To Sleep, Perchance to Breathe

Bodies are weird. And living in one as it's aging is annoying, but never dull.

For anyone interested in long overdue updates about my personal health things: The mastitis issue is essentially gone with occasional flare-ups of WHY?! at inconvenient moments. My back is fine after a few years of very not fine, but I think the beginning of the pandemic cured it by making me stop doing things. Plantar fasciitis was fixed with good shoes. There was a glowing spot in my vision that went away, and has been replaced by a couple of dark dots off to my left that I try to ignore. I think I am finally in menopause? Fingers crossed that sticks because periods are the worst. Currently I'm in a game of chicken with my right leg about going to the doctor. For no reason I can pinpoint, it started hurting a couple of weeks ago, but I stuck a brace/sleeve thing on my knee the other day and it's getting better. Good times.

This post is specifically about how I am adjusting to the use of a CPAP machine. It's been a week, and wow, what a difference it makes to be able to sleep!

If you are in a demographic that is blissfully unaware of sleep apnea, it's a condition where you stop breathing in your sleep, and your body snorts you awake to keep you alive. CPAP stands for "continuous positive airway pressure" and it's a machine you essentially strap to your face to keep you breathing through the night.

I have not slept well in years. Certainly not since before I had children. I have counted myself lucky if I got three hours in a row, and in the past year or two I've been up every hour or ninety minutes. It reached a point where I was exhausted and would just sit up in bed and cry, so I finally asked my doctor for help. He referred me to a sleep specialist, who sent me home for two nights with a sleep monitoring kit.

My brother asked me the other day why I didn't do that sooner. An excellent question! The answer, besides the typical mom response of there were too many other things to do for other people first, is that I was still functioning. When I talked to the sleep clinic doctor, he seemed to think I might be able to try a special mouth guard to start, if I even had sleep apnea. He wasn't convinced based on my answers to his questions. I don't fall asleep while driving, or at work, I don't take regular naps, etc. I am not hindered in my daily activities. When things seem to be working, you can put off fixing the few things that aren't.

Now, instead of the meeting with the doctor to discuss the results, he simply put in an order for a CPAP machine. No consultation. The message in MyChart said "Severe sleep apnea, ordering CPAP immediately." It sounded like he was wondering why I wasn't dead.

And then I went to the CPAP orientation. There were four of us there to learn how to operate our machines and to choose which type of mask we wanted, etc. The instructor had us each sit at our assigned places, and told us the number written at the top of the first page in the instruction folder was the average number of times per hour we had stopped breathing during our at home sleep studies. The woman across from me had the number five. The woman next to me had six.

My paper said 46.7.

I stopped breathing an average of 46.7 times AN HOUR every night! The other people in the room looked at me as if I were making a joke.

So now a week or so into CPAP life, I can sleep! I get about four to six hours in a row before I maybe get up to pee and then go back to sleep. I don't yawn all day. I don't wish I could take a nap. I'm awake! I like it.

There's still a lot to get used to, though. The whole thing is weird, and a decidedly unsexy way to go to  bed. The giant tube coming out of my face is surprisingly unnoticeable, but the mask is leaving my skin around my nose and mouth a bit red which I dislike. The machine is much quieter than I was expecting. Honestly, it doesn't sound much different from a person breathing nearby, and I tend to wear earplugs at night and I don't hear the machine at all. Finding a comfortable sleeping position is still strange, but when I'm out I'm actually out, so I don't care. The thrill has not worn off yet that I can shut my eyes and then open them a few hours later and not remember any of the time in between. But it's creepy that the machine is monitoring everything. 

I get the convenience that the doctor can adjust it remotely if something needs to change, and it's interesting to get a report every morning about how I slept. I get an actual score. The first night I got an 86 (out of 100), so a solid B worth of sleep. Once I figured out how to get my mask to seal better and how to lie a different way so I'm less likely to dislodge anything, I started getting all A's. But it records how many times I take my mask off, how well my mask was working, etc. Apparently the number of "incidents" a night is down to an average of about two. I like having all that information, but I don't really like sharing when I'm sleeping with some unknown observer out in the world. It's like worrying about Santa watching me again, only this time the present is insurance coverage. I have to use the machine four hours a night for insurance to help pay for what would otherwise be an expensive service.

There's also lots of care and feeding for the machine that I'm not looking forward to. Emptying the distilled water every morning, washing the tube, wiping things down, changing the filter, etc. I can't keep houseplants alive because I don't like these kinds of chores, but apparently for me, that's the price of sleep.

And sleep is great! I've missed it.

My husband appreciates that I'm not flailing around. Mostly because when I can't sleep all the covers get twisted and he doesn't get to keep his blankets. Now he wakes up with the covers the way they started at the beginning of the night and he's much happier.

The dog was super confused the first night about why I had things strapped to my head, but snuggled me under the covers all the same. That's been the funniest side effect of the whole CPAP thing, is the dog has more energy. She was already Miss No Off-Switch at her doggy daycare, but when I get a full night's sleep, she gets a full night's sleep. And now she's happily running nonstop with her dog pals and the trainers have noticed.

In any case, if you can't stay asleep, and you're literally tired of writing it off as part of perimenopause or stress, couldn't hurt to figure out if it's sleep apnea. I would prefer not to need this machine to breathe at night, but I am glad to have it.

Plague Break

This is how my daughter has been referring to this unexpected and peculiar time off: Plague Break. It's like Spring Break (which according to our calendar is still approaching) combined with a pandemic. Strange times.

