Falling Down

I’m not very practiced at failing or falling down.  That’s not meant to be a brag, it’s simply the way it is.  Truthfully, I tend to be a bit of a “safety first” girl and a shy girl as well, neither of which lends itself to risk taking.  It does, however, lend itself to staying safe and clean, to inertia and pleasing other people, to accomplishing goals that are well within my reach and not beyond, to dreaming dreams that go unspoken and never see the light of day.

I think I’m turning a corner on the failure front, though, or maybe I’m just letting go.  Either way, it feels powerful and good and free.  Alternatively it feels painful and crazy and scary as hell.  It feels like living.

Right now I’m walking with a limp, having strained my groin on a particularly overzealous interval training run.  I’m four weeks away from my first marathon, and I may not make my goal.  I may not be able to run at all.  Still the pain reminds me that I am trying hard at something I’ve never done before and striving for experience that is rare.  Ok, it’s not that rare.  I realize that Oprah did it, and at this point her time will probably beat my time, but still…it’s a big deal for me—ha!

The thing is, though, if I fail at the marathon, no one will care but me, and the only cost is my pride.   What will I do when my falling down hurts other people?  What will it mean when building a new thing requires burning down the old one?  I can’t stop thinking about that.

I recently read this quote, and it gave me comfort: “Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.” Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love  I think this can be true if you can see the potential in the ashes, if you can feel the refining force in the suffering, if you can know that God gives us opportunities for growth and change that we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves simply because he knows better.

I want to own my failure, and I want to step out in faith with the knowledge that I am living and that it is good.  I know that I am telling the truth for the first time in a long time and that some people won’t like it.  I will lose some sleep and some friends.  I will hurt, but I will heal.  So here’s to falling down and getting hurt.  May we grow in compassion, grace, and love as we heal.  Cheers!

Hypochondriasis

I have begun sleeping on a tempur-pedic mattress, and I am proud to tell you that I am writing this as a new woman!  Ok, that’s not really true, but I hope to be a new woman in several days once the break in period required for tempur-pedics is over, and I am sleeping in all-over-back-support-heaven.  As of this morning, though, well, I do still have a few creaks and aches.  Help me, oh mattress, you’re my only hope*.

*With regards to my back stiffness, that is.  Don’t worry, I’m really not pinning all my hopes and dreams on one mattress, even though their ads do hint at some kind of out of body transport to a luxury over the water hut in Fiji.  I know that’s not going to happen.  But a girl can dream.

Anyway, so this morning back stiffness started a few years ago, and like any good neurotic person with a bit of fancy science knowledge, I immediately knew I had the beginnings of ankylosing spondylitis, a connective tissue disease where a person’s spine becomes more and more stiff, eventually fusing into a rod-like structure.  Yes, where a normal person might stretch and think, “I’m getting old”, I thought, “I’m getting a bamboo spine!”  I don’t know how many of my fellow medical professionals do the same thing, but I can tell you that I got a text message last night from a girlfriend, a close-up picture of her baby’s head, and the caption said “Cutaneous Lymphoma?”  These kind of iPhone consults, both to and from my inbox, are not out of the ordinary.  Do we actually call and make an appointment to get it checked out?  Heck no!  I mean, I don’t want to seem crazy!

In fact, I don’t even get checked out for things I know are real.  At the clinic Christmas party last week, over a plate of fruitcake and sweet potato casserole, I casually mentioned to my friend, who happens to be my primary care provider, that I’ve had an inguinal hernia for years.  Seems like sort of inappropriate party banter, right?  I think being a physician somehow chips away at your appropriateness filter, but anyway, please feel free to still come to a party with me sometime.  I promise I’ve only shown my hernia to a few girlfriends who happen to be doctors.  Just don’t act too interested if I start talking about it.

At this point you’re thinking, where are we going with this?  We started out alright, but now we’ve ended up…well, we’ve ended up where inguinal hernias are, which is a bit of an uncomfortable place.  The truth is, with this mix of fear and doubt, knowledge and experience, aches and pains, and worries coupled with the occasional (read: frequent) ignoring of things I know to be concerning, I’m feeling a little incompetent on the objectivity front.  [If you’re reading this and you’re my patient, don’t worry.  This neurotic lens seems to fall away once I’m not thinking about my children or myself.]

