Surrender, Dorothy

Always Read the Label

This morning I grabbed a new bottle of saline solution and popped a disposable contact into my eye.

Immediately, THE BURNING! THE PAIN! I'M BLIND!   

(I just finished reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.)

Howling, I immediately began rinsing my eyeball with water, trying to float my contact out of my face, while Beloved, confused, grabbed the bottle.

"This isn't saline solution," he said. "This is activator."

OH JESUS! IT BUUUURRRRRNNNNNNSSSSSS!

Moaning, I found myself hopping up and down as I tried to convince my eye to open so I could attempt to scrape plastic off its burning surface. This did not go well. Beloved tried to get me to hold my eye open, but I was terrified he would poke his finger in my eye and then I WOULD HAVE TO KILL HIM.

Five minutes, about a gallon of water and a mini bottle full of real saline solution later, the burning began to subside, and I *think* my contact must have floated out in all the ruckus, because I don't see it or feel it anywhere, but of course this feeds into my ongoing paranoia that I have contacts stuck in my eyes at all times and just don't know it until the infection does truly blind me.

So if you see me on the street today, I'll be the one with glasses, no make-up and a giant, bloodshot left eye.

Hi, Monday. You bitch.

The Dreaded Swine Flu Shot

Scene: 9:20 a.m. The pediatrician's office. I got home from my business trip to Boston at 2:45 this morning.

Nurse: Blah blah blah THIMEROSAL-FREE INDIVIDUALLY PACKAGED INJECTION blah blah NO MORE SEASONAL FLU INJECTIONS blah blah SEASONAL FLU MIST blah blah TWO INJECTIONS BUT DON'T KNOW IF WE'LL GET ENOUGH

Little Angel: Mommy! I don't want the shot! Mist! MIST!

Nurse: Blah blah CAN'T DO TWO MISTS AT THE SAME TIME blah blah WORRIED ABOUT SEASONAL FLU NOT YET PEAKED blah blah CAN GET SWINE FLU INJECTION AND SEASONAL FLU MIST AT SAME TIME blah blah TODAY blah blah ANOTHER APPOINTMENT

Me: (God, I am so tired. AM SO TIRED! WHAT IS SHE SAYING?)

Nurse: Blah blah SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

Little Angel: MOMMY NO SHOT!

Me: (Don't want to come back. Need seasonal flu? Seriously? She hasn't had seasonal flu shot in three years. She didn't get one last year. Didn't get the flu last year. Uses WAY TOO MUCH HAND SANITIZER. She said thimerosal-free, right? That's good, right? The little angel is too old too worry about that, isn't she?)

Nurse: ??

Little Angel: ??

Me: (?????? How did this day start, again? Did yesterday end?)

Me: Let's do the swine flu shot and the seasonal flu mist today. That's it. That's my decision.

Little Angel: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

The nurse leaves. Returns a few minutes later carrying shot and mist. The little angel immediately begins to shriek and squirm. Nurse shoves mist up her nose. Little angel screams.

Little Angel: NO! GET AWAY! GET AWAY!! MOMMMYYYYY!!!!

The little angel begins to buck. The nurse gives me a determined look. I pull down the little angel's jeans feeling like an abusive mother. I hate that I have to pull down her pants for this shot. I hate the idea of her seeing me pull down her pants against her will. It feels so wrong. Imagine the little angel in therapy later. The nurse gets her legs between the nurse's knees and I hold the little angel's hands.

Me: Honey, I love you so much. I don't want you to get really sick. This is my job.

Me: (I AM SO TIRED. THIS IS SUCH SHIT. HATE THIS.)

The nurse holds the syringe poised.

Me: You are going to have to go fast.

Little Angel: NO! DON'T DO IT!

The nurse jabs the little angel's leg. There is no blood.

Nurse: Where is it? It's not even bleeding.

I release the little angel's arms and plop her to the ground. She pulls up her jeans, looking shocked.

Me: All done! All done!

Me: (IS THERE A NAP IN MY FUTURE, PLEASE GOD?)

Little Angel: Mommy, that didn't even hurt. Was that needle even sharp? I don't think it was sharp. Huh.

Me: (Don't Google this when you get home. RITA, BACK AWAY FROM THE GOOGLE!)

I hate vaccinations. Hate them. But this one? I think was worth it.

Why Nobody Understands the Healthcare Bill

Yesterday, I had the privilege of listening in on BlogHer and Sunlight Foundation's conference call with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The call lasted about an hour, and there were so many questions I wanted to ask. I didn't even have time for one, though I thought the other callers asked some good ones.

