Saturday, June 30, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Upswing after Longer Downswing
I can think of no-one right now other than Chuck Bussey. He and his family are in my thoughts and prayers daily, as I know I have been in his during this last year and a 1/2.
Spent loads of time yesterday with doctor who is fine tuning my pain management. I’m being tweaked and customized and very excited about the whole program. Coordination is such a big part of the program, and family is on the front line of everything. It may even help me to come up with a more accurate time table for my blogs, so don’t give up on me. My new doctor joins the ranks of the greats.
I’m scheduled for my cataract operation for noon on this Monday, June 25th. We have adopted a wait and see policy for the myeloma that sits behind it on the retina. If all goes well, we’ll move right on to the cataract on the left eye after a few days. Meanwhile, my vision takes a quicker nosedive every day and continues to give me a hard time with my reading. However, my continued exposure to people and their families keeps my complaints to a minimum. I’m not talking morbidity here – I’m talking hope, charity and faith. In simple terms – friendship, optimism of sorts and just a little less of myself for myself. It’s that thing we call peace. If you would have experienced the goodness in my home these last few weeks, I wouldn’t have to be writing this.
My electric wheel chair has been approved and is on order – maybe a week and a half. Will I get beat up if I get a Junior Hells Angel’s jacket. It goes 5 miles per hour and can go 25 miles on one fill – no gas – just electricity - that will not be cheap either. I’ll have to hit one of those hot houses. Is that a spa or massage parlor?
The Denver Family arrived on Tuesday, former secretary arrives on the 25th, sister in-law will be with us from July 6th - three weeks. Then some visitors from the east coast? Don’t have time to die – we’re too booked up.
Kris is ecstatic having all the grand kids (along with me). The back yard looked as full as the Point Defiance Zoo yesterday. However, we had more laughter and bumps on the heads. The Duke and the Therapeutic Cat are getting along fine. We had our concerns. Witness the bites on our hands. Zoe Brooklyn is still the love of my life which may cause a problem for the new #2 and #3. I may not be high on their list – I’ll have to check that out. Continue to remember you all and your families.
Hang in there and enjoy every minute of every day – and thanks again for your continued feedback.
Spent loads of time yesterday with doctor who is fine tuning my pain management. I’m being tweaked and customized and very excited about the whole program. Coordination is such a big part of the program, and family is on the front line of everything. It may even help me to come up with a more accurate time table for my blogs, so don’t give up on me. My new doctor joins the ranks of the greats.
I’m scheduled for my cataract operation for noon on this Monday, June 25th. We have adopted a wait and see policy for the myeloma that sits behind it on the retina. If all goes well, we’ll move right on to the cataract on the left eye after a few days. Meanwhile, my vision takes a quicker nosedive every day and continues to give me a hard time with my reading. However, my continued exposure to people and their families keeps my complaints to a minimum. I’m not talking morbidity here – I’m talking hope, charity and faith. In simple terms – friendship, optimism of sorts and just a little less of myself for myself. It’s that thing we call peace. If you would have experienced the goodness in my home these last few weeks, I wouldn’t have to be writing this.
My electric wheel chair has been approved and is on order – maybe a week and a half. Will I get beat up if I get a Junior Hells Angel’s jacket. It goes 5 miles per hour and can go 25 miles on one fill – no gas – just electricity - that will not be cheap either. I’ll have to hit one of those hot houses. Is that a spa or massage parlor?
The Denver Family arrived on Tuesday, former secretary arrives on the 25th, sister in-law will be with us from July 6th - three weeks. Then some visitors from the east coast? Don’t have time to die – we’re too booked up.
Kris is ecstatic having all the grand kids (along with me). The back yard looked as full as the Point Defiance Zoo yesterday. However, we had more laughter and bumps on the heads. The Duke and the Therapeutic Cat are getting along fine. We had our concerns. Witness the bites on our hands. Zoe Brooklyn is still the love of my life which may cause a problem for the new #2 and #3. I may not be high on their list – I’ll have to check that out. Continue to remember you all and your families.
