Health – My Truant Pen

Open my eyes, that I might see

Two weeks ago I went to my eye doctor for that irritating annual appointment that they require if you want to wear contact lenses. They asked if I wanted to pay $40 for the picture of my retina. I don’t do that every year, but every so often it seems fine to check. The optometrist took a look at it, and showed me some pictures. She handed me a pamphlet for foods with lot of lutein and a preliminary diagnosis of macular degeneration and something else I didn’t even hear after I heard the words “macular degeneration” – which I knew to lead to incurable blindness. I managed to significantly fail an exam I’d never taken before. Good news though – my prescription hadn’t changed! I had no symptoms anything was wrong.

A black and white picture of the inside of an eye with the optic nerve visible and a white circle around the fovea — The white dots around the fovea are the area under question

One of the advantages of middle age is you’ve learned not to panic. I remember at 22 I found a lump in my breast and spent the time between diagnosis and follow up convinced that my life was too beautiful to be allowed to continue. I would leave my beloved groom a heartbroken widow at 25! I would never have children! I hadn’t been to all that many funerals, but the “Sleepless in Seattle” veiled funeral in a hilltop with a beautiful view and distraught mourners seemed about right. It was, my friends, happily just a weird lump.

Since then I’ve had a number of life-changing initial diagnosis that didn’t happen. I mean, just 18 months ago I wasn’t going to be able to hike again with degraded cartilage and too young for a knee replacement. That was actually an infestation of knee mice, easily solved with a scoping and I was back on the mountain not two weeks later.

Still, it’s an arresting thought that you might be going blind. I’ve always been imaginative and somewhat romantic, or dramatic. I’d look out the window while I worked and look at the blush of sunset over the trees where the hawk reposes and wonder how many more sunsets I would have. I looked at my paints and my papers and the unfinished paintings strewn across my desk. You’d think I’d be most grief stricken at giving up art, but instead I was DEEPLY grateful that I’d spent the last five years practicing LOOKING at things – really seeing the color of the snow, or the way light played through leaves, or the blueing of hills as they fade into the background. If I were going blind, that rich set of memories would be a consolation – to have known something better before you lose it forever is better than having taken it for granted.

And going blind sure sounded like it was an option.

I was not consoled when the ophthalmologist would see me in the next week. It’s not a great sign when the specialists are suddenly available. I went to see the owner of the practice, who had many decades of experience under his belt. He got still and sober when he saw my images. (Of course, we can never trust anyone else’s tests. For the second time in a week I got my eyes checked for glaucoma and dilated etc. etc.) He asked where I had grown up – which in my case is tropical Africa, home of mysterious diseases. No really, my birth country is where most of the really bizarre ones lately have come from. This was not a reassuring set of questions. He said he had no idea what it was (and he spent like 5 minutes trying to figure out the closest ICD10 code) but it seemed like an emergency and I needed to go see a retinal specialist ASAP. It was after 4, so they said they’d let me know the next day when the appointment would be. He affirmed that blindness was a real possible outcome here.

In good news, I didn’t have to wait long. In bad news, when a top specialist will see you tomorrow you don’t have what you might call warm fuzzy feelings.

I sat in the waiting room, the youngest person there by 20 years, not excluding the caretakers bringing tottering nonagenarians with rhuemy eyes, as my pupils grew larger and larger and my phone grew less and less visible. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was some preview of the gradual indistinction ahead of me. How do blind people distract themselves in waiting rooms? Audio books?

The retinal specialist had clearly once read a book on bedside manners, which he executed by rote. (The consensus in the waiting room was “he is fast” which is a lovely way to describe brusque.) But you don’t go to an expert because they make you feel good, you go because no one can figure out what’s happening to you, and they’ve seen hundreds of thousands of sick eyes and may know what they see.

Not to keep you in suspense, but the news is as good as it could be. He said, with brisk certainty, it’s Pattern Dystrophy. A genetic (not bizarre tropical) condition where the garbage removal system of the eyes doesn’t do all it’s supposed to and leaves mounds and caverns in the macula. The prognosis, he said, was good. Very very few people with this condition lose their sight and most are able to drive or read a newspaper their whole lives (or until they get something else). It definitely isn’t macular degeneration. He was, he said, comfortable leaving it there and just monitoring it. We could also do a formal diagnosis, and it turns out that The Dude Who Studies Genetic Retinal Diseases works at Mass Eye and Ear. So I’ll go do the formal thing and maybe enroll in a study. This is different than not having ANYTHING wrong with my eyes. I am now able to identify some … wobbles in my vision. Some of what I was figuring was just being that age is actually these deposits.

The only thing I need to do is to look at the Amsler Chart regularly to make sure no enterprising blood vessel decides to make a break for it through the thinner covering of my eye. This is the test I unexpectedly failed in the first appointment. Look at the dot in the middle of the grid one eye at a time. Do all of the lines stay straight? They don’t for me. There are wiggles in it. I was charmed when I first saw it. How do they do that optical illusion? But the illusion was actually the distortions in my macula.

