Anne Rutherford's Blog

Silas

In early September, 2000, my daughter Nikki came home one evening while I was watching TV, carrying a cardboard box. “Look what I found!” I eyed the box, knowing what she’d probably found. More than once she’d brought in a baby rabbit or other prey caught and damaged by our mighty hunter cat, Spot. I wasn’t much interested in nursing another casualty back to health, especially since my record of success wasn’t better than fifty percent.

But when she reached into the box, she brought out a tiny furball of an orange-and-white kitten no more than six weeks old. He grabbed my heart that very instant. I jumped up to take him. “Oh, my God!” The little guy was starved nearly to death, only skin and bones under the long fur. He had eye infections, skin infections, fleas, worms, diarrhea, just everything bad that can happen to a kitten had happened to him. I held him and he was mine. I called to Dale, “Hey, come see what followed Nikki home from Smyrna!” Dale came into the room, took one look at him, and said, “His name is Silas.”

We fed him, though he couldn’t eat much without it going straight out the other end. But when he’d had enough, I took him back to the living room, settled onto the couch to watch TV some more, with Silas wrapped in a towel to keep him from pooping on me, and he started purring. Just as loud as you please, though he was a very sick kitty.

That was always how he was. If he was in my lap, he was purring. Or even nearby, when he couldn’t be in my lap, he just purred up a storm every time.

I took him to the vet the next day, where he was medicated and cleaned up. He rode home on the passenger seat of the Altima, stretched out full-length on his belly, purring, and I swear he had a big smile on his face. Silas thought he was a dog. He was as affectionate as one, and as he grew older he became as clingy as one.

When he was little, he was always either running, or sleeping. Never in-between. At first we weren’t sure if he was going to get along with our Border collie, Ziggy, but when I saw Ziggy chase Silas the length of the house, and went to rescue the kitten only to find him chasing the dog back the other way, I knew Silas would be all right.

One day when he was still little but had grown some, he was playing mouse hockey as usual. Hiding beneath the TV stand in the office, he decided to pounce on his toy but hadn’t realized he was now bigger than he used to be. He no longer fit in the space beneath the bottom shelf of the stand. I heard a “clonk” and saw two little legs sticking out from under the shelf, still trying to reach the toy mouse though his head was too large to go under. Of course, he meant to do that.

Silas was an indoor cat, but he liked to rush the door and escape whenever he could. He would graze on the lawn, and chase away the white male cat that presumed to enter Silas’s yard. One of his favorite things was to roll around on the cement gutter drain in the back yard. Another favorite thing was to have burrs and things combed out of his coat.

Early on, Spot was his second mommy. But when she died he was only ten months old and he took it hard. It was a few years before he would have another attachment, and that was me.

Silas was my favorite of all our animals. He had to be. He required it. He needed constant reassurance that he was the favorite. He had to be fed separately, and got special food. He rather needed special food, for he had a sensitive tummy and would barf up most foods. He was the hairball king of Middle Tennessee, and for years there was hardly a day that he wasn’t coughing up something. He was susceptible to infection, and learned to take pills without complaint. It was plain he’d made the connection between pills and feeling better, and he never once gave me guff about medication.

For a while he slept on the bed. He got in the habit while Dale was on the road for several weeks. When it was bedtime, he presented himself and claimed his spot on Dale’s side, and I got used to waking up with Silas draped over me or lying on top of me. But when Dale returned, and it was bedtime, Silas came in and stopped cold when he saw Dale in his spot. The look on his face was like, “Uh…don’t you, like, have a tour to go on, or something?”

The shower mystified him. Every night he would come running when the water started, and sit outside the curtain, trying to see inside. He’d poke a paw in, and one time came all the way in. After that he limited himself to just playing with the edge of the curtain. Then, when I was finished and the water turned off, he’d run inside and drink off the floor. I can’t imagine why, but every night he had to have his shower water.

Silas was afraid of the television. He didn’t like anything on a screen, but he did eventually make peace with the computer monitor. I think he did that because it was the only way to hang out with me. The last year or so, I couldn’t sit at the computer without him climbing onto my lap, even if I was working with the laptop in the bedroom. Whenever I came home from a business trip, he always ran to greet me, then lay in my arms so I’d know how much he missed me.

Always purring at full bore. Even the night he died, barely able to breathe, he spent some hours lying on my bed, purring away. I petted him as much as I could stay awake, wishing morning would come so I could take him to the vet. I had no idea he wouldn’t make it.

If Nikki hadn’t brought that kitten home, it’s certain he wouldn’t have lived more than another day or two. Nine years is not a long life for a cat, and for that I’m horribly sorry. But I’m so thankful for the years we did have with him. I thank God for sending me a tiny orange-and-white furball named Silas.

The New Normal

As you know, Bob, 2020 was the year to end all years. We’re all shocked at the relentless horror show, and we’re glad it’s over and we can look forward to many changes for the better.

But that’s not what I came to tell you about.

For the past three years, I’ve been remarkably silent everywhere but Facebook. This time, for me, has been one long 2020, merely capped by the disaster that was this past year. Three years ago last Sunday my husband died.

People like to say “passed away,” or “expired,” but that’s not what happened to Dale. He died. Suddenly, without any real warning. Of course, had there been any warning he would have been in the emergency room at the time, but instead he was asleep in his bed. In a single instant his life was over, and so was mine.

Dale had the flu. Just plain flu. He’d been out on the road and returned home just in time for Christmas. In thirty-six years of marriage Dale never missed Christmas even once. Even in 2001, the year he drove for the Trans Siberian Orchestra, whose whole schtick is Christmas music, he made it home on Christmas Eve because the tour had a show in Nashville on Dec. 26. He came home, exhausted from the overnight drive, and that night eight musicians and the tour manager came for Christmas dinner.

Oh, yeah, the flu. Dale had been out with The Grateful Dead (now aka Dead and Company,) and came home sick. That wasn’t unusual. Music tours were bad for giving him the crud. He usually had a flu shot, but that year he’d forgotten. No flu shot, and no pneumonia shot. But it was just the flu.

