Collection

When an article features Terry Crews and mentions Rosey Grier, I'm going to be all the way in for clicking THAT. When that article fully displays the principle and ever-perfecting manhood, well pre-dating Crews' current testimony before the Senate, and how sumptuously he expresses not only his humanity but his convictions, I all but weep. He's proving what we know - and most need to know. Additionally, he's funny as hell.

A joke I heard on Twitter once: "White people upset about BET asking, 'Why don't we have White Entertainment Television?' ... We do, it's HGTV." Worth the click because sometimes online discourse is fertile.

In other TV musing, something struck me about Pose recently. Having watched other Ryan Murphy works, I knew early on that the discussion I'd seen regarding how unrealistic Pose is was almost funny: Murphy's not interested in realism, he presents setpieces, and he does that nicely if you choose to take it on his/those terms. (Feud felt intentionally setbound; even outdoors scenes are claustrophobic and closed-in. That plays to the emotional worlds of the Crawford and Davis characters in play.) For Pose, the archness is not as visually obvious, so I've seen complaints about, say, just how glamorous the scene is made to look, or the opening sequence for the series itself, where "real" historical costumes are stolen from a museum for a gay ball. Preposterous! And duh. Here is the thing: Pose is 80s TV. Figuratively (it's set in the late 80s) and literally (its emotional beats are ALL Very Special Episode-worthy). The depth of plotting is *veeeerryyy* much like 80s TV - sitcom or drama. The pacing is extremely 80s; when TV took time to lay things out. For many, this seems slow or dry or even insulting (making the implicit explicit). But this is so, so true to its time. It takes the 80s seriously, AND it tells stories no network (remember, we really had three back then) would have told in the time itself. I kind of think that's genius, and it's not Murphy's first time reining pace enough to slow things down like this. Given his current influence, you wonder how this might bear out in others' work. Imagine a vogue for *less* cinematic TV; imagine the VSE's regaining ascendance. I've seen surprising amounts of ink on VSEs over the past couple of years. My guess is nostalgia is bringing it back, in service of subjects even the original concept never served.

Leaping from television to literature, who has read Connie Willis's Doomsday Book? I actually re-read it a year or two ago, and - forget Jurassic Park - this book will scare the willies out of you, in both its plague-ridden timelines. So reading about the extraction of leprosy from centuries-old skeletal remains ISN'T HORRIFYING AT ALL. Just as long as you haven't read the wrong books. Yeep.

Finally ... hmm, and more hmm. Yes, fella babies, it's Adventures in Science Reporting again!

I have written in the past about Penelope's ancestry, and as little obsessed as I am with pedigree, it's not beyond me to admit fascinated with the idea my beloved Pariah descending from millennia of fascinating forerunners. Oddly enough, it seems like cancer is about all we really have left of pre-contact canine breeds. Still - being a critical thinker - it is hard not to wonder about previous DNA studies, pointing to modern Amercan dogs' long history here. Hmmmm. Keep us posted, Dr. Ostrander.

Christmas is When We're Together

Three years ago, my mom and stepfather, D, and I postponed Christmas a day because both of them had pneumonia, or the flu or something. I don't recall the problem so much as the beautiful day out with Pen-Pen, and the nice, quiet holiday the three of us shared.

The quiet time with just us three has been the nature of Christmas long enough that it is tradition now. But we are willing to change that, and this year the advent of my brother and nieces was a welcome change. D has been ailing for about seven years now, and at long last, the doctors have said it "won't be long." I'm not sure either my mom or I are genuinely capable of  rasping that he ever can die, after so long doing poorly, but logically it's "real" enough we know this is the last family Christmas, probably.

So it was an extra pity when my brother, then both nieces, and finally D, all came down with the flu.

Christmas has ended up still being sort of a small affair for us, even with twice the population. My nieces have been great troupers, putting up with a huge houseful of relations yesterday, most of the day, and opening presents this evening almost as if they were not half-dying, missing out on snow at home, and far far away from their own comfortable beds and puppies.

Tomorrow is fake Sunday. Run the fam to the airport, come home, nap, eat something. We've had Christmas early, and - as far as this can be said given the circumstances - it was pretty lovely.

May yours, if you celebrate, be merry and bright.

As for me, it's about time for a long winter's nap. So Merry Christmas (etc./or not) to all, and to all a good night!

