This summer has been unbelievable.
I hear people echoing this around me. It’s not that any one thing happened –
it’s that a lot of things happened, and each of them was important. It felt
like a heavy summer.
Although this was the Summer of Everything Wonderful and Terrible, almost
everything was happening to someone else. I was simply a bystander whose role
was to support and love the people around me while they dealt with these
incredible, life-changing experiences.
Here’s what happened…
First, Hal had come to live with us in February. In late March, he came down
with a terrible fever that accompanied a frightening pain in his hip. A trip to
urgent care led to the emergency room and then to a lengthy hospitalization.
The hip pain was a red herring for an infection in his heart.
I overheard Bill chatting with someone about Hal’s progress, and he said, “They
don’t know what caused it. The CDC has been in to talk to him.”
What???
I stopped my husband in his tracks. You cannot let me overhear in a casual
conversation with someone else that the CDC is interviewing my housemate. OMG.
The hospital and the CDC were never able to identify where Hal got his
infection from, but they did, apparently, determine that he was not contagious.
They sent him home with a catheter to his aorta and plans to self-administer a
serious antibiotic. Before he made it back, the boxes marked “Medical supplies”
and steaming with dry-ice poofs along the edges showed up on our doorstep.
We worked out plans for sterile areas, scrubbed the desk in his room, brought
out freezer paper for him to lay out before he got to work and so he could
scoop it all up and put it in the trash can we set up for this purpose. There
were saline syringes, two types of antibiotics in enormous bubbly boluses, and
bandages, and alcohol wipes, and drapes. Each bolus was the size of your fist,
and he was to administer one in the morning and two at night (two different
kinds).
For six weeks.
Here’s the incredible thing. On his second day as a free man he had gone -- at
a friend’s advice -- to sign up for an insurance plan specifically designed for
people in his position. What would end up being over $15,000 of medication and
who-knows-how-much for his two-week hospital stay, was largely covered
by his insurance. What an incredible outcome for someone doing the right thing.
While this was going on, I got a text message from
the bestie best bestie best. I had passed out hard asleep in the late afternoon
and, as is my habit, looked at my phone upon waking. The text said “A new
watch!” and was accompanied by a photo. I briefly thought it odd that my bestie
best bestie best was buying a new watch in this day and age, and also how odd
it was that she had shared a photo—it must be some watch!—before I dropped my
head hard back on the pillow. A few minutes later I got up to make my tea.
Once more fully awake and with my glasses on, I re-read her message. Let’s take
a look at this watch.
But of course, that’s not what it said at all. It said “A new match!” and was a
screengrab of her Ancestry DNA page.
But here’s the kicker.
The new match was her father.
My bestie best bestie best had been adopted at birth and has been
searching for her biological family literally for 32 years. There had been a
private investigator (and what we now know was a mistaken identity), and there
had been rejections and denials and confusion and doubt and hope and
heart-wrenching sadness.
And now, six weeks after spitting into a plastic
tube, she had a blue silhouette icon and the initials “JC.”
Almost a year ago we had discussed the pros and
cons of commercial DNA testing. I told her my story of finding 4th-6th cousins
by the hundreds with 23 and Me. I figured she would have a similar experience
and could have a sense of herself as part of a biological family. She could
talk to some of them and see what some family traits were. We had, of course,
thought about the one-in-a-gabilion chance she would find someone closer, but
that was a back-burner hope, too fragile and beautiful to pull forward into the
light of our conscious thought.
What followed after that incredible text message
were several hours on my couch as we took advantage of every medium we had at
our fingertips -- I popped open two tablets and searched for all I could. We
both logged in to the Ancestry account to see what connections were made. She
emailed the owner of JC’s account. We pulled in the otherbestie who had the
background search account. We found people with similar names and possible
relations (most of them wrong or dead-ends), we found possibles, we searched a
bunch of nothing.
We frantically texted each other screengrabs and possible
leads. We FaceTimed here and there. We cried, we took deep breaths, we
panicked, we were elated, we were shocked, we were dubious. In the mix of it
all, she texted a cousin who had approached her weeks before with a screengrab
of the results.
The cousin saw that match and texted back, “Oh
yeah, that’s Uncle Carl.”
