Seven Quick Takes No. 103

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I. 

It has been AN AGE since I have done one of these! So let's start with Jane--Yesterday was the 203rd anniversary of Pride and Prejudice's publication. Huzzah!

II. 

Here in central Ohio, we got no snow from last weekend's huge storm. I'm not totally opposed to that, since me and snow aren't really friends. I don't mind the dusting that's outside right now, but feet upon feet of snow? NO. 

III. 

My follow-up appointment post-hospital was on Monday and things were joyous. My PFTs are back to baseline, the X-ray is cleared up, and I even lost weight! (Although I'm pretty sure that's a med side effect, but we'll see.) Everyone was quite pleased. 

IV. 

That being said, I'm sloooowly getting back to my own personal baseline. I think I'll be there by next week, which is good, because the last three weeks have not been the way I'd like them to be. I'm OK with slow recoveries but it is nice to be able to get dressed, run errands, and make dinner all in one day without feeling like that's the equivalent of Everest climbing.  

V. 

Guys, Lent is upon us. Do you have a plan? I'll be running my Lent series again next week, but perhaps you should consider Restore? It's a truly excellent Lenten workshop that starts on Ash Wednesday and runs through Easter.  Read more about it here, or click the button on the sidebar .

VI. 

A good quote from St. Thomas Aquinas, whose feast day was yesterday: 
"Beware the person of one book."

Good advice, Sir! :) 

VII. 

And lastly, because it's Friday: 

Happy Feast Day, St. Thomas Aquinas!

Dominican Feast Day=party, in my world. 

To learn more about St. Thomas, the Angelic Doctor, you can read a post I wrote about him here. 

Lent 2016: Restore

Lent is crazy early this year, I know. Doesn't it feel like it was just Christmas? (Well, it was, in its defense...it is the 25th!) 

Ash Wednesday is February 10th this year, which makes Easter March 27, which is almost the earliest it can fall. So I can understand if the idea of preparing Lenten ideas, or pondering a Lenten program, can seem overwhelming right now. For the past few years, it's seemed that way to me. 

Can I suggest something? 

For the past two years I've done Restore, Elizabeth Foss's beautiful Lenten workshop. If you're feeling tired, burnt-out, at the end of your rope, and really in need of self-care and restoration, this is the place to come. The workshop runs from Ash Wednesday to Saturday, April 2--the week after Easter. Bonus! And all of the wonderful content is yours to keep!

There are two options: 

This is the full option, which is $49--$16 less than last year!--and you get all of these things to keep--even the podcasts. How's that for goodness?  Everything works through the Gumroad app. You can even print these things off, if you're like me and like paper copies of things to hold on to and mark up. 

$49 a bit steep for you? Here's another option: 

This one is $15. Again--you get to keep all these things. No worries about it disappearing into the Cloud somewhere. 

No, you don't have to be Catholic! Elizabeth is, and I am (of course), but there's no Special Secret Catholic handshake to get it. All women are welcome. There is, of course, the strong faith element. For more FAQs, here's Elizabeth's page on the workshop. 

I love Elizabeth's work, wholeheartedly. If you're a mom, I think this will particularly resonate with you. She's a mom of nine kids! But again, you don't have to be a mom--you don't even have to be married!--to glean goodness from this program. 

So if you're looking for a great Lenten program, I highly recommend this one. I recommend it so much that I'm here, tell you all about it. :) 

Want to purchase? Go here, and select which option you'd like! 

I look forward to restoring with you!

(Note: If you purchase from the link above, or on the sidebar, I get a small percentage of the price back since I'm a Gumroad affiliate. So you'll be helping me, too! But I definitely, DEFINITELY love this workshop and wouldn't recommend it to you guys if I didn't. It's been so helpful to me the past two Lents!)

Hitting Rewind

So, 2016 started out with me being sick, but I could still make progress on my goals. 

Then we got a week in to 2016, and that all went out the window. 

