Rehab Story Continues: Mistakes Happen

Pss. 112:4 “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.”

Rehab Story Continues: Accidents Happen

As I said in the last post, my chemo meds never arrived after my hubby waited all day for them. After visiting me on Friday, he went home and placed a call to the online pharmacy where we get the chemo meds from. Turns out, the order was NEVER PLACED by my doctor’s office. So he went ahead and placed the order, they would now not arrive until the following Wednesday. Go ahead, you’re allowed to let your jaw drop. If me taking this Oral Chemo is so important, what on earth happened with the ordering? I don’t even think my doctor's office gave us an explanation. Hey, accidents happen, right?

Anyway, here we are on Saturday. My son would come before three if he had a 3-11pm. shift,  six o'clock after Steven left if he had an 11-7am. shift. Now with my son in his new apartment, he was closer to the hospital by about twenty minutes. His place was safely tucked right up the road from the Home, and a good thing because when hubby locked his keys in the car, my son still had a spare key from when he drove my car, to be able to just run the key up to the Home.

I thought Saturday would be a rest day in the Home, but no, the Phys. Therapist arrived about eight o'clock (before breakfast) to assist me in my fifteen minutes of physical therapy. Yes, you read that right, fifteen minutes of PT. I took it upon myself both at the Hospital and the Home to do PT throughout my day on my own. I was determined to make it to that commode without assistance! Back home, when my brother injured his hip his PT therapy sessions were well over an hour, he told my mother. Not for me, I get fifteen minutes. 

My son came and went for a visit by three, and hubby arrived for his visit after he got off of work. He works right up the road too, so no sense in going home, out of the way, when we had such short visiting time. I told him how my meds were never on time and asked if he could bring me some from home. Pain is pain as everyone knows and we NEED something to relieve the gnawing grip. If the Home wouldn’t supply, then my meds from my home would!

This would be my first weekend here and already I’ve seen differences. Well, the obvious is that the Administration nurses were off for the weekend and the young aides were left to fend for themselves. This home had a North and South wing, around thirty residents to each wing, two aides to each wing. It was under construction so the rooms were doubled up with patients, meaning four to use one bathroom, if they were able. They still needed a nurse to assist no matter what.

The cries in the hallway were deafening, the lady across from us kept yelling, “Can someone help me to the bathroom?” What seemed like forever the woman kept being told, “In a minute.” Then there were the televisions blaring, the visitors who thought it would be a good idea to bring their six-year-old to a nursing home, not knowing if it would traumatize them for life! Then the elderly men playing some kind of video games where beeps and whirs echoed.

Ray was in her wheelchair when she called for the nurse to get her into bed. It was about seven o'clock. The aide came in and told her, “Ray I’ll be with you in a minute, we have a situation out here. We’ll get to you as soon as we can.”  I saw no use in telling them that I needed to pee because I know I’d get the same thing. We’d sit and wait. We talked. I tried keeping the conversation light but Ray unleashed some bitter traumatic stuff from her past. I listened. Then she grew angry as her pain was heightening from being in the chair for too long. She pushed the button again, eight o’clock and ticking, the aide popped in with the same words but added, “Please be patient, there is only TWO of us on duty for North AND South, and lights are lit all over the place. Bert fell out of his chair and we have urine all running down the hall, it’s a mess out here, literally.” You could hear the pill cart being wheeled down the hall amid all of the commotion going on. She closed the door and left.

Nine o’clock came and here we were both still needing a tending to, Ray still in her wheelchair, in pain and I in my bed helpless against helping. Ray was now crying, and I too was silently allowing tears to stream down my cheeks. “Ray,” I cried out, “I am not going to sleep until they take care of you.” She sniffled and said, “You don’t haft ta do that. You’re tired too.”

“It’s okay Ray. I’m okay. I want you to be okay!” It was the best I could offer seeing I’m as bedridden as her, except she was left in her chair.

