Adopting the Trails – “Take a Kid Hiking Day”

Tags

adoption, Children, Dale Ball Trails, Exercise, Fresh Air, Hiking, Nature, Walking

Earlier this spring, the publisher of Santa Fe on Foot-Exploring the City Different, Richard Polese, and I planned a walking with kids day. The City of Santa Fe liked the idea. Now, just before the official beginning of summer and a day before Father’s Day, it’s happening!

Santa Fe’s first official “Take a Kid Hiking Day” is this Saturday, June 17. Adults and youngsters are encouraged to get out of the house and walk together into a bit of local nature. Gathering begins at 8:30 am at the Sierra del Norte Trailhead, a short 2.5 mile drive up Hyde Park Road. Bottled water and snacks provided by local merchants. The planned hike is an easy 1.2 mile walk on trails through the forested wilderness. No heavy boots or packs needed, no cost, and reservations not required. The hike route will take about an hour. Come and enjoy nature together!   Information: 505-983-1412 or 505-629-5647

Excerpted from Chapter Eight of Santa Fe on Foot-Exploring the City Different

SIERRA DEL NORTE OUT AND BACK
Distance: 1.22 miles
Time: 45-60 minutes
The walking and bicycling paths of the Dale Ball system provide a gateway to the Santa Fe National Forest. Clearly marked with numbers, the Dale Ball trails interweave with other foot routes such as Dorothy Stewart, The Nature Conservancy Preserve, Dorothy Stewart, Atalaya, and Little Tesuque Trails. However, the 23.7-mile Dale Ball system are not just a gateway to the mountain forests, they are splendid in their own right.When I first began walking and hiking in Santa Fe, it also took a car with chains to get to the ski basin area for winter skiing or snowshoeing. In fact, the reason I wrote Santa Fe on Foot in the first place is because of the daunting nature of driving “to the top” in snow and ice.
Fast forward a few decades; enter retired banker Dale Ball, a man who grew up by the Oregon Trail and who envisioned nature trails that would not require fair weather and a 13-mile drive from Santa Fe. He wished for trails that would become an important part of the community and through ceaseless effort—collaborations and negotiations—he made that wish come true. Among others who helped create this hiking legacy were the City of Santa Fe, Santa Fe County, the McCune Charitable Foundation, the anonymous donor who gave $100,000 for the undertaking, more than 50 volunteers who contributed in various ways, and, of course the Santa Feans who granted easements through their land. The anonymous donor of $100,000 insisted that the trail system be named after Dale Ball.
One of the most daunting challenges that must have faced Mr. Ball as he sought access through private land was convincing homeowners to allow public egress. The persuasiveness and diplomacy he employed must have been driven by his passion to serve the common good.
Completed in 2005, the trails are truly a gift that keeps on giving. They give locals and visitors alike a treasure trove of pleasant walking, miles of, beautiful swooping switchbacks, cameo views of the high desert plateaus stretching out toward Los Alamos and the Rio Grande Valley’s mountain ranges, panoramic lookouts that open up to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, quartz-studded rock formations, wildflowers in season, and easy access to pinon forests.
The general shape of today’s walk has led some people to call it the “lollipop trail,” but actually it is shaped more like a westward facing tree. It follows this series of juncture signs: from trails: #1 to #2 to #3, then a long stretch back to #1.
After securing your car, making sure to leave nothing at all of value inside, start at marker #1 and walk on a low path toward the left. When you reach the juncture sign #2, take a right. You’ll be gaining elevation fairly rapidly, but the path is flat and spacious.
Except for the right hand choice at your first encounter with juncture #2, the motto for this trail is to always keep left.
You will see another path midway between juncture sign #2 and #3, but do not take it. Stay to the left until you reach the sign announcing juncture #3. Keep to the left. Following this point, you will be on the main part of your walk. In another 15 minutes the path will be intersected with another walking option on the right. Ignore it and keep left. Except for the right hand choice at your first encounter with juncture #2, the motto for this trail is to always keep left.
On your way back you will again come to juncture #2. This will take you back to the parking lot and dog park. If you accidentally happen to end up coming out on Sierra Del Norte Road, the worst consequence is that you will need to turn left and walk back to the parking lot. Meandering about is allowed. As J.R.R. Tolkien famously said in The Hobbit, “all who wander are not lost.”

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Join Elaine every other Monday for a new post — reflections on being adopted, hiking, books, and the literary life. Comments are invited!

