Happiness

Happiness

Happiness is emotional

simple in its beginnings

endorphins fill my brain

muscles relax

others tense

pulling at the corners of my mouth

sounds escape my lips
as childish giggles.

Happiness is addictive

good times amplified

one beaming smile

spreading across many faces

we feel giddy

makes us fall in love

it makes the world go round

it’s better when shared.

Happiness is temporary

we’d like it to last forever

still, it leaves us

without warning

but when we least expect it

someone smiles

and it reminds us

that it’s just around the corner.

© Rebecca Sanchez 2018

Happiness never lasts but that doesn’t mean we’ll never be happy again. We never know what will make us smile. Open up and be receptive to happiness in any form. How are you doing? Have a great day!

Want to read more of my poetry? Capricious Poet.

Christmas Is Coming

So it's the holiday season again. When I was a child, like all children, Christmas was magical. My parents were great at it. They even hid presents in the tree and around the room they really knew how to work us kids into a frenzy. 

Then one day I became aware. Being the older sister of a 4 year younger brother I was the first. I don't remember how or why but I got old enough to finally understand the workings of Christmas. No Santa Claus? That about killed me.

I grew up a child with a huge imagination. It's one of the things that has helped me through life but finding out about Christmas was just one of the "truths" of life that I found shocking signaling the end of my childhood.

No magic? What about the rest of it? The Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and more? All tall stories and for what? I still wonder. Would it be so bad to have kids know the real truth behind these childhood fibs? Maybe when we grew up we wouldn't be willing to believe every untrue lie fed to us by our government for example? The "experts"?

I don't know but I do know I'm getting off of the subject of Christmas. I'm not ready for it but I never am. Christmas was lost to me in the 90's along with Thanksgiving and most of the other holidays now all just indicators of more time passing.

If I had family who cared it might be more pleasant but I doubt it. I'm always broke these days, especially around the holidays so I don't get into Black Friday or Cyber Monday, etc. I might buy something small for myself just so I don't feel so sorry for "me".

When I think of Christmas this is what I think of. A snow-covered cabin all cozy inside with presents and a fire waiting. Perhaps a warm handsome man?

I used to have snow at Christmas but living in California that's out of the question unless one has money (and the knees) to go skiing. But this is what I do during the holidays.

I'm out riding my bicycle along the Bay Trail in San Mateo. It's really pretty year round even without snow. I miss it sometimes.

Candy canes are still one of my favorite candies! I actually learned to like fruitcake and I adore eggnog with dark rum. What do you like about Christmas?

The thing I still like each year is New Years. Now that I'm older I don't like how fast time is flying but I can't help but have some hope that each year will get better. This year is already better right now than last so I'm hoping for more of the same.

I like these old GIF's with such pretty Christmas scenery.

And even the ones with the old Christmas magic.

These are beautiful scenes that I've never seen with my eyes. Although I've seen some pretty sights in winter horse-drawn carriages and things like this are pretty much history.

You can't stop time or the holiday season. The stores would never let that happen!!

Christmas is coming just like every year...whatever way you celebrate, or don't, I hope you have the best Christmas ever!

Some Of My Favorite Things

The old lighthouse on Lake Michigan in my hometown. That is the city of Chicago sticking up across the lake. On a clear day, you can see Gary and Chicago.

Michigan City is a small town that borders on Lake Michigan, one of the Great Lakes. We have our own zoo and didn’t have a Mall until one was built. It was wonderful growing up there and I think about doing so with great fondness.

When I think about those days there are so many, one of a kind memories I got to experience while growing up Hoosier. I thought I’d share some of them with you.

1. Eating breakfast at Brownies Restaurant after church, filled with people who had been at Sunday services.

2. The view from our largest sand dune, Mount Baldy.

3. Summer concerts at the old band shell.

4. Going to the Moose Lodge for parties and functions with my family.

5. Riding the South Shore (electric train) to Chicago and back.

6. Franklin Street, (our main drag) filled with honking cars after the 1966 state basketball championship.

7. Seeing Santa at his little house that would magically appear at Christmas on the corner of 7th and Franklin street.

8. Watching men make railroad cars at Pullman Steel.

9. Going fishing at the crack of dawn on the pier by the lighthouse.

10. Walking along Lake Michigan searching for beautiful pieces of driftwood and other treasures that washed up on the shore.

