Because I Said So

The Winter That Would Never End

Three-quarters of our family are now taking antibiotics: me (sinus infection), Henry (ear infection), and Frieda (ditto). I'm tempted to ask Costco pharmacy if they sell amoxicillin in gallon containers.

On top of that, our spirits (like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano) soared with a sense of expectation and hope, as the sun warmed our skin and our ears delighted to the sound of melting snow trickling into the storm drains. Yet all-too-soon these spirits were plunged once again into doubt and darkness by Old Man Winter, who squashed our delicate swallows beneath his Sorrel-brand jack boots.

Hey, Old Man Winter. Would you like me to search Travelocity for you? I bet I can find you a decent airfare to, say, Florida or the Texas Panhandle. I'm sure Old Woman Winter could use a nice rest. My treat!

Haiku, To An Old Friend

Hey ear infection
Used to see a lot of you
Didn't miss you, jerk

Chocolate: Because Ham Is Not a Carb

I saw a dietitian yesterday who helped me set out a diet plan to control my gestational diabetes (GD). I've been feeling really low on energy the last few days, and I wasn't sure if it was just the usual pregnancy stuff or lack of carbs. It's probably both.

It turns out that I am a very good student, TOO good of a students, when it comes to cutting down on carbs. I've essentially cut them out (except for the "free" ones like salad, and some vegetables and fruits) and that isn't good. The problem is that adding more carbs will also make my blood sugars rise, so I'll most likely be countering that with medication. Fortunately there is a pill form so I probably won't need to be dealing with insulin injections. Just looking at the diagram of the best injection sites printed in my handy-dandy GD book makes me a bit queasy. Even the word "bolus" bothers me. I try not to think of it.

But now it's in my brain. Bolus, bolus, bolus! Ugh. Stop it, brain.

The upside is that I am eating some very nice chocolate. Not a lot, just a square of dark chocolate here and there, combined with a handful of peanuts or cashews. The sweet and the salty. Ah.

As for pregnancy news, I lumber when I walk. And strangers come up to me and say things like "You look like you're about to pop!" (woman at coffee shop) and "Whoa, you're gettin' BIG!" (guy at thrift store), and another woman who raised one eyebrow when she saw me, scanned my midsection, then shook her head.

What's that about? It was most puzzling. Does she think I should be hiding myself somewhere, and not lumbering about in public, my protuberant belly prominently displayed for all to see? Should I be "confined" as in days of yore, with a nursemaid or house servant scuttling hither and thither with towels and boiling water? (What was the boiling water for?)

I haven't had anyone try to touch my belly, though. There, I would draw the line. Or at least charge something, say, $5 for a good pat -- $10 for a rub. There's got to be something in it for me.

It's the GI, Stupid

(Click on image to enlarge.)

I have gestational diabetes again, as I did in the Henry pregnancy. I passed my screening test a few weeks ago, but I felt really lousy after certain meals and I had a hunch that something was up. So I bought a blood testing kit at Target, and sure enough -- blood sugar issues. So far I'm controlling it with diet -- no insulin -- but I see an endocrinologist tomorrow and a diabetes education person next week to help me through it.

I'm also doing my own research about the GI (glycemic index) of which I know a bit already. I'm quite fascinated by nutrition stuff; it's one of my little sideline interests. What's especially fascinating is how little consensus there is amongst the "professionals" (endocrinologists, nutritionists, biochemists, cardiologists, etc.) about what constitutes a "good diet" and whether there is such a thing as "good carbs" and "bad carbs", and the whole fat question.

Fortunately, while pregnant, I don't have to worry about fat intake, hence the sudden rise in the consumption of chicken wings. But breakfast is tough. My blood sugar is especially volatile, and even a fairly low GI food like milk is too much. I'm having to resort to eggs and sausage or high-protein, low-carb bars and shakes. That's not a bad thing, but my preference for breakfast is really coffee-and-a-carb. Like a good muffin, or a chocolate croissant. Alas, it is not to be.

Also, I'm not gaining weight. I've been holding steady for the last few weeks, though I should be gaining about a pound a week. It makes me a bit anxious about the baby, knowing that older mums tend to have lower weight (even under weight) babies. Of course, Henry was large at 9 pounds, 13 oz. And I had GD for that pregnancy, which tends to make babies larger. I ran into a woman I know, vaguely, at the speech therapist's office the other day, and she said "You look great! You've hardly gained any weight!" and it kind of irked me that this was what "looking great" meant. (Of course, this was coming from a woman who recently lost a ton of weight, and is now down to a very slender size 2. Her method: "Bible study.")

