Stringham High, Stringham Low

The Joy Is in the Living

2011-12-22T11:59:00.005-05:00

As Christmas approaches, I feel the urge to write...especially because a friend told me the other day that she misses reading these updates. I apologize, dear reader, for not posting here more often in the past few months. I have been responding to the siren's call of Facebook and using it to update so many people about our day-to-day lives, even though not everyone is on Facebook very often.

So, here's a brief (let's not kid ourselves--it's as brief as I can make anything) summary of our year:

Mike began a contract in November 2010 at Ball Corporation, and in May of 2011, they hired him full time. He, the new man on the team, was going to be relegated to working a lot of overtime while everyone went on vacation in the summer. That never let up. Since about July or August, he has been working 60- to 84-hour work "weeks." Understandably, much of the responsibility for the gardening and care of the house fell to me.

In the spring, a lovely neighborhood dog showed up at our house and seemed to adopt us. We loved her greatly and renamed her Princess from Snowball, because she really was a princess. She kept us company and brought us much joy throughout the summer. Around the beginning or middle of August, she showed up a little injured one day. Then she disappeared.

In July, we learned I was pregnant again. We were cautiously optimistic, but we didn't want to tell anyone until we made it out of the first trimester. In August, we lost that baby, as well. I was about 6 weeks pregnant. The good news was that the miscarriage went much more swiftly and effectively than the first. I still had to go to the ER because I lost so much blood, but it was over very quickly and I suffered no more than the "normal" ill effects of a miscarriage--almost all emotional, and only a few cramps physically. Overall, we were sad but hopeful. It took us less than two years to get pregnant this time, whereas it had taken us three or more years the first time, and this pregnancy progressed further, and we had a lot of emotional and physical support this time, in the form of very good friends, Becca Sparks Lowry, Christina James Chase, Dana Fischer Welborn, and Jill Bastian Truax chief among them.

In the late summer/early fall, Sir George, our older kitty, began to decline healthwise. I made an appointment to have him put to sleep, but either I waited too late or he decided he preferred to pass on at home. Becca was with me via text, and Tina was with me through the day. Both provided tremendous emotional support. George passed away at the ripe old age of 18. It wasn't as peaceful a death as I would have hoped for, but he died at home, with me right by his side. I was incredibly honored to be with him in his last few hours. I know, he was only a cat, but to share a natural death with another being you love is truly touching. George is "planted"--for whatever reason, that day, when I talked about trying to bury him, all I could say was "plant," go figure--in our front yard, under the maple tree and next to the boxwoods lining our driveway.

A very short time later, because Maury seemed to be very much missing George's company, we adopted Cali, a real sweetheart of a kitty. We were told she was a little more than a year old, but she is still very much a kitten, though she had already had a litter of kittens before we adopted her. She was not very keen on Maury at first, doing a lot of hissing and spitting and growling, but with patience and calm, he soon won her over. Within two weeks, they were almost as good of friends as Maury and George.

Our garden gave some good harvests this year, despite its neglect. Through the summer, we were on a night shift, so we didn't have long each day to really tend it. Even now, only three days from Christmas, we haven't removed the stakes or fencing from our garden, because we have so little time. In addition, this was the busiest summer *I* have ever had for my freelance work, and even though I had a full crew of people helping me, we were still swamped at maximum capacity with slow turnaround times for most of the summer...the summer I had wanted to use to go slowly so I could care for the house and garden while my husband worked insane amounts of overtime.

So, you ask, why aren't I mentioning my husband more? Well, because I barely see him. The only things I really know about him since August are that he is perpetually exhausted, he's trying to fix his Montero single-handedly, and he has a blood elf paladin that has partnered with my blood elf priest for the past two weekends in the world of Kalimdor while he has been too exhausted to do anything but sit in front of a computer and I've been too tired to care, as I'm in the first trimester of my third pregnancy.

We've shared the news of the pregnancy this time. Not telling most people last time turned out to be a little too emotionally stressful for me, especially trying to work out getting to doctor appointments and the like with Mike's very limited free time. Plus, I believe strongly in the power of prayer and positive thoughts and know that when two people get together to pool their "spiritual resources," they create benefits greater than two working individually. So, I'm telling anyone and everyone and unabashedly asking for prayers, energies, positive thoughts, whatever, to keep this pregnancy going in the right direction. So far, it seems to be working well. I've had some spotting in this pregnancy, as I did in both the others. The thing is, we don't know if the spotting in those other pregnancies were precursors to my miscarriage or if it's just normal for me to spot. With all the prayers and positive thoughts for us, however, the spotting has been minimal this time and has tapered away. Now, if it appears, it's once, maybe twice, a day, right before bedtime and right when I get up in the morning. I'm amazingly calm this time around. Even though I have yet to find an OB. Even though I have a history of miscarriage. Even though hormones are doing their damnedest to make me anxious. It's partly because I know that if I'm going to miscarry in the first trimester, there's not much I can do about it, so I take the best care of myself that I can, getting plenty of sleep, not overexerting myself, but still staying active, and eating the best I can with random nausea spikes and food aversions. With every new "pregnancy woe," as one of my friends called them, I cheer. I smile. And I share. And my friends on Facebook cheer with me. And smile with me. And offer words of encouragement. And so that's another reason I'm amazingly calm--because I know that, no matter what happens, I have amazing friends and family supporting me, cheering with me, crying with me. And that makes a HUGE difference.

I just keep hoping and praying for the best and telling the baby that he or she is very, very loved and will be fortunate to be born into such a loving circle. In addition, the baby will have a grandpa (we haven't yet worked out if he wants to be Pappaw, Grandpa, Gramps, Geezer, etc.) with a new lease on life. My dad had bariatric surgery not long after our miscarriage in August. My mother tells me I won't recognize him, as he's lost more than 100 pounds. I'm looking forward to seeing him tomorrow to see him at the lightest I've ever seen him. Hell, he might even be lighter than me now...I have no idea!

We miss Mike's friends and family in Oregon, but our friends have really stepped up to help lighten the sadness a bit this year. Though we didn't get to travel to share Thanksgiving with my parents or his, and though none of our family members could share that holiday with us, we did get to host Becca and her husband, Shaun, and we had a great day.

And so, as Chanukkah has begun, people all over the world are celebrating Yule, and Christmas approaches, we are happy and hopeful. Mike is researching options for starting his own business. He's also trying to study so he can take a test for another certification. And he's enduring the incredibly long hours at work, getting whatever experience he can as he sorts out when he will leave if he wants to leave, and what he will do when he leaves. He's got two (nonconsecutive) weeks of vacation coming to him in May if he's still at Ball then--the first vacation he will have ever received. That's right, EVER. Since leaving grad school, he's been unemployed or employed in seasonal jobs or working as a contractor and in jobs that don't award vacations or that give vacations only after a full year of employment. So, May is when we have our sights set on him taking more than two days off. He may be taking a week-long certification class, but who knows?

2011 has been a challenge for us, but it has also been rewarding. We've had sorrow, and we've had joy. And I'm sure we have more of both to come, but we look to 2012 [even the coming return of Nibiru/release of Becca 2.0/end of the Mayan calendar/shift of the magnetic poles/return of Cthulu/galactic alignment/return of Jesus/Armageddon/cosmic shift in consciousness/zombie apocalypse (well, *I* can never look forward to a zombie apocalypse. We all know my fear.)] with hope. It's the only thing that keeps us going--aside from each other...and all of you.

So, to all of you, I wish you the happiest of whatever holidays you are celebrating, and the rosiest of new years. Thank you for being there for us, and for loving us. We appreciate all you do for us.

* Stringham high: Life is beautiful.
* Stringham low: Separation from loved ones for far too long.
* Stringham super-high: Our blessings, including loved ones, are too numerous to count!

(Remember that if you view the post on my blog, the title links to a video specially chosen for the day.)

Life's Purpose, in Context

2011-08-28T19:15:00.003-04:00

Last night, a little wistfully, I was going through the children's books that I have "waiting" in the guest room, which will eventually become the kid's room when we have a kid. I came across a book from my childhood, "Prayers for Children," a Little Golden Book. In it, I found a prayer that must have had a huge effect on me, because what it requests is what I've always striven for my life to be, even when I hadn't read the book in years and had forgotten completely about it while it was tucked away in a closet.

A Child's Prayer

God, make my life a little light
Within the world to glow;
A little flame that burneth bright
Wherever I may go.

God, make my life a little flower
That giveth joy to all,
Content to bloom in native bower,
Although the place be small.

God, make my life a little song
That comforteth the sad,
That helpeth others to be strong
And makes the singer glad.

God, make my life a little staff
Whereon the weak may rest,
And so what health and strength I have
May serve my neighbors best.

God, make my life a little hymn
Of tenderness and praise;
Of faith, that never waxeth dim,
In all His wondrous ways.

--M. Betham-Edwards

This prayer/poem sums up my life's goal succinctly, to make a difference in the world through small ways, through living and being me, always conscientious of others and of the effect that my behavior has on others.

* Stringham high: Quick recovery
* Stringham low: Second miscarriage, and Mike's job woes
* Stringham super-high: We're more fertile than we once were!

Exciting Happenings

2011-07-24T20:32:00.002-04:00

Someone came knocking on the front door around 6:30 this evening. A family pulling a camper had a blown out tire just in front of our house and wanted to know if they could park the camper in the driveway while they went in search of a tire for it. This was their second blowout in two days on the thing and so had already used the one spare they'd brought with them.

I told them to pull it on up, and I searched the phone book for tire places that would be open that late on a Sunday night. Found out that Walmart Tire Center was going to be open for another 25 or 30 minutes. They pulled up and disconnected the camper from their truck as quickly as they could, got hasty directions from me (they're from Wyoming), and took off for Walmart, which is 15-20 minutes away. They called ahead, and the folks at the tire center agreed to stay open a few minutes late for them.

While Dad was changing the tire, their son tried to run after Princess and play with her, but she was shy and led him "on a merry chase" around the yard. So Mom picked up Son and put him in the camper to play with their dog--there had been some tense moments between Princess and the visiting dog, so Dog got to stay in the camper for the duration.

While they changed the tire, I gathered food from the garden. Got a big basketful--one ripe tomato (several others were ripe but were rotten on the bottom), one green tomato that had fallen from the vine, a few grape tomatoes from a volunteer plant, several cukes, a couple handsful of green beans, and a bunch of turnips that were being forced out of the ground.

We have a TON of green tomatoes, but many of them are already going bad on bottom (blossom end rot, I think, though I'd have to verify with my gardening husband). I'm holding out hope that we'll have a bumper tomato crop again, as these plants are all taller than me and most are taller than M, but after seeing how many are bad, I'm just not sure how likely that is.

Plus, out of the random old squash seeds M threw into the garden this year, we have butternut squash growing with acorn squash and table queen squash, and some other kind I couldn't identify. I think I may have also seen a spaghetti squash in there. I'm not sure if he planted that many different seeds or if we're just seeing hybrids. In a 2' x 3' area, I had a butternut, acorn, and unidentified squash growing. No idea how that's happened.

Several of the tomato plants have fallen over from their own weight. One of our tomato cages has even been bent out of shape by them. And the green beans have bent at least one of the poles supporting them. The squash plants are growing out of the garden into the yard, and the cucumber plants are falling all over themselves. The plants are all ridiculously huge, but only time will tell if we are going to get huge crops. So far, it's a basketful of miscellaneous food every week or two...which is actually kind of nice, because we don't get bored of one thing, but we can't put anything away for winter.

Anyway, as soon as I had finished gathering from the "produce department" of our backyard grocery store, the father of the family came up to shake my hand and introduce himself while thanking me for the tipoff about Walmart and the use of our driveway. While shaking my hand, he palmed some money into it. I protested, following him back to the truck to give the money back, but he wouldn't hear of it. They had got their tire, got it changed in our driveway, and pulled out less than two hours after their blowout, not having to stay in a hotel until morning, so he thought it was well worth it. I had to agree, but I certainly didn't need the money.

All in all, though, I think it was a pretty good outcome for all involved.

* Stringham high: 80 degrees! The coolest it's been in days.
* Stringham low: Blowouts (Brought back memories of our two flats a few weeks ago, one of them on a Sunday night, as well)
* Stringham super-high: Fresh produce and helping others all in the same day!

My Stab at Activism--Educate Yourself!

2011-07-01T10:07:00.002-04:00

Any of my Facebook friends will have probably seen part or all of this post, but I feel the need to collect them all together. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been watching the documentary "King Corn." I can't yet pull all my thoughts together about what I'm learning and how I feel about this, but I think I need to post it, so I can spread the word to at least some people. Please, watch "King Corn." (You can watch it instantly on Netflix.) For your own health, for the health of our country, watch this documentary. Below are the facts I learned, in the order I learned them, and my thoughts about them:

Everything I've learned about growing and raising food in the past three years just screams out in agony while I watch "King Corn." And now I know why our land was in such bad shape for growing things when we moved in.70% of antibiotics in the US are consumed by grain-fed cattle. They're fed antibiotics with their food to help treat the acidosis that they suffer from--and that would kill them if they weren't slaughtered only a few months after being fed a strictly grain diet--at being fed too much grain for too long.

Here's a tip: spend more money on less meat that is of higher quality, and you won't need to eat so much meat--and you'll likely be thinner, because grain-fed beef is much higher in fat per serving than grass-fed.

Seriously, EVERYONE should watch this documentary, "King Corn"--everyone!

(Bonus points: part of our little town is shown: US 231, starting at Arby's and moving north past Burger King and the Riviera Motel, up to McD's and Jiffy Lube and Dairy Queen, around 1 hour 8 or 9 minutes in.)

Every few minutes on this show, I'm impressed with an astoundingly retarded fact. I don't know how our country is still going, how we haven't killed our economy and ourselves completely... I knew almost all of this before, but they're showing the connections that just astound me.

Farmers used to brag about a 40-bushel acre. Nowadays, 180 bushels from an acre is average.
Because farmers lose money growing corn and the government subsidizes that, the government is essentially subsidizing all the high fructose corn syrup that goes into all our sodas and baked goods, nearly every food and beverage in our country. And all that corn that goes to animals and leads to their health problems and fattier meat, which all contribute to our health problems. We ARE what we eat.

I support farmers, and corn farmers. But the system that has come into effect since the early 1970s is completely unsustainable and harmful to all of us. It is all done for the almighty dollar. One of the farmers interviewed in this documentary said it best--they aren't growing a quality crop any more, they're growing "crap." But he still grows it, because he gets paid. Most corn in this country is not grown for food--it's for fuel, for high fructose corn syrup (with absolutely no nutritional value and which contributes to greater likelihood of Type II diabetes), for animal feed.

Corn has been modified so it can tolerate the stress of being grown in a much more crowded area--so 180 or 200 bushels can be grown on 1 acre, where 40 acres used to be a bumper crop. That pulls huge amounts of nutrients out of the ground, which means the corn MUST be fertilized with chemicals. And then the herbicides must be sprayed--but the corn has to have been treated so that the particular herbicide it will be sprayed with won't also kill it. The corn is sprayed with herbicide, just not killed by it. And we're not even eating this corn...not directly. But we're eating it in the meat we consume, in the oils our foods are fried in, in the sodas and gums and breads and chips that have high-fructose corn syrup in them.

This all relates to our health--the health of our bodies, the health of our land, the health of our economy. One cattle farmer interviewed said that they grow corn to feed their cattle because Americans demand cheap meat. If Americans demanded grass-fed beef, he said, that is what they would grow. We speak with our money.

It's no accident that the people who typically suffer from obesity and Type II diabetes are poor. It's because they (we) have to eat the cheapest foods, made with the cheapest products. But if you know how, you can find cheap unprocessed foods and be healthier. We did it. When we were poorest, we learned how much cheaper it was to live off of non-processed foods, and NOT "cheap" prepackaged foods. And now we're healthier for it. Be informed. Make informed choices. We can't eliminate all this crap from our diets, because it's so pervasive, but we make the conscious decision about what we are and are not willing to consume, to do.

Buy more expensive food that's of higher quality. You won't need to eat as much, you'll feel satisfied longer, you'll be healthier. Make a conscious, fully informed decision.

I know how hard it is to take someone's word for this. I'm the same way. But if you are reading this, you know I don't urge people to action lightly. My body knows the difference between good food and bad food. If M and I eat fast food, we feel uncomfortable in only a few hours' time. Sure, it's cheap and it's fast, but the way we feel... Try it. Stop drinking sodas for a week. Stop eating fast food for a month. Choose to pass on potato chips. Notice how much better you sleep, how much better you feel...don't just take my word for it. Try it.

So, it may seems like I'm all over the place with this post, but that's because it's all related. EVERYTHING is related. The food we buy now in supermarkets is of lower nutritional quality than the stuff grown just a generation or two ago, because it's forced to grow in a cheap way, which may mean more plants per acre or given a fertilizer boost so it'll grow faster. That means we have to eat MORE of it. And we all know where that leads. You know WHY that food you get at the local farmer's market or from your own garden is so much better than what you likely get in the grocery store? THAT'S why.

So long as we keep buying and eating crap, we're "demanding" crap, so crap will continue to be produced.

And if you have questions, I'm always willing to tell you how we did things, or to point you in the direction of more information. M and I have made all the changes in our lives in the past three or four years through much transition, so please don't think "Life is so crazy now, I can't possibly change this." We've made all our changes through buying a home, transforming our land, both of us being employed full time, one of us being unemployed for a year, my miscarriage and subsequent health problems, 4 job changes and constantly shifting schedules, etc. You want to talk about making purposeful changes during times of transition, I'M YOUR GIRL.

Please, if you're still reading this, do yourself a favor and go watch "King Corn." Then think.

The Island of Misfit Toys

2011-05-23T05:00:00.002-04:00

Tonight/this morning, on a popular social-networking site, I was chatting with a friend—to be more precise, the significant other (SO) of a close friend of mine—who happens to have Asperger’s syndrome (if I remember correctly). He had started this conversation with me after seeing a few frustrated posts from me after said social-networking site was giving me grief, not letting me see posts, including the angry ones I had just made. Very sweetly, he’d wanted to make sure I was okay physically, emotionally, etc.

After reassuring him that I was, indeed, okay and just frustrated with the site, we got into a discussion of his anxieties with making small talk and being afraid of what to say, running out of things to say, and the like. As any of you who have known me for long know, I used to be pretty quiet and shy, and still can be (no, really), and I use that past experience to help me better understand people. I learned as a kid that by being quiet and just listening, I heard a lot more things than I would by talking…especially when people forgot I was around. (This will come into play later.) Anyway, as irony would have it, not long after we had discussed his worries, we were joking around, and then he said something. But said problem-causing social-networking site didn’t give me his message. In fact, I stopped hearing anything from him so assumed he had signed off to go to work, no worries. Several minutes later, I got a big block of text from him. He was worried that his last comment had weirded me out, that I had just stopped speaking to him because he said something that I, for whatever reason, might not find appropriate. Having met me only a handful of times, he wasn’t aware, I suppose, that (1) there are very few things I find inappropriate in general conversation and (2) if I had found it inappropriate, I would have said so gently and explained why I felt that way.

By the time his messages came through, he really had logged out to go to work. I felt sorry for him and hoped he wouldn’t worry further about upsetting me in some way. In fact, at the time, I was speaking to another friend, who happens to have Asperger’s syndrome, so I mentioned this incident to him. This led to a conversation in which this friend explained his occasional fear when e-mailing someone about a conversation they’ve had that that person might never speak to him again based on the e-mail and the previous conversation. I sympathized, having occasionally felt such things before. But, I said, then I got over those feelings, figuring that if such people were going to get bent out of shape by who I was, they didn’t deserve me (or just weren’t ready to have me in their lives). You see, I grew up with parents who taught me well my own inherent value and who taught me that I was loved just the way I was.

Growing up a fat, quiet, smart girl wasn't exactly easy. But my poppa told me, about the time I was 8, on the way home from a track meet that I had competed in (and probably many other times besides), that if people didn't like me based on how I looked, that was their problem, not mine, and most of them teased me because they felt insecure and teasing me somehow made them feel more secure. And all while I was growing up, I knew that it was fine to be exactly who I was. I had a grandmother who reiterated that one to me quite often: don’t act not as smart as you are to try to fit in; don’t worry if they don’t like you, plenty of people like you just fine. And then I stood up for others who were quiet, awkward, teased. Even if I didn’t necessarily know them or like them, I stood up for them, because everyone is worthwhile, no matter what the insecure kids on the playground said, and no one deserves to be teased if the teasing isn’t full of love. When people teased me, I just let it roll off my back, usually. I knew if I bit, they’d keep going but if I let it go, it wouldn’t be as fun for them anymore. But I would step in for others. I got angrier about other people being teased than about being teased myself because I could see how much it hurt or confused them. But how was the best way to stand up to someone who teases because he/she was insecure? Pointing fingers and giving like for like never teaches anything. It just passes the buck and makes you another bully.

Only now do I realize that I was like the Island of Misfit Toys, a magnet for the “misfits,” some of the other kids who didn’t necessarily have many friends except each other. I was friends with “weirdoes” and loudmouths and painfully shy and awkward kids. They couldn’t bloom into “normalcy” or quietude or social grace because they were teased and taunted and never given the chance. They were given a hard time by our schoolmates because, well, “kids are cruel.” But kids are cruel because they haven’t learned how to pad their blows with pillows and other soft things to not leave bruises. They use that most basic part of the brain that tells them that same is good and different is bad, making us versus them. But too many kids never learn better from their parents. They aren’t taught to see past all that stupid superficial shit to the beauty that lies beneath in people’s hearts and souls. Even worse, I think, is when kids get teased by their parents for not being “normal.” They end up carrying deep hurt, feeling unloved, and pass on that pain, trying to make themselves feel better by making others feel worse, or simply by acting like their parents, in the way they think they should. The status quo.

So, when I saw other kids teased, I was the one who helped. Once in high school, in our chemistry class, a girl who shared the table with me and another friend told me that she had made fun of me in elementary school because I was quiet and, because of that, she had thought I was stuck up. I told her I had been quiet because I didn’t have much to say and that I didn't talk to her because she teased me. When I asked her then, in high school, years after she had teased me, "Why would I want to talk to you if you teased me without trying to talk to ME first?" it was clear to me she hadn't even considered it before. If people aren’t taught acceptance, they don’t practice it. If we aren’t taught how to look beyond us/them and same/different, we’ll be forever stuck in that loop of cruelty.

As I told my friend of these things and of my fantastic parents, he got quiet. I knew he was reliving some unpleasant memories. Even now, in his 30s, he’s dealing with pain inflicted by “innocent” ignorant teasing from his first decade or so of life. He’s stuck in that loop. He’s healing, and he knows he is, but it’s still there, the scarring. True, his experiences have shaped him into who he is today, and he’s a fantastic person, but imagine how much more fantastic we all could be if we didn’t have to experience such things.

I don’t have any of those dark places in my soul left over from childhood because I had amazing parents and extended family. They made me who I am today. Their example inspires me to be as amazing and warm and welcoming to other people. I was, still am, and forever will be the one who offers shelter from the storm. I give out hugs of comfort. I act like the mother with her rolling pin in hand, chasing off the neighborhood brats while drawing her loved ones to her, hugging and shielding those I love, and those who are beaten, battered, and bruised physically, emotionally. I remind all of you that those terrible moments sucked but they helped make you who you are today. You will be the givers of hope to the next generation, and to the other battered and bruised souls in the world. I welcome you all into my heart and to my island of misfits.

A Little Slice of Heaven

2011-05-14T16:39:00.002-04:00

The dog turned up from her patrol this afternoon covered in stick-tights and a few ticks. She suffered me brushing and cleaning her for about a half hour, then she was done with me, nipping at me any time I touched her. I got the picture--she had enjoyed the "spa treatment," even through the annoying bits of pain, but enough was enough. So, I let her go, still carrying more than her fair share of stick-tights.

Then I turned my attention to the real reason I had gone out--to weed around the strawberries. I did that for 30 or 40 minutes, through the beginning of the gentle rain. Then I lay down on the blanket I had with me and enjoyed the gentle feeling of the rain on my upturned face and bare arms and legs, listening to the gentle patter of the rain on the grass, trees, and strawberries surrounding me.

After a few minutes, I sat up, completely relaxed, and realized that the dog and I were in a role reversal from our usual routine--now I was lying in the rain, she watching me from the shelter of the garage.

I took my blanket and weeding implements inside, then took a walk in the rain, as some color had caught my eye. One of our magnolia trees, which had sprouted only one blossom very late, a week or two ago (the first in its life) had suddenly opened three more flowers. Since yesterday.

Then I ambled to the backyard and checked on the irises. Three stalks are covered in buds that look fit to burst open at any moment. Yes, they're going to be late blooming, but they, like just about everything else on our property this year, seem to have doubled in size and/or number this spring. Everything has both brown vigorously AND bloomed this year. Finally, this year, we haven't had to settle for one or the other.

It's promising to be a lovely, productive year here at S&M Acres.

Morning Thoughts after Osama bin Laden

2011-05-02T07:31:00.001-04:00

I'm taking a slightly different approach today. Nothing about our home here in Crawfordsville today, but about humanity's larger home.

At the risk of angering a lot of people, I'd like to state that even though some people might consider OBL a bad man, still, a man has died, and that's not an occasion for celebration. He was a symptom of a larger problem, not the cause of America's or the world's ills. You can believe, if you like, that he was solely responsible for 9/11. However, everyone--including those who participated in the 9/11 attacks--is free to choose their behavior, and even their thoughts, in this world.

In that light, I encourage all of my friends to pray that the world gets better, that we all treat each other better by learning from the events of the past decade, and by not becoming as full of hatred and self-righteousness as OBL perhaps was. Don't let hatred breed more hatred. No one wins in a world full of hatred.

