5 things to start the week

1. Darcy's date went well.  His two little brothers accompanied them to the movies, and, despite being told to sit elsewhere, sat with them.  After the movie they got ice cream...with his family. My friend, Sharon, who was present at Darcy's birth..."I delivered her"...read the blog entry and immediately called to ask, "What the hell do you mean you let Darcy go on a date with a boy?" She and Kelly are having just as much trouble with my baby growing up. Maybe more so. 
2. Apparently Blogger has messed with updated their site, and now I find that I must not hit the space bar twice like I was taught by Miss Irma Jean Rodgers in typing class. This new fangled technology doesn't require two spaces, and if I forget, having had it drilled into me for so many years, then my page is uneven in the margins and my OCD kicks in. I have to keep editing and it is driving me crazy. I should have listened when my children tried to tell me that they only single space after a period in their school reports.  Pfft.  This "new typing"...
3. I don't like to be called ma'am.  It makes me feel old.  When I first moved to Florida I was "Miss Cara" at work.  I've tried to keep that moniker ever since.  Even when I substituted in school I asked not to be called Mrs. because it made me look for my mother-in-law.  Now I'm a ma'am.  Darcy's new beau refers to me as that every time he answers one of my questions.  Today on the phone I was ma'am.  It has got to stop.  Turning fifty this year is bad enough.  I'm working on finding a better expression.
4. Tis the season for my annual blood check and mammogram. So far I've put it off past the 30 days written on the script.  I feel like I'm defying my doctor, but as she patted me on the head when I mentioned this, she said, "I can only suggest and write scripts. I can't drive you there and force you inside.  It is your health." The old, "The only person it hurts is you" saying from my youth.  It didn't work then, but it must be working now because I called today and scheduled my mammogram and then went out and bought some fish oil pills.
5. A week off from school and 5:30 a.m. wake up calls was great, but getting back into the routine is not. My body does not want to cooperate, and I had a fitful-less-than-three hours of sleep last night. Which means that I will need a nap later in the day.  Which means I won't want to sleep tonight. Which means another fitful-less-than-three hours of sleep. I don't chalk this up to old age, however. I've always been a late nighter/late sleeper.  Which I believes proves that I'm not old because doesn't that change as you get older? Early to bed? Early to rise? I'll have to survey some "ma'ams" to get that answer. 

Ribbett...

Me (handing toothbrush over the shower curtain):  "Can you put this away inside the frog?"

The toothbrush is removed from my hand and I hear a clink as it is deposited, not inside the frog, but into the cup that his toothbrush, his razor, and his toenail scissors reside.

Me (peering around the shower curtain just to make sure what I heard was correct):  "I said inside the frog, not that gross cup."

Tom:  "I thought maybe you had lost your mind.  A frog?  You want your toothbrush inside a frog?"

Me:  "Yes, that thing hanging on the wall.  The frog."

Tom:  "I thought that was a hippo."

Me:  "Seriously?  You really thought I meant a real frog, yet had I said hippo you would have hung it there?"

Tom:  "It doesn't look like a frog.  It looks like a hippo.  Or a bear."

Me:  "A green bear?  It's a frog.  And it protects my toothbrush from germs."

Tom:  "If you say so, but I bet there are plenty of germs inside a frog's mouth."

Exploring higher education

College visits with my high school junior are underway.  First of all, today's high school students are on their own.  At least in our area.  The excuse is that the guidance counselors have too many other titles and responsibilities to help out in the guidance part of their job that might include helping students get to college. Or get scholarships.  All of this now falls on the student's shoulders, which in my daughter's case falls on my shoulders because she is too darn busy with her IB responsibilities which include tons of essays and projects. I'm just glad that I realized this early, and that I have a good friend who keeps me informed.

Secondly, high school students are granted only three days of excused absences to visit colleges, which means this must be done on the weekends, over breaks, and during the summer months.  All before she begins applying after August 1st.  While she is working on her IB Extended Essay that is due the first day of senior year.  Holy pressure!

