Family

A most awesome adventure

/ edebock / Leave a comment

Visits to Vancouver always involve going on interesting adventures with our grandsons, Sam and Nate, but this trip has been different. This time, we came to say our final good byes to my mother.

Today, with Saturday’s memorial service behind us and my siblings on their way back to Alberta, we were down to our last day and hadn’t been on any adventures. That would never do! As we headed across the Lion’s Gate Bridge and through Stanley Park on our way to the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden, I felt myself relax. This morning could be a holiday… no medical treatments, no family responsibilities, just fun with the grandkids.

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Visiting a botanical garden may not sound like a great adventure for a three and four year old, but as we walked through the deeply forested part of the garden, our destination was the Greenheart Canopy Walkway suspended some 20 metres above the forest floor! Unlike most aerial walkways that are bolted to the trees, an innovative cable tension system secures the platforms to huge Douglas firs, Red cedars and Grand firs, many of them over 100 years old. There was a time when traversing from platform to platform on the narrow swinging bridges would have terrified me, but not anymore! Looking out over the coastal rainforest from high amongst the trees was exhilarating. As I said to Sam, it was a most awesome adventure!

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Tomorrow, we fly back to Edmonton and the following day, I have another appointment at the Cross Cancer Institute but for a little while today I could forget about all that!

Losing my mother and finding her again

/ edebock / 25 Comments

One night last week, my 92 year old mother went to sleep and didn’t wake up.

When the phone call came the following morning, my initial reaction was shock. It wasn’t completely unexpected but when I’d talked to Dad a couple of days earlier, there were no warning signs; nothing to indicate that the end was so near.

I went through the motions that day, showing up for my treatment and shedding a few tears behind my radiation mask, but as I thought about it, I couldn’t help believing that it was for the best. Mom died in her own bed in the building next to Dad’s in the care complex where they’ve lived for the past few months. She didn’t linger in a hospital bed and we didn’t have to sit helplessly by and watch her suffer.

The timing bothered me because, in the middle of radiation treatments, I couldn’t simply drop everything and fly out to Vancouver. The family has been wonderful, however, agreeing to postpone gathering for a memorial service until my treatments are complete. Dad, ever the stoic, put my needs before his own, feeling it was important to ensure that everyone who wanted to attend would be able to.

And so we wait. I don’t know about the rest of the family, but in the past few days, I’ve begun to experience a sense of closure. In a way, my Mom has already been gone for a very long time. She started to sink into the depths of dementia a long time ago. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I had a real conversation with her, one where she was fully cognizant and engaged, one where she truly knew who I was. In recent years, she’s been trapped in a body that was blind, incontinent and confined to a wheelchair. More recently, she’d started to lose her ability to swallow and could only consume pureed food and thickened liquids. In spite of it all, she managed to retain her sweet spirit, but that’s no way to have to live.

Dad burned himself out trying to care for her before finally recognizing that he couldn’t do it any longer and worrying about the two of them was hugely stressful for the rest of us. Now it’s over. She is at peace and we have only Dad to worry about. As I work on writing her eulogy, I can begin to put aside the agony of watching her mind fade into the mist of confusion and her body fail. I can dig deeper and revive some of my earlier memories, the warm and funny memories of a mother and grandmother who loved her family above all else. It’s actually a pleasant way to mourn.

In preparation for the memorial service later this month, I’ve been digging through boxes of old family photographs that are stored at my place and flipping through my photo albums putting together a pictorial display of Mom’s life. In the process, I’ve been finding more than pictures; I’ve been finding memories. Stories that Mom told us about her early life have been coming back to me and I’ve been reliving births, graduations and weddings as well as the day to day events recorded in the pictures. I even found a photo that I don’t ever remember seeing before. Here we are, Mom and I, when I was under two!

Mom & I

In losing my mother, I think I’m beginning to find her again!

Long distance hugs!

/ edebock / 10 Comments

I love hugs and I’ve been receiving lots of them lately; tentative, gentle hugs from friends who are being ultra careful not to hurt me. One friend, a huge teddy bear kind of guy, tells me that he’s reserving one of his giant bear hugs for me and that I can have it as soon as I’m feeling a little less fragile!

