PROLOGUE
“Janet, say something!
Janet, say something!”
Stunned, I stared at this
doctor whom I had just met. She, too, was alarmed, having just examined my MRI,
which revealed I had a massive brain tumor. She ordered me to go to New York
University’s Medical Center to be operated on right away.
Brain tumor? Operation? I
was silent, which is very rare for me!
Then, only half-joking, I
replied, “First, I’m going to McDonald’s to get a Big Mac and fries, because if
I am going to die, my last meal is not going to be a fat girl’s diet salad.”
That doctor, Dr. Tamai,
whom I primarily credit with saving my life, giggled, and the medical residents
with her laughed, too. Laughter made this terrible news a bit better.
The couple of days I had
between being told I had a massive brain tumor, and the trip to NYU for
surgery, boyfriend-at-the-time, Aiden, and I wrote my eulogy in case I didn't
survive.
One part of
that eulogy was actually pretty funny. Aiden was going to state that three
stocks went down the day I passed: Disney, Hallmark, and bacon.
To this day,
I laugh at that joke because it's probably accurate. I love that smiley Mickey
Mouse, sending cards, and eating bacon with eggs, waffles, pancakes, peanut butter,
chocolate or practically any other food item. I'm VERY glad I get to write
about it here versus Aiden's delivering it at my funeral.
As frightening as the
diagnosis was, learning I had a brain tumor actually brought me some relief, as
it explained much that had puzzled me for so long. You will understand when I
explain my saga….
And, I just need to write
this: a wonderful woman, a stranger, whom I can only picture but cannot recall
her name, came over to me as I cried, trying to eat that Big Mac right after I
was told about my huge tumor. She touched my shoulder, and I jumped (because of
my mysophobia – fear of germs). She asked why I was crying, and I told her my
tumor diagnosis. She told me to go home and call my mother and father, as well
as my boyfriend. I told her none of them talk to me anymore. She said they
would all want to know about this.
Then, she called her
family over to pray for me. I thanked her and have always considered her an
angel. I hope she reads this someday and remembers this story from June of 2009
at McDonald’s in Kingston, NY.
TEACHING UNTIL I COULD NO LONGER TEACH
I grew up along the
Hudson River, in upstate New York, the Rhinebeck and Red Hook region, about 100
miles north of New York City, graduating from Red Hook Central School in 1978.
To be more precise, I grew up in Rhinebeck’s Forest Park. The house my father
and mother had built for us had a Rhinebeck address and telephone number, but
my two sisters and I went to the Red Hook schools, as did all the other kids in
Forest Park.
Writing about growing up
in that suburban development brings back a lot of fun memories. At Halloween
time, we were in costume contests. In the summer, we had daily kickball games
on Cedar Drive. As you will understand more fully when reading later on in the
book, I was the boss of everyone outside playing the games.
I still remember lying in
my bed with my window open on summer nights and listening to the crickets
chirp. Sleigh-riding on a nearby hill was lots of fun in the wintertime.
Sometimes when I’m having
a bad day, I drive through Forest Park and try to remember the names of the kids
I knew there so long ago. It really was a happy place for me.
When I drive around
Forest Park to remember the names of people I once knew, I am doing what my “brain
doctors” told me to do to help remember my life, after I had my brain operated
on, and I have lots of fun memories to recall. I find it amazing that I can
remember some stories from long ago but there are other parts of my life that I
have zero recollection of! I know this is true for others with brain injury,
and it’s one of the many bizarre aspects about my life now….