It’s easier, it seems, to avoid the real answer, which is that my back pain is secondary to a common congenital defect of my L5 vertebrae, because the real answer might result in someone telling me that perhaps running isn’t the ideal form of exercise for me.  No, I’d rather keep running, all the while quietly worrying that my vertebrae are slowly fusing together.  I’d rather not have that inguinal hernia officially diagnosed and on the books, because who has time to have surgical repair and post-op recovery and avoid lifting greater than 10 pounds for six weeks?  I’m pretty sure the boys aren’t going to allow that.

This week when I had a little true to life medical scare (all is well, no worries, thankfully), I came to realize amidst all these hang-ups: I’m blessed to be healthy with a few creaks and aches and just a touch of crazy.  I’m blessed to have the access to care and medical attention, where so many others who need it do not, and I hope this injustice can change and very soon.  I’m blessed to have friends who are equally dosed with a drop of anxious insanity, and who are, luckily, objective at just the right moments.  So here’s to your health, as the New Year approaches—are your screening exams up to date?  Cheers!

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving.  Today is my mom’s birthday.  Was there ever a more appropriate merging of holidays as this?  Could we have even imagined last Thanksgiving that all of those things we were thankful for would be thrust so painfully (but appropriately) into the forefront of our consciousness?  After so many “it’s just another day” adult birthdays, I am ready to put our party hats on and celebrate and be thankful for each and every day of my mom’s fifty-seven years.  So today I am deeply thankful.  I am thankful for my kind and loving mom, who raised me and my brother up in love, who shows me how to be a mother, who models to me how to be a wife, who is my constant friend, and who lives her life with such triumphant joy and faith.  What an amazing woman.  I am thankful for my dad, who has shown me what a man should be, who is loving and strong and vulnerable and ever-faithful, who has never been too busy or too important or too preoccupied for his kids, no matter how big or small our concerns might be, whose example guided me into a marriage with a good man because he has been the epitome of a good man, and who told us and continues to tell us that we can be whatever we want to be.  What an amazing man.  I am thankful for my husband, my partner in this life, and my best friend, who loves me through ups and downs, who has valued our family above all else when I didn’t, who is steady and true, who is the most beautiful father to our children, and whose deep desire to be a good man, a good husband, and a good father is so true and admirable it almost hurts.  I am blessed by you, Jim.  I am thankful for Jack, my precocious and serious and silly and snuggly little man, who makes me laugh every day, who is helping me to learn patience (ha!) and who blesses me by calling me mommy.  I am thankful for Aiden, my rough and tumble, pot-bellied, always laughing, always busy baby boy.  I just can’t wait to hear what he has to say and what these boys will give to this world.  I am thankful for Joel, my “little” brother, my heart, who grew up to be my closest confidant and friend, who is a good man in the same vein as my father, who is so smart and funny and amazing, and who needs to move to Charleston very, very soon.  I miss you, Joel, and I am so proud of you!  I am thankful for Emily, sister-in-law, who is like a real sister to me, who is strong and independent, sweet and giving, funny and incredibly smart, and who is going to be such a great partner in crime when we’re both in the old folks’ home.  She needs to move to Charleston, too.  Don’t fight it, Emily.  I love you, Sister!

Whew!  And that’s just immediate family!  I could go on and on like this, for my life has been richly blessed with extended family, with friends, with kind strangers, with community—so many human angels, I can’t express enough my gratitude. 

Other things: my warm bed, my Charleston home, my sweet old dog, the running trail along the banks of the Wando river, foggy fall mornings, a night sky full of stars, a tree in my backyard that I swear looks just like the South Carolina flag, good food, good coffee, good wine, good music, good shoes—and the list goes on.

I hope this Thanksgiving you are thankful, too.  May you be blessed with peace, love, joy, and health, and may we all be every mindful of these blessings.  Cheers!

