Author: Dre

Categories
Health and Nutrition Life in general

Change

Put yourself in her shoes.  A moment is all I ask.

You’re a woman.

A mother.  A wife.  A daughter.  A sister.  A friend.  An employee.

You are many things to many people. 

You don’t feel well, but you press on.  Time passes, and your husband encourages you to go to the doctor.

Your employer doesn’t offer health insurance, and you can’t afford to pay for private-pay coverage – not with 5 mouths to feed and bills to pay, not since your husband was laid off when the economy tanked. 

Your family qualifies for medicaid , as long as your income stays low, and so your husband works only part time, keeping you just below the cut-off.  You can’t risk not having health coverage for your kids.

So you try to go to the doctor and you are refused, time and time again, because few doctors will take Medicaid patients and those who do, aren’t accepting new patients.  You call your former doctor, sure he will see you, and learn he has retired.

Your symptoms persist, get worse.

You go to the local clinic and are told you probably have “woman problems”.  Probably.  Have woman problems.  Whatever the hell that means. 

Finally, you find a doctor who will see you, and he tells you, point blank, that he doesn’t like to take Medicaid patients.  As he examines your abdomen, he says yes, he can feel something.  It’s probably ovarian cysts.  Probably.  He gives you a prescription for pain killers and tells you to come back in 6 months if you’re still having problems.

The months pass.  Your symptoms have worsened, and the pain meds only slightly dull the pain.  You can hardly function, barely get through the day, but you’ve used all your sick time and are afraid to be fired if you don’t show up for work.  Your family needs that paycheck. 

You call for an appointment and are told that the soonest the doctor can see you is 3 months from now.  Because you’re on Medicaid, and there are only so many slots available.

You suffer.  Your family suffers with you, because the pain is so severe, so horrendous.  You’ve lost your appetite, overcome with relentless nausea.  Your friends and family comment on how pale you look.

Finally, you get in to see the doctor.  Again, he complains about your Medicaid.  Makes you feel like you’re the scum on the bottom of his shoe.  He looks at your file, listens to your complaints.  Without even examining you, he writes you a new prescription for a different pain medication.  Tells you that if you’re still not well in six months, he’ll discuss a hysterectomy with you.  Because you probably have woman issues.  Probably.

More time passes, and you are in so much pain that you can barely walk.  Getting into the car one day, you feel as though something in your abdomen has burst.  The pain is unbearable, like nothing you have ever felt.  You are rushed to the ER.

The CAT scan reveals two large tumors.  The one on your colon is 5 cm in diameter.  The one on your liver is a whopping 12 cm.  A biopsy concludes that they are malignant.

“There are a few treatment options,” the oncologist says, “but so many more if we’d caught it sooner.”

If only someone had taken you seriously when you first sought medical attention.

There is nothing left to do, but hope, and weep, and wonder what could have been. 

If only.

She has a name, a face, a history.  Likes, dislikes, passions.

Her name is Rachel.

She has a wonderful smile, an infectious laugh.

She works hard, pays her taxes. 

Maybe you support healthcare reform.  Possibly, you oppose it.  Perhaps you don’t know what to think.

Is this what Rachel deserves, America?  Is this the kind of healthcare that anyone should have to live with?  To die with?

This much I know is true:

Rachel is not the only one.  Politicians can spout off statistics all day long, but who are the people behind them?  What are their names?  What are their stories?  

Put yourself in any of their shoes, only for a moment.  And then dare to tell me that nothing needs to change.

Categories
Parenting PPD Surviving

I Stay

I was Alison’s age when my mom left. 

That’s all I could think about when I walked out the other night.  I left the kids in the bath, their hair full of shampoo.  I’d been trying to rinse them when they thought it would be funny to kick their legs and drench me as I leaned down over the tub.

It was just too much.  Too much disrespect, too much neediness, not enough appreciation, for days and days on end.  In that moment, water dripping from my face, I felt defeated.

And so I walked away.  Left them to their dad, who was so horribly sick, he hadn’t been able to get out of bed by himself in over 24 hours.  All I could do was put one foot in front of the other.

I was Alison’s age when my mom left. 

I remember her saying that it wasn’t anything I did, she was just overwhelmed and needed to get well.  But I stood there, my hand on the front door, my keys in my hand, and I wondered if she knew, back then, how much I appreciated the things she did for me.