So casual. So easy. Cousin George had known
Uncle Carl his whole life. Uncle Carl was his mother’s brother, one of a huge
passel of siblings. On mention of this “JC,” Cousin George had immediately been
able to pull up a name, along with a mental picture of JC, had a flood of
stories rush forth into his foreground; he had thoughts and feelings and
knowledge of JC.
“Oh yeah, that’s Uncle Carl.”
This phrase, more than any other, would
represent for me the wild train ride that is closed adoptions from that era and
the consequent searching and ultimate discovery. For someone, these strangers
you’ve ached for your whole life are simply, “Oh yeah, that’s Uncle Carl.”
The next several days passed in a haze. This was
not my journey, but I had been present for it, and witness to it, for 32 years.
Like many others, when I first heard of my BBBB’s story at the stupid age of
18, I could only barely understand the complex feelings wrapped up in the
tangle of adopted and biological families. But for all the intervening
time, I have been keenly aware of the sensations that come with being a member
of my biological family. I once looked at a picture of my mom taken when she
was about 14 years old -- I can see how she looks like the woman she would
become but also like me and also like my niece -- and in those moments,
because of my BBBB, I knew the privilege of that realization and the depth of
what it means to see a family nose, or recognize the expression in the eyes.
Something we mostly take for granted, over the intervening years took on a
mystical quality as I realized not everyone has this simple, easy experience.
More recently, my mom posted a picture of her
mother as an infant in the lap of my great-grandmother. Had my niece dressed up
in period clothing for one of those fair photo booths, she could not have
possibly looked more like the woman in that photo. Five generations later, and
the two women were virtually identical. Every time I see pictures like that, I
become keenly aware of those feelings and their absence for my BBBB.
And now, over several spring evenings with me in
North Carolina and the bestie best bestie best in her Virginia home, we
Facebook stalked an entire family. In photo after photo, my BBBB stared back at
me--the down turn on the outer edges of her deep brown eyes, the enviable
cheekbones, and the same gorgeous smile. My BBBB had found her people.
Once she had settled into the idea that she now
had family, the BBBB set to the task of opening a line of communication. With a
history of rejection and painful dead ends, she was understandably hesitant.
Her initial emails to the owner of the Ancestry account had been answered, but
now that writer was silent.
Ultimately she sent a letter to JC (no response)
and then to her siblings.
She called me and tearfully read the response
from her half-sister. The details are best left private, but she was welcoming
and joyous. She immediately, and without visible hesitation, invited the BBBB
to their family reunion in June. What a fascinating turn in this incredible
journey.
I also had goodbad news brewing at work – my
workbestie, who had taught me so much and kept me sane and grounded in our
crazy work environment – had finally gotten the position she wanted outside the
department. She wouldn’t be going far, but she would no longer be here for me
to lean on, get minute-by-minute advice from, or to just laugh with throughout
the day.
She would be gone the first week of June, and
everything about my job would change. I inherited all her tasks, which were
significant, and even though she and I text every day and can see each other
whenever, she isn’t doing the same work as I am, and it’s just not the same.
Meanwhile, another friend had a completely
different situation. A good friend of hers was a combat veteran with serious
PTSD and was battling cancer. She (the friend) was on a bus from Texas to my
friend in Massachusetts. She was tired, hungry, and anxious. The bus would be
stopping in Durham -- was there any way I could meet her, give her a cheerful
hug, and maybe some healthy food?
This is actually harder than you’d think. The
bus would only stop in Durham for minutes as the passengers disembarked and new
passengers came on. For security reasons, the bus driver would not tell anyone
where they were stopping for their 20-minute dinner break. But I was
determined. So I quickly arranged a care package in a thermal container,
grabbed a friend-with-a-sense-of-adventure and her most amazing puppy, and we
drove crazily westward on our insane mission.
We did catch up with the bus, and we found the
passenger in question, and we shared the care package, and she got puppydawg
kisses, and she ran with wild abandon as the puppy ran next to her, and for a
few minutes, her difficult journey was made easier.
