Why Eating Out is Not What It Used to Be

                  

                 I think my salads should come from home, like this one, from now on.

 

              If I were to be honest, I would tell you that I remain astounded that the damage done in the COVID era has not improved.  I live in a Mid-Atlantic state which is, not in the least, a depressed area. During the COVID era, all of the restaurants in our county closed leaving only a couple of fast food restaurants near the interstate exits. Originally, we thought that the normal restaurants would return, but they haven't. One by one, they closed permanently.  Now, even the sheriff's department drives to the edge of the county to go to a better fast food joint.

                   In a quest to eat properly, I don't eat out often. Once in awhile though, I get sick of preparing food, meal planning, or I just want to have some food I didn't make myself.  Last week, I took the family to the Wendy's just off the interstate. One of us had wanted a particular burger they had as a special promotion. I had not been to this location in about four years.  We ordered, and then stood to wait. The total for three people, including my salad, was thirty-two dollars. When we realized that the people who were actually getting their food had ordered more than a half an hour ago, we decided to fill our cups and sit down. The restaurant wasn't particularly busy, but there were a few young families ordering.  Forty-five minutes later, they called us. "Oh, you're food isn't ready," they said. "We just wanted to make sure that you hadn't left".  About ten minutes after that they called us to collect our food.

                    We ate inside,foolishly hoping the food would be worthy of the wait. Mine was a very average iceberg lettuce salad with crouton crumbles flavored with parmesan, some asiago slices, chopped chicken and two Caesar salad dressing packets that were 240 calories each if you used all of them.

                    I ate half the salad and all of the chicken on it.  The following day I was ill, I believe from the salad.  I resolved not to eat there again, but who knows, in another four years, I could be stupid enough to turn the roulette wheel again, in this location.

                    It has taken several days for my stomach to feel better. I am still not back to what is a normal diet for me. Today, I was in another town running an errand and I was hungry, realizing that I haven't eaten today.  I stopped by a very busy Hardees, thinking that something small would be a good idea, and that all the locals standing inside waiting to order couldn't all be wrong. After I entered, I noticed that there were people arguing with the staff about how long they had been waiting.  "I'm sorry ma'am", said one of the younger workers. "No one wants to work".  I ordered a small portion of chicken strips, and a cole slaw and a drink. It came with french fries. I waited fifteen minutes.  When I took my order, I asked for honey mustard and ketchup packets. They were out of those. They ran out of french fries during the time I was waiting.  Then I asked for a fork for the cole slaw, and they were out of that too.  

                   I think I'm just going to load a cooler for the car and eat out of that in the future. You might wish to do the same.

                 

Goodbye "Carole"

               

                                    This is not my Paddington, but you get the idea.

 

 

       Yesterday, before I woke up, I dreamt I spoke with a friend I haven't spoken to for many years. I hadn't been able to look her up over the years because I don't know what name she used after she was divorced, and so we had lost touch.

                 When I was a young girl, I graduated from high school at sixteen and went on to college.  A young man I dated was friends with many people from other colleges and so I met a woman I will call Carole. My boyfriend had been a mutual friend of Carole and her husband.  Carole was a college student from a wealthy family who had married into a wealthy family.  She was navigating learning to be a wife while going to college,  while also being a twenty something with friends.  I remember her as particularly kind and generous.  She once tried to lend me her Mercedes while my car was being repaired.

                  I became a friend and confidante to Carole, and she became a slightly older friend and chief "encourager" to me.  Life was hard for us both. I was navigating being the youngest person in my college class and having family issues, and she was navigating being a young wife to a man she didn't understand. We did our best to support each other. However, I was young enough not to be able to offer much more than encouragement myself. 

                  Before long these days ended. I moved and attended a different college, and she admitted that her husband was abusive, and she moved away before finally getting a divorce.  We spoke in notes a few more times, but last time we spoke she had a new job and new life, and I wasn't sure whether I would be a reminder of those tough days with her first marriage.

                   In the busy years that followed we lost touch.  Over the years, I have thought about her from time to time, but I have not been sure what last name she used after her divorce, or whether she remarried afterward.

                   In my dream yesterday morning, she told me "My name is Stevenson. I use my maiden name".

That morning, I looked up the woman I will call "Carole Stevenson" for the purpose of this post.  There she was.  After relocating, my friend had become a businesswoman.  She married briefly and had a daughter.  She was divorced again and moved to another state.  Eventually, her daughter grew up, married, and had a son.   My friend was diagnosed with cancer and was taken care of by her second former husband until her death last year.  In her obituary was a lovely fairly recent picture that was so clearly the woman I had known all those years ago.

