The Soap Box
A place for me to dump my brain and you to pick thru it

Thank You and See You Soon
7:15am

Thank you for your kind wishes for me and my family over the past little while. I do appreciate them. (And Suzie, thanks for not pointing out my medical spelling mistakes.)

This year has been a bit rough so far. Hubby has been working outside the country more than anywhere else. I had finals only 2 weeks ago (is that possible?) and my brother passed on Sunday. I am exhausted and having trouble sleeping. To try to keep myself mentally and physically healthy I need to take some time off and hibernate with my husband. There will be no updates on this blog for at least a week.

Take care of yourself and the ones you love and I'll be back soon.

Why?
1:56am

Why does the trunk of my car smell like ass?

Why is it that when it's like 90 degrees in my bedroom my cats insist on leaning against me while I sleep?

Why is do I keep waking up at 5am?

A Little Catch-Up
8:47pm

The following encapsulates the last 2 days. It will probably be long and rambling. Feel free to skip around.

Saturday:
I got to the hospital outside of Boulder around 1:30. Bro was awake and lucid. He flashed me his famous grin. I took his hand and kissed his forehead. He kissed my hand. He was emaciated, looked ancient and his skin was a greenish-yellow. I had steeled myself against seeing him with a gaping hole in his neck from a tracheotomy and perhaps seeing him without teeth (long story) and knew he'd be thin from not eating for the last 2.5 weeks. I was not prepared for the jaundice. You just look at it and think, "skin is NOT supposed to be that color!" We didn't really say much, especially since he had his voice box removed 2 years ago as it was the primary source of cancer. He let me know on his trusty whiteboard that he was just given morphine, or in his words, "I just did drugs," and went to sleep for a while. Two other sisters were there as well as his daughter and ex-wife.

We all took turns holding his hand on Saturday. He was never left alone even though most of the time he was asleep. The only other things I saw him write on Saturday were, "Now to get down to the bizness of dying" and "we're now at the point of how do I die?" The first was said to his ex-wife. It seems to me that he told her whatever he needed to tell her and was at peace. The second was to the hospice nurse. These short sentences were HUGE. Bro's been in denial regarding the severity of his cancer since he was told it came back this January. From what I understand, when hospice told him they were there to make his passing as peaceful as possible a few months back, he told him to fuck off. He intended to live and wasn't going to plan on anything else.

The hospice nurse let us know that the current research indicated that giving terminally ill patients fluids for hydration was not beneficial and even could exacerbate certain conditions, like edema in the legs and feet, which was what bro was complaining about the most. His feet hurt so bad, he complained about the pain only an hour and a half after receiving morphine. We made the decision to stop all IVs, the ones for hydration as well as the ones for his antibiotics. At some point, perhaps around 9:30pm, he was given Ativan for anxiety as well as to help him breathe by relaxing the muscles in his airway and he was out for the night.

I left around 11pm and went back to my fleabag hotel. OMG, it could not have been a more depressing place to be.

The Dream:
Early Sunday morning, bro's daughter had a dream that he came to her, sans trach hole in his neck, and said, "I'm free!" She asked, "Pain free?" He responded, "No! Rent free! Free free free! No more rent!" She knew from that response that she was not dreaming but that her dad was actually talking to her since NO ONE but my brother would respond that way. She woke up just as he was telling her the PIN to his bank account by the phone ringing...

Sunday:
I got a phone call at 8:20am from one of my sisters telling me that the hospital said he was dying. I've never packed up and gotten the hell out of a hotel so fast. I didn't know if he'd be dead or alive by the time I got there. He was alive. His eyes were 2/3 closed then and remained that way the rest of the day except for a few brief moments. His mouth was gaping open as if he didn't have enough strength to close it. He was so thin, I could see his heart beating in his chest. While he appeared unconscious, he would move his eyebrows or his hand briefly if someone talked directly to him. His eyes opened wide when he was in pain and his hands clenched into fists. By this time, he was given any drugs he needed at any time and we never hesitated to ask for them.

At some point in the afternoon, I found myself alone with him. I told him it was time to stop fighting. He'd been fighting all his life and it was time to relax and lay it all down. His ex-wife came in the room and held his right hand while I held his left. I could tell it was really close to the end as he was more agitated. He would stop breathing for up to 10 seconds at a time (I counted) then take a deep breath and start breathing more regularly but rather shallow.

