humor

Fear…and other shit I might need to just get over.

/ StaceyRose / Leave a comment

If I hadn’t told you guys before, I was a bit of a nervous Nelly when I was a youngin’. Yep, I was wimpish and bookish and didn’t blend in so seamlessly with my project surroundings. My Nana, ever the over bearing watch dog knew this. When I was in elementary school, every day before I left her apartment in the concrete jungle I would engage in the same ritual with little deviation. Looney Toons would be first. I’d laugh anxiously as Bugs Bunny gave the business to Elmer Fudd just one more time, subliminally terrified of the day ahead of me. Not for any concrete reason most of the time. I just was. Then, Nana would toast, and on more occasions that not, burn me a strawberry pop tart. As my time to head the bus stop drew nigh, she’d would call me to her always slightly sticky kitchen stable. There I’d discover her with her well worn bible cracked to the same passage, the 23rd psalm. We’d read. I wouldn’t feel any better than when we started, but she seemed to.

Fast forward to now. JEEZ! It takes everything in me on some days to slow down the fear train going on inside my head. It starts off when I open my eyes:

OhmyGodwheredoIhavetobetoday?DidIremembertopaythatbill?

ShitIthinkmyaccountmightbeoverdraft?Ican’tcheckit!IfitisI’lldie!I’mlateforwork!

Ihaven’twritenonmybloginamonth!

I’mafailureasawriter!Mylifesucks!Ican’tdothisanymore!

Ohsshhhhhhiiiiiitttttt!AAAAAHHHH!!!!!

…and this is just the first 30 seconds.

Thankfully, most days, I get at least 30 minutes if not more to settle my thoughts before I have to face the world. I journal. I pray. I meditate. I avoid the news before 9 am. These things allow me to get out the door. Once I have though, it’s often hard for me to settle down again before literally falling out at the end of the day. ¡No es bueno mi amigos!

The fear creeps back in, usually around noonish, and sucker punches the shit out of me for the rest of the day. What’s a girl to do? Well, I already have a plan don’t I? I just need to implement it more. I can also take a look at the things I’m afraid of. Is it a realistic fear? Can I do anything about it? If so, do it! If not, let it go! Simply answers to a complicated process. However I feel so much better when I’m at least attempting to do something about what going on in this dilapidated building between my ears. NOW, those ritual mornings make so much sense. In hindsight, I think my Nana felt better because she felt like she was doing something to help me. As a parent, I now know what it’s like to try to ease the sometimes unrealistic fears of a child. I love and appreciate her for the effort and for introducing me to the concept that it takes more than just white knuckling through out of fear to make it in life.

Life, I’ve found is just a series of decisions, one after the other until you’re no longer alive.  When I make those decisions based on fear, I’m usually miserable and confused. I find balance when I live for the day and move through one well thought out decision at a time, trying my best not to over complicate it as I go.  My anxiety will probably always be with me to some degree, but I embrace it today like it’s the nervous little child I was, reassure it that it’s going to be okay, and tell it to GO THE F*CK TO SLEEP!

http://youtu.be/SwwtO5viUDE

 

A Lesson in Watermelon Consumption.

/ StaceyRose / Leave a comment

Yesterday Afternoon:

I’m at a patient’s house.  She is polite and southern. I am…well I’m a Jersey girl.  Anyway, I walk into her home and I am welcomed…I mean REALLY welcomed. Greetings are had and I sit down for the business for which I came.  I’m digging her so far. Sweet woman, a lil on the saccharine side, but she means well. Then she begins her story:

“If you smile, the whole world will smile with you.”

I humbly agreed. It’s true. Optimism is awesome.  I smiled, trying to stay on track as I am already way behind and the heat is beginning to make my head swim a little.

“I was at a restaurant one day, and a small lil’ white man behind me said ‘You have got the most beautiful smile!'”

Red flag! I have “a shit ton” of experience in conversations like the one that was getting ready to go down. That experience has taught me that 9.5 times out of 10 when people begin to identify skin colors during anecdotes it’s a segue  into “inadvertent” racist land. We were going there, and we would have having lunch with the mayor.

