Running

The day started with good running news--my niece called to tell me that she'd run her first 5k yesterday.  She was second in her age group (under 13), with a time of 39 minutes and some seconds.  Not bad for a little girl who turns eight on Thursday!  Her father ran it with her, proving his "wonderful daddy" status.  Ironically, despite the comparative snail's pace, he finished in the middle of his own age group (40-50).

I spent most of the morning running around, finishing the application for financial aid from VA Hospital Center, going to the library to print out all the documents they required, and then hand-delivering the packet to their billing office.  It was a few minutes before one when I drove into Georgetown, and the radio reported that the winners of the Boston Marathon had just completed the course--the men's champion had finished the 26.2 mile course in a blistering 2 hours and 10 minutes.  I told Mums about it--unbelievably fast!

Just a couple of hours later, the whole event was brutally interrupted by the pair of explosions by the finish line.  To have run so long, so hard, to be in sight of completing the race, and then to be injured, even maimed by explosives is terrible.  There's certainly no place in civilian life where one expects to have a bomb detonate or to be the victim of a terrorist attack, but to target a general-admission athletic event, where people are testing themselves, celebrating victory over the course and the clock, is, to me, far more barbaric, and unreasonable (that presumes that the bombers have reason; not a given) than, say, even focusing on a shopping mall or a franchise sport, where, perhaps an anti-capitalist statement could be made.

My sister was very shaken up--if her husband hadn't accompanied Rita in her 5k yesterday, he might have been running the marathon as he has in the past, and he would have just been finishing when the bombs went off.  Like my aunt, who lives just outside of Boston, they knew people who were running today, but all were reported safe.  Thus far, three people have died, including a boy of eight, just Rita's age. 

My sister's nursing school, where she has classes tomorrow, is just down the street from the blast area--she said she could see the campus library in the shots of the explosion.  She told me that one mercy for the victims was that they were literally one minute from five of the best hospitals in Boston.  Given also the normal toll of marathons on the runners, the race aftercare tent was also handy with first aid equipment.  But so many people lost limbs.  Even the best hospital in the world can't reattach a leg that has been blown to pieces.

Law enforcement still doesn't know who did it.  Was it a disgruntled American, some evil person determined to avenge some imagined insult to liberty by denying life and the ready pursuit of happiness to others?  Was it a foreign actor, bent by religion or politics on visiting misery on carefree Americans running through a historic city on a beautiful spring day?  Was it a group or an individual--maybe even a private vendetta, coincidentally affecting a large swath of spectators when a single person was targeted?  We'll probably find out in the next few days.

1,001 Blog Posts & The Next Chapter

This is my one thousand and first blog post, which averages out to posting two times a week since I started.  I am no Scheherazade, but just finished watching a Taiwanese serial called “My Queen”:  A thirty-something journalist is pursued by a man eight years her junior.  East Asian television is a clean version of romance novels for middle-aged single women like me.  You know you are getting on in years when a girl you grew up with is appointed to the state Court of Appeals as a judge!

Since three months before Daddy died, I have been terrified of ending up homeless.  It occurred to me today that a specified period of homelessness could be beneficial for me, a condition I should embrace rather than run from.  Obviously, I am not speaking of giving up my apartment to sit on a park bench, but instead putting all my stuff that is worth holding on to into climate-controlled storage and embarking upon a limited career of couch-hopping.

 

Three days before my current apartment lease expires will be exactly eighteen months before my fortieth birthday.  I am not looking forward to that particular birthday.  Thirty was no problem—one is still considered fairly young—but forty is the official strait into the turbulent sea of middle age.  As one girlfriend who phoned me last Friday (on her daughter’s first birthday) remarked, “At forty, the wheels fall off.”  There are goals to be reached before forty.  I haven’t the chutzpah nor the self-confidence to write myself the legendary check for a million dollars, payable at that point, but I wonder if I shouldn’t do the next best thing: cut my expenses to the bone and work my buns off for a year and a half with the ultimate goal of buying a house (at least having enough to put down a sizable downpayment on one, if not pay for one in cash outright) on that infamous day.  Since my major expense is rent, I have to let the apartment go.

I have a lot of friends here in the DC area, most of whom have been kind enough to volunteer their guest rooms when I have needed them, and to say that I am welcome to crash there in the future.  Without wearing out my welcome at any one house (staying no more than a week, with two months between visits, and offering my hosts, say, $100 per stay plus a meal out for the whole family to cover any additional expenses their hospitality incurs) I think this is actually feasible.  I would have to live light, not toting much with me, but wouldn’t this be an even healthier modern alternative to a Walden retreat?  After all, Thoreau went home every week to do his laundry, so a friend once told me.

