The five stages of grief
by Maralyn Fink Woodbury
After the loss of my husband, I went through the 5 stages not knowing what this felt like. With the help pf a counselor and my Primary doctor by adding a second medication, I was finally able to cope with the loss and start leaving the house on a regular basis. This would be just 4 months short of three years.
I urge anyone who is having difficulty with grief to reach out to your doctor and/or a counselor for help. Do not be embarrassed or afraid because it can be a long road. Unless you have gone through this, you have no idea what it is like.
Understanding the Stages of Grief
The 5 stages have been very misunderstood over the past several decades. The identification of the stages was not meant to box in people’s emotions into neat little packages. They are some of the responses to loss that many people have. Just as there is not typical loss, there is no typical response – everyone will grieve in their own way.
The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance and they are a part of the process of learning to live without the one we lost. They are tools to help us understand and identify what we may be feeling. Everyone will not go through all the stages and the order may be different. Understanding the stages will help layout a map of the process and better equip people to deal with loss.
Denial
In this first stage, life can start to feel meaningless and overwhelming. We are in a state of shock and wonder how we are going to go on with our lives. Finding a way to get through each day becomes very hard. Denial and shock are coping mechanisms that help us survive. Denial helps us to control the pace of our grief. It is nature’s way of limiting the flood of emotions pouring over us all at one time.
As the reality of the loss starts sinking in you will naturally start asking yourself questions. And with these questions comes the other feelings you were denying.
Anger
A necessary stage of grief is the Anger stage. You must be willing and free to feel your anger, as difficult and endless as it may seem. The more you allow yourself to feel it, the more it will begin to fade and the more you will recover. There are a lot of other emotions under the anger that will surface in time. Anger is an emotion that reaches very far. It can be extended to your family, friends, doctors, your loved one who passed, and even to God.
Anger provides strength and it can be like an anchor that gives a temporary structure to the feelings of nothingness you are experiencing. Grief can at first make you feel lost with no direction or connection to anything. Then anger sets in and is directed at someone like a family member, the doctor; it could really be anyone for any different number of reasons. The anger you place on someone else suddenly gives you some sort of structure. The anger becomes a connection to hold on to that feels better than nothingness. We are usually better at suppressing anger than openly feeling it.
Bargaining
During the time leading up to the loss of a loved one it seems as though we would do anything to stop it from happening, including trading places with them and make promises to God asking him to spare them.
Our mind become crowded with a flood of “If only…” or “What if…” statements. We want life to be as it was and for our loved one to come back to us. We want a “do over”, a chance to go back and do things differently like: go to the doctor more frequently, find the illness sooner and start treatment sooner, stop the accident from happening, and so on. These thoughts lead way to a heavy burden of guilt and we blame ourselves for the things we could have done differently. People sometimes think the stages will last a few weeks or months. The feelings in each stage can last for minutes or hours and we can bounce in and out them several times a day. It is not a linear progression.
Depression
This next stage moves us squarely into the present. Emptiness and grief grow stronger and deeper than we ever thought it could. This depression feels like it will never end. It’s important to know that this type of depression is not a sign of mental illness. It is the natural response to suffering a loss of this magnitude. Depression after a loss is wrongly seen as unnatural and as something that needs to be fixed or snapped out of. The first question to ask yourself is whether or not the situation you’re in is actually depressing. Not experiencing depression after a loved one passes away would be unusual. When the loss fully sets in, and the realization that your loved one is not coming back becomes real, depression will naturally follow.
Acceptance
Acceptance is wrongfully assumed to be the point where everything is all better now. This is not true. Most people don’t ever fully and completely get over the loss of a loved one. This stage is when we accept the reality that our loved one is physically gone and we recognize our new life’s permanent reality. We won’t ever like this reality, but we eventually accept it. In an effort to resist the new normal, many people will at first try to maintain life just as it was before. In time, through small doses of acceptance we realize that we cannot continue to do this. Life has been forever changed and we must readjust.
Real progress may be just having more good days than bad ones. Many people feel as though they are betraying their loved when they begin to start living and enjoy life again. Nothing can replace what has been lost, but we can make new connections with others and start a new. We shouldn’t suppress our feelings. We listen and respond to our needs, move on, change, grow and evolve. We invest in our relationships with others and in ourselves. We can’t begin to truly live again we have given grief the time to heal.
This week’s Mystery Photo
Where is this?
Can you tell us where this is located? Drop us a line at mail@sjindy.com.
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705 N. Ottawa St.
The current owner is Rhonda Hart. Previous owners include Geraldine Workman, John and Rebecca Kennedy and Rebecca Kennedy. In 1950 Parrish Floyd owned the house.
A Look Back – Two Custodians Retire in 1968
Barry Clark Bauer
Two long-time custodial men with the St. Johns Public School are retiring this year, and many of their co-workers honored them last Thursday with a dinner at the L & L Restaurant and presented them with retirement gifts.
