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Can You Tell Me Why?

"Now I finally understand there's nothing we could have done to save John," Jackie said, "because there's nothing anyone can do to save me." 


At 17, Laura Guilfoyle's older brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. By the age of 31, she had lost her younger brother and sister to suicide. She turned to the National Alliance on Mental Illness to find answers to why she was spared the devastating brain illnesses which destroyed her family.

Can You Tell Me Why? is now available for sale on amazon.com.


 

 

Everyone Needs an Advocate in the Hospital

     I spent six days in the hospital recently, the first time I had been in the hospital since I was born.  My right leg developed cellulitis and needed intravenous antibiotics.  It spread from my toes to my thigh, looking like third degree burns.  It didn't hurt, but my toes looked like stuffed sausages and the bottom of my foot swelled up, obliterating my arch.  It felt like walking on bubble wrap.
     Worried about blood clots, they conducted an ultrasound in the ER.  It was negative.  They did a chest x-ray because of my deep cough.  Finding a vein for drawing blood and putting in an IV line was a challenge, due to my severe dehydration.  They had to call in a specialist, who was glad to have the time and a half.  
     While I have visited many people in hospitals, both general and psychiatric, I never truly understood before how completely vulnerable and helpless it makes you feel.  The loss of  dignity, wearing shapeless hospital gowns with rear exposure, and using port-a-potties and bed pans.  The claustrophobic feeling of being tied to an IV pole.  Being woken up in the middle of the night by beeping monitors which nobody bothers to turn off until you are fully awake and unable to get back to sleep.  

Lesson Learned:  Don't ignore early warning signs of infection.  It doesn't get better on its own, no matter how much you pray.   

     The infection was actually the least painful experience.  Chronic diarrhea due to the antibiotics.  A hacking cough like I had a pack a day habit.  Endless bloody noses thanks to the blood thinners.  My blood pressure, which was normal when I entered the hospital, started to soar.  Unfortunately some of the nurses were more interested in taking vitals for their reports than making their patients comfortable.  
     The most frightening point for me was when my foot started to swell again, after the inflammation had finally started to subside.  I was terrified.  Sheila, the care partner, saw how upset I was and put her arms around me like I was her own daughter.  It was unbelievably kind of her.  
     On the other hand, the nurse delivered the news there was nothing further they could do, then decided it was the best time to take my blood pressure.  I shrieked in pain as she carelessly let the cord touch my inflamed foot.  As she tightened the noose around my arm, she lectured me on how I needed to relax. 
     After I could speak again, I informed her the last thing you want to tell someone is to relax when they're in pain.  It has the opposite effect.  When she continued to argue the point with me, I told her to get out.  Enough was enough.
     Thankfully, my niece, Brandy, is a nurse and she was able to get them to give me a saline nasal spray to stop my bloody nose and to end the IV solution to help with the diarrhea.  She put lotion on my leg to help keep it moisturized and told them to give me cough syrup for my cough.  Without her, my stay at the hospital would have been much more miserable.
     Now I am home recovering and all I have to worry about is how I'm going to pay the hospital bills.        

Lesson Learned:  It's important to have a patient advocate who knows the medical system in your corner.

   
            
     
    
       

Best Spa Town in Poland

The guidebooks are wrong!  They say Krynica Zdroj is the best spa town in Poland, but it's not true.  I'll grant you it's bigger than Iwonicz Zdroj, but it doesn't have half its charm.  Plus, there is a distinct urine smell on the wooden benches, hopefully from dogs.

I'm pleased with myself for walking ten minutes uphill and standing for another ten minutes at the bus stop.  I even manage to find the right bus and get off at the right stop.  This may sound easy to you, but believe me, it's quite a feat when you don't speak the language.

I wander into the old pump house and peek into a treatment room, where they're filling a copper tub with steaming mineral water.  By the way, you can tell the spa patrons from the tourists by their canes.  If anyone stops me at the spa, I just limp away. Works every time.

Of course, there's the requisite whitewashed church with a tall steeple and mosaic tiles on the ceiling dome depicting Jesus and his disciples.  I even say a prayer or two for my family.  I've been to enough churches in Poland to last a lifetime, and a few synagogues as well, and not just to cool off from the oppressive heat, although this is a major draw!

I decide to try the ice cream, but the lines are too long. You can always tell which ice cream is best by the length of the line in front of a nondescript window.  Usually I can cheer myself up with a good lunch, but not today.  The restaurant/gallery is atmospheric, but the food is bland.  I actually leave half of it on the plate, which if you know me, rarely ever happens.

