Jump Into July: Love My Body Project

While at the beach this weekend, I asked my husband to take some "pretty pictures" of me in my sundress because I was feeling cute and the sunrise was doing great things to my skin. I told him to take a picture of me that *I* would like, so get those angles right, buddy!

Here's what I got. 

Waveland, MS, June 2020

After seeing this and a dozen other photos that looked roughly the same, I couldn't believe how ugly I looked. I asked for a PRETTY picture, man! His response was that these pictures were gorgeous and he loved this and that about them. All I could see was my fat arms, my protruding belly, my chubby cheeks, my flabby shoulders and my saggy boobs. What on earth was HE seeing? The pink clouds and the calm ocean in the background?

I've had a lifelong problem with my body image. (Surprise! I must be the only human on earth with this issue, right?) I've also had a lifelong issue with food. (Again, 100 points to me for being so unique, right?) I am either starving myself for days on end or gorging myself with goodies. Sometimes I eat healthy and sometimes (most times) I eat garbage. But delicious, tasty, mood-satisfying garbage!

Then I stare at my naked body in the mirror and loathe what I see. My husband can come behind me and see something totally opposite from what I see, and sometimes I believe him, sometimes I don't. I tell him he's biased. I tell him he's looking at me with rose-colored glasses because he loves me. Sometimes I can tell by the hunger in his eyes that he really DOES think I'm a legit snack, but honestly, what is wrong with his eyeballs?

More importantly - what is wrong with ME?

Why am I so obsessed with thinness? Why do I still, after all these years, have this belief that I'm supposed to be bone-thin and stretch-mark free to be beautiful? Indeed, there are beautiful women who are bone-thin and stretch-mark free. But there are also beautiful woman who are full-bodied and soft all around. In fact, I myself am really attracted to women with those sexy curves, just as much as to women who could model for Vogue. If I can see the beauty of others in a variety of bodies, why am I so mean to myself?

Let me also say for the record, that I'm not fishing for compliments here. I'm also not knocking any other body types. There will be people thinner than me that I don't want to insult and there will be people bigger than me that I don't want to insult. I genuinely look at other people and think how beautiful they all are, in every shape and size. I see beauty in so many other bodies. I just can't seem to apply the same principles to my own body. Again, I'm not unique in this; I'm willing to bet 90% or more of you readers (all 6 of you!) have the same issue. Please don't get mad at me if you are bigger or smaller than me for anything I say. Body image is such a sticky subject. It's hard to hit the right tone! I'm just speaking from my own perspective.

A few years ago, I started the Love My Body Project. Along with some very practical disciplines like getting more exercise and eating better, every day I would stand in front of the mirror and tell myself  "I am beautiful." I'd find some feature to praise, however small. And I'd repeat it over and over until I believed it. 

This year has been, well, it's been 2020. What else can I say? I've been working from home for three and a half months. I started out wearing work clothes to keep myself in work mode but soon resorted to jeans and t-shirts. If I have a video conference, I might where a nicer shirt. Today, as I prepare for a day-long virtual meeting, I've put on a dressy blouse paired with shorts. Who's going to see my lower half anyway? 

And makeup? What's makeup? Hair? Why, a dirty bun looks fine through a pixelated screen.

Plus, this working five steps from the kitchen hasn't been good either. I have LEGITIMATELY gained the COVID 15. Like, I weigh exactly 15 lbs more than I did in March when I left the office for the last time. When we do return to office life, I am afraid none of my work clothes will fit anymore. I've been reticent to try them on because the longer I don't know, the longer I can keep eating Spaghettios With Meatballs (mmm) for lunch without guilt. 

So here's where I'm going with all of this.

It's time to kickstart the Love My Body Project again. It's time to take some practical steps to care for the body I'm in but also to love the body I'm in. I'm starting with a small goal of waking up early enough every day this week to walk at least a mile. Maybe I'll even run! But baby steps. Along with that goal, I would like to watch what I eat. I'm still working on what a food plan would look like, but the baby step is being more aware and deliberate about what and when I eat. The third part of that goal is to look at myself every day in the mirror and say "I am beautiful." And repeat it over and over. Not "my husband thinks I'm beautiful" or "my mom thinks I'm beautiful" but "I AM beautiful." 

And in typical Lori fashion, every project I start has to have a name, so the Love My Body Project is just one step in my Jump Into July Project which also includes working on my financial health and my mental health, which I'll dive further into in the next couple of days.

(Getting back into writing, by the way, is part of my mental health improvement. I have missed writing so, so much.)

To kickstart July (though it's technically still June), I woke up this morning and took a walk. I walked 1.8 miles while listening to an audiobook. Granted, when I got home, I was really hungry and did NOT think deliberately before heating up a slice of leftover pizza for my breakfast. Baby steps, y'all! I'll do better at lunch. 

Or maybe since it's still June, I'll finish off that last can of Spaghettios so it's not tempting me tomorrow on July 1st. 

DON'T JUDGE.

The Awesome Stuff I've Done So Far in 2017: Part 1

Since January, my life has pretty much been doing somersaults all the way through the calendar. (How is it August already?) It's been the rockiest year of my life, but in amongst my marriage ending, my job role change and the transition into single motherhood, I've also done a couple of pretty awesome things. I just never got around to blogging about them. So tonight, I bring you The Awesome Stuff I've Done So Far in 2017: Part 1. In the next couple of days I'll bring you Part 2.

Part 1: The Little Rock Half Marathon

Many years ago while working at the High School of Glasgow, I decided I was going to start running, because why not? My coworker Carol and I started running during our lunch breaks. We'd change into workout clothes and run a few miles around the block - or rather, Carol ran a few miles, I ran a few feet, panted heavily, walked a few miles, then ran a few feet again. (Once, we somehow managed to get lost running around the block and were almost an hour late getting back to work. To this day, I'm not sure how that happened.) That eventually tapered off though, perhaps when I got pregnant with Fifi. I can't remember exactly. I only know that it was many years later before I got the notion to run again. This time Jen from church and I decided we were going to train for a 10k. We started out strong, running around Battery Park a couple nights a week. Until the first night it was cold and rainy. And here I'm going to go ahead and make the assumption that this means we only actually ran around Battery Park two or three times tops before encountering a cold and rainy night ... because Scotland.

That was the extent of my running career.

Then last year, my dad, whose enthusiasm for running and cycling is somehow oddly contagious, persuaded me to sign up to run the Little Rock half marathon with him. In fact, it was about this time last year. I figured I had more than enough time to train, so sure, why not? I mentioned it to another friend of mine, and she agreed to register too. Feeling motivated, Elizabeth and I started running together. But not for long. Winter came, and I didn't want to run outside. I ran on the treadmill at the gym, but I didn't do much else in the way of training.

Then Scott and I split up, and training for a half marathon was the furthest thing from my mind.

I had gotten to the point where I could just about do 5 miles before wiping out, so when March came along, I had thoroughly decided against running the race. Elizabeth's training hadn't come along much better; I think she could manage about 6 miles. So the week the runners were supposed to pick up their race packets, Elizabeth and I decided we weren't going to run after all. But since we'd already paid for the t-shirt ... well, we could at least go pick up the packets.

On Thursday, Elizabeth texted me to say she was going to go ahead and do the half marathon after all. She used some fancy mathematics to show that we could totally complete the race within the 4 hour time frame, and, well, math not being my strong suit, she convinced me to go for it too. So on Friday we picked up our packets and on Sunday, having not run in months, I found myself at the starting line of a 13.1 mile race. In the rain.

