And Then There's This....

I went to see my neurologist yesterday, and we talked about the fact that my headaches are *not* actually getting better.  I had kept stubbornly insisting that they would.  After all, I am out of my former negative work environment now, and all the bad stuff there is out of my life now.  Why wouldn’t things be getting better?

He started asking me some questions, and I knew where he was headed with it - depression.  I immediately bridled at the idea, but then he told me that whatever has screwed up my brain to make me prone to migraines also means I am prone to depression. His phrase was that the two conditions frequently “walk hand-in-hand.” He is putting me on a very low dose of an antidepressant to help with the migraines since the same chemical mechanisms are involved.

I left his office, and I felt like an utter failure.  Everybody I know is on antidepressants, I think.  Hell, just the teachers are probably keeping the American pharmaceutical industry afloat.  Two other doctors have talked to me about going on them, especially after my surgery and when my stress levels were so high my blood pressure was spiking to dangerous levels.  I have resisted.  I kept feeling like, you know, my life isn’t so bad.  I have a family that loves me.  I have a home and pets and friends.  How can I be depressed?  What right do I have to it?  (Which makes no flipping sense, I know, but that's how I felt.)  I need to just pull myself together is all. If I just refocused myself or change this external factor or add this new routine, I was going to be fine.  

But it really hasn’t been, and I am increasingly thinking that maybe I'm not.

I was sick about it all day, mad and looking for some way out of what I saw as a personal failing.  But I kept thinking about it.  I thought about the questions he had asked me.  Was I withdrawing from people?  Had I lost interest in things I used to enjoy?  Was I tired all the time?  Was my sleep irregular?

Yes.  Yes, yes, and yes.

I looked up a list of symptoms online.  I was really doing it more to prove to myself that this is *not* depression more than any other thing at this point, that while I might have a few of the signs that there were certainly others much more serious that would show I was not dealing with this. This is just life.  This is just teaching life.  This is just life after 40.  Whatever.  Yeah.  That didn’t work at all.  Flipping internet.

Am I frequently irritable?  Yes.  Apathetic?  You bet. Mood swings?  Like a damn carnival ride. Panic attacks or anxiety?  Checkity-check-check-check.  On and on.

And it’s been this way for about three years now that I can objectively measure.  Maybe longer.  

That’s when it hit me like a hammer.  Is this what’s wrong?  Has this been why I never seem to get anything done now, why every weekend I am just on the couch reading or sleeping?  I haven’t applied for an out-of-country summer program in a couple of years.  Thinking about the effort involved makes me too tired to fool with it.  I make plans to clean the house, to make sourdough, to start a stained glass project, to do anything but sit with a book, and by the end of the day, I find that I simply haven’t, but despite all that nothing, I’m just as tired.

I don’t write anymore.  I don’t keep up with my friends.  I don’t craft anymore.  I don’t workout anymore.  I don’t practice the piano anymore.  Everywhere except at school, which oddly seems to be less affected by this, I just sort of….am.

Yesterday, I was angry about it.  Just one more stupid thing wrong with my stupid body, just one more way nature has found to mess me over. When I woke up this morning, though, I felt a little differently.  If this *is* the problem (and remember he is giving me a low, low dose of the medicine to help with the migraines), is there then hope?  Can I get back to a place where I don’t have to feel so bad all the time?  Can I get back to a place where I do things again?

I guess we will just have to see.

Spring Comes Again

I haven't written in five months, almost to the day.  It feels in a very real way like I've been dead or sleeping since October.

Something huge happened with a member of my family's health, and without even meaning to, I somehow shut down all the non-essential functions.  I was like a tree when the winter came.  I dropped my leaves and pulled inside myself to ride out the season.

The last big part of what was going on ended this week, and even though there are still many things we know are coming and other things that may develop, it's as if I felt the world shift again, all those things that had gone out-of-balance slipping back into place.

This week, I cleaned my house.  I took care of online tasks I had let go for ages.  I replaced several items that had gotten so damaged that they no longer functioned.  In short, spring has come, and the world is full of green again.

Everything got put on hold except the absolutely necessary. Life had been a cycle of work-home-sleep-repeat.  I've neglected everybody terribly.  I have had one conversation I am more or less ashamed of and will have to set right.

Wilco said it best:

How can I warn you when my tongue turns to dust like we've discussed?
It doesn't mean that I don't care
It means I'm partially there
You're gonna need to be patient with me

How I hope people, especially those I love, will continue to be.

Laughter

Monday, I went to my slightly delayed six-month checkup with my neurologist.  The nurse took my blood pressure, and when she told me what it was, I felt myself grin.  I couldn't stop it.  I asked her what it had been the last time I came in, and she checked the chart, told me.

The grin got bigger.

In six months, I've gone from running numbers so high my doctors wanted to put me on blood pressure medicine and/or some kind of anti-anxiety medicine to textbook normal or better.  That's worth grinning over, I think.

When I'd gone to see them in January, I was having at least two debilitating (i.e. - medicine required to stop them, somebody had to come get me from school because I was too sick to stay, too sick to drive) migraines a week.  I felt horrible all the time.

In the last month, I have had only two migraines at all, and both of those were during that last horrible, horrible week at my old job when so many bad things happened.

Last time, the consultation I had with the neuro nurse took a long time.  It was fairly solemn as we discussed the possibility of daily maintenance medicine to stop the headaches again, all the old terrible things like Topamax - which steals my words and my personality - and newer variations - some that would spike blood pressure, some that might make me lose both weight and hair, others that would definitely increase my appetite.  This time, I spent more time laughing and chatting with the nurse practitioner than we did discussing my treatment options.