Hang in there and enjoy every minute of every day – and thanks again for your continued feedback.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Apprehension
I guess I had already seen how quickly those series of little numbers on my blood draws could quickly turn things upside down. Although I still have a good handle on death, I don’t exactly enjoy all the steps in the process. However, once again – nothing but good news. Doctor was in a great mood and it was contagious – “took a long time for you to get that sick – its going to take a long time to get you back.” Most optimism I have ever heard. He was amazed about my Denver trip. I’ll tell that wonderful story next blog.
Please, please – if you had been to the open door of death and were now working on again living a new but extremely limited new life – what would be your top 2 priorities? I need your help. It’s not an empty request. This blog has been magnificent in what it has done for me, but it lacks dialog. Some don’t write because they want to write profoundly – bullshit – I don’t want your profundity – I want you. I wouldn’t understand profundity.
Don’t tell me you have nothing to write – that simply means you’re not doing your job – your job is seeing new people every day – the easy ones – the hard ones, but each unique in who they are – I desperately want to hear about them.
Remember – we were the ones who had the first facts about the VA. About the medical holds – about those ready to jump out of their chairs when someone went by (that’s why I redid my office – so they could control the corridor – even though I liked the office the other way. Can you imagine making a change for the client instead of for me – try going to one of the other areas on base and see how you are treated.
I also want to hear about you – your families – your vacations – still look forward to seeing Peter’s African trip – the detail about Arizona – Pat Ryan has been great in filling me in on where he’s at, and I enjoy each item and can recall them all. I pray for your children and recall what you have shared with me. I was so profoundly moved on one occasion with tears that flowed from the hurt of a grown child, frustration and love – this is heavy weight stuff and should be handled with total respect and honesty and discernment. Never gossip – never to be shared with another but handled in complete confidentiality – I write of heavy stuff to make a point or two but I’m really interested in the simple things – the flow of the future – never – never internal politics, gripes, etc.
I’d like to be part of the team – I’d like to know what to pray for - I’d especially like to know about failure and success – Bill was wonderful for me – I made him listen to me about every client - success and failure I was having – I needed his reinforcement – I needed to say it and get it out of me – to put it on the table – to make it better – to get another’s perspective - this was true about almost every workshop and class – how can the next one be different, and how can I make them better. Sometimes the answers are right there in your face - often they require humility, which I lack to the detriment of my clients.
YOU ARE A TREASURE HOUSE INVOLVED IN THE MOST PROFOUND WORK AVAILABLE TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING AND THEIR FAMILIES.
Let me end with one story from my recent Denver trip. As you may know, my brother Charlie died in WWII, in the Japanese campaign. A chaplain wrote from his foxhole in the Philippines three months after my bother died - he was killed with shrapnel from incoming while on guard duty – as the chaplain said – not very heroic, but he wanted to tell us about what we already knew – the hero Charlie in life and how he was loved and respected by the chaplain and every one of the men in his unit – especially the leaders -because of his maturity, respect and love for them and they for him.
You may also know about my other brother Billy, who spent two and a half years in Stalag 24 where he begged us for correspondence and talked about being in hell. Again, when he got home saying he was no hero – he said he was in his foxhole and over the top a very big German pointed a very big rifle with the longest bayonet that had ever seen – he said his hands went up so fast his pants must have fell to the ground. We last met when he died as a young man, and I said his funeral Mass as a young priest. He was in his early 40’s.
I’ve also told you about Ray who as a Master Sergeant in Korea - was part of the very first Mash units which were not always booze and laughs. Somehow he also managed to get himself behind enemy lines where he was awarded a Purple Heart. It was at Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Denver that I last saw Ray - I was a freshly ordained Catholic Priest. It was not my visit that I now recount for you but that of his – at the time - 14 year old daughter. What she communicated to me and I experienced in her was the profound work you do. We touch not only clients – we touch families.