We started off great. The excitement and the adrenaline kept us going for the first few miles with no worries at all. We paced ourselves well. We cheered when we passed mile markers. We walked some and ran some. (We made sure we were running every time we passed a race photographer.) The rain wasn't going to spoil this for us.

5 miles in, I felt great. 8 miles in we were still going strong. 10 miles in we were still in this thing, though getting tired. Then suddenly ... I felt it. The next 2 miles were tough. My feet were soaked and blisters were forming. I was getting exhausted, but mostly it was my feet. Then that last mile was torture. My feet were killing me. We were really watching our time by then, coming close to the 4 hour cut off. We knew we could make it if we could just keep up the pace, but my feet!

We turned the last corner and could see the finish line about 4 blocks away. Elizabeth and I looked at each other. We had time. We could do this. Let's do this! Determined to run, not walk, across the finish line, we picked up our pace about 2 blocks away and just went for it. We weaved in and out through the walkers in front of us, like we'd been running all along, and with 15 minutes to spare*, we crossed the finish line.

During mile 13, we walked with a man who had been doing the LR half marathon for something like 15 years with his friends. He said the feeling of crossing the finish line is like no other and don't be surprised if you cry.

Yeah, right, why would I cry? But sure enough, as I crossed that finish line, the emotions welled up in me, and my eyes started to tear up. The past three months had been worst of my life. My marriage was a failure, I was barely holding it together as a single mother, and most days the best I could do was pull myself out of bed to show up for work on time. I was so depressed, and all I wanted to do was drive my car off the side of bridge and put an end to it all.

Yet there I was, finishing a half marathon. I have never in my life felt stronger. There is no describing the feeling. It was one of the most empowering moments I've ever experienced.

I'm tearing up right now just remembering it.

Aaaaand then the adrenaline wore off and OH MY GOD, MY FEET.

Elizabeth and I limped to the runners' area where I scarfed down a banana, an applesauce and the best tasting pasta of my entire life. The thought of walking back to the car was unbearable, and the walk actually was unbearable. I drove home, took a hot bath, and napped for several hours, waking up stiff as a board and unable to move from the neck down.

But it was so unbelievably worth it.

So worth it, that I'm signing up again for next year. This time though, I think I'll train first.



*For those who may wonder: The timer in the first picture makes it look like we came in only 6 minutes under time. That was the official clock. I was 20,000-odd people behind the first runners, so my time didn't start until I crossed the starting line.  

I Am An Empath; And No, I Don't Believe In That

I'm not a spiritual person. I don't believe in the supernatural, the paranormal, the other-worldly. I don't believe in auras or Karma or energies. I don't believe in angels or spirits or demons. I believe in a tangible world with a earthbound history and cosmic origins. I believe we came from stardust and to stardust we'll return.

But.

I like to wonder. I like to imagine. I enjoy being swept up in fantasy and being whisked away by magical moments. So when I talk about star signs, I don't believe that when the Sun reaches the northern vernal equinox, the babies born are all frank, fierce and fiery. But I enjoy reveling in being an Aries and fitting that description. I enjoy finding out what others' star signs are and seeing how they fit with their own astrological characteristics.

I don't believe (in a religious sense) in astrology, but I believe (in a fantastical sense) in astrology.

Similarly, I don't believe that any of us are actually connected spiritually by energies or in some spiritual realm. But I do believe (in the Disney magic sort of way) that we are somehow connected. It's a contradiction that makes no sense, but it makes sense to me.

A year or so ago, I came across the concept of an "empath". I love the dictionary definition of an empath:

(chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual

I've already stated I don't believe in the paranormal. We evolved from who knows what and somewhere along the way developed sentience. Very cool. But not other-worldly.

However. 

In this magical mystical mind of mine, I can't help but be drawn to this concept. I have and give no evidence that a person can be an empath, but I can float away outside my skeptic's brain and call myself an empath with only a smidgen of sarcasm.

I feel things so deeply. I sense the feelings of those around me, and their feelings impact my feelings. No, more than impact. They intrude. I'd even go so far as to say the feelings of those not near me, but somehow connected to me, intrude upon my own feelings. The emotions of others influence me so greatly that often I have no room for my own feelings. And this leads to a constant state of emotion overload.

I have to state this again. Fellow skeptics, I know. It's irrational. It's unprovable. It is not based on scientific fact. But I'm living in my version of a spiritual world, so give me my mystical moment.

I have always felt this intensity of emotion. I have been told since I was a child "You're soooo sensitive." Everything in my life causes immense pleasure or pain. I don't live anywhere in the middle. To the point I've wondered if I have a psychiatric illness.

I'd rather believe I'm an empath.

I can tell when someone is hiding something, no matter how well they hide it. I can sense an unease in a room just by walking in, even if there is no obvious tension. Without even trying, I find myself leveling with others emotionally to get on their wavelength and understand what they are feeling. 

(And the Aries in me? Makes me want to drive in like a bull - or perhaps a ram? - and call it out for what it is. And the empath in me reminds me that no one wants me to do that, and I need to be sensitive to the feelings of others. And then my impulsiveness usually ends up calling the shots.)

I'd be a terrible judge, because I can understand just about any misdeed of any miscreant, if I just get a moment to spend with them. I am too empathetic sometimes, to the point that I let people abuse me, because I'm too busy thinking about what it feels like to be in their shoes. I forget that I'm actually currently in my own shoes and have my own feelings as well. Then when my own feelings bubble to the surface after having experienced the feelings of someone else for so long, I look at myself and wonder how I can be so stupid, so spineless, so infantile, as to be caught in a situation where I let myself be treated that way. I think how naive I am, how weak and pathetic.

Or conversely, I'll realize that I am a GREAT person, a BEAUTIFUL person, a HAPPY person, and I'll wonder why I ever let myself ever be dragged down by the negativity of another! I prefer when that happens. I also prefer when those around me influence me positively and give my feelings a shot of espresso, boosting me to the sky. That's when I experience such intense love and pleasure that I feel like a hot air balloon floating among the clouds.

I wish I could turn this emotional susceptibility off like a spigot or turn down the volume of all the emotions around me and just tune into my own for a while. Every now and then I can, but never for long. I am constantly overwhelmed by the three varying emotional landscapes of my children, those of my coworkers, those of my friends and even sometimes those of acquaintances or strangers who come into my "force field". (I'm using science fiction terms now, because yes, I know.) 

So okay. There is likely a scientific, rational reason for why I am influenced by others so easily. I'm just more situationally aware? Empathy is a real thing, sure. I'm just overly empathetic. Whatever.

What it doesn't change is how overwhelming and exhausting it is to be in my body.

These past few months have been the most emotionally intense months of my life, short of my deconversion. Two new jobs in seven months, both with a humanitarian organization that responds daily to human suffering, and a divorce ending my 12-year marriage in the midst of it. My ups have been UP and my downs have been DOWN. Those are just my own feelings by themselves, let alone the impact, influence, intrusion of all the others around me. My body is physically worn out by the barrage of feelings during this past half-a-year.

I'm sure that's scientific too. Body and mind are daily being proven to be significantly linked, right?

But for the empath (or highly sensitive person or intuitive or whatever quirky woo name you want to give us), there is no mere link. Every bit of mind and body are inextricably the same thing. They're called feelings, because of how much we feel them.

Why am I writing this? 

Because:

1) Writing (and talking) it out is the only way I know how to rid my body of this intensity of feelings.

2) I revel in the contradiction of what I believe and what I believe.