Our family is beyond lucky. As of this moment, the corona virus has not seemed to have touched us, or anyone we know personally. I expect that to change as the year drags forward, but today? Today we are healthy. Today we are fine.

Our state went on official lock down on Wednesday morning, March 25th. There was a flurry of activity in my store right before then, since many people don't view violins and instrument repairs as non-essential. One person even drove up from Chicago to have me set up her soundpost, since Illinois was on lock down already and no shop down there could help her.

Before this week, we'd been by appointment only at the violin store as soon as the public school closures were issued. The protocols we instituted involved lots of hand washing (for both us and our customers), social distancing, and anything people handled and didn't take with them got put into quarantine for several days. It was an odd way to work.

Since the lock down, no one is allowed inside my store. They can leave things on the doorstep that I can bring in after they've backed away. I have been able to deliver certain items. I recently left a violin bow on a porch and found the payment for it in the mailbox. I appreciate more than I can say that I have customers that think to call me first, rather than spend their money online.

Interestingly, we had more rental instruments go out in the past week than come back. People have time to play. I've been carefully asking each person who does return an instrument why they are doing it, because I don't want anyone to feel they can't play violin simply because we're in a peculiar time of financial strain. I would find a way for them to hang onto it for a while, rather than take a violin away from a child at this moment. But so far everyone has assured me their child lost interest, nothing more.

I've been at my store each day, primarily to wait for packages that were already in transit before the lock down order. I've been sharpening tools for work that isn't there. It's very odd to be caught up on repairs.

Very soon I will shift to being completely at home, the way my husband and children have been. I'll join the full-time quarantine, where at least we have each other and there are hugs and a well-enough stocked pantry. (On my last visit to the grocery store at the beginning of the week, I discovered the losing pasta type is Mafalda. Apparently people will take everything else before they will take Mafalda. Who knew?)

What I find really striking so far about this momentous shift we've all been asked to make in our lives, is how quickly so much of it has sunk in. It's only been about two weeks since school was canceled and social distancing rules were explained to all of us. Now when I see images in movies or online of crowds of people smashed shoulder to shoulder anywhere I feel something akin to panic. I'm conscious about how I wash my hands in a way I didn't used to be. Every time someone touches their own face I feel a small alarm go off in my brain.

I'm surprised by how exhausting all of this has turned out to be. And how hard it is to be motivated to do the kinds of projects I usually want to do. Seems like a perfect opportunity to write, or organize things, or get some real work done in my home shop. But I haven't really done any of that yet.

Part of it is that in some way, too much time can be a burden. I've often found that when trying to get somewhere on time, that too much time makes me as late as too little. And in terms of projects, I'm reminded of the saying, "If you want something done, give it to a busy person." People often ask how I have time for all the things I do, and the truth is you grab moments when you can get them and use them to the fullest. But if tomorrow is just as empty as today, there's no hurry. So I keep putting things off because I can.

Another part of it is stress and grief. Those things make you tired. I tried to explain that to my oldest the other night when she was getting depressed and wasn't sure why. I told her it's because this looks like a vacation of sorts, but it isn't. It's a crisis. And even though in our own home things are about the same, having choices taken away never feels right. And she has legitimate things to grieve over. She left school believing she'd go back the following Monday. Instead, without any goodbyes, she's simply done. Not exactly the way we imagine finishing our senior year. She's trying to make decisions about college under unusual circumstances. She misses her friends.

The stories about people this pandemic has impacted directly are scary. There's no getting around that no matter how many cookies we bake. The fact that there is no end date is stressful. All of it makes us want to sleep in and tune it out a little longer.

As much as we've had to give up at this time, I am impressed by how many good things we had, if that makes sense. Most of us tend to focus on the negative side of being too busy. When all of it grinds to a halt, we can appreciate anew what we liked about all of those activities.

Because talk about cancel culture! Watching one thing after another go down like dominoes was rather shocking. Two concerts I was supposed to play were called off. My book signing is indefinitely postponed. I doubt my daughter will have a public graduation. My husband, after 21 years of service, was supposed to have his Army retirement ceremony next weekend, but instead, he just stops going to drill with no real recognition. Almost without exception, everything getting canceled was something we were looking forward to. It's sort of astonishing to be forced to step away from it all and realize how good we had it.

Currently the only thing keeping us tethered to the day of the week is the fact that my son has remote piano lessons on Mondays. That's it. Bedtimes don't matter, mealtimes don't matter.... All my kids are teenagers so the schedule has gotten very loose. The funniest part of Quinn's piano lessons is that he broke his wrist in two places on a ski trip right before the school closures. His left arm is in a cast, which means to play his assignments, I am now his left hand. I'm a viola player, so I don't read bass clef, and looking at chords is confusing. I gave his teacher a good laugh at least, last lesson. I will do better next time! And since I'm not taking Quinn anywhere near a hospital until the pandemic is under control, who knows how long he'll be stuck in that cast? I could become better at bass clef than I ever planned to.

I am enjoying reading more. I normally don't have a schedule that allows me to finish a book in a single day, and now I do. I'm reading to the kids as they gather to do projects some evenings at the dining room table. Mona has been sewing some beautiful things. Aden is drawing more. I've made a new friend on social media whom I think of as my "plague buddy," and we can tell each other stories that people in our own homes have already heard too many times. It will be nice to meet him in real life when the world goes back to normal.

I do wonder what normal will look like, though. I imagine a year from now it will look more like what we remember from just a few weeks ago. But the rest of this year I think will be strange and complicated. This is not something that will simply end in a couple of weeks and everything springs back to life as if we flipped a switch. There will be ripple effects, and I expect to feel them for a while.

