Can’t There Be Dignity with Medical Procedures?

I am beginning to think there can be no dignity with medical procedures and have decided just to do what I do best – laugh it off!  I recently had to have some procedures done because I found out that I had renal artery stenosis, and the story and comments below are directly related to that specific incident, though I’m throwing in a few from way back as well.  Might as well get it all out of my system so to speak at once.  In thinking further on it though, I’m thinking it should be mandatory to put some of these medical personnel through the same procedures – who cares if they don’t NEED them?  It would be good training – and let some of us un-dignified patients perform them! Maybe then they would have a look at how their ‘care’ is perceived to some of us more ‘delicate’ patients.

Photo Credit:  Flickr by Frenkieb

My Biggest Gripe

I know I have a lot of them – but the biggest one of all is that I work in medicine! I have ideas and values about how things should be done and I believe first and foremost comes the dignity of the patient. Heck – in death for sure – but how about when they are doing procedures on you? Give me a break! Okay – I admit it – I’m modest. Get over it! If I had wanted to be a stripper or taken up some other exotic profession, I would be doing it. However, I’m not – I’m an old lady housewife who doesn’t like exposing her body to strange people – even in an emergency. I can handle it – it doesn’t mean that I want to!

When I first started having severe hypertension, they proceeded to start lining up test after test for me and the first stop was a CT scan. I wasn’t concerned about it – except that I was having a lot of problems with my stomach at the time that all this started. Of course when I got to the hospital, I got the top-of-the-line evening wear called the hospital gown. I do not like having my rear end or anything else exposed and spend most of my time trying to make sure all points are secured just in case there is a windstorm in the hospital. In retrospect, I should have been more worried about my OWN windstorm.

This really nice looking male tech came to get me to take me back on the gurney so I could get shoved into the CT scanner and as my luck would have it, I was all gassed up and had nowhere to go. He was in a bit of a hurry apparently because the patients were stacking up like planes over O’Hare. If someone doesn’t rush me, I can manage to keep from farting but as my luck would have it – sorry – your time is up, madam….PHFTTTTTTTT – it just couldn’t be contained because someone was RUSHING me to transfer from the gurney to the CT table. Oh – you’re surprised? Geez – stick around for the encore – and by the way – I REALLY wanted to do that in front of a cute young guy you twit!

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Well, after that, I even dared to show my face again at that particular hospital. I had no choice – I luckily did not run into that particular tech again. I’m sure he was thanking his lucky stars. The next step though in the testing was the renal MRI and MRA – which I accomplished with no further gas explosions. He obviously caught me on a very bad day. However, then they told me I needed to come back and have interventional radiology on my renal arteries. Being a transcriptionist, I know these things and silly me thought it wasn’t going to be a ‘big deal’ to have someone stick a catheter into my groin. I guess on thinking about it, anything being stuck into your GROIN probably isn’t going to feel too swift.

I do have a very high pain tolerance though so that wasn’t really bothering me. I met the doctor and had a pleasant chat with him while he told me all about how if they needed to, they’d put stents in to keep the arteries open and then proceeded to lull me into a false sense of security about how he was HOPING they would not migrate and go somewhere else – like where, doctor? Into like my EAR or something? Good God – it is a wonder people have any procedures whatsoever with all this information. I’m pretty much not left with a choice, so I said to him pretty much go ahead and do your thing – hoping he brought his A-game!

At any rate, next thing I know, I’m laying on my back on a table with about 5000 monitors above me – I always wanted to be on TV but this was ridiculous. Of course, I had on again my standard issue evening wear – the hospital gown and nothing else. There are all kinds of techs and doctors buzzing about looking busy – and all of them but one is male. I admit it – I am a very modest person – they practically had to cover my privates when I had my babies because I just don’t think it’s wise to show that stuff off! It’s just me! Now that I’m an old lady, I especially don’t want people I don’t know gawking at that. Well, someone should have mentioned this to Sally Sunshine the Nurse I guess because before I could say ‘hi, how are you doing? ‘ (which should have been HER line), this stupid pretty young Victoria’s Secret model hoists up my gown and there I am lying stark naked for everyone to look at!

Oh my God doesn’t quite cut it! I wanted fervently to smack the gown right back down – unfortunately they had placed my left arm in a vice called the blood pressure cuff which was going off about every 5 seconds it seemed and crushing what was left of my biceps. I pointed out to them that I thought I was being strangled by the blood pressure cuff but they assured me this was ‘normal’ (in whose world?). Back to Ms. Victoria’s Secret – she whips out a razor as fast as you can say ‘holy crap’ and she is shaving – no one mentioned I was getting a bikini shave or anything remotely close to this – and of all things, she has the audacity to shave HALF! How am I going to explain this if I get into an accident? Do I get a card that goes with this shave? I am going to be looking like an idiot while this is growing out! The worst part of all was that she didn’t even give me a second to adjust. Just whip up the gown, zip – hair’s gone. Do we know each other well enough for this kind of intimacy?

At least she put the dang gown back down – and I’m turning beet red by now with all these people in the room – I feel like I’ve just been multilated and shown my private parts to a boatload of sailors! (Nothing against the other guys but come on – I expected a little wine and courting beforehand – NOT REALLY – but a little warning and leading up to it might have been a courtesy I could have used). If that wasn’t bad enough though here she came again – this time she whips down the top. Oh GOOD – let’s give them a good view of the old lady sagging boobs too while we’re at it! Please – humiliate me a little more because I haven’t been humiliated yet enough! I’m paying for this is what I kept thinking all the while! This new assault was in the name of putting the EKG monitors on me – if anyone was paying any attention, they probably would have noticed that I had 3 heart attacks during this process!

Whew – she covers me up again. By all that is holy, I’m so hoping that someone comes along and does this to her one of these days – and soon! She just goes nonchalantly back to her business like nothing ever happened – she never even SPOKE to me. How humiliating is that? I guess I got the distinct impression that I was just a number. Well, the procedure went on despite my embarrassment and no one seemed to notice. Thank goodness they were better at their technique than their manners – except for the radiologist muttering while he was threading catheters up my groin. Somehow, that just didn’t make me feel very at ease. I was terrifically happy though to not hear ‘oops’ .