So I decide to pack it in and head back to the bus stop. The ride is uneventful, but naturally I miss my stop and end up at the central bus depot. There I find a little sklep and buy myself a bottle of orange Fanta and a Snickers bar.   Hey, don't judge! They import most of their soda and chocolate here anyway.

Finally, I take a taxi back to the Hotel Cynamon in Nowy Sacz, where the hotel owner makes me a lovely cup of tea, along with some bickies (cookies for you Yanks).  Thankfully, I'm safe in my room when the thunder starts, heralding more rain.  Time to watch Polish TV

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Impresja Krasicyn in Przemysl

I will miss Impresja Krasicyn, my ancient stone and wood mountain retreat on the grounds of a castle in Przemysl, with its friendly dog and two black cats.  Breakfast and dinner are served in its medieval banquet hall, which is set up for a wedding with white silk chair covers and red brocade bows tied around them.

This morning, after a hearty breakfast of savory soup, sausage, fresh baked bread, and jam, I am taking a  private taxi through the winding roads up and down the hills to Krosno.  After trying unreliable and uncomfortable buses and trains, I have found private taxis to be the most effective way to travel in southeast Poland.  Rental cars in Poland are usually manual transmission and too expensive.

On the way, we pass a nun in her habit riding a bike, a couple of small tractors pulling narrow carts full of earth, and a horse trailer.  With its patchwork of small towns, the Polish countryside is beautiful.  Finally we make it to the town of Krosno, which is best known for its glass factory.

I am staying at the Hotel Sniezka, which was built in 1905 as a family home.  With period furniture and wallpaper, it is very atmospheric.  With a modern bathroom and shower, flat screen TV, and free Wi Fi, my room is the best of both worlds.
Time to explore the Rynek.

The Real Rzeszow

Today I got to see the regular Polish people, not the size two, perfectly proportioned, super models who stroll down the touristy squares and promenades.  I have never seen so many church services on a Monday.  My mother would be delighted I'm bombarded with Catholic church services night and day.  What a shame I don't understand a word they're saying! 

I stop at a run down market, which looks like it dates from the communist era, where they sell cotton babushkas and plaid shorts.  I walk past the remnants of old synagogues to parks where they don't bother to rake up the leaves and kids run around the fountain playing hide and seek, yelling "Hee haw."  Here the women are not skinny or glamorously dressed and have hair dyed odd shades of magenta and orange and pencil thin eyebrows.  Here grannies in shapeless house dresses look down at the park from their balconies and old men take off their shoes in the park.  Here old men dress in suspenders and carry old leather briefcases.  Maybe it's just this is not a weekend and people are dressed for work, not to impress.

I see groups of young people congregating around the old well in the Rynek, or town square.  As usual, a few popular kids dominate the conversation, while the rest listen.  Why is there always one kid awkwardly hanging around the group who everyone ignores?  It reminds me of junior high.  Apparently the social rules are the same no matter what language you speak.

Funny how there are signs in the parks commemorating the fight against the Austro-Hungarians and Russians in World War I, but no mention anywhere about World War II.  Sad how I can't forget what everybody else here is trying so hard to deny


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Walking the Promenade in Poland

It's an established fact that Mickey Mouse makes the best ice cream with chocolate sauce in Rzeszow, Poland.  Apparently people queue for hours in a little corridor inside a building in the promenade to eat this specialty.  This is the ultimate reward for walking the promenade.


Walking the promenade seems to be people's favorite activity in Rzeszow.  Of course, you must wear the latest couture and bring along your partner, children, or medium size, well-behaved dog on a leash at a perfectly synchronized stroll.  You must pretend not to notice anyone else who may be watching you.  Of course, you know they're watching, because you're watching them.

If you do happen to see someone you know, then hugs and kisses (three on alternating cheeks) are acceptable.  Otherwise you are oblivious to the other people walking beside you or sitting on benches and sidewalk cafes.  Holding on to the hand of your significant other to establish ownership, you must stroll down to get your ice cream, and then stroll back eating it, without getting any ice cream or chocolate sauce on your perfect outfit.

Clearly I'm spending way too much time on the promenade, but there isn't much else to do.  I could go to the church across the street from my hostel, where I can hear the bells toll and people singing day and night.  I could go to the Polish museums, where all the signs are in Polish.  I could watch the street musicians in the town square.  I could see old B movies in Polish at the cinema.  But I've already done all this.

I even went to the Irish Pub, which is aptly called the Irish Pub, to try to find English-speaking people.  No luck, but I did find a group of Polish people trying to learn English. 