He would all of a sudden appear to be fully awake, clenching his hands as if in pain and look right at his ex-wife, who happens to be the love of his life. She would stroke his arm while holding his hand and say, "You're OK. It's OK. Just let go. We're here with you." The mythological "death-rattle" apparently is not a myth as I heard it myself from my brother around 4:30 on Sunday. His ex again soothed him. Soon, we could no longer see his heart beating in his chest but could still see a pulse in the carotid artery in his neck. And then he was gone (4:53pm).

After the months/years that my two sisters have spent taking care of my brother, I thought it would be them there at the end but it was me and the ex-wife. I hope I am lucky enough to be looking into the eyes of the love of my life when my time comes.

Quick Update
12:07am

It's that time. Time to make the trip to say goodbye to my brother. The doctor said on Friday that he has 3-4 days left. I've never had to do this before. What do you say to someone when you know and they know they are dying?

iPod Fun
11:54pm

My wonderful husband got me a new iPod mini for our 10 year anniversary. I suddenly needed a way to get the music off my old iPod and onto my new mini. If you know anything about iTunes, you know you can simply move music from your computer to the iPod, but not vice-versa. The reasons for that is so you can't steal music, which I totally understand. However, the music on my old iPod is all music I either paid for or ripped from CDs I own. I didn't feel like ripping them all over again. (The original rips are on my old computer, not this one.) Well, I found a free (that's right, FREE) program called Ollie's iPod Extractor 3.0 which you can find here. It worked like a charm! I lost the playlists but all the music was there and I was able to recover all the songs on my old iPod. What a time saver.

OMG
9:58pm

I found out today that 2 people (out of 15) in my stats class didn't pass. Totally sucks and makes me grateful I'm not one of them, that's for sure.

Don't Ask
10:28pm

It's a hard week. I can't go into details or I may go insane. Let me just summarize:

• Our bank (rhymes with Smells Largo) has stiffed us of thousands of dollars.
• I spend an hour with a delusional homeless 75 year old man today. I was supposed to be testing his memory and attention. Yeah, right.
• I called FedEx to hold a package for pick up. Fought traffic to go get it and it was on a truck for delivery. Thanks assholes.
• Bro gets a feeding tube soon but he hasn't eaten in so long it's unclear whether his body will be able to digest the any nutrition they force into him.

That's enough for one day, don't you think?

Hooray!
9:05pm

Fox has ordered an entire 3rd season of Arrested Development! Knowing Fox's asinine decisions in the past, I thought for sure this low-rated, highly acclaimed comedy was on the chopping block. So, if you haven't watched this very clever, very funny show, you have another chance. Don't blow it America!

A Failure to Communicate
12:32pm

(If anyone has any idea if there is a hidden message below, let me know.)

I called my brother's hospital and talked to his nurse. The following are actual, word for word, snippets of our conversation:

Me: Is he eating?
Nurse: Well, you know, he is having difficulty swallowing food and pills.

Me: Are the antibiotics working?
Nurse: Well, he's getting the antibiotics. They are being administered.

Me: Is the pneumonia any better?
Nurse: We're still draining fluids from his lungs.

OK, so WTF? He totally did not answer a single question. Is he trying to be kind? Not wanting to give information for privacy reasons? What? Do I have to say, "Look, should I be making a trip up there to say goodbye or what?" Soooo frustrating!

Liars Go To Hell
9:51am

Condi Rice made a surprise visit to Iraq this weekend and had the audacity to say the following to our troops:

"This war came to us, not the other way around."

"The United States, along with the rest of the free world, believed somehow for a number of years that people in this region didn't care about freedom...We cared about stability. And what we got was neither. We got a malignancy that was growing that came to haunt us on the fine September day (in 2001)."

Haven't we established unequivocally that Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11? When will the Republicans stop flogging this dead horse? She's got some set of cajones to say that stuff to our troops who are dying daily. We have close to 2000 dead now. What number of American casualties is enough? How many is too many?

I can't believe Rice has the audacity to say that people in the middle east don't care about freedom. Yeah, women like being covered head to toe in the desert heat. They like being uneducated and not being able to make a living for themselves. They like having to be part of a family, either family of origin or with a husband, in order to have food and shelter. Yeah, they like that. They would hate to be a single female with her own place and the freedom to make choices that affect their lives in a positive manner.