I'd forgotten how much pneumonia takes out of you--the whole if I try to get dressed/put on make up/make a meal, I spend the next day wiped out and paying for it. I am feeling better, in that there's much less pain, I can breathe regularly, my heart rate is better, and I can take deep breaths! I'm sure my PFTs will be better on Monday. But as far as "normal activities", not a lot is happening yet, beyond the basic basics. 

That's OK--it just makes my goal tending Powersheets page look a little forlorn, these days. :) 

I go back to clinic on Monday for a follow-up, and assuming we don't see anything terrible, I will slowly start increasing things. But that, I don't just mean activity, I mean daily things, like writing/editing/reading--things that don't sound terribly strenuous, but can be when you're dealing with a limited supply of energy. 

One thing that has progressed, so far, is my art--I'm really glad to have decent brushes now, and to be playing with color and form. I will finish my Sketchbook Skool class by the end of the month, and that was one of my goals for this month, along with editing Tempest (and I did that, too--at least a first pass edit.) So this month wasn't a complete waste, goal-wise. 

And this might sound odd, but--the nurses I had in the hospital were pretty great. I don't mind spending time with good nurses. :) 

So I'm going to ease back into goals next week, and start February with renewed vigor--and hopefully a rescheduled California trip! 

Pretty Little Heads: Women, Health Care, and Anxiety

Why is there so much....anxiety?

--Former Clinton Cabinet Member Robert Reich

One of the things that always gets my goat in the health care setting is when doctors--usually male--ask this patient (a female) lots of questions about anxiety. 

Now, this is a legit question. I've been on anti-anxiety medication since I was about sixteen years old and I was diagnosed with a type of tuberculosis (TB). I would think that most 16 year olds, after having a near-death experience (and that's not an exaggeration--if we hadn't caught it when we did, I probably wouldn't have seen Christmas that year), would be a bit anxious. My doctor, who is Godlike in All Things, tactfully and gently suggested that perhaps I would feel better with some medication, and also a therapist. 

She was right on both counts. I love my therapist, and I've seen her since I was 16.Other than family and a few friends, that's the longest continuous relationship in my life. Not only is she extremely good at her job, but she's also a very nice person, and I have found her invaluable. 

So, it does make sense, when doing a differential diagnosis on me, to ask about anxiety. There's a history, there. I may be on a low dose of an anti-anxiety med, but I  am on one. I've tried to go off it a few times, but thus far it just hasn't worked. So I keep it, and life is better. 

But. 

(You knew that was coming, right?)

Sometimes, this note in my chart becomes something that doctors use as a crutch to dismiss my concerns. This isn't relegated to just doctors, and it isn't relegated to just men. A memorable incident was back in 2011, when I was on beta blockers in an attempt to stop my atrial flutter. It wasn't working, and my HR was doing its merry near 200 BPM dance. In the ER triage area, the nurse taking my vitals asked me if I was "nervous about anything." She asked the question like I was a very small, very silly girl-child that needed to be soothed and pacified. 

Trying very valiantly not to roll my eyes, I said, "I'm on beta-blockers. I physically cannot get nervous."

"Oh. OK!" 

 I have been asked this questions, repeatedly, many times over the years, in a tone of voice that suggests I am either: 1) not-too-bright, 2) five years old, or 3) both. This is insupportable. Yes, ask me if there's any stress triggers or anxiety-inducing events coming up. That's fine. But don't make it sound like you think it's the reason I'm here, and not because of any physical issues that might require your attention. 

Like I said, it's men who primarily do this, and I wonder--do they do this to other men? I can't imagine the condescending mask covering their faces, the simpering smiles, if they were talking to a 33 year old man. But they see me, and they see anxiety, and they go, oh, she's a little touched. 

This is especially true when it comes to pain. Guys. I know pain. I've had pancreatitis eight times. That's generally considered to be really painful. I've had collapsed lungs (although the Queen of Collapsed Lung heroism is my friend Sage, who has had chest tubes put in without sedation--a feat I cannot even imagine. She is the Toughest Person I Know, Bar None.) I have basically been cut in half and put back together! 

