Over the years, I’ve learned that the best way to handle the glooms that arrive in January is to sink into the quiet and find ways to enjoy the small pleasure of life. The glooms always arrive now, between the darkness, the sad anniversaries and the after-effects of the exertions of the holidays. After a damp and foggy weekend, this afternoon has become a bright and clear; the sunshine always lifts my spirits.
Classes start Tuesday, though since my teaching in the first half of the semester is all on Mondays, I have an extra bit of respite before being sucked into the activity machine. There are always last-minute things to do, no matter how much planning you do in advance--emails from students, setting up rosters and gradebooks, and such. I’m trying to make my classes less paper-intensive, which means using the current course management system the university has adopted. It’s maddening. A lot. Really.
Instead of ranting about it, which would be easy and ultimately serve little constructive purpose, I’ve been alternating messing with it and cleaning up my hard drives. It’s satisfying to empty the trash and see space reappearing, as well as rationalizing where things are, and, I hope, saving me time later in the semester. I’ve archived all of last semester’s classes while keeping the grades and info about students I’ll need for writing letters of recommendation, made sure I have all (and only) current copies of this semester’s assignments, readings, etc., and pitched wholesale student submissions from previous semesters. It’s the perfect quiet-time activity. It’s got no particular deadline--anything I do is an advance for the good of the order--it has visible rewards, and it’s entirely under my own control. What could be better than that?
Other of life’s little pleasures worth appreciating: Clementine tangerines, the sunshine, my heated footrest under my desk (thank you, Michael), and the great comforter we indulged in this fall. Now that I’m learning to manage my energy better, I’m back trying to exercise every day. One of the things I’d forgotten is how dramatically that improves the quality of my sleep. Deep sleep is wonderful and worth appreciating. On top of all that, Shea completed her travel back to school safely. We’ll miss her, and we also savor the quiet. We had a wonderful visit with her, including a great family expedition to the Lincoln Museum and the Dana Thomas House in Springfield, laying down memories. Now, she’s back to exploring who she’s going to become, which is also a good thing and a joy to observe.
That’s a lot to savor. Cheers.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Belated 16-Month Status Report
The main thing bothering me these days is my lack of stamina. Yeah, the shoulder and the strange visual vertigo thing are still issues, the scalp is still a little odd, the balance goes now and then, but those are all manageable, or ignorable. The thing that I’m having the most trouble figuring out is my energy. It doesn’t really seem reasonable to me that one long day should be followed by a day with almost no physical exertion because there isn’t any energy to do anything at all, or that something pretty normal, like travel, should carry the price of several nights where ten hours of sleep seems to be required. That doesn’t leave much time for life’s productive endeavors. There also doesn’t seem to be much choice about it, so I’m back to the task of adjusting my attitude, and finding ways to enjoy slow haredom.
The next measurement of my cortisol levels now that I’ve been off steroids for a while is still a couple of weeks away. It feels, on a daily basis, like it should be possible to do without any more external rebalancing of my brain chemistry, and I hope that turns out to be accurate. While I hit the wall after I’ve had a day of serious exertion (the 16-hour trip to Atlanta and back, for example), in general, I’m getting along from day to day. The overall energy available is lower than ever before, which continues to be deeply disconcerting, but it’s also nice to be off the steroids and, in the world of tradeoffs, I’d rather be med-free and learning a new balance than to be back taking stuff with such unpleasant side effects. Among other issues from the meds, I’m at a peak weight for my entire life, weighing now even more than when I was 9 months pregnant. This is disheartening to say the least, especially since our eating habits are pretty healthy and sensible already. I’d love to be able to identify an extra couple hundred calories a day that would be easy to cut out, say giving up soda pop, except that I don’t have habits like that, other than chocolate. It should go without saying that isn’t an option to cut out. What’s left is all that tedious stuff about portion control and more exercise and balancing intake and outtake. Ok, so deep breath and turning next to that task. Even if not with very good cheer.
Thus, overall, while there are clear physical effects leftover from my menigioma adventure, it seems to me that most of the aftermath, 16 months after surgery, is how I manage my own reactions and attitudes. I continue to feel broken, cognitively, and less than I used to be in the way I think and work. While that feeling doesn’t really go away, I’m learning better ways to work around the parts that are most frustrating and becoming more accepting of the rest of it.
