expectations

Route 66

Posted on by tresswann

So, this year I’ve been on Route 66. I am lifting this from a high school acquaintance who used this term for being 66. We were not friends in high school. I was weird and she was different, tougher. I loved the fact that she wore purple socks with her gymsuit every week. It was a small act of defiance. As adults, we speak to each other during high school reunions. I wasn’t going to the main event one year, just stopped in at the pre-event for a drink. She told me she was disappointed in me because we had to show up, we had to show that we had survived high school. Well, I certainly have survived high school. It was a time in my life, but it is a time in my life that I do not look back upon fondly. However, I am deeply grateful that I did not have to go to high school in this current era.

I’ve been on the real Route 66. It had always been on my bucket list except we never used that term. It was merely a list of places we wanted to go to and things we wanted to do. I have been blessed to have crossed many things off that list. My best friend and I were in New Mexico on vacation. Times are different now and we were more innocent and dumber, despite the fact that we were in our 30s. We retained a positive outlook on the world. This is not to say that the world had not harmed us or that bad things had not happened to us, they had but we had dusted them to the side. Our New Mexico trip was one of the best I ever had. We were young, irresponsible with money and drove all over the place. We loved the road. It’s part of that Route 66 mystique. To this day, I get a thrill seeing the open road in front of me. We found ourselves back in Albuquerque before we had to leave for New York. Another thing we loved to do was drink and we certainly weren’t driving. We had become friendly with the bartender. Bartenders usually liked us, not only because we drank but when we were around, men also drank. This bartender was different. She was a woman. As such, we had a different relationship with her. A cowboy came and sat down next to us. He was fascinated by us and bought us drinks. We were hard drinking women. We drank strong Scotch, unusual for women. We are special, unusual women. I remember what we wore. I define my life by clothing. My BF had a short pink wash denim miniskirt with a pink and white vertical stripe shirt. I had on my favorite black halter dress. He asked, with genuine curiosity, if I was wearing any underwear. Funny enough, I don’t remember the name of the cowboy. He liked my BF. Somehow, the topic of Route 66 came up and he volunteered to take us, to a cowboy bar, no less. We consulted with the bartender who assured us he was safe. And off we went into the night. We clambered up into his pickup. This was real! And then, he pulled his gun out from under the driver seat and told us we would be safe with him. This was back in the day when you could drive drunk relatively safely. In other words, unless you were weaving madly, he would not be stopped. I had never seen a gun in person, nor have I ever seen one again. Can I say I was freaking terrified? I thought I am going to die because we wanted to see Route 66. Route 66 was a neon blur.  All’s well that ends well. We arrived back to the hotel and the cowboy tried to take my BF off the elevator in his arms. I demanded he put her down immediately. I have felt badly about that for years. However, recently I found out that she was glad. Well, that’s less weight to carry around for sure.

Reaching Route 66 has been quite a journey. I have been blessed to travel. I have been privileged to see so many things. I have seen Basques dancing outside a church in Barcelona. I have seen real flamenco in Madrid. I’ve been propositioned by Mike Tyson’s people in Tokyo. I have been driven all over Taiwan. I’ve been to an alligator farm in Taiwan. I’ve been to Punto del Este in Uruguay. We made the bus go back and forth over a Gaudi bridge. The bus had an award winning high school singing group from somewhere in South America. They sang Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on fire” in English although they did not understand a word. I’ve seen tango danced by real people in Buenos Aires. I have attended ready to wear in Paris more than once. I survived hurricane David on the beach at Club Med in Haiti. I’ve been invited to private views at museums. I have seen The Rolling Stones twice, once for my 30th birthday and once for my 50th birthday. I loved a postal postal worker and he loved me. I have been so very lucky. I didn’t know what it was at the time. But now I am on Route 66 and looking back. One of my friends said about 20 years ago or so that we should have written a book, “had I only but known”. It kind of sums it up.

And it wasn’t all the physical, material journeys. I have had the best, the very best people in my life. I have been lucky enough to recognize that. So much love and support. I had a dream of knowing people from all over and it has happened. It’s wonderful. I used to take books out of the library when I was little about different countries and I wanted to learn different languages and I have!