He was home for a little over a week, I think. He was scheduled to return to the road on January 4 with Imagine Dragons. He was still sick the day before, but turning down work during the off season took a chance that there would be no more work until spring. He had to go.

But on January 3, when he tried to sleep before the tour, he was having trouble breathing. We discussed options. I asked if he wanted me to take him to the ER, but he said if he could just get some sleep he’d feel better. So he went to bed early, and I went to the living room to watch TV. If I’d known what pneumonia sounded like, I would have made him get dressed and taken him to the hospital.

A few hours later, I went to check on him. As I entered the room, I thought he was breathing easier because I couldn’t hear it. I thought that was a good thing. I headed for the bathroom, but stopped because I’m a mom and I like to make sure everybody is breathing. I said his name, then poked him. No reaction. I poked him again. No reaction. I shook him, and he didn’t move. I thought he was fooling, because he was in the habit of playing that very game. I said, “Not funny,” then shook him again. Only then did I realize the truth.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no…” I ran around to the other side of the bed and tried to pull him up, wake him up, get him moving. He was limp. For a moment I just stood there, trying to think of what to do. What were the authorities going to expect from me?

I ran to the kitchen and called 911. “I think my husband is dead.” The operator sent me back to the bedroom and guided me through CPR. Weirdly, that gave me hope even though I knew it was pro forma procedure. I heard my daughter in the hallway, and called to her. “Come help me!”

Nikki came, and took over the CPR while I let the firemen in the back door. After that, my brain turned to slush. I could only do what I was directed to do; thinking was…risky. Somehow I ended up with my coat, out in the ambulance. We stayed in the driveway for what seemed like forever while they worked on him, and hope grew. Finally we went.

Lights and sirens aren’t exciting. Speeding down the main drag while traffic pulled over and stopped to let us by wasn’t even interesting. It was a horror, and I wanted to hide. I clutched my coat, and it was the only thing grounding me to reality.

At the hospital emergency entrance I got out and didn’t know what direction to go. Nikki was there. Then the gurney came from the back of the ambulance, and I saw Dale had not changed. That was when the slim hope died and I knew he was gone.

They took him to a room, and Nikki and I went to another room. Our son, Travis, arrived. We waited. About an hour later they called time of death. We were able to go to where he was and say goodbye.

In grief counseling, I heard stories of long illnesses and how one’s life changes in that experience. There was some discussion about which is less bad: sudden death or long illness. I still don’t know the answer to that. I didn’t have months of knowing the end was near and getting closer, but on the other hand I didn’t get to say goodbye and tell him I love him. Many things went unsaid. Loose ends dangled. The following year was a nightmare of red tape and explaining to people over and over that my husband was dead. No cash on hand for a funeral, and the guy in charge of the Memorial Gardens where Dale’s parents’ and brother’s graves are was unconscionably insensitive. Every bit of future we’d hoped for evaporated in an instant. I had no clue who I was anymore.

It has taken three years of exploration, studying, figuring out where he ended and I began, and I’m still taking baby steps. I foster cats now because I can’t stand an empty house and I love the cats like they’re family. I do artistic things with model horses. Covid has stunted the development of any plans. But it’s a new year and many things are changing.

Someone’s In The Kitchen

About a year has passed since I last was able to write this blog. As you know, Bob, my husband, Dale, died of probably-pneumonia on January 3, 2018. Suddenly, while he was sleeping. I went to wake him up, but he wouldn’t get up. I thought he was playing games, but he really wasn’t breathing. Turns out he’d been gone for about an hour before I found him.

For a year I thought I would make a blog post about that night, but though I just now sat down to do it, I realize I can’t. Maybe someday I’ll write it all down, but not today. Instead I’m going to fast-forward to today and talk about my kitchen renovation.

Why, yes, that certainly is a subject everyone has done. Everybody on Facebook has written about their new kitchen. It’s a safe subject, not likely to make anyone cry, and just the word “renovate” is cheerful. Like “resurrect.” Or “rehabilitate.” “Renew.” There’s a joy in a new kitchen, especially when one has hated one’s kitchen for as long as I have.

Oh, yeah. Nearly thirty years ago we bought this place for a “starter” home. I didn’t want a ranch style, didn’t like the awkward landscaping, and especially hated the kitchen/dining room with white-ish linoleum and cheap gray carpet that shed pile constantly. Hated the knotty pine cabinets already yellowed with thirty-one years of age, dining room paneling likewise yellowed, postage stamp counter space, and a sink with one of those little, bitty vegetable sinks that just make no sense.

When Dale died so suddenly, we were less than a year from paying off the house. The plan then was to make repairs on it with the money we would no longer be spending on a mortgage. Suddenly I was faced with probably having to sell the house, but then my children stepped up to relieve me of all debt. I have a bumper magnet on my car like the honor student ones you see everywhere, that says “My child is a sober, responsible, tax-paying ADULT.” If I’ve done nothing else worthwhile in my life, I’ve at least got kids who are fine, successful, well-adjusted people. In short, I’m still living in the house I bought with Dale.

But I hate the kitchen. Over the years we’ve installed new flooring in it twice, In 2007 swapping out the linoleum and carpet for wood veneer, then when that was flooded in 2010 we installed dark bamboo. It also was ruined by assorted liquids (you don’t want to know), and several months ago began to buckle badly enough to trip people up. My daughter decided we needed a new floor, and while we were at it we should paint, and install new cabinet hardware, counter top, sink, curtains, and backsplash. She would pay for the materials, and her brother and I are doing the labor.

I’m over sixty. My balance is bad. An hour on a ladder cleaning and painting wipes me out for the rest of the day. This job wasn’t ever going to get done in a week.

So, some weeks ago Travis pulled up the old flooring, revealing once again the linoleum that had been there when we bought the place. I bought some mineral spirits and spent about a week cleaning grease off the cabinets. They’re now nearly sixty years old, and even more gross-looking than they were when we bought this place. The hammered-copper hardware was cemented into place by decades of grease and whatnot, and left green stains on the cabinet doors. The mineral spirits could only accomplish so much, and I searched down our hand sander to take off the really impossible crud.