Yesterday would have been my dad's 91st birthday. I took a walk by the lake for an hour and called one of my brothers, and then my mom. We agreed that Dad would have weathered quarantine just fine. He would have happily clipped articles at his desk and looked forward to whatever Mom made for dinner. We wonder if he would have noticed the plague break much at all, aside from the newspaper articles suddenly being entirely about covid-19. I feel bad my mom doesn't have his company right now as she's stuck by herself at home.

I loved my walk by the lake. I'm going to take advantage of so much time laid suddenly at my feet and try to do that every day that I can. This afternoon my family came out to walk a little with me. Even the dog who (because he is the world's weirdest dog and doesn't want to go for walks) enjoyed it for a little bit. The lake provides perspective you don't get anywhere else. It's always beautiful, always different. It makes our own concerns seem smaller and fleeting.

If we do this together we can be proud of how we looked out for one another at an uncertain time. Take care of each other and try to see the good. There's always good if you look.

I hope you all stay healthy.

Spring Catch Up Post

Life has been nuts.  I remember how hard running after toddlers was, and how babies suck up all of your day, but I also remember thinking something easier was just over the horizon if I could just get a little more sleep and make it there.

Yeah, no.  Bigger kids just have different issues that suck up just as much time, and complex problems that can tear at your soul.  Older kids can also be wonderful, and having real conversations with these people you made is amazing, especially when I think back to the days where we spent a lot of time just pointing to colors and that was as stimulating as things got.  I prefer playing Settlers of Catan to Candyland, there are just a lot more rules to remember.

Anyway, lately there has been little time to think, let alone write, so this is a giant catch-all post to sort through some of what we've been doing and to keep my memories anchored in time a bit better.

Bated Breath

All of my kids at some point when they were babies had croup.  Each time it was awful.  Each of them made a trip to the emergency room at Children's Hospital for it.  Each time we were told there really was nothing they could do.  But when your baby struggles with each breath and won't stop crying and coughing it's nightmarish and you just want help.

The thing about those times I remember best was the drive to the hospital with the baby rear facing in the backseat, always in the dark, out of reach.  And I couldn't tell what was worse: Hearing each tortured inhale, or the silence in between breaths.  Each strangled breath was bad, but wondering if something worse had befallen my baby to cause the silence was equally bad.  Times like that when your imagination is spinning out of control and your instincts are hyperactive make for a very long drive (even when it's only 10.7 miles).

We are far from the baby stage now.  Those parenting challenges are hard, and some things do get easier as your kids grow, but somethings don't.

Health Update: Limbo

Enough people have asked me about my medical situation that I feel I should just post another health update.  Anyone who reads this blog for posts about violin making or parenting or cakes and feels this is too much information, please read this, or this, or this instead, and I'll meet you at the kitchen remodel post soon.

To recap, I've been struggling with granulomatous mastitis for over a year.  It may be gone, but it's hard to tell.  I have been on and off steroids since December.  When I went off them the first time a few months ago I thought we were done, but then my breast started to flare up and hurt again, so back on them I went, and at a higher dosage for longer than the first time.  The steroids weren't pleasant but they did the trick.  I'm off them now and hoping this time it's for good.  Generally people with this condition suffer it for about a year to a year and a half before it burns itself out, and it's been a year and two months, so maybe I can start really healing.

Health Update

Simply because I find it easier to post here for anyone who is interested than to repeat myself for people who ask.  Anyone understandably not interested, maybe go read this old post about building our garage.  Or, if you want something more deathy there's this.  (Or something random, or something violin-y.)

I'm doing well!  The new doctor put me on steroids back at the beginning of December, and that's doing the trick.  Apparently steroids either work for people with Granulomatous Mastitis immediately or they don't help much at all.  I am in the lucky category of people for whom they seem work.

Relief

I finally found doctors willing to help me.  Today is the first day in a long time that I feel more like a normal person.  It's wonderful.

I have given up on Columbia St Mary's hospital system here in Milwaukee, and am switching our whole family's medical care to Froedtert.  I have always liked our primary doctor at CSM, and we've gone to her since before we had children, but she's moving her practice to suburbs farther north in the new year anyway.  Keeping a relationship with her might have been our only incentive to stay, but with that ending I had no reservations about starting over somewhere else.

The pain in my breast that began back in July started getting so bad over Thanksgiving weekend that it was destroying my ability to function.  I tried swimming without using my right arm for a couple of days, but finally had to admit swimming was out.  I had to set aside a bushing job at work because I couldn't brace the instrument against my body in order to get at it properly with my tools.  (Thankfully that job is on a long timeline, so it will still get done.)  I couldn't walk at a normal speed.  I couldn't lift many things.  I was constantly elbowing away my children when they'd try to hug me.  Sleeping was hard because I'd have to find one position and not deviate from it all night or suffer excruciating pain.

I spent all of last Monday trying to get any doctor at CSM to listen to me.  The nurse at the breast center that did the biopsies and the ultrasounds and the mammograms were sympathetic, but said that since I did not have cancer there was nothing more they could do for me.  They couldn't even prescribe anything for the pain.

Accepting the Fat Pants

It's not been an easy go since summer.  There are many good things to be grateful for, but a combination of grief and chronic pain has undermined my world in a way that some things have had to give.  The main thing is I don't have the mental energy to be disciplined about what I'm eating.  It makes me sad, but I don't know what else to do.

