Worry

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As a young person I was unconsciously self-conscious, in denial that I cared about what people thought of my stuff and me. I worried so much about my hair. It was either utterly gorgeous or horribly frizzy and I was obsessed with which it was going to be on any given day. I feared that my cooking, although I knew it was good, wasn’t quite brilliant enough. I worried about my beautiful area rugs being perfectly straight without any rug pad showing.

Over the years, I’ve worried about hot water heaters, air conditioners, automatic awnings, stoves that stopped working, stains on carpets, Pebble Tec spontaneously falling off the walls of a pool, those damn pool vacs that go around the pool supposedly cleaning it that break constantly, mold in showers, strange noises in the house, etc. And then next thing I know, I don’t even own that house anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I fix stuff in my houses but it’s so weird to sit here and think of all the stuff I worried so bad about for weeks on end about a house I owned 5 houses ago!

My sibling, Orlando has on the signature of email this quote:

”Could things get any worse? Why yes, little one, be patient”. – Morrissey

Well, some things have gotten worse. I guess maybe it comes with time and stuff you have to deal with as you age like surgeries and illnesses. In general we are hanging in there but the stuff I worry about now is in a very different category than anything I mentioned above. In fact, I blow off the stuff above, it’s relatively meaningless. (And, in Dallas, it’s so humid so much of the time that if our hair is curly, it’s frizzy as hell and if it’s straight, it’s flat, so we use hairpieces! Big business here! Ha!)

I just found out today that my Jenn-Air range cannot be repaired because it’s 12 years old and they don’t make the parts anymore. And, there are two of them side by side that must match or it would look ridiculous in a house like mine. They are very expensive. My attitude is “Bummer, but it’s not cancer.”

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Pacemaker

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“I tried to get through your text without crying but it didn’t work,” George’s daughter Melissa texted me.

Pickle ball has changed my life. After back surgery for a herniated disk, my husband was worried I’d not be able to play tennis again and he found this new sport for me. Pickle ball is played in a gym on a badminton size court with a whiffle ball and a paddle and it’s a game of mixed doubles. Men and women of all shapes, sizes and ages all play together. It is a fast, aggressive game combining tennis with badminton and some people say Ping-Pong. I don’t see the Ping-Pong part of it. It’s an incredible work out but also an amazingly fun and addictive sport. I now play between 5 and 6 days a week for between 2 to 3 hours. It’s like my job, that and speaking about Gorillas and Chimps at the Dallas zoo 2 days a week. Lucky me. My recovery from the surgery was so excellent, I could easily play tennis, but I have no desire! My new love is Pickle ball.

I have met so many people and I have many very close friends in Texas as a result of Pickle ball. I am in awe at the support and camaraderie this PB community provides.

Not long ago, several of our Dallas police officers were shot and killed in a race relation issue. The next day at Pickle ball, one of the players called us all together and asked that we bow our heads in a minute of silence for the men who died. You could have heard a pin drop in that gym. It was powerful.

A couple months later right before we began play, a woman asked us to gather as she had a sad announcement. One of our dear Pickle ball friends Sarah, we were told, just lost her 48-year old daughter a day or two before. Again, we gathered, bowed our heads in silence and surely a lot of prayer for one of our own. Then the coach, Dave, went to get a bereavement card, which we all signed and he sent it. Sarah is not back yet but our community is there for her when she is.

Recently, one of our wonderful friends, George found out his heart rate was way too low. George is very athletic and otherwise a very healthy 72 year old, but his doctor was insistent on a pacemaker. He was going back and forth, stressing out about the decision because he felt so good and was playing Pickle ball several days a week aggressively. He was finally convinced it was what he needed to do.

George had the surgery to install the pacemaker on a Monday morning. Most everyone in our Pickle ball community knew. Shockingly, on Tuesday afternoon George sauntered in to the gym. He didn’t have his paddle with him and he didn’t intend on playing but he felt great and wanted to see us. Here is what I texted his daughter later, of whom I am very fond even though I don’t know her well.

