We got a minimum of one (and as many as 6) of each and every thing on the list. They’ll be able to make multiple gift bags for multiple women from our $100 shopping.

Here is the list we were given as a wish list:
Gift or phone cards ($5 or $10)
Bus tickets
Collapsible umbrellas
Night eye masks and ear plugs to make shelter living easier
Fun pieces of jewelry
Toiletry items (deodorant, disposable razor, hair products (African American hair products always requested) tissues, chapstick)
Puzzle books with a pen or pencil(crossword puzzles, Sudoku)
Daily planners or pocket calendars, inspirational books or quotes
Hot tea, cider, or hot chocolate packets
Microwaveable popcorn, granola bars, or small bags of snacks
Throw Blankets

So many of these items are $1 at places like Target. It made it exceptionally easy.

Those of us who are lucky enough to have gifts to give and receive should all consider giving the equivalent of one extra gift (in cash or goods) to someone in need. Youth shelters need MASSIVE help right now. So do food banks. Don’t forget pet food for the animal shelters too. And if you have no money, give an hour of your time to help sort others’ donations. I promise you will be glad you did.

The ultimate gift to me would be for my whole family to spend a few hours together, helping to make someone else’s day a bit better. I think I’ll suggest it! Who’s joining me?

2010 has been a very difficult year, and I’m fairly glad to see it on its way out. It’s mostly been health issues – one on top of the next – that have made it so tough.

The good news is that Dad is still with us. He beat Pancreatic Cancer.

Wait. Let me say that bigger and louder. MY DAD SURVIVED PANCREATIC CANCER. He has NO evidence of the disease, and is in the “1% Club.” Someday it will come back, but at this time, he is cancer free. That’s the best you can ever hope for with PanCan.

The treatment was horrendous, and he ended up in the hospital a couple of times, but he fought and he won. He officially got a clean bill of health in about September after a 6-week intensive course of 24/7 chemo via a pump, plus daily radiation, plus weekly “big” chemo. This was after an entire year of weekly chemo. He was beaten down, they took him to within inches of death, and brought him back.

What was equally amazing were the number of people who helped. I put out a message on a local news site and asked for volunteer drivers to help him to get to/from treatment daily (30 minutes from home for a 5 minute radiation appt!) and we had dozens of volunteers. Had to weed out a few weirdos, but not too many.

And now, he’s just gotten his first haircut. He’s almost good as new – still has to limit certain types of foods, as his stomach can no longer digest them. He’s got a bit of digestive damage from all the treatment, but it’s better than the alternative. So we’re very thankful.

I’m just now getting over the worst stomach bug of my life. 7 days of nonstop vomiting and diarrhea that only stopped for a few hours at a time when I went in to the ER or to see my doctor and got injections and IV fluids. It began much like a foodborne illness: Severe GI pain up high in my stomach (under the ribs) and then nonstop vomiting with diarrhea. The number of times I couldn’t deal with both ends at the same time were absolutely humiliating. By the end I simply wanted to die. I finally started to pray as I was throwing up one of the last times “Please make this go away – I can’t live through another day or more of it.” Something worked, because it finally stopped on Thursday afternoon. I had to wait 48 hours to eat, meaning it had been well over 2 weeks of nothing but pedialyte and jello when I began to try solids again. Holy COW I was hungry. I lost 20+ pounds in that week, and I’m just lucky I had it to lose.

Anyway, that’s all the health stuff. Tomorrow is my first day back to work after being so sick, and I’m hoping I have the strength to make it through the day. I’m still physically very weak and can’t walk super far. But I’ll manage.

More updates on everything else later.If I still have any readers left. Sorry I abandoned you all. I didn’t mean to — life just went sideways for a bit. I’m back now, though, and will get to writing again shortly.

xoxo

Aim

1 package mushroom tortellini
1/2 cup dried mushrooms, chopped
1 can cannelini beans (or 2 c cooked white beans of any variety)
4 small tomatoes, seeded
1 head broccoli, chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 handsful frozen peas
1/2 cup cooked chicken, diced
1/2 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 T butter
2 T flour, sifted
2 cups milk
6 oz cheese, cubed and divided into 3oz portions (use whatever cheese variety you have on hand)

Cook tortellini according to package directions.
While pasta is cooking, reconstitute mushrooms in warm water, and saute onion and garlic in butter until lightly browned. Sift flour over onion mixture and continue to cook on low-medium heat until flour has coated onions and begins to brown. Add milk, stirring frequently until mixture begins to thicken and then add half of the cheese mixture and allow to melt and incorporate entirely while stirring to make a thick cheese sauce.
Pour beans into oiled casserole dish with vegetables and chicken. Puree tomatoes in a blender or food processor and pour over bean and vegetable mixture.
Add tortellini once cooked, pour cheese sauce overtop, and fold ingredients together.
Sprinkle remaining cheese over top, and bake 30-45 min at 375.

