What matters to you?

Our grandchildren, Olivia who is 6 and Casey, who is 4 were visiting recently.  Several adults had the discussion on whether it is appropriate to correct children who may not be your own.  I am outspoken and have often done this impulsively.  In hindsight, I should wait until a parent or grandparent can intervene if they are present.  If they don't say anything, I will speak up, especially if the child is at my house or in my yard.  I guess that when I (or anyone) does this, they assume that they have the same values and standards as the parent(s). I am amazed that some parents do not think that their child should be respectful to adults.  They do not correct their child when that child calls others "stupid" or they do not correct the child when they mock the beverages that are in the fridge or the toys in the toy box.  Do children behave this way because they see it modeled by someone important in their life.  Does someone in their life feel superior because of  education and yearly income?  So I come to the question: What matters in life to you?  My brother Bruce told the story of he and our cousin standing on the overpass in Epping, spitting on the bums who were riding the rails.  When he told our Dad about the incident, Dad simply said "those bums are people too and deserve your respect".  What a wonderful value Dad taught us!!!  Thanks Dad (and Mom) for your values and standards you passed on to us.  May we also convey them in kind ways to the next generations.
 


Here are some traits, values or standards that I think matter:

• Honesty
• Respect for elders and peers and those younger than you
• Hard work (no matter what it is)--show up when you are expected
• Caring for and about the universe--not littering, recycling, caring for other creatures
• Making a difference either by the way we treat others or how we do our jobs
• Volunteering--not just doing our jobs but helping out in tasks where you don't get paid
• Standing up for what is right, respectfully speaking up when needed.
• Listening and trying to understand others
• Being kind
• Using humor in the right way, not in ways that are hurtful
• Not feeling superior--being humble 

Here are some things that I think do NOT matter:

• Education can help you realize your dreams and maybe get you a better job but it does not make you more valuable
• Status in the community does NOT make you more valuable. A homeless person has as much value as a CEO of a company.
• The house you live in--we have lived in a beautiful, big, impressive house because we wanted to be able to have foster kids not because the house looked impressive. 
• Age, weight, looks, sexual orientation, race --it's been hard to overcome prejudices when we have lived in such a WASP-y area but these things really do NOT make one person more valuable than another. 

Neither one of the above lists is all inclusive as there certainly may be other things that are important and there may be many more things that do NOT matter. 

I need to walk....

In long term care we must have "care plans" for all of our residents.  These are the goals that are set by staff, the resident and family or significant others.  They are usually related to health or care concerns but sometimes they list preferences for the resident.  A recent trend is to have "I" care plans that state the goals/wishes in the first person such as "I want to keep my blood sugar within normal range." or "I want to lose weight."  In cases where someone is restless, the "I" care plan may say "I want/need to walk".  This is a reminder to staff that they should ensure that a resident has a place to walk that is free of obstructions and that if they need assistance in walking, that someone is there to help.  If the resident cannot tell us what is important to them, we often talk to family and friends to find out what the resident enjoyed doing in the past. 


The point of the first paragraph is to introduce my love of walking.  I just read an exercise blog today that said "do what you love" and your exercise routine will be more successful.  I love to walk.  I need to walk.  More importantly I need to do it outside where  I can see, smell and feel the outdoors!!  I have been a sporadic walker for over 35 years.  I started walking for stress control, not for weight management as many people do. It was also my alone, thinking time when my life was much busier than it is now.   In the last 10-15 years, I have gotten in the habit of listening to books while I walk.  This combines my love of reading with my love of walking.  Listening to books or music can impede my hearing of nature sounds but I will occasionally turn off the book to hear geese honking or most recently to hear an elk bugle.   My love of walking has returned with a vengeance after I  recovered from my double knee replacement surgery in April.   I have been wearing a fitness band for 10 months and am currently walking 12000 steps or about 4.5 miles a day.  I love it!!  I am ready to increase my walking to 14000 steps a day except for one problem....North Dakota weather.  Several days this week I have had to wear my down filled coat and a scarf across my face because of the wind.  When there is ice or snow, I may not be able to walk outside because of the unsure footing.  Winter is coming, no doubt about it.  So I am longing to be in a warmer climate or in a less rural place where I could at least walk at a mall or fitness center. 


The other morning I woke up to the wind howling and thought some very negative thoughts:

• I won't be able to walk outside today
• It's going to be so cold
• I hate North Dakota wind and cold weather
• I could walk on the elliptical but I would rather not
• and most ridiculous of all....This has got to be Arden's fault!

