Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The Dog is Worse Than the MRI

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 30, 2023| Leave a Comment »

My little Breast Cancer saga continued this morning: I had an MRI scheduled at 9:30 in the morning at a nearby hospital. Not my local hospital because they don’t have an MRI machine, but a sister hospital within a 20-minute drive. We arrived early, of course, because it was a Sunday morning and there was no traffic.  We wasted ten minutes sitting in the car and trying to count how many Eastern Fox squirrels were in the adjacent trees and shrubbery. I quit counting at ten. That’s a lot of squirrels in a small area.

Checked in at 9:25 and sat down to wait for the tech. Oh, I had about three minutes’ worth of additional paperwork to fill out: “Where does it hurt?” It doesn’t. “Place an ‘x’ on the body part to be scanned” (That was easy). And so on.

Another patient wandered in for an ultrasound. His nurse came and picked him up after about fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, the clock ticked. Trust me, this was the WORST part of the morning: waiting for a full 45 minutes before my tech showed up to usher me back to the machinery. Tick…tick…tick…

The tech was very out-going and so made up for the long wait. The second worst part of the morning (actually, pretty low on the scale of worst to best) was the insertion of the IV.

Wait. I forgot to mention that our eighty-pound beast of a dog jumped on the bed at 6:30AM, firmly landing on my outstretched leg. He heaved himself up onto the bed and subsequently stepped on that same spot before I could withdraw my leg. I have the bruises to prove it. Darn dog!

That was more painful than the IV.

Technology has come a long way since the last time I had an MRI. Back then, the machine was a long tube and my biggest fear was that they would stick me inside that tunnel and forget about me (or the power would go out and they wouldn’t be able to get me back out). Fortunately, I was only having my left knew scanned and got to sit outside the tunnel with just my legs inserted. (I had a torn meniscus at the time.)

Now the machine looks like an oversized CT Scan machine. Open on both ends and not nearly large enough to swallow a human being whole, much less strand them due to forgetfulness or a power outage. WHEW. I declined any sedative at that point: it couldn’t possibly cause me to have a claustrophobic anxiety attack.

Rather, the positioning of the body was the most distasteful part. On my stomach, breasts positioned just so, and hard plastic digging into my sternum with my ribs crushed below. I was certain I would bruise after 25 minutes of that torture, but – alas – it wasn’t that much torture and I endured. And I didn’t bruise. Only where the dog walked on me earlier in the morning.

The tech gave me headphones with music cranked up at front row concert, like at least 85 decibels (probably not that much, but it was pretty loud). I soon learned why the music was so loud: the MRI machine is LOUDER.

Bang! Clang! Alarm! Beep! Boop! Whistle! Vibrate (that actually felt kind of nice). I decided the best way to pass time was to count how many songs played. If a song is three minutes long (standard radio play time back in the day) that it would take 8 songs for 25 minutes to pass. Apparently, songs can run longer in this day and age because I only reached 5 and a half songs before it was over.

When I had ten minutes to go, the tech came on the little radio and told me he was sending the contrast into my system. I half expected to feel something, although he had earlier assured me that the contrast he uses is not the same contrast they use for kidney function: the stuff that makes you feel like you just wet your panties. His contrast, according to his words, is “more Vanilla than that”.

Despite the warning from my drinking friend last Saturday, waiting for the contrast was not horrid. I felt nothing. I heard a lot: whirring, gears grinding, some more beeps and boops and whistles. Some day they will invent an MRI machine that is as silent as a CT-scan machine. Won’t that be amazing?

We left the hospital at 11:00AM and headed to the local food cart pod for breakfast, then across the street for a couple beers with dear friends. By 2:30PM, I realized that all the noise of the day – the MRI, the crowded brew pub, and the loud 80’s MTV music playlist – had worn my sensitivities to too much noise down to a frazzled level of “I just need to go home and be quiet”. Kind of like the night my brother dragged me to some nightmare Casino/kids play area in Reno with greasy cheese pizza and his grandchildren running amok (not ill-behaved, mind you, just bouncing off the walls in the kids playing area with thirty thousand other children) and I crawled into bed later with my Introvert HSP ears ringing.

In summary, the breast cancer screening by MRI is uncomfortable and noisy, but the biggest pain of the day was when Ruger stepped on me and woke me from a dead sleep with a stabbing pain in my lower right leg. And left me with bruises. And the worst part was the 45 minute waiting in a hospital lounge where there was only one other patient, and he only waited fifteen minutes.

Read Full Post »

Blessed. I am Blessed.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 23, 2023| 1 Comment »

My last post was about breast cancer biopsy (the bruising is completely gone now). I told my brother that I wasn’t surprised by the outcome because doctors have “tells” in their speech and mannerisms. I am, however, disappointed in that I am now a statistic. A lucky one, at that.

Had I not been referred for a bone density scan, I would not have called the radiology lab at the local hospital. Had I not called, I could easily have ignored the referral for a mammogram. I still could have ignored that referral but I decided to just go with it despite my previous painful experiences. I still don’t know what the bone density scan showed, but I sure as heck know what the mammogram revealed and the subsequent needle-poking of the biopsy proved.

