illness and personal change

Why I now believe in love

/ Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

On this special day for Mike and I, I would like to reassure any of you who have lost all faith in love that it is absolutely possible to find genuine, life-changing love no matter what your age, but you must truly believe in it and have some sort of faith that it can happen to you.

On our wedding day — Sept. 2005

Mike and I got married 16 years ago today. Why? Because we could see no reason not to. We were as in love as two 50 year-olds could be and convinced, after only eight months of knowing each other, that we had each met our match. After 50 years of “shopping around,” I knew I had met a partner worth my love and total trust in him. And he has done everything he possibly could in the past sixteen years to convince me of his unconditional love and loyalty.

When I first met Mike, he had some serious job-threatening health problems, but I knew he was the best person I had ever met. In the long-run his own experience with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome only served to make him more compassionate with those who also suffered. Since then his health has improved greatly and I am the one who struggles with dyspnea (shortness of breath) and head injuries. He still loves me completely.

When I met Mike I had no job and no great prospects for work any time soon. So he encouraged me to get some career counseling. That is what finally convinced me to follow my passion for writing. A freelance career and four books followed as well as my popular blog “Midlife Crisis Queen.” Mike opened up a whole new world to me and I loved it!

This is what love can do for you…

But most important to me, my heart’s desire was to believe that there were great people in this world who could truly care and commit to a lifetime of love. This is what I received, and so much more…

This is how it worked for me..

My experience with post-concussion syndrome

/ Laura Lee Carter / 2 Comments

In case a few of you are concerned about my condition since my last concussion in April, I was finally able to see a great neurologist this past week in Denver. Why Denver? Because no one down here would even see me! One in Pueblo refused and would not say why, plus they took a month to say so! Health care? What health care?

So five months later a great MD at Blue Sky Neurology in Denver did a thorough assessment of my condition and concluded I was in very good shape considering my history of a serious traumatic brain injury (2008) and a number of concussions since. He said something I already know too well, head injuries often lead to more head injuries, especially if you take into account my difficulties maintaining my oxygen levels.

It’s official. I now have Post-Concussion Syndrome.

Here’s a summary of what that is according to the Mayo Clinic:

Persistent post-concussive symptoms, also called post-concussion syndrome, occurs when concussion symptoms last beyond the expected recovery period after the initial injury. The usual recovery period is weeks to months. These symptoms may include headaches, dizziness, and problems with concentration and memory.

Concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury that usually happens after a blow to the head. It can also occur with violent shaking and movement of the head or body. You don’t have to lose consciousness to get a concussion or experience persistent post-concussive symptoms. In fact, the risk of developing persistent post-concussive symptoms doesn’t appear to be associated with the severity of the initial injury.

In most people, symptoms occur within the first seven to 10 days and go away within three months. Sometimes, they can persist for a year or more.

The goal of treatment after concussion is to effectively manage your symptoms.

Persistent post-concussive symptoms include:

  • Headaches
  • Dizziness
  • Fatigue
  • Irritability
  • Anxiety
  • Insomnia
  • Loss of concentration and memory
  • Ringing in the ears
  • Blurry vision
  • Noise and light sensitivity
  • Rarely, decreases in taste and smell

Luckily I only have about half of these. Mostly it just feels like I’m slightly drunk a lot of the time with occasional falling down-type whirlies. Ironic though, I almost never drank alcohol before this and I never do now. I found it interesting to know that I also have whiplash in my neck from falling down so violently. It seems some physical therapy is in order. Unfortunately, I now find myself unable to keep quiet when I’m angry. No filter here 🙂 so I sometimes must apologize later for losing my temper. I’ve always been a pretty direct and honest person, now that’s a bit out of control… oops!

But I am surviving nicely with no more plans to fall on my head… Hope you are all doing better than me!

Watching Mom lose everything…

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

This past week was one of the saddest of my entire life. I felt so bad for my Mom as she watched her most valued lifetime possessions walk out of her door. She then moved from a patio home to a small apartment in assisted living. Unmitigated pain. Moving from a patio home to assisted living meant flunking at life, at least that’s how my Mom felt about it. Failure at age 88. Her dementia has gotten to be too much and so comes the final punishment for living so long.

