Icy Driving

Icy Driving

It rained Christmas Eve day before the sun came out in the afternoon. My sister had no trouble traveling the thirty miles to pick up my mother from the assisted living facility and back for dinner at her house. Frail now, our mom decided she felt too tired to go to Christmas Eve church service with my sister, so my sons and I drove her back to the facility. I don’t see well enough to drive at night, which elected my younger son. My older boy has no interest in trying to pay for a car and the exorbitant insurance of first-time drivers.

Fully dark, temperatures dropping, we immediately noticed a weird shimmying of the car. At first we thought something might be wrong with the tires or suspension. Then we noticed other cars going unusually slow as well. In the back seat, I could feel my son’s tension. He has been driving for three years but mostly took the bus during bad weather when he traveled to school. This was probably the first time he had to travel any distance in icy conditions.

I softly encouraged, very glad when we saw the sand trucks starting to make their rounds. We made it to the facility and had no trouble getting my mother out of the car on the treated parking lot. Thankfully, by the time we had gotten my mother settled and were ready to leave, the sanders had done their job and, though still having to go slower than the posted speed, we had no more trouble.

A Less Happy Ending

I’m glad my son had that positive experience, so he recognizes the dangers of icy roads but doesn’t freeze himself with fear, as I do. Before I had my kids, I worked in a town about forty miles from home and usually took a mountainous route to and from. One winter, a storm started while I was at work. I left early enough, I thought, to get safely home by this route, but conditions rapidly deteriorated. I had a compact sports car and couldn’t go more than fifteen miles an hour.

A larger car came up behind me and started tailgating, unhappy with my speed. I foolishly let him intimidate me, afraid he would start to slide and slam into me, and pressed on the gas to go a bit faster. That was all it took. I started three-sixtying down the road. Thank God no one was on the other lane because I careened over, back and forth, and landed backend first into a snowbank. The car behind me kept on going, never stopped to see if I was hurt. A woman soon came up, stopped, and took me home.

The car was insured and I only had the inconvenience of no vehicle for a few days. I, on the other hand, did not fare as well. I felt fine until I woke up the next morning and literally could not sit up to get out of bed—whiplash. My chest and neck felt two sizes too big and made of concrete. I had to wear a collar for weeks.

The worse part of course is the fear and not wanting to put yourself in that situation again. I rarely drive in wintery conditions, and when I absolutely must, feel my neck and chest tighten up all over again with the wheel-gripping tension. I hope my sons never have this kind of experience and learn caution from me rather than fear.

Sorry About the Cards

Sorry About the Cards

This has been the busiest year of my life. Usually they fly by. This year, things that happened the first half seem more like a couple of years ago. I spent January in Georgia, helping my mother clear out her house, pack up everything else—a large van full—and drive her to Massachusetts. February was spent helping her to settle in to an apartment and getting doctors and medicines in sync. I thought Georgia’s medical system was hopelessly inept. Inefficiency and confusion know no state apparently, though I have to admit we settled things more quickly here.

In the spring, my mom had several falls caused, we later found out, from a severe infection probably introduced by her pacemaker put in the last December. She moved in and out of hospitals and rehab through June and July, on IV antibiotics for six weeks. At one of the hospitals where she went for a bleeding problem, they found that she had colon cancer.

She had been complaining of pain, thinking it was hemorrhoids, for over a year but refused a colonoscopy back then. Now her heart and general condition contraindicated surgery or chemotherapy. In July she moved to an assisted living facility on hospice. Almost six months later, she has failed physically and mentally but not nearly to the degree you would expect.

Her long-term memory is intact, her short-term, nearly nonexistent. The confusion this causes—never sure what is going on, unable to remember plans, to go down from her room to the dining room for meals—results in anxiety, frustration, and anger. Yet, she always knows who her kids are, a blessing from my perspective.

The beginning of December, the facility had a craft fair for which she was able to make the yarn cats she sold for years when she lived in New Jersey. Her mental abilities improved with the work, though I noticed that of course her ability to organize suffered and the finished products were not quite as professional as of old. Didn’t matter. She had fun and that’s what counted.

On the Personal Front

At the end of July, my husband went out to run an errand and had a medical incident where he lost consciousness and backed into a neighbor’s car. The Department of Motor Vehicles suspended his license and his doctors refused to take the responsibility of writing a letter attesting to his ability to keep driving, despite the fact that they believed the incident occurred because of dehydration—it was during one of the ninety-degree heat waves—rather than a seizure. He has to wait for six months, which will be the end of January.

