We went to the ER, with me wearing my coziest pants and a soft, loose shirt. Flip-flops. Easy, loose, comfortable. I felt smart for bringing a cardigan because I often I forget about air-conditioning--I doubt hospitals in San Francisco even have A/C because it's just never that hot. Well, except now it's hot all the time thanks to global warming. I digress.
The cardigan did nothing for me so it was lucky Stephanie had one of her homemade fleece blankets in the car--I was freezing. (She doesn't make the fleece, she ties two big pieces of fleece together and makes the best blankies.) She got me a wheelchair which I remember thinking was kinda silly. . .until I sat it in and felt relieved that I didn't have to walk anywhere. Note: it's a humbling experience to get pushed in a wheelchair by your friend. It's also a nice experience to be that taken care of.
I signed in and got a wristband, happy I was already in the computer system because I'd had my baby girls in the affiliated hospital--the better one--up the hill in the richer town a few miles away. We sat to wait. The ER is a good place for people-watching. It's tempting to think the population of an emergency room would give you a good snapshot of the population of a town but I find that's not always the case. As a generalization you're probably seeing the grungier, rougher, less well-off folks with the few exceptions being minor accidents that bring people into the closest hospital they can find. There are always at least a few kids, sick or injured, with their parents. Ours had an adorable blond, chubby-faced toddler wearing Jordans whose tattooed father kept following him around with a cell phone trying to show him what I'm guessing was a YouTube video of Watch Me, presumably in the hopes that his kid would learn how to do the Nae Nae?
The most interesting guy to me was a really skinny, brown-skinned man with close-cropped hair, a cane, a rolling, bouncing gait and what I knew to be an AV fistula--what looked like a bulging vein in his right arm. An AV fistula is created when they directly connect a person's artery to their vein to create a stronger portal for dialysis. Dialysis, if you don't know, is the the process of getting hooked up to a machine that clears the toxins out of your blood when you have kidney failure and your own kidneys can't do it. I can't remember what exactly what he was wearing but he was pretty well-dressed. He didn't look homeless or crazy, but he did look agitated.
This guy was pacing back and forth in the lobby and I could tell he looked like trouble. Not trouble like I'm worried he will do anything to me or anyone else, trouble as in the hospital staff does not want to deal with him.. I'm not saying that is the hospital staff's fault or the patient's fault--I bring it up as an example of what is often a disconnect between the person seeking care and the people providing care. It's not easy for either side. Plus he could have been a frequent-flier--someone they all knew and were tired of.
I am an eavesdropper. A people-watcher. An observer. Other people would probably call me a nosy, starer because I often forget that I'm watching and people can see me. I was huddled in my wheelchair, wrapped in Stephanie's blanket, drinking icy Gatorade that she'd brought me in her water bottle, watching. At some point the man picked up the phone hanging from the wall, the equivalent of the house phone in a nicer hotel, and made a call. His voice was frustrated as he talked to the person on the other end, explaining that the hospital was telling him they couldn't dialyize him. The person on the phone obviously didn't believe him. The guy put the receiver on top of the phone and yelled out to a young doctor on the other side of the room "Hey! Can you talk to my brother? He doesn't believe me when I tell him you can't do my dialysis here."
I thought to myself "They don't have a dialysis machine here? Um. What kind of a hospital is this?"
The doctor looked annoyed. I know I'm missing parts of the story because it clearly wasn't the first interaction these two had had, even just that morning. It was also clear that this young doctor a) did not want to keep dealing with this patient b) did not appreciate getting summoned with a yell from some dude across the room, especially as he clearly had been on his way elsewhere. He looked like a nice guy; they both did.
At first the doctor tried explaining to the patient again that he had to go to a dialysis clinic to get his treatment. Phew, I thought. It's not that they don't actually have the machine here. Okay, we can stay. Not that I thought I needed dialysis but I would have been concerned about getting treated in a hospital that didn't have a basic, oft-used albeit expensive machine. Unless I was in the middle of the country-side or a very tiny town.
After a few minutes the doctor resignedly got on the phone to talk to who turned out to be the patient's brother. (I know this because the patient asked "Will you explain it to my brother? He doesn't believe me.") The one-side conversation we could hear was civil, involved a lot of nodding, a bit of explaining and finally an "Oh, he didn't say that to us." He hung up the phone and led the patient back up to the admitting desk to get admitted.
What happened, in a nutshell, is that this patient who obviously regularly gets dialysis for kidney failure (because he has a dialysis-ready arm which doesn't happen over night) came to the ER to get treated. What's supposed to happen is that patients who get dialysis go regularly to a clinic, usually three times a week, where they sit in a chair and get their blood filtered. The process takes about four hours and the dates are scheduled--you don't just walk in and say "I feel like some dialysis today!" My guess is that this patient either missed his usual appointment or something unusual happened where, even having his regular appointment he was feeling shitty and knew he needed help.
What the hospital staff sees and says is basically "Hey dude, we are not a dialysis clinic. You can't just come in here and expect that we'll do that for you. We are busy! We are an emergency room!" Some hospital staff might also be thinking "Hey, just because you forgot to go to your appointment or didn't do what you were supposed to do doesn't mean it's an emergency that we should have to deal with." Not because the hospital staff is bad but because that's not how it works. And they're not prepared with the appropriate staff, dialysis set-up, time, etc. Plus I'm sure there is a financial aspect to it but I can't speak to how that breaks down. I can say, as someone who works in health care, it is annoying to have to deal with patients who don't do what they are supposed to do.
What the patient probably thinks is "I know I need dialysis because either a) I know I missed my appointment or b) this is not my first rodeo and I recognize my symptoms and my body is telling me I need it. I either can't get to the clinic because it's Saturday or it's too far or I don't want to. I'm coming here and I know you can do it here." I can say, as a patient it is annoying to have to jump through hoops to get what you know you need.
What the brother on the phone knew to do was to explain whatever symptoms the patient was currently having in such a way that the doctor couldn't deny that they needed to admit him and treat him. Because that's how it works. You as a patient don't get to go to an ER and order off a menu the treatment you need. You have to go, describe what is happening, answer the questions the care provider thinks or knows to ask, and let them determine your treatment. And not just in the ER--there's nowhere you can just ask for and get what treatment you need, even if you know for sure what you need because you know your body and you know what's wrong. And to be fair, and as this story will keep showing, you may not be as smart and dialed in as you think you are so it's probably a good idea to let the trained, medical professionals take a look and diagnose you. And to be fair in the other direction, the doctor or the nurse or the whoever may not think or know to ask the right questions. They don't know you, they know systems and protocols and they use their experience, knowledge, test results and their team to make the best diagnosis they can. It's a dance, and a complicated one.
So all that happened, but the entire exchange didn't take long. I got called back soon--because saying you've had diarrhea for a week and you're feeling weak and light-headed when you're sitting in a wheelchair, bumps you up a bit on the triage list. I also looked like shit--pale and wan, though I didn't know that or notice it. They checked my vitals. They gave me an IV. They drew some blood for labs. Took urine and stool samples. (The process and the actions I'm describing took much longer than it may appear by the short, snappy sentences.) A doctor who looked approximately thirteen came to see me (and hey, no judgement. I'm thirty-eight, I understand there are and will continue to be more and more doctors who are younger than I am). He reported that I was in acute renal failure with a creatinine of 2.0 (normal is 0.7-1.3) and I was severely dehydrated. They were going to admit me. Regarding the diarrhea and the colitis flare, they didn't have a gastroenterologist on staff at the hospital but they would page the one on call at their sister hospital and he/she would call back or come see me within 24 hours. Note: a gastroenterologist is a doctor who specializes in bowel disease, also known as the GI tract, and will from now on be known as a GI doctor because that word is long and hard to spell.
Acute renal failure. Huh. Didn't see that coming though it made sense with how dehydrated I'd gotten. I thought they'd just give me an IV and send me home. See: don't think you can diagnose yourself. See also previous post: I apparently underestimate how sick I am.
This will become a familiar theme.
It was good that I had come in because no amount of Gatorade would have fixed that problem for me. I didn't expect them to do anything for the colitis because I still assumed it would pass like it always does. And unless this random GI doctor was going to come do a colonscopy on me I wasn't sure exactly what they were calling him/her for but I was not in charge.
"Renal failure," I said. "It would probably be a good idea to call my transplant team to let them know that."
