Loading dose

 

Today I started my first dose of colitis/crohns medication.

I went to meditation this morning and wore a purple bra

(I am a firm believer that purple is a good luck color, well for me it is)

The nurse is nice and will be my nurse from here on out. 

We got the baby question out of the way right at the start with, 

"do you have any children"

to which I said, "no we don't, we just have each other"

The infusion center is in an allergy clinic, so there was a large group of people there to get allergy meds, crying babies and a lot of commotion.

The Barren came with me, and although he looked away when the needle stuff happened 

he was my solid dude 💓

Todays dose is called a loading dose, as they are loading a smaller dose today and then in two weeks I get another dose. I will be monitored for a bit afterwards to make sure I don't have any reactions. The another dose in 6weeks and then 8 weeks...and then I am on the schedule of every 8 weeks.

In between I will be having blood, stool and scans to monitor progress.

The medicine is designed to specifically target my gut, but it still makes me immunocompromised.

I will continue my vegan gluten free lifestyle, for life.

After the infusion we raced home, because The Barren had a work call and then the doorbell rang...

outside my front door was a man holding a huge arrangement of flowers.

My sweet Barren had a bouquet delivered.

The message read:

"this is one crazy ride, but I am glad I am on it with you"

💓💓💓

more tears, but also smiles

We close our eyes

A Woman is Supporting Another Woman, Who has fainted upon Reading a Letter (1807)

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (Danish, 1783 – 1853)

 I start my infusions tomorrow.

Last Wednesday I got the call that all was set into motion. Since that call, the date has been changed the location has been changed and I have learned the name of my nurse. Plus made appointments for several other appointments and tests that need to be completed.

I have also rushed a friend to the ER 
and dealt with many stressful situations that comprise a life.

I have shared the information with my bestie, my brother, my meditation teacher, my massage therapist (boy I sound quite affluent) but not my parents.

I am having concerns with sharing it with them until after my first session so I can answer all the abstract questions my mother will ask and that way I can still feel a micron of control until then. Also my father is having some memory issues and the last thing I need is a daily call asking in a childlike voice " how I am feeling" when all I want to is to feel strong and powerful and capable.

I told my bestie that I don't want:

" the last thing I want is to be a willowy Victorian woman 
wasting away in the corner who everyone treats with caution"

I am now trying to get used to the day being peppered with medical calls...all of which seem to send a wave of chaos and panic through me and my instinctual reaction is to run....

leave the house, do anything else than what I have to do.

I have managed to make a couple things, and although it feels like pulling taffy, and that it is a steep, steep incline; I am seriously determined to keep on keeping on. 

I have to see the lifestyle I want, instead of the life that someone else thinks I should have.

I sound like a verbal vision board...

I clearly am doing anything and everything in my power to normalize this WHOLE experience.

The Barren is coming with me to the first infusion, because after asking, the nurse said he could come to the first one. 

I have also started a visual for my mantras:

I am a boat on the water, bobbing on the surface.

No water can get into me or sink me

 I can ride out each wave with curiosity and calm.

This is a whole new world...

I am really just guessing at shit now

Call Me

 So I had another phone call with the Gut doctor.

The Barren sat in on this one and asked questions and together as a trio of overeducated people,          we made a decision for moving forward.

My diagnosis was laid out before me, and three options (with some variances) and I made the best decision I could with the information available to me and my physician.

I have another MRI ahead of me, this is to confirm that another horrible is not lying in wait.

Meanwhile, at the same time, there are people working on getting insurance approvals for my medicine. I will be having infusions on a regular basis to stop my white blood cells from attacking my body any further and therefore reduce the inflammation of my intestines and further endanger my appendix.

If I get a problem with my appendix it would be an emergency situation because I have an inflamed intestine and surgery threatens my colitis from spreading further. You can't attach damaged sections to damaged sections....I'm like a human Jenga tower. 

I also have Crohn's disease

I am really really really struggling to process all this.

I am trying to put a happy face on, but I am finding that I am missing that overused mask.

I am stressed, scared and really have no idea what to expect. My nature is to find the silver lining of things, like....I am glad this was discovered before an emergency situation. I am hopeful I will feel better and not worse. I am thankful that my already augmented diet will be easy to maintain....

I am also trying really hard to not think of this as an hourglass...

I need to talk to someone about this, as I have not yet shared this with my bestie and brother. My therapist would be scolding me, but I guess in many ways I am not ready to say the words out loud yet. I am still too scared. I am meditating and trying to get more sleep, and get my yoga practice back in line...as I know all these these help manage stress, but I am finding, that even they are coming up lacking.

I want to run, run far away

run back in time, run away to have fun...run away from all this adulting. I want to run away from fear and anger and the ideas of being weak or fragile or unable to be seen as a normal person.

I don't know how to do that yet. I am not able to focus on artmaking as deadline and opportunities are speeding past and I need to grab them...I need to feel pieces of me that don't feel broken or wrong or out of line.

When I was saying my thank you's to the doctor, he said " Don't pin it on your heritage or your past NSAIDs use....your immune system simply got it wrong..... We are going to try and fix that" 

I feel so much, all at the same time...

Wild Stallion

This might be a case of "the horse that has already left the barn" 

to close the stable door after the horse has bolted

to have tried to prevent something happening, but to have done so too late to prevent damage being done

It appears that my body is resisting.

I have massively altered my diet since my last ER visit back in April and June. 

To date I have lost close to 20 pounds.

I have been poked, prodded, illuminated from the inside out. Photographed, x-rayed, CT scanned, looked at via magnets. I have given blood and poop and tears; testing everything that could be imagined and all signs point to the same place.

Although I don't like the answer, it appears that everyone that has seen my stuff all agree, it is the same.

I have Colitis.

it is only a very small section of my intestines, but my gut doctor wants to put me on medicine, as the small portion of my intestine that is inflamed is very very near my appendix and if one imposes anymore on it, it could be bad bad bad.