Anger Management

It’s good to follow up a post about perspective with a post about being an angry, angry little woman who has lost all perspective and may, at any moment, throw the mouse through the monitor of her work computer.  I mean, after all, I wouldn’t want anyone to feel bad about themselves.  So this week has been one of little frustrations, those creeping annoyances that cause my shoulders to hunch up and my blood pressure to rise, that cause me to say things to patients like “well, I may be just a stupid military doctor, but it appears the urgent care gave you the wrong dosage on this medication” and other such nice, chit-chatty phrases.  Yes, I have been a bit of a pill.  I know I’m supposed to be learning something (can anyone say patience?), but sheesh, does the learning have to come in such obnoxious forms?  Does the learning really have to involve the world’s slowest electronic medical record, or patients who lie to me, or people who make mistakes that inadvertently delay my husband’s homecoming by five days?  Come on!  [Insert your favorite profanity-laced frustrated saying here]

Yeah, yeah, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—it’s time to suck it up, sister.  My mom tried to say the same to me in a much gentler way and that did not go over well.  It’s like I want to wallow in the annoyance, even though it doesn’t feel good at all.  It’s not a pretty thing.

Now comes the point in the narrative where I usually try to indentify the silver lining in all this baloney, but you know what?  I’m not going to do that right now.  Some things, well, they just suck.  I’ve spent the past half hour clicking through error message after error message trying to complete one patient note.  There’s no way to put a positive spin on that.  And it’s crap (how’s that for beautiful prose?) that Jim just moved into a tent after his replacements are already in place, only to sit there for a few extra days because somebody else made a mistake.

Bleh.  So what’s a girl to do when she wants to maintain a positive attitude in spite of all the aggravation?  I heard something at church this week that really struck me—that unless the things we are thinking on and doing are focused on loving others or loving God, we won’t find peace, and I think that’s really true.  Sure, watching the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills might bring me a momentary feeling of escape, but in the end I feel a little bit like I’ve just eaten a number three from McDonalds.  Sick sick sick.  In the same way, whining and moaning about the computers…well, it doesn’t change the computers, it just encourages me to focus on something that is a) bad and b) out of my control—not super helpful.  It’s not just me who has “stuff”, both big and small.  That computer systems guy?  He has “stuff” too, and it’s probably not the most loving act in the world to spew my sense of irritation (and entitlement?) his way. [Funny story: as I’m writing this, said systems guy (that nameless, faceless, mouse-taking-over individual who works upstairs, locked away in some dark office) takes over my computer to fix something and promptly re-starts the whole thing, losing half of my work.  Sigh.]

So I’ll leave it at this:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8-9

I think that is pretty excellent wisdom no matter what your faith might be.  Minor external stressors certainly aren’t excellent or praiseworthy, and they’re definitely not worth my devolving into mental kicking and screaming.  It’s time to acknowledge them, fix them when I can, and move on when I can’t, to focus on the pure and lovely parts of life (of which there are many!), to remember that, in the great, wise words of John Lennon, Love is all you need.  Cheers!

