Brief, Wondrous Pocket of Time

After spending almost a year in North Carolina caring for my father, I returned to New York City five months ago to reclaim myself. When I arrived I had no job, no apartment, and no prospects for either. I spent the month of March being passed from the home of one set of wonderful friends to another, and within three weeks I had both a job and an apartment in Manhattan. By mid-April, I realized that I was the happiest I had ever been in my life.

The months rolled by with magical ease. The most challenging aspect of my job was staying awake. The apartment was lovely, safe, and comfortable. I reconnected with old friends, made new ones, and enjoyed the splendors of the city. I went to the ballet. I spent a day walking around MoMA. I wrote a little, read a little, saw some movies, ate lots of good food, got drunk, and saw a homeless man masturbate. But not all on the same day.

I made peace with my ex-husband. I saw my healer once a week. I worked out almost every day, sometimes twice a day. Some relationships blossomed, others died. I cried more than once while walking the streets of my city…my beautiful city. My New York. I came home to heal, and I healed. The nightmarish experience with my father in 2010 now feels akin to the way many mothers describe childbirth: traumatic and painful while it’s happening, but a distant memory once it’s over…because the beautiful life that exists as a result of that trauma is the only part you remember.

But my time here in NYC has been bittersweet, because all along I’ve known it was temporary. I found out in February that I had been accepted to graduate school at Wake Forest University, so I knew I was going to come back to North Carolina even before I left it. Many people questioned my decision to come back to New York for only five months. Those people were not New Yorkers. My New York friends understood, and they are the ones who opened their homes to me, bought me dinner, got me drunk, helped me out, and took care of me.

Five months of your life are five months of your life. Five months, 22 weeks, 153 days. Time is not something to just get through or survive. This brief pocket of time in NYC has been one of the happiest periods of my life. It was the greatest gift I could have possibly given myself.

When I made the decision to move to North Carolina in 2010 after my father almost died, I set three goals for myself: save my father’s life, rehabilitate him, and get him home. I achieved those goals. When I made the decision to move back to New York City for a brief five months, I set another three goals for myself: save some money, say goodbye to my city, and heal. I’ve achieved those goals as well.

My next step signifies a major shift in my life. For the first time in more than a decade I will be able to direct all of my energy towards the things that are important to me. It will be the first time since discovering I was supposed to be a writer that I will get to focus solely on reading, writing, and using my brain. So my next three goals are simple: read, write, and use my brain. I’m going back to school to fill up my brain bucket with all sorts of neat stuff. And then I intend to pull from the contents of that bucket to write….whatever it is I’m going to write. And I can’t wait to share whatever it is I end up writing with all of you.

So thank you to all of the people who helped me come back to New York City for this brief, wondrous pocket of time. I’ve enjoyed it immensely. You are beautiful people, and I love you very much. And NYC, you are a beautiful city and I love you; please bring me back when it’s time for me to come back.

Now, it’s time to get to work.

Humbled

Dusk kissing the lake during my retreat

Last weekend I drove down to a spiritual retreat in South Carolina. I visit this retreat twice a year, and have been doing so for more than five years. It is the “Home in the West” for a spiritual master from India. This master “dropped his body” in 1969, but he’s still hanging around. So a couple times a year I go down and hang out with him. For months I’ve been promising him that I would come visit one more time before returning to New York, so after I ordered my one-way plane ticket to NYC I called and reserved a cabin.

These visits never fail to stir up my emotional pot. Divorced from distractions like television, internet, phones, friends, family, etc., I am forced to sit with myself and deal with whatever it is I’ve been ignoring. I go there to listen. I listen to the voice inside of me and to whatever wisdom this spiritual master wants to pass on to me. Usually I’m given one word or one directive to help guide my life. During a visit last year, I was meditating in the master’s bedroom when told, “Patience.” On another occasion, I was lying on the beach when directed, “Quit your job.” This time, I had been walking through the woods for less than five minutes when I received my word: “Humbled.”

I have been humbled by the last year of my life. Profoundly humbled. My father had his initial gastric bypass procedure on 3/24/10, exactly 11 months ago today. Easter Sunday will mark the one-year anniversary of the afternoon I readied myself to watch my father die. Hours after boarding a 6am flight in New York, I stood on the curb in front of the Burlington hospital and watched paramedics load my screaming, half-conscious father into an ambulance headed for Durham. “Everything just changed,” my brain kept repeating. From inside my father’s ICU room, I texted my brother out in the waiting room: “Our lives just changed forever. This is the new reality.” Whatever plans I had prior to that moment were obliterated. In the span of one weekend, my life had been hijacked by tragedy. It felt like I was free-falling, and that sensation lasted for months. I was in a constant, relentless free-fall from early April until sometime in September.

And then one morning in September I received a phone call informing me that one of my dear friends had been killed the night before in a car accident. A month later I received another phone call, informing me that my best friend had just been attacked in the Bronx and was lying in a hospital with a broken jaw.

Tragedy happens fast-fast-SO FAST. LIGHTENING SPEED. You turn around and when you turn back someone you love is dead or dying or suffering and all you can do is react. And then when you react, it feels as if you’re reacting in slow motion. There’s no way your slowmo reactions could ever match tragedy’s lightening speed. And tragedy doesn’t give a fuck about any plans you might have had. It doesn’t care that you don’t have the time/money/energy to respond to it. Tragedy audaciously asserts itself as it pleases.

And you don’t get to decide when you’ve had enough. I reached what I thought was my breaking point at least half a dozen times in the last 11 months. Each time I thought I had literally taken all I could take and that I would break apart if forced to take any more. And then each time I was forced to take more. And each time part of me did break apart. I kept telling the universe I had nothing left to give, but it didn’t seem to care.

