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I've been taken in by shiny things

and technology and fads.
I'm sorry.
If you want a running commentary in bite sized fragments, you're much more likely to find that on Tumblr.
I do love tumblr.
It does lots of things that I could never really figure out how to do here.
The format is also a little more med student friendly and less demanding.

So if you want an update on life, politics, and medical school, you should click here.

And if you want to know how the baby is doing, and what I like to whine about whilst pregnant,you should click here.

In the meanwhile, I'm putting this blog on hold until I have more time for longer entries.

exchange

K: How are you today?
M : I'm okay
K: You always say "Okay"! The first time you say good, I'm going to jump out of my seat!

It's not socially acceptable to respond to the question "How are you today?" with "I'm a nervous wreck, I'm achey, and I have emergency medical appointments today." nor with "I haven't been sleeping well for months, so I'm still pretty tired" nor even with "I'm not feeling so hot."

I would say that I was good. If I was. Which, if you consider my 4 trips to the ER this spring, emergency surgery, nausea spanning from about january to present if you count my now overactive gag reflex, 2 chronic conditions that haven't been managed well under the stress of all of the other emergencies, miscarriage, new pregnancy, and the ear infection I've had for longer than a month now, is not highly likely.  My doctor appointments actually interfere with making other doctor appointments. I've been to at least one practitioner a week every week this month, and every 2-3 weeks during summer, and every week for all of winter quarter/ spring quarter. I have great insurance, and I've still spent about $1500 or more on care just up to this point this year.
Add to that school- tests every day, homework every day, shifts on the weekends- adding stress to home, which I'm rarely at, and therefore is neglected and dirty. And my husband returning to school- less quality time, less housecleaning, less warm meals...
Oh, and how bout the fact that I have one pair of pants that fits comfortably, and I'm just trying to be really clever to disguise the fact that I can barely wear my clothes? Superficial, but still stressful.

This isn't something I could say as I walk one direction and you walk another.
So, yes. I'm not "Good" very often.  I tend to be functional and "okay". And even though I wasn't super up to the "Okay" mark this morning, I felt constricted by societal norms to say something.

I wish that the greeting had time to have real meaning in society, but it doesn't.
It's just a greeting.
It's okay to be okay.

Locals.

A classmate of mine made a "What is that thing in the sky?" joke today, which is an acceptable comment on the weather 80% of the time in Oregon. "Better soak it up before it rains for the next ten months."
To which I replied "There's still sun on the rainy days, and we get way more sunbreaks than Washington."
Then he stepped over the line and replied "You Oregonians are so defensive!"

So I had to explain to him that all year long, we hear non natives whine about the weather, the economy, the politics, and the way of life here, and all of us natives wish that if the non natives don't like it very much, they would just move back out. Instead of complaining about the (normal state occurrence) here.

I don't go to Pennsylvania and complain that it's hot and flat there, bro. I don't move to New York City and whine about how it was so much quieter at my rural home. I don't live in Georgia and then complain that I have allergies to all of the plants there. I moved up to Washington, thought their recycling program sucked in my locale, missed taking beer cans in for my refund, hated the increase in rain and the decrease in temperature- and you know what I did? As soon as I could, I packed up and moved back to a state that I like. Oregon.

This state is like my family. It's ok for me and other natives to make fun of it- but the instant an out-of-stater starts jumping in, we turn on them and defend our own.

Disorganization

kills my soul.
At least, in a professional setting where I am depending on the resources I need being available so that I can plan out my life and get things done on my schedule. The last week and a half have been so very disorganized- syllabi not available, notes uploaded in the wrong order, scheduling not agreeing with syllabi, "surprise" weekend required retreats...
I know that deep within, I have the peace to overcome these challenges and roll with it.
But right now, my inner id is all "What?! you want this pregnant girl to sleep on the ground? and eat communal food despite major aversion to everything? I'm going to stay in my featherbed and quit!" and "What?! you want me to print notes 10 minutes before class? I just won't print anything at all. Ever."

Stop sulking, id.
We just need a list of how we're going to get this done and in what order....;)

Ugly Truth

• 1 in 5 pregnancies end in miscarriage.
• Pain in the abdomen, especially on one side, is a possible indicator of an ectopic pregnancy.
• Abdominal fullness, nausea, vomiting, lightheadedness, shoulder pain, and a strong urge to defecate without being able to do so are all signs that an ectopic pregnancy may have ruptured the uterine tube.
• Often the first sign of miscarriage is light spotting with abdominal cramping.
• Probability of the next pregnancy also ending in miscarriage rises with each subsequent miscarriage.

Often there is little to no support for those undergoing miscarriage. There are clinical websites that list the above facts in whatever arrangement they favor, and that’s it.
During my two previous miscarriages, there was no information on what to expect when suddenly not expecting, and it was terrifying to not know what my body was doing while simultaneously dealing with the misguided sympathy attempts from friends. I know by the odds that there are at least a few women on tumblr/the internet undergoing this process right now, so I wanted to cover the things that your doctor will do as well as the things that may happen in the next couple months, so that the terrible experience will hopefully be less awful (or at least, as less awful as something so terrible can be.)

• When you suspect a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy, go see your primary care physician instead of the emergency room. Losing a baby is a long process, and there’s often nothing that the ER can do for you that you can’t do less stressfully with your primary care doc.
• Your doctor will want you to retain the blood and tissue that you’re losing. There’s no graceful way to do this. It’s morbid. However, the blood and tissue is sent to a pathology lab where they will make sure that the miscarriage is complete by verifying that all of the baby tissue is present. This can help rule out complicating factors.
• Your doctor will also want to take a blood test for beta-HCG every other day for a test total of three days. This will give your doctor a baseline for completeness of miscarriage.
• Your doctor will also send you for an ultrasound to rule out complicating factors.

I was seeing a naturopath during my last miscarriage, and she was incredible. I don’t remember everything I was taking, and all of the treatments I did, and this will vary from doctor to doctor anyway. Choose the healthcare forum in which you feel most comfortable.
If, God forbid, things get worse and more complicated-

• Your doctor will refer you to a GYN surgeon. The tissue, beta-HCG levels, and ultrasounds will come into play here, as they give the surgeon an idea of what is going on.

In my case, I had a heterotopic miscarriage, which means I lost one from the womb and had a second baby stuck in the uterine tube. I bled for a month straight, which is too long, and burst my uterine tube. I bled internally for three days (and still went to class) before I had my surgical consult, and went into surgery same day.

• Recovery sucks. Your friends will say the most insensitive things. Some classic winners of the insensitive contest that I experienced were people offering to let me babysit their baby after they delivered in a couple weeks, people who offered to be a surrogate and have sex with my husband, and everyone who told me that I’d have another baby when God decided, as if a replacement would take away the pain. (which, by the way, pregnant again and hopefully healthy this time- but still get sad about the three babies I lost on a near daily basis.)
• Depression is normal. Make sure that you have a support system around you, and reach out to a therapist if you need to.
• You may start losing a lot of hair, thanks to postpartum hormone rushes.
• Miscarriage is hard on you mentally, physically, and spiritually. Give yourself space and forgiveness, especially if you’re taking longer to get back on your feet than you’d hope.

If you have any questions at all about miscarriage, I’m in the unique position of both having had multiple miscarriages and being in medical school, so I can research any questions you have that I don’t know, with an entire medical library at my disposal.

To The Pacific!

I'm going to the beach today.
I haven't been all summer, and really, that's a shame.
For a local who used to ditch classes in high school to go climb the dune at pacific city, there has been far too little beach in my life this year. And last year. And every year since I got a job and started having responsibilities.

Though this year was less about responsibilities and more about just not feeling up to doing anything. (Also, throwing up for a month straight greatly reduced my desire to leave the house.)

I don't know if I have the energy to go careening around the headland like a goat, but I'm really looking forward to poking tide pools, chasing waves, and reading a book.

I'm also thinking about bringing Gordie, the world's worst kite.

(Gordie in his natural habitat (the ground), gleneden beach)

He prefers to be drug across the sand, in true turtle fashion.
I wanna know who the person was that thought "Turtles! Of course! They have no inclination to fly, they're not aerodynamic, but they would make Such a Cute Kite!" and then sold it to the dollar store to trick unsuspecting broke college students into thinking they could fly a kite.

I think I'll just bring a book and a sweatshirt.
<3

Just Made a Shopping Cart on Amazon to See How Much My Books are Going to Cost This Quarter

before I get my school money on monday (first day of class)
And the total, if I round down to the nearest hundred,

Is $700.00 dollars.