However, when it was all over, they deployed this device into my femoral artery that is supposed to stop the bleeding – not cool if your femoral artery is gushing blood so please – feel free. Again with the exposure – but this time I really didn’t have a choice. Unfortunately for me, as would be my luck, the device failed. I heard the young male tech say ‘uh oh’ (never a good thing) and looked down to find him leaning over me with 2 hands on my groin. Now that is way too close to my you-know-whats for comfort – but again, what could I say? I felt that at that moment in time, asking him to remove his hands would NOT be in my best interests. However, as I’m laying there and he is exerting 40 frigging G’s of pressure on my old lady GROIN, I really was speechless. Here we are – locked in our intimate embrace – and all I could think of to say was ‘so – how about those Mariners ?’ What the hell was I supposed to say? I guess nothing would never have crossed my mind. At least I have manners!

You would think that was enough of an event – but oh no – after 20 minutes of this guy literally standing on my groin, it still didn’t clot so we went to the ‘bonus round’ – another 20 minutes of pressure – followed by an unbelievably huge device with a belt that went around me and exerted another frigging 40 G’s of pressure on my groin. I think it was no wonder that my entire leg was bruised to almost my knee afterwards – but hey – they stopped the bleeding.

However, in the midst of all of this, since I was supposed to be out of the vascular lab way, way sooner, my husband is getting totally freaked out.  No one tells him what is going on and he is pacing his little heart out in the waiting area.  When he can’t take it anymore, he finally pops in and who does he get but the Victoria’s Secret model.  When he asks why I’m still not out she reports casually to him ‘oh – that’s because they’re trying to stop the bleeding’.  BRILLIANT!  She definitely needs to be working in medicine – and maybe one of these days someone will donate a brain and she can be the lucky recipient!  My poor husband made such a scene that they finally had to send out a doctor – not to calm him but to explain to him what Clueless left out!

Moving on, my husband once had to have a lovely procedure called the barium enema, and since my husband does NOT work in medicine, I don’t think he really understood the ramifications of the word ENEMA.  It also happened that he was having this procedure at the hospital where I worked so he knew all the technicians, etc.  Well, I for some reason thought he knew what they were going to do and didn’t want to really belabor this to him so just kept quiet about it.  On the fateful day, he showed up as scheduled and proceeded to go through his little test.  I do not have words to describe what came out of his mouth when he got into the car afterwards!

Something like this – ‘Did you know that they were going to come in and shove BARIUM up my butt – in front of everyone?  And then did you know that they were going to tell me to hold it there?  Did you then know that they were going to shake the table all about and jar me from one end to the other?  And then tell me again to hold it?  And then did you know that they were FINALLY going to let me go to the bathroom and expel it?  And did you know that these people I have played basketball with and had beers with were going to be standing on the other side of the door while I BLEW UP THE ENTIRE COMMODE when all the barium came out?  It sounded like a nuclear explosion in there!’ 

Well, when he put it like that I guess I should have brought it up!  I just didn’t think to mention the gruesome details!  Then to make matters far worse, they told him after all that humiliation that the test was inconclusive – he would have to have a colonoscopy anyway!  Ah well – see – it had a happy ‘ending’ so to speak!

Over the years though, I have never been able to accept these little acts of I don’t know – embarrassment to the patient?  When I had an ultrasound for my third child, the doctor came in and literally ripped the sheet off me and came at me with the transducer.  Thank god that’s all he came at me with but STILL – I didn’t like lying on a cold table in the first place buck naked and when someone just walks in and whisks the drape off you – not polite!  Like I said – a little wine, a little working up to it….at least tell someone what you are going to do before you put them in a very awkward position! 

I had another doctor barge into my bathroom in the maternity ward and start talking to me – while I was trying to pee!  I don’t pee in front of people!  I especially don’t want people gawking at me while I’m doing ‘that’.  GOOD GRIEF!  He became highly indignant when I asked him to please step outside because I simply could not go if he was going to be in there!  He called me ridiculous and overly modest but then later when I emerged, I asked him if it would be okay if I came into the bathroom with him and carried on a conversation with him at the urinal – not so funny then is it, pal?  Like I’d be able to do it without fainting.

Summing It Up

I realize that medicine is a tough business – it is hard to meet and greet complete strangers and look at personal parts of their bodies – and not throw up sometimes. Or it must be hard on the nerves to work on people and do intimate things to them without acting scared or horrified that you’ve just cut the wrong thing for instance!

It’s probably not fun either to deal with sagging bodies, flatulent old ladies, and people who are terrified of having anyone do ‘things’ to their bodies – but come on. Dignity should start WAY before dying – we are not inanimate objects here. We are feeling, breathing people – we were before we came in to have a procedure and we are still people while we are having said procedure. At least have the common courtesy to think ‘what if I was lying on this table – how would I want someone to treat me?’ And they probably better hope I don’t decide to change professions at this late date and become a nurse – watch out if I happen to recognize some of them!

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Oh man

MAN VERSUS WOMAN

I’m singing … “Having my baby, (bang chica wing wing) what a lovely way of saying that you want my money. Having my baby … what a lovely way of saying that you want ALL MY MONEY. I can see it, inside you growing, and I already know that it wants to go to college.” (University!)

I can remember the day I was born. There was a bright light at the end of the tunnel and then suddenly I was in a fight with the doctor. He was beating me and I was biting him. The good old days.

Okay, let’s get this thing started. Man versus woman is like dog verses cat. You would think that the dog would always win but no, the cat has very sharp nails and a scent that we men can’t resist. That’s why we’ll get up a two in the morning and go off in search of ice-cream. If we want those kisses we all know they’re not free.

Let’s see where to start? It’s obvious that men have whosels and women have whathoosles. Vive la difference. But let’s take the simple act of announcing a hockey game.

Man says, “What a goal, the Leafs go up three to nothing (as if). There’s a fight starting what a fantastic game!”

And now a woman announcing the very same game.

“Oh, the guy in stripped pajamas has blown his whistle and now everyone is confused. Oh my, he dropped the puck and now this guy with some sort of stick is sliding down the ice pushing that round thing. Oh my goodness, he pushed it right in the bread basket and everyone is gone crazy. Now two guys are trying to kill each other in the corner. Why doesn’t someone call the police? This is madness!”

Do you see the subtle difference? It’s sublte but do you see it? It’s right there, no not there, over there. Yes that’s it.

If a woman is watching a movie when her hubby enters the room. What are you watching honey?”

