Musings

Fun with Acupuncture

/ mariezhuikov / 3 Comments

acupuncture-on-wristAs you may know, I am in my elder years. As you may not know, I have been experiencing hot flashes for several of those elder years. If you don’t want to know that information, you can stop reading now. But if this revelation holds any interest to you, and you want to know what it’s like to have acupuncture, read on!

At first, my hot flashes weren’t so bad – just a minor inconvenience. After a few months, they went away. I thought they were over and that the whole hot flash thing wasn’t so bad. WRONG. They returned and were a bit peskier than before – interrupting my sleep, arriving at inopportune times during the day, eliciting knowing looks from other older women in airports and grocery stores as I fanned myself.

My doctor offered the idea of estrogen therapy or some anti-depressants, but I shied away from those. Reports of problems with those drugs made me skittish, besides, I figure there’s a good reason our bodies are no longer making estrogen. Why prolong this with adding it back in?

As my hot flashes became more severe over the past year, I tried a few different herbal supplements, but they just made things worse. On the advice of several friends, I decided to try a local acupuncturist.

The first step in my appointment was filling out about a 15-page health history. Wow! I dropped it off at the practitioner’s office a week beforehand so she would have time to look at it before my appointment.

When I arrived for my session, we went over the document and she asked for details on a few things. She quickly zeroed in on several habits I have that can worsen hot flashes, those being drinking WINE and eating CHOCOLATE. She suggested I give those up for a month or so to see if that helps.

WINE and CHOCOLATE. These are the only things that make my life bearable. Because I’m intolerant to wheat and corn, I can’t have pastries, pies, cookies, doughnuts, etc., unless I go to great (and rare) lengths to make them myself from alternative ingredients.

I have often said that I am so glad I can still eat chocolate. If I ever become allergic, someone should just shoot me.

This woman might as well have had a gun to my head. Granted, she wasn’t saying I had to give up these two elixirs forever, just for a month. But still. The only good part of that conversation is that hard liquor (spirits) might still be okay to drink instead of wine. I grasped desperately at the idea that scotch could get me through this deprivation.

As we spoke, the practitioner took notes for my treatment plan. Then she asked if I was open to the idea of acupuncture. I agreed, so she laid me down on a table. She made me stick out my tongue so she could see the color of it, etc. Then she took my pulse in both wrists. Then came the needles.

I didn’t want to watch. I also don’t watch when I get shots. I’d rather not see sharp things approaching my skin. During television news stories about the importance of flu shots, I cannot watch as other people get shots, either.

As I looked up at the ceiling tiles, she inserted seven thin, stainless steel needles into my wrists, lower legs, and feet. It hurt a little bit, but not as much as I was expecting. On a scale of ten, they were about a three. She flicked the needles as she inserted them.

She said she was going to leave to write up my treatment plan. She asked if I would like some music while I waited. When I asked how long it would take, she said fifteen minutes. “Yes, music, please!”

The practitioner exited, leaving me alone with seven long needles sticking out of my body. Well, not having the courage to look at them, I didn’t know they were so long at first. Eventually, I lifted my head and looked at my wrist. A needle stuck about three inches out of it!

I put my head back down, fighting the urge to rise up, tear out all the needles, and get the heck outta there.

“Breathe,” I told myself. “Relax. This is supposed to help you.”

I tried to concentrate on the music (Carlos Nakai flute music, BTW.) That worked for a while, but then I just had to look at my legs. Mistake! The urge to flee came back.

I laid back down and fought it. I tried to meditate, with limited success. I tried to write this blog post in my head, but that made me concentrate on the feeling of the needles and how to describe it.

My right wrist was developing a deep ache. A nerve in my calf twitched. Was this normal? I began to wish the practitioner was in the room so I could ask her. What if my leg cramped up? If I called for help, would she hear me?

I did not like the being left alone part.

After a long fifteen minutes, she came back and took the needles out. I expected her to ask how I felt, but she didn’t. When I sat up and she noticed me rubbing my wrist, she asked if it hurt. I told her it was a deep ache. She said that meant there was a blockage, and suggested I rub the pain out through my hand, not back toward my body.

