Blogroll

When I'm not here, you may find me wandering the pages below. (If I'm a regular visitor to your site and I've left your link off or mislinked to you, please let me know! And likewise, if you've blogrolled me, please check that my link is updated: thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com. The extra (a) makes all the difference!)

Archives

For posts sorted by date or label, see the links below.

For posts on frequently referenced topics, click the buttons to the right.

To search this blog, type in the field at the top left of the page and hit enter.

Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Recommended reading

What do I do when there's too much on my mind and my words won't stick to the page? I escape into someone else's thoughts. Below is a collection of books and articles that have been sources of information, inspiration, and occasional insight for my own work.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

A tour, as promised

By now, you've seen the front page here -- thank you to everyone for the nice things you've said or e-mailed as you've stopped by. Hopefully everything is actually working (no missing images or other obvious errors), but if you run into a problem, do let me know. I've tested and tested things, but Blogger still has its mysteries.

So what's new around here? Stand-alone pages! Thank you, Blogger, for creating these. This blog was beginning to feel a bit all over the place in the last few months -- since D and I had finally finished commuting, that initial topic running through the blog was no longer the primary reason I was coming here to write. But there were other themes that had been showing up, so I decided to group posts accordingly under some new headings, which are at the top of the sidebar at right. Yep, it's my filing gene at work again.

All the clutter in my former sidebar was driving me slightly nuts too, so that's been given its own space as well. If you haven't already checked out my blogroll, it's hanging out behind the button with the little mouse on it in the new sidebar. If I'm a regular visitor to your site and I've left your link off or mislinked to you, please let me know! And likewise, if you've blogrolled me, please check that my link is updated: thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com. The extra (a) makes all the difference.

I've been reading (mostly for my thesis) even though I haven't written recently about it -- those resources, along with other stuff I've found worthy of note on my bookshelves (real and virtual), are now behind their own sidebar button too. More to be added to the list soon. The library's been keeping me well-stocked in the last few months.

So there you go! That's the short and sweet version of the tour. Again, feel free to explore, and thanks, as always, for reading.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

New starts

I've been busy, as you can see. After the last month's serious shortage of happiness, I decided I needed a project to make some. So I took a really deep breath and asked D if he would teach me some basics in Photoshop and CSS. The new look here is the result!

I'd been considering a redesign since Blogger came out with its new template editor, but nothing I saw out there really felt like me. Trying on templates? Kind of a cross between clothes shopping and interior decorating. Only so much fun when things out there aren't quite your style. But the idea of coding was more than slightly intimidating -- I'd never written anything before in a language other than the ones I grew up speaking or studying in school.

Without question, I've learned TONS in the process, thanks to D. There are a few bugs that may be out of our control (functionality on Blogger's part and browser weirdness) but I'm pretty happy with the end result, especially since this was my first real attempt at such a project. I'll tweak a little more, but only to fix behind-the-scenes stuff. The diversion's been great, even fulfilling -- so, mission accomplished!

I promise an official tour very shortly (but feel free to explore on your own). For now, there are chores around the house that need some serious attention ...

Monday, October 18, 2010

Square one

So, about Wednesday.

It was a small adventure, locating the clinic. The place is in an area of the city I don't normally spend much time in, so I was more than out of my element, trying to find parking, looking for the right building, attempting to understand the electronic directory, then finally giving up and guessing which floor to take the elevator to. No signs, and no one to ask.

I'd stuck all the information I'd gathered into a folder I'd recycled from -- believe it or not -- ninth-grade English class. (Last summer, as I was digging through the boxes of stuff that used to be in storage at my parents' house, I tossed the old homework assignments and kept the office supplies.) It was a little weird to feel the thickness of all that data crammed into the space that used to hold a semester's worth of journal assignments, but it was strangely appropriate too. Replace one narrative with, in essence, another even more intimate: blood counts and other analyses set in order like entries in a diary.

To my relief, I'd guessed correctly, and the elevator opened into the foyer of the office I needed. In a few minutes, I was sitting with a lap full of new paperwork.

I couldn't finish it fast enough -- a nurse took me back to a room very shortly. She indicated the examination table and the gown folded at one end, so I got undressed. Hopped up onto the paper liner, folder and forms still in my hands. I was still scribbling when the doctor came in.