I’ve also been receiving lots of long distance hugs in emails and messages from around the world. There are the traditional Xs and Os, representing kisses and hugs, at the end of some of the messages and the more modern brackets ( ) or (( )) in others. I appreciate every one of them.

Today, I received the most unique and perhaps the most special long distance hugs ever. I had a long nap this morning and after lunch, Richard and I decided to try a walk to the post office. It was great to be out and about on a beautiful spring afternoon. There was a parcel card in our mailbox so we stopped into the office to see what had arrived. The post mistress handed me a large brown envelope with a paper heart glued to the front. It was addressed to Gram DeBock and the return address indicated that it was from our grandsons, Sam and Nate, in Vancouver.

“I knew this one was special,” she said. “So I didn’t want to bend it to fit it into your box!”

I can never wait until I get home to open exciting looking mail so we walked across the corner to our little Main Street Park and sat on a bench overlooking Sedgewick’s tiny downtown area while I opened my special envelope. Look what slipped out!

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In everything give thanks

/ edebock / 11 Comments

I almost hesitate to post anything today because I’m feeling rather cranky! My surgery went well last Wednesday so what do I have to complain about? Just the fact that my head feels like it’s been used as a soccer ball and a sore throat/earache kept me awake most of the night.

Feeling the way I do this morning, it would be easy to give in to whining and feeling sorry for myself but this is one of those days when I need to remind myself that scripture says

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The little word in  at the beginning of that verse is the reason that I can give thanks today. If it asked me to give thanks for everything, I’m quite certain I couldn’t do it. I certainly couldn’t give thanks for cancer and though I recognize how fortunate I am to live where universal and excellent health care is available, I’m not thankful that I had to have surgery at all, but even in  these circumstances, there is much to be thankful for.

I’m thankful for my hubby who patiently puts up with my restlessness at night and crankiness by day! In some ways, the surgery was harder on him than it was on me. I was out cold, totally unaware of what was going on, but as the hours ticked by, he was the one who was waiting for the surgeon’s call to tell him that things had gone well. I’m thankful for a surgeon who worked patiently and carefully for seven hours straight to remove all the cancer yet leave my facial nerves intact. Thanks to his meticulous effort, my left eye is fully functional and I’m left with nothing more than a crooked smile which will likely improve significantly once the massive swelling subsides and healing takes place. I’m also thankful for the wonderful friends and neighbours who have been showering us with meals; pots of homemade soup, fresh buns and other soft foods that I can handle. We are so blessed!

But do you know what else I’m thankful for today? I’m thankful for the guys who invented the drinking straw!  After seven hours with a breathing tube down my throat, it is SORE and it seems to be taking a long time to heal! Drinking lots of fluids helps but that’s hard to do when your bottom lip doesn’t work right!

Apparently, the first drinking straws were used more than 5000 years ago! The oldest one in existence, a gold tube inlaid with precious blue lapis lazuli, was found by archeologists exploring an ancient Sumerian tomb that was dated 3,000 B.C. On the other side of the globe, Argentinian natives long used similar wooden or metal devices, known as bombillas, to strain and drink their tea. Our humble paper and plastic straws had their beginnings in the U.S. In the 1880s, using rye grass as straws had become popular but their tendency to become mushy when wet and the grassy flavour that they added to beverages, made them somewhat unsatisfactory. It was Marvin C. Stone who came up with the idea of making one from paper. He started by winding paper around a pencil to make a thin tube, then slid the pencil out and applied glue to hold it together. He later built a machine that would coat the outside of the paper with wax. He patented his invention on January 3rd, 1888. In 1937, Joseph Friedman, created the first bendable straw, the type I’m using today.

Come to think of it, I’m even thankful for silly history lessons like this one that provide distraction from my present discomfort and crankiness!

What are you thankful for today?

Aging beauty

/ edebock / 4 Comments

I had no intention of starting a series when I posted “What makes a woman beautiful?” a few days ago, but Michelle’s comment really spoke to me and I feel I must respond. She said

The most beautiful female face I’ve ever seen was the National Silver Cross mother about 25 years ago. It was before Afghanistan, and finding a mother of a person who had died in armed conflict was becoming difficult. I do not recall her name, but she had the most beautiful, kind eyes that sparkled. Even with tears in her eyes as she placed the wreath on the National Cenotaph, all her 95-year-old wrinkles made her look like she was still smiling. She was just stunning.