The young doctor looked up from his clipboard and asked "You had a transplant?"
Sigh.
About Me
- Hands Full
- Learning and trying to be kind and living my life as fully as I can stand it.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Saturday morning, football and the next chapter of the story
Saturday morning, September 5, 2015 I woke up and felt terrible. But I'd felt terrible for the few days before that and the kids were clamoring for me to get out of bed so I did. I didn't last long out in the living room. Curled into the recliner as all four kids happily snuggled with cups of milk and Elmo, sitting on their daddy on the couch, I saw that I was not needed and went back to bed.
Fell into my comfy bed, fell back asleep. Something or someone woke me up so I sat up, felt my head swim a bit, waited to get my mind right, and then got back up to head back out. To make breakfast? To sit next to them while they ate? I don't remember. It didn't take long for me to send myself back to my room to sink into the pillows. This wasn't an "Oh, I am so tired I just can't wake up this morning!" type of morning. This was an "Ohhh, it should not be this hard to physically get out of bed and stay upright. Something is not right."
But there was the Draft to think about.
Weeks before I'd put out a request on Facebook asking if anyone was looking for another player in their fantasy football league. The kind where you draft players and change them up each week, trying to avoid getting in a situation where you're sort of rooting against your home team because your top receiver is going against them and you need him to score you some points. It's a fun way to get more into watching all the football games and I had missed playing. Sometimes it's hard to remember that the circumstances of your life have changed and that your Sundays are no longer spent at a bar full of TVs and your friends, drinking beer, eating yummy, delicious, bad-for-you football-game food. Or in a living room with your friends who have NFL network, one guy manning the remote for maximum game coverage. See also beer, food, probably (definitely) some marijuana smoking in this second situation. Ah parenthood, how you have changed the weekend experience.
In any case, my friend Fabio (yes that's his real name, yes he pulls it off, and yes high school and college in the 90's could be a bit rough on the guy when this other guy was around a lot http://www.fabioinc.com/ ) responded to my request and invited me to join his league. Yes! I was so excited. Fabio is a huge sports fan, a super-competitive person (which I love, being one myself), has a tendency to have smart, funny friends, and regularly makes me laugh out loud with his texts because he has such a great way with words.This sounded like the perfect league for me as well as an opportunity to spend more time, even if it was to be mostly virtual time, with one of my favorite people. Sure, I thought it was a little intense that the ten of us in the league had to meet in person to draft our players but hey, it seemed like a Fabio thing to do and it would be a fun way to spend a Saturday morning (see: beer, food and no kids)
Throughout the past week as I'd felt sick and weak and cancelled plans one after another, I kept thinking "I need to make it to the draft." That was seriously my goal--to be healthy enough to drive to Marin (just like driving back to Stinson Beach, a 1.5 hour drive) so I could draft my team. Not that I was in any way prepared to draft my team--here in 2015 the only players I know by name are the ones who have been playing since I graduated college like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. With a few "newer" players like Marques Colston who was my surprise, awesome fantasy pick the first year I played. Of note, that was in 2006 when he was a rookie so I don't think he counts as new anymore. I also knew Andrew Luck and Colin Kaepernick due to their Bay Area connections. I was sick, I was unprepared, I couldn't think of a single running back that I would want to try to get, but I knew I had to go because you need an even number of players (ideally 10) for a league and if I dropped out last minute it would cause problems and Fabio would be mad. I hate disappointing people, especially if it's by saying "It's too hard, I can't do it." Not only do I hate it, I pretty much don't do it. I don't let my body or my health tell me what I can and can't do.
Now any rational person could have told you, or me, or Fabio, that there was no way I was going to this draft in Marin-and they could have told it to us days before. Not me. Determined, even as I periodically tried to get out of bed, got light headed, and laid back down. I might have had some problems of the mental, not just physical, variety.
The draft was to be held at noon in Marin. I figured I would have to leave by 10:30 at the latest, Our son was also signed up for his first gymnastics class, to be held that day at 10:30. My husband was going to take him, to enjoy some rare one-on-one time with one of our children. We also had idea that gymnastics would be good for Cyrus who has always had a slightly peculiar sense of balance. The kids woke up around 7:00 and my mom arrived before 8:00 to help out. I can't remember who in this trio of adults knew that I was still thinking of going to the draft in Marin. I doubt my mother could have known because she would have smacked me, figuratively, upside the head.
At 9:15 I texted Fabio the following:
"Will I ruin everything if I don't come? Having a big colitis flare and not totally sure I can safely drive there."
Sidenote: me actually telling a friend that a) I can't come to something and b) it's because of my chronic disease involving poop rather than making a more sanitary excuse is a big damn deal. This is not something that happens.
A little while later I called him, slowly coming to my senses that I could not wait for him to give me permission not to come. I could tell I was dehydrated--weak, light-headed, and completely emptied out from not just the past few days of being sick but from waking up at least every hour the night before to run to the bathroom. I avoid the ER like the plague, not because I don't like it there but because it takes forever, rightfully so, as they are triaging the people who need care urgently like gunshot wounds. So I only go if I'm pretty damn sure there is something really wrong with me that they can actually fix. The idea of going to the ER was peering at me through quiet, slightly reproachful, used-to-being-ignored eyes. And as I write that I realize that my mom certainly knew that the plan had been for me to try to go to this draft because I can picture her face and body language in my mind right now, doing her damnedest not to get involved because she knows how I get when people tell me how to take care of myself. I thanked her for that later. I called Fabio 30-40 minutes after my text and left a message saying essentially "Dude. I can't do it. I am too sick." And laid back down.
My husband and son left for gymnastics. Fabio texted me back at 10:29 to say:
"'Ruin everything' is a strong phrase. You're the tenth person of a ten person league. There aren't nine person leagues due to the math of head to head scheduling. I'm not kicking someone out to get to eight and finding a replacement for a live draft with a day's notice on Labor Day weekend is unlikely at best. I can come pick you up door to door, pick you up at BART, or whatever else you need (and yes, I realize that is a dangerous comment). Hydrate, eat bland food, get a massage, etc. and let's get this thing done tomorrow. Let me know about transportation."
There are many things one could get from this exchange. I'm sure depending on who you are, reader, you reacted to some aspects more than others. Let me point out a few, in no order of importance:
1) Yes Fabio, I know how the math of the league works, hence my concern about dropping out last minute and messing things up when I know how hard it will be to find a last-minute replacement.
2) I have funny, loving friends who would offer to drive from San Francisco to Concord and then over to Marin to get me to a draft. Some of those friends are perhaps a little intense.
3) I told you he was competitive. He also has a strong sense of how things should be and damn it, this ten-person league was going to happen.
4) The draft was being held the following day, on Sunday.
Oh. Problem solved. Off the hook. I texted Stephanie, still in bed, asking her to take me to the ER. Stephanie--caregiver for my children for almost two years, friend to me in a way that keeps growing and changing, as I am to her. Mother to a tween and a teen, responsible for another tween and a teen. In their house Saturdays are a swirl of soccer games, cheer leading, chores, driving and picking up. Between her and her friend/roommate/co-parent/sister-wife Haku they keep that household, and often our household, running. I knew she would find a way to come take me. I knew I would feel safe with her and that she would take good care of me without my needing to take care of her. She responded immediately to say she was on her way.
I slowly got dressed and walked out to tell my mom. She was visibly relieved. I asked her or she asked me whether it would be better for Steph to stay with the girls while my mom took me and I said no, I liked the plan as it stood. She agreed.
We (I) decided we'd go to the local hospital, despite a feeling in my gut that it wasn't the right place to go. In my past life working in organ procurement we worked with all the hospitals in Northern California. Depending on your role in the organization and who you interacted with the most (the doctors and nurses, the patient's families, the operating room staff, the administrators, people on the phone vs. in person, the deceased patient's) you often came up with your own assessment of how good the hospital was or whether you would want to be a patient there. Maybe not a good one or an accurate one but you had one nonetheless. My experience told me that our local hospital was not the one that would give me the best care but I am new to the area, I'm raising my family here, I believe in supporting local businesses, and I wanted to see for myself. Plus I didn't think it would be that difficult to treat me.
It was not the best decision. It is also another insight into how my exhausting mind works and how maybe it should just take a back seat every now and then.
