Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Category: The Gift Of Adversity

  • Hey, Slow It Down, Girl

    Every once in a while, life hands over a slap upside the head.  This weekend was one of those moments when life said, “Hey, slow it down, girl.”

    I left for Michigan with the boys in tow.  Lauren was down in Texas with Sarah and Joe was still working.  The boys let me enjoy my mellow music on the way up while they buried their heads in the laptop.  There wasn’t much talking on the way up, we were decompressing from a busy week.  Heck, make that a busy summer.  The kids were off in three directions most of the time with Mom on a plane the other half of the time.  I vaguely remembered a husband somewhere in all this.

    On the way up, I thought about my Dad and the ups and downs since his diagnosis of esophageal cancer last summer.  Last November, we celebrated with good news:  Dad had kicked the cancer on its rear end.

    A few weeks ago, he found a new lump.  At first, the doctor wasn’t too concerned, he figured it was benign.  Dad went for a PET scan and he was waiting for the results the morning we arrived.

    Dad was sitting in his chair when we arrived and after a hug, we cut to the chase.  “Well, the results aren’t good,” Dad said.  “The tests show that the cancer is back and one tumor is heading toward the lungs.  But the good news is, it’s still small.”

    So another round of chemo is coming up and Dad is determined to extend another kick into cancer’s rear end.  I’m buoyed by his optimism and his outlook and I know he has the strength to withstand anything.  The other tough blow over the weekend was the news that both of my brother’s have Barrett’s, which means they’re at an increased risk, but with diet, exercise and monitoring, they can kick this too.

    All of this which had me thinking about how life goes by crazy fast– and I thought back to a friend’s recent remark about how I seemed to have it all together and have achieved a balanced life. “You need to teach me how you are able to travel, write a book, go barefooting with the world’s champions, and advocate for causes to change the world for the better,” she wrote.

    After laughing hysterically, I informed her that my life was actually an unbalanced washing machine on a lopsided spin cycle.

    So every now and then, when life slaps us upside the head, that’s when we slow down and pay attention to the stuff that matters:  the relationships we have with those around us and the stuff that brings us joy instead of sorrow.   One friend reminded me to celebrate the fact that we were given a gift of time since Dad’s diagnosis last year.  So I’m thankful that I get to wrap my arms around my parents each time I visit them.

    So, over the weekend, I slowed it down.  I bonded with the boys as we floated in the lake after tubing.  I went shopping with my Mom, sis and a neighbor and we gathered some healthy food for the weekend.  I watched Two and Half Men with Dad and told him about my barefooting and wakeboarding adventures of the day.

    Don’t wait for life to slap you upside the head.

  • Embracing My Deaf Self

    Flowers that stand out It is eleven o’clock at night and my house is filled with the sound of eight teenagers sitting around my family room chatting and laughing.  Some of them are signing, some of them are animatedly talking.  Some of them are deaf, some are hard of hearing and two of them have hearing in the normal range. Three of them are mine and all three have hearing aids perched in their ears.  My youngest sports colorful earmolds with red, white and blue swirls. I’ve got a pair of blue earmolds with sparkles shining out from under my dark hair.

    As I watch the kids talk excitedly about some silly photo on Facebook, I’m thinking back to my own teen years. My summers as a teen were spent hiding the fact that I couldn’t hear.  As soon as the school year ended in the late spring, my lone hearing aid was placed on a ledge and never touched until the first day of school in the fall. I spent my summers with a great group of friends, many who knew just what to do to make communication happen between us. I depended a lot on my lipreading skills to piece together conversations.  It was the casual group gatherings that had me bluffing my way through conversations because it was next to impossible to lipread the many lips that were speaking at the same time.

    Then there was the stigma of being different, of standing out. I tried hard not to stand out, instead trying everything I could to blend in and be “one of them.”