I had to ask myself why women in our society value youthful appearance so highly.

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The ads that appear in the first few pages of my latest Chatelaine magazine scream the message loud and clear, but do young women really have a monopoly on physical beauty? Let’s use my Mom as an example. There’s no question that she was lovely in her younger days

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but is she really any less beautiful here at the age of 88 with her great grandson in her arms?

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Though I’m not crazy about my marionette lines and the little wrinkles appearing above my upper lip, I think that a young face, as pretty as it might be, is a bit like an empty canvas waiting for an artist’s brush. In my opinion, believing that beauty belongs only to the young is like thinking that a blank journal is more interesting to read than an autobiography!

That brings me to one of my favourite photos from our time in China. I thought she was beautiful when I first saw her and I still do. I wish I could have spoken to her but language was a barrier. I have no doubt, however, that the lines on her face tell a story… a story of hardship, a story of survival, but hopefully also a story with some happiness in it.

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Do you think she’s beautiful?

The Facebook conundrum

/ edebock / 14 Comments

 

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This morning, Ruth, at Life in the 50’s and beyond, published a post entitled Facebook Be Gone! in which she announced that she had recently deactivated her Facebook account. She cited privacy concerns and the amount of time that she found herself spending on Facebook instead of doing other things as her two primary reasons for making this decision.

Later in the day, I noticed that Leanne, at Leanne Cole Photography, had also written about social media, including Facebook. Her post has generated quite a bit of discussion.

All of this led me to write a post of my own weighing in on the the pros and cons of Facebook!

I joined Facebook late in 2007 not long before we left to spend a year teaching English in Japan. My daughter had been telling me for some time that it was something I needed to do but I’d been dragging my feet. Finally, she set up an account for me, not telling me about it until it was a fait accompli! She was right. Facebook proved to be a marvelous way to keep in touch with people back home while we were away and since returning to Canada, it’s allowed us to maintain many of the relationships that we built while we were there.

It was while we were in Japan that I used Facebook to reconnect with several people from my past including my best friend from high school, a Norwegian exchange student who shared our home for almost a year in the late 1980s and a nephew who had disappeared from our lives for several years after leaving home as a young teenager.

There are a number of things that frustrate me about Facebook but most of my exasperation is not with the website itself. It’s with the people who use it! I might be stepping on toes here but it amazes me how many seemingly intelligent people repost all sorts of myths and tall tales without checking on their validity first. It’s so easy to do using sites like snopes.com or truthorfiction.com.

I can’t help wondering about the lives of people who post what they make for supper every night. If my life was that boring, I’m sure I’d go out and do something completely audacious just to have something more interesting to write about! On the other hand, I’ve collected quite a few good recipes thanks to the people who post those.

I love the status updates that one friend writes about the crazy neighbours who live above her. I know they’re driving her around the bend but her descriptions of their antics are very entertaining! I don’t, however, need to know what happens in anyone’s bedroom other than my own!

Some of the things that people say online absolutely amaze me. Hiding behind the anonymity of their keyboards instead of talking face to face, some are downright rude. Whether intentionally or not, our “almost daughter” Chrissy, is great at initiating fascinating discussions on Facebook but, more than once, I’ve seen her and others like her remove whole conversations because they’ve degenerated into name calling and personal attacks.

Facebook has changed it’s appearance several times over the years that I’ve been using it and for the life of me, I can’t usually see why. Like everyone else, I’m frustrated when that happens and I complain but I soon get used to the new look and carry on. I suspect that the changes often have something to do with making the advertising more noticeable but if that’s the case, I don’t think it’s working very well. I, for one, rarely notice the ads at all! I do recognize, however, that they’re what pays for this free site and keep the myth that Facebook is planning to start charging subscription fees from becoming fact.

Can I live without Facebook? Yes. I had to for the five months that we were in China because it’s blocked there. Would I, like Ruth, choose to live without it? Definitely not! Used wisely, it’s a great communication tool.

