Isolation Grief

I still cannot tell you how I knew my phone was ringing. It was on silent. It was 1 am. I sleep like the dead. I’ve always believed in intuition but I would never have thought it continued even in our sleep. The shock of being pulled from slumber combined with trying to make sense of what my brother was telling me made the whole room spin. I distinctly remember squeezing my mattress in an unsuccessful attempt at grounding myself. 

My dad was in critical condition in ICU and my family had been called in. Clearly things were bad but, being on the other side of the world, I had no way of understanding what was going on. I had no way of getting any answers either. I was alone, on the other side of the world while my family fell apart. It took exactly 6 steps to pace from my bed to the front door of my shoe box apartment and I wore out the floor in another pointless attempt at controlling the spin. In between phone calls with my family I prayed endlessly that my dad would be fine. I remember watching snow drift past my window while my sister and I (both being in different countries) debated whether we should insist on keeping him on life support until we got home or not. I knew I needed to book a flight but the constant room spinning made the task near impossible. Then just like that, he was gone.

Yesterday marked 2 years since that night. Reflecting on this in the middle of a national lockdown has brought many of those feelings back to the surface. It has also made me acutely aware that there are so many people around the world that are living this same night. With hospitals desperately trying to cope with the weight of the Covid-19 pandemic, patients are essentially alone in their fight for survival. Loved ones are left pacing their own floors, praying for good news. For most, the call to collect their now-healthy loved one will come, but this will not be the case for everyone.  Recently I read a tweet from an ICU doctor in the US describing how he helped a critically ill patient call her daughter to say goodbye. She was not the first patient he’d done this for and was sharing how broken he was about being part of this experience. Yet somehow this woman was fortunate enough to be able to say goodbye. There are so many that won’t get that chance.

I can’t help but think of everyone who’s lost a loved one – regardless of the cause – during this time. Any loss is unimaginably difficult. A loss in isolation is so much more complex. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so alone or lost as I did that night, sobbing in the middle of my half packed suitcase. Thankfully, I could still get home and mourn with my family. For so many that will not be an option. 

Dear Griever, I share your heartache. I understand your solitude. I am so very sorry.

Last night’s announcement of a 14 day extension to South Africa’s lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, means people will continue to pace their homes alone. It means people grieving will have to wait that much longer to begin working through the reality of their loss. However, it also means that fewer families will have to be going through this loss in the long run. It gives our hospitals a fighting chance so that we can all get the medical assistance we need regardless of the reason.

I would love to have been with my family yesterday. I would have loved a hug and a person to have a cry with. Yet I also know know that there is not much I wouldn’t give to have changed the outcome for my dad. So I remind myself that by following some fairly unremarkable procedures, I am doing all I can to make sure those I love remain safe and healthy. I am changing somebody’s outcome.

Dear Reader, as we all continue life in isolation please remember your actions will affect someones survival. Please continue to support lockdown, please stay home, please keep encouraging and supporting your loved ones, please wash your hands. Please please, join me in continuing to change the outcome.

Slacker Post Doc

“Oh, it’s only 5 pm. I still have time!” I caught myself thinking yesterday while I was running through the list of things I still needed to handle before I left the lab for the day. I remember when leaving high school at 12 was an early day. Then in undergrad, finishing at 2 pm became exciting. By grad school leaving at 4 pm was a luxury, but you took with it a guilt trip that meant you’d continue working from home anyway. Now, sitting in my office I felt relieved that at 5 pm it was still early enough to make a dent in my never ending To-Do list.

I’ve always worked pretty hard and definitely have workaholic tendencies – especially when doing something I’m passionate about. I’m a 120% kind of person so that comes with the territory. Despite working hard, I’m not sure I worked truly crazy hours until the end of my PhD where that finishing deadline was very, very real. But that’s what you have to do to get your PhD right?

 

Then I took up a Post Doc in America. Armed with my new title, I decided that 9-5 was a perfectly reasonable work day and that’s what I was exactly what I was going to be working (more or less; lab day dependent). This slowly slipped to 9-6 and occasionally 7. Never later. From the outside this looks like I’m working a full day. On the inside however, I’m of the first to leave for the day. I am the Slacker Post Doc. The one that leaves hours before everyone else does.

It’s been a very intimidating thing to come up against. No one I work with thinks that an 8 hour work day is enough. Many I’ve spoken to here consider a standard work day to be 10-12 hours at least and 6 days a week. Having also taken up lecturing this semester, I too have found myself joining the work train with 2 x 9 am-7 pm and 2 x 9 am-11 pm days this past week. I was not the last one out at 11 pm and there are still labs full of grad students and post docs alike toiling away – my Slacker Post Doc title continues.

