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

Saving Myself

Hello my blessed darlings!  I am sending you love and light from here.  I’ve spent the morning reading threw my articles trying to figure out, where I left off with you.  I forget sometimes you are not here with me.  So the small stuff first and then we will have time to talk about my big developments.

Team Ilsa

In May it seems I pulled a muscle in my hip and knee.  We believe that because I pushed myself so hard in the beginning, ignoring the pain, believing it was part of the process from years of not using my muscles, that I did in fact injure myself.  At the urging of Coach Jay, who used to work training football players, I took almost two weeks off and did no floor exercises and walked no farther than the barn.  I was extremely upset at the whole process.  My muscles that had lengthened and relaxed with exercise, contracted again, and caused me pain again when I worked them. 

I have had to start everything back over.  I had to start my floor exercises back at 5, down from 30.  I had days where if I made it to the gravel road, I was doing good.  We have learned that I just cannot push myself that hard.  I cannot walk and do floor exercises on the same day.  So now I am doing my floor exercises 3 days a week and walking the other four.  No matter how upset I am at myself for being fat, I have to let my body rest. All of this is still an adjustment. Just in the last few days I have made it to the first driveway, on the road across from my house. a victory, for me for sure, but a bittersweet one.  My back spasms had started to get bad again, but in the last week or two they have gotten better.  Slowly and surely it is all coming back. 

I am happy to say the new medicine the dr. put me on seems to have stopped most of my swelling, but I still continue with my exercises for fear it will return. 

I finished reading my book on nutrition.  I took many notes and it has helped, so has listening to my own body, and honoring my wants and desires.  The world of fruits and vegetables continues to be exciting one for me.  I am learning to keep certain vegetables on hand.  I have learned what is in season, is usually what is on sale.  I am learning how to freeze what I buy, but also how to incorporate more vegetables in what I cook.  My tastes seem to rotate on what vegetables I want to eat like, for instance, the last two pay checks we have bought cabbage and squash.  I probable will not buy them again this pay check.  I am kind of tired of them. 

We have also learned that a half a cabbage is plenty for us for dinner.  Three squash, sweated down with half and onion is also enough for a side dish.  I usually only want 1 or 2 bok choy and Jay does not like them.  We buy meat in bulk, divide it and freeze it ourselves.  Before we would put 4 pork chops in a container, now 2 is plenty, same with chicken.  So there has been a substantial reduction in the quantity of food we eat, verses what it was a year or even 6 months ago. 

As I have reduced my usage of salt in my diet, I have picked up my love for hot stuff again.  I just can’t get enough heat in my diet.  In the fajitas the other night I sautéed 3 jalapenos and a half a green Serrano in with my onions, garlic, and mushrooms.  Oh it was so good!  I finally got enough heat!  My craving for sugar has been going for some months now, but the other day I went to make myself a bowl of Lucky Charms, and it was just way too sweet for me.  I cannot explain it.  Maybe it is tied to us reducing our salt, maybe it is tied to my emotions.  I am still not sure.

Mom

Those of you who are following along know that I posted my article, All her sins laid bare, in May.  What most of you don’t know is that it had been on my blog almost a month before that.  I waited, kept trying, and finally gave up.  On May 27^th, the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, I sent my mom an intensely private and condemning email.  I have shared it with a few of you privately, but will not print it here.  It was 7 pages and 3,700 or so words.  It was a goodbye letter.  I have finally given up that our relationship will ever get any better.  She will continue to emotionally, mentally, and verbally abuse me, whenever she thinks she can get away with it.  As I did four years ago when she robbed me (My mother - part 2), I am trying to pick up the pieces of my broken heart and go on.

I pray that this time will be different and that I will not go back, no matter how much it pains other family members, or how I feel I am causing them pain, or hurting them.  I for the first time in many years, perhaps my life, am putting my own health and feelings ahead of everybody else.  Something, perhaps some of you will condemn me for.  That is something I will have to learn to live with. 

