LIving Life in A Pandemic (COVID-19)

In January, 2020 I heard about this aggressive spreading virus that surfaced in Wuhan, China.  It was leveling Wuhan and forced China to lockdown citizens to lessen the spread.  But not without some viruses escaping.

As an American living so many thousands of miles and oceans apart that it was a concern in the back of my head, but felt it's in China how can it make its way to me? Then in February there was a burst of cases in Italy. My husband, kids and I were planning on a March Spring Break trip to Portugal. The thought that the virus had made its way to Europe was a bit unsettling. Looking at a map, Portugal is several countries away from Italy, so we should be okay - right? Northern Italy was invaded by the virus to the point that hospitals ran out of room and proper equipment to treat patients, forcing medical professionals to decide which patients were "worth" treating/saving.

I was tracking the data to determine where Portugal was with cases.  Up until about 3 weeks before we were set to depart for Portugal, Portugal was Covid-19 free. When Portugal recorded its first cases of the virus, that put an end to our trip. We cancelled (or better stated indefinitely postponed) our trip. The risk was beginning to outweigh the benefit, especially given at this point in time no one really understood the virus and the medical havoc it caused.  We just knew people were dying; and a lot of people were becoming ill.  

The first U.S. case was not far behind with a cluster on a Japanese cruise ship, a cluster in the State of Washington and New York City. New York City was riddled with cases to the point, physicians and nurses were called in from other States to assist with care.

Since no one could reassure us that my son, who has Noonan Syndrome and all the medical issues it comes with, would be okay if he contracted the virus. I was getting very concerned that going to Portugal would be a tough situation given we don't speak the language and I have no idea how their healthcare system is and countries were beginning to shutdown limiting people in and out. Collectively as a family we decided to cancel the trip in March with the intent to reschedule when living with a pandemic is over. To say the decision was hard to swallow would be an understatement. Telling your son who has celiac that he can't have the McDonald's french fries he was so looking forward to (Portugal's McDonald's fry their french fries in a separate frier where most other countries do not), hit like a ton of bricks to the heart. Not to mention we all needed a vacation in the worst way.

Come mid-March, the kids were told to gather their belongings at school as they were going to learn remotely. My company and my husband's firm both moved to remote working with only essential visits to our offices. The thought was this was going to be a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months tops. Today, I'm still working remotely (going into the offices for essential reasons) and my husband is still home working and it's been over 4 months with a minimum of 2-3 more months of remote working. My kids will go back to school, but it will be much different than what they are used to and they will be required to wear masks all day.

Since mid-March we have spent most of our time taking miles upon miles of walks.  It took us until June to begin ordering food for carry out.  My husband was the lone person in my house going into public to shop for groceries and other essential items with shopping runs as early in the day as possible.  Coming home stripping down and taking a shower.  I would wipe down all the items requiring refrigeration or freezing and place them in their respective places.  We left food sitting in the car for days because the information on how long the virus stayed on surfaces was all over the place.

As our state began loosening the lockdown, we slowly have allowed ourselves to explore home improvement stores. We allowed ourselves to get together with others but only for social distancing visits. And with all shopping excursions, masks have been worn and hand washing to the point of sore dry skin.    

We wear masks whenever we know we will be near people and where we know we will not be able to social distance 6-9 feet apart. 

This lifestyle has been exhausting, especially for a person like myself who has high anxiety to begin with.

Today, the Covid-19 numbers continue to climb at a rapid pace with no decrease in sight.

Somehow, this pandemic became political. It was unfortunate that the timing of the pandemic happens to be around the United States next presidential election.  I often wonder, if the president had not had to worry about re-election, maybe he would have gone about things in a much more safe and well calculated manner. Maybe if he didn't have to worry about the economy tanking or the unemployment rates climbing, he would have thought about the big picture instead of worrying about re-election.