                   The really funny thing about this is that one December, she and I went shopping in Morristown, New Jersey.  I believe it was Bamberger's that had the large Paddington bear with the hat, the raincoat, and wellington boots. I remember commenting that I loved Paddington and that I had read all the stories as a child.  The bear was a fortune and so I didn't give it any thought.  Carole must have returned another day and bought it for me, because she gave it to me in a large shopping bag as a Christmas present that year.  The bear was not only cherished by me, but it lived on a shelf in every one of my children's rooms at some time or another through the years. It is still a point of fascination for my grandson.

                     I don't understand how Carole could have been young, lived an entire life, and died, and I could have grandchildren now, and Paddington Bear looks as new as he did that first day in Bamberger's.

                    Carole, you have been missed from my life, but I was happy to trade your presence if it meant a new start and chance for happiness for you. I will always remember you fondly.

              

The Fight Against Bitterness

 

 

 

  Some years ago, a friend of mine who was a physician had charges brought against him, that I agreed, were unfair.  The entire matter could have been handled much better than it was. Eventually, the matter was settled, although he did lose a very large amount of money spent for legal fees.  He asked me to pray for him, and his request was very specific. He asked that I pray that he not become bitter. I told him that I would, but that he never would become bitter. That's just not his personality, and that he loved people and God too much to fall into such a place.  I was correct about that.  He continued his practice, and his life, still supporting people he believed were good, still leading family and students in the right way, and still being a shining light for many.  He died in his 90s.

           Now, I stand at a similar crossroad.   My son Daniel died at 12, presumably due to a sudden heart rhythm disturbance, fifteen years ago.  A year ago, my son Matthew died at 32, just after an influenza vaccine.

              Both of the professions in which I made a living have gone mad.  They are training providers quickly and the result are poorly trained practitioners with insufficient clinical who are too interventionist and show poor judgment all too often.  The COVID debacle is another issue.  Our current American government is another. Hospital systems are being taken over by accountants when physicians should still head up major clinical decision-making, and too many times, they no longer do. Changes in health insurance and its expense, and inflation generally are making life difficult for many.

           Everywhere I look the things that made life worth investing in and working for, have been degraded.  My Trust and Will planning has also been decimated by the loss of two of my sons.

           It would be easy for me to look at all that has been taken from my life and from the lives of my remaining children and young grandchildren.  Sometimes, these losses really do eclipse the many good things that have also fallen into this life.

            And so I ask you now to pray for me, and for my family.  Please pray that I continue to meet the challenges of this life and that I do not become bitter at the continuing losses. Please pray that I continue to be able to see the way forward and move in a way that inspires my friends, my readers and my family.  Thank you.  May God bless you all.

From All Those Years Ago

               

                                    From all those years ago

 

             I don't talk about this much, but when I was 20, and in college, I got married during the Summer break. We had two close friends accompany us as witnesses, and went to a lovely country church.  We'd had all the premarital counseling, and then to a reception of sorts at a favorite inn before going home to our very first apartment. Just a couple of weeks later, I returned to college for my final year.

                 We both had some things in common. We both enjoyed international and domestic travel. We both had problems at home, from which each of us were seeking an escape. I did well in the last year of college, and then, we had planned that I would work while he completed his final year.  However, in that first year of marriage, even when the pressure was off, he wasn't thrilled about following through with our plans and completing college.  I had been serious about being married and so when I saw there were some problems, fairly quickly, we entered marital counseling.  Some of it worked and some of it left us realizing that we were poorly suited for one another in a number of respects and had very different expectations of life in general.

                 Eventually, we moved out of state, and he did not adapt particularly well there. I won't go in to additional detail because I believed then, and now, that when you were married to someone, you owe them silence on the subject of their failings and shortcomings.  We had an amicable divorce.

                  In the years that followed, he turned up like a friend from time to time. He was generally supportive of my remarriage, and he was probably relieved not to have the responsibilities, as my husband and I had four children.  My husband would occasionally help him when he had a question about his car or by explaining something a mechanic had said to him.  Eventually, he moved back to his home state, and from the occasional card, we gathered that he was happy there, and things were going as expected. Then, the cards stopped.

