Remembering Lani

It will be six years on August 29 since Lani Brandolino Dickson left this world. Before Lani died she said "DON'T put my pictures in a box and forget me!" Well, her pictures aren't in a box, they are digitalized in my computer and I certainly haven't forgotten Lani, but I still think she would want to come out of the digital box and be formally remembered.

I met Lani at work in 2002. One day through mutual friends we ended up at a restaurant for lunch. It was a barbecue place over by St Marks. Lani was quite outspoken. She was sitting across the table from me being loud and saying the most outrageous things. After one of her comments I asked "what trailer park did you grow up in?" Without skipping a beat Lani came back with "the one right next to yours." That was the exact moment I knew that I liked her and wanted to be her friend.It was only a couple of months after I met Lani that she got sick. It seems like yesterday that we were standing outside an elevator and she lifted up the back of her shirt and said "feel this, what do you think it is?" She had a couple of really large lumps on her back. I didn't know what they were but didn't think they were good. Usually I would have said something like, "it's a tumor" as a joke, instead I just asked her if there were any other parts of her body she wanted me to feel.

Throughout her illness she kept her sense of humor and enthusiasm. A couple of months before she died we were at Dairy Queen. Lani loved DQ. Lani asked for a chocolate dipped ice cream cone. She asked the lady to dip it twice and she said "we don't dip twice." Lani looked at her and said "I'm dying, this could be my last ice cream cone." The lady just stared at her and said "we don't double dip." (She looked great. She definitely didn't look like she was dying.) At that point I got mad and screamed at the lady, "SHE'S DYING DOUBLE DIP HER DAMN ICE CREAM CONE!" The lady double dipped it and handed it to Lani. If looks could kill we'd both have dropped dead right then. We left DQ and Lani started laughing and said at least there was one benefit to dying.

I wish I could say that this flower garden in my back yard is still there as a tribute to Lani but in reality it is now a bunch of sticks and leaves.
When I took this picture, the flash went off, the bird jumped and Lani screamed. This made me laugh. However, Lani found no humor in it. She would sleep on the couch for hours with her oxygen and that heating pad. She had the heating pad turned up so high and was on so much pain medication that she got second degree burns.
This is Rhonda, Lani and me up at Huntsman for one of Lani's appointments.

Lani cleaning my kitchen with a bird on her head. Who couldn't love a woman who cleans your kitchen.

When Lani went to the University for the last time it was really hard. It was a terrible hospitalization. Her pain was poorly controlled and I saw some incredibly shoddy nursing and medical care. The total lack of compassion was to me as a nurse embarrassing. I will never forget the total lack of empathy. There was not one experience that was bad, it happened over and over. At one point Lani's central line came out. They left her in the preop area for three hours without pain medicine while she waited to get it replaced. Of course Lani was alone in the preop area and didn't have anyone there to advocate for her.

At one point Lani had a PCA pump (Patient controlled anesthesia) and she kept pushing the button. A nurse came in and literally yelled at her "If you keep pushing that button you are going to die!" Lani got this look of total fear in her eyes. It was horrible. I looked at the nurse and said "and if she doesn't push the button she won't die? Is not dying and option?" The nurse didn't say anything he just left the room. Just thinking about that memory enrages me! I like to think that because of how Lani was treated I am a better nurse. Through it all Lani endured.

A couple of days before she died Lani was in and out of consciousness. At one point she woke up and whispered, "Carol, come here." I lean over thinking she is going to say something important and she says, "It's shark week on the Discovery channel." What the crap? Every year when I see advertisements for shark week I think of Lani. Why shark week was important to her I do not know.

As I look back over these memories it seems like there are a lot more sad ones than happy. We did have some really fun experiences but honestly there were more sad than happy. Lani died about a year after I met her so the majority of the time I spent with her involved being with her while she was sick. Taking her doctor appointments, interleukin, radiation, MRIs, CTs.... People cross our lives for different reasons at different times. I think I crossed Lani's because she needed someone to advocate for her as she navigated health care. I think I crossed Lani's because I needed a reminder to always appreciate what I have and never take my family, husband, friends or life for granted. For whatever reason, I am glad our lives crossed.

Lani touched my life, my husbands and my children. She was one of the few people in the world Carter would talk to. She had an impact on Alika. We were in the ER at the U once and Alika was with us. Lani was having trouble breathing and she was very sad. She started crying and saying that she did not want to die. Alika was sitting next to her. I remember looking at Alika's huge, tear filled eyes and thinking, this is pretty intense for a 13 year old! I know Alika will always remember Lani and the trials she endured. Alex gets sad every time he hears Josh Grobin's song "You're still here" because it makes him think of her. For years AJ had this tiny little plastic toy in his room. I asked him once why he had it and he said Lani had given it to him.