[image error]First coat.

Doing all this while the flooring is gone enables me to paint with impunity. No dropcloth needed, I don’t have to worry about drips. I’ve primered and got one coat of paint on the cabinet doors, which are laid out across the empty dining room. Travis moved the refrigerator for me, and I cleaned and primered the wall and cabinet behind. That’s where I am today, getting that bit of wall completed so we can put the refrigerator back in its slot and move on. The walls, molding, and backsplash will be an eggshell white, and the cabinets will be a darkish blue that will work with my metallic blue KitchenAid mixer. (Yes, I am decorating around the mixer. It’s either that or risk having it fight with the décor until I die.)

Happily, I’m finding this project somewhat therapeutic. For nearly thirty years I tolerated a kitchen I hated because I wasn’t the only one living in the house. Though I hate that Dale is gone and will never be okay with it, I’m learning to figure out what I want and am sticking up for it. This house is mine, mine, mine, all mine, and every room is for me to use as I please, until I sell it or bequeath it. I move onward.

Last Christmas

Ever since the kids became responsible, tax-paying adults, the holidays have been a nightmare of scheduling. During his senior year in college, Travis went to work for a chain pharmacy which is known for being open 24/7/365. Nikki in her retail years sometimes was free on Christmas, but then she married a firefighter and all bets were off. When the kids were little we used to have a big dinner party on Christmas Eve, then open presents the next morning and relax the rest of the day. I miss that.

With Dale’s job, the one day of the year he was guaranteed to be home was Christmas Day. The touring industry is pretty seasonal, so it was usually easy enough for him to have downtime on that day. Particularly in the years when he was home from Thanksgiving till nearly Easter. Some years not so much, though. Our first Christmas, in 1981, he flew in off of AC/DC at midnight on Christmas Eve morning. That day we went scrounging for a tree, and found one for $12. It was short, spindly, and had an enormous hole on one side, but it was by-God real and it was our first.

Even the year (2001) he worked for the Trans Siberian Orchestra, whose entire schtick is Christmas music, he managed to make it home. The tour just happened to have a show in Nashville on December 26. Dale cruised in with his passengers on Christmas Eve day, and because nobody on the tour was permitted to fly home for the holiday, Dale brought eight guests with him for dinner that night: the tour manager and eight of the musicians. The viola player made homemade eggnog for us, and we demolished the biggest turkey I’ve ever seen, let alone cooked.[image error]

For the past dozen years or so, though, with the kids grown and having their own lives, we’ve had to give up the dinner parties and get together at the time when a majority of us were available. Dale was always there, and a few years ago his mother moved into the area, but sometimes Nikki had to eat and run, and there were years when Travis had to close the store Christmas Eve and open on Christmas Day. The grandsons arrived, but then when the divorce happened the boys’ presence was dictated by the court and nobody took that well.

Last Christmas, for one bright, shining moment, it all changed.

That time, it all came together, like magic. The boys and their mother live here now, and it was our turn to have them on Christmas Day. Travis last summer was promoted to general manager of his own store, guaranteeing him Christmas Day off. And Dale worked to mid-December, taking an extra week with the Grateful Dead (these days Dead and Company), and came home in plenty of time to enjoy a break.

Both the kids (they’re in their mid-thirties now) took me Christmas tree shopping. There’s a tree lot that for a number of years has set up on a vacant lot that used to be a funeral home. (Yeah, I’m one of those people who give directions like, “Turn left at where the old WalMart used to be.”) We’ve gotten into the habit of buying our trees there, and that’s what you call tradition. It was a special treat for me that Travis and Nikki were there, because they know I like tree-shopping as a family.

This year, it was no Charlie Brown tree. The kids bought us a huge, flocked one. I’d never had a flocked tree before in my life. My mother used to sneer at them, so I had never been interested, but when Nikki asked me if I wanted our chosen tree flocked, a mood came over me. Yes, this flocking was pretty. And when I felt of it, I could tell it would stay on the tree and make the branches sturdier. I accepted the flocking with much pleasure.

This year we weren’t particularly flush, but we had enough. When I asked Dale what he wanted for Christmas, he couldn’t think of anything. So he mentioned that his watch needed repair.

That’s not much of a present. I’d bought him that watch for Christmas several years before. But he couldn’t think of anything else, so I took it to where I’d bought it to see if they could fix it. They told me all it needed was a new battery. Sixteen bucks. I had them fix it, then texted Dale. “Watch only needed new battery. Suggestions? Off to browse Best Buy for ideas. I’ll return the watch when I get home.”

He replied, “Ok. I don’t know something fun maybe whatever is comfortable to budget lov you.”

“Fun it is. I know exactly what.” First time ever, I knew what to get him. I went looking for a VR headset.

Christmas Eve the boys got to toast marshmallows in the fireplace, a [image error]tradition that for me goes back to about 1960 when my brother and I were preschoolers. They said goodbye to Buddy, their Elf on a Shelf, and hung their stockings by the chimney with care.[image error]

Christmas Day was like old times, but without the stress. Jack-O-Lantern pies made from Halloween decorations. Turkey–a cheap one shot with broth, which are never dry and always taste fabulous. Dressing with gravy, and I make the BEST gravy. My grandmother’s recipe for sweet potato casserole. Nobody poised to eat and run. Nobody arriving at the last minute. Nobody annoyed, and Dale even seemed to like his VR headset.

It was one of the best Christmases ever. God blessed us that we had no idea that last Christmas would be Dale’s last Christmas.

[image error]

Memory Lane

Taking a moment before the next post about why I stopped posting in August, here’s one for a good laugh.

Today my son pulled down from the garage rafters the ten or so leaf bags full of t-shirts Dale had stashed over the past forty or so years. The bags were crumbling into big plastic flakes, but the shirts inside were all in pretty good shape. Except for one Spinal Tap shirt that disintegrated in my hands, I’m going to sell them to supplement my Social Security. First step was to separate the keepers (Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, etc.) from the Goodwill shirts (Loch Raven Coach, Molly Murphy’s Restaurant, Harley Davidson, etc.), then carefully fold the keepers and put them in tubs to keep them safe and clean until their turn on eBay. I spent the entire day at this.

