After five months of fighting metastatic pancreatic cancer, my mother has gone on hospice. For those of you lucky enough to be unaware, hospice is an organization dedicated to end-of-life care. Basically it provides everything a patient and their caregiver(s) need in order to stay comfortable towards the end of an illness or terminal condition, including medication, hospital beds, oxygen, even commodes. (Chocolate peanut butter frozen yogurt and the first three seasons of The Tudors are not included.) All I had ever heard about the organization up until this point had been good things. My aunt and grandmother had been on hospice, and my childlike understanding of the group was that they were a gang of nuns that acted as kindly drug pushers. Close, but not quite. First of all, we’ve only met one nun, and she was awesome, though she could have used a habit. Secondly, the drugs are necessary.

My mom is now on morphine. After experiencing her first high, she said she felt funny. I assured her it was normal, and that most of the musicians I listened to in the ’90s felt the way she did for the duration of the decade. Other than the nodding, there have been hallucinations, ranging from the amusing — “When did you get that big, black tattoo on your back?” — to the bizarre — “Does that say fennel?” As I deal with the bedsores, the dosing, the discomfort, the bathroom issues, I have to wonder about these hospice people. Why on earth would someone do this for a living?

It feels like a million years ago that I contemplated being a home health aid in Portland. I was desperate for work, destitute, and had a friend that cared for the severely mentally and physically impaired. He could get me a job in an instant. I thought about it. I was really, really hungry, and I didn’t know where rent was coming from, but there were a lot of things that made me hesitant to sign on the dotted line. For one, it was a lot of bathing, clothing, and feeding of adults who, according to my friend, didn’t really comprehend much about their state of existence or what was going on from moment to moment. My friend also told me that it was often very lonely work, but that the money was good and more than made up for it.

I chose not to do it. I would have felt odd caring for a stranger like that, it was way too intimate to be with someone in exchange for a paycheck without Robert Redford involved. Although I’m sure it was irrational, I also felt like it was a bit of a violation of their dignity. I had enough issues with leaving the door open to pee in front of Simon. I couldn’t imagine having someone I didn’t know wipe my butt and spoon feed me vegan burritos.

I imagine that hospice is similar to being a home health aid, only your patients have the shelf life of a carton of milk. My mom often wondered how her oncologist handled the fact that most of his patients died. Hospice is like that, only without the miraculous tales of recovery. On their website, if you go to apply for a job, it reads, “Contrary to the myth that hospice work is sad and depressing, our nurses say it is the most rewarding work they have ever done.”  I can’t believe that. Hospice nurses and volunteers take care of people on their way to taking a dirt nap. It’s that simple. Granted, I’m feeling a bit cynical, as my position as the caregiver leaves me pretty exhausted, frustrated, and morose. My mother is dying, there’s nothing I can do. For the  hospice worker, my mother is dying, there’s nothing they can do. Morphine, anyone?

Taking care of my mom has been the most effective form of birth control I could imagine. Bathing, feeding, clothing, and assisting her in everything from taking a pee to walking to another room has informed me that, no, I am not patient enough to shoot a little Mini Ainsley out of my love canal. But she’s my mom. I love her, I ache for her, and I wish this weren’t happening. Again, if you do have a kid, I can understand, it’s yours. You want it to be happy, healthy, to prosper. You can smile as you get up in the middle of the night to give them a glass of juice, and you can patiently troubleshoot the accidents that they’ve left in their Spiderman skivvies. They’re kids. Watching an adult be infantalized (let alone my own mother) is painful and humiliating. It’s hard for me to not feel completely inept, angry, and terrified, and I’m her only child. But doing this for money…or as a volunteer? I can’t comprehend the motivation, let alone why anyone would want a job like this if they have children in their own home.

I believe in the goodness of humanity, this blog alone has taught me that much. Every time my wallet has gotten dangerously thin, someone has randomly sent a donation. Each time I feel like the worst writer to ever tap Morse into a keyboard, someone leaves a comment or writes me a funny, complimentary email. Despite my philosophy that had developed over years of listening to goth music, people have proven that they are, in fact, not all bad. But it’s unfathomable to me that people dedicate their time to helping people like my mother, complete strangers, in their last weeks or months of life. I don’t know if I’m humbled or ashamed of the fact that I can say unequivocally that caring for the dying is something I cannot do, outside of the situation I’m in.

