A Weekend of Self-Care

It is Monday evening and time for my weekly update on the things that have shaped my world in the past week. There have been plenty of activities, lots of stress, and moments where I just wanted to throw my hands in the air. Thankfully, the most important moments of this week came this weekend when I simply decided that the only thing that mattered at the moment was my well-being.

Saturday morning rolled around and there were obviously things that needed my attention. The laundry was growing to the size of a small mountain. Floors needed to be swept and mopped. I definitely needed to give some attention to upcoming performances. Instead of focusing on any of those things, I decided to devote the day to myself. All of these other “things” would be there tomorrow.

On Saturday, I sat in my favorite chair and began binge-watching the latest season of Bridgerton on Netflix. When I needed a change of pace, I found humor in YouTube videos of infants and toddlers making funny faces. (I swear, it is the most relaxing thing I have ever watched!) I did a little light reading and ordered in food using DoorDash. The world didn’t spin out of orbit. Nothing collapsed because I didn’t devote attention to it. As promised, everything was still waiting for my attention on Sunday and I felt much better prepared to handle it.

Sunday morning was still very relaxed. I continued to watch Bridgerton and baby videos, but this time I was also beginning to tackle the laundry, floors, and trash. By the afternoon, I was ready to venture to campus to do a little planning for the week ahead and put in some time at the piano. (Trombone repertoire is always more difficult than I ever want to admit. I enjoy getting to play with young instrumentalists again, but I’m glad that the studio recital is on Friday evening! I need to get some of this music out of my hands and ears quickly.) It was nice to be in the office when no one else was around. I enjoyed working quietly in the silence of the building.

Did I get everything accomplished this weekend? Absolutely not. There is still laundry making its way through the wash cycle and trash that needs to be taken out tomorrow morning. But I did accomplish the most important task of the weekend. I took time to devote to my personal well-being, gave myself permission to rest, and entered the week ready to get things accomplished. Perhaps one of these days I’ll better learn the art of self-care and not have to completely shut down for an entire day to feel as though I am once again ready to face what is ahead.

A Different Spring Break

Spring Break 2022 could not have come soon enough. After a very busy first half of the term and recent health issues, I needed a break. My body needed to rest. My mind needed to spend a week in a neutral gear. My hands needed some downtime. I needed to catch my breath and re-center emotionally. So I hit the road on Thursday before break (my originally planned travel day). I was determined to leave everything behind in Plainview for a while.

The plan had been to fly. But with a nasty cold that was still lingering and the fact that I sounded absolutely HORRIBLE, I feared that I would be denied boarding and end up having to drive to Arkansas anyway. So I cancelled my flight, crawled in the car, and headed east. Since I had to make a detour through Lubbock that morning, I decided to take Highway 82 into Arkansas rather than my normal path. I made good time and arrived in Texarkana by 5pm. Since I was that close to the Geriatric Ward, stopping for the night seemed pointless. I continued driving and arrived at Mom and Pop’s house around 9:30 that evening.

Sometime around 3am on Friday morning, I was awakening from a sound sleep (Thank you, cold medicine!) by the constant beeping of my cell phone. I groggily made my way across the room to see what all of the commotion was about. That’s when I learned that my brother had been called by Mom to take her to the ER because she could not breathe. (Later, I would learn that she had not tried to rouse me since I had driven all day and could not wake my dad.)

By the morning, Mom had a formal diagnosis of congestive heart failure and was suffering from fluid in her lungs. She was transported to the hospital in Jonesboro and admitted for a few days. By the time I was fully awake, I had discovered that my own health problems had gone from bad to worse overnight. My voice was now basically completely gone! Before heading to Jonesboro to see Mom, I called my local ENT and got an appointment for Tuesday afternoon.

When Tuesday rolled around, I was ready for some answers. Truthfully, I was more than a little worried that something was seriously wrong. I knew things were bad when the nurse entered the room to begin her assessment and handed me a pen and paper after our first exchange. That’s when you know you sound bad! The ENT scoped me through my nostrils to confirm that the problem was not sinus related. Everything looked fine……until she got to my vocal cords. Rather than describing what I saw (wish I hadn’t, honestly!), I’ll just skip to the diagnosis. I am either suffering from vocal thrush (most likely) or the earliest stages of a nodule. The doctor’s thought is that my recent respiratory infection combined with my Type 2 Diabetes created the perfect storm for the yeast to grow near my vocal folds. There does not appear to be any permanent damage, but I was put on a 2 week anti-fungal treatment and instructed to be on vocal rest as much as possible for the next few weeks.

Mom was released on Wednesday afternoon, but was still quite ill. She now requires constant oxygen until the fluid is completely out of her lungs and is exhausted from all of the coughing. Perhaps worse of all, Mom cannot sleep in her own bed; since returning home, she has been confined to the recliner in the living room. She will be visited twice weekly by a home health nurse with two additional visits from a physical therapist. Before I left home on Saturday afternoon, she had met both caregiver teams and liked them a lot. That’s a definite relief!

So my relaxing week took on a different look than I had planned. I learned a lot about an oxygen compressor and how to easily move from living room to bathroom and dining room with a tube connected to your nose. Suddenly, I found myself back in the kitchen preparing meals for Mom. I had forgotten how much I enjoy cooking for others when I have some direction and know that I am not going to be solely responsible for clean-up. (Have to admit, the frozen veggies that are cooked in the bags are amazing. No mess, no fuss….and the patients liked them!) I spent a little time thinking about how to give Mom a little of her independence back while Dad is at work and got to be around while she started making her first strolls from the front door to the kitchen entry. There’s something encouraging about watching a feisty geriatric patient determining that it is time to get up and move!

Today, I made it back to Plainview. My voice is considerably better — the meds seem to be helping a lot — but I am still not quite ready to launch into a full-blown lecture yet. I didn’t learn the new music that I had hoped to while at home. I didn’t touch a piano at all. But I am finally feeling as though I will be completely healthy once again in the not too distant future. Most importantly, I was home for the Geriatrics’ most recent health crisis. Even though it is not completely over, at least I have seen things with my own eyes and am at peace. Still, I’ll probably find a way to sneak back home for a weekend in a few weeks.