Condi, you have become such a puppet of the US bureaucracy, you should be ashamed of yourself. I also didn't know they had successfully performed a backbone-ectomy, but you seem to prove they have. Worse yet, they have removed your backbone and surgically implanted a hand up your ass. All those years of education gone to waste now. Just as this same US government regime emasculated poor Colin Powell, they have taken everything away from you that got you to where you are AND YOU LET THEM. Shame on you. You've gone from a strong, well educated African American woman to a shill for "the man" and you're surely going to burn in hell for lying to your own troops.

Odds & Ends
9:47pm

This is completely unnecesary and offends me. It just sullies the original.

I'm done done done with school. I tanked the stats final but still have a good enough grade to pass. Disappointing, but I'm glad it's over.

The finale of The Amazing Race was great! I'm really glad Uchenna and Joyce won. As one Etertainment Weekly writer put it, "if I were God, I'd certainly think, 'I usually don't get involved, but if Uchenna and Joyce don't win this, then I'm really a douchebag.'"

The Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. has vetoed a measure that would have outlawed same-sex marriage on the reservation. Good for him! You can read about it here.

Bro is in the hospital with pneumonia. They've drained about a gallon of fluid off his lungs. He hasn't eaten in 12 days. It's not looking good.

Well that's about all I have energy for. I hope your Friday the 13th wasn't too dreadful.

I Did It!
12:22am

I got through my first year of grad school! WOOHOO!!!!!!

Happy Birthday To...
9:30am

...the only person to be nominated for an Oscar, Grammy, Golden Globe, and for the Nobel Prize. Do you know who it is? He/she is turning 45 today.

Procrastinating with Jesus
11:29am

These are so very wrong, very very wrong.

Psych Students Really Know How To Party Apparently
9:01am

Remember that 4 hour stats final I was complaining about? That's on Monday morning. Classes ended yesterday and instead of studying for said final, I went to an end -of-the-year party to which psych grad students, faculty and staff were invited. I thought, eh, I need a night off. I learned many interesting things such as my psychopathology teacher knows how to swing dance! Who knew?

One of the scariest and most appalling secrets revealed last night was that almost all of the very white, very skinny, early 20s female students knew ALL of the words to "Baby Got Back." What's up with that? First of all, that song came out before most of them were even born and second of all, it basically makes fun of all of them. Very strange.

And then it got a little weirder. Late into the evening, perhaps around 11, someone says to me all excited, "Look! Dave the Janitor is here!" Uh, OK. I personally didn't know him as I do my best to leave campus before he comes around at 5pm.He's an average looking Hispanic man, perhaps in his late 40's and I really didn't quite understand the excitement he seemed to be generating upon his arrival. Well, it turns out the janitor is like this amazing ballroom dancer! All the women who knew how to swing or salsa were lining up to dance with him and he brought his own dance music! You've got to love a department that is so egalitarian that the janitor is invited to the parties and dances with all the young hot students.

I don't think I can divulge all the secrets of the party (drunk Mormon girl on the loose...oh, did I say that out loud?) but I will share this last bit with you. Somehow a debate started among my fellow female first year students as to whether my breasts are real or fake (REAL, thank you) and if they are real, how are they so "perky"? It's called genetics, girls. Look it up. (And also the top I was wearing was REALLY tight in the chestal region, keeping them where they belong.)

'Acourse, I'm exhuasted now and need to study for the next 2 days...hopefully I can get the brain going at some point today.

PS: Along with swing, salsa and Sir Mix-a-Lot, the Chicken Dance was played and danced to (not by me) last night.

Speaking of Cheerleaders...*
10:20pm

The Texas House of Representatives have passed a law to stop High school cheerleaders from "shaking their behinds, breaking it down." because cheerleaders are supposed to...wait...what are cheerleaders supposed to do anyway but give you some entertainment when the game sucks? God forbid, they will have to rely on talent instead of booty-shaking. And God forbid the Texas House of Representatives take on something serious, like the death penalty or why 28% of employed Texans have no health insurance (the highest rate of uninsured full-time employees in the country). You can read the whole story here.

*OK, I wasn't talking about cheerleaders, mike was.

Question for You
3:01pm

What exactly is a "Hollaback Girl"?

Blog Name: The Soap Box
Email: jenben[at]g-r-c.com
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