IT'S ALIVE!!!

And by it, I mean me! 

I’m home, appendix free and with my brand new semi colon.  There is still a lot of pain and swelling, but I have never been more grateful to be home in my entire thirty-eight years of life.

Home is nothing short of pure bliss right now, and I promise to never complain about my kitchen again. 

Okay.  I promise to never complain about my kitchen again at least until the end of the month.

Here’s what I need to tell you about hospitals; (I used a semi colon there just for irony – thanks A!)

There are many wonderful people inside hospitals.  

Hospitals are one of the most horrible places on earth.

I spent three and a half days in a highly reputable Atlanta area hospital, 24 hours of which I was so strung out on anesthesia and pain meds I slept and vomited my way through them.  And I NEVER WANT TO GO BACK.

We have excellent healthcare available in America, and I am fully aware of the lack of healthcare many people face in developing countries.  My surgery and consequent hospital stay were in a facility I’m incredibly blessed to have such easy access to, and there were hundreds of others there receiving quality care at the same time I was.  The doctors and nurses were trained professionals, educated in some of the most widely respected medical schools in the world.  I had my own recovery room, complete with a bed, full bathroom, and a television, and I had access to any medicines or health products I could have needed at the push of a button.  Someone came in each day to clean my room, and offered to use only soap and water because of my nausea.  Someone came in each day to deliver my liquid only meals, and didn’t say a thing when he had to remove them an hour later untouched.  Someone delivered me one foot away from the car door in a wheelchair upon my discharge. 

I. Am. So. Grateful.

And yet, I NEVER WANT TO GO BACK.

I know there are children who will not get a meal today, liquid or otherwise.  I know there are babies who won’t get the medicines they need.  I know they are people who haven’t showered in three days and feel as disgusting as I did but won’t get to shower for how knows how long because they don’t have a shower or a house or food or a bed or a television or a hospital.  Please know I KNOW these things and I am so grateful. 

But y’all, hospitals are truly horrible places, and after three and a half days in one, I think America can do better.

Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing.

How can healing come when medicines are being pumped into a body that can’t take them?  When the patient, in fact, has to be the one to suggest perhaps all the heavy-duty pain meds on a continuous drip into a body that hasn’t consumed food in days might be what is causing all the nausea?  When the patient, who thankfully was coherent enough to speak and think for herself (not always the case in hospitals) has to ask if we can just try something by mouth instead?  (Advil is working just fine, my friends, and the nausea was gone almost as soon as that pain pump was removed – I really should have gone to med school, don’t you think?)

How can healing come when one person enters a room where a patient is trying to rest every couple of hours to listen to her heart and bowel sounds (it sounds like a hot tub down there in case your curious - the neighbors can hear my bowel sounds right now without a stethoscope), and then another person comes in every couple of hours, BUT NEVER AT THE SAME TIME, to take the patient’s pulse, blood pressure, and temperature?  Thinking maybe that could be the same person, since the entire process would then take a total of three minutes instead of two minutes but everything would be done at once, instead of every stinking hour throughout the entire stinking night? 

Just a thought.

Along those same lines, they could use a few more classes on time management and multitasking in nursing school, in my opinion.  Please be aware that this very humble opinion comes from someone totally and completely inadequate as a caregiver who could never be a nurse in her life and thank you to that wonderful man who held the barf bag for me and cheered for me every time I vomited into it like I had just finished a marathon.  Still, I’m pretty sure there is someone out there who could train nurses to be able to get both a bandaid and a cup of ice at the same time, preferably within less than seventy minutes.  (Just so you understand I'm not trying to be ungrateful - this was not a one time incident - this happened with every nurse, every time, with everything I needed.)

How can healing come when the food given to someone who just had almost a foot of her colon removed is full of artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and even sweeteners?  Seriously?  Italian Ice and orange Jello for someone who wants to get healthy and never have to go back to the hospital – are you kidding me?

I'm home, and although I know it is wrong, I am finding great joy in my circumstances today.  I’ve showered.  I’ve brushed my teeth and combed my hair and even had a cup of coffee with my creamer that has nothing whatsoever artificial in it.  I’ve taken a few more Advil and I’m resting comfortably in a chair in my home, and I am so very grateful.  There are people in downtown Atlanta who didn’t get to leave that hospital yesterday.  There are people all across the world who don’t have a hospital and need one.

I will remember the man who held the bag and cheered for me as I threw up into it.  I will remember the woman who offered to clean my room with only soap and water.  I will remember the nurse who told me I looked so much better when I could only have looked so much worse.  I will remember the boy who delivered my food and encouraged me to eat my grits. I will remember how lucky I am to have access to doctors with the amazing abilities to provide a higher quality of life for me.  And when I look at the six incisions across my stomach, I will forever remember what a true blessing it is to have wonderful friends who cared enough to pray for me, and a family to come home to when the worst was over.

Thank you, God, for hospitals.  Thank you for all the nurses and doctors who work in them.  Thank you for those unseen in the hospitals – the ones who prepare food and deliver equipment and test blood and stock rooms.  Thank you for medicine.  Thank you for life.  Thank you for friends, for family, and today, maybe more than any day I’ve ever known, thank you, God,

 for home.

Appreciating Georgia (Both of Them)

Dog ownership gets more educational with each passing day. Georgia is not even nine months old, but she's like this nutty professor who shows up to class thirty minutes late with broken glasses, a crooked bowtie, and plaid pants four inches too short, yet somehow leaves you with a nugget of wisdom you'll treasure for the rest of time.