She came over with her husband on the Friday night of my recent visit to Colorado. We met at the door, and she was relieved. She said that she was sick at least three times on the way over and wanted to go back home. She said because of Fitzsimons, she didn’t know if she had the courage, physical or emotional strength to see me or deal with the visit. But we sat and had a wonderful visit. I love the gal. She has her own practice which she has owned for the last 24 years as a medical masseuse. She has two grown daughters and grandchildren. All of whom she adores. One daughter is an ordained liberal Methodist minister and the other is a fantastic soccer player. She played as a professional – and yes you doubters there is a professional woman’s soccer league. She teaches PE and coaches the school soccer team – her husband teaches 3rd grade. Now, back to the hospital visit and the importance of what you do.
What came next was a recall of her visit with me one night here in WA which was so upbeat – we carried on well into 4am and laughed and laughed and laughed. We were hooked on each other for life. She is now 53 with as many experiences of life as any of us have had. However, she said we were just not close enough to yet relate her Fitzsimons story but she was now ready. I attempt to briefly relate it here because I think it so important to you professionally, but already know I’m doomed to failure because it is not something to write about but to experience. She wonders how anyone can understand the emotional trauma of a 14 year old daughter visiting her 37 year old father who now weighed 76 pounds and yet made the best of it.
Her dad, my brother Ray, and her mom had been married for four years before their divorce. She loved him and had already lost him at 4 years old and now ten years later she was to lose him again. This had become even more complicated for her because both parents had remarried and there were other siblings whom she also now loved. She kept asking me the question which needed no answer – how can anyone understand these numbers and the trauma related to them - 14 –37 – 76. There is no answer. Do you remember 4 or14? Can you remember 37 and can you visualize leaving all behind? How about 76? I thought I was on the thin side at 125 lbs, coming down so fast from 190 lbs. She was still locked in that visit with her father at 76 pounds and would be there for the rest of her life and that is both good and bad. Bad in how much it hurt, but good in what she continuously does with that hurt. I hope that if she reads this she realizes how sacred it was to me, and I hope she will find in the retelling that I have respected that sacredness. Ray was not as heroic on the battlefield as he was in embracing his death. I think that left some hope for those he touched. I will never be the same after that story.
If Ray were your client, what might you have said or done that would have helped that visit in Fitzsimons for a 14 year old? Charlie went to the grave alone and is still there in the Philippines alone - I have his cross number – would that be something that you would do if you were me – visit that cross and say a prayer on sight?
I think this is my longest blog and although I empathize with you if you have read it, I also feel less bad (good English) because it began at 3am, and I thought it might be a useful use of this painful and lonely time of the morning. For the first time since I’ve been sick, Kris is not sleeping in the same room with me not getting her sleep. Mike has moved in while taking over the baby sitting duties. She is in Denver having a ball with her daughter and grand kids. Tim, Debi and Monty made the trip with her and all will be back Wed (May 10th). Mike almost got killed late last night when he told her and she bought into it that we were all at the local betting establishment – I was watching the poker table, and he was making me control my drinks – when she got me and I said I was getting tired, she was up to 2,000 – Mike was already a dead man – I said I was getting tired and thought I should be getting home and put Jessie on and when Mike said HE WAS ONLY FOOLING – it was too late – although he is doing wonders at the volunteer fire fighter academy, he’ll have to finish his last few months without a rear end.
I just told you that I want you to communicate with me, but it may be confusing as to how to accomplish that. You can leave a comment on the latest post, I attempt to check them all the time. You can click the link to the guest book and post a private or public message. If you leave an email address in the guest book, no one else can see it. Or, if you have my email address, you can communicate that way. I am hesitant to post my email on the blog as I will be overrun with spam. I will make an effort to respond to you
in a timely manner. Even though I yet responded, I read them all and love to hear from you.
God bless you all
Please, please – if you had been to the open door of death and were now working on again living a new but extremely limited new life – what would be your top 2 priorities? I need your help. It’s not an empty request. This blog has been magnificent in what it has done for me, but it lacks dialog. Some don’t write because they want to write profoundly – bullshit – I don’t want your profundity – I want you. I wouldn’t understand profundity.
