3.23.10: Janice Young

Today I was super tired. Reagan's mom told me she only had to work until 1 today. And then at 2, she said she was on her way to pick Reagan up. She showed up at 3.

Rex, meanwhile, is getting his 2-year-old molars and as such is having a hard time sleeping, especially since he only cries at bedtime so I think he's being a stinker instead of giving him Tylenol.

I just need a break. I want to go shopping without Rex and Reagan (or even Greg for that matter) and just wonder around the mall, but finals are coming up and with Rex not napping I don't have a ton of time to work on my schoolwork.

I was in the midst of feeling really bad for myself when I had to go visit a sister (Janice Young) in our ward, who wouldn't let children over to her house. Needless to say, I was thrilled at having to find a babysitter so I could not go shopping by myself.

But then I got to Janice's house and had one of those experiences where I gained so much more from the encounter than she ever could have.

Janice is 72 and is in terrible health. She spent an hour and a half telling us the story. Here it is in a few sentences: About a year ago, her heart started bothering and then her lungs. She went to several doctors, tried a cocktail of pills, and had a few procedures performed. It was the last procedure that nearly killed her--three times. I forget the name of the procedure but it involved using a lazer to fix her heart, but the lazer got wound up and ended up blasting a hole in her heart, so she ended up having open -heart surgery to repair the hole and all the other damage done by the doctors as they tried to fix the hole without cutting her open. As a result, she was in the hospital or a rehab center, spending several weeks in the ICU, for about a month and a half. I can't even image what her medical bills look like. And like I said, she almost died three time, and would have gone, but she couldn't find her husband, who died 11 years ago, so she decided to stay.

As she told this story along with a mountain of faith-promoting stories, she kept laughing and telling jokes about funny things the doctors and nurses said, and, this is what really got me, kept telling us how fantastic her doctors were.

When she was done with her story, I told her I wanted to be just like her. Really. How different would my experience with Rex in the NICU have been if I could have laughed just a little? Instead, I spent a lot of time being angry and hateful. Her doctor's mistake almost killed her 3 times; Rex was never in any real danger. While I don't regret being angry, or think that Rex's doctors made a good call in delivering him early, I think this time around is going to be different. I can still assert my rights as a patient and get the care that I need and want, but it's true, you really do catch more bees with honey than with vinegar...or however that saying goes.

So I'm heading to a party store to pick up a few props to dress baby in, just to get a laugh. Janice wore a clown wig while she was in the hospital just to be funny, and I really do want to be just like her.