As Speaker Pelosi was rattling off her talking points, she mentioned that the Senate bill was way different. Of course, we weren't talking about the Senate bill, but I found myself wondering not only what the differences are but how are we, the American people, supposed to know which will pass? And they're so different? Eeek. Methinks its time for a letter-writing campaign.

This is what Speaker Pelosi said:

• Women pay 48% more for healthcare than men do -- the House bill prevents "gender rating"
• The House bill won't allow insurance companies to deny you coverage or charge you more just because you have the "pre-existing condition" of pregnancy, a C-section or domestic violence.
• 79% of women with individual policies currently have no maternity coverage
• The public option in the House bill (there is no public option in the Senate bill) would offer income assistance to anyone making up to 400 times the federal poverty level, or roughly $80k. Insurance would be required.
• The House bill requires:
• • No dropping of coverage if you get sick
  • No co-pays for preventative or wellness visits
  • No need to change doctors or (if you like your old plan) insurance plans
  • Yearly caps on what the consumer would pay out-of-pocket
  • No yearly or lifetime caps on what the insurance company will pay for healthcare
  • No pre-existing condition refusal to pay
  • Americans must get insurance and companies must pay for insurance.
  • You can choose your insurance out of a pool in which insurance companies and the public option compete.
  • The public options allows Americans sick of insurance companies a Medicare-like plan.
• This whole thing won't add to the deficit because the public option won't require advertising, etc. and will be just like Medicare with 85% of premiums going to pay for healthcare. (WTF? I like this bill, but that is crazy talk.)

I found myself wondering if the public option would have better technology and friendlier civil servants than other government services (cough, DMV), but I do believe we need a public option. My comment on BlogHer:

I know I personally have had a hard time getting a handle on the talking points and what they mean to both me and to the larger American populace. I know what would be best for me, but I'm also worried about what would be best for others -- particularly those whose very life or death or quality of life hangs in the balance when it comes to healthcare coverage. I personally feel health and medicine can't be a for-profit business and operate ethically for any period of time. Our current state of affairs evidences that every day. I'm not sure this bill will fix things, but I want to learn more.

Some more information and questions rolled in after the call, including comments about Massachusetts' attempt at public healthcare, Medicaid, disability and C-sections. Click here to sign a petition from MomsRising and contact your elected officials.

If you have opinions, pro or con the House bill, feel free to discuss in the comments and send me the posts you've written on the matter. Be aware I only tolerate civil disagreement and won't allow mudslinging on this blog.

The Many Flavors of Dementia

This week I got the chance to have dinner with my aunt, who has been diagnosed with Pick's Disease. Pick's Disease involves memory loss and is a form of dementia. In my aunt's case, it has severely deteriorated her ability to communicate. It was hard to see this happen to the only woman in the world who could talk more than her sister, my mother. Never in my life has my aunt been so silent. I've been putting off thinking about it, but this week's visit made it an impossible subject to avoid.

I had also put off reading about Pick's:

What is the prognosis?

The outcome for people with FTD is poor.  The disease progresses steadily and often rapidly, ranging from less than 2 years in some individuals to more than 10 years in others.  Eventually some individuals with FTD will need 24-hour care and monitoring at home or in an institutionalized care setting. 

It's different from Alzheimer's, from which my paternal grandmother died, but also? It's not that different.

Currently, there is no cure for Alzheimer's. But drug and non-drug treatments may help with both cognitive and behavioral symptoms.

For many years I've worried my father will develop Alzheimer's like his mother did. Now I'm worried my mother will develop Pick's like her sister. And so, after dinner with my aunt, uncle, cousin, his wife, and my parents, my parents and I went home and found Beloved (who had to miss dinner due to Somebody Little's hunger and exhaustion on a weeknight), and I relived the entire aftermath of my grandmother's ten-year struggle with the disease that killed her in 1998.

I drank too much, and I cried for two hours.

I remembered Grandpa making long lists of what Grandma had done that day and what she needed to do. I remember him feeding her, getting her dressed, and eventually checking her into the rest home where she lived for her last few years.

I remember her eyes lighting up when she saw me, smiling at me. My own eyelids are starting to droop, and I would hate that if they didn't look just like hers.

I remember her eyes growing frustrated, then confused, then angry, then vacant.

On Tuesday night, my aunt's eyes were confused and frustrated.

In the midst of my blubbering, I told my parents that if one of them developed a neurological condition, then the other had to immediately develop their own kin's version so I could stick them out in the front lawn and they could wander around together, forgetting what trees are. Then I wouldn't have to watch one of them watch the other fade away. I wouldn't have to watch one of them struggle to comfort the other, forget the other, lash out at the other. I wouldn't have to be reminded by the one who was fine that the other was SO NOT FINE. So I could know they were at least fading off into that dark night together. I think it would be easier for me.