Why do I hesitate to write this? 

Because:

1) I know other skeptics will scoff at me and tell me this is stupid, and everyone feels this way. (But do they? Do they?)

2) Because it's stupid and self-absorbed and utter nonsense.

But you know what? I feel lighter now, the things that have been weighing me down don't feel so heavy after writing about how overwhelming it's been. You know what writing feels like to me?

What praying used to feel like.

And my penchant for praying to the Universe as an atheist like I used to pray to God as a Christian will be the topic of a future post involving my rational vs. irrational mind.

Half Out of My Mind

A couple of weeks ago I did something kind of stupid. It was one of those things where someone talks you into doing something you know deep down is a stupid thing to do, but the person makes it sound so fun that you buy into the enthusiasm of the moment and just go for it. No thought, no consequences, JUST DO IT like Nike.

A younger me got caught up in these situations often, like throwing fireworks into the church campgrounds in Kilmacolm or mooning the security cameras in Yocum Hall or rolling the Anschutz' house even though Mr Anschutz was rumored to be the dad who would run you off his lawn pointing his rifle at you. It all seemed like a really good idea at the time.

This time, however, it wasn't my rambunctious friends convincing me to make wild, spontaneous, devil-may-care decisions. No, this time it was my dad.

I blame it all on him. As a kid, I desperately wanted his approval. As a teenager - well, we'll skip those years. As a college student, I wanted him to be proud of me. As an adult, I still can't shake the childish need to impress him. Maybe that's why I let him peer pressure me into this.

In his defense, I did start the conversation. It's been on my bucket list to run a race before I turn 35. My dad's a runner and a cyclist and has been nudging me to do a race with him for a couple of years. I brought the subject up, suggesting I might register for a 10k at some point.  But when he converted that to a number I could understand, and I realized that was only 6.2 miles, that just wasn't really any kind of a challenge. It would be too easy. I figured I could just about manage that now with zero training. So I let him talk up how great the Little Rock Half Marathon is, how great the trail is, how it's a perfect time of year to run. His enthusiasm began to rub off on me, and I began to think, "I can do this!"

And that's how he convinced me to sign up for a half marathon.

Half. Marathon. 13.1 miles.

What was I thinking?! I signed up to run a half marathon. I am not a runner! I do not enjoy running. I do not like to run. Why would I agree to run a half marathon?!

But I did. I signed up to run the race with my dad. I paid the registration fee. I ordered one of those water bottle packs that go around your waist and an armband thingie for my phone. I'm ready to go! Let's do this! I thought.

Until the next morning, when it dawned on me. I just paid money to put myself through utter, intense misery. 

I decided to ignore the nagging feeling that I'd gotten conned into doing something very stupid. I managed to ignore what I'd done until my dad texted me earlier this week to ask how my training was going. My response: ellipses. Training? Ha! The very thought of going for a run made me want to eat a donut and take a long nap on the couch with episodes of Gilmore Girls running in the background.

But the shaming worked. (Well played, Dad.) Dad's text, along with a little additional motivational shaming from my husband, pushed me to take the next step towards checking this item off my bucket list: begin training.

I decided tonight's the night. Wednesdays and Thursdays and one day on the weekend will be my training days. Tonight, after a 9 hour day at work, I came home, made a shepherd's pie from scratch (and by "shepherd", I just mean "cowherd" because beef is cheaper than lamb), helped the kids get into bed, and then I took off to the gym with my water bottle and Hamilton the Musical on my phone. My goal was to do four miles - whether I ran or walked, it didn't matter. Four miles.

I admit I did try to change my goal last minute ("How about four miles OR an hour, whichever comes first?"), but Scott gave me that shaming look again. Okay, fine. Four miles.

I got to the gym and started the treadmill. I almost chose one of the "performance" settings but rationalized that this being my first return to the gym after about two months, I'd better take it easy. I set a decent, cool pace and a flat trail and started jogging along to the genius rhymes of Lin-Manuel's account of our country's first Treasury Secretary.

I did my first mile in 15 minutes and five seconds. My second mile was complete before the 15 minute mark. Hey, I can do this! Two miles in under 30 minutes!

My third mile came in just over 15 minutes. But I was exhausted. My legs were burning. My lungs were aching. My stomach was threatening to hand me back my cowherd's pie. I slowed down but kept going. Four miles! I can do this! Almost there!

The last mile was painful, but I pushed through. If I'm honest, my secret goal was really to finish four miles in one hour. But as the hour ticked down to five minutes remaining, I knew I was unlikely to meet that goal. I picked up my pace, hoping to outrun the clock, but it was too much. I pulled my fourth mile in at 2 minutes and 10 seconds over an hour. I have never been so grateful for the cool down function on the treadmill in my life.

However, as I leaned over the handlebars gasping for breath and trying not to pass out in front of the hot, muscly guy running next to me, I realized that I just run almost a quarter of a half marathon. On my first night of training for a race that is still five months away. I can do this. I can do this!

#GymSelfie! Start of run - End of run ...

So at the end of the day, I still think I'd have preferred Dad talking me into going cow-tipping over running a half marathon, but maybe, just maybe, this will be okay too.

You better be proud of me when I cross that finish line, old man!

A Little Less Wise

Kitty cat healing therapy

September has sure gotten off to an interesting start. 

A couple of weeks ago, one of my wisdom teeth, which has been impacted for a while but not causing me any pain, starting hurting. Within days, the pain grew exponentially, and I knew it was time to get it taken out.

I arranged a consultation with the oral surgeon for Wednesday, August 31st.  They had me booked in for the extraction of all three wisdom teeth (I only have three), all of which needed to come out, for Friday, September 2nd. Thus began my Labor Day weekend.

Despite being extremely nervous about the procedure, all went well. I was put under general anesthetic and sent home after I awoke. I spent all day Friday dozing in and out on the armchair downstairs, watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix, with an ice pack wrapped around my head and bottles of tablets for pain and nausea. It was fun.  Thankfully, my dear friend Eugenie took all three of our kids from Friday after school until Sunday morning, which was the biggest favor I could have ever asked for! I was way too out of it to even really notice if the kids were there or not. I was in a Percocet stupor for two whole days.

Face packs are so hot right now.

However, by Saturday night, even though I was still away with the fairies and still in a fair bit of pain, I got picked up by a friend to go to book club. I simply did not want to miss book club. I slept on the couch most of the night surrounded by friends, and again, even though I felt pretty crappy, I couldn't have felt crappier in a better place than surrounded by people I love!

The kids came home Sunday, and I spent most of the day in bed.  I watched more Gilmore Girls last night and went to bed around 11 pm, hoping my pain meds from 8 would last me through the night.

Instead I woke up at 2:30 (appropriate) to more pain and had to redose. I've been in and out of consciousness and pain all day today (Monday). I'm concerned about my lower right side extraction might have developed a dry socket. I plan on calling the dentist in the morning if the pain there still hasn't subsided, which it seems to have little chance of doing at this point. Owwww.

What a fun way to spend Labor Day weekend, huh?!

Besides that, it kind of messed with my September Shopping Challenge. On the first day of September, I had to go back out to the grocery store to stock up on soft foods to get me through the first few days. (I've been living on mashed potatoes, ice cream and Campbell's soup all weekend.) Not to mention the walloping copay I had to pay to get the procedure done in the first place. It's probably a good thing I'm doing the shopping challenge after having to dish out that huge chunk of change unexpectedly!

