Hope Sometimes Smells Like Burnt Popcorn

 

 

Fire & Boys....always an intoxicatingly frightening combination. Alex & Spencer Jackson 2009

Several years back, I scraped my toe (the piggy that eats roast beef) on a screw in my living room. I thought nothing of it—a surface wound at most. I wrapped a Batman band aid around it and went about my life. A few weeks later, I noticed the wound was infected. I diligently poured hydrogen peroxide on it, applied Neosporin, and wrapped the toe, once again; this time in a camo bandage.

The next day I felt lousy. By evening I was running a fever, aching all over and shaking with the chills.  Russ was teaching a night class at the time, and had left me alone to pop Motrin and climb into a tub of hot water. Later, I’d hastily dried myself and pulled on a robe before collapsing into bed besides Spencer and Logan who (ignoring my moans) cuddled close as they watched a show on TV.

As I lay there, somewhat comatose, wafting smoke started to fill the space between the ceiling and floor in our room. I turned to the boys, demanding, “Are you guys cooking something?” “No” they said in unison while the smoke continued filling the room. I DRAGGED myself out of bed, unsteady on my feet, and staggered down the stairs. Coughing, I waved my hand in front of my face so I could see, the smoke alarm shrieked insolently. Before I even reached the living room, Alex met me at the bottom of the stairs, choking on his own laughter. I stumbled to the microwave where I could see something was on fire, yanked the door open and with a hot pad grabbed the “cup of noodles” out of the microwave and hurried to throw it into the yard, grabbed the hose and sprayed it down.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” I demanded when I came back inside, throwing doors and windows wide to clear out the smoke. I pulled a stool over so I could turn off the blaring fire alarm. “It was the ultimate stink bomb! Remember?” he asked, erupting into laughter again, “I told you about it---I got the idea at school when a kid put a cup of noodles in the microwave without adding water. It filled the whole cafeteria with smoke, and Tyson called it the ultimate stink bomb. I thought I’d try it out.” (Alex had been talking about the ultimate stink bomb ever since he started fifth grade, but I couldn’t believe he picked this moment –with me, possibly seconds away from certain death- to implement his plan.) The smoke smelled worse than burnt popcorn and had a cloying quality to it—it permeated my hair, my clothes, and I think the very pores of my skin. I remember lightly smacking the back of Alex’s head (something I never did) and demanding, “What were you thinking?” “That’d it be funny” he said, giggling, while I heaved myself up the stairs. I collapsed once again on the bed next to the boys, the layers of smoke settling like early morning fog in the bedroom.

Fire....so....pretty...Loggy Bear feeling the effects of the flames... Jackson 2009

 

When Russ got home, I knew I needed to go the emergency room, (my fever had spiked to 105) but I was avoiding it like the plague. I felt stupid going to the ER with a “scraped toe.” But, in the end, my conscience won out. I pulled on the same jeans and sweater I’d been wearing earlier, (that had sat in a pile on the bathroom floor…just down the hall from where the microwave had given birth to that which should not be named) and staggered to the van. It was 9:00 pm, Russ stayed behind to get the kids to bed.

As soon as I walked in the ER, the secretary started sniffing the air, “I’m sorry “she said as I sat down, “I think somebody is burning popcorn. What was your name?” she asked, (turning her head to grimace at the offending odor) “The burnt popcorn smell is me. I didn’t have time to shower.” I mumbled, apologetically. “Oh.” The secretary said, her eyes watering. “Uh, what are you here for today?” She continued, her fingers flying across the key board. “I have a cut on my toe.” I said. “Does it need stitches?” She asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. “No.” “Oh.” She concluded (probably adding a side note to my chart that said, “Crazy lady probably seeking drugs for superficial wound. Alert psych ward. Offer her dinner, a shower and a lollypop, I think she’s subsisting on burnt popcorn.”) “Take a seat over there, dear, by the bookcase.” She directed. I stood up, wobbly, and walked to my designated spot…. the farthest place in the entire empty waiting room.