What I didn’t account for was the presence of AA’s in my life- Alcoholism and autoimmune disease. My husband has one and I have the other. Actually, alcoholism is a family disease, so I have two. Not so lucky. A change in the bucket list or the dream list or whatever you want to call it. I am almost completely immobile. I can no longer say that when I sit down, I feel like me. That is no longer the case. I look in the mirror some days and I see a little old lady. Who could she possibly be? It’s me. This is much the same sensation as when I would catch a glimpse of an adult in a window and realize it was me. My insights no longer match my outsides. Inside, I am not a tiny grey haired lady in a chair. I am vibrant and not immobile. I still actively engaged with life. I keep on learning. I have also come to realize that I have a lot to share. The events and experiences of my life have value to others. In sharing and examining, I also gain additional insights into myself. This both pleases and scares me.

So, Route 66 will end in a few months but not for me. I still plan to be that woman travelling down two lane blacktop whether it’s virtual or in the real world. I will continue to make stops along the road that will both terrify me and help me continue to grow. I am going to get my kicks on Route 66.

Graduation

Posted on by tresswann

I attended my niece’s graduation via YouTube this weekend. It’s an upside of COVID. I was able to see her face more clearly than her parents. This is only the second undergraduate graduation I have attended since my own, decades ago. I attended my bonus son’s about 10 years ago or so. It was different because first of all, he was a boy and secondly, we had to deal with the issue of his mother. We never know what she’s going to do. It didn’t impact me on a visceral level. My niece’s graduation hit me in a whole different way.

I have seen her grow up since she was two and a half. Therefore, I had a much longer association with her. I have delighted in seeing her grow and excel. She is truly a remarkable young woman. Quite frankly, I am in awe of her and her accomplishments. However, it brought memories of my college graduation brutally back.

I had had a very hard time at my university. I really didn’t fit in, nor did I want to. I had academic challenges based on significant personal events. I had actually been forced to withdraw due to academic performance but was able to reenroll on a probationary basis. This has made me the maniac I am today about grades. I worked furiously. At that time in my life, I did not see marriage or definitely a wedding as having any place in my future. Therefore, I viewed my graduation as my day. This was going to be the hugest moment in my life. Because of everything that had happened to me academically, I always made carbon copies of my papers and I also demanded receipts for them when I turned them in. My last two papers were with a husband and wife team of professors. It was the last two and I neglected my usual practices. I could see the Dean’s office from my window. This becomes important to little bit later. The university had two ceremonies – one in the morning for everyone and then one in the afternoon for each college where the actual diploma would be received. The morning was glorious. I felt a real sense of accomplishment. I had overcome my obstacles.

Morning

In the afternoon, whilst getting into line, I received a tap on the shoulder and was informed that I had not met the requirements for graduation and would walk the ceremony and receive a blank. This was inconceivable to me. Decades later, as I write this, I am on the verge of tears. I have a radiant, joyful smile. I am known for it. My boyfriend saw at once that something was wrong. He crept over to my seat and found out what was happening. He sat at the end of my row. My parents in the audience could not understand why they could not see my smile.

When they reached me at the end of the ceremony and asked what the problem was, I became hysterical. My mother slapped me across the face, told me not to cry in front of people and placed her huge sunglasses over my eyes. My day was totally destroyed. Actually, I had been in therapy(the school gave you 10 free sessions a semester and I had hoarded mine) because I was so consumed with graduating. I discovered once we arrived home that the Dean allegedly had been trying to reach me. This was completely untrue. I also discovered that my two professors had not turned my grades in before they left the country. I cannot make this up. They had returned to Norway and were only accessible by dogsled. I had to recreate both final papers and have them graded by someone else. Memory shields me but I believe the only thing that could be done was to give me a pass and not a grade. I received my diploma in the mail later that summer. My parents being my parents, did not wish to make a fuss and would not consider suing the school. I have survived and overcome except that I am manically obsessed with A’s. Watching the graduation on Saturday brought it all back to me. I wept for my niece and I wept for me. It’s hard to believe that it has stayed with me for so long. It took me forever to be able to stand on campus without shaking or having stress reactions. I can attend reunions now without a lot of pain. I am proud of myself for my resiliency.