“Shut the hell up I’m trying to hear this!”

Man trying to watch a movie when the woman comes in. “Yak, yak yak … (three hours later) Yak yak.

“What were you watching honey?”

“Hell if I know.”

Woman says, “You never listen to me, I may as well be talking to the door!” And the man nods and nods, oblivious.

It’s not that we don’t want to listen it’s just that they talk too much. Guy talks for 5 minutes and watches TV for 2 hours, a woman talks for 2 hours and watches TV for 5 minutes.

Oh BOO yourself.

Woman goes into the store and looks at a dress and says, “Wow, I think I’m gonna buy this.” Then she circles the store for 5 days before she actually buys it. Meanwhile, the guy is banging his head against the wall and sustaining brain damage, and the wonder why we don’t make any sense!

A guy walk in and grabs a pair of pants and he’s gone. Security!

Scariest four words coming out of a woman. “We have to talk.”

“Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Oh, I ran out of exclamation points and I have to order more.”

And the scariest four words for a woman to hear? “We have no money.”

Men are inventive. It’s not unusual to find boogers on a man’s socks.”

And it’s not unusual to find a woman’s hand in your wallet.

Oh BOO YOURSELVES LADIES.

A woman walks into a bar and she says, “Ouch.”

Man walks into a bar and says, “If my wife calls I’m not here.”

I gotta go; I can see that there are a couple of spots on my right socks that’s available.

Funny Story: How My Husband Wound Up Wearing My Victoria’s Secrets

Men! Need I say more? If only they would learn!

We spent quite a bit of time visiting in Central Oregon and once upon a time, they had a North Face Outlet store. Bob has the most amazing blue eyes I have ever seen and I am always trying to get the right “stuff” to bring out those baby blues. On our trip to Bend, we found THE jacket to die for and Bob as well simply had to have it. It quickly became his favorite of all time. That’s when the trouble started.

Weeks later, he has all but slept in his favorite jacket and decides it needs to be washed. I have up to this point now been doing his laundry for roughly 25+ years and have yet to have any laundrical disasters. But hey – for some crazy reason known only to Bob, he gives me the news flash that HE is going to wash his precious jacket and I’m not to do anything with it or even touch it. Well, if that wasn’t a slap in the face but I figured at this stage in our life, it’s best to just let go of the reins and let him ride free….or give him enough rope and stand back and watch what happens. Fine by me!

Picture by Audrey Kirchner – The Catalog I’m Hiding from Bob

How My Husband Wound Up Wearing My Panties

A day or so went by and I’m innocently sitting at work at my computer
processing files for our medical transcription business; Bob is out performing one of his parts, a 200-mile delivery jaunt that takes him all over the greater Seattle area to at least 5 hospitals and numerous doctor offices daily. About mid afternoon, he bursts into my office quite flushed and more than a little flustered whereupon he proceeds to pull out a pair of my Victoria’s Secret blue panties from his pocket. Well, first off I’m more than a little worried. I hear about this kind of thing all the time and although I don’t THINK my husband is a cross-dresser, it usually comes out of nowhere and the wives always claim “they had no idea”. Could I be one of these women?

I demurely ask if there is anything he needs to tell me and after a few beats of stunned silence he briskly waves THAT off – whew….dodged a
bullet there. “Oh don’t be ridiculous,” he says with great indignation.
“But then what are you doing with my panties in your pocket, if you don’t mind me asking the obvious, Bob?”

He proceeds to tell me all about his day; he has gone for coffee, he has run in at this hospital to pick up/drop off, this doctor’s office, another hospital; gone for lunch, run errands…on and on it went. I don’t think 20 stops would be an exaggeration and all the while he is oblivious. Finally, at his very last stop, the dry cleaners in our hometown, he is standing in line (it is a very busy shop) and someone taps him on the back.

He turns thinking he is going to be greeted by one of our friends perhaps or be asked a question only to hear a velcro-sounding “r-r-r-r-i-i-p-p” as in static electricity and something being peeled off. He turns the rest of the way to find a very nice-looking woman with
a pair of my Victoria’s Secret panties (in a matching blue I might add)
in her hand. She says trying not to laugh, “I thought you might want these somewhere else other than on your back”.

If only I had been there! If only I had a video of the moment when he
spied the panties in her hand and realized that they had been plastered
on his back all day long as he tooled around Seattle and environs! Oh if only! He was so utterly mortified he said he wanted to just bolt out of the dry cleaners and leave the clothes – as in forever. Unfortunately, pride and money won out and he stayed while everyone chuckled and laughed and he proudly stuffed my panties into his pocket.

The Moral Of The Story

Appreciate what you have! If your faithful wife wants to do your laundry, it’s a gift; get over it! No item in your closet is that important!

If your wife still wears Victoria’s Secret underwear after all these years and she can still look pretty good doing so, be grateful! It could have been a big-butt pair of white undies from JC Penney that would have taken up the entire back of the jacket; but then again something like that MIGHT just have gotten noticed before the day started!

There could have been a lacy bra plastered on there as well to go with the panties. No one apparently tells guys to check the dryer when they toss in something!  It’s not rocket science, guys!

Above all, value the beauty of a make-you-cry laugh and treasure the stories that make up your history together. I consider my 35 years with Bob the ride of a lifetime and worth every moment of laughter and tears.

Life is a ride – enjoy it!

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They Did Not Call Bob To Participate

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My Other Life Going To the Dogs

Audrey’s New Leash On Life

Funny Dog Story: How To Avoid Being a Human Weedeater

Once upon a time, there were two dear sweet black lab puppies who belonged to yours truly.

These two beautiful angels were found on a 4-lane road after they had been ‘set free’ by their owner (only one of numerous times). Finally on a gorgeous 4th of July day, not being able to stand it any longer, my kind husband brought these two 6-week-old puppies home to me in my son’s bat bag.

You see, they had seen them on the way home from his baseball game in the middle of the road yet again, wandering aimlessly and he couldn’t stand to think of their fate. As luck would have it, they landed in just the right place…in the most capable hands and lap of one Audrey Kirchner who already had two dogs but who was bound and determined to find a good home for these orphans who were repeatedly let go to fend for themselves. We all know where this is going, right?