A healthy diet of soft foods

So here I am, three teeth lighter and a little less wise.  And still in somewhat of a pain med fairyland. I just put a banana loaf in the oven, and I can't guarantee all the ingredients were applied in the correct proportions.

Being A Human Being: The Right to Health Care

Bernie Sanders: "I happen to believe, and I know not everybody agrees with me, I believe that health care is a right of all people..."
Bret Baier: "Where did that right come from, in your mind?"
Sanders: "Being a human being. Being a human being." - Democratic Town Hall, Fox News, Mar. 7, 2016


I've said it before: health care is one of my biggest hot button political issues and has been for several years now. The above quote came from tonight's Democratic Town Hall in Detroit, MI, and it could not speak more clearly to my beliefs about a person's right to receive health care.

I spent most of my adult life in the United Kingdom under the National Health Service (NHS), a single payer health care system which pays for its services through taxes. I have personally experienced the good and the bad.

Here's an example of the bad, starting with a comparison of the good in the US.

When I was twenty-two, still living in the US just months before getting married and moving to the UK, a lump was found in my breast at a routine annual visit. The OBGYN at the college health center where I had the exam was concerned and scheduled an appointment for me the following week with a specialist. The following week, I saw the specialist who did his own exam and some scans. The scans showed two lumps which seriously concerned him. He said the size of one of these lumps was so large that he "wouldn't leave that inside anyone." He scheduled me the next day for a lumpectomy. Thankfully, after biopsying the lumps post-surgery, they were all benign, but he recommended that I get regular mammograms despite my young age because of the risk my body apparently posed.  This was in the United States.

In stark comparison, when I moved to Scotland later that year, I explained to my new GP my breast situation, and he flat out refused to schedule me for any mammograms ever because I was too young. He even refused to have a nurse perform a physical exam, because it wasn't time for my yearly.

This example shows either an insensitive health care professional (which are everywhere) in comparison to a thorough and careful one (which are everywhere), or it shows good health care versus bad.

Now let me say this. I lived in the UK and enjoyed the advantages of the NHS for nine years. There is only a small handful of negative experiences I can recount, none of which were life-threatening in any way. In fact, they all land in the range of annoying or aggravating. The rest of my experiences go something like this:

• I had three pregnancies and three live births that went remarkably well.  I had routine ultrasounds at 12 weeks and 20 weeks.  With my first, the routine 20 week scan showed possible placenta previa. This triggered more scans, eventually confirming placenta previa and requiring a c-section. The c-section was performed perfectly and safely, resulting in a healthy baby and mother.  My second birth, a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), required monitors, provalactic antibiotics, and some anesthesia, and resulted in a healthy birth. The final one was a fully planned home-birth (provided by the NHS with licensed midwives) which unfortunately resulted in an ambulance to the hospital due to meconium in my waters but also ended with a live, healthy birth (and I was even allowed to birth him drug-free and naturally, as I'd planned).
• My son was born with a dilated kidney, which had been closely monitored all through pregnancy via ultrasounds. Dilated kidneys, especially post birth, often indicate kidney malfunction. This involved many visits to the hospital for scans and visits with the pediatrician for six months until his kidneys were deemed normal and fully functioning. 
• My daughter had orthopedic issues. This involved regular visits to the child podiatrist for check-ups and non-surgical modifications. She eventually outgrew this issue.  This same daughter got her finger severed in a slammed in a door, requiring immediate emergency attention, surgery, and a short hospital stay.

These are just examples of the medical issues I'm willing to share publicly. This does not touch on all of them. Here's the thing: despite the rhetoric that state-funded health care is sub par and discriminates against the elderly and takes years to be treated, this is not the experience of most people. Yes, you will find horror stories. I know people personally who have them.  Yes, there will be bad doctors and missed diagnoses and sometimes waiting lines. I know people who have had this happen to them too.  Yet, don't be fooled into thinking this only happens with socialized medicine. This also happens in the US; this is not a socialist problem, but a human error (or human asshole) problem.  For every NHS horror story, you can find a private health care one to match. 

What you will not find in the UK, however, that you will definitely find in the US is this - a bill.

When I had that breast surgery at twenty-two, I was terrified. I worried for a week waiting for the biopsy report. Scott and I discussed over the phone what we'd do if I had cancer. (He was going to fly right over is what he was going to do.) I had never felt so much fear. When the report came back clean, I was relieved to tears.

Then the first bill rolled in. Something like $200. I breathed in deeply and pulled money out of savings to pay the bill. A few days later, another bill came in. It was around $400. The panic started to set in. My savings were for my wedding and for moving abroad, not for paying these bills! Then another came in, and another. One for the anesthesia. One for the surgeon. One for the hospital stay. One for the specialist's scans. One for the lab. I was under my parents insurance, so I knew nothing about deductibles and out of pocket expenses. I thought $20 co-pays were all I ever had to pay.  I ended up calling my parents in tears, because I could not pay all these bills - I didn't have enough in savings to do so.

Compare that to finding out I needed a c-section. I cried, because I didn't want to be sectioned and I was worried about my baby. But when we came out of it just fine, I didn't have to think about the bills rolling in. I could just be thankful my baby was alive.

And when my son had kidney issues, I didn't have to think about how to pay for all these scans and hospital visits. And when my daughter had orthopedic issues, I didn't have to weigh up whether they were valid enough to warrant seeing a specialist or not. 

When I first moved to Scotland, I broke a glass in my hand doing dishes. The cut was deep, blood was everywhere, and some broken shards of glass even got lodged inside the cut. Scott tried to get me to go to the A&E (ER), but I refused. He reminded me it was free, but I still refused.  Medical treatment had always been something I had to weigh up according to its level of severity and necessity. A cut I could mend myself with bandages and soapy water did not warrant visiting a doctor. Though it would have been free, I was not used to seeing a doctor for such things.

(For years, I could feel something small and hard inside my hand near that cut. A tiny shard of glass, perhaps?)

Here is my point.

Health care shouldn't deplete one's savings. A person shouldn't have to decide against care for their child because the level of severity doesn't quite justify the cost. Being forced to forego medical treatment because it would cost too much should never have to happen. A person shouldn't have thousands of dollars in deductibles to meet before the insurance he or she is paying into kicks in to help out. (True story: Sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office a few weeks ago, I overheard a woman ask the receptionist to try billing her insurance company since she had now met her $4000 deductible - in February. In two months, her family had already forked over 4k in medical bills. What will the rest of her year look like, and how much will she end up paying out of pocket by December?)

Let me be even more clear.

A person working for minimum wage or living under the poverty line or out of work (for whatever reason) should not have to make decisions about his or her own health or family's health based on what they can afford. An underprivileged family with a child suffering from behavioral or mental disorders (ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, anxiety, or any other) or who has a developmental delay (occupational, physical, or speech) or who has minor or major illnesses (asthma, ear infections, or any physical ailment that affects his normal day-to-day activities) should have the same access to treatment as a family with the money to pay for it. But the reality is, in the United States of America, the richest country in the world, those families are having to make devastating choices constantly about their health care. 

• Do we use emergency services, knowing we cannot pay the bills?  
• Do we seek cheaper options that are not proven to work?  
• Do we forego the treatment all together, though it may lead to all kinds of issues down the road? 

And when they do deem the treatments medically necessary - or when an accident occurs, like a severed appendage or broken bone - these treatments often land them further in poverty and debt. Medicaid only covers so much, and if you don't qualify for Medicaid but still don't have the money to fork over to pay all your medical bills (and heaven forbid something major comes up, like cancer), you are faced with crippling medical debt that will haunt you and your credit for years, even decades, to come. 