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Adopting Amelia Island

Tags

adoptee, adoptee restoration, adoption, All the Wrong Places, Amelia Island, Beaches, Fernandina Florida, parents, The Book Loft

It’s always fun to play on the beach!

Lucky to have stepmother Margaret in my life! (Birthfather’s widow)

Adoptees possess a multi-layered parentage. As one pundit observed, being adopted is “both a blessing and a curse.” My beloved adopted parents, Richard and Reva Beard, passed away in the 1990s; my birthparents shortly thereafter. But I am not without a parent. My birthfather’s second wife, his widow Margaret, has taken me under her wing. Over the years, she’s welcomed me into her Florida home. Today finds me in Fernandina, on beautiful Amelia Island, both visiting Margaret and doing an “east coast launch” of my new suspense novel All the Wrong Places.

“Launch” is the term I like to use for my upcoming book signing, but for me it’s the launching of much more. I hope to be spending part of every year in Fernandina Beach. Amelia Island is small (13 miles long), friendly, literary and enticingly beautiful. Its main town Fernandina, Florida is the perfect contrast to my high and dry hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Verdant. Bordered by pristine sandy beaches, it is literally an island paradise.

Now available!

In addition to a book signing I’m using my island sojourn for beach walking, reading and working on the next adventure of my All the Wrong Places protagonist Clara Jordan. If you’re in the area this weekend, please join me on Sunday for a 4 p.m. signing. at The Book Loft, tucked away at 214 Centre Street. I’d love to inscribe a copy of All the Wrong Places for you and chat about books and writing.

Adoption is still my “Something”

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, discover, empower, healing, separation, wounded

Note from Elaine: Five years after writing this post, originally published in 2012 – I’ve incorporated the theme of “adoption” in fiction. Clara Jordan, heroine of my new suspense novel All the Wrong Places, travels from Virginia to New Mexico hoping to locate an unknown birthmother. Instead of finding roots, she falls in love with Henry, who leads a double life and betrays her. She runs further into trouble as she searches petroglyphs for traces of a mother she’s never known. All the Wrong Places is available from http://www.pocolpress.com. I’ll give a reading at Collected Works Bookstore on May 15th, 6 p.m. in Santa Fe.

If you’re in Santa Fe, NM on Monday, May 15, 6 p.m. please join me and Santa Fe author Peggy vanHulsteyn for a reading and booksigning. It’s at Collected Works, 202 Galisteo, in downtown Santa Fe. (Peggy’s mystery-in-progress is titled The Art of Murder)

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It’s been said that trauma is not a mystery, that it attaches itself to you in a way that’s hard to undo. My story, as related in The Goodbye Baby, offers living proof. Being an adoptee has added melodrama to my life, created a passion for writing, and ultimately inspired me to take off the masks and to discover who I really am.

Though I was fortunate enough to land in an adoptive family who loved and cherished me, it could not make up for losing that first “mother connection.” My birth mother and I said goodbye before I started first grade, and I waited 38 years for her to come back into my life. I was deeply wounded by the separation.

My struggles have been with feeling abandoned, isolated, and rejected. I’ve worried for years that I will be misunderstood and that I’m simply not good enough- as a daughter, a friend, a partner, a mother, or even as a human being.

My son and I in Greece.

Because of being adopted, I felt small and insignificant. Probably because adoption wasn’t something my family discussed, my negative assumptions became deeply embedded. Throughout my adult years, I accomplished a great deal, but in my mind, I was never admirable. Harmful pangs of inadequacy took root and shaped my outlook, my decisions, my disastrous romantic choices.  Until I re-read my diaries, I never realized that I myself had invented the self-damaging myth.

How did I deal with my adoption-induced complexes? My adoptive parents had to raise a delinquent teenager who drank excessively, stayed out too late and attracted bad boyfriends. As I grew older, I tended to be an over-achiever: running nine marathons to lower my finishing time, yet always “keeping score” and endlessly coming up short.

Twenty-three years ago, when I first started to write about my adoption, the title of my book was Reunions. My plan was to meet both my biological parents and write about finding the missing puzzle pieces. I met my original parents, but the reunions were not what I hoped for.  The pieces were in place but the puzzle remained. Only writing The Goodbye Baby completed the picture.

What my adoption has taught me is that the world reflects my inner reality, that my happiness or unhappiness depend on my actions and not on outside forces. I’ve learned that it is never too late to make a fresh start.