Many of the shirts meant nothing to me; I had never seen them and they’d never been worn. But there were many that brought back memories of tours when I’d accompanied Dale. The several Jefferson Starship shirts made me smile. Dale’s first tour as a bus driver (previously he’d driven a semi, hauling tour equipment) was on the Nuclear Furniture tour in 1984. I accompanied him on it for three weeks.

Did I meet Grace Slick? Of course, I did. But that has nothing to do with this story.

Shortly after I arrived on the tour, Dale and I got on an elevator in the hotel, and Grace and a man I didn’t know got on with us. Dale needed to stop on the floor where management had their rooms, which was also where Grace needed to go. They both got off at that floor, and the man and I continued on to the top floor.

He seemed like a nice guy. Asked me if I was Dale’s wife, and I explained that I was visiting him for a few weeks. He said some complimentary things about Dale, etc. As we left the elevator and proceeded to our respective rooms. Thinking I was being polite, I asked him if he worked for the band. I had, after all, seen him get on the elevator with Grace.

He replied in the affirmative.

I asked him what he did.

He said, “I’m the bass player.”

Yeah. Pete Sears.

“Oh, I guess you do work on the tour.” Had there been a hole to crawl into…

I apologized sincerely. He laughed and forgave me.

Now the t-shirts are all packed up. Fourteen large tubs They’re going up on eBay, but the memories stay here.

 

Off to the Hospital

[This series of posts over the next few weeks tell of why I haven’t posted since August. If it’s too depressing, feel free to skip them over.]

Well, I’m back. Ready to tell the story of the stroke I had on October 19. Weirdly, typing is painful in ways I never would have expected. Sometimes it requires medication, sometimes medication stronger than Tylenol. I try to avoid painkiller.

But let me tell this from the beginning.

On Thursday, October 19, I was struggling to make peace between two good friends. We’d known each other for about forty-five years, and had been through much together. Now they were fighting and I wanted to smooth things over. For about six hours I talked and negotiated, and as one might guess I got nothing but grief for my effort because, as you know, Bob, no good deed goes unpunished. Then, in the midst of this, my daughter came into my office and accused me of setting the thermostat too high. The thermostat was new, a fancy-schmancy smarthouse sort of thing, and we’d spent about a week trying to figure out how to set it so we wouldn’t have to keep fooling with it. So I went to see what I could do.

I don’t do numbers well. I was already stressed out and exhausted from a day of failing to make peace, and now I was supposed to figure out this unfamiliar technology. I’m generally pretty good at assimilating new things, but, you know…numbers. My daughter had her brother on the phone, and they were both trying to tell me what to do while I struggled to think and listen at the same time. Suddenly my upper lip went tingly-numb.

My first thought was “stroke,” but the numbness went away after about sixty seconds. Huh. I was accustomed to neuropathy in my feet, and that’s what this felt like. So I went back to what I was doing, reset the thermostat, and continued my chat with my friends. I did take a BP reading, and it was high enough I should have gone straight to the ER, but the numbness was gone so I decided I didn’t want to go to the ER just to be sent home again. I don’t have money for that sort of thing.

The following morning I woke up with no feeling at all in my lower-right face and my right hand. I knew something was terribly wrong, but I still didn’t think it was a stroke. I thought strokes always involved muscle weakness or cognitive difficulty. To me, this felt exactly like I’d slept weird on one side, or the peripheral neuropathy I’ve had in my feet for nearly a decade. Business as usual. So I waited for it to go away, as it had the night before.

The following day the numbness was still there. It began to scare me. It wasn’t getting worse, but it wasn’t getting better, either. I called my son to take me to the ER, but ended up changing my mind. I still wasn’t convinced it was a stroke, and knew how much it would cost for an MRI or CT scan. I didn’t go to the ER.

The next morning my English handbells group was to play in church. I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble playing; I could still read and move. But when I arrived at the church and I learned one of the bells needed its rubber clapper spring replaced immediately, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to just tough this thing out. I was the only player who was sufficiently skilled at replacing bell springs, and I knew my lack of sensation in my right hand was going to keep me from succeeding at this. I talked another player through it, and decided that I needed to go to the ER as soon as we were done playing that morning.

I ducked out of the service as soon as I could, went home, and asked my daughter to take me to the ER. First I had to contact my insurance provider to find out whether there was an in-network hospital nearby.

The Hendersonville Medical Center (TriStar) ER is where my brother died in 2001, and is also where he was sent home with no diagnosis two months earlier for having no insurance. In short, as I’ve mentioned here before, my brother died for lack of coverage. It was more than creepy going into that place, and I couldn’t help wondering whether the room I was in was the room he’d been in when they’d tried to revive him. And there I waited, accompanied by my daughter.

I went through the usual, vitals, bloodwork, heart monitor, etc. Then I was taken out for a CT scan (my grandson is called CT, and I wish they still called them CAT scans), which was a breeze.  After some more waiting in the room, a neurologist came to tell me he had a pretty good idea I’d had a small thalamic stroke. But he wanted to see an MRI to make certain.

MRIs aren’t so bad. I’d heard they were loud and scary. The operator carefully explained to me what was going to happen, and I was able to ask questions. (Will I be able to rest my arms, or will I have to hold them up?) Then they slid me into the VERY small opening in the machine. My only moment of panic was when my shoulders touched the sides of the tube and I didn’t know how narrow it was going to be. But once I stopped moving and was able to find a spot for my arms, I was able to close my eyes and practice being still. I awaited the noise I’d heard so much about.

Wasn’t so much. Yeah, it was loud, but not startlingly or overwhelmingly so. They’d told me it was going to take awhile, but I was able to drift off in the rhythm of whack-whack-whack, and the scan was punctuated by two or three pauses. More boring than scary.