I’d need someone to offer to be my "home" for legal purposes, even if I didn’t stay with her at all—somewhere to get my mail, whence to file my taxes, and so forth.  I’d prefer to stay in Arlington County officially, even as I’d gallivant all over the Greater Washington area, because I love the Arlington library, particularly the online collection.  Anita has a guest room, Susan has a guest room, Mary has a guest room, as does my boss (with whom one of my coworkers has been staying for several weeks until she was able to find an apartment).  Leah has a very comfortable couch.  The German professor that I befriended at Georgetown has a couple of guest rooms.  Several other girlfriends and one young married couple I know may have room (three couples I know don’t have any extra space, and a single bathroom each, and I wouldn’t want to think of intruding on them). 

I could keep a journal about my adventures, and eat lots of Trader Joe’s salads.  I’d have to have my Christmas party somewhere else this year, but it’s doable.  Rather than moving back to GA without any employment in place, I could remain here and work.

Let me test the waters by asking possible hosts directly, and see where that takes me.  Eighteen months to economic freedom is an appealing prospect. And when I become a famous writer I could share stories of how I slept on friend’s couches while I was trying to make it big.

Bad Werewolf: One Week Later

Some people have told me that I look like I was bitten by a vampire; I responded that it was actually a werewolf.  The cut on my neck is all puffy--despite religious pre-operative washing with 4% Chlorhexidine Gluconate and another SIX moist towelettes of the same stuff at the hospital (Man, did I itch! That stuff probably took off eight layers of skin!), I still managed to contract a mild infection, and the gash produced some bloody pus when I squeezed it last night (it felt better after I did--I've got a huge Bandaid and antibiotic ointment on it now).  Other than that, my recovery has been swift, with little discomfort.

I stayed last Monday night over at Leah and Aaron's, washing at night and in the morning with the CHG solution and then taxiing with Leah to the Inova Fairfax Hospital in the pre-dawn hours for the surgery.  Friends go with friends to medical procedures!  I got pretty shaky lying there in the prep room waiting for surgery, and I was so glad she was there to calm me down.  The staff was all very nice, efficient and pleasant, and the only thing that was really uncomfortable was having the medical tech shove the IV into my dehydrated hand vein.  I went off to unconsciousness without a problem, and woke up in the recovery room with a sore throat and raging thirst, but no collar, because with the little metal disk implanted in my neck along with the cadaver bone, it's no longer necessary to be in the old medieval device.  They had ice chips handy, and while I was chomping down on those they wheeled in a man who'd just donated a kidney to his wife.  They have two little girls, I heard the nursing staff say.  Wow.  Awesome dude.

They schlepped me up to a room in the Spine Center soon thereafter and I tottered to the toilet with the help of a nurse and was then presented with an enormous sippy cup full of ice water for me to slurp on. Leah told me that my surgeon had talked to her and had been happy with the operation, and he actually showed up by my bedside soon thereafter and told me he wanted me to be doing normal activities, moving my neck as much as possible, going to the gym, etc.  Leah had to leave at noon, and Susan and little Theo came in to spend the afternoon with me.  Therapy pets are fine, but it's really nice having a therapy baby to cuddle when you are in postoperative pain!  Susan and Theo were leaving when Mary showed up to retrieve me at suppertime.  By that point, I was ready and able to go home, as my surgeon had promised me (I'd thought he was just being blithely optimistic).

Mary took me back to Rockville, and I went directly to bed.  I pretty much stayed there for two days, watching DramaFever on my iPhone and eating ice cream, with one brief foray outside to sit in the sunshine.  I took some minimal pain meds every four to six hours, felt weak and mildly sore, but certainly not miserable, and practiced getting safely to and from the bathroom.  The bandage came off my neck at midnight on Wednesday and I immediately took a hot shower, and felt way better.  My hosts took me out for dinner at the local Silver Diner on Thursday night, and Saturday afternoon Mary's husband and little Faith drove me back to my apartment, where Susan, Steven and Theo brought my mother just half an hour later.