I could hardly tell where the needles had been. There was no blood, just some tiny discolorations that disappeared quickly. I felt fairly normal and was able to walk down the hall to her office just fine.

There she gave me a different herbal supplement than the one I’d had before. We talked about a follow-up visit. I paid and was on my way.

Once I was back home, I had a hot flash, but it wasn’t as powerful as before. That night, I had another, but it was at a different time than usual and didn’t last as long. I felt more rested than before when I awoke.

Today is the next day. I just read a research study that says acupuncture has been scientifically proven effective to help menopausal sleep disturbances, which is reassuring.

It’s too soon to say definitively if it is helping me. That will take time. I’ll let you know if it does!

In the meantime, I’m glad I resisted my urges to flee the acupuncture table. That would definitely not have been helpful. Time for some scotch.

* * *

UPDATE: Two months later, what’s the verdict?

During the first week or so, I thought the treatment wasn’t working. It involved an acupuncture session and herbal supplements to take later. Then I realized I wasn’t taking the proper dose of the supplements. When I fixed that, things seemed to improve.

I’ve done well avoiding chocolate, as the acupuncturist suggested. Not so well avoiding wine, but I have cut back quite a bit.

I went back for a follow-up session a few weeks ago. This time, she wanted to stick her needles a few new places to help my allergies and my stuffy sinuses. She asked me if she could stick some needles in my face.

Let me say that again: MY FACE. Stupidly, I said yes. I LET HER STICK NEEDLES IN MY FACE. Specifically, I let her stick two needles in that space between my upper lip and my nose. (Also known as the philtrum.)

I felt nothing with the first needle. I felt the second needle go in, plus she twisted it a bit. She also stuck a needle in the TOP OF MY HEAD. That one started to sting.

I asked her if it was normal for it to sting. She said she thought it would calm down after a while.

Happily, the pain did lessen, but it was rather disconcerting for a few minutes. Lying on the table for 20 minutes was a bit easier this second time. She also gave me an additional herbal supplement for my allergies.

For the first day or two, I had no hot flashes. Then they started returning at night, but only a few times a night. I’ve also had them during the day, but not as often as before I started treatment.

The supplement she gave me for my allergies worked like a charm.

Overall, I’d say that my hot flashes have improved by about 65%. And the flashes I get are not as extreme. They are more like warm flashes than hot flashes. I am sleeping better and plan to continue taking the supplements until I feel like I don’t need them any more (or I get sick of them, whichever comes first.)

If you are thinking of trying acupuncture for help with hot flashes, I say go for it.

Personally, I feel like I’ve had enough sessions with the needle now. I fear a continuing escalation of where she’ll want to stick needles next, and I’d rather not go there.

The Love of Their Life

/ mariezhuikov / 8 Comments

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I have developed a fascination with obituaries lately. Most likely, this is because I read them out loud every month from the local newspaper for my volunteer stint with the Lighthouse Center for Vision Loss.

Despite my history as a romance writer, the cynic in me always gets a kick out of obituaries that state the departed met or married someone who was the “love of their life.”

I have noticed that the “love of their life” phrase is usually used when the “love of their life” survives the person for whom the obituary is written. Could it be that the survivors are the ones who wrote the obituaries? If so, are they including the phrase because it’s true, or as an ego boost for themselves and a way to assert their important status in the departed person’s life?

The romance writer in me would like to think the phrase is true. But I have done an informal survey and have noticed that almost every time, the “love” is the one who is the survivor.

If the couple had a long relationship, I’d be inclined to believe that the phrase is true, but length of a relationship does not always indicate a happy, loving relationship.

I often wonder if the departed person would have included the phrase in their obituary if they had been the one to write it. Since they are dead and I cannot ask them this, I guess this is one of those unanswerable burning questions that will plague me for the rest of my days during the wee hours of the morning.

