Author: nevilleholly@bellsouth.net Page 4 of 6

I’m traveling on my honeymoon, and having a great time. The last 3 days have been in London, which surprisingly for the population, does not really cater to a gluten free vegetarian. So this blog is written by a woman stuffed full of potatoes of every type, form and preparation. We have just boarded the Eurostar headed back to Paris…. So shortly, I’ll be full of cheese.

A phrase I heard over and over again, was ” mind the gap”, and for some reason it really struck me. In medicine, on each and every application for our exams or hospital credentialing, we always must explain any “gaps” in work or training, but in life there are so many gaps…or at least perceptions of gaps. It is perceived as a possible harbinger of mental illness, or lack of mental strength to make it through the rigors of training.  I always found it odd, because sometimes you just need a break. Burnout is real, yet the stigma of taking time off or out is real too. In surgical residency, we were encouraged to take a year or 2 for research. A permitted gap. A year to work 9-5, to sleep at night, to exercise, regain ” normalcy”, before heading into the final years of training. But aside from that, gaps must be documented or explained. They are frowned upon and looked at with a suspicious eye.

In our friendships, when someone gets a new boyfriend, travels, moves, has a new baby, there are little (or big) gaps. Voids in our relationships, gaps where that person was, until they get settled into their routine and pop back into the space that they were, or a new space. Good friends sometimes live in these spaces, you know and accept their love and friendship as well as their absence, and on seeing them again, the friendship continues just as it was…the gap recognized as a necessity of life. 

Career gaps. Gaps in productivity while we attend to personal tasks, or enter into a new life phase. But the training and dedication remains in place, and people move in and out of waves of productivity as they enter into new roles, new companies, or new phases.

I’ve never taken a 2 week vacation before… I don’t think…well except after having babies, and while our workplaces think of that as vacation, it doesn’t seem so much like a vacation to the new mom! So for me, this honeymoon is a gap. A gap to travel with my new husband, to see so many new sights and revisit others with a fresh attitude. An unusual gap away from the routine of our jobs and home and 3 busy kids, from whom I have never been away from for so long, and have never missed so much.  A gap just to be together, away from politics, television, almost all electronics, cell phone calls at all hours of the day and night, pagers beeping, traffic, crazy schedules, being slaves to the clock that always seems to sneak ahead of where I think it should be….

So here I am, moving at breakneck speed through the lush, green English countryside….and truthfully, I don’t mind the gap.

married. In the most fun, beautiful ceremony, 2 weeks ago in a bilingual ceremony at our home, we declared we do. The month leading up to our wedding had been crazy… My daughter (the one who didn’t get the flu shot.., obviously)  got the flu and was pretty damn sick, work was busy as usual, my son had an anaphylactic response to something while at his grandparents and I drove 3 hours like a wild lion mom to find him with an iv, shots in his butt/arm and a swollen face but just as well as can be (thank you, God), I had an endoscopy for my celiac and spent the next 6 hours vomiting like a banshee.. And well, we were both working and planning the wedding! Needless to say, I fit just fine into my tight fitting, feels like it was made to be a wetsuit, Italian wedding dress. 

The wedding was a blast and I said “I do” to the love of my life… And then… 2 days later I was sick. Yeah… I’m 45. Stress, work, kids, love, life… Well life happens, that’s for sure. 

So here I am, on an airplane heading to Paris with my HUSBAND, 28 days after my daughter tested positive for the flu, 18 days after my son had an anaphylactic reaction, 14 days after getting married, 12 days after a positive pregnancy test, and 3 days after a miscarriage. Yep. Hit the fan. Shut the front door. What the hidey-ho. 

Stressed, happy, scared, sad, relieved, STRESSED, Sad, happy… In 2 weeks.

The beauty of it all was our amazing support system. Friends, family, each other…. Nothing has made me realize more how lucky I am than the month of March 2016. For better or worse, for good times or bad… Friends, family, husband & wife. 

And by the way, next year, everyone gets a flu shot.

I want to be numb. I’m standing in the operating room receiving criticism from the perfusion team for my rocking technique of the child’s abdomen. Her abdomen is hot to the touch as heated chemotherapy is pumped in and out of her belly. “Shake and bake” we called it when I was a resident at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. But it’s different… It’s a child. I try not to think about it.. I listen to their cajoling… It keeps my mind from going back to the reality in front of me. Her mom, dad.. How brave she was in the preoperative suite telling me and her mom it was going to be fine. Welcome to pediatric surgery… The specialty where our patients try to cheer us up. 