A grid with a dot in it — The Amsler Grid

One of these days, I won’t be able to dodge the diagnosis. The lump will be cancer. The knee will be shot. The spots will be blindness. We all die of something, and we’re lucky in a world with good medical care (at least for now) which means many of us end up surviving things like cancer to go on and die of something else. But yesterday I watched the sun blush the snow-covered top of Nobility Hill and smiled to know I’d get to keep on watching that scene for years yet to come.

I used to be an adventurer, then I took an arrow in the knee

Something like 25 years ago, I went skiing for the first, last and only time. I came down the very first slope I attempted on a sled, and didn’t walk without a limp for 9 months. But in the vast wisdom of a teenager who really didn’t understand how insurance worked other than it could go horribly wrong, never got it checked out.

About 12 years ago, I jumped off a small wall, and something went horribly, terribly wrong in my knee. Having mastered the art of insurance, I got an xray which showing nothing wrong and did a summer of PT which fixed nothing. I finally got an MRI which showed that I had no trace of an ACL left, two tears in my meniscus, two cysts, and a bone bruise. I went under the knife for the first time and emerged with a cadaver ACL, a lot less meniscal tissue and a script for PT.

In that dozen years, I have tried to keep my body strong and active, knowing that considerable residual damage lingered in my left knee. I’ve hiked 40 of the 48 4000 foot mountains in New Hampshire. I’ve run 5ks in scenic local paths to stave off weight and stay in shape for the summits. But I’ve always known that there would be a price to pay for all damage I’d accrued to that knee.

Last summer, we did a fun (and cold) two day backpack trip across the Carters. The descent was long and hard and I was wearing a heavy pack, and I could feel my knee go numb under the shock of miles of hard descent.

Last winter, I went for a run and my knee got swollen afterwards. I waited a week or two and went for another run, and my knee blew up again. Having learned from the last time, I immediately went to the doctor and demanded a full set of images of hard and soft tissue.

A black and white picture of two knees from an MRI — The knee bone is connected to the shin bone

We all knew that there was stuff wrong with my knee, and the images showed there was stuff wrong with my knee. The surgeon who had done the surgery lo those many years before recommended I get a Peloton. So I rented one (which is a thing, by the way) and worked on rebuilding strength and fitness and finding I secretly enjoyed Cody Rigsby. And the swelling went down, and the strength built up and I started edging my way back onto the mountains after a winter sidelined. I got a few good hikes in: Morgan/Percival. Welch-Dickey. Waumbek. There were also a good number of cancellations with the double whammy of the rainiest summer ever and a knee which just wouldn’t quite be reliable. We cancelled the Bond Traverse on Juneteenth when the temperatures looked dangerous with wet weather.

If you look at the knees here you can already see severe swelling

In July, we had a few weeks before our planned Katahdin Knife Edge three day camping trip. And we needed to know if the knee was up for it. So we headed up Madison by Airline Way. Several thousand feet of elevation, bruising terrain and a nice mile long scramble up from the hut. I made it up, although looking at pictures my knee was ballooning well before I summited. And on the way down, I slowed to a crawl – a mile an hour – and gritted my way down, wincing with every hard landing. When I got to the parking lot, my left knee was a vast swollen moon of pain.

Two dirty knees. One is very swollen. — One of these things is not like the other

It took three months for the swelling to fully subside. The Katahdin trip fell prey to the dual threats of not being able to walk and also hyperthermic rain. It has been a consolation that the wet summer has meant I’ve missed fewer opportunities than I might have otherwise. But tomorrow will be 80 degrees on a Saturday and I cannot cancel my plans and go grab Chocorua or make an attempt at the Bond Traverse under a full harvest moon. I limp when I rise, and my knee has just now been able to be crossed again with a full range of motion.

I’m too young for a knee replacement. There’s no obvious surgery to do next. My doctor, when I saw him again, recommended getting a new hobby. “Have you thought about kayaking?” I turned 45 this year. That means that if I have as much ahead of me as behind, I’d live to an honorable 90 years old. It’s both old enough to have accrued permanent damage, and too young to accept that damage will forever limit me. But I can’t imagine four more decades with no more summits. No more times gazing across at a mountain range with the dawning realization that the peak over yonder is where you were planning on going this afternoon. I cannot relinquish the quiet of the trail down, when mind and body are exhausted and friendship is quiet in the glinting late afternoon light. Nor can I pass by the vistas that are only attained by strength, determination and the persistence of the body. I’ve loved hiking since I was a wee sprite, imagining myself a Bilbo crossing the Misty Mountains. Since I remember I’ve turned my eyes to the mountains, from whence comes my help.