Afternoon

Graduation also carries with it the weight of great expectations as well as new possibilities. This can be weighty. At school, the job is simply to get the grades and coincidentally the knowledge. Then life happens and there’s supposed to be a job, no, a career. This is an unknown unless there is a particular affinity for a field such as medicine or law. My degree was in social and behavioral sciences with a concentration in urban anthropology of the Third World. My particular area of concentration was the synchretization of African religious beliefs in the New World. You might say it was my own fault. Surprisingly, in recent years these topics have come to the fore. I always was trendy and before my time. I did learn things I could use. I learned about how people communicated and acted in groups. I learned how to assimilate a vast amount of material in a short amount of time. This has consistently helped me throughout my working life. I also became part of an old boys network. It is old boys because at the time I was there, it was mostly boys. So, that was another unexpected benefit. I do very well in a male environment. I am more comfortable working in a room with all men than I am with women. It has taken me a long time to realize these strengths. I do wonder if my life would have been different had I been able to have that moment of radiant joy.

These thoughts have been on my mind since this weekend and I had begun writing. However, Tuesday changed them in a whole other way. To say I am grief stricken is an understatement. I do not know the words for how I feel. I only know that 19 little children are dead. 19 children have been shot to death at their school. They will never have graduation. The survivors will always have an incomprehensible loss. Their lives will be filled with ghosts. All their possibilities changed in a matter of moments. They will bear the weight forever.

My niece, the graduate, is a teacher. Her life has also inexplicably changed. These murders coming so closely on the heels of her graduation must surely impact her future. We can only imagine and then prefer not to imagine. Her moment of radiant joy will resonate for a long, long time.

Uncommon Women and Others and Being Amazing

Posted on by tresswann

The first time I saw Uncommon Women and Others, I was completely electrified.  I saw it on PBS, shortly after I graduated college and just a few years after it had been written.  I watched it upstairs at my parents in what we called the office on their black and white TV.  We were always behind the times that way. It shocks me now to see old programs in color when  I have vivid recollections of them in black and white.  Uncommon Women resonated with me for several reasons.  Even though it was set at a Seven Sisters school and I went to a sub Ivy, I recognized that type of young woman.  There were lots at Goucher and some even at Hopkins where I attended.  In the play, the women are looking back at their lives from the vantage point of 30.  They had promised when they were 30, they were going to be amazing.  I was still in my 20’s and living with my parents.  I needed to believe that thirty could and would be amazing.

Watch this play and you will see early performances by Meryl Streep, Jill Eikenberry and Swoosie Kurtz.  Amazing.  It also confirmed my longing for strong, female friendships.  I had gone to what was essentially an all boys school.  I had rebelled against my mother who saw me at Vassar or Radcliffe.  I did want Bennington but she vetoed that because – shock- a women’s college with a woman president!  In many ways, she was a product of her era.

I did develop those strong female friendships along the way.  I am still in contact with my college roommate over 40 years later.  I have reconnected with some of the girls of my youth.  I have other women I have picked up along the way that have given me an incredible safety net, strength, support and love.  But sitting watching that black and white TV, I knew none of that.

I remember thinking as I watched that I wish there was a way to keep this, like a book, so I could take it out and look at it whenever I wanted.  A few years passed.  It came back on PBS.  By then, I was over 30 with a color television of my own and a VCR to record it.  The world was moving.  I wasn’t amazing but I was doing alright.  I was making crap money; had a glamorous job; and was not working up to my potential.  I was, however, known as a person with friends.  I had a therapist at that time who told me I defined myself as a friend.  I did not think it was a bad thing.

 

I, like the women in the play, began to believe at 40, I would be amazing.  Forty came and went and I was so not amazing.  I no longer had the glamorous job and was back with my parents.  Volunteering saved me.  I was lucky to have a volunteer position that involved raising money to support and advance women’s rights.  New York, my state, was never ever going to be able to compete against California.  There is just too much money there.  However, Uncommon Women and Others continued to resonate with me.  I used it in my stump speech all the time.  I believed that as a state, we could raise our fundraising and be amazing.  We, as women, could and would be amazing. Was this uncommon?

