I used to be fun

I was sharing a funny old (14 years) photo with my family this week, and it reminded me of this old (30 years) song by Rockapella:

This song has always reminded me of someone specific in my life (from the picture that cracked me up) and it got me to thinking about something...

I used to be somewhat of a goof.

I had a reputation as someone who was funny, and in fact would often do unwise or immature things because they amused me.

I was never mean (except for maybe that one time I put toothpaste in a sausage for a specific person to eat, and if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't) and usually the joke was on me, but... It was kind of my "thing."

Remember that time at my 20th high school reunion when I had gone to the trouble of memorizing the entire dance scene from "You Can't Stop the Beat" in "Hairspray" the movie and I requested the song and did the dance all the way through even though no one joined me? (If you watch it all the way through... yes, I was getting tired at the end, but that floor was SLIPPERY. The fact that I didn't land the cartwheel was a great personal disappointment that stays with me to this day!)

Or like that time that a cold snap hit the Sher-Den area and when I was driving by the newish giant bust of Eisenhower, I thought, "He looks cold. He should have a scarf." I told several people about my idea until it landed with a talented seamstress, Juanita, who took YARDS of fabric and made a scarf (wisely with weighted ends so we could put it on and it would stay), which another friend, D, Juanita, and I all tossed on the former President in the dark of a chilly evening.

The talented aforementioned Randy Sedlacek took this shot a day or two later.
Stately AND warm, no?

I don't know. My habit is: I have a stupid, silly idea and after I have it, I just do it. It happens because my thinking something odd makes it a reality that there's no denying.

Or at least that used to be the case. 

What happened? 

I was married to someone I embarrassed a great deal with my exuberance, mischief, and general loudness. Now I'm married to someone who would absolutely revel in any silliness I might come up with, and I just... don't? Why?

When I was mowing the other day, I had the thought that my life used to be similar to a person at a funeral: I absolutely should not have been laughing, but it was a coping mechanism. And maybe now I'm just happy and don't have the highs and lows? 

Or like when I had an eating disorder and LIVED for vacations, when I let myself be free and eat whatever I wanted: I'd plan meals down to the menu item, and almost cry at every meal because everything was so rich and tasty. Now that I eat whatever I want to, I still enjoy food, but not like that. The scarcity is gone, and somehow that blunts the joy of "forbidden fruit," I guess.

Maybe this is just a natural outgrowth of maturing, and if that is the case, I HATE IT. I can extend my sincerest apologies to the target of my ill-conceived meat/toothpaste prank while also acknowledging that most of the time, my humorous impulses were a lot of fun for me and the people around me.

Can't think of a good way to wrap this up, so... Mal's up and I'm out. Miss me!

Spilling Some Tea (it's old, but it's still hot)

This morning, I remembered something that unlocked a deep resentment I'd forgotten about, and it is just another thing I look back on and wish I'd done differently.

First, I have MANY regrets about how I treated people, and I know I owe a lot of people apologies. If you're one of those people, please feel free to reach out to me. I am not reaching out to some folks because I don't want to reopen wounds that might have healed. But believe me, I know a lot of the junk from my life is my doing.

THIS EXAMPLE is not, and I regret so much that I did not stand up for myself at the time.

I filed for divorce on March 14, 2011. At the time, I was going to Sherman (TX) Bible Church. They found out almost immediately and pulled me off of a project I'd been working on for the Easter service. I had written a script and was supposed to be in the film for the weekend. The church said that they were giving me "time off to concentrate on your marriage" (they pulled my ex-husband off of his weekend camera service, too) but it was really because I had been too visible to be allowed to continue while going down the path of leaving my husband.

I'm going to address what I wish I'd done here in a moment, but I have to tell you the part that REALLY bothers me:

The short film that the team produced was based on something that really happened to the pastor of the church at the time (Dennis Henderson, who is currently serving in a support ministry role to his son's church, which just happens to be a few miles from here) who had been a police officer in Dallas and had sort of "befriended" a woman he'd arrested multiple times for prostitution. He and his family had welcomed her into their home and really extended the love of Christ to her. She kept telling him that she was going to leave her pimp and live a "clean" life, but in the end, she was murdered before she could get out.

Obviously, the Easter story didn't include the part about her killing. He wanted it to show that Christians could win people over just by loving them, no matter who the person was. Not a bad message, and honestly we should just extend love to people regardless of whether they ever believe in a god or not. But our task was to create a 15-minute video that would be shown at the Easter services.

At the time, the church did quite a lot of video production and live "skits" during church. I had been on arts planning teams for about a decade at this time. The arts minister; a lady I thought was my friend until my life got too "messy" for her; and I came up with an outline to the story we wanted to produce, and I went home and wrote it.

