Snowballing......

 In December, our office installed a new electronic medical record system. It was overdue, necessary, and entirely complicated.  New screen patterns created massive migraines and eyestrain. 

My life since then, in roughly chronological order: 

I went to the family doc (step one).  He changed some meds and referred me to a new neurologist (step two), as I've retired 3 of them so far. I was doing better so the new doc agreed with the changes, but recommended an updated MRI.

We did our amazing Australia trip (which I am still day-to-day living on!), and re-entered life.  I kept my already-scheduled annual cardiology appointment (step one).  "Any concerning symptoms?"  Well, doc, I did a 3 hour climb to the top of a massive bridge in Australia, and was fine except that at the very top I had chest pain and difficulty breathing that lasted just long enough that I was wondering if they could get a helicopter up there...."  Oh. "You need a stress test."  I'm pretty sure that no amount of jogging on a treadmill is going to reproduce those symptoms, but, okay I guess. 

One of the nose pads on my glasses fell off on a Friday.  I crafted a temporary replacement with a glue gun, but schedule a visit to the eye doctor (step one), since it's been a minute.  It turns out that I have almost NO distance vision in my right eye.  This moves me up the food chain to the opthalmologist (step two), who then schedules me for cataract surgery (steps 3 and 4). And just like that! Active Senior to Little Old Lady LOL. Turns out the eyestrain wasn't the new computer system.

The stress test comes (step two). ("You needed that for cataract surgery??" Well, no, it's just a timing issue.)  I'm injected with radioactive stuff, run the treadmill, get MORE radioactive stuff, and pass.  So far, this is the first stop-at-the-second-step event this year.

I get my routine mammogram.  For the first time EVER I get the "We see something we can't explain and you need to come back in." I can't feel ANYTHING in the area of concern, but... I hand my office manager yet another (and now entirely on-brand) request for an afternoon off. 

At this point, I'm laughing, like, "Can any of the routine stuff just be simple?" I'm not feeling particularly worried about it all, and I have solidly learned over the past 14 years that worrying about "maybes" is a zero sum game. But an unrelated random call to my cousin the next day reveals that she has melanoma. And, unrelated but discovered during the workup, breast cancer. 

Cue the snowball. 

I finally have the MRI, step 3 of the neurology path. On the paperwork for that, there is a question to the effect of "Do you have or does anyone suspect you have cancer? 

Start that snowball down the mountain.

My brain entirely stopped, as my Schrodinger's mammogram report flashes through my head. Do I? Don't I? The unexpectedness of the question and the now-I-have-family-history fun fact collided HARD, loading up all of the hamster wheels in my head, adding a layer of what-if-the-migraines-aren't-migraines?? to the mix. 

Watch that snowball ROLLING. 

The MRI was fine. My brain is older, but otherwise okay.  No visible hamster wheels. The migraines are just migraines. See you in 6 months. The only remaining issue is getting the new medication correctly prescribed, but, hey. 

Well.

I get to the step-two boob follow up appointment, and they do a "compression view" of my left nipple.  Mammos are uncomfortable to start with, but this was....breathtaking.  The ultrasound that followed was also somewhat intense.  The nurse practitioner comes in to do a breast exam. "Have you had any breast pain?" "Not until today, thanks."

All the exams were fine.  My ongoing weight loss apparently changed the appearance of the test but there were no real problems. See you in a year.

Now...I have gotten a reminder that I am due for a colonoscopy.  Actually, that came in during Snowball Week. I took a couple of days to catch up on sleep, because I DID lose some sleep there, and got a referral placed. 

But DAMN, lets let that snowball run out of energy before we set off the next avalanche. 

DeeDee

PS This all took from before Christmas until almost Easter to happen. And I still haven't had the cataract surgeries. And now that I know I can't see, the fact that I can't is pissing me off.

PPS Because you all love her: Babygirl is fine.  No one but me had chest pain on the bridge. But I was the only one without jellylegs on the descent.

PPPS Prayers for my cousin. 

I Bet on the Bay Mare.....