                  Those years were busy and so I didn't worry too much when the cards stopped.  I had built a life after him, and I hoped he had done the same. I actually thought he had probably built a life with someone else, just as I had, and that we were simply not important enough to keep contact, and that was okay.  Then, the years passed. The kids grew up, attended college, each of my parents passed, and then my youngest son died suddenly. I thought it a little strange that no matter how much went wrong in my life, that no one I'd known was in touch with him or ever let him know.  I did think it was strange that we hadn't gotten a card from him.  

                    It took all I had to recover from the losses of those years, and one of the ways I did that was to write.  My first two books were published and released in 2012, and a total of six have been released following that time. By now, not hearing from my former husband had to be deliberate. He couldn't possibly be dead. I remembered his social security number and so I ran it through the death registry, and it wasn't there, and so he had to have been alive somewhere.  More years passed, and we heard nothing, and the relatives he had that I knew, were dead.

                     Almost a year ago, we lost our thirty two year old son, some hours after a flu vaccine.  We also lost a number of friends and acquaintances during the COVID era, some of which followed their COVID injections. Within the backdrop of this terrible loss, I began to touch base with many friends I hadn't heard from in some time.

                    Eventually, I contacted a cousin of my former husband.  I learned that after he moved back to the Northeast, that he learned that he had a very rare type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  From the outset, his chances of recovery or survival were not good, and so he focused on palliative rather than curative care. He also didn't share much about his condition to very many people while trying to enjoy the time he had remaining.  Eventually, he had a controversial surgery, and was left for the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He spent the remainder of his life in a nursing home. Two close friends from high school were there for him. I am told that they asked a number of times I he wanted me to be contacted, but he never did, and he was quite clear on this.

                    He died in 2006, long before either of my parents or my sons, Daniel or Matthew, died. He has been gone from the Earth for years, and I never knew. I never even had an inkling, which is so very strange because I am the woman who knew when my daughter had been in a car accident, when she was merely five minutes late home from work. (I had simply seen a picture of her in my head, that she was very frightened, while driving.) I didn't even feel his absence from the Earth in all those years. 

                      Life moves quickly. Make sure that you stay in touch with those who were important in your life. I had always hoped that he would reach a point in his life where he would want a marriage and then find someone who would share his interests. It makes me sad that this likely did not happen for him. I also hate the thought that he suffered, even though I hear that he closed out his life on his own terms, as much as was possible. May he rest in peace.

               

Welcome to the Third World

                   

                                                        A mall similar to the one discussed.

 

 

   We live in a rural place but sometimes we make it to one of three small Southern cities for shopping, or something else.  We no longer go very often, and so the changes in these places seem very clear and obvious to us.

                        Yesterday, my daughter, grandson and I went shopping in a particular shopping center that we used much more about twenty years ago.  Two of our kids were in college in that city, and for that reason, they or I were at the shopping center sometimes three times a week. It was a bit upscale and had some good shopping, a medical supply shop, an electronics shop,a bank,  a Tuesday Morning, a large chain grocers, about seven good restaurants, and some physicians, dentists and veterinarian's offices. One of the restaurants had a very reasonable Asian buffet, and so when the kids who were in college needed something, or when they needed some extra money or something, I used to meet them there for lunch.

                        I fully understand that malls have a lifespan.  Upscale malls don't remain upscale malls. As they age, they may or may not find their original occupant stores remaining with them. Some stores will go out of business. Others might find a less expensive commercial rental arrangements. The only constant anywhere is change.

                       About five years ago, the medical supply store moved away. A Dollar Tree moved in. The great Asian buffet closed.  Two bus stops were placed inside the mall.  The bus stop brought more customers, but it also brought elderly and disabled customers.   I stopped at the mall one day and a woman asked me if I could help her with her copay to the methadone clinic.  I didn't but I did some checking.  Yes indeed, there is a methadone clinic on the bus line, and they do actually charge a copay.  Shortly after, a vehicle that says Mall Security began making regular sweeps throughout the mall.

                       A couple of times when I had stopped to shop in Tuesday Morning, the police were in another part of the mall. There had been fist fights, and a couple of times a shop owner had called to have someone with a psychiatric problem removed from their store.  The family and I joked that it might not be safe for us to be shopping there any more.

                      Last year, Tuesday Morning, which is a business that has existed in the US for fifty years with many branches, closed its doors. Their store remains empty. A number of other stores have closed since, including some restaurants.  I am told the homeless bring sleeping bags and sleep within the courtyard of one of the empty restaurants.