 

Time advanced.  I was ecstatic to discover Uncommon Women and Others on DVD.  I bought a handful and gave them to my important women friends one Christmas.  Technology was amazing.

 

Wendy Wasserstein wrote other, wonderful powerful plays about women.  I have been blessed to be able to see them.  These plays grew along with me. Women of a certain age will relate to The Heidi Chronicles. She became an iconic voice for women. Wendy Wasserstein was truly amazing and she died.

I passed 50 and was still waiting to be amazing, then 60.  I still aspire to be amazing.  As the years have passed, my concept of amazing has changed.  In my 20’s, I wanted the job, the car, the man, the friends.  It didn’t change much for my 30’s.  I did have all of that but somehow it wasn’t amazing enough.  My 40’s found me rebuilding – a broken marriage,  broken relationships, a different career, better friends and moments to be amazing.  I am very proud of the work I did for that organization and hoped I have helped other women find their “amazing”. 50’s – almost there.  I had created a sort of life that became blown up by disease.  I fought and continue to fight.  60? Still standing and literally that is remarkable and amazing.  I was filled with more fortitude than I thought possible.

 

Amazing changes through time and space.  Can I say now when I reach 70, I am going to be amazing?  Seventy sounds like a foreign country, unexplored and unimagined but closer.  I thought when I graduated college that I would go for my PhD in my 60’s.  Well, that ship sailed.  I still have the curiosity and the interest.  However, time and money have become finite.  I consider myself amazing sometimes because I have been able to find and hold uncommon women and “others” in my life.  I never could have imagined that or its importance when I first experienced the play. Sometimes, when I consider what life has thrown at me, I may be amazing.  I still keep on trying.  I try to walk.  I miss the feeling of speed and air when I am walking.  Sometimes, I miss working yet still I tick on. What makes us uncommon women and what makes us amazing?  I consider my uncommon women friends amazing.  Each in her own way is unique yet the same.  They are intelligent, curious, courageous, inspiring.  They lead.  They share.  They never stop changing.  They are principled.  They have style and substance whether they acknowledge it or not. I have fulfilled one of my wishes from when I first saw “Uncommon Women and Others”, I have those close female friends for decades, uncommon women each and everyone of them, and that is AMAZING!

New Neurologist Visit

Posted on by tresswann

I adore my neurologist, truly.  I have been involved with her since the  beginning.  She was a fellow observing my initial doctor.  When she established her practice, I jumped at the chance.  She explained Zumba and WII to the original doctor.  I have been with her since 2008.  Her philosophy meshed with mine – sometimes a fall is just a fall.  I have always fallen every time I am upset since I was young.  I spent most of my senior year in college on the ground.  The upside is I know how to fall.  I have been told, as much as something like this is possible, that I do it gracefully.  She said if I wanted to wear kitten heels it was fine as long as it was safe.  Personally, she didn’t understand why anyone would want to wear heels.  We email each other.  She practices in a multiple sclerosis institute.  This has given me access to cutting edge research and care.  We agree to disagree on what is inevitable.  In recent years, she has been saying I need to recognize this.  Inevitable is a word I disagree with.  Maybe I am in denial, however, inevitable implies defeat.  Defeat cannot be an option for me.

The Institute is located in NYC and I usually go by train.   I have weakened so that isn’t really possible.  I would have to take car service for hundreds of dollars.  Well, I really haven’t worked in three years so that is an issue.  I did try and get transportation through health insurance.  I jumped through hoops.  I have had my primary care doctor send one form three separate times.  My neurologist is considered  out of area.  However, continuity of care is not considered a valid reason.  Really?!  I have a chronic illness and was being seen by a renown  doctor for 10 years in an Institute dedicated to my condition.  I participate in research there.  This was not good enough.

I found there was an Institute, driveable from where I live.  Problem – this is where I had my second opinion years ago.  It was horrible.  The doctor literally forgot I was there.  When she saw me, she asked what I expected of her.  An f*ng miracle?  At the end when I asked what I could do and was told to live a good life.  I voted with my feet.  It would have been closer and easier. She was an alum of my uni.  Even though I prayed when I was 18 to never get sick so I would never have to deal with any of them, I tend to pick alumni.  She exemplified all the reasons why not.