“I’m thore,” she cried. Her lisp could sound so endearing at times. It broke my heart. “We’re frendth aren’t we?” 

“Yes, Ray, we’re friends.”

A smell started permeating the room and I said nothing but knew, Ray had gone to the bathroom in her diaper. I could hear her mumbling under her breath how she had *expletive* herself and wanted to be transferred to another facility and how she paid to be in this place and they are PAID to take care of her.

She hit the call button again, it now being nine-thirty. “We’re almost there Ray,” a head popped in to say, “just a couple more minutes.” and the door closed. Ray was now sobbing loud and I tried so hard to comfort her but I myself needed comfort at this time.

This was hell. This is what the hellfires felt like surrounding you and you clawing to get out into some fresh air but you’re smothering, suffocating from lack of oxygen. You could feel your limbs going numb, sweat now pouring from your forehead. The screams now constant whispers as the echoes were in your head, tapping you on the shoulder mocking you and laughing saying, ‘I’m still here.’ 

The door swung open and a loud sigh came from Laura, the oxygen was leaking in, slowly, it was now ten-fifteen. “We’re so sorry,” I allowed her words of explanation to drift off as they finally tended to Ray. She needed two nurses too since she had to be placed in bed with a lift. She had sat in her feces almost two hours and she was extremely sore by this time.

One nurse came to the other side of the curtain to tend to me and I sat with my gait belt in place ready to be lifted. Only one nurse was tending to me, I said nothing when she appeared with no gloves or gown and she proceeded to lift me. I twinged in pain, “Easy please, my hip, it’s still sore from my recent surgery.” With some assistance from me, she lifted me to standing, I tightly grabbed my walker, as she let go of the belt. I said, “Oh no, please, you have to hold the belt until I’m seated, this is how my femur was broken in the first place.”  

I whispered as tears were now rimming my eyes, “Please, please be gentle with me.” She took hold of the belt and as I was almost seated, she let go. I almost plopped onto the seat but my strength and my prayer placed me gently on the commode. She just stood there, waiting for me to pee. A watched clock never runs, but my floodgates opened from holding it in for hours!  

I had my own Kleenex because they offered me nothing. I was ready to be placed back in bed. Again, amazon woman lifted frail 88-pounder me by the gait-belt, I pivoted and sat on the edge of the bed, I told her I could make it from here, I was good, go finish up with Ray.

Ray kept telling them that I ‘Thtayed awake for her’  and that I wath her real fren. I smiled my tears away and lifted my legs onto the bed. The nurses bid us a good night and wouldn’t you know it, the meds from the charge nurse finally arrived. With meds down the hatch, we both let out a sigh of relief.

“We made it, Ray.”

“We did, didn’t we! You thtayed awake for me. Thank you!”

“Not a problem Ray, we’re friends.”

"That’th right, we are. Okay, goodnight.” She was out like a light before I even got settled into bed.

I had been texting my husband the entire time we waited for the nurses/aides/whatever. He was calling left and right to the front office, he as helpless as I was. “Goodnight, Ray,” I whispered as I shut off my little nightlight.

Matt. 14:14 “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.”

Mistakes Part II

Jas. 5:16 “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

Let me make something perfectly clear. In yesterday’s post I was going over mistakes I made in my life and I don’t want my reader to misunderstand me. I in no way regret not getting an abortion. Sure I was young, many would jump at the chance, but I CHOSE not to get an abortion because I don’t believe in them. I clearly was given a CHOICE and I chose life but God, for only reasons He knows, chose death. 

I didn’t make a mistake in getting married at seventeen either because low and behold, thirteen years later I would be blessed with a beautiful baby boy, living, breathing! My whole point in these mistakes posts is a chance to look back and see that they weren’t really mistakes after all just learning experiences. I learned I had a CHOICE as to what to do with my body and soul, no matter what age I was.

