- a day

Hi.

Hi Hi hi.

This is the first blog I've written in, what, about six weeks? Life's been like that. I hit a HARD wall at the end of September, hard enough that it knocked me back a long way and I had a difficult time getting up. A stupid typo at work became the last straw--nay, club--and I beat myself senselessly with it until I finally had to scream ENOUGH at the top of my lungs and take a leave from work. I flew to Montana. I spent a week in the Bitterroot with my dear friends the Malos and then I went north to the Moiese valley, right on the Flathead River, and spent a week on a egg farm. Talk about recalibrating one's perspective. Holy chicken shit.

Heartland Farm is approx. 19 miles from the nearest gas station, a million miles from home (or so it seemed), smack dab in the center of the Flathead Indian reservation. I spent my days listening to cocks crow every minute, watching the river flow from the windows of an old farm-house-converted-to-a-newer-house-but-still-in-need-of-loads-of-work...I would take an egg from a Plenty Coop or C. Everett Coop (all of them have pun-y names), walk in the house, fry it up. I would pick chard and kale greens from the garden, go inside, steam them up. I waltzed up and down the withering rows of tomatoes and peppers and ate my way from one end of the garden to the other. I sat by the river and watched Corabelle (one of the farm dogs) drink the turquoise water. A bald eagle came and rested on a snag just downriver from my little camp. I read the entirety of David Sedaris' Dress My Family in Corduroy and Denim and covered my mouth when I laughed aloud, like I would be disturbing someone with my guffaw. But there was no one. Not a soul alive, it seemed, save for the dogs and the cows who grazed on a bench across the river from my little "camp." I've spent a great deal of time in Montana, but never had I been somewhere that pristine, that wild.

Have you ever seen eggs straight from the coop? Absolutely beautiful. Shades of every color you can imagine: blues, greens, soft pinks and peaches. I wanted to wear a string of eggs around my neck. I fell in love with their shape, their texture, their hues.

I returned to Denver feeling rejuvenated and hopeful. This was of vital importance. When I finally returned to work, I felt like I could actually do my job again. I wasn't resentful of it. I didn't wish I was someplace else. Besides, I'd missed S. something awful and I really really wanted to be in her arms again. The safest place I know.

So now it's more than 5 months since my diagnosis of VN. I just recovered from a nasty bout of iritis too. They're weaning me off the steroid eye drops this week. Thank goodness that's all over. What a pain in the...eye.

I still suffer from the symptoms of VN but now it's just when I've worked too much or driven too much or I'm tired. I get woozy, car sick, unable to focus. I've learned that, when I feel these things, I just have to STOP. This is still not an easy task. I don't nap. I think napping is for people who don't have anything better to do. I always wake up cranky. But I'm learning, at least, to slow down a bit. I might even learn to nap better. Stranger things have happened.

The hardest part of all of this, outside of the obvious frustrations that accompany such a protracted illness, has been that I've barely exercised in five months. The weight I lost in April? It found me again. I tried every disguise but to no avail. I still fear the scale. My clothes are tight. I yearn to ride a bike again. I saw my trainer last Friday and told her I'd be calling her. I hate hate hate the thought of starting over AGAIN but that's just the way it has to be. When you spend so many days immobile, you gain a new appreciation for things like (yes! it's true!) exercise. I see myself sweating it out on the elliptical. I can almost feel the sweat forming a pool in my cleavage and it's a good thing. By December 1 I hope to be back to it full throttle. Or at least third gear.

But today. Today I'm thinking of my 96 year old grandmother who is, at this very moment, in surgery to repair a spiral fracture of the femur. She fell yesterday and today she's having a rod and pins put in her leg. This is the same leg that got a new knee four years ago. My grandmother is a tough broad, but lately she's had trouble getting around -- she gets winded, and she's got stenosis in her right leg, which causes her foot to fall asleep. Her heart is tired. Can anyone blame it? 96 years is a long time to beat.

I can only sit here and wait for the call from my family. I pray that Grams makes it through this. A long road of recovery awaits her. So many things could go wrong, but she's made it this far, so I'm looking on the bright side. She was always the only one who supported me unconditionally--and the only other Democrat in my family besides me--two rafts in a sea of rabid Republicans. She was a feminist before the word was even invented.

I love you so much Grams. Hang in there.