Charles Stevens (standing second from right) with 20-years of service and Bill Puetz (third from right) with 16-years were the honorees. Others at the head table were Administrative Asst. Steve Bakita (left), Supt. Earl Lancaster, Custodial Supervisor Lawrence Fish, Mrs. Puetz, Asst. Principal Duane Wirick, Principal B. Stanley Pocuis, and Mrs. Stevens.
Benny and Jessie’s Pet Info – Can Grass Kill Your Dog?
When it comes to risks to the health of our dogs, the culprits are literally all around us. While a nice walk is quality time for both and dog and owner, it too can be fraught with potential danger.
While you might be on the lookout for squirrels, skunks, porcupines, and other denizens of the forest, there are just as many hazards that make their homes closer to the ground, including the ground itself. One such hazard is the grass awn.
What is a Grass Awn?
Whether you call them awns, timothy, foxtails, cheat grass, June grass, Downy Brome, or any other number of colloquial names, to dogs they generally mean one thing, and that’s trouble.
An awn is a hairy, or bristle-like, appendage growing from the ear or flower of barley, rye, and many types of widely growing grasses. These spikes and sharp edges serve a purpose—to stick and hold fast to surfaces so that they can propagate and spread their seeds to surrounding areas.
While part of the purpose of awns is to have them attach to passing animals and be distributed to other areas, this relationship is by no means symbiotic. These sharp ends can allow the awn to act like the barb on the quill of a porcupine, moving it ever forward into the skin and tissues of a dog.
How Do Grass Awns Injure Dogs?
Pretty much any contact a dog has with grass awns can be potentially hazardous. Grass awns can be inhaled, become lodged in the ears, swallowed, or even just imbeded in the coat or skin. It is when they are not quickly removed by the owner, or expelled by the animal, that they become problematic.
Obviously this risk has quite a bit to do with where you live. A city dog is far less likely to come across awns, but even the most urban locales still have areas that have become overgrown with all types of vegetation. So, a working dog used for tracking or hunting might come across awns regularly, but an urban dog that spends a few moments exploring a neglected back alleyway might be even more at risk. The problems occur mainly when dog owners are unaware of the affect that awns can have to their dogs.
“When I practiced in Wyoming, I saw a number of dogs with grass awns in their noses. I think the combination of lots of tall grass in the environment and dogs running off leash was to blame,” says Dr. Jennifer Coates of Fort Collins, Colorado.
“Dogs tend to ‘lead with their noses’ when they’re exploring, so it’s not too surprising that a sharp seed head from a long piece of grass might get lodged up there.”
What Are the Symptoms of Grass Awn Infection?
If a dog has an awn stuck in its nasal cavity, sneezing is usually among the first symptoms, says Dr. Coates. After a while, the problem might result in nasal drainage or infection. A dog might also excessively rub its nose.
According to Veterinarian Dr. Patrick Mahaney of California, some of the symptoms of plant awn imbedding include inflammation, redness, irritation, and draining sores on the skin which have a clear or purulent (pus) discharge. He also says to be on the lookout for draining tracts (an opening to the skin surface from which clear or purulent discharge drains), licking, scratching, chewing, or pawing at the site, lethargy, depression, and a decreased appetite.
How to Remove a Grass Awn from Your Dog – And When You Should Not
So are awns something about which you should always consult your veterinarian? Well, that can be difficult to answer.
According to Dr. Coates, “If you can see the grass awn protruding from your dog’s nostril and you have a very cooperative dog, you can try grasping the awn with a pair of tweezers and pulling it out. In any other case, leave the removal to a veterinarian.”
Removing an awn from a dog’s nose can go beyond tricky.
“An owner can attempt to remove a plant awn from their dog’s nose, but I don’t suggest doing so,” says Dr. Mahaney. “Foxtails and other plant awns typically have barbs (side hooks) that firmly grasp any fabric or tissue with which they come into contact. As a result, the plant awn stays bedded in tissue and attempts to remove the awn can lead to breakage at some point along the length of the awn and retention of the awn in the dog’s nose.”
Further explaining the danger of incomplete removal, Dr. Mahaney added that “the imbedded awn not only causes inflammation and infection at the site, but the awn generally continues to move in a forward direction and can travel great distances through body cavities from the site of imbedding.”
Worst Case Scenarios with Grass Awns
Like many other issues, the real danger to dogs suffering from grass awns is a lack of action on the part of the owner. Once these issues become serious, it takes little time for them to become serious, if not life threatening.
“Grass awns can penetrate the skin,” says Dr. Coates. “Usually, the initial wound heals uneventfully and owners are not even aware that anything has happened, but the awn is now trapped and can start to migrate throughout the body. They can end up almost anywhere, including the lungs, the spinal cord or brain, and within abdominal organs.”
