One of our Dialysis Friends, Ron

 I've written before about this one man we met through Grandpa's Dialysis treatments, he was not well liked by many of the nurses, he drove them nuts with asking them to call a cab, cabbies didn't show up due to the buildings boasting a back address or sometime they had already dealt a round or two with Ron, and he had not charmed them in the same fashion that he had some of us others we were able to see through the many layers of bullshit and baffle he could throw your way.

When you're sitting out there waiting you observe much of patients very tired from their treatments stuck waiting for cabbies called an hour earlier, or pace drivers picking up their fares waiting out in the parking lot for people who were wheelchair bound and needed some assistance out to damn parking lot two heavy security doors kept them from, so my spouse and I play door opener and sometimes wheeler.  You see it totally from the patients point of view after the first day of witnessing.

Ron grew on me, always asking what book I was reading, telling us stories of how his neighbors finally put a note on his door asking to stop screaming at the cabbies at 5am on a saturday and pulling out the typed note to show us, cracked up an entire waiting room, many filled with fellow dialysis patients who were catching their small meals to stabilize or caregivers who had come to know this mans rather jewish humor, me I had no idea of his lifes work until two weeks ago when my spouse told me about TheMayReports.com  below is his last report he wrote from his hospital bed before he died from complications of diabetes which is why he had landed in dialysis about 7 years back according to him, I can only say I enjoyed his humor, saw through his bullshit and baffle used mainly on cabbies, and I will miss his powerful personality:

The May Report: Final Report – No Really

The May Report June 24th, 2013

Let me start this, my final report, by saying, Jerry, you were right.  You outlived me. Without boring anyone with the lengthy details of my long failing health (just check out the last ten years of archives for the complete history of my journey to this moment), let me bring you up to speed.  I checked into St. Joseph’s Hospital on Friday June 14th near midnight because of an infection in my right foot.  It stunk so badly that my presence could be smelled a block before I arrived.  After several days of dealing with doctors and being pumped with antibiotics, the “healers” determined that it was limb threatening and the foot or leg may have to go.
I was wheeled into the operating theatre on Wednesday, June 19th early morning.  While in recovery, at 9:01 a.m. I stopped breathing and my biology was calling the shots. Despite much prayer and hope it was Game Over.
So if you have sent me any emails recently, don’t expect a response.
I had become less than motivated about the report over the past couple of years, which may have had as much to do with in increasing inability to get around easily as my general waning interest in Chicago’s tech community and this new generation of players.  I had seen much of this before, during our first run up.  Only now, many of the old retreads were still around making more noise than impact, and the most interesting entrepreneurs we’re leaving for anyplace but Chicago as soon as they showed a glimmer of promise.  Was I motivated to investigate and castigate yet another generation, in turn alienating myself?  Not really, once the Flips of the world had left the building, the party just wasn’t as much fun.
There are no doubts that many of you are a breathing a sigh of relief that they’ll never be the subject of another snarky headline or personally intrusive investigation.  You know who you are; I don’t have to remind anyone of my favorite subjects.  And then there’s my personal cast of Grabowskis, the folks who have been my “friends,” writers, confidantes, sounding boards, informants and midnight gabbing buddies.  You can all turn your phones off vibrate; there won’t be any more 2 AM calls.  We had a good run and I leave this life with no real regrets, at least none that I can print.  And to all those who are in the midst of suing me or were planning on doing so in the future, if you couldn’t get money from a rock, try getting it from a pile of ashes!
I understand that my old Peanut Gallery is planning on throwing a party for me.   They’ll use my mailing list and this report to provide anyone who cares with the details, it will be in July.  Go ahead, get really, really drunk, act inappropriately and know that this time I won’t be there with a microphone to capture you in your moment of excess and write it up in the most embarrassing manner the next day.  Have a good time; you’ll have one more card in your pocket at the end of the night.  And until we meet again Jerry, Dave, Jeff (both of you), Steve, Terry, Gary, Nik, Bob, Fred, Brian, Chris, Flip, Phil, Paul, and the rest of you, your secrets are safe with me, I have carried them to the grave.
Thank you everyone for contributing to make the Themayreport – the essence of my life.
It’s been my life’s labor of love and passion.
One of my favorite videos    
I’ve left many voicemails over the years. Here’s just one of many   
One of my favorite movie lines: v=8vY-4zWKsJM 
BTW, My Mom is doing well after her heart surgery, may she live a long healthy life.
I love you Mom for all you’re support and love over the years, no matter how difficult I was.
To all my family, friends, faithful readers, supporters, detractors, gadflies, cronies and anyone else I hit my cane, I am signing off one last time.
Till we all meet again. I have to go now. This really is my final report.
Ronald Peter May left this world on June 23^rd 2013 at 11:47 p.m.
I wanted a Celebration of Life and details of my celebration party will be forthcoming.
If you would like to leave me a note, please leave a comment below with any stories, memories or any comment you would like to leave at the bottom of this post11

Ron: we are all so very interesting and complex as humans, it was the twinkle in your eyes as you spoke that gave you away, and no I haven't finished the damn book yet.