Hi Melissa!  I wish you could have seen the scene when your father walked into the gym today.  The only word I can think of, and I don’t think I have ever used this word before, is “Fellowship”.  Several women jumped up to embrace him.  Our coach then went over to give him a hug and handshake and brought him a cushioned chair so he wouldn’t have to sit on the hard bleachers.  Then as games ended, men began walking up putting their hands on his shoulder or shaking his hand asking about his procedure and how he was doing.  He was the prince of the ball and everyone was quietly rejoicing in how well things went and how fabulous he looked.  Then a much older man than George took the padded seat and your father, of course, didn’t say a word and sat on the hard bleachers. He’s a special man and I know losing his wife was devastating as it was for you losing your mother.  But as a family, you have each other, and now know you can take comfort in that your father is a beloved member of a huge Fellowship of Pickle ball people.  Love, Andie

Here is Melissa’s response:

I tried to get through your text without crying but it didn’t work. What a wonderful thing to read. Thank you. Thank you again and the Fellowship of PB’s for caring about him so much. I’m so glad you’ve all gotten to know the awesome man I’m lucky to call “Dad”.

I’m kinda starting to like Texas….

A Physical Exception

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“Well, clearly you didn’t move to Texas for the weather. So, why did you move here?” the person would ask.

“My husband’s company offered him a promotion which we turned down because it required a move here. Then they sweetened the deal so tremendously that we would have been financial fools not to take it, so here we are,” I would answer.

“So, how do you like it?” the person would ask.

“I don’t. There is no nature and nothing here is pretty. I think people build these gargantuan houses to try to make something look pretty, but most of them aren’t pretty. I feel like a stranger in a strange land and I’m utterly homesick.”

I can’t tell you how many times I had that conversation after we landed here on September 11, 2013. (That was surely an omen!)

Right now Texas is dark, damp and very, very cold. This time last year, I didn’t have a life in Dallas short of surviving my first ever ice storm and learning new vocabulary terms like ice storm, inclement weather, tornedo watch, tornedo warning and wind chill factor.

This winter, what little life I was able to generate over the last year came to a screeching halt because of weather. Gorillas can’t be outdoors when it’s 30 degrees so my volunteer speaking job at the zoo is on hold. And, who plays tennis when it’s this cold? You may have noticed that tennis requires movement and you can’t move in the quantity of clothes you have to wear to be out there. This freezing gloominess makes it hard for me to keep my spirits up and I’ve never experienced myself as a person whose moods are affected by weather. Then again, I’ve never lived in Texas.

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The other thing that happens in this weather is that my aches and pains flare up. Not all my ailments are affected by the cold, but they all seem intensified when it’s dark and icy out. I’m in my mid fifties and I think everyone older than 45 or 50 have their share of body parts that hurt some of the time or a lot of the time, unless of course, you are my friend Chai-Fu.

Here’s my list starting at my head and working down to my feet:

–Dry eye, which doesn’t hurt but is annoying as hell. It started when I moved to Texas.

–Severe allergies, which last all year long; very unpleasant and annoying. Texas to blame.

–Achy chest from open-heart surgery in my 30’s for a congenital atrial septal defect repair

–Aches from extensive surgery on my right hip stemming from congenital abnormalities on my femur

–Occasional achy issues with my left hip from compensating for my right hip

–Low back pain from being the victim of living between the faulty hips

–I don’t know where from head to feet menopause goes, because it’s everywhere but this seems like as good a place as any.

–Ten days ago I had surgery to repair an umbilical hernia so I don’t know if that will cause aches and pains or not.

–Plantars Fasciitis in my feet, which will hurt for a year and not again for several years, which is weird

My arms and legs are fine!!

Now, I know what you are thinking, TMI! But I actually left a couple things off this list to keep it appropriate! I am not telling you this stuff to make you feel sorry for me. I literally count my blessings every day of my abundant life for what I do have like my beautiful husband and sleeping soundly through the night for 9 hours most nights.  I am telling you this so that you don’t feel sorry for yourself thinking you are the only person with aches and pains.