11. Riding with my friends up and down the main drag after we all got our drivers license.

12. Going to the bakery for fresh Bear Claws.

13. Driving along the lake on Lakeshore Drive looking at all the beautiful homes and mansions on the lake.

14. Going to ‘sock hops’ at school and the YMCA.

15. Watching my dad wrestle at the Armory, state fairs, and Ames Field.

16. Ice skating and bobsledding in the Winter.

17. Going to Scholl’s Dairy for the best ice cream ever.

18. Horseback riding at the stables in Beverly Shores.

19. Ordering cherry cokes and fries at Woolworth's fountain.

20. Buying 45 records at Harvey’s Dime Store.

21. Going to the beach and swimming in Lake Michigan.

22. Going to the A & W on the way to the beach for hot dogs and root beer.

23. Penny candy and I have the fillings to prove it.

24. Standing outside at McDonald’s and buying 25 cent hamburgers.

25. Christmas decorations on Franklin Street.

26. The balcony at the Tivoli Theater.

27. The smell of the Smith Brothers cough drop factory.

28. Fish fries with fresh water perch (the best food ever) at M&M’s restaurant.

29. Three feet of snow in 1958.

30. Walking out to the lighthouse.

31. Climbing all the way up to the top of the observation tower by the zoo.

32. Going to the Washington Park Zoo to see Monkey Island.

33. Riding the bumper cars at Washington Park.

34. Going to the old amusement park on the beach by Lake Michigan.

35. Going to the lake to get a free truck full of sand for our sandbox.

36. Walking to school and back home every day all by ourselves.

37. Going to movies at the 212 outdoor theater.

38. Catching lightning bugs on warm summer nights.

37. Sunrises and sunsets on Lake Michigan.

Just a few of my favorite things about my home town.

Mount Baldy the biggest sand dune now a park.

The Armory where my father wrestled.

Carlson's Drive-in, the only one left now.

The lighthouse in winter.

Our Mall (we only had one) where we hung out and my mom taught me to drive in the parking lot when it was closed on Sundays.

I enjoyed growing up here and if I could make time stand still I would have done it before all the little changes that forever make our lives different. This place as I remember it is just a memory.

Keep On Bloggin’!

Welcome Home And Congratulations To The SF Giants!

The SF Giants won the World Series in 2010! Awesome!

In 2012...

The SF Giants win the World Series; again! 

They dominated the season and took no prisoners!

Go  

 

Thank you for all of your hard work, but it wouldn’t be anything without your hearts behind it. You are definitely a team with heart! Relax and enjoy what you have reaped. Go SF Giants!

Happy New Year My Friends

It’s been a long year but it’s finally time to celebrate a clean start in 2012. The last 2 years were really hard for me and full of problems but I’m glad for the new chance this year!

I haven’t thought about my resolutions yet but how many of you have started your list of New Year resolutions? It’s an easy thing to do until you find yourself staring at a blank page, waiting to come up with something. And then, we are supposed to follow through with them!

According to Forbes, 44 percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions. The problem begins when you make resolutions that are unattainable in the first place. Don’t pick things that will set you up to fail. The right resolutions can make a huge difference in boosting happiness in your New Year.

The US Government (of all people) has provided a list of “Popular New Year's Resolutions”. They say that these are popular year after year. Need some help achieving these goals? Just click on the links for extra information.

Help With Popular New Years Resolutions

Drink Less Alcohol

Eat Healthy Food

Get a Better Education

Get a Better Job

Get Fit

Lose Weight

Manage Debt

Manage Stress

Quit Smoking

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Save Money

Take a Trip

Volunteer to Help Others

These are all excellent links, they still work and are very helpful check them out.

Funny New Years Resolutions

I will……

Start washing my hands after I use the restroom.

Stop licking frozen flag poles.

Only get divorced and remarried once this year.

Watch more movie remakes.

Go back to school to avoid paying my student loans.

Only eat the white snow.

Keep it to myself that I have trouble with authority when I'm being interviewed.

Spend less than $1825 for coffee at Starbucks this year.

Claim all my pets as dependents on my taxes.

Start a blog about how I would write more often if I had something important to write. Only make one blog entry and leave it published for years.

Talk with a robot voice all the time.

Start using Facebook for something other than Farmville and stupid quizzes.

Start smoking to lose weight.

Switch my username to “password” and my password to “username” to make each a lot harder for hackers to figure out.

I wrote a poem this year it’s silly but I wanted you to know how much I have enjoyed hanging out with you all on Window’s Live and I hope we all stay in touch. Enjoy!