This will be a fairly dry casserole. If you prefer it to be more saucy, throw in a can of cream of mushroom soup, or double the sauce recipe.

Would You Like Ammonia-Laced Pink Slime with That Burger?

Too bad. You don’t really get a choice. Is the beef industry trying to turn its customers into vegetarians? From the NY Times:

Eight years ago, federal officials were struggling to remove potentially deadly E. coli from hamburgers when an entrepreneurial company from South Dakota came up with a novel idea: injecting beef with ammonia.

Please read the rest of the article here: http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2010/01/would_you_like_ammonia-laced_p.php

I don’t know about you, but I’m disgusted. I knew the meat industry was corrupt and profit-driven, but naively thought they wouldn’t stoop THIS low.

Will you commit to reducing your meat intake by one meal a week? More? Will you commit to buying only organic meats, or meats directly from local farmers/ranchers? What are you willing to change in order to stop these guys? If we didn’t buy the meat, if it weren’t profitable to poison people, they wouldn’t do it.

He’s still recovering from the recent complications, and his legs are really weak. But he’s improving a little each day.

The little things are all that matters.

The concept of “stages of grief” was introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

What is interesting is the anger. It’s not just the obvious anger at the loss, the world, etc.

I’ve been experiencing a totally different anger. It comes out when well-meaning friends say things like, “I totally know how you feel because my <parent/friend/relation/favorite barista/whatever> had chemo for <insert type of cancer here that’s got a near-100% cure rate>.” I find myself shutting down, because my first inclination is to scream in their faces, “NO, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!”

Pancreatic Cancer is such a different animal from most other cancers. Unlike most cancers, there’s really not much hope of beating it. There is about a 99% chance that it will kill my dad. It’s just a matter of how long we have left with him. If I try to talk about how it feels to be on limited time, people say, “think positive, don’t say that!” It feels like they’re encouraging me to be in denial for THEIR comfort. It feels like most people don’t want to understand. It’s too scary to think of our mortality.

I know people mean well. I know they don’t really know what to say. Sometimes, the best thing to say is “how are you doing?” But only if you mean it, and are willing to hear the answer. Just STFU and just listen. No need to say you’re sorry, or try to comfort. Just asking is enough.

There was a 92-year-old man in the next bed. Poor guy wanted sourdough toast, and nobody would bring him any because it wasn’t on his approved list. After the guy asked for toast for about the 12th time, Dad said, “Jesus! The guy is 92 years old and has about 2 weeks to live – bring him some fucking toast!” This is one of the reasons I love my dad.

A little later, the older man’s family was visiting him.

The sons (I assume they were his sons) were bantering a bit, and one said he was working on getting “back in shape.”

The older man said “when have you ever been in shape?”

The son replied, “Round is a shape!”

We all covered our mouths and tried to hold back the guffaws.

1 quart beef stock
1 quart chicken stock
(Vegetarians substitute “better than bouillon” pastes in chicken and beef flavors)
½ onion, left whole
3 cloves garlic, left whole
2c white beans (pre-soaked) or 2 cans cannellini beans, rinsed
2 t kosher or sea salt
1 t freshly ground pepper
2 sprigs fresh thyme
½ pound andouille or portuguese sausage, sliced (vegetarians, substitute tofurkey or soy chorizo)
2 large bunches kale
1 stalk celery, diced
2-3 carrots, chopped
garlic salt or minced garlic + salt (to taste, if needed)
Add stock, beans, onion, garlic, salt, pepper and thyme to crockpot or large heavy soup pot. Start the previous night or early in the morning and cook all day to allow stock to become very rich.
After 8+ hours of simmering, fish out garlic and onion. Add more liquid if needed. Add andouille sausage and cook until you can smell the soup throughout your house. You’ll know by the rich smell when it’s done. At this point you can set it to “keep warm” setting on your crockpot or stove, and let it be for a couple of hours if needed.
1 hour before serving add kale, carrots, celery and garlic salt if needed.
Serve with good crusty buttered bread.