It seems wrong that you can undo a lot of work so quickly.  It took a year to get my weight down to where it should be, and a matter of weeks to go back.  Not that I'm all the way back, but enough that I can't fit into what I was using as my regular clothes for a while.  I saved out one pair of bigger pants when I lost weight and now they are they only pants that fit.  I will try to get myself under control enough that I don't outgrow those.

Beautiful Day for a Biopsy

Well, it was a beautiful day, anyway.  We've had a gorgeous week here, all in the upper-sixties/low-seventies.  I would have loved to have gone biking along the lake, or even spent a nice hour sitting outside, but I've had to be content with simply having my front door to the store open while I admire the sunshine from my workbench.  Quinn and I took a walk the other evening to pick up things at Target and marveled the whole way that we didn't need jackets.  I love a warm day in fall.

Anyway, I decided I really didn't have much choice other than to just do the next biopsy.  It makes sense to rule out cancer, and the whole thing has been going on too long not to try to find an explanation.  But I dreaded it.

It hurt.  I cried during the procedure because of the pain.  I cried at the mammogram afterward because... I'm not sure why.  I was feeling emotional I suppose.  I hate crying in public, but once you start it's hard to stop.

That Hopeless Feeling and Knowing Better

I'm in that awful limbo of feeling tired and frustrated and stuck, and still knowing I should appreciate how much I have.  Nothing is terrible.  But nothing feels quite right, either.

I'm stressed about my breast issue, which never completely went away.  It's improved since July, and I'm not in pain, but after three ultrasounds, two aspirations, and a mammogram they want to do another biopsy and I just don't want to.  I get wanting to rule out cancer, but I don't think it is cancer, and I don't want to go through all that discomfort again just to be back at square one.  But it's hard to know what to do and all of it is upsetting.  I don't feel like there are people I can talk to about it without upsetting them, too.

We have been struggling with the high school application process for Aden.  In Milwaukee you apply to go anywhere, and a few schools (like the High School of the Arts) require additional hoops to jump through, and that has been stressful.  The school issues with Aden in general have been frustrating.  Only other parents going through something similar seem to understand how little control over any of that we have.  Everyone else just seems judgy, which never helps.

On the Mend (Booby Trap Edition)

Just a quick update on medical things because I've had several concerned people contact me, so it seems simpler at this point to post about it here.

Benign

I wouldn't want to keep anyone in suspense about my biopsy results.  Got the call this morning that it was just a benign cyst, so all is well.  Thanks to everyone who reached out to me on this blog and through email.  Your kind thoughts have been much appreciated.

Since my last blog post I've traveled to Ohio and New York, played two concerts, and been featured on local TV, so lots to write about when I finally find a minute.  In the meantime, for those who are curious, I can describe the biopsy a little.

Size 14 Forever

I went out last night to buy new pants because nothing fits right now.  It's a good problem to have when your weight is going the direction you want, and not so when it's going a direction you don't.  But sizes are a mess anymore.

I started this summer at a size 18.  When those pants got loose I used a belt for a while, and managed to bypass needing anything in a 16.  When I got to 14 I was happy because my favorite pair of jeans in my closet is a size 14.  It's a pair of Calvin Kleins I got on sale at some point during my weighty journey either up or down several years ago.  They would probably get classified as "mom jeans" by someone because they actually come up over my hips to my waist, where, frankly, they should be.  That whole mid-rise trend is not fair to those of us whose torsos are just a battlefield of stretchmarks.

Anyway, my weight has been up and down enough times that I've had several occasions to break out those size 14 jeans.  Now they are loose again and I had to buy a pair of 12s.  The 10s I have still gathering dust in the closet from the last time I was smaller will have to wait until I've lost another ten to fifteen pounds.

But here's the thing:  Another ten or fifteen pounds from now I will be the weight I was when I got married in 1997.  And back then I was a size 14.  I also remember shopping for pants in high school in the 80s.  And I was a size 14.  There is a forty pound difference between where I am now and where I was in high school.  That is insane.

Which makes me wonder why I'm going to all the trouble of swimming a mile every day and being disciplined about what I eat because apparently if I just wait long enough I will be a size 10 again without even trying.  Or maybe the pendulum will swing the other way and I will be back to being a size 14.  (Either way, nothing short of a sari has ever fit me that my brother has brought me back from India because there sizes are a whole other thing and my 5'10" frame is off all the charts.)

What I'm Eating

Or, I guess, what I'm not eating, which is sugar, dairy, and wheat.  Although, honestly, I focus on what I'm happy about eating and not things I'm avoiding.

Back at the beginning of the summer when I wrote about how I needed to get serious about my weight but wasn't sure anymore what to do, I made a decision to just do something and stick with it and see what happens.  And so far so good, actually.  I've been losing about a pound a week and I'm feeling better.  Do I miss things?  Sure.  But I figure the choice is between having those things and not feeling healthier, or feeling healthier and not having those things.  I've done it one way for a while, now I'm doing it the other.  I don't get to have it all so I'm not going to worry about what I'm missing.  I'll always be missing something.

So why am I cutting out those things?  Because it's easier for me in general to just cut out certain categories of food so I don't have to think too hard or struggle with anything.  When you flat out make some things off limits you kind of stop seeing them.  I did the paleo thing for a bit a while back, and the concept behind it is bunk, but it did work.  It taught me to read labels and focus on simple foods and avoid processed items, so going back to some form of that seemed like a good idea.

