Learning Patience While Healing

Oof! This has been a bad year for me, health-wise. I had 2 stays in the hospital, one for 9 days in July, and the other for 7 days in September. Then I took a fall in a local mall parking lot at the end of October that resulted in 6 broken ribs. I’m looking at 6 weeks while those heal.

Enough already! I am ready to be well!

Of course, things don’t work like that. The body takes the time it needs to heal. And when the time comes that your brain is ready to get back to doing things, but your body isn’t done healing, guess which one wins the argument.

It wasn’t so bad when I was in the hospital. The first half of my stay, I was too sick to do much but eat when my meals arrived and sleep. When I did reach the point where I felt like doing things, I never thought to have my hubby bring my laptop to me because I was sure I was going to be discharged any minute! And when it didn’t happen that day, I was sure it would happen the next, so I’d find some mind-numbing shows on the tv, and think about all I would do once I got home.

But cracked ribs are a little different. You get to be at home; you just have to be careful not to aggravate your damaged bones. And get plenty of rest. The ache of my ribs made me extra tired. I found myself sleeping 9-10 hours at night and taking a nap in the afternoon. And maybe one in the morning. It left me little time to get anything done.

Each day, I would stare at my To Do List and cross off those things I did manage to do; take my morning pills, check my blood sugar, check how my Amazon Ads are doing, open the daily snail mail, brush my hair and teeth, take my evening pills… small stuff that had to get done. And each day I would gather up all the things I didn’t manage to do that day and shove them off until the next day. Things like write my family letter that usually gets sent out every 2^nd month, write my weekly newsletter, write my weekly blog, format the next manuscript waiting to be published, ride my stationary bike for some exercise, and so on.

The first couple of weeks after my fall, I had plenty of pain to remind me why I was sleeping so much. “This isn’t forever,” I told myself, and so I wouldn’t beat myself up about all that I wasn’t getting done. But as the pain subsided – and by now, it’s just a gentle ache in my ribs to remind me to take an afternoon nap – then I find myself impatient to start doing all those things I’ve been putting off. To ignore the ache and keep working.

I could do that. Some days I have done that. However, if I choose not to take a nap, then I am extra tired extra early that evening, and I sleep even longer that night.

I have to learn to be patient. It is no good beating myself up over my need for extra sleep. That just makes me depressed, and I’m already fighting chronic depression, so I don’t need any more of it. This won’t last forever. By mid-December, my ribs will be fully healed. That’s only a month away.

Thankfully, this past week has afforded me the opportunity to get some writing done; the family letter, this week’s newsletter, this blog, and even a couple thousand words on my current Work In Progress. Although that story has passed 10K words, so I’m not sure it truly qualifies as a short story anymore, but we’ll see how long it gets. However, that time for writing is obtained by being away from our home for the day, so I can’t get an afternoon nap. Here’s hoping that these days give me a little boost in stamina for getting through a day without a nap. That would be nice.

In the meantime, I must be patient. Being impatient doesn’t get me anywhere.

A Rude Return Home

This week's blog was supposed to be about our recent cruise to the Caribbean (Suddenly, I've become a Travel Blogger?) But something happened when we returned home that I feel is more important. The flu.

We hear about the flu all the time, it's in the news every fall. And we usually just shrug and go about our business; it's something we all have to live with, apparently. It's just a fact of life.

But the flu is nothing to sneeze about.

It put my husband in the hospital for 2 days.

It all started on Friday, Nov 18th. The end of our cruise to the Caribbean. As soon as my hubby stepped off the ship, he started coughing. We thought it was his hay fever, which means his post-nasal drip was causing his coughing. By the time we got home about noon, he was coughing pretty non-stop, so we called the doctor.

They assumed it was his post-nasal drip, for which they had treated him all during October, and ordered a stronger nasal spray and a stronger decongestant.

Hubby coughed all night long, didn't get any sleep. In the morning (Saturday), he complained that the meds weren't working. He needed my help getting off the sofa to go to the bathroom. This was concerning, so I called the doctor's answering service to ask what we should do.