"Hi," she said, as she headed for the sink to wash her hands. "I'm Dr. ________, but you can use my first name." She smiled and pulled a rolling stool up to my dangling legs. "What's brought you to our clinic today?"

I held up the paperwork. "I'm sorry; I'm not done with these -- "

"It's okay," she said, taking the forms and my folder, setting them on a chair out of reach. "Tell me what's going on."

I froze. The folder, which held my story, also seemed to have my voice in it. But the doctor was waiting, so I offered the first things I could remember: four specialists, each with their own work-ups, no comprehensive picture. "I need someone who can look at the whole, not just the parts," I said, nodding toward the chair.

She opened the file immediately, eyes widening. As she scanned the contents, I explained when my health problems had begun, trying to get a better beginning, middle, and end established for the fragmented narrative I'd started with. She nodded, taking notes, asking a question here and there to clarify. But for the most part, she listened.

When I was done, she closed her eyes, fingers to her temples, as if she was thinking hard. "This is a lot of information," she said, "and if you're willing to trust me with this, I'd like to keep it for a few days, just to synthesize all of it more thoroughly in my mind. I'm thinking several things right now, but I want to see exactly what's been done and what hasn't so we can put together some next steps."

I nodded. A doctor taking this kind of time before trying to formulate a path to a diagnosis? It was more than I'd hoped for. For the first time in months, I had the sense that I'd found someone who could help. But what kind of follow-up was she envisioning?

"Early next week," she said, eyes seeking mine with a reassuring expression. "I'll be in touch with you with a plan. We're going to get to the bottom of this."

This time, I think I can believe that.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

And then things got ugly

I've been waiting.

At first it was just waiting for an appointment with a new doctor -- an internist to start with; she comes highly recommended. She works within a well-reputed medical center I've been referred to in Seattle, one whose philosophy emphasizes continuity of care: a single system, linking all of its specialists. Everybody has access to your records, your history. No faxing things to separate people, no need to dig channels of communication. They're already in place. But you have to have a primary care physician within the organization -- he or she acts as your point person -- before you can arrange to see anyone else (like, say, an endocrinologist).

So my appointment, which I made the day before my last post, is this Wednesday.

The same day of my last post, within the hour I hit publish, my body threw a hissy fit. I'll spare you a list of the symptoms, but suffice it to say, they weren't something to ignore.

We weren't sure of the cause, but the first suspect was that kidney stone. Its initial presentation was odd, which I knew, but it turns out the urologist's report hems and haws about whether it was ever even a stone. If it was, it's up and done something unkind. If it wasn't, then something else is going on and we need to figure out what that is.

In the interim between the Friday I got sick and this Wednesday (not quite three weeks), we've done some stopgap investigating. As much as I didn't want to, we went to an ER on the first Saturday (on the advice of the nursing consult service D's company provides to its employees) to make sure nothing imminently life-threatening was happening. After that, we were advised to follow up with a urologist. Of course, the earliest appointment I could get was after the first appointment with the new internist (this is how new-patient scheduling sometimes goes). I was still feeling off, so my remaining option while waiting was to go back to my current doctors.

At some point in April, when the endocrine guy was beginning to run out of ideas, he referred me to a rheumatologist (suspecting something autoimmune). "He's a very good diagnostician," he told me. So I saw that person in June (see what I mean about new-patient scheduling?) but in the end received no new answers after one more round of tests.

Given the new symptoms from September, I figured it might be worth going back to him. Fortunately, he had an opening the Tuesday after I got sick; still no answers, but he repeated his tests.

The Thursday of that week, we left for D's brother's wedding weekend, during which my symptoms got worse. Tack on one more ER visit.

Then we came home. Symptoms even worse. Decided to forgo the ER visit against most natural instincts, sensing from our track record that we wouldn't get answers. The rheumatologist's tests came back a few days ago with nothing new either. And now, we're here.

I've got all my paperwork gathered and organized, all the records I could pull together from the last eighteen months. I've sat down and charted from scratch on a timeline all the weird things that have happened with my body since I got diagnosed with prediabetes, and then some from the time before. I've noted diet changes, weight changes, GI changes, urological changes, medicinal changes, mental changes, environmental changes. There's nothing more I can think of to add.