I have always known I would be a writer. In the summer of 1962, I wrote in my diary,

“Some of this frantic recording is wasted energy. How can I have a future as a writer?…I need to find something to say.”

The theme of adoption is that “something.”

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Bopping around Barcelona

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Antoni Gaudi, Architecture, Art Noveau, Barcelona, Discovery, European travel, Mediterranean Odyssey, Viking Ocean Cruise

Every voyage is an exploration and every journey a discovery of the true self. -Kidore Hobbs

It’s no accident that “adoptee” and “authenticity” both start with “A.” As I’ve chronicled

The Goodbye Baby gives an insider view of growing up adopted.

in The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries, my way through a forest of adoptee-induced emotions is journaling. Another route is travel. As an adoptee who spent a lifetime searching for a sense of family and a “real” family tree, I go to unknown for self-understanding. As Martin Burber sagely remarked, “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”

Europe calls me. My late birthfather Giovanni Cecchini was born in San Martino Sulla Marricina, Abruzzo, Italy, and my late birthmother was German. Two years ago, I explored eastern Germany. Recently, along with lifetime gal pal Jeri, I traveled by ship on a tour aptly titled Mediterranean Odyssey. Each day we disembarked to spend a day or two in a different city. The countries we docked at were Spain, France, Monaco,Italy, and Croatia. Italy, of course, was a top destination (more about Italy in a future post), but for years I’d dreamed of traveling to Barcelona, Spain and seeing the architecture of Antoni Gaudi.

This month that dream became a reality! Barcelona was the first stop of a 2 1/2 week-long Viking Ocean Cruise. Spain’s Catalonian capital is a visual feast. A great city brimming with history, wide boulevards, a magnificent L’Arc de Triumf, elegant buildings and a wonderful atmosphere. After hours in airplanes traveling from New Mexico to Spain, Jeri and I were eager to walk, and walk we did…

We strode the famous Las Ramblas – a mile-long leave pedestrian way. A wonderfully wide road, completely closed off from cars, the route drew us back several times during our Barcelona stay. Sidewalk cafes serving tapas provided lunches, each one tastier than the one before. A highlight was the extensive open air market, literally bursting with lane after lane of beautiful fruit, vegetables, meat, cheeses, baked specialties, flowers, spices and more.

The best of Barcelona, however, comprised the astonishing creations of Antoni Gaudi, the brilliant and endlessly creative nineteenth century architect. He produced wonders such as La Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Casa Batlló and La Predrera. Having always loved Art Nouveau, I resonated with Gaudi more than any other aspect of Barcelona. Herewith, Gaudi details that reveal the man’s genius.

Window of La Familia Sagrada Cathedral

“House of Bones”

Atrium, Casa Batlló

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Join author Elaine Pinkerton on alternate Mondays for posts about adoption and life. Your feedback is invited. Coming in May: her newest novel All the Wrong Places (Pocol Press).

Adoption Recovery 101

Tags

Acceptance, Adaptation, adoptee, adoption, labyrinth, Reflections, Sarah Ban Breathnach

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

…Nothing so wise as a circle. -Rilke

This morning’s labyrinth walk yielded reflections that I’d like to share with you…

With the publication of The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries, a memoir comprised of diary entries from the 1950s through 1980s, I began to heal from years of repressed anger and pain. I forgave the past and myself. I redirected my imagination. Instead of dwelling on all those invisible wounds (from being separated from my birthparents), I was able to focus on writing.

After The Goodbye Baby, I decided that I’d moved on. Producing a memoir was instructive and healing. Helpful as it was, however, it wasn’t enough. Or to put it more accurately, it didn’t last. The stress and instability of my first five years of life sometimes come back to haunt me.

Here’s my newest “rescue remedy,” a three-pronged remedy for adoption recovery.

ACCEPTANCE –
Realizing the difference between dreams and expectations. As Sarah Ban Breathnach recommends in Simple Abundance, I’m following her recommendation:
“You dream. Show up for work. Then let Spirit deliver your dream to the world.”

WALKING-
I do this daily and I reaffirmed this intention with creating a new edition of my             guidebook Santa Fe on Foot. (www.santafeonfoot.com)

READING-
Allowing time each day for books.
I spend time reading for edification, for entertainment, for information, and (sometimes) sheer escape.

