Struggling in Secret

Overwhelmed. That is the only word for all the emotions I'm feeling.

Overwhelmed by the issues facing Lindsey. Overwhelmed with the amount of information I'm learning about GI conditions, about natural treatments and cures, and the impact diet may have on a person's digestive system. Overwhelmed by thinking of the possible causes of Lindsey's issues, be it a physical ailment or an emotional one that affects her physical body.

More wonderfully, overwhelmed by the support and advice of my tribe.

Here's what I've learned through sharing our family's story: lots of people have been through this. Many parents told me stories of their teenage children struggling with digestive symptoms for which no "standard answer" was found. Each of them went down different paths of doctoring, diet, supplements and therapy. Most of them eventually got to an answer, but for some, the answers took years. Years. That might be fine for adults, but for teenagers, that's their entire adolescent experience.

My question is this: Why are we all struggling in secret? Let's share our stories, pool our knowledge, and find the quickest and surest path to health. Yes, the causes are different, the ultimate answers are different, but the symptoms are the same. How are families getting their children to school when they are struck by random bouts of diarrhea? What diet changes did they find worked? What didn't work?

Keep in touch, keep talking, share knowledge to help those coming down this path after you. I can guarantee I will do the same for you.

Leave of Absence

One thing that always brings a smile to Lindsey's face: Beauty.

Nothing has yet solved Lindsey's GI issues. Not the detailed food diary she's been keeping that we are pouring over, looking for potential food triggers. Not eating small, bland meals every two hours. Not the GI specialist, with whom we had probably the absolutely worst visit with a physician that I've ever experienced. Not a daily dose of Zantac, herbal teas, probiotics and other medicines.

Of the four full weeks in February, Lindsey missed school for three of them. She missed two straight weeks, went back to school for a week, then the stomach issues came back again full force.

I felt guilty leaving Lindsey home alone for hours at a time while everyone was at work or school. And I know she wasn't taking the best care of herself. We would come home to see the doses of medication still sitting on the countertop, herbal tea packets unopened, and for lunch she had a bag of gluten-free chips. Yes, she's a usually a mature, responsible girl, but when it comes to caring for her health, she is still 13.

The stress for our family became apparent when what was supposed to be a "quick" run for a blood draw over my lunch hour turned into a 4-hour ordeal. We ended up waiting in the emergency room for a blood draw, because that was the only place in the hospital that would use a "j-tip" for the procedure, which makes it completely painless.

Guess what waiting for a procedure you're already nervous about does? Yep, it increases your anxiety.

Lindsey nearly passed out during the procedure. It's a good thing she was already prone, or we would have been picking her up off the floor. She actually doesn't remember much of it because she was so out of it.

Instead of going back to work, I ended up stopping in the office to pick up my laptop so I could work remotely for the latter part of the afternoon. I missed a strategy meeting that I was looking forward to participating in. Lindsey apologized to me for taking so long for what should be a simple blood draw.

My child, apologizing to me, for having anxiety around a condition that is causing her pain. This was too much.

That evening Wayne and I decided that I would take a leave of absence from work to manage Lindsey through this, whatever "this" is. I was trying to work a full-time job while working another full-time job as Lindsey's healthcare and education manager. It wasn't fair to my employer, to Lindsey, and especially to me.

Unfortunately the timing is bad at work, with a couple of people having recently left the organization. I was willing to work some hours at home to keep projects moving along, so we arranged it so that I am working part-time on a temporary basis, able to come back to more hours when things get better at home. I am so grateful to work at a place that is so understanding and accommodating.

And so this week our new reality begins. We are all hoping that we can get to a diagnosis and a solution for her soon. I do not wish for this to become our "new normal," I'd rather go back to our old normal, thank you very much.

What Now?

How ironic that I just posted about solving Lindsey's tummy troubles and trying a dairy-free diet. I wrote in such hope that perhaps dairy-free would be the answer, while also wishing that it wouldn't be because this Wisconsin girl finds dairy-free cooking/eating to be exceedingly difficult.

What's more difficult is taking the day off work to spend 5 hours in the ER with your daughter who cannot eat a thing without pain.

She missed school on Monday due to diarrhea and a stomach ache. She didn't eat all day, ate dinner with us that evening, and spent the evening curled up in a ball in agony.

I was hoping that a good night's sleep would help (now I ask myself, "help what?"). She awoke late Tuesday morning groggy, having not slept well due to a stomach ache all night. I couldn't coax her to eat until 11:30 or so. She had a brunch of a fried egg, gluten-free toast with jam, and a small side of potatoes. Granted, not the most balanced meal, but not the worst thing I've seen 13-year-olds shovel in their mouths.

She went up to her room and 20 minutes later I checked on her. She had beads of sweat on her forehead and was rolling in her bed in pain. She probably would have thrown up had it not been for her fierce aversion to vomiting.