The heated debates over everything revolving around the pandemic is mind-numbing at times, if not extremely exhausting. You begin to see true colors of people. I'm not without sin. I have opinions, many of them are strong. I make it a point more often than not to listen/hear the other side, mostly because I don't like to be wrong and look foolish, and not necessarily because I think someone is right and I am wrong. People I have respected in the past, I am now questioning our friendships/relationships. I'm finding so many to be selfish in their interests and actions. As they say, it take a crisis to truly know who your friends and foe are.

As a person with a biomedical engineering background, the science/medical part of this virus scares me. It has a mind of it's own and it manifests its medical evils in so many different ways. We all thought that the old, medically compromised were at risk. It is not the case. Medical professionals are finding young folks with no underlying medical issues are also at risk. And it's like a crap-shoot too, no rhyme or reason why some are affected so badly while others fair much better. One thing that is for sure, is we have no idea what the long term effects will be with those who have gotten the virus and made it to the otherside unscaved. I guess time will tell.

The whole debate of wearing masks is the silliest in my humble opinion. If you get a good one that fits you well, they are not so bad. Not ideal to wear one in 90F+ degree heat and high humidity - but I certainly would take this over being intubated and stuck to a ventilator for days/weeks. Or finding I had a stroke from a blood clot and I will need countless hours of physical/occupational/speech therapy to be a fraction of myself again. Or needing kidney dialysis for the rest of my life.

The other thing that I feel no one truly has considered is how financially crippling the medical costs can be with this pandemic on it's victims and their families.  Let's say you are one of the unlucky ones that after trying everything else, the doctors determine the ventilator is your last resort.  That alone is unsettling because it means you have at best 50/50 chance of fighting the virus and getting better. So you are intubated, hooked up to the ventilator and you are on it for 14 days (which seems to be the minimum time one spends on it). Based on first hand costs of a family member being on a ventilator for 2-days prior to being taken off to die peacefully, the cost was approximately  $50,000 USD for a single day. Multiply this by 14 days and you are looking at $700,000 USD. Let's say you have relatively decent insurance like I do.  After meeting my deductible, I'm still required to pay 20% of the cost of my hospitalization, including the use of the ventilator.  The cost of just the ventilator under my plan would require me to pay $140,000 USD. Now mind you, this is just the ventilator, this doesn't include the ICU room, hospital charges, physicians, medicines, lab work, etc.  You see where this is going???

If we all did our part by wearing a mask in public, especially where there are others around and you cannot keep 9 feet between you and the other person, and in indoors for sure - the $12.00 USD mask (x 7 days and in my case x 4 people = $336.00 USD) may be the best money spent!

My hope is that my family and I make it to the otherside of the pandemic without the virus. That a vaccination can be developed to allow for immunity, even if it's only good for 12 months.  I am okay with doing my part annually getting the flu shot, I have no issues with adding a Covid-19 shot to my shot list.

I wish you well. Please be smart about what you do every day. Although I am not scared of dying, it doesn't mean I don't want to be around to watch my kids grow-up and have their own kids and so on. If we all do our part, we will make it to the otherside.

Parenthood .... 11 1/2 years later

My blog was established by my husband as a Valentine's Day gift while my youngest child, my son was in the hospital.  The blog was created as a place and means for me to exercise writing therapy.  As time passed, and my life was filled with a full-time job, kids in school full-time, and with school and extracurricular activities my life became too busy to even think about therapy writing. 

Apparently I was so busy 3 years ago that I never published this blog.

Over the last several weeks .... and as infants turn to toddlers, toddlers to preschoolers, preschoolers to elementary schooler and now embarking upon the middle-schooler phase with my oldest child; I'm finding I need a little mom-writing therapy again.

Sometimes the best messages and advice a parent shares land in the eyes of your child in unconventional ways ... I found out that my 11 year old daughter has been reading my blog.  She has read the blog to get to know what makes me ... ME.

So I'm dedicating my blog today to my awesome 11 year old daughter, whom I love with my whole heart, Norah.

Dear Norah,

I wanted to let you get to know me, when I was 11 year old.