We really do not know what’s in store for us. As Sarah Breathnach recommends, “…we’ll only find out once we start investing our emotions in authentic expression, and not in specific outcomes.” Don’t get caught up in the “delivery details.”

Keep your dreams even as you accept what IS. Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for adoption thoughts.

 

 

 

Poetry Monday, Once Again

Tags

adoption, birds, Flowers, haiku, mountains, Seasons, serenity, Snow, Sun

Note from Elaine: I’m adopting poetry for this first post of 2017, contributed by a writer friend whose work I’ve admired for many years. Her beautifully crafted images capture much of what there is to love in northern New Mexico. Join Roberta as she takes you through Northern New Mexico’s palette with intimate details, sweeping panoramas, and all kinds of weather!

Grace Notes of 2016 in Jaconita

A form that’s perfect for today.

by Roberta Fine

JANUARY
Snow enhancing trash.
Crystal-crusted broken hoe
Crowned by red-topped finch.

FEBRUARY
Wrinkled, folded hills
Holding ancient secrets.
Spinning fireside tales.

MARCH
Finely crafted nest.
Feathered weaver’s masterwork.
Lying on the ground.

APRIL
Silver silhouette
Truchas Peaks shining in new
White Communion dress.

MAY
Hummingbird stealing
Insects from spider’s rich cache
In window cobweb.

JUNE
Slim moon slice smiling
In arching black velvet sky
Empty of storm clouds.

JULY
Coral fruit crowning
Lushly-leaved apricot tree.
Feathered thieves dive in.

AUGUST
Monarch’s stained glass wings
Fanning magenta blossoms.
Sipping as it clings.

SEPTEMBER
Apple scented breeze
Stirring hollow wooden chimes
Into two note song.

OCTOBER
Caught in burnt-red sprays,
October sun igniting
Locust’s vibrant leaves.

NOVEMBER
Yellow butterfly
No bigger than a nickel
Finding last flower.

DECEMBER
White veil laid smoothly
Overnight over Sangres.
Valley brown, leafless.

Poet Roberta Fine lives and writes in Jaconita, New Mexico. She finds inspiration from the diverse seasons and scenery of the Southwest.

What are your favorite scenes from home and environs in your corner of the world? Please send comments, and tune in to Elaine’s website every other Monday for a fresh blog post about adoption, hiking and life.

Roberta Fine has adopted Haiku as her medium of expression

Adopting an Attitude of Patience

Tags

30-day Challenge, adoption, Attitudes, Internet adoption community, Patience, Social Media, Technology

In this Internet age of instant gratification, is PATIENCE an outdated virtue? And if

With the Internet, we can reach out to kindred spirits everywhere.

it isn’t, how can we possibly adopt a practice of patience in an increasingly impatient world?
Essayist Andrew O’Hagan, in a recent issue of The New Times Style Magazine, praises the speed and ease allowed by our connectivity to everyone, everywhere, all the time.
In his article, “Sign of the Times,” O’Hagan says, “I now feel—and this is a revelation—that my past was an interesting and quite fallow period spent waiting for the Internet.” In answer to those who question the validity of online friends and community, he says, “Physical loneliness can still exist, of course, but you’re never friendless online. Don’t tell me the spiritual life is over. In many ways it’s only just begun. Technology is not doing what the sci-fi writers warned it might—it is not turning us into digits or blank consumers, into people who hate community. Instead, there is evidence that the improvements are making us more democratic, more aware of the planet…pressing us to question what it means to have life so easy, when billions do not.”
I resonate strongly with Mr. O’Hagan’s commentary. Until I began using the Internet to find answers,  my adoption conundrums stayed unresolved.  Step one was publishing The Goodbye

The Goodbye Baby gives an insider view of growing up adopted.

Baby-A Diary about Adoption, my account of what it was like to grow up in the 50s and 60s during the era of “closed” adoptions. Following the book, I discovered a vast adoption community online: book reviews, discussions, forums, all manner of exchanges centering on adoption. Adoption from every angle: birthparents, adoptees, people wanting to adopt, adoptive moms and dads. The Internet, I can honestly say, helped me come to grips with with reclaiming my adopted self.
If only that were the end of the story. Once I declared myself “recovered,” the old adoption issues would sometimes sneak back in, sometimes return with a vengeance. Like weeds in my rugged “au natural” back yard, they never really went away. Basically, I learned to diminish their influence, and that is still a work in progress. The goal: An attitude adjustment.
Change may come slowly, but with patience, we can change even ourselves. I’m adopting the following rules for the next 30 days, after which I’ll compare my patience quota before and after.