We were in the ER by 12:30 and discharged around 4:30, not bad for a major metro emergency room. After an X-ray and a blood draw, they determined that she has no blockage, no inflammation, no other exceedingly obvious problems that would cause these issues. We already had an appointment with a pediatric gastrointestinal specialist (which is pronounced "expensive"), but not until late March.

The good news? All the scans the GI specialist would want are already complete, and Lindsey's anxiety around a blood draw doesn't have to be dealt with in the near future.

The bad news? She went home from the ER still uncertain as to whether or not she could eat without pain. Sure enough, about 30 mins after her gluten-free, dairy-free dinner, she had a stomach ache and diarrhea. But she managed to keep it down and isn't losing weight.

I suspect we have more tests and screens in our near future. And, I'm hoping, answers and relief.

Tummy Troubles

Lindsey has been dealing with on and off stomach aches for several years. When she was younger, we chalked them up to what most parents think -- nervousness or a desire to miss a school day.

In the past couple of years they've become more troublesome and frequent. Lindsey noticed that she was often feeling bloated after eating pasta or breads. One evening I watched her gobble a plate of spaghetti and not even 10 minutes later she was groaning with a stomachache.

I recommended that she try cutting gluten. The stomachaches had finally gotten bad enough that she was willing to cut out her favorite food; pasta.

We found a decent gluten-free pasta, and I started substituting GF flour for regular flour in my cooking. It took a few tries but we found a decent GF bread. Her stomachaches got better, fewer in frequency and not as severe.

She's been gluten-free for 18 months, and for most of it her stomach troubles have been better. That is, until recently.

In the past six months or so she's been having issues again. One day she stayed home due to a bout of diarrhea in the morning. She felt better by noon so she went to school, only to have an accident at recess. I felt so badly for her.

Once again, we wondered if the stomachaches were due to stress or anxiety, but the very real physical symptoms were not at the same time as her stress. She would be working on a big school project, complete it and turn it in, and the following week be out with terrible tummy troubles.

I took her to an integrative medicine physician, who recommended that she take probiotics and switch to whole milk from 2% milk. (Really?) I took her back to the pediatrician recently who weighed her and measured her, and determined that she is gaining weight and growing, which is all good. By the time of this appointment Lindsey reported to her that she was getting a stomachache every afternoon after lunch. Every single day. I would think that knowing that you're going to be in pain after eating would keep you from eating at all.

The pediatrician recommended that we try cutting out dairy as well, knowing that Lindsey had a milk allergy as a baby. On our way home from the doctor's office we bought almond milk, vegan butter and a new probiotic to try.

It's been one week, and Lindsey's had one episode, but for the most part has been feeling well. In the meantime, I am struggling to create gluten-free, dairy free meals the entire family will eat. I made mashed potatoes the other evening with almond milk, and while everyone ate them, they tasted gritty to me. A favorite recipe of ours of chicken with a white wine and sour cream sauce turned out too tangy because there was no dairy to cut the acidity of the wine.

I am hoping that this will be the beginning of the end of her GI troubles. In the meantime, we're all eating healthier, less processed foods.

Ice Booms

My sister and I took a walk on Lake Harriet at dusk recently. And yes, I mean ON Lake Harriet. Despite the recent warming spell, the ice was still over a foot thick and safe to walk on.

We walked toward the Minneapolis skyline and bandshell. Icefishers were on the ice and in shanties, their boots crunching on the snow, voices echoing over the expanse of ice.

Sunset.

Downtown Minneapolis catching the sunset.

We stood in the middle of the lake and listened to the silence. It was peaceful and beautiful, and broken by a strange sound. It was a pinging sound that started on one side of the lake and made its way around the shore, a high-pitched twinge. We heard it again in a few minutes, and then again. Finally we realized that it was the ice shifting, as it was dusk and the ice was re-freezing after a sunny day.

It was eerie and amazing at the same time. We both thought of my dad, and of how he loved Lake Superior with its alternating strength and stillness. Kristi recounted going to the shore of Lake Superior with my dad after my grandfather passed away 20 years previous, to see and hear the ice shivering between solid ice and open water.

We began to walk off the ice, and stopped for one last look around, hoping for one last ice boom. The final one came from under our feet. It sounded like a glass breaking in slow motion, following by the pinging sound that reverberated around the lake.

It was wonderful to take in the sights and sounds of the lake in the heart of the city.

Standing Up For Each Other

I believe that it is important that we teach our children how to participate in this American experiment called democracy. I'm not going to get into politics except to say that no matter your position, for democracy to work, we have to participate.

So when I heard that a women's march was being organized for the day after Trump's inauguration, I suspected that it would be big. The march wasn't about reproductive rights, or racism, or gender equality, it was about all of those things -- that women's rights are human rights.

