FAFO

This is on the corner of my computer.  In fact I have stickers all over my computer, which doesn't seem to be the culture of the State of Vermont...but meh. I am supremely unbothered. Until the Commissioner strolls up and directs me to start peeling them all off they stay. My Deputy Commissioner sees me a billion times a day and she is also unbothered. Emily tells me it is an "academic" thing. 

These five words ground me during meetings where I am annoyed, but trying to seem neutral. Meetings in which something that I want is being denied by the people I (State of Vermont) am paying. Quick note - If I (or any funder) is paying you two million dollars to exist and we want to implement something that is within the scope of your agreement telling me no is a surefire way to fuck around and find out.  I told a colleague that they ignore me "at their peril".

The position that I hold gives me an interesting space in which to move policy and practice. Many of these things are slow - gentle and persistent pressure applied systemically. Early Childhood people are patient and persistent by nature. Seriously, you wrangle a group of sixteen 4-year-olds for a day, or 8 infants.  Patient and Persistent. 

I thought my career pinnacle was being a tenured professor. While I absolutely loved my students and the process of teaching them to become kind and caring teachers who knew that the child is always at the center of the curriculum, the cost of that job outweighed that joy.  The energy that I had to expend was too much for me. My desire to take care of and support my students was at a steep cost to myself.  Dying in front of them for three years in a row gave them collective PTSD with every cough or every time I needed to be out.  Not a good fucking model of work life balance.

There is life after academia. A much happier life it turns out. One with actual boundaries and a real work life balance. A life in which I can effect a lot of change for child care in a small state that I love and in which I feel "normal". Wisconsin always left me feeling like I was an odd and brightly coloured bird that was misunderstood. I was too blunt, too direct, too Dawn. Too fuck around and find out.

I am back in a place where Dawn-ness is understood - maybe not all the time - but it is also not looked at askew. In Wisconsin I was told by an Associate Dean that I didn't realize how I came across and I stared in amazement. Bitch, I have lived with me for 50+ years. Do you think I have not had intimate knowledge about how I come across?

Then I quit my job.

Fuck Around and Find Out.

Flood

 I am truly trying to write here more.

My brain is wholly quieter now that the constant-ness of a child at home, and a job that was killing me has subsided. 

It's nice. 

I drive to work two days a week and it gives me time to sing to my favorite Sirius stations, or Spotify playlists all while thinking through my day ahead or day behind. I still marvel at the beauty of my home state with early morning mist coming off the intense green of late June.  I marvel at the deep blue of the afternoon sky reflecting onto the trees as I drive by now-quiet streams on small back roads. 

We all watch those streams now. The PTSD of last years flooding remains close to our skin.  I find myself holding a bit of breath when rain is forecast for multiple days. There are no guarantees that your town or city or house will not suffer next.

I was re-reading some of my older writing here and find myself marveling at that person who wrote so well, so witty.  She was fucking brilliant and hysterical. Since this blog started in 2006 it can feel like looking back into distant memories that snap back into crystal clear focus with re-reading.  It brings me back to having a seven year old and feeling the exhaustion of mothering both both ways - into her past and into her future.  As I write today, I can feel that exhaustion but it is far away and fuzzy. I am not sad about that. I have said before and will continue to say that Motherhood was terrible for my mental health. It nearly broke me and despite my fierce I-will-cut-a-bitch-while-you catch-these-fucking-hands protectiveness - it cost me.

My body continues its slowest fucking meander into Menopause ever. 54, ya'll. I am 54 and my body is not particularly ready to give up the fertility ghost. I am at the doorstep waiting to hand it over but the UPS driver never arrives. I got my first period when I was 12. I think I've donated to the cause long enough.  That being said, the symptoms of menopause do not wait at the door. 

While I can abide a lot of symptoms, it's the not sleeping through the night that gets me.  No  sleep = Dawn can easily spiral into a manic episode! I take two sleeping meds, with Ambien on stand by if I have haven't slept in 4 days. 