Laura and Mel, and the human element:

My friend Laura, used to work for a builder obtaining bids on materials to be used in construction, in 2009 in the year of the great layoffs she needed to rethink what she wanted to be when she reached middle age, and she decided on nursing, and has spent several years in college courses trying to get there, she is now 1 year shy of her desired designation and after working numerous waitressing jobs finally had come upon a situation one one to help an aging senior, we met recently for breakfast prior to this following experience, and I knew how much she liked him already from some of her stories and descriptions, she wrote this sad tale this past week, and I pass it on so that you might know how much paid caretakers actually really do care:

So, i got this great job doing in-home care for a 92 yr old man named Mel.  About 20 hrs a week or more.  $15/hr cash.  Can’t beat it.  And this guy was great.  his daughter Belinda lives in Washington DC and a friend of hers from high school was staying with Mel at night, his name is Mark.  Both of them are wonderful people too.  Couldn’t ask for nicer people to work for.

Anyway, I told them when I started I probably couldn’t do it once school started again in august, but already they were asking me if I would stay.  I said I’d have to play it by ear.  They would work with whatever schedule I could do.  I couldn’t ask for more.  It was perfect.

Anyway, Mel is an awesome guy.  He’s funny, loves to get out and do things and go places, and was pretty alert and just full of life.  A little short term memory problem here and there but other wise great shape for 92.  He had a heart dysthymia but was controlled with medication.  No other chronic health problems.

Well a week ago Sunday, he got up by himself during the night to go to the bathroom, which he was capable of doing, but not a good idea.  He fell against the tub and smacked his back pretty good.  I came in Monday morning and Mark told me about it.  So, Mel spent the morning in bed with a heating pad.  I was there til noon and he was good other than the pain.  Wednesday morning same thing.  I was able to get him to get up for breakfast at least, then he went back to bed.  But he was fully alert and functioning.

He was always continent before the fall and always took himself to the bathroom.  I came in Friday morning and he had a glazed look on his face that just wasn’t right.  I also found he was incontinent with poop.  It was everywhere, head to toe, all over the bed.  He had a couple accidents during this week, but nothing like this.  Anyway, he was alert but looked terrible.  I started to clean up his hands and feet before I was going to stand him and take him to the shower.  He started becoming delirious.  He would go back and forth from delirious to alert.  Anyway, he wanted to get up so he stood but he had no strength.  I told him to sit back on the bed, got him laying back down, and told him I would clean him up in the bed.  He was good with this.  Still he was communicating with me.  His breathing was good, not labored or out of normal.  Anyway, I had him roll onto one side so I could start to clean him up.  He was on his side for about 1-2 minutes when I told him I needed him to roll back toward me.  I got no response, I tried again.  You know when your gut tells you something, Listen.

I just knew something was wrong.  I went around to the other side of the bed so I could see his face, and he was dead.  I started yelling Mel, Mel and nothing.  I called 911, got him out of the bed and onto the floor and started CPR.  His ribs immediately broke.  Thank god the paramedics got there pretty quick.  As soon as I saw his face and realized he was dead, the tears immediately started pouring.  OMG, it was an experience I can’t even explain.  The paramedics took over and one of them starting asking me questions, I answered and also told them I had to call the daughter.  Mark had left shortly before I got there this morning to go get Belinda from the airport.  She was coming in for father’s day.  All I could think of was they should be here any minute and she’s going to walk in and find her father dead.  I got a hold of Mark and they were just pulling into the garage.