So, I was faced with returning.  When I rang, I was specific that I did not want HER! Surprised! They made it with someone else.

It started off well.  I was taken more or less on time. There was even an apology for the 10 minute delay.  None had been offered at the time of the hours long wait when that occurred. It went downhill from there.  One of the things my husband and I have been concerned about has beenmy increasing pain.  The medical herb is just numbing it.  I even had to fill out a questionnaire about my levels of pain.  Nothing!  And we asked more than once during the course of the visit.  The closest we came was a suggestion to try different combinations of the medical marijuana.

I brought all three spectral legs, including Frankie.  I indicated the problems with Frankie.  Again, nothing! Onto the chariot aka the rollator.  I self-prescribed and bought mine on Amazon for $25.  I need something different.  “Your physical therapist can do that for you.”  Really? And PT?  She wrote me a scrip for her office, over half an hour away.  Tone deaf!  Diet?  Exercise?  No comment. Call me dissatisfied and back  to the drawing board.

Oh and let us not forget the Ocrevus.  I am scheduled for October 4 in NYC.    Yes, I can get it with her but my husband probably can’t be with me and I’ll be in a circle with 5 other people.  We want a hospital and a semi-private setting.

The only thing I did get is an increase in my Baclofen.  More on that in another blog.

She didn’t even ask me for a return date.  Guess the feeling was mutual.

I feel defeated as I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to my doctor.  So, another stressor, how do I find the care I need?

Heidi, the Super Bowl, Secret Garden, Pollyanna and Me

Posted on by tresswann

The SuperBowl has been on my mind as it has recently passed.  My family weren’t football fans but totally baseball mad.  Tom watched it in full for the first time in decades.  Anyway, my mind was just drifting along and I remembered “Heidi loves the Super Bowl”.  Yes, you have to be of a certain age to remember and appreciate that bumper/sticker joke.  I was one of the children breathlessly awaiting the broadcast of Heidi.  I don’t recall the exact details as I was a child and football not a religion practiced in my home, but it was at some critical juncture in the game, that the network cut over to Heidi. It must have been around 7 o’clock and of course, on a Sunday evening I was one of those children who adored Heidi.  It was one of my favorite childhood books.  I would not have been allowed to stay up late on a school night.

Heidi

Heidi’s story, as filtered through memory – Heidi is a miserable child and sent to live with her grumpy, mean Grandfather in the Alps.  He forces her to go outside, play,  herd goats and get apples in her cheeks.  Somehow, she encounters Klara, a young sick girl, who reading between the lines, is not expected to last long.  Klara can’t walk either.  Heidi enlists Grandfather to do for Klara what he has done for her.  She drinks  goat milk from the herd. And with exercise, good air and clean food, Klara is cured and can walk.  More or less.  It’s been decades.  I  shall have to gimp upstairs to my childhood shelf and have a read.

secret garden

One of my other favorite books as a child and yes, just a plain favorite is The Secret Garden.  Again, the condensed via me version:  Mary is a miserable, spoiled brat baby and sickly.  She is sent to live with her uncle in England.  Again good air, good food and a new friend lead to a change in her.  She discovers her cousin Colin hidden away – bedridden, can’t walk, not expected to live.  Good air and food plus exercise and he walks again.

My parents used to tease and call me Pollyanna  or Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.  No recollection  of Rebecca but a memory of the film Pollyanna with Hayley Mills.  I did want to be Hayley Mills.  My recollection is that Pollyanna is a positive child, gets ill, loses her ability to walk; in this case she doesn’t get to walk again but everyone loves her more.  No memory of Rebecca except that she was cheery.

