The last thing I remember

... is the room beginning to spin.

It was kind of cool, the pinwheeling, marbleizing filter that had suddenly fallen over my eyes as I lay on the operating table. I wanted to remove the oxygen mask to tell the anesthesiologist what I was seeing, but before I could reach for it, I was out.

*

And then someone was saying my name, and I was propped up in some bed with a lot of blankets but I was still cold and there was no way in hell I was opening my eyes because -- well, there was just no way in hell. "We're going to move you to a recliner, okay?" the voice said, bright and sonsy. "Just swing your legs over the edge and we'll help you stand."

Amazingly, my body complied. (Apparently, I'm very good at following directions even while semi-conscious.) Teeth chattering, limbs shaking, eyes still mostly closed -- why the recliner? I wanted to ask; let me stay in bed, please. But I couldn't muster a word. It didn't matter, though, because I was out again before I hit the chair.

*

At some point, the urologist came to talk to me. "We got the stone," she said. "It was impacted."

"Great," I said. And then I remembered why I was there to begin with.

The suspected kidney stone from early September never passed. And after weeks of waiting, hurting, and bleeding, it was time to figure out if the stone was the problem or if something else was going on. So I met with a urologist -- not the one who first found the stone but another recommended to me after my third trip to the ER. She scheduled the imaging studies for yesterday -- x-rays, with contrast injected into the urinary tract -- to see what there was to see. If there was indeed a stone, it could be taken out at the same time, while I was under.

"How's your pain" -- suddenly, that other sonsy voice was speaking again -- "on a scale of one to ten?"

"Two?" I ventured. My bigger concern was my ability to think or move (or were they really just the same thing?) -- both still muddied and slow and exhausting, like trying to levitate from a bed of quicksand.

"Good. I need you to drink something -- can I get you apple juice?"

My brain cleared for a moment. Apple juice equals sugar. "Don't think I can have it -- prediabetic," I said, eyes still closed.

"Water, then," the voice said. "And how about some crackers?"

"Can't," I said, fighting harder against the quicksand. "Carbs."

"I don't want the pain meds to make you nauseated," the voice insisted. "I'll bring you just a little to nibble on."

"Okay," I said, too tired to argue or try to explain anymore.

*

They're eye-opening, these moments of limitation. I'm used to being able to handle my own basic needs. When I can't, I fight hard to do it anyway -- for weeks, I've gone without more than over-the-counter pain relief because I needed to be able to function. To drive a car, to take care of household chores, to engage with other people just to feel connected to the outside world. And to monitor my health care in a system with a lot of cracks in it. I can't do that effectively on stronger meds, though, apparently, I still try.

I'm clearer today, but only just. I made the mistake of letting the pain meds wear off at one point yesterday, hoping to get my brain and body back, but it was too much. So here I am, typing five words a minute, reaching for clarity that feels just beyond my grasp.

I think I'm okay with that. Fragmented as this memory will be when I return to it in a few days or weeks, it will be here. To remind me that the limitations I feel are relative. Three days ago, I was complaining about not wanting to work out. Today, it's not a question of want at all. I'm just glad to be able to get down the stairs on these jelly-filled legs to brew some coffee. And come right back up to bed.

Warning: rant ahead, or a peek into the mind of a food-anxious freak

What follows is an account of one day in my battle with disordered eating. I have fought this problem since before I was old enough to drive a car. It is one of the reasons I finally sought professional counseling through a dietitian this summer, though I didn't know it at the time.

In the months since my work began with the dietitian, I've made many gains. But under the right (wrong?) circumstances -- such as the recent weeks of stress -- backsliding happens. I'm writing about that for the first time here, now, because it's better than keeping silent.

I should have paid attention to the sinking feeling this morning.

It's the kind you get when you haven't eaten in a few hours and your blood sugar dips. Your stomach is growly and your head gets thick and it is all you can do to remember where you were supposed to go next -- much less what you were supposed to do once you got there -- on that list of errands you'd set for yourself.

It was another early morning. And you didn't count on things taking so long. Take a snack, your brain was saying as you headed for the car, wishing you could just stay home. But you were tired and you didn't want to have to have that snack. In the fuzzy logic -- or plain mule-headedness -- of on-the-way-out-the-door thought, you told yourself a doctor's appointment, a haircut, and an in-and-out trip to the grocery store should not take more than three hours. You'll be home right on time for your next meal,* you said. Screw the snack. It's extra calories you don't need. You've lost a little weight in the last month -- don't you want to keep things the way they are?

So you get through your appointment. When you get to the salon -- the bargain-basement walk-in one that also happened to put out a coupon that you needed to use this week if you wanted the additional savings -- you find two other people ahead of you in line. Okay, no problem. You flip through the look books since you haven't had a trim in six months -- better find a picture of what you're supposed to look like so whoever on the rotating staff is assigned to you will do the job right.

And you wait.

And you wait.

And you wait some more. No reason things are slow except that there are only two people working. By the time the woman with the scissors is ready for you, you're regretting that snack you told your brain to forget. The stylist does a good job, a thorough one. So thorough you're wondering if she's cutting each hair individually. And this is just a trim? The morning you thought you'd still have, after finishing these errands, slowly begins to slide out of reach. But, oh good, the stylist is finally done.

This, if you weren't going to take that snack, is where you should have gone home right away instead of trying to stick things out.