    My life changed in an instant the summer I was nineteen.  I was barefooting behind the boat, practicing wake crossing.  As my feet skimmed across the water, my foot caught the edge of the wake and I slammed into the water. There was no time to do a normal tuck and roll, something I had done many times before.  When I climbed into the boat, I tried to shake the water out of my ears. Everything sounded muffled–lips moved but there wasn’t the usual sound to match with it.

    It wasn’t until many days later that I realized that I had become deaf.

    My life took an interesting turn at that point. Once the grief subsided and I dried the tears, I entered a new world filled with deaf and hard of hearing people. It wasn’t easy– because I had spent the previous 19 years of my life hiding my hearing aid and feeling quite uncomfortable with anything that reminded me that I was “different.”  It took awhile for me to learn American Sign Language and get to the point that I embraced a deaf identity.  Once I did, there was an amazing transformation in my life:  Yes, I am deaf and gosh-darn-it, that’s perfectly ok.

    One by one, my own kids began to lose their hearing and soon our lives were filled with hearing aids, IEPs, signing, speech therapy and other families with deaf and hard of hearing kids.  I do see the same struggles to understand everything being said around them, but I also see that my kids are growing up with a very different attitude than I had–they’re comfortable with themselves, assertive in getting their communication needs met… and they don’t hide their hearing aids. They have access to texting, interpreters, captioning, videophones and more.  They’re growing up with deaf and hard of hearing role models– something that I didn’t have access to.

    I came across a quote on Twitter recently that perfectly sums up what I wish I had known when I was growing up:

    Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?  –Unknown

    Originally published on Chicago Moms Blog.

  • Life on Spin Cycle

    I looked at my calendar the other day and sighed. The entire summer is booked solid between work, conferences, travel and the kid’s activities.  When the kids were little, summer used to stretch out before us like an idle odyssey. I remember when the biggest event of the day was dragging out the swimming pool and filling it up for the toddlers to splash in. My neighbors, Barb and Denise, would bring their kids over and we’d sit in the backyard and chat for hours. Some days, we would order pizza and sit out and talk until the bugs drove us inside.

    Barb moved away to California and the kids are now teens. Denise and I both work from home, so we try and grab a gab session here and there, but our visits are far too few lately.

    I don’t know how this happened, but life has ramped up to spin cycle. 

    Like a washing machine, it started out so slowly that I almost didn’t notice it.  I picked up one part-time job, then a full-time job– added a book club, another women’s group, a couple of writing assignments and then volunteer work. To top it off, I started writing a book.

     

    And like the washing machine, I found myself smack dab in the middle of spin cycle and wondering how to hit the “off” button.  The problem with going around and around in a circle is that you can’t stop yourself. You’re spinning so fast that you’re glued to the walls of the machine. The thing is, if you don’t get out of spin cycle, eventually something is going to wear out and stop working. 

    I stuck my hand out recently to try and stop the spin. Sitting in my inbox was an invitation to a committee that three years I ago, I would have jumped at to be involved in.  After a lot of thought, I graciously said no and actually felt good about it. I also said no to some volunteer activities and some other requests for my time.

    Unfortunately, my calendar is still booked for the summer and there isn’t much I can do about what I’ve committed to. Work has to be done, the kids have to be driven here or there, and there’s the graduations and weddings to attend.  Fortunately, I’ve booked in some fun, some barefooting and some enjoyable writing.

    Now I just have to figure out how to slow the spin down to a gentle tumble. 

  • Lessons from a Sea Doo

     

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    It was one of those idyllic summer weekends– good food on the grill, time with the family and fun on the water.  David and I took turns pulling each other on the jet ski, attempting to skim along the water on our bare feet.  I hadn’t gone barefooting in years, but I tried getting up on the board and planting my feet in the water.  I couldn’t do it.  David tried a couple of times, both on the board and on the ski.  He was pretty determined to try over and over.  I liked the fire that I saw in his eyes as he attempted the new skill.

    The kids wakeboarded behind the Sea Doo and then we did some tubing the next day with another deaf family.