How is this okay to a large majority of people in the richest country in the world? How are we okay, not only with our own insurance plans, that make us pay thousands outright before letting us access the coverage we are paying large monthly premiums for, but with knowing children and people living in poverty or near poverty are suffering needlessly because they do not have the money to pay for medical care?

Yes we have Medicaid and Medicare, which helps tremendously, and I am very much in favor of these programs. But as they stand now, they simply cannot go far enough to help solve the problem. When people who have low enough income levels to qualify for Medicaid are still being landed with copays and hospital bills they cannot afford, there is a problem we should all be deeply concerned about.

I agree with Bernie Sanders. Health care is a right. A human right. And where does that right come from? Where all other human rights, like safety and security, equality, religion, freedom from slavery or discrimination, education, adequate living conditions, and so forth, come from. They come from being a human being. 

5 Goals For the New Year

Cheers to 2016!

It feels a little late in the game, being the 13th of January, but I do have some New Year's Resolutions I feel ought to be written down and solidified somehow to make them real. Already I've broken, like, all of them, but maybe it's because I haven't set them in stone anywhere yet?

Below are 5 things I'd like to accomplish in 2016, including acknowledgement of the barriers to accomplishing them. Writing down the things that make resolutions hard to keep is a good step towards keeping them, or so my friend across the cubicle wrote on our company's blog (25 Tips for Success: New Year's Resolutions). So here I go - plans and goals for the new year.

1. Spend less, save more. I have big plans for saving money this year. I think I do every year, but this time I mean it! There are things I'd like to accomplish that require saving up for. The benefits of saving money are obvious, but the "costs" are harder to quantify. Truth is, I enjoy spending money. When I'm feeling low, I like to buy clothes or books. My goal this year is to resist that urge. The money may be there to spend, but I want to choose not to spend it. I need to find other therapies besides retail therapy.

2. Read the books I have.  Following #1, I want to try not to buy any more books until I've read all the ones I bought last year and haven't read yet. The Reading Challenge last year was so much fun, but it made me go a little crazy buying books. Now I have whole shelves full of books I bought last year but haven't had the chance to read yet. Before I buy more, I want to read these first. There are plenty to last me! If I can just fight my addiction to buying new books and stay out of bookstores... That's my biggest barrier to that one!

3. Lose the Office 15. Like going away to college for the first time, going back to work meant putting on some unwanted extra weight. Going from an extremely active lifestyle of working out multiple times a week to sitting at a desk eight hours a day has cost me my hard-earned waistline. I have a goal of losing 15-20 lbs by my birthday in April. If I can make that goal, I have a birthday treat waiting for me; I'll try out Stitch Fix. I've heard so many good things about it but don't want spend the money on nice things I'll hopefully under-grow. This kind of ties into #1 again, too.  Rather than spending money often on little things, I'd like to get back to my goal weight and then only spend money on a few very nice things. Barriers to losing weight? Keto is boring, and finding time to work out is next to impossible.

4. Exercise more. Tying into losing weight, I want to get back to the gym. The barriers to this are huge: time and interest.  I have only a limited amount of free time anymore and a very limited interest in my new gym. I realize now how spoiled I was with my old gym. The Community Center had fantastic classes with fantastic instructors that I was super excited about. The gym I've joined in my new town, however, lacks everything I loved about my old rec center. So convincing myself to go to it - knowing none of the classes are fun and the only other thing I'll be interested in doing is the treadmill - is tough. But I want to try. Lesson learned though: Don't join a gym that won't let you visit it several times first.

5. Put another book in print. Last year, of course, I published my first book. This year, I'd like to put another book in print - perhaps poetry or short stories. My biggest barrier to that, however, is imposter syndrome. I'm really just a complete farce of a writer. This is a hard feeling to bypass. After publishing my book, I refused to read it again, afraid I'd lose all courage if I did. Well, I got a Kindle for Christmas and decided to read my book in Kindle format. I've lost all confidence, just as I feared. One day, I'll probably release a second edition of The Last Petal Falling, filling in all the details I realized I should have included and bulking up the story in places that lack and fixing phrases I now wish I'd put differently. But until then, I need to keep writing. Push through my complete lack of faith in myself and my certainty that I'm just a big fraud and put something else out there. I can't let the self-doubt win!

Hopped Up on Cold Meds

It's been unintentionally quiet on my blog this week (there goes NaBloPoMo), but my excuse is valid enough.

Last Sunday, I exhibited my book at my first book fair. The Central Arkansas Library System hosted a Self-Published and Small Press Book Fair, and I was one of about forty self-published authors touting titles. We were all invited to attend a few mini-sessions on topics such as Income Streams and Copyright Law before opening up our exhibits to the public.

I spent two very informative and exciting hours talking to strangers (mostly Christian) about my deeply personal journey away from God in fifteen-second sound bites. At first I found it very difficult to explain briefly what my book was about in words that made standing at my stall for those ten seconds mildly worth it. The author next to me, Meg Dendler, assured me that I'd find the words soon enough, and she was right. Before I knew it, I was using the right hooks, the right language, and the right level of ebullience to draw people into my story. I ended up selling ten books at the book fair - approximately nine more than I expected!

However, by the time I got home, my throat was killing me. I thought the scratchiness clawing away at the back of my throat and the thumping around my frontal lobes were merely the result of too much talking and excitement. I went to bed at 7pm and woke up the next morning feverish, breathless, coughy, snotty, and achy.  It clearly wasn't just over-exertion either; all three kids were suffering the same fates, and even Scott was feeling a little under the weather.

I stayed off work until Thursday. Thursday and Friday I felt reasonably okay at the office, but by home-time Friday afternoon, it all struck back again. I've spent all weekend sneezing, coughing, taking cold medicine and painkillers, and trying to find ways to breathe that don't lacerate my dry, inflamed throat.

Cake Rex - This is what book club
looks like. How could I miss this?

(I feel mildly guilty for hosting book club on Saturday regardless of my state of health. It's just that book club is among one of my Top Favorite Things In Life alongside "family", "reading", and "cake", and I just couldn't cancel. Karma paid me back for my selfishness though, with a night of fitful tossing and turning, hallucinatory fever, a runny nose I couldn't breathe through, and a sore throat so painful that I tried to stop breathing and die just to avoid any more dry air attacks to my throbbing windpipe.)

Tomorrow is Monday, and I really need to go into work. I want to believe I will magically be healed by 6am. Ideally, I should get to bed early tonight to help make this dream come true. I am so tired and desperate for a full night's sleep, yet I am dreading lying down flat and spending the next eight hours struggling to breathe while alternating hovering under the covers freezing cold and thrashing them off me while sweating hot.

Being sick SUCKS.

Oh yeah. And so that's why I haven't blogged much. That's my excuse.

Freezer Meals For the Slow Cooker

So. Tomorrow.

It's my first day at my new job.

My first full-time office job in over eight years.

My first full-time office job since having children.

After Lolly was born, I did go back to work full-time as a childminder, where I worked nine hours a day taking care of children, but I worked from home. I didn't have to leave my kids anywhere besides school. I was still able to throw a load of laundry in the washer and run my errands during my work day.

This is going to be a whole new experience. I'm not gonna lie; I have no idea how people do it.

I mean, who takes the car to the shop when it needs an oil change? How do you keep the laundry up to date and the dishes washed? When do you shop for groceries? What time do you eat dinner if you don't get home until almost 6pm? How do you cook every night when you've been at work all day?

