'Why Laughter May Be The Best Medicine for All of Us.'
It's been almost two months since my stroke and I know I need to write about it to move on but for the life of me I just couldn't find a singular point of view. There are so many facets to surviving something this scary and I think it's important to keep with the intent of this blog, which was never meant to be especially personal, but more Middletown-Centric. So after much internal deliberation, I've decided on this.... Thank you, Middletown Community, both friends, family and acquaintances from the bottom of my heart. You saved my life. You supported and continue to support my family and no amount of verbal or written appreciation seems to quite cover how I feel about the support I have received....Now, that said, I think it's time we lighten the hell up a bit. About everything. From politics, to planning; school policies, to pot holes; It would seem we have collectively decided that inconvenience and scorn for all things not Stepford in nature should be prioritized over what is enjoyable or just plain funny.
We need a laugh, Middletown. And I'm not talking a casual chuckle. I mean a full on tears in your eyes, peed yourself a little, belly laugh, because, despite what's happening in the rest of the world with political divides, violence and injustices, we've got it pretty good here. Now I'm not implying we stop doing good work or caring and supporting causes that are important to us, but this community, my community, really needs to take a few minutes out of the day to enjoy the beauty of this town and on occasion, laugh at ourselves.
Take, for example, last year in Port Monmouth on Main Street. We had a huge pot hole. And after lengthy neglect, someone took it upon himself (I assume it was a him, although I quite like the idea of a fed up Great Aunt Wanda, as the culprit) to spray paint a giant part of the male anatomy around said pot hole. And instead of finding the humor and laughing at the giant phalic symbol gracing our road, I heard entirely too much mortification at how Little Johnny and Little Susie might be traumatized for life at having witnessed such obscenity...Ugh, my guess is Little Johnny giggled with his friends and rightly so. It was funny. And yes I understand it was vandalism. And yes I get it cost us money to fix. But yes, it was also, still freakin funny. And as if the powers above agreed....
The Township sent people to paint over it, not to fix the pothole, mind you, but to paint black tar or some such bandaid. And of coarse they should have fixed the pothole, but they didn't and as if there is a cosmic entity with a sense of humor, like a messsiah, 3 days later the giant pee pee stick rose from the dead. It seeped through the cover up and was back as bold and offensive as ever. Cue more public outrage, but ya know what? Still funny. And on cue, Great Aunt Wanda or some punk hooligan decided to take it further. And one morning we woke up to a giant Red, White and Blue 'Patriotic Peter' And yes again, not condoning vandalism or vulgarity but all moral indignation aside, it was pretty damn funny. It's funny because instead of fixing the pothole, the town once again sent a crew to cover it up. And a year has passed, but you can still in the right light, see a faint glow of vulgarity. And yes we have a pothole problem. And yes the Township almost couldn't fix it, because I suspect if they had, you would see a growing number of male body parts all over our town and our roads...
I love that we have standards in Middletown. I do. But since my brush with mortality, I've also learned that we have to balance this with a good chuckle now and again. Because no matter how serious what we are going through is, sometimes we have a choice to laugh or cry and I for one pick laughter every time.
If we can't smile and laugh with each other, than what good is living in one of the safest towns in the country? Here is my post-stroke take on balance.
I fell out of my car and was bleeding profusely from my head when I had my stroke. My son, his Middletown basketball teammates and his coach, literally identified I was having a stroke and they saved my life. Middletown EMS, and police responded and supported me. A community is why I'm still here. I was misdiagnosed in the hospital and had an 8 hour stroke as a result. A local doctor, overheard me say I had twins and decided to fight for the diagnoses she felt was right and fought to have me transferred to another hospital for emergency surgery. Again, community. The school community rallied around my children and offered them comfort, counselors, classwork extentions and emotional support. The Middletown Community continues every day to help with rides, since I can't drive yet, words of encouragement and offers to help daily. I never could have made it this far without everything this town is ..generous, kind, supportive...I have 5 days every week in Rehab in Middletown...Middletown residents, the family, the friends, the services, the businesses, all are why I am getting a little better everyday...And as my thank you Middletown, I will leave you with this.. I hope a good laugh at the expense of my dignity...Because I mean it, sometimes, it's laugh or cry and I choose to follow the funny, even if it lands on me. ...This is the fork ass story...the one some of my friends have asked me to share, but I just wasn't ready...until now
As a result of the stroke, I do not have feeling on he left side of my body and while I was in the hospital, this made eating a challenge to say the least. You also can't walk or shower so, you are introduced to the wonderful and oh so dignified bed pan... One morning I was eating my generic corn flakes and I dropped the utensils. No big deal. To be honest I dropped most of the food at that point too so I didn't think much of it. That night at shift change for nurses, I was introduced to my night nurse, an incredibly tall and handsome young man, like intimidatingly so. I was used to women nurses, as the bed pan experience is a pretty humiliating one under the best of circumstances. Determined to wait for his break and a female nurse I refused to urinate. Being that I was on a pretty hefty IV and a liquid diet for the most part, this was no small feat. Around 2 am I gave in and pressed the call button...it was a good run, but well...when nature calls and all...so in comes the Male nurse. I'm uncomfortable, embarrassed and full of dread. He is kind and respectful and smiling just enough to acknowledge my discomfort. He asks me to turn over to slide the bed pan under me and all I hear is 'Huh, How bout that?' I look over my shoulder and there at 2 am, is the incredibly tall and handsome male nurse trying so hard not to laugh as he stares at a fork in his hand. Yup, after all my concern, my worry about the bed pan, my determination not to embarrass myself, I had a fork literally stuck to my ass. as he fought back laughter he looked at me absolutely devastated with embarrassment and said 'you still using this or no?' and we laughed. We laughed a lot. and every time I saw him for the next week, he'd find a reason to mention a fork or bring me a fork. and thank sweet Jehovah he did, because that laughter made everything a little easier. Because funny is funny and a handsome stranger pulling a fork off your butt at 2 am is crushingly humiliating, but also hilarious.
