Etsy as Therapy

Well, yes.  I haven't written in quite a while.  Sadly, the reason is that my headaches have continued to be an issue.  Not only has this meant I haven't been thrifting, it also means I haven't been getting dressed in "real" clothes very often; I spend most days in t shirts and shorts.  I was actually excited to pull together an outfit today and yesterday, but the bedroom is in no shape for me to start taking pictures of myself again.

This does not mean, however, that I have made no purchases at all.  In fact, jewelery has been something that I have purchased a great deal of: With accessories, such as jewelry, you can see it online, judge the length, width, size, etc, and as long as you fit that measurement, you know it will look good!

The most exciting purchase has been my eternity ring, which I got ahead of our 10th Anniversary, which is next month.  I actually received it in April, and DH has received his (a different style) as well.  Unfortunately, he has to resize it (NOT our fault), but it is a lovely ring.  The ring I got was a narrow (2m) rounded yellow gold band, with 15 tiny white sapphires embedded inset into the gold, i.e., not channel set.  I personally am opposed to diamonds, although DH got diamonds (tiny ones, very discrete) in his ring. Anyway, here is mine: 

This ring seems so much prettier to me than the standard diamond channel set ones.   I love it, and I wear it on my ring finger with my wedding ring.   These days, because our anniversary is a month from tomorrow, I have also been wearing the ring DH got me for our 5th anniversary, a blue sapphire in a gold art-deco style setting.

Plus, this ring got me excited about white sapphires. Sapphires are my birthstone, and I know that they come in all colors, but I had never thought of white sapphires as a work around for my dislike for diamonds, which is based on my political beliefs.  And the quality of stones is better, because it is not as expensive a stone in the first place. 

This discovery had me digging around for white sapphire earrings.  My ears are very sensitive, and need good quality earrings in them as "retainers," so when I want to wear a base metal, I can get away with it for a day.  Then I immediately put good earrings back in again.  Well these are my current "retainer earrings," white sapphire studs: 

Now these were more "fine jewelry" purchases, which I admit to wanting because an engagement ring was not financially in the cards when DH and I were engaged.  I am so glad we didn't wait, but if we could have afforded one, I would have liked one.  So this is kind of my overcompensation for that.

Let me recommend Etsy for fine jewelry:  You don't have to pay the retail markup, and even though my ring is "fine jewelry," it cost about half of what it would at a "real" jewelry store.

The rest of my purchases were costume jewelry, including a lot of 50 bracelets I bought from the online shopgoodwill.com site.  That was like having a corner of a Goodwill shop in my home, and I found a lot of vintage, and even a couple of antique bracelets!  One of the antique bracelets I saw online for $125!

Aside from that one foray into the world of mixed lots, there have been many Etsy purchases.  I am Etsy's bitch.  It has almost been like I have been using purchases from Etsy to make me feel better about how lousy I feel so much of the time.  Well, actually, it isn't "like" it; I have definitely been using purchases to cheer me up.

One of Etsy shops that was not only the first store at which I made a purchase, but that I have returned to most often, is Wychbury, which is in the West Midlands of the UK.  I have purchased hair pins, brooches, necklaces, and bracelets, they just seem to feed into my obsessive anglophile-ism.  One recent purchase was called an "herbal tea bracelet."  Of the many things I have purchased from them, this is my very favorite:

 

I also recently replaced a pretty necklace of theirs that I wore to pieces; my original one was more "english garden" themed, but this one is definitely "bluebells:"

 

They also sell hairpins made of vintage fabric and buttons.  Since my migraines have become so incredibly bad, I have had to start relying on hairpins.  Barrettes, or even the weight of my hair pulled back into a pony tail, is enough to give me a "hatband headache," which is lovely melange of both a migraine and tension headache.  Yes, you can have more than one type of headache at once.  Joy.

So I have also been active with a kind of strange charity, April's Army, which is a spin off of the hysterical site, Regretsy.com, which scours Etsy.com to put a spotlight on some of the more questionable merchandise.  One of the advantages of being a member of this charity team is that people often give discounts to other team members for no reason other than to be nice.  One instance of this was in the case of WrensEye.  She had an "Apocalypse Sale" the week of the Apocalypse that wasn't on May 21, and I swooped in and snatched up two items I had been eying covetously, at 50% off!

