Charm City is on Fire

The past few days I have been watching the news of Baltimore closely.  It's difficult to watch places that I am familiar with being destroyed, and I am not just talking about the inner harbor.  I am talking about Sandtown (where Freddie Gray was arrested), North Avenue, and Mondawmin Mall, just to name a few. Places in which I have fond memories hanging out with friends that I care about deeply.  Friends that are living in the middle of a war zone while I am comfortable in my spacious house, with my spacious yard thousands of miles away.  It's been difficult to watch and even harder to process.

My personal journey through Sandtown first started after college.  Myself and a few friends did an intercity urban missions trip in D.C. Across the river from the well manicured lawn and beautifully landscaped Capital building is Anacostia. It is a neighborhood with high unemployment, high crime, drugs and HIV, yet it lay just a stones throw away from some of the most powerful people in our country.  This is where I first stepped foot into a neighborhood in which I didn't look like the majority and we entered into discussions about what poverty and racial reconciliation looked like through the lens of the church.

After that eye opening summer I started nursing school in Baltimore.  The first year I lived outside the city with a friend and her family while attending church in Sandtown.  New Song is a church within the community in which different races came together to not only worship on Sundays, but also live life together. It was a church committed to helping the people of the neighborhood through different ministries, including a school, a health center, and Habitat for Humanity, just to name a few. It is not perfect, but nothing truly is. What New Song was, was one of the first places I saw whites humbling themselves and moving into the neighborhood, not to buy up all the abandon houses and flip them to make a profit or be slumlords, but to live alongside the people of the neighborhood and help rebuild it, not only physically, but spiritually as well.  New Song's mission impacted my roommate and I to intentionally move into a majority African American neighborhood south of Sandtown. It wasn't easy.

Now, far removed from Baltimore, I am watching my city burning and it has my attention. I didn't closely watch the situation in Ferguson and the incidents after involving police brutality. I skimmed articles, but my heart didn't hurt. I was either deaf to it or not actively listening. On the contrary, when the incident in Baltimore occurred, I watched the videos. I read articles.  I stayed up late thinking about friends in Sandtown and throughout Baltimore.  Due to the riots the WORLD now knows where Baltimore is.  Deep down, I can't say I am surprised about the riots. These riots have been a longtime coming. The riots are more than Freddie Gray's death. There are tons of stories like Freddie Gray, we just never heard them. The media didn't cover it.

Last weekend, the peaceful protest by thousands got overshadowed by the riots, but what the riots did is get our attention. It shut down the city, even closed Camden Yards and the beloved Orioles had to play their game with no fans. Are we listening now? The young black youth are crying out for people to listen because sometimes white people don't listen well and usually we have our own agendas. It isn't until we are impacted that we notice. Yes, there is looting and the media calls it "lawlessness", but many can tell you, these kids live in a state of some sort of lawlessness regularly.  The only difference between the people throwing bricks and Freddie Gray, is that Freddie Gray is sadly no longer with us, but these kids are. How many of them have been roughed up by the police or harassed and we don't know about it because the media didn't cover it? We could say, "Well they deserve it. Look what they are doing.". I am just not sure they deserve a white person's judgement, especially since most have never set foot in their neighborhood until now.

I am not defending what they did and are doing, but rather point out that they live in places in which families are broken apart regularly by drugs, senseless murders, and being locked up for petty crimes. White people find these to be the problems, but they are not.  They are symptoms of the problem. Young men have no jobs. They are living in conditions in which their health is impacted, yet can't get affordable healthcare and have to jump through hoops just for some assistance. Kids are often left at home while Mom's work multiple jobs and often go to school in the evenings, just to support their families. Poverty, lack of education, and those in power not giving a damn, that is the problem.   Then their are the police. They are often seen as the enemy and offer little to no protection or order. It's the laws of the neighborhood vs. the laws of the state. If you saw a murder, you wouldn't dare talk to a police officer for fear you could be next. White people don't get it.  As a well off white woman, I will never live in that type of fear.