Collection

Well, NPR is trying to make me fall in love with them today.

This story may only be exciting for ME, as a sufferer, but as we get into the warm-and-itchy season of eczema, I'm interested in research and treatments. I've heard of nemolizumab in a rash (har) of ads for a drug for psoriasis, and even wondered why psoriasis seems to get all the attention. Well, it seems it has been looked at for eczema too. For now, I'll stick with my old standby, but I'll keep an eye open as this progresses.

A little splotch of history

"How much would you expect to pay for ALL THIS ... mold?" As astonished as I am that developer-of-penicillin Alexander Fleming's mold was preserved at all, the price tag astonished me just a little more. The writing here is HILARIOUS, it's a fun piece - give it a click ... and discover the many luminaries who have also owned a piece of the mold.

Other projects that were vying for Lego production included depictions of the Addams Family Mansion and the Large Hadron Collider.

Plastic Figures. Legos! Legos immortalizing just a few of the women of NASA!

"Well, Dang."

It's become clear to me with age that I'm one of those people who "won't go to a doctor." The thing is, last time I did go - with labyrinthitis, an illness I know ALL too well - they decided to do tests on me ... and told me I had: labyrinthitis. Go home, take meclizine.

Which was what I knew before I took the DIZZYING step of leaving my home, exposing strangers to the virus, my mom insisting on across town to drive me and make me go (and exposing her - and by extension my ailing stepfather), and experiencing a few hours of matchless torture for the privilege of being told what I knew already.

And that test cost me $285.



So, this past Wednesday, when I felt a sore throat coming on, I turned into one of those treat-it-yourself morons. I spent a day at work, possibly quite contagious, downing NSAIDs and thinking I was beating this thing.

Yeah. I know. Just be glad you aren't one of my cube farm mates, I guess. I suck.


I took my laptop home that night just in case, so I could work from home, and not infect anyone.

Thursday wasn't great. I did work, though. You can get good electronic housekeeping done with a puddy and a pup for company.

Friday, though - no way. The fever that had begun the day before was 101.6. I don't know when I've had a fever to speak of; it's been long enough I was actually in incomprehension, looking at the thermometer.



See, my mom raised us skeptical. She wasn't one to easily believe her kids were sick - we were NOT going to get away with malingering - and so, to this day, I often tend to disbelieve it when I am sick. Which is funny, because at heart I am an underachiever, often enamored of the idea of not being at work, home wrapped up in a blanket.

One of my bosses and I once had a conversation about the phenomenon of not being able to malinger; in his case, the superstructure for this was Catholic Guilt. In mine, Mom Guilt.

She's good, no doubt.

So for me to be out of work for two days is almost intolerable; I feel like I'm stealing.

Which is why this weekend - when it got so much worse - was not exactly relaxing. I think Friday may have been the worst of it, but Saturday wasn't the world's most breathtaking improvement. Yesterday - well, yesterday I made myself clean the dang house.

To be fair, being sick in a dirty house is the PITS. But it's a bit more of that mom thing. I wanted to be comfortable - but I also was insisting to my body, "I am better."

Well. Ish.

The cough still hurt a lot, though the fever was gone. I had energy enough to clean. "See!?" Clothes were laid out for today at work (oh yes I did go).

And then before bed I had to admit - that cough had blood in it. Old blood at one time, bright and fresh new blood at another.

Neither of these bears good implications, and I am not a complete ass. Though I did go to the office. Which ... actually may be completely assy. Fever or no, the likelihood where blood in the cough is concerned is "infection" (likely bacterial), and that means that, five days on, fever or no, I could be contagious.

Sigh.

I actually did feel remarkably good this morning. Which is odd, as I've had insomnia unlike anything I've experienced since my twenties for two nights running (and no nap yesterday, because housecleaning!).

I also called the doc.

One prescription later (seriously, I can take the cough; do just give me an antibiotic so I'm not Typhoid Mary over here), I can at least put to rest the Complete Ass of a Coworker concerns, and get on with things.

Thank goodness it didn't cost me $285.

Now to wait for the bill.

Rabbit Holes

Today, I was talking with my oldest friend, The Elfin One, and she asked how my mom and stepfather are doing. He is the one to whom I've alluded a time or two, who has for some years now been slowly dying. A part of this has been deterioration of his cognition. ... and my mom has endured a chronic, profound disruption of her sleep patterns, as he loses track of time completely. The result is she's not quite the woman of stunning recall I have always been used to her being.