Emotions tend to run high at the mere hint of the word, “cancer”. I’ve had several basal cell carcinomas removed from my face and a couple pre-cancerous lesions. Nobody freaks about that although those areas were much larger than the carcinoma discovered in my left breast. It’s so tiny, it can’t be felt by a routine self-exam. It’s considered an “invasive carcinoma” which merely means that it has invaded my breast tissue.

The word “metastatic” was not written in the report nor has it been mentioned by anyone. So, calm down everyone: it’s tiny. It most likely has not moved into the lymph nodes. All my markers are good. I’m not freaked out.

I’m irritated at the timing, worried about how friends and family have reacted, and not real thrilled with all the upcoming tests and surgery and follow-up, especially (irritation) during the height of garden season. my list of questions for the oncologist had more to do with the timeline of care and recovery than “Am I going to die? Will it recur? How scary is this?!” I still have no definitive answers on the timeline, but there is an outline of a game plan, and it does NOT involve chemotherapy, mastectomy, or even a whole lot of radiation.

The number of friends, family, and acquaintances I know who have already been down this road have been diagnosed with Stage 3 or 4 cancers, some metastatic and some highly aggressive. the living ones (sadly, I have lost friends, acquaintances, and family to this scourge) have either told their stories publicly or I have known them well enough to have watched them endure the weeks and months and even years of recovery. We all know those stories. I think that is where the fear comes in.

The doctors I have spoken to have gone out of their way to be kind and considerate. My own PCP (Julia) left a voice message that if I “needed to talk…” she would be there. The oncologists office was cheerful and upbeat in a true effort to make the whole process less frightening for cancer patients. Everywhere I have turned so far, it seems like I am being handled with kid gloves, as if my emotions are going to just spiral out of control.

I was referred to CompassOncology which has several offices in the Portland Metro area, the closest of which is 20 miles away, right off of I-5, and very reminiscent of my commute for at least 10 years. My oncologist is a Dr. D who is tiny, funny, sincere, and caring. She’s also very thorough. And she’s on vacation all this coming week.

Which is OK because I have to have an MRI a week from today. A mammogram only catches 50% of cancers. An MRI catches 97%. They want to know if the mammogram caught the entire picture of what is happening in my body and only the MRI can do that. My husband and support person whispered, “If that’s the case, why don’t they just do a routine MRI for breast cancer?” (Answer: insurance companies don’t want to have to write off that expense.) He also offered to take me to breakfast after the MRI even though I might be a bit loopy (I’m claustrophobic and will need a little sedative to get into that tube face down for 20 minutes).

Check that: MRI on April 30.

I also need to see a hematologist. This is because I had a DVT (blood clot) in my left leg a year ago and there was no obvious reason. No surgery, no bumps to the leg, nothing out of the normal and my blood pressure and heart beat all tested out relatively normal. this came as no surprise to me: Julia had mentioned it last year saying that we could rule out a clotting disorder if I saw a hematologist. We need to rule out a clotting disorder before I go into surgery.

The fun part about this upcoming appointment is that it is at 4PM. I’ll be driving home in high traffic. It’s OK, I’ve done this commute before, too many times to count. I told my husband he is not allowed to come with because I don’t want him to be in the car with me when traffic comes to a dead stop. And starts again. And stops again. he’s not good company in heavy traffic.

I do know the surgery will most likely be a simple lumpectomy and that one lymph node under my left arm will be removed for testing. I was advised Saturday by a cancer survivor that the injection of dye into the breast is the worst of it that no one tells you about. So yay for implanting that bit of knowledge into my nervous system.

Telling friends and family has been … interesting. A lot of “I’m so sorry you are going through this” comments and virtual hugs. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I am going to be okay. Two friends broke down and cried. But I still made summer plans with one of them. My family… Well, my brother made jokes (I love that guy). I know they are all there for me, if I need them. But I am still making summer plans with some of them. I’ve heard privately from other dear friends, encouraging me. All the same people who reached out when our son died.

This has been a lot more serious than I intended it to be. I was planning on making jokes all the way through. I’m not far enough into the process to make this journey humorous, but – trust me – I will find a way.

The photos I am using were sent to me by a very dear friend shortly after my last post. She said they were the first images she saw after she read (and deciphered) my last post. They are of the Oregon Coast. They are proof that I am blessed. Very blessed.

Please do not feel sorry for me. This is just a little stumbling block. I’m in good spirits. I’m hopeful. I am grounded.

Read Full Post »

This is Only Going to Hurt a Little Bit

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on April 14, 2023| 1 Comment »

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

Today was Biopsy Day. I’m recording this, not because I am afraid I will be diagnosed with the dreaded breast cancer, but because I think women should know. And men who are married to women or in a relationship with a woman or have a woman in their life that they care dearly about.

