Tam Lin

For many years -- although it seems to have gone by the board lately -- Gary and I had a tradition, on Halloween, of listening to Fairport Convention's classic version of Tam Lin, from their beloved album Liege & Leaf. On our first date, we discovered that we both adored the song Crazy Man Michael from that album. I'd been introduced to the album by Ellen Kushner, who gave me my first place to live in New York City when she rented me the maid's quarters in her gigantic prewar apartment -- in the famous gargoyle building on 110th Street -- for $200 a month in 1987. After Ellen moved to Boston to take her radio job with WGBH, she sent me a cassette tape of Liege & Lief, which I listened to nonstop for months. That album's the soundtrack for part of my life.

At the party where Gary and I met in 1989, we were chatting about NYC architectural details; he'd taken a photography course which involved going around snapping shots of neat buildings. "Y'know that building on 110th Street with the gargoyles?" I said.

"Sure. I have a picture of that building."

"I used to live in that building."

A week or so after the first date, it turned out that the picture he'd taken was one of the writing gargoyle. He'd taken it in 1987, when I was living (and writing) in the building, but when we didn't know each other yet. The photograph hangs in my study now; it's our talisman, kind of.

Now you know our cute-meet story. So, anyway, it turns out that there's a fiddle tune called Tam Lin, and tonight I started trying to learn it from the YouTube video, in honor of Halloween. I'm having great fun butchering the first few measures. I have a new C-string which still sounds like a cross between a foghorn and a moose, and that's not helping much, although I can easily transpose the tune up to the G string. I hope to have both the C-string and the tune in slightly better shape the next time I see Charlene, so she can correct everything I'm doing wrong.

Here Ya Go

In honor of Halloween, his Royal Highness finally allowed me to get a halfway decent close-up of him, although since his ears are missing in this shot, he looks uncannily like an owl.

Balthazar, Master of Disguise!

I hope everyone's having a happy Halloween, Samhain, All Saints, or whatever you celebrate. At church this morning, the clergy read a long list of the names of dead loved ones. The list included both of my parents, Gary's dad, my cousin Ken -- and Harley. I'd asked beforehand if it was okay to include pets, and after hesitating a minute, the priest said, "Sure, if you give the pet a first and last name." So Harley was Harlequin Palwick Meyer, although I believe that got shortened to Harlequin Meyer during the reading.

To the best of my knowledge, no one laughed at me about it. At the peace, a friend came up to me and said, "May the peace of the Lord be with you, Susan, and with your little cat." So kind!

In our annual evade-the-trick-or-treaters maneuver, Gary and I are going to a movie and then to dinner. When we get back, I'll tackle the remaining Mound o' Grading, which is smaller than it was.

That Went Well

Loyal reader mbj asked quite some time ago for a close-up of Bali. This evening I took a short break from Mounds o' Grading (TM) to try to get a decent one.

It isn't easy. He moves a lot, either away from the camera or -- as in this case -- towards it.

I think the nose here makes him look a bit like a pig, but maybe that's just me. But after looking at this picture, I was tempted to rename him Wilbur.

Even when he's staying relatively still, he blurs, as in this shot, which at least allows you to admire his glossy fur and his fanciful cold-weather ruff.

His ruff is one of his glories, as are the tufts between his toes. Both achieve their pinnacle in March or April, before he starts shedding Pounds O' Fluff (TM) to get ready for summer.

Here's another version with more visible eyes and a slightly better view of the ruff. In this one he looks like an owl, not a pig. Such a versatile beast!

So there you have it. I tried, mbj, really I did. He just isn't a cooperative subject!

He wishes to inform his viewing public, however, that he will pose for food, especially his beloved cashew nuts or frozen peas. But only if you also ask very, very nicely.

Catching Up On Columns

I think the last Bodily Blessings column I linked to here was April's. In the meantime, Hope and Healing has changed its name to Church Health Reader and has posted four more of my columns.

Here's the August one, which is one of my favorites. You can use the sidebar to reach the ones for May, June, and July, should you so choose.

Thanks for reading!

Hospital, Yay!

I just got back from a mini-shift at the hospital (two hours instead of four). As I suspected, it was just what I needed: the work grounds me, makes me feel connected to the divine and to other people, and, generally, reminds me what's important.