If you are the opposite of yours truly, and are the kind of person who would thrive doing this sort of thing, first of all, more power to you. You are a better person than I. Next, you can apply for a position on your local hospice website, or by calling them and asking if there are any opportunities available. To work with hospice in the Long Island area, you need two years experience in homecare or hospice, a valid driver’s license with a car to match, knowledge of medication, an understanding of how to control various symptoms, and language skills. If you speak Spanish, Chinese, or Korean, even better. If you’re able to calmly explain basic procedures to a completely clueless chick with tattoos and a foul mouth, you should get hired now.

If you’re on the other end of the hospice can-and-string like me, I have to let you know that, so far, they are incredible. In the dead of night, if you notice that your loved one is itchy, you can call them and they are there. If you just want someone to talk to because you’re scared and alone, they’re there. If you need a refill on Roxanol, they will have it delivered to your door. They can’t make the pain of the loss stop, but they help to try to make me comfortable, just as they do for my mom.

I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone for your support. Even though I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to update this blog as regularly over the next few weeks, I promise that I’ll keep posting. Feel free to drop me a line, AinsleyDrew at gmail dot com. And thank you to everyone who donates.

Ministry of Imagery is still open for business.

When you look up “phlebotomy” on Wikipedia, you are offered three disambiguated pages: one for “venipuncture,” or the medical procedure of puncturing veins; “bloodletting,” the gory old-school practice seldom repeated since ancient times; and “phlebotomy,” the Greek gothic-metal band from the nineties. (Now called On Thorns I Lay.)

not phlebotomists

For the sake of this blog, I’m going to write about phlebotomy with reference to venipuncture. After all, at least once a week since my mother’s cancer diagnosis I’ve experienced a bird’s-eye view of blood being drawn, and I’ve marveled at it since day one.

At the chemo clinic where she gets her Gemzar , they don’t just take a sample of blood and send it off to the lab. Before each round of treatment they prick my mom, drain a few drops of the good stuff, and run it through a computer, where my mother’s makeup comes up on a computer screen as a series of graphs. Then they print out her stats on a dot matrix printer, peel off those nostalgic perforated strips, and send us on our way with an up-to-the-minute reference point of my mom’s juice to show the doctor. The numbers and charts reveal a bunch of stuff, namely her white blood cell count, platelet count, hemoglobin, and on-base percentage. The nurse is in a perpetually good mood, even when handling bodily fluids, cancer patients, and their overly inquisitive daughters.

The word “phlebotomist” comes from the Greek words for “vein” and “cutting.” In light of the nursing shortage, and the fact that doctors are busy golfing, the art of tapping veins a la Sid Vicious has been left to technicians who are skilled in riding the red highway to the laboratory. Tasks of the phlebotomist include preparing stains, properly labeling all samples (check out this nifty blood-sample labeling pen that’s a tool of the trade), sterilizing equipment, recording blood pressure and pulse, and watching that Twilight movie. Some also imitate R. Kelly and handle urine specimens.

One of the main responsibilities of a phlebotomist is to explain the procedure to the patients. This is where things can get somewhat dangerous. One of my closest friends is a girl who measures about 5’4″ and weighs roughly as much as the average amount of cocaine rapper Plies’ manager keeps in his house. She’s afraid of having her blood drawn, and has had to be restrained by more than one nurse in order for a sample to be procured. This girl, who has defended me in a street fight, can’t even mention the word “blood” in an email without getting queasy. In a cruel twist of fate, she’s had to undergo several surgeries and countless medical tests in the past year, nearly all of which required a visit from a “vein cutter.” She attributes her phobia to three things: an irrational fear of having her wrists touched, the act of locating a vein, and the explanation. As she puts it, “I don’t want them to talk to me about it at all when I’m there. I don’t want them telling me what they’re doing. It’s actually the prep that is worse for me than the needle. I’m not afraid of needles. It’s the searching for the you-know-what that I hate. I can’t be more descriptive than that.”

It turns out that a lot of people have a serious queasiness about those things that rhyme with the state of Maine.

Fear of veins and wrists actually is called carpophobia. If you want to help someone get over this phobia, you don’t have to endure years and years of training to become a psychotherapist, after all that only inevitably leads to being paid ridiculous sums of money and having a few letters added to your name. You can become a phlebotomist.

Seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? It turns out that many who enter the lab tech field do so because they want to help people get over these fears, not compound them. “I want to help people. I love showing children the “blow away the pain” technique,” says technician Candice. Some phlebotomists even suffer from this squeamishness themselves. “I started doing this in order to overcome my fear of needles. That and I wanted to get closer to my nursing degree,” says Nate, who now is a registered nurse.