After leaving the salon, you head over to the grocery store. What did you need? It takes effort to remember, even though it's just two items. One of them -- salad greens -- wouldn't even be necessary if the greens you bought last Thursday, with an expiration date of November 10th, hadn't already decomposed by the 7th. But you need those greens. What the hell else are you supposed to fill up on if bread and crackers and cereal and all the rest of the food you've ever loved can only be eaten in portions that would make a mouse cry?**

At last, you do get home. You make that salad -- a quarter of an apple, an ounce of goat cheese, not quite a tablespoon of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, tossed with the greens -- and slap some turkey with mustard on low-carb bread. It's a good lunch, a filling one. But you've eaten the same damn lunch for five days straight*** because you've been on autopilot with everything else going on. And now you want what you know you can't have: anything with more than 15 grams of carbs per serving. In any quantity you like.

You wait out the cravings. You're supposed to get on with the rest of the day anyway -- so the morning's gone, and you haven't showered yet, and the workout that you've been hating lately but that you cling to because it means your body still functions and your weight is still under your control needs to be done. But then the phone rings. And you're so lonely that you will totally blow another two hours talking when you know you'll be mad at yourself for shoving off more of the afternoon. Your resistance is waning.

When you hang up, you head for the kitchen. You need fuel for the workout, or that sinking feeling will get you halfway through. So you allow yourself some carbs.

But you've got no willpower left. Between the sugar lows and the lost morning and the loneliness and the sheer sense of defiance you have against all that the universe has thrown at you this year and the last with no rhyme or reason, you've HAD it. Before you can stop yourself, you've inhaled enough from the pantry to horrify your (former) endocrinologist and alarm your dietitian, the latter of whom you should call and 'fess up to right now so she can help you.

And I will.

Tomorrow.

* Eating meals at regular intervals is helpful in maintaining optimal blood-sugar levels and preventing binges.

** Obviously, this is a bit hyperbolic, but when your brain has no fuel, it doesn't process thought very logically or reasonably.

*** Creating variety, even only slightly, in what you eat can be helpful in preventing boredom, which can otherwise trigger binges.

Foggy

My writing brain is sluggish tonight. Yesterday morning started early for me; I had to beat traffic going downtown to have some labs drawn. And even though I slept in today, I'm dragging now. Thank goodness for the end to Daylight Savings Time. The day we "fall back" is one of my most favorite in the year.

When I got to the doctor's office, things were pretty quiet, unlike Wednesday afternoon, when I was there for follow-up with the new internist. The lab techs were just getting started with their preparations for the day -- filling syringes with flu vaccine, restocking vials for blood -- and I didn't have to wait to be called in. The woman with my lab orders waved me over right away and started tying a tourniquet around my arm.

"You fasting?" she asked.

I nodded. I hadn't been sure if the tests required it, but it seemed better to err on the side of caution than to have to reschedule the draw -- one of the tests could only be done first thing in the morning.

I glanced at the labels the woman had printed out for each vial of blood and noticed the number was remarkably short for what I'd seen on the day of my follow-up appointment. (The tech who had originally printed them that afternoon had advised me to wait, given the morning-only test, and have all the blood taken at the same time to save me an extra needle stick.) So -- "We're doing cortisol, anti-TPO, vitamin B-12, and vitamin D today?" I asked, just to be sure.

"Hmm? No, no, I've just got lipids and a hemoglobin A1c," the woman said. "Wait, what's your name again?" She fumbled around with her order sheet for a moment as I gave her my information. "Oh yes, I remember! The other girl said you were going to come back today to get everything done and she taped your other labels to the fridge -- "

We both turned to look at the refrigerator, whose doors were bare.

"Shoot," the woman said, untying the tourniquet. "Wait right here."

I've learned not to be surprised when snafus like this occur. Even as recently as Wednesday, there were some near-mistakes that happened -- the physician ordered the wrong test and only realized it when I asked her why she'd chosen it over an alternative that was purportedly more accurate; then the lab tech handling a urine test gave me the wrong label for the specimen cup and only realized it when I pointed out that it was for the second of two urine tests my doctor had ordered, which could only be done while I was symptomatic (I wasn't that day).

Is it just me, or does it seem like I'm having to double-check what shouldn't be mine to check in the first place?

The woman taking my blood Friday morning eventually found the labels she needed -- in a garbage can. Lucky for me; apparently, once those labels are printed, the request records leave the lab computer and go to a completely different facility where specimens are received (that way, the folks handling that step in the process know exactly what to look for). I don't know whether we would have ended up having to call the receiving facility to figure out what testing needed to be done or if anyone was even at said facility at that time of day. Either way, it wasn't going to be a simple fix.

So. I'm grateful that everything worked out in the end. I just hope the incidence of error drops in future visits. For the next set of tests, scheduled for Wednesday of the coming week, I'll be sedated -- and there's no way I can look out for myself like that!

Two-faced

Halloween was a low-key affair this year. Last week, we again attended the annual pumpkin carving party one of D's friends likes to host, but we didn't go in with a plan as we did the first time. Just a gourd of a ghoulish hue and a vague idea of what we might put on it. Here's the end result:


A pair of eyes apiece -- the ones on the right are mine (adapted from a template) and the others belong to D (carved freehand).



I'm amused that the creepy gaze I thought I was creating ended up looking more concerned than anything else. I guess having another face emerging from the side of one's head would be a good reason ...