Several of you implored me to stay home this weekend because I wasn't feeling well. First of all, the back's improving, and the PT guy didn't put me on any restrictions. But secondly, and more important: at least for me, volunteering isn't a distraction from self-care, but a form of self-care. I don't volunteer because I'm a nice person. Sometimes I'm nice and sometimes I'm not -- people who deal with my daily in the flesh might say I'm more often not, especially when my back hurts! -- but that's not the point. I volunteer for entirely selfish reasons, because the work's good for me. The fact that it's at least sometimes good for other people too is a lovely bonus.

See Frederick Buechner: "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." See also research on service as treatment for depression.

I worked two hours instead of four today because I still have eleven hours of grading to do this weekend (this is after six hours yesterday), but I've vowed to myself that if I'm away from the hospital entirely, it will be because I'm ill or out of town, not because I have mounds of papers to grade.

Not surprisingly, though, two-hour shifts are less tiring than four-hour ones. If I get my sabbatical next year (crossing all toes and fingers here, which makes typing quite the challenge), I may very well break up my four hours per week -- which is what the hospital asks of volunteers, although they're very flexible about it -- into two two-hour shifts. That will also allow me to see more patients, since the ED population often doesn't change that much in four hours. During the academic year, though, I'm pretty much stuck with a four-hour shift on Saturdays: other days are too problematic because of teaching, committee meetings, prep, church, and fiddle lessons.

Speaking of which, yesterday I had my first fiddle lesson in two weeks. Because of the back crud, I'd only been able to practice three days since my last lesson, but Charlene was very kind about my progress (or lack thereof).

Right. On to the mounds of grading.

Upshot

The MRI was essentially normal: some degenerative disc stuff, but nothing unusual for my age and nothing that would account for the severity of this latest episode. My physical-therapy guy informed me briskly that my problem was a flattened lumbar curve, aggravated by tight hamstrings, and gave me a bunch of exercises to do, along with stern instructions that I am never to sit back in a comfortable chair again, but must always perch on the edge and maintain the proper curve of my spine. He thinks he'll only need to see me for two weeks.

Okay, so this is all good news, although the exercises have made me so sore that I just had to take a pain pill for the first time in three days. Why, then, am I not happy? Well, I still hurt, for one thing. Also, I like comfy chairs, and the idea of giving them up for life doesn't sit well, as it were. And the PT guy's efficiency made me feel like a pot being stirred on a stove: he had five of us in there at once and, with the help of an assistant, went from one station to the next, poking and prodding and flexing and instructing. This doesn't matter if his exercises work, of course -- and the cost per visit is a mere $20, a real blessing after the almost-$700 MRI -- but . . . well, I guess I was craving comfort, and that wasn't it. I was looking in the wrong place, of course, and that's my problem, not his.

A lot of this is the blasted grief issues, which probably have a whole lot to do with the severity of the current episode. At the MRI place, I had a long conversation with the receptionist, whose husband died suddenly nineteen years ago and who said she can still remember every detail of that day. She was very sympathetic to my recent losses. So was the lady who cut my hair today, who's a cat person and showed me pictures of her cats after I told her about Harley. So was my eye doctor, who was extra sympathetic because our vision coverage is decreasing drastically in July. I'm getting new glasses. I hope they last a while, since this is the last time my insurance will help pay for them! (And they were almost $500 even after insurance.)

Okay, I'm whining. (Gee, y'think?) Obviously I'm a prime candidate for that grief retreat a week from Saturday! But I'm also seriously considering looking into some non-Western treatments. A few years ago I talked to a friend who's a family physician about "alternative medicine;" she declared all of it bunk, but did admit, somewhat grudgingly, that any benefits patients receive from these treatments result largely from the fact that the practioners actually listen.

Gee, y'think?

A few years ago I had some acupuncture treatments. They helped my sinuses a lot; I stopped going because I intensely disliked the practitioner (I found his politics appalling and his personality arrogant), and also because he insisted on my taking Chinese herbs that did nothing for me. But I was standing on line at the grocery store today, thinking idly about maybe trying to find another acupuncture person, when I spotted -- in the rack with People and the Weekly World News -- the Mayo Clinic's Guide to Alternative Medicine 2011.