I get that in science – and many other fields – to be noteworthy you’ve got to produce cutting edge work and to get that work published before anyone else has the opportunity to think up and publish the same thing. I also know that as a grad student just getting your degree is not enough – you need more to your name to move forth and prosper. You (and your boss) need publications. The race is on. Always. At what cost though?

Having Teaching Assistant’s has given me the opportunity to interact with a variety of grad students and it’s been interesting to see how the work hours are just accepted and are always followed by ‘it sucks but it’s just for now though’ when asked their thoughts. My words exactly several years ago. Now, sitting exhausted, staring blankly at my laptop I find myself wondering if maybe we’re doing academia wrong? Should we not be focusing more on ‘productive’ work time rather than work hours? Should we not be praising student’s who are achieving while maintaining a decent work schedule? Is it even safe to be working that level of crazy?

That last question in particular has continued to run around my head. I have often done some stupid things tired and luckily none of them have been dangerous. Most of them have just meant I’ve had to start from the beginning again – but this is more down to luck than skill in those moments. One late night definitely won’t break you but how focused can you possibly be after weeks of crazy hours?

Not to mention the unhealthy lifestyle this breeds. Working these kinds of crazy hours means that maintaining a healthy, balanced diet is near impossible. It makes regular exercise challenging. It makes housework and laundry permanently backlogged. The result – an exhausted, jaded 20-something attempting to be high functioning in a very pressured (and dangerous) environment. That’s even before looking at the toll it takes on relationships.

Just because you can ‘cope’ with these hours, should you be expected to? Moreover, is it fair to have that same expectation of others? I’ve really got to wonder if we can’t find a better way to go about obtaining career success? Surely being well rested would help you perform better, problem solve faster and be more motivated overall? A balanced diet and regular exercise make you healthier and result in less down time due to illness? What you put into your research directly dictates what you’ll get out of it, but are you going to be happy with what’s left of your life if you survive it?

Then again what do I know? I’m just the Slacker Post Doc.

 

(I’m very grateful to PhD comics for a never ending supply of comic relief on the realities of lab life)

A Year Without

A little over a year ago I uprooted my life and relocated it to Middle America (of all places). Despite being a researcher professionally, I actually did very little research about my new world before I moved. America is a first world country and I was used to third world so if I could survive in one then surely I could figure out the other right? Uh… Definitely not one of my finest moments of ‘logic’. Apparently you adapt, and to a large extent I guess I have, but there are so many occasions I feel very much like it’s my first week all over again. There are many creature comforts that come with this first world life (hello high speed internet and online shopping!) but I’ve been surprised by the amount of things that I’ve missed over the last year.

If you’re anything like me your Facebook feed is a constant stream of world conquests making my adventure hardly unique. There’s also an abundance of travel blogs telling you just what you’ll miss on your global adventure and how to deal with it. I’ve simply stopped to reflect on my time in this strange place and how it has given me a new appreciation for my life (both past and present) and a deeper love for the country that raised me. I took this last year as a challenge: Can I do a year without…?

A year without… Stuff

Most definitely an inheritance from my mother was the philosophy that ‘you never know when you might need this‘ and between us we have a pretty impressive collection of Stuff. However, when you have a 2 suitcase – 60 kg luggage limit and are heading to the coldest winter you’ve ever experienced you sure find your priorities quickly! Over this last year I’ve often marveled at the life I’ve managed to build from just these two suitcases. It has also been a cold turkey cure to my hoarding tendencies – turns out you really don’t need much to live comfortably.

A year without… The Familiar

Everything is different here. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. The food is different. You have no idea what to order off menu’s or what you’d like or even how to order. The doors work the other way to what you’re used to. They drive on the other side of the road. Despite being an English speaking country and being an English speaker, people struggle to understand me. The way people interact is different. The way people dress. The sports culture insane. The way of life bizarre. The weather (oh gosh!). Let’s not forget the use of Freedom Units (as my boyfriend affectionately dubs it) rather than Metric. I still don’t know how much a pound is – or how far a mile – or what the weather in Fahrenheit is for that matter. While this makes for a very exciting adventure at first, it does get incredibly frustrating and can be very alienating at times. However, this has given me great appreciation for things that are familiar. I just about cried when I went to an international market and turned into the South African isle and saw things I recognized! I am grateful for these moments of familiar. Being in the deep end has also taught me to embrace the ‘familiar’ here and find new things to take comfort in.

