Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

August 5^th, 2017

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance was like a shooting star, by the time you saw her, marveled at her beauty, and made a wish, she was already gone.  For the 17 days that I knew I carried her, I loved her and was honored to know her, even if most days I didn’t believe she was there.

I have spoken publicly about my miscarriage of her on Facebook, but I wanted to put something more permanent down on paper.  The date of my last missed period was April 21, although I did have some bleeding for a few days in June.  Dr. Hirsh, my OB/GYN believed that her conception date was in June.  Dr. Brown and the ER told us Sarah had stopped growing at 7 weeks, so his date didn’t line up with the June date.  Jay and I believe that she was conceived May 5^th, so she was a Beltane baby, which would have made her about 8 ½ weeks old when I miscarried her. 

The night of her conception was a lovely night.  I had started working on uploading my book that day, and was feeling fine.  My periods have been coming more regular, since I cut mom out of my life last year, and so I wondered if I might be fertile.  I kind of counted days and guessed.  Hey it was Beltane, time for love, sex and fertility, right. 

That month I began to develop breathing problems in my left lung.  It hurt when I laid down at night, I could feel something kind of squeak in my lungs, each breath felt like a rubber band was around me.  And I was exhausted, more tired than I had ever been in my entire life.  We hoped at first that it would just go away.  I was facing my own imposed deadline of trying to be finished with the book by the first of June.  I was tired but other than that I felt good, happy, and my negative thoughts seemed to have stopped.  I missed my period in May, but I thought nothing about it.  This often happens when I am under good or bad stress, no big deal right.  The doctors had told me it would take a team to get me pregnant, and 14 years of unprotected sex, had yet to yield anything. 

My breathing problems continued, as well as pain in my heart.  Of course being a big woman I am always fearful.  After about 6 to 8 weeks of this exhaustion and breathing problems I decided to risk going to the doctor, and being told it was nothing.  My regular doctor was out, so I saw a friend of his, who spent I think a sum total of 3 min with me.  Blood work, ex-rays, and a urine test later, with no pregnancy chaser (cause I told them I could not get pregnant, I wish now I had, or they had at least asked why), and no answers.  They gave me a steroid and an antibiotic, and no explanation to my problem.  Two weeks later I came back, with the same problem.  I saw my regular PCP and he said, “Well your heart is a little enlarged.  I’d like to get you in for an echo, and a CAT-scan right now.”  That was Friday night, Father’s day weekend.  Again I was asked, “Are you pregnant?”  I glared at him and told him, “No way.”  Again I regret that I didn’t say, “Why the fuck not,” and have the damn test.  Maybe she wouldn’t be dead; I’ll never know.

I did not want the cost of going in the hospital.  So we made appointments to see a cardiologist for later in the week.  When I was asked what I wanted to do I said, “I want to talk to Jay.”  So I went to his office.  He said, “You’re going.”  So we went and spent 24 lovely hours there.  For the CAT-scan they tried to put an IV, so they could give me contrast.  I blew all 7 times they tried, had a panic attack in the middle, and finally they had to do it without it.  Nothing there.  I had an Echo.  It took a month for the results to come back and be relayed to me, it was fine.  Blood work all normal, and no they didn’t do a pregnancy test, even though I asked for one.  So Saturday morning the doctor comes in and says, “Well we don’t see anything on the CAT- Scan, your blood work is fine, you’re heart is not enlarged, and since your EKG was okay we think your Echo will be too.  We don’t know what’s wrong with you.” 

Here I was in the same place, in the same hospital, with the same people I was 10 years before, when I had been given the same diagnoses.  I had pain, and no one knew why, or really honestly didn’t seem to care.  I was fucking livid!  And I told him about having been checked in to the hospital all those years ago, about my excruciating pain, and that the doctors said, “Oh it is your hiatal hernia causing you hip pain, and pain in your vagina.”  (I was later diagnosed with IC and pelvic girdle dysfunction.)  This doctor upon hearing this said, “I would see a GI doctor.  It might be your hernia.”  I was so fucking mad, I damn near threw him out of my room.  I turned away from him, he got the idea and left.  I was so mad I ripped off the heart monitor!  Jay had gone to get breakfast for himself.  I was so mad I had to throw something!  So I stripped my bed, his bed, dirty towels and put everything in the hamper.  I packed my stuff, and just waited. 

Bobby Joe and Amy, cousins who are more like an Aunt and Uncle to me, came in about that time to see me, brought me coffee, and I just cried in Amy’s arms and feel apart.  Here I had spent all this money I didn’t have, to be told, once again, that there was nothing wrong with me.  I asked the Doctor, “Is it psychosomatic?”  He said no.  I had explained to him that being a crazy, fat woman in the South doctors don’t take me seriously.  He had no explanations for my breathing problems, and seemed honestly like I was just another number and he didn’t care. 

We left there and went to Wal-Mart.  Tired of being asked if I was pregnant I bought a test.  I thought, it was be negative, so I bought a cheap one.  They are always negative, so why waste the money.  Jay and I have this system where I pee on the stick and then give it to him.  He doesn’t tell me anything unless it is positive.  But this day he was at work when I took it. 

I took the test and when the results came back positive I said, “I can’t be pregnant.  I don’t get pregnant!”  I called Jay and said, “Hey hunny.  I just took the test and there is a plus sign.  I’m not sure what to do.  Is that good thing?”  He confirmed that it was, and I could hear joy and shock in his voice.

We were both in shock and hesitant to believe it.  We had been through fertility medicine, and when that failed I was told, “Go home and lose a hundred pounds and it might happen.”  We gave up hope and have learned to be contented living without children.  Several of my childhood friends are now grandparents.

