TV and Smoothies Help with Recovery from Outpatient Surgery.

Friday was a unique day.  Woke up at 5 AM and was at the surgery reception desk at the University Med Center signing in at 6 AM for out patient septoplasmy, which is surgery on the septum.  Yawn.  I know, boarrrr-ring (Does anyone remember Jo Anne Worley on Laugh-In, or is my age showing?)  Check-in paperwork, wrist bands, possession stuffed into a plastic bag and given to my husband,  open air "gowns," intravenous catheter in hand,    I was wheeled into surgery exactly at 7:30AM where the last thing I remember is being asked to scoot over on to the narrow operating table.  I remember starting to brace myself with my hands and elbows so I could lift and scoot.... and then nothing until I regained consciousness in the recovery area. 

I'm still amazed by how different my perception of surgery is each time when I prepare to go under the knife.  This time I was thinking things like how much more trust I have in the facility after seeing how amazing UMC was as they treated the January 8th mass shooting victims.  The surgeon came in pre-op, glanced at my blood pressure, looked up a bit surprised, and said that I was the most relaxed person (this was pre-drugs) out of everyone in the pre-op area.  It is amazing how calming deep breathing a la yoga can be, that and far greater levels of trust.  The only thought I had that was negative was the thought that drug with which they put me under was probably the same thing that killed Michael Jackson.

Anyway, I'm surprised at how well I'm doing.   I basically just have plastic tubes in each nostril's airway to keep the airway open (sort of open, everything is sort of swollen  now) and there isn't a bunch of cotton shoved up each nostril.  I'm not bruised that I can see.  I was not nauseous after surgery and was home by 10:30 AM.

I'm so glad the recovery is going to be far less terrible than I had thought it would be.  Cuddling with my cats and drinking smoothies is not so bad.  My husband and daughter are taking great care of me and I love having my great aunt's antique brass school bell with which to summon them.  And there was great junk TV on to watch and chuckle over on the History Channel.   Some of the stuff that is said about Nostradamus and the Winter Solstice of 2012  is a hoot even without the perspective provided by oxycodone.

I cannot wait until I can breathe again without obstruction!

Women, Natural Disasters, and Economic Reconstruction

Fire, floods, and massive tornadoes - this spring is one of the first truly "different" seasons that screams climate change.

I found this old post and thought it worth re-posting on the day I'm having my septum moved, corrected, or whatever.

The Women's Edge Coalition released an article in 2005 (after Katrina) that highlighted how natural disasters disproportionately take a huge toll on women.  The next year the Coalition reported on the Tsunami.  For communities to rebuild and life to return to a equitable norm, women's needs must be prioritized at the highest level of importance.   This is now referenced at the Women Thrive Worldwide site and remains pertinent. 

photo credit:  Xanderalex,  www.sxc.hu

Disasters impact women severely in specific ways which are often not recognized, especially during the reconstruction phase after the crises have faded from the news. For example, violence against women usually rises dramatically in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, as legal and social structures are shaken. In Nicaragua for example, 27 percent of female survivors of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 reported increased violence within the family, and even after the Loma Prieta earthquake in California in 1999, reported sexual assault rose by 300 percent.  (Womens Edge Coalition, 2005)

Just as is the case with any cultural imbalance, whether it be political, economic or religious in nature, women and children are disproportionately harmed by life out of balance. "Women and children first" was not a Victorian disaster catch phrase but a recognition of the disproportionate importance the mother child dyad to not only family stability but to societal stability.

Women's Thrive also has a pdf download about poverty trade and globalization that is one of the few intelligent articles I've found that touches on how the dominant economic process negatively impacts women and children.

Unfolding Another Level of the Onion

Unfolding Another Level of the Onion

Once I conceptualized healing as the closing of a wound.   Then I was told to visualize healing as the opening of a bud to expose new layers of petals on a blossom.   I now use the peeling away of layers of an onion as my visual model for conceptualizing the process of healing. 

I find the model self-explanatory, but then I am using the schema.  So a bit of an examination of this model follows. 

Others have used the onion analogy for problem solving.    Even narrative text parsings have used the onion example.

Aroma
Onion models at first might seem to be framed as a negative experience.  They stink.  They make you cry.   No, no, no, no, no. 

They do not stink.  Walk into a house where onions are softening and browning in olive oil.  Ten to one someone will say, "Something smells good."   They are powerful, they are aromatic.

Aromas carry particles that perfuse the air and land on and travel with things that pass through the air carrying the aroma. 

Oils
The little beads of oil that transfer to and bond with the skin of anyone coming in direct contact with the raw, injured, onion are impossible to ignore and difficult to remove unless you interact with lemons. 
 
Layers
Aren't as simple as they seem.  There are membranes and layers of layers.  Some of these are very closely paired to the point where they seem to be one or at least inseparable.

You peel one away and another even more densely compressed layer is underneath. 

I may be referring to this analogy in posts throughout the next few weeks as I embark on a journey into a new phase of my life that I have been trying to enter for the past year.   I think I have found the door. 

Useful?  Let me know.  