I wouldn't say our doodle puppy has a whole lot of common sense.  Georgia isn't brilliant in any obvious ways.  She plays with bumblebees on the back deck, thinks she's capable of running at top speed on hardwood floors and then stopping on a dime (you really should see that trick), and believes everyone on the face of the planet wants her to lick them.   One of her most interesting habits though, is her ability to play follow the leader. 

Georgia follows me.  If I walk into the bathroom, so does she.  If I sit down at the kitchen table, she sits beside my chair.  When I go upstairs to put laundry away, Georgia simply must come along. 

Georgia knows her people.  And her greatest desire is to stay close to them.  Which, as usual, got me thinking . . .

For almost forty years, my entire world has centered on a tiny patch of earth in suburban Atlanta. I have actually resided within a ten square mile radius of Gwinnett County since the day I was born.  I did go to college seventy-five miles away, but I’m not sure that counts.  When you add it up, I was only in Athens for about thirty months of my life, and sadly, I spent most weekends coming home to do laundry instead of enjoying the purple “punch” being served out of fraternity house trashcans all over campus.   

Most of the time, I consider my native status to be unique.  I enjoy the label of homegrown girl, and I love seeing people I know almost everywhere I go because I’ve never lived anywhere but Atlanta, Georgia.  When I was at Northside Hospital preparing to give birth to our first child, I informed our labor and delivery nurse that I had been born in the same hospital.  She was astonished.  Moments like that make me feel pride in my roots. 

Occasionally, however, my pride is replaced with disgust. 

Sometimes, it doesn’t seem at all special that I’ve lived in the same location all my life.  It seems pathetic and short-sided and entirely uninteresting.  Sometimes, I go online to look up real estate in Manhattan simply for the thrill of thinking about life in a place that doesn’t have over seventy streets with the name “Peachtree” in them. 

I realize Atlanta has a lot to offer.  It's a fantastic city in many ways and a wonderful place to raise a family.  The housing prices are among the lowest in the country, there are opportunities to experience a variety of cultural and sporting events all over the city, and even with the recent blip of a floundering economy, the job market has been booming for decades. 

Atlanta has convenient proximity to a multitude of interesting adventures.  In ten minutes, I can be at any number of local parks where my children can play, ride bikes, or go fishing.  I can drive twenty minutes south to shop in boutiques bearing the names of designers whose clothing has graced fashion runways for years.  (Notice I didn’t say I do.  I said I could, if my income bracket went up a few notches.)  In half an hour, I can be lounging on the back of a boat on Lake Lanier.  Never mind that on the boat next to me, there is a sunburned woman wearing a bikini two sizes too small dirty dancing with her boyfriend while funneling a beer.  If I drive an hour north, I can go hiking and camping in the Great Smoky Mountains, and in less than five hours by car, I can frolic in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.  

There are other reasons to love Atlanta.  The city is full of jogging trails, playgrounds, golf courses, ice-skating rinks, bowling alleys, frozen yogurt establishments, malls, movie theatres, beautifully landscaped subdivisions where every road ends in a cul-de-sac, and twenty million ALTA teams. There are hundreds of restaurants featuring food from all over the planet and you rarely have to drive more than a few minutes to find the motherland Target.  True, traffic can occasionally wreak havoc on your plans and you have to know where to look to find the truly “charming” areas of the city, but most of the time, I am aware of how lucky I am to make my home in Atlanta.  There are people in the world who live without running water and paved roads and democracy.  I live in a great city.  Still, although my husband would never agree to the idea of packing up the family and moving to Soho, sometimes, I’m completely open to the idea. 

Sometimes, I think I need a change of scenery, a change of pace, a change of perspective.  I wonder if it would be good for me to spend a little time missing a few of the conveniences of which I’ve grown so accustomed.  Perhaps if I had a chance to depart from the only home I’ve ever known, I could one day return to it with a greater sense of appreciation for all it has to offer.

Maybe, if I had to squeeze my family into a four-hundred square foot apartment with a kitchen the size of a closet, I would stop wishing for marble countertops and new appliances in my current kitchen.  Maybe, if I had to walk ten blocks to find a patch of grass, I would enjoy the half-acre lot I live on now instead of coveting the house down the street on three acres.  You know, the one with the marble countertops and new appliances.  And the hand scraped hickory floors.  And the mudroom.   And the . . .

Okay, that’s enough of sharing the whole “where my treasure is there my heart will be also.”  Clearly, my heart has up and relocated to a fabulous new address, and is now unable to pay even a small percentage of the mortgage.

The thing about home though, is that it really isn’t about a house, or a yard, or even an apartment overlooking Central Park.  And when I contemplate the idea of moving away, there are anchors around my soul that keep me rooted right where I am.  Their faces fill my mind when I think about starting over in a new place, and I realize . . . my place is with them. 

My place is with my family.  My place is with my friends.  My place . . .  is with my people.  The people who know me and care for me and love me in spite of the fact that my heart is so flawed it spends more time longing for Carrera marble countertops than it spends longing for world peace. 

Home. 

It’s where your people are, and as Georgia well knows, you should always stay close to your people.   My people are in Atlanta, and for now, a brownstone in Soho will just have to wait.  


***  After reading this, I suggest you cue up "Home" by Phillip Phillips and dance around your kitchen without spending even one millisecond thinking about Carerra marble countertops.  Oh, and stay as far away from Lake Lanier as possible.