ksquest

Return of The Yard: Or, It Isn't All Just Sadness, You Know.

2011-08-13T15:07:00.001-04:00

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Dealing with chronic illnesses, dealing with being disabled, can be a full-time job.

In fact, if it isn't, maybe yer doin' it rong.

As far as I'm concerned? Life is truly precious. It shouldn't be wantonly destroyed. It shouldn't be wantonly made painful or hard or mean or of little use, either.

Fun is precious too. And what an excellent assistant for that full-time Deal With It job!

Some people believe that making conscious efforts to be happy gives false results. That if happiness doesn't arise spontaneously, it isn't real. Surely we've all seen instances of the type of phoniness that portrays an emotional falsehood, whether of happiness or sorrow or anything else. But that isn't the same as putting forth effort to be happy, not to me.

Long ago, a sibling's psychiatrist friend asked me what my ultimate, overriding goal in life was. At the time I was in my late twenties or so and hadn't seriously reconsidered this important question for a while. A little surprised, I thought for a moment and said, "Well -- to be happy, I guess."

And the man jumped down my throat. Looking like he was trying to mask a bit of honest hostility, he told me, "No no no. Happiness can't ever be a goal on its own. It's only a state we can reach by meeting some other goal - getting that job you wanted or getting married, having a baby, things like that." (At the time this rang a bell I couldn't place. It seems to parallel the philosophy espoused in a wonderful book called Man's Search for Meaning, by WWII concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl.)

Goals tend to make you think, to consider and deliberate. Assumptions tend towards suspending judgement. Such useful qualities! Yes, both of them, thinking and assuming. And both need to be used with care, so much care. Care and caution and honesty and strength.

As time went by, as my respect for Mr. Frankl and disrespect for Mr. Shrink grew, I finally decided Mr. Shrink was dead wrong. Not only can happiness be a stand-alone goal, it must be one, if we're ever to think clearly enough - to understand ourselves well enough - to find it.

Not to mention, making happiness a goal can go a long way towards protecting us from certain Elementary Errors of Assumption. Like believing money or fame or lots of cheap hot sex will bring us happiness. Eeek!!!

Maybe it's human nature to assume certain events or conditions must make happiness. WAHHH!!! STOP! Maybe the dubiousness of the Happiness Value of Money is clear enough. But even blessed events like having a baby won't necessarily make a person happy, any more than that seemingly perfect job or marriage or fancy espresso will. Or that glad little breath of relief from seriousness... ;-)

Some day you may be walking around sad, not knowing what will make you happy or how to get some of it. Sure, time will pass and your emotions will change and I bet you'll feel better, happy even, once again. But if you do know what some of your personal Happy Stuff is, and how to get it, it stands a decent chance of happening quicker and better. Right? Makes sense?

Even more so if you're willing to put some time and effort into it.

Yeah.

That four-letter word.

Work.

heh!

Of course, sometimes a four-letter word is a very good thing.

Like L o v e.

And me, I love to work.

Now, certainly you've heard me over the years going on and on about Gardening Happiness. The mirrored equivalent of no-gardening unhappiness too. The waiting-to-exhale hope of an approaching day when some two years of no-gardening comes to an end, and my modified body can handle tiny bits of modified gardening activities out in the Florida sun...communing with nature once again, talking to the birds and lizards and singing to them and tossing them bugs, and finding wonderful little treasures in my yard and watching as my plants bring forth buds and flowers and fruit, and I clear away this *sick ol' neighbor lady's* weeds and vines and mess and my pretty walkways' brick paths emerge once again for cats and people to amble down, shyly peeking about to see if anyone's watching them take such liberties...

OHHHHHHH, my.

Some happiness lives there. Yes.

Okay. Here we go, back to the present, out in the here-and-now. Time, finally; it becomes time to explore. After an exhausting 10-minute venture outside in the front yard - in the power chair, sure, but! dressed in my genuine same-old gardening clothes! - the first requirement needed to obtain this glorious Gardening Happiness freedom was clear.

A trip to Home Depot was in order. Another big, big venture: not just going there, up and out of my sickbed; but maybe even going there all by myself. A first.

A couple weeks ago, a Saturday looked good. I could handle it, I knew I could, even though Walter couldn't come.

I called TOPS the day before and made my reservation. TOPS stands for Transportation Options, or some such; it's an adjunct of our local city bus service that picks up the disabled, even in heavy motorized wheelchairs, only $3.50 each way. I made sure they knew I was shopping and might buy something large, and they said, --Fine!!

OHHH!!! Deep breath! The next day arrived, it actually did! And TOPS came and Home Depot was there and I shopped, all by myself, and thought and zoomed around in my speedy chair and explored and compared and made decisions and spent the carefully, precisely budgeted funds I came prepared with.

Rendering me the ecstatic new owner of the following: the fanciest pole saw I've ever owned; a 3 1/2' *dandelion weeder* - a digger stick long enough for leverage, we don't have actual dandelions around here; a spray bottle to fill with rubbing alcohol for mosquito control; and the most kick-ass long loppers you ever saw. They actually ratchet! I mean, I had no idea! Never even heard of 'em before! Wheeeee!!!

heh heh heh!

Now you can see why I absolutely must get my camera in order. How can I brag about my fabulous new gardening tools and not post their pix?!? Sheesh!

And you can see why once again, I find proof that together with the hardships and pain in my life, I was granted - through no action or special merit or earned deservedness of my own - real blessings. The exact sorts of blessings that make those hardships bearable. And along with blessed things like an oddly twisted sense of humor, a desire to refrain from taking myself too seriously too often, the will and need to think for myself, oh so much more - together with all that came this settled certainty that happiness is good and right and belongs to us, that we can and should understand it and seek it out.

Our country's founders recognized our innate human right to the pursuit of happiness. And no cynical shrink - or pastor or parent or teacher or doctor or anyone who thinks they're somehow in rightful absolute charge of our souls - not with all the well-honed manipulative skills they may possess, no one can ever succeed in taking away that right. They might - if they're bitter and destructive and mean-spirited and so inclined - try pretty hard to do it. But the most they can ever achieve is making people believe something that's incorrect. Don't you let them. Never forget that they can't take your right to happiness away.
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Sadness and Bad News

2011-07-22T02:35:00.004-04:00

A *gore alert* on this post, too, okay? Plus there's graphic medical stuff, without links or definitions, and I didn't even link the references to older posts.

Thank you all so very much for those wonderful comments. Once you've read this post you'll understand why they mean especially much to me right now. While I haven't written back my responses yet, I certainly have answered them in my mind.

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I'm sitting here quietly, calmly, listening to the strong but muted rumble of thunder in the distance. I love that sound, I love the way it rains and storms here in Florida. When I first moved to Charlotte Harbor in 1980, I'd sit outside on this bayside patio at the secluded little motel where I lived. The harbor was just a few yards away from my door, and I'd lie on a lounge chair at night and watch the lightning overhead. It would strike from cloud to cloud for hours at a time, never once hitting the ground, and I'd watch it for hours, let it fill my shattered soul with peace.

Well, well. Today is so far away from that past. Now I'm lying, instead, in this hospital bed, here in my first and only very own house. My sanctuary. My shelter. Not even Katrina and Wilma broke through it, two trees on the roof and still it held me safe and secure.

But those were just hurricanes. Terrible, yes. Of course. But there's lots of other scary stuff out there too.

So much for all my fine bite-the-bullet type talk about just do it, just say it...It isn't that I've changed my mind in any way at all. That's absolutely not it. I was just hoping for a little breathing room, I guess, before having to dive right in to the sort of current hard news I had been avoiding blogging about. So much for thinking time might give us a small reprieve if we just talk to it the right way, huh? ha! Well, well.

For what it's worth, at least I feel I truly wasn't in denial about it. That matters to me, because where denial can be a useful temporary ploy, it can't be adopted as permanent strategy without getting into real danger. IMO, at least.

Here's some backstory.

Among the things that have kept me so sick for so long are the Big Awful Major Abdominal Surgery in March, 2010; and a years-old systemic infection by a germ called mycobacteria chelonae abscessus. It's set up some rather spectacular housekeeping in my upper right arm, where it occupies nearly all of it - the upper arm, I mean - in a huge, deep, complex, multi-layered abscess. On the surface it doesn't look like much. But it's had three surgeries, and has multiple openings where it volunteers, decides to drain on its own at unexpected intervals. Uh, I did post that goriness alert, I hope. This surely qualifies. Even for me, it can be unsettling to feel something wet rolling down your arm, and look over to see pus flowing out of your bicep and dripping off your elbow.

I go on regular and super-antibiotics for these things. Sometimes, as the myco and various other germs become resistant, we switch the permanent antibiotics, or make a cocktail of several different kinds, or stick me in the hospital again with IV antibiotics for bad flareups. Various types of infection are behind many of those 30 or so hospital admissions in the last couple years.

A couple months ago we got some blood test results showing it was time to change antibiotics again, and did. Now most of you probably have some experience with antibiotics and their side effects. One way they impact me has to do with that 2010 abdominal surgery.

See, it all started with really severe diverticulitis, which led to a really bad three-way fistula, a sort of tube, connecting my bladder, large intestine, and various female parts to each other. This isn't good. Among other awful things, my bladder filled with feces to the point of nearly rupturing. Which, in turn, left me two or three days to live unless I did the surgery.

But the docs only gave me about a 30-50% chance to survive the surgery, as near as I could force them to admit. I was way, way, way too sick with other things for such an operation. Surely my heart would fail. I explained to the doctors that those odds were still better than a three-day life span, and besides, I knew I'd survive their table. So they very kindly and sweetly said "goodbye" in various ways, and family gathered round, and of course I did make it after all.

By a hair's breadth, yes. Minus several inches of gut, my appendix, my left ovary and fallopian tube, and a big garbled clump of tissue the surgeon tossed into the bucket for the pathologist to sort out. Plus another ICU stay, a ventilator, food by IV, a long-time foley, loads of stitches and staples in great variety of type and place - and a long term temporary opening in my belly, which they still haven't closed yet.

Back to now: Now add back the good old immunocompromised condition, the recent change in antibiotics unsettling the digestive tract bacteria balance; toss in a previous bout with c-diff, plus the right arm abscess acting up lately (setting up a sicker-and-weaker, feverier row to hoe) and you can get...a messed-up abdominal condition which could be another c-diff infection, a thing not to be messed with; then throw in a bunch of blood and other gore I'll skip for now, AND, a patient who's been running around refusing to go back to the hospital even One. More. Time.

That would be me.

So I didn't.

Instead, I talked to a bunch of doctors and such on the phone, and almost called 911 twice; but after six days it seemed the new antibiotic had battled the New Problem back for a little while. Long enough to see my Infectious Disease doc and get some tests run; and next Monday, see a new GI doc.

Okay. Lots of old news on that March 2010 surgery. Today's New Problem, too. And it was all just background, because today's news doesn't actually pertain to my own health at all, really.

It's not about me this time. It matters for a whole different reason than me being sick and being stubborn about the hospital.

I truly heal better and faster at home. I have more energy. I can hang around with Walter, who is much less depressed if I'm at home when I'm sick, instead of at the hospital when I'm sick.

That's very important right now, because of the results Walter got last week of a routine follow-up cat scan on his left lung. That's where they removed the small lung cancer tumor ten months ago. They declared it 100% removed, and small, Stage 1; but it contained not one but two forms of lung cancer that rarely appear together. At the time, his pulmonary doc pushed very hard for a full battery of radiation and chemo. He'd had personal experience battling the same unusual cancer combination in a few other patients, and believed he knew what to expect and what the treatment should be. But the Cancer Board turned him down, which apparently carries great weight; and the doc couldn't do what he thought was necessary to keep the tumor from regrowing.

He was a lone voice in the wilderness. And -- he was right.

The current routine follow-up cat scan, then pet scan, showed not one but several new tumors. Big. Virulent. They'd grown from nothing as of a few months ago, when another routine CT scan and biopsy showed a small unidentifiable lesion. Suddenly, today, the biggest tumor is 45 x 37mm; the next biggest is around 22 x 22mm, and there are several smaller ones nearby. They take up about a third of his lung. This is fast growth. A bad thing.

Walter has a very important factor on his side: it hasn't metastasized.

Tuesday, we go to the oncologist. His radiation and chemo may start as early as next week.

So this is why I need to stay home from the hospital. You see? I can't take care of him. I'm too sick. But if I stay home and stay as strong as I can be, I can do some things: I can keep him company, I can help some, and most of all I can manage. I can try to put together all the insurance and social services help available to him. He'll need nursing care, and aide care, and for my own aide care to be increased so he won't worry about me not eating again. Things like that are what I can do to help him the very best that I can.

Now you know.
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Happy Independence Day, Everyone!

2011-07-04T23:57:00.001-04:00

Ah. Independence. Now there's a theme you've seen recurring here. And its revivals won't be going anywhere but up.

Because that theme - broad and universal, timeless, so uniting on a day like today in a country like ours - hits home just as powerfully on the microcosm of one small and inconsequential life.

Like mine.

The hushed but ever-present threat of not-quite-voluntary stays in nursing homes and SNIFS probably wasn't what the founding fathers had in mind on this day in history. Seems they had some loftier thoughts in mind. Taxes. Free assembly. The safety and protection of regular folks by a government of their own choosing. Heh! Self-governance. Such a prettier word than government, isn't it?

Independence.

Ah, yes.

My recent streak of good fortune continues. I haven't heard one single bottle rocket go screaming past my windows. So I'm not hiding under the hospital bed, or under the commode either. That one's worse, because you don't want to get suddenly startled and jump around while you're crouched down under there.

heh heh heh! I've acquired the most amazing new store of useful knowledge and experience, these last couple years. And if you don't mind hearing it, well then I don't mind sharing it. LUCKY you! Lucky lucky you!

I hope all y'all had a wonderful sunshiny day full of fireworks and corn-on-the-cob and parades and watermelon and BBQ and salad and fried chicken and iced tea and family and friends and neighbors and swimming and, and, and all the good stuff you might like on a day like today.

Including a simple little joy like being able to post Happy Independence Day, Everyone! once again.
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A Thousand Apologies

2011-07-02T16:54:00.003-04:00

What I'm truly sorry for is this: for not finding some way of letting you all know that Walter and I are both okay.

We are. That's not to say we're doing fine, or even doing very well; but we are okay, and that sees us through. And before I go one more step, go anywhere else, first, first - recently, we've been doing better. I want to assure anyone and everyone who might be even mildly interested that we've had some smallish but significant pieces of good news lately.

The biggest one is this: Walter's been approved for social security disability, and his 5-month *waiting period* is over, so he now has an income. I keep running around saying we're rich. Ha! No, of course it isn't much. It has no bearing on the house still being in foreclosure. But when you no longer have to make those awful choices between essential heart medications and food, you sure do feel rich. It's enough. It gives me enough of a boost of energy and hope to find the strength to try to speak again.

I don't know why I lost my voice. I only know I want it back. Maybe understanding *why* could help me figure out better how to overcome it. But I see no point in waiting any more to figure it out first; in fact, that's probably been slowing me down. Instead, I'll try - try - to just bite the bullet and let myself talk.

One thing that's surely been holding me back is how rough the path life's got me on has become. The combined and accumulating weight of the illnesses, the poverty, the losses, became crushing. Choking. I'm way beyond caring whether anyone thinks less of me for *letting it get to me,* or for admitting out loud that it hurts that bad, or for appearing weak, or afraid, or blind to how much this entire country is suffering. Anyone who never felt these impacts is either a sociopath or a stone cold fool, and I'm neither. No more than I'm weak, or a coward. I have the facts, and I know better.

Mingled in with the devastation are these extraordinary episodes of peace and joy, of fabulously good luck, of hope that seemed so unreasonable early on, yet turned out right and true. For whatever reasons - yes, probably including that I make the effort to watch for them - those episodes have long been another part of my life's path. In the midst of the worst, those wondrous blessings keep coming.

So, then: What changed? Not so much the occurrence of the events, I guess; rather, it was their intensity.

It's never been a secret that we bloggers blog, in varying degrees, for our own good. For therapy. Oh yes, me too. You betcha.

But that intensity, especially the levels and degrees of the wretchednesses that kept coming up, made me not want to dump those harsh realities on you, my readers, my blessed, faithful, intelligent, discerning, incredibly kind, patient, forgiving readers.

From the comments and emails that you've continued to send in spite of my silence, I see you figured it out anyway.

Meaning...I might as well go ahead and tell the whole story, as best I can.

I may have to leave tiny bits out, but not by much. The hard stuff gets pretty bad sometimes, and gory, and I want to be sure you understand the risk of continuing to read here. I'm still myself, of course I am; but where I'd rather be telling you about these beautiful three flowers slowly unfolding by my driveway, and how my entire ponytail palm burst into bloom from every separate head at the same time, and posting their gorgeous pics - instead of all that, I'll have to start with things like the day I learn how to work my camera again. And the day I go outside onto my driveway in my motorized wheelchair, all by myself. I've done neither for a very long time.

For two and a half years, since March 2009, I've been bedridden 99.9% of the time. These days I live in a hospital bed in what used to be my home office. All day, all night, day after day, week after week. I'm on oxygen 24/7, and sleep sitting up. I have an aide that comes in for a few hours four days a week to help me take a shower, and to change my bed and do light housekeeping and laundry. This costs the insurance company far less than another awful stretch in a nursing home would.

On an average day I can walk around 20 feet at a stretch - not steadily, and not always; and I still fall sometimes, or pass out. That part is dangerous. Very. I bleed and bruise and peel skin off at the drop of a hat. There's a bedside commode to pee in; and although I can't put a meal together for myself, I can feed myself when someone brings my meal to my bed. There's an over-the-bed tray table on wheels, hospital style but smaller, that holds my laptop, pitcher of light iced tea, the daily stack of little pill cups, and a few pens and such. I fit my plates or bowls in when it's mealtime, and some nice person brings me good tasty diabetic food.

That person is highly likely to be Walter. To our mutual joy, we have reconciled, something we both thought impossible. We are better partners than we've ever been, all these years since 1993. Understanding how his porphyria affects personalities and relationships played a big role there. Not to forget, of course --

Cancer changes everything.

We'll have an update on how he's doing with that pretty soon.

Okay. There's so much more I want to say. I haven't even answered your comments yet. My stamina for posting is not what it was; and not making concessions for that fact has left me with a good handful of nearly-finished posts and emails, never sent. I'll try to keep talking, more as a sprinter than long-hauler, hoping it may help me keep on going on.

Writing and posting this is one of the harder things I've done in my life. My God. I miss you all so much.
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Walter Pulled Through

2010-09-24T08:32:00.001-04:00

Oh yes! He made it through surgery. He made it through post-op. Through a night in Cardiac ICU, CICU. Back upstairs to Telemetry, the heart unit. Slowly but surely they've pulled out this tube and that, let him take off his oxygen cannula here and there. Our bad hearts always complicate our other surgeries, so he's on a heart monitor.

He still gets a gazillion breathing treatments a day, and they put him back on IV fluids today. Hmmm. The chest tube is still in, draining and draining.

But they decided to transport him to his next stop, a Respite Care place.

And the first news on the tumor came back.

They got it very, very early. Stage 1A. Very small, almost too small to operate on him. Walter didn't know which kind it is - we hear there are several. But if it were the awful one, small cell, they'd be throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it.

Which they aren't. He won't have to do chemotherapy. He may have to do some radiation therapy, but not for very long.

It looks like this awful thing, lung cancer, might have a good outcome after all. Am I happy? Is he? Oh my goodness, YES!

You know what else? If we hadn't broken up, they would not have caught it so early. Perhaps not for a long, long time. It was only through an odd series of coincidences that they gave him a chest x-ray. And that he agreed to have it. See, he'd just had one three weeks before.

That x-ray showed nothing there at all.

I'm Still Here

2010-09-20T14:18:00.003-04:00

I have been tremendously ill for a long, long time.

Communication has been difficult - with anyone, in any way. I see your comments from time to time and feel it's been a one-way street. Yet you're endlessly patient with me. I see footprints from you checking back, wondering what was happening with me. That means a great deal to this blogger, living in a hospital for a year and a half, battling onslaught after onslaught that many a strapping healthy young person would not have survived.

It's been another world, and a distant one. I've had to devote all my physical and mental resources to staying alive. But now it looks like I've turned a corner. I may, at last, be relatively safe. More on that another time, okay?

I want to assure you all that I haven't had a stroke or anything as permanently devastating as that. Some permanent changes? Yes, of course. Mostly, though, of the type that will heal. The lack of communication from my end isn't due to that. It's just been the battle fatigue.

Walter and I have split up. It was in the works for a long time. I've needed 24-hour caretaking for all that period of illness, and still do today. It's a terribly difficult job, caretaking someone who's seriously ill. Essentially, he burned out. He could never let himself rest. Going our separate ways has been very good for both of us.

And are we friends again? You betcha. Groan or snicker all you want, we don't care ;- )

Today, though, I'm back at the same hospital - but our roles are reversed. Today, Walter is the patient, and I'm the visitor. I'm getting a taste of what I was so certain of every time I've gone into another surgery - that it can be harder for those who wait than for the patient.

Help us, please, with all the positive energies and prayers and good thoughts you can summon up.

It looks like Walter has lung cancer. He's in surgery now, as I speak. The docs are removing the mass they discovered, together with surrounding tissue. He opted not to have a "lobectomy." That would remove about half a lung, and leave him totally and permanently disabled. His five-year survival expectancy would only increase by about 10%. It wasn't worth it to him.

Perhaps you noticed I said --it looks like lung cancer.-- That's because, even with all the tremendous technology at hand, they weren't able to do the usual biopsy first.

The mass that appeared in the cat scan was hiding behind a rib - nearly perfectly obscured. They couldn't get a clear image to guide the biopsy needle; and the straight needle they use couldn't get behind the rib to grab a piece of the mass anyway. So, while everyone is convinced it is lung cancer - and I believe it probably is - I don't forget there's a tiny chance it could just be an infection or something, We'll know in a few days, after Pathology has a chance to do the definitive analysis.

So now that I've finally broken my silence, what do I do? Very first post back, I ask for your help. Sheesh.

I'm not sure I really know what Walter's beliefs are. Maybe I'm wishing for those positive energies for myself instead. I keep thinking of Bane's prayer warriors...and a rare yellow rain lily, something with strong Bane associations in my mind, has been blooming in my front yard.

I'm OUT!

2010-04-18T09:09:00.004-04:00

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I'm OUT! I'm OUT! I'mOUT!I'mOUT!I'mOUT!

Yes indeed, everyone. You heard it straight from the horse's mouth. Oh, happy day!!!
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Well. It was true when I said it, anyway. And you, my faithful readers, gave me enough time to start a post instead of answering comments, which is one of my FAVORITE things to do. And therefore, ever so distracting.

Now I'm going to gross you out, or bore you - whatever - with more medical tales. It's become my life. I've lived at this hospital for more than a year now. And while the subject material may not be as fun as I've wished, it's what I've got, for telling tales of the present at least.

I spent about two days at home. I slept most of them away. Then I woke up, bright and chipper.

And that's all she wrote...

until I woke up in the ER around 8 pm last night.

Walter and Mom were with me. They told me a blood test showed infection. That when they brought me in, I was radiating heat, so hot they could feel it from a few feet away, A wonderful paramedic, sweet and kind - and extremely competent - was determined to set an IV. It became a challenge to him. It does to a lot of them, actually.

See, I'm a very "hard stick." That means it's hard to find a vein that will accept an IV without "blowing,' infiltrating, where the needle comes out the other side of the vessel instead of sliding into the vein.

Even if they succeed in setting an IV, the IV's aren't usually in strong enough veins. They have to hold up against these super-powerful antibiotics they pour into me to kill off the various resistant germs I get. The IV's don't usually last more than a couple of days.

But that's another story.

Last night, what we needed was an IV. Difficult, difficult. And our shining hero of a paramedic actually did it! They drew blood for tests, and then slammed me with Vancomycin - one of those super-antibiotics - and lo and behold, I came to.

Understand, I was comatose through all the excitement. It happened that way last time too, grrr!!! I mean, I paid for the darn ticket. Then I don't even get to see the show. But everybody else did! hmph!

It appears my left arm is deeply infected for about a foot long area, with my elbow in the middle. Red, and hot. And - please forgive the indelicacy - same goes for my entire left breast. Ouch!

I'd hoped to have more time to post. Now, as long as I don't get the sleeps, I will.

Be careful what you wish for...
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HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!!!

2010-04-04T10:19:00.005-04:00

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I really like holidays.

Since we live in this great American melting pot, or stew, or tossed salad - whatever - this can mean holidays of LOTS of different religions. Such a fine variety of holidays to choose from!

But how to avoid stepping on one's toes, congratulating someone for the wrong day?

It's easy. You don't need to try to remember who believes what. No no no! Get yourself a cheap calender with Important Days outlined in red, or bookmark same - just for ya know it's Special - and tell everyone you like:

HAPPY HOLIDAY!!!

See how easy? This way you have many other fine advantages, to-wit:

You don't have to worry that you just said *Happy Easter* to, say, an Orthodox Jew. Plus, no one will question you closely about the nature of the holiday, for fear they'll look like a horse's patootie - which you just saved your ownself from doing, right? PLUS, it puts lots of people in a nice holiday mood. Want a great reason to pull the curtains, invite some friends (or not), and do a fine cook-fest?

And if you've got some brave acquaintances in the bunch, you can drop the Horse's P. concerns and have all sorts of interesting discussions about the real date of the Chinese New Year and such. Not many supervisors are brave enough to jump in and cut that conversation short if you're swiping another 15 minutes of lunch hour.

The point is, it's a holiday. A time to relax a bit and remember to enjoy ourselves. I think the world could use a bit more of that.

Leaving religion behind for a bit - say, taking a brief vacation from it - Easter is special because it's springtime. I don't need to figure out if it's the correct historical date, or reconcile the usual mix of orthodoxy and paganism. Nope.

Because even living in near-perpetual sunshine and warmth, we can feel the change down here too.

Springtime.

Full of joyousness, renewal, warm breezes, seeds sprouting, sap running, bunnies bounding and eggs hatching. Yeah. All o' that. It's just great.

So whatever your beliefs, agendas, family situations and so forth, I hope you have a truly Happy Holiday today.
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Medical Alert. My Excellent Dear Good Friends: I Am Dying.

2010-03-22T21:19:00.005-04:00

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But I REFUSE to go.

Aw, c'mon, folks. A little silly overblown melodrama never killed anyone.

Even when it hits so uncomfortably close to home.

I'm back from the hospital once again. In the last year I've been admitted to B.General some 16 times, once to Holy Cross, and three times to nursing homes ("SNIF's"). I've come very close to dying at least three times. k dad calculated the actual amount of time I spent at the hospital, rather than at home, last year. He tells me I spent more time in the hospital.

And just when it seemed like it was. . . well,not over, but slowing down at least. . .

would somebody please play that music from Jaws or something? . . . well, you get the picture. . .

yeah, speed demon. Up it goes again.

Well. I'm going to break this post up into several, okay? I hope that'll help circumvent boredom, hunger, the need to pee when only half-way through. . .
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I owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people for my complete lack of communication. You know who you are. I hope you'll understand - and forgive me! - once I can finally tell you how it all came down.

Today is Monday, March 22, 2010. I had "exploratory" surgery on Wednesday, March 3, then major surgery on March 8. Quite major. After that, they sent me to ICU (Trauma Center/ICU) where one of my nurses from a "previous engagement!" happened to be assigned to me one night. Oh, we talked and talked and caught up with family news, and she insisted I'd saved her orchids with my Handy Dandy Orchid Tips.

Family news. Yes. Long talks with many nurses about such, both ways. And in the pre-op waiting room was: k dad and k bro, both from Chicagoland; and k nephew, now living in Brooklyn, New York. Ah, my favorite nephew in the world! k sis was back in New Jersey, having to return to work after not one but two long and extended visits; k mom was in Chicagoland, busily working away to help pay for all those plane tickets; and finally, k niece was settling her (OUR) family in the new place they'd acquired since their house was under water and all workout attempts had failed, whereupon they moved out, cleaned up, and handed the keys back to the bank.

That tiny pre-op waiting room was crowded, people. I hope and believe I had a tight hold on my emotions. But having all that family there, for no other reason than love and supportiveness, made it very hard indeed to just talk without bursting into tears. See, our family never behaved in any classic family manner. I'm not sure we ever really knew how. But we're learning. We're not throwing away our independence; we're just adding that all-important element called "interdependence".

And you know what else? Friends and family are not allowed anywhere near those little pre-op waiting rooms. But the hospital personnel, who had every right to ask - to demand - that my family leave? They didn't. Doctors, nurse-practitioners, nurses, PCA's. Nobody.

C'mon. How often is family even allowed a kiss at the door leading in to the operating area?

Never.
** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * **

The stars look very different, today...

2010-02-09T00:36:00.009-05:00

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Some of you may remember, in past posts, me talking about the sense of connectedness I had with the earth and all my friends during these times of debilitating illness. Attached back to earth I was, by an imaginary cord like spiderweb or silk. You know how silks are said to be stronger, yet more elastic, than steel that's been spun out into a thread like that silk is? Fragile as it also was, that thread kept me connected to ground, to home, to the people of my life. It held my will to live.

And every time I got bad sick again, the illness would be worse than the time before, and that thread tying me to home would have to stretch farther and farther. And it always did; it stretched to hold me fast but it never broke. It always held me, connected me, attached me, safe.

Wondering, though - I mean, who wouldn't? - if one day - Surely, surely, some day it would stretch too far and have to snap. Wouldn't it? And what would happen then? Would I keep drifting off farther away into outer space, spinning and floating and all *can't breathe but that's okay really, it'll-all-be-over-quicker-that-way...*

And this time that strong and fragile silk snapped.