I talk to her parents after the 10 plus hour surgery. I’m exhausted… Emotionally. I see the hope in their eyes, the fear, the worry. I describe the surgery. And then I walk away and lose it. I want to be numb. If it hurts me this much how can her mom even stand so tall, so brave. 

But numb helps no one. The rest just doesn’t matter. Your Health and that of your kids…and a positive spirit. That’s what you need. Money, comfort, that cute bag, that great school, your college savings fund. None of it matters if you don’t have health.. And health is hard if you don’t have happiness. 

Listen up! Get up, get out, go to your doctor, have your screening tests done on time. Invest in you. Invest in your health. Today is International Day of Happiness. If you’re not happy, find out why and get there. 

Take a minute and say a little prayer or send positive thoughts to my little patient and all the kids out there suffering with cancer and all the people out there trying to put an end to it. 

Be well. Be happy. Make a difference.

I consider myself a free, relatively liberated, independent minded woman. So, I was really surprised when I realized this week, that I am controlled by my Apple Watch. 

Yes, it’s true. Its reminiscent of the schizophrenia clinic I attended as a medical student at the University of Florida when my patient told me his thoughts were controlled by the Pope and President … via his clock radio, so he could never turn it off. 

It turns out that the psychology employed in the “activity” app, is surprisingly effective on me… To the point that Monday I opted to risk the watch itself by taking it lap swimming with me! (In fairness, I googled “swimming with Apple Watch” and there were many votes for giving it a try). Yes… I googled it! Because I desperately need to count the laps… OR… It seems I’m going to have to RUN instead! Yep. I would give up swimming for a more painful, more hated, harder on my body exercise that some days I just despise, just for the circles. 

How did it get to this point?  

the horrible circles of the activity app

I guess I’m competitive.. And I really HATE something telling me I haven’t done enough. And worse yet… What if I have done it?

The pathology began when I got the watch and it asked me for a calorie and activity goal… And then the little circles started… And then the notifications… “You haven’t done it” … Coupled with half or quarter filled stupid circle… And even worse, the weekly notification ” you met your goal NEVER … And should change it”!!!! And then came my boyfriend showing me “badges” that “he earned”. What?!?  Well… That got me… Damn you Apple Watch. 

So, I began running, walking, etc on a more regular schedule… Not because I’m not healthy. Not because I’m overweight. Happily filling my little daily circles… Adding Hot Yoga … Logging it…. Going paddleboarding…Logging it. Running, walking… Logging it … And then it happened… I began to get mad when I did exercise and didn’t get a full circle. I was insulted.

It’s gone too far. I’m a slave to the watch. I want it on the second I get up … So it accounts for everything. I want credit for vacuuming and cleaning the pool. I want credit for walking up and down my stairs. I realized in hot yoga that the watch could not possibly get wetter in the pool than in the stream of sweat trickling.. Ok, I lie… Pouring.. Down my arm. 

So, Here I am. Swimming in the UM, gorgeous new outdoor pool, risking my Apple Watch for the satisfaction of circles. Now mind you, I didn’t just get in and swim with it… I took it off, put it in my bag… (want the circles), walked from pool edge to bag and replaced on wrist (this is crazy), repeated this THREE times. Jumped in… Looked at it… Still working. Swam a lap… Still working… Got out (this is crazy) told myself “If you touch the watch again, I’m throwing it in the lake with the crocodile!!!!!!!!!” … thought of Peter Pan… Realized I was losing my mind, and then recognizing I would never swim again if the circles didn’t reflect my effort, I defiantly pushed off the wall and swam 2400 yards. Success… Until I couldn’t find a lap counting swim app. Which I searched for no less than 30 minutes.  Really!  …which reminds me, I never found such an app and need to go back to searching..

What has happened to me? I respond to “incentives” and visual cues like my dog responds to a piece of steak.  I don’t answer my phone with it… even though I like inspector gadget.   I never use it for email. I do like to doodle pictures to people and reply to text messages… But what keeps it on my wrist despite the now clear tan line emblazoned across my wrist, are the circles… The damn little 3 colored get-up-off-your-butt circles…

It’s game on, Apple. I don’t know which of us will last longer… But since you’re only water “resistant”, my guess is that it will be me. I’ll probably be devastated. I’m sure I will run with my apple care plan in hand to resuscitate you. I’ll spend a small fortune to buy the swim version the moment it is “pre offered”.  Can’t stop… Won’t stop…

Damn you, Apple.

