Tag: Advocacy

Good Vibrations Gratitude Friday #10

Published on by kerrymckim1 Comment

It’s FRIDAY!!!!!

That means it’s time for some Good Vibrations Gratitude.

Image result for come on come feel the vibration

These are the five things I am grateful for this week.

  1.  Brunch with friends

    I like brunch.  But I like doing it the Mom way meaning we get there right when brunch starts, usually around 10.  It’s a good time.  The kids are ready to eat and it’s before the hipsters show up.

    I also like that I get to brunch my way now.  I prefer brunch is establishments that are not diners. Bryon loved diners and I am not a fan. I feel like diner food is not any better than the food I cook.  I like to go to brunch and have something fancy that I could cook but generally don’t have the patience to.

    Plus, I don’t like diners because many of them are small and I am claustrophobic.  Now I know many other establishments are small.  But I can deal with my claustrophobia for fancy brunch.   Like, I can tolerate being in a small space but not for generic food that I could make at home.

    Bryon was always more of the breakfast fan than me so he would win.  That and because the issue wasn’t important enough to me.   I am glad I went along with it because diner breakfast always made him happy.

    I guess of the “perks” of widowhood is I get to do whatever I want.  It’s bittersweet, really.

    And Kimmy Gibbler has the same attitude about brunch so we had brunch at a local place called Savoy Taproom.


    I had the adult ice coffee with aquafaba  and creme brulee French Toast.  I had no clue what aquafaba was but the waitress explained it to me.  It’s apparently a vegan alternatives to egg whites and apparently putting egg whites into iced coffee is a thing now.  The egg whites create the froth.  I tried it but I made it clear to the waitress that I was not a vegan.  For some reason, I felt that that was important and that the waitress wanted to know.

    I always considered myself an iced coffee snob and I had no clue.  *shrug*

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  2. Advocating for MS

    For the second year I got the honor of advocating for people living with Multiple Sclerosis at the New York State Capital.  I am not going to elaborate on that because I will be writing a post about that.  I have several friends with MS and I am thankful that I get an opportunity to advocate for them.

  3. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

    Because…duh

  4. Signs from Heaven

    I know I spoke of Bryon’s Valentine’s Day sign that came in the form of Vagisil.

    But I have heard that the deceased communicate through songs on the radio.  There are certain songs I hear all the time since Bryon died.  There was even a period of time I heard Hall & Oates at least once a day and I don’t spend much time in my car.  My deceased husband also seems to really like Michael Jackson, particularly “Billie Jean”, The Police- “I’ll Be Watching You”, Earth Wind and Fire; “September” (I think that is because we got engaged, married and became parents in the month of September), and Berlin’s “Take My Breathe Away” because Top Gun was his favorite movie.

    I haven’t heard much in the car for the past couple of months.  I just figured that Bryon was done sending those signs.  He was going to find a new way to communicate with me.  But the past three days have been a Bryon McKim jam session every time I have been in car.  It’s nice to know that he hasn’t forgotten about me and will still try to spend time with me in the only way he can now.

  5. Having the courage to cut off my grief hair

    I had been wanting a change for awhile.  I hemmed and hawed over it for months.  I liked my hair long but it was so damaged.  The ends felt like straw.  I also wanted something different and I have never been a blonde so I went for it.  I am a new person so my outside should reflect my inside.

    This was a big step for me.  I have never been a risk taker but I told myself that it is just hair.  It grows back.  It can be changed back.  But it was also hard because I was attached to that hair.  I have hid behind that hair for almost two years.  But I decided it was time to get rid of it and shine.

    Now I just need to lose some weight and maybe get a tattoo and my physical transformation will be complete.


    What are you grateful for this week?

 

An epiphany

Published on by kerrymckim7 Comments

There have been two feelings I have had my whole life.

The first feeling of restlessness.  I have always felt that there is a whole world out there to see.  So much history and culture to absorb.  Different people with different routines and traditions.  