Only Lindsey was interested in coming with me. Marissa was worried that people were going to get  hurt; she didn't want to come near it.

After hearing Marissa's concern, and seeing pictures of this sign at the march in California, Marissa's hesitation gave me pause.

"I'm gonna see you nice white ladies at the next #Black Lives Matter march, right?"

This sign was created by Amir Talai, a Persian American actor in California. He has been involved in the Black Lives Matter movement for the past few years; he talks about why he wrote this in this interview by Fusion.

Living in Minneapolis, I've had lots of opportunities to get involved in various demonstrations and protests. Yet I never stepped forward before, nor would I have had my children attend, either.

I had to ask myself, "Why?" The struggles for equal rights is real for people of color -- why haven't I joined them before? It's not that I don't care or haven't considered participating; I have friends who are very involved and they frequently have invited me to join them at various rallies and gatherings.

The answer was easy: I did not feel safe at those gatherings. And not for the reasons you may think.

Let me tell you the story of another march.

This past November, Black Lives Matter organized a march involving Minneapolis Public Schools. Students were invited to take part by leaving their classrooms near the end of the day and gathering in downtown Minneapolis in a route approved in advance by the city. The children of friends and acquaintances took part in this, leaving Southwest High School and walking down the street with signs and banners, then made their way to downtown Minneapolis to join the students from other MPS schools.

Once near the US Bank stadium, on the previously approved march route, police pepper-sprayed the crowd. These are high schoolers, kids from 14 to 18 years of age. My friend's 14-year-old daughter was traumatized by the experience, her eyes swollen shut, her emotions raw from the chaos and fear of the incident.

The media did not cover the peaceful gathering, the police "protection" which turned into violence against the students. It was just another protest by another disgruntled niche of our diverse society.

Need you ask, it was mostly students of color who participated in this march. Their Caucasian counterparts did not join them. If they had, I suspect the police response would have been very different.

In thinking about these two organized demonstrations, I felt safe taking part in a march of what turned out to be nearly 100,000 people, and did not feel safe in a group of 100 people.

This realization told me so much about myself and about our society. I cannot begin to understand to the frustration that people of color feel at being squelched when they protest their treatment. But I can try to relate. And I can stand up for them any way I can, with my voice, my calls to lawmakers and my vote.

Lindsey's Spoken Word Poetry

This girl is something else.

As part of Lindsey's 8th grade Language Arts class (the new term for what we used to call "English"), every student was assigned to write a spoken word poem.

The PTA funded a position with a local poet who worked with the students on this art form. They had to learn to use similes, metaphors, rhyming and rhythm techniques for writing an effective poem. Topic? Any of their choosing.

Some weeks ago her teacher sent out an email to parents inviting them to the final performance, which would take place in the classroom. She mentioned that some of the poems got very personal and emotional. I didn't want to inhibit Lindsey or others from expressing themselves fully, so I opted not to attend.

Lindsey threw herself fully into this assignment, with more enthusiasm than usual. She is a huge "Hamilton" fan and has gained a great appreciation for expressing oneself through spoken word.  In the same way I used to go to "English" class and kids now go to "Language Arts," I think that spoken word poetry is the new name for rap. It truly is an art form.

Her topic was on popularity, and why we as people care so much about how others look or dress, instead of what's inside a person.

This week was their performance day in class, and it was clearly the highlight of her day and week.

Some students were moved to tears by the readings -- one student burst into tears after her performance. Lindsey got a great response and applause after her reading. Topics ranged from loss, to a divorce in the family, dealing with a chronic illness, or just plain loneliness. Lindsey learned through this that a girl in her class is bullied by other students before school, though Lindsey has never witnessed it. She now makes it a point to say hello to her every day.

I'm so grateful that our kids get to have experiences like this through their school.

Marissa-isms

Marissa's Selfie, December 2016

Our youngest often says things that bring laughter to the family, some of which need to be written down before they disappear into my memory.

The girls were in the midst of opening their gifts when they came across the gift of pajamas. Marissa already had a requested Polaroid camera by her side, an electric blanket and other seemingly more desired items. She opened the box with pajamas and said, "Oh thank goodness -- PAJAMAS!" Apparently both girls were in need of new winter pajamas more than I had thought.

One of the gifts I got for Wayne was a gag gift for "poo-pourri." It came in a box that was called "Master Crapsman" and had two spray bottles of fragrance that you're supposed to spray into the toilet before you use it, and it traps the smell in the toilet.

Later in the day, Marissa and I walked by a bathroom where we could tell the poopourri had been used -- it smelled good, but underneath you could tell...it didn't.

"Well I'm glad Dad's using it" Marissa says, "It's a gag gift, but he really needs to use it. It helps the whole family."