When I was reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time, breathless in disbelief of the glory of it, I was also the nuisance of my neighborhood. I decided once to be entrepreneurial by selling hand-drawn pictures door to door – which earned me a remarkable number of ribbons candies and long conversations with lonely old folks in quiet houses with lace curtains and antimacassars. After the lecture my parents read me stopped ringing in my ears, I had a favorite of these new friends. Ernie. He was a few houses down the street, in a three story house on a tree-lined quiet street in a small, rural agrarian town. In the year or so I knew him, he never rose from his recliner. But he had an encyclopedic knowledge of every crook and drawer of every floor of his beautiful and packed house and would send me on quests to the crammed third floor (which in retrospect showed a feminine decorating hand that no longer had a matching recliner), or to the manly shop in the basement where odd devices and “tiger eye stones” were stored. I was 8 at the time. I have long since wondered about Ernie. My vague primary-colored memories of him were mostly wrapped up in the glorious book he had of pop-up elves or the tiger-eye stone he gave me (“I have been carrying one for 70 years and never saw a single tiger since I started carrying it”). But looking back, he was a man who had lived a rich and interesting life – almost certainly a combat veteran and a world traveler, as well as possibly an accomplished engineer. He knew many places, but visited them now only in his mind’s eye, and through the sun-drenched legs of curious young girls who could still venture to the mysterious lands of the second floor – wondering if some wardrobe there might transport them to another world.

I know it is the way of some things that only the fortunate get to be Ernie in his recliner with good-hearted but mischievous young visitors. How many friends and loved ones did he lose before he lost his legs? But I also think about the last adventure. The last mountain climbed. The last swim. The last road trip. The last time you visit your own attic. The contraction of the world to the recliner, the remote, the phone.

You might say that 45 is too young for such thoughts, but few of us know when our last time comes. What I do know is that I am NOT READY to have hiked my last peaks. I would like another 30 years, please, of watching the clouds break like waves on the shores of the Whites, tearing themselves apart on Franconia Ridge.

PT during the middle of the day is one way to feel young and fit

So now what? Do I hike twice a year, and limp for four months between? Do I take up kayaking with extreme prejudice? I got a second opinion, and now have a PT who has ALSO hiked the 48 4ks and can advise me with great precision “Yeah, so we start with Monadnock and we work our way UP to the Bond Traverse”. There’s hope that with very specific strengthening I can work around the damage that exists. And maybe compression braces, anti-inflammatories, ice and poles. Keep my strength up with the Peloton. Let the inflammation fall to nothing. Maybe I can make it work. Or maybe a scoping of the knee can clear out junk that’s getting caught in the joint and leading to swelling. My choices after that get grimmer.

I think every generation is shocked to discover ourselves aging. I look at the glorious strength and beauty of the children I have brought into this world – and how poorly they take care of that glory and how little they appreciate their resilience. Youth is wasted on the young – as it was on me.

But when I next stand on a windy summit, eyes turned hungrily to horizons that have welcomed generations and will intrigue generations yet to come, I will be grateful for another chance.

Days when the world changes

Today, I was supposed to be in Washington State with my parents and siblings, remembering a man who meant so very much to me. There were going to be hundreds of scouts – old and young. I was going to play my trumpet. The former governor of Washington was rumored to be planned to attend – he was one of Del’s scouts.

Instead, I’m in my attic, brushing off a dusty blog. I have not run an errand, bought a taco, or hung out with a neighbor today – and it may be some time before I do. A few weeks ago, my parents were here and we planned to see each other soon. Now, we will not. It’s time for some serious social distancing.

Thursday, I took the day off work and went for a winter hike. The snowpack on the trails was still favorable and firm, but the bright March light and warmer March air made it a pleasure to hike up and down the various mountains. But just as we left cell service, I got a text from my husband. “I kept Thane home from school. He has a fever and cough.”

This art counts as social distancing – there was a bunch of new stuff today

That night, still sore and stinky from the hike, wondering if I should send Grey in for the last half-day of school to pick up their things and his brother’s chromebook, I paged Thane’s pediatrician to see what the recommendation was. Dry cough and fever. Now. Surely there was some list I should add him to, some registration. Maybe testing. His doctor called back right away, sounding deeply unhappy. Did he have contact with someone from Biogen? If not, there is no testing. No lists. No records. Nothing to do but treat symptoms and be smart. So we have no idea if Thane has a cold, or something much more dire. Shortly after the call with the doctor, we learned there was a presumptive positive case for a kid in our town schools. We have to assume the worst, for the sake of everyone. So we’re even more isolated than the standard isolation – wondering if we’re going to get sick next. Two weeks is a very, very long time to wait. THERE IS NO TESTING for people who have all the symptoms and live in a community where the virus is.

This time is giving us a chance to catch up on little chores

So far, Thane is fine. His fever mostly broke last night. The cough is painful, and he has a sore throat, but it hasn’t slowed him down very much. So far, the rest of us are also fine. I went on a great run today. We went for a hike – the Middlesex Fells were PACKED – I’ve never seen so many cars – but there was plenty of room for all of us in the gracious, greening forest.

It’s such an odd thing, to watch the world change in twinkling. I’ve been watching Coronavirus very closely (slightly obsessively) since it escaped from the first rings of quarantine. I actually called the “work from home” instructions to the day – two weeks ago. Just watching the litany of cancellations – one after the other – flooding through my email is astonishing. Our 20th anniversary trip to Italy this April vacation is not happening. Del’s funeral will likely be in the fall (if at all). I had to move Piemas (to the Saturday closest to 6-28, Tau Day!). Church will be empty tomorrow – we will worship digitally. Everything is shutting down, shuttering. But the sidewalks are vibrant with people out and about on a beautiful day, seeing each other from a safe distance, enjoying exercise and health and sunlight from suddenly luxuriously (dauntingly?) empty schedules.