Acupuncture's number one on their "top ten" list (they offer acupuncture at the Mayo Clinic itself), and they say it can help with lower back pain. They also recommended guided imagery, hypnosis, massage, meditation, music therapy, spinal manipulation, spirituality, tai chi, and yoga -- in that order -- for various ailments.

So I'm not going to stop my PT exercises, but I may very well look into acupuncture in addition, especially since my allergies are still in overdrive and the sinuses could use some help. In the meantime, I haven't yet used my sister's birthday gift of a ninety-minute massage at my health club, so I'll try to do that in the next few weeks, too.

Does practicing the viola count as music therapy, even when you haven't been able to pick up the instrument for weeks because of back pain, so that when you do pick it up again, it sounds like a deranged animal being dipped into molten lead?

I hope to get back to the hospital on Saturday. That should help, too; volunteer shifts are an excellent way of regaining perspective.

Alert

Getting Cranky

This morning I woke up figuring I'd be more or less back to more or less normal, because meds plus several days of bed rest has always put me right before. But it quickly became apparent that a) the back wasn't back to anything like normal and b) I was going to have to take meds to get through the workday.

I took the meds and got through the workday, more or less, although in one class where I normally sit a lot I had to keep standing up because sitting was too uncomfortable. Sigh.

My MRI's scheduled for one tomorrow afternoon. The imaging place called the house to say that it was scheduled for this afternoon, during one of my classes -- nice of them to check with the patients on these things! -- but Gary called me at work to alert me, and I called the imaging place and got the time switched. I'd have canceled my class if they hadn't been able to get me in tomorrow, but I'm glad it didn't come to that.

Since I haven't met this year's deductible yet, the MRI will cost $630. Ouch. But hey, that's what emergency medical funds are for. At least we have it. (The very nice scheduling lady told me they have a twenty-four-month interest-free payment plan for people who need to do it that way.) My rheumatologist, who referred me for the scan, should have the results tomorrow, so I'll call late afternoon and see if they know anything, and in the meantime I'll call the PT place and try to get an appointment for Thursday.

I went with this PT place after several friends raved about it, but another friend today told me that this guy made her worse, and gave me the number of her chiropractor instead. However, I haven't had great experiences with chiropractors, so I'll start with PT and see what happens. I just hope that somebody can get me back to feeling normalish sometime soon, because this is getting extremely tiresome. Y'know how about halfway through a cold or the flu, you can't remember what it feels like to be healthy? That's how I'm starting to feel after three weeks of crankyback.

Grrrrrr.

Cat in Blanket

In Praise of Drugs

The new muscle relaxant, Metaxalone -- say that ten times fast -- is working very nicely indeed. It keeps pain to a dull roar and isn't very sedating at all; I was comfortable driving Gary downtown to see an opera simulcast this morning. And it's allowed me to be quite productive. Yesterday, I graded eight essays in my rocking chair (this may not sound like a lot, but since I type a full page of comments on each paper, it's significant).

The problem with meds for back pain, though, is that if they work, the patient can be tempted to overdo it. Hence I discovered that after my happy grading run yesterday, the rocking chair was no longer comfortable. I worked in bed most of today, moved to an upstairs rocking chair when lying in bed became painful, and am now back in bed after the second rocking chair went ouchy on me.

Today I've graded ten more papers. I think my comments are even coherent, although my students will have to be the final judges there. I have about ten more to do tomorrow, plus a set of exercises and prep for Monday. Most of these papers are for a Wednesday workshop in my freshman comp class. I'd ordinarily save some of them for Tuesday, but I'm trying to clear as much time as possible for the MRI and physical therapy, both of which I fervently hope will happen sooner rather than later.

I miss the other things I'd hoped to do this weekend, my hospital shift and dinner with friends. I'm hoping to swim and get to church tomorrow -- today's technically my second and last day of resting at home -- but we'll see how I'm feeling then, since I maybe haven't been resting enough. I'm pleased with what I've gotten done, under the circumstances, but I hope I haven't inadvertently caused more damage.

It probably goes without saying that I haven't written and haven't even attempted to practice the viola! I've knit a little bit, and my Kindle's been a very nice companion. So have the cats, both of whom love having a warm human, lying among blankets and pillows, to use as a radiator.