I was an awkward middle-schooler, and has I turned 11 and was in 6 grade, I had the worst case of acne that leveled my self-esteem.  I wasn't a "cool kid" but I wasn't "a loser kid" either.  I just WAS. My first 2 years of high school weren't much better, especially not until I was able to acquire a prescription medication (Accutane) that cleared up my complexion, giving me some confidence and feeling prettier than I had ever felt during my frightful time in puberty.  I had to wait to feel somewhat good about myself until I was 16 years old.

This week as I saw you collapse in a bundle of nerves, flesh and bones - feeling the pressure of life swallowing you up, chewing you up and spitting you out and not knowing how to cope, I saw myself.  I saw me as an eleven year old girl who was struggling with friendships, confidence, school and my body changing from little girl to a young lady.  It was at this time in my life that the boys in my neighborhood I use to play baseball, football and basketball realizing that I was a "girl" and not like them.  I saw them avoiding me and not allowing me to join them in the sports I enjoyed playing, and when I finally asked why being told "because you are a girl".  I was taken by surprise by their seemingly delayed revelation as I was "always a girl", I hadn't changed my birth given sex. This was brutally hard for me to accept, to be rejected. The only children my age in my neighborhood were boys.  My best friend had moved away a year earlier and replacing that friendship was not easy.

I played sports at school, I was a basketball player on the junior high B team.  The A team was the better players comprised of 7th and 8th graders; I was in 6th grade, and I was "just OK".  I think I scored a whole-whopping 4 points that season.  In addition, I joined the drill team that performed at the annual St. Patrick's Day parade and twirled a baton and practiced every Friday afternoon from November until the Friday before St. Patrick's Day.  As I recall this time in my life, I can hear you poking fun at me in my head, because this was "so not a cool" activity.  Nothing like your School of Rock shows.

I was an okay student, I mostly received Bs but sprinkle in some A's and C's.  I was not a "gifted" student, and worked very hard to get the grades I received.  I had no academic self-confidence, as I was told by a teacher a year earlier while in 5th grade that I was not smart enough to be the veterinarian I had dreamt of being.  Meanwhile, she was telling my bestie that she was smart enough to be whatever she wanted to be.  It was a conversation that haunts me to this very day.

I remember sleepless nights because my mind didn't know how to shut-down and relax. I remember days where I felt food was overrated. I remember days where all I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep all day and be in the comforting company of my Mom.

This past week I experienced through the eyes of you, my 11 year old daughter, what it is like to be 11 in today's world.  I see a young lady, who is by all accounts beautiful on the inside and outside, full of many talents, a kind soul, an extremely conscientious person, good friend and an intelligent person.

My 11 year old life was much simpler than your 11 year old life. I grew-up with just a TV, record player, radio, first generation video games and outdoor activities as a distraction.  There were no computers, no internet, no YouTube, no FaceBook, Instagram, no mobile phones, no text messages, etc.  If I wanted to talk to a friend, I picked up the phone and called them or road my bike to their house.

Norah, you are an amazing, beautiful, talented, kind-hearted, intelligent young lady of 14 years old. This blog is for you!

I'm Prejudice - and I'm not proud of it

I was born at the back-end of the Civil Rights Movement, so I wasn't exposed to what had transpired over the course of the 1950s-1960s as I was too young to understand. By the time I was intelligent enough to know there were differences in people, the differences didn't have to do with race, religion, etc. a person was.  My thought process was probably more like who was nicer to me and likely who was prettier or more handsome.

I went to a Catholic elementary school in the outskirts of a metropolitan city, just barely within the city limits and teetering on the edge of the suburbs. I lived in a city where within the city limits the whites lived on the one side of town and the blacks lived on the other side. My exposure to the opposite side of towns was very limited at best. Diversity in my school was non-existing - we were all white Catholic kids. Just about 1/2 a mile away from my school there was public housing or better known as "the projects". This was where the few African-Americans lived along with economically challenged whites. Crime was not a problem in my neighborhood, but we were always warned about "the projects". It was instilled in our heads that it wasn't safe to hang around there. 