 Babygirl and I repainted the downstairs of the house last year.  Furniture rearranged.  And we bought each other a frame TV for Christmas (honestly, not one other gift, not even Reeses trees for the stockings).  It's lovely, and we can either set it to some piece of art or have it rotate through seasonal artwork, which is what it has been doing since Thanksgiving.

This morning the art became more....springy, and I was suddenly looking into the eyes of a bay horse with a white star on its forehead.

When I was about 14, we moved from a village to the country.  Among the many changes?  I finally got the horse that little girls spend their lives dreaming about. She was a miscellaneous brown horse, in a little rough condition.  I fed her up, treated the saddle sores with twice daily Epsom salts, and brushed out the winter fur.  It turned out that under all of that, she was an amazing bay (red) with a white star and socks.  

The horse in the picture clearly was not her, and I honestly don't think I have a photo of her.  But....living in the country with a horse?  There were a couple of other girls in the area that had horses, and I made friends with people I might not otherwise have met.  

That picture took me back to a far less complicated life.  I spent hours riding with Becky all through the woods and fields within a 5 mile radius of home. Becky and I loved each other, our horses, and our lives.  We had a lot in common: Our dads were strict and somewhat frightening. Our moms became friends. We did sleepovers and helped each other with chores. My horse was terrified of water and hers liked to swim. We took falls, got concussed, and kept on riding regardless of season or weather.

When I went away to college, the horse was sold. I still hope she was treated well, but there was a little girl involved, so....

The sight of that picture made me cry. I miss it all: My home, my parents, my younger self, the simplicity of it all, and Becky. She and I lost touch until the miracle of the internet made us intersect.  We admire each others grandchildren and observe each others lives.

We remain more-or-less quiet about how different we are from each other. We share a blessed history, a million experiences, and a memory of years of close and loving friendship.  But we are currently on completely opposite poles of the political and scientific spectrum. We haven't had a live conversation in over 30 years. A deep and abiding love for each other keeps us respectful, I think. 

But in addition to childhood loves and memories,  I miss the world in which there was a time when a discussion of Carter vs Ford (which I think really never came up between us as high school students - I voted for Carter and she was too young to vote) would have been an intellectual exercise with intersectional agreements and not an area with almost no common ground at all. 

I miss the fact that we as a population could have friends in both parties without tiptoeing around the volitility and vitriol, or in fact, even noticing that someone voted differently. 

I am certain that different life experiences lead us down different paths.  Understanding that we can have similar upbringings and radically different outlooks is entirely intuitive. Why are we still friends? Because if we all give up on what connects us, the country will never heal. If we cannot discuss what unites us, we will never overcome what divides us.  If one half of the country continues to believe that the other half has lost its ever-ducking-mind, well.....

Sometimes what holds us together is betting on the bay mare and a pinto pony. 

I'm know she prays for me. I pray for her as well.  And we both pray for our country.

DeeDee

Don't Say No.....

 We had 3 grands at the house today from 6:30 AM until 3:30 PM.  This group is the gang I refer to as "feral." Their mother thinks that this title is both true, and funny.  Ranging in age from 8-13, they are funny, sweet, and most likely to destroy the entire house.

Each of them wanted to make a potholder. I have 2 looms and 3 kids, and they have, thus far, never successfully completed even one, but we have time, so, yes, of course! And the one with no loom? A game of Othelo. I beat the pants off of him. They all know that if they beat me at a game, they have EARNED it. No Mercy Rule here LOL. 

Saturday is farmer's market and grocery day.  They did 2 rounds of rock/paper/scissors to determine who would be stuck in the middle seat. Great excitement to the winner.

"Can we have coffee?" Well, I didn't say NO, exactly, but I did convince them to try vanilla chai, which made everybody happy. Since the farmer's market is next to the botanical gardens, I turned them loose with instructions to make sure Every Single Path had footprints on it.