So now I am faced with a lifetime of immunosuppressant drugs.

As you can imagine, I have a billion questions about them.

I prize my immune system, it is like my superpower, so the idea that I will need to suppress it for the rest of my life is nothing short of terrifying.

Once again, the news was delivered via a casual phone call.

When I mentioned that I wanted to continue the watch and wait method is when he mentioned that even with all my work "we are most likely dealing with a horse that has already left the stable." 

My decades of pain killers for my endo and migraines most likely played a role in my immune system attacking my intestine and so in an effort to battle one auto immune disease I created another.

What an epiphany about all this horrible.

Sleep Interrupted

 I have night terrors.

I have had some sort of interrupted sleep since my earliest memories. As a child I remember there was a figure in the hallway that I could see from my bed, calling me out of bed and to them. I never got out of bed for it; once they left I would run to my parents bed, shaking and scared. My mother soothed me and lulled me back to sleep next to her. My father had less patience for it, and so I always ran to her side of the bed, or crawled to her side of the bed and slept on the floor next to her.

I have always had conversations with those who are no longer here, in my dreams they would come and bring messages and I welcome those encounters. I sometimes wake in tears from the beautiful feelings that wash over me after those encounters.

My grandmothers and grandfather amongst many others have visited me multiple times. 

I get great comfort from those dreams and encounters.

My therapist always mentioned that my veil between sleep and wake is thin and I travel effortless between them. I agree. I often visit people or places right after falling asleep...

but sometimes things go sideways.

My visits can become nightmares, looping frustrating situations over and over, or scaring me with harm to those I love....and then there are terrors.

Last night I had a whopper.

The scenario is almost always the same, I fall asleep and then...in the darkness I am suddenly aware of someone leaning over me, or approaching the bedside. A robber or a threat of some other nature...

in response I scream, a full lung-filled scream, through the veils, through the layers of sleep and into the darkened room. Shooting my poor darling Barren out of his peaceful slumber and into shear panic.

I am asleep and am often startled awake by the sound of my own voice or The Barren exploding in fear with words or my name.

Last night was a memory of taking a deep breath and screaming...I saw a man in a plaid shirt in our room, on The Barrens side of the bed, terrified that we were in danger I screamed, loud and according to The Barren in a bloodcurdling manner.

I awoke from the sound of my voice and The Barren saying my name.

When I am startled awake, I am shaking, my heart is beating almost too fast for me to process and I am confused, like I have been ripped across time and space. I am left feeling deeply mortified. 

The Barren soothes me and reminds me that I am safe. 

We have done everything we can to resolve this, we have moved the furniture around in the whole house to change the Feng Shui. We have burned sage to clear the energy, The Barren even got hex remover when in New Orleans and we've used that. I have spray to clear the energy I got from an energy worker, I have done meditation breathing, I repeat mantras out loud throughout the day to remind myself "no one in my dreams can harm me or The Barren or our cats or home" 

Sometimes I get a feeling during the day, like darkness is trying to creep in, and I have learned to sense it and say out loud that it is not welcome or allowed in my home or my mind. I have also tried to focus on more of a lucid sleep, where when dreaming I recognize when things are starting to go astray and take control of it so it doesn't scare or frustrate me. I don't watch scary movies, I don't read scary books...this is adding to my stress. I am afraid of falling asleep or scaring my beloved again.

I am still quite shaken from last nights event, and The Barren is currently taking a nap as it took a while for us to relax, I think The Barren was also expecting a knock on the door from the police or a worried neighbor. Thankfully neither happened.

Do you have nightmares, or terrors? What do you do to make things better?

I'll write about other things, but this is taking the most real estate in my mind right now and I wanted to get it out and say my mantras in type and aloud in another dimension.

Myopic

 

I made the mistake of leaving this at the thrift store.

I thrift. I have been a thrift store shopper since High School. 

One of my recent goals is to not buy new clothes, but to thrift as much as I can. 

Fast Fashion/ Clothing is a large polluter so this seemed like an easy life shift.

I thrift shop for The Barren too, as he is in between sizes now and it is cheaper than buying new clothes.

He is cool enough about it.

I was going through the racks and came on this, I even stopped and took a photo of it, 

then put it back on the rack and continued my myopic search of particular sizes...

When I got home I did a quick search and then put my palm to head and just about cried.

this $8 shirt can get up to $200 on the used market!

I am finding that my sights are set to a myopic level as of late.

I am having a hard time seeing past the present, and although my meditation teacher would be glad to hear that, it is not really a good way to view a career or a way to set long term goals.

I am trying to set goals again, as I tend to respond well to them.

I have been rejected from EVERYTHING I have applied to this year...

the streak remains, and the most recent rejection hit hard...harder than I thought it would.

I have enrolled in remote classes to learn new techniques/processes 

and take free courses when and where I can.

I have signed up for free courses offered to artists to refine and update skills.

 My last two pursuits turned out to be much like a timeshare talk...

I lost a couple hours of time and was fed a sales pitch with pressure to buy into a program.

I was more disappointed in myself for not seeing it sooner:

The first was to "teach" you how to successfully apply to residencies. Artists residencies are spaces offered to make work uninterrupted, all require detailed applications and essays. 

The course was supposed to help you refine your documents and increase your chances of acceptance. 

The presenter, spoke slowly for an hour plus on how great all her residences were and what kind of perks, amenities and processes were involved. Some she paid large sums of money to attend and others were juried and she paid less for. 

The people attending were all rejected for all of the ones they had applied to and the lecturers words of advice was: keep applying, keep paying the application fees, and increase the number you are applying to.

I was beyond frustrated and I don't think I was the only one who felt cheated of the time.

The "low cost" ones recommended were a minimum of 3K at reduced rates, plus travel and art supply costs. 