“A tall black man in front of me in the line paid for my lunch.”

She grinned.

I wanted so badly for her to stop.

“When I got all my stuff I walked right up to him and said. ‘Well, since you bought my lunch, I’ll sit here and eat with you if you don’t mind.'”

The remainder of her story is a bit of a blur. Something about him working on a golf course as a caddy and he’s in his 60s. There were sepia toned pictures of lunch counter sit-ins dancing through my mind. The slide show ended just in time for me to hear her say:

“They gave him two huge slices of watermelon, and he says to me ‘I’d like you to share this with me.'”

I died a little. It wasn’t over.

“Yes, that was a great experience for me. My neighborhood is multi-cul…what do you prefer to be called?”

“Black?”

I whimper.

Why is this happening?

“I’m part Cherokee Indian.”

If I could kill her legally, I would.

“You should bring your kids over here.”

Kids?! She’s assuming I have kidS plural! And that I would dare bring said children to her home!  I’m done. I block out anything and everything she says and shot gun through paperwork as she goes on about giving the neighborhood coloreds rides to the store and the lil nigglets calling her Grandma.  Well, I don’t know if she actually said “coloreds” or “nigglets” but it’s what I heard.

Okay, so she’s probably slightly crazy, and her case is a little extreme, but sadly I’ve had conversations like these with perfectly sane white folk. Why does it happen? I’m not sure. My best guess? It’s that unspoken residual racial awkwardness that we as a society continue to refuse to deal with.  The preconceived notions that we all carry about race and racial identity. If you feel the need to prove that you’re not prejudiced, then you might want to take a look at the fact that you might be.

This does not instantly make you a monster, it just makes you a product of the society you were born into. We are all given information by our parents, by society, whomever, that we use to get us through life.  There comes a time that we have to reassess, look honestly at that information, and determine whether or not that information is still useful to us.  Process that shit, work it out, let it go, and stop assuming I got a house full’a pickaninney’s I’m just dying to bring to your house!

Ok. Alright. I know she’ll never read this. So I’m digressing.

Rosie.

A Letter to the Respiratory Therapist

/ StaceyRose / 1 Comment

Dearest RT,

I have often said that we are the red headed step children of the health care industry. Not yet able to enjoy the respect that comes with longevity of similar careers like nursing, we are still after decades of existence a bit of an enigma to everyday people. Some might have noticed our name yelled during episodes of their favorite hospital drama. After all the business of saving lives is complete the heroic MD yells with deep conviction

“Call respiratory and tell them to bring a vent!”

As he clutches an endotracheal tube that is nowhere near secure in a patient that isn’t even being bagged. As if we’re off somewhere slamming down doughnuts as we wait for vents to be called for.

What everyday man often doesn’t know is we would have been there from the word go. Nor do they know that in many cases it us who often secures the airway , initiates “life support”, and then asks that the MD get called so we can tell them what we did. Little does the everyday man know how hard we work to cover anywhere between 10-25 patients per therapists per shift while having to be prepared to drop it all and see about the emergencies (and quasi emergencies whenever summoned.) We are often unappreciated, misunderstood, and unfortunately mistreated by those whose team we’re supposed to be on. Yes, red headed step children.

Notice I said “often” not always, as there are those times, hospitals, and situations where all the stars align and therapists are truly made to feel a part of the team. Our experience and knowledge are valued. People actually know our names instead of yelling “RESPIRATORY!” down the hallway behind us. I have been fortunate in my now almost 12 year career to have enjoyed these circumstances and I’m truly grateful for these times.

When it’s bad though, it’s really really bad. I have worked in places where therapists have been reduced to the role of nothing more than a button pusher or knob turner having their clinical skills and knowledge completely disregarded by people who often don’t fully understand the purpose and action of therapies they’re requesting then being told or shown by their own management that we have to “take one for the team.” To understand this I have to go back to the point that the general public and alas some healthcare professionals have no clue, or worse, no respect for what we do. I don’t pretend to know how to change this other than to keep doing what we’re doing. Do it well. Do it consistently, stay educated in the field and stand our ground in the face of adversity and ignorance. Combat ignorance with education and open dialogue, and maybe…just maybe, things will change.