And I made it back anyway.

I think...

So yes, I'm at home now. I spent most of the last year in the hospital or nursing homes - some 12 or 15 hospital admissions alone, I'll have to go back and tot 'em up to know for sure. The insurance company appears to be contemplating their ever-rising bills and considering treatment alternatives. (Let's hope they aren't getting skittish on us, huh?) They took me off IV, back on oral super-antibiotics, and made up a sort of hospital room at home. House-call doctors and everything!

The last time they did that they nearly killed me. I wouldn't like that treatment alternative one bit, although it certainly would be cheaper, especially in the long run. heh! But their dastardly schemes haven't worked not even once, so I agreed to give it another try, and so far so good. I am alive.

The last admission with any drama attached was November 13, 2009 - yup, Friday the 13th - through Thanksgiving Day. I woke up in a Level 1 Trauma Center/ICU, across the room from the helipad. I couldn't talk, or put a coherent sentence together in my mind the way we call "thinking;" couldn't write and had to *x* my name on some papers. All can be symptoms of a stroke; but I knew that wasn't it, it wasn't what happened to me.

But what did?

Next to my space-age triple-computerized ICU bed stood a great bear of a man created from an ex-20 year Marine midstate Louisiana Cajun, a military haircut, brilliant intelligence, and 260 pounds of solid muscle - a nice safe-feeling thing, considering the maybe 1800 cops and shot-up (ex-) fugitives and pissed-off (presumably innocent) (presumably unarmed) bystanders roaming about. This was one of the two - yes, only two - nurses I had in the 3 or 4 days I spent up there.

Luckily, we communicated extremely well without talking. He saw my great frustration in trying to string 2 - 3 words together in a way that made sense; he waited just a bit - checking, assessing, you know? - then told me, "ssshhhhhh, quiet, you don't need to talk just now..."

He was very direct. Forthright. Didn't feed me platitudes or try to placate me. Notice how he didn't say "You're going to be juuust fiiine!" to try to make me feel better? Because how can anyone really know? And ordinary practical realities aside, I was now in a 24-bed ICU with a 50% survival rate.

That's it. What ICU is all about. Half the beds they wheeled back out the door had dead people in them. I mean, come on... Okay. Every one's different. But me, I really appreciated his style; I always would have anyway, but it was exactly what I needed just then..

Later I learned I'd been in full-blown sepsis from a type of mycobacteria - rare enough to cause quite a stir in the Trauma Center - and pneumonia. The nurse was feeding my IV from a huge bag of dopamine, and doing all sorts of other exotic things with my oxygen and lung or breathing measurements and such. When they brought me in, my blood pressure was in the 70's over 30's.

Yeah. Dead level.

Hmmm. Enough on that episode for now.

Well. Enough on this post for now, too. Writing is exhausting me and I'm still so very, very tired; but I had to check in, I just had to, gathering up all my great strength, oh huge it is, I bet it's almost as big as a new-born kitten's by now. I've missed everyone so much, and your comments and emails kept me attached here in their own way after all, so hugs and kisses to each and every one.

And maybe an extra one or two out of my real and powerful gratitude to the still-anonymous Mystery Person who decided, for mysterious reasons of their own, to send me this beautiful - and working - Mystery Computer I'm typing on. Perhaps they were indulging a hope it would kick a post out of me? --ah, vanity...

Hah!

It was probably just Bane.
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grrrrrrrRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

2009-12-04T17:36:00.000-05:00

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Or maybe I should say, AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because once again, I'm trapped in the Big Downtown Hospital. As an inmate. InPATIENT, 'scuse me.

I'm trying out the Brief Update mode now, trying to keep you faithful folks from worrying about me. Especially...especially because - ah, reality intrudes - there is reason to worry, now; precarious health, no money, and no internet service at home, and we don't know why.

I did make it through the Thanksgiving weekend at home. Nearly 100% of it. Around 11pm, I started bleeding again, another coumadin bleed. It was coming from my mouth - we hoped, as opposed to some other internal origin - and after a slow but steady run of some 14 hours, I finally gave up and went back to the ER.

Where, after some treatment, and then some heart pain, they decided to admit me.

For the last time. I won't be going back. It's time to find a new place to go.

But!!! BUT!!!

Ready for the silver lining? 'Cause you know I almost can't write a *gggrrr!!!* post without one.

WELL!!! I'm slowly but surely getting Unadmitted! As we speak, Transport is allegedly on their way up, to take me down, and out, to where Walter will put me in our car, and we can go home.

Home.

Home again.
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Yes. I'm home again, oh Joy and Happiness.

2009-11-28T12:22:00.004-05:00

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I am SO glad, SO so glad! Home. Home. Home.

I spent the last two weeks in the Icky Place [the hospital], again. Before that I had two weeks at home, but in some ways it was like the Icky Place: IV drip antibiotics, Lovenox belly shots, nurses coming, no getting out of bed except for any doctor appointment I could get to without canceling due to illness...Too sick, way too sick. Too sick to have been discharged once again, *dear* Broward General, in the first place - home IV's or no.

Where am I? Oh - Two weeks in the Icky Place, after two weeks at home. Before that? Another couple weeks in the Icky Place, until early November I think. I love Halloween, but for years running I keep missing it for various and sundry silly reasons. This year it was because I was in the Icky Place again.

I'm working on a big-ass ol' post about these more recent adventures. I've decided to stop trying to make any kind of predictions about events in my life any more, especially about timing, so I don't even want to say *I'll post it soon.* I can, though. say this: it'll be way too long to read anyway; I am near the end at least; and, I'll post it as soon as I can.

Walter reminds me to let you all know it was me, not him, behind the complete lack of updates since the last post. Apparently the last time he posted such, I went haywire on him. I have absolutely no recollection of this incident. I'm a little distressed to hear it and immediately apologize. He said it happened during a bad sick spell, yes, but I sounded totally lucid, so he didn't put it down to the illnesses or drugs, like he does when I'm not lucid.

I told him, --That happened a few other times, the nurses told me, getting noticeably mad and being verbal about it, even during apparently *lucid* times. But they said they could tell right away it wasn't really *me* in there at the time, lucid or no. So please understand, while I did mean the *please don't post without asking first* part, I most certainly did not see any reason or justification for *yelling* at you. How could you know not to post an update when I never said so? Usually I want you to do updates so people don't worry, I can't stand it when my readers worry.--

This time, Some Things changed since my own last post. The last six or eight weeks of bad illness instilled those changes - some permanent, some not - and I do remember I'd just wanted to explain a bit about how it all took place, before early updates went out. That's all. I was working hard on the Big-Ass *Most Recent Adventures* Post, and was surely way too optimistic about when I'd finish it. Way way too sick to think like that, when those Some Things have clearly changed.

So - I want to apologize to all you readers, too. I doubt it will happen again, where I neither *update* personally nor ask Walter or Nancy to do it. It was indeed a very serious bout; but I'm home now, discharged in the early afternoon on Thanksgiving Day.

Home. How really, very, sweet it is.

HAPPY BLACK FRIDAY EVERYONE!!!

2009-11-28T12:01:00.000-05:00

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Okay. A belated *Happy Black Friday!* too. But it still counts! Um, because it's still Thanksgiving Weekend, and the *Madness Continues,* as no doubt some ad campaign somewhere is hollering out.

Me, I don't begrudge anyone their Retail Therapy, no no no. It's just that it doesn't usually work that way for me, so on the Really Big Shopping days I call it a spectator sport and stay home.
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*HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!

2009-11-28T11:52:00.000-05:00

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Okay. A belated *Happy Thanksgiving!!!* But it still counts, because it's still Thanksgiving Weekend. Plus, some folks that miss the Actual Day are now just sort of moving it to Saturday or so forth. Wisely, yes?
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I'm alive. And I'm home. And I'm maybe, maybe, safe.

2009-09-25T16:46:00.006-04:00

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I'm alive. I'm home. HOME.

And I dare to think this: I may, even, be safe.

Safe. Staying at home now.

After almost 5 months *away,* 4 or 5 admissions to the hospital, and 2 into the step-down nursing homes.

ach. Quiet. Don't want to jinx it...

I have so much to tell you all. Right now it's 3:10 pm and there are calls to make before 5 pm, you know how that goes. But I'll be back soon, probably before most of you even read this.

Bear with me. Just 2 days ago I lost the use of my Left Hand Swearing Finger. (A finger that, of course, I treasure.) The tendon, which was already in that contracture state, decided to blow completely. Now I can move the finger up and down at the place it attaches to the hand, but I can't bend it. (And yeah, it hurts.)

Then I ended up back in the ER, with coumadin (warfarin) issues. aGAIN. argh!

Last night a cut on my leg started an uncontrollable bleed. The doofus insurance company hadn't arranged for a visiting nurse to come do the blood tests to adjust the warfarin. I noticed my blood was looking sort of...watery, so I stopped the warfarin, pending the Invisible Blood Test conducted by the Invisible Visiting Nurse.

And for the ER, I brought in a rather spectacular bloody bandage to show how much it seeped overnight.

Which was a good idea. Because, of course, it stopped bleeding once I got to the ER.

I told them it was just like when the fridge is on the fritz and the appliance guy finally shows up, usually 2 hours late, and the fridge has decided to work for now. So Mr. Appliance Fixer comes out from behind the fridge - grinning of course, grinning fit to beat the band - and says: --Seems to be doing fine now, ma'm-- and hands you a ridiculous bill that should be actionable, Lord above.

Doc said go back on the warfarin, put heavy pressure on it if it bleeds again, and ride it out.

Yuuu'ho-kay Doc.

Plus there seems to be a lizard trapped in my Special Electric Air Mattress, which I pretty much live on, 24/7. Poor thing, jumping around inside, looking for a way out. Hitting its little head on my legs here and there, bop! bop! bop bop! And how in the world did it get in there in the first place?

But - BUT!!!!! - the electric bill is PAID!!!!!, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!! We have lights again! And we can keep the three kinds of insulin cold and run my oxygen machine and crank up my hospital bed at the foot (elevate elevate elevate) and at the head (head should be upright when patient enters or leaves the bed) and I can charge my camera battery too, if I can find the charger.

And since I'm on the internet again, FINALLY, I can try to find that dermatologist I scheduled an appointment with because my ID doc is very concerned about these infections all over my right arm. (They're the ones that let me escape the most recent nursing home by getting admitted to the real hospital again. heh heh heh!) She - get this - this doc who can diagnose a new infection from 10 feet away, with her eyes closed and both hands tied behind her back - she sees some that she can't identify.

Eeeeeek!

So it should be interesting, at least.

Okay. I better go. I shall, I will, be back; there's so much to tell you all. Even lizards in air mattresses and The. Best. Readers. In. The. World. sometimes must wait a bit for more good news.

Well...I hope it's good news, anyway. At least it will be to Lizard and Friends, if we can free him.

And me? Yes. I LOVE to be alive.
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Okay. I'll Keep on Talking Even if I Don't Have Much to Say.

2009-08-13T23:49:00.003-04:00

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Right now both my hands are in painful ruins, and the voice software is ever so close - but not usable yet. It makes it hard to communicate. This post took bits and pieces of about 12 hours. Not easy ones, to tell the truth.

But I had a bad night last night. So. Why would that count any differently just now? Because it would have been way worse without the comments and emails I got before I tried to sleep. Add in the sense of reconnection with the readers who haven't checked in yet. Mona. I owe you a glad debt of gratitude.

You folks are a significant part of what's been keeping me going not just since March, but through some pretty rough times the last few years. For whatever reason, however it works, I don't seem to care any more. It does work, and that's enough for me.

Awww, mush! Enough.

heh heh! LL. Half-Korean/all-Southern motorcycle mamas are not the only tough ladies around. Which, ah, needn't necessarily preclude me requesting a bit of advice here and there. In my humble opinion.

My Pops. I've been worrying about you worrying about me since this whole long episode started.

I'm so sick I can't even review much of previous posts or comments. But you figured that out, plus that it really does take physical strength to heal and to write, and helped me out once again. That's just a part of why you're such a great Pops.

As to the potential malpractice (??!)...in this case I, mmm, left out that the goof was ours this time. Mistakes are almost always made, on both sides, right? To me, it's when they happen like what that jerk nurse did at Imperial Point that a line gets crossed.

I miss you too, all of you, heard from already and those to come. I hope to keep up posting, even little bits, but that means I'll have to stop a lot. A new bag of antibiotics has been hung off my IV pole, and I need to baby my IV site so carefully, it's time to quit for the night.

I'll be back.
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We're Here. We're Alive.

2009-08-12T17:08:00.004-04:00

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Walter and myself have both been trying to let you know how and why we're here and alive - not just those bare facts.

But - forgive us - some bare-facting will have to do for a start.

I'm still in the hospital, the big one. I've been discharged and readmitted at least three times. After Walter and I recovered from the Chest Cold from Hell, I came here because I was coughing up small amounts of blood again, had bad lung and chest pain, and felt generally terrible.

So. Lung issue. Turned out to be pneumonia. Got isolated and treated and sent home. Survived.

After I'd spent a luscious day or two at home, Walter woke up from a sound sleep one morning just because my lungs were rattling so loudly the noise got him. We returned to the hospital, but this time under the admittance of my primary.

Far more serious this round: double (meaning both lungs) MRSA pneumonia. Fluid in left and right pleural cavities. 500 cc's had already been removed from the right pleural cavity, and it was rebuilding all over the place.

Combined with all that general ill health, another heavy outbreak of maybe-MRSA lymph node infections, and some other stuff, I almost didn't survive that bout. Meaning my parents, Walter, other docs should be notified, legal papers or verbal permissions signed or heard, all 'o that dreary ickiness...

I'm not trying to be a drama queen here. But it was an interesting experience. Certainly, it was unpleasant. Extremely. And frightening - though mildly! - in a way I'd never experienced fear before. Somehow I think we may be better off having a chance to approach death very closely once, just that one time, before it actually happens, before life is irretrievably lost.

Well, it went on and on. Cardiac catheters were prescribed to investigate why severe pulmonary hypertension had been discovered. Aaauuuggghhh!!! Turned out I need a triple bypass! But the Triple Bypass Doc on the cardiac team refused to do the surgery because I wouldn't survive it; I'd get an infection and die. Stents? Yeah, they might keep me going another year or two. He seemed to find them an uninteresting endeavor, though. He was, after all, a Bypass Man.

A nice Miscellaneous Stents in General man came by the next day. He felt HIS Stents could last a good 10 years. Besides, who could ever really predict lifespans anyway? We all looked at each other - me, Walter, Mom - and said, -Yes. A 90%, 70%, and another something-blocked vessel resulted in 2 stents in one vessel, one in another - and Stents Man was all done, and happy with his work.

More? Septicemia. Yup, good old-fashioned blood poisoning. A huge outbreak of what looked like MRSA infection, maybe coupled with other germs, through the entire right arm; another from the left abdomen through the entire left leg all the way to the left foot, with fevers that cooked bedclothes and required Cooling Blankets that were forgotten; urinary tract infection (yeah. Ouch.) and a neglect of testing and misapplication of coumadin, or something, resulting in waking up in huge pools of watery blood - I mean like 2 x 3 feet pools - that had leaked from tiny cuts, as small as little papercuts, in my arms throughout the night.

It's been quite a trip. Please excuse this rat-a-tat writing style, okay? Communicating verbally isn't going well for me lately either, although rumor has it that's temporary and common and goes away pretty quick.

So I don't know how much of what's happened I could actually get across to you. But I do hope this much did:

I survived it. All of it. And with all due respect to the Powers that Be...I intend to keep on doing so.
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I am still alive. Warning! Medical Alert! Some of this post may gross you out if you're sensitive. Careful!

2009-07-23T11:52:00.002-04:00

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I am still alive.

And I intend to stay that way.

I'm also vitally ill. Very weak. Except for two days, I've been in the hospital since Walter''s post. Turned out I didn't need a pitt stop. Or even a tune-up. Nope. Did need a complete overhaul from head to toe, though.

I was admitted exactly a month ago with pneumonia and fluid in the right lung, coughing small bits of blood again; a minor fungal infection and thrush in the throat; and a heart rate around 150. The pneumonia later turned out to be from my colonized CA MRSA, which - yes - is a very serious thing indeed.

It moved to the other lung: double MRSA pneumonia. The docs drew 500 CC's of fluid out of my right lung cavity.

Oh my! Have you ever heard of The Worst Procedures You Never Want to Have Done To You? like a bone marrow biopsy, or a chest tube, like you see on Trauma Center?

Draining the fluid in my lungs, a simple procedure that usually takes less than five minutes, took 20. The doc and 2 nurses were great. It wasn't their fault. It's just that despite the cutest little ultrasound machine you ever saw, they couldn't find the path into the pocket of fluid that would let it drain. So the long huge needle poked into my back was gently but purposefully moved about, searching, searching, while this here so-called Experienced Pain Patient lost all dignity, squeezing a nurse's two fingers with all my strength and still sometimes having to scream out loud...

They finally pierced the pocket of fluid. The excellent doc had said it might be jello and hard to tap; or liquid, easy. The bottle waiting under my back to receive the fluid was 1500 CC's. I filled it just over half way; they called it 500 CC's. Mom and Walter say that's about a pint, one and a third cans of Coke.

I didn't have my camera. Frustration! But I held this bottle, a heavy utilitarian laboratory thing, in my hand. The fluid was warm and a little foamy. Odd to think it had just come from my body...The doc had a place on a report form where he was supposed to name the color of the fluid. One of the nurses rolled her eyes at me and grinned, whispered --This is his way of having fun at work.-- He thought and thought and then his face cleared and he said: --Apple cider! That's exactly the color of apple cider-- and looked quite satisfied with his report.

That was a little partial vignette from my month of life in this hospital. I'll have to see how much more I can tell, because I'm very weak. Probably a long overview will have to do for now: bear with me.

I've been admitted to Broward General three times, sent home once and nearly died, sent to an SNF (nursing home) without IV antibiotics and again almost died. There have been other close calls. But I am determined to stay alive, and if all powers that be agree, so I will.

The timing of various infections and other incidents is a bit cluttered in my mind. Sorry. Sometimes I swim in and out of consciousness. Walter says I spent about ten days either intermittently babbling, or perfectly coherent until I digressed onto something else coherent but senseless, like what my dead pet cats are fond of eating these days.

Double MRSA pneumonia. Fluid in the right plural cavity. Tachycardia. The first admitting doc was some idiot I didn't know. My ID doc and my primary were both on vacation. Under protest from me and Walter, I was released and sent home. We both felt I wasn't well enough, but the fever and tachycardia were under control, my lungs were getting better; they basically had no reason to keep me that the insurance company would pay for.

Have any of us not realized that insurance companies have seized almost total control of the most important decisions of our lives?

We were ordered home, so home we went. Encamped in the hospital bed where I'd lived for the past few months, I slept. When morning came, Walter woke up from the noise my lungs made as they rattled when I tried to breathe. Sick, sick bad.

Okay. Back to the hospital. But this time, strategize.

Water called my primary - the young and exceedingly competent Dr. D. - and my pulmonary (lung) doctor, the great Dr. S. We 'd have much more trust, much better understanding and communication, if my own docs who knew me were on the case. My primary was just back from vacation and booked to the hilt for appointments - could we see if Dr. S could squeeze me in?

Yes. But not till 3:00.

Both docs were near or on the premises of Broward General, where I'd been and needed to return.

Only a primary could be an admitting doc. Dr. S is a specialist. But they know each other and know my history.

I waited through that day of terrible sickness, trying to balance competing needs, trying to hide from Walter how my life-force was draining away. Oh, sick, sick. Scared and sad about maybe seeing the end? Despairing? Sure. All that. I didn't feel ready, didn't feel it was time. Not time. That's sad, to die before your time is due.

Time finally came to go to the doctor. During the last ten minutes or so of the drive, my face changed and Walter fully realized that I knew too, no hiding it any more...Later he told me my face went dead white, and my chipmunk cheeks looked gray and sunken somehow; and he hid from me what he saw and understood.

How silly we can be sometimes. Here we were, both knowing the real danger of death was close by. We weren't hiding that. We were hiding from each other that we knew it.

The doctor visit was funny and poignant and scary. I'll try to tell you why later. Dr S had a resident with him who I'd met before, and liked and respected. He walked us - Walter pushing me in a companion chair - through the ER, past Triage, past Admitting; past sick people waiting for help stacked in gurneys and wheelchairs along the hallway on what may have been the busiest day in that hospital's ER in its history.

Was it wrong? No. Triage had already been performed. Inability to breathe takes precedence over a broken arm. It's why I instantly, gladly, yield my place when the shoe's on the other foot.

Now? Such a lot of work; it's just exhausting. All my days are filled with xrays and ultrasounds; breathing treatments; blood glucose tests and three types of insulin shots; blood draws, from this most difficult *stick.*

Such new developments, such new discoveries of pre-existing *Issues!* Fluid was rebuilding in both lungs, no, eeewwwww!!! A huge and serious MRSA infection ate my entire right arm. Then another one encased my left leg and side from the foot to the middle of the abdomen. A lung doc found I had pulmonary hypertension. ME? High blood pressure in my lungs when my body's blood pressure was so nicely low?!! grump! A *double* cardiac catheterization, to check out the pressures between the heart and lungs, was scheduled.

Then...a positive blood culture came back from the lab. CA MRSA, and another antibiotic-resistant bacteria, had both infected my bloodstream. Usually that signals the beginning of septicemia. Blood poisoning. Death.

Whereupon they finally gave me one of those super-secret super-powerful antibiotics they hold in reserve for people like me - and all the infections began to turn around.

Yesterday I finally had the cardiac catheter. Hmmm...just realized I've no idea what they discovered about the pulmonary hypertension. Because one of the cardiac docs came to my room, once I was conscious, to say that he'd have done a triple bypass on me right then and there, except I would not have survived it. I wouldn't if he did it later either. He would not crack my chest like Walter's, not now, not ever, although I really needed it, because I would not survive the surgery. Did I understand?

Uh, okay. So where does that leave us? Stents and such? Yes, he thought they might keep me going for a while longer anyway.

My mother's here now, and Walter, and we've all learned that to talk to any of the huge multitude of docs now enveloping me, we must sit patiently in this hospital room and they will come to us. Sometimes we have no idea who they are. Even after they leave.

Today, Thursday, a much less upset cardiologist came by. We all immediately respected, liked, and trusted him. He firmly believes he can go right back in through the femoral artery, just like yesterday's cardiac cath, and find and use the right type of stent or angioplasty to get me better, not just as a stop-gap, but to hold open the three badly blocked vessels for years to come.

Yes. From all of us.

They scheduled the surgery immediately - for today - but just as my preliminary preps were done, they found my potassium was low. So tomorrow's the big day. And this time we'll try hard to post the results right away.

Ach. For such a long post, such a small sample of this odd month's life. So much else has been happening. Please understand how sorry I am for not posting better updates. I know you already forgive me, but I also feel your concern and worry. Perhaps I'll never stop being surprised at how strongly I feel it, and how much it means to me. How strong it keeps me, to know that you care.

Know this: I made it through some terrible situations this month. Your hopes and best wishes and prayers, and my family's, and my other friends', all gave me more strength to endure than I would have, could have, summoned up on my own.

I am still alive.

And I intend to stay that way.
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THE PITT STOP

2009-06-26T10:22:00.005-04:00

K was admitted in a hospital on a 24th of June with various infections, and with fluid in her lungs. She is feeling a little better now but how long Her hospital stay will be is for now uncertain. Unfortunately her laptop is broken so her favorite pastime of blogging from a hospital bed is impossible. On the other hand She has Her camera so I'm sure She'll entertain us with Her pictures.

For now I'll try to keep You posted on Her progress. I hope You all forgive for my imperfect English.

Walter

Wha-- huh?!? Wait a sec. Happy FATHER'S Day! ha! memorial day, my dyin' a**!! some doofus sittin' around here not knowing whut the heck day it is, lor

2009-06-21T15:05:00.002-04:00

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WELL. A revelation? Nah. The holidays are a great way of remembering where one's sitting on the calendar at any given point of time. That ain't news.

So Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there! Enjoy your time of BBQ'g - or having someone else feed you; of visiting with family - or simply sleeping the day away in quiet; of going out fishing - or setting some of those offspring to work sweeping out the garage. Hey. Payback time, right? You gave them life and an upbringing. They can give you a little broom time in return.

Families can be the most wonderful, and the most terrible, influences in our lives. They can kill us, or they can save us. And for many of us, over our lifetimes we experience both states of being.

So I'm going to add in the extra-firm wish that you fathers celebrating today are the happy beneficiaries of good relationships with reasonably deserving kids. That sentimental Norman Rockwell approach to life is not for me. Sorry, guys. I just never trusted it. I like reality, and that other approach is too easily used as a vehicle for denial.

No! What we want here, IMO, is a REAL and sweet relationship with said kids. So that's what I'm wishing for you dads today. The real-for-real good stuff. YUM!

heh!

Enjoy.
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Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

2009-05-24T03:29:00.002-04:00

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Up North, back in Days of Horrible Cold, I lived in Chicagoland from age seven to 22. After making a great escape to Florida and warmth, moving all over this state, spending four years in New Orleans and Shreveport and one year back in Chicago, I came home to Florida for good.

Which doesn't mean I've forgotten, for one single second, those Days of Horrible Cold. Folks, the last couple of winters, you've finally seen some of the snow-and-ice brutality we had for three winters in a row in the late 1970's. I can out-Snow Story 99.9% of anyone reading here. I worked outside in that stuff.

Ah, but springtime...Spring is my favorite time of year, and always has been, since those early childhood days in sunny Southern California.

Moving up North? Well. ksis was four, k seven, kbro almost nine. Hopefully, all of us have finally forgiven the p'rental units for the great travesty of kidnapping us three innocent offsprings, tearing us away from sunshine and mountains, warmth and deserts, ocean and beaches and those round hills of golden grass, and people who at least acted friendly and considerate and welcoming...

then plunking us into an atmosphere of icy coldness in every sense of the words; into relentless gray from skies to trees to buildings to land; flat flat flat everywhere you turn; a few cornfields and cattle, a couple windmills, areas of wilderness, yes and a beautiful little spring-fed lake, a polluted river...that was about all.

Except for springtime. In spring there were days that were not gray.

kmom reminded me not long ago of a day in my first fall up north. It was us kids' first experience of cold, of snow, of ice. The birds had disappeared, it seems; and I wondered where they'd gone. Naturally, I asked my mom, who Knows Many Things, and tried hard to teach us kids in the same positive, intelligent, bright manner that guides her own life.

She explained:

--They all flew south for the winter!

and to her shock I burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

Oh, my poor mother! We gave my parents no peace about this move they made way back in 1965. They're still there, in that beautiful spacious house, where I saw the third huge generation of 17-year cicadas emerging in droves when I visited two years ago.

My friend Sylvia, from Brazil, had a sister who moved to Denver. I asked Sylvia how she felt about this Denver business. She told me: --I'm a tropical girl.

Me too.

We made it through that first winter, and the ones that followed. Spring came. And over the years, Memorial Day came to represent the dividing line between winter and real spring, the kind of spring that was safe, that stayed. Sometimes Memorial Day was cold or rainy. But there was no snow or ice any more.

In springtime the birds come back.

An outing! Family time. We'd set out from the Far North suburbs and have a Memorial Day picnic with relatives in a Chicago park. Corn on the cob! Hot dogs, watermelon. Aged, distant relatives of my mother's, Esther, Ed, others, who'd all passed away by a few years after we'd met them. People in my family rarely die, and Ed's funeral was the only one I attended until my own adulthood. All four of my grandparents lived halfway to forever; but until we left the Southwest, it seemed only my father had other relatives besides his parents. This largish bunch of kmom's uncles and second cousins was a little bewildering.

A day off school! Civic duty time. As a Brownie, then Girl Scout, then playing the flute in the school band, I walked along in our tiny small-town Memorial Day parades. I never liked parades until I moved to New Orleans, and the arthritis made certain types of walking painful, so these were more endured than enjoyed.

My child's mind really didn't understand what all this was about, anyway. Our thin groups walking - I can't say anyone actually *marched* - various Boy and Girl Scouts and a little school band, maybe a 4H Club group I never saw or even knew existed elsewhere during the year...A straggly bunch of old men in odd pointy blue hats with VFW on them - over the years these were joined by young men, and sometimes there was a complete divide between the old and *new* veterans, they'd walk in two separate groups, seeming completely unaware of the others' existence.

We'd end up at a small country cemetery with bare spots in the grass paths, old headstones leaning, fine ones upright and almost glowing in that clear, young springtime light. One of the old vets in a VFW hat would make a speech about war and democracy and safety and remembering those who gave everything for us. Sometimes his voice quavered with age. Sometimes there'd be a gun salute, shattering the quiet air in the small country cemetery with sound and gunpowder smoke and shock waves reverberating.

Death is a part of life. How many times have we heard this? And death feeds life, it's that ancient cycle. We all die, one way or another.

But there's a difference, an added dimension, when someone dies in the course of working to save others. Whatever your beliefs about war, this is a nearly universal truth: those who enter it voluntarily believe they are there to protect the lives of others. Of us, here at home. And those who enter war involuntarily, or become part of the collateral damage accompanying all wars, make yet another sacrifice.

What they all did was this: they gave their lives to help preserve ours. To give us time to reach spring and see that sun shine again.

I tried to find out why Memorial Day is held at the end of May. Its history is shrouded in murk. Apparently it just sort of happened that way. A series of groups and towns independently arrived at the same time of year to honor their war dead.