Ruth is right when she speaks of the lure of Facebook and complains about the amount of time it eats up. It can definitely be a distraction and a time waster. I know I spend more time checking it than I ought to but I enjoy scrolling through my news feed several times a day looking for bits of real news. I also think it’s a fabulous way to share photos and, because I’ve linked my blog to Facebook, it also brings me readers.

Perhaps it’s greatest value to me at this point, however, is the way that it’s enabled our extended family to carry on a running conversation about the needs and care of my very elderly parents. Using the chat feature, we’ve been able to include nineteen family members scattered across North America in an ongoing discussion about life and death issues. It has been an invaluable tool in helping us come to some very important decisions as well as keeping everyone in the family informed about day to day issues.

So, in spite of the frustrations and the time that’s sometimes wasted, I give Facebook a giant thumbs up!

What about you? What’s your opinion of Facebook

Cancer times two!

/ edebock / 31 Comments

Seven months to the day after being told that I have cancer, I heard that dreaded message all over again. I don’t just have cancer, I have two completely different kinds of cancer!

After waiting patiently for three weeks (okay, maybe I wasn’t all that patient), I finally received the results of my biopsy yesterday. The growth in my salivary gland is, indeed, another cancer. Though I don’t have any details yet, I’ve been told that it will be removed surgically. I don’t know when. I don’t know whether follow-up treatment will be required. In fact, the things I don’t know far outweigh the things I do.

We expected this journey to be a bumpy one and I knew that there would likely be a few unexpected curves in the road but I definitely wasn’t prepared for this one! I must admit that I’m beginning to feel a bit like Old Testament Job who endured catastrophe heaped upon catastrophe. Fortunately, I have a much better support system than he had! No one is suggesting that anything I have done or failed to do has brought these troubles upon me and no one, like Job’s wife, is suggesting that I “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9) On the contrary, I am surrounded by friends and family upholding me in prayer and offering whatever support they can. I also need to remind myself that, in the end, God blessed Job abundantly. I’m still hanging on to the hem of his garment and praying that my story will end similarly!

In the meantime, I’m doing my best to keep on putting one foot in front of the other. There’s still laundry to do, meals to make and sunshine pouring in my window. My brain is a bit fuzzy; taking it’s time absorbing this latest blow, I guess. I found myself having to look up family phone numbers last night that I usually know as well as I know my own!

That brings me to yesterday’s good news. After being rushed to hospital in respiratory failure two weeks ago, my 90-year-old father was discharged yesterday. For the moment, things are calm on the parental front!

 

Caught in the club sandwich squeeze!

/ edebock / 9 Comments

“Club sandwich generation” is a relatively new term used to describe the “squeezed” generation, usually between the ages of 55 and 64, who typically find themselves caring for elderly parents while at the same time providing support for adult children and helping care for grandchildren. As more and more people live into their 80s and 90s, the number of four generation families is increasing rapidly and it’s usually the second generation in these families who have the time and resources to deal with unexpected events and crises in the lives of the other three.

My sister and I presently find ourselves smack dab in the middle of this kind of family sandwich. Along with our brother, who is not yet a grandparent, we’re dealing with the escalating needs of our increasingly frail and vulnerable parents. The fact that they don’t live in the same province as the three of us adds to the difficulty.

I’m very grateful that our three children are self-sufficient and require very little help from us. The two that have children of their own don’t depend on us for childcare as we live four hours away from the closest one. When we do visit, we consider it a privilege to babysit the grandchildren so that their parents can enjoy an evening out.

The club sandwich squeeze has been much tighter than usual lately though. As I mentioned in a previous post, my 91-year-old diabetic mother, who suffers from severe dementia, was hospitalized about a month ago suffering from a gangrenous toe. As a family, we made the agonizing decision not to put her through surgery. Due to lack of circulation in her leg, it would have required amputation above the knee. There was no guarantee that she’d survive the operation and if she did, there was every likelihood that the other leg would soon be in the same condition. Instead, as hard as it was, we chose palliative care and when we came to Calgary for the birth of our newest grandson, I packed knowing that we might have to fly to Vancouver for a funeral. Fortunately, Mom is doing much better than expected and was even able to move back to her care facility at the beginning of last week. My sister, who’d been in Vancouver for most of the past month, flew home on Wednesday and we breathed a sigh of relief. That lasted about 24 hours!

