Bronchitis

Well hello family, and happy New Year.  This is my first post of the New Year.  It’s January 22, 2016, and I have been down for about 10 days now.  I got, what I hope, is my yearly case of Bronchitis.  I have talked, at nauseam, I am quite sure about my many cases of bronchitis.  Sorry folks, those are just the facts, kind of like my hair is brown, I am married to Jay, and at least once a year, since the age of 6, I get bronchitis.  I have talked to you about this in Blood in the Water, The family secret, and The healing power of music.  

This case we caught early.  I am lucky enough to have a doctor who I can call and say, “I’ve got it again,” and they will call in meds for me.  They have seen me have it enough, and I have had it enough to diagnose myself.  I know what meds work for me and what don’t.  You know you are sick when you WANT to rub Vicks on yourself!

It does not take much for me to get it, and I am always in a preventative phase.  I monitor my allergies and try to take meds if I am sniffling too much or I am congested.  I know that my sinuses dripping on my vocal cords, will cause a sore throat and it is all downhill from there.  I have seen me go to bed fine and wake up with a full blown case of Bronchitis.  It was kind of like that this time.

Jay and I don’t have a lot of money.  There are weeks where I have to ration out the wash powder and the milk.  We get by, and do what we can, where we can.  This year we did not have the $500 to $600, plus the tank rental fee, to fill up the propane tank, that runs both the heater and the stove.  This caused great upset in the family, a few months ago when I first came to understand this, but all is well now.  I am blessed with warm clothes, 2 space heaters, and many blankets.  The children have sweaters and I am always covering them up, checking ears and paws to see if they are cold.  Lots of people have done a lots more with a lot less. 

Every day I worry that I will run out of gas to cook with, but the stove is still going.  Should it run out I have a grill, and a camp stove.  I also could gather fire wood and cook outside.  I am not opposed to such as our ancestors have done that for millennia.  Hell that is still done in many parts of the world today.  Jay promises that he will not let it come to that.  He says when the gas runs out, he will rig up a 5 gallon refillable Propane bottle to our lines, and we will have gas that way.  I trust him, he has not let me down yet.

 Now I am not trying to tell you a sob story to get y’all to set me up a Go Fund me account, or for somebody to lend us the money to fill up the tank.  No even if we borrowed the money, and there is nobody to borrow it from, we, I don’t think, would be able to pay it back.  What a rich person might spend on a dress or shoes, would take us several years to pay back.  Just the facts of the working poor people, I am just trying to tell it like it is.  We will find a solution to our own problems, and I am sure there are layers of lessons the Gods are teaching us here.  I keep thinking of JK Rowling’s writing her first book in the café’s, because she didn’t have any heat either.  Maybe it will help to get my creative juices flowing.

So we have been saving the running of the heater for our freezing nights, and days when I just can’t get warm.  I think it has been on a handful of times since it started getting cold.  Hell we had the AC on Christmas Eve!  We had our first night of freezing the other night, in fear of the pipes freezing, I convinced Jay to turn on the heater, although he said the ones that always freeze are the ones outside.  Pipes were fine the next morning, but we were not.  Both of us woke up with sore throats.  My guess is when we turned on the heater, it blew out all that dust and that’s what did it.  Jay is fine, he is always fine, a day or so later my coughing started. 

I got meds, but still did not feel all that bad, and I went on and did my usual things, just 10 times slower, which is greatly annoying to me.  Despite not feeling that bad, I probably should have gone to bed and stayed there, but guilt eats at me.  I constantly hear the voice of those who said/ say they loved me, now mixed with my own, call me fat, lazy, crazy, and useless in my head.  I know since I don’t “carry my own weight” by bringing home a pay check, I have to work as hard as I can, as much as I can, pushing through pain, depression, and anything else that might try to block what I have to do.  Jay has never, and would never say such things to me, and in truth it has gotten better over the years.  But it still does not seem fair to me, for Jay to work all day long, and have to come home and tend to house, make dinner, and wash clothes.  Yes there are days when I can’t, and I have to ask, but it is not something I like. 