Halloween night in question was busy, and not just because we got about 200 trick-or-treaters (fairly standard in our neighborhood). We had a last-minute guest, one of our friends from Portland, who was supposed to be on vacation in Venice but had had his passport turned down the day before at the Portland airport. Too beaten up, the gate agents told him. His only option, if he still wanted to make the trip, was to get a new document issued from the nearest emergency processing center -- which was in Seattle.

"I'm going to be fairly rotten company," he warned me ahead of time. Which was completely understandable. But I paused before telling him that I might not be much fun either. Even though we've known each other for more than a decade, I still hesitated to say anything about what's been going on in the last few weeks. On the outside, there are no obvious signs that mark me -- perhaps I look more tired than usual and my clothes are a little looser, but no scars, no broken bones. Still, I've had my resources tapped repeatedly, dealing with unpredictable pain, diverting whatever energy I have into finding a doctor who will listen, waiting for a diagnostic plan to take shape.

As I hinted here, these aren't things I like to tell people in real life, not even my family, because pain, both physical and emotional, is so intimate. To admit to someone that you hurt is to take a risk -- that the other person will respond insensitively, that he or she will downplay your experience, that you will feel worse for having said something in the first place. So I've learned not to talk about pain out loud if I can get away with it; I do it in this space instead.

But with someone I've known so long, it also feels dishonest to pretend all is well. And I'd been run down enough in the last few weeks that the act of pretending was going to be too much in person, especially because the physical pain is so unpredictable; it can flare up at any time. So I told my friend in brief that I wasn't in the best shape. The result was an awkward few seconds on the phone -- he acknowledged what I'd said but didn't seem to know what else to offer. Then someone came to his door and he said he had to go.

So I'm still turning one face to the outside world and letting the other exist here. I wish there were a way to integrate them more. But for now, this is the best I can do.

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.

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 ...

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.

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.

Them's fightin' words

I knew getting a dietitian was the first step toward some important changes, but apparently it's starting a small revolution.

I think I'm firing my endocrinologist.

It's not a straightforward story, but the short version is that on my visit to said endocrinologist's office last week to follow up on that pesky kidney stone, I updated him on the diet adjustments I've been making with the help of my dietitian. And he wasn't happy -- the caloric allowances she'd laid out for me didn't jive with what he thought I should be aiming for (he was advocating a much tighter budget). Not one to sit helpless when given conflicting information, I asked him to speak with the dietitian so that we could determine where the disagreements were in their assessments of my needs. His response: "Tell her that I have a subspecialty degree in metabolic disease" -- or some such field, I can't remember his exact words -- "and if she still has questions after that, she can call me."

Huh. Did he really think she (or I) was going to accept credential-waving as an adequate reason to follow his plan?

Sensing I was getting the brush-off, I e-mailed the dietitian after I got home, explaining the discrepancies between the recommendations, and expressed my concern. She immediately got back to me, promising to contact my doctor so that we could get the diet guideline questions resolved.

Apparently, he wouldn't talk to her.

Instead, he left a message for her with his nurse -- one that wasn't far off from what he'd told me to relay, from what I've gathered. And he's still refusing to take the dietitian's calls.

Is it ego? Insecurity? A control issue? All of the above? I'm done speculating. I need a care team, one in which the various members work together. If someone's refusing to communicate, much less collaborate, there's no way this is going to work out in my best interest. So I'm removing myself from his responsibility.

This has been a long time coming -- over the last few months, this guy has said and done other things that left me feeling unsupported and unheard. It's not worth going into detail, but each incident eroded my trust in him just a little bit more. I'm glad to be able to leave his service, knowing without question that the problems with him aren't "just in my head."

But finding that next person. I can't say I've got a lot of confidence in the current remaining team members (with the exception of the dietitian) -- they communicate minimally, by faxed lab results at best. This endocrinologist was kind of the only person who at least went through the motions of examining the bigger picture (he made the referrals to other specialists, so he got their letters back interpreting the results of their tests). I need someone willing to take the time to look closely, to pursue answers.

I happened to read Big Little Wolf's commentary on the doctor-patient relationship as all this was going on, and that, among other things, has reinforced what I've known for a while: that my search isn't going to be an easy one. But I'm looking because I have to. This mess -- or message service -- masquerading as coordinated care has gone on too long.

And I will totally sic all seven pounds of my attack kitty on the next M.D. who tells me his degree is what makes his plan (or lack thereof) superior to anyone else's.

Bone weary

I thought the weekend was supposed to be for relaxing, but I think it's just allowed me to feel the weight of all the stuff from the past week (or two), now that there is space for that. And the feeling is necessary, so fine. But I'm warning next week right now: ease up or ... else.

(I'm not very good at actually coming up with threats, but I'm cocking a very pointed eyebrow at Monday and everything after it. It's my teacher look, which actually won a stare-down contest in a teacher-training workshop many years ago. See that, next week? See that eyebrow?)

My thesis is moving forward for real. I have two solid chapters that make sense in succession and are pointing very clearly to a third, which is more exciting than I have the means to describe. But it's been drawing on a lot of mental resources, and when I've come to the end of the day, I've had nothing for anyone else. D and I both go through this -- he'll return after a particularly intense day, having successfully left work at work, but he doesn't quite make it home in his state of mind for several hours after he gets through the door. He floats in some kind of limbo that makes for pretty quiet dinners. I understand -- sometimes the brain doesn't reset for a little while. So I leave him alone until he's ready.