So, where is this leading?  I have been steadily deteriorating over the last few months.  I have attributed this to bad eating and lack of activity.  The last week has been particularly brutal.  My doctors have pooh-poohed me.  It’s the nature of the disease.  It’s supposed to progress and it is.  There is no cure at this time and it is inevitable.  From day one, I have never bought into that.  I do believe that food and notjust “eat healthy” impacts walking.  Not walking and being as active as I used to be takes its toll.  It’s a vicious cycle – less activity, more fatigue, more stress, less activity….   Eating needs to be tweaked and healthy is relative.  I am still sorting it out,  But do not, do not tell a woman who has metabolized Heidi and The Secret Garden into her DNA that she will not walk again and wheelchairs and scooters are inevitable.  Obviously, you have not read what I did as a child.

Here’s to Colin, Klara and me, perpetually Pollyanna and proud of it.

Doctor Visit, the Spectral Leg and the Motivation of Ugly

Posted on by tresswann

Another doctor’s visit – this one for rehabilitation.  Here’s a funny to start. Tom’s dad had to go into physical rehab a few years ago in FL and when he rang to check on him,  they connected him with drug and alcohol rehab. So, mine is for physical evaluation.  We were waffling about going as it was close to rush hour in NYC bound traffic and over 30 miles from the house.

One of the challenges confronting dealing with this condition is that the onus is on the patient to discover and coordinate care and options.

Initially, my neurologist never suggested a brace.  I kept on falling.  However, I am used to falling and as a rule do what I have been told are very graceful ones.  Sometimes, I just crumple.  I was going through a stage where I was falling a lot and heavily on my knees. Our solution:  Harbor Freight for kneepads.  Uh, ugly and unwieldly so a friend referred me to an orthopedist she had seen for carpal tunnel.  My knees hurt and I thought I had done damage.  He wrote a scrip for the first brace.  It was filled by a little old man with hair plugs.  He told me I was lucky as I would soon have them on both my arms and legs.  When I went for the fitting, I swore he used a hair dryer to mold it to my leg.  I threw it in the trunk of the car and basically didn’t use it for about a year.  It was white plastic and covered my calf.  I used to crack up my physical therapist by saying it was a great shoe horn and helped me lift my leg into and out of the car.  I mainly used it as a visual cue and for some support walking and climbing stairs in Grand Central, Time Square and Penn Station.  I didn’t wear it in the office but had nice flats and kitten heels.  The spectral leg, as I prefer to call it, could only be worn with lace up shoes.  I am known for not wearing sneakers.  I was brought up to believe that they are acceptable for the gym, only.  I was never one of those women you would see walking in Manhattan in a suit and sneakers.

When things finally deteriorated and I started wearing the spectral leg  full time, the ugly tie shoes weren’t happening.  I spoke to the neurologist who gave me a scrip for a new one.  This one was to go completely under my foot and be less obtrusive than the original.  It would let me  wear different shoes, too.  My neurologist has always understood that looking good is important in helping me feel good.

The new spectral leg did not have shoe horn capabilities.  I can’t usually put it on myself.  As is my usual habit, I really didn’t use it for months.  Big problem when I did, sometimes, after just an hour my foot started to burn.  Other times, I could go for a few hours.  The pain was incredible.  Very problematic when I had to drive as my nerves would then cause the foot to jerk.  The GP said it was in my mind and I should talk to the neurologist.  The neurologist looked  at me as if I were crazy and said why would it be neurologic.  Finally, finally an ugly blood blister showed.  I’ll spare you the disgusting pictures.

New insurance, podiatrist.  He says it’s the spectral leg.

Back to neurologist.  I show her the pix.  She recommends a physical rehab doctor.  Ha, my insurance doesn’t cover him.  We go on a quest to find someone who is on my insurance and can treat my issue.  As this is going on, my walking and mobility are deteriorating.  I am hyperextending  my leg.  When I walk, I look sort of like Quasimodo and Igor.

We find a doctor, who is covered, who works with feet, is local and has available appointments.  He was honest enough to say he can’t help me.  However, his take is that the condition causes my nerves to flare and offers me drugs! And a referral to today’s doctor.

This is the first time, since the whole thing started that someone really evaluated the way I walk and move.  How come this took nearly 10 years.  No looking back but maybe, just maybe I could be in a different place now?

I explained how I don’t wear spectral leg in house.  He admired my seasonal cane.  We discussed how my neurologist and physical therapist suggested a walker.  He concurs but calls it a rollator,  He suggests it can be available in pink with a seat.  Tom quickly vetoes him on that before I can.