A Very Good Year

The month of December has come to a close
the weather has brought a new blanket of snow
Christmas has faded from Rudolf’s red nose
looks like it’s time for the new year.

To the party you go with your friends in tow
faces aglow and dressed in our best
jollification wherever we go
looks like it’s time for the new year.

Champagne is pouring as midnight draws near
resolutions are made as we watch the ball drop
we raise up our glasses to toast to good cheer
that this New Year, be a very good year!

© Rebecca Sanchez 2011

Happy New Year! Keep On Bloggin’!

After Being Put Into A Coma I Haven't Felt Better

What Happens When Someone Is Put Into A Coma:

Sometimes someone is so ill they are put into a coma to save their lives. That is what happened to me. I had two seizures before getting to the hospital and my left lung was filled with puke and had collapsed. I was spiking a high fever and phenomena was setting in already. The Doctor's decided that a coma was the best way to save my life. I was put into a drug-induced coma. Luckily I never needed a ventilator after they cleared my lung out.

Someone who is in a coma is unconscious and will not respond to voices, sounds, or any sort of activity going on nearby. Not even intense pain will bring forth a response. The person is still alive, but the brain is functioning at its lowest stage of alertness. You can't shake and wake up someone who is in a coma like you can someone who has just fallen asleep.

I can tell you from first-hand experience that you can't hear people when in a coma-like some believe you can. Reading to someone in a coma from a book is just for your own comfort, not theirs. All I remember from being in my coma was my never-ending very strange dream that I had.

My dream was unlike any other dream I ever had while sleeping normally at night. The dream was probably based on my brain functioning at such a low level and all the drugs in me but it was very eerie. I dreamed about people in my life, and some that weren't yet. I wish I could have remembered the imagery it was very creepy and when I woke up I was totally freaked out until I realized I was awake and where I was.

My dream drove me to question what really happens when you die? If I would have passed away would I have dreamed until the very last brain cell gave out? And then what? For me, being so close to death was not an empty time that I couldn't remember and ever since then it's caused me to rethink my prior beliefs. But to what?

Then there's the way I have felt since being out of the coma and hospital. As soon as I came out of the coma and the doctors started telling me what happened it was hard to believe it was so serious because even with the tubes sticking out of every orifice and then some I felt surprisingly well. I even left the hospital faster then they wanted me to. I really shocked my doctors especially since they still can't find out what caused all this to happen!

I remember reading stories about coma patients who claimed that being in a coma 'reset' their brains and bodies in a new way that hadn't expected. I felt this way too and after having people who knew me tell me this I decided to look into it. Unfortunately for me I couldn't find much. Most of the articles were just about comas and were all very similar. People awakening from comas did not feel this way, often having to relearn even the most basic of functions. I was very lucky indeed!

People may emerge from a coma with a combination of physical, intellectual and psychological difficulties that need special attention. Recovery usually occurs gradually....patients acquire more and more ability to respond. Some patients never progress beyond very basic responses, but some can recover full awareness. Regaining consciousness is not instant: in the first days, patients are only awake for a few minutes, and duration of time awake gradually increases. In reality, the coma patient wakes sometimes in a profound state of confusion, not knowing how they got there and sometimes suffering from the inability to articulate any speech, and with many other disabilities.

This is unlike the situation in my life where I awoke from my coma and was instantly able to continue my normal life. Of course, I was not in a coma for a long period of time. When I woke up I was up for good and didn't relapse back into unconsciousness. I was anxious to walk, speak and do everything I could to go home from the hospital. The doctors were very surprised at my state after being on death's door. I was not confused in the beginning but I couldn't remember anything that happened to me and had to be told what transpired that week and why I was at the hospital.

This is a statistic that really freaked me out! The most common cause of death for a person in a vegetative state is a secondary infection such as pneumonia which can occur in patients who lie still for extended periods. For me I got pneumonia right away from swallowing my vomit and an ultra-high fever so I was very lucky I had the best staff working on me at Kaiser. They saved my life.

So what I found out after researching this is that I'm a lucky person to have come out of it like I did. It was very hard on my body and I took a month to recover from all of it fully. Even the day after I came home I felt so much better than I had in years! I couldn't put my finger on it but when other's noticed it too it confirmed what I had thought had happened. I was somehow a new person! I even looked better and I couldn't believe it.! A lot of my old pain was gone and my wrist that I had pinched a nerve in before had healed! The numbness was gone and I could move my fingers again. It was like a miracle! I felt so well that I was being more active than I had before this happened to me! (Bear with me on the use of "!".)