First, they did a second ultrasound so they could mark my left breast for the incision. Promised me that I would be injected with lidocaine and that would be the worst of it. I know all about lidocaine and the pain of that injection. Definitely was not looking forward to that injection. I have been to the dentist too many times in my life to even think it wouldn’t be painless (and dentists use lidocaine’s cousin, novocaine). Besides, all of this entails a very large needle inserted into my body.

I do not do needles. I close my eyes at the dentist’s office and I turn my head when they draw blood at the doctor’s office. I cringe when I get a vaccination. The only Vax I ever got that didn’t hurt was Covid #1 and Covid #2. True story. I didn’t even bleed either time which befuddled the paramedic giving them out who was ready to put a bandage on the injection site. No blood, no mark.

Otherwise I bruise and turn purple. It’s just a fact. You mention the word “bruise” in a medical office and my skin immediately turns purple.

They mentioned the word “bruise” today. I haven’t been able to peek under the bandage, but I’m pretty certain I turned purple.

All the prep went well, we were on schedule, the radiologist was a pleasant person, and then came the big needle. Oh – did I mention the ultrasound imaging was right in front of my face so I could watch the needle being inserted into the fattty tissue? And that I don’t do needles? There it was, in front of my nose, long and silvery, and then came the sting of lidocaine. And more. And more.

I neglected to advise the radiologist that I usually need extra novocaine when I have the dentist work on a cavity in my teeth. OOPS.

That first biopsy was a searing fire-hit needle into my breast and beyond. My eyes watered. I almost cried out. I certainly gripped the handles of the guerny. DAMN! So – more lidocaine. But not enough. SHIT! More lidocaine. Third times the charm.

BUT – during the pre-biopsy ultrasound, they discovered another “suspicious” mass they wanted to biopsy. “Not a real concern, but we’d have to monitor it every six months…” and my brain screamed: you mean the smash-smash-smoosh-smoosh EVERY SIX MONTHS?!” Nope, nope, nope. I just went over fifteen years since the last one and now I’m being subjected to more torture. NO. Biopsy the bastard.

So the first needle went in and it stung like a bee sting. I lied and said I felt nothing. JUST GET IT OVER. The second needle hit my nerves like a yellow jacket with purpose. My breast will never be the same. The third shot… well, the numbing medication went into effect and I felt nothing. Heavy sigh.

But- but, but, but – they aren’t finished yet. Because now there is a “light pressure” mammogram on the plate to make certain the little metal markers inserted are where they need to be.

Oh, did I fail to mention that part? They insert little metal markers with cute little names into the position of the suspicious mass so they know what they biopsied. Site A gets one marker and site B gets another marker. They are different shapes. Site A has an oval marker and site B has what they names “infinity” but it isn’t actually an infinity symbol. Someone flunked math. It’s more of a corkscrew and I would have named it the “Wine Marker”.

The light pressure mammogram was exactly that: at least they didn’t lie about that. But I had to wait with a little sticky ice pack on my breast while the radiologist reviewed my files. Can’t risk swelling.

I am home now. Ice on every 20 minutes and off every 20 minutes. I can feel the incision and the path of the needles through my fatty tissue. Can’t remove the bloody bandages for 76 hours. No lifting, no planting flowers in the garden during these exceptionally warm April days, and sit still. I’m excited.

I get the results in two to three business days (Tuesday or Wednesday next week). I’m leaning toward they will be benign and all this hoopla will be for nothing because that is my medical history: all panic in the foreground and nothing to worry about after the tests are done. I hope this for every woman (or man) who has to undergo this kind of scrutiny/injections/biopsies.

I will post updates next week. Until then, scrunch up your battle face and do the mammogram. ‘Kay?

Read Full Post »

The Dreaded Smash-Smash-Smush-Smush

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 10, 2023| 1 Comment »

If you don’t know what that is, you are most likely a male of the homo sapiens. It is a sadistic medical procedure women put up with (at least some women do) annually or every other year. I did it twice in my mid to late thirties. That was, um… a while ago. Quite a few grandchildren ago. I mean, I raised my kids, saw them grow up and start their own lives after that last mammogram in the 1900’s. Yes, that is correct: back in the 1900’s. Like a century ago. Last century, anyway.

(I hear my son making some snarky comment about my age and my close relationship to Moses. Damn, I miss that kid’s snark.)

I have dodged every mere suggestion of a repeat of that last Smash-Smash-Smush-Smush because that was *exactly* what it was. The tech was a sadist. I only went in for that second one because the first tech was kind and gentle and didn’t attempt to smash my 32A breasts to nothing. The second tech didn’t care anything about my pain. She screwed the plates down hard and taut and then took her sweet time taking the images while I bit my tongue. I swore I would never – NEVER – endure pain like that again unless I was somehow placed in an internement camp and set up for torture.

