I got the call on Tuesday that "Mama" was coming home that very day. The doctor mentioned it to her on the Friday before, but between the drugs she's on and her illness in general, I can understand why it didn't come up in conversation when I saw her later that same day. Fact is, she was being discharged. Her radiation therapy had ended (two weeks worth) and the doctor, according to the case manager, felt she had reached her "plateau." There was no going back and the calls, internet searches, and asking friends to cross-reference their resources yielded deeply discounted medication and free medical equipment.
As a social worker, I'm the first to say that when help is needed, help should be asked for, and finally help should be given. But professionals are the worst clients in their respective fields. God's been leading me to learn to reach out and take people at their word. I've had so many extend prayers, offers of loans, and any help and I'm just humbled at where God is taking me through this experience with my mom.
You see when I look at my mom, I look at me. We resemble each other (she's just a few shades lighter). And for years, I thought that's where the resemblance ended. In her illness and in spending one-on-one time with her, I've come to realize that we are mirror images of each other. Don't get me wrong, where my mother is quiet and accepting--I take no prisoners. Where she is conservative in her mannerisms, my conservative nature is tempered with a streak of inner rebellion. But at the core of who we are, we are kindred souls.
Like myself, my mother has learned to just let go and let me take the wheels of this ride. And I in turn, have released the wheel into God's hands. We are both the biggest control freaks you will ever know and we really don't think that anyone can do it as well as we can. Ninety-nine percent of the time we're usually right! But these days, mom lies in bed now accustomed to nurses probing her, asking personal questions, and being at the mercy of others. I too like my mom have become to accustomed to the questions. I'm being asked about her health and having to be transparent with each question is still something I'm getting used to. I can't afford to be 'closed' because I trust that God will use this as a testimony and opportunity to share God's hand in all of this. I too am at the mercy of others. Bosses and colleagues who are understanding and supportive, friends (close and distant) who have swooped down like eagles each using their wings to pray, protect, and provide that much needed boost. But like mom who is left alone at night once I leave from my visit with her, I too am left to deal with this all by myself. I have a supportive husband, whose held my hands, allowed me to just be, but even a life long partner can't take you through this. Only God can.
A line in Henley's poem "Invictus" (in the title above) brings to mind an image of someone brought low by life's persistent blows, but not beaten down. There is no denying that the strikes II Corinthians chapter 4 mentions the following: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair . . ."
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
In the fell clutch of circumstance . . .
It's been sometime since I have been able to process anything, much less on paper. My summer months have turned into a usual routine of doctor's appointments, care taking duties, and trying to maintain some normalcy for my sanity's sake.
The doctor says that mom looks better on the outside than she does on the inside and that her bones are too fragile for physical therapy. My hopes are somewhat down because I've been motivating her about becoming more independent and she's been eagerly awaiting the therapy. I had asked her to get up one day and she flat out refused. She's not as strong physically as I would like to think. But funny, how two days later she was able to do the very thing I asked her at the physical therapy screening. But yet again disappointed because it's either physical therapy or home health aide, Medicaid won't allow for both.
Friends inquire about her health and I reply "she's okay" because I'm really not in the mood to explain what's going on. To recall all that information just gets me anxious so it's just "okay" for now. Cancer is a thief that takes away more than one's health. It steals time, energy, quality time with loved one and friends and one's spirit. During this 40 days of Bible Reading, I have had to fight to do it and not become so distant from God. He sees and knows everything, but the enemy would want me to think that does He really hear my mother's prayers and those of her friends? Does He even hear me?
But it is the little miracles that keep both me and my mom going. Divine appointment has shown itself in the form of the guy that works at the restaurant a block from us. He was my mom's patient care tech and he took good care of her while there. It comes in the form of nameless people who did what they could in the medical profession to make sure my mom received her meds right after hospital discharge. She was without medicaid for about three weeks and not being on her high blood pressure pills would have been detrimental. God showed up in the Home Health Aide agency owner who is a friend of a friend. We have yet to meet, but he's helped me maneuver through this red tape called medicaid bureaucracy. He's even referred me to a new professional opportunity (because Lord knows we need the extra finances!) God has sent others who have directed me to other lucrative opportunities as a social worker. Conversations I didn't think I would be having, I now have. And the list goes on and on as to why I know that God does indeed hear me.