A year without… Transportation

I was lucky enough to be raised in a family with 2 cars, and when I was old enough to drive had my own car. I’ve had the privilege of freedom to move where ever I wanted virtually whenever I wanted. Now a year since I’ve driven a car, I am particularly grateful for this opportunity. Columbus has an amazing bus system that means you can get around the city fairly easily and inexpensively. This is definitely not true for Joburg – the building blocks are there just no where near as ‘user friendly’. I am starting to miss it (a little) but what I’ve found is that not driving has slowed down my life pace significantly. Relying on a bus schedule to move around makes things predictable. It also makes you plan your movements better and not travel as far away from home. I live 10 minutes away from my office but the current bus route means it’s a 20-25 minute trip. This has given me almost an hour a day that I now fill with reading. Not the scientific journal articles that my boss desperately hints I would, but actual novels. Turns out I love reading, I’ve just never had – or rather made – the time to discover it.

A Year Without – A Network

When you stay in one place long enough you become part of the furniture. You also become very well connected. Between the various area’s of my life I knew a fairly diverse group of people and between my connections and my connection’s connections it was easy to track down someone who had access to whatever you need. In addition to this, there are people who you can always call in a favor with or who owe’s you one. It’s an incredibly humbling experience to realize that my network became just me and Google. Not that Google hasn’t been a lifesaver on many occasions, but it’s not the same as knowing who to call when…

A Year Without – Culture

More specifically South African culture. I’ve always felt that any trip overseas gives you a better understanding of where you’re from. Actually living overseas – being completely immersed in a new culture – magnifies this learning curve. I’ve come to deeply appreciate how South Africans live in community. Everyone’s got to have a tribe. If you don’t, you get adopted into one very quickly. Food is an essential part of social interaction. It was very strange for me to arrive at my first 7 pm party and dinner not being part of the event. I miss the energy and the noise and the vibrant colours of South Africa. Having so many different cultures in a small space has forced these cultures to intermingle and this has created something special that I very much miss. There is just something about multilingual conversations coupled with the South African sense of humor. We’ve created a way to communicate that really doesn’t translate outside our borders. We are also inherently more connected to our surroundings than what I’ve experienced in America. We live with the land not on it and was something I didn’t realize until recently and I think this has made us less wasteful.

 

A Year Without – Family

Perhaps this point goes without saying and is probably every expat’s biggest struggle. Love them or hate them. Hate to love them or love to hate them. Family makes home home. I’ve been blessed with an incredible family – and friends who I consider family and I appreciate them more now than perhaps I ever have. My family are who I long for the most. I miss fighting with my brother. I miss curling up on the couch watching Disney movies with my best friend. I miss long chats with my dad about the world. The list goes on and on. Something I had’t expected is how much I miss my pets and just how much they’re family too.

Finally A Year Without – Having a cup of tea made for you

Over this last year I’ve come to realize how much of a privilege it is to have someone else make you tea. In the Land of Coffee, being a tea drinker makes you a mythical creature. Asking for milk with your black tea makes you a unicorn. Apparently, kettles are not standard kitchen equipment. Caffeine comes from coffee machines (and more often than not Starbucks). It is also not something had after dinner. Needless to say if I want a decent cup of tea the only way I’m getting it is if I make it. No big deal it only takes a few minutes – so I was really surprised to discover just how much I miss this simple act. Firstly, it means you’re not alone. Secondly, if you’re drinking a warm beverage it means you’re going to be there a while making it an opportune chance for real connection. For me a good cup of tea is a hug that you can drink, so the act of having tea made for me is a very loving thing. You’re being hosted, cared for, welcomed. An everyday part of life that I crave.

There’s been something oddly liberating knowing that I can (semi) figure life out even being dropped in the deep end. It’s a journey that’s far from over. Turns out I can do a year without more than I’d ever imagined – and challenging myself to be without has actually brought me more than I could ever have envisaged.

Granny Useless

The year 1910 saw the height of Eunice being used to name little girls. Still popular in 1917 this name was given to one particular baby girl – my grandmother. Rooted in Ancient Greek, Eunice means ‘good victory’. Unfortunately, this name is not easy for little kids to pronounce and for the first few years of my life I called this lovely woman Granny Useless. By the time I got her name right my brother entered the scene with an equally entertaining Granny Nuisance.

