Midsummer

Happy Litha! The feverfew is blooming under the new moon.

It’s been cold and rainy here.  Cold is relative.  Two months ago I thought 50 degree evenings were crazy warm.  It’s always seemed odd to me, a native Minnesotan, that Midsummer comes when it does.  Pretty much this marks the beginning of our genuinely hot season.

Karina’s birthday is at the beginning of June and we couldn’t plan her preferred pool party unless we delayed it or held it indoors.  Cool isn’t unusual.

Because of everyone’s crazy schedule we’re still delaying her birthday.  We managed to all get together this weekend.  Karina and I have a deal.  I take her out to a high-end dinner for her birthday and she does the same for me.

Happy birthday Karina! Huge deserts and the leftover bags.

This year she chose Pittsburgh Blue, a chain steakhouse.  It was surprisingly good.  The steaks were done to perfection and the seafood we had was also very tasty.

Gilda’s Club Friends and Family Day photo

Orion and I also stopped by Gilda’s Club for Friends and Family Day.  We’ve been doing this as an annual event, being sure to get our photos taken.  Looking at those pictures I note I have a jacket or sweater on in most of them.

We did silly one’s too

Orion brought his drum and we enjoyed a drumming workshop along with visiting. Hoof on the Roof, a folk band, joined us as we finished up drumming.  It was a treat to jam with them.

In spite of the cold things are starting to bloom in the garden.  I got behind so I still have a few things to plant.  I’ve been worried that I’ll lose everything when we start tearing things up to get the remodel going, but I’m afraid we are stalled again.  I really don’t want to wait for another year!  I miss having a fully functional kitchen.

tomatoes are starting to form in spite of the cool evenings

There are things I’ve been putting off (like a new microwave) in anticipation of getting this all taken care of.  It’s frustrating.

Fourth of July is coming up fast and furiously.  I’ll probably be off-line, so don’t worry if you don’t see a Monday blog next week.  I will try to remember to take some photos.

Hints of jalapeño as well

 

 

Maybe parades and fireworks will fill my page.  Maybe flowers and wildlife will inspire me.  Maybe I’ll remember to take pictures of the family.  Fingers are crossed for a fun filled, good weather, holiday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previous Midsummer Posts:

Midsummer

Storm

Midsummer – apparently I’m not very creative with titles at this time of year!

Charleston – I haven’t posted about Philandro Castile.  It’s too close to home, too horrible, and I’m not the one.  But I will say Black Lives Matter, because they should and it’s pretty clear that they don’t.  I will say it’s important to remember.

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Theory

Testing the theory: things will look better after taking a break

We seem to live in a world where “Fake news” is thrown around to discredit something someone doesn’t “like”.  I see all too often that belief seems to count as much or more than science or facts.   “Theory” is an inflammatory word.   I suspect that’s because there are a lot of people who “believe” they understand what it means and don’t want to be told they are mistaken.

It doesn’t help that the word has a specific usage in scientific lingo and a much broader usage in the English language.  When someone says, “In theory….” it’s clear there is speculation involved.  There is not a great confidence between what is “supposed” to happen and what seems “likely” to happen.  When a scientist talks about, “The theory….” it pretty much means that in all the time that theory has existed it’s been the best explanation of all the facts available and that so far nothing has come up to contradict it.

When we talk about education theory or theory in a philosophical setting what we’re really doing is talking about belief.  We really want something to be true so we create a theory and then test it in practice.  But people being people, we don’t want to change our beliefs, so when things don’t work we change the parameters of the test.   No wonder everyone is confused.

In science when a fact shows up that disproves the theory, the theory gets changed so that it explains ALL the facts.  It’s a very different mindset.

So, although I’m still taking tests and they still come back “normal” there are some theories.

Testing Karina’s theory: you need a little more sass

I have speculated, for much of my life, that the place my back goes out puts stress on the nerves that impact my digestion.  The converse also applies, when my digestion is aggravated it “stresses” my back.  I’ve seen this happen time and again and when I can break that feedback loop things do seem to improve.  I think it’s the explanation that best fits the facts as I see them.

My chiropractor is on board with this theory.  He did an x-ray series and can point to places where it’s likely there is some stress on the nerves.  Unfortunately, in order to be “clinical” the nerves have to be pretty much pinched off, which thankfully they are not.  The radiologist makes some remarks about odd curves and twists but concludes basically “normal” (I’m sure there’s a for a woman of my age in there somewhere.)  We’re hoping a chiropractic radiologist will be a little more specific and can talk insurance into paying for more frequent adjustments.

Likewise the other tests come back “normal” but when the bariatric PA looks at them she sees potential for issues.  So I’ll take another test and then the entire bariatric group will put their heads together and see if indeed the PA’s observations explain the problem.  If her theory holds then they will decide if there is anything they might recommend doing about it.

It may be that I just had a bad turn of what has been a chronic problem and that treatment is to do what I’ve been doing all along.  I might have some bad spells and may need a little more intense intervention – pain meds, more frequent adjustments, possibly another round of physical therapy – to get through those acute moments.

That certainly sounds a lot better than the other possibilities that have been floating around in my head!   Thank you all for your concern and good wishes.

Tests

I am a good test taker.  I always have been.  Unfortunately that makes things a little difficult when it comes to the medical community.

I know something is wrong.  I’ve known something is wrong for several months.  My tests all look good.  It can’t possibly be a big deal right?

There is a great deal of evidence that women present differently than the male based “standard” in a lot of conditions.  There is a great deal of evidence that women are dismissed when they report symptoms.  Historically I have found that my instincts are probably more reliable than a few tests:

I told my mother I had a tummy ache.  She said it was because I’d eaten too much (chocolate).  I said I couldn’t get up.  She said I shouldn’t stay home from school.  24 hours later my appendix burst on the operating table.

I had a surgeon ask me flat out if I was sure he should take out my gall bladder.  After all I was pregnant and the tests were not definitively bad.  After the surgery he said my gall bladder looked like a green raspberry it was so full of pencil point sized stones.  Yes, it needed to come out.

I had a GI specialist do a CT scan.  All the other doctors and nurses were whispering colon cancer under their breaths.  Late that evening he came in and told me not to worry.  It couldn’t be cancer.  It was probably crones disease.  How can you possibly take away a diagnosis like that unless you’re sure?  He was sure, based on the tests, and he was wrong.

I had persistant bleeding, a little anemia.  It’s that whole peri-menopause thing the doctors told me.  The anemia wasn’t that bad – take some iron.  Talk to a gyn about an ablation, you could force menopause that way.  The gyn did a biopsy (as standard procedure) but everything looked good. It did force menopause.  I had endometrial cancer and a hysterectomy.

I’ve had high blood pressure that didn’t respond to blood pressure meds.   That’s because the rise in blood pressure was indicating pain (which I and really bad at reporting).  I’ve had blood clots with both cancers, and it’s a good thing because treating those blood clots is the only thing that got the cancers diagnosed.  It’s not like I haven’t gone off the rails on tests, just not in predictive or indicative ways.

So for the last two weeks I’ve been taking tests.  They all look great.  That’s supposed to be good news.  But I know something is wrong.  My experience tells me the harder it is to find what is actually causing the problem, the harder it’s going to be to address it.  Still more tests.  Still more to come………