But, back to that drive around the old neighborhood—I
remember:
· the
Kruses’ daughter Joy, who was our babysitter;
· the
Arends family, whom we played kickball with;
· the
Plotskys, whom we watched The Wizard of Oz
with;
· the
Silvernails, whom I still have contact with, whose daughters I babysat;
· the
Warnimonts’ house, where I went to Girl Scout meetings at;
· the
Scisms, for haircuts;
· the
Engassars’ driveway as our bus stop; Mrs. E. as a pseudo-bus-monitor had a
system to rotate the best seats among the kids waiting;
· the
Salmons, whose son, Gerry, I had a childhood crush on, and when he came to a
party I hosted as a little girl, he handed me my present (perfume?) and said, “My
mother made me get this for you!”;
· the
Hendricksons, whose son David and I won a dance contest in seventh grade at
Linden Avenue Junior High in Red Hook, NY, dancing to Elton John’s “Crocodile
Rock” [Rest in peace, David];
· my
friend Donna Malloy;
· Kelly
Mosher was our paper deliverer;
· the
Chupays for piano lessons;
· the Oakhills,
where I went to 4-H meetings, because of being a Forest Park Sew and Dough
Girl. I remember winning blue ribbons at the Dutchess County Fair for baking
Scottish Shortbread and sewing a green apron. That cracks me up now because I
hate sewing, and I’m afraid I’ll start fires if I use my oven, due to my memory
problems;
· the
Bartos, Albanos, and the Randalls, for being friendly neighbors.
I moved on to chilly SUNY
[State University of New York] Plattsburgh, where I graduated four years later
with a Bachelor of Science in Special Education. My time at P-burgh was the
happiest four years of my life, though I didn’t know it at the time. I still
remember swaying to Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” every Friday night before going
downtown. That trip to the bars came after some dorm party. That was really the
only time I partied in college. I stayed in lots of Saturday nights so I could
be up early and doing classwork at the library on Sundays with the handful of
other nerdy students. Looking back now, I wish I had had more fun and less
studying time. I tell all young people that I meet nowadays to enjoy their
youth. None of us knows what’s coming….
Returning southward, I
earned my Master of Science in Education degree from SUNY New Paltz, and then
taught N.Y. special education classes for 25 years: Pine Plains Central School
District, Ulster County BOCES [Board of Cooperative Educational Services], and Rondout
Valley Central School District.
From the very beginning,
my job was my very life! I loved those students as if they were my own
children. I never gave birth to babies of my own, so I bought “my kids” needed
things like breakfast, socks, school supplies, and on and on and on…to the
point that my tax accountant, Alex Vargas, one year said he would fire me as a
client if I brought him that many receipts (over $5000) ever again. After Mr.
Vargas passed away, his associate Chip referred to this story as “The Ghost of
Taxes Past.”
Being in special ed. was
in my blood. On my father’s side of the family, one cousin, Heather, was born
with Sanfilippo Type A Syndrome, a heritable physical and neurological
disorder. Sadly, she never made it to adult life, but when she was young, I
bonded with her intensely. While she still could, we danced to Simon and
Garfunkel’s song “Cecilia” over and over again. But when the song was about to
reach the line “making love in the afternoon,” my dad ran to turn down the
volume on the stereo. Whenever I hear it, I remember my too-short time with
her, and it brings tears to my eyes. She had the prettiest smile. I know she is
in Heaven now with God, but I still miss her. Every January 16th,
her birthday, I tell her of my love in my prayers. I cherished being with her
for that short time we were able to be together.
On my mother’s side, I
had an Aunt Margaret who was an aide in special needs classrooms in Brooklyn
and in Florida. She was so patient with these kids! She even took one of her
students to live with her, almost as mother and child, a child lucky to have my
aunt in her life. Aunt Margaret and that child have passed away, but I think of
them often. I also took one of my students into my home as a foster son…but I
will tell that story here later on.
I cannot state strongly
enough how much I loved being a teacher! I was organized and prepared. Most
Sundays were spent going to church and then writing lesson plans for the
upcoming week during the rest of that day. My classroom was loaded with
decorations (some educational, some thought-provoking, and some just for fun).
I’m a major Mickey Mouse
memorabilia collector, and so we did lots of special activities to commemorate
his birthday. November 18, 1928, was when MM premiered in Steamboat Willie.
On November 18th most of the years I taught, we prepared MM pancakes
and played with MM dice for our math time. We dressed up in all of the T-shirts
that I collected on my too-numerous-to-count trips to Disney World in Florida.