    Yesterday, the sky was grey and a storm had passed through.  The sun lightened up the clouds and David decided to pull Steven on the wakeboard behind the Sea Doo. Steven did a dock start on the wakeboard and went halfway around the lake before he fell and the two of them headed back for another round.  As David tossed out the rope, the Sea Doo was still circling.

    Whoooosh.

    The rope went right up the intake.  With the intake piston revolving over 1,000 RPMs, it wasn’t long before the rope got stuck.

    I was in the house when I heard the news.  Let’s just say that I wouldn’t win any Mommy-of-the-Year awards with my response.  I’m sure the neighbor’s eyes popped watching my animated signing.  “What-were-you-thinking-this-was-totally-avoidable-how-could-you-not-watch-the-freaking-rope…”

    I’ll spare you the rest.

    David and Joe went under the lift to assess the damage.  “It’s wound up so tight, totally impossible to get this off,” Joe said.  “I think we need to bring it to the marine place and have them take it apart.”

    “Try to get it off,” I growled at them.

    After a half an hour of hacking at it and cutting loose some of the rope, the guys weren’t getting very far. I finally jumped in the water to take a look.

    It wasn’t pretty.

    The rope was wound so tight and it had been shoved deep into the shaft.  My first instinct was to agree with Joe– this was a job for someone else to do.  I took another look.

    Hmmm, if I could just loosen one end, we might be able to get it out.

    “Can you get me a long screwdriver and a needle-nose pliers?”

    Little by little, we each took turns under the lift and loosening the rope bit by bit.  David had a big grin on his face when he pulled out the last of the rope from the shaft.  He had relieved grin on his face when I started up the Sea Doo and took off with it.  It worked fine.

    So what did we learn from this?  For starters, David learned how powerful the intake was on a jet ski– I’m betting that he’ll never make this mistake again.  I also was reminded of the time that I ran over a ski rope myself around the same age–my Dad had to take the prop off the boat to get all of the rope out.  I do remember him hollering at me to be more careful after that.

    But the biggest lesson of all was this: Something that at first looks impossible can be accomplished by working at it little by little and not giving up.

    More lessons from a Sea Doo–What I Learned About Stress.

  • No, I Just Haf A Cowd, Dank You

    Yesterday, I stopped in at the bank that I always patronize and got in line behind a new teller. As I was waiting, I tallied up the checks that I wanted to deposit and didn’t realize that it was suddenly my turn. The teller must have said something, as I noticed her gazing at me with a puzzled expression.

    Most of the time, I will offer an explanation to people with a simple, “I didn’t hear what you said. I’m deaf.”

    But yesterday wasn’t a nicey-nice day. I was in a hurry to head out of the bank and cranky as heck. I was craving some chocolate Sno Caps to stave off the major PMS symptoms that were gnawing at me. Or perhaps some Fannie May… Or Godiva chocolate…

    New Teller Gal asked me a question and I thought she asked me how I wanted my money. “Twenties would be fine.” I responded. She actually laughed and repeated her original question, which turned out to be, “Do you have any ID?”

    Any other day, I would have explained, “I’m deaf,” but yesterday, the PMS beast inside of me growled. “I’ve been a customer for almost ten years and I’ve submitted a check deposit slip with my name and address on it. My purse is in the car and the hubby is waiting outside. Can you process this without ID?”

    Apparently my speech isn’t crystal clear. She gazed at me and suddenly asked, “Are you sick?”

    There were several other customers behind me. Ahem, is this the kind of question you ask customers? I quickly debated whether I was going to give her an explanation.

    No dearie. What you hear is a result of several years of speech therapy and diminished hearing. Very diminished hearing, my dear. As in deaf.

    Hmmm, I could add a little more nasality on the end and finish the sentence with a florish…

    ….deeaaaafffff.

    I could sit back and watch her take a few IQ points off if I miss any more questions that she fires off…

    Instead, I smile sweetly and say, “Oh yeah, I have a nasty cold.”

    And I remember to wipe my nose just before I hand her the pen back.