Tag Archives: what to do when life is a mess

Riding Naked in an Ambulance

Things I planned for:

  1. Go to Oxaca, Mexico.
  2. Buy new luggage (preferably in deep burgundy).
  3. Plant a garden.

Things that happened that I didn’t plan for:

  • Lying on the cold tile bathroom floor for 3 hours, unable to move, enduring pain, waiting for Jerry to come home.
  • Riding naked in an ambulance and pleading for more pain medication. The kind face of an EMT hovered over me, saying as compassionately as he could, “I’ve given you all I can.” I did have a blanket covering me, but when you break your already fractured hip while getting out of the shower, clothes are not a priority.
  • Jerry saying to me in the hospital as I hollered in reaction to the shooting agonizing pain while being moved from the gurney to the hospital bed, “I wish I could take the pain for you. I’m sorry you have to go through this.”
  • Nurses calling to me from a long dark tunnel. I opened my eyes and a young nurse with brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, shot a giddy smile with her face two inches from mine. She said,  “Everything went well. The surgery is over.” I recall asking in a fogged haze, “It’s over?” She replied with eyes glinting I’m-so-happy-for-you, “Yes, it over.” I wondered, when did it begin?
  • 15 days in the hospital and rehab after undergoing surgery for a full hip replacement.
  • Learning to walk again with a walker. Being excited over taking my first steps without it. “Yay, you’re walking!” Jerry said.
  • Feeling helpless, but very grateful for Jerry who has been, and is, the most wonderful caregiver.
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    Life’s Unexpected Drips, Drops, and Spills

    It was a beautiful day at the writer's confernece in Edmonds, WA.

    It was a beautiful day at the writers’ conference in Edmonds, WA. The Frances Anderson center sits behind the trees.

    The “incident” (think theme music from Jaws) occurred last weekend at the Write on the Sound writers’ conference in Edmonds, Washington. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest for many years before moving to Arizona, I missed the Northwest experience of writers’ conferences. So I flew to Seattle to attend the city’s annual conference on the craft of writing.

    When I arrived at the conference, I checked-in and then headed straight for the Plaza Room where I planned to meet my friend Janet. I hadn’t seen Janet in five years. Prior to me leaving Washington in 2011, Janet and I had attended the annual writers’ conference together. As an aside, Janet and I became friends at the Fear of Flying Clinic in 2006 where we learned we shared common interests other than our fear of flying. We both liked laughing, talking, slugging down coffee, and of course, writing. With these shared interests we formed our own writing group of two. I proposed we call ourselves the Smokin’ Hot Writers. Janet suggested we get long cigarette holders to be more like real authors. But neither of us wanted to take up smoking. read more