I have received no contact from her, since I sent the email and posted the link to my article on my Facebook.  The fact that I have blocked her from my Facebook also helps I think.  She has blessedly not responded by letter, phone, carrier pigeon, text, or email to any of this.  And for that I am grateful.  My father, Jef, has at this time remained silent on this subject as well.  I miss him dearly.  I also sent him an email, at the same time I sent mom’s, telling him how sorry I was that I had caused him any pain, and how much I loved him.  Telling him that the last year and a half that I had contact with her was because I loved him so much. 

I have picked up a good book called, “Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers:  Will I ever be good enough?” by Dr. Karyl McBride.  It is a tremendous book.  It is causing me to look at all that was skewed in our relationship.  Why she did the things she did?  How we functioned as a family?  And I think a major cause as to why I have so many mental problems.  I know I am not alone in all this work.  It is my hope by going public with my mother’s abuse and working diligently threw all of this crap, threw all of this dirty laundry, I will in the end save myself.  And by posting this, perhaps it will help you too.

Ilsa

 

 

A year since I found myself

I just wrote down on my to do list, to remember to get out the hot glue gun out, to fix Jay’s headliner in his truck.  The irony of that is I have been staring at that problem for several years.  It’s just in the last few weeks that it has begun to bug me, and I have finally figured out how to fix it, and that is indicative of many things over this last year. 


Today is June 6^th, 2016, and it’s been a year since I started taking Buspar.  It has been perhaps the most incredible year of my life.  I could never have believed life could be this good.  For the first time in many years I feel I have come home to myself again.  Opened to new experiences, and found myself again.  My brain and heart, once dulled by sadness and pain, now seeks out beauty in each day. 

I wanted to write you about all the things that Buspar has allowed me to do, but as I have thought about it over night, I have come to realized, half of what Buspar has done for me, is about what is gone in my life.  Gone is the daily anxiety, the tapes in my head that tell me I am an awful and horrible person, that I will never be good enough, the thoughts of suicide, that all I do will just end in failure.  For the first time, that I can remember, I want to live.  I am eager to greet the dawn of each new day, not angry that I am still alive.  I don’t remember feeling this good, at least, since before Oma died, when I was 7. 

Buspar works a bit like water, it wears away and repairs the bad stuff, drop by drop.  Slowly your eyes begin to open to things around you.  I feel like I have been asleep for at least the last 10 years, if not longer.  My PTSD, from years of abuse, had left my emotions dulled.  I have had to deal with each new intense emotion as they surged in my life.  I cry at the drop of a hat, but I don’t use it like a weapon, like my mom did.  I smile.  I am happy, truly happy with my life.  I fall in love with Mr. Jay, every day all over again.  It’s not that Buspar has given me back my life, it has given me a life I never dreamed possible.

A year ago today, the computer I am typing on, sat in a dusty bag.  The desk it sits on, was covered in junk, and I felt did not belong to me.  The dirty clothes and dirty dishes were more numerous.  My grooming and personal hygiene were subpar.  I was terrified of the next moment, not knowing when I would have a panic attack, or what the cause was.  I was a woman who frequently denied or felt ashamed of her biological genealogy.  I rarely cooked dinner.  I had no energy to exercise, and back spasms ruled my life.  I was blind to the problems in my life, big or small, and had no ability to think up how to fix them.  And I seemed to constantly be seeking out people and animals to save, when the only person I wanted saved was me. 

Today I write you from this computer, no longer dusty, on a desk I now claim as mine, above it a wall of inspiration for both my book and my life.  The dishes and clothes are not piled up.  The floor has been recently swept.  My nails are chipped, but painted, as they are every week.  My grooming and personal hygiene are exemplary.  I am no longer ashamed of my biological genealogy, and in fact I am quite proud of it.  Dinner is already defrosted, and I am thinking of how to cook it, and it’s not even noon yet.  I am looking forward to my evening floor exercises, and my walk in the morning.  Now when I see a project that needs to be fixed, it does not take me long to figure out how to fix it, emotional, mechanical, or otherwise, as if my brain was spinning at a faster rpm.  Drop by drop I am saving myself. 

I find there are not enough hours in a day to listen to all the music, read, clean, or write as much as I want to, but damn it I keep trying. 