TEO asked me whether this is stress or some reflection of an organic problem. I think it's the sleep issues, the fear and unceasing demands. But it's so easy to forget ... that she forgets. With my stepfather, we've grown used to his lapses.

Last week, she came to my house and thought she had never seen the painting I did in my upstairs bathroom ... six months ago or more.

My mom is fully down the rabbit hole with my stepfather. And honestly, she's getting a little rabbity.


The next question is, "Diane, how are you?"

My response to this tends to be some combination of bewilderment and dismissiveness. I'm *aware* this is hard on me too, but I'm much more aware how much easier it is for me than it is for my mom. There's a tendency to push off sympathy so people will spend it, and their prayers, on my mom instead.

Not with TEO. With my oldest, best friend, I can be honest (with my brother too). And I realized where I stand.

I'm like standing guard at the entrance to the rabbit hole.



G-d has been especially kind to me of late. A few months ago, it was stress helping them do their taxes, and for the past few months I've been doing all I can to be not only on call if they need me, but also to just spend time as much as I can. To be an escape valve and a social distraction that is NOT demanding for them.

There's been a lot of social distraction for them lately - family, after family, after family - and my mom is incapable of not *hosting* her family. So for some weeks, as much as we LOVE them, visit after visit has had her fretting over what to cook, had her shopping, had her squiring loved ones around, had her socially "on" in a way that alone can be demanding. As someone who's lived alone for the bulk of my adult life, over twenty years now, I know how exhausting joy can be. Simply smiling all day - it is a pleasure to be with people, but I come home absolutely shot, and aching for my solitude, my home, the furbabies.

For me, there's been a lot of work distraction lately. Three solid weeks now of quite HIGH productivity - prep for our annual meeting, onboarding an exec I've been waiting for over a year and half, and this past week has been an apple pie hubbub. Multitasking extraordiaire.

I'm the lucky one: I'm not down in that rabbit hole, my world is still the real world. I get to sleep normally. And I have a job with the most extreme level of satisfaction I have ever enjoyed - which is saying something very significant.



So now my own question.

How do you hope your mom can have a life like that - productive, healthy, stimulating ... knowing what has to come for her to have that?

Yeah.

Pet Moments

We love our pets - whether they are dogs, cats, fish, birds, iguana, or imaginary friends, we can be affectionate with the nonhuman in unique and gratifying ways. I've been blessed to live with dogs and cats most of my life; those few years without an animal of my own were not my favorite of times.

The Reiders at Janet Reid's community know the current feline resident of my home well. He is Gossamer the Editor Cat, Keeper of the Bucket of Chum, lover of the lady herself, cruel taskmaster of my work in progress, sometime nestler, eternal funnyboy and cutie-pie-face extraordinaire.

Ohmigosh EYEBALLS

Penelope the Publishing Pup has made it to Janet's pages as well, but she stays home with me more than not. She guards our windows, and that one spot in the front dormer in the master, makes sure the floor lies still for all of us by napping on it strategically, and revels in her yard, keeping our estate free of squirrels, bunnies, and That One Cat we call Sylvester.

Four years old now, their baby days are over, for all they get babied even so. So it was a surprise when I came home yesterday, and found myself assailed by the old, familiar stench we shall say was connected with her house training.

Oh my poor girl. I won't go into full forensic analysis, but it appears within an hour (probably less) before I came home, her stomach attacked. In five spots throughout the area of the home she has access to when I am at work, she had erupted unhappily.

She is not in the presence of plants, and there were no unexpected open cabinets, giving her access to cleaning products or the like. The "evidence" included no particular clue to what had gotten to her, but twice before I took her outside, she threw up again, poor kiddo.

I expect she thought she was in trouble, but I kept her close and asked her how she was feeling and reassured her. Her eyes were clear, her tongue normal, her teeth fine, and there was no foam or sputum around her mouth. She showed no sensitivity to my touch, and no heat or swelling. Her limbs were perfectly normal, so no injury. Last night, she was normal in her behavior, and ate kibble with no ill effects.

After a massive and damaging storm last night, the kids' vet is closed, but Pen bounced back with alacrity, and we are relaxing this evening. G-TEC appears unfazed and fine, though he always seems too skinny to me in summer, when his coat thins and you see his real shape and size. They are both eating normally, and another inspection revealed no untoward variables around the house.