Back in the room that my brother may have died in, we waited some more. My husband called, and I updated him. Then we had to have the Living Will conversation. I didn’t have one, and since we were probably dealing with a stroke but didn’t know anything else about it, I had to tell him no machines. I wanted to be DNR. It was pretty upsetting for all of us, but it had to be said. And I made a mental note to do some legal paperwork once I had the chance. It came home to me that death wasn’t the worst thing that could happen in a hospital.

The stroke was confirmed, and I was admitted. The cash register in my head went, “Ka-ching.” More frightening than the MRI noise.

Since my arrival at about noon, I’d been asking about getting something to eat, because I hadn’t eaten since early the day before. But when they wheeled me to my room I was told it would be awhile before they would do the eating test that would determine whether I could chew without choking. I waited. It was nearly midnight before I was given the test and awarded a small turkey sandwich. Still polite, I didn’t complain about the tiny piece of bread and single slice of processed turkey. I waited for breakfast the next morning.

Food service was somewhere around 7:30, and I was beginning to feel light headed and cranky. I kept asking when it would arrive, and nobody seemed to know. Finally, about three hours after I woke up, a tray came. I could smell the sausage from the hallway.

My tray, however, contained a bottle of Ensure, some Jell-O, and a bowl of grits.

I lost it. Entirely. I’m a diabetic, and there was nothing on my tray I could consume without having a sugar spike. And…for God’s sake…grits? Furthermore, there wasn’t enough food on the tray to put a dent in my hunger, even if I had been able to eat it. I’m afraid I wasn’t very gentle in my request for a real breakfast.

The kitchen responded with a single scrambled egg and some orange juice.

The egg was fine, though not nearly enough. Orange juice has been off my diet for years, because it’s extremely high in sugar. What part of “I’m a diabetic” did they not get?

By this time I was frantic. I complained to the nurse and wanted to know what in bloody blue blazes was going on. She had no information, which is retrospect was probably a lie. I insisted on actual food. They sent someone (I forget her title) to talk to me.

It turned out that some doctor (probably the hospitalist, who turned out to be a true nitwit when I finally met him) had decided that, because I was a stroke patient, I should be on a liquid diet. Never mind that I’d passed the eating test the night before, this guy who had never laid eyes on me decided to put this diabetic on a liquid diet that was 100% carbohydrate. More on him later.

So when my lunch tray came it was still the liquid diet, but I was told to eat what I could from that tray and a real lunch would follow soon. So I wolfed the turkey soup (yes, you can wolf soup if you’re hungry enough), which was the only thing on the tray I could tolerate. Soon after another tray came with a sandwich, salad, and other goodies. I finally felt human again.

On the subject of that day’s hospitalist, here’s why he’s not getting paid by me. He did finally come by my room that afternoon, and informed me that he didn’t like my cholesterol numbers and he’d prescribed Lipitor for me. I informed him that I won’t take Lipitor because I saw what it had done to my husband. I have a long history of bad side effects and searching down the right medications, and won’t take anything that is likely to make me sick. No Lipitor for me.

He argued with me. I argued back and wondered out loud why Lipitor was the only thing he had. I asked for an alternative, but his response was to tell me he was prescribing it and I didn’t have to take it if I didn’t want to. When I asked him, “Is that all you’ve got?” He reached for his phone, pretended to take a call, wandered away, and I never saw him again.

When I saw his bill, which was an outrageous amount, I threw it in the trash. He’ll not see a dime out of my pocket.

I spent a total of two days in the hospital. I’m not sure what the purpose was of the second day, except maybe they just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to go home and start bleeding again. My meds and diet haven’t changed, though I’m more mindful of keeping stress levels low. (Yeah, right. See next rock.)

It’s been five months, and I now have sensation in my face and hand. At first it was terrible pain, but the pain has eased off somewhat and it’s now just an uncomfortable sensation. Like burning, whenever I touch something. I’m told it may eventually go away entirely, and at least for now it’s tolerable.

Dog-Shaped Hole

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been AWOL, and I apologize. I expect you all found other things to amuse, and I haven’t been much fun in any case. On the 31st I had oral surgery, and it went well, thank you. Then four days later my dog died.

You know, this blog was not intended to be a litany of people and pets I’ve lost. Honest. No, really. I swear it. When I migrated my website, I fully expected to have more worthwhile things to say than “my dog died.” But let me tell you about Max. He was the best dog ever.

In June of 2010, we found ourselves dogless, and it had only been seven months since I’d lost my very favorite cat, Silas. My husband knew I wanted another Border collie, and thought he might meet me at the airport on my return from a trip to New York and present me with a puppy, but thought better of it and let me pick out the puppy myself. So we found a breeder up the road in Beth Page, and went to look.

The place was clean, the dogs seemed happy, and there were several puppies to choose from. All the unusual-colored ones were spoken for, but I was happy to take a black-and-white rough coat. I picked up one of those, and he settled into my arms while I looked at the other puppies. We talked about rough coat vs. smooth coat, eye color, and other sundries. I wanted a rough coat, and thought I might like one with blue eyes, but at five weeks old it was too early to tell eye color. We looked at the parents. The father was a smallish, red, rough coat with erect ears. We were told he was an agility competitor, and his parents had both been imported from Scotland and Ireland. I liked that very much. Mom was quite large for a Border collie. She was floppy-eared and so shaggy she almost looked like an English Sheep Dog. Her people were working cattle dogs from Kentucky.

[image error]The puppy in my arms fell asleep, and when it came time to choose, I saw no reason to put him down. So we bought him and named him Max, then left him there to grow up for another week.

The following Saturday I went to pick him up after he’d had his shots, etc., and the breeder greeted me with, “I have good news. It looks like he’s going to have one blue eye.” One blue? I thought that was a little weird. But then later he ended up with one blue and one blue/brown merle, which I found unutterably cool.

At six weeks old, Max was still very young to be leaving home. Eight weeks is the recommended age. But I had the time and energy to focus on him. I would sit with him on the carpet, and he would play for about ten minutes, then fall asleep in my lap for five. Play for ten, sleep for five.