Can we climb the hill behind Aldi?  Well, it's one of those cut-straight-up-the-side-of-the-mountain things that typically has large electric line towers.  Death risk is small, injury risk modest. Sure! Who wants to try it?  The younger 2 went for it.  They were game but ill-prepared.  Sneakers, ice water, no gloves?  They did better overall than I expected. I think they managed about a 50 foot vertical gain before they felt the cold hands weren't worth it.  They got colder and wetter on the way down, but did not complain about it.

I did not participate, in case you wondered. I supervised.

Coming home involved a pre-planned small gingerbread house assembly.  One of the 3 succeeded. One asked, about 2 minutes in, "Can I just eat the gingerbread?"  Of course!  

Cookies were made and eaten. Babygirl supervised all of that. I did all of the dishes.  

"Grandma, can I eat a jalapeno pepper?"  Absolutely, it that is what you want. (That was NOT, it turns out, what they wanted, but...lesson learned?)

The tree was assembled and decorated. My porch has lights.  We are down any number of small brokent things, none of any value or significance. Joyful noises were made. 

Inevitably it go to be a bit much, so I sent everybody outdoors to run up and down the street 15 times. Bean had arrived by this time, and although she was dressed in what looked like an Easter outfit, she gamely went out to run as well. 

We did say "no" to staying for dinner.  My ears were ringing from the noise by that time.

But overall?  I like not being the one to say no.  The insanity has a flavor to it, a beloved scent. It's the smell and taste of memories.  

DeeDee

PS They are all coming back again tomorrow while Mom works.  Pray for us. 

Covid 2.0

 This is the third time Babygirl has had Covid.  In no case did she become Very Sick, although the first time it cost what little hope we had of rescuing the first transplant from disaster.

It's my second run.  Both times I've caught it from Babygirl after she went out with Curlygirl to do something somewhere.  Neither time, thankfully, did Curlygirl get it.  Her own Covid 1.0 is still wreaking havoc on her, almost 3 years down the line. 

Last time I was pretty sick and the recovery took forever, but I started symptoms on a Friday night (the family has a theme I think) and didn't call my doc for help until Monday. By then it was a bit too late to start an antiviral effectively, so the disease did what it does.

This time?

Well, to continue the WTD line from my experience with Ana's on call people?

I called my doc Tuesday in the morning. He is himself an entirely faithful sort who never leaves a message unanswered, so when it go to be pretty late in the afternoon, I put in a second call.  I was on hold for an atypically long time, about 20 minutes.  When someone picked up, I asked about my message status.  She found it and then asked,  "Who is your doctor?" I told her and she said, "He is not here." "Well, where is he?" Her answer was a polite but confusing, "How would I know?"

It turns out that he message was inadvertantly sent to another office 30 miles away from my doc.  And how did I end up talking to that distant office when I dialed MY doc's number?? We got disconnected during the call.  I double checked the number, which I had pulled from my contacts. It was correct, so, what....?

I called again and got an almost immediate answer at the correct office. Mystification all around, but hey, that's for IT to figure out and not my problem to call them. My doc is in office but leaving town SOON so she promised to get his nurse right away and have her call me. 

It turns out that Paxlovid doesn't like MY medications either, so I also got the Unicorn Drug.  Even though my pharmacy was open, I risked a higher co-payment by sending it to the pharmacy I knew had it.

I am blessed, truly, that I had no less than 4 people who asked if I needed them to go anywhere/get anything/do whatever.  I am MORE blessed that Curlygirl was feeling well enough to be one of them. She took a more than 20 mile round-trip journet from her home, to the phamacy to me.  The copayment, incidentally, was $0.

How am I feeling? Well, yesterday, I got up, made coffee and toast, consumed a little of each and took a nap from 8-10 AM.  I spent the rest of the entire day snoozing or watching stupid TV and was in bed asleep by 8 PM. It was an increase in activity from the day before.

Today I did the coffee/toast, picked up after myself and emptied the dishwasher, did a load of laundry and put on actual clothes. I walked Maisey less than half a mile with my lower abs (why?) screaming at me by the time we returned home.

I am pretty sure I'll be able to pay the bills, do another load of laundry and fill the dishwasher.  After that we'll see. 

Overall 2.0 is a much better experience than the first run. 