What do you think about this phrase? Is it overused? Is it just a way for survivors to feel better? Am I entirely too cynical? Should I try to solve world hunger instead?

Happy Belated Birthday Bob (Dylan)

/ mariezhuikov / 13 Comments
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Bob Dylan’s childhood home in Duluth.

Last Friday was Bob Dylan’s birthday. My hometown of Duluth does it up right by holding an annual Dylan Fest — a week of events that features song, poetry, lectures, tours, and birthday cake.

This year, we attended the launch of a new book of poetry inspired by Dylan. “Visiting Bob” contains 100 poems by U.S. and international poets. A half dozen of the poets read their works and other poets’ works. Some of the poems were beyond me but others I understood. One that stuck was by local poet, Connie Wanek. Its theme was Dylan sightings in Duluth — are they false? Are they true? It ends on a hopeful note that perhaps someday the poet really will see him back in this town where he was born.

We also attended a lecture by one of the poets from Texas, David Gaines. Because he wrote a book about Dylan, he attracted media interest when Dylan won the Nobel Prize. Gaines described his experience being interviewed by Swedish public television and other major media outlets. He also got to travel to Stockholm to attend the airing of a Swedish public television story in conjunction with the prize ceremony.

On our way home from the lecture, we decided to stop by Bob Dylan’s home on the hillside, since it was on our route and we’d never seen it. A fan owns it and has spiffed up the duplex. Dylan lived in the right-hand side. A plaque on the front of the home proclaims its significance.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve lived here over five decades and never looked it up before. ‘Bout time, I guess.

When I posted the house photo on Facebook, one of my friends said they had a chance to rent the place in the mid-1970s, but turned it down. They didn’t know the home’s significance, however. When they found out afterward, they deeply regretted their decision because they were fans.

Another friend said she walked by the place thousands of times but it took years before she learned who had lived there.

These are typical instances of  “Duluth” to me. It’s a big small town. It’s large enough to get lost in if you want, and to never see parts of it. But it’s small enough that everyone has friends in common through one means or another, whether they went to school with them, or worked with them, etc.

Even after all this time, this town still has hidden gems to discover for those who take the time to look.

Dining in the Dark

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Yesterday, Russ and I paid good money to eat food we couldn’t see. The dinner was a fundraiser for the Lighthouse Center for Vision Loss, a local group that helps people with vision problems. (You may recall that I volunteer for this group by reading the Sunday newspaper aloud over the airwaves once a month.)

The event was hosted by a local TV news personality and the keynote speaker was a man who lost his vision due to retinitis pigmentosa. From him, I learned that blind people make jokes just like the rest of us (imagine that!) and that 66% of visually impaired adults are unemployed.

Another speaker before the dinner was a woman who lost her vision to diabetes. Her best joke was that this was one night when she didn’t have to worry about how awful she eats. (Because everyone else will be blindfolded. Get it? Maybe you had to be there.)

Then two speakers instructed us on how to go about eating when blindfolded. The main tips were: to sit close to the table; put a napkin in your lap or tuck it into your shirt; feel slowly with your hands where your silverware and drinks are first; think of your plate as a clock face and have someone tell you where your food is in relationship to that; use the edge of your fork to circle your meat and determine what size it is; and keep the sharp side of your knife down when cutting meat.

Before the food was brought out, we were instructed to don black blindfolds that were provided near our place settings. Once our plates arrived, I cheated and took mine off so I could tell Russ where his food was on his plate.

I found that cutting meat was the hardest part. I attempted several cuts, but couldn’t tell if my knife was  sharp-side-down or not. I ended up just stabbing a large piece of pork and tearing off pieces with my teeth — not exactly fancy dinner behavior, but hey, it worked. I appreciated the advice about reaching slowly for water glasses and silverware. I am proud to report no spillage or droppage.

Once I mostly emptied my plate, finding the remaining food became more difficult. I can’t imagine having to eat that way all the time. The experience gave me a greater appreciation for the challenges that visually impaired people face and the important work that organizations like the Lighthouse Center do.