Home, Quiet Home

What a couple of weeks.  Lots of things to say, most of which I'm too tired to do much about tonight, so for now here's what I can tell you:

My dad fell again a few weeks back.  He broke his leg up near his hip and had to have surgery.  It's been a rough few years for my parents with my dad's health issues, but until this latest fall he was doing pretty well.  Now things have been kind of reset to where we were over a couple of years back, with my dad using a wheelchair and practicing with a walker, and my mom having to care for him in one room on the ground floor since the rest of the house is like a crazy obstacle course of stairs.

It's been hard.  It's hard on dad who's been scared and in pain, and hard on mom who feels trapped and overwhelmed, and hard on me and my brothers who struggle with how to help from a distance.

Not Interested in Dying

We got an email from my dad last night.  My dad doesn't email very often.  He used to write us a great deal, most often on post it notes that accompanied packets of articles he'd hand selected for us.  Sometimes there was a lot crammed onto the post it notes, but usually they were brief.  My favorite was one that read: "Dear Kory, This is more than I wrote to your brother, Love Dad."  His emails are brief as well, seldom more than a half dozen lines at best, but always both poignant and funny.

Last night's email was particularly powerful.  He reminded us that we had reached the one year anniversary of a doctor telling my mom in the hospital that my dad may not make it through the night.  But he did.  And he's still around a year later having settled back in at home, vacationed with us at the cottage, and seen his grandchildren all grow that much taller and more interesting.  If his cancer returns there is nothing left to be done about it, and things are still complicated (particularly from my mom's end), but he's home and getting around under his own power, doing what interests him, and mostly just being my dad.  When I think about the nightmarish hospital stays from last year it's hard not to marvel at the difference today.

Dad also mentioned a recent obituary in the Times that said the deceased "had no interest in dying" and he probably didn't either.  I'm glad that's nowhere on my dad's to do list.  Because I need my dad.

A Body of Work

I suspect that if I live long enough to get to die of a ripe and wrinkly old age I will regret that I wasted so much time and energy being frustrated with my body.

It's unwarranted, my disappointment with it, because it serves me so well.  It works!  No, I haven't put keeping it in its optimum condition a priority, but I can walk and move and see and feel and breathe....  From a vanity standpoint I don't think I'm conventionally cute, but I like my face and wouldn't change it.  I should accept my body's size and shape and concentrate on being healthy and not get so critical.  I know these things.  But it doesn't matter sometimes what I know.

It's a weird line between getting motivated to change and being self-critical.  I'm not in the shape I would like to be in, and it's hard not to feel like a failure about that.  But if I'm too forgiving of myself in that regard then I'm less likely to do something different.  There must be a happy midpoint in there, but instead I tend to ping pong over that net between the two extremes.  I wish I didn't, because as I mentioned, it seems like a colossal waste of time.

I have been back on my 'paleo' (no grains, dairy, sugar, legumes, or processed foods) kick since the first of May.  It does solve my problem with headaches so it's not a completely ridiculous thing to do, but it's not easy.  My husband needed to lose weight for the Army so he did this plan with me this time, and annoyingly lost about as much weight in six weeks as I did in as many months.  (Ugh, men.  A friend told me her dad dropped twenty pounds and when she asked him about it he said, "I just had one scoop of ice cream at night instead of two!"  Yeah.)

I am proud of myself for staying with the stupid food rules even while on our recent road trip.  Those are hard restrictions to follow outside of my own house.  I eat really well most days and enjoy some really nice food, but it's labor intensive making every meal.  I make a good carrot soup, and zucchini strangely enough is a good substitute for noodles, and throw some pine nuts in with my curry stir fry and I'm happy.  I start planning my meals around vegetables, and there is something really satisfying as I watch our groceries at the checkout because it's all produce and whole ingredients and just an occasional box of cereal for the kids, but otherwise it's eggs and apples and kale, etc.

But eating out is hard, and eating with other people is awkward.  I end up eating my hamburger without a bun, and I can't have the chips or the dip or an ice cream cone.  It looks silly and arbitrary (which it is, being self-imposed and not some medical need), and I fear unnecessarily draws other people's attention to what they are eating when they shouldn't have to.  In my opinion it's rude to turn down food offered to you at someone's home, but on my trip I felt like I needed to do it and tried to not make it seem annoying or overly weird.  I know people understand, but sticking to my salad while everyone else indulged in some outrageously good looking pizza was really tough.  But I did it.  I decided I've had pizza in my lifetime.  I've had too much pizza.  The couple of minutes of enjoying more pizza at this time does not outweigh my desire to fit into smaller clothes.  Someday I will eat pizza again.  Just not right now.  So for the first time ever I came back from a vacation a little lighter than when I left.  That's good.

But what's not good is the more weight I lose the more critical I seem to feel about my body.  I can actually tell when my weight goes up a bit because I'm oddly more confident about my appearance.  Why is that?  What screwed up relationship do I have between my brain and my belly that I can't see or feel things clearly in this area?  I just don't know.

As regularly as I can I swim at the Y in the mornings.  Most often I do laps at the same time as the aqua-aerobics class which is populated with old ladies.  (I suppose I should say Seniors, but my grandma used the term old lady and I just like it.  I find it endearing and hope to live long enough to become an old lady.)  I sort through an interesting collection of thoughts and emotions when I'm in the changing room with the aqua-aerobics class.

There is nothing that will make you feel better in a swimsuit than to be at the Y during aqua-aerobics.  I see bodies that are large, lumpy, saggy, discolored, and all kinds of odd.  My overweight, 43-year-old self seems quite young and fit in that environment.