DeeDee

It's Always a Saturday.....

 When Citygirl was a toddler, ear infections were the thing for her.  Between germs from daycare, my walk-in and her dad's ER, she was a snot factory a great deal of the time. But ear infections always seemed to happen on a Saturday afternoon, or frequently in the late evening. Options for obtaining treatment were clearly limited, but to be fair the ER pre-covid was not typically as bad as it is now. 

Babygirl seems to have the same life plan.  The number of times that she has fallen ill on a weekend or a holiday is actually fairly astonishing.

Most recently she began with some cold symptoms Friday. The fever (which we ALWAYS have to do something about) began, of course, on Sunday.  

I had to run some errands, so I picked up a couple of packs of Covid tests.  She tested positive.

I put a call into the Transplant Team at 1:25 PM.  About 2:10 I called again, and was told that the "page just went out to the doctor a few minutes ago" and to give it more time.  I mean, what was the answering service doing for 45 minutes? I called a 3rd time at 3:05 PM.  The answering service was unable to determine if the doctor had actually received the page.  I mean, what the actual DUCK is going on here?

At 3:31 the doctor finally got back to me, since Babygirl was in bed asleep.  I told him that we had 2 basic problems:

1) Since she is acutely ill, should she keep her appointment in Rochester in the morning? I mean, nobody wants a Covid factory in a transplant center.

He gave the entirely sensible and why-didn't-I-think-of-it answer: Call them tomorrow and have them change it to virtual. Well, duh. I do that in my office all of the time!

2) Since her immune system is being deliberately trashed to keep the transplant alive, should she get an antiviral like Paxlovid?  The doctor waffled on that for a moment, checked he medication list and recommended Lagevrio instead, because it doesn't interfere with her medications.  "Good, good - could you send that to our pharmacy?"

Well, apparently although he knows what SHOULD be used he won't call it in because that's family practice's job, since they treat Covid regularly, and he himself has never written a prescription for it.

WHAT the ACTUAL DUCK. 

So I called our doctor at 3:41, knowing it was about a 30-1 chance that he'd be the on-call.  I knew that he'd phone it in, but an on-call doc who has never met her would either call it in or send us to the ED. We got the call at 4:01 PM.

It was not our doc, but the on-call guy took option 3.  "Why can't she have the Paxlovid?" I explained the drug interaction, and he said, "Let me do some research and call you back." 

Well, that's entirely sensible but not helpful for my level of anxiety in this moment. 

While I waited I called the 2 local 24 hour pharmacies to see if either of them had a supply of this Unicorn Drug. The farthest one had two full doses. It seemed safer than the closer one that only had one bottle. 

The oncall doc called back at 4:12 and told me that to use the Paxlovid "the math is just to complicated." Well, alrighty, then.  He did call in the Lagevrio, and we started it Sunday evening.

To add some extra flavor to all this: I took Monday off to go Rochester, but instead I called at 8 AM to reschedule her to video. It turns out the Monday appointment had been cancelled, and replaced with an appointment LAST THURSDAY which we obviously missed. 

She's scheduled for a video visit on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, at about 1 AM today somebody drove an icepick into my left ear and filled my left nostril with snot.  COVID test was positive this morning. I called family practice at 8:32 AM.  I am still, at 3:12 PM, awaiting an answer.  I'm doing the recall now. 

DeeDee

Dancing With a Stranger.....

 I just came here to look at the Blog stats/readership.  I don't get a lot of visitors here generally because it's not as active a blog as it once was. But...somebody (or a few somebody's) is reading it, apparently from the beginning.  

Whoever you are, welcome aboard. 

I tend to open up and re-read the posts that get the most views, and DANG.... it was a walk through some hard times.  The heart does its best to heal and cover over the scars, but... they don't go away, really.  It hurts some to read again what it was like in those days.  It occurs to me that I was extremely fearful THEN about what I NOW would just worry about, if you know what I mean LOL.  It is also helpful that the first year since this transplant has been infinitely less medically complicated than the first year after the initial transplant. 

It's more....in the background somehow.  Off the front burner. 