Granted, at such a young age my choices weren’t that great but I did learn from them and am a better person because of them. Many people make mistakes and live a life filled with regret; why didn’t I do this, why didn’t I do that? I’m here to tell you from experience that your life will be a living hell if you live a life of regret!

Maybe this is why I’m an optimistic positive person, because I see the glass as half full not half empty. I don’t live a life of regrets, I live a life of promise. My hope is that when you read my words, sitting there full of regrets, you think to yourself all of the good things that came out of what seemed like mistakes in YOUR life.

The only way to find healing, short of therapy, is writing; if not to the world then to you and you alone. Coming to grips with a hard past is a long road and one worth taking if you are ever to heal. Healing is a process, sometimes a long slow process but a process nonetheless. It’s a painful process too and there is no humor in going over the most painful parts of your life. Pain will resurface, tears will fall, loneliness will embrace you but it is all a part of the healing on the path to a better you.

What you have to try is this: Write down what you see as a mistake and right next to it write down a positive slant like what good came from that mistake. You might be the kind of person who is afraid to admit you made any mistakes and that’s okay too, I guess. Take note: Living in denial will hurt more than heal. You have to come to terms with the mistakes you made, your mother might have made or your father in rearing you and I tell many students to write, write, write and get it off your chest and onto paper! Granted you may have had the perfect life and made no mistakes. To me that is like saying, “I’ve never sinned.” 

Jas. 5: 20 “Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

I have to admit, writing is one thing I will NEVER regret doing. It has become an emotional healer for me whether in writing my story or writing poetry it has been a healer of all sorts on so many levels.

These things you write down can be for your eyes only and when you’re done they can be deleted or burned, if you wrote them on paper. That’s just one step in the healing process to make you SEE that you’re a better person because of your mistakes. You’re not a BAD person, you’re a healing person! Own it!

With the grace of God may you all find the healing that you seek. 

Acts 4:22 “For the man was above forty years old, on whom this miracle of healing was shewed.”

Mistakes

Pss. 19: 12 “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.”

I’ve made quite a few mistakes, I’m sure we all have and usually ones that we have to live with the rest of our life, like it or not. Since I began writing, well no, since I began blogging, my paintbrush of mistakes is in vivid color here. I hold nothing back and my truth is my healing place.

Some people deal with their mistakes, some timidly live with them, some take the mistakes they made in life by the horns and wrestle them to the ground and shed them from their life never to be seen or heard from again. 

To me, mistakes we made in our past shouldn’t be forcefully thrown in our face so that we have to live with the pain on a daily basis. Some people don’t deal with their mistakes very well and they live in denial as if the mistake is a joy in their life, never to be admitted as a mistake, but the pain, the pain is so evident when people live in denial. 

One mistake I made, was not getting an abortion at 16 and spending nine agonizing months pregnant only to give birth to a stillborn child whose memory still haunts me to this day, some thirty-odd years later; then marrying the guy at 17 and spending 20 years of my formative life owning up to a pledge I had made more to God than my husband.

Looking back at my mistakes helps me to see God’s hand in shaping me. I was the clay and he was the potter molding me into the woman I am now. I don’t have regrets in the choices I made and some may say I’m in denial but really; the CHOICE was mine, an act of free will that God gave to us all. 

Isa. 64:8 “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”

Have you ever lived in a moment of should’ve, could’ve, would’ve? I normally don’t but as flashbacks come back to haunt me, writing about what could’ve been helps me for some odd reason. 

It helps me because with all of the looking back, I see myself exactly where I should be and any amount of changes in what ‘could’ve been’, only changes segments in the here and now. At this juncture, I would not want one thing to change. My pain and my suffering, (that of which no one understands except myself) is what helps me to be non- judgmental to others who are suffering through their own mistakes.

I do believe that our mistakes are little tools in our life that carve out who and what we become. I need to see that living with no regret is where my mind and body is supposed to be at this moment.

Job 19: 4 “And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.”

