Still Life

This rare (of course!) neurological thing lets me walk and sit just fine but my legs tremor when standing and they demand I lean on something or sit down. At last I know why hour-long exercise classes wore me out, why I leaned on walls at parties. Mom had a more common and disabling tremor; fortunately she didn't live to see mine. I can stand for a while, more with a cane, but then the legs tremble and I widen my stance (this is called "the Frankenstance"), and widen and widen until I either have to start walking or sit down. I carry the cane to show folks I'm not drunk. It does not hurt, nor is it fatal. Neurologist (my first ever! He's really nice!) can only give stupefying anti-seizure drugs. There is almost no research because no public figure has anything resembling this except Germany's former chancellor Angela Merkel.

Well, I never wanted to stand in lines anyway. So I carry a collapsible stool or wheel a handsome, top-of-the-line  folding rollator (a rolling walker with built-in seat) that I have named The Bolt, or carry a featherweight aluminum folding chair I took fishing. On hikes and mushroom hunts I can sit and rest and then keep going. It was news to me, but the act of standing takes big bandwidth in the brain, and one tires easily.

There are some benefits. People are helpful and kind. If I must seat myself at the hardware store while discussing what wrench I need, the clerk will squat so we're face to face. When I unfold the portable stool in the checkout lane people ask why didn't they think of that, or where did I get it because they need one too, and they tell me why. And in the woods today while sitting for a minute I saw a perfect little still life of oak leaves and the side of the acorn cap that looks like the iris of an eye, and one tiny hopeful green February shoot.

Another doctor prescribed physical therapy, and the exercises increased my strength, balance, and standing time. Exercise holds this thing at bay. If it thinks I am an easy mark, it's mistaken.

Glorious October

We've had a fabulous first 15 days of October. Unfortunately I haven't been able to enjoy much of it because of flu (get your shots!). But for the 14th year now, I'm still living in the most beautiful place I've ever been. And can still see October's beauty even if I'm not outside in it.

When Sick

Feeling bizarre, dizzy, and tired: three-hour naps in late morning and then in late afternoon. Headache and chills became malaise with no fever. Today's Day 7. My blood pressure's up (I can feel it) as the body struggles, and I cough myself awake. No, I hadn't had my flu shot. Intended to and want to: I won't tolerate this again. My old job would have fired me; you can't be sick more than 3 days without a doctor's note.

Microwave cabbage risotto

I have twice been out driving. Parked in the lot of the grocery store housing my pharmacy, I lay down in the back seat exhausted from the 10-minute drive, and dialed the number on my insurance card. Yes, the guy said, insurance would pay for my flu shot there. I went in. The pharmacist phoned the same number, which denied me the insurance. I should go to Walmart or Target instead. I went home.

Because I'd missed two martial arts classes and had no number to call, at the community center I stood far away and told the black belt instructor I had not quit, it was flu, and she cheerfully said, "Everyone has it. I'm the only one not sick." "Did you get the flu shot?" I asked. "No," she said cheerfully, as I struggled to stay upright and talk at the same time. So I know I got it in a place frequented by lots of school kids. Vaccination might not have helped anyway.

I set myself a goal of doing one thing a day. Yesterday I changed the light bulb above the door. The day before that I refilled the poison in the outdoor mousetraps. They work very well.

I'm missing some lovely fall weather. There are benefits, however, having to do with food. I'd bought meat loaf mix the day before collapsing and had to cook it or toss it. Could not guarantee I'd be awake or mobile to take it from the oven in an hour. As a last resort, consulted microwave cookbook. In 12 minutes, in a glass loaf pan, perfect meatloaf. I took it in spoonfuls when I had appetite. I'd also bought cabbage. Same cookbook had recipe for cream of cabbage soup. Delicious. Yesterday used the remaining cabbage in the microwave "Cabbage Risotto" recipe. I had the required onion and an ancient box of arborio rice and a dried-out hunk of Parmesan. Followed instructions. This I actually wanted to put on a plate; it was fit for a king. I also ate the pizza a friend brought, piece by piece. Today I have two goals: write this and take out the trash bag. I must be getting well, although I thought that on Wednesday, too.

It's Already Happened

My heart was squeezed dry like an orange today by news from a friend about her daughter's MRI and biopsy; the daughter's got holes in her bones; they can only wait for the test results, available Thursday; she told me, "Pray" and "You know what this is like."

I sure do.