I would love to talk about our college visitation experiences, but do not want put things out there that might jeopardize her getting into a college.  How crazy is that?  Welcome to the world of social media.  I will say, and this is because when things are done right I believe in honoring an institution, that so far the best college open house experience that we have had is a private school in Ft. Lauderdale; Nova Southeastern University.

From the outstanding student dinner that we attended the night prior to the next day's open house, this university was first class all the way.  We talked to recruiters, admission staff, professors, deans, library staff, and the college president.  We were informed on applications, the financial aid process, and scholarships. We toured the campus, the dorms, the student center, the library, and tasted the food.  Every questions we had was answered.  If the person we were talking to didn't know the answer, he got someone who did right then and there.

It was our first college visitation and as one professor told me, "we set the bar high".  Who knew she would be so right?  I thought all of our experiences would be just this good.  I thought these institutions would be rolling out the red carpet to woo these students, to pull them in.  So far that hasn't been the case.  I have had one recruiter answer my question with the response, "Go to our website.  It is all on there."  I have been to a college where I met zero professors.  I have been on a tour that showed me only around the outside of the campus, as if they had something to hide in the inside.

So far we have only toured Florida universities and colleges which I have to say are beautiful.  There is nothing like a Florida campus.  I can remember driving around the University of Florida when we were visiting Florida on one of my brother's golf tours and thinking, "Why didn't I come to Florida and go to school?"  The palm trees and the sun were definitely draws for a Hoosier girl coming from a landscape of darkness and snow.

My daughter is nonchalant.  Or scared.  Or excited.  Or a mixture of all of that.  She has another year of high school and doesn't get the fuss, especially since she has a huge amount of IB requirements that still must be met.  I feel that I'm pushing.  She feels that I'm pushing.  I try to step back, but doing so sets us back. Registrations fill up.  Hotels fill up.  It is a daunting experience for all of us, yet also exciting.  The world is so big and waiting for my little one to embrace, to explore, to conquer.  How we get there doesn't really matter, but the institution does and so we continue on with visitations.  Hoping for the that one campus that speaks to her, to us, where we feel she can enjoy, succeed, learn.

Letting go

Today I watched my younger daughter walk out the door with a boy for her first date.  It took everything I had not to grab her arm and pull her back.  To hold her in my arms and shout at the kid to go away.  To tell him that she is my baby.  That she is too young for this nonsense.  That he has no right.  But instead I smiled, greeted him, kissed her, and let her go.

She told me about him a month ago.  We talked about the feelings you get inside when you see that certain someone.  I think a part of me felt it wouldn't go farther.  But it did.  First it was a group get together.  Then it was meeting at a school event.  Then it went to "dating" as my daughter called i,t which meant he asked her to be his girlfriend and she said yes.  Then came the hand holding.  Then he began to come to her sporting events to cheer her on, and we met him and then his parents.  It was inevitable that the date would come next.

I originally told her no dating her freshman year.  As if I could hold her back and stop the rite of passage. Silly me.  I gave in after meeting him.  He is kind and can hold a conversation with an adult, with me. Without cracking, although I was on my best behavior.  Plus, are you ready for his?  His parents are from the same area of Indiana that I am from.  I mean the guy has got to be okay, right?

Darcy has done well this year in school.  She has stayed focused, done well in a program that we originally thought might not be a fit for her, and has gotten great grades.  She has shown us that she is mature.  We trust her.  So I said yes.  Her father, he said yes right away.  I was the hold out.  She is my baby.  The little girl with the pacifier and the thumb in her mouth that cuddled with me every chance she got.  But being a parent is also letting them sprout wings to move away from the cuddling, to branch out into the world.  And so I said yes, and waved as they walked together toward his parents in the van, away from me.

Connie foot update

As my faithful, kind, followers have seen, I have not been blogging like I should.  Those that follow me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter know that I have been busy.  Those that have had no idea have been nice to call to ask the reason.  Since the first of the year my mother has been in and out of the hospital three times, her latest this past week.  The first visit was due to a change in medication which resulted in a five day observation stay, plus a week in a crappy skilled nursing/rehab facility.  The second visit was due to an infection in the foot wound that required surgery, a longer hospital stay in the critical care unit, and a three week stay at a great skilled nursing/rehab facility where she was given medication through a PICC line.  She went home on a Wednesday and was back in the hospital on Friday where she is residing still.