I wouldn’t have picked these challenges, but since there isn’t a choice about whether to be this way, what remains is choosing my attitude. That’s an ongoing work in progress. I still feel lucky and count my blessings pretty much every day. After that, though, I’m still that same old cranky, impatient, bossy self. Some things never change.
The next measurement of my cortisol levels now that I’ve been off steroids for a while is still a couple of weeks away. It feels, on a daily basis, like it should be possible to do without any more external rebalancing of my brain chemistry, and I hope that turns out to be accurate. While I hit the wall after I’ve had a day of serious exertion (the 16-hour trip to Atlanta and back, for example), in general, I’m getting along from day to day. The overall energy available is lower than ever before, which continues to be deeply disconcerting, but it’s also nice to be off the steroids and, in the world of tradeoffs, I’d rather be med-free and learning a new balance than to be back taking stuff with such unpleasant side effects. Among other issues from the meds, I’m at a peak weight for my entire life, weighing now even more than when I was 9 months pregnant. This is disheartening to say the least, especially since our eating habits are pretty healthy and sensible already. I’d love to be able to identify an extra couple hundred calories a day that would be easy to cut out, say giving up soda pop, except that I don’t have habits like that, other than chocolate. It should go without saying that isn’t an option to cut out. What’s left is all that tedious stuff about portion control and more exercise and balancing intake and outtake. Ok, so deep breath and turning next to that task. Even if not with very good cheer.
Thus, overall, while there are clear physical effects leftover from my menigioma adventure, it seems to me that most of the aftermath, 16 months after surgery, is how I manage my own reactions and attitudes. I continue to feel broken, cognitively, and less than I used to be in the way I think and work. While that feeling doesn’t really go away, I’m learning better ways to work around the parts that are most frustrating and becoming more accepting of the rest of it.
I wouldn’t have picked these challenges, but since there isn’t a choice about whether to be this way, what remains is choosing my attitude. That’s an ongoing work in progress. I still feel lucky and count my blessings pretty much every day. After that, though, I’m still that same old cranky, impatient, bossy self. Some things never change.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
16-Month Status Report Delayed
It’s not that there’s no status, because there is. It’s just that I’m traveling again and haven’t the energy to pull together a status report, though today is indeed the day. Probably Tuesday.
Stay warm in the meanwhile.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Carolyn Foust Gunsalus March 1923-January 8, 1970
Forty years is a long time. As with last year, I’m still puzzled by why the day has such a grasp and why the awareness of it sticks so thoroughly. If I hadn’t looked at last year’s post yesterday, there might be more to say, except that the ground seems pretty thoroughly covered.
In central Illinois today, the day is bright, clear and gorgeous--if you’re inside, as it’s bitter cold. I’m making excruciatingly slow progress on a complicated project this week, just as I did a week or so ago on trying to pull some ideas together. In both cases, I spent way longer than the tasks should have taken, but this seems to be the pace at which I work these days. It’s really frustrating and I feel particularly dense and slow. On the other hand, progress keeps inching forward, and this seems to be the new me, so it is what it is. One foot in front of the other…
In exciting news, one of Shea’s friends is in an architecture program and he drew up a sketch of the roof of our house, the geometry of which has always escaped me. (To be fair, it’s escaped Michael and others, as well, as it’s interesting and complicated. This isn’t an example of my new doltishness; there are plenty of others.) The reason the geometry of our roof is interesting? A project I want to pursue is building a scale (1:144) model of our house, and while I have the rest of it more or less under control, though there are lots of fiddly bits that will undoubtedly be complicated, I’ve never started because the roof was an insurmountable obstacle. But now, with the drawings he did in Google’s sketchup (very cool), maybe there’s a way forward. If only I can get ready for the semester, first…
Happy Friday.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Definite Progress; Still Frustrating
The one-day roundtrip to Atlanta worked just fine, including the security part, and the meeting was productive and worth the trip. The next day, though, brought reminders of just how much recovery progress there’s been. For the first time in weeks, if not months, I couldn’t get out of bed. I was up for short periods, and able to work if I stayed still, but kept hitting the wall and retreating to sleep. That effect mostly vanished some time back, so its recurrence was a vivid reminder of just how much things have improved. And also very frustrating.
