Fine Young Fauves

Unbelievable. And yet.

I think the amazing part of the story, really, is that I let my guard down yet again. I… maybe I've been a bit preoccupied by my new life with Meniere's disease. Maybe I've been a little bit dazed and not entirely on the job. Maybe the recurring need to lie down and focus on a fixed object is taking up too much space on my hard drive. Maybe Ben and I were just really tired, and really wanted to relax for a few minutes, and so sat on the terrace finishing up dinner while the kids went inside. Isaac went in to play a computer game and Elias followed. I guess I didn't really think of what he was up to. I just assumed he was doing whatever Isaac was doing, and in that state of tiredness I truly didn't care.

Until. "MMMMOOOOOOOMMMMM!" Isaac shrieked. "COME HERE!! It's an EMERGENCY!" Now, unfortunately, many of Isaac's "emergencies" are more like inconveniences with which he would like help. Like the computer stopped for a moment, or he wants me to google "spiderman online video games" and can't spell many of the words. But in this case he ran out and actually looked pretty upset. I dragged my carcass in to see what all the fuss was about– and out of the corner of my eye I noticed through the window that Elias seemed to be securing himself into the bathroom. With that in mind I was vaguely expecting a potty related scene of some kind. But no. What I found was honey. Lots of honey. All over the place on the wall to wall carpet that we all-too-recently paid $200 to have professionally cleaned… 

And that's not all.

The context is that when Ben came home, I was lying on the couch dealing with a brief interlude of spinning and gently tipping from side to side. I had been fending off the kids for a half hour or so from a prone position. The house through and through looked like crime scene anyway, but the TV room was really the nadir. The futon cover was off and in a grungy heap. Toys everywhere. Popcorn spilled among the toys. Pillows higgledy-piggledy, you get the idea. And Ben, feeling stressed out from a hard day of work just couldn't take it another minute. And so, he cleaned it all up. He put the futon cover on. He picked up all the toys. He vacuumed up the popcorn and everything else. He went through the room like a white tornado and order supplanted chaos. Then, as a final gesture of "humans do indeed live here" he ripped open the paper and unfurled the lovely Greek throw rug that had been dumped upon with honey in the last episode (checking my records, June 5), and had been taken by the cleaners, and returned spanking new. He spread it on the floor, and tah-dah! A lovely, habitable room!!

A scant thirty minutes later, Elias used a new trick. He stood a stool upon an overturned laundry basket, and thus gained a few more inches of height, and thus was able to get his little hands on a fairly new, full bottle of honey!! Not one to let opportunity slip away, he seized the moment. Isaac was sitting right there, but absorbed in his activities and didn't notice until it was too late. 

When I came in and, I suppose, screamed, "OH MY GOD!" or words to that effect, Ben came running in and, had it been a cartoon his head would have shot up into the air and exploded like a firework. He confronted the hiding culprit and scolded him severely. Elias came running to me for succor, and I fairly sternly put him in a time out. Together we cleaned the mess up fairly well, with Ben fuming all the while. Justified, lord knows. Elias sat patiently and obviously chastened in his chair for a long, long time. We decided that his normal two-minute time out would be best replaced with a time-out for the duration of the cleaning process.

And now, exhausted by the proceedings, he's fallen fast asleep.

I had been locking the honey up with the medications, but clearly I forgot to do so this morning. I must have left it just in a normal cupboard, or god help me, right on the counter. The new policy: we just can't OWN HONEY. Period!

If this keeps up, I'm going to have to create an off-shoot blog, tentatively titled "Half A Bubble Off: My life with Meniere's Disease."

So yesterday I went to see the Ear Nose Throat guy. This is the appt I've been waiting for since the whole situation began, almost a month ago. It seemed a long time to wait. What I understand now is that the rough plan of my life is that I will be seeing Dr. Mooney EVERY month for a long time to come. Thus to manage my chronic vestibular disorder. Unfortunately it was sort of anti-climactic. I brought a list of questions, but felt like I had to nearly chase the Dr., who was quickly moving on, down the hall to get them all answered.

Okay– so the results of my dizzy test last week were SORT OF good. That is, I don't have any wildly horrible damage in my inner that's beyond repair. I don't have any type of ghastly malfunction that made all their machines go wild. No. In fact, on a lot of the tests, my "balance organ" was normal. THis news alarmed me in a strange way, not unlike that frustrating feeling when the mechanic can't hear the clunk your car is making. You see, the dizziness issues are making a mess of things in many ways. For example, just on Sunday, I got dizzy en route to Ben's Quaker Meeting, and had to lie down much of the time, and had to be helped around by others, and then spent the balance of the afternoon unhappily dizzy on the couch.