A nurse came out to retrieve me, stopped short as she opened the door to the ER, and cried to the secretary, “Did you burn popcorn?” The secretary, rolling her eyes, pointed her hitch hiking thumb towards me. “Oh no!” The nurse exclaimed. “Was there a fire?” She asked as she ushered me into an empty room. “Are you burned?” (I quickly relayed the ultimate stink bomb story to her) “Well, I think you ought to make your son sleep in the snow.” She concluded, appropriately. “I know,” I sighed, “and of course I have company coming tomorrow.”

The doctor pulled the curtain aside and came into the room, “Uh! What’s that smell?” He asked, eyeing the nurse, “It’s against hospital policy to make popcorn in the ER! I apologize, Mrs.…..ah….Tidwell. ” The nurse covering her face with my file whispered I’m sure a shortened version of the ultimate stink bomb story. Nodding, the doctor, breathing through his mouth, said, “Let’s take a look at your toe, shall we?” Bending over my offending foot, he peered at the swollen, red toe, and much to my complete shock, instead of telling me, “You came to the ER for a scraped toe???” called to the nurse, “I need two IV lines started STAT! (He actually said STAT, I thought that was just for the movies). Suddenly my bed was laid flat, I had two nurses (their eyes watering from the stench) starting IV’s on both of my arms, and bags of fluid were being attached and steadily squeezed as cold fluid entered my veins. An Intern popped his head in the doorway, “Staff infection” The doctor said, “Man, I can smell that from here!” The Intern commented, his brow creased. “The smell is not from the staff infection, but the ultimate stink bomb” the doctor and nurse said in unison.

“You have a staff infection, and the line of infection is rapidly climbing up your veins.” The doctor told me (from a safe distance in the corner of the room). The intern walked to the edge of my bed with a sharpie marker in his hand, and wincing, uncovered my foot (I was given a warm blanket to help me stop shaking from the fever…I’m sure they planned to burn it as soon as I left.) He drew a line from the source of the wound, up my leg, and circled the infection at its ending point. “We need to make sure the infection stops, and the medication does its work. I don’t mean to scare you, but this is a fast moving infection, when the nurse saw you, there was no red streak coming from the wound. Now, even with the IV’s attached, the line of infection is past your ankle and half way up your calf.” “What happens if it moves up my body?” I asked, (honestly still in shock that my scraped toe was causing so much duress, and the utterance of words like STAT) “That would be very, very bad.” The doctor said, The Intern added, “If it gets to your heart, it can be fatal” “Fatal?” I cried, “We have the science fair tomorrow, I don’t have time for fatal!” The doctor shot The Intern a harsh look and assured me everything would be okay. He thought we had caught it early enough.

I spent the night in the ER, went through a few bags of antibiotics, but when the first light of dawn started touching the mountains, the doctor came into my room for the last time. “You know, you kind of get use to the smell,” he said. “Thanks. I’m planning on bathing in tomato juice when I get home,” I assured him, sleepily. He laughed, but then growing serious said, “You know Joanie; people die from these infections.” “Really?” I asked, stupefied. “From a scraped toe?” “Yes." He said, handing me five prescriptions to fill,  "You did the right thing coming in.”

Smoke gets in your eyes.... Sticks AND fire....that is a heady combination! Spencer 2009

 

I have been thinking about the tendency I  have to battle it out with grief, whose presence to me, sometimes feels like a sudden, intense infection, something that certainly needs the words “STAT’ attached to it. And I confess, having two of my three sons diagnosed with autism means that I have spent many lonely nights in a metaphorical ER room, wondering over the beeping monitors and oxygen masks.  Mostly, I stumble about my days, clumsily happy. I go through the motions of living. I love my boys, we do homework, make revolutionary war costumes, do the dishes, walk the dog. We cycle through our days; but I think, as a coping mechanism, I attempt to keep the heaviness of life at a safe distance. Until, often unexpectedly, I stumble into pockets of grief, a potential infection as thick as molasses, and I can’t seem to wade through it fast enough. I am stilled by the heaviness. Rendered catatonic by the cache of emotion. And I confess, sometimes, when I am pliable, when all resolve to fight has slipped from my soul, drained like dish water, I have thought, “Move sluggish limbs! This is terminal!”