The “complete depletion” mode is an odd experience, unique to this medical adventure. It’s a lot like the strange version vertigo I still get sometimes, in that it feels sort of odd and floaty in a nasty, unpleasant kind of way. Still, the data point provided by this experience as to the distance covered in this long road is a useful one. Having always been a pretty high energy person, and certainly always having before had the energy to do whatever I set my mind to, this has been a real adjustment and required a good deal of focus to find the good in it. And there is a lot of good in it; it just would have been nice to have chosen it.
The “complete depletion” mode is an odd experience, unique to this medical adventure. It’s a lot like the strange version vertigo I still get sometimes, in that it feels sort of odd and floaty in a nasty, unpleasant kind of way. Still, the data point provided by this experience as to the distance covered in this long road is a useful one. Having always been a pretty high energy person, and certainly always having before had the energy to do whatever I set my mind to, this has been a real adjustment and required a good deal of focus to find the good in it. And there is a lot of good in it; it just would have been nice to have chosen it.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
A Style to Fit My Life
Jimmy Buffet has a song about finding a life to fit his style; it seems to me that my current challenge is the opposite.
While ironing this morning, something I do only around holidays and birthdays when we use the family china, silver and linen napkins, I got to thinking about my mother. She taught me to iron in what seems, from my distance, to have been the forced domestic period of her life. She’d gone from being a tenured professor at Cornell (in her day, the youngest woman ever to get tenure there, and one of the first), to being prohibited from working at the University of Illinois by nepotism rules. In essence, she’d traded her professional life for a domestic one, as she desperately wanted children and only succeeded after many frustrating years of failures: miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy, etc. The consequence of that bargain was that she couldn’t work professionally. Those were years, as I recall them, of art classes, violin practice and performance, competitive dinner parties (making pate in the years before food processors, etc.). She had a lot of energy and she poured herself into a variety of endeavors to make use of it. I recall a birthday party she constructed for me with an elaborate treasure hunt, decorating theme, and an outfit she’d made me to match. When she was permitted to go back to work, it was as a lab technician, which was all that was then possible.
Feminism and the passage of time have treated me ever so much better. I’ve had the privilege of being able to explore and live who I am to the fullest. My constraints have not been those of my mother, only the self-chosen ones of caring for other people and balancing their needs with other goals. I’ve enjoyed a fulfilling professional life, one I’ve been able to craft largely to fit my skills and interests, through the luck of time and place and incredible mentors and opportunities. Through all that, due to an unbelievably wonderful and giving life partner, it was possible to raise a family and raise two pretty spectacular children, who as best I can tell, didn’t especially suffer from the balancing act. (I hope that's not self-delusion speaking.) It wasn’t all selfish and of course there were choices and decisions to forgo opportunities that would have been better for me personally but not so good for the family unit, or life’s overall balance. It’s hard to imagine another era before this one in which that would have been possible. My mother was likely a good deal more talented than I, and she didn’t have those options or my freedoms.
And yet, here I am, facing at middle age (how odd that seems to confront!) the challenge of devising a style to fit my current life. The brain tumor/surgery experience has left me a changed person cognitively and physically. Adapting my style to fit what I am now is a work in progress. Yes, these are the good problems to have. Yes, I have perspective and appreciate all the blessings of this process. That doesn’t change that, for me, in this place and time, they are still challenges that require work and persistence and some creativity and attitude adjustment from time to time.
Thus are the meditations of ironing on a cold, quiet Sunday with bright sunlight reflecting off the snow. Tomorrow brings a trip to Atlanta and back, not something I’m especially anticipating with pleasure. After careful consideration, I’m thinking to go through security without my knee brace, and then put it on in the airport bathroom, which of course requires taking off my shoes and pants. THAT should be fun. Wish me luck. May your Sunday be calm and lovely.