Frustrated, I finally asked:

" being an artist with an inconsistent income, what advice do you have to applying as often as you are recommending?"

The response was: "don't apply to as many"

SIGH

My second attempt was an one hour talk about how to land more shows.

 An artist coach was leading the conversation. Pre-prepared lecture notes were sent ahead of the talk; and once logged in, I was greeted with a pre-recorded talk that ended up being a sales pitch

(see the actual screen shots above)

SIGH

I have had some success, as I took a couple photo classes via zoom and have had fun with the new techniques...but boy oh boy...the admin stuff have been total flops!

It has left me feeling quite defeated and sorry for myself.

Here I am trying to pull myself up from my bootstraps and I just feel fed to the lions of consumerism.

Mind you, I am trying to play in the deep end of the pool, and I am trying to update skills so that I am more consumable...

I was also supposed to be in an academic book about infertility, two of my artworks were selected, this has been in the works for over a year...and the authors are in the home stretch...and sent out forms from the publisher for all the contributors to sign. I read them over, and then had The Barren read them, and then a friend read them because....in them the publisher wanted all rights to the work for all eternity!

So I had to send a letter saying I needed to be removed from the upcoming publication, as I was not ready to hand over all my rights.

(it felt really horrible, especially after Roe v Wade)

My bestie was in town for a couple days, and it was nice to have tea with her before she returned home. We talked about everything including our aging parents. I told her how I feel pushed away by mine. My daily calls are now twice a week and they only talk about my brother when I call. I offer time and cooking and I am turned down. I told her how I've changed my tone, theme, and frequency of conversations...all in an effort to connect more, but nothing seems to work. So I am confused and hurt.

She understood and we both know that the moment anything goes amuck, we both just jump into gear to fix things...zero hesitation. In the meantime, her mother eats food that is mis-delivered to her home, and my parents have long talks with phone solicitors and send group texts of puppy photos.

So this little engine is feeling pretty low, and lost and sad.

But I am trying to see past that...ideally my myopic vision will turn into something else soon.

Until then, I'll just keep my eyes on the railroad line.

Gone

 Let me start with this....

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK

I had a CT scan scheduled for 9am on Friday morning, I had drunk a container of barium the night before and was staying away from social media to try and calm my growing list of fears, as I drank the second container.

I had been in my in doctors office on Thursday morning with The Barren 

because I was on the floor, folded over in pain. 

I had STAT bloodwork done, a STAT ultrasound done 

because they didn't know what was causing the pain. 

Things I feared were causing the pain

impending DEATH

ectopic pregnancy (even though I haven't bled since December of 2020)

infertility trauma has trained me well

bleeding ulcer

ruptured appendix

At the hospital, I was trying to calm myself while I waited for CT tech and I heard the receptionist say

 " did you hear? they overturned Roe V Wade"

(she mentioned it quite casually, like, hey I brought a sandwich from home for lunch today)

My mind begun to spin, I went totally numb.

As I laid on the CT bed, and the nurse tried MULTIPLE times to feed an IV into my arm I thought, what the hell is happening right now?!

The scan went on and I was syrup sweet to everyone because they have all lived through years of trauma treating stupid non mask wearing people.

I got dressed, took a selfie in the bathroom and made it back to my car to collapse into a puddle of tears.

I was too scared to move really...I felt lost under water and unable to see where the bubbles were going.

I texted The Barren that the test was done, and I was headed home.

There was road work and delays and as I sat in waiting lines, I screamed.

Screamed deep, guttural, primal screams.

I wanted the men in the work tractors outside my car to hear my rage

I wanted birds to fly off course

I wanted to be free 

I was terrified for the women suddenly stuck in line, suddenly without options suddenly trapped. I screamed in hopes to blast open walls, I screamed and screamed and screamed to empty my lungs of all air, I screamed until I thought I would pass out. 

Then the line of cars began to move and I sat silent in my car the remainder of the trip  like I had pulled all the air out of the space... until parking at home.

I had lost my voice; literally and physically.

My arm hurt, my throat hurt, I was scared to eat, I was scared to move.

I drank a glass of water and then I don't remember what I did....

I had visions of people shooting the justices (there is a new open carry law) in restaurants out of grief,  because their partners died unable to get an abortion for their ectopic pregnancy.

I went DARK DARK DARK and that scared me.

I got text messages from a couple friends, I sent a couple text messages telling friends I loved them.

I skipped out on a night out watching The Barren play music, and instead stayed home and cried.

The result of this has left the men in my life confused and feeling useless. I love them but I don't think they understand the depth this radiates in my sense of self.

I live in a state that has protected the right to abortions and is aiming to add it to our constitution:

"On Friday, Mr. Newsom signed a bill to shield California abortion providers from liability or prosecution related to out-of-state bans on abortions. He also announced an agreement with Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon and Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington to establish a West Coast abortion firewall that would protect providers and patients from the legal reach of other states.

Pending bills would authorize experienced nurse practitioners to perform first-trimester abortions without a physician’s supervision and create a state-administered fund to help underwrite travel expenses for the many women from abortion-ban states expected to come to California for an abortion."

THIS DOES NOT CHANGE MY RAGE

I made donations to abortion aid funds on Saturday and plan to sell some recent photographs as limited editions to raise more funds for Abortion help for people nationwide.

I did a series of self-portraits that I posted on social media and disturbed some friends with their rawness, I was not afraid to be raw, I feel stripped of something...it is a feeling that I can not really put words around, although I am trying here.

I seem to be explaining myself to a lot of men in my life, and hand holding to help them understand why I am acting the way I am. What I am doing is frustrating and I am trying to keep myself from lashing out at the wrong people for the right reasons. 

Has my place in society and my worth changed or shifted now...I know it has for many others over these years and it is painfully punctuated for women of color and trans people. 

What or how are you coping? The WHOLE world sees us and how super fucked up this country is.