My God, what a difference a change can make.

I can even give you the date things started to change.  I have a picture taken that day.  I was in a new Shakespeare First Folio scarf that I'd bought for the 400th anniversary celebration.  That was the day I decided to go take a chance and talk to the administrators at what would become my new/old school.  That was the day I finally admitted to myself after that conversation that change was possible.  I remember driving home down familiar roads talking to my mother.  I can remember feeling the first tiny tendrils of hope stir.

It's grown since then. Once I made the official decision to leave my old school, I found the number of migraines I was having dropped off sharply.  Other alterations followed.

I laugh again now.  I noticed it the other day.  I was walking Stella around the yard on one of her many daily jaunts, and she did something ridiculous, clown that she is, and I started laughing.  It felt a little strange, and I realized why.  I am not sure when it stopped, but I haven't laughed at things in a long time.

Now, I snicker at Stella and Tybalt's semi-stealthy stalking of one another.  I chortle at stupid puns on FB.  I laugh sometimes until I cry at geeky pins on Pinterest.  I get amused with myself and the guys I play with on Sunday nights when I can't get my crap together with the bass.  There's humor in the world again, and it feels so good.

Before those of us who were leaving got out of  my old school, there were some hateful comments made regarding the fact that I'm changing schools.  Much of it was just the usual backstabbing crap that went on constantly, but some of them were bold enough to say it to our faces.  Certain people were quick to tell me and the others who left to go where I'm going that nothing good awaited us because "you know how they are out there."

I really don't.  Not anymore.  Even though I graduated from the school to which I am returning, I haven't had anything to do with it for more than twenty years, so, no.  I don't know how they are. That whole statement infuriated me.  Some of the very same people who were so fast to judge based on a stereotype would follow up in the same breath with some complaint about how our school received criticism based on stereotypes, too.

Nothing is ever what we think it is from the outside.  I am certain there are differences.  The population makeup is different in percentage of ethic group, in balance of socio-economics, in setting (rural v. urban), and most importantly, in size (my new school will be about half the size of my old one).  What I refuse to believe is that people who do not live there, who do not have children attending that school, who do not teach at that school or know anyone who does, who likely have never seen the campus except for the sporting fields, are reliable sources of information about it.  This holds true for every place in the world.  We don't know unless we go to see it for ourselves.  If humanity could just hold on to that one idea and practice it, I wonder just how much ridiculousness and cruelty we could end?

I am sure there are going to be challenges, sources of frustration, things I would want to change.  As I've told people before, though, "There is crap everywhere.  You just have to figure out what of it you can deal with and what of it you need to get away from."  I figured out the last bit the hard way.

And, to be honest, even if the naysayers turn out to be right (which I do not anticipate happening), I still needed to go through the process of making this change.  I feel better, more hopeful, more at peace with myself right now than I have in....longer than I can remember.  I sing with the radio.  I write stuff.  I take care of my house, my self.  I cook dinner for myself, for my family.

I laugh.

If nothing else is ever gained from this change, by God, I laugh again.  That is enough.

Mammogram

Phoebe: (About waxing) This happens to be a pain no man will ever experience.

Chandler: I don't think you can make that statement until you've been kicked in an area God only meant to be treated nicely.

~ Friends, "The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break"
_______________________________________

I had my very first mammogram today, and I can't stop laughing.

I realize this is quite likely not a normal reaction to this process, so I will try to explain.

When I visited my OB/GYN for my annual checkup in January, he looked at my chart and said, "You're turning 40 this year?  It's time for your first mammogram."

My immediate sarcastic mental reaction was, "Well, yay!  More fun for me! Forty keeps getting better and better. Whoo-hoo!" Outwardly, I just smiled the little Noh smile I use when I'm trying to keep that inner voice from coming out of my mouth and into situations where it isn't appropriate.

Since it was my very first appointment, my doctor's office booked it for me.  As with everything from kindergartens to hair dressers, there is a "right" place or doctor that everyone wants to belong to, and so getting in is tricky.  I was sent a time, I filled out my sub paperwork accordingly, and I showed up this morning.

I was a little nervous as I think most people are when they're having anything new done at a hospital.  I had talked about the experience with my mother, so I had some idea about what was coming.  I couldn't get too stressed out about it, however, because of all the other far more invasive and painful procedures I've endured.  I was pretty sure there would be no needle, speculum, or heavy pain medication involved in what was ahead of me this time.

My radiologist was wonderful.  She explained everything to me in advance and made me feel as comfortable as any person in a paper gown open up the back can feel.

Next, I was bestickered.  To make sure certain reference points were clear for the doctor who would read the results, small adhesive markers were applied to me.  I kept thinking, "These things could at least be sparkly or have a Wonder Woman insignia on them or something."   I stepped up to the large ecru machine and the fun began.

Adjustments had to be made to the machine itself.  For those of you who don't know me IRL, I am absurdly tall.  Most of the time, I don't notice this at all.  I've never been short, so it's just normal life for me.  Sometimes, though, the reality of my height sneaks up on me in unexpected ways.  Today was one of them.  To be on the right level to scan the area in question, the machine had to be raised probably 18" from where it was previously.  The radiologist was petite.  This meant that once the machine was in the right position, she had to stand on her toes to get everything arranged properly.