Fell into my comfy bed, fell back asleep. Something or someone woke me up so I sat up, felt my head swim a bit, waited to get my mind right, and then got back up to head back out. To make breakfast? To sit next to them while they ate? I don't remember. It didn't take long for me to send myself back to my room to sink into the pillows. This wasn't an "Oh, I am so tired I just can't wake up this morning!" type of morning. This was an "Ohhh, it should not be this hard to physically get out of bed and stay upright. Something is not right."
But there was the Draft to think about.
Weeks before I'd put out a request on Facebook asking if anyone was looking for another player in their fantasy football league. The kind where you draft players and change them up each week, trying to avoid getting in a situation where you're sort of rooting against your home team because your top receiver is going against them and you need him to score you some points. It's a fun way to get more into watching all the football games and I had missed playing. Sometimes it's hard to remember that the circumstances of your life have changed and that your Sundays are no longer spent at a bar full of TVs and your friends, drinking beer, eating yummy, delicious, bad-for-you football-game food. Or in a living room with your friends who have NFL network, one guy manning the remote for maximum game coverage. See also beer, food, probably (definitely) some marijuana smoking in this second situation. Ah parenthood, how you have changed the weekend experience.
In any case, my friend Fabio (yes that's his real name, yes he pulls it off, and yes high school and college in the 90's could be a bit rough on the guy when this other guy was around a lot http://www.fabioinc.com/ ) responded to my request and invited me to join his league. Yes! I was so excited. Fabio is a huge sports fan, a super-competitive person (which I love, being one myself), has a tendency to have smart, funny friends, and regularly makes me laugh out loud with his texts because he has such a great way with words.This sounded like the perfect league for me as well as an opportunity to spend more time, even if it was to be mostly virtual time, with one of my favorite people. Sure, I thought it was a little intense that the ten of us in the league had to meet in person to draft our players but hey, it seemed like a Fabio thing to do and it would be a fun way to spend a Saturday morning (see: beer, food and no kids)
Throughout the past week as I'd felt sick and weak and cancelled plans one after another, I kept thinking "I need to make it to the draft." That was seriously my goal--to be healthy enough to drive to Marin (just like driving back to Stinson Beach, a 1.5 hour drive) so I could draft my team. Not that I was in any way prepared to draft my team--here in 2015 the only players I know by name are the ones who have been playing since I graduated college like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. With a few "newer" players like Marques Colston who was my surprise, awesome fantasy pick the first year I played. Of note, that was in 2006 when he was a rookie so I don't think he counts as new anymore. I also knew Andrew Luck and Colin Kaepernick due to their Bay Area connections. I was sick, I was unprepared, I couldn't think of a single running back that I would want to try to get, but I knew I had to go because you need an even number of players (ideally 10) for a league and if I dropped out last minute it would cause problems and Fabio would be mad. I hate disappointing people, especially if it's by saying "It's too hard, I can't do it." Not only do I hate it, I pretty much don't do it. I don't let my body or my health tell me what I can and can't do.
Now any rational person could have told you, or me, or Fabio, that there was no way I was going to this draft in Marin-and they could have told it to us days before. Not me. Determined, even as I periodically tried to get out of bed, got light headed, and laid back down. I might have had some problems of the mental, not just physical, variety.
The draft was to be held at noon in Marin. I figured I would have to leave by 10:30 at the latest, Our son was also signed up for his first gymnastics class, to be held that day at 10:30. My husband was going to take him, to enjoy some rare one-on-one time with one of our children. We also had idea that gymnastics would be good for Cyrus who has always had a slightly peculiar sense of balance. The kids woke up around 7:00 and my mom arrived before 8:00 to help out. I can't remember who in this trio of adults knew that I was still thinking of going to the draft in Marin. I doubt my mother could have known because she would have smacked me, figuratively, upside the head.
At 9:15 I texted Fabio the following:
"Will I ruin everything if I don't come? Having a big colitis flare and not totally sure I can safely drive there."
Sidenote: me actually telling a friend that a) I can't come to something and b) it's because of my chronic disease involving poop rather than making a more sanitary excuse is a big damn deal. This is not something that happens.
A little while later I called him, slowly coming to my senses that I could not wait for him to give me permission not to come. I could tell I was dehydrated--weak, light-headed, and completely emptied out from not just the past few days of being sick but from waking up at least every hour the night before to run to the bathroom. I avoid the ER like the plague, not because I don't like it there but because it takes forever, rightfully so, as they are triaging the people who need care urgently like gunshot wounds. So I only go if I'm pretty damn sure there is something really wrong with me that they can actually fix. The idea of going to the ER was peering at me through quiet, slightly reproachful, used-to-being-ignored eyes. And as I write that I realize that my mom certainly knew that the plan had been for me to try to go to this draft because I can picture her face and body language in my mind right now, doing her damnedest not to get involved because she knows how I get when people tell me how to take care of myself. I thanked her for that later. I called Fabio 30-40 minutes after my text and left a message saying essentially "Dude. I can't do it. I am too sick." And laid back down.
My husband and son left for gymnastics. Fabio texted me back at 10:29 to say:
"'Ruin everything' is a strong phrase. You're the tenth person of a ten person league. There aren't nine person leagues due to the math of head to head scheduling. I'm not kicking someone out to get to eight and finding a replacement for a live draft with a day's notice on Labor Day weekend is unlikely at best. I can come pick you up door to door, pick you up at BART, or whatever else you need (and yes, I realize that is a dangerous comment). Hydrate, eat bland food, get a massage, etc. and let's get this thing done tomorrow. Let me know about transportation."
There are many things one could get from this exchange. I'm sure depending on who you are, reader, you reacted to some aspects more than others. Let me point out a few, in no order of importance:
1) Yes Fabio, I know how the math of the league works, hence my concern about dropping out last minute and messing things up when I know how hard it will be to find a last-minute replacement.
2) I have funny, loving friends who would offer to drive from San Francisco to Concord and then over to Marin to get me to a draft. Some of those friends are perhaps a little intense.
3) I told you he was competitive. He also has a strong sense of how things should be and damn it, this ten-person league was going to happen.
4) The draft was being held the following day, on Sunday.
Oh. Problem solved. Off the hook. I texted Stephanie, still in bed, asking her to take me to the ER. Stephanie--caregiver for my children for almost two years, friend to me in a way that keeps growing and changing, as I am to her. Mother to a tween and a teen, responsible for another tween and a teen. In their house Saturdays are a swirl of soccer games, cheer leading, chores, driving and picking up. Between her and her friend/roommate/co-parent/sister-wife Haku they keep that household, and often our household, running. I knew she would find a way to come take me. I knew I would feel safe with her and that she would take good care of me without my needing to take care of her. She responded immediately to say she was on her way.
I slowly got dressed and walked out to tell my mom. She was visibly relieved. I asked her or she asked me whether it would be better for Steph to stay with the girls while my mom took me and I said no, I liked the plan as it stood. She agreed.
We (I) decided we'd go to the local hospital, despite a feeling in my gut that it wasn't the right place to go. In my past life working in organ procurement we worked with all the hospitals in Northern California. Depending on your role in the organization and who you interacted with the most (the doctors and nurses, the patient's families, the operating room staff, the administrators, people on the phone vs. in person, the deceased patient's) you often came up with your own assessment of how good the hospital was or whether you would want to be a patient there. Maybe not a good one or an accurate one but you had one nonetheless. My experience told me that our local hospital was not the one that would give me the best care but I am new to the area, I'm raising my family here, I believe in supporting local businesses, and I wanted to see for myself. Plus I didn't think it would be that difficult to treat me.
It was not the best decision. It is also another insight into how my exhausting mind works and how maybe it should just take a back seat every now and then.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Another anecdote
Here is a story about an immunosuppressed mother with bowel disease and four children under the age of three:
The mom heats up a bowl of leftover mashed sweet potatoes and sauteed greens. These foods have been selected for their non-inflammatory status. The sweet potatoes were prepared the day before by the mother herself. Here is the recipe:
1. Peel sweet potatoes.
2 Boil.
3. Mash.
The greens were cooked by a personal chef who prepares Paeleo or gluten-free or organic meals for people who need or want them.* The greens, and several other Paleo meals, were generously paid for by the mom's mother.
