Today's Column...

...is yet more rehashing of our bout with H1N1, which is as creative as you get when you have to write something before you're quite recovered.

Here it is.

Sick at SMBI

This morning at 4:42 I got a text from Emily asking me to pray for her because she's really sick. I should be used to having her away from home and sick, but it never gets easy.

I called her a few times today. She sounded awful. Fever, cough, etc. With that, plus the fact that a whole raft of other students were also sick, I assumed they all had swine flu.

The assistant dean called me, which I appreciate more than I can say, and asked about what to watch for with Emily, with her health issues and all. I said it's basically what you'd watch with anyone--listlessness, blue lips, difficulty breathing, and so on, with just a degree of extra vigilance.

Remembering my too-recent tangle with swine flu, I told Emily that basically there's nothing to do but tough it out and keep drinking fluids, and before morning she'll wish she could die, but I'd appreciate it if she wouldn't.

This evening her fever was high, even on Tylenol, so the deans decided to take her to the emergency room. There she was given a bag of fluids via IV, which means she was dehydrated I suppose, and then she was diagnosed with strep throat and put on an antibiotic.

I can't explain how grateful I am to the kind souls who are taking care of her, and I do not envy them at all, having to make these medical judgment calls with all these young people.

Sometimes I think I could almost qualify as a nurse or at least an assistant, with all my medical experience with raising six children. But there is one major difference between me and a real medical person: I get a diagnosis stuck in my head (swine flu, in this case) and it never crosses my mind that we could be looking at something else entirely (like strep.) I've done that so often it's scary.

Quote of the Day:
"strep not swine"
--text from Emily

P.S. Turns out she has both strep and swine, so I wasn't so terribly far off.

Everyone Else's Exciting Life

I am in a phase where my life isn't very exciting. A dangerous thing to say, I know, but there you are. I have been taking it seems like forever to get over the swine flu so I've been home a lot, coughing and doing laundry and picking up the house. But everyone else's life is exciting and so I am enjoying theirs vicariously, with just a bit of envy.

I talked to my sis Rebecca this morning. They just took a trip to my other sister Margaret's in Pennsylvania where my niece Annette and her husband joined them and they had an early Thanksgiving together and I am happy for them but would have loved to be there too. Meanwhile Rebecca is up to her ears in ministry, since she can speak Arabic, and there are lots of Arab immigrants in the area and all kinds of astonishing doors are opening up to reach out to them. Rebecca's life is always exciting, and she has always seemed way more holy and disciplined than I am, and she is always out there doing amazing things for God, and I have been jealous of this about her since she was about 7 years old and got saved at revival meetings (evangelist: Willy Wagler) and immediately set out to share the gospel with the world, starting with her heathen little sister who didn't appreciate it, and she hasn't stopped yet. However, today Rebecca's amazing ministry included taking a lady to the doctor even though she was sick herself--not so jealous about that I guess.

Then Emily is off at SMBI and in the very little communication we have she is all happy-happy-hyper-hyper-fun-fun. "Uh, Mom, is this important??" she asks distractedly as shrieks of laughter drift in from the background. Today she finally got out to an internet connection and posted a hyper post about her life, only it's kind of like those teaser ads from Prevention magazine that go on and on without telling you anything--"Keep reading, we have the most amazing WEIGHT LOSS FORMULA from 3 basic ingredients sitting in your kitchen cupboard RIGHT NOW, yes we do, just keep reading, I'm serious, THREE BASIC INGREDIENTS that you stock up on every week." You can read Emily's version of this here.

This evening we went to Nolan and Edna's reception. I love weddings and newlyweds and all the girls in their pretty dresses and watching people and wondering which couples in the room are actually happy together and which little kids belong to which parents. There's a part of me that always envies newlyweds, fresh beginnings and all that. Funny moment: Paul talking business with Daniel Schrock from Smith Seed. Both guys are deaf in one ear, so they both had to crook their heads at odd angles to hear each other.

Oregon people: did you ever notice how much Cindy Smith looks like Sarah Palin? (So does my sis Rebecca, as a matter of fact.)

