Uterus Expressions

A couple of weeks ago I tried to get my IUD removed by the doctor who placed it. Due to the fact that the strings were far up inside, tucked under the IUD, he made (and I sustained) four valiant attempts to retrieve it before admitting failure. 

Since then I've made a plan to have it removed with some assistance. But four days after the attempted removal, I woke up in the middle of the night with intense pain in my uterus, a kind of pain that I don't remember experiencing during the old days when I had regular cycles. I was also really nauseated. Thinking that I would go pee & throw up, then drive myself to the ER to get checked out for possible uterus infection, I got up to go to the bathroom and ended up passing out. Max revived me and, very alarmed, called the ambulance.  

Having uterus-pain as your main complaint is a sure way to make medical personnel think that you're crazy.  There is the fickle and mysterious nature of the uterus itself, but I suspect a lot of the medical establishment's attitude is due to plain ol' sexism-- most of the people I dealt with that night didn't have a uterus, and seemed flummoxed.

Even the (female) PA at the ER seemed to chalk my experience up to being a woman; and since she also had experience being a woman, this further negated any chance I had of being taken seriously. 

I bumped my head when I fainted, and everyone was excited about this. Something that could be treated! I quickly got queued up for a CT scan, while four different people took a good hard look at the back of my head. But no one would go near my uterus. It was like it didn't really exist, like I was talking about a unicorn. It didn't help that my uterus pain had mostly gone away; had, in fact, gone away when I fainted. 

Everyone kept referring to the pain as cramps. This is another easy way for the medical profession to write off the actual experience.

I did get an ultrasound, and the female tech was incredibly kind and caring. There was no news, as I suspected by that point, but at least they did it. And there was nothing wrong with my head. In the end it was another waste of time at the local ER, and I wished I'd just asked for some Ibuprofen and gone back to sleep that night. 

On the bright side I have probably met my insurance deductible in January, so I'm set for the rest of the year. 

It's How Much it Winks at You

Atticus in the Rain

Atticus and I were out in the rain the other night.

We came out of Food Lion and the rain was falling in sheets from the dark sky.

He was walking by holding one of my hands, but he wanted to hold his other hand out to feel the rain. He kept twisting his body around and sort of falling over onto the wet pavement. He seemed to want to do this, but then would cry out to be helped back up again.

His pants were getting soaked. He was only wearing his dinosaur jacket and I was worried he'd get sick (he'd been cold-free for over a week).

Earlier he'd done well pushing the little shopping cart around the store. 

He got scared of a guy with a floor buffer.

He was so enchanted by the rain. He kept lifting his face up to it and trying to catch it in his mouth. His eyes were so bright and young.

Breaking Loose Like James

As the year turns over and a new one begins, I've been thinking about my uncle, my father's older brother James. 

Some things about my uncle James:

I never knew James well. He visited us a few times when I was growing up. He had a steady, non-caustic presence to be around, and was always kind to me. He and my father had a certain grit about them that made sense when they were together. It made me curious about who they were, and who they weren't, and the different ways that siblings could be connected but also, at the same time, totally disconnected.

James was somewhat famous in my family for having committed a crime. I guess you could say it was a crime of passion, but as a kid it was hard for me to imagine him having that much passion. He seemed so calm and regular. He was a tall, broadly-built man who moved slowly and smoothly. When he visited he mostly sat on the couch. He seemed completely at-ease, but at the same time I got the feeling that he was completely not at-ease. It was as if he existed on two different planes.

James's crime was robbery. He didn't kill anyone to do it. I think he just knocked the other guy out and ran off with the money.  In my mind there's the story of the crime, then the story of the days or weeks after the crime, and then a period when he served a sentence after turning himself in, which I knew almost nothing about.

The visits to our house, I think, occurred after all of this. So it was as if those experiences of James' were no longer relevant. It was such an effort for anyone in my family to socialize with anyone else that an individual's past traumas and crimes were politely disregarded. Instead we grappled with the anxiety of being in each other's physical presence and talking like normal people.

James visited less as the years went by, and we did not go to visit him. I heard less and less about him. He was never able to quit drinking, which affected his health. I had no direct experience with this, just stories from my father, which by the time I heard them already seemed several times removed from the source.

James's health declined, and he died during a time when my father was travelling in Alaska. My mom and I went to the funeral. I was ashamed that I hadn't tried to get to know James better, or any of my father's family, as they all felt like strangers to me.

I've been thinking of him, in part, because I met his oldest son last year, and it was truly one of the best experiences of my year, or possibly of the past ten years. David is a remarkable man with a beautiful life, and a lot of his father (and mother) lives on in him. I hope to be more like him when I grow up.