Then I end up next to a lifeguard who appears to be about twelve with perfect skin and has thighs that don't rub together and I blend in better with the old ladies, lumps and all.  I go from feeling sort of aghast that the people with such heavy or peculiar bodies are willing to be seen in bathing suits, to being impressed by how little it matters.  It will seem crazy to me that they to want to be in public in such outfits, and then it seems just as crazy for them not to be out there baring themselves if they wish.  They are not there for a beauty contest, they are there to get healthy and strong, and I admire that.  In the end it's neither heroic nor an affront to fashion, all these different shapes in their different suits.  It's just people living their lives.

The thing is, I intellectually understand where I want to be in terms of my own attitude and level of comfort with myself, and I can't figure out why I put as much importance on my body image as I do.  Because I know, for a fact, that my love for other people is not dependent on their body shapes.  I don't give a damn what size my mom or friends or brothers or cousins wear.  I care in the sense that I'm interested in what matters to them, and if that's something that concerns them then I am concerned too.  But I would love them at any weight or in any condition.  I would not love someone less if their bodies were fat, thin, sick, healthy, or covered with tattoos.  I'm quite sure none of the people in my life who love me do so based on my size.  As long as my husband and kids want to be with me, I bet they feel whatever size I am is the right one.  Which happens to be how I feel about them as well.

I suppose the trick is to be able to extend that kind of love to myself.  I find it a little alarming that apparently I don't.  In the meantime I will continue to pay attention to what I eat and keep exercising as part of a regular routine, because regardless of how I see myself (or don't see myself) I know what the right things I must do are to stay healthy.  If I can't do that at the moment for love of myself, I will do it for those who love me back.

Almost Recovered (Babble)

I’m doing better.  I’m closer to feeling well at this point than I am to feeling sick, but I’m still not well.  Lots of stuff still needs to clear its way out of my system but there is a light at the end of the phlegmy tunnel even though coughing seems like part of my identity now.  When I got home from work on Saturday I collapsed onto the couch in a prolonged coughing fit and I heard Mona upstairs say, “Mom’s home!”

It’s been strange to have no sense of smell.  I’ve steered toward foods with simple tastes such as salty or sweet just so there is some flavor.  So much of taste is really smell, and there is no difference in my world right now between chocolate and vanilla, or even tea and hot water.  Watching what you eat is easier when none of it’s appealing, so if I have to find a silver lining I suppose that’s it (even though that silver is arguably tarnished).
I hadn’t given my lack of being able to smell much thought until I took Quinn to his follow up appointment at the hospital.  His mouth and throat are completely healed from the tonsillectomy, but he’s been all stuffed up and continuing to snore.  Turns out a sizable colony of bacteria took up residence where his adenoids used to be, and the nurse practitioner said, “Can’t you smell that?”  Nope.  So Quinn now has some nasty tasting antibiotics that he’s being good about not spitting out and he should be all well soon.


When I haven’t been at work or in rehearsals I’ve been in bed.  I’m extremely conscious of how much harder this would be if Ian were deployed.  Single parenting while sick is such a nightmare.  I’ve done it and it’s awful and it makes the illness drag on for months when you can’t get any rest.  Two weeks is a long time to be coughing your lungs inside out, but I would be surprised if I’m not myself again soon.  If I had to be completely responsible for the kids and the dog and all the cooking and chores I wouldn’t be able to say that.

The one unexpected gift during these past couple of weeks was getting to leave early from orchestra rehearsals.  I would sleep all day, then take whatever drugs were necessary to help me survive playing viola for a few hours, and brace myself to last to the end of the 9:30 rehearsal.  But after working hard on An American In Paris for an hour and a half the conductor told us anyone who wasn’t playing some particular piece could leave at the break.  It took my stand partner and myself a moment of disbelievingly rummaging through our music to realize it was a piece we didn’t have.  That never happens.  String players are the workhorse of the orchestra.  We always have to play, and we’re used to seeing the harp player or the percussion or brass people leave at the break, but never us.  It was like a miracle!

I’m used to driving home after a rehearsal through a darkened city.  If Milwaukee has a thriving nightlife it’s not one readily visible on my commute through downtown back to the south side.  But getting out of orchestra an hour earlier meant some things were still open that I never get to explore, and one of them was the new location of a used bookstore I used to frequent years ago.  I decided to take a minute and check it out.

I love bookstores.  I browse for classics I should have read by now and novels unknown to me by authors I enjoy.  I look for things to buy for other people who love to read.  I marvel at the greatness on the shelves and am flummoxed by truly terrible things that made it to print while I still can’t find an agent.  I look with admiration for books by people I know personally and dream of a day where maybe one of my novels could be on those shelves as well.

This particular bookstore buys books, and around the time Ian and I moved into our first house (before kids) we sold them several boxes of things we had that we decided we just didn’t need anymore.  Most of the books were easy to part with, such as textbooks we knew we’d never reference again, and atlases that were out of date, and fiction that didn’t warrant another read.

But the one book I hesitated over was an anthology called My Friend The Dog.  I’d really enjoyed it as a kid, my worn, red copy with no dust jacket.  I didn’t know if it was worth hanging onto for my future, as of then still imaginary, children.  I put it in the box.  I took it out.  I just wasn’t sure.  I have so many books from my childhood that I planned to pass on to my kids and this particular one seemed borderline.  It would be so long before any kids we would have would be old enough for it that it seemed crazy to save, but I have a deep sentimental streak.  Eventually my desire to purge overcame my attachment to the book.  And it went in the box.