Ok, who else has an exciting life? Bonnie the SIL just went to see her grandson for about a week. Well, I'm sure she went to see his parents too, but that baby exerts a powerful magnetic force. Bonnie has numerous times called me with Official News--Randy is dating!! Byran is engaged! Jessi is pregnant!! And I have never been able to call her with such news, not once. Not that I am trying to rush my children or tell them not to wait on God's time, (really, you guys) but sometimes I would love to call all the relatives and friends with NEWS.

Meanwhile Matt has been living dangerously. He decided it's time to shake things up a bit with his college-student diet, so he hasn't made ramen noodles since school started. He's made fish (setting the oven on fire the first time), pork chops, and such. And then he went to WinCo and bought one of each fruit he didn't recognize. Mango, kiwi, papaya, and so on. He found out he absolutely loves starfruit.

Now that's some excitement I could actually try myself, I guess.

Quote of the Day:
"Matt should get a job where he just explains things. He's just so good at explaining how things work."
--Jenny. I totally agree.

A Late Happy Birthday

A late happy birthday to Steven, who is now 15! Sunday night he went gallivanting off to a church-youth party, so we're entering a new era, with only one child at home on youth nights.

It's hard for me to think of Steven's birthday as his birthday, since I have no particular memory associated with it. To me, Christmas Eve is his birthday, the day he truly joined our family.

Nevertheless, there it is: 15 years old, the official date to take the drivers-permit test, the time to join the youth group, yet another transition from kid to adult.

Steven: you're an amazing, strong young man, growing in grace and character, standing for what's right. We love you.

Return to Life's Little Dramas

This crazy swine flu had me dragging around here all week like a teenager who stayed up too late and had to get up too early and had a bad attitude besides. Long after the fever was gone I just felt so unspeakably TIRED. Still do, in fact. I felt queasy too, so it was almost enough to make me nostalgic for pregnancy.

But I am slowly getting back in the swing of things and the best part of that is just the various little dramas of life that you miss out on when you're flat in bed not caring if you live or die.

Such as:
Emily finished her first week at SMBI and with the 3-hour time difference and her busy schedule and the terrible Verizon reception there, I have hardly talked to her. This tends to tie me up in knots because this last year I talked to her on the phone a LOT, in fact some days I was trying to keep her alive over the phone, so to suddenly have that umbilical cord cut is traumatic but wonderful, if you get what I mean.

I figure if she were sick in bed she'd call all the time, so since she doesn't, all is well.

So since I don't talk to her much, and she doesn't have any siblings there to report on her, I keep checking Facebook to see if anyone has tagged her in a picture, trying to not see this as a barometer of success and friendship and adjusting and fitting in, and also trying not to despair of all the implications since it hasn't happened yet, not once. Aagghh.

Then on the local scene I gave a talk to a church women's group today and they were very gracious about my not coming for the lunch but just showing up for the talk and dessert. Questions: "How did you get started writing?" "What is the difference between the Amish and the Mennonites?" I'm serious, someone asks those two every single time.

But that's ok.

Then I went to WinCo in the cold pouring rain and bought groceries and of course they had their turkey special since it's November, and of course I picked out the biggest one I could find, hoping to get a bit of mileage out of it like I try every year. And here I was still so weak and wobbly that I almost couldn't lift the dumb thing into the cart. I who pride myself on slinging milk jugs and flour sacks around like a good farm girl.

Then I picked the shortest line. Why do I never learn? Whatever line I'm in has the check that doesn't clear the machine, the debit card that doesn't take, the cashier that leaves on break, every person that has any possible way of slowing things down.

This time the guy ahead of me was a homeless man with a little red wagon with all his pop cans in a bag. Long after the whole counter was empty he stood right in my way so I couldn't unload my groceries and carefully counted out coins, dropped two pennies, picked them up, counted some more, and finally finally moved to the cashier to pay for his pop, which it turned out had actually been paid for by the generous woman ahead of him in line.

So could he zip on through with a big thank you? No, he could not. From somewhere he conjured a bottle of strawberry milk, two Crystal Light canisters, and about 4 more drinks. He counted and counted his money, dropped a penny, scrambled after it, counted some more, dropped a quarter, scrambled after it, etc etc. Meanwhile his wagon was blocking my path so I couldn't bring my cart around to start bagging my stuff. (WinCo has two chutes per checkout and basically they check out two people at once.)

