Back to my blog home page: http://travelingotr.blogspot.com

Today is a new day.

A better day.

A day to channel grace.

GRACE!

 

As Bryan Hardwick writes, "Grace leads us toward God and toward one-another."

 

What a wonderful direction to be led....

A Long Overdue Update

Back to my blog home page: http://travelingotr.blogspot.com

Friends,

How is it that almost two months can pass, actually almost six months can pass, without writing my weekly thoughts?

I had an amazing time on The Camino.

Cruz de Ferron

Three weeks trekking across northern Spain with my twin was good for my soul. Two changes of clothes, a camelbak full of water, a sleeping bag, plenty of bandaids to keep the toes from rubbing, and some toiletries....oh, and a bag full of quartz by the time I crossed Castilla y Leon (couldn't help it, they were everywhere we walked!)...

I returned to my assignment in Kansas for a 5-week extension, and it is coming to an end next week...

In the last several months, several significant things have occurred. One of the most compelling events has been my father's diagnosis of lymphoma.
He has made it through chemotherapy and just started radiation.

It's time to take a short break from travel and be there.

Isn't this why we travel? We like the flexibility of being able to take 3 week walks in Spain. We like to go places at the drop of a hat. We like the ability to stop everything when life calls us to be there for loved ones.

So! I am taking a four-month break from working for my travel company this fall, and I am returning home. Not just my home. The home of my parents.

I still consider myself a traveling therapist. That is what I do. I go in where there is a void. I fill the void, pump up the practice, and try to leave each place better than when I arrived.

I am going to take my own little "assignment" (prn work) in two buildings near my parents' community this fall. I am excited to help out my parents and to be near my siblings. I will continue to work with our elder-crowd and look forward to spending more time writing about them again.

Yes, I have heard you. I will try to start posting more often!

I have a lot of thoughts about coming home, but I'll save those for the next couple posts. Suffice to say, life is full of circles, and at some point, we have to come around to close each one of them.

Coming Home by Gwyneth Paltrow

 

El Camino Trip, Day One

Back to my blog home page: http://travelingotr.blogspot.com

Day One:

KC to Toronto to Madrid....arrive at 4 am tomorrow.

Backpack is stocked. Passport and money ready. Hiking shoes are worn in. 

I arrive within an hour or so of my twin and her family. We'll enjoy Madrid tonight before taking a train to Leon to start that section of The Way...

I am a little nervous!! This is a little more physical and a little longer walking vacation than I have done in the past. 

3 weeks. 

Wow.

I'll try to post photos if I can download them from the internet cafes. 

Hasta luego, amigos. I'll be in touch.

Tre
 

Considerations for Families of Terminally Ill Patients

Back to my blog home page: http://travelingotr.blogspot.com

I am in the last week of this assignment! I absolutely cannot believe it. It has flown.

I have some grand plans on my break between this assignment and an extension at the same building into September. I am headed to Spain to walk a pilgrimage called El Camino de Santiago. You may have seen a movie called The Way which was directed by Emilio Estevez and whose main actor was his father, Martin Sheen. It's this path on which I will be trekking next week!

Anyway, I am working my last week on the initial contract at this facility, which I have come to appreciate....the therapy team, the residents, many others in the building, from the nurses to the dietary staff to the housekeepers.

They are good people.

So, my work week this week is Sunday through Thursday. Saturdays are always a great day to treat patients, but Sundays are sometimes a bit tough. Patients don't always want to work on Sundays.

I walked into Robert's room today. It was my first treatment with him. By the end of 45 minutes, I was pondering how amazing it is that people with terminal illnesses are able to achieve a level of intimacy with strangers like me that they are not always able to achieve with their own families with whom they have lived and loved for years.

Robert had dialysis yesterday.

How dialysis works

I asked him about it. He was exhausted.

A word I have heard from dialysis patients often is WEARY.

Within five minutes, he shared with me that he was so tired that about six months ago, he had decided to go off dialysis and onto hospice. He could not take the strenuous schedule and the exhaustion he felt after each appointment.

Robert called a family meeting. His children could not accept it. He continued on dialysis. Because of them. Not his own needs. Theirs.

This is what so many people do. They hold on because their family members are not ready or willing to let them go. They hold on out of fear of what will happen to their elderly spouse if they pass. They just hold on.

And suffer.

I cannot judge this situation one way or another. I only know that I see so many older people suffer because they do not want to let their families down. I also know  -  and maybe this is because I work around long term care - that I would never want my parent to hold on because I didn't want them to die.

So, a note to family members of people with terminal illnesses: 

Consider letting your family member know that

• you love them!
• you do not want them to suffer!
• if they feel they need to go, you support them on their journey beyond!

Can you imagine how much less suffering there might be if we could all just do that.....

Sending Constance Beyond

Back to my blog home page: http://travelingotr.blogspot.com

Remember my first patient who really inspired me at this assignment?
Constance, my 3pm appointment, with whom I loved to laugh during the Ellen Show...

She went out late last week to the hospital. She came back Monday with hospice services. Ohhhhhhh.....for all you who work in skilled nursing, sometimes those older folks you just love come home from the hospital ready for their life graduation.

Constance was laying still in her bed, covered only with a white sheet, white as a sheet herself, nasal canula supplying much needed oxygen to help her breathe. My own breath did a sharp intake.

"Oh, Constance!"

I could tell her life force was dwindling. Family had been called in. Most of the day, the room had been filled with family members. Two daughters stood outside the room.

I turned to them. "I just want you to know what a blessing your mom has been. I have enjoyed her so much!" I went on to tell them about what happened when we got together to prepare her arms for splinting.