I had read that when you walk, you should walk with a smile because it lifts your spirits.  Most days I grin for the whole hour that I walk.  I love that I am stronger.  I love that my knees don't hurt.  I love the sights and smells of rural North Dakota....in all seasons.  So I decided to go for my walk despite my negative thoughts and the wind and I discovered that my negative thoughts were SO wrong.  How often does that happen---that my negative fears and worries are SO wrong.  It wasn't nearly as cold as it sounded and it was a great walk!!


What do you love to do?
Are your negative thoughts leading you into a downward spiral and how often are they proven wrong? 

Double knee replacement surgery helpful hints

This post comes with the disclaimer that this is from my perspective only and what worked for me, may not work for you!  On April 23rd I had double knee replacement surgery in Fargo, ND. The surgery was on Wednesday and I was discharged on Saturday. Arden and I decided that I should spend a week with Kirsten, Joey and Steph because therapy could come right to their house. They graciously moved a recliner to their living room, gave me Olivia's bedroom and waited on me hand and foot. So now nearly 8 weeks later, what have I learned from 

1. Many people ask me why I had them both done at once. Both knees were equally bad and I wanted only one hospitalization and recovery time.  My sister Kay had both knees replaced at once at about my same age and she had an excellent recovery. She is my inspiration! 
2. How to decide where and when to have surgery? I originally scheduled my surgery for Minot but the surgeon was hesitant to do both knees at once so I changed to Fargo where Dr Matthys assured me he would do both at once unless there were problems with my blood pressure, heart or  with the anesthesia.  Two of our daughters live in Fargo and their house could accomodate me with few stairs if we decided I would stay there for some therapy. Our house at Van Hook has a lot of stairs.
3. Although it hurts,  do all of the recommended therapy and more if possible! Hurting is short term and it's so important to think long term and to aim for the best function possible. I had good range of motion prior to surgery so my therapy progressed well with few glitches. I spent a week in Fargo following discharge from the hospital because the therapy group I contacted said they would come right to the house. Exercise start prior to surgery to get you used to doing them and to make sure you have as good a range of motion as possible. I did the exercises described in the information from the doctor for about a month prior to surgery and also made a pre-op visit to the therapy group. I chose them simply because their office was close to my daughters house. After I spent a week in Fargo with therapy coming to the house, I went to Stanley which was a half hour drive from our house. The therapists had very different approaches. The one in Fargo moved my knees for me...often pushing so hard that I cried. The therapist in Stanley asked me to show her what I could do and she was always amazed and didn't have to push me any further.  I had some nausea from my pain medications so had to cancel a couple of sessions.  In addition I continued to do exercises on my own and to work hard at being independent in walking with a walker, dressing and bathing myself. The therapist in Stanley simply asked me to bend as far as I could and it hurt but I made huge progress.  My goals were to walk without a cane and to reach 120 degree bend in both knees and to also be able to have my knees flat against the mat. I reached these goals by week 4 so I was discharged from therapy. I continue to ride a stationary bike 15 minutes, twice a day and to work on balancing on one leg. I pedal the bike both forwards and backwards.  I will add short walks to this regime.  Whenever my knees start to feel "tight", I know I need to stretch them more. 
4. Needed equipment included a toilet riser, bath stool, and a walker.  They were essential for the first couple of weeks. I also needed a sock aide for putting on the compression stockings and ice for my knees. The hospital sent home ice buckets connected to pads and a pump...these worked well but someone had to fill and hook up the buckets for me. The first couple of weeks, therapy and a shower were all I accomplished and I was wiped out from those tasks.  If you are a "doer", it seems odd (and somehow lazy) to only accomplish those two things and to sit the rest of the day.  It's ok, it's what your body needs for healing. 
5. Loneliness and boredom were huge problems. With other surgeries, all I had to do was to take the pain meds and sleep or rest. Even though I was weak, I started feeling better after 10-14 days. With joint replacement I had to work at my therapy as well as take pain meds and rest. It is best not to push yourself too much as that will cause more pain and swelling and healing needs to happen.  The key is to find the right balance.  Regardless, there are huge chunks of time for watching TV and playing on the computer and it gets old. My attention span was short so reading a book or even watching a movie was difficult.  I had friends and relatives visit but I didn't always feel up to that either. The 30 minute trip to Stanley for therapy was difficult at times as my legs always felt best when they were elevated. The 5 hour  trip home from Fargo was brutal. The truth is that I was the only one who could go thru this. Arden (and others) empathized and wanted to help but I had to do it and endure it.  It was kind of like being in labor....no one else can do it for you and you just have to get thru it. Sometimes the best part of the day was bed time because I could say I made it thru another day and I knew I was another day  closer to full recovery!
6. The biggest eye opener was how painful this was and how long I was in considerable pain. I wish I hadn't worried about being on pain killers. I tried to reduce them almost as soon as I got out of the hospital....BIG MISTAKE! Because I am a nurse, I have seen people who were addicted to pain meds or who were still wimping out years after surgery. I was NOT going to be that person. In hindsight I would have taken both the short and long term narcotics as often as possible for the first month. I was nauseated and had no appetite and lost 20 pounds in the first month but that was ok because I needed to lose weight too. Many narcotic pain meds also cause constipation and dry mouth and fogginess but they provide blessed relief and sleep and that's what you need.  I have a high pain tolerance and found that I didn't always recognized that I was having pain.  One day I found myself shivering with cold and it finally dawned on me that I was in pain.  I didn't always recognize that restlessness was a big sign of pain too.   
7. I did stop all narcotic pain medication at about 5 weeks and that was when I started to have trouble sleeping.  This lasted about 3 weeks and led to many long nights.  I tried ZZZquil with little relief.  Melatonin helped me to get deeper sleep so I felt refreshed.  Prior to surgery I would easily get 8-9 hours of sleep.  After I stopped the narcotics, I was only getting 5-6 hours of sleep.  I tried not to nap during the day because I wanted my sleep to come at night.  Sometimes I had trouble falling asleep and sometimes I would fall asleep only to wake up an hour later and not be able to go back to sleep.  I also seemed to have restless legs which I had had in the past for which I took iron.  I had stopped taking the iron because of my nausea.  The nausea went away when I didn't take the narcotics so I was able to start the iron again.  I also started Magnesium supplements and took over the counter pain medications, used topical ointments such as Icy Hot and sometimes just got up and played computer games until I felt sleepy again.  During this time I slept in another bed because I didn't want my restlessness to wake my husband.  I tossed and turned until my bed looked like a tornado.  There is lots of talk of this sleeplessness on the internet but few answers.  I am now sleeping 7-8 hours a night but often wake up 6-8 times sometimes for up to an hour.  At least I feel human and am able to think during the day which I couldn't do before.  So if you have had knee replacement surgery or are thinking of it, just hang in there, it will get better.  My surgeon said that most people don't thank him until they reach the 3 month mark so we will see if this is true.  God Bless you in your journey!!