In one year, not only have I increased my reading, introduced new music in my life, have a cleaner house, but I think my greatest accomplishment has been my writing.  Since August 2015 I have produced and posted over 95 articles to this blog, and at last count 152,368 words give or take a few.  My book currently has 17 chapters and 82,959 words.  In less than a year I have produced 235,327 words. This does not include plot outline notes, articles that will not be published, interview notes, and notes taken from the self-help books I read.  Not to mention hundreds of hours of research.  It is a staggering amount, even for me.  Saturday, I introduced myself to a new person and told them I was a writer, and for the first time, I didn’t feel like a fraud when I said that. 

When I picked up my pen, proverbially, to begin writing again, and started my blog, I wrote incessantly at first, terrified it was just a side affect of the medication and that all this would go away.  I know now, it is not.  My writing is here to stay. 

I am ever grateful for all Buspar has done from me.  It has given me courage to end relationships, go on without people in my life I thought I could not, start and deepen new relationships.  I can’t wait to see what the next year holds.

Ilsa

 

 

Homage to Latonia Barto

Death comes for us all.  No one is getting out of here alive.  It is inevitable.  How we live between birth and death is what matters, not how it ends.  Every death touches us all.  Each life lost is a detriment to the entire world.  We are all human: gay, straight, cisgenered, transgendered, Muslim, Christian, Pagan, Democrat, Republican, Black, White, Yankee, and Southerner.

I’ve known love, and I’ve known loss.  One thing I know for sure is we all return, whether in animal or human form, or as a single drop of rain.  We as beings, both human and otherwise, seek this life, this existence.  We choose this life. 

The dead tell me what they crave the most is being with the living.  Being with the ones they left behind.  They can do little more than watch.  All life that passes away returns to us, if we are smart enough to see it.  It is a circle, ebbing and flowing without end, endlessly repeating.  It is dizzying, mesmerizing and heart breaking all at once.

My thoughts have turned to death, because earlier this week my beloved friend and spiritual soul sister LaTonia passed threw the veil.  She was a beautiful, kind, loving woman who never believed in limits or labels.  I pray she finds peace and rest on the other side.  For the last 7 years she battled Leiomyosarcoma, or smooth muscle cancer, but she was so much more then cancer.  She was a constant fountain of giving and creating.  She was a talented artist in what ever medium she chose. 

Those of you following along know that I met Melinda in a yarn meeting and that we were part of a group called Chicks-with-Sticks.  I have been into fiber arts since I was 11 and re-learned to crochet at Barbara’s feet.  Oma had taught me when I was little, in fact it is part of my first memory, but I forgot as I got older.  I have continued crocheting most of my life, learning to knit, weave, spin, sew, and tat along the way.  If it has a needle involved I want to learn to do it. 

I met LaTonia many years ago in a Chicks-with-Sticks meeting.  For many years we all coexisted happily together.  When Melinda and I parted company (Billy the Exterminator) I basically left the group.  I did not want to run the chance of seeing Melinda.  I went to one more meeting around Christmas to find out that the lady who ran Chicks-with-Sticks, was leaving.  Her work had changed and she was tired of all of the drama that Melinda and I brought to the group, all though she never put it like that.  It was all implied.  I was ashamed and embarrassed that I had caused so much trouble, so I left and did not come back for many years.

A chance meeting with LaTonia one day at the Pines Road Library brought it all back into perspective.  She threw her arms around me and just held me so tight.  She said, “Where have you been?  I’ve missed you!”  I told her how bad I felt about breaking up the group, and that I didn’t want to run back into Melinda.  She said that there was a new group called “Yarn Play.”  They were meeting at the same time, in the same place, with most of the same people, minus Melinda.  She had not been around in some time.  She invited me back.  I told her I already had Druid on Saturday, but I would try to see if I could balance two meetings at once. 

I did.  I came back and it was like I never left.  I joined my sisters in stitching and bitching ever Saturday.  When I stopped going to Druid after all the problems I had with D&K (Goat Problems) Yarn Play became as close to a coven as I had, for more than a year.  Although almost every woman there was a Christian, they were the women I went to with questions, my hopes, my joys, my fears.  They were my tribe of elders, although many of them were my age or younger.  Since Juno and I patched things up and I went back to my Druid meetings, I am back to balancing both meetings.  Yarn play in the mornings and Druid in the afternoons. 