Next, yes a new spectral leg, an uglier one.  It will stabilize my knee and hips.  Some of me is still strong but my abductors are very weak.  He said watching me walk with my hyper extended knee hurt him.  If I don’t take care of it, I can become arthritic and the knee much worse.  I get that.  This new spectral leg is going to have major knee support and more of a back.  He says my little booties won’t work.  I’ll need sneakers or orthopedic shoes. NOT!! NOT!!  I will not do ugly.  He did suggest a shoe store and those shoes are UGLY  and a  few hundred dollars.

He does agree physical therapy and the gym are very important and will help.  Of course, insurance won’t  cover enough sessions. And I have to wear it from when I wake up.  I almot never wear it in the house. And almost never use a cane, either.

I am beyond upset.  I haven’t exercised enough.  Vicious cycle  – I can’t go to the gym so I get weaker.

This doctor, as does my neurologist, believes I can regain and retain muscle.  So Plan B – back to gym as soon as I can with existing walker, seasonal cane and spectral leg.  DO NOT THROW OUT existing ugly shoes.  DO become fanatic about clean eating/auto-immune diet.  This is the kick in the pants I need to commit.  Ugly inspires

Perceptions, Expectations and Mammos

Posted on by tresswann

It’s  odd the way the brain works .

I get my mammogram religiously every year.  I had my very first one when I wasn’t working and went to a mobile van parked at Pathmark.  This year I have been running late on everything.  I saw the gynecologist in June.  I usually have mammo midMarch.  Due to my unemployment, I can no longer go to the lab I have been going to for about 20 years. I have been delaying, thinking I’ll get a job and different insurance  .  I had a kick in the butt because I have to go off this medical plan and go to another for two months.  Okay, I am going to name names.  When I was in high school, my grandmother had to go to Zwanger for radiation.  At that time, it was Dr. Zwanger and not the megalith it evolved into.  My grandmother hated him which was an unusual state for her.  As a result, I have carried a bias against Zwanger.   I have had MRIs and xrays there because there was no other option.  It’s been alright. Now, as I said, I have been going to Nassau Radiologic for about 20 years.   At one time, they were just about the only game in town.  You literally had to schedule 4- 6 months in advance.

After you checked in at the main window, you waited to be called in.  Then someone came took you back and you went into a pretty bare changing room.  It had louvred doors that were not full, a wood bench and mirror, a collection of plastic bags and two trash receptacles, one for the used gowns.  Let’s use the word gown lightly. It was a cape/poncho.  I am personally comfortable with my body and have annoyed my acupuncturist and the odd gynecologist by not really using the gown.  Naked is naked, right?  Well, in this poncho/cape thing which you always had to take off anyway, I felt the “girls” were always hanging out anyway.  It used to be like a scene from a demented refugee movie.  There were all these half-dressed, frightened women (and don’t say you are not) sitting around with plastic bags waiting to be called in.  The actual technicians were always, always great.  Until three years ago, you also had to put the thing back on, carry your plastic bag out and wait to be told if you needed additional shots.  I have dense “girls”.  I picture them flopping around and going “D’uhh?!”  Usually, I had to have additional but still…

They changed three years or so back.  Instead of going to the main window, there was a little desk next to the elevator and this woman would bark at you.  Look, if you’ve been doing the same thing annually at minimum ( many of us have had more frequent visits)  your feet just do the walking.  “Stop!  Didn’t I tell you to come here!”  What also changed was waiting after the first  pictures.  You could leave the refugee area and wait at home for the all clear or have to go back in and repeat.

Yesterday at Zwanger, a real changing room and a real full length robe with a tie, one of those new reusable shopping bags and a real hamper!  The whole experience was nicer if you can describe a mammo as nice.  No waiting and I received a notification today that the “dense” girls are OK but still dense.

So here we go.  This place is less than 3 miles from my  house.  Nassau is nearly 30! I could have been going here for a decade.  I let old perceptions and expectations limit me.  My perceptions and expectations have also changed.   I need to think and see what else can and should.

And get that mammo!