However, they did find one little doo-dad that was out of place, that is that when I change positions, things go heywire. There's this other disorder, other than Meniere's, called BPPV (benign positional something vertigo), in which little crystals floating around in your semi-circular canals get in the wrong places and you get vertigo. Well, since this whole thing started a few people have been sending me info about it and I didn't think I had it. Sadly– because it can apparently be fixed with a few simple manipulations of your head to adjust those silly crystals back where they belong. But BPPV doesn't come with all the hearing and ear symptoms that I've been having along with my dizziness problems, and also it lasts just a few minutes, when you're in the wrong position, and then goes away, which mine does not. 

So anyway, I was sort of wishing I had BPPV instead of Meniere's, but didn't seem too likely. Yesterday the dr. brought it up, saying that my test results show a "positional component." I mentioned my understanding of the difference between the two and effectively he said, "Well, you seem to have both Meniere's and BPPV. They're interconnected and sometimes occur together." 

Okay– it's a twofer. Well, on the upside, that gives me hope that maybe the head manipulation thing COULD help me after all, and so as soon as the rest of the world wakes up this morning, I'll get on that. I need to find a vestibular therapist anyway, because balance exercises could help my Meniere's problems, and apparently the same person can get my crystals (??!) under control also. I really think I could live with the hearing loss and the ringing if it were not for the dizziness.  

So– action steps for now:

• find a vestibular therapist and begin work
• find an allergist and get a full allergy work up– allergies may have been at the root of my bad spring of multiple illnesses and may have triggered the Meniere's
• experiment with a larger dose of diuretics as needed. Looks like I'm going to be taking these for a looooong time.
• take Antivert– my new emergency medicine– if I'm really having a vertigo attack. Except that it says right on it, "do not take while breastfeeding," so that means I need to call the pediatrician too 
• use daily steroidal nasal spray to keep sinuses under control… a whole nother aspect of this is my sinus malformation. The word surgery was bandied about yesterday, although I would get many opinions before anyone goes inside my head and starts cutting.
• Gotta call insurance and see how much of this is going to be covered
• Come back to see Dr. Mooney (ENT) in four weeks
• Plan on an MRI of the head in a couple month– this will look to see if anything else is in there, i.e. a tumor, and confirm the Meniere's thing, and see if my sinuses are still a mess or getting better.

Is that all? Like I need another full-time job, managing a fleet of doctors and paperwork.

But by the same token I have to do all I can, as this is really a major problem at times. I have had a few occasions when I've been here, alone with Elias, and have gotten so dizzy I've had a moment of blackness. My fear is of really passing out, falling, and being alone with a two-year-old at the time. Also, I'm very tired, already (although it's only been a month– Meniere's is all about the long, long term) of having my day totally up-ended by dizziness. I can't plan anything, although I do anyway. But who knows– will it be a good day or a bad day? This sense of non-control of my life is very upsetting.

Couple days ago I asked Ben if he had any questions for the dr. He said, "When will I get my wife back?" I have the same question– although instead of "wife" mine is "life."

But who knows– we're going to attack the problem from many angles, and supposedly mine is a "mild" case. Maybe the vestibular therapist will work a miracle, as has been the case with others I've read about!

In the meantime, this is my new hang out:

The Dizzy Lounge  

Just yesterday I was so incredibly happy– almost borderline euphoric– because I felt SO normal! I didn't feel dizzy at all. I did wildly risky things, like bending down to get something from a low cupboard, and standing on a STEP STOOL to get something from up high. With no bad results, no momentary spinning and darkness. I really had an exceedingly normal day. And more so. I had energy. I felt perky.

We had our beloved European Handyman Dietmar here solving the problem of the mouse infested stove. Shortly after we got the new kitchen installed (6 months ago or so), the mice were forced to regroup and redesign their supply routes. I didn't know where they would find a weakness. The found it under the stove. The hole drilled for the gas pipe was ever so slightly larger than the pipe itself. The stove is porous, warm, and a direct conduit to the counter. So… they've been annoying me no end, darting on to the stove top from this little opening under the control panel. I've caught many, many with traps there, but the supply of course is limitless. Sometimes they do something really bold, like steal a noodle or half a sandwich. These I find lying on the stove top near their doorway. 

In any case, my mother pointed out to me that besides just being repulsive and filthy, they may actually do damage to the stove by chewing up the wires. This notion galvanized me into action. Suffice it to say that after four hours of the Dietmar treatment this stove is now an impenetrable fortress. Your move, mice.

Thus I was happily occupied all afternoon yesterday, feeling not a whit of dizziness or Meniere's. I also felt rather secure that I would get a 24 hour warning, now that I know to look for it, before I got another attack. 