Guess I didn’t want that stipend to buy groceries or other school supplies. -_-

Illogically Enthused (What medical nutjobs fail to see)

I was tumblin’ this morning like ya do on summer break after sleeping for 14 straight hours, and I came across a post on my dashboard from another local mama-to-be detailing a barrage against her well reasoned hospital birth plan.

This is where both sides of the medical fence are in error.

While she catches hell for wanting a hospital birth with legitimate life threatening complications that no reasonable midwife would take on at home or a birth center anyway, I catch hell for being healthy and young and planning on a birth center birth with no intention of even looking at OB/GYN practitioners.

No matter what either of us chooses, based on our own history and needs, there will be a medical field nut job/ advocate/ unreasonably bossy person in our lives telling us that we’re wrong purely because they prefer a different type of medicine.

I love naturopathic medicine, and I’m nutty about midwifery. That didn’t stop me from being on serious narcotics and having surgery to remove my right uterine tube earlier this year. Sticking with natural medicine in that situation would have killed me months ago. My surgeon told my family post op that she was guessing, from the amount of blood in my abdominal cavity, that I only had about a day left to live if that completely necessary, fully invasive procedure hadn’t been done.

There is a time and a place for both types of medicine. In 3 more years, I’ll be a full fledged primary care naturopathic physician here in Oregon. I’ll be able to take care of all of the things that a primary care physician needs to be able to take care of- hormone balancing, stitches, prescribing drugs, basic health support of all kinds. I’ll also be able to gauge the situations and refer to an MD or a surgeon when a health situation escalates beyond primary care.

This is an important and very necessary step!

No health care provider can provide all care for every patient. We need to be open minded and logical as we look at health care situations. Personal decisions based on the comfort level of the patient, the history of the patient, and plausible outcomes of the patient should never be judged and found wanting, just because our own personal beliefs disagree

Reckless Endangerment.

When I woke up at 8:30 this morning, my husband wasn't home.
Knowing that he hadn't slept well the day before, I hoped that the hospital hadn't asked him to stay over for a double, or even for a couple hours. Night shift is exhausting all by itself.
8 minutes later, he came through the door and I heard the distinctive rustle of what I thought was a grocery bag.
Except it was a biohazard bag.
(though he had gone to the grocery store, for color safe bleach)

We both know that healthcare can be an incredibly dangerous field. Especially with my compromised immune system for the next 6-7 months, we've been hyper aware of the dangers around every corner.
We say it like it's a joke, that "everyone has herpeghonnaclamidyaids".

But I stopped smiling, upon finding out that my husband had Hep C bled onto his scrubs and shoes last night. For patient confidentiality, I won't say anything other than they knew what risks they were exposing the staff to.
They knew.
But now my dryer is full of bleach and detergent and scrubs and shoes, and the incident has been reported to human resources, and my husband is safe in bed, asleep. Contamination risk is very low, and I know from my microbiology classes that the transmission rate of Hep C is very low without blood to blood contact. I still did a scratch check, to make sure the patient hadn't inflicted any wounds on him during their attention grubbing episode of self harm.
I'm not going to touch the laundry until it's been through 3 bleach and detergent cycles, and then we're going to run the washer empty with bleach water.

I've never seen my husband come home from work so upset.
I've never seen him give up on a patient before.
But I've also never seen the after effects of someone intentionally using themselves as a biological hazard to try to infect other people before.

Health care is dangerous.
The scare is always a good reminder. Wear your gloves. Wear the other indicated personal protection equipment.
You never know what a patient is going to do.

Before we tell you about Germany...we have some other news.

99.9% effective is apparently not all the protection it's cracked up to be.
And we kept it a secret for 10 weeks this time, so we're almost out of the danger zone.
Keep your fingers (buns?) crossed.
Backdated posts to follow

Medieval times

Though energy is down, and sucking wind is up, our trip to cochen castle was a ton of fun!


From the brown bread with lard to the wasser with gahs (bubblies) to the turkey leg that was the size of my forearm, it was a night that was surprisingly alright on the stomach. (also! First day I haven’t thrown up in Deutchland.)



My husband and I danced with the “Lords and Ladies”, saw two secret passageways, took pictures with the roses (cochen castle is suppose to be sleeping beauty’s castle- I had to get me some rose pictures), and had ice cream down in the town.



Ice cream always stays down. This kid is clearly related to me.



Today is the pig festival in wittlich (or something spelled equivalently) where villagers have been killing pigs out of spite for a very long time. And it’s raining, hurray! I can’t wait to get outside.

Being from the northwest USA, this much straight sunshine and 90 degrees has been weirding me out. Give me yo drizzle, sky!

Schwangershaft und reisen

One car ride, two airplanes, and a shuttle ride later, we have arrived in Germany!




I told my husband that if he ever gets me knocked up a couple months before we travel to Europe again, we will have harsh words.



My stomach seems to be a bit shy of airport and airplane bathrooms, so instead of being nauseous, throwing up, and then feeling better for a couple hours before putting that cycle on repeat, I was miserable for pretty much the whole trip. Of course, airplane food doesn’t really help the situation. Nor did the devil child in the chair behind me, who kicked my seat for 8 hours while it’s father indulgently smiled at the little spawn.

Once we got to the in-laws house (which is absolutely gorgeous, btdubs) and I puked for a while, then took a nap, everything was much better.



I’ve even eaten meat (!!!)

We went out to dinner last night, and I had grechensnetzle or something equivalent, which turned out to be gyro meat (lamb) and french fries in a delicious goo. Totally stayed down.

Being able to carnivore it up makes me happy.



Speaking of which- 9 weeks along!

Baby’s got fingers (webbed) and is working on finishing those 4 heart chambers this week. Go, baby, go!



I can feel my skin starting to stretch out on my abdomen. It’s weird, it feels like I’m perpetually at the level of stretch that I’d normally have during a total backbend. Mother-in-law gave me a bottle of cream that helped her, and I started using that last night. So thoughtful! I had no inkling of bringing skin care stuff like that. I’m glad that Moms and Mominlaws know what ya need, cuz I’m so clueless.



All the clinical embryology in the world doesn’t actually give you any common sense.



Now, for a lovely day of German bread, chocolate, and walking in beautiful old streets!

Germany.

The bank's been called, the laundry done, the shopping completed.
Not the packing, though.
Despite the fact that my husband and I have traveled together many times, and the fact that we've never been able to make it more than 4 days with all of our things packed in the same bag, he seems to think that his things will fit in my suitcase.
Which they might.
If I wasn't using it as a carryon, with the second compartment all sealed down to half an inch thick.

I mentioned this weeks ago, but now it's mere hours before we leave the house, and I'm still trying to find the bag he normally uses when we fly somewhere.

He's busy sleeping, of course. He pulled 5 shifts in the last 3 days, which is pretty incredible. The overtime will pay off some medical bills that popped up recently.

But I'm thinking his packing is going to have to wait until he wakes up. I can't find his bag, and the safe for the passports is on the top shelf, well out of my reach. Oh, the last minutes before vacation, how frantic they can be.

I am not the only one.

The country is pretty much spiraling into a shit hole these days, and plenty of the populace agrees.
And apparently, either a secessionist from Texas or a theist advocating an end to freedom of religion are the top choices for the upcoming elections.

Well, screw that noise.
I refuse to let a party who made tea parties into dirty, shameful affairs take control of my country. The party that refused to tax the insanely wealthy, choosing instead to raise the amount I have to pay on my student loans. (Cuz, you know, medical students. That's where the cash is AT.) The party that advocates constant war with no clear objective. This party currently thinks they've got a shot. And let's face it, there are plenty of racist, wealthy, and/or ignorant people across the country who are supporting these goals.

So, as this dear man says, let's put a party within the left party that's just as crazy as the tea party whackjobs. There are plenty of left wing extremists out there to balance the insanity-scales. We could call it the "Whole Grain Party", and bring a fresh view to the political stage.

Or better yet, maybe we could have a government that could cooperate and compromise within itself. Seriously, all of the debate participants rejecting a $10 in cuts for every $1 in tax raises compromise? That's a more than generous deal, especially considering that the wealthy are currently being taxed at a rate similar to the rates in place for our great grandparents, and the median household wealth has fallen about 50%. (more inequality figures). It's time to wake up and smell the rank, fetid odor of government- the issues at hand aren't really so much of a personal failing of President Obama as they are indicative of the petty squabbling and money grubbing of every single person in higher government.



You've heard me go off on the healthcare practices of this country, and why so many of them are horrible. You may have even heard me bitch about how, despite the fact that I make around $122 a month, I can't get food stamps because my husband's gross income (not the income we get to keep at all) is too high.
I, like many of you, have been lazy.
I'm a medical student, twentysomething, poor as can be, and felt powerless.