I had only left New England seven times before I went to study in England the fall of my junior year in college.  Three of those times had been to Canada (New Brunswick, Quebec City and Montreal), two had been to New York (NYC and Niagara Falls with a side trip to the Canadian side) and one trip to Gettysburg, PA and one trip to Washington D.C.  The flight from Boston to London at the age of 21 was my first time flying on an airplane.  I have since seen more of the U.S. between my involvement in the Young Republican National Federation and my parents purchasing an RV.  I have seen more of the world due to Bryon and my love for cruising.  And I don’t plan on stopping.  I promised Bryon I wouldn’t stop.

Don’t get me wrong.  I do love my small Maine town.  I miss Maine, especially the people and the ocean.  But I always felt like there was more in the world and I wanted to experience it.  Maine did feel so isolated.  The only cities you could travel to easily by car was Boston and Quebec City.  I always wanted to be close to more US cities.  I love Boston (my birthplace) and Quebec City but I love having the option to do weekend trips to other cities.  

I still feel that urge to see the world.  It doesn’t matter if it is a back country road or a big city.  I just love to see new places.  I love historical sites and museums.  I love trying local food.  I love shops.  I love scenery.  I want to see it all.

The second feeling I have had my whole life is that I have always felt like an outsider. That I am on the outside looking in.  I never felt included despite being involved in sports, clubs, and later politics.

This brings me back to high school and college.  I always worried where I fit in.  I wasn’t cool but I wasn’t uncool either.  I wasn’t particularly included but I wasn’t excluded.  I had friends but I wasn’t invited to the cool parties.  Though looking back, I am sure some of that was me.  I didn’t have the wisdom to know how to be as open to friendships.  Being open to friendship is something I only started to do when Bryon got sick.  

I followed my same social patterns in college.  There were two major groups in my college dorms.  The theater/art/music majors sat on the left side of the cafeteria and the athletic and Greeks sat on the right hand side.  There was one row of tables that was right in the middle near the salad bar and an ice cream cart.  I was friends with people on both sides and would sit on either side.  If I was by myself (something that didn’t phase me, especially after studying abroad and going to Paris by myself) and I didn’t see any of my friends, I would just sit in the middle.

When it comes to my writing and purpose, I come back to these two feelings that have plagued me my whole life.  

I have so many ideas for blog posts in my head and no idea where to start. I have so many ideas of what I want to accomplish, but I don’t know how to get there.  Now I have Paul Simon’s Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard stuck in my head.

I think about the concept of having a niche when writing.  What kind of blogger and writer am I?  Trying to find what writing niche reminds me of my high school and college years where I was trying to find the right table to sit at in the cafeteria.  My half-marathon training has been suffering due to my poor time management skills so I am definitely not a running blogger.  I don’t travel enough to be a travel blogger.  I write about life, but I am not a lifestyle blogger.  Trust me, if you could see how messy my living room is, you would know why I don’t post pictures of my house.  I write about death and grief.  It is important for me to share that part of my story as our society has a twisted view on death and grieving and we need to talk about it.  But I don’t want Bryon’s death and grief to define me.  I am still a person who has a lot of living left to do.

I need to make a difference.  I need to help people.  

I need to talk about grief to help widows, especially young widows because the world thinks of widows as being elderly.  

I need to talk about grief to help those who have lost loved ones, not just widows, but anyone who has lost a child, family member or friend.  

I need to talk about rebuilding my life to help those whose life and sense of security  was shattered, whether it was by death, divorce or job loss.  

I need to talk about my struggles in parenting to help those who are single parents.

I need to tell my story of surviving to give hope to those who are struggling to carry on.

I need to talk about the problems in our healthcare system so people can advocate for themselves and their families.

It dawned on me today that instead of worrying where I fit in, I need to just blaze my own trail.  Not just with my writing, but in my life in general.  If I truly want to be open to new people and new experiences, then I shouldn’t be focusing on trying to put place myself in a niche or group.  If I do that, then I inadvertently narrow down who I meet and my opportunities to make a difference.  I have spent my whole life waiting for others to define the path I am to take.  That is silly because no one other than myself can know my true life purpose.  No one else can understand what I hope to get out of life.  If I wait for others to define my path, then I am limiting my potential.  

