SURREAL IX

I waited with dreaded anticipation the few minutes it took for them to travel from the farm. What could they be coming to tell me? It took about 25 minutes for them to arrive, but it seemed like hours.  However even the dread couldn’t compare with the stricken looks on their faces when I saw them get out of the car.

I noticed the way my Mom looked kind of bent and much older as she walked up the steps to my back door. My Mom’s usual posture was straight as an arrow with head held high. She always looked a good 20 years younger than her age. People had often thought she was my older sister. When I got a closer look at my Dad’s face, it looked as though the skin had been stretched over an embroidery hoop, and he looked ghostly white.  I seated them as quickly as possible, and I didn’t bother with the usual questions, “Want a Coke or a glass of iced tea? What have you guys been up to?” This obviously wasn’t a social visit, and there was no need trying to turn it into one. Cut to the chase. Just tell me what’s going on. Tell me what’s wrong. But I didn’t have to ask.

My Daddy spoke up and said in a quivering voice, “We took your mother to the doctor today. He wanted to go over the results of the tests he did last week. Mother has cancer. And he thinks it’s spread.”

My first thought out loud was, “He THINKS she has cancer. He THINKS it’s spread. He doesn’t KNOW!” My Daddy said, “No Honey, they know she has cancer. We’re going to Vanderbilt  tomorrow to see the top oncologist; the best in Nashville. He’ll tell us more.”

“So they’ll do surgery! They’ll get rid of it! They’ll do chemo. They’ll do radiation. They’re going to cure her, aren’t they?” My Mom still sat silently. And now my Daddy did the same. What could they possibly say? I wasn’t going to accept anything unless it was good news, and they just didn’t have any to give me. I don’t know how long I went on talking to myself. I don’t even know how long my parents stayed. I should have had my arms around my Mom, assuring her, comforting her. I should have asked to pray with them. But I was stuck in the “no, this can’t be happening to me” mode. I think my Daddy did finally pull us into a prayer circle; but I don’t have a clue what he said. When they left I sat numbly for so long that when I finally moved myself from the chair in my kitchen, it was pitch dark outside.  I pushed myself into my bathroom and turned on the light over the mirror. I looked at the zombie-like image looking back at me, and I said, “My Mom has cancer. My Mom has cancer. My Mom has cancer…..” And then a transformation took place. After I had mouthed the words for I don’t know how many times I began to cry. I said them, and I cried. I said them over and over as tears streamed down my face and wet my shirt. And sometime after that I realized I had stopped sobbing. I didn’t know it then, but I had been preparing myself for the days and weeks to come. I would be telling hundreds of people, “My Mom has cancer.”

Look for SURREAL Chapter X coming soon. And please, if you have time, leave a comment. And tell your friends and family who may struggle with blindness to hop on board with me. The focus will turn to my retinal disease within the next few chapters. I hope to offer some inspiring thoughts about my daily life and how I cope with my slowly darkening world.

Do you have a favorite story about how your Mom sacrificed for you? My favorite is the “chicken neck story”. When I was a child in the 1950s, there weren’t any KFCs or any other fast food places. When we had chicken my Mom fried it. And she didn’t have packages of skinless, boneless pieces either. I don’t think they had those in the grocery meat counters back then. I think our A&P store sold whole chickens, and the housewives all knew how to cut them apart. My Mom always cooked the whole chicken. She didn’t waste anything. So we had the liver, the gizzard, and the neck and back pieces. Now when I was little there were only three of us, since I was an only child. So if I’m any good at all at math, there were plenty of “good” pieces of chicken for each of us. But my Mom ALWAYS chose the neck and the back pieces. I did ask her a few times WHY? She’d always say they were the best. When I finally got the chance to try the neck and got my mouth full of those old soft, crunchy bones, I thought that my mother must have a loose screw in her head. There was nothing good about that old chicken neck but the deliciously seasoned batter my Mom had fried it in.  So what was the deal? When I was an older teen I asked my Mom again WHY? And that’s when she told me the secret. When she was a child she was the oldest of 13 children, and those were depression days. My Mom said her Mom always chose the neck and back and wouldn’t dare let one of her children get either one. So when my Mom grew up, she asked her Mom WHY? And my grandmother said, “Well if I had taken one of the good pieces, one of my children would have gotten that old neck or back. I enjoyed watching all of them eat that tasty fried chicken much more than I could have ever enjoyed it myself. So from that point on, my Mom made up her mind that when she had children, she’d make sure not a one of them ever tasted a neck or a back, because she’d enjoy their happy faces much more than she could ever enjoy a chicken breast or thigh or leg.