Standing a dozen years later in the same bookstore in it’s bright, new location I was curious.  I’ve been thinking about that book because Aden is now the perfect age for it, and she loves dogs.  I regretted letting it go.  I went to the desk and asked if they happened to have a copy of My Friend The Dog.  They looked it up, and said they had a single copy in their warehouse with the ebay books.  But it was worn, red, and had no dust jacket.  I told them that sounded fine to me.  I think I paid for it what they originally gave me for all the boxes of books.

It would make a great story to tell you my childhood copy of that anthology were back in my hands again, but when I went to pick it up I realized this copy was older, smaller, and contained different illustrations.  But that’s okay.  I’d feel bad for a bookstore that hadn’t been able to move a book in over a decade.  And this copy is fine.  With luck, it will be one that Aden grows attached to.

Recovery isn’t always what you expect.  It’s how you view moving forward that makes all the difference.

Musical Beds (But with coughing instead of music) (Babble)

I think compared to many families we’ve had fewer issues concerning bedtime.  I didn’t have a lot of choice when my husband was deployed both times about establishing some sweet routine with stories, etc.  I had too much to do and I was too exhausted all the time, so I simply got my kids trained early to put themselves to bed.  We read, we cuddle, we do all kinds of nice together things, but we tend to do them before bedtime.  Bedtime here consists of us saying, “Go to bed.”  And they go upstairs and get undressed and brush their teeth and go to bed.

My girls have always been very happy in their own beds.  Even when they are sick or there is some reason for them to come snuggle up on my bed for a while, they tend to want to go back to their own space to finally sleep.  When they were small I never let them cry in their cribs or their beds because I wanted where they sleep to always feel like a safe, comforting place to be.  I don’t know if that really worked or if the outcome I was hoping for was just a coincidence, but here we are.

For Quinn it’s always been a different story.  He was born during the first deployment and I don’t think remembered his dad very well when he returned from the second.  My son is attached to me in a way that straddles the line between charming and overwhelming.  When his dad was gone, Quinn wanted to sleep in my bed.  There was room and I didn’t mind.  But he would still sleep in my bed every night if he could, even though now with his dad home there really isn’t room.  We started moving him after he fell asleep to his bunk bed, and that worked for a bit.  However, he’s lonely in his own room so we got him a little mattress for the floor of his sisters’ room.  The girls are not thrilled with it, but they let it slide because they know it makes him happy.  He loves being part of the action as they all giggle past lights out, and he was good there.  For many months with this arrangement I was able to say that all my kids stayed in their own beds at night.



But the amazing thing about raising children is the lack of absolutes.  You may think this kid is a good eater, or that one is fearless, or the next one is fine sleeping in his own bed at night, but wait a day.  Everything can change and then you have a whole new list of habits and preferences to deal with and that becomes the new normal.

So right before Quinn’s tonsillectomy he was having trouble sleeping and started showing up in our room at night.  He couldn’t sleep and he wanted to curl up with me.  It was hard to refuse so I didn’t try, but it’s hard to even describe how our quality of sleep has suffered.

The worst nights are when the dog is in the bed, too.  Because at first I’d have Ian trying to sleep on one side, Quinn on the other, and the dog sort of flopped on top of me or between my knees or wedged somewhere odd.  That whole arrangement makes me claustrophobic.  Especially since Ian, Quinn, and the dog all have a habit when they are unconscious of filling any gaps around me.  If I shift, they shift with me to remain in contact with my body.  It reminds me of something I read a long time ago about how people buried in sand end up crushed and suffocated because when they exhale and create a gap the sand fills it in and leaves less space to inhale each time.  Quinn is like a sweet-cheeked mound of sand next to me in the bed.  Sometimes we make Quinn sleep in the middle, and that helps somewhat because I have an escape route that way, but it’s still not great.

After Quinn came home from the hospital he was extra needy about wanting to snuggle with me at night, and really, a sick kid kind of trumps everything.  So there have been many awkward nights around here, because even though now he’s better he doesn’t understand why he can’t stick with this new habit.  And somewhere between midnight and five in the morning Quinn winds up in our bed.  When we can, we wait for him to pass out and we move him back to the girls’ room, but when you’re exhausted there are many nights it just seems easier to stick it out.

When it’s too much, either Ian or I flee.  Usually to the couch downstairs.
The added twist to all of this lately is that I’ve been really sick this past week.  Ian’s consultations with Dr. Internet seem to conclude it’s acute bronchitis, but I’m on the upswing.  I’ve been through an unholy amount of kleenex and have been coughing like mad but I’m finally feeling stronger and should feel like myself again soon.  Quinn and Mona have been coughing a little bit, and Aden has had a cough for about a month but otherwise they all seem fine.

The hilarious thing about all the coughing (because you take humor where you can find it when you are sleep deprived and sick) is that it worries the dog.  Chipper is like some nervous hypochondriac, and anytime someone coughs he gets up and leaves.  So at night he’s been up every few minutes trying to settle into a cough free zone.  He’ll start off in our room until I cough, then he’ll trot down the hall and curl up on his dog bed in the kids’ room until Aden coughs, then he return to us. 

The other night it got so bad Chipper decided to give up on family togetherness completely and took up sleeping on the couch.  Which works great until I end up down there if Quinn’s in suffocate mommy mode.  The dog looked so devastated the other night when I showed up in the living room with my pillow I thought me might muster the ability to speak just so he could say, “Nooo!”