Coin pearl necklace

Blood drop earrings

Both really pretty.  I wear the coin pearl necklace a lot, it is just very simple and elegant.  And I love the somewhat baroque look, even though they are freshwater pearls.  

The final purchase I am going to show off for now is some more fabric hairpins, that I really love.  They are simple, and come in all different colors.  I got this set, as well as a set in neutral (white, black, brown):

These are made by PaisleyMoon

 Oh! Just one more purchase, a bit of a surprise for DH, in honor of the theme of our wedding, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, as well as the Jabberwock Inn, where we honeymooned, celebrated our first anniversary, and are scheduled to celebrate our 10th!

Alice In Wonderland Light Switch Plate

Now this seems like a ton of stuff, but I have purchased it over the last 4 months, so it isn't as dreadful as it seems.  The big (exciting) expenditure was on my ring. 

The last week has been better than the week before.  If this week is as good or better, I might finally be able to go thrifting for the first time since December!

Pain and Purchases

First, DH's grandmother died yesterday.  He is flying back East for the funeral on Saturday, and will be back Tuesday.  He is not freaking out, but he is more upset than he is letting on.  His dad didn't think we should go, so he decided he is going alone; tickets are so expensive, PLUS all the fees they now have.  He wants to go is to see his grandfather, who is 95.  I never really knew his grandmother, because she already had Alzheimer's when I met her.  So her funeral would be more dutiful than cathartic for me.  

And having been raised Jewish, open caskets freak me out.  Just not a Jewish thing.

In migraine news, I GOT A REFERRAL TO UCSF'S HEADACHE CLINIC!  I had to stop the nortriptyline because of side effects.  They included mental confusion, urinary tract issues, lethargy, poor balance.  And when I went up to a higher dose, my mood was definitely acting up.  I was afraid I was teetering on the edge of a mixed episode.

There may have been just a bit less intensity to the headaches I am getting, but not enough to make the potentially worsening side effects worth it.  After 7 weeks, the side-effects are probably going to last as long as I take it.  I thought I was getting depressed, but now I think it was all Nortriptyline side effects.  

So finally it has come to this:  My neurologist said, "We have a lot of options!"  and immediately suggested Botox  Um, no.  Not under his supervision.  Maybe if UCSF suggests it.  Maybe.  It creeps me out.  Although, the one person I actually have "talked" to about it has loved it, and said it changed her life.  Hmmm.  Blech.

"Well, I've heard fever few an butterbar might help."   Yes, my neurologist thinks I should try herbs.  I asked about acupuncture, and his attitude was, "Sure, try whatever you want, but good luck getting your insurance to pay for it."  We shall see.  I think I am going to go see Angie at Lohaki Acupuncture, even if my insurance won't pay for it; I can start doing that about twice a month.

He also said becoming vegetarian might be a good idea.  I keep saying I want to do that, even if it is just at home.  But it boils down to my being lazy: it seems like all the recipes for main dishes are complex.  And I have trouble gauging how many fruit and vegetables we will eat before they spoil.  Part of the reason for this is that Nortriptyline lethargy has meant I haven't been cooking. At all. We have been grazing, eating cheese, cereal, canned soup, fruit, and too much candy. I keep meaning to learn how to really use beans.  I mean, I use them now and then, but I should soak and freeze batches, or something, they really are so versatile.  And I have a rice cooker, and I love oatmeal.  I guess the first step would be to take stock of which appliances I need, and which I don't, I have way too many cooking appliances.

So anyway, gah.  Oh, and after promising me he would fax the referral to UCSF on  Monday, Dr. Shithead told me it would be out by Friday.  UGH.  I already faxed stuff yesterday (Tuesday), because he TOLD me he was definitely faxing it Monday!  And he had to throw in that he couldn't see what UCSF could do that HE wouldn't already have thought of.  This is the man who does research on Google right in front of me.  I am always far more up to date on migraine treatments than he.  Whatever.  Passive aggressive shmuck.   Seriously, a passive aggressive Dr?  Could there be a worse type of MD to try to develop a relationship with?  And why wouldn't he want me to see a headache specialist after I have been having migraines for over 35 years?  Pussy.