Although the requirements vary state by state, nearly all require copious training and a minimum of a GED. Most employers do demand some sort of certification, but there are cases where this can be obtained on the job. Accredited phlebotomist programs take at least a semester to complete, but some last as long as a year, and all phlebotomists are required to take multiple courses in anatomy, physiology of the circulatory system, and blood drawing techniques. Much like Louie from Interview With A Vampire, all phlebotomists will have to learn from hands-on training, and will practice multiple venipunctures on live humans who say ouch. Certification needs to be renewed on an annual basis, and Certified Phlebotomy Technician (CPT) and Registered Phlebotomy Technician (RPT) certificates are granted by The American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), American Medical Technologists (AMT) and the American Society for Phlebotomy Technicians (ASPT).

The reward of being a phlebotomist is an annual salary of $24,350, according to The American Society of Clinical Pathologists.  This breaks down into roughly $11.71 per hour, forty hours a week. Allow me to point out that this salary is less than you’d make as a forklift operator. Though I’m sure working with warehouse cargo allows for a variety show’s worth of double-entendre, not many occupations can boast such an unintentionally smutty job warning: Phlebotomists-in-training and teenage boys alike, be warned, “avoid trauma and excessive probing.”

If you’d like to become a phlebotomist, check out this tutorial but do not watch it if you suffer from squeamishness or carpophobia. You can also check in with the American Society for Phlebotomy Technicians. They vant you to draw blood.

Drop me a line: AinsleyDrew at the gmail one.

Thank you for everyone who donates! (Money, not plasma.)

Ministry of Imagery: we tie the tourniquet and tap the word veins. Hire us.

Sometimes I have insomnia.

It’s not your average “have a lot on my mind, how will I pay my bills” lack of sleep. It’s not even the typical recovering alcoholic insomnia that comes from your brain begging you to get loaded. It’s just boring old traditional insomnia.

It started towards the end of my last serious relationship. We were living together and a friend of ours gave us a charming, chiming wall clock, like this one:

It was beautiful, all warm wood and roman numerals, a truly regal way to say, “Oh, fuck, I’m about to be late for work.” It chimed either several times an hour all day long, or several times an hour from 5AM till 11PM. It was your choice. Either way, fifteen minutes past there were three notes, half past there were five notes, fifteen till were seven notes, and then there was the whole Westminster chime at the top of the hour. It would have been lovely, if we hadn’t lived in a studio apartment the size of a clutch purse.

I was too stubborn to throw the clock away (we had asked for it, we had wanted it…I had wanted it, more importantly, because I had grown up with a similar clock in my childhood home) so I flipped the switch to avoid having to hear the chiming at night. That’s when the trouble began.

We’d go to bed at around 10, since we both had “regular” jobs that required being up by 7:30. So I’d wait until it stopped chiming, lying in bed, listening, waiting. Finally, I’d notice that it had shut up for a while. It was eleven. But then the dread of 5AM, when the fucking thing would start again, began to gnaw away at me. Was it five yet? Was it? Almost? Four? How much longer until my sleep would be interrupted?

Now, I know what most normal people would think. Ainsley, put the clock in the closet. Just take the batteries out and get rid of it. No big deal.

Sure, I finally ripped it off of the wall, tearing the batteries out and leaving the whole thing in a heap on the ground. But that didn’t solve the problem. The groundwork for my sleeplessness had been set. Even after I kicked out my partner and unearthed the wonders of Tylenol PM, Snoozeville came rarely. I still occasionally battle the kind of sleeping difficulty that is peculiar at best. I cut out afternoon caffeine, tried warm milk, moved my desk to another room, everything WebMD suggested. Still, at least once a week, shut-eye is shut out and I’m left staring into the dark. It sucks. It’s annoying. But there appears to be a way to get paid for it.

For around a thousand bucks a week I can be hooked up to a bunch of electrodes like some tiny, very awake Frankenstein and get paid to sleep. Or not sleep, as the case may be.

The only catch is instead of my room, with its candles, Portishead, and Nag Champa smell, I’d be in a hospital. You know. A ward. Attending a sleep study.

These studies are useful for diagnosing and investigating treatment options for things like sleep apnea, periodic limb disorder, sleepwalking, and, yes, insomnia not caused by clocks.

Sleep studies are usually one of three things: a polysomnogram, which just checks your basic breathing/swallowing/eye movement and general bodily functions as you succumb to slumber; MSLT, or Multiple Sleep Latency Test, which measures how long it takes you to conk out, and video records your movements a la 1 Night In Paris; or MWT, a Multiple Wake Test, which measures whether you can stay awake during a time when you’re normally awake. Flip on NPR and I can assure you that the answer is a decided no.

Fine. Hook me up. Monitor me. I’ll just insist on 50% up front, just as I would any normal writing client.