Talking to my other work-away-from-home friends, the answer seems most often to be "crock pot". An idea I can stand behind.

I love my slow cooker. I am a regular slow cookerer. However, even dumping ingredients in a crock pot can end up taking half an hour, especially if there's other prep involved, like frying up the beef or chopping up the onions. I won't have time for that in the mornings, what with going to the gym, eating breakfast, getting dressed for work, and getting kids fed, dressed, and out the door on time.

So being the planner-psycho that I am, I decided to try something new for these first two weeks of work.

Yesterday, I made my monthly menu plan as always, followed by my grocery list.  I took Jaguar with me to the Farmer's Market at 8am followed by the supermarket to pick up all the ingredients I'll need for the next fortnight. (Apparently, Saturday mornings are now the time one goes grocery shopping. I remember back when they were for sleeping.) When I came back home, I got to work.

Okay, so I haven't gotten as far
as the last week's menu...

I spent the rest of the morning into the afternoon making seven freezer meals to get me through the next two work weeks. (How seven and not ten? I'll get to that.)

Everything I made should easily go into the crock pot in the morning and will be ready for dinner when we get home. In theory.

I did some googling and got some ideas. I also used some ideas out of my own clever little brain. Together, I have hopefully come up with some ideas that will take one major chore off my daily To-Do list.

I started out labeling all the freezer bags. Learned The Hard Way: Label all before getting wet/frozen. I used some bags of mince or chicken that were already in the freezer and the moisture messed with my Sharpie. Anyway.

Next, I chopped up a buttload of onion.  Buttload is the precise measurement of onion you will need to make seven freezer meals. I also minced a buttload of garlic.

Then I just started filling bags. Some were easy, like the curry one. I simply purchased two jars of Tikka Masala sauce, which I combined with chicken breasts and some additional seasonings of my own liking. Some things, by the way, don't freeze well, like potato, so I'll need to remember to chop up some potatoes the night before and throw them in the crock pot with the bag that morning. (Thursday, I believe.) Then I'll just need to boil up some rice when I get home. Other meals took a little longer to throw together, like the chicken tortilla soup that required chopped onion, chopped cilantro and basil, and crushed garlic. Still, when you are crushing a buttload of garlic into a bunch of bags, it does make the process go a little quicker.

Learned The Hard Way: Gallon bags don't stand up well on their own, especially when you pour enchilada sauce into them, and they tip over and run out.  Google taught me to stand your bags in a drinks pitcher first, which is a very clever idea.

I made tortilla soup, chicken enchilada mix (just need to throw the mix into some tortillas and into the oven for a few minutes when I get home), curry, chicken pot pie (same idea, throw in oven quickly with pastry over top), chicken rice casserole, chili, and meatloaf. The meatloaf is going to be interesting... I made it all up, formed it into a ball, and froze it. It's got egg and heavy cream in it which I've read don't always freeze well, but mixed into a meatloaf I'm thinking is different than mixing in a soup or something. I hope it works.

In fact, I hope it all works. Of all the recipes, only a few of them I've ever tried in the crock pot (chili, chicken pot pie, tortilla soup), and only one of them (tortilla soup) is actually a "freezer meal" recipe. So it's going to be an interesting experiment. Or an expensive mistake.

Learned The Hard Way: Next time, I will bake or boil all the chicken first before putting it in the bags. The breasts were frozen, but the room temperature of the ingredients thawed them a little. Not entirely, so I'm hoping I don't poison the whole family, but next time I'll use either fresh chicken or pre-cooked. Again, interesting experiment or expensive mistake. For the meals that work, I'll share the recipes. I'd hate to share my recipes before discovering if they work, because obviously.

6 out of 7

Furthermore, not all recipes are created equal. Some require longer cooking times and some need shorter. This is where further experimentation will be taking place. Some recipes I think I can safely set on Low all day long (from 7.30-5.45) without worry, like the chili. Others I'm not so sure about, like the meatloaf  and the rice casserole.  For recipes that generally require a shorter cooking time, I'll be breaking out my timer. My timer is just an extension I found in the electrical hardware section of Walmart. You plug it into the wall, set the current time, then set the on and off times and plug your slow cooker into that. Learned The Hard Way a long time ago: These only work with manual slow cookers. My larger one is digital, so when the power comes on at the set time, it just blinks and blinks, waiting for someone to input all the settings (time/temp). So yes, must remember to use manual cookers those days. And remember to set the correct AM/PM in order for it to turn on at the right time. I have definitely come home to a stone cold cooker before by setting the times wrong. Tricky.

And as for the other days that won't be freezer meals, I intend to try baked potatoes in the crock pot, going out to eat (we have a date night planned for Friday, and we'll probably go to Zaxby's with kids one Wednesday when kids eat free), and easy breaded frozen chicken strips for a quick throw-in-the-oven dinner one other night.

Now that all of that is ready, I feel a little more prepared for the morning. Mine and Scott's lunches are made and in the fridge. The kids are all packed up for daycare in the morning with their clothes laid out. My clothes are hanging up and ready to go. I've got all my pre-start paperwork together. Now all that's left is to make myself a cup of tea, relax in a bath with my book, then retire to bed dressed in my workout clothes for 5am. When that alarm goes off at ridiculous o'clock in the morning, I'll be ready to go work out with my protein shake in one hand and a water bottle in the other. "Start as I mean to continue" I like to say. I'll workout for an hour, come home, shower off, eat breakfast, dress myself and the kids, and head out the door.

Gosh, I hope I don't forget to turn the crock pot on...

New Ink: Into the Looking Glass

A few weeks ago, my main squeeze and I went on a date, where we ate bison burgers and sweet potato fries dipped in marshmallow sauce, and got ourselves inked.

This was Scott's first tattoo, and it was a big deal. He got this:


(We've been kind of amazed at how few people have been able to figure out what it is.)

Me, this was my fourth tat, so not quite such a big deal.

As a reminder, I have a tattoo trio already of faith, hope, and love, all in Arabic calligraphy. And yes, I know enough Arabic to know that they all say exactly what I think they say. I may not remember much from my year of studying Arabic, but I still know enough. Enough to read something to you but not have a clue what it says.

I considered going a totally new direction for this fourth tattoo, leaving behind the Arabic calligraphy theme. I also considered seamlessly continuing with the Arabic calligraphy theme by getting the word peace in Arabic. But I kept turning around this other idea in my mind... a slightly cheesy, somewhat embarrassing idea, but one that really meant something to me.

Illusion.

It's a beautiful design. (I'm sorry I can't give credit to the person who designed it though, because she seems to have removed it from the web. I'm glad I downloaded it before she took it down. I wonder, does tattooing yourself compromise intellectual property rights?) This is also Arabic calligraphy. The idea of getting illusion tattooed on my skin did seem cheesy and possibly misleading, but at the last minute, it's the one I chose to go with.


I love it. However, the inevitable question has since popped up repeatedly: "What does it mean?"

An old friend once cautioned me never to get a tattoo that didn't mean anything, because you'd spend the rest of your life shrugging when asked that inevitable question. Those three squares on his arm mean nothing.

The word in Arabic, وهم (pronounced "wa-HEM-a") specifically means "illusion" but can be loosely translated in other ways. I've been finding it easier to loosely translate it as "imagination" for the average person on the street, rather than explain what "illusion" means to me.

But I'll explain it here.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a fat girl. There, I said it.

