Cooking and other observations

So

To say that I don't go into personal stuff here is pretty much untrue. "I" is such a featured word on this blog, but that's sort of unavoidable. It's probably more accurate to say that I don't reallywant to write about myself and what's going on in my life. On the other hand, this is important: I'm actively diabetic again.

Some of my readers never knew me while I was diabetic. I was diagnosed as a child, had no complications until after I turned 30, and then everything went to hell. Six years ago I received a simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplant. The kidney from that one didn't work out, but I still had the pancreas until about ten days ago, when it failed quickly and miserably.

Guess that explains why I've been sick and couldn't seem to get better. When the body has to fight an auto-immune disorder, and immunosuppressant drugs, that's hard; in concert, that's impossible.

Anyway, I'm working on it. As per usual, I have the support of an excellent medical team. The new guy, Dr. Adam Pearlman, who recently joined my nephrologist's group, has been amazing. Unlike a lot of MDs, he made an effort to get to know me a little bit. He introduced himself by his first name, and he made an effort to get me in to see one of the better endocrinologists in the DC area, who actually specializes in type 1 diabetes.

None of this has been easy on me. I'll go back on the transplant list to get a new pancreas, mostly so I can protect the second kidney, which used to belong to an incredible person. But also, if were to choose life as a diabetic, I'd be a ticking time bomb, vulnerable to all sorts of things. The lows, which come almost every day, terrify me more than anything. And the thing is, I've never been able to control them. I was always so scared of my blood sugar going too high that I deliberately kept it low. It would crash, and the bounceback caused nerve damage, which eventually caused nerve damage significant enough to destroy my kidneys and severely impair my eyesight.

I had a moment there, as I was flirting with a coma, in which I asked myself: you done yet? Ready to give up? Isn't it time to rest?

The answer to all those questions is no, still. I'm not sure why. Spinning one's wheels can be as wearying as actual movement, and I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop for quite a while now.

Point being, I might as well live.

It's funny what you notice about yourself

Earlier this evening, I saw a photograph on a friend's blog that she took of me with a piece of Bad Public Art, which you could find down at the Reagan Center for Statesmanship or Something if you were visiting Washington.

Now, I've made no secret of the fact that I've lost a lot of weight in the past six months. I wasn't trying to lose weight, it just sort of happened. I know I look different than I did a year ago. The first thing I noticed about this picture is that I ought to have put my purse on the ground, because it's sort of hanging in the middle of the shot in an unfortunate way.

Then I noticed the boobs. Wow, I didn't think they were that, uh, prominent. If I were a guy, I'd notice them first. (Many, if not most of them, can't help it.) That's kind of embarrassing. For the record, I wear a size 34 C bra. The bra I wore that day had no padding whatsoever, and doesn't do much in terms of uplift. (My twenties are a memory now, and gravity has not been my good friend these many years.) Whatever it's worth, in that picture, it's all me. I wasn't even standing up straight.

I guess it's a testament to the discretion of my male friends that not one of them bothered to tell me that all of a sudden, my breasts are front and center. (Well, one of them did, but the dress I was wearing that day was too big, and they were kind of falling out of its fairly low-cut bodice. I made a note of it; guy-friend-in-question sort of smirked and said there was nothing wrong with that.)

I should link the picture so you can see for yourself, but I'm not going to. I'm willing to talk about my reaction, but I'm not willing to point you in the direction to gawk. Not that I think any of you would gawk.

Body-image adjustment is a strange thing to have to do.

Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy

How blashpemous is it that to me, that's a quote from Linus and Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.

Anyway, I've been spending a bit of time in the basement going through stuff, trying to figure out what's down there. Tonight, I found something that I seriously thought was gone. In a black, plastic trash sack where I must have tucked them about fifteen years ago, I found my Aunt Ann's travel scrapbooks.

Now, scrapbooking was different in the 50s. It was more about saving stuff than gussying it up with geegaws from craft stores. (I have no opinion of modern scrapbooking, and I don't mean that in a pleasantly neutral way. I mean that in the way that a great Southern lady slices a person to bits by pressing her lips together and letting an eyebrow twitch.) Anyway, the scrapbooks cover many of the trips she and Uncle Bob took in the 50s, plus there are weird, casual family photographs.

I honestly thought these things lost to the mists of time, eaten away by my haste to get from one place to the next. They appear undamaged, because I had the foresight to wrap them in plastic. This will be great news to my extended family. For me, the joy of surprise is nearly unutterable. It's the first real surprise I've found down there, and I love surprises.

I'm supposed to go out with friends tomorrow night, to see a movie and hang out in Old Greenbelt, but even though I'm looking forward to the outing, I'd rather spend time going through the scrapbooks.

I guess I'll save that adventure for another time.

The cold that won't go away

So, I picked up a cold some time last week, possibly because I now work around the Great Unwashed, and germs tend to like a willing, unprotected host. I managed to sort of cook Thanksgiving dinner, which was a hit, although I had to take a nap in the middle of cooking. By the time the evening was over, my dining companions were ready to take me to a hospital.