I am his SUPAH DUPAH  NUMBAH ONE migraine patient.  Awesome for a teaching hospital, I am his walking, talking "refractory" specimen.  But he no longer has any idea what to do with me.  And I guess what this is really going to boil down to is poly-pharmacy for my migraines, as well as the BP.  He wouldn't be able to handle a poly-pharmacy approach.

I just have been out of it.  Almost 100% because of the nortriptyline, I am pretty sure.  It takes two weeks for it to be totally out of my system.  

 This is the worst period of migraines I have ever experienced, bar none.  Since last I filled you in, I also tried an stopped using propranolol, because it was clearly working as well as a sugar pill for me.  Next, I tried atenolol, which is in the same class of meds as propranolol (beta blockers), but it gave me a rare side effect: bruxism.  Because of my response to the nortriptyline, other tricyclics are also out of the question.

ANYWAY. I wanted to get back into posting items I bought.  It is an enjoyable pastime for the acquisitive Bipolar part of me, even though this time, it was all full price.  And it gives me something to riff off of, if I am desperate.

First, I was recently pointed towards a website I really like: Dog is Good.  First, I tried their t shirt grab bag: pay $25, and get three random ts. I get a tank top with bling, a light weight logo tshirt, and a tshirt with a logo that actually won a national pet product design contest: KNOW DOG, KNOW JOY, KNOW LOVE.  All very cute, and fun because of the surprise aspect.

Then on FacebookPJs, with a Frenchie on the top, "Le Chien Est Bon."  Very cute.  There is a Frenchie on the top:

There are nice details on it, like ribbon piping around the ankle, from which the hem falls away into a serge stitch hem, so a little ruffling.  And the same with the top.

Now, I really only have a bunch of new costume jewelry to show, but I am a real sucker for costume jewelry.  Unfortunately, one of my favorite necklaces' coating has rubbed off, and now the nickel is exposed to my nickel-allergic skin.

I have a pair of earrings and a necklace that are made by Kerfufle Jewelry, which I bought from one of my favorite little boutiques, Eni-thing, which supports local handmade products.  I bought the earrings first:

It's kind of hard to see, but they are small coin-like hammered metal.  I bought this necklace later:

To be honest, I go back an forth about this pendant.  Sometimes I think it is really cool, other times too garish.  Each strand that goes up to the fastener is different strand one side made of those coin-like beads, as well as a crystal strand.  But it holds up pretty well with a very simple top, because it would be too much for a pattern, imo.

On another visit at Eni-thing, I got a very inexpensive blingy elasticized bracelet.  Very simple but it goes with a lot of things:

Another fun set I collected was the Betsey Johnson French Puppy series.  I got the pendant, both pair of earrings, and best of all, the almost impossible to find charm bracelet:

There are these cute asymmetric dangle earrings, plus there is post version with the same charm: 

I also got a pendant from the same series, but it basically the same Frenchie charm as the earrings, just larger.

I also got some cool t shirts besides those from Dog is Good.  One was from Imogen Heap's Ellipse tour.  Mine actually has a white tree on a white background which is cool up close, but un-photographable, so this is just to give you an idea of the pattern: 

I also bought a cute Honest Kitchen t-shirt.  The Honest Kitchen is the freeze-dried food I feed my Frenchie, Violet.  This one says "Raw + Love = THK:

Wow. Quite a post.  

And none of it that interesting.

Blog fatigue

Hey!  I haven't been around for a while, but there are a few reasons for that.  I have been having horrific headaches, and a couple of mood bobbles and when I have had the energy to blog, I blog on a support site for the crazies.

When I just feel like splatting words onto a page, as a writing exercise, I have been using 750words.com.  A great place to write garbage safely. I still fixate on myself, too much, I need to be more conscious of having an idea or topic upon which to riff.

So with all the writing I was doing here in December, followed by my spreading my writing efforts on other websites, and the headaches, I have been neglecting this blog.

Well, I hope to both get back into the "What I wore," and thrift shop finds. I do believe I haven't shown you some of my final finds before this total collapse of my health.  Not to mention general the discussions about body image and BP illness.  I can sense it will be coming soon....

