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A New Heart...A New Life - Part 4

     There is something about laying in a hospital bed. unable to do anything for yourself, that makes you start thinking about your life.  You wonder if you have done everything that you wanted to do, and if you will ever be able to do those things - or anything - again.  That is where I found myself on December 17 - after the stroke, the surgery, the sort of dying, the atrial fibrilation...and the knowledge that they were moving me to Cottage Rehab, hopefully to recover some of my normalcy. The doctor told me that he couldn't tell me how much of my former self could be recovered; he could only tell me that my heart would start to beat normally for the first time in my entire life.  So...I had a choice to make...      I guess that Doctor Little Prick never considered that this Southern Steel Magnolia has never allowed anything to keep her down for long.  Two divorces - one from a bad man, and one from a good man, the loss of my twins (probably the biggest pain of my life), the l
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A New Heart...A New Life - Part 3

 In our lives, there are human angels who come to us when things get difficult, and when we question whether or not we can go on.  These angels give us love and kindness and show us the reasons why we must keep fighting.  For me, at this most difficult of times, my angel was (and still is!) named Tracy Coates.  She and I had been friends for a while, and she has always been a great conscience for me in the workplace.  But, little did I know, that when I was beaten and scared, and full of anxiety for what would come next, Tracy never left my side. She was there to listen to my rants, catch my tears, and remind me why life is worth living. And there was one incident that sealed Tracy's place in my life.            On the afternoon of December 15, 2016, I was in my hospital room after surgery. I was a little peeved because they would not let me have a Diet Coke, and was rather grumpy.  Tracy was sitting beside my bed, tryng to keep my mind off my Diet Coke-less state, and I was feelin
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A New Heart...A New Life - Part 2

On the third day after the thing they liked to call a stroke, but I was still calling "my left side refusing to cooperate", the doctor told me about the hole in my heart.  He said that, if I didn't have it fixed, that my chances of having another stroke were 80-90%, but with the little piece of nickle patching the hole, my chances went down to less than 10%.  So, of course, I agreed and he planned the surgery for December 15, 2016.       Right before the surgery, the doctor told me that, because of the fact that I only have one kidney (a very old story that will be told another day), that he would be "flying blind" with only a heart sonogram to guide him to the correct part of my heart. ( A little explanation, usually, the doctor can put a dye into the IV that sort of acts as a little series of arrows, pointing in the right direction.) So, with that knowledge stuck somewhere in my brain, they loaded me on to this little board that holds you completely still w
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A New Heart...A New Life Part 1

This is me... Until December 11, 2016, I was a normal woman, living a fairly normal life, expecting that things would turn around for me at any moment.   Then, at 9:30 pm, my life changed forever. I had a stroke.  The first sign of the stroke was the stroke itself. I never had any "episodes"...I didn't get a headache or see halos around lights... I simply tried to get up to go to the restroom, and my left side didn't do what I told it to do.  Me, having a very weird sense of humor, laughed and said  (out loud), "What the FUCK?"  Yes, I know that a lady doesn't curse, but when your body will not do what it has done thousands of times throughout your life, I feel that the aforementioned "fuck" was acceptable and forgiveable. So, it passed and I was able to go to the loo to do my business.  Then, 10 minutes later, my friend Don called and we spoke for a few minutes.  Then, he said, "Lisa, you need to get off the phone with me rig
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Is Love supposed to be like Work?

     Hello, my friends.  I am between busy times (school out last week, CADA camp starting in two weeks), so I have time to ramble about the weirdness of life and the intricacies of human interaction.  So, a friend and I were talking yesterday about love.  Aren't we always?  Where do you find love? Is love physical or emotional? Does that really hot guy or girl love me? Why doesn't that really hot guy or girl love me?      Anyway, the crux of our conversation was about the idea that love must involve work - working out your differences, working to make communication better, working to make sure that the hotness stays in your relationship.   Cosmopolitan  magazine has made a fortune trying to answer these questions through thought-provoking articles like "10 Secrets to Making Your Man Fall in Love Again" and those so accurate quizes like "What is your Love Style" (which is more about fashion than love.) So, really, what DOES make love last?      I started
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Why does this stuff happen?

     I went to see Wonder Woman  yesterday. because I have a great affinity for superheroes - DC, Marvel - it doesn't matter, and my favorite of the superheroes are the ones who are flawed but still manage to do good in their world.  Iron Man, the supreme asshole of assholes, uses his extraordinary mind to combat the evil that threatens mankind.  Deadpool is hired muscle who beats up people before his "conversion" - but the people are really bad people who deserve getting beaten up.  But, I digress.  I really want to discuss Wonder Woman, and her innocent but rather endearing idea that all evil in the world is the fault of one person.      You know, our world today is still making the same assumptions.  When something horrible happens, we look for the culprit - the one to whom we can assign the blame, and hopefully, dole out the punishment.  Last night, a man crashed a van into a group of Muslim worshippers as they left their Mosque.  From the moment it happened,
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Why are we surprised by Donald Sterling?

Oh, yeah, I know what you are going to say..."He owns an NBA team with a majority of players who are black.  Most of the people who make money for him are black..."  Okay, so exactly HOW does that make it surprising that this man is a racist?   In the 1860s, in the deep South, black men made white men very rich - but those white men called the black men "animals" and perpetuated myths about him that still haunt and stereotype. Those stereotypes and myths are still at work in the mind of men like Donald Sterling. It doesn't make a man less racist just because he owns a multi-billion dollar professional basketball team and pays his players fairly well. He still can see them as property, and will use them until they are used up.  I love basketball.  Actually, I love all sports, but I played basketball in my younger days and so I have a special understanding of the sport. Until 1995 (when the babies were put on the court), I watched the NBA religiously - and I f
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