Right around that time -- maybe even the same
week -- Bill and I were discussing the possibility of picking up a used leather
couch from the neighbor across the street when Bill’s phone rang. He learned
that his very good friend -- the neighbor behind our house -- was unresponsive,
and the family had called the ambulance. This friend had struggled with very
serious health issues for quite a while, and we had known things could take a
very bad turn. Bill ran off to assist, the ambulance came, and a few days
later, Bill’s friend passed away.
On the day of the friend’s funeral, the BBBB was
in Richmond, meeting her oldest sibling for the first time ever. I was still
wearing my black funeral ensemble when I watched the video of their meeting
from my porch.
The birth of a royal baby across the pond was a
nice distraction. But the next day, I was at work when I learned my friend’s
baby had been hospitalized for failure to thrive; we would find out later it was the result of a rare and
serious food allergy that prevents absorption of needed nutrients and calories.
While we were working out the scheduling issues inherent in a lengthy
sick-leave stint, another staff person received word her husband had been in a
terrible car accident.
As I write this, all are fully recovered, but on
that day, we literally didn’t know what might happen to either one.
The last weekend in April brought an experience
that would change the whole rest of the summer and potentially many years to
come. I had signed up to participate in the paranormal investigation of a
public and haunted clinic, and I had waited for months.
My friends and I went out early, got hotel
rooms, prepared ourselves mentally. We joined the Association of Paranormal
Study at the Trivette Clinic late in the evening, and we settled in. Everything
about that experience is in my “Now you know who to call” blog entry. But
seriously, I caught the ghost-hunting bug, and now I have the fever.
May brought about a slight rest. I built the
computer desk I needed -- I had been crammed in a small corner and the computer
almost inaccessible. It meant every computer-related task was a nightmare. And
I have a lot of computer-related tasks. So the new desk, which I built myself
(with help), was a huge victory.
North Carolina had the hottest May on record,
with temps routinely rising well into the 90s. So of course, this is the summer
my air conditioner would give out suddenly and irreparably. Three hot, sweaty,
cranky weeks and $10,000 later, we had a new unit, new duct work, and the
coldest home in Durham.
During those three weeks, the country suffered
two major school shootings (along with our daily mass shootings that are now
too commonplace to make the news), and I watched with disgust as my social
media feeds filled with vitriol among people who should definitely know better.
But we also had the Royal wedding to remind me that not all the world is as
fucked up as we are right now. We will get through this.
I also was cruising through FB when a video of
Madonna -- my favorite!! -- caught my eye. I realized with horror that it was
an ad for AARP, and suddenly, my 50th birthday, which looms just a few months
away, seemed like a daunting and terrifying thing.
I was also engaged for several evenings in a
rapid-fire texting conversation with the lead ghost-hunter as she was
researching the details of the clinic we had investigated. She had started a
lengthy conversation with the property-owners and was gathering as much
information as possible about the location. She and her team went back and
conducted a serious investigation (as opposed to the lighter-weight public one
I had attended) and made contact with several entities, which they live
streamed for maximum envy potential. At that moment, I knew I wanted in on the
team.
Are you all still with me? We’ve made it to
June, and June is where it starts to get nuts.
June started with the BBBB’s family reunion,
right here in North Carolina. I didn’t take no for an answer and scored an
invite. If all went well, I would be witness to her most beautiful experience.
If it didn’t, though -- if there was drama or rejection or tears or hurt
feelings or bullshit -- I was going to be there for her. She has been there for
absolutely every major experience I’ve had -- I wasn’t missing this one of
hers.
The fact that I was also going to spend some
serious hours with the BBBB’s mostamazingandgorgeousdaughter was just cake.
The good news is that everyone in her “new”
family was delightful--kind, welcoming, open, and positive. My presence was
absolutely not needed. But when her father showed up unannounced (to us), I was
so glad I had come. The bestie best bestie best met her dad.
What an incredible thing to witness.
At home, though, things were a little harder. My
mom kept saying she didn’t feel right. Her legs were heavy. She was tired by
mid-day. She felt fluish. Things just weren’t right.
Finally, when her doctor’s appointment couldn’t
be scheduled any sooner, she decided to go to urgent care and was ultimately
diagnosed with a-fib, a chronic heart condition that is managed with medication
but potentially fatal without proper attention. The doctor gave her a
prescription and did not admit her to the hospital because the cardiologist
promised to see her the next day. He did not, and it would be almost two weeks
before she was seen. Her doctor, meanwhile, wouldn’t see her for over two
months. But she took the medication she was given and soldiered on.