LaTonia’s health was never far from our minds, especially towards the end.  Once we all got settled with our knitting or crochet projects, and if she was not there, we would ask where she was and how she was fairing.  LaTonia I think often shared with us, and not with many others, at least part of her struggle.  She once told me she stopped telling her extended family what was going on with her medically ‘cause she could not handle the drama.  I think they often saw her as broken and fragile, when she was perfectly capable, she just had cancer.  What stories were shared in Yarn Play I will not print here.  We keep each other’s confidences, and confessions. 

LaTonia continued to create beautiful and inspiring pieces of fiber art, whether in crochet or knit.  I don’t think she knew how to not create.  She made blankets for the Linus Project, hats for the cancer center, creating even when her hands shook. As I began to understand that her time was growing short, I encouraged her to begin looking at her projects still in progress, or “on the needle” as we say, and decide who should finish them and what should happen to them.  Last Saturday I watched as friend bound off a blanket LaTonia had been working on for about a year.  I knew if she had finally given up her projects, she was letting go.  I knew it would not be long.  She died the next day.

In November 2015, I began to write my first real novel, which is at the moment called “The Treehouse.”  LaTonia’s beauty and artistic ability became the inspiration for one of my main characters, who I named Anne.  Her beautiful son Gabe, became the inspiration for Anne’s son, and namesake.  I would call or message her with questions I had, about growing up biracial, Gabe, and motherhood.  We became even closer.  I gave her all that I had written.  One of the great joys of my life came at my 40^th birthday, when she told me she liked what I had written and had made a connection with Anne.  It was the greatest complement she could have ever given me, and I cried.  As LaTonia began to slip from us, I felt as if Anne was dying as well.  Since her death, it has taken me some weeks to get back to working on my book. 

I had had a phone conversation with LaTonia about a week before she passed away.  She told me she was not ready, that she wanted to stay.  She fought until the end striving to stay around for her son and her husband.  I asked her one time if she knew how long she had left to live.  She said, “I don’t want to know.”  She believed having an idea of the date of her death, would limit the quality of her life.  Latonia was a woman who always beat the odds.  Most of those diagnosed with her type of cancer live 3 years from time of diagnosis, 5 if you are lucky, she lived 7.  I believe because she attacked the disease both physically, emotionally and spiritually. 

She was a complex woman with a complicated history, just like all of us are.  Her smile, zest for life, optimism, patience, smile, laugh, and encouragement to those around us was infectious.  Her’s was a life lived fearlessly in love and compassion.  We are all the better for having known her. 

Ilsa

Team Ilsa

So it has been almost a month since Oh Goddess here we go again! was written and there have been many little victories and improvements.  I happy to say that many of you have offered not only your good wishes, but your expertise as well.  I am calling this endeavor Team Ilsa.

No I was never able to afford to see the nutritionist.  So I have a friend who I am talking with about my food issues, and nutrition in general.  I checked out a book on nutrition from the library.  Even thought it makes me want to vomit with anxiety every time I look at it.  I am at least trying.  I may only make it through a page or two, at a time, but hey better than nothing right?  Oh it gives me the same anxiety as math does!  I just look at it and go, nope I can’t do it.  I just keep reminding myself, if I can survive 9 hours of French in one summer and leave an abusive marriage, I bet I can do this too.  This shit is real confusing so y’all stay tuned for new developments on that front too.

No, I never was able to go to physical therapy.  That so many of you who have gotten down on the floor to show me exercises that you learned in PT, that have helped you, means the world to me.  Thank you.  Every day I get on the floor and do my back exercises.  And it is the craziest shit y’all, my back and hip hurt less.  My back spasms, that have controlled my life for so long, are down by at least 50%, my general and over all pain is down by 30% or so.  I even think it has helped my IC pain.  I am able to stand for longer periods of time, without having to sit because of a spasm.  Last night I had another little victory, I stood in the kitchen long enough to work on my pork stock, make dinner, make tea, unload and then reload the dishwasher, and dish up dinner.  Yes there was some leaning, but no sitting.  A total of maybe 15 or 20 minutes?  Unthinkable before all this started.  I noticed this morning I am not turning over in my sleep.  I have tossed and turned for years.  I fall asleep on my left side, have for a really long time, last night woke up twice on my right.  Also sleeping more on my back, never been able to do that.  I am standing to do my morning and evening bathroom routine, you know brush your teeth, wash your mask, take your meds, etc.  I had been sitting half way through. 