This is not really a tourist city, so the only organized tour is the underground cellars beneath the town square.  There you can see a plastic replica of the remains of some poor Jewish people who supposedly hid there trying to escape the Nazis. 

According they weren't successful, because the guidebooks say only a few hundred of the 24,000 Jews in town survived.  Naturally, they left town.
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May is for Remembrance

Humorous.  Intelligent.  Witty.  Loyal.  Open-minded.  Ironic.  Poet.  Philosopher.  Nonjudgmental.  Optimistic.  Self-deprecating.  A man who never took himself too seriously and could always see the goodness in others.  Unconditional love.  My father.  Our special bond can never be broken, not even by death.  

He emigrated by boat from Scotland to Canada as a young boy and to America as a young man by bus.  He was drafted by the Army shortly after he arrived in Chicago, which only gave him six months to woo and marry his young bride, my mother, before he was shipped over to Germany.  She followed him over and my oldest brother, his namesake, was born there.  After they returned, it didn't take long before the rest of us came along.

Although he worked overtime at General Mills, and sometimes at two jobs, he always found time for me.  Trips to the library, to the drug store for a candy bar, to the pub for a coke and beer nuts.  Playing hooky from church.  My first visit to Northwestern University and to Ireland. 

He always believed in me, supporting my choices, even if he feared their outcome.  He never lost his sense of humor, as we faced the never-ending tragedy of mental illness and suicide in the family.  I miss him and my younger brother, John, and sister, Jackie so much until we meet again on the other side.  May is for remembrance.    

     

Silence is Consent

Even after the amazing show of solidarity of women, men, and children all over the world, people are still telling resistors we should lie down and take the injustice the presidential pretender is doling out. Never again! Silence is consent.

This was not a normal election and it is not just about America. Even in his inaugural address, he spread messages of hatred, fear, isolationism, and greed to the world. This is not who we are as Americans. We cannot allow the world to think he represents us. 

We cannot wait until he has crushed all of our constitutional freedoms and destroyed our country. He has no moral compass. He believes the lies he Tweets.

True Americans resist tyranny and oppression, even in their president. Now is the time to stand up and be counted. It is the time to define yourself as a human being: your principles, your core beliefs, your goals for the future of the world.

Yesterday millions of people around the world stood up to be heard, peacefully, but forcefully. I have never been so proud of our true citizens of the world. We're not going to roll over and play dead, while fascism takes over. Not now! Not ever! So get over it.

Auschwitz Child

Many people are telling us we are just over-reacting and it's not going to be that bad. Cooler heads will prevail and he didn't really mean all the hateful things he said. Maybe, but that's what the Germans thought when Hitler came to power.

America stood by and refused to believe what was happening until they were personally attacked. By then, more than 6 million people had died, including me.

Although I was raised Catholic in this lifetime, I remember my sister and I crying brokenheartedly when we read stories about Auschwitz. It was only much later I realized why the Holocaust was so personal for us. We were there. 

This is a poem I wrote when I first remembered my lifetime as a young half-Jewish, Lemko girl, living near the Carpathian mountains in southeast Poland. I was only nine years old when Hitler invaded my country. They killed my father with the men in my village.  My mother, aunt, and I were taken with the other women to Auschwitz. I was separated from them, dying all alone from typhus in a flea-bitten bunk.

I did not understood then what I had done to deserve such hatred and abuse, just as I am sure many of the disenfranchised people in America do not understand why this is happening to them now. So, don't tell me to calm down and it won't be so bad. Too many people stood by and allowed the Holocaust to happen. Never again!

Auschwitz Child
By Laura Guilfoyle

Nine-year-old girl
Hums Slavic lullaby
In narrow wooden bunk,
Hiding a teddy bear
In elbow crook,
Whispering
If they find him,
They’ll take him away.

Huge black eyes
Dominate her gaunt face,
Mocking stubbled head,
Caress of mother’s hand
On jet-black curls
Almost forgotten.
Remember.

They led Father away
With the village men.
Never made it back.
They tore Mother away
Stepping from the railway car.
Arbeit macht frei.

She longs for freedom now,
Fever gripping her body,
Confusion, her mind,
Soul slowly slipping
From its mooring.
Time to go.
 
Yet she lingers,
Comforting other children
In the dark.
Lead them to the light.

I will not leave this
Man-made Hell
Until silent shrieks
Rend indifferent skies!

We are Not Whining; We are Grieving

Those who have won are calling us whiners. They want us to accept the inevitable travesty of this election and move on.  Too Soon. 

