Here I go about September again, but this time more specifically September 2001. The 11th of that September taught me that a random Tuesday can be the day that changes your life forever. The 28th taught me that life must go forward. That happiness and the ability to look forward can return, if even for an instant with the passage of time. I have had to relearn those lessons since 2010. The difference was that in 2001 the lesson was global whereas in 2010 it was personal. There it is again, irony, like a giant cartoon 2x4 to the head. Tomorrow is September 11th, never again to be a random Tuesday or any other random day of the week. I suspect the phone will ring as it did in 2001 and most 9/11's since with that familiar voice on the other end...I suspect there will be white puffy clouds and a hint of chill in the air (ok so the forecast is for 95 and humid but you get my point) ...yet as familiar as these things will seem the day will be anything but random. It will be the day that forever changed life as we know it. It will be the day that brought us a mere 17 days later, to make the toast that will be forever etched in my mind...In loving memory of those we lost..in grateful tribute to those that serve...we will raise our glasses and celebrate life tonite... Those words rang true in 2001 and serve now to remind me to recall not only what we lost, 411 souls who perished running in to the towers, and 2585 more who perished trying to escape the towers, the Pentagon and a plane in PA and a sense of security and innocence we should never fully regain. But now thanks to the passing years it is the last line that seems the most important . Celebrate and appreciate what we have. The passage of time and change are inevitable but only they can truly dull the pain of our losses, dry our tears and eventually allow us to look forward instead of back.

So Abby won't have to... Part 6

So Abby won’t have to … Part Six

To  each other and about 6000 kindred spirits we are  NYBlue for Pink.  To the rest of you we are Loretta, Mairead, Vicki, Jill & MJ.  Come October, we will for the sixth time, walk 39.3 miles …together as part of the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.  If you   haven’t tried it, walking the streets of NYC for 39.3 miles has its challenges.  Among them are curbs, cobblestones, crowds, hills and cracks (not to mention the occasional snake or dead rat).  The Avon Walk staff does a great job of taking care of us despite those obstacles.  They even offer sweep vans to take you forward if you can’t make it on your own.  As we walk we are constantly reminded that each of us has arrived there by a different path but it is the same thing that propels us…hope. what a powerful motivator.  So powerful that we press forward no matter how painful those steps may be “because blisters are better than chemo”.  So powerful that we push and guide each other through those obstacles to put breast cancer on warning that we will keep walking because, “being swept is not an option” (even if they ask twice).  Hope keeps us moving together, so our daughters… so Abby, won’t have to, so that those we have lost and those who survive can live on through our efforts.  We walk so that someday breast cancer can be simply a cobblestone, a crowd, a hill or a curb, easily overcome with the help of some very special people.  We will continue to walk because we, Loretta, Mairead, Jill, Vicki and MJ, truly believe that being swept should never be an option.  That is why we are NYBlue for Pink and that is why we walk. 

Each of the past five years some incarnation of the monster has pushed me down my path to the Avon Walk. I spent the last few months waiting for the monster to push me, only to realize that this year my motivation was not to be found in my rear view mirror but rather ahead of me on my path. This year rather than being pushed, I was being pulled.  Pulled forward by the sea of pink hope that is the    Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.   What a difference a year…or five… can make.  In my case, the difference between looking back with trepidation and moving forward with hope for the future.  Your generosity and support give me the opportunity to walk and to make hope tangible…if even just for a weekend.  For that, I will be forever grateful.

 

Be Well and Get Screened,

 

MJ & NYBlue for Pink

So Abby won't have to... Part 6

So Abby won’t have to … Part Six

To  each other and about 6000 kindred spirits we are  NYBlue for Pink.  To the rest of you we are Loretta, Mairead, Vicki, Jill & MJ.  Come October, we will for the sixth time, walk 39.3 miles …together as part of the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.  If you   haven’t tried it, walking the streets of NYC for 39.3 miles has its challenges.  Among them are curbs, cobblestones, crowds, hills and cracks (not to mention the occasional snake or dead rat).  The Avon Walk staff does a great job of taking care of us despite those obstacles.  They even offer sweep vans to take you forward if you can’t make it on your own.  As we walk we are constantly reminded that each of us has arrived there by a different path but it is the same thing that propels us…hope. what a powerful motivator.  So powerful that we press forward no matter how painful those steps may be “because blisters are better than chemo”.  So powerful that we push and guide each other through those obstacles to put breast cancer on warning that we will keep walking because, “being swept is not an option” (even if they ask twice).  Hope keeps us moving together, so our daughters… so Abby, won’t have to, so that those we have lost and those who survive can live on through our efforts.  We walk so that someday breast cancer can be simply a cobblestone, a crowd, a hill or a curb, easily overcome with the help of some very special people.  We will continue to walk because we, Loretta, Mairead, Jill, Vicki and MJ, truly believe that being swept should never be an option.  That is why we are NYBlue for Pink and that is why we walk. 

Each of the past five years some incarnation of the monster has pushed me down my path to the Avon Walk. I spent the last few months waiting for the monster to push me, only to realize that this year my motivation was not to be found in my rear view mirror but rather ahead of me on my path. This year rather than being pushed, I was being pulled.  Pulled forward by the sea of pink hope that is the    Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.   What a difference a year…or five… can make.  In my case, the difference between looking back with trepidation and moving forward with hope for the future.  Your generosity and support give me the opportunity to walk and to make hope tangible…if even just for a weekend.  For that, I will be forever grateful.

