, in the long run, enrich my life if I grasp each chance.  I cannot unwittingly and selfishly let them go by.

I think 2012 will be the best year yet.  I have my list of things I want to do and see, but if I am not grateful for the big and small, they are only lost resolutions, never complete.  For me and for you, Reader, the road ahead may be filled with disappointment and frustration, loss and pain, but how we get back up to grab the next opportunity is what matters, praising God for the lessons learned and the next chance to apply their teachings.

I love life for many reasons.  I love it most for the sheer potential in it.

Posted on by Lawren McConnell

If I Was a Billionnaire

Days of grant research and writing grant proposals (with at least a month and a half of it ahead of me), makes me think about money.  What would I do with a million (heck, I’m dreaming, I’ll go bigger) a BILLION dollars?  Most of you might think, “Quit my job!”  I’d actually use it to enhance what I can do at JDRF, because first, I’d buy myself out writing grants.  Don’t take it the wrong way, I love writing up projects and why they are imporant and crafting budgets and strategy, but, uh, if I had money to give, I wouldn’t have do it.  So, yay! 

I would TRAVEL, oh my yes!  I would visit my friends all over the world and really immerse myself in different cultures.  Then I’d blog about it, so you, my reader, wouldn’t have to read blogs about my dreaming and thought processes.  Nice change, right?

I want to go back to school.  I want my MBA, and I want to enroll in an intensive one year program.  I know a lot of people go back to school to get the bigger bucks, and I’ll already  have big bucks, but I am an academic at heart.  Books + sense of accomplishment = me happy.  I would leave my staff position for education, then come back and try to find a job again.  I would have the luxury of not working while I wait for a position to open up.  I would volunteer of course.  No seriously, I would. 

I’d have to work, because helping people helps a person feel good about themselves!  So along with being able to keep regular hair appointments, I’d be feeling good about myself inside and out! 

I could attend a gala instead of working one.  This would be a moment for me.  I would give a giant Fund A Cure gift,  which goes directly to research.  I would also get to….wait for it…sit down.     Actually being seated for the program would be a fantasy within a fantasy.  I can just see me walking in and hearing, “Oh good you’re here, can you…”  Volunteers and staff, you  know what I mean. 

I’d buy a house with a yard so I could have a puppy.  I’d then train the puppy to attack on command.  Did I just lose the cute vote with that last sentence?

Omigosh!  I would be able to do a lot!  I would give to missions!  I would send kids to camp, help people meet their fundraising expectations by donating towards individual fundraising goals, I could pay for events and resources, I could further medical research, and the list goes on!  It would be awesome, and I would have nice hair and a puppy. 

Now, money DOES NOT buy happiness.  No, not at all.  So, I write my grant proposals to those who are able to do these incredible things and let them know about wonderful ways to give back.  Even though it can be draining, this makes me feel good.  Makes me feel good even though my roots are showing and the cat hates me. 

 

Posted on by Lawren McConnell

Role Reversal

The week after a few tests to examine her heart, Mom sat me down at lunch at Whole Foods to tell me that they “found something.”  Those words should never be uttered.  Something was found.  Don’t know what it is, but it is something and it was bad enough to be found.  That phrase never means something good.  They found something in my heart – it’s a pot of gold next a genie to grant three wishes!  Rainbow Brite was in there, too.  She sends her love.

So, Mom went in for tests.  I could tell she was nervous, because underneath her tough posterior, she lets a little worry out under her eyes.  You have to be watching her every second, because it comes and goes very quickly.  She often looks down or to the side to avoid making eye contact after her moment of worry.

So, back to the heart hospital.  After Grandma and Dad, we joke that they should name a wing for our family, used exclusively for our family.  I know everything in the vending machines, where all the rooms are, where the chapel is, where the bathrooms are.  I have the smell and colors memorized.  For a hospital, it’s cozy.  I hate it.  It means they found something.

Both Mom and Dad were shaky about this test.  Mom cracked jokes and we talked about the dogs before she went in.  After she went in, Dad grew quiet and contemplative.  I knew this was a bad place for Dad to be, and it was my job to keep him out.  About ten years ago, after my first seizure, Dad stood at the bottom of my hospital bed, rubbing my feet, telling me everything was fine.  The seizure was caused by epilepsy, but at the time it could have been anything from just a seizure to a disease to dictate my life to a brain tumor to end it.  But Dad was smiling and fine and that made me fine, too.  He has an inexplicable ability to calm people.  I think it comes from his rock hard faith in Jesus Christ, his 44 years in law enforcement and his 65 years on the planet and going through the bad stuff.