The exercises are getting better.  At first when I started doing them I screamed, cried and moaned a lot, cause they hurt so incredible bad.  Some of the worst pain I have ever had!!!  Now that is down by 85%.  Mostly now when I get down on the floor to start and when I work my left side.  I started with 1 rep, of 5 (you know 1,2,3,4,5) on each of my exercises, now I am up to almost 5 reps, of 5 (you know 1,2,..25) or hope to be by the end of the week.  I am trying to add 5 a week, to get to my goal of 10 reps (you know 50), which is what the Orthopedist originally prescribed.  Crazy man wants me to do this twice a day!  Well maybe one day, but for the moment I am damn proud to be at 25!  It’s kind of like asking somebody to move a dump load of dirt, and giving them a teaspoon.  Yes it can be done, it is just going to take a long time.  Hey I didn’t get in this condition over night, I ain’t going to get out of it in just a few weeks. 

I started out only being able to raise my left leg, when lying on my right side, about a foot, I am close 90° at this point.  Maybe I will be there next week.  When I do my back relax, it’s the first thing I do (lay on back and put legs in chair, hold for 15 minutes), I put my arms out to the side, slowly they are relaxing.  I didn’t realize how much tension I was carrying in my shoulders and arms.  I wonder if it is the boobs?  At first I could not do this exercise without a pillow under my head, now I don’t need it.  My arms would not go down all the way.  I would stretch out my arms, but could not rest them, palm side down.  I am there now with my left.  My right is better.  I can finally get it to lay almost all the way on the back of my hand, I am close to being able to turn it palm down and leave it there.  As more and more of my arm relaxes I feel different parts of it hit the floor, first my under arms, and now almost all of my fore arm.  Thought I could not get them down ‘cause there was just too much fat, nope, muscles were just to freaking tight. 

My time has gotten better, as far as how long my floor exercises take me.  When I started out it took me about an hour and a half.  I’ve got my time down to about 45 minutes to an hour.  Slowly but surely right?  Turtle won the race.  I was telling Jay yesterday, that I am kind of glad I did not go the PT route and I am doing it at home.  I think they would have pushed me beyond where I was comfortable in the beginning, 5 would not have been enough for them and once I started screaming that would have upset everyone in the building and I would have been embarrassed and not come back.  Or felt I did not please the PT and not come back.

I am also continuing with my walking.  It is helping with the swelling, even though I have had several setbacks for unknown reasons, as far as that is concerned.  Every day I walk at least once, if I do nothing but let the goats out (about 100 steps from house to gate and back) or make a loop around the barn (about 175 steps).  I will measure for you this week.  I got myself a handy app for that.  My goal daily is to walk twice, that has kind of been fucked up this week with all the rain, but I keep out it.  I even went shopping the other day, just so I could walk.  My first goal was to actually get up on gravel road, and make it back without sitting.  I made that within the first few weeks.  My second goal was to make it to the main road, and back without sitting down, about 500 steps, 0.2 miles.  I am happy to say that I made it last night, and again this morning.  I know there will be setbacks.  I know there will be days I am lapping the barn again.  But I have to keep trying, I don’t want the pain back.  My next goal is to walk the end of the dead end road, across the street from me, without stopping.  Maybe even one day run it.  The road is a mile down and a mile back.  And why do we say it that way.  Like it’s going to be a mile down to the end and then 4 miles back.  What, are they physics and geography suddenly going to change?  LOL!

So I am reading about nutrition, doing my exercises, and walking.  I am also experimenting with vegetables.  I am trying to determine what are the most economical vegetables to buy.  This pay check we experimented with collard greens, cabbage, celery, carrots, cilantro, Bok choy, and lemons.  We are trying to not use salt in anything, other than flavor pasta water.  Jay is even trying to limit the amount of season salt he is using.  Bless him!  I love him so!  Season salt to him is like garlic powder, he puts it on just about everything! 