I've become more transparent these days. There's no time for falsehoods and masks. My confidantes have seen another side of me that doesn't really expect answers, but just a listening ear or in my case a listening "text", I've tuned out inconsequential things in my life. Some things that seemed magnified in my life, seem like an individual grain of sand these days. Just don't have the time nor the energy to tackle things that in the end have no real impact on my life and those of my loved ones.
I'm really fearful to see that my mother who has always been the bedrock of our family, the mover and shaker, the visionary that moved us here from a tiny island so that we could do better for ourselves now sit in a wheelchair and looks to me for her every need. Mixed emotions come forward.
Anger. Angry because I think that this shouldn't have gotten this far and the years of nagging her to go to the doctor went on her deaf years. In a Q and A with her doctor, I am to find out it had been four years, since the first lump. So I spend wasteful time counting back, trying to figure out, why didn't I see something besides the limp? Why wasn't I more attuned to my own mother?
Fearful, because the doctor sees the natural and words like hospice and pain management sometimes speaks louder than her prayers and mine.
Resentful, because so many things had been hidden from me about her life as a young woman and her marriage, choices she felt she had to make, and the consequences of which we are seeing now.
Torn, because complicated family relationships have yet again put me in the middle.
Hopeful, because her spirit is still strong and she believes in her heart of hearts, this will not be a hindrance and that she will overcome.
I go back to work in another two weeks and am worried that what needs to be in place is yet unraveled. I've got some tough decisions to make, that only I am entrusted to make.
My mom told me earlier this year that her children were grown and that we didn't need a mother anymore. This was as a result of me complaining that she was always in church and I hardly saw or spoke to her. As a Pastor's wife, I became resentful of "church" and the amount of time it took her away. Admittedly, I was hurt. I'm still getting over the fact that she didn't attend my graduation from Barry with my Masters. That was in 2005! So to hear those words, dug deeply.
But here God is taking those very words and dashing them against the wall. I see her more now than I thought I ever would. I hear from her friends that she's rather proud of me and grateful of all that I'm doing. I will never hear it from her, and I am okay with that. Haitian women are a strange fruit. You will never see them cry and you will never see them bow in the face of challenge. You'll also never really see them affirm their children personally, but the whole of Miami and abroad will know before you ever do.
I attended a conference in June where the speaker mentioned her mom having cancer and that it was the best thing that could ever happen. And although she was away when her mother died, there were no regrets. So I take that as God's confirmation that this needed to happen. From an estranged relationship comes this tenuous relationship based on need, but one that has seen more growth in three months than in three years.
I try not to think of my mom's life as finite. We all know our lives are finite, but not all of us know the "how". My mom's "how" is staring me right in the face and it's not going away. The nurse who is treating her is an ARNP (which means she can administer prescriptions under a doctor's supervision). She is a Christian, and ironically she knows who I am. She reminds me that the physical cannot be explained away.
Question:
1) As women, what are we doing to break the cycle of poor mother/daughter relationships with our children?
2) What do we endeavor to do with our mothers to express our own love to them?
3) After knowing what we know about our health, why do we hesitate, refuse, or postpone taking our wellness exams, mammography or even to visit the Urgent Care or ER when our body asks us to?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120985060
Racial disparities identified among women with breast cancer, equal access to health care:
The doctor says that mom looks better on the outside than she does on the inside and that her bones are too fragile for physical therapy. My hopes are somewhat down because I've been motivating her about becoming more independent and she's been eagerly awaiting the therapy. I had asked her to get up one day and she flat out refused. She's not as strong physically as I would like to think. But funny, how two days later she was able to do the very thing I asked her at the physical therapy screening. But yet again disappointed because it's either physical therapy or home health aide, Medicaid won't allow for both.
Friends inquire about her health and I reply "she's okay" because I'm really not in the mood to explain what's going on. To recall all that information just gets me anxious so it's just "okay" for now. Cancer is a thief that takes away more than one's health. It steals time, energy, quality time with loved one and friends and one's spirit. During this 40 days of Bible Reading, I have had to fight to do it and not become so distant from God. He sees and knows everything, but the enemy would want me to think that does He really hear my mother's prayers and those of her friends? Does He even hear me?
But it is the little miracles that keep both me and my mom going. Divine appointment has shown itself in the form of the guy that works at the restaurant a block from us. He was my mom's patient care tech and he took good care of her while there. It comes in the form of nameless people who did what they could in the medical profession to make sure my mom received her meds right after hospital discharge. She was without medicaid for about three weeks and not being on her high blood pressure pills would have been detrimental. God showed up in the Home Health Aide agency owner who is a friend of a friend. We have yet to meet, but he's helped me maneuver through this red tape called medicaid bureaucracy. He's even referred me to a new professional opportunity (because Lord knows we need the extra finances!) God has sent others who have directed me to other lucrative opportunities as a social worker. Conversations I didn't think I would be having, I now have. And the list goes on and on as to why I know that God does indeed hear me.