Although statistics alone speak differently, Baltimore is a racially divided city. There are the areas by the harbor and pockets here and there where urban young professionals live and walk from their rehabbed row home to posh restaurants, sporting their Orioles and Natty Boh gear. Many moved to Baltimore after college, originally from other places in Maryland and the Mid Atlantic. Then there are the places in the city that white people normally don't go unless they are driving through in their cars. People that live here have lived their whole lives in Baltimore, but often don't regularly leave the city. Charm city appears charming if you stay within your comfort zone and ignore how the majority of Baltimore lives.

Personally, as Rob and I have been processing all of this, I believe that at some level, I feel "white guilt". I started out moving to Baltimore with good intentions, choosing to be a minority and live in a neighborhood in need, yet slowing migrating back within my comfort zone, going to trendy bars rather than engaging my neighbors. Deep down, it is difficult and heavy to handle the tension of the two worlds of Baltimore, but rarely is it talked about.  Often I feel like I chose the path in which I was apart of the vision in Sandtown, but just from the periphery.  My roommate and I chose to move into a rough neighborhood in Baltimore just south of Sandtown. Although still involved, we never committed to Sandtown 100%. After getting married, my husband and I decided to go to a different inner city church. A sister church to New Song, still committed to racial reconciliation, but with far more white people and well educated African Americans. We bought a house in a transition neighborhood. Our street had many beautifully rehabbed houses alongside other houses which weren't nearly as pristine, usually owned by African american residents whom lived on the street for decades. We were cordial, but we didn't mix. Sadly, we remained a city divided, even on our block. After having T, Baltimore changed for me, as it does for many young whites in the city. I was more aware of the petty crime around me, more so now that I was a mom and had a baby to protect. So with the ability to move anywhere we wanted, we chose adventure and moved to one of the least diverse places in America. We have that privilege.

With the knowledge I have of Baltimore and the freedom to see all the destruction from afar, I have noticed many things.

* Who hasn't seen the video of the mom beating her kid for throwing bricks at the police? She has been interviewed on TV and her name is known throughout America. Toya Graham is an example of the strong women, moms and grandmothers, who try desperately to raise their children in Baltimore's streets. The Baltimore I know is a matriarchal society and we need to appreciate the women that are doing their best despite all the challenges. They don't often get credit, I am glad that Toya Graham is.

*Did you see the amazing video of the clergy marching together? It is absolutely moving. There are many churches within Baltimore doing good work. There are people that have dedicated their lives to these neighborhoods. I don't think it is a coincidence that Sandtown is in the news.  I think it is God moving. I think it is because of all the people that have prayed for their community over the past few decades. Let's support them in their mission that they have been doing for years.

* Sadly many men aren't around because of drugs, being murdered, or being locked up. Over the past couple of years, there are been men rising up to mentor young boys who are growing up without fathers, uncles and even older brothers. Meeting for breakfast, playing basketball, and giving rides to jobs. These men have filled a gap. What is wonderful to see, is that some of the boys that were mentored are now men. They now have the opportunity to stand up and be leaders. They know their community better than we do. I think it's time to listen to what they have to say and give them the opportunity to lead and rebuild, and give them assistance as they feel they need it.

I don't often get political and I know writing this will drive many crazy, but it's hard to stay quiet. The rebuilding of Baltimore won't happen over night, no matter how much trash you clean up.  Transformation takes a while, but it will happen. This isn't the first time Baltimore has burned.

Time: Not enough and too much

The older I get, the more I realize, time is a funny thing. Mostly, I am wondering where "the time" went. A usual day for me starts with 2 kids trying to get into bed and putting their cold feet on me. The actual time is between 6:30 and 7 am. It's pretty much guaranteed that they will appear every morning. B on my left and T on my right. After a few unrestful minutes, I convince them, and myself, to get up and face the day in front of us. I often dream of staying in bed longer, like I did at one point in my life, but with R's work schedule, I am a solo parent at least 50% of the time. Our days start slow, but quickly gain momentum within 5 minutes of trying to convince the mini peeps to eat a bowl of cereal. One does gladly. One eats half. One throws it on the floor because they prefer something else. I often mutter, "I don't have time for this." and I am on to the next thing, trying to get them dressed.

