Stand Up Eight

Posted by Dia in Living and Dying September 27, 2013

* * *

Whoops. If you don’t understand the above it’s because this was an unsuccessful attempt at using the “Press This” feature on WordPress. Not sure what went wrong but 100% certain it did.

What I was trying to do was reblog a great post I found on Nhan-Fiction. It contained a simple (Japanese?) saying…

FALL DOWN SEVEN TIMES, STAND UP EIGHT

…along with the beautiful characters/calligraphy in the original language. The message spoke to me today as I’ve been falling down a lot lately. Like when I tried to “Press This” post for instance.

Mental note: Stand up. Again.

Squirrel Rant for the Year

Posted by Dia in Gardening, Living and Dying and tagged with garden, humor, Squirrel September 25, 2013

Ah, yes. No garden season would be complete without a post detailing some of the unique and creative vandalism perpetrated by the darlings of the neighborhood this year. I freely admit, I hate them. I love them. Of all the pests I have to battle for the harvest…slugs, cabbage moths, earwigs and rolypolys, powdery mildew, hail, and Dane the mangy rescue mutt…squirrels are the only ones that make it personal. They could be French with their flagrant insults, chattering at me and biting their nails, throwing green apples down on my head and tossing perfect, beautiful peaches to the ground after a single bite only to stare at me from the branch in defiance, daring me to take offense. If they carried rapiers I’d fear them.

Mostly, they’re all the same to me, these garden rats. Furry. Cute. Rapacious. Infuriating. But twice now, one has been born that stands out from the rest. Six or seven years ago it was Hugo the Great, acrobat extraordinaire whom I swear could fly…fly I tell you. He sprang into this world either fearless or completely insane and his feats of leaping high overhead across impossible distances only to catch the merest twig tip and cling while it whipped him up and down in wild thirty-foot arcs left both me and every squirrel who chased him with mouths agape in awe and terror. I only saw him the one year of course. He was destined to die young. But oh, what a glorious season. I adored Hugo. He lived like a meteor…hot, fast, and brief.

But his memory faded over time and I was lulled into complacence. I eventually forgot that great ones, avatars, sometimes appear among this race…until late July when I discovered the first beautiful eggplant lying mangled in the pathway. Now I assure you, over time I’ve grown familiar with their favorites, these squirrels. Fruit has always been their main target and I’ve adjusted my efforts accordingly. The apple tree I gave them early, it’s always been theirs to plunder, and this year I finally surrendered both the peaches and my four espaliered pears as well. I still fight for the grapes as the muslin bags I tie on each individual cluster have so far foiled their best efforts but up until now they never thought to molest the vegetables.

So when I first spotted the eggplant I naturally thought it was Dane the mangy rescue mutt because Dane will eat anything…anything I tell you…but then I glimpsed the second eggplant lying beneath the spruce tree where they nest, and when I walked over to pick it up I found a hole the size of a golf ball with telltale teeth marks pocking the rest of the skin. That was when I realized, with sinking heart, that a new squirrel god was nigh.

I’ve named him Ivan the Terrible and, unlike Hugo, his presence gives me no joy. He brings naught but destruction and waste and has so far vandalized not only my eggplants and tomatoes, he’s chewed holes in all the pumpkins, half the butternuts, and eaten about twenty percent of my Delicata squashes outright. Five weeks ago he started eating every new, young squash, regardless of variety. The muslin bags on the grapes thwarted all his efforts but in his malice he chewed the clusters off the vines anyway and left them lying there on the ground for me to find and weep over.

I pray that, like Hugo, Ivan, too will die young, and that this season will be the only one in which the garden suffers such depredations. But secretly, I fear a darker destiny. I’m haunted by the idea that, like the Yosemite bears who learned to peel open cars for the Cheetos inside, he might teach the other squirrels his ways, that they might all look with fresh eyes on the true abundance of food available and give rise to a new breed that would finally consume everything…everything…I grow.

Sigh.