"Ahem," I said delicately, in my nicest treat-you-with-kindness-like-a-normal-person-even-though-you're-horribly-irritating voice, "Could I move your wagon over just a bit so I can get my cart through?" There was a growl from behind the beard. "YOU. DON'T. TOUCH. THAT." Ok. Yessir. Got it.

I have issues with homeless people. The old judgment vs. mercy dilemma. Obviously this guy was mentally ill but you know, even mentally ill people can be grateful and decent I would think. And then when I was thinking rapidly boiling thoughts about this guy, I happened to notice his hands, which were all freckled. Like Paul's. Which gave me a terrible turn, I mean, what if my husband was out on a cold rainy day with only half his mind and a little red wagon full of pop cans. But even then he would move so people could get through, I know he would.

See, I can wring a lot of drama out of a homeless guy in the grocery checkout line.

Somewhere in there the lady behind me and I started talking, since we had plenty of time to do so, and she had also survived swine flu but is fully recovered and said the only thing she's ever had that compares was pneumonia. And then she lifted the turkey out of the cart and back in for me, plus my milk and other heavy stuff, which was deeply appreciated.

Ben's fever is gone too but he's dragging around here like I am even though he's young and strong, which helps me feel vindicated somehow. This evening he said,

Quote of the Day:
"This makes me feel a lot more sorry for Emily."

Books to Canada

A while back someone emailed and asked how much it would cost to send 6 of my books to Canada. I lost the email, so I'll post the answer here:
First class: $14.81 (U.S. dollars)
Priority (insured) $24.25

Hope this finds you!

The Best Medicine

So my research on home remedy ingredients led me to a website on Tylenol, one use of which is maybe killing all those awful snakes on Guam, and that link led on to a paragraph on what to do if you actually live in the South Pacific and encounter a Brown Tree Snake. I found it terribly funny in a sick sort of way but unfortunately, only those few lucky readers who have actually seen my mom dispatch a garter snake with a hoe can truly understand why. The rest of you can try to imagine:

If a snake is encountered, it can probably be easily dispatched with a blunt object such as a broom handle or a heavy object. . . Even when mortally wounded, a snake may continue to wriggle and writhe for some time. As long at it is incapable of coordinated locomotor movements, it need not be further bashed, hacked, or mutilated in response to random and ineffective reflex movements. Remember, you may want someone to positively identify the snake, and the difficulty in making an identification may be increased if you pound it to an unrecognizable pulp or a multitude of pieces.

The Moms' Hearts

Some of you have been asking how my mom is since she spent the night in the hospital with what seemed to be a heart attack.

She's actually been doing really well, and the fact is we are all mystified as to what is actually going on here.

Probably 20 years ago her old long-since-retired "Dr. Guy" diagnosed her chest pains as angina and prescribed nitro pills. And it just became part of who Mom is--the little bottle tucked into its little case, always with her, just in case. The occasional news that she had another "spell" and pulled through again. And of course, the sense that her days may be numbered and she could go at any time with a serious heart attack.

So she had this "spell" the other week that made her black out. And she ended up in the hospital. Where they did lots of tests. And several days later called in a cardiologist and did a stress test.

And of all the bizarre things, the tests are coming back that she has an excellent heart. Arteries are open, blood is flowing, electrical impulses are impulsing, muscles are pumping. "Like an 18-year-old," said the doctor.

My nurse sister Rebecca has been trying to reach the doctor to have a personal chat but hasn't been able to, but she did get the nurse to read the chart to her, at the end of which she noted that when Mom left, she was again prescribed nitro for angina.

My sister will have some specific words to say to the doctor, such as, what if it's actually been acid reflux all these years, and have you actually explored these other possibilities, and if it's something else why are you still talking angina and nitro??

Sooooo happy to have a medical person in the family, I must say.

So yeah, still waiting for answers.

If Mom continues to do well, I plan to fly to Minnesota in early December and take her to Minneapolis for glaucoma surgery.

