Updates 8/10/09

Updates:

1. We’re still unsure about where to go the first week in September. We’re thinking of just waiting to feel the weather that Sunday (August 30) and head in the opposite direction. 
2. We’re thinking either Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, or the Outer Banks, or a little vagabond road trip through Nashville, Memphis, and Asheville. Nashville to Asheville. Did I spell that right? Something lost a letter. 
3. I’m hungry for some blues and barbeque. 
4. Deb didn’t do so well in her golf tournament. But she didn’t do badly either. She’s having a lot of hot flashes lately, and I think that has something to do with it. The next round is next Saturday, and I’m thinking she’ll come home with a trophy. She’s kind of hard on herself.
5. Our friend Maria had her stroke almost 10 days ago. She has opened her eyes, seems to recognize people, responds to commands, and is now breathing entirely on her own. We last saw her on Friday night. I think Deb will see her again this morning. 
6. Did someone turn the humidity up? To 1000 %?
7. I am writing a short story. It has a good title. It’s right here on this blog but you can’t see it. It’s on a page I’ve tagged as “private” which mean I’m the only one who has access to it. It’s right here. I can see it but you can’t. Right. You can’t see it. But it’s right here. I see it. You can’t. 
8.  I know where Ben and Bernie usually play golf on Friday afternoons, so I’m going to find them and take their picture for you. 
9. But I can’t do it this Friday because we’ve got our annual tell-us-how-much-money-we-don’t-have meeting with our financial advisors. 
10. I need some new clothes. I need some pine-cone colored Keens like my little 11-year old friend, Anne…Heidi and Cathy’s oldest daughter. She is too cool. “Nothing girly,” she said. Got it. 

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Why We Are Sad Right Now

Our good friend Maria had a massive cerebral hemorrhage this weekend. She is in Christ Hosptial’s ICU. And she is on a ventilator. And we are so sad we can hardly stand it. We spent some time with Maria and her husband Jim early yesterday morning. Today they discuss inserting the feeding tube, etc…all the things they do when they’re trying to figure out if she’ll live or not. The problem is, as you already know, Reader, that once those life-supporting things—like ventilators and feeding tubes—are begun, it’s practically impossible to withdraw them because eventually the person being ventilated and fed actually lives…but lives dependent on those life-sustaining gizmos and the people who operate them. But at this stage of Maria’s situation, it’s impossible to tell the extent  of the brain damage until the swelling, etc reduces…which takes a while. So, some people buy some time and make their decisions later.

Apparently most hospitals have stopped using the ventilator on these cases of such massive strokes because the outcome is so devastatingly complicated. But this intubation was begun in the ambulance on the way to the hospital when Maria stopped breathing and before they knew what caused her to stroke. So, now this.

I write all of this to tell you that if this happens to me—if I stroke or if I’m in a car or scooter accident or whatever—I will be okay. Please do not worry about whatever decision is made to allow my death. But, if for whatever reason a ventilator is begun and whoever is responsible can’t make the decision to withdraw it, then I ask that I go into a nursing-home kind of place…at which time all of my medications should be discontinued. Luckily for me, I’m on meds that keep me alive, so the withdrawal of them will allow my death. I don’t mind going into a nursing home; but I do mind LIVING in one. So, when the time comes for me to go into one, don’t hesitate for a moment. Go ahead and take me there. I swear, it will be okay.

All of this is already written in my living will, and Deb is well aware of my desires, but if she finds it too hard to do, I ask you to gently remind her that this is what I wanted.

Maria, July 2009

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