79. Memorial Day Cook-ins and Manicures
Attending remembrance services. Spending time at cemeteries. Having cookouts. Taking trips to the beach. Going to kids’ Little League games. Planting flower gardens. Getting summer things out of storage. Mowing lawns. Spending time on the links or at a favorite fishing hole. Catching some rays. Those are some of the things Americans do during the three day Memorial Day weekend.
Hopefully, we take time to honor the men and women who sacrificed all they had for our Country. Hopefully, we take time to remember those we love and who are no longer with us. But, let’s face it — even when our priorities are straight, and we’ve done right by those who have left us, we see Memorial Day Weekend as the official kickoff to summer — a time for gathering and celebrating.
Tim and I have attended remembrance services, spent time at cemeteries, had cookouts, taken trips to the beach, gone to kid’s games, planted gardens, put summer things in order, mowed the dirt, waved to friends and family who hit the links or held poles over the drink, and we sat on our asses to catch some rays. Those activities have been part of our welcoming celebrations of summer!
Hamburgers, hotdogs, mixed green salad, potato salad, tuna noodle salad, fruit bowls, hand dipped strawberries, and apple pie. That’s our typical cookout fare on Memorial Day. Everything is lovingly prepared, and served on red, white, and blue plates with American flags as festive decorations.
Essentially, the things we do, the places we go, the things we eat become traditions. None of us has to think twice about what to do because for the most part we, in the collective sense, do the same things over and over. If our thing is to host or attend a cookout, then that’s what we do. If a visit to the beach is our thing, then we lug beach chairs, towels, and coolers to the sand, surf, and sun. Whatever it is that we like to do on Memorial Day weekend, you can bet your ass it’s on the agenda.
As for Tim and me, we had a status quo for our weekend. Since there are three days, three wonderful days to go places and eat things, cookouts ranked as the number one OB tradition, and it wasn’t only one cookout. For many years, we’d attend a family cookout one day, and then head to the Eaton’s for another grilling event the next day. That nice get together always started with laughter and always ended with raised voices. As soon as the kids were fed and sent outside to play nice, the adults would shuffle a deck of cards and get down and dirty.
Tim and Sheryll. Donna and Clark. The couples may have made vows to love and honor one another, but when it came to pitch — vows meant absolutely nothing. Donna and Tim partnered up to play the game, Sheryll and Clark partnered up to annihilate their opponents. There was nothing playful in the way we approached the game of pitch. We wanted to win and we most always did. Clark and I were strong individual players, but we were great partners. We spent enough time sitting opposite one another to know we’d play the right card at the right time. And God help the one who fucked up. On the rare occasion when either of us was the cause of a loss, a whole lot of bitchin began, and as you might imagine, the bitchin was loud and laced with expletives. Ah, good times — good times.
Changing things up.
No doubt, this year was going to be a bit different. I’d been sidelined, so we couldn’t go to the cemetery, or to the beach, or to the Eaton’s for a bitch party. Aside from my grounding, Tim’s back is still on the mend, so we didn’t want him working in the garden, or prepping our summer gear or doing much of anything. As for having a cookout at our place — let me count the reasons why that wouldn’t be happening.
All-in-all, we ended up having a very nice weekend. We spent a rainy Saturday in typical non-holiday weekend fashion — with our favorite human, playing games, watching television, and doing a full-scale inventory of Squishmallows. We had more than a few laughs and I got plenty of hugs and smooches!
Sunday has become Mom and Marchrie visitation days at the prison, so Tim and I decided to have a Memorial Day cook-in. He followed my shouted directions and made my always-welcome-at-any-party potato salad. He made this year’s creation half vegan style, and half the way God intended — delicious! When it was time, Tim heated up the stove and sizzled burgers and hotdogs, and plated everything up. We munched our meals in the living room, had more than a few laughs and strolled down memory lane over coffee and dessert.
It was all good!