The city I grew up in instituted desegregated busing for the schools. Adults on my side of town were nervous and mad that the white kids were forced to go to schools on the other side of town where the schools were not as "good" and the African-American kids would be infiltrating the white side of town, what would this cause?

My exposure to diversity was very limited and happened maybe once a year when we went on a field trip to the Supplemental Educational Center in the city.  This Center was a multi-learning facility that brought the city public schools and city Catholic schools together. I thought it was really neat and I remember meeting African-American kids and thinking they were just like me, but also felt sorry for them because I thought they were very poor, because that was the notion placed in my head because the only African-American's I knew lived in "the projects".  

So you get the idea that my environment shaped my early opinion of African-Americans. Pretty sad and unfortunate.  But this is done all the time to young impressionable kids.

When I went away to college, one of my best friends was an African-American girl.  We both were struggling through our engineering classes so we had a mutual bond. She, however, had a great support group in the all black fraternity - and I would periodically go with her to the fraternity house and study and get tutored in Calculus and Physics. These guys were great guys and very helpful. Without some of their patience and assistance, I would have struggled much worse than I did in these courses. I remember one day walking through campus with some of my friends and a couple of the African-American guys from the fraternity stopped me to say hello and ask me how my classes were going. My friends were irritated and were taken back that I knew these guys. A response that surprised and saddened me.

I ended up finishing my undergrad in my hometown at the local university. Diversity was much better realized in this environment and I felt much more at home. I would take public transportation to school most days and random African-American guys would choose to sit next to me, just to talk to me. I had a few African-American guys in my night classes, and they would insist on walking me to my car just to make sure I made it to my car safely.

As I grow older, I find that as a woman, I am better respected and treated much more like a lady by random African-American gentlemen than I do by male counterparts of my own race. I find they are quick to open a door for me as I walk into a building, and often pay random compliments.

All these experiences have reframed my opinion of African-Americans. However, I would be lying to myself and to you if I said I was without prejudice. Yesterday, I was listening to an excerpt of President Obama's Dallas Memorial speech while driving in my car yesterday. 

But America, we know that bias remains. We know it, whether you are black, or white, or Hispanic, or Asian, or native American, or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. We’ve heard it at times in our own homes. If we’re honest, perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own hearts. We know that. And while some suffer far more under racism’s burden, some feel to a far greater extent discrimination’s stain. Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune, and that includes our police departments. We know this.

This was the first speech that I felt the President gave during his 8 years in office that had some substance and so much truth behind it. It was like I did an examination of my conscience and realized that if I'm really going to be truthful, I harbor prejudices. I'm not proud of this, but realize I am only human.  And the first course of action to fix an imperfection is to admit you have one.

I can't begin to understand what it is like to be someone other then me. I can't begin to understand the prejudices and racism African-Americans experience.

On the flip-side, they cannot know what it is like to be me. Nor what predisposed notions were placed in my head early on in my life - no fault of anyone just it was how society was back then.

My interpretation of this problem with our society is that we all want, and we want things quickly - especially gratification.  We all feel some sense of entitlement but forget that in fact none of us are entitled to anything but common decency - that, we all deserve!

Respect is something that is earned, while common decency is our entitlement. 

When we treat others with common decency, we can begin to earn respect.
When we are respected by others, we begin to appreciate our differences.  
When we appreciate our differences, we begin to engage in understanding.  
When we understand, we become better human beings.  
When we are better human beings, we become a world at peace.

I am truly sorry for my prejudices and hope to correct them overtime.  Why don't you join me on this journey too!

If I were God...

If I were God ...

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.