But really, all I have is a cold. It just won't go away. I went to work yesterday, managed perfectly well for about half my shift, and then was told to go home because I was scaring the customers. Now, working around people is a bad idea, and I know that, but I like the job. Anyway, I went home. I felt OK, but before the evening was out, I was coughing so hard that I threw up.

Yeah, I know, you're saying "Eeeeew. That's so gross! Why did you have to say that?"

No reason, I just felt like sharing overmuch.

I'm trying to decide whether I should go in tomorrow. Generally I'm OK, except when I move, when I start coughing again. You can see how this might pose a problem. The worst part isn't the combination that leads to hacking up my guts, it's the fact that I can't seem to get back into my head, like I'm all stupid.

Anyway, I managed to keep down a cup of hot chocolate and some bread, so that's a victory. I successfully went out to get cat food, and I bought a new coffee maker, because the old one died over the weekend. Problem is that I need to have access to my higher brain in order to figure out how the new coffee maker works.

Life is so complicated sometimes.

For the vaguely curious

Or the ardently curious, I guess I don't get to draw that distinction.

Pictures of me.

Chances are that I like these because I'm barely visible, but I am in them, and that counts. These are, to my knowledge, the only photos of me on the whole 'net, and I am willing to share the location with you nice people. I do not like to be photographed, but sometimes I'll stop what I'm doing, like when a friend says "don't move!"

That's what happened here. In the first shot, I was looking up, wondering what material the wreaths were made from. Emily, who is a much better photographer than she gives herself credit for being, asked me not to move. In the second shot, which was actually taken about half an hour earlier, I rounded a corner and leaned up against the wall to read the quote. I didn't realize my friend was standing about ten feet away with her tripod, focused on the same wall.

The quote just killed me, and I was about to cry. (I do cry, occasionally; I'm not completely heartless, despite all outward appearances.) The thing is, it's just so sad, comparing the reaction of this country and its people to the second world war with the way things are now.

O, to be a citizen again; to have that mean something larger than self. That's what I was thinking when Emily asked me not to move.

Each time I go to bed, I pray like Aretha Franklin

Anybody who remembers that obscure little lyric from the 80s is welcome to the door prize, which, if eyeroll.net actually had door prizes, would be a random piece of junk from my basement. Who's up for the needlepoint footstool covered in Maine Coon fur? Oh and a Dean for America bumper sticker.

All righty then.

Ever since I swore off sniffing copier toner, my dreams have been really boring, but last night took the proverbial cake. Hell, it took the whole bakery. Last night, I dreamed that I changed the batteries in my digital camera.

That was it. Usually when I wake up from a dream vivid enough to remember, I'm confused, even a little battered. This morning I woke up and said, out loud, "Did I really change those batteries?"

I think my subconsicious is bored.

Not the story you expect

Yes, I was in a hospital from Thursday through the weekend. It was nothing serious; I was admitted because of a high fever from trying to fight a urinary tract infection, e.coli, which I could have told them. It's always e.coli. I didn't ask about the gram stain. The nephrologist thought that because of the fever, the bacteria was either psuedomonas or a vancomycin resistant strain of enterococccus, and that would have been worse.

After calling a couple of neighbors and not connecting with anybody, I decided to drive myself to the hospital rather than waiting any longer. This was not the best idea I ever had. I decided to take Route 1 south rather than risk getting stuck on 295 and the Wilson Bridge, but traffic was moving so slowly--it literally took 45 minutes to move one block in Alexandria--and I was in so much pain that I cried hysterical, irrational tears for at least half an hour. Three hours after I started out, I arrived at the emergency room of Mount Vernon Hospital, where two of my teams of docs are on staff. If anything were wrong with my spare parts, they would have transferred me to Fairfax and the care of my other team of docs, but I stayed at Mount Vernon, and that's good. The food is better there.

The ER doc was incredible. He conducted most of our dealings with the lights turned off because the light hurt my eyes. He brought me blankets himself instead of getting some flunkie to do it, he distracted me from the pain by rubbing my feet so I could concentrate while giving him my history, and then he gave me morphine.

Morphine at a low dose is now my fondest, truest dream. It's like an angel that lives in your bloodstream. Sure, it hits my head like a train, actually causing more pain than it alleviates, but after the initial slap I felt oddly centered; capable, comfortable, even normal. My head was in a really good place, and I did not feel like I was drugged, if that makes any sense. I felt like myself.

I've been through a lot of drugs because of my health, and because I'm not nearly as nice a girl as I seem: Coke made me nervous the one time I tried it. E made me cranky, and I don't need any help with that. Vicodin made me chatty, Percocet made me sleepy. Demerol knocked me on my ass and left me in a violet haze. Morphine at a higher dose muffled the strongest pain I've ever felt, but left me helpless. Weed made me stupid, in a good way, and I wouldn't have made it through dialysis without it, but I can't function while high the way some people I know can.