A side step. Even before I learned about the cancer, I was experiencing pain in my lumbar area. Nothing big, just the aches and pains we all get from time to time. Those aches and pains have gotten worse over time. Thankfully, they’ve been beaten back by my medical team with effective pain management. Even so, things are moving in a concerning direction. In blog 50, Misfires. Music. Memories. I wrote:
The pain today was different — it wasn’t breakthrough pain — it was more akin to the pain I would suspect someone feels when they break their back — their lower back. It felt as though I’d been kicked by some brute wearing a steel toed boot — SMACK… Pain pushed hard, took my breath away, and left in its place an aftershock of physical reactions. It felt as though my internal electrical system was having a malfunction. My heart did some sort of rat-a-tat, thumpity-thump, twirl thing, and pins and needles shot down my arms and legs, did a swift turnaround at the tip of each finger and toe and headed back up at lightning speed. I began to sweat profusely from everywhere, and when I called out to Tim I didn’t recognize my own voice.
He was at my side within seconds and the look on his face mirrored the shit storm inside me. “What happened?”
“Pain. Back. Bad.”
“You have no color, and you’re sweating, and you’re shaking. And—”
Before he finished whatever it was he’d planned to say next, everything corrected itself. It was as though someone plugged me back in and rebooted the electrical system. I cooled down, and settled down, and marveled that there was only the tiniest twinge of back pain.
Again, Tim asked what happened.
“I don’t know, really. I’d just taken my suppertime pills, was watching a show and all of a sudden I had this smack of pain in my back and everything inside seemed to go haywire. I’m fine now.” I extended my hand to prove that I wasn’t shaking anymore, and he said my color was back. We discussed calling hospice then we wondered what they could possibly do about something that was already done and over with.
And then we had a conversation — sort of a whispered one for fear our words would find space in the universe, and we tend to shy away from letting the Grim Reaper know some shit is hitting the fan at the OB homestead.
“It’s just a matter of time before something like that happens and it doesn’t correct itself,” I said through tears.
He nodded through misty eyes.
“You’re the one who’s gonna have to call hospice — like by yourself.”
He nodded, again.
“Something like that could be the end — you know, it could be that sudden.”
Silence.
“I really don’t want it to be that sudden. I’m not prepared to die that way. How do I — can I prepare myself to die — That Way?”
Putting that scary event aside, there has been more spinal stuff. In blog 67, A Measure of Time, I wrote:
It seems I’ve turned another corner and it’s sort of a concerning one. I’m showing signs that my spinal cord is weakening.
A worrisome development is an understatement.
I’m not sure I wrote this in a blog or not, but a little recap won’t hurt. A few weeks ago, I felt something strange and disturbing in my cervical spine area. I explained to Nurse M and family members that it felt like an elastic band had snapped. The ending result was that my head took on the stability of a bobblehead. If an image of a dashboard Weiner dog — a poor little pooch whose head bobs and shakes from side to side and up and down without one measure of control just popped into your head — then good for you.
At that moment in time, I was a bobblehead, a head-wobbler, a person unable to lift and support her head with her neck. I called out to Tim to help me get back from a BR trip and once I was reperched upon my leather and had ample support for my head and neck, I felt so much better. There was no physical pain associated with the event — just a loud snapping sound. As for emotional pain and concern — there was plenty of that.
I continued having some issues in my lumbar region. In blog 72, Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired I wrote:
Nurse M waved at me through the glass of my front storm door Thursday morning. I waved her in with a smile. She said what she always says upon entry, “So how are you doing?”
“... My spine is weakening…”
“Tell me what’s happening.”
“Everything is getting harder. Getting from my perch to the BR is more of an effort. Making it through a sponge bath takes so much out of me. I have to break the process down into little bits and rest in between. The exertion causes heavy breathing and it takes some time before everything regulates itself. And then there’s the actual spinal weakening. I don’t know anything for certain, but I feel like I’m behind the eight-ball on that process.”
It’s been weeks since I wrote those accounts. I now know for certain that my spine is becoming a real concern. The L-1 has always been a wildcard in all of this. Why? For those of you who’ve looked at my bone scan you know why. I asked my brother, Donnie if he’s looked at blog 64 yet. He said he just can’t bring himself to look.
“Nope. Once I see it, I can’t unsee it,” he said recently.
