Dealing with Grief

I saw several people this week who were dealing with some form of grief or sorrow.  This got me thinking about grief in general and the overlapping universal aspects of it.

We all have times in our lives when bad things happen.  We deal with these events in our own time and in our own way.  But the important thing is that they are dealt with.  Burying our head in the sand or being in denial does not accomplish anything; as a matter of fact, it makes matters worse.  Being in denial can cause a loss of stability and reality, which can alter who we are.

Let’s start with death.  Death is one of the hardest losses to deal with because it is permanent.  Sometimes the death is sudden; other times it is painfully drawn out.  Sometimes you wish you had been more in touch with the person while other times you are grateful you had been there every step of the way.  The grieving process is so very individual.  Some people do nothing but cry while others put forth a strong front in public and cry in private.  Others may act in ways that seem inappropriate, like laughing.  Lashing out at others or placing blame are other emotions that can rear their faces during times of heartache.   Sometimes guilt plays a role in the way people react.  Mourning is an integral part of the acceptance of death.  Although there is no given ‘time limit’ about how long a person needs to grieve, accepting the death is healthy and will help you move from the grieving stage to the memories stage. 

Divorce signals the end of a marriage, a union whose intentions were to last forever.  Divorce rates are at an all-time high in the U.S.  If you are going through a divorce, or have gone through one, you know that grief is part of the process, especially if you were not the partner who initiated the split.  There are so many emotions that can be associated with a divorce and most of them are negative like failure, shame, sadness, regret, remorse, or anger, to name but a few.  Allow yourself to have these feelings.  Let your emotions out by talking to someone about what is going on.  Perhaps they can help you put some things in perspective.  Although the loss of a spouse or long time partner can be devastating, your life will move on.  It may not seem like it now, but that is why you need to grieve the loss of the relationship, get whatever help or assistance you need, and then continue your life.  There is a next phase, but you need to leave the first phase to get there.

Although death and divorce are final, people can be saddened from other losses too.  Ending a long time friendship can take its toll, especially if the friendship was a very important part of your life.   Likewise, dealing with being released from a job is another type of loss that can strongly affect people.  For someone who has held the same job or worked for the same company for a long time, adjusting to life after that job can be difficult, especially if the termination was not your doing. It is fitting and appropriate that all types of losses go through the grieving phase.  But luckily there are many roads to travel for employment and sometimes early termination from your job ends up being an opportunity for a positive change in your life.

Serious health issues you or a loved one encounter can be traumatic and affect your life in a variety of ways.  Understanding the issue, getting the help needed, dealing with your options, and having support are all necessary parts of getting a handle on the problem.  Your life may change.  You may have feelings of anger, sadness, or fear.  All of this is normal and expected.   Some amount of grieving is part of the process too.  It is a necessary part of accepting the changes that are happening.

Any loss can bring on pain and suffering.  Accepting what has happened is critical to moving forward to the next phase in your life’s journey.  Remember all those around you who need you to be strong, healthy, and stable. 

Grieve…accept…love…live.

There is a next phase to your life.

The Next Step

Today, after being away for 24 days at the hospital and physical therapy facility, I am returning home.  I was only expecting to only be away for about half that time.   Although I am very excited to be returning home, I am also a wee bit nervous about it too.

Of course it will be great to be back with my husband, sleep in my own bed, and have all my personal belongings within reach.  It will be nice to have a wider range of food choices and more channels to choose from on the TV.  It will be good to have my cat sleep on my lap and have my dog follow me around, wanting nothing more than a scratch on her head.  Our home is our home, after all, and we have it set up to surround ourselves with things we need and like.

So why am I nervous?  Well, for the last 3+ weeks, I have been waited on hand and foot.  Meals have been brought to me three times a day.  Medications have been handed to me at the right time and in the correct amounts.  If something changes with my condition, even the slightest bit, I push a button and within minutes, there is a nurse by my side who can answer my question or get the answer from a doctor right away.  When I want to shower, someone gets it set up for me and cleans up afterwards.  I have pull cords by my bed and in the bathroom if I need assistance.  There are other people recovering from joint replacements that I see daily during therapy and we can share experiences, progress, and relate to what the other is going through. 

I am nervous because I know myself pretty well.  I like to do things for myself.  I push myself.  I challenge myself.  I compete with myself.  I am worried that I will do too much, too soon.  I am worried that I will forget a medication, or eat something that I am not supposed to because of its interaction with the medication.  I know that my house is bigger than my little room here and to do the same simple tasks at home, I will be doing more walking.  I worry that my pets will be by my side after my long absence, tripping me without meaning to.  