Getting all the angles to make sure a full scan was completed involved having to tilt the scanner and reach around it in different ways.The process of having a mammogram struck me a little like getting a mugshot always seems to be in police shows, "Turn to your right.  Turn to your left.  Face the front." While I wasn't holding a placard with my name and id number in front of me, I had to do a bit of moving to make sure a comprehensive baseline of my breast tissue could be established.    As I was standing there with my cheek pressed against the machine, my arm wrapped around the side, eyes focused on its Fuji logo and breath held to prevent movement that might spoil the exposure, I couldn't help but think to myself, "I bet there is no test any man has to go through where they repeatedly have to hug a piece of medical equipment and then have delicate portions of their anatomy mashed flat."

The whole thing was much less painful than I had feared and fairly brief, too, as medical moments go.  I was putting my t-shirt back on and walking through the labyrinthine corridors of the hospital's imaging center much more quickly that I had expected.  I thanked my radiologist for an experience that was, if not exactly something I want to do on a daily basis, actually as comforting and well done as any such moment in life can be.  Then it was out into the sunshine of a blooming spring morning and back into my car to drive home.

As I hit the interstate, I started laughing.  It hurt.  Portions of my body that were, as Chandler says above, only intended by God to be treated nicely had been squeezed and compressed between two hard layers, after all.  I came back to the thought I'd had earlier about the differences in health care issues for men and women.  I wonder if there is anything men go through every year that even compares.  I don't know who'd I'd ask, but I'm curious. Through the "compressions," the held breaths, the gentle whirring of the machine in its processes, all I had been able to think of was that this is what it means to be a mature woman.  We find ourselves in moments of vulnerability, discomfort, and absurdity.

It's not a complaint exactly.  I am fairly sure that the twin processes women go through to ensure the various portions of their reproductive system are not trying to kill them, as unfun as these examinations are, actually create in us a kind of perspective.  Whether our feet are up in stirrups or we're hugging the mammogram scanner, maybe these moments center us and strip away trivialities.  They make us own these physical incarnations of ourselves whether we are comfortable with them or not, whether we've been taking good care of them or not, whether we find them a source for rejoicing, a source of dread, or a curious mixture in between.  We have to be totally honest about ourselves and with whatever healthcare provided is present, at least until we can put our clothing back on, pass through the heavy doors that always seem to separate the land of the waiting room from the land of the procedure, and re-enter whatever our lives outside that place may be.

I guess I could be sad about being older, about being of an age where routine screenings become required.  Instead, I found laughter in that radiology room, a sense of gratitude that issues from my past were settled now, a sense of comfort that I have medical professionals looking after me who will help me take care of any new ones that arise.

Tired

Unexpectedly, Dad was able to come home this evening.  I am thrilled to have him out of the hospital, but getting him in the house was more than challenging.   Who ever would have thought that four simple stairs would create a problem of that proportion?  It took my uncle, my cousin, my mother, and me to get him in. God as my witness, if I ever build a house, it will have at least one entrance that is flat on the ground or easy to "ramp" by throwing a piece of plywood across low, low stairs.

Part of it was because no pressure can be put on his chest.  That means he can't be pulled by the shoulder, can't grab and pull with his arms, can't really do much except hold his heart-shaped pillow and let us get him up by creating a type of sling using his shirt.

He did the first step from the car and the first of the four steps fine, and then the day caught up with him and his knees went to jelly.  We managed to catch him, something that isn't easy to do if you're trying to dodge a giant chest wound, a huge wound on one arm, and so on.  We managed to get him up the stairs to the deck rail, and after that, into a rolling computer chair.  Eventually, we got him in the house.  Then we sort of reversed the process to get him from the computer chair into his big comfortable living room chair.

Once we'd gotten him settled, Mom had to go back to town to pick up all his prescriptions. He came home from the hospital with four pages of medications, some old, some new, and some to be stopped.  All total, he's taking 21 medications right now.  Some are AM meds, some PM; some are once-a-day, some twice, and one annoying iron pill has to be taken three times a day.  It's all so complicated that I sat down and made a checklist/flowchart for it all, and then I sorted the meds into four different boxes/baskets.  Hopefully that will make it all a little bit easier.

We worked on trying to get Dad to eat, but we only managed to get a tiny sliver of toast and a cup full of applesauce in him.  He swears he will do better tomorrow.  I hope he really will.

Five hours after he first rolled into the yard, I had reached the limit of there was that I could do tonight.  I'd made two documents/charts (thank God for my mad teacher Word skills) to track his vital statistics and the aforementioned med chart, sorted out all his old meds and put them in storage so nobody gets confused, helped him change clothes to what he plans to sleep in, worked to transfer him to the bed with the help of Mom and our handy-dandy computer chair (CRAP, but we are getting a wheelchair tomorrow even if I have to rob somebody for the money for one), assisted Mom in pulling together the elaborate mosaic of nighttime meds and treatments, eaten three pieces of toast for dinner, and checked all his gadgets to make sure they're charging for when he might want them tomorrow.

This is what I came back home for.  I knew this time would come, and I knew I'd need to help pick up as much slack as I possibly could.  I just don't think I was prepared to be as tired as I am right now, especially since this is not even really "day 1" at home.  Hopefully, he will continue to improve.  If we can just get him semi-mobile again, then a lot of the physical side of things will slow down.  If not....well....I always need a workout, right?  The only important thing is that he is getting better and in a comfortable place to do that.