Eunice was one of the few women regarded as notable enough to be mentioned by name in the Bible – she was the mother of Timothy and said to be of sincere faith. Eunice raised Timothy to be a particularly useful young disciple – passing her principles and values on to her son enabled him to be a great man. This could not be a better description of my grandmother. Our family is most definitely her legacy.

Raised in a family of incredibly strong, independent women it hasn’t been until my adult years that I’ve realized what a unique feature that is. Rewinding 100 years the world was a very different place for women – a woman’s place in society was to raise a family and serve the man of the house. To a large extent this is what my grandmother did after meeting my grandfather many, many moons ago – with one exception – she held her own.

More than that, along with my grandfather she raised her daughters to be strong, independent women who refuse to settle. This has filtered through the generations making the Laburn family a true force to be reckoned with – and a very intimidating thing when we’re altogether! These values don’t just apply to the women of the family – the men have found women equally as strong and rooted. So whether by blood or by marriage the Laburn women legend continues to this day.

As one of my cousins so aptly stated, we were raised to be useful; learning all sorts of crafts, chores and life skills from the time we were (almost) old enough for it to be safe to teach. Granny Nuisance was never forceful or loud, but gently and lovingly encouraged us to try new things and find new ways to be involved in our community. That is unless you made her a bad cup of tea.

Her selfless, loving nature has been a constant support for many who crossed her path. Her fairy cakes, shortbread and mince pies are the stuff of legends. Granny Useless has made more jerseys, beanies, blankets and clothing for dolls and humans alike than anyone I’ve ever met and all of it has been done with loving care and incredible attention to detail.

Even in her golden years she’s shown incredible grace and class despite her health challenges and continues to share her incredible sense of humor with us. As a result of her unfailing character, faith and love she has built a family full of Timothy’s – one that I am incredibly grateful to be a part of.

Today marks Granny Usless’ 100th year on planet Earth. A milestone. A centenary of a life well lived and even more loved. As heart-sore as I am to be far away for this occasion I know that I can only do what I am doing now because of who I was raised to be and that, in large, is thanks to her.

 

Happy Centenary Granny Useless!

I am truly blessed to be part of your legacy

The view from up high

There’s this epic moment – however brief – when you realize you’ve achieved the impossible. You made it. You managed something that should not have been possible. You’ve pushed yourself to a new level. Blood, sweat, tears, late nights, early mornings and way too many cups of coffee (or in my case tea) but it’s done. You aimed for the stars, were glad if you made it off the ground at all and somehow landed on the sun. And it is awesome! In that moment there’s a rush. A high. A deeply satisfying high.

Sitting on the bus this week I realized I miss that feeling. Except miss isn’t quite the right word. It’s so much more than that – deeper – I’m craving it. Craving it like I crave lemon meringue pie. Like salt and vinegar chips. Like that glass of Coke on a really hot summer day.

Years and years of impossible deadlines. Of pressure. Of becoming an expert juggler. Of being who everyone else needed me to be. Pressure that at times made it difficult to breathe. Stretching myself further than I knew was possible, I longed for the days where I could just be. Where I wasn’t under mountains of pressure. Where I had time to smell the roses. So it is truly baffling to find myself with this craving now that I have exactly what I’ve longed for.

Even Facebook seems to know something I didn’t

A couple of weeks ago I went on a date with a guy who is a bit of an adrenaline junkie. He was telling me about how he craved his next thrill. Admittedly I judged him a little. I mean shouldn’t you be happy with the life you’ve chosen? And yet here I find myself sitting on a bus on the other side of the world craving my next high. My next deadline. My next impossible task. It pains me to admit it but I have an addiction. Stress. Stress is my poison. My passion. It’s an addiction I haven’t got the first clue how to break. Or even if I want to for that matter.

But then I guess that this is part of the ‘checking out of your life’ process. Breaking addictions you didn’t know you had, finding what you truly want and resetting things. Or find a new high. Either way. We’ll see…

The door opens the other way

The PhD is done. Finally! Looking back at what it took to get my little beastie done was just insane. That would explain why my last post was in January. In part, the stress was to begin a Post Doc in the USA in time to receive the funding for it. So currently I find myself sitting on my couch enjoying my first glass of local wine in Columbus, Ohio – a very long way away from the city I grew up in.

Everything is different here. EVERYTHING.

I was under the mistaken impression that life would not be all that different from SA – or at least if it was that TV would have prepared me for it. I thought I’d been smart and chosen a Post Doc at a ‘low key’ university so that would also make life easier. I also thought that choosing a country where the main language was English would also help in that I could converse easily… Ja. No. No where close.

