“It was so hot this week, everyone was tweeting with their pants off.”
We are tweeting with our fleeces on here in Seattle. My door is open but I’m wearing my sweet red jog pants and my black Patagonia fleece, my bed head in full effect, thinking about getting up to make myself tea.
(Mert: this is the adult version of the big black sweatpants and hot pink sweatshirt that you let me wear to junior high AND high school.)
I’m not at my best first thing in the morning, especially right now. I think about how nice it is when someone else does everything for you. They turn on NPR, they make the coffee, they make your breakfast, they place both in front of you, and all while you navigate the stirred waters of your murky mind, maintaining enough awareness to appreciate that someone is accomplishing these basic tasks for you.
This is when I think I should maybe join the make-out club, in the morning, when I want someone to make me coffee and breakfast.
Or maybe I'll start accepting applications again for the position?
I was working more than I should a month back. This particular night I was in a pod only staffed by one doctor so it is just you and them, caring for children who generally could be managed at home. I’m particularly fond of this doctor. We discuss research, travel, health care, pediatrics and life. He is high on my list of favorite people.
He had asked me a question, I was answering it, both of us writing in patient charts, I wasn’t censoring my answer – more accurately, I failed to be selective in my sharing. He stopped, still leaning over his chart but had turned to make direct eye contact, paused for effect. “Kate, who is taking care of YOU?”
The obvious response: laughter, almost to the point of tears, a smile of genuine appreciation that he would ask and the exclamation “no one, David, no one!” Reality can be really amusing, especially when you have no choice but to laugh. I had been out of toothpaste for over a week, I was eating peanut and butter sandwiches at work for dinner.
Several weeks have elapsed (imagine several pictures of bike rides, groceries, laundry, scrubs, dog walks, parties, singing, dancing, friends leaving, friends returning, friends visiting, and beaches turning over in rapid fire). But if you pause on any one of them, I’m ruminating over “who is taking care of you” through it all.
I can see how this is beneficial but it has never appealed to me enough to really see it to fruition. David was thinking about partnership. And then I reflected on how, collectively, so many dear people have taken care of me through the years. So here it goes:
Face Dive
I was all fired up and shot out of my apartment building like a bullet in running shoes. I tore down Lombard St, a quarter of a mile later I was regaining consciousness as my head hit the ground face first, my hands pinned beneath me. WTF just happened? I hobbled home, bleeding, unsure of the damage but unwilling to ask for help. Alex came over immediately and sat with me on the floor of my apartment as we stared down at my hands and legs. I had a beer.
I went to work, I saw my boss and then my phone rang. I was in pain.
“Kate.”
“Chris.”
“Do you have something to tell me?”
“Um, no.”
“Your face isn’t messed up right now?”
“Sigh. Yes. News travels fast around here.”
“What happened?”
“I was running, I fell.”
“How did you fall?”
“I don’t know, I only remember hitting the ground.”
“So you didn’t catch your fall and you don’t remember anything?”
“No.”
“You NEED to go to the doctor.”
“No can do.”
“You are so stubborn.”
“So are you.”
“I’m coming over there.”
“Ok.”
A day later, the medical director at FIGHT took me through a similar line of questioning and sent me to the hospital immediately. Who came with me? Alex. She made jokes about flashing all the hot young residents. One of them gave me his number (just for context I knew him from work). She curled up on my emergency room bed with me. She stayed until it was no longer reasonable and they were moving me to a bed. Joanna showed up the next day with clothes and toiletries, retrieved me from the hospital and brought me to work – makes sense, doesn’t it?
I spent the next three months on heart monitors. I couldn’t have coffee, chocolate, tea, alcohol, cigarettes. I couldn’t run. Chris defended me at parties, monitored my food intake as I lost weight on my new imposed diet, entertained me with college basketball, called me at my desk daily when he wasn’t in my office, delicately asked me if my skin was withstanding a month of leads and when I was cleared for running, he wouldn’t let me go alone. I wasn’t sure how he was going to catch me if something were to happen. If you know Chris, you know he’s a total asshole but something about my injury softened him for a moment.