I've also just been thinking of James in light of the fact that he committed a crime. On some level he dramatically broke with tradition and ordinary responsibility. This year, when I'm travelling the same paths inside my head, all leading to the same direction, it's somehow helpful to think of James. Not that I want to do anything illegal, at all. I guess it's just fun to think of what other things could be done.

 

Go Somewhere

[Please excuse the extra-terrible drawing in this post]

There's a lot involved in leaving the house. 

To encourage Atticus to walk, it's usually best to get him out in the world. It's also best to feed him so that he has energy to walk. And to give him a good supportive base for walking, he needs to be wearing his braces and de-rotation straps.

The scene documented above happens pretty often, and is very stressful. It probably involves strategic parenting errors on my part.  It seems like there should be an easier way to get out of the house, or to provide walking opportunities. 

Atticus is not a big fan of his ankle-foot orthotics (also known as braces).

Without braces he crawls, or walks on his knees while carrying objects.

                                                       

His main occupation now is scavenging for items to load onto his fleet of toy trucks.

Some parents make their kids wear braces all day, and sleep in them at night. This would theoretically provide opportunity for the child to develop correct foot posture. But when we put braces on Atticus and leave him to his own devices, he mostly lays

 or sits braced in a W-shape, which is terrible for his joints.

With or without braces, he's definitely interested in walking with support. His favorite method is to hang onto our hands:

He also has an adorable walker, which he uses like a tiny old person, to zigzag around sidewalks and in shopping malls. I like it because it gives him a little more independence from me, but he doesn't stick with it for very long. 

Ultimately the goal is to get him walking on his own, and it's more possible to work towards this when he's holding onto our hands. We can do things like removing one support-hand, or holding onto his waist, which are both tricks that encourage him to find his own balance.

As parents, if we want to do anything besides be a walking aid for our son, it pretty much means he's on his own: laying, crawling or W-sitting, with or without braces. Any time spent not helping him walk is time when his muscles might possibly be atrophying and not keeping up with his bone growth, putting him at greater risk of losing his eventual shot at independent standing and walking. 

But because we both need to work to pay bills, and do housework and laundry, and occasionally do non-parent activities, it means that there is A LOT of time we aren't helping him walk. In fact, most of the day is spent not helping him walk. This is a constant, horrible feeling, and you can't even really talk about it because it makes you sound like an ungrateful, terrible person.

So we have to go somewhere. 

Lately Atticus's favorite place to go is the escalator.

Going somewhere means getting physically ready to be productive in that space, and also safely navigate the space. Because of traffic I pretty much have to carry him from the car through any parking lot. If I'm also carrying all the gear, it means being cognizant of my surface area--how much leeway to give parked cars so that I don't scrape them with the walker, or how much space I realistically need to get through a door.

It also means getting emotionally ready for what that space might present. 

Children act differently once they register a child with walking difficulties approaching them. They skip, jump, run spontaneously, or dance. (Maybe this is just how other people's children are all the time).

Which brings me to the first and biggest challenge, which is checking my own perceptions and emotional reactions. It's very easy to let these get in the way of the work that needs to be done in a particular space. What do people think of us? What kind of picture do we present? Are people staring at my child? Are they staring at me? 

It's almost impossible to know what people think. We get some sweet looks and also some completely weirded-out ones. Often, while I'm trying to calm my brain's neuroses, I will look down to find Atticus has abandoned all forward movement in order to gawk at someone.

Maybe people just like to stare at each other. Maybe that's why we go out in public. I try to focus, to be the walking helper, and keep my own eyes peeled for those strangers who might present an actual threat. 

I also try to figure out what Atticus thinks and feels in these spaces, and how best to help him socially navigate. This is the hardest of all because I have no idea how to do it. He's not three years old yet and already he hesitates to be caught in an awkward pose around his peers. He won't let go of my hands (to try one-handed walking) if another kid is near. 

He really wants some kind of interaction with other kids, but isn't sure how to make it go well. Which is probably how many toddlers (and adults) feel. Yet when I get home from work in the evening, he's often the one initiating the request to go somewhere. I admire his courage, and whatever it is in him that keeps seeking out these connections.

"Seeks out" is a nice way to say it. In true toddler form, he demands them.

After a good solid hour of dealing with my stress and his stress in preparation for going somewhere, I'm usually in a terrible state by the time I actually get behind the wheel. 

Several times lately I've found myself in a panic, lurching out of my parking spot, my car thrown into gear almost before I realize it.

Which is not okay.

So I've decided to try something different. I now make an attempt to grip the steering wheel and take two breaths.

And then go.