But you know what?

I'm not. And neither are you.

Let's use social media to create a riot. Not a break-into-london-stores-and-put-even-more-poor-people-on-the-street-because-now-they've-not-got-homes-or-jobs kind of riot, but a riot of non-compliance. We, the people, are fully capable of stopping the tea party, and the secessionists, and these fat cat billionaires and corporations who don't want to pull their full weight.

We, the people, are this country.

Refuse to elect any of these people who can't be bothered to compromise. Who won't listen to anything but their own logic. Don't vote them into congress. Don't vote them into the senate. Don't let them be governors, legislators, or even a page, running messages in the hall.
If we all speak at once, and show the country what is unacceptable, we cannot be overruled.

You may say I'm a dreamer...but I am not the only one.
There are millions of us.
Let's stand together.

Out at dinner

K: Here, try this beer!


Me: No thanks, I'm not drinking tonight.

K: ...*questioning, suspicious eyebrow raise*

E: ...*quizzical suspecting glance*

Me: Ok, fine, yeah. I got knocked up again.

K: Squeee!

E: I thought your boobs looked really perky.

This is why secret pregnancies with medical school friends don't work out. I turn down one glass of alcohol, gain three pounds, and they're all busy going...."Hmmm...not drinking, weight gain, not staying out as late, eating a salad instead of chicken wings...YOU'RE PREGGERS!"

I'm clearly going to have to tell people after we get back from Germany.

One hurdle down, eleventy billion to go.

I donated like, a liter (exaggeration) of blood for testing, granted the misfortune that haunted my every step earlier this year, and the lab ran a complete metabolic panel, a thyroid panel, a CBC, an iron level, HCG levels, and progesterone levels. Got the basic results back by phone today and:












TOTALLY NORMAL.

Booyah.



Actually, HCG + Progesterone running a little high, which is great.

Vitamin B running low at the time of testing, which is no big deal because I was put on vitamin B supplements about 2 days beforehand. I’m sure the levels are great now.



Huge weight off my mind. I’ll still feel more relieved in 3 and a half more weeks, when my 30% chance o’ miscarriage drops to like, 5%.

Dreams

Growing up with my mom’s horror stories of the dreams she had when she was pregnant with me, or my little sister predisposed me to expect nightmares about bugs. This has not been the case, in any of my three pregnancies.




This is the first time that I’ve gotten so far along (8w1d!) and the dreams are starting to turn weird.



Earlier, my dreams were vivid but weird. I had a dreams about Papa-to-be and his frat brothers going to jail on a bus (to protect petey. The only Petey we know in real life is a penguin pillow pet.) which I only found out because his Escalade (we don’t own an Escalade) had the lights on and when I went out to turn the lights off, it told me that dear Papa had left his wallet and cell phone in the car. (in digital display, on the center console.) So naturally, I jumped on a centaur and rode through the town naked to find him. And thought to check a prison bus.







Then my subconscious got cruel, but realistic. The night before a fasting blood test that was all the way at 10 am, I dreamed of nothing but eating chocolate covered strawberries. Luxurious, perfectly sweet strawberries in the best chocolate I’ve ever tasted. Most amazing food I’ve ever tasted.

Of course, then I woke up and couldn’t eat for four hours.

And the chocolate covered strawberries I made later that night weren’t as good as my dream strawberries. How mean is that?



Last night was the first nightmare. I had a perfectly realistic dream that I got up and went to the bathroom (which I do a lot these days.) But in the bathroom, I started miscarrying again, with so much blood, so much red blood.



I woke up crying and had to talk myself into the reality of the situation, that I was lying in bed, that I hadn’t gotten up, and then I had to go check just to be sure. What an awful dream.

internet images

*Actual baby may vary.




I stole this off of the all wonderful google, to celebrate our first meeting with a midwife!



I strongly believe that a woman’s body is built to withstand the process of birth- and that if women couldn’t handle birth naturally, then our entire species would have gone extinct thousands of years ago.



Papa-to-be and I went down to the Portland waterbirth center, Andaluz, which has a staff of 8 professional, licensed midwives and 5 beautiful rooms with huge tubs, gorgeous showers, beautiful beds, and the same strong belief that birth can be non-traumatic, lovely, and natural. They operate on an informed consent basis, which is nice- especially since most people have no idea that they’ve consented to screening/ procedures until those things show up in a medical history. This means I don’t have to agree to a hepB vaccine at birth (which, you know, isn’t great for baby during its first day of life) or antibacterial eye drops (since I don’t have chlamydia) or even to having my baby leave the room that I’m in for the first little bit of it’s tiny adorable life.



What’s new at 8 weeks?



Well, I was a size 6 a couple weeks ago, but now I’m wearing my size 10’s that I (thank the good lord) hadn’t donated yet. I’ve also re-graduated into bras that I’d lost weight out of, and might need new ones soon.



Eating is still a challenge, and I’ve basically been a vegetarian for the last week, which is an interesting experience for a dedicated carnivore. Tempeh is so weird. I can’t tell if I like it or hate it- but I can tell that it stays in my tummy!

(and really, at this point, that’s all that counts.)



Big fan of the Apple Cider Vinegar- having a sip before a meal decreases my chances of throwing up that meal by about a third- and it’s such a simple remedy!



I love naturopathic medicine.



Also coming in at 8 weeks- 3 wonderful years of marriage to my favorite nurse!

The man of the house has been so wonderful- taking care of all of the smelly stuff so that I don’t have to, making iced ginger tea, giving me backrubs, intense tournaments of Jenga, and incredibly sweet goofy grins every time that guy looks at me. <3



Thursday all of my bloodwork comes in, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now.

NPR, Baby!

Well, baby-


According to this article, you’re going to like peas, hummus, pesto and cream cheese on potato bread, ginger tea, graham crackers, and mango sorbet.



Someday, when I don’t throw up almost every meal I eat, I will introduce you to a world of delicious and exotic flavors!

future decisions.

One of my friends just finished doula training!
For those of you not in the know, a doula is a person who attends birth and the post-partum period as a non-medical support person. This is the person who remembers that you didn't want an episiotomy after you've been in labor for several hours and can only focus on the process, and the person who takes responsibility for making sure that you've heard and understood what's going on. An advocate for the mother during the series of events that make up bringing a new person into the world. Someone who may use massage, positive reinforcement, encouragement, nurturing, (pretty much all the stuff that wikipedia says that they do) to support the little family.
For her, it's also an important first step to becoming a midwife.

I've thought long and hard about becoming an N.D. midwife for a few years now.
The program doesn't take anyone until after they've completed basic birth classes, and then- once admitted to the birth program, more classes are taken and a number of births are attended, both in an observation role or as actively participating in the birth, with a number of births being delivered by the student before the (additional) boards are taken and the student becomes a full fledged midwife. 
It also usually takes a full extra year, on top of the 4 year ND program.

Then, for the rest of the obstetric life of the ND in a rural area, you can't travel. You're always on call. It's hard to be covered by malpractice insurance, because the state doesn't recognize obstetrics as part of the scope of practice for an ND.

Especially in some of the areas that I'm looking at, it'd be me or a hospital birth, which is a lot, a lot, a lot of pressure.
(By the way, did you know that the United States only has one single hospital that lives up to European standard of care for maternity? It's in Grant's Pass. No wonder our neonate mortality rate is so much higher than say...Germany, France, Singapore, Switzerland, or the other 20 countries that rank above us.Yet we spend more money on health care...)

So I'm on the fence. Would it be easier to choose, if I was already on the 5 year track? If malpractice insurance wasn't so hard to obtain? If I knew that classmates were considering the same area, so that we could trade on-call months? If babies only happened between 9am and 5 pm? If our hospital system wasn't so far behind on ethical and reasonable birthing practices? (Did you know that the average hospital's induction rate spikes on Friday (so doctors can go home for the weekend) and that the average hospital has a cesarian rate of 30%, compared to a midwifery center's 3%? And that unnecessary surgery really ups the neonate and maternal mortality rate?)

The life of a midwife is a hard life. But deferring that responsibility is also hard.

True to form, I'll put off the decision until I have more experience/until I really have to make a decision after the basic birth series.

7 weeks

Hello, darling.


You are now in the range of 7 weeks, gestationally, and boy, are you making life interesting.

For instance, you only let me eat: plain yogurt with honey. graham crackers. mashed potatoes. and potato bread with pesto and cream cheese. This is not the diet I would like to be feeding you, as it is a little lacking in the vitamin and protein department.

Also, no water? Really? Why?

Tea is good, and so is soymilk, but I miss water. It’s August, baby! I need to drink water so that I have enough blood volume for you.