                      Yesterday, we stopped by during the day because our errand took us to the area.   My grandson wanted to make a quick trip to the Dollar Tree.  When I tried to use the bathroom there, there were signs up that said that the bathrooms were not for customers, and were for employees only.  This was funny because it's exclusively self checkout with only one employee overseeing your checkout.  So, before leaving I went to Roses, which I remembered from ten years ago has a bathroom in the front of the store.  They have a sign that says, "See Customer Service for Key to Bathroom".   When I got to customer service, there was a woman using a walked with a walking cast on her left leg. She had come for the bathroom key, and customer service didn't have one and knew nothing about one. She was yelling at them because Dollar Tree hadn't let her use the bathroom either.  I told her that the Food Lion across the mall, had a bathroom. She said she couldn't walk as far as that.  She told the employees in the Roses that she was going to urinate in their grass outside. They shrugged.

                       As I drove to the Food Lion, a store that the manager has told me is dying in that location, I noticed signs saying that public urination and defecation is prohibited there.  Welcome to the Third World.  I don't shop much outside my own county any more.  I order the few things I need online and they arrive at our office.  We pick them up and take them to the farm. I have no way of gauging if this is occurring at other locations here in the South. If it is, then it may end shopping as we know it in the US.  Why would women with young children ever take them to such a place ?   Why would anyone go to lunch in a shopping center like this ?   Why would one shop there and incur risk, when they could buy whatever it is online ?

Remembering Dr. Leo Masciulli

               Some years ago, when I was still in college and still a teenager, working on getting my RN, I worked for a major teaching hospital, on a surgical unit as an LPN. I learned a great deal from this job, and it probably contributed to my learning about the profession, as much as college did.

                Since it was an academic hospital, I met everyone from attending physicians, to specialist physicians, interns, residents, fellows, and everyone in between. I still remember many of those people, and the important things they taught me in the course of caring for patients. This week, I took one of my adult children to an ophthalmologist who is also a retinal specialist. I could not help but think of the very first physician of this type that I had met. I was nineteen years old when working at Middlesex General Hospital, which later became the Robert S. Woods Johnson Medical Center where many physicians are trained. There was a fairly young attending physician named Dr. Leo Masciulli. He was notable not just because he was young, but because he genuinely loved what he was doing. When patients came in with a detached retina, and were blind, and often frankly hopeless, he was excited by the challenge of restoring their sight in that eye. He also came armed with a series of jokes which very much set the patients at ease, and sometimes, the stressed out nursing staff also. The doctor was also intrigued by all the new equipment that had come out in ophthalmology and he was thrilled when he found someone who had a few minutes so he could show them the new piece of equipment and how it could possibly help someone to restore their sight, or possibly to avoid losing it in the first place. I don't think I ever saw him discouraged, annoyed, or bored. I also never heard him say a cross word to anyone, and we were working in a place where the stakes were high and stress was high also.

                I am lucky that I remember almost all of the names of the physicians and other medical specialists I worked with at the absolute start of my career. I have kept in touch with some of them, followed the careers of others, and sent flowers sometimes, when some of them passed. A lot of physicians don't live a long lifespan. Even when they are calm, cool and collected, the work and the stress takes a toll. Even when they appear to have a work life balance, many of them don't live the lifespan we might anticipate for them. When I got home from the retinal specialist, I looked up Dr. Leo, and found that he had died in 2011. From the comments left by those who worked with him, knew him, and loved him, he hadn't changed much over the years. He remained passionate about his craft and about laser surgery. He still joked. Unsurprisingly, he was devoted to his family and to his grands, and he loved golf. I was happy to leave my own recollections of him. Rest in peace, Dr. Leo.

 

 

 

Thoughts on the Increasing Rates of Suicide

 

 

            This week, in order to renew several of my professional licenses, I had to do an awful lot of continuing education. Normally, I do some all year long and so there's no need to catch up. This year, probably because my son Matthew died, I have not been keeping up with many of the things I normally do. So, I had to spend quite a few hours playing catch up.  Some licenses specify courses you must take while others simply specify a certain number of continuing education hours. For one of these licenses, I needed to take a course on Suicide.

            Suicide was a big focus in college when we studied psychiatric nursing, and before we did state psychiatric clinicals and private hospital clinicals also.  Since suicide is a point of focus in almost every specialty, such as cancer, psychiatric nursing, critical care, neurology, transplant units etc., almost everywhere I have ever worked has required some type of continuing education on recognizing suicidal behavior in your patient or a coworker. So this eight hour course, and lengthy exam is about the thirtieth time I have had to focus on the subject.