In the past, since the beginning of this foot saga, she has claimed that she had osteomyelitis (OM).  The infectious disease doctors, and various others, have all sort of shrugged because the MRIs that she had done didn't definitively show that to be the case. Apparently, now they have changed their minds.  This group of hospitalists said that the prior MRIs were poor due to movement and ordered a new one.  This time her foot was packed so that she couldn't move it and the results showed OM in the bone that is the cause of her foot wound.  The treatments for that are the PICC line medication or amputation.  Connie chose the first one.

She is on vancomycin through the PICC line for approximately four to six weeks.  She is also taking two oral antibiotics to go along with the vancomycin.  She will head back to the same skilled nursing/rehab facility that she stayed in recently.  It is connected with the hospital, and her hospitalist physician that has worked with her at various times through this almost four year saga will be her doctor there.  She was informed that she would be back in her same room with the same roommate that she had just received a couple of days before she checked out.

The prognosis on this infection is that it will come and go and that they will continue to treat her with the medication as amputation would just cause more problems.  The infection can spread.  Eventually the treatments may become too much and Connie can opt out of them.  At that point the hospital will keep her comfortable.  For now she goes along with the treatment.  It isn't the first time she has done this same treatment.  She did this twice before when the foot wound first happened and she has done it in fewer weeks since that time.  Each treatment has bought her more time so she is hopeful that this one will too.

I shall try not to feel like I must go visit her every day.  She is thirty minutes from me and visiting cuts into my day.  We both agree that we have to be more reasonable when it comes to this.  I have to continue on with my life and she has to work on getting healthy. Which means more blogging and more foot photos to come! Thanks for your loyalty, dear readers.

Two month 2014 resolution check

I'm a tad late on this, but better late then never, huh?

1. To take control of my life both physically and mentally so that I am a happy, healthy person by the time I turn 50.  It is interesting that I have forgotten most of these resolutions these past two months save for this one.  I have controlled the mental part well, but the physical side of things seems to be going downhill.  I suppose that means I should give myself half in the points department.  Score:  5
2. To treat my blogging as a job so that I am writing more than the previous year.  As we all know, this resolution has not been kept.  Score:  0
3. To purchase a new wardrobe and get rid of items that I have held on to for way too many years.  I'm not sure that this resolution is one that can be done in little spurts unless I throw out something each month.  Which is an easy solution now that I think about it.  My thinking in making this resolution was that I would drop tons of weight, buff up, and have to buy all new fitting clothes.  But that it wouldn't happen until the end of the year.  That being said, I have become quite depressed with my wardrobe and have thought daily about changing parts of it.  That should count for something. Score:  3
4. To assist in the college process as needed.  Oh, yes.  This one has been done in spades.  Madison is registered on sites.  We have toured two three colleges.  She is signed up for the ACT and the SAT.  Bam!  Score:  10
5. To seriously change my language so that the "naughty" words are used less.  Yes, this is one I've worked on for years, but if I'm going to take control this one should be controlled as well. Hmmm....I can honestly say that I had no memory of making this resolution.  Despite that fact, I can also say that since Darcy has acquired a "boyfriend" who is, in Darcy's words, "A good Christian boy", I have toned down the language.  In fact the only time that my language got a tad "naughty" was when I was with my niece in IN, which I found weird since she hates it when I talk like that.  That should probably be dealt with in therapy if I ever go back.  Score:  7

Total (out of 50):  25 Hey, half the points this early in the game? Go Cara! Go Cara!

But I do care about time

My flight from Florida left at 5:55 am. Which seemed reasonable when I booked it. After all I rise at 5:30 during the weekday. I forgot about the time change. As I was walking down the street one day...

I was finally packed and ready to crawl into bed at 1:00 am, but had to spring forward my clock so that I could get in the right time zone in order to get to the airport on time. I got up at 4:10 and left the house at 4:30 which meant I got a total of three hours of sleep. My seat mate on the plane lamented the fact that he had forgotten about the time change. I asked him, "Does anybody know what time it is?"