Choices

I heard a funny story today about an elementary school that starts every day with the pledge of allegiance, the star spangled banner, and follows those two in short order with an announcement that “only you can choose to have a good day today” or something to that effect.  Every day.  Sounds a bit brain-washy, no?  I can’t help but like it, though, I’m not going to lie, and I can’t deny that most of us could use an announcement like that to start the day.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about happiness, about joy, about resilience, about the spectrum of challenging circumstances in life, and about how a person chooses to respond in the face of these circumstances.  If you’re reading this, you know I have had a rough go of it these past few months.  A few weeks ago a friend in my Sunday school class remarked “Yeah, nobody wants to go after her in the prayer request line,” and then the teacher offered to have me committed.  (I guess that’s one hazard when your Sunday school teacher is a psychiatrist—ha!)  Ok, yes, I may have a few things going on, a little bit of stress if you will.  Still, I can’t remember a time in my life where I felt more at peace, more joyful, more content, more continually amazed and blessed by the kindness around me, and more acutely aware of others in far more dire circumstances than mine.  I saw a picture a couple weeks ago that captured this so well—an adult hand, healthy appearing and normal by all rights, and in that hand was the tiniest, most malnourished appearing hand I have ever seen.  The caption?  “Perspective.”  Indeed.  I may be feeding my boys chicken nuggets every night, but at least I have never had to choose which mouth to feed.  So I choose today to acknowledge that while my mom’s ovarian cancer diagnosis was one of the most devastating things I can imagine, I have been blessed beyond measure to have a mom who I can’t imagine life without.  While I have been burning the candle at both ends as a single mom and feel overwhelmed at times (all the time?), I choose to remember that these things are temporary, and how fortunate am I to have a husband that I miss and love, to have two crazy and beautiful sons that give me a run for my money every day, to have a profession that challenges me and allows me to serve and provide for my family?  While I vacillate between dread and outright denial about my upcoming deployment and time away from my family, while the worry about my boys, about Jim, about the rest of my family while I am gone feels like too much, I choose to remember that there is a plan that is bigger than my plan, and that in all these things, we are where we are for a reason, and that perhaps what I need to remember most is to be still.  None of this is to say that I’m particularly talented when it comes to putting my big girl panties on.  I get a little help from my friends.  And ice cream.  And wine.  Sharing in the celebration of a friend meeting her two adopted children for the first time, sneaking a peek at a friend’s most amazing bucket list, wine and TV nights, new friends adopting me and my boys like we were their own, imagining my mom getting a hug from her African safari guide at the end of a trip that fulfilled a lifelong dream…I could go on and on with the snapshots of joy that the people in my life share with me.  In the end, I guess what I am saying is that life is short, and I’d rather not spend my days complaining about the cards that I’ve been dealt.  So here’s to joy and love and knowing that no matter the weather, there is sun behind the clouds.  Cheers.

Whiney pants

Lest you think that I am all Aging Pollyanna, Susie Sunshine, Saint Sara of the Wrinkles, I have decided it’s time to do some complaining, some petty griping as it were.  I think the universe enjoyed my last post so much that my face has been delivered from aging and returned it to its circa-7^th grade state—that’s right folks, I have acne.  Yes, it’s all “Back to the Future” up in here, giving my patients yet another reason to ask me if I’m on the Doogie Howser medical track.  Lovely.  Even more lovely is that while my face is posing for yearbook pictures, my body is filling out nursing home paperwork.  Wood floors throughout, moving in, unpacking, three boys and a dog—all of these add up to a real mess that has been tolerated for the past few weeks.  Last night, though, I had had enough and broke out the Dyson (is it sad when a vacuum cleaner feels like a new toy?  Sigh.  Boring Marrieds.) and the mop and attacked those floors with all of the gusto I could muster, which I have to say was quite a lot.  I was pretty proud of my work, pretty satisfied when I settled in to bed with my sugar free ice cream and the premier of Millionaire Matchmaker.  [At this point, many of you have decided that I am not only insane, but also completely beyond help in the dorkiness department.  Read on at your own risk.]  I slept well, dreamt, even, and was sort of enjoying my sore muscles while I was making my breakfast.  All was well, until…I pushed the coffee maker forward.  Er, what?  Yeah, that’s right, I moved my coffee maker and was seized by a wicked neck muscle spasm, the likes of which I haven’t seen since a rolling-over-in-bed incident I had a few years ago.  Oh, dear body, why do you betray me so?  Ok, that’s a bit dramatic, but what kind of a one-two punch is that to wake up with a giant pimple and then injure oneself while simply making the coffee?  So I take back my previous statements about botox—I learned my lesson, botulinum toxin, and I won’t ever bad mouth you again.  Yes, I would like some botox today, right now, right in the center of my spasm-y right shoulder.  Bleh.  Alright, enough whining about petty grievances already.  Pass me the make-up and the motrin.  And the beer.  Just to be safe, of course.  Cheers!