I've become more transparent these days. There's no time for falsehoods and masks. My confidantes have seen another side of me that doesn't really expect answers, but just a listening ear or in my case a listening "text", I've tuned out inconsequential things in my life. Some things that seemed magnified in my life, seem like an individual grain of sand these days. Just don't have the time nor the energy to tackle things that in the end have no real impact on my life and those of my loved ones.
I'm really fearful to see that my mother who has always been the bedrock of our family, the mover and shaker, the visionary that moved us here from a tiny island so that we could do better for ourselves now sit in a wheelchair and looks to me for her every need. Mixed emotions come forward.
Anger. Angry because I think that this shouldn't have gotten this far and the years of nagging her to go to the doctor went on her deaf years. In a Q and A with her doctor, I am to find out it had been four years, since the first lump. So I spend wasteful time counting back, trying to figure out, why didn't I see something besides the limp? Why wasn't I more attuned to my own mother?
Fearful, because the doctor sees the natural and words like hospice and pain management sometimes speaks louder than her prayers and mine.
Resentful, because so many things had been hidden from me about her life as a young woman and her marriage, choices she felt she had to make, and the consequences of which we are seeing now.
Torn, because complicated family relationships have yet again put me in the middle.
Hopeful, because her spirit is still strong and she believes in her heart of hearts, this will not be a hindrance and that she will overcome.
I go back to work in another two weeks and am worried that what needs to be in place is yet unraveled. I've got some tough decisions to make, that only I am entrusted to make.
My mom told me earlier this year that her children were grown and that we didn't need a mother anymore. This was as a result of me complaining that she was always in church and I hardly saw or spoke to her. As a Pastor's wife, I became resentful of "church" and the amount of time it took her away. Admittedly, I was hurt. I'm still getting over the fact that she didn't attend my graduation from Barry with my Masters. That was in 2005! So to hear those words, dug deeply.
But here God is taking those very words and dashing them against the wall. I see her more now than I thought I ever would. I hear from her friends that she's rather proud of me and grateful of all that I'm doing. I will never hear it from her, and I am okay with that. Haitian women are a strange fruit. You will never see them cry and you will never see them bow in the face of challenge. You'll also never really see them affirm their children personally, but the whole of Miami and abroad will know before you ever do.
I attended a conference in June where the speaker mentioned her mom having cancer and that it was the best thing that could ever happen. And although she was away when her mother died, there were no regrets. So I take that as God's confirmation that this needed to happen. From an estranged relationship comes this tenuous relationship based on need, but one that has seen more growth in three months than in three years.
I try not to think of my mom's life as finite. We all know our lives are finite, but not all of us know the "how". My mom's "how" is staring me right in the face and it's not going away. The nurse who is treating her is an ARNP (which means she can administer prescriptions under a doctor's supervision). She is a Christian, and ironically she knows who I am. She reminds me that the physical cannot be explained away.
But God stands outside of time and circumstances.
Question:
1) As women, what are we doing to break the cycle of poor mother/daughter relationships with our children?
2) What do we endeavor to do with our mothers to express our own love to them?
3) After knowing what we know about our health, why do we hesitate, refuse, or postpone taking our wellness exams, mammography or even to visit the Urgent Care or ER when our body asks us to?
Websites to view:
Breast cancer affects more women under 50:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120985060
Racial disparities identified among women with breast cancer, equal access to health care:
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Out of the night that covers me . . .
For those of us who didn't grow up (at least initially) around city lights, we know what it is to sleep under a moonless sky with only stars and crickets to keep us company. These inky black nights are the type where you can't even see your hands in front of you.
It's those dark nights that remind us that there will be times, when it won't be sunny and when your wish for even a cloudy day will not be answered. Like life, the night brings with it a deafening silence, a loneliness that can't be resolved by human contact or interaction. You will be in a crowded room with chattering people and feel all alone. Screams will come from all directions and all you'll hear is muted tones.
I have encountered the night in the words of the English poet Henley, "...the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole" in recent weeks. An emergency phone call from my dad one Monday evening in May, has sent me on a tailspin that's kept me diving ever since. I haven't landed yet, because this veritable "pit" seems bottomless from where I am right now.