Rainy Days and Puppies Always Make Me Smile

2011-04-22T13:52:00.005-04:00

We planted five more nut trees last night (2 pecan, 2 chestnut, 1 almond), under the close supervision of our newest addition, Princess. Princess even tried to help her daddy dig a hole last night...or show him up. We discovered last weekend that she can get very intent and dig--she was digging around a tree, apparently for a grub or rodent, both of which we have aplenty. We couldn't call her off of the darn thing, and we couldn't believe how deep the hole was, nor could could we find most of the dirt she had dug up, she had spread it out that well.

So, last night, she dug a hole right alongside the one M dug. It was really deep, though not as deep as needed for a tree, she dug it MUCH faster than M dug his hole, even with his "fancy" new toy. Unfortunately, she doesn't fill her holes back in. :)

So far, she hasn't decided that any of these trees are sticks for her to play with, like she did with one of the paw paws we planted a few weeks ago. But every time I poured gravel into a hole, she ran over to see if I was pouring kibble for her. That's about all the help she offered, other than trying to pick up a terra cotta pot I was using for a scoop, but she was a careful supervisor...probably because she had already accidentally run into the shovel that M was wielding and didn't want to go through that again!

We are pretty sure now that she's either a Golden Pyrenees (mix between golden retriever and great pyrenees) or a full Great Pyrenees)...great herding instinct, very intelligent, very sweet, loves to announce her presence at ANY noise or distant "foe," and falls "deaf" when she finds something more interesting than what we're trying to do with her...especially if that something is a possible foe in the fields!

Today, I'm trying to convince her that the garage is better than outside during a thunderstorm. She's waffling on that...she loves being outside in the rain and seems to become energized by the cooler weather, but when the thunder hits, she's not sure whether to run into or out of the garage! (I'm not sure how she handled the somewhat-close tornado the other day--we didn't realize she was here until M left for work the next morning and found her right outside the garage door.)

* Stringham high: Ah, puppies!
* Stringham low: Where did the warmth of spring go?
* Stringham super-high: We have run out of room in our prepared orchard area for trees!

Puppy Love

2011-04-17T14:51:00.003-04:00

We are in the process of adopting...a puppy. She's the one who helped us plant a couple of weeks ago and who has been hanging around our house. (Pictures forthcoming. If you're on Facebook, you've likely seen one or two already.) We have made efforts to contact the people who were caring for her, to see if this was okay, because we knew they were keeping her for someone else, but they haven't contacted us. So, we are in the process of adopting the puppy who has adopted us--at least in the daytime.

According to our neighbor, J, the puppy--currently named Snowball but more likely to respond to Princess or Goofball--has been on her own for much of her life, since she was a puppy. As such, her survival instincts are good, but she's a little leery of people. We've now started feeding her regularly, and sometime this week or weekend, we're going to start keeping her here at night. (We're still working out how to do that, as she's been allowed to run free during the day.) We suspect she's been staying mostly with us in the day and then making her way back to be kept indoors with the other family at night. For her safety, though, we're trying to train her to know that this is home and that she shouldn't cross the road. Which means we have to get her used to a leash and possibly a chain, at least for a while.

For now, we're happy that I've been able to get her to lay on the porch on a blanket to get out of the cold rain, and I've been able to get her in the garage without force a couple of times. She plays with us, and she lets us know when she's not getting enough snuggles. And as I write this, she's trying to figure out what M's doing on the mower, and why it's so very loud.

* Stringham high: Puppy!
* Stringham low: Puppy leaves at night.
* Stringham super-high: Awesome neighbors who support our "guerilla" adoption tactics!

We Took It to the Limit

2011-04-10T16:37:00.002-04:00

M and I are hot, sweaty, and burned by the wind and the sun, and our eyes are dry and gritty from the soil, fertilizer, and bits of hay and straw blown into them, but the four rows and six tires of potatoes are planted. 100 seed potatoes planted.

Even more exhausted and hungry than we were last night. Today, we were having to tell our visiting dog where she was and was not allowed to step--she thought the straw and the newspaper were great things to play with. So tired, so sore...

* Stringham high: No more outdoors for today!
* Stringham low: Wind
* Stringham super-high: Leftover food

Owwwww

2011-04-09T19:45:00.006-04:00

Dear Reader:
I'd love to be my normally loquacious self this evening, but I'm just too damn tired. Instead, a summary of the week's events.

Last Saturday, we planted 2 almond trees in a "new" section of the orchard that is set aside for nut trees--an area we've been treating for a year or more with special cover crops to build the soil. We also planted last Saturday 2 quince trees, and 2 honeyberry bushes. Then we fixed the orange net fencing that's protecting our arborvitae that will eventually be a windbreak...no small task, considering the wind we had last Saturday. Then we discovered some astilbe and daffodils left from last autumn that hadn't been planted, so we placed them around the magnolias in the front lawn. All this was under the close supervision of a dog that is being fostered or raised by some folks down the road.

I did more manual labor than I had done since the miscarriage and all my health problems back in 2009, and I felt great afterward. No headaches, nothing but the usual aches from well-used muscles. It was fantastic!

On Sunday, we put the last coat of green on the bathroom and removed the painter's tape. Now all that remains is the painting of the trim...in all our spare time. Maybe it'll get done around Christmas. Dog visited again.

Over the week, everything became much greener. The daffodils in our yard still haven't bloomed, but they've come a lot closer. The hyacinth we planted in the fall have all sprouted and begun to open. The dog has decided that our place is THE place to be. We've been friendly toward her and don't mind that she's hanging around, because before, she was crossing the super-busy highway frequently. Now, a lot less crossing.

Thursday, we planted 2 paw paw trees to replace the ones that didn't make it from last year. Again, supervision from the dog.
Friday, the dog let me pet her and also let M pet her. We left to get groceries, and when we came back home, she was still lying in front of the garage, waiting for us to get home. She's a sweet girl.

Today, after the storms, we discovered that the bark has been stripped from one of the honeyberries we planted last week and that one of our newly planted paw paws had been pulled completely from the ground, along with its support post. And we've had some bark stripped from a few of the other trees in the past few weeks. Did a little research and think it's doggy-caused damage :( But the good news is that it's usually done by dogs who are teething and don't have toys...luckily, we have some dog toys that a friend gave us last summer for our cats. So we tossed them outside to avert the dog from stripping our trees any more. We're hoping it will work. If not, we're going to have to find a different solution.

After my friend, L, and her two daughters left from their visit today, M and I thought we'd plant some potatoes. But first we had to dig. He used the weed eater on one section of garden that needed tilled, and then I tilled it for potato planting while he used a nifty new tool to "double dig" the section of garden that the potatoes were in last year. (He found a potato that we missed in the fall...now we know that they will stay good in our soil over the winter.) We're both tired. Wrangling that freaking tiller, even in the soft (for here) soil for several hours--work a half hour, take a break for 20-40 minutes, with M--was harder than anything I've done physically since we put in 13- and 14-hour preparation and planting days in spring of 2009. I'm freaking beat.

I took tons of pictures last weekend and this week. Not posting any of them today. Too damn tired.

So, there you have it. Still loquacious to some, but sorely lacking on all the fun details.

If you haven't heard from me in a week or two, have a beer in my honor, because I've probably dropped dead of fatigue.

* Stringham high: Puppy companionship
* Stringham low: Damaged trees
* Stringham super-high: Me doing hard manual labor with no ill effects like headache, nausea, vomiting, passing out...just a WHOLE lot of curse words.

Marching on Through

2011-04-01T14:32:00.014-04:00

Spring is always a busy time here in the Stringham household, and this year, spring seemed to start early before it went back into hiding. It's been a busy March, so I'll give the highlights to bring everyone up to speed before Planting Season begins tomorrow.

M's mom and step-dad visited us for most of two weeks. They acted as stand-in Santa Clauses for other members of the distant family, however, transporting goods illegal to send across state lines via any package carrier. Although they were here for 13 days, I somehow managed to snap not a SINGLE picture of them, but I got a picture of the wrapped presents.

I also managed to get a pic of our newest lawn ornament (a gift from the in-laws) next to our old buddy Gnorm.

While the in-laws were here, they wanted to help us with some home repair, so we decided to tackle repainting the 3/4 bath. We managed to get all the supplies purchased and prepare the room for painting before they left, but M and I are still working on finishing the painting, so no pics for now. It's not a very big room at all, but it takes a long time to paint because of all the painting AROUND and above things. It has a high ceiling, and the shower walls don't reach the ceiling; it also has two doors, the vanity, the medicine cabinet, the light fixtures, and the toilet, all in tight little blocks. (For those of you who haven't seen this bathroom, it looks something like one of the Tetris L's, only with one of the squares lopped off the long side of the L.)

Anyway, M and I have ordered all of our seeds and plants for the orchard and garden this year, and we got a buttload (pardon the expression, but what else would you call an Explorer-full?) of canning jars from the neighbor of a friend, so I'm now taking it as my personal challenge to fill those jars this year with pickles, tomato products, and whatever else I can. In those free canning jars were four wire-rim jars and a blue jar! (For those of you not familiar, that means they're really old, and very cool...to me. No one else seemed to be as excited by them as I was...)

So, on we move. As I said, spring hit, then decided to tuck its tail and run, so I got a few pictures of buds on the lilac, some brave snow crocuses, and some buds on the unidentified bush in the front yard. Nothing earth-shattering. Our line of arborvitae, now protected, however minimally, by the orange fencing, have taken off, though. They and the boxwoods seem to have grown during the winter. These beauties are in the front yard, but some of the arborvitae in the backyard are to M's waist.

Over in the orchard and berry patch, things were looking nice. Some overachieving strawberries had already begun clawing their way through the "natural mulch" of dead grass and fallen leaves. Seriously, I keep saying we need to weed the strawberries, but I mean for my benefit so I can see the darn things--they certainly know how to fend for themselves.

Here's a shot of the overachieving 5-on-1 dwarf pear tree that is the tallest non-mature tree we have. That's M, walking around the rest of the orchard. The second picture is of the rest of the orchard--that part you can't see so well through the green posts and fencing that surrounds the pear and apple trees.

A few days after this, we got hit with a thunderstorm that pelted us with some hail. I'd heard of golf-ball-sized hail before, but I'd never seen it before. Mostly, the stuff was soft enough that it hit the roof, siding, or windows and just splattered like a mostly melted snowball, but not without making some very loud dings and thuds. The few larger pieces that landed on the cusion of grass were harder to find, but here's a nice one. The pic's blurry because it's through a plastic-covered, rain-spattered window, and it's hard to get a feeling of scale, but I didn't feel like braving the hail on my delicate skin just to take a picture. See the bigger white blob? See those smaller pellets just below and to the right of it? Those are anywhere from the size of dimes to those little chocolate Easter eggs you can get this time of year in stores.

Finally, our epic journey through March comes to a close, first with a battle, then with a celebratory feast. One evening, as the chill descended outside, the cats apparently decided to duke it out to see who got the rights to the warmth and cushion of the big comfy chair. I called at them from another room to stop, and when I came in a few minutes later to have a seat, I saw that George was clearly the victor. (None of that fluff on the chair is George's...)

Two mornings later, M was snacking on bacon. As we all know, dead pig is George's favorite repast, the thing he most hunts, and he quickly showed his interest and was rewarded for his bravery in surviving a month full of house guests, house "construction," and cold weather.

* Stringham high: Spring is officially here.
* Stringham low: Spring hasn't quite gotten the memo to come back from vacation.
* Stringham super-high: Planting Season begins tomorrow. The orchard is going to nearly double in size!

Adventures in Breadland

2011-02-21T00:02:00.008-05:00

When we were having oven problems a while back, M and I asked my parents if we could borrow their old bread machine. My parents and I remembered the two or three times we tried it before, getting round loaves with very hard-to-cut crust. But M and I, knowing our tendency to tinker with things until we get the results we like, figured we could get decent results after a couple of tries, and certainly better results than with a broken oven. Tonight, fresh from my parents' place, M made our first attempt, using the recipe in the machine's book. It called for bread flour, but we had none, so we substituted all-purpose flour and gluten. M also added butter, because he learned in our earlier attempts at bread baking that butter softens crusts.

Four and a half hours later, the bread was done. The top hadn't risen smoothly, but it was soft. The base, unfortunately, was a little burned and a little rubbery (but nothing like it was when the recipe was followed to the letter).

I started with the knife from the top down. It was a bit difficult to cut at the bottom, but the bread's crumb looked lovely--not consistent, but MOSTLY consistent. (Apologies for the yellow tint of the pictures. My camera does not appreciate the CFLs we use in the house.)

It smelled divine. It held together even while I spread peanut butter on it. And the strawberry jam smeared on looks like it was meant for this bread and no other. The crumb even held together when I spread the cold butter across it.

The verdict? Fantastic yeasty flavor, light and delicious. Buttered, it was delicious. With the strawberry jam, it was absolutely heavenly.

Next, I'll be using it to mix the ingredients and knead the dough, then I'll bake in the oven. I'm looking forward to this, and any visitors or neighbors should be too!

* Stringham high: More delicious bread!
* Stringham low: It's still winter?
* Stringham super-high: The happy and sad bread illustrations from the bread machine user manual!

One Glorious Day

2011-02-13T14:14:00.005-05:00

As the weather finally begins to warm (mid-40s for a high today!), I am in the mood to plant and transplant. If it weren't for the snow still melting, I'd be walking outside, envisioning how we are going to expand our orchard, nurture our struggling plants, and plan the garden for this year. Instead, I have to be content with knowing that the smell of spring--just the faintest little hint of it--is on the breeze, feeling just a nip of slightly warmer air teasing my nostrils and caressing the very tip of my nose.

The bright sunshine, the hint of warm air, and the inches of snow still on the ground give me pause. The sunshine energizes me, the hint of warm air makes me want to throw my windows wide open and begin chasing the winter's shadows and dust out of the house, and the snow remind me that it is a slow journey toward springtime and, eventually, summer. The juxtaposition of the snow with the warm air also serve to remind me that though I may feel ready to throw the windows to my house (and life) wide open to welcome spring, it is, after all, still winter, and a relapse into snow and very cold weather can happen with little or no warning. The healing process is much the same way...we feel wonderful one day, ready to throw our arms apart and announce our reemergence into the wide world, but those days of sunshine health are tempered with the snow, which reminds us not to run in the sunshine, lest we fall on the melting snow and injure ourselves and add further to our health burdens.

Of course, when I mention health, I don't mean only physical health, but also emotional and spiritual health. I began writing my book, Year of Shadow and Light, in November of 2009, as part of the healing process. I intended it to help me heal and, once it was published, to help others heal. I intended to have the book written about a year later, covering, as the title implies, only one year of my life, from about September 2009 to September or October 2010. As frequently happens, however, as just about any experienced author will explain, my book took on a new focus as I wrote it. It didn't start in October 2009 and travel through to October 2010 but started back in my childhood, focusing a lot on my life before October 2009 and then...well... To be honest, reliving those days became a roadblock to me. They were too painful to keep reliving for my book, though I relived them almost constantly for months, in my dreams, in daydreams, in random tangential thoughts, in my darkest fears, in my moments of greatest hope. I decided, finally, once I was able to revisit those days well enough to write about them for others, that such writing distanced the reader from my story, didn't illustrate the full emotional impact those days had on me. So, I decided (with the help of some trusted friends and editorial colleagues) that I would use bits of my journal entries from those days to help convey to the reader just how dark and shadowy (and even light, on rare occasion) those days were to me.

Still, I found myself not working on the book. I was swamped with work, and in any spare moment, instead of enjoying my time, I kept thinking of how much I needed to be working on the book, as my self-established one-year deadline approached, arrived, then passed. But then, something wonderful happened. Of course, as with many wonderful things that happen in life, I couldn't tell that it was wonderful at the time. My editing work dwindled and then nearly stopped. Then it did stop for a week or two at a time, then I'd get a project, then no work. Of course many people might think this would be the perfect time for someone writing a book in her spare time to actually, say, write her book. But a funny thing happened--instead of working on my book, I felt called to focus on my life, especially my home. I began cleaning every day--not much, mind you, because I am a slow, methodical cleaner and my damaged vision really hampers my ability to see small bits of dirt and grime, so I now have to look much closer than I did before. Despite weeks of effort so far, my home is still a mess by many standards and will likely remain that way, but I can slowly see it starting to take shape. The pile of things "to be handled later" on the dining room table is dwindling; the kitchen counter is never covered with dirty dishes for more than 24 hours; dust is VERY slowly disappearing from the television and some shelves; boxes that have not been opened since they were packed for the move to this house 3 years ago have been emptied and broken down for recycling; items that were thrown haphazardly on shelves in the unpacking process 3 years ago have been moved to the proper rooms and shelves, at least; family photos that were put aside 2 years ago so we could find homes for them "later" have been slowly making their way to the fireplace mantel, to the heart of our home. I have spent more time reading books I want to read--sure, it's still 5 or 6 books at a time, but a religious book, a health book, a "metaphysical" book. I have helped a friend with a story she's writing about her family, and I have not felt guilty about using the time from the books that pay me money. I have been exercising sporadically, when I have the energy. I have been MOVING instead of sitting for hours on end on the couch or in an office chair and working on books. When family and friends call, I take the calls willingly (a lesson learned in my late teens), as I always have , but now without the thought in the back of my head that I have to keep it short or suffer the consequences of having to stay up late or work harder or faster on an editing job.

I have centered my life once again (or perhaps, truly, for the first time ever) on my home and my husband and myself, and on my friends and family--all the things that matter most toI me and always have. And while focusing on all these things, feeling the call to get my life and home in order, physically and emotionally, my spiritual life has also come back into order. That may sound silly to some, like New-Age hokum, or to others, the deeply religious, it might sound about right. But I, honestly, have found it surprising. Why? Because in October 2009, my spiritual life dove more deeply than it had in a very long time. I can't really explain this well, because I have always been deeply spiritual, but in what I would call a more reserved manner. I prayed frequently and knew that I was always being watched over, that help was always available when it was necessary. I trusted the Great Scheme of Things, but I didn't always trust myself in the Great Scheme of Things. When I was a kid, I did, all the way through being a teenager, I knew that it was my purpose in life to make the world a better place by doing little things, maybe that never got noticed, but that were important. I could make someone's day better by smiling, so I tried to smile at everyone I passed. I could improve someone's day by helping them have a memorable dining experience, so I provided prompt, courteous service with a smile. In everything I did, I remembered not "as ye sow, so shall ye reap" or "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or that every stranger could be an angel in disguise but that every person was a human, a child of God, related to me, and deserving the very best.

As I grew older and became educated and got a job, I still kept those principles in mind and tried to live by them still, but I was less sure that I was making the world a better place. I was making pockets of the world a better place for a brief time for some individuals I encountered, but I was hardly improving the world. I still prayed, though not so much, preferring to think of every action I did as an offering to God. I prayed when an emergency vehicle drove by or when I passed an accident on the highway, praying for the best possible results for those involved and for smooth transitions into death for those whose lot it was to die. When a dangerous driver passed me on the highway, I prayed for the person to not injure someone or someone else's property but that the person somehow learn the consequences caused by his or her driving. When I was scared, I prayed. So, I talked TO God a lot, butt I stopped listening to God.

As a kid, I had followed my instincts to keep me out of trouble, to keep me safe, to say the right things. As I grew up, though, I thought I had learned more and didn't need those instincts so much. I was operating in a "thinking" world, where logic won over intuition. I forgot that my intuition was God speaking to me and guiding me, something I had known as a kid. So this was how I had come to not trust myself as part of the Grand Scheme of Things--I no longer listened to that voice inside of me coming from the Divine.

It was right around September 2009, though, when I started hearing that voice again, though. Somehow, probably through all the pain, I had let down my "guard" that shut out the voice, and I began trusting it again, but this time even more than I had as a kid. But the road to physical recovery is long, and it takes a toll on emotional health, which can impact your spiritual health greatly. I began to doubt the voice again. Or, rather, I began to doubt that I was really hearing the voice, that I was really hearing what I thought I was hearing. I was hearing that I was going to make a big difference in the world. A big difference? I thought. That can't be right. I've always been meant to make small differences in the world. It wasn't that I didn't trust the Great Scheme of Things, but that I could be so important in the Grand Scheme of Things. After all, I have always subscribed to the idea that one smile can brighten one person's day, which causes that person to smile at 10 other people, and so on, so one small change could make things better exponentially. But so what? Anyone, EVERYONE, can do that, can change the world, so I can't be more important than anyone else in the Grand Scheme of Things.

Yes, I do still believe that I am no more important than anyone else. But I've finally grasped the concept that being no more important than anyone else doesn't mean that I'm not making a big difference in the world. Still, though I trust the Grand Scheme of Things, I doubted my "greatness." Yes, I'm hard-headed. Yes, I'm stubborn. Yes, it's exhausting spending an hour in my head. But I just don't "get something" until I understand all the pieces. But God knows this. And so that's what my time since October 2009 has been--me learning how all the little pieces of my life fit together. We (the Big "Guy" and I, and about a hundred friends, acquaintances, spirit guides, strangers, and who knows who else) have worked on the bugs (mostly on my end) in the two-way communication system between me and the higher realms. We've explored just about every question or doubt I've had about faith or religion and addressed them all. We've healed some issues in my body and have begun addressing others. We have patched up relationships that have suffered. We have picked up relationships that have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another but that I need again.

Everything has led (thus far) to these past few weeks, when I have been called to work not on my book but on my life. It's not that I haven't worked on my book in these weeks, but that I haven't written or revised. Instead, I have embraced the call to organize and clean my life and have felt rich rewards. As I work on and in my life by cleaning my home and focusing on my life, I'm beginning to feel the scope of my book change in both subtle and dramatic ways. By allowing myself to be in simple, constant communication with all of my friends and family and the Divine, as well as with myself, I have felt repercussions in these past 6 weeks or so that I never could have imagined in October 2010, which was when I had expected to have my book completely written.

Over the past few weeks, then, in the deep, bitter cold and nasty weather of winter, I have been through more of an "inner" journey. And just as the sunshine, warm air, and snow combine today to remind me that winter is still here and can come raging back in, it reminds me that my spiritual and physical journeys can regress occasionally too. I have been on a constant push for spring and out of winter (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) since October of 2009, and I am making great progress. And on those days when it seems like winter will never end, I receive a day like today. My damaged vision is the snow on the ground reminding me of where I have come from, what's causing me to hope for better days. My loved ones supporting me are the sunshine that makes me smile and know that great things are always present in my life. And the hint of warm air promising even better things to come? That's someone I barely know and have seen only 15 or 20 minutes across 3 encounters in the past year telling me about her life and telling me, out of the blue, that my strength has given her strength and that I will help a lot of people. "Days" like this really do prepare us for sowing the seeds of truly great things.

If you're reading this on Facebook instead of on my blog, you can't click the title to go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdojxtLI25g Check it out.

Conquering Heroes

2011-02-09T10:58:00.004-05:00

The kitties (well, probably George) got a mouse today. I woke up this morning to find it unattended on the living room floor. When I began making preparations to remove the carcass from the house, however, George decided that it was his. He sat with his paws on either side of the mouse and assumed a smug look, like the sphinx. When I tried to move him out of the way, he tried to make himself an immovable object, and he was pretty darn good at it, for a creature who weighs only 8 pounds. Then he started playing with the mouse like one of his toys. I had to hold him back with one arm while trying to pick the mouse up with the other hand.
And as soon as I moved the mouse, he started prancing all over the living room like a conquering hero. Now, of course, he can't find it, so he's keeping an eye on Maury, has him trapped on the chaise lounge, keeping him there with growlings and mutterings. I think he thinks the other cat stole his trophy.
From proud, conquering hero to angry, growling old man.
* Stringham high: DVDs of old TV shows
* Stringham low: grumpy old man kitty
* Stringham super-high: coooooooofffffeeeeeeeee

Wake up, wake up, wake up and start the day!

2011-01-20T05:18:00.004-05:00

This morning, I woke up and turned off the house alarm as usual but noticed an error code. I checked all the zones in the house to make sure things were as they should be. They were, so I called the alarm company to find out what's going on. The lady I spoke with had me enter a couple of various codes and bypass the "malfunctioning" area, because our communication system was down. (This happens periodically with our system, but usually only for a moment or two, not long enough for us to see a code on the system panel.) This means that if an intruder were to come in, we would hear the siren in the house but the police would not be notified. I think this is acceptable, as I can keep the phone with me and call if necessary. She says the communication system could be because of bad weather in the area. She tells me if the panel is still giving the communication-error code later, I should call a technician. I say thanks, and we hang up.
A few minutes later, once Mike's out of the shower and I have explained to him the error code and the phone call with the alarm company, I go back to bed because I got very little sleep last night. Twenty minutes after I've laid down, Mike comes back to the bedroom to tell me the cops are here. The system sent out a silent alarm. The cops ask me to call the alarm company. I pick up my cell phone to see that the alarm company has called (silly me, I fell into the habit of NOT sleeping with my phone by my bed when I was sleeping days and getting awakened unnecessarily). I call them, and we discover that one of the codes I was told to enter earlier was the silent duress alarm, the "panic" code. The lady on the other end of the line seems to keep using terminology I don't understand, telling me to enter the code the other woman had told me to enter, and then, when I explain that lady had me enter a couple of codes in addition to my own normal code, so I don't know what she means by "the code the other woman gave me," she tries to explain and seems to make things worse. Admittedly, I'm sure my lack of mental acuity is not helping, as I've gotten very few hours of sleep and have now been "awakened" from almost-sleep by the arrival of the cops.
Finally, the woman tells me we can set the alarm normally but that will mean that the alarm bells will sound in our house. I say, basically, "Okay, bear with me, because I just woke up, and I'm trying to understand. I shut my alarm off this morning when I got up and then noticed an error code. I called your company to figure out what was causing the error code, and we bypassed it so WE would hear the alarm in the house if someone broke in but the cops wouldn't be notified because the communication with the system was down. The cops are here now because, apparently, even though the system wasn't communicating, we entered the panic code. What alarms are you talking about now, and if my system is no longer giving me an error code, why do I want to bypass anything?" I heard about two words come out of her mouth, then we get cut off. I don't know if she hung up on me or if the phone cut out.
When I said, "Hello?" and looked at my phone to see if I still had signal (I did, 4 bars strong), the sheriff's deputy said, "Okay, I'll get out of your hair. It looks like you're going to have your hands full with them today."
I am now up for the duration, all thoughts of stealing a couple more hours' sleep gone.
Yup, it's going to be a great day, I can tell.
* Stringham high: The alarm system is communicating effectively again.
* Stringham low: Who needs sleep?
* Stringham super-high: Bite me. (Seriously, it's too early to be super-high about anything.)

