The Big C

As my thoughts are prone to now, I think of my Dad and wonder how he is doing.  Recently I was awoken by a phone call from my sister to say that Dad had been taken to hospital because he was having trouble breathing.  With Mesothelioma this is to be expected but I was a surprised that he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance because I didn't realize things had become that bad.

During the phone conversation with my sister, (she is a nurse with many years of experience) we chatted back and forth as to what could have been the reason for Dad needing to go to hospital, especially considering she had only been home two days from having visited with him, and came to the conclusion that Dad was probably just short of breath because maybe he had a little anxiety related incident.  Rather than jump to conclusions and imagine all the bad things it could be, we decided to just wait and see what the results from any of the tests being performed on him were.

A couple of hours later my sister calls back to tell me that Dad was resting peacefully and breathing on his own without the aid of oxygen or any other medication, (big sigh of relief)  but that the doctors were going to keep Dad overnight for observation.  She went on to say that scans undertaken have shown that although there has been progression of his cancer, it is still confined to his right lung (this is great news).  We were concerned as "Meso Cancer", once it starts to progresses outside the lung it is all down hill from there very quickly.

I handled the news that Dad was in hospital pretty well to start with.... although surprised at the time, I am expecting many phone calls like this one.  Then, given time over the next couple of days, I starting thinking (selfishly of course,) OMG is this going to be my life now, waiting for phone calls from my sisters to tell me that Dad is in hospital because of this, or Dad is being tested for that, or Dad's not having a good day.  Selfish thoughts, thoughts, that I am ashamed to say, were filtering through my head more often that I would like them too.  

Here I am thinking woe is me, when my Dad is lying in a hospital bed, a 14 hour drive away from me, on his own, struggling for each inhalation of breath, and here I am thinking, is this going to be my life now?  How selfish is that!!!!!!!

So now that I have acknowledged I was being totally self absorbed in my thinking, mentally smacking myself around for being (understandably) a little selfish with my thoughts when the inevitable happened and my thoughts turned to be more about Dad .  I have been thinking that I can no longer hang on to the "woe is me" and I should be thinking "woe is Dad."  He is the one lying in hospital now, struggling to breathe and here I am wondering how my life is going to be.  OMG Janeen, snap the hell out of it.

I read a book once, called Life's Lessons by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. She was a world renowned expert on the terminally ill and other things.  The book changed my life in that it has provided me with some wonderful insights to how my mind works and processes things (normally with those diagnosed as terminally ill however, in one of her books she did explain how her research can be applied to humanity and not just to the terminally ill),  that happen around me.  I am really good at not holding a grudge, I process events quickly, I don't normally act irrationally and I am generally a pretty level headed kind of person.  Quite often I manage to get people really frustrated with me because my "way of thinking" supposedly isn't normal.  (Though more common than some would think.)

After having read this book "Life's Lessons" and quite a few others by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, I do have a better understanding of where my Dad's thoughts would be, but still I can't possibly understand exactly what is going to through his mind, after all I am not him and I'm only interpreting him through my own life experiences.  What on earth could he be thinking as he lays in the hospital bed, facing his own mortality?

I wondered if he was thinking about the things that he wanted to do with his life, but will never get the chance to.... and this led me to ask him when I spoke with him yesterday, "Dad if you could be anywhere in the world doing anything you wanted right now, what would you be doing?"  I am not quite sure what I was expecting his answer to be, but it certainly wasn't the one that I got.  He said simply, "Neen, I would love to be at home, sitting in a chair surrounded by you girls (there are 4 daughters) talking, chatting and reminiscing about your life and your Mum, but mostly, I just want to breathe normally again"

I thought, maybe he would be thinking about how he never got to give away his youngest daughter (me) at her wedding, how he will never see his grandchildren marry, or their children (three of them are old enough to have children but don't).  He is going to miss milestone events and moments that change history, life changing medical breakthrough's, maybe even a cure for his type of Cancer. He is going to miss family gathering's and holiday's overseas, the sun shining on his face and the smell of the sea air that he loves so much.  He won't be able to whisper "sweet dreams baby girl" when he says goodbye to me on the phone and he won't be able to tell me to "get my head in the game"  I won't hear the words "I'm proud of you Neeny Been" or, "Why did you do it that way, you should have done it like this" and he won't get to see how his idea of my happiness isn't my happiness, but his.  He won't get to see that over time, how I have changed and become healthy, and that have I found the reason for my issues and that I am working to overcome them every day.  He won't be able to look at me in the years to come with an all knowing look that says to me "See I told you you could do it, why you no wisten to me" (and no, that isn't a spelling mistake).......

