The View from Here

The Secret Life of Mrs. Maurer

I got a bit of a reprimand from one of my students yesterday! He was not only astonished that I was absent Monday and Tuesday, but personally offended that I had abandoned him. He didn’t say it directly, but the implication of our conversation was “don’t do that again”. LOL

It was ironic that our discussion came so shortly after an amusing encounter with another student last Saturday. I was at Walmart when he came around the end an aisle and saw me. The look on his face was one of total amazement! He covered his mouth and started laughing. Then he said, “You’re supposed to be at school!” I replied, “When you’re not at school, I’m not at school.” He turned to his mom for confirmation, but I don’t think he really believed either of us. I can only imagine what he thought when I didn’t show up Monday; probably thought I was still wandering around lost in Walmart!

I’ve had many, many such experiences with children over the years. I’m not sure exactly who they think I am, but I seldom encounter a student, other than a teacher’s child, who really understands at the beginning of the year that I am a “normal” person with an ordinary life. The first time I mention “my husband” you can hear a pin drop. When I talk about my children or they see photos of my grandchildren on my desk it takes them a while to process those ideas and put them into perspective. Then as the year progresses they become more comfortable with Mrs. Maurer’s secret life and it’s okay that I have a house and pets and a truck, and that I shop and cook like their moms.

When you stop and think about it most children have only the vaguest notion of what adults do during the day. Many professions are certainly not “kid friendly” and some children know the name for what their parents do, or the name of the company where they work, but they have never actually been there or seen their parent in action. I know this because we talk in class about occupations and what each child wants to be when they grow up. We talk about money and how parents earn it and spend it. Unless a child has concrete knowledge and experience with a concept they tend to make up their own versions of reality! So your child may base his understanding of your occupation on what he sees on television combined with what his best friend thinks about it! lol Even those children who have fire fighters and doctors and nurses for parents seldom understand the day-to-day routine workings of those professions. They only talk about the exciting aspects portrayed by the media.

So Mrs. Maurer will be back in her classroom where she belongs today. Just last week one of my students asked “How OLD are you Mrs. Maurer?” Who knows what they will want to know today about my other life! 

We may never know...

When a doctor visits with a patient to discuss diagnosis and treatment and testing and medications they usually end the conversation with “Do you have any questions?” Yesterday I asked the one they can seldom answer, but I always ask anyway. “Why?”

Gary’s doctor, who is also mine, smiled and replied, “Leave it to you to ask the one thing I can’t answer.”

I asked the same question of the surgeon who did Gary’s endoscopy and shared the results with us last night. And I basically got the same response, although not accompanied by a smile.

Dedicated, educated, caring men and women practice medicine in offices, clinics, and hospitals all over the country. They can and do tell us how to improve our health and how to prevent some diseases and conditions. They offer advice on what to do, what to eat, what medications to take, what to avoid. But they know and we know that “things happen” anyway. And when they do we often have to settle for “I don’t know.” as an explanation.

As a somewhat OCD personality (my family should stop laughing) I find that frustrating and I must find a way to deal with it. My own health ailments do not come with an obvious explanation either. Oh, doctors talk about genetics and anatomy and diet and circumstance, but when it comes right down to “why me, why this, why now?” we are often back to “I don’t know”. That is usually followed by “let’s try this…” and you find yourself headed down the path of long-term health care.  Such is life. There is no app for perfect health.

So, with Gary’s current health conditions we find ourselves grateful that they are not more serious. We have been duly warned that this could easily happen again without any warning. And I have been advised as to how to deal with the next episode without “undue concern”-like that’s possible!

I don’t know why this happened or why I have several friends and family members who have had even more serious health problems to face this week. We go forward with the knowledge that God is in control. Explanations may be revealed in heaven, or perhaps we will never know…

A Day to Remember

First of all let me assure you that this is not meant to be a list of gripes or a whiny “poor me” post, but you just have to hear how truly strange yesterday was in comparison with the day Gary and  I had both envisioned.