Christmas Eve Birthdays

My dad's birthday is on Christmas Eve; he would have been 72. This is the first birthday that he is celebrating in heaven.

Summer 2015

Growing up, Dad would get a single gift from friends and relatives that would be both his birthday and Christmas gift -- he usually didn't have birthday parties, since everyone was busy with holiday festivities. He felt like he didn't have birthdays like other kids did, and carried this sentiment into his adult life.

When my sister and I were kids, my mom made sure that Dad's birthday gifts were wrapped in birthday paper, Christmas gifts in Christmas paper. Every member of our family got to choose what the dinner was on their birthday, and for years my dad chose lasagna. My mom's homemade lasagna was our family's dinner on December 24th for years. All of his adult life my sister and I got him birthday gifts, even though we had stopped exchanging gifts with each other and my mom years before.

The traditions continue though he is gone.

My cousin Sam and his family live in Minneapolis now, and we invited them to join us Christmas Eve for church service and dinner. His parents drove up from Illinois and joined us as well. These are all relatives on my dad's side of the family, so it was appropriate that we were all together. Plus, they are wonderful people, and we enjoy visiting with them all.

We gathered around the tables set with the china from my childhood, china that my dad had bought for my mother while serving during the Vietnam War. We feasted on homemade stuffed pasta shells (the closest I can come to making lasagna), told stories and went through a few bottles of wine.

And, just like old times, we celebrated a birthday. This time it was Theodore's, my cousin's son who was born on December 24th last year.

Theodore unwrapping his gift.

A toy like the ones my girls loved when they were his age.

It was wonderful to spend this day with my extended family, making new memories and new traditions.

John and Deb Nemanich, Theodore, me, Marissa and Wayne, Sarah and Sam. Missing: Lindsey, who had a migraine

The Mom Photo Syndrome

In our family, I'm usually the one behind the camera. Whenever I see a moment happening that I want to preserve, I grab my camera and snap it. From birthday parties, to moments of sweetness between daughters or daughter and dog, I am often taking photos of the family.

The day we got Beauty.

Sisterly silliness at the apple orchard this fall.

Recently I've been working to clean up our photo library, which is constantly growing and, outside of being in chronological order, is difficult to search.

Luckily iPhoto has a facial recognition feature and has you tag people, so then you can search for people by their faces. It makes it really handy if you're looking for photos of someone for a graduation collage...not that I'm thinking about that already (gulp).

I started with my kids, the most infamous and photographed members of our family.

iPhoto identified more than 1,000 potential photos of each of them. It took quite some time to go through them, clicking on the ones that were indeed each child,  rejecting or correctly identifying those who were actually other people. For the most part the software had it right.

Then I worked on photos of my husband -- there were 540 photos of him, usually with the girls. The software was usually right too, though every once in a while it picked my stepdad, often in later years when Wayne's hair was more the color of Mark's.

Finally, I worked on my own photos, of which there were only 123, most of which were not correct  because my sister, sister-in-law and daughter all look a lot like me, so of those photos I re-tagged them with the appropriate person.

Screenshot of working through photos of "Jenny," 50% of which are wrong.

123 photos over the past 15 or so years. Sure, it's a lot of photos, but it's a fraction of the photos we have. I want my girls to look back on their childhood and know how happy both their parents were to spend time with them (and that we did). Sometimes photos are what trigger the memory - what will our girls remember about an event when the same person is always absent from it in photos? Although I do usually make my involvement in their lives pretty memorable, as time goes by photographs become the proof.

So I'm committed to making sure I'm in more photos. I never was a "selfie" person, so I'll be handing the camera to my husband or my kids more often, to capture more of life's moments with me in them.

Before-work selfie.

What's a "Relish" Dish?

Thanksgiving traditions are changing as time goes by, but we still gathered with the Horsman family the Saturday after Thanksgiving for a big feast. This time we gathered at Kathy's home, and our family planned to drive down and back in the same day, since Millie's house is no longer available to stay.

My sister-in-law Kathy did all the planning and most of the cooking. She asked everyone who came to bring a side dish -- the specific request for me was a "relish" dish.

A relish dish?

What to fill these with?

Now, I know what relish dishes looked like that my mother put together back in the 70's and 80's. They were small little glass dishes with partitions in them. She would fill them with things like black olives, pickled green beans or pickled beets and little tiny Gedney pickles that apparently weren't tiny enough, because she would also slice them in half.

The relish trays were dutifully passed around the table with the rest of the feast, and would come back to the kitchen with only the black olives missing. Turns out Kristi used to put a black olive on each finger, wave them around for a bit and then eat them off. I remember having to use the tiniest tongs I'd ever seen in my life to pick up the itty bitty pickles and put them back in the jar, because they were mostly untouched.

I always assumed that's what a relish tray was -- food you served with meals that didn't really belong with the meal that no one really ate.