Today brought that into question. Early on I felt a little off. A little of unreality about my footing that one feels aboard a ship on calm seas. Then around 9 or 10 a.m., as Ben and Elias were getting ready to leave for a day at the pool (Isaac already there with Nannie-Pa), I did something like standing up and turning around at the same time and was hammered with severe dizziness. I sat down for a few moments and it passed. Then I found Elias's crocs and got him into the car and there it was again. Boom. Saying goodbye to Ben I felt like crying– here was a beautiful, beautiful day. The day I planned to go to the farmer's market and also, at last, to plant some poor roses that have been sitting in boxes for three weeks. The day I would get some headway on weeding. All washed away by an unwelcome, unheralded return of Meniere's disease.

I think it was actually another attack, although milder and greatly improved by knowing what it was and what to do. I was flattened to the bed for several hours, trying to find a "stationary object" to look at. The vertical lines of the crib beside me, the stripes on the bedding, the rows upon rows of books all made it worse. At times, the whole process of turning over to look at something else seemed incredibly daunting and required detailed planning. The trees outside kept stirring and the purring of the cat, vibrating through the mattress, felt like a semi truck engine idling under me. I felt very nauseated at times and worried about the whole vomiting and being pinned to the floor situation recurring. I was so glad the boys were gone and the house quiet, but slightly frightened to be alone.

I slept for a while and then in a haze decided I was terribly hungry, and sweaty, and depressed to find myself at 3 pm still in my jammies.I decided that a shower and a sandwich would set me right. Like an elderly person I have a newfound dread of falling in the shower. I carry a phone with me everywhere. But mission accomplished– I showered, dressed and ate something. Now I feel weird, surreal, and dizzy if I close my eyes, but I'm sitting up and keying. I aspire to at least opening the boxes of roses and misting them and checking on their condition.

I guess this is what they mean by chronic. It goes away, and you feel normal again, and you think it's gone. And then it comes back.  

This morning feels at last like the first morning of summer. I guess that's fitting because of the solstice last night (or on Saturday?). But since school ended ten days ago, one would have expected this feeling a little sooner. The whole Meniere's thing delayed it, seeing as I had that vertigo attack about ten minutes after the last day of school picnic. I then spent an entire week completely flat on my back on the couch. What a strange situation that was. If I stood up I felt utterly exhausted, drained, and also dizzy. The desire, the need, to lie back down was overwhelming.

One possible factor in meniere's is what they call adrenal exhaustion, where you are under such stress (physical in my case), so endlessly, that your adrenal glands finally give out. Your whole system gets screwed up (I use the technical terms), and you can end up with Meniere's disease. Maybe a week of solid rest was what I needed. Or maybe the prednisone was making me feel horrible. Or maybe all of the above. Or maybe the drugs have actually worked!!

Whatever the cause or the details, I'm feeling better now. This morning I was driving Isaac to camp and realized I haven't felt dizzy at all so far today. And this coming on the heels of a weekend in which I had to stay up most of Saturday night because Elias was vomiting relentlessly. He started off with an insane tantrum, totally unprecedented, around 5 p.m. on Saturday. Then he woke up a couple hours later, still totally insane. I thought he as just exhausted, overstimulated because his grandpa and grandma were visiting, and very hungry, but in fact he was sick. We were sitting on the couch trying to get ourselves together when he announced: "I go frow up." And he wasn't kidding. Soon he began to spew, and then repeat, repeat, repeat, every half hour, or hour, all night. Horrible!! And laundry… oh geez. That's the task of the day– getting unburied from infinity laundry. 

A week from Wednesday I have this unpleasant-sounding balance test to do. And then on July 6th I have a follow up appt with the ENT to discuss those results and all else about this situation. I hope we can shrug and say, "Well, maybe it was a one-time thing." And then I can really go back to normal. The other thing that's good about this whole ordeal is that now I know what to look for. I guess it's common for the ear symptoms to start in advance of the vertigo– in my case this time it was 24 hours in advance. I didn't know what that meant before, but if it happens again I think I'll be able to take evasive maneuvers, I hope, to fend it off. Also, I'm watching the salt (which is a factor), and ordered myself a batch of custom-made vitamins. I got to choose the name of the formula and I called it, "Menieres-B-Gone." All in all my goal is to NEVER EVER go through this again, and, as the Meniere's booklet says, "still lead a normal life despite [my] chronic disease." 

OKay, this is a really strange turn of events.

On Wednesday, just as I was finishing up my round of augmentin (hard core antibiotics), in the middle of the afternoon, my left ear sort of clogged up. It stopped hearing and started to ring in an annoying fashion. The strange audio of hearing my voice only on one side, and the dead zone of white noise on the other, seemed to make me feel dizzy somehow. But I went on with my day, more or less normally. I figured, depressingly enough, that somehow an ear infection or at least some ear congestion was still hanging on from my sinus thing. Yes, I had a few rather strong head-rushes upon standing up, but, whatever. Ear congestion will do that. I took a Sudafed to see if that would do anything.