If you’ve enjoyed gettingblindsided, please leave your comments.

   And y’all come back now, and bring your friends and family!

 

 

SURREAL

I am looking back on those first days, weeks and months following my visit with the retinal specialist, and it’s really difficult to believe how I convinced myself to accept my diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa, a non-reversible degenerative disease for which there is currently no cure with an eventual prognosis of blindness. In the process of the examination the specialist had discovered a tiny tear in one of my retinas. He repaired the tear that day with laser treatment, I took it easy for a week, and then I was off to a vacation in the Bahamas. Either I just hadn’t listened to the whole story, I hadn’t grasped its meaning or the impact, or I had entered the land of denial. Maybe it was a bit of all those. What I do remember is while we were in the Bahamas, I kept telling everyone on the company trip how fortunate I was and what great news I had received the previous week. I told them that had it not been for having symptoms of retinitis pigmentosa, my specialist would never have discovered the tear in my retina. Okay, okay, pick yourself up out of the floor after you have laughed yourself silly. Everybody has his own way of handling things. This fairy tale worked for me for some time.
I stopped night driving since night vision loss is the first noticeable handicap. No problem. My company didn’t mind. I simply checked into a hotel if it was too late to drive home. As a district director of a large non-profit, part of my duties included spending a week each summer at the kids’ camp. District directors functioned exactly the same as the volunteer teen counselors; making bed checks at night and walking the entire perimeter of the camp. I began asking to walk arm in arm with another director. She didn’t mind, because we chatted all along the way, so that, too, became a minor inconvenience. An early symptom of my disease is the gradual loss of peripheral vision. Not just side to side, but the entire 180 degrees of the visual hemisphere.  Simply put not just left and right, but also up and down. Stair steps or uneven surfaces become your enemy. My doctor advised me to consciously turn my head from side to side when driving instead of relying on my eyes to scan the periphery for approaching cars or pedestrians. No problem. After a very short while that was second nature. Life was good; I’ve got it all under control. Or so I thought….
Check daily for new posts and continuations of my story, SURREAL.

My Kindergarten Graduation Photograph                                                         Being a child in the ’50s was about as good as it gets. Those were “Happy Days”.

 

 

As we approach the 4th of July, Independence Day in the United States, I hope we can all pause to give thought to all the blood that has been shed and all the  lives that have been lost in the many wars, including the American Revolutionary War and all the bloody conflicts since. United States citizens are in peril of losing their freedom, and our soldiers are in life or death conditions every single day in war torn Asian countries. They won’t be home to share picnics, hot dogs and hamburgers with their families. The fireworks they view will be life threatening. Please take time to pray for their safety and the freedom of our country.

 

Surreal

Nobody wakes up one day in their life and says, “Oh, I think I’ll be blind one day before I die.” Especially not at the age of 30! It’s not exactly a choice you’re going to make. “Let me think; I can plan to tour Europe. I can take flying lessons. I can open a Bed ‘N Breakfast or I can be blind.” Choices one through three had entered my mind either frivolously or seriously, but number four was not on my radar. Well, not until I began to have problems with my night vision.

My career involved traveling, mostly driving back then. I began to really struggle with the small town and country roads. I was literally hanging my head out the window of my car trying to see where the Interstate junctions were up ahead. Thinking I needed a change in my contact lenses prescription, I went to an optometrist who by the grace of God had taken a special interest in retinal diseases. He knew right off what we were dealing with. But before he would breathe a word of it he sent me right on to a retinal specialist reputed to be one of the best in this field. My best friend went with me that day, and I was so grateful for her support. Even though I didn’t absorb his entire message, I heard enough to know, my life had just been changed forever. I was embarking on a whole new adventure. But this one hadn’t been one of the choices…

Don’t miss the next “episode” in “Surreal.”

Put ‘Em in the Oven & Forget ‘Em Cookies

Ingredients:
2 egg whites
2/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans
Directions:
Beat egg whites to a peak. Gradually add sugar and continue beating until
stiff. Add salt and vanilla; mix well. Fold in nuts and chocolate chips.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto lightly oiled cookie
sheet. Place cookies in the oven and immediately turn off oven. Leave cookies in closed oven overnight. These are melt in your mouth good!
Makes about 25 cookies