Careful! People Might Take you at Your Word

/ mariezhuikov / 2 Comments
Cake by Chriss

Image by Chriss from Flickr.

An incident is arising in my mind from the mists of time, perhaps because I’ve been planning several events recently. My husband and I had purchased our first house in a Duluth neighborhood. Our son was one, so we decided to hold a combination birthday party and open house for our friends and the neighbors.

On the afternoon of the party, many people showed up. Things were in full swing when a couple from down the street rang the doorbell. We hadn’t met them yet and were happy to see them at our door.

After introductions, the woman said something like, “I’m sorry, we don’t have time to stay, but we just wanted to say hello.” My husband and I expressed our disappointment at this. We chatted a few moments more and then they went on their way.

I was surprised some months later to learn from my mother (who lived in our same city) who in turn learned from one of her friends who was acquainted with the couple, that they were incensed and highly affronted that we didn’t insist they come into the party.

I stared at my mother in disbelief at this news, then started to laugh. Oh the social games people play! I had never run into that behavior before. And I’m sorry, I’m not the type of person to beg people to come to parties if they’ve said they can’t. Imagine that — the couple was angry because we believed what they said.

We lived in the neighborhood for a few years more and never did run into the couple, so we had no chance to smooth things over.

I suppose they had expected us to say, “Nonsense, please come in. We’d love for you to stay!”

Instead, they got, “Oh, sorry to hear that,” and eventually, a goodbye.

In our defense, we were new homeowners, new parents, and unschooled in social mores. But I do hope the experience made those neighbors think twice before they tried this tactic on others. I’m sure there are other people in the world who think people actually mean what they say.

Marriage Advice Learned in a Bar

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I attended a bachelorette party recently in a local pub. Two patrons near our table were asked for their advice for the bride. Bernie (a woman) and John had these sage words of wisdom to impart from their 40 years of marriage:

When you wake up each morning, ask yourself what you can do for your spouse today instead of what they can do for you. 

Solastalgia: The Psychological Impact of Environmental Change

/ mariezhuikov / 5 Comments
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Leah Prussia, College of St. Scholastica.

Earlier this month, I attended the St. Louis River Summit. This science conference about the largest river that empties into Lake Superior (on the U.S. side) has gradually been incorporating more presentations that aren’t as “sciencey” as usual.

One of them caught my interest. Presented by Leah Prussia with the College of St. Scholastica, it was called “Solstalgia: An Intersection of Shared Knowledge.”

“What is solastalgia?” you may ask. Solastalgia is an English term for the mental or emotional distress that people feel from harmful environmental changes. It’s made up of “solace” and “nostalgia.” People feeling solastalgia no longer receive solace from their environment. Due to changes, they feel nostalgia for the way the place used to be. It’s a relatively new word, coined in 2003.

The changes can be from environmental catastrophes, such as volcanoes or floods, or from human-made changes like development or climate change.

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St. Scholastica students gathering stories about people’s experiences with solastalgia.

Prussia, a social work professor, had her students at the Summit to collect people’s stories during lunch. I told them the story of a grove of trees near my home where I used to play with other neighborhood kids. I was devastated when the grove was cleared for a new house.

I remember complaining to the neighbor boy about it while we were on the swing set in my back yard. He said I’d get over it. That was almost fifty years ago!

I’m obviously still not over it if I can remember the pain I felt at the change. Have you ever felt solastalgia?

 

What it’s like to have Cataract Surgery

/ mariezhuikov / 2 Comments

As the anesthetist wheeled my hospital bed down the hall, I looked up at the rectangles of passing florescent lights overhead, stereotypical of every television hospital scene ever filmed. Maybe it was a side effect of the sedative he gave me, but the thought that I was in a bad TV movie amused me.

I was going into surgery to have my old dirty cloudy eye lens plucked out from my right eye and replaced with an UltraSert lens, corrected for my nearsightedness and with UV and blue light filters! Years of squinting into the sun and just plain living had caught up with me. I’d been seeing haloes around the headlights of oncoming cars for years. Things had gotten so bad recently that I started avoiding driving at night.