Don’t tell me you have nothing to write – that simply means you’re not doing your job – your job is seeing new people every day – the easy ones – the hard ones, but each unique in who they are – I desperately want to hear about them.
Remember – we were the ones who had the first facts about the VA. About the medical holds – about those ready to jump out of their chairs when someone went by (that’s why I redid my office – so they could control the corridor – even though I liked the office the other way. Can you imagine making a change for the client instead of for me – try going to one of the other areas on base and see how you are treated.
I also want to hear about you – your families – your vacations – still look forward to seeing Peter’s African trip – the detail about Arizona – Pat Ryan has been great in filling me in on where he’s at, and I enjoy each item and can recall them all. I pray for your children and recall what you have shared with me. I was so profoundly moved on one occasion with tears that flowed from the hurt of a grown child, frustration and love – this is heavy weight stuff and should be handled with total respect and honesty and discernment. Never gossip – never to be shared with another but handled in complete confidentiality – I write of heavy stuff to make a point or two but I’m really interested in the simple things – the flow of the future – never – never internal politics, gripes, etc.
I’d like to be part of the team – I’d like to know what to pray for - I’d especially like to know about failure and success – Bill was wonderful for me – I made him listen to me about every client - success and failure I was having – I needed his reinforcement – I needed to say it and get it out of me – to put it on the table – to make it better – to get another’s perspective - this was true about almost every workshop and class – how can the next one be different, and how can I make them better. Sometimes the answers are right there in your face - often they require humility, which I lack to the detriment of my clients.
YOU ARE A TREASURE HOUSE INVOLVED IN THE MOST PROFOUND WORK AVAILABLE TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING AND THEIR FAMILIES.
Let me end with one story from my recent Denver trip. As you may know, my brother Charlie died in WWII, in the Japanese campaign. A chaplain wrote from his foxhole in the Philippines three months after my bother died - he was killed with shrapnel from incoming while on guard duty – as the chaplain said – not very heroic, but he wanted to tell us about what we already knew – the hero Charlie in life and how he was loved and respected by the chaplain and every one of the men in his unit – especially the leaders -because of his maturity, respect and love for them and they for him.
You may also know about my other brother Billy, who spent two and a half years in Stalag 24 where he begged us for correspondence and talked about being in hell. Again, when he got home saying he was no hero – he said he was in his foxhole and over the top a very big German pointed a very big rifle with the longest bayonet that had ever seen – he said his hands went up so fast his pants must have fell to the ground. We last met when he died as a young man, and I said his funeral Mass as a young priest. He was in his early 40’s.
I’ve also told you about Ray who as a Master Sergeant in Korea - was part of the very first Mash units which were not always booze and laughs. Somehow he also managed to get himself behind enemy lines where he was awarded a Purple Heart. It was at Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Denver that I last saw Ray - I was a freshly ordained Catholic Priest. It was not my visit that I now recount for you but that of his – at the time - 14 year old daughter. What she communicated to me and I experienced in her was the profound work you do. We touch not only clients – we touch families.
She came over with her husband on the Friday night of my recent visit to Colorado. We met at the door, and she was relieved. She said that she was sick at least three times on the way over and wanted to go back home. She said because of Fitzsimons, she didn’t know if she had the courage, physical or emotional strength to see me or deal with the visit. But we sat and had a wonderful visit. I love the gal. She has her own practice which she has owned for the last 24 years as a medical masseuse. She has two grown daughters and grandchildren. All of whom she adores. One daughter is an ordained liberal Methodist minister and the other is a fantastic soccer player. She played as a professional – and yes you doubters there is a professional woman’s soccer league. She teaches PE and coaches the school soccer team – her husband teaches 3rd grade. Now, back to the hospital visit and the importance of what you do.