Not including listening to Dennis's story and collaborating with the arts team, I spent probably 20 hours at home working on and polishing up the script, then editing it after feedback.

Fast-forward to the part where I get kicked out of the process. They started filming it on a night when I was out of town with my kid at a gymnastics meet, anyway. I was texting with a friend who was involved in the filming and it sounded typical of shoots: fun. But not for me.

In the end, the project was completed and shown on Easter weekend, and people loved it. They made CDs of it available and gave them to the people who had been involved. Someone who was truly a friend, Randy Sedlacek, made sure that I got my copy, and he even invited me to the party the church was hosting to distribute the copies of the video. I couldn't bring myself to go, even though he encouraged me to ("you earned it!") because he's a solid guy. I'll always remember him fondly.

Here's the kicker: I found out that when people would ask Dennis who wrote the script, his answer was, "It wrote itself... it was a true story."

Now, if you're my mom and you're reading this, maybe close it out. Because I'm about to use a very un-Christian phrase: That dude can go fuck himself because what did he mean "the script wrote itself"?? Even if he DICTATED IT to someone, it had to be typed up and formatted. But he didn't. He gave us an idea and a partial story-line, and we turned it into something. Using my words. I was the conduit that took his words and stories and translated them into a film-able format. That is an art and a skill, and the absolute lack of respect for it and for me is astounding.

I'm literally shaking right now, just thinking about it. This guy who told me to stay in a doomed marriage because "what if Jesus is going to save your marriage tomorrow and you gave up one day too soon" wanted so badly for me to disappear when I didn't submit to the benevolent and wise male leadership of that church that he actually made me invisible. I wasn't someone who contributed heavily to the aesthetic appeal of that church for years. No. The stuff just wrote itself.

WHAT I DID: Nothing. I mean, I complained to close friends who were in the know. But at that point, I'd already been made to sign a thing that I wouldn't blog about what was going on between me and the church vis-à-vis my divorce. And I wanted them to realize that I was still the exact same person I'd always been and approve of me and accept me SO MUCH that I tried my absolute most sincerely to comply. To kowtow. To crawl through every single hoop they put in front of me to prove my worthiness of continued participation in the church. UGH. I did basically NOTHING. And they were still very angry with me about it.

WHAT I WISH I'D DONE: Revoked my permission for them to use my script. At that point, they probably already had it. But I wish I'd written certified letters to every member of leadership demanding that they write another script and not use mine because if they didn't want me involved, that was the only honorable thing to do. That they would use my work that was invisible while making sure my face didn't show up anywhere is vile. 

I don't think it would have changed anything, but I wish I'd expressed my anger and wish to be absolutely removed from everything. And then when they used it anyway, I wish I'd written about THAT. I wish I'd written about EVERYTHING in REAL TIME. I wish I'd had the strength to say,"If you don't like what I'm making public, then maybe don't do it in private."

They were a bunch of bullies who genuinely thought they were shepherding me in God's will. This is one reason that I will never EVER spiritually submit myself to another human as long as I live. It's one thing to make stupid decisions for yourself and get hurt, but to think that you can try to persuade someone else to made bad choices because YOU feel like there's some edict from above that it's your calling to enforce? No. I'm sorry. Not this lady. Never again.

First Summer Camp!

Yesterday, we dropped Mal off for his first week at summer camp! D went to almost-week-long gymnastics camps for several years, and to long-weekend worship camps. They were much younger than Mal when they started attending summer programs, but it just came up for Mal this year.

Honestly, I think Mal got the idea to do camp because of the SpongeBob show "Kamp Koral." I know this Texas over-water camp will be nothing like that, but I do hope he enjoys it! He initially picked a music camp in New Mexico which would have taken us 18 hours to reach! Eventually, I talked him into somewhere closer, knowing it would be SO HOT, but telling him that it would be a good idea to make sure he loved camp before he went so far away from home.

He was EXCITED to go and dumped us the second he got cleared from his lice check.

We oopsied it, and I'm glad we live so close because one of the counselors texted me and asked if we could drop by a pair of closed-toed shoes. I'd meant to pack Mal's sneakers, and that's the one thing I forgot! Well, that and headphones. Hopefully nothing is too loud, but if it is, that's someone else's problem for a few days.

In the meantime, I've been doing loads of relaxing stuff like power-washing our front walk, scrubbing both bathroom floors, cooking for the family, washing our linens, and getting my car inspected. You know, vacation stuff! And tomorrow, I'm getting a tooth fixed! (My old amalgam filling is cracking my tooth, so they're going to dig it out and put a cap on it.) I'm actually very glad that I was able to schedule that for when Mal's not here. I know he's fine when I'm out and about, but I still prefer to be in the vicinity unless James is able to be the "default parent" for a bit.