But now I was being asked to bring a relish tray to my sister-in-law's, to feed 27 people. So I had to ask all the sisters-in-laws: how do you define a relish tray?!

I got back suggestions of carrots and celery and dip (isn't that a veggie tray?). There was a suggestion of pickled herring or olives. Does pickled herring go with anything? Although that response did confirm my initial suspicion that a relish tray is filled with food you don't actually eat.

I decided to bring a veggie tray, cranberry jelly and another traditional side dish from my childhood, spiced apple rings.

Most of the spiced apple rings went back in the jar, but some of the cranberry jelly went. And veggies are always a healthy nibble, so those stayed out long after the feast had been put away.

I also learned that "crudités" is the fancy French word for a veggie tray. So next time I can just tell people "I'm bringing the crudités" and they'll wonder what I'm bringing and who this fancy-pants sister-in-law of theirs is.

Cousins playing pass the creepy baby.

How old, Kayla?!

Bear proves that he can sleep anywhere, including between two talking adults.

A Visitation

My Uncle Pete, Aunt Phyllis and Dad.

Laughter. Talking. The tinkling of glasses.

I awoke from a dream  -- the most bittersweet part was the awakening.

In the dream my dad, his two sisters and their husbands were all sitting around in the backyard of Carol and Chap's house. (Their house in Illinois, which they sold more than 30 years ago.)

The sun was shining and they were visiting and laughing. From Phyllis high titter to my dad's big guffaws, a time was being had, as my dad would say.

Phyllis sent me in to make her a new drink, something that never happened at these gatherings. I think everyone knew better than to send Tom's youngest daughter to make a drink. Phyllis gave me instructions, I went into the kitchen and of course botched it. In a typical dreamlike event, I put a cinnamon roll in her drink because, of course, cinnamon rolls are often garnish in drinks. It soaked up all the liquid and made a disgusting mess.

My sister Kristi came in, made a face at the mess I was making, fixed a proper drink and brought it out to Phyllis while I cleaned up.

The laughter and visiting continued.

My Grandpa Vern's 75th birthday party in 1976.

I awoke with a smile on my face and a lump in my throat. Phyllis and Pete are still living -- this vision is incomplete without them. I feel an urgent need to call them, yet it was 5:00 in the morning. I waited until daylight -- they are doing just fine.

They know how much my dad enjoyed his time with them. Somewhere there is sunshine, a chair, a proper drink and company waiting for them.

A Wake of Our Own

In happier days, at our Floria/Smathers family reunion in May.

My dad was initially diagnosed with colon cancer in 2007. He has been battling this disease for 9 years. Yet the day he died, we were all surprised at how "quickly" he went.

We received materials from the hospice nurse on the process of dying. We didn't even get a chance to review them when he passed. I flipped through them later on and realized that he had been in the process of dying for the past 6 months or more.

Kristi and I were the only two in the hospital when he died. Terry thought she would be by his side, but he decided that was not to be. We called Terry and asked her to come back to the hospital because he had passed. We cautioned her not to drive herself; she was too distraught, so she should get another family member to drive her.

Kristi and I made a few phone calls to family members on Dad's side; his sister, who had just celebrated her 90th birthday, my mom (his ex-wife), and others. And then we waited.

We sat in the room with dad's body for almost two hours. We could feel his skin cooling, saw his face draining of color, his fingernails turning from blue to white.

We marveled at his passing. It was just incredible that this had just happened. Stories were exchanged, tears shed, laughter shared.

And Dad had to have the last fart joke.

At one point his body passed some gas through his stoma. I looked at Kristi and said, "Was that you?" and she pointed to Dad.

Shortly after, she did indeed pass a little gas, and pointed to Dad again. "Sure," I said, "Blame the dead guy." We laughed through our tears. I'm sure Dad was laughing with us; he loved nothing better than a good fart joke.

We had become accustomed to his deathly presence. When the rest of the family arrived, some walked into the room cautiously, afraid of what they would see. Kristi and I welcomed them in. "Come, see Dad. He would want you to say good-bye."

We were two hours into the grieving process; others were just beginning. She and I had been holding a wake, just the two of us, while the rest of the family was just getting confirmation that he had passed.

It is amazing how quickly our human minds become accustomed when faced with the physical proof of death. My dad's spirit was no longer in his body. It is wherever we believe it to be, whatever gives us peace.

Now the process of grieving and of healing can begin.

A Story of Photographs

Kristi and I spent some time the past few days going through the photos my dad had collected over his lifetime. He never threw out a single thing, be it a broken tool he was going to fix some day, a pair of jeans with a rip in them, and most certainly never, ever photos.

Years ago, Mom told me about the time when Dad was in the army during the Vietnam War. He would write her letters and include photos of the sunrise or sunset over the ethereal, foreign-looking Korean landscape. Never any photos of him, his fellow servicemen or the camp they were in, just endless pictures of the sun.