I can't form any more thoughts right now...

I wish you strength for your conversations and peace for your quiet moments

Feeling, nothing more than feelings

 I have been feeling a lot.

There is so much going on in the world and around where I live and with the people I have in my life...

I am overwhelmed and have shifted to staring into the ether a lot these days.

We attended the "bans off our bodies" rally locally, I was proud that The Barren had ZERO hesitation about going, knew what he wanted his sign to say and was next to me the whole time while I was overstimulated by simply being outside in public.

There were about 600ish people there and we marched through the downtown corridor.

It seemed like the right thing to do, sitting at home was not what I wanted to reflect on when I thought of how I lived my life.

Ironically, one of The Barren and my first dates was a pro-choice rally nearly 30years ago!! 

I wanted to photograph the protestors and he said, I'll go with you. Then in the middle of it all, he walked up and tried to reason with one of the sign holders screaming how it was murdering babies.

I have a photo of that too

It feels like a Goliath task to try and change things...

every vote seems wrong, every law seems aligned to attack people.

I am scared, like seriously concerned that things have slid and now I am chasing the car as it drives out of sight  down the road. 

****

Our neighborhood is under the influence of a Chevron effort to secure more drilling and potentially pollute our water and Edison (power company) is set to put a new compressor station not even two miles away and put us into harms way from leaks and damaging noise.

Then there is the war against Ukraine and hunger and a million dead from Covid-19.

My parents seem to be rapidly aging before my eyes and my mother in law went out for a drink last week and when she got up in the middle of the night to get a drink passed out and split her head open and fractured a bone in her back....but she didn't tell us until she was home from the hospital.

*

EVERYTHING I have submitted this year I have been rejected from, which has really made me reassess my life and also our eldest niece has graduated high school and I feel a million years old.

My darling husband is so stressed he is considering quitting his job on a daily and I have learned to not react to that...as talking about it or working through alternatives seems to amplify things and makes him even more upset...and it doesn't help the situation for him. 

(I have mentioned again him getting some professional help to manage stress)

SOoooooooo 

I am having lots of feelings with no place to take them

We got boosted again (second boost) and I have been trying to go to the least congested yoga classes in studio with a KN95 mask on...I am the woman in the mask in the back of the room!!

I thought that maybe my mood would be boosted if I did some social yoga instead of impressing the cats with my bedroom yoga.

We are still out on the results on that one.

*

I also got The Barren to help me shift the garage around and cull many things we are feeling weighed down by...so the thrift store picked up a heavy load.

I gave my darkroom enlarger and assorted trinkets to a local guy who was setting up his first darkroom, my meditation teacher helped arrange that match. It was bittersweet when he drove away...I only cried a little. It seemed like a perfect example of time passing and aging.

I decided to focus on what I could do, and 

I signed up for some alternative process classes, using less toxic elements and I am looking forward to learning new things.

I am feeling time more these days than normal...I feel myself becoming another person. I am not sure who she is yet, but she is learning to navigate a lot of life on her own, weighing situations out. 

On the outside that mostly mostly looks like, watching and listening more....

I feel more like an adult, I never wanted to feel like a grownup, and suddenly here I am feeling just that.

Here is a photo of me doing what I love best. My friend produced this image.

We have not been able to visit as often as gasoline prices are between 6.50-7.00 dollars a gallon now and it has factored into my budget now.

I am looking forward to some good changes...there has got to be some good changes around the corner... right?!?

Sigh

no words

 There is no words

I am without a path to navigate this

This is just nightmare on top of nightmare, and then another nightmare.

I wrote about babies dying in school in 2012

HERE

I am not able to write about it again.

I am too overwhelmed and too shattered.

My youngest niece awoke at 3am this morning, feeling out of sorts.

Her mother did what she could to comfort her, then when she woke up for school later today, she proclaimed that she was "sad" and just wanted to be with her Omi (her grandmother)

so her mom called the school and said that my niece was taking a mental health day.

This child has not had two solid years of school yet...

she is just learning how to make friends and play with others.

I am like a string in the wind...totally untethered and lost searching for any connection at this point.

52 like a deck of cards

 

How my birthday weekend started.

I thought I had simply overate, but my stomach thought differently and proceeded to make the next 24hours living hell for me. It was when I started to vomit blood that The Barren started panicking.

(it was not a lot of blood according to the doctor, so the level of terror The Barren displayed was misdirected and I was not bleeding out)

He started screaming that we needed to go to the ER, I meanwhile was hunched over a toilet discarding whatever was below my toenails was unable to stand. 
YET I was still convinced I didn't need the ER, anything but a DOCTOR or an emergency room or any medical person for that matter... but we got to the ER and as soon as I walked into the door, I felt fine.

The Barren was shocked, I in turn was not. I was terrified of what lay before me and I think went into total trauma mode. We got in quick and of course the nurses were amazing, the doctor was confused why I was asking so many questions and asked if I was in the medical field...and I told him that I was familiar with pain, and emergency rooms and I was someone with stage 4 endo.

He offered pain meds and I refused. Then I sat there for a moment with the nurse and said, I should give my body the option to be comfortable, and not just sit with discomfort.*

* I later reflected on this concept of being uncomfortable and sitting with it and dismissing aides to medically make things better. I felt like my mother taught me to "buck up" and manage it alone, in solitude and you'll get past it, eventually. I am glad I recognized this while in the ER and able to make those elements dissipate.

So I got some light drug to mostly numb my stomach and all my blood tests were good so it was diagnosed as acute gastritis.

No spicy, oily food. No alcohol or caffeine.

Happy birthday!

I am on stomach drugs for two weeks and a bland diet.

The next day I was back to normal actives and when my birthday rolled around a couple days later I was my normal emotional self. I made myself some birthday cupcakes, and headed to the family home. I had loaded up my camera and I shot photos of my immediate family.