The winning night of uncomfortable sleep improv was when I fought my way out of the heap of Ian/Quinn/dog madness and tried curling up with Aden.  She was vaguely awake and I asked if she’d mind and she looked happy to have me, so I put my pillow at the end of her bed and hugged her feet for a while.  After a few minutes Mona realized I was there and started to come over too, because boy didn’t that sound like fun to all pile into Aden’s twin bed for a sleepover.  I told her I’d snuggle up on her bed next time (even though Mona’s tightly tucked system of many covers seems almost as claustrophobia inducing as my overcrowded bed).  This worked for maybe an hour when I gave up and headed for the couch again, which I really don’t like because it does nasty things to my shoulder for some reason.

So there’s that.  We’ve been at this for so many weeks now that it feels routine but I’m so tired of it!  Or just tired.

Last night when Quinn appeared in our doorway right at bedtime I was able to say no.  At 2:00 a.m. I admit to not being able to think clearly about reasonable parenting ideas, but Quinn was trying to shift things into a newer even less fun routine and I had to send him back down the hall.  He looked so hurt I could barely stand it, and when he curled up on his little mattress he started to cry.  But I let him cry.  I have never been a ‘cry it out’ mom, and I certainly never expected to have to employ that strategy with a five-year-old, but every day (and every night) can bring something new in this parenting game.

Quinn still ended up in my bed around 4:00 a.m. but it wasn’t bad.  Every time I had a terrible coughing fit he put his little arm around me.  I was sick enough that I don’t think I had much chance of sleeping anyway, and it was nice to feel adored even in my least appealing moments.

But I’m looking forward to a day in the near future when I can take breathing for granted again, and if I’m very lucky, get back to a routine that involves everyone sleeping in their own designated spots.  Lofty goals, I know.  Martin Luther King Jr may have had a world-changing dream, but I just want to catch enough sleep to have any old dream at all.  (Even that one where you show up at school and you’re naked or don’t remember what your classes are.  Sounds awesome about now.)

Temporarily Not A Liar (Babble)

This morning I hit an arbitrary milestone.  After months of making a conscious effort to watch what I eat and trying to exercise regularly I’ve made some progress.  And today?  Today I stepped on the scale and discovered I now weigh what it says I do on my driver’s license.  This is both exciting and pathetic.

I’m proud of myself that I’m more than 20 pounds lighter than I was back in the spring.  I still have another 20 to go to get where I really should be.  The next 20 will be harder than the first were, but I think I can do it.  My goal was to see if I could reach a healthy weight that I can try to maintain by my birthday in March, and my gift to myself would be a new driver’s license with my actual weight on it, but I don’t think I’m going to get there by then.  Maybe summer?  Although my motivation is wearing thin so hard to say how fast progress will be from here.

But here’s a question to anyone else out there who struggles with his or her weight too:  Do you see and feel the changes in your body when you lose weight?  Because I sort of don’t, and I wonder about that.  I know I am lighter.  I started out at some size randomly bigger than an 18.  (Target doesn’t really sell women’s jeans above an 18 so I had something from the men’s section for a while that fit but I don’t know what it was.)  Then whenever I reach a point where I can remove my jeans without having to unbutton or unzip them I buy the next smaller size.  I am currently down to a 14 which is starting to feel loose, and I have a pair of 12’s in the wings that I can get on but still look too tight to venture out in public in yet.  The last time I worked really hard to lose weight after Mona was born I made it all the way down to an 8, and then I got pregnant with Quinn and Ian got deployed and cookies became my friend and that’s how I ended up in the men’s jeans.
 
So I’ve come a ways in the right direction and I see the progress through my clothes.  I also see the startled reaction on the faces of people whom I haven’t seen in months and know they see a difference in my appearance.  But I can’t see it in myself.  Is that normal?
Part of me thinks that when I am heavier I am good at 1.) just not looking at myself in the mirror much, and 2.) adopting an attitude of inner beauty being important.  If I’m not actively watching my weight, then I’m actively ignoring my weight.  If I am trying to lose weight, then I have to pay attention, and I get frustrated by what I see.  If I’m actively looking to change a flaw then I am hyper aware of that flaw, otherwise how could I address it?  Therefore my own body image is oddly better when I’m heavy, I guess just through the magic of denial.  But it seems unfair to go through all this effort and not get to at least feel more genuinely pleased about it.

I mean, I am pleased, because I want to be healthy and I want to set a good example for my kids.  Aden worries about my denying myself sugar, but we had a talk about how I don’t need it and different bodies need different things.  Her body is growing so she can have the spaghetti with the meatballs and I’ll just have the meatballs and the salad and that’s what’s better for me right now.  I want my kids to see that exercise is something you build into your day based on what I do, not because of some lecture.  That there are lots of choices to make about food but they don’t have to be hard, just sensible.  I think I’m accomplishing those goals, so the effort is worth it.  But when you are overweight and dream of being smaller, it’s weird when being smaller in and of itself doesn’t bring the joy you expect it to.  Or maybe it does and I’m weird?  I’m probably weird.

In any case, yea!  Officially smaller, whether I see it myself or not.  I hate this struggle and the amount of mental energy it sucks up, but it’s important.  This is the only body I’ve got and I’d like to keep it in good enough shape to keep building violins for a long time, and to be around to enjoy my family and so many other things life has to offer.

I’m looking forward to the weight on my driver’s license being wrong the other direction for a while.

(Quinn at the center of the labyrinth at school.  That’s the kind of triumph I want to feel!  Maybe I need to walk that labyrinth….)