Mums is here until Friday.  I showed off my battle scar at church Sunday morning and at trivia yesterday night.  I've put five listings on eBay and updated my USAjobs resume, as number-crunching for my taxes was horrifying.  Sequestration or not, I need a "real" job with benefits ASAP.  I love this area, but it's murderously expensive--last year, I spent more than $2500 on gasoline alone, and $17,000 on just rent and electricity.  Medical expenses (in those pre-herniated disc days) were $3000 (heaven and Assurant Health Insurance Company only know how bad they'll be this year--thank God I shelled out for a policy!).  Cobbling together all of my little income sources, I may actually have made $30,000 in 2012 (I have yet to total them all; right now I'm looking at about $26,000), but with an estimated $5000+ in federal and state taxes, and tithing, I had left less than $5000 to live on after the aforementioned required outlays.  Close to the bone, close to the bone.  No way to save for a prospective retirement, or the looming necessity of a new car, certainly.  Maybe I should put a Paypal donation button on my blog sidebar...

Age, Gelt, Neck Surgery & A New Haircut

Grey curls fell one after another onto the black nylon cloth covering me from neck to knees as the little Thai man applied a pair of clippers to the back of my neck.  I was appalled at how profoundly silver my undercoat had become—was this all coming from my head, or was someone playing a practical joke on me by sprinkling hair from some old lady over my shoulder into my lap?  Perhaps age sneaks up on everybody like this—one day they are fresh out of college, looking forward to buying furniture for their first apartment, and the next they are faced with the prospect of total hip replacement and the quandary of which grandchild will be available to drive them to the weekly Bingo game.  Myself, I am facing neck surgery on Tuesday and having no relatives handy am relying on friends to drive me to the hospital early that morning (the procedure is scheduled for 7:45) and then fetch me away afterwards.  Leah and her husband are taking me to the OR, and once I am stitched back up and in a neck brace Mary and little Faith are whisking me to Rockville to stay in their first-floor guest bedroom. 

I told the surgeon he’d better not sneeze while rooting around in my neck—he was briskly honking into a Kleenex when I went back to the examining room this morning.  He laughed and assured me he wouldn’t.  I saw the neurosurgeon for a second opinion yesterday.  She looked over my MRI images and ran some basic function tests and told me that not only did I need one level fused, she’d recommend going ahead and fusing two.  So I rescheduled the postponed surgery, got the preoperative blood work redone this afternoon, and then went out and had eleven inches cut from my hair, and the remainder shaped into a shroom-like bob.  Given that I won’t be able to wash my hair after surgery for several days, I wanted something low-maintenance.  And light—my sister had speculated that my neck problems might have been exacerbated by the fact that for most of my life I had very long, heavy hair.  Too, I was starting to look sort of scraggly, skanky even, with my (shorter) longer hair: greying wisps flying out all over, and thinning at the ends.  Getting a chin-length cut was my concession to the fact of middle age and middling health.  I feel much bouncier already, and responses of friends and family to my new look have been entirely positive.

I got a horrifyingly large bill from the Virginia Hospital Center for my Valentine’s Day MRI—over $3500, after the insurance-negotiated discount.  I am going to see if I can get some financial help with this, as paying that would wipe out my whole several years of savings in one go, not to mention the other, smaller bills that are coming due to the urgent care clinic, the pre-op center, the orthopedic surgeon, the neurosurgeon and the hospital (never mind the anesthesiologist and other people involved in the surgery)!  I had decided on a $5000 deductible for my health insurance a couple of years ago because I knew I was basically healthy, poor (so I couldn’t afford to pay much more out of pocket for the premium), and if something happened to me it would probably be catastrophic and then $5000 would be the least of my payment worries (I was betting on a car accident).  Well, I didn’t figure on being mildly disabled for no external reason, out of work for three weeks at a stretch, still having the usual living expenses of rent and groceries and electricity and life in addition to the challenge of coming up with $5000 in cash for the medical expenses.  It’s a challenge. 

The little hairs at the back of my neck where it was shaved are itching. It feels like horsehair upholstery.

Latest Entertainment & Composition

There are a lot of fellow Kdrama addicts out there, and we all share some common characteristics, as described recently on the DramaFever blog.  My Korean vocabulary has developed to about two dozen words, and sooner or later I'll sit down and learn the Hangul alphabet (it's simple; like the Cyrillic alphabet, you just need to spend a couple of hours committing the sounds and shapes to memory, and then you can accurately sound out anything written down--unlike English, words are spelled like they are pronounced).  The best series I've recently completed, however, is from Taiwan: In Time With You. There is no way that I'm ever tackling Mandarin, though! As I can't hear the difference between "pin" and "pen" in English, a four-tone language where "pin" can mean "pinkish", "spelling", "frequency", "to betroth", or "stripper" (just to name a few), depending on intonation is way beyond my abilities!