On those trips to Disney
World, I loved buying my students souvenirs from the gift shops. The first day
of school in September or the first days back from our winter and spring
breaks, the class would find on their desks MM pencils, erasers, notepads,
candies, and, oh, so much more!
Carrying the Disney
shopping bags around the theme parks became so cumbersome, my family helped
me…until one year when my mother put both of the huge bags over my shoulders
and told me she was done!
I had unique ways of
teaching routine topics. When the kids needed to learn the months of the year,
for instance, instead of merely reciting from a chart with January through
December, we would dance and sing to the song “September” by Earth, Wind &
Fire and replace some of the words in it with the other months’ names. Instead
of just reciting the alphabet, we’d dance to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,”
and use our arms and legs to form those four letters, as lots of folks still do
while dancing at wedding receptions.
I met the Village People
once, when we stayed at the same hotel while they performed a show with Cher.
Being very good at telling others exactly what to do, I told the Village People
that they do the letter “M” wrong. They told me that it’s their show!
Silly me.
I was very active in Special
Olympics. I coached, volunteered, and sat on many committees over the years.
These games were so eagerly anticipated by my students that they hardly slept
the night before. Many of these kids, as adults, still display in their homes
the medals they won as Special Olympians. I cannot say enough about how
wonderful that organization is for special needs people! I reference an
excellent book about it in my reading recommendations.
I spent extra hours and
hours on my teaching job. I went in early and stayed late. I brought tons of
paperwork home with me. I visited the homes of many of my students. I planned
numerous field trips to both fun and educational places. Despite the extra
effort involved, these outings were well worthwhile.
I can still remember some
of the great places I took my students to. At a water park one day in Summer
School, Danielle, a former student who is now in her 30s, but very young then,
flipped over into the water while sitting on a floating inner tube. When the
lifeguards did not see this happening, I jumped in and pulled her out of the
water. I still visit her, and she tells that same story with the refreshing
enthusiasm of a youngster almost each time we get together at local
restaurants. [I have permission from her parents to use Danielle’s name.]
Some of my students had
never eaten lobster, so we took trips to Red Lobster. The kids loved wearing
the plastic bibs as they sampled dipping their lobster meat into melted butter.
Recently, a former student who was moving out of the state with his family
asked me if we could get together to say our good-byes. I couldn’t wait to see
him again…and he picked Kingston, New York’s Red Lobster as our place to eat,
as that was his favorite field trip destination long ago.
Because of my memory
problems caused by the brain injury, I can’t remember all of the places we went
to on field trips. That’s why I’m glad that I took tons of pictures over those
years. The pics are not organized, so they sloppily fill several suitcases.
Yes, suitcases! But when I need to feel better about my life, I go to my “teacher
room” in my condo, and I look at those pictures. The fun of the class trips is
easy to see on the faces of those kids!
I taught after-school and
evening classes to other teachers. It makes me feel so good when I bump into
some of those professionals and they tell me how they’re continuing to use the
methods they learned from me years ago. I was on many different committees and
attended lots and lots of meetings. Anyone who criticizes teachers for their “short”
hours should just watch a teacher for a week and then they’ll know there’s so
much more to teaching than just the hours spent at school. I applaud anyone in
this field because I know how hard it can be sometimes. I also know it is
incredibly rewarding!
If I knew then what I
know now, I would have cherished teaching even more. Not going to work each day
breaks my heart.
The damage from my
long-undiagnosed brain tumor is permanent, as one might expect from something
that grew to be the size of an orange. My behavior nowadays is sometimes “off
the charts.” I need to learn each day how to watch my impulsivity and
irritability. What’s particularly ironic is that I now do behavior modification
for myself just as I once did for my students. On my “good behavior” days, a
wee bit of milk chocolate at the end of the day is my way of rewarding myself.
On my “bad behavior” days, I reflect on how to improve so I can merit some more
chocolate.
I always had a feisty
personality. I spoke my mind loud and clear. When that behavior decreased, it
should have been a warning sign that something was wrong with me. I became
quieter and quieter. When I did speak, I slurred some words, even though sober.