Kristi and I came across entire rolls of photos of flowers, bushes, trees, gardens, and dogs. The only person he took photos of with any frequency was he beloved wife, Terry. He always wanted to take pictures of her working around the yard, and then would ask her, "Why don't you take pictures of ME when I'm working?" She found it curious that he wanted her to photograph him at his dustiest, sweatiest self. She would rather that he captured her at her finest, freshly showered with hair and make up done. Instead she has photos of her gardening, painting, cleaning and other chores.

After Lindsey was born in 2003, Dad drove to Minnesota alone to visit his first granddaughter from his own children (by this time he had several step-grand kids on Terry's side). Wayne and I had been living in our Minneapolis home for only 9 months, and Dad was fascinated by our neighborhood. He couldn't believe that we could walk to so many places, were so close to the lake and had such a quaint, charming home.

He took pictures of flowers growing in our neighbors' yards. He photographed their homes, the street, the outside of our house, and, finally, the second-to-last photo on the roll, one solitary photo of his granddaughter. The last photo was of our dog Dax.

Dad's photos of his first trip to our Minneapolis home.

This was back when you had to wait to develop a roll of film to see what you'd taken pictures of, and he laughed when he realized he only had one photo of his new grandchild.

The only photo Dad took of Lindsey when he first met her. I think she's giving him the finger.

"Well, how come people take so many pictures of babies anyways? It's not like they change or anything," he joked. "You know, if I make a trip up there once a year, in 18 trips I'll be attending a high school graduation."

He didn't quite make it to her high school graduation; Lindsey's still 5 years away from that milestone. But I can guarantee I'll be taking pictures of trees or shrubs on her graduation day, in honor of my dad.

Losing Dad

February 2014, Arkansas.

We all knew my dad was going to die, we just didn't know it would be so soon.

My dad's been going through an immunotherapy trial in Nashville for the past 4 months. Each time he has a treatment, he gets a bit loopy, gets diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, takes antibiotics, it clears up and he regains his lucidity.

So when my stepmom called me on Wednesday to tell me she was taking Dad to the hospital and that he was out of his mind, we all thought this would be routine. Get the infection cleared up, send him home, and continue on the journey to a cure.

Instead, she was informed that the tumors had grown significantly in the past several weeks and were impeding his kidney function. There were no more treatment options; he had been out of options for some time. My stepmom was told that he had 3 days to 3 weeks to live. They recommended hospice care for him, to keep him comfortable until he died.

Kristi and I caught a 7 a.m. flight on Friday, October 28th. I had toyed with the idea of traveling on Saturday, but decided to go earlier since my youngest wanted me back home in time for Halloween.

She and I arrived at the hospital at 1:30 p.m. Dad was in a drug-induced sleep the entire afternoon, his chest automatically expanding with his breath, mechanical in its steady rhythm. He was snoring loudly with his mouth wide open, unable to squeeze his hand in yours, open his eyes or respond. He slept with one foot hanging off the bed, a familiar position that I remember from his healthier days. Kristi and Jessie re-positioned him, but throughout the afternoon his left foot kept drifting toward the edge of the bed, even though we never saw him move.

Kristi and I left the room at 5 p.m. to meet with the hospice nurse and set up the hospice care. We asked to see a chaplain, and spent the last 10 minutes of our time in prayer with the chaplain, praying for peace for dad. When we returned to the room, he was gone. The nurse told us she'd just been in just minutes before and he had been breathing the same as previously, so he must've passed in the past 10 minutes while we were praying.

So much for those 3 days.

December 2013 in Valparaiso.

I believe he timed it that way -- he did not want his loved ones to be there to hear his last rattling breath. But he knew his two daughters, the last two family members who hasn't seen him that week, had been there and had said our good-byes.

The Florias attack a model of Chicago.

I am so grateful that we had so many good times together of late. I had just been down over Labor Day weekend to visit, he had come to Minnesota the previous October, and Kristi had many more trips than I, creating many memories with him and with our southern relatives.

Kristi and I are in Arkansas now, helping my stepmom organize her life. We are erasing every sign of his illness in the house -- the adult diapers are being disposed of, medications being purged, hospital bed returned to the agency it was rented from, medical agencies phone numbers erased from the home phone. We are re-instituting the good memories that those items had pushed aside --  photos and the cherished items of his that had been shoved in closets to make way for medical supplies.

In some ways I lost Dad a long time ago; I haven't been able to call to talk books with him in a year. He hasn't been able to give me advice on work-related topics for longer than that. His cancer treatment was all-consuming; it was the only topic he would discuss at any length.

Yet now, he was truly gone. He will not be coming back to us.

It's a lot to process.

I'm sure I'll be writing more on my dad. He was a wonderful storyteller, I can continue on those stories to keep his memory alive.