Springtime.

Which makes perfect sense to me.
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Bone Marrow Biopsy: Check.

2009-05-15T18:54:00.000-04:00

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It's done.

It went well. Not fun, of course; but not as bad as the horrible rumors one seems to hear about this procedure. How much of that was due to the great skill of this particular doctor is a matter of speculation.

He's a treat. Calm, funny, kind, open and interested in all that goes on around him. When I have bad medical experiences, health care workers like this go a very long way toward redeeming their professions.

Oh, it's done.

The follow-up visit is in two weeks.

Now I will rest.

And after that...perhaps I shall play.
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These Dreams I Have

2009-05-15T09:36:00.000-04:00

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I really do have the most bizarre dreams.

I always did. But what I have now are antibiotic dreams. Apparently I'm not the only one who has this happen. They are truly weird.

Walter rarely remembers his dreams, so of course he stoutly insists he doesn't have any at all. HA! I listen to the man muttering in his sleep. Dreaming. He's probably REALLY lucky I can't even figure out which language it's in, much less understand what he's saying. ;-)

The dreams often contain these oddly inoffensive scenes of great and bloody violence. I mean, just awful stuff. Yet they can troop about my brain while leaving no sense of nightmare behind.

Last night was a combination of science fiction, roast beef, feeding my baby reindeer, and Spudnik.

You read that right. Not Sputnik.

Somehow, in my dream, I made that old joke out of it. For you young whippersnappers, this was the Soviet Union's space program in 1957, the one that beat us into orbit.

The roast beef episode was in some sort of boarding house or hostel run by an old man. I wanted it roasted low and slow, and was perfectly willing to do all the cooking myself, if only he'd be sure the oven was clean. This was late at night, like much of the dream, with an eerie silent spacey quality to it all. He seemed a bit grumpy that I wanted to cook at 2 am. (I've gotten that a lot throughout my life.)

Cut to outdoors, where another nighttime scene contained some visitors from outer space, with a number of folks rappelling down a rocky cliffy hill. In Florida. Next to a highway overpass. South Florida is notoriously flat.

The baby reindeer? It was SO CUTE! It was big and gangly, all legs like they are, and it twitched its tail most fetchingly. Someone from a biology program was trying to supply its special milk formula, but because of funding cuts, the milk was spoiled. Icky, nasty. Poor baby reindeer!

This took place in a vacant apartment. My old friend Sylvia was in the background sometimes, cleaning some apartments for customers.

We finally got the little baby reindeer to eat. We got some fresh cream and mixed it with mashed potatoes, which it liked.

Spuds.

Spudnik.

The baby reindeer would nuzzle and nurse on the bottle, tugging hard, twitching its tail happily.

I woke up laughing to myself.

Until Walter handed me some very difficult news: We have no cream.

No cream? No coffee. Can't drink it that way, me.

On this day of all days.

OMG.

He stopped smoking 3 days ago, and is having it very rough. I remember, and always will, how incredibly sickening it was for me to quit. He says he can't get to the grocery store for cream. I know this means he's in a hard place. We really can't afford it right now anyway. I don't even have the money for today's doctor copay: we spent $6.19 yesterday on insulin, and $15 for Dr. S. All gone.

And yes: If anyone can help with a $15 donation, it would be greatly appreciated. If not, we WILL get by. I know we'll find it some way. We always do.

But if a person ever looked to dreams for portents, I've figured this one out.

That cute damn baby Russian reindeer was EATING MY CREAM!

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Nothing.

2009-05-14T20:59:00.002-04:00

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Nothing.

No cancer.

No pneumonia.

No huge blooms of frightening fungal funk.

Nothing.

Seven biopsies, the man took. Seven.

And the lab found nothing wrong in a single one.

As a former smoker, believe me, I'm delighted to have this truly exceptional lung doc go poking around in there with such care, and tell me, --No cancer.

Or pneumonia or fungus or any other horrors. Especially when this former smoker is coughing up bits of blood, little as they may be.

Walter and I both noticed Dr. S seemed a bit PO'd at the lack of diagnostic guidance. He's not a doc who'd willingly let some damn germ put one over on him.

Here's a good place to explain something about how I think, analytically. Hey, Math Fans! You can probably appreciate why I'd willingly associate *thinking* with that very pretty, very useful math called Calculus.

When trying to diagnose a medical condition (or most anything else), we often start with a *snapshot,* then figure out what changed since that pic was taken. In the study of calculus - and of finance - a change from one point to the next is called an *increment.* The mathematical formula to describe a curve is calculus; the formula describes the changes in a line that could have been a straight line, but isn't.

Calc measures those increments, looking at smaller and smaller changes until they're so tiny they can't be seen with the naked eye, but can be expressed in a formula so comfortably that it correctly reproduces the curved line in question. (Okay, if you're not a Math Fan, but hated every second of the only calc class some vicious teacher or parent forced down your throat, maybe that formula could never feel comfortable to you. I'm the same way about electricity, so believe me, I'd never think any less of you.)

Say I'm looking at a sick plant. What's changed since last week when it seemed healthy? No rain, loads of rain, high heat, cold, plant food, no plant food, snails munching leaves... I look for an increment, a change, to guide me toward understanding the cause of the plant's illness, and therefore any cure. If cold never bothered it before, then chances are, this week's cold snap isn't to blame.

Identifying that incremental change can mean everything. Believing a change has occurred when it hasn't can steer you seriously astray.

So when a doctor questions me, I take care to say whether some event is new: whether or not it's *same old same old* is quite significant.

Dr S listens to me breathe. --Pain? Chest pain? --Always, but no change.

(He looks at me intently, inquiringly.) --I always have chest pain, all different kinds. It still hurts but there's no change in the pain from before. It hurts the same way it did when the blood started.

(Not localized knife-stabs, or a constant bad ache, but like breathing -20 degree/3% humidity air on a winter's day in Chicago. It hurts going in, but less when it's going out; it feels pretty much the same wherever the incoming air first hits lung tissue.)

--Fever/chills/night sweats? --Always, but no change. Nothing new except the same fever spikes I've been getting for a couple months now. My normal body temp is 97.4. Tuesday night it hit 99.1, which is very high for me.

--How much blood? --Just little bits, bright red, mixed with other lung stuff. Yesterday, a couple small dark pieces that looked like clots from a scabbed-over biopsy. --A tablespoon, a teaspoon? --No no no, tiny, like 1/4 teaspoon.

(--Breathe...he listens, moves the stethoscope in this dance where I need no directions but instantly know when he wants me to breathe again)

--Doc. Is the lab checking for fungal infections? --Yes. (If he were my cat April he'd roll his eyes in impatience. Well, they DON'T always do those tests, I really did have to ask.)

--So what is it?

--Inflammation. Bronchitis.

--Does this mean I have COPD?

(looking at me a bit sharpish, an odd look...) --No, those are two very different things.

(It's not that I want COPD. I want, and need, oxygen, but can't afford it. Medicare would pay for it if he'd 'fess up that I didn't really *cure* my longstanding COPD.)

He wants to do a follow-up CT scan in 3 months. Wants to put me on sulfa to ward off that nasty pneumocystis but I'm allergic to sulfa, so he writes a note to Dr C the ID doc about trying some other preventive stuff.

He HATES prescribing meds. *Hey. Patient! What are you DOING?!? Don't eat that, it's a PILL!!!!!!!!!* He especially loathes Prednisone. --How much Prednisone are you on these days?

I hate it when he asks me that.

Trying to save us both time, head him off at the pass, I say --80 mg-- then immediately launch into how tomorrow is the bone marrow biopsy, then we'll finally apply for the IgG boosters, yada yada yada... He likes that better than Prednisone any day of the week.

As much as I understand that No News is valuable news unto itself - as glad as I am not to have a Definite Horrible - I still feel some frustration at this sort of thing. Questions asked, unanswered.

Mystery. The unknown.

Despite all our advances, it can still come back to that. And often does.

Sometimes we aren't quite as big and smart as we think.
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Bronch: Check.

2009-05-12T12:42:00.002-04:00

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Okay. One down on this week's To Do list.

It went well, for a bronchoscopy. Everyone seemed very competent and very nice. This was at Broward General. They impressed me again with their sterility procedures, and my bed was righteously decorated with the *BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID!* signs that keep us all assured that we're mutually safe. Comforting.

When I said I felt a little *crashy* from diabetes, they didn't ignore it. They stayed careful about my blood sugar - like any surgical procedure, you can't eat or drink 12 hours before a bronchoscopy, so a diabetic can get Issues during surgery.

The anesthesia nurse wasn't attitudinal about pain control, for which she got my heartfelt thanks. While I was still conscious, she even used a little extra. Nice. Not taking my morning meds had left me resorting to the Teeth Gritting Method. I lay in their bed playing with my left-hand fingers. Just because I could.

Before they put me under, they gave me a breathing treatment of Lidocaine, the same topical anesthetic as in those lovely patches. Oh heaven! The lungs haven't been hurting all that bad; but sometimes dull constant pain can drive a person crazy worse than the knife-stab type.

I'd never even heard of such a thing as Lidocaine for Lungs! So when they told me what the breathing treatment was, I was awestruck; I breathed --Oh THANK you!!!-- and they all cracked up. Someone behind me murmured, --Isn't it funny how it's the little things in life?!...

and I relaxed and breathed like a Regular Person till I'd sucked it all down; then next I remember, I was coughing and coughing and wondering how much longer before we got started. Until someone told me it was actually all over. All done. Rest for three hours, then go home.

The doc said he saw nothing of immediate huge concern, but did take multiple specimens. That many biopsies is unusual. Often they take none, or just one. Thursday I get to hear if they've learned anything from them. I'll betcha $5 it's mostly fungal, meaning a lot will show up erroneously as *non-pathological;* but, this great diagnostician will know what it is, and what to do, with at least half of it.

That's about it. I'm sleeping a lot. The bleeding and so forth is about the same, so I've no new concerns. Now, just be patient and wait; and that's something I can do well.

YAY! Medical Update Duty done. Back to Fun Stuff!
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HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

2009-05-10T21:18:00.007-04:00

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Complete with Virtual Flower and all.

Walter took these pix. Since kmom is sort of a mother to Walter too, it was only appropriate.

They actually talk on the phone far more than she and I do. This troubles me not one tiny bit. Oh, I revel in it! Seeing or listening to them together, enjoying each other's company the way they do, is a great treat. How could a person feel bad about something so inherently good?

I love peeking inside the flowers...

Raspberry crepes in bed.

That's what Mom says she expected this morning. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. She is, after all, the mother of Dad's children.

He, however, made the distinction that she is not HIS mother.

And THEN! THEN!

Mom called the house of k bro. Who had the unmitigated gall to tell kmom - his OWN!!! MOTHER!!! - that HIS wife got no breakfast in bed either! And for the EXACT SAME REASON!

8-O !!!

People. This is an outrage! EsPECially in this day and age.

Gentlemen, listen. Fathers today have public men's restrooms with Baby Changing Stations inside. Much of Modern American culture holds it not just acceptable, but desirable, when dads actively nurture their kids. I'm talking way beyond attending Little League games or school plays.

What a wonderful change! Far healthier and happier for all. Those brave and loving men who took on highly nurturing roles by choice were often ostracised as unmanly, or ruining life for men who far preferred limited roles as breadwinners and weekend golfers. Watching this unfold, growing up, I puzzled over the allure of that limited standard; then rejoiced, watching the tremendously positive changes unfold over time.

That old standard did men wrong. Fathers, mothers, children alike were deprived of the sort of bonding that steadies and strengthens us all.

Of course, it made baby-raising no piece of cake for the mothers, either. Let's say supportiveness is considered weakness, damaging the fabric of family and the healthy growing independence of children. Would you want to do that to your loved ones? Not!

To my own satisfaction, those assumptions about supportiveness and such are sufficiently disproven by now. Thinking back, remembering how very hard my mother worked for us all and how very little we appreciated it, I'm filled with shame. When I called her today, she told me she'd been cleaning out the basement and found a certain item: a yellow pottery bowl, made by yours truly ever so long ago, inscribed underneath with: To a Loved Mother [k].

She cleaned it up and took it upstairs to her home office and filled it with paper clips.

ah, forgiven, forgiven!

I love this modern saying: *This is why lions eat their young...* It's nicely adaptable to all sorts of transgressions by children and adolescents. And gentlemen, if you did desire to have those kids - and to see them reach adulthood uneaten - why then, I do believe you owe a debt of gratitude to the mother of those children. After all, she worked very hard to raise them. And she didn't eat them either.

Of course she's not your own mother! She's the mother of your own kids. Surely your progeny is at least as valuable to you as...as you are?

Casting my mind back, I tell you one and all: Really and truly, things were very different Back in the Day, when k was just a little kitten her ownself. Very different indeed...

Crib memories. Going back to age one and a half, maybe earlier. In Arcadia, California, we lived in our very first house, *the old house on Doolittle.* Which was Too Little. Onward we moved, into the *new* house. I was probably about two years old then, meaning kmom would be all of 24.

Mom was one of those extraordinary exemplary *Perfect Wives and Mothers* of her day. When we were small she turned her brilliant mind to caring for us and our home while Dad worked as a doctor.

Young docs, then as now, often don't make very much money. She managed superbly, though. Creatively. Like when she performed a neat early 1960's-style money-saving decorating trick, carefully papering the kitchen walls...with book jackets.

Oh, they were beautiful! Colorful and crazy-patterned like a quilt. Planned. Each book jacket was carefully pasted into place, individually, lovingly.

Exhaustingly.

It saved a lot of money on paint and/or *regular* wallpaper, but it took days or weeks of careful hard work. We two kids were fascinated by it; we'd sit in the kitchen and watch and watch as she worked, and look and look at night when she was done.

Around this time Mom, far less apprehensive of New Foods than most, decided it was time to introduce her two little ones to a delicacy of her own childhood: *Corn on the Cob.* A plate of this bizarre item, steaming in the middle of the kitchen table, was viewed by us with great suspicion.

And I firmly explained I would never ever ever eat it. Never. Ever.

Somehow she convinced me to try it, and I loved it so much I even found the inner strength to admit the error of my ways. And have scarfed it down ever since.

So maybe I'd become a little more open-minded when she brought the pomegranates home.

kbro and I really liked them, and I don't think either of us made a fuss about trying them. Nope. Took to 'em right off the bat.

So much so that that brother of mine - who was Always Instigating Trouble - got out a pomegranate one evening when the parents were out of sight. It seemed harmless enough. Even virtuous. We were Big Kids, feeding ourselves a nice healthy snack.

I'm not sure how kmom will feel about peeking into this pomegranate...

The brother and I sat at the kitchen table enjoying our pomegranates. Indulging in the unique characteristics we'd discovered about them. Pomegranates are oddly constructed. The entire inside of the fruit consists of clumps of tight rows of seeds separated by weird looking membranes. Each little seed is individually covered with a firm pulp of fruit.

It's sweet and tangy. Extremely juicy. A delicious surprise in your mouth when you bear down on a seed and it squirts open like a teeny tiny cherry tomato.

Extremely bright, too! A brilliant cranberry red so persistent you can use it to dye cloth. Translucent, the color glows like a jewel when you hold the seed up to the light in admiration.

To a little bitty kid, those seeds aren't quite so tiny. Your toddlerish fingers are clumsier than you wish. They can't manipulate food with an adult's easy grace. But oh, do you wish they could! The urge to practice those moves is nearly overpowering. Instead of chewing a seed to bust through the skin, you might want to hold one in your little fingers and squeeze. Squirt the juice straight into your mouth, more or less. Cool!

Or...or, you could squirt it at your little sister's face instead. You were Always Instigating Trouble, after all. Heck, you're bro, it's your job!

Which state of affairs might then result in a friendly war. Complete with battle music!

Our song was this: Squirt squirt the little squirt! If I had a podcast I could sing it for you. Sing-song: squirt squirt the little SQUIRT! GOTCHA! HA HA HEE HEE HA HA HA!!!

Soon we were covered with gorgeous pomegranate juice from head to toe, singing away and giggling fit to beat the band, our hands slipping and sliding on the table top covered with juice as we grabbed around for more ammo. The noise of our merriment finally brought my mother in to see what was up.

Up. Up being an operative word.

Because when she walked in the kitchen she saw the entire room - freshly painted ceiling, walls newly papered with book jackets, new-laid floor, new-painted table, chairs - kids - everything in sight was covered with streams of sticky squirted brilliant red indelible pomegranate juice.

My mother never allowed another pomegranate to cross the threshold again. Not. Ever.

Not even when we were no longer 3 and 2 years old, but 50 and 49.

But however, this one here being My House...I can eat pomegranates whenever I want.

Cause I'm a Grown-up now.

Yup. Against all odds, I lived to tell this tale. Because THIS mother, despite great provocation, chose not to eat her young.

And if any dads out there are glad their own lionesses didn't eat their young, why, I think raspberry crepes in bed is a fine way to say Happy Mother's Day.

AAAALLLL gone!

2009-05-09T20:19:00.000-04:00

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I noticed that in my absence, the blogroll got all jammed up. They provided no way I could see to make repairs; the blogroll shown for editing was the old unjumbled one. Worse yet? They suggested I pay $20 for their *no ad* service. ?!? Does this mean the jerks have been running ads on my site without my permission or knowledge?!

I have NEVER run a single ad. I've no problem whatsoever with bloggers who do, or bloggers who write *pay per post* or what have you. This is a private and very individual choice, and I have great respect for our rights as individuals to make those choices, and to remain respectable in the eyes of others when we do. Even if the choice is different from ours.

I do have a real problem with companies who try to trick people into advertising, or doing anything else, without full knowledge and informed consent. There's a name for that trick, and the name is fraud, and it's an act I detest.

So please don't take it personally if you find your blog's link has mysteriously disappeared. I'll do my best to get an updated roll up as soon as I can.

AAAALLLL done!

2009-05-08T12:18:00.002-04:00

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YAY! *Work* is done for the day. The favorite doc is visited, the blood drawn in her clean peaceful office; and it was a nice successful *stick,* three tubes from one little knuckle vein, all on the first try.

Dr C doesn't think I have TB. Her opinions on such matters are extraordinarily accurate, so that's comforting to hear. Way back at the beginning, she said this killer cold Walter and I got was just a good old-fashioned killer cold; and so far, the flu test agrees. She is amazing.

A bronchoscopy, she tells us, is not a horrible procedure any more. Ah, comforting there, too. She talked to Dr S, and she's glad it's being done. It's time.

Whee! *Done for the day* is always a happy state of affairs, isn't it? Now we can go back to Real Life for a while.
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Shadows...

2009-05-07T19:00:00.004-04:00

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The CT scan is done. Afterwards, at the appointment with Dr S the Lung Doc, he said there are shadows in my lungs. They're new: they weren't there in 2007, when I had the last CT lung scan done.

They're new, and they aren't good. It could actually be TB after all. Dr. S also brought up Pneumocystis, the rare fungal pneumonia that AIDS patients sometimes get. He may have seen something that indicated it; he questioned me about my immunity. I have been getting odd little skin fungal infections like other immunocompromised people do, so it wouldn't be a surprise.

A bronchoscopy is now on for Monday. The patient gets sedated, then the doc sticks a scope down the lungs, looks around in there, and takes a biopsy.

Here's our schedule for the next week or so:

Tomorrow - Friday - we'll see Dr C the ID doc. Bring her up to date on Dr S and the lung blood, and on the killer cold in general. Dr S also needs some bloodwork. Maybe I can get the blood drawn at Dr C's, a far nicer place than the Quest lab. If not, then after Dr. C, time to go see the Bloodsuckers of Quest.

Monday: the bronchoscopy. That's an all-day affair.

Tuesday: our first meeting with our (prospective) new foreclosure lawyer. Yep, Chase is still trying to steal my house.

Thursday: Dr S the Lung Doc goes over the bronchoscopy results with me. Maybe he'll figure out what's going on in there. I hope so, and hope it's treatable.

Friday: the bone marrow biopsy. The last *rule-out* test before trying for IgG shots. That is, until BCBS throws new obstacles in our path, changing the rules in the middle of the game. They will surely not want to pay for IgG boosters.

Wednesday, then, is our only weekday *time off* for quite a while. This weekend will be spent on lots and lots of paperwork-gathering for the foreclosure lawyer. That's working at home, but work nonetheless.

So you can see how it gets hard to do that *bed rest* thing, for either one of us.

But we're making sure to have fun too. Walter has been selling things on ebay - computer stuff he's gathered and repaired, or swapped with other computer folks. He's just started, and we're talking about very small amounts of money, but every little bit helps hugely right now.

Perhaps it'll lead to selling off some odds and ends we'd intended to put in a yard sale, too. Much easier on us, physically, to sell stuff on ebay, right?

And Walter seems a bit surprised at how much fun it is for him. He keeps clicking back to see if there are bids over $.99 yet, or how many *watchers* - lurkers - he's got.

And...and...we're cooking. Together, I mean. In the kitchen!

hee hee! I sit around, feet elevated, teaching and directing. He does all the actual work, gives me all the credit for what comes out well, and blames himself for everything else. It may take a while to beat that bad attitude out of him.

In all the time I've known him, Walter's just hated the kitchen. But last night we made our first actual *meal* together: risotto, and a stir-fry of pork and onions. It was really good.

And fun. Really, truly, fun.

Oh, yes. Life could certainly be worse.
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Bringing All Y'All Up to Speed

2009-05-06T14:28:00.004-04:00

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heh! Speed actually not being much in my life lately, of course. So maybe you can do that part for me, see? ;-)

In the past, sometimes, I've tried to describe how going into these long-drawn-out bouts of illness gets me feeling nearly disconnected. Drifting along in the air, far far away, at the end of a fragile thread, just barely tethered to the earth, to the loved ones and friends and fellow blog-worlders and neighbors that remind me why I live.

I've never before been so far away for so long. Never come so close to letting that thread snap. Couldn't always remember why I'd worked so hard, times past, to return. It was puzzling sometimes, why a person would spend so much effort to make a hard landing when it was so soft and easy and quiet to just let go.

But as a wise friend reminded me once, while we were grieving over a mutual loss, I've always chosen life. Whenever I come to one of these crossroads, I take the path that brings me back to the only life I know, this life on earth. For whatever reason, here and now is where I belong. And so, it's where I'll be staying once again.

It's altered, though. In some ways the life in question has quite drastically changed, and for the worse, and forever. I want, or need, to describe it as best I can, but it might be hard for you to hear. And I don't like to make anyone sad.

So I'll tell you this, too: Sometimes these life changes have a sort of emotional anesthetic built in. Certainly I've been awash in it; there's even been some leftovers to help with the other rough spots, the harsh changes that hit their target full force, undiluted.

What I'll aim for is to post updates, maybe followed later on by LP versions, on some of the main events that have unfolded. Fill in backstories. Some you may find genuinely interesting. Some will call for gross-out alerts for any of the sqreamish that may come by, all innocently unsuspecting.

There may be a few little entertainments mixed in too, because who wants to think only about the hard stuff all day? I sure don't.

I'm quite weak these days; physically, mostly bedridden. Mentally, I go meandering about like my little cat April in her dotage. Result? Whatever makes it onto this *paper* may be disjointed, stopping and starting, with endings unconnected to beginnings. All untidy. Oh! But the good news is, I can get back to one of my best-loved hobbies in the world: answering comments, yay!

And please remember - this isn't a plan per se, it's just something I'm aiming for, see? Don't wanna mess up my Reverse Jinx.
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No Swine Flu Here...But It's Allllllways Sumthin'

2009-05-06T14:00:00.001-04:00

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Okay, then. I shall now proceed to blow off a little *k's medical stuff* steam. You are forewarned! Proceed at your own peril, fully prepared to be grossed out, bored, impatient with my whininess, confused by excessive alphabet soup, what have you. Me, I need a little Complaining Time, so I'll indulge. You're certainly welcome to stay and read on if you like: it's your choice.

heh! Yes. You see, when you come right down to it, all of us have our lives in our own hands.

Here's a Current Event item: Until I read all your comments about swine flu, I had NO idea what a big mess it was, or how quickly it became one. When I wrote the last post a week ago Tuesday, it was still easy to be tongue-in-cheek about it.

The next day, Wednesday, I started coughing blood up out of my lungs. It wasn't much but it's still...disconcerting.

After some phone calls with my ID doc - a Real Doc - I went to the ER. Not Holy Cross or Imperial Point, but Broward General this time. Whereupon Walter and I were genuinely impressed with their infection control procedures, and with their entire staff.

With one glaring exception: the doctor.

In the end, the doc decided not to admit me. He declared I don't have swine flu or TB; said that I do have a viral upper respiratory infection; told me antibiotics don't work on viruses; and said he'd write a prescription for an anti-viral.

The staff cut me loose a couple hours later, and handed me the doc's prescription for...Zithromax. Which is not only an antibiotic - thus as totally irrelevant as he'd said! - people who are allergic to erythromycin shouldn't take Zithromax. Like me.

HA! Idiot. At least he did one thing right: a nasal swab for a flu test. It was negative. While it's not as accurate as the CDC test, it's highly unlikely I have swine flu.

Well! That's one less thing to worry about.

TB? Probably not. But I don't know if it's proved yet, one way or the other. Since I stopped coughing up blood on Sunday, I figured I was getting over the cold, or whatever this awful beastie is that's going around. I'd just keep resting and rattling and eating cough syrup. Ride it out. We really are getting better, Walter and I. Slowly but surely.

So much for Plans.

Today, Dr C and Walter and I and Dr S the lung doc are happily slinging scorn in the ER idiot's direction, as we do Lung Things over again, the right way this time...because this morning I woke up coughing bits of blood once more. argh! Tomorrow I get a lung CAT scan, then I'll see Dr S.

It's not that I forgot that lesson about calling the doc before you go to the ER. I just stopped at the wrong one, the Infectious Disease doc, when I should have called the Lung Doc too. The ID doc did the right thing by sending me to the ER. But the lung doc would have gotten involved at the ER and ordered a CAT scan and all. Don't worry, I'll get it down.

So for now I'm home again; and in excellent medical hands, folks. Truly.
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How to Get Stuck in Bed

2009-05-06T13:50:00.000-04:00

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My life here is very circumscribed these days. Mostly I live in bed, resting, healing. I've been very sick for a very long time, and I'm not sure how much actual life function I'll be able to recover. I think that partly depends upon those IgG booster shots I want so badly.

The insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield/Health Options - BCBS - has to approve the treatment, and I think some sort of state medical board does too. The final hoop we jump through before applying is a bone marrow biopsy. That's done to prove the low IgG count - it's now down to 294 - isn't from a bone or blood cancer.

The biopsy has been scheduled and postponed three times. Now it's scheduled for May 15. Wish me luck, folks. Or maybe say *break a leg* instead.

Here at home I now have a hospital bed, one they call *semi-electric.* All the controls are electric except the control that raises the entire bed up and down. That's a hand crank!!! A safety feature, BCBS said, to keep the patient from doing something dangerous like raising their own dang bed up and down. They were delighted to hear my hands are too crippled to crank it. That was NOT nice!

And we do need it to be ALL electric.

Now - following BCBS's instructions - we have a letter explaining that my unofficial caregiver, Walter, is also disabled with a serious back and chest injury, and can't actually crank that sucker either. After we paid $60 for the doctor visit to get the letter, BCBS decided I must also have an rx for a *100% electric bed.* --? I'm pretty sure that's what you were given in the first place, folks. Can you look it up and see? --No. Only your doctor is allowed to ask. We call it Privileged.--

WTF?!? I'm not allowed to ask about my own prescription?!

Well, I'll have to back-burner that task for now. Pick my battles. You see, it means asking one of my docs for yet another free favor. We don't have any more $60. I can't even get my regular prescriptions filled because we spent the money for copays elsewhere. It's okay, the only thing I'm completely out of is the Lidoderm patches to make my mummy hands, but still...it's just frustrating when BCBS changes up their stupid rules in the middle of the game, delaying sending me the bed I need, which of course is the whole point.

So I'll keep transferring between bed and wheelchair the unsafe way, wiggling around between a bed set at one height, and a wheelchair that's a different height.
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How to Not Get Around Out of Bed, and Go Broke While Getting Insulted Doing It

2009-05-06T13:30:00.000-04:00

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The *wheelchair* we've been using isn't actually a real one. It's just a *companion chair* we got to push my grandma Helen around in. The user can't propel it, except by sort of pushing against the floor with their feet.

Problem there is...these particular feet don't work much any more, either. And that chair, it's hard to use smoothly, it's hard on Walter. But I have to have it now. Can't get to the doc, or even to the bathroom, without one.

Here's why.

When I went to Holy Cross in early March, I could still walk some. Errors were made by the admitting doctor, and I can no longer walk because of those mistakes.

That event will be a front-burner battle. It's just too egregious. If I let it pass, then one day that same doc will hurt someone else, badly. He will repeat his mistakes, because he made a point of telling me he doesn't believe he did anything wrong.

I'll just leave it at that for now, okay? It's a whole another Complaint Post all by itself.

A *real* wheelchair has been officially ordered, and BCBS expects it'll be approved in a few days. But before they deliver it I have to pay a $500 co-pay.

Which I also don't have.

Since I'm disabled and sick and have medical etc. expenses far higher than my Social Security income, and Walter's disabled and has no income any more, a social worker told me DCF will probably pay part of that $500. DCF - the Department of Families and Children - handles Medicaid and welfare claims.

(*gulp!*) Yes. Life has placed me in the tender hands of the people who lost little Rilya Wilson.

So I'm hanging on the phone calling the DCF/Medicaid folks, trying to figure out why they only approved a small amount of medical help for me, and how much they might contribute to a wheelchair copay. So far, their math is way different than mine.