I write this letter from a place of appreciation and love for everything this career has done for my life and the many wonderful people it has placed in it. My patients! The reason why I can do what I do in the first place. The good ones, the mean ones, the in-between ones, but especially the pleasantly confused ones whose shenanigans make my night whiz by. The nursing staff who I’ve saved lives side by side with, cried with in tragedy, and even laughed with in tragedy (cause you gotta laugh to keep from cryin’ right?). The MDs, who don’t let their egos get in the way of what is best for a patient, who once they understood that I knew what I was doing allowed me to DO MY JOB! The unit secretaries, radiology, lab techs, pharmacy, environmental, hospital security without you guys there is no us, because we are ALL critical to lives of the patients we care for whether we know, or are told that or not.

I’m in the process of stepping back from this career that has been a defining part of my life since I was pregnant with my son and into one as a writer. Eventually, (if all goes well) I won’t be practicing much if at all. However, everything I learned while a therapist will carry me in to the tough business of the written word. After all what can thicken your skin or grow you as a person more than dealing with life, death, and every manifestation of the human being on a daily/nightly basis? I promise to one day write our story that people may continue to come to better know and understand who we are. I promise to tell our story to the best of my rotten ability!

To all my fellow RTs:

Your name is NOT “respiratory”. Your knowledge and experience matter even when those around you would make you feel that it doesn’t. Go forth, give nebs, save lives, be as BRILLIANT as you are, and smile because you are somebody!

With Love,

Stacey Rose RRT, RCP

A Dog’s Day Afternoon…and Evening

/ StaceyRose / 4 Comments

We tend to think that getting mauled to death by pitbulls could never happen to us. It’s a story for the 11 o’clock news or one you mention in passing while picking up your buttered roll and coffee from your local bodega.

“Hey d’ja here about that kid that got mauled to death by pitbulls?!”

“Yeah, that’s a damn shame! Could’ja add two more sugars?”

Well gentles, I’m here to tell you that I stared a maulin’ in it’s eyes…excuse me, eye (more in a sec)…and lived to tell the tail. I mean tale. I was doing my usual deal, dropping by the homes of the sick and shut-in to spread joy and drop off respiratory equipment when I pull into the shared driveway of two houses that looked to have just smashed down from Kansas. I check my surroundings because if my pristine ghetto upbringing taught me nothing it was to know whats up when I arrive on any set.

Upon checking the set, I see to my right a porch that looked to belong to a family of garden gnomes. This was cool as this was the gnome…patient I’d come to see. In front of me, I spied a large German Sheperd with a gleam of curiosity in his eye, but a high rising gate to his front. This gave me a fleeting sense of security so I attempted to open the door and exit my vehicle. My automobile’s sticky electric locks are the only reason I sit here writing with all ten fingers in tact.

It could have been a scene from one of those really bad “gangsta” films. This would have been the part where the wicked street boss finally got what was comin’ to him. There was a slo-mo pan to my left that revealed: The Den of Death. Three 7’5″ 90lb pitbulls* with jowls that drug the ground leaving frothy spittle in their wake were looking at my plump brown toasted caramel physique with wanton longing. Their powder white bodies twitched with anticipation of pouncing on me (either that or they’d been denied food for so long they were having some sort of neuro-muscular tics). One, whom I’ll choose to call “Righty” because his absent left eye (I think he and the others shared it for lunch), never let his disabled glare leave me. He was the reaper, incarnate.

I thought screaming to be unwise at this point being the hell dogs were standing in a doorway obstructed only by an uninstalled child safety gate (dern thing must have come a loose with the house landed!) and I didn’t want to rile them any further. I pondered driving away and never coming back, but then realized that I’d quit my other job (shit!). “Okay.” I thought, “I’ll call work and then runaway!” Just as I was making my frantic phone calls: one to my patient to let him know he’d have to hold his breath one more day, and another to my office to let them know about my impending escape; A miracle occurred.