There is only one person I know roughly my age who has no aches and pains and that’s Chai-Fu. Chai-Fu and my husband Steve met on the tennis court years ago and since then he and his husband David have become very close friends of ours. Chai-Fu is 53 and he has the body of a 25-year-old competitive swimmer. He is 5’ 9”, lean and incredibly fit. I call him a physical exception. Chai-Fu was born with no physical abnormalities or imperfections and has worked hard all his life to build on that fortune.

I work around my ailments and manage to get plenty of exercise in spite of them. I am not an extreme exerciser but every day I either power walk, play tennis, ride my cruiser bike, do yoga, do the elliptical trainer, do light weights and I always stretch. Doing the right kind of exercise makes my aches and pains way better, not worse.

After coming from Taiwan and realizing he was too short to compete in the U.S. in his beloved basketball, Chai-Fu took up tennis and has become a formidable 4.5 to 5.0 player. He plays intense tennis 15 hours a week, hoola hoops for one hour a day (yes, I said hoola hoops) does 75 each of push ups, pulls ups, squats and lunges daily, power walks with his dogs daily, and does yard work several times a week. He said he’d like to put on a little weight but can’t seem to. Uh, yeah.

There are two things I envy about my dear friend Chai-Fu. One, he is a physical exception and two; he lives in Scottsdale, Arizona and not Dallas, Texas.

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New Years Eve Surgery in Texas

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Dallas, like Scottsdale, has a very competitive healthcare industry. I’m not sure if it’s because there are a lot of sick people, a lot of old people, or a lot of people who are hypochondriacs. The industrial landscape is peppered with numerous hospitals, free-standing emergency rooms, urgent care facilities and wellness centers. Advertisements grace the expressway billboards promising everything from new eyesight, 100 pound weight loss, digestive relief after all these years, recovery from breast cancer, a new you by taking testosterone, and more. They kind-a downplay the Ebola thing around here. Word on the street is they didn’t handle it all that well but finally figured it out when it was too late. I think there should be billboards that say Wait!! Sorry about that last thing! We get it now! Give Dallas another chance! Bring your Ebola to us!!”

In the days leading up to surgery, everything in my mind was categorized as before surgery and after surgery. Like a flight across the ocean, I’m never convinced there really will be an after an oceanic flight. But, each day I would find myself surrendering a little more to that mini break from life and complete loss of control, which is general anesthesia.

On the morning of my surgery I felt resigned and task oriented. I also felt hydrated because I drank almost 90 ounces of water the day before so I would not have the dreadfulness of being thirsty on a morning I could drink nothing. I put on full make-up and fixed my hair. Some sense of control I suppose. As we entered the hospital at 8:00 am on New Year’s Eve, it was very quiet. Four “concierges” with little to do huddled around an entry desk chatting. They looked at my husband and me and one lovely woman said, “Good morning! How can we help you?”

“My name is Andrea Thompson and I’m here to celebrate the New Year by having umbilical hernia surgery!” I exclaimed.

They all burst into laughter and one adorable man high fived me. I loved seeing his black hand meet my white one. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard at this desk!” His eyes twinkled.

I quickly found out I was the one and only person having surgery at the hospital that day so the ratio of service providers to patient was about 15 to 1. The first was a very young woman with jet black hair underneath, magenta hair on top. It’s hard for me to imagine why anyone thinks that’s attractive. She told me she was going to take my vitals.

Now, this was a problem because I have White Coat Syndrome. It’s not because I’m scared of doctors, it’s because I’m scared of what they might tell me about my health. However, it’s now evolved to I’m scared someone is going to say I’m going to take your blood pressure. My blood pressure elevates because I’m scared my blood pressure is going to elevate. When I go see Dr. Christy, I take my own blood pressure at home for 5 days in a row and document it for her and it’s always fine.

“Yes, it’s elevated,” the gal deadpanned and didn’t even blink, “177/98.”

“WHAT?” I nearly shrieked, “It’s never been that high even in the presence of the whitest of coats!! Will I be having a stroke here soon?”