Mistakes should never be used to make people bend to your whim, they should be treated with the soft-skinned hands of a person who has grown and learned from their mistakes. A mistake can be seen as a work of art instead of a hold-over-your-head lifetime of remembrance.

I think what I’m trying to say in short is this: Mistakes are sometimes blessings in disguise. Not that they are rainbows and unicorns and should be seen as such but that they are clay and mistakes are what molded you.

Air-brushed

Proverbs 17:22 A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones.
***

Have you ever heard of the term air-brushed? That’s what is done to pictures whether in magazines, or photography studios. You go in, they put tons of make up on you, embellish you quite a bit, then aim and shoot, process, air brush, then print. The picture is then a perfect image, no lines,wrinkles blemishes. That zit you went into the studio with magically disappeared, and you are delivered a perfect picture of yourself.

Editors are the air brush experts of the writing industry. We writers write and it is their job to embellish and make the writers work nearly perfect for the publishers and then it is on to acceptance.

I was reading a King novel and his editor missed an air-brush moment. The characters name was Tad throughout the whole book and in one sentence he was called Ted. You know, an error like that can really make you trip over words.

You expect the errors from small time publishers but from big time publishers that are making millions from an author such as King? I expect perfection! Well, now I know not to because there is nothing perfect in this world.

Did you ever wake up to face the world feeling airbrushed until you smile at someone and they look at you weird, point to your front tooth and say, “Got a little something there.” You then feel awkwardly embarrassed and remove the chunk of yesterdays broccoli that you THOUGHT you had brushed away, (but broccoli is a stubborn veggie.)

Or did you ever wake up with a song in your heart and you just start singing it, not even caring if you’ve got the words right, or if it is in tune, you just want to rejoice in waking up, only to be told, “What is that?” By someone who doesn’t like your singing.

What I’m getting at is that the simplest of moments can ruin the bright and glorious ones. One comment can leave you bruised, one correction can almost shatter an already unstable personality, one incident can change the world you live in.

I’m in an airbrushed moment of my life. I feel like God is up there with a big eraser and saying, “No this isn’t right. How did I mess THIS up so bad?” And I know it is just my own insecurities seeing things that are not there.

God makes no mistakes! Life cannot be airbrushed into perfection. As much as we want this or that different, this is just the way God wants us. And as I set my priorities straight, facebook will fall to a glimmer in my eye, the writing world will dim to a low light in the fog. I will rise above the ashes and move on in the direction God intends for me.

Editors aren't perfect, publishers aren’t all that perfect either, and certainly authors are just human beings with flaws. Whether in words or in pics, we’re not perfect, life isn’t perfect.

I think I’ll climb into my airbrushed magazine and pretend all is right with the world out here.

Double Double Toil and Trouble

"However great a man's natural talent may be, the art of writing cannot be learned all at once." Jean Jacques Rousseau
***

Well it seems I’ve stirred up some trouble again. Just when I think the stew is cooked, I go and throw another coal on the fire.

As a writer, my goal is to encourage other writers, and try to help them build the confidence in themselves that will get them to the next level of their journey. My aim is to motivate them, teach them, and give them the best information that I know, to see to it that they keep writing until their fingers bleed.

The first thing I tell the new writer is that if you don’t have a thick skin, can’t handle criticism, can’t take the heat when it is bearing down on you, then writing is not the field that you’ll want to enter into, no matter how much you like writing. Sure your mom loves your writing, your friends say what a natural you are, and you yourself feel like you can do it, but when a bomb drops, you’re the first to run for cover.

Writers need to be able to handle the heat. More times than not, you will hear the words, “This could use some work.” or “Might I suggest you try this instead.” These are not words saying your writing is bad, these are writers who know what they are looking for and want to help you become a better writer and assist you in getting from point A to point B.

As much as we love our moms, they do not know what they’re looking for when it comes to storyline, plot or structure. Their child has written a masterpiece and they think it is the Goldmine of the century, but then you hand it to a critique group and you find, it needs work? “But my mom said...” Forget what your mom and friends say, listen to what your writer friends say.