I don't write this to be all I AM AWESOME, but to show you that I know what pain is. When I say my pain is a seven or higher, it's legit. It's not Tylenol pain. IT IS PAIN. I'm not making it up. It's not in my head. My pain is real, and it deserves to be treated as such. 

This last time, this was a consideration. Pain halts healing. After transplant, a certain amount of pain is expected, but if it's too much, you can't get better. That's not good. It has to be managed appropriately. There's a reason there's a whole branch of medicine devoted to pain care! I had a doctor tell me that pain isn't something that happens with pneumonia. (Read: It's in my head!)

It's not? Actually, it is. Google it, people. 

Just because I am a girl, and I am on anti-anxiety meds, does not mean I am "drug seeking." It doesn't mean that it's in my head. I have a very good imagination, but come on. Pain is real. Pain is a symptom of a problem. It deserves to be treated, not just brushed off. There are many ways to treat pain, but the point is to treat it. 

This is where my psychologist rises above the rest. Not only does she treat CF and post-transplant folk, but she also does a lot of work with people with sickle cell trait, which is exceedingly painful (so I'm told. I don't know, although I do have thalessimia, which is sort of related to sickle cell disease as a genetic level). She--and her other patients--deal with this all the time. Over the years we've done lots of non-med relaxation techniques--tapes, visualization, even hypnosis once (that didn't work. I threw up all over myself.) We've tried bio-feedback, yoga (which does work, for some things), and other methods. It's very all -inclusive. But sometimes--we need the medication. 

What I do not need to be told is that it's in my head. 

"Well, I'm Back"

the pertinent question then being from where, right? 

That breakfast tray should clue you in. :) 

For the first time in many moons, I spent a week at the resort, having things seen to. It's been since 2008, I think, that I've been in wth lung issues, and so I was totally over due, but it was a totally unexpected happening, as most things with me are. (Do I ever really expect anything when it comes to what my body does, anymore? Well, No. But.) 

Last week I had a col, which I really don't deign to write about, because everyone gets them, and even mine aren't all that interesting. I "finished" with the cold, meaning I was past needing cold meds, on Thursday, but I was steel feeling under the weather and was wondering if it was just really mean cold an I needed some more time to get things together, or if it was  a sort of virus that I really couldn't do anything about, other than ride it out. 

I had chosen the later and was re-watching Season Five of Downton at my place, thinking that I was definitely not going to be up for CCD the next morning. 

And somewhere around episode six, I noticed severe, brand-new chest pain--the sort that makes you think paying attention is a good idea. I sort of pondered for the next hour as the pain got worse, and then finally decided that the choices were calling my parents, or calling a squad, since I didn't think I was capable of driving myself anyway. Lady Edith and Marigold were just going to have to hang out in London for a bit. 

Describing pain is a difficult thing, but I refer you to this Magnificient Chart:. I have had pancreatitis eight times. That's a lot. It's very painful, sort of like knife-toothed gremlins eating away your abdominal muscles and drawing you tightly into a small ball of Awfulness.

This was worse than that. 

So that meant that we were going to have pain meds and, oh, Emily's heart rate was also around 135, when it should be about 90, since all I was doing was siting on a gurney while the end of Armageddon played out on TNT at the new Urgent Care Place (which was legitimately urgent. They had the goods, here.) 

The reason we went to New Urgent Care Place and Not The Resort (hereafter TR) is because I wasn't precisely sure what was happening and ought I'd should be somewhere, you know, close and emergency qualified, as opposed t0 12 miles down the road where the "emergency care" on Saturday night can be sort of scary. (TR does a good job. Won't say they don't. But sometimes you have to wait and when you feel like Death is at the Door, you are not feeling waiting, people.) 