One of my close girlfriends had lost her mom as
a young child and was raised by her grandmother. Over the last few years,
Grandma’s demeanor had changed, and she often forgot who key players in her
life were. My friend had to navigate these sad moments, and eventually Grandma
was moved to hospice. These days, Grandma was struggling a lot, and my friend,
who shared the experience with me, was coming to the realization that she was
dying.
Meanwhile, another girlfriend in that same
circle of friends had battled thyroid cancer a few years ago. We had all met
for dinner one night, and she let us know her diagnosis and the treatment plan.
I knew she would need love and support to get through it. Unfortunately, Bill
had a stroke shortly after that dinner. My good friend had later shared how
difficult those months were. The literal isolation during the radiation
treatment and the social isolation of facing your darkest times essentially
alone with your wife, as she was the only person who really saw and understood.
The dietary restrictions are horrible, the medication is devastating, and the
fear is constant.
Now, in June of 2018, her test results came back
with bad news -- it appeared the cancer had returned. This is, apparently,
quite common for this type of cancer. I’ve learned that many people --
including my friend’s previous doctor -- don’t take this type of cancer
seriously, presumably because of the high survivability rate. But it is
essentially a life sentence of waiting for the next round of bad news,
crippling treatments, and dismissiveness from medical teams. She was gearing up
for more surgery, terrible diets, radiation treatments, and adjustments to the
medication she would be taking forever.
This time, though, I would do everything I could
to ensure she and her wife weren’t alone in their experience.
For me, this series of news -- my mother’s
A-fib, the Grandma’s approaching end of life, and my friend’s cancer -- all
came to light on the same day. This day, June 11th, was the beginning of the
Summer of Everything.
The next day, my friend's Grandma died, and
shortly after, I started seeing concerning changes in my mom. She was no longer
her energetic fireball self. I would see her each morning, and she would
describe how the previous day she had gone to bed shortly after I left. Now,
she gets up at 4 am because of my brother's schedule, but still. Her productive
hours had shrunk to only about five a day. This just isn't my mom.
I was also concerned that she never seemed to be
able to get on to see her doctor. She did eventually see the cardiologist who
would confirm the diagnosis and start yet another medication. He had not
appeared moved by her low energy level. She started saying, “they turned me
into a little old lady overnight.” She would wake up feeling happy and
energetic but within minutes of taking her medicine, she would feel tired and
miserable. It was awful to watch.
June brought a fun distraction in the form of
our neighborhood Summerfest. All I ever wanted to do those days was rest but I
instead signed up for a shift on the dunk tank. Yep. That was me. Perched on a
precarious plastic seat while neighbors threw baseballs at a target until I
splashed, screaming, into a giant tub.
In late June the story broke about families
being separated any the border and I admit I initially dismissed it as fake
news. It couldn't possibly be true, right?
So it was in this fog of denial one Friday
morning when I called my cats in for breakfast. As is their habit, they came
running from all corners. But Spork!, my tiny orange buddy, did not. He was
stooped in the driveway, conspicuously hunched over and with his back to me.
When I called out, he looked over his shoulder at me with a mix of suspicion
and disgust. I realized he was eating an animal he had caught, and (I assume)
was afraid I would stop him. I was grossed out enough that I just let him be,
closing the front door and setting to the task of feeding the others the
perfectly civilized cans of ground up animal meat mush.
I didn't realize then that I would not see him
again. But he disappeared after that meal, and a week later we had to accept
that he had been killed.
It was hard for me to post to the Clowder page
on Facebook after that. We were down to four cats. The brains of our operation
was gone.
I did post, a week after that fleshy breakfast
scenario, that he had gone and that he had most likely been killed by the wild
dogs recently seen terrorizing the neighborhood. I had been planning a public
meeting to discuss our efforts to contain these dogs, and now I could join
those who claimed the dogs were killing neighborhood cats. And if it hadn’t
been the stray dogs, then surely it was coyotes.