This week I may have lost a writer in the making. I can only do so much to stretch out my hand and offer comfort where they might need it. The rest is up to them, and I’m hoping with the strength and comfort the writing community offers to people, this person will find his way back to doing what he loves.

Writing isn’t about always being RIGHT, it isn’t about money, and it certainly isn’t about ego, it is about doing what you love and sharing it with others. Your hard work is rewarded by people loving your work, being touched by something you wrote or paying you an honest compliment.

We all, as writers, need to hear the good stuff, as much as we need to learn from the bad stuff. Mistakes are made and you move on. You’re a writer! Show the world what you’re REALLY made of!

Poetry Sunday ~ The Mist

Job 27:88 He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them.
***

The Mist 
(c) Joni Zipp

Crossing over the empty field
fingers stretch out like tendrils of vapor.
Prior stalks crept skyward but now
the pasture keeps vigil with the midnight caper.

Creeping, clinging, clawing finding its way;
sauntering, slithering into the life of me
Through the trees soft sworn breeze,
the mindful mist just has to be.

The moisture whispers softly sprinkling
sounds, a hiss, a cool bliss singing;
life is short the fork is swaying
with the earth, all but swinging.

The sun is sneaking silhouette peeking
rays they linger beyond the gist
it is where one day my soul will lay
evaporating as surely will the mist.

All rights reserved: copyright © Joni  Zipp

OOPS Factor

Job 19: 4 And be it indeed
that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
***

Oops that was wrong. Did you ever have that happen to you? Have an oops moment in writing? Well allow me.

The oops factor is a term we writers use when we have a, dare I say, mistake? This is why I say oops because it just sounds so much better and comes off as being retrievable but we all know, an oops is non- refundable.

Have you ever submitted a work and breathed that deep sigh of relief as you finally sent your work out and as months pass you think, “Hmmm, I still haven’t heard from them.” Then you pull the piece that you submitted out of the secret file that you have it hidden in, and take a second look at it.

OOPS! There it is, shining right in your face, a mistake glaring at you like an eyeball in the sky! It is plain as day so why didn’t you see it BEFORE you clicked that little submit button? Why? Because you were already excited about sending it out into the realm of the unknown and thought for sure it would bring you joy as it got the old accepted letter (one that you quickly print out and make a beautiful new wallpaper out of.)

Lesson learned. Before you ever submit, click submit, or send out your work, there is a checklist that you as a writer need to be aware of that will make the wait less tense filled and maybe a more pleasant outcome will result by doing the list!

1. Always check the guidelines. If it calls for 1200 words, don’t ever think that your writing is so special that the editors will overlook that one word extra that you added. In poetry markets they usually ask for 20-26 lines, don’t give them 30. It will get tossed in the trash. Also check the requirements for font and spacing. No editor wants fancy font! Remember that.

2. Always check for grammatical errors. This is important for submitting to magazines or workshops that you might be in. Putting your best work forward shows the reader that you have taken the time to know what it is that you are submitting. Editors are not going to fix your punctuation errors, nor is any writing group. Learn the concept.

3. Always check the correct spelling. If you are in Canada, then editors want the correct spelling, ie: labor/labour. But in America, they want the American spelling or else they will ask for the proper English spelling.

4. Don’t assume. Don’t assume that your work will be critiqued by a magazine editor. If she/he drops you a note saying fix this or that, then good for you! But they will NOT correct grammar, spelling issues for you, this should have been done before hitting the submit button!

5. ALWAYS and I mean always after writing, revising and preparing to submit, let it STAND for a day or two and come back with an eagle eye and read it. Read it OUT LOUD so you get the right sound to a sentence.

These are simple five tips that will aid you in the rechecking of your work before submitting. Don’t let the editors have to work for what they are reading. Give them something clean and professional and chances are you’ll get that acceptance letter sooner than expected.

Write Right Folks!

p.s. Thanks Raven :-)