I am not unsympathetic to breast cancer survivors. I know a few and have known a few who survived for a few years. But I had tiny little bumps on my chest and they were easy enough to do a routine, monthly, self exam. No cancer history that I know of in my immediate family. And a healthy respect for Erma Bombeck’s description of the procedure. Erma was a breast cancer survivor and knew what she was writing about when she described a mammogram in detail. Do yourself a favor and “google” “Erma Bombeck Breast Cancer.”

Erma was far funnier than I can aspire to be.

I know a group of women in my prayer circle who refuse to do the procedure. They dodge it as skillfully as an athlete in a dodge-ball game. Me, I’m more the kid who gets hit with the ball and leaves the game with a big bruise on my belly from the impact. Still, I managed to dodge that ball for a couple of decades. I just forgot I had a referral.

I had enough other medical issues to deal with that seemed much more important. A bleeding kidney that turned out to be nothing at all and which suddenly ceased bleeding after three years of medical tests and questions and procedures. Some skin cancer that had to be scraped off. A broken foot that revealed I have thin bones and needed to go onto medication to try to rebuild the bone and strengthen my skeleton. A little this, a little that. Always something that turned out to be nothing at all or something highly treatable. Last year’s heart scare (which was probably more about a broken heart than any actual physical issue). High blood pressure which is currently under control. A wounded rotator cuff that just sucked eight weeks of my life into physical therapy.

Okay, the PT wasn’t all that bad. I started with a shoulder so frozen that I couldn’t raise my arm over my head and I graduated eight weeks later with almost full motion restored. I still have a lot of exercising to do, but I reached my personal goals of being able to life and reach and GARDEN (if only the rain gods would relent and allow me to get my fingernails dirty).

My Primary care Giver (PCP) is a wonderful person. She has four children, same as my daughter: three boys, one girl. She sets me up with referrals that I don’t always follow through on and forget about until we meet the following year: “Mammogram? Oh, gee. I didn’t do that.” But she got me this year.

I have to have bone density tests every couple of years in follow up to that painful instep break I managed to do to myself a number of years ago. I fractured two metatarsal bones in my right foot by slamming my foot into a bed post in the dark. I climbed into bed and cried until I fell asleep. Only when I woke up and needed to get up and pee did I know how badly I’d mangled my foot. The pain was not pretty. Let me give birth to a ten pound baby before I have to step on a broken foot again. (For the record, I did give birth to a ten pound plus baby and it really was *not* as painful as trying to put weight on a broken foot.)

Besides, the baby had certain rewards that came with his birth. A broken foot only precludes you from jury duty, driving a car, and running a marathon. The baby came with a certain sense of snark, sticky fingers, and a penchant for making me laugh whenever I was angry at him.

I saw my PCP in January. She ran the usual tests and we talked about the usual things (“have you had a mammogram recently?” “Nope.”) and she sent out some referrals. One was to physical therapy and two were to the local hospital for imaging. I figured I could do the bone density test and sneak away without a mammogram yet again. Score!

It didn’t work out that way. I called the hospital to set up the bone scan, but the bone scan is done in the same department as mammograms and the scheduler had both referrals in front of her. I wasn’t prepared with a good excuse so allowed her to schedule both tests on the same day, just 30 minutes apart. I thought I might buy a bottle of wine in celebration after – or I could hope that the sadist was an anomaly and I’d get a sympathetic tech like my first mammogram tech. Worth a hope, anyway.

The bone scan was easy. I still have a lot of work to do to rebuild bone density.

I have gained a lot of weight during retirement/Covid. My breasts are no longer mere 34A, but are more 36B. Fat has its benefits. Muffin tops are not something to be proud of, but that’s where I am in this stage of life. I even had to hold some of my fat out of the mammogram. Literally. I’m 25 pounds over what I used to be and it’s all settled on my waist and above. It used to settle in my butt. I don’t know which I prefer. Well, I do: I prefer to be 25 pounds lighter than I am now.

Probably too much information, but I am at a stage in life where I really don’t give a flying flip. This is what women go through: body shaming, fat shaming, breast shaming, butt shaming. Age rounds our faces and adds wrinkles. We lose our upper arm strength and musculature. We get thinning hair. Unwanted whiskers grow on our chins and out of our moles. (I understand men go through similar physical changes. I can’t speak to that. I am not unsympathetic.) Sometimes we get benefits: I no longer grow hair under my arms or on my legs. I haven’t needed to shave in a decade. Benefit.

The mammogram tech was very kind and gentle. Everything went painlessly. Then I got the results: asymmetry in one breast. Well, no surprise: my breasts have always been asymmetrical. One larger and the other smaller, and neither one lines up like my eyebrows or my ears. It’s like the angels who worked to create my body didn’t communicate. It’s probably why I make weird sculptures. What is perfect and symmetrical, anyway? Nothing of Nature.

Here’s the kicker: if you don’t have regular mammograms, your old results “disappear” after ten or so years. There’s no “baseline” anymore. The techs don’t know what your mammograms looked like before. It has been a lot more than ten years for me, so – no “baseline” for comparison. I could tell them that dense breasts are my baseline, but they don’t have that data. That data died during Y2K. Just kidding – it was probably still available for a few years after that supposed “crash” of the Interwebs. But it definitely died in the mid 2010’s. They need you to come back in to establish a “baseline” for the results.