After

You know you've been at the hospital too much when you know which vending machines have "quirks" about taking quarters, scanning cards, and holding certain items.  You know you've been in the CCU waiting room too often when you know either by name or by face all the other "long-term" family members waiting for visiting hours, when you share a smile between you as one of you enters the room, when you contemplate the "new people" waiting on someone in surgery as a temporary phenomenon.

It's hard to believe it has only been a week.  It feels like years and years.  While it's not quite over yet (we're waiting for all the final bits to finish so Dad can come home), the worst part seems to be behind us.  Dad is chomping at the proverbial bit to come home, and they've disconnected most of the IVs and machines.

He already seems like he's doing better.  I don't know if it's increased blood flow, stress relief, or changes in medication, but he seems much more focused.  We've heard doctors and other people who have had bypass surgery talk before, and they've talked about having a "new lease on life."  At the risk of this post turning into a mass of cliches, that is exactly what it seems like.  I'm so excited for him.  I know how much it was bothering him mentally that he wasn't able to do the things he wanted to do anymore because of the pain and exhaustion caused by the blockages.

Even though I did not go through any physical changes myself, nevertheless, I do feel different.  Some things that seemed terribly important to me before all this began just really don't matter at all now.  Other things have waxed even as the others waned.

What I expected to be a fairly placid summer has turned into something transformational for my entire family.  It is always hard to tell whether the changes will be good or bad when they come so suddenly and on such a massive level.  I guess we will just move forward into the after and see what comes next.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow....

Today, I got up, grabbed an air tank, dodged a highway worker making a poor choice on a narrow bridge, filled the tank, dodged the same stupid guy on the way back over the bridge, and filled the leaky front wheel on my lawn mower.  Then I spent the next three hours riding in increasingly small circles in various sections of my yard until all the ugly upthrust seed Vs of the Bahia grass were gone.  My shoulders and back got too much sun, and I'm hoping they will decide to stay at "freckle" and not move up to "sunburn."

I had to do something, and mowing can be very meditative.  I turn up a random playlist on my phone and because my mower is pretty old, I have to put most of my attention on making sure it is actually cutting right.  It's not go-kart fun, but it will do in a pinch.

Finally, late this afternoon, Dad called to say everything has been cleared for tomorrow.  The surgery is officially on.

So now, I'm making lists, laying out clothes, packing up things I'll need during the interminable wait.  In a few hours, I'll go lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling.  Then tomorrow will be today, and we will see what we will see.

The Tale

I've thought many times about coming back here and saying something, but to be honest, nothing I have been able to come up with has seemed to be sufficient.

I guess I need to go back and tell the tale.

I showed up at the hospital, and things moved very quickly at first.  I was shown to the little pre-surgery room, put on the dreaded paper gown, was moved to the holding area where my IV was put in and all the many people who were going to be involved in my surgery came in and talked with me, checked on me, and asked me my name and date of birth so many times that I really wish I had gone with my first instinct and put it on a dry erase board that I could have just held up.  There was a delay because my doctor was assisting with another surgery, and then it was my turn.  As with everything that relates to me or my family, once the procedure began, the situation got more complicated than my doctor anticipated.  There were more problems than they'd previously been able to detect due to the three other abdominal surgeries I've had in the past.  A general surgeon had to be called in to deal with part of it.  It took three hours to take me apart and then put me back together again.

Blessedly, I remember none of that.  The last thing I recall was the surgery team coming to collect me and asking if I was ready, to which I replied by telling the nurse anesthetist that I didn't want to know anything about any of it past that point, not the roll down the hall, not the color of the operating room (which I know for a fact was blue because they are ALWAYS BLUE and cold), nothing.  He grinned, injected something into my IV, and told me that would no problem at all.  The world spun hard to the right, my gurney moved, and the next thing I recall was a brusque nurse in recovery continually telling me that I had to breathe, BREATHE, to which I finally managed to mumble that it HURT to breathe and I wanted her to leave me alone.  I think she laughed.

I remember nothing of the rest of Monday.

The big events of Tuesday included a clean gown, staggering horrible trips to the bathroom, a couple of family visitors, and a migraine as big as the universe.  Apparently, the morphine in the pain pump triggered some kind of rebound headache.  And, since I had the morphine in my system, I couldn't have any of the medicines I would usually take for a migraine.  I decided to stop using the pain pump so they would unhook it and also so the backlash from it would hopefully stop.  I wanted to scream, but it would have hurt too much.  Early Wednesday morning, they finally came in with a solution, a combination of drugs that wouldn't react with the morphine.

They were from hell.  I'd never had one of the two, and the new one spiked my blood pressure and heart rate so high my room was a festival of flashing lights and shrieking monitors.  My body locked up and shuddered, my teeth chattered, and I couldn't breathe.  For a short time, it was so bad that I honestly thought I was going to die right there with my mother holding my hand.  Again, I was continually told to BREATHE, which seemed to be the motto of my whole experience, and when I didn't do it deeply enough to keep them happy with the O2 level in my blood, they put me back on that horrible little oxygen tube-nose thing.  I was told later that the first attack like that lasted about twenty minutes before that effect passed.  There were two or three episodes like that before everything calmed down and all the beeping and flashing quit. So Tuesday passed into Wednesday.

After that, things got better. I got to take a shower and put on real people clothing that didn't bare my backside.  I put on my bright blue TARDIS robe, leaned on Mom and the rails around the hospital ward walls, and staggered unsteadily up and down, up and down the brightly lit hallways.  I ate some solid food.  I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and the Egg Bowl from my bed after the doctor making the rounds decided I needed one more day in the hospital.  The following day, I carefully pressed the little red PillowPet dragon my mother had decided to call Surge (short for Surgery, apparently) over my aching belly, and the nurse rolled me downstairs and out into the cold, bright world.

