Flight Planning

Mom and Daddy, best friends (2005)

My mother is a teacher. She helps stretch students' minds, introduces new concepts to them gently and carefully when the time is right, scripted to whatever the curriculum requires but mindful of their abilities. And when a student has a special circumstance, she works to make sure that student is always given their very best chance at success.

As a result, her kids love and respect her. The emails, blog comments, notes, valentines, huge post-it notes of simile and metaphor exercises are physical proof that one person's efforts to make a difference in the life of a child is returned (just go with me on these numbers) twenty eight-times-seven times 40 some years. My mother is loved by many people.

My father was a fighter pilot for many years, and he knows how to make awesome flying machines of defense help protect millions of people. He has protected our country and traveled the world helping others help themselves. He is a leader and a protector, and he is proud of and fierce in his vocation and avocation.

So these two soul-mates find themselves in a much earlier than anticipated experience, taking the next step in the glioblastoma experience. What to do after rehab.


What we have learned the past few days is quite incredible. We have all heard through political campaigns, news reports, magazine headlines, etc. that the healthcare system in our country is broken. And we are all here to tell you that through this week, we can sincerely say it is. It is a complete mess. What Medicare allows, what medical professionals offer, what patients need, and what guidance families need, has been a large disconnect, causing tears to flood cars at stoplights, unexpected overwhelming sadness in public places, loss of appetites, unfinished Starbucks coffees, and sleepless nights. It is as low as the feeling we had when we learned that Mom's cancer wasn't just bad, it was the worst it could be.

Be prepared was what Mom's neurosurgeon told us on that awful afternoon. That was a bad day. There have been several bad days since then, but our collective adjustment to the badness had, for me anyway, somewhat plateaued until this week.

Being discharged from the rehab hospital due to Medicare coverage restrictions meant we had to find a new place for Mom to stay while she continues to improve her skills with therapy. It was terribly difficult for us, because several of the therapists at the rehab hospital had really started to make excellent progress with Mom. She's much better at recalling the date and year, her birthdate, ALL of our names, names of friends and extended family. She can answer many of the speech therapist's questions with confidence, and if not that, with humor and a gentle wit.

Physical therapy and occupational therapy were making good headway as well; she had learned to scoot from her bed to a wheelchair using a firm wooden board, to "walk" herself in her wheelchair down the hall to the windows, to the puzzle table, to the therapy room. None of this was she able to do prior to entering rehab, and all of these skills had just started to really develop. So moving her out of rehab was really incomprehensible to us. A student just learning her lessons would never be given the test by Teacher Mom before she was ready. Yet that is the unchangeable situation we found ourselves in.

So enter Fighter Pilot Dad. With a passion few have ever seen, Dad took over with the speed and precision of his beloved F-16s. Go find a place for your mom, he said. I will stay with her here. So we did: Scott piloted and I navigated in the cockpit of our (aptly named) Explorer and visited two rehab/nursing homes in the morning, and I took two more than afternoon. Jennifer provided dispatch, flight control support, ground operations, and intelligence. Dad was the commanding officer at systems operations control, and we checked in often.

After post-flight meetings, we debriefed with plenty of reconnaissance yet achieved no resolution. Several hours later, after visiting nurses from the three acceptable rehab facilities had approved Mom's admission and transportation, we reconvened via conference call and chose our landing pattern and destination. Mission complete.

Putting this in sterile flight terms makes this an easier experience to talk about, because in reality it was nothing by the book, it was thinking of who can we trust our Mom with? Where is the best therapy for her? Who can be as good as the therapists Mom had started to develop with? Are we doing the right thing? When will she be ready to come home? That is the hardest question of all.

So with the decision made, Mom was settled in her new facility and room by early evening. She slept on and off, first night in a new place, lots of new sights, sounds, etc. Dad had his first night in a "real" bed since mid-February, having spent every single night right beside Mom in the sturdy-but-tight in the shoulders and frequently squeaky fold-out chair-beds provided in the multiple hospital rooms Mom has been assigned over the last 63 days.

This morning, both Jennifer and I arrived with Starbucks breakfast sandwiches, Greek yogurt for Mom and Daddy, and a latte for Dad. In all of yesterday's emotion, we forgot to check with each other who was going to take breakfast. We were all glad to be together, though; I think we subconsciously needed to see that we had all made it through the night. Although come to find out, none of us slept more than a few scant hours at a time.

After breakfast, Mom was assessed by the therapy groups, met the director of therapy services, and, at enormous relief to us all, likes them. And they like her. And they agree that they can help her. For now, the choice we made seems to be a satisfactory one.

So, perhaps at the future criticism from my Dad for my quote choice, I'm posting here a description of the F-16, from Wikipedia.

The F-16 is a single-engined, very maneuverable, supersonic, multi-role tactical aircraft. The F-16 was designed to be a cost-effective combat "workhorse" that can perform various kinds of missions and maintain around-the-clock readiness.

I think our family is a lot like this. We are a single-minded, very maneuverable, supersonic (emotionally charged), multi-role tactical (family of) aircraft. The F-16 was designed to be a cost-effective (lunches at the rehab hospital were $3.50 a plate) combat (you betcha) "workhorse" (all of us, particularly Jennifer) that can perform various kinds of missions (you name it, we did it this week for Mom and Daddy) around-the-clock (Jennifer has been with Mom 12+ hours a day, Daddy for at least 48 hours straight with no breaks) readiness.

I am so thankful to be in a family that is strong enough to stick together in a really hard situation, smart enough to know the right thing to do, courageous enough to make the tough choices, and tender enough to let the tears come when they need to fall. I am proud to be the child of a teacher who cares with all her heart for all her children, and a pilot who will fight with all of his heart for what's best for Mom, and by proxy, for all of us.