Another Smash-Smash-Smush-Smush. And this one was not as nice as the former. I will say that the tech today was not a sadist. She tried very hard to not put me in pain and she hurried to take the images so I wouldn’t scream in pain while she did it. Then she ushered me to the ultrasound tech. My poor bruised breast complained as the tech ran the ultrasound over the smashed and bruised flesh of the breast in question. I practiced breathing techniques and meditation.

The result is a .5 x .5 x .8mm “something” in breast that has never had anything show up on a mammogram. At least not 20 years ago. But it is there now. I have to go back for a biopsy.

I am a little surprised: nothing ever amounts to anything for me, medically speaking. The radiologist said it was probably a very recent growth given the size. I find myself running through “worst case scenarios” and none of them are that bad. But it is certainly a wake up call to myself and my group of friends who are mammogram deniers. Maybe we should test at least every five years and insist that the tech be extra gentle with our tender bosoms.

And a note to mammogram techs: a little empathy goes a long way. I will probably never forgive that —tech— from years ago. She was a sadist.

I am not particularly worried. It’s just another thing the 2020’s has thrown at me. Another irritation as of this writing. If it is something, it is still another irritation. But – perhaps – i should not be so cavalier about mammograms. I owe my breast cancer surviving friends and relatives an apology for poo-poo-ing this sadistic procedure. The medical industry owes us a better way to examine breasts.

End of the story: I have a biopsy on Friday. No results until next week. I have daily plans next week that I will not renege on.

Until I know…

Read Full Post »

My Forebears Were Well Read

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 6, 2023| 2 Comments »

I dusted off the vintage books this afternoon, not to read but to, literally, dust. Spring cleaning. I can’t just dust books. I have to smell them, hold them, and gently open the covers to reveal what might be hidden inside: the claim of former ownership, the lack of a publication date or a copyright. My heart beats a little faster and I sometimes read a paragraph or two. Cleaning vintage book shelves takes more time than simply running a duster over them.

Many of them I purchased at yard or library books sales, careful to check the copyright and condition of the covers and pages. There is a significant portion of the books on that particular shelf I was dusting that are inscribed with the names or initials of my forebears. They are not only family in the sense that all good books are family, but in the sense that someone in my direct lineage once read and treasured them and oftimes someone else read and treasured them enough to save them and pass them on to me.

Most of them were handed down through the Cusick side of my family tree from my Great-grandmother Susan (Miller) Cusick and her husband, my Great-grandfather, Oscar H. Cusick. Some are treasures from one or another of the Cusick siblings: Uncles Art and Ed and my paternal Grandmother Sylvia (Cusick) Wilcox. My father’s sister’s name is in several of the books: Mary Wilcox. A few have my grandfather’s initials in them: Fred Orson Wilcox, husband of Sylvia. The books passed down by my mother are children’s books she treasured.

The collection of mini leather-bound classics belonged to Sylvia (I never knew her, therefor she is “Sylvia” to me, not “Grandma”). The yellowed pieces of paper slipped in above the volumes are the type-written index to all the books therein. I have seen other collections similar to this at antique stores but Sylvia’s is the most complete I have so far located. Shakespeare, Browning, Poe, Lincoln, Anderson, Kipling, Carroll, Dante, Dickens, Hugo, Thoreau, Tolstoy, Emerson, Dumas, and Longfellow – just a few of the featured authors in this treasure trove of literature and poetry.

Surely Sylvia was a dreamy child and prone to spending hours with her nose in a book!

I counted 21 books in the larger size. This is a smattering of the more colorful bindings. I have read Robert Service forward and back over the years. Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” is charming and dreamy. the Courtship of Miles Standish (center) is a bit worse for wear on the inside – the pages are separating from the binding.

One book had a note from my dad: “This was always one of my favorites”. Neihardt’s “Song of Hugh Glass” which many a reader will recognize as the text from which the script for the movie, “The Revenant” was taken. it’s pretty heady reading in the form of an epic poem.

I need to write here who owned which books as a record of genealogy and ancestry:

Mrs. OH Cusick (Susan Miller): Ballads of a Cheechako (Service), The Spell of the Yukon (Service), and Sartor Resartus (Carlyle), Those owned by Oscar Cusick: Courtship of Miles Standish (Longfellow), Snow-Bound (Whittier), and In Memoriam (Tennyson).

Uncle Art Cusick: Tales of a Wayside Inn (Longfellow).

Uncle Ed Cusick: Whittier’s Poems (Whittier).

Sylvia (Mrs. FO Wilcox): Romeo & Juliette (Shakespeare), She must have loved that particular play!

FO Wilcox (Gramps): The Tragedy of King Lear (Shakespeare), Emerson’s Essays (Emerson), The Vicar of Wakefield (Goldsmith), and The Song of Hugh Glass (Neihardt).