But every time I call, despite my perfect willingness to *hold* for hours if need be, I can't reach a Real Human. See, DCF has this New Technique. Now the recording says there's high call volume - okay, they never do have enough staff to answer, we got that a long time ago - but instead of saying, *Your call is important to us, please hold,* they just say - *Please try your call again later.*

Then they HANG UP THE PHONE.

They never even bother lying about it. Nope. No *your call is important to us* from DCF!

Raising this odd little moral dilemma: Should a realist like me feel disappointed about not getting handed a polite little white lie? I mean, honestly! It's from the government!

*whew!* Good grief, what a lot of Complaint Posts! That's enough for now.

Yes. Yes, I'll even leave off contemplating those little moral/political puzzles, and watch some nice TV instead. It's only Rachael Ray on the Food Network, but Barefoot Contessa and Bobby Flay will be on pretty soon. Oh! And perhaps some nice Deadliest Catch! Not to mention, Cold Case Files and New Detectives have been showing cases I haven't seen before...OH! An episode of Deadliest Catch is on right now! ooooo, shiny!

kthxbye!
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Unless, Perhaps, it's Swine Flu

2009-04-28T15:11:00.002-04:00

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HA! Wouldn't it kinda figure?

We actually do have all the listed symptoms, including episodes of pronounced dizziness, fever, nausea, terrible respiratory illness, and the rest.

Yet maybe - maybe - we've both been feeling minimally better. Tiny signs. Neither one of us can tell if it's just the periodic miniature ups and downs one goes through during a cold or flu bout; and of course, if there's any real recovery then we DON'T want to jinx it. heh!

Walter, IMO, has been a little sicker than me throughout. Unexpectedly. The immunocompromised person should be sicker, right? OTOH, I take high-dose antivirals: 3200 mg of acyclovir (Zovirax) per day. That's for the systemic "cold sore" disease, HSV-1, that gives me blood blisters on my tongue and palate and toes. Acyclovir isn't listed by the CDC as effective against swine flu, but it's in the same class as the antivirals they do recommend.

Dr. C's office just called. She says, --If we feel like that's what it is, go to the hospital.-- Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. And I know she'll continue to give this careful thought and research, for lots of reasons.

But...if we're starting to recover, after 2 weeks already --

and considering that my standing orders about hospitals are, --If I need one, just dump me by the side of the road instead --

not yet. Not me.

Third reason?

The flu is viral. Coincidentally, Dr. Dad happens to be a virologist by medical trade. Better yet, he's published a number of journal articles about flu epidemiology over the years, sort of as a flu hobbyist. I sent him an email. His feedback on such matters is generally...let's just say, *excellent.*

So I'll give it a little more Wait and See.

And in the meantime, all y'all be GOOD, and don't be running around getting all sunburned and such. sheesh! ;-)
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Happy Caturday Everyone!

2009-04-26T14:02:00.000-04:00

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What?

I'm a whole day late?

Well, if that's all the behinder I am, I'll consider myself ahead of the game.

Just wanted to let you know we're still alive, and soon will be thinking about kickin'.

Ummm...probably. The soon part, I mean.

heh!

And to thank you for your comments, too. Very much.
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Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back In the Water...

2009-04-22T19:49:00.001-04:00

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Last week it was. Monday. So there we were, me back from the nursing home all of a week or two, Walter working hard in his role of unofficial caregiver. And the silly MRSA-in-the-arm was fading, but way too slowly for my taste.

One big lesson we learned from this latest health episode was to go outside an institutions' doctors, straight to The Usual Suspects. Yup. A person's real docs? They know your history. Maybe more importantly, they have a working relationship with you. You've worked out whatever needs they may have to play Lord High Doctor. (Or more likely, if they tried, you said, --No thanks-- and found someone new.)

My ID doc is my absolute favorite of all. I admire the stuffing out of that woman. She's not just Infectious Disease, but also board-certified in Internal Medicine, giving her a handle on most everything else that's wrong with me. Gifted. Brilliant. Kind. Tough. Sweet. Funny. Beautiful. What's not to like?

heh!

When I saw her the first week after the Great Escape, I was a mess. Paranoid, after such odd experiences. Way too ill. Dr. C and her staff had done a lot of special rescuing for me. In the end I was a royal pain in the ass of a patient, and I was afraid she was going to tell me to find another doctor, that my high-maintenance needs overburdened her staff beyond any reasonable limits...

Walter thought I was being a bit ridiculous, but you can't talk sense to a crazy person. If it's temporary insanity you just have to wait until it passes.

Dr. C was the very first doc I saw after the Escape. She walked in the door and asked me what happened at Imperial Point, where I'd tried to get admitted to treat the MRSA.

Listening, she frowned and shook her head in gentle disgust. Then she put her hand on my arm and looked me square in the eyes and said: --k. Next time come straight to me. I can give you Vancomycin here. I don't like all this back and forth with phone calls to other doctors and not knowing exactly what's going on with tests and things...

and oh, I almost burst into tears.

[safe safe safe...]

The next Monday that blasted MRSA was still hanging on. Sort of sneering at us. So around midday I called up, explained, and got squeezed in on her next office day, Wednesday.

By the time Walter and I got there, the MRSA was less an issue than this killer cold both of us have. Coughing our lungs out. Air hungry, breathing knives. Sneezing and fevery and room-spinning dizzy and can't-get-out-of-bed drop-dead sick.

HA! We didn't even know for sure what was wrong when we got up in the morning. But every second that passed we were 100 times worse. By midday, with the doc listening to my chest and telling me to breathe, it kept making Walter cough. Which would make me laugh and start hacking and choking again.

Just a good old-fashioned cold.

For which the doctor ordered the following: Go to bed, rest, eat chicken soup, take Tylenol, wait it out.

That's exactly what we've both been doing ever since.

There's something rather comforting about having a perfectly ordinary malady, curable by time and bed rest and chicken soup.
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Me Too. Thank You, Nancy.

2009-04-17T14:10:00.002-04:00

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I'm sorry I've been MIA for so long. Every time I say I'll try to be better about updating, it seems to jinx my efforts.

Therefore: I shall now try to perform a reverse jinx, by explaining my good intentions to be better about NOT updating. With a wee bit of luck, this could leave us all a little less satisfied as each day passes with no news exchanged, and no visits and comments over at all y'alls' houses.

Yes. It's incumbent upon me now to do the right thing as far as possible, to cavalierly leave stalwart friends to pick up the pieces and reassure readers that at least I've been sighted somewhere - briefly perhaps, and wobbly, but still alive.

Ah, yes. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: You guys are great. Thank you for standing by in these times.

And thank you, Nancy. For real.
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I am home.

2009-04-06T02:22:00.005-04:00

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I am home.

I am safe.

Home is not where I’m supposed to be. There’s a bad infection, probably MRSA, in the lymphatics in my right arm. Three big lymph nodes and three lymph vessels, it looks like.

Back into the hospital, with a vancomycin antibiotic IV drip, is where I’m supposed to be. But it seems my safety as a patient has not been a priority at either one of the two hospitals and their ER’s that I’ve visited in the last month.

Here’s something it half kills me to admit: In this past month, I’ve been so physically and emotionally traumatized by the health care system that I’ll probably seek professional counseling. My hands and feet have little function remaining. I think I could handle that without counseling, if I weren’t so shattered by the backdrop of genuine malpractice I’ve gone through to get here.

By way of example, here’s the latest episode.

The lymphatic infection had been brewing for a week. Friday morning, it was slowly - but clearly - gaining headway against the oral antibiotics we’d pitted against it. Before noon, the nursing home arranged for me to be transferred immediately to the hospital for inpatient admittance.

Vancomycin drips, especially for a "special needs" patient, are inherently dangerous. I tried to talk them into doing the drip at the home, but they declined. Courteously and kindly, they declined nonetheless. And rightfully so. Maybe…

Not only do I carry the superbug MRSA, it’s one of the most virulent strains around. I almost lost my left foot to it in 2004. Back then, it stayed alive in my home for at least seven days while I was away at the hospital. A friend of mine cleaned my house then. It was probably while she changed my bedding that the MRSA entered her arm through a tiny cut, and it nearly killed her.

Few strains of MRSA can live in ordinary bedding for an entire week.

Add this: With an IgG count down to 294, I’m more immunocompromised than ever. And this: In the last 10 days I’ve tested positive both for tuberculosis and e. coli.

The reason hospitals isolate patients like me is simple. We are dangerous to other patients, because we can infect them far more easily when we’re sharing a hospital room. In my case, they’re also dangerous to me.

If your hospital doesn’t have enough rooms, they should be honest and say so. They should not put patients at risk by pretending it’s not medically necessary to isolate carriers of an extra-superbug MRSA, and of TB, and of e. coli. But hey. Maybe I'm not all that infectious!

Would you want a loved one in the same hospital room as me? I sure wouldn’t.

Early Friday afternoon, the latest hospital parked me in a corner of the ER, instead of admitting me immediately. No beds were available. The ER folks were nasty from the start, and made a big production of taking great volumes of blood for testing. Reluctantly confessing I did indeed have a high WBC, and that they "had to" admit me, they fed me one dose of vancomycin.

Friday night, I was still in the ER, waiting. Finally, a bed was "becoming" available. When they told me I wasn’t "allowed" to have a "private" room, I refused to go upstairs. To share a room with an innocent and uninformed bystander would, in my book, be immoral.

I went over my history with the senior doctor, including the difference between a private room and medical isolation, but he refused to isolate me. Given all that, and their clear antagonism, how could I possibly feel safe in their care? No. I would not stay.

I also refused to sign out "against medical advice." Declining to accept an unsafe medical practice is a different matter entirely, so that would have been an untruth. I’d caught three nurses and two doctors in a number of lies by then. I didn’t want to join their ugly ranks.

Several hours had gone by since I’d told Walter and my mother they were going to admit me. By Friday night, I should have called home again with my room number. Of course, I didn’t have one. Having tried unsuccessfully to call Walter, I was pondering my next decision. Not easy to do when all feverish with MRSA sickness.

Should I insist upon transport to yet another hospital? The same thing could happen all over again. Especially since it was now after hours. The nursing home staff who’d ordered the transfer had changed shift. My regular doctors, familiar with my MRSA history, were now gone for the weekend. I had no medical authorities to back me up.

At that point, I felt more vulnerable, more unsafe, more unprotected than most people could comfortably deal with. I closed my eyes and bowed my head and tried to think.

And looked up again out my door, and saw Walter striding up to my bed.

He’d been trying and trying to reach me, figuring something had gone wrong. An ER nurse, taking his phone call, got all rude and hung up on him. So he decided to come get me in person.

Looking up and seeing his face, people, oh! I have never seen anyone so glowing with Knight in Shining Armor aura.

He tore those jackasses up one side and flayed them alive down the other. And bundled me and my possessions up in wheelchairs, installed us in the Isuzu, and took us all home.

After stopping at Lotus Chinese Kitchen on the way.
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Karen was moved

2009-03-21T13:54:00.003-04:00

K is in a skilled nursing facility with no internet connection available so she is asking for your patience. Her condition is improving steadily but a tenosynovitis in her extremities got out of control. So she needs therapy and walking aids like braces for her feet.
K feels and appreciates your sportiveness.
Walter

Oh, Those Trials and Tribulations

2009-03-15T22:01:00.006-04:00

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What I really wanted was to put up a nice post about pomegranates. Especially after watching an interesting tidbit about them on The Naked Archaeologist the other day. I mean, who wants to listen to yet another round of dreary medical stuff when there are pomegranates laying thick on the ground, just waiting to be admired?

Or I could tell all y'all about the wonderful visit we had with the Excellent Nephew. He not only spent scads of his free time with his beat up ol' auntie and uncle, he had the good sense to book his return-to-New York flight right when it would be snowed out, thereby gaining us two more fun days together in warm sunny south Florida.

But nooooooooooooooooooooo.

Fun tales of pomegranates and the nephew? No indeed. Instead, here I am once again. Stuck in the time warp loop of hospit-hospit-hospit?!?-thisdoesn'tlooklikehomeanymore-hospit-hospit-hospitulll

argh!

So, okay. If life decided to smack me upside the head with more hospital drama, at least maybe I could be entertaining myself - and you all too - with...say, with a hair-raising adventure involving a huge car-and-truck pileup. While the cab of a big rig dangles precariously over the 60' high edge of that long concrete flyover ramp soaring from I-595 to I-95 northbound, its driver helplessly trapped in the truck's cab as it sways ominously in the air over the little trailer park far below. Ambulances scream away to the Level 1 Trauma Center with the first wave of the injured, all bloody and broken, second responders rushing the Jaws of Life to the scene to free those poor souls smashed into their squished little cars...

Naw.

No, not this time.

Less action, more melodrama? How about a good old-fashioned Victorian era wasting disease, attended by expensive patronizing docs busily pretending that there's No Such Thing as, oh, MS...as we see, gentlemen, at best this is a creation of the innocent imagination of that delicate fairer sex; she can now present an honorable enough cause to avert the animal advances of her husband, who of course cannot help his natural desires, although it might have been wiser of him to govern them, perhaps inspiring her to abdicate her sickbed and return at least to her household wifely duties, which rigors now must necessarily descend to her daughter at a young age...

then have the last laugh on them, proving my point by daintily passing on in that sickbed, pale and shadowed, scented by the flowers mounded everywhere around, a heart-wringing scene to all who come by to pay their respects...

An elegant enough picture if nothing else, eh?

But...no. Me? Now? Nope. Not a bit of it.

No, indeed. No auto crash heroics, no fainting couch theatrics.

Not even the smallest shred of dignity.

Because here I am, tucked firmly into a hospital isolation unit in a bed I haven't left since late last Saturday night, with the worst case of the stomach flu I ever heard of in my entire life.

Yeeeup. Been barfing and crapping my guts out non-stop in the most hideous, horrible, disgusting, stinky, gross, wretched way you could ever imagine, for days without end. People. The worst way you could ever imagine.

Actually, I do think I'll leave it up to your imagination. I really never did think I was cut out to be a crapblogger.

But if I were? I'd have Acidman's Golden Plunger Award away from him in One. Single. Post.
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Ah, Those Rays of Sunshine

2009-02-22T12:36:00.004-05:00

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So here I am for days and days and days, buzzing around various labs and imaging centers and doctors' offices, and bringing a newly ruptured tendon to the ER too. Taking care of business. Medical business. Money business, hanging on the phone for hours each day.

Plus a bit of housekeeping, seeing as how the Excellent Nephew and Sig Other are coming to visit next weekend. YAY! They'll probably stay at Mom's condo, should the Condo Commandos allow a non-first degree relative to stay there while the owner's absent. More comfy for them, less work for us. ;-)

Naturally, should the Condo Commandos bar the way, they'll be more than welcome to stay here instead. We can't offer them a swimming pool or total privacy, but we can extend a real and powerful welcome.

A free sample voice recognition program is awaiting my attention. *Dragon Naturally Speaking* or something. Walter says, --Check it out first. If you like this one, we'll buy the full $99 program. You'll be able to do a lot more with it then.--

It's hard to take care of some of this when you're as broke as we are. Just putting fuel in the car is a planning issue.

And what should happen Friday?

The income tax refund arrived.

Yes it DID.

It won't make us rich. But it's big enough to bring intense relief from financial stress, however temporary that might be.

We could spend it in one day. Easily. Of course. There's a water bill due for some $1100 from a broken pipe under the house. Tens of thousands in medical bills. Money we owe friends and family, and donations back to people who have kept us fed and electrified and on the web these past months.

There are things we need for subsistence, like restocking all the bulk goods we've slowly emptied through the crisis.

Things we both need and desire, though we could live without. *Space bags.* Soaker hoses, pine bark nuggets, flowers. House paint.

So - knowing how precarious things remain - we're holding back, just sitting on it, making a very few small purchases, carefully planned.

And...yes, a wee bit of indulgence too.

On Friday we ordered in a pizza.

On Saturday, Lotus Chinese Kitchen.

And I'm heading out to the yard in just a minute. Laying down those soaker hoses I've hungered after for 13 years.

My day is filled with sunshine.
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Oh, EFF! Now I've Lost My Left Swearing Finger!

2009-02-03T23:19:00.004-05:00

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ARGH!!! Just when you think you're making progress accepting and adapting to changes in your health, something else comes along and pokes you in the eye.

This is what I get for gloating, huh? I JINXED IT!

And just to rub it in...it still looks like a Swearing Finger from the right direction.

Pointed at ME, that would be.

That's now a *dropped* finger, just like the right-hand pinkie. Not particularly usable; I can't lift it at all. Other fingers nearby crapped out on me too.

When the damage to a tendon is advanced, you lose most or all of the ability to move affected body parts. Before that? It's more a loss of range of motion and intense pain. "Frozen" can unfreeze. Once it's dropped, though...Now I hunt and peck with the left hand, instead of actually typing. Curiously, I feel more patient with it instead of less, so perhaps I'll get to post a bit more, yay!

I'm not sure which tendon it is, because so many in that area are compromised. I may find out soon, though. Tomorrow, finally, I see the great new PhysMed doc and great new PCP again. Finally - finally - it'll set off the rounds of xrays, MRI's, blood tests, and special treatment requests like IgG boosters that might diagnose and treat my melting tendons.

Not to mention, acquire ammo for my suit against the Cipro makers. The first class action lawyers I queried accepted, then declined, my case. They said they don't want anyone who continued taking Cipro after last July, when its chemical group was black-boxed. I think they're throwing away a client who has a nicely documented, visually appealing case, myself. Oh goodness, such a succession of pix I have on file! The last informal tally I ran, over 50 tendons are already damaged. Surely that high a body count helps. Soon we'll see if the next firm on the list agrees.

And!

Suddenly we're blessed with an embarrassment of riches in Lidoderm patches. That nice new medicare HMO, with the low co-pays for these patches that let me type some? The HMO and pharmacy got together with the new Physical Medicine doc and put together a package of 6 boxes. That was only half the 3-month rx the doc had ordered. But, hey. For $40, I'll take it.

Because what you're looking at there is about $2,500.00 worth of patches.

Sometimes I feel like requesting an armed escort home...

And I'm able to get outside here and there, to find pretty critters to play with.

More excellent ingredients in the Cheerful Optimism Maintenance toolbox.
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What We've Got Here is Failure to Communicate...

2009-01-30T20:54:00.003-05:00

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Surprise, surprise, surprise.

And quite probably it shouldn't have been a surprise. Surely, far ruder has been going on out there, even from employers who used to treat their employees decently. That relative decency was a big reason why this particular employer had only a 100% annual employee turnover rate, as compared to the 300% industry average.

Well! Things do change. Businesses will do what they feel they must to survive in whatever economy they operate in. I know. Taught and trained and Fancy Degreed and highly experienced I am, plus educated in the School of Hard Knocks, too; not just as an employee, not just as a professional analyst, but as a small business owner with a little payroll roster of my own.

Watch your back, folks. Same as it ever was: it isn't just what your employer does, but how they do it, that'll leave marks on your back.

When Walter's Worker's Comp claim was terminated, and then the disability claim denied (because it was a Worker's Comp claim!), we weren't sure what would happen next. Or even what his status was with his employer. --Wait and see-- we told ourselves, as we slowly but surely gather ammunition, documenting, researching.

We did know they'd be changing several insurance companies effective January 1, 2009. Cigna would replace the old health insurance company (Aetna). We'd been paying the employee portion of the health insurance premium for Aetna, so we needed to know who to send the payments to now, and how much to send.

No new instructions or letters arrived in the mail. We had another important question too. So a few days ago, Monday the 26th I think it was, we called the Benefits office at Walter's employer.

--Hi! We were wondering - Even if the Worker's Comp department says Walter can work when he can't, he's still being treated for the injury, and Worker's Comp is still supposed to pay for the treatment. We just can't afford to keep paying for the medical treatment ourselves.
--You'll have to take that up with the Worker's Comp department, we have no involvement in that.
--Okay. One other question: Who do we send the health insurance premiums to now?
--Didn't you get the COBRA package yet?
--Uh, no. Why would it be COBRA? Has Walter been terminated?
--Yes.
--When?
--I think it was as of...December 28? Pretty sure. Yes, December 28.
--Okay. [thinking...] Does that mean we have to pay the entire premium now?
--Yes.
--How much is it?
--Well, it depends on which coverage you choose...You didn't get the COBRA package yet? I'm so sorry, I'll call Portland and make sure they get it out right away.

I hung up. Walter and I looked at each other. Absorbed this news. Processed it...

That's not a very nice way to find out you're not employed any more.

Walter was fired because he was badly injured at the workplace. They applied Family Leave Act time at the beginning, while he was supposed to be on Worker's Comp, so his leave ran out. After months of diagnosis and treatment of his injury and the subsequent disabling condition it caused, the employer - or maybe just this one jerk in the Worker's Comp department - decided to get out from under the claim. He cut off the Worker's Comp benefits and instructed Walter to file it as a disability claim.

Why? Because that way, Aetna would have to pay Walter's wage and medical reimbursements, not the employer.

Since it really WAS Worker's Comp, that little game is called insurance fraud.

Hmmm...Better dummy up an alibi, then. If you're trying to brown-nose your boss with this sort of scheme, then triggering criminal charges just won't do. Time to find a doctor to say there's nothing wrong with Walter, to pretend he can drive safely as a commercial driver. In a bad economy it's pretty easy to find someone who'll say what you want them to say, especially if you're sending that Occupational Medicine doctor beau coup bucks in business each year.

And it's perfectly legal - by the letter of the law - to accept the diagnosis of one far less qualified doctor over several highly qualified docs taking care of various aspects of Walter's treatment. Yes indeed! The employer gets to pick and choose.

Of course, a judge must be sensible when choosing which doctor(s) to believe, but hey. Very few employees actually get their case in front of a judge. It's a lot harder to sue -especially, to sue successfully - than you might think. In most states, it's also the only recourse available to the employee if their employer plays fast and loose with the labor laws.

And here we sit, inundated with news of employees driving business into the red with all their PC demands and such.

A couple hours after this phone call the mail came, presenting us with the COBRA package in question. How about that.

The new premium? $355.04 per month.

This was a surprise to Mr. Budget.

Now: Walter must sign up for COBRA and pay a month's premium, plus $70 for the few days Aetna covered between his firing and 12/31/08. Once the employer gets that - postmarked no later than 2/2/09 - Walter will have health insurance, retroactive to his last employed day.

Until then, technically, he has no health insurance coverage.

Which he didn't know at the time he went to the Physical Medicine doctor he's been seeing. No wonder his diagnostic tests and meds weren't approved. Surprise solved.

--Don't have another heart attack yet,-- I told him. --I mean, you WOULD be covered eventually, but the paperwork could be hell and a half.--

On Wednesday my Social Security Disability check was deposited. That was supposed to go toward food and meds and the phone bill and such, but also - finally - for the small but essential funds to put voice recognition software on my computer. Walter's been exploring programs in anticipation of that blessed event.

Ah well...

Today, Friday, the COBRA application and check is ready. We'll send it Return Receipt Requested so we'll have proof of mailing, and proof of delivery, for under $3. There's no need to spend more to overnight it; it won't affect the coverage timing at all.

But wait!

That only takes care of the health insurance. I never did hear how to pay for the disability insurance. I mean, we've been paying that premium for quite a while, and maybe he needs it in place now, right? in case something else awful happens to him?

So we called the Benefits office again today. Told them we're sending in their COBRA application. Asked where to send the premiums for the disability insurance.

--Uh, no no, you can't take that with you once you're terminated. [Well...not a surprise. But it was worth a try.]
--Okay. Oh! By the way - Could we have a letter or something showing that Walter was terminated, and the date?
--No, oh no, we don't send out any letters like that! Oh no! (sounding a bit shocked and indignant at such a question).
--Uh...okay. Um...How do we show proof to the agencies and things we'll be dealing with?
--Oh, they can fax me a Verification of Employment letter. Here's my fax number...

The end. We hung up.

Walter and I did another Look At Each Other thing.

I do realize the workplace is not what it was back in my day. And I promise you, some truly egregious infractions were matter-of-course, common events back then. None of this is too much for either of us to take. Not nearly, not even close.

However! To not tell someone they're fired - letting them find out *accidentally* weeks later, by way of getting a COBRA package in the mail - and then to refuse to send them a letter for their records after they find out that way -

Am I being a little old fashioned here? Or unrealistic, expecting less unkindness than I should?

Or does all that seem as wrong to others as it does to me?

Watch your back out there, folks. The fewer nasty surprises you get, the more you stay in control of your own destiny.
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Joyce Ellen Davis said...

2009-01-24T11:52:00.005-05:00

k, m'dear, I am so sorry you are going through all this pain and infection. I wonder how you manage to stay so upbeat and optimistic. I guess it's kinda like they say in AA--about the courage to change the things you can and the wisdom to know the difference when you can't.

this
from a woman who tackled inexplicable malignant melanoma eating her entire arm
when only in her early thirties
and pregnant with her fifth child
who fought the cancer
fought to keep the arm
fought to keep the child
fought the fear
fought the pain
and gave birth to her miraculously healthy beautiful baby
all alone in the hospital
*without so much as an aspirin,* mind you
because patronizing medical jerks had patted her head
and said
that baby wasn't nearly ready to say *hello*
(despite the well-informed opinion of she who'd experienced birthing a child from that body 4 times already!)
so they fools left this recovering cancer patient to deliver her own fifth child all by herself
completely alone
and then!
upon return, upon seeing the new-delivered child
they fools had the unmitigated gall to do the patronizing head pat thing
again?!?
and she didn't even punch anyone out!!!

nope
instead
coping mechanism
wrote, throughout the ordeal, an incredibly beautiful and moving book
chrysalis
a work of art
wonder-ful
wonder-ful

Do I love that Serenity Prayer? You betcha. Often I say, *I love reality;* and that prayer is all about knowing reality and acting accordingly. It's an important part of the panoply of forces in my Cheerful and Optimistic Maintenance toolbox.

But it's not alone. That toolbox holds lots of different ingredients.

Miss Joyce. Part of how we make it through hard times is legacy.

Do you remember me telling you I'd heard about your book in those years back, heard it was a true work of art, but didn't read it yet? and wasn't sure why?

After I did, a couple years ago now, I finally figured it out.

If I'd read Chrysalis back then, I wouldn't have known the *real* ending. Wouldn't have known if the cancer came back, if the baby stayed healthy and grew up well and whole, if the husband maintained his (wonderful/annoying!) steadfast equanimity and absolute conviction that all would be well, having never considered leaving your side for one second.

And I think I could not have borne the *not knowing.* Wanting, hugely, a Happy Ending.

So. Now it's safe, because it did have that Happy Ending IRL. Knowing that up front, going in, made reading the book the undiluted very great pleasure and wonder it was born to be.

I draw on your legacy. It all gives me strength, you see.
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#1: Dear Helpers: Thank You. Love, the Hands.

2009-01-15T00:15:00.006-05:00

NOTE: This is a series of 5 posts with 4 pix each, in consecutive order (not time-backwards like normal posts). I'll let the story be told with more pix than words this time around.

It's the best way I know to explain what's happening, and why small amounts of donations can make such a big difference in the life of someone who's both sick and broke. It's made the difference between posting and not, this time around.

Tenosynovitis is eating me alive. It's all over my body and expanding every day.

This little series of pix shows how it's affected just my hands. This is why I haven't been posting much. Because when this happens to your hands, and you use them to type posts, you can't.

A person can have a very serious, very painful case of tenosynovitis and have it look like there's nothing wrong. It just hurts and reduces range of motion; then the doc takes an MRI and says, --Whups! Got a problem here...

If you know someone who has a case like that, I betcha someone has already told them, --But it doesn't look bad at all...!!!--

This is what the left hand looks like now on a *regular* day (week of January 12, 2009).

Here's what the same hand looked like just a month and a half ago (November, 2008).

From week of January 12, 2009 - on a bad day this time.

The left hand pinkie finger is starting to twist inward, frozen in place. They call these parts *frozen* when the joints can no longer move. After they're frozen, only pretty drastic measures, like intricate surgery, can restore function - if all goes well, that is.

I'm not a good candidate for surgery any more, especially for such extremely extensive parts. Fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, rib cage, knees front and back, achilles tendons, ankles, feet...lots more, but you get the idea.

#2: Left Hand and Fingers, Frozen in Place

2009-01-15T00:14:00.001-05:00

From week of January 12, 2009. Being *double-jointed* meant I could curl my fingers backwards in a round smooth arc. Here I'm trying to do that as hard as I can, and also to bend my thumb at the middle joint. The forefinger, ring finger, and pinkie actually think they're bent backwards, okay?

I can usually still move them at the hand/finger joints a little bit, but I can't straighten out the fingers themselves, even with a monkey wrench. Doesn't work. Forcing them would break either bones or tendons.

Those movements are no longer possible with 4 of the 5 left-hand fingers. The exception? I got to keep some mobility in my swearing finger for a while. Thank you, All Powers that Be.

In some pix you can see odd lumps under the skin. Those are tendons bulging, possibly ruptured already. In this pic, if you look at the back of the wrist, outside margin of the hand, and the outside and inside of the forearm just below the wrist, you can see some of the worst ones. When I move my hands or fingers they bunch and move around under the skin, like big stuff is crawling around in there. Makes the check-out clerks nervous. heh!

They change some, over time and during each day. Here the back-of-the-wrist lump is sort of *glowing.*

Same lump, side view.