And here’s a recipe for adopting a practice of PATIENCE. I invite you to try it

In the chess board of life, PATIENCE wins the game.

with me:

Give yourself time. For example, in going places if you have to follow a car 25 miles per hour in a 40 MPH zone, allow leeway. You may arrive too early, but in most cases that’s better than arriving late.
Develop realistic expectations: Life is full of the unexpected. Avoid the idea that things will run like clockwork.
Refuse to give in to anger. It is dangerous to your mental equilibrium.
Realize that delays are temporary. As the saying goes, “This too will pass.”
Be proactive: Find ways to make positive use of waiting time. Listening to audible books or reading on a Kindle app, texting a friend with words of encouragement, planning a menu while waiting in the dentist’s office. You get the idea!

I had to be patient with resolving adoption issues, and the approach worked. Now I’m

applying the same principles to life in general. In invite you to join me in a thirty day trial. Please comment or Tweet me about your challenges and/or progress. I patiently await news of your experiences!

Adopting the airwaves–>I’m on the radio today!

Tags

adoption, Dealing with Adoption, India, Novel-in-progress, The Writing Life, Walking

At 4 p.m. Mountain Time, 101.1 F.M. KSFR–Wednesday afternoon I’ll be talking about my six published books with show host Abigail Adler. Please tune in!

The Last Word

Wednesdays at 4:00 pm

• Hosted by Abigail Adler

• 

For people who read, for people who write, for people who want to publish, or for people who are just curious…What do writers think? What do writers really do?  Find out – listen to THE LAST WORD: Conversations with Writers every Wednesday at 4 pm with host, Abigail Adler

 

Adopting an Orphaned Bridge

Tags

1850s, adoption, Bridges, Manifest Destiny, memoir workshop, New Mexico history, orphans, Santa Fe Botanical Garden

Editor’s Note: Thanks to Kathy Knorr, guest blogger, author of this post, originally published Sept. 23, 2013 The big red bridge is part of Santa Fe Botanical Garden, where author Pat Goehe and I will be facilitating a memoir writing workshop on September 18 from 1-3:30. You are invited to register for our event, which is a benefit for the Garden: http://www.santafebotanicalgarden.org/planting-the-seeds-two-ways-to-memoir. All workshop proceeds go to future developments at SFBotanical Garden. Our books will be available at the gift shop.

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It has been nicknamed the bridge to nowhere. Yet it has been places. And it

Bridging the gap from past to present.

had been

traveled over by people on foot, burros, horseback, wagons and rail.
In 1850 the bridge was built and placed over an arroyo in Kearny County, New Mexico. Then it was deserted – along with the abandoned lands which could not sustain the farmers and ranchers who optimistically settled during the Manifest Destiny years. The Bridge seemed destined to age and rust under the blazing sun and monsoons of the high desert.
During 2008, an environmental scientist for the State of New Mexico saw this bridge and researched its history. In doing so, she learned there is a Society of Orphaned Bridges. The SOB group collects the history of many orphaned bridges. Their mission is to support the reuse of these bridges, bringing them into a vital community and to benefit the citizens by being attractive, low cost and functional.

As chance would have it…the scientist who first located this bridge also volunteered with a local group hopeful of building a new garden in Santa Fe for botanical research and education.

After a few years, and many optimistic attempts to find a site for their garden, the City of Santa Fe agreed to lease land to the Santa Fe Botanical Garden for this purpose. Our heroine remembered the bridge and proposed the adoption. The bridge could become a focal point for the planned garden – and be a member of a new community.
What a surprise for this 100 year old orphan! The bridge was uprooted, sent to the beauty shoppe and refurbished and delivered to the Santa Fe Botanical Garden on Museum Hill, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA!
December 10, 2011 this was our first view of the adopted bridge:

Kathy has been a resident of Santa Fe for the past five  years.

Kathy Knorr

 

 

During this time she and her family have embraced the local history, beauty and gardening challenges.  Kathy serves on the Board of Directors for the Santa Fe Botanical Garden.  The Garden’s mission includes sharing 3 lovely sites with the public and increasing awareness of the need for water conservation, environmental education and having these beautiful spaces available to all of the community.  Though not new to social media and web sites, this is Kathy’s first blog post.