How does that impact day-to-day life?

We have more freedom.  We are more comfortable making plans (although travel insurance is not something I will EVER not pay for).  And there is more joy.

Our neighborhood hosts Porch Fest every year. This year there were 140 bands playing on porches in a a 3x9 block radius, with my house in the middle of the "food district." Streets are closed. Crowds are sizeable. The music goes from Metallica to Traditional Celtic within a few steps.  There is a funnel cake truck less than a block from my house. Bliss.

This year a bluegrass band around the corner included a square dance caller.  

I've done square dancing off and on my entire life. It was a gym class every year in high school. A local friend hosted an annual square dance party.  My dad took my kids square dancing every year on our Christmas visit. But it's been a few years.

I danced in a square with total strangers, on a city street on a perfect sunny day.  Not one of us had much of a clue what we were doing, and nobody cared if we could tell left from right, clockwise from counterclockwise. It was all smiles, laughter, and tolerance. 

I was, incidentally, counted as 5000 steps by my phone LOL.

Accidental joy. Unplanned simple happiness. Unanticipated blessed memories.

Zero headspace occupied by a worry. 

THAT freedom is the day-to-day impact.

DeeDee

Becoming.....Adultier....

 Babygirl and I went camping this weekend with a family of grandkids, and one spare adult. 

The first time I was The Grownup on a camping trip I was 33. I set off to a campground with a tent and a toddler.  I admit to having miserably failed the Adulting Test on that trip.  I crawled out of a tiny tent with a headache and had to go to a neaby campsite to find somebody Adulty enough to be willing to give me coffee and Tylenol. We didn't last the weekend.

My oldest daughter probably owes her life to the fact that a new neighbor invited us to go camping with her family.  Over the summer I side-eyed everything she did and added The Things one must have to successfully camp with a family: A small stove, a few garage-sale pots dedicated to the camping bin, and a small tool box. This set of equipment has been traveling with me ever since, with some variations for number of campers or remoteness of site. 

This weekend I got to watch my daughter and boyfriend be the adults for their kids.  I'll admit that I went into this assuming that I'd be doing ALL of the Adulting, but planning on doing some Here's How It's Done training sessions. 

Well.  

They have a way cool tent that attaches to the sides of a pop-up dining fly. They have coolers. They have gear for sleeping.  And they have structured set-up with expectations for what the kids need to do. Most of my work was done for me LOL.

They don't have a stove but they have an awesome rack for the fire. But they don't have a toolbox. Things were needed: Hammer? sure. Potholder? got it. Lighter? Absolutely. Salt and pepper? ummmmm, no, actually.

Clearly I haven't camped in a while, and I did NOT do a full inspection of my stuff before load up.  The tool box is where the seasonings live, and there were none. 

"You need to go find and Adultier Adult, because I'm retiring from the Keep-Track-of-Everything position." Her face was a study.  She's about the same age as I was for my camp-with-a-toddler adventure, and she is clearly much farther along than I was, but, "I don't WANT to be an Adultier Adult. YOU'VE always been the Adulty one!"

I'm flattered and a little choked up, but I pointed out my age. The fact that I can and did load the inside and the top of an SUV with enough stuff to keep 8 people going for a weekend says a lot about my stamina, but even if I CAN do it, is it so bad that I don't WANT to do it?

I told her she needs to get a tool box that includes a hammer, a potholder, a lighter, a first aid kit and some seasonings in small containers, as well as the bajillion other things that go in there: Deck of cards. Pen. Pencil. Multi tool. Knives. Scissors. Clothespins. Splenda packets.  Being able to go somewhere because I am prepared is not the same as being able to go because she is. 

I have faith. She's ready. And the boyfriend?  I have never seen such a ruthlessly well-organized camp teardown in my life.  Respect, dude. 

DeeDee

PS I have a favorite new problem-solving camping phrase:  "Go ask your mom and dad."

PPS I was the one who needed the first aid kit.  JuJuBee is the one who did the awesome wound dressing that made it unnecessary for me to go for stitches in may hand.