Perhaps it’s a sign. Maybe I should think about finally downsizing the garden a bit to get out kayaking more. I must admit, I’m getting older and farming the backyard is getting harder every year. Could this squirrel actually be Ivan the Liberator? I’ve seen stranger messengers.

Hmm.

copyright Dia Osborn 2013

Mothers carrying the DNA of their children? How exquisite.

Posted by Dia in Living and Dying and tagged with DNA, genome research, motherhood, pregnancy, Relationships September 18, 2013

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) – Charity

Here’s something odd and fascinating and kind of beautiful that dramatically shifts our understanding of DNA and genetics.

Researchers have discovered that evidently, a lot of us harbor not only the unique mix of DNA we inherited from our parents, but also DNA we’ve picked up from other people along the way, proving on a genetic level that John Donne was SO right when he said that no man is an island. Scientists are calling these people chimeras, a term borrowed from a mythological creature which was made up from several different animals.

According to the New York Times article DNA Double Take, scientists have found cases where people who’ve received bone marrow transplants carry both their own DNA and the DNA of their donor, twins sometimes carry multiple genomes in their blood from fetal blood transfers, and a majority of mothers likely carry some DNA from the children they nourished inside their wombs while they were pregnant.

What I found particularly moving about the last example was this line from the article:

“Chimeric cells from fetuses appear to seek out damaged tissue and help heal it, for example.”

Evidently, pregnant women have been benefitting from a natural form of fetal stem cell transplant for aeons. Now that’s a loving exchange on the most visceral level.

In addition to sharing our DNA among us, it’s also not uncommon for any one of us to carry alternate DNA resulting from genetic mutations in various parts of our bodies…in other words many of us have multiple genomes inside us that we made up all by ourselves. We’ve known for a long time that that’s how cancers tend to get started, but evidently other non-cancerous cells can do the same thing, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse:

“Now that scientists are beginning to appreciate how common chimerism and mosaicism are, they’re investigating the effects of these conditions on our health. “That’s still open really, because these are still early days,” Dr. Urban said.

Nevertheless, said Dr. Walsh, “it’s safe to say that a large proportion of those mutations will be benign.” Recent studies on chimeras suggest that these extra genomes can even be beneficial….

…But scientists are also starting to find cases in which mutations in specific cells help give rise to diseases other than cancer.”

Needless to say this is to some extent changing the way that we’ll have to approach everything from genomic medical research and diagnoses to forensic science (a cheek swab might deliver two sets of DNA for instance) as well as the growing field of genetic counseling. It looks like human beings are not going to be quite as easy to map and label as we once thought.

And I admit, I just love that.

‘No Man is an Island’

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

(For any other lit geeks like me out there, you can find the above version of John Donne’s poem as well as the olde english version here.)

copyright Dia Osborn 2013

A very hard week.

Posted by Dia in Suicide and tagged with Depression, Life, Living and Dying, mental health, Suicide prevention, Talking about dying, World Suicide Prevention Day September 13, 2013

Hey everybody. I was working on a different post for this week but it was sidelined when our family got hit with a devastating event. The hubster’s nephew, an extraordinary, loving, and gifted young man, took his own life Sunday night and everything since then has been aftermath. His parent’s did everything conceivable to get him help and prevent this from happening but in the end his illness overpowered all the rest. My mind is whirling with all the things that could and should be said about what’s happened…the desperate need for people to be more aware of how profound a danger this is to our children, the desperate need for everyone to be more willing to talk about suicide instead of hiding from it, the desperate need for better funding for our hotlines and mental health infrastructure and suicide education for the school staff who often serve as first line of defense, and the desperate need to break down the current stigmas associated with mental illness…but for today I’m still too heartbroken.

Here’s a link to Cam’s obituary that just came out today. If you’d like you can take a moment to read it and, in your heart, celebrate the beautiful life of someone who did tremendous good and helped a lot of other kids during the short time he was here, and perhaps say a prayer for him and all those who loved him, it would be more deeply appreciated than you know. His parents felt very strongly that his cause of death should not be hidden or spun in this notice of his death as they know…better than most now…just how critical it is for all of us to start talking about this more openly. This from the obit:

“But through all the laughter, Cam suffered from depression. He tried to disguise his pain and put to use the deep empathy, love, and compassion generated from his own life’s survival experiences to help as many other people as he could. In the end, he took his own life but he would have wanted everyone to know it was not the outcome he longed for.”

I can’t begin to tell you how unbelievably brave his parents have been or how, even in the midst of their own devastation, their concern for the many, many other kids reeling from this loss has been uppermost in their minds. There was a prayer vigil the other night that Cam’s dad helped organize where four or five hundred kids and parents showed up to grieve and sing and tell stories and also talk openly about suicide and the things we can do to watch and help one another to prevent this from happening again. Everyone in that hall wanted to know. Everyone there wanted to hear it discussed openly. The kids especially needed the evening to help them understand and try to come to grips with what’s happened, and the way they came together and were holding and supporting and loving one another through their grief was one of the most extraordinary and moving things I’ve ever witnessed. They’re so much stronger and courageous and wise, our children, than we tend to believe. We grown-ups owe it to them to face into our own terrors and finally stop hiding from this.

But enough. Today I just wanted to say I love you all, even if I don’t know you, and I can’t tell you how glad and grateful I am that you’re out there right now and still alive. Because that one simple thing gives me more hope than you can possibly imagine. Really love one another today and reach out to someone nearby just because you still can, and do something kind or make someone smile because thats how Cam used to live every single day and why, even with all the turbulence right now, the most lasting legacy of his life will ultimately be one of laughter, love, compassion, and song.

Important links for those considering suicide or those who know someone having suicidal thoughts:

NAMI (National Alliance On Mental Illness)

List of National Suicide Hotlines (Scroll down a few inches to list)

Hail in the Garden…yikes!

Posted by Dia in Natural Phenomena and tagged with garden, Hail, the natural world, wonder September 5, 2013

We’ve got a major storm passing through southwest Idaho as I write. It started at our house with some of the biggest hail I’ve ever seen, (including during all my years in Iowa, a state which can throw up a doozy of a thunderstorm.)

Evidently, we got off lucky. Down in Jordan Valley it was golfball-sized, and there was one report of baseball-sized hail. Good-bye windshields.

The hail we got here was big enough to decimate my squash patches though.

But Bert, Bertha, Beatrix, and all the other winter squashes are okay.

I tried to take a video during the worst of the hail fall but screwed up and only got a couple of seconds. Here’s an earful of what it sounded like though.

It was all pretty exciting and I…big thunderstorm fanatic that I am…actually loved the whole thing. The hubster laughed when I told him so and commented that thunderstorms are the only thing in existence that could trash my garden and leave me happy about it afterwards.

copyright Dia Osborn 2013

Odd Thing About Dying #2: We’d like some destiny with our death please.

Posted by Dia in Living and Dying and tagged with End-of-Life, Hospice, Life, Medical decisions, Oddities, Talking about dying September 3, 2013

Atropos of the Morai (One of the Sisters of Fate)

In the previous post Odd Thing About Dying #1: They’ve blocked most of the exits I talked about how challenging it is to die these days because the modern medical system has evolved to prevent it wherever possible, even when a person reaches the end of their natural life and is more than ready to go. And so far hospice (along with the growing palliative care specialty which often goes hand in hand) provides the only officially sanctioned exit where people are allowed to leave the system without a fight.

Now, that being the case you’d think that everyone who didn’t want extraordinary measures taken to extend their lives would be fighting to get enrolled in hospice as early as possible, yes?

Well, no. Far from it. Hospice care is one of the most misunderstood and underutilized services out there while, where palliative care is concerned, the majority of people haven’t even heard of it yet. There are a number of reasons for this (including the fact that most people don’t WANT to understand them because it involves talking about dying) but there’s one reason in particular I’d like to discuss here and it essentially boils down to this:

Most people feel to some degree that, if they enroll in hospice, then they’re choosing to die.