He was the first puppy I’d ever had who was specifically my dog, and with my husband on the road there was nobody else around to influence him. I bought several books on dog training (I can do anything if I have the instructions), and began readying him for the obedience class I planned to take, which would be a learning experience for both of us. At eight weeks I started showing him the concept of “fetch.” Mostly I would take his favorite toy, toss it in front of him, then praise and pet him when he picked it up. It was maybe a couple of weeks later that he caught on that the objective was for him to bring it to me, and from then on he was a fetching fool. A Border collie with a job is a happy puppy.

Some months later we signed up for an obedience class. He already knew how to sit, but hadn’t yet grasped coming on command. He learned it in no time flat. Every week the instructor was at a loss to fill the time because Max would pick up the day’s lesson in about five minutes, then go, “Okay, what else ya got?” I decided I liked having a dog who was smarter than me.

Even for a Border collie, Max was high energy and smarter than average. We have a broadcast-style (no wire) invisible fence we’d bought for our first Border collie, Ziggy. The instructions say to give the dog a couple of days to get used to the perimeter. Ziggy, being of a breed known for intelligence, learned it in a couple of hours. Max, at about a year old, learned it in five minutes. Which is also about how long it took him to learn to catch a Frisbee (aka Slobber Disk.)

As I said earlier, Max was a fetching fool. Anyone who came to our back door was immediately presented with Max’s honeycomb ball. Like a bridge troll, he expected the ball to be thrown several times before he would allow that person to pass. And no matter how many throws he got, he always went, “Piker!” Often when I walked down the driveway to get the mail, that ball would go rolling past me to the street. I’d turn around and find Max standing at the top, waiting for me to throw it for him. The neighbors all loved playing fetch with Max, which I encouraged because I could never keep up with him.

On August 4, two weeks ago, Max died. The vet showed me the x-ray, which revealed something that looked like a bone in his colon, and a shadow that looked like a massive infection. Since everyone in my family knows not to give bones to a dog, I can only guess he got it out of the garbage. In any case, he passed only a few minutes after I got him to the vet.

I’ll get another puppy, probably in a year or two. Meanwhile I’m working with my daughter’s dog, a Mountain Cur named Cooper. He’s not a stupid dog, but compared to Max he seems badly retarded. I’m so spoiled by Max.

Best. Dog Ever.

Filed under: Life Tagged: animals, death, dogs, grief, memories, pets

The System is Working

Rant alert. No humor today.

On October 3, 2001, at 7:30 in the evening, I sat in front of the TV, waiting for Farscape to start and my brother, Alan, to arrive to watch it with me. It was a regular thing, and I looked forward to it every week. Tonight he was late, but that wasn’t unusual.

About five minutes into the show, the phone rang. It was a woman, who asked, “Who’s this?”

I replied, “Who’s this?”

She only kept asking who I was, and I finally hung up. I have no patience for anyone who can’t identify themselves on the phone. I went back to watching the show.

The phone rang again, and it was the same woman, asking again who I was. I insisted she tell me who she was, and got another runaround. This was beginning to annoy me. This was before we had a DVR, and I was missing my favorite show. Again I hung up.

A third time the phone rang. This time it was a police officer, who informed me the call was about my brother, who had just had a heart attack. Apparently I was his emergency contact, and I was summoned to the hospital. I picked up my purse and left immediately.

On the way there, I sorted out in my mind how we would take care of Alan during his convalescence. I was his only local relative; he would need to stay with us and I would be responsible for him. That was how it had always been. He was my little brother, and all my life I had been held responsible for him.

In the ER, I learned he was still coding. They’d been trying to restart his heart for about half an hour. I was told that at this point, even if he responded he would probably end up brain-damaged. But as it was, they gave up soon after and pronounced him dead.

It turned out that the woman who had called twice then hung up was a friend of his, who had discovered him on the floor of his computer shop about half an hour after he called her, complaining of severe chest pains. (And by half an hour I mean God only knows how long it really took that flaming idiot to finally decide Alan needed help.)

Much later, from various sources including witnesses, emergency responders, and hospital records, I was able to assemble the truth of what happened. Alan began experiencing chest pains early in the evening, and phoned his friend the brain trust. She later said to me he told her to not call 911, because he couldn’t afford another trip to the ER and thought he could just tough it out the way he always had before. I learned he’d been having these episodes for about six months. Two months earlier he’d gone to the emergency room after going unconscious during one of them, but by the time he got there his rhythm had normalized and he was stable. The ER had done nothing; the episode had simply ended. By law, hospital emergency rooms are not obligated to find out what happened, they’re only required to stabilize. I know this because the ER at TriStar Hendersonville Medical Center, where Alan went for help and where he ultimately died, has notices posted on every available wall space stating in detail that they are not responsible for treating patients who are not insured, and once a patient is stabilized he is expected to leave the premises. So, since my brother was conscious and breathing, the hospital booted him out the door and he went home with a medical bill he would never have been able to pay even if he’d lived. He was a self-employed computer tech, new in town and barely scraping by, and had no way of affording individual health insurance. Ever. An individual policy for someone his age would have cost more than his entire income.

Alan told his friend not to call 911, and told her it was because, if he incurred another medical debt, he would never be able to have anything for the rest of his life. So she didn’t call anyone, and a while later wandered over to his shop to see if he was all right. He was, at that point, quite dead.

Had he been insured and not afraid to call for help, he could have been taken to the hospital in time and ::cough:: stabilized. And they might have stumbled across the cause of these episodes. Or perhaps, even, he might have had a diagnosis after the very first episode if he’d had access to a GP. But almost no GPs take new patients who are not insured. Why didn’t he get on Medicaid? Fffff…right. Be real, this is Tennessee. You need a lawyer to get on TennCare. In short, my brother died for lack of health insurance, as surely as if some actuary from Blue Cross had put a bullet in his brain.

So…I told you that story to tell you this, and some other stuff. (Yeah, this is going to be a long post, but I hope you’ll bear with me.) Skip ahead a few years. President Barack Obama, after at least a year of struggle which I followed closely, with fingers crossed that he would put an end to our health care system which was killing people, signed into law the Affordable Care Act. I decline to call it “ObamaCare,” because the main thing to remember is the word affordable. Let’s note that affordable is not part of the Republican repeal bill, on any level. We’ll get back to that shortly.

