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21 Mar

HPIM1696It’s Thoughtful Thursday, and time for another random question from The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, PhD.

Question 5
If a new medicine were developed that would cure arthritis but cause a fatal reaction in 1 percent of those who took it, would you want it to be released to the public?

Funny that Dr. Stock has chosen arthritis for this question. I happen to have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which is an autoimmune disease that causes my body to attack its own joints. I was diagnosed in 1994, two months after my college graduation. At first, the symptoms were mild—a couple stiff fingers, a slight twinge when I rotated my wrist, a vague feeling of fluid in my knees. I had a pretty physical job at the time, so I chalked it all up to overuse, took a couple Advil, and carried on. Within a couple weeks I was popping four Advil every two hours to just barely take the edge off the pain and swelling that were wreaking havoc with my fingers, wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles. I knew there was something more than overuse to blame, so made an appointment at a medical office where a PA told me I had a virus and should drink plenty of water. I suffered another week before going back for a follow-up, barely able to get into the car on the day of my appointment because I couldn’t bend knees swollen to the size of volleyballs or turn the key in the ignition without tears of pain streaming down my face. Finally, a blood test earned me a referral to a rheumatologist who diagnosed RA and started me on a cocktail of side effect-laden drugs.

I was lucky. Prednisone (a steroid known to cause osteoporosis with long-term use) is GREAT stuff, and eliminated the pain and swelling in my joints within about 30 minutes of my return from the pharmacy. It continued to work its magic for several months while the long-term regimen of Ansaid (a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug known to cause intestinal bleeding), Plaquenil (a disease modifying antirheumatic drug known to cause eye damage), and methotrexate (a chemotherapy agent known to cause liver damage) had time to build up in my system and suppress my immune system. Within six months, I looked and felt like a normal human being again, so I was happy to overlook any and all possible long-term side effects. Coming off the prednisone was a long, arduous process, but in about eighteen months I was finally able to do it. For the next twelve years, I continued on the Ansaid, Plaquenil, and methotrexate, and was doing so well that my rheumatologist believed I was in remission and encouraged me to begin weaning myself off all of those medications. I was drug-free for nearly a year before symptoms began to reappear, and I gradually added back all of the old medications, ramping up to and surpassing my previous dosages to try to control the flare. When it became obvious that the old drugs were no longer working, my rheumatologist started me on self-injected Enbrel, a TNF inhibitor that is one of the new biopharmaceuticals designed to treat autoimmune diseases. Again, I was lucky, and as soon as the Enbrel kicked in, I was able to eliminate all of the other medications once more. I’m now symptom-free as long as I continue my weekly (or biweekly if I’m feeling really good) injections. The trade-off is that treatment with Enbrel means I have an increased risk of developing a serious infection that could lead to hospitalization or death, and also a “several-fold” increase in the risk of developing lymphoma compared to the general population.

So, back to the question. I am interpreting it to mean that a single treatment would cure the arthritis—gone, completely and forever—with no side effects to worry about down the road, and that for the unfortunate 1 percent, death would come immediately after taking the medication. Therefore, I say absolutely, release it to the public. I’d be first in line to take it. For me, the one in a hundred chance of immediate (and I’m also assuming quick and painless here) death is a small worry compared to wondering every time I inject myself if this’ll be the dose that kicks off some horrible infection or lymphoma. A quick death as one of the 1 percent doesn’t sound as terrible as a long, agonizing, and ultimately unsuccessful battle against infection or cancer. And the other 99 percent, some of whom have likely not experienced the same success in eliminating their symptoms as I have, would have their lives back. They could once again take a walk, open a door, wrestle on the floor with their children or their pets, play the piano or the fiddle or the saxophone, twist off the cap of a cold beer, knit a sweater, assemble IKEA furniture, cut up their own steak, hold a toothbrush, run up the stairs, dig in the garden, button their jeans, turn on a lamp, tie their shoes…

 
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Posted by on March 21, 2013 in Deep Thought Thursday, How It Is, On Me, True Life

 

Check!