I’ve now exceeded my prediction powers. School will definitely resume in the fall. But how much of the spring do we lose? The planned 2 weeks? Six, like in Washington State? All to year? College tours are cancelled. Proms are cancelled. We face this long, quiet uncertain period of being only with family, and going only to places disinfected by sunlight. There’s a hope to that – a slowing and quieting that our society is so deficient in. But there is also fear. Am I ready to nurse my family and friends, if needed? Who will nurse me? Just how crazy will we all go locked in a house together? What about those who are locked in much worse situations than we are?

I take comfort in this: we are kinder to each other than anyone expected. We are resourceful, and thoughtful. And we will come through this wiser than we went in. I only hope the wisdom is not too hard-earned.

Stiff

This weekend we hosted a very successful Mocksgiving. I’ve hosted a “practice” (or mock) Thanksgiving for 19 straight years now, although I’ve truthfully never actually hosted Thanksgiving. Mocksgiving was the last big thing I needed to get through before life slowed down. A brief litany: camping on Labor Day, two 5ks on back to back weekends, my 40th birthday party, Otherworld (which was amazing – highly recommend), Grey’s birthday, my nephew’s death (weighs greatly on my heart through all of this), apple picking, King Richard’s Faire, finishing and furnishing the attic (huge effort – much Ikea), Adam’s birthday, week long trip to Singapore (plus off timezone prep before and follow up afterwards), Thane’s birthday, Halloween, Carnage gaming convention (full weekend Adam), Mocksgiving. All this while working full time (both of us) and raising two kids. Some of these were logistically challenging. Some of these were emotionally very deep and hard. Some of these were physically exhausting. I’m so grateful to be done, and for a coming few weeks that are massively less scheduled.

We’re also getting to the time of year where I can’t run. I’ve been running for three or so years now. I’m very slow – it’s *great* when I beat an 11 minute mile. I’ve switched up my default course, so now I run about 4 miles on a given run (a bit over a 5k) – I don’t want to go longer. My surgically repaired left knee was telling me at the end of the season that pavement isn’t it’s favorite, but this is the only exercise I’ve been able to stick with and be consistent about. But in winter I can’t really run on weekdays when it gets dark out so early, and pretty soon there will be ice and treacherous footing ahead.

But my body just hurts lately. I’m sore and stiff. I’ve been having constant headaches which, yes, are tension headaches in part. But they’re mostly muscular-skeletal. My C1 and C2 like to go in opposite directions and this gives me headaches. I go to my chiropractor, it gets better for about 2 days and then I move wrong and the headaches come back until my next appointment. UGH. I mean granted I’m over 40, but I don’t approve of constant headaches.

So I decided with the upcoming massive free time (are you skeptical that will happen? It won’t be so much, but it will be better.) to spend a few weeks stretching. The best my troublesome back has ever been (I have a really consistent regimen of massage and chiropractic which is extremely effective which is why you’ve never heard me complain of it) has been when I was doing yoga regularly. That was like for 2 months 10 years ago. We’re talking about getting a treadmill in the basement with our massive game of redo-every-room, but that’s still a while a way. So I’m going to give it a shot – 30 minutes a day of yoga. I’m very curious to see if it helps with the headaches and the back issues and the feeling that if I drop I’ll shatter instead of bounce.

We’ll find out!

And heck, maybe with all this free time I’ll also update the ol’ blog more, and finish my novel, and cook more meals from scratch, and catch up on all my church commitments, and do more local history research, and spend more time with my husband, and finally clean out my junk drawer and ….

Yeah. Let’s stick with the yoga.

Camp Wilmot 5k

Running is not the optimal form of exercise for me. My left knee with its largely excised menisci probably shouldn’t have to endure the pounding of my not-inconsiderable frame. Running isn’t really optimal for weight loss. I should have a more varied workout regime to be fitter and healthier.

But about three years ago I figured out that this was a classic case of “the perfect is the enemy of the good” and laced up some shoes and went for a jog. I haven’t really stopped since, although I also haven’t improved. I’m slow – my “record times” are like 10:30/mile and my longest run is just over 4 miles. Still, I’m out there once or twice a week!

So when I heard that Camp Wilmot, scene of my children’s happiest memories and moral development, was doing a fundraising 5k to raise scholarship funds to be able to welcome more kids, I was mightily tempted. But then I looked at the date. September 22nd. On September 23rd, it will somehow be 40 years since my mother did all the hard work of introducing me into the world. My 40th birthday. The big Four Oh. And my husband had put a block on my calendar for the weekend, so it was right out. Couldn’t be done. Even though there was going to be a campfire and ceilidh and overnight and breakfast in the morning. In possible the most beautiful New England fall week of the year. Not possible.