It was a relaxing quiet time, simple food and I had a bite of birthday cupcake.

okay, I ate a whole cupcake

Vanilla cake, lemon curd filling and topping.

The Barren had taken time off work so we could celebrate my birthday together....

but he neglected to make any plans, so after he berated himself for being bad at birthdays...I told him that we could freeform the days off.

I also had another epiphany:

When you are younger, you have elaborate birthday parties with friends and big Ta-dos, and as you age those sorts of moments become harder and harder. All we are trying to do is capture that same level of joy from childhood...recently when I thought about my birthday I cry. I realized that for me, it highlights my loneliness and lack of social circle. So birthdays have to become something else for me.

So I found a botanical garden, and took my cameras and photos and walked near trees and forgot all about my sadness, and about being lonely. I forgot about the ER and the pain, I just was away from it all with The Barren.

When the days off had past, I got a text from my bestie that she was coming into town for a hot 36hrs to pick up a HUGE plant from her mother and then was going back home. Then asked if I had an hour or so to hang out...I of course said yes and with The Barren in tow we met for a meal and a chat and it ended up being longer than an hour and it was like my birthday extended for another day. We took photos and she jumped back into her car and drove home 6+ hours away.

When I was with bestie, she mentioned that 52 was like a deck of cards....

I thought about that, mostly that I hadn't thought about a deck of cards being 52, but then how that relates to me. 52 options, some similar to others but each unique. 

I guess the theme of my newest circle around the sun is reframing.

I am reframing how I relate to myself, the world around me and others in my life. I mean what birthday would be complete without a little existential meandering, right?!

Which card will I pull for this week?

52 cards, 52 weeks in a year...

The Barren's birthday

 After weeks of planning, The Barren's birthday arrived and we drove to a town about two hours away. We stopped in the downtown area, ate some diner food (that later gave us both indigestion, because we are 50 years old) and then checked into a hotel that overlooked the sea.

Like was 20feet from the ocean

After taking three deep lung filling breaths of the ocean air The Barren turned around and fell onto the bed and took a multiple hour nap. 

I sat next to him, listening to the ocean and his snores.

After some time had past and I my level of boredom had peaked, I woke him up we walked to see the sunset on the private beach footsteps from our room...The Barren gathered stones for a hopeful future inlay project and I took photos. We then returned to the room to sleep some more.

We woke up in time to watch the sunrise from our private patio, listen to the sea birds awake from their nights slumber and begin search for food.

It was quiet, it was peaceful and it was prefect.

Here is a photo of me, in a tee, a sweatshirt and a thin puffer jacket 

(because that is how you dress when it is cold here on the west coast)

on our sunset walk before falling back to sleep.

It was a moment in time where nothing was wrong, 

we were adulting like real adults 

and the world was quiet so The Barren could turn 50.

This new year

 It has been a little bit since I've checked in here, 

Well, I check every couple of days and read your blogs, 

but it has been a little bit since I have sat down to write something.

So hello and happy new year

I never got our holiday cards made, and I even missed the chance to make them New Year cards, and now they can not be Valentine cards...so I need to let that rope loose.

I was sitting in my bathroom, after sneezing repeatedly from my nasal swipe home test, looking at this tiny piece of plastic....wondering what will the answer be?!

Anyone else been triggered by this act of home testing?

I was surprised at how quickly this became a flashback to days of yore.

I sat there for 15 minutes waiting, wondering and hoping for a negative so I could visit a friend who had tested that same morning and was also negative.

This is the new weekly normal it seems,

We test ourselves before visiting and then can hug and laugh and share a picnic.

I have been struggling to find a new normal for myself. 

A new studio practice, a new routine, a new self. It has come to my attention, that home chores are now a predominate part of my week. I sit in my workspace daily: often distracted/interrupted with making meals, doing laundry, being a cat entertainer and my anxiety from not making new artwork.

So I have taken to visiting with a friend weekly. I take my camera and shoot film and laugh and try and find a new moment of clarity and less guilt.

The Barren is home during this time, working and stressing and I am off playing with a friend.

It has me feeling conflicted, but The Barren assures me that he wants me to find this time to be creative.

I come home from these visits and either bring home food or immediately hit the ground running to make a meal when I walk in the door, as I am wanting to counterbalance these feelings...

I don't like that I feel this way...

I don't make much money anymore and The Barren is carrying the load. Once again he assures me that he wants me to have space and time to make art, as he feels that is my true calling.

I adore him more than words can describe for this vote of confidence.

I sold almost nothing last year (I just did our taxes) I made $148 from the sale of 3 packs of cards and two prints. So I am clearly not the next breadwinner in this house.

So in exchange I do all the housework, food shopping, laundry, dishes, cooking and dishes.

While still trying to make art, and check into my remote job (it is pretty quiet this time of year)

so that is what I have been doing.

The Barren turns 50 next week, he is feeling low and super stressed. (compounding my guilt)

I booked us an overnight at a hotel in a town about two hours from here. It is supposed to have ocean views and a balcony to watch said ocean.

An overnight means the cats can be left alone without needing a check-in from a third person.

I also sent an email out to everyone I could think of to send birthday wishes so I could put them into one book for him and he could see how special he is to so many people.

They are trickling in slowly, and that has raised my anxiety a little...but I am trying to let it swing in the wind. He will have wishes from a few for sure and I have a crafting project to make.

His best buddy has three concerts for them to attend in the next week. The Barren has been pretty isolated and hunkered down here at home in preparation (really it is social anxiety, and Covid fears)

for the last month! So that has added to his feelings I am sure...

But tomorrow he starts to break free and attend events outside the house.

We have a stack of home tests, and are crazy careful and cautious about masking around people.

So far, it has served us well, as neither of us has gotten the virus.

WHICH IS THE GOAL STILL

On another front:

I reached a milestone, well a touchstone? or a life marker?

