This Body is Bullshit

Let’s start with the good news.

Frank is doing well. Really well. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.

We are done with the emergency vets and specialists for now and back to just seeing Dr. Palmer, who is an absolute sweetheart. The diagnosis is in — PLE, Protein-Losing Enteropathy, with inflammatory bowel disease. The name is a mouthful, but we are catching it very early. The plan is a special diet and supplements first, followed by a two month recheck to see if his protein levels respond. If they don’t, we add steroids. Surgery exists as an option but it is not one we are considering. Not just because of the financial reality, but because of Gus. We spent everything we had trying to save him. A major surgery, a brutal recovery, completely drained our savings and we still lost him. My heart cannot do that again.

The complicated part is that the PLE has nothing to do with what happened neurologically. Dr. Palmer believes he had a seizure and the hope is that it won’t happen again. The silver lining is that the seizure led us to find the PLE before Frank got really sick. Before the chronic diarrhea, the severe weight loss, the fluid buildup, the swollen limbs. We caught it before any of that.

I know my little loaf is going to respond to this. He is going to eat his fancy prescription food, take his supplements, and be a smelly, stubborn, ridiculous sixteen year old pug someday. I am manifesting it.

In the middle of all of Frank’s drama, the projectile vomiting, the drunk sailor impression, the stupid fender bender, the emergency vet, the $3,000 and counting… my toenail fell off.

Just fell off. No injury. No explanation. I had my toenails painted yellow at the time. So when it came off it looked exactly like a piece of corn.

Then I went to see Anthony’s school dance. The sweetest boy. Maggie was out of town so of course I was there to support him when Aunt Susie asked. The finale was the three of us with Anthony and all the other kids and families doing the Macarena. I was best at the hip swivel. I am not the most coordinated with the arm movements.

And speaking of Maggie… I received the shocking news that she was laid off. Her whole department, apparently. She is so talented. So compassionate. Another company is going to be very lucky to have her. As for this one with the audacity, I hope they go bankrupt. Fuckers. How dare you. She has enough on her plate.

There was also a high school graduation party for Samuel in there somewhere. This handsome, quiet, incredibly intelligent young man. You would never know he kicked leukemia’s ass as a toddler. My sweet Donna has such a hard time with her children’s milestones, not because she isn’t proud, she is bursting with it, but because she just wants them to stay babies forever. It’s okay. She’ll always be my baby to look after and hug.

This week at work has been Associate Appreciation Week, which is one of my favorite weeks of the year and also one of the most exhausting.

I take it personally. I drive everyone a little nuts about it because I want it to be perfect. There are theme days, food, raffles, photos. But when you work with people who show up every single day, do hard physical work, and still manage to be genuinely wonderful human beings despite all the little heartaches that are happening on the outside, they deserve a week that feels special. They deserve to know someone sees them.

We had themes every day and our people showed up for every single one. I love taking photos with the associates, watching them laugh and be silly. We post everything internally through the company intranet and it’s just fun to see.

Wednesday was the luncheon. First shift ate in ninety degrees and a bazillion percent humidity — we were all basically melting into our sandwiches. Then right after second shift started, the sky opened up. One hell of a storm came through, practically a tornado, and just like that the temperature dropped. So second shift got to eat lunch in actual human conditions instead of dripping sweat onto their plates.

Last week we went out for a couple of beers for Frank’s birthday. Frank my colleague, not Frank my pug. I’m the only woman in my group of guys at my building and we all get along so well. I like being one of the guys. And I like that my husband is cool with it. I guess he knows I couldn’t do better than him.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had two tattoos touched up. Meaningful ones I wanted refreshed. The oak tree, in honor of the poem Matt gave me in a card years ago that became one of my daily mantras. And a pelican for my grandparents and Marco Island.

What I do not love is that my daughter has apparently decided to keep pace with me. Actually she’s lapped me, she now has more than I do. Which is how I found myself telling a grown adult woman with a master’s degree that she is not allowed to get any more tattoos until she is fifty. I also recognize the complete absurdity of that coming from me. Which really resonated with me when I listened to the Smartless podcast episode with Jon Bernthal. I was not a fan going in. I was judging him. And what was I even judging? A character he played that I didn’t like? Embarrassing in retrospect. Classic you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Because this man had me. The way he spoke, the things he said about “parenting through adversity” I don’t even have the right word for what it did to me. Inspired doesn’t quite cover it. Just go listen. It might be too late for me to apply most of it but maybe not for you.