Last week was my turn to be zonked -- not just from all the research interviews and the mental gymnastics of writing, but from the emotional pull of trying to tell a difficult story. (Forgive me if I don't get more specific than that; I did just spend the week up to my ears in the details.)

I'm glad the writing is working. But it's at the expense of other pressing concerns I need to resolve, like the fallout of getting sick while no one was around. D and I didn't come through that situation in the best way, and we've wanted to talk about it, but I've been too frayed to do it without getting upset, which D doesn't deal well with. Our attempts to have a conversation about how we handled things on both our ends have been kind of rocky. And then there's the question about what all these seemingly separate problems -- blood sugar, GI tract, kidneys -- are really indicative of. I've pushed that out of my mind for a while, but Labor Day weekend was a reminder that all is not perfectly well and that we still don't have real answers as to why three different body systems decided to get wonky, all starting in the first half of 2009.

So I want some emotional reserves for this stuff. I know I can't always have enough for all of it, but for next week, I need more.

This

... is how I feel.

Last week's issues are more or less fading away (hooray!) but yesterday was another thesis deadline and I'm now totally brain-drained.

It's a mostly good sort of drained -- I feel like I hit a stride I hadn't achieved in ages, really writing, not just transcribing or starting a scene only to abandon it for a different start. For months, I'd accumulated those starts, 19 pages of them. Yesterday, I turned in a completed chapter with a beginning, middle, and end.

I'm supposed to be writing up a short item for another professor right now, but I think I'm still not quite recharged. Rather, I think I used up my quota of writing brain on an e-mail I had to compose this afternoon. I'd gotten an inquiry from a prospective student, asking about the ins and outs of my program (I'm listed as a student contact for such questions).

Of course, the applicant wanted to know what I thought about the classes, the faculty, etc., etc., and I'm glad to provide my take on my own experience -- which I can only characterize as mixed. But it's not something I share without a lot of consideration about context.

I imagine if you asked each person in my year what he or she thought of the program, none of the responses would be the same. There would be similarities in some areas, but also enormous differences, depending on each individual's personality and expectations. We're all as different as the work we produce. So whenever I reply to someone's inquiry, I have to emphasize the importance of asking other students the same questions he or she has asked me. And I have to word my response so it is absolutely clear that my experience is by no means representative of anyone else's, that in fact there are people I have met who would answer very differently.

For some reason, I don't trust these eager applicants to remember that. I'm sure there are those who will romanticize the "highly intriguing" and "highly illustrious" program I'm a part of (words straight out of today's e-mail), no matter what I say, only to be disappointed when they arrive (if they're admitted). Perhaps I think this because so many people I met in the program eventually found themselves disillusioned with it. The fact is there were (and still are) limited resources, not just in terms of funding but in terms of mentorship, and if you don't fight hard to be your own advocate when you feel like you're not getting what you need, you'll be less satisfied with your experience. I don't want the prospective students who contact me to go into the process of applying -- to this program or any program -- without the understanding that this is part of what will greatly influence how things end up for them.

And then there will be those who'll get turned off before they've gathered enough opinions, taking my comments, no matter how carefully I couch them, as bald-faced denunciations.

It's out of my control, in any case. I can only choose my words so carefully. I just hope I did a good enough job that it'll make the right difference to the right person, if that makes any sense. That's my reason for replying in the first place.

Every kidney has a silver lining, the sequel

Yep, this little nuisance again.

You'd think I'd recognize a kidney stone after the first one, but no, this one presented itself quite differently. Referred pain? You got it (rather, I did).

So a good part of Friday found me waiting here (the hospital's walk-in imaging clinic):


Not exactly my first choice for where to spend all that time. But when the ultrasound didn't reveal anything amiss in my gallbladder (a good thing!), the GI folks had to refer me to somebody else (with a practice in the same medical facility, but an entirely separate registration/appointment process). That doctor, whom I got to see only on the luck of some other patient's cancellation, sent me back to the clinic for an x-ray, which revealed the real cause of all the trouble.

The doctor was very kind and hung around after his office had closed, just so he could interpret the x-ray for me (it was late in the day when he ordered the test, so there was no way the radiologist would have the official report to him in a timely fashion). He could have gone home and told me to wait for the results, to be delivered by phone after the long weekend, with orders to go to the ER if things got worse before then. But he didn't, and I'm thankful. Because of his kindness, I was able to go home with an answer and greater peace of mind. I'm still under orders to go to the ER if anything untoward occurs, but given the size and location of the stone, that's very unlikely.

Who knew I'd be glad to have a kidney stone instead of the alternative?

(Don't get me wrong; it still hurts. But given the choice, while alone, I'd rather deal with a problem I can treat from home as opposed to something that requires hospitalization, no matter how routine. Who would feed the kitty?)

I just hope I'm not in for a repeat of this in the future. Especially since it occurs without warning and in such misleading ways! Worst fear: that it happens while I'm on a plane. If I'd gone with D on Thursday instead of staying behind to work on my thesis, I'd have been somewhere over Texas during the nastier part of that afternoon. I suppose I should thank my writing obligations for preventing that ... ?

Grumbling rights

I'm exercising them. Because the gods of timing just won't leave me alone.