There is too much at stake to give up fighting for justice, equality, and morality in this country now.  We are still grieving the loss of our dream of America as a shining example of democracy to the world, which has now become a sick joke.  We have elected the ultimate Ugly American, who incites hatred and violence.

I have spoken to so many women, gay people, and minorities recently who feel violated and threatened by the the hateful messages he has espoused.  I have had to reassure Hispanic fourth graders they won't be deported.  It has given permission to people to violently act out on their deepest, darkest impulses, thinking it's okay because he validates them.

It is not okay. We are not just protesting an election. We are protesting the loss of democracy to thugs. I have not forgotten the Holocaust, which began with similar messages of exclusion and destruction, using the same excuse of economic insecurity.  I am truly afraid of history repeating itself, because we ignored the lessons of 1939.  We are living through The Purge again and it is soul destroying. 

This is an assault worse then 9/11, because we have done it to ourselves. Those who believed in America as a hopeful place, where your dreams could come true, are now stuck in a never ending nightmare loop.  We need time to grieve our losses, but we cannot give up.  I will never stop fighting against bigotry and hatred. We must protect each other.  You will know me by the safety pin I wear as a symbol of safe haven in an uncertain world. 

 

Finding Acceptance

I only went to my 40th high school reunion because I didn't want to waste $40. 

It's not that I didn't enjoy myself at my all girls Catholic high school on the south side of Chicago.  I loved every minute of it.  I should, considering how hard I had to fight to go there.  Not because I couldn't cut it academically, but because I lived in a racially mixed neighborhood.  At least that's what the nuns told my mother.  Even though I easily passed the entrance exam, they warned her I might be excluded because of my address. 

Borrowing an address from a friend of hers, I went to the school of my dreams.  For the first year I had to lie about where I lived so I had no social life.  By my sophomore year, we moved to a more acceptable address so I could join extracurricular activities like Chorus and the school newspaper.  I even made a few friends.  By my junior year, I was inducted into the National Honor Society and was planning for college.  My senior year was all about rebellion and my first boyfriend, who wasn't the kind you take to the prom.  Then it was time for my fairy tale graduation ceremony, with 500 girls wearing white gowns and gloves, each carrying a single red rose.

I soon lost touch with my few friends from high school, so I was worried I wouldn't know anyone at the reunion.  And I didn't.  We all looked so different from the youthful pictures on our name badges.  So I hung around the makeshift bar, striking up conversations with anyone who looked friendly. People seemed to recognize my name, although maybe they were just being polite.

Sitting all alone at a table next to the veggie tray, I wondered how long I was obliged to stay in order to justify my investment.  None of my old friends were there.  Then someone sat down next to me who I recognized as one of the top students in our class. We talked about our lives since we left high school.  Another woman sat down and we had a deep existential conversation about the purpose of our lives and the detours we've taken to get here.  As I left, I realized I had finally found the acceptance and sense of connection I had longed for so long ago in high school.  It was not about the girls we were, but the amazing women we had become.       

Trump is the Great Gatsby

Like the Great Gatsby in the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Trump flaunts his ostentatious wealth from suspicious sources.  He's always trying to impress the top two percent, who will never give him the respect he craves.  Form over substance.  This describes Trump.

The only thing which Trump is great at is lending his name, but like everything else about him, not even this is real.  His real name is Drumpf and he's German, not Swedish.  He'll never release his tax statements, because he doesn't want anyone knowing the unsavory characters who have laundered money in his hotels.  The ultimate achievement for him would be becoming President, but he's done nothing to prepare for this role, other than boast and try to intimidate his more worthy competitors.

Even his slogan is a lie.  He doesn't want to make America great again.  He wants to make it white again.  He appeals to people who are disappointed they never achieved the American dream and want to blame someone else for it.

It's like junior high all over again.  The bullies dominate the schoolyard and their chief targets are those more intelligent than themselves.  So of course he has to denigrate the woman who earned a law degree from a prestigious Ivy League university and whose inspirational commencement address from college was featured in Life Magazine.  He could never understand why anyone would dedicate her life to helping others rather than chasing money.

The sad thing is Hilary Rodham Clinton would never even have had a chance of being elected President if there was a decent Republican male candidate.  Sexism is alive and well in America.

While I expect contempt from disgruntled men, what is most disheartening is how many women have bought into this oppressive female bashing.  Until women learn to support each other, despite our cultural, racial, and class differences, we will always be subject to the outrageous whims of bullies like Drumpf.