SOLITARY CONFINEMENT- DAY 4

Today I hit a wall. A writing wall. It was probably because I spent the last seventy-two hours in front of a computer. I thought with all this time off I could accomplish great feats of writing, maybe even finish a book.

But instead I have accomplished very little on the book front. I have left far too many status updates on Facebook and read far too many articles and books and blogs and theology (though I could never get too much theology.) I even read a, I think they call them, Paranormal Romance short story which I typically would never read.

Today was going to be the day all that changed. I have gotten over the initial shock of radiation and isolation. I can be out in public just long enough to order breakfast out at my favorite coffee shop and eat it in the one chair that gets sunshine on the patio in the morning with everyone else a safe twenty feet away eating inside. My computer was charged. My chart notes were out ready to be cross-referenced for trip details.

And nothing.

I could write nothing. I sat for over an hour writing nothing. I considered an early morning drink. considered writing in a new section of the book.

And nothing.

I gave up. No sense wasting good sunshine doing nothing.After a quick run and a shower I took off in my car, camera in hand to fill the well.

I once read The Artist's Way. Not much I remember except the concept of filling the well. Artists need a reserve of creative capital in order to create. If we draw and draw and draw out, eventually that well runs dry. It's a good practice to regularly do things that will put the creative capital back in.

Usually, for me, this means sunshine, a good lunch outside, a dose of nature, and enough silence to let my brain run free, unencumbered by chapters to plot and scenes to write and dialog to remember.

First stop was an open patch of land for a hike. Not more than fifteen feet in, I saw a guy sitting shirtless in a beach chair, soaking up the sun. Now that's what I need to be doing, but with my shirt on. So I gave up my hike, found an open field up on the left and sat. The bands on my brain began to loosen. I shot some pictures of small stuff nearby, a technique I'd been wanting to play with but hadn't found the time.

Hunger jumped into my thought stream, so I was off to obtain another fish taco in some more sunshine. The knots in my brain started to untie themselves. Finally I had found a way around one of the biggest problems of my work in progress, trying to make my villain(ess?) not completely evil, because they say a villain must have some redeeming qualities and also because she isn't really all that bad. With that problem solved the other ideas began to flow. Lucky for me I had my notebook and pen I carry to jot down these ideas before they run away.

Ice cream was now a must and a chance to work out on paper what had been swirling in my head. Now I am off to resume my role in reality; pick up the kids, clean the house, toss the food containers and silverware I'd been collecting from breakfast, lunch and ice cream into my radioactive trash pile, take the kids to the pool to play at least ten feet from me and watch them enjoy another seventy-seven degree January day in sunny San Diego.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT- DAY 1

My day started at five am so that I could get one last meal in before six hours of fasting in preparation for my thyroid ablation today. I was back in bed by five fifteen after yet another bowl of oatmeal and plate of egg whites- some of the only foods I could find that are easy to prepare, somewhat appetizing, and on the low-iodine diet I've had to be on since the first of the year. But since I have been off the anti-thyroid meds for five days, there was no chance I'd be able to go back to sleep.

I saw Tony off to work at seven with a big, gotta-last-for-seven-days hug and got the kids ready for school. I dropped the kids at school and had coffee with a friend, or rather, I watched a friend drink coffee- damned fasting rules- while sitting in the morning sunshine. Then off to the doctor's office to swallow a pill they brought to me in a lead vial.

"Don't touch it. Just take it straight out of the vial," the doctor told me. I do wonder what on earth I'm doing taking a pill that isn't safe to touch. And thus began seven days of solitary confinement.

While everyone was at school I had free reign of the house, but once the kids were home, I was confined to my office in the garage. Once Tony got home and had to do a workout in the garage, I was sent to the upstairs bedroom. If I had to enter the common areas, I found myself calling out to warn everyone of my presence. I felt like a leper calling out, "Unclean. Unclean."

I have dutifully used paper plates, cups, and utensils, double bagged all my trash separately, and stored it outside. I have stored all my radioactive clothes and towels in my now radioactive office and always flushed twice when using the bathroom. I waved goodnight to my kids and gave them air hugs from down the hall. My evening ended with a quick hazmat sweep of the upstairs bedroom and making my bed downstairs all alone.

Since I could not spend any time with my family, I spent most of the day writing and editing and I have to say, I absolutely loved it. Although I miss my family desperately, six more days of my writer's retreat and I should be one very content writer.

The Death of Summer

Yesterday, my summer ended. It had been weighing on me more this year than any other year in recent memory. I have been walking towards this date like I was being led to my execution.

During the last few weeks of summer, I tried to ignore it. I tried to bargain my way out of it somehow. I have even mourned for the fast approaching date.

And before you write me off as some spoiled brat who cannot even handle the concept of work, please hold off. I understand the amazing privilege I have in getting ten weeks off a year to bask in the summer sun, but even during this time, I am not a stranger to hard work.

Even during my ten-week “vacation” I am working non-stop on the Sea Peptide Salties. I am working non-stop as a mother and wife. I am constantly managing my five or so chronic medical conditions.

It’s not as if my summer is free from work.

I think the reason I am having such a hard time with this years impending work schedule is because for the first time in over twelve years, I am finally healthy.

Yes, I have multiple medical issues, but I finally feel like I finally have a good system for managing each of them. They have each taken me by surprise at times, but with enough surprise attacks I have built systems for dealing with each one.

The untethered regimen has brought my diabetes care to a new high. My blood sugars are more stable than I ever thought they would be.

My asthma is now being controlled by a daily medication that although it doesn’t eliminate all attacks, most days I run at around 80% lung capacity, it doesn’t have the insane side effects that came with another medicine I tried last year, which brought the most severe and swift depression I have ever felt.

My thyroid, which went berserk nine years ago and blew up my life for a full seven years, has been obliterated by radioactive iodine, and I have finally found a perfect system of replacement thyroid meds. And I have gained back the strength that an overactive thyroid ripped from my body.

I am finally strong and relaxed and not entirely focused on the fatigue that has my constant bedfellow for the last decade from managing so many flaws in my physical makeup.

And all of that strength which I have worked for over the last decade will be slowly stripped from my body again.

I know many people think that teaching is an easy job where I go to babysit a few pleasant kids for a few hours a day while I try to teach them a thing or two.

Over the course of the next ten months, I will slowly lose my voice from trying to project in a building that was designed by architects who know nothing of the sound dynamics in a classroom.

I will catch at least ten colds and flus most of which will trigger my asthmatic bronchitis and require another round of steroids which will tweak my blood sugars beyond recognition and make it impossible for me to work out for weeks sometimes which, in turn, will make blood sugar management even worse.

The levels of thyroid which I have worked out precisely will need to change with the changing amounts of physical and mental stress of work and will need to be adjusted, but only after they have done enough damage in my body to make me stop my never ending cycle of work and life responsibilities to take notice.

Usually this means aggravated sleep for days followed by brain fog from the lack of sleep and an uncharacteristically short temper. Then adjustments are made and about a month of re-regulating.

All of this I have to willingly walk back into.

I have to go back.

I have to keep this job.

Because, although this job is the one that will challenge my health more than anything I have ever known, it is also the job that has medical benefits, benefits that allow me to have my Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor and pays for the Levemir and the pump that delivers my Humalog, and the inhalers, steroids, thyroid meds, and doctor’s visits.

The number one consideration in choosing my employment has been not passion or matching my particular skill set, but what job has reliable medical benefits and will not penalize me for being out sick. That’s it.

Diabetes has affected even this aspect of my life down to the very job I chose.