A man, let’s call him “Bo”, appeared and gazed outside of the gaping door of the makeshift shack. Two of the hounds of hell retired to the inside of the abode, leaving Righty still fixated on my now rolled up tinted window. Bo stood behind Righty, gave a loving tap to his back as a mother would an infant, and Righty the blue eyed cyclops turned and entered the home. The door was shut, and my living nightmare was over.

How I wish I could say my dogged dilemma ended here. Alas Non. There were more patients to be seen, more dogs to be encountered. I was challenged by Chocolate the dachshund with balls of cast iron steel, and Dixie the…well I don’t know what the hell kinda dog she was but she was huge, made a hell of a lot of noise, and sniffed my ass.

By day’s end I was emotionally spent. I was dog tired after having worked my fingers to the bone. Then, the the final blow: The passing of Nate Dog! I was howling at this point. How much could one endure in one day. At last, I arrived home, a wasted heap where I was greeted (not really) by my cats with lackadaisical side eyes, yawns, and soft silent farts. Cats, you see, are just the way I like my animals (and men unfortunately); quiet, distant, and emotionally unavailable.

Meow.

Rosie.

*I swear those dogs were that damn big I don’t care what you say!

The Zion Chronicles: Eatin’ Lightenin’ Crappin’ Thunda!

/ StaceyRose / 1 Comment

I remember my elementary school guidance counselor Ms. Kenney. She was a short black woman with a warm smile, a compassionate temperament, and a no shit taking attitude. I remember loving the way her office smelled. I also remember spending hours on end there in 6th grade. You see, 6th grade was a tough one for me. I was some how elected whipping girl for that year and as such was picked on ad nauseum.

During my time in the fetal position on Ms. Kenney’s couch, eyes damn near swollen shut from crying, I would fix my cloudy gaze on this one “inspirational” poster on her wall. It was the cutest, puffiest, cuddliest kitten clawing for dear life to a rope with a knot on the end. It read: “When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” Inspirational posters, I’ve found, are wasted on children. At the time, I had no idea what the poster meant. I didn’t know that I was that damn kitten and that Ms. Kenney was trying her best to help me hang on.

It frightens me to think of what would happen if my story had been set now. With all the suicides among kids due to bullying, I’m sure I would have been another headline. It doesn’t seem rational to the lucid adult mind why a child would want to kill themselves, but being THAT kid in the 6th grade I do. The pain! There was an incredible amount of pain and self hatred. It hung heavy over me like a dank cloud every morning I woke up. I’d wake up hating the fact that I did. I’d wake up wishing I were somewhere, somebody, or something else. Weekends were hallowed times where I could retreat into me, read, watch television and eat until I damn near popped. Monday’s dropped me off at the gates of hell again. I cried every one. If I looked it up I probably had about 45 days out of school that year.

This past summer when I knew I was sending Zion off to the 6th grade all those old feelings came rushing back. “Would his 6th grade year be like mine?” “Maybe I shouldn’t send him. ” were thoughts that raced through my mind from July all the way through August and occasionally still do. Thankfully Zion’s social adjustment has gone remarkably well. Maybe it’s the school. Going to a school full of artsy fartsy mainly free thinking kids must be pretty cool…I guess. Maybe he’s cooler than I was. :/ Anyway, Zion’s major obstacles have come where I least expected them with academics, and in many ways his 6th grade year has been just as rough as mine was.

I’m happy to report that things have improved dramatically. It’s taking a full on team effort with his teachers, his EC facilitator and myself, but I’m definitely seeing some turn around. What I’m most proud of is my improving patience which has resulted in our improving relationship. It took me accepting that my expectations of him were unrealistic. He is not the student I was. He does not like to read like I did. He is not me. To think I bosted how I was never going to be the parent that tried to relive their existence through there child, but there I was doing just that. I wanted his 6th grade year to be better than mine. I wanted to save him from what happened to me, to see him succeed and in his success he would some how redeem my 6th grade year. To my dismay, none of that shit was based in any sort of reality.