Since then, I've been getting better daily.  I have been able to drive a little, and Sunday I went out to eat with my family.  Tonight, I went to a Christmas party for the choir, and I tottered down the hall to the organ in the sanctuary to play for a little while because I look forward to playing Christmas music all year long.  I am a little sore and a lot tired, but each new thing I manage to do is a victory.  Based on everything I've read, I'm moving through this slow process like I'm supposed to.

Things are different now, though.

There are the physical differences.  I've lost about twenty pounds, and weight continues to slip off me.  I don't hurt inside all the time.  Even though I don't have tons of energy, I still feel better than I did before the surgery.  I have had a couple of headaches, but they've been negligible.

Then there are the other differences.  It seems dramatic to say it, but the version of me who rolled into that operating room died there.  This version of me who rolled out is someone else.  I'd been living in silent and growing fear of this surgery for over ten years.  I hadn't realized how much it had accumulated or how heavy a burden it was until it lifted.  Certain dreams I have had, certain hopes for what my future holds are also gone now.  Other things are going to have to take the place of those dreams, and I'm not exactly sure what those will be.  On the other hand, certain restrictions my condition has caused for me are also gone now, and despite the uncertainty, I can't help but feel oddly liberated because of that.

So now I'm on the other side of this milestone I've been running from for so very, very long.  I'm tottering around and regaining my strength.  I'm re-evaluating, re-organizing, removing, even redecorating.  I'm making plans....slowly.  It's enough.  I have to believe that the worst is past, and now it's time to move on to whatever is next.

Waiting

I took my Xanax and rolled up into the scary machine Thursday.  It wasn't as bad as last time.  Since they were doing the MRI on my abdomen, they used the "short bore" machine, and as tall as I am, my head was mostly out the other end of the machine.  I could see light, anyway, and between that and the super-pill, I was okay even when they put the IV in for the dye contrast.

Now I'm waiting.  If I don't hear from them tomorrow, I'll call.  I need to know a date.  The C word, we just won't mention.

Anyway, while I'm waiting, I have all this ridiculous energy, and I've been cleaning like a fiend.  This weekend alone, I washed all my slipcovers, bought new sheets, washed them and put them on, folded about three weeks' worth of laundry and put it away, bought new towels and reorganized my bathroom cabinets, took down my Halloween decorations and put up the few things I use for Thanksgiving, bought major groceries, and vacuumed up about three large white dogs from my carpets.  At least things are getting done.

Today, I was out for an appointment with another doctor, a theme I could live without, and tomorrow I'll be back in my classroom.  I am sure enough work waits for me there to keep me occupied with no effort at all.

Philosophising Early in the Morning

Ideas will come in the shower it seems.  Maybe it's all that stimulation of the scalp when one is washing the hair....

In any case, I was thinking about what's coming and about the last few weeks or so of my life.  There's been the obvious crap, but there have also been some unexpected revelations and refocusing.  Call it a readjustment of perspective, perhaps.

Since all this has begun, I've realized that some things are not as important as I was making them out to be.  The world will keep spinning whether these things are okay or not.  They're externals.  I won't go so far as to say they're trivial, but they aren't the heart of who I am or what I have to have to go on.  It's been a great relief to realize this, to be able to open my hand and let them go.

The same thing can be said of people.  Maybe this is one thing that times of hardship are supposed to do, make us re-evaluate the great tide of individuals with whom we tend to surround ourselves and really look, really look, at our relationships with them.  I think I am guilty of self-deception sometimes as to what that relationship really is.  Maybe we all are.

All I can say with certainty is this:  I am grateful beyond all I can express for my friends and family who have "stepped up" to help hold me up.  It might have been a phone call or an instant message.  It might have been a goofy story, a pin on Pinterest, or something geeky on FB that made me laugh.  It might have been one sentence, truly meant, telling me they're praying.  It might just have been distracting me from this gristmill of scariness grinding away in my head all the time.  Whatever it was, those people are helping me carry this thing, whether it turns out to be the worst-case scenario or just the lesser horror I already know is coming.

As for the rest...

Well...

Maybe it's time to clear the game board of them.  It's not that they're not wonderful in their own way, but life sometimes needs to be stripped back to the essentials.  I think somehow I cluttered mine up with things that were shiny on the outside but completely hollow within. Maybe they started out real and living, and it's time and the way we all change that has robbed the relationship of its connection.  Reality checks like this are hard to swallow; I can't deny it.  Better to wake up finally, though, and acknowledge something is broken and used up, to get rid of it for something meaningful before I put my hand out expecting support and fall right through the saw-dust illusion of it instead.

The Big C (again)

I put it off for a year.  My first inclination when dealing with things that distress me, for better or for worse, is flight.  When the thing you fear is actually something you carry around with you, getting away is more than a little hard.

My doctor tells me that some of the symptoms I've been having lately could be indicators of cancer.  He's the sweetest person in the world, and the very last to wave a panic flag.  However, I have known for some time that my condition was changing and not for the better.  It wasn't exactly a surprise that something bad might be lurking.

It's an odd thought, though.  It's like my own body has turned enemy.  Why is that even possible?  Shouldn't all the bits and pieces play together nicely?

Now begins the long run of tests, scans, and procedures.  And the waiting.  The glorious, terrible, soul-eating waiting.