            As I began to take the course, I had to think of my father. My father believed that people who were terminally ill, in pain, or in some other type of psychic pain should be entitled to receive physician assistance to safely and comfortably effect their own suicide. I vehemently disagreed. Many times I told my father that many different combinations of drugs exist enabling those who are in their final stages of life to be comfortable and make use of those final days, which are also very valuable. Our final days can be used for goodbyes, for final touches to our Will, to place the names of loved ones on our property in order to settle our estates more readily, or for simple reflection or for prayer. This was one of the few things my Dad and I disagreed about. I did agree however, that when he died, I was to allow whatever pain medication was correct and necessary, even if it possibly shortened his life by hours or days. Like any other promise I made of such import, I kept it when the time came, even hiring a Nurse Thanatologist who could properly and safely administer what was needed. I am also grateful to my father for not considering suicide in those last days which are very cherished memories at least for me, and I suspect they were important moments for him as well.

           The latest information on suicide, according to the course is that almost everyone is at risk. Girls between 10-14 are at risk. Physicians and dentists are at risk. Those who have experienced trauma or loss in the last year are at risk. Veterans are at risk, probably forever. Those with seizures, Crohn's disease, Multiple Sclerosis, issues of addiction, are all at risk. Those who have had a friend commit suicide, or who have had a family member commit suicide are also,  Those who gamble or use alcohol are also at risk. Young people who are bullied and those who have an eating disorder are also at risk of suicide. Professionals in the field say that we are to ask people who are having a difficult time if they are contemplating suicide. Their opinion is that the person being asked will be glad for the opportunity to talk, rather than think they are being given permission to act toward self harm. I hope they are correct.

            So despite the fact that I have now taken a course of the same subject for more than 30 times, as has anyone else in healthcare, the problem continues to worsen. Suicide by all means is increasing not only in the United States, but in many places in the world as well.  Apparently, requiring the attendance of courses on suicide so many times is not reducing the suicide rate, in either health care or in the general population.

            Now that we have established that just about everyone you know is at risk for committing suicide, I want to say a few things about it.  I have now lost two sons suddenly. One died fifteen years ago at 12 1/2 of a supposed spontaneous heart rhythm disturbance. Another son died after having turned 32, about 39 hours after having an influenza vaccine. So, I suppose we have established that I too must be at risk.

           What are the reasons we should not commit suicide ?  Now this is from me, and not any continuing education course.  First, because if we end our lives and take ourselves out of play then we will not be present on Earth to see things improve. Yes, nothing, including the bad times, last forever.  Suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems.  Secondly, because when we commit suicide, we transfer the pain from ourselves to everyone else who loved us. This is probably not the legacy you had in mind. Third, because every drop of life is precious. As my father was dying in the ICU, I got a physician order to allow him to have bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. He truly enjoyed drinking this favorite drink from his youth while talking to his daughter.  These drops of last days and moments of life are very special and should not be disrupted. We also should not disrupt any of the last tasks we may have on Earth before we are called.   Lastly, we must not commit suicide because God grants us this life and the time in it, and believe me, He calls us when He is ready for us, just as God called two of my sons at a moment's notice.

          Perhaps our strategy as a nation needs to change with regard to suicide.  Perhaps people who commit suicide are not people with an undiagnosed psychiatric issue that missed being treated.  Perhaps they are simply people who have been beaten down by the world and have found almost no encouragement in the schoolyards, the schools, the universities, the hospitals, the employers, the restaurants, or anywhere else.  I am not saying that we need to baby the world. I don't want that. I am saying that bullying is unacceptable anywhere and must stop.  I am saying that nurses and physicians, pharmacists, and EMTs need to have access and required hours with a counselor, just as police and veterans often do.  Things we see and do, and have experienced change us, sometimes always and forever. We need to recognize this and make kindness and decency more of the rule than the exception. Why can't Christian counselors discuss suicide ?  Perhaps the largest problem with so much suicide is that people are spiritually injured and are constantly batted over the head by a mandatorily secular world.  God is the most important reason I would never commit suicide, and I'll bet He is for an awful lot of other people also.

         On the evaluation of the course I took, I found it difficult simply to answer without expressing my annoyance and anger. I told them that there was one group they had failed to identify as at risk. People who had to take a course on the current state of affairs in the world on suicide for eight hours straight and who'd been required to take a similar course thirty times since 1981, probably were at as much risk as any other group they had listed. It seems forcing us all to take these courses isn't making much difference to anyone. 

         Perhaps we can, "Love one another".