Aunt Mary Wilcox: A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream (Shakespeare).

Mary Lou (Melrose) Wilcox (Mom): Campfire Girls (Jane Stewart), Mother Goose, Pilgrim’s Party (Lowitz), and A Child’s Garden of Verses (Stevenson).

I have a lot of reading to do to catch up with the ancestors (I have, in truth, read most of the books and more than once). The love of books and the love of reading runs deep in my blood. I imagine rocking chairs, a fire in the woodstove, and flickering electric lights as the books were read in the evening. I imagine a young teenager curled up with her favorite Shakespeare tale, sitting in a front window where the sun warms her and lights the pages.

These are my priceless possessions, my books. I am never so rich as what I have books to read, and better so: my ancestors read the same works.

Read Full Post »

“Sam”

Posted in Uncategorized on March 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

My sister has been gone for 23 years. Mary Denise, aka Denny, aka Deni, aka Sam.

It was a simple decision to call her by her middle name: our mother was Mary Lou. She was named after our father’s deceased older sister, Mary. Denise Mary didn’t fit together as a first and middle name. Denise was the name our mother chose for her.

She often had teachers who couldn’t understand she was known by her middle name. I remember our mother going to the elementary school once to set a teacher right about Deni’s name. The teacher insisted on calling her “Mary” despite my sister’s pleading. Trust me, you never wanted to cross our mother. That teacher never made that mistake again.

We called her Denny. She shortened it to Deni after I shortened my first name from Jackie to Jaci.

Sam had another origin altogether.

She must have been four. I don’t think I could have been over the age of six. Our brother, Terry, would have been no older than nine. He might have a better memory of the day and our ages than I do.

We lived in a neighborhood of young families with small children. Our immediate neighbor had two adopted children, Cyndi and Jay. Cyndi was right between Deni and I. *Jay was Terry’s age. There was another family on the corner, and around the corner was the Game Warden’s family. Since Dad was the Forest Ranger, it was natural that they would be friends. (*not his real name)

The Game Warden was Mr. Coffee. He had three children: Matt, who was a couple years older than Terry. Mark, who was the same age as Terry and Jay. Crystal, the daughter who was a year older than me.

We ran together in a large pack. Our back yard or the Coffee’s backyard were hangouts for all of us. On this particular day, we were gathered in the Coffee’s backyard. Mr. Coffee decided we needed to play a pick-up game of baseball. Eight energetic little critters were eager for the game. But four boys protested loudly: “Girls can’t play baseball!”

We girls were angry and devastated, as you can well imagine. It was early in the 1960’s and the cry was valid: girls couldn’t play baseball. Right?

Mr. Coffee looked at the four of us and said, dead-pan, “I don’t see any girls here. I see Mike, George, Tommy, and Sam.” He pointed to each of us as he said our “boy names”. Crystal was Mike. I was George. Cyndi was Tommy.

And Deni was “Sam”.

She was forever “Sam”.

I rarely think of her as anything but “Sam”.

Photo was taken with a Brownie camera by a very amateur photographer (me).

For a follow-up on her nickname: https://wordpress.com/post/jacidawn.com/11078

Read Full Post »

Resin

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »

I have been experimenting with resin for the past year. Not resin pour where someone creates a beautiful table top, and not resin cast where someone pours resin into a little mold, but resin with a paint brush. Yes, a paint brush.

I mix a very small amount and then paint it onto whatever it is I want to protect (usually something relatively fragile that I have created). Sometimes I have to do one side, let it dry 24 hours, sand the mistakes off, and paint again. I find it a very satisfying way to do things and I am liking the results, for the most part.

This past week, I used resin to “finish” a piece of bisque ware that was gifted to me by a high school art class. I don’t know who the potter was (or is), only that the piece was tossed in the trash bin for some reason. It was then rescued by a friend and donated to me to paint. In the absence of a kiln, I decided to try resin. the resulting piece is not dishwasher or microwave or food safe. It’s merely a piece of art.

The potter mast have had something in mind.

Fun, but… It’s not all *mine* and maybe even a bit “ho-hum”. A display of teenage obsession with horror and vampire movies and books.

Then I decided to do something with some of my own original art, namely coating the artist’s conks I recently painted. The coating of resin brings out the color and preserved the conk (not like the conks really needed preserving: I’ve had them in storage for anywhere between 20 and 30 years and they are still just fine).

The first one is one I felt needed a stand to lift it up and give the viewer a better angle to see the item. I could have simply relied on E6000 (glue) but opted to use resin ad the binding material. A stick of wood added to the cave scene offers a little authenticity to the piece.

The second conk I know I have had for 30 years. I carved a sofa scene on it with a wood burner ages ago but recently felt it not only needed color, but something to make it appear more three dimensional. I found a resin kitten at a craft store and knew I had the ticket. This time, I glued the kitty in place before I painted the resin on. I am very pleased with the outcome.