Two days after that call my mother was in an emergency room at Mt. Sinai with doctors and interns coming through an imaginary revolving door, all coming to see this woman who had withstood such a disease and was still alive. You see, all it took for the ER doctor to see was her ravaged breasts to diagnose my mother with breast cancer. He didn't need a Catscan, MRI, or blood test to tell him what was evident from first glance. "No, I don't have cancer," was my mother's feeble but firm reply. He paused and looked at me and his eyes confirmed my unanswered questions. Yes she had cancer, she had it for sometime and the fact that she had made it thus far was reason enough for interns to come in with redundant questions asking how she felt, how long had she had her pain, and what types of symptoms did she have.
The day of reckoning was here. Years of pleading with my mom had come to this. Those closest to me, would hear me out on days when I had seen her recently and didn't like the way she walked. My brief phone calls to her (cause I was always interrupting some prayer service she was attending) would end with "I'm okay, I'm fine." By this time, she'd started using a walker and still adamantly refusing to seek medical attention. Her five foot six inch frame that I was used to looking up at was reduced to my five foot three or less.
Friends would hear the frustration in my voice, and try and give me some solutions--but it all came back to the same result. You see, you really can't force someone to seek medical attention. It is their human right to deny medical care and there is nothing that that can be done about that. Unless that person was incapacitated (another fancy word for crazy), he/she could die in their beds without cause. Well my mother wasn't crazy. She spoke three languages and wrote in two. She knew her rights and had told me repeatedly that there was no way in hell I was going to take her to a hospital. Her God would heal her and the dreams that she had of Him healing her would be enough.
My mom is a cheat when it comes to verbal spars. You can't bring God to a fight and expect people to even think of fighting back--least of all me. How could I argue with God? I mean after all He is Jehovah Rapha! Isaiah 53:5 said it best, "He was wounded for our transgressions . . . and by His wounds we are healed." I pray that prayer over myself every day, and it's the one I stand on firmly in times of illness. So when her response to my insistence about medical intervention would start with the words "Jesus", I'd back down and call it a day. This strong Haitian woman of faith had enough belief in her God to stand through seeing her breast shrivel, bleed, and drain pus. She's gone from standing straight to walking with a cane, then a walker, now stooped over and frail. She's gone from an able-bodied woman who in her prime traveled the Caribbean as a merchant reduced now to laying in bed unable to move her leg. As her daughter, I'm frustrated, angry, and despondent because there's absolutely nothing that I can do within my willpower, within my own strength to ease her pain. I'm frustrated at a system that keeps me from doing what I have to do to protect her from herself. I'm angry at her for letting it get this far, and I'm despondent, because I wasn't "prepared" to take on this caretaker role, at least not yet.
Questions:
1. What's to be said about Haitian women in particular as it relates to their faith and reluctance to seek medical care?
2. What is the difference between the older Haitian woman who chooses to seek health care and the one who doesn't. Does the former believe less in God and does the latter have that much of a closer relationship with God?
3. Where does your faith end and medical intervention begin?
4. Is the faith of "nouveau" Christian women that much less than the stalwarts of old?
Resource:
In the Haitian women population, the most challenging factor in disease prevention is associated with the culture that is deeply rooted in their belief system. Knowing that one woman out of eight is at risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer makes little to no impact on the Haitian woman who feels vulnerable by admitting that her eating habits are vastly unique thus making her different from others who make those statistics.
Furthermore, she believes that she is blessed by the hand of God who will protect her from evil and diseases. If, by some fortunate circumstances, a woman is able to feel and recognize a foreign mass in her breast, she tends to first treat herself by using palm oil or other leaves on the site of the mass with the hope that the mass will dissolve.
The woman will rarely divulge her findings to anyone close to her. She may prefer to see a traditional healer who will prescribe his own medicine before going to a regular doctor when diagnosis may come too late.
http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/breascanamha.html
It's those dark nights that remind us that there will be times, when it won't be sunny and when your wish for even a cloudy day will not be answered. Like life, the night brings with it a deafening silence, a loneliness that can't be resolved by human contact or interaction. You will be in a crowded room with chattering people and feel all alone. Screams will come from all directions and all you'll hear is muted tones.
I have encountered the night in the words of the English poet Henley, "...the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole" in recent weeks. An emergency phone call from my dad one Monday evening in May, has sent me on a tailspin that's kept me diving ever since. I haven't landed yet, because this veritable "pit" seems bottomless from where I am right now.