Then the begging started. PLEEEEEEZE MOM! LET US GO BACK TO CAMP WILMOT.

So I asked my husband *exactly* when I needed to be back in Stoneham and the answer was: as soon as you’ve finished running the 5K. SCORE!!!! We’re headed to Wilmot, boys!

I don’t want for many things in this world (although any implication that I’ve bought every single one of the shiny iridescent school supplies I’ve encountered this year is true). But I really really DO want more children to have opportunities like Camp Wilmot. I have first hand experience seeing that it changes the life of the children who attend it. My kids come back thoughtful, kinder, centered, with a sense of belong and purpose. I know other kids hang on to it as a loving lifeline in a hard world. And I know that for a lot of kids, scholarships are the only way that lifeline is available.

So, if you are feeling like you are desperate to give me a gift for my 40th (or just interested in making a difference in kids’ lives), please consider a contribution in any size to Camp Wilmot. And if you’re starting to think that a sleepover, cookout, ceilidh & brisk autumn run or walk sound pretty tempting, it’s certainly not too late to sign up!

Grind their bones

This is been an interesting winter for skiing in New England. On Christmas Day, a hearty foot plus of snow fell on the region, and skiiers rejoiced. Right after they finished their figgy pudding, to the slopes! But mere hours after the snow came the cold. Bitter cold.

Last year this time, we planned a weekend trip to the White Mountains. The original weekend has ended up being the installation weekend for our new pastor – so that was out. I moved it to the weekend right after New Years. But as the forecast unfolded, the very day the boys would’ve been hitting the slopes was also the day of record-breaking cold. If these were the temperatures in Boston, next to the water, what would they look like in the mountains of New Hampshire? Not skiing weather, for sure.

I figured there were some big upsides from pushing it back to the long weekend. On the downside, it was a bit more expensive to get the rooms, and they weren’t as nice. But an extra day! That’s definitely worth something. And the record cold was supposed to clear out.

What I didn’t figure was the record warm we got to end the week last week. It was 60. Then, over a thirty hour period, it dropped a degree and a half every hour. In the morning we had the windows open. By bedtime it was hovering near single digits. And raining – hard. I’d been afraid of the flash-freeze impact on the roads when I planned our drive up for Friday after work. But the temperatures held. What I didn’t anticipate, because I’d never seen it before, was what the warm rains on the so-frozen snows did to the drive. We went through nearly 100 miles of the densest fog I’ve ever seen in New England. This was San Francisco fog; Central Valley fog. There were times when I had to slow to 10 miles an hour to not overdrive the few feet of visibility I had, clinging to the reflective center line of the road like a lifeline. The fog moved fast, skittering across the road as though chased by some unseen horror. The periodic rips in the fog-cloth only served to show us just how dense it really was. There were a few times where I held my breath as we left some brief intermission of the clouds only to slam again into a near solid-wall of mist. I’ve never seen anything even close to that before. New England fog clings to low-lying spots and is elusive. This was anything but.

I arrive at the hotel as white-knuckled as I’d been LAST year when we drove up through a snow storm. Life lesson – you should never plan a vacation at the same time and place I do.

Saturday was a complete loss for outdoor activities. It was just too wet. The ski resorts lost TWO FEET of snow in just two days. I’m sure they’re tearing their hair out. It was un-ski-able, and several of them closed. We read books, played role-playing games, hung out in the hot tub, watched Jurassic Park on cable (OMG the commercials!), I got a massage and enjoyed the Patriot’s game. But I didn’t step off the hotel grounds all day.

Today was at least cold. A little too cold – teens. But the resorts were open and making snow and by gum, we’re New Englanders now.

That last part is actually a good bit of why I work so hard to make the snow sports happen. I never skied growing up, despite living in striking distance of two of Washington’s greatest ski areas. My father is legally disabled with a knee injury. My mother is a California girl. There was no one who would’ve brought us, and we never went. So the very first time I ever strapped on skis in college, on the very first slope I ever went down, I didn’t do it well. In fact, within the first few turns I snapped my ACL, and have been struggling with the consequences ever since. But instead of concluding that “skiing is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs” I’ve instead decided “if you don’t pick up skiing when you’re young and you bounce then you better never try it”. And since I’m raising New Englanders, I’m bound and determined to do a proper job of it.

Plus, I’ve had this fantasy for years now of having choreless hours to myself with this as my muse:

I’d finally finish my book. I’d write brilliant blog posts that would go viral. I’d read a book. I’d pray. I’d read poetry and feel it. I’d read history and live it. I’d rest: body, soul and mind. Such daydreams we have! To digress on my active fantasy life, in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series most inns have a library. In my daydreams (alas, not in reality) this incredibly beautiful hotel has one too, on the third floor, with a killer view, where I could sit and read quietly or write or think. It doesn’t, and the public areas are more, uh, golfy than bookish. But still I dream.