Laugh lines

I am sunburned and mosquito bitten.  I have bruises on my shins and scrapes on my calves.  I have laugh lines that are deepening by the day and a belly whose skin is just a little bit loosey goosey and probably always will be.  I have scars-on my forehead, on my hip, on my belly button of all places [Attention young girls, if you plan to have babies, PLEASE don’t get a belly ring, ok?  Ha!]  Yes, this body has been lived in, and wow, am I thankful for one that’s weathered the wear and tear gracefully thus far.  How lucky am I to have legs that can run, eyes that can see, ears that can hear, and a mouth that can sing (in the shower at least)?  I can’t say that I’ve always been so lovey dovey with my earthly shell.  In fact, at times I’ve felt that my body was my enemy-too fat, too short, too this or that.  So much of my adolescence was spent in self-loathing, hating and cursing my own skin, all in vanity and pursuit of “love” and acceptance.  To be free of that is a gift, for sure, and one that I don’t take lightly.  I know so many never do come to agreement with their bodies, never do quite settle in there, never do feel at home or happy.  It makes me sad.  It makes me angry.  Right after my mom was diagnosed, I noticed I developed an almost visceral reaction to advertisements for anti-aging products.  “How dare they?” I would think.  Don’t they know that some people can only dream of getting older?  Don’t they know that right now, as they peddle their anti-wrinkle cream or hair dye or age spot lightener, people are fighting, literally suffering, to get even a few more years?  Don’t they know that old age is a precious gift that is not afforded to all of us?  How empty and meaningless to remain hung up on pursuing the appearance of a twenty year old.  Yes, youth can be beautiful, but so can age and wisdom, so can a life that is well-lived and a body well cared for, so can a weathered hand and a wrinkled smile.  Now I know what some of you are thinking: easy for me to say when I look like a twelve year old!  As a “petite” woman, I know I will probably always look a bit girlish, that’s fair.  However, I plan to be a girlish woman who lets her hair go gray, who lets her smiles and laughter translate into ever deepening wrinkles, and who says to hell with all this anti-aging bullshit.  Want to join me?  Here’s to embracing our bodies, no matter where we are on the journey, and to remembering the things that are truly beautiful.  Cheers!

Roses and thorns

Life is at once so beautiful and so painful, it is almost too much to bear.  I think this has always been true, for me at least, my perceptions and sensibilities, but at times I’ve walked around with blinders on.  To stay safe, to stay sane, to stay above water.  Things would sneak in, here and there, and take my breath away—the view above tree line on a high mountain, the perfect tension building in a song, the sweet smiles of my boys, the fog hanging low to the ground in the mornings.  Painful things crept in too—but I fought those off as best I could and went on my way.  No use in dwelling in those places, that is until your place becomes one of those places.  I’ve not lost anything, really, except maybe a sense of security that was false anyway.  Still, after these past few months, I feel naked, vulnerable, wide open, and all of it washes over me.  There is a fear so fresh and deep, just under the surface, and it finds me at night, waking me up at two and three in the morning with nightmares and starts, and there is a hope, so precious and persistent, that pushes me along and keeps me from drowning.  I feel like a scar, visible and pink, new skin so tender and lovely, as I sit in church on Sundays and cry.  I cry because I am sad, because I am awestruck by the beauty and goodness of God, because I am grateful, and for so many other reasons I can’t even articulate.  Because I am open like a wound, feeling it all now.  To say the goodness of family and friends has been overwhelming would be to understate their goodness.  It has been sweet and unexpected and needed and vital.  All of the gestures, big and small, feel enormous and beautiful–such kindness I have never seen in all my life.  I think it is a testament to the beauty of my mother, to the legacy of love that she has built, and I am honored and blessed to see it all.  Maybe this is what I am supposed to be learning, that to feel it all and take it in, both the pain and the blessings, IS the blessing, is the point.  Maybe at some point it will all feel like too much, and I will want to numb it all away but not now.  My dad has a favorite saying, “never the rose without the thorn,” and I’m not sure there’s anything more true.  So here’s to roses and thorns and the things we gain from each.

