The Unmournable Loss

Sunday would have been my Grandfather’s 95^th birthday. If he were still alive, we would have celebrated with beef stroganoff and homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top – the same birthday dinner he had every year for as far back as I can remember. Instead, it was a sad reminder that he has been gone for eight years. I was deployed to Iraq when my Grandfather, the man I most respected in all the world, died. I didn't even know about it until two days afterward (thanks to a combination of the time difference and spotty internet). It seemed so wrong that I didn't know - the world should have come to a standstill - the loss of this great man should have sent shockwaves around the world. It is true, my Grandfather had been losing strength for several years and we all knew we did not have a lot of time left with him, but I thought I would see him again (I was set to return to the States at the end of the month). The loss was sudden and heart-rending. Eight years later, the pain is still raw. I can't even write this without tears filling my eyes and a lump forming in my throat. When I read my Mom's email, I was devastated. I locked my computer and walked straight to my room, where I cried myself to sleep. The weather was bad in Ramadi, Iraq, which prevented me from leaving the base. Red air. That is what they called the condition when desert winds kicked up so much dust, helicopters were grounded due to lack of visibility. The chaplains on base were very supportive and tried to comfort me, but for the next few weeks I did most of my grieving in the quiet of the night, alone.

Fast-forward eight years to present day and once again, I’ve lost a grandparent - my last grandparent. It is so different, though. While I was not as close with Grandma as I was with Grandpa, she has been an extremely influential person in my life. She taught me to sew, to sift flour like Fannie Farmer, and make stained-glass cookies. She was always kind and gentle, loving even the unlovable and accepting everyone (even the boyfriends my sisters, cousins, and I brought home that no one else liked). She added "-kins" onto the ends of all our (the grandchildren’s') names, and read the same stories over and over again, doing all the voices like she was reading it to us for the first time. But the closeness or lack thereof is not the reason for the difference. The reason this loss is different is Grandma is still alive. She has advanced-stage Alzheimer’s. The difficult part – who am I kidding? Everything about Alzheimer’s is difficult! I guess the part I am having the hardest time wrapping my head around is just how incredibly quickly it developed. In November 2015, we noticed she was having a harder time coming up with words during normal conversation, and she would get confused if there were too many conversations going on at once (a normal occurrence when my family gets together). A month later, at Christmas dinner, she was confusing people (she was calling me by my mother’s name). Three months after that, March 2016, the grandmother I knew was gone. She was incapable of doing the most basic things for herself. The empty shell that remains behind wanders aimlessly throughout her house, picking up items and moving them from room to room, leaving messes in her wake. She doesn’t recognize any of her children or grandchildren. We are all strangers invading her home. I am not even sure she recognizes the house she resides in as her home, even though she has lived there since the 1960s.

I never had the chance to say good-bye. While she was still lucid, she refused to acknowledge that anything was wrong, so I couldn’t very well have that one last heart-to-heart with her. There were no last words of “remember I love you even when I can no longer recognize you.” Instead we played along with her “all is well” attitude until it was too late. I thought we would have more time with her. I had no way of knowing her mind would go so suddenly. I miss her, but it feels wrong to grieve when she is still walking, talking, and breathing. I may not be able to mourn her right now, but the loss is still very real.

All is Calm, All is Bright

Like many nights before, there have been no fires, accidents or medical emergencies. We are driving in the engine merely to fill up on fuel. And as I look out on the brightly lit town that has been my home for more than two years now, I feel like I belong. I can hear my fellow firefighters poking fun at one another through the headsets we all wear, as some vaguely familiar pop song plays on the radio. I've felt this sense of camaraderie before, but it was always short-lived and usually in a war zone. Little did I know the kind of brotherhood I would be joining when I filled out the volunteer application a little over a year ago. Despite never wanting to live in this location, I am surprisingly happy to be right here, right now.

A Rough Night

It was a night of firsts for me, but not in a good way. I experienced things I would have preferred to never experience. Now, I realize that by volunteering to be a firefighter, I signed up to take the bad with the good and to do my best to help the people in my community as they experience these tragedies. First #1: I performed chest compressions on a patient who had gone into cardiac arrest. It was not the feel of her lifeless body beneath my hands, nor the expressionless look on her face - it was not even the nearby paramedics suctioning vomit from her mouth that bothered me. It was the fact that it felt like abuse. Who am I to pound on her chest and demand that she live? It seemed like it would have been more merciful to allow her to pass onto the next life in peace, rather than surrounded by the controlled chaos present in her room that evening. Of course, it is up to the patient to have a DNR in place if they do not want to be revived, so I guess that was what she wanted. It was an eye-opener for me, though. I now know that I want to have a DNR when that time comes.

