Wailing at me

June 25, 2009

Bob was wailing at me this morning, "No woman no cry!" Boy did that song take me back. But first, a little background. (Stay with me here. I'm gonna jump around a little).

When I was a little girl, I was given a pair of white roller skates for my birthday or Christmas, or some such special occasion. They came up over my ankles, the kind that looked like ice skates. And I'll tell you what, I LIVED in those roller skates. I remember my mom laying down the law, "Abby, you cannot roller skate in the house."

"But I can in the basement, right?" I asked, desperate to claim that smooth area of cement for my own. Yes, the basement was allowed. Whew.

Outside the world was mine when I was in my roller skates. Tremble (our family dog who was named Tremble because she was trembling the night we got her) would be lassoed into my shenanigans and have to pull me with the blue mesh leash up and down the street we lived on. I wore the skates to the park at the church up the street. I wore them when I was on the swings. I would pump my legs till I was swinging as high as I could get and then at the peak I would jump off my swing and see how far I would roll.

We played a game at the park called Over My Dead Body (I know, strange). We climbed up the grassy hill at the back of the church parking lot and those of us who were wearing our roller skates would say, "Over my dead body!" and then proceeded to skate down the bumpy, grassy hill with all the speed we could muster. It was a rush! It was a thrill! Oh how I loved those roller skates!

But often during the day as is wont to happen, nature would call. (Didn't you just hate it when nature interrupted a good run of playing?) I knew I had to follow the rules, but I did not want to take off my roller skates just to use the bathroom. So I would get down on my hands and knees and crawl through the house to the bathroom, sure to hold my feet up off the ground behind me so I wasn't scuffing the floor at all. I would stand up just to plop down on the toilet, forgetting that the roller skates gave me extra height and that the toilet seat was further down than I was anticipating.

This was how much I loved my roller skates.

So fast forward to college. I think it was my freshman year at Bethel. The school had rented out a roller rink and we were all going. I could hardly contain my excitement. I hadn't been skating in years, but it all came back to me. If you have rollerskating in your soul, you know what I'm talking about. I didn't want to take any breaks while I was out there. Forget the blister that was forming on the inside of the leg I leaned on as I turned the corners. Bob Marley was singing "No Woman No Cry," and I cruised around the rink. My legs were strong. The weight of the skates was nothing to me. It was just that added friction that I pushed out from under me with each swift movement. I felt like I was floating as I glided smoothly around and around in circles, turning in little circles or to skate backwards from time to time (oh yeah, I was that good!).

Fast forward again to this morning and Bob wailing the same song at me again. It's one of those powerful song/memory connections. I was right back there with my Bethel friends, cruising the rink. Oh my gosh! That feeling! That feeling is what I dream about. All those dreams of flying, and gliding, and lifting my arms open to feel the speed full on!

(Now stay with me here. I don't mean to be jerking you around, but it is all connected, I promise.) In December I was hospitalized because my ostomy bags had been leaking so much that the skin around my stoma had gotten infected. To say I was at my wits end then would be an understatement. I was seriously to the point that if they couldn't help me, I didn't know if there was any other alternative but to kill myself. It wasn't that I wanted to die, but the pain was so bad, the situation so horrible, and I was so helpless, I didn't know what else I could do.

So I sat in the hospital bed, afraid to move because it seemed every time I did the makeshift seal we had managed to come up with for my ostomy bag would break free from my skin and I would spring a leak, which basically turned into stomach acid running down the open sore on my stomach. Dr. T had just signed on to be the new colo-rectal surgeon that very week. She came in with Dr. V to see me. It was a month sooner than they normally did the ostomy takedowns, but she was willing to do it on me then because of the problems I had been having (there were more problems than just the skin infection at the time; problems with dehydration, my PIC line getting infected, etc.) and because the barium x-ray they had done of my j-pouch showed it had already healed really well.

Kelly was our ostomy nurse at the time. She was so helpful. Prior to my hospitalization she was taking phone calls and e-mails from us at all hours, trying to help us figure out what to do about all the leakages. She met with Jeremy and I numerous times on the fly to try to help us figure out if we were doing something wrong or to try something different. She came into my hospital room to check on me. She told Jeremy and I that there was this convex type of ostomy "appliance" that had a rubber belt that you wore with it to hold the bag more securely in place that might work for me. She was doing her best to get one for me. And then we found out Dr. T was going to do the surgery on me in just a couple of days, so all of this frustration with the ostomy and stoma would no longer be an issue. I would be free of my "appliance!" (Oh sweet relief. Seriously. You have no idea . . .)

Kelly started telling us how she and her husband had just been rollerskating and how they had so much fun doing it. She made Jeremy and I promise that we would go rollerskating when I got better. We promised. Hmmm . . .maybe I need to remind Jeremy of that promise now.

And then this morning I listened to Bob tell me not to worry about a thing because every little thing was going to be alright. Well of course it is! And he told me about three little birds. I smiled to myself. When I was pregnant with Harper, I had a dream that there were three hummingbirds in my womb. Oh sweet Harper. My little bird.

Thanks for the good morning Bob. You can wail at me any time.