I wanted to wait to write about any of this, hoping I'd have better news. But here I am, waiting.

I just have to make it to Wednesday. We start fresh there.

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Saturday, October 30, 2010

A tour, as promised

By now, you've seen the front page here -- thank you to everyone for the nice things you've said or e-mailed as you've stopped by. Hopefully everything is actually working (no missing images or other obvious errors), but if you run into a problem, do let me know. I've tested and tested things, but Blogger still has its mysteries.

So what's new around here? Stand-alone pages! Thank you, Blogger, for creating these. This blog was beginning to feel a bit all over the place in the last few months -- since D and I had finally finished commuting, that initial topic running through the blog was no longer the primary reason I was coming here to write. But there were other themes that had been showing up, so I decided to group posts accordingly under some new headings, which are at the top of the sidebar at right. Yep, it's my filing gene at work again.

All the clutter in my former sidebar was driving me slightly nuts too, so that's been given its own space as well. If you haven't already checked out my blogroll, it's hanging out behind the button with the little mouse on it in the new sidebar. If I'm a regular visitor to your site and I've left your link off or mislinked to you, please let me know! And likewise, if you've blogrolled me, please check that my link is updated: thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com. The extra (a) makes all the difference.

I've been reading (mostly for my thesis) even though I haven't written recently about it -- those resources, along with other stuff I've found worthy of note on my bookshelves (real and virtual), are now behind their own sidebar button too. More to be added to the list soon. The library's been keeping me well-stocked in the last few months.

So there you go! That's the short and sweet version of the tour. Again, feel free to explore, and thanks, as always, for reading.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

New starts

I've been busy, as you can see. After the last month's serious shortage of happiness, I decided I needed a project to make some. So I took a really deep breath and asked D if he would teach me some basics in Photoshop and CSS. The new look here is the result!

I'd been considering a redesign since Blogger came out with its new template editor, but nothing I saw out there really felt like me. Trying on templates? Kind of a cross between clothes shopping and interior decorating. Only so much fun when things out there aren't quite your style. But the idea of coding was more than slightly intimidating -- I'd never written anything before in a language other than the ones I grew up speaking or studying in school.

Without question, I've learned TONS in the process, thanks to D. There are a few bugs that may be out of our control (functionality on Blogger's part and browser weirdness) but I'm pretty happy with the end result, especially since this was my first real attempt at such a project. I'll tweak a little more, but only to fix behind-the-scenes stuff. The diversion's been great, even fulfilling -- so, mission accomplished!

I promise an official tour very shortly (but feel free to explore on your own). For now, there are chores around the house that need some serious attention ...

Monday, October 18, 2010

Square one

So, about Wednesday.

It was a small adventure, locating the clinic. The place is in an area of the city I don't normally spend much time in, so I was more than out of my element, trying to find parking, looking for the right building, attempting to understand the electronic directory, then finally giving up and guessing which floor to take the elevator to. No signs, and no one to ask.

I'd stuck all the information I'd gathered into a folder I'd recycled from -- believe it or not -- ninth-grade English class. (Last summer, as I was digging through the boxes of stuff that used to be in storage at my parents' house, I tossed the old homework assignments and kept the office supplies.) It was a little weird to feel the thickness of all that data crammed into the space that used to hold a semester's worth of journal assignments, but it was strangely appropriate too. Replace one narrative with, in essence, another even more intimate: blood counts and other analyses set in order like entries in a diary.

To my relief, I'd guessed correctly, and the elevator opened into the foyer of the office I needed. In a few minutes, I was sitting with a lap full of new paperwork.

I couldn't finish it fast enough -- a nurse took me back to a room very shortly. She indicated the examination table and the gown folded at one end, so I got undressed. Hopped up onto the paper liner, folder and forms still in my hands. I was still scribbling when the doctor came in.

"Hi," she said, as she headed for the sink to wash her hands. "I'm Dr. ________, but you can use my first name." She smiled and pulled a rolling stool up to my dangling legs. "What's brought you to our clinic today?"

