Pain management

I understand the serious nature of controlling substances.  Unethical people will undermine the good nature of the pharmaceutical world, if not controlled.  But what I really resent is being treated like a druggie criminal when I ask for medications that I really need.  

Pain isn't really that tough to ignore.  With a strong will you can subvert most of it.  Why should you have to, though?  Science and medicine have made these advances so that pain can be managed in a humane way, so that you can avoid focusing on it and go on living your life.  I know the temporary pain of a major surgery will pass, but the time is going to seem so much longer and bleaker. 

Just my rant for the day--can't change legislation or the way a powerful lobby does business.  Thanks, drug addicts, for messing up another facet of society.

21 years ago. . .

The thought of being a parent had never scared me; in my teaching career I often felt parental responsibilities, and I relished them.  I had lived a full life, I thought, before my son was born in 1991.  Was there really that much more to experience?  I tired of the day to day baby stuff early, and started to panic more than once at the end of a sleepless day-turned into-night-turned back into day when he was a newborn.  Could I really do this?

As the years went by, the burden of care seemed lighter.  The daily battles were few, but there were some.  Every new school year brought changes that he fought.  More than once I carried him into a classroom squirming.  How would it look, I would say to him, to have a teacher whose own son hates school?  School started to become fun; reading became a habit, then a joy; and the artwork started.

One of the first beautiful works he created, that I still have framed and hung, was a watercolor rendition of New York’s Central Park, one he completed at age eleven. The healing after  9/11 was difficult—maybe a turning point in growing up.  The house fire.  Sparky’s death.  The hard year between tenth and eleventh grade.  They were all there for us to learn from, to experience together and make changes over.

Now, 21 years old.  I thought I could never be this lucky or happy.  We communicate; we don’t always agree, but we listen, and learn.  His college experience is exemplary, and he is a creative, kind, unselfish, loving person who I am proud to know and even prouder to be a parent of.  My crystal ball from my 21^st birthday would never have been able to contain all the joy of my future with my wonderful son, Nathan.  Happy birthday, mijo!

Turning 21

MANY years ago, in a galaxy far, far away. . .no, not really, but it was 36 years ago, in a 'Communist' country, steeped in vampire legends and mist, that I turned 21 years old.
It was a college-sponsored choir trip to Romania in 1976.  It was the year of the Olympic games in which Nadia Comaneci was about to wow the world, and it was my first time out of the country, besides Canada.  We were scheduled for many performances in odd venues, that included churches, schools, parks and public squares.  
I remember Romanian people mobbing us wherever we went, eager to talk to someone from the United States, and I also learned that the politics of the government of a country do not always echo the politics of average everyday citizens.  The Romanian people we met were warm, friendly and sociable.  They were proud of the beauties of their land, which many westerners had not visited at that point in time.  
The young gentlemen in the photo were NOT Romanians, however.  They were Palestinian college students going to school in Romania, who spoke not only Romanian and Arabic, but English as well.  My friend Beth and I met them at a museum and discovered that one of them shared MY birthday, May 20, but was one year older on that exact day!  We shared a glass of champagne and some English conversation in a small Romanian cafe, and followed all our curfew rules of the trip, as well!
Now, my sweet son will be turning 21 in a few days (check back later for a blog post), and I cannot believe how time can fly!