I’m knocking on the door of *that* age. AARP offers are arriving weekly, along with the announcements about senior living open houses and classes on preparing for retirement. I never imagined being this age. Mentally, I’m still a teenager, at best. It is a regular challenge to reconcile my internal view with the person I see in the mirror, the hands I see in my periphery as I type.
My N-Aunt’s hands were an older version of mine–wrinkled, the skin appearing more and more like tissue paper, age spots darker and more copious. Before she died last week, at 94, she was mostly non-verbal, dementia having stolen her voice, along with most of her memories. I’ve been expecting, for months now, that one of my visits would be the last, a final handholding, a last kiss on her forehead and smoothing back of her baby-fine white hair.
When my husband was dying of cancer, I left for his hospital room every morning knowing that one day I would return home a widow. That’s just a fact, simply knowledge, not preparation. It’s not actually possible to “prepare yourself.” I’d describe it more as awareness, an acknowledgement that my role has changed from participant to spectator, witness to an ending, to a closing of that door on which my own knuckles rest.
Having spent a lot of time in N-Aunt’s memory care facility, I’ve adjusted to the sounds of people whose cognitive reality is different. A woman there chants the Hail Mary in fraying strands of sound, voice rising on the Hail Mary and fading to a whisper, before she starts again. The words blur together, barely recognizable. Over and over she chants the words, like she’s saying the rosary and is stuck on one bead. While N-Aunt Ginny dozed last week, holding my hands, I became immersed in the repetition of that prayer. I’m not religious but I hope the Blessed Mother heard her.
In a very Life of Pi experience, on my final visit, a resident called out for help removing a tiger from her room. You wouldn’t be alone finding it funny. I got a lot of mileage out of texting my eldest son about the tiger loose in the facility. It’s okay to laugh. In fact, I think laughing about the situations life throws our way is important to coping.
Today, the day after my 60th birthday, I went to the hospital for my early morning CT, MRI, and bloodwork. There was some sort of confusion. I sat in the waiting room for 30 minutes, deep breathing while I tried to concentrate on a book, the scan-xiety eating away at my confidence. Finally, I went up to the counter.
They’d forgotten to check me in when I arrived 15 minutes before my appt time. I was annoyed but kept it friendly. There was nothing malicious or intentional. It was just Monday morning. But I had to WORK at friendly. I was anxious, hungry because I have to fast before my scans (birthday dinner was just a milkshake from Page’s Dairy). Of course, according to the system, I’d missed my appointment time. I had to wait. Deep breathing can only get you so far in addressing scan-xiety.
After that awkward start, everything went awry. I had to be stuck twice to find a vein for the contrast. And that $#@% HURT today. It always stings but today it burned like lemon juice in a paper cut for like 15 minutes. Really; it was a little unnecessary and I silently cursed the IV gods for doling out a secondary punishment. The CT was not noteworthy. The MRI was odd; I think I had a trainee behind the controls (which admittedly might be a perception caused entirely by my grumpy mood a solid two hours into the experience).
Finally, I was able to head down to the lab for bloodwork. The staff there was lovely, prepared for a high volume of patients on a Monday. The phlebotomist teased me about being used as a sprinkler to water the plants, thanks to all the holes in my arms. It made me laugh, pushed aside the gray mood I’d sunk into as my hands fell asleep in the MRI (see?! A very odd MRI experience today).
Now, the waiting begins as my brain fights with my emotions. My daughter always encourages me to ignore the “my chart” app until my doctor appointment. She has experience with my scan-xiety and tends to get annoyed with me because of the torture I put her through while I worry. I don’t mean to, of course. In fact, I talk big about how I won’t let cancer control my actions. My mama would say, “The path to hell is paved with good intentions.” It’s a good thing, I guess, that I don’t believe hell is a place.
I’m at the coffee shop now. While I was in line, one of the baristas gave me my order before I placed it. I laughed and told him that he’d read my mind. That got us talking. The man in front of me in line said to me, “You don’t want to read minds because you’d know that, when you walked in the room, several people said, ‘Ick.’” Now, I know the point he was trying to make. A less open-hearted person might have taken that as offensive. Because, honestly, who suggests that a person’s arrival will make people say, “Ick”?!
He walked away with his cherry danish and I paid for my iced tea. Before I left the counter, I said to the baristas, “Just saying: No one says or thinks ‘Ick’ when I walk in a room. I refuse to believe that.” They laughed. I laughed. Seriously. That was just rude, sir. My day started rather poorly. I won’t give you, stranger, permission to make it worse.
Much love.