A Cloud to Every Silver Lining

2011-01-17T09:32:00.002-05:00

Since about November, I've been trying to get a letter from a doctor confirming my legal blindness so I can get the benefits of the tax deduction. Last week, when I called to check on this, I had the assistant of my newest doctor tell me that there was always a possibility of my sight returning "if the diamox works." (I've been on this medication, diamox, for more than a year now, and my vision has not improved at all, though the condition that caused my sudden vision damage has seemingly been under control, possibly because of the diamox, for several months.) This was somewhat upsetting, because I had begun to make peace with the irreversibility of my vision loss, and because it went against everything I have been told by my other doctors. It's not that I don't hold out hope, or that I think that one defiant doctor can't get results, but I wasn't speaking to the doctor, but her assistant, as the doctor is out of the office for a couple of months (yeah, nice, that).

So I called the office of a different doctor--the one who performed my optic nerve sheath fenestration and who referred me to this new doctor. I asked if he could write the letter or if he thought there was a possibility of the vision returning so that such a letter would be unnecessary. He called me a few minutes ago to make sure that I understood "all the implications" of him writing this letter for me. (God bless these doctors who take the time to call and speak and explain!) He's preparing to write the letter declaring my legal blindness, but before he starts writing it, he wanted to me to understand that it will make it illegal for me to get behind the wheel of a car ever again, even with a driver's license. If my visual field were to ever somewhat be restroed and I wanted to no longer be declared legally blind, he said, it's very difficult to get this "stamp" removed from my record, because officials would say, "How can someone be blind, then not be blind anymore?" (Well, stranger things have happened...but we ARE talking about government workers here...no offense to my government-employed friends, but you know who I'm talking about.) If I wanted such a thing removed from my record so I could drive again, I'd ahve to undergo all sorts of tests and such.

So I asked again the likelihood of my sight returning. He said he's had some patients who've been able to regain some of their visual field after being able to maintain a good intracranial pressure, but that's the exception. It's more usual to simply work on preserving what's left. (He has said before I'm one of the more extreme cases, because my vision deteriorated so rapidly, in just a couple of weeks, so we have to watch for things escalating quickly to total blindness within just a few days, whereas most people with IIH have months, even years.) So I explained that I've not driven since September or October 2009 because I don't dare to, so I think this is the best course of action for now. If, by some miracle, my vision improves so much that I can drive again, that's when I'll worry about the hassle of trying to get the "ruling" of legal blindness removed or reversed. (Besides, I figure if the vision is restored that much by medical breakthrough, there will be plenty of before-and-after tests and such in my medical record to present as evidence. And if it returns through nonmedical miracle, I'll have the Divine support I need to make it through all those tests and challenges--if restoring my vision is possible, a few tests should be nothing, especially with my hard-headedness.)

I felt a twinge of tears when I hung up the phone--a twinge at the finality, the official declaration of my disability. (I don't like that word. It really seems ugly to me. But I do have a disability. I'm not disabled, but I do have a disability that impairs my ability to live a life that our society deems normal.) I've had to move into acceptance slowly, and somewhat painfully. In November 2009, I still believed more vision would be restored as my eyes recovered from my optic nerve sheath fenestrations. In March 2010, I still hoped to drive and take the visual test to see if I could. In early summer 2010, I printed the form to complete for a disability hang-tag for special parking. In August 2010, I sent that form to my doctor for signature. In December 2010, I got the placard after holding on to the completed application for 3 1/2 months. Now, in January 2011, I'm accepting the official statement that I am legally blind.

I wonder if I'll ever be able to say or think "I am legally blind, and I will likely never drive again" without wanting to cry.

At least the good news is that I can get a nice deduction on my taxes.

* Stringham high: Being able to function almost "normally" in nearly every way with the vision I still have
* Stringham low: Missing the freedom of driving
* Stringham super-high: Kind, giving, helpful friends, family, and neighbors

Stephanie's Most Chord-Striking Books

2011-01-04T10:38:00.006-05:00

I finally did it. I have been kicking around the idea for some time of creating my own list of "favorite" books. After much discussion today with some friends on Facebook, I finally created my "overall" list. These are definitely not all the books I would ever recommend, nor are they books I would recommend to everyone. (If you want a list tailored to you, you just let me know.)

I started by thinking of all the books that have stuck with me for weeks, months, or years, for whatever reason, listing all the books I could think of off the top of my head. Then, with that same requirement in mind, I reviewed the list of the 350+ books I have read and tracked (including recreational reading and required college reading) since 1993. I threw in a couple I remember from before 1993 and a couple I have edited or proofread.

I do not include works that are influential or important to literature or society unless they struck a particular personal note with me, so there’s no Shakespeare, no Chaucer, none of the other DeadWhite Guys. I also do not list any of the religions texts I am always reading, such as widely held religious texts (Bible, Quran, Book of Mormon, Baghavad Gita, miscellaneous "newly discovered lost texts," etc.). (Though that is not to say I don’t recommend the DWG or the religious texts.) All genres included, in alphabetical order by title:

1421: The Year China Discovered America, Gavin Menzies

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles C. Mann

1984, George Orwell

American Gods, Neil Gaiman

Angels along the Way, Della Reese

An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life, His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Anthem, Ayn Rand

At Peace in the Light, Dannion Brinkley with Paul Perry

Brother Wind, Sue Harrison

The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou, Maya Angelou (Why list them all individually, as I read them, when they exist collected now?)

The Color of Dust, Benjamin Lawless

The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, Maya Angelou

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire

Congo, Michael Crichton

The Darkangel Trilogy, Meredith Ann Pierce

The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown

Destiny of Souls: New Case Studies of Life Between Lives, Michael Newton

The Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne McCaffrey

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss

The Elements of Style, Strunk & White

Emma, Jane Austen

Eragon, books 1-3 (4 coming soon?), Christopher Paolini

Esau, Philip Kerr

Evelina, Frances Burney

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, Leo F. Buscaglia

Fingerprints of the Gods, Graham Hancock

Freedom series, books 1-4, Anne McCaffrey

The Green Mile, Stephen King

Harry Potter, Books 1-7, J.K. Rowling

Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom

Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme, Chris Roberts

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

Jennifer Government, Max Barry

Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives, Michael Newton

The Langoliers, Stephen King

Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Choderlos De Laclos

Lisa, Bright and Dark, John Neufeild

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Mama Might Be Better off Dead, Laurie Kaye Abraham

Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl

Mary Called Magdalene, Margaret George

Mary, Queen of Scotland & The Isles, Margaret George

Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice

The Memoirs of Cleopatra, Margaret George

Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman

Mother Earth Father Sky, Sue Harrison

Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder

The Mummy, Anne Rice

My Sister the Moon, Sue Harrison

Next, Michael Crichton

Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich

The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks

One Last Time, John Edward

People of the Lakes, Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

Pope Joan, Donna Woolfolk Cross

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Real Boys, William Pollack

Saved by the Light, Dannion Brinkley with Paul Perry

The Seven Daughters of Eve, Bryan Sykes

Somewhere over the Sun, Adi Alsaid

The Sound of Waves, Yukio Mishima

The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice

What Dreams May Come, Richard Matheson

Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? Ajahn Brahm

The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare

The Search

2010-12-29T12:35:00.002-05:00

I was just looking through some old journal entries on my computer, for some reason--wanting to compare my beliefs now to the ones I had in spring or summer of 2009. What I found was this, right at the very beginning of everything that happened--less than a month before I conceived, when I wanted it so badly but still had to wonder.

At any rate, I wanted to share, because ... well, because I felt compelled to.

Here it is, complete journal entry from 30 May 2009, nothing changed, except names shortened to protect the innocent.

Saturday 30 May 2009

Where are the answers?

What kind of selfishness is it to want to bring a child into this world? As we spin on this great marble of blue and white and green, this beautiful place, with all its terrible truths? What selfishness is it to bring a child into the world. Even to ensure that child has a smooth life, a pleasant life, a good life, there’s the terror—always the terror of what COULD happen, of what WILL happen, of death. We watched an episode of a TV show today that had a lady say, “I don’t want to die!” And the truth struck me—how many times do we all think that? In the middle of the night, when we wake up in a cold sweat, dreaming of a world without us in it; in the middle of the day, when we nearly get hit by a car and our lives flash before our eyes, and we glimpse the possibility of ceasing to exist. What terror is this—the possibility of the utter ceasing-to-be of our consciousness? Sometimes I think I’ve found peace. But then the old terror renews itself. Even those who believe in an afterlife are sometimes frightened of death—aside from the doubts that may crop up (Maybe this IS all it is, and there is no higher power. What if I didn’t do the right thing in God’s eyes?). What beauty is it, what peace, to not fear death. There is so much we don’t know.

And on this beautiful day, as I sit in the comfort of my living room, I stare at the trees moving in the breeze, in the gorgeous sunshine outside our window, and I contemplate the terror that is likely running through the very essence of some extended family members. M’s Uncle J (K’s husband) had a seizure in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, and since then, they’ve learned that he has terminal brain cancer. They expect him to have two years, at most, with treatment. I think he’s had a good life, but he is relatively young. But even if he were old and had lived a very full, very rich life…would that make his impending death any less tragic, any less painful, for his family—for HIM?

And M’s sister, about the same time as their uncle’s seizure, discovered some bumps on her neck and went to the doctor. After several tests, they still aren’t sure what it is, but it could be lymphoma. To try to learn if it is, she’s having a lymph node excised in a couple of weeks... What kind of terror must that be, to wait and wait and wait, dreading the worst but hoping for the best? I had to worry about it for only a few days when my mother had problems in the fall—but weeks to learn a prognosis? What hell is that for her and her family?

I wonder how M feels about all this, whether he finds comfort in anything. I want to cry, and I’m not as close to them as he is. But am I crying for them? I suppose I am, as I cry for so many people for so many reasons, but I also cry for myself, for their family members, knowing what it is to have a loved one go through this, this fear, this waiting, this chance to “come to terms” with death, with loss.

I cry because at times like this, I always doubt. I vacillate between believing there is something more and fearing that there is not. The mind and the body, always warring—the body screaming for all it’s worth to survive, to not accept that death awaits it, and the mind calling for peace, trying to uncoil the knots in the pit of the body’s stomach, to slow the pounding of the heart, to deepen the breathing. Ultimately, they compromise—the body leaps up, to stretch, to expend the energy pumped through in flight-or-fight response. The body walks, outside into sunshine if possible, and the mind tries to shut down, or to at least distract itself by the sun, the sounds, the utter LIFE surrounding it. But then comes the melancholia—the realization that this all ends. Perhaps it doesn’t end, and only evolves, but such CHANGE! We humans dislike change, even if we say we don’t. Some of us fear it so much that we embrace it. But we fear it, nonetheless—we just cope with it differently. And what bigger change is there than death? We all go through it, but it’s not like childbirth or puberty—we can’t ask others who’ve been through it what it’s like and how to deal with it.

Yes, there are the folks with near-death experiences, the folks who claim to speak to the dead, the ones who claim to have been to heaven or hell, the ones who claim memories of previous lives and of life between lives. But we think they are crazy, or delusional, or just plain wrong. Or maybe, we think, they ARE right, but how can we KNOW? After all, we can only KNOW what we, ourselves, experience, and we often doubt ourselves, or fool ourselves.

As I sit here and write, I also reflect on the fact that when I volunteered as a hospice worker, helping those who were dying, and their families, my peace concerning death was greater. I still feared death—at least physically, I had the fight-or-flight response—but I knew that there are more important things—bringing comfort to those who are grieving the loss of life (their own OR their loved one’s), truly living and experiencing what we can instead of getting bogged down in what will happen, making the world a “better place” so that life isn’t torture (or so we help each other through the “tortures” that we can’t prevent). And then I get the crazy notion that that would make it so that death is the only thing we’d really fear. As if the human brain works that way—everyone has at least one fear—maybe spiders, maybe zombies, maybe clowns—but it all is ultimately the fear of what those things, in the fearer’s brain, bring—death. And then there’s the really crazy notion that if life weren’t all that great, if it weren’t happy, we could look to death as an old friend, as a comfort, as a long peaceful sleep.

Philosophers and common people alike throughout history have debated death, have pondered it, on its own merits and in relation to life, and have come up with no answers, so I ask, where ARE the answers? I certainly don’t have them, even if I like to think I do.

My head simply spins, my heart races, my breathing quickens, my tears fall. And then I look at my husband and think of my parents, and I smile and laugh and think "This is what it is truly about. This is peace, this is love.” These, who have nurtured life, fostered love, they are my role models in life. They are what drive me forward to try to make the world a better place somehow, even if it is in a hundred little ways, instead of One Big Way. I leave it to others to devote their lives to trying to find the cure for cancer, to battle for the rights of patients with Hepatitis C or AIDS, to try to end. Instead, I try to improve the world by planting another tree, smiling at the people I meet on the street, speaking words of encouragement. These things don’t undo death, they don’t make the fear of death or of losing a loved one any less. But somehow, they do some good. THIS I can believe in with less reservation than life after death, somehow.

But this isn’t about me—it’s about all of us—all of the people I know and love, that M knows and loves—even the people we really can’t stand, the people we sometimes think “deserve” death. How precious is life that we are willing to throw it away, to take someone else’s right to it? And who are we to bring other lives into this world to have to go through death, at the very least, and intense physical and emotional suffering, at most? But that’s the brain talking, the consciousness. The body screams that propagation of the species must continue and fights to continue life, to procreate, to force life into this world to keep the species alive.

I remember reading in one of my books talking about “life between lives” that someone in hypnotic regression said that Earth is chosen by souls who want to progress quickly, because it is a hard world, but one that teaches many lessons for all that. I also read another statement that one of the reasons Earth is one of the hardest existences because of the human body—the constant warring of the consciousness and the physical body; the resulting inner struggle is great and terrible but gives us incredible potential.

Maybe that’s so, and maybe it’s all a bunch of hooey, but who can say?

Joy to the World!

2010-12-13T23:44:00.006-05:00

The past few days have been really good. I have felt better and had more energy than I can recall having in months.

On Friday, M and I spent 14 hours out and about, running errands and enjoying one another's company. Among other things, we finally got my handicap placard (just in time for icky parking lots), bought several of the tool's he's required to have for his job, and had a fantastic sushi lunch.

Sunday, I had an entire day free from editing and used it all to tackle house chores that have been sadly abandoned or undermanaged since M started working back in March/April. I scrubbed the walls and showers and sink in the main bathroom, where mold and hard water stains accrue. I folded laundry. I cooked several meals, I did dishes. Oh, the things I did in all my day! I only sat down and played WoW for 30 minutes or so. The entire rest of the day was spent cleaning and organizing.

On top of all this, since M's been at his new job and I've been on MY sleep schedule and not HIS work schedule, I've been able to have a hot dinner ready for him and his lunch packed almost as soon as he walks in the door, in addition to washing a load of dishes nearly every day. With the load M did on Saturday, the pile of dishes that was threatening to swallow our kitchen whole (it's a large kitchn with a lot of counter space, and I'm NOT exaggerating) is down to just one dishwasher full. And it will be destroyed tomorrow.

What does it matter that what should be routine housekeeping tasks are actually, well, routine housekeeping tasks? It matters because I've had the ENERGY and the INTEREST and the STAMINA to do them in addition to my editing work. Finally! More than a year since the miscarriage and my near-blindness and my diagnosis with IIH, I am regaining stamina! I no longer put in a "lot" of physical activity (read: normal activity for most people) one day then have to sleep 14 hours that night to make up for it!

Today, I woke in a good mood, with plenty of energy, despite being awakened by the alarm clock. I immediately started at the day. It still takes me a while to build up my head of steam, but I was soon chugging along and kept up the pace for a full 9 hours. Woohoo!

When M got home from work this evening, he said he was given an application today by the company he works at, "now that he's already doing the job." Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, though, he realized what he was saying. The application was from the company he works AT, not the one he works FOR as a temp. Then he realized this is probably a good thing--that the company wants to have the application complete so they can hire him directly as soon as they can (most likely about mid-February, if I've done my math correctly, as they usually wait 3 months to hire their temp-to-hire folks so the temp agency can get whatever money they have been promised).

* Stringham high: Christmas is coming soon!
* Stringham low: Cold. Brr!
* Stringham super-high: Strength! Stamina! Good-paying employment!

Ah, Life

2010-12-07T14:25:00.003-05:00

It's been a busy month. M has changed jobs. So far, he really likes the new one and sees the company as a place he could stay at for years. Literally. The number-one reason for losing workers there is retirement. Now he just has to get hired on full-time from the contract position, which we're hoping will be only a few months rather than an entire year.

Of course with the job switch, we are left without health insurance again, though the temp agency offers some mediocre coverage for mediocre-to-high cost. We're considering it, though, because of the waiting period and my need to visit the doctors and have labs every few months...but we're trying to determine if paying cash will be more affordable than the coverage provided. Same old story, different day. (If he gets hired on full time by the company he's working at now, we'll have coverage for my health, apparently. Their insurance covers preexisting conditions with no waiting period and is reasonably priced--so the story goes. Maybe it's just a fairy-tale, but if so, it's a good one.)

Of course, the appointment with the new neuro-ophthalmologist that I made back when I had no insurance then did have insurance that would cover happened just four days after Mike left his old job, so the visit wasn't covered by insurance. The new doctor says she wants to try lowering my dose of the medicine I'm on but doesn't want to try it until I've lost the weight I "gained from the pregnancy." She didn't seem to understand that I didn't gain any weight from the pregnancy and am now lighter than I was before I got pregnant. Still, she wants me to lose weight, and so do I. Here we go trying again. This time, we're enlisting the help of ankle and wrist weights and having me sit on an exercise ball for a few hours a day while I work at my computer. And, of course, as always, we're trying to adjust my diet again.

On Sunday, while M was out getting my Christmas present, he noticed a crack running the full length of the windshield. Apparently, a very small chip turned into the crack almost overnight, because we hadn't seen the crack when we were out on Friday. Fortunately, I have comprehensive coverage on the car, so the windshield will be replaced at no cost to us--not even a deductible. That's the first time I've ever had to use my auto insurance. Funny thing is I had only ever had one insurance claim before we lived in this town--in 6 years of renters/homeowners insurance and I have no idea how many years in car insurance. Since we've lived in this house--a grand total of 2 1/2 years--we've had three claims, car and house combined. Not to mention the health stuff. Crazy, crazy few years.

Still, all in all, we're good. We're looking forward to the holidays, M likes his new job, I'm trying to get more active and regain more energy and take back "control" of the housework (and so far succeeding, though slowly), and we stay mostly warm in the house despite single-digit temperatures and the heat pump running constantly.

* Stringham high: It's almost Christmas.
* Stringham low: Cold, cold, cold.
* Stringham super-high: M likes his new job; I am regaining lost energy.

Yee-haw, y'all!

2010-11-13T19:43:00.005-05:00

I've been lax in writing lately, partly because of the ability to provide quick updates via Facebook, partly because of a very busy work schedule, and partly because of life's demands. For those of you who look forward to these little updates of mine, I apologize.

So today, what am I writing about? I have no idea yet. I guess we'll figure it out as I write...

Since my last post in mid-October, life has been constant change. (I know, since when is that different?) M got put on a different schedule at work to help an injured coworker; my work has been steady and a bit overwhelming at times because the balance of project types has changed; I spent a couple of weeks in Nashville, IN, Gatlinburg, TN, in my trek to be a bridesmaid in the wedding of my friends T & M; my M got a new job, which he starts in a few more days, on day shift, so we have to switch from nights to days; and my mom just spent a couple days in the hospital again. We have done almost no winterizing around the house, no preparation, and have no idea if we'll be spending the holidays with family, friends, or both. Some of the trees in our orchard have lost all their leaves, some have all brown leaves, some are completely green, and some (the five-in-one trees) have green, brown, orange, and no leaves.

You want details, you say? Where do I start? The wedding in TN was a success. T & M were married. Despite some bumpy patches in the days leading up to and the morning of the wedding, everyone pulled together like seasoned pros, and the bride and groom seemed extremely happy at the end of the night. And the wedding party and friends had a lot of fun in the evenings at our gigantic cabin. We were a little crazy--at least the women; the men mostly played Munchkin, billiards, and video games. Still, I think it was all good.

Nothing much to report about the new job yet. He'll still be working 12-hour shifts, but his drive will be about twice as long as it is now. He'll work 4 days on, 4 days off. He'll start on days, then eventually go to nights, then back to days, then nights. We don't know details on how long each swing will be. He'll be a contractor right now. Year-long contract or until he gets hired full-time. Or they could extend the contract. The company seems to like hiring people out of this position, so it's promising. Plus, even though the job technically requires only a high school education, the company likes having people with chemistry or chemical engineering degrees--quite unlike most jobs, for which companies are afraid to hire people who are "overqualified." So yes, promising. Oh, and M knew he was going to receive almost twice the pay for this job as for the one he's leaving. He has since learned he'll be making even more. We are VERY happy about that, especially the possible added flexibility it gives us in some aspects of our life.

My mom went to the hospital a few days ago because she was in a lot of pain in her abdomen, like with her flare-up last November and leading up to her intestinal surgery a couple of years ago. The hospital did an X-ray and found a a blockage in her intestine. They gave her some pain medicine and put in an NG tube and an IV. Within a few hours of checking in, she was transferred to a larger hospital, the one where she had her intestinal surgery back in 2008, so she could be seen by one of the doctors who had conducted the surgery. They did X-rays when she got to the larger hospital, and they found the blockage was gone. We don't know what did it. Some theories are that the NG tube had something to do with it, or Mom vomiting while they were trying to put the tube in, or that prayer did it. Or a combination of the three. I look fondly on the idea of all three, as we had several people praying for her before she got transferred to the larger hospital. If you don't like my theory, choose one of your own. :D Anyway, last night, Mom was given a liquid dinner, and today she was given a breakfast of soft solids. All went well, so she was discharged. She's at home now. She says if she feels up to it, she's going to go deer hunting tomorrow. We'll we know where I get some of my orneriness...

Tonight is the last night for M at this current job. We have a few days to get back on a day schedule, then he has two days of 4-hour orientation (yes, 4 hours each day). And he might start his new job the next day, or that weekend, or the following week. We won't know until sometime during his orientation. This should be a fun week. In the past month, I've already switched from nights to days, then back to nights again. Now I get to go back to days. Yeehaw!

* Stringham high: New doctor (neuro-ophthalmologist) in a few days.
* Stringham low: Today? Nah, it's all good, but I hear one of my mothers-in-law is feeling not so great. Keep her in mind, if you would, and pray/send loving thoughts and energy.
* Stringham super-highs: M starting a new job; most recent season of Doctor Who begins arriving via Netflix on Monday.

Remembering Together so Sadness Loses Its Power

2010-10-17T08:29:00.005-04:00

A year ago yesterday, I was told I may never read anything but large print or braille again. A year ago this Wednesday, I had double optic nerve sheath fenestration performed to halt my vision loss. Some of the loss was reversed, so I can read normal text and still work, though I can't see very well in the dark or drive or see much of anything in my periphery.

To all of you who prayed and/or sent positive thought and energy my way then, thank you for being part of that miracle. I will forever be eternally grateful.

To all of you who still pray for me and send positive thoughts and energies to me, please keep it up. I have a lot more vision to be restored, and right now, modern technology can't help, though we are moving closer. Right now, you, me, the power of positive thinking, the Divine, and our combined healing energies are the only ones who can make the miracle continue!

* Stringham high: Being able to work and read.
* Stringham low: Meh. Why get bogged down in that stuff?
* Stringham super-high: Amazingly supportive friends and family like you.

And now for the educational segment of this post! For those who are interested, the title on my blog page links to a short video bit about how science is helping some people see. There are somewhat similar techniques being worked out for blindness caused by other issues (for example, people who have damaged corneas), all slightly different because several things can cause blindness and visual impairment, so they all have to be "fixed" differently. They're also working on reversing damage that happens in the normal course of aging, which is pretty similar to the damage to my eyes. (That's why I sometimes make a crack about having "old" eyes or "old people" eyes.) Researchers haven't quite figured out how to make it work for people like me yet, because my retina is actually physically damaged rather than "simply" deficient or undergoing natural atrophy. Still, someday soon, maybe extreme visual impairment won't have to be so scary and debilitating for so many people.

Preparing for Hibernation

2010-10-03T19:16:00.004-04:00

It's been a busy, yet calm, sort of two weeks here in IN. We've been trying to fit in garden and yard work in the waning daylight hours and around the rain and cold weather on M's nights off. We got potatoes not long ago (see previous post), then mowed and weedeated several parts of the garden and other patches of yard to put in winter cover crops to improve the soil further. We found volunteer tomato plants hidden amidst the weeds where we had planted the corn this year. Today, while pulling up weeds and tomato cages, M pulled up a few turnips from the test bed--very large but not very globe-shaped. He also found a few red bell peppers, of all things. This late in the season, with the cool weather we've had--4 palm-sized red bell peppers. Very sweet, very tasty.

