Category: Uncategorized

Trauma at the Board

PTSD is not remembering, it is reliving.

The mind takes one back to the event that caused the trauma.

The trigger time-warps the person out of the present and back to the past without warning.

Instantly catapulted back to the painful event that caused the damage.

I was lecturing to an Anatomy and Physiology class at the local community college.

The subject was the cornea of the eyeball. I was describing its delicate nerve endings.

That is when I heard the scream.

I froze.

The scream belonged to a younger Rose.

Years before Rose had seized in the corner of the garden while planting flowers.

She fell face-first into the dirt with her eyes and mouth wide open.

Soil filled her mouth and eyes.

I tried to remove the dirt from her mouth. But what does one do with a dirty eyeball?

A scream erupted from Rose’s dirt-filled mouth.

A haunting, primal vocalization of deep pain that brings chills to the listener.

The sound of suffering and shock that a mother never wants to hear from her child.

Rose was rushed to an eye specialist for an eyewash and a liquid bandage on her eye.

As I stood at the board in front of a class full of students,

I heard this horrible scream again.

I stood silently with tears streaming down my face, crying about the cornea.

There was a long and awkward pause as I pulled myself back together.

My precious, puzzled students patiently waited.

I could have continued my lecture on the cornea of the eye,

but there was something more important to teach these future nurses.

They needed to know about trauma and epilepsy.

So a story was shared about Rose and me and PTSD.

Mama

Flinking

Do not be alarmed. I am not referring to copulating, although this is a scientific term.

This hybridized word involves physics, not biology.

I love the word because it describes a stage in between.

Flinking refers to a state between floating and sinking.

The density of an object is such that it neither floats nor sinks.

It flinks.

Suspended in the water below its surface.

Too heavy to float but not heavy enough to sink.

I do enjoy the concept,  but not the sensation.

It’s like the limbo without the line or the music.

I am not drowning. I am not swimming.I am not floating. I am flinking.

Motionless, powerless waiting for the current to shift and my density to change.

I have to follow through, before I can start something new.

Stinking flinking!

Flow

 

 

Enemies and Heroes

People puzzle me.

I have been living with my eyes wide open for a long time now.

It seems to me that some need enemies and some need heroes.

Folks need something to fight or follow.

I am fortunate to have a full life, so I do not feel this need.

But some folks have holes in them.

There is a void that yearns to be filled.

They need to fight a boss or spouse, so they revel in political battles.

They need a champion parent or preacher, so they follow a paternalistic leader.

I have an enemy all ready.  Epilepsy takes the battle out of me.

I have heroes in my family, one of which is my amazing Rose.

Because my life is full, I do not scroll for anger or watch a screen for inspiration.

I stay home peacefully puzzling about people while surrounded by plants.

Mama

 

 

 

More to Say to Mamas

I guess I will never be done. Not as Seizure Mama nor Rose’s Mama.

I have tried to make decisions for her separate from her epilepsy.

Why?

Is she separated from epilepsy.

Sometimes trying to be fair is sort of like trying to be stupid.

She is not separated from epilepsy, so why am I trying to make decisions like she doesn’t have it?

She wanted to study abroad, alone, in Central America over the summer.

I tried to say yes. I tried to consider her as normal. (She hates that word.)

I tried NOT to let fear be part of the formula.

A female alone. Learning the language. Eleven week$.

No for Rose. No for Epilepsy. No for mama.

I’d rather be safe than sorry.

That’s not fear talking. That’s just mama sense.

Mama

The Missing Stories

The folks who know us best will notice omissions in our book.

There are missing stories.

I see no point in sharing them with our fragile and frazzled audience.

Some are painful while others are pointless.

There are stories of folks doing the wrong thing or nothing.

Why should I shame people for trying to do what they think they can do

or not trying to do what they know they cannot do.

There is so much forgiveness in my heart that I even have some left over for myself.

I am not a doctor, nurse or pharmacist. I am only a mother.

My job was to be there and care.

That’s what I did.

So friends, if you wonder why those events that you witnesssed  have been omitted from our memoir, keep in mind…

the point of our book is to help not to harm.

My ‘Other Mothers’ need stories they can learn from.

We want to stand on the edge of the crazy cliff with them,

not shove them over it.

That’s why we are here.  To stand together.

Seizure Mama and Rose

 

Balancing Act Again

This is not my first round at restoring homeostasis.

I have been here numerous times. Camping out at a hospital.

Same circus, different monkey.

Desperately struggling to restore balance to someone I love.

Spoons to the mouth. Ice chips and water. Over and over.

Wash and dry. Cover and uncover. Up and down.

No end in sight. Day and night.

It is my parent this time, not my child.

An old body fights more slowly.

I must keep balance while helping restore his.

I keep telling this to my sister.

Nobody else can go down right now.

Not mama, not you, and not me.

One patient at a time please.

Slow and steady.

Stability.