The Ninth Monthiversary

And just like that, it's a new year

and the ninth month without my mother.

The pain has decreased somewhat, 

but I find when the memories hit

they hit hard.

I'll go for days doing ok,

but then a memory will strike...

a scene will be replayed...

and, suddenly I am back to the moment that she died...

or back to the morning before she died...

or back to the week before she died...

and, I start to question myself over and over,

and the tears come

and the pain starts up again,

and I find myself wondering for the 100th time

if there was anything else I could have, should have, would have done...

A year ago she was leaving the hospital and starting rehab...

and I go back and replay the day she fell...

what could I have done differently...?

How should we have handled her rehab differently..?

What else...?

Always, what else...?

or... what if...?

Yeah, let's go down that rabbit hole one more time...

No matter the pathway, I end up back here,

trying to reassure myself I did everything I could,

I fulfilled all her wishes,

I made her last moments peaceful,

at least I pray I did...

because that causes the most doubt of all,

that I didn't do something right at the end...

when it really mattered...

btw, the little foot is an etching I noted where the new concrete was poured

in the back yard of my mother's home...

just her name and the date,

I don't know the significance of the foot...

I wish I did...

H is for Home

This is the home where my mother has lived 

the last 45+ years of her life.

And this is my home where my mother lives now with me...

It was a hard decision having her come stay with us,

but after she had fallen 3 times in 2 weeks we knew it was time.

She fought us.

She didn't want to lose her independence.

She didn't know what was going to happen to her mail,

her bills, who was going to take care of....?

I had decorated her room previously with all her favorite colors.

Since she's moved in, she's changed the curtains,

the linens, we've hung her favorite painting which

she brought from her old house, and we've added

small details to her room to make it her own.

Now she loves to sit in her chair and watch the

daily ins and outs of the chickens and geese.

She marvels at the new goslings, and tells me the latest in 

which rooster is fighting which other rooster for which hens.

She's made it her home...

For how long, we're still not sure,

but she still here.

November Notes, Day 14

"Racing for Home"

This stained glass window now sits at the top of the stairs

leading to our master bedroom.

It was the icing on the cake

topping two stressful weeks trying to get

things done before our annual Fall party.

I sail, and my husband hang glides

so we're both represented here.

I love how the clear glass picks up the color

of the landing really enhancing the sunset feel.

I'll be sitting and staring at this for many days to come...

Birthday Shuffle Year V - Day One - Home

Four years ago, I was a month away from finally realizing one of the dreams 

I had been working toward for many years... my own house.  

I started the "myPod Shuffle" then to count down the days until we would be able to move in.

I've done it every year since as a means of keeping up my blog,

and also to remember the path that brought me here

through the music on my iPod.

We had actually bought the house in April, but we gave the prior owners a few months to be able to transition to their new house.

Our house in July 2011

The house was built in 1980 and had not been worked on since.

We came up with the "5 year plan" and started to work

on making the house our own...

Over the last 4 years, dramatic changes have been happening 

on both the outside and inside of the home.

Here are the ways in which the outside changed...

This is how our home looks now...

There are still a few more changes that need to be made;

windows, deck, landscaping, etc... 

but I'm feeling proud and blessed to be able to call this place

my home...

I hope you'll join me over the next month as I celebrate another birthday month,

relive my memories through the music on my iPod,

and maybe I'll share a little more of the home and life 

I've built in this little corner of Northern California.

#297 to 264 - Z is for Zombie Apocalypse

Thank you for visiting my blog throughout this month.

I hope that some of you will stay and continue to follow

my blog throughout the rest of the year.

Although this month I focused on fun things

like travel and photography,

at the heart of it all, I am a doctor...

in the Emergency Department...

working in areas with high levels of

drug abuse,

homelessness,

unemployment,

and poor education.

There's a lot of trauma and drama

some of which I write about here.

I share stories and pictures when I can,

but I do work in a rural area some of the time,

so it's hard to keep HIPPA-compliant and

still give a complete story... 