The next I knew, he had fallen onto the sofa, with his head on the seat and his knees on the floor. He wasn't hurt, but he couldn't get up. I couldn't get him up. So I called for an ambulance. The fire truck arrived first, of course, and the 2 men who came helped him get seated on the sofa while I answered questions for the woman who had come. Then the ambulance arrived, and the paramedics evaluated him.

Suddenly, "Okay, we're going to take him in now", and they were wheeling him out the door. I had to ask where they were taking him, hoping it was South Lake Hospital, because I knew where that was. That was the place. I took a deep breath, trying to settle my nerves, gathered what I needed, and headed out.

What I learned in short order when I got to the Emergency Room was that he had a fever of 104, his pulse was rapid, his breathing was rapid, he was dehydrated, his blood oxygen was low and he was low on potassium. I watched as they attached his IV port (which they had put in before I got there) to 2-3 bags of saline, a bag of tylenol and one of potassium. They swabbed his nasals to test for a variety of viruses. They x-rayed his chest. They hooked him up to a bi-pac (similar to but different from a c-pac) to help his breathing. They sent him for a catscan and sent him upstairs to be admitted.

All because of the flu.

Little did I know at the time, but I was fighting the flu, too. When I got up on Sunday, I was feverish, headachy, and coughing. I didn't want to wind up as sick as he was, so I needed to get on that tamiflu you hear about, and do it fast. How to do that? I drove myself to the only urgent care location I knew, and they weren't open on Sundays (which deserves its own rant, but not today). So I drove to the South Lake Emergency Room. They swabbed my nose and took my temperature, gave me some tylenol and confirmed I had the flu. I got prescriptions for tamiflu and a strong decongestant and was sent home. I took my first dosages and climbed into bed, with an alarm set to wake me up when it was time to take more pills.

Thankfully, we are both getting better. Hubby is home, still feeling weak and foggy-headed. I occasionally cough and can't exert myself much, but I've lost the headache and the fever. I ordered Thanksgiving dinner and went to pick it up yesterday, and that was almost too much for me. But at least I won't have to cook.

We are thankful we are managing to get through this illness.

But please, flu is not just a fact of life; it's a dangerous fact of life. Take care of yourselves.

Old Characters

Like real people, characters get old. Or should. If a book only covers a couple years of a character’s lifespan, then that isn’t a problem. But if the author is young, and they have an old-ish character, they seem to make one of two errors:

Either their older character is afflicted with every old-age problem known to man, and a few we don’t know about, or the older character only talks about being old, and otherwise is as energetic and healthy as any young character. An author needs to have experience and in this case, most young authors don’t know what ‘getting older’ feels like.

I am no longer young, although I reject the idea that I am old. Still, I am beginning to experience some of those ailments that creep into the bodies of ‘old people’.

Arthritis is frequently thought of as an old person affliction. Mine started as occasional sharp pains in a knee, sometime during my 30s, but it really started slowing me down (literally, I could hardly walk more than 6 steps) in my mid-40s. That could have been earlier than most people, while a few people might not start experiencing it until their 60s or 70s. My knees are much better now (they’ve been replaced), but now I’m battling arthritic bone spurs in the shoulders that reduce my range of motion. And every time a thunderstorm is coming, every joint in my body aches - neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, knees... I suspect my ankles and toes ache, also, but their message of pain can’t fight its way through the messages coming from so many closer-to-the-brain locations.

Also during my 40s, I started needing to use reading glasses. This included not only reading, but sewing, painting, computer work... The list is practically endless. I have slowly progressed to a stronger and stronger magnification. If your older character doesn’t have glasses, he/she might lean closer and/or squint to try to bring details into focus. On the other hand, my dad used to hold the newspaper at arm’s length and squint, trying to focus his eyes, and he died around 49. So your character might do it either way, but probably not both.

If your story takes place in the future, medicine might have cured these ailments, or delayed their arrival for decades, in which case, you don’t really have an older character. If your story is in the past, people died much younger, and these afflictions arrived much earlier.

Old people’s immune systems gets worn out, so they catch things easier and keep it longer. Gout is extremely painful and keeps that joint from bending for days. (These days, steroids send it packing quickly.) Do a little research on old age afflictions, and then pick a couple for your older character to deal with. Don’t load him/her down with every illness; it’s not only unlikely, they would be pretty useless. And don’t forget the common cold, flu, and all those other illnesses that even younger people have to contend with.