A week ago, the kitties managed their very first mouse kill all on their own. We got home from grocery shopping to find that they had a mouse cornered, and the next thing we knew, it was dead on the floor. Go kitties! Let's hope they take that newly learned skill and run with it with pride. We were late getting out poison in key spots this year, and the corn in the fields around our house came down earlier than we were anticipating, so our furry little houseguests moved in early this year. :(

That's all we have to report. Life continues to run. Halloween is approaching, as are the nuptuals of my friends T and M. Bridesmaid duties call.

* Stringham high: autumn
* Stringham low: meh
* Stringham super-high: Halloween

Revisiting Autumn

2010-09-26T03:05:00.004-04:00

After a bumpy start to my evening, I finally managed to be calm, even cheerful, for most of the night. I've had a crockpot meal cooking, and several windows open to let in the fresh (and cold!--49 degrees) air. It smells like fall in our house, with the combination of fresh cold air and cooking pork, onions, and green chiles. That's great, the smell of fall, and it makes me happy.

But then I got a headache spike a little after 2 AM. It wasn't terrible, and it resolved after a few minutes, so I attributed it to the weather, as we've got a couple squall lines moving through. But then I felt anxious out of the blue. I was working--editing--and felt anxious, then started thinking about the hospital and going in for my D&C last fall. (It was a warm and rainy night when we went to the hospital with my heavy bleeding, but the next afternoon when they wheeled me down for surgery, they had the doors to the basement open and I talked with one of the doctors about how great the new first cold air of fall is, because it had just arrived that morning.) My feelings of anxiety, like my pain spike, went away fairly quickly and are mostly gone now, but a trace of them lingers, in the way that the feel of a particularly peculiar dream hangs around for a few hours after you wake up.

I wonder if these ups and downs are going to be common for the next few weeks, over the anniversary of...well, anniversaries, I guess...of the hospitalization for the miscarriage, the D&C, the beginning of my vision loss, my weeks of pain, and my eye surgery. It's been nearly a year since I've driven a car. Nearly a year since I've been able to look at my husband's face and see all its details all at once without having to shift my gaze just so.

Normally, I love fall. This year, I'm not sure how it's going to go. The next month promises to be an interesting revisit to an...interesting combination of bad and good.

Normally, I might expound upon the thought that's been chasing around in my head about autumn being the death of things preparing for rest and rebirth, and the cycle of life and healing, but tonight, I think I'll leave that for another time.

*Stringham high: autumn
*Stringham low: not-so-happy anniversaries (see above)
*Stringham super high: happy anniversaries (my parents' 36th year of marriage, my friend B's 1st year of marriage, my and Mike's 7th year of being together)

**Title links to a song that I'd like to "dedicate" in honor of those happy anniversaries and to our child, whom we never got to meet.

This Spud's for You

2010-09-19T22:06:00.002-04:00

M and I dug up our 4 rows of potatoes this evening. We were fairly disappointed after our first row--golds. Most of them had been nibbled on by mice and were being further broken down by nature's composting helpers. We managed to save a few for "immediate" use, but we certainly didn't get a return on our investment. Not enough for storage to even register on our scale when we tried to weigh them.

At the end of that first row was a transplant or two we had discovered early in the year as volunteers in other parts of the garden--a couple of reds. They did really well, those two. They produced almost as many potatoes as the entire row of golds.

The second row was our russets. Not a huge number of potatoes, but boy, were those things big! We got a paper grocery bag of russets, 17.5 pounds. They won't go very far, but they'll store. Still, we were wondering if the potatoes were a return on investment, as russets aren't really expensive in the store.

The third row proved to be much more fruitful. This was a row of reds. They went hog wild. Most of them were nibble free and had grown without snarls and damage. (Yay!) We had so many potatoes from this row that when M started to uncover the fourth row, I had to sit down to clean and sort the reds from this row. It was certainly more than just a handful of potatoes to wipe the dirt and bugs off of...it was an entire pile. Now we were thinking we may have gotten our investment back in seed potatoes and straw and fertilizer--not to mention the richness that the potatoes and straw seemed to be adding to our once low-nutrient soil. It was clear where the potatoes were, as the soil was much darker and richer, though still more compact than we'd like.

M dug up the fourth row while I cleaned all the reds. We knew the fourth row wouldn't be too productive, as the plants hadn't gotten very large this year, but M was digging and uncovering almost the entire time I was cleaning that huge pile of reds. This row seemed a mixture of russets and reds for some reason. Again, we had more of these damaged like the first row.

It seems our experiment of simply working up the first inch or two of soil and mixing in some fertilizer worked. We simply laid the seed potatoes on that softer earth and covered with straw, then kept covering the plants with straw as they grew. Yes, that was much better for growing spuds this year than putting them in the heavy, clay-like, waterlogged soil so prevalent on our property.

All told, we brought in a lot of potatoes this year:

21.5 lbs (mixed) for "immediate" use
8.5 lbs small reds
17 lbs medium reds
11 lbs large reds
17.5 lbs russets

Grand total: 75.5 lbs of spuds. With all those tasty reds, we're going to have a lot of garlic mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!

* Stringham high: gardening
* Stringham low: disappointing gold potatoes
* Stringham super-high: almost half of M's body weight in potatoes for the year!

My Moment of (un)Zen

2010-08-24T19:31:00.005-04:00

I'd like to say I'm posting about the woes of garden pests.
But what I'm really posting about today, dear reader, is my heebie-jeebies.

From our driveway today, I saw the allure of bright red globes. They peeked at me through dense foliage, calling my name. Ah, more tomatoes! I thought. I moved toward them and started collecting them. Then my hand stopped just short of possibly the biggest tomato hornworm I've ever seen.

Yes, I was raised in the country. Yes, I should be immune to such things. I had an aunt who used to play with snakes. Seriously. I was never one of those kids who played with bugs and worms and caterpillars as a kid. You know why? Worms and caterpillars and grubs all give me the heebie-jeebies. Maggots too. Snakes, too, though only when they move. (I won't just kill things I don't like, either. I recognize their importance in the grand scheme. I just don't want to touch them. And I really prefer not to see them.) Tomato hornworms, though, they are garden pests, mostly not at all beneficial. Still, I don't like killing them. And they don't even move much--they mostly just get in the way while they look like giant bumps on logs. Scratch that. They look like giant logs attached to much smaller logs. But they still give me the heebie-jeebies. Probably because they camouflage so well. Right next to the tasty, tasty tomatoes. Last year, we watched for them, but they covered well. We teamed up, and M took down the worms while I reached around the spiders and spiderwebs (those were good--we wanted to leave them intact). I dealt with his heebie-jeebies, he dealt with mine. But now M's at work and the hornworms have come out in force in the past 5 days. They're everywhere. I saw no less than 8 without having to look for them. No small feat, considering my damaged eyes. Of course, they've stripped the foliage off the tops of all the tomato plants, so they aren't hiding as well as they did last year when only one or two usually made it to adulthood. (Three or four are "hiding" in this picture.)

Well, here we were thinking we had good soil and such and were having no problems with the worms this year. Guess we thought wrong. I sent pictures this evening to M at work to show him how many there were, and how huge they were. I guess he's having a rough day, because he told me to "Just get a pair of f**king scissors and kill them." Ew. First off, they're huge. Second, ew. Third, I know they'll pop all over me if I cut them. Fourth, ew. Fifth, when did I ever tell him to just get over it and smash the damn spider? Sixth, scratch that last question; it might come back to haunt me.

Still, I might have been okay. Honestly, I went back after seeing the first worm. I thought maybe I could get most of the tomatoes and just leave a few until M gets home to help me. That was when I saw all the others. And I saw some of them eating (like these two). Which is to say, I saw their heads moving as they sucked on green tomatoes. That was the worst. Ick. Ick, ick, ick.

Okay, if you aren't already, you are more than welcome to laugh at me now. I just had to share, because I couldn't scream at the top of my lungs outside how disgusting that was.

* Stringham high: Yummy, gorgeous, red, ripe tomatoes.
* Stringham low: Hornworms
* Stringham super-high: Possible opportunity to work a contract job for a few months (meaning not losing 45% of my money off the top to taxes of one sort or another)...

The Beauty of a Country Morning

2010-08-23T07:57:00.003-04:00

No complaining today, just the sharing of a beautiful morning. I looked outside to see fog hemming in our backyard. It's not a deep backyard, so those of you who've seen it can imagine how surprised I was to not be able to see past the edge of our yard.

Still, it's a lovely fog--light. One might almost want to use the term "fluffy." It was so pretty, I had to take a few pictures--very few, as it turns out, because my camera

battery died. When I stepped outside, however, the fog was even lovelier. (Yes, I keep using that term. There is nothing better for it.) The fog was more of a light mist, as it turns out. I could hear the slight drip of moisture collecting and running down our downspouts and feel the very gentle gathering of dampness on my skin. The air temperature was cool, but not cold, without even a hint of summertime heat or the chilliness that often accompanies heavy fog.The mist seemed almost magical, it was so light, so cool, so lovely. It dampened noise but didn't mute it. Everything simply seemed reverentially hushed, like worshippers entering a holy space. It was like Peace took a moment and descended on our little home. See for yourself:

Somewhere Beyond the Sea (to Somewhere over the Sun)

2010-08-20T22:30:00.004-04:00

In the networking tradition of referring people you know or have met--but in my tradition of not referring someone unless I really think the person credible/worthwhile for the job or task at hand--I'm letting you all know about the author of the fantastic book I was mentioning on Facebook last week (yes, Adi, I was...) and that inspired my last blogspot. Here is the blog for Adi Alsaid, author of Somewhere Over the Sun. (For those of you who don't get the linky goodness when this blog posts on FB, down at the bottom of the post, click "Go to Original Post" or whatever it says, and visit my blog directly.)

Adi's blog mentions that he was filled with a little trepidation about seeing a review about his book out, even though it hasn't been published yet, and that's why I had not given away too much information about it before. Being professional, I try not to mention any book without author approval, but this manuscript just made me overflow with enthusiasm. And then Adi found me. (Isn't that a literary sentence?) He found me accidentally. Happy accidents are good, I think.

Go, read his blog. Support his book. Buy a copy when it's published. Buy three copies and give them to people you love. (No, I'm not getting paid to say this. If you were on FB, you've seen my rants about this book.)

It might sound fake if I keep at it, so I'm leaving it at that. I'm actually using my blog to "plug." Ordinarily, I might feel cheap, but I'm not getting paid in any way, shape, or form, so I feel good! Remember, it's Somewhere Over the Sun by Adi Alsaid and will be published by Dog Ear Publishing. If you're so inclined, you can read the full text of my review on Adi's blog or at LibraryThing.

* Stringham high: words, flowers, air-conditioning
* Stringham low: meh, just pesky annoyances
* Stringham super-high: great books

What if this idea had never existed?

2010-08-13T20:14:00.004-04:00

I'm editing a wonderful book** right now and came across a gem (or a pearl, if you like) of wisdom on why the main character "can't resist putting (his thoughts) down on paper": "The thing with thoughts is that they die, like everything else. But almost everything else leaves a trace behind, even if it's a tiny carcass, some proof that it existed."

It's so true. Each of us has his or her own reality (or 5 or 100 realities) in his/her head in addition to physical life. That's why I love reading, why I love conversation--because those ideas, thoughts, only propagate and live on by being shared with others. What if Shakespeare had never written his words? If all the songwriters in the world had not turned their thoughts into song lyrics? If the composers had never turned their thoughts into music, notes, symphonies, arias? If Georgia O'Keefe hadn't painted her thoughts? If the "giants" Newton referred to hadn't given more permanent evidence of their thoughts and Newton had thus never been able to build on their ideas, pull them into cohesive ideas that propelled our science, our physics forward so quickly these past few centuries? What if the people you love most in the world never gave voice (literal or figurative) to those thoughts of love? Or if this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JStOPpNI4Tk&NR=1) had never been written and performed?

I think everyone should provide proof each day of even just one thought--through drawing, conversation, writing, composing, creating.

Give tangible life to your thoughts.

**Working title: Somewhere over the Sun [working title may change, and I'm not sure what name the author is going to publish under]

Thank Goodness for Credit Monitoring

2010-07-31T01:47:00.002-04:00

So amidst all the chaos of my computer drama this week, I got an email from my credit-monitoring service to alert me to a concern in one of my credit reports. So I checked it out this evening. It turns out that the collection agency we went around and around with back in the spring has reported that I have an unpaid balance of $8,666. Yeah, that's right, that eye surgery that I am not responsible for got reported as me not paying it. And even after one party apparently got their money for it.

IMC Credit Services now, apparently, has this account and has made it show on my credit report. I'm disputing the account, of course. I am STEAMED. Absolutely effing PISSED.
Mike and I bent over backwards not only to make sure that we really weren't responsible for the charges for this surgery but also that the hospital got PAID for this surgery. We did the due diligence that we should have done, plus all the work and diligence that the freaking hospital AND health management organization AND this collection agency should have done, and my credit is suffering from it. Those freaking bastards! I should have known things had been too quiet for too long after we thought they had been resolved...it's been about three months since I've heard anything about this, and then it just got reported on my credit.

* Stringham high: Starcraft II, World of Warcraft
* Stringham low: failing laptops, disabled desktop computers, and m-fing bills for money that I don't owe.
* Stringham super-high: fantastic, supportive and helpful friends and family

Mixed Feelings

2010-07-19T16:49:00.002-04:00

Finally printing the form to apply for a disability hangtag for the car. I want it not for days like this, but for the winter, when it’s so cloudy and there’s ice and slush and snow on the ground and I can’t tell the difference between them but I have to walk through half a dimly lit parking lot with such problems. But I can’t help but wonder, is this selling out? I still have faith that my vision will be restored. Is applying for this card the same as telling God that I no longer have faith? I try to reason with myself, saying no, it’s not, because I can get a short-term placard that works for just a few months, but it will take longer than just a few months for my vision to not be so limited any longer. Somehow, those words seem a little hollow.

And then I worry about all the hassle, because if I get this placard, it is the same as telling them that I can no longer drive, and my license will be revoked. I mean, I’m not using it anyway, but that’s hardly the point. It’s giving up another potential freedom. Of course, what really bothers me is trying to get everything back when my vision does finally come back—dealing with the hassle of proving that my vision has returned and I wasn’t just scamming before, etc. Still, that could be years away, and won’t that be worth it if, thanks to the placard, I haven’t broken a leg or an arm falling in a parking lot in inclement weather?

Still, sometimes it just feels like a cop-out, like I’m taking the easy way out, like I’m taking advantage of every little benefit offered to me. Of course, then part of me says, Of course you’re taking advantage of every little benefit offered. It’s because you can’t get any REAL benefits offered to you. You’re fighting and scraping for every little bit of humanity left in you, to make it on your own with your husband without trying to get disability benefits. All you want is healthcare, and you can’t get that, so why not a friggin’ hangtag that lets you be a little closer to the building when people drive you places? Is that petty? It’s certainly small comfort.

* Stringham high: World of Warcraft and homemade sweet pickles
* Stringham low: "Blahs" that come with the clouds
* Stringham super-high: M's now being permanently assigned to days and, hopefully, a regular, steady schedule.

A Bad Rant Turned Enlightened

2010-07-12T20:29:00.002-04:00

Someone very close to me suggested to me outright today that they think I’m depressed and that’s making me THINK there’s something wrong with my eyes when there’s nothing going on. I told that person I don’t think that’s the case. It could be, I admitted, but I don’t think it is. I suggested, too, that it could be that the sinus adjustments my doc and I have been making have affected my vision and that it’s so slight that most people would never notice such a change because their brains would account for the problem, but that because my field of vision is so small, I notice even the slightest changes. That’s one thing that people forget—that our brains adjust to changes if they are small enough, so we can gradually lose vision without ever noticing.

But then a little later, this same person suggested that maybe I was making this up subconsciously as a way to get out of the house, because I often feel "trapped," as I no longer can get out of the house on my own accord. I can't go more than just our 3.4 acres without someone else, so I often leave the property one day a week. At first, I just scoffed at the thought and said, “No. No way.” But the more I think about it, the more it saddens me that this person could think such a thing. If it weren’t for my health, I’d really want something to show up as wrong so I could at least “prove” that I’m not making it up for attention or to get out of the house. But I DON'T want anything to be wrong. I’m a little hurt by the thought. And true, this person did say “subconsciously,” but still, the implication of the statement—what it means this person thinks of me—saddens me. This person doesn’t trust me at all, I think the implication is. Or at least that’s what it feels like to me. Maybe that’s not at all what it means, but that’s how I interpret it. But then it gets down to the heart of what a lot of really ill people have to face, doesn’t it? Health care practitioners and loved ones thinking (not meaning it unkindly) that the sick person is doing this all for attention, or that it’s “all in their head.” I’m not doing it for the attention. And if I truly wanted to get out of the house, I’d do it defiantly. I’d ask someone to come take me out for the day for no good reason. Because, by God, going to sit in a doctor’s office is not the way I really fancy getting myself out of the house, especially since I have to call in every favor and humble myself to ask everyone I know—everyone I’ve already asked for favor after favor—to take me. Yeah, sounds just like my idea of a good time.

"We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own."

2010-07-07T13:52:00.002-04:00

The earlier in the day I reaffirm myself as an instrument of Divine will, the better I feel emotionally that day. Today, I prayed right after I got up and brushed my teeth instead of waiting for showering and eating and being completely clean “out of respect for God.” I prayed, reaffirming my desire to be an instrument of Divine will, to spread love and understanding, to act the way the Divine wants me to work, to say the things the Divine wants me to say. And even though my heart has been heavy for several days and I have been full of fear and worry, today things don’t look so bad. It took a while after praying, to be sure, but then suddenly, the feeling of calm hit me, and the words came to my lips: “May my life be a light to others in the darkness. May it give hope to people who have none. May my life serve to spread hope, and faith, and praise of the great works of the Divine.” I cried a bit, out of joy, and out of a little fear, fear of the responsibility, and of the implications of my “little” life doing so much. But if this is the good that can come from my life, if nothing else—if the pain and fear I have endured can help others, then so be it.

* Stringham high: Oodles of fresh green beans from our garden.
* Stringham low: Readjusting to yet another of M's new work schedules.
* Stringham super-high: Kick-ass geothermal heat pump cooling on days that are 91 degrees with a heat index closer to 100.

Greeting the Day

2010-06-08T06:26:00.002-04:00

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a sunrise. I’m still not really watching the sunrise, but I’m up for it. I’ve been up working all night. All week, I’ve almost made it but then had to go to sleep. Tonight/this morning, I’ve had, just had, to finish this book I’m working on, so when Mike left for work at a little after 5, I went ahead and opened the front door, opened the window on the screen door, and opened the curtains on the living room window facing east. The birds have been fantastic to listen to. They are absolutely raucous. I’ve heard so many that I couldn’t even pick out many of the individual songs. I hear crows and owls, and some chirping, some singing. Early, before it started to really get light, I heard one song that just made me think of the shooting sounds in an early ’80s video game.

And the smell! Nothing beats the smell of an Indiana summer sunrise. The humid, cold air are crisp but almost cloying, but there’s a heavy scent, almost of iron, to go with the smell of lawn clippings and damp asphalt and damp earth. Soon, the corn will be tall enough to offer its own musk to the blend—one of my favorite smells in the world, corn in the middle of an Indiana summer, though its smell is usually strongest and best in the evening, just around sunset.

I just wish I were more awake and didn’t have to work right now, so I could REALLY enjoy the morning with a nice walk. I guess I’ll have to be content with my cup of hot, strong, very sweet English breakfast tea while the birds sing to me as I edit, stealing glances out the window to see one narrow strip of sky slowly change from purple to pink to powder blue to baby blue…

And I guess I’m going to have to eat some more strawberries for breakfast.

* Stringham high: Sunrise
* Stringham low: Sleepiness
* Stringham super-high: Caffeine and sugar
(It's the simple things today...)

Call Me Old-Fashioned (Update)

2010-06-06T17:43:00.002-04:00

Well, after doing some digging (it's amazing what you can find on the Internet if you're persistent enough--what's that? Fine, you can call it stubborn as hell if you insist), I learned who owns the property around us. Crazy us, we always thought it was people with the last name of German. Nope, when people referred to "the Germans," they were actually referring to a German man and his son who own the farmland (and boy, is there a lot of it!) around us. They once also owned the hog farm but got into some nasty, nasty trouble, apparently--too much pollution killing too many fish in our little creek--and were forced by the state to sell that operation. Anyway, I now have the knowledge of just how much land around us this guy owns, including houses. So we can make housecalls. I totally would, if I could drive... But that's neither here nor there. Now I just need to find a way of contacting this gentleman. But that seems to be a little more difficult, as he's not listed in the phone books. (Gee, I can't imagine why, with a great part of the county getting pissed off at him and his dad a few years back....)

Anyway, that'll probably be a fight for another day. I actually need to get some work done today...But if anyone's got any ideas on how to find a phone number for this guy without paying one of those "background information" companies $40 or so, I'd be open to them.

Call Me Old-Fashioned...

2010-06-06T15:55:00.004-04:00

But I like to know the people who make regular jaunts across my property.

I opened the front door this afternoon to see the day and saw a white Chevy(?) club cab our by our power lines. I was interested, wondering if this was a truck from our electric co-op as was here a few weeks ago. But then I remembered this is Sunday. And they were cutting across our property rather than driving along the nicely mown path along the edge of our property (you know, the one we mowed so if they wanted to drive farm equipment across our land as a shortcut, they wouldn't mow over anything we had planted like they've almost done before). Well, I watched the truck as much as I could. I don't know if they were already planning to turn around or if they did it because they caught sight of me opening the door, but they started driving away (across our property and toward the field behind our house) almost as soon as I saw them.

I lost sight of them for a bit because the garage got in the way, but I walked outside and watched the truck drive along the path they are apparently keeping mowed next to their field. I immediately walked our property to see if they had damaged anything, and to be fair, I don't think they did. But there's a sinkhole near the area they cut across, and I don't want someone else getting their truck stuck in OUR property. And besides that, I'd like to know who the hell thinks he has the right to just drive onto our property whenever he feels like it.

To be fair, I don't really mind people on our property too much, having grown up in an area with a feeling of community, but I sure as hell like to KNOW the people DRIVING across my YARD. Well, if I could drive, I would have gotten in M's vehicle and driven to the hog farm and asked there, but alas, no such luck. I did walk a bit in the tracks the truck left behind, walking along the cornfield. But I gave it up after I had walked only a small portion of the track and realized that it would probably take me a half hour or more to walk the length of the track around the field and trees and creek, and then I'd have to walk all the way back. I thought about firing up the Montero and driving along their field, too. I figured it would be equal...but I gave up the idea. I plan to introduce myself and just say I like to know the people who are moving across my property, but you never know when my temper might get the best of me and I let loose with a, "Who the fuck do you think you are, just driving across our property without asking or introducing yourselves!" And if that happened right after I'd done the same thing...well, righteous indignation has a little less to be righteously indignant about in the face of hypocrisy.

So I wait patiently for M to get home from work (yes, on a Sunday...good OT) and see if we'll ever finally carry out our plan to meet these people. (Incidentally, anytime they're out in the field and we're out, they're always gone on their high-speed equipment before we can get near. I'm not sure if it's because they're rude, afraid we're people like the previous owner--who purportedly liked to approach people in his driveway with a shotgun--shy, or what.) But this is getting silly. I'm getting tired of being the only one home and seeing a strange vehicle in our driveway or field. I figure walking out there with my rifle, just in case, would send the wrong impression, especially if I'm trying to set up neighborly ties. *sigh*

* Stringham high: Weather below 80 degrees!
* Stringham low: Preparing some strawberries last night to make freezer jam and encountered an inchworm on one. I knew it was just a matter of time before something like that happened, but, well, there went my enthusiasm for cleaning them at 2 AM. Guess I'll have to tackle them again today. lol.
* Stringham super-high: Going to help a friend with wedding plans this week!

Seeing Red

2010-06-05T20:20:00.003-04:00

I know, I know, you're all tired of hearing about strawberries. But seriously, how can I not share this crazy abundance? After today's haul, we're out of large bowls. We're going to have to resort to using plastic tubs unless I get some of these strawberries frozen or canned. I guess freezer jam is in my future tonight. (That's just one bowl of berries...for scale, ook at the full-size mouse in the lower left corner and the 32-oz mug in the upper left corner of the first picture...)
And Becca's entire household will be sick of eating strawberries by the time I leave, I think...unless I accidentally make too much freezer jam. I'd live to make perserves and conserves and other such tasty canned morsels, but I just don't have the time. Still, jam works. We can make lots of tasty things with jam :)

* Stringham high: Our garden is growing carrots this year!
* Stringham low: Transplanted tomatoes are struggling so far :(
* Stringham super-high: Salad greens and turnips and radishes growing insanely!

Strawberry Supernova

2010-06-02T21:28:00.005-04:00

I eat them for breakfast, I eat them for lunch, I eat them for dinner, and I eat them for dessert.
I'd even eat them for elevenses and tea and supper if I were a hobbit.

No, this isn't a repeat from a few days ago. This is what we hauled in in a little more than an hour this evening...this white bowl is much larger than the other, and it was filled by ONE of the five rows of strawberries.