 

Be Well and Get Screened,

 

MJ & NYBlue for Pink

September 11, 2012... Another anything but random Tuesday

September 11th 2001 will forever in my mind be entwined with September 28,2001. The 11th taught me that a random Tuesday can be the day that changes your life forever. The 28th taught me that life must go forward and that happiness can return if even for an instant with the passage of time. Tomorrow is September 11th, never again to be a random Tuesday or any other random day of the week. I suspect the phone will ring as it did in 2001 with that familiar voice on the other end...I suspect there will be white puffy clouds and a hint of chill in the air...yet as familiar as these things will seem the day will be anything but random. It will be the day that forever changed life as we know it. It will be the day that brought us a mere 17 days later, to make the toast that will be forever etched in my mind...In loving memory of those we lost...in grateful tribute to those that serve...we will raise our glasses and celebrate life tonite...

From Jackie to John...Godspeed...& ThankYou

Everything in life happens for a reason, cliche maybe,  but I believe it, really believe it ... I think it might be one of the few principles I truly believe in.  As this group of musings grows the examples of how this has become a driving force in my life will be examined but let me start with today.  I arrived to a single patient assignment with the potential for an admission.  How I was chosen for this designation is convoluded including a broken hip...or two...a missed promotion...or two...and assorted scheduling phenomenon that only another critical care nurse, mother of 2, wife of a cop, could understand.  my goal it seemed was to keep my patient stable for transfer to the mothership...It seemed simple enough...until I looked at him.  On first glance that inner screech went off ..the screech that signals "that ain't right" and sounds in my head like one of those cartoon character sudden stops.  15 years of critical care told me that was not going to happen.  Suddenly though it all seemed eerily familiar.  I was about to embark on a life changing day and I knew it...
Jackie had been my first admit, screech, crash, burn and die all in an eight hour shift patient.  She was the kind of patient that HH & I were still trying to send to "the unit"  except ...damn...we were "the unit".  In the months, and yes decade and a half that followed I never forgot her or the lingering self doubt that made me wonder, if I had been a more experienced ICU nurse would her outcome or course been any different? While 15 years taught me that you can't ...and shouldn't save them all, the thought of her young daughter stayed with me.   Today as I watched the events unfold my frustration grew. As I stood in the utility room looking for another piece of equipment that in all reality was going to be as useful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic the frustration came flowing out as a reponse to the simple "can I get you something" offer from the charge nurse..."this man is dying right in front of me and there isn't a damn thing I can do"...And so he did. We gave him everything until his wife came to realize what I had known since early that morning, and then we simply gave him peace...what every patient whose quality or quantity of life is about to take a dive deserves.  What that grieving family will never know is that with his passing John gave me a sense of peace...one that was 15 years coming.  And for that I will forever remember and be grateful to him...      

Some days are just better than others...

Every now and then I am forced to accept that all days do not have meatloaf on the menu...that sometimes my "enduring sense of tragedy" must take a back seat to a temporary moment of joy...and life is indeed good.  Tonite the widowmaker failed to live up to its name and someone dear will see another day because of what we do ...well not so much me...I don't do cardiac...but I do know the widowmaker.  This could have been a very different nite...another 3am post on loss...but instead I am left feeling good about what I do...unlike how I felt just hours before as I drove home smelling of pee and curry...Thanks Karma...I needed that.  But thank you...for also reminding me that my very small world is the most ironic and convoluded place on earth and for yet another event to prove my theory that everything in life happens for a reason....

September days

While training for the Avon Walk in the early fall I was struck by the distinctive September days, distinctive now perhaps because 9/11/01 made crystal blue skies with white puffy clouds and a hint of chill in the air the collective memory of September days for those who lived through that unforgettable time. I pondered the tenth Anniversary of September 11th and the tenth Anniversary of that magical nite where nearly 300 of us gathered and toasted
In loving memory of those we lost...
In grateful tribute to those who serve...
We shall raise our glasses and celebrate life tonite.

During those ponderings it occurred to me that September seems to be a month of change. I am not saying that this is simply because of September 11th. It seems that this has always been, from the changes in the weather or the countless years I headed back to school or September 1996 when our beloved Nicky passed and three as yet unborn children, Abigail Nicole, Nicholas, and Gianna Nicole, received their names, or September 28th of 2001, the day I married my best friend or September of 2007 when Mom was diagnosed or September 2010 when Abby headed off to Kindergarten in an outfit that Grandma Goose Goose didn’t buy.
While so much of my life is as I imagined it would be after ten years the idea that Mom would not be here to celebrate and remember was definitely not what I imagined. As time marches on and does it job of dulling the pain and drying the tears of the past ... the emotions can still be easily brought to the surface by something as simple as a white puffy cloud. The toast made that night reminds me, and perhaps now some of you, to recall not only what we lost on September 11th 2001. 411 souls who perished running in to the towers, and 2585 more who perished trying to escape them, the Pentagon and a plane in Pennsylvania. We lost a sense of security and innocence we should never fully regain. And less globally perhaps, they serve to remind me to celebrate and appreciate what we have and those we cherish because you never know how a random Tuesday could be the day that changes your life forever...
So, as I have the past three years I will head out in a sea of Pink, to Fight the Pink Fight… so that Abby won’t have to… face any more than the changes in the weather and back to school in her many Septembers to come.