So I get sick and then a few days later Jay starts this project that we have been planning for a while.  We had a hole in our floor in the living room, don’t start me in on why you should never ever buy a trailer.  We decided instead of ripping out all the floor, we would lay ¾” plywood over the top and polyurethane over the top of it.  It looks really nice.  So much better than trying to mop a floor that had broken and missing peal and stick tiles over it.  I have 7 dogs sharing our home and a goat that thinks she’s a dog.  Pee is simply a fact of life in my house people.  You just can’t mop that out of particle board. 

Since Jay and I got together, some 13 years ago now, we will celebrate our 12^th year of marriage in March, Gods willing, I have helped him with every project.  When we built the porch, I helped him carry the 16ft pressure treated posts, learned to use a nail gun, and dug holes (sometimes with a soup spoon) and help add concrete to them.  When we built Bridget’s house, I helped him raise the walls, and then held them in place while he shot it with the nail gun.  Other then paint, which I do mainly by myself, since he hates to paint, I have helped him with every project he has ever done in this house.  From nailing, ripping out floor, putting in pipe, re-running water lines, putting in electricity to somewhere, and cutting insulation. I am a good helper.  I try to think two steps ahead of him, as to what he will need, even if it is just something cold to drink. 

For the first time, this week, I watched him do a project on his own.  I watched him struggle with heavy boards, in and out of the front door.  It broke my heart that all I could do was sit at the kitchen table and watch.  Not make him dinner (although I did help with that one night and spent the next few days in bed after that) not bring him something to drink, nothing, all I could do was watch this beautiful man try to make our lives a little better.  Not only did he do that, but he cooked for me, tended me, and fussed at me to put socks on, go back to bed and encouraged me to sleep all day.  I was overcome with love for him and immense gratitude. 

This has been on my heart for days to write this to you, but I have had no strength to do so.  Finally today the Polyurethane is dry and I have my desk back to write you from.  We have rearranged the living room, now instead of looking at the goat barn, at Kay’s house, and who is coming down the drive.  I am looking down the hill, to Jay’s gun range, what is left of the old circle, and the now blocked path, down to the creek, and the other 11 acres beyond that.  I see lots of trees, some that have fallen down and need to be cut, but Kevin stole our chain saw, you know the one that never did work right.  Joke was on him.  And I see a little Ms. Bridget, who is rubbing her horn on the dead Dog Fennel plants, and standing in the sunshine.  Wonder if this view will inspire me the way the other does.  You know when we first moved out here, we had this area I am looking at, oh about a 40 x 80 section, fenced off for the dogs.  But as those of you who own Dachshunds know, there is no such thing as Dachshund proof fencing.  No matter how we patched or what we did, they kept getting out.  Finally we gave up and just tore it all down. 

I love it here, I never want to leave, my only regret is that I cannot be buried here.  But I promise you I will haunt it!  I just hope it never changes, and remains forested forever with these huge pines and oaks.  Some people look at it and see money and I see an eco-system.

This round of sickness reminded me so much of when I had bronchitis right before I graduated High School, which I talked about in The healing power of music.  I have been working on a project where I was taking all my old CD’s, copying onto my computer, and then transferring them to my tablet and / or Jay’s phone.  Apparently I have 16 Jimmy Buffet albums.  For days, this is all I could do.  It brought back lots of memories.  I cried when I heard Keith Whitley sing, thinking of how we lost him too soon.  I still remember where I was when I heard he was dead.  For some of my generation they lamented the loss of Kurt Cobain, for me it was Keith Whitley.

When I got to some of my country classics and my soul music, I thought about my Dad.  When I would get sick, I would sleep on the couch, with my little vaporizer and Mom would tend me.  Dad would come in drunk as Cooter Brown, and he would teach me about music.  He would play Tanya Tuckers TNT album.  The album folded out and on the inside was this picture of her in bright red body suit.  Then he would pull out his Barbara Mandrel albums.  Mom despised her, something about she was in a car wreck and sued the family of the man who hit her, even though he died and she was rich.  Then Dad would pick up his Barbara Streisand albums and look at them longingly.  He would say, “I love her, but I hate her politics.”  She is a liberal Democrat, Daddy is a died in the wool conservative Republican.   He would inevitable put the record down and not play it.  He would talk about The Temps and The Tops and said he used to argue with Uncle Andy over who was better.  He taught me to love soul music and really all music, no matter the ethnicity. 