Dad counted every minute Mom was away.  I kept explaining every extra minute.  Going over how if it was a clot it was gone now, if it was an electrical problem they were fixing it and how the time she was away was spent in the care of the best and she was FINE.  I believed it.  I believed it not because I had to because Dad was nervous, but because God wouldn’t do this to me again, and if he did, we would get through it only by His hand, and I knew this, and wasn’t worried because I am His child and my father’s daughter.

Mom has great arteries, we were told when she came out.  Just past the age when both her parents died, she is healthy.  I praise God for her arteries.  Mom is happy and relaxed, so is Dad, and even though her pain and the other tests are still a mystery, we now have proof, undeniable proof, that her heart is fine, and we are still strong.

Posted on by Lawren McConnell

Flood of Aggravation

One of those, you know? 

It seems like the car, the house and my own forgetfulness take turns in giving me crappy days.  Some people scream obscenities, I blog and write emails about it.

Last month it was the car, another $200 in repairs and upkeep.  This beautiful July – the house.  It was a boring Sunday afternoon, the kind I like.  I was watching Costner’s Dances With Wolves, because yes, I had never seen it (you may commence gasping at this thought…okay, you done?).  I threw some bedding in the wash.  That’s when all hell (and by hell I mean tons of water) broke loose. 

The downstairs toilet starting talking in gurgling noises.  Sydney and I went to investigate.  By the time we got there, we heard the washing machine draining in the next room and then all that sudsy water came gushing up through the toilet.  It at first made a obnoxious tinkling noise as it hit the tile, then it sounded like Niagara Falls.  Water everywhere.  Having no heavy duty shop n’ vac, but rather a small Bissell wet/dry vac, I went to work.  Every swipe of the vacuum was followed by a trip to dump it out.  This took 45 minutes.  I had at least three inches of water in the bathroom, in the laundry room and in parts of the kitchen and hallway.  Just when the vacuum stopped making waves on my floor and I could see an end in sight, I heard the noise and remembered – large load, second rinse cycle.  Before I could even run the few steps back to the washing machine it did it again, and worse. 

Sydney sat in the corner of the kitchen on a dry patch staring in astonishment.  Dublin came in to see the commotion and started meowing about the state of his bathroom.  Then I started crying about the state of his bathroom, because the water hit the litter box this time.  Clean litter that Dublin had recently scooped out of his litter box in his fanaticism over cover up was now floating on top of another 3 to 4 inches of sudsy water in the laundry room.   I had to let it sink in, then went back to work.

Over an hour and a half later, only streaks of wet were visible on the floor and the laundry room couldn’t be cleaner if I had taken gallons of water and All laundry detergent and poured it over the floor and sucked it up. 

My day doesn’t end there!  After a quick rest, I hopped on the treadmill.  I felt something on my ankle and looked down to see water spurting up from the front of the belt!  Where was it coming from?!?  I had no water left in my tennis shoes!  Was this a flashback due to post-laundry flood stress disorder?  I looked behind me and saw that the leak had made a long streak down the belt of the treadmill and there was a puddle on the floor near the back of the treadmill.  Then I noticed this water had a pungent smell, not clean and sudsy at all!

Sydney rarely has accidents unless something frays her nerves.  She was the one with post-laundry flood stress disorder.  How did a female dog no taller than my knee successfully relieve herself on the back of a moving treadmill?  She must have lied on her back and let loose like a fountain figurine.  I’ve seen her do it.   She put on such a display at PetSmart when a German Shepherd gave her the evil eye. 

It was now the middle of the night and I was sweaty from cleanup with dry hands from all the cleaning solution.  Then yesterday I locked myself out of the office.

In case you wondering, the exact cause of the flood is yet unknown.  Professionals are working around the clock, in cooperation with homeowners and the HOA.  It doesn’t look good.  I have faith God will provide me a rainbow to this flood in the form of stress-free plumbing.

Posted on by Lawren McConnell · 1 Comment

The Furkids

People can go on and on talking about their pets until they have kids, then they talk about their kids until the kids get booted out of the nest and the new pets come in and they go back to talking about nothing but what the dog said the other day.