Below is how my vegetable experiments turned out:

• I made collards in the slow cooker, with onion, garlic, and ham hock.  Tiny bit of salt and sugar.  They were really great!  Served with cornbread.  Next time might do hot water cornbread instead, and change ham hock to another kind of meat.  Was not crazy about the smoke flavor with it.
• Draped the seasoned cabbage in bacon and steamed on the stove with some water.  Really good.  No change needed, except perhaps less bacon.
• Jay made a really good sauce, was really like a pesto.  Had the juice of 3 fresh squeezed lemons, cilantro, minced garlic, little lime juice, jalapeno juice, olive oil, basil, and dried oregano mixed in the blender.  Then we marinated chicken breasts in it, and baked at 350°.  Was really good. 
• Shanghai Bok Choy is a really cool vegetable.  We tried at first steaming it in the rice cooker for 45 minutes.  They were still kind of crunchy.  Next marinated it over night in Jay’s left over pesto, then microwaved it for 10 minutes and it was perfect!  One Bok Choy per person.  Jay does not like Bok Choy.  Kind of like greens, lends itself to whatever flavors you give it. 
• Put a bag in the freezer to put all my ends and nibble bits in to make stock.  Used my pork chop bones, ham hock, carrot ends, and onion peels from this week.  Cooked it all day long in the slow cooker.  Added onion powder, black pepper, and garlic powder.  Kind of flat without salt.  Slow cooker did not reduce water in it.  Had to take it out and boil it on the stove to remove half the liquid.  Will do it on the stove next time.  Plan to freeze it in greased muffin tin and then pop out and put in freezer bags.  Need to invest in ice cube trays.

Well so that is kind of where I am at with all this y’all.  Thanks for letting me prattle on.  I just pray to have the strength and desire to keep doing all of this.  It’s an awful lot for me to juggle.  I have no idea if I will, what tomorrow holds, or if this time will be any different than all the other times before.  I have no faith that it will be.  But then again, I felt the same way when I started writing almost a year ago.  I am 350lb, the odds that I can lose 200lb on my own, naturally, with no help of surgery is pretty astronomical.  So I am not being crazy and focusing on that.  I want to ease into this gently and slowly, maybe then it will stay.  I am focusing on not having as much pain.  If I could have less pain, than that would be a victory I would take any day of the week over being skinner.  And that people you can take to the bank.

Ilsa

Oh Goddess here we go again!

I just got off the floor doing exercises and I am just soundly pissed.  Went to pen the goats and Mr. Henry in the rain, and my heart beat is racing.  I hate exercises.  It’s got to go back to the days of mom forcing me to walk.  One day she was going walking with a friend, I told her I would be right there.  I laid on the floor and pretended I tripped and fell, and was unconscious till she got back.  I think she got the point.  She never asked me to go walk with her again.

She was obsessed with her weight and made me weigh everyday for a long time, till I think I finally raised enough hell.  She used to write her weight down on a sheet of paper hanging on the wall above the scale.  Mine was beside her’s.  She always weighed naked too, first thing in the morning.  She would get up at 4 and blaring Gloria Estefan and ride her stationary bike or walk on the treadmill, even at one time bouncing on her little trampoline.  Then of course there was the bar under the door so she could do sit ups.  I think the funniest thing that ever happened, was one time she was doing pushups or leg lifts or something like that on the floor, and the dog came up and humped her arm.    

She was obsessed with her diet too.  She made us all eat wheat germ, she measured her food, and ate off a little plate for years and years.  I would go to school and come home and suddenly be on a slim fast diet when I came home.  Every time ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­she started me on a diet or told me we were going to start exercising.  I always felt inadequate.  Why did she want to change me? Why wasn’t I fine the way I was?  I look back at the pictures now and do not see a fat woman, perhaps a bit chunky, but dear Gods not fat.  Was it her way to control me, to compete with me, or was she trying to set a good example and be concerned about my weight?

At some point I think it all became a revolt.  Not just to her regime, but to her entire way of life.  If this was what it was to be a woman, I didn’t want it.  I didn’t want to cry all the time, manipulate people, be two faced, exercise all the time, and be obsessed with my health and what others ate around me.  But I fear I am repeating myself.  I have talked about this subject at length in both Blood in the Water and Behind a big woman’s eyes.