Your papa and I finally figured out when you were conceived- I was very surprised by how big you were on the ultrasound! I was guessing 4 and a half weeks ago, but no- you were that one time right before I went up to Washington to attend a friends wedding. And- just so you know- it was not clear that there was any sort of ovulation at the time. Seriously.



We’re very excited, though, and looking forward to meeting you next year. We have appointments set up with primary care, and with the water birth center where we can meet a midwife that can hopefully help us through your whole term, all in this next week. Then we’ll go to Germany!



We love you, baby descant.

Stay safe.

Under the Weather

I can't tell if being under the weather makes more sense during summer, as though I am not rising to the occasion of the weather, or if it makes less sense.
However, should I not be rising to the occasion, I believe that I would still be under the weather even if it was a fogged in, hailing, raining day interspersed with lightning.
Last Saturday at the clinic, with my mind in a much healthier place than it had been in months previous, I detailed my banged up knee, my out of adjustment cervical, thorasic, and lumbar vertebre, as well as my out of place ribs, and crooked pelvis and a myriad of other health concerns that were pretty much purely physical.
I think this is just going to be a year for complicated health, as this week has proven. I'm glad I have a wonderful health team, because as my new primary exclaimed last Saturday "You don't do anything by halves! Poor thing, you're falling apart!"
I've been advised to not frolic in a river with a banged up knee and a wretched sunburn on 90% of my body, which I think is pretty sound advice. Next year we're definitely packing sunscreen. And I will try to not repeatedly fall down a rock slide merely because I am afraid to let go of my floaty whale. I will let go of the floaty whale and allow someone else to swim downriver to fetch it.
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Meanwhile, in other health quarters, my yoga teacher/primary care physician has been trying to teach me the art of slowing down. While meditation has become routine (and I'm pretty sure I've worn some prayer beads out this week!) and my inner calm is a little bit more directable, I still prefer a flurry of action to the stillness of staying in one place.
Yesterday, rather than the 20something poses that we normally flow with, I was directed instead to stay in 5 positions over the hour and fifteen minute session.
It was so much harder!
My mind quickly got bored. The poses were harder to maintain in an active form over lengthy periods of time, especially since the other two people who came to class were doing the normal routine. I could feel the good they were doing, but rather than focusing on the breath, maintaining the inner line, the words of a mantra, I was split into halfheartedly maintaining my form, jealously overhearing a regular routine, planning out what I would say for scheduled events days in the future and going over test results in my head.
Clearly, I need to be still. This is a practice I lack, and would like to become good at.
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Best health news- the afternoon nap has made a resurgence in my daily routine. I'm quite pleased with this, as I've never really understood why economics and business should take precedence over a good couple hour nap just after lunch. No one really wants to do anything after lunch anyways, and don't lie- you know you don't.
Summer afternoon naps <3

hubby bday! (or how my diet goes down the drain)

Oh yes, during the regular days I follow orders. No wheat, no sugar, no grain (except brown rice), no milk, no cream, no alcohol.

Then someone has a birthday and I ignore everything I’ve learned in the first year of medical school and BAM!

Chocolate stout cupcakes, filled with chocolate whiskey ganache, and topped with bailey’s buttercream frosting and a chocolate almond.

Hopefully enough people come to my husband’s party to keep me from eating more than one!

potluck practitioner cultivation.

"Know thy shit", as one of my professors told me a couple quarters ago. "Know thy shit, or it will come up with a patient."

Well, here's some of my shit. It came up last night, and I figured rather than ignoring things and just watching a lot of bad television, as I am so prone to do, maybe I should write it down. Look at it under the scrutiny of whoever you 30 people are that check on my every blog update. Hope for some accountability so that I can't ignore the shit and watch a lot of bad television in the future.

See, last night I had a potluck. I spent all day shining the house up, got out all of my great grandma's fancy (and not terribly easy to break) party trays with matching cups and my tiered food display trays. I baked and shaped and layered, and then got all the dishes done so that the kitchen still looked spotless. I swept and I mopped and vacuumed and did a billion loads of laundry.
15 minutes before people were slated to arrive, I did my hair and makeup.
And then I waited.
and waited.
waited.

Finally, when everyone was forty minutes late (including my husband, who slept through the potluck) I had a plate of food and a couple cups of sweet tea and flicked on some netflix.
Nobody came, not late, not at all. Many didn't even bother letting me know why not.
So I put all the glassware in the cupboard and put all of the extra food in the fridge, and went to bed, feeling totally rejected.
And that's my shit. I automatically assume that I'm the second choice for everyone I come in contact with.  That people only really spend time with me because their number one choice of activity fell through. And every time someone only talks to me when they need their cats fed, or only says hello when I say hello first, or only looks my way when their "better" friends aren't available, that's what I tell myself. Rejected again. Second best.

I'm sure this has something to do with my homeschooled social skills- as a kid, the neighbor kids  only hung out with me when there was no one else to hang out with- when their school friends were busy. My best homeschooled friend had her real best friend who lived half a mile away, and I wasn't invited to any of their parties. The guys I seriously dated all left me for "better" options, whether that was friends or in one case, a skinnier and four years younger girl. In college, I was always on the outside of something, looking in.

And that's kind of how it always is.
And I forget that most people feel like outsiders and second best most of the time. Most people don't have best friends, where the best friendship is returned.  Most people are thoughtless, and just looking out for what's best for them in the moment.
Patients will be the same way. I can't have a rejection-fest every time someone blows off an appointment. I can't have a pity party if someone changes providers.

That said, I think I'm going to lay off making the first move for a few weeks. I clearly need to get more comfortable being by myself. I need to let go of this weird attachment I have to everyone, and give myself some time to get over myself and all these declined invitations. I need to stop wanting so desperately to be option number 1. That's not where real life happens.
I'm not the first person on the list, and that should be okay. 
I need to learn to be okay with the way that life flows.

Everything happens for a reason, even no-show potlucks and seeing the pictures from parties I wasn't invited to.

To do:

feed cats
yoga class and meditation
feed neighbor cats and water neighbor plants
install swamp cooler in bedroom so that husband can sleep during hot july days
start laundry
declutter house
harvest lavender and lay out to dry
make grocery list
change out of grubby yoga clothes
take shower
feed self
keep laundry going and put it away
clean kitchen
vacuum and sweep
go grocery shopping
prepare potluck dish
get things set out for potluck
make sweet tea?
take nap?
have potluck
have fun
go to bed at reasonable hour.

looks accomplishable from here, after all- it's only 9:30 and I already have about 1/3 of the list done.
Go, me, go!

everyone still wants a gold star.

New this week!

-One Chore Chart, complete with written instructions for the possibility of getting gold stars.
I was tired of how low on my priority list my house was. (And let's be fair, school's always going to come first- unless I have a project due tomorrow and holy crap, when was the last time I scrubbed down the windows?)  Capitalizing on my unending desire for more gold stars and the innate competition drive that sits within my very bones, I sat down with excel for a couple hours and wrote down the bare bones basics of appropriate house cleaning schedules. Including only 40 items, every basic cleaning routine and how often it should be done is covering my entire freezer front. I get a gold star every time everything on the list is taken care of once during a week, another gold star for every time everything daily in a room gets done every day for a week, and ANOTHER gold star for everytime a weekly task gets done more than once a week.

I plan to keep this up for 6 weeks, a scientifically acceptable amount of time for a habit to form.  Hopefully it'll stick throughout the school year.
And I already have the stickers, thanks to a good friend in Washington!

-One meal planner +grocery list.
Apparently excel is getting on my good side. In an attempt to cut the grocery budget, I've planned out meals for the next week and a half. I'm rather pleased with myself. I think this is a great step in the right direction, and it'll make things so much easier on the lunch planning front.  This is how mom always did it, and I'm not sure why I stopped, other than in the early years of college, writing ramen interspersed with hamburger helper down for dinner every night is really depressing.
The current plan of food includes such culinary wonders as thai spring rolls with peanut sauce (but wrapped in cabbage, we couldn't afford the rice wrappers), taco salad with guacamole, pork fried rice, and tuna salad on rice crackers.

-And lastly- ads on the blog. You probably noticed. For a corporate sponsorship, I would de-ad my blog again (any takers?) but until then, I'm giving in to the propaganda to line my wallet in a nearly labor free way. Granted, it's not paying so well yet either. I'll give it a month. If no money has been made in a month, I'll take the ads back off.

The Practicalities of Scrooge Mcduck's Swimming Pool

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who was very, very good at working with her hands and her mind. She wasn't very good at math, and once in college she overdrew her account and ended up with something like 500$ in fees. It's not that the math is too hard- it's just frustrating and time consuming, so she prefers to not do it. When she does do math, the numbers jump around and don't follow the rules, subtractions coming out greater than the initial number, things that all should end in zeros ending in 39.45s, and decimal places swapping locations like a bunch of young kids playing musical chairs.