Fact is, the 6th grade/middle school is a huge transition for all children it can and often is awkward and painful. I have to hang in there with him and be the knot that he’s hanging on to when he’s at the end of his rope (and some time that knot is my mom. That’s okay too). I strive to be attentive without smothering. I try to discipline without being a dictator. It’s a tricky balance especially being a single parent, but we do just fine most days. When I read about kids who’ve killed themselves because of the sheer pressure of being a kid in this day and age, it scares the hell out of me. I ask Zion a million questions. He answers two. He seems okay. I try to have faith that he is.

I have visited his guidance counselor’s office and didn’t off hand notice any inspirational posters. She, while quite pleasant, lacks Ms. Kenney’s certain I-don’t-know-what. She’s a new generation of guidance counselor. Maybe it’s the sheer number of children and variety of issues she has to deal with on a daily basis. Her office is not the cozy nook that I remember Ms. Kenney’s being. It was quite dark with a slit for a window and had cement walls. No leather settee like Ms. Kenney’s. I have empathy for her plight though, and wish that I could pop in and hang just one inspirational poster on her wall. While I didn’t really understand what it meant, it was comforting to see that little kitten when I went to her office. Say! I’d always been rather fond of Mick the trainer from Rocky. Maybe he oughta have done a series of posters. They would have looked something like this…

…I so would have gotten this one. Yep, me and Zi will just keep eatin’ lightenin’ and crappin’ thunda until we get through it. Together.

Rosie.

Pssst…Come here little girl, I got somethin’ to show ya!

/ StaceyRose / 2 Comments

Having bad credit (and I mean really bad credit none of this 500s shit) can send really nice people to pretty smarmy places. Case in point; my recent search for an automobile. With two repos, a barrage of charge offs, judgements, and a tax lien sitting on my credit like raw canker sores I wasn’t gonna be headed to Carmax anytime soon.

Nope, I had to get my hands dirty. Reeeaaaallll dirty. With $1500 in hand and a dream that I could buy a car that would withstand at least two years on the open road I set out on my search. First stop: Craig’s List, the emerald city of the internet! I figured if one could purchase animals, furniture, and illicit sex acts from this virtual Oz, surely I make my dream come true (for $1500 or less).

Initially, trying to at least be smart about it, I waited around for the trusty (and I use that world very loosely) men in my family to show up and rescue me from the “woman-buying-a-used-car-curse” . This did not happen. So with Google by my side I searched for used car check list that would serve as a guide. After looking over it I found it was pretty thorough which allowed me to let go of some of the anxiety I was feeling around the whole ordeal (I only wished I’d given myself more time to look at it). I spent about a few days looking finding many hits that wound up being misses, but I finally settled on three vehicles.

Vehicle 1: 1989 Nissan Maxima

Alright, so this car had been in existence since I was thirteen, but Nissan’s have a fairly decent name for themselves right? Plus, considering some of the vehicles I see on the open road still kicking up dust…literally, I thought it was worth a shot AND I mean geez, he only wanted $900 dollars for it (and had even dropped it to $800 by the time I got there!). That would leave me with more than enough money to buy an iPad after it was all said and done. (GOD I need help.)

Despite my initial optimism, in the back of my mind I knew with the driving I do on average this was a shaky option. It didn’t help that I’d spent so much time waiting to be rescued by men folk (hell that’s a whole other blog all together). This left me with only 20 minutes to view the car. I had to skip much of my check list, which left me with a pretty unsettled feeling, and I only got to drive the car around the neighborhood because of the time constraints. It didn’t run poorly by any means and it even looked pretty decent cosmetically even with the age of the vehicle. I decided to tell the seller I’d think about it until after I’d seen the other cars that I’d planned to look at that day. Which brings me to the next vehicle…

Vehicle 2: 1998 Volkswage Passat…or maybe it’s a Jetta?