(As an aside, the lectures I have gotten about my Ativan and Ambien by doctors who are not my psychiatrist. YES, I know they can be addictive. No, I am not abusing them. I got lots of issues but substance abuse isn't one. Well, maybe the ibuprofen liquigels but that is in the past)

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If you've read to here you will think "Did she say June up there in the third paragraph"

Yep. Sorry. Who knows how I got distracted or by what - one of those eternal mysteries that I just live with it seems. Perimenopause has fucked with my memory in ways that I find intolerable. I would find myself forgetting words in lectures that I had given for 11 years. I stand up and walk away from something and immediately forget what I was going to get and why. Mostly it just pisses me off.  I hear that it is not uncommon.

Vermont did flood again in July on the anniversary of the 2023 flood. This followed with a flood two weeks later and then more damage a week or so later. Every time rain is forecast we all, collectively, hold our breath to see if it is just a little or it is going to turn into some destructive force. If you don't believe in climate change come to Vermont. We can show you the effects all across our state. Emily can take you on her field visits assessing damage to historic infrastructure that has simply disappeared. We can't even rebuild yet because the ground is so saturated that it simply collapses inward. Rebuilding a culvert or road to only watch it disappear with the next heavy rain is worse than the initial damage.

Let us not even discuss the amount of farmland being swept away and the yearly loss of crops in the middle of the growing season.  One farmer I know has lost ten acres between the July 2023 and July 2024 floods. 

I didn't intend to make the end of this some kind of climate change flood rant but Vermonters, while hella strong, are tired. The FEMA relief has not yet come through from 2023. The houses they said they would buy out have not been bought out and continue to flood. People have nowhere else to live because there is no housing here (insert my feelings about hedge funds buying the real estate and air bnb profiteers)- so they live in flood damaged homes or apartments with mold and the knowledge that the next flood will also come for them again.

Terrance, Emily and I are fine. We are privileged and fortunate. The inconvenience of not finding a house or land ( that is not on a newly designated flood zone) on which to build is a small discomfort compared to fellow Vermonters.

Spare them a thought.

Take to the Sea

 This time of year finds me contented. The beginning of summer with it's softness and greenness stirs something inside me that holds forth a type of promise that things will be good.

Our family tradition has become meeting in Maine for three weeks and living in the beach house at Moody Beach. My sister comes from Florida, my nephew comes from Detroit, my mother in law from Arizona. My brother and his family come from outside of Boston. It has become, for me, a time outside of time.  

The ocean rolls in and out and I look at it all day perpetually fascinated by the immensity of the sea. It is hard, when confronted by an ancient force, to focus on small problems.  I love the ocean and not in a charming way. It is terrifying and beautiful. There are nights when the tide is so high and so strong that it hits the sea wall and moves the boulders.  All of this reminds you that you, human, are so small and inconsequential that your anxieties are misplaced. 

I walk the beach after those tides and see fish, lobsters and crabs torn apart by the force of the waves. I wade up to my knees, even though the water is ice cold. I walk out on the rocks to the tide pools. I haunt the edge of the tide. I am uniquely at ease.

Homeward Bound

 i may decide to write here more. Hard to say. 

Updates: 

#1 I am alive. Heart continues to heal and recover and do it's god damned job. One flare up of pericarditis...but I knew right away because I can feel the rub under my breastbone. May none of you EVER become so familiar with the feeling of pericarditis that you shoot off an email to your cardiologist to say "HEY! I am pretty sure my pericarditis has returned"

and then find yourself in a 7 am echocardiogram. It had returned and it was treated and I am Ok now, although Terrance has never stopped being the Heart failure police.

Mayo Clinic, it seems, does not fuck around. 

#2. I quit my job. Yep. Up and walked away from a tenured position. Why? because it was literally killing me. How many organs need to fail before you get the bag of dog shit on fire message left on your front door?

#3. As part of quitting said job, we moved back to Vermont. In January. I wouldn't recommend it. I also had to medicate an infamously skittish cat and then haul him cross country in three separate flights. I should have medicated myself too. If the gabapentin wasn't tuna flavored I might have thrown some down my throat.

#4 Housing in Vermont is really, really, really hard to find. The January part didn't help.  We had a massive three bedroom, 2.5 bath, with two car garage in Wisconsin. Backyard...the whole works. Vermont? About the size of what we lived in during our first years. TINY. We pay triple for this Vermont place.  TRIPLE!!

C'est la vie. We look for houses, or builders, or both.