No children are in the room when the food is in the microwave. (The mother does not know where they are but they are somewhere in a mostly child-proofed home and it's a weekend day so the father is somewhere around too.) The machine beeps, the mother takes the bowl out and places it on the table, blows on a fork full of food and takes a bite.
One by one the toddlers appear out of nowhere, indicating an urgent desire to taste the mother's food. The mother's initial mental response is:
1. None of you will not actually eat this.
2. I can't in good conscience keep you from trying these two totally healthy foods on the off chance that you do eat it. Or at least on the off-chance that this will be one of the twenty times you are exposed to a food before you decide you might like it.
Each child is either picked up onto the mother's lap or put in a nearby high chair in a random symphony of fits, arched backs, reaching fingers and changed minds.
The following events occur:
1. Mother's spoon is taken, licked and put back into bowl of food.
2. Small baby fingers covered in germs are inserted into various pockets of sweet potato.
3. Pieces of greens are picked up, put in mouths and then discarded. . .back into the bowl of food.
4. Food is sneezed on.
No food is actually consumed by children. All children leave. Mother considers taking another bite and then, in an effort to make choices that reflect her true health status and not the one that exists in her mind, throws almost-full bowl of bright, healthy, food in the trash.
And scene.
*If you are interested in having meals cooked for you, contact Courtney at scratchcater@gmail.com
Here is here current Paleo menu:
Entrees:
Bacon and apple smothered pork chops
Orange chicken
Dijon & cognac beef stew
Chicken & mushroom marsala
Cider braised pork shoulder
Chicken tikka masala
Carnitas tacos
Moroccan chicken & olives
Roasted sausage with broccoli & fennel
Paleo meatloaf
Sukuma Wiki
Vietnamese coconut pork
Paleo barbacoa meatballs with guacamole
Greek style lamb meatballs
Indonesian beef curry
Orange ginger beef stir-fry
Ginger scallion pork meatballs
Lemon ginger chicken
Vietnamese shaking beef
Lamb stew with dried plums
Pan roasted chicken with bacon and apples
Braised beef stew with carrot, parsnips and lacinato kale
Gyoza meatballs
Crusted strip steak
Chicken and mushroom marsala
Garlic beef and broccoli
Rosemary mint lamb patties
Paleo shepherd’s pie
Crispy orange beef
Butternut squash & kale stew (seasonal)
Moussaka Lemongrass chicken curry
Thai inspired meatballs & coconut curry
Beef stew w/oranges & cranberries (seasonal)
Pumpkin chocolate chili (seasonal)
Bacon topped spinach & mushroom meatloaf
Cranberry-kale turkey meatballs with cranberry garlic sauce
Beef bulgogi
Chicken stew with butternut squash & kale (seasonal)
Ginger acorn squash soup w/thai mini meatballs (seasonal)
Crispy orange beef Southwest meatballs w/creamy cilantro dipping sauce
Oven-braised beef w/tomato & garlic
Lemon-ginger pork meatballs
Chuck roast w/balsamic & dijon
She has an organic menu too but you can contact her to get that one. She is a one-woman operation and doesn't have a website. This blog supports women-owned and operated businesses.
The mom heats up a bowl of leftover mashed sweet potatoes and sauteed greens. These foods have been selected for their non-inflammatory status. The sweet potatoes were prepared the day before by the mother herself. Here is the recipe:
1. Peel sweet potatoes.
2 Boil.
3. Mash.
The greens were cooked by a personal chef who prepares Paeleo or gluten-free or organic meals for people who need or want them.* The greens, and several other Paleo meals, were generously paid for by the mom's mother.
No children are in the room when the food is in the microwave. (The mother does not know where they are but they are somewhere in a mostly child-proofed home and it's a weekend day so the father is somewhere around too.) The machine beeps, the mother takes the bowl out and places it on the table, blows on a fork full of food and takes a bite.
One by one the toddlers appear out of nowhere, indicating an urgent desire to taste the mother's food. The mother's initial mental response is:
1. None of you will not actually eat this.
2. I can't in good conscience keep you from trying these two totally healthy foods on the off chance that you do eat it. Or at least on the off-chance that this will be one of the twenty times you are exposed to a food before you decide you might like it.
Each child is either picked up onto the mother's lap or put in a nearby high chair in a random symphony of fits, arched backs, reaching fingers and changed minds.
The following events occur:
1. Mother's spoon is taken, licked and put back into bowl of food.
2. Small baby fingers covered in germs are inserted into various pockets of sweet potato.
3. Pieces of greens are picked up, put in mouths and then discarded. . .back into the bowl of food.
4. Food is sneezed on.
No food is actually consumed by children. All children leave. Mother considers taking another bite and then, in an effort to make choices that reflect her true health status and not the one that exists in her mind, throws almost-full bowl of bright, healthy, food in the trash.
And scene.
*If you are interested in having meals cooked for you, contact Courtney at scratchcater@gmail.com
Here is here current Paleo menu:
Entrees:
Bacon and apple smothered pork chops
Orange chicken
Dijon & cognac beef stew
Chicken & mushroom marsala
Cider braised pork shoulder
Chicken tikka masala
Carnitas tacos
Moroccan chicken & olives
Roasted sausage with broccoli & fennel
Paleo meatloaf
Sukuma Wiki
Vietnamese coconut pork
Paleo barbacoa meatballs with guacamole
Greek style lamb meatballs
Indonesian beef curry
Orange ginger beef stir-fry
Ginger scallion pork meatballs
Lemon ginger chicken
Vietnamese shaking beef
Lamb stew with dried plums
Pan roasted chicken with bacon and apples
Braised beef stew with carrot, parsnips and lacinato kale
Gyoza meatballs
Crusted strip steak
Chicken and mushroom marsala
Garlic beef and broccoli
Rosemary mint lamb patties
Paleo shepherd’s pie
Crispy orange beef
Butternut squash & kale stew (seasonal)
Moussaka Lemongrass chicken curry
Thai inspired meatballs & coconut curry
Beef stew w/oranges & cranberries (seasonal)
Pumpkin chocolate chili (seasonal)
Bacon topped spinach & mushroom meatloaf
Cranberry-kale turkey meatballs with cranberry garlic sauce
Beef bulgogi
Chicken stew with butternut squash & kale (seasonal)
Ginger acorn squash soup w/thai mini meatballs (seasonal)
Crispy orange beef Southwest meatballs w/creamy cilantro dipping sauce
Oven-braised beef w/tomato & garlic
Lemon-ginger pork meatballs
Chuck roast w/balsamic & dijon
She has an organic menu too but you can contact her to get that one. She is a one-woman operation and doesn't have a website. This blog supports women-owned and operated businesses.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
We interrupt this programming. . .
To bring you some words about my husband.
I've never asked him how he would feel about my using his name in this blog. I don't use my name although it's probably easy to find. For a while I didn't use my kids' names because despite being a thirty-eight-year-old grown-up I feel like I'm still new to the internet and how to use it. Is it safe? Will they hate it later? I just don't know. I started using the kids' names because it was easier than "the bigger one" or "one of the younger ones." And I didn't feel like making up internet nicknames for them because it felt dumb writing real-life stories about real people with made-up names. But writing "my husband" is pretty easy so I've never taken the time to ask what he prefers.
I have talked to him about how he feels about whether I write about him, or our marriage, on this blog. I asked him some combination of "Does it bother you?" and "Can I?" while also saying I would like to because it's important to me to be able to tell the truth about what I'm feeling and thinking about my life. He said I should write what I want to write. Almost without exception in our lives together so far he tells me that--you should do what you want to do. You should do what you need to do.
That has usually made me anxious. I worried that the subtext of what he was saying was "But I really wish you would do something else." Only recently can I see that that was my problem, not his.
Here are some things I would like to tell you about my husband:
1) He is wicked smart. (I'm sometimes allowed to say that because I went to school in Boston; I use it sparingly.) He is good at math, at figuring things out. I don't understand brains and how they work but I can see that his is built or functions much differently than mine and I so admire his brain.
2) He thinks about things that I don't think about. Rather than react to a reference to an article describing how the guy from that duck hunting show was a racist, my husband suggested we go read the actual article in its entirety first. That was good advice because seeing the what was said in the context of an entire interview left a fuller impression of the man. I still thought the man was racist but the interview deepened my own understanding of racism, especially in a context that I have no experience with--that of growing up poor and white in the South. I appreciate that my husband doesn't just react to things--he looks for more information before making a decision.