You know the place? Where the road ends, or the highway comes to an end… turning into a pathway or smaller roadway? Different surroundings, more trees or maybe more open- but it’s different. The road ends and it’s different. I see it so many times, actually and emotionally, and I think about it so often…like 95 running into US 1. One minute in the midst of a busy city center and as you drop down a small hill, suddenly the bustle of the city changes into small neighborhoods. Trees overhang the highway completely. It’s shady, cooler, slower, more intriguing. The road divides the prosperous east neighborhoods from the apartments and businesses on to the west. I remember the transition even from when I was a young girl, riding from further up north in Florida down to the Florida Keys. I was always amazed that upon leaving a concrete jungle, you suddenly land surrounded by flowering trees, parrots sometimes flying by, lush landscapes… But it’s not just 95. I see it when I go for runs in places I visit. I start out running on the sidewalk around the neighborhood or hotel and then there it is… The end of the road… The place where the sidewalk ends. Do you remember the poem by Shel Silverstein? 

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends

And before the street begins,

And there the grass grows soft and white,

And there the sun burns crimson bright,

And so on…Love it.

There so many of these places and they’re so unexpected! I remember going for a run in Orlando at a resort just outside Disney when suddenly in the middle of what seemed like such a busy city, the sidewalk just came to an end. Now, keep in mind I have celiac and admittedly I had eaten a bunch of twizzlers (I thought they were “safe”) the night before at the “not so scary Halloween party” at Disney… So, it turns out twizzlers DO continue gluten so I was horribly sick and in the middle of the run, right where the sidewalk ended I started throwing up. In between retching I looked up to see a curious Doe and her fawn in a wide open field slowly approaching me. I don’t know, perhaps retching sounds like the call of a deer… Really, I have no idea. It was surreal… And had I not been sick, would I have taken the time to notice this amazing, beautiful sight at the end of the road? Or would I have checked my pace and distance and turned back?

It’s true in our travels… daily or vacation, and it’s true in our lives. We each head down our road, or path, or superhighway …full throttle… Eyes and hearts on our “destination”, and not really “open” to the world around us, and then one day, maybe on purpose or by pure accident (luck) you go off road, off-line, off the “grid”… mentally, professionally, emotionally, or actually! And how do you react? Do you panic and make a quick U-turn to get back? Or do you check it out? Open your eyes? Explore a little? 

I have had the privilege to witness the beginning of life and experienced the pain of the end. Maybe that too is just the end of the road, opening into a field of possibilities…. I don’t know. But I do know that when you find where the road changes, you have a choice. Do you want to explore it? Check it out? Feel the change in the temperature, the excitement level? See the beauty that change can bring? You can always go back to the road you know, or choose a new one! Or is it not the time? Maybe you just want to get back on your road, keep going straight, in a hurry to reach the next destination.

Your road… Your ending and beginning.

❤️

It’s dark, 1230am, and  we are in a hotel, away from home. My daughter is sick. Initially cough and now high fever.. Honestly, she looks awful. She’s sleeping but I hear her fast breathing. Too many horrible memories of beautiful children with “just a cold” flash through my head. The dark forest trees lower their branches toward the earth, darkening my hotel room, allowing in the menacing thoughts. Yes… I do it. I grab my stethoscope. She has hardly any breath sounds on the right.. Fine on the left… Is she ok? The monsters begin running through my brain. Every terrible possible horrible outcome runs through my head. She’s fine. I get back in bed but the darkness of the forest has me. Anxiety. Fear. Guilt (she didn’t get a flu vaccine this year). 

The hallway reverberates with a man screaming. He yells and hollers in an incomprehensible language. The pitch rises and falls like  a baptist preacher. This hotel is loud. Knocking on the hallway doors, doors opening and closing and the distant rhythmic echoing of the crazy man yelling. My other kids are 2 doors down with their au pair. Are they safe? Did they lock the door? I’m out of control. I recognize the beasts. They are useless. They are not my friends. 

They pop up at the oddest times… Well, always in the dark of night… But, out of the blue. 

I refuse to be afraid of the dark.

When I operate, and am sewing two pieces of an infant’s bowel together, if there is even the slightest gap, I add a “sleeper stitch”. The term taught to me by one of my favorite mentors – the stitch that lets you sleep at night. Without it, that minuscule, insignificant gap becomes a vast chasm. Without it, the monsters creep in promising the baby a death by my incompetence. 

Anxiety, fear, guilt. Useless.

I know I’m good at my job.

The monsters waltz in reminding me of socially awkward moments from a decade ago…. A week ago… The difficulties of my divorce. My kids.. their health, their education…. What’s going to happen? My son starting to drive EVEN THOUGH HE DOESNT TURN 15 UNTIL APRIL!