The next four photos are of another craft I started and then abandoned. Ponderosa Pine trees are constantly shedding their bark and the pieces look like little puzzle pieces. Each piece or interlocked piece can inspire the imagination, but the bark is very fragile – even pressure from a paint brush can cause them to break. I painted five before I set the idea aside. I didn’t know how I could strengthen those tiny bits.

I discovered the pieces while I was purging my studio of unfinished projects and things I will never get around to. Hmmm. What is I could delicately paint them with resin and come up with a stronger item?

The longest one of these pieces (front and back) is 3″ (the ghost). I painted both sides of that one, but I left the Pileated woodpecker (1.5″) plain on the back. I did glue the loops on originally, but a little resin set them.

The best part is that now they can be handled without fear of them accidentally snapping in half! I still have a small box of puzzle pieces to stoke my imagination, and I can find Ponderosa pines anywhere on the east side of the Cascades, a mere 90 minute drive away from home. I’m thinking that I could make a series of whimsical pendants to sell for cheap at a pop-up market.

Read Full Post »

Get Out There

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 26, 2023| 1 Comment »

I hate that phrase but it is exactly how I am trying to shift my focus. The other phrase I hate is “Just Do It”. Like somehow you can change your life and outlook by doing something. My life changed on December 12, 2020, and I’m just trying to recover some part of me that wants to go on living.

No, I am not suicidal. But I have days when I don’t want to get out of bed. I have a lot of days when I don’t care what I look like. And days when I cannot clean the house.

I joined a Facebook group for parents who have lost adult children and I am discovering that it is not unusual to have these feelings, even when we have surviving children we love and grandchildren we adore and love. Even when we have a spouse that understands. Or a huge circle of caring friends who continue to reach out years after the event.I have all of the above but some days I just don’t know how to feel.

Backtracking a little here, many of the parents who post on the group are people who do not have a strong network to catch them. Their friendships have dissolved, they are on the verge of divorce or separation, their circle is wondering “why haven’t you gotten over it, yet?” “When will you move on?”

We can’t. We are crippled in one of the worst ways: the child we carried for nine months, nurtured, and set free to become an adult on their own has been ripped from us, suddenly, inexplicably, and painfully. A clock has been set on a mantle and the hands are stopped at the exact moment our child left us or we learned. We are broken and we are forever changed.

We are not the person we were before. That person died with the child we buried.

I suffer mild depression and severe anxiety, but I am not given to wallowing in too much self-pity. My son would not want me to. Yet, here I am, two years and several weeks later, doing just that. I am in therapy and I take a healthy dose of antidepressants. I drink too much. I have gained weight and lost interest in most of the things I have always loved. I can’t find the Creative Muse and I have tried. Oh, how I have tried.

But the muse evades me and what I create lacks the spirit and life I wish to impart into it.

Which brings me to where I am now. You already know I am in therapy. That’s new. I’m not much for spilling my heart out to a stranger much less a friend. A blog is more anonymous and doesn’t cost this introvert much anxiety. I am an introvert. I prefer my own company to almost anyone else. I reserve the right to bail on a get together for no reason. It’s an introvert thing, but it is also a sign of a highly anxious person.

The odd thing is this: I don’t mind being in large gatherings for short periods of time. I can be very social. I can manage small talk. I could even deal with the chaos that was my son’s household long before he died. Or the chaos that is my daughter’s life. they both have large families: chaos goes with numbers of children. I have no problem befriending a stranger in a public restroom (one of my very best friends became acquainted with me in a public restroom).

That particular friend has invited me to join different groups with similar interests. We did a spin with a cosplay group but both became disenfranchised by the “control” certain people held over the group. If nothing else, I hate controllers. Introvert, but highly independent. Now we are trying out a group of women who like to go camping. Just women. No rules: tent, car, RV. I’m a pro at tent and car camping as is my friend. I am a pro at dry camping and wilderness camping. I don’t need a paid spot in a government or state sanctioned campground. But the group sounded interesting so we both joined.

Jury is still out on that organization but that’s a huge move for me. Camping on my own. No husband or dogs. Meeting new people who might have similar interests. Camping as a group. I know my son would approve.

I know I need to embrace the new woman I am. I can’t continue to spend my days feeling the undertow of grief. That grief is fueled by the loss of my mother, my baby sister, my father, my son, and the loss of my youngest daughter who has had to take her own path to healing (a path does not include me). Relationships I can’t repair or replace.

I signed up for three course at The Great Courses.

I’m not going sky diving – just yet. That was a fantasy of mine when I was younger (and my bones were not fragile). Then my son usurped that dream and became one of the US Army’s elite Special Forces (Airborne). He loved jumping out of airplanes and helicopters. It damaged his knees and back, but he loved to fly in the open air with just a parachute.

I believe he wants me to jump out of the airplane and trust my parachute.

Wish me well.