And then there was the Whole Foods incident.

Kathy needed to run to O’Hare to finish up her Global Entry for her upcoming Paris trip — she absolutely deserves that trip — so I met her near one of the Dynamic buildings on the way and took my dad with me. I had what I thought was a brilliant idea. I needed to stop at Whole Foods for a return and figured the shopping cart would give him great support for walking. Get some steps in. Get his blood flowing. Kill two birds with one stone.

We made it in. Did the return. And then he had an accident.

That was the end of the Whole Foods adventure.

I hovered outside the men’s room not knowing what to do with myself, stepping in when I knew the coast was clear, panicking every time someone else went in. I called Matt, who rerouted and was already on his way. About thirty five minutes later my dad reappeared.

Shorts on backwards.

Cancelled Matt. We headed home.

It is so sad. It is also a little bit funny. And that was Tuesday.

I genuinely don’t know how people do it. I am scrambling. Burning the candle at both ends at work, managing things with my dad, trying to support Kathy, trying and kind of failing to show up for the people I love and by the time I get home I have nothing left. I want to sit on my deck and stare at my plants and not talk to anyone. That’s it.

And then I feel like a bad person about it.

A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend’s daughter ended up in the hospital. Infection, surgery, the whole terrifying ordeal. I cannot imagine what it’s like to watch your child go through that. She is a hospice nurse, by the way. She spends her days caring for people at the end of their lives with grace and tenderness and I genuinely don’t know where she finds it. And yet, I happened to mention that Matt wasn’t feeling well and she showed up with soup and bread. While her own family was going through something awful. She always makes you feel seen and important and loved and I want to be more like her even though I am currently running on fumes.

My neighbor stopped by in the driveway the other night while Matt and I were trying to get a few things done in the yard. She is so nice, she would do anything for us and we try to reciprocate when we can. I told her honestly that I was burning the candle at both ends, emotionally drained from work and from everything with my dad, and that when I get home I just want to sit on my deck and exist quietly. She totally understood… and then sweetly invited me over to her backyard, which she has made absolutely beautiful with a water feature. So relaxing, she said. Just sit and listen to the water.

She is not wrong. It sounds genuinely lovely.

I still haven’t gone.

Which brings me back to Megan. She also has a beautiful backyard. Also a water feature. Also constantly inviting me over. And I want to go, I really do, and I also really don’t want to go anywhere or do anything or talk to anyone. Both things are completely true at the same time and I feel terrible about it.

I need to be more intentional about my downtime. Real downtime. Not just collapsing between obligations. Actual chosen stillness where I’m not feeling guilty about what I’m not doing or who I’m not seeing.

And speaking of my deck and my plants. Aunt Susie showed up at my house and planted Zinnias. Just came over and planted them. Started some of the pots on my deck. Without being asked. Without making a big deal of it. Just showed up and did it because she knew I hadn’t had the bandwidth and she knew how much it would mean to me.

I had been so stretched that I hadn’t been able to tend to something that genuinely brings me joy. Something as simple as my plants. And she just took care of it. That’s Aunt Susie. She sees what needs doing and she does it quietly and lovingly and without any fanfare.

It made my day. My week. My whole month. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

I’m working on the stillness.

Slowly.

From my deck.

Surrounded by Zinnias.

Staring at my plants.

And through all of it, Frank’s diagnosis, the corn toenail, the tornado, the Whole Foods backwards shorts situation, the tattoos, the Smartless revelation, my dad is always there in the background of everything

On the days I can’t get to him, I at least call. Some evenings are the hardest. Evening is when the confusion sets in deep, when the paranoia creeps in, when he gets agitated or scared or convinced of something that isn’t true. On those nights I talk to him anywhere from one to five times. Sometimes more. I just go along with wherever he is. I don’t correct him. I don’t argue. I just try to meet him there and slowly, gently talk him to the other side of it.

It works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn’t. I know those are the hardest nights for Kathy too.

And then you hang up and sit with it for a minute.

And then you go back to staring at your plants. And then it’s tomorrow. And tomorrow is your quarterly appointment with oncology.