Some people say “Well, at least now you know how strong you are!” And those are the people I would like to physically assault. I knew I was strong before this year; I did not need such gruesome confirmation of my strength. And now that I have it, I feel weaker than ever. I feel insignificant, powerless…a mere speck in a vast universe. I feel humbled. I now have absolute confirmation that I am not in control. I don’t know who or what is in control, but it’s certainly not me. And I’d bet good money it’s not you. You may not believe me, and that’s totally fine. But I assure you I’m right, and I imagine you will get your own gruesome confirmation some day.

I have been humbled by my powerlessness, but I have also been humbled by the strength of my father’s spirit. By the resilience of the human body. By the love between my parents and their relationship of 40+ years. I have been humbled by Gail, a family member who opened up her home to me even though we barely knew each other. Gail’s wit, kindness and wisdom sustained me during the most difficult year of my life.

I have been humbled by the goodness of the human heart. New friends, old friends and total strangers have gone out of their way to help me this year. College friends I had not seen in ten years randomly showed up at the hospital with food. People I barely know sent me money. Countless individuals have tried to find ways to make this experience a little less miserable for me. I have been swimming in love, though unfortunately my anger has often rendered me too numb to notice.

Last Saturday morning, I returned to the bedroom of the spiritual master. I sat among some of his other followers and meditated. Usually at this point in my visit, I ask or pray for specific things. But this time I didn’t know what to ask for. It seemed silly to pray for anything, because I don’t even know what I want. I suddenly felt like a tall, clear, empty Tupperware container. The feeling scared and depressed me. I felt like I had lost part of my identity…like I had been violently scrubbed clean of my sense of self. I looked up at the picture of the spiritual master hanging over the bed, and he was gazing right at me. The smirk on his face was gentle yet mischievous. Suddenly I realized: this was all a test. It was some sort of traumatic, year-long spiritual test. I think I was being prepared for something else coming in my life. Maybe I had to be humbled and broken and scrubbed clean before I could journey on. Maybe whatever lies ahead needed me to arrive empty.

So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the confirmation of my strength had to be gruesome. And sometimes I worry that I didn’t pass the test. Sometimes I worry that I should have been kinder, wiser, more patient. Sometimes I get angry at myself for letting my anger control me. After I left the master’s bedroom, I went to the communal kitchen to have breakfast. I sat down next to an old hippie from Asheville. We started talking, and I told him about the last year of my life. I told him about the discoveries I made in the master’s bedroom, and I told him I was worried I didn’t pass the test. “Did you follow your heart?” he asked. I said yes. “Sounds like you passed,” he said.

With A Little Help From My Friends

It has been almost a year since I received the phone call from my father. For more than fifteen months he had been trying to get medically approved for gastric bypass surgery, and he was calling to tell me that the date of the procedure had finally been set: March 24th. I put it on my calendar and told him I would be there. A couple of months later, I sat in an ICU and watched his body battle death. I bought a dress to wear to his funeral. That dress is still in my closet, tags still attached.

It has now been almost 11 months since his first surgery, and he can finally walk again. He can eat and drink again. He’s almost a normal person. We went to a restaurant for dinner on Sunday, and after we gave the waiter our drink orders my father turned to me and said: “Jennifer, I’m just so happy to be alive.”

I’m proud of him. I’m proud of myself. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m glad I did it. But this year took its toll on me. I have nothing left. I poured everything I had into saving others, and I didn’t reserve anything to use to save myself. And now I know I have to leave this situation, but I don’t know how to do it.

The only thing I know to do is to go back to New York. New York City is my home. And all of my stuff is still sitting in a storage unit in Brooklyn. Last month I went up and met with the CEO of the company I was working for when my father first got sick. I thanked him for being so understanding when I had to leave, and I asked him if I could have my job back. A few weeks later I received an email from him. His answer: a very kind no.

So I have no home, no job, no money. I am coming off of the most stressful and traumatic year of my life, and all I want to do is completely give up. But it occurred to me that there are a lot of people in my life who probably don’t want me to completely give up, and it seems only fair to alert those people to my situation. I need help, but I have gotten really tired of asking for help. It feels like I’ve been asking for help for a long time. So if you don’t want to help, I understand. But if you do want to help, now would be the time to do so.

I need the following three things:

1) a place to live

2) a job

3) money

1) A Place To Live.

Some sort of long-term temporary situation would be best. Perhaps a 3-6 month sublet. If anyone you know needs someone to live in their apartment and take care of their cat/dog/iguana/panda bear while they leave the country for 3-6 months, I would be the perfect person for that job. My preference would be a decent neighborhood in Brooklyn or Queens (not the Bronx). Of course someplace in Manhattan would be nice, but I suppose that would only work if the person is willing to offer me very cheap rent in return for taking care of their cat/dog/iguana/panda bear. While I appreciate offers to “coach surf” and stay in people’s living rooms, I can only stomach situations like that for about 2-3 days. I need my own space, even if it’s only something the size of a large closet.

2) A Job.

There are oh so many things I can do. I am a highly-skilled office monkey, experienced in many areas of random office work. I have worked in many different office environments, but most of my experience is in publishing and law. I ran a small law office in SoHo for 4 ½ years, and during that time I gained experience in many areas of the law, including litigation and non-profit. I can write well, speak well, and am incredibly resourceful and reliable. I am open to all of kinds of jobs, not just office monkey positions. I need a source of income as soon as possible.

3) Money.

