R. Lynn Barnett, Author at Pulse

Putts and Guts

Leave a Comment / Guts / R. Lynn Barnett

My mom spearheaded a move for her and my dad from New York to Florida, because northern winters were getting too uncomfortable. My mom looked forward to warmer winters and year-round golfing.

Their friends said it took guts for them to move, because they’d be leaving their core group of friends and family. My dad was initially reluctant to move because of this reality, but my mom’s persistence prevailed and move they did.

They liked the weather, which was indeed conducive to year-round golf. For my mom especially, golf was like gold. She joined a ladies’ golf league and enjoyed the camaraderie, the fresh air, and the exercise.

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Car-Ma

Leave a Comment / Motor Vehicle Accidents / R. Lynn Barnett

Karma is the idea that the universe is ruled by cause-and-effect associations: that actions have consequences, good or bad. My mom instilled in me the idea that sometimes you need to be the voice, the conduit, for karma.

Years ago, I was indirectly hit by an impaired driver. This person hit the car behind me, and that driver in turn hit me. We could smell the alcohol on the impaired person’s breath. The police were called, but the police officer was reluctant to take the driver in question to the station for further testing, because there were no beer bottles in the car and they could walk a straight line.

The other injured driver and I tried to reason with the officer, pointing out that maybe the impaired driver had been drinking at a friend’s house or a bar, and that was why there were no bottles in the car.

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The Long and the Short of It

Leave a Comment / Longing / R. Lynn Barnett

I long for the days when I didn’t need to worry about food recalls. I barely recall the time when I wasn’t concerned about them, but I now look for recalls right after my morning coffee. (Maybe I should look before.)

I long for the days when the phone rang and I’d think, “Who’s calling to say hello?” rather than, “Who’s calling to tell me who’s in the hospital?”

I long for the days when people would call and ask, “How are you?” in a light-hearted way, rather than with the tinge of gravity they use now, since my husband’s cancer diagnosis of last year.

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The White Socks

Leave a Comment / The Exam Room / R. Lynn Barnett

No, that title is not a misspelling of Chicago’s baseball team, the White Sox, but the germ of an idea that started with literal white socks. When I was a teenager, kids could be critical. Heaven forbid if you wore white socks with blue slacks, like blue jeans. Oh, the horror!

Thankfully, time marched on, and recently I was sitting in an exam room with my husband, wearing blue slacks and white socks. A health-care professional walked in, and she was wearing blue scrubs and white socks. That exam room visit led to a hospital stay for my husband. As I was sitting in the hospital waiting room, I noticed that all of us in one corner of the space were wearing blue slacks and white socks. How refreshing.

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Lady in Waiting

Leave a Comment / Awaiting a Diagnosis / R. Lynn Barnett

I’ve been a “lady in waiting” more than once. A traditional “lady in waiting” attends to royalty—which sounds like a pretty cushy job. But when you’re a lady waiting for the results of a biopsy, the task is a royal pain. Waiting for the phone to ring when you’re younger often means getting asked out on a date. Then years later, you find yourself waiting for a call from your doctor, to set a follow-up appointment to discuss your biopsy results. As anyone can attest, this waiting period can be a true test of resilience.

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Lost and Found

Leave a Comment / Loss / R. Lynn Barnett

My husband and I took care of my mom for five years, when she had Alzheimer’s. She could get lost walking out the door, which is why I was always her shadow. But I felt lost too: whom was I dealing with, hour by hour, day by day, due to the changes in her Alzheimer’s-riddled brain. I felt lost and confused by our new puzzling reality.

One thing that helped me cope was humor. Sometimes my mother would say something funny, like when she wanted to tell someone that she had pounded the pavement after college, looking for an accounting job in New York City. But what she said was, “I walked the streets of New York City, if you know what I mean.” Yes, my mom might have been a sweet talker, but she wasn’t a street walker!

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Wit and Wits

Leave a Comment / Hospitalized / R. Lynn Barnett

My husband was recently hospitalized for a long and arduous cancer surgery. A few days post-surgery, one of his nurses told us that she had to leave early, but that a blonde lady would be coming in momentarily to relieve her. Sure enough, this other nurse comes in, having overheard this comment, and says, “I’m the blonde lady.” My husband noticed that every woman in there was blonde: the aforesaid nurse, the respiratory therapist and the physical therapist. My husband said, “Every woman in here is blonde. I guess it’s not a good time for a (dumb) blonde joke.” Everyone laughed.

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A Knock on the Door

4 Comments / Dementia / R. Lynn Barnett

Sometimes dementia comes barging in the front door; other times, more stealthily, it comes tip-toeing in the back. My mom’s Alzheimer’s came in through the back end of things, because it involved picking her up for a potentially life-saving colonoscopy, and if anything signifies the back end of things, it’s a colonoscopy! I told her I’d leave my house at 8 a.m. to pick her up, but she called me at 8 p.m. the night before, asking why I hadn’t called. This episode was the conduit for her moving in with my husband and me. She stayed here for her remaining five years.

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Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip

Leave a Comment / Bravery / R. Lynn Barnett

Medicine presents many opportunities for bravery. Years ago, I was at a medical imaging facility, where a child was getting a CAT scan. The mom said to her offspring, “Be brave.” Sometimes, bravery is going into a burning building to save a kid, and sometimes bravery is a kid going into a small tunnel of a CAT scanner.

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Grits and Grit

6 Comments / Grit / R. Lynn Barnett

My husband and I took care of my Alzheimer’s-ridden mom for five years, and as any caregiver knows, we all have had to develop “true grit.” “Grit” to me is inner mettle and perseverance.

Any disease is difficult to deal with, but with Alzheimer’s, you’re often dealing with an ungrateful stranger, due to the changes in the brain. The “stranger” part didn’t bother me as much as the “ungrateful” part did.

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The Waiting Room

Leave a Comment / A Turn for the Better / R. Lynn Barnett

I recently spent some time in the waiting room of a hospital, while my husband was having surgery. As I sat there, I was patting myself on the back for being organized for this little jaunt. I had remembered a wheeled suitcase in which to store hubby’s belongings while he was in the OR, I’d packed some nibbles for myself so I wouldn’t have to go down to the cafeteria if I didn’t want to, and I’d made sure I had my my phone with me.

Then I suddenly realized that what I hadn’t thought to bring was a phone charger, that my phone’s battery was low, and that the doctor was going to call me on it to tell me how the surgery went.

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Caregiver Stress and No Regrets

Leave a Comment / Regrets/No Regrets / R. Lynn Barnett

My husband and I took care of my mom for five years, when she had Alzheimer’s. She just couldn’t handle Assisted Living/Memory Care, so Hubby and I became the “Memory Care Unit.” There were days when I was stressed, exhausted and overwhelmed. Yet, I have no regrets.

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

R. Lynn Barnett