I have shared on my Facebook, but not recorded it here yet about the health problems I have been having recently.  On the weekend of March 13^th, 2016 was a good one.  It was a payday weekend so Jay and I had been grocery shopping, both Saturday and Sunday.  I am so pleased to say that with the breathing exercises , it has been 6 months since I have had an panic attack strong enough to require a pill.  I can count on my hand the number of times I have even come close in that time frame.  With all that has come to light about my mom in the last few months (All her sins laid bare), my anxiety is almost completely gone, as I begin to understand its true root.  I have been to the new Wal-mart on North Market, twice without the need for Sophia.  In fact I have not needed her assistance in 3 or 4 months.  Just me and Jay, by ourselves going to Sam’s, Wal-Mart, and Brookshire’s, like normal people.  It has been extremely freeing.  I understand now that just because I panicked in a place once, does not necessarily mean I will panic there again.  I am treading carefully, but so far it all seems to be working.

So we are getting in bed Sunday night and I notice that my feet and legs are really swollen and my toes are red, and they hurt.  I thought what the hell is this!  Oh crap I am going to have to go to the Dr.  So I cancel my councilor for the next day and spend all that Monday the 14^th, trying to reach my Dr.  When I do hear from them at 5 they say, “If you are having pain go to the ER.  It may be a blood clot.”  Jay comes home and I tell him the news. 

We go across the street to the fire station and get in the ambulance, because we know we will be seen faster in the ER if I come in this way.  They get me in the back of the ambulance and they go to take my pressure with that little machine they have.  It is so high it won’t register.  I saw it pump up past 252.  I am in agony with this thing around my arm.  I try to be good and not scream.  I grab Jay’s hand to get threw the pain.  It is hurting me so bad I left claw marks and bruises on his hand.  After the 3^rd time of it trying to take my pressure and failing, I tell the EMT.  Please no.  Don’t let it do it again.  At that point he takes it off.  When we finally do get a pressure a few minutes later it is 220/100 or so.  We thought oh this is just a fluke.  Nope!

While I am at the ER it never drops below about 160/90, several times registering over 200.  They do an ultrasound of my legs, no clot!  Thank Holda!  X-ray my knee, cause it has been hurting since I slipped in the bath in December, and do blood work.  Nothing.  Dr. walks in after two hours and goes, “I don’t know what is wrong with you.  All your test are fine.  Follow up with your Primary Care Physician (PCP).”

So I do.  Dr. Warren, pcp, and I have been together lots of years, and I really like him.  He’s good people, as my daddy says.  I go see him that Wednesday the 16^th.  He says, “Ilsa I think your pain level is so high that it has jacked your blood pressure, and that is making you swell.” He puts me on a new blood pressure med with a diuretic in it.  So far it is working.  I had gained almost 10 pounds in just water weight. 

 In December I took a gamble and told him again, for the first time in 8 years, that the pain in my hip never went away.  He believed me and took x-rays of my hip.  He did not see anything.  When I go to see him recently he asks after my hip pain.  I tell him the steroids he gave me last time helped, but we all know we can’t live on steroids forever.  They are bad for your liver and they make you fat.  I tell him, that no, the pain is less now that I am on daily pain meds, but it still flares up.  He takes x-rays of my back, and says, “I don’t think it is your hip.  I think it is your back.  We are going to set you up with an Orthopedist.” 

I went to see the Orthopedist on the 29^th, and he diagnosed me with Pelvic Girdle Dysfunction.  He and I believe the pain is not coming from my hip, but instead from my sacroiliac joint.  An anatomy lesson for a moment, when your spine quits it forms your sacrum, and that is what your pelvis is attached to, at the end of your sacrum is your tailbone.  This sacroiliac joint is where your sacrum and your tailbone attach.  That is where my pain is coming from, for years from the left and now from the right as well, also the pelvic bone in the front, over you bladder and uterus can be infected and inflamed as well.  There seems to be some kind of imbalance there.  It can happen for no reason at all, or after a trauma.  I have no idea what has caused this.  I know a lot of pregnant women get this, and there is little information out there, on those that have it, but have never been pregnant.  We also discussed my weight did not help all this.