We were in shock and tried to not be too happy, because we knew it could be a false positive.  We found an OB/GYN who took high risk clients and when I talked to them on the phone they said we did not need a blood test to confirm.   We told a few friends and family.  We had to wait until Jay’s next pay check to afford the $100 co-pay to see the doctor.  So in the mean time, I read my cards again, and they confirmed it.  The Sun card came up again, just as it had in my reading a few months ago.  I called Mother Mari and asked her to do a reading to confirm my pregnancy.  She read my runes and she was told I was carrying a girl.  I knew that already, but didn’t tell her.  I had asked the sex of the child to my runes, and been told it was a girl too.  So we named her Sarah Ophelia.  What we had always wanted to name her.

I started a group of letters to her, and wrote often.  I fed her regularly, with the best food I knew to give her.  We even began to read to her.  And I rested, which I hated because I had so much to do.  I had cramps most of the time I was pregnant with her, on my right side. 

Some days I believed it, and some days I didn’t. It was too much for me to comprehend.  Even now it seems like it was all a mistake or a dream, but knowing an impossible thing is possible, I think changes you.  I thought of her often and then would forget I was pregnant and go back to what I was trying to do.  I worried constantly how we would feed and clothe her, afford to by her school supplies.  I began to read books on pregnancy, and went to the Thrifty Peanut to buy a few. 

Sunday we took Precious for Swimmy day at the lake.  It started bleeding Monday.  With IC there are times when you can have an irritant and bleed from your bladder, in fact most of the time I have microscopic blood in my urine.  I thought I am just having a flare, but by Tuesday I was passing small clots.  I believed it was coming from my bladder but by Tuesday night I could not tell where it was coming from.  Wednesday was the big day.  Jay took the morning off work to take me to the OB/GYN.  They took me in for an ultra sound, and I informed them I was having an IC flare and was bleeding.  They had never heard of IC.  They could not find her with the belly monitor, so they had to do a vaginal ultra sound.  Now under ideal conditions this is fairly painful for me because of my IC, but I was in so much pain that I was screaming, and biting my hand, and Jay’s hand to keep from screaming more.  I just wanted it over with.  They never could get good pictures.  I think because I was jumping around too much.  Finally the tech stopped and said, “I don’t know what to do.  This should not hurt her like this.”  When I got off the table I nearly collapsed, but stopped myself.  In pain Jay and I hobbled to the bathroom to put on some clean panties and a fresh kotex.  I think I was miscarrying at this point, and that is why I was in so much pain.  My cervix somehow did not seem right, like it was not as strong as it usually was.  I’ve just looked it up, and I wonder if I was already in early labor at that point.

We went in to visit with Dr. Hirsh, and she confirmed that I was in fact pregnant.  I cried I was so happy.  I showed her my period dates and she believed that the baby was about 4 weeks.  She wanted me to come back in two weeks and we would do blood tests and all that good stuff.  She was great and I really liked her.  I hope to see her again at least as an GYN.

On the way home, we called the family and told them we were confirmed.  We asked Kenny and Lucy to be Godparents, and they agreed.  I was so happy.  It was a wonderful few hours.  Jay dropped me at home.  There was a lot of blood and I was passing bigger clots.  We didn’t know what was going on.  He looked and said it was coming out of both.  He went back to work and I tried to rest, but I had problems.  I felt like I was having a period, with cramps that went down into my legs.  I had trouble sitting on my pelvis, so I laid down.  I just could not get comfortable, so I ended up laying on a pallet on the floor.  I called Pam and talked to her about 5 and told her I was in a lot of pain, and I just wanted someone to talk to.  We chatted for a while and then I called Lucy, and we began to plan my baby shower.  I told her I wanted to do it around Halloween, “A boo for the Boo,” was going to be our theme.  We talked about my pain and my bleeding and they both soothed my fears that spotting was normal in the first trimester. 

Jay came home and from then till about sunset it seemed to just get worse.  I just could not get comfortable, I could not stand, or walk without pain.  Finally I ended up leaning.  I keep going back and forth to the bathroom thinking I had to poop, but nothing came out.  And there was just so much blood.  I finally was in so much pain that I made him call my urologist and then the OB/GYN’s office.  They both said to take me to the hospital.  At one point I remember backing myself into the corner, because of the look on Jay’s face.  I started crying saying, “I’m sorry.  It will go away.  There is nothing wrong with me.”  I was terrified of another hospital bill and that I was miscarrying.  He called the boys at the fire station. 

The ambulance came down the road, and out of it came our friend Paul.  I cried, that it was him.  He is such a good man, and damn good nurse.  Before he even opened the back door of the truck, I was handing him my paperwork with my meds on it, driver’s license, and insurance card.  Jay was running around behind me packing my bag, tending to the kids, and putting Star and Henry away.  The pain I had been feeling at that time seemed to be coming in waves and intensifying.  At no time, during my entire hospital stay was I told I was in labor and having labor pains.  Even when I asked the nurse again as we were leaving the ER, “Why am I in pain?!”  I was told they did not know.  I had to go and talk to two nurses after words who confirmed that yes sometimes women who miscarry, do so with labor pains.  My pain was coming every 10 min or so.  Just this intense wave of pain, then me screaming, and finally it would subside, long enough for me to feel okay again, and then it started all over again.

I arrived at the hospital screaming my head off.  Once in the ER room the stupid doctor comes up during a contraction and asks, “How are you doing?  Are you on any meds?”  Paul had already given the nurse my list with meds on it and all my info.  I was in no capacity to talk and very pissed off at that point.  I finally was able to say to him, “She has the list.”  And at last the nurse confirmed to him that she had a list of all my medications.  Jay arrived about that time and I am not sure about what happened in the next little bit.  I was given a total of 8mg of Morphine.  That shit is awesome.  Makes you feel warm and fuzzy and forget your problems.  Gods no wonder it is so addictive, and it works almost instantly. 