#3: Right Hand, Nov. 2008 and Jan. 2009

2009-01-15T00:13:00.004-05:00

Right hand, from November, 2008. You can see the surgical scar and the lump of calcified tissue toward the outside of the hand, from a previous case of tenosynovitis. Elaborate surgery, it was. That was done to repair just one tendon. Just one. It was the outside tendon controlling the pinkie finger. Apparently, pinkies and forefingers have two tendons each, not just one.

The surgery worked great. About a week after it healed, the tenosynovitis - thwarted from its evil designs on my outside tendon - moved into the second pinkie tendon. The hand surgeon says that tendon is about the size of a hair, making it nearly impossible to operate on without damaging it. No more surgery, no can do...so the pinkie no longer moves correctly, and I *stutter* in Sign Language now.

So. The pinkie was *dropped,* permanently damaged from tenosynovitis. Crippled, if you will; that word doesn't bother me any, although I wish it had no cause to be said.

Now it's getting dropped worse. Hmmm.

From week of January 12, 2009. It got so bad so very fast...

From week of January 12, 2009.

#4: For a $20 Copay...

2009-01-15T00:12:00.002-05:00

From late November, 2008.

From the week of January 12, 2009. Yes. It got so bad, so fast.

This sat at Walgreen's for a week, waiting for me to bail it out for a $20 copay. They're a different kind of pain patch, with a local topical anesthetic called Lidocaine. Very expensive - but my new Medicare HMO actually covers them for just a $20 copay... if you have it, that is.

All dressed up and Places to Go. These topical patches are a vital ingredient in my arsenal, one that can make the difference between posting and silence, or getting my meds picked up or not.

Just in case there's any doubt whether I'm happy about getting these patches. If anyone was wondering, and all.

#5: Happy Hands

2009-01-15T00:11:00.004-05:00

What's that? What's in there?!?

Well, hello! A teensy tiny Florida Ringneck snake. Just a wee kitteh...How'd that get in there, anyway?!? :-O !!!

Happy Hands get to do this.

Feels like Christmas around here.

While I hesitate...

2009-01-12T01:56:00.005-05:00

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As a lot of you have deduced, things have not been going well here. We're okay - we'll make it through, we always do. But Lord, it's been coming at us, bad.

The tenosynovitis that permanently crippled my right pinkie finger a few years ago has returned, but with a remarkable difference.

It's tearing into every tendon in my body, it seems, with a speed and virulence that startles us.

For so long, I've tried so hard to write this post. Write anything, really. Losing a connection with the outside world would not be a good thing, just now. While I hesitate and wait for more function in my hands, instead I lose what I just had.

Along with the physical loss of the use of most of my fingers, my left hand, and now the right hand, is the most mind-bending pain I've ever experienced. To touch or accidentally brush against anything can make me cry out despite myself. It's the kind of pain that brings you close to vomiting, to going insane, to chewing into your own flesh like a mortally wounded animal.

Every day a new area of attack emerges. It's spread from my left hand to the right, throughout my left arm, left shoulder, left rib cage, both elbows, both knees - front and back - both ankles, both Achilles tendons, and now both feet. This morning it had hit my left lower back. Tonight, just now, I felt it pulling throughout my left leg. All these for the first time, all in the last few weeks.

I sit helpless in the kitchen. Can't take the turkey meat off the bones for the soup I tried to make. Not now. Wait, watch for an opening when I can use my right hand for that, it still has partial function sometimes. See, I keep forgetting I can't use my hands, keep picking things up and dropping them all over the floor. Which I can't, then, clean up.

Can't wash and trim my veggies, knead bread, open any container, open the fridge or freezer to get a drink. Can't bathe myself. I have to relearn everything, every way my body moves. And it never lasts because the new way I learned today doesn't work when I wake up tomorrow, having lost another tendon.

I write a little here and there, only when I have a little lucky usable time. It doesn't seem to be enough time to finish what I'd call a *post.* So if I have to do this in pieces, let it be.

We're like so many other Americans, living paycheck to paycheck; if one paycheck stops, life can spiral out of control with horrifying speed. We're there. Walter's Worker's Comp was cut off on a spurious basis. Yesterday came a letter saying his disability claim was denied. The basis? They said his disability was from a work injury, so go apply for Worker's Comp.

Yeah.

We'll win on a challenge, I've no doubt. Until then?

Since - November, is it? - we've had no income except my Social Security. There's an income tax refund coming as soon as we get all our tax documents. That's it.

I can't pick up any of our meds right now because we have no funds for the copays. Can't do the laundry; we're out of an essential disinfectant. No voice recognition program for now; the expense is quite small, but we have nothing to pay for even that. I have enough fuel to see my new PCP tomorrow. (You should see me try to drive.) After that? Wait, I guess, for the 28th, when my SSD gets deposited.

Only the kindness of friends has kept us afloat and in groceries. That can't go on. Everyone is hurting financially, including those who are helping us.

One day, perhaps, I'll find a way to thank you for that, for everything you've done for us. It's too much for me today; I cannot do it justice.

I will not be silenced. I will not be silenced.
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Everybody's Got What's Going Around

2008-12-23T02:23:00.002-05:00

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A couple of weeks ago I went shopping, went to Sam's and Penn Dutch and Walmart. Places where people go to be careful with their money.

For quite a while, I've known the economy was tanking. Surely this ought to be second nature to me; it was the environment of my profession, back when I worked, and the signs are always very clear to us. Otherwise we could not have done our jobs.

Lots of people, though, stay in denial about it while it's ramping up. Politicians make good use of this. People like me, the true contrarians, get labeled as doomsayers and treated like party poopers. And unpatriotic to boot! heh!

So I tend to keep these thoughts to myself.

But that doesn't mean I'm not aware of what's happening to people's lives. I believe I understand as well as anyone else could. When you make a living seizing commercial buildings and other assets, collateral for business loans and big commercial mortgages and even the occasional house, you get very up-close and personal experience with the terrible damage economic disasters cause human beings.

There's a cycle to it. It's always the same in some ways, always different in some ways. One thing that tends to repeat? That sense of tipping over, of an avalanche, when the burden of knowledge of the damage is finally accepted by the general population.

You can feel it, if you watch and wait. You can sense it. The air vibrates with the change.

People suddenly become scared, and suddenly admit it. Denial time is over.

That's what I felt in the air when I went out shopping, a couple of weeks back.

People are being very brave, too, this time. It doesn't always happen that way. There are a lot of stiff upper lips, of holding shoulders high, of saying *I know that job will come; it'll just take a little longer this time.* Or, *It's surprising how these things can actually work out for the best, sometimes.* Or, *It's not much of one but at least I have a job for now.* Folks are telling their kids, *This Christmas all you get is one video game.* And it seems most parents and most kids are being brave about that, too.

That's a good thing, there, that bravery under fire. I hope this positive attitude holds true. But it may not last, because the depth of this disaster is astounding. It's not nearly over. In fact, it's only just begun.

Most of you know there are times when I don't post much, when I'm too sick or too involved in dealing with my life's issues or without a computer. This time I also didn't go around reading my fellow blogger's posts.

I miss you all when that happens.

Going around trying to catch up a little, I have to say that the downside of this economic disaster seems to be hitting everyone in our little corner of the 'sphere, too. Lost jobs everywhere, and no new ones to hire up. Homes in foreclosure. Checks bouncing, cars getting repossessed. Medical problems heightened. Yes, of course our health gets worse when the economy does a major tank like this. Much worse.

Me, I'll keep on acting a bit childish, whining and complaining here and there, and indulging in fun animal pix and pretty flower pix and general silliness other times. I have to say, it may look a little schizoid here and there. Some really awful things are going on in my life, and I'll combat the downside any way I can. If acting crazy does it, hey, that's cool by me.

I'm here. If anyone wants to email me and complain about all the bad stuff happening to them, I'll answer you. There's a good *crying shoulder* on this battered up body, and besides, it's only fair.

We're all in this together. We WILL make it through to the other side. I really do know what I'm talking about, and I promise you that. We'll come through, and see that wonderful rebirth when the economy starts to turn, and people go back to work and stuff gets made and people earn money and buy things, all that.

It's like spring coming after winter. A bad winter never seems to end...until it does, and spring comes, and the sun melts the ice and the flowers burst forth and the animals come out to play and raise new families and suddenly you don't need a coat any more.

See? That's how I know we'll make it through.

We always do.
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When things are going so hard, I stop and remember why I'm here...

2008-12-12T10:11:00.002-05:00

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Life is love. It's love that created this beauty, and love that sustains us all. It surrounds me, out here in my yard. My simple plants and flowers, growing and thriving and putting out this incredible graceful joy for us all to behold.

No matter what happens in our lives, nothing can ever take these visions away from us. Until our days are over, we share in all this every single second of our lives. We're part of it too, we're completely and entirely a part of that life force.

I remember to come outside in the midst of all the difficult, urgent, scary issues I must attend to. When I see these plants and flowers I remember what really matters; it gives my strength back to me.

So many of us are living, these days, with serious misfortune. In the midst of that we may have some great good fortune as well. It doesn't get canceled when things get rough.

I see this beauty, it humbles me and makes me profoundly glad. I hope everyone reading this who's having it rough can feel the blessings of their own good fortune too. They're almost always there, those good-fortune bits. Sometimes we have to set aside our pain and grief and fear in order to look for the good that remains. But why not? When things are going badly anyway, what do we have to lose by taking a deep breath and a half hour to forget it all?

Here and there in my life - not often - I've received a sneer or two for this *stop and smell the roses* bit. Well, screw 'em all for that. I'd much rather be in my shoes than theirs. Their roseless shoes, the poor fools. They could be blessed with a wealth of free, sweet beauty, and they choose instead to indulge in valueless games like *Who's the Most Cool?*

Choose sterility, or riches beyond measure? That's an easy answer for me.
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FABULOUS News! Walter Failed His DOT Physical!

2008-12-10T10:18:00.000-05:00

And even better than that: he's found a local disability doctor who has already acknowledged, in writing, that he can't work as a commercial driver.

She's also perfectly willing to say so, and to stand up for him in that onerous process of filing and documenting claims.

Walter's employer, as of a couple days ago, has adamantly refused to reinstate his Worker's Comp claim. They sent the disability insurance paperwork to his new doctor yesterday, so we hope to get it processed soon. Once that's safe, we'll sic our Worker's Comp lawyer on them. What they did is outrageous.

I'll post on the details as soon as I can. And, I'll try to keep you all updated better than I've been.

I'm afraid this series of events knocked the wind out of me. A lot has been going on, and it seemed like the new troubles just wouldn't stop coming. Having a doctor on Walter's side now has settled me down.

I know lots of people are in the same boat these days. I hope they can find a piece of strength to hang on to, like that new doctor for Walter.

Meanwhile, we have no income, and haven't had any for several weeks now. The Nov. 1 mortgage payment was made; my mother, bless her, lent most of it to us. She has no more to spare.

We need to pay around $150 for our meds, and get some food and such. It's hard for me to ask for help. But we need it now, and badly. If any of you can spare even a small amount right now, we would greatly appreciate it.

And I promise you, we'll send it back around to others as soon as we can.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving, Everyone!

2008-11-30T19:13:00.003-05:00

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Yes, we had a very nice Thanksgiving. Not that we did anything, oh, turkey-ish. We had a quiet restful day instead, which made us both very happy.

Thanks for all the well-wishers who came by here in comments and email. Right back atcha. And I certainly hope that if any of you are among those who Christmas shop on that Fateful Day After the Turkey, or the weekend, you not only Survived but Thrived.

I'll never join your ranks. The ability to enjoy a shopping scene like that is a profound mystery to me. But I've met enough humans who clearly and honestly did enjoy it to accept that they're being truthful. My hat is off to all such out there.
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I've Found a Culprit: Cipro Ruptures Tendons

2008-11-22T23:28:00.001-05:00

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I am calmer today. Weekends are my *Nothing But Yardwork* times. It's peaceful out there, and the neighbors driving by and the dog walkers and general Front Yard Fan Club have been wonderful. *You're back, you're BACK!!!* They surround me with unexpected sweetness, they see me out there in the yard again and break into these huge happy grins and stop walking and talk to me as I weed and groom the yard, sometimes staying for hours and hours, just visiting. Lovely people. Most of them, I don't even remember their names. Usually I remember the dogs' names though. heh!

Today I picked pea pods from my gorgeous tropical pea vines, of the very very very blue flowers, and got a big pile of precious seeds. Traded plants and news with the guys across the street, who fed me a fabulous cranberry and goat cheese appetizer. I told them if it were MY guests coming I'd eat the whole appetizer before anyone showed up. Raked some, weeded some, trimmed the orchid tree a bit. Slow, slow, gentle.

I'm going to try to keep everyone up to date, even if by short little posts. Fellow bloggers, now you know why I haven't been by your place reading and commenting even after the allergy coma was over for the year. My hand just doesn't work very well any more. I didn't want to say out loud how bad it was; maybe it would get better...but it didn't and probably won't, so it's reality time.

When sitting down at the computer, I used to answer emails first, then read all y'all and comment, then answer comments on my own blog, and then write a post. Now I'm going to re-order my priorities backwards. I've missed communicating with you, it'll be hard to do the emails so much later. But I know, absolutely, that you'll bear with me. I feel blessed, and not because of counting my blessings. Feeling Blessed Without Counting seems to make their value increase exponentially, somehow.

All right. Here's some news.

Walter's been looking into voice recognition software. Being home helps, for some technical computer reasons I'm not up on. With his own health so damaged now, he's become slow like me. It'll come. For either of us to push ourselves too hard is not a good thing these days.

Adapting to a virtually unusable left hand is still harder than I thought it would be. It makes me even clumsier than before. Today, finally, I got no new cuts in my fragile skin. But at the very end of the day I fell. I was using only my right hand to pull the back door shut. It's sticky, you have to give it a good yank shut before it can lock. My hand slipped off the knob and I fell backwards, hard, laid full out on the tile floor. I'll have some bruises tomorrow. That's no biggie. Worse than that, I broke my fall by landing on the bad hand, bending it sharply backward at the wrist - and for once, my splint was off. Tomorrow will tell me how much damage the wrist took.

Walter got me back up. Uh, he has to do this for me from time to time. We automatically adjusted our movements so he went straight up and back without twisting to the side. I was so afraid it would hurt him, but he says the way we did it, he was okay. Oh, relief, relief.

Financial update. The disability and health insurance premium check was already re-deposited by the employer. I'd called in and left a message asking for forbearance...and that call was never returned. They redeposited so very fast, perhaps they were hoping it would bounce again so they could cut us off. But it didn't. With some help from a friend and my last hoarded bits of *mad money,* we were able to cover that sucker in the nick of time. It is PAID, and Walter is still safely insured. We have to do it one more time before November 30. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The electricity hasn't been shut off yet, and on Monday I may be able to work something out for that.

Chase had sent us a nasty *10-day* letter, demanding payment by the 22nd or they'd call the loan. I phoned in and told them I'd pay on the 26th, when my Social Security check comes. After asking the rep to read the file notes, I reminded him we've communicated with them constantly, we haven't abandoned the house, we haven't been ducking them, we've never exceeded 30 days past due, and every late payment was because of medical issues. Chase told us in the beginning that if we never went over 30 days, we'd have no problem with them. We're more than 2/3 of the way through the special double-payment *repayment plan,* and wouldn't it be better for all parties to keep it going till the end? Of course it would.

This rep, shockingly, was quite nice, and agreed to the four-day extension with hardly any arm twisting at all. Maybe current events have inspired Chase to be a bit more flexible. Good. They're still next on my hit list, because they deserve to be.

And yes, do I long to get back to those current events, and put out Part 2 of that musty dusty history, instead of dealing with this icky health stuff. Patience, k. Patience.

On the house front, we go to mediation with Citizens on our hurricane claim December 9. We've now enlisted the help of our excellent neighbors across the street for that. One is very experienced with insurance matters in general, the other is a great designer for everything to do with living spaces and landscaping, and both are excellent rehabbers. Walter and I are now out of the running for most any physical work.

I want the insurance repair funds to go to someone I both trust and care about instead of strangers, and I know they can handle a lot of the repairs quite well; I've watched them work. They can also assess who to hire for roof contractors and whatnot. Even though I can normally oversee this sort of thing blindfolded and with both hands tied behind my back, I'm obviously too emotionally wrapped up in this house. Sort of like how doctors shouldn't practice medicine on their own family members. It's been three years since Wilma, and I haven't taken care of business properly, which tells me a lot.

Crap. For someone who loves to yammer away talking talking talking on my blog, cutting myself short when the hand says I must will not be easy. It's already That Time. Crap.

Okay. Two last bits: Cipro, an antibiotic I've taken daily for perhaps a year now, got a *black label* warning in July for rupturing tendons. With the exception of the Achilles' Heel tendons, that damage has my name all over it: elbow, hands, shoulders, below the knee. Here's some links.

And - again - I'll say it every single time you folks do this - your comments and the support I feel pouring toward me from you have given me a much better day. You guys are great. Thank you.
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Home Again

2008-11-20T23:56:00.001-05:00

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We're home, we got back Sunday. We're safe. And home is a wonderful place to be just now.

It's also a dusty mess, and to our horror we discovered we were invaded by pests in our absence. Such a lot of work! The plumbing in the kitchen went out, too; only some great luck and quick action by our excellent friends H and Danny kept the damage down to a minimum. I've been lugging hot water to the kitchen sink to wash dishes ever since.

But the weeds aren't nearly as bad as I'd expected, and I have an orchid blooming. The house cradles me, I suddenly see where the slang came from to call one's house *the crib.*

I need that. I'm sorry to say I have no other good news for you today. So here's the time for a caution: if you're in need of cheery reading tonight, you'd better skip this post. It's dismal.

Hmmm...Long story short: Walter's injury-triggered costochondritis is getting worse all the time. It's progressed to his sides, his back, and his shoulders. We were sent home unexpectedly early, with all worker's comp benefits suddenly cut off - including medical care. Walter's employer appears to be deliberately moving him onto a disability claim rather than Worker's Comp. Why? Because that way they don't foot the bill.

Unfortunately, since I'd relied on certain information about the timing of the Worker's Comp income, the check I'd just mailed for the disability insurance premiums bounced last night. The funds that covered it were suddenly required for gas to drive home. They wouldn't even give us the $186 fuel allowance they did for the trip up to Missouri.

Yesterday I saw my rheumatologist. He said what I'd expected. My entire left hand, all five fingers, wrist, forearm, and possibly shoulder look to be permanently and painfully crippled. Many of the tendons are on the verge of rupturing, and once they do, they cannot be repaired, especially on patients like me. After they rupture, you can no longer move whatever they're attached to, like your fingers.

We were gone for over three months. Three highly qualified Missouri doctors diagnosed Walter with the same condition: a widespread, sometimes debilitating inflammatory condition called costochondritis, which is often triggered by an injury to the chest. Yeah, getting slammed in the sternum with a 200-pound big rig trailer door in a 50 MPH wind will do things like that.

One of its worst characteristics is that it mimics a heart attack.

The last real Missouri doctor was a guy who impressed both Walter and me with his knowledge, skill, judgement, and humanity. He gave Walter two series of 30-40 cortisone shots all over his chest, sides, shoulders, and back. Once I came along and watched. He used this huge long flexible needle, probing for the right spot, and the needle would bend almost in two each time he stuck it in. It looked like Walter was getting stung all over by a huge wasp.

A week or so ago, that doc sent a final report to the employer. He said Walter'd had lots of therapy - the steroid shots, topical analgesics, anti-inflammatories, anti-spasmodics, and painkillers. He was not getting any better, and probably would not improve any more. Diagnosis? Costochondritis, muscle spasms, myofacial pain. Do not discontinue the anti-spasmodics. Do not drive while taking those meds. No commercial driving at all.

Well, the employer didn't like that report. So they sent Walter to a clinic to see yet another doctor, in *occupational medicine.* The employer sends that clinic a great deal of business, hundreds of drivers go there each year. After the exam, even that doc told Walter that he wanted to do a bone scan..

Knowing that would take a week or two to schedule and perform, I mailed the $150 check for Walter's short and long-term disability and health insurance. We'd been picking up his worker's comp check every Thursday or Friday, right on time.

Apparently after the Occupational Medicine doc called the employer with the verbal report, he changed his mind about the bone scan. All of a sudden he said there was nothing medically wrong with Walter, and he was good to go back to work.

What?!?

Like all truckers, Walter needs a DOT medical certificate to drive. The muscle spasms in his back are so bad you can see them through his shirt. He can't twist to the side. It's not just that the pain abruptly stops him. He simply can't move that way any more. He can't drive taking those meds, either.

When Walter, stunned at this news - he was told in person as he picked up what turned out to be our second-to-last check - explained his medical issues to the Worker's Comp rep, the guy smirked like the cat that ate the canary. Ah. Okay. Of course. That was the plan. It's what they dreamed up to pass the buck to an outside insurer and not have to pay the Worker's Comp benefits themselves.

Yes, we've hired another lawyer, and yes, we will also apply for the disability insurance...and hope they don't exercise their right to cancel it because the premium check bounced.

The lady at their benefits office, who had always been very professional, yet helpful and cordial with me, was noticeably less friendly and open on the phone with me today. I explained the situation to her. She said that since Walter was cleared to drive by the last doc, the thing to do is find a local doc who will again say he can't drive due to his medical condition. We'll apply for the short-term disability, then the long-term after that runs out in 90 days.

So she was all set up and ready for this, too, all clued in. She clearly knew the plan before I called.

Tomorrow Walter visits the DOT medical folks. Unless they're stone cold fools, they will fail Walter on the medical, and not take on the liability of certifying someone to drive a big rig on heavy-duty meds and with limited range of motion and reaction times.

Then we look for a doctor brave enough to tell the truth.

If we're lucky, the disability claim will be approved, and will start soon. It probably will be far less than Worker's Comp. We spent all we had on the fuel to get home. The insurance premium is still unpaid, along with the electric bill, mortgage payment, and my local pain doctor's bill. We scrimped and saved like misers, cooking in the hotel room and staying in there almost continuously for three months, not using fuel to go out and see the sights. It wasn't enough.

As for my hand...

Those of you who read here regularly know some things about me by now. I'm a cheerful person by nature. I have a lot of health problems and I've been through some hardships, like just about all bloggers have. But life is precious to me, I love living and I love my life, limitations and all.

That doesn't mean I never hurt inside. Part of the reason I stay happy so much of the time is because I'm ready, willing, and able to work at it, almost every day.

Right now, that's not easy. I've fallen down on the job.

We will keep on fighting to save the hand. There's one more immunosuppressant we haven't tried before. If that doesn't help, we'll try to see if my Medicare HMO will pay for gamma globulin treatment. As the RA doc said, it takes 3 days in the hospital and costs as much as a car: $25,000. It's the sort of thing my HMO has most decidedly not wanted to pay in the past.

The only option after that is higher Prednisone to keep the inflammation down, mega doses like 100 mg/day. I worked so hard to decrease it down to 20/40 mg/day, meaning 20 one day, 40 the next, then 20 - if you alternate the doses like that, it helps keep the side effects down. Decreasing is painful and sickening, and it's why I spent so much allergic time in bed this summer. The high dose Pred is what got me out of the sickbed I used to live in around 10 months each year. I decided to decrease when my immune system got too suppressed and my IgG tanked..

But when my left hand blew up in Missouri, I doubled the Prednisone right back up again to 40/80. It did bring the inflammation down some, and I still have only one *claw* finger. But the condition is getting worse again.

In that left hand, rheumatoid arthritis has vigorously attacked every joint in every finger, most of the joints in the hand, and parts of the wrist. Tenosynovitis - a sometimes dangerous inflammatory disease of the tendon sheath - has attacked virtually every tendon in the fingers, hand, back of the wrist, and some in my forearm and left shoulder. It may also be behind a terrible sickening stiff neck I got a couple weeks ago, which is only beginning to get better.

The thing is, the tendons are likely to rupture now. They've started bunching up. I have a splint to help stabilize it, because the more I use the hand, the sooner the tendons will rupture. The docs can't prevent it, and also can't repair them once that happens. My right pinkie is already crippled from the same condition. And that was only one finger.

Yesterday I asked the RA doc about trying cortisone shots, and he said the damage was far too diffuse, too widespread. I'm also not a good candidate for surgery any more, even if a hand surgeon was willing to take on such a large project, basically peeling open the whole hand and wrist and all five fingers, and doing many hours' worth of repairs and tendon grafts. My skin is so thin it can't hold stitches much, and the chances of getting it infected with MRSA are far too high.

I'm not always so very strong. As I drove home I thought of these: Plaster jackets. Orchids mounted on wood. Bricklaying. I weed sitting down, but I can't push myself up well with only one hand. It's okay to use as a sort of hook or a holder, that half-dead hand; sometimes I can even grasp objects a bit...but all the ordinary things we do each day I need help with now.

In the car I burst into tears. At every stop light I took whatever action I could think of: deep breaths and an extra Prozac and Xanax and I bit my lips until they bled, because the last thing Walter needs right now is to watch me fall to pieces in front of him. I expected this bad news, I knew it was coming. It's just that having the doctor confirm my worst fears was like a kick in the gut.

That was yesterday, Wednesday. Today I saw my primary. My blood sugar has skyrocketed, consistently reading in the 300's - 400's after I take my morning meds with no food but espresso. As she said somewhat impatiently, of COURSE it doesn't matter what I eat. Diabetes can't always be controlled with diet and exercise, especially not in the presence of high-dose steroids. I will probably have to go on insulin.

I've lived with pain since I was eight and got juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. It got worse every year of my life. Honestly, I believe I can say I have felt both chronic and acute pain in extremity.

Today, the pain from this new tenosynovitis/RA attack is so great that despite my pain meds and hot soaks and massagers and the splint, it makes me cry out in my sleep. If something touches my forefinger by accident it makes me dizzy-sick with agony, unable to breathe, and afraid I'll throw up.

And night after night, I sleep next to this man I love with my whole heart, and watch him try to turn in his sleep and cry out in pain. And there isn't a thing I can do to help him. It breaks my heart.

I know I'll be able to cope with this as time passes by. But today? Today what I feel is grief and despair and fear.
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How I Learned The Fine Art of Finance: Musty Dusty History, Part 1

2008-10-20T01:24:00.005-04:00

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The funny thing is, the whole reason I decided upon a profession was so I could write.

I wanted to be a writer since around the age of a year and a half. Not that I could write yet. Or read. But I sure could talk, and loved stories, and especially loved stories about real life. My mother was a writer, so I learned what it meant. My parents would never push any of us to be something we didn't want to be; but it was clear way early that it would probably be either writing or science for me.

I'd heard all about starving artists well before I grasped the difference between hunger and starvation. And didn't want to be a starving artist, either. I especially didn't want to be a *hack,* to write what was needed for income, to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. Strangely enough, I have no issue at all with other writers doing that. None whatsoever. It's just that I didn't want to do it myself. Also why you've never seen an ad on this blog.

That has a great deal to do with a particularly stubborn form - and not entirely accurate definition - of independence. Not to mention, a great excuse for not dealing with writer's block.

Money, you see, was never particularly interesting to me, in and of itself. Beautiful things, which are often valuable things, intrigued me; but I didn't need to own them in order to be happy. Wealth and the material things it can buy were not of much real value, in my estimation. Only freedom was. Everywhere I looked I saw people who had money and could never be free: they were owned by their possessions, bound and chained for life.

I hadn't yet learned that one can be financially independent and still be free; and, that a financial cushion can mean the difference between independence and dependence, should a person become disabled at the age of 32.

Neither did I want to go to college. At. All. Oh Lord, I was bored to tears with school. When I graduated from high school it was a year early, at barely 17. It would have been a year and a half early, but for the lack of a quarter credit of gym. Good grief! Physical education. Which I didn't even take anyway, because of the arthritis.

The Powers That Be in my high school weren't quite sure what to do with me. Phys Ed was required for graduation. They finally decided that if Phys Ed was not to be accomplished in the gym or on the field, they must teach me about it as if it were an actual educational class.

So they told me to write papers about sports, as a sort of independent study. The choice of subject was mine. That part was fun. By the time my high school years were blessedly over with, I'd written class papers on chariot racing, cockfighting, logrolling, and, if memory serves, the Mesoamerican Ballgame.

We all have certain inborn talents of limited value. Me, I was gifted with the ability to raise one eyebrow at a time. I seem to recollect getting the one-raised-eyebrow Look over a few of those gym papers when I turned them in to the gym teacher.

Some of my fellow students, when I finally did go to college, were the first in their family to do so. In my own family, one doesn't not go to college. My poor beleaguered mother, not more than a year or so back, bemoaned a book I'd read as a teenager, one that extolled the virtues of succeeding without college. Mom said she could have shot the author. How to explain that I have absolutely no recollection of reading that book? Like too many situations we face in our lives, I'd made up my mind, then found the written resources to justify a desire or decision after the fact.

And just what sort of profession could one enter, as a not formally educated female back in the day, and make enough money to survive? Why - real estate! Haven't you seen all those self-help books and TV shows? Around the age of fifteen, the profession that fit all my requirements, freeing me to write, was settled upon.

One small hitch: In the State of Illinois, one couldn't get a real estate salesman's license until the age of 21. Since my future first husband had little interest in earning a living, and I'd left home when I was 17, I had to work at jobs that would sustain us both before I could go into real estate. And since independence meant so much to me - freedom, respect, self-determination - I'd already been working part time since I was old enough to lie about my age and get a job, at fifteen.

This post is supposed to explain my credentials in the field of finance. Admittedly, Mesoamerican Ballgame high school papers don't have much to do with that. But I assert, quite seriously, that certain other non-finance, real-life educational experiences do.