Makes approx. 5 quarts soup (20 servings.) If you’re not having guests, you can seal it up in sterile jars to store, or freeze portions for later.  Hint: use 1-quart ziploc freezer bags, mark the outside with the contents, and store flat in the freezer to save space.

2009 was a rough year for many of us, and in fact 2000-2009 was a bit of a rough decade. My hope is for 2010 to be significantly better.

My wishes for the new year:
For my father to be the one person who beats one of the deadliest cancers in existence.
For my husband and me to both be promoted so that our salaries catch up with the work we’re actually doing.
For my friends who are unemployed to find fulfilling employment.
For the world to find a little more peace, and a little less chaos.

1. General Practitioner
I used to see Dr. (Sari) Lisa Davison. However, last year I was REALLY sick with severe lung issues. I kept going in to see her because I couldn’t breathe, and she kept putting me on different asthma treatments. I told her I was pretty sure it wasn’t asthma, and that something else was wrong. She declined to refer me out to a specialist, and continued prescribing inhalers and steroids. Finally, I couldn’t catch my breath and I called her yet again. She told me to go to the ER, as she couldn’t do anything for me. I felt, by this time, like she thought I was faking it all. When I got to the ER, my oxygen saturation was low, my heart rate was high, and my BP was very high (normal for me is 80/60 and it was in the neighborhood of 150/120)

The ER doctors treated the immediate issue, ran a ton of tests, and referred me on an emergency basis to a pulmonologist, who saw me the next day and ended up diagnosing a rare obstructive pulmonary disease called Bronchilitis Obliterans with Organizing Pneumonia. Dr Davison billed me for all the visits in which she failed to refer me out, not even cutting me a break when I had to keep coming in due to her errors. She was rude and dismissive, and basically washed her hands of me. I currently have a “generic GP” I picked from the offices where my pulmonologist works, and I’ve seen him only once, so I really have no opinion one way or the other on him.

Bottom line, she doesn’t listen when a patient tells her “I know my body and something is wrong.”

2. Pulmonologist
My pulmonologist is Dr. Derel Finch at Minor and James Medical Center in Seattle. He’s fantastic! Truly a great doctor. He explains what he’s doing and why, and listened when I told him I didn’t think I had asthma. He figured out the puzzle of my lungs quickly, and ordered me on bedrest for nearly 3 months to recover. It was almost relieving when he told me that he had patients in the hospital who were less sick than I was. There was something very validating about hearing that from him when I felt so very sick and the previous doctor had blown me off and made me feel like a hypochondriac.

3. Rheumatologist
I wasn’t happy with Dr. Steven Overman at the Seattle Arthritis Clinic. He wasn’t willing to be aggressive about getting my arthritis under control. He also didn’t believe I had been as sick as I was telling him, and refused to read the notes from Dr. Finch. In addition, he changed my diagnosis from visit to visit, one time confirming that I had Ankylosing Spondylitis (which had been diagnosed 10 years ago, and is without a doubt what I have) and then the next time saying I didn’t have anything wrong with me that losing weight wouldn’t fix. When I told him I’d been on a serious fitness plan before getting sick with my lungs, he said I probably overdid it and just got tired of working out. (I did not. Working out is something I truly look forward to, and crave) He opined that there was nothing wrong with my lungs and that I was exaggerating how ill I’d been, and that I am just lazy and don’t want to be well.

Dr Finch (Pulmonologist) referred me to a Rheumatologist in his office, Dr. Natalia Tishkevich. She’s been nothing short of wonderful. She not only reaffirmed my original diagnosis of AS, she also said I have plenty of the criteria to be diagnosed with Lupus, but that she’s not going to put it in my chart as it won’t change how she’s treating me and will potentially cause insurance issues if I ever have to buy my own. So she put me on a medication that works for both AS and Lupus. I’ve been on it nearly a year and never felt better. My joints are mostly good, and while I still have some amount of stiffness and pain, it’s not nearly like it was. She also respects the fact that I’m not interested in narcotic pain medications if I can avoid them, as I have a job that requires me to be mentally sharp at all times. I’ve recommended her to a couple of friends, and they love her as much as I do.

So, there you have it.

It may seem as though I’ve had a lot of bad doctors. I’ve had a couple who were bad enough that my health got worse while I was seeing them. Fortunately, I’ve also had some really great ones, who have helped me manage my illnesses and feel the best I can feel. It’s unfortunate that those of us with serious illnesses have to work so hard to find a doctor who will listen and help. It makes trying to get healthy very much more difficult than it should ever be, and perpetuates the myth that people who are sick *want* to be sick in some way.