Grief, no matter its source, cannot be ignored: Heartache over our missteps as parents, anguish over setbacks, remorse that you’re not the mother you always thought you’d be and guilt over not loving every moment of your life as a parent. But here’s the deal with grief, if allowed to, it can spread to all the vital organs, spread with a tail of pink as vivid as a comet. In thinking about how I deal with the disappointments of life, the vicissitudes of loving, I’ve learned I need to address my anguish, before it gets to my heart.

So what do I do? I allow myself on occasion, to curl around the hurt, to keep it still and throbbing in my center. I feel what I don’t want to feel, what I avoid at every turn. BUT…then, I know, I must wean myself off the heartache before I become addicted, and wrap myself forever in the velvety cloak of fear. The first step in recovery, at least for me, is to get up from that fetal position and put my bra on. It’s to go for a walk. Talk to a friend. Do an activity I enjoy (and face the things that gives me the most fear, in a space where fear is not allowed to exist. If my boys are giving me anxiety, I try to take them somewhere I know they won’t get into too much trouble, like an empty park, or a padded room.) I laugh. I laugh often and heartily. I don’t read disturbing websites (like the ones about adults with autism) at night, when I am tired and vulnerable. I avoid negativity. I am working on asking for help when I need it (key word working). I avoid self pity. I trace grief with a sharpie, and say, “You are not allowed to cross this black line” I remember what my mother always said, (and her mother before her said, and her mother before her….) “this too shall pass.” Or “today is the day you worried about yesterday, and all is well.” 

Camping in the backyard: (that flash is brutal!!!) Jackson, 2009

 

Grief. We all have it. But I know now the purpose of grief is to shape the person we are becoming; the ragged infection of angst has broken me apart- but in the breaking, it has crashed into the place that holds all the compassion I am allowed in this lifetime, (I picture it in a glass capsule – sparkling like pixie dust) and set it free. And now, because of grief, compassion has consumed me, floats about in my veins as thick as blood cells. It fights off the infection of anxiety. It keeps company with love and charity. Yes, grief –in it’s intensity- has burst open the pockets of heartache and fear, but in so doing, has also allowed hope (fear’s nemesis) free to do battle, an antibiotic.

To me, taking control of my world means I don’t just brush the pieces of my life that give me anguish under the rug (at least not ALL the time) but rather, I recognize the disquiet heartache for what it is, and I move forward anyway. I accept that even in my resolve to push onward with hope, there will still be moments when I get tangled up in mourning, when grief over the life I have and the life I thought I wanted, will make me double over. But, with time I’ve learned, clutching my stomach and crying uncle isn’t what gives me fulfillment. What gives me joy is being a mother. And part of being a mother is being the nurse. I am the doctor for my boys, I am the comforter, and even with all my blaring imperfections, I have even become the antibiotic for the times when grief has seared my boy’s tender organs. I know I don’t want to be so caught up in my own sorrow, that I miss the chance to be the one sitting near my children with chicken soup and an icepack. I don’t want to miss one moment of comforting my boys in their times of mourning, in their times or reconciliation, in their own moments of grief.

Looking back – to that day when I was so sick, to the conception of the ultimate stink bomb, what I remember most is the look of joy on Alex’s face as I tumbled down the stairs; his triumph! His successful mimicking of other fifth grade boys. His dodging of my so very ordinary thundering and complaining about his actions just like any other boy would dodge their mothers when they had done something they knew was wrong. I’d taken off the kid gloves I always handle him with- I was an angry mom and he was just like any other ten year old boy. I remember his unreserved giggling, his mischievous grin.

Hope: it can save your life. It bubbles up like uncontrolled laughter- it cannot be contained.

And sometimes smells like burnt popcorn.