#5 I have inexplicably become a woman who gets her nails done. As in I have standing appointments.  These are my real nails and they look amazing.  Who knew that at 53 I would suddenly morph into a lady with nice nails

#6 I have also become a woman who can't seem to finish things. Last episodes of shows, rugs...just things. It makes me too sad. Honestly. Terrance tried to get me to watch the end of Reservation Dogs with him and I flat out refused. Left the room. Began to cry when he came back into my bedroom because I couldn't bear to think that their lives became sad, or that one of the girls disappeared , or they died...

I think it is the weight of adulthood. 

#7 Hang on to your hair stylist. Tip them extravagantly. When you move and lose them it will take you 10 months to finally find someone who doesn't fuck up your colour.

#8 Find a job you like and that pays you what you are worth. Its nice. I also don't have to have an IV of Ativan to get through every meeting with a dean.

#9 Today, I finally got a consult with a psychiatrist. Yep, its taken almost 10 months.  She commented that Mayo sent an crazy number of pages in a medical file. I actually laughed. "I'm sure they did", I said. In whatever I must have filled out in May I wrote comments about the standard. questions. 

She reads "You wrote here that your childhood was .....stressful."

When I tell you that I guffawed. It was unseemly.  My response "That is the understatement of the century"

Otherwise I like her.

#10 Terrance and I celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary on October 5th. You don't - you can't - realize what it means when you marry.  I think if we did no one would do it. Standing there at my wise age of 26 and being so sure - so, so sure - that you know everything and that you will do it all right, and better and more perfect. 

But you don't. You can't. The best outcome you can hope for is that you like the people you become. Individually and together. There were easily 7 years in which I really, really did not like my husband. I don't say that to crow about how we made it through and look at us! No. It was hard and awful and I despaired. Our daughter got to watch that and it makes me endlessly sad that she had to witness that between two adults who love her.

Our marriage is peaceful. He brings me bouquets of flowers every Thursday because he knows it makes me happy.  We both work from home  - him full time and me three days a week. We just keep company. 

I think it is the best thing you can have.

P.S. Emily has a Master's degree. Historic Preservation, University of Vermont Dec 2022.  

Kintsugi

 The first few days home were terrifying. There is a PTSD that marches alongside BIG health issues and everyone in my family now has a healthy dose. 

I mean even tonight I was laying on my belly watching tv when Terrance ran in and said "Are you Ok? Is everything all right?" I looked up at him and said, "Yeah, I'm fine, why?"  "Because when I see you laying like that its usually because you don't feel good"

Poor man.  Now, in his defense, Dawn standing and flopped forward onto her belly was my preferred stance during heart failure. Apparently it takes pressure off the heart and is an actual documented "thing" about heart failure. All I knew was that I could breathe better so it became my default position. I got so accustomed to it that I continue to do it. It's comfy.  Not so much for him.

Despite my "no big deal" about being in the hospital....home was scary. Do you know those "in sickness and health" words that are in many wedding vows? Um, yeah. I was cashing in on those words HARD. 

In the hospital, Terrance had to bathe me. I would stand up and he would take these warmed cloths and wash me. Have you, an adult human, had another adult human wash you?  That, more than anything else, encapsulated how weak I was. I needed him. I needed his help.  At home, I couldn't make my own food, or walk up and down stairs. Shit, walking the 10 steps to the bathroom in my bedroom was a lot.  I would slowly walk to the bathroom, then slowly walk back. Rest, then try to climb back up into bed. 

Terrance would run my baths, wash my hair, get me lotion and then into a clean nightgown. He got a crash course in low sodium cooking because I was banned from the salt train.  (Sob, I still miss salt sometimes)  He monitored my fluids because I was only allowed 64 ounces a day to keep the fluid from building up. And he listened to my breathing because I still sounded like shit, gurgling away like a bubbler, then going quiet so he thought I had died. The man slept in a chair staring at me for weeks.  No wonder he has PTSD. 

Oh, and pills? I got the pills. Lots and lots of pills. The record high was 22 pills a day.  Blood pressure, heart rate stabilizers, pericarditis meds, diuretics - and then the depression/bipolar meds, diabetes, my regular statin.... Open up, swallow them down. 

They had warned me that finding the right medication titration would be ...rough.  Given that I believe that nothing will really affect me - I was dubious.  First med down? Losartan. I got the cough. You don't want a cough after heart failure because, well, a cough is a sign of heart failure. Tried another med. Not good. Tried a third, meh, Ok. 