If you lend me money, it may be a while before I can pay you back. Actually, it may be quite a while. And I know that a lot of really kind people sent me money last April when all of this first started, and those kind people made a huge difference in my life. And I feel badly that in all of the craziness of last spring some of those kind people never received thank you notes from me. I really hate asking for money. But at the moment I have none, and if I’m going to move back to New York then I’m going to need some.

It’s kind of unreal to me that after everything I’ve been through this year I suddenly have to start all over from scratch again. It seems like some sort of cruel joke. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I know it’s time to leave. I had no exit strategy when I came down here. Just like when Forrest Gump got word on the radio that his momma was sick, as soon as I got word that my daddy was sick I jumped off the boat and started swimming. I’ve learned this year that when someone I love needs me I just start swimming like hell in their direction and don’t stop to think about how I’m going to get back. And now I’m treading water somewhere in the middle of the ocean and I don’t even have the energy left to care if I drown. So consider this blog a shot from my flare gun. If you can’t help me or don’t want to help me, I completely understand. But if you can help me and do want to help me, now would be the time.

You can leave a comment on the blog or contact me by email: jblevins00@hotmail.com

Some Things I Learned

I haven’t decided yet if the blog is back, but it felt good to post one last week. So I’m taking it on a week-by-week basis. I make no promises, friends. But I did miss you.

For those just joining us here at Theblevinsblog, allow me to get you up to speed: My father had gastric bypass surgery on March 24th. The surgery went very, very, very wrong. I moved down from New York to North Carolina practically overnight, and have been living in Durham ever since. After five months in an ICU, two months in a ventilator weaning facility, and two months in rehab, my father finally went home last week. It took eleven surgeries and nine months of hell to save his life. And it sucked. It sucked on an epic, nightmarish level. It sucked so bad I can’t even tell you how much it sucked.

But I will try. Because I want to share some of the things I learned with you. It’s some seriously important shit, and most of it I had to learn in a trial-by-fire sort of fashion. I had a few great people helping me out along the way, but for the most part I was just making it up as I went along. I learned some really painful lessons, and I would love to spare some of you that pain. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a start. Tuck this list away in a back corner of your mind that you hopefully never have to visit again, but keep it there in case one day your entire life falls apart in a matter of hours and you’re vomiting and shaking and trying to stop yourself from falling through the ground beneath your feet:

#1: Take notes. Write down the names of doctors, nurses, medications, procedures, etc. Make notes about important conversations. Put the date on these notes, maybe even the time of day. Put these notes in a small notebook that you keep with you at all times. It would be best if this notebook has a little folder in the front or back where you can store business cards and other random small items that people hand you.

#2: Choose your battles wisely. Some of the healthcare professionals tending to your loved one may actually genuinely care about him, but most of them are just at work, punching a clock and doing their job. If you piss them off too much by arguing with them over stupid crap, you risk adversely affecting the level of care your loved one receives once you walk out of the hospital. So don’t risk it. Prioritize.

#3: Try not to care if people hate you. Your primary job is to be an advocate for your loved one, and that person may not be able to speak for himself. You are not there to make friends, so don’t be afraid to rock the boat occasionally (as long as you follow #2 the rest of the time).

#4: People will try to “help” by saying things that may deeply offend and anger you. I could write an entire book on this topic. The primary offender: “I went through [insert personal experience here], so I know how you feel.”

Story Time: It was the end of May, and I had just made the decision to officially quit my job in NYC, break the lease on my apartment, and move down to North Carolina. I was sitting in my dad’s hospital room, making calls to movers and storage units in New York while my father ranted and raved in his crazy, critically-ill state. The nurses came in to change out his rectal tube, so the room smelled like shit and he was screaming in pain and I was turned toward the window with my laptop open to avoid watching the procedure. I was logged on to my Facebook account, and suddenly someone I barely know FB chatted me with this note: “Hey, Blevins. I just wanted to tell you that my wife’s grandmother was in the ICU for two weeks once and it was really rough. So I want you to know that I know how you feel.”

Everyone will want to tell you that they “know how you feel.” And every time they do, you will get one step closer to totally losing your shit and committing a crime that will land you in prison for a very long time. Intellectually, you may be able to recognize that they are trying to “reach out” to you or “help.” But your ability to think rationally and logically will be one of the first things to go. You will become a bleeding, pulsating, open wound. This transformation will alter your brain and behavior, and you will have very little control over either.

I’ve thought a lot about this problem. People sincerely want to be nice and supportive, yet they sometimes say clueless and offensive things. I think the problem is that they try to do too much with the things they say. While some will tell you they “know how you feel,” others will try to assign some sort of cosmic or spiritual meaning to the hell you’re going through…or they may try to give you unsolicited advice, which usually just comes across as condescending. But I know that they feel helpless and don’t know what to say. I have spent nine months trying to come up with a solution to this problem, and here’s what I’ve got:

You ARE helpless and you cannot change the hell your friend is going through. Nothing you say will make the problem go away. So send them a link to a funny YouTube video. Or give them a gift card for a massage. Or take them out to dinner. And if you want to say something, here are the three best things you can say:

#1: “I am so sorry you’re going through this.”

#2: “Is there anything I can do to help?”

#3: “I love you.”**

**when applicable

#5: This experience will affect you physically. I lost six pounds during the first week. Then I gained the six pounds back. Then I gained another ten pounds. I’ve now lost six of those pounds. And that’s a kind of math I can’t even do.

Somewhere along the way I started to develop this scary-looking stress bump under my jaw line. At first I thought it was a zit, but it continues to grow every month. His name is Ken. Hopefully one day soon I’ll get Ken removed and he will be benign.

I used to love coffee, but now I can’t drink coffee without wanting to vomit. I wonder if I have an ulcer. I wouldn’t be surprised if I do.

