My story on the Childhood Obesity Summit at my Willow Grove Giant Supermarket was published.
To make my editor happy, I also did my third Patch blog for him. Here's some email dialog we had after I got home from Kidney Clinic:
Gerry: Also, thank you, thank you for this awesome blog!
What on Earth was your 'landfill' poem about? Sure, the setting is a vile refuse wasteland of decomposition, and therefore death. But it's almost like a reverent ode at a funeral, like you want this person to still be with you and compare death to being a pitiful waste, like spent egg shells or a stinkbug in a napkin. It's almost as if you were summing up the life of Tony Soprano.
Ruthie: oh no, you didn't like my landfill poem. I QUIT!
Gerry: Wait ... wait!!!
I LOVED your landfill poem - the cadence, rhythm was an eerie upbeat to the visual symbolism you chose to describe, what I was asking about in my earlier comment.
To me, it's a throw back to the Emily Dickinson poem your group loves
- while not actually personifying Death, you certainly counteract the terrifying and grave nature of life's ultimate end by describing the Death event to that of a landfill, which you ponder if a (presumably - by the line "never to sit atop my table or adorn my arm" which demonstrates intimacy) loved one, will be able to escape to some more glorious after life, as suggested by hoping the exclusive divine songs of Orpheus will be able to touch the departed's ears and be "released" by another divine figure on Judegement Day (though the last line isn't as hopeful-sounding as it could have been, and is a fitting ending to a poem that starts out by describing trash). You further mock death by also titling the poem with a hoedown, typically a raucous and jovial event, with a juxtaposed oxymoron that is a landfill.
All this from my editor, Gerry Dungan. WE LOVE Gerry!
Hope you all had a nice Memorial Day. Scott and I spent it in his air-conditioned BR eating on the sheets.
My side of the bed is filled with crumbs and stains. Scott heated up a can of Goya field peas and green beans - delicious - and in an attempt not to spill it, I drank the dregs out of the bowl but somehow the spoon got in the way, smashing my upper left tooth where Dan's cat had butted me and I needed root canal.
We ate healthy hot dogs and scrumptious potato salad I made. Remember, pre-kidney op I couldn't eat taters.
OMG, the movies we watched over the weekend: The Last Emperor [of China] - superb, made in 1986, the year I started New Directions; and Local Hero about a town in Scotland where the Houston boys were gonna drill for oil; and Liberty Heights, a Barry Levinson film (who he?) about his Jewish upbringing. The great Joe Montegna played his dad.
Billy Elliot - the film, not the play - was slow-moving but the dancing was great.
Actually Liberty Heights inspired me to future-write about "The Lure of the Gentile" about my growing up days in Shaker Heights. My dad taught us to be proud of our Jewish heritage. But oh how we loved the blond blue-eyed gentiles and that means you, Mary Truby. You will be resurrected in my piece.
All right, all right, I can see this post is gonna be a wee bit long.
Kidney Clinic had the most people I've ever seen. Lots of surgery going on.
My hypotoneuse (sic) is that the warm weather brings out the recklessness in people.
Sat next to a fellow named Lance. I tried to catch his eye a couple times to no avail.
Finally, we spoke.
He had a totally different experience from me. It was so interesting I knew I wanted to write about it when Sarah and I do our mom-daughter transplant book.
Lance became an insulin-dependent diabetic when he was 22. Diabetes is the main cause for getting a new kidney.
But Lance was on The List for both a kidney and pancreas. You shoot to the top of the list if you want a combo since most people don't.
Lance, who lives in Lyndhurst, NJ, registered w/ three hospitals, one in Newark, Columbia Presbyterian in NYC, and our Einstein.
When I saw my nephrologist today, Dr Kung, he told that altho I'm on insulin I'm considered a Type 2 diabetic since I got mine when I was older.
He said it takes about 20 years for diabetes to do its damage to the body.
Sure enuf, Lance is 40 today, and began dialysis 8 months ago.
A month after he was on, one of his hospitals called and said his name had come up.
As is usual, he didn't get the kidney.
Sad story. The potential cadaver was killed in a motorcycle accident. Unfortunately his inner organs were too damaged to be salvaged.
In early May, Lance got THE call at 1:30 am. Neither he nor his wife answered the phone. They saw it was a 215-area code but didn't connect the dots.