I arrived at Rock Hill auto auction with my game face on. I had a fresh list, and I had PLENTY of time to peruse and examine the vehicle that I’d come to look at. The listing (and actually this one was on autotrader.com) was for a 1998 Volkwagen Passat. The ad sounded really promising and I couldn’t wait to see the car. I caravanned to Rock Hill and ghost road past a car lot that looked like a used vehicle waste land. Determined not to judge a book by it’s outsides I pulled in and asked for the vehicle that had been listed. I got a hem. I got a ha. I got that the vehicle probably didn’t exist. I’m no quitter though, so I laid on the line what I had to pay and let the dealer (we’ll call him “Harold”) know that I was there to play hard ball. (Oh the depths!)

So Harold who is now my bestie because he want’s to “put me in a car” but his boss has “tied his hands” *sigh*, but…but wait! There’s hope! a 1995 VW Jetta sitting all on it’s lonesome on the lot. It’s only $500 more than what I wanted to pay anyway, and if I was just willing to give him the $1500 I did have, I could make up the rest later! (Yes, I saw through this bullshit. Geez people.) I did want to see the vehicle though. I figured I could get ‘im where I wanted ‘im once my handy dandy check list had diminished the value of the car.

You all should have saw me. I was an auto analysis master of the universe! I had magnets and coins. I tested the body and tires. I threw Harold for quite the loop. Even he had to say “Damn girl, you know what you doin’!” It felt good, because I actually did. After careful inspection I found the Jetta was not worth $1500. It probably wasn’t worth 900 (do you attempt to sell a car for $2000 when the accelerator needle doesn’t work and sleep at night?!) I walked away from Rock Hill Auto Auction completely confident in the fact that I’d made a sound decision. It felt quite amazing. So it was on to my last stop Chik-Fila! This is where I would take a look at…

Vehicle 3: 1994 Mazda 626

All the adventure of the day had left me 100% drained. All I wanted was a kids strip meal, and a nap. I had agreed to see one more vehicle, a 1994 Mazda 626. Ironically, or whatever you’d call it, I graduated in 1994 and one of the first cars I ever owned was a Mazda 626 (I did get shot at in that car though =/…again that’s a total other blog). I’d called the young man who owned the car. He’d agreed to meet me and I’d pulled out blank check list number three when my phone ring. It was the calvary. My uncle Grover, he said he was on his way to Rock Hill to look at the car. In he rode on his white horse (disguised as a white Chevy pick up truck.) The young man showed and they talk that special car talk that men talk when they get together that begins to sound like the adults in Peanuts after about 5 minutes in my ears.

What I hate is, I folded. A man showed up, and I forgot about everything. My list. My stubborn determination. I just let him do it. It took him five minutes to decide that the car was worth what the young man was asking $1500 (no iPad for me…wamp wamp waaaaamp). I negotiated the particulars of finishing the purchase and picking up the car with none of the confidence I’d walked away with after my earlier experiences.

Epilougue:

The upside is I finally have a vehicle after going $600 in debt in rental car fees (wait, that was my iPad…*bumbed*). The downside is I’m not at all confident in my decision which was ironically made based off the help I initially wanted. The bottom line is that it’s done, and I’m glad for it. It was a learning experience. It was a practice in learning to trust myself and a lesson in trusting other people. Ultimately when buying a used car you can NEVER really know how long said vehicle will last, and it’s not lasting is not always some diabolical plan of the seller to rip you off. Some times cars, (and people) pass on and we can never know when, where, why or how it’s going to happen. We just have to put our best foot forward to avoid unnecessary issues.

If I had to give myself a grade it’d probably be a C+/B-. It’s the first major purchasing decision I’ve made in a long while, and probably one that I’ve been the most responsible in making since I’ve been an adult…seriously. The greatest gift is that I can see that this is a new beginning for my financial future. My credit score may be in the shitter, but I’m as determined as I was on the lot of Rock Hill Auto Auction that it won’t stay there. Most of all I believe that this number does not diminish who I am as a person.

Well, I have to go and drop off the rental, and thank GOD it’s homework time with Zion!…not really.

Rosie.

p.s. I got in the car, drove it for a while and the check engine light came on. It’s running fine, I’m taking deep cleansing breaths, and calling my mechanic in the morning.