I sometimes catch my reflection in the mirror, and I look old. Gray. Worn. Beaten down. The muscle definition in my arms, legs and abs that once made me so proud is now totally gone. I am mushy. And slow. And pale.

Some people will actually make comments about how bad you look. Oh, they never come out and say: “You’re not as gorgeous as you used to be.” (Well, my mother did actually say that about me to a car salesperson while I was standing right next to her….but that’s my mother.) But they will make comments that will make you want to cry. I don’t know why they do it. Do they want to hurt you? Do they think they are helping? I still haven’t figured this one out. But here’s my advice to you if you ever have a friend going through an experience like this:

If she has gained ten pounds and has a big lump under her chin, don’t tell her. If she looks gray and old, don’t tell her. If she’s covered in shit from head to toe and her hair is on fire, DON’T TELL HER. Because I assure you she already knows, and she just doesn’t have the energy left to deal with it. And when you see her months later and she’s no longer covered in shit and on fire, please don’t reference back to how bad she looked when you saw her covered in shit and on fire. Trust me: she knows.

#6: Your parents are mortal. They may not want to acknowledge this fact, but it is true. Years ago I tried to have a conversation with my dad about these issues. He was my mother’s caretaker and their sole source of income, and I asked him what we would do if he could no longer care for my mother. He replied, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” and would not continue the conversation. Last April I realized he meant: “You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.” For years I begged him to let me scan all of the family’s important legal documents so I could save them to my computer and have immediate access to them in case of emergencies. He kept putting this off and putting this off, and when the shit hit the fan last spring we could not find a single important legal document. It was months before we could find his Power of Attorney, Living Will, and Final Will and Testament. And my father is an attorney.

I guess he thought he was invincible. Maybe he thought there was no way he could die before he was ready. I don’t know….I will never understand it. But it made a terrible situation even worse. And the real kicker was that in 40 years of marriage my parents apparently never had a conversation about what they would do in this situation. In June, we came to a point where we had to make the decision whether or not to keep going or let my father die. Those weeks were some of the hardest, especially because we didn’t know what he wanted and he couldn’t tell us. It is very difficult to make a decision like that for someone else. If I were in his position, I would have wanted my family to let me die. But I wasn’t making the decision for myself. Oh man…that was a horrible time.

#7: Tell your family and friends how you want to die. Be as specific as possible. This year I intend to craft my Living Will, and it will be a work of art. I foresee a sort of “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel; each section will end with choices like “For acute renal failure, turn to tab 38” or “For cardiac arrest, turn to tab 79.” It will have charts and graphs and will cover every possible scenario I can think of. After spending five months hanging around an ICU, I can tell you that there is a fate worse than death. You need to give a lot of thought to how you want to end your life, and you need to make sure the people who will be making those decisions for you know what you want.

#8: Try to take care of yourself, even though it’s mostly impossible. That’s another common way people would try to help. I can’t tell you how many times someone instructed me to “take care” of myself. I did everything I could, but nothing helped. I worked out. I ate healthy food. I tried to do things like get massages and pedicures, but nothing seemed to work. Even drinking lost its luster for me, and that was a first. The one thing that helped was sleep, so whenever possible I slept. But I could never replenish myself. This experience depleted me so much that I believe it will take me years to fill back up. Right now I feel like an empty shell. I’ve got nothing left. I feel like I lost about 20 I.Q. points in the last nine months, and I’m surprised I can even write this blog. I took the GRE in December, and as I sat there in the testing center I literally could not get my brain to work. It’s like I lost part of my brain this year. It terrifies me and depresses me. I really hope I get those I.Q. points back.

Friends, I hope you never go through something like this. Even if you’re someone I don’t particularly like, I still wouldn’t wish this experience on you. But if you do one day find yourself covered in shit with your hair on fire, I urge you to contact me. You can yell and scream and say offensive things to me, and I will let you. I will understand that you are not in control of your brain or behavior. I will forgive you for everything you do and say, no matter what it is. I will not offer you advice unless you ask for it. I won’t tell you that this is “God’s plan” or that “At least now you know how strong you are!” or “I know how you feel.” I will say only this:

“I am so sorry you’re going through this. Is there anything I can do to help? I love you.”

The Conclusion

It’s more than a little ironic that he corrects me on the date. For many months he had no idea what day it was. He often didn’t know where he was or who he was. Or who I was. Or why this had happened to him. Or why he couldn’t sit up or stand up or eat or drink.

After the tracheostomy (surgery #6), he asked me why he couldn’t remember anything between the end of March and the end of June. Well, actually he wrote the question on a small dry erase board because the trach robbed him of his voice. I told him he didn’t want to remember anything before the end of June. I told him I think the human mind sometimes protects us from extreme trauma. Unfortunately, I remember every single thing that happened between the end of March and the end of June. My mind seems unable to protect me from that trauma. So I told him I can tell him anything he wants to know, but it’s probably best he doesn’t know.

Here we are on the morning of March 24th, right before his initial gastric bypass procedure:

Oh, how innocent and oblivious we all are. Here is how we spent much of the next few months:

Spring turned into summer.

After five months in Intensive Care, we moved to a ventilator weaning facility in Greensboro.

Our last day in Intensive Care.

Summer turned into fall. He successfully weaned off of the ventilator and we moved back to Durham Regional. He was accepted in the Durham Rehabilitation Institute. He learned how to walk again:

I celebrated a birthday.

Fall turned into winter. Nine months and four days after it all began, I took him home.