But did I?  Did I appreciate how hard she worked?  All the sacrifices she made for me, for us?  When she was having a bad day, did I shower her with hugs and kisses and give her some space?  Or did I pick a fight with my sister, tell her I hated what she made for dinner, refuse to go to bed, splash her as she tried to rinse my hair?

If I had paid a little closer attention, shown a little empathy, treated her with more respect, would things have been different for her?

One day, she was gone, and we had to figure out how to live our lives without her there.  Without her to clap with joy for something done well, without her cool hand in mine as I crossed the street, without her gentle voice as I fell asleep.  I never even knew she was struggling, never even noticed.

I was Alison’s age when my mom left, and I walked out the door, anyway.

But instead of getting into my car and driving away, I went to the backyard and picked up a puppy.  I breathed in that scrumptious puppy smell and rested my face on the little guy’s head and I closed my eyes.  My tears fell on his soft fur and he snuggled into my chest.

I thought of the way Alison smiles when I sing her favorite song.

The way Blythe’s eyes sparkle when we dance.

The way Jeremy takes care of me when I remember to tell him that I need help.

My girls came to find me, dressed in their pajamas, damp hair a mess of tangles down their backs. 

“We’re sorry we splashed you, Mommy,” Alison said. 

“I don’t like to make you sad, Mommy,” said Blythe.

They hugged me tight, wiped my tears and I told them that I love them.  They are kids, being kids.  Sometimes they are ornery and ungrateful, but other times they are thoughtful and kind and giving.

    

It was just too much, in that moment, but the truth is, this isn’t about them.  It’s about me.

For three years I have struggled with some form of depression, and all that time, in the back of my mind, I’ve thought of how my mom had to leave in order to get better.  I ask myself, is it possible to give so much of myself to their needs, every moment of the day, and still have the strength to climb this mountain? 

In my darkest moments I wonder, am I destined to follow in her footsteps?  Will my kids one day look back and remember how old they were when I left?  Struggling to find balance in their own adult lives, will they wonder if they are strong enough to stay?  Or strong enough to leave if they need to?

I stay.  No matter how hard things get for me, how low I get when my hormones are out of balance and life is overwhelming me and I feel like I have nothing left, absolutely nothing left to give them, I know I will always stay, because I am working, constantly, to get better.

I know that the darkness will pass.  Because unlike my mother before me, I have someone who understands.  Someone who has been there and had to walk away in order to get better.  She reminds me, in those moments, that I am not alone.

I stay.  I stay.  I promise I will always, always, stay.

Categories
Food Health and Nutrition

Mayday! Challenge – The Results

I’ve found, over the last 6 weeks, that getting my health in check has had a bit of an anchoring effect on my life.  In the midst of all the chaos, this is constant, this makes sense.

It was hard at first, I won’t lie.  I was miserable for the first two weeks, at least, and had plenty of days where I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

But as I replaced my bad habits with good ones, and as I built up my endurance, I discovered that I really feel great when I eat well and exercise.  It’s not anything I didn’t know – I was in great shape and ate incredibly well for a decade.  But once I got out of that routine and developed bad habits, it was hard to remember what healthy felt like.

Through this 6 week journey, I’ve come to terms with the fact that my weight is about simple math.  I gained 20 pounds.  Each pound is 3500 calories.  That means I consumed 70,000 more calories than I burned, which in turn means I need to burn those 70,000 calories in order to get back to where I started.  That is a whole lot of freaking calories!  Change can’t happen over night because it’s not mathematically possible.

Accepting that it’s not personal, it’s math, has helped me tremendously to look at my fitness goals with logic rather than emotion.

Letting go of that emotional baggage?  HUGE.

My friend Kelly pointed me toward a fabulous website called Fitday.com and I will freely admit that I’ve become a wee bit obsessed with it.  If you have any desire to lose weight, get in shape, or just see where you are, health and nutrition wise, I suggest that you check it out!  It’s completely free (unless you upgrade to premium, but in my opinion, what they offer for free is awesome) and it helps you to break your goals down into basic math.

Basically, you give it your stats: age, weight, height, lifestyle (sedentary, active, or somewhere in between) and it tells you how many calories you burn in a day, just living.  You can break down your day into as many increments as you want to get it exactly right, or you can just let it estimate.