And because of laughter and lightening up my situation, not soon after, I scored my first shower in 10 days. Sure the doctor said no at first, that I wasn't ready, that no nurses would have the time to accompany me, but the fork incident had freed my inhibitions and I proceeded to bargain with her by offering to have four male nurses accompany me. I also suggested that they could video tape the shower for a fat girl, stroke victim fetish web site if it meant I could wash my hair. A nurse happened in on this, a 12 year Army veteran, who laughed so hard at my request, she offered to come in on her break to allow me to shower if the doctor agreed. She did and I got my first shower and it was better than the post Englishtown Auction shower on 90 degree day.
So thank you Middletown for saving my life and continuing to support my recovery, I am beyond grateful. I will continue to fight the fights worth fighting. I will continue to keep you informed of what's going on. But it may be a little lighter and with a little more humor, because having a fork stuck to your ass and surviving something that so many others don't emboldens you and encourages you to laugh a little more at the absurdity of what we take so seriously.
It's been almost two months since my stroke and I know I need to write about it to move on but for the life of me I just couldn't find a singular point of view. There are so many facets to surviving something this scary and I think it's important to keep with the intent of this blog, which was never meant to be especially personal, but more Middletown-Centric. So after much internal deliberation, I've decided on this.... Thank you, Middletown Community, both friends, family and acquaintances from the bottom of my heart. You saved my life. You supported and continue to support my family and no amount of verbal or written appreciation seems to quite cover how I feel about the support I have received....Now, that said, I think it's time we lighten the hell up a bit. About everything. From politics, to planning; school policies, to pot holes; It would seem we have collectively decided that inconvenience and scorn for all things not Stepford in nature should be prioritized over what is enjoyable or just plain funny.
We need a laugh, Middletown. And I'm not talking a casual chuckle. I mean a full on tears in your eyes, peed yourself a little, belly laugh, because, despite what's happening in the rest of the world with political divides, violence and injustices, we've got it pretty good here. Now I'm not implying we stop doing good work or caring and supporting causes that are important to us, but this community, my community, really needs to take a few minutes out of the day to enjoy the beauty of this town and on occasion, laugh at ourselves.
Take, for example, last year in Port Monmouth on Main Street. We had a huge pot hole. And after lengthy neglect, someone took it upon himself (I assume it was a him, although I quite like the idea of a fed up Great Aunt Wanda, as the culprit) to spray paint a giant part of the male anatomy around said pot hole. And instead of finding the humor and laughing at the giant phalic symbol gracing our road, I heard entirely too much mortification at how Little Johnny and Little Susie might be traumatized for life at having witnessed such obscenity...Ugh, my guess is Little Johnny giggled with his friends and rightly so. It was funny. And yes I understand it was vandalism. And yes I get it cost us money to fix. But yes, it was also, still freakin funny. And as if the powers above agreed....
The Township sent people to paint over it, not to fix the pothole, mind you, but to paint black tar or some such bandaid. And of coarse they should have fixed the pothole, but they didn't and as if there is a cosmic entity with a sense of humor, like a messsiah, 3 days later the giant pee pee stick rose from the dead. It seeped through the cover up and was back as bold and offensive as ever. Cue more public outrage, but ya know what? Still funny. And on cue, Great Aunt Wanda or some punk hooligan decided to take it further. And one morning we woke up to a giant Red, White and Blue 'Patriotic Peter' And yes again, not condoning vandalism or vulgarity but all moral indignation aside, it was pretty damn funny. It's funny because instead of fixing the pothole, the town once again sent a crew to cover it up. And a year has passed, but you can still in the right light, see a faint glow of vulgarity. And yes we have a pothole problem. And yes the Township almost couldn't fix it, because I suspect if they had, you would see a growing number of male body parts all over our town and our roads...