Sinking feelings

"I was more at the point where I felt like I wanted to be dead, but wasn't thinking about acting on it. I didn't have any plans or desire to do it myself. I just wanted to stop existing."  -Me, February 13, 2011

So I off-handedly shared a major crisis in my life on a thread at Crazyboards Sunday.  It didn't even bother me when I wrote it.  Later, when I went back to the thread, and saw it, it made me do a double take.  So blase, this has happened so many times, I think I know just what to expect.

My stomach dropped at rereading this hubris, this nonchalant dismissal of a time when I longed for death, as just "one of those things."  To be clear, I am NOT longing for death at the moment, exactly the opposite.  I would hardly use a forum to announce my impending suicide where people know me in person, and how to find me,   I may be crazy, but I'm relatively intelligent.

It isn't that I am depressed at this moment.  It is more that I am afraid.  I feel like something may be stirring in Crazyland, but I can't tell for sure.  Is it a bad mood? Might it be a side effect of medication?  Or am I just due for a visit from the Mood Fairy?

Or perhaps my DH deserved to have his head bitten off this afternoon.  Yes, I have snapped at him for the exact behavior before.  But this afternoon I was very assertive about explaining what about a particular behavior bothered me so much.  On the one hand, I interpreted in the most negative way possible.  On the other, he admitted given the language he uses, he can understand how I might come to make that interpretation.

But irritability could be a sign of a mood swing in any direction, regardless of our eventually coming to an understanding.  It's the fact that I initiated the discussion with anger that is different and troubling.

I will never entirely know what to expect.  Bipolar is a difficult disease to treat.  Its patterns change over time, confounding previously accepted truths.  Drugs that work for years poop out, and drugs that don't work can make one even crazier than before taking the medicaton.  I blandly assume that I have learned how to recognize a pattern or rhythm to help me anticipate episodes, to cut them off at the pass, so to speak, before they become too bad.

Then, suddenly, my brain decides it is time to clean house, and throw out all the knowledge, patterns, and tips I have accumulated over time, and make a fresh start.  New types of episodes.  More instability.

I can remember the year to which I so indifferently referred yesterday so distinctly.  I had been laid off, yet was still teaching another semester at that school before I left, so that wasn't fun.  The day I was laid off was also the day I had evacuated a busload of teenagers from the school campus, as wildfires raced towards it.  The next day, I heard about the murder of my friend.  Then came the week+ hospitalization for my kidneys.  Followed by very, very severe depression.    I ended up calling a crisis line for the first time in my life.

The first few psychiatrists gave me medications that either sent me into a manic frenzy, or were toxic to me.  I ran out of money. Next stop, a crash landing in my parents' basement.  I was so ashamed, and my mother made sure I knew she was ashamed of me, too.  Her verbal brutality was just one more thing to hasten my downward spiral.  And the headaches.  Never forget the headaches.

Awful.  I remember thoughts: "It would just be so much easier if I died.  If I just went to sleep and never woke up."  I never acted on it.  I think there was only one time I was ever truly serious about taking action to bring about my own death, and that was a depressive episode that turned into a mixed episode.  But that was several years in the future.  This episode's theme was inertia.  Hunger and inertia.  I ate at night, to avoid my mother.  I lived at night, to avoid my family.  My dog, Bess, would lie next to me on the bed all day as I slept and hid, if I needed her to.  She was my best friend.  I never want to be without a dog if I am depressed again, even with my husband around.  No person near me can understand the place I am living when I am so depressed.  I need a dog to just shower me with love and affection when I am wanting to die, because it is such a simple straight-forward love, it is easy to return.  No baggage.

And there's more.  I have been on a new medication, a type of anti-depressant, a tricyclic. I actually am not taking it for depression, but to treat my intractable migraines.  I was quite excited to try it, it was the first drug of this "class" of medications I had ever tried.  I have basically tried multiple versions of all the other classes that my body will tolerate.   Ironically, I seem to have magically stopped my standard rhythm of migraines 2 out of 3 days as soon as I started the new medication.  Sheer coincidence, it actually still needs time before it will start working.  But it has coincided with a 13 day period when I have only had two bad headaches and a three or four of mild ones.  The first 5 days, I didn't have *any* type of migraine (migraine is a disease, the headache is just the worset symptom of it).  I am still suffering from too many headaches.  But less pain is less pain.