Wallowing

I want someone to tuck me in and bring me some soup.  I want to lie in bed all day and watch crap television while someone that loves me checks up on me and brings me seven-up and crackers.  In other words, I want to be babied.  Pretty pitiful, no?  And what a way to come back to this blog that has been so neglected over the past two months!  I woke up feeling this way, or more accurately I should say I started feeling this way when, sometime around three am, Jack kicked me square in the face and gave me a fat lip.  In case you wondered, this is not the most pleasant way, nor the most pleasant time to be woken up.  Two hours later I dragged my sorry butt out of bed only to find I was (am?) wading through a funk that only seems to worsen as the day goes on.  People at work, probably through no fault of their own, are driving me crazy.  I am hitting the wall as a single mother.  My house hasn’t sold yet, and I keep getting emails about the house I am about to close on in South Carolina.  My mom isn’t feeling well today, and I’m haunted by all of the what ifs.  I guess it’s safe to say I am in a dark place.  Today, anyway.  I called my sister-in-law and vented, and that definitely helped.  I texted a friend something to the effect of “everyone is annoying me today—ugh!”  She sweetly listened (read?) and said “sometimes it helps just to vent.”  And it does, so here I am, venting yet a third time into the void.  I hate feeling this way, all down in the dumps and wallow-y, and frankly, no one (save God) can change any of my circumstances.  There is no knight in shining armor riding my way, ready to whisk me off to some carefree oblivion.  There is no quick fix waiting around the corner.  Things are as they stand, and some of them are not good.  As I said to Emily, then, it’s time for me to tuck myself in, and remember that in the trials:blessings ratio, my blessings infinitely outweigh my trials.  Yes, things are as they stand, and some of them are not good, but some of them are very, very good.  For every three am kick in the face, there is the “Mom, I love you” from Jack and the sweet baby kisses from Aiden.  For every time my mother feels ill or down, there is her quick and easy sense of humor, her steely will, and her beautiful spirit which persevere and lift us all.  For every anxiety I have about my old house or my new house, I need to remember that I have been given more in this life than I need, and that in the end, this too shall pass.  Work people will probably still bug me, I really have no positive anecdote to offer there—ha.  In any case, tomorrow is another day, and I hope it will be a better one, but I think that’s probably all about how I choose to walk in it.  So here’s to choosing to wake up on the right side of the bed and to remembering that where trouble and darkness threaten, grace and mercy abound.

Bad news

I got some bad news this week, the kind of news that if you got it in a dream, you’d wake up with a gasp and shake yourself to make sure it wasn’t true.  I’m still shaking myself and checking my surroundings when I wake up every morning to see if I’ve left the nightmare, but I’m afraid to say that none of this is a dream, and I find myself firmly rooted in a reality I’d rather not face.

My mom is sick.  I won’t go into detail because we don’t really know much yet, but I know enough to be scared and to be angry, to be frankly outraged at how wrong this all is.  As my friend said “this wasn’t the plan.”  No, it definitely wasn’t, and I’m not sure what to do with all that.  I had a husband and wife couple, both in their seventies, with back to back physicals today, both in perfect health having taken such good care of themselves, much like my parents who are significantly younger.  I thought, “Now, this is the plan”, and then I was angry all over again, but I have to back away from all that.

I find myself intermittently feeling very positive–there is a course of action, we will do what it takes, we will be there, and she will fight this with all of our prayers and love around her–and then I find myself falling into the deepest of mental black holes, which I won’t describe here.  In the end it is very simple, primal and instinctual even–I am afraid, and I don’t want to lose my mom.  My world just can’t be without her in it, end of discussion.

I know this much–she is about to start down a long road, and we will walk it with her, but more importantly, God will be walking there beside us.  He will carry us when we cannot walk any longer, He will comfort us when we feel afraid, and He will be pouring out His grace and mercy throughout the journey.  I know His love covers even our worst nightmares, and He is bigger than our biggest fears.  But it still sucks, that’s for sure, and I’m still sad and will be for a long time.  However, I know I am beyond blessed to have my mom, and so for now, it’s time to focus on healing and miracles and love and right now.  So here’s to my beautiful mom, may God give her strength, peace, and healing, and may she know how much she is loved.