Thursday morning I got out of bed and staggered across the floor like a drunken sailor. I thought, "Great–losing my balance on a solid floor. Damn ear!!" It was still ringing in a rather tinny and loud manner, still very clogged feeling, and all in all not a good combo. But, what could I do? I had to do the day. I took half a claritin and a sudafed to see if that would clear it up. I felt fine for an hour or two, although the audio was still pretty weird. It was like one ear had been on a plane or in the mountains and I just couldn't get it to pop. In the grocery store, I had a dizzy spell. It passed and I kept talking on the phone and shopping per usual. Then I was at the last-day-of-school picnic. There I had a very strong dizzy spell that made me sit down abruptly. But again, it passed. No one noticed and I did not want to bring attention to it all. I had a dread of suddenly collapsing, needing an ambulance, and other unfortunate events which struck me as potentially humiliating, to say nothing of scary for the children.

I got into the car to drive home from the picnic, and maybe five minutes into the drive, I started to sweat. I could see that my hands were red. I felt incredibly nauseated and overwhelmed. Not dizzy and still piloting the car, but my mind was working on problems: should I pull over and vomit? What a spectical by the roadside! WHat would the boys think or do? Or, if I collapsed and went unconscious, what would happen to them. Also, what about crashing? But again, at that point my main fear was of barfing and/or making a scene. I called Ben, very worried, and he stayed with me on the phone during the remaining minutes of the drive. I got the boys and me safely into the house before the full-blown hell hit.

Severe vomiting. I mean, horrible. But the worse part was after that: I was so profoundly dizzy that I could not move my head one millimeter. I was effectively pinned there, with my head on the closed toilet seat, my feet tucked under me, for quite a while– 45 minutes I think! Meanwhile, the boys were unattended. I could hear the scraping of stools being dragged around the kitchen. I could hear cupboard doors opening, and perhaps the pat-pat of little feet on the counters. Very touchingly, they tried to help me: Isaac brought me grapes, which I would have recoiled from had I been able to move. Elias brought me a king-sized bowl of cheddar bunnies. Isaac brought me, actually helpful, a glass of water with a crazy straw that I could manage to sip without moving my head. If I moved my head at all, the spinning was incredible. It was like being the worst, most upside down, fast moving carnival ride in the world.

Isaac called Daddy and encouraged him to hurry: "Mom is really sick! She's throwing up! You've gotta come home now!" So I knew he was on his way. What I didn't know is that he was having his own horrible day– an employee of 43 years had died that morning, after an all-too-short battle with brain cancer. People in his office (and he himself) were all upset, and indeed he had a crying person sitting with him when Isaac called. But at the same time it was an emergency on my end, too. FInally the pain and numbness in my feet became so intense that I had to move, no matter what. I repositioned myself and spun around horribly for a few minutes. But gradually I could feel it easing up. By the time Ben got home, I was actually sitting on the floor and looking around, more or less like a normal sick person. He got me to the couch and I felt a great deal better, albeit exhausted.

I called my doctor and talked to a nurse, who said: "It's vertigo, and it is miserable!" No argument there.

THe next morning I went in promptly and saw a nurse practitioner. She said it was probably that my sinuses, which were in very sorry shape on the CT-scan two weeks ago, were not done with the infection, and that my ears were getting involved again. She referred me to an Ear Nose Throat guy, who would see me later in the day. She said what he would probably do would be to put a camera into my head and look around– maybe there were absesses in there that needed lancing (great!!) or something like that. She said that he would likely put me on steroids to really kick the swelling down and maybe another round of even stronger antibiotics.

So that's what I was prepared for– some ghastly procedure, or two, and then going home an essentially getting better shortly with no lasting effects whatsoever. What I was not prepared for in any way shape or form was to be told that this all had nothing to do with my recent head infections, and in fact was a long-term issue that could be a real hassle for the rest of my life! And has the potential to be life-altering in several ways.

Meniere's Disease — okay. It's basically fluid in the inner ear, and comes with these four symptoms: hearing loss, ringing in the ear, vertigo, and a feeling of fullness in the ear. Check, check, check. I had them all. The ENT did a hearing test and confirmed that my left ear is not hearing so well, which I knew. He did a low-tech balance test in which he had me stand there with my eyes closed, and each time I began to tip over to the left. He showed me the slides from my sinus scan and I learned for the first time that the inside of my skull is totally crazy looking. Odd that it looks normal from the outside– now I know that I have the four extra teeth, more than most humans; I have a wildly askew septum and sinuses all higgly-piggly; and of course my bicornuate uterus, which has been covered in detail already. So despite living the last 42 years thinking I'm a fairly normal individual I'm basically riddled with birth defects! My mother was thrown from a horse early in her pregnancy with me, so perhaps that explains it. ANyway, that's neither here nor there.