Make your character’s older age believable, but don’t make that character a burden to the rest of the war party. Unless, of course, that’s integral to the story.

Best Made Plans

Have you ever made plans that just didn’t live up to your expectations? Even vacations have bumps when things don’t go your way. Our last vacation ...

In Florida, every time I lay down, my sinuses immediately plugged up and I was soon mouth breathing. My cpap mask only covers my nose, so it was no help.

John had signed up to march in Disney’s StarWars weekend parades. He was up at 6 AM that first Friday in severe pain and unable to bend one knee. I took him to ‘urgent care’... which didn’t open until 8. He had to scoot in and out of the back, with the leg stretched along the seat. It was gout; they prescribed steroids and ice packs. (He did get to march the next day, and for the rest of the parades while we were there.)

To see the parade, I had to be at the gate by 7:30 (one never knew what time they were going to let people in), rush to one of the (2) benches along the parade route and park myself. The parade happened at 11. The humid heat did nothing for my stuffy sinuses.

I got a page written for my ‘Mac’ serial, but Open Office kept crashing and finally refused to open my ‘Mac’ file again. Unable to think, having no OO specialist to consult, I gave up. John, however, got his 2nd novel rewritten (2nd draft).

I finally let John take me to ‘urgent care’, and I waited 3 hours to see a doc. Then the pharmacy didn’t have the medicine! Augmentin was on back-order? The doc changed the prescription. To sulfur pills. My brother has to take sulfur pills. They work, but not quickly. Another week before I started feeling almost decent.

Friends spent weekends with us. On the last parade day, as everyone was getting ready, the wife fell and struck her head. The husband took her to urgent care, so John went alone to do the parade. Long story short, it was much more than a bump on the head; she ended up in the hospital for 2 nights before they could go home.

Wednesday, I started home, stopping to call my mother-in-law to say I was on my way. She had been taken to the hospital that morning. Frantic phone calls and text messages dogged me all the way home.

Thursday, the radio talked about severe rain and some flooding ‘in Missouri and along the Mississippi.’ I was in Illinois, about to turn west to St Louis. I called my son and asked him to research this, in case I needed to continue north and go through Des Moines. He said it was located south of I70 (the road I would travel).

East St Louis, Friday morning, heavy rain. Happily, the worst was over by the time I left St Louis. But EVERY river and creek I crossed was definitely over its banks! Like I wasn’t nervous enough.

NOT a good vacation. It wasn’t a bump, it was a series of steep cliffs the entire time. I suppose there’s bound to be a bad one every so often, right? But I haven’t given up; we plan to head for Washington (state) and an Alaska cruise in August. Hmm. Maybe it’s good we got this ‘bad luck’ over during this vacation.

Textbook Cases

No researched science today. I feel lucky to be out of bed; I don’t have the energy to research, so this post is based on experience and observations.

Colds last 7 to 10 days. Children get ear infections, not adults. That may be what the ‘textbooks’ say, but it’s not written in stone.

In November, I thought I had an ear infection. Since the age of 30, I’ve come down with them occasionally. What I actually had was a sinus infection. Somebody in our household develops one every year, seems like. Doc gave me antibiotics for 7 days and sent me home. I dutifully took the pills and eventually felt better. But not well.

In December, I went back, saying, “Something’s still not right.” Sure enough, I had a sinus infection. The same infection? Could be. So I got antibiotic#2 for 10 days.

10 days later, as I took the last of those antibiotics, I noticed my throat was scratchy. What the-? How can I come down with anything when I’m on antibiotics? Of course, antibiotics work on bacterial infections, not viruses, so I figured I had caught a cold.

Colds last 7 to 10 days. So I tried to be patient.

Eventually, “This is day 11 of the cold I came down with the last day of those antibiotics,” I told Doc with a bass gravelly voice. Guess what! Yep. Sinus infection. The same one? Who knows. So he pulled out the Big Guns, antibiotic#3, for 10 days.