3) He is a great kisser.
4) He is an incredibly hard worker. He built a new fence around our pool almost entirely by himself. I think I helped carry three panels and then tapped out because they were too heavy. To do this project he: tore down the old wooden fence, cleared a ton of ivy, drilled holes into the concrete so he could bolt metal supports into the ground, painted 12-15 five-foot wooden fence panels, carried them to the backyard, lined them up correctly and screwed or hammered them together (not clear on that part).It was pain-staking, exhausting work and he stuck with it day after day until it was done. I could write many pages describing similar projects but I'll leave it at--the man works hard.
5) He makes me feel safe and cared for in a way I haven't experienced. I am still learning how to truly appreciate this.
6) He is good with money. Because of this we were able to buy a house that we love--one that is perfect for our brood. I helped because I had a good income at the time and I had been maximizing my 403b for many years. Our parents helped a lot (thank you parents). His many years of saving and smart decisions and previous real estate purchases made it not just possible but not painful.
7) Money gets another entry. I have money anxiety because I am not very good at math and I like nice things. As an adult I went from counting my paychecks to make sure I had enough money for gas to making more money than I expected and spending it all on travel, good food and drinks, clothes, shoes, purses and adventures ( I regret almost none of those things--maybe some of the bags and shoes.) I spent it on other less fun things like paying my credit cards late or parking tickets or last-minute decisions forced by lack of planning. My husband took over the money management for most things and that has given me a huge sense of ease that I had never had before. Money will get it's own separate post soon.
8) He is strong. He has a tall, lean body with strong muscles and I like it a lot. We've done Bikram yoga together, he works with a diving coach (springboard/platform, not scuba), he works out at the gym. With four small kids he doesn't get nearly enough time to do this stuff but I know he will get back to it, or to something similar, and his body will be ready to pick back up where he left off. I greatly admire his strength.
9) He would kick ass on Survivor. Seriously. He can fix almost anything, he could figure out how to catch a fish or kill a lizard, he can either already make fire or he could figure it out and no one can tell what he's thinking (often including me). He's competitive and good at physical challenges and puzzles. He loves games. He really needs to get on that show. Maybe when the kids are a tiny bit older because if he went now I'm not sure who would be playing a gnarlier game of Survivor. Plus he might decide to just stay on that island forever.
10) He is amazing with our kids. Their faces light up when he walks into the room. He will spend an hour in the pool with them, throwing them up in the air, helping them jump off the side, showing them how to swim. He gets up with them every morning and changes all four diapers. He talks to them with such love in his voice and the love he has for them is written all over his face.
11) He is a good cook.
12) He is great at cleaning the house.
13) We have so much fun together, when we actually make time to do things that are fun.
14) He is the best teammate I've ever had. We can put our heads down and pack up the van, load up the kids and take them to the top of the mountain in a wobbly, yellow school bus and we don't want to kill each other. We may sometimes (often) want to jump out the window ourselves but we keep going together, even when it is very, very hard.
15) He is a quiet guy. I used to worry more about him in social situations because I was afraid he was miserable. I'm learning to see that he knows what he needs and can take care of himself, making connections in his own way, even when he's not particularly comfortable in a house full of people or a big crowd.
16) He is a man who knows who he is.
I could go on but sixteen is my favorite number and it feels like a good place to stop.
There were a couple reasons I wanted to write this now.
Number one, I recently wrote a piece about marriage being hard for me and that was tough on him. Even though I tried to make it about me and the things about being married that I struggle with, he is the only other one in this marriage so it can be hard to separate what's me and what's him. As I keep going with the story of September I will share more about marriage and what I've learned about it and myself. . .but we're not there yet.
Number two, my last entry The Boring Days mentioned my being pissed at my husband for not staying home and helping me more. That's new for me to even say that kind of thing to him (which I did, a few weeks before I wrote about it) let alone for me to write it on the internet for people to read. It felt a little scary, a little like a betrayal. But to quote my favorite writer:
I'm trying to own my stories, including the part that acknowledges that I can't expect people, even my husband, to read my mind. If I needed him to stay home, I could have asked. A real ask, not a whispery, half-hearted suggestion. Point being, I'm not taking all the blame myself nor am I placing it all on him. But he didn't choose for me to write about my life (which is also in many ways our life) on the internet and I want to acknowledge that it won't always be comfortable. And it will never be the whole story.
I wanted you, and him, to have more of the story.
I've never asked him how he would feel about my using his name in this blog. I don't use my name although it's probably easy to find. For a while I didn't use my kids' names because despite being a thirty-eight-year-old grown-up I feel like I'm still new to the internet and how to use it. Is it safe? Will they hate it later? I just don't know. I started using the kids' names because it was easier than "the bigger one" or "one of the younger ones." And I didn't feel like making up internet nicknames for them because it felt dumb writing real-life stories about real people with made-up names. But writing "my husband" is pretty easy so I've never taken the time to ask what he prefers.
I have talked to him about how he feels about whether I write about him, or our marriage, on this blog. I asked him some combination of "Does it bother you?" and "Can I?" while also saying I would like to because it's important to me to be able to tell the truth about what I'm feeling and thinking about my life. He said I should write what I want to write. Almost without exception in our lives together so far he tells me that--you should do what you want to do. You should do what you need to do.
That has usually made me anxious. I worried that the subtext of what he was saying was "But I really wish you would do something else." Only recently can I see that that was my problem, not his.
Here are some things I would like to tell you about my husband:
1) He is wicked smart. (I'm sometimes allowed to say that because I went to school in Boston; I use it sparingly.) He is good at math, at figuring things out. I don't understand brains and how they work but I can see that his is built or functions much differently than mine and I so admire his brain.
2) He thinks about things that I don't think about. Rather than react to a reference to an article describing how the guy from that duck hunting show was a racist, my husband suggested we go read the actual article in its entirety first. That was good advice because seeing the what was said in the context of an entire interview left a fuller impression of the man. I still thought the man was racist but the interview deepened my own understanding of racism, especially in a context that I have no experience with--that of growing up poor and white in the South. I appreciate that my husband doesn't just react to things--he looks for more information before making a decision.
3) He is a great kisser.
4) He is an incredibly hard worker. He built a new fence around our pool almost entirely by himself. I think I helped carry three panels and then tapped out because they were too heavy. To do this project he: tore down the old wooden fence, cleared a ton of ivy, drilled holes into the concrete so he could bolt metal supports into the ground, painted 12-15 five-foot wooden fence panels, carried them to the backyard, lined them up correctly and screwed or hammered them together (not clear on that part).It was pain-staking, exhausting work and he stuck with it day after day until it was done. I could write many pages describing similar projects but I'll leave it at--the man works hard.
5) He makes me feel safe and cared for in a way I haven't experienced. I am still learning how to truly appreciate this.
6) He is good with money. Because of this we were able to buy a house that we love--one that is perfect for our brood. I helped because I had a good income at the time and I had been maximizing my 403b for many years. Our parents helped a lot (thank you parents). His many years of saving and smart decisions and previous real estate purchases made it not just possible but not painful.
7) Money gets another entry. I have money anxiety because I am not very good at math and I like nice things. As an adult I went from counting my paychecks to make sure I had enough money for gas to making more money than I expected and spending it all on travel, good food and drinks, clothes, shoes, purses and adventures ( I regret almost none of those things--maybe some of the bags and shoes.) I spent it on other less fun things like paying my credit cards late or parking tickets or last-minute decisions forced by lack of planning. My husband took over the money management for most things and that has given me a huge sense of ease that I had never had before. Money will get it's own separate post soon.
8) He is strong. He has a tall, lean body with strong muscles and I like it a lot. We've done Bikram yoga together, he works with a diving coach (springboard/platform, not scuba), he works out at the gym. With four small kids he doesn't get nearly enough time to do this stuff but I know he will get back to it, or to something similar, and his body will be ready to pick back up where he left off. I greatly admire his strength.
9) He would kick ass on Survivor. Seriously. He can fix almost anything, he could figure out how to catch a fish or kill a lizard, he can either already make fire or he could figure it out and no one can tell what he's thinking (often including me). He's competitive and good at physical challenges and puzzles. He loves games. He really needs to get on that show. Maybe when the kids are a tiny bit older because if he went now I'm not sure who would be playing a gnarlier game of Survivor. Plus he might decide to just stay on that island forever.