The first leg of my journey to Indiana for my Aunt's funeral stopped in Chicago where I had a two hour layover. We landed at 8:25 am by my watch sprung forward, but Chicago is an hour behind Florida, thus it was only 7:25 am. My next flight left at 9:45 am Chicago time for an hour flight to Indianapolis, but Indy is an hour ahead of Chicago and so I would arrive at 11:49 am. Which was 10:49 am yesterday. Does anybody really care about time?

What it really meant when I sat down to mull it all over was that I got very little sleep, jumped in and out of time zones, and still managed to find my way despite the confusion. Though I can't imagine why (oh no)...

Everywhere I went people were commenting on the time change and the forgetfulness of the time change and all of it made me think of Chicago's (the group not the city) song about time. Because we all have time enough to cry (or die)...

And it all just seemed fitting. 

Aunt Lorene

Thursday my Aunt died.  The oldest sibling on my father's side.  Aunt Lorene.  She was 99 years old, and I kept telling myself each time that I saw her that she would hang on until 100.  I always felt like I would know.  The last time I hugged my dad I knew I wouldn't see him again.  I felt that.  I didn't want to believe it, but I felt it.  Each time I left Aunt Lorene I didn't feel it and it brought me peace.  This last month I felt it.  She was on my mind and in my dreams, and I worried.  I told myself it was because I most likely wouldn't see her this summer that I felt this way.  I told myself she would make it to 100 years, and I would make sure to come for that milestone.  But I think I knew.

Rusty, Cara, Connie, Russ, Grandma Mason, Grandpa Mason, Aunt Lorene

Both my grandmothers died before I really got to know them; my mother's mother when I was one and my father's mother when I was seven.  The only real "grandmothers" that I had on either side were aunts; Aunt Helen and Aunt Lorene.

Jo and Aunt Lorene

Her life wasn't easy.  She was the eldest child and the only girl in a family of four.  She helped raise her three brothers.  She married young, and while the marriage was hard she stayed, raising three boys of her own.  She left a good job, one she loved, to come home to care for her mother when she was dying.  She wondered aloud to me several times how different her life might have been if she hadn't come back.  "But I don't regret it," she said.  

Aunt Lorene was "grandmother" to many children.  She didn't care if they were related to her or not, if they needed a place or a hug or food she was there.  She was a mother and a mentor.  My brother and I stayed with Aunt Lorene when my parents had to travel.  We stayed in the front bedroom of her house, and she didn't care when we discovered that the closet in that room led into the closet into her room; a great secret hideaway to us.  She let us rummage around in there, pushing aside her dresses to enter and exit from either side.  While my Uncle Leo was the disciplinarian, Aunt Lorene pretty much gave us free rein to play.

She took care of her father when he couldn't be alone anymore, moving him into her house.  "It was just what was expected," she told me.  She worked with her husband selling farm supplies from her garage.  She would be in the kitchen cooking when someone would drive up, and out she would go to complete a sale before returning to the food on the stove.  She gardened.  She took care of the animals on the farm.  She worked later in a corner store that the family owned.  I can remember stopping there with my dad on the way to the farm and she would be asleep standing up when we entered.  My dad loved to catch her napping while on the job.  "Are you sleeping or reading your eye lids?" he would shout at her, causing her to jump.  She never scolded him.  She loved her little brother too much for that.  "Oh, I'm just resting my eyes," she would say in her slow drawl.

 

Family and church were important to her.  She taught us Sunday school, teaching us songs and Bible stories while we colored pictures that she would later hang around the room.  She cleaned the church and made sure that it stayed open even as people migrated to bigger churches and congregations.  She took it upon herself to bring the family together at holidays and reunions.  Thanksgiving was always at Aunt Lorene's after our grandparents died with the women in the kitchen, the men hunting, and the kids playing the many board games she kept in a cabinet in an end table.