Lani loved California. She didn't love Utah so much. She loved her friends, going out to eat and shopping. Lani loved her family. She loved her kids! She was heartbroken that she wasn't going to be here to see them grow up.

Lani, everyone who knew you misses you.

Look at you your 82

Mom turned 82 on August 7. Her cousin Eunice died on August 7th as well. Not a happy birthday event but Eunice had been sick for a long time. We didn't have mom's party until Sunday because that is our family party day. We had a mum's for mom party. Uncle Ed called and told me he wanted to get a mum for mom, then Marian wanted to, then John ...... Mom ended up with alot of mum's. She's going to plant them in her boxes for fall and then we will move them to the ground.
The picture above was fun. Mom didn't want to blow out her candles so I asked the kids to help. The minute the candles were lit they blew them out. No waiting for happy birthday or anything. We lit them again, sang and then they blew them out. They were so funny each one of them had a toy cell phone or camera and while we were singing they were all snapping pictures. They are children of technology.

Lynn, Wendy and the kids were at Park City this weekend. Chase jumped in a hot tub and chipped his permanent front tooth. When I told him I wanted to take a picture of his tooth Harrison came over and wanted a picture of his too. He just had surgery to remove his front teeth. (He has too many teeth) Then Jackson came over to show off his lack of teeth. Funny bunch of snaggle toothed children.

Sean was showing AJ and Steve some moves on the basketball court.

Don's little sister Darci has been fighting Melanoma for awhile now. It's been a roller coaster, it's bad, it's not so bad, it's good, it's not so good.... Cancer is nasty that way. She went to Mayo clinic in Chicago last week and she's going to start a new treatment that involves taking TMZ pills daily and twice a month 90 minute IV treatments of Avastin. It's a new drug trial We are hoping to see some positive results. One of the up sides of the treatment is that the research thus far shows that people receiving the treatment have a better quality of life receiving this treatment them some of the others. Some make you so sick you can't function. Darci is hoping she feels well enough to continue to teach this school year. Heck, she's been running two miles around the lake I can't imagine why she can't teach.

I'm amazed that with all the research done on cancer there are still so many lives affected by it. When I teach my CNA class the first day students always tell me something "different" about themselves. In this last class I had three students who had cancer. One of them is 19 and has had lymphoma since she was 14. She had a bone marrow transplant and was in remission but now it's back. She seems to be doing good though. She met a guy in class and they had their first date Friday night. Another girl is 20 and has had melanoma for a couple of years. I didn't get her whole story. The last one was in her 50's and has had cancer three different times. Good grief. She's a fighter. This was just one class of students. It's crazy. There is light at the top of the Huntsman Cancer Institute and John Huntsman Sr said it will stay on until they find a cure for cancer. Well, I wish they would hurry the heck up. Everyone think positive thoughts for Darci Don and I are thinking about her and her family alot. Catherine put Darci's name on the temple prayer role so now she has all the Mormon's praying for her in addition to all of Makinaw Illinois.

The midwife and I put in IUD's at the homeless clinic today. I now go around once a week to places where homeless women can be found such as homeless shelters, drug and alcohol addiction shelters, half way houses, domestic violence shelters, viaducts, river banks and talk to women about their birth control options. I particularly promote the IUD because it works for 7+ years and requires no follow up on the woman's part. At the clinic we put in two IUDs and they were both women I had gone out and "found." It made me so happy I could cry. They were both addicts, just out of jail with children they did not have custody. One was 21 and the other 23. Now they have 7 years to get their lives together. If they don't get their lives together that is 7 years of children that won't be born and end up in our foster care system. It was just so incredibly positive. My goal is to get IUDs for 100 women in the next 18 months. Can you imagine how many potential children would be born in 7 years to 100 homeless women who have already had children taken by the state. Hopefully the grant money for the IUD doesn't run out! I am just amazed at how powerless these women are. They don't want to have babies they just don't think they have any control over their fertility.

Funny story from the clinic. One patient says to another patient "I know you from somewhere, I just can't remember where." The other patient says "I used to sell dope in Pioneer Park." The first patient says, "Nah, that's not it,I never bought dope there."

Oh one more funny story. I was standing up against the nurses station and a homeless guy walks past me and says "nice ass!" I turned around and looked at him, I was going to say "nice teeth" but he didn't have any. I was happy he said "nice" and not "BIG."