The mustard container? Strictly mustard, vinegar, and salt.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Strawberry Overlords

2010-05-29T15:14:00.004-04:00

...Into mah bell-ay! Before M had to leave for work today, we decided to gather the strawberries, as neither of us has felt up to it for a couple of days. Teamwork would make the task go faster, we figured, especially as well as those little buggers hide! (You'd think, being bright red, they would be easy to see amidst the dark green of the leaves and grass surrounding them, but you'd be wrong.)

We. Hit. The. Mother. Lode.
The first row we encountered gave us a full pint on its own. The next three rows gave us a combined 2 pints. The fifth and final row...well...see for yourself.

All told, we gathered 4 pints:Plus however many are in this bowl (we ran out of half-pint containers):
* Stringham high: Strawberry Supernova!
* Stringham low: M's sick (still/again)
* Stringham super-high: M's new job starts Tuesday, and he works four 12s, followed by two days off, then four 12s, two days off, etc. This equals 8 to 20 hours of automatic OT a week...at his new level of pay. My husband rocks!

Snowballs in Hell...I'm "Reviewing" a Movie

2010-05-28T23:27:00.002-04:00

This is a bit of a departure, I know, but I have to say how much I love a movie. I had initially never planned to watch the movie, thinking it was too much of a chick flick. But then a trailer made me laugh, so I thought, Why not?

I just finished watching Julie & Julia. I completely loved it! Why? I can't really say...it's a general feeling, really. Mostly, I think, it's that I see myself in Julie and Julia. I love the absolute certainty of cooking, like Julie. I love cooking--the more people I'm cooking for, the better. And like Julia...well, I suppose maybe I flatter myself by seeing a lot of Julia in myself. And in many ways, I see some of the not-so-great characteristics of Julie in me, too.

But I identified with the movie, and I loved it. In so many ways, it was familiar, but touching and hopeful, too.

And the portrayals of Julia and Paul made me cry. The personalities and the relationship come through as absolutely touching. Every time they were shown on screen, I saw a wonderful couple.

All in all, see the movie if you haven't already. I laughed. I cried. It was brilliant.

Everything's Gone Green (Again)

2010-05-25T16:14:00.005-04:00

Aside from last week's rain possibly drowning out our newly planted corn, that rain and the heat of the past couple days have been great for everything else we're growing (intentionally or not--we've had a bunch of potato plants pop up in the corn this year...guess we didn't get them all dug up last fall). Here are some pictures.

This is the rose bush that was moderately small when we moved in and grew mostly UP last year, past the eaves and producing just a few blooms. We snipped it, getting tired of walking into thorns, and this is the result...

This is one of the four rows of potatoes--our early producers. Already, this row has more plants (and healthier) than we had all together last year. (If you look closely along the very right edge of the picture, you might also see some of the bush beans coming up).
I'm not going to post pictures of the things like greens and root crops that have just barely sprouted; the sugar maples, which have had to struggle mightily against nibbling deer; or the "flowering trees" Mike planted this winter that arrived from the Arbor Day Foundation as nothing but sticks in December, ready for planting (those trees are still barely more than sticks, and most probably won't make it). I have, however, posted a picture (left) of the orchard and berry patch. The long shot is the only way to get everything in the shot, and I left out quite a bit of strawberries patch and the dwarf pear tree to get the rest of the berries and trees in. (The tall grass in the background is just stuff we aren't mowing yet...it'll eventually get taken over by trees--probably nuts and some more fruits--and more berries if we have our way.)

Nothing is REALLY big yet, but the trees are clearly visible against the grass this year, whereas last year they were mostly just sticks with some green. This dwarf 5-in-1 pear tree is a real overachiever. Everything in the second shot is new growth this spring.

The Cherry on Top

2010-05-21T16:02:00.004-04:00

Honestly, I love you all, and I've been in contact with most of you this week (come to think of it, that's strange)...and I've been able to hang out with some of you this week, and that's even better. Super-duper! But honestly, when I opened Google to search for something and saw that the image was a Pac-Man board? I was incredibly excited.
When I accidentally found out that it was playable, and I progressed into Act II? Oh my god, I almost peed myself from the excitement. Seriously!
This could quite possibly be the highlight of my week! (Apologies to anyone who feels offended. I know very few of you understand my love of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac.) Maybe it's just the cherry on top of a sundae of a week. But this is quite possibly the most brilliant thing Google has ever done, IMHO. (Yes, it's an overstatement, but I'm excited from conversations and hopped up on caffeine and good news!)

* Stringham high:Playable Google Pac-Man logo.
* Stringham low: What? Sure, hunger, pain, suffering in the world, but it's these little things that dis...ooh, Pac-Man!
* Stringham super-high: Hello! It's a PLAYABLE logo!!!!!!!

I'm not going to get ANY work done today....

Things are Moving in the Right Direction

2010-05-17T17:17:00.002-04:00

* Stringham high: Found a lab that will do lab tests for pretty cheap, and without the need to go through the hassle of getting orders from the doctor. And no appointment necessary.
* Stringham low: Several gray, chilly days in store. And I was really enjoying the sunshine and warmth...
* Stringham super-high: Mike got the job he interviewed for on Friday! $3 more an hour--still not much, but better. More details forthcoming as I get them from him...

Pots of Gold

2010-05-14T14:05:00.003-04:00

It's a bit of an inside joke, but one of my friends keeps wishing me luck finding a pot of gold, or to keep looking for a pot of gold, or a leprechaun, or always something along those lines.

In an email today, she wished me the same, and I realized that this week has been full of little pots of gold everywhere. One was in touching base again with a very dear friend that I had, regrettably, fallen into only sporadic contact with, and rediscovering a heart of gold and the priceless treasure that had drawn me to be her friend in the first place. Another was in a rather substantial gift from a new friend, just for doing my job--I guess you could call it a "bonus" of sorts.

Other little pots of gold, though slightly less emotional, are no less dramatic or awe-inspiring: a handful of strawberries a day from our berry patch, an explosion of iris blooms after last night's rain where last year there was only one plant, an interview today that may lead to a better job for my husband, another new friend offering to help with no benefit to herself.

Sure, the world can be full of sadness and disappointment, but, oh, what beauteous joys it holds for those who pay attention!

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it." —Helen Keller

“We humans are social beings. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.” —The Dalai Lama

The Tools of the Trade

2010-05-06T23:34:00.003-04:00

I've spent almost all day working on my book...sort of. I spent hours on the phone chatting with a friend who is designing my book cover, and she mentioned getting a Facebook page going for it. What a brilliant idea! "It takes care of itself," she told me. So, Year of Shadow and Light now has a Facebook page. I figure I hate writing, so I need people watching me and eagerly awaiting updates to keep me on my toes. And if I can get interest for the book and awareness of IIH and its potential effects moving before the book even gets published, all the better! Now, I just need to get a website going and get the book written (won't be done until at least October 2010), published, and printed, and we'll be all set!

If you're on Facebook and haven't already received an invitation, check out the page by searching for Year of Shadow and Light. Become a member, and tell all your friends!

* Stringham high: The book cover is in progress.
* Stringham low: Nadda today.
* Stringham super-high: Shameless self-promotion rocks!

"We are--all of us--blind beggars, with genuine hurts and handicaps"

2010-04-23T14:59:00.005-04:00

* Stringham high: Rain!
* Stringham low: Still no driving.
* Stringham super-high: Hope
Note: The title links to a theological article from which this title is a quote. Although I don't agree with all the conclusions the article makes, it is a good discussion, and one that is difficult, if not impossible, to find in any religion other than Christianity, though I think it is valid in any religion.

Well, today's post is a bit of an updater. We think we have resolved the debt-collection issue through a couple of fronts. The lovely Ms. L at my doctor's office (and the doctor) and Ms. C at my Medicaid company did their work, and they pulled through on the same day. We should hear no more about that big surgery debt...at least unless the surgery center wants to be reported to the state.

I went earlier this week to have a 30-2 threshold test on my eyes. Basically, that means my eyes were tested to see how large my visual fields are. I had also wanted to be given the test that determines if your overall periphery is large enough for driving in Indiana. The doctor there didn't do any of the tests, he just walked up to me after the 30-2 test and, not really looking at me, said I wouldn't be able to get a driver's license anyway so there was no point in doing the test. He said something about me hitting a kid before I'd even realize the kid was there, and then he walked off. I was disappointed, and a little peeved. And I've been more peeved since then, realizing he didn't even give me a chance to ask questions, he didn't give me the courtesy of speaking to me in an exam room (he stood in the hall to tell me this), and he assumed that my eyes don't dart everywhere when I drive and that I would be so irresponsible as to drive in busy places where things are really likely to jump/run out into the road. *sigh* But that's enough of that. I have done some research and found the requirements and process to request a license in Indiana if you are visually impaired, and the optic aids that the state allows, etc. I have it all tucked away for when I believe I am ready to drive again. (Although I hoped to be able to drive this time, I really wanted the test this time for a baseline measure of my overall periphery.)

Anyway, I got a copy of the 30-2 test results and, as soon as I got home, went on the Internet to find out how to read them. The graphical representation used for we laypeople makes it look as if my vision is getting better overall, though it's possible I've lost some field in my left eye but gained some in my right eye. But then as I researched, I learned that the grayscale image provided is really not all that representative of what the test actually finds. And I learned how to read what the test diagnosed but that it really takes a skilled clinician to compare the findings of multiple tests and come to any good conclusion about improvement, worsening, or staying the same. (For the record, my overall impression is that my vision has improved a little in my left eye and a little better in my right eye, with a very slight enlarging of my visual field in my right eye. But I'll have to wait until I see Dr. Lee to get a confirmation or denial of my possibly faulty understanding of the test results.)

Yesterday, the best news of all thus far showed up to cheer me along. I have made vague allusions to a "promise" or a "feeling" of getting my vision back. First, the background so you know what I've been referring to. Basically, when I was in the hospital (and a couple of times since), I heard a voice "in my head" telling me that my vision would be restored to me. Since then, I've tried reasoning that it was just my subconscious, me trying to comfort myself, but such explanations always seemed hollow. And every time I started to question such things, I was given dreams in which I had my vision back. Sure, I reasoned, but that's just the brain's way of acting out what I can't have in real life. But then I'd have a dream about someone and a need to speak to them, and I'd email them or call them up and tell them what had happened in the dream, and it was always perfect timing--they needed the message I had from the dream or just to hear from me, something in particular I had to say that day. So, here was whoever was watching over me telling me to quit being so thick, and yes, the communication lines are working properly, and I have been hearing a communication and not just the noise in my brain. This has happened numerous times over the past few months, this "testing," any time I've started to truly doubt that the message I received in the hospital and in my prayers and meditations was really true. This doubt arises generally when I read the literature or speak with the doctors about the extent of my vision loss--this kind of damage is irreparable, the retina cannot repair itself, much like the conventional wisdom about the brain cells. I always try to chase such doubt away by reminding myself that more of my vision returned than my surgeon ever expected and that it has continued to do so, that I, in fact, have already had a small miracle. But surely I'm not worthy of miracles, I reason, so the doubt resurfaces, and then I remember tales of people who have been blind and who have had their sight miraculously restored. Those "miracles" could probably be explained away with today's medicine and science, but that's not the point...they would be no less miraculous to the people who experienced them simply because science had an explanation.

But back to the point, the provider of this message, whenever I really begin to doubt, always sends me another message (or two, or three, as I'm so damn stubborn) that essentially says, "Hey, you numb skull, stop doubting and trust me, will ya?" I say "provider of this message" because although I believe the ultimate authority of it comes from God/Allah/the Divine/Yahweh/Wakan Tanka, I think the message likely comes through a mediator, call it what you like--spirit guide, angel, dead loved one, whatever. It's a messenger who takes the form that the person can most easily accept a message from at the time...that's my theory.

So, now that we are all on the same page and some of you are surprised that I have gone utterly Looney Toons and others have just had it confirmed, I can tell you this good news that I learned yesterday. In one of my support groups for IIH (PTC), I saw a message from a woman who said she was completely blind for an entire month in the summer of 2005 before she was diagnosed, and now she has 90% of her vision in one eye and 50% in the other. It has come back very slowly, but it has come back.

Let's stop and really think about this. She was completely blind for a month; I was mostly blind for two to three weeks. It has taken four and a half years, but a great portion of her vision has come back. I know to those of you who think about these numbers, 90% and 50% still seem very low, but for someone like me who currently has partial vision in about 38% of her good eye, 90% and 50% are tremendous numbers. So, how does this give me hope, and what does it have to do with that promise of restored vision?

In every way, and everything. It gives me hope because it lets me know that there IS a precedent out there, even though the literature may not mention it, even though it may be an outlier. It reminds me that although we like to envision miracles as happening suddenly, miracles are everywhere. We like to overuse the phrase sometimes, and often we use it so much that we don't realize how much it really means--like the miracle of pregnancy and the miracle of birth. They are tremendous miracles--just ask anyone who works in reproductive health. It's a miracle that the human race is able to propagate, honestly. And the promise I have been made is reinforced--my faith in it is reinforced again--as I am reminded that although I was made a promise, that promise is on God's time, not my time. And because this promise is confirmed, I know that the other promises that have been made will also be kept--yes, they will require effort on my part, but what better way to truly appreciate a gift than to work toward it and on it and know how hard it is to attain on your own? Whether the miracles are for ourselves or others, shouldn't we all be instruments in the miracles that are worked in the world?

Blood from a Turnip

2010-04-08T18:32:00.002-04:00

* Stringham high: Planting!
* Stringham low: Cold front after a week of gorgeous warm weather.
* Stringham super-high: Daffodils in bloom.

(By the way, as soon as I can find the time, I'll have pictures up of what we did last weekend around the place. It was a lot!!!!)

So, I've done this before with emails, but now with my blog. I'm ranting a bit, but now you get to be my "witnesses" to what I have to deal with. And this is just one more way for me to help show that I'm documenting my plight and making efforts, in case things keep disappearing from other people's records (see below).

Pushed and pulled in so many directions. Got a call yesterday (Wednesday) from the collections agency (IMC), from J. She tried to get me to settle, by knocking off “a substantial” part of the bill from Beltway, but I’d have to pay quickly and in a lump sum---more than $7000--to not get it to adversely affect my credit (and other nasty implied things). The entire bill is $8666.60. That may seem like a substantial amount knocked off to her, but not substantial enough from where I’m sitting. So I told her Mike was at work and I’d have to talk with him about it, that I’d call her back today (Thursday).

Long story short, I ended up making more calls yesterday and more this morning and have just finished spending about an hour and a half on the phone this afternoon with Dr. Lee’s office, IMC, and MHS (for Medicaid), you name it...

I’ve been told by MHS that there is now no record of Dr. Pearce’s bill in the system…no record of me calling in about it or of them sending those letters to him, nothing, nada, zip, zilch. I’ve been told that I should contact his office and tell them to resubmit that. When I called IMC, they basically asked if that meant the bill was supposed to be resubmitted, and I said that’s what I took from what MHS told me. Then the gent at IMC seemed to ignore that bit of information and go straight for the Beltway information. So I explained that C at MHS was still researching information there and was supposed to be getting information for me and calling me back today or tomorrow. On a later call, J (at IMC) asked if we could pay nothing on the bill. I didn’t want to get caught in it and required by law to pay for it by agreeing to settle, because another $7000 is just more than we can handle right now. I explained that we’re already just barely making our bills, and she asked if we couldn’t do anything for it. I said I’d have to talk to Mike again because we’re paying bills this weekend. She said she thought that was why she had waited overnight for me to call today, so I explained that because of Mike’s work shift, we have limited time to have any discussions and that he goes to work, comes home, we eat, go to bed, then get up and he goes again—that we know there is no way we can pay a $7000+ bill and we’ll have to discuss whether it's possible to pay even a smaller amount but that I still doubted it.

She said she’ll put the account on hold for the weekend and said that two things need to happen or they will have to mark the account as unpaid and Beltway will sue the account: the diagnosis needs to be changed or I need to pay a substantial amount on the bill. Well, I know there’s no way we can really pay a substantial amount on the bill. I explained she’s really been the first one to mention that the doctor would be the person who would need to change the diagnosis, etc. So I asked her how that worked. She explained, then said that in her 20 years, she’s only seen that work a couple of times. (Still, I figured, it’s my best hope. I’m not going to go into hardship to pay something I’ve been told I’m not supposed to pay. This is where it gets tough…I want them to get their money, and if I had the money, I wouldn’t mind paying it, even working out a payment plan (hard as that would be), and with an insurance company, I know that’s what we’d be obligated to do. But we have MHS (Medicaid) telling us that we should not pay it, because those providers are in the wrong for trying to bill me in the first place.)

But J emphasized that “the ball was in my court,” that I can’t just sit back and do nothing (which is ridiculous, really, when you think about it.) They’re telling me I’m supposed to act in spite of the research that MHS is doing. I can’t just sit around and do nothing. Right, because that’s all I’ve been doing, nothing. I’ve spent so much timing making phone calls to MHS and IMC and medical provider billing companies (who know nothing and care nothing except if you are paying, they don’t care about the details, unless the details are who is paying them, how much they are getting paid, and when they are getting paid) that I am now about a half a week behind in my editing—my livelihood—the ONLY way they MIGHT be able to squeeze blood out of this turnip. But I’m spending so much time on the phone with them doing THEIR jobs that they’re making it very difficult for me to earn enough money to pay my existing bills, much less come up with something they hope to wrench out of me. What a joke.

So, glutton for punishment that I am, I got off the phone with J at IMC and immediately called Dr. Lee’s office. First time through, I couldn’t leave a message in a general mailbox and didn’t know who the hell’s extension to leave a message on, so I called back again. Got a different message, this one saying the office was closed. Thought I may have gotten to a general voicemail box but wasn’t sure, so after leaving a message, I called back to check. (I figured I didn’t care if I left 20 messages, so long as one of them got someone to call me back with Dr. Lee’s information tomorrow.) So I called back immediately, and someone answered, even after the phones were already shut down for the night. I guess they got tired of hearing them ring. lol. People can only ignore a ringing phone so many times. I explained my conundrum and was told by the lady who answered that she would patch me through to Linda, but Linda might be home for the night but I could leave a message. I was tickled pink. That would be fantastic, I said.

L answered! L and I had a lovely chat. For a half hour, she and I discussed my issues and the back and forth I’ve been going through, and possible ways to work with Beltway Surgery Center if necessary. She explained that Dr. Lee is on vacation until next week (of course, just my luck!), but she and C (a nurse there) think that maybe it’s not the coding but a letter of explanation that might help. L is going to call their billing department first thing tomorrow morning to find out if they’ve had problems with their bill getting paid by Medicaid, because usually if their bills go through, so do Beltway’s, and vice versa, she said. And then she’ll figure out what we need to do from there, she said. We may be able to get Medicaid to pay for this, after all. Or we may not.

But L has connections. Linda knows people I can talk to at Beltway if we ultimately find out from MHS that, for some reason, we are liable for the cost of the surgery…not just the people who answer the phone at the billing center, no, but real live human beings who may be trained to do more than read from a decision tree and ask you if you are paying (Yes? Great! Will that be credit or check?—No? Well, you know, this is your responsibility because your insurance company has failed to pay, even if your insurance company was Medicaid. Are you sure you can’t pay?—You will pay? Great! Will that be credit or check?—You won’t pay? You know this will be turned over to collections and can hurt your credit if you don’t pay. We can send you an application for financial aid or let you talk to a social worker if you’re really sure you can’t pay.—You will pay? Great! Will that be check or credit?—You can’t pay? Would you like an application for financial aid, or would you like to speak to a social worker?—Financial aid application? Okay, I’ll send that out in the mail to you right away. Remember that you have to have that filled out and returned within 10 business days or this account will be turned over to collections and your credit will be damaged.)

Anyway, L is fabulous. L is helpful. (I can’t stop singing the praises of L.) She even had the nerve during our conversation to ask how I am…right in the MIDDLE of the conversation, she asked how I was doing, and how my vision has been doing. It’s after hours, and she’s supposed to be going home already, but she actually stopped to take time to ask how I was. L has restored my faith in people, at least for a little while. (I cried while I answered, I was so touched that she cared to ask and actually listened.) Anyway, L (I’m singing her name in my head to the tune of “Lo-la! L-O-L-A, Lola! Lo lo lo lo Lo-la-a!”) is going to make some calls and find out some things and call me back. She didn’t tell me I owe her office money (she’s checking on that, and if I do, she’s going to try to figure out how we can resolve the issue) and have to pay right away, and she didn’t tell me to sit tight and do nothing while she researches. She told me she’ll help me along the way.

(To be fair, the folks at MHS have told me that, too, but they now seem even more lost and confused than I do…I mean, they lost all record of one of my bills and of me calling about it numerous times and of them sending out numerous letters to the provider, for pity’s sake!)

Anyway, tomorrow, M and I go to the courthouse to see if there’s a way we can get some free legal aid if necessary if all this doesn’t get cleared up. I want it to show that we have done our due diligence and tried everything within our power (and even beyond, I think) to get these issues resolved.

So, all in all, it was just another day...I used to get paid well to be a project manager and do this sort of thing, making sure all parties involved were informed of what the others were doing, bridging the gap, keeping things properly greased up so the cogs and wheels were all moving along properly. But now I’m the project manager of something that should never have been such a project in the first place. (Is this what happens when we let the inmates run the asylum and no one knows HOW to take responsibility?) I’ve got at least two teams working “for” me and one team opposing me, and finally, I have competent “employees” on the case, but it has taken this long (4 1/2 months) for me to find out the right questions to ask, the right avenues to pursue, and for me to have the somewhat-restored mental wherewithal to understand half of what’s going on. So, yeah, I love being a project manager, I really do. Even better, I like getting paid for it, like I used to. But now it actually COSTS me money because it takes time away from my editing, you know, the little bit of blood that sometimes seeps through this turnip...

Well, at least things are looking brighter… Cheers!

This Just Keeps Getting Better and Better

2010-03-25T15:23:00.003-04:00

* Stringham high: Springtime
* Stringham low: Cold, cold rain and collections agencies
* Stringham super-high: Thoughts of warm, sandy beaches and saltwater spray

I got another letter today from the same collection agency as last week—-this time for the Beltway Surgery Center bill—the surgery for my eyes. This collections agent was a little nicer, listening and taking more information from me, and gave me the name of the representative at the collection agency who would be handling this "account," so that was helpful. The agent told me that the hospital obviously thinks Medicaid isn’t going to pay, if they’ve turned the bill over to collections. And she asked if I knew why Medicaid had denied paying the bill. (Yeah, right, because they tell me.) But I explained all about how IIH is covered by pregnancy Medicaid and that the vision problems necessitating the surgery on my eyes were caused by the IIH. (I have explained this to I don't know how many people, but it never seems to matter. Maybe someday it will sink in somewhere and make a difference.) The agent said she’d pass that information on to the representative and said it might have just been a billing code issue that needed to be worked out by the hospital and Medicaid. She still tried to tell me that if Medicaid doesn’t cover the bill, I will be responsible for paying it.

Hmm, hospitals and collections agencies tell me I’m responsible for paying, but Medicaid representatives tell me I’m not. Who to believe?

Also had a very enlightening conversation today with someone at my chiropractor's office who keeps getting bills from the first doctor who sent my account to collections. This person keeps getting bills for tests that are done for their child (who has a chronic condition and requires constant testing and follow-up) and that this doctor then reads--apparently, that's all this doc does, that's all he did for me, read an X-ray and a CT scan. Yup, this person keeps getting bills from the doc that say they are required to pay the balance because their insurance company didn't cover, yadda, yadda, yadda. We wonder if this doctor is trying to double bill people. Wouldn’t be very nice of him. Or, come to think of it, maybe it's just ineptitude--maybe his office just doesn't know how to bill properly and he keeps going after the poor schmucks who had no say in who was to read their scans. Either way, it's not very nice or responsible.

Something is Broken

2010-03-24T17:32:00.001-04:00

* Stringham high: Spring
* Stringham low: Crazy financiers and politicians
* Stringham super-high: All we need is love, and yes, love does keep us together.

Today I received a notice in the mail from GE Money Bank saying my line of credit account had been closed. They cited my credit report, citing “length of time since last delinquency,” something else about a delinquency of trade, and too large a percent of my credit limit is used. Well, the credit limit percentage used is partly because we closed my Target Visa, we know…the rate was just going too high, and we were tired of the interest rate creeping up over and over again, so we closed it. But delinquencies? I have NO delinquencies. They cited changes on my TransUnion report. Wondering if this was something showing up from the healthcare bills and collection agencies impacting my credit report (but not thinking so because my credit monitoring service hasn’t notified me of any changes yet), I called the number the GE Bank statement gave for TransUnion. It was completely automated. I had to enter information, which basically resulted in the automated system giving me a spiel about how the credit report is great but is nothing compared to the score and how the score is used to determine your creditworthiness, and then it asked if I wanted to purchase my score. I chose the option for No. Then it asked again, as if I had not heard the question properly the first time. I chose No again. Then it told me about how they have a credit watching and reporting service you can purchase. I chose the option for No, just trying and waiting to speak to someone. Then it went on a minute-long spiel about how vital credit monitoring is to protecting your credit, blah, blah, blah, blah. Again I chose No, thank you. Then I was told a copy of my credit report would be in the mail and I could expect to see it in a week or two. Then I was disconnected. Seriously.
What a freaking scam.

So then I called GE Money Bank and asked them what was going on. I was told that GE was doing away with the Lines of Credit. So this is happening to everyone? I asked. Yes, the lovely Indian woman told me. So why, I asked, were things like delinquencies and issues with my credit report cited? Well, she said, they also do use credit reports when doing this.