They smiled broadly. I could tell it brought them some sense of relief from their grieving.  They encouraged me to go tell her goodbye.

I walked into the room. The hospice nurse aide was there at the bedside. I went to the other side of the bed and leaned into her ear.

I told her all the beautiful ways that she had touched my life. I wished her a lovely journey.

As I walked out of her room, I could almost close my eyes and transport myself to a building about 2 hours from here in which I had worked in the past, a building whose people handled death more lovingly, attentively and Christly than any I had ever seen.

The building had a special cart of cold and warm drinks and food. They had beautiful low music playing in the background. When the loved one passed, the body was escorted out of the building with a chaplain, followed by a member of each department, in prayer and honor to the one who had passed.

I will never forget the respect and honor that was paid to those graduates of life. I can only hope that I provide some sense of positivity to those who are preparing for their journey here.

Ben Harper's Acoustic Version

"Waiting On An Angel"

Waiting on an angel

One to carry me home

Hope you come to see me soon

Cause I don' t want to go alone

I don' t want to go alone

Now angel won' t you come by me

Angel hear my plea

Take my hand lift me up

So that I can fly with thee

So that I can fly with thee

And I'm waiting on an angel

And I know it won' t be long

To find myself a resting place

In my angel's arms

In my angel's arms

So speak kind to a stranger

Cause you'll never know

It just might be an angel come

Knockin' at your door

Knockin' at your door

And I'm waiting on an angel

And I know it won't be long

To find myself a resting place

In my angel's arms

In my angel's arms

Waiting on an angel

One to carry me home

Hope you come and see me soon

Cause I don' t want to go alone

I don't want to go alone

Don' t want to go

I don't want to go alone

A "Listen To" on Forgiveness

Back to my blog home page: http://travelingotr.blogspot.com

I've been really working on forgiveness for the past 6 years. You know, when you focus on something like that, you're given opportunities in large and small ways to really experience it! In the past week, I've shared the Forgiveness Prayer with several people who were really struggling to move forward in their day due to emotional pain they felt at the hand of someone else's action.

This morning, I open my laptop, click the favorites tab on Krista Tippett's On Being page on the American Public Media, and what is featured?

A show on Getting Revenge and Forgiveness....

oh, Universe, you are always so timely!

Take a listen, folks, we are all here to learn these valuable lessons.

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2012/revenge-forgiveness/

Embracing Those Who are Different Than Us

Back to my blog home page: http://travelingotr.blogspot.com

I pull the chart to do a review prior to the evaluation. Embedded way back near the last page of the records sent by the hospital in the middle of the PMH (past medical history) is a diagnosis of mental retardation.

Nose in the chart

Hank has been in the building twice before  and has rehabbed home both times. I ask a coworker, "Do you know Hank? There is one little diagnosis mentioned once, but nowhere else!"

"Yep." He confirms the diagnosis. "He is married and they live in a community with a group of folks who are mentally retarded...but they get married, have kids, work and get support from the community."

My memory immediately reverses to 1993 when I was working with adults with developmental disabilities in group home and community settings while I was in OT school.

I absolutely loved working with these joyful people!

I also remember the discrimination they received. I remember the uncomfortable stares when I would lead a group of five or six adults with mental retardation to the movie theatre or even through the airport to pick up a fellow client who had spent the holiday with family outside of town.

There was not always a lot of this:

Tolerance

Why do people

have difficulty

embracing those

who are

different from them?

There are philosophical and ethical discussions all over classrooms and the internet discussing whether people with mental retardation should be able to marry and have children. When I was working with this group, there would occasionally be discussions on the rights of clients within our organization and about how to handle sticky situations related to dating, sex and marriage. There was not cut and dry answer. Every situation had its own set of complexities.

Anyway, in I go to Hank's room after lunch. I knock on the open door. He is sitting with his back facing me, a frail, thin man with sagging shoulders and a bony face, but I can tell he is absolutely precious the moment I lay eyes on him.

I hear rustling in the bathroom. The bathroom door is wide open. Someone is peeing! I don't have to ask who. I stand at the doorway so I give his wife privacy. I hear the toilet flush, but no water running in the sink. Out walks the sweetest little lady with a head full of messy gray hair and a cane.

"Hi, there!" After introductions, " Did you by chance wash your hands?"

"Sure did."

A few minutes later when I go in to set up Hank up for ADLs, the sink is dry. Oh, well...on come the gloves.

I spend the next hour learning about Hank and Marta. They have been married for 59 years, have three adult children all working jobs and contributing to society. They respect each other in their communication. They demonstrate the nuances of a couple who have taken care of each other for many years. They reach out with familiarity to finish what the other could not, like Marta instinctively buttoning Hank's sleeves.

We are talking about his medical history when Hank reveals, "...and they put in a spacemaker."  He is patting his collarbone area on the left side.

On my paper, I note, "pacemaker," all the while thinking, "I am going to love working with this man." He is so earnest.

Their daughter comes in before the treatment is done. Many years ago, people would have said that she is "not quite right."

You know what? She is just right. She is outgoing, funny, loving to her parents and contributing to a better society.

I have to admit something. When I was a senior in high school, our National Honor Society hosted a Valentine's Party for the state school students, students with severe retardation and physical disabilities.

I was terrified.

I had not yet come to understand they they are beautiful souls, just in a different body and mind than in what we arrived onto this Earth.

What I know now is how deeply we are all connected. We are all here to take care of each other. It doesn't matter what color, creed, religion, socioeconomic status or intellectual level.

Let me say it again!  We are all here to take care of each other. And that means encouraging every person to shine their own individual light, their I Am essence, as brightly as they can.

Give others the opportunity to let their light shine!