But with this exciting new (to me) class of medication, comes a caveat: While the amount of tricyclic used to prevent migraine is quite small compared to the therapeutic dose necessary to treat depression, as a rule of thumb, anti-depressants + bipolar =  not a good thing.  This is one of those rare instances where I have run out of other options to try to stop headaches that are ruining my quality of life.  We are trying to delicately balance contraindicated treatments, hoping we can find the magic amalgam that will help with my head, but not hurt my mental stability.

So while we wait to see if the tricyclic helps, we also are watching closely for signs that it might be activating my bipolar illness:  That is, triggering a mood swing.  My doctors biggest concerns are that I have any lability of mood at all.  My biggest concern is having a mixed episode:  Mixed episodes are kind of like having a pocket-Hell that you are forced to carry around, and you have to negotiate life and cope with the havoc Hell is creating at the same time.  No one else can see Hell in your pocket, you just seem flat out insane.  Which I am.  And part of that insanity is believing that others intentionally try to do everything they can to provoke Hell into bursting out of my pocket, and breaking things, forcing words that I know are dangerous even as they fly out of my mouth to come pourng out, throwing things, berating myself and my loved ones.  Of course, I understand intellectually I am the one doing those things.  But my intellect is being over-ridden by sick brain.

As a reasult every time I feel a petty thought, or am irritated, or tear up, or get overly excited about things, I begin to worry.

Usually, when I talk about depression, it is something in my past.  My last one was a brief one in 2001.  I almost had forgotten what it felt like. But re-reading the sentence I quoted above makes my stomach clench, makes me hyperventilate, makes me want to cover my head with a pillow.  It made me remember a tiny inkling of what it was like, and now I am scared that the reason I can suddenly so closely identify with that feeling is that I am headed in a bad direction.

Ending 2010: Deflation #reverb10

Well, it is the New Year.  I admittedly threw over the final set of prompts.  I was tired of their sameness, and while self-reflection is good, this exercise was beginning to strike me more as self-absorption.

The year ended with a completely crushing disappointment for me.  Atenolol, the medication to which I switched two weeks ago in my attempt to control my migraines, started causing side effects that were intolerable, and/or precursors of more severe side effects.  I left a message for my neurologist on Friday, Dec. 31, knowing he wasn't expected back in the office until January 4.  I knew I couldn't stop this medication cold turkey without endangering myself, so I thought I would have to wait until Tuesday, and just cope with the side effects, making sure they did not take a turn for the worse.

So I was surprised that he called me at 9:30 PM on New Year's Eve; perhaps he was the Neurologist On-Call for the evening, but he uncharacteristically checked his messages on a Friday.  He told me to titrate of the atenolol.  I already had an appointment scheduled for mid-February, but I said to him I guessed I should reschedule the appointment for an earlier date.  He began to hem and haw a little, and said something like, "I am always glad to see you, we can talk about the frequency of your headaches.   I really think you should go back on Depakote in the fall."  First of all, no.   I will not go back on Depakote, and I have told him that repeatedly.   But his message was clear.  There is nothing else left in his pharmacological arsenal for me to try.

I had thought I was going to try the SSRI Cymbalta, until my psychiatrist nixed it, seemingly out of nowhere.  He is now adamantly opposed to my using it, even though he told me in early May that the dose of Cymbalta used for migraine were so tiny that it would have no activating effect on my mood.  SSRIs are generally no-nos for bipolar people, which was the whole point of that visit, to see if he thought I could handle it.  I have in my notes that he said I could.  He either changed his mind, or forgot, but it made me feel foolish.  I really don't like to give the impression that I am pushing around my doctors (not that it doesn't happen).  But this time I really wasn't, I was suggesting a medication that I have a record of his permitting.

But the long and short of it is, I have reached the end of the medication merry-go-round.  With SSRIs eliminated, there is no other class of medication left to try as prophylaxis.  I am now officially reliant solely on OTC analgesics, sumatriptan, and medical cannabis.  As far as my neurologist is concerned, I can visit him sooner, or I can visit him later, there is nothing more he can do.  I am going to beg and plead for a referral to the UCSF Headache Clinic. I have no idea if they have anything to offer, but they are the West Coast center for people like me.

Planner that I am, I already have contingency plans in case the UCSF Clinic, to which I have not yet been referred, is unable to help me.

So yeah.  Way to end 2010.