I've discovered a historical mystery series that, thus far, has made me a devoted reader: James R. Benn's Billy Boyle World War II series.  Benn is a retired librarian and obvious World War II history buff, and his attention to accurate real-world detail in the construction of good, interesting adventure stories makes me happy.  In my own WWII-related literary publication efforts, I sent off an email on Monday to a local editor who was recommended to me by a professor at Georgetown with whom I chatted at last month's Phi Alpha Theta chapter anniversary banquet.  He and his wife have published several books through New Academia, a press here in DC, and have been pleased.  She hasn't  acknowledged that she received the email, so I will wait another week or so and then re-try.

While I was in Rhode Island, I showed my niece my drafts of my children's stories.  She was immediately inspired to write her own, and carefully composed it on my computer, using 16-point AR HERMANN font.  It ended up being 213 words, all slowly typed by Rita herself ("hunt and peck" method), who asked me how to spell only a couple of words.  I also explained the accurate use of quotation marks, and she inserted those where necessary.  I was thoroughly impressed.  I don't know that I would have had the wherewithal when I was her age to write a tale like that, of that length and clarity, much less type it meanwhile.  I sent a copy to Mums, S Dawg and my other siblings.

The last night I was there, Rita had insomnia and came out to talk to me (I was curled up on the couch, reading).  "Sometimes I feel like a bicycle that's been left in the garage all winter by itself," she told me. "I am lonely and I don't have anyone to talk to.  Everyone is asleep and I am in my room at the end of the hall." Poor little girl. [Wow, such a poignant illustration of solitude!] I told her I understood.  I wish she had a cell phone so we could talk, though neither she nor her brother have yet to show any interest in talking on the phone, unlike my honorary nephews, who seem more than willing.  Her typing is a little slow as yet to accommodate online communication, and besides she doesn't have an email address.  I have mulled the idea of snail-mail, but her mother is awful about making sure that her letters are sent promptly, and so short of sending her a stack of pre-addressed and stamped envelopes (a possibility, I suppose), that's a dead end.  A little girl who loves books as much as she does, who is able to express her emotional depth at her age (I felt the same way--anyone who says children can't be truly depressed was a clueless child) needs some means, some opportunity, to write.  And given that I am the "mother ship", and she is my clone, I must do what I can to facilitate this.

Oy, Ow!

I went back to work on Monday.  I just got too stir-crazy sitting at home, and the orthopedist told me that lifting hadn't caused my neck problems and wouldn't exacerbate them, so I figured I might as well try to earn some coin while waiting for my neurologist appointment, particularly as I had to beseech the deacons for my rent money this month (being out of work for three weeks finally did what various earlier brushes with penury hadn't succeeded in doing--pushing me totally into the red), and have no desire to do the same for April.  My philosophy was, if I was going to be in pain and reduced dexterity anyway, I might as well be being useful as I was able at the time. 

The discomfort and debilitation has definitely gotten worse. I am much reconciled to the idea of surgery, even a week away from the second opinion I am seeking from the neuro lady, whom I fully expect to confirm her colleague's advice.  Meanwhile, I am repeatedly reminded how relatively good I have it; how light and momentary is my present affliction.  My bosses sister, who had two breast cancer surgeries in the last month, was diagnosed two weeks ago with endometrial cancer, in what they thought was the first stage.  On Wednesday, during the surgery to deal with that, they discovered that the cancer had already spread to other organs. The poor woman has been in intensive care ever since she woke from the anesthesia.  My boss is spending every evening at the hospital, and we've a sale this weekend.

A girlfriend of mine is going to pass my resume along to her husband's company, to consider me for a technical writing position. I can't afford to be an independent contractor anymore.  I plan to spend Sunday afternoon napping and then assembling all the paperwork to do my 2012 taxes--I need to get that squared away before I go under the knife.  I dearly hope that I won't owe any additional amount besides the quarterly estimated taxes I've already paid! 

