Health

Pain, times three

Last night when I got home from work, I was feeling pretty down about the huge hospital bill that we received in the mail (why is it so much more than the 20% that I am supposed to pay as per my insurance plan? Now I have to – ugh – CALL Blue Cross and try to get a comprehensible answer out of them). So Doc and I went for a nice long run/walk to try to improve my spirits. After we got back I was really tired but had already planned to cook dinner so I somehow managed to muster up the energy. I cooked salmon fillets, sauteéd corn with red bell pepper and lemon butter, and Chinese long beans. I really like the salmon recipe (it’s from my book) because it’s so easy. Basically you put the fillets skin-side down in a skillet with a bit of oil in the bottom, and cook on the stove for about 5 minutes. Then put the whole pan in the oven for about 15 minutes to finish cooking, and voila, delicious fish is ready. I usually put a splatter screen on top of the pan to prevent the oil from splattering all over my oven. Now, every single time I cook salmon like this, I burn my hands on the 450-degree metal skillet handle. Apparently my brain goes on autopilot and I reach out and grab it barehanded without thinking. But last night, I thought: I am NOT going to burn myself today. I’m going to use a oven mitt EVERY TIME I reach for that pan.  And I did use that oven mitt on that pan, every time. Job well done! Except that, after the fish was out of the oven, I reached out and grabbed the metal splatter screen […]

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my bittersweet symphony

I had a rather tough weekend, emotionally speaking. I think that without realizing it, I spent a great deal of my energy reserves last week trying to act normal at work, telling some of the people I work with about the miscarriage, and talking about it with friends. On Friday I went to yoga class at lunch (which was a little strange, since the last time I went was the day that my body began to miscarry) and did a lighter-than-normal routine. At the end during stretching and meditation, I had the overwhelming urge to cry. So I did, as I was lying there trying to meditate. I figured, well, I guess I need to do this right now, and better here than at the office. On Saturday I had a little breakdown in the evening, and on Sunday I was just generally cranky. I found a blog, hipmama.com, that occasionally discusses miscarriage. This post, by Laura Moulton, describes her miscarriage in some degree of detail. I wish I could write this eloquently. [T]here are no neat endings. My pregnancy was a work-in-progress, suddenly interrupted. Miscarriage is unraveling, a coming undone, and though there is a point where things are finished from a biological perspective, there’s no telling when the rest of the process ends, or if it ever does. If conceiving a child is a leap of faith, so too are the months that follow. Things can go wrong, but there is also a good chance that they’ll go splendidly. In the end, we are left with little choice but to bless the one that got away, wish it safe passage to its next life, and forgive it for leaving us. Then we take a deep breath and start again. I went to see Dr. Burt yesterday for a […]

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Another woman’s experiences

I have been searching the Web for a while tonight, and I have found exactly ONE other blog post on the entirety of the Internets (a series of tubes) (I never get tired of saying that!) where a woman describes in frank and levelheaded detail what her miscarriage was like. One single solitary blog, that is all. Thank you, tomato.sutra. I really wish I’d found your blog when I was frantically doing Web searches during the early stages of my miscarriage cramps. Our experiences weren’t identical, but I really think it would have helped calm me to read what yours was like. From Paging Lucina: There were a lot of posts and writings on the ‘Net from women who (quite understandably) were terrified about what was going on in their bodies, prior to getting confirmation of their own miscarriages. Also quite understandably, there weren’t many follow-up posts that told the greater audience what had happened afterward. I also found plenty of rather high-level articles and posts from medical or sorta-medical sources. You know the type: they purport to be informative, and some succeed to a degree, but they don’t actually reveal much. I’m not saying that everyone who experiences something private and painful like that needs to publicly write about it in detail, but I can’t get over how vague almost all the miscarriage information on the Web is. About the only information you can extract is that it’s common, occurring in between 20-50% of pregnancies; it’s rarely your fault; you may experience bleeding, menstrual-like cramps, or the passage of clots; and that sadness is normal. But nobody talks about what actually HAPPENS! I’m sorry if I have sounded like I’m going over and over this point in the past few posts, but it’s as if the concrete details of […]

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