For some years after her college overdraw, she was pretty careful to stay within a mental limit of allowable spending, dependent on the paycheck. It's not as hard to keep track of paper money as it is plastic, so paper money was her favorite method of paying for things.

Fast forward a couple years and this woman has married a man who can make math jump through hoops, line up single file, and quietly wait their turns to be computed. Relieved, she turns over all responsibility for everyday math to him. Her paychecks get signed over to him, and he sorts out when rent is payed, and how much electricity really is this month, and how much they should spend on groceries. While money is always tight, everything runs well and all are happy in the land. Plastic begins to creep back into the picture as the tips from working in restaurant culture fade like the horrible memories of working in the restaurant.

A few more years into the future, life is grand. The apartment is swell, the food is fabulous and organic, the treats are many, and the dinners out are fabulous. The woman gets an allowance, but sometimes asks if it's affordable for special treats. The man almost never says no, and the general impression is that if the woman and the man were much like Scrooge Mcduck in form and animation, they would be swimming in a pool of dollar coins, compared to many of their same age friends. The months go by, and the woman is in medical school. Eating out is more common, as study groups often require the purchase of a coffee or something to remain at a public place, since everybody is too busy studying to clean their homes. The woman runs in to a lot of health problems, even to the point of emergency surgery and check ups every single week. The cats that the pair own get worms and require medication. The best potato-fry cooking pan breaks into three pieces. The weeks are busier, and gas is more expensive. The apartment raises the rent by almost 100$, but the woman talks them into only raising the rent 75$, which is still a lot of money. Friends get married, and need gifts for ceremonies and bridal showers. All throughout, the impression is that the money is fine and scrooge mcduck is still swimming.

Then one day, the woman goes for a dive in the pool of luxury and hits her nose on the bottom of the mysteriously empty pool. Upon realizing that all is not right with the world, the man and the woman sit down and work out the budget as it currently stands, and find that the amount of money that they're spending is about 300$ more than they're earning a month. Their savings are almost gone. A ticket arrives in the mail. And suddenly, all of the illusions about how well they were doing shattered.
They puzzled and moaned and pounded out a new budget. They found a way to pay all the bills and still save 50$ a month, and still go on a date once a month, but the frills that had seemed so commonplace were chopped up and squeezed for pennies.

The moral of the story is-  you can't ignore a facet of life that is a joint effort.
Both spouses really need to know how much money is coming in, and how much money is going out. You can't be indulgent because your spouse likes nice things, and you can't not do math because you don't like doing it. You can't eat organic food simply because you want to.
And my real take home lessons-

and also:  Dreaming is great, but you have to be practical too.

Stretching Life

I’ve been working my way through Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by BKS Iyengar, which I bought yesterday when I was intending to buy merely Light on Yoga.

It’s been a fascinating evaluation of where I am in this practice and how much farther I have to go.  As the cover of the book says-

“Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is the Bible of Yoga… to practice yoga without the profound and panoramic inner catography of the yoga sutras is to be adrift in a difficult and potentially dangerous ocean.”
There is so much more to yoga than merely holding strange poses! The word yoga itself means “union or integration from the outermost layer to the innermost self- that is, from the skin to the muscles, bone, nerves, mind, intellect, will, consciousness, and self.” (Iyengar)  While most gyms combine the ancient art with pilates and focus on merely the physical activity itself, the poses are designed and refined through thousands of years to produce specific physiological effects, to effect the consciousness in specific ways, and to eventually produce such a deep state of meditation that one finds unity with the divine at all times through life.

My own practice is just barely beginning, after 5 years, to move beyond the physical and physiological stages to the consciousness and meditative stages. I’ve been blessed with a neighborhood free/by donation only studio, and the class that I attend is Classical yoga with a Shadow yoga trained teacher. She studied in India, and has met a Guru who helps her continue her own personal growth in yoga. She’s also my primary care physician, which is so convenient for my post surgery recovery. (There’s nothing so awesome as a hand tailored physical therapy class that often consists of only me.)

Some things I’ve learned in the last few months:

• Yoga is meant to be practiced 4 hours after food consumption and 1 hour after liquid consumption
• One should not practice yoga during the full moon, the new moon, or the first three days of the menses.
• Because yoga is an internal purification ritual, it is part of the ritual that one bathe before and after the practice of yoga to cleanse the external self.
• In the 8-fold path of yoga, only one of the paths is asana, or body postures.

So keep that in mind the next time the p90x yoga video is playing and Tony Horton is yelling at you. There’s more to yoga than movement, than unity of breath and movement…and if you approach yoga from a purely physical standpoint, not only do you have a good chance of injuring yourself, you’re potentially cheating yourself out of a clear mind, a good detox, a sense of peace, and if the old texts are true, the ability to attain supreme knowledge of all that exists and manifests.

12 bites.

There have been a lot of moments to write about. Somehow, it was never the right time.
Today seems pretty good, though.
Know why? I'm procrastinating something else. It's only fair that the truth behind the writing comes out. Last night, while I slept, a bug bit me 12 times.
12.
12 times.
So my goal today is to destroy all life but me, my husband, and the two cats. And maybe the refrigerated baker's yeast. This apartment will be clean of living things. I'm still freaked though, so I'm going to procrastinate the bug battle for just a little bit longer.
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I'm a bit of a hypocrite. All of that preaching. for cohabitation of all things. The native american ideal, that we own nothing, no land, but share with all creatures. It hasn't stopped me from locking my doors and windows, but it does usually make me think twice before destroying a spider's web or smashing a flying nuisance. Before buying something off Amazon if I can get it at an independent store nearby. Before walking past someone hungry and on the streets if I have anything to help them with. My home is fairly eco-friendly. Many of our things are recycled, upcycled, or straight out from the dumpster. (a 5 foot tall cat tree?! we had to have that. Those are like, 400$ when you buy them.)
We use cloth towels, not paper towels. I try to only eat fair trade, when I can. We barely use the lights, and not only because one of us is a day sleeper. We don't use electricity to heat our house in the winter, recycling pallets from the garbage pile in our fireplace instead. I love buying local designer clothes (and who am I kidding, that's not because I'm eco-friendly.)
I suppose the line is always drawn for us. Survive. Survive. Thrive. Kill or be killed.
So today, the war begins in this house. You don't bite me 12 times without inspiring a little bit of the survival instinct. .
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I went to a wedding this last weekend. It was lovely. Their pastor did not mispronounce their names, deliver a sermon against specific request, or forget the vows that we wanted to say. 
(someday the husband and I will have a do-over, and it'll be in a real garden that actually got watered with an officiant who cares about our requests, and it'll last about 10 minutes. not that I'm bitter.)
More importantly, this wedding showcased beautiful love.  A relationship as it should be- respectful on both sides, long lasting (they've already been together for 5 years), willing to work for the success of the partnership- not needy, not demanding. Truly just love.
In contrast, some of the other relationships I've witnessed in the last couple weeks leave me shaking in my boots for the fate of love in the world.
For the sake of anonymity, I won't name anything specific. Couple 1, though, their relationship smacked of the selfishness of one and the willingness to put up with anything just to have a place in the world for the other. Understanding comes on many levels, and simply living with someone rarely means that people understand each other. Look at how many times roommates have problems.
Couple 2, they're just a mess all over. Any time one part of a relationship is ashamed enough of their actions to lie about the other person, to lie about situations and actions, is a great sign of forthcoming unhappiness if it's not already evident.
I'm so glad I have my lovely husband. We're coming up on 5 years together and 3 years married, and he just gets more handsome and kind and funny every day. He's also no longer giving me food poisoning when he cooks, which I think is a great thing.
True love is a partnership, is a trying, is a working sort of thing. An understanding sort of thing. An all encompassing sort of thing. A shared dream.
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Germany is coming up soon! I can't wait for European bread and coffee and beer. and walking around and hearing a different language. Another grand adventure!

ranch

The ranch smelled sweet yesterday, like clover and hay and horses.  The sky rolled with grey hills of its own, reflecting the valley floor from above. The subjects were matched to verbs that they had no hope of performing.
There's something lovely about being part of a herd. I walked out, broken, to the paddock where five of the seven horses stay. My intent was to increase contact time with another broken being, a former polo horse who was rode hard and put up wet, like a piece of equipment instead of as a lovely horse with her own needs. She wasn't keen on the idea, and every time I was close enough to touch her, she broke into a canter away from me.
The rest of the herd decided that was nonsense.
Each horse, especially my own dear mustang (who isn't actually mine, but follows me like a puppy), formed a moving screen, shielding me from view of the skittish quarter horse, while nonchalantly moving towards her. Eventually, with each horse, I was close enough to round the other side and pet -briefly- the frightened horse, who would then canter less and less far away. The herd and I repeated the show until I was able to get Veinte calm, haltered, and lead her to the round pen. 
She has so many scars.
Like me, now.
I don't know who benefited more from the interaction, her- seeing that not all humans are going to ride and beat her, or me- having someone to tell honestly about grief and loss with no judgement or trite consolation.
At the end of my time with Veinte, we both leaned on each other, my back on her shoulder and her head on my shoulder, resting in the small solace between two broken beings.

