Just a Dog

I am not foolish enough to think that mine is the first life that a dog has saved, nor am I so greedy to hope that it is the last.  But I am honest enough to know that I was the luckiest one among them all.

20 hours and a cluster of minutes, I have sat with this loss.  I lost track of time; singing, cradling, praying over my sweet Frodo as his departure from this life occurred.  I keep trying to think, was it 15 minutes, was it 5? I just know it was choppy; all of the thoughts. 
It will be okay Fro, you are OK. 
Oh Sweet Boy,
I am here,
please know that I am here. 
Rocking you, squeezing you
I will get you help

Then it shifted, I felt it, I knew.

 he was dying

Smooth, everything smoothed out.  Slowing down, no more rushing to save him, slowly singing, slowly swaying, I prayed for peace, his peace. And quickly. I let go, not of his body, but of his spirit.  I thanked him as my three year old watched TV.  I thanked him for running from me, and not being potty trained until 5 years ago.  It gives me patience for my daughter. I thanked him for loving me.  And I told him he could go, and I would be okay.  A reel of thoughts and whispers and memories and life, his life, consumed me.  His body in my arms for hours after he left. 

It was the end of March 2002, I drove to Apache Junction after receiving a phone call that he was mine.  The breeder told me she liked my voice.  She called the original buyer and told her she could have first pick of the next litter if she passed on the black runt pug pup.  She took my $200 and a two week post dated check.  I told her I could come back for him when my check cleared.  So 22 of me; getting a dog because it was on my list of things to do that day.  Money, schmoney.  Instead she handed me my first baby.  She handed me eleven years of love, grace and unwavering loyalty.  Little did she know that when she placed that little boy in my hands, she was in fact handing me the only thing that could save my life. 

I have moved away from calling myself a wreck and saying that I was broken.  My existence was just sad.  Depression, Anorexia, Alcoholism, I felt terminal.  But this sweet boy greeted me every morning.  Years of the push and pull, my desire for insanity and my quest for ease never put me on solid ground.  A constant, just a dog.  Sure he was just a dog.  Just a...

Moves, breakups, college graduation, heartbreaks, a dear friends suicide, my grandfather's last breath, grandmother's(two, kissed and gone) sobering up, falling down, an engagement, a wedding, pregnancy: twice, birth of a little girl; and then another one. So much life in 11 years.  I don't know when I got "okay".  But it happened.  Then okay went to good.  And good to great, great to today.

Wednesday I got what might have been the best news to me.  Hypercholesterelemia (fancy word for high cholesterol) runs in my family.  I have been on medicine since I started Kindergarten. It was Aisley's turn for the diagnosis.  The one I couldn't imagine being normal.  Her doctor called, blood tests were consistent with an average three year old girl.  I didn't pass it on to her.  Relief is tangible.  I felt a deep joy bloom. 

Maybe 7 years ago, I found myself at the Mayo Clinic talking to an ENT.  He told me he would not treat me unless I started taking my heart health seriously.  I think he meant that I should be treating my 400+ cholesterol with my prescribed medication, the one that I hadn't taken in at least a year.  I probably rolled my eyes.  Not one of my finer moments.  Later. 7 months into my second pregnancy,  trying to get a life insurance policy, denied due to high cholesterol.  It was 398. 

This past Monday was when Aisley and I had our blood drawn together; hers for a diagnosis, mine for a reference.  I started a low dose of a statin two months ago, I haven't been on meds for four years. This time under the direct supervision of my cardiologist. I wasn't expecting much change.  It was a day to be wrong.  My results given to me by a nurse, LDL 107 HDL 30.  Never in my life, since my very first lipid profile, even on medication had I gotten below 250. I was thrilled and proud.  I HAVE changed for the better, for the healthy. 

Wait, this is about Frodo.  I promise there is congruence. 

His passing was swift.  And all things considered I will be forever grateful that I was home and that I was here.   Joe told me that his death was quick because his purpose had been fulfilled.  I wanted to believe that.  And then I did.  I am the happiest and healthiest I have ever been.  Never before has that been more true. I got my blood results and within 24 hours he was gone. 

Frodo escorted me, he herded me, he connected me to this plane when I wanted nothing to do with it.  Frodo was my tunnel vision.  Frodo was my saving grace. Frodo was just my dog.  Frodo was just my life, until I could take care of it.  And now he has assured me that no matter what, I can.  And for him, I will.

I love you Frodo
January 28, 2002-August 1, 2013

Being Right vs Being Happy

I always knew there would be things I would say as a mom that I never could Imagine. Just a few hours ago, I was washing my face, heard a thud and a scream. I run to the stairs and see Aisley lying naked on her back clutching her Dora backpack. The floor had a wet sheen to it and her diaper had been tossed to the side. My amazing mom deducing skills put the pieces together and I asked, "Aisley, did you just slip in your own pee?" 

She simply smiled, any injury forgotten. I hate being right. 

TGIF

Jewel's Hand Song Was My Anthem

It was Bethany, or maybe it was Matt; not quite sure of that detail.  The nickname, though, I am very sure of was granny hands.  My hands are etched with lines, deep ones, surface ones; mainly just all over ones.  The most spoken phrase to me remains, "Have you ever heard of lotion? <always commented in shock and awe>  To this day that question hovers over any new introduction which involves a handshake.  However back to Bethany and Matt and hands that look like Granny's.  This was my introduction to Kindergarten.  Friends were my peers who didn't notice or maybe just didn't touch my hands.  But those friends, were my introduction to socializing.  No longer do I question my awkwardness.