James and I might go to Rosa's tomorrow night for Taco Tuesday, though. We've meant to several times in the past and we just forget about it until after I've already eaten. Whoopsie. 

I don't have anything on the schedule for Wednesday yet, but Thursday, my sister and I are going up to see our parents. I don't think we've gone sans kids to visit them in years. Good times.

Okay, I'm going to indulge and give myself a "manicure" (nail stickers) now! 

Public Assistance

James does have a severance package, but it's taking a long time to process... apparently because in addition to the normal "review the paperwork and make sure you're not going to sue us" waiting period, since James is 50+, there's additional time to make sure he's not going to sue them for ageism. 

In the meantime (and, honestly, until James gets another job), we're tightening our belts and trying not to buy anything we don't need to buy. We've been really fortunate so far the past month...

First, Leander Independent School District has free lunches for kids. We've only gone twice, but one meal a week is still better than nothing. They also have breakfast, but that's only from 8-9 AM, which is way early for us! Mal actually tried nachos for the first time and found that he loves nacho cheese (not the spicy kind, of course). Granted, it's not Brussels sprouts, but any new food is good, as far as I'm concerned! He did try a carrot the other day when I was making dinner, and decided it's not for him. I was proud that he tried, though! This is much better than turning up his nose at food he thinks he's not going to enjoy.

Second, a woman in Lago Vista (who must be a saint) goes to south Austin every week and picks up a thousand pounds of food to distribute to at-risk households in Lago. She always ends up with a whole lot of food left over, and so she opens it up to the public on Friday afternoons. For the past two weeks, we've been able to get produce, bread, and some pantry items. It's hit or miss what will be available at all, and they hand out numbers then draw so the order is random. But the first week, James got big bags of walnuts and hazelnuts, dried split beans, rice, everything bagels, cheese bread, apples, a cantaloupe, a mango... And yesterday, we got probably $30 worth of bread (we were close to the end and no one had claimed a bunch of it; most of it is in the freezer), butter lettuce, apples, onions, cinnamon raisin bagels, corn on the cob, and some other stuff. Both weeks, I think we've been able to get enough food to feed a single adult for a week, assuming that adult had some pantry items like salt, seasonings, and maybe butter or oil. It's very kind of her, and I know takes up a lot of her time and effort. 

Waiting to get our shot at some gratis groceries!

Third, I've been getting stuff through the app "Too Good to Go," where businesses sell food they'd otherwise discard at the end of the business day. It tends to be about 1/3 of the price of what you'd pay retail, and we've really enjoyed it. We got two bags from Whole Foods prepared food department last weekend that had amazing sandwiches and salads... one of the ciabatta sandwiches was marked $13.99 and we only paid $10 per bag, where the sandwich was about 1/5 of the contents! We got some great bowls from Honest Mary's last week. I got 4 TacoDeli bean, potato, and cheese breakfast tacos from a coffee shop for $3.99; they're $3.50 a piece on the TacoDeli website!

We're not hard up just yet, but it's kind of fun putting my former necessity-based frugality into action!

Final (maybe? hopefully!) bit about the parathyroid/thyroid drama

Yesterday, I had my follow-up with my surgeon. She took the Steri-strips off of my incision site, and I had been thinking, "Yay! No more neck coverings!"

Well, two things: 1) I cannot let sun get on the scar at all, and I am only to use Aquaphor on it 3-4 times a day for the next two weeks. After that, I am to use silicone tape for 6-12 MONTHS to protect it. Yikes! Scar care is definitely a long game! 2) That area is SO SWOLLEN. As my regular endocrinologist said, "Your tissue is mad!" So for now, I'm wearing false collars and scarves. And it's hot. Let's all feel very sorry for me. Thank you.

And I have one more thing to add regarding the whole "getting diagnosed and surgically healed before I knew there was a problem" angle:

I followed up with my surgeon yesterday, and my endocrinologist today. Of course, everything that was taken out of my neck (one parathyroid, my entire thyroid, and several lymph nodes) was biopsied. The 9 millimeter adenoma on the left lobe of my thyroid was papillary thyroid cancer. Thing is, there was another adenoma, 4 mm, on the right lobe of my thyroid that no one had visualized (I had multiple ultrasounds, the nuclear Sestamibi scan, and an accompanying CAT scan that went all the way around to the back of my neck.

That smaller adenoma also tested positive as cancer.

The parathyroid and the lymph nodes all tested negative for cancer, and the surgeon said she wasn't sure exactly what happened, but that thyroid cancer is very slow-growing, and also maybe the inflammation from the Hashimoto's kind of created a "shell" around my thyroid so nothing spread.