Nevertheless, I do write a lot about my own experiences

and feelings.

And my beliefs on the importance of taking responsibility

for your health and that of others.

So I write about those things as well.

As for the Zombie Apocalypse..?

Well, methamphetamine abuse is high in the areas where I work.

If I could just videotape the patients that come in high on meth,

or the medical problems that meth brings

I'd have hours of tape to share to hopefully

keep someone from going down that road.

You can Google "meth mouth," "meth skin,"

"the faces of meth" to see what I see every day.

People prostitute themselves for meth.

They steal whatever they can for meth.

They come to the ED for drugs that they can then trade for meth.

I had a patient tell me yesterday that they lost their medical insurance

so they couldn't see their doctor for their chronic pain condition

so they were "self-treating" with meth.

I know they were going to take whatever prescription 

I wrote them and sell it.

Irony is, because they were homeless with no ID, the pharmacy

called to tell me they couldn't fill the script.

And, because of the effects on the brain, there's no

reasoning with these patients.

They don't understand that methamphetamines will lead to being tired

or weak or shaky because the effects are like running a marathon, full out,

without important things like eating or keeping hydrated.

They don't understand that the "worms under the skin" that they see or feel

are because of the effects on the nervous system.

So they pick at their skin to the point of causing bleeding

which leads to scarring and, worse yet, infection.

Which can lead to sepsis, possible amputation and sometimes death.

Pain management is a huge issue with these patients

as meth has fried out all of their pain receptors so now

pain which to you and I might be handled with a Tylenol now

requires large amounts of narcotics.

Don't even get me started on the dental problems...

Whew!  I thought we needed a nice pastoral scene from

the little chunk of Earth I call home...

Chickens and geese, I write about them too....

Hope to see you again soon...!

p.s. In July I do a birthday iPod shuffle where I write the whole month

about songs on my iPod, and I participate in NaBloPoMo in November

Day 13 - A Little Dab Will Do Ya....

I've always hated this wallpaper

Watch it slowly disappear...

Voila!  Gone...!

It only took three years...

And the bathroom... gone is the obnoxious wallpaper trim...

Now a pretty peach look...

Don't even get me started on the chandelier in the mother-in-law....

sweet...!!

#123 - The First Day

It's that time of year again...!

NAtional BLOg POsting MOnth...!

I've done it every year for the last several years.

Really want to get to the point where I can do the NaNoWriMo,

where you write a novel over the next month,

but I still can't get my timing right... 

sigh, maybe next year...

Regardless, thanks for visiting my little spot

of the interweb and reading my daily musing.

Since, this is the time of year I get a lot of new readers,

I thought I would tell you a little about myself and my

little world.

To start, I'm a doctor.

An Emergency Medicine doctor.

That means that I work in the Emergency Department

of several hospitals in both Northern California where I live

and in Sacramento where I have been traveling to for the last year.

I live in a small country town where cows just might

outnumber people, and where it's usually rainy,

except for this year, where we had an unusually mild winter and long summer.

We bought our house about three years ago,

and have been doing A LOT of work on it to make it a home.

But we do enjoy the views.

And the dogs, Dixie (red) and Dillon (blue) do enjoy

having many acres to run around on

and a river and beach close by to run on as well.

Plus they have their own blog which you can read here:

Livin' La Vida Dog

Some of my friends say they travel more than anyone they know...

cause they do...

cause we do...

Like our 3,000 mile National Park tour

from this summer...

Work hard, and play hard...

and, although I might sometimes be a little 

irreverent, you have to remember

that

I see a lot of people on the worst day of their life

and try my hardest to not let it be the last day of their life.

I hope you'll enjoy this month-long journey...

and, I'll try to keep the stories interesting...

Thank you and cheers...!!

MyPod Birthday Shuffle IV - Day 28 - Come Home

This is my faithful Jeep Cherokee

that carried us over the last 8 days

over 3000 miles.

What a trip!

And, this is the final bridge that we cross

which is only about 5 miles away from home...