Seriously? They’re closing all Line of Credit accounts anyway, but they feel the need to do checks into everyone’s credit reports? Sounds fishy. And expensive.
And so now I’m going to have another impact on my credit score—my percent of credit used…Oh, and this was AFTER GE already had lowered my account limit to below the amount I owed on it…seems to me GE has been fucking over my credit on its own initiative so it can say it can drop me because of unfavorable reports on my credit score. Honestly, what the hell is happening in this world?

Our financial lives—hell, even our jobs—are now determined by our credit reports and credit scores, but we now have no control over our credit and those reports. We’ve been dutifully paying down my debt for the past two years, without adding any more, other than the house and the heat pump. The credit cards are never used. And we somehow manage to funnel every spare (and not-so-spare) cent into those debts so they don’t grow. And now, my credit is taking a hit because some douchebag bankers couldn’t properly manage MY money, and they’re laying the blame on me and causing MY credit to suffer for it. All this with the healthcare system (don’t get me started) and people trying to hold me responsible for debts that AREN’T mine?

What the fuck happened to the accountability in this country? I’ve played the game, I’ve played within the system, playing it like I was supposed to, like a dutiful little consumer, and now that I’ve been trying to break out of the system, I’m getting screwed over (just like every other American, I know…right now I just feel like I’m being singled out, what with all these issues converging.)

I’m self-employed and lose basically 45% of my income to taxes. Yep, you read that right…FORTY-FIVE PERCENT…so if I make as much money before taxes as I did as an employee of someone else right now, I’m actually bringing home far less money. Plus I don’t get health insurance. (So no, I don’t feel bad about applying for public aid whenever things are lean right now—I’m now paying double for it.) Mike is now working a factory job, which we’re happy about. He has a job! But he now makes less money there than he did on unemployment. He has to work a 40-hour week plus about 9 hours of overtime just to make before taxes what he got from unemployment. And still no health insurance (nope, he’s got to make it through 6 weeks as a temp, then 60 days as a full employee before he can even HOPE to apply for health insurance). Oh, and that overtime is mandatory. He’s going to have at least 48 hours this week, probably 56. No, he can’t turn it down even if he wanted to…not without getting points.

I know, it’s a challenge millions of Americans have faced through the years. I grew up with parents working in factories and having mandatory overtime. And low wages are a sad reality. But I just have to ponder today…how broken is this economy? A healthcare bill just got passed that’s going to require us to start paying in taxes in 2011 but won’t start providing benefits until 2014. For three years, people are either going to be paying twice for healthcare, or paying and not receiving any. Or they’ll be charged a penalty for “willingly” not paying for health insurance. All this was supposedly to save Americans money in the healthcare system. But instead of controlling costs, all it’s doing is requiring insurance companies to provide benefits to everyone. Gee, thanks, Gov’ment. I already could have found insurance for myself, if I had wanted to pay enough. This isn’t going to help me at all. Way to attack the symptom, and not the problem. It’s like giving penicillin to someone who needs an antibiotic but is allergic to penicillin. Brilliant!

Honestly, why do we have this incredible need to DO SOMETHING! even when we know it’s not the right thing to do. Do we ever stop to consider what’s the right thing or the wrong thing to do? Have we forgotten that choosing to do nothing is still doing something, that sometimes there’s just no bandage big enough, that sometimes bleeding the patient, giving an antibiotic, shooting the lame horse is not the answer? Can’t we just let the body fix itself? We’ve become too dependent on artificial systems, on financial systems and insurance systems that WE’VE created…they’re artificial markets. Instead of trading goods and services for other goods and services, we’re playing with imaginary money and imaginary percentages and the ability of money to triple in value by doing nothing, going nowhere, and not actually being spent. And who has really been hurt? The people who put their money in banks, the people who had to live in a society that runs EVERYTHING based on your credit history—your ability to get an education, a job, a car, a house. Average people.

And the insurance companies that were once created to help spread risk across groups so people who weren’t so healthy could still receive care without having to pay for the cost have been dicked around by health care providers, and then the health care providers got dicked around by insurance companies, and on and on it went in a spiral, until now, there are people who companies won’t insure because they’re too expensive, and those people no longer just have to pay for the high cost of their care—they have to pay for the high cost of care that health care providers can’t recoup from insurance companies because of the dicking-around spiral that’s been going on for decades. And who has really been hurt? Patients.

Average people have been hurt. Over and over again. The system is broken. Beyond any government repair. Government can’t even fix itself. Decision makers, policy makers, rate-setters…people too innumerable to count, and faceless…have broken things…no, CREATED a golem, a broken, ridiculous parody of reality, and we pay the consequences.

But all is not without hope. We aren’t our healthcare or financial systems. We have to live with them, among them, navigating them, as broken and twisted, mangled, smoldering as they are in their ruination, but we have each other, and that makes us, the average people, strong.

The Debt Collector Calleth

2010-03-18T16:03:00.003-04:00

* Stringham high: More (slight) improvement in Steph's vision this week!
* Stringham low: See today's entry below :(
* Stringham super-high: Mike has a job!!!!!!

Got a letter from a collection agency today for one of the doctors who’s been billing me since October—for reading the X-rays and CT scan they took when I first started having my headache and a lot of pain. I’ve called Managed Health Services (the company who was managing my insurance through Medicaid) every time I’ve received a bill, and they’ve sent letters to this guy two or three times, and they’ve tried to call his office to talk to him because he shouldn’t still be billing me. But when they’ve tried to call him, they’ve not been able to get through. So today, I called them again and told them about the collection agency, and I was told it would get turned over to Pam, the lady who contacts whese companies and reminds them that they cn’t keep billing me or they will lose their ability to treat Medicaid patients.

And then I called the collection agency and told them (as much as they would let me) what was going on, so they took my Medicaid number and said they’d try to get reimbursed for this from Medicaid but that this might hurt my credit anyway because it’s gone to collections. I said I understood but it is what it is because I can’t do much about it.

Meanwhile, I feel like shit because when I call these billing places, they make me feel dirty because I’ve got Medicaid or I’m not paying, or whatever. And they try to make you feel bad and tell me that I’m still liable for it, even if Medicaid doesn’t cover it. The whole time I’m told this, I keep thinking this is ridiculous. This is a fight between Medicaid and the provider, and the provider (any of them) keeps telling me that I’m responsible for paying whatever Medicaid doesn’t pay. Sure, if you have medical insurance, you’re liable for whatever they don’t cover, but Medicaid works a little differently. I mean, really, if I had the money, I wouldn’t have to have had Medicaid, would I? So I felt like crap, because I’m between a rock and a hard place, in between two fighting dogs, and I’m the one who’s going to get hurt from it, my credit score, anyway. I told Mike about everything, and I just started bawling because these phone calls always make me feel crappy and worthless and, most of all, frustrated, because I feel powerless. I’m told by one side not to do anything and by the other side that I’m completely responsible. And all I want to do is understand what the hell is going on. And I want to be left alone while they duke it out. Why do I have to keep getting bit by the dog? ugh.

Anyway, because I was crying, Mike was trying to tell me what I needed to do, to call MHS and make sure the problem goes to someone who will do something more than just “pass it to Pam.” I told him to feel free. So he started calling. He tried to take care of it, but they had to talk to me, so I had to try to stem my tears of frustration and talk to these people again. This lady was incredibly understanding and patient (and knowledgeable—jackpot!)—but maybe that was because Mike had already told her I was in tears and that’s why he was calling. It was the lunch hour (of course), so she tried to find Pam, or her own boss, but couldn’t. But she has told me that she’s trying to find a different number for this doctor who keeps billing me (and apparently ignoring the warning letters from MHS) but can’t seem to be reached. And she’s supposed to call me before the day’s out to let me know what’s going on. She said this situation needs to be escalated, the letters and calls just aren’t enough anymore, because this has been going on for too long (yeah, that’s why I’ve been so damn frustrated…I’ve been getting bills from him since December). So here’s hoping that she can get her coworkers to cooperate and really get something to happen. Because if this one isn’t resolved, I’ve got two MUCH larger bills coming down the pike that will go much the same way…

The more I deal with crap like this, the more I’m convinced that health care providers and collection agencies like this (and other insurance companies) eventually get their money by strong-arming, lying, and just wearing people down. Most people will eventually pay because they don’t have the time to deal with this and will cave in and pay out of fear or frustration, even if it means they rack up credit card debt or something. (Seriously?!) I may not know much, but I know better than that. I figure I’ve got three things going for me: (1) I’ve got the time (well, I can make it) to deal with this, (2) I’m incredibly organized and can provide documentation for every phone call and bill and letter, and (3) I hate being strong-armed—the more they try it, the more pissed off I get, and the less likely to do what they want me to do, especially quickly—if I get flustered or rushed, I retreat to gather my thoughts—screw that rushed decision crap.

In the meantime, I have to write a letter to the collection agency to show that I contest that I owe this money, and I’m going to give dates for everything, phone calls, and copies of letters. And copies are going to the provider and MHS, too. Seriously, IF this is going to hurt my credit, at least I can hold my head up high and have documentation.

All this instead of just having a brand-new beautiful baby in my arms this month…Mike and I sure would have preferred the baby. :)

Hope Springs Eternal

2010-03-05T17:35:00.004-05:00

* Stringham high: Mike has job leads! Manual labor, to be sure, but better than the nothing that was facing him.
* Stringham low: Mike's unemployment funds ran out today.
* Stringham super-high: The sun in shining, the weather is above freezing, and choruses of birds are singing! Not just crows, but birds! Songbirds! Spring! SPRING!

I thought we'd start with all that stuff this time, as it's so important. The Divine has been good, providing for us this week, answering my very scared prayers, sending job leads and apparent immediate openings, once you jump through the appropriate hoops.

We have seeds, we just got more gardening books today, and we're ready to plant. We just need warm weather. M's planning to begin tilling this weekend so we can start planting potatoes when they arrive. Soon, we'll be starting seeds inside, too! Who knows, maybe I'll get my vision completely restored for an Easter/Ostara miracle and we'll have another Stringham on the way before the year is out! (Guess that spring breeze blowing in, bringing the smell of warm earth with it is really good for my outlook!) Okay, I'm not completely crazy. I think my vision's more likely to sneak up on me slowly, in a slow-acting miracle culminating around Samhain/Halloween! I'm not picky. A bit in a hurry, sure, but not picky. :D

In all seriousness, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to take a moment to pause, look around, and enjoy the world that's around you. Really, REALLY stop and indulge in all of your 5 senses for just 10 minutes. Honestly, you never know when ANY one of those senses can be taken away. Just a few months ago, I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to see the world this brightly (literally or figuratively) again, and I'm not about to take it for granted again. Neither should you.

Also, it's not the "season" of Thanksgiving any longer, but I'd like to thank all of you who have expressed your concern and given assistance or support in any way over the past few months, including recently, as I've continued to recover, especially emotionally and spiritually. Thank you for all being so understanding and helpful and gracious. Thanksgiving is always in season, and that's something I'm also trying to remember and practice. My heart goes out to all of you, and I remember you all in my prayers.

And now, as Monty Python would say, for something completely different: A link to a blog of a very good, very funny author who is offering some insight today (March 4, 2010) on the publishing industry: http://www.maxbarry.com/2010/03/04/news.html

(Oh, and remember, if you go to my actual blog page, the titles usually link to YouTube videos or other fun sites.)

Bread Book Title, upon Request

2010-02-26T20:50:00.003-05:00

Someone requested the book title for the bread recipe. It's Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg MD and Zoe Francois

[The one thing I will note is that the recipes tend to go sourdough fairly quickly on us. (The author's mention this, but it happens faster for us than for them, possibly because we use whole wheat flour?) As a result, we often only make half a batch, and bake everything all at once. The baked bread can turn sourdough if not enough moisture is baked out of it, but with a little experimenting, that problem can be solved fairly easy...more easily than the fast turning of the dough to sourdough.]

The same authors also have another book out (Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients)that I dearly want but haven't yet purchased because it's so new, so I make no claims. If it is as good as the original, however, it should be fabulous! Having gone to eating whole-grain breads a few years ago, I now love them and prefer them over white or wheat bread. The more grain, the better, as far as I'm concerned, and if the bread has nuts in it, I'm in heaven. (Thank you, Arnold Bread, for Health Nut!)

Tips for Eating Healthy (Including Weight Loss and Fertility) on Limited Means

2010-02-25T21:15:00.002-05:00

Over the past few months, my husband and I have been asked several questions by friends and family eating well and budgeting well while doing it. (Underlying some of these questions is the tension--sometimes an implication, sometimes a question--in the idea of whether you can be fat and still be healthy. I'd like to point out that health includes not just physical health, something that we'd all do well to remember more often.) Tonight, I finally sat down and typed up a response for a friend who asked for "a few tips" on eating well on a tight budget. She got more than she bargained for, and I realized that I should post this for everyone else out there. What follows is my "quick" advice.

My weight has always caused me some mental problems--at times more than others, definitely. I think it helped me that my family (my dad's whole family) are all kind of big, and that my dad is so large and yet so healthy. And I have such supportive family and friends, so my self-confidence was always high, and I was able to separate MY identity from my weight. Of course sometimes I think that was bad because it didn't give me enough reason to really try harder to lose weight. But losing weight is really, really fucking hard. Hey, I was in tons of pain and lost 23 pounds over two weeks. It was an almost-magical weight-loss diet! *snort* But in spite of my weight and the occasional taunting and teasing, I had to remind myself that the weight is important to me and my family only insofar as it affects my health. Regarding what other people think, you have to remind yourself that it just doesn't matter. People will judge. You can't help that. The only thing you can guarantee in life is how YOU act. (I have to remind myself and my husband of that a lot...it applies to everything in life.) But if others judge you, it doesn't matter. It can hurt, sure, but only as much as you "let" it--otherwise, their judgments and opinions don't matter one damn bit, they don't affect you at all. Just remember that. And remember that your worth lies somewhere else, not on the surface. (In other words, "Screw them.") If you feel confident and worthwhile, you will appear confident and worthwhile, no matter your size.

I know, it's all a ton easier said than done, but I've been working on DOING that most of my adolescent and adult life. You can do it. And if the people you know and call your friends hurt your efforts in that matter, consider whether they are truly your friends.

I definitely know the problems with changing your diet when you're poor. Based on income alone, we're not poor, but we have a lot of debt from my youthful spending days and other consequences of life, so the only income we can really "play with" is our grocery allotment each week. The absolute MAIN thing in food budgeting is MEAL PLANNING. We plan our meals and create our grocery list at the same time. When we don't stick to the meal plan is when we have problems feeling full and staying full and wasting food. (It takes a lot of practice, knowing what to make, how much of it to make, to make sure you're getting all your nutrition without eating too much or buying so much food that it goes to waste. It took a few weeks to get it hammered out, to know what would work well for us and what wouldn't.)

The first key thing, if you can manage it, is to try to avoid processed foods. Normally, people say this and mean that you should get only fresh foods, not prepackaged foods, but that's not always practical, given how fast "fresh" food can go bad and how expensive it can be if it's out of season. So you can get packaged foods--frozen fruits and vegetables are perfect, because they are often picked at the height of freshness and flash frozen, so they often have better nutrition than the "fresh" stuff you can buy, which is often picked early and then loses nutrition the longer it sits around. But if you buy the frozen stuff, try as much as POSSIBLE to get the frozen ones that have nothing added--no sugar, no salt (often, this is the store brand, but still check the ingredients), no high fructose corn syrup, nothing. (Kroger has great cost and variety in their frozen vegetables, and they often run 10 for $10 sales. Compared to Target, Walmart, they have the best selection and cost…at least in our experience.)

Canned fruit and vegetables are next best for F&V. They're a little worse because they almost always have to have additional things added for preservation, but you can be careful. For fruits, try to get fruits that are in their own juices, not with sugar or high fructose corn syrup (or even artificial sweeteners) added. (There's evidence that the body, when you're trying to lose weight, treats artificial sweeteners the same as sugar, and that they can even be worse than sugar, causing other cravings that sugar wouldn't cause.) For canned veggies, try to get ones that have no salt added. Sure, these often suck in flavor if you eat them as they are, but add salt on your own. Table salt is different in flavor at this stage than the sodium and salt they add for preserving, and a little of it goes a long way, so it takes a lot less of the stuff you add to give flavor than the stuff they add for preserving. (When you buy salt, try getting sea salt--I think Morton now sells it for the same price as "traditional" salt. It's a little bit stronger in flavor than the other salt, so again, you have to use less of it for flavor.) And the less sodium you're taking in, the less water you're retaining, which means you're putting less pressure on your circulatory system (and the less weight you have--water weighs a LOT!).

Fruit juice is a good way to get fruit in a pinch and for variety and for long-term storage/keeping, but it's not so great because you don't get the fiber, which helps the feeling of fullness. Plus, you have to be careful of a couple of things--get only 100% juice, try to avoid from concentrate, as they nearly always add sweeteners of some sort. Juicy Juice is usually the cheapest but very sweet (they use super-sweet juices to add sweetness).

For health and/or weight loss--try to eat whole grains instead of processed flours. This means TRY to eat breads and pastas that are made with whole grains (or whole grain flour, if you can't afford the whole grain breads). If you can't do that, try to eat breads that don't have high fructose corn syrup or partially hydrogenated oil (that tip’s for health AND fertility). [To offset the costs (and to get used to the flavors), we sometimes bought one package of normal, cheap-ass pasta, and another package of whole-grain or spinach pasta, for example.] Try to eat brown rice or wild rice instead of cheap-ass white rice. I know both of these suggestions have cost elements involved, but eating whole grains (bread and rice) means you're eating more fiber, which helps you feel full much longer, which means you're eating less, which is good for your weight and for your bank account. [Because we're both at home, we make our own bread with whole-grain flour--the bag of flour seems very expensive, but when we do the math, it works out to costing about 30 cents for a loaf of bread, and the bag makes 10 or more loaves of bread. We found a book that makes making bread EXTREMELY easy, with very little work, no days and days of letting it rise, etc...Starting mixing everything to final baking takes about 4 hours (only about 20 minutes are actual work time). And we have bread for about a week.]

Other whole grains include steel-cut oats (Irish oatmeal) instead of rolled oats. Yup, they're expensive, but again, they take much less to make you feel full, you feel full longer, and there's less of an impact on your insulin levels, not nearly as much spiking.

Make sure you're eating GOOD fats, a handful or two of nuts, some olive oil, etc., as much as possible instead of butter or grease. Fats are good for you--they also help you feel full, especially if combined with whole grains. (If you don't eat a lot of dairy products but drink milk, get whole milk instead of lower-fat. The whole milk has fewer additives (including hormones, which affect women’s bodies especially, especially when it comes to fertility, more than the men's) and helps you feel full longer. If you eat dairy products, don't make them all low- or no-fat...for the same reason.)

Here's a really good point for eating cheaply and for your health: Try to cut back on your animal proteins and instead get your proteins by eating legumes (beans, lentils, peas, peanuts) or nuts paired with whole grains. Beans (legume) and cornbread (grain) give you a perfect protein at a lot lower fat and calorie intake than a slab of meat. (Peanut butter on whole-grain bread is good, but watch out for too much peanut butter, as it is high in fat. It’s “good” fat for the needs of your body, but too much fat is still too much fat for weight loss.) Plus, you'll feel full longer because of the fiber. We have a freezer full of beef and chicken and pork that my parents give us for Christmas and birthdays and such, and it takes us a year or more to go through it all because we try to eat meat only once a day or less...it just has so many calories yet doesn't keep you as full, plus it can seriously affect your hormone levels (women MUCH more than men), which affect and are affected by INSULIN and can affect your fertility. Dried beans take a long time to cook, obviously. We buy dried beans and lentils by the cartful [that aisle, with the dried rice, is the single one we get most of our food from, aside from produce when fresh stuff is in season]. Our crockpot is the most-used appliance in our house after my laptop, which is what I do my work on.

This is all stuff we've picked up from a variety of diets over the past few years, but much of the information is covered in the book The Fertility Diet. I tried to offer a short version here...we'll call it condensed rather than short, though... :)

I know it can be hard to find some of these things in some places, particularly in small towns, but we’ve discovered that sometimes the unlikeliest of places carry great food at decent prices. In this town, Walmart often has better-quality produce than Kroger…if it’s in season. If it’s out of season, our Kroger stores usually have higher-quality fresh produce, though it costs more. In other places we’ve lived, however, we’ve had to steer clear of anything fresh at Kroger. Really, it all depends on where you live. Become familiar with all the stores in your area, don’t get complacent and think that one is always the best.

We have at least 5 crockpot cookbooks and the bread cookbook I mentioned. They help a lot. When I bought these cookbooks (on Half.com, but I used the preview feature on Amazon.com to see the tables of contents), I tried to get ones that called for foods we would be likely to have around, so we don't have to buy a lot of special foods. I’m glad to share recipes, book titles, or any other tips. And I'll be happy to answer any questions. I know I have provided a lot of information here.

What I'm trying to do is follow an eating habit that will help me eat well for fertility and for weight loss. I'm losing about a pound every 1 to 2 weeks. Below is what I try to stick to. (Really hard to do if we don't make the meals ahead of time--we like to cook but have a lot of other things get in the way, like yardwork, so we make a lot of food at one time in the crockpot. This, we either package in single-serving containers or in larger containers but mark it with how many servings are in the container, so we know about how big a helping to get.) This plan for myself is based loosely on the Fertility Diet, the DASH Diet, and a calorie count of around 1400 per day (but I don't get caught up in counting my calories or anything else, other than what I note below). That may or may not work for you, depending on your personal nutritional needs. Whatever plan you come up with, it is best to talk it over with your doctor or dietitian. (And remember the appropriate serving sizes of each type of food.)

• Carbohydrates: 5 servings (I try to make sure that no more than one of these a day is potato or a processed carb like white rice or flour)
• Fruits: 3 servings (this includes fruit juices)
• Vegetables: 5 servings (MINIMUM--doesn't include corn or peas. I count corn as a carb and peas as either a carb or a legume, depending on the day)
• Dairy: 2 servings (1 whole-fat, 1 low- or no-fat)
• Protein: 4 servings (no more than 1 of red meat; the other three can be egg, poultry, fish, nuts, or legume--I try to make it one of egg/poultry/fish and two of nuts/legumes)
• Fats: 2 (because I'm limiting these, I don't pay too much attention to whether they're "good" or "bad," but I try to make them good. Fats include avocado, olive oil, vegetable oil, butter, mayonnaise, bacon (counts as a meat AND a fat, it's so good), salad dressing (I don't waste my time with reduced-fat or low-fat because they are usually so full of sugar or salt or high fructose corn syrup that they're far worse for you than the fat, plus they usually taste like crap. The full-fat ones usually take less to give more flavor and are more satisfying, anyway.), and probably some others I'm missing.

I try to drink at least 96 ounces of fluids (tea, coffee, or water) a day, though I've been failing miserably lately. Try to stay away from sodas as much as possible, even the diet ones. They're really hard for your body to process, plus there's the issue of the artificial sweeteners that I noted above. Drink one every now and then, though, it's no harm, if you like them.

Another cost-saving measure we take is to shop at Sam's about once every 1 or 2 months. Buying in bulk is helpful if you have the means to do it occasionally and if you have the storage for it. We stock up on things that we always use tons of, like tomato paste, tomato sauce, canned peas, canned corn, some frozen fruits and veggies. But this is feasible for us because we have a huge freezer in our garage, a small chest freezer in our dining room, a TON of cabinet space in our kitchen (so much that even though we've lived here almost two years, there are some drawers and cabinets still not used), a basement full of shelves, and a wholesale club not very far away.
All our storage space makes it easy to stock up on canned and frozen goods, and so we can preserve and store what we grow in our garden. My husband has become a gardening fanatic, and though a lot of our food goes to waste, we're getting better at growing a lot of it (learning our soil and air conditions) with as little effort as possible (in the hopes of him getting a job soon and me being busy with work) and preserving it (doing it right away instead of putting it off like we're inclined to do).

There Might Be Hope for Me Yet

2010-02-17T19:19:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I stumbled across a Website (http://www.abledata.com) that talks about assistive products. There was a government organization that ran clinics for creating and distributing low-vision aids from the late 1960s to the late 1980s but no longer exists, but they made available all their publication and information so people can benefit from their knowledge. (http://www.abledata.com/abledata_docs/Peripheral_Vision.htm) Apparently, there are special “field-expanding” glasses developed for people with reduced peripheral vision, even as severe as tunnel vision. The assistive devices don’t restore normal vision, obviously, but can help in day-to-day functioning, even, in some cases (depending on the severity of the condition and on state regulations) driving!!!!
Of course, one of the worst problems I’ve had in coping with my eye damage is not being able to drive. I go in April to have my vision tested again, and I’m going to have my peripheral vision tested to see if it is sufficient as-is for driving, at least in some situations. But in case it’s not, I want to find out more about these devices. I’ve posted information and questions to the two online support groups I’m a part of to see if any of the IIH “old hands” have used any of these devices. I have to do more research and reading on this subject, but I’ve just been so excited by skimming this website that I can’t really take it in! I even had Mike look it over (without telling him anything about the website), just to make sure I wasn’t seeing what I wanted to see (that there may be a device to help me drive again!). He came to the same conclusion I had. Woohoo! I mean, before I stumbled across this website yesterday, I had been mulling over such assistive devices, thinking about my friends with spina bifida and my friend paralyzed from the waist down who use assistive devices to drive and thinking that it would stand to reason for there to be such things for people with vision issues. But then, I thought, no, it really wouldn’t make sense because those friends, although they have a hard time steering with their arms and hands, can at least SEE the road and the things around them without difficulty. But someone once upon a time DID consider us poor unfortunate souls. (I’m taking a moment now to sing and dance in my head at this joyous coming-together of older knowledge and newer knowledge!)

