Grief and loss

 

It's been a heavy month. I lost two of my dear patients (not wholly unexpected due to age but abruptly in the same week) last month.

 

My great-aunt Marilyn passed on November 6th after hip surgery and after a battle with memory loss.

A longtime local pediatrician Dr. Cook passed away on November 3rd.

Kelvin's grandfather has been diagnosed with metastatic cancer of unknown primary and is on hospice care with limited time remaining.

I had to do the hardest part of my obstetrics work on my last call weekend, delivering two (back to back) babies that had lost their heartbeats in their mothers' wombs.  These families' losses are so hard to imagine.

Grief is a reminder that we are mortal, and human. Our lives are not to be taken for granted. I am thankful to had had more joy than grief in my years.

• “Grief is not a disorder, a disease, or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, spiritual and physical necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.”

• -Earl Grollman

Pickleball tournament!

 

Our whole family has gotten into playing pickleball in the last year or so. We have had fun playing at local (mostly outdoor but sometimes indoor) spaces, as well as in our driveway.  

Arcata Rec department put on a tournament this weekend and Iver wanted to enter in 3.0 (I honestly don't know much about rankings are generated)  Mixed and Men's Doubles.

Saturday was the Mixed Doubles event, which included eight teams. We played a Round Robin stage and then moved on to bracket (elimination) play.

Iver and I (team name "Vulocity") started 0-2 but turned it around and finished Round Robin play 5-2, which bought us a two seed in bracket play. 

We made it to the Championship, but lost a (best two out of three) match to Jay and Licia. Iver still feels like I was the weaker player, even though I held my own in a lot of the matches and tend to do well on serve. I still struggle with a lot of unforced errors when volleying at the net, as the strategy is a bit different than in tennis and I think my reaction time is on the slow side (I have a lot of tennis strike tendencies which don't serve me well with differently bouncing pickleballs).

On day 2, the competition included both Women's and Men's doubles. 

Iver and Jonathan (the only kids I saw) teamed up as "IVJT." 

The tournament went by more quickly, as there were only four teams (with cool names including "Dink Responsibly"), and they were 2-1 entering bracket play.

They made it to the Championship and played against a team (The Wizards) that they lost to 4-11 in Round Robin play... 

... but they found a way to win (11-8, 11-7)! While I'm sure it was disappointing for the adults to lose to a couple of kids, I was proud of these youth (and I am, sadly, very used to the feeling!)! The kids took home a wooden medal and (too large) tourney shirt.

Until the next tournament!

Friday Night Lights!

 

We heard great things about a local Ferndale (about 45 minutes south of us) high school football team, and wanted to get to see them in action, as the boys have become more interested in football this year.

The (Ferndale) Wildcats had scored something like 580+ unanswered points for the first 8 games of their season, averaging 64.7 points per game, and had only given up a few scores total, per this local article.  We watched them play the Arcata Tigers (#2 in their league) at the McKinleyville High School football stadium under the lights, after a rainy week (but cool, dry night).

They seemed to score at will, but also had great defense, with many interceptions. Their white uniforms were muddy from all their hard work!  Arcata scored once but, after three quarters, it was 34-6 and we headed home (the final score was 48-6). 

I don't know how a small town of 1,500 (which makes rural Arcata look GIANT) can field such a great team, but they're onto the playoffs so look out for what the Wildcats do for the rest of the season! 

Double Holiday Halloween '25

The kids' school is a Spanish immersion charter school. Every year, they celebrate Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is on November 2nd. This year, because the day was on a weekend, the celebration was held on Halloween, also an extremely fun holiday for kids.

Our kitchen (and possibly our hand mixer) was destroyed on Thursday night by making pan de muerto, or "dead bread," for Iver's entire class. This involved about 30 cups of flour, 20 eggs, sugar, yeast, and more!  Even Niall helped making the colored sugar and "punching" the dough. 

Iver decided to be "ZCMC" (Zombie Christian McCaffrey") for Halloween. We did light makeup in the morning, as, for school, costumes aren't supposed to be "too scary."

My medical assistant, Anaiyah, encouraged me to dress up with her as a "Mad scientist," and Kelvin loaned me his old white coat (since I couldn't find mine) and I used Niall's kiddie chemistry goggles.  I tend to resist the energy that is required to pull off a Halloween costume, but this was not a heavy lift so I (the Halloween Grinch) begrudgingly participated.

Clinic Spirit!

Although I was stuck in clinic, Kelvin attended the kids' Halloween parade at school. Niall was Steph Curry. 

Classmate Zoi touched up Iver's make up.

The kids cracked up at this one

Calavera for the Day of the Dead celebration that followed the parade.

Baile folklorico dancers

Inflatable costumes are popular (but hard to sit down in!)

Iver re-did his make up for trick-or-treating. I joined him in a CMC jersey.

Zombie scariness

We trick-or-treated in a neighborhood by Pacific Union school with friends (Riely, Larsons, and more). The neighborhood decorations were great!  There was also a haunted house created by Kelvin's patient.

The kids got quite a stash of treats and had a great day! 

OctoBEARfest in Eureka

Black bears in Eureka made the news (local and national!) last week!

A young, small 150-lb black bear was found at our local Sequoia Park Zoo observing the current black bear residents, which are rehabilitated/rescued animals from the west coast. No one really knows how the bear got in, as the zoo is secured but does abut popular forest and many walking trails in Sequoia Park, but the visiting bear was fairly easily escorted out by zoo personnel and did not bother/harm any of the zoo residents! 

A different (larger) bear then caused some drama and a lockdown at the nearby elementary school a few days later! 

We see a lot of deer around these parts, as well as some foxes and racoons, but I've not seen any bears wandering around McKinleyville, although we know people who do have their trash cans disturbed by them. There also have been mountain lion sightings locally (in our neighborhood in 2019 and recently in Arcata's forest in August), which would freak me out more than seeing a black bear. 

We definitely share our spaces with wild animals and thankfully none of these encounters have been dangerous. Thank goodness for our "polite" wildlife :)