December 28, 2010

When I made the decision to move from New York to North Carolina, I came down with three objectives:

#1: save father’s life

#2: rehabilitate father

#3: get father home

It takes nine months to create a human life, and apparently it takes nine months to save one as well. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. It was the worst year of my life. But I achieved all of my objectives. I did everything I set out to do.

So my work here is done.

Turtle Shell

My father had his 7th surgery yesterday. Today it feels like my body is full of stones. I move in slow motion. I don’t talk a lot.

Today is Thursday. For the last fifteen months of my life, Thursday has been Blog Day. I started with about 30 – 40 readers in April 2009, and now I think I have somewhere around 300 – 400 readers. I’m never really sure. And I don’t know who all of you are. I want you to know that I appreciate you, and I appreciate all of the love and support you have given me over the last few months. Thank you.

Today is my last blog for a while. I need to tuck into my turtle shell. I deactivated my Facebook account last Sunday (no, I did not defriend you….what a horrible word: “defriend”). I have long considered taking a break from Facebook; it has been very difficult for me to read about other people’s “normal” lives while I sit in a hospital room and grow sadder and more hopeless every day. I used to think it was a benign and therapeutic distraction, but over time I’ve realized that it does me more harm than good.

I will come back to Facebook and I will come back to this blog. I don’t know when, but I know that I will. Maybe in a few weeks. Or maybe in a few months. I hope you will come back, too. Thank you again for being a very beautiful part of my life.

love, jennifer

Me.

Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Aliens

On my retreat: at the lake right after sunrise

Last week I introduced my very dear friend Jen Katz to my very dear spiritual retreat in South Carolina. We swam in the ocean, strolled around in nature, and dealt with all of the painful and beautiful personal discoveries that five days divorced from distractions can bring to light.

The trip was bittersweet for me, because as I was driving down I-95 on Thursday my father was vomiting blood in his ICU room in Durham. I kept calling and checking in to see if I should abandon my retreat and return to Durham, but Gail and my mother assured me that things were under control. All weekend I felt like I was walking on eggshells, afraid that everything was going to fall apart in an instant and I wasn’t going to be there to help. But I recognized the importance of getting away from the situation for a while, so I stayed the course.

The day after I returned, I accompanied my father on yet another trip down to radiology for yet another swallow study. And, yet again, I was in a protective iron gown standing next to my father when the radiologist informed me that my father still has the leak between his small stomach pouch (created during his first surgery) and his intestines. Six surgeries later, my father still has a leak. The radiologist showed it to me on the screen. Even though I’m not a radiologist, I could tell that what I saw on the screen was not good. Then I had to tell my father that he still has a leak…my father who can’t talk, eat or drink, can barely move, and who was in extreme pain simply lying there on the radiology table. We were both devastated.

Thankfully the radiologist had the tact to pull me aside and give me this information in a sensitive way. The radiologist who did the last swallow study was practically jumping up and down with excitement when he found the leak on the screen: “Look! There it is! I found it! There’s the leak! Yup, that’s a leak alright. Whoa. Do you see it?!”

Yeah, dude. I see it.

We’ve had a couple of other huge, really bad blows in these last few days. I’m not going to write about them in my blog, but I assure you that they are really bad blows. Just imagine a sickly, pathetic dog lying by the side of the road. Then imagine people walking by that dog at different points throughout the day and kicking him. Right now, that dog is the Blevins family.

It’s hard not to be bitter. Most days I don’t even try.

But today I’m going to try. Because recently I have been allowing space for my sadness, and as a result I have been able to examine my anger from different angles. I understand why some people who undergo traumatic experiences decide to remain angry for the rest of their lives. There have been times when I have been convinced I am destined to become one of those individuals. There have been times when I have desperately wanted to become one of those individuals. The anger is a shield. It shields me from the intense sorrow that lies beneath. It shields me from other people and the love they try to offer me. It shields me from the dangers of hope. It feels much safer and easier to hide behind my anger shield. So frequently I do.

There is a vast divide right now between my thinking self and my feeling self. My emotions are powerful, visceral and change rapidly. While I am still able to process things intellectually, my intellect is unable (or unwilling) to censor or temper my emotions with rational thought. For instance, the love that people offer me is sometimes delivered in an awkward way. Sometimes they offend me or piss me off with “advice” and/or “concern,” both of which I usually find condescending. My thinking self recognizes that their actions are sincere and based in love; my feeling self wants to punch them in the fucking throat.

At times I am tempted to judge myself harshly for the ways in which I am reacting to this experience. I tend to hold myself to unreasonably high standards, and sometimes when I replay scenes in my head I start beating myself up over my failure to react in a “wiser” or more “enlightened” way. I get angry with myself for being angry. I am disappointed with myself for letting external circumstances dictate my internal state.

This tragedy is turning out to be the biggest learning experience of my life. I have never learned so much so quickly at so high a cost. I look forward to sharing all of the things I’m learning with you, because it’s some really intense shit. One of my most recent discoveries is that everything I need to know about dealing with trauma I learned from the 1986 James Cameron film Aliens.

A couple of weeks ago, my dad had three really good days in a row. About four days after the tracheostomy, his mental status started to return to normal and for the first time in months he began communicating coherently with us. He can’t talk because of the trache, but he is able to communicate by writing on a small dry erase board. At the end of one of these three really good days, I went back to Gail’s house, poured myself a drink, and plopped down in front of the television to shut my mind off for a while. To my delight, I discovered the movie Aliens had just started on the Syfy Channel.

Aliens has been my favorite sci-fi movie ever since the first time I watched it in the late 80’s as a kid. The tale of Lt. Ellen Ripley’s epic struggle is best told in this second installment of the series (I find it wisest just to ignore every Alien movie that came after this one…although the third movie has a few redeeming moments).