18 Mar

100_2819

I’ve got a bucket list that I started compiling during college titled, “100 Things To Do Before I Die.” There aren’t actually 100 things on the list yet–at 20, I thought it pretty conceited to presume that I knew enough about life and all the world had to offer to just scribble down a hundred dreams off the cuff. Even now at 40, I’m still reluctant to round out the list. However, one of the items I was sure of, even as a naïve undergrad, was my desire to see the Northern Lights.

We’ve just returned from four nights in Iceland, a trip carefully plotted to fall near the spring equinox because auroral activity typically peaks then (we did not know at the time that NASA had declared 2013 the year to see the Aurora Borealis thanks to a 50-year spike in solar activity). Saturday’s Northern Lights tour, which turned out to be more of a glorified hunt party, was included as part of our holiday package. Four busloads of eager tourists, armed with wide angle lenses and sturdy tripods, set out from Reykjavik at dusk to cap off a day that had been dominated by cloudless crystal blue skies; our local guides were forecasting the most spectacular display of Northern Lights of the season. As we drove away from the city lights, a low bank of clouds gathered over the mountain tops and proceeded to engulf the stars almost as fast as they appeared. Undaunted, and armed with four different meteorological reports that promised clear skies across the entire island, our fearless guides continued on to the night’s pre-selected viewing location in the national park. Gamely, we all tromped off the buses into the biting cold and spent the next hour watching the thickening clouds blot out every last star in the sky. Not ready to give up, our guides herded us back onto the buses with the promise that sources on the south coast were reporting clear skies overhead and we should move quickly to that location. Alas, upon arrival, visibility there was just as poor and the cold was even colder, so around midnight the guides finally admitted defeat and shepherded us back to our hotels, reminding us of the company’s policy to take us out again the next night (and the next, and the next…) until we finally spotted the Aurora Borealis.

Sunday dawned just as bright and cloud-free as Saturday had, so after a day spent paddling around the 100°F waters of the Blue Lagoon to chase away the lingering chill of the previous night, we once again bravely layered on all the clothing we had packed and joined the throngs for another evening of stalking. Our buses headed north out of the capital city under tantalizingly clear skies, and as the miles passed and darkness descended, we watched star after star appear magically in the heavens. Our guide alternated between apologizing for the previous night’s fiasco, disparaging the forecasting and observation skills of the various weather and space authorities the company consults when planning these nightly tours, and meekly offering optimistic promises for the evening’s success. An hour into our 90-minute drive, skies were just dark enough for the first glimmers of the Northern Lights to be visible in the skies ahead of us. The level of excitement (and relief) in the bus ratcheted up with each sighting, and we all tried to pay close attention to the guide’s tutorial on the best camera settings to capture our experience. By the time we finally alit from the bus, the sky was fairly dancing with ribbons of light. It took every last bit of self-control to allow my night vision to become fully functional before running pell-mell up the lava strewn path to claim a spot on the hill for my tripod.

This being only the second time I’ve ever used the manual settings on my trusty and much-loved, but far from professional grade, digital camera, I can’t claim any postcard-worthy shots of the lights (got everything adjusted but the ISO, darn it). While I’ve only got some blurry physical proof that I was there, the entire show is etched indelibly in my mind. Light danced across the sky like the first snowflakes that fall on a cold highway, swirling gracefully across the blacktop in the wake of the car ahead. Ribbons stretched downward into curtains, undulating back and forth like veils in an unseen breeze, their sheer green panels edged in purple and red. More than once, extremely rare (according to our guide) coronas appeared directly above our heads, the shimmering aurora radiating out in all directions from a central halo and occasionally bisected by shooting stars. Light literally flowed across the sky in rivers that brightened and faded, disappearing from the left or behind us and reappearing on the right or in front of us. There was no wrong direction to look, and if my joints had not been so stiff from the cold that I feared not being able to get back up, I would have lain flat on my back on that razor sharp bed of lava in an attempt to take it all in at once.

When the guides finally declared it was time to pack up and head back to Reykjavik, not a single passenger remembered the crushing disappointment or freezing discomfort of the previous night. As our bus headed back to the hotel, our guide was just as ecstatic as we were, assuring us that we had just witnessed the most brilliant display of Northern Lights in Iceland in a full year–high praise from someone who does this every night during the season.