When I am ready for breakfast or lunch, I will have to get up and make it. It will not come to me on a tray, with all the needed condiments.  If I want a second cup of coffee, I will have to get up again and get it for myself.  I will not have a doctor coming to my bedside every other night checking my incision, my swelling, my breathing, and answer my questions.  No one will monitor my pulse, blood pressure, oxygen level, and temperature.

But I am ready.  I am more than ready…to go home, to move on to, as my colleague Mimi called it, the next step of my recovery journey.  I am strong, independent, determined.  I have confidence in the facility that said I am ready to go home and wean off the help I am getting here.  Wean off the medications I am taking.  Wean off the dependence I have on others to get through my day.

You can probably relate to being ready albeit nervous about the next step to something like starting college, being promoted to a job with harder responsibilities, or entering a new relationship.  When you are ready for the next step, you should try to approach it with confidence.  After all, it’s part of the journey.

Goodbye Bethel Health Care!

Effort

I hear all the time how much effort you put into something affects how much you get out of it.  Although there are other factors that can affect the outcomes, effort is an important part that cannot be overlooked.

Since I am a teacher, I will start with school.  Teachers and parents can work until they are blue in the face trying to help a child learn, but unless the student is putting in effort, improvement will not happen.  Certainly there are other factors that can affect performance besides effort, such as the quality of the instruction, materials used, readiness of the student, emotional and social difficulties, and the potential of the student.  But putting all these things aside, if there is no effort, there will be no advancement.  All we can ask for is that students truly put in their best effort.  

The word fairness sometimes crops up around the word effort.  “It’s not fair that “Bob” doesn’t have to study at all and he always gets an A.” … “It’s not fair that I put in 3 times more time studying for a test than everyone else does, yet I still get the lowest grade.” … “I study just as hard as Mary yet she always gets better grades than me.”  Obviously you can see the holes in these sample quotes, so you have to be wary of using the words fairness and effort together.  Besides, who said life was fair?

Employment is another area where effort plays an important role in holding a job and also in advancing. Hand-in-hand with effort comes performance.  Sometimes you are lucky and hit your goal without hard work, but that is the exception and not the rule.  Those who work hard and put in top-notch effort all the time generally succeed in the working world.  Disclaimer:  Since we are currently in a recession, there may be some of you who were laid off due to the economy and not due to a lack of effort.  Many factors are used in the rationale of a company’s decisions who to let go.  Sometimes their decisions may seem fair and sometimes not.  But again, who said life is fair?

It takes effort to make friends and also to keep the friendships alive and healthy.  Relationships take work, which requires effort.  Taking a phone call when you don’t feel like talking, going out when you are tired, or setting up a long overdue get-together are all examples of actions that require effort on your part.  And let me say here that friendships are a two-way matter.  Nothing deteriorates faster or with more of a let down than when the amount of time and effort you put into a friendship is not reciprocated equally.

We all know someone who is an amazing shopper.  She always seems to find the best sales, knows where to go for the best quality items, and seems to know every store that is out there.  She knows where to find the perfect gift for that person who has everything,  or where to shop to put together an awesome outfit.   This information does not come magically to her in her sleep.  It takes effort on her part to know this information.  It could be that it interests her and is fun for her to ‘know’ all this.  No one said the effort has to be hard or daunting.  As a matter of fact, many times it is fun and exciting.

In addition to shopping, other hobbies and sports require effort if you are hoping to be any good at them.  Photography, painting, playing an instrument, assembling collections, dancing, or participating in any sport are all examples of activities where effort is needed to progress.  Although there are a few natural-born artists/musicians/athletes, the majority of us need to put in a great deal of effort, time, and hard work to advance.

As the president of a non-profit organization for the last five years, I can tell you first hand how difficult fund-raising is.  Thinking up creative ideas, recruiting ample volunteers, and providing what potential attendees want are some of the primary basics of fund-raising.  But the effort of the volunteers can make or break the success of your event.  They say they will do something, but have some excuse why it didn't happen.  They may procrastinate so long that the opportunity of their task has passed.  They produce 10% of what everyone's expectations were of their assigned task.  Other aspects can also squelch the fund-raising success, but this article is focusing on the effects of effort or a lack thereof.

I will end today at my rehabilitation facility.  When I am in the physical therapy sessions I put forth 110% effort and I see those around me also putting forth the effort that they can.  The variable part of successful physical therapy comes during the ‘off time’.  We have therapy sessions twice a day on Monday through Friday, once on Saturday, and none on Sunday. We are ‘supposed to’ do exercises in our room every day, with more on Saturdays and a lot more on Sundays.  Those who put in this time and effort and do the work all the time when no one is looking will advance quicker in their rehabilitation.  Those who don't, won’t. 

