Perspective

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OK, so I have a certain type of sense of humor.  I’ll admit to that as I’m reminded of it frequently BUT no one has ever walked up to me and smacked me across the face.  Goodness, couldn’t Will Smith have maybe taken Chris Rock aside and said, “Hey buddy, no more jokes about my wife.  She’s already got plenty to deal with.”  And that would have been that but instead world-wide TV coverage?

And then…

Diane and I have much enjoyed our time on Marco Island which will soon end, but before we leave, I want to share what has been churning up inside me for the past couple of weeks and, yes, part of it has to do with the infamous PEG. I continue to do my exercises to strengthen my swallowing process on a regular basis. Part of the exercise regimen has to do with sticking my tongue out and holding it there and another fun task is to say EEEEEEE very loud and “hold it there.”  I find it best to do these alone and consequently do them on my first walk of the day, generally at 6 a.m. when no one is out, and I’m less likely to scare the residents on this island where the average age is 65.  

The presence of PEG and related issues are beginning to wear on me.  Imagine if you will, looking down and seeing this protrusion from your stomach day after day for what is now 8 months. There is no way to get away from it and it is constantly there reminding you that it must be dealt with and respected as it controls much of your life. Every morning after my walk, I return to the condo and “prepare.” I open my Jevity 1.2 plastic containers and then get some very hot water which I pour down the open big syringe into my stomach. I can’t feel the hot water but use hot water in the event the tube, for whatever reason, has clogged up between feedings. Next, I pour the Jevity into the syringe which goes into the tube into my stomach. This process takes an hour. I repeat this two or three times a day; it is tedious at best.

It’s not so much the drudgery of all this but rather the complications that arise—the accidents. If I roll over the wrong way at night, my tube “plug” can become dislodged, and the contents of my stomach drain out everywhere before I wake up. This requires a total change in bedding–sheets, pillow cases, mattress pad, and the worst parts need to be “soaked” due to the acidity of what has drained out. The other day when I excited the car after dropping family members at the airport, PEG decided to become unplugged! Suddenly I looked down to see my shirt, pants, and underpants soaked with stomach contents.  I’m at the damn airport–what to do? I had no choice but to look for the nearest bathroom where I found a stall that had a hand dryer, so I stripped naked except for socks and shoes and stood there drying out my clothes for 45 minutes. I can only imagine what people in that men’s bathroom thought was going on in that stall. I now carry a spare set of clothes around with me in the car.  Yes, I can live with these small indignities but they certainly intrude on one’s day.

And then…

I did use the title PERSPECTIVE so let me explain and amplify. My world is currently a bit topsy-turvy from what I am used to but life has a way of letting us know that maybe things aren’t quite as discordant as we imagine.  I encourage you to not take things for granted and to enjoy the hand life has dealt you.  Next time you are dressing or undressing and happen to glance in the mirror, imagine seeing a seven-inch plastic tube sticking out of your stomach and it is tethered to you 24/7 for goodness knows how long if not forever.  Self-pity is not particularly flattering and the realities of everyday living make us all face a world in which there are inhabitants who make that crystal clear.  Gordy Taylor is no exception.

And then… 

Recently, while walking the beach with Diane, we came upon a boy in a wagon being pulled by his mom. What the dickens was he doing in a wagon? I thought for an instant, “Get out of that damn wagon and walk so your mom doesn’t have to pull you.  The exercise will do you good.”  Thoughtless idiot!  As we got a bit closer, I realized he would like nothing better than to get out of that wagon and walk, and skip, and jump, and play but most likely he will never get to do any of those things. I thought to myself.  “Hey, Gord, I’ll bet he’d love to trade places with you; he gets PEG and you get to get pulled around in a wagon for the rest of your life.”  Of course I didn’t know the severity of his situation until I saw him up close but still, “perspective” and we all need to keep that in mind in terms of the countless people who enter and exit our lives every day. I’m confident that some of you reading this have challenges as well but for most of us, we sometimes just need to sit back and count our blessings realizing our lives are pretty darn good.

And then…

Take it one step further. Turn on the TV tonight and watch the national news just for a couple of minutes.  As we watch the horrors happening in real time to the people of Ukraine, our own problems seem pretty trivial by comparison. It is hard to even comprehend this is happening. It is 2022, not September 1, 1939, when Hitler and the German Army invaded Poland. Most of us are too young to remember those atrocities as they happened, but as members of the world community and students of history, we know they did. We were led to believe that this could never happen again. But they have and they are playing out in front of us. I am not a political scholar, but I know there is something terribly wrong with all this.  Let’s hope NATO and whoever can find a way to cease the carnage that seems to escalate daily. I grasp that Putin wants to recapture the Russia of pre-1991 and probably more but who in their right mind (probably the point) found it remotely acceptable to destroy hospitals, apartments, theaters, museums, maternity wards, schools, and homes to accomplish those objectives? 

This all seems so surreal. We are living our lives here while unspeakable terror is being subjected upon innocent people who simply want to enjoy the freedoms we all take for granted. Ukrainians don’t want to invade anyone; they don’t want to kill anyone (well, maybe one person); they just want to be left alone in their part of the world community. I assume that soon we will have an opportunity through the Red Cross or whatever to help these unfortunate people, but it all seems so senseless and unbelievable.  I suppose that’s because it is just that–senseless and unbelievable.  

This reminds me a bit of that iconic photo we all saw of the young girl running down the road in Vietnam, naked and burned from a napalm attack. Regardless of your politics or position on the war (which is what it really was even if undeclared), it made us feel awful and the photos we are seeing today of children crying and mothers saying goodbye to their husbands and sons makes us feel the same. Cities literally shelled and burned to the ground. After WWII we thought this would never happen again, but it has and is playing out right in front of us. 

The point of all this is again—“perspective.” Much like Humphrey Bogart said to Ingrid Bergman in the film Casablanca, “Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”  The problems we face pale in comparison to what a nation of 44 million citizens in a country roughly the size of Texas is confronting today across the world from us. 

And then…

Diane and I became friends on Marco Island with a couple who “rent and run” like us each year in our building.  Upon their departure this week, I had the opportunity to ask Richard and Pat who are a bit older than us about any philosophies about life.  He didn’t bat an eye and looked directly at me and said, “Gordy, I have had health, wealth, love, and the time to enjoy it.”  Pretty nice if you can get it.

And then…

Tonight, if you have not, say a prayer for the proud people of Ukraine.