We'll keep a sharp eye on both of them. If I can, I'll get them in Monday or Tuesday, when I am taking off and working from home, respectively. They are both probably overdue, so a 200,000-mile checkup is in order.

In the meantime: let there be scritches.

Dubious-faced Pum.
"Scritches? I'll have three."

May Day

It is Gossamer TEC's fouth birhtday and I am, I think, very sick indeed. Because  it's been like a whole moth, so I need to be sick again.

So, with apologies, I don't feel up to providing photos of the boy rightnow  - but happy birthday, Gossie.

Laughter Is the Worst Medicine?

Disclaimer - though this post riffs on the litany of illnesses I've been enjoying this past month, it's not actually about them, so we open with sort of a non-kvetch alert ...

The cough that's running like wildfire through our cube farm these days is a bit like The Office Hugger. It's everywhere, welcome nowhere, and prone to cling. If it chances to make you chuckle in the slightest, it will take you in a death grip and not let go.

I sound like a six-pack-a-day emphysematic, is what I am saying. The tiniest mirth takes me down, choking, and Snagglepuss himself would wonder how I make that hideous, wheezing sound.

Last week, at the height of a fuller roster of head-cold symptoms, I was taking meds.

I. Hate. Cough medicine.

It strips your brain away and makes you stupid.

I haven't written since the mini retreat with my beloved and talented friends. Nor edited. Nor researched.

Nor has Miss Penelope been blessed with a good walk for too long now.

It was pretty easy to forgive myself for that in the full throes of migraine and flu. Even last week, she was so sweet with her Wheezin' Mama, I was feeling the guilt less strongly than seems fair. Plus, having lost thirteen pounds in a day and a half with the flu, I've still held off eight to ten of that, so "exercise" has been demoted (ahh, the poison of "success" ...).

Today, though the cough is still irritatingly eager, the guilts are asserting themselves - about the lovely young lady who depends upon me for kibble and walkies - and about the work, which I'm missing. Though I have said for some days now I'd pay a good $10 for someone to pummel me on the back and loosen up my chest, I actually haven't felt "sick" since last week. And I take the guilt/missing my writing as good signs too, really.

Best of all, the loss of time thanks to Daylight Savings Time has not cut me down.

Sadly, one reason for this is that I had a bit of a freak-out at work today, thanks to cognitive issues from last week causing a misunderstanding; but (a) I blame the cough meds, and (b) as dismaying as it was, it was not an actual "problem", in that no damage has been done. My sense, a bit over two years into this job, is that this upsets me more than anyone else. So it will be necessary for me to perform like a rockstar on something else soon, and this too shall pass.

In the shorter term: tonight, we walk with Penelope in nature.

I just hope she won't make me laugh.

Monday

This morning, around 5:00 and after having been awake for a long time, tossing and sweating up the clean sheets I'd just washed *again* after being sick this weekend, I gave up and got up.

It turns out, when your fever drops and you end up with a temp a couple or three degrees low, the symptoms are pretty much exactly like fever. So I decided I'd best treat myself as if I had one - i.e., am contagious - and got out of bed, packed up Penelope, and took my commute extra early in the a.m.

We picked up my laptop. I ran into that one woman who apparently comes into the office at four a.m. to do who knows how many hours worth of walking, and we gave each other a little scare. Pen and I hit the road for home, and today I have given nobody any bugs.

We've gotten a good bit done. Renting some equipment for an event this week at work, updating my boss's travel calendar, a nice swath of housekeeping. For lunch, I had a nap. Not enough to make up for half a night's sleep, but renewing enough for a while.

My temp's still a degree and a half off, but I cannot take any more being sick; I have to go in. Perhaps a hazmat suit. Certainly fair warning to my colleagues.

Not My Week

Last Sunday, I had my talented and delightful friends Leila Gaskin and Kristi Tuck Austin over for a mini writing retreat. It was wonderfully evocative rainy day, and stories were read, research and writing were done. I felt low grade dizzy all day, and had a headache, but the company and the work were much to be grateful for.

By Tuesday, it was clear to me I had a migraine. The dizziness actually overwhelmed the pain, and I stayed plastered in bed until about one o'clock. Penelope and Gossamer, being the astonishingly forgiving wee and timorous beasties that they are, never even nudged me for breakfast or walkies. They curled up around me, and let me sleep and sleep and sleep.