Two days after that call my mother was in an emergency room at Mt. Sinai with doctors and interns coming through an imaginary revolving door, all coming to see this woman who had withstood such a disease and was still alive. You see, all it took for the ER doctor to see was her ravaged breasts to diagnose my mother with breast cancer. He didn't need a Catscan, MRI, or blood test to tell him what was evident from first glance. "No, I don't have cancer," was my mother's feeble but firm reply. He paused and looked at me and his eyes confirmed my unanswered questions. Yes she had cancer, she had it for sometime and the fact that she had made it thus far was reason enough for interns to come in with redundant questions asking how she felt, how long had she had her pain, and what types of symptoms did she have.
The day of reckoning was here. Years of pleading with my mom had come to this. Those closest to me, would hear me out on days when I had seen her recently and didn't like the way she walked. My brief phone calls to her (cause I was always interrupting some prayer service she was attending) would end with "I'm okay, I'm fine." By this time, she'd started using a walker and still adamantly refusing to seek medical attention. Her five foot six inch frame that I was used to looking up at was reduced to my five foot three or less.
Friends would hear the frustration in my voice, and try and give me some solutions--but it all came back to the same result. You see, you really can't force someone to seek medical attention. It is their human right to deny medical care and there is nothing that that can be done about that. Unless that person was incapacitated (another fancy word for crazy), he/she could die in their beds without cause. Well my mother wasn't crazy. She spoke three languages and wrote in two. She knew her rights and had told me repeatedly that there was no way in hell I was going to take her to a hospital. Her God would heal her and the dreams that she had of Him healing her would be enough.
My mom is a cheat when it comes to verbal spars. You can't bring God to a fight and expect people to even think of fighting back--least of all me. How could I argue with God? I mean after all He is Jehovah Rapha! Isaiah 53:5 said it best, "He was wounded for our transgressions . . . and by His wounds we are healed." I pray that prayer over myself every day, and it's the one I stand on firmly in times of illness. So when her response to my insistence about medical intervention would start with the words "Jesus", I'd back down and call it a day. This strong Haitian woman of faith had enough belief in her God to stand through seeing her breast shrivel, bleed, and drain pus. She's gone from standing straight to walking with a cane, then a walker, now stooped over and frail. She's gone from an able-bodied woman who in her prime traveled the Caribbean as a merchant reduced now to laying in bed unable to move her leg. As her daughter, I'm frustrated, angry, and despondent because there's absolutely nothing that I can do within my willpower, within my own strength to ease her pain. I'm frustrated at a system that keeps me from doing what I have to do to protect her from herself. I'm angry at her for letting it get this far, and I'm despondent, because I wasn't "prepared" to take on this caretaker role, at least not yet.
Questions:
1. What's to be said about Haitian women in particular as it relates to their faith and reluctance to seek medical care?
2. What is the difference between the older Haitian woman who chooses to seek health care and the one who doesn't. Does the former believe less in God and does the latter have that much of a closer relationship with God?
3. Where does your faith end and medical intervention begin?
4. Is the faith of "nouveau" Christian women that much less than the stalwarts of old?
Resource:
In the Haitian women population, the most challenging factor in disease prevention is associated with the culture that is deeply rooted in their belief system. Knowing that one woman out of eight is at risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer makes little to no impact on the Haitian woman who feels vulnerable by admitting that her eating habits are vastly unique thus making her different from others who make those statistics.
Furthermore, she believes that she is blessed by the hand of God who will protect her from evil and diseases. If, by some fortunate circumstances, a woman is able to feel and recognize a foreign mass in her breast, she tends to first treat herself by using palm oil or other leaves on the site of the mass with the hope that the mass will dissolve.
The woman will rarely divulge her findings to anyone close to her. She may prefer to see a traditional healer who will prescribe his own medicine before going to a regular doctor when diagnosis may come too late.
http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/breascanamha.html
Invictus!
A friend of mine knew I had reached an all time low in my life in recent weeks and directed me to this piece written by William Ernest Henley entitled "Invictus".
It's poignant words are here below:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
It's a poem I refer to every now and then, trying to glean something new, something fresh, something that I will take and learn from in the coming days, weeks, months, and yes even years.
Come along on this journey--reading, sharing your thoughts, and receiving what God would have you get.
Proverbs 4:7
"Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom.
And in all your getting, get understanding."
And in all your getting, get understanding."
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)