With me in Drill Sargent mode, we get dressed, brush teeth, drop off at multiple schools, go to the Y to work out, and run an errand or 2. That is my "normal" routine before lunch.  With adrenaline pumping, I race through life as if I am late and in a hurry.  In reality, I am not late. I am usually 10 minutes early because I am a type A person from the North East and I put a high value being on time. It is so bad that if I am actually right on time, I feel as if I am late. In return for my rushing around like a lunatic, I have kids that practically march at times.  I have imposed my ideas about being able to control time onto my Minis, that the oldest often asks, "Are we late?".

As I am racing through my day, I oddly enough have "time" to snap a picture of me and a kid or two appearing carefree, relaxed, well-rested, and full of joy and love with sunshine and big fluffy white clouds. I shush the kids, because they are just asking about a snack...again, and quickly post the picture on Instagram and Facebook. With the right angles and a cool filter, it can appear that my house is clean and decorated just like all those other cool houses on Pinterest.  In reality, I am in a filthy house with 3 very opinionated, small creatures that want to cling by my side like a shadow, but rarely agree with any of my brilliant ideas, such a quiet time. I rush people with legs half the size of mine, yet make them wait for me to post a picture, showing just how "blessed" my life is.

Since everything with my back has happened, time has changed. It is like a bomb went off initially and my life has been in fast forward. I am realizing, that unless you lived in a time in which you had a VCR to fast-forward to your well worn VHS to your favorite New Kids song, in order to learn the sweet dance moves, you may not be familiar with fast-forward....or New Kids on the Block.  So sad!  On the flip side, for the past 8 weeks, my life has felt like it's been in slow motion. Often I feel in a daze and ask "What just happened?". My old "normal" isn't my current "normal".  Events that I once looked forward to are still written in on the calender. The time blocked off for a special event that now I am unable to attend, and often find myself wishing the day would pass quickly, as to not remind me of what I am missing.  Days drag on and weeks feels like for ever, although I am often reminded by others that this is a "season". "Season" is code word a sucky time in your life in which others want to remind you it won't last for ever. But you know what, sucky still sucks.

At one point, when things felt busy, I was wishing I had more time.  Now I have more time and what do I do with it? Often, I have tried to fill it with things I used to do before, Facebook and Instagram. Where they once were a quick mental vacation from the kids, now they feel like the party that you weren't invited to. I know it's not personal. My body physically can't handle much at this point, but I get a flash back to 2nd grade and feel as if I am hearing about a fun sleep over that I wasn't invited to. Everyone on social media looks happy, well dressed. Fuck, I've been in the same outfit for a few days and still can't get dressed by myself.  Gosh, I'd love to go out and get drinks with friends, but sitting upright in a chair just to eat dinner with my family is tiring, not to mention painful. Therefore, I am signing off.  Not completely, but taking bigger breaks away for my emotional health.

I find myself now in a different situation; so much time that I don't know what to do with it. Limited in my abilities, old hobbies are off the table.  I find myself with the opportunity to relax. I can actually watch my kids as they play instead of just monitoring intermittently to make sure they don't run over their sister. I am trying to find hope in this "season", although the restless me is dying to go out and play as well.