There was nothing we could say to ease her pain. It was just so sad.

At one point she said to me, “You will never understand how this feels.” And she’s right. Each person’s pain is their own. Only she remembers when she got each piece of furniture and how much it meant to her and my father. Their home was like a museum of their world travels and their many friendships gained along the way. That is now gone as her memories fade.

Sometimes I wonder, why we live if it all ends in death? That is when it strikes me that we are no different than any other animal or plant. We do not choose to be born or choose our death, it just is. The cycle of life and death continues for all living beings.

All I can come up with is to do my best to love my life every day, come rain or shine…

Useful lessons in love from old movies… Check out “Lydia” from 1941!

/ Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

I have become a real fan of Turner Classic Movies since my most recent brain injury the end of April. Actually even with my first traumatic brain injury back in 2008, I found watching movies to be most soothing and helpful in helping me re-learn language. After that first bike accident I could barely put a sentence together immediately afterwards. Apparently I hurt the part of my brain that does language.

This week I watched a great 1941 movie called “Lydia” starring Merle Oberon. I found it rather ahead of its time in terms of sexual liberation. I have learned that in old movies when two lovers share a passionate kiss, that should be read as a sexual encounter in today’s language. Anyway, Lydia, an elderly woman who never married (a spinster in 1940s speak), is suddenly confronted with the four men she has loved in her life as a sort of review of the important transitions she went through. This in itself reminded me of a reoccurring dream I had for years before I met Mike. In my dream I’m standing in front of a room of past lovers. So what do I do? I stand up and shoot myself in the head…

MERLE OBERON & ALAN MARSHAL in ‘LYDIA’

But Lydia is quite gracious to the three past lovers she is suddenly confronted with. These three men have always loved and cared for her, but she could never truly love them because she was deeply and tragically in love with another man whom she only knew for an intense few days when she was young. This sailor named Richard, deserted her soon after they met, but kept sending passionate letters promising love in their future. After most of her past life and loves have been explained, Richard, the man she had pined for forever comes by. After a great line about them all being “old and crusty” the man Lydia loved so passionately forever looks at her and does not even recognize her! OUCH!

What a great summary of intense youthful passion! Hormones can be such a major part of early love. They most certainly color our memories of what may later seem like the best times in our lives. But then the times when love first blooms is always excitingly poignant and unforgettable. The discovery that another person who you find quite attractive actually “loves” you is better than most drugs, and yet it is best to consider that you were on a certain type of drug when it happened. You were young and so insecure and just hoping someone would come along and make your life better. You were projecting all of your greatest wants and needs on to this one person who is probably at least as messed up as you are. Later, when you realize your life is not any better, and perhaps worse with this person….oops!

There are a number of great lines in “Lydia.” One is when she describes her lustful sailor man as: “bad and wicked, and as marvelous as they come, and I am so idiotically happy I can’t think!” Pretty tough to think when you are hopelessly in love and the hormones are raging! Another great piece of advice: “Don’t give your love to a phantom!”

I could relate well to this 80-year-old movie. That’s a miracle in itself! I have had my share of ill-fated love affairs. A few asked me to marry them, but I never did, not until much later in my life. I say, try not to be too hard on yourself for the silliness of your many past bad choices…

Open your heart to those you love. Sometimes it will turn out great. Other times, not so much...

It’s high time for some optimism from an 88 and 92 year old perspective!

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

I’m afraid some of you misunderstood my last post about academ-idiots. It was IN NO WAY a criticism of intelligence. Intelligence is as exciting and stimulating to me as anything these days. I am afraid too many of us sit and feel helpless when we watch the news. Between Afghanistan and COVID it is easy to slip into a daze of depression. The other day I thought, “Even if I had all the power in the world I could not ‘fix” Afghanistan…” However I do believe that if all healthcare professionals refused to treat those who chose not to follow the science and get vaccinated, we could make a big dent in our nationwide COVID problem.