Oh, the accomplishment of summer.

I finished the wedding scrapbook, but as paper things in plastic protector sheets tend to be, I can't share it all on the interwebs. I want to, though. The first (misguided) thought I had was "I should upload this to facebook!"
And then I remembered- scrapbooks are the photo albums we did BEFORE facebook.
I felt a little young and stupid.
It's beautiful though. There are a few mistakes, and not quite all the pictures I wanted, but it's perfect.  And even though physical wedding albums are the kind that you don't put on the internet, I have family overseas, so I'm going to put a few teaser photos on here.
So here's the book:

Look at how thick it is!

Here is one of my favorite pages:

And another:

And for the rest, you have to come to my house.

-Meanwhile-
The cats both managed to get tapeworms, which is a feat indeed because they usually stay indoors and don't have any fleas. I'm suspicious of the scratching post we jacked out of the dumpster, though I think the incubation period would be a little too long. Here's my hierarchy of animals I have wormed from most difficult to least difficult: Wolverines> sheep> horses>cats. A dermal application! That's brilliant. Why don't we have that for horses?

The apartment complex that we live in has decided to up our rent by about a bajillion dollars. Ok, no, I'm exaggerating. Still, a 75$ hike after I went down and told them there was no way we could afford the 90$ hike and might have to move. I do feel like hot stuff for negotiating on the rent, but it's a pretty serious jump.
I am in love with the place though, and I don't want to move.
So if you see a place with two bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, a fireplace, washer and dryer, a ginormous kitchen, 7 huge windows, and a decent patio that accepts cats (which is all the things our apartment has) and is about 725$ a month (cuz that's what we're paying now, pre-hike) and is for rent in early august- let us know. We're wonderful tenants. Terrible roommates, as one of us is always asleep or studying such that we need constant quiet and in addition to that- we've been living on our own for 3 years, so we're accustomed to a certain way of life. But great, quiet, boring, responsible tenants with a penchant for handywork and gardening.

Last thing-
I'm still in love with summer. <3 no stress. Hakuna matata. And sun kissed skin.

love. summer.

Usually I would get up at 5 so that I could drop in on a yoga class downtown before school starts, on Friday. But I'm not feeling very bendy, just at the moment. It's more like gloriously free, in a shavasana for the day.
I don't need to study right now.
I am going to study this summer.
But not right now.
I think today I will watch a tv show and take a nap. And then clean my desk and cook dinner.
Like a normal person might.


Things I will also do this summer:
-work at the kid's connection ranch, taming horses.
-work at a women's health clinic
-follow around three or so doctors in mac.
-catch up on doctor who
-finish my wedding scrapbook (...three years after the fact. 'bout time.)
-go to germany (and maybe france)
-do all of the laundry and make all of the meals for my husband for at least a month (gotta get in all my wifelyness during the summer!)
-find a place to move to that isn't asking us to work overtime every month to afford it
-go to a wedding, and a 50th anniversary
-go camping
-ride a floaty whale down at least one river
-seriously attempt learning to swim (again)
-take a nap every. single. day.
- get a tan (from being outside!)

Real Requirements

I was chillin' on facebook, like ya do, and an ad popped up on the side of my screen for an "online education preparing you for the world of naturopathic and alternative medicine".
I immediately marked the ad as offensive.

Why?
Because I'm just finishing up 72.25 credit hours of the first year of a four year accredited medical school, and online jokers like these is why it's so hard to pass licensing law in so many states.

Just to be clear- There is no such thing as a "physician" who went to internet school. The guidelines are clear- you simply cannot complete physical classes, like palpation or clinical/physical diagnosis without touching another person under the direction of someone who knows what they're doing. You cannot become a naturopathic physician without graduating from a naturopathic medical school which has been accredited by a licensing board that has be approved by the United States Department of Education.  You cannot enter a naturopathic medical school without first having obtained a bachelor's degree, and in some schools, having taken the MCAT. You have to have clinical hours, class room hours, pharmacy hours, and medicinary hours to even qualify to take the board exams (the NPLEX).

Naturopathic physicians are not lesser physicians. Allopathic school is not "real doctor school". We are a different specialty of medicine, and there are many things that we're better at treating than "normal doctors" are, like metabolic syndromes and many chronic diseases. We need to coexist for people to be healthier. I want a naturopath for preventative medicine, for management of health, and an allopath to be my surgeon when things go horribly wrong in car crashes or unpreventable disease.

There's a debate coming up this next year, which will pit AMSA (american medical student association) students against NMSA (naturopathic medical student association) students in a televised debate, where we debate all the basic sciences of medicine. And you know what? It'll be evenly matched. We're both good at basic science, and then we specialize in different things. Our main separation is our philosophy.

Keep those nuggets in mind, as you start to really see all of the insidious negatives that our culture and especially the American Medical Association is throwing at us. Keep in mind also that the countries with top rated healthcare (which doesn't include America, by the way- we're 37th on the world health organization's ranking list) have integrated naturopathic medicine, and traditional medicines of the region. Once this nation stops being so obstinately narrow-minded about a branch of medicine that's been here for the last 100 years anyway, maybe we can start moving up the ranks and really help some people. 

Invade A Hospital

I was listening to an interview with Dr. David Ansell, the author of “Life, Death, and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospitals", and I thought of this picture. What do you think?

Why Don't We Do This EVERYDAY?!

My friends are having a jam night, and it has nothing to do with strawberries.


I'm bringing music in
-french,
-german,
-italian,
-english
featuring such selections as "Here in My Room" by Incubus, "Goody, Goody"  by Johnny Mercer, "Faites-Lui mes Aveux" from Faust, "Black Swan" from The Medium, "You are the Moon" by The Hush Sound, and so much more!


I think it's going to be a great night. I haven't sung like this in years.

lunar cyles, fresh starts.

Fun facts about the menstrual cycle to preface today's post:

Allopathic medicine places the menstrual cycle along with pregnancy under "Diseases and Conditions", even on pubmed, which is hardly a positive framework for a naturally occurring cycle that is expected throughout the course of fertility in all women.

Pain and irritation premenstrually and  during menstruation are signs of imbalance. Some of the reasons of imbalance I've heard most frequently in naturopathic classes are a magnesium deficiency, or toxicity of tissues. In chinese medicine, the imbalances are usually spiritual in nature and related to liver stagnation. This isn't to say that there are not clinical cases of dysmenorrhea- both branches of medicine both recognize that dysmenorrhea and premenstrual syndrome are conditions that many of today's women face on a monthly basis. There are many more reasons that women can have pain, irritation, and craving beyond merely magnesium deficiency, toxicity, liver stagnation, and disconnect.

Most women cycle for 26- 35 days, with 28 days considered most normal. The count begins on the first day of blood. The uterus, ovaries, and hormones follow an intricate dance of growth, fertility, more growth, and sloughing of unused womb tissue.

Women are less likely to have iron toxicity, and have a remarkable capacity for detoxification.
Historically, the beginning of the cycle was a time when women removed themselves from society and spent time taking care of themselves. In Jewish tradition, the second week of "cleansing" actually made it more likely that every time a couple had sex was within the window of ovulation and fertility, thereby making it easier to have a large family. 

There are many more interesting historical facts and myths that can make cycling less of a "disease or condition" and more like a beautiful time that nature has set aside for introspection and self care, but given the skeptical nature of many of my readers, I thought I'd skip the airy faerie stuff I'm so fond of and go directly for the facts:

Today, I'd like to celebrate the beginning of my first normal cycle since late December!
The 2 months of pregnancy and month of miscarriage had conditioned me to fear the sight of blood- especially by the end of the miscarriage, when I couldn't really spare any blood for any purpose beyond basic metabolism. As I recovered, I missed it.

