tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post5608395720233617862..comments2023-10-28T06:45:31.002-07:00Comments on Brooke Hopkins & Peggy Battin: Step Down: From the MICU to the IMCUSara & Greg Pearsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05484783478337960032noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post-57907880382302445212010-10-29T14:45:21.488-07:002010-10-29T14:45:21.488-07:00Yes, Norm, those are my friend's words, the sa...Yes, Norm, those are my friend's words, the same friend about whom I write here.<br /><br />LorraineLorraine Sealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01497806391999639680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post-71943545649484886732010-10-29T10:30:53.899-07:002010-10-29T10:30:53.899-07:00Peggy - at dinner last week I read to you a quote ...Peggy - at dinner last week I read to you a quote which I had discovered in the comments to your blog. I believe it was Lorraine Seal who originally posted it, a statement from a friend, but I may be wrong in that. At any rate I found it thought provoking.<br /> It is this<br /><br />“I start from the premise that life is meaningless, a complete void, without redemption, and that you, I, one, responds by imposing meaning on the world by creating a reflection of one’s character on the world.<br /><br />NormNormhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00885947008111366471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post-42834389479599321392010-10-28T19:06:56.464-07:002010-10-28T19:06:56.464-07:00thanks Brooke. I'll go find The Winter Pond to...thanks Brooke. I'll go find The Winter Pond tomorrow and read it. Then it's to the Fall Festival at Sophia's school, where we do various Halloween-y things. I'm signed up to chaperone the Cake Walk. But this weekend I'm by myself, so I can read and reflect. You're my hero, more now than ever. Thanks for your continued courage and the words.<br /><br />love,<br />mikeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post-13904566252400378412010-10-28T02:51:05.710-07:002010-10-28T02:51:05.710-07:00I smiled as I finished reading the dinner party po...I smiled as I finished reading the dinner party post. I felt a sense of camaraderie and peace, as though I pictured the four of you in the glow of candlelight, warmed by your longstanding friendship and courageous acceptance of your ‘adventure’, as Peggy termed it. <br /><br />That’s certainly one way to create the narrative. But as you point out, it’s not the whole picture. The florescent lights snap on. Your caregivers once again subject you to the indignities of cathing, suctioning, bowel care and more, and the realities of your condition and what Roger faces become as harsh as the light.<br /><br />So, yes, clarification is important. <br /><br />I wondered at my own comment. How inappropriate, I thought, to comment on the sense of peacefulness, given what Roger and Brooke must endure. But it is one way of framing the story.<br /><br />I’ve shared with you both privately and in these comments the experience of seeing a friend drowning in dementia. Its onset was as sudden as Brooke’s accident, and over the course of 18 months, initial hope for some return of normalcy was replaced by a bleak awareness that he would only deteriorate.<br /><br />It was painful to witness this, aware of my helplessness to do anything substantive to help. What made it slightly more bearable was being conscious of the occasional moments of grace or lightness. There were quite a few of these, in fact, if one was able to detach from the image of who the man he had been before the brain damage and be open to the man who remained after it. <br /><br />Like you, he had been a man of tremendous physical and emotional courage, always putting himself on the line. After the damage, among the fragments that remained was the courage with which he carried on in spite of limitations and indignity. But seeing those moments of grace was not something everyone could do. Many of his friends could not get pass their own grief and shame about his condition. Because they were unable to see past the degradation, they were unable to see the humanity and the dignity of the man who remained. It was, in part, a question of which narrative they were open to.<br /><br />His life had been marked by more than physical stamina and courage. He had also shown emotional courage in facing down his own demons. Peggy’s use of adventure reminded me of how, before the dementia, he tried to reconcile himself with the sometimes crippling pain those demons brought him. <br /><br />‘Always an adventure,’ he’d say when it was all he could do to cope. So that’s what I said to him in his dementia – ‘Always an adventure’ or ‘Keep climbing the mountain’ – to reinforce the connection between his old self and the self that remained. It framed it in a way he could understand.<br /><br />In fact, of course, it wasn’t an adventure. It was a hopeless slog toward death, by turns desperate, boring, terrifying and hideous, leavened at times by humour, tenderness and those chance moments of grace. No one would wish it on anyone. But, however disingenuous, framing it in positive, even hopeful, language rather than as a blunt expression of the reality created a narrative to keep despair at bay. Which had been his habit when he had been fully mented. All he could do, all I could help him do, was keep going, one awful day after another. <br /><br />As you and Roger are doing, going forward with great courage and intelligence. Whether it is framed as an adventure or, perhaps more honestly, as complete disaster, you retain your humanity and dignity. You are adding to the meaning to your lives, creating legacies, in fact, Brooke through your writing and plans to teach, Roger through his research and publishing on ALS.<br /><br />When I tell my friend’s story, I don’t frame it as an adventure; I add my own construction, making it a tale of redemption. Doing so makes it bearable, makes of it something other than a story of waste and loss. I do it, I suppose, to protect myself. I don’t know if the narrative I tell is objectively true, whether it is based in reality rather than wishful thinking, but it gets me through the day.Lorraine Sealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01497806391999639680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post-31595738497174768772010-10-28T02:45:29.242-07:002010-10-28T02:45:29.242-07:00To Brooke and Peggy
Peggy, you recently suggested...To Brooke and Peggy<br /><br />Peggy, you recently suggested I again try to post the comment that follows. I wrote it in response to the conversation about the dinner party, sometime in mid-September, a conversation revolving around your use of the term ‘adventure’ to describe Brooke’s changed condition and that of his friend, Roger. After writing the comment, I had trouble posting it for technical reasons, so I sent it to you privately, and now you’ve suggested I try again to post it.<br /><br />I’ve been reluctant, though, to do so because it seems somehow inappropriate, given this most recent crisis. However, on reading Brooke’s reflections on facing the reality of his life as it must be lived now, his reflections on how to live deliberately, breath after sometimes painful breath, I think maybe it is relevant. It is after all about framing the narrative of one’s life and finding within the suffering some morsel of meaning that may, perhaps, make it bearable. <br /><br />The friend about whom I write below, a Buddhist, wrote me at a time when I was grieving: ‘Now you are living out the pain [of life] and when you get a chance, perhaps you can somehow transcend it and find something, some wry truth, to hide away to a secret recess of your life; something which will somehow get you through the day.’<br /><br />And that’s about what we can do, what we must do, and it is in that spirit that I try again to post the comment below.<br /><br />I am with you as you recover from this latest setback and am, once again, deeply moved by your courage. Thank you for sharing the beauty of your soul in these pages.<br /><br />LorraineLorraine Sealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01497806391999639680noreply@blogger.com