This surgery was going to give me a new lease on seeing. My friends who had undergone the procedure told me it was a piece of cake, but I was skeptical about staying awake and having someone rummaging around in my eye innards. It didn’t help that the day before my surgery, news reports came out about a woman who committed suicide because her Lasik surgery went wrong.

At least I was having a different procedure done, but it still gave me pause.

Well, I am still here to say that I’m looking forward to having my other lens replaced later this week. Although I didn’t feel that sedated, I was apparently relaxed enough that they didn’t need to strap my head down to keep it from moving.

The doctor opened my eye with a speculum. They irrigated my eye with a saline solution and that’s about the only thing I felt. The main thing I had to remind myself was not to try to blink or struggle against the speculum.

What did I see? The white light that the doctor used to look into my eye. I saw the light the whole time through the 20-minute procedure. I couldn’t really tell when my old lens was gone and the new one was put in – I always saw light, although I guess from stories I’ve heard, other people see a red light or blackness. There was one point when my sight seemed to take a more internal turn, and I got impressions of things floating around inside my eye. Perhaps that’s when I was lensless.

From the time I got to the outpatient clinic to the time I went home took about 4 hours. You’ll need a friend to drive you home and back later the same day to the clinic for a follow-up exam by your doctor where s/he will check the pressure of your eye and make sure everything’s okay.

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A blurry photo of my fashionable night eye guard that I wore for a week.

Be prepared for a lot of different drops put in your eye. Post-surgery you’ll be on an eye drop regimen that consists of a steroid to keep the swelling down and an antibiotic to prevent infection. At night, you’ll need to wear an eye guard for the first week.

The worst part of the procedure was only having one good eye to work with for two weeks. Although I got a clear lens placed in my eyeglasses over my good eye, I found I couldn’t tolerate wearing my glasses because of the lack of depth perception. So I’ve just been going around with one clear eye and one fuzzy eye. So if you notice any spelling errors in this post, that is why! But I’ve been making due the best I can in the meantime, and I’ve been able to drive all right (20/30 vision in my surgeried eye makes me legal to drive).

I also went out and bought a brand new pair of nonprescription sunglasses — first time I’ve been able to do that in years! The surgery seems to have made my eyes more sensitive to light, and the sunglasses are helpful.

A creepy side effect of the surgery is that, in the right conditions, I can see reflections from the artificial lens in my eye. I can tell that it’s not natural – kind of like having a robot eye. I wasn’t expecting that. But I guess it’s worth it to have better vision.

Anyway, wish me luck on my next surgery, and if you are scheduled to have it – I’m here to attest that it really isn’t so bad. It may even free you from glasses. And no, my doctor is not paying me to say any of this!

The Gauntlet

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Shopping for lotion, I enter the store.

A clerk approaches and asks if I would like a basket.

“Why yes,” I say.

As I walk to the rack that carries my lotion (named Hello Beautiful)

the clerk asks if she can help me find anything.

“It’s right here,” I say proudly, having found my lotion by myself. “Hello Beautiful.”

She triumphantly points to another rack nearby

where lotions sit with the same name and a different label design.

I ponder the new ones, wondering, why can’t they just leave it alone?

Whenever I find something I like, the powers-that-be

change the recipe, change the label, change the scent, change the price.

I put the lotions in my basket.

I walk through the store where another clerk

asks if I’ve found everything I need.

“Yes,” I say.

She leaves, downcast at my satisfaction.

I stand in the checkout line,

almost to the end.

It’s my turn and the cashier looks into my basket, dismayed.

“Oh, don’t you want any spray? It’s twoferone!”

“No thank you.”

She tisk-tisks and rings me up. Asks if I have an email address.

“I don’t like to give that out,” I say.

She give me a look, bags my purchases and starts to hand them to me.

I expect a request for my social security number before she

lets my lotions go, but no.

She has my money and I am free now,

having survived another pass

through the capitalist gauntlet.