Normally I tend to focus on what I haven't gotten done, even though I'm well; now I'm focusing on what I have gotten done, even though I'm sick. So it's a definite glass-half-full kind of thing, and I know I need to work on maintaining that attitude when I'm feeling better.

I do hope, though, that you're all having more fun this weekend than I am!

Figgy on the Bed

Dramatic

This is the view from my study window. We don't often get clouds in Nevada -- although this has been the wettest October on record -- so skyscapes like this are fun for us.

We're expecting storms this weekend, so it may get wetter yet!

Close-up for mbj

It's more than a little fuzzy, but so's the cat!

I'm afraid we won't be giving him tuna, however. The ash content in fish is bad for cats and especially bad for male cats, and can cause kidney issues.

He loves cashew nuts and frozen peas, though, so we'll give him a treat in your honor!

Halloween Kitty

Bali feels that he has not been featured sufficiently on this blog of late. Management (correction: Sir Balthazar's devoted staff) will attempt to fix the problem.

Hurray for Rocking Chairs

Rather predictably, I got no work done yesterday. This morning I woke up feeling worse rather than better and limped in to see my primary-care doc -- getting out of the car was a very interesting exercise! -- who seconded the MRI recommendation but also said that he'd always recommend physical therapy over surgery, whatever the diagnosis. Yesterday's doc had said that depending on what the MRI showed, surgery might be the best option, but I'll do almost anything to avoid it. I'm told there are people who've had good outcomes from back surgery, but I've never met any.

So, anyway, I was glad that my primary agreed with trying therapy first. He wants me to start with it right away; some friends have gone to someone they greatly prefer to the outfit normally used by our insurance, and although this therapist technically isn't covered by our insurance, he charges the $20 copay and whatever insurance gives him. So I've given that info to my doctor so he can provide a referral.

He also put me on a different muscle relaxant; they're all pretty much the same, he said, but some people have different reactions to different drugs. My pharmacist said that this one, after the first few doses, is less sedating than the one I had been on, and that people even go to work on it. This is very good news.

After the new drug and a nap, I'm feeling more comfortable than I have in two or three days. Thanks be to God! The back's not normal, but it no longer feels like it's constantly on the verge of spasm. Now I have to figure out how to get work done. I'm currently in our family room, in a rocking chair that tilts way back, with my feet up on the coffee table and my back and head supported and cushioned by lots of pillows. I seem to be able to type comfortably this way; we'll see how it works for grading papers. I have my dad's old lap desk, which should help.

When I was picking up the new meds, I also bought a new thermometer, since our old ones have broken or gone missing. All I saw were digital; the pharmacist told me that the old standby, the little glass tube with mercury in it, is now illegal for medical use, although one can still get them in hardware and hobby stores. I was annoyed -- I've never liked the digital ones as well -- but progress marches on.

Figgy was a real lap cat today. After I ate my lunch (also in the rocking chair) he got on my lap for a snuggle. He got down when Bali showed up, since Bali's the alpha around here, but he came back later. First he lay across my lap. Then he lay across my chest, right under my chin. (I wound up with fur all over my face, natch. Cats are so generous that way.) Then he moved back to my lap, with his head snuggled in my armpit. I think he's trying to make me feel better. I just hope he isn't trying to tell me he's sick, which is what that armpit move sometimes means. Figgy and Bali, please stay healthy for a long time!

Sciatica

So my back's been acting up since the day after Harley died. It hasn't gone into full-fledged spasm, but it hasn't been right, either, and my usual remedies -- like swimming -- haven't helped as much as they usually do.

For the past two days, the pain's been worse (although still not quite as crippling as in the most acute phase of a spasm). I've only been comfortable when lying down; sitting and walking have been increasingly unpleasant.

The day after Harley died, I had my primary-care doc call in a script for muscle relaxants, which I've used sparingly, mostly at night, ever since. But I've never gone this long without the back getting better, so I called today and got an appointment to see him tomorrow morning. In the meantime, though, I had an appointment with my rheumatologist today, so I told him what was going on.

He did an examination, discovered that I can't extend my left leg without sharp pain in the lower back, and frowned. "That's not good."

"That's sciatica, right? Which can be a symptom of a slipped disk?"