That first part-time job was scooping ice cream at a Bressler's in one of the world's first malls. It was dead, that mall, though it isn't any more. Nobody knew quite what to do with a mall back then. My pay was $1.25/hour, which was under the minimum wage. The legal justification? *Food service* work meant we were supposed to get tips. The only one I ever got was a quarter tip from a nice older lady, who saw I'd sprained my wrist working so hard scooping ice cream, and felt sorry for me. This was my first real-life lesson in the intersections of government regulation, business needs, and the bullshit that can glue them together, often by skimming nickels and dimes from those who have the least supply of them to begin with.

From age fifteen until I was disabled out, I worked my ass off, and did so as cheerfully as possible, even though I hated most of my pre-college jobs. I had more than my share of teenage angst and anger, both; but I worked them off, instead of slacking them off. Watching people work today, I just don't get it sometimes. Certainly, I do see people who work like I did. But I seem to see too many who don't, and how can they bear it? What's worse than being too busy at work is not being busy enough. It's boring. I hate to be bored, and rarely am, because I work at not being bored.

As a part-timer I clerked at a Walgreen's, and also tried to be a salesgirl at a clothing store. That type of sales job seemed sort of...hateful, disrespectful, in my book. If a person wants to buy something, let them. If they don't, leave them alone. Who needs a *salesperson* to try to sway customers to buy when they don't want to? Why impinge upon their self-determination, if I were so fiercely protective of my own? I was not comfortable in that line of work.

My first full-time job was at a bank. It was a small neighborhood brick building/white columned bank, the principal bank of a North Chicago suburb that later became quite well-heeled. The president and the CEO were real estate developers. One was named Bert, the other named Ernie. Since these were two favorite characters in that new show called Sesame Street, we employees found no end of amusement there. ('ay, Bert! *giggle snort!*)

This was my first experience with banking, with real estate, with accounting, and with ten-key operation. I ran the proof machine, *full-time* at 35 hours per week so they didn't have to give benefits. My pay was $400/month. I had some interesting times there. I could never quite understand how the two guys running the bank could also run so many of their development loans through that same bank, legally; wasn't it a conflict of interest? Nobody could quite explain it to me...

At the time, I usually wore four-to-six-inch platform shoes. One favorite pair had an open-toed leather sandal top, and soles made of horizontally alternating shades of brown wood - dark, light, dark. Stripes.

Worn with knee socks.

That's because when I wore those shoes barelegged, management had a prurient fit about the lack of pantyhose upon my tanned but naked legs. All my skirts were below the knee, so surely management's imagination was the real culprit there! Or perhaps it was my Lou Reed black toenail polish. Understand, things were very different back then. Nobody had, or wore, or even knew about the existence of black nail polish. Just me.

To remedy this scary state of affairs, management decided they must institute a Dress Code for all employees. All my fault. Even in our dungeon basement bookkeeping rooms where customers never tread, women were not allowed to wear pants. Not that those legs could be bare, though! Knee socks or panty hose, take your pick. I hated the very thought of wearing knee socks with skirts, good heavens; but panty hose were worse. Besides, knee socks seemed like a fine ludicruous comment on the Dress Code, so knee socks it was.

One fine morning I was outside kicking my $25 car to get it started to go to work. The starter had a loose wire, so I'd stand at the driver's side fender, kick it, run back into the driver's seat to see if it would start, repeat...My next-door neighbor came by to see why I was kicking the car in my striped sole six inch platform shoes with knee socks. I explained that I had to get my car going to get to work, but didn't really want to work there any more (kick! rurrrh rurrrh rurrrh), because they'd just offered the coveted $600/month job of posting mortgage payments to another bookkeeper who I'd cross-trained, (kick! rurrrh rurrrh rurrrh), but she couldn't even run proof much less do that stupid mortgage posting machine everyone was so afraid of, but hey, she was middle-aged and I was not yet eighteen, (KICK! rurrrh rurrrh rurrrh) so obviously that made her more *qualified* and they offered her the job instead of me. So if they didn't respect my stellar work performance I preferred to take it elsewhere...

and since I was kicking that car whilst living back at the parents' house in an already very well-heeled suburb, the next door neighbor was a Vice President at the World's Largest Market Research Firm. Meaning, he had clout. And he suggested I apply for a job over there.

When I gave the bank my two weeks' notice, they said the other lady had turned down that mortgage posting job and it was mine if I wanted it, I could go far in banking if I wished, they even had a lady vice president already! (in Human Resources), they'd even send me to Banking School, hey there was a future for me there, please don't go...Srythnxbai.

So I took my ten-key talents yonder, and became the one-person Cable TV reporting department at the World's Largest Market Research Firm, most famous for its TV ratings. Another interesting job. Even though I was just another glorified *figure clerk,* part of my duties was to read CATV and Videography and Broadcasting magazines. One day I tried to tell my boss, VP Media Research, that cable TV would be really big one day. Oh, he laughed and laughed at my naivete! No no no, that would require legalizing advertising on cable TV, and everyone knows the Big Three broadcasters would never allow that! heh heh heh!

After crunching numbers day in and day out, I got so good I was tied for Fastest Speed with a woman who'd added up huge columns of numbers every work day for eight years. Before desktop and PC days, this was a shockingly important skill. Sometimes, under great time pressure, delegations of people from other departments would come and solemnly beg my boss to let me or her add their numbers up in a huge accurate hurry. I used a computer too sometimes, very rarely, just to send out final report numbers. This required a security escort and a telephone in a cradle. Once we had a big bomb threat, a serious one, and the entire headquarters staff all piled out of the building into the enormous parking lot. Sweating and milling around on the asphalt were scores of identical-looking young men in suits, carrying huge spools of computer tapes to save the world's market research data from mad bombers.

I was beginning to see I liked numbers.

You've only known me as a disabled blogger; but I had lots of jobs in my life, even in the short time until my 21st birthday, finally old enough to get that real estate license. Perhaps another time I'll regale you with more job tales of yore. For now, suffice it to say I was working at a certain Post Office with a certain old friend when I took the Illinois Real Estate Salesman's License course.

By then I was married and had bills to pay. I didn't quit the PO until I made my first real estate sale. The news that the sale was closing came to me in a highly unusual way, on that job: over the phone, on the midnight shift, sitting on the supervisor's desk happily swinging my legs back and forth, chatting about my *emergency* on the Official No-Employee phone.

So I quit the post office. That was in 1979. Four months later the bottom fell out of the real estate market.

I got my first education in formal finance, you see, on the job as a Chicago real estate sales agent. At the time, we had to learn finance because it was the only way to sell a bank on giving someone a mortgage.

I'll leave that story for *Musty Dusty, Part 2.*
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All Patched Up and Ready to Go

2008-10-17T23:51:00.004-04:00

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The stuff on the hand is Lidoderm patches, not Fentanyl. That's a $25 patch job you're looking at on that hand, there. I have 4 Lidoderm patches left, meaning 2 more "wraps". But I know I'll be okay. One way or another, I think I can keep that hand working, as Walter looks into voice software.

The Fentanyl is safely pasted elsewhere, with 2" silk tape wrapped entirely around my upper arm, holding it securely on as usual. Dr. E says the maximum benefit is first reached around 17 hours after it's applied. I slapped that sucker on there around 5PM Friday. By midday Saturday, I'll be back where I'm supposed to be, pain control-wise.

One day I'll go off on a rant about why we should never feel shame for treating pain. Oh, and a fine graphic detailed disquisition on the myriad kinds of pain I feel, like that broken bone ends rubbing together one; and what living with constant pain has done to my life...But for now? A small reminder of why pain treatment must be conducted with care. Having gone five days late with the Fentanyl was an experience that could have been terrible. Fortunately, it wasn't.

To decrease properly from any opiate use, slow is the key. Going "cold turkey" like that is physically dangerous as well as painful. As part of the Pain Management Agreement protocols I have with my Florida pain doc, the doctor must agree not to leave the patient suddenly unmedicated. The problem that arose here was simply being out of town unexpectedly. I'd packed two months' worth of new prescriptions. When they ran out and we still weren't home, I had to find a local pain doc. My Florida doctor can't mail a new Fentanyl prescription across state lines, it's either illegal or against regs or some such. I knew I'd need a Missouri doc. Okay.

What threw me off was the unusual way Missouri uses a *primary* doctor. In Florida, that term means our insurance gatekeeper. But in Missouri, one can't just call up a pain doc for an appointment. Not allowed. First you must see a "primary," who then may or may not refer you to a pain doctor. It has nothing to do with insurance, it's state law (or regs or whatever).

Or, the primaries may take it upon themselves to simply write you the prescription on their own. This time? After some phone calling, faxing of release permissions, verifying my long-time status as a perfectly - perfectly - compliant and lawful pain patient, displaying printouts of the Rx records spit out of the Sam's and Walmart's computers - that's what my new local primary doctor did.

Following one's pain patient protocols is excruciatingly important. I have never *run out* of any pain med prescription before I was supposed to, or called to say they'd been lost or stolen or accidentally spilled down the sink. I show up to my appointments as scheduled. I drink no alcohol. I submit to random urine tests as requested; I have absolutely nothing to hide. I don't boost my prescriptions with marijuana here and there, even though I believe it should be legal to do so.

I've interviewed with one prospective pain doctor who was a sadistic weirdo, and I declined to use his services. Once, a temporary pharmacist at my usual Walgreen's called a surgeon to clarify why I presented a (perfectly legitimate and protocol) new Rx for post-surgical pain meds. That was embarrassing. The pharmacist soon admitted to me that he did it as harassment for his personal amusement. He showed no remorse - in fact, he was still laughing - and his little amusement cost Walgreen's five figures in sales per year from my prescriptions alone. They lost Walter's business as well.

I have never, ever had any doctor or any other pharmacist question or dispute my pain meds use. Ever. I behave so carefully because it's safest for us all. And having a perfect long term history is what gave the new primary the comfort level he needed to write me my new local prescriptions.

The funny thing about it was the doctor's reaction upon seeing the Rx printouts I picked up at Walmart. Apparently he had no idea this could be done. He was really amazed. I hadn't wanted to swamp the poor man with papers, but I was paging through them, circling the Fentanyl refill histories so he could see how nice and steady I am. And he couldn't get over the fact that one can walk into the pharmacy with proper ID, say --Please print out my prescription history from January 2003 to the present-- wait a few minutes, and walk out the store with all 47 warm pages in hand.

heh! This is why doctors should always hire CPA's to do their taxes.

Anyway, the timing mess-up was nobody's fault but mine. Luckily, I had a good supply of oral opiates and the knowledge to use them correctly. Not to mention, a very intelligent, tolerant, watchful, honest, and loving partner to hold my hand through the process. Thursday was pretty rough - I'll spare you the gory details, I've had enough of this subject for now - but Thursday was soon over, and I'm safe again.

And back in business.

Well...after a niiice nap, that is.

Back to the Future

2008-10-15T19:05:00.003-04:00

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When I became disabled and lost my livelihood, my career, I went through a two year long process of assimilating and adjusting to my new circumstances. For quite a while I kept trying to work, taking occasional high-paying temp jobs in my profession. But my health was bad enough that eventually, either the hiring company or the client would begin to balk at having me around. I scared them.

And after every temp job was over I'd end up sick in bed, often with a serious bronchial infection, and usually for as long as the assignment I'd just finished. Work for three weeks, be sick in bed for three. Work for two months, be sick in bed for two months...

When I met Walter in 1993 I was still temping. I spent three weeks in New York on an MBS portfolio due diligence team, and came home and told him about some bad things that had happened with one of the men on the job. Between that, and the fact that we were getting married and I've have health insurance at last, I decided it was time to face the facts. That became my last temp job.

I simply couldn't work any more. It was not even possible to do typing or something at home, in my semi-controlled air. I couldn't take certain due diligence work home, because we often had to work with original notes and mortgages. They must be guarded as we work, then locked up in the big bank vaults at night.

I could work at home if my health was tolerable, but with no warning I'll get swept up in a terrible spiral of allergic episodes, or 18-hour sleeping fatigues, or another infection. I always prided myself on being a dependable worker, finishing my work on time even under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. But I was no longer dependable: not because of any change in my character, but because my health could not be depended upon.

So I stopped trying to work. Walter encouraged me to re-file my Social Security claim, which was successful. The lawyer told us I'd lost about $24,000 in benefits because of my *work attempts,* subsequent illnesses notwithstanding. Thus my reward for trying so hard to Do the Right Thing.

Then, in every sense, I turned my back on my profession and walked away.

I had to. I miss it terribly. To this day I still dream, sometimes, about my old portfolios as I sleep. I wonder how certain workouts came to pass, ones we'd resolved and ones we hadn't yet when I left. In my field I was doing work I was born to do, I felt it from head to toe and out to my fingertips, and so did everyone around me. To lose it was like having a limb torn away from my body.

To protect myself emotionally, to try to keep on course toward my future, toward living my new life, I stopped following banking and real estate news. Today, I have more ignorance of such current events than the average person on the street.

Ah, but sometimes...sometimes, hearing about a bank in trouble, or the discovery of some fraudulent real estate development, my interest would stir despite myself. I'd lift my head up and sniff the air like an old fire horse retired and turned out to pasture, who still ambles up to the gate when it hears the fire bell ring and smells smoke on the air. Desert Cat brings this out in me.

And here and there, I still tell old war stories, or explain some of the workings of banking or commercial property operations or mortgages if someone wants to know.

Especially when Walter asks. Trained as a lawyer, highly experienced in business back in the old country - including in real estate developments - and with one of the most well-rounded educations of anyone I've ever met, Walter has a great background for this subject. When he reads the newspaper and asks me pertinent questions, sure I like to answer him.

With the recent extraordinary events in the world of finance and economics, those questions are complicated ones indeed. And both of us can tell that he's got a very clear grasp of what's going on. Nuts and bolts and big picture too. He says it's because of the time we spent talking about them over our 15 years together.

Still, there are gaps. These are complex matters. Walter's asked me, gently, to reconsider my position, and take the time to follow all that's going on. To talk to him about it, to explain certain aspects having to do with finance. His own great love is the field of politics. To our mutual disappointment, that's not a field I have any interest in discussing, even with Walter. But these days, finance and politics have meshed in a historically significant way. A union, if you will, of two fields that took prime status in our personal backgrounds.

So I agreed.

I really have no idea where this will take me in the end. In order to refresh my own understanding, I'll take a blog walk through some of the basics of finance. I'm pretty sure I'll get irritatingly pedantic on you from time to time. I'll have to start with a brief resume too, because of this: *Yeah, right, what makes you think you know?* Commenters do tend to say that.

For quite a while - in between the usual flower pix and boo-boo updates - there will probably be nothing but musty dusty history discussed here. I'm in a unique position for using the past to help explain the present and future. That past may end up being far more interesting to me than to you, with the events of today burning huge and urgent questions into our everyday lives. I sense the urgency, believe me. I just don't do "fast" much any more.

But I bet you'll forgive me in the end. Oh, I just KNOW you will.

Because this stuff is fun, fun, fun. Scary? Infuriating? Intimidating? Boring sometimes? Yeah, all of that.

And FUN!

I like fun.

This kind of fun? I hope you'll like it too.
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A Little Walk in the Park

2008-10-15T11:04:00.000-04:00

Actually, a little drive through the countryside.

It's very pretty out here. We're technically in the Ozarks, although not in any mountains. Still, the roads can be hilly.

I went driving last Sunday, and had a fine time swooping up and down and around the curves on the little country highways and farm roads I came across. Luckily, such fine terrain is close by our hotel here.

There are no end of handsomely falling-down farm buildings and old silos, all dilapidated, returning to the earth from whence they came...

and theatrically blasted trees and shrubs, evidence of bad storms, awful winters, tornadoes, what have you...

signs of local economic activity...

and a sky telling me it's time to head home.

Still Holed Up in Missouri, NOT All Maudlin About Bane

2008-10-11T11:41:00.013-04:00

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Well. Not much, anyway. Nope. Not me.

No, actually I've been silenced by my hand.

When we went to Sam's yesterday, picking up 17 prescriptions for me and 5 for Walter (the rest are due for refill in two weeks), a certain young, pretty, sweet, smart pharmacy tech spotted me. I was sitting on a Sam's scooter, my foot propped up in the basket as usual.

And she scurried up from the far end of the counter and said, --OH!! Are you the one who stutters in sign language now?--

And I broke into a huge grin, because her memory impressed the hell out of me. Told her so, too. She started giggling and said she told her boyfriend all about me. --Yeah, there's this lady who came in, and she said she got a dropped tendon in her finger so she couldn't sign right in ASL any more, so now she stutters in sign language and I NEVER heard of such a thing in my whole life, and it was actually really funny and we were laughing and laughing!!!-- I was still grinning at her as she ran away again to catch a phone call. I like shooting the breeze with folks at the store.

I didn't have the heart to tell her I stutter with both hands now. Probably that wouldn't seem funny any more. Ah, well...Such is life, eh?

Rheumatoid arthritis is the culprit that got all my health problems going. IMO, anyway. I got it when I was eight years old. My current RA doc still calls this *JRA,* for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Maybe one day I'll remember to ask him why it's still JRA now that I'm 50.

The pix show the brand new flare in my left hand. Walter took some pix for me of both hands together, to compare them. But the thing is, my first two fingers on the right hand already had some RA swelling from a previous flare.

It tends to hit bilaterally, that way; but for some reason, my bilateral flares are often staggered in time. I can't remember when the right hand went, but I think it was several months ago. It stayed a bit swollen ever since.

Not as bad as the left, though, huh? Overnight, my hands have turned into an old woman's hands.

So the thing is, I can't type very well any more. Even if I can work the pain control down to *don't need to scream while typing* level, the stiffness makes the hand not work right. My fingers and thumb simply won't go where I tell them to. Even with all the mechanical techniques and pain meds at my disposal, I still can't get the left hand to function much.

The RA flare is all over my body really, making me sick and slow and generally full of stiffness and pain, which doesn't help matters.

To get the overall pain level down, here's my usual daily routine: elevation, massages, heat, liniment, Vitamin C, MSM, malic acid, Relafen (an anti-inflammatory), Minocycline (an antibiotic with anti-inflammatory properties), guaifenesin, Prednisone, Doxepin, Actonel, Fentanyl patches, Lyrica, Zanaflex, and oxycodone - did I mention I take a lot of non-recreational meds?

Anyway, when the usual suspects helped, but not enough to get that left hand actually typing again, I finally covered it up with two Lidocaine patches. They cost around $400 per box of 30, and aren't covered by my current insurance, so I hoard my dwindling supply like a crazy hurricane lady. But!!! I just found out the pharma company FINALLY put the patches on their Patient Assistance Program. Maybe I can actually refill my prescription! They do help some.

So I throw everything in my arsenal at it, then simply wait for it all to come together with a little reduction in the flare. That's when I can type. I'll try to seize those moments and use them well.

This arthritis flare-up will subside at some point. How much? And when? Nobody knows. In the meantime, I'll ask Walter to look into some voice recognition software. I'll keep working out whatever I can do to keep my life the way I like it.

But this does throw a monkey wrench into it. In a big way. My life has changed again.

Now: Having explained - and thereby, also having a fine excuse to complain - and filled you in on what's happening, I'd like to get back to my irregularly scheduled programming.

Not to mention, my irregularly scheduled observance of not letting life's disappointments intrude too much on my fun.

And there are events swirling around us these days that hold a peculiar, intense, particular interest for me.

Fun. Ah, yes. You may now see a level of morgue humor from me like you never knew existed.

Resting in Peace

2008-09-23T22:03:00.002-04:00

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Excuse the lack of new posts here. We're doing fine. But Bane has passed away, and I'm too sad to talk much yet.

Please send his family your condolences, and your prayers if you pray, or your good thoughts and positive energies if you do that as well. Prayer meant a lot to Bane; he often called upon his *Prayer Warriors* when someone else asked for them, or if he thought they needed them. His family needs all the support they can get.

Whatever you thought of Bane, however you felt about him as a human being, he was a man with a family he loved who needs help. His wife will now raise little Nate and Johnny alone. They're small children, and Johnny is disabled with tremendous medical costs still to come. Bane's final medical expenses are upon them too.

If you can donate anything at all, please go here.

Bane died after long months of illness. He was terribly sick and in a great deal of pain. He suffered. After you die you feel no pain any more. Whatever happens after that, we'll know when we get there ourselves.

Al I can hope for is that he's resting peacefully, and knows how much he was loved and admired. How much we miss him now.
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Hurricane Aftermath is a Butt Busting Budget Buster

2008-09-17T18:39:00.006-04:00

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Yup. Once you start climbing out of your battened-down homes and shelters, you look around and see what the winds blew down and blew away.

Hurricane preps cost some money. But usually you can space those out over time. During winter you buy your extra batteries and flashlights, canned goods, water, bit by bit. You rotate your stock and keep it fresh. That way, almost none of the preps are big, unplanned, unexpected hits on the budget.

When a storm approaches, you might scramble a bit for certain other items. Make sure your vehicles are all topped off with gasoline. Get your meds refilled as far as you can, circumvent insurance company time limits and so forth. And maybe this was the week you had charcoal on the shopping list simply because you'd run out.

Oh! And cash. You want some cash on hand, because you'll probably need to buy things afterwards, and debit and credit cards don't work if the electricity and/or phone lines are down.

Okay. So the bank account maybe got cleaned out, but you're ready. Take a deep breath. Getting ready for landfall takes an amazing amount of work, putting up shutters or plywood, moving outside things inside, picking up anything that could be a projectile. By the time the winds pick up and you have to stop fussing around, you're absolutely exhausted. If you already have physical limitations like both Nancy and her husband do, that goes up by several orders of magnitude. This time, 'Pup had a staph infection too. Lord, those things are sickening under the most ideal circumstances. Just imagine facing a hurricane feeling like that.

And then? After the storm, you emerge blinking into the sunlight of the Day After. Walk around the yard and the neighborhood, take stock of the results. Count your chickens like a mama hen. Oh, my. You were already exhausted before it hit.

Suddenly you realize that along with the fences and trees and maybe broken windows and roof bits and gutters and cars and plants and outside hot tubs and furniture you couldn't fit in the house that got messed up or lost who knows where -

after you've tried hard to figure out who actually owns the porch furniture and plants and hot tubs and things that mysteriously showed up in your front yard -

you look in your wallet and discover the storm also blew away every last red cent you thought you had.

Huh? How? Why?

Because there was no way to predict just what you'd need for cleanup.

Unusual rakes. Shovels. Saws. Lots of strong black garbage bags. 150' outdoor extension cords. Special drill bits. Extra bleach for your water. Fuel for the generators. No one knows how long it'll be before power is returned. These are things you don't necessarily stock up on, because the type and amount of damage simply can't be predicted. You end up needing items you'll never use again for any other purpose.

After several days without, Nancy finally has her power back on. She's online. She's even working! Her crazy bossman opened the tutoring center, and here I was convinced no students would come...and eight of them showed up to get taught. There's something really inspiring about that dedication. 'Pup is on salary, so he's still getting paid too.

But lots of people are out of work until their workplace is usable once again. And that can take a long, long time. Weeks, months. Some never will. That happened to my old primary doctor after his office was destroyed by Wilma. He threw in the towel and retired in his mid-50's. Just couldn't face it any more.

Several days after the power went out, Nancy's neighbor to the west - she calls them the Wests - borrowed a generator from a friend, and kindly offered Nancy and 'Pup a chance to plug in an extension cord for their house. They were finally able to run the fridge again. This isn't just important because of food needs for these two diabetics. 'Pup has medications that must be refrigerated.

And a generator costs money to run. Fuel. The same fuel that was sky-high before the storm, then went worse sky-high after it.

I know how hard hit many of those people will be. That includes those who DID the smart, the adequate, the sensible preps they were supposed to do. These are not ignorant irresponsible idiots who expect everyone else to take care of them. NO.

They're you and me.

They are the same regular Americans who get hit by tornadoes all across the Midwest, or floods most anywhere, or avalanches, or mudslides, or earthquakes, or fires, or volcanoes, or tidal waves. There is no place we can live where we are somehow guaranteed safety from natural disasters. It's just that some take longer to occur, there's more time in between earthquakes than tornadoes and floods and fires.

I love reading Nancy's blog for lots of reasons. Her writing and her intelligence, her humor, her gardens, her perceptions of humanity and of animals, charm me. Dragonflies come sit on her hand the way butterflies and lizards do with me.

I believe she's way underappreciated as a blogger, maybe in part because she also does pay-posts. I read them too. Why? Because they're really good reads. That takes talent, to be given a phrase or subject to mention, and then write an interesting post around it. And I have absolutely NO problem with anyone doing honest work to keep their bills paid. Why in the world should that independent and responsible attitude be viewed as anything but a positive?

One thing that's been entrancing me after the hurricane is the heightened sense of sisterhood I feel with her, beyond what it already was. See, we've now both, personally, done that hunkered-down hurricane thing, and come out to see our beautiful yards trashed, no power, no potable water, no internet, no way of knowing when it'll come back on. Surrounded by destruction on all sides, huge heavy Things strewn about as if they were feathers in the breeze. Your sense of the stability of the physical world and of infrastructure, the order and permanence of society, is tilted on its axis. This sense of unreality marks you and changes you forever.

Way more than that? There's this wondrous unanticipated amazing joy among the people cleaning up and standing in line for ice.

What?!?

Maybe you expect cranky bitchy rudeness out there. Instead, almost without exception, you hear people cracking jokes and telling stories and helping each other with information. The cleanup work is staggering - and people pitch in without even thinking about it. You take a little break from your own mess, go wander around, and when you see a neighbor struggling with a fence they're trying to prop, or a tree they're dragging to the roadside, you just walk up and start working with them. It's not even kindness. It's just what you do.

The vast majority of those people are extremely aware of the blessing of survival. Even if their roof is crashed in and all their precious, irreplaceable family photos destroyed, they look in wonder at themselves and say, My God, thank God, I'm alive, my kids are safe, my wife, my husband, my dog, my cats...

You have to belong inside an experience like that to appreciate it from within. And I feel that sense of wonder, of blessedness, pouring out between the words I read in Nancy's posts.

Nancy has asked folks to donate blood if we can, or send some funds to the Red Cross, food pantries, or the Houston Ike Relief Fund.

I had another thought. Nancy writes about those neighbors to the west who, in that spirit of unhesitating generosity, lent their electricity to her and her husband. They are among the people who are not on salary, who aren't reasonably secure while they wait for their workplaces to open up again.

So I asked Nancy if she could be a sort of central clearinghouse for donations for the Wests and for any others in her immediate area who could really benefit from a little extra help right now. Sometimes I like donating to specific people instead of a general fund. Nancy agreed to take on that role for her neighbors.

So.

Me, I'm no good at fund-raising. I try, and I get some donations, but to do any serious collecting as in a real *drive?* Nope.

LL has an incredible talent that way. Recently, she wanted to collect some donations for an Arthritis Foundation fund-raising walk. In a few days she'd already exceeded her goal of $250. The others in her same group? They'd collected precisely...zero.

I'm happily bemused by this, watching her over the years. She puts on her Mama Bear hat and politely but very firmly kicks butt, and BOOM! All done. The votes are in, the donations topped off, the packs of cigars and beef jerky sealed up and mailed to the servicemen and women overseas...She dusts off her hands and gets back to crunching high-grade numbers at work.

I wish I had that talent. I don't. But since I don't, I figure I have nothing to lose by trying to imitate her.

HEY! YOU OUT THERE! Yeah, that means YOU. And you! And you off in the corner sneaking away, there.

Here's the link to her blog. Find her button - it's in the top righthand section. Hit it. Even $5 is truly appreciated. If I can do it, you can too. I just did it. $10 whole bucks. So GO. Your turn!

HIT IT! HIT IT! HIT IT!

I WILL be checking back.

I'm like Santa. I see EVERYTHING you're doing. So BE GOOD, boys and girls.

heh!

Okay. Let's see if that works.

UPDATE:

Well, this technolame-o has found it impossible to make Nancy's donation button link work here in my post. So I changed the *donate* links above. Now they just go straight to her blog. HER Donate button works just FINE. It's located in the top right section.

GO!
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They Made It Through

2008-09-13T20:43:00.001-04:00

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I just woke up around 8 pm Central. This puts me way behind, hurricane news-wise.

But Pretty Lady let me know that Houston still had power and traffic was moving smoothly. Walter told me earlier, when I woke up just long enough to take my meds, that the damage wasn't as bad as they'd feared.

And just now I checked Nancy's blog, not expecting to see anything new...and found she'd posted! Pix and everything! Wheeeeee!!!

I was pretty sure her power was still off. It went out last night as we were IM'g. It seems it's still off, although she says it tried to come on once. That's an incredibly exciting feeling when you're sitting there with hurricane mess all around, and not sure if it'll be days or weeks before you have power again. It's a tiny but very sweet flicker of hope.

She posted pix of her yard, too. Of course, HOW she did all this is beyond me, your friendly neighborhood technolame-o. Cell phone or something.

Much of her fencing is down, and she's got a huge mess of downed branches and debris that flew in. But an ash tree that a tree-whacker had way over trimmed a few months ago stayed up. She said she's not mad at them any more. heh!

In her neighborhood there are lots of downed trees, lots of debris around. But she only knows of one house that took major damage.

And it's not hers.

Not that I wish it on some innocent bystander, of course. But I'm so very glad it's not hers.

And that Nancy and her husband came through all right.

I am so intensely relieved.
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Hey! People! Come ON!

2008-09-12T23:30:00.004-04:00

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Listen to me. Listen up good.

I've been through...I think it's now 22 hurricanes. I've driven between the trails as I moved from Gainesville to Orlando. Got hurricanes twice in one week in Louisiana. Drove through the eye of Katrina. Live-blogged Wilma as it brought two trees down on the roof and nearly decapitated me with flying glass.