Really!!! REALLY! That’s the best you little beasts can do?! Idiots!

Get out of my head.

I’m back in the hotel room. In the dark. I can cast them away. You can too. They are useless, destructive. I disempower them. I don’t believe. 

The dark trees lift. I take deep breaths blowing their leaves into the air. The monsters back away into the woods. I can hear her breathing quietly. She’s sick, but ok.

We all have our own monsters… We make them. Some produce them in mass quantities allowing them to ruckus around in their heads day and night. We allow them. They feed on our smallest fears- our insecurities… Anything that promises to provoke the the maximum anxiety and guilt. Truly our 2 most useless emotions. Fear may be in many ways protective… if controlled, but anxiety and guilt don’t serve us well. 

In the moment,breathe them away, and the next day…in the clarity of light, free from the monsters, go for a run or a walk or a swim or yoga and work through the issue. Let it come up, work it out and send it away. 

 What will be, will be and make the absolute best of it.

Tame the monsters.

I just finished my private time with my treadmill. I have a love hate relationship with it. It is now 13 years old. I bought it from Walmart during my last year of fellowship and it has served me through 3 babies, 4 different houses and 2 years in storage. I don’t like to run on it. It’s boring and monotonous. I position it so I can see a little square of the canal and can watch the ghost like shapes of the manatees gliding by. That motivates me.. I don’t want to look like a manatee, after all..although they are quite beautiful in their Rubenesque way. 

I become completely schizophrenic leading up to a run. “Let’s run outside” “no, it’s getting dark and I can’t see in the dark and I don’t want to fall again” “pansy..” “I don’t want to run” ” you need to run” I remind myself that when I don’t exercise everything starts to hurt… Sciatica… Ugh… Not enough… I promise myself ice cream.. That works.  I do my 3 miles and I decide to go outside to do some exercises. 45 years and a series of minor ortho injuries… All fully recoverable, but a little maintence goes a long way to keep myself from falling apart…

I do my push ups and turn over for some abs. It’s dark. The moon  is 3/4 full with ragged edges, for every crunch another star seems to appear. The metro roars by in the background and horns incessantly beep as the crickets seem to begin a symphony designed to drown them out

I want them to look out their car windows at this sky. Our sky. My sky. Your sky. What’s the hurry?

I know all they see is the blurred ribbon of red lights keeping them from getting home. The ever growing to do list. The idiots blocking them. The anger.

We are in the same world.. But a different state of mind.

Choose your state. It matters.

Please don’t make me look at you. I hear you… Each of you. All of you. I hear your concerns, the facts, the social issues, the complaints & the praise. I feel you looking at me. I look at my phone, my shoes, the long list of patients to attend to. But, I’m done. Emotionally shorted out. I think they call it burn out. Mom, friend, sister, surgeon, lover, daughter…. Today, it’s too much. Too many problems on too many fronts. Too much work. Too little sleep. I can’t make myself look up. I can’t look into another set of eyes. They may draw me in. I might connect. You might pull me in. I might jump in your shoes.. Feel what you feel. I can’t. Today I can’t. I can’t hear about the child hurt in a car accident, the drowning, the child with cancer, your divorce, your husbands infidelities, the baby born with abnormalities and remain detached. It’s like tv. Every damn procter and gamble commercial makes me cry. God damn Hallmark can stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. I don’t own enough Kleenex. Only your stories are real… Which is worse…

I promise I will do everything I can to make your child better, to take care of my duties at home, but that’s it… At least for today.

Yeah, I know you want more, deserve more, need more. You need me to look at you and tell you it will be ok, that I hear you, but the side story… the drama… Please, today I can’t … I won’t risk emotional involvement. 

You know what I’m talking about, right? Somedays there is just too much and you want to disconnect. I want to emotionally sign off, check out, escape to my phone, my shoes, the paper list of things to do and patients to see in my hand. The tank is empty, my capacity to give seems drained and I thought it was infinite. Even I’m disappointed.

So? SO? SO? Look me in the eye and demand I look back!! I can. I will. I do. 10 deep breaths can change the world…

We need to be present. To connect. Man… It’s not always easy! But nothing worthwhile ever is! Find humor in the everyday. Make yourself smile a BIG HUGE FAKE SMILE EAR-TO-DISCONNECTED-EAR. Did you do it? Because, smiles just make life better… Even the fake ones… a word to the wise… Go light on the Botox… Because honestly, I can’t tell if some of you are happy or not.

Tomorrow is a new day. I’ll be there for you. Can you be there, too? Let’s CONNECT.