I'm a fairly body conscious person- though "solidly built" by societies standards, I have a regular exercise routine which has consisted mainly of sprinting up a quarter mile hill to correct some work catastrophe and yoga for the last 5 years. Yoga means unity, between movement and breath, breath and spirit, spirit and body. It's a great way to get comfortable with how your body moves and looks- as long as you have a decent teacher who's got even a little of the classical texts before instruction. I also dance, which requires a lot of coordination and staring at myself in the mirror. And sometimes I lift weights. I lose more weight when I do that, but I hate the activity and the "rosie-the-riveter" arms it gives me. I eat well, I meditate, I track my cycles and basal metabolic temperature.

So when a month passed after recovery, I knew my body was still building up blood and trying to deal with the postpartum hormones. But when two months passed, I was concerned. I felt blocked, and stifled.

My doctor (who is graduating this month!) and I discussed seed cycling the first time I felt ready to try to cycle again. Seed cycling is based on giving your body a lot of hormone precursors, in plant form, according to the lunar cycle. I was doing flax seed from the new moon to the full moon, and then evening primrose oil from the full moon to the new moon. That was a disaster. My body hated that.

So month three, we tried a different plant based support-
(try nothing without talking to your doctor! I have not presented all aspects these herbs traditionally treat, and none of the contraindications!)
 a tincture made of:
angelica sinensis (dong quai)- used for pain, vasodialation, and stimulating/relaxing uterine muscles.
achillea millefolium (yarrow)- used for amenorrhea, reduction of inflammation and pain
vitex agnus castus (chaste tree berry)-normalizing hormone levels
gentiana lutea (gentian)- amenorrhea, reduction of nervous stress
scutellaria lateriflora (skullcap)- european uses- anxiety, native american use- amenorrhea
and dandelion flower essence- for joy and boundaries.

In addition, the supervising doctor recommended that I join the yoga classes that she teaches on Wednesday and Friday mornings. I had a meeting this morning, but my experience on Wednesday was profound. Since she knows my case, she was able to modify poses for me before I tried them, and we did a lot of pelvic opening throughout the routine. She's trained specifically through a lineage of teachers who originated pretty much with the classical texts, and the workout was the best- bar none- I've had all year, p90x or no.

I've been incorporating parts of the routine I started learning on wednesday into my twice daily twenty minutes of yoga, and I feel so much more connected to myself already.

Then I went to meditation group, which meets every friday, and spent the hour really focusing on my pelvis and the blockages that have kept this beautiful, natural cycle from occurring. I visualized a wall made of hard sand, and felt a small hole in the center, like an hourglass, pouring through. I focused on making that hole wider, and allowing clearance to flow....

And two hours later I'm back in the cycle! I'm probably magnesium deficient, and I don't feel totally normal, but I'm so glad to be one step closer to being healthy again, and so in love with the personalized care I've been given by my healthcare practitioners. I even called my primary to let him know that the plan worked, and quickly, and I think he may have been more excited than I was.
What a beautiful medicine this is.

recenter

happy wednesday morning-
just a few moments here, but the mood is low and the spirit is lower.
hopefully today will help that.

just a quick count of live births since I lost my babies=5.
number rubbed in my face=1.
number I've cried over = 5.

so here I am, at yoga on yamhill. the teacher is  my doctor, and she told me to come, to tak more space for myself. afterwards, a mani/pedi at fleur de lys.  then class. then music making.

but it seems so empty, right now. hopefully the morning will recenter me.

always a hot mess.

Interesting tidbits to keep you from thinking I've abandoned the blog-

Van Gogh, Dante, Harriet Tubman, and Agatha Christie all have something in common beyond being a part of this wonderful thing we call the human legacy- They all suffered from seizure disorders.

University of California Los Angeles has a 300 credit hour program entitled "Medical Acupuncture for Physicians", which would not allow them to practice acupuncture in California, a state which requires 3,000 credit hours.  Further proof that mainstream allopathic medicine intends to cherry-pick what they like about natural and traditional medicine, and then do a really bad job at training people to practice in those modalities.

I've been elected donations chair for the student government association at my school. If you'd like to donate something (monetarily or physically, like raffle prizes) please let me know, either via the blog or by email.

The P90X program is a go again. I'm surprised at how much muscle wasting I have on my right side, but I've nonetheless made it through the first weeks, doing the best I can and forgetting the rest. There's something very soothing about hearing Tony Horton yell in the background as I struggle to do my 5th assisted pullup...

My primary, who is about to graduate, gave me these two nuggets of wisdom while we shared some sunshine on the school lawn today:
1- spend as much time in the clinic as you can.
2- Remember that every quarter/stage of life has the potential to be the most anxiety provoking segment of time you've ever dreamed of- so choose to see instead, the potential of every quarter/stage of life has to be the most peaceful and valuable segment of time that you have.


My small brown cat has found a way inside the bottom of my grey, wing back chair. This is distressing, as there are many other places he could lie without destroying my beautiful chair.  I have not found a way to keep him out and do not have the materials to repair the chair. Suggestions?

Females over 35 who smoke and take oral contraceptives have the highest risk of stroke in the united states population.

Biscuits stuffed with spicy tuna mix will always be a delicious, easy to whip up, potluck dish.

I need to sleep. <3 

ignorance does not equal naivete

Just in case anyone was wondering, since it came up today in class-
the definition of ignorance is to be without knowledge of a specific topic. The definition of naive is having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information. They're not the same thing and definitely should not be treated as such. They're synonyms only in that the same could be said of being forthright, or natural, or virgin.

The connotation of ignorance is of willful unknowing, like that of disregard or of philistinism, while naivete is associated with innocence, childishness, and candor.
There's a difference between being ignorant of cultural competency and being naive of cultural competence.

When I and my classmates go in to practice, we will both have people who are offended that we ask them what gender they identify with and people who will be offended if we don't ask. We will make mistakes, occasionally asking a race-loaded question or by assuming social status. The people we come in contact with will be sensitive to different areas of cultural awareness. For instance, any long time reader here might be aware that I have an extreme sensitivity to social class divide, which comes up nearly every day at my gifted and often entitled school.
I would hope that each person who leaves a cultural competency class will find that there are many assumptions that we hold about the world that informs our every action and word. We use unintelligible idioms every day, shop at certain stores, expect some traditions, like Christmas, or gender identification. The important thing is that we understand where our limitations are-- That when we mess up and wish a wiccan a merry christmas, we can honestly and humbly say "My bad. Happy holidays."  

The truth is that not a single one of us has the right to say that the other person is wrong in their belief, practice, tradition, or identity.
(and for those who might claim immediately that of course there is wrong and that I'm a godless heathen for saying there isn't- remember that the Bible says "Judge not, lest ye be judged." Matthew 7:1)

Every person has a right to live their own lives in the best way that they can live them, according to the vision and fate that they follow.


Every person will be at a different point in their own journey.
Some of them might be ignorant. I know I'm ignorant of a great many things, like higher maths, astrophysics, and how to pull a heater core out of a truck. I could learn these things, but I'm not interested.
Some of these people might also be naive, as I believe every person is of some concept or another. I don't necessarily know what I don't know. It's not willful. If I'm offending someone by not knowing something, I truly hope that I'll be told so that I can then be ignorant of it, and hopefully eventually competent in that topic.

As a future physician, I know that I will need to ask about sensitive information. I know I might even have patients that I don't resonate well with, or with whom I flatly disagree. That's not going to change my standard of care- because I'm here living my dream. My dream is to help people find the healing within themselves, regardless of race, religion, gender identification, ignorance, or naivete.

And I hope that everyone shares at least the "regardless of race, religion, gender identification, ignorance, or naivete" half of my dream.

segmental time.

I haven't had much to say, and even less time to say it in, but today is special.
It's a Wednesday, you see.
On Wednesdays in the 7th week of first year spring term, I only have one class and that class has a test.
So without further ado, let the last minute procrastination update begin:
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I got my hair cut last week. I hadn't cut it in 7 years. I'm still marveling at how light my head is, how little time it takes to dry, and some of the hairstyles that work far more efficiently at -18" of normal.
When I got my hair washed at a salon during winter finals (when I was still all wheelchaired up and holding my arms up with the weight of hair was impossible), my "Hair Goddess", as her business card declared, told me I should cut my hair. Not just because of how damaged it'd become over the three months o' misery, but because "Hair is the only weight we choose to bear".
and the more I thought about it, the more I needed something easy and light in my life. One of my dear classmates asked for the task, and I figured it was time. I went to her house, she poured me a tequila mojito, and the event began, inch by inch.
Best haircut I've ever had. No trauma, lots of are-you-sures, patience, good company and tequila. If she wasn't going to be such a fabulous doctor, I'd beg her to open a salon.