I love that we have standards in Middletown. I do. But since my brush with mortality, I've also learned that we have to balance this with a good chuckle now and again. Because no matter how serious what we are going through is, sometimes we have a choice to laugh or cry and I for one pick laughter every time.
If we can't smile and laugh with each other, than what good is living in one of the safest towns in the country? Here is my post-stroke take on balance.
I fell out of my car and was bleeding profusely from my head when I had my stroke. My son, his Middletown basketball teammates and his coach, literally identified I was having a stroke and they saved my life. Middletown EMS, and police responded and supported me. A community is why I'm still here. I was misdiagnosed in the hospital and had an 8 hour stroke as a result. A local doctor, overheard me say I had twins and decided to fight for the diagnoses she felt was right and fought to have me transferred to another hospital for emergency surgery. Again, community. The school community rallied around my children and offered them comfort, counselors, classwork extentions and emotional support. The Middletown Community continues every day to help with rides, since I can't drive yet, words of encouragement and offers to help daily. I never could have made it this far without everything this town is ..generous, kind, supportive...I have 5 days every week in Rehab in Middletown...Middletown residents, the family, the friends, the services, the businesses, all are why I am getting a little better everyday...And as my thank you Middletown, I will leave you with this.. I hope a good laugh at the expense of my dignity...Because I mean it, sometimes, it's laugh or cry and I choose to follow the funny, even if it lands on me. ...This is the fork ass story...the one some of my friends have asked me to share, but I just wasn't ready...until now
As a result of the stroke, I do not have feeling on he left side of my body and while I was in the hospital, this made eating a challenge to say the least. You also can't walk or shower so, you are introduced to the wonderful and oh so dignified bed pan... One morning I was eating my generic corn flakes and I dropped the utensils. No big deal. To be honest I dropped most of the food at that point too so I didn't think much of it. That night at shift change for nurses, I was introduced to my night nurse, an incredibly tall and handsome young man, like intimidatingly so. I was used to women nurses, as the bed pan experience is a pretty humiliating one under the best of circumstances. Determined to wait for his break and a female nurse I refused to urinate. Being that I was on a pretty hefty IV and a liquid diet for the most part, this was no small feat. Around 2 am I gave in and pressed the call button...it was a good run, but well...when nature calls and all...so in comes the Male nurse. I'm uncomfortable, embarrassed and full of dread. He is kind and respectful and smiling just enough to acknowledge my discomfort. He asks me to turn over to slide the bed pan under me and all I hear is 'Huh, How bout that?' I look over my shoulder and there at 2 am, is the incredibly tall and handsome male nurse trying so hard not to laugh as he stares at a fork in his hand. Yup, after all my concern, my worry about the bed pan, my determination not to embarrass myself, I had a fork literally stuck to my ass. as he fought back laughter he looked at me absolutely devastated with embarrassment and said 'you still using this or no?' and we laughed. We laughed a lot. and every time I saw him for the next week, he'd find a reason to mention a fork or bring me a fork. and thank sweet Jehovah he did, because that laughter made everything a little easier. Because funny is funny and a handsome stranger pulling a fork off your butt at 2 am is crushingly humiliating, but also hilarious.
And because of laughter and lightening up my situation, not soon after, I scored my first shower in 10 days. Sure the doctor said no at first, that I wasn't ready, that no nurses would have the time to accompany me, but the fork incident had freed my inhibitions and I proceeded to bargain with her by offering to have four male nurses accompany me. I also suggested that they could video tape the shower for a fat girl, stroke victim fetish web site if it meant I could wash my hair. A nurse happened in on this, a 12 year Army veteran, who laughed so hard at my request, she offered to come in on her break to allow me to shower if the doctor agreed. She did and I got my first shower and it was better than the post Englishtown Auction shower on 90 degree day.
So thank you Middletown for saving my life and continuing to support my recovery, I am beyond grateful. I will continue to fight the fights worth fighting. I will continue to keep you informed of what's going on. But it may be a little lighter and with a little more humor, because having a fork stuck to your ass and surviving something that so many others don't emboldens you and encourages you to laugh a little more at the absurdity of what we take so seriously.
In 2012, I suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, inoperable brain bleeds. I saw the white light fortunately it was the roof of the EMS vehicle. Bottom line left side paralysis from the tip of my nose to my toes. I remember my first visit with the neurologist where he opined that he did not believe I walk again. I told him to perform an anatomically impossible activity. To which, he replied "at least you have a sense of humor which will be helpful in your recovery." Yes, laughter is the best medicine especially when shared. The me year to return to work which help me get out of a wheelchair and begin walking with a cane. I retired in 2017 to return to the Jersey shore.
ReplyDeleteWould love to meet you, at the Riverview Hospital stroke support group.