My daydreams got off to a great start this morning! We had the famous brunch. I drove the boys to Attitash and pushed them out of the car. “Bye guys!” Then I hightailed it back to the hotel to brew coffee, stare out the window, and write the next major scene in my long-neglected novel. Heck, it’s the penultimate scene. I’m almost there. After about 2000 words, I decided to exercise both mind and body and put on my work out gear. This is the first time in the history of me I’ve actually followed through one of my resolutions to run while on vacation. I’d really like to do a serious hike this summer, so I have motivation to get fit.

I’d been on for about 3 minutes when I got a call from Adam. “Thane fell and hurt his wrist. We’re going to talk to the medical folk and see what they think.” I only had time to just start regretting my 6 mph pace when I got another call, “He needs to go for xrays at the hospital.” It is, perhaps, a blessing to be in the right place to take your child to the hospital yourself. Last time I got a call that my son had hurt himself on the slopes… you remember, a week before Christmas? (It was Grey. He fell on his head. He’s fine.) I’d been 3.5 hours away and had to trust my friend who’d taken him, and then my husband to pick him up. I high-tailed it to retrieve my child, and a sorry state he looked. He had this massive sling encompassing his right arm.

The local hospital deal with so many skiing patients they return the splits to the ski resort listed on a regular basis. They have codes for which mountain you hurt yourself on.

The hospital was close and *very* well set up to deal with out-of-staters with skiing injuries. In a hilarious turn of events, while waiting with my son I got a LinkedIn message from a former coworker who had worked with me years ago. His daughter had a rather more serious leg injury in the room across the hall. It was a weird place to catch up, but we did so anyway!

Anyway, while we waited I watched Thane use his hand. I figured it definitely wasn’t broken. It might not even be much of a sprain! He had good range of motion, was tolerating the pain well, and didn’t see THAT bothered. There was little bruising or swelling, and he can move his fingers, turn his hands and be touched. But then when he went in for xrays I saw a … wrinkle in a bone where it didn’t look like there should be one. I am no doctor, and I had trouble making out the ultrasounds that proved he was a male issue, so I didn’t put too much credit on it. But I began to doubt.

In a remarkably short amount of time we were having a conversation with a nice (and very experienced in snowboarding injury) doctor. It’s a buckle fracture. Thane has a splint to prevent him from moving it too much. Ibuprofen for pain. And a followup prescribed with his PCP and probably orthopedist. But he may only have to wear the splint for a week or two. It’s about as unserious as a broken wrist can be. I took him out to his first ever Taco Bell, and then we picked up his brother and father.

He was very excited to win his bet with me about the nature of the injury

The slopes were apparently treacherous today – a sturdy remnant of ice limned by a bare modesty of created snow. Adam says it’s the worst he’s ever skied on. He feels guilty for bringing his son there to be injured. We both feel badly about basketball. Thane’s been doing SO WELL on the courts lately, and he has an amazing coach this year. I’d venture this is at least a two week outage on the courts. Given that it’s his dominant shooting/dribbling hand, maybe more. Thane was a trooper the whole way through. He’s so sturdy and reliable and tough.

I “treated his pain” by playing a bunch of Plants vs. Zombies mini games while he offered expert advice. But when the time came to turn out the lights and go to sleep, the whimpering began. The pain had broken through (I was probably late offering his next dose of Ibuprofen, but during the video games he wasn’t feeling any pain). And he was thinking through the implications. How would he be able to write in school? How long would he be forced to wear this uncomfortable brace? How could he sleep with it? He was, for the first time he could remember, broken and unmendable. He was away from home, and it was dark, and he had a broken wrist.

Thus, in the end, we all confront our brokenness and fears and not all the love in the world can wipe them away. May all your healing in times to come be as fast and complete as this one will be, my sweet son.

Running just as fast as we can, now

Spoiler - we just ran a 5k! — Spoiler – we just ran a 5k!

I am not a fitness guru. I’m not even a fitness padawan. I’m a “fitness happens to other people” kind of person. I just did a search of “running” on my blog, and in the first two pages of results, there are none that actually involve… you know… running.

But I also follow the latest research. It turns out that being a great cook and having a job where you sit for a living is not a recipe for happy longevity. I’ve noticed that over time, my mass has gradually crept up. I never lost the baby weight from Grey. Or Thane. And to be completely honest, it was cold water on my face when I stepped on a scale and saw that my weight was about as high as it had been when I was in my third trimester. Taken just on it’s own, that’s bad enough. But as a trend line it just had to be stopped. At some point – perhaps not that far from now – the extra weight would start affecting my mobility (if not my health). Like most people, I find it extremely difficult to lose weight once I’ve gained it. This makes not gaining weight of critical importance.

Tragically, the “easy” ways to lose weight don’t work. Heck, the hard ways to lose weight only work very grudgingly and with great pains. But this spring, I got back to carefully watching the calories in vs calories out.

Pretty typical lunch for me - I'm extremely lucky to have access to free, super high quality healthy food at work — Pretty typical lunch for me – I’m extremely lucky to have access to free, super high quality healthy food at work

If you’ve ever done that, you know that the calories in required to reduce your mass is a desperately small amount. A 1500 or even 1800 calorie diet means that every meal is super small and there are very few snacks. And wine or beer? Fuggedaboutit. But there’s this great tradeoff you can make. If you increase your calories OUT you can take more calories IN. Want a piece of cake? Desperate for some brie and crackers? Longing for lemonade? If you go for a run, you can have eat your cake, and make your goals too.