I have not had a period in over a year now! 

I am in a whole new land.

I had a follow-up ultrasound to make sure that the polyp, that the GYN gave me while trying to take an endocervical pap was gone, and thankfully it was. All seemed calm on the cervical/uterine front ⭐

So here I am, avoiding going back to the gyn to try again for that same pap.

This new year has been trying and my gosh we are only just finishing up the second month.

I am feeling lonely, but as mentioned I continue to make real efforts to find a social feature outside my home once a week...and I am still doing online art discussion class, and yoga practice (at home) and meditation group (4 people in a HUGE multipurpose room with masks) but the overall feeling is still very isolated and alone. Like a thirst that is unable to be quenched.

Is anyone else feeling this too?

Okay, I am babbling again.

Happy newish year...I'll be back sooner to reflect on some thing or another.

Another Year Ends

Merry Hanukah, Bright Solstice, Happy Christmas, Festive Kwanza

Art by: https://wolfskulljack.com/

Another year comes to an end...I have come back here multiple times to write about feeling, fears, hopes and sorrow. Many times simply staring at the blinking cursor. Other times spilling words easily onto this magic writing pad. All the times, knowing that there would be no judgement in what I came up with, mumbled about or struggled with.

I can not thank you all enough for that.

I feel like I am safe in this space, with expressing myself.

WHAT A GIFT THAT IS!!

I hope that whomever is reading this, feels the same, even for just a moment in time, as that can build to 5 minutes, than a half hour then a month, and a year.

You are magical and unique and so worth fighting for!

Happy of any holiday you acknowledge.

look at you shining so brightly

*

My Cervix

****candid- real talk about exams****

 It is that time of year again...check under the hood and see how things are.

Like years prior I tried to make all the appointments in a week, so I could get them all done and then be done for a year...but that circles thing is still haunting me. I had my general checkup/in and to say that my primary wasn't happy with my answer to her : Are you happy? question is kind of an understatement. What did she really expect...I mean I think all of us have been run the fuck over these last two years. My response of "mediocre" was not received well and she offered no other options other than noting that she wanted me to take care of myself?! WTF

I was cleared and told that my cervix was too closed to do a proper pap and that I needed to have ANOTHER one done by the GYN department....as well as a stack of other orders for mammos and ultrasounds and follow-up bloodwork.

Meanwhile the gastro doctor needed me to REPEAT all the samples I had done two months ago because the lab didn't culture them all.

I went for my pap redo yesterday and aside from a single extremely pregnant woman in the waiting room, the other ladies in waiting all seemed unfazed and not pregnant.

I decided to have the NP that did my endo biopsy do this retry and she tried...and then asked for more things to try and do it. I was laying there flayed open with a speculum in place for longer that most of us would like, she proclaimed that more things were needed and rang for another woman in the office to fetch other devices to try and open my cervix enough to get cervical cells....after what felt like an entire construction site worth of devices she said she was not able to open the cervix enough.

She prescribed an estrogen suppository for me to take for a couple months in hope that would soften my cervix enough to take a proper pap. So she wants to try again in February. 

I felt defeated, and disappointed and after I got dressed, it also felt like I had been punched in my vagina. I have had some mild cramping too...but I am guessing that was from the clamp they put on my cervix while trying to get a cervical dilatator into me.

Today was my pelvic ultrasound...it was obvious when the ultrasound tech started to place the probe that there was a tissue tear in my vaginal wall from yesterday and then she said she could see where the NP tried to get into my cervix...in fact she said to expect spotting in the next couple of days as things looked poked. She told me that my ovaries are starting to get smaller too. I was thankful for the heads up and the repeated checking-in on me to see if I was alright and not uncomfortable. 

I left the appointment and sat in my car for a little cry, my vulva throbbing and aching.

It was a lot of things to process.

I am cooking tonight, feeling like I need to control something today...anything for that matter.

I was suppose to do a family photo shoot, but the family postponed and I am kind of grateful. It means I have some time to work through some feelings about this whole couple of days. I think I am going to soak in a tub tonight too, ideally it will help start some healing.

I know that a lot of my feelings are surfacing from my IF days, when I had most of the people from my county in my vagina, looking around and giving opinions. I can put on a mask, swallow pain, discomfort and make little jokes to deflect real feelings...but I am not so okay with doing that anymore. I am tired. I am tired of feeling like I am broken or unwell. This entrance into menopause is like taking a dive into a dark deep pool and no one tells you what the water temp is, what is in the pool or if you will sink or swim....because each of us sees that pool differently and so why tell you anything.

It has been a rough start to the week, I still have a breast ultrasound, and a follow-up with the gastro doc (who will be wondering why I am not sicker)

I am not wanting to complain, but really wonder if this is what to expect from here on out. Does anyone else have this experience? closed cervix with the onset of menopause, having to do paps over and over? How are you handling the beginnings of menopause, or perimenopause? 

Any advice or tips would be of great enlightenment.

Circles

 Circles, they are beautiful and never-ending...

Soap bubbles are shaped in circles (mostly, well when you think of them...now that I think of them, they are a myriad of shapes and this metaphor might not work now...)

Okay, I feel like I have been walking in circles...I have been spending time trying to assist my parents with tasks and plans. Do things for hubby while he works a crazy schedule and do things for my work. I find that there is not a lot of time left for me to sort things out about what I need...plus now we have three cats and the lions share of the responsibilities fall on me now too. 

So when I have time to myself I walk in circles...

Last week was filled with circles- I spent time, money and energy sending artwork and documents to a gallery that was finally having a grand opening and is supposed to be representing (for the last year) me only to not see any of that work shown in the opening reception or online media. I was mortified. That took some time to filter through my mind and just understand some things are not going to work out as you had been lead to believe.