My mom loves music too, but with her it was only Rock and Roll and Pop; Elton John, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Wings, Joe Stampley and The Uniques, and James Taylor.  I had to fight her to able to listen to country music.  “Why do you want to listen to people sing threw their nose?!”  she would say.  We would be riding along in the car and she would ask me who was playing.  Then she would snap her fingers and say, “You ought to know it when it starts!”  But with Dad, he taught me, the world was my musical oyster.

Something else has happened in the last few weeks that I want to share with you.  A friend of mine in middle school I have talked in Friends, named Stacy, lost her baby brother Sammy to suicide. Now those of you who are following along, know I have struggled with suicidal tendencies throughout my life.  But the shock of what this has done to someone so dear to me, and her family, has made me see what damage I would do to my family should I chose to do this.  Also watching Jay struggle this week with those heavy boards has made me realize, if I should leave him, there would be no one to help him with projects.  He would have to struggle to tend to this house, this farm, and these kids, by himself.  I just can’t do that to him.  It’s not fair.  I feel this round of Bronchitis might have just cured me of this tendency.

 As much as I hem and I haw that I don’t do enough around this house, cause I can still look around and see cobwebs and a toilet I need to attack with a toothbrush.  I realize this week just how much I do do, that I have always done, and how much more I have started doing since I got on my new meds.  How much I grieved, not being able to type or even having the energy to pick up pen and paper and write to you.  I still have so many stories left to tell you.  I have to tell you about The Brett Incident, and going to USL, and lots of other stories and I have to finish my books.  I really realized this week how much y’all would miss me, and how much I would miss this life.  What the dead always tell me is how much they miss being alive.  How frustrating it would be to me, to be on the other side and not be able to bring Jay a glass of tea when he his hot, or find his hammer when he has lost it again.  How sad indeed. 

Ilsa

 

 

The healing power of music

I believe in the healing and power of music.  In May 1994 I had pneumonia, again.  In the break between finishing my senior finals and graduation, we took a car trip to New Orleans.  It was on the trip I developed one of my many cases of Bronchitis.  In those days having no insurance, I hid what I could from my family.  Not wanting to cause them to spend money on doctors and medicine for me.  I tried to treat it as best I could, but I did not get better.  Finally I was taken to the Dr. where I was diagnosed with Bronchial Pneumonia.  My second case in my young life.  I was sent home with medication and told to rest.

In a week I was no better.  Probable because in my mind being sick does not excuse you from doing things like chores.  I was up folding clothes and tending house instead of being sick in bed.  I was taken back to the Dr. and told my white count was now higher then when I had initially come in.  I was ordered to bed, and so this time I went.  I was ordered to stay in bed or I would not be allowed to walk across the stage at graduation.  I did as I was told.  Few people in my graduating class knew I was high on meds and sick as a dog the night I graduated.  I was so horse I could barely speak.  I went back to bed for another week after that night.

During that week in bed I had a transformative experience.  One morning I was watching TV and Jimmy Buffett was on promoting his new album Fruitcakes. He sang one of the most beautiful songs I had ever heard, Frenchman for the night. It is still my favorite song to this day. In my delirium of that week I kept singing the song to myself over and over again.  Its mellow feel transported me and made me feel better.  I promised myself that when I was better I would buy that album. 

I got a summer job that year and with my first paycheck I brought the album.  I still remember playing the tape in the tape player of my 1973 Mercury Comet.  I have owned that album in three incarnations, as a tape, later as a CD, and now as an MP3.  It is playing as I write this.  This album and that song made me believe in the healing power of music.

Now I had known Jimmy Buffett from his songs Margaretville and Come Monday.  My mom raised me on all the good music of her generation; The Beatles, Joe Stampley and The Uniques, Elton John, John Denver and of course the incomparable James Taylor.  Jimmy was just naturally in the mix somewhere.  I knew Jimmy was considered a one hit wonder.  I had no idea that he had gone underground, built an empire and continued to record and release underground.  Jimmy has more than 20 albums to his name now.  I own a lot of them! Although he’s never had another major commercial hit like Margaretville, he just keeps making music.

Jimmy, like James Taylor and John Denver, was not a made in Hollywood type of singer.  All three are singer, songwriters, and activists that came out of that post hippy era.  I believe Jimmy has lasted because he has something to say and real talent.  Even if he did learn to play to impress girls!  He sure has impressed this one. 