Molly and Mariah (I had to name them of course because how would I know them apart?) ended up living happily ever after at the Kirchner Hacienda because said Audrey Kirchner (and her family I might add) fell in love with them and their hopeful adopters never had a chance at getting their hands on one of them.

We had a lot of fun with these two dogs and here is just one day in the life of Audrey and her beautiful black lab friends.

See all 2 photos
After a swim and many years later
Source: Bob Kirchner

The Days of Being a Weedeater

Molly and Mariah were wonderful dogs though they got into their share of mischief. Time passed though and I worked with them diligently to train them to be obedient dogs. I trained them to be kind dogs. I nursed them through Parvo and then rehab’d Molly who we found had grade IV hip dysplasia at age 6 months and after 2 hip replacements. Can I pick ’em or what?

I was just in love with these dogs along with my other two but the labs were young and they needed a lot of exercise. After Molly’s surgery, she was basically a new dog (she should have been because what it cost, she could have had a motor and I could have driven her). But I digress……

The only caveat of her surgeries was that we needed to be careful of her hips. That meant no jumping in particular but running was okay and she was actually supposed to rebuild her muscles and get lots of exercise. I took her swimming at the lake and together as a family, we rehab’d that dog until you really wouldn’t know that she had started out with such severe problems.

During this time of course, our kids were growing up and we as a family were involved in everything from music to sports to dance. Our family though was a soccer family from day one and as a whole, we just took to the sport like fish to water. All of our children were involved in soccer on a fanatic level (or was that frantic). Even our visually impaired son Patrick played. It seemed only natural then that at the ripe old age of 38, I would decide that I too needed to get on a team and start playing ‘old lady soccer’ as I fondly referred to it. Even Bob played one season but we don’t refer to that as old man soccer; we refer to that particular episode as a ‘grave mistake’. That’s another story!

So in my quest to become athletically endowed so to speak, I took up all manner and forms of buffing myself up. I lifted weights, I rode bicycles, and I did something I had never done in my entire life up to that point – I jogged. Not that I was very good at it. I personally hate jogging. I could play soccer for hours and not notice that I was running but the idea of running down a road just because I was jogging totally defined insanity to me. It was a pain in the butt if you want to know the truth and I hated it. But I was hoping for that U-40 scholarship in soccer you know, so sacrifices had to be made. More days than I’d like to remember I found myself out literally beating the pavement, usually cursing all the way.

In an effort to make it somehow more interesting or perhaps less tedious, and being the ultimate multi-tasker of all time, I decided hey – why not kill two birds with one old lady and take the labs jogging when I went. They needed the exercise as they were always wound up and what better way to exercise them than to have them run alongside me? Wouldn’t it just be something for folks to see me, buff and in shape, running with my two beautiful dogs down the road? They would honk or wave at me and give me two thumbs up! At least!

Well, it went pretty well. They got their exercise and I got mine, although I have to say being buff is harder than I imagined. When you are not a runner by nature, it’s really hard to get in the groove so to speak. Maybe I needed an iPod to help myself along but unfortunately, that was way before such things and I was just stuck with two dogs and the street for companions.

Again, the ultimate multi-tasker that I am, on one gloriously beautiful fall day, we had a soccer game to be at in an hour. Bob was getting ready to head out the door and I all of a sudden had a brilliant inspiration that I’m known to have from time to time. Why not let him take the kids to the game and I’d just take Molly and Mariah for a ‘quick’ jog around town and end up at the game with them in tow? Then he could give me and the kids a lift home after the game. Didn’t that just sound like an athletic thing to do?  You betcha.

How I Became a Weedeater

I finished my jog around my regular route and I have to say, I’m really ‘dog tired.’ Enough is enough and staying buff was getting harder and harder all the time. It didn’t help that it was a rather warm Indian Summer fall day but I had brought it on myself after all. I was about down to my last half lung when I finally jogged into the junior high school parking lot with my two trusty black pals in hand (or in leash as it were). I was seriously looking forward to NOT moving for an hour and a half because I was definitely winded.

I walked them through the fields and spotted my family at the appropriate spot – game already in progress, and went over to join them. Watching the game for a few minutes, I became rather overwhelmed from all my exertions and having cooled down, I decided to just slip off my running shoes and have a little stretch-out on the ground to soak up the warm sun’s rays.

As it turned out, our middle boy was the one playing this particular day and as usual, everyone was chatting it up, partly watching the game, partly just catching up. Because I had the 2 dogs, I decided to sit down near the end line just in case there might be some folks who weren’t keen on two big dogs drooling on them. As I stretched out in the warm sun, I did think to myself ‘Self, it doesn’t get any better than this. Nice warm day, comfortable grass, two beautiful dogs, wonderful family, fresh air, good friends….’ I could have gone on and on but I’ll stop there. Needless to say, I was tired from my jog and I was feeling a little bit sleepy to tell the truth. So I just stretched out and tried to watch the game.

I was snatched from my peaceful bliss by movement – MINE – and I might add at an alarming rate. I had casually entwined the two dogs’ leashes around my wrist but as they started to move, they tightened around my wrist like a vise. I had been sitting up and leaning back but when they took off, I was suddenly yanked forward into a prone position on the grass and was now belly down on said grass and I was no longer where I was supposed to be. Instead, I was being yanked and pulled face first down the sideline of the game by two 80-pound labs who had decided they wanted to go play with the dog that was running across the field – conveniently at the OTHER end of the soccer field. Holy crap on a cracker – where was the brake?

I began to yell ‘STOP’ but they obviously did not know this word because we kept going. I saw people jumping out of the way and I heard lots of laughter as I tried to regain SOME amount of decorum and composure but let’s face it. It’s pretty hard to be cool when you’re being dragged behind two dogs that obviously don’t speak English – and all you can think of is ‘Do I have grass in my teeth?’ Some kind soul finally realized that I might be in a bit of a pickle and reached out and grabbed hold of the two dogs bent on reaching the other dog in 5 seconds flat. I swear my arm had grown 5 inches on that side and was throbbing like a sore tooth.

About this time, I realize that the game has stopped. I vaguely heard the referee blowing a whistle but I just thought it was part of the game. But of course not, just my luck – he had apparently seen me start to become the human weedeater and decided to call the game until it was determined if I had in fact bitten off a good mouthful of turf.

I could hear my child’s inward groans from where I lay on the grass – ‘Oh my GOD – does she HAVE to be my mother? I try and stay invisible and just be normal but then she has to go and do something ELSE!’