Nine Grams

Marissa joined me in grocery shopping the other day. At this age, shopping with one of the girls is fun. We get silly, we look at foods we have no idea what they are, and we laugh.

I nearly bought this cereal, even though I knew no one would eat it, just because Marissa and I had a good laugh over it.

Marissa will pretends or actually sneak food into the cart that she knows I don't allow in the house, then run-walk down the aisle with the cart so I can't see what she put in it.

This sneaking of food into the cart tends to happen most in the cereal aisle. I thought back to when Lindsey and I did our sugar-free challenge and how difficult it was to find cereals with no sugar in them. I picked a random number and told Marissa she couldn't buy a cereal that had more than 9 grams of sugar. In the meantime, I was also scanning for a new gluten-free cereal for Lindsey to try.

I had no idea how challenging this would be.

Marissa brought me the "Dory" cereal which had 11 grams of sugar per serving, only two grams more than my limit. Surely only 2 games doesn't make a difference, right? She held her hand over the corner with the picture of the cereal while she asked for it, so of course I said she couldn't have it. The picture was of a cereal with marshmallows in it -- really, only 11 grams? I'd been reading ingredients lists of 17 grams, 23 grams and more. If that's 11 grams, how sweet and sugary are those other ones?

I decided to start looking at the "healthy" cereals vs the ones that I would assume would be more sugary.

First I checked out the Chex cereal choices. I looked at the GF "fruit and oats" variety, then happened to see the chocolate Chex next to it.

Guess which one had more sugar? Yep, the Fruit & Oats one.

She asked for the S'Mores cereal. Lucky Charms (which makes both girls crazy). Choc-O something-or-other. No. No. Nope.

Finally we got tired of studying cereals and saying "no" and went for a long-standing favorite in our house, Cracklin' Oat Bran.

It wasn't until we brought it home that I saw what the sugar content was -- 17 grams per serving. Guess we're crossing that one off our list, too.

Our Blessed Dog

Getting her Beauty rest after a run.

You may know that our rescue dog, Beauty, is a runner.

She will run for 10 miles in the morning, snooze for the day, then is ready for more play and racing around by dinner time.

She's well trained to stay in our yard...unless she sees a squirrel. Or a dog. Which is why when we leave her out for a while we put her on a tie-out in our front yard.

Saturday was no exception -- she was going crazy inside watching all the squirrels through the windows, I figured I'd give her a first row seat by putting her on the tie-out so she could observe more closely.

About 10 minutes later Wayne says to me, "Where's Beauty?"

"On the tie-out," I say.

"No she's not."

"Yes she is. I put her there myself."

I go out front to look, and the leash that she had been attached to is lying in a pile. No Beauty. We investigate it. It's not broken, and it almost looks like someone coiled it and laid it on the lawn.

Outside of the concern that someone may have nabbed her, her disappearing act is a familiar routine. I grab shoes, the leash and a dog treat, and Wayne heads to the car to search the neighborhood, both of us with cell phones.

I post on NextDoor, a social media site for neighborhoods, and Facebook. I get lots of sympathy but no leads.

Since it's like searching for a needle in the haystack by walking the neighborhood, we both eventually return home empty-handed. I post a better description of her on NextDoor with photos, and wait to hear.

Finally, someone posts that they found a brown pitbull, please call their number. I leapt to call, and discovered that they indeed had our dog.

Here's the best part.

Beauty had pulled on the leash so hard she had snapped the metal ring that held the leash to her collar. When it snapped her identifying tags also flew off -- we found them later scattered in the lawn.  It explains why the leash was in a neat pile, it was from the recoil.

 Beauty's broken collar.

She chased said squirrels for a while, and then got distracted by a dog going in to the Lutheran church just a block away. Turns out that the Lutheran church was having a blessing of the animals that day. The people brought her into the church to see if it was someone else's loose dog. They figured she was a stray, but she was so sweet and nice to the other dogs that they had her join the service. After all, that's what this service was all about, right? Don't just bless the dogs who have loving homes, but the strays, the unwanted by society. (Or so they may have thought.)

She got to visit with other dogs, get treats, and get a little holy water sprinkled on her head. We were worried she was in danger of being hit by a car, and she was safe inside, getting pampered.

Beauty was blessed. Literally.

After the ceremony they posted on NextDoor about finding the pitbull, then walked her down to our house for a joyful reunion.

Guess this means we should start going to church.

Our New Old Home

The lockbox is coming off the door, the inspection sheet is no longer on display. Crews of people are  not showing up to at random times of day, needing access to our house.

Old Kitchen

New Kitchen

 Our remodel is done and we are thrilled.

It's not just that we have a mudroom or a new kitchen, it's what that change in space has meant to our family.

New main floor powder room.