I won’t go into detail about the law itself; it’s extremely complex and deeply flawed. I’ll spare the rant on why. The central issue on this is that this law enabled millions of people, including me, to have more or less affordable health insurance. For some it is the first time in their lives. I had been uninsured my entire adult life. Being insurance clueless, I approached the government exchange with trepidation. It was confusing, but not nearly as hopeless as the teeth-pulling nightmare I’d experienced when signing my husband up for an individual policy several years earlier. (Just him; we couldn’t afford to insure both of us.) The information I needed was there on the site, I just had to interpret it. I signed up for insurance on the exchange, barely affordable because of the subsidy, and began to feel like I belonged, and no longer fallen through the cracks. It’s impossible to describe how good that felt.

My husband’s profession (entertainer coach driver) doesn’t offer health insurance at any price, because this is Tennessee and entertainment unions are by law prohibited from any sort of collective behavior that might give them any power. Welcome to Right to Work. I have been a freelance writer since 1993, but though I have been a member of the Authors’ Guild they were unable to offer me health insurance because I live in Tennessee. I point out these things lest anyone accuse me of just not wanting to pay for health care. The ugly truth is that over the years I have paid many, many times as much for the smidgens of diagnosis and treatment I’ve managed to pry out of the system as what was charged for the same tests and prescriptions to insurance companies. I’m not talking about copays, I’m talking about total cost to the insurer. Because my husband was briefly insured, and we’re both diabetic and taking the same tests and pills, I have bills to prove it.

During these past few years of being fully insured (except for optical and dental, because apparently the health insurance industry doesn’t consider eyes and teeth part of one’s body), I’ve finally been able to control my blood sugar and blood pressure, goals that had eluded me during previous years when every office visit had to be budgeted and certain medications were impossibly out of reach. In December of 2014 I developed a blister on my foot and was hospitalized with a diabetic foot ulcer. It was caught soon enough to avoid amputation because I hadn’t hesitated to have it checked as soon as I realized there was something wrong. Nowadays any foot sore will send me to my GP immediately, because my copay is one-fifth the cost of an office visit. Though they told me the cellulitis that developed from the foot ulcer might never heal entirely, after two and a half years has healed up and there’s no sign of it. I’ve also managed to lose a little weight, and my thyroid is being properly tested and medicated, which helps weight control and therefore blood sugar and cholesterol control. I can get antibiotics for respiratory infections and stomach bugs, thereby spending days under the weather rather than weeks or months. All in all, the advent of the ACA has enabled me to feel healthier–be healthier–than I had for decades.

Thank you, Mr. Obama.

Now jump to January 20, 2017. Trump put his hand on a couple of bibles and swore to defend the Constitution, a promise we knew at the time he didn’t mean, and now he’s showing us just how little regard he has for it. At that moment I was on a bus full of women in pink knitted hats, headed to Washington D.C. to let the world know Trump is Not My President and that we weren’t going to allow him to plunder the country. Six months in, it’s beginning to look as if our political system–even the rule of law–is crumbling around our heads. Regardless of which side one supports, it can’t be denied that Washington D.C. is not getting anything accomplished, and those of us who are retirement age or close to it, who have the rest of our lives at stake, are watching the three-ring nightmare with white knuckles. I am literally counting the days until I will be old enough for Medicare. Mitch (Yertle the Turtle) McConnell is leading the charge to yank the ACA, among other things. Every few weeks it looks like millions of us are going to lose our health care–and therefore our health–so that monstrously, absurdly, unthinkably rich folks can pay less in taxes and by that become even more monstrous, absurd, and unthinkable. It appears we are doomed.

But I say there’s hope. (You knew I was going somewhere with this, yes?) Trump isn’t going to be impeached this year, or next. However, neither is he fooling most of us. We in the pink hats have made ourselves clear, and will continue to do so. Those in Washington who care about democracy, rule of law, and the individual lives of Americans who are not rolling in money, are sticking up for us. Last night (Thursday, July 27, 2017) the Senate voted on the Republican ACA repeal bill, and the vote was “no.” In a Republican-controlled Senate, McConnell’s mean little bill hasn’t gone forward. Three Republican senators made the difference by joining the forty-eight Democrats in not wanting to hurt people. John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins helped stick up for those of us who are at risk.

McConnell, having postponed the vote so McCain could participate, is not a happy camper today.

So all is not lost, despite the White House turning into Animal House. The ACA, obviously, is not the whole picture, and there will likely be more repeal attempts in the future, but for now the Senate has moved on to other things and  many of us will be healthier for it.

Now we must get the message to our representatives that we want the ACA fixed.

End rant.

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Filed under: Public Service Messages Tagged: ACA, aging, AHCA, death, health care, health care exchange, health insurance, memories, ObamaCare, politics, protest, pussy hats, trump, women's issues

Favorite Characters

Lately I’ve been asked several times who my favorite character is in Her Mother’s Daughter. Particularly, I’m asked about the fictional characters, because the historical figures are who they were and I must portray them as believably themselves.

But with the fictional folk I get to decide who they are, and even within the requirements of plot that leaves me a lot of room for creativity. Some of them end up being like people I’d want to know, and others not so much. But…favorite? Some may stand out more than others. Even the bad guys can hold a special place in my personal pecking order. A clearly imagined and well-crafted villain is as much a pleasure to read or write as the most stalwart yet Achilles-heeled hero.

For Her Mother’s Daughter there weren’t terribly many fictional characters. The story spans the entirety of Mary Tudor’s life, and that life was filled with well-known people. A few of the point-of-view characters are fictional, and among those I suppose the one who strikes me as most likeable is Niccolò Delarosa, the lute player.

In the story he first appears as a musician in Henry’s court, when Mary begins her rehabilitation to her father’s good graces after the death of Anne Boleyn. He’s an Italian of ordinary lineage, but his proficiency with his instrument and his ability to keep his head down and his mouth shut earn him a career in the royal court. And, to his great agony, he has a crush on the king’s daughter. Poor Niccolò spends the next two decades or so, in Henry’s court then in Mary’s, cherishing her. So near, and yet so far. She longing to be loved, and he wishing to oblige, but never able to say so or express his feelings in any way. Over the years he observes the failure of her marriage, and her unhappiness, unable to do anything about it.