Empty Nests or Out on a Limb

Most nests are tucked into branches reinforced with twigs and constructed with love, threads, blades of grass and found bits of ribbon and string.  When the structures are no longer housing progeny, mother and father birds find themselves hanging out on a limb with spare energies, once directed further down the limb,  swirling around them.  Eddies of awareness and updrafts of familiarity shape the air.

Now that a metaphor has been constructed we can begin to attach words and sentiments to it.  

There is something called empty nest syndrome, and like those swirling winds mentioned above, it is amorphous and our attempt to label it is an attempt to control it.  I'm a very firm believer in the notion that control is a total illusion. For me, someone who has spent a huge amount of time studying how humans organize themselves, I believe processes are far more important than specific behaviors that we have boxed up into neatly stacked terms and definitions.  Processes drip through unsealed seams and corners, creep out of from under loosely positioned lids, and even disperse like a gas through porous sides of a container.

Empty nest syndrome is described as the sadness, lack of purpose, fear, depression, and loss of interest that many parents experience when children leave home to make their way in the world.   From what I can tell from my research, the person most often experiencing one or more of these symptoms is female and middle aged.  I do not doubt this condition exists.  I do however wonder why it exists.  An empty nest usually signifies success in the first several stages of parenting before it evolves into grandparenting.  What's so bad about that?

I clarify and direct my thoughts in times of "now whatness" by looking back to note the things I have stopped doing during the years I was intensively parenting.

I can be selfish!   I.  I.  I.  Me. Me.  Mine.  MY time.  My Goddess, I have a wonderful prospect of many more productive and healthy years.  I can stir the pot in so many ways.

I can raise hell with politicians that are thinking short term rather than long term. 
I can read the books I've wanted to, but had to put aside because of lack of time over the years.
I can learn to be calm and slow down the hectic pace of life.  Breathe.
I can make dinner or not.  (The hubby is a big grown up guy and can take care of himself.)
I can start a business.
I can do things for others (volunteer) or take a break from care-giving.
I can just follow my whims and enjoy the moment.

Now for the boogieman of the empty nest.... dealing with the strange bird who is in your living room every night with the remote in his hand.   When you research empty nest syndrome associated with couples rather than an individual the word divorce comes up again and again.  But that is for another day.

Fear and Snoring in the Old Pueblo

Posting everyday when there is no stock pile of emergency blog entries built up is a bit stupid.  So call me dumb and dip me in rum and roll me in sugar.  I have so much I wanted to convey in the preceding three days of entries about virtual worlds, but I'm trying to get so much done before this Friday that I'm writing things that I should have been ready to post in the morning 10 to 15 hours later in the evening and my writing has suffered.  I will revisit the topic but only when I can do it justice. 

So today, tonight, I write from my gut rather than my brain and promise nothing.  I'm scared.  I have surgery to correct a deviated septum on Friday.  I can't breathe through my left nostril and my right one dries out and causes nose bleeds.  I end up breathing through my mouth.  I hate being a mouth breathing idiot.  I'm sincerely hoping that after surgery and the coming week of hellish recovery when my whole facial and dental structure will be terribly sore, I will only be able to have liquids, and I will only be able to breathe through my mouth.  I may have headaches.  That is the down side. 

The up side is that will just a little bit of luck, this will be the beginning of an upward spiral.  I've been on a downward one regarding health for several years now.  I should be able to breathe and have a much better sleep experience with greatly reduced apnea.  Once I'm healed fairly well - by the end of summer - I will be able to have a sleep study done to see where I'm at per stopping breathing during the night.   Then I will have my dentist work with the apnea specialist to make a mouth piece that holds my jaw forward and keeps my airways open during sleep.  Once this is done I should feel better in many ways because I will be getting deep sleep for the first time in many, many years.

Getting sleep will give me more energy.  Getting real sleep will also get hormone production related to sleep normalized.  Leptin and cortosol are the hormones involved with sleep and sleep apnea stress that also regulate hunger and create a desire for carbohydrates and fats.

Not sleeping well makes a person not only tired but also hungry and desirous of exactly the wrong foods.  If you a person is tired, and hungry, the motivation to exercise is usually diminished.  Without enough exercise, even more weight is gained and sleep quality worsens.  It is a vicious cycle.

In the past I loved working out.  Elliptical cross-trainers and weights were my friends. But in the last few years it has been harder and harder to work out. I got a bum trainer who did not understand a foot and ankle problem I had and had me on a program that injured me.  I lost my trust of the gym and when management wouldn't work with me I became angry and disillusioned. 

By this fall I plan to be hiking at least once a week and working out 3 or 4 times a week.  I expect the diabetes I have been diagnosed with to be totally manageable with diet adjustment by the end of the year, if not sooner.  I also fully expect to have lost at least 20 to30 lbs by the end of the year too.  The weight loss will also lessen the severity of the apnea and in turn I will have more energy.  By next year at this time, I expect to be pretty healthy and much less heavy.   This path all starts with Friday's surgery.   I will overcome my fear and regain my health.

Wish me luck and hold me to it.