Then I realized that all the things I thought he may be thinking about, were actually all the things I wanted for him and things I wanted him to experience WITH ME.  When I stopped and looked at the way I was speaking, it was all about me, and what I wanted for him.  I wanted him to walk me down the isle one day (me, who swore she would never get married all of a sudden wanted too) and it was me, who wanted Dad to see and be apart of all of these things.

I never thought just how impossible his wish would be for him.  Not the sitting around and talking to his daughters part, because that, I can make that happen.  But Dad's wish is so much more simple.... He just wants to keep breathing.




Janeen Hayes 2015

Yearning For Someone Lost

Some of you may have seen this on Facebook, but I thought I would share it here as well :)

I found this amid some stuff I was clearing out. Based on the date I am pretty sure it was about a very dear friend of mine who was taken suddenly. Funny how time lets you forget the pain.

A short piece I found that I wrote back in 2011

I turned to see your face in the crowd, but each different face, sparked only a memory. I turned as I heard a rustle in the breeze,
but as I turned I realized it was only the echoes of my mind that I heard.

I longed to see your face, feel your touch, something, anything to remind me of you. But then I realized that all I had to do was shut my eyes, turn my face toward the sun, and it was you that was shining down on me.

I wanted you to hold me and tell it was okay, but all I had to do, was hold out my hand and a friend whose heart you had touched, would reach out and hold my hand in your place. I discovered that although I can't see you, you are in the touch of that friends hand.

I wanted to hear your voice and laugh with you, until it dawned on me that if I listened closely enough, you were in the voices of the people talking to me. Your voice was whispering to me, through the voices of all the other people around me.

When I needed to know if you are there walking beside me, protecting me, guiding me and helping me through each day, I know, that all I have to do is reach out to a friend. YOU will be there. In their words of wisdom, in their comforting touch, or in their hand held in mine, it is at those times, that I will know, YOU are there with me.

© Janeen Hayes 2011

Love is Just a Word...

I was watching a short video of Marc Mero (let me premise this by saying I had no idea who he was when I watched this video) talking to a group of mid teens about how the common belief is that the people we associate with, define the person we are and whom we become.   But what really made me stand up and listen to the rest of his video was his next sentence..... (I'm paraphrasing here).... "but that isn't true, it is the choices make when faced with decisions that make us the person we become."

And I got to thinking how abundantly clear and concise this message was.  Of course, it isn't something that I haven't heard before and it isn't something that I am sure I have proven myself over time, so what was it about this video that made me stop and actually listen to what the speaker had to say?  Was it his story, was it his stage presence, was it his voice, was it his surgically altered (well it looks it to me) face, was it this mountain of a man wearing jeans and a t-shirt pacing back and forth across the stage.  No, it was the look on the faces of his audience that captured my attention.

Then I listened, not just with my ears, but with my eyes as well, I listened to the reactions of the students when he reached the punchline of his story, what they heard, how they cried, how they then reacted to each other by reaching out to their friend sitting next to them, or how they quickly glanced around the room to find the student next to them also silently crying.  It was a student shaking his head at the tragedy of the speaker's story and almost the look of "I will never do that" that came over his face.  It was the young girl who drew in a deep breath when she realized the truth about the words that she was hearing.  It was the expressions of realization that made me watch the video again to make sure I wasn't seeing things and to listen again with my ears as well this time, to the story I was being told.

I absolutely believe that when a student is ready to learn a lesson, it's teacher will appear.  We never know in what form, or how the lesson will be taught or how long it will take to learn, but learn it we do.  Even though many times I have heard and even had this discussion about life's choices and how they define us..., I never really stopped to think about it in an everyday kind of way.  Every day I make choices from numerous stimuli but never stop to consider. "what happens if..."  Some of these decisions are made instinctively, and majority of the time none of the decisions I make are life altering or personally defining.  I just make decisions and then go on with my life, negating to reflect on the decisions I have made throughout the day and how they have changed or affected change in me as a person.

