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Posts Tagged ‘open heart surgery’

The Fantasy Nap

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2015| 5 Comments »

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. (Buddha) 

Ella’s daddy wants her to have a nap today. The stitches on her chest became infected. They had to be surgically repaired last week. She needs to catch up on her sleep and recover. Ella, however, has a different plan. I lie down next to her because we don’t have a bed for her. Napping at our house is not part of time-with-grandparents routine.

I had told her it was time to sleep and she told me it wasn’t dark out.

“Nap, Ella, not nighttime.”

She grins. I know what tactic she is forming so I open the book we just got from the library and begin to read. She decides she wants to tell the story.

This is a ploy, but I want to hear her version. She flips the pages back and forth and makes faces at me. Yep, I was right. Our granddaughter wants me to laugh, actually outright giggle. This will stop the possibility of sleep in the middle of a perfectly good day for play.

Oh, why was I made out of malleable wet sand when it comes to my grandchildren? I try to keep my lips set into a serious straight line, something like holding back the water from a burst pipe with a paper bag.

“Okay, sleep time,” I say.

“Night, night, Mawmaw,” Ella says, at least a hundred times—in different tones. “I love you,” she finally says.

“I love you, too,” I respond.

Then she makes a tent of the book over my face. I finally laugh. She has won. She giggles and I want to hug her forever.

You are ornery and sneaky, little girl, I think. But I wouldn’t change anything about you—even if I could.

“Uh, the nap was a bust,” I tell my husband and see disappointment in his face. We didn’t follow instructions. Okay, I didn’t follow directions. But they required willingness from another participant who didn’t want to miss one minute of the day.

I am so glad Ella’s heart is now working properly. Her spirit has always shone, even with a blocked valve, and her ability to find contentment in the simple inspires me.

Chances are I won’t seek employment as chief disciplinarian anywhere. This story wouldn’t fit well in the resume. But the position of Grandma, also known as Mawmaw, works just fine for now.

Actually, I feel somewhat honored.

listen to your heart

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A Glimpse of a Scar

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2015| 2 Comments »

Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world. (Orhan Pamuk)

Recent talk among several groups of friends has centered on gratitude. I don’t take it as a coincidence. Ella grins at me as she watches several versions of “five little monkeys jumping on the bed” on YouTube. “Oh dear,” she says as each one falls. Falling is forbidden for her at the moment. The stitches in her chest are deep; they will heal from the inside-out and that will take time. The best recovery in a lot of areas begins as an inside job. I put my arm around her and know I hold the whole world.

Small details jump out at me: the pink edging around her shoes, the smallness of her body and hands, the sunshine white-blond of her comb-resistant hair, even the yogurt stains on her jeans.

Her seven-year-old cousin arrives and without a word Ella lifts her t-shirt and shows Rebe her scar. No whimpering. This is a statement of fact. Rebe looks at me, her eyebrows raised, but she doesn’t speak either. She gives Ella a kiss on the cheek. The children seem to know this is answer enough.

Play continues. Pretend games, a mock form of hide-and-seek, i Pad entertainment. Lots of giggles. Running, monitored and limited in a small house.

My memory goes back to a time when I was in water aerobics class. The news had been fresh that our youngest granddaughter would have Down syndrome, an A/V canal defect and duodenal atresia. At that moment we saw our granddaughter as someone who had not yet been born. So far all we knew were problems, unseen and vague roadblocks, the kind that lead many women toward abortion. Ella had not yet seen her parents’ faces and no one had seen hers.

I recall following aerobic moves as a song played in the background. It was only a rhythmic drum beat. I was seeing the rest room doors behind the instructor, not the instructor. I knew our granddaughter would be a girl—that was all. And the rest of what I understood was surrounded with fear. I wanted to know more than the skirted figure on the door of the restroom could tell, and I didn’t want to know.

Now I look into Ella’s eyes and see sapphire blue, a hint of humor, a ton of strength, and a spirit the angels could emulate. Yes, our little girl has been through more surgery in her short life than I have in my almost 69 years. Yet, she accepts the next day as another experience, not the morning after.

“May I sit next to you, Ella?” I ask.

She smiles. A lot of words aren’t always necessary. Sometimes they get in the way of a simple message. Love loses its beauty when it is over-defined.

learning to be brave and patient

 

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A Locker-Room Change—Toward Better Understanding

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Change is the end result of all true learning. (Leo Buscaglia) 

I am in the locker room at the Y after a water aerobics class. I hear disconcerting voices around me. They seem loud—too loud.

“You wouldn’t believe…” comes one voice. “It was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” states another.

I sigh while the spinner absorbs chlorinated water from my swimsuit. Getting the machine started takes some muscle since I need to stand on tiptoe to press the top down, but once the whir begins the excess water disappears within seconds. I can surmise a situation in the same amount of time, with or without all the facts.