Now I love music and I love to sing.  I’ve always been a singer, but I’ve had a love hate relationship with my voice.  Nothing I love more than putting on Jimmy or James and singing to it.  As a child I sang in the choir.  Now our choir only had 3 in it, and that was on a good day.  I also started singing solos in church.  One of the ladies in our community was a music teacher and a voice coach.  She told my parents I had one of the finest voices she had ever heard.  She said to buy me a keyboard and get me to learn the notes.   But such a thing was out of our price range, so I never learned the notes or to read music.

Now I grew up old church.  We were still on the old circuit rider system, where we only met once a month, on the first Sunday of the month.  We had a part time preacher, and worshiped in a 100 year old, one roomed church with no bathrooms.  We had a his and her bush outside.  Ladies were made to wear skirts or dresses, unless you were post-menopausal and then you could wear dress slacks.  I remember coming in jeans one time and my dad turning me away from the door and telling me to go home and put on at least a skirt. 

Growing up old church meant I was limited in what I was allowed to sing.  We only had an organ.  No other instrument or microphone was allowed.  I don’t even think the pastor had a mic until much later.  No they were good at shouting and the acoustics in that place were pretty good.  You got a good echo ‘cause the ceilings were 20 ft. high. 

Now I grew up in an all white church.  We didn’t turn blacks away.  It was believed they had their churches and this was ours. They just kind of knew not to come, I guess.  I don’t even remember a black person coming to visit till I was older, like in high school or college.  I wanted to bring in taped music and sing to it.  Novelle tells me, “Oh no!  We’re not having that N*&&@# shit in my church.”  I never figured out how having recorded music added up to being black, but it did her head.   We had 11 members in our church, and 7 were in my family.  She was the matriarch and the oldest member so what she said, went. 

The only choice I had was her playing the organ, and she was bad at it.  I was limited to what she could play. She was learning out of necessity as piano and organ players are hard for small churches to find.  Later we had a much better organist and I sang with her a few times.  I was already nervous as hell.  I remember singing my first song and being devastated that no one clapped.  We, I had not realized, were not a clapping church.  I asked later what I had done wrong and why no one clapped.  It was explained to me that my song was an offering to God and they should not clap at an offering.  I don’t know.  I think it’s a stupid idea anyway.  Somebody works hard on a song, you ought to clap. 

I sang a few more times in church, but every time I did I was always corrected later on what I did wrong.  I am still fearful of singing things the wrong way.  I met Mike, who was a music major at the time, and hoped he would teach me to read music.  He ended up trying to teach me music theory instead.  It didn’t work. 

While I was in college at USL I got into singing with the choir.  They had a part where the community at large could join.  We practiced for months on a piece, for a concert at the end of the year.  I missed a few classes, and since they were 2 hours a piece I had to make it up with the professor.  I was terrified.  He was about to learn my secret that I could not read music.  That I sang by ear.  After a few minutes of him trying to tell me to hit a certain note, he closed the piano top.  He said, “I’ve been hearing something wrong coming out of your section for a long time, and I could not figure out who it was.  It’s you.  You have two options at this point.  You can bow out or you can lip sing at our concert.  You can sing, but you shouldn’t.”  I was devastated.  I, as always, was the problem.  I lip sang most of the concert, about half way through I thought, what can he do to me, I’m transferring anyway.  I opened my mouth and sang.  I saw his eyes roll but there was nothing he could do to me. 

I haven’t sung publicly for a long time.  I’ve joined some church choirs over time, but nothing solo.  Sept for one night about 10 years ago, to a room full of family and friends, and I was half drunk at the time. 

I know I feel well when I sing.  When I sing with reckless abandonment I know I feel really good.  Recently I noticed me singing again, and this time there was no pressure from the voice of perfection in my head.  I was just singing the way I wanted to and I was not chastising myself for my imperfections.  Jay even told the other night to stop singing so much ‘cause he could not concentrate.  I lit into him!  Phew on him!  Phew on all of them!  For the first time in a long time I am going to sing and I don’t care what they think.  If my tone deaf husband can sing all the time, so can I. 

Ilsa