10) He is amazing with our kids. Their faces light up when he walks into the room. He will spend an hour in the pool with them, throwing them up in the air, helping them jump off the side, showing them how to swim. He gets up with them every morning and changes all four diapers. He talks to them with such love in his voice and the love he has for them is written all over his face.
11) He is a good cook.
12) He is great at cleaning the house.
13) We have so much fun together, when we actually make time to do things that are fun.
14) He is the best teammate I've ever had. We can put our heads down and pack up the van, load up the kids and take them to the top of the mountain in a wobbly, yellow school bus and we don't want to kill each other. We may sometimes (often) want to jump out the window ourselves but we keep going together, even when it is very, very hard.
15) He is a quiet guy. I used to worry more about him in social situations because I was afraid he was miserable. I'm learning to see that he knows what he needs and can take care of himself, making connections in his own way, even when he's not particularly comfortable in a house full of people or a big crowd.
16) He is a man who knows who he is.
I could go on but sixteen is my favorite number and it feels like a good place to stop.
There were a couple reasons I wanted to write this now.
Number one, I recently wrote a piece about marriage being hard for me and that was tough on him. Even though I tried to make it about me and the things about being married that I struggle with, he is the only other one in this marriage so it can be hard to separate what's me and what's him. As I keep going with the story of September I will share more about marriage and what I've learned about it and myself. . .but we're not there yet.
Number two, my last entry The Boring Days mentioned my being pissed at my husband for not staying home and helping me more. That's new for me to even say that kind of thing to him (which I did, a few weeks before I wrote about it) let alone for me to write it on the internet for people to read. It felt a little scary, a little like a betrayal. But to quote my favorite writer:
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and LifeI'm trying to own my stories, including the part that acknowledges that I can't expect people, even my husband, to read my mind. If I needed him to stay home, I could have asked. A real ask, not a whispery, half-hearted suggestion. Point being, I'm not taking all the blame myself nor am I placing it all on him. But he didn't choose for me to write about my life (which is also in many ways our life) on the internet and I want to acknowledge that it won't always be comfortable. And it will never be the whole story.
I wanted you, and him, to have more of the story.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
The boring days
For some reason I think of the next few days of September, actually 8/31-9/4) as the boring days. Strange because I almost never even think the word "boring" because my maternal grandmother forbade us to say we were bored when we were in her presence and that somehow stuck for all other times too. Strange also because the days after Stinson weren't boring exactly. . .though maybe they were for my kids. They were more just. . .blah.
When a colitis flare starts I expect the next few days to be full of trips to the bathroom, no coffee, very little hunger, drinking broth for breakfast and maybe all other meals. Resting when I can. There won't be trips to the playground or meeting up with friends--we are laying low.
When I woke up on Monday I felt pretty bad. Very low-energy after having been up many times in the night with diarrhea. My husband got the kids up and I started shoving things around in the dirty kitchen to make room for whatever breakfast I planned to be serving. I was shuffling.
The kids were the kids--loud, demanding, dropping food on the floor, spilling water, sometimes screeching. I looked at my husband and asked "Is there any way you could stay home?"
But not in a loud voice. I didn't say I need you to stay home. I didn't say please stay home. I said it probably with a little (tiny) laugh I sometimes have when I'm asking someone for something that really means a lot to me but that I'm afraid they'll say no to. I didn't expect him to say yes. Not only does he not like missing work but he rarely stays home when he is sick. And I have had colitis flares many, many times since we've known each other. Don't think I've ever seriously asked him to stay home. I think I knew, more than other times, that I did not feels strong enough to take care of the kids by myself all day but I think I also thought I just would do it.
Off he went to work and here I stayed to try to spend as much time as I could laying on the couch or laying on the floor. It's a little hard to remember the details of those days because a month has passed and because they were mostly made up of a mix of the elements that all of our days are made up of. We watched some Elmo, only much, much more than usual. They played outside in the sandbox. I put them down for two naps instead of one and listened to them talk for much of the time they were in their cribs before finally falling asleep each time. I laid on the couch and watched recorded episodes of Friday Night Lights, happy to have discovered a channel showing four episodes a day, perfect for a sick day binge. Or an any day binge. Tim Riggins.
I think they knew I only had a little bit to give them. My kids are great like that. We played Legos on the floor. They played around outside and I sat in a chair. My son asked to go "gumping" which is jumping on the trampoline and I'm not sure what my response because I know I definitely didn't have the energy for that. I probably took them out and then sat on the trampoline to watch them. I changed diapers and fed them and answered questions and laid back down as soon as I could, wondering why in the hell I was doing this by myself when I feel this shitty? I'll be honest, I felt a little pissed at my husband for not staying home. And pissed at myself for not being clearer about what I needed. I think we were both so used to these periodic colitis flares that we didn't change much of our lives when they occurred. We waited for them to pass. And the timing was bad. Usually I have Stephanie the wonder nanny on Mondays but she'd changed her schedule that week. And usually I have my dear friend Phyllis come on Tuesdays, and she might have come that Tuesday but for some reason I think she was out of town. I think my cousin Pickle came (not her real name but the only name I call her) but that could have been the next week. Mostly what I remember is;
-I felt really bad
-I realized that my kids were fine, even if they were watching a lot of TV and not getting out much. I stored this away in my brain as a reminder that we can all lower our expectations a lot and still raise good, happy kids.
-I was seriously down about my life emotionally. I was in a funk. This also almost always happens to me when I get sick, especially with colitis when all the good hormones (your Dopamine, your Serotonin, your happiness) are flowing out of your goddamn leaky bowel.
-People around me were also starting to get diarrhea, some of the kids, others. It started occurring to me that maybe I had mostly a stomach virus that was making my colitis worse.
This went on for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. My babiest girl Daphne, my youngest daughter, though not my smallest, threw up all over herself and on me sometime in the middle of the week and I gave her a hug, took the high chair outside to rinse it off, wiped the vomit up off the slate floor of the kitchen, and burst into tears. I texted Haku, our other babysitter and Stephanie's roommate, asking if she could come pick up the kids and take them to her house. "Yes!"she replied, because she is an angel. Hallelujah.
Back on the couch for me with more Friday Night Lights. Stephanie's changed schedule meant she was coming Thursday and Friday. I spent those days in bed, hardly seeing my kids. I read Anne Lamott like the medicine it is, trying to calm my mind which was steeped in anxiety and self-doubt and a feeling of giving up. A familiar braid of mental responses when my body is in bad shape. My mind has been running the show around here for as long as I can remember. Together we hunker down and wait out the gross, painful, inconvenient, daily life-altering physical symptoms that pop up on occasion. It's a familiar dance and I wasn't paying too much attention to it. I was just waiting for it to pass.
Saturday morning, almost a week after our Stinson Beach trip, I woke up and got out of bed. The kids had come running back to get me, shouting "Mommy wake up!" as they often do when their dad gets them out of their cribs. I shuffled out to the living room, curled into the recliner to be a physical presence in the room where my family was, watched a few minutes of Elmo and then took myself back to bed. They were immersed, they didn't need me.
I fell back into bed. I felt awful. Weak. The idea of a full weekend with four kids made me want to cry. I don't know if I fell back to sleep but I laid there for at least an hour. This is the day I ended up going to the hospital for the first time. There's a funny and illustrative little story that comes first though so stay tuned. That's next.
When a colitis flare starts I expect the next few days to be full of trips to the bathroom, no coffee, very little hunger, drinking broth for breakfast and maybe all other meals. Resting when I can. There won't be trips to the playground or meeting up with friends--we are laying low.
When I woke up on Monday I felt pretty bad. Very low-energy after having been up many times in the night with diarrhea. My husband got the kids up and I started shoving things around in the dirty kitchen to make room for whatever breakfast I planned to be serving. I was shuffling.
The kids were the kids--loud, demanding, dropping food on the floor, spilling water, sometimes screeching. I looked at my husband and asked "Is there any way you could stay home?"
But not in a loud voice. I didn't say I need you to stay home. I didn't say please stay home. I said it probably with a little (tiny) laugh I sometimes have when I'm asking someone for something that really means a lot to me but that I'm afraid they'll say no to. I didn't expect him to say yes. Not only does he not like missing work but he rarely stays home when he is sick. And I have had colitis flares many, many times since we've known each other. Don't think I've ever seriously asked him to stay home. I think I knew, more than other times, that I did not feels strong enough to take care of the kids by myself all day but I think I also thought I just would do it.