Christmas Eve was at the farm.  Everyone would gather and eat and open presents.  Aunt Lorene always made sure everyone had something to open.  She did the shopping for our grandfather and for herself.  My favorite present ever came from my grandfather.  It was a barrette with my name engraved on it.  I still have it to this day because back then Cara was never found on any item, and I thought it the greatest thing ever.  It wasn't until years later that I realized my Aunt was the one who took care of getting me that.

Aunt Lorene came to my graduations.  She came to my wedding.  She made sure that she was there for me in things that mattered, always bringing me a homemade angel food cake that she swore was my favorite, even though I hated angel food cake.  She loved to kiss us and hug us and smother us with love, and we always squirmed and protested and wiped off her kisses.  But secretly we felt loved.

She loved to cook for everyone.  In her better days she made delicious noodles that the kids couldn't get enough of.  Her pies were always sweet and her meringue peak perfect.  She fried chicken for the family reunion every year up until this past reunion when her kids demanded she stop as she could barely stand due to back pain and a fractured hip.  I can remember many a reunion waking up to the smell of frying chicken at 5 o'clock in the morning.  "I have to get this fried so that I can go to church before the reunion," she would say each year.

If you showed up at her house for any reason, you were fed.  "Sit down and I'll make you some eggs and bacon and gravy and biscuits," she would tell you.  She was happiest when she could feed you, and she worried when you refused.  I spent many hours sitting at her round table watching her cook, telling her stories, and eating.  When I began going each summer to stay with her at our reunion time it was Darcy who would get up with Aunt Lorene and sit at the table, watching her cook and telling her about her life.  Life coming full circle for me.

As I got older, I got more curious about her life.  She outlived her parents, her brothers, and one son.  I made her tell me stories about when she was young and lived on the farm.  I was fascinated about she had to see "beaus" in the front room of the house and how they were never suppose to be alone with one another.  I wish I had recorded those conversations.  We talked about doing so, but never did, and of course I regret that as my own mind isn't so sharp anymore either.

After her son died, she wondered why she was still alive.  She said no one should have to bury her child.  She would have liked to have given her life to spare her son.  She felt she had lived a good life, been faithful, loved as often as she could.  She was content in her belief that this wasn't the end. She said she would continue on until "the good lord takes me".  I was hoping it would have been later, but I couldn't have asked for a better grandmother figure.  She will be missed by many.

Stetson is Elliot's first choice

Each day we receive college information in the mail for Madison, and sometimes Darcy since she too took the PSAT this year.  The amount of money that is spent on these mailings makes me crazy most of the time, and in the beginning I tried to make an effort to peruse all of them.  That lasted about one month. Now I am more selective in what goes into the "keep" pile and what goes into the trash.  In other words, you better WOW me in some way because now the girls and I read aloud the mailings and determine which pile these mailings will fall.

One of the universities that has sent us information that I we find helpful is Stetson University.  So far everything they have mailed us has been full of interesting tidbits, helpful websites, and good information overall.  We are heading over to visit the campus later this month and so we recently received a nice packet of information pertaining to that visit.  Inside was a card that listed the Top 10 reasons to choose Stetson University.  A great piece to read aloud, which I did.  Number 10 was Starbucks and it said, "You read this one first, didn't you?  That's okay, our students love it, too.  Come visit the campus and we'll buy you a cup in our new coffee shop in the student union.  Visiting a college campus is your best opportunity to sense if it's the right one for you---we hope you'll stop by so we can get to know you better."  I was sold already.

Number 4 was Pet-friendly Residence Halls and said, "Yes, you read it right: bring your furry pal to live with you (as long as s/he is under 50 pounds and friendly)!  This is one reason why Stetson will feel like home in no time."  I looked down at Elliot, who was standing in front of me thinking I was looking at a food item since I was standing in the kitchen.  "Guess who is going to college with Madison?" I shouted.  "And then I can get my little dachshund!"  (Side note:  I follow several dachshunds on Vine and have fallen in love. I keep talking about my dachshund that I'm going to get whenever Elliot refuses to snuggle with me, whenever he annoys me, whenever the kids refuse to care for him...pretty much all the time.)  Elliot didn't seem concerned or excited in any way and so we finished up the top 10 list and added it to the "keep" pile and moved on with the rest of our after school life.