So here we were, at NUCP, and they accessed my port (MIRACLE OF MIRACLES), and we did tests. We did a chest x-ray. We did a CT scan with contrast. We did lots of pain meds and I think we tried EKGs and stuff. My oxygen stauration, which should be somewhere between 95-100, was between 80-100, and supplemental oxygen was being called into use. So, yeah, stuff was Going Down that Wasn't What I Had Planned for My Weekend. 

(Some of the supplemental O2 stuff is from IV pain meds--it depresses respiration. It's a nasty cycle, it is.) 

So at some point it was decided that we'd transfer me to TR, which has all the lovely things I need, and I ended up there Sunday morning. My doctor popped in, and popped out, and other people popped in, and out, and we were sort of not getting the pain under control, which was making me unhappy, and was making my body unhappy, because it cannot stop freaking out if it is still in pain. 

I ended up on the transplant floor Sunday night. We played around with meds, but over all it was sort of a rough night, made rougher by a rough Monday morning, and by the time that by now, my heart rate and breathing had been labored and fast and not pleasant for 36 + hours. 

On top of all this, we were seeing things that looked like pneumonia on my chest x-rays, and I still couldn't take in a deep breath, which means I couldn't really do PFTs, which determine how well my lungs are functioning. However, I was made to do a crappy set, which basically indicated I was alive, but not much else. I was very lucky that I got to speak to the excellent resident, who decided we are going to get Pain Under Control (which we did, magically, without IV drugs yay!), and that there was a a lot of fluid sitting in my chest on the left side. We're going to get rid of that. 

Getting rid of that meant going down to see my Old Friends in Interventional Radiology (I do love them. When I say 'old friends', I mean it. They do good work.) A local anesthetic numbs the area an then a lot of gross, bright yellow fluid comes out. When I say a lot, we're talking liters. We're talking pounds, we're talking big amounts of fluid that should never been in your body, but yet is, and now is magically gone! A lot of it was whisked off for testing, to see what could be dwelling inside, but I was definitely a lot lighter. 

I had a lot of the textbook symptoms of pneumonia, including things I didn't think were textbook symptoms: dehydration, swollen throat, elevated heart rate, on top of things like chest pain, cough, and wheezing. 

I'd been doing IV antibiotics and steroids in case the problem turned out to be rejection (which it's not), and by the end of the week we'd gotten the pain under control, my HR was much more normal, I didn't need supplemental oxygen, and by Thursday my test results were already looking better, so that was a relief. Chest x-rays often take the longest to change, even after you feel better, so to already see changes was a big, positive sign, and my PFTs were rebounding (although that didn't really tell us much, in the long run, since the first set I'd done in house was so awful.) 

Yesterday I was thrown out--yay!--but I'll be back next Monday (not this coming on, the one after) for follow-up and not just from the hospitalization, but also to see how things are doing with the "generic" med I've just started. 

So I won't have much of an "update", I hope, until I'm back at much closer to baseline. Essentially, I've been reading, lusting after Emma Bridgewater's New Spring line, ,and I'm going to be playing with my watercolors and my Rosemary and Co. brushes (the brushes have arrived, and I almost have my palette filled!). 

New Rosemary and Co. brushes--a 2 and an 8. 

Happy New Year! Love, The Insurance Company

I generally like the new year. What I don't like is when it's an occasion for my insurance companies to hose me. 

Before you think this is a "I hate insurance companies, I want socialized medicine!" rant, it's not. I'm a conservative, generally. I do think that health care needed reformed, because I think it's silly that people like me could only get insurance if we were working. That's really silly, guys, because sometimes we can't work and we need insurance. 

Anyway. 

This year, my insurance company has decided that they aren't going to cover one of my immunosuppression drugs anymore. Yeah. You read that correctly. One of the two main drugs that keeps me alive on a general basis--we're not going to pay for that anymore. A nice, bright red "we're sorry" is all I see on the insurance company page when I go to check on this. They don't tell me this is going to be a problem ahead of time--not until I try to get a new prescription. 