I spent the past few days with my 88 year old mother. She is a constant reminder to me of how much progress we have made in terms of women’s education and liberation. When she was fresh out of high school, the best life she could imagine for herself was to marry a decent and determined man who might take her to good places in her future. In return she gave birth to and raised three children, cleaned his house, made every meal for us and did a million other things to make my Dad a success in his field of botany. She did finally get a college degree the year my sister graduated from high school, and taught elementary school for two decades after that. SHE LOVES KIDS! Now, as my Mom looks back over her life, she can say she did an amazing job of the only real job open to her 70 years ago. My Dad was also more optimistic about our future than my brother and I when he died at age 91. It seems with the proper perspective of nearly a century, optimism may arrive.

If you need a kick in the butt to feel positive about our future, I can highly recommend an interview I saw today with Marty Cooper, the inventor of the cellphone. He is now 92 and living the good life. This interview is really a history of cellphone development and BTW, cellphones were first developed by someone who was trained in electronics by the Navy, like my husband Mike. Sometimes having the perspective of 92 years can help the rest of us feel good about the future!

Marty’s most important message to everyone is “KEEP LEARNING! BE CURIOUS [about EVERYTHING!]”

I know now that keeping my brain working is a full-time job for me, and nothing inspires me as much as this six minute interview with Marty Cooper on CBS Sunday Morning today. Click here! It is absolutely worth your while!

Academ-idiots: those who work in academia and can intellectualize themselves out of anything

/ Laura Lee Carter / 2 Comments

I have wondered forever about what I call academ-idiots and how they survive their obsession with living in their heads. First of all I was raised by one and pretty much followed in his footsteps. To quote my first therapist in my early thirties, “I have never met a woman who intellectualizes everything like you do!” Yep, that was me… It’s hard to fight your upbringing when it’s all you know!

Hell, I didn’t even know I was different back then. I thought everybody read constantly and lived in their heads, filling them up with new ideas, new words and new meanings. As I grew up I found it more and more difficult to make new friends. They needed to be intellectualizers like me. When I started at Colorado College, the place where my Dad worked, I finally felt more at home. My friends were a little bit more intellectual, which came to mean out of touch with “the real world” like me. When I got a scholarship to Cornell University to study Chinese, I found myself in university snob heaven. What a trip! Through the years a few of my teachers told me how out of touch I really was, but in a good way.

Since then I have worked with many intellectuals in university settings and found so many to be academ-idiots. They lived in their minds and their disciplines, but did not know themselves at all. It was only years later that I separated myself from this identification with pure mind. Around age 40 I rejected mind without emotions, and decided to study psychology, investing for the first time in non-traditional education. I was still working at CU-Boulder, but running down the hill to study at the Naropa Institute, a Buddhist-based university. Only then did I see exactly how in-my-head I had become. What an inauthentic way of being in the world. In fact, it was a bit of a relief when I lost my last academic job back in 2004.

Goodbye academ-idiots, hello world!

A year later I met Mike, the absolute opposite of an intellectual or academic snob. He knew how everything worked and could not specialize or intellectualize to save his life. He was as well-rounded and authentic as a human being could be. He had tee shirts that said things like “Screw- U.” He balked at those who acted like they knew everything, but could not fix their own car or respect those who didn’t go to college. He got his skills training at his Dad’s garage and in the Navy starting at age 17, and ended up working for one of the top solar energy companies in the world. Mike treats everyone initially with respect, compassion, honesty, integrity. I find his finest quality to be his sense of loyalty to those he loves. Mike can sniff out inauthenticity from a mile away… not that we have a lot of intellectuals or snobs out here in rural southern Colorado 🙂

Sometimes I sit and watch the perfectly average Americans I see in our local grocery store parking lot, and laugh at my thoughts, thoughts like: “Where are all the beautiful people in this town?”

My life has been so much better since I gave up feeling better than others. It can be so toxic, creating crazy illusions that I somehow control everything and everybody. Nope, that’s not how it works. Take it from someone who has learned in the past few years that she cannot breathe without a machine and her brain is damaged through no fault of her own. I am being forced to relax my mind…. what an interesting challenge for someone so focused on my own thoughts…

Time and change happens to us all!