Which just puts me in a morose mood for all of the challenges we already know we must face in 2011.  I have foot surgery again.  Then my husband has brain surgery.  And at some point in 2011, I need to get over to Berkeley medical school, to have an eye I am losing vision in examined, and treated.

If all those events go smoothly, 2011 holds a lot of promise.  But it also holds a lot of pitfalls.  It seems as if the entire duration of my relationship with DH has been stumbling from one drama to the next.  Our health issues have definitely meant there are dimensions to cope with beyond the usual loving and cherishing we would naturally provide each other:  There is frustration and fear, for starters.

I burnt a candle on the Solstice, and again on the New Year, to send up all the bad vibrations and echoes of 2010 into the ether.  I have my superstitions.  Although if you ask me, I'll admit, I don't truly believe in them.  But I like rituals, and superstitions are ripe for ritual.   Rituals give me a false sense of control that is comforting, in spite of my knowing I am fooling myself.

2011 is also the Chinese year of the Rabbit, which is my birth sign.  I turn 48.   I fall under the water element, and am supposed to have a good career year.  That would be nice for a change.

I know good things are in store, too.  I am looking forward to further involvement in the Medical Cannabis community.  Our tenth wedding anniversary is a huge milestone for us.  And my third Oregon Country Fair is another anniversary of sorts.  My French Bulldog Violet turned 7 on New Year's day, which is always auspicious.

Now if I could just locate my wallet....

Through the Looking Glass: Prompt 25 #reverb10

Dec. 25.   Photo.  A present to yourself. Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

"Curiouser and Curiouser."  Alice, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass

Self Portrait.  Taken Saturday, July 10, 2010, through the looking glass, at the Oregon Country Fair.

The summation of a year in one picture:  Which way is up?

Sight Seeing: Prompts 22, 23, 24 #reverb10

Hi all!  I have been sick a lot this month, so I am crazy busy trying to get these prompts done.  Sorry if parts of the next few blog posts are garbled.   We're in the stretch!

Dec.  22:  Travel.  How did you travel in 2010?  How and/or where would you like to travel this year?  -Tara Hunt   

In 2010, I travelled almost exclusively by Prius, with the exception of about 200 miles.  There was a cab ride back from the airport in January.  My friend gave me a lift to my first post-op appointment for my foot.  A few van rides and cab rides back and forth between my car dealership and my home.  A bike ride to go pick up the Prius from the dealership.  And finally, a tow truck, that carried my dead Prius to a Eugene Toyota Dealership (yes, another dealership).

I only travelled a little this year.  In January, I made a brief trip back to my hometown, Pittsburgh, to spend time with my parents, sisters, and niece.   The next travel of any sort was the Oregon Country Fair, in July.  I drove myself up and back in two day increments, spending the night in Yreka on the northern drive, and Corning on the southern one.

In August, after my husband was offered a great job after almost 11 months of unemployment, we took a short trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  While we had to cut our visit short, the reason for this is going to make me jump to the prompt after the next one.  Don't worry, I'll get back to the one I skipped over.

******************************

Dec. 24:  Everything's OK.  What was the best moment that could? serve as proof that everything is going to be alright [sic]?  And how will you incorporate the discovery into the year ahead?  -Kate Inglis


If "Fraught" was the word to describe 2010, August could be considered its zenith.  We were really starting to stretch our finances to the limit.  We were discussing our options:  I had a small IRA I could sell, and DH had stocks.

Meanwhile, DH's seizures were becoming stronger, and more frequent.  His new medication, one that has been on the market for less than a year, gave him such bad side effects that sometimes he had to crawl to get around the house.

DH and his neurosurgeon, thinking that there were no more job opportunities out there for the moment, set a date for surgery.  Brain surgery that is.  Surgery that involves cutting a door in his skull, wrapping his brain with a sheet of electrodes, and then purposefully stimulating those electrodes to cause him to have seizures, in the hope of pinpointing the part of his brain where the wiring went wrong, the "focus."  At the end of the week, they would remove the sheet, and any brain they felt might be the problem (which they warned us might be golf-ball sized), and of course, put his skull back together.  Recovery is 4-6 weeks.