"yeah, they don't cover that anymore, so $1,000, please. Per month." 

Each pill is basically $33. $1,000 a month is more than I make all month. 

I'm not complaining about the cost, so much. I know why these drugs are so expensive. A small percentage of the population uses them, and these drugs are hard to produce. I am grateful they exist. But that's something the company should have maybe warned me about well ahead of time, so I would've have time to talk to my doctors, try another med, and then do what I needed to do to keep my immunosuppression regimen at optimal levels. 

So now, I'm going to switch to a generic brand, that may or may not work. The generic version of Prograf (the other immunosuppression med I take) doesn't work for me. How do we find out if these drugs are at a therapeutic level? Blood tests. 

So, I'm going to be getting more blood tests--oh joy, oh rapture, me of the crappy veins--and I'm also going to be at the hospital more often to get this done. All of which the insurance company will be billed for. 

If it works, great--we pay $100 a month, instead of $1000. If it doesn't, then I have to switch back to the "real" med, and apply for financial aid from the drug company, which I'll get, because my paycheck is "a disgrace to paychecks", to quote from The Family Man.

Thanks, dear insurance company, for giving me so much advance notice that one of the drugs I take to stay alive isn't covered anymore. I'm so glad that you care about your subscribers and their health. 

(Not.) 

Yarn Along No. 41

First yarn along of 2016! For those of you who knit/sew/do crafty things, did you start any projects over the holidays? More likely you finished them. But I made some good progress on my scarf! 

I'm really, really liking working this. This pattern is my own design, although I hesitate to really call it a "pattern" because, it's not. It's just stockinette stitch with a knit border. But I have the notes up on Ravelry, if you want to join me in doing it. I think it's a perfect bridge from the washcloths (Lord save us from any more of those for awhile!) and the basketweave project that is still mocking me in my knitting book. 

As for what I'm reading: The Bethrothed is for Facebook book club, and Lords of Discipline is one of my Christmas books. I love me some Pat Conroy. I read The Great Santini when I was in Charleston, then South of Broad, and I got The Prince of Tides for Christmas, and just finished that. I'm saving Beach Music for the plane ride to LA< because it's big and fat. Perfect for a long plane ride!

Updates from the writing desk

(No, I'm not going to ask you why a raven is like a writing desk.)

I have begun editing  Tempest, my NaNoWriMo 2015 winner. My editing process works in layersThe first is--I don't start editing right away. In this case, I gave myself more than a month to let the novel "sit" and give me a break from it. I want to approach it with fresh eyes when I begin to edit. 

Second--I don't read it all in one gulp. I've set about 45 minutes aside each day for editing. Yesterday, that turned out to be basic copyediting, for the most part, because I was really pleased with what I'd written. I think I captured Julie's voice really well in the first section, and that makes me happy. (Julie is my protagonist, for those of you just joining me.) The novel is divided into several parts, and yesterday I got through the first part and a few chapters of the second. 

Third--after I do my first edit, I go back to the beginning, and read it all again. Is everything still working? Do I like where the novel goes? Does the plot work? Do I need more detail anywhere? Do I need less detail? 

So far, that's how my process works. After these steps, I'll leave it alone for another few months, to, again, give myself distance from it. I repeat the process until I'm satisfied with what I have. 

Since Tempest is the first part of a planned trilogy, I need to make sure that what happens here is really clear in my mind (and in my notes!), so that when I go to write books two and three, they are built on the solid foundation of the first book. I've begun writing book two, but I've held off really getting into it until I've done at least one editing pass on Tempest. 

Word for 2016

I've done this for a few years now...picked a word that would encompass something I wanted to work on, lean on, learn in the coming year. 

Last year, it was Trust. The year before that, Jesus. 

This year? 

This year, I'm choosing Joy. 

Because no matter what--joy is possible. Joy can be found everywhere. 

I want 2016 to be a year of unbridled joy. 

