Category Archives: grief

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Tired

Yes, so the picture is me during Family Practice residency at OHSU. Also a friend, visiting, a fellow graduate from Medical College of Virginia. She looks alive. This pneumonia is making me feel like that picture. I started internship and residency with a six month old. We would wait until 9 pm for his bedtime or sometimes he wouldn’t see me.

One night I was trying to give him a bath, after a day and a night and most of another day on the obstetrics rotation. I had to call my husband to come help, because I could not stay awake by the bathtub. Safety first.

When I had a really bad call night and then ran around the next day trying to get everything done so I could GO HOME, I could not stay awake until my son’s bedtime. So he would put me to bed. By age two he would tuck me in and babble a story and dad would turn out the light…..

I would come home from the day and a half working, just exhausted and my son would be doing something new. “When did he learn to CRAWL!!?!” I would say.

“Oh, is he crawling?” my husband would say. “I don’t know. Didn’t notice.”

RRRRrrrrrr.

When my son started two word sentences around age two, we would ask him questions. “Where does T live?”

“Pink house.”

“Where does daddy live?”

“Pink house.”

“Where does mommy live?”

“Hospital.”

I went and had a tantrum at my residency director. I was so mad at the faculty. My son thought I lived at the hospital. He was right, too. I was pissed and stomped around like a honey badger, wanting a cobra to fight. The faculty ducked into closets and bathrooms…… I gave them hell.

My kids are doing well in spite of mom living in the hospital. Though they acted out some, as normal kids do. A few years ago I asked my daughter, “Where are the barbies?”

“Hmmm.” she said.

I eyed her. That noncommital noise gets my attention.

She shrugs. “Ok, well. T and his friends and I blew them up with firecrackers. In the driveway. When you weren’t home.”

“Hmmm,” I said.

“We did not blow up the Get Real Girl because we knew that would piss you off.”

“Mmmm-hmmm.” Yes, it would.

So I wonder…. what else were they up to? How did the ceiling tiles get broken in the finished basement? There are various other mysteries…. if the house could talk, it would tell me.

The barbies came up a few days ago. “Didn’t you blow up any action figures? Aka Boy Dolls?”

“No.” said my daughter.

“That’s kind of sexist.” I said.

“Hmmm.” she said. And my son just laughed.




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stealthie in the grass

Stealthie in my yard, two days ago. I like the current crop of grass and weeds.

Music: Simon Lynge Hallelujah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIHpeaHJJ9s

His website is here: https://simonlyngemusic.com/. Hey Simon, when do we get another local concert? Concert in the grass? Hugs, ya’ll.

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Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)

Anyone can report to the VAERS system.

Doctors may be a bit nervous about reporting covid-19 reactions. Doesn’t matter. You can report on your own.

That being said, I don’t recommend reporting if you feel like crap for a couple of days after the second shot. If it is severe, you need an ambulance or it goes on for more than say, five days, report.

The first shot is about 80% effective. So, 4 out of 5 people are protected, and 1 in 5 doesn’t take. After the second shot, about 95% are protected. That means 1:20 is not.

So if you responded to the first shot, you will have an antibody response to the second shot. I ran a fever of 102 for an hours and cancelled my day of work and the next day. You could have fever, chills, muscle aches, joint aches, whatever. Take a hot bath or sauna or hot tube, because you can sweat the antibodies out.

I would report reactions that last more than two days or are severe. You can fill the form out yourself online and send it to the CDC.

For the folks refusing the vaccine: Hello. Are you going to have covid-19 parties to infect each other? If you do and you get covid-19, I can tell you that I am glad I am not your doctor. Also I don’t want you in my house. I don’t want to be around you at the Farmer’s Market either. And I think that once everyone has had the opportunity to get the vaccine, if you refuse and get covid, you might have to pay your own doctor and hospital bill. Yeah, that is what I think. And if it bankrupts you: well, you had the opportunity to get the vaccine. Why should insurance have to pay? Or you might die. Death rate for world is holding at 2 out of 100. In the US it’s “only” 1.78 out of 100. That is a fungkload. It’s a lot of people. Choose not to get your vaccine and you could be one of them. I just found out this week that a friend from medical school died in November: age 59. Do not tell me it’s all 80 year old “who would have died anyway”. Each of us will die anyway and I don’t want to die of covid-19.

I took the photograph in medical school: it’s my fellow doctor who was found to have covid-19 after he died suddenly, age 59.

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trees awake

Do you know the round?

Spring would be a dreary season

If twere nothing else but spring

would be a deary season….

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: awakening.

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myalgic encephalopathy

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, actually. I put encephalopathy on the Ragtag Daily Prompt, but …. my brain is still a bit fuxxy. Yeah, tried to type fuzzy. It’s sometimes annoying and sometimes funny. I have a little trouble with my balance, as if my proprioception is not quite working right. I have not fallen, but that is really my dance chops. All those years jitterbug dancing, I recover my balance very well. However, I am staying off of ladders for now.

The antibodies are annoying. The dopamine ones are down a little, which is a relief. I still spent 20 minutes this am organizing CDs into categories. This satisfies both the ADHD and the OCD bugs. I have four categories: women musicians, rock and blues, classical/ethnic and local/folk. Sometimes I don’t know where the hell to put a CD. Southern Culture on the Skids… hmm. Harry Connick jr…. double hmmm. I now have a pile of movie soundtracks and a pile of DUNNO. I have picked up CDs at garage sales when they are a dollar each. Random. Those are in a separate “listen to it and decide” pile. They could end up in the library box outside if I dislike them enough. There seems to be some rap, I don’t have tons of that. Punk, now, it gets filed with the rock except when it’s more Americana…..