I am the type who does the work ‘plus some’, and it has nothing to do with anyone besides me keeping track. Certainly no one is watching me in my room checking off my exercises on a chart.  I show up early for my physical therapy sessions to warm up and stay late to ice my knee longer.  If I am in too much pain, which was the case more than once, I give my full effort and do what I can.  I don’t beat myself up over the fact that I didn’t do what the therapist was hoping I could do, because I didn’t stop out of laziness. I did what I could and that is all anyone can ask for...your full effort.  Many patients who don’t do the extra exercises might be avoiding them because of the pain they produce or of the effort that it will take to get to that pain.  Without someone there pushing them, the work is just too daunting. 

I am hoping for full use of my right knee in a few months.  I didn’t go through all this pain, inconvenience, loss of work time, and expense for mediocre results.  I know my effort will pay off.  That’s true for most things in life:  How much effort you put into something affects how much you get out of it. 

The Hard Part is Over

There are many times when we may hear the expression The hard part is over.  If there are multiple steps to actions like finding a seller for your house, obtaining a new job, or giving birth, the first part is often referred to as the hard part.  Or it could be a smaller event like completing the hard part of a test, audition, or even cleaning up the hardest part of your yard.  This expression is also frequently heard when departing from a hospital.  I heard this several times when I left the hospital last week after having a total knee replacement.

During my four days in the hospital, on a scale of 1-10, my pain was a 1.  This is because after surgery like I had,  you are kept on a great deal of pain medication.  In addition, I had the residual effects of the block and other drugs from anesthesia that were still very much in my system.  After I left the hospital, my husband drove me to an in-patient rehabilitation facility, arriving last Sunday, exactly one week ago.  Since there is no physical therapy on Sundays, I was a bit bored and anxious to get started.   

My wish came true the following day when I had not one, but two sessions of physical therapy.  This is the standard, one before lunch and one after lunch.  My therapists job share, so I was meeting one of them today and I would meet the second one tomorrow.  I was a model patient: I had a positive attitude, pushed myself 100% on each exercise, regardless of the pain, and completed both sessions with a smile on my face. 

Upon waking Tuesday morning, I felt a bit depressed.  I made the mistake of using the word lethargic so the nurse gave me less pain medication before my morning therapy.  I got down to the rehab room, and was trying ever so hard to gear myself up to make a good first impression on my second therapist.  After saying hello and letting her know I knew her brother, I said, “I’m so sorry, but I am going to cry.”  And then I did.  She got up, fetched a box of tissues, and told me she could have predicted this.  I looked at her quizzically as she explained how on the second day of rehab, many patients, especially the younger ones, have this reaction.  After surviving the first day of rehab, I realized just how large the hill was that I had to climb and how every inch was going to be hard and painful. The hard part was not over; it was just beginning!

What people should really say when you leave the hospital is The dangerous part is over.  I didn’t die, there were no complications, no infections, and no mistakes were made.  The surgery is the hard part for the doctors, but not for me.  I was barely in pain while in the hospital.

After that Tuesday morning therapy session, I went back to my room to wait for lunch.  A dear friend from high school surprised me with a visit.  I greeted her with, “Annie, I didn’t know you were coming.  It’s so good to see you....I’m gonna cry…” .  Her response was a little different, as she was not expecting me to cry.  Her maternal instincts kicked in and she wanted to know what was wrong and how she could fix it for me.  Then she said she didn’t think she ever saw me cry.  Since I have known her since second grade that is saying a lot.  I don’t cry a lot.  As a matter of fact, I had never cried about this surgery since the day I was told I needed it.  Maybe I needed this good cry (or two) to get it out of my system.  Don’t worry, I didn’t have a third cry…

Having the support of family and friends, whether through an email, phone call, card, or visit, helps in ways you might not fully understand.  Last night, there was a knock on my door followed by, “Room service.”  I knew the voice, but was confused because it belonged to a friend who lives in Maine.  Sure enough, he made the effort to come with his wife and daughter to visit me.  I can’t even tell you how special that visit was and how I will always remember this ultimate gesture of friendship.

The hard part for me will continue to be the hourly challenges of slowly beginning to do more activities independently while gaining flexibility, strength, and flexion.  The progress will be there as part of the ups and the struggles will be there as part of the downs.  With these ups and downs there may be more tears, both of joy and pain. I look forward to shedding them with my family and friends.

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Two days after surgery

Swelling totals 11 pounds

No stitches or staples

Just glue and clicking sounds