This isn't because I'm an unjoyful person. I generally try to keep pretty cheerful and find happiness in basic things. If it's a day where everyone's out of the hospital at the end of it, then it's by default a good day. 

In Ann Voskamp's 1000 Gifts, she talks about the roots of the word eucharisteo: thanksgiving. The word charis, grace, is there, but also the derivative of charis--chara. Joy. 

Grace, thanksgiving, joy--all in one word. 

And of course, Eucharist--eucharisteo. Jesus gave thanks at the Last Supper. The Eucharist, the Precious Body and Blood of Christ that we Catholics can receive every single day--it's Thanksgiving. 

Do we treat it like that? 

Joy and gratitude are inexplicably bound up, even in etymology. So this year, I'm going to find that Joy--Joy overflowing and superabundant. Joy always. 

Catholic 101: Let's Talk About Prayer

What is prayer? Why should we do it? Do we need to do it? Can't God just read our minds? 

Do I really have to? 

In order: 

1. Prayer is talking to God. that's it. 
2. Because if you want to get to know anyone, you have to talk to them. How close are you going to get to God (who MADE YOU) if you never talk to Him? 
3. Yes. 
4. Well, yes. But that doesn't mean that we don't ask Him for what we want--Jesus did tell us to, after all. (Mt. 7:7)
5. YES. 

Let's look at it as a matter of justice: God created us because He loves us. We are created to know, love, and serve God in this world and be happy with him forever in the next. 

We cannot know, love, or serve God if we don't talk to Him. (Which, as we see, is what prayer is.)

There are lots of different kinds of prayer: mental, vocal, etc. You can start where you feel most comfortable. You can use the prayers of the Church (Our Father, Hail Mary, the creeds, etc.), or you can use your own words. You can pray the rosary (an excellent idea, I might add--we'll talk more about this later). 

There are four different "types" of prayer: 

1. Intercessory: where we pray for other people, asking for what they need ("Dear Lord, please keep Joe safe as he drives 3,000 miles", "Please help Ben pass his test today.") 
2. Petition: Where we pray for ourselves, asking for what we need. (Or think we need--that's why it's generally a good idea to add "if it be for my good" at the end of prayers for yourself and others, for a lot of things.)
3. Praise and adoration: Prayer that praises God
4. Thanksgiving: Prayer that thanks God for what he has given us. 

You can pray anywhere, anytime. 

Most beginners start with vocal prayer--that's the type we're most familiar with. But there's also mental prayer and prayer of contemplation. That's a bit beyond our purposes, here, though. The Mass, also, is a prayer--one big prayer!

Prayer is boring! --that's a common objection. 

Well, OK. It might be. Sure. But lots of things are boring at first. Everything is boring when you're first learning it, really. When I started to learn the clarinet, I played pages of Gs and As. That's really boring. When you start ballet class, it's with a plie, which is deceptively simple. Anything worth doing is worth spending some time being "bored", or working on the fundamentals.

It doesn't really matter how you start. Just start. One of my favorite books for this is Prayer Primer, by Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M, and the follow up, Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer. 

Do you have a favorite type of prayer? Or do you struggle with prayer, and are looking for ways to jumpstart your prayer life? 

Welcome, 2016

Are you ready? 

I don't really like New Year's Eve, but I love New Year's Day, partially because of that shiny sense of newness. 

I have created the habit of making a new Pinterest board for each year. My 2016 one is up (here, if you want to look), and during the year I'll be posting things that I find helpful and inspirational to that board. 

But there's always a few things that are always there, and they're all Ann Voskamp posts. Here they are: 

• How to Create New Habits
• Humming Along
• My Favorite: A Grace Plan For the New Year

2015 was a good year. I'm hoping 2016 will be even better. I'll be pursuing an agent/publishing house for the memoir, and as I do that, I'll have to remember this: 

His timing is perfect. Mine? Not so much. 

Have a wonderful New Year's Day, everyone!