I need to blaze that trail even if I don’t know where I am going.  Besides being a wife and mother, the other two times I felt accomplished in my life where when I took risks and did something scary.  The first was my semester in the UK and the second was my years in politics.  They were the two times in my life when I felt like I was out experiencing life the most and my experiences were the most rewarding.  I pushed ahead and did things out of my comfort zone.  I didn’t let fear stop me.  I need to remember this as I blaze a trail forward.

Advocating for MS in the State Capitol

Published on by kerrymckim1 Comment

I had an amazing opportunity this week to advocate for people living with Multiple Sclerosis.  It all started a few months back when I told one of my best friends that the company I work for gives every employee five paid days to volunteer each year.  (Something more companies should do.)  My best friend is the Advocacy Director for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society serving New York State and Vermont.  Part of her job is to give people living with MS the tools they need to be advocates.  So I told my best friend that I have 5 volunteer days that my company gives me and I may as well use them and the MS Society is definitely a cause I support.  My best friend invited me to join her team when they spent the day at the New York State Capitol advocating for several issues that affect MS patients.

I have several friends who live with MS as well as a few distant family members that had MS but I never realized how little I knew about the disease.  Some of the things I learned included:

  1. The cost of medicine is astronomical and ridiculous.  A medicine that has been on the market for 20 years that was $8,000 thr year when it came out now costs over $80,000 a year.  So if someone needs this medicine and has a 20% coinsurance payment, they have to pay over $16,000 a year for the medicine.  I don’t know how it is reasonable to expect a middle class or lower class person to be able to afford that.  One of the people advocating said that they knew a middle aged person who had to move back in with their elderly parents because they couldn’t afford to live on their own and pay for their medication.  I remember complaining when the copay for my albuterol inhaler went from $20 to $40 and this is a harsh reality check.
  2. The lack of transparency from insurance companies can make it difficult for MS patients to be able to choose treatment.  Sometimes a drug may lose its effectiveness or require some trial and error but it’s hard for a patient to make that change if they can’t get a clear answer from their insurance company as to how much the out of pocket expense is going to be.
  3. MS patients don’t get to choose if they receive their drugs through the mail or at a local pharmacy.  Their insurance company makes that decision.  Some people like to get their drugs in the mail and it works out great but for other people it doesn’t work.  Sometimes the drugs are stolen and since they are expensive, the mail order pharmacy may be hesitant to resend them (it’s not Amazon.com who will usually resend an item that doesn’t show up). An MS patient usually has to jump through hoops to get the medication they need and any gap in medication coverage can cause big problems in their treatment.

I learned so much during this day.  In addition to learning about MS, I learned about the process of meeting with legislators and discussing issues and seeing how change could happen.  I was in awe of my best friend as she would talk to the legislators or their representatives.  It was amazing to see her in action.  My fun-loving friend got down to business!  I was also in awe of the MS patients who bravely told their stories to help themselves and others afflicted by the disease. At first I felt a little self conscious because I was “just a volunteer” when everyone else was an employee or they were living with MS but everyone welcomed me to the team.  And they answered my stupid questions too without making me feel stupid.

When Bryon was in the ICU, I had to learn very quickly how to advocate for him.  It does not matter how good the hospital is, one must stay on top of what the doctors are doing and saying.  I think the struggles I had are the same struggles that others have regardless of illness.  One of the things that always seemed to concern me was that the different teams of doctors didn’t seem to communicate and I heard that was also the case with MS patients.  MS patients have to see neurologists that specialize in MS and if they see another type of doctor, it is imperative that that doctor communicate with their neurologist because what might be a standard treatment for a healthy person may cause serious complications to a MS patient.

While a patient (or their family as was my case) should always be aware of what is going on, I know it was exhausting to have to stay on top of the doctors to make sure they had the correct up-to-date information.  But I had to do it.  I have a background in healthcare since my profession is in Oncology data but I can’t imagine how much harder it must be for patients and family members who do not have a background in healthcare.  Bryon could not advocate for himself and my heart breaks for the patients who don’t have family members who work in healthcare and don’t understand healthcare jargon.  I can’t imagine how lost they must feel.

After this experience, working to make sure patients and patients families have to tools to advocate for themselves is important to me.  I don’t want anyone to feel like they were hit by a steamroller like I was.  I hope I get more opportunities in the future to advocate for patients and their families and I thank my friends at the MS Society of New York for this including me.