We never found a tiny orange body or any
evidence of what happened. Bill hunted high and low for ten days – calling to
him, checking trees, checking crawlspaces of nearby houses, and walking and
driving for blocks around, calling out to him. We knew from experience that
cats can get trapped in weird places, and that they don’t always respond to
unfamiliar voices. We also knew Spork! monitored a large territory, and Bill
covered all of it, traipsing through the woods in the back, hiking around our
enormous block, calling into the network of gutters our feline friends like to
use for their subway system.
Bill believed a nice family had taken him in,
but I knew that couldn’t be true—Spork! would never allow it. Most of our cats
are quite wild, but Spork! is the wildest. He would never allow himself to be
trapped in someone else’s home.
On Facebook people reassured me he would come
home. But we had genuinely looked everywhere. And between the stray dogs and
the coyotes, I had to acknowledge he was gone. This was the first time I lost a
cat like this, and I felt awful.
Eventually I got used to referring to us as a
four-cat household, and slowly started posting a few pictures here and there to
their Facebook page.
June 30th brought the Rally for
Family Reunification as I had realized in the intervening days that the news of
our family separation policy was indeed true, and now even that was possible.
What. The. Everloving HELL?
Because my workbestie was no longer in our
department, I was tasked with working 12 hours on July 4th, which I did. No
celebrations for me. And then on the 6th, I sat in the Duke
surgery suite as my friend had her cancerous lymph nodes removed.
That weekend brought a wondrous event in the
unexpected beauty of the world’s most gorgeous day. We had driven out to a
small town about an hour east of here and joined our friends for a 4th-of-July picnic. The
setting was incredible – one of those days that is just life affirming. The
sunlight was just so, the temperature was perfect, and the people were kind,
welcoming, and joyful. It was an incredible and much-needed day.
Shortly after that, we attended the funeral for
my friend’s Grandma, which was particularly beautiful.
And then, at the end of July, something
miraculous happened.
I had Friday off after a week on call, and I was
at my mom’s house sewing a bag for my Tarot cards. I set my phone down next to
me, and as I sewed, I noticed that it was lighting up repeatedly. Ping ping
ping. I finally leaned over and looked.
A friend had texted (across every possible media
which is why my phone lit up), “Could this be Spork?” and I saw the NextDoor
post:
Skin and bones light orange cat -- Neighbors released a cat from under their house, they need advice. Anyone missing this cat? It was probably under that house for a month!!! Looks pretty good considering.
What followed was a frantic few minutes as I
tried to determine the specifics. It was too much to hope, and I was shaking so
hard, I couldn’t ask the questions or look up the information. I ended up
hugging my mom a quick good-bye and tearing home.
It was indeed Spork!, now just a few pounds,
with his hip bones sticking out past his sunken waist and his eyes glazed. We
had our baby boy back.
The next two weeks were absorbed in getting my
cat back to life from his second near-death experience. We were up with him all
night, feeding him watered down wet food every few minutes. He was mildly
delirious but also quite spunky and still strong enough to jump up on the bed,
the counter, the dresser. I posted a long message about how exhausting it is to
have a teeny tiny life in your hands, and how careful we had to be, keeping him
in the house and demanding he follow new “rules.” I don’t know if you know
this, but cats don’t really love rules.
Throughout the spring and summer, I had been
attending the public events hosted by the Association of Paranormal Study, and
my desire to become a full-fledged ghost hunter was high. The team founder and
I had exchanged conversations on a number of topics, and I thought we would get
along well. Once I found myself locked in my bedroom providing this
life-affirming support for my little orange wonder, I went ahead and submitted
an application to the CORE investigative team of the ghost hunters.
Emotional things settled in August, but the
busy-ness ramped up a lot. I had a huge editing project come my way – weeks
late and with a tight deadline. I had many things come to a head at the HOA – a
key player moved away, leaving many tasks to be taken up; the annual meeting --
complete with elections -- was looming, and we would be then transitioning to a
new Board. The everyday events of the Board were continuing as well -- we
published a monthly newsletter, advertised events on social media, planned
events, discussed significant remodeling of a playground, had community work
days, board brunches and beer with the board, discussed insurance and flooding
and illegal dumping and strategic plans.
I got a tentative acceptance to the CORE team,
pending approval by other team members as they each met me in coming months.