“Migrating grass awns produce infection and inflammation and disrupt normal body functions, says Dr. Coates.
“Symptoms depend on the part of the body that is affected. I remember one case of a dog that was lame and had pus draining out of a muscle in his shoulder.”
“A course of antibiotics and exploring the drainage tract for foreign material while the dog was anesthetized didn’t work,” said Dr. Coates. “Eventually, a board-certified veterinary surgeon was able to locate the grass awn and remove it, and a lot of infected and damaged muscle. The dog recovered, but only because the owner was willing to keep trying.”
Getting your pet to the vet early in the course of a grass awn infection will greatly improve its chances for avoiding the kinds of complications that can happen when owners hope that time will heal the wound.
“When untreated, it’s likely that the clinical signs of irritation and infection will worsen,” says Dr. Mahaney. Due to the potential for plant awns to travel through body tissues, there’s the likelihood that if the awn moves far enough it can come out the opposite site of a limb or enter into the body cavity and cause more severe clinical signs.”
Dr. Mahaney relates, “I’ve seen a case where a foxtail imbedded in the skin of the chest and wound its way through the intercostal muscles (between the ribs) and entered the chest cavity, causing severe inflammation, infection, pleural effusion (fluid accumulation between the lungs and the chest wall), lung collapse, and other serve secondary problems. The dog was ultimately euthanized, as the owner was not able to continue to pursue the required treatment (drainage of fluid from the chest cavity, exploratory thoracic surgery, hospitalization, laboratory testing, diagnostic imaging, etc.).”
“A plant awn that enters the nasal cavity is definitely concerning because it can potentially migrate through the nasal turbinates (scroll-like structures of sensitive mucosal tissue lining the nasal passages) and butt up against cribriform plate, which is a bony structure that separates the brain from the nasal passages,” says Dr. Mahaney. “I’m not aware of the ability for a foxtail to penetrate the cribriform plate and enter the brain, but I guess one can never say never.”
How to Protect Your Dog from Grass Awn Injury
Unfortunately, there’s very little that a dog owner can do to protect their pets from the affect of grass awns. For working dogs, or for dogs that spend the bulk of their time outdoors, there are commercially available vests that cover the chest and abdomen, as well as full head coverings that look a bit like the spit masks that are placed over the heads of unruly prisoners.
It’s wise to examine your dog after you’ve returned home from a walk or play time spent outside—for urbanites, remember that grass can grow between the cracks of sidewalks, too.
A grooming brush can go to great lengths to remove a tangled awn from a dog’s coat, and this is a good time to also inspect the dog’s snout and between its toes for any foreign materials. Keeping the fur between your dog’s toes trimmed will also help.
Carefully examining your dog after walks and time spent outside is the best first line of defense against grass awns. And don’t hesitate to get your veterinarian involved if you suspect that your dog has might come in contact with them.
Maralyn’s Pet Corner – Why Does My Cat Bite Me When I Pet Her?
It’s a conundrum, for sure. One minute your beloved kitty is over the moon with pleasure as you scratch her favorite spot and the next thing you know you’re left staring at tooth marks on your arm.
You’re not the only one suffering. Many pet owners call this common behavior “Love biting,” but feline behaviorists have given it a more formal name: Petting-induced aggression—and it’s a poorly understood topic.
Typically, a friendly cat seeks out human attention, only to turn on his lavisher of attention once the affection seems to have gone on for too long. Owners describe these cats as changing from friendly to feral “like a light switch.”
Despite the perplexing nature of this uniquely feline way of acting out, a couple of possibilities have been proposed to explain why cats might do this:
It may be a manifestation of so-called status-induced aggression, in which cats seek to control a situation.
There may be some neurologically significant negative stimulus associated with being petted at length that affects these cats in particular.
These cats may be especially subtle at letting humans know when they’re unhappy, so that their change in attitude appears more sudden than it truly is.
Whatever the cause, the good news is that this behavior does not necessarily mean you can’t interact with your cat meaningfully. Your veterinarian can coach you to recognize the very subtle warning signs associated with your cat’s displeasure before it reaches the biting point.
Now and Then – We found the Elders
by Jean Martin
We returned to the Upper Peninsula last weekend, and this time we found the Elders — and the youngsters too.
There have been pow wows around Michigan off and on over the years, but it had been more than 40 years since we attended one in Cross Village. This year when we went to St. Ignace for the Rendezvous Pow Wow, we learned that pow wows were actually illegal prior to 1978 when President Jimmy Carter signed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
After the pow wow, we hopped on a ferry – well, maybe we lumbered onto a ferry to Mackinac Island to meet friends Greg Jilka and Carol for dinner. There was some visiting, some carriage riding, some eating and more visiting. It’s always great to reconnect with old friends.