The short version: D left town this morning to throw his brother a bachelor's weekend before said brother's wedding next month. This afternoon, the nagging stitch in my side that started yesterday after lunch turned into an unrelenting pain that still hasn't gone away. A trip to the GI doctor got me some prescription painkillers and orders to return to the hospital in the morning for a thorough ultrasound (the one attempted today wasn't clear enough, so we'll try again when I'm fasting). The hope is that the gallbladder doesn't need to come out.

I'm pretty good at being alone most of the time -- years of living apart from D while we were commuting has trained me well. But this is one of those instances where I really, really wish he were here.

On a lighter note

It's been busy, as I'm sure you've guessed, but life chez Troubadour is back to normal as of yesterday. In relative terms, at any rate.

I'm not going to go into all the details right off, but I'm happy to say that my parents' visit was manageable. All the prep leading up to it figured significantly in making it so, but there were also moments that were enjoyable entirely for what they were, not because I used any magical thinking or conversational stealth to make a difficult situation better.

Troubadour Dad stayed for an extended weekend; my mother stayed for an additional week. During the last part of her visit, we drove down to Long Beach, a tiny town at the southwestern corner of Washington, for their annual kite festival. It's been running for thirty years, but D only found out about it early this summer.

Road trips to new places with Troubadour Mom are always fun because she still has her sense of adventure (my dad is another story, but Mom works on him every now and then). We were pleased to give ourselves lots of firsts on this brief weekend, which included:

Mom's first visit to Oregon! (We stayed Friday night in Astoria, which is just across from Long Beach Peninsula by way of this bridge.)


First time flying a Revolution kite for all of us, and the first time flying any kind of kite for both me and Mom. A master Rev flier was giving lessons to interested bystanders, so we lined up for a try. What a rush!




Mom even managed to land the kite on her second attempt without crashing:

These aren't easy to fly in light winds, but they can do amazing things. Each of the Revs in this clip is flown by a different person:

Then there was my first time dipping a toe in the Pacific Ocean. Even though we moved to Seattle three years ago, I'd never had the chance -- the Puget Sound isn't the same thing even though it's technically connected.



Two weeks of playing parental vacation director means more than a few things around the house are in need of attention. And the fall semester started yesterday! So it's back to earth after much flight. But I'm on both feet and glad.

First photo courtesy D; second, third, and above photo courtesy Troubadour Mom

Fire burn and cauldron bubble

Because I needed to take care of at least one of the items on my list of beefs just to get back some peace of mind over the weekend, I waged war on the mysterious (and impossibly hardy) microbes in our laundry.

I think we have detente.

We won't know for sure until D tries out the most seriously affected item (a t-shirt), but so far, everything else has proven to be odor-free. So, for your amusement -- and actual use, if you ever run into this problem -- here's what I did on Sunday morning. N.B.: this approach is only recommended for clothing appropriate for the regular hot cycle in your washing machine.

Materials

large pot with lid (ours was a 6.5 quart)
distilled white vinegar
water
measuring cup
stove
large mixing bowl or other similarly sized receptacle
tongs or chopsticks

1. Using measuring cup, fill pot about halfway with hot water from tap (this will reduce time required to bring to boil). Note quantity of water and add about 1/12 this volume in vinegar. Cover and heat on stove until a rolling boil is achieved.

2. Place one laundry item in pot. Poke with tongs or chopsticks until completely immersed. You may add more if the items are small, but dyes do come out of fabric and may discolor other garments.

3. Cover and boil for 5 minutes, 10 for garments with especially resistant odor problems. At the halfway point, stir garment to resoak any parts that may have puffed out above water line from steam.

4. Carefully lift garment with tongs or chopsticks and transfer to mixing bowl. Empty pot and repeat boiling process with fresh vinegar solution for each remaining garment.

5. Place boiled items in washing machine and launder on regular hot wash cycle with detergent. DO NOT add bleach as this will mix with the vinegar to produce poisonous fumes. Select the extra rinse option on your machine if you have one -- this should help prevent any residual vinegar smell from remaining.

6. Tumble dry as usual.


And now, I'm off to the airport. Life will be unpredictable here for a little while, but I'll be checking in as best I can ...

The writing on the wall

It's not a good sign when you wake up and the first thought that flits through your mind is oh no.

I admit, I'd gone to sleep feeling anxious. Despite all the effort I've been putting in to take care of myself in preparation for next week, there's still this panicky thing doing jumping jacks in my guts, and no number of countermeasures will get it to calm the hell down. You can only trick the mind and body so much. Add to that the usual random obstacles life offers and suddenly the reserves I thought I'd been storing up look so much smaller.

I've been trying not to dwell on the less than pleasant stuff (and I'm good at dwelling, so this takes effort). But after a certain point, I can't ignore what's right in front of me.


So, my beefs with the universe, some trivial and some not. Because it all takes energy to deal with, and I really can't devote what's meant to be for my parents to this:

• Introducing us to the most sweet-tempered, affectionate kitty on the planet but having her hate catnip and all manner of kitty treats, which are essential strategic tools for getting a cat to scratch her scratching post instead of the furniture. Also having her general aversion to drinking water and the aforementioned treats foil the administration of preventative dental care. (There are specific water additives and dental chews that can help if your cat is prone to tartar buildup.) Am I a bad parent for thinking dental care for a cat is a wee bit of a racket? You don't want to know the quote I got for the cleaning our cat supposedly needs, just in case her gums are reabsorbing one of her back teeth.