Trapped on a planet populated by vicious killer aliens, a group of people must fight their way out of a seemingly unsolvable situation. Most of the team dies during the first encounter with the aliens, and the few who are left must figure out how to escape. The stakes couldn’t be higher and the problems couldn’t be worse.

As I sat in Gail’s recliner in my pajamas sipping my tasty alcoholic beverage, I watched the movie with new eyes. I saw a traumatic situation akin to my current traumatic situation (minus the aliens and their acid blood, of course…or perhaps the aliens just haven’t shown up yet). I saw a group of people going through a terrifying experience, and each person was reacting in a different way.

Without a doubt, Sigourney Weaver is The Shit. Her portrayal of Lt. Ripley as the reluctant hero is one of my all-time favorite cinematic performances. As the rest of her team falls apart, Ripley emerges as the backbone of the operation. She acts quickly and decisively. In the face of terrifying circumstances, she manages to think rationally yet stay true to her gut and her heart. She is loyal, compassionate, courageous and smart as hell. And she looks great in a tank top. I want to be Lt. Ellen Ripley.

However, most days I don’t feel like Ripley. I often feel like Bill Paxton’s character, Private Hudson. Hudson has a total emotional meltdown after the initial encounter with the aliens. He whines and cries and tears his hair and bemoans their collective fate: “Game over, man! Game over!” Once a cocky Marine, Hudson becomes an angry, hopeless child when aliens start “coming outta the walls! They’re coming outta the goddamn walls! We are FUCKED!”

When I’m not Hudson, sometimes I’m the little girl, Newt. Newt, the only surviving colonist on the planet, has been hiding in the air ducts and learning the aliens’ habits. By the time Ripley coaxes her out of the air ducts, Newt has regressed into an animal-like state and is fueled entirely by fear. Newt is reluctant to join the others because she knows things they do not know. She has seen things they have not seen. Newt believes it’s best just to hide, especially at night. Because they mostly come out at night. Mostly.

Carter Burke, played by Paul Reiser, is the company man. He comes on the mission to represent the financial interests of the money-hungry corporation that built the space station in which Ripley n’ Co. find themselves trapped. Unable to fully comprehend the severity of the situation, Burke focuses only on money and other trivial concerns.

Bishop, the android character played by Lance Henriksen, is at first in awe of the complexity and beauty of the aliens. Like any good android, once the shit hits the fan he approaches the situation logically and methodically and, as such, is the only one to notice that the space station is going to explode in a matter of hours and they need to get the hell out.

And Private Vasquez, played by Jeanette Goldstein, is full of piss and vinegar and eager to kill as many aliens as she can. And, like Lt. Ripley, she looks amazing in a tank top.

Each character is stuck in the same traumatic situation and each character faces the same uncertain fate, yet each react in entirely different ways. While Ripley’s reaction is ultimately the most heroic, no character’s reaction is wrong. Hudson’s total emotional breakdown is completely valid and understandable. Newt’s instinct to hide is what kept her alive. Burke can’t see past his blind spots, and his failure to do so gets him killed. Bishop thinks and reacts like a machine, and his detachment helps him to see things that the others don’t see. Vasquez reacts from her heart, and her courageous actions save the lives of others.

After the movie ended, I sat there in my pajamas and sipped my tasty alcoholic beverage. I thought about the last few months of my life. I thought about some of my Hudson moments. Then I thought about some of my Newt moments. I ran through every Aliens character in my head, and I forgave myself for being each of them at some point during this experience. I realized that there is no wrong way to react to your worst nightmare coming true. And I realized that there is no way for someone who has not been trapped on a space station with killer aliens and/or trapped in a hospital going through a traumatic experience with a loved one to know what this feels like. It feels like shit. It’s terrifying. I want to hide in an air duct. I want to rip my hair out and scream “Game over, man! Game over!” I want to detach myself entirely from the situation. I want to throw myself in front of an alien for the people I love.

But most of all, I want to strip down to a tank top, load myself up with state-of-the-art weaponry, drop down into the battle zone and kick some alien ass. I want to kill the enemy. I want to save my father. I want to have great one-liners like “Get away from her, you BITCH!” I want to be Ellen Ripley. I want to be the reluctant hero.

But it’s ok if I’m Hudson. Or Newt. Or Bishop. It’s ok.

Taking A Break

This week, I would love to write about something other than my father. I would love to stop thinking about the horrible blue/maroon/brown stained carpet that I stare at every day as I walk through the Durham Regional Hospital to the ICU. I would love to go back to a time in my life when I didn’t know what the numbers on the vitals screen in my father’s hospital room meant. I would love to write the kind of blogs I used to write. Maybe one week I will.

But this is not that week.

My father was doing better earlier this week. For the first time in months, he began communicating coherently and waking up to the new reality that has become his life. He can’t speak because of the trache, so I went to Office Max and bought him a small dry erase board. His writing is very shaky, but it gets better every day. At first, he wanted to know what happened. “What went wrong?” As I started telling him the tale, his eyes got wider and wider. He asked how many surgeries he has had; when I said “six,” he was incredulous. He is currently unable to sit, stand, walk or talk. He is terrified of being left alone, and I don’t blame him. At one point on Monday I was standing by the side of his bed adjusting a pillow under his arm; he grabbed my forearm, and I looked into his eyes. What I saw there was intense gratitude, love, fear, and understanding. Something passed between us. I knew what he was trying to say, so I didn’t make him write it down. I just said: “I know, Daddy. I know. We’re going to do this. You’re going to make it through this. I’m not leaving North Carolina until you do.”