I began to have serious
problems with a morbid fear of touching doorknobs and anything else that might
harbor germs. This mysophobia (fear of germs) became truly obsessive! I could
not sit in movie theaters or in church because I once heard a DJ on the radio
state that those places are never cleaned. I had a very difficult time in
restaurants whenever I witnessed what I considered to be unsanitary practices.
I needed help in restrooms because I couldn’t touch the latch or faucets or
doorknobs….
At my local McDonald’s I
was affectionately dubbed “Myso Girl,” because I needed help with handling my
money, and I expected the workers to be extra careful with using gloves when
preparing my meals. I’ll bet my local McDonald’s spends less on plastic gloves
now since I’m over this OCD [obsessive-compulsive disorder] behavior.
This time of my life was
very dark for me. I spent $1000 a month on items like hand sanitizer, disinfectant
wipes with bleach, vinyl gloves, etc. I lost the skin on the back of my hands
because I scrubbed my hands with so many chemicals! At school, I went into my
classroom at 6 a.m. every day and scrubbed the doorknobs, the seats I sat in,
the chalk I touched, the classroom’s phone, and so much more. It was
exhausting!
I was teaching children
who were chronologically seventh and eighth graders at my last job. Academically, they were several years below
these grade levels. I felt so much guilt about being less of a teacher than I
once was. I had earned many awards over the previous years. In 1992 I had a
medal draped around my neck by the New York State Commissioner of Education at
a ceremony at the Hotel Thayer at West Point. I tumbled from that type of
recognition to crying each day as I scrubbed the classroom down.
Some folks laugh about
being a “germ freak,” being a “germaphobe,” but for millions of us, it is not a
laughing matter. It ruled my existence.
One spring day in 2007,
two years BEFORE learning I had the brain tumor, I had just taught a math
lesson. The students were working on a worksheet, and I went to my desk to
scrub myself with hand sanitizer. I had bottles of the chemical all over my
room. The classroom phone rang at the same time that someone knocked on the
door. My student Ned [some student names have been changed in this memoir for
protection of their privacy] went to answer the door, as they all knew I
couldn’t touch it, and my student Barbara ran to the phone, which the kids knew
I wouldn’t touch, and said, “Ms. Schliff’s class. How can I help you?”
Both of these tasks
should have been mine to handle. Instead, I sat at my desk scrubbing my hands
as if I were preparing to perform surgery. I looked up and began to sob. These
poor kids were doing my job, when they had so many difficulties of their own. I
looked at my assistant and said, “Lorraine, I have to go.” Lorraine Iocovello
was a present from God at the darkest time of my life. She was my assistant at
this, my last job. She helped me in so many ways when I couldn’t do a good job
anymore.
I went down to the first
floor and into the Union President’s room and began the process of resigning
from the profession I loved.
BOOK TALKS AND SIGNINGS
Janet Johnson Schliff will be speaking at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 3, at Barnes & Noble, 1177 Ulster Avenue, Kingston, NY.
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For the coming year, I will be excerpting, weekly, material from this fine book by Janet Johnson Schliff, M.S.Ed.. She wrote it over a three-year period, with some coaching and editing help from me, through my business, WriteYourBookWithMe.com. The excerpts are from almost the final version. The book is now available from amazon.com and from its publisher, outskirtspress.com:
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BOOK TALKS AND SIGNINGS
Janet Johnson Schliff will be on WKNY Radio 1490 at 9:10 a.m. on March 1, Kingston, NY.
Janet Johnson Schliff will be speaking at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 3, at Barnes & Noble, 1177 Ulster Avenue, Kingston, NY.
I plan to attend, also.
Janet Johnson Schliff will speak at the Starr Library at Rhinebeck, NY, at 7 p.m. on March 6.
She will speak at the Golden Notebook Bookstore in Woodstock, NY, at 2 p.m. on March 17.
She will appear at RCAL in Kingston, NY, at 4 p.m. on April 3.
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