While ironing this morning, something I do only around holidays and birthdays when we use the family china, silver and linen napkins, I got to thinking about my mother. She taught me to iron in what seems, from my distance, to have been the forced domestic period of her life. She’d gone from being a tenured professor at Cornell (in her day, the youngest woman ever to get tenure there, and one of the first), to being prohibited from working at the University of Illinois by nepotism rules. In essence, she’d traded her professional life for a domestic one, as she desperately wanted children and only succeeded after many frustrating years of failures: miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy, etc. The consequence of that bargain was that she couldn’t work professionally. Those were years, as I recall them, of art classes, violin practice and performance, competitive dinner parties (making pate in the years before food processors, etc.). She had a lot of energy and she poured herself into a variety of endeavors to make use of it. I recall a birthday party she constructed for me with an elaborate treasure hunt, decorating theme, and an outfit she’d made me to match. When she was permitted to go back to work, it was as a lab technician, which was all that was then possible.
Feminism and the passage of time have treated me ever so much better. I’ve had the privilege of being able to explore and live who I am to the fullest. My constraints have not been those of my mother, only the self-chosen ones of caring for other people and balancing their needs with other goals. I’ve enjoyed a fulfilling professional life, one I’ve been able to craft largely to fit my skills and interests, through the luck of time and place and incredible mentors and opportunities. Through all that, due to an unbelievably wonderful and giving life partner, it was possible to raise a family and raise two pretty spectacular children, who as best I can tell, didn’t especially suffer from the balancing act. (I hope that's not self-delusion speaking.) It wasn’t all selfish and of course there were choices and decisions to forgo opportunities that would have been better for me personally but not so good for the family unit, or life’s overall balance. It’s hard to imagine another era before this one in which that would have been possible. My mother was likely a good deal more talented than I, and she didn’t have those options or my freedoms.
And yet, here I am, facing at middle age (how odd that seems to confront!) the challenge of devising a style to fit my current life. The brain tumor/surgery experience has left me a changed person cognitively and physically. Adapting my style to fit what I am now is a work in progress. Yes, these are the good problems to have. Yes, I have perspective and appreciate all the blessings of this process. That doesn’t change that, for me, in this place and time, they are still challenges that require work and persistence and some creativity and attitude adjustment from time to time.
Thus are the meditations of ironing on a cold, quiet Sunday with bright sunlight reflecting off the snow. Tomorrow brings a trip to Atlanta and back, not something I’m especially anticipating with pleasure. After careful consideration, I’m thinking to go through security without my knee brace, and then put it on in the airport bathroom, which of course requires taking off my shoes and pants. THAT should be fun. Wish me luck. May your Sunday be calm and lovely.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Not Related to the Calendar, Directly
While I like an occasion as much as the next person, and we always have an especially nice, traditional (to us) dinner on New Year’s Even, it’s not really a celebration or anything other than a date on the calendar, usually. We’re not big on resolutions or big parties or any of that stuff. We observe the social niceties and we certainly do like the quiet days when the external world stands still around us; it makes the time at home even more special knowing that the outside is not likely to be knocking on the door. Still, yesterday did make its mark on me, though I didn’t realize it until this morning.
Waking up, it dawned on me (only metaphorically, since it was well after dawn here) that, in an exchange of email with an old colleague catching up on the decades since we worked together, I’d completely omitted this recent medical adventure in my summary of the turns of our lives. That was a happy moment. The diagnosis and aftermath have been so central to my recent life story that sometimes it feels like they’ve taken over. It was a great moment to realize that my self-concept, or maybe more accurately, my self-narrative, might be repairing itself, along with other things. Maybe I am and will be more than someone about whom the central fact is "had brain surgery." It’s hard to explain, and I haven't done so very articulately, but it marks a nice milestone.
Happy new year to one and all.
Waking up, it dawned on me (only metaphorically, since it was well after dawn here) that, in an exchange of email with an old colleague catching up on the decades since we worked together, I’d completely omitted this recent medical adventure in my summary of the turns of our lives. That was a happy moment. The diagnosis and aftermath have been so central to my recent life story that sometimes it feels like they’ve taken over. It was a great moment to realize that my self-concept, or maybe more accurately, my self-narrative, might be repairing itself, along with other things. Maybe I am and will be more than someone about whom the central fact is "had brain surgery." It’s hard to explain, and I haven't done so very articulately, but it marks a nice milestone.
Happy new year to one and all.
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