Home

When I was in the hospital, the Neuro PA wanted to send me home after one night. He said that the best thing he can do for his  patients is to send them home so they can recover in their own beds. Obviously he has no inkling of what my house is like and knowing better, I convinced him that one more night would be better for my healing process. I wanted to plead "please don't send me home today.", but that may appear too desperate.  The truth is, I like my home. I do. I love how the sunbeams shoot through the blinds in the morning. I love reading on the daybed that is in front of the fireplace. But, what I love more is having my own room with a single mattress so no one can sneak in bed with me in the middle of the night. I like having a TV to watch crap, not cartoons, and have someone bring me my meals. I like people asking me if I need anything. I like having no expectations placed upon me except to rest, relax and heal. I am so used to chaos and crumbs, that the hospital is a glorious place to be. When I go home, there will be kids. Three in fact. 

R. and I have discussed it numerous times and we agree that kids are probably the most destructive thing to a house. Yes, animals can be destructive but you can train them to not pee in the house or put them in  a crate when you leave. A natural disaster, when it hits, is bad. Real bad. It can wipe out a whole house, let alone a neighborhood, in minutes. But kids, those wackos, can destroy things on a much grander scale with minimal detection. A kid can mess up a wall with stickers or sticky hands in a matter of seconds. Depending on their location and method used, the destruction to the wall could go unnoticed for a while. Add a second kid to mix and the destruction is exponentially worse. Add a third kid or more, and you are screwed. Just plain screwed.  At times, they like to all work together, increasing the amount of damage to one area. A good example is a group of them teaming up to dig a big hole in the middle of your yard just because. Other times they like to work on their own. Spilled milk here, taking all the clothes out of a dresser there, and a grand toothpaste explosion in the bathroom to top off a beautiful trifecta. Three separate disasters can be accomplished in less than 10 seconds, yet cause over 10 minutes of work (this is a very conservative estimate). But wait, what are they doing while you clean up the milk, clothes and toothpaste? Do you walk away to check, knowing that the clean up job is half done, and they are more than likely destroying something else with all this unsupervised time you gave them. Or do you focus on the mess in front of you, knowing you are getting at least one thing accomplished in your day for goodness sake, and hope they are quiet because they are all playing nice together and plan on cleaning up all their toys afterwards.

We anticipated a large amount of distruction while I am recovering.  Therefore, being smart people, fueled by caffeine and some anxiety, we super-dooper-crazy-lady cleaned our house before I set foot in the hospital. We debulked the kid's toys and clothes. We did all of the laundry we possible could without rewashing clean clothes. We purchased home supplies for me like a grabber, long handle shoe horn (which B calls my "hooker") and an elevated toilet seat. We swept, scrubbed and washed just about every surface possible. We arranged for family to come the weeks R. works. We were awesome and as prepared as we could be. Everything was falling into place. 

Yet, in life there is always something, right?  Great stories of life always have twists in the plot that are unexpected. We thought back surgery was our challenge this season. We were wrong. Oh, so wrong. The challenge is a GI bug that is picking off the kids in our house one by one while I am recovering from surgery. Often when things go wrong, we are tempted to cry. Why me God? Can I just get a break? Thankfully we quickly pole vaulted over self pity and pleading, and we now have a case of the equally contagious giggles. Our journey these past few days is SO ridiculous that it is funny. With every puke attack I laugh. Poor husband who has a daunting job of running the house without his wife's help, gets to also take on unexpected bursts of body fluid from the little people who have taken over his home. 

But as usual, it could be worse. At least it isn't pink eye or lice. At least we have Netflix. At least we have awesome friends who are sleeping over to help us out. At least my chocolate supply is still strong. At least we have a sense of humor. 

Update

One thing I struggled with the last few days was if I really needed a spinal fusion. At times, it seemed like having the surgery was a bit dramatic.  I was moving better overall with little pain in my back and could notice the start of tingling in my feet, which was something new. Tingling was a better sensation than complete numbness. One thing that continued to not improve, dispite all my hard work in PT, was foot drop. Days leading up to surgery, I would try and test my strength just to make sure I was still weak and not making it up in my head.