Retirement

My family teases me that I have come out of retirement three times....I have done this to do interim nursing home administration work. From March-May of 2013 I helped the Good Samaritan Society at Crosby ND to transition to being community owned...St Lukes Community Living Center. It was a huge amount of work getting policies and procedures and equipment and benefits in line for the new entity.   At this writing, I have now been retired for over 7 months.  It has been tougher than I thought and it is also wonderful.  We both had busy, stressful and successful careers.  Here are some things we have learned:
1/ We have had to adjust our finances. No one really knows how they will manage financially until they try it.  We were drawing from our pensions to make ends meet and with the help of our investment counselor, decided I should start getting Social Security.  If we hadnt decided to do this, we would have exhausted our pensions.  So my advice is to have a financial counselor and talk thru your unique issues.
2/ There are 2 unique seasons in our little fishing village.  Summer...which is crazy...full of activity and company and we love it!  Winter....very quiet and remote.  Arden likes to visit ice fishing houses and hang out with his buddies at the bar....me, not so much.  I like to quilt, read, spend time with kids, grandkids (who are 5 hours away) and my sisters...if the weather is bad, it is hard to travel or get supplies for my hobbies.  There has been some adjustments.  I have found another woman who lives here full time to have coffee with.  I have talked to Arden about my frustration and he has listened and makes sure I get to travel to kids and sisters.  Thank goodness to Amazon.com where I can download books and order supplies as needed.
3/ It's ok for us to have separate interests and schedules. This helps us to appreciate each other more and to treasure the things we like to do together.  We will soon spend 3 weeks together in Arizona...after football season and as ice fishing draws to a close.
4/ We work together on chores in the house.  We both love keeping our new home together.
5/  We don't need to eat three meals a day.  Breakfast and coffee together and one other big meal with snacks in between. Gone are the days of 3 big meals when we were working full time.  Another great benefit of retirement is having time for exercise and fitness.  We have an elliptical and I can safely say that Arden is in the best shape of his life and I am focusing on a healthier 2014.

So, if you are thinking of retirement, you can try semi-retirement for awhile or just jump right in. Have fun working through the issues with the ultimate goal of enjoying the retirement you worked so hard for!