A friend has a leaky heart valve that's leaked for a while and now it's time for open-heart surgery and repairs; his wife got skin cancer on her eyelid; her father committed suicide two years ago at age 94. They do not deserve this. Another friend sleeps in her clothes in case her husband has another heart attack and she has to take him to the hospital; about every three weeks there's a false alarm. Another friend died because her lungs hardened. It was genetic; there was nothing anyone could do.

I am grateful for the things that have already happened to me. I used to lie awake terrified of cancer, poverty, bereavement, job loss, debt, aging. These things happened and continue to happen; my only advantage is in having no children to lose. I am glad to have some first-timer's agonies over and done with. Having made it to the other shore, I can try to hold out a hand or a light to maybe help someone else across, or just stand there to let it be known it can be done.

Adult Onset

1. Prolonged and violent sneezing in the mornings for about an hour, beginning mid-to-late February.
2. Sensation as if a small Sputnik satellite was lodged in one nostril.
3. Same nostril constantly running.
4. Cloth handkerchiefs all washed, ironed, and strategically placed throughout the house, and in pockets, purse and car, because paper tissues for this purpose are too expensive and impractical.
5. Itchy eyes, and a belief lasting about two days that it's merely my powder eyeshadow.
6. Chills.
7. Sweats.
8. Utter exhaustion in midafternoon.
9. Nose blown until it's red.
10. Coughing up what feels like car parts, lasting most of March.
11. If I'm too cocky or luck is bad, bedridden for two or three weeks with crippling flulike sensation of having been beaten up with a baseball bat, with inability to eat anything but Rice Chex with rice milk, and me to miss Mardi Gras and the first few Lenten fish fries and all the rest of life, followed by three weeks of coughing up car parts and all my own bones.

Measures taken:

1. On or around February 18, begin daily dose of Loratidine (generic form of Claritin), taken at night to minimize violent morning sneezing; continue through November. They say if you take it before the season "really" begins you can squelch your histamines before they act up. [Note, from the above Weather Channel Chart, that measurable airborne allergens began floating up our noses on January 27.]
2. At first sign of hayfever take heaping tablespoons of locally-farmed honey, straight from the spoon: one tablespoon each day for seven days. (This seems to reduce symptoms by about 20 percent.)
3. Wash bedding; vacuum carpets.
4. Wear paper mask outside.
5. Monitor pollen forecasts and numbers.
6. Shower and shampoo after time outdoors.
7. Consume Cold-Eez zinc cold-prevention tablets.
8. Close doors and windows.
9. Start portable air filters.
10. Hot compresses on swollen sinuses.
11. Garlic broth.
12. Early bedtime and late rising.
13. At the Black Madonna of Czestochowa Shrine, dunk my whole head in its miraculous spring  and breathe its water up through my nose. This plus prayer eased symptoms for about four days.

The White Carnation Story

I've been shy about it for four years, but now I'll tell you I'm a cancer survivor who was cured but must visit the cancer center quarterly to get checked up on. It's a lovely building but the waiting room is soccer-field size and always jam-packed with cancer patients, all kinds, all stages (except kids) and their families. Our number always appalls me. In the elevator there I have been surprised to meet friends who were coming or going. In the waiting area a nurse rings a brass bell when somebody goes into remission, and we all applaud and cheer.

But the hundreds of people, just the number, depresses and grieves me, and it's not a happy place, and I'm always alone when most people aren't, and the water cooler is always empty, and although I like the staff (they saved my life) I dread going there. Did you know there's a national magazine just for cancer patients? They've got lots of copies in case you want to take one home (I don't).

My appointment was March 14. There was no room for me to sit. I was standing with my back to a wall when a group of very young women came in, all giggling and whatnot. They were college girls. "We're such-and-such sorority," one of them said, and they shouldered through the crowd handing everyone a white carnation. I got one too.

Very surprised, I said, "Thanks.  Do you want a donation, a dollar for your club or something?"

"Oh no," said the girl. "We're just handing out flowers."

"Why?" I asked, because this had never happened before.

"To cheer you up," she said.

I had to turn away because I about burst into tears right there.

Carefully I brought the carnation home and although its edges are brown now I keep it because it reminds me: No kindness is ever wasted. As Scouts we had to go sing Christmas carols in nursing homes, and in school collect for clothing drives, and in college serve at soup kitchens, and do things for other people not so fortunate as we. I used to think it was useless and embarrassing, and that sending cards or visiting was tedious, and couldn't see the point of calling to say hi, and very often I have thought my kindness and good intentions wasted, that I had cheated myself, that nothing had been achieved. I bet those sorority girls thought "Now this is such a stupid idea. I'm soooo embarrassed. This can't help anybody." Now that I'm on the other side, I see: Oh no; none of that is true at all.