“Let’s try the other arm,” she said casually as I was sweating over the fact that I knew no surgeon would proceed with a procedure with blood pressure that high. “126/81,” she said under her breath, “we’re good.”

“What?” I said, “how did it plummet in 10 seconds?!”

“You probably relaxed,” she said as she put the BP equipment away.

“Relaxed?” I exclaimed, “after being told my blood pressure was 177/98?”

She had no idea what to say to me so she motioned me to get on the scale. God, I thought, with the way things are going here I’ll probably weigh 260 pounds! No wonder I have a hernia! I did not weigh 260, I weighed my normal, acceptable, BMI happy weight of (X + 10). The 10 is my opinion no matter what BMI says.

Next, a clumsy woman attempted several times without success to insert my IV. Suffice it to say it took several stabs in several parts of my arm and hand to finally get it right and I have the bruises to prove it.

After several gadgets, devices, liquids and soft goods were adhered to, hung on or injected into my body by several of these 15 people, I met my surgery nurse. Augustine was tall and buff with a curly head of black hair and had a little trouble with eye contact. Based on his slight accent I guessed he was Jamaican. His demeanor was staid and serious and he did not smile once as he explained my procedure and answered my questions. He was clearly thorough, knowledgeable and competent and I had complete confidence in him. I asked him to keep and eye on the flow to my IV and explained the trouble the gal had getting it in. He promised he would.

I rested a minute and in lumbered my anesthesiologist. I can’t remember her name but she was plump, earthy and clearly marched to the beat of her very own drummer. She had a bohemian looking scarf on that covered her entire head and hair; and she had hair so it wasn’t a chemo deal. Maybe she chose this over a hair net in surgery? Her dangling earrings sparkled in the bright lights. She was a talker and was telling me things about anesthesiology I really didn’t need to know. It reminded me of when a refrigerator repair man comes and wants to teach me how a refrigerator works. I don’t care! Just fix the damn thing, man, and move on. Anyway, her comments were dry and unedited and I like that kind of person as long as there is no anger or hostility behind it and with her there wasn’t.

“No lifting, pushing or pulling for two weeks after surgery,” she said, “so that means Steve will be doing the vacuuming, mopping and laundry.” She got his attention and he looked up from his device and we all laughed.

Suddenly the energetic, confident and ready to roll Dr. Komen bounded in the room. “Ready for your surgery?” she asked excitedly.

“Yes, I am.” I said. “And, it’s good to see you, Dr. Komen.” I’d only met her a week before and I love when surgeons are so cheerful and positive. That attitude might affect outcomes.

“Dr. Komen,” I whispered so just she and Steve could hear, “I’m loving this! Both doctors are women and the nurse is a man!”

“Yes,” she said smiling, “It’s fun….there IS still a stigma about that, isn’t there?”

She talked about what was going to happen during surgery, after surgery and during recovery. She gave me some verbal instructions about what to do and not do when I got home. Steve was listening.

“It’s a good idea to get up and walk around the first couple days after surgery,” she said. “Wear some Shapewear or Spanx for the first week or so when you are up and about.”

“Do you have any of that stuff?” Steve blurted out. He’s a quiet guy and that was the first time I heard him talk in an hour.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked astonished as I turned my head and looked at Steve, “I probably have 10 pairs of Spanx!”

At that, the staid and serious Augustine slumped over, dropped his head and laughed hysterically. Steve looked sheepish. Dr. Komen didn’t even break a grin, she just kinda stared at me; surely she owns 10 pairs of Spanx, too and didn’t understand what the hoopla was about. Augustine was still laughing.

A sedative was dripping into my IV and I was becoming very relaxed. Steve kissed me hard. The bed started to roll with Augustine, still smiling, in the lead. Someone was steering from behind but I didn’t know who and it didn’t matter. I was in good hands. We entered the bright, white operating room and the people there greeted me quietly. I smiled at them through bleary eyes. Then the mask came over my nose and mouth.