The next afternoon when I phoned Dad to share the exciting news of Simon’s birth, he sounded terrible. What had been a fairly minor cold had moved into his chest. Within hours, he was rushed to hospital by ambulance. Arriving in respiratory failure, he was immediately put on a ventilator and our oldest son, who lives in Vancouver, rushed over to the hospital to be with him. In club sandwich families like ours, it’s Matt’s generation that provides the other layer of filling. We are so fortunate that Matt is willing and able to jump in in a crisis situation when none of us is close by. In this case, we didn’t know if Dad would make it through the night. Again, I wondered if we’d be flying out for a funeral.

Thankfully, Dad seems to be rallying and if all goes well, he could be home from the hospital sometime next week. This time, it will probably be my brother who flies out to be with him for a little while. I would go but I have to plan around my treatment schedule and until we get the results of the biopsy that I had last week, it’s difficult to do even that. It’s hard enough being part of the club sandwich generation but having cancer has complicated the situation and added to our present squeeze!

The pot finally boiled!

/ edebock / 12 Comments

In my last post I compared waiting for our daughter to give birth to the proverbial watched pot that never boils. Yesterday was particularly grueling. We made the half hour trip to the hospital twice. On both occasions, Melaina was given morphine and gravol and sent home to rest. By the second visit she was finally beginning to make progress but she was still a long way from delivering. They might have kept her at the hospital had the maternity ward not been swamped but instead, the doctor told us to come back at 8 o’clock this morning or sooner if need be.

It’s a good thing we didn’t wait until 8:00! It was shortly before 4:00 when I heard, “Mom, there’s no way I’m going to make it til morning” from the top of the stairs. Less than ten minutes later, she, Aaron and I were out the door leaving Grandpa and the two older children tucked snugly in their beds. As we cruised through the silent city streets, I timed her contractions… four minutes… four minutes… two minutes…

After all that waiting, when things started happening, they happened fast and at 8:23 this morning Simon Gil was born! He weighed in at 7 lb. 11 oz.

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Simon’s middle name, Gil, is a Hebrew name that means joy and this wee boy definitely filled our day with joy!

Richard and I made one more trip back to the hospital this afternoon to introduce Drew and Jami-Lee to their baby brother. They were thrilled!

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Now they’re tucked into their beds but sleep evades them. Tomorrow is another exciting day. Mommy will come home from the hospital with baby Simon and a new chapter of their family story begins!

The pot that never boils

/ edebock / 5 Comments

Waiting for our daughter to have a baby is like watching the proverbial pot that never boils!

Before Andrew was born in 2008, Melaina went through what one of her doctors called the longest latent (unproductive) labour in history. It was a marathon that went on for eleven days! Over and over, her contractions would increase in intensity and regularity then slow down again. She made several frustrating trips to the hospital but each time she was told to go home and continue waiting.  Because she hadn’t reached her due date yet, they wouldn’t do anything to help her along.

Two years later, when baby #2 was on the way, the doctors assured Melaina that it was very unlikely that she’d go through the same thing again. Though not exactly the same, the weeks leading up to Jami-Lee’s birth were equally frustrating. After four episodes of false labour, she finally arrived on her due date.

Now we’re waiting for #3 and history is repeating itself. Melaina’s contractions started over three weeks ago but still no baby! Again, they increase in intensity and frequency until it appears that the time has finally come and then they subside again. After several false alarms and afraid that we’d miss the big event if we waited any longer, we packed up and came to Calgary a week ago. We thought for sure that Saturday was the day. After three hours of contractions three minutes apart, we decided that it was almost time to head for the hospital but before we did, things slowed down again.

Poor Melaina is beyond frustrated and totally exhausted. Yesterday she was given Tylenol 3 to help with the pain and allow her to get some sleep but because, once again, she hasn’t reached her official due date, the doctors are unwilling to do anything to speed things up. Her due date is Friday and she has another doctor appointment next Tuesday but we’re hoping the pot finally boils before that!

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