My granny hands touch the keys that make the words that you are reading now.  These hands today have truly learned of friendship.  Of course there was pain, and hurt feelings.  But, never could I have appreciated today as I do, had I not carved out that bit for joy to come in.  Thanks Mr. Gibran.

It's no secret that I am pretty close to maxed out.  The baffling map that holds my "mama instructions" has been written in Greek upside down and backwards, in invisible ink.  Jealous yet? No big. I got this.  In a large circular roundabout, I find my point.  I stand today, and I laugh today only because of the amazing women in my life offer me the safety in which to do so.  Later-in-life friendships were as foreign to me as hand pride.  Little did I know that I would need these women  more now than I ever did as a child navigating elementary school.  So this is a shout-out to all of you that keep me and my granny hands moving forward.  If you think you are one of those friends then you absolutely are. 

Thank you,
Etched, veined, and waxy hands

Wars, Storms and Sidelines

Some time lying around this morning, I found it.

 No words explain an electrical storm.  Literally.  The blog has remained untouched, wordless for over a month.

 Navigating the medical world as an advocate versus a patient is no delight.  Made it home yesterday from a 24 hour video EEG.  Everything came back normal.  Reassuring, they say.  I was thinking absence seizures were part of the mix, this delightfully told us that was not the case.  Hanging in the air, unanswered, are her shaky dances.  Sensory overload, perhaps? I want to be done with neurology.  Eye doctor this morning, maybe she will offer some clarification as to the right eye droop, and uneven blinking. 

As I walk through this with my little family, I see how much I thought that my job as a parent was only to cultivate the energy, the spirit, inside my girls.  I imagined a dance, dramatic and quick, through their childhood ushering them to adolescence.  A vision which included some painful fights, along with lovely remonstrances. My job all the while, a referee standing on the sidelines.  Silly me.  No sidelines, whatsoever.  Consider that fantasy smashed. 

But life is better, living is best.  No daydreaming, no sidelines, we are all up in this life thing.  ALL UP IN IT.  But we only have this one.  So I fight.  For their spirit, for their life-dance, I will go to war. 

The Shaky Dance

Finding a spot to begin, that is always the hardest part for me.  This time though, it seems as if any beginning is futile.  I wonder where van Gogh's brush first crossed the canvas of "Starry Night".  Was there a deliberate first star, or had he only imagined a church steeple in the night sky; making that his first stroke? Would it have mattered if he started elsewhere?  Could the entire painting have been rearranged by the simplest flick of the wrist? 

A missed step, a bruised cheek, the culprits of the next days scare?  CT scan said no.  That was after my surreal drive to the Children's Hospital with my just seized daughter in the back of my car.  Not really giggling but not quite fearful either, she keeps saying, "Mama I shake-ah like dis".  She reminds me of Jell-o.  Starting at the bottom and resonating up; she wiggles.  If a child is having Absence seizures they remain unaware, picking back up where they left off before the episode began.  Had I been able to break through my fear I would have heard my child telling me that these were not Absence seizures, but something else entirely.  A few days later and somewhere around 60 seizures later we land back in the ER.  Jacksonian seizures; a diagnosis, though not confirmed, is thrown around.  

A stat EEG is ordered, followed by an MRI.  Mama duties have been upped a notch.  Show no fear, I whisper to myself.  Smile, make funny faces with electrodes coming out of my nose, whatever it takes to prove that this is not awful, nor sickening, and that this is most certainly not happening to my precious baby girl.  Oh but it is.  Now, the fall and the bruised cheek have become evidence of her first seizure activity.  Today it was a bloodied nose, on top and all around, it was the fat lip and the skinned knee that show evidence of abnormal electrical brain activity.  Well yes her right leg does have a  tendency to go numb either right before, during or after having had a seizure.  I just can't quite pinpoint it on the timeline.  But I can absolutely pinpoint my broken heart.  It beats deeply in my chest for my first born daughter; my courageous, beautiful, feisty girl. 

I was adjusting to the likely Epilepsy diagnosis with a sense of peace.  But these injuries, I don't know what to do.  They illicit a fear in me that I hadn't felt except in those initial seconds of first witnessing my daughter's seizure.  Up to Denver to see the Pediatric Neurologist on Wednesday,  I am keeping my fingers crossed that we get an instruction manual. 

There is a certain levity though that must be observed when going through something this big with a child so little.  I thank my God for this.  She has dubbed her seizures "The Shaky Dance" and for emphasis there is a little heiney wiggle at the end.  I can't help but smile.  Such grace that child walks with, such Grace.

Mamas and daughts

She shakes, kinda wiggles, body somewhere else, eyes on me. Moments of extreme difficulty in life do not appear as severe until I am willing to examine it. Which usually, given the circumstances, when one is experiencing this kind of upheaval, time is not an available commodity.

I don't recall anything else ever being this heavy, or this hard. But she is my daughter. I shouldn't expect anything different.

Fear is difficult and the heavens are beautiful. Jacksonian seizures have joined our family. I will post more soon!

Fierce

Ferocity is born out of motherhood. Tears, mine laced with gold, etched through with steel, drip with strength. I steady, I am ready to fight. My enemy has no face, nor name, I know him only as fear.

Ferocious is my desire to protect, to govern, to lead my children. My only weapon is a deep belief in a Power that is stronger than any evil, any fear out there. My mom told me God has no grandchildren. I stay teachable.


I will guard my children's innocence and wonder with a ferociousness that rivals eons of honed instinct present in even the bravest being.