Off he went to work and here I stayed to try to spend as much time as I could laying on the couch or laying on the floor. It's a little hard to remember the details of those days because a month has passed and because they were mostly made up of a mix of the elements that all of our days are made up of. We watched some Elmo, only much, much more than usual. They played outside in the sandbox. I put them down for two naps instead of one and listened to them talk for much of the time they were in their cribs before finally falling asleep each time. I laid on the couch and watched recorded episodes of Friday Night Lights, happy to have discovered a channel showing four episodes a day, perfect for a sick day binge. Or an any day binge. Tim Riggins.
I think they knew I only had a little bit to give them. My kids are great like that. We played Legos on the floor. They played around outside and I sat in a chair. My son asked to go "gumping" which is jumping on the trampoline and I'm not sure what my response because I know I definitely didn't have the energy for that. I probably took them out and then sat on the trampoline to watch them. I changed diapers and fed them and answered questions and laid back down as soon as I could, wondering why in the hell I was doing this by myself when I feel this shitty? I'll be honest, I felt a little pissed at my husband for not staying home. And pissed at myself for not being clearer about what I needed. I think we were both so used to these periodic colitis flares that we didn't change much of our lives when they occurred. We waited for them to pass. And the timing was bad. Usually I have Stephanie the wonder nanny on Mondays but she'd changed her schedule that week. And usually I have my dear friend Phyllis come on Tuesdays, and she might have come that Tuesday but for some reason I think she was out of town. I think my cousin Pickle came (not her real name but the only name I call her) but that could have been the next week. Mostly what I remember is;
-I felt really bad
-I realized that my kids were fine, even if they were watching a lot of TV and not getting out much. I stored this away in my brain as a reminder that we can all lower our expectations a lot and still raise good, happy kids.
-I was seriously down about my life emotionally. I was in a funk. This also almost always happens to me when I get sick, especially with colitis when all the good hormones (your Dopamine, your Serotonin, your happiness) are flowing out of your goddamn leaky bowel.
-People around me were also starting to get diarrhea, some of the kids, others. It started occurring to me that maybe I had mostly a stomach virus that was making my colitis worse.
This went on for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. My babiest girl Daphne, my youngest daughter, though not my smallest, threw up all over herself and on me sometime in the middle of the week and I gave her a hug, took the high chair outside to rinse it off, wiped the vomit up off the slate floor of the kitchen, and burst into tears. I texted Haku, our other babysitter and Stephanie's roommate, asking if she could come pick up the kids and take them to her house. "Yes!"she replied, because she is an angel. Hallelujah.
Back on the couch for me with more Friday Night Lights. Stephanie's changed schedule meant she was coming Thursday and Friday. I spent those days in bed, hardly seeing my kids. I read Anne Lamott like the medicine it is, trying to calm my mind which was steeped in anxiety and self-doubt and a feeling of giving up. A familiar braid of mental responses when my body is in bad shape. My mind has been running the show around here for as long as I can remember. Together we hunker down and wait out the gross, painful, inconvenient, daily life-altering physical symptoms that pop up on occasion. It's a familiar dance and I wasn't paying too much attention to it. I was just waiting for it to pass.
Saturday morning, almost a week after our Stinson Beach trip, I woke up and got out of bed. The kids had come running back to get me, shouting "Mommy wake up!" as they often do when their dad gets them out of their cribs. I shuffled out to the living room, curled into the recliner to be a physical presence in the room where my family was, watched a few minutes of Elmo and then took myself back to bed. They were immersed, they didn't need me.
I fell back into bed. I felt awful. Weak. The idea of a full weekend with four kids made me want to cry. I don't know if I fell back to sleep but I laid there for at least an hour. This is the day I ended up going to the hospital for the first time. There's a funny and illustrative little story that comes first though so stay tuned. That's next.
Monday, October 5, 2015
An anecdote
I want to tell this story in a linear fashion but a) I do not think in a linear way and b) my mind is so full of ideas as a result of the month of September that I'm living them full out daily and I want to share those with you . . but I don't want to get ahead of myself and talk about the end before I tell you what came first. And, I am tired. Tired because I am on a big dose of prednisone, a steroid, that keeps waking me up at 5 am (not so bad) or 3 am (not so great) or midnight (bad news). I wake up and I am wide awake. No chance of falling back asleep. Once I stop fighting it, it's kinda nice. Quiet house all to myself. Time to journal or read or shower. Or eat, since the pred gives me the appetite of ten men. I almost said a horse. Which is bigger, do you think? Probably depends on the men. Or the horse.
I'm tired and I am doing my best to listen to my body and take gentle care of myself so I won't write long. I won't write the next few days of the September tale, the days that came after our Stinson trip. Instead, an anecdote.
Have you ever been to the ER? Or admitted to the hospital as a patient? Or taken someone else? If so, you might remember a question they ask almost every time:
What's your pain on a scale of 1-10?
Here is what happens in my head when I get asked that question:
What IS my pain level? I mean, I have definitely been in more pain than this. It's certainly not the worst pain I've ever felt. I could say it's a 4, that leaves me lots of room for if it gets worse. But is it really even as bad as a 4? And I mean, it's nowhere near as painful as my first tattoo.
And on and on, complete with comparisons against imaginary people and how they might feel in my situation.
Have I mentioned I experience some anxiety in my day to day life? Yes, well.
For the record, the health care team is using that question as a tool to assess how I'm doing and to start building an awareness of me as a self-reporter. They're comparing what I say to how I'm acting, to how I look, to what my vital signs say. It's a diagnostic tool among many. They're (probably) not standing there thinking "This joker thinks THIS is a four?! Verbal eye roll." Maybe they are; I'm not a nurse.
When I went into labor with my first two it came on fast and strong. At one point I was on a bed with the fetal monitors strapped around my huge belly, tight as hell and making me crazy with claustrophobia. My contractions came every minute or two and with each contraction I threw up. Tears were streaming down my face and I was still answering every question the doctor or nurse asked, in detail. I kept thinking, "If I could just get a second to catch my breath I'll feel much better."
Not long after that I was wheeled into the OR for an emergency C-section. Where I wanted to marry the anesthesiologist who gave me a spinal block and took all the pain away.
Later on in my hospital room, alone with no babies since they were in the NICU and my husband was with them, I looked up at the wall. There was a childish graphic--ten stick figure faces in a row. I don't know if Face #1 had a smile but I know Face #10 had tears streaming down its very sad looking face. It didn't register much, just something to look at.
I truly have no idea at what point it occurred to me, some time long after all of us had gotten out of the hospital, that Face #10 was the closest match to my face during that experience. That sign said on a scale of 1-10 my pain was a ten.
I'm sure something could hurt worse than that, I thought. As if I have to save that ten and only use it once for what is truly the worst pain I could experience.
So that's another thing about me. You're learning it not much after I learned it myself.
I'm tired and I am doing my best to listen to my body and take gentle care of myself so I won't write long. I won't write the next few days of the September tale, the days that came after our Stinson trip. Instead, an anecdote.
Have you ever been to the ER? Or admitted to the hospital as a patient? Or taken someone else? If so, you might remember a question they ask almost every time:
What's your pain on a scale of 1-10?
Here is what happens in my head when I get asked that question:
What IS my pain level? I mean, I have definitely been in more pain than this. It's certainly not the worst pain I've ever felt. I could say it's a 4, that leaves me lots of room for if it gets worse. But is it really even as bad as a 4? And I mean, it's nowhere near as painful as my first tattoo.
And on and on, complete with comparisons against imaginary people and how they might feel in my situation.
Have I mentioned I experience some anxiety in my day to day life? Yes, well.
For the record, the health care team is using that question as a tool to assess how I'm doing and to start building an awareness of me as a self-reporter. They're comparing what I say to how I'm acting, to how I look, to what my vital signs say. It's a diagnostic tool among many. They're (probably) not standing there thinking "This joker thinks THIS is a four?! Verbal eye roll." Maybe they are; I'm not a nurse.