I held up the paperwork. "I'm sorry; I'm not done with these -- "

"It's okay," she said, taking the forms and my folder, setting them on a chair out of reach. "Tell me what's going on."

I froze. The folder, which held my story, also seemed to have my voice in it. But the doctor was waiting, so I offered the first things I could remember: four specialists, each with their own work-ups, no comprehensive picture. "I need someone who can look at the whole, not just the parts," I said, nodding toward the chair.

She opened the file immediately, eyes widening. As she scanned the contents, I explained when my health problems had begun, trying to get a better beginning, middle, and end established for the fragmented narrative I'd started with. She nodded, taking notes, asking a question here and there to clarify. But for the most part, she listened.

When I was done, she closed her eyes, fingers to her temples, as if she was thinking hard. "This is a lot of information," she said, "and if you're willing to trust me with this, I'd like to keep it for a few days, just to synthesize all of it more thoroughly in my mind. I'm thinking several things right now, but I want to see exactly what's been done and what hasn't so we can put together some next steps."

I nodded. A doctor taking this kind of time before trying to formulate a path to a diagnosis? It was more than I'd hoped for. For the first time in months, I had the sense that I'd found someone who could help. But what kind of follow-up was she envisioning?

"Early next week," she said, eyes seeking mine with a reassuring expression. "I'll be in touch with you with a plan. We're going to get to the bottom of this."

This time, I think I can believe that.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

And then things got ugly

I've been waiting.

At first it was just waiting for an appointment with a new doctor -- an internist to start with; she comes highly recommended. She works within a well-reputed medical center I've been referred to in Seattle, one whose philosophy emphasizes continuity of care: a single system, linking all of its specialists. Everybody has access to your records, your history. No faxing things to separate people, no need to dig channels of communication. They're already in place. But you have to have a primary care physician within the organization -- he or she acts as your point person -- before you can arrange to see anyone else (like, say, an endocrinologist).

So my appointment, which I made the day before my last post, is this Wednesday.

The same day of my last post, within the hour I hit publish, my body threw a hissy fit. I'll spare you a list of the symptoms, but suffice it to say, they weren't something to ignore.

We weren't sure of the cause, but the first suspect was that kidney stone. Its initial presentation was odd, which I knew, but it turns out the urologist's report hems and haws about whether it was ever even a stone. If it was, it's up and done something unkind. If it wasn't, then something else is going on and we need to figure out what that is.

In the interim between the Friday I got sick and this Wednesday (not quite three weeks), we've done some stopgap investigating. As much as I didn't want to, we went to an ER on the first Saturday (on the advice of the nursing consult service D's company provides to its employees) to make sure nothing imminently life-threatening was happening. After that, we were advised to follow up with a urologist. Of course, the earliest appointment I could get was after the first appointment with the new internist (this is how new-patient scheduling sometimes goes). I was still feeling off, so my remaining option while waiting was to go back to my current doctors.

At some point in April, when the endocrine guy was beginning to run out of ideas, he referred me to a rheumatologist (suspecting something autoimmune). "He's a very good diagnostician," he told me. So I saw that person in June (see what I mean about new-patient scheduling?) but in the end received no new answers after one more round of tests.

Given the new symptoms from September, I figured it might be worth going back to him. Fortunately, he had an opening the Tuesday after I got sick; still no answers, but he repeated his tests.

The Thursday of that week, we left for D's brother's wedding weekend, during which my symptoms got worse. Tack on one more ER visit.

Then we came home. Symptoms even worse. Decided to forgo the ER visit against most natural instincts, sensing from our track record that we wouldn't get answers. The rheumatologist's tests came back a few days ago with nothing new either. And now, we're here.

I've got all my paperwork gathered and organized, all the records I could pull together from the last eighteen months. I've sat down and charted from scratch on a timeline all the weird things that have happened with my body since I got diagnosed with prediabetes, and then some from the time before. I've noted diet changes, weight changes, GI changes, urological changes, medicinal changes, mental changes, environmental changes. There's nothing more I can think of to add.

I wanted to wait to write about any of this, hoping I'd have better news. But here I am, waiting.

I just have to make it to Wednesday. We start fresh there.