Between my son and me, friends, and coworkers he had rides to and from work. Unfortunately, his job requirements state that an employee has to have a valid driver’s license, so they suspended him. Unemployment pays only half of your salary. He was out of work for two months before his employers agreed to let him come back on a medical accommodation, to be reviewed the end of January.

I felt God’s gracious hand throughout our troubles. We managed to keep up with bills. It will be a lean Christmas, but we are grateful we didn’t lose the house and learned a lesson about being prepared for financial emergencies, not that we have the wherewithal to remedy that yet, but it will be a priority this next year. OK, it will probably take several years to build up a sufficient emergency fund.

When they tell you to have enough money for six months, they generally mention mortgage, utility, medical and food bills. The medical, I thought of as in office visits and medicine. I never considered medical, disability, and life insurance, which can be incredibly expensive when you have to pay for them without the employer contribution.

Anyway, the cost of stamps for Christmas cards is not in the budget this year, so I’ll use this space to wish all my family and friends a joyous Christmas or happy holiday season for those of you who aren’t Christians, and to all, a safe and prosperous New Year.

Refugees and PTSD

Refugees and PTSD

I recently read stories of the emotional cliffs and valleys and financial drains people go through to find asylum from countries that are war-torn or from militant authorities bent on their exploitation or destruction. Added to the trauma already forced on them, it is a wonder any persevere and find a normal life.

Finding a safe place that will have these people is but one obstacle to building a future. It is no secret that our mental health system fails more people than it helps, often because those needing the most help don’t have the insurance or other resources to go to private caregivers. They make do with understaffed and underfinanced public institutions or give up and self-medicate, which runs the gamut from substance abuse to withdrawal from society. Refugees are no exception.

Causes and Symptoms of Trauma

Considering all the criticism surrounding President Obama’s policies on immigration and the acceptance of refugees, I was stunned to read that over two million people were deported during his presidency, many from behaviors associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. People fleeing from their countries have often witnessed the brutal murder of family, friends, or neighbors.

Child soldiers, especially from Africa, were torn from their homes to be addicted to drugs and used as an advance force to enter villages targeted by militants. They drew any resistors’ fire so the seasoned soldiers could pinpoint their location and take them out. These children, many not even teenagers yet, missed out on crucial psychological development skills and tend to exhibit problems with impulse control and overreactions to perceived threats.

All of the above behaviors are common for those suffering from PTSD. US doctors noticed that refugees from violence, instead of asking for emotional help, presented a host of physical ailments, pains in the stomach, head, or one limb or another. The stigma of being considered crazy could contaminate their families and prevented many from seeking psychiatric care.

Does that make them more of a security risk for countries taking them in? I would think so, especially if adequate provisions are not made to evaluate and treat normal emotional reactions to severely abnormal life experiences. Here in America, we have definite problems serving our own veterans and public. It seems unlikely that sufficient screening and resources will be made available for refugees, even more so now that the climate of charity for these people’s traumas is fast freezing over. I doubt denying them help, however, will make us a better, stronger, or even safer country.

My Son's Poetry

My Son’s Poetry

I liked to write poetry when I was my son’s age, but his imagination and the pictures he draws with words are better. He has agreed to let me share some of it. I put in two of his and two of mine from 1974. See if you can determine which is which.

 Lunar Lullaby

I am the one that calms the seas

I am the eyes that see you sleep

When listening to the breeze

Making music with the leaves

I smile at you in the night

With stars I set the sky alight

Through any weather I’ll shine my best

Until the sunshine lets me rest 

 

Garden Delight

A patch of ground to build upon

Stirred and cut in even row.

The bearer of life many sizes, shapes

Buried alive by hand and hoe.

The newborn leave their cradle

Steadily reaching for the sun,

Though often beset by foe.

Through storms and drought

They still bend not low,

But yield nature’s harvest

Fruit, that man may grow.

The Beetle

The sweetest song comes when the stars abound

And the insects of the kingdom anticipate the sound

A violinist beetle plays through the night

When his firefly cousins deliver their light

He sits on a dew-soaked stem alone

Beneath the moonlight it becomes his throne

He plays a tune that would make songbirds cry

And creates new life under the darkened sky

His instrument bids the other beetles to sing along

And the moths and spiders work in sync with his song

On top of his stem, his heart writes symphonies sublime

Some dark as the sky above and others the stars that shine

Winter

Season winter, vain, hard, precise,

Decrees herself queen over snow, over ice.

Occasionally gentle as her rival spring,

Usually shrewish; coldly she flings

Her mantle of lace, each thread unique,

Over the earth, valley, and peak.

Silver sequins she dresses each tree,

Blown by the wind, exulting and free.