The Jayme Closs Case and the Importance of News Headlines

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Jayme (right), her aunt, and doggie, safe at home. Credit: Jennifer Smith

I was in the bathroom, putting on my makeup with the door open when the television news story came on about Jayme Closs. She’s the 13-year-old girl who was kidnapped in northern Wisconsin. This was the morning after she was “found.”

The newscasters were going on about how she had been “found alive.” Of course, this was wonderful and superb. News of her kidnapping had filled newspapers and airwaves for weeks, and it seemed that, especially during the holidays, her photo and identifying information appeared often in an attempt to keep public awareness keen.

The reporter on the news show was interviewing Jayme’s aunt over the phone and was asking for details about how Jayme had been found. Since there had been such a major search effort put on for her in the area where she disappeared, I think most people assumed that volunteers or the authorities had found her. Part of the inherent definition of “found” is that it’s something that somebody else does.

Then Jayme’s aunt said that Jayme had escaped from the house where she was held. I popped my head out of the bathroom and walked over to the television. This was new information. This wasn’t just a damsel in distress being found. This was the damsel slaying the dragon and saving herself!

I watched the interview for a few more minutes, but then had to leave for work. During my drive, I heard a radio story about how Jayme had been “found.”

By the time I got to work, the writer in me and the MeToo woman-power feminist in me was dismayed by the passive and inaccurate role these newscasts were putting Jayme in. I wrote this quick post to my recent (personal) Twitter account:

I’m happy and relieved to hear that Jayme Closs is alive! However, it bugs me that the media keeps saying she was “found” alive. She freakin’ escaped her captor and saved herself. #JaymeCloss

I’ve only written a few tweets before then, and I’d never used a hashtag before. I didn’t expect much to come of it.

Holy moly, the thing went viral! As of this writing, my little tweet made 209,000 impressions. It had 4,400 engagements, 2,270 likes, 372 retweets and 78 replies. At one point as I sat watching the stats rise, 20 people per second were viewing it.

That was scarily overwhelming for a person whose most popular tweet to date only had six likes. Handling the comments was also overwhelming. Obviously, many people agreed with my sentiments and said they thought the same thing. Others were upset because they thought I was criticizing law enforcement personnel. I explained I was criticizing the news media, not law enforcement.

Others asked me what words would be better to use instead. I said, “Missing Girl Escapes.” Better yet is the headline I saw a few days ago that said, “She’s the Hero!”

Others jumped on my semantics bandwagon and criticized the use of the word “miracle” in connection with her escape. “It’s called self-preservation and bravery,” one tweeter said.

Then the authorities held their first news conference after her escape and commenters to my tweet started dissing them for the self-congratulatory tone of the event. Yes, these agencies did stellar work in trying to find her, and yes, they found her captor soon after Jayme escaped, but to many, it seemed as if the law enforcement agencies were taking all the credit and not giving enough to Jayme. This incensed one commenter so much that she said she called the sheriff’s office and complained about the way they handled the press conference.

Others criticized me for making a big deal out of word choice when this was such a joyous occasion. All I can say is that words matter. Accuracy matters. I have a journalism background and master’s degree in journalism. Words are part of who I am and I’m not going to apologize for that. And it’s obvious my words struck a chord because a heck of a lot of the commenters agreed with me.

This issue makes me wonder, if Jayme had been a boy, would the news media and the authorities have characterized her escape so passively at first? Comparing headlines (passive vs. active) for kidnap victims who escape would be a good PhD journalism research project to see if gender plays a role. PhD students feel free to steal this idea!

Lately, the news conversation has been about who should get the $50,000 reward in the case. Everyone – even the people who first saw Jayme – are saying the reward should go to Jayme because she saved herself. I think that’s very fitting. Jayme’s parents were both killed by her attacker/kidnapper. She’s going to need all the emotional and financial help she can get in the future. I hope that happens.

But I’m not going to tweet this opinion. 🙂

 

P.S. If you want to write or donate to Jayme, the address is: Light the Way Home for Jayme, PO Box 539, Rice Lake, WI, 54868.