What came next was a recall of her visit with me one night here in WA which was so upbeat – we carried on well into 4am and laughed and laughed and laughed. We were hooked on each other for life. She is now 53 with as many experiences of life as any of us have had. However, she said we were just not close enough to yet relate her Fitzsimons story but she was now ready. I attempt to briefly relate it here because I think it so important to you professionally, but already know I’m doomed to failure because it is not something to write about but to experience. She wonders how anyone can understand the emotional trauma of a 14 year old daughter visiting her 37 year old father who now weighed 76 pounds and yet made the best of it.
Her dad, my brother Ray, and her mom had been married for four years before their divorce. She loved him and had already lost him at 4 years old and now ten years later she was to lose him again. This had become even more complicated for her because both parents had remarried and there were other siblings whom she also now loved. She kept asking me the question which needed no answer – how can anyone understand these numbers and the trauma related to them - 14 –37 – 76. There is no answer. Do you remember 4 or14? Can you remember 37 and can you visualize leaving all behind? How about 76? I thought I was on the thin side at 125 lbs, coming down so fast from 190 lbs. She was still locked in that visit with her father at 76 pounds and would be there for the rest of her life and that is both good and bad. Bad in how much it hurt, but good in what she continuously does with that hurt. I hope that if she reads this she realizes how sacred it was to me, and I hope she will find in the retelling that I have respected that sacredness. Ray was not as heroic on the battlefield as he was in embracing his death. I think that left some hope for those he touched. I will never be the same after that story.
If Ray were your client, what might you have said or done that would have helped that visit in Fitzsimons for a 14 year old? Charlie went to the grave alone and is still there in the Philippines alone - I have his cross number – would that be something that you would do if you were me – visit that cross and say a prayer on sight?
I think this is my longest blog and although I empathize with you if you have read it, I also feel less bad (good English) because it began at 3am, and I thought it might be a useful use of this painful and lonely time of the morning. For the first time since I’ve been sick, Kris is not sleeping in the same room with me not getting her sleep. Mike has moved in while taking over the baby sitting duties. She is in Denver having a ball with her daughter and grand kids. Tim, Debi and Monty made the trip with her and all will be back Wed (May 10th). Mike almost got killed late last night when he told her and she bought into it that we were all at the local betting establishment – I was watching the poker table, and he was making me control my drinks – when she got me and I said I was getting tired, she was up to 2,000 – Mike was already a dead man – I said I was getting tired and thought I should be getting home and put Jessie on and when Mike said HE WAS ONLY FOOLING – it was too late – although he is doing wonders at the volunteer fire fighter academy, he’ll have to finish his last few months without a rear end.
I just told you that I want you to communicate with me, but it may be confusing as to how to accomplish that. You can leave a comment on the latest post, I attempt to check them all the time. You can click the link to the guest book and post a private or public message. If you leave an email address in the guest book, no one else can see it. Or, if you have my email address, you can communicate that way. I am hesitant to post my email on the blog as I will be overrun with spam. I will make an effort to respond to you
in a timely manner. Even though I yet responded, I read them all and love to hear from you.
God bless you all
Friday, April 13, 2007
Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen From the Center of the USA - Denver, CO
Although, in trouble with everyone, I managed to get myself into a handicapped seat -took all my prescribed drugs - sucked it in big time, and I'm now stretched out in my daughter's new home - I am here to celebrate my daughter's birthday from a hospital bed they rented for me until my return on Monday.
Thank God the Dr. said okay, because there were few others in my court. Mike did a fantastic job on the Tacoma side and Tara on the Denver side. I've been resting since I got here, but it is worth while. It's one of the things that "Hanging in there" is all about. I can't have a collapse now because God wouldn't let everyone say "I told you so." Once I get home - I'll be good again.
I said to Bill Bettyas the other day that 70 would be a nice age for me to return to God because He has spoiled me and never allowed me to feel or think old. Old is sneaking in a little when I get nervous seeing the kids climbing things, when I want to go to bed earlier than before, when the noise level or music is too loud; but I'm hanging in there. I don't want to become an old fart.