I went home and climbed into bed for 6 days. Oh, I did get up - it’s hard to push fluids when you’re sleeping - but never for long, and when I was up, I didn’t have any energy.

Supposedly, antibiotics help you feel better after 48 hours. Not this time. On day 5, my throat was not as sore, and today, I have not needed a nap. But I only have 3 pills left.

Monday, I’ll see Doc again.

I used to worry when I made a character sick that I wasn’t ‘following the rules’ for that illness. But obviously, from this winter alone, illness doesn’t always ‘follow the rules’. And when I write science fiction - or fantasy, for that matter - I can make up an illness, and define its ‘rules’ myself.

If I have a spaceship of 500 people in quarantine because somebody came down with Martian Measles, some of the crew will catch it right away, others will take longer to show any symptoms. Some might take a few days to get over it; others might take weeks. Certain crew members had it as a child, and won’t catch it at all. A few others have had Martian Mumps, which is sort of related, so they probably won’t catch Martian Measles.

I can do that. I’m the author.

Marriage

Sometimes, a marriage is something of a love/hate relationship, even the good ones. Each half of the couple is bound to have habits and quirks that irritate the other.

For us, December has been somewhat rough this year, health-wise. Hubby had a knee problem that kept him home for a week. One of those days was so bad, he really needed crutches to hobble around the house, but we only had a cane. He needed help getting in and out of a chair, dressed and undressed, in and out of bed... Well, that’s part of being married; you take care of each other when things like this happen.

I’ve been fighting a sinus infection since sometime in November, and when the doc finally prescribed an antibiotic that tried, I had a day of fluctuating pressure in my ears that did awful things to my balance, made me think I was hearing somebody hammering (at 10 PM!) and really made me nervous and confused. But Hubby was an orderly, once upon a time, and isn’t fazed by things like that. I had a sturdy rock to cling to.

There are times when a couple shares a little too much. If you belong to any kind of family, families do this, too. It isn’t just couples.

The day after Christmas, Hubby came down with a cold. Now, if he can get around the house, he’s fairly self-sufficient, even sick. He heated his own soup, got his own drinks, and vegged in front of the tv. If he needed anything, he could holler, but he seldom did.

So what happened? You’ve probably guessed. Five days after he came down sick, I got a sore throat and dry cough. (He says he caught my sinus infection, but I don’t buy it. If he has my sinus infection, then what have I got now?)

Yes, Hubby, I know you think a good marriage means we share everything, but believe me, you really did NOT have to share your cold with me. I would have forgiven you.

What are your hopes and dreams for 2015? I’ve got lots of them! Including health, for both of us.

Stress-itis

A few weeks back, I read an article on how stress makes us sick. I spotted the article right after I'd made yet another trip to my doc to complain of aches, pains, stiffness and low-grade nausea. And he gave me what I thought was his automatic response - "It's stress." But then I read this article, which gave me something to think about.

Stress triggers the immune system. The immune system starts its repairs by causing inflammation around the injury. When there is no particular injury, only stress, that inflammation can occur anywhere and everywhere. So that explains why I need extra sleep and have more aches and pains after a convention or a tight deadline or when I don't seem to get anything on my to-do list done.

As an introvert, spending 3 days surrounded by other people at a convention is a big stressor. I sometimes retreat to a solitary place to recharge my batteries, but maybe what I'm really doing is trying to tamp down my stress. A looming deadline can be a whole heap of stress. A missed deadline effects my professional reputation, and could effect my earnings. Yikes!

The article said that people who have an active 'emotion center' have more issues with stress-itis than those who don't. No, I don't cry over every little thing that doesn't go my way, but I do have active emotions. I have worked hard to develop resiliency when receiving rejections of my work. But if my husband says something that I perceive as negative, my mood goes into a tailspin. Stress. Inflammation. Aches, pain, stiffness.

Happily, simply changing my reaction can help me release the stress and avoid the related illnesses. Keeping my mind on things not related to my situation, recognizing and labeling my negative emotions, even venting will help. I've been trying to do that, these past few weeks, and all in all, I think I've been feeling better. Yes, I've had some bad days, but not as many as before.

What stresses you out? How do you react to it?