Standing in the check-in line at the airport this morning, strangers offered each other the display screens of their digital cameras, and all of the small talk centered around one burning question. “Did you see the lights last night?”

Check!

 
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Posted by on March 18, 2013 in How It Is, Monday Mix, Observations, True Life

 

Mugshot

17 Mar

100_2834My favorite writing prompt this week comes from The One Minute Writer, and they simply asked if I had a “go-to” mug or cup. This notion is sort of a running joke in my house, so I thought it was worth a response!

For a couple of years now, I’ve teased my husband about only drinking from one coffee cup, day in and day out. It’s not as if we don’t have a dozen sizeable mugs, plus the boring old cups that match the dishes, lined up in the cabinet and ready for use. No, his Starbucks mug is used after dinner every night, filled with water and left in the sink at bedtime, and hand-washed the following afternoon in preparation for its next use (he has no time for coffee before work in the morning, or I’d be hand-washing the cup twice a day). Every other mug we own goes in the dishwasher immediately after use, sits there until the dishwasher fills up, and sometimes doesn’t return to its shelf in the cabinet for a week. The only time my husband’s cup can go in the dishwasher is if all of the following conditions are met: 1) he has finished his evening coffee, 2) the dishwasher is full and ready to be run immediately upon adding the cup to the top rack, and 3) my schedule allows time to unload the clean dishes before the cup is needed again. A few times I tried presenting the evening cuppa joe in a different mug, only to be met with a wounded look and a pitiful, “Where is my cup?” and finally decided it wasn’t worth the guilt trip to avoid hand-washing a single mug. I send up a daily prayer that I not be the one to drop this beloved mug on the unforgiving tile floor…

I, on the other hand, couldn’t care less which mug I use for my cup of hot cocoa or herbal tea after dinner. We’ve got an extensive collection of large Starbucks mugs from every Asian city we visited while living in Japan, and I am perfectly happy to just rotate through them, so as not to subject only one or two to excessive trips through the dishwasher. However, this winter I’ve formally adopted the English custom of afternoon tea, usually drunk while I’m trying to dream up a blog post, and I’ve noticed that I habitually reach for one of two plain glass mugs we bought during some move, when our own dishes had not yet arrived and we could no longer tolerate the deprivation we felt drinking from the dainty six-ounce tea cups in the loaner set of tableware. The glass mug is nothing special…just a utilitarian Anchor Hocking mug which can be found on the shelf of any Walmart store in the US. Yet something about this mug is like inviting an old friend for afternoon tea–it’s comforting and familiar, and makes no demands, a perfect foil for the blinking cursor on the screen before me. It’s a heavy mug, with glass thick enough to take an occasional whack without complaint, but well-balanced, with a handle that sits comfortably in my grip. More importantly, there is just enough headroom to make twelve ounces of tea (my preferred volume) and carry it upstairs to my office without spilling along the way.

I’m still happy to use whatever mug I pull down from the cabinet for my evening beverage, but my unpretentious afternoon tea mug now sits in the sink beside my husband’s Starbucks mug, waiting for its daily hand-washing. There is decidedly less teasing on my part, while the prayers for protection from an unfortunate demise on the tile floor have doubled.

 
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Posted by on March 17, 2013 in How It Is, Sunday Best, True Life

 

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Speechless

16 Mar

100_2794Too old for this new trick

I’m not normally one to back down from an intellectual challenge, but I may have met my match in the Icelandic language. In attempting to skim a magazine or read a menu, nothing about it looks familiar…in Icelandic text I can’t find any words adopted from other languages. According to David, our tour guide today, if the Icelanders need to use a foreign word (think Internet, for example) they will import the meaning, but will create their own new Icelandic word for it. Talk about dedication to not diluting your language!