On Wednesday because The Voice of G-d (or was that "mom"?) Hath Said It Must Not Be that you ever, ever, ever take two days off of work in a row for illness, I went in to work. And realized that this time the pain was overwhelming the dizziness, and I was miserable. My head has a grave disliking of tornado warnings, and we had more pink and red on the weather forecasts than I have ever seen in my life, and I spent years in the Midwest, y'all.

Thursday, and blessedly, I enjoyed The Final Symptom of some migraines - that physical and emotional euphoria that follows the release from bone-crunching pain - and I was very, very happy indeed.

I had planned for a while to take Friday off, do some cleaning and some other things around the house, and then go out for the evening to a Bowie event I thought would be fun.

My mom, forgetting I had taken the day off, called me right around five - and told me that there's been a certain health crisis in our family.

Who needs Bowie, I needed my family, so I hit the Italian place for penne pasta with marinara, a large Greek salad with light feta, and went over to spend the evening with her.

At 3:30 this morning, all I could hope was that the projectile issues sapping my body of all nutritional intake since the Reagan era were "just" food poisoning. Because heaven help my mom and stepfather, if I've got the flu ... and probably brought it over with my wonderful company last night.

Sadly (... um), this morning it transpires that mom had no problems last night, so our supper was not a source of food poisoning.

Also sadly, and yet kinda hilariously too, I am so dehydrated at this point, I went to lick my lips when I came downstairs, and my tongue stuck.

Sigh.

This seems very much not to be my week.

And now to contemplate, do I go to the doc-in-a-box and get a flu test and possibly Tamiflu, or do I hope like Hell this is "only" the 24-hour death, and curl back up with the furbabies and whinge at a friend to drop some ginger ale off on my back stooop?

What would you do? I'm addled and honestly unsure.

"I just realized that I don't feel bad."

"Learning how to human."

"Living with depression instead of living life *through* depression."

"Leave every day a little bit kinder than it started."

Wil Wheaton has gained a lot of cachet since his stint as Roddenberry's Gary Sue Jr. He's funny, and a celebrity force in the whole bearded-guy cool thing.

He also suffers mental illness, and has never shot up a crowd of people nor donned a tinfoil hat and been a living piece of comic relief. He's a real guy. With a real disease.

When A Picture is Worth a Thousand Barfs

I'll shut up about airsickness, I swear - but, honestly, how could I not share this? Possibly the single most literally-brutal misfire in copy and graphic design, I give you:

The Delta airsick bag.

Simultaneously sympathetic and terribly threatening, complete with Terminator reference?

Check.

Also: hurl.

Breathless

I went to a new doctor not long ago, and the immediate result is that I’m collecting a whole new raft of doctors. Most likely, I expect this is an indication I chose well in the new guy, but of course the whole thing comes with a raft of administrivia and the inevitable fear doctors strike into many of us.

Like a lot of little kids, I was afraid of Going to the Doctor, because the extreme ritual of it all, the rigidity of my mother’s discipline leading up to the visit, and the smell of alcohol were in no way really reduced by the presence of the biggest fish aquarium I’d ever seen in my life, and I really never got to go nose-up to the tank anyway (mom, that) and get out of my head by contemplating the undulating peace and beauty in that water.

Once the sheer unknowable-ness and mystery went out of the experience, I “outgrew the fear” and got over it, and an increasing understanding of the medical likelihoods of my family lines became, over time, a bit of a dulled litany that went from not meaning anything because as a healthy child those things didn’t touch me to not having any meaning because, frankly, in my family (on the maternal side, anyway), illness and decrepitization are something of a cottage industry, if not an obsession.

Okay, they’re an obsession.

When  I was a liddle-LIDDLE kid, as we used to say, my cousin/best friend and I used to get into competitions whenever we saw each other: “My mother had NURSE’S TRAINING.” “MY mother FINISHED nurse’s training.” We were steeped in medical expectations and the fact that injury yielded that pinnacle experience of life: attention. Doing anything that resulted in getting a band-aid was great stuff; and the time we were walking barefoot and I stepped on a bee (the only time I’ve ever been stung by one, unless we count the time I mowed over the yellowjacket nest and half of them flew up my pants) was epic attention time for me. I believe I was actually jealous of that other cousin, whose foot got caught in the spokes of the bicycle when he was riding on the back.