I think it’s sweet that he’s a softy on this. Anyway, you’ll remember that the whole spinal column is a cancer zone. From where my cervical spine meets my head to where my lumbar spine meets my ass, I have cancer. At L-1, the cancer has spread east and west beyond the vertebrae. I’m not entirely sure what lies east and west beyond the vertebrae, and since I am a scaredy cat when it comes to medical stuff, I won’t go in search of the information. What I will tell you is that from Day One, the oncologist and orthopedic oncologist both stressed that there was cause for concern about nerve damage anywhere along the spine, but most definitely at L-1.
The increased pain upon moving, and the inability to stand straight for more than a couple minutes, and the sway of my hips to the side, and the bobbling head are pretty good indications that shit is happening.
That’s bad, so is this.
On my first visit with Heather, my hospice social worker, I jumped right into a conversation about personal care and how uncomfortable I was with the thought that I would have to depend on people to do everything for me once I became bedbound. It was my red button issue, the one to which I’d attached my sense of dignity and my fears that I’d be losing it.
Heather nodded through my words, said it was a common concern, then stressed that barring a catastrophic event we could put that emotional baggage aside for a measure of time. She managed the transition from that horrible concern to something less weighty — explaining Do Not Resuscitate, Do Not Intubate, Do Not Transport to Hospital forms.
Then Nurse M had a whack at me. She stressed that personal care was an issue that would be discussed throughout our time together — as my body changed, so too would my personal care. She based our first conversation on the physical state I was currently in.
“You can’t go upstairs to shower, so sponge baths are now part of your day to day. Since L-1 is an issue, you need to bend as little as possible. That means your lower extremities and your back will require help.”
MANicures
One of the saddest days I’ve had during this shit fest is when I mentioned to Tim that I needed a pedicure. We discussed having someone from hospice come — apparently they have all kinds of services: nail and hair care, music and massage therapy, spiritual and emotional counseling, to name a few. But, we were following doctor’s orders by keeping ‘visitors’ to a minimum because of Covid. I suggested we ask one of our daughters to bite the bullet.
“Nope. I’ll do it. This is what Heather referred to on her first visit.”
I drew a blank. “I don’t remember her talking about pedicures.”
“She said we’d need to find ways to be intimate. Show new ways of caring.”
“Are you effing kidding me right now? Cutting my toenails is your idea of intimacy! Get out.”
See, I can be reasonable.
He left. He returned a few minutes later with two basins filled with warm, bubbly, lavender smelling water. “Soak your feet.”
Reluctantly, I stuck my feet in and within minutes I calmed down — a bit. My poor mate had to coax me through the entire MANicure which included a gentle rub of special cream on my legs and feet. I remember bawling my eyes out that night. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t do things for myself anymore. More importantly, I felt I’d been cheated — no, I felt I’d been robbed of important things. I’m quite sure other women facing death find their intimacy by spooning in bed, or maybe cuddling on the couch, or perhaps having a dance across their living room floor.
Not Me. My fucking end of life intimacy is a pedicure.
I fucking hate what has happend to me.
AND I DO NOT CARE IF THAT SOUNDS LIKE A COMPLAINT!
BECAUSE IT THE FUCK IS.
For six plus months, Tim has helped me in ways that are personally and emotionally uncomfortable. We’ve done things to mitigate the unease I experience. Our MANicures now include a musical trip down memory lane. We take turns choosing a recording artist we saw live, put his or her Greatest Hits album on and chit-chat through the experience. There is one thing we hadn’t figured out how to do — shave my legs. One concern is I’ve been warned not to bend, so I can’t do it — no surprise there. The other concern is he might cut me, so he doesn’t really want to do it. I get his concern; I share his concern. As you know, nurses tend to freak out if there are any sores a.n.y.w.h.e.r.e. A nice razor slice might just send Nurse M and the She Devil into anaphylactic shock. So, we’ve put the shearing aside.
Whilst pampering for my Memorial Day cook-in, I joked about braiding or curling the hair on my legs. For some reason, I became obsessed with my leg hair. I decided I really needed to shave it — like right then! The dude I’m married to suggested I just ignore it. I tried to explain that having v.e.r.y. l.o.n.g. leg hair wasn’t only a vanity issue, but that it is also a comfort issue because long hair causes itching and prickly pain.