At the end of his video, Marc Mero made the following statement "Love, is just a word until somebody comes along and gives it meaning."

This was a very poignant statement to me, and I found myself nodding my acceptance of what he was saying to ring true to me.  Love. The amount of things we can do with it are just amazing to me.  We can accept it and give it, revel in it, dream of it, hug it, sing about it and read about it.  We can relish in it, we can ignore it, run from it, or run to it and we can hide from it or we can shout from the roof tops that we have found it.  We can live for it, we can die for it, we can even be a little bit shy of it. But we all need it.  Love can be good for us, or it can prove to be our downfall, but a ride it is on the way down.  It can make us strive for perfection or we can accept that it will never be perfect.  We can fight for it, or we can fight against it.  We can all give it, and we can all take it.  We can also use it as a filler word, like, I love french fries, or I love that song..... but like anything, there is a point at which time, love becomes a thing and not just a word.  Until you actually feel love, it somehow just isn't real and can't be trusted.

In order to feel love, we have to want it more than we don't.  We have make the choice to love, not hate.  We have to make the decision to accept love into our life, we have to find that little something to start our love off with, and then progress onto bigger things, more worthy things, like, ourselves for example.

I love, I love a lot of things, and believe my life is richer for doing so.  I know what it feels to be hopelessly in love and to love with an intelligent heart.  I know what it's like to love with abandon and innocence.  I know what it's like to trust with love and to have the trust of love broken, I know what it's like to be afraid of love, but more importantly I also now, know what it's like to embrace love.  I open my heart to every person I meet, sometimes it stays open and other times it shuts down immediately, instinctively.....

What I actually know about love could be summed up and wrapped in a little package with a bright red bow and labeled "Choice" Because it is true, until we choose to let love into our lives, there is no light, and we have nothing to compare it too.  Love may come in different forms, different shades or even different levels of feeling, but if you choose to let love in,  you will definitely give it meaning and you will be defiantly making the choice to live a life with love.

That's a damn fine choice as far as I am concerned,  Go on, give love a chance you deserve to give it meaning.

I no longer live in time, I live in moments of time that are filled with love.  Remember,  it's not what's in your pockets that makes you rich, it's what's in your heart.  I know mine is filled with love.

Horses to Water

I have learned a very valuable life lesson recently.  I was asked recently by a dear friend if I was okay because, like everyone these days, I have a lot going on.  Some would call what is going on in my life quite exhausting and emotionally draining, others would tell me to drink a cup of cement to harden the F up and just get on with it.  Both of these attitudes though are totally acceptable to me because both are true.

Some of you would be aware that I have my FIL (Father-in-Law) who has been quite ill and my dad has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.  These two events by themselves are breaking my heart, but wait, there's more!!!!

My MIL (Mother-in-Law) had chest pains recently that were bad enough for her to be taken to emergency.  After many hours, several tests and a few jabs of a needle later, she has been diagnosed as having an aortic aneurism complicated by two calcified arteries that will require she undergo open heart surgery to rectify the issue, and....repair the aneurism at the same time.  All very curable and all very common.

My FIL was back in hospital for a week with fluid on his lungs (now under control,) but also recently my Dad went on what was supposed to be the cruise of his ever shortening life, only to spend the whole two weeks with a cold.  The cold developed into pneumonia that resulted in him going from the airport to the hospital where he stayed for a few days while docs got his symptoms under control.

Unfortunately Dad has now developed a cough that will be with him until the end and his shortness of breath is critical during any coughing stint he has. Apparently these fits happen about 2-3 times a day but...... he does have medication which has apparently reduced the severity of the coughing which is totally awesome news.  Also awesome news on the Dad front is the Cancer, though progression is evident, it is still confined to one lung so this means, his life expectancy is now 3-6 months further than originally thought.  Yay with that news. I am happy dancing here - believe me. 

Anyway.... prior to my FIL being back in hospital, Steve and I had been discussing whether we should get both of his parents assessed for, what I call, high care, low care, no care, considering their individual ages and combined health issues.  Our intention was to hopefully obtain help for them through community services dependent on the level of care they are eligible for.  We spoke with MIL and organised for her to take her forms to the doctor to get a disabled parking permit giving her more time to get to and around the shopping centre to do her groceries etc.  I researched and downloaded information sheets on the type of things that both In-Laws may be eligible for, all aimed at helping them both age in place, and negate, if possible, the need for Steve and I to look for nursing home or assisted living accommodations on their behalf.