Yeah.

Once adulthood undoubtedly got its way and had me all independent and working for a living and surviving that experience, I began to consider myself generally too busy, and too healthy, for doctor visits. And I have also been surrounded by those who actually “need” to go to them, which makes me sad. Of my two oldest friends, one has had a chronic, incurable disease since we were like twenty-five, and she’s endured multiple surgeries to remove significant portions of herself in treatment thereof. The other came upon difficulties much more recently, but very profoundly, now enduring a laundry list of exotic and also incurable conditions, as well as some hearing loss, rheumatoid arthritis, the odd blood clot or mini stroke – oh, and the supposedly-rare disease which killed not only my father and my grandmother, but has got hold of her and someone else in my family by now.


So it has come to be that recently, aged forty-seven, not having been unaware that I seem hardly ever to be in a doctor’s office as often as … well, ANYONE I know, I had to put a face on it, and admit, I hate doctors.

I had one several years back who, knowing my father died of lung disease, prescribed me a really good migraine medicine, which I loved and refilled … until the time it came from the pharmacy with the giant yellow label that said MAY CAUSE SEVERE BREATHING PROBLEMS on it. Where that label had been previously, I have no idea, but I can tell you this: I did endure horiffic sleep apnea every damned time after I got rid of a migraine.

So … that explained THAT problem. (*)

This doctor also (knowing about the migraine thing, y’see) decided it’d be a nice idea to force me to wear a giant, bright-blue, traffic-stoppingly-huge heart monitor in front of everyone 24/7 (as if that is not humiliating and therefore high-blood-pressure-inducing) because I had high BP once in her office. The fact that I explained to her I HAD a migraine that day, and had also had a fight with Mr. X, already living some 4000 miles away by then and therefore extra-stressy to fight with, between time differences and so on, made no odds to her. Into a BP monitor I must go, all context and stress notwithstanding.

I’ve had a hideous case of White Coat Syndrome ever since then, that stressed me out so much. My dad had the same problem, and I never thought I would (ask any phlebotomist who’s taken my whole blood or platelet donations over the past THIRTY years now). But no matter how I try to overcome it, a DOCTOR’S office BP test is invariably going to come off badly. Gosh dammit.

That doc  pulled the same heart monitor trick on my sister in law, too. It stressed my very young NIECE out, that stunt – imagine how conducive that was to S-I-L’s BP coming off well.

I never went to her again.

The one I replaced her with was indifferent in the extreme, which meant I thought he was a great fit on the rare occasion I ever bothered to go see him.

But last time I did bother, he shrugged off a very real patient concern I had, and decided to make a flip remark to go with the (literal, thanks) shrug.



And so we have a new doctor.

He’s treating my eczema by sending me to my mom’s dermatologist, whom I know she loves (this may or may not bode well for my loving the doctor herself, but at least I have something to do about the incresingly ugly situation on my arms).

And he’s responding to the fact that I have a history of sleep apnea (*) and my father and grandmother both died of (non smoking-related) lung disease by sending me to a pulmonologist.

This, for me, is a bit of an added area of White Coat Syndrome, because, though I count myself whole and healthy and have so much to be grateful for when I look at the health of so many around me, I actually do have significant trouble breathing sometimes. It began about a year or two after dad died, and also about the time Mr. X went so far away. It’s been a stable problem, and not associated with other symptoms – and I had a sleep study done once which was inconclusive of anything scary – and I have a deviated septum (the only useful thing that first doc ever told me, not that she ever DID anything about it) – and eczema is actually associated with breathing issues – and I’m only forty-seven – and this visit, as New Doc is kind enough to say, is just to establish the baseline (… “just in case” being left unsaid …).

In case the theme of “and’s” above is not clear, with all these years of not going to doctors like I’m a crank about the whole thing, I’ve been able to sustain the narrative that “there’s nothing wrong, really” (i.e., I am not dying of lung disease).

But you know. It’s no less uncomfortable, not being able to breathe, folks. It’s always embarrassing.

And … the sleep apnea.


It doesn’t happen every night; only several times a year, sometimes with long stretches of not at all. Sometimes with weeks-long stretches of every night, though.