Read Full Post »

Not A Resolution

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 15, 2023| 3 Comments »

One of my goals this year is to write more often. It’s not a “resolution” so much as it is a “goal”. Another goal is to finally finish those pesky projects I have tinkered at or played with over the past 20 years we have lived in this house. I also want to purge myself of unnecessary “luggage” as evidenced by the prior post to this one. I’m plowing through that last one and the second one, but I haven’t worked much on the writing bit.

I tossed out a lot of natural detritus I have collected over the years: moldy artist’s conks, interesting pieces of wood, seed pods for some fanciful future craft project, and so on. I started purging the rocks several years ago: the little pocket sized pieces of agate, obsidian, igneous rocks, metamorphic rocks, and sedimentary rocks. I moved them from inside the house and inside jars to outside and in my garden beds. I’m still clinging to the found feathers. Feathers are gifts of passage from Beyond: some ancestor or passed friend sends them to let me know I’ll be all tight in the end. I need all the reassurance I can get some days.

I kept nine artist’s conks (ganoderma applanatum). I collected all of them with the intent to use a wood burner and create fanciful scenes of elk and wild creatures. Ha! And double Ha!Ha! I put them in a drawer with all my other finds and let them harden and dry, and in some cases, mold. So my number one project after going through my art supplies was to put those conks to use. I ruined the first two. Recycle.

I finished five. One is still sitting there as I lack an idea of what to paint or carve on it. Please, not another sappy painting of a seven-point bull elk whistling in the rut. I’m done with that sort of painting.

I learned that I am not particularly gifted at painting or carving conks. Ones I find in the wild from now on will be safe from my prying hands.

The ones I “finished” still need to be sanded with the Dremel tool and sealed with a good sealer before attaching a way to hang them on the wall. At least one of them is so “YUCK” to me that I almost discarded it but I remembered that I am not the judge of what people will buy. Someone may actually pay $5 for it and hang it on their wall for a few years before discarding it. So I kept it. Ever the entrepreneur.

The sloth is my least favorite. It’s only six inches tall.

The owl is four and a half inches tall. It is also not my favorite but it will pass muster.

I went with a stain that was on the conk that reminded me of two sleeping bears with this one. It’s 3×2″. I actually was beginning to like painting on the conks with this one.

The sitting bear took me a lot longer to visualize. There was a “face” in the conk, and a bulge below the face that indicated a fat animal. I finally settled on a fat Brown Bear.settling in for a long hibernation. 4×3″ and I’m starting to feel it a little.

I’m going to confess that I like the sea turtle. 4.5×3″. Very “folk art” in design and paint (I blame my “essential tremor” for the messed up spots – some things we have no control over).

I shut down my art webpage last year and I lost access to my Facebook business page so until I figure that out (another headache), these are only available locally and only after I finish them. Or you can comment with your email address and we can have a conversation if you are interested in any of them.

The last one may become a Celtic design. I don’t know. It’s not inspiring me.

So that’s my on-resolution in progress: a new post, a little art, and a lot of purging.

Read Full Post »

Purging 2023

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 13, 2023| Leave a Comment »

I just spent the past few days going through my studio piece by piece, drawer by drawer. I have tossed pieces of Nature that I saved to “do something with” but never seemed to find the time. I tossed old polymer clay because I once fell under the spell of “more color is better and you can easily create things from…” It happened, but not with the molds I bought and not with all the pretty colors. All I need id white and flesh colored clay. I purged supplies for making faerie houses that I will possibly never make. I can’t even remember everything I purged.

I placed all the items in boxes or hauled them out to the trash or recycle bin. I gritted my teeth and asked myself: “When will I finish this project or actually start this project?” When the answer was “pretty much never” I gave it a toss.

There were other things I gave up as well. Mementos from a former version of me. I am incredibly sentimental. I did not choose to destroy my childhood stuffed animals, for instance. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, those two relics of my childhood still lead mysterious lives after dark. I suspect they will die when I die and the memories are gone. Maybe there will be a day when I can turn loose of them and not worry that they will lay in a garbage heap like the Rabbit and wonder why they were discarded. I would like to spare them that.

I cleaned the wall in front of my desk. It was cluttered. Busy. Unproductive. Sentimental.

My grandmother gifted two of the above items to me. The little “Jackie USED OF GOD” plaque and the November découpage. No one- besides me – will remember that Gramma M gave those to me, Or understand the significance of my relationship with her. She maintained a strong relationship with most of her grandchildren. I really don’t need to keep those forever and burden my child with disposing of them after my death. Gramma is long gone.

I earned the little plastic plaque on the left when I memorized the 23rd Psalm in Methodist Sunday School. I lent it to my sister for a good many years but after her death in 2000, it returned to me. My faith has led me down a different path in the past two years. I still believe in the power of prayer, but I have been unable to pray for months. And I survived those many years when it was in my sister’s possession, so why do I need it now?

I took photos so I could remember those things. Remember they were mine and how I came by them. But their time of service to me is past. It’s time to bury some things.

I have cried. I have mourned that which will never be. I have mourned that which once was but will never be again.

But I still have my stuffed animals to comfort me. For now.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »