Father Time

I have never wanted to stop time, just slow it down. I love this time of year. It is so beautiful outside. The colors in the trees, in this part of the country are stunning. They take my breath away; the greens, yellows, gold, red, oranges, and browns. There is this one tree by our house that was so lush and green during the summer and now it is a bright golden yellow with the tips of the leaves dipped in an amber red, man cannot create such beauty. The other day Harrison was out of school early and since it was so pretty outside we rode in a two seater with the top down. We were playing "Star Wars" and we were the bad guys pretending all of the white care that passed were "storm troopers". We would fight them with our "lightsaber" or "choke hold". We were on our way to an office lunch for bosses week when we came to a red light, and there with the sun shining warmly on our faces the breeze picked up just slightly, causing us to be under a curtain of elegantly falling yellow leaves. Closing my eyes I looked upward towards the sun smiling and relished the moment. We both looked at one another and laughed. Thank you God for creating such beauty. Some of the trees are only half full and the leaves continue to fall like the have every year, but this year it is so symbolic. I wish I could find Father Time, knock on his door and ask him to slow it down. I imagine him to be a healthy seventy something year old man with a long grey beard, and dressed like a hiker. I imagine he controls time with a huge clock. I want to get between the hands to slow them down, but I know that is not possible. I know I have said in the past Adalynne's movements are like a drug to me, and her movements are a fix. My addiction is getting worse with the changing weather. I get really depressed on the days she does not move around a lot. Several weeks ago I had gone four nights without sleeping very well. I would wake up to dreams where I was in the middle of a snake convention, literally it was at the convention center downtown, and the giant serpents were hissing at me and chasing me. My body was waking up, but my mind was still vividly dreaming and she died. It was so real. I dreamed Adalynne died in my belly and I never got to meet her. I woke up gasping for air covered in sweat and shaking. Ryan is a night owl and has never slept well at night, so I asked him the next day if during the night he would sleep with his hand on my belly to make sure Adalynne moves at night. Every morning I wake up to him saying how busy Adalynne was the night before. Thank you Lord for Ryan. I am so happy they have that time together while I am hiking through dreamland.

During my first semester of clinicals I had a patient who had a stroke eight years prior to me meeting her. The stroke had affected the part of her brain that controls speech, thus she could not talk. The day before I was to care for her, I looked through her records, and to be completely honest, she scared me. She was "know to be aggressive towards the staff" and she carried a baby doll. She had hit one of our instructors in the head with her doll because she tried taking it away from her. The instructor needed to do something and the doll was in the way. She wasn't taking it away just to take it away... The night before I cared for her I made a communication book. One page said in huge letter yes and no, one page had pictures of the four seasons along with the words, one page had a pain scale on it with smiling and frowning faces on it. So, there I go in my crisp white uniform, with my communication book in hand, going to take care of a patient and her baby doll. Before I did anything to her baby I would ask, that baby got a much needed bath. By the end of the first day we were using that book to communicate. This patient had gone eight years without talking or a way of communicating. I knew then I had made the right choice by going back to nursing school. Since getting Adalynne's diagnosis I think of her. I often wonder if she lost a baby or a child. And, I wonder if that will be me one day. I wonder if I ever have a stroke will I carry a doll around like it is Adalynne.