But I can still find some amusement in all of this. One of the GI books I checked out from the library has this helpful tip re. snacking on nuts:

"You can keep fat and calories under control if you count out a reasonable number of nuts in their shells so you have to work at getting to them."

Better yet -- have your partner hide them from you! or put them on a high shelf. Or tie them to a wild horse, or a rampaging bear. The possibilities are truly endless.

Bugs

The last two weeks have been bug-ridden, both technical and viral. First, my web host upgraded their servers and an error in the process left me without access to my blog for three days. Then there was another day or two of our local cable provider's spotty service. (We lose or have very slow access when it is damp. Why this should be, I don't know. But it happens.)

Then Henry got the croup/a cold/the respiratory flu, so that knocked everything off kilter for a week. And now I'm sick, recovering from the same cold/flu thing. Yesterday was the worst: fever and chills, feeling like I couldn't get warm. A stark contrast to the usual this winter, as the furnace in my midsection (i.e. the baby) has made me so warm that I have been sleeping with only a sheet covering me. But yesterday I was in a t-shirt and sweatpants, huddled beneath bedspread and down comforter, and still felt like there were ice cubes in my underwear. Today, thankfully, is better.

Re. baby news, nothing much is happening. I saw Dr. R. on Friday and everything looked fine. He was wearing some kind of spring-y shirt, a blue and white checked number, and a silver necklace. And he was talking about leaving for spring vacation to Mexico the next day.

"Don't go into the hospital while I'm gone!" he warned. I wanted to say, "Don't go to Mexico while I'm going into the hospital!" He'll still be on vacation when I make my weekly appearance on Friday, so I'll be seeing a colleague of his that I've never met before. I studied his picture on the lobby wall last week. He looks ok, I guess. But he's no Dr. R.

Five weeks from today, I have the cerclage stitches removed. The baby could come any time after that. I vacillate between excitement, and thinking "What have we done?"

I still can't quite get my head around it -- that soon our little family will be New! Improved! and 25% Larger.

The Gap in the Official Record...

...due to:

Stress (worries over baby/pregnancy and Henry -- although everything is going fine, so I guess I could call that neuroses)

Illness (last night I coughed so hard I wet my pants. That healthy pregnancy glow? Embarrassment due to incontinence.)

Indecisiveness in the form of several blog posts written and then deleted, as said posts were either too rant-y or too whingey (that's whiny for you non-Anglophiles)

Preoccupation with cable television, to wit: many episodes of "The First 48" and a couple episodes of (you know I must love you, gentle readers, when I reveal so much) "Millionaire Matchmaker" -- the latter featuring one of *the* must amusing moments on television:

Millionaire/Philanthropist, to inevitably younger, blonder date (paraphrase): Last year I helped feed [some number of] hungry families...a lot of people go hungry in poorer areas of the country.

Date: Oh. I'm trying to cut back on carbs?...(question mark = vocal uptick common to "valley girls", bimbos and bimbos-in-training everywhere)

What to do?

Re. the stress: the weekly doctor visits are reassuring. The cervix is long and closed (that's my mantra: looonnngggg [breathe in] and clooossssed [breathe out]). Baby is active and doing well.

Henry is also doing well (although he shares in the most recent illness). The rant(s) I wrote have to do with some really nasty, mean-spirited people who say and do stupid, obnoxious, ignorant and hurtful things re. autism. And I won't give in and rant now, because the most sensible thing is to deny these people any more publicity and voice than they already have. And spare myself some anxiety by mulling over this crap all over again. 'Nuff said.

Illness: well, it's passing. It's just your average cold/fever/I-sound-like-Bob-Hoskins thing. I gave in and took some cough medicine after last night's Depends episode, then had weird perseverative thoughts, such as "Why do people on TV shows and in movies always have celery stalks sticking out of the tops of their grocery bags?"  I lay awake and thought about this for a long time. Medication? Lack of sleep? Fever? I don't know. But it's true: it's always celery. Never, say, chervil.