• For one this whole idea that God did us a favor for giving us a free-will is overrated.  Meaning, I'm not so sure it was smart of God to bestow on us this privilege because some people don't know how to use this free-will concept properly.  What a waste of a beautiful world to allow free-will knowing that there will be some who will destroy this privilege by using it to do bad.  So, if I were God - the only will would be good-will.
• Aging - this process is so wrong.  The deterioration of a robust body, the aches, the pains, the drooping of flesh, the loss of mind, the loss of strength - why?  So, if I were God - we all would stop "aging" when we hit the age of say 40 - the body would remain suspended until our internal clock that would be wound up would stop ticking.  And when we hit the last tick we'd peacefully and without pain and suffering stop functioning.  Much like a wind up toy.  The only difference is that we'd go on to the next life, just like we do now.
• This whole idea of suffering. If the next world is the land of plenty, with eternal peace, love and joy - what's the point of having people suffer in this world - whether through illness, oppression, poverty etc.?  He would have saved a step in this process. Doesn't seem very efficient to me.  So, if I were God - I'd just cut to the chase and move us on to this eternal happy place from the start. And I know you might be thinking - well He was weeding out the troublemakers and the ones that didn't love and respect Him.  But we are told He's a loving and forgiving God.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for life and all that I have had the pleasure of experiencing it.  I could have done without some of the rough patches.  But, I'm a Heaven believer, and I believe God is loving - and I just find some of these things to be out of character.

Pickle in the Middle

Life is the ultimate game, and every day is an adventure!

When you are a little girl (and some boys too - don't want to be labeled sexist) one of the more popular imagination activities is playing house.  We get our little dolls for our Birthdays, Christmas, or Hanukkah and we pretend we are mommies.  We have our play kitchens with our appliances, tables and chairs, and dishes/pans and our play cradles for our baby dolls.  We make imaginary dinners and have imaginary husbands (or if you were lucky enough to have a little boy willing to pretend being the husband/dad).  In my case, it was an imaginary husband/dad.  But I can tell you, he was molded out of the image of my Dad, he was "perfect" just like my Dad!

When I grew up, I was only blessed with one living grandparent.  My Dad's Dad - my PoePoe.  He was an extremely independent man who lived on his own until the day he gained his angel wings at the age of 89.  He never drove, but traveled daily via public transportation or walked.  I never knew him to be ill.  He might have a cold here and there - but I never knew him to suffer from any medical ailment, I have no recollection of him even visiting a hospital.  In simple terms, he was a pretty simple senior citizen and passed sitting in his chair after coming back from a walk to the bank during cold weather.  If there were any health issues, my parents managed to shield that from us grandkids.

I fall in the gray area of generations-  the very tail end of the Boomers and the beginning of Generation Xers - I got to experience some of the 1950's mentality.  My Mom was our family's CEO, COO and CFO, although my dad earned the money.

It took me a while to find the right husband, my Dad was pretty hard to measure up to, you know.  But I think I picked successfully - actually, I know I picked successfully!  And, I was a mature first time mom and what seemed to be so easy as the little girl playing house, was a bit of a challenge in real life.  Add, child #2 with Noonan Syndrome and playing house just got really complicated.  The most challenging the game of "house" got was when I had 2 Baby Tender Loves - a 6 year old managing "twins".

So when I had babies of my own, I was ill prepared.  I was certainly much better at managing work projects than the lives of little beings.  Or at least that was my initial thought.  I learned to adapt, and I do have a great helper in my husband.

I felt I was finally in a good place with raising my little ones,  so I decided to go back to work.  Something I never practiced when playing house - being a working mom.  I mean really, I didn't have any idea of a place called daycare, or nannies when I was 6.  And my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and so were most of the moms in the neighborhood.

I finally make this switch to working mom and the pendulum swings a different way.  My parents begin to have the challenges that come with growing older.  They see more doctors, they require more medication, there are more hospital visits and their mobility and independence begins to lessen.  They are finding they are relying on their children more and its difficult for them to accept.  It's hard for the kids to accept too, but not in the way they might think.  Its just hard to see vibrant go-getting people forced to slow down.  I hate sometime treating them like they are kids, and I try very hard to weigh my words because they are still my parents, and I have no right to tell them what to do.  I can only offer my thoughts and allow them to make decisions.

Again, while playing house at the age of 6, I had no idea that growing up would come with not only managing children but also being available for aging parents, and helping to meet their needs.