I’ve seen this happen first hand.  Mom was “Mom” to Keeto Dan, her bishon until I came along.  Then it was all about me.   The tale was that Keeto didn’t like kids.  No, Keeto didn’t like me.  She only cared about my well being, I am sure, because Mom did.  Other than making sure I wasn’t kidnapped for Mom’s sake, she kept her distance, giving me dirty looks.  Sure, I was just a baby, but I remember her cold stares.  Those dark, beady eyes of contempt.  Makes sense.  I took her place on Mom’s lap.

We always had family pets when I was growing up, and my parents doted over all the favorites.  Cindy Chicken, Liz (my dog, the Vizsla), Betsy Wetsy Dog, Sarah Jane Watchcat (she could imitate Mom’s voice perfectly), Martha the Cat (she flew like a flying squirrel across rooms to latch onto you – that grabbed attention),  Rosita, and Pookie (Dad’s Choodle).   Pookie survived Parvo, rat poisoning as a puppy and broken ribs.  So, it was no surprise, that she was the last pet I grew up with to say adieu.   All of them were talked about much, but nothing to the degree of when I left the roost.

I was 23 when Pookie, gray and tired from cancer, left us.  My parents took some time to enjoy the empty house and the freedom to travel, but they couldn’t go long without adopting more furkids.   I found PJ (then named Chloe) while volunteering with the city’s Animal Welfare Program.  I hadn’t seen a dog look more like Benji.  She was so quiet and kind.  I adopted her for my parents, and my mom gave her to Dad for Valentine’s Day, then named her Plain Jane.  She took no time at all ripping the house apart, digesting as much as she could in as little time as possible.  Every phone call started with, “You’re not going to believe what  YOUR dog did today!!”  For being such a demure “plain” dog, she was making a statement about being left alone.  PJ this and PJ that.

I truly thought my parents had their hands full with Peej, as I call her.  I think she’s on collar #4,592 as we speak, but they decided no dog should be without a pack.  So here comes the baby, Osa.  Osa is an Aussie/Husky mix, and looks more like some furry alien hybrid than dog.  As a puppy, though, she looked like a cotton ball with legs, a baby polar bear, and because she growls in syllables, they named her “Bear”.  Osa.

The calls turned from what was destroyed in canine rampage to what the baby said in a matter of a few weeks.  I was right there, in the pre-kid furkid obsession with Sydney, Osa’s sister.  Sydney is an Aussie/Blue Healer mix but she and Osa share the same build and knack for conversation.  Osa says “I love you” and Sydney says “Shut up” so you can tell that Osa lives with a kinder (and now more subdued) older sister and Sydney lives with a big brother cat.

How much my parents and I discuss the pets compared to other topics (work, retirement, plans for the future, politics, investments, friends and family of the human sort) doesn’t surprise me.  Any pet owner will tell you that furkids demand 24-hour time and investment, responsibility and care.  Furkids also give you protection, love and they don’t talk back.  Oh wait, ours do.

Sydney's first day home
Sydney's first day home

 

Sydney (March 09)
Sydney (March 09)

 

Posted on by Lawren McConnell

The Fence

For about three days straight now, Sydney has stood at the door with no need of going outside other than to get out there.  She knows that by sitting by the door, staring at me, and cocking her head just ever so slightly to the left, she will get to go outside.  This is her signal.  Finally back on the yellow brick road to being potty trained, she is communicating with me.

Unfortunately, the pup has learned that this signal means outside period.  Not just for potty.  So what does Sydney do in our teeny tiny front yard?  She runs to the fence to look out.  Nothing really changes.  The neighbors are rarely playing in the streets, other dogs are snuggled in their warm homes, content to play and sleep inside.  As I see her run to the fence to look out, I realize that she is more like me than I thought.  I’m constantly running to my fence just to try to look outside.

I have been working in the same job and I have lived in the same home for over three years.  Nothing has changed for me.  Thoughts of traveling, going back to school, carving the life I would most enjoy have gone in and out of my head in the past and now they’re stuck.

I, with everyone else, battled wanderlust as a teenager, but I also had wonderlust after entering college.  This curiosity propelled me to study abroad for a semester, a move that was hard, sometimes lonely, freezingly cold and incredible.  After four months I wanted home again.   Content in my warm comfy state, I finished school and started work.  Now, at 24, the wanderlust is back.  I feel time slipping away.

My fence is constructed out of past commitments, ties to my family and friends, financial restraints, the actual fence (we need to sell the home),  and a fear of loneliness caused by venturing out on my own again.

I know I must find out what lies on the other side.  I have to open that fence for myself, grab Sydney, and we’ll walk through.