Category: challenge

Rachel Sunshine

~ V.J. Knutson ~ 36 Comments

“Tell me a favourite memory from your travels,” my golden-haired nurse asked me as she scoured my bruised arms for an accessible vein. I’d blown another IV and options were limited.

Rachel Sunshine I called her, this wisp of a young woman who, at first hospital-glazed glance, glowed a with a yellow aura. So I told her about Arizona, and the Salt River where the wild horses roamed. She listened with awe, her expert hands painlessly setting up a new life line.

“Promise me, you’ll sleep tonight,” she scolded me, “and tomorrow I’ll braid your hair if you like.” And then: “But only if you tell me a story.” She wrote it on my care board so we’d both remember: story and braid

We’d bonded that first moment, when chastising herself for being a dummy. I blurted out: “Thank goodness you’re a dummy, then that makes two of us”.

I arrived in hospital the day before, delivered in what we oldies affectionately call “the bus”, with sirens ablaze. Steady hands worked diligently, plugging in machines, inserting needles, asking well rehearsed questions. There were tests and a lot of uncomfortable jostling and then admittance to this room around midnight. It hadn’t been quite forty-eight hours post surgery when everything had taken a turn for the worse.

The disgruntled ER doc mumbled something about why anyone would have sent me home post-surgery in my condition, and then kindly advised that my problems were caused by an obstruction in the intestine:

“Nothing can come in, and nothing can go out,” she explained. “No more food or drink orally until we know the cause.”

We never did get the story or the braid, Ms Sunshine and I, as overnight my body started to respond to interventions. By 7:00 am, I was sitting up, eating jello when Sunshine reappeared.

“I’m in IV prison,” I told her, raising my arm to indicate a stiffly wrapped hand.

“I heard,” she frowned. “I also heard you didn’t sleep. But there is progress and that’s good.”

The thing about Rachel is that she doesn’t just practice her craft from a textbook; she takes in all the cues being fed her, and listens. She is, in fact, no dummy.

When I again showed her my swelling arm (another line blown), she sighed and suggested we give the IV a break for a bit. And when she saw that rest would be the greatest healer of all right now, she pushed the doctor to reconsider my stay.

By 2:00 pm I was released; Sunshine at my back wishing me a speedy recovery.

So, I am back at home, having slept most of yesterday and last night. I am weak. I am battered. And I am a little bit better thanks to a nurse I’ve christened Rachel Sunshine.

It was warming and in some cases, cathartic, to wake today to your responses and posts. Paul, at parallax, challenged me to write about the caregiver who helped me through. Love you all, and missed our daily check-ins. So glad to be back.

Please check this week’s offerings if you haven’t had a chance. Thanks to all:

How Do I Heal, Blog of Hammad Rais
Homesick, I Write Her
Significance, Short-Lived, Eugi’s Causerie II
Take Care of the Old, Heart to Heart
Journey to Peace, Stuff and what is…
Take Care, parallax
How Some Take Care, Sgeoil

It will take me a bit to regain my footing, so there will be no challenge tomorrow, other than for all of us to take care this week.

(Image mine)

VJ’s Weekly Challenge #112: Take Care

~ V.J. Knutson ~ 39 Comments

Make sure you have lists for us when we come, my daughter messages me.

Checklists with a gong to hit every time we complete a task, my son-in-law adds.

We have no shortages of lists, in fact, every day or so, we are rewriting our lists: things to do, things to buy…

Nowhere in those plans is a outline for how to take care.

We are exhausted. The kids came on a Saturday and the next day, we carried on, but by Monday, neither of us could even think of lifting a hand. Tuesday we slept most of the day. Wednesday, we rallied a bit, but still felt overwhelmed. At this point, I am only managing to unpack a box a day. Hardly progress.

Today, we vow to stay focused and get things done. Tomorrow is my surgery, which while minor, means I will not be able to lift, pull, reach, or drag for a few weeks until the stitches have healed.

“Where will the best place be for you to sit after surgery?” Ric asked me yesterday, and : “What can I get in for you, food wise?”

Time to make a new list.

This week, please join me in considering what it means to take care. The words themselves do not need to appear in your post – just the essence of how and what you do to care for yourself. A photo, a poem, a quotation – anything that helps is welcome.

To join in, just create a post and leave a link in the comments below or create a pingback by linking back to this page. Thoughts left in the comments also count!

Looking forward to your responses.

Not Everything is “Stuff”

~ V.J. Knutson ~ 18 Comments

An apology, dear readers, if this week’s challenge came across as glib. By “stuff“, I was referring to the incidental: a broken foot, a set of stitches, a temporary setback. In no way did I intend to imply that trauma or loss is “stuff”. Some things, with a bit of grit, can be overcome. I recognize that not everything is this simple.