Lady Parts
Surgery. I woke up the morning of my surgery. Lee was up and ready to walk me to the hospital. I kept him with me until the very last moment. I needed him and he had made up his mind to come even though I couldn’t tell him “I need you.” My parents were there when I woke up. They remarked, “you don’t even stop talking when you’re coming out of anesthesia, try to rest!” They left me in the trusted hands of my friends. Alex sent me cookies from Seattle or New York (?).
Laura and Becky helped me into the shower, one bathed me, the other dried me. I was starting to feel really gross and in my mind, I feel good when my hair looks good. I know, silly but true. I fixated on washing and drying my hair. I am going to attempt to dry my hair despite the foggy dull pain. I click on the hairdryer. Nothing. I hit the reset button on the hairdryer, nothing. I hit the reset button on the outlet, nothing. I PANIC! A very real and unmanageable impending meltdown on the horizon. To add insult to injury, I glance down and my belly button may as well be an alien growth from my abdomen.
Laura and Becky – who don’t know each other very well but know me well enough to know this was serious business. I do NOT like to rely on others and here I was, injured, dependent and desirous of one thing. Decent hair. Their eyes grew wide and they turned to each other and went into problem-solving mode immediately. We can go get my hairdryer or I can go buy one – what will be fastest? No attempt to convince me that I didn’t need to dry my hair, no attempt to reason with me, only an immediate attempt to put a hairdryer in my hand. They did and it was a game changing move.
I went from their care to Lee and Mike. Two guys taking care of their petit little friend who was post-operative. What did they do? They took me to a house party, an outdoor music festival, another house party and then to a bbq followed by a Fich’s dance party. Admittedly, Fich did not think it was a good idea for me to leave the bbq for the dance party but also, it probably meant leaving me with my dude friends Lee, Mike and Josh who were entertaining themselves with jokes of my lady part surgery. So we all went to the dance party.
Amidst inappropriate jokes about genital anatomy, they ensured that I had a seat, they assessed my energy and pain level regularly, I never went without hydrating substances and they gently reminded me of my physical limitations. But they did NOT leave me at home and I was grateful. I think we all know how I feel about being left at home.
Penn Nursing
I threw an application into Penn for nursing school. Maybe I’ll go? I got in. I needed to complete two courses – simultaneously in a very short summer session. I had to convince the local community college to let me do it. My parents left for vacation. I received my aid package from Penn with a big whopping grant to make it tenable. I jumped through hoops, I made quick decisions. Everything had to come together perfectly for it to work out.
The community college goes on strike, the classes won’t be finished until AFTER Penn starts. My God mother dies, my parents are away, I don’t have any money. I’m so sad. She was my grandmother for all intents and purposes. She told me she would be there through all my major life moments when my grandfather died. My parents loved her even more and they were on vacation. ACK! I’m paralyzed. Penn isn’t going to work out because of a strike, I don’t have a car or the money to go somewhere else TWO WEEKS from now. And I don’t know if I should call my parents to tell them about Mother.
Joel steps in, takes charge of the situation and does so adeptly. Your only choice is to call your parents to let them know that Mother has died, you, my dear, cannot live with any other decision. Your parents will pay for the classes at another school and they will give you a car. They are not (and nor am I) going to let you pass up a grant from Penn. You will figure it out, you always do and it will work in the end. It all seemed too difficult at the time and I would have given up without him.
My parents came home, discovered what had transpired in their absence and said, "Thank you Joel."
Seattle Bound
Oh my goodness. Moving. Here. Seattle. I relied on so many people to take care of me. Mostly though, on Laura and Brian. I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for them. Laura took my cats!!! When my cat care fell through, she said yes and then she drove them to Chicago and put them on a plane to Seattle. Brian helped me pack, helped me move, made me meals. Brian was more supportive than reasonable given that his number one choice would be for me to NOT move to Seattle but he knew it would bring me happiness. My parents and my brother packed up all my belongings to include rug remnants and lawn lights and then shipped it to me.
There are so many people taking care of me, I can’t even begin to answer the question. Would it be nice to have someone make me coffee and breakfast in the morning? Sure but it turns out that breakfast is my best meal from a culinary standpoint and thanks to a couple pointers from Dave, I can actually make coffee I like!
