Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Tuesday, September 12, 2017 -- Mattie died 417 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in September of 2008. Mattie had completed a month's worth of chemotherapy by this point. By mid-day as you can see in this photo I was exhausted, since Mattie no longer slept at night. I think this was a natural reaction to living in a PICU, as there is constant activity and light 24 hours a day there, and it absolutely impacts patients and families. As I wanted to take a nap, I sat on my cot in the room and encouraged Mattie to rest for a few minutes. But you can see it was virtually impossible. Mattie's legs were moving all over the place and he just did not want to be contained in a bed. What fascinates me is the body adjusts to not getting sleep. After a while if you don't get it and you are living under constant stress, you somehow learn to function on very little sleep. 


Quote of the day: Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

This is Day 5 and the final day of orange tie week! Peter and I want to thank Tim for keeping this tradition going in memory of Mattie. It certainly brightens up Mattie's anniversary week for us. It is very special knowing that someone who never met Mattie, feels like he knows him from our words and stories!  

This afternoon, I went on a walk with Sunny. Since he had two walks already prior to this third walk, my goal was for it to a short walk. FORGET it. I was out with him for over 90 minutes! Why? Well two people I met on the street, STRANGERS, started talking to me and one in particular was non-stop chatter for over thirty minutes. Both of these individuals started talking to me because of Sunny. One fellow literally gave me his life story, which I won't repeat here. But Sunny caught his attention because he grew up watching Lassie on TV. He stopped me for a good twenty minutes. The next person was a lady with a sad history as she lost her mom, brother, and fiance to cancer. Clearly she was lonely, which I gathered, as she was talking to me a COMPLETE stranger for thirty minutes about her life. Make a long story short, she stopped me because she felt that Sunny looked like a fox and wanted to know if one of Sunny's parents was an actual fox!!!! Get the picture?!

I have no doubt that the average person would have walked away from both of these individuals. But I did not want to be rude, as clearly they needed to talk to someone. As long as I deem myself safe, which I was, then I let the talking go on. Meanwhile you maybe asking what Sunny was doing while all this chatter was going on? Well he got the picture and literally sat down next to me on his own volition. He is one smart and sensitive pooch! 

My conclusion for the day is that there are many lonely and troubled people all around us. Not just adults but teens and kids. It is scary how many significant mental health challenges our youth are experiencing today. One has to ask why? I am not sure there is just one answer to this, but what I do sense is we have moved away from a society that knows how to connect with each other, knows how to listen, and wants to invest and help those who live around us. We are too busy working, glued to technology, and focused inward. Living like this has consequences on our overall culture and I see it each day on the streets of DC while walking Sunny.