Meanwhile, Paul's mom has been having trouble with atrial fibrillation, which makes her heart race like crazy and is very unnerving. So she's trying out different medications, and the cure is almost worse than the disease. She been a very healthy, active person and it's been hard to have her life curtailed by this. Again, we're thankful for the family go-to medical person, Barb the doctor.

It is a bit strange for both Paul and I to have all this action going on at the same time with our moms' hearts. Meanwhile it is very nice to know that in a larger sense their hearts are in good shape and in good hands.

Oink Oink

I was talking to my sister-in-law Lois this morning. She and her daughter Lisa just survived the same flu I'm getting over, which I apparently caught from Lisa last Tuesday when she was here helping me with some cleaning and felt like she might be getting a cold.

Ben is home with the same flu today.

Lois told me that she was talking with the nurse practitioner at the Harrisburg Clinic and described the symptoms and was told that this is yes, definitely H1N1. Fever, cough, very contagious, very nasty, etc etc. And apparently it's too early for any other kind of flu.

I had been a bit worried about getting swine flu because it's supposed to be worse for people with asthma. But so far I can still breathe ok.

Somehow this makes me feel better to know that I'm actually a Swine Flu Survivor!! They ought to give you a little badge or something.

Quote of the Day:
"It 's a good thing Emily didn't come home right now after all."
--Lois

Fun Times With the Flu

I'm well into Day 5 of a vicious flu. It started with a dry cough on Thursday and by that evening I wanted to sleep all the time, and by Friday I was in that vast miserable zone where you no longer care about anything--how the house looks, are the children eating any real food, or, in my case, genuine proof of genuine illness, that article deadline that was eating me alive faded off into unimportance. And then for a day and a half I had my monthly monster migraine on top of everything else, which seems like an appropriate punishment for, say, bin Laden if they ever catch him.

So what can you do for entertainment when your eyeballs feel like hot marbles and you can hardly lift your arms off the bed?

1. Dream wild thrashing exhausting dreams in which you are forced to read pages and pages of blurry handwritten script, and strange ideas take on color and shape, and you go visit Emily at SMBI and take the wrong turn out of her dorm room in your nightgown and well, never mind.

2. Keep a laptop on the bed and learn to feel around with one finger and get on Facebook. Learn who just baked cinnamon rolls and who dressed up like what for Halloween and who was happy about the Ducks' win over USC. (Even in my state I managed some enthusiasm for that one.) Get off FB when the fireworks in your head are more than you can handle.

3. Work up the courage to reach out of bed, pour some Sprite in the little glass, and drink it. Yes, be strong. You can do this.

4. Answer phone calls from the husband, who is off in Colorado. You cough on your end and he talks on his, and the decisions get made.

5. Think up wonderful put-them-in-their-place speeches for all the times when you couldn't think of the right thing to say at the moment.

6. Go to flu.gov to take the self-test for swine flu. Fever, misery, cough, dizzy and disoriented when standing. Yes. Sore throat. No. Vomiting. Some but not enough to qualify.

7. Try to pray for your children. Lack the concentration to make it through all six.

8. Praise God over and over again that you don't have babies any more and you can just stay in bed.

9. Look up flu remedies on the internet. Most involve a combination of fresh lemon juice and various other ingredients--honey, ginger, cayenne pepper, paracetamol. What is paracetamol? Look it up on wikipedia. It's actually Tylenol. And one of its uses is--of all things--killing brown tree snakes on Guam, since cats and snakes can't handle even minute doses. Click on the link. Learn that brown tree snakes are an invasive species on Guam and they grow up to 3 meters long and there are as many as 13,000 of them per square mile on that poor island. "Snakes caused the extirpation of most of the native forest vertebrate species; thousands of power outages affecting private, commercial, and military activities; widespread loss of domestic birds and pets; and considerable emotional trauma to residents and visitors alike when snakes invaded human habitats with the potential for envenomation of small children." Uh, yeah, I would think, "considerable emotional trauma." With this info on the brain you can fall asleep and have yet more wild dreams in which Randy's sweet wife Shelley is holding a snake over your head and threatening to drop it and you can't yell of course because it's a dream.