I was sent for another ultrasound with much bickering.  I told him I had already had one today.  He told me he had no access to those records, which is a lie because it was all done at the same hospital, just a different branch, and all of their records are tied in together by computer.  Thankful this time I was high and it didn’t hurt that bad.  My tech said, “They couldn’t get clear pictures?”  When I told him no he stifled a laugh.  I asked him what he saw, and he answered, “The doctor will have to tell you.”

Dr. Brown came in about midnight to tell me that, “You have a UTI and you are miscarrying.  Your baby stopped growing at about 7 weeks and there is no heartbeat.”

I said, “So she’s dead.”

“There is no heartbeat.”

I asked if I would have to have an abortion, and he told me, “No, you should pass it in the next day or so.  You won’t even know.  It’s just a little clump of cells.” 

I asked him, “So I killed her, because I didn’t believe I was pregnant.  My negative energy, and somehow my body killed her, with too much worry, too much stress.”

He just looked at me confused, and then at Jay who told me, “No you didn’t kill her.”

I was loaded up with antibiotic and sent home.  It least the UTI explained why I was peeing blood.  We stopped to fill our prescriptions and have a snack.  We got home about 2 in the morning.  Jay left for work a few hours later, but came home early to be with me.  That morning I passed something that was about 6 inches long, and my pain stopped not long after that.  In it I could recognize an umbilical cord and a tiny little right leg, and the rest I couldn’t.  It was a mash of cells.  I know y’all think I am gross for reaching my hand in the toilet to retrieve it.  But I could not stand the idea of my daughter’s finally resting place being my septic tank.  I wrapped what I found up in tissue, and gave Jay a chance to look at her.  Then I wrapped her in pink tuile, circled her with dried flowers and herbs just as I had so many fur babies before her, folded it all up and tied it with a black ribbon. I rocked her for a few minutes, sang to her, and cried.  Holding her felt no different to me then holding any other child.  And I knew in that moment that I really have been a mother for more years then I care to count.  She was just a different species.  And her life was no more and no less important than my other children.  Jay and I walked out to our little grove and buried her in Holda’s Well.  The same place we had buried Punka so many years before. 

I’ve spent the last three weeks or so resting.  The first week I bled so much I didn’t know I had that much blood in me.  I made calls to my PCP and OB/GYN who were sad to hear that I had lost the baby, but unless I was soaking a pad an hour that I didn’t have to come in.  I have not seen a doctor since I was in the ER.  It took a week for all the pain to go away and two for all the blood to stop.

I have been exhausted, board out of my mind and frustrated for the last few weeks, until this week when I have finally be able to work a normal schedule.  You clean up after the dogs, wash clothes, write, do dishes, repeat.  My breathing has returned to normal, and after talking with a nurse friend of mine, she believed that it was related to the pregnancy.  That the baby was putting such strain on me that it was aggravating my asthma. 

I have been very open about the miscarriage and losing Sarah.  I posted on Facebook the morning after, and received wonderful comments, messages, and phone calls.  I think this honestly helped me get through this.  I was struck by the number of women who opened up and told me about their similar experiences.  Making those phone calls to Beau, and my family were some of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  It reminded me of when Momma Muriel died. 

Friday I posted to my yarn group and told them they had all asked what they could do for me, I said I need hugs.  Our attendance had been low lately being that its summer, so I asked if they would all please come to our regular meeting.  And several of them made a point to show.  It was very healing for me to sit with them and talk about all of this, and to listen to them tell their stories of losing their own babies.

I called a cousin who had been through a similar experience.  She had delivered an 8 month old stillborn.  She was told she could never have children.  She has PCOS to, and erratic periods so she thought nothing of missing them for so long.  She had no symptoms of pregancy.  She told me point blank, “I went to a dark place after my child died.  I will not let that happen to you.  So if you need to call me and cry and scream, I am here for you.”  I think we spent an hour talking on the phone, and it was wonderful. 

Jay has been wonderful through this all.  He has been my rock through both hospital visits, and the grieving process.  I have yet to see him cry though and that worries me.  I think he has just not been doing it in front of me.  I am continually asking him, “How are you doing with all this?” and he says, “Good baby.”  He told me in the ER that night, “I don’t care if we lose the baby.  I just can’t lose you.”  I told him, “I’m not going anywhere.” 

The other day when I cleaned her grave and showed him, he got a little teared up and sad.  I think now that I am better, he might be able to process all this a little more.  That is her grave on the picture above, circled in white quartz stones. 

The cards tell me that another child is imminent, and I hope so.  At least now we know it is possible, something we didn’t know before.  So I am taking my prenatal vitamins, and doing deep breathing exercises to try to keep my root and sacral chakras open and cleared.  Preparing to become a vessel for the next child.  I told Jay last night, that maybe Sarah came to open the door and clean me out physical, emotionally and spiritual, to prepare me for the next time she tries to come into our world.  Jay thought it was good that I could look at it like this.  I saw my councilor on Monday, and shocked as she was about all this news she said, “Ilsa you realize that if this had happened a year ago, you would have been a basket case.”  I agreed.  My life is in order now.  I am who and where and what I want to be in this life.  It took a long time, and as hokey as it sounds, I think I am ready now. 

Ilsa

Surrounded by love

Surrounded by love

Written March 28^th, 2017

I’m sitting in the truck outside of Jay’s office, waiting on him.  It’s a warm and beautiful spring day.  The sun is warm, but it’s not too hot.  I’m wearing one of my favorite dresses and new shade of lipstick that Jay helped me pick out last night on our date.

Driving here a minute ago, I was just enraptured by the idea that I am surrounded by love.  People who truly love me and want what is best for me.  I feel happy and damn near joyful, strong and almost indomitable.

More of my mother’s indiscretions have come to light.  For several weeks I have been heart sick and damn near heartbroken over all this news.  But all her indiscretions, and to what depths they go I am still not sure, have confirmed some things to me.  Despite the fact that my mother clothed me, fed me, and gave me medical attention and affection when it suited her.  My mother has a heart of stone, and it seems always has.  The term, “love is for suckers,” seems to sum up her ideology best I think.  But I now know it wasn’t just me.  I am not her only victim. 