It was the first Monday of November and my schedule included our monthly assembly, a lesson about the election, a couple of errands after school and an evening with Gary. He was off yesterday and had a few home projects planned and then his favorite dinner and his favorite television show.  Well….

At 4:30 I was in the middle of reading an email from one of my best friends. You have to understand that we have joked for years that we live “parallel lives”. Our birthdays are just days apart as are the birthdays of our children. We have had similar jobs, we even worked together for four years, we have had similar life experiences…the list is long. Her email yesterday was to inform me that her husband had a stroke and they were spending the day at the hospital. That’s when I first heard my own husband wheezing and gasping for breath in the bedroom. To say that I was startled is an understatement.

Gary has a long history of diverticulitis and has been hospitalized numerous times. I have driven him to ER and I have seen him in ICU. But he has never been as sick as he appeared yesterday morning, nor has he ever before had trouble breathing or standing up. So for the first time in our forty years together I called for an ambulance.  And I waited…

If you have never waited for an ambulance I do not recommend it as one of life’s bucket list experiences. While they were prompt and the EMS crew efficient and caring, there is just something about the waiting part the can drive a person insane.

And when we got to the emergency room the “strange” part of the day began.

They brought Gary in through the back entrance and I went to the front, checked in with the receptionist and pushed the button for the door, just as I’d been told. Nothing. I assumed they were busy so I waited a few more minutes. Called school and left a message on the machine. Pushed the button. Nothing. Then someone else walked past me, pushed the same button and the doors magically swung open, so I slipped in behind her.

I won’t bore you with a minute-by-minute account of our day, but here are the highlights of the strange happenings:

Gary and I both have previous medical experience in a major hospital so let me just say that at least three “errors” were made in the first couple of hours that I’m not sure someone without training would have noticed. Not serious errors, but they certainly put us “on alert”.

The nurse scheduled for duty in Gary’s room had an emergency and was replaced by another nurse, and then another within ten minutes so his admission was like a comedy routine of “who asked what?” already. They even repeated a couple of assessments.

I made a couple of calls to friends and family and then tried to call school again, but by then the battery on my phone was completely dead. I have a new phone and I am NOT happy with how many times this has already happened! Anyway, I had the cord with me so I plugged it in to recharge.

There were no pillows in the room and it took three people about an hour to find a pillow. We were told that some have “disappeared” and that there has been a delay in ordering new ones. Amusing to hear them talking in the hall. “Have you seen any pillows?” “No, I couldn’t find any. Did you try putting a blanket in a pillow case?” Seriously....

The television/call button remote for Gary’s bed did not work so they pulled the one over from the other bed. Which also meant that later when he felt like watching television he had to watch the one across the room. They later fixed that problem for him. But the phones were also apparently switched because when friends and family called I had to walk across and answer the other phone.

Gary could not remember his two newest medications and the staff could not get a fax response from the clinic to find out what he was taking. Why they couldn’t just call the clinic, which shares a parking lot with them, is beyond my comprehension, but I guess that is not “the way things are done” in this age of technology. So when I took a lunch break I drove home, wrote down the medications, called the nurses’ desk and gave them the information, and then tucked the list into my purse just in case there were further glitches in communications.

I had only been back a short time when suddenly there was a loud alarm. Yep! Code Red on the second floor and someone closed our door. We could hear several other commands and a repeat of the alarm. In a few minutes they announced an “all clear”. I told Gary it was probably someone trying to sneak a smoke in the bathroom!

I took a break in the afternoon and went to Walmart to pick up some photos that I had planned to retrieve after school. As I pulled into the first row of the parking lot there was an accident just in front of me so I just pulled over and walked twice as far as I had planned to. I got my photos and was informed that the cash register in photo was broken so I had to go find someone in electronics to ring up my purchase. You would have been proud of how calm I remained.