I know if it does happen, it won't happen that way.

It may be that neither of them will develop either Pick's or Alzheimer's or anything else, and they'll be considerate and get hit by a bus at the exact same time at the ripe old age of 85 (which I think is the perfect life length).

After I made this request, they laughed and agreed that yes, that would be easier, and then Ma handed me a Kleenex.

I woke up Wednesday morning with a physical and emotional hangover, and this week has been a long exhausting stretch of avoiding my worries. I know there is nothing good to come of worrying.

It was good to see my aunt. It was good to hug her and tell her how much I love her. I'm glad I got the chance.

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I've reviewed Rachael Brownell's memoir of her first year of sobriety at Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews! I also just put up a contest to win onesies and flannel shirts for the bebes.

Helping My Body Acclimate to the HEAT

After an extended and pleasant spring, Kansas City has morphed overnight into the Amazon region. We were out of town over the weekend in a cooler locale, and I woke this morning to windows covered in condensation. Petunia Cookie Dough was very upset that her view of the ground squirrels was blocked.

When I got in my car in the garage, the temperature read 81 degrees. As I drove toward work, I swore the Power & Light District is now the center of the sun. By the time I hit downtown, the temperature had climbed to 89 degrees. At 8:45 a.m.

Fuck.

I'm not a heat-hater. I prefer to be hot over cold. If you want to make me miserable, put me on an elevated platform during an ice storm. I'll be uncomfortable during a 110-degree heat index with 88% humidity, but it won't make me hate life nearly as much as an ice storm.

The problem right now is that I'm not acclimated at all. So, I looked up the fastest way to fix it.  According to the American Council on Exercise:

The best method for acclimating to the heat is to exercise aerobically in a hot environment. For safety reasons, the initial exercise bouts may last as little as 10-15 minutes. Over time, however, as individuals acclimate to the physiological demands placed on them by heat, they can gradually increase the length of time that they exercise to 20-60 minutes per session.

So! I'm going to go for a walk! Over lunch! In extreme heat!

Don't worry -- I'm taking lots of water and don't plan to go far.  Also -- we have showers at work, so my co-workers will be spared the stench of my acclimating self all afternoon.

Let's see how fast I can acclimate. It's supposed to be in the high 90s all week.
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I've been forgetting to tell you when I post on BlogHer, so here's a link to all my latest.

I Want My Mommy

I went to my new doctor today. As he was drawing blood and talking about whether or not I was going to have another baby (no), I mentioned I was a little worried about my hearing. Pa is sporting hearing aids these days, but we've known he can't hear for a while. Blondie can't hear over the ear whooshing in her head, so I'm accustomed to being surrounded by people who SPEAK LOUDLY AND ENUNCIATE.

Still, I've noticed I'm suffering in a cube farm at work. For some reason the ambient noise blowers have shut off in the past two weeks -- could the recession have killed ambient noise machines? -- and so now the din of cubicle life has crescendoed to previously unheard levels.  At about the same time that I'm trying to edit a whole bunch of stuff in a very short period of time. And maybe listen in on a bunch of conference calls with 15 people from four countries all talking at the same time. Normally I'm accustomed to the various accents and don't have too much trouble, but lately they all blur together unless I'm at home with the volume sort of jacked up. It's not that I can't hear them; I just can't always tell what what the hell they are saying. It all sounds like "rutabega, rutabega, cucumber, what the fuck."

So, I mentioned it to my new doctor. He had the nurse bring in an audiometer that had last been calibrated in 1979, according to the sticker on the machine. She gave me a hearing test. I came in enough under normal the doc said I should probably go get tested with a full-blown hearing thingamajiggie. I called Blondie, and she said they'd test me and tell me I couldn't hear as well as I used to and then charge me $1,000.

And then some other annoying stuff happened at work, and then as I was hurrying home and stuck in traffic I remembered OH, YEAH, MY CAT DIED and we have to take the little angel in to have a 3.5-year-old tube yanked from her eardrum with no anesthesia in two weeks, so soon after she had her five-year shots in both arms and both legs and I had to hold her while she screamed, "No, Mommy, don't let her hurt me!" and then my head exploded and I called my parents.