This isn’t true for a couple of reasons:

1) When a person enrolls early enough, hospice is about deciding to LIVE WELL UNTIL one dies. It’s about life, not death.

2) Dying isn’t really a choice to begin with, it’s a destiny. Choice implies we could decide not to die if we didn’t feel like it which of course we can’t.

People aren’t entirely wrong however. Due to some brilliant medical and public health advances we don’t usually “just die” anymore, we have to choose when; when to stop seeking treatment, when to forego that surgery, when to surrender to that infection, when to decline that CPR, or when to remove that ventilator. Either we or our loved ones have to huddle with our doctors, weigh all the options, and then consciously decide whether to fight for the possibility of extra time or to let it go.

Of course at first we hailed these advances as unqualified blessings but over time it’s turned out that all the new choices can create something of a burden, and sometimes a curse.

You see, there really isn’t a clear point anymore where a doctor has to tell a patient, “I’m sorry but there’s nothing more we can do.” There’s always something more they can do, which means that until a person get decisive and say, “No, that’s it, I’m through. Please stop now,” chances are the doctors will keep suggesting something else.

Just so you know, this is a sea change in the way we humans face death. It’s historic. As far as I know, never before in human history has there been a point where the majority of people had to consciously choose when to die, or have a loved one choose for them. This development is an unintended consequence of all our new medical possibilities and, along with the miraculous blessings it bestows, it also requires that we now stand up and assume a level of responsibility for our own death that was unimaginable just a few decades ago.

Only we don’t really want that kind of responsibility. Turns out one of the things we actually liked about the old way of dying was that we didn’t have a choice. Destiny used to shoulder that burden for us, which we thought we hated at the time but are now starting to realize was maybe not as bad as we thought.

For a while everyone thought that of course our doctors would take over from destiny and let us know when “our time” had come. But it turns out they don’t want that responsibility either and, honestly, who can blame them? The burden of telling someone they’re going to die is extraordinary, even when a person wants to know. And if they don’t? Well, that can be a lawsuit.

So doctors try and sidestep any kind of straightforward prognosis and hand us the research and statistics instead, from which we then have to try and divine the tea leaves for ourselves. In addition, the majority of doctors still tend to encourage us to pursue aggressive treatment, often far past the point where they would themselves, with the stated goal of preserving hope but really for the purposes of distraction. While they often have a good idea when a treatment will be futile, they also know that even a futile treatment can offer us temporary shelter from our terror of dying, which on the one hand is genuinely kind and deeply human, but on the other is a lot like that old bear attack joke:

Question: What are you supposed to do when you’re being attacked by a bear?

Answer: Run like hell. It can’t save you but it’ll give you something to do for the last thirty seconds of your life.

Only dying is now taking a lot, lot longer than thirty seconds and people are starting to feel like there are better things to do with that time. But our instincts work against us. Seeking further treatment still feels like the most right and natural thing to do, and besides everyone else is seeking further treatment, and on top of that there’s major disagreement about when it’s wisest to stop because it’s completely different in every case.

So to recap, while destiny is still in charge as far as death itself is concerned…we all still die…our medical advances have allowed us to seize more control around the timing issue. Only that means somebody now has to decide when to treat and when to stop, and while we’d mostly prefer that our doctors made the decision since they know so much more than we do, they’re proving reluctant. Which leaves us to make the choice ourselves, only 1) we don’t know enough to make an informed decision, and 2) we’re unwilling to educate ourselves because that would mean actually talking about dying and we don’t want to do that either.

The whole situation reminds me of a teenager who wanted nothing more than to move out of the house and call all the shots, only to discover the new freedom requires getting a job to pay the bills. Well, it looks like our new miracles also demand that we assume more responsibility. We’ve created a bewildering array of new choices around the question of when we actually have to die and our new job is to figure out what, among all those choices, constitutes a wise one.

Next up, I’d like to explore some of the reasons why the current choices we’re making aren’t working out so well. I’m curious to see if breaking them down and examining them more closely might suggest better options. And, as always, If anyone else has some thoughts on this subject I’d be eager and curious to hear them.

A Better Way To Die