Also, someone on one of the support groups today or yesterday posed an interesting question about hormones and IIH. Specifically, she wondered if anyone had had their hormones tested. Apparently, talk of hormones and IIH symptoms comes up a lot in the forums, but the doctors just keep pushing weight loss. The problem is that there are so many people with IIH who lose weight and still have symptoms, and there are even people who have never been overweight but have IIH, so she’s going to actually have her hormones tested. A couple of us expressed a deep interest to keep posted. I mentioned that I have tracked my symptoms on a calendar and have found that the past two or three times when my vision seems to have gotten grainier and a little more limited, it happens when I believe I might be ovulating. This is difficult for me to ascertain, of course, because I have only had three cycles since all of this happened and I’ve not generally been regular, but if this cycle begins on Day 28 or 29, it would hold pretty well with my theory. Anyway, when I mentioned this online as a reason for her to go for it and keep us posted (because I can’t afford to go to the doctor all the time with no insurance), someone else said she has the exact problem with her vision and pain spikes WHEN SHE OVULATES. (And she’s never weighed more than 150 when pregnant.) It’s so good to know I’m not alone… And that my observations are actually showing me something worthwhile. (Also, this second woman had thought of mentioning the hormone link to her doctors at Johns Hopkins, but now that I’ve mentioned my issue, she DEFINITELY is going to bring it up at her visit this spring.)
Well, I may not be able to do much on my own, but I’m planting seeds and encouraging others, and maybe we really can get somewhere in knowledge about this condition. (No, of course I don’t think I’m the key to pulling together all this information, but if we’re all working together and I can be a fresh supportive voice, all the better.)

* Stringham high: Received two shipments of seeds and gardening supplies today!
* Stringham low: Still surrounded by snow!
* Stringham super-high: Stephanie might be able to drive sometime this year!

Readers and Critiquers Wanted

2010-01-28T19:41:00.002-05:00

As some of you (all of you?) know, I decided back in November to write a book about my experiences with the miscarriage, the hospitalization, the IIH, vision loss and recovery, etc. I have spurts of working on it, and today was one of those big working days. I wrote an entire chapter. It's a very rough draft, but I feel it needs to be reviewed and revised. Much of the other stuff I've written is still a little too raw emotionally for me to polish up enough to share, but this one needs reviewers. The organization probably needs some work, and I'd like some honest comments and criticism about the writing. I'm looking for volunteers. I know some of it may not make a lot of sense out of context, and it's definitely a middle chapter, but it should still stand alone pretty well.

Please email me if you would be interested in reading it or if you know of someone who might be interested in reading it.

Three Doctors a Day Keeps Nothing away

2010-01-20T17:02:00.002-05:00

Nothing really exciting today, just a long update on "my condition." As some of you know, I felt great in the first two weeks of the month and stopped taking my iron supplements for my anemia and started exercising. Then I started feeling crummier and crummier last week. I was in pain (had to take vicodin for the first time since way back in October) and my vision was messed up and I was crying constantly, at the drop of a hat, worried about anything and everything.

I've been doing research online (always a double-edged sword) and joined an online support group for people with my condition (known by various names, including benign intracranial hypertension [BIH], pseudotumor cerebri [PTC], or idiopathic intracranial hypertension [IIH]). The time was particularly challenging emotionally because the greatest of the pain hit me on the weekend, when, of course, I knew it would be pointless to call my docs. So, some of you got to read lovely emotional emails from me, and some of you got to hear me nearly bawl on the phone, and some of you were spared it all together. Below is the medical summary of today, a very exhausting day. (By the way, you are included in the "contacts" I mention below. If you have any ideas or suggestions, as always, as in the summer, I'd love to hear them, and I thank you all for all that you do to make this world a better place for me and others.):

Well, today was a mixed bag of information. I still hadn’t heard from Dr. Hilburn (the neurologist) or his acting nurse about my concerns, even though I called early Monday morning, so I called this morning before 9 and left another message for her, asking for a call.

Then we were off to Indianapolis for my visit with Dr. Rieser, who hadn’t been kept updated on any of the recent activity in my life. So my visit with him was me bringing him up to speed on our conception and everything since then. He said he has “a couple” other patients with IIH, so he knows something of the disease, but he’s not up to date on everything about it. He thinks it’s great I’m doing my research and staying informed. He thinks the iron-deficiency anemia could be related, but he’s not sure about causality with the recent headaches. He said the iron count of 13 (what Mike remembers my iron count being last time it was taken at St. Vincent’s in October) is good and that he doesn’t think me taking supplements will make me overdose and produce too much, but it is possible that I was a little low when I started getting the headache flare-ups not long after my period AND starting the exercise again. He thinks the exercise may be the culprit. He suggested a book (Eating for Life) to me by an exercise physiologist, saying he’s had several patients (with IIH?) have good luck with it, losing weight this way. He suggests I “bag the exercise for now,” particularly the strenuous stuff, and try to lose weight through controlling food alone right now. Then maybe I can add exercise in later.

My overall impression is that, as always, Dr. Rieser is great. He said several times that I am really the best person to know what’s unusual for me and what’s not and to tell them (the doctor’s) what I think is going on. Of course, it’s their job to interpret, but he DOES listen AND consider, rather than just tossing everything out. He tells me WHY he thinks an idea doesn’t hold up or why it does, for that matter. So, maybe I’ll keep him as my primary care physician, after all, even though he is so far away.

I really don’t like the idea of not exercising. I think the exercising is what was really helping me lose weight, but I could be wrong. I do respect Dr. Rieser and his opinions, so I’ll give it a shot, after all. He said that he thought with the exercise, I was “setting myself up for a big fat failure,” in exercising, then having pain and not exercising because of the pain, etc. , even though weight is often an issue with the patients with IIH and they need to lose weight. That’s why he recommends this way of eating to most of them. He also asked what the other docs had said about conceiving and asked if I knew about the dangers of the other drugs I’m on in pregnancy. I said yes and explained that Dr. Hilburn had said that conception was okay and that, of course, the biggest concern would be for my health. And I told Dr. Rieser that I, of course, am scared of getting pregnant, primarily for my vision, though I do still want to have a baby. I teared up, and looked down and started writing, so Dr. Rieser filled in the gap by answering that he did think it was a good idea to wait 9 months to a year to get this IIH stabilized before we started thinking about conceiving. According to him, we’re “still young and healthy,” so that’s not a concern. I told him about my quest to find out more about women who’ve had pregnancies with IIH, especially after having the vision issues I’ve had, and he again said he thinks it’s great I’m keeping up on everything and that I can call anytime I have questions; if he can help, he will.

The visit with Dr. Lee was a little more mixed. There is no fluid on my optic nerves, so any vision issues I’ve had are not cause for more concern YET. My vision in my left eye is still 20/20, in my right eye, still 20/40. On this visit, I was given a color test, which I haven’t been given before. I got to try to pick out numbers formed from clusters of circles of various shades of one or two colors set against circles of other colors. I got 5/14 on my right eye and 14/14 in my left, although that was still a challenge. He says there is some pallor in my right optic disc, which we knew. That’s leftover from the optic nerve basically being oxygen deprived when the pressure cut off so much of the circulation to my eyes. That’s the eye, of course, that has far more problems than the other, visually.

Dr. Lee is concerned that my neurologist has said he doesn’t need to see me any longer unless I feel I need to be seen. He (Dr. Lee) thinks the neurologist should see me at least twice a year, to keep an eye on my progress, because the optic nerve sheath fenestration has “not great permanent results,” so we really have to keep an eye on my condition. He said he would far rather see me come in 10 times a month out of paranoia than not come in that one time that it really mattered. It’s funny, at first, Dr. Lee seemed really hard to get information out of, a little brusque, but now he seems to open up more and more every time we see him.

I had heard and read, of course, about ONSF “failing” but had not managed to find information, so we asked him about the rate, and he said that he would estimate it at greater than 50%. He said it’s basically a band-aid. Really, the point is to try to control pressure with medicines, weight loss, maybe even shunting (though that has its own failure rates in some patients), and that’s why the condition needs to be monitored, especially the cranial pressure. Anyway, when the ONSF “fails,” what happens is that the hole “plugs” back up when the pressure in the head goes back down, and then, if the pressure rises again, the hole has resealed with scar tissue and so there is no longer anywhere for the pressure to vent again, so you therefore have the need for a repeated procedure or for shunts.

Of course, I’ve been kicking around the idea for a while that Dr. Hilburn is a nice guy but just doesn’t seem to know much about IIH and isn’t the best doctor to manage my care for this, so when Dr. Lee again expressed his concern about this lack of observation, I asked Dr. Lee if, based on his experience of doing ONSF procedures, he knew of any neurologists he could refer me to. He said absolutely. I said of course, the problem is that I’m self-pay. Well, that made things a lot more difficult. Because we don’t live in Marion County, we can’t go to Wishart, which is always the first response. So he’s down to ONE person he can refer me to. One. She has a private practice but volunteers some of her time at IU Med School. He thinks she might be able to take me on there, but it might be a long wait before she can get me in. He dictated a letter to her while we were there, asking her if she could take us on, and then told me to give her a call in a week or two. This doctor is a neuro-ophthalmologist, so she can monitor both the IIH and the vision issues. That’s fantastic. When he mentioned that, it reminded me of information I’d found a few days ago about a neuro-opthalmologist up in Lafayette, Scott Sanders. He’s heard of Dr. Sanders, but only by name. He doesn’t know about his reputation at all. Neither do I, unfortunately…I can’t find anything on the man’s reputation.

Dr. Lee is concerned that, of course, we will have a harder time finding quality care for me because I am a self-pay patient, as we see with the immediate reduction in the number of specialists willing to see me). He told us that he recommend I get health insurance. (Gee, thanks, Doc, we hadn’t already thought of that!) It’s a very expensive disorder I have, and it’s going to cost a lot to monitor. He suggested Medicaid; I make too much money, I explained. He said apply, reapply, and reapply again. (I will, but I don’t think it will do any good.) He suggested getting individual insurance; I already tried and weighed too much, and now I have a preexisting condition, I explained. Mike said basically, our only hope is for him to get a job that would provide insurance to me despite my preexisting condition. Dr. Lee said something like, “There ya go,” or “Do what you have to,” and I responded that Mike has been unemployed and looking for a job for nearly a year now, it’s not so easy.

One last thing, Dr. Lee said, we might consider, is disability. We MIGHT be able to get it for blindness based on my visual field limitation in my right eye. But, he said, if I ever want to drive, I couldn’t do it, because to get disability based on blindness assumes permanent blindness so I would never be able to get a driver’s license, and if I ever tried to reapply for one, the government would come looking at my history and why I was suddenly “not blind” anymore. I also pointed out that if I’m getting disability payments, I can’t earn much money. He said it might be worth it to “be healthy.” I replied that it wouldn’t be worth it if we couldn’t afford to pay for food, clothing, or shelter, so our overall health would suffer. (Besides, I’m not so sure that a lot of people on disability have access to better care than I would, just because they have more options available.) Mike and I are still pretty sure that, despite the high cost of everything, given all our options, we’re still better off with me working as much as possible and remaining uninsured (though TRYING to find insurance) and paying for things out of pocket, making payments as/if necessary than any of the other options so far presented.

I’m still researching, using my contacts, the support group, every connection I can think of. I’m crossing my fingers. Dr. Lee even went so far as to suggest that perhaps everything I experienced was just a perfect storm with the hormone fluctuations from the miscarriage, my weight, etc., and that maybe now my body is back in its normal place and isn’t making excess CSF any longer and it’s the diamox and topomax giving me the headaches. I’m not sure I’d go that far yet, though it’s a nice thought. 

And finally, on our way home from all of this, I heard back from the neurologist’s acting nurse. She said she had been waiting for a response from him to her email. He said:

-He is not aware of Topomax causing depression or anxiety but knows that anticonvulsants (which Topomax is) in general can cause them. (The information about depression and anxiety in relation to topomax was a brand-new insert with my topomax prescription starting in December, so it stands to reason that he wouldn’t necessarily know about it yet.)

-He doesn’t think stopping the iron supplement would cause the headaches but that the depressed and anxious feelings could.

-I was on the topomax to control the IIH headaches, but I may not need that anymore.

-He wants me to cut the topomax dose by half (either cut the pill in half at morning and evening OR take only 1 dose per day), and if that doesn’t help the anxious and depressed feelings after 4 days and I’m still concerned, I should call back, and we can try another medication.

So, of course, it is entirely possibly that it is my condition, and not the medicine, causing the depressed and anxious feelings, but I’d like to see how this goes. Perhaps I’ll notice a difference in some way, either in pain (increased or decreased) or in anxious feelings.

So, now we’re back with a clean slate. Tonight, I’ll take my medicines as I’ve been taking them. I’ll probably eliminate tomorrow night’s topomax dose. I’ll stop doing strenuous exercise, and just walk or use the lighter exercises on the WiiFit (rather than the more strenuous EA Sport Active exercises that I was doing). That way, I’m back to where I was at the beginning of the month, when I was feeling so good and better, and the only change with be the topomax. (I sure don’t like being on the verge of tears all the time. I can be perfectly fine one second, then one little thought or word can just make me nearly break down, and that drives me nuts. I hate not being able to hold myself together a little better than that. I’d sure like to find out that’s caused by a medication rather than this condition, because that’s probably the thing that’s making it hardest for me to cope with everything right now, I think....I feel like my coping abilities are just derailed.)

What a Beautiful Mess

2010-01-09T14:18:00.002-05:00

Well, good news on a few fronts. First, when I called in one of my medications for refill today, we learned that it will only cost $65 a month instead of $145. We aren’t sure why, but we think it’s because of the special Rx discount program for residents of our county. The other one will still cost $208 a month, we think, but this one savings was big enough savings to make us at least a little relieved, and we managed to get the really expensive one filled just before my Medicaid extension ran out at the end of December.

Second bit of good news is that Mike’s unemployment coverage doesn’t seem to have run out. He just had to put in the first week’s waiting period, so we have a week of no income from that front. That’s not great, considering that my freelancing has been nearly at a standstill for a couple of weeks (one project a week, at half or less of what I need to be making a week), but we can deal with it so long as it doesn’t drag on.

The third bit of good news is that Mike feels his interview on Thursday went well. He is one of five people being considered for the position, and he feels his chances are good. He is the only one with chemistry experience, which they really need. Plus, he has a little bit of management experience and experience with manufacturing and polymers from his job at CSI in Crawfordsville. Callbacks are supposed to be done late next week, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that Mike gets to be one of them. Or even that they just decide to hire him outright with no need to do callbacks. Lol. Maybe that’s a bit too much to hope for, but at least there’s some more hope in our household.

My vision has stopped making drastic improvements, so it’s really hard for me to tell if change is being made. Mike seems to think my responses have improved when he “tests” my periphery, so maybe it is. Or maybe I’m just learning how to cope a little better. But I’m finding in the past week or so that I’m not nearly as sensitive to light glare and different types of light as I have been for the past several months, and I’m having an easier time reading small fonts on the TV at a distance than I was. It’s really hard to tell, though, if holes in my vision are clearing up when I can’t even tell in the first place where the holes were/are. I can read smaller and smaller things more easily still, so I’m led toward thinking my visual acuity is improving more, but I really think that has a lot to do with the obstructions being gone so I can actually make things out better. Bah, but who knows? (I still start to panic sometimes, like trying to walk in snow in a strange parking lot, when the snow blind seems worse than it ever did before my eyes had problems and when I couldn't distinguish any different depths and people are walking by quickly and cars are zooming by but all I can do is shuffle along and hope I don't fall or stumble. Nearly every day, I think about how much I feel like I'm "old before my time," having vision problems I "shouldn't" be having until I'm in my 70s or 80s, at least. And I know how they feel, I think.) I just try to keep my faith and keep praying, as my husband and friends remind me to do.

So, all in all, we’re doing better here in the Stringham household, though trying to avoid going out. The “winter storm” that hit the other day only brought us a few inches (5 or so) of snow, and the roads are clear, but the drifts at the end of our driveway actually made the Montero get stuck the other day so that we had to shovel it out a bit, and getting the mail feels like going wading in knee-deep water.

* Stringham high: Less-expensive drugs than we thought!
* Stringham low: Winter blahs
* Stringham super-high: Mike had an in-person INTERVIEW!

Just in Time for the Holidays

2009-12-21T16:20:00.002-05:00

Dad called just as I was falling asleep last night to say he had taken Mom to the hospital. (Some of you will recall she had to have surgery last year because part of her small intestine had died and they had to remove it.) Last night, Mom noticed the same kind of pain she had been having that last time, so she had Dad take her in. The doctors don't know much yet, but they've done a CT scan or an MRI (depends on which parent you ask) and found some adhesions and are pumping her full of fluids via an IV, thinking maybe they caught it early enough that they can get the obstruction cleared on its own without having to do surgery. But they’re watching her and waiting to find out. And waiting for the surgeons to take a look and figure out what they want to do. Yes, it's a wonderful end to the year. And they were out having dinner with friends to celebrate my dad's birthday when she asked to be taken to the hospital, so that was an added bonus. *sigh*

While I was speaking to Mom this afternoon (she’s feeling much better than last night—no pain, but she hasn’t been allowed to eat or drink anything, so nothing could get in there to cause her pain) on the phone, Mike came in to tell me he has an interview after we come back from the holidays! Woohoo! He hasn’t had a phone interview since March of 2009, and this will be the first in-person interview he’s had since August of 2008 (not counting the one where an insurance guy was trying to get him to open his own little agency representation).

The interview is for a production manager position with a company in Plainsfield, not far from the Indianapolis airport. The company has about 40 employees, so they really like having people with a broad range of experience, and the guy Mike spoke with would be his direct supervisor if he gets hired on. The gentleman seemed to really like the fact that Mike had polymer (plastics to you English speakers) experience and a chemical engineering background. He also liked that Mike has some limited experience with manufacturing. The company is pretty new, only 11 months old, but we figure that’s okay. A job is still a job; if the company goes under in a year, that’s another year Mike can draw unemployment afterward if necessary, and if the company DOESN’T go under, Mike gets to be in at the ground level, so to speak.

Well, 2009 sure is doing a number on this family emotionally, let me tell ya! But right now, we’re okay with it as it stands.

Here's to a better 2010 (and getting this year over as quickly, quietly, and painlessly as possibly)!

* Stringham high: Mike's phone interview.
* Stringham low: Mom's hospitalization...but we're praying for her.
* Stringham super-high: Mike's scheduled LIVE interview!!!!

All I Want for Christmas (Okay, Not All, but It'll Do)

2009-12-17T15:45:00.002-05:00

For those of you who are planning to get me a Christmas present and haven't yet gotten around to it, I offer you a very affordable suggestion. I've been really wanting one of these for several months, since I started my membership to LibraryThing and started cataloging my books online, but I couldn't justify getting one. But now, when it's a little harder for me to read the ISBNs on those books (and with all of my books, the ISBNs are the easiest ways to enter information), this would be greatly helpful. I'm speaking, of course, of a barcode scanner. And LibraryThing has one it created of its very own, of a sleeping kitty: http://www.librarything.com/cuecat

Shameless plug for a Christmas present? Yup, you betcha!

Happy Holidays to all!

I'm baaaa-aaaaack!

2009-11-19T19:19:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm back, and I'm hoping to start posting somewhat regularly again. It occurred to me as I logged in that I created this blog because of an email that I sent in 2008 to update the family on the highs and lows in our life here, and right now, I'd settle for just a mediocre month. Seriously, I want a noneventful, boring-ass, mediocre month in which things all go as planned (and in which I can drive). Is that so much to ask?

Anyway, my eyes have recovered enough that I can now work again. I'm up to my old speed, but not quite up to my old stamina. Some days, I can work for 9 hours; other days, I'm lucky to get in 4. It seems my eyes get strained far more easily now, and just when I think they're back to...well, the old strength, I'm proved wrong.

Quick summary for anyone who isn't up to date: The neurologist says as long as my headaches don't come back and I don't have any other problems, he doesn't have to see me anymore. (This is great, but when the pregnancy Medicaid stops in, oh, any day now, we have to find a way to pay for the two medicines he prescribed, which cost about $350 a month combined.) My visual acuity continues to get better. The last visit was a couple of weeks ago, and my left eye was nearly 20/20, and the right eye was 20/70. Since then, I think, the right eye has improved further, though I have no way to prove that. Still, I have the visual-field disturbances and the narrowed field of vision. They have improved a little. The docs say they won't clear up. (The docs also said my vision would likely not get any better from the surgery, however, so I'm counting on the miracle of prayer to keep working on me.)

I have an appointment this coming Tuesday to check my visual field and something else. We think this appointment will be to see how much "corrective lenses" will be able to help me. We hope it will also be to set me up with some corrective lenses. I think that would help me work better, because some days, my eyes just get tired as hell, and me along with them. The Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I have another appointment with the opthalmologist (the one who did the surgery). I'm hoping that will be the last follow-up I have with any doctor for quite some time. Making a trip to Indy about every other week to sit and wait in doctors' offices is getting a bit tiresome.

Anyway, that's the haps for now. I have work to keep me busy, and only my stamina is occasionally getting in the way there, and I'm hoping the stamina problem will be helped with glasses. Again, keep praying and/or sending your positive thoughts this way. It's possible I may never regain my peripheral vision or any more vision in my right eye, and I may never be able to drive again. But miracles still happen in this world, and I know I've already experienced at least a couple dozen, so keep praying, and we'll make more of my vision come back.

And to all of you who have called and sent letters and cards and prayers and money and any other emotional, mental, physical, or spiritual support, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU from the bottoms of our hearts!

* Stringham high: FREE large-screen computer monitor from AWESOME friends!
* Stringham low: Duh!
* Stringham super-high: My vision continues to improve (in very small ways).

A Stroll down Memory Lane (the Conclusion)

2009-10-01T19:22:00.001-04:00

Warning: Again, some content is graphic. Do not read if easily disgusted or offended.

More details of what happened earlier this week.

I remember saying to Pam (the ER nurse) at some point that I wasn’t worried about the miscarriage meaning I couldn’t get pregnant, because I knew better. But I was worried about the implications of what I was going through on future pregnancies. Given how stressed I was and how much blood I had lost, I have no idea if what I meant is what I said, but I remember thinking about how much blood I had lost and how someone had made the comment about “you redheads” and “your beautiful complexions” and how we bleed more than most everyone.

Anyway, Dr. Abate came in around 8 Monday morning and asked if I still wanted to do a D&C. When I said I did, he explained the risks and probabilities and had me sign a new consent form, then explained that because it wasn’t an emergency surgery, they’d fit me in whenever they could, probably around lunchtime. That sounded fine to me.

M and I talked a little bit more. It may have been at that point (or earlier in the morning) that he mentioned that someone at the hospital—one of the nurses, he thought—had said it was possible that I had actually had a period, too, so that all the blood may have been what was left behind from the pregnancy AND what had built up from a menstrual cycle. I told him that was interesting, because I had wondered about that possibility (some changes in the bleeding, some hormonal, arousal, and sleeping changes that happen near my period) but had kind of written it off as being silly and not very likely. But it certainly would have explained WHY there was SO VERY much blood Sunday night after I had already had several episodes of fairly heavy bleeding over the past few weeks.

Around 8:45, M took off to take care of the cats. Maury had started peeing in places he shouldn’t be peeing in just before we left the night before, so he had been locked in a room with food, water, and a litter box ALL BY HIMSELF all night. So we knew he’d need some attention. Plus, M wanted to clean the bathroom up (we had left it a mess in our rush to leave) and maybe get some sleep. He left, telling me to call him when I was done with surgery and he’d come to get me. I made a couple of phone calls to reschedule appointments and notify my parents of what was going on, etc. Then I took the opportunity to nap as much as I could.

I think it was around 11:00 when I heard a knock on the door and a woman’s voice say, “Time to wake up. No more sleeping!” I looked to the door and saw a short, kind of squarish nun come in. She smiled beautifully and introduced herself as Sister Lucille. She asked how I was doing and if I was getting good care. I told her the care I had been receiving was wonderful. (It truly was exceptional—everyone was fantastic, no one talked down to us or ordered us around, and everyone answered any and every question the two of us had had). Then she told me to bundle up and go back to sleep because it was very cold and very windy outside. (I was confused, because I could have sworn it was her voice that had told me, not a minute before, that it was time to stop sleeping…) I told her I was surprised to see it cold and windy because it had been a beautiful, sunny morning last time I had looked out the window. Then she left, and as soon as she closed the room door behind her, I noticed the smell of honeysuckle. My whole room smelled like honeysuckle just long enough for me to get two or three full breaths of it.

At that point, I was awake fully again, so I started making some notes to myself. Around 11:20, a couple of ladies came in to tell me they were from surgery and were taking me downstairs. I called M to let him know, and he told me to call when I got out. I told him I didn’t know if I’d be able to because my phone battery was almost dead, but one of the nurses said she’d be in recovery with me, so she’d make sure he got called when I was done.

I got wheeled down to the hall next to the OR and placed in the hallway across from the anesthesiologist’s office. I commented that it was kind of chilly in the hallway, so a nurse covered me with a warm blanket that felt like it was fresh out of the dryer. It was heavenly. I was introduced to the nurses and the anesthesiologist, was asked if I knew why I was there and what to expect and if I had any questions, was asked to indicate and sign a form about my preference for blood transfusion if it seemed necessary, and was told we’d be going whenever Dr. Abate got there. I lay awake for a bit, listening to the lunchtime conversations going on around me, and then drifted off to sleep. After a while, I woke up, and the anesthesiologist came by to apologize for the long wait, saying he didn’t know what was keeping Dr. Abate. I said that was fine, I was just using the opportunity to nap, anyway. (I figured that would keep me calm so I couldn’t be awake and worry and obsess.) I fell asleep again, and then one of the nurses came by to say that Dr. Abate had just called and said he would be right there. I drifted off again, and then Dr. Abate was there, explaining everything to me again, asking if I had any questions, apologizing for the belching because he had just downed a Coke quickly on his way to the hospital, and asking if M was there. I explained that M had gone home and needed a call when everything was done, so he took M’s number, and they started wheeling me toward the OR. I had no idea what time it was, as I had had to remove my watch before they rolled me to the OR area and I hadn’t been able to see any clocks in the hallway.