As medicine progresses and allows us all to live longer, there will always be a generation that becomes the "pickle in the middle".  Those managing children and aging parents.

To my parents - I love you both to infinity and beyond and I feel honored I get the opportunity to help you navigate through this stage of life.  Thank you for being the people I try to emulate.

Wrinkles of Time....

I'm going through a midlife crisis!  It's called vanity.

I feel younger and thinner it's the mirror that reflects something different.  Damn mirror!

I've always acted younger than my chronological age, strictly due to self-imposed immaturity.  Let's face it no one wants to grow old.  What fun is there in doing that?  I married later in life, had kids later too - I'm just slow to mature mentally.

But....time keeps ticking and the cells of the body continue to get older and there is nothing you can do about that.  Not even the best plastic surgery can stop time and aging - they can only mask it with Botox and surgeries.

I look at pictures from when I got married 11 years ago.  I see why my husband found me attractive and I'm certainly lucky I caught him when I did - it was probably the point in my life where I peaked in body beautiful.  Ok - that sounds really arrogant - and I'm so not like that.  But compared to the teenager I was, wearing glasses, braces and acne and the person I've become in my (gasp) late 40s - flabby well- worn childbearing gut, gray hairs hidden by color treatments and fine and deep creases in my face.  I can call my 20s-30s my body beautiful years.

I'm not sure when I've become vain, I think it started last winter when I went back to my former employer after 10 years and realized we all had changed - then I looked in the mirror and realized I did too.

I recently had family photographs taken by a really good friend.  I was eager to see them but worried I wouldn't like what I saw as it pertained to me.  A couple of days ago I read an article about things dying people regret the most.  The number one thing was not loving their body.  Not respecting it and not embracing this shell that houses our souls.  It was a very profound article, and it made me think that I do need to give credit to this body that houses my soul.  It allows me to walk, drive, exercise, bear children, hug my kids and my husband.  Without it I wouldn't be me.

We got the pictures and they were beautifully done and I loved them, I did struggle with a few of the close up face shots where you can see the creases - but I looked in the mirror this morning and I didn't see any creases.  When I looked stern or tried a sad face I didn't see any creases.  I smiled - guess what I saw?

I'll be damned .... It's all the smiling, fun times, happiness and laughter that caused these creases.  So I guess my creases on my face are like rings on a tree trunk, measuring the sheer joy life has given me. My natural permanent tattoos checking off years and years of happiness!

So the next time I look at a woman's face and see creases, I'll just know that she must have had a lot of pleasure and laughter in her life!  And when you look at me, I hope you think the same!

Bis zum nächsten zeit ...

This blog is dedicated to my German Daughter, Zarah and her wonderful family.

Often times you need to open up your circle to invite new experiences in.  I'm somewhat of an adventurer, I do like to go to new places, meet new people and do new things.  Ten months ago  my family and I opened up our circle and invited in a young lady from Germany to immerse herself into our family.  I'm not so sure "immerse" is the right word - lets say she stole a bunch of hearts, tattooed them with her impression and gave them back to us in grand order.

Today we closed a chapter in our lives … and it was much like a novel that you never wanted to put down and never want to end.  You gamble when you host an international student for a school year.  Some people had rough experiences but ours was magical.  We had a wonderful experience and it spilled over into meeting her family and having the good fortune of having them stay with us for a long weekend.  I now see why Zarah was such a wonderful person, she comes from wonderful parents.

The hardest part of this experience was to see my 5 year old son and 7 year old daughter sob as Zarah's car drove away.  Zarah was their big sister for 10 months.

I knew it was going to be difficult today, I asked Donovan the other day if he thought he could handle a very long plane ride to Germany?  He said YES with such enthusiasm.  I then said to him, "well mommy and daddy will need to start saving some money for a plane ticket", to which he replied, "you can use all my money in my piggy bank"!

So Zarah, Karin, Michael and Alexa …. Bis zum nächsten zeit ...