Most of my life I have abused by her emotionally, mentally, and sometimes verbally.  She truly is a narcissist, and when you peel back the layers is hollow inside, despite what you might see.  When you look in her eyes there is an emptiness that goes down to her soul. 

But I am not here to talk about her psychology or her diagnoses.

I want to say this, in finding out that her abuse and use of me was just a continuation of her pattern, and I am not the only one, has made me feel, strange as it sounds, worthy of love.  I have in the last few days been able to truly feel Jay’s love and marvel in my own strength.  I look at him and when he says, “I love you,” for the first time I truly, to my bright orange toenail polish believe him.  I don’t feel he is just saying it and has an ulterior motive.  Not that he ever did mind you, but years under my mother’s rule, makes you question ever word that people utter, ever look they cast, and every thought that goes unsaid.  You are constantly trying to decide who is playing you, and who is not. 

I have in the past few days truly felt that I was loveable, and worthy of love.  That people truly wanted me around and I was not just to be tolerated.  In a way the world feels like a friend again.  I am surrounded by the love of my husband, my children, my grove, and the family I am piecing back together for myself.  And it feels at time almost overwhelming.

I read my cards the other night and they were beautiful, wonderful, and full of prosperity.  After so much tragedy it is almost scary to believe good will come my way.  I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall.  You know culture of poverty her people.  I told Jay the other day, “Tragedy I take in stride, happiness I have to handle in increments.”

I keep hearing my heart say, “It wasn’t just me.  I’m not the bad one here.”  Yes I am flawed.  Yes I am broken.  Yes I am human and imperfect, but maybe, just maybe I am not the monster here.

Ilsa

A Goodbye of Sorts

December 30^th, 2016

This is my 101^st post.  Wow!  I can’t believe it, and in a way it is the end of this blog.  Oh sure I will post when the fancy strikes, or when I need to say something important, but for now I think this blog has worked it’s magic. 

Those of you who have been following along have no doubt noticed that I have only posted a few articles this year.  There is a reason for that, I have been working on my first novel and completed it in November.  We are now in the editing phase and I hope to self publish by this summer, Goddess willing.  Of course I will post when it is available.  It is called, “We are all a little broken.”  It is a really good book about two women’s struggle to overcome their abusive past and find their voice with the help of a loving family, as they come to terms with what their mother has done to them.  It is set here in Northwest Louisiana.  I think you will enjoy it.  I hope to start major work on the next book next week. 

As for me and Jay, we are well.  Jay is trying to get his sugar under control, it is out of wack again.  I told him I think it is the stress, and hustle and bustle of the holidays.  I think it will calm down after the first of the year.  His sugar had been doing really good, but I think he is frustrated.

Team Ilsa is currently in hiatus, every time I start back up, I get sick.  Team Plaisance never got off the ground.  But I am still busy, cleaning house, and doing my thing. 

Our food trailer, Garson duBayou, is doing great.  We are busy, and making good money.  Working lots of events and I have been helping out a lot.  In September we were in the local food truck rally.  We were ecstatic to take home second place, especially since it was our first year to enter. 

This fall I started putting in applications for work.  I have started with a state program called Louisiana Rehabilitation Services.  They help people who have mental and / or physical disabilities get and keep a job with the accommodations they need.  I have had my orientation, my intake interview, been sent to a specialist, and at the moment I am awaiting to hear back on whether or not they can help me.  I am hopeful, but I still fear that my past will come back to bite me.  We will see. 

In December of last year Juno left us.  She fell in love with a nice man on line and one night he drove down from New York and came to get her.  I have not told you this, because I didn’t know how the situation would end, and if she would come back to Kay.  So we waited.  Juno is happy and has yet to come home.  We wish her the best.  Kay remained in the house and in October we asked her to leave.  She did.  The house that was already falling apart, is now beyond what Jay and I want to deal with and we are in process of tearing it down and turn it into new and better things.  I will let you know how it turns out.

In late September we made the heart breaking decision to put Princess down.  You can read about all that went on here, in Homage to Princess.

In May I made the decision to go “No Communication,” with my mom.  You can read about that here in All her sins laid bare.  It has not been easy, and there are times that I miss her, or the idea of a mother, greatly.  I was not sure what would happen between me and Daddy.  It took seven months before I got a response from him, and it was only to ask for my change of address.  He didn’t want to start back a relationship with me.  On the phone messages he left when he said, he loved me and he wanted to visit with me, it was as if they were after thoughts.  As I always do with these types of major events and decisions in my life, I sought the council of those wiser then myself, as well as searched my own heart.  For what I wanted, and what I needed to do seemed to be a step too big to take.

I know threw now fault of his own, my mother uses my dad like a spy.  He told me so himself.  In those two and a half years that mom and I did not speak, about nine months in Daddy came back into my life.  We would go to dinner, and visit.  Just us two.  Dad told me he had to come home and give mom the report on what I wore, how I looked, how I seemed, what we talked about.  Everything I told him I might as well have been telling her.  I made the heart breaking decision to sever my ties with Daddy, for my own mental health, until she is either dead or he leaves her.  In my letter I spoke to him as if it was the last thing I would ever say to him.  It was one of the toughest things I have ever had to do.  My pain is still great and it is not easy to talk about.  Sometimes what we want is not good for us, and it is best for me to stay away.  Self care is an act of survival, not selfishness.

Your saying to yourself, ‘well maybe he wanted to send you a letter.’ No, it was a tax bill he wanted to send me.  My mother is crazy about mail.  So once I gave him my address, she would have it.  She will hound you with cards, and packages of gifts that you don’t want, and then tell you she has no money for food.  Once you open that flood gate you can’t go back.  We have done this before.  I would tell Dad, “I only want mail from you.”  I would get cards from her.  I would refuse them.  Finally I told him, it’s not your hand writing on the envelope or inside.  So he would address the envelope in a card she had picked out, and then sent from their home, not where he was working.  No thank you.  I have been through this song and dance before.  It is not worth the anxiety every time I go to the mail box.