And I'm telling you, Nancy is facing up to a very serious, huge, dangerous hurricane headed straight for Houston tonight. They have complications with water surge that will make things even worse.

Please send her all the prayers, good thoughts, positive energies, and anything and everything else you've got, all right?

This is going to be a long hard night for a lot of people out there. And despite the compassion fatigue and post-Katrina irritation that a lot of Americans have come to feel, no one deserves getting hit with a natural disaster.

No one.

UPDATE:

I almost forgot. Nancy's husband 'Pup just came down with an infection, probably staph. Luckily, he was able to get a good shot of antibiotics, and fill a prescription for more, just as they were hunkering down.

Dealing with hurricane preps when you're the kind of sick an infection like that makes a person? Boy, that's really not any fun at all.

I've been IM'ing with her since I got back from taking a little drive. As of around midnight Central time, she started getting off-and-on power outages as the storm approached, and getting knocked offline each time. Last time it happened she said she'd probably power down the computer next time it happened. She went offline again, and it looks like that's the last update we'll have for a while.

She's tired out, but seemed to be in good spirits, all things considered.

Now for the hurry-up-and-wait. Ike will make landfall in another hour or two. After that, it'll take more time for the eye to approach Nancy's area; she's about 100 miles inland.

That sound pretty safe? It isn't.

I'm hoping they makes it through will relatively little damage. Only time will tell.
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Happy Birthday, My Love

2008-09-11T22:59:00.003-04:00

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Today is Walter's birthday.

Running through my head is an old song, being an earworm today:

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you!

Ah, youth! In the song the singer is betrayed by her boyfriend, who brazenly gives his ring to another girl right at the first girl's birthday party.

Which isn't, of course, why Walter's birthday triggered that earworm.

It's having the anniversary of his birth turn into something far different from the day of innocent happiness it used to be. He's better now than early on, but it's still depressing, I think. It looks to me like he's working hard to stay reasonably cheerful today. You see, though, he's working at it. Because it's impossible to forget what happened in 2001.

Some people say that those who died on 9/11 *gave* their lives that day.

No. They did not.

Their lives were stolen, because they were murdered in cold blood. Soldiers and sailors and cops and such, those men and women give their lives if they die while serving a country and its people. They make a conscious choice to assume that risk when they sign up for whatever service they join.

We all die in the end. If we're very lucky, we live long and healthy lives. But most of us have to grapple with the mundane pain and ordinary terrifying risk of life-threatening illnesses some time along the way.

When Walter had his near-fatal heart attack, he didn't know, at first, what was happening. He called me on his cell phone, and it was only by luck that I answered. By the time it was all over, my father and I had both overstepped our strong family beliefs in self-governance. We'd harassed and bothered the poor man until he finally agreed to call 911.

If he had not, he would have died there in his truck. As it was, it took many months for him to understand and accept how very close he'd come to dying.

And how precarious his remaining life had become.

Me, I want to live forever. When my time comes they'll probably have to drag me kicking and screaming through the door. I don't much care, in the final analysis, how sick I am or how bad things hurt. If I know I still have a chance to get out and see some beautiful flowers and birds and lizards and neighbors, to listen to music, the sounds of the outdoors or the music of the spheres, whatever it may be - if life still holds any pleasures at all for me, I want to hang on and enjoy them.

We're all different. I learned some time ago, and rather to my shock back then, that not everyone feels that way about life.

I've always understood that in extreme pain or loss, or in the face of terminal illness, a person may choose not to continue. My beliefs in our right of sovereignty over our bodies have always held: we have an absolute right to choose when to live and when to die. Choosing the manner of our death - should we be so fortunate to have the opportunity - may be one of the greatest freedoms we have in life.

What startled me was realizing the number of people who simply don't mind dying when the time comes. I wasn't expecting that.

I guess up until then, I'd pretty much grouped people in either the *terrified to die* or *embracing death* camps. I love life. That's one starting point. I hate death. So between those two, you could toss me into the *terrified* camp. It's not really terror, it's more abhorrence, but that's close enough.

Walter always told me he doesn't care. When it's time to go, it's time. My grandmother Helen was the same way; she had a *do not resuscitate* order for years towards the end of her life. I'm not saying I wouldn't do that too, given the right circumstances; but I'd sure wait until I was way far gone first.

When Walter had his heart attack, then learned his remaining life was easily forfeit, he had decisions to make. Want to live on? Quit smoking, lose weight, eat healthier, exercise more. All those happy-talk *Heart Healthy!* things people are supposed to do if they want to live far longer than heart attack patients did in the past.

He didn't care. He said it wasn't worth it to him to give up so many things he enjoyed. He'd rather keep on living as before, and go early.

I gave this a long hard think.

Because, you see, I don't much want to live without him.

And after I'd thought and thought about it, I made a decision not so very different from the one that got Walter to call 911.

I explained how I didn't want to live without him. That if he didn't care about his life, I did. And I laid on every motivator I had at hand.

His daughters in Europe, who have never *met* their father as grown women; haven't seen him since they were 7 and 4 years old. I explained that even though he's truly back in their lives now, still they need to see their father, talk to him in person, spend time with him. Watch his face as he tells them his stories of their childhood.

I told him what my life would be like without him. I used images and language and phrases and concepts I usually keep out of our conversations, even the most serious ones. I was graphic.

Essentially, this was a very selfish thing to do. Pure self-interest. I love him. I want him. I need him.

Meaning I want him to stay alive. For my sake.

I knew what telling him all this would do to him. It would take away his comfort level with his own death. This is not a particularly nice thing to do, when you think about it.

It worked. Now he's conscious of his mortality, and does not want to die.

That hurt him.

His capitulation has given me the greatest gift he can. Every single birthday he sees means he's survived another year, which means I've been able to indulge in the joy of his company for another year, too.

So. Happy Birthday, my love. It's your birthday, the day we usually think about what we want to give you. Instead?

Thank you for the gift you gave me.
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What If Someone Gave a Hurricane, and Nobody Came?

2008-09-08T11:01:00.002-04:00

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After being about 90% convinced we'd have to rush back home in a hurry for Ike, he's moved away and to the west. It looks like we're more or less in the clear.

I'm sorry to miss all the excitement. Sorry, too, that our good luck means someone else's bad luck. Unfortunately it looks like Nancy may be smack dab in his path. I don't want to wish a Cat 3 hurricane on anyone, especially not Nancy.

But, human that I am, I'll also look on what's the bright side for us. Missing Ike means we'll have at least another week or two in Missouri, and some interesting things have come up here.

When I told my dad the name of the town we're staying in, he said, --Did you know your grandmother Helen said she was born there? Her birth certificate lists a little place in Kansas, not far away from you, but she always said she was born in your Missouri town.--

Well. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

I knew she was originally from Missouri, then as a child, moved with her family to Ft. Worth, Texas. I'd been wondering where in Missouri she lived...and now I know.

I've been on an Ancestor Chase ever since.

Our first American immigrant forebears arrived in 1635. They were among the group of 25 early settlers who bought the land for the town of Greenwich, CT from the Indians. If I remember right it cost 24 coats, and I think a few other things thrown in.

So we're listed in all these uber-fancy genealogy documents like "300 Colonial Ancestors and War Service", all over the "Index of the Rolls of Honor (Ancestor's Index) in the Lineage Books of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution," and pretty much every other such outfit there is. A large number of us fought in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, the Civil War - both sides - and so forth. We were among the original settlers of New York's Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, Long Island, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Washington State, and California.

The thing is, though, I've always looked on people concerning themselves with most of this as a rather pitiful pursuit. To feel one's self-esteem or merit should be increased by membership in the DAR or a listing in the Blue Book, for instance, tells me something is fundamentally wrong with that person. They seem to me to completely miss the point of the value of each of us as human beings.

That's why, one fine day when my grandmother Helen was approached and courted by one or both of those organizations - in fact, as I heard it, simply listed in one without her application or permission - she told them, basically, to stuff it. In no uncertain terms, and possibly not in the most ladylike soft voice, either.

I've always been way proud of Helen for that one. And when I tell that story, sometimes I get a shocked reaction. --But why?-- people ask me, bewildered.

Because, essentially, it's tacky behavior. True ladies and gentlemen don't need some high-society patrons and matrons to tell them whether they're good and valuable people. That doesn't come from your ancestry. It comes from your character, what you do in your life and how you treat others.

I got one and only one thing of monetary value from that ancestry: the highest dollar scholarship I got in college was from the Colonial Dames of America. And if I'd needed more than two years to get my BSBA, or if I'd continued on in graduate school, it would have been renewed every single year until I was done. That is a very good scholarship.

Joining the DAR, which along with its *good works* has a rather vicious and nasty history of racism, doesn't make you a better person. If you embrace the sort of snobbery that goes along with that mentality, if you think it makes you a Better or More Important Person than others, I'd argue you probably weren't of good character to begin with, and tanked even more by seeking out acceptance by members of those groups. Have you ever known someone who sucked up to those folks, trying to get in their good graces? It's disgusting. Pathetic.

But the history of that ancestry is fascinating.

Grandmother Helen was a pistol. And in his way, her dad was even more so. I have a picture of him in his cowboy boots. I have the boots, too. So I'll call Great Grandad *Boots.*

Boots was born in Missouri. He ran away from home when he was in 4th grade. We don't know why, but his dad's experiences on the Confederate side of the Civil War may have some bearing on that. Veterans of bloody conflicts aren't always easy to live with, especially if they're on the losing side.

So ol' Boots, with a good dollop of the family wanderlust, worked in a coal mine for a while - and quit when he was the last one to leave a mine just before it exploded. He was in the Spanish-American War. He went on cattle drives along the Chisholm Trail to Dodge City.

He also apparently participated in something called the Cherokee Strip Land Run in 1893. This was a rather amazing and much-storied incident in American pioneer history. There's a wonderful little museum about it in Arkansas City, a couple hours' drive from our hotel.

We went there Saturday, and we had a blast. Took lots of nice pix. Talked to the genealogy researcher on staff about Boots.

I want to do more of that. I've been surfing and surfing, using places like ancestry.com, looking up our name in all the old US Federal Census rolls and so forth. Graveyard name lists. Marriage and birth records.

But some of these documents are best unearthed by visits to places like the county seat of wherever your relative or ancestor once lived.

So, since I'm finally up and about, I wanted to drive around and look, in person, at those places.

And walking where you know one of your ancestors walked 100 or 150 or 200 years ago is quite a feeling. I've always been interested in our historical family doings that way. I had no idea how moving it would be to walk in their footsteps.

I keep wondering: Did they see this old building, do business there? Even work there? Did they like the view from here? What would they think if they saw it now?

I'm glad we'll have a little more time here so I can do that. Join the DAR? Just like Helen I'd rather curl up and die. Walk and look around where those ancestors lived? Priceless.
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Worker's Comp Update

2008-09-06T12:06:00.001-04:00

We have a diagnosis.

Walter's inflammation condition is called *chondocondritis.* It's a chronic inflammation of the cartilage all over one's chest - where the ribs connect with the sternum, at the side of the ribs, and other areas almost up to the neck. It can be triggered by an accident, especially the kind Walter had.

The doctor says it may get better in a year or so. But probably not.

He said Walter could try a special cortisone shot treatment, which requires several hours in the hospital, but it probably won't help.

Considering the circumstances, Walter felt he more or less had to agree to try it. *Not Cooperating With Treatment* is a big no-no in a workers' comp claim.

They scheduled the treatment for Tuesday, 9/2, the day after Labor Day. That morning the doctor's office called to cancel. The poor doc had to get some sort of emergency surgery himself. They didn't say why. They did say they had no idea when the doc would be better and seeing his patients again.

Meanwhile, the employer's one and only Worker's Comp person took vacation this week. He didn't tell Walter though.

They do have a nurse on staff. She said they'd schedule up that shot with another doctor.

When we told our attorney what the diagnosis was, he said there was almost certainly no settlement claim.

What?!?

He said it was a medical claim only - they'd pay to treat his condition as long as needed, to the end of Walter's life if necessary, but that's all. No damages for the permanent condition the injury triggered.

Of course, since the attorney's fee is 25% of any monetary settlement, he's no longer interested in representing us.

We think he's probably right about the claim. Worker's Comp laws are very limited. Another situation that most Americans don't know. Politicians - and their kith and kin - love to pose outrage at *ridiculous* huge Worker's Comp settlements, just like medical malpractice. Most, or maybe all, states have this formal Worker's Comp formula for settlements, and they're almost never more than several thousand dollars.

In Walter's case?

Pain is not a disabling condition.

Not here. Not anywhere, probably.

Even if the pain is such that it prevents him from doing his job. And believe me, none of us want a person driving a big rig with a chronic pain problem in their chest, right where that big seat belt goes. Let's say there's an accident, or something suddenly appears in the roadway, as a big rig is tooling down the road. The big rig driver reacts to avoid causing another accident. When you get a jolt of pain, say from a sudden movement to steer away or so forth, it slows reaction time considerably. That's not safe.

Me, I think this *no monetary claim* business is outrageous. Walter's permanently disabled now, and in such a way that he's lost his livelihood forever. But there's nothing we can do, except argue our case with the employer through the state mediator. He's a decent guy, and he said he finds these particular cases outrageous too.

He also says there's almost no chance of any settlement for Walter's claim.

Meanwhile, here comes Ike...
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Still Holed Up in Missouri, Watching the Hurricanes

2008-09-05T07:26:00.002-04:00

One thing about being a lover of reality is, it's incumbent on us to truly understand what we're like inside. Who we really are.

That's hard to do. Harder to do it without flinching, of course. But just like a technique from our high school creative writing class, it helps if one starts with the positive critiques before heading to the negative ones. There's nothing wrong with knowing what you're good at, and what's good about your own character. In fact, I'd argue there's plenty wrong with being deliberately blind to any of one's attributes.

Another? If we think about it, most observations about ourselves are, or should be, neutral. Who cares if I love broccoli and someone else hates it? I hate it when everyone is all alike. How boring! But it's surprising how often people take differences of taste or opinion as judgmental - whether they're the ones saying *I don't like broccoli,* or hearing *I don't like broccoli.*

This happens to me more than I wish. I choose my words with care, but people are sensitive, and words are too easily misunderstood. In mentioning some difference between us, it makes me sad when it's misinterpreted as criticism, as words or thoughts I never said or intended.

Of course, if someone says *How can you EAT that stuff?!? that is SO disgusting!* - or even, in an irritated voice, *Why do you eat broccoli, anyway?,* I don't think we'd be in error to perceive that as judgmental. Yuck.

So I'm sitting here holed up in Missouri, sickness pinning me down in the room and mostly in the bed, watching our hurricanes go by back home. As much as I love to travel, I get homesick.

Now why in the world are these blasted hurricanes making me homesick?

Revelation!

I think I love hurricanes best when I'm there for them.

When they run around somewhere else, they aren't nearly as fun. They can even upset me. As blogson SeaPhoenix pointed out, it's the glorious power of nature I admire, not the harm it causes people. Seems like those furriner hurricanes make me notice the harm.

After Katrina, which did cause some damage in my little Ft. Lauderdale-area town, we didn't talk much about our own hurricane problems. Except among ourselves. The damage we took from Katrina, in context with New Orleans, was nothing; and we didn't want to hear ourselves complaining one tiny bit about what we experienced, except a little between ourselves. Privately, among family, if you will.

I drove through the eye of Katrina, coming home from ferrying supplies up to Walter when he'd parked his rig in Vero Beach, then was ordered out of Florida by his employer. Barreling home at 80 MPH, the hurricane picked up my car and put it halfway into the next lane - and me, I kept shooting pix out the windshield the whole way. Shooting blind. heh! Fun.

When Wilma dropped the trees on my roof I was still live-blogging the hurricane. The trees didn't come all the way through the roof, or through my home office window, so that was all right. But five minutes later I was nearly decapitated when the other home office window blew, and the glass flew right by my left ear. Lucky for me, the big ancient TV parked in front of the window stopped the glass that would have taken my head off. Saved by a TV.

I got some injuries, that one. And I've realized since then that there's some lingering PTSD in me from Wilma. That's life; I can deal with it. But like everyone else, I can't deal with it if I don't understand it's there.

Emails and comments arrive from folks saying how glad I must be to be out of Florida just now, out of the hurricanes' paths. So they must be people who feel that way themselves, see? Being away would be happier for them, that's how their taste or needs run. So I do appreciate those well-wishes; they're kind, and kindly meant.

But we're all different.

So here I am, stuck in this hotel room, watching these very interesting hurricanes pass me by...and Lord above, do I feel cheated!

TS Fay, making its record four landfalls, doing a twirly loop around Florida. I love the weird ones. Hurricanes have a mind of their own, they go where and how they want to. Forwards, backwards, sideways. Hah! Upside down.

Gustav. I'm so glad it did as little damage as it did. I'm so disappointed I didn't get to sit at home, safely far from the eye, but smack dab in its huge trails, watching the wind thrash my trees around. And now TS Hanna would be fun the same way, although it's not nearly as majestic.

AND I MISSED THEM ALL!!!

This newest one, Ike, is still pretty far out. It's too early to pinpoint its path. But it's a big one, Cat 4 already, and Walter's been thinking it might come visit us at home.

As of tonight, late Thursday night, it's turned enough west to point the center of the cone right at Ft. Lauderdale, making landfall around a week from today.

If that's the case, we'll be heading home, whether Walter's worker's comp case is finalized or no.

So I'm going to make sure we have some fun here in the next few days. The pollen count is starting to drop. The leg infection is still getting better. And there's neat stuff to do out here before we leave.

There's a lot more to this Missouri business than you might think.

Please to Excuse Hurricane Moroseness

2008-09-02T08:21:00.002-04:00

When I say I love hurricanes - which I do - I don't mean I love to see people hurt. There are times when the damage done to human beings overwhelms me, especially in a place where the sweetness of the people stands so strong in my memory.

But I need to set that aside now, and go on in my usual way.

And in case anyone wondered, I never ever forget when it's not about me.
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More Louisiana Heartbreak

2008-09-01T13:50:00.002-04:00

I lived in the New Orleans area for two and a half years, and around Shreveport for a year and a half. Because of my work, I developed some familiarity with most of Louisiana. And like I love to do, I've driven all over the state.

People from elsewhere often ask me what it was like, especially for someone who was raised in the North.

To answer that question takes hours upon hours, and I still can't seem to convey the flavor of it.

So I just give the short version: You fall in love with it, and then it breaks your heart.
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Forgot the Turmeric

2008-08-25T19:06:00.004-04:00

I didn't forget to bring it. I forgot to put it on the list.

That sounds like one of those meme questions: *If you were stranded on a desert island and had a choice of only one seasoning to bring, what would it be?*

I like my little *To Bring* list down there. It's been extremely helpful, and I'll need it again when I go do plaster jackets or poke around the Okeefenokee Swamp or take off for the Keewenaw Peninsula again. So I'll keep updating it as I go, whenever I realize there was something else I should have written down.

Like these:

-Thermometer. Considered it, left it behind. Should have brought it.
-More 2" *Durapore* brand silk tape. It's quite hard to find, usually needs to be ordered, and it's the only tape with glue I'm not very allergic to. I have to tape my duragesic patch on, so I always need this.
-Egg whites. I brought egg salad, but sometimes I need a hit of pure protein for the blood sugar.
-Blood sugar test kit. Brought it, just didn't list it. Something I really don't want to forget.
-Dry mustard.

And thanks for your comments! True Hurricane Preps might have a few more items, but not very many. So any time any of you are facing a Big BugOut, send me an email. I can help others fine tune their own lists too, and have done several times now. Fun!

I try to bring more of the lightweight items with me, and purchase heavier ones at the destination. Weight inside your vehicle makes an amazing difference in fuel consumption. I packed just enough sugar to keep Walter supplied with coffee on the road, for instance. It's heavy, it's cheap, it's okay to spend a few cents more buying it at Walmart in Missouri if we run out, rather than packing cheaper Sam's sugar from home.

Of course, a trivet's never lightweight. But cooking in the Isuzu and the hotel room both, it's been a *Must.* It would have been easy to put a very hot dish on something plastic and melt it; or something less stable, and end up getting burned again. No no no.

We've bought some things here by now. Worcestershire sauce. I finally ran out at home, so I didn't mind buying it here. (Two many duplicate bottles start to irritate me.) Eggs, to put Worcestershire sauce in and nuke up some scrambled eggs. Poultry seasoning. And replacements of our regular foods, just like at home. Ran out of milk and cream.

The gray cooler on the right is a 12V cooler. We bought a $17 converter so we could plug it into the wall socket. The blue cooler needs ice, though. Every day Walter takes the elevator downstairs to the lobby and fills 2 1-gallon ziplocks with ice, double-bagged. That way we don't have to dump water out of the cooler all the time. The ice cooler has the veggies and fruits and so forth, items that don't need as constant a cold temp to stay good. The 12V cooler keeps our meats and dairy fresh.

Today we had ribs, cooked in the tiny $18 *camping* toaster oven; and little red potatoes, baked in the nuker. Salads. For me, a broccoli flower cooked in the nuker with a little water. It came out much better than I expected. Tasty! Nice green leafies to help with healing! An excellent excuse for whipped butter, together with my little bitty allotment of red potato.

Walter was floored. He just didn't believe I could cook ribs and things with the equipment we have here. To his amazement, the ribs and potatoes were delicious. Hmph! After 15 years, you'd think he'd know better.

See how tiny this toaster oven is? It barely holds that meat loaf. When I made the (boneless back meat) *ribs,* I sauced 'em up, wrapped 'em in foil, put 'em on the trays - I have two matching trays, one scarfed from another dead toaster oven - and stacked them, one atop the other. Cooked them at 300 degrees in the tiny oven for three hours. Oh they were good! And oh, did I NEED some hot fresh food!

And just why are we doing this? At the hotel alone, the food savings for us two people are over $100/week, and we've been here 2 1/2 weeks already. That's a good $300 to date, just at the hotel. On the road it's more.

I'm making the meat loaf now. Yes, that's two big entrees in one day, but I had to use up the ground beef and pork. It was a cooler thing. When I get sick I can fall too far behind in life's chores, including cooking meat that will go bad if I wait too long. That's no fun for anyone.

I'm not sure how this batch of meat loaf will turn out. I left out the bread crumbs because my blood sugar's being a nuisance and I'm not healing right. Plus I just ate a potato. I did use lots of grated sweet onion and onion juice, and grated carrot, and an egg. A head of garlic, pressed; Worcestershire sauce, turmeric, poultry seasoning, and salt. And almost as much ground pork as ground round. Hopefully it'll be juicy and tender even without the starchy carbs.

I think my meat loaf is done. Brb.

Yeah, that's done. Well, probly. I believe this requires a taste test to be completely sure.

Oh, YUM! Thank you, Chris!

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Still Holed Up in Missouri, Watching the Olympics

2008-08-25T10:28:00.004-04:00

Well, yeah. I do realize they're over. But having slept through significant bits like the opening ceremonies and closing ceremonies and precious hours of rhythmic gymnastics, I'm still gorging myself on Olympic Experiences via the internet. Which has its limits, but also its extra benefits. Hours of great stuff is never shown on TV.

Today is Monday. Walter has a second appointment Tuesday morning with his company's designated local doc, a thoracic surgeon. After that, we may not be needed here any more. But! That doesn't mean they'll get around to kicking us loose for a while. There doesn't seem to be much emphasis on being efficient versus spending unneeded hotel costs.

That may change, though. Late last week, we hired ourselves a Worker's Comp lawyer. They don't know yet; they'll find out today or tomorrow, after he formally files the complaint, which also officially names him as our representative.

It's a move that usually draws attention from one's opponent.

Walter's employer has been quite decent to its employees in many ways. And they've been run profitably for years. Sensibly.

But in the last couple years both qualities have gone downhill. That's accelerated since a big buyout a year ago. It's perfectly normal in the life cycle of a Cash Cow company, but it's still sorryass behavior, at least to this former businessperson.

The inefficiency in their Worker's Comp department has gotten interesting. They've gone through three nurses recently. Better yet, they've laid off two of their three full-time Worker's Comp employees: the two with significant knowledge and experience (and probably salaries). The third, a mere greenhorn, has been promoted past his level of competence, given an office and a raise and the erroneous belief that he knows his job, and assigned the workload of all three.

This created an atmosphere of ridiculous errors, plus long time periods where Nothing Happens. So we sat here and waited as nobody bothered cutting Walter's checks, or hustling the doc's report that will tell the company what to do with Walter.

The doc sent it in a week after he first saw Walter (August 12), but neglected to sign it. The company nurse kindly, and secretively, whispered to us that he then decided to *add* to the report. On Friday he was still dictating away. Hmmm! Tomorrow is the two-week followup appointment he'd originally recommended. From the looks of things, that second report will say Walter is finished as a driver.

While we never saw or heard about the first report, Walter was finally able to kick loose a check from the company late Thursday. That surely means the local doc did agree with the Florida docs: No Commercial Driving.

As for the two weeks Walter got stiffed? We'd probably recover that in the ultimate settlement. Or our lawyer may make them cough it up sooner instead. He called it *insane.* The greenhorn said it was because Walter *didn't communicate* for a week or two after they'd ordered him to Missouri. The attorney says that the only legal reason they can stop payments is if Walter *didn't cooperate with treatment,* which was not the issue.

He also says he won't even talk to that recently promoted idiot greenhorn. Instead he'll deal, as is appropriate, with the company's Worker's Comp lawyer, who knows and respects the laws, unlike the idiot.

Our attorney tell us he knows their lawyer well, and has other cases he's currently working on against the same employer. From my own legal supervision work years back, I'd guess the two attorneys may even be golf buddies outside the courtroom, and fervent representatives for their respective clients inside the courtroom. Small town relationships like this can get interesting.

Ah, such a comfort to have a lawyer! And such a fine candidate for the job! His dad was a diesel mechanic, his uncle and other family were big rig long haulers, and he's got 25 years in the business. We've only *met* over the phone, but so far I've been impressed with his approach, his knowledge, his style, and his sensibly written contract. I hope he lives up to our hopes and expectations. Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, I'm immobilized. I've got a nasty painful wound on my left leg that doesn't want to heal, and about all I can do is sleep, or lay in bed reading with my legs up on the Foot Elevator. I can't take this particular computer to bed with me, not easily at least. And while the allergies are a little better they're still slamming us both. That's why you haven't heard much out of me lately.

Next time I get up I'll give all y'all a nice Boo-Boo update. Lots of great gory pix, yay! Till then, I'll probably be sleeping.

Slowly but surely, I'll catch up with everyone's blogs and emails. I hope you guys are all doing well.

zzzzzzzzzz..........
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Holed Up in Missouri, Watching the Olympics

2008-08-18T00:40:00.013-04:00

Well. It's been awhile, hasn't it? Forgive me for not updating as much as I should. Life has been moving a mile a minute, while we've been following at a mile a month.

We're okay, don't worry. But it's been so long since I posted, I'd better just start right where I am.

We are here. *Here* is a smallish town in southern Missouri. I've no idea how long we'll be here. We're sitting out the time as Walter's employer trudges its way through analyzing his worker's comp case.

Or not. They're actually short on staff in that department now and seem to be paying him no attention at all. Apparently the holdup is that the local doctor Walter saw last Monday (the 11th) hasn't sent in his report yet. Till then? No income. Not even the weekly worker's comp checks we were getting before. This is probably not legal of them, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So me, I'm holding down costs by cooking our meals here in the hotel room, using our nuker, "camping" toaster oven, and two coolers from home. I'm very glad I brought them, because the hotel doesn't have nukers and fridges in every room yet.

They will, says the Front Desk. They would have already, but the hotel was hit by lightning recently, messing up electricity and delaying the planned amenities upgrades. So they aren't available yet in the single rooms Walter's company pays for, the block of rooms they set aside for truckers visiting corporate HQ.

Here's the view as you open the door. I'm trying to keep the kitchen from being glaringly obvious, just in case an uninvited maid or nosy desk clerk tries to get in here. In this particular establishment they drip massively horrible Scented Products behind them in their wake. Eeeekkk! Not allowed. Do Not Disturb!!!

Here's the kitchen as I, the cook, see it. The kitchen cabinets are on the left.

Do hotels like guests to cook meals in their rooms? Of course not. Does it amuse the hell out of me to do so? Of course it does. It's not just entertaining, it meets my health needs. Hey! Diabetic superallergic here! heh! Besides, if you put fridges and nukers in the rooms, what do you expect? Nothing but hot tea and warmed up leftover pizza?

The dresser is the perfect size to stash my kitchen needs. How convenient! The top drawer has the daily plates and silverware and whatnot.

Next drawer is the pantry. The last drawer has the ziplocks and trivet and cheese grater and such.

There's probably a reason they put all the truckers on the third - and last - floor.

Now I'll give you a mini-update on the last several weeks.

We didn't leave home anywhere near July 25. Nope. We checked in to this hotel on Friday, August 8. It was one of those leaving times when it seemed like everything that could go wrong, did.

We got the Isuzu serviced for the road trip. Then our inverter blew, and it was only sheer luck that kept it from blowing up the car.

Got a new inverter. Decided to set it up with its own battery this time, professionally installed. That took a couple days right there.

I had surgery to remove that Mystery Thing on my left leg. The surgeons did a great job. The leg? Not so much. The incision decided not to heal right, then to get infected with MRSA. More doctor visits, more fatigue.

And we were both so very sick with allergies that tending to these little matters took huge efforts of will.

Road tripping costs more than usual these days, and it isn't just the fuel. Spending money to eat at what's available in restaurants or fast-food joints can carve a big hole in the wallet - especially if it goes on for days or weeks.