It's always good to be home...

Christmas Countdown - #10 - I'll Be Home For Christmas

I've traveled a lot over the last several years.

From College to med school to internship and residency,

there's been a lot of times that just the thought of being home for

Christmas made the journey worthwhile.

I think that on every trip home, I probably 

had this song running through my head.

I'm sure that a lot of people can certainly relate.

This year, it's another trip away from home to work

in Sacramento over this next week.

I'll be driving home to arrive just before Christmas Eve.

You can be sure I'll be thinking of a nice warm fire,

all my decorations, and my hubby and fur kids waiting for me

there in our wonderful home...

"Christmas Eve will find me

where the love light gleams.

I'll be home for Christmas,

if only in my dreams."

How Long Has It Been...?

 Wow, after a feverish month of blogging daily, I have gotten lazy, haven't I...?

Let's wrap up:

On the 30th we had, what's becoming, our annual Wine and Mushroom party.

It was wet, sloppy weather and the chanterelles were a bit waterlogged,

but I made a fantastic sangria, plus opened several other special bottles I had

laying around the house, and we had a lot more people show up than last year.

All in all, a LOT of fun, and it really highlighted my lack of seating

since everyone chose to sit around the kitchen table and eat appetizers

instead of milling around.

That weekend I started my decorating for the holidays.

Here's the trim for the fence at the end of the driveway.

I love those big ornaments, but somehow 2 have disappeared, 

and I can't account for how that happened.

I have a thing for silver reindeer, and I added a couple more to the collection.

The slender deer in the middle of the picture is one of the new ones.

He's looking very handsome and is a nice addition to the herd.

We have green eggs!  

This means that at least one of our latest 2 hens are starting to lay.

As you can see, there are 4 different colored eggs, so at least 4 of the 13

(well actually 10 since 3 are roosters) chickens are laying now.

This will be great and I won't have to buy as many eggs when I start

my massive holiday baking projects.

I tried my hand at Southern Fried Pie.  Here are two attempts next to my final

all American apple pie.  My husband performed the taste test.

Not quite like his aunt used to make, but still deemed yummy.

Having done this, now I know what I need to do for the next trial.

But, first we've got to dry some more apples...

Our county is one of the "pilot" counties in the state for the California Medical Foundation "Walk With a Doc" program.  I led last weekend's walk in my town, and despite the rain and 38 degree weather, almost a dozen people showed up to walk the almost 2 mile route I had planned.  I brought the dogs which helped keep us at a brisk pace.  All in all pretty successful, and if anything it got me out of the house to exercise.... and, so should you!

Speaking of the dogs, they really do travel well.  We went on a 12 hour car ride to pick up my mother for the holidays.  The dogs slept most of the time.  They behaved well during our pit stops.  And, they didn't get annoying during those "drive thru" meal stops.

 

Then twelve hours back on the road, which leads us to the present.  

Momma's here to spend the holidays with us, and Dillon just loves his Gramma.  

Cheers to you and hoping you're able to spend time with loved ones

during this holiday season!

NaBloPoMo Day 10 - Our House

I haven't written about our house in a while so I thought I would do so tonight.

The house was built in 1980 by a gentleman who was the landscaper at the local community college.

We found out students from the college actually built the house...

this explains a lot!

The house was then bought 17 years ago by the people we later bought it from.

They really didn't do too much to the house or the landscaping,

so we've (read my husband) been doing a lot of work on the house

and clearing the land of 17 years of overgrowth.

From the time we got the house, I knew that it needed a more contemporary look.

Our architect gave us a design and we started working on it last summer.

We like to call it the "Five Year Plan."

This is a little wrap up of Year One.

Step one... build a dormer to make more room for the master bedroom and bath.

Our carpenter got to work and BAM!

suddenly there was a hole on the side of the house...

A little framing and soon there's a new bathroom!

 

Here a frame...

A little covering...

A little siding, some new windows, and the start of a whole new look...

Cheers to the changes that will come in Year Two...!