Cable television: I watched two more episodes of "The First 48" tonight, and then part II of "Pride and Prejudice." Like all sensible women, I love Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Particularly stunning moment tonight when Mr. D, perspiring from his long horseback ride, plunges into the pond fully clothed (though I did worry about the condition of his boots). I could almost smell the man-sweat. I love man-sweat. Caveat: not the off-putting, insane-man, live-in-a-hovel, weeks-unwashed type of man-sweat, but the heavenly whiff of slightly exerted male.

Indecisiveness: sometimes it helps just to type out those rants, even if I don't post. It's a kind of purging, a cleansing, which perhaps will allow me to write -- in future -- a more measured and reasonable post, something thoughtful and profound, something far less angry, vulgar, and vituperative than what I wrote last week. Especially about that ass-wipe in Texas, who thinks that public education funds shouldn't be spent on kids (like my son) who will "never be contributing members of society."

Yes, something like that really deserves a calm, measured, and reasonable response.

Prick.

There!

So much better.

Booty of the Damned

By now most people have heard about the Veggie Booty that is contaminated with Salmonella. And people who are regular readers of this blog know that I wrote a post about eating a bad sandwich a couple weeks ago. Tomorrow I need to call the health department and tell them that I may have been a victim of the Booty Scourge.

There have been two confirmed cases in Minnesota thus far: a 6-month old boy, and an 11-month old girl. And now me? a 41-year old woman? That's a bit embarrassing.

Henry's new school is gluten-free and casein-free, which means I make frequent trips to the health food store to buy snacks like the aforementioned Booty.  I sent it to school with him, and it came right back: he doesn't like it. So I ate some -- perhaps a day or two before I got sick. Not much. A handful. Or two. Or half a bagful. It's kind of like salted packing peanuts, but with less nutritional value.

Then I ate that sandwich. When I tasted the dirt and saw the little green circles of mold, I thought, "Uh-oh." And then got sick the next day. Naturally I assumed the sandwich was the culprit. Who knew that the Veggie Booty, snug in its cellophane bag, a look of bland innocence about it (it's got spinach and kale! it comes from the co-op! it's eleventy-million dollars a pound!) was perhaps the cause of my distress?

After I heard about the Booty recall, I read a little more about bread mold and have discovered it's "essentially harmless, but should be avoided." No one else in the household got sick. No one else ate the Veggie Booty. The remainder of the bag is perched atop the refrigerator, waiting for the men in spacesuits to whisk it away to their secret underground laboratory. I'll publish the results here, unless my lawyer advises me otherwise.

Joke! But seriously, there are already lawyers salivating over this one. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

Sandwich of the Damned

Friday seemed like a good day. It started out well. Henry went to school, and I spent most of the morning in my office, clearing off my desk so that I could do some writing in the afternoon. My stomach was a little upset, so I ate a light lunch. I worked on my poem-of-the-day, and got some other material together for my writers' group. At 4PM I began to feel quite ill. By 4:30 I was draped over the toilet, wondering vaguely if the bathroom laundry chute was carrying the sounds of my retching to the plumbers at work in the basement. Of course, I'd "choose" to be sick on the day we had no water (hence no flushing). One can imagine -- can't one? -- how this would add to my misery.

It was my own damn fault. You see, on Thursday I ate an evil sandwich. Oh, yes, it seemed perfectly normal and above-board at first: a chicken club with bacon and mayo on multigrain. But about three-quarters of the way through, I suddenly smelled dirt. Then tasted dirt. Which turned out to be mold, growing on the bread. I hurriedly spit out the offending mouthful but alas! too late, too late for the other moldy pieces, which had already slid down my gullet and into the perils of my digestive system.

Hours passed; nothing happened. I went about life as if nothing had changed, as if there wasn't an evil growing inside me, ready to burst forth in a dramatic and repulsive way, leaving me bedridden for most of the weekend.

But I survived, and feel nearly back to normal today. How strange: three days ago I was lying on the bathroom floor, wishing I were dead, and today I'm typing away, and even contemplating lunch.

Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach
refusing sandwiches if proffered, or any bread that's offered.
I have heard intestines singing, large to small, heard them all.

I do not want them singing to me.

Sausage, anyone?

I saw my therapist, G., for the first time last week. (Note that she is now "my" therapist. I realize that it's about 30 years too late for that to sound like a cool fashion accessory, something those hip New Yorkers could get behind, but gimme a break -- I live in the Midwest.) As self-predicted, I cried within about 90 seconds of sitting down on the couch. But I didn't bawl. It was fairly self-composed crying, a kind of gentle weeping that went on far too long in the silence of that office. Then I rallied and proceeded to tell her what a lousy life I have. (Kidding!)