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Sunday, September 18, 1-3:30 p.m./ “Planting the Seeds: Two Ways to Memoir”
Authors Pat Goehe and Elaine Pinkerton will help you jumpstart that writing project.Register by Wednesday, Sept. 13 as class size is limited.

Adopting Tracie

Tags

adoption, Advocacyo, Friendship, Neurology, Nurturing, University of New Mexico, Waiting

Note from Elaine: ELISE ROSENHAUPT and I became friends through the “Homegrown Authors” table at Santa Fe’s Farmers Market. In talking, we concluded that “adoption” has many meanings. Elise’s guest post will be of great interest to anyone who’s cared for others, not necessarily in an official capacity, but as a compassionate human being. If you’ve ever helped someone who’s dealing with an a hospital hierarchy, you will relate to Elise’s story.

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In my book, Climbing Back: A Family’s Journey through Brain Injury, I write “there should always be two people with a patient – one for company and love, and a second as the patient’s advocate.”

In a clinical situation, having a friend as advocate makes all the difference.

 

This story starts with a letter from a mutual friend:

Tracie has been very sick for the past several months . . . .  (dizzy, fatigued, slow speech, forgetfulness, and more). For the past 6 months or so she has been shunted from one incompetent-sounding doctor to the next with still no proper diagnosis or plan of treatment! . . . . you could be a temporary advocate.

 

What follows is a summary of what happened next.

 

At our first visit to the University of New Mexico Neurosciences Center, the physician who came in was a neurosurgeon, not the neurologist she wanted to see.

 

“You need your doctor to refer you to a neurologist,” he said. I asked the doctor to write the referral then and there.
“Now we can go down the hall and make the appointment with a neurologist,” I said.

The technician who’d emailed the referral said, “They won’t see it for a few days. Call at the end of the week.”

Tracie was ready to give up and go home.

 

I asked, “Can you print it out so we can hand carry it?”
When the scheduler gave Tracie an appointment for May 16, five weeks later, Tracie was thrilled – five weeks was sooner than her previous waits for appointments. I thought it was too long to wait.

 

May 16, I wandered the Neurosciences Center’s maze of hallways forays to find out if we’d been forgotten, during the three hours we waited, in our windowless room. The neurologist finally arrived. He thought of two likely explanations for Tracie’s troubles. He ordered an LP (lumbar puncture, or spinal tap) to learn more.

 

On July 11, the morning for Tracie’s LP, I was not allowed to accompany Tracie when they took her in for the LP, a “sterile procedure.”

 

But there had been a “mix-up” and the doctor who was to conduct the spinal tap had “gone home.” Another doctor disagreed with the first neurologist’s thoughts about the causes of Tracie’s problems. He didn’t think a spinal tap was a good idea, and wanted to explore some other possibilities.

 

When I learned this, I asked to be allowed in with Tracie.

 

“Do you have her power of attorney?” the gatekeeper asked. I didn’t, and was told once more to sit in the waiting room. Tracie was on her own.

 

The new doctor thought that Tracie was suffering from migraines. Tracie told me:

 

His recommendation was, right now, some shots which were a mixture of steroids and a numbing medication . . . .. 

Oh, my gosh, that was wicked. . . . [It was] like when you get your teeth pulled – the shot goes in, and then they move it around and shoot a little of the medicine in at a time. About three different places on each side of the base of my skull, one syringe for each side. . . .

 

We still don’t know whether Tracie was indeed suffering from migraines, or if it’s something else. I’ve learned how hard it is to be an advocate – respecting Tracie’s more forgiving temperament while having a sense of urgency on her behalf, wanting to ask more questions and to demand more responsiveness from the medical establishment.

 

I didn’t have her power of attorney! I wonder, can I adopt her, make her my sister or my daughter, so I can stay beside her through the medical maze.

 

You can read the fuller story, or watch for the updates, on my blog (see website below).

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Elise Rosenhaupt, author of the recently published memoir Climbing Back: A Family’s Journey through Brain Injury, blogs about her experiences as a patient’s advocate on her website, http://www.ClimbingBackMemoir.com. A graduate of Radcliffe and Harvard, Rosenhaupt has lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, since 1969.

 

Elise Rosenhaupt

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Join me on Mondays for reflections on adoption, hiking and life. My newest book, Santa Fe on Foot-Edition 4, is due out this Fall. -E. Pinkerton