I was correct on both counts. He's sending me for an MRI, although we probably won't be able to schedule it until Monday, since we need to clear it with my insurance company first. In the meantinme, he's put me on bedrest for the next two days; I can go see my PCP tomorrow, can use the bathroom and get up to eat, but that's about it. (And I'll probably have meals in bed too, since sitting up is so uncomfortable.) I asked if I should take muscle relaxants, and he said they don't actually do anything directly for the muscles: they work on the brain and make people sleep a lot, which helps the muscles heal and also helps the time pass so you aren't bored in bed. So he said I could take them if I wanted to, and that I should use a heating pad (not ice, which I had been doing).

So here I am in bed with my laptop, phone, Kindle, knitting, and mountains of grading. We'll see how much I get done. I canceled my fiddle lesson tomorrow, my hospital shift on Saturday, and dinner with friends on Saturday night. Gary's being a dear about fetching and carrying, and when I'm lying down (even if I'm propped on lots of pillows) I don't hurt much, so things could definitely be worse.

One of my best friends from college has had a slipped disk for years now, and she's done great without surgery or anything: her main medicine is lots of swimming, which the doctor recommended too. (I swam today and it definitely helped, although I'm still worse than I usually am after swimming.) So if I do have a slipped disk, I also have a role model of someone who's stayed active and healthy.

Elsewhere in the realm of fun, the car woudln't start yesterday. The "check engine" light had been on since about two hours after my last oil change, but when I called my garage, they said the light probably had something to do with emissions and not to worry about it until the car needed servicing for something else. The AAA guy who came yesterday jumped the car and told me I needed a new battery, but when I dropped the car off at the garage, I told them to do the engine check too.

Turned out some nitrogen sensor was out, or somesuch. That plus the new battery ran me $662. Ouch! But yesterday we also got some of the money from Mom's estate, so again, things could have been worse.

As I drove home from the doctor's office today, the "check engine" light came on again. Criminy! I called the garage and my mechanic said I should bring it back next week, when I'm feeling better (he gave me a ride to campus yesterday, and was worried about how cautiously I moved getting into and out of his truck). He said there will be no charge for the follow-up visit.

So yeah, things could surely be worse, but I wish things would stop breaking!

Opting Out

Here's the traditional career path for an academic: You're hired as an Assistant Professor. After six years, you endure the nail-biting anxiety of going up for tenure, a process normally linked with a promotion to Associate Professor. Once you have tenure, you theoretically have job security -- at least, most of us breathe a bit more easily at that point -- and can look forward, in the fullness of time, to another and final promotion, this time to full Professor. At UNR, each promotion comes with a ten percent raise.

To be promoted, you need to be vetted and approved by your department, by your college's promotion and tenure committee, by a university committee, and on up the food chain until you get to the Regents.

I was tenured in 2003. Like most people who've gone through the process, I have my horror stories, but everything turned out fine. Since then, though, the promotion process has become increasingly difficult. An extremely accomplished and distinguished friend of mine (in another department) is going up for full professor even as we speak, and is being raked over the institutional coals in ways that wouldn't, I think, have happened before the current budget disaster. Yes, more and more documentation has been required since my promotion to Associate: multiple binders of paperwork, five letters of support from people at other universities (rather than the three I needed), ever more careful scrutiny by the various committees. But watching my friend's ordeal has made me question some of my assumptions: a) that the departmental vote is the most important, a decision almost always supported by the ascending levels (after all, one's immediate colleagues are best at understanding one's work), and b) that promotion to full is a matter of continuing to do what you were tenured for doing, although perhaps at a higher level.

Keep in mind that I firmly believe my friend will indeed get this promotion. But watching that ordeal has made me dread the promotion process for myself even more than I already did. Every year, my chair sends an e-mail to anybody who's been at Associate for four years or longer, inviting us to e-mail him our CVs so the full professors in the department can offer advice about preparing for promotion. I've been getting those e-mails for several years and ignoring them: I find CVs about as pleasant to prepare as tax forms, and I was in no rush to start collecting all the material for those binders, either. But I had to update my CV for my sabbatical application anyway, so I thought, what the hey, and e-mailed it to my chair, who then shared it with the other full professors.