While DH and his neurosurgeon seemed to be handling events with aplomb, I was falling apart.  Looking at my mood chart shows I was pretty freaked out.  The chances of death were as good as nil, but I still dreaded life without him.  I also feared he would come home with a new personality, not the man I married.  I still do fear that a bit, and it turns out, he worries about it too.

The surgery date was set late in August.  I was buying pajamas, and teaching myself cribbage so we could play it in the hospital during his week stay.  About two weeks before the date, DH got a call from a financial services company:  They were interested in his experience in UI (User Interface).  Suddenly, it became a race.  Could DH get an offer before he was admitted to the hospital?

8 days before his scheduled surgery, DH received his offer.   He was so excited, he forgot to sign and fax in his contract, he just read it.  When we were on our celebratory trip to Lassen, just as we were about to head out for the day, DH got a call from his new job.  Where was his contract?   We made a dash to Redding, the nearest town of any size, and waited for a fax of another copy of his contract, had him sign it, fax it back in, then wait for confirmation of his new workplace's receipt of the document.  It took 3 tries, but at last we did it!

It had seemed like a horrible last minute nightmare when we first realized we had to get the contract in, or he wouldn't be able to start for another few weeks.  But when we knew that contract was in their hands, suddenly, DH was officially employed.   The contract was signed, the "i"s dotted, and the "t"s crossed.  We had made it.  We had lived on umemployment that lasted 6 months, and then on our savings alone for another 4 months. We are playing catch up a little with our debt, but as of January 6, all of our credit cards will be back to zero.  We have another round of surgeries and health problems to look forward to in 2011, but the outlook is so much rosier, with DH working, my foot nearly healed (meaning I can get back to my work), and really great health insurance.  

We are back.

*********************************

Dec. 23:  New name. Let's meet again, for the first time.  [Cassandra]If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be, and why?  -Becca Wilcott


Hello, my name is Cassandra.  I am the archetype of the truth teller who is ignored.  For predicting the truth time and time again, in other people's minds, I am a foreteller of doom, rather than a seer of the inevitable consequences of their own actions. I am falsely labeled "mad" when I speak truths they do not want to hear.  But when I am truly waxing crazy, my truths become harsher, and bitter.  They are just as often true.  But it is when I predict bad outcomes that come true that people are the most scared of me.

I'm not psychic.  I am a "student" of behavior.  I am a studier, a watcher, drawn to details, a collector of patterns.  It is true, everyone is different.  But what makes them different is just the differing weights of the ingredients  they share with Everyone else.  There are only so many ingredients out of which to make people, although there are always one or two without raisins, and others with nuts.  

I learned about human behavior from an expert, a psychopharmacologist who studied biologically based mental illnesses, AKA, my father.  He taught me what was normal, what was not.  He showed me the rigid patterns in which people think, the way the very words they use to conceal give them away.  I learned there were a limited array of behaviours. Some are so dreadful that it is best not to think about them.  But for all of them, it is as the old saw goes, there is nothing new on this Earth.

Sometimes, I scare and anger people with my assessments of their friends and what I foresee as the outcome of their actions.  The more often I am correct, the harder they push me away.

My plan for now is to lie low, I refuse to fall victim to any scheming Clytemnestra.  Another meaning for the name Cassandra is "defender,"  and I have always been someone who tries to defend the rights of the most marginalized members of society.   Sometimes defending is altruistic, such as helping prisoners make legal appeals,.  Other times it just means protecting myself from the consequences of mishaps created by my own peculiar recipe of perspicacity and crazy.

The Helpful Crone: Prompts 19, 20 & 21 #reverb10

Dec. 19  Healing. What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011? -Leonie Allan

Dec. 20  Beyond avoidance. What should you have done this year but didn't because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?) -Jake Nickell

Dec. 21  Future self. Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?) -Jenny Blake


Dear 47 year-old me:

If 2010 was the most chaotic year of your marriage, 2011 was still a doozy.  But as usual, the two of you pulled through.  The lesson of 2010 was that in order to heal, you must learn to endure the pain with patience, because things may get much worse before they get better. The bottom may have been a lot further down than you initially realized, but there was a bottom.  And once you hit it, you found it was something to push off of, to stabilize you during your climb back up.  It was a good lesson to have under your belt for 2011, with both of your continued health challenges.