I can lower the antibody levels with a hot bath. Tend to wait until I really have to eat, eat, then with the antibodies start poking me I have the hot bath. A sauna would help as would a hot tub. Dang. Where is my hot tub? I hurt a lot more if I eat gluten or get my blood sugar high. Sugar is bad. Rice is pretty ok, though muscles hurt afterwards. I’ve long since trashed my glycogen stores, so my blood sugar will drop back to ketosis within 2 hours instead of taking 2-3 days. Feels terrible while it is happening. I get really cold and achy and just feel like I am dying. Lie down, wrap up in a really warm pile of blankets. I feel the shift: lights get brighter, sound gets louder and the pain switches off. Then I get too hot and throw off the blankets and have some energy again. I still have to behave: any little thing like starting to trot up the stairs and OW, my chest starts hurting and I get short of breath. I am a little short of breath just being vertical. I am glad I am not bad enough to have to just lie in bed, that would fungking suck.

Hope you are well. Get the covid vaccine: it may well make you feel rotten, but covid 19 does the same thing only more so. I think that if I got covid 19 I would croak.

Ribbit.

Peace be with you.

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Ottaway back porch

My parents’ time warp Beatnik household, 1978, before I went to be an exchange student in Denmark.

We had a German exchange student living with us. She had been placed with a couple with no children, a military family, and was unhappy. My parents agreed that she could move in with us for the rest of her year. I decided to apply as an exchange student. I have not heard from her in years. Blessings, where ever she is.

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leaf light

Well.

Being off from work, for an indeterminate time gives one time to think.

I have been advised by various people to move. Pick up, sort out, get rid of and move on.

I think they are right. I have been in this house for 21 years. Time to change it.

So, I am going through things. Washing everything washable. There is a lot of that. Starting to sort and give away things. I sent a unicorn horn and ears and a tail and tiger ears and tail to a five year old a couple days ago. She can be a unicorn or a tiger or a ticorn or a uniger. And rope the adults in.

Photos now. I could have a ginormous bonfire of old photos. It’s ok to get rid of the ones that have no remaining connection, right? I may give them to friends to cut up and use in art, that’s cool. I will keep the connected ones.

I took the leaf light picture with my phone yesterday evening. Crashed early.

Hugs, all.

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happy sister

I am home sick and it looks like it will be a long haul. Months. Sigh.

Anyhow, I am going through photos and found this. I do not know who took it, I don’t think it was me. I have my parents’ photos and they had my maternal grandparents’ photos, or at least it seems like it. Anyhow, I am floating in a sea of pictures.

I love this one. She is so happy.

Hope you are that happy now, sisty.

Music: William Prince

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The Brewer’s Big Horses

This is one of the Songs to Raise Girls, songs that I learned before Kindergarten. A very weird list of songs.

This song comes from my maternal grandfather. My mother said that it was a Congregationalist temperance song….

The photograph is Morris D. Temple and his grandson, F. Temple Burling. F. Temple Burling is my maternal grandfather. I am related to Temple Pumps. According to my mother’s stories, Morris Temple was more interested in Japanese art than in Temple Pumps and the company eventually folded. I don’t know if that is true, or if it was a different Temple then Morris. However, my middle name is Temple.

This song is one that I don’t have memorized, though I know the tune. I have my mother’s handwritten lyrics, with her drawings framing it. There is a tape of my grandfather singing it in the Library of Congress, according to my mother. I would like to go listen to it some time.

I’ve copied it just how my mother wrote it out. There might be an issue about political correctness, but I have a picture of Morris Temple in the 1860s, in his civil war uniform, with a sword. You will have to wait for that post to see which side he fought for….. I presume that my mother wrote it down as she was taught it. I am not sure who talked like this in Iowa in the 1880s, but maybe it was most people.

The Brewers’ Big Horses

O, the brewer’s big horses, comin’ down de road
A totin’ along old Lucifer’s load
Dey step so high and dey step so free
But them big horses can’t run over me

Chorus:
O no! boys O no!
De turnpike’s free where ever I go
I’m a temperance ingine don’t you see
So them big horses can’t run ovah me
Repeat with “toot toot toots”

O de liquo’ men been actin lak de own de place
A livin’ off de sweat o’ de po’ man’s face
Dey’s fat and sassy as dey can be
But deir big horses can’t run ovah me

Chorus

I’ll harness dem horses to de temperance cart
I’ll hit ’em with the gad fo’ to give ’em a start
I’ll teach ’em how fo’ to haw an’ gee
So them big horses can’t run ovah me

Chorus

It took me a while to find this song on the internet. It is listed in temperance songs in wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_songs and is mentioned in The Christian Advocate under lyrics: The Brewers Big Horses. It is listed as written in 1913 by JB Herbert and HS Taylor. Isn’t it interesting that Budweiser still uses the Brewer’s Big Horses in advertising?

Again, this is a song I was learning way before I know what a brewer or a turnpike was. My parents stopped singing a bunch of songs when they realized that I was memorizing all of them. They did not want me singing certain songs in Kindergarten.

They did not need to worry. I shut up when I got to school, because no one wanted to sing and no one knew the songs. They all talked about television and we didn’t have one.

I was very disappointed in school. Not enough singing and it was lonely.