I went into surgery not expecting it to work. I didn't want to get my hopes up and be disappointed later if it didn't. My PT and doctors warned me that nerve damage is a funny thing. It could come back eventually, but it may be months or even years before I saw full function, but really there was no guarantee. I am not very patient, so months and years as a timeline is frustrating. I asked R. for affirmation regarding the surgery. "Is this the right thing to do?" His response was that he didn't know. It was the best decision at the time, but he wasn't sure it was the "right" decision.

I am happy to say that the surgery went well and was the right decision. The surgeon actually said my back was worse than what he anticipated. As it turns out, I had a second fracture on my right side as well as my left. From my understanding, my front and back L5 vertebrae didn't connect at all. I had enough core strength to compensate, but surgery was a must. As well, he said the space where my nerve comes out on the left side was a pancake. There was literally no room for it. Remarkably, my left leg already has a lot of strength back and I can walk around slowly. My sweet corset looks like it is out of the Victorian times and as I love it. (That may just be the muscle relaxers and pain meds talking).

SAHD

As we get closer to surgery, R. and I have been making more and more jokes 1. to keep things light and 2. as a coping mechanism.  We tend to joke a lot normally, so throw in a big hill in our road of life, and the jokes we share feel like we are kids at a 3rd grade sleepover. They are just stupid and silly. I would share, but they are that silly and stupid that when retold, they lose their humor and really, if we were face to face, you'd give me a pity chuckle, but not find them nearly as funny as I do. So I will spare you, because I care.

The surgery is one thing to be nervous about, but R. is also nervous about solo parenting for 2 weeks until our family can come. I solo parent every other week when he works, but poor guy is on 2 weeks straight with 3 kids hyped up on Easter candy and a bum wife who will be on pain meds and muscle relaxers. The bum wife is by far worse than having a husband home with a "man cold". In preparation, he has been asking other moms what they do all day.  He has learned how to pin things to Pinterest, text other mom's at 4 pm saying "OMG these kids are nuts. Is it too early for wine?", and feed kids lunch entirely on Costco snacks. In all honesty, he will rock it.

In preparation for the big day, we have been cleaning, rearranging, throwing out and donating. It's like nesting before a baby comes, except there is no new member of the house. Tonight I also insisted that we go out for a nice dinner. A place with cloth napkins, breakable dishes and amazing food.  A place that is normally sacred to me, that I rarely take the kids to, not because it isn't kid friendly, but because I don't want them to ruin it's loveliness. It's my special place. Thankfully they behaved and I ate well before needing to become NPO at midnight. Low blood sugar just doesn't look good on me, but the memory of a nice dinner with the family is sustaining. 

Tonight, one of the most touching things was to have T. pray for me. All this has been a good opportunity to demonstrate to the kids that prayer isn't just before dinner or when Mom is about to lose her mind. In thinking about my needs, prayer is one thing we would love tomorrow. My surgery is at 12pm MST and should last 2 hours and some change. Also, pray for pain relief.  I am not in pain now, but I sure as hell will be tomorrow. Pray that we can find pain meds that don't make me feel "ugh". Pain meds and me don't do well together.  I always stopped them super early when I had c-sections, not because I am awesome, but because I hate them that much. 

As far as other needs go, meals have always been a huge help.  I know that a meal schedule will be circulating soon.  We are good on childcare this week (Thank you a ton to Brenda and Melissa). but I know in the future we may be calling a few special people to hangout with our minis. Something that is meaningful is checking in on R. and inviting him and the kids to things. Although life has been thrown up like confetti, we'd like to keep things fairly normal for the kids, so hanging out with friends is always one of the best things for them. And lastly, many of you have been doing this, but checking up on me.  I may look and feel like roadkill, but when I am upright, I'd love for friends to stop by. I am so social and want to be in the middle of things that this homebody biz is killing me. Thanks for all the support and warm wishes.  It doesn't go unnoticed and I know we truly appreciate it. 

I am slow, but will you walk with me?