First and foremost, were all of the surgeries.  First the foot surgery, to remove the metal you had developed an allergy to.  After what you endured after the foot surgery in 2010, this turned out to be a breeze, and you were back on your feet within a month. Then DH's brain surgery, both planned, yet scheduled abruptly, when his epilepsy and seizures took a turn for the worse.  As scared as you were for your husband, and as concerned as you were about your finances, both survived.   Not without a little too much angst on your part, crtclms.  But the fact that you both had endured so much in 2010 made your bond and your faith in yourselves stronger.

The outcome of the brain surgery wasn't the miracle you had hoped for, but it did help with DH's seizures.  He became much more responsive to anti-epileptics.  He even got his driver's license back.

Then your right eye, the one that was practically blind, and which worsened considerably in 2010, was finally treated.   You had been so frightened of the idea of eye surgery, or worse, of losing sight in that eye altogether, that you had totally ignored the problem from that day in October, 2009 that you were told your eye was beyond regular opthalmological care.  Then suddenly, the scare in December of 2010, when your sight got abruptly worse.  That was scary.  And the fact is that it was an unusual and uncomfortable treatment.  But the results were worth it:  No more night-blindness, no more cars and street lamps throwing halos of light, rather than beams, no more holding books inches from your nose to read regular-sized print, no more hitting the apple key and + over and over again to make sites legible, if distorted.

And on top of that, you worked hard at pulling your financial picture together again, at the same time that you planned a somewhat extravagant 10th wedding anniversary.  10 years of physical disaster after physical disaster, 10 years of joy in and with each other.  Years of penny-pinching as you got your marriage started, then years of largess.  Followed by 2010, when you became two of millions of victims of the Great Recession.

But while 2010 proved your marriage, 2011 celebrated it.  All your life, you had resisted being so reliant on one other person, fearing the idea of merging with them.  You feared loss of identity.  But in 2010, you realized the strength of two individuals, joined like a mortise and tenon at Stonehenge, create a simple but strong and durable bond, that is stronger than either person alone.  The quotation from your wedding ceremony by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  seems to have proved an important tenet in your marriage:  

"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."   

While you lived your marriage day by day, you both were committed to keeping your marriage moving in concert with both of your future dreams.


In 2013, you finally made the big trip to Australia, so that DH could see the country you love so much.  It was odd to have a sister living permanently abroad, and you will always feel a little sad that you never had the chance to live overseas.  But you made different choices than your sister, and have a happy life.


That was for your 50th birthday, and now your 60th is much closer than I would like to admit.  But if I could offer advice to the 47 year-old me/you, here are some of the tidbits I have to share, in my extreme decrepitude:

• Everything is going to be okay.  Yes, the unknown is scary, and makes you anxious.  Yes, the path may be difficult.  But your failures have often been more rewarding than your successes.  
• Stop feeling guilty for not living a life you are not suited for, even if it is what was expected of you.  I can't believe this still bothers you, frankly.  You know better, and have given this exact advice to dozens of friends.  Now take it yourself.
• You still do not owe your mother any more of your life.   Be polite.  Accept that you will be devastated by her death, but will have a hard time feeling anything positive about her until then
• You are very much like your father.  His life did not end happily.  Learn from his example.
• Live in the now, stop trying to get a jump on the future.  It isn't possible in the current space-time continuum.
• This is very hard, but try not to live in fear of your illnesses:  Don't let fear of the next episode invade your periods of good health, and enjoy your wellness.
• Your psychiatrist has prescribed you Xanax because you need it.  Now listen to his advice, and stop being afraid of it.  It will improve your quality of life.  Needing a medication is not the same thing as being addicted to it.

Yes, you are still working on those same old problems.  You will be for the rest of your life.  And every time you think you have met a challenge, it will create another, bigger problem.   Such is life.  But with DH holding your hand, facing forward, you can best any hardship it presents, and bring joy to its labors.


And of course, you took the time yearly to renew yourself at the Oregon Country Fair, with Nakedjen and friends.

You still miss Bess and Violet.  You always will.  Your current dog is as lovable as they come, but different.  Sometimes you still cry from missing both of them.

Bess

Violet

DH and I are about to celebrate your 20th wedding anniversary.  Congratulations to us all!  May we share many more years.


Love,


57 year-old me    


P.S.  And after all these years, I still can't get the fonts to work properly on Blogger!