There will be waiting in doctors' offices.  There will be waiting in labs for needles which will withdraw vials of blood.  There will be waiting on padded tables covered with crinkly paper.  There will be waiting in loosely-tied, mostly too-small cotton gowns, feeling that terrible mix of being exposed and being vulnerable.  There will be waiting for procedures.  There will be waiting for test results.

Even though I know all of this is ahead of me and that there's a chance that much worse may follow, I am calm, maybe calmer than I've been in a long time.  Maybe that's because I'm not running from it anymore.  There is a peace that has come from turning to face the demon.  I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned in that, one that I may need in the days to come.

Gifts from Furry Children

Yesterday, I had a migraine of the "hammer of God" variety that is always such fun.  I don't really know what caused it, but I suspect it has something to do with the upcoming "supermoon" we're expecting tonight.  My headaches seem tied to the phases of the moon as well as the phases of my body and the vagaries of the weather.  Since there was no supermegastorm destroying the world yesterday, I am guessing it was lunar pull.  Me and the ocean, I guess. The headache hit me hard and early, I took a Maxalt, and the rest of the day melted away into a hazy blur.

My cats and dogs hovered around me all day.  I suppose it was their way of checking on me.  I'm pretty sure they know when I'm sick.  Chewie spent most of his day sprawled out next to the couch.  Dillon, my little cat, stayed on me or beside me all day and on into the night.  It was nice to feel loved.

Other contributions from members of my furry family were less appreciated.  I got up this morning and stumbled for the shower without turning the light on.  The day after a migraine that bad my eyes tend to be fairly light sensitive.  I got clean and returned to my bedroom to dress, and when I finally turned the light on, the last of the critters' kindnesses was neatly laid across the foot of my bed:  a dead mouse.

It was bloodless and quite still.  This undoubtedly means that in the night while I was sleeping, either Dillon or Pearl brought me a mouse.  I know it wasn't Yoda; her Imperial Majesty doesn't lower herself to pursue food unless it's the canned kind.  Probably it was my big grey fluffy lioncat, Pearl.  She is the household huntress.  I keep thinking about her thought processes.  I imagine it went something like this.  "Mama has been sick all day.  There has been an absence of patting and love for me, even though I am furry and gorgeous.  Food will make her better.  I will bring her food.  I will provide.  She will be happy again, and patting and love will fall from the skies."  And voila, mouse.

This isn't the first time this has happened.  Despite all the efforts of me and my pest control guy, the occasional little brown field mouse finds its way in the house.  I saw Pearl stalking one last night in the laundry area.  I can always tell when she's scented something. She stares into odd nooks and crannies. She has a specific noise she makes when the is on the hunt, and her level of complete dedication to it is a little frightening.  There has been at least one other time when I woke up to find a mouse-present at the foot of my bed.

My grandmother's Siamese, Sammy, used to do that all the time.  He was twenty-something pounds of muscle, and when he was young, he'd go hunting in the field behind their house and bring her big field rats.  He'd lay them neatly on the back door mat, and since Nana hated all forms of mice, every time she'd look out the back door and see it, she'd scream.  I suppose Sammy thought she was screaming in joy.  He probably thought, "Yes.  I have made my human loudly happy.  Success."

As for my mouse gift, I removed and disposed of it.  The comforter is even now in the washer.  While I would really like not to wake up to another gift of this kind, I will take it in the feline spirit in which it was given.  It's nice to have something love you enough that it wishes to care for you, I suppose, even if it does come in the form of a dead rodent.

Lost Day

Yesterday was so beautiful.  Shame I missed most of it.

I woke up, took the dogs out, settled in for a little breakfast reading on the couch.  I had big plans to get much done.  I had phone calls to make, jeans to wash, floors to vacuum.  Not one bit of that got done.

My head started slamming me early, and I ignored it because I'm sick and tired of it.  I've done nothing but hurt all week.  I know it's been due to stress and weather, but I'm really, really worn out from it.  I know that ignoring it was not the best response, but I could not stand the thought of taking a Maxalt.  Since it was not to a level that was making me scream yet, I also thought it might back off.

You think after all this time, I would have learned....

I took a nap in an effort to shake it, intending to get up refreshed and pain-free and take care of my list.  No dice.  When I woke up, I was disoriented and sick.  Two hours later, I *was* screaming.

I took a Maxalt, and when that didn't work, I took the phenergan.  That, of course, was the game-ender.  Nothing happens after phenergan takes the field.  Even it, though, didn't kill the pain.  Every time I woke up, my head was hurting.  I would just roll over and wait for unconsciousness to slide back over me again.  The only thing I had to deal with while I was asleep was the Hell of Dreams from all the things kicking up sediment in my mind.  I won't even go into the details here.  I am still hoping that they will fade soon so I can forget them.

I'm better today.  I still can't tell if it's going to come back or not.  If it does, and if it won't stop hurting me, I think I'm going to have to call my doctor.  Probably this is just what I think it is, too much stress and weather shifting too fast, but I can't take much more of it.

The thing that makes me so mad about all of it is that I just lost a day.  It happens so much lately.  I have plans, I have things I need to do, and WHAM, suddenly I'm incapacitated.  There has to be something better than this.  I hate it.

Chewie Lives

Yesterday, I got mostly through a faculty meeting when a headache waylaid me.  I staggered upstairs through disgustingly-glorious sunlight to my Maxalt.  I took one and, per our usual routine, called to let my Mom know I'd had to take the big drugs.