This went on with medication after medication. We would find my therapeutic dose and then move to the next med to titrate me up.  The thing that we don't talk about is that with these medications with my condition the only way we know we are at your therapeutic dose?  You get sick. Your symptoms return.  The day we figured out that the Bisoprolol was too much? I walked into cardio rehab looking like death.  The med after that? I was puking in my office after the increase. 

Oh, did I mention the remote monitoring nurses? I had to weigh myself, take my blood pressure and pulse ox every day with a tablet that sent those vitals to the team. Once a week I would talk to the nurse as she reviewed those vitals and assessed any warning signs. Then, of course, there was my cardiac rehab team. I exercised under their watchful (and encouraging) eyes until the end of April. They also kept an eye on my weight, and I wore a heart monitor so they could watch to make sure I wasn't overdoing it. 

Cardiac rehab was nice, actually. I could see that I was getting stronger. I could see that I could be on the treadmill longer, or on the fancy bike with the scenic beaches and get to the end of that walk/bike. I was able to add weights by February and I was able to increase those numbers.  It was me, and several older men. They were crusty, refusing to change their diets, eat vegetables or exercise at home.  Of course, some had been through cardiac rehab before and didn't really see the rationale for adding vegetables into their diets.  

Not me. Tell me to exercise at home? Ok. Eat more veggies and fruit? Absolutely. The cardiac rehab staff are innately upbeat and kind. The other thing they do is transmit their observations to your doctors in real time. If I said "Oh, I was coughing a lot last night"....my doctors knew.  They watched me for lightheadedness and if my blood pressure was too low.  The cough from the Losartan not resolving? - the cardiac rehab staff emailed my doctor.  The first time I had that reaction to me medication?  My doctor knew right away.  I was ensconced in a team that was really dedicated to getting me back to a "normal" life. 

Broken Hearted

 The reality of what has happened still catches me off guard. My habit of minimizing my trauma, my health, my life  is being broken...slowly.  Even then there are times when the enormity of what my body has been through in nine months can pull me up short. 

When my cardiologist took my hands in March and said "You've been through a lot Dawn. This is a really big deal and you are doing everything you need to - but this was a big deal". 

I burst into tears.  Of course, I was also having symptoms of heart failure again and was terrified that my heart was saying "fuck it" and counting down. 

When I got the bed in the hospital I was there for six days? seven days? It was a long time.  I had lots of blood taken, and lots of things pushed into my IV. The ward I was in was next to the ICU - so there was a lot of monitoring.  I am an easy patient. Compliant. I stretch out arms for blood pressure and blood draws. I helpfully point out where you are most likely to get a vein. I coach folks through the fact that my veins seem to push down and disappear when you are looking for them.  (as an aside, I never thought I'd be SO familiar with my veins and how to access them). I take the meds, all the meds. 

Mostly I sat in the quiet and just waited. Terrance would arrive and sit with me for hours, then go out and make it back for a couple more hours before visiting hours were over.  I listened to things and watched out the window. Mainly though, I just lay there.  

I was so tired. Tired from the illness but tired from everything. Like every educator during Covid, I was fucking exhausted. My students were falling apart and I was trying to patch them together and teach AND do all the other pointless bullshit that comes with the professor gig.  I was keeping an admin at arms length as they failed to listen AND piled on more bullshit. I was trying to be the program director for our major and protect the faculty from some of those ridiculous asks from admin.   

Where did I find myself? Laying in a hospital bed. Again. Third year in a row! Increasing severity with every visit!  Terrance did not mince words. "This job is killing you. We have to do something about this."

I didn't have the strength to argue, and what was there to argue about? It was true. The evidence was *literally*  laying here in a hospital bed.  He began to handle HR and the FMLA debacle mainly because I was just so sick and couldn't bear to deal with the University bullshit.

On a Monday, after my echocardiogram, I woke  from a little nap to see my nurse standing over me.  She was waiting for me to wake up.  She had a diagram in her hand.

Now, nurses are the ultimate poker faces. They do not ruffle, they do not have big reactions. While this nurse was not overtly panicking, she absolutely had an air of purpose.  In truth I was not surprised to see her. My nosy ass watched the echo intently and even my amateur eyes could see that it wasn't good.  The tech can't tell you anything and mine was excellent but I mean you'd have to be blind to see that my heart was just not really pumping blood. Anywhere.  The colors that indicate direction of the blood were just kind of hanging around. My heart looked weak. Tired. 