• Making the price of a central cooling system so ridiculously high that even over the course of ten years, it will not pay for itself. We're lucky enough to have cooler summers out here, but during those few weeks when the temperature spikes, it's more than a little unpleasant in the house. This has been one of those weeks. As a result, I think my body has retained enough water for both me and the cat who will not drink. Which brings me to ...


• Bloating. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? As if I really want to manage a visit from my food-obsessed parents while also feeling how uncomfortable my waistband is before being taken on a traveling smorgasbord with them.


• Mildewing. Back in May, when we were visiting our friends in Portland, we stayed at their place. Well, they had a bit of a moisture problem in their linen closet (and their apartment in general), so the sheets we slept on definitely reeked of something foul. No worries, we said -- two nights and we'll go home, wash everything we're wearing, and all will be fine again. Well, we've put some of those items through the laundry three times now, and they STILL begin to smell after a few hours of wear. I'm at my wits' end (and it's time to do another round of general wash before my parents arrive). Do I take ye olde fashioned approach, boiling the clothes and whatever they're harboring in a pot on the stove? And how are we supposed to get around future invitations to stay for a weekend when we do very much want to hang out but obviously can't throw away what we wear after each visit? They'll think it odd if we book a hotel next time around, won't they?

Okay. I think that's all that's bloggable. Now I'm off to check on the kitty, in hopes that maybe, just maybe, she's gotten hungry enough to try the treat I left in her food bowl in lieu of breakfast this morning ...

As promised

Here's what we did to make our upside-down cake, modified from the original version in yesterday's post to make it Troubadour-friendly.


Peach and Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake
adapted from Martha Stewart Living, August 2008

Ingredients

• 5 1/2 oz. (1 stick plus 3 tbsp.) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup erythritol* sugar substitute
• 1/2 cup Splenda granular, divided
• 4 medium ripe peaches, skins on, pitted, and cut into 3/4-inch wedges
• 1 cup coarse yellow cornmeal
• 3/4 cup Carbalose flour**
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp. dried lavender
• 1 1/4 tsp. coarse salt
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Melt 3 tbsp. butter in a 12-inch skillet (ours was stainless steel, works as well as cast iron) over medium heat, using a pastry brush to coat sides with butter as it melts. Sprinkle 1/4 cup Splenda evenly over bottom of skillet, and cook until Splenda starts to form a crunchy skin (will not caramelize), about 3 minutes. Arrange peaches in a circle at edge of skillet, on top of Splenda. Arrange the remaining wedges in the center to fill. Reduce heat to low, and cook until juices are bubbling and peaches begin to soften, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from heat.

2. Whisk cornmeal, Carbalose, baking powder, lavender, and salt in a medium bowl. Beat remaining stick of butter and erythritol with a mixer on high speed, until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl. Mix in remaining 1/4 cup Splenda, vanilla and cream. Reduce speed to low, and beat in cornmeal mixture in two additions.

3. Drop large spoonfuls of batter over peaches, and spread evenly using an offset spatula. Bake until golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Transfer skillet to a wire rack, and let stand for 10 minutes. Run a knife or spatula around edge of cake. Quickly invert cake onto a cutting board. Tap bottom of skillet to release peaches, and carefully remove skillet. Reposition peach slices on top of cake as needed. Let cool slightly before serving.

* This creams WAY better than Splenda but lacks sweetness, hence the use of both in our substitutions.

** When using Carbalose, a general rule of thumb is to lower baking temperature by 25 degrees, double the rising agent, and increase baking time by at least 5 minutes (can be more, depending on the oven and the recipe). All adjustments have already been made here.

Upside down

Cake, that is. I'd found yet another recipe in the inspirational binder to try, but I needed some help because (a) I'm allergic to raw stone fruits and (b) a 12-inch skillet is hard to flip when every bit of it is oven-hot.

So D rescued me. He peeled the peaches from the farmer's market and sliced them into a pile of juicy, golden wedges so I wouldn't get hives all over my hands. And when the cake came out of the oven, he gamely clapped a chopping board over the pan, palmed it with ease, and inverted the whole mess with a daredevil grin. I loved him for it.



In the past, I counted on him to be that rescuer for bigger things, things with greater emotional stakes -- family and all its traps, especially. I leaned on him because I (understandably) couldn't lean on myself. Then our own problems began to emerge, and I was alone, still unpracticed at being there just for me. We learned to avoid conflict -- easier to step around each other, swallowing our frustrations so as not to have those all-out fights, ones that would leave me waiting for him to patch me back up.

It's not sustainable, that dynamic. And I've known it for a while but haven't had the resources within to draw upon. But I'm working on that now, relearning, in a topsy-turvy way, how to repair myself.

I won't lie: it sucks. On many days, I'm not sure which end is up, and figuring it out leaves me spent and spread-eagled. And let's not forget afraid -- I fear that after so many months of emotional wreckage, D will have reached his limits. He has reached his limits. I've felt his patience wear long past thin, and it's terrified me. I can't learn quickly enough.

But he's still there, waiting, willing to offer a hand if I really need it. I think we both sense there's a new equilibrium to be gained for me and for us.

For that, I can only be grateful.


For the original recipe, click here. Modified recipe to come.