Here’s what else I gleaned from David’s explanation of the language today (for reference, David is an Englishman who’s been living in Iceland for twelve years–it took him four solid years to learn the language): Icelandic is descended from old Norse languages, as the Vikings were the ones to settle the country. There are 32 letters in the alphabet (including multiple versions of vowels and at least three different characters for the “th” sound) and each one has one and only one very distinct pronunciation. If you saw a “c” in a word (which you wouldn’t, because they don’t have them–they don’t have a “w” either, but they did consent nevertheless to use the internationally accepted WC to let folks know where the toilets are) there would be no confusion about whether it was a hard c or a soft c like in English. When tourists attempt to pronounce Icelandic words (like street names) using the pronunciation rules from their own native language, the Icelanders have no idea what they are saying. Apparently they found great amusement in the world’s news anchors trying in vain to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull, the name of the volcano that erupted in 2010 and practically brought European air travel to a halt for weeks; the American military gave up hope of ever saying it right and dubbed it E15 because it was spelled with an E followed by fifteen other random letters.

Another reason I would hesitate to learn Icelandic is the grammar. Apparently, each noun, pronoun, and adjective has a gender, and is declined in four cases based on that gender, and whether it is singular or plural. (Check out all the ways to spell chicken [underlined] in the above photograph of a Subway menu board.) Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, person, number, and voice. I’m not sure I know enough about my own English grammar to even know what all those terms mean. The sentence construction is then further affected by whether the person to whom you are speaking is a male or female, young or old. In the end, each word ends up having between 12 and 35 different spellings. That’s a headache I just don’t need at this point in my life.

 
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Posted by on March 16, 2013 in How It Is, Observations, True Life

 

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Jailbreak?

09 Mar

100_1385
Scaling walls to find creative freedom

It’s been years since I’ve done any creative writing. Once I hit high school, writing became strictly research papers, persuasive essays, and lab reports. I’ve gone through random spells of journaling in the past two decades, but there’s been no creative writing. No poetry, no short stories, and certainly no novels. And it wasn’t just that I wasn’t writing creatively…I wasn’t even thinking creatively anymore. As I got older and life filled with more and more responsibilities, I allowed all of my creative outlets to shut down–writing went first, then crafty projects followed, and for several years I even stopped reading because there was “no time.”

Making this commitment to blog daily throughout 2013 might just be my own personal prison break. I’ve scaled the wall of responsibilities, both real and imagined, crawled carefully over the barbed-wire of my own inhibitions, and now find myself standing, somewhat bemused, in the world of anything is possible. I’ve read three books since January, and have two currently in progress (that doesn’t hold a candle to my high school reading pace, but it’s a vast improvement over the wordless drought that’s parched my life since the mid-90s). For my first tentative attempts at fiction in more than twenty years, I’ve found great support from other writers in the blogosphere, and I credit that encouragement for a marked increase in the number of spontaneous creative thoughts I’ve been having the past week. I hope the trickle implies that a dam burst is imminent. For the first time, I feel like a notebook that goes everywhere I go might actually be an ally in capturing some of these thoughts for future use, rather than an enemy sitting in silent accusation, adding more pressure because of its disuse. The taste of creative freedom is as addictive as Oreos, and I find myself willing, even eager, to spend more and more time in front of the computer chasing words and ideas down long-disused pathways, brushing aside cobwebs with every step. Maybe there’s a glimmer of hope, after all, that I can be a writer, not just in thought, but also in deed.

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2013 in How It Is, On Me, On Writing, True Life

 

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Perjury

07 Mar

101_0026My inaugural attempt at Thoughtful Tuesdays morphed into Deep Thought Thursdays when I laid out my official blogging map last week, but the premise remains the same. I have randomly selected a question from Gregory Stock, PhD’s The Book of Questions, available online.

Question 202
Would you be willing to commit perjury for a close friend? For example, might you testify that he was driving carefully when he hit a pedestrian even though he had been joking around and not paying attention?

Short answer: no. I would not commit perjury for a close friend, or even a family member.

I have lots of friendly acquaintances, but by choice, I have very few close friends simply because I believe true friendships require energy, attention, and maintenance. That makes it sound like friendship is a job, and that’s not at all what I mean. But I don’t think it’s fair to call someone my friend if I am not willing to invest in the relationship to make it strong and lasting. I never really stopped to think about it before, but in my mind, I guess I take my friendships as seriously as my marriage vows. My close friends are like blood relatives to me, and can count on my love, devotion, and loyalty in good times and bad. But I will not sacrifice my values for anyone, and if I’ve chosen my friends as wisely as I think I have, they would never ask me to do so. I like to think that my honesty and integrity are integral qualities of my character that make others amenable to claiming me as a friend in the first place. If I were willing to surrender them so easily, I would not be able to respect myself, much less ask anyone else to respect me. Lying in such a serious situation might save one friend initially, but as it would cost me my self-worth and potentially ruin other friendships and relationships if word of my dishonesty got out, resentment would build and the friendship would die anyway. The price of perjury would be too dear, one I am not willing to pay.