Let me go back to explain something first.  The first day I was there I said to Mark, “I know this is going to sound like a strange question, but does Mel have a DNR (do not resuscitate)?”  he didn’t know what it was so I explained and he said there wasn’t one.  So this is what I told the paramedics.  also because there was no DNR this is why I did CPR in the first place.  So, when Belinda got there the paramedics asked her too, and she also said there wasn’t one.  So they had to continue trying to resuscitate Mel.  Anyway, we were then looking for the dr’s phone number for the paramedics when I came across a DNR, that no one know about.  So I gave it to the paramedics, they told Belinda they would stop working on him, she said fine.  Low and behold, Mel has a pulse.  Belinda went right in and told him to go to Betty, his wife, and she said her goodbyes.  It was heartbreaking for her I’m sure.  I felt so bad, between 10-15 minutes sooner and she would have seen him before he passed.  And Mel was looking so forward to her coming.  But she kept saying to me, “He waited for me and I got to say goodbye.  He had a pulse again so he could hear me”.  And that’s true, they say the hearing is the last thing to go. 

Kathy I can’t even tell you how wonderful these people are.  This all happened this past Friday.  Last night Belinda and Mark took me and Tyler out to dinner.  She kept insisting.  When we went out she said to me “I will forever be grateful to you.  What you did allowed the paramedics to get him back so I could say goodbye.  That means everything to me”.  Kathy I can’t even tell you how that made me feel.  I was so glad that she felt she had closure cause that made a huge difference for her.

Me on the other hand, I’ve never been so traumatized in my life.  I don’t care if I am CPR trained, big deal.  Just because I have a card and went to a class doesn’t mean I know what the hell I’m doing.  And we joke at school when we ask each other, “do you know what you’re doing?”  and of course none of us do.  But we always figure when that day comes we’ll be working in a hospital or something and there will be plenty of other people there to help.  Never did I think that day would come and I’d be all alone, have to get a 150 lb man out of the bed, onto the floor and do CPR.  I had tears just pouring the entire time.  I kept functioning but the tears poured and I kept telling Mel to wake up.  Also, when you learn to do this they tell you how you will often break ribs.  Telling you doesn’t give you a clue.  With the first compression I gave, his ribs just snapped and crunched and my hand just sunk.  It was a sickening feeling.  I think I was in shock the rest of the day, it was just so weird.  Then the next morning I woke up crying, now the tears were because he was gone.  The tears the day before were because he was gone too but I think it was mostly just the trauma of it.  What a day I had. 

So, I’ve lost my CPR virginity and I had all the worst case scenarios happen at once.  This is one hurdle of nursing I won’t have to experience again for the first time.  Not that the second time will be easy but at least that horrible fear of, will I do it right, is pretty much gone.  I hope.  I’m sure I didn’t do everything right but I got the job done and it kept him going until the real help got there.  I bet the paramedics were there in under 10 minutes.  And it always amazes me how wonderful those guys are.  So, many times in the nursing homes they come and always, they are the most compassionate people.

Anyway, that’ my story.  I’m now unemployed, but I don’t even care.  I’m gonna miss Mel, he was an awesome guy and he took part of my heart with him.  Those old people, I always get so attached to them.  But doing this one-on-one care is different, you get attached in a whole different way.

I've loved my above described friend Laura for a long time, but I sold her short on how much she actually cares for the humans she comes in contact with, touch for a day in the life of:

Sunshine

Life, lifestyles and the trade off of passing you by

"When was the last time, you ever saw the sunrise?" A glimpse of it here and there throughout the busier week, brings us to some subconscious thoughts of what it is we strive for, and are you trading it off for the real living that could be done in a day?
When we are small children we are ushered out the door to play, but always kept busy.  Next comes years and years of schooling, still be ushered into corridors we really don't want to travel through, and yet it is all mandatory, and we are still kept unconditionally busy, aren't we?
You get out of school and are informed you need to be an adult and you are sent off into a work world, filled with stepping stones that will spiral out into and definitely consume your adult life.
Somewhere in between all of those jobs you fall in love big time, get yourself married to a person hopefully for the love that will span a life time, partnering you up in rare instances but savor-able with a person who had the same dreams and goals as you did when you started out together.
Sad part now, you have your own children, you teach them how to play, you keep them busy with learning new fun things, they bring their little friends into their own world and yours, you watch them growing and exploring, you send them off to that school system that keeps them profitably busy for light years of learning, and socializing, so that they can go work a lifetime and carry on your own first pattern?
And just as they try to find and establish their own path, you begin to see in glimpses possibly with a touch of revolt coursing through your veins that the clock is almost run out, you have ten thousand things you still wish to do and enjoy, but you must keep working the never ending jobs as you're too far from a thought of retirement, the body starts degenerating and selling the younger mind out, it's a catch 22, a system established light years ago, a revolving door of sorts that must be finished if you're ever to find the exit, so why should we promote this to our own children?