Was it really the worst thing that ever happened to you? Or is this statement meant to be exaggerated..? I’m glad my thoughts don’t appear out loud because I haven’t heard anything about this person’s story, not really. And it isn’t my business anyway.

One woman is talking to another as the two prepare for the next water class, a slower moving one. She complains too, or at least that is my first impression. She injured her back and I expect her to give all the details. She catches my eye.

“I did, too,” I say. “Spinal stenosis. Nothing serious. I have exercises that help. I’ll get through it.”

She gives me her name and I give her mine. But the surprise comes as I pick up my bag to leave and she walks toward the pool. “I’ll pray for you if you will pray for me.”

I can’t turn down that offer, so I ask her to add our Ella to her list.

“Wow!” she says. “That sure puts a perspective on things. Such a little girl having open heart surgery like that.” She takes my hand. I’ve never met this woman before and yet she treats me as if she has known me for years. I feel blessed. The pain in my back weakens, at least for a while.

The next time I return to the Y  my companion is present again.  We greet one another by name.

“I remembered to pray for your granddaughter,” she says.

I wince. I offered a ten-second prayer for her. But, I know I can and will do better. Then, as I reach into the locker I wince again, from a stretch that felt a little peculiar.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yes. Really. I am.”

“You have an incredible smile,” she tells me.

I thank her. She has given me another gift, one I hope to remember. Today I have an agenda, a to-do list that becomes easier as I think about other people’s needs, not only my own, and hum the song I wrote and recorded for my granddaughter when she had her first open-heart surgery. She was only a few months old and confined to a giraffe bed in a neonatal intensive care unit then. Her underdeveloped system needed all of its energy for survival. It could not handle extra sounds. I don’t have the facility to transfer the song to this website, but a click on Ella’s Song leads to an older page I no longer maintain.

Finding the good in life, sometimes hidden under a lot of misunderstanding, challenge, and plain old-fashioned self-imposed garbage remains one of my goals. Our little girl has come a long way. I hope to follow her spiritual lead even further as she grows into year six, a few months from now.

Peace upon all.

first impressions words to inspire the soul

 

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A Child’s Wish: “I Hope You Never Git Hert”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2015| 2 Comments »

Life isn’t about getting and having, it’s about giving and being. (Kevin Kruse)

 As I’m dusting the windowsill I see the note Kate wrote to Ella, probably several years ago. I saved it because it reflects who Kate is. Ordinarily I choose to publish only quotes and pictures that include correct spelling and grammar. However, there are times when perfection can ruin the beauty of the moment. The sincerity of my eldest granddaughter’s wish blasts out from her innocence. She wants the best for her young cousin. I can’t fault that.

However, no one experiences a perfect life. Our Ella probably understands that better than many people do. She approaches a quarantine time. Her open heart surgery has been postponed twice. Now, so that she can move forward, we must keep her away from crowds and lots of germs. Of course she has no fear of infection. Saturday she dropped a vending machine M&M on a restaurant floor and then picked up the candy and chomped on it. Fear of another sick day does not govern her life.

I would like to delete fear from my own life. I would also like to send a message like Kate’s to a few other folk I know, to wish safety, health, and simple joys.

There is a young woman at a place I visit frequently who has recently had a recurrence of cancer. She is frightened, as anyone would be. She says she does not expect to recover this time.

She shows me the site from her biopsy, just below her throat. We share a few tears. I hug her. This is all I have to give. She says six words that scream a lifetime of experience: “I have always been the oddball.”

We are standing in front of a public bathroom mirror. I want to turn her toward the glass and point out what I see—a beauty that isn’t superficial. Tenacity and willingness to serve don’t appear in a flat reflection. Yet, I can’t find an opening in her spirit to explain that different is not a synonym for inferior. She is devastated, too broken for words to seep in yet.

I recall how I was the taunted kid through twelve grades of school. And I never understood why, except for the innate inferiority theory. After all, my parents never told me that I had gifts of any value.

This young woman has struggled through developmental handicaps. She has gone through chemotherapy. She volunteers. Daily. With a smile. She is in too much pain to understand more than a hug. Moreover, my recent accomplishments can obscure the realities of the past. She doesn’t see a future. Now is not the time for me to talk, but to listen.

Then I see her again this morning. She wears a pink fighting-breast-cancer scarf. She readily accepts my embrace and tells me she is taking her driving test on Tuesday. I grin. She talks about her nervousness. I think about facing tons of steel on the road. I envision this young lady approaching a 32-wheeler on the expressway and crushing cancer in the passing lane.

Perhaps enough people have listened to this volunteer. Maybe she is beginning to see her own worth, prayer answered before it was barely begun…

May that power continue to grow.

 

Dear Ella

 

 

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