Just as the foot of my bed entered the doorway into the OR, a nurse picked up the phone and said that my husband was asking for me. I wondered just HOW long the surgery had been delayed. Dr. Abate asked if M wanted to talk to him or me, so the nurse asked and then gave the phone to me. I told him I was JUST being wheeled in. M said he’d come down to the waiting area there, but I heard Dr. Abate tell me to just tell him he’d go up to my room to talk to M as soon as we were done. So M stayed put in my room in OB. It was about 1 PM. Wow, I guess Dr. Abate had been REALLY delayed, since the office is only about ¼ mile from the hospital.

They wheeled me into the OR, introduced me, had me move over to the operating table, stretched my right arm out onto a support board, told me they’d be putting out a board for my left arm, and told me they were putting an oxygen mask on my face. I had long enough to say a silent prayer and take two breaths of oxygen, and I was out. Oxygen, my ass. I figured when they put the mask down that there was anesthesia in it, but DAMN, that was fast!

Next thing I know, I’m waking up and can barely move anything. The words “damn Mack truck” kept chasing themselves around in my brain, along with a little snort of laughter. I started moving body parts experimentally, noticing the stiffness in my toes, the heaviness in my eyelids, the inability of my head to move up or down without great pain. I listened to the nurse watching me make calls about finding cheap hotel reservations to a 4-star hotel in Chicago. I listened to another nurse complain about how she couldn’t get the DVD that came with a new piece of equipment to play in her computer. I wanted to ask her what kind of problems she was having, and I heard someone say something about PDFs. I couldn’t say anything yet. I listened to two of the nurses tell another one that she should just go home, as there was nothing else going on that day. I listened to them talk about bringing in food for the next day and calling another woman to remind her that it was her turn. I asked about what they were doing the next day, and the nurse told me that one of their own had just had surgery, and they were all taking turns bringing meals to her at home.

I kept stretching and moving slowly, “testing the waters,” as it were. I heard a nurse asked me if I wanted some more pain medication, and I managed to indicate my assent. Then I felt my legs cramp. The nurse was out of my line of sight, and I started hitting the rails of the bed with my arms. I couldn’t talk. I could only whimper, and finally managed to get out “legs…cramping.” The nurse made it back just about then and injected the pain med and said something like, “We warned you about the leg cramps, but you never can quite prepare for them.” Meanwhile, I was, rather mean-spiritedly, thinking, No one told me about any damn leg cramps. Unless it was after I was already under the anesthesia. I would have remembered talk of leg cramps. Stupid freaking leg cramps. But by this time, I had felt the rather unpleasant tingling surge as the pain medicine was injected through my IV and then the blessed release of my leg muscles. There, that’s better.

I saw a clock. I remember the minute hand was on the 8, but I can’t remember much more about that. I asked the nurse how long I had been in recovery. She told me we had gone in around 20 ’til, had finished up around 20 after, and I had been in recovery about 30 minutes. At least I think that’s what she said. That doesn’t jive up with what I know now, but the math worked at the time. I think it actually worked out to about 20 minutes of surgery and about 30 minutes before I woke up. Stupid anesthesia. I can remember crap of no consequence to me that they were talking about, but I can’t remember details she told me about my own surgery. Actually, I’ll bet that little bit of memory modification is a result of the pain med that had just been injected. I remember the other stuff so well because Dr. Abate had told M that morning that he could tell me any secrets while I was under anesthesia and I wouldn’t remember a bit of it later, so I was determined to remember everything said around me. (Plus, nosey Nancy that I am, I had been listening to see what would be said around me while everyone thought I was still under…an experiment, of sorts, a peek into the everyday lives of surgery nurses.—I had learned while waiting in the hall that I was the last surgery of the day, that no one understood how the hell Dr. Abate was so delayed, that the nurses were going to hurry and eat lunch before Dr. Abate got there, that everyone who works down there is always freezing…)

Anyway, I spent the next few minutes (no idea how long) continually moving and stretching legs, fingers, toes, neck, etc., until I could move in just about every direction—but still couldn’t move my head up or down—that would lead to nasty pains. Turns out that’s because I had had a tube down my throat. The nurse gave me some ice chips at intervals, and I remember thinking she was amazingly good at that because I still had no real feeling in my lips and couldn’t get my jaw to close around the spoon enough and yet no ice pieces were falling out of my mouth. Oh, God, those ice chips felt good after not having water for more than 12 hours! Every time she offered, I managed to croak, “yes, please,” and then “thank you.” I even managed to request ice of my own accord once or twice.

Anyway, after a while longer (who knows how long? I was mostly “conscious” but focused largely internally at that point), I was wheeled back up to my room, where M was waiting, apparently rather nervously. The OB nurse asked if I wanted food or juice or water, and I said just ice. My throat wouldn’t allow for anything more than that, I was pretty sure. She brought some ice chips, and I was happy for about an hour. We were watching some food show on the travel channel, though, and I was getting hungry. Very hungry. Where in the world is she now that I’m hungry? I thought. I got up to use the restroom and walk around the room a bit. M still had some saltines, so I requested a couple of those from him and that he get me some more ice. By this point, he knew where to find everything on the floor. Finally, the nurse came and asked if I was ready for dinner. Oh, hallelujah!

She brought that plate of food in, and it looked heavenly. There was even iced tea! After the first couple of bites, I felt a little sick and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to eat all of it. But then I figured out it was just an issue of how my bed was adjusted, so I rearranged myself, and that food disappeared. It was probably the best hospital food I’ve ever had. I’m not one to knock hospital food, having eaten in hospital cafeterias fairly often for various reasons, but this was better than stuff you can get off all-you-can-eat buffets. The rice was buttery and sweet, the stewed tomatoes were fantastic, and the grapes and peaches were…well, grapes and peaches. The meat, which I think was supposed to be Salisbury steak, was rather bland, but I had enough pepper to fix that.

About an hour after eating, I was free to go, with my three prescriptions—iron because I’m now anemic, vitamin C to help me absorb the iron better, and a stool softener to keep the iron from constipating me. I was in track pants, a blue patterned t-shirt, slip-on shoes that I use for garden work, and a flannel shirt that was green, pink, and yellow. I wore no bra (I was too sore to even try to struggle with that). My hair, which hadn’t been touched since just before we left Sunday night for the hospital, was everywhere, without even the benefit of the headband that I had been wearing while exercising on Sunday night. I hadn’t bathed since Sunday morning, and my teeth hadn’t been brushed since Sunday morning. Boy, I must have been beautiful! We got to the pharmacy at, apparently, the peak of the Monday-night pharmacy rush after everyone got off of work. I knew I wasn’t pretty, but I didn’t care. We were in line to get my meds, because they had been called in hours before, and we gave them the Medicaid information, so we had to wait while they ran everything through the system. We turned to sit in the chairs near the pick-up line, and I saw a woman giving me a bit of a nasty glance, as though offended that I couldn’t have dressed normally to come out in public. I returned her gaze coolly, sat down, and reached under the sleeve of my flannel to make sure my hospital bling was showing. I didn’t give a shit what she thought, but I figured the bracelets might keep other people from giving me more judgmental glances and causing me to offend them by laughing at their shocked faces. Yes, I had laughed at that lady, and even whispered to M about the look she had given me.

We finally got home, and M made himself some dinner. Yes, I also partook. I was still hungry. I fell asleep while we watched a movie, then, while M slept on the couch, I did some work. Well, I was a day behind. We slept for about 14 hours. I fought off a headache all day on Tuesday and sat in the dark, watching a DVD of The Ghost Whisperer. Then I napped a little later in the afternoon to get rid of the headache, which I assumed was hanging out because of the after effects of anesthesia and the tube down my throat, because my neck muscles were still a little stiff and made me feel like I had been clenching my teeth. I got up and did a little more work, journaled, and went to bed as the headache neared epic proportions again.

Wednesday morning was cruel. I had awakened many times in the night to pee and to try to have a BM (nothing so wonderful as hours without food and drink and then surgery and hardly any physical activity to slow and block those passages). Finally, the BM had happened, and I slept for hours afterward for my abdominal muscles to recuperate. I woke up to head pain that just got worse and worse as the day went on.

Yesterday’s Journal Entry:

Today, the mother of all migraines. The meanest, ugliest, most hardcore migraine I could ever imagine. Actually, I could never imagine this much pain. I had woke up about every hour last night to pee and to try to poop (constipation from not having food and then of not having enough of the right food and water). So I woke up around 11:30, very sore and exhausted from finally having had a forced BM after several tries through the night (my body decided it was time and wouldn’t take no for an answer). Mike brought in a box of flowers that the guys at Dog Ear had sent.

I was up for about an hour before my head started killing me again. It had been killing me when we went to bed last night, and I had been popping Tylenol every 4 or 6 hours as I woke up, but the headache hit. My vision was crazy, my head pounded, and I was nauseous. I thought maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten in more than 12 hours, so I asked Mike to make me some breakfast. I managed a few bites, but the nausea got worse, and movement and sound all made it worse. Finally, around 1:30 or 2, I called the doctor’s office. Dr. Abate isn’t in on Wednesdays, but the nurse wanted me to come in. Mike took a shower, and I used all that time to get dressed, trying to move as little as possible.

Finally, at the doctor’s office, the nurse measured my BP and asked if these were like the migraines I’ve had before (I’d told her on the phone that I’d had them but this went beyond those). I told her again that if this was a migraine, it was the worst I’d ever experienced. I’d NEVER experienced such pain before. She told me that I had the look of someone with a migraine, and she asked what I’d been taking for this one and if I’ve taken migraine medication before. She said Dr. Abate figured this was a migraine, because of the big drop in hormones. I explained that that made sense, given that my migraines usually hit because of hormone fluctuations near my period. Dr. Abate had given her permission to write a script for Imitrex for me, so she explained how to take it. We filled it immediately at CVS and went home. I took the first pill at 3 PM and was finally able to eat a package of saltines around 4. By 5, the pain was mostly gone, but the symptoms were still around, so I took another pill.

Fell asleep on the living room floor until nearly 7:30. Headache started coming back, so I took another pill at 8. So far, that’s 3 of the 4 allowed in a 24-hour period. Joy. I’m going to take the last one at 10 tonight and pray that that kicks it out…to at least tolerable levels until 3 PM tomorrow.

I slept until about 10, so another 10-hour sleep. I awoke feeling pretty good because I hadn’t got up much in the night to pee or change sleeping positions. Then I got up and hated my head. Most of the pain and stiffness elsewhere in my body was gone, for which I was eternally grateful. I took two Tylenol because my head hurt every time I moved, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do more Imitrex until 3 PM, and we were hours away from there. I managed to eat some microwaveable soup and saltines, but then I thought I was going to cry. The pain got nearly unbearable around 11:30 or 12:00. I’ve never had trigger foods for migraines, but I wonder if something in the soup triggered a worse reaction, because DAMN! I took my little self into the bedroom, put on a sleeping mask, and slept until M came in a little after 3 PM.

I decided to do what I could without Imitrex, knowing that I have 5 left and that they have to get me through the weekend or I’ll have to do a hospital visit and have Dr. Abate paged. Plus, as a friend told me the other day, Imitrex is “hardcore,” and the after-headaches can be just as bad as the original. Joy. (This week has only reinforced my dislike for surgical and medical intervention unless it’s absolutely necessary. They kick my ass. I found myself thinking several times yesterday and today that I almost preferred the nonstop bleeding to the freaking migraine.) So I sat up for a bit, and when the pain started coming back, I took a couple Ibuprofens and had a can of Coke. My vision’s still a little screwy, but I managed to sit in the living room with the curtains all open and the overhead light on and still function. Woohoo!

M refuses to get me the Big Mac and fries I’ve been craving since 5 AM Monday. (Not even my sweetest pleadings worked—I think he doesn’t want to drive ANYMORE, despite what he tells me about not wanting to hear me complain about feeling crummy after having junk food.) So I’m now waiting on baked salmon and rice. I hope it’s as good as it smells, because I’m starving. Since my hospital dinner, I’ve had almost only carbs and fat—rotini pasta with Italian dressing and parmesan cheese, boxed mac ‘n’ cheese, a couple of scrambled eggs (I said ALMOST only carbs), three hash browns, 2 or 3 packages of saltine crackers, 2 ½ cans of Coke, and that bowl of microwaveable “chicken” noodle soup.

A Stroll down Memory Lane (part I)

2009-10-01T17:23:00.002-04:00

WARNING: Contents may be graphic. They are straight from my journal. Do not read if you are easily disgusted or upset.

Okay, here’s the story of what has happened in the past couple of days (or at least the first part of it). Details may be a little out of order, given the nature of things.

On Sunday evening, around 9 PM, I decided to take a break from work to get in my exercise for the day. I was about 10 minutes in to the exercise routine when I felt that all-too-familiar rush of fluid between my legs that signaled that I needed to get to the restroom and change my pads. When I got to the toilet, I discovered that my pad hadn’t been soaked yet, but I felt a blood clot pass. And blood started dripping. It just wouldn’t stop. I could hear it dripping steadily, a little stream, into the toilet bowl. It wasn’t reminiscent of a river, like the doc told me to keep an eye out for, but it was steady and unceasing. I sat there, wiping, dabbing, daubing, until my legs went numb. I worked my way through a full roll of toilet paper.

Finally, I realized I had to stand, or I wouldn’t be able to. I hurriedly stood, making sure to get the pad in place so I could walk around and wash my hands (which were, of course, pretty messy by this time). I flushed the toilet and saw something that looked different from all the other blood clots I had passed, plus the red in the bowl was darker than any I’d seen since the first night of big bleeding I had…maybe even darker than that first night’s. At first, I thought that the bit of slightly different color I saw was the one or two pieces of toilet paper that I had accidentally dropped in the bowl earlier, but on second glance, I realized it was too large (about the size of a sheet of notebook paper) and slightly gray. I realized I had passed the placenta. I flushed the toilet and washed my hands and felt that familiar gush…yup, blood clots that would surely flood my pad and panties.

So I spun around to the toilet again. And the trickling continued. But at least my leg was awake again. I asked M to bring me my glass of water, because I knew I would need to stay hydrated. This had the feel of a long one. My lips started to kind of tingle, like they do when I’m donating red blood cells and the plasma and saline is almost ready to be pumped back into me. I finished that glass of water and asked for a refill. The tingling in my lips stopped. I was starting to feel nauseous off and on, but I didn’t know if that was because of the blood loss, the water I had basically chugged, the distress I was feeling (C’mon, can’t we be done with this, already? It’s been weeks! I’m tired of bleeding, and I want to move on. I’ve already prayed for healing and a “clean out.”). Realizing that this may be the very “clean out” I had prayed for, I calmed down and continued cleaning.

The bag in the trash can was full. I had gone through another roll of toilet paper. M brought more TP and gave me another bag to put in the trash can. I started getting dizzy and felt filthy. The smell of everything reminded me of a wet dog…not at all pleasant. I wanted to shower. I had tried getting up a couple of other times, but each time, I felt the surge of a clot and had to sit down almost immediately. Finally, I decided to try to shower to clean myself up. I walked around long enough to get some towels and some fresh clothes, then got into the shower. I discovered that standing in the shower made me feel a little less dizzy…at least for a while. I rinsed off but discovered that the mess was only getting worse because, although things were now draining into a drain, they were also falling onto a hard surface and splattering. And, if anything, I was bleeding more rather than less.

I turned off the shower and stood there, trying to figure out what to do next. I began trying to wash the streams of blood off my legs by using the sink. I stood in the shower and leaned against the countertop while rinsing the washcloth, but I soon wondered if that yellow washcloth would ever be yellow again. I asked M to bring more washcloths. I filled the sink basin with water and rinsed the first washcloth in it, then realized that that wasn’t helping. I alternately stood and leaned, rinsed and cleaned, making no progress. Finally, I told M we needed to go to the hospital. I told him he needed to get a trash bag and two towels for me to sit on when we went because I knew I would bleed through pad, panties, and pants. He gathered those while I tried to figure out how the hell to get myself cleaned up enough to walk through the house without tracking blood everywhere. Already, the toilet had blood spots all over it, the floor had a few, the sink was filled with bloody water, and the shower had spatters and a pile of blood clots that I had pulled off the washcloth to better rinse it. While I kind of panicked, trying to figure out what the hell to do, M threw some clothes in a duffel bag, along with some pads, some extra towels, a couple cans of Coke, and some saltines. I asked him to make sure to grab my planner because it had all the dates of all my bleeds and doctors’ visits and such. Finally, I had him get me a new pair of panties, and I threw them on with a new pad, then tried to wipe the blood streaks off my legs as much as possible. I didn’t even try to clean my feet. I knew that would be pointless.

Finally, we were off. We got to the hospital right before 11:30. I had started bleeding around 9:30. I started giving the admissions people my information, and then they started the process to get me a quick check-in, and I had to visit the restroom. M gave them information and I went to the public restroom and then made a mess there. If cleaning up massive amounts of blood is difficult with super-absorbent Charmin, it’s damn near impossible with the tissue-paper-like stuff they put in public restrooms. I had bled through my pants, but there was nothing I could do about that. I changed pads and tried to wipe the excess blood and blood clots from my thighs. I flushed the toilet three or four times to try to flush down all the paper I had used.

I heard a knock on the door and, “Stephie? You almost done?” I tried to wash up and clean the blood off the toilet seat as best I could, washed my hands, closed up the duffel bag, and stepped out. I was led to an interview room of sorts and asked to sit down. I gave some information, all the while feeling horribly uncomfortable because I could feel blood clots and blood passing alarmingly fast. After getting the immediate information from me, the admissions nurse led M to the desk to get me completely admitted and then led me to a room.

As she led me to a room, I saw a little boy on a bed, attached to monitors, while his dad sat next to him. I prayed for that little boy. And I prayed for M to have the strength to deal with all this. People and stress has never been his peak operating situations. I was led into my room and given a gown and sheet, and a couple of bed pads were laid out for me. The nurse left, telling me to change there and lie down and relax, and asked if I needed anything. I asked if I could have something to drink because I was very, very thirsty. She said we’d better hold off, in case they wanted to do a D&C that night, because they didn’t want me to have something and then aspirate. As soon as she left, I felt another huge clot pass, and I said, “Shit.” I knew it was going to be bad when I took my pants off. Sure enough, as soon as the pants came down, a huge clot fell, and blood splattered all over the floor. I felt terrible, but there was nothing I could do about it. I just hurried to get onto the bed and onto those pads as quickly as I could.

A few moments later, the ER nurse came in. I warned her as soon as she opened the door that there was a mess. I apologized, of course, knowing it was stupid to apologize, but she understood. She got everything cleaned up and told me that she wouldn’t need chemicals like on CSI: to know that blood had been there. I laughed a little. She introduced herself as Pam and talked to me to help me kind of calm down. I was upset more by all the mess than the situation, honestly. Crazy what we focus on when we’re upset. She told me that she had had a miscarriage, too, and said, “Guess how many daughters I have now?” Then she raised a hand with all fingers spread wide and mouthed, “Five.” The whole time we talked, she kept telling me she was glad she was there for me, glad that God had sent her to help me that night. I was, too.

Finally, M came in, and we talked. All the while, I felt blood and clots passing and filling up the area between my legs. Pam told us the doctor would be in in a bit. All the while, bleeding. Some of the first blood I had passed once I had laid on the bed started to dry, and it was becoming uncomfortable. The ER doc came in and chatted with me and said he didn’t feel we were in a big hurry to have a D&C, and I agreed, because we all pretty much thought this was my body’s final push to get everything out and wrap up this miscarriage. He was going to call my doc, he said, and would have someone from the lab come in and draw some blood. He saw no reason for me to not have some water, because if a D&C was going to be done, it wouldn’t be until the next morning. He stepped out, then walked back in a minute later with a glass of water and a straw. Bless him.

Not long after, Pam and a lady from the lab came in. I think I had just remarked to M that my lips were tingling again. The lady from the lab started telling me what she was going to do, Pam, about the blood pressure measurements they were about to take. I started feeling really hot, and I couldn’t breathe right while I was trying to talk to them. Everything went out. I think I heard someone say I was passing out. The next thing I know, I was being wheeled across the hallway into a room and they were getting me hooked up to saline. M was standing beside me, looking very freaked out. I kept telling him I was okay, I was all right. I looked at the clock. It was about 12:15, I think.

They got me stabilized, and I kept telling M I was okay. But I was covered in sweat, I was burning up. M had to calm down, signaled for me to not say anything. His adrenaline had kicked in when he saw me pass out, and now he was coming down from the high, feeling a little nauseous. The doc came in to make sure everything was okay, then he and Pam stepped out for a bit.

A couple of minutes later, after M was mostly calm, Pam stepped back in to do my three BP measurements and said the ER doc was going to do a vaginal exam. They started getting things set up, and I told M not to look, because I knew there was so much blood and clots that he would be upset and worried. The doc had come in, and M made a comment about the blood clots looking like Jell-o jigglers, and I told him at least he didn’t have to eat the placenta. Then we heard Pam say, “WHAT did you just say?” The doc was kind of laughing, and so was I. I told Pam that a lot of cultures eat the placenta after it’s passed because it’s a good way to regain nutrients lost in childbirth. She said we had nearly made her vomit. M, the doc, and I were all laughing. This woman had barely batted an eye when she saw my blood all over the floor, and she had told me a couple of disgusting things she’s seen in the ER after I had kept apologizing for all the mess I was making, and then she nearly vomited at hearing about something like eating a placenta. Yup, I have to cause trouble wherever I go.

After the exam, the doc said it looked like there was just a little more blood left and that I could go home or stay the night up in OB before my doc checked me out the next morning. M and I decided we’d rather I stay, just to be on the safe side. We had quite a bit of time alone while they made the arrangements to have me moved. I had M call my mom and dad to let them know what was going on, and then he called his mom. Then we had a little while longer to talk. He said he thought he had lost me…said one minute I was there, and then I just “wasn’t there anymore.” I promised him I hadn’t gone anywhere, I had been praying for the little boy across the way and for M. He told me I should have been praying for myself. I assured him that I had been. In all my short moments alone in every room, I had prayed my thanks and prayed for help. I told him God was taking care of me and that I hadn’t gone anywhere…I had just passed out. I told him that, to save his feelings, I wouldn’t even make a joke about how I was disappointed that I hadn’t had an OBE.

Pam came in and put me in another gown, cleaned up the bed, took me off the saline, etc. Around 1:30, they finally started wheeling me up to the third floor, to OB. As she wheeled me around, Pam kept telling me that she thought M was a keeper. I told her we’d been together long enough that I was pretty sure I was going to keep him around.

We got up to my room and then the OB nurses helped me to the toilet, gave me a lovely set of fishnet panties and a gi-normous “mommy pad.” As I sat there, they cleaned my legs and feet up with washcloths and showed me how to use the squirt bottle to clean myself. They put me in bed and started the procedures, asking me all sorts of questions about my health. After about 20 minutes, I started feeling a little nauseous. I was hot and had M turn on the fan. My lips started tingling. But I was lying down. I asked if I could use the restroom, so one of the nurses helped me. I was really starting to not feel good again, so I asked if that new batch of saline was coming anytime soon. It was about 2:00 AM, about the time M and I had been going to bed. I was yawning, in addition to starting to dim. I needed fluids, and I wasn’t allowed to drink. I kept dropping hints. Finally, they got me hooked up to saline and finished asking me questions. They took my vitals and told me I had to push the call button anytime I had to use the restroom. M was not allowed to help me, because I “like to pass out.” I jokingly said that was only one time and I wouldn’t do it again. One of the nurses said her son likes to tell her he won’t do things again and then he always does, so she didn’t trust me. I laughed a little and said, “But it was the first time, the only time, in my life that I’ve passed out, I promise.” Then they left us alone. It was about 20 minutes to 3.

I was still hot, so the fan stayed on me. Everyone else was freezing. M stretched out on the chair/bed next to my bed, and he nearly froze. Every time I drifted off to sleep, I had a bit of trouble breathing and woke up. I was a little freaked out. I was worried about passing out again. Finally, around 4:30, I was able to breathe normally and sleep for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. Then a truck going by on the highway or the wind blowing or the ambulance would wake me. I woke up every time they came in for my vitals and used the chance to be assisted to the restroom.

Around 5:00, I woke up for my next set of vitals. The nurse, as she was helping me to the restroom, said that they had been down to the ER and that Pam and the doc had been asking about me and talking about Mike, saying that he was a real keeper. I laughed, and the nurse told me that they see a lot of people in the ER, a lot of different types, and M had impressed them, as much as he had doted on me. Yeah, he’s a sweetie.

I got back in bed, fully alert and awake. M woke up, too, and we talked a bit, and I asked him to turn on the TV, because my bedside controls for the TV didn’t work. We watched TV for about an hour. One of the nurses came in to check on me. It was clear that she didn’t approve of me being awake. She said if she were us, she’d be sleeping and resting. I told her that I’ve learned long ago that my body decides when it wants to sleep and when it doesn’t and there’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it. She walked out, still kind of disapprovingly. Turns out it was a good thing I was awake, because about 5 minutes after that, a lady from the lab came in to take some samples that they hadn’t been able to get while I was in the ER. She was there until about 20 after 6, and then I was exhausted and went back to sleep.

Speaking of sleep…I’m exhausted again. Going to sign off and write more later.