So– here's the upshot of the Meniere's. It can be no big deal… it can go away and never come back!! That's what I'm hoping for. OR… It can really turn your life upside down. You can go deaf in one ear– or both! You can develop "falling disorder" where you just suddenly fall down, violently losing your balance. You can become unable to drive because of that, or even unable to leave the house. THe worst picture I've been struggling with is of the future me: deaf and housebound.

But it's best not to think about that! The good cheer of the booklet they gave me only depressed me more: "Stay up beat!" it suggests. "You can live a full life with your chronic disease!"

But it's only been less than 24 hours since I got the news that I seem to have this chronic disease in the first place. I kept asking the guy, "You're not interested in my sinuses at all?" And he kept saying, "I just think they're totally separate." I said, "But do you think this will get better soon?" He said, "Well, that's what we hope."

For now, he's prescribed a six day course of steroids to take the swelling down, diuretics to take the fluid down, and a low-salt diet also to take the fluid down. (Maybe as a bonus I'll lose some more weight!) I said, "Okay, so should I come and check back with you in a week or so?" He said, "Well…. it's going to be a little longer than that. I'll see you in three weeks." In between, I have to come in for this high-tech balance test that makes me nauseated just to think about it. They lie me down and push water and air into my ears, which watching me eyes try to stay focussed on these moving bars or light, or something like that. It sounds like barf-city!! But apparently this will scientifically pin down just how dizzy I am.

Anyway, that's the story. For now I'm truly pinned to the couch. Ben has taken the boys on an outing. (He and Isaac were going to NYC this weekend, but between my illness and this funeral on monday, it has been postponed.) My plan is that the steroids and pee-pills will work like magic, and that a week from now it will all be over, and I'll say: "wow– what a weird interlude. Oh, well. Onward."

I do love Elias dearly. He is an incredibly sweet, darling little cherub. He loves to "squeeze the love outta" me. His cheeks are rosy and kissable, skin inexpressibly soft. His blue eyes always atwinkle and his cornsilk blond locks showing devastating hints of possible waviness or curls (!!) in the future. Also he has an especially delightful disposition. He's endlessly cheerful and curious, delighted in the world around him. In many ways I am truly honored to find him to be my child and want nothing more than to cuddle him on my lap and read him "Goin' on a Bear Hunt!" for the one millionth time. However, all this glory is undermined occasionally by his, well, OTHER qualities.

He's devious. He's naughty. He's a danger to himself and others. He WORKS at it. He's too smart– a criminal mastermind. He has malice aforethought.  He's sneaky. He plans ahead and then nails me to the wall.  To name but one recent example: yesterday, while I was putting away the groceries, a little hand, unseen by me, crept along the counter. A plump little hand. It clasped a brand new, 12 ounce honey bear. The honey bear slipped over the side of the counter and disappeared, the boy with it. I turned back from the cupboard and rounded up more supplies. I took a few moments, I suppose, before it occurred to me that Elias was no longer in view. I didn't notice the honey was missing at all. I walked through the living room looking for him. And then, he was coming towards me, an upside down, open honey bear in his hands. Around him on the chair, the floor, and wall, was honey. But that was not all. The honey bear nearly empty. Indeed, my first question– speechless as I was– was, "Is that the NEW honey bear?" What a strange reaction! But that's what crossed my mind. Surely my eyes were deceiving me. Surely he had not emptied 12 ounces of honey in the other room? 

But no. I went into the TV room (the only room on the first floor that has carpet), and there found a deep and wide pool of honey. Crime scene splatters of honey. All down the hall, Jackson Pollack-like zigzags of honey. He had been covering everything with honey just fun– he wasn't even eating it!!  Also, adding to the situation: the cleaning people had just left a scant hour before, to return two long, long weeks from now. The floor had JUST been mopped. The carpet, just vacuumed. And then, add that Ben (rather unfortunately, although I did suggest to him that this was a bad idea), had placed a very nice rug in harm's way. A lovely rug with possible antique significance, a rug his parents had brought back from Greece in the '60s, a rug that we had just had cleaned, and the rug guys had admired. That took the brunt of the honey onslaught.

So. A time-out and very stern words. A stiff lecture. A trembling chin (his); trembling hands (mine). And then the long, hopeless cleaning process. Wads of sticky paper towels. I simply folded up the throw rug with the honey in it. We'll have to take it somewhere. I wiped down the floor as best I could. I crawled over the honey-beaded carpet, trying to blot up the tiny sticky lines. Did I mention that we have a sort of large ant problem? I mean, even before this? 