She was out-of-breath, and once I managed to make my broken brain and her frantic speech connect, I understood that Chewie had gotten injured on his afternoon walk, and she was taking him to the vet.  I got off the phone and managed to drag myself home.  (Once again, recitations of "To Be or Not to Be" helped me focus.)

When I got home, I fell down.  Then I was unconscious for three or four hours.  When I woke up, Mom was sitting on the foot of my bed.  She had just gotten home from the vet. Chewie hadn't just been injured.  He'd been bitten by a snake.

He was just out doing his usual big fluffy white dog thing, and Mom said she saw him spring sideways in a giant leap.   By the time she got him back to the house, he was dragging his front paw and moving with great difficulty.  Mom never saw the snake.

The vet kept him overnight for medication and observation.  Roux walked around the house with huge eyes looking for him.  She kept coming over to me and hugging me as she does when she needs a little extra comfort.  Even the cats (who do not like him, even a little) searched for him.  When I put Roux up for the night, she seemed so sad sitting next to Chewie's empty crate.  This morning when I walked her and Yelldo, they were both very droopy.

I had another migraine today, but by the time I got home, Chewie was back.  He will need more medicine and more care.  He's restricted as far as his level of activity.  There will be no deep-woods foraging for him for a couple of weeks.  He's exceptionally lucky, though.  Mom told me that our vet had two dogs brought in yesterday with snakebite.  The other one didn't make it.

I am looking over at him right now.  He's lying in the floor being Chewie.  He's had pizza crust (one of his favorite things) and as many hugs and pats as he desires.  Even in my current state of semi-incapacitation, I am so happy to see him.  My big furry white dog child is going to be okay.  Everything else in the world can rock on however it wants to.

Like French-Fried Hell

The past three days, I've been fighting off a migraine.  The weather has been rocking and rolling.  There has been stress of varying kinds.  Today, I lost the fight.

I made it to my off period.  I intended to find a way to defeat the headache so I could finish my day.  How silly of me.  Within 45 minutes, I was literally sobbing, head-on-desk, as the room spun and evil little psychos with spiky shoes jumped up and down  inside my brain.

I vaguely remember stumbling downstairs and telling my administrator something.  My head principal heard her talking on the walkie-talkies trying to call a sub, and I will forever be grateful for the fact that he told me (through her) to go on home.  They had it.

I sort of remember struggling to get my stuff together, literally and figuratively.  I sort of remember my administrator following me out to my car to make sure I made it.  I remember far too little of the drive home.

I do remember saying something over and over as I drove.  I became aware that it was the "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy at some point.  I suppose there are some people who recite a poem or a psalm in times of distress.  Apparently, and probably not unexpectedly, I turn to Hamlet....

When I got home, I struggled to walk the dogs.  Then I lay down to hear them erupt into insane barking.  I dragged myself up and went to the door where a guy from EMEPA and I scared the living bejeezus out of each other.  He and another guy had come to replace my power meter.  He kept saying, "It will only take about 5 seconds.  Your power will only be off 5 seconds."  To be honest, I wouldn't have cared if it were off for a half day if it meant I could get my dogs to shut up and let me lie back down.  I muttered something at him and nodded a lot, he walked off, I closed the door, and by the time I managed to fall down again, I heard the microwave give its excited "I-have-life-and-meaning-again" beep.  One of my last coherent thoughts was, "Huh.  It really was five seconds."

Then I remember nothing until Roux was suddenly leaping on the bed and burrowing her nose under my arm and Chewie was dancing around us both.

I still feel like french-fried hell.  I just looked up to see there is still daylight.  Well, it can just get along without me.  I'm going back to bed soon. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

From the Land of Maxalt

I woke up this morning full of good intentions.  Of course, we all know right where they lead....

My head started kicking early, but I ignored it. In the past two weeks, it's been like thunder rumbling in the background, a threat that never quite gets around to materializing.  Today, though, as I worked on scraping the top layer of the debris work-week neglect off my life and my house, it started up again, and I had a feeling this time the storm intended to break.

I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned some genuinely toxic things out of my fridge, cleared away the MIG welder and all its accouterments to my office/workshop, washed a couple of loads of clothes, put my feather mattress outside to freshen and fluff in the bright sun.  Around noon, my mother called to see if I wanted to go eat dinner somewhere, and by that point my head was starting to get rather insistent.

We went to our local fish camp.  If you are from a place where you don't have those, you're missing it, buddy.  Everybody goes to the fish camp.  I talked to my great aunt and great uncle, my Granny's brother and sister, and one of my cousins.  It's like a miniature family/community reunion there at times.  Last time we were there, I apologized to our server for my parents disappearing on the way to our seats to talk to other people, and he just laughed, saying, "Oh, I lose people all the time before we get to the table."  Mom and I got a booth, and I sat watching the light on the brown river water flowing a short distance away from the restaurant.  Mom and I talked, and even before the entrees were brought, I took a pill.  Just the motion of the light on the river and the pale sand of the bank was making me nauseous.

After that, I have to say, I don't remember much of the meal, but I do remember the pain stopping.

I came home, staggered out with Mom's help, came in, fell down on my unmade, un-feather-mattressed bed, pulled a quilt and my comforter over me, felt Dillon perch on my hip, and became unconscious.

In about an hour, I have to pull the tattered pieces of myself together well enough to sit on an organ bench and be a musician.  Probably I can do that.  The world isn't in that frustratingly-indescribable state of hyper-reality and disconnection that either the headaches or the drug always brings on just now.  As long as the notes on the pages don't decide to pull a cartoon number and dance around on me, maybe nobody will notice I'm not at my best.