And then this little tid bit to just make the wound all that much worse.  I was telling this story to a family member, who said, and I will paraphrase here, “Oh I remember when you and your Dad would go to dinner.  Your mom bitched about it the whole time.”  Ouch.  It was not my mom was pissed off my dad was spending $40 bucks to take me to lunch once a week, it was that he was spending time with me.  It was not that they didn’t have money.  I know in those years he paid over $20,000 just in taxes off the money he made.  I didn’t ask for gold, or diamonds, or for him to pay my bills.  I just asked for time.  Time she could not even begrudge me.  Another relationship she is jealous of.  Every time I think she has shown me how black her heart is, she shows her contempt for me all over again.  Is it because I am Beau’s child?  Because I look like him?  Does she remember me before the surgery?  I still have no idea why she wants to do me like this. 

When I think about her I am always reminded of a scene from Ever After.  Cinderella asks her step mother, “Was there ever a moment, even in its smallest, that you loved me?”  The step mother responds, “How can you love a pebble in your shoe?”  Loving her is exhausting and gets me nowhere.  I just end up chasing my tail.  Even a beaten dog, still tries to please it’s owner.  Until the day it finally has enough and turns around and bites the crap out of the one doing the beating.

So 2016 has been a year of change, of emotional growth in leaps and bounds, and of goals accomplished I did not believe were possible.  I hope the next year is just as good, but not so emotionally taxing. 

So this is our goodbye of sorts.  I want to tell all of you that I love you, and send you all bright blessings no matter where you are on this big, round, blue, spinning ball, that is drifting through space.  In the end this blog produced 160,000 words in a year and a half, and laid end to end is over 300 pages long.  I would love to turn it into an auto biography, but who would want to read something so boring and trivial.  “It’ll never play in Peoria,” as they would say in vaudeville. 

But beside what it produced in numbers of words and pages, telling you my story, the whole story and nothing but the truth of my life, created the biggest impact on me and those around me.  It made me give my own thoughts and feelings validation, and I saw so many things from another perspective, and was able to give forgiveness where it was deserved.  It gave me the courage to establish new relationships, try again at others, and let go of several toxic relationships.  I think the biggest person I finally forgave was myself.  I began to see myself as a survivor, a thriver, a writer, a mother, a wife, a daughter to two great men, and an incredible resilient human being who is broken yes, but still has so much to give. 

So from all of us here on my little hill, we wish you a blessed Yule, and a Happy New Year.  Bright blessings to you and those you love,

Our love,

Ilsa

Homage to Princess

November 16, 2016

It seems like she was just here.  Her beds are still here, so are her pictures.  I have video of her, and recordings of her voice.  It has been almost two months since she left us.  Princess Tator  Plaisance crossed threw the veil on September 20^th, 2016.  We were with her ever moment.  She was 12, ancient for a big dog.

I talked about her a bit in Momma Muriel, but now I want to talk about the end.

The last few years of her life were painful, I am sorry to say.  Baby aspirin helped ease the pain, but she had arthritis in her hips as well as hip dysplasia.  I am afraid pain was constant in her life.  In the last year or so, she would bark incessantly.  It wasn’t until the end we understood that she had very little control over her back legs.  She was barking to get our attention. I would go over, pull her a few feet off of her bed, to get her started, and then she would walk and do whatever she wanted.  Starting seemed to have been the hardest thing for her.

I watched helpless as her body failed her in the last few years.  Adding Boudreaux to the pack created an extra annoyance she didn’t need.  He was always biting at her to try to get her to play, wanting to run and romp, occasionally she has the energy to play back, but not often.  I would watch with great sorrow, pity, and compassion as she tried to lower her back just a few inches to get in and out of the dog door.  The last few months she would sit, stick her head out, and cry or bark.

We knew for a long time that this was her long goodbye.  I wanted to put her down a year ago.   She told me again and again that she wanted to go home.  She would sit at Prince’s grave.  She missed her pack, her friends.  Jay would not have it.  He wanted her to make it one more summer so we could take her to the lake. 

Princess loved to swim.  So much so we have kept a small swimming pool full for her, for many, many years.  I have seen her in that thing, when there was ½ inch of ice on it.  For the last 3 or 4 years we have taken her to the dog swimming area at Cypress Black Bayou Park, at least one day a year.  This special day is known as “swimmy day.”  It includes not only a lovely car ride, but a picnic as well.  We have in the past had burgers, fried chicken, but this year it was Chinese food. 

We all ate, then swam, and had the most lovely time.  Princess liked the shallow water.  Precious, who also loves the water and enjoys swimmy day, loves the deep.  So we try to find a happy balance sitting in the mud, where Princess could lay down if she wanted and then Precious, with her little Doxie legs could swim between me and Jay.  She likes to do laps. The sun was warm that day and the water was perfect.  It was a wonderful time, and when it came time to go Princess did not want to leave.  I know she knew it was her last swimmy day. 

Then Jay got sick, and in the hospital her cried and told me he wanted to put Princess down.  He wanted her to make it to Christmas.  I knew she had barely made it to swimmy day.  I talked him into a few days after Thanksgiving.  She didn’t make it.

Thankful Jay came back from a festival in September with a little money.  We were able to put some aside in case of emergency.  As always the emergency came. 

I came home from Druid one Saturday and she could not walk.  She could walk when I left.  Princess had suddenly become downed.  She could not walk.  She could not potty by herself.  We knew it was time.  She did not want to live like this. 

We feared we would not be able to put her down humanely.  That we would have to shoot her in the head.  We could not do that, not after all the years of service she had given us.  She was after all our baby.  We had raised her since she was 8 weeks old.  We had just enough money in the savings to take her to the dr.  We called for an appointment, on Tuesday afternoon.  Jay hoped that work would let him off so he could be there.  We were so happy they did.

So for two days we dug her grave.  Princess supervised the whole thing, lying in the dirt we were digging up.  Now in Louisiana, unless you have a large piece of machinery, digging is not easy.  First you have to get through the roots in the ground, this requires reciprocating saws and hedge trimmer, which are often so tangled you have to use a spoon and a brush to dig out a root just to cut it.  Then a layer of sand and finally clay, and once you hit it, the dig is over. 

Jay and I worked on it together for a long time Sunday, and when we went to bring Princess in the house, she did not want to go.  She fought us and tried to head to the truck.  She wanted it over with.  We had talked to her at length about what was going to happen to her, and how she wanted things.  But she was still pissed that it was not yet time.

The rest of the day was just for her.  She had so many experiences.  We took so many pictures, and tried to lay with her as much as possible.  We took her to Nana’s to say goodbye.  Drove into the Dairy Queen got her an ice cream cone.  We drove past Cross Lake at which she cried and wanted desperately to get out and go swim.  There was no place for us to do that for her, and in the condition she was in it would have been too hard to get her down into the swim area at Black Bayou.  So we gave her one last swim in her pool. 

Monday I lay on my belly and dug the rest of her grave.  Sophia and Boudreaux even helped.  I had to yell at Boudreaux to get out of the hole so I could work.  He just thought I was digging a nice whole to lay in.  It was very macabre.  That night she had a steak dinner with sweet potato, and a candle lit bath with her daddy.  She went to the Gods clean, full, and happy.

Princess who had been mad at us Sunday, was damn near despondent by Tuesday.  But when daddy came home and said, “Let’s go.”  You have never seen a girl so happy.  She was finally going home.  Daddy Jay had smoked her a pork bone and she got to lick on it on her way to the vet’s office.  The only time I saw her nervous was when she was in there.  She was shaking but happy.  They gave her a sedative, and then once she was asleep the pink juice.  We all wept. 

I had been strong the whole time, a cry here, a cry there.  I knew what had to be done.  I could fall apart later.  When I got in the truck I screamed and cried, till there was nothing left.  At the base of her grave is a quilt that Jay and I had made long ago.  It had been part of her bed, and now was so tore up it was beyond use.  Her pink pillow to lay her head on, her bone, and several chocolate chip cookies to take give to Heimdall on her journey over the bridge.  She is covered in the blanket that I made for her this spring.  I made is specifically for when she would pass over.

The last year or so it became a thing with us.  We would tell her to get in her bed, and then Jay or I would cover her up with whatever blanket she wanted.  She had two.  The one I had made, which is buried with her, and one made for me as a baby, which I kept.  I can’t even look at that blanket now without crying.

It is rare that we have had to put a child down because of age.  Punka, and now Princess.  We have cried ourselves silly.  We came home and howled for her.  I even recorded her barking, but it drives the kids nuts.  My pack did what they were supposed to do the night she died.  They barked, cried, and howled for her, even Boudreaux.  We woke up out of a dead sleep about 3 in the morning to the most blood curdling sound we had ever heard.  It was Boudreaux howling for her to come back to the pack.  He woke me the next morning and said, “I don’t think she’s coming back.”  We had to explain to him again about death. 

I cried and wailed for her for days.  I still have yet to put her picture on the ancestor altar, even though her collar is there.  My house seems bigger with her gone, bigger and emptier.  This little tiny soul, who had no idea she was so big, no idea why people were afraid of her.  I miss having to go get her out of the back bathroom when it thunders, or when Jay turns on the compressor, all things she was afraid of.  I miss covering her up at night.  I miss calling to her when I clean the pool out, that it is time for a swim.  I miss her funny face, and they way she would boof at me to do something, like I was not worth the whole bark.  I miss the way she rolled in the grass, and made these wonderful noises.  In a million ways every day I miss her. 

No words can sooth a mother’s heart who has lost a child, human or otherwise.  In my moments sometimes I forget.  Last night I though, where is she?  I haven’t seen her in a bit.  I waited a while to write this to you because I wanted to be able to get all the way through it, without breaking down.  I know she had a good life with us.  I know I was a good mother to her.  I know now she is safe, and happy, and no longer hurting.  She was a gift, and we are all richer for her having shared her life with us.  Rest well little one, rest well.

Ilsa

Beautiful little moments

It is the evening of August 13, 2016, and Jay’s birthday.  I am watching him cooking in the kitchen, a beautiful little moment for us.  A sight I feared for many days, might never happen again.  It’s been a hell of a two weeks. 

The trouble started about 3 weeks ago.  Jay woke up with what looked like a fire ant bite with and a nasty red ring around it.  We now believe it was a spider bite.  The bite hurt him.  We popped it a few times over the next few days, and the pain would ease.  When he had MERCER a few years ago, (The Girls) he had a similar pimple on his arm, but no red ring. 

Jay is a medical assistant (MA) and works in a medical office.  He saw the nurse practitioner that is there at the clinic.  Both feared it might be MERCER again and he was prescribed a sulfur based antibiotic called Bactrim.  Jay took it for a week as prescribed.  The bite did not get worse, but Jay developed a fever and did not feel well.  He was tired and weak.  He had trouble getting threw a full day of work, and came home early several times that week.  I knew something was wrong.  It was not like Jay, and he should not have a fever if on antibiotics, or at least as I understood it.

I took Jay to the doctor that Friday the 5^th.  The doctors were baffled and it took them a while to figure out what was going on.  Jay’s blood pressure was in the tank.  His top number was in the 90’s, where it was usually in between 120 and 140.  He’d lost 20 pounds in two months, his sugar was over 300, and his platelets were extremely low.  We had been unable to see our regular physician, Dr. Warren, so we saw one of his buddies in the clinic.  Within a few minutes, He called Dr. Warren, and the two begin to consult, then they called in a hematologist (blood Dr).  We had no idea what was going on.  After back and forth of about 3 hours, and multiple viles of blood, Jay was admitted to the hospital.  Their guess, the antibiotics were doing this to him.

Jay would spend the next 3 nights in the hospital.  Now Jay never lets me stay overnight.  I hate it, but there is little I can do.  He is just too damn stubborn, and what’s worse, he is right.  He needs to rest, and being there will only make me worry more.  I need a mental break, and to take care of things here on the farm.  I came home and fell apart that first night.  I began to be terrified he would die while I was not there.  I begged Holda, if you take him, just let me be there when it happens.  I truly did not know if I would ever see alive again. 

That first night in the hospital, Jay’s blood pressure got to 68/41.  He was given steroids to make him better, and it worked.  He improved and his platelets came up, but the steroids kept his sugar high.  He was diagnosed with ITP (Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura) an auto immune disease.  We were given no more information on it, then a small piece of paper with the word on it. 

Sunday afternoon, as I sat waiting for Jay to be released, we talked with the hematologist.  I mentioned to him, how red Jay was in the face, how flushed.  I said, “He only gets this way when he drinks.”  We knew he was allergic to the sulfites in wine and beer.  He used to be able to drink 3 or so beers and then turn red.  Now he does good if he can drink a half a beer.  As we talked, the Dr. began to believe, that the sulfur in the Bactrim, had done this to Jay.  That if he was not allergic to sulfur based medications, he was at least sensitive to them, and that sensitivity had at least caused this adverse reaction.  It was advised he not take sulfur based medications again.  A phone call to Jay’s mom, reviled that Jay’s grandfather PawPaw, was also allergic to sulfur based medications.  Maybe it’s a genetic thing, I am not sure.

The Dr. sent us home with a prescription for steroids, to finish up his course of treatment.  Jay was advised to not go to work for a few days.  So he rested and I tended him.  He just seemed to still be so very weak.  Little things like taking a bath, exhausted him and made him dizzy. 

He tried to go back to work on Thursday the 11^th, but his boss sent him home a few hours later.  She called the house to tell me she was sending him home, and she wanted to make sure he had made it here.  She thought he needed to see the Dr. immediately.  At the office they had tested his sugar and it was very high.  His blood pressure was 81 / over a bottom they could not hear.  We called Dr. Warren’s nurse, who advised, with a blood pressure that low, that we should go back to the hospital.  We transported Jay by ambulance, so he would be seen quicker.  I followed behind.

The ER took forever!  His blood pressure was in the mid 90’s, lower when he slept, his sugar was still high, and his fever was back.  They knew they wanted to admit him at noon, but did not find him a room until about 6.  We asked for a tray.  He is diabetic and he had not eaten since 6:30 that morning.  They did not feed him until he got in his room.  He went 12 hours without eating!!  I was soundly pissed!  Jay took it all in stride.  We were told, “Oh we ordered it, Oh we will look into it.  We have a lot of people today.”  Nothing. 

This time Jay’s platelets were good.  They admitted him for what they called dehydration and acute kidney failure.  We were told nothing else.  But we were told he would not need dialysis or a transplant, you know after I asked.  Dr.’s you understand are too busy to give us mere mortals any scraps of knowledge or information, we are left to figure all this out by ourselves.  Google really is our own friend.  Well except Dr. Warren.  He really is awesome!  He always takes his time with us, listens to us, and helps us understand what is going on.  We could not figure out why Jay was dehydrated though.  He was drinking lots of water, I made sure of it, and peeing copious amounts.  How was it possible he was so dehydrated, he was in kidney failure?

After a conversation with a friend, who works at an animal clinic of all places, she helped me understand.  The sulfur meds and steroids had damaged Jay’s kidneys.  He was drinking enough, but his kidneys could not process the liquids fast enough, and the meds were ridding his body of them too quickly.  The fever was because his body was working so hard, to try to compensate.  Jay and I talked and I told him to ask his Dr’s whether or not he should be taken off some of his meds.  We had begun to believe that because Jay had lost so much weight, his blood pressure was actually normal and the meds he was on were making them too low.  The Dr. agreed and took him off almost all his meds, and he has begun to feel much better. 

Yesterday, he looked better than he had in what seemed like forever.  When I picked him up from the hospital today, he wanted to drive, he wanted to go visit with him mom, and finally he wanted to go grocery shopping.  I was really shocked to see him have so much energy!  Then he made most of dinner.  He hadn’t done that much, in what feels like weeks!

In all this fear and anguish Jay has given me some of the most beautiful moments.  He has been a diabetic for more years then we can remember (at least 5 or so).  He has been treated with Metformin, and then a few months ago they added Invocana.  We think the Invocana helped him to lose the weight, and had a hand in the putting him in the hospital the second time.

When Jay was first diagnosed as a diabetic I tried to educate myself about all this disease, to teach him.  I told him I would go on the diabetic diet with him.  I begged and pleaded with him to check his sugar.  And Gods and Jay forgive me, even making fun of him in front of the doctors and others when they asked if he checked his sugar, trying to rattle him, or shame him into doing it.  Nothing.  For years nothing.

It’s no secret that Jay and I love food.  We own a food truck for Gods’ sake.  But even as a diabetic, having diabetics in his family, his father having kidney disease, and Momma Muriel from complications due to diabetes, Jay refused to check his sugar, or eat as he should.  Now he has never been a sweet eater, but he loves rice, gravy, and sweet tea.  When we went to see Dr. Warren’s partner, he prescribed Jay injectable insulin, and I think it kind of scared him. 

Jay came home from the first hospital stay, talking about carbs, something he NEVER did.  I even went so far as to go to library and check out a book on diabetes.  I even began to measure out our food. 