I haven't called my parents to vent about nonspecific stuff in a while. Usually I unleash that on Beloved. But I cried on Beloved the other day, and last night I couldn't sleep and basically kicked him in the head all night (totally unintentionally) and apparently stole all his pillows, and all I can remember is that I was having a dream in which people were forcing me to eat hard-boiled eggs with the shells on and wash them down with saline solution, and the combination was making me so totally ill I could die. I didn't truly fall asleep until the alarm went off at 6 a.m. because I thought I was going to get up and work out this morning, but the alarm had the effect of narcotics on my exhausted system, and I passed out like a ten-day drunk for the last hour of my night's sleep.

"But Rita," said Pa on the phone. "I thought this was the woman who saw the glass half-full."

Editor's Note: Sometimes I really hate having my blog quoted back to me.

"I KNOW," I wailed, while at a complete dead stop on I-70, a highway with a speed limit of 65.  "But that was before EVERYTHING HAPPENED AT ONCE."

And he sort of understood. It has been one intense week.

So then I snurkled a while longer. Ma got on the phone, in from making her hamburgers, and poor kittied me a while, even though I know it was dinner time, and you do not call your parents during dinner -- Good Lord, everyone knows that.

So it turns out I need some sort of hearing test that I probably shouldn't spend the money on, considering I can pretty much hear just fine. Pa recommended a noise-blocking phone headset (I am waiting for Seismic Pirate to mention Bose here) to get me through "the next few decades, before it gets really bad."

And I think maybe another thing I'm really upset about is my former eating disorder. This new doctor: He's very kind. He spent an hour with me. I know, crazy. And I was very honest about my medical history. When I told him I needed the Rx refill because I have anxiety that had once blown up into an eating disorder, he looked genuinely distraught.  "I'm so sorry," he said.

About 15 more minutes into the conversation, he looked at my weight on the chart. (A number that was a wee bit high for my taste.) And he asked if that was a steady number. And I said something about it fluctuating five pounds or so, depending on the time of the month. He looked at me with big basset-hound eyes and said, "You know, only one in five patients fully recovers from an eating disorder. You're very lucky."

And I forgave him for his pro-life signs tacked all over the waiting room, especially today after the whole fucking Kansas/George Tiller killing. I forgave him for making me wait thirty minutes when I was totally late and overwhelmed at work and pissed at my insurance company for making me go through a new doctor thing. I forgave him for his 30-year-old audiometer. I wanted to hug him for understanding how big a deal it was for me to get over that, how important it is to me to stay mentally sound so I don't model bad behavior for the little angel, how scared I am she'll inherit whatever marker makes humans hate themselves so much they starve themselves half to death.

As I drove to work, late, stressed, I thought it might actually be nice not to be able to hear the caucophony of the world. How much I prefer the written word in terms of communication. I'm not in danger of going deaf anytime soon -- at least I sincerely doubt it -- but I guess the one half-full thing I thought today was that at least if I went deaf I could still write, whereas if I went blind I would have to learn Braille, and boy, that would be a bit inconvenient.

And so goes my internal monologue on this Monday.

This Is What's Wrong with Insurance Companies

Not five minutes after I finished my happiness post yesterday, irony struck. My primary care doctor's office called to say he wouldn't refill my antidepressant because I hadn't been seen in the office since 2007. I reminded them of the spider bite and the cold in 2008, but apparently they'd forgotten about those.

They told me they wanted me to come in for a full physical and blood work, but oh, they don't take my insurance anymore. And so they could give me 14 days to find someone knew to manage my medication.

And then I said something like, "You know, it's not wise to tell someone on anxiety medication they have two weeks to find a new doctor during allergy season or they'll have to quit their meds cold turkey." BECAUSE IT MAKES PEOPLE ANXIOUS.

Ahem.

Then she said, "But the prescription ran out in January. Didn't you go off it then?" But no! I didn't! Because every month since January the pharmacy has called your office and you've refilled it! But of course you have no record of that!

I hung up and reflected for ten minutes on the stupidity of modern medicine.

I figured the doctor thing would work out, though, because I now live in the land of hospitals on every corner. First, I tried to sign on to my insurance company's web site.  I got an error message saying something about a system failure.

Then I called the number on the back of the card. After a five-minute phone tree, a guy gave me three doctors' numbers.

• Doctor 1 -- No new patients
• Doctor 2 -- This was a hospice number. They only treat the terminally ill.
• Doctor 3 -- Only treating allergy patients right now

I called back, went through the phone tree again. This time I got five numbers, just to be safe.

• Doctor 4 -- Disconnected number
• Doctor 5 -- Disconnected number
• Doctor 6 -- Accepting new patients and held open two appointments a week for new patients -- would I like to come in on Monday? Yes, yes I would!