Yesterday morning we had a scare, and they rushed my father down to radiology for a CT scan. It seemed like a cruel reminder that this will not be over until it’s over, and there’s nothing we can do but react to the blows as they come.

There’s a lot going on with me right now, but I don’t feel like sharing it today. I think I need a break. I’m going out of town for a few days, and I’m hoping the time away will gift me some perspective. I’m nervous about leaving, because it seems like every time I go out of town something bad happens. But I need to go somewhere and breathe and cry and give myself some space.

So I’m going to go do all of that, and I’ll see you next week.

Oil Spill/Reasonable Hope

Eighty-five days have passed since my father’s first surgery. He had his sixth surgical procedure yesterday.

My family’s tragedy began March 24th when my father entered the Durham Regional Hospital for a routine gastric bypass procedure. The tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20th when an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana exploded and a ruptured pipe began spewing oil into the Gulf. Both disasters are still happening as I write this blog. Both tragedies are beyond my ability to fix. Every day I watch my father suffer in a hospital bed. Every day I watch videos of oil-soaked wildlife suffer on a television screen. Every day I am powerless. Every day I am angry.

Oil keeps spilling into the Gulf; my father keeps hovering somewhere between life and death. I keep watching both.

I almost destroyed this blog last Thursday night. I had my finger on the trigger. I would have destroyed 63 posts, 372 comments, and erased proof of 47,925 views.

I want to destroy everything. I want to take a flamethrower to my life and burn it all to ash. I want nothing to survive.

I want to erase my Facebook account. Delete my Hotmail account. Eradicate my WordPress blog. End my relationships. Sever all ties. I don’t want to be a writer anymore. Maybe I could just never do anything. Never be anything. Never fall in love. Avoid joy.

I want people to live up to my expectations. I want people to pay attention. I pay attention. When you tell me something about yourself, I retain that information. When you share a secret, I remember it. When you break my heart, I take notes. My heroes have all fallen. All except my father.

He is strong. Stronger than any of you. None of you will ever live up to him in my eyes. None of you would have survived what he has already survived. My father is one badass mother fucker.

Last Friday afternoon, I sat in a diner in Durham and had lunch with my mother and my dad’s cousin Gail as we discussed whether to proceed with the tracheostomy procedure recommended by the doctors or let my father die. I ate a bowl of vegetable soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. The soup was quite tasty. I stared down into the soup as the three of us talked. The tomatoes were voluptuous. I could tell the soup didn’t come from a can. I appreciated this gesture. I could tell that someone at the diner cared deeply about my vegetable soup experience. This detail did not go unnoticed. Thank you, Soup Angel; I will never forget you.

Just as rescue workers in the Gulf face difficult decisions regarding the fate of the local wildlife, my family faces difficult decisions regarding the fate of my father. How long can a body ravaged by misfortune be expected to fight? How many birds and fish and crabs can survive this massive trauma in the Gulf, even after they have been cleaned of oil? Is it better just to let them die now rather than force them to suffer? Is it better just to let my father die now rather than force him to suffer?

The oil keeps spilling; my father keeps hovering.

And to those who constantly assure me that “good things are on the way” for me because of what I’m going through, I say: I do not believe you. The worldview you proffer reminds me of diary entries I wrote when I was eight years old. When I was a child, I wanted to believe that suffering resulted in cosmic payback – that the universe would make up for the bad by providing me with good. It is a juvenile, naïve way of looking at life, and it is not my personal experience of the world. If it is your experience of the world, then you have lived a charmed life. Sometimes suffering is just suffering. Sometimes oil spills and innocent creatures die as a result. Sometimes shit happens, and then more shit happens, and then a little more shit happens, and then you die. Plenty of good people meet a tragic end after a long period of suffering.

In the “Duino Elegies,” Rilke asks: “Shouldn’t our ancient suffering be more fruitful by now?” Perhaps not, Rilke. Perhaps not.

When a loved one dies suddenly in a tragic way, it hurts like hell and the experience shapes you as a human being and you spend years processing it. However, when that loved one suffers for a very long period of time and continues to suffer in part because you made the choice to keep them alive and you watch all of this suffering happen right in front of you, it is beyond traumatic. This is not the Exxon Valdez. This is not a tanker full of a finite amount of oil spilling into Alaskan waters. This is the fucking Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It is a ferocious, active pipeline spewing an infinite amount of oil into the Gulf. It is an ongoing trauma, and there is no end in sight. We don’t know whether to mourn or hope.

We are told my father can still recover. Doctors tell us they have “reasonable hope” that my father can one day live a normal life.

rea·son·a·ble (adjective)
1. sensible and capable of making rational judgments
2. acceptable and according to common sense
3. not expecting or demanding more than is possible or achievable
4. fairly good but not excellent
5. large enough but not excessive
6. fairly priced and not too expensive

Reasonable hope. Fairly good but not excellent. Acceptable and according to common sense. Reasonable.

The powerlessness I feel is the hardest part. Powerlessness breeds anger, and I realize my anger masks intense sorrow. I am almost completely powerless right now. I don’t even always have the power to see my father when I want; Nazi ICU staff members can deny me access to my father anytime they desire. I do not have the power to influence the ultimate outcome of this tragedy, and I cannot change what has already happened. But there is one major difference between the oil spill in the Gulf and my family’s tragedy: we can stop this at any point. While no one has yet figured out a way to stop the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, we already know how to end my father’s suffering. We can pull the plug. The only power we have is the power to pull the plug. It is the only thing we have the power to do, yet it is the one thing we haven’t been able to bring ourselves to do. It makes sense that I want to take a flamethrower to my life and destroy everything in my path; the only power I have right now is the power of destruction. Yet as long as there is “reasonable hope,” we can’t bring ourselves to exercise that power.