Cross your fingers - I have an eye appointment two days after I return home. I had gone about two months ago, but he struck out, so I'm going to another. The eyes are getting worse and worse and its a disappointment because of all the reading, painting and computer work I do along with everything else. I guess if things don't improve, I'll have to find something else; but I've been happy with all of the above. It's one of my whining areas.
I finished my Mind/Body class at Allenmore - it's a Harvard Program sponsored by MultiCare = very much worth the pain and effort to attend. Kris and I grew a lot from taking it together.
It snowed here today and yesterday. Below 30. If I don't at least find a horse to ride in the next few days, maybe I can go for a sleigh ride.
Hope you all enjoyed your Easter and take comfort in the Resurrection as I do.
Thank God the Dr. said okay, because there were few others in my court. Mike did a fantastic job on the Tacoma side and Tara on the Denver side. I've been resting since I got here, but it is worth while. It's one of the things that "Hanging in there" is all about. I can't have a collapse now because God wouldn't let everyone say "I told you so." Once I get home - I'll be good again.
I said to Bill Bettyas the other day that 70 would be a nice age for me to return to God because He has spoiled me and never allowed me to feel or think old. Old is sneaking in a little when I get nervous seeing the kids climbing things, when I want to go to bed earlier than before, when the noise level or music is too loud; but I'm hanging in there. I don't want to become an old fart.
Cross your fingers - I have an eye appointment two days after I return home. I had gone about two months ago, but he struck out, so I'm going to another. The eyes are getting worse and worse and its a disappointment because of all the reading, painting and computer work I do along with everything else. I guess if things don't improve, I'll have to find something else; but I've been happy with all of the above. It's one of my whining areas.
I finished my Mind/Body class at Allenmore - it's a Harvard Program sponsored by MultiCare = very much worth the pain and effort to attend. Kris and I grew a lot from taking it together.
It snowed here today and yesterday. Below 30. If I don't at least find a horse to ride in the next few days, maybe I can go for a sleigh ride.
Hope you all enjoyed your Easter and take comfort in the Resurrection as I do.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Old Life Evolved into New Life
Spring is here -
Today is the first day.
I see new life outside my window.
My home has no less than five birthing robin nests
that are on the house and not within the many trees.
Protected by the parents - who save them from the invasion
of all the big birds that would suck the life out of them.
The trees will soon block my view of the lake
with the blooms and new leaves from those small buds that I now see.
And within me life continues to re-blossom.
Yesterday at the lab my blood was again altered.
I pray that the new life that surrounds you
would be recognized by you and renewed in you.
Body & Mind -
My meditation class is finished, and I'm so happy I accepted the challenge. I didn't think I could take the three hours of pain, but God was Good. Bottom line - new skills for controlling personal pain and focusing.
I snuck in a presentation on taking the "in" out of incurable and received one of only two rounds of applause given during the 10 week clinic - it took me 1/2 an hour that I didn't think I could do, but did do, and it is now history. My instructor told me at the end that I had been an inspiration and had helped make it one of the best clinics. I say this to you not out of pride, but out of humility - look at what God can do with us if we but provide the broken material.
She also reviewed my book on the last year plus, and unless she lied, she was very complimentary and encouraged me to bring it to conclusion and publication - Wow. Others have been as encouraging, and all for different reasons - Jessie has begun the editing and publishing process - cross your fingers.
Birthdays -
As you know this was birthday month for us, and we celebrated together. The house was full with family and long time friends. I found it a little difficult to follow conversations but not the laughter and joy that filled the house - it was the best ever.
Denver, CO -
On Wed morning of this week - it was not the kids who cried. All my children were together with me as they prepared to take Tara, Jim and our grand children (less Monty) to the airport. They left us after a year plus to go to their new home in Denver. We all wept from the bottom of our souls - when you love much - you also suffer much. The kids are still wondering when they will be coming back home.
On my last job, I volunteered to go to Iraq - it is unfathomable to me to see my children go. My family surrendered three brothers to war - when will it end? I don't have the courage to see another telegram.
- Frank
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