Peeves & Perspective

Throughout this whole ordeal with my fingers, arm and neck, I have been reminded of the CSCM (the Chain-Smoking Canadian Mormon, for those who haven’t been reading my blog since its inception), with whom I recently technically reconnected via a professional networking site.  About a decade ago, the first clue that he had a brain tumor was when he woke up one morning and found he couldn’t see.  His eyesight was completely gone.  It eventually returned (and, given that he’s now back home working for a nonprofit, the tumor must be in remission), but I have been considering since Thursday before last how grateful I am that I have just been affected overnight by some loss of dexterity and some discomfort, rather than sudden blindness! 

There are two trends in response to my symptoms that have bothered me, though.  First, many of the laity, who when I mentioned the numbness in my fingers or the pain in my arms, have responded by positing all sorts of simplistic explanations: “You slept wrong” (“your mattress is too soft/too hard”, “your pillow is too soft/too hard/too high/too low”), “You picked up something”, “You twisted something,” along with recommendations for fixing the issue, mostly useless.  I’ve discovered that experiencing nerve pain (before I could point to specific MRI results) is much like experiencing a mental illness—everyone has an opinion about how you incurred this indefinite condition and how you can go about fixing it; they don't treat it as a concrete problem, like a broken arm, that had a cause, has a standard course of treatment, and will have a recovery date.   

Second, the professionals.  The doctors I have spoken to have both of them intoned the same phrase when discussing my test results: “As we get older, we experience degenerative changes…”  For crying out loud, I’m 38, not 58!  To have this level of disability at this stage without a significant external causal factor seems strange to me.  I was looking at my MRI images today, and even to me it is obvious that my neck is pretty screwed up (as if I already couldn’t tell from the diminution of my typing skills—my right pointer finger is fumbling the keys repeatedly).  There has got to be a genetic factor at work that predisposes me to spinal issues--true, my father broke his neck twice (once weightlifting, once in a car accident), but would it have broken had he not already have had spinal changes?  My sweet Grandmommy had some severe back problems in her mid-fifties--could I have inherited this trait from both sides of the family?  I really want this to be treatable by physical therapy, but why it is happening at all, now, is still a mystery.

I am entering a real sort of mid-life crisis.  Should I stay in DC?  Can I stay in DC?  I can’t work at the estate sale company anymore; even if physical therapy is completely effective, it will be months until I can lean over and pick things up as a matter of course.  Without work, I don’t have income. With no income, I can’t afford my apartment.  I fear and dread returning to my hometown—I don’t want to end up intellectually stagnant, working at some minimum-wage job, living alone and lonely, growing greyer and more insular by the day.  I want to travel, I want to see new things, new people, learn about new cultures.  I love my friends and my church in DC.  But being a single person really sucks when it means that you have no one to care for you in-house and no one to help you financially when you find yourself suddenly, involuntarily unemployed and effectively disabled! 

My friends have been really sweet about offering to get me things from the store and asking me if I want to come over to stay with them so they can look after me.  But I now totally understand that with what previously I really could only theoretically sympathize: the desire of someone who’s ailing or aging to stay in their own home!  The last thing I want to do is pack a suitcase and go to someone else’s house, no matter how sweet a friend they are, or how good their care.  I want to curl up in my own room, surrounded by my own piles of clutter (OK, truly I wish I could get rid of the piles of clutter, but I was in the middle of sorting and culling them when this happened, so there they lie) and convalesce.  I want to be able to get on my computer when I can, fiddle with my lamp projects in the moments when I feel up to it, and sort through my bead piles and fabric stacks likewise.  Of course, I really want my hand to start working, and I want to start working overall.  Be that as it may, I hate having nothing to do, and especially when you are “guesting” at someone’s home, there is little built-in to do, whereas at least I can putter around my own house.  While I have been in Rhode Island, my niece and nephew have been a welcome distraction, but this hasn’t been either a productive or a lucrative week from a extra-familial perspective.

A month or so ago, when I was chatting with Rachel and the NPV, I told them that one of the reasons I did want to get married this year was that I knew I needed someone to take care of me in case I became disabled.  I was thinking more in terms of mental infirmity than of physical (I’ve always been pretty robust, so this nerve issue has thrown me totally off-balance) but here is a physical challenge sooner than I’d ever expected.  And, boy, does it make aloneness an issue!  Again, though, at least I am in a country where I am fluent in the local language for treatment—my single friend who moved to Seoul last year to teach English (she lives in Gangnam itself, but her apartment is not exactly posh) is having foot surgery soon, and she doesn’t speak Korean, so bilingual friends from church are helping her with the hospital communication and recuperation.