And it came in the midst of such a trying day. First, I went to wash my car, and the wheel got out of the track, and the car wash was trying to suck me in, but the car wouldn't go, and I sat there in terror, wondering whether the rubber of the wheels (pressing, bloated against this metal frame) would be ruptured… after it was all over I had to run in and cry for help, and then an old codger (the manager) and I had to go through many a maneuver to get the van free of its prison.  

And my cell phone died, ripped in two by my OTHER adorable and slightly a handful little boy, so I was using all my "free time" to deal with that  inconvenient and expensive situation.

And the deer chose this particular day to come along and neatly, cleanly munch all the buds and blossoms off my much beloved, lovingly tended David Austin roses!!!  

And, perhaps most importantly, I have been so very ridiculously sick. I finally went to the doctor on Monday, after really at last thinking I was going to die on Friday and issuing a distress call to them. The doctor was not happy with my report, and that while I may or may not have had untreated strep a few weeks back, I almost certainly did rupture both my eardrums. I can tell you that the rupturing itself wasn't the painful part, but indeed the cessation of it. And we had this conversation, in which she said I would need a CT-scan of my head (to check into my sinus festering) and a chest x-ray. I said, "A chest x-ray? What's that about?" She rather cooly replied, "It's about pneumonia." And I said, "Pneumonia?? But wouldn't I have a fever?" She said, "Well… no, there's always walking pneumonia. Anyway, we should check."

So I had to run out to this imaging place and get inside a very Star Trek looking spinning metal donut. (We saw Star Trek, our first movie in possibly years, and it was really excellent!) That took about four minutes, and then I went and wore a little gown and stood this way and that, which also took no time. The ease of it all was really wonderful. But then I spent 36 hours or so wondering whether I really had pneumonia or not. In some ways, I was rooting for it, because then I would not feel guilty about getting a babysitter or something in here and finally, finally taking a day or two in bed! Surely this would be enough to get me well, but in the absence of that possiblity this has gone on (good days and good weeks alternating with the bad) for three months!  But on the other hand, having pneumonia would be a bad thing because if my friend Colin is any measure, it can really take months to kick out of one's chest. And who wants to be frail and sickly?? Especially at the very beginning of a lovely summer! 

So, good news: I did not have the pneumonia, only "acute sinusitis." I now have a steroid nasal spray that fires like a power washer, and some very large and seemingly powerful horse pills that are in there kicking some tiny, microscopic ass. The doctor warned me that I would not feel better at once, and that has been true. She says to come back in two weeks if I'm not totally well by then. But the trend is good. This morning I was out in the garden again, suddenly having enough pluck to plant some neglected tomatoes. I do stop now and then to cough up a lung, but overall I'm heading in the right direction.

As for my little scamp, he's reverted at the moment to cuddliest golden-haired baby on earth and is nursing and snuggling in my lap, while I'm typing and he's watching Wall-E. At least at the moment, I have my eye on him, and all is well.  

She's back.

Yes. Our so-called cat has returned again.

On the plus side, she doesn't seem to need anything amputated or any sort of veterinary care that would cause a $1000 vet bill. On the negative, she's totally emaciated again. Seems that she comes back only after she's digested all of her muscle mass, her organs have shriveled to little pebbles, and her guts are already basically guitar strings. THEN she decides, "hey, why not head home and get a snack?" Only THEN, when death is standing over her with a sickle at the ready, when she's seeing the tunnel, does she come home. I can't figure out the extremely low-grade survival instinct of this cat. But in any case, here she is.

She left on March 8, I see from an old blog entry on the subject. This reminds me that the first time she pulled this, the vet mentioned that a cat can live without eating for about ten weeks. So, true to form, she's been gone almost exactly ten weeks. From the looks of her, she hasn't eaten so much as a spider in that time. You can feel every single bone, not just spine and ribs, but femur, tibia and fibula. Her dusty fur is all disheveled and clotted with burrs. 

She appeared maybe ten days ago, a rainy Wednesday night when Ben and I were driving down the driveway for our date. He spotted her in the rain soaked bushes. I briefly considered trying to catch her, but Ben pointed on the non-romance of that concept. I let it go quite easily, not wanting to wallow around in the wet underbrush in my nice clothes, presumably a futile effort anyway. I hoped (?) that she would get herself to the garage, like any sensible cat… but… Anyway, to my amazement a few days later she did appear in the garage.

I called her and she emerged from a gap in the wood pile. I fed her and petted her and did a cursory medical exam. Just emaciation. I brought out her heated cat bed and settled on a plan of giving her a small single serving can of cat food a few times a day– this after realizing that her dessicated stomach is about the size of a lima bean, and I was inadvertently feeding an unsavory black and white tom cat with her leftovers.