I picked running because my friend Julie mentioned how much she’d been enjoying it. Also, it was free and immediately available. Don’t underestimate free and immediately available as important criteria for your workout plans. I have access to a gym at work. (But no time.) I used to have a local gym membership (but hated the locale – it was the sort of place that has dire warnings in the locker room regarding the dangers of steroids). I’d run a bit before I blew out my knee, and I’d done track in high school (badly). So I had decent shoes, something to wear and enough training not to hurt myself. Although it’s worth noting that my orthopedic surgeon has said I should try for lower impact sports – I’ll never aim for a marathon because I don’t have enough cartilege in my left knee to support it.

Remarkably consistent with one run a week the last few weeks

I ran for about a mile, stopping to walk. The next time, I ran for a mile and didn’t stop to walk. Then I ran longer distances. Julie recommended I use RunKeeper to track my runs, since data is motivational. (She’s right, by the way.) Then Adam started joining me on my runs (Tragically, I slow him down. Men. It’s not fair how much more easily he gets in shape than I do!). Then, we ran in our town’s super low key 5K race. (Side note, the organizers at the Boys and Girls Club of Stoneham deserve all the credit in the world for putting together such a nice, safe, and well run race!)

Maybe next time I'll be in the top half of my age group.... — Maybe next time I’ll be in the top half of my age group….

Julie asked me if I get the runner’s high that’s so talked about. For months now I’ve tragically lamented that I don’t seem to get that part. But I wonder if it’s sneaking up on me. It takes a lot of willpower to 75 miles. But somehow, it appears that I’ve done just that. How remarkable!

4000 hertz

I'm gonna get you little fishie! — I’m gonna get you little fishie!

Two months ago, I swam in the warm waters of the Caribbean. With my beloved husband, we explored the fine snorkeling and swimming along the interior of Cozumel’s coral reefs. The water was warm. The fish were colorful and plentiful. The place was peaceful. It was bliss.

I had the cheap, disposable underwater camera with me. I dove down to capture a lionfish in the dark of the coral. Perhaps it was this picture I took:

When I came back up, my ear felt full of water. Since I was in the middle of the ocean, I took no notice. But when I got out, later, and toweled off… it still felt full of water. Dinner passed with an earful of water. I googled how to clear my ear before bed, and laid on that side that night expecting to wake with a wet pillow and clear ear. I did not.

I googled more. Barotrauma seemed the most likely option. It clears up on it’s own after a few weeks. I slept again on my left side and resolved to see my PCP when I got back if it was no better. By the time I hit cold New England, the sense of water in my ear was gone, but the ringing and deafness remained. I saw my PCP. She shrugged. “Here’s a referral for a specialist if it doesn’t clear up in the next six to eight weeks.” Given permission to ignore it, I ignored the tinnitus and ringing as much as possible – a discordant chord always in my ear. It sounded as though I was always under water. I couldn’t hear very well through my left ear. But the internet and my own doctor agreed it would likely clear up with time.

Spoiler alert - my PCP was WRONG. — Spoiler alert – my PCP was WRONG.

As spring relented into summer, and I hear the loon calls on the shores of White Lake only over that constant hiss, I decided it was time to call the specialist. After confirming no visual structural damage, no pressure issues, no swelling… I was sent into a tiny padded bunker for a hearing test. “Raise your hand when you hear a sound, even if it’s faint.” My right hand ended up raised more than my left. My left ear test ended earlier. I was running late to a meeting when the doctor sat me down. “You have lost all your hearing in your left ear above 4000 hz. (She showed me a graph.) Blah blah blah very unlikely from snorkeling blah blah blah permanent. Blah blah blah probably not but might be a tumor so we’re sending you for an MRI.”

Well. Who knew that snorkeling was so dangerous? Or so safe that you think this hearing loss that I can trace to the moment I emerged from those sparkling waters might be correlation, not causation? The loss I had was permanent, she said. Maybe, if I’d come to her right away, they could’ve treated with steroids. With a few months distance, all she could do was make sure there was no underlying cause that might lead to more hearing loss.

I have lost all my hearing above 4000 hz in my left ear. I have trouble, now, hearing a conversation in a crowd – like an old woman. At least the discordant ringing will likely slowly slowly over great time fade and disappear, she says. Likely. Who needs 4000 hz anyway? That’s higher than a piccolo. Few sounds I want to hear are in that range. And my right ear can still hear it if I’m determined to listen to dog whistles. It chirps sometimes, like a little bird in my ear.

I decided to comply and go in for the MRI. I confess to being slightly non-plussed that they saw me within a week. I prefer to think of this as a little thing. A mild inconvenience. I went into the same MRI tube – not two blocks from my house – that diagnosed my left knee as appallingly damaged instead of sprained. Knowing they were taking pictures of my brain in that dark tube, I walked last summer’s Wonderland Trail trip in my mind’s eye as the beeps and tones of the MRI watched my brain light up.