So, that only took two hours out of my day.
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Would a new DustBuster comfort you in times of medical ridiculousness? Check out Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!

The Pursuit of Happiness

Yesterday longtime reader Dawna commented:

You guys look HAPPY. Not just Smile for the Camera happy, but Life is Good happy.

It meant a lot, and it also made me realize how different my outlook on life is now than it was in the past.

Growing up, I was something of a pessimist (or as I termed it, a "realist"). I had high hopes for other people, but I was pretty sure things wouldn't work out for me. I constantly prepared myself for the worst-case scenario, from losing all my writing to losing my parents or my pets or my friends. In Chicago, I carried all my favorite things around in a Franklin Planner just in case my apartment was robbed while I was at work.

Beloved is a take-it-in-stride sort of guy, and I railed against that for years, convinced he really didn't understand the problem or he wouldn't be able to dismiss it so. Um, yeah. He totally understood the problems, only he wasn't blowing them completely out of proportion like I was. It wasn't uncommon in that period of time for Steph or Blondie to say "you're catastrophising again." But! Somebody had to!

I battled depression while in the grip of my eating disorder in my late teens and early twenties, and after the little angel was born, I experienced a really bad bout of anxiety. I'd spend three hours a day crying and thinking through new strategies for how to deal with nonexistent or trivial problems instead of powering forward in a way that might actually help.

Since then, I've read books on happiness, learned it's possible to readjust your happiness setpoint, seen therapists, took medicine, and had long talks with my husband about my worries. We abandoned parent points and started spending each day dwelling on what we wanted to do and what went right instead of chores and drudgery and losses. I told Cagey the other day that nothing in my life has changed except the way I look at it, and it's true.

Most days, it's working. Despite the loss of Bella and a really hard week at work last week and all the rejection I'm getting from my lit agent search, I'm content. Things that would've driven me to the deck sobbing two years ago are easier to push aside. I'm learning to deal with problems by thinking about what would make me feel better, whether it's talking with a friend or adopting a new cat or watching my daughter's ballet class.

Focusing on what would make me feel better and not what is making me feel bad is helpful and obvious, and I wish I could get back all those years I didn't know how to do it. But if I hadn't had them, I wouldn't appreciate the difference now.

I'm not saying my life is sunlight and roses all the time. It's the same as it always was. There are still unexpected bills and laundry and aches and pains. I am now choosing to give them the absolute minimum focus necessary to address the issues before moving on to something more enjoyable. I'm also forcing myself not to anticipate problems. (As much as is possible for me.)

I'm trying not to beat my head against the wall anymore. It works so much better to just walk around it.

Mother's Day Mental Health Support

Katherine Stone approached me a few weeks ago and asked me to write an open letter to new moms regarding mental health as part of her Mother's Day Rally for Moms' Mental Health. I thought back over my mental health during the first few months of the little angel's life, and lo, it was ripe with fodder.

The ride home from the hospital. Surrender, Dorothy.

Katherine will be posting our letters once an hour all 24 hours of Mother's Day on Postpartum Progress, which is a blog dedicated to perinatal and anxiety disorders.

I have no idea when mine will go up, but I'll let you know when I have a permanent link. I know it's sort of a downer subject for Mother's Day, but postpartum anxiety and depression are extremely common and often dismissed as "just hormones." I can't handle that.

Paging Dr. Arens: The Tale of the Octoponies

Previously on Paging Dr. Arens:

Nurse Ski Bear couldn't answer her page because she was attending to one of the octoponies.

Unknown to Dr. Arens, Dr. Miffy has been up to more possibly unethical medical antics.

Dr. Miffy transplanted eight embryos into Katie the Horse, even though Katie has been living in Dr. Arens' closet for two years now with no means of visible support.

Katie was annoyed that during her pregnancy, people often told her she looked "as big as a human."

All of the embryos developed to be full ponies, though they are very, very small ponies.  Except for, um, one of them.

The smallest octopony weighed only as much as Thumbelina.

The octopony mother thinks she looks like a major movie star...

Horsejelina Jolie.

Dr. Arens has brought Dr. Miffy under ethical review, while Dr. Miffy attempts to keep a low profile.

"Who me?  I love babies.  I didn't even remember that the octomom already had six other ponies."

"All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life. I love my children."

Dr. Arens calls bullshit.

***  Editor's Note:  We here in the Arens household believe in infertility treatments as a general rule. The producer of Paging Dr. Arens thinks, however, that the octomom took an unnecessary risk considering her current financial situation and family size. ***

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Read my post on moms and anger at BlogHer and win Momnesia, by Shannon Payette Seip & Adrienne Hedger, on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!