Now consider this: Say you're allergic to all foods, not to mention the perfumes, *air fresheners* and cleaning products one encounters at such places. Say both drivers are battling fatigue and multiple illnesses, knowing that stopping to find a restaurant can slam down your momentum to continue after you've sat down and stopped for a while.

Yeah. Generally speaking, it's a good thing to avoid when we can.

On top of everything else, cooking in the Isuzu purely cracks me up. Just as cooking in this hotel room does. So the Great Escape preps had much to do with remaining self-sufficient in our food needs, both on the road and at the hotel.

I was mostly packed and ready to go for a couple weeks before we left. Considering the speed I was moving at, and the incredible amount of stuff I truly need these days, that's rather miraculous right there.

I wonder sometimes...Do any of you reading this remember me from the long-ago days I'd grab my little prepacked bag and hit the airport a half hour after deciding to pop off somewhere? Can you imagine me now, requiring a whole caravan to house me and my necessities?

Remember, if you will, that we had no idea if we'd be here for a few days or a few weeks. This resulted in a sort of Hurricane Preps approach to packing: hope for the best, prepare for the worst. As it turned out, we've been here a week and a half with no end in sight, and have needed virtually everything we brought.

If you don't think that's a bit...odd...then, for your edification and entertainment, I'll leave you for now with a peek at my *Must Have* list of things to bring.

For Trip

Into Isuzu
Sleeping bag
Twin size bottom and top sheets
3 pillowcases
Beach towel
Both small back pillows
Foot stack
Hand pump
Consan
Ammonia
Bungies
Velcro
Kleenex
Route map printouts

Appliances
Coolers
Toaster oven
Espresso maker
Nuker
HEPA machine
Massagers
CPAP
Flashlight
Head lamp

Business & Entertainment
Laptop & wireless keyboard
Air duster
Camera, extra cards, charger & box
Cell phones & charger
AA batteries & charger
Calculator
Binder clips & paper clips
Stapler & staple remover (from car)
Scissors
Calendar from the monitor
Mr. Budget, banking
Bring Citizen's insurance policy to read
Papers to sort, things to do
Sprint booklet
Pix of D&D's
Stamps (reg. & postcard) & envelopes
Books

Food & Cooking Supplies
Frozen smoked turkey leg soup
Frozen baked beans
Chicken
Bread - w
Tortillas - corn & flour
Refried beans
Tuna salad
Egg salad
Ham
Baloney
Beef
Beef base
Sliced dill pickles
Sweet pickles
Miracle Whip
Mustard
Hot sauce
Tomatoes
Sweet onions
Cukes
Any carrots, celery, broccoli, etc. in kitchen fridge
Mangos
Papayas
Apples
Peanut butter
Shallots
Garlic & garlic press
Cheddar
Parm
Gruyere
Jarlsberg
American
Cream Cheese
Yogurt
Tapioca pudding
Choc sauce
Milk
Cream
Tea - k & w
Coffee
Sugar
Splenda
Sprite zero
Coke
Pretzels
Popcorn, popcorn salt
Popcorn bowl
Cheese grater
Aluminum foil
Pam
Ziplocks
Ov-gloves
Trivet
Small dishwashing liquid
Sponge
Dish towel
Plates, bowls, silverware, straws, cups
Cooking knives
Knife sharpener
Small cutting board
Can opener
Gallon of water
Freezer drink cups & drinks

Personal Care
Regular soap
Hibiclens
Betadine
Rubbing alcohol
Washcloth
Bandaging supplies: bandaids, 4x4's, tapes, sleeves, wraps
Creams: Silvadene, cortisone, mupirocin, antifungal, antiviral
Latex gloves
Vaseline
Inhalers
3 weeks' pills & vitamins in packs
Pain patches (Fentanyl & lidocaine)
Next pain patch Rx
Cetacaine
Night splint
Eye drops
Saline
Q-tips
Tweezers
Shampoo
Cream rinse
Hairbrush, comb, bobbypins
Electric toothbrush & toothpaste
Floss
Toothpix
Tooth desensitizer
White strips
Deodorant
Nutranail
Nail clipper
Nail file
Waxing strips
Razor
Backscratcher
Respirator (from car)
Battery-operated personal fan
2 pairs reading glasses
Clothes
Leather flip-flops
.

For DadCat

2008-08-10T22:21:00.000-04:00

Off on an Adventure

2008-07-25T07:04:00.003-04:00

I'm really excited about this. Just changing environments right now sounds like such a treat.

Tediously, crawlingly slow, we're preparing to go to Missouri.

Walter's employer called him in. They want him to see doctors up there, in their home state, their base of operations.

This may lead to his severance from them. The injury was on May 1st, and he's not getting better any more. Getting whacked in his post-open heart surgery sternum with a 200 pound door in a 50 MPH wind left a mark, as they say. Nothing we can see - but there's chronic inflammation in that sternum now. It prevents him from driving commercially; the seat belt and movements needed to safely operate a big rig just don't go together with the pain.

Walter went to his computer a couple days ago and put up a CD of the CAT scan they did on his chest. For the first time, I saw the titanium wires holding his sternum together. It's not a mesh, as I'd thought. Just wires. Eight wires. They're tied around the two halves of his sternum and pulled tight, trussed up like a pork roast; a couple have what look like loose ends dangling, too. On the image they look mean and sharp.

So outside of our happiness at leaving the local pollens behind, we have mixed emotions about this visit. Some trepidation. Some hope. I don't think they'll ever clear him to work again, I just don't see how they could safely do that. Meaning Walter would be rated as disabled from his occupation.

Which has its pros and cons. I want him home, now. Forever. Yet naturally enough, neither one of us wants the income loss. We don't have any idea what that will be.

He's been paying for short and long-term disability insurance, which is good. But his Benefits Coordinator says that's completely different from Worker's Comp. When a worker is injured on the job and can't work any more, their case is settled through the home state's Worker's Comp laws. What those laws are in Missouri, we're not sure. He'll probably get medical care for this injury for some time. Other than that remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, back at the k ranch, we're both still so sick with allergies we can barely function. We should have been able to leave a week ago. Can't. Servicing the car and packing the bits of food and clothes and medical appliances we need has taken us a week so far.

Two weeks ago I had a little surgery on my left leg, to finally remove that blasted Mystery Thing. The surgeons were great. The Mystery remains unsolved: it was a big cyst, in a capsule, but the lab could find nothing pathologically wrong. Today at 4PM I'm supposed to get my stitches out. And before that, we'll do the last bits of shopping we need for our trip.

With any luck, that is.

It seems gas prices have gone down since I last got out of bed.

Heh.

Our 1400 mile drive may cost us much less for the waiting.
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Coming Up for Air

2008-07-18T09:31:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I've been this knocked down by allergies. I'd sort of forgotten what the full impact is like.

It's a strange feeling to lose days and weeks and months of your life to just drifting along.

I sleep. Most of the time I'm in bed a good 12 hours a day, sometimes more. There's no way for me to recall, unaided, how much time has passed; time has lost its sense, its meaning. Trying to remember time by looking back on significant dates like holidays is often the best I can do.

Sometimes I feel like I'm far adrift, tethered to earth by the most tenuous strand, delicate and fragile as a spider's web. Then I hear your comments like voices whispering to me in the ether, and that strand anchors me, it's strong as steel...

I have trouble communicating. Not just because I'm abed so much; it even happens when I'm out and about and moving around in my quiet world. There's something about the onslaught of all this histamine that leaves me, well, speechless.

My voice is often just a squeak, high-pitched and childish, a voice I dislike hearing from my own self, and can't control. Oh, I want my deep crunchy voice back!

But it's not just the voice, either. If someone asks me a question my mind goes blank. Very simple decisions are hard to make on the spot. It's difficult putting words and sentences together, even while writing. Can I do it? Yes. And I do. Then it saps my energy, sometimes for days afterwards. It takes everything I've got.

And here and there, people who don't understand have trouble being patient with me as my mind searches for the words and phrases, as I struggle to put it together and communicate. I give them all I've got. Everything. They try to mask their impatience and their sense that I'm Just Not Trying Very Hard. They've no idea how much they've just taken out of me, leaving me drained for hours or days afterward, nothing left inside me for anyone else or for myself.

I'm starting to come up for air now, here and there. Usually by mid-July the waves of pollen spikes diminish. So far this year? It hasn't changed much.

Many of you also have allergies; I know that for some of you they're severe. Are you doing worse than usual this year? Does it seem like this hay fever season is making you sicker, so far, or is going on longer than usual?

Patience, I tell myself, patience...

I try not to have things that need taking care of, personal business to attend to. But I do, as do we all; and that's all there is to it.

so...gently, carefully, I get myself up and about, slowly...
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Totally Debilitated. And, Cocooning.

2008-07-04T16:28:00.004-04:00

Well, it was great while it lasted. And it did, the positive effects of our little escape stayed with us for two or three days.

But after that? We both were knocked off our feet again, even worse than before. It's been the worst episode of debilitating allergies for either one of us in several years. Judging from past years we may perk up soon, the second week of July or thereabouts. We've been decidedly unperky for weeks now. *Very High* weed pollen counts here every day on The Weather Channel pollen forecast.

So we've been staying in bed.

Sometimes, though? You've got to go out. Doctors. Meds. Food.

On Wednesday, June 25, I did something outside of the house for several hours. I have no recollection of what. Such jaunts expose me to unfiltered air and higher concentrations of pollen in the western edge of our towns. The ventures into unsafe territories wear me out, and during bad pollen times I have to limit them, and not do two days in a row. If I can help it, that is.

This time? Nope. The next day, Thursday, I spent in essential shopping. Meds, some food. The last stop on my *route* was Walmart. I was out of guaifenesin (mucous thinner/fibromyalgia treatment). The microwave had died too, and it's so essential when we're sick and weak and diabetic, it absolutely had to be replaced. I had to take care of these things, or I would have come home. I was at the end of my rope, getting dizzy, fatigued.

Inside the store, I noticed something happening that was vaguely familiar, like a face you used to know well, but haven't seen for a while. In my mental state then - severe allergies give us some cognitive dysfunction - I couldn't place it.

Itching. Redness, warmth, bumps, all over my arms, my ears burning and itching and swelling. The palms of my hands. My scars. Face. The knuckles on my fingers. Itching, itching, burning.

Crap. A serious systemic allergic blowout.

And I had no idea what had set it off.

Inside the car, out in the parking lot, was a prescription I'd just filled at Sam's. I always always always carry multiple Epipens with me. Those are the emergency adrenalin shots that save people from dying from anaphylactic shock or asthma. They need to be replaced every year to keep them fresh, although they usually do stay good for much longer. I used to be bad about replacing them because they're expensive and I was so broke. Now my Medicare HMO pays for most of my meds with no copay.

For some reason, I'd remembered last week that the *current* Epipen was 18 months old, and called for a refill. I picked it up at Sam's that very morning. I hadn't yet taken it out of the bag and put it in my purse.

So I had four or five older pens in my purse, which were probably still good, and my fresh one in the car.

Okay. I was covered if I needed it.

It's best not to use them, though. They're dangerous, they can induce fatal heart attacks.

I sat on the Walmart store scooter and thought. Carefully. I had some business up at the Customer Service counter, so I also told the lady there what was happening, so she'd know.

Then I got a 20 mg Prednisone tablet out of my emergency pill container and chewed it up so it would act fast.

I shopped. I was determined to finish what I went there for. Absolutely determined.

A half hour later there'd been no noticeable change so I did it again.

And finally, finally, my palms and scars weren't itching as much. My red swollen heated bumpy forearms got better.

By then I was in the checkout line. I called Walter to tell him what was happening, and that I was starting to get better and would be home soon, that I was okay to drive.

So. I made it home. And I've been sleeping ever since.

I've had some exceptional sleep sessions before. The fatigue of serious allergies is totally debilitating. After a particularly bad episode like on Thursday, it's even worse. Not only do I sleep a long time and often, I've been told I look comatose. I don't move in my sleep, ever.

Once I slept 17 hours without waking even once. That was a record. Usually I'd sleep 8-12 hours, then get up for two or three, go back to bed for a few hours, carry on that way. Before I took high-dose steroids I often slept 18 hours a day, essentially bedridden, for 6 months a year. As the years went by, my *good* months became fewer and fewer.

Finally I was down to around 2 *good* months per year, and 10 in bed. I hadn't really glommed on to that. I was at the doctor's and Walter was with me, and when I explained how I was spending 6-8 months in bed sick now, Walter gently corrected me. --No. You're up to about 10 months. And the *good* months aren't very good any more.

That's why I finally agreed to take high doses of Prednisone. It got me out of bed, it gave me my life back. I knew I was shortening my life, and encouraging diabetes, osteoporosis, kidney and liver damage, a compromised immune system, bruising, weight gain, a bloated *moonface,* facial hair...and the only thing that mattered to me, the only thing I've ever regretted, was not doing it earlier. If I had, you see, I could have spent much more time with my grandmother Helen before she died.

Anyway...

I set another sleep record for myself this time. Between Friday and Saturday, after the onset of that probable early-anaphylactic reaction at Walmart, I slept almost continuously for 24 hours.

And a whole lot every day since then.

Walter hasn't been much better off. So the good thing I get out of this?

Yes, DC. I've been cocooning with my love, snuggling up and sleeping, napping like cats.

Every cloud that darkens my life has at least one silver lining.
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Oh! And, BTW - Yes, We Both Feel MUCH Better Now!

2008-06-23T18:57:00.001-04:00

It worked.

Walter'd filled the car with fuel around mid-week. He'd already told me he wanted to take us out on a jaunt as soon as we could go. We don't know when he may be suddenly ordered back to work; he's still getting tests done and waiting for time to heal his injury.

The checks are coming steadily now, which is a huge relief. But after such a long period of low to no pay - two months, I think?!, I don't want to know for sure, really - we have a lot of financial catching up to do. That's just ordinary budgeted expenses, outside of the debt we're still working off.

So Mr. Budget did not look upon excursions with a kind eye. Filling the tank on the Isuzu cost $66. I have never paid that much for one tank of automobile fuel in my entire life.

Walter filled 'er up after carefully listening to my accounts of where we stood, knowing that at least we weren't secretly overdrawn or about to have the internet shut off. Walter knew that if the tank was full, it would be a lot harder for me to say, again, --No, we can't afford it yet, maybe next weekend...

He also knew how very much it would mean to me to go out, especially where we went.

Can you tell how much I love that man?

Picture us staggering around allergic Sunday morning, fighting to stay awake, doing better or worse as our allergy meds freshened or wore off, or new waves of pollen came through like they do. Carefully parceling out our necessary belongings, putting them by the front door, not daring to open it until the last minute. Open the door and pollen comes in...

Earlier in the morning, Walter was a little better off than I was. He cleaned out two air machines; then he went down, and I perked up a bit. Good. I fed him. He was getting so fatigued he was about to pass out, and surely would be in no condition to drive. Lunch woke him up a little.

Meantime, at long last, I packed the car as quick as I could. I turned the key in the ignition and ran the HEPA and ionizer machines in there for a while.

It was already early afternoon by then. You see how pokey we get? Both of us are seriously experienced travelers. Despite this being an unusual type of trip, it shouldn't have taken more than an hour or so to get going. I wanted to bring some odd items as a sort of practice run for camping out in the Isuzu. So maybe two hours packing, maximum.

Not five.

Here's one of those times I think, --This is why they call it *disabled...*

I came back in and told Walter, --Ride shotgun, I can drive. Just getting into a small space with both air machines going will help us.--

Between the cleaned air and trading environments with the Everglades, we're both doing much better today. Me, I slept until late afternoon, and felt pretty vigorous when I woke up. Walter's eyes are almost normal, not all black and purple and swollen shut. He's been able to stay awake all day. He got up to get his chest CAT scanned this morning (hooray!).

I got up at the same time to take my AM meds, then fell asleep in the office chair. When he came home around 11 AM, I thought it was 8:30 and he was just leaving for his test. Nope. It was time to wake up, take my noon meds, and go back to bed.

I woke up refreshed. Been awhile since I did.

We have no idea how long the good effects will last. But we'll be sure to enjoy the hell out of them while they do.
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This Place of Unearthly Beauty

2008-06-23T01:30:00.004-04:00

We went to my all-time favorite place in the Everglades, off US 41. I had a need to go a-swamping, and so we did. The trees you'll be seeing are mostly cypress (bald and pond cypress). But what I love just as much as cypress are the plants that live upon them. Here, it's forests of bromeliads. And orchids, lichens, ferns, all sorts of beautiful plants.

It's one of the only places I've ever been where a swamp looks like the *Swamp* scenes from the movies.

The water is like a mirror. It's so reflective it's hard to tell where the surface is sometimes.

Those bushy looking plants growing up the trunk of the cypress tree are bromeliads. Many are way bigger than your head.

Plants that live on other plants are called epiphytes. They don't hurt the host plant. Here, it's not just bromeliads and orchids that live on the trunks of these trees. The ferns and lichens and such do too.
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We Were Entertained By All Sorts of Critters...

2008-06-23T01:23:00.003-04:00

Well, hello!

heh! Everybody knows alligators can't read.

I have to look this one up. Maybe a Painted Lady?

Zebra longwing. Perfectly common down here, but I never ever get tired of them.
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This Campsite is Taken. Hey!

2008-06-23T01:04:00.003-04:00

The deer are slightly skittish, but not enough to leave. They're really almost tame.

Which, as the rangers tell us, is not a good idea. This preserve contains about half the state's population of panthers. Those are very big cats, folks. The sign explains how you shouldn't jog alone here, or let your toddlers or dogs run around untethered.

nom nom nom! Oh - the reason it's not a good idea for the deer to be so tame is because deer are the panthers' favorite dinner, along with feral hogs. If dinner's tame, it'll hang around humans, and the huge cats will follow. So please don't feed the deer and hogs. Thank you.

There are giant grasshoppers here too, lubbers and such. Probably you can feed them all you want. But the signs don't say.

This bird, and his wife, were vastly entertaining. More about them later...
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Hoooo-EEE!!!

2008-06-22T09:21:00.000-04:00

We are both incredibly allergic here. The pollen counts are skyrocketing and Walter is getting the extreme symptoms I used to live with daily. Back before the high-dose steroids, that was.

Most people wouldn't understand these are symptoms of extreme allergies. I'm watching him and it's like looking into a mirror. I've talked with other superallergics, but almost never seen one in the middle of a bout.

We were walking through the house to the laundry room. He suddenly wavered, recovered his balance, tried to take another step, and his foot went way off to the side instead of in front of him. Like someone who's had too much Happy Hour.

I told him, --Put your hand on the wall. Something solid. Stand up as straight as you can: line up your bones. If you touch anything at all it'll help you balance.

Around his eyes, he's so swollen and purple it looks like he was in a bar fight after that too much Happy Hour.

He's sleeping constantly. Gets up for an hour or two, can't do anything, can't stay upright, goes back to bed. Taking Zyrtec helps some, for a while. It makes his nose leak like crazy.

Fatigue. Dizziness. Loss of balance. Extreme sleep. Weakness. I ask him a question and his mind goes blank.

Walter was always allergic. He gets these reactions to food, like eggs, where his skin makes huge patches of hives, nearly covering his back and thighs. But this? This is new.

Long ago I wondered if some obscure virus may play a role in this superallergic condition. If so? He caught it from me.

He's been getting more and more like me in his allergic reactions the past few years. I'm far more protected now than I was seventeen years ago. There's a reason I take all these pills. It's not for recreation, believe me.

He doesn't take those allergy meds, and most of them are barred to him because of his heart condition and the meds he takes for that.

Bear with me. I'm here. I'm sleeping too, most of the time, just not as much as Walter.

Right now we're contemplating running off for a nice recreational drive. If we pack the Isuzu with HEPA air machines, a drive will probably do us both a lot of good. Just going to another area, not even far away, can help calm down these reactions. Walter says whenever he leaves Florida he's normal again. I know this is a factor in his desire to go back to work.

Meanwhile...I've been hearing from some of you, too, about exceptional allergic reactions, hay fever, like that. Your dizziness and fatigue are part of it, yes.

And I've got a stack of unanswered comments and emails about other stuff. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

I'm okay. I'm used to this. Just slow, for now. I'll get there though.

I always do.
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Happy Birthday Dad! Oh. Happy Father's Day Too!

2008-06-15T21:46:00.016-04:00

My father was a Texan, although you'd never know it to speak to him. A Californian as well. He moved all over the country in his childhood and youth. Granddad was a college tennis coach, then became a civil engineer. A Navy lieutenant during WWII. After the war, when Granddad moved up into high-level defense construction as a civilian, they did some more moving around.

But when Dad was a little boy, they stayed put long enough in Texas that he kept a pet spider for quite some time. It wasn't in a container; it was free. It had spun a web between his bed's headboard and the wall. He feels this was very effective for keeping his mother out of his room. Hey. Kids need their privacy.

That spider was a black widow. Now you know one reason I've loved black widows all my life.

Dad's mother, my Helen, was an artist. Oh, she was a pistol, Grandma was. Outspoken and funny, intelligent and flirtatious, intimidating as all get out. She could charm the eyes off a snake, and had a pilot's license too. A true Texas woman. Besides all their family dogs, she tolerated Dad's many personal pets, his scorpions and spiders and I don't know what-all. Well, she better; she kept pet rats as a girl, herself.

One day the movers came, packing the family up for yet another relocation, and they went by a little box Dad had put on the dining room table. The lid of the box opened up. Out came his collection of pet tarantulas, crawling over the dining room table, escapees.

That was one of their more interesting household moving experiences.

A lover of science and medicine and biology all his life, Dad went on to medical school, became a doctor, helped deliver his own kids, then went into pure microbiological research - his lifelong dream. It's been an interesting ride ever since.

It's perfectly common now to see extraordinary things; we take them for granted, watching the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. But when I was small, viewing any microbial life was an unusual privilege for adults, not to mention kids.

Dad the Scientist had access to one of those rarities called an electron microscope in the early 1960's. Looking through those eyepieces, seeing things so small that almost nobody in the world had even dreamed of them - that fascination has never left me. They were black and white images, not color. But for the first time in history, with an electron microscope you could see certain internal structures in very small microbes. Particles of minuscule life that had only been theorized until then were actually being viewed. And as a small child I got to see some of those first-ever sights.

Our parents used to take us up to Mt. Baldy when we were kids. We'd get pond samples and bring them home to look at all the pond life through the microscope. Oh, it was beautiful! Diatoms and paramecia and amoebas and protozoa and I don't know what all, swimming around doing their bit. You could watch them move, propelling themselves about with their little flagella or whatever their usual means, eating, engulfing fellow denizens in great maws. They blithely went about their business of life in the tiny universe they dwelled in - a partial drop of water on a slide.

Dad's done a lot of tissue culture, meaning he grows tissue cells, human, mice, rat, whatever the need. The containers the tissue cells live in are kept in an incubator at just the right temperature, and fed just the right medium to grow and reproduce as fast and healthy as they can.

They need some TLC from time to time. For example, the containers may need periodic rotating to bathe all the cells in the medium. These days that's automated, using roller bottles. You can see how well they're doing by simply counting a sample, to see how their numbers increase over time. Perhaps adjustments in temperature or food are called for. So the ritual of counting cells by putting a sample, or the whole bottle, under the microscope is a familiar one. A nurturing activity, checking the little ones to see how they do.

So is mixing medium. Like most foods, it's a lot cheaper and better if you make it yourself. Dad gets the ingredients and mixes up big batches, often in a 5-gallon water jug. Different foods have different mixing procedures. Generally, though, they take several steps that include putting a big bottle of stuff on an electromagnet plate. Inside the bottle is a piece of steel. Turn on the electromagnet, and the steel inside the bottle rotates fast, mixing the medium.

Add some more stuff and mix again. That step may involve a more gentle mixing procedure: rolling the big bottle across the floor. I've had the pleasure of helping in that one. Dad stands across the room, puts the big bottle on the ground, shoves it over to me with his foot, and I send it rolling back to him. Ah, fun! We roll it back and forth until he deems it Mixed Enough.

The incubator temperature can be tricky. No matter how much care is taken with the incubator room, with its thermostat, its HVAC system, it can still be just a tiny bit off. That tiny bit can mean days of delay in cell reproduction, and thus in production of whatever he's after. Sometimes the solution is a wonderfully simple one: add a light bulb. The tiny increase in heat by turning on, say, a 40-watt bulb can keep the temperature exactly right.

Dad has accomplished great things in his life. If I gave you his name to google, you'd find some of them. Part of why he was able to do these things is because he's always been a person to think *outside the box,* as they say. He took great care, raising us kids, to teach us to follow this approach as well. To think for ourselves, no matter what others say. To be truly independent, and true to ourselves. It's why he mixes his own medium. Why he rolls the bottle across the floor. Why he added a light bulb in the incubator. Why he had a pet black widow spider.

This is creativity, invention, independence, individualism. I feel all this when I walk into his home turf - his lab.

I want you readers to have some idea of what that home turf looks like. To see, perhaps, some of why I love the place, and love to see my father in it, doing his work. So I'm publishing some pix from the very many I took when I visited the lab last year.

I really don't know what would have happened to me without my father's teachings. Did we butt heads? Oh, you bet. At times, very badly. But the older I get, the more I realize how much both my parents gave us kids, gave me. And how difficult I must have been to raise. There are no parents in the world who can raise children without ever making a single mistake, without ever doing their kids some wrong, large or small. If we had it to do over again, I'd do certain things very differently, and I've no doubt my parents would too.

It takes a special father to raise a *gifted* child. Dad...In those long ago days, lashing out in anger, I told you plenty about the negative parts. I think, I'm pretty sure, I left out thanking you for the good things you gave me, for the strength to deal with the unusual brain and heart I was born with. And for the wonderful times not just out in the world but also in your lab, that place of peace. I want to thank you for all of that now, and to tell you how sorry I am for how very long it took me to say so.

Today is Father's Day. My father was, and is, an unusual dad. Lucky for me, an unusual dad is exactly the kind I need. I would not exist without him, of course. But you know I mean that in more ways than just me being born - with Doctor Dad helping.

His own birthday is very close to Father's Day. This tends to confuse me. Dad, once again this errant daughter, despite carefully watching the calendar, neglected to call you on the Actual Day. Probably, in fact, slept right through it. So I hope you'll accept this as a Double Happy Day, and forgive me my transgression there.

I love you, Dad. Happy Father's Day to you. And happy birthday, too.

Welcome! Come Into the Laboratory.

2008-06-15T21:30:00.006-04:00

NOTE: I'm publishing these *backwards,* with the first in the series at the top of the scroll, not the bottom. There are 6 separate picture posts in this series, with four pix in each post. (This is because I'm too lazy to figure out how to do more than four pix in Blogger once again.)

We're going to take a walk through the lab, and see some of the special things it holds. The vast majority are things I can't begin to identify, sry! But some I can. Enough, I hope, to take you on a reasonable tour.

Click away, embiggen to your heart's content. Some of these pix are more blurry than I like, and the subjects are visually complex. Embiggening is good for you!

And just in case you wondered: Dad knows exactly what, and where, everything in here is.

This is the view that greeted me as I walked into Dad's lab last year. I hadn't been in this one before. They never look the same to me, but I always like them all.

There's always some Wonderful Mysterious Glassware.

All KINDS of glassware. Some look exactly like you'd expect them to.

And there's usually a fridge holding bottles of mystery substances.

Many Mysterious Bottles of Substances, Actually.

2008-06-15T21:20:00.004-04:00

Some come labeled by Official Scientific Companies.

Some make you think you're at the pharmacy.

Some are hand-labeled concoctions that only a father might know for sure.

Some are perfectly sensible to the regular visitor: *Antibodies.* I like antibodies. Well, most of them, anyway. The good ones, I want more of.

...And Some Perfectly Recognizable Ones.

2008-06-15T21:19:00.003-04:00

One day, Dad required some pure alcohol, as scientists often do. He had a choice. He could fill out a huge wad of requisition forms for the government project he was working on at the time, then spend scientific market price for it.

Or, he could run down to the liquor store and get some Everclear, cheap and fast.

Works that way with distilled water, too.

Slides! How's that for Regular Lab Stuff?

And other Important Ingredients and Glassware. Tea and mugs. Not for the microbes. For the microbiologist. And any human guests who might wander in.

*urp!*

Lord above. Those little bitty cells sure consume a lot of Everclear. You'd never think it to look at them. Hollow legs.

One Takes One's Ingredients, Measuring Means, and Implements...

2008-06-15T21:12:00.007-04:00

Ummm...I dunno what. Scary looking though, huh? heh!

A beautiful classic Laboratory Scale.

More heavenly Special Glassware, tiny this time; a perfectly recognizable syringe, and, oh, other stuff.

I love the names of some of these products. Labquake! Doesn't that instill a strong sense of confidence, that this thing can do its quaking Exactly Right?

Just because it's a highly scientific product doesn't mean they know nothing about marketing.

Apply Such to Various Mysterious Machinery...

2008-06-15T21:07:00.005-04:00

I really don't have the faintest idea what this is.

Or this.

The toaster-looking thing? Nope. Dunno.

This either.

I believe one of the above may be a centrifuge, but I'm not sure.

Add One Dad, and You Get...Tissue Cells! Yay!

2008-06-15T19:17:00.003-04:00

One bottle in the microscope, with Dad having a look. The upright bottle there is another one. See the medium in the bottom? It's so pretty.

These are the incubator shelves, with some roller bottles on them.

And...the incubator room itself. With its light bulb.

Sometimes this is simply the right room to use. Hey. Whatever works.

Checking more little kittens under the scope. Everybody looks healthy and happy today. Good!