There’s a full on candy store in the middle of the grocery store – all sorted by colour

I don’t think anything can prepare you for how BIG everything is here – my first supermarket shopping trip resulted in me in tears in front of the margarine/butter fridge where there were at least 20 different brands to choose from and I had no clue what any of them were. And let’s not get started on the cereal isle… Also I unknowingly chose the largest university in the country. Picture Stellenbosch but make it almost the size of the JHB CBD including Ellis Park but bigger. So no pressure now, just be awesome.

CBEC – My new lab home

Turns out English is not English everywhere. While SA has prepared me to understand many different accents quickly, and I can understand the people that surround me they don’t quite understand me. Dialogue is difficult here and trying to figure out whether its the words I used or the way I said something has brought out my awkwardness in full force.

To add to this, driving on the other side of the road means that everything is the wrong way around. I’m used to keeping left and passing right. This means that I keep bumping into people walking around – my brain just hasn’t converted. Worst still all the doors open the wrong way around (and the doors are all abnormally heavy) so Dr Jean Dam – the overqualified type A – cannot figure out how to get in and out of buildings. It’s the most glorious fail.

But perhaps the hardest adjustment is that the pace of life here is so much slower. This is a big city that just hasn’t figured out it’s big. There is no rat race. There is hardly any traffic – unless the Buckeyes have a home game. People walk their dogs around their neighborhood. Kids walk home from school and play in parks. And for the first time in my entire life I don’t have a schedule. I don’t have a calendar that is fully planned 3 weeks in advance. I don’t have to schedule ‘me time’.

View of my neighborhood from my apartment

Truth be told, I never understood how girls found the time to change the colour of their toenail polish every week. But out here I get it. Everything being the wrong way around (among other things) is forcing me to slow down. I cant rush. I cant rely on my hyper efficient autopilot. If I do, I walk into doors in public. I haven’t been here long but I can already feel that this place is changing me. I can feel myself slowing down – and it’s a very hard thing to give in to. It’s easy to slow down when you’re on holiday. Slow and relaxed is the point of holidays. Slow in everyday life is surprisingly difficult, especially on the back of a jam packed year.

This is my season for new. New title. New job. New lab. New molecules. New apartment. New city. New country. New doors. Doors that have given me a rather appropriate metaphor for this stage of my life – sometimes the door opens the other way.

1,2,3,4 I declare a thumb war!

As you know I’m not one to remember dates. In fact it’s generally a surprise if I know what day of the week we’re on. Today is a bit of an exception. Today marks one year since the thumb war began. Who knew that 2 little stitches would be enough to cause a war with myself?

Anyone who has played thumb wars would probably say that you cannot have a thumb war with yourself. I now beg to differ. This war was a sneak attack that I never saw coming. How can you play against yourself you ask? Simple – you are not your body. And by you I mean your personality, your thoughts, your quirks, your soul. You rent your body, you definitely don’t own it. This has been a very hard lesson that has now morphed into serious hostage negotiation.

Loosing control of my thumb – and on days my hand – has without a doubt been one of the most strangest and difficult experiences I’ve ever had. The cause of my own thumb war seems to have been a bit of a mystery. This too has add to the challenge as each different doctor and therapist has had their own ideas to the mix and I’ve been left mulling over everything from nerve damage, to a brain tumor to having absolutely no idea what’s going on. They have finally settled on a neuromuscular disorder that means my brain has disconnected my thumb from my control. This part was definitely the mind game behind the thumb war and one that I was loosing for a long time.

I may have lost the initial battles but I definitely intend to win this war. Disconnecting with my hand has forced me firstly to slow down and learn to regroup, something that was definitely not natural to me. Secondly it has forced me to learn to ask for help and to let others help me. Miss Independent has had to learn to recruit reinforcements and that it’s okay to make that call. It’s also been a good lesson in who makes good backup and they come from surprising places.

It’s given me endurance and added determination. It has forced me to increase my pain tolerance and to learn when to take it easy and when to push through. It has forced me to find perspective regularly and most definitely to celebrate the small victories in this war and any others. It has forced me to learn to adapt quickly and has taught me that while being down an appendage may be inconvenient, it definitely doesn’t have to limit you. It continues to force me to voice my emotions if I want to maintain any form of control over my hand.

A year ago today I woke up fully functional. Today I managed to get through the first yoga class since my accident. Tonight I go to bed still not quite back to the way a hand should work with the hope that one day I will. With the end of this thumb war not in sight I continue soldiering on, but also find that I’m grateful for the life lessons that have come with this war.

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