Hubby is away for a week with a friend...he has turned off all access to work and is just "playing" for the next 5 days. I am thrilled for him. Frankly, I think this came at the perfect time, as he is mentally shot and this is just what he needs! I had planned to fill my days with just studio time, not needing to take breaks for meal prep or home tasks.

Then another circle appeared. 

I left the cats for the first time alone for an extended time. It ended up being 7 hours by the time I got home and although I had imagined everything upended, it appears that they slept most of the time.

After volunteering, I picked up some food for the parents and headed to take them for an appointment at the local body piercer. Yep, didn't expect that did ya?! My mother requested for her birthday,  that she get her ears redone, as her holes had closed up and she wants to wear earrings again....so I booked the an appointment. My father wanting not to be left out, had his old piercing done again too. 

The piercer was wonderful and kind and took his time with both of them and I am thrilled to have NO concerns that there will be any complications. He is located in a local tattoo shop and that made my father uncomfortable. While waiting for my mother, my father thanked me repeatedly for not getting any tattoos. He thinks they are horrible...he is very driven by looks, and feels that they look trashy.

 I explained to him how I see them. As humans we decorate ourselves in all sorts of different ways, we collect things, color/cut our hair, pierce our ears, do what makes us happy and hold memories near. I compared tattoos to collecting artwork, if there is a moment you want to remember and hold with you always, why not have it be part of you...collecting images that remind you of that or words that helped your through a hard or joyful time.

I think he understood it differently. His thinking is quite cloudy now, his pain/nerve medicines have made him really have to work to see things clearly and that is often something he doesn't really have energy for. Walking has also become a roulette wheel of if he will loose his balance or not and he refuses to use a cane or sit in a chair when watering the lawn...because of HOW IT LOOKS.

He is currently obsessed with getting a government card that proves he served in the military. I offered to submit the needed documents online to expedite the process so that he didn't have to drive (be driven) up and down the coast to government offices. I gathered all the documents and created all the accounts and today I thought I just needed to put the final pieces into place. After spending hours setting up some other kind of online account to access stuff, the government site says it is not issuing the cards. No reason was given...I researched further and found out that they paused the program last year! it is nowhere on the site. It was a big disappointment and it took multiple days of time, reading documents to and from my father, teaching him which emails are advertisements and which are actual information. He gave his social security number to a person over the phone recently and I just about had an aneurism (my brother thankfully unraveled that mess)  

I felt like I had spun in circles 

I was able to make appointments for them to get a booster shot. It was a whole thing again, as they wanted to know if it was safe and why they needed it. I needed to physically drop off a hard copy of the appointment confirmation because they don't use their phones for apps and don't have a printer for that sort of thing.

There has been a lot of things that interrupt my plans and cause me to run off the rails of focus.

Has anyone else experienced this ruddy transition lately?

It overwhelms me so easily these days...I find it hard to do anything before or after it...as all my thoughts are focused on the task for that day!  It is freaking me out.

I use to be able to do laundry lists of tasks in hours, weekends were full of tasks done and things completed...now I am lucky if I change clothes and do laundry!

So this weekend has started slowly and not as I had planned, but TOMORROW I will do artwork! I am up late in hopes to check off all things that are distracting me and I can wake to a clean slate, prepared paper and a rolled out yoga mat to start the day!

I hope you are all navigating this strange time in the world with grace and a little less apathy.

It is a struggle for sure.

**it took multiple hours to get this post done, as I kept getting called away for kitten crashing sounds, emails, texts and dishes***

Breathe from your chest

 I did a grown up thing and got my colonoscopy done. It was alright and I made sure to tell EVERYONE about my stage 4 endo and where it was attached to my bowel. 

The doctor took biopsies and removed a couple polyps and said I can't take any NSAID's for two weeks. I've only had one optical migraine and I breathed my way through it.

I am thrilled to be on this side of the exam. 

It was taking up soooooooooo much space in my head and conscience. 

When checking in the nurse noticed I was quiet and still and she asked if it was my first time, after saying yes...she asked what I was most worried about...and I told her I had white coat, she asked from what...and I told her a decade of infertility. 

HER WHOLE BODY LANGUAGE changed and she was soothing and said she was so very sorry and placed my IV on the first try...and it didn't even bruise!!

When it was my turn, the doctor was nice, the nurse that gave me the drugs was kind and I asked if she would hold my hand, and she did until she had to administer the drugs...I was in a twilight sleep and was told to breathe from my chest, it made me think of yoga and I did as suggested. I have spots of memories of the procedure and then I was done. I went back to the bay, was helped to get dressed, walked out to The Barren and taken home, where the Barren had made me some vegan scrambled egg and rice and a glass of water.

Then I went to bed to sleep off the drugs and fart.

They found things in my colon. Fucking nothing surprises me anymore. It was clarified that nothing was cancer and no endo had penetrated the colon wall but, there is a possible immune disease. They won't really know for sure until I do some blood work and stool samples...whatever.

I seriously don't have enough energy to be concerned or worried about stuff. This last year and a half have stripped me of so much...clearly this is another thing.

I go in for another in 7 years or something like that. In the meantime, I have a new doctor trying to figure out my unique body.

On the flip side, we finally brought the cats home. 

We spent a week with them before telling anyone we brought them home. It made a good difference. They have all their shots, are neutered and spayed and are learning how to be housecats. 

Here are the three that now live with us:

Zahra- the kitty that started it all 💗

She is about a year old

Umber- this boy loves his mommy and naps

12weeks old

Kugel- the littlest of the litter and Parkour expert 

12 weeks old

The energy is totally different and as much as they are getting used to being housecats, we are re-learning what it is like to have young cats again.

It has been well over a decade since that was the case.

They change everyday, and hide less and are curious about more.

Soon we hope one will want to be a lap cat, nap buddy, and snuggle.

I can feel my heartbreak from the loss of our boys, becoming less, but their familiar natures are hard to unlearn. Having young cats and not old man cats, where you are used to having something wrong weekly, is an adjustment.