The word "fat" is supposedly banned in our house. It's our family's f-word (and is way worse than the other one). I am so very against body shaming, so supportive of positive body image and loving your body... for everyone else but myself. I still look at myself and see a mess. Even though I'm now at a healthy weight and have a pretty healthy lifestyle (let's not discuss the Easter chocolate though, please), I still have very poor body image. It probably wouldn't matter if I lost yet another 30 lbs, I'd probably still see someone twice my actual size in my reflection.

I have to tell myself consciously, explicitly, daily, that this is an illusion.

What I see in the mirror is illusory. It's something my brain invents to tempt me to do all sorts of stupid things. I have to constantly tell my brain, You're wrong. I'm beautiful. I'm healthy. I love my body.

This tattoo now stares back at me in the mirror too. It tells me the same thing. I am healthy. I exercise regularly. I *generally* eat well. I am beautiful. Anything I believe about myself otherwise is an illusion.

It is الوهم.

But if I pass you on the street, and you ask me what it means, I'll probably just say "imagination". Because that's easier to admit.

Say Yes To the (11 Year Old) Dress

Everyone knows it's good to clear out your closet every once in a while and to use the "If I haven't worn this in six months, get rid of it" rule.

Well, while I waited nervously for my husband to get home in this brewing ice storm (took him two hours!) I distracted myself by having a good clear out. I've been working really hard since last summer to lose all the depression weight I put on last year, eating generally low carb and working out at the gym regularly, and I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel... just a few more pounds until I'm at my target weight - a number I've not seen on the scale since college! So tonight, I tried on just about everything in my closet and chest of drawers, and everything that is too big now (and can't be taken in with my sewing machine) and everything I simply never ever wear got thrown into the garage sale pile.


But the really exciting thing is, I also got to go through my "One day I will fit back into this again, dammit!" box and pull out lots of old things I just could not part with "in case I ever lose enough weight to wear it again."

Well, folks, let me just tell you. There is nothing wrong with keeping a box like this, whatever the rules state. Even if it's eleven years later, you might just surprise yourself.

December 2003

March 2015

Someone please go back and tell 21 year old me to take off that sports watch.

Fifi and the Great Hospital Adventure

I guess while I've got a cake in the oven is a good time to share what I alluded to in my previous post about Fifi.

On Sunday, she woke up complaining of lower abdomen pains. We didn't know what was wrong with her, so we gave her one of those microwavable cuddly toys to keep pressed against her tummy, and she spent the day in her pajamas sort of lying around, with a mild fever. The following morning (Monday), she came into our bedroom at 5.30am nearly in tears because she hurt so badly. She still had a slight fever. I warmed up her cuddly sheep again and set her up on the couch. I was beginning to toy with the idea of calling a doctor. Her pain appeared to be much more severe than it had been the day before. I gave her some children's Tylenol for the pain. Then she said, "It hurts over here now" and pointed to her lower right side.

Uh-oh, I thought.

The doctors' office opens at 8am, so at 8am on the dot, I called to make an appointment. After waiting on hold for fifteen minutes, I finally got through to the receptionist. Our family doctor didn't have any openings until later that afternoon, but the receptionist agreed with me that this needed to be seen to immediately and asked if she could schedule me with a different doctor at 10am. Of course!

I got the kids ready (Lolly was at school by now), and we were at the doctors' office ten minutes early and were seen quickly. The doctor wanted to get some tests run on Fifi to rule out appendicitis right away, so they did a urinalysis (to rule out UTI), a blood test and an x-ray. Fifi wasn't expecting the blood test - even though I'd mentioned before we left the house that they might need to do this - and she freaked out. She was still very good and still for the lab assistant but was in tears, on the verge of hysterical.

By this time, the Tylenol was wearing off, and her pain was returning, even worse now, as we waited for the test results. Even still, with her pain, I was beginning to think I really had been over-reacting and she was probably fine. She hadn't said anything about her right side again, and I began wondering if it was just painful "wind" or constipation. Then the doctor returned.

She told us Fifi had a higher than normal white blood count - another indicator of appendicitis - and she was scheduling us a CT scan at the hospital right away.

I still had Baby Jaguar with us at this point, but things were starting to look like a back-up plan might be needed. As I drove the kids the hospital, I spoke on the phone to various people - Scott, my dad, my mom, my step-dad, my step-mom, my friend Mike, the school - trying to arrange everything. Lolly would ride the bus to Mike's house. Dad would come to the hospital to take Jaguar home with him in an hour. In the meantime, Scott would come straight to the hospital to help with Jaguar until Dad got there. My step-dad, who works in the hospital, would meet me at the front door to park my car so Fi wouldn't have to walk, and then he'd sit with Jaguar while I got Fifi admitted. It was kind of a whirlwind. All the while, Fifi was clutching her belly and intermittently whimpering.

By the time we got to the CT scan waiting room, Fi was sobbing with pain. It was heartbreaking to watch. I was mentally planning an overnight stay, how I'd break it to her that she might need her appendix out, who would keep Lolly and Jaguar overnight, how I'd need to get my shift at work covered for the following night. We were finally taken back to get her scan, when it was explained that she'd need to drink a large barium drink and then wait another hour before they could do the scan. Poor Fifi was distraught. We did our best to distract her, as did another mother waiting with her teenage daughter for the exact same thing (suspected appendicitis). Thank you, Judge Judy, for your televised entertainment!

After an hour, Fi and I went in to get her scan. I'd shown her a CT machine on my phone so she'd know what to expect. What she did not expect was getting an IV. Again, she freaked out. The whole experience was really upsetting for her, getting the IV, getting the contrast dye injected into her arm, the big machine, and then the long wait with the IV still in her arm. Oh and the whole not having eaten since 10am, since they needed her to fast just in case surgery was necessary. By this time - 4pm or so - she was famished. We waited for ages for a doctor to read her scan. (So did the teenage girl in the waiting room with us, for that matter.) Around 5pm, the doctor had finally come around to look at the scans. The girl waiting with us was told she'd need her appendix out, and I was sure Fifi would see her again in a few hours after the same procedure. The doctor then asked for a second scan on Fi, since the first was not conclusive. The poor child had to go through another CT scan. The tech came out fairly soon after that and told us we could go home. It wasn't appendicitis.

We were kind of ... confused.

We never saw a doctor, so we had to ask the tech what was causing her pain and the fever and the high white blood cell count? He reminded us he couldn't say for sure, since he isn't the doctor, but that he was willing to bet it was some Long-Medical-Terminitis that mimics the symptoms of appendicitis, but the scan was clear: her appendix was fine.

We were relieved, naturally, that it wasn't her appendix and she wouldn't need surgery. However, we were a little unhappy with the lack of answers. The next day the GP who'd seen us originally called to tell us she thinks it was all just constipation and to give her Miralax. I asked why she would have a fever and high WBC if it was just constipation, and the doctor said that just happens sometimes. Scott and I didn't really buy that, but what else was there to do?

I kept Fi home from school on Tuesday to let her recover from her stressful day previously. By the end of the day, she seemed to be feeling better, had stopped clutching her belly constantly, had no fever, and the color had returned to her face. Whatever she had that was causing her pain seemed to have subsided. We just wish we could've gotten some better answers from the medical staff!

Emergency Rooms: To Go, or Not To Go?

Today started like any other day. Except for the whole going-to-the-ER part.


I won't get into all the gruesome (or shall I say "poo-some"?) details, but let's just say I was more than mildly concerned over the ratio of poop to blood in my two year old's diaper this morning. I know. Gross.

