On Feeling Safe at Home (in Your Own Country)

I haven’t written in eleven days.  It isn’t for lack of topics and events.  My mind and body have been moving at warp speed, busy, busy, busy.  (Of course, I mean that as what amounts to warp speed for me.)  It is both my reason and my excuse for avoiding writing.  Not only do I [...]

Everything I Know About IVs

Every so often, I remember that I am reporting on this journey with systemic lupus.  It has been sixteen years, and lately I am experiencing a rapid, unprecedented improvement in all symptoms.  I credit everything:  my B-cell killing therapy, years of mostly vegetarian eating, changes in my state of mind, prayer (mostly from other people)…I’m always supportive [...]

Watching “Hopkins” on Independence Day

Soooo, Happy Independence Day.  It is almost 11 p.m. and my neighbors have kept up their artillery barrage of fireworks for more than two hours.  My brain is exhausted.  It works slowly at best during a flare of lupus, and the constant noise has exaggerated this.  My reluctance to approach them and request a cease [...]

The Pressure Cooker

My training prepared me for a lot of things.  Some of them were not so good.  When you train in medicine, you learn to be under pressure much of the time.  I was in medical school from 1978-82, and in my internal medicine residency from 1982-85.  That era in the medical education field is not [...]

New Line-up

I am crocheting turtles.  These little critters, done in elann.com’s Peruvian Highland Wool, are going to be lapel pins for my sister’s sorority convention.  She discussed them with me last year, but only yesterday confirmed that they (the organizing powers that be) indeed want them, and that at least 100 are needed.  Also, and perhaps [...]

I Want to Write This Morning!

I am sitting up in my bed doing a little dance because I am excited about writing this morning.  I don’t know why, exactly.  I never have trouble finding things to write about because this is a conversation, and if you know me you know that I can talk forever.  I will talk with anyone.  [...]

Two-Mood Morning

I told you I wake up happy and optimistic.  That includes looking forward to my breakfast, which is something I never skip (and you shouldn’t either–don’t get me started!).  This morning I thought a lot about what to fix for breakfast.  Because the prednisone makes me wake up hungry, I had a banana and a [...]