I know enough to know this much. My apnea is autonomic, not mechanical. My BRAIN stops the breathing, not my body; not my weight and conformation.

I’ve had this problem since I was a liddle-LIDDLE kid.

I can remember, from an extremely early age, the nightmares. Nightmares from childhood can be particularly vivid; memorable even into adulthood.

Nightmares that could kill you – that literally stop your breathing – and that you never outgrow, though you outgrow all the other nightmares …


Yeah, those are doozies.

*

The nightmare is that I’m at the pool. It’s the same friendly pool I knew all my childhood, often, though I’ve been under other water in the odd dream over the years.

I’m at the pool and underwater, my hand over my face, and – miracle! – there is the tiniest bubble of air inside my hand.

This is all I have to breathe.

I have to conserve it.

So I have to breathe really. Really. Shallow.

And then my brain gets the idea. I can’t breathe at all.

And so I don’t.

And I stop for what seems like must be a pretty long time. Not just a few seconds.

I stop for so long my body’s repressed state stills. Becomes almost perfect.

Until I am unable to hold on any longer. And I explode into consciousness. Gasping. Clawing at the air, the air that is not just a tiny little bubble I am holding in my hand, but wide and open and free, unsupressed by water, all mine, all mine. And I need it all.



So. Yeah. I got a new doctor, and almost instantly had three.

Vacation this year was a lot more fun to set up.

Up a Crick

Today is one of those fun days I'm off work because the tiniest place in my neck is uppity enough that I can't drive safely, and therefore it's a sick day for me. Been paying bills and trying to be productive, though I don't have my work laptop at home with me. (I don't carry it home every day because - how often would I use the thing? not very - and because of the bad back and arthritic neck, of course.)

And so I am enjoying my great big desk, and contemplating doing some filing since tax season is upon us ... though filing does actually involve a bit of lifting and bending, so we'll see how that goes.

Just yet, I'm not in the mood for more query research, but with the Amazon gift card one of my managers gave me for Christmas, I *do* have three of the text I wanted for research on the WIP, from sellers I chose who had good used copies of each one. That might not involve so much lifting and so on!

There will definitely be a bit of grinning and petting, as I have for my caretakers two charming little fuzzy pals. They don't do massages, but somehow they take care of me nonetheless.

"I'm Not Talking"

Gossie turned up with a teeny weeny dot of blood on his back passenger side toe about an hour ago. Pen is just getting around to having a wee sniff at the ped, and the boy is giving his strictest Editor Cat face.

He was lying with his foot over the edge of the chair, perhaps to keep it from touching anything. He let me check to see if the blood was wet, but was not anxious for further investigation. My poor puddy. He's INCREDIBLY forgiving and patient with gentle touches and even a little looking, but it does seem like he's a little bit hurty.

There was no wound when I came home, and there's no broken glass in the house, but he will not tell me what happened to his tootsie. Since the blood is on the top of his foot, and he's hopping furniture with perfect nimbleness, I'll skip the vet for now - but, in honor of a family tradition inaugurated by my stepfather, I may see whether he'll take a squirt of Bactine.


Aww. The sweet thing; he did just let me look between his peds. I can't find a wound, so whatever it is, it's pretty wee. And it only takes a drop of blood to show up on otherwise white sneakers.

Cluster. You Know the Rest.

For the first time in years, I seem to have returned to The Land of the Cluster Migraine.  In some ways, "cluster" can be a misnomer for this type of headache.  When I was working for That One Guy lo these many years ago, I once endured a headache over the course of something like four months (no, it never stopped; no, not even when I was asleep - it just got worse or less-worse, with no cessation whatsoever, for actual months on end).  That ain't a cluster, that's a single nasty monster-ache, over a season or more.

Right now, though, "cluster" is about right - it's letting up from time to time.  But, I believe, my output here has been affected, and I can say for certain my output at Twitter has plummeted.  Perhaps all to the good, that part.

Unfortunately, the output in querying has been constrained as well.  I've never been an email blaster, but I can recall getting three and even six or eight queries out in one night, in the past.

So it is with tempered joy, but at least some satisfaction, I realize I've reached the point where I'm soldiering on through the pain.  Got some good submitting done tonight, and that after a seriously hectic, but rather rewarding (and long) day at work.

Not half bad, considering the unseemly relations I indulged earlier today, with a fist full of NSAIDs.