I am still working on finding out more about this disease.  The Dr. wanted to send me to Physical Therapy.  The insurance says, no probable.  You are covered.  It’s a $100 per visit.  So if I am to go 3 times a week, it will be $300 a week.  Um, no.  Sorry.  So I am going to have to do the exercises I have in the little book the Orthopedist sent me home with, and whatever information I can find on line. 

And on top of everything else, cause you know the Gods love me so much, I got Pink Eye.  From where and who, I know not.  So I go see Dr. Warren on the 30^th.  He says, blood pressure is a little better, but he wants to up me on meds again.  Warren confirms Pink Eye, and then begins to have the dreaded weight talk with me.  We have been down this road many times before.  I tell him I am walking, in short spurts everyday.  It is one of the few things that helps the pain in my legs.  He tells me to cut out carbs and eat more vegetables.  I tell him I can’t afford vegetables.  I tell him I can’t cut out carbs with a husband who loves rice, gravy, sweet tea, and biscuits, and does not considerate a complete meal without a carb in it!  So poor Dr. Warren is trying to fight poverty and hundreds of years of Southern tradition.  We talk about me seeing a nutritionist.  I am down for that.  Insurance says, sure no probable.  You are covered.  It’s a $100 a visit.  Ugh!  Beat head against the desk!

So it looks like my options are grow my own food, walk, and do floor exercises at home.    We have been here before, and failed many, many times.  I have no idea why this time would be any different.  Just, just when I am getting to a point about changing my relationship with food, they ask me to lose weight again, and all this garbage starts coming up.  I was just beginning to think of food as magic.  And seeing that I am classist when it comes to eating some of the poverty foods that others in the South grew up on, that experts are now saying are so good for us, beans and greens, squash and tomatoes.  Y’all know when I ended up in the hospital (A little crazy, just like me) a week after I saw the nutritionist.  I tried following it for a week, but felt such pressure I believe that is what caused that first major panic attack.  That and it was close to Oma’s death date. 

All of this has happened just as I was having a small miracle in my life occur.  I love sweets, and I am crazy for chocolate.  I have been for years.  But I think I am losing my obsession with it?  I am not sure about all of this myself.  It is too new for me.  The girls in OA used to say that after they had been off of sugar for a while, they were relieved of their sugar cravings.  Not me.  There was never a day that I didn’t crave sugar, even though I had been abstinent from it for almost a year.  It never left me. 

Now I am doing things like sitting on the couch with a bag of carrots, munching my heart out.  Weeks before Dr. Warren told me to lose weight.  When I want crunch and sweet, I am craving apples, not fiddle faddle.  I am even now interested in learning how to cook more fresh vegetables, like greens.  I am serious here people, if you know how to message me.  It’s odd and bizarre to me.  I have changed nothing in my diet to have this occur.  The only thing I can tie this all to is a recurring thought I have had. 

As a child I remember thinking, I need to gain weight so that people will think that I am Daddy (Jef’s) child, to hide and conceal the fact that I was a Smith, that I was really Beau’s child.  In the last few months as I have begun to understand the depths of my mother’s lies and the affect it has had on my psyche.  I have come to believe it is not a bad think to be Beau Smith’s child.  It is nothing I need to conceal, or hide, or fight.  That it is perfectly fine for me to go back to being the thin, athletic, and beautiful girl I was like when I was 6 years old. 

As I have sat with the Smith family over these last few holidays, and I as I plan for more with them, they are not that much different than the Fisher’s.  They love each other, they try to understand and support each other, even if they don’t agree with what the other is doing.  Yes some of them are confused as to who their real dad is.  It doesn’t matter.  They are not the bad, stupid, dirty, disgusting people, I was told they were.  I feel loved and accepted when I am with them, although I am not sure they all understand that I am a witch and democrat.   I am not sure I will tell them, I am terrified they will ask me to leave, but then again I have a lingering suspicion that they might not.  Every time I am with them, just like every time I am with JM, Elisha, and Ashley they heal me.  I come home smiling so much my face hurts. 

I am just not sure of any of this.  It is all still a work in progress.  I will keep y’all up to date.

Ilsa