After only 36 hours, I was cranky and anxious when my nephrologist cut me off without telling me and without covering me for pain--Tylenol? You can't be serious!--so we'll just say that I succumbed to morphine's charms. I've lived without things I love before, and I can honestly say that I love how morphine made me feel. My heart is shadowed from knowing there's a state of being that I actually enjoy, and that I can't get there; like I had a brief fling with the greatest guy in the world, and I know I'll never see him again.

Morphine and I just aren't meant to be, no matter to what degree I might want to live in the place it takes me. You can't always get what you want.

People I know read this, people who care about me, and it's going to scare them. Hell, it scares me, but we should really all stay calm. I'm stoic and smart. The next time a doc offers me 4 mL of morphine IV, I'll just say no. I'll ask for pills, which I can handle.

Bottom line: I'm fine, or I will be. I'm taking high-tech antibiotics and Vicodin. I'm killing time by writing and making playlists in iTunes. This is not a movie review.

The thing about blindness

I have an unreasonable lack of fear for my own wellbeing, and I'm not sure why; plenty of bad things have happened to me, and I haven't really cried over any of them.

Today, after leaving the retinologist's office, I actually shed a few tears, because I'm not sure that the work he has been doing over the past three years is helping. As he started with the laser today I remarked that I was going to hope this would be the last time. He said--and I'll never forget this--"OK, you can think that."

In truth, there's not much left to laser. I overheard him talking to another patient while I was waiting and he told her that she needed "a lot" of laser treatment, two sessions on each eye.

Heh. That's nothing. If I remember correctly, I'm up to six on each eye, plus the various other treatments with steroids. I felt deep disappointment when he told me that I needed more laser on the left eye back before my surgery, because my eyes are the last part of me that needs to be patched back together. Emotionally, I'm having a tough time moving on because I still have ongoing medical treatment on a critical system.

Looking at the situation objectively, I know that I am better off now because I started treatment, but the feeling that I just want to get on with my life--whether that's going back to work, going to grad school, or even getting a more active social life--and that I can't let myself do it because I'm still broken is getting to be too much to bear.

It is based, I guess, on my belief that I will eventually feel like a completely healthy person. I've taken risks in the past year and a half, and I am glad I did. I seem to do better outside the comfort-zone where I have sympathetic physicians at my beck and call. I do better in situations where nobody thinks I'm particularly special because of all I've been through.

The thing is, I don't think I or my experience dealing with the almost inevitable complications of type 1 diabetes are all that special. My health colors my worldview, but until today, I never felt like I had been given any more to deal with than I could handle.

I was the only person who never thought I wouldn't make it. I was the only one who knew that I'd make a full recovery, and I don't know that any more. It's a shock.

As much of a shock as those tears in the elevator.

It's a good thing I'm single

A couple of months ago, while I had visiting cat, a door that is usually left open was kept closed for a few days. The that has a hook the side that faces the hall. There was an interesting piece of wood hanging from the hook.

Key word there is "was." I walked into the door without opening it and ran smack dab into the stick, which I tossed down the hall. I had a black eye, and it hurt. Strangers shot me funny looks for a couple of days, and I tried to imagine what I would have said if one of DC's finest had asked if I wanted to file a report on the guy who smacked me.

"Officer, I know how this must look, but I really, truly, walked into a door."

Then about an hour ago, I was sitting on the sofa when I dropped something. I bent over to pick it up and I managed to hit my face on a table. It still hurts, and there's a faint bruise right below my cheekbone. So as I washed my face, between "Ow, that still hurts!" and "Damn, that's going to leave a mark." I thought about my fictional officer of the law again.

"Look, Officer, I'm not a victim of domestic violence. There's nobody who wants to smack me in the face, and I can't file charges against myself for being absentminded!"

The moral of the story is that sometimes, things that sound like lies are true; and that furniture poses more danger to me than any guy I'd hook up with possibly could. I figure I could take out most humans with pepper spray, if I had to, but if I tried that on a hunk of wood, it would just mess up the finish.

When I grow up

I think I just figured out what I want to do when I grow up, and the thing is, it at least sort of fits in with my career as it has evolved.

An idea popped into my head a few minutes ago: Amanda, you should go get yourself a master's degree in urban planning. This may not be immediately doable for a couple of reasons, namely that it's damn near June and I haven't even looked into schools. I'm pretty sure my GRE scores have expired, so I'd have to do that again, and I'd have to call  some of my former colleagues at HUD for recommendations, which means that I'd have to remember their last names.

However, I could do it. I have great management skills, I know how to manipulate data, and those weird classes in statistical analysis that I took as an undergrad might actually fill some prerequisites. (I have no idea what advanced statististics courses were doing in my public relations program, and neither did the math department. The math department insisted that the journalism get its students the hell out of those classes the year after I graduated, and the math department was right; most future flacks, who were terrified of the material, had no business taking seats away from future economists and data analysts.)

Anyway, it's a thought. This thought will probably be replaced by another thought within a week or so, but that's what I want to be when I grow up of the moment.

Last time, I wanted to be a veterinarian, but I can't lift 50 pounds, and you have to be able to lift 50 pounds in order to get into vet school.

I'm so 12 sometimes.