http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Ten-best-and-worst-moments-of-2010-112654449.html?page=2
Ten best and worst moments of 2010
The bad and good, the ying yang of news stories from this year
By PATRICK COOPER , IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
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Everyone seems to be doing this. Guess I’ll have to do one as well.
BEST
① Frau Reinke escapes the clutches on RWJUH and appears to be good enough to stay out. Barely!
② The genuine admiration of Frau Reinke for my completion of “CHURCH 10●19●62”
③ Blood and platelets were available every time she needed them.
④ My oldest friend calls to console me on Mom’s death and, reflect on my Aunt’s death a few weeks prior, tells me: “Things happen in threes”, not knowing that Ev’s just crashed and is in the Cardiac Cath lab with the Doctors disagreeing on what to do. I found it hard to tell him and his chagrin was funny. I laughed so hard … Well let’s just say that’s the type if thing I do. No wonder I love him.
⑤ A fun afternoon with an “older” friend who can’t stand hospitals. Great beer and wings. I gotta get back there.
⑥ She requalified for her “black label”; thanks to our “old” friends coming to visit her. That was all she was worried about. Not dying, but losing her “black label” status. That, and missing out on her pillows. ROFL!
⑦ The rapport she established with the Four North staff. She has a gift to connect with people that I just don’t have. She made them laugh. As she does me. Or used to before she got so sick. Now not so much is funny.
⑧ The rapport she established with the nurses of the SPUH Infusion Lab and other patients in the lab. She encourages others; I don’t have that skill.
⑨ The great prix fix dinner at Sea Blue when Frau Reinke was healthy enough to enjoy it and our old friends.
⑩ The few times when I’ve been able to help people with their problems, it’s been very satisfying. Like the worried old woman coming in to 4 North, and I told her she was coming to the “best floor in the hospital”. She relaxed and gave me a big smile. The nurses told me later that she was a different person after that comment. Made me feel good! Connecting folks on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Jottings.
WORST
❶ Frau Reinke hits an HG of 3 and rushed to the ICU. Several doctors give me “the talk”.
❷ Frau Reinke spends the better part of the summer and fall in RWJUH with no diagnosis. (It upsets me how the medical folks make her “my problem”. Threw her out the door, like a boomerang, and they act surprised when she comes back into them in critical, or near critical, condition.)
❸ The death of a baby, third grandchild of our “old friends”, of a blood abnormality at exactly the same time as Frau Reinke. To have potential life lost is sad. One wonders at “The Plan”?
❹ TV rental at RWJUH of almost 5 bucks a day. Parking 20$/day unil I got their Frequent Flier card. The ambulance bills from RWJUH; let them sue.
❺ The inability to get anyone to read my magnus opus “CHURCH 10●19●62”; I still cry when I read it. What could have been. That’s the story of my life. Like Rocky, “I coulda been a contender”.
❻ Continued inability to focus on much of anything but her. Writer’s block, paperwork block, diet block. Frustration!
❼ Realization that I am now unemployed / retired. I’m now a home health aide. It’s not how I expected to spend my retirement.
❽ Regret for lost opportunities! So many, makes me sad.
❾ Fender bender on the way to RWJUH!
❿ Realization of what life would be like without my soul mate. Realization of how much life has changed with her condition. Realization of how much she can’t do. Frustration with her insistence “to do it herself” and I have to clean up after.
Now it’s time to move on!
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Posted by reinkefj 
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