A return to ordinary

Sometimes after a trip, I welcome that. Home, with its familiar spaces and smells and schedules, can be a relief after living out of a suitcase, not knowing what time the next meal will be.

Then there’s post-trip disorientation. What was the plan for the day after the return? Oh, right -- there wasn’t one. But there’s laundry and mail to sort and groceries to buy and the rhythms of the week to relearn.

Monday was one of those days-after where I couldn’t get my bearings.

Trip photos! Let’s look at those, said one voice.

Deadline coming up for thesis work, said another. You haven’t touched your writing since early last week.

Anniversary !!! -- don’t let that evaporate, a third voice chimed in. Blog already, before the high is too far into the past. Not that you won’t have fond memories of it all, but writing about it won’t be the same.

What are you making for dinner, asked a fourth. Ugh, there’s nothing in the fridge, and D’s going to be home in a little while, and then you’ll have to go to the store, and you’ve done nothing all day.

Shut UP, I wanted to say.

Ultimately, I’m glad I saved the details of the weekend getaway for a separate post -- I think I need the boost to help me through the wall of current reality. (Have I really done nothing but laundry this week? No, but that’s all that really feels like a measurable accomplishment!) So, a virtual escape is in order. To ...


Victoria! Specifically, Butchart Gardens. This was one of our few planned destinations for the trip. To give ourselves maximum exploration time, we left Seattle at noon on Friday and arrived for a mid-evening dinner (after a little bit of driving and two ferry rides). Which allowed us to get to the gardens early Saturday morning.

It was, as you can see, VERY sunny. It was pleasant in the shade with a breeze, but wandering the big open beds left us quite warm.

The enclosed butterfly garden down the street was amazingly cooler, despite the temperature and humidity that have to be maintained for its winged tenants. We managed to snap some pictures of several beauties that posed for us. An identification guide is available here.






We had trouble capturing the elusive Blue Morpho –- the brilliant sapphire color on its wings is only visible when they’re open, and this species tends to keep them folded while feeding. (These guys below are licking up some tasty banana juices.) But D managed to sneak a peek at an angle.


And this one, newly hatched from its chrysalis, had to let its wings dry -- so it couldn’t fly away.


After a day of flora and fauna, we were ready for dinner at a darling spot in old town Victoria. Bonus !!! –- a corner booth that gave us extra privacy (see, that’s the corner):


And from another angle:


To the left, you can see part of the beautiful antique door that was repurposed as a wall to enclose the bench seat. I thought it made for a special little nook.

The next morning was an early one, as we wanted to fit in a bit more sightseeing before catching the ferry back home. Major !!! for my own personal pot of coffee at the hotel restaurant:


Properly caffeinated, we set off on a tour of the harbor via one of these cute little pickle boats.


They have impressive maneuverability –- so much so that the captains perform a “water ballet” with them, set to the Blue Danube waltz, on Sunday mornings. Naturally, we timed our tour to end just before the performance so we could watch. (I did get video -- but the patience to edit it requires some sleep first.)

Then it was off to a nearby castle for some history on a man who came to Victoria as an indentured miner and died the richest man in British Columbia. (The photos on the website are better than any I could take in the lighting there.)

And finally, on our way to the ferry, a side jaunt to the Fisgard lighthouse.


I figured I’d gotten to see a lighthouse on the eastern coast of Canada exactly a year ago, but (very sadly) without D -- why not make up for it with one on the west?

Now I’m home, and the week is nearly over. Still dealing with post-vacation inertia? Oh, yes. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. We actually did quite a lot in those 48 hours away -- all very much worth it.

The view from above

I want it.

And today, I got myself a guru who will help me get it: a dietitian.

I'd been mulling over the idea for a little while -- a year of unexplained creeping weight gain will do that to you, particularly if you have a complicated relationship with food. There is, of course, much more to that story, but suffice it to say that after these last two weeks of eating a traveler's diet and seeing the results on the scale, despite my best efforts to manage the damage while I was away, I decided I'd had enough of going it alone. I have too much on my metaphorical plate to worry about -- thesis, marriage, family -- to make room for food anxiety.

Not that food anxiety is totally separate from all of those things; I dare say it's a common element among all three, even if it's not at the surface of each. In the here and now, though, I need a guru who will take on the day-to-day questions and concerns about food with me so I can focus on the less straightforward business of sorting out my life as a whole.

For just shy of a year, I've been talking to a different counselor about the things that have gotten me down. And despite multiple attempts to ask him to show me the bigger picture, the map -- hell, even the path -- he's managed to get around my question: what are the problems and what do I do with them?


I didn't see the pattern for several months, which baffles me. But it's been a confusing year, one in which I second-guessed my instincts many times over. In recent weeks, I started bringing up the food anxiety in our sessions, outlined its severity, its years of entrenchment. "I know it's easy to focus on that since it has a handle that's easy to grasp," the counselor said. But nothing more.

So on Monday, I told him I was going to find a dietitian.

I met with her today, and from my first impression, I think she's going to be great. I felt better after talking to her, felt like we could tackle the anxiety, felt like she had a plan for me even if we didn't get into the nitty-gritty details all at once. I know she can't be the person to answer the larger questions on life for me, but she'll help me clear away some of the debris on the path. Which is what I've wanted all along from the other guy.