Now I have a new cat problem. Bagheera is a very brilliant, sane cat. He's shown himself able to be indoor/outdoor with aplomb. He comes when called, usually, and knows enough to sit in front of the door and meow when he wants to come in. So the last few nights, he's been staying out past bedtime, and I've been concerned about him. So I've been going to the door and calling him. ANd guess who comes trotting out of the garage, happy as you please? Saying, "Oh, you called? Here I am!" A couple times I have let Bagheera in, and kept her out, and she's sat there on the stoop gazing in with her glowing green "I'm just a poor little hungry kitten" eyes. She wants to be a part of the family again! I dread letting her back in the house, for fear of peeing issues–  among other things!

I mentioned this problem to Ben. I began, "Zane Grey wants–" and he said, "No." I said, "She really wants to come in—" And he said, "No. She's like a drunk. You can't keep trying to save her." 

So… I think we're working out the new arrangements. She has many comforts of home in the garage, such as food and heated cat bed. It's basically summer. I've been petting her frequently, and even spent some time with the kids on the grass the other day, trying to brush out her burrs. She purrs intensely when she sees me. I think she's happy. The little dingbat.  

I don't have time to read much, which is a continuing source of mild melancholy in my life. My scant personal time is devoted to exercising, critical errands, and what little housework I can complete in the remaining four minutes. The rest of the day I'm either driving kids to and fro or chasing kids to and fro. But for my birthday last November, Ben gave me an iPod Touch. Wonderful! It's become one of my trusted companions. What I finally figured out  is that a person can buy audio books and put them on the iPod and then listen to them. 

I have just finished the audio version (read by the author) of Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama. Barack has been coming along with me on my frequent fitness walks through the woods. I can say that I am really impressed by the book as a book in itself. On two separate occasions I was moved to tears on the fitness trail and several times laughed out loud. The book was written when he was at Harvard Law School, before he had to have any political guardedness. He's delightfully candid– for example describing an encounter on the basketball court in which some white guy says to him, "there are niggers and then there are black people," to which young Barack replies, "There are white folks and then there are ignorant motherfuckers like you!" And mentioning that he sometimes went to class in high school, still drunk and high, smelling of beer and reefer.

He has had such a fascinating life, the basic outline of which we're all familiar with now. But still, although you would think we learned everything about him during the campaign, there's a lot that I didn't know. It seems strange now to think that anyone would've questioned whether he was "Black enough," because he dealt with racism in all its various subtle and blatant forms all through his life.

The book culminates with his trip to Kenya in his late 20s, between community organizing in Chicago and going off to law school. What struck me about it was that everyone there treated him as an unquestioned part of their family– the attitude he met was "we're so glad you finally came! We've been waiting for you." I love the image of our president, riding in a packed informal taxi called a matatu, with his sister Auma, a basket of yams, and some random baby on his lap. (I was in Kenya for six months in college and of course all the Kenyan parts are very vivid to me– and my homestay family was Luo! … his tribe..)

The story of his family history over there, his grandfather and his father especially, is complicated and painful– both men are polygamous and often what we would consider abusive to their wives and children– but adds so much context to the man we see in the White House today. They were both strivers, exceptionally smart, and unwilling to conform. Obviously our Barack is much the same, although without the harshness. I would say that I knew he was eloquent and smart, but this book adds another layer– he's extremely perceptive, introspective and sensitive. 

The other night Ben and I sat next to an older man at a bar who was pronouncing this and that about "Hussein"– it took me a while to realize he was referring to our president. What an ass! Even Ben, who is no friend of Obama by any means, was offended by this disrespectful jerk. I think that it would be impossible to read or listen to this book without coming away LIKING Obama, as a person if not a president, but at the very least it makes it a lot easier to understand him.

Which is to say– read it!  

I'm reminded of this scene the cinematic masterpiece, "Cabin Boy," in which some sort of sleezy person tells the cabin boy that "She'll clean your pipes nine ways to Sunday, know what i mean?" And the cabin boy (a grown man in the role of a naif) says, "I have absolutely no idea what you mean." And then later on, he's shown standing on a hilltop and yelling, "These pipes are clean!!" at the top of his lungs.

Now, these people were talking about something other than the literal water plumbing pipes I'm talking about. But the exuberant declaration of clean pipes is pretty much how I feel. I can't tell you how much, how long and how frustratingly we've struggled to get clean potable water flowing from our faucets. I remember now how innocent I was, way back in September, when I finally got the new well drilled, and I thought– ha ha– that we would have clean safe water, like, THAT DAY. !!! What a chump! I didn't realize that it would take weeks and weeks of testing and retesting to get the well itself to show up clean of bacteria. And then… ages… to get the crud out of the pipes transporting that clean water through our house. I was formulating plan B– compare the price of installing a chlorinator with the price of replumbing the entire house– when I decided to try it one more time.