So, fair warning my friends (and family members). If you hit a pedestrian, I will not lie for you. You can, however, count on me to visit you in jail, to make sure your family is okay while you’re incarcerated, and to bring you a nice outfit to wear home on your release day. I expect you’d do exactly the same for me.

 
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Posted by on March 7, 2013 in Deep Thought Thursday, How It Is, On Me

 

Aimless

03 Mar

100_1405Okay, I admit to being more than moderately ADD today, my thoughts drifting as aimlessly as the gliders above the local airfield. More than a dozen times I sat down at the computer to write, as outlined on Thursday, an entry based on my favorite writing prompt from the week. I would start looking through my inbox for the prompts I’d bookmarked, but within minutes my brain would leap to something else and before I knew it I’d be answering emails or have a new search window open in the browser. Found some interesting sights to check out when I’m in Iceland later this month, studied some entries from the current Weekly Photo Challenge (think I’ll tackle that tomorrow), added a couple recipes to my Paprika app, updated my to-read list (one book added, one crossed off)…nothing especially productive, and certainly not a blog entry. So in light of today’s inability to focus on one topic for more than two minutes, a multi-faceted writing prompt is in order. I’ve chosen Five Question Friday, which I found out about while reading Joe’s blog in another ADD episode earlier in the week.

The directions are simple:  1. Copy and paste the week’s questions; 2. Answer the questions; 3. HAVE FUN!

1. What was the most productive thing you have done this week?
Tuesday (technically not a thing, but nothing else compares this week). It was a non-stop 18-hour day, and I’m proud to say I moved smoothly from task to task, ticking each and every box along the way. I worked three out of four of my part-time jobs, went to a closing to refinance our house, did the week’s grocery shopping, went to dinner with my husband and his coworkers, then spent two hours scanning all 150 pages of the closing documents back to the bank. Think I even managed to squeeze in a shower.

2. Enjoying the winter or ready for spring?
Oh, so ready for spring. Just saw the Met Office’s analysis of the past three months’ weather data on tonight’s news, and there’s been 4% less sunshine than in an average winter, and temperatures have been colder than normal in January and February. I missed the stats about precipitation, but since I can’t remember the last day that did not have fog, freezing fog, mist, drizzle, showers, rain, downpours, sleet, iceballs, flurries, snow, or some combination thereof, I’d be willing to bet it’s been above normal. Even though it means three months of allergy hell, I’m ready to see the rape-seed fields glowing in their golden spring glory.

3. Are you an introvert or extrovert? Is your spouse the same as you?
I’m an introvert, with ambivert tendencies. Hubby is the same. We enjoy time with each other and with friends, but don’t relish social situations with complete strangers, and feel recharged if we have a bit of time alone to decompress every once in awhile. I think on the scale of -vertness, my better half is closer to ambivert than I am…I’ll have to get him to take this quiz to see if I’m right (I scored 16 out of 20).

4. Would you rather go without music or television for 1 year?
I’d give up television, without a doubt. I only watch a couple hours in the evening anyway, and there are so many other stimulating ways I could fill that void:  books, newspapers, magazines, puzzles, walks, phone calls, chats by the fire… Music, on the other hand, is an integral part of every day, and alternately reflects or affects my thoughts and moods. Since I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, I’d have no way to fill the emptiness if music were taken from me.

5. Have you ever been truly scared of someone?
Yes, I have. I’ve got a relative with a fearsome temper, and no clearly defined triggers; being around this person is literally like walking across a minefield. Experience has shown that when the rage explodes, damage could be physical or emotional, so I find it safer to just keep my distance. 

 
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Posted by on March 3, 2013 in How It Is, On Me, Sunday Best

 

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