In that, we were both aligned. 

My nurse had a diagram in a booklet and I rolled over to give her my attention. It seemed that my heart was really, really not pumping.  Not the right ventricle, and the left ventricle was particularly stubbornly refusing to participate.  My ejection fraction was so low that she suspected I might get taken into surgery right now to have a defibrillator installed.  Like Right now. 

I did not have a surgery. Surgery is always decided on in terms of cost/benefit and there was a good chance that with time and medication and diet and exercise we could avoid a surgery. However, and this is the fucking annoying thing, it would take time. A lot of time.  I was young. There was no discernible reason that my heart should have decided to take a vacation.  Maybe it would correct itself.

My low ejection fractions seem to have set off a bit of a kerfuffle in my cardiology team ( yeah, I now have a team) about whether to release me or watch me for a few more days. They compromised and kept me an extra day and then released me. 

I'd been warned about post hospital recovery and I was sure I would be fine. I mean, come on. How hard can it be? No surgery or anything - just pills and diet changes. I had been released.

Broken Heart

 Even I can take the hint. Me, the person who never takes ANY fucking hint to let go, to subside, to be still, can take this hint. 

In October I felt really worn down. My office is on the third floor and by the time I got there I had to rest, panting. I assumed my cardio fitness was shit and I was probably getting fat. I am, after all 51, and my body continues to change as I morph into the bad ass crone I was meant to be. 

I was teaching face to face, as I had done all through the pandemic, and was ( and still am) scrupulous about masking. I still, for the record, mask in public spaces. I don't trust any of those motherfuckers. 

I planned on my COVID booster in early October because - well - I am around 18-25 year olds and they are invincible. I, however, am clearly NOT invincible. (See previous posts)

So there I am, panting up three flights of stairs.  The tightness around my torso began.  "hmmmm", Dawn thinks , "probably a bronchial infection which I should not have because I mask all the time and I better not have fucking Covid."

I go to my doctor. He says "pneumonia" and I agree. It does feel like pneumonia. I now cough and cough and the pressure is getting worse. I do the first round of antibiotics and nothing gets better. I go to the ER and they say "Yep, still pneumonia, take these other antibiotics". Week 2 of antibiotics commence.

"OK", I say. By now my breathing is bad. I use the inhaler. I drink the water. I call in to class because I can't breathe and I certainly won't be able to do my lecture performance for 2 hours at a time. I do some meetings via zoom and black out the screen when I cough so hard that I nearly fall off my chair.  My continual coughing keeps me awake all night.

We go back to the ER after week two.. It's a long night and a million tests are run on me.  Some tests are a little wobbly but nothing really indicative.  I must be fighting off the infection. More antibiotics are prescribed. Week 3 of antibiotics.

I've now been on a month of antibiotics. Nothing seems to be helping. I can no longer stand in the shower so I sit in steamy showers trying to break up whatever is in my lungs.  The inhalers do nothing.  I don't sleep because of the coughing.  My ability to walk has been curtailed from my bed to my bathroom and back. Even then, I have to rest leaning over the bed before I can climb back up because I am too tired to hoist myself back into bed. Terrance finds me in this position frequently because it helps my breathing. 

There is no working my job for me. I can't even care because I can't breathe.  I later find out that the students think I have Covid - really bad covid - and that no one is telling them. 

The night before Thanksgiving I wake up panting. My stomach and gut hurt all the time and I think it is because of the mammoth amount of antibiotics that are killing my gut flora. I try eating yogurt.

Emily is home because of the Thanksgiving holiday and she stares at me while I am propped up in bed.  I tell her that I woke up panting and she rats me out to her father immediately. He declares we are going back to the ER right now. "No", I plead, "They will tell me it is pneumonia again. There is nothing to be done."

He threatens to carry me down the stairs. I barter to eat a little Thanksgiving dinner before I go, knowing that there is no food to be had in the ER. I eat. I am so tired. I need to be helped into clothes and my family maneuvers me down the stairs and into the waiting car.

We arrive and I am ushered into a bed. Around us people with Covid are yelling at the nurses - denying, demanding. 