Preschool learning + Years of school and training + Years of Working + Love + Family + Home + Years of Working + Crooks in Banking & Housing Market = Years more of Working = LOL:) 

Without this single action that is started by each of us, gypsies and nomadic tribes would still exist?

People would still live off the land more, stay for awhile and travel on? Seeing what, appreciating what?

Would those people find more or less to savor and enjoy in each day?  

Yes, every once and awhile I see a different, slower, easier path, that might give more quality to us dreamers, and I wonder what the hell we as a human "RACE" are doing to us all.

The love of little things

Thinking of you, all the years of double jobs, thus little spare time, and yet fishing for the day with my brother and allowing me to come with, my discovery day of everything living on the river shore from small snails to frogs and encouraging me to enjoy it all, a wonderful day by the water.  This would progress to day trips with the boat, and my love of dragonflies, so many different colors, one after another alighting onto the fishing line.

Making candles in the basement with our rather elaborate setup, ships, Santa's, frogs, angels, you name it, and we tried it, tall stars, of all colors and scents.

And then our gardening years, we had many fun days planting flowers and vegetables, you shaking off the earth from things we'd pull, "You always give something back to the earth".

You've been my practical side, my logic, at times when it defied the odds. And you were never afraid to tackle some unknown ground if you had to get a project done.

And all the time you squeezed in with Juice, from pulling him around in the laundry basket, progressed into a wagon, and the laughter from you two as you used your very vivid imaginations in play.

And Dad you were right, you never stop missing your people.  Much love and thanks, and hugs.

The child and a door

"When was the last time, you ever saw the sunrise?"

Sometimes as you go along you are very aware you've entered an unwritten chapter in your own life, and once again there are no instructions, manuals, or directions included.
Sometimes the pages that start to shape are not even your very own, but those intricately woven into the people you hold closest to you. And their pages have importance to how your own will shape, their well being is just as important to you.

Sometimes many of these pages all start up a new chapter at once, so much to digest and jockey about in the recesses of your mind,  A mind trying to track multi-segments, my own mind is connected to my stomach, it's not a good relationship quite often, but if my mind is over active, then it's counterpart will sabotage me, as if to say I can do this as long as you do that. And it does have a way of bitch slapping you back into mental compliance.

We try to be there for the ones we love, we try to offer help where we can, we try to see if we can't further things by a step or two, and every once in awhile we are told "stop", and stay on the other side of a door we always thought we should be able to walk through, but no longer can, we have become extended family, not of a core any longer.

When I was a child, I had two older brothers, we all loved music, and would run to Polk Brothers on a Saturday & pick up the newest 45 of our choice, the record player was in their room, me being the runt could sit outside their closed door and listen to the music from the hallway. This was a right of passage as they were my elders.  I spent a lot of time in that hallway. It became a norm:)

Simply put I had little control or influence then, and the years have not rendered more, I can only be here in case anyone would ever want to talk to me or hear my take on this page.

-A Day in the life of Sunshine

The would be mother part II

In finishing a previous post regarding our spring visitor the expectant mother duck, she stayed with us a good three weeks, and really just sat in her nest for most of that duration, we tried to supply her with a food and water source, one day she went off for a few hours to an unknown destination, but did return at night fall, she stayed another week, some heavy rains came and went, and then she left the nest again this time we could see several well shaped perfect eggs, along with some mis-shaped somewhat distorted eggs, couldn't tell if she'd crushed them or if they were somehow naturally looking that bad.

She did not come back!

My son's take is that she must have hatched several good eggs, and gone off with the chicks, my husband indicated we would have seen and heard those chicks if that had happened, and I wondered if she met with an accident.

Articles I read indicate she could have laid what is called a bad clutch of eggs, and wandered off once she knew it was hopeless.

Somehow, staying in tune with nature, seeing it in a different perspective than others might, I feel for her if she stayed and saw that through.  It's never easy to stay and see a thing going to hell in a hand-basket through, is it?

Living Outside the Box

So much truth to be one's own worst enemy, we constantly live by actions that our day light savings brain tells us are erroneous. And still it goes on and on, I will never truly understand humans, dogs are so much easier to deal with.
We humans want relationships, we want days of enjoyment, we want houses and families, and all the darling debts that go with them, and then one day we decide we want simplicity, we want to streamline, and all because we've grown tired of the endless treadmill.
We now try to think outside the box, how funny that human nature, we should have put the brakes on long time back before we got into the crazy box.
We want, we want, we want.....

Another Lady or the Tiger story, isn't it?

-A Day in the Life of Sunshine