This trip in the hospital he was visited by a nutritionist.  They chatted for a long time. I was not there.  Later that day he told me he wanted to start eating better and to start walking.  I played the role of supportive wife.  I told him I would help him, do anything for him, and when I had a moment alone to myself teared up, and gave thanks to the Gods that he finally wanted to change.  That he had finally seen the light, moments I had dreamed of, dared to hope for so long ago, were finally coming true. 

As we sat at his mom’s this afternoon we talked of what to make for dinner.  He told me he wanted to go to the grocery to pick up more things for tonight, but that he wanted to take his time.  I had an idea what he meant.  In the grocery store, here was my beautiful, stubborn, incredible, husband, flipping over packages, and making choices of products based on carbs, and how many starches he could have in a meal. 

I did really good, and kept my composure.  I did not push, I let him, be him, and tried very hard not to cry at the miracle happening before me.  He got it!  After all these years, it took him getting this sick to finally get it.  I am still too stunned to understand it all.  Overwhelmed, tired, confused, ever grateful, and praying that this bubble will not burst. 

I think we just went from #Team Ilsa, to #Team Plaisance.

 

 

Control

When I was a young woman, I volunteered with Barbara at the nursing home in Mansfield.  We did manicures on the ladies there once a week.  One visit, one of the nurses brought in a load of towels to be folded.  I along with one of the older ladies helped.  Now everyone has their own way of folding clothes, and I am sure most couples will tell you it might have caused one or two fights when they first got together.  Example, I was taught that you fold the wash clothes in quarters.  As I sat there calmly folding the washcloths at the nursing home, my stack of quartered wash clothes all nice and neat, one of the older ladies on the other side of the table took each of my washcloths and unfolded them so they were in halves.  At first I was really pissed, watching her undo all my work, and then I was kind of well undone myself.  It had never occurred to me, there might be other ways of doing things, not just my way which I considered to be the right way.  Either way the washcloths still got folded.

I am having one of those moments again this weekend.  As I struggle and continue to fight to clean up the massive damage my mother has done to me.  As I continue to seek the real Ilsa, not just the woman / girl/ child who has spent a life time defending and protecting herself.  With ever breath I am trying to learn to be kinder, more thoughtful, more understanding, and to let go my constant ridged need for control.

Pete, my beloved professor of Anthropology, used to say, “There are two kinds of people in the world Ilsa, lumpers and splitters.  You my dear are a lumper.”  To illustrate what I mean, let me tell you about a little test I used to ask of people who worked under me.  I would give them a hand full of writing implements, pens, pencils, markers, sharpies, etc, and tell them to separate them for me.  You can answer it in several ways, some lumped all the pens in one pile, and the pencils in the other.  They were the lumpers.  Some however put the pens together in one pile and then separated them out, into colors or tip types or both.  There were details that were important to them, that were not important to others.  They were the splitters.  They all got sorted, and no pile was worse for the wear.  But it gave me a clue, as to how their minds worked.  To lumpers I gave simple instructions, to splitters I gave more complex instructions. 

It is my job to run the house, and for the last week or so I have been down with another round of bronchitis.  And I have tried this time to be more still and quite with this bout, to let my body heal.  But I still have my issues folks.  I know Jay can run this house, not the way I do, not on the same time table, and sometimes that is difficult for me.  We had a fight the other night, and after it was over I was upset and laying on the bed.  Jay came in and we talked and made up.  He reminded me that he is a different person, and there for is going to do things different then I do.  Heartbreaking, that at 40, sometimes I forget such simple things, that I have to be told these things again and again.

I told you last time we talked that I was reading a good book called, “Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers:  Will I ever be good enough?” by Dr. Karyl McBride.  In it she talks about the engulfing narcissistic mother.  She is the kind that never sees her child and her as different people.  Her child is an extension of herself.  My mother was very much this way with me.  I simply called it smothering.  I have realized as of late, that I think I often act that way towards Jay.  Although I would never degrade him, by saying like so many of my friends do, that their husband is their other child, Jay is my equal, my pal, my partner in crime, but I would never, ever consider him my child.  It has been my realization this week, I often do not see Jay as his own separate person.  I seem him as an extension of myself, and therefore expect him to pick up where I left off, in the same way I would.  As awful as all this sounds, at least I am aware of this horrendousness and I am trying to correct it. 

Jay is not me, and I have to remember that.  He is going to run the house on a different time table then I do.  He is going to start cooking dinner when he gets hungry.  Not when the timer on my tablet says we should.  I try to start cooking dinner at a certain time, so that I can have us in bed at a certain time, to make sure he gets as close to 8 hours of sleep as he can, because he has to go to work the next day.  These are not his major concerns in life.

My days are consumed with his schedule.  Making sure his scrubs and shirts are clean, so that he has multiple choices to pick from for the next day.  I know he like the shirts more than the scrub tops.  Trying to make sure the kitchen is clean enough to cook in for super.  That the sheets are clean, the floors swept, the house smells clean, the poop is picked up, and the animals are tended to.  It is a full time job.  Then I try to take care of me, write, exercise, meditate, and crochet in the spare moments in between, and beat myself up that I don’t have a job that brings in money.  And then trying to hurry up and write us out of poverty.  Hoping my writings will sell, and provide additional income for us.

I’m taking it in fits and spurts y’all, so please forgive me.  I just sat down from cleaning up in the kitchen, and working on dinner, and fussing with Jay over getting things done.  There has to be a learning curve here.  I sit and sit until I can’t do it anymore, and then I get up and start handling things, cause it needs to be handled.  Then I think, I am just helping, not control things, or imparting that he can’t handle things.  Letting go and not handling everything is rough on me.  Then I think, he works, I can’t ask him to do my job too, but then I am beating a dead horse with all this.  Just a note to say, I’m working on it y’all.  It’s harder than it looks. 

Ilsa