Poor little biscuit

On Saturday we were at The Oaks for lunch and Sean kept licking a lemon and making faces. It was pretty cute and we were laughing but I noticed that the tip of his tongue looked red. I thought maybe he was getting a sore tongue because of the lemon so I took it away. He was OK all day but I noticed he was drooling a little. He's always been a saliva making kid so it wasn't that unusual. On Sunday we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Sean ate a peanut and started screaming like crazy. I told him to stick his tongue out and he had sores on the tip of it. That night when I gave him a bath I noticed two or three blisters on each of his hands and his feet. Bummer, poor little guy has hand, foot, mouth disease. Or as Don calls it, hoof and mouth.

I told Jenny Sunday night that he had hand foot mouth and was contagious. (Though according to the CDC they are contagious for months as they continue to shed the virus so there is no real benefit to isolation.) She wanted Don to drop him off on his way to work. He slept OK so Don dropped him off at 7. At 9 she called to tell me Sean had been sent home from daycare. Now that's a shocker! She said the daycare told her to take him to the doctor and get some medicine. I explained it was a virus and there is no medicine, you just have to keep him comfortable and let it run it's course. Apparently she got a friend to take her to the U where Sean saw a doctor who said "There is no medicine, give him ibuprofen." She ran around with her friend all day calling me periodically because her friend thinks she might be pregnant by a drug addict who beats her..... Too much drama. When she would call I could hear Sean crying. At 1:00 she called and asked if we could take Sean back because he can't go to daycare and Ryan has court. Don picked him up on his way home from work at 4.

Oh what a miserable baby he was. The virus had gotten worsel His tongue, and the sides of his mouth are covered with sores. I imagine they go down his throat too. He was hungry but everything hurt. I gave him ibuprofen, Tylenol and baby orajel. Nothing really seemed to help he was just sad. I laid down with him about 7:30 and he was so distraught. He wouldn't let me hold him or touch him but if I moved away from him he would grab me and hit me. He would just pound on my arms and scream. (Hm, I could make a joke about a family history of domestic violence but I will refrain) He was so mad that he hurt and he had to make doggone sure that I knew his pain. Finally, he went to sleep. I slept in his room and he would wake up every couple of hours and yell "MAAA." I would say "I'm here" and he would go back to sleep. Today we've been watching movies and he's been drinking Mountain Dew. Not the best choice of beverage for a 20-month-old but the only one he will drink.

This virus last 7-10 days and we are three into it. I'm hoping his mouth starts to get better and not worse. The blisters on his hands and feet are almost gone. Poor little biscuit! He wants you to know how miserable he is so you can share his pain. He would also like me to reach out and smack you but that's kind of hard to do through a computer. Consider yourself smacked by Sean.

Summer is winding up or down (don't know which)

We went to the lake yesterday with Alex and Loreal. The weather was perfect! I think everyone should have a condo at the lake so they can go hang out with their kids. Sometimes it's the only way to get adult kids to hang out with their parents. (No one has plans to use the condo next weekend if someone wants to go up).

The weekend before we went up with Alika and David and David's friend. It was hotter than heck and David and his friend didn't wear sunscreen and got fried. Alika must have watched 10 movies!

We got the cement poured in the backyard. They poured it the days it was 103 degrees. Gosh it was awful for the workers. The kids were happy when it was done and have played ball and rode scooters on the pad. It took forever but I imagine it will be worth it.

We had Nate at the house for a couple of days while Stephanie recovered from her gall bladder surgery. I am not sure how much recovering you can do with a 16 month old kicking you in the stomach and running up and down the stairs. Steph finally decided her house was easier because she doesn't have stairs. Nate is a funny little baby. He doesn't talk (which is funny because he has a sound for everything) but he signs like Helen Keller. His favorite thing to sign is "eat". Don was carrying in some ice cream cake from his 50th birthday and Nate followed behind him making the "eat" sign. Steph, AJ and I took Nate and Sean to Carl's Junior and the minute we walk in the door Nate starts signing "eat". It's pretty cute. Sean on the other hand just yells "BITE!" They decided for sure that there is just one baby is Steph's big uterus. They can't tell yet if it's a boy or girl but Steph is thinking it's a girl.

Art and Char got back in town yesterday but Art left again today. Char accepted a job at a hospital in Tennessee. Looks like they will be moving the first of September. Steph and Dan are going to move into Char's condo until Dan finishes school in May.

Grandma is going to be 82 on Friday. We're planning a family dinner on Sunday. (That make come as a surprise to some family members as we haven't told anyone our plans. We were hoping you would guess! Be there at 5 and bring a mum for mom. She needs fall flowers to plant on the porch.)

And that's our week!