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On another side of life, another classmate is letting me read through her books.
I'm starved for novel time, just at the moment, so I'm flying through them. I read three last night and this morning while I should have been studying for this test.
She also gave me a treat, which pretty much made my week. Normally I hate Mondays- I start out with office work, have a hasty lunch, sit through four hours of lecture and then go in to the chaos that is a modality lab where I always do the work because I'm contraindicated to receive.
This last Monday though, my bosses were away, so I got a long morning to study, the first class was more clinically relevant and really held my attention, I got a treat and encouragement, the second class was canceled, so I got to study, and the lab wasn't half bad even though I still did all the work. It was a better learning experience for me to see where I was weak in the protocol. Then I got to go home and use my treat- seaweed and arnica bubble bath! It was so fantastic. For those of you who don't know the magic that is the herb arnica, it's used as a vasodialator and pain reliever to speed healing of bruises, sprains, strains, and all your other bumps and bruises. It's the western European version of tiger balm.
I sank beneath the juniper, lavender, lemon, and pine scented foam and reemerged a new being, less fatigued, less in pain, and in much better spirits.
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Last weekend was the naturopathic philosophy retreat.
I gotta love any day that starts out with a morning song and a mandatory 1.5 hour barefoot nature walk. I found a broken building full of bats, and coyote tracks, and a bunny, and a wren's nest, and a friendly tree, and some stinging nettles, and a banana slug to cure the stings from the stinging nettles, a fun mud puddle, a stick, and a good hill for rolling down.
Never give up your childhood.
There's a lot of joy in just being outside if you don't have so much pressure on what you have to do whilst you're out there.
In addition, I learned about detoxing principles, fun ways to share the medicine with people who don't know what it is or believe in it, some good northwest herbs, and how to make flower essences.
I was also in two amazing massage chains, and had some great beer.
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Now it's much later in the morning of the 7th Wednesday of spring term.
Time for more books.

life is a choice.

The season is changing.
I am changing.
Who needs habits and forms anyway?
I really want to challenge myself to not allow fear of the unknown, of the different run my life.
It already runs most of the country.
I stand in a class divided, and I hope that the strings of love will bind us together. 
We stand in a time of discontent and hate, and I hope that the strings of compassion will bind us together.
I stand a self confessed idealist, a thinker, a lover, a friend, a healer.
I may be a dreamer- but I'm not the only one.
The different isn't coming to morally destroy you. Only you can choose your path. Change can be healing. We are toxic. toxic on close-mindedness and denial, on habits, on hopelessness, on settling for what is easy instead of what we want, on the unwillingness to step out and be the first one.

But there's always a light beyond the first step. We can all walk towards love, towards learning, towards hope of a better tomorrow. We are always the first on our own path- no one else can live your life. You are the first. Your whole life is waiting for you to decide what you'll make of it.
Choose.

stream of consciousness

Organ systems and string theory physics are so close, I feel like every neuron is delving into new philosophical challenges. My classmates are struggling with knowing where they truly are as we learn how we perceive where we are. I don't, so much. My vestibular system, which is where we get our sense of personal space from, is all messed up. If I stand up and close my eyes I don't have an innate impression of where the world stands in comparison to me. I just fall down.

Curiouser and curiouser, I know that I've trained other senses to help me stand straight and dance. I wonder what interposes for my brain- whether my sense of visual mapping is larger, or if I've honed my hearing for things beyond normal perception, or even just cultivated somatosensory perception beyond the normal thresholds that such sensation enjoys.

There are tales of yogis who can control even their heat production, drying wet blankets in seconds, of people who exist on air alone, of people who hear the stones talking. I am so very old, and so very young. My hair has started turning white. I've outlived three children who never made it to the world beyond the womb. I get carded every time I walk into a bar.

I'm starting to wonder what I'm capable of, and whether I'll be able to do so consciously. In just this year alone, I've bled for thirty days continuously- and lived. I've had a dream that showed me the future, though I didn't understand it at the time. I've moved from the shadows that were holding me back, talked to doctors in four corners of the globe, meditated up a protective hedge of roses while being filled with starlight. I'm in love with the world, enamored by the sky, enchanted with the trees.   I'm starting to come into myself. I think my neurons are starting to make new pathways.

I think I'm finding God.

embodiment principle

Your brain doesn't know that you aren't part of the chair you're sitting on.
It's not wired to.
the pressures and sensations of the tools that you use fire through your nervous system, building the world that you can touch and feel. Think of it, your leg touching the chair touching the floor and yet you know.
You know that the floor is level, or that it isn't. You know the floor is soft, or if it isn't. You sense the passing of a train, the rumbling of the earth restlessly turning beneath your consciousness.
We are connected to everything, a part of everything that we touch
Right now, you and I are together. You and I are the embodiment of eachother.
I feel you
You are not alone, never alone.

Healing Vision

I had a counseling appointment last night with someone whom my primary care physician had recommended for me to see. I knew in advance that it was an "intuitive counseling session" but I didn't really know what that meant. As a hot mess, I didn't really care. I just needed help.
I walked out of my micro class about half an hour early, and got to my appointment fifteen minutes early. I pulled the Dresden novel I'm rereading out of my purse as I sat in the waiting room tastefully decorated by ikea and began to read.

Fifteen minutes later, an extremely pregnant woman came out of the back room, and I thought "Seriously?"

I ran through the list of things that would interfere with a miscarriage counseling session, and then decided that this counselor would have greater empathy for me, because she for sure knew how having a life inside of you changes your mind and body.

She called my name, directed me to a chair, and then got me a glass of water. Then she asked if I wanted an explanation, or if I wanted to just jump right in. In hindsight, an explanation would be nice. But as ever, I like flying by the seat of my pants, so I just wanted to jump in.

She said ok, and then told me that she sees better with her eyes closed, and told me to imagine myself in a robins egg bubble and to feel the earth coming up to meet us. She said she just wanted to look around first, and then after she saw, then I could tell her what I was there about.
She closed her eyes and looked at me.

And saw  sunshine, but with a shadow holding on to me, closing my crown chakra and third eye. She called on the archangels to clear away this shadow, this 15 year old shadow,  and asked them to stay with me as I heal. I forget what was going on 15 years ago precisely, but I was 8 then. I think. If I did my math right. That was the year I first got sick.

After the shadow was cleared away, the top of my head was oddly sensitive, and she said that I would have an easier time reaching out to God, now that nothing was in the way.  She said with the shadow gone, I had faerie energy coating my sunshine. Then she asked me why I was there.

And she looked at the "baby-beings" and put out an intention that we only wanted healthy babies who were interested in the full, being human experience, and one of the three left. She thought he was the first miscarriage. The other two, she said, were the twins. And that one of them was headstrong and all about being material, and that the other wasn't so sure, and that they'd had a deal to come together so that the strong one could help the weak one, but the weaker one had backed out. She said she'd be surprised if they came in at the same time again, but also said that she thought it would be these two who would come the next time.

She looked at me and my husband, and grounded out the grief and the pain so that we could better reach out to one another.

She had me tell all of the horrible things that people said to me into a single rose, and then blow that rose up. (which was a little distressing for me, but I suppose that there was beautiful intention in many of the terrible things they said.)

She told me to pay attention to my jaw, and that there was so much tightness there from holding on to a game face, and then we cleared that. We cleared a genetic tape through the female line that whispered "It's hard to be the woman" and I feel so much more clear on that- I've always thought it was a beautiful and wonderful thing to be a woman. I miss my menses, and my connection to the moon and I fully enjoy all of the lovely things that make being a woman so wonderful. I love that I'm capable of nurturing life.

She told me that I had a healer's energy (but she didn't ask me what I do for a living) and that I need to work on psychospiritual boundaries so that I only attract people who are interested in healing themselves, not in just draining my own healing energy.

She told me something that I've only had people I know very well (like, my best friend after we'd known each other for 6 years ) tell me, which is that I'm through and through honest, like the essence of truth. And that I go around shocking people, and then when I should follow that up with more words,  I feel them withdraw with shock, and then I withdraw to give them space, and they decide that the distance is me-imposed. She told me ways that I could work on that space and shock and dialogue, but then told me that most of the people who don't appreciate that honesty probably aren't that good for me anyway.

She told me that my rejection complex probably started with someone who I embarrassed that didn't know what to do with me, and had her own intimacy issues, and that that's why I'm not so good at asking for answers.

She also told me that this period of helplessness is good practice in asking again.

We talked about a lot of things, in just an hour, or rather, she told me a lot of things and I filled in some gaps and helped focus her on what I needed her to see.

But the important thing is that I feel so much more whole. I can see opportunities and joy stretched ahead of me. I learned about myself. I feel closer to God. and  I got to see my babies.

I love alternative medicine, and the myriad gifts that people are given.