My second first that night was a suicide. I've known people who later committed suicide, but I had never seen the body after the attempt was made. I didn't feel particularly emotional, but I kept thinking "how does a person get to the point where killing themselves seems like best course of action? or the ONLY course of action left?" I didn't really feel much for the person lying there in front of me, still warm, despite the cold temperature that night, but not breathing. My heart went out to the parents, who found their child in that state. Many parents wonder if they failed - it is most parents' worst fear. These parents didn't have to wonder. There is no second chances. No do-overs. Just regrets that they will live with for the rest of their lives (regardless of who was to blame). 

Some days I get to be a hero to a group of girl scouts, getting my picture taken with them and high-fiving. Other days I get to deal with death, up close and personal. In this field, as in many others, there are highs and lows, and everything in between. I am learning to take it all in stride.

The Latest Challenge

I've always thought of myself as pretty strong. I used to work out pretty regularly and I have always been active, even without a work-out routine in place. As with most women, my weakest point is the upper body, particularly shoulders and forearms. This is quickly becoming a problem for me, especially since I do not have the time I need to increase strength in these areas. In fire school, we have gotten to the section on ladders - taking ladders off of the rig, raising ladders up against buildings, and putting ladders back up on the rig. Each one of those things looks so easy when I watch other people do it, but it feels nearly impossible when I am doing it myself.  Thankfully, the proctors were not judging us on stylistic points. A little huffing and puffing and some finagling eventually got the ladder in place. Needless to say, I will be working out my shoulders and triceps a bit harder before the next test.

Just Another Day at the Firehouse

We had just gotten back to the station after eating breakfast at our regular weekend breakfast spot when we saw a car get pulled over. Most of us didn't think anything of it (the cops love to hang out around the fire station), but one of the firefighters decide it was an opportunity he couldn't pass up. He pulled up something on his phone and held it up to a landline in the station. Suddenly, we all heard it coming from the loudspeakers outside of the firehouse: "bad boys, bad boys, uh, whatcha gonna do? whatcha gonna do when they're comin' for you?" We all busted out, laughing. I am sure whoever was in the middle of getting a ticket did not find it nearly as hilarious, but I am guessing the cop got a chuckle out of it. What can I say? Firefighters are natural pranksters.

Confessions of a Claustrophobe

This is a story of a little girl who would freak when her sister climbed in behind her into a snow igloo (which she and her sister had built), because there was only one opening and with her sister in the opening, she felt trapped (never mind that she could have stood up at any point and broken through the roof of said igloo). Fast-forward 30 years. That little girl, now a grown woman, has never overcome that fear of tight spaces, but she wants to be a firefighter.

Last week's fire school classes made me face these fears to a degree that I have never had to before. After completing (and I use completing in the loosest possible way) the air consumption test, we had a bit of a break, and then it was onto the maze. I knew I was dreading it, but really didn't know exactly what it was I was dreading. It turned out to be so much worse than I had imagined.

So, let me back-track for a minute. The week leading up to the air consumption test was very stressful for me because I had a track record of freaking out when "on air."  I don't enjoy breathing air that comes out of a cylinder (yes, I SCUBA dive, and I realize there is a disconnect here, but what can I say? It's a woman's prerogative to be inexplicable).  I was not sure I would be able to go through the test without hyperventilating and then tearing off my mask in a mad frenzy. For several nights that week, I woke up multiple times to heart-racing panic attacks. I knew what was causing them, but I could not get my unreasonable fears under control.

I did make it through the consumption test without hyperventilating (very thankful for that). Every claustrophobe has their own way of dealing with the discomfort - singing, humming, thinking of something pleasant. For me, it's focusing entirely on the task at hand. The more concentration a task takes, the easier it is for me to "forget" that I am on air. Climbing the stairs is the worst because it takes almost no concentration. Conversely, raising the fly on the extension ladder is great because it takes ever ounce of my concentration.

A little later, staring into the low, narrow hallway that begins the maze, I froze. My heart was racing, my breathing was far from under control, and the terror of being accidently locked in my dark bedroom closet as a child returned with more force than I could have imagined. I could NOT make myself go any farther into that shipping container. Thankfully, one of the instructors had mercy on me and allowed me to take the mask off and go through it like that. There were still moments when I felt irrationally scared (usually when I got stuck), but I was able to continue on until I made it to the end and back out into the sunlight. I will have to do it again at some point - on air - but that is a fear to face another day.

Since then, I have had nightmares every night, and every night it's the same two nightmares. One is where I am in a coffin, buried alive. The other is right out of a WWII movie... I am escaping a POW camp through a small tunnel.. there are guys in front of me and guys behind and I am stuck in this tiny little tunnel. The panic attack that ensues wakes me before the dream is able to come to a natural end, and I am left lying there in bed, shaking with adrenaline coursing through my body, trying to calm myself and go back to sleep.

Now, you may be wondering why I continue down this path when it seems that this is NOT the hobby for me. But the truth is, this confined space rescue stuff is such a small part of fire fighting, and I LOVE the fire service. I have been a probationary fire fighter for approximately 9 months and count down the days between duty crew assignments. As this point, not making it through fire school would be the most depressing thing that could happen to me. I am determined to face down my fears and finish what I've started!