Previously, with four of us sharing a bathroom, we've gotten into a habit of wandering while preparing for bed. For example, one person uses the sink to wet a toothbrush, then walks around the upstairs to brush teeth because the next person is using the sink to wash her face. By the time the tooth brushing is done the face washing is done, but then I'm leaning over the side, getting just a bit of mirror space so I can take out contacts as the face-washer wets a toothbrush.

Now when I want to get ready for bed, I go into my bedroom, shut the door and use my own bathroom. No one else needs to use the sink. No one else needs to use my mirror. It takes me half the time because I'm not waiting for someone else to be done. Ironically, though, we are all accustomed to walking around while brushing teeth, so now we have to train the girls to not wander into our bedroom while readying for bed.

New master bath.

The new kitchen has changed our family dynamic.

I used to enjoy cooking, but for me part of the enjoyment is being able to visit with other people while I'm working. This hasn't been possible for years, as there wasn't a suitable place in the kitchen for others to be. Many times Wayne or Kristi would stand in the kitchen to chat, but would have to move while I opened a drawer or needed in a cupboard. Trying to share in preparing a meal was practically impossible. I often felt cut off from the rest of the family, alone in the kitchen while everyone else gathered in the living room or on the patio.

Now, more than one person can be in the kitchen at the same time. The girls sit at the island and do homework while I cook; I don't have to keep stopping and walking into the dining room to look at a problem or hear a question. Homework feels less of an interruption and annoyance and more a part of the evening's activities.

I enjoy cooking again for the first time in years. And I can't wait to be able to finally get some of the kitchen gadgets that I haven't been able purchase before because there was no place to store them.

The new space has also allowed Wayne and I to have much-needed couple time.  We can sit down and share a glass of wine in the kitchen while the girls are in the living room, meaning that our conversation is a not open for commentary.

Our original bathroom, refreshed for the girls' use.

Our bedroom feels like a retreat. Even though it is right next to Marissa's bedroom, it feels a bit more secluded and private. We have a chair in our bedroom -- a chair! I have sat there in the early morning with a cup of a coffee and a computer, writing. What a joy.

My new coffee and writing corner.

I am so grateful that we were able to make the location we love into the home we love. 

Arkansa Edition

Terry and Dad together; a good evening on the patio.

My dad has not been in the best of health for some time. He is living with stage IV colon cancer,  with all the trials and tribulations that come along with that condition. He has been on a chemotherapy regimen for about a year, which doctors tell him should keep the tumors from growing and spreading, if he can withstand the side effects. As soon as the chemo stops working or his quality of life is such that he decides not to continue treatment, the cancer will probably continue to spread and grow.

This is a tough diagnosis to take. Quality of life has been less than ideal, not just for Dad but for my stepmom, who has been thrust into the role of primary caretaker.

I have not been to Arkansas to see Dad for some time, not to say that I haven't seen him or don't talk with him, but he came to Minnesota twice last year. He understands that my life is busy and it's hard to get away.

But at some point "busy" becomes "bullshit," and the people who are really important in your life must come to the surface. On some level I've been holding off on visiting, waiting for him to have the energy to have company. I finally came to the realization that I need to make the trip.

Kristi and I planned a trip over Labor Day weekend, flying from Minneapolis to St. Louis, then taking a 10-seater directly to Jonesboro, Arkansas.

We ain't in Minnesota anymore. A drive-through liquor store. They'll hand you a cup with ice with your vodka. No lie.

We had ourselves a time. There was plenty of "gabooning," as my grandfather Vern used to say (his term for visiting). The weather was divine, with plenty of opportunity to sit on the porch in a nice breeze, taking in the peace and quiet while three white dogs played the part of immovable porch rugs. Hummingbirds flitted from the feeder to trees; crickets and other insects provided the background music to their wings.

The largest and most immovable of all the white dogs, Jack.

Can you find all three?

We ate some good southern fare, and I made authentic Minnesota Wild Rice Soup, with wild rice smuggled from Minnesota. (Apparently bags of wild rice look like weed when viewed through a security x-ray machine, and warrant extra screening.) My nephew Sam decided it looked like bird suet, and leftover soup the rest of the weekend was donned "liquid suet."

I spent time with family members that Kristi has gotten to know so well through her many visits. We had a feast of pulled pork, barbecued ribs and smoked chicken.

Kristi and I helped with chores that escape doing in the midst of caring for someone else. We made trips to the store for victuals and supplies, vacuumed, helped organize the week's pills, cooked, and cleaned dishes, usually accompanied by laughter and banter.

Terry gives me a tour of the yard, including a fig tree.

By the end of three days Kristi and I were ready to get back to the land of North, and I think Dad and Terry were ready for us to leave. They themselves had to travel to Nashville the next day. What is it they say about fish and company?

Memories were made, and that's all that matters.