“Letting All The Light In: Gracefully Surviving Illness, Injury, And Grief”

Dax Meredith (daxmeredith.com), the pen name of a Chico area author, college instructor and counselor, wrote of her escape from the Camp Fire in "The Sound Of The Snow Geese." But she is also dealing with a years-long debilitating illness. 

“Both the illness and the fire almost killed me,” she writes in “Letting All The Light In: Gracefully Surviving Illness, Injury, And Grief” ($15.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle). “Twice now I have been much closer to death than I like to consider. But I am a better person because of it. … I am more patient, more grateful, more present in the moment each day because of those events.”

This is not a story of “arrival” but an ongoing journey as Meredith navigates the health care system and returns with cautionary tales. 

The book’s three parts include the harrowing memoir of her mysterious illness where, she writes, “The left side of my face was numb for almost a year. … My spine was numb. I remember constant and continual migraine headaches. The pain was excruciating. I remember endless vomiting, blurred vision or partial and temporary blindness, and on several occasions, hallucinations.” She adds: “As a general rule of thumb, hallucinations are just not a good sign.”

The second part features short interviews with two dozen sufferers, of all ages, each presenting the biggest challenge (including grief at the loss of a son and wife, amputation, addiction, miscarriages, multiple cancers, depression), resources used, the person’s belief system (some are Christian, some “spiritual,” some have no professed religious commitment), what others need to know, the roughest parts, and what wisdom has emerged. The accounts are devastating, gut-wrenching, in part because this is you or someone you know.

The final section is practical advice; Meredith covers everything to be aware of, from how to talk with one’s children to fighting the judgment from others and oneself. “I don’t believe all the bad things that occur are a punishment from God. But there are lessons in the bad things that happen to us.”

With graceful kindness, Meredith may well change how you understand your very life.

"Already Toast: Caregiving And Burnout In America"

Kate Washington (kawashington.com) is a freelance writer, Sacramento Bee food critic, and a Chico High grad (her dad and brother are still in town), earning a Ph.D. in English from Stanford. She married Brad Buchanan in 1999; they have two daughters and now live in Sacramento because of his teaching job at Sacramento State. 

"I sprinted eagerly into marriage," she writes. "I was young, naive, steeped in mainstream white feminism, and I thought equality was there for the plucking." The reality of married life was much more problematic and in 2014 an earthquake came to shake its very foundations. Brad, in his mid-forties, was diagnosed with what was thought to be a manageable, slow-moving lymphoma.

But one ordinary Saturday morning Kate was summoned to the bathroom. Brad was coughing. "Blood was splashing out of his mouth, blooming over the white porcelain of the sink. The splashes coming up out of his throat made little noises, like the gurgle of an unstuck drain. ... Each time he coughed it seemed like half a cup." Kate had to add "caregiver" to her regular duties as mom and partner, and it almost broke her.

The searing, stunningly honest story is told in "Already Toast: Caregiving And Burnout In America" ($24.95 in hardcover from Beacon press; also for Amazon Kindle and in audiobook format). Brad's cancer was aggressive; the only hope was a stem-cell transplant from his brother, but that led to further complications, including near blindness, which almost took his life. 

"Fried and frazzled" as a caregiver, Washington endures a kind of "erasure." "As a caregiver, I sometimes felt like I barely existed as an individual." 

"Burnout," she adds, "kills empathy and makes worse caregivers of all of us who suffer from it. More than that, it made me a worse person: less kind, less patient, less fun to be around." 

Washington recognizes her own privilege is not typical and proposes the creation of "networks of care" (recommending aarp.org/caregiving), though she admits there's no single answer. But, she says at the end, "If society wants us to keep caring for others, it's going to have to show a little more care for us."

"The Road To Positive Work Cultures"

"Nursing," Chicoan Carol Huston writes, "is both physically and emotionally demanding. Hours are long; fatigue related to the physical demands of moving constantly, lifting, and bending is common...." Then there are the sometimes competing "expectations of the employer, patient, family, professional boards, and self." Small wonder that "compassion fatigue" can set in, a weary sadness when the nurse feels unable to help the patient.

Though these words were published a few months before the pandemic, they are multiplied in their significance today. Leaders need to be sensitive to the stresses experienced by health care professionals while at the same time offering a hopeful vision of the future. Huston, management consultant and Emerita Professor at Chico State's School of Nursing, served as Chair of the Enloe Medical Center Board of Trustees and knows the importance of a supportive workplace.

"The Road To Positive Work Cultures" ($24.95 in paperback from Sigma; also for Amazon Kindle) provides ten "leadership lessons" applicable not only to health care but to most any business with employees. Though simple in outline, Huston's examples make it clear that creating a good work culture is far from easy.

Take, for example, the chapter on avoiding micromanaging which, she writes, "is generally an outgrowth of inexperience or insecurity, not a demonstration of competence or expertise on the part of the leader." At the start of hospital shifts, good nurses may check patients, meds, and lab reports in a particular order, which may not be the order preferred by a micromanager and that can make nurses feel they are not trusted.

Far better, says Huston, for leaders to develop macromanagement skills in setting clear expectations but allowing a "divergence in problem-solving."

Each chapter, from establishing mutual respect and civility, maintaining appropriate boundaries, and not letting problems fester, to building effective teams, reducing stress, and showing appreciation, draws on management research to illuminate real-world situations. 

The book concludes with chapters on being an "authentic leader," one with "passion" and "purpose." Conflict and change are inevitable even in positive work cultures, but the key is how they are dealt with. 

Huston ends her insightful book with Benjamin Franklin: "'When you're finished changing, you're finished.'"