Einstein calls you with plenty of warning, tho. And they also call everyone who knows you.
I told Lance that I was working on a story and had my phone unplugged when Einstein called me about a cadaver, this time a drug addict.
So, my son Dan emailed me! And of course I answer my emails.
Hold on. Lemme check my emails.
Oh, I feel so needy. Nothing was there.
Lance and his wife got to the hospital the next day and stayed in a nearby hotel b/c the deceased donor's family was gathering to say goodbye to their young man.
He was a 21-year-old young man who was riding his ATV (what dat?) w/o a helmet and died. All-terrain vehicle.
Lance got both his kidney and his pancreas. He showed me the scar which went from his navel straight up quite a ways.His 2-yo daughter Olivia came over to see daddy's boo-boo again. It was a really beautiful job. It's like looking at my own scar all over again.
Both organs fit into the left and right sides of his lower abdomen.
Lance has a good recollection of entering the OR, unlike me, who only stayed awake about a minute.
First of all, HE SAW THE PANCREAS. One of the doctors was readying it for transplant, either Campos or Ortiz. There were probly a dozen doctors in there including trainees.
The pancreas wasn't very appealing, he said. "It was opaque and shiny and gooey."
Great description, Lance.
He's been insulin-free for 28 days. A whole month.
Mon dieu! He's got the insulin pump. I showed him my diabetes supplies that I bring w/me when I'll be gone awhile.
What fun to be able to share this w/someone who understands.
He asked if I ever got lo blood sugar. That's the one where it goes below 70 and you shake and get clammy and if untreated quickly, you can die.
On the three occasions I've gotten it, I just say, Calm down, Ruth, everything will be fine.
I showed him my Kashi TLC peanut bar I keep in my purse in case I get an attack. He read the label of the bar and said, 5 carbs, that's good.
See, I haven't memorized the carb thing yet, but on Saturday I'm taking a diabetes class at Abington Hospital.
Finally I was called in to the exam room. First I saw Dr Pande, jr nephrologist, before I saw fully-credentialed Dr Kung.
Young Dr Pande and his wife went SKYDIVING on Memorial Day. She had done it previously and persuaded him to try it.
They went up in a small Cessna in rural NJ. I believe they live in Jersey cuz she's finishing her psychiatry fellowship at Hahnemann, so that's sorta halfway for the two of them.
There were two really scary things, he said.
The first is going up in the plane. It shakes.
Then the instructor pushes you out of the plane. Of course he's directly in front of you and is pulling the strings on the chute.
You freefall for about a minute (?) and then you float to the ground for ten long minutes and enjoying the beautiful green countryside.
A thrill of a lifetime, he said.
We shook hands g'bye. I picked up my book, which I'm reading furiously for Thursday's book discussion at the library, and then Dr Kung came in.
I'm doing great - creatinine level is .8 - all labs A-OK and I asked the question, When can I get spine surgery.
Seven months after transplant, which will be November. I'm psyched.
Oh, here's a poem I found. John Leonard's house is just up the street from me. The new married w/dog couple have done a spectacular job landscaping the grounds.
Whatever you do, Mom, said Dan, Don't show them the poem.
I PICK YOUR TRASH, JOHN LEONARD, NOW THAT YOU'RE DEAD
at first they put out
the commode
seat up
to let it sink in
it sat on the grass
while kids passed by
what would they know of
rosebushes out front
or the hospice nurse
green dodge
parked under the carport
or about you, john leonard,
a man of ninety-five
in house slippers and morphine
visiting your garden out back
a week ago on garbage night
the invisible hand
lined up some broken rakes
and tumbledown shelves
I let them lie
seeking perfection
after your hip went last spring
you took me hobbling
through your backyard
Where did you learn to garden like that?
lilyponds with real frogs
birdhouses nailed to the pines
tarps to keep the benches dry
yesterday they put out a
rototiller
I took it at dusk
felt the length of the wood
for splinters or other irregularities
felt the rusty blades with my thumb
tamped it on the sidewalk
out fell the autumn leaves
from the previous fall
not this one
for you were no longer
protector of your lawn
I rolled it
on the sidewalk
this way and that
hefted it over my head
victorious at last
and stabbed it bloodless
in the softness of my hand.
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