What feels like 2 gallons of blood is extracted. My veins are bruised from all the other visits so new sites must be  found. I can barely care, but I am compliant and kind to the nurses and techs.  Terrance hovers, fiercely.  I am hooked to an IV antibiotic to which I have a horrifying reaction. I feel like I am burning to death. I vomit, I cry, I keep asking how much longer till the bag is empty. I consider ripping the IV out to stop this horror. 

Terrance is frantic, putting cold cloths on my neck as I plead with him to make this stop.  "I can't do this, I can't do this", I cry.  When the medicine ends, the pain stops.  I can open my eyes and speak again. "That was bad", I say. He is shaken and quiet.  "I've never seen you like that. Even in labor", he says.

I lay on my side.  Laying on my side helped  the pressure in my torso, but makes me cough. Every decision is weighed with the discomfort. We sit, waiting. 

I am taken for more procedures - MRI's with contrast. The dye always feels funny - the hot tingle before it subsides. I return to the room. I wait.  Emily has arrived and sits next to me. 

My doctor eventually arrives. "This is congestive heart failure", he announces. Emily bursts into tears. Terrance shushes her - he is intently listening.  "You are going to be in the hospital for while", the doctor says. 

New medications are pushed into the IV. Saline is immediately discontinued and diuretics are pushed.  The  swelling that I'd thought was dead gut bacteria is, in fact, fluid. LOTS of fluid. The pressure and fluid in my lungs? Not pneumonia , it seems, but fluid building up. I go back in for another MRI. The tech says "This is the last one you can have for 24 hours. Remind them if they try to send you for another one."

The squeezey things are put on my legs to try to move the fluid. I pee constantly.  

There are no beds free in the hospital due to the Covid patients.  Terrance goes home to get me my favorite pillow and some other things.  I sleep in the ER until a bed is freed 28 hours later. 

Aging

 

I turned 50 in April. We'd planned a month long sojourn through Italy, starting in Rome and then winding down the Amalfi coast.  We planned that trip for over a year.

Then Covid.  Which, you know. Closed Italy, then closed everywhere. 

But this post isn't about Covid. That is an eternal nightmare that makes me incredibly filled with rage at stupidity and toxic individualism.  It's not about the 3.5 months that I literally did not leave my house because my never ending pancreatitis, recent past kidney failure and diabetes painted a giant "Easy to kill" sign on my back.  It's not even about the depression that hit me like a wholly unexpected wave and pulled my feet out from under me, forming a rip tide that I had trouble shaking.

In May I had a surgery to remove my gall bladder which was determined to have caused ten months of pancreatitis. It was a weird thing having a surgery during a pandemic - especially one that was scheduled two days after my visit with the surgeon. (It was a very bad gall bladder.  Quite.) Of course by that time I'd had three Covid tests since pancreatitis mimics Covid. The surgery seemed less daunting than having my brain swabbed again. 

 No one was allowed to go in with me. I woke up to very kind nurses who ( apparently) were keeping Terrance up to date via phone calls.  I lingered in recovery until about 4:30 that afternoon when Terrance was called to meet me at the front door. I walked out to get in the car, blessing the nurses who had managed the hell out of my pain and kept the ice cold cranberry juice flowing.  (Big props to the nurses at Mayo Health)

I slowly recovered - which took longer than I expected. Then again the stone was 5 FREAKING CENTIMETERS. Having your surgeon in front of you super excited as you emerge from the fog of general anesthesia to exclaim about the size of your gall stone is a special experience. My mom later said "Yeah, surgeons rarely get excited. It must have been a really large stone - larger than he's seen."

At the beginning of June, just as I was feeling better and didn't have to clutch a pillow to my mid section every time I inhaled too deeply,  I was walking back to the car from dropping off some library books when I stumbled. And fell. And heard a deeply worrisome POP! My first thought was "Please Jesus, don't let my still not fully healed incisions to have ripped." They did not.  My next thought was "My ankle is not in the place it should be on my body." It was, in fact, not. I reached down and with grit I did not know I possessed, I popped my ankle back into it's joint.  I continued to lay on the gravel for some time, causing the librarians to run out of the building and try to convince me to have someone get me.

No. I insisted, I would drive home. It was only about a quarter of a mile and I could do it. 