I filled out some forms with family and medical background, the former of which raised a lot of questions. (I grew up in a -- let's say -- challenging environment.) So at our second session we discussed that. I dreaded it, having avoided talking about that stuff to a professional for so long, and the principals (Mom & Dad) are now dead, and it'll only make me sad, so what's the use?

But truthfully, it was a relief. Though not wanting to lay the cause of my various neuroses at my parents' doorstep, I have to admit that some aspects of my personality were forged in the oven of their bitter, unhappy, alcohol-filled lives. Not necessarily pleasant aspects, at that. Dealing with Henry's autism has brought some of that to the surface, namely self-doubt and a sense of floundering -- not knowing whether I am a competent parent, or whether I can ever be one given my background, etc.

G. said, "Every parent of a kid with disabilities feels they are floundering at one time or another." It brought me up short. Of course I know that intellectually, but emotionally I feel isolated and uncertain.

The thing is, being sad, confused, uncertain, anxious, etc. all comes out as anger in me. I'm not sad, I'm pissed! I'm not anxious, I'm pissed! I'm not confused, I'm pissed! Like I told a friend, it's like I'm making sausage: anger sausage.

And because Henry needs and deserves more patience and more understanding from me, and because I can't give it while I'm walking around feeling pissed off, I have to get a handle on what's going on with me. And I need it for my own peace of mind, and for the sake of Jon and my friends and family who have to put up with my temper.

G. also gave me a couple "quizzes" designed to reveal both how depressed I am, and how anxious I am. And I was moderate on both.

That's me -- always doing things half-assed.

Ch-ch-ch-changes, Part II

I gave up my writing studio, the one I'd had for nearly seven years. It was a difficult decision, and like most of my difficult decisions it percolated beneath the surface for a long time before it boiled over and became the "final word" on the matter.

I wasn't getting to the studio very often. It was too far away from our new house to make zipping over for just an hour or two a plausibility. And it cost money. So I turned it over to my roommate, who seems happy to have the place to herself, and am dedicating the "saved" money to bi-monthly (is that right? or is it bi-weekly? -- you know, every two weeks) maid service.

This doesn't come without a twinge of guilt. I feel like I should be able to handle cleaning the house: I only have one kid, and I'm home full time. And Henry's at school three mornings a week. But I'm also trying to finish my (damned) degree, and work on my writing, and have some semblance of a personhood beyond Mom and Housewife, and it isn't happening. I'm anxious all the time. I feel exhausted. I don't sleep well. My mind often races. And I'm doing a lousy job of mothering Henry. Lately I've been impatient and short-tempered. I feel like I have so little reserve power that a difficult or stressful day pushes me right over the edge.

My friend Girl Detective has been blogging about her struggle with depression. She recently attended an outpatient treatment program where she learned the difference between anxiety and depression. "Tell me! Tell me!" I begged, cleverly angling to obtain this nugget of information without paying a health care deductible. So here's what she said:

anxiety--tense, worried, wound up, fretful, agitated, yelling, angry,
to-do lists

depression--hopeless, sleepy, don't want to get out of bed, don't want
to talk to people, thinking about death, slow to think

I read the anxiety list and thought, "That's not anxiety! That's my personality! Oh...wait a sec..." I do have moments of depression, but I wake up every morning happy to get out of bed and start my day. Then I think, "It's the same damned thing all over again. Maybe if I make a to-do list, with check-boxes..."

Anxiety. Spot on.

Thinking more clearly about this helped nudge me into making the aforementioned changes, as well as search for babysitters for Henry so that I can have a couple more much-needed breaks during the week. I'm also thinking about, you know, talking to someone. Like a counselor. However, I haven't sufficiently quelled my anxiety over this issue to actually pick up the phone with my trembling hand. I just know that I'm going to get to Dr. Whomever's office and bawl, my face red and contorted, my nose dripping snot, my voice squeaking hysterically...why bother, when I could just rent a DVD of "Wizard of Oz"?

Joking aside, I should probably do it. I know that I can't continue on as unhappy and tense as I've been. So, for now, I'm setting aside the to-do lists and other futile attempts at controlling my life. And stepping bravely into the world of "self-care" and weekly bawling sessions.

Stay tuned.