The odds were against me and I survived. The fact that I didn't go into a coma on my own and they induced one is like arguing apples and oranges. A coma is a coma and they are very dangerous. I had several medical problems that alone could have killed me, but no. I had my dream during these goings on that must of helped my brain deal and I really believe this! I also think that the coma reset my brain, not unlike an electrical circuit can be reset. Everyone knows the brain runs on electrical impulses. My brain got reset to a time before my injuries before I felt so bad, it went back to a happier mental pattern in my life and all I can say is I'm super lucky and it's very awesome! I'm thankful I'm not learning how to tie my shoes again or speak. I'm truly blessed and will not squander this new chance I have been given!

Thank you, my higher power!

Keep On Bloggin'!

Back From The Dead

Let us pray....

By now most of you got the gist of what happened to me last week. I am one lucky woman to still be alive and writing this blog to tell you about it. To tell you the truth, I think it's finally sinking into my fevered brain just how gone I was before they got me back. Here's what happened in two weeks and why I disappeared without a word.

The week before last I wasn't feeling well. I was tired, wasn't hungry, didn't have much of an interest in anything and it was so unlike me. I just figured I was depressed since it felt so much like depression. I wasn't getting enough sleep. I kept wondering why I wasn't so happy with my move and why I felt so bad. Nothing stuck out that I could put my finger on but I was having some fluid retention in my my feet and hands. I gained 10 pounds before I knew it even though I eat healthy foods and watch my weight. I keep my weight around 138 and it soared upwards in a half a week. Still, I thought it would pass and didn't have a clue.

Last week I got up on the 12th , it was just like any other day but I was tired. I decided to go back to bed. James (my roommate) was getting ready for work. That's the last thing I remember!

I woke up in the hospital with tubes coming out of every opening and then some. Two days had gone by already. When I came to there was a tube down my throat and they had to remove it quickly because I was chocking on it. I didn't remember anything and this is what I was told by the hospital staff as they explained things to me.

They said I had been found in my bed by James. He had come into the bedroom to get his shoes for work. I was lucky that he did! I had puked and was choking on it. I was gurgling in the throat. My left lung was filled with it and I was having a seizure. I had bit my tongue and it was bleeding. My eyes were opened and rolled up in my head.

James dialed 911 and they got there within minutes. They bagged me and couldn't get the ambulance into our little parking lot so they ran out with me on a bed sheet. I was dying on the way to the hospital.

They induced coma to treat and save me. I had gotten pneumonia and my organs were failing. I was brought back from the dead in Intensive Care while in the coma. I was there a day.

After that they moved me to the Pulmonary Care Unit where they dealt with my organs malfunctioning. They had put a tube down my lung to take out the fluid and while in there I woke up. I was shocked to find myself in the hospital and that it was 2 days later! I was really freaked out when they told me what had transcribed. All very sobering!

I'm Alive!

Kaiser Permanente had saved my life! They were excellent and very professional the whole time I was there. All the personal were very nice and went out of their way to make my stay comfortable. They took good care of me when I was in the Coma.

I was taken out of Intensive Care and moved to a room in the hospital proper with another woman where I stayed for two more days. Then only 4 days later they released me to come home. I was never so happy to go home! I felt like the Bride Of Frankenstein, brought back to life.

I have to have an MRI next week and take it to Neurology but I was very lucky that they haven't found anything wrong with me as of yet. Still, I don't have a history of seizures like they thought originally so I don't know what is better. To have them find a reason for this, or not have them find a reason at all! LOL! Nice to alive and kicking indeed!

While there I was treated for:

♦Severe Sepsis W Acute Organ Dysfunction, Septicemia, Final ID Pending

Elevated lactate may be related to infection (left infiltrate) or possibly as a consequence of seizure earlier today.

♦Aspiration Pneumonia

♦Priority 1,HIGHEST Extensive left sided infiltrate associated with seizure and emesis in the ED. Major concern is for aspiration.

♦Seizure

Etiology not clear. Per report, there is a possible history of seizures, so this may be recurrence. No lesions on head CT. Would proceed with LP to r/o CNS infection.

♦Chronic Pain

What a lucky break for me to be home and relatively okay.

I'm glad to be back home and online. Thanx again for all your best wishes! I am doing really well now so no worries. See you around very soon!

Keep On Bloggin'!