Last Thursday I met with him to discuss their recommendations. These are offered, mind you, in the spirit of wanting colleagues to succeed; they're very much constructive criticism. My chair identified two problems with my case:

1. Lack of national service. It's evidently no longer enough to do a lot of very nice local service. The university insists that full professors have a national profile. This is relatively new, and it surprised my chair when he started shepherding people through the process. In my case, such national service would need to take the form of, for instance, being elected to an office in an august professional organization like the Modern Language Association, being asked to judge a lot of writing contests or to review a lot of manuscripts, or publishing lots of reviews of other people's work ("dozens," my chair said, to clarify this).

I don't do this stuff. I never have. It doesn't interest me. If it interested me, I'd already be doing it.

2. Although my colleagues like how much I publish -- and tenured me for writing SF/F, for which I'm eternally grateful -- my publishing record needs to be more accessible to people who don't know anything about science fiction. So my chair, who was doing everything humanly possible to be helpful, said, "The problem is that people outside science fiction don't know about Tor. But Tor's a subsidiary of Macmillan! Everyone's heard of Macmillan! So what you need to do on your CV is say that you're published by Tor-Macmillan! That would be completely justified! And then they'll get it!"

This is ludicrous. Nobody in SF says they're published by Tor-Macmillan.

My chair ended the conversation by saying that the Upper Echelons would want outside letters that said, for instance, "I've known her work for years and think she's wonderful," rather than, "I've never heard of her, but I really like her work."

I went home feeling rather like a squashed cockroach. I'd expected to be told that I had several years of work to do to get ready for promotion -- another novel, say -- but I hadn't expected the prospects to look so bleak. I said mournfully to Gary, "I'm not famous enough to be promoted."

"Then don't go up," he said promptly. I have tenure; people retire at Associate Professor rank all the time, and there's no shame in it. The big drawback is not getting that ten percent raise (the only chance for any kind of raise, in this economy), but as Gary points out, I could go through the agony of the promotion process and not get it anyway, because each tier is now under increasing pressure to shoot people down. My safest shot at extra income, not to mention additional fame, is to publish more. Running for Grand Poobah of national professional organizations would definitely interfere with that, as would writing dozens of book reviews.

On Friday morning I saw my therapist, who emphatically agreed with Gary and thinks that doing the work I'd need to do for promotion would be actively bad for me. My friend Sharon, who probably knows me better than anyone in town except Gary, was even blunter: "It would kill you." And when I talked to my chair again and said that I was seriously considering just staying where I am, he gave what sounded like a sigh of relief and said, "Yes, I think that's right." Then he told me about two people in the department who've been Associate "since before we were born," because they wanted to focus on their families and on other matters closer to home.

It's a mark of how little any of this matters -- or of how little attention I pay to it, anyway -- that I didn't even know those colleagues' ranks; I'd assumed both of them were full, and were startled that they weren't. I'm really glad my chair told me that, though, because it made me feel better.

In all kinds of ways, I think this decision makes a lot of sense, and I can always change my mind down the line if I achieve unexpected stardom. In many ways, it's like my decision to walk away from ordination to the diaconate (and it's easier than that was). But because I've been an academic overachiever most of my life -- although you wouldn't know it from my non-national profile -- I've had to give myself a stern talking to about how this is a free choice, not a mark of shame or failure.

The irony, of course, is that much of my lack of fame in the academic context arises from my working in popular fiction, in a genre accessible to more people than your average issue of PMLA. Twice in the past year, I've had casual conversations with people who wanted to write SF but didn't know I was a writer; when I said I'm published, they asked me coolly who my publisher was, and when I said Tor, both of them went wide-eyed and babbling. "You're published by Tor? I'd give my [fill in the body part of your choice] to be published by Tor!"

Meanwhile, at my fiddle lesson on Friday, I told Charlene that I wasn't famous enough to be promoted. Her eyes bugged out. She gestured at the bookshelf across the room -- her husband reads SF, and it was stuffed with Tor paperbacks -- and said, "You're published by Tor! Whaddya mean, you aren't famous enough?"

Yup. Of course, I'm not a famous Tor author, which is probably the larger issue -- my readership is exceedingly discerning, but very small -- but in many circles, Tor's more recognizable than Macmillan.