About an hour later while I was in the living room talking with Madison about things I heard the dog in the trash can.  When Elliot is bored, and when the girls forget to shut the trashcan in the kitchen, Elliot sticks his nose into the can and goes fishing.  He tries to be quiet, but I'm a mother and rarely does this get past me.  I shouted at him to get out of the trash, and Madison jumped up to handle the situation.  When she went into the kitchen she found that he had pulled from the trashcan one of the mailings from a school that had not made the cut.  He was happily using his paws and teeth to shred the mailing into tiny little pieces all over my kitchen floor.

"I think Elliot is telling us that Stetson is his choice," Madison shouted from the kitchen.  "He certainly isn't voting for (Insert whatever school it was) and he is obviously making sure we aren't considering it either."

Connie Foot Update

I haven't given an update yet this year on Connie's foot because one, it was closed, and two, she started the year out in the hospital.  The foot wound closed back in October and we trekked to see the Foot God every two weeks to have him cut off dead skin and any built up scabbing.  By the beginning of December he decided we only needed to come once a month.  The next scheduled appointment was in the first week of the new year, but because Connie was in the hospital due to a medication change, she missed that appointment.  By the time she got out of rehab and the nursing facility and over her bronchitis it had been two months since we had seen the Foot God.  I was having withdrawals.

We were to see him last Wednesday, but when I got to my mother's house she was in trouble.  She was out of it, burning with a high fever, septic, and unable to really move.  The paramedics were called and she spent seven hours in the ER while they worked to get her stabilized.  She had an infection in the body, but no one knew where.  I did.  I asked for the Foot God to be called.  The attending doctor, who was the original doctor when this foot wound began, agreed to call his office telling me, "He likely won't come, but someone in his office will."  I looked at the man and said, "He will come."

And he did.  He arrived after Connie had been moved into the critical care unit.  He was bent over a computer reading up on Connie's case when I came back with her suitcase.  Without thinking, I leaned over and hugged him from behind.  "Oh, a familiar face.  I knew you would come!"  He turned red, laughed, straightened up and said, "How's it going?"  And I knew everything would be better.  He listened to everything, told me he knew something was wrong when we didn't show up for the appointment that day, and went in to check the foot.  Connie was completely out of it and unaware as he unwrapped it, poked on it, and declared it full of fluid.  I asked him if this could be the source of infection and the reason for what was happening and he said it could be.  And then he just did the surgery right there in the room, much to the horror of the nurse.  She cringed through most of it and couldn't believe Connie wasn't moving.  The Foot God told the nurse Connie was neuropathic and continued to cut away on the foot.  She went from this:

To this:

He asked for my assistance after the surgery as the nurse had disappeared.  I wasn't wearing my scrubs, but I held up Connie's foot while he bandaged it.  We both agreed I could work for him, being an expert now in foot wound care.  He patted me and told me he would be back on Friday.

The culture he did on the wound came back as the source of infection.  She had a pulmonologist, an attending doctor, a foot doctor, and an infectious disease doctor on the case.  They put in a PICC line for IV medications and watched her for six days, before moving her across the street to the skilled nursing and rehab facility.  She was to be on the IV medication until the 5th of March, but after several days of the medication she blew up like a balloon in her thighs and hands.  The medications was stopped and we are still waiting on word from the doctor.  The swelling eventually took two days to leak out of her (from any wound holes) and she was quite the little puddle from that.  Despite that, the bone on bone hip, and the recently diagnosed spinal stenosis she is rehabbing and trying to go with the flow.  She developed another nasty skin tear the morning of her next appointment with the Foot God, and as I wheeled her out of the nursing facility to head to the car to take her to the appointment, the nurse assured me they would fix that up when we got back.  I told her not to bother that the Foot God would take care of it.

And he did.  He got out the suture kit and went to work on it.  By the time she was finished at that appointment she looked like a mummy from the knees down.  The foot wound "looked better" and we see him again in another week.

And the saga continues...