I have been hesitant to write about the meeting with the neurosurgeon. After various tests and reviewing my MRI, it is inevitable that I need surgery. My body has compromised for a while now, but we've reached a point in which there is just no room for the nerve to run through and the longer we wait, the less chance I have of getting full function back to my left leg. It's rough, but necessary.  I will spare you the gross (yet amazing) details of the surgery. Surgery is scheduled for Tuesday. The count down has begun and I have 5 days to squeeze the most out of life and kids before going to the hospital.

The longer I have foot drop and weakness in my leg, the more I realize that my body is not going to overcome this on it's own.  Even with all the exercises and therapy, my leg is not getting any stronger. In fact, I have periods of weakness in which I lose my balance, almost falling. It has been difficult for me, watching my body go from a healthy and strong one, to a body that initially after the accident, couldn't walk without assistance. I was extremely lucky to visit old roommates just a few days after my first steroid injection in my back.  Pictures of us smiling where posted on Facebook.  What wasn't seen though was me in a wheelchair, being pushed around Pike's Market by my friends.  It feels equally humbling and humiliating. I am humbled that some of my closest friends, friends that have watched me struggle and soar, are there when I am unable to walk. What is difficult is being on a level in which you are ignored yet stared at. A level in which you see and understand what is going on around you yet can't fully take part in it. You are not a child, but on the same level as one. I am in a middle ground of life and I am not fully sure how I got here.

Usually I am always moving, always doing.  Truthfully, I don't often like to sit still. I love to have plans. I love to move my body and I usually move fast.  I think it's the East Coast in me.  These past 6 weeks have felt like time has moved so slow. Daily I have pain, discomfort, and weakness. My life has scaled back tremendously in which I go from home to therapy, and not much more.  For a month, friends and family surrounded us with love and provided meals, cleaned my house, did our laundry and loved on our kids. For a month, I was not alone yet I feel lonely. My life feels as if time is moving slowly, revolving around my back, yet everyone else is moving 10 times faster and I can't be apart of it. I miss being apart of something and being with people. Not just around them, but laughing and connecting with people.

At times, I have asked my husband if something else is wrong with me. As of lately, I have admitted to him, that when meeting someone new, I am unable to process what they are saying. I find that nurses and some doctors talk fast and like to joke, but I am unable to take in what they are saying.  Normally, I love to joke and laugh. My husband says I have middle school humor.  A good fart joke goes a long way with me.  Maybe that's why God gave me 2 boys. Lately, I can't keep up with humor.  I can't even take in normal conversations at times and it make me feel even more isolated.  In my head, the person in front of me is talking, I just can't understand.  It's as if they are speaking a foreign language and I'd love to participate, so I mainly shake my head yes with a few "yeahs" and "oks" thrown in, faking it and hoping I can catch something I understand soon.

The most troublesome thing to me isn't the surgery, but the recovery.  No lifting, bending, blah, blah, blah for a few months. I will follow the doctor's orders, but wow, are there a lot of restrictions. I mostly get sad thinking about the next few months. I will continue to be on the outside, unable to participate in life events. I know this is for my body to heal and new bone to form. I just get sad because it means not rocking my daughter to sleep. It means not playing soccer with the kids this season. It means elevated toilet seats with handles. You know your husband loves you when he buys you one of those, a grabber, and is considering a walker. My middle school mind goes crazy with stupid jokes about all my new "tools of recovery".

I have been thinking a lot about our needs. When you can do little for yourself and your family, your needs are great.  I think as of now, besides prayer, I think what I need most is a friend.  I appreciate all the meals and childcare.  Don't get me wrong.  We couldn't do it without our friends helping us with daily life, but what I need is someone to not just ask how my back is doing, but how I am doing.  I need a hug.  You won't break me. I need a good laugh (and sometimes a cry).  I know it could be worse. I know this is little compared to cancer or MS, but it has rocked our world.  I am trying to look at it as a transformation period full of growth and discovery.  A time in which I can't continue with one of my biggest joys, running, but must dive into new passions and try new things.  We will see where this road leads. Will you walk with me?