In my defense, how was I to know that these two stupid dogs were going to take off like a runaway train and take me with them? I wasn’t prepared – that is my defense to this day and I’m sticking with it! Had I known, I would have handled it differently I have no doubt.

At least the dogs lost interest in the dog that had flown by and were now sitting calmly albeit winded (they were after all pulling quite a dead load there for a bit) on the sidelines. Everyone was laughing and talking – ‘Hey – remember me? Does anyone possibly care if I’ve broken my wrist or if I have chunks of turf in my teeth?’ Finally a man steps out from the crowd, my hero Bob, and comes towards me where I still lay prone on the ground like a supplicant.

The referee has the nerve to ask in front of everyone ‘Are you okay, ma’am?’ Geez – add insult to injury you little snot-nosed teenager! ‘Of course I’m okay – I do this all the time!’ I retort and just to prove it I stand up. Or I try to stand up. I’m a bit shaky from the ‘ride’ and as I stumble to get to my feet, realize of course that I have grass stains all over my tee shirt and my sweat pants. In retrospect, I was thrilled that my pants stayed ON while I was being dragged full force down the sidelines. THAT would have really messed up Patrick if his mother had been pantsed in public!

Bob is shaking his head as he extends his hand though and he starts to laugh. ‘Always very entertaining, Audrey – I must admit you put on quite a show!’ He nods to the referee as if to say ‘carry on’ while he proceeds to take the dogs for me while I try and rearrange my underwear and other various and assorted pieces of clothing. I hear him whisper something about ‘Kinda reminds me of your boogie boarding incident ya know?’ Hmmph – I get no respect.

So I had a little grass burn on my thighs for a few days – and some grass stains I never did get out of my clothes. I also had to apologize to my son for making the referee stop the game and for making a spectacle (yet again) of myself. Truly though – in all fairness – it was totally not my fault. I am the victim of some cosmic jokester up there who just loves to see these things happen to me. Why me? I have no idea but I imagine it’s because I can take a joke. If you had my kinda luck, wouldn’t you just get used to laughing with them?

See all 2 photos
Mariah and Molly as Pups
Source: Bob Kirchner

Funny Dog Story: How to Avoid Being A Human Weedeater

The moral of that story is several fold. Never wear gray sweatpants or light colored tee shirts if you happen to be me. You are better off in ALL BLACK. No grass stains!

Second moral of the story – never have leashes wrapped around fingers or wrists. I seem to really have a problem with this and still I do it. If a dog bolts on you much less TWO dogs bolt on you, you have no way ‘out’. You are along for the ride and it may not be pretty.

Lastly, if you are with me, you may be in for a bit of excitement. If you’re related to me, I can see why you pretend you don’t know me sometimes. I don’t do these things on purpose you know. They just HAPPEN. Get over it!

You would think that I learned my lesson to pay attention to the labs though after that ‘drag’ of an experience, but unfortunately the next summer while at a baseball game that I had jogged to yet again with my two trusty pals, I collapsed into a folding chair to rest for a bit. Again, I forgot that the leashes were attached to me and when Molly and Mariah spotted a little boy behind me they wanted to go ‘visit’ I was pulled over backwards in the chair banging my head on the ground, fortunately missing the metal bleachers by millimeters. They again stopped the game and this time, it was my oldest son who was humiliated – as he put it – so badly that he would never be able to go back to that school.

He did in fact return to the school. Thankfully, most of the school personnel and people in our town knew all about me and cut my children some slack. In my defense, it’s not like I made the news or anything!

All I can say is, those were the good old days.

It Could Happen to Me

Works for Me!

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It MIGHT be the Shoes

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ANOTHER FUNNY STORY ABOUT WILDLIFE AND MY ADHD SON

Family vacations can be an adventure.
When you have a child who has ADHD, a child who is legally blind and a
third child to boot, it definitely can get interesting.

One year, we decided to go to one of our favorite places and rent a cabin
on the west side of San Juan Island where we could enjoy the scenery and watch
for our beloved Orca whales.

Any time the Kirchner family came to town, it was an adventure to say the
least. By the first night that we had
arrived, Jonathan, who is my ADHD son, had already discovered a mother otter and her
“litter” and created panic. He
had trapped her in a tiny cave and was innocently going towards her when Bob
discovered what he had done and luckily saved him. Jon was only about 10 at the time but had no
fear of anything….and he adored animals of any kind.

Hence began Bob’s litany of animal behavior and what not to do. For someone who survived 2 tours in Vietnam
unscathed, Bob has a rather healthy attitude towards nature and situations in general where you
can unwittingly get yourself into trouble.
In an effort to try and impart to Jon some of his wisdom in this arena
though, he might have gone a bit “overboard”.

He began to warn all the kids against what we laughingly began to call
“waging wildlife.” In an
effort to scare his fearless eldest son, he began to give him admonitions such
as “You need to watch out for deer…..if you make them mad, they can
slash you to death with their hooves.”

“What are you doing flapping your arms like that outside the car? Didn’t you see those eagles up in the
trees? If you make them upset, they can
swoop down and carry your sister right off!”

Last but not least…”You do not want to corner a rabbit….They have big teeth for a reason and if you make them mad, all they have to do is run at you and start biting.”

public domain photo
Source: Wikipedia

WHEN WILDLIFE BECOMES THE SCENE FOR COMEDY

To say that our kids didn’t believe him was putting it mildly. As the week went on, he became more and more
full of advice…..there could be mountain lions, there could be all kinds of
animals lurking in the bushes to tear them to shreds and they (meaning really
Jon because our other two kids actually had some common sense about these
things) needed to have a care about their safety.

Even our youngest, Katie began referring to the little bunnies that we saw as “waging wabbits”….evoking a laugh from all of us….except Bob. He was still convinced that we as a family
were not taking wildlife seriously and that in an area full of same, it was
only a matter of time before something attacked us…or more specifically Jon.

So on this background, after we all listened to days of “Jon, get
off there….Jon, get back from the edge…..Jon, cut that out” we had
hiked down the long road to the west side of the island to attempt to fish. Let me interject here that Kirchners do not fish well…it is another comedy relief moment. We had lost at least 2 poles and a heck of a lot of bait.