My breathing practice has helped stay calm when I hear a bang from another room, breathing has helped keep my concerns at bay...and breathing has helped me sit for an hour just to move a string back and forth so that I can pet them a little longer each time.

Breathing helps.

My breath is my strength

Fire and Death

 I have been wanting to write, 

but I am finding it hard to find a thread of ideas to share...or rant about.

Then I realized so much time has passed since my last post....

so here I am.

************

This post includes a lot of talk about death

************

I have been floating on the surface of life...or sitting deeply in it. I seem to find myself falling deeply into the nuances of the day or shielding myself from them. My yoga studio has stopped conducting classes outside and so we are back inside a studio. I so far am only going to meditation classes in the studio....despite my assurances of safer practices I am still struggling to go back to heated full classes. Instead I practice at home on those days with pre-recorded videos.

A full class use to be, a class of 42 people closed into a room and flowing and sweating and exhaling. Now a full class is 35 in heated classes and 25 in un-heated classes (meditation)

I have attended two heated classes in the studio to check how I feel about it.  I wore a disposable mask all through class, not touching it while sweating my way through the asanas. In one class a guy had a full sweat suit on and I later found out he was training for an MMA match. I am the only one in class that wears a mask: often the only one in the studio, outside doing errands, grocery shopping, farmers market...driving. I am still quite frightened of dying from a virus I am TOTALLY protected from. Even knowing that the vaccine is good against the variants has not dissipated enough of my fear to go mask-less. I have reached out to a physician friend to ask about returning to the hot studio and he said wear a disposable mask, but the chances of me getting virus are reduced as I am vaccinated and if I do get it, it will not be deadly.

With all this "reassurance" I am still hesitant. I believe in science and am currently living a life science forward...but, maybe I just have gotten so comfortable being cautious. A sick new way to control things in my life that are totally uncontrollably random. I am thankful that the people I interact with are both vaccinated and gentle with my feelings about my virus fear/comfort. I would liken it to a monster in your bedroom closet as a kid and your parent comes in, turns on the light, opens the door and shows you that indeed there is nothing to be frightened of. Then they turn around and leave. You are still in that room and that bed staring at the door you heard growling from...and are still trying to process the fear.

My meditation group, about 7 of us, that were super regular at the parks, sitting silently behind masks, in 40 degree mornings or windy hot days...while squirrels rained pinecone down on my head or crows screamed the whole time...anyway one of the members arranged a "closing ceremony" to line up with the Summer Solstice.

We had a fire ceremony

We all gathered and meditated on the fire and what we wanted to let go of. It is always eye opening to hear what other people are thinking...especially people you've shared almost a year with in silence.

Most wanted to let go of worries and family judgements....personal judgements and I sent the judgements of others to the flames.

I have held that hope in the front of my mind since then.

(I wore a sun dress with no bra as an act of this resistance, had bedhead hair at the market and coffeeshop. I am working my way up it seems)

***************

This weekend was a "titty twister" of sorts

I got an email at 7am from a longtime friend (old boyfriend) that his mother passed away. I was in total shock! I have know this woman for 30+ years and even worked with her many moons ago.

She used to gift me photo paper in my super lean days. (I was dating her son then) 

Super sweet woman, last I spoke with her was last year when we exchanged emails so I could mail her handmade masks...It was a real surprise; I knew my friend was going to be super fragile and so I have been checking in on him. On that same day, his longtime (20+year) girlfriend's father was rushed to the ER for a stroke. My brother in law was headed into surgery for lung cancer and when I called my parents to let them know about the death, my mom interrupted me to let me know that they were on the way to the walk in clinic for my father who was having a reaction to a bee sting.

I don't remember doing much other than visiting the cats and coming home.

It was a lot to process.

Does anyone else's life bundle like that? I seem to have days where the space time continuum layer like this...folding one thing on top of the other into a shit sandwich.

Just a few days before I had learned of anther friends parent dying; another person I had know for a long time. She did the flowers for our wedding almost 19years ago.

Is it that time in our lives now...I am SOOOOO not ready for that. I guess we are never really ready to say goodbye to people...but it sux

Today is the anniversary of my grandfathers death. He passed away in 1990. I was sleeping in the bed next to his at the care facility the night he died. In my  twilight sleep I saw him walk down the hall with a friend who was already dead, he waved at me and when I woke up he took one of his last breaths. He had lived/suffered with ALS for too long and it was hard to watch at the end. It took his speech and his mobility and his dignity. I lost my job the next day, as I missed an impromptu company meeting. It was okay, I was being sexually harassed by the owner of the store and it was an easy reason to fire me.

(boy that was a loaded sentence)

Anyway, my grandfather has visited me the least of my deceased grandparents. I can count the times on one hand. I guess we were alright and all that needed to be said was said. I adored him and think about him often...but I must admit as time passes, it is harder to hear his voice or remember specifics about his mannerisms anymore.

Maybe that is what this virus has done...

This virus has made death so much more in the forefront, and common. There are still people in this town that refuse to get the vaccine, and they are  clearly okay being 99% of the deaths from this virus now. Totally preventable. Historically, as the world was growing and changing, death was part of everyday life. People painted it both boldly and symbolically. Memento Mori was everywhere as people were dying so often.

Have we entered a Memento Mori time? We have been so used to a long healthy life now and suddenly as the world all fell to this insane virus, it has become a daily reminder once again.

Building fall, bombs explode, people run into schools with guns, cars crash, people kill each other for shoes or skin color or food.

it is often too much for me to process and I must admit I feel like I need to be an ostrich and run away and hide. I can not bare much more on my nerves and heart.

I guess I can thank my infertility for dulling a lot of my nerves, making me not respond emotionally to horrible things. It takes days, sometimes weeks to actually feel something.

I am trying to return to a "normal" self, but I think I am changed...so massively changed.