And so now:  beddy-bye time.  Anything that happens there with Gossamer the Editor Cat is strictly seemly.

Lunatic with the Vote?

And, following on the heels of the rather unsettling implications of the last post, it may be less than exciting for anyone to realize - I plan to vote next Tuesday.

But, see:  I found someone I really want to vote FOR ...

Cough Meds

You know your cold medicine is working when you sing, "Where do I put mom's birthday present, where do I put mom's birthday present, where do I put mom's birthday preSENT?  Upstairs in the guest room" to the tune of What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor.

You also know you are a member of my family and know songs like this thanks to that one ex-uncle you had ...

Home

Some sort of respiratory crud has got me down, but today is the day for a particular report, so I've been on my work cell, waiting for the last person's contribution.  Deadline for this was Friday, and my boss is sending the report out by noon, and my body is killing me wanting sleep - but I want to be sure he has what he needs.  It's just unfortunate I can't provide that last piece.

On the other hand, I have a fully functional laptop to do this work on.

I'm actually good for cold meds, but have to go to the corner store at some point today because the tub decided to stop draining, and ... ew.  But that situation can't wait, so I'll give the last reporting person till the boss's stated drop-dead of noon, give it a few minutes after that, go get some Drano, and the come home, pour it down, and finally hurl myself back into the bed.

What is it with me and plumbing when I get sick??  Last year I had nasty bronchitis and the downstairs bathroom STILL hasn't been rebuilt.  (Pipe burst.)  Now I have a cold and the drain won't drain.

Ahh, a 64-year-old house is an adventure.

Two years ... Versus Two Months

Emailing with Mr. X earlier, I was thinking about the past two months of my life, in comparison with the past two years.

"Great news usually bouys us up, but I’ve found EVERYTHING is just fundamentally changed since the news.  I continually realize I can’t get over it, and I’m so gleefully thankful it’s ridiculous.  And it DOESN’T let up, it doesn’t stop.  Whatever I’ve had to complain about since May, I can’t really feel any of it for long (see also – the email about root canals and dead laptops …).  I’m not exactly prancing around like Pollyanna (I save my Dorky Grocery Store Dancing for you …), but I just can’t get really down, it would be ungrateful.  And, as focused as I have been for so long on gratitude and thanksgiving … jeesh, if ever in my life I have had reason for HYMNS of both, now is that time, and calling a close to this feeling would just be no damned *fun*."


***


Contrast this with the one complaint I do have, which is a fairly serious problem being able to breathe.

When I get sick or have back problems or this comes up, I tend to greet a new iteration of weakness/what have you with skepticism.  My mom raised me under a system by which malingering was not happening, and so “staying home from school” was a pretty serious event, accompanied by the direst of undeniable symptoms.  And so, I measure myself by this standard every time my body tempts me to contemplate not going to work.  I tend to tell myself no level of malfunction is “really” enough - and so I often deny difficulties on some level, at the onset.

The thing is, I also tend to deny them afterward as well.  I've had a lot of bouts of back pain in my life, particularly during the past two years, but I always look at back pain "from the outside" as being a far stupider "excuse" to miss work or complain than it seem like from the inside.  Likewise the bronchitis I had last year, when I was BLESSING the 105-degree humidity killing everyone else, because it didn't hurt to breathe - or the cold I had not long ago - or the arthritis in my neck, or the migraines, or whatever.  While it's happening, I can have no doubt there is genuine trouble - but the moment it's over, I look back with a scoff.  I judge myself by mom's standards (as, indeed, mom still does, herself), and find my problems insufficient unto the drama or outages and so on.

My boss at the last job once started off a conversation with me, "You know I am a Catholic, went to Catholic school, have the maternal guilt, and all that" and went into a discussion of how he was touring colleges with one of his children, and that though he was taking work calls he had judged himself to be on Time Off, and so I was to mark the day down thus - because, Maternal Guilt.  It's got power like that, and he and I laughed about that.

You do not have to be Catholic (nor Jewish) to know this Maternal Guilt.  Forty-six years old, it's still this strong for me, and my boss (past fifty, and his mother may not even have still been living at that).

The good news is, this has developed in me a standard that feeds a work ethic I didn't really internalize until I was at least thirty (that seemed ... mature, at the time ...), but which I've nurtured like nobody's business.

I'm gratified to be a responsible grown up - and that's just so weird.