We ended up sitting on the rocks waiting to see
the Orcas which also did not appear that particular day.
Figuring it was about time to head up to the cabin and start dinner,
since it was getting late in the day, I called the troops together and we
started up.

Jon as usual ran ahead. He had
gotten to the age where hard as we tried, we rarely could keep up with him so
gave it up to “I’ll catch up with him eventually”…..in more ways
than one. Bob was bringing up the rear
with Katie and Pat. As I neared the top
of the steep grade, panting a bit from the climb, I heard rustling in the
brush….and then the unmistakable sound of a mountain lion….(because of
course I’ve heard mountain lions up close and personal).

In my defense, it really sounded like a mountain lion….second of all the
rustling did nothing to help me believe otherwise especially since I could hear the throaty growl in the bushes….and thirdly, let’s just blame
Bob for all his waging wildlife admonitions because it all came crashing down
on my head.

And here’s what is playing in my head at the speed of light:

“Oh my GAWD….I can’t believe it….we made fun of him and he was
right the entire time. There ARE mountain lions on this island and I’ve just
had the good fortune to run into one…..Oh my GAWD.”

While all this was running through my head, I have to admit that I was
panic attacking big time. I’d never had
a panic attack per se until this time but I began sucking in air faster than I
could blink my eyes. I was sucking in huge gulps of air……”huff,
huff, huff” in increasingly shorter bursts….and I just kept sucking air in. I can’t say that I fainted because I was
totally alert and conscious the entire time.

However, probably due to a lack of
oxygen, I began grabbing at my chest convulsively, meanwhile still sucking more and more air in…..and before I knew it, I’d fallen backwards and slammed my
head down on a rock! I think I just inhaled too much air!

I was still clutching my chest as my sternum rose and fell like a bellows
and thinking I was definitely going to die any second when who should fly
out of the bushes than NOT the mountain lion I had envisioned but my fearless
ADHD child, Jonathan. He leapt through the air with all the grace of a mountain
cat but I believe it was driven by fear.

He threw himself down atop my
shaking body and just kept repeating over and over….”Oh my, oh
my….mommy, I’m so sorry.”

Relief is one thing…..realization is quite another. As much as I would have loved to have gotten
up at this very moment and paddled his sorry rear end for scaring literally
the living daylights out of me, I was completely incapacitated.

However, the second part of our
“team” was just cresting the hill and of course Bob finds me sprawled
on my back with Jon atop me now sobbing. Bob sprints the rest of the way to
where I’m lying there useless and asks me if I’m okay while lifting Jon by the
scruff of his neck and saying “What have you done to your
mother?” Okay….how did he know
this was Jon?

Of course, now that this is a totally frightening situation where my other
two children think I’ve been struck down by god knows what (although I have a
feeling they too had a sneaking suspicion it had to be their brother)…..they
both throw themselves on top of me while Bob is politely and discretely taking
Jonathan aside to ask the burning question….”What the heck just
happened?”

In Jon’s defense, it was supposed to
be funny. It was supposed to be just Jon being Jon so I pushed myself
up with the most god awful headache I’ve had before or since….”Really,
I’m fine….I just got a little carried away when I heard the
sound.”

Oops – bad thing to bring up again as Bob is turning on
Jonathan ….”What sound? What in the heck is she talking about?”

After grilling Jon to within an inch of his life, I finally convinced Bob that the damage (literally) was done. I suggested we just go our merry way and consider this a lesson well learned. You should never jump out of the bushes pretending to be a mountain lion!

They helped me up and away we went to the cabin….where somehow I managed
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as he brought me water, more ice, etc.

I
have a feeling that this little incident kinda scared him but then again…..he still went on
to do more crazy things.

I admit in my own personal experience from this little episode though….I am not keen on passing by bushes or anything that could possibly hide a mountain lion. I can still hear Jon’s interpretation of the mountain lion getting ready to pounce!

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So I was talking to David Letterman this morning when he called his bodyguards over to beat the living snot right out of me. I’m in a coma as I write this. (which is not unusual) I am now completely devoid of snot, and that’s not a bad condition really. I still have a cold but no snot.That will teach me not to ask him for an autograph.

Now I know you’re not going to believe this because of my penchant for humor. That’s what happens when you joke around a lot. They won’t believe anything. Help, I’ve been shot. Ha, ha, funny guy. So what was I on about? Oh yeah, my real condition. You see as I write this I am completely invisible. It’s as factual as a politician speech.. I drink a lot of coffee (whisky) so it could be something in the coffee beans (whisky beans), who the heck knows what those donkeys do in those beans! Whether it could make a person invisible is a debate for the scientists and scholars. And the guys that work at Burger King; those guys are smarter than the average bear.

I am holding up my mirror and I can tell you this, there’s no reflection. Additionally, I can’t even get any fog on it. None, zilch, zip. I’m trying different angles and still nothing that looks like me. Oh wait, I see the problem now. I was holding the mirror backwards. I was beginning to wonder why my reflection said MADE IN CHINA. Life can be funny like that. One day we’ll all wake up dead, that’s just the way the cookie turns. That’s life on this big old dust ball.

Okay, people think I’m slow but I’m not. I walk about as fast as the average person. It’s true.

Oh, yeah, the topic for today is not so popular specialty channels that you see on TV. Where else. On a cell phone I suppose. (Why do 8-year-old’s need cell phones? Who are they going to call? Other kids with cell phones? I guess.) I mean how many freaking channels do we need? there’s the military channel, and the war channel, and the fighting channel, and the conflict channel, and the tossing grenade channel? Wait…

(I’m clearing my throat and it sounds a lot like a bear gargling Pepsi)

And again we are discussing NOT SO POPULAR SPECIALTY CHANNELS. See all those big letters? Do you? Huh. Was it for emphasis?  Just checking to see if you were paying attention. I too have HDSC HDD? KFC? LMNOP? Well, I have something.

So the PMS channel would be one of those channels: 24 hours of wives choking their husbands. AND you could have the police brutality channel: Everybody sing, “Bad cops, bad cops, what you gonna do when they come for you?” (run like hell) Can you say hell in this thing? How about ass? Can you say ass?

Bart says ass.

You could have the senior channel: 24 hours of “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” Well, if you can’t get up then stay down. Just because you’re 95 you thought you could get away with not exercising, didn’t you? That’s what happens when you slack off on the weights. Being 95 is no excuse my friend. Was it necessary to say 24 hours again? I don’t know, the supervisor is taken his break.