I did glance down at my ankle on that short drive home and began to mentally prepare for the news that it was broken. It looked - well - like nothing I'd ever seen before.  Terrance took one look and said "That's broken." Once at the ER, a very kind doctor unwrapped my ankle and said "Oh! well, I suppose you could have sprained it - but something that looks like that is usually broken."

It was not broken was badly dislocated and incredibly swollen. The ER called in more painkillers which made the pharmacist intently question Terrance as to my obvious budding opioid addiction. Two times in a MONTH. Was he sure I didn't hurt myself on purpose to get more drugs?

About 4 weeks after the surgery, I got a call from my GI doctor. Now, friends, at this point I have SO many doctors who've been pulled into my case(s) that I can forget who does what. I thought they were calling to see if the pancreatitis symptoms were better.  Nope. I was 50. I had some long term GI issues. It was time for my colonoscopy.  I actually said "You've got to be fucking kidding me. "

Nope, they were not fucking kidding me. They wanted me in ASAP. I was on the radar.  Fine. Whatever. Why not?  They were going to sedate me, right? Ok. Sure.  

I went in for that little exercise in willpower after drinking that low key semen flavored gallon. Lucky for me, I ALWAYS have diarrhea so there was less to clear out of my intestinal tract.  Oh, and if you mix margarita mix into the solution it will mask the taste, at least a little.  And if you are diabetic you are free to suck on real sugar candy to keep your blood glucose from diving off of a cliff during your day of fasting. 

The procedure itself was nothing. I was given meds, I woke up and left the hospital. I was warned that I had some polyps and they were going to be tested. If they saw anything untoward, I would be back to do this in 5 years instead of 10.  I

Last week, I got tagged for my overdue mammogram.

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This is where I seem to have stopped writing. Who knows why - Cat? Child? Spouse? All are feasible explanations.  But now I hit publish on this saga of fiascos. For I will be publishing the NEXT saga of the  fiasco

We in ECE are not your cannon fodder

The inevitable has happened. The world economy has ground to a halt and the nation casts their eyes to whom? Child Care providers.

"Work! Keep Working! We need you to work so we can give you our children so we can work!"

I ask

"Where were you all when I had no health insurance? When I survived on 13,000 a year? Where were you when I would ask for a living wage to be told that I did unskilled labor that anyone could do?

Where were you when I got no sick time, and no vacation? When I came in sick with bronchitis or drove through dangerous conditions to get to my job so I could care for YOUR children?"

"But we need you! You are an essential service"

I ask

"Really? Because most of my work force lives in poverty. Many of us make minimum wage. Most make no more than $10 per hour if we are lucky. We qualify for SNAP benefits. We use food pantries. You've never paid me like I was an essential service. In fact you made me feel guilty for saying that I needed more money. You told me that I was greedy, that I wasn't in this for the money."

"But we can't work if you don't care for our kids! You can't be selfish! "

I pause.
"I am not selfish. However, you don't get to abuse me for decades and then turn around, point at me, and demand that I accommodate you."

"But who will care for those sick and dying?"

I exhale. 

"Who will care for me? Where is my protective gear? Why is my health less valuable?

When you pass new emergency laws raising adult to child ratios so I can take more children into my already crowded classrooms how does that help? Who does that help? Me? 

Are you unaware that children spread disease faster than any other age group? Have you not spent time with a group of eighteen 4-year-olds?  or eight infants? That crowding more children into those classrooms guarantee that more disease will spread?

What happens to me and my colleagues when we (inevitably) get sick? Who cares for MY children?"

I start to close my door. You jam your foot into it.

"You must work! We can talk about what you deserve later. You must work now"

I push the door close as I say:

"My profession and our bodies are not your cannon fodder. I told you this day would come and we told you, endlessly, that your economy runs off of our labor. You ignored me.

You stepped on me and my colleagues over and over and over.  People wrung their hands and said "Yes, you deserve so much more", but more never came. Our wages and benefits never increased. Our facilities never got better. We still have to spend our own money on paper, and paint, and glue, and kleenex, and snacks to feed these children that we love. We still have our own children to feed. For many of us we can not afford to send our children to the centers in which we work.

Your promises are empty.  You will forget about us as soon as this crisis passes. If you wanted to change this you could, but you are too busy telling us that it is all too expensive for you to do anything.

Care for your own children. We hear it is easy unskilled work not worth a living wage. Not worth health insurance. Not worth getting an education. "

I lock my door.