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Alternative New Year’s Eve Festivites

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Okay, what I’ve learned is that the abdominal wall right near the belly button is fragile tissue because the umbilical cord was there. So umbilical hernias are not that rare. They are usually caused by one of three things:

  1. Many pregnancies, not me, never had a kid.
  1. Overweight, I wish I was 10 pounds thinner but I am not overweight. The good Dr. Christy even called me skinny the last time I saw her. It’s no wonder I like her so much. It’s probably because she is so used to looking at fat people that I look skinny to her. In my opinion, I’d be skinny if I were 10 pounds thinner.
  1. Coughing, that would be me. When I first moved to the dreaded Dallas I had allergies so bad and was coughing so intensely all day every day that I thought I had lung cancer. I was coughing until I either sneezed or almost threw up. (TMI, I know.) I finally googled “internist Dallas,” closed my eyes and picked one and by an incredible stroke of luck, or divine intervention I ended up in Dr. Christy’s office. So anyway, one of my gifts from Texas is Dr. Christy and another one is a hernia. Jus’ sayin’.

Dr. Christy was able to simply push my hernia back in for a while. The last time I saw her however, she couldn’t do it so she referred me to a surgeon and I’ll be ringing in the New Year with surgery on New Years Eve! I hope each and every one of you has something just as fun and festive to do to ring in yours! I’ll be recovering from anesthesia and drinking chicken broth while all you guys are drinking expensive champagne, swinging from the chandeliers and kissing each other.

On Monday I got the call from the admissions person at the hospital for the typical pre-surgery health and lifestyle interview. She started by quizzing me to be sure I wasn’t a complete idiot.

“Do you know why you are having surgery on Wednesday?” Peggy asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I have an umbilical hernia that the surgeon and my PCP Dr. Christy thought should be repaired,” I said.

“Do you know what your surgeon’s name is?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “Dr. Komen.”

“Do you remember what time they asked you to stop eating foods and beverages the day before your surgery?” she asked.

“Yes, midnight.” I said.

“Who will be driving you here on the day of your surgery”?

“My beautiful husband,” I said.

“What time is your surgery?” she asked.

“10:00 am.” I said.

“What time do you need to be here?” she asked.

“8:00 am.” I said confidently. I was kicking butt on my interview!

After determining that I had at least a couple of operative brain cells, she went on to the more complex questions.

“Do you live in a house, a condo, an apartment or a trailer?” she asked cheerfully as if each of these were an equally delightful situation. Why do they need to know that? I thought.

“Who else lives with you in the house other than your beautiful husband?” she laughed.

I laughed too, “beautiful doggies,” I said.

After she did all the family medical history stuff, who’s dead and who’s alive, what kind of shape everyone is in, the surgeries I’ve had, whether I smoked, drank, took illegal drugs (who would say yes to that!?), she moved on to more esoteric stuff.

“Do you like to ingest information from written material and figure it out by yourself OR do you prefer someone explain it to you and walk you through it OR both?” she asked.

“Probably both,” I said, “but what a weird question.”

“I know,” she said, “but we have patients who can’t read and they don’t want to admit it which is understandable.” I loved her for her sensitivity. “This question is a great way to let them off the hook so they don’t go home with instructions they can’t read but rather with a visual and explanation they can adhere to.”

“That makes perfect sense.” I said.

“Okay,” she said, “last question. Do you and your beautiful husband know where the hospital is?”

“Uh, yeah….” I said.

I’m nervous about two things; going under anesthesia and not drinking water for so many hours. Going under has always made me a little nervous. I’m envious because my sister Lisa and my friend Michelle love going under! They see it as a mini escape from life!

I snuck some water in tiny amounts the morning of my hip surgery and I planned on doing that again. I am a rebel and I think some rules like that are for the convenience of whoever made the rule and really have nothing to do with me. But my husband told me today if you are under anesthesia and 1 teaspoon of water gets in your lungs, you could drown. Sounds a little dramatic to me and I’m not sure I buy it but it was kind-a motivating and my husband does not make stuff up.

Today is Tuesday and I think I’ll stay up until midnight drinking water.

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