So, there we go. I'm cancer-free before I even knew for sure that I had cancer. Kind of makes me glad my parathyroid started acting up, because otherwise, who knows when we would have found this.

Also, I'm grateful for my surgeon and her confidence that I needed to remove my entire thyroid, even though a support group I am in suggested getting a second opinion. I trusted her and she was right. She saved me another surgery down the road. This hasn't exactly been a nightmare, but it's not something I care to repeat.

I'll test for antibodies again in October. They should all be gone by then, assuming that there is no remaining cancer. If anything ever comes up in the future, I might have to get radioactive iodine treatment to kill any microscopic thyroid material left in my neck... but I'm planning for that not to happen, so I haven't even looked up what that involves. 

My remaining parathyroids appear to have stepped back up and are maintaining my calcium levels. I test that and my thyroid hormone levels in July.

Continue to feel very fortunate and grateful.

The Rich Get Richer

One last thing before we get off of the subject of my glandular heave-homent:

This whole thing started because we had insurance (have, until the end of this month). Since we have insurance that fully pays for annual check-ups, I've gotten bloodwork done every year for the past 5 years. There have been some things, like low whole blood, that required some looking into but were determined to be nothing. 

But in January 2023, I had high parathyroid hormone level as well as high calcium. Those two things both being elevated is an automatic diagnosis of hyperparathyroidism, and the only way to treat it is surgery. 

Getting referred to a good surgeon led to the suspicion and diagnosis of Hashimoto's disease, and all of that resulted in my having my thyroid and one parathyroid removed.

What had already happened was that I have experienced some bone loss (would be characterized as "osteopenia" if I were post-menopausal), and that I was frequently eliminating cloudy liquid as my poor little kidneys tried to flush the excess calcium out of my blood.

What could have happened was hypothyroidism, and any of several more advanced autoimmune disorders like Crohn's, Grave's, or lupus. I also could have had permanent nerve damage at my extremities due to wonky calcium levels. I could have fractured my hip. 

But I didn't.

We knew what was going on because I had access to adequate, thorough health care. Through James's work. Which he doesn't have now.

I went most of D's life without insurance and, consequently, we only went to the doctor's office when there was something overtly wrong. But in this case, if I'd waited until possible symptoms of thyroid disease had presented themselves, my body would have definitely been worse for the wear.

So I'm grateful.

I don't know what's going to happen in terms of our insurance after the COBRA stipend runs out. Tech employment is rough right now. But I do know that everyone deserves preventative care (in addition to acute care, obviously). Why is that a controversial ideal?

Recovery

First full day back home. I took a nap this morning from 10:00-10:30 but was otherwise pretty normal, energy-wise.

James filled you in pretty much... he just left out that I had a parathyroid gland removed, also. The surgeon said that when they took the left anterior parathyroid out, that my parathyroid hormone level dropped into the normal range, and my calcium dropped to below range but not zero. This means that my 3 remaining parathyroid glands appear to be functioning properly, even though they were dislocated from their former home (my thyroid, which James already told you I had removed).

I'm waiting to hit the Day Three wall (I've heard days 3-5/6 are the hardest in terms of recovery) but so far am feeling mostly normal, minimal pain in terms of having a sore throat, and though I walked much more slowly this morning that is typical, I did manage to make it 2.5 miles.

My follow-up with the endocrinology surgeon is a week from tomorrow, when I'll get my Steri-Strips removed. Until then, I'm camouflaging my neck because there's some blood and nobody wants to see that. But I can tell under the strips that the cut is tidy and should heal to almost invisible. Apparently, I have a "nice neck crease" where the incision will hide (read: wrinkles and fat). 

Probably my biggest struggle is going to be not to get into my head about the fact that I now require synthetic thyroid hormone to live. If we have some big societal breakdown or something that prevents the production and movement of medication, I'll literally shrivel up and die. So wish me luck, losers!

Super grateful for all of the help we had to make this week go more smoothly: 1) Thanks to Indeed for laying James off so he didn't have to rush back to work but was able to be a lot more involved in the minutiae of taking care of the house and taking care of me. 2) Gracias to my parents who took us out for dinner the night before my surgery, and then spent the night in a nearby hotel so they could be here at 6:45 AM to hang out with Mal while we went to the hospital. 3) Sincerest appreciation to Kristen, Mal's friend Kona's mom, who let Mal go home for a sleepover after Tuesday group. 4) And also danke to my sister for showing up the day after surgery to bring me back home, and for hanging out and visiting. (She ended up having a surprisingly full day when, after she finally returned home, there was a tornado in Temple and she and Ken and the boys went up to help Hannah and Aaron secure their apartment and start to clean up a bit. Everyone's safe, which is the important thing.)