Thank you to Curating Thoughts, whose powerful write illustrated the difference. I am humbled by and grateful for your words.

Thanks also to those who participated this week, and for the many kind words.

Becoming, I Write Her
The countdown begins…, Heart to Heart
Transition, Eugi’s Causerie II
Artist, Transition of Thoughts
Message From the Universe, Sgeoil
Stuff Happens, Stuff and what if…
Stuff Happens, Curating Thoughts
The Last Day, one letter UP

See you tomorrow for a new challenge!


VJ’s Weekly Challenge #111: stuff happens

~ V.J. Knutson ~ 63 Comments

“Just hang in till after the move,” I kept pleading with my body. Unrealistic in hindsight. Six o’clock, the morning before the move, I wake Ric with a request to drive me to the hospital. Turns out you can’t just pack chronic illness in a box and unpack it when convenient.

While they pumped fluids into me and awaited the results of testing, Ric decided to carry on with his to do list, pushing his own limits. He ended up in ER too. Guess it was a two-for-one day. Or a three-for week, as our son, who came to help us, ending up needing stitches when the heavy base he was carrying jumped back and punched him.

Stuff happens.

I read once (think it was Caroline Myss) that obstacles are the universe’s way of letting you know you are on the right track. We carry on; he with a broken foot and me fuelled by antibiotics. Guess this is the right path!

Oh, and did I mention, I am scheduled for surgery next week (minor), and he is booked for a total knee reconstruct at the end of the month?

Sigh….

Stuff happens to all of us. Let’s let that be the focus this week: not how rotten life can be, but how despite the bad, we pick ourselves up and keep going. You know: the everyday miracles.

To participate, publish a post on your site and then dropped a link below. All are welcome. Look forward to your responses.

Eau de Fresh Paint

~ V.J. Knutson ~ 20 Comments

It’s day three at the new abode and I’m sipping my first home brewed cup of tea while sunlight streams through the uncovered windowpanes. Body has put the brakes on, so its a good day to catch up on all things social media.

Lovely to see the sun; it has been overcast and stormy up until now. Day one of the move, a major storm system blew in midday knocking out the hydro. Too dark to safely continue, we had to halt the proceedings. The next two days also brought rain and finally, a break in the intense heat.

The scent of fall is on the air this morning – a reminder that the long winter ahead will give us plenty of time to settle in. Our kids descended en masse yesterday, ensuring that all the essentials are in place, so we are good.

So much to share about our home, but that will have to come later. As you can see, the dogs are happily discovering their new hunting ground.

In the meantime, I wish to extend a warm thanks to all who have continued to post and contribute to my weekly challenge. Sorry I was unable to return a quick response.

Hope, I Write Her
Seasonal Epiphany! radhikasreflections
Dolly Parton is here! Heart to Heart
A Promise to Trust, AWISEWOMANSJOURNEY
Off track, Eugi’s Causerie II
Scent from the Past, Stuff and what if…
Scent of the Earth, Sgeoil

See you tomorrow for a new challenge!

VJ’s Weekly Challenge #110 – smell

~ V.J. Knutson ~ 35 Comments

“How long do you boil the corn?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“It’s done when it smells right.”

This is why I can never replicate a recipe. I literally follow my nose.

What is your relationship to smell? (Don’t tell me you didn’t know this was coming, lol.)

Look forward to reading your responses. Just create a post and link back here. All welcome.

Currently an Eyesore

~ V.J. Knutson ~ 23 Comments

The boxes are piling up here. At the new house, the painters have been working diligently. Two rooms are completed and currently all the kitchen doors are off and strewn across scaffolding. The remaining walls are speckled with repair patches.

Both houses are a sight. I try to close my eyes for sleep but the endless to do list runs through my mind. In five days the move happens.

Your posts this week, focused on the visual, have kept me going: some evoking smiles, some tears, others a pause.

Please visit those you missed:

To the One In Sky, Blog of Hammad Rais
At the falls!, Heart to Heart
Dream Board, I Write Her
The Highlights of Life, Eugi’s Causerie II
Sights of Sunlight and Night, Hearing the Mermaids Sing
Gift, paeansunplugged
Birth of Dawn, radhikasreflection
An All Too Brief Pandemic Pause, one letter UP
When the Moonlight Fades, Sgeoil
What a Sight! Stuff and what if…
Off The Rails, parallax

Thanks all! See you tomorrow for a new challenge!