Only, then I found this:

“I have a friend who was the IT guy for one of the Boston-area sleep studies. He told me that in the observation room, there is a wall covered with pictures and desperate messages from study participants stating that they want to go home. They’d write these messages in almost anything, from pen scribblings that filled a spiral notebook to missives spelled out in ketchup and tater-tots.”

It appears, from what I’ve read, that if you have control issues, sleep studies are not the fast-cash method for you. They monitor the lights, the clocks, any sensory input. Basically, it’s, like, living with your parents during puberty. Not fun.

Although I’m more than happy to donate my body to science (for a price), I don’t think that wiring me up for sandman speculation is really worth my time for a dime. After all, I enjoy working from home as soon as I roll out from under the covers. And, moreover, on those nights that I can’t sleep, it’s still nice to wrap myself like a koala around my snoring other half. He grinds his teeth. Maybe we can eventually do a tandem sleep study and double our ROI.

Thank you for donating and thereby keeping electrodes off my supple skin.

Share your nap stories: AinsleyDrew at gmail.

What we do when we’re awake.

Talking in our sleep.

On my last day in New York I was driving down Main Street in Port Washington and got stopped behind a Lexus. Affixed to the bumper of said automobile was the bumper sticker reading

HYPNOTISTS ARE ENTRANCING

There was a tiny spiral that resembled a thumbprint on the left side of this statement.

Simon joked that I should rear-end the car and then say, “Sorry, I was distracted by your bumper sticker.”

When I pointed out, with bitter envy, that the sticker should read LEXUS OWNERS ARE GULLIBLE, I was informed by my counterpart that professional hypnotists make loads of money.

Really.

"No, my mustache is better!"

People stare at me a lot. I have a rhythmic, if somewhat grating, giggle. I’m not afraid to watch people sleep. I really, really need some cash.

Maybe I should be a professional hypnotist.

For those of you who are of generation MySpace, allow me to explain. Hypnosis, or hypnotherapy, is a method of harnessing the subconscious by inducing a trance-like state. It’s often associated with the New Age movement, natural healers, holistic health, Ouija Boards, and goths. It can be used to help cure anything from kicking cancer sticks to social anxiety to binge eating to having too much money. I’m skeptical, but then again, I hate everything. Maybe a hypnotist can help.

The American Psychological Association is quoted as saying that hypnosis itself can cause “…changes in subjective experience, alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behavior.” Proponents believe it can help decrease cravings, enhance physical performance, and even act as a painkiller for things as intense as childbirth. To which I say, yeah, okay. You try deep breathing as your method of coping with your cervix dilating to the point of passing a honeydew melon through your vagina, I’ll tell you that you’re cuckoo for Cocoa-Puffs. But the application of hypnosis for medicinal purposes has been around since the late 1800s, and very few phony fads have that kind of staying power. In 1958 the American Medical Association published a report that can be summed up with the line “…the use of hypnosis has a recognized place in the medical armamentarium and is a useful technique in the treatment of certain illnesses when employed by qualified medical and dental personnel.” (“Medical use of hypnosis”, JAMA, 1958)

So even if I personally have my doubts, hypnosis is not a slap bracelet.

Also, don’t get hypnosists confused with those who practice mesmerizing. I get the impression that they’re offended by that. Kind of like an Irish versus Scottish thing.

In order to become a hypnotist you have to go to school, and get certification by one of the very few accredited hypnosis organizations, such as the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners. The group was founded in 1973 to self-regulate the practitioners of hypnosis and make sure that they didn’t all bond together to create some malevolent plan to make the human race their army of flesh-eating cannibal zombies that would eventually require Batman to come and destroy them and save Gotham. The ACHE explains the guidelines that you’re required to follow in order to become a certified hypnotist. They basically include between 200 and 300 hours of instruction and testing. I assume you have to also pledge to fight the forces of Grayskull or something, but I will never know, for it also requires $175 in order to receive registration and two years of certification. I do not have $175 to my name at this point. But, hey, thanks for playing.

Moreover, hypnosis itself is pretty thoroughly routed in a subject’s ability to succumb to the power of suggestion and, oh yeah, relax. It would be very similar to me attempting to perform an exam for Ipsilateral Testicular Hypotrophy. Google it.

Basically, in brief, I don’t have the money to become a hypnotist, which is good, ‘cause it’s probably something that I wouldn’t have a natural knack for. It’s likely that I’ll become a Lexus owner before I become a relaxation guru.

I kind of hope so.

Thank you to everyone who donates! You’re entrancing.

Write me a letter at AinsleyDrew at gmail after the count of three….

You’re getting sleepy…Very, very sleepy…