Maybe it's time to clear him away too, in favor of someone else -- a search process I'm hugely reluctant to begin, especially since it's taken so long to determine how dissatisfied I am with my current counselor. How can I prevent this from happening again? What if the next person -- and the next one, and the next -- are worse? Am I really willing to throw away a year's working relationship? I don't know.

But that view.


I want it.

Photos taken at the High Line, New York.

Ahem

You know when you get a backlog of stuff you want to blog about but life gets in the way? And then you try to pick up from where you left off and your brain laughs at you?

Hi.

I'm just going to start with where I am now -- home, for one. After D.C. Part the First, the Toronto Interlude, D.C. Part the Second, and a wedding in New York tacked on at the very end, I'm back in my own time zone. I am cried out, danced out, and slept (on other people's couches) out, and I do not want to see another plane unless it comes with a one-way ticket to a state of bliss.

D and I wandered part of Riverside Park on Monday (we had several hours to kill before our early evening flight). It was the first piece of alone-time we had since I'd left, and it felt like I'd been away from him for months. Before my trip, we'd been having ups and downs with each other because of all the May-hem (and, in general, most of 2010), so it was a strange feeling to walk hand-in-hand, connected but also not.

I found a curlicue in one of the monuments just before we left in search of lunch. I can't remember if I pointed it out to D or if I just snapped the picture in silence.

The week's been okay, though. We finally pinned the hems on the remaining two curtains, which I'm hoping to work on tomorrow while D finishes putting up the brackets for the garage shelves, and we picked some new recipes to try this weekend. Last night, we watched a light movie together, the first romantic comedy in months. And tonight -- well, tonight we have no plans. Maybe that's a good thing; it gives us flexibility, the chance to be spontaneous. But the possibility of silence scares me more than a little.

Landing

I've done a lot of that in the last week. First in D.C., where Marketing Sis lives -- several months ago, I'd planned a visit, hoping, among other things, to catch a performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring at the Kennedy Center with her. (We have a more than slightly irreverent appreciation for this piece, but that's a story for another post.) Arrived last Tuesday. Took off again Friday for Canada. Came back for the remainder of my visit Sunday.

My grandmother passed away just before I was supposed to come to D.C. I'd meant to write something to honor her nearer to the date of her death, but I knew the stress of travel prep would keep me from doing that properly. So here I am, trying to find words, but none are coming. There are images, snatches of beautiful things other people said at her funeral last weekend. Still, this isn't the right moment for me to think of her in the way I'd like. Perhaps in a few days. I'm leaving again on Friday to go to a wedding in New York. Once that's over, once I've landed for good in Seattle, I can do this. It seemed important, though, to mark her departure sooner in this space; hence these sentences.

Landing here twice in one week has let me remember my first trip alone to this city too. I was moving here for the summer to intern at a magazine, with only the address of a university dorm anchoring me to the world beyond the airport. The rice cooker my mother insisted on letting me borrow -- there was no stove, just a microwave and fridge in the efficiency I'd found -- didn't fit in my luggage, to her dismay. But it wasn't until my plane was gliding in over the Potomac, giving me a clear view of the Capitol dome, that I started to feel panic. "What have I gotten myself into," I whispered as we touched down, suddenly doubting my credibility, eligibility, whatever had supposedly earned me the right to be there. I'd never held a paid writing job before.

Returning so many years later, following the same trajectory past the Capitol, remembering my fear on the plane's final approach -- it was an odd feeling. I still write, in a slightly different form. And there's fear that goes with it, not so much about the prospect of doing it but whether I can sustain it, given its emotional demands. What have I gotten myself into? I'm still not sure. But I have to believe in it, or try my best to, even when words refuse to stick to the page.

So today, even without a clear sense of what I'm trying to say, I attempt.

So, about May

That was kind of a wash, wasn't it?

That's sort of how I feel, looking at it from June. Not that I want to negate the good things that happened (irises, foster placements, and that random rainbow), but seriously, May, you threw some rather unwieldy wrenches into the mix, and I'm beginning to wonder what I have to do to make it stop. I don't think I can deal with another month like that, nor can my family or my marriage. Or, for that matter, my thesis, but that at least can be put on hold -- which is essentially what's happened for the last week, given the new chaos that erupted during that time. The situation's not bloggable yet, but suffice it to say that it's not pretty and will require some time to resolve.

So shape up, okay, 2010? These last few weeks haven't been representing you very well at all.

I've never been a willing roll-with-the-punches kind of girl, but I've done it out of necessity. That strategy is all that seems to be working in the short term these days. It's not sustainable, though. So I'm asking myself, what is?

I've asked that question for a while now, deciding to focus on small efforts, trying to push back without shoving -- because that doesn't work either, not with people, not with life. And I know I'm making mistakes, ones that make me want to give up trying because they cause frustration not only to me but to the people in my life. My husband, my sisters, my parents; the people who know me but don't know what to think of me or do with me in this state of flux as they too struggle with things like May. I'm tired; they're tired. And when I sense they're about to tire out, I back away, afraid they'll say, "Enough! Too much!" -- and leave. Which doesn't exactly help me with the learning process.

Give me the quotidian. Let me work with these challenges first, not the big ones that were May. I know; I don't really get to call these shots and May already happened. But I'm asking -- hell, begging -- whoever is in charge of the universe to cease and desist, or at the very least, dial down the intensity. Because no number of rainbows is going to help me make up the balance if it continues like this.