Oh, but I'm so very, very tired of this.

Again

The first twinges of a migraine hit me yesterday during our faculty meeting after school.  I ignored them, not wanting to take a Maxalt, but I did pack up my stuff and come on home.  By the time I got here, my head was starting to throb.

Stupidly, I continued to put off the inevitable.  Maxalt lately has made me extremely loopy when I take it, so I kept thinking, "This will clear up on its own."  Like it ever does.

When I finally took the Maxalt, it hit me as expected, badly, and I lay on the couch dreaming and drifting until Mom came down to check on me around 6:30 and bring me some gumbo she'd made.  This was when it happened.

I was so cold.  I was bundled up under an afghan, staring up at the Christmas tree lights when suddenly and just for a moment, I saw something...dangling...off the tree topper.  It was like a little shadow thing doing a King Kong/Empire State impression.  Just like the time in the cafeteria, I knew it wasn't real, couldn't be real, but it was every bit as disturbing as that experience had been.

I went to bed almost immediately after I ate, and this morning, everything seems to have reset inside my head.  Only the day as it goes by can show that for sure.   These headaches have started scaring me with their bizarre side effects.  While the doctor has said some people have things like this every single time, I really don't think I can stand to be one of them.

Migraine Sick

It's come to be almost predictable.  The weather goes haywire and so does my head.

I got sick today and had to come home.  I took a Maxalt at the end of second period, drifted through third barely clinging to functionality, and then I made good my escape.

As I lay drifting once I got home, one image kept flashing in my head over and over.  I read somewhere that having migraines makes you more likely to keep having more.  The analogy used was that it is like water wearing away a channel; the more that passes through it, the deeper the channel grows.  I kept picturing rolling waves of blue-white electricity buzzing through my brain.  It was not a comforting vision.

I slept for several hours, but I still feel the after-effects.  I got up, ate something, am watching The King's Speech.  I hope everything in the weather patterns of my head and the sky are calmer tomorrow.

Magic Hands

I have had a pain between my shoulderblades all day like someone stabbing me with a sharp knife every time I move or turn my head.  I don't know if I slept wrong, if I've pulled something (pray God not TORN IT again), or if stress has just balled all the muscles up there into one big Gordian knot.  All I do know is that I would give all 57 cents I possess to get somebody to come here and undo it.

I have always had this problem.  I carry my stress in strange ways that cause pain and problems.  When I was in my last two years of undergrad (and taking too many courses like a fool...what am I saying...I know I would do it again...), it was a constant problem exacerbated by a backpack a friend of mine fondly called "the circus tent."  (Screw him.  I was an English major.  Nortons and Riversides had to go where I went.)  I would lay down on the hard dorm floor sometimes flat out trying to stretch the muscles so they'd relax.  And I'd want to cry.

I guess massage from a real-live therapist/masseuse could help me with this.  It's just that every time I've tried, it hurts like the devil.  I tried it in Japan and wanted to cry.  The only time I've ever had anybody get all the knots out and not hurt me was this guy at the Wesley who had absolute magic in his hands.  He came by when I was sitting in one of the Wesley big rooms complaining about the pain, and he said, "I can take care of that for you."  And he did.

Holy crap.  I went from a ball of tension with an actual lump of raised muscle at the nape of my neck to basically not being able to move because I was so limp. Why did I not somehow manage to marry him?  How was I ever so dumb to let him get away?

I wish I could find somebody now that had that same skill.  In general, I am not overly "touchy," especially with people I don't know well, so it's not like I am likely to find out if somebody was able to relieve this agony.  I can promise you this, though.  If I do stumble over one by accident, this time, I'm merry well keeping him.

Mind Eraser

(with apologies to the Black Keys)

After an extremely stresl day, I suppose what happened was only to be expected.  I got to lunch and my off period, and the hammer of the gods struck.

It's not like I hadn't had warnings.  The lights were a little too bright.  I had those little twinges, those little previews of pain.  I had a hard time getting to names for characters, people, things.

I managed to take my Maxalt, and for a horrible little while, I lay across my desk and prayed for the pain to stop.  You know that didn't happen.  Instead, I just felt the blanket of disconnection spreading over the spikes of agony and the rolling waves of nausea.  I staggered downstairs and asked for permission to leave early.  I knew I only had a short time to get home before I would have to call someone to come get me.

I managed to get to the car, rolled down the windows, let the cold air wash over me until I got to the interstate and had to roll them up.  Then the weird crap started.

I had turned off the radio when I got in the car.  I couldn't stand the noise.  As I drove, I kept hearing music.  Very faint, but music.  I checked my phone, thinking it was ringing without me feeling the vibration.  I tried to locate the source of the sound.  Then came the horrible knowledge that it was just coming from some misfiring in my brain.

When I finally got home and laid down, somehow, I had another sensation I've never had, that of being somewhere else.  I don't even know how to describe it.  I knew I was home in my own bed, but somehow, I also felt that I was in the living room of the trailer we had when I was a small child before my parents built their house.  Maybe it was a trick of the light triggering some deep memory.  I was dizzy and quite frankly scared.

I am better now after two hours of sleep, but I still feel weak and exhausted.  I am up long enough to eat and take care of a few necessary tasks, and then I'm going back to bed.  The only explanation for what happened is that the headache must have somehow churned up the sediment of my mind.  Maybe the electrical activity was in a different part of my brain this time.  I only know that I hope I never have to experience again.