The adult channel: 24 hours (there he goes again) of adults pummeling Barney the Dinosaur. Or you could have the Bigfoot channel: In search of an idiot. The Bologna channel: 24 hours of O. J. Simpson’s alibi’s. (What do you think he did with the knife? Gas tank?)

The Racist channel: Picture only available in black OR white, you’re choice.

How about a channel with all commercials, and occasionally they put in a three minute program. But with all those commercial minutes, man WHAT a program. And the special effects. (How come we don’t see any below average effects? No, their all special. My movie would have below average effects.)

Although he’s gone to that cabin in the sky (on fire perhaps) Suddam Hussein would have had the MOTHER of all channels.

You know I like to ramble so tell me this. Swiper no swiping? He’s a swiper, he’s gonna swipe. That’s like saying singer, no singing. Actor, no acting.That’s like saying whore, no whoring. She’s a whore, she gonna whore. Er. Ah. Murp.

What was I talking about again? Where am I?

Would I lie to You? (Part-2–cont’d from previous Hub)

Upon the awkward return to work a few days later, Jimmy, my Texan manager, and self-proclaimed cowboy, decided he wanted to give me some sales tips. I wondered then, if he was planning on damaging our unspoken arrangement of me doing schoolwork and not selling any cars, while the bosses pretended not to notice. Fortunately, he had no intention of breaking the good thing we all had going, but wanted to advise me just in case the wind struck my fancy to make a sale at some point. Just in case, no pressure.
Jimmy looked like the spokesman for a sleazy, low-budget, criminally dishonest, used car salesman commercial, cowboy boots and all. In reality, he was brutally, and completely honest and was a complete pushover. It never took more than a smile, or a ‘I’d really rather not,’ for Jimmy not to bug me about going on the lot, selling cars, or calling customers back. I realize how difficult this is to believe.

“Shannon!” Jimmy said in a deep, and loud voice to me one day, as if he were going to tell me to do some work.

“Shannon, how do you know when a customer is lying?”

I stopped reading long enough to look at him. “I have no idea, Jimmy. How do I know?”

He grinned like the mischievous adult toddler he was, “their lips are moving.”

I laughed at that, and really since I’d started at the lot, the guys insisted that it wasn’t the salesman who lied, it was the customers. Salesman were victimized by the lies of customers nearly everyday. They told me I’d discover this for myself. If I ever decided to sell a car that is.
For fun, just to test their theory, I decided to go on the lot where customers occasionally were. They’d ask me about the car, I’d tell them what I knew, and then I’d tell them that this was a big decision, and that cars only depreciate in value. However, some customers made it past my discouragement from buying vehicles, and made it as far as the credit application.
If Gepetto wanted to see Pinocchio lie, he should’ve handed him a credit application. It was completely unnerving to me the amount of unapologetic lies, a seemingly normal person could tell when it came to applying for credit. Lies about employment, bankruptcy, salary–it was like being in a Psych ward. I started to squirm as I wondered if these people BELIEVED their own lies. Customers lied about their insurance, their driving records, their residences, their marital status. It was if they’d thought they were going to the Adult Lie Store, where freakish lunatics could lie openly without being judged. Maybe they thought that they should tell preemptive lies to the used car salespeople, because they thought they were entering into some sort of cold lie war. It was maddening. I resumed my strategy in just not getting involved in sales anymore, while Jimmy and Tom continued to pretend that I was an asset to the company.
However, it wasn’t until my work with pregnant women that I REALLY got a chance to see how well customers can lie.

It’s tough to be a worker bee

Singing, “I’m a travelling man, I travel around … all over my house. I once spent a whole week in my basement running around chasing a mouse.”

    Hey, I’ve written a new commercial for Mexican tourism. I think it’s pretty catchy so tell me if you like it. “Come to Mexico and get shot!” Pretty good huh.

    Well, hello people. I didn’t see you come in. This is my new blog so how do you like it so far? Un huh. I see. Oh come on now, it’s not THAT bad. It could be that bad by the end but I just started. So in conclusion … no wait, it’s too soon for a conclusion but perhaps it’s for the best.

    So the topic today is poverty. You know, the rich get richer, and the poor have to siphon gas and run like hell. Well, if you must steal gas the only advice that I would have is to take it out of police cars because that way they can’t chase you. Soon all us poor people will need to be preapproved to get gas.

    Notice how the grocery stores and the suppliers of food stuff are trying to pull one over on us. They shrink the product in question AND the raise the prices. THEN they have the nerve to come out with a commercial that says the product is bigger than ever. When I was a kid a chocolate bar was a foot long and now it’s an inch long. Yeah, that’s bigger than ever! I bought a loaf of bread the other day and noticed that they are putting less slices in the bag, but is the price reduced? Heck no.

    And a big bag of chips is 70% air. Why? Because if they made a bag of proper size no one would buy for the price they are selling it.

    They are now charging us for water. Water! And bottled water is ridiculous. What’s next? Well, you are breathing government air, so we’re going to charge you 5 cents per cubic litre. “Hey, stop that guy he’s breathing and he refused to pay his bill!” So they drag him into court and the judge slams down his gavel and says, “No breathing for you for the next six months. Case dismissed.”

     When the day comes that the country id 90% solar, you guessed it, they’ll start charging for the sun’s rays. “Well, it is passing through government atmosphere. Here, let me get my calculator out. Oh boy, that’s going to be expensive.

    I also like the way they raise the price of everything as soon as the price of gas goes up. They say everything is travelling by transport truck so gas goes up and the prices go up. But think about it, there’s lots of space in one of those trucks, so what they heck are they doing, bringing one loaf of bread at a time? Even an extra 5 cents per product would more than cover that extra gas cost. And when the gas goes down they lower the prices right? Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, (cough cough) ha, ha!!!!! NO.

    And those guys in government, “All in favour of a raise? Motion passed. All in favour of screwing the average Joe? Motion passed!”