Yes, I want people to live up to my expectations and I am constantly disappointed that most don’t. But my father has already exceeded my expectations. Regardless of what happens, he is a hero. He is my hero. I love him so much it hurts.

Helmet-Headed Sloth

Last Thursday while I was packing up my life in New York, surgeons in North Carolina removed my father’s stomach. He now has a tiny pouch of a stomach that can hold approximately 2-3 ounces, and a Frankenstein-like incision down the center of his belly approximately 8-10 inches in length. He is still not allowed to eat or drink. Liquid nutrition is being pumped into his body through a line inserted directly into his intestines and through a second line inserted into the side of his neck. He is back in the ICU. He is unable to communicate. I have not been able to have a real conversation with my father in more than two months.

That’s the hardest part. I have listened to my father scream in agony, sat beside him with tears in my eyes while he begs me for water and food, and held his hand while doctors and nurses perform painful procedures on his ravaged body, but the hardest part of this entire tragedy has been his altered mental state. Doctors offer different theories as to why this is happening, but it seems like the underlying reason is his body is just so damn sick that the sickness has affected his mind. Doctors think it is transient; I hope they are right. I can’t talk to my daddy. I can’t seek his counsel or gain his approval or help him understand what’s going on. The one person I really want to have a conversation with right now is the person I sit beside every day yet can’t have a conversation with right now.

I feel heavy. Angry. Rarely do I risk hope. My capacity for bullshit diminishes dramatically every hour. My relationship with the world is changing. I am already a different person than I was when this started. I look and feel old. I try not to look at myself in the mirror. I hate my loss of muscle tone…my sallow complexion…my widened ass. I want to kill most people. I surprise myself by getting up every morning. I joined the Durham YMCA so I could have somewhere to work out, but every time I walk in there I am pissed off by the bible verses printed on the walls and the funky smell in the locker room and the poor grammar, punctuation and sentence structure in their posters and propaganda materials.

I stopped chanting and praying months ago. The one thing I pray is that my father not die alone. I am afraid to pray for him not to die because I am afraid to have hope. Despair seems easier. So instead I pray that he dies while someone who loves him holds his hand.

And then: what of me? I don’t know. If he doesn’t die, the road ahead is long and tumultuous and complicated. Years of rehabilitation, probably. Years. And even then he may never live a normal life again. How are we going to manage that? How are we going to finance that? So, again I ask: what of me? I am 31 years old. It’s enough to make a gal want to throw herself off a bridge.

Because at this point, I really don’t care about much. I see no foreseeable future where happiness is possible or my life can be my own, and the only future that appeals to me is one where I’m living in an igloo in an arctic wasteland or an adobe in a deserted patch of New Mexico. I don’t know how we’re going to manage financially. That scares me. I am now unemployed, uninsured, and have to ask my mother for money like I’m 12 years old again. The medical bills are piling up at an almost comical rate, and my father’s disability payments may not be enough to sustain us.

Angry. I am angry. Fucking angry. I don’t want to post this blog, but I think it’s good for you to know that I do not always handle this well. I am furious and I hate myself and I hate the world and I hate the fucking ICU staff members who deny me access to my father for whatever fucking reason they feel like.

I am sensitive-sensitive-sensitive. Ultra-sensitive. Last week, two things: 1) A friend told me that I need to see that all of this is not just happening to me. All of the pain and turmoil of the last few years of my life didn’t just happen to me but also happened to other people. What I heard from this exchange: “You are a selfish, self-centered bitch who is oblivious to the pain of others.” 2) Another friend remarked “Oh, your haircut isn’t that bad!” as soon as he saw me. Prior to that moment, I thought my latest haircut looked ok. What I heard from this exchange: “You look like shit and you should just stop trying.” I know my reactions are absurd. I know my friends did not mean these things. But I am an open, infected wound trying to pass as a human being, and every exchange with a normal human being feels like someone is sticking a finger covered in salt inside of me.

I assure you I am not oblivious to the pain of others. I did not leave my husband for many, many years even after I knew I didn’t want to be married to him because I am oh so acutely aware of the pain of others. I sob and wail in a fetal position on the bathroom floor when trying to wash my face at night because I am acutely aware of the pain of my father and my mother and my brother and everyone else going through this tragedy along with me.

I assure you I know I look like shit. I hate my hair and I hate my skin and I hate my body and I hate myself. Yes-yes-yes I am oh so aware I have had better days that I will probably never have again. I am aware that this tragedy is aging me in an irreversible way. I am getting angrier every day and now I’m convinced my hair looks like a helmet. I am an unemployed, uninsured, selfish, self-centered, oblivious, flabby, angry 31-year old woman with a helmet-like haircut driving an ancient mini-van around North Carolina while I wait for circumstances outside of my control to dictate the course of my life.

And I keep trying to write a blog this week that isn’t angry and hyperbolic and emotionally revealing, but I can’t. Someone once referred to my blog as “lazy writing.” Perhaps it is. Perhaps I am a lazy writer. But at least I force myself to show up, no matter what. And I can be nothing but completely honest and authentic. Perhaps to some, that is lazy. Perhaps I am a lazy, selfish, self-centered, helmet-headed sloth.

I do not always handle this situation very well. I post this angry, haphazard blog today without censoring it or editing it so that you can know that I do not always handle this situation very well. Today I am feeling sorry for myself. I am feeling sorry for my family. I am feeling sorry for my father…my dear, sweet, wonderful father who is being broken right in front of my very eyes.

I have earned this anger. I have earned this pity party. Today, I indulge.