run on sentences

Siggie is like a second mom to me and Barb. She has lived with Barb for more than 30 years. She also makes the best roast beef (beast) I have ever tasted...even better than my own mom's. It is so tender it can be cut with a fork. She usually makes it for me at least once when I am back there. Recently Siggie had a subarachnoid bleed due to an aneurysm. She had a bad headache for three days and was really sleepy. But she would not go to the doctor. She told me it was because she was waiting for the doctor she liked to be available. One of the doctors at that hospital pretty much decided my mom's fatal stroke was just an ear infection. Siggie wasn't ready to die yet so she waited patiently, with blood dripping into her brain and giving her a headache, until the doctor she wanted was there. When she got to the doctor, they evaluated her and gave her blood pressure medicine and told her to come back the next day for a CT scan. She did that and the doctor said he was su...

I am winding down another visit to my hometown where there are less and less living people that I knew growing up; most of them I visit at the cemetery on my morning run. It has been weirdly hot and humid for May here, when a lot of the time the dregs of winter are still hanging around. And apparently it is wood tick season. I found one on my clothes and my brother has had several. In a small town, you can bury your own dead. Barb, Ray and I finally buried my mom's ashes next to my dad's, after a year, where she sat on her dresser - or at least her "cremains" did as they call them. My brother, played Pall Bearer and carried the ashes down to the cemetery (about a mile away), while I ran there. The pretty cemetery is getting decorated for memorial day but no one is there at 8AM so Ray dug a hole, after a little discussion (or familial argument) about where she should go and where exactly we had placed my dad; and we rather unceremoniously placed her ashes there. Our fa...

My sister is very sentimental and her emotions run deeper than a lot of people know...that is why I love her - or at least one of the reasons. Today on mother's day she sent a balloon up to heaven to my mom with a note on it - only she knows what the note said. She emailed me this picture of the balloon on it's way and it made me teary. I actually thought year 2 without a mom on mother's day would be easier and in some ways it is. I thought I was doing really well until, when I was buying something at a store, the clerk said "Are you ready for mother's day?". She was just being nice, but I replied. "I don't have a mom". She looked stricken, so I said "but it is easier this year". She still looked like she needed something else so I said, "I am a mom though!". None of it worked and I bet she will never say that to anyone else. I felt bad for making her feel bad. I didn't mean to. This year all of the mother's day sal...

My dad's dad, a rather serious Finn named Simon (I can't remember his middle name), has been dead for many years. Maybe at least 25. I was, for some reason, his favorite grandchild even though he never would let me drive a tractor cause I was "just a girl". Even in his somberness, he was more interactive and affectionate than my grandma O. who I remember as being always sure she was dying of something (and of course, eventually she was). The only time I remember her touching me was when she braided my hair in French braids that were so tight that my face stretched like the Joker in the Batman movie. Her name was Clara. She was never very positive but maybe it was cause she worked so hard her entire life and she didn't like my mom. I don't know anything about her childhood or her parents. Maybe this is because I never asked her about them. I never dreamed about her even though I loved her. I remember one gift from her. It was a music box with a ballerina that d...

A line of demarcation is where something ends and another thing begins. Literally or figuratively I suppose. The line of demarcation mostly referred to at my house is the spot where my butt cheek turns into my thigh - or where my butt ends and my thigh begins. Bruce has an affinity to this spot and even though I am half asleep, I feel his hand settle on it. He sighs and mumbles, "Ah the line of demarcation is still there". I don't know if he thinks it might go away sometime or maybe my ass will be have fallen over my thigh and there will be no line anymore. Or, my thigh could grow over my ass. So far, despite my not running for 10 weeks (yup I am counting them) this has not happened - thanks to an exercise bike and some other yoga type stretches and maybe to not having an appetite. There are other lines that have nothing to do with asses and thighs. Like the line you cross just when you have one more drink and you know you will be sick in the morning. Or... whe...

What is a banana bag? It isn't this. It's a mixture of vitamins, minerals and other things that get put in an IV bag and given to alcoholics in hospitals. It is yellow and thus called a banana bag. It is mostly vitamin B because alcohol in excess robs the body of B vitamins and alcoholics can get some bad stuff like Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (also called wet brain Korsakoff psychosis, alcoholic encephalopathy, Wernicke's disease, and encephalopathy - alcoholic) is a manifestation of thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency. It mainly causes vision changes, dizziness and impaired memory. I was thinking of these because I was at a meeting where they were discussing standardizing what is in them. Of course, being a pediatric nurse, we don't use them much so my mind wandered elsewhere during the discussion. I realized that I had first learned about them by watching ER. I guess this show taught me most of what I know about adult medicine because I have never ever worked...

Anyone who knows me knows that I am never! Speechless, that is. Well, I am now but it is because I am also voiceless. I need some Decadron, stat! Being the eternal optimist I am aware that some people have it a lot worse, but....come on! It is only March and already I have broken my leg and haven't been able to run since January 19th. I have had some, lets just say "unpleasant interactions" at work (don't want to write about work on this blog even though I am pretty sure only about 2 people read it regularly -thanks Bruce and Sis), and then last week I had a sore throat that felt like this voodoo d0ll in an old Karen Black movie "Trilogy of Terror" was stabbing knives into my throat relentlessly. On Friday I thought I was all better, but then I started coughing. My voice left me yesterday but today I sound like I have snorted helium repeatedly - I have the voice (or lack of voice) of a 90 year old lady. Shit, I say! Besides that I feel cranky too. I am goin...