When I went into labor with my first two it came on fast and strong. At one point I was on a bed with the fetal monitors strapped around my huge belly, tight as hell and making me crazy with claustrophobia. My contractions came every minute or two and with each contraction I threw up. Tears were streaming down my face and I was still answering every question the doctor or nurse asked, in detail. I kept thinking, "If I could just get a second to catch my breath I'll feel much better."
Not long after that I was wheeled into the OR for an emergency C-section. Where I wanted to marry the anesthesiologist who gave me a spinal block and took all the pain away.
Later on in my hospital room, alone with no babies since they were in the NICU and my husband was with them, I looked up at the wall. There was a childish graphic--ten stick figure faces in a row. I don't know if Face #1 had a smile but I know Face #10 had tears streaming down its very sad looking face. It didn't register much, just something to look at.
I truly have no idea at what point it occurred to me, some time long after all of us had gotten out of the hospital, that Face #10 was the closest match to my face during that experience. That sign said on a scale of 1-10 my pain was a ten.
I'm sure something could hurt worse than that, I thought. As if I have to save that ten and only use it once for what is truly the worst pain I could experience.
So that's another thing about me. You're learning it not much after I learned it myself.
Friday, October 2, 2015
Yes
People are responding to me, via text or Facebook messenger or other older-fashioned ways. The main thing I'm hearing is "Me too."
Me too.
Something is happening here. Let's pay attention.
When I wrote my marriage post (can someone tell me how to link to old posts here? I am computer-challenged) my husband got upset. I could understand his reaction. I had asked him weeks before whether he minded if I wrote about our marriage and he said I should go for it. I think I offered to let him read it before hand, which I didn't end up doing, mostly because I felt like I was so careful to make that post about me, not about him. As if it is easy to separate those two things and people out when you're talking about a marriage. He felt like I'd just written on the internet that he was failing me because I was saying I wasn't happy. No way! I didn't feel that way at all and I was sorry what I'd written had brought that up for him. I was glad I had written it though.
Why? Because I say things out loud. That's always been important to me but more and more I'm seeing it as my calling maybe. Eek. Saying you have a calling feels a little presumptuous but hey I'm on high-dose steroids so I feel like I can do or say or invent anything so let's all enjoy it while it lasts.
I've written about this before I think, though the archives of this blog are like a foggy land of cocktail party conversations drowning in amnesia and I can hardly remember what I have put down and what I haven't so bare with me if you've heard this before. I've written about how having four small children in a row has the tendency to bring out a certain response from other people:
"I thought having one was hard, But I can't say anything to you!"
or
"I'm going to tell my daughter to stop complaining. She has two under four and she thinks she has it bad." (Wow, yeah. Don't tell her that. That will help no one.)
I get it. We all compare and it can be jarring to try to figure out to respond to someone that seems to be doing 4x the parenting you are. It's impossible to even imagine it other than doing some made-up math in you head like "If I took the diapers, the crying, the food on the floor, the whining, the puking, the pinching, the sleeplessness and the emotional devastation of parenting my one child and multiplied it by four. . . I would die." The looks on peoples' faces are funny except for how slightly tragic they can be. And yes, it is that hard. It is hard, hard, hard to have two sets of twins under three. But it has got to be hard, hard, hard to have one or two or three or..I can't go higher than that or I will have an anxiety attack.
And marriage seems pretty damn hard for many people. Most people? All people? I don't know but I'd say definitely most. Not hard all the time and probably some couples and some individuals find it less hard than others. We can lose sight of this because these are hard conversations to have. It's scary to admit when something isn't working. What if it's me? Am I even allowed to say I want to feel happier than this? Feelings get hurt. Communicating with other people is hard. God, SO hard.
I wrote that marriage post because it was true for me. Thankfully, it does not feel true right now so I am enjoying the hell out of that. But mostly I wrote it because when we were in Montana this summer I had a conversation with a female friend, someone I don't know well but with whom I felt an immediate connection when we met a few years ago. Incidentally we met right after my husband and I got engaged, saw each other again at my wedding a year later and then hadn't seen each other until this summer. In the span of those four years I'd gotten engaged, married and had four kids and she'd gotten divorced after thirteen years of marriage. Painful.
We talked about it and when I mentioned how hard the last two years had been for me in terms of our marriage she was surprised. She said she always admired my pictures on Facebook and how happy we looked and wouldn't have imagined we were struggling. Which struck me in two ways. Really? I almost never post pictures of or comments about me my husband and oh no.
I do not want anyone to look at my life and feel worse about theirs. That's not under my control but what is under my control is the ability to tell my stories and say things out loud. I have a gift for that. And because I have seen throughout my life what happens when you open your mouth, put words to a page, create a piece of music or do anything that allows for the connection between us. Those connections let people take another step. Another breath.
Me too. Me too. Me too. I am hearing this from a lot of women. So far it's mostly women but I'd guess there are men out there thinking and feeling it too.
This is hard shit. I think we need a revolution.
Me too.
Something is happening here. Let's pay attention.
When I wrote my marriage post (can someone tell me how to link to old posts here? I am computer-challenged) my husband got upset. I could understand his reaction. I had asked him weeks before whether he minded if I wrote about our marriage and he said I should go for it. I think I offered to let him read it before hand, which I didn't end up doing, mostly because I felt like I was so careful to make that post about me, not about him. As if it is easy to separate those two things and people out when you're talking about a marriage. He felt like I'd just written on the internet that he was failing me because I was saying I wasn't happy. No way! I didn't feel that way at all and I was sorry what I'd written had brought that up for him. I was glad I had written it though.
Why? Because I say things out loud. That's always been important to me but more and more I'm seeing it as my calling maybe. Eek. Saying you have a calling feels a little presumptuous but hey I'm on high-dose steroids so I feel like I can do or say or invent anything so let's all enjoy it while it lasts.
I've written about this before I think, though the archives of this blog are like a foggy land of cocktail party conversations drowning in amnesia and I can hardly remember what I have put down and what I haven't so bare with me if you've heard this before. I've written about how having four small children in a row has the tendency to bring out a certain response from other people:
"I thought having one was hard, But I can't say anything to you!"
or
"I'm going to tell my daughter to stop complaining. She has two under four and she thinks she has it bad." (Wow, yeah. Don't tell her that. That will help no one.)
I get it. We all compare and it can be jarring to try to figure out to respond to someone that seems to be doing 4x the parenting you are. It's impossible to even imagine it other than doing some made-up math in you head like "If I took the diapers, the crying, the food on the floor, the whining, the puking, the pinching, the sleeplessness and the emotional devastation of parenting my one child and multiplied it by four. . . I would die." The looks on peoples' faces are funny except for how slightly tragic they can be. And yes, it is that hard. It is hard, hard, hard to have two sets of twins under three. But it has got to be hard, hard, hard to have one or two or three or..I can't go higher than that or I will have an anxiety attack.
And marriage seems pretty damn hard for many people. Most people? All people? I don't know but I'd say definitely most. Not hard all the time and probably some couples and some individuals find it less hard than others. We can lose sight of this because these are hard conversations to have. It's scary to admit when something isn't working. What if it's me? Am I even allowed to say I want to feel happier than this? Feelings get hurt. Communicating with other people is hard. God, SO hard.
I wrote that marriage post because it was true for me. Thankfully, it does not feel true right now so I am enjoying the hell out of that. But mostly I wrote it because when we were in Montana this summer I had a conversation with a female friend, someone I don't know well but with whom I felt an immediate connection when we met a few years ago. Incidentally we met right after my husband and I got engaged, saw each other again at my wedding a year later and then hadn't seen each other until this summer. In the span of those four years I'd gotten engaged, married and had four kids and she'd gotten divorced after thirteen years of marriage. Painful.
We talked about it and when I mentioned how hard the last two years had been for me in terms of our marriage she was surprised. She said she always admired my pictures on Facebook and how happy we looked and wouldn't have imagined we were struggling. Which struck me in two ways. Really? I almost never post pictures of or comments about me my husband and oh no.
I do not want anyone to look at my life and feel worse about theirs. That's not under my control but what is under my control is the ability to tell my stories and say things out loud. I have a gift for that. And because I have seen throughout my life what happens when you open your mouth, put words to a page, create a piece of music or do anything that allows for the connection between us. Those connections let people take another step. Another breath.
Me too. Me too. Me too. I am hearing this from a lot of women. So far it's mostly women but I'd guess there are men out there thinking and feeling it too.
This is hard shit. I think we need a revolution.
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