I really do think remaining at Associate is a healthy decision for me, and who knows? Maybe the economy will improve; maybe someday we'll get merit or cost-of-living raises again. In the meantime, I won't be slaving over binders. But the choice also represents the loss of a professional goal, however dimly held. It shifts my internal landscape, already eroded by too much loss over the last two years. And it puts more pressure on my writing, a process that often shuts down at the first hint of pressure.

Yet another reason why the Auburn workshop is perfectly timed!

Article about St. Stephen's

Yesterday our local paper ran a story about our parish closing. Hard to believe we only have five weeks to go.

I went to the service yesterday, for the first time in several weeks, to hear a friend preach there for the last time. I managed not to cry -- for a change! -- but I didn't linger too long afterwards. I'll only be attending two more services -- the last two -- at St. Stephen's, on November 14 and 21. Otherwise, I'll be going to my new church, to the quiet little 5 PM service that leaves me feeling peaceful and refreshed.

My hospital shift on Saturday was quiet and peaceful too, relatively speaking (certainly more so than last week's, anyway!). In the volunteer chaplain's office, I saw a flier for a retreat center in Auburn, CA, a gorgeous ninety-minute drive from here. When I got home I checked out their website and found a very appropriate -- and inexpensive! -- one-day retreat on healing from grief and loss, so I've signed up for it. If I like the place, it will be an excellent alternative to Berkeley for spiritual getaways; it's closer and the classes are less expensive (and some include food and lodging, I think). Unfortunately, Auburn has wonderful shopping, just like Berkeley does, but there's a little less of it than in Berkeley, so maybe I won't be quite as tempted as I always am there.

The timing of this retreat is perfect. Today's the two-year anniversary of my father's arrival in Reno. Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of his last night in Philadelphia, when he collapsed at my sister's house and had to be hospitalized (true to form, he left against doctor's orders the next morning to get on the plane to come out here). When I was talking to my sister this weekend, she said that when he collapsed, she really thought he'd just died. It was unbelievably traumatic for her. I'd never known that. All I remembered was her sobbing phone call about how he'd just been loaded into the ambulance, a call she now doesn't remember making.

So, yeah, I'm definitely having some anniversary reactions in through here, and the day in Auburn should be a lovely bit of self-care.

Figgy Again

Because he's so darned cute!

Welcome to the Phlegm Factory

I'm having an absolutely miserable time with allergies, despite taking multiple OTC medications. I'm wondering if I should give in and go to see an allergist, although they've never been terribly helpful to me before. Aaaargh! The weather's changing, so I hope that will help. This not-being-able-to-breathe thing is really annoying.

This weekend's hospital shift was unusually stressful, with two especially poignant psych cases. One was very grateful for my company; the other warmed up after initial hostility, but everything I tried to do to help only made the patient feel worse, which landed us back in hostility again. I'm well aware that this was a function of the patient's illness, not my efforts, but it's heartbreaking to see someone whose misery and terror are so well defended and deeply entrenched that any attempt to alleviate them just intensifies them instead. Most painful of all, the patient was in the ER for non-psych issues, and was being released; we had no way to address or treat the psych symptoms, although everyone but the patient was aware of them.

Awful. The situation was as literal a depiction of hell as I've ever seen, a darkness no light could penetrate, because all our puny flashlight beams were deflected by neurochemical forcefields. I'm not sure even God could get through that barrier, although I'll keep praying for a miracle.

All I managed to do, after much effort, was to give the patient a soda. "I can only drink X or Y," the patient told me fretfully, and neither X nor Y were available in our small fridge with its tiny cans of soda-for-patients. So I grabbed a few bucks from my purse and bought a bottle of the Right Soda from the cafeteria. I've never done that before, and of course the patient expressed no gratitude -- I didn't expect any -- but the gesture left me feeling a tiny bit less shredded. Maybe I was being manipulated (although the patient didn't know about my $1.35 expenditure), but so what? If the only thing you can do is give someone a soda, that's what you do, and hope that it produces even a molecule of pleasure in the moment.

In other cheery news, today's the six-month anniversary of my mother's death.

On the bright side, we went to a lovely dinner party this weekend.

Okay, gotta blow my nose again and get some more grading done. Happy Monday, everyone.