This meant a sudden onslaught of tasks and communications. I had been pretty
much tied to my phone before, but now it was all-encompassing.
I rose every morning at 6 and turned on my PC. I
worked steadily until it was time to leave a couple hours later. I went to
mom’s, went to work, came home, and stood in front of my computer until
midnight or 2 a.m. The editing project, the annual meeting, the elections, the
ghost hunters, the coven, the friends, the connections. I had no time to do
dishes or sweep the floor; things piled up in the living room, the sheets grew
dusty, the laundry basket piled high. I didn’t even have time to ask Bill to
deal with any of it. He, on the other hand, was creating his perfect mancave.
Random things happened in here as well. Tired as
I was, a friend invited me to a late-night screening of the drum corps finals
at a local movie theater – I had been wanting to catch this for ages, so I took
him up on it. Hello 1 a.m. at a theater! The newsletter at the HOA was behind
the deadline, and I had to get it printed – hello 1 a.m. at the HOA office! A
friend had badly injured her knee, and needed an adult to wait in the surgery
suite, so for a second time this summer, I worked on my little tablet at the
Duke outpatient surgery center. We went to see Cirque du Soleil; and the news
came down of 8 convictions and 8 plea deals in one day; the friend who had
moved was also getting rid of a green velvet couch, and the only time we could
get it was like 10 pm with Hal’s pick-up truck. (Howdy, neighbors, no need to
call the police! We are just taking the green velvet couch out of the empty
house in the middle of the night in the dark. No worries!)
On a Wednesday in late August, I got a phone
call at work. Bill on the other end of the line, said, “Jenny! I can’t find
Saulé!” And I remembered that I had also not been able to see him in this
glass-box enclosure that morning. Bill had fed him the night before, which
means the box cover had been open. But he had no recollection of Saulé climbing
out. Today, everything was secure.
As he spoke to me, my stomach tightened. We’d
almost lost our cat. Now the snake was missing. We were not good pet owners at
all. All the things I hate about other people and their animal incompetence
waved over me. I had to seriously consider the appropriateness of keeping
animals. Saulé in particular was a wild animal, and against my own judgment, I
had purchased him simply because I wanted him. And if I couldn’t give him the
most excellent snake life possible, it had all been for naught. And now he had
escaped. I tried hard to squash down the thoughts of my naïve snake, who had
eaten only hand-delivered, previously frozen mice, making it on his own in the
cold Durham winter sure to come.
I got home that evening and searched everywhere.
Bill had limited his search to the floor, pulling our incredible mess piles
away from walls and corners one by one. I, though, knew he could easily climb,
so I searched our curtains, checked over doors, reached to the backs of
shelves… Bill pointed out he could be under the refrigerator or behind the
washer or in a basket of clothes or smushed along the baseboard somewhere. We
debated how to attract him to a given place, and a friend recommended a heating
pad. I imagined him slithering over us in our sleep.
This happened to be the same night I had to go
to the HOA office to print the newsletters, and Bill joined me for a while. He
looked deeply saddened at one point when he looked at me and said, “I have to
realize -- I’m the one who let him out.”
I reassured him that it wasn’t his fault -- we
had tried to cage a wild animal. This is the nature of that.
So imagine our joint surprise a few hours later
when we entered the house to discover Saulé stretched out on his favorite rock
INSIDE his glass box.
Bill ran over, shouting. “You don’t understand.
I took every single thing out of here. I checked EVERYWHERE.”
I was just relieved he had locked it all back
up. Wherever Saulé had been hiding, he was out now. We hadn’t lost our snake.
We weren’t horrible pet parents. (Stay with me here …) It was all ok again.
Until two days later when my mom almost died.
In retrospect the situation has been brewing for
weeks. Her stomach had been bothering her; she had felt week and was easily
fatigued. She was waiting for that doc appointment that had been scheduled so
far out in order to discuss what she was experiencing with the medicine. She
hoped he would change it or reduce it.
But on the Friday morning before Labor Day, she
asked me to come walk the dog and told me she wouldn't be able to fix my lunch.
I checked on her and she was very tired but ok. Her color was good and her
cognition seemed ok. She was just really tired and weak. She felt best lying
down.