My plan for today had been to drive to Conway, about 45 minutes away, to attend a Democrat campaign rally in which Former President of the United States Bill Clinton was going to be speaking, among other Arkansas politicians, including Mike Ross who is running for Governor. But all that was changed when after changing an alarming diaper, I called my doctor's office for advice, and their advice was Emergency Room.

I've been to my share of emergency rooms. Having three kids has made sure of that. And I'm well aware of the magic that happens when one steps into an emergency room; you can be bleeding out your ears before you walk through those doors, but before you even finish signing your name on the form, you will be right as rain again. And as you sit in that waiting room for what feels like a good quarter of your life, you will spend the entire time thinking, "I'm perfectly fine now. I don't need to be here. Why did I come here? I'm perfectly fine now!" It's no different with children. They can show symptoms of extreme fatigue, high fevers, listlessness, pain, and uncontrollable crying, but they will be totally healed once you walk through those doors, making you look like an overreacting, irrational parent.

At least that's almost always been my (admittedly very fortunate) experience. Today was no different.

Well, except for one teeny tiny "insignificant" difference.

This ER visit was going to cost me.

Under the National Health Service in the UK, ER visits (called the A&E - Accident & Emergency) are free. "Free" of course meaning paid for by taxes, but for all intents and purposes, the visit to you on each occasion is free. I have taken sick kids to A&E, I've taken second-degree burns to A&E, I took an almost completely amputated four-year-old's fingertip to A&E. Each experience came with its own worries, tears and anxieties - and sometimes regrets when upon arrival, that darn magic occurred and we were healed before ever seeing a doctor. One concern that never popped up, however, was how the hell are we going to pay for this?

By the time I arrived at the ER this morning, I was pretty sure my son was fine. I was a little embarrassed for even coming. I kept justifying my visit with the doctor's orders to go, my own Google MDing, and the ever important peace of mind that I would have by choosing safe over sorry. After all, possible (even if improbable) internal bleeding isn't one of those "wait and see" situations, right? But what was upsetting me to the point of tears was the bill that will surely arrive in the mail very shortly.

We are extremely fortunate to be insured. In America, most insurance plans are provided by employers. However, that does not mean that all working families are insured. Employers and legislation have set all kinds of rules for who must be offered an insurance plan, but if you are ineligible because you work under a certain number of hours, or if your wages are simply too meager to be able to afford those insurance plans, you are very likely uninsured. In Arkansas, we do have a government program for children called ARKids thankfully, but as I discovered when we first moved here and had no jobs for over a month, it's difficult to find a doctor's clinic that has not filled all of its ARKids slots. As for adults, there was nothing. Adults were in between that rock and hard place of choosing to either forgo care, or visit the ER - followed by insurmountable medical bills - and either paying those bills and increasing their financial burden or simply refusing to pay those bills, destroying their credit ratings even further, and for many honest, hard-working people, injuring their sense of dignity and pride. Not to mention increasing the cost to taxpayers. Until Scott got hired, we both walked on eggshells and drove extra slowly to prevent any injury to either of us, before we were covered by his company's insurance.

Last year, before we moved here, I came over to visit with just my son to attend my dad's military retirement ceremony. A few days before we were scheduled to fly back to the UK, ten month old Jaguar came down with a fever and began pulling at his red little ears. Ear infection. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't put a baby on a plane with an ear infection! Yet we were uninsured. I got a taste of what it is like for millions of Americans who do not have insurance. My dad generously gave me a blank check and told me to just pay whatever it cost. Not only did this make me feel terrible for putting this burden on him, but I was also reminded that not every family has someone to hand them a blank check in an emergency. It turned out, however, that the check was never needed because no free or drop-in clinic would see my son because he was under 18-24 months, depending on the clinic. I would have to take him to Children's Hospital, which would have cost even more.

I panicked over this. I couldn't ask my dad to pay all that. I ended up going the wait-and-see route. If he was still unwell the day before the flight, I'd go. And I'd pay for the antibiotics out of pocket too. Somehow.

Luckily, some of that ER magic must have been swirling around the drop-in clinics because a few days later, his fever lifted and the redness in his ears faded. He was acting happy again, and I took the chance and flew us back home without seeing a doctor.

But I'll never forget how scared I was as a mother with a sick baby and nowhere to turn for medical care.

It turned out today that Jaguar was perfectly fine, or so the doctor suspects. No tests were run so I am hopeful that I'll only have to pay the ER's copay when the bill comes in. It's still a chunk of change, but I'm grateful that we are fortunate enough to have insurance.

I'm also grateful that thanks to the Affordable Care Act - which is certainly not the best plan in the world, I readily admit - many other Americans now have insurance too. And I'm very grateful that Arkansas took the "private option", aka the Medicaid Expansion, which uses federal Medicaid dollars to buy private insurance for the working poor. This was already possible for some, but the expansion increased the eligibility to more families by lowering the income level. Before the expansion, people living at 138 percent of the poverty level were still too "rich" to qualify. Now a quarter-million Arkansans have insurance who previously did not.

For what it's worth, I am actually avidly against the insurance concept anyway. I am far more in favor of universal health care and believe it is a basic human right, not saved just for the wealthy or even the working, but every single human being, good, bad or somewhere in between. Private insurance is a great option for those who want it and can afford it, and yes, the US has some of the best health care in the world, but if a poor person cannot access it, what good does that do for them? Basic free health care - regardless of the dollars it costs taxpayers - should be an inalienable right sitting right up there next to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". I, for one, am more than happy to pay a little more in taxes to know that my family and my neighbors and my fellow citizens will have access to health care when they or their parents or their children need it.

So, after leaving the ER, I realized I still had time to make it to the campaign rally. Now I was feeling even more motivated to go. The candidate for Governor, Mike Ross, is very much in favor of keeping the private option for Arkansas, while his opponent Asa Hutchinson, is not so keen on it, and has said he would like to "review" it and possibly repeal it. After my little ER visit, I wanted all the more to support the guy who will protect this expansion and keep people insured.

I drove to Conway and was relieved to find that parking on the university campus was easy and signs saying "Clinton Shuttle" were clearly posted. Jaguar and I somehow managed to get right up to the front left side gate, where we saw everything from up close. Jaguar enjoyed all the excitement in the air and cheered accordingly, often repeating the crowds' exclamations of "Yes!" and receiving lots of "Awws!" in response. We heard speeches from several Arkansas Congressmen, District representatives, the Mayor, State Representatives in Washington, the current Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe, Mike Ross and finally Bill Clinton. It was a lot of fun. I even got to shake Bill Clinton's hand at the end and Jaguar got a hair mussing and cuddle from the Former President of the United States. I tried to get a picture of this, but Jaguar knocked the camera out of my hands. Here's what my picture of Clinton and Jaguar ended up looking like.

I think that was his sleeve.

I got some other good photos though, or at least not terrible ones. Being off to the side meant I was super close but at a terrible angle for photography. Plus I had a Jaguar pulling at my camera.

Mark Pryor, Mike Ross, Bill Clinton

*****

As for the October Dress Project, I was too exhausted with my overly eventful day to take good photos, so here's what I've got.

The Dress over fuschia skinny cords, black slip ons and a zebra belt.  No make-up, thanks to leaving the house this morning in a tizzy. I brushed my teeth at least.

Lolly seems to have dropped out of the ODP, which I sort of expected. She loves her dresses too much. Fifi, however, is still in the game. Yesterday she wore just a plain white t-shirt over Her Dress. Today she dressed it up with a pink owl long-sleeved button-up top and brown cowboy boots. Isn't she adorable?