We (meaning Steve and I) would love to be able to help the in-laws, be there for them every agonizing step they take that they need help with, and we would like to see them both look after themselves a little better.  Steve and I want FIL to stop smoking so that if he happens to drop off to sleep, (he is prone to do this all the time) MIL doesn't have to worry about the house burning down around her. FIL has been known to fall asleep with a cigarette in his mouth, hmm not good right!!  Maybe if FIL were to watch his sugar and get his diabetes under control, exercised, or basically just became more active, we would have less to worry about.  Try as we might and with all the good intentions, the In Laws are both slowing killing themselves.  Steve and I sit there and watch it happening in front of us because nothing that we say seems to be having an impact on them.

Then I remembered the age old saying that "you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink".  I am not sure of the origin of this saying nor am not trying to steal it from anyone or claim ownership of the saying at all.  Just wanted to be clear on that ;)  But never has this saying been more true than when it comes to the In-Laws and what is happening with them.

My father who is terminally ill and is 7 years older than the FIL, is fitter and healthier than my FIL is right at this moment.  What makes me and Steve really mad is that my dad doesn't have any choices to make that will help him, his illness is what his illness is.  Dad can't go on a diet to loose weight to make walking around his property easier, he can't make a decision not to have cream in his coffee or to ignore his diabetes, or care that it is or isn't under control and my dad can't give up smoking to enable his breathing to be less labored.  My dad doesn't have these life choices to make, his fate has been sealed and no life choices will change the outcome.

It was with these thoughts whirling around in my head that led me to this realization and my life lesson, when my friend simply asked me "How are you going with everything that is going on in your life?"  There was only one answer that I could think of to tell her, and that was, I'm great.

I realized in that moment, that I was okay, that Steve was okay, that together our lives were actually going really well. All of this that I have told you, isn't happening to us, it is happening to them, and although I don't necessarily like it, (nor does Steve for the record), but his parents and my dad, have more than earned the right to live their lives as they want to.  It is us that wants them to change, it is us that wants them to do things our way, it is us that is telling them to they need to completely change their lives, uproot themselves from the only life they have known all for what we consider to be, a better life for them.

So what happens when they are happy existing and not living, so what happens when we give them all the information they need to start to look after themselves and they don't listen, read or care that it is there at all.  What do we do, when no matter how much we want them to change for the better, because we know what is best for them but they don't.  What happens when they say no, through their actions, that they are not interested in changing their lives.  Do we stop helping, do we stop running to help them when they call and ask for us to stop and get them a paper because one of them has fallen and the other doesn't want to walk down the driveway because they are scared they might slip (for the record, it IS a terrible driveway and I hate walking down it when it has been raining).... So what do we do?

As children looking after parents, I realized that the roles are now changing and the children become the parents and the parents the children, I realized that I can't control them or the way they live their life, I can't make them do anything they don't want too, and provided they aren't injuring anyone or putting my life or anyone else's life at risk, I really have no right to tell them what they should and should not be doing.  They can continue to live their life however they want to.  It doesn't matter that we don't agree, it doesn't matter that we "think" we can see what is best for them and it certainly doesn't matter as long as they are still showering, eating, cooking and cleaning themselves albeit with a little bit of help from their son and DIL,  I may not like, but it is what it is.

But even through all of this realization that they are not going to change and that they are going to continue to live their lives however they want to, I can, with my hand on my heart swear to the higher powers, that I am not ever going to stop, leading them to the water in the hope that they will take a drink.

That Moment In Time

Have you ever felt?

That moment when something touches you so deeply you want to both cry and laugh at the same time?

 
That moment when the profoundness of what is happening around you reaches inside you and draws you inside out until you are tied up in never ending knots? 

That moment when you are questioning everything you once knew to be true but which has now led to doubts that you actually understood just how true it was to begin with?

 
That moment in time when you surrender yourself to the universe to becomes its child of innocence and wonder?

That moment when you surrender yourself to learning again, what it really feels like to acknowledge just one moment in time.

This is was a moment in time that I spent with someone special.  It was a moment in time, that changed my world.

It is these moments in time, that make life worth living.