When we went to Virginia we loaded the pipes up with double vinegar and double bleach, and the we left for five days. 24 hours is what they usually recommend, but we thought, well, what the heck. Maybe this will work. When we came home, and opened all the taps, the most horrible crud you've ever seen flowed out. Brown, gray, gritty, nasty, repulsive. It flowed and flowed until gradually it got a little clearer, and clearer.

Some days later (you're supposed to wait a bit), I decided to try the test– I did the reverse osmosis system and the regular kitchen tap separately, thinking that if at least the R.O. was clean we could fricking stop buying bottled water. And amazingly, they both passed!! No more stressing about boys drinking from the bathtub tap, or swallowing the bathroom sink water, or whether it's better to rinse out a sippy cup with questionable water or leave it grungy. It's clean!! We are now a part of the developed world again, and it's a great thing.

Looks like we have had tried the wrong string instrument with the wrong boy. Yesterday we finally gave up on Isaac's cello career. (Washed up at age 6! Oh well, there's always science.) He's been miserable since about lesson two, when the teacher spent way too much time micro-managing his way of holding the bow, until he was just about in tears. After that, the concerts at home fell quiet, and the giddy early days of cello high faded away. I tried to rehab the situation, got the teacher to accept a way less than perfect bow hold, and to focus on Twinkle-twinkle or something that would in some way resemble a pay off.

But it never worked. His teacher was good humored and kind, but seemed at a loss as to how to deal with him. He refused to touch the cello between lessons, struggled the entire way to lessons, and coped by joking or talking about Godzilla during lessons. I struggled with the whole debate of "teaching sticktuitiveness and self-discipline" vs "teaching to try new things." What I began to feel was that by not letting go of cello I was in effect teaching him to avoid the risk inherent in trying something new. The risk was that if he didn't like it, tough– he'd be stuck in tar pit forever. this was not a message I wanted to send. 

So I made a few false steps at stopping cello, and then on Monday finally pulled the trigger. On Monday morning he spoke in such calm and lucid terms about it that I had to make a move. Granted it 4 a.m. and we were lying side by side in bed. He realized that it was cello day and got furious, "I hate this day!" he cried. Then he said, "You know, I just thought I would have a couple lessons and then play the concert. I didn't realize it would be so much work!" I knew that he was right.

So we brought the teacher flowers and a card, and bid adieu to her. Then yesterday we went to return the cello from the lovely workshop from whence it was rented. I had both boys in the car and brought them in so they could look around while we did the paper work. Elias has shown an interest in the violin in the past, like when he first saw one (and somehow knew what it was) and walked up to it and said, "mommy I play the violin." A statement, not a question. So this time we had a moment and I asked the young hipster stringed instrument guys there whether they could bring out a tiny violin for elias to look at.

They brought out two– a 1/16th size and a 1/32nd size. I'm telling you– doll violins! So tiny it was just incredible. But beside Elias, they were exactly to scale. He's come up to 2'8" tall now and so an 8" violin is perfect for him. Within a moment he put it to his chin and said calmly, "Can I have a bow?" The man went to get him a bow while Elias stood patiently waiting. Then he began to, well, PLAY it. I mean, not Mozart, but making decent sounds and standing up straight and just looking all around like he's been doing this all his life. Or in a past life?

Then he said, "Can I go home?" and began to walk towards the door with his violin and bow. But he stopped and asked, "Can I have a case?" I mean, sure, you need a case before you'd bring your violin out in the rain. The guys were really impressed. I said that I'd really have to get him a violin soon and they said that I absolutely must. But I could see where this was heading– to an ugly scene in which I would have to rip the violin out of his hands.

It crossed my mind that I should just hand back all the cello paperwork, tell them to keep the rent and deposit they were refunding, and switch the instruments. But there were problems with this idea– the most important one being that I'd tried in the first place to find a workable Suzuki program in our area for Isaac to do piano and had found it to be impossibly complicated. Well– not impossible, but it would mean yet more driving in a complicated schedule of driving, and getting up and out at 7:15 on Saturday mornings, and other distasteful factors. Also I think they have terms, the next of which starts in September, and so if I took the violin right now we'd have it for months before he could start lessons. I don't know– I think now that I should have just let him keep it. Another factor was that I was exhausted. it was the end of a long day and long week in which I've been doing everything while quite sick. I had a headache that was phasing into a horrible ear ache in my left ear and just wanted to get home.

In any case, that's what happened. I told Elias that the violin lived there and we'd come back to see it soon and he began to run off with it clutched under his arm like a football, and I had to chase him and wrestle it from his fierce grip. He screamed bloody murder with huge tears pouring down his cheeks. I handed the little violin back to the guys and said, "I bet this is what Itzhak Perlman was like when he was two and someone ripped a violin out of his hands," and they smiled and nodded and said, "Oh yeah, I'm sure it was!"

But now I'm on the case. I will get him a violin and find him a way to learn it as soon as humanly possible.