Then you set your goals, and it tells you, in black and white, what you need to do to reach them.  It helps you keep track of your food intake and your activities, and lets you know where you’re at each day, week, month, etc.  Seriously, check it out!  Whatcha waiting for?  Did I mention it’s FREE ?

So.  After six weeks and a few days of making healthy choices, I feel better than I’ve felt in a very, very long time.

After (see, I took your suggestion, Kellee !):

— Don’t mind the smudgy mirror —

And?  And!!!  This morning I put on my favorite Citizens of Humanity Jeans , the ones that wouldn’t even come up past my knees six weeks ago.

Behold:

I did it!

Overall, I lost 10 pounds and 3% of my body fat, which was my goal.  I come away from my Mayday Challenge knowing that I can splurge occasionally as long as I keep my math in check, but for the most part?  I will continue to exercise and make healthy choices because it makes me feel good.

 

And?  Because I am worth the effort.

 

Damn.  Straight.

Categories
Work at Home

Business as Usual

Here at chez Sweet Life, we run a half dozen businesses out of our home.

We’ve got a Corporation, an LLC, three sole proprietorships and a charitable organization. 

You know how they say you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket?  Well, you could say we’ve taken that idea and run with it.

The problem is, there are so many damn baskets, it’s hard to keep track of them all and keep the eggs from being dropped, broken, or neglected until they become a stinking, rotten mess.

There are times that I feel like I’ve got everything under control, and our little operation is running smoothly.  Other times?  Which is to say, most of the time? 

Not.  So.  Much.  It’s incredibly hard to keep all those baskets of eggs balanced when there are little people in constant need of loving attention.

All that to say, I’m feeling overwhelmed.  Again.  Or maybe Still?  I’m not sure which.

Just when I start to think I’ve got everything in order, something else comes screaming in from elsewhere and I feel like I lose my balance. 

So, how do you all do it?  How do you balance life and work and family and SELF without losing your minds?

Categories
Surviving

While A Child is Visiting

A Child is visiting.

We play outside and I watch, carefully. 

My girls are joyful as they show her what happens when they step near the big tree with the hole in the middle.  Baby birds chirp at the slightest sound, hoping for their mama bearing scrumptious worms .  My girls chirp back, faces tipped up and smiling widely, like baby birds themselves.

The day goes by and I am pleased, there have been no accidents that require bandages and ice packs for my little ones, and I relax while A Child is visiting.

I am pushing my girls on the swing, and I realize I have lost sight of her.

I find her at the big tree.

The smile that was forming on my lips is halted when she turns to face me and I see what she is doing.  The hand that has been jabbing a long stick into the hole in the tree stops abruptly when our eyes meet.

My eyes are wide, my mouth agape.  I am horrified, frozen solid and unable to speak while A Child is visiting.

I glance at my daughters, swinging innocently 10 feet away.  They haven’t seen, they don’t know.  For that I am grateful.

“What are you doing?” I say, with as much conviction a whisper will allow.

She doesn’t respond, only stares at me.

“Answer me,” I demand, ever so quietly so my girls won’t hear. “Why are you poking a stick in that hole?”

She shrugs, looks away.

“Look at the hole.”

She looks.

“There are baby chicks in that hole.  Why did you poke them with a stick?” I ask.

She turns her face to look me right in the eyes.  “I forgot they were there.”  Another shrug.

I close my eyes and count to 10, breathing deeply.

When I open them again, she is gone, run to play on the swing set.  She knows I won’t confront her if she is with my daughters. 

The heaviness of her horrendous act forms a ball in my stomach. 

When they come to get her, I will tell them, I think to myself, and demand counseling this time.  I am done suggesting.  Her behavior is getting out of hand.  But the soft little voice of reason tells me they will explain it away, as they always do.  She forgot, they will say, she was just a curious kid poking a stick in a hole.  It could happen to anyone.

I shudder as my eyes fall to the stick she dropped to the ground as she ran away.  A small clump of downy feathers, stuck to the pointed end, flutters gently in the mild breeze.

I listen to the sounds of the children’s laughter, and am subsequently deafened by the silence of the hole in the tree.  I think of how the baby birds would chirp as we approached the tree, and wonder what she heard as she poked that stick in the hole. 

I choke down the bile rising in my throat.

I will tell my girls that the birds flew away.  And I will wrestle with the ball that lives in my stomach while A Child is visiting.