This is your brain on the Wonderland Trail

I haven’t heard from my ear doctor yet. I suppose that complaining about how soon they got me in for the MRI I should be relieved at how long it’s taken them to call me back. But, surprisingly, it’s a wee bit stressful when someone MIGHT at any moment call and tell you that you have brain cancer. Usually that call is impossible, but right now… it could happen. (Even though it really won’t happen.) So I wait for them to tell me what I already know – I sacrificed 4000+ hz in my left ear to Neptune, leaving it as an offering among the swirling schools in the bright corals of the bright island of Cozumel.

Here are the pictures from the underwater cameras that urged me to go deeper into the water to capture the glory.

Get the Greenway Going!

Friends, I had the opportunity to attend a Town Meeting last night. This is my letter to the editor about the topic. If you don’t live in Stoneham, feel free to ignore. If you do live here, please – in addition to reading my note – contact your Selectmen to let them know you expect their enthusiastic support of the bikeway!

Fellow Residents of Stoneham,

I’m a mother to two young boys: six and nine. In just a few years, my oldest son will get to go to the great new Middle School we’ve built. In order to get there, though, he’s going to have to cross Montvale and Main Streets. Right now those crossings make me nervous. When the Bikeway becomes a reality, my kids – along with many of others in town – will have a much safer way to walk or bike to school. The bikeway will give us a safe place to teach our kids to ride, connect our community and bring biking enthusiasts to spend time and money in Stoneham!

Recently I attended a session on the future of Main Street. One of the points that was made was that Stoneham needs to attract young families to stay vibrant. Our population is aging. To support them at the level they deserve, we need to promote growth and vibrancy in this town. Our Main Street lacks the foot traffic it needs to attract new companies like Starbucks, and to support local businesses like Angelo’s or Cleveland Fence. In an amazing coincidence, Stoneham has a nearly finished plan for a Greenway (multi-use trail and park) with $5.5 million dollars of outside funding to make more foot traffic happen. Construction could begin as early as next year. By the time my 3rd grader is headed to Middle School, he could take the Greenway!

At the Town Meeting last night, there was a lot of impassioned discussion, and the Board of Selectmen was not authorized to begin negotiations on the temporary construction space needed build the Greenway. (Funny note: John DePinto and Robert Sweeney both voted against giving themselves the authority to help move the Greenway forward!) I worry that MassDOT, who’s giving us the $5.5 million, may think Stoneham doesn’t want or support the investment in public space and resources. They might pass us over in favor of another town that speaks with a more unanimous voice about wanting that investment. The no voters on article 10 last night said they needed more time and more clarity, but we don’t have an infinite amount of time to make this happen before we might need to look at funding this ourselves. Delaying the support of this project could risk our funding.

Not a single person at the meeting last night said they DON’T want the Greenway for Stoneham, but I’m afraid that might be the unintended outcome of delay. So I’m asking all of you: local businesses, Selectmen, football parents, voters, leaders and visionaries in Stoneham. Ask your questions. Get your answers. Find your clarity. Do it fast, and once you understand, throw your whole-hearted, active and vocal support behind this phenomenal opportunity to make Stoneham an amazing place to live.

Brenda Flynn

Peace or…UTTER DESTRUCTION…it’s up to you.

Peace or…UTTER DESTRUCTION…it’s up to you.
— Kirk in ‘A Taste Of Armageddon’

Beware pickpockets, loose women and TIBERIUS

Yesterday morning, I took Tiberius to the vet because he wasn’t eating well and seemed a little lethargic. I was expecting maybe a fluid injection, an appetite improver, or a statement that I was crazy and he was fine. In my mental worst case scenario, his preference for eating weird stuff had gotten something stuck in his digestive tract and he’d need surgery.

Instead I discovered that he lost THREE POUNDS (on a cat!) since I brought him in a month ago. He was down 6 pounds since his original owner surrendered him. (no cat And he was jaundiced. He has heptatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease). This is often fatal. The good news is that he was still strong and responsive. He actually looked pretty fine, so I was rather gobsmacked. After some extensive testing, we signed him up to have a feeding tube installed, and several weeks of helping him eat. The surgery to install it was last night, and seems to have gone ok. They’re doing blood work and getting his electrolytes in balance. I’m hoping we can bring him home tonight, or maybe tomorrow.

Then it’s tube feeding, four times a day, for weeks.

It’s hard to figure out the right way to care for an animal. This will end up costing around $4000 – if this is it. I don’t believe – for people or animals – that the right answer is to throw everything at the problem at all cost. I care a lot about quality of life, prognosis and all those other things. But Tiberius is youngish, still strong, and may make a complete recovery. I feel very lucky that I can pay for his care without worrying about groceries or mortgage payments this month. But it certainly still stings. It’s not just the cost, either. About an hour and 20 minutes every day for the next month will be spent helping my cat eat. That is a significant sacrifice.

With the hard decisions made and my sweet Milkstache in recovery, now we just cross our fingers (or paws) and hope. Please keep your fingers (or paws) crossed too!