To The Olympic Committee A Request

Tonight I made the decision that people who are performing dangerous
and highly distracting tasks behind the wheel are simply not getting
enough credit or attention. I believe that the nation has been way too
caught up droning on about war, and saving lives, and fixing the
economy and has neglected this very special group of un-sung heroes.
The unique combination of selfish disregard and mindless decision
making has been ignored for way, way too long. I personally have had
enough, and I believe their time has come. Therefore, I submit, to whom
it may concern, that those who dare to really challenge themselves, at
the meager expense of risking human life in this way be allowed the
opportunity to participate in the Distraction Olympics.
The inspiration for this idea came at watching a young woman, clearly a
genius, putting on make-up (eye-make up no less), while driving down
Mathilda Avenue on our way home. A more judgmental person might have
looked at her with disgust, but I was inspired! I wanted to scream,
‘try that on the highway, amateur!’ And then I realized that if I could
get a Distraction Olympics going, that I would make an excellent coach.
The Distraction Olympics can’t run like the mainstream Olympics, with
their fancy starting lines, rules, and guidelines. Rather, what I see
for an event this special, is something more along the lines of YouTube
Videos. Really, without human life actually at stake, it really takes
the sport out of it.
I believe that Men and Women should have their own separate
competitions, as is the norm for the Olympics, and that both sides
should really be given the space and freedom to really demonstrate
their creativity in putting lives in jeopardy. Naturally, as in figure
skating, there should be higher scores awarded for those who go for the
more difficult tasks. In effect, reading the newspaper behind the wheel
is nice, but it’s been done. Reading the newspaper, while reaching for
your blackberry in the rear window with a cup of coffee in hand, and
driving with your knees–higher score! When I begin to coach the woman
I saw driving tonight, we’ll start with make-up application behind the
wheel, but I think that we’d go further in the competition if we add a
full wardrobe change, and some Facebook time while headed down the
highway.
YouTube will be a very, very important part of this, because if the
video doesn’t include fearful and horrified looks from other drivers,
AND pedestrians, than clearly it just isn’t Olympic-worthy. This is a
sport after all, and an athlete isn’t an athlete without the drive to
set themselves apart from the competition. There’s a lot of unsolicited
training for the Distraction Olympics going on already, and I’m so
tired of these people being judged, and criticized. Why let all this
training go to waste, won’t you please sign my petition to get these
athletes the attention they deserve?

Old Country Buffet

I can’t hide the fact that I’m a food snob any longer. What’s the
point? I will eagerly try new things, but I am very sure of what I
like, and what I don’t. I know that there are starving children
everywhere, and that I should be grateful for whatever food I get, but
I just can’t get behind that idea. I believe that in dire situations
the average person will eat anything to survive. I also believe that in
dire situations I, however, will die a death of starvation, or
dehydration first. I found out in the Amazon that I am NOT the survivor
I thought I was, and that I will quietly die before eating much of
something I truly hate.
Unfortunately, consideration for other people has clouded my judgment
more than once, and this subject of ‘courtesy eating’ is a matter where
this is especially tender. First of all, I have a weakness for the
elderly, I love them. They are interesting, they couldn’t care less
what people think, and they have the kind of wisdom that you just can’t
get from books. When I have the time, which I have very little of, I go
to lunch or dinner with them, and usually try to recruit a peer to give
this a shot as well. And so it went in Alexandria, Virginia when I was
there with my brother last year. I made a b-line for an elderly man in
the congregation we attended named Vernon, (I’m changing his name to
tell this) and asked if I could make him dinner. He declined, sighting
his limited diet, and not wanting to be much trouble. Everyone who
knows me knows that I do not give up easily, and so I asked him if
there was a restaurant that my brother and I could take him to (yes, my
brother was drafted). He went on about not being a bother, but after
some time confessed that he really loved the “Old Country Buffet.”
I hate buffets. I had not ever heard of the ‘Old Country Buffet,” but I
hated every single word in the title. I hate eating food from bins. I
hate people standing over food in a line, it is very Oliver Twist for
me. I can’t stand the randomness of buffets, how there is always a
combination of jello, salad, fish sticks, eggs, country fried steak,
and pudding? The combined smell of this appetizing array of lukewarm
food leaves the entire building smelling like a garbage disposal. I
hate that buffets seem to attract the worst of every race that society
has to offer.
When I broke the news to my brother, and believe me I tried steering
Vernon away from this idea, he couldn’t stop laughing. He hadn’t heard
of the “Old Country Buffet” either. I openly hate buffets, and “Old
Country Buffet” pretty much sounded like their king.
“Sounds like they have a lot of gravy,” he said, knowing my take on buffets and everything they stand for, including gravy.
He decided to find the place, and take me over there before we picked up Vernon, just so I could pre-hate it.
“Get your stomach ready!” my brother said somewhere in his devious laughter.
I decided then and there this would take some serious prayer. But
what exactly do you ask God at this moment, ‘please help me not to be
the ungrateful snob I know myself to be?’ ‘ Please help me to not vomit
at the table when I attempt to eat this?’
We picked up Vernon, and he was ecstatic, while I tried not to look
like I was about to be executed. When we arrived there, I quickly
noticed that “Old Country Buffet” lived up to its title. It had met all
the expectations I assumed it would. It smelled like food that had
already been eaten, there were people in lines over food, and nearly
every race had sent at least one person to this restaurant as their
worst possible representative.
I tried, I really tried my best to like being there. I went through the
line, picked out whatever I thought I could keep down, and went to the
table.
Vernon was in his buffet glory by the time I got to the table. It
wasn’t even 11am, and he was eating some sort of soft meat with thick,
mucousy gravy, and green beans. His teeth were out, and he was gumming
his food with the pleasure of a toddler over cake. I looked over
Vernon’s shoulder, and know that I wouldn’t and couldn’t make this up,
and there was a significantly overweight, caucasian male with
suspenders on. He had no shirt on, but did have enough back hair to
make a decent case as a a shirt stand in. His black hair was greasy and
slicked to his head, maybe he thought he was all dressed up. So that
image sealed the deal for me. I knew there was no way I wouldn’t throw
this meal up, so I improvised.
My brother, who has no shame, just flat out didn’t eat his food.
However, I felt the need to be polite and pretended to eat it. I even
fake chewed, which is how you know I’m completely crazy. I put this
food bit by bit into my napkin in my lap. I did well, faking for
Vernon, but this did not escape the cynical eyes of my brother who
couldn’t wait to see how I’d handle this buffet situation.
He leaned over and whispered to me, “Do you think your napkin is still hungry? I could get you seconds.”