I went to work and called her often. She said
she was ok as long as she was resting. But late that night, she couldn't stand;
her blood pressure dropped to dead, and she started the GI symptoms that are
all too familiar to me when my BP bottoms out. We took her to the ER, where
they determined she was having a bad reaction to her medicine and also an
ulcer. She was admitted and stayed over the holiday weekend. They gave her
fluids and blood, they monitored her heart telemetry, and ultimately scoped her
tummy. During the course of her stay, we got her medical care away from the
“sky blue” medical system that had failed her so badly and moved her over to
the”dark blue” system that had served me and Bill so well over the years.
For several days and now weeks after that
hospital stay, mom's life has been a series of doc appointments and medicine
changes. She needs an antibiotic for her tummy, and the new cardiologist has
her on meds that work much better for her. I've got my mom back, almost
completely, and for that I am immensely grateful.
In the middle of all this, I was also on call
when my phone died its final death, and $1000 later I had a new phone. I was
happy to change away from the iPhone, but now I didn't know how anything
worked. And because it was a sudden and unexpected move, I hadn't backed up my
contacts or done any of the things. With tensions running high for my mom and
with being on call, I also had to learn a whole new system of communicating.
Remember when I said I was totally chained to my phone? This was a remarkably
stressful adjustment in an already difficult week in the middle of this crazy
summer.
During that same week we got word that we had a
residential case for the ghost hunters. I joined the case manager on our
initial interview call as part of my training on the team. Things were getting
real!!
The second week of September was the annual
meeting for the HOA that we had been working so hard on, along with a series of
appointments for my mom. But we woke up Monday morning to news that a category
four hurricane was going to tear through North Carolina on the same path as
Fran and head straight for us. I had just moved to NC when Fran came through
and I felt the PTSD-inspired panic rise up. I had to squash it though because a
lot of people, animals, and property depend on me.
We spent all day Monday planning for multiple
contingencies and worst-case scenarios. I gathered and disbursed information,
created document sites outside our firewall, and we prepared for the worst. At
home we secured our incredibly messy yard, bought water and non-perishable food
supplies and Bill very capably led the charge, getting literally everything
done while I focused on mom. We made a plan to keep the cats all in for the
duration of the storm, which meant more open rooms, more litter boxes, and lots
of cat food.
The HOA meeting happened successfully, and I
finished up the editing project well ahead of deadline, knowing we might be out
of power for weeks.
We were spared the worst-case scenarios and
watched in horror as our neighboring communities were devastated. One of the
BBBB's uncles, whom I had met briefly at the reunion, lost his life in the
storm. At work we took calls from people in shelters and we continue to arrange
services for people displaced by the storm.
The storm hit on the weekend of my niece's
wedding, and we were all saddened by its reality when she had to postpone. In a
few years it won't matter--she will be happily married with her memories of a
beautiful wedding and her family all around. But in these intervening months,
she won't be married, and she won't have a heart filled with the happy memories
of walking down the aisle. I felt for her.
The residential ghost hunters’ case scheduled
that same day (that I would have had to miss) got rescheduled for the following
weekend, and I can now say I have been on a residential case. I am fairly sure
I will be a good fit for this team, but if in the end it doesn't work out, this
summer of everything will at least be “that summer I was a ghost Hunter,” or, even
more aptly, “that summer I got to sit at the cool kids’ table.”
As I write this, life is returning to normal. My
mom is starting to feel much better. We are back to walking the dog together in
the morning. She is almost done with the antibiotics. She will be ok.
My friend with the cancer battle has been mostly
victorious and it's looking like she won't need ongoing treatments this round.
Spork! weighed in at an incredible ten pounds
this morning--way more than he weighed before he went missing.
Saulé loves his glass box, which we have tricked
out with climbing spaces and perching spaces and a small bog.
I'm going on another big
ghost hunt this weekend, and we have another residential case in the hopper.
That editing job? I have plans to meet with a
friend after the holidays to seriously discuss writing and marketing some of
our family education materials.
And you may not be surprised to learn, I am
sleeping many hours each night. I even nap during the day.
It has definitely been the summer of everything.
Everything wonderful. And everything terrible.