I see him as an ordinary guy with a good heart. A solid citizen, good at his job, and loyal to his master and then his mistress. To me, he falls into the category of the sort of guy I’d like to know. The sort who are all too rare in real life. They exist—I’ve known some—and Niccolò is the essence of those good men I’ve known.

But by far the best of the good guys I’ve written was Dylan Matheson. In my first published novel the main character was a classic fish-out-of-water, ordinary-guy-in-extraordinary-circumstances, square-jawed hero. He was a joy. It amused me to hear about him from readers, for it seemed the women all wanted to meet Dylan and the men all thought they were just like Dylan. (I think we should get them all together!)

Son of the Sword is a time travel story in which a modern guy is swept back to 18th century Scotland and the Jacobite Rebellions. There he meets the love of his life, Caitrionagh, and heroism ensues with the aid of an irrepressible Irish faerie named Sinnan. He was with me for three novels, and when it was time to say goodbye in the fourth book, writing his death scene was like pulling teeth. I didn’t want to do it, but it was time.

Each time I end a book or a series I have to leave characters and move on to new ones. It’s tempting to continue the story past its true ending, but that doesn’t serve the narrative or the audience. Once Dylan’s story was done, he had to die.

Having written sixteen novels for publication, and twelve unsold manuscripts before that, I’ve said goodbye to dozens of characters. But Dylan is the one I remember most fondly.

 

Filed under: Published Work Tagged: bookses, characters, craft, creativity, Dylan Matheson, historical fiction, Writing

Why I Workshop

It was January of 1987 when I decided to make professional publication my goal. I’d completed one novel, which still has never sold (and shouldn’t ever see the light of day,) and on that dreary winter afternoon I began another. I also bought my first copy of Writers’ Digest at the Hendersonville Bookstore, which is now a nail salon.

Of course I was clueless. I’d been writing as a hobbyist since I was twelve, but didn’t have the faintest idea where to look for a chink in the battlement of professional publishing. I’d never heard the term “over the transom,” and the Internet at that point was limited to government employees, university students, small, isolated bulletin boards. and Usenet. I was five years away from buying my first computer, and spent my days typing out my early work on a $75 manual typewriter. A year later, having completed and polished my second novel, I took it down to the printing shop to photocopy it, and began sending it out.

Then I went to work on my third unsold manuscript.

I only ever sent my work to professional publishers (nowadays called “royalty” or “traditional” publishers), because back then self-publishing, or “vanity” publishing, cost far more money than I had just lying around, and I had no desire to become a book distributor. Print-on-demand didn’t exist. Ebooks were a distant dream that smacked of Star Trek. Traditional publishing was what we just called “publishing.” I wrote manuscripts and sent them to New York, and the machine I wrote them on did not have an electrical plug, never mind a monitor.

Four years and four unsold manuscripts later, frustration crept in and I began to realize I was getting nowhere. I’d subscribed to Writers’ Digest and read it every month, but it told me nothing that wasn’t known by every other yahoo with a typewriter looking for an editor or agent. One of those things it told us all was when and where there were workshops all over the country. Workshop. It rang in my ears like vacation. No interruptions, no distractions, no worries but to put one word next to another.

I found one in Louisville, KY, a week-long novels retreat in the dead of winter, when my husband was home and could run the household while I was gone. I took a Christmas job in the gift-wrapping department of Castner Knott, and earned enough cash to pay for the trip and tuition.

The Green River Writers’ first Novels In Progress Workshop in January 1991 was, for me, better than a vacation. It was a palpable step in the right direction. Each day I was there I only wrote, read books, and talked about writing and books. My mentor was Jim Wayne Miller, a noted Appalachian poet and award-winning novelist. Each evening students would hang out in the dorm lobby, chatting long into the night about the craft of writing. Some were poets just trying their hand at long form fiction. Some, like me, were committed novelists who rarely wrote short stories, much less poetry. In that one week I was steeped in the craft, then when the weekend came we all got to meet with editors and agents flown in from New York and North Carolina.

I had hives. I’d met rock stars without flinching, but I’d never before spoken to a genuine editor or agent and had no clue what to expect. Turned out these were very kind people, but weirdly none of them had any interest in fiction. Odd they should come to a novels workshop, but still I came away with a far better sense of the business than I’d had going in. It was experience I could use in future cover letters, and I did.

I attended the GRW NIPW for two more years as a student. Every year I learned something important. Each time I went, the support and camaraderie charged my batteries for the work of writing and submitting that work during the following year. I always went with the knowledge I was making good use of my time, and the conviction I was moving closer to publication. I figured if I kept improving as a writer, eventually they would have to publish my work.

My third year I had the most astonishing compliment from Jim Wayne Miller, who was again my mentor. I’d brought my guitar because I liked to play during breaks from the writing. One day I was alone in the dorm lobby, playing and singing “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” Jim Wayne arrived, and headed for his office, but he stopped to listen. When I finished, he asked, “Did you write that?”

I wish. I replied, “No, that’s Bruce Springsteen.”

He proceeded toward his door, but said as he went, “Oh. Sounds like you.”

I was flattered into little, bitty pieces and got scattered all over the floor. Yes, I’m bragging. For a writer, those moments are few and far between, and we must make the most of them.

In any case, I did make actual progress with my writing from the workshopping. My confidence improved, my actual skill improved so that, starting with my sixth unsold manuscript they began to become truly publishable.

It took another several years and an equal number of unsold manuscripts before I finally sold my thirteenth novel from an outline. For several years after that I taught at that same workshop. I learned as much by mentoring as I had as a student. This year I intend to go looking for a retreat for professionals, where I can spend a week or so doing nothing but writing, reading, and talking about writing and reading.

I feel like a vacation.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: bookses, craft, creativity, historical fiction, mysteries, paying dues, Writing, writing career