A long, long evening of waiting, waiting, waiting…my least favorite activity. Finally at 8pm we were visited by his doctor and told that all of his tests were either borderline or inconclusive. Poor Gary had had nothing to eat all day and because there are more tests scheduled for today he will not be allowed to eat until sometime later.  He was feeling just well enough last night to be annoyed, but not well enough to think he wanted to go home.  So I went home to an empty house, another thing I don’t like, and will spend today waiting, waiting, waiting as he undergoes more tests.

And let me just say that I absolutely HATE missing school. I know…another strange thing.

 

The Morning After

I think I finally heard something logical this morning in connection with Tuesday’s election. Unfortunately I just heard the last few comments made by John Phipps on the U.S. Farm Report, but the gist of his commentary seemed to be that life will go on.

I have to agree. Despite the good, bad, and very bad presidents that we have elected in the past we have somehow managed as a collective body of citizens to go on with our lives and cope with whatever befalls us. The president never seems to have quite as much power as he thinks or claims that he will have during campaigning. Promises and problems have a way of changing over time. 

And so, to quote John, what we will all face the morning after the election is…Wednesday. 

Home Sweet Home

I am different from other people.

I often realize that when I hear them say things that completely baffle me.

After her home was devastated by Sandy one elderly woman told a reporter that she would rebuild, despite the misgivings of her family, and declared, “They will take me out of here in a box!”

I don’t understand that attachment to a building, to walls and windows, to wood and stone.

Oh, sure, I understand the sentimental attachment we have to things of the past that belonged to people we love. I’m all about remembering and appreciating the past. I have some of my grandparents’ things and some of my Mom’s and I love to look at them and remember good times. But my memories are the most important part of that experience, not the things themselves.

There are things I currently own that I would not like to lose and would not be able to easily replace. But like anyone else I would be able to cope if I had to do so. We all realize that we are more important than the things we own.

What I do not understand is an emotional attachment to a house. I enjoy the home we have now. I am comfortable in it. I certainly love the location. But I have no experience with a strong emotional attachment to a building. I suppose the fact that I have moved 51 times makes that impossible for me to comprehend. I have never lived anywhere with the expectation that I would always be there, or that I would leave it only in a box. I do not even expect to be here in this home for the rest of my life. I’m sure there will be changes in my future that I do not anticipate. Such is life…or at least mine.

I have only known one person who was born and died while living in the same house, and that was one of Gary’s cousins. He could show you the room in which he was born and he lived over 80 years within the same walls. I found that amazing, yet sad. It gave me an almost claustrophobic feeling to even think about it.

I have certainly had some favorites among the homes we have lived in over the years. A few of them are pictured here. And I have also thanked God that we moved from some of them when we did. The second home that we bought in CA is a prime example. Just months after we sold it the city put a bus stop in front of it. I can only imagine how that would have changed our life and affected our children! We lived in an apartment for a while and the very day after we moved we watched a news report about our neighbors who were involved in an argument that ended in the death of one of them. So glad we didn’t stay long enough to be witnesses or victims!

I don’t know what the future holds or how many times I will move before I die. But I do know that each place I have lived has contributed something to my experience and I am thankful for most of what I have learned from being a gypsy. The best part of changing houses from time to time is meeting new people, and I have had the privilege of meeting some wonderful ones! Yes, moving also means leaving people behind, but I have not lost touch with very many over the years. People are the things we should treasure. Family and friends are what we should fight to keep, not walls and windows.

(You will notice that none of these photos are very good! That’s because it seldom occurred to me to take picture a picture of a house for more than “documentation” that we lived there.)  

30 Years!

If you have any interest in researching your Indian ancestry you’ll want to join us Saturday! Be sure to note that the event will be at Three Valley because of space requirements. 

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2012

 

BRYAN COUNTY GENEALOGY LIBRARY & ARCHIVES

30TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

      The Three Valley Museum, 401 W. Main St., Durant will be the location

      for a free all day seminar. Our guest speaker, Bill Welge, Research Division

      Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City will cover

      Choctaw Genealogy Research in the morning session (from 10:30 to noon).

      In the afternoon session (1:30 to 3:00) Mr. Welge will talk about the Civil War  

      along the Red River in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations.