Itchy McItcherson

Hey all! So there have been some new developments (15 years in the making, so not really all that new) around here. This entire post will be about my journey with dyshidrotic eczema, so if you're not into reading about skin conditions and the myriad of treatments that go along with them, you might want to skip this one. However, if you or someone you know suffer from eczema or any other itchy, uncomfortable, debilitating skin issue, it might be worth the read. 

So, from the beginning. I have had chronically dry skin since before I can even remember...to the point that I've been using medical grade moisturizers since I was about 13 years old. I remember itching so badly at night (always at night) that I would wake up in the morning with blood all over my legs and under my fingernails. I wasn't even aware that I had been itching. I started cutting my fingernails super short and wearing socks on my hands to bed just to try to keep me from ripping all my skin off while I slept. I even tried wearing footie pajamas as a way to keep a barrier between my fingernails and my skin. I had to take soaking baths using colloidal oatmeal to try to soothe my irritated skin. My friends will remember me hauling around my trusty blue-and-white tub of Vanicream with me everywhere I went. Vanicream is made in Rochester, MN and is used by the Mayo Clinic for a lot of their compounded creams and ointments for dermatological conditions. For the last decade or so it's been widely available everywhere, but when I first started travel nursing back in 2006, I could only find it in pharmacies in Rochester and had to stock up when I was home in Minnesota because it was impossible to find on the road. Having to use Vanicream and only Vanicream kept me from enjoying all the lotions and soaps from Bath & Body Works and other fun bath product places as well. So while my friends were going around smelling like candied apples and rose-scented geraniums, I smelled like...well...nothing, really, as my lotion had no scent at all. For a large part of my teens and early 20's, my skin and I coexisted relatively well, with only minor flare-ups here and there necessitating I go on an "elimination" regimen of bath products; meaning I cut out all my regular bath products, switched to medical grade hypoallergenic products, and then added in my regular products one by one until I figured out the culprit of the flare-up. Sometimes I never did figure out what caused the flare-up, which is probably due to the fact that I've also had environmental allergies and asthma for most of my life, which also makes me react to things at random. Do I sound like a mess? I sound like one...on paper, anyway. ;) 

When I was 25, I started noticing this weird, itchy patch of skin on the middle finger of my right hand. It didn't really bother me all that much, but it was definitely something that hadn't been there before, and was also noticeably different from the skin issues I had had in the past. I had recently purchased and started wearing a tungsten ring on that finger, and so I thought maybe it was due to a metal sensitivity, which is something I'd dealt with in the past. As a child and young adult, if I wore any sort of cheap jewelry, whether it was a ring, a watch, or earrings, I would almost immediately break out in a rash in the exact location that the metal was touching my skin. I learned early on that most of my jewelry had to be sterling silver, surgical steel, or gold, which meant having an entire arsenal of cute dangly earrings from Claire's was out of the question. Perhaps that's why I've never been much of a jewelry person, as for most of my life it's caused me considerable discomfort. I had my doubts that the itchy patch on my finger was caused by my tungsten ring, as I had done research on tungsten and it was supposed to be non-allergenic. So I continued to wear the ring and carried on with life, itchy finger be damned. 

It wasn't long after getting the tungsten ring that I started travel nursing. As most of you know or can imagine, travel nursing entails a considerable amount of stress. Driving across the country, moving into a new apartment, learning a new city, learning a new hospital, meeting new coworkers, making new friends. I was doing that every three months. The little itchy spot on my middle finger turned into big itchy spots on not only my middle finger, but also the ring finger and pointer finger on my right hand. I started to get a little concerned, but I continued to moisturize frequently and I bought an over-the-counter steroid for really bad flare-ups and that seemed to keep things relatively calm, most of the time. What I didn't realize at the time, and wouldn't realize for probably a decade after I first noticed that initial itchy patch, is that the flare-ups were cyclical, and definitely followed a pretty distinct pattern, stress level being a major contributor. 

I remember going to see a doctor in St. Paul, MN when I was 27, as the itchy spots were no longer just itchy spots...they started out as little tiny water blisters that were horrifically itchy...like nothing I'd ever experienced before. The water blisters would then pop, the skin would be open and raw, and then it would dry out and look like a callous, at which point the skin would crack open and bleed. It was a pretty terrible progression, and I wasn't prepared for how to deal with it. At this point I had resorted to wearing bandaids on all my fingers and had switched to using Neutrogena Norwegian hand cream, which was more of an ointment than a cream, and I was applying that so often that I was going through almost a tube a week. At that time it seemed like the only thing that was kind of working. The doctor, who was a GP (general practitioner) and not a dermatologist, diagnosed me with atopic dermatitis, one of several types of eczema, and prescribed me a steroid cream that was stronger than what I could get in the drugstore. I didn't know it then, but I had been misdiagnosed. It turns out there are many different types of eczema, and while I would come to find out later that I had one of the more rare versions, I was initially diagnosed with one of the more common versions. It turns out that treatment matters, but for the time being, the steroid commonly used to treat atopic dermatitis was mostly working.   

When I was 28, Simon and I started travel nursing together, and our first assignment was in Denver, CO. The eczema went completely off the rails within my first week of being there. I thought maybe it had something to do with an allergen that my body wasn't used to, as previously any time I had spent in Colorado had been very brief. The blisters on my fingers this time were huge, super painful, and so incredibly itchy. The blisters were now on multiple fingers of both hands, leaving me with incredibly painful open wounds. Once again my fingers were covered in bandaids or soft cotton dressings as the adhesive on the bandaids was too painful on my open skin, and there was no way to keep the adhesive off the open areas, since they were everywhere. I had to miss three days of work as I could barely stand to get my hands wet, let alone use hand sanitizer or wash them with soap and water frequently. I was also concerned about being in a hospital environment with open wounds; we come into contact with a lot of different infectious organisms in the hospital, and I didn't want to make myself sick. Off I went again to the doctor, but this time I made sure to see a dermatologist. He took one look at my hands and diagnosed me with dyshidrotic eczema; still eczema, but the treatment was going to be a little different. I was prescribed a different topical called Clobex, which was still a steroid, but a different steroid. Within hours of applying the ointment I had relief of the pain and itching and noticed the blisters shrinking. It was actually pretty amazing to experience. For the next several years, I would suffer occasional flare-ups, but the combination of the Clobex and the Vanicream mostly kept things under control. 

The hardest part about having dyshidrotic eczema during those early years of my diagnosis was that there really wasn't much information out there about it. All of the information was mostly centered around atopic dermatitis, which is the most common form of eczema. Unfortunately, dyshidrotic eczema and atopic dermatitis are just similar enough that while some of the treatments have some overlap, they are just different enough that some of the treatments are ineffective. I frequently Googled dyshidrotic eczema, trying to find other things that might be contributing to my flareups. Was it something I was eating? Was it my hand soap? My laundry soap? Was my trusty Vanicream failing me after all these years? Were my environmental allergies contributing? Years later I would come to find out that yes, all of those things, yes. But in the meantime, I continued to navigate flareup after flareup, hoping that maybe someday it would just go away. There is some literature out there to suggest that dyshidrotic eczema typically affects people (mostly women) from their mid-20s to their late 30s/early 40s. As I neared 40 I got more and more optimistic that maybe the eczema was on its way out; I'm currently 41 and it's showing no signs whatsoever of vacating the premises anytime soon.

So just a little tidbit about eczema...eczema and all its variations (including dyshidrotic) is considered an autoimmune disorder, which means that for whatever reason, the immune system starts attacking your body, resulting in unfavorable, uncomfortable, debilitating, and sometimes life-threatening symptoms. Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto's, multiple sclerosis, celiac disease, and lupus are some of the more commonly known autoimmune disorders. There has been some recent research indicating that asthma is also an autoimmune disorder, as it responds to immunosuppressive therapy. There is a lot of research out there indicating that once a person has one autoimmune disorder, the probability that they will suffer additional autoimmune disorders is highly likely. I've had asthma since I was about 9 years old, and I've read several articles indicating that individuals with asthma frequently also suffer from eczema.  Some only have the eczema as children and outgrow it, but some people suffer from it their entire lives with varying severity. My brothers and I all have asthma, which we have mostly outgrown, but we also all currently have or previously had eczema of one form or another. I find that very interesting.

In 2012 Simon and I moved to Flagstaff, AZ. Cue up the eczema, which again went right off the rails. While the blisters themselves stayed relatively small this time, nearly all my fingers on both hands and the upper parts of both of my palms were covered in them. Which then lead to cracking, itching, pain...all the usual suspects showed up for the party. I found a wonderful dermatologist here in town, who truly changed my life with regard to my skin. I was prescribed a different steroid, which I still use to this day. At this time, there was still very little information related specifically to dyshidrotic eczema, so I continued to carry on with life as usual, using the steroid ointment as necessary, which as the years went on, became more and more, to the point that I was using it almost daily earlier this year. 

In late February/early March of this year, I again had a really nasty flareup that caused me to miss a whole week of work as I sorted things out. I went to my dermatologist again, and this time she had some new information for me, along with a new treatment regimen that included using CeraVe lotion, which has ceramides in it, which promote health and healing of dry, damaged, reactive skin (funny story, Simon's mom had told me about CeraVe years ago, but I had been using Vanicream for so long with good results that I hadn't been interested in changing up my regimen at that time...had I only known!!). I don't leave home without a little tube of CeraVe in my purse, and I even have a tube of it that I use at work. I apply the lotion after every hand washing, and in-between washings when my skin feels dry. I use CeraVe cream on my hands at night, along with CeraVe healing ointment, which feels like Vaseline. Since March the eczema has been better, but still not as in control as I would like. 

So here's the elephant in the room that I had been overlooking for far too long...my worst flareups are almost completely related to stress. When I go back and look at all my worst flareups, I was stressed out. I was moving, I was starting a new job, I was traveling, I was having oppositional work relations with a coworker, etc. When I'm stressed I don't eat well and I don't sleep well, which just causes more stress. And what was happening in March of this year? COVID. At baseline I can be a high-strung, reactionary person to even the tiniest of stressors, and I try my best to manage it as well as I can. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It's the times that I don't that I notice the eczema popping in to say hello. Of course my flareups are always worse on my workdays; in part due to stress, in part due to all the hand washing and hand sanitizer use. Being a nurse is stressful (exponentially so during the pandemic), and I wish there were better ways for me specifically to manage my work-related stress. I've tried having soothing essential oils for me to sniff periodically; I've tried deep breathing; I've tried stepping off the unit periodically to get away from the beeping IVs, the call lights, the interruptions, and the noise; I've tried keeping a special little snack in my lunch box for me to have when I need a little uplift (no, not that kind of snack...like a piece of chocolate or a bubbly water). I stepped down from the charge nurse role in May after a series of (in my opinion) questionable institutional changes in the midst of COVID added a considerable amount of stress to my job and left me in tears three nights in a row. Until those shifts, I could count on one hand with fingers to spare the number of times I'd cried at work; three days in a row is unprecedented for me. The stress level has been better since leaving the charge role, but it's more than I'd like, and is probably more than is healthy for me. Periodically I consider a change in career. Not necessarily outside of the nursing profession, but maybe outside of the hospital setting. Doing nothing but giving flu shots all day long sounds like a dream to me. Seriously. I've been working hard as a floor nurse in the hospital for over 18 years. Maybe it's time I took a break from all that. I think that would help considerably with my stress, and probably my eczema as well. 

I stumbled upon some new research on dyshydrotic eczema the other day that seems promising. Apparently there have been some new studies exploring the relationship between foods and dyshidrotic eczema; previously I was able to find all kinds of diet modifications for atopic dermatitis, but nothing specifically for dyshidrotic eczema. This is literally the research I've been looking for, as I've suspected that in addition to all the environmental triggers I was trying to manage, there had be to something that I was eating that was also contributing to my flareups. Studies have shown that foods high in nickel contribute in general to eczema flareups, and more specifically to dyshidrotic eczema flareups. Remember way back in one of the first paragraphs when I talked about my sensitivity to metals when I was young? It was the nickel I was reacting to (which I'd known about for a long time, and have been intentionally avoiding for decades). Having a nickel sensitivity isn't a rare thing, I'm sure you've seen jewelry that says nickel-free or low-nickel content on the packaging...there are a lot of people out there who have a physical sensitivity to nickel, which is typically found in low-quality jewelry. There was no way I would have ever correlated my skin's physical sensitivity to nickel with the nickel-containing foods I was eating, and I was so elated to find this new research. I about swung from the rafters with joy; that is, until I saw chocolate on the list. There are actually a few of my daily faves that made the list of high-nickel content foods to avoid. Briefly (in order of foods I enjoy most to least): chocolate, whole grains, raspberries, nuts (including nut butters), seeds, shellfish, brown rice, pineapple, beans/legumes, leafy greens, soy (which is in pretty much anything and everything that's processed), and pretty much anything canned (there is nickel in the metal of the cans, and the heating of the cans during the canning process causes the nickel to leech out into the food). I'm trying to not be devastated as I remove those items from my diet for the next month or so to see if there's any difference. Those of you who know my affinity for peanut butter cups (and peanut butter in general) know how difficult this is going to be for me, but if it works, it'll all be worth it, and hopefully maybe down the road I can start adding things back one by one to see if I react. Thankfully coffee and wine didn't make the list of things to avoid...I might have had a complete melt down. I was a little surprised to see that dairy and non-whole grain wheat products didn't make the list of foods to avoid, as those products have been shown to have inflammatory properties as well. I'm going to use those sparingly here in the beginning just to try to hedge my bets.   

I started keeping a food diary again, documenting everything I eat. I'm also documenting any symptoms of blisters, itching, or skin cracking to see if there are more foods not on the low-nickel list that I should try eliminating. Typically symptoms of sensitivity can show up anywhere from an hour to 24 hours after the food has been ingested, so keeping a daily log of food and symptoms might help me to narrow down what it is I'm reacting to. I've switched up my skin care regimen to only using Aveeno body wash, which was recommended by the Eczema foundation, and Cetaphil Gentle Daily Cleanser, which is a non-soap cleanser. I'm not sure how a non-soap cleanser works, but it's way less caustic to my skin than other hand soaps I've been using. I no longer use bar soaps, as bar soaps are more harsh than liquid soaps due to the ingredients used to keep them in bar form. I've eliminated all products containing lanolin, as my dermatologist said that lanolin has inflammatory properties that trigger eczema flareups, and I've actually experienced my skin being red, raw, and itchy after using lanolin-containing products (it was shocking to me to see how many intense hand creams recommended for nurses had lanolin in them). I'm also working on using up/throwing away all my personal care products with added fragrance, which in addition to being almost a little overwhelming scent-wise, is also known to contribute to allergy symptoms. I'm going to use up most of the Monat shampoo, conditioner, and facial skin care that I bought, and once that's gone I'm probably going to switch to Beauty Counter products, which have less additives and less fragrance. I'll probably continue to use the Monat hair styling/treatment products, as my hair has never looked as good as it does now, but if I find something a little more gentle yet effective in the coming months, I'll probably switch that out as well. Perhaps Monat will start removing/decreasing the added fragrance to their products, which would be wonderful as I like their products but don't necessarily appreciate all the fragrance, and I don't think my eczema or environmental allergies do either. The EWG app/website has been a great resource for me in finding products that are non-toxic/low allergy. It can be a little overwhelming at first, but with a little help from my friend Rita (a Beauty Counter associate), I've been able to figure out some products that might work for me moving forward.

I'm taking a daily antihistamine (well, taking being a relative term...I'm terrible at daily medicine regimens) to help curb my environmental allergies as well. That should hopefully help. Not having pets in the house would also probably be a big help as I'm allergic to them, but that's not going to happen. Some dog-shaped allergens are worth keeping around for my mental health and overall wellbeing. 

So yeah...I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic, I'm hoping that maybe these recent changes will help and I can kick this dyshidrotic eczema on its butt once and for all. And if I can't kick it completely, my hope is that at the very least, maybe I can make it a little more bearable. If you have any experiences with dyshidrotic eczema or you have something that has worked for you, by all means please share! And of course, if any of you have questions about my experience specifically, including the topicals I use, the dermatologist I see, the personal care products I've had luck with, please let me know. I'm happy to help and it would be nice to know that all my trial and error could benefit someone else. :)

Be well my friends!

 

It's Been Quiet Around Here

You might have noticed (but maybe not, and that's okay) that I haven't been much of a presence on social media much these days. Or rather, not on Facebook specifically. These past few months have been hard for so many people for so many reasons, myself included. Navigating a pandemic while being a front-line worker is almost, almost starting to feel normal. I don't want it to feel normal, but at the same time, a bit of normalcy implies expectations with hopefully somewhat measurable goals, and during this time of things changing everyday, sometimes by the hour, it's helpful to have expectations and goals, fleeting though they may be. More on that later. I've also been pondering my position of being white during the largest period of civil unrest in my lifetime thus far. There have been lots of conversations, sad moments, angry moments, frustrating moments, helpless moments. I've been holding off on writing anything about it because I still don't know how I personally feel about it, what my role is, how I can help. More on that later too. But first (and at the end), the light-hearted updates, because I think we could all use some lighter hearts these days. 

Marshal Lake with the San Francisco Peaks in the background

Simon and I recently became the proud owners of not one, but TWO Amazon Alexa speakers. I am nothing if not a sucker for a deal, and SirusXM finally reeled me in with a deal of $5 per month satellite radio service with unlimited access anywhere on any of my devices, assuming of course I am in view of a satellite or have a decent wifi connection. To sweeten the deal, they added in a free Echo Dot speaker. And not only that, but a week after receiving my free Echo Dot, they offered me another Echo Dot for $10! You mean I can listen to the same music on different speakers in multiple rooms? Or I can listen to one station in one room, and Simon can simultaneously listen to another station in another room? And the options for stations are seemingly endless? What is this sorcery?? Seriously, my GenX roots are showing via my technological ineptitude. This technology has existed for years and here I am, so excited about my shiny new toy, too distracted to fully comprehend the fact that not one, but two speakers are now constantly listening to and ultimately spying on me 24/7. But with Alexa always listening, I'm never truly alone, right? It's okay to drink an entire bottle of wine by myself on a Tuesday night because as long as there's someone listening, I'm not actually drinking alone (not that there's anything wrong with that; I drink alone all the time), thereby bypassing this cultural judginess that would have us believe that drinking by oneself means that we have a problem controlling our liquor. What did I do last night? Oh, not too much; Alexa and I just shared a bottle of Rose and we ate an entire brick of cheddar whilst watching [insert current favorite TV show]...it was great. Nevermind that Alexa won't help me with that bottle of wine or that brick of cheese, nor will she help me with the hangover the next morning or have a poop later that next day (seriously, I eat so much cheese), but that can be my little secret. But wait, she can help! She can probably hook me up with a quick fitness routine and can order me some laxatives post haste! Free one-day shipping? Sounds like a plan. 

She's always listening...

All guile aside, Simon and I have been using our speakers spending our time listening to a lot of 89.3 The Current, our favorite radio station out of Minneapolis, and I tell you what, it's like falling in love all over again. With each other, with music, with the state we came from and the city where we met, and still love so very much. I hadn't actually heard of The Current until I met Simon back in 2007. He had been listening to that station for years when we met, and truth be told, I think he loved listening to that station almost as much as loved making art. When I met Simon (well, after he decided to start talking to me, which was actually months after we met...hahaha), he was one of the most interesting people I'd ever met. He was into this indie music scene listening to artists I'd never heard of, he was an artist using a medium (pastels) with which I was unfamiliar, he rode a Harley but also a fixed-gear bicycle (I'd also never heard of a bike like that...no gears? What does that even mean?), he kayaked, and he ate the weirdest food. Seriously, I was instantly curious about Simon not because I wanted to date him (that came later), but because I couldn't figure out what in the heck he was eating out of those little containers at work in the wee hours of the morning; that weird period of time when the patients are all asleep, there's a half-hour (or more, if you're lucky) where not a single IV pump is beeping or call light is chirping, when you can really get to know the person you're working with, because at that point, you're doing everything you can just to stay awake. It took me months of pestering to get Simon to talk to me during those moments of near cognitive collapse, where a standing-upright nap almost seemed plausible. One of the very first conversations we had that wasn't him answering my endless stream of questions with a clipped 'yes' or 'no' was about music. Glory be, he was capable of conversation, and turns out, he wasn't the angry gay man from rural Minnesota who had moved to Minneapolis to escape the scorn of his ultra-conservative and unaccepting family (this was the back-story I had made up for him in the months before he starting conversing with me like a normal human being). To be fair, he was dealing with some of his own things that had nothing to do with being angry or gay, and his lack of interest in befriending me had nothing to do with me at all. Unfortunately at 2am, it's easy to take literally anything personally. We laugh about it now, especially my back story for him, which couldn't have been more wrong. In March of 2007, I called out sick to work one night and we met up at the Happy Gnome (gone but never forgotten) in St. Paul where we indulged in Dead Guy Ales and for hours, talked about all the things. The rest, as they say, is history. Our history. And a big part of that history is to the tune of The Current, which we would listen to for hours. Check it out if you're unfamiliar with that station, it's seriously one of the best, and we've so been enjoying listening to it again.

13 years later and he's still my favorite 

Man, it feels good to write. I sometimes forget how much I enjoy writing. It's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day rush of life, the news, the political climate, the social unrest, the hospital environment, and the seemingly endless online shopping. Yep, still got that problem. I wish I could say that it's better, and I guess in some ways it is, but I still buy all these things that I don't need because shopping, for me, is self-soothing (it's part of the American Dream, is it not? Buy buy buy...). I've been making better choices (in my opinion, of course) about what I'm buying. I've been trying really hard to support small and local businesses, now more than ever as they've been the ones hit hardest by the pandemic. My jewelry collection has exploded these past few months after discovering that my yoga teacher Sarah is also an incredibly talented craftsperson of all things dangly and sparkly. Check out her shop here. Don't say I didn't warn you, her stuff is incredibly beautiful. I have all my earrings and such displayed on a wall hanger, and sometimes I'll just sit there and look at them...they're so pretty! It's ironic that after all these years I have the motivation to dress up and accessorize, and I've no where to go because either everywhere I'd like to go is still mostly shut down, or I've just lost interest in being around the general public. The other day Simon and I ran some mundane errands in town and I wore a dress, dressy sandals, and dangly earrings; just because I wanted to feel like a normal human being doing normal human being things and looking cute while doing it. It was brief, but it was nice. For a moment there things felt like they used to...and then I sneezed into my mask and was instantly brought back to our pandemic reality. I try to wear normal-people clothes as much as I can, but some days (ahem, Tuesday) the bathrobe stays on well into the afternoon. I refuse to feel bad about it. And also, I had just worked four night shifts in a row...I'd earned that bathrobe time.

Some of my pretty things

So let's talk about the pandemic and where it's at for me. Like I said earlier, it's starting to feel almost normal, which is a love-hate situation for me. Knowing it's out there, knowing that we're doing more testing, knowing that our healthcare providers are better equipped to treat patients with coronavirus is all very well and good, but I'm exhausted. I'm not even treating the sickest of the sick and I'm exhausted. I'm also incredibly disappointed in the way the so-called leaders of our country have been handling this situation. They've managed to politicize a health crisis, which is absolutely disgusting. They seem to think that pandering to a very vocal minority will get them re-elected this fall...I guess we'll see about that, won't we? Some of them (far too many of them, in my opinion) seem to be under the impression that if we just carry on as usual and pretend that the virus doesn't exist, that it'll fade away into obscurity and things will just go back to the way they were. Try telling that to some of my patients who have lost multiple family members, who have spent weeks alone in the hospital, some of those weeks lost and gone forever because they were sedated and on a ventilator, riding the wave of 'Will they make it? Will they not?' Imagine waking up from something like that, in the throes of hospital-induced delirium, and being told that while you were sleeping, your entire family died. There's no one left to take care of you when you're ready to be discharged, so you'll have to go to a nursing home or a rehab center. In the meantime your house has fallen into disrepair, you've defaulted on your loans, your pets have died, and you have no one to contact regarding getting your affairs in order because you don't even know where to begin. You don't even have the ability to grieve with those family members who are left because visitors aren't allowed in the hospital. How fucking tragic. These are the things that are exhausting for me. Yes, there's physical exhaustion there, but it's nothing compared to the mental and emotional exhaustion that comes along with helping my patients understand and cope with some of the biggest losses of their lives.

Modern day nursing feels like...

Back in May, I stepped down from being a core charge nurse. What does that mean, exactly? What it means is that rather than being a leader on my nursing unit, I've gone back to working side-by-side on the floor with my coworkers. Faced with some grim numbers, our administrators made some changes to our staffing that greatly affected the way I had grown accustomed to doing my job. I had reservations about making such changes in the midst of a pandemic, but I thought I could handle it. In the end, it turns out that I couldn't. It was too much stress, too much change, too far a departure from the nurse I want to be, the nurse I'm proud to be. The changes didn't play to my strengths, which is a person with almost two decades of nursing experience, a person with the ability to support and educate those who are less experienced. The changes took me away from my patients, and it also took me away from my staff, and that's just not who I am as a nurse. I want to be involved, I want to be in the thick of it, working together for the better of our patients, our staff, and our hospital. The changes that were made caused me to feel vulnerable, helpless, abandoned, and betrayed, and they were causing me to hate the very profession that has been so important to me for so long. That's not a good place to be, and truth be told, I just don't have the right personality to truly be a leader; I'm too sensitive and I'm too emotionally reactive. People who are good at their jobs are not necessarily good at being leaders; going through this has definitely shown me that. Leaving the charge role was a bit of an ugly exit, to be honest. Fits were thrown, tears were shed, emotionally charged text messages and emails were sent. I honestly felt like a crazy person. Thank goodness this didn't all coincide with my period or I might have just burned the place to the ground (think Heath Ledger as the Joker in the Dark Knight, walking away from the burning down hospital in a nurse's uniform...that's what I picture in my head when I think about it...funny not funny). I was left feeling that for the good of my working relationships and my own personal mental health, I needed to step down. Overwhelmingly, I was supported by my peers, which left me feeling so grateful, and helped me to feel like I was making the right decision, for me and for them. In the end I think it worked out. I think I'm more suited to be a helper; and I really like being a helper. I'm still able to be a resource for my coworkers, and I'm back to working directly with patients, which is something that I mostly enjoy; the reality is that nursing isn't always an enjoyable profession, but for the most part it's good for me and it's something I feel I'm good at. I still fill in as a charge nurse from time to time, but only on my terms; I've definitely had to learn to set some boundaries with my employer, which is something that has always been a struggle for me. Sometimes it's hard to say no, but sometimes you have to.

Wildflowers in the garden

Ready for more light stuff? Yeah, me too. I got two more orchids on Tuesday. Call it hubris, call it stupidity, call it a misunderstanding of reality, but a friend of mine approached me wanting to re-home two of her struggling orchids, and I immediately jumped at the opportunity. Apparently having one orchid survive for almost an entire year (with a lot of help from my friend Jesse, who I call my orchid guru) has given me the confidence to take on a couple strugglers. We'll see how it goes. Orchids are tough. Oddly enough, it appears that I'm better at keeping orchids alive than I am at keeping my outside plants alive. To date, the death count of my outdoor plants is as follows: 1 lavender plant, 2 Icelandic poppies, 3 creeping thyme, and 1 oriental poppy. Doesn't sound like much, but I tried so hard to keep those buggers alive, and it was heart-breaking to watch them die. Also worth mentioning but maybe not my fault, 4 of our little aspen trees got the fungus and had to be cut down. Sad. We still have one aspen left, and I haven't found any fungus on it yet, so maybe that one will live. Currently on death watch: 1 basil, 3 columbines, 2 snow on the mountain, 1 peony, and 2-3 periwinkles. It's a good thing I'm not reliant on my gardening abilities to survive or I would have starved to death long ago. I do have a decent amount of perennials that the previous owner of the house had planted, and those are all doing really well. I have some lamb's ear that are tall and beautiful and typically covered in bees. My Russian sage bushes are getting big and are so very fragrant. I had a can of wildflower mix that I bought a couple years ago at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix when they were having their plant sale, and those are doing really well. So many pink and purple blooms! I was expecting mostly orange and yellow, since those seem to be the colors of the desert, so the pinks and purples have been a nice surprise. It seems like there's always something new blooming in the wildflower bed, with oh so many bee butts sticking out of them. I also recently planted (albeit relatively late in the growing season) 2 hot pepper plants, 1 sage plant, and 1 rosemary plant. Those four are all still alive, but I'm not getting attached. My indoor plants are currently crowding out all my east-facing windows, since those are the two windows that are best suited for plants at the moment. 3 aloe, 2 cactus, 4 orchids, 1 bromeliad, 1 jade, 4 miscellaneous succulents, 1 amaryllis which refuses to bloom (maybe next year?), 1 crown of thorns without the thorns (which desperately needs to be repotted...it's huge!), 1 persian cyclamen, and an impulse-buy Plumeria which will probably not survive because it's an outdoor plant and it won't survive the winter here, so I'll have to bring it inside when it gets cold, which it probably won't like. This morning I wandered down the hill to my friend Sadie's house, and together we repotted two of my orchids and one of hers. It was great to be out together in the sunshine, drinking coffee, and getting our hands dirty. She sent me home with yet another orchid, so now I've got 5. Well, maybe 4.5...upon repotting, I discovered that one of my newly acquired orchids had almost completely rotted roots, so that one is on death watch. Sadie's husband Andy, who is also quite the orchid whisperer, helped me repot it and told me it's got about a 1 in 3 chance of surviving; it's survival completely dependent on its ability to grow an entirely new root system. Yikes.

The struggler

The van is coming along splendidly. To date we've installed the fan, all the electric, reupholstered the headliner, built the bed platform, installed two large drawers under the bed, put in the subfloor, and installed pine board on the ceiling and one of the walls. Still left to install is the cubbie wall, which will be in the back of the van on the wall opposite the bed. We also need to install the cabinets that we got from the scratch-and-dent section from IKEA, and the counter top that we still have yet to purchase...there's still time for that. It'll probably be butcher block or something like that. We elected to skip the sink this time around, as we found that we rarely used the sink in the Sprinter. We're also not planning at this time to have a fridge, as they suck way too much battery juice. Maybe in the future we can add a second battery if we feel like we absolutely need a fridge (which would most likely be a situation where we're traveling for an extended period of time without access to freezers to re-freeze our water bottles), but for now we're just planning to bring a couple coolers and call it good. We've got the van set up to add solar if we feel that's something we'll want/need in the future. We're also planning to paint it, put a small lift on it, and get some off-road tires to tackle some of those hard-to-reach camping spots off of dirt roads. The roof rack is back-ordered, so that will hopefully be installed sometime later this summer. Simon and our friend Efren have been doing such an amazing job building out the van. I haven't been much help outside of paying for half of the build, and ordering the things that Simon tells me to order. I did pick out the fabric for the headliner and reupholstered that, and I also painted some of the interior wood yesterday afternoon. It felt nice to help. 

Simon and Efren building a drawer

 

Last month I completely changed up my hair care routine. Ever since moving to Flagstaff my hair has been a bit of a mess. It's naturally wavy, kind of dry, and hates both the climate (dry and arid) and altitude (7,000 feet) here. I had to get my hair trimmed every 8-12 weeks just to keep the split ends from taking over my entire head. I've literally tried almost everything you can try as far as hair care products...Redken, Aveda, Trader Joe's, Burt's Bees, Jason, Bead Head, Moroccan Oil, Alba, Aveda, Pantene, O Way, Paul Mitchell, Nexxus, about every natural hair care line you can get at Sprouts...the list goes on and on. I'd really rather not know how much money I've spent on my head in the past 7 years. If my hair had its way, we'd be moving back to Minnesota or Florida where humidity was its best friend. I thoroughly enjoy traveling to humid climates, because my hair is huge and curly and soft and so shiny. So that's what I've been trying to replicate here in Arizona via hair products. A couple years ago my cousin told me about a hair product line called Monat. It's not sold in stores or salons, and you can only get it online. The caveat is that you need to initially go through someone to get started. Yes, it's a multi-level marketing (MLM) company, much like Amway, Tupperware, or Pampered Chef. The reason I waited so long to try Monat was because of the MLM aspect, which in the past felt a little scammy to me. My thought had always been that if their products are so great, why can't you just get them anywhere? So my skepticism about the MLM business practices kept me from giving Monat a chance. Earlier this summer, out of desperation, I decided to give it a try; my hair was dull, dry, had split ends for days, and to be honest, I was just tired of spending so much money getting my hair cut all the time. What's the harm in trying something new, right? If it works, awesome, if it doesn't, it'll just get added to the list of products that my hair has refused to accept as a suitable substitute for the humidity that it craves so much. I was still skeptical of the MLM aspect, but then I thought about the fact that I have been using Pampered Chef for years and I love their kitchen products. I still have my original garlic press that I've had for 15+ years and it's still the very best garlic press I've ever used. I've bought similar kitchen products from Target and such, and none of their equivalent counter parts have ever measured up to my Pampered Chef ones. So, I did a bunch of research, talked to some people I know who use Monat, read a bunch of third-party reviews, and decided to try Monat with that same mind set. You guys, I don't know what's in this stuff, but my hair has never looked or felt so good. I don't want to sound like I'm drinking the Kool-Aid, but it's been like a miracle for me. I have finally found a way to have Minnesota hair in Arizona. I should also mention that I'm picky about my products...I try to buy products that not only are free of the chemicals on this list, but it's also important to me that the products that I use are cruelty free. If the test version of a product isn't suitable for human testing, I'm not interested; animals shouldn't have to suffer for my cosmetological well-being. And honestly, animal hair and skin is so different from human hair and skin...I don't understand how the results of animal testing are even accurate or relevant for humans. Is this product line for everyone? Probably not. If your hair is rocking it with your current products, by all means stick with them. I'm not here to influence anyone into trying this stuff if you've already got a regimen that works for you, nor do I benefit in any way from sharing my experience with these products with you. I just wanted to share because after several years of frustration with my hair, I'm finally super happy with it. :)

Having a good hair day. :)

I don't know if I have the mental or emotional energy to delve too deeply into the current civil rights climate in this blog session. I'm still processing how to feel, how I can help, and ways that we can all affect change together to make this world a better place for everyone. I'm going to ruminate on it for just a little bit longer, and trust me, you'll be the first to know when I'm ready to share my thoughts about it. I will share that one of my friends on Facebook recently called me a racist because I wasn't being active enough in the pursuit of social justice. It left me feeling like I needed to document every single interaction I've ever had with a person of color, just to prove that I don't exclusively surround myself with entitled white people. And the thing is, I know for a fact this person never would have said that to my face, but the impersonal barrier provided by the internet and Facebook encourages people to engage online in ways that they never would in person. Just know this...I have, and will continue to have, a safe place in my home, my workplace, my life, and my heart for people of color...and not just people of color, for all people. And just because I'm not blowing up my Facebook page with all the ways I'm promoting change, doesn't mean I'm sitting here doing nothing about it. Before you go calling someone a racist simply because they didn't black out their Instagram page on #BlackoutTuesday, get off your screen and look around you at all the ways people are out there promoting change. You'll see it. 

Sunset at Lake Mary

In the meantime, I'll probably continue to stay a little distant from Facebook. I hate their algorithms, which exist solely to promote division and to promote negative emotional responses. Have you guys noticed that? I'll get blasted with article after article about Trump and all of his tomfoolery, but all I really want to see are Tasty videos, pug photos, pictures of my friends and family doing awesome things (awesome being a relative term...scaling a cliff wall or enjoying a cold drink on your deck...all awesome in my book), people doing good in the world, and articles about cool places to travel. Unfortunately, I more frequently see posts from friends and family members whose mindsets are completely opposite of mine, which causes us to negatively engage over it. And let's be honest, I'm happy to sit down with anyone whose mindset differs from mine and have a conversation about it, but Facebook just isn't the place for those discussions. So, I'm kind of done. I'm unfollowing people who don't positively or intelligently engage with me. And before this gets labeled as 'cancel culture,' I realize that not all my online interactions have to be all roses and puppy dogs (wouldn't that be nice?), but if mutual respect and compassion isn't something that I can find on Facebook anymore, then maybe I don't need to spend so much time there. It's a struggle, because for me, Facebook has always been such a great way to keep up with my friends and family who live all over the place, and I would miss that if I were to stay away for too long. So I'll continue to check in from time to time, but I'm definitely setting boundaries. Life is too short and time is too precious to be wasted on negative online interactions. And maybe we can all try to do better to make Facebook a better place for all of us to interact. Maybe we can apply these three rules of interaction to our Facebook posts: 1) is it true? 2) is it necessary? 3) is it kind? Imagine what a different place Facebook would be. I get that those three criteria don't leave a lot of room for social awareness...that's definitely something to work towards, for sure. Right now, I just need balance. I need to be reminded that the world isn't burning down, that not everyone is dying in a pandemic, that people are still living their lives, having fun, and treating others well. I know that isn't reality all of the time, but it's reality most of the time, and I think we need to remind ourselves of that from time to time.

Goofing with this goofball

And last but not least, Cooper is thriving! And by thriving, I mean not dead. Okay, that was a little dramatic, but recently he had a little event where he collapsed in the yard and I thought he was dead. I mean, the poor dude turned 16 yesterday (shit, I forgot his birthday...whoops), so it's completely logical to expect that he will continue to decline. And truth be told, I'm ready. Not ready as in "ready and waiting with baited breath," but ready in the sense that if I wake up one day and he's passed on in the night, or if he goes outside some morning and doesn't come back in, I know that he's lived a good life and he's passed on having been loved and cherished for the time that he was here. Life is definitely more of a struggle for him these days...he's got arthritis and a chronic cough; sometimes he coughs and farts at the same time which is simultaneously gross yet funny. But he still loves to eat treats and sit next to me (but not touching) on the couch. He enjoys no less than 8 naps a day and a full night's sleep. I love taking pictures of him while he's sleeping...he's so cute and squishy and I'll miss that little bugger like crazy when he goes.

The little dude

Anyway, I think that's it from me. Again, it's a lot. I need to work on writing less more often, so my posts aren't so long. I hope you all are enjoying this beautiful Thursday.  

Staying Home: Part Quatro

The fourth installment of the Staying at Home series has a Simon update, all the things in my life that have been cancelled and some that still might be, what we've been cooking, drinking, and listening to, and what life is like on the cusp of our state gradually reopening to the public.

Simon camping outside Yellowstone

Simon Update: He's better! Completely back to normal, in fact. He went back to work on Friday night and has worked three shifts total. While his illness overall wasn't as severe as some (he didn't need to go to the hospital), it was the sickest that I've ever seen him in our 13+ years together. I'm glad that he was only out for 2 weeks, as I've heard of others in the community who were sick at home for almost a month or more. Our roommate Eli and I luckily never had any symptoms at all, and we both felt fine the whole time Simon was sick. It's an interesting thing, really. Given that neither Eli nor I were tested, it's hard to say if we actually were infected and recovered with no symptoms or if we somehow managed to not get infected at all. Also a question is if we were, in fact, infected, do we now have some sort of immunity? Or is it somewhat like getting chicken pox, where the lighter the case the more likely you are to contract it again? From what I've been reading, it sounds like they're seeing cases of people being reinfected, but it's hard to know if they're actually getting reinfected with the same strain, if their symptoms from the initial infection are just re-emerging, or if they're getting infected with a mutated strain that's just different enough from their original strain to make them sick again. It's so hard to say. This illness is so new and there's still so much that we don't know about it. Ultimately I'd like to get the antibody test just to see, but I've heard the accuracy on that test is about 60%, which isn't all that promising. Fingers crossed that I had it, I've recovered, and should be good to go for a while.

The new bike I bought for RAGBRAI

Things that have been cancelled: This is kind of a sore subject, but in the interest of the health and well-being of the general public, I'm okay with it. Most of the things that have been cancelled involved activities in large groups, which I think will be the very last things to resume once the community and the country in general feel it's safe. Two things that I missed in April were a haircut and a dentist appointment...non-essential really as I'm not having any tooth issues and my hair just is what it is. I've been trying to grow it out anyway so now is as good a time as any. My April ladies' bike trip to Utah was postponed to October. The Chino Grinder, which was supposed to be happening today, is a gravel bike race taking place in Chino Valley, AZ. It was postponed to sometime in September. I'm still not sure if I'm going to try to go in September or not. I hadn't officially registered for it so at this point I'm not yet out any money. The Yosemite Half Marathon, which I was going to do with my friend Madison, has been postponed until next year and I deferred my registration for that. What's funny is that this is the third year that I've signed up for it and been unable to go, but this is the first year that it wasn't my fault...hahaha! My friend Brie's wedding was supposed to take place in July in Alaska; it's been postponed until next July. We had taken two weeks off and were planning to make a big trip out of it. After the wedding was postponed I signed up for RAGBRAI, which is a 7-day bike ride across the state of Iowa, which was supposed to take place July 19-26. That has been postponed until next July as well, and I have until June 1st to decide if I want to defer my registration or get my money back. I got tickets to the Bottle Rock music festival in Napa, California, which has already been rescheduled once from May to October. Given that music festivals are huge, non-essential gatherings of people, I'm curious to see if it gets postponed until 2021. I wouldn't be a bit surprised. We also recently booked flights home to Minnesota for our annual trip to the Minnesota State Fair and to see family, but I'm wondering if the State Fair will happen. As of right now, it hasn't been cancelled, but time will tell. I think Minnesota is a few weeks behind Arizona as far as COVID cases are concerned, so they've still got some time for things to continue to escalate.

Riding bikes with Carrie :)

Social Distancing: We've been doing a really good job at staying at home and only leaving for essential things, like work and going to the grocery store. When I go to the store I try to stock up on things for the coming week so that I don't have to go again. We're also making use of things in the freezer and in the pantry. I've always been a bit of a food hoarder (I like options!) so we were good in the pantry department long before the staying-at-home measures were implemented. I miss our friends, so very much. I've managed to get out on a hike with a couple girlfriends and their dogs, and I went on a bike ride Thursday with my friend Carrie. Other than that socializing has been pretty much limited to text messages, facetime, and whatever interactions the three of us have amongst ourselves. It's amazing that we haven't run out of things to talk about yet! We've been having some really good conversations, and I'm so thankful that Eli is here to fulfill my extroverted needs and desire for interaction, much to his dismay, maybe...hahaha! What's also unfortunate about the timing of all this is that our very good friends who are nurses from Little Rock, Mark and Liz, have taken a travel assignment in Lake Havasu City, and we haven't been able to get out to visit them yet, partly because Simon was sick for so long and partly because we're just not sure what's appropriate in the current social distancing climate, and truth be told, we don't know how infectious we might be. All things that have kept us apart, which sucks because we haven't seen them in so long. It'll happen, but it just might be more towards the end of their contract, unfortunately.

Almond croissant and Dalgona coffee

What I've been eating: This week for our group recipe night Simon made fish tacos. It's not a new recipe, but it's a good one and we had some Mahi in the freezer that needed to be eaten. I also made a breakfast quiche using quinoa for the crust. Yesterday I made Dalgona coffee, which is one of the latest trends cycling around on social media for people to try at home. It was so incredibly good. It's basically whipped coffee that you put on top of your milk or coffee drink. As per usual, I didn't read the recipe all the way through and ended up doubling it because I thought the recipe was only for one serving, so we ended up with a ton of whip, but it kept nicely in the fridge and I was able to use it for an iced coffee yesterday afternoon. Winning! I finally made it through all of my Rachel Ray and Food Network magazines, so I've got a whole binder full of new recipes for us to try. I'm not going to lie, it was a lot of pasta recipes. I'm a carb junkie, what can I say? It was interesting to see how complicated a lot of the recipes were in those magazines...lots of ingredients that would require access to a specialty store, multiple steps to complete, and so much fennel. Who eats fennel? Doesn't it taste like black licorice? I didn't keep any of the recipes that required more than two pans, more than three steps, ingredients I can't get from a local grocery store, or fennel. And no salad recipes. I got no time for salad...not enough carbs for my liking. In light of the recent environment around the slaughter houses in the country, we're also re-evaluating our current meat consumption. I won't get into it too much because I've found that it's a touchy subject for most people and I don't feel like defending what ultimately is a personal choice for us in our own home. We've been wanting to eat less meat at home anyway, so again, now just seems like a good time to do it. I'll be exploring some of the local places to get meat and see where I end up. For the most part, as long as I have pasta and Simon has a full arsenal of veggies, we'll be fine. :)

My very first quiche!!

What I'm reading: Still working my way through Heart, A History, and Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, by Janisse Ray, which is a book about growing up white and poor in the South. It's an interesting book, and the author does a good job of not only painting a picture of what growing up was like in the South and how it shaped her as an adult, but she also does an excellent job of describing what the South looked like through the eyes of a child. She also brings in random pertinent cultural events that were happening near her during this time, but given that they were so rural and this was before a whole of technology, her experience with and access to current events was limited. I don't typically read two books at one time, but neither of these books are super heavy hitting with their content, and they're different enough that I don't get them confused. I also recently received the newest Stephen King book, If It Bleeds, and am really looking forward to getting into it. It's four novellas, and if you are familiar with Stephen King's writing at all, you know that his short story work is by and far away some of his very best. Random fact: the movies Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption were both Stephen King novellas, and they both very clearly demonstrate his ability to write not just supernatural horror and fantasy, but real people in real situations as well. He's commented that a lot of authors like to write about the experiences of extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances, but he likes to write about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and I think for the most part, he's able to do it quite brilliantly. He's also one of the few male authors who I feel can write exceptionally well from the perspective of a woman, which is not an easy task. Too often I feel male authors try to over-sexualize women's needs and desires while leaving them devoid of complex thoughts and feelings, but it's easy to forget that Stephen is a man writing from the perspective of a woman when you're in the minds of his female characters. I'll keep you posted on what I think when I finally get around to it. I've been putting it off because I want to finish the other two books first; I know that once I get into a Stephen King book, I rarely move but to turn pages for hours at a time. For perspective, I finished his book Under the Dome, which is 1,074 pages, in under 24 hours. Talk about couch-lock!

Kiki and Dewey getting ready for a hike!

What we've been listening to: I've been listening to a lot of Air Supply. Weird, I know. Those two goofy men just elevate my mood instantly, although I recognize that they're not for everyone. I just think they're silly and they remind me of the times my friend Franko and I would be driving down the highway belting out Air Supply songs at the tops of our lungs. Good times, and good memories to have, especially right now. Other than that, I thought I would be listening to more podcasts, but I unfortunately just don't have the attention span for them. Simon is able to do something productive while listening to podcasts, but I have to be doing nothing but listening to the podcast or my attention wanders away and I've absorbed nothing. I also have a hard time sitting still for the duration of a podcast, which is why I really like them on road trips because I physically can't go anywhere or do anything else. So for now, it's just Air Supply, occasionally Meatloaf, and whatever random station I flip to on Pandora.

Recent sunset in from our front yard in Moutainaire

Other things: We're getting some yard work done. After failed attempts at both Home Depot and the local garden shop (so many people and lines out the door), we came home and are making due with what yard projects we can accomplish with the supplies on hand. Simon took out some of the pavers in the front yard so I can have another flower bed, and he's planning to use those pavers to build a pad for his motorcycle to sit on. We have a gravel driveway and his bike is pretty heavy, so it needs a stable spot to rest when it's not being ridden. I raked the current flower bed, which is being converted into a ground cover bed full of low-sun plants due to it being north facing and close to the house, leaving it with sunlight for only a couple hours in the morning, at best. I also sowed some wildflower seeds from a can that's been sitting in the shed for over two years. We'll see if the flowers actually grow. The new flower bed is still on the north-facing side of the house, but it's farther away from the house than my current bed and gets good sunlight throughout the day. I'm planning to put in some hardy perennials because I like my plants to be low maintenance, and truthfully it's in their best interest to be low maintenance, otherwise I'll inevitably just kill them. I've pretty much given up on a vegetable garden for the time being. Between the elevation (7,000 feet), the climate (hot during the day and cold at night), and the lack of moisture (we have a rainy monsoon season here that doesn't typically start until late June/early July), it's incredibly hard to grow things out here without a substantial amount of infrastructure, watering, and maintenance. I think growing up in Minnesota has ruined me for gardens, as you can pretty much just put things anywhere in the ground there and they grow with little to no effort. I'm also not sure I want to commit to the time required to maintain a garden here...you are basically interacting with your garden multiple times a day...covering the plants at night, opening them back up in the morning, watering in the morning and the evening, weeding, checking temperatures and soil moisture...it's a lot of time that I could be doing other things, like sitting on the couch or some other non-productive activity that doesn't involve me killing things...hahaha!

Low maintenance plants...because I'm in no way responsible for these! ;)

Opening up: I'm curious to see how this is all going to go when people start venturing out and resume normal life again. I'm honestly a little nervous, as I feel that cases of coronavirus will inevitably spike again as we start interacting with each other again, but my hope is that we'll continue some measures of social distancing and the cases that do emerge will be manageable by the hospitals. This virus is just like most other viruses in that either you need to get exposed to it and establish immunity or you need to get a vaccine, which we don't have and might not have for quite some time yet. We actually don't have vaccines for any coronaviruses currently (there are several), and maybe we never will. People will get sick, some of them will die, that's the nature of viruses, and I think it's naive to approach this with the outlook that no one will die, or that we ultimately can prevent people from becoming infected at all. People need to protect themselves and others as much as possible so that we have the resources to treat those who become acutely ill when they need hospitalization. I'm not sure how I feel about traveling state-to-state or even region to region (I'm not even going to consider international travel at this time) based on how differently the positive cases have been dispersed throughout the country. I also don't think the vast majority of the numbers being reported are at all accurate due to (still) inadequate testing. So we'll see. I do know that we need to try to get back to normal life, whatever that is moving forward, but that we need to be smart about it.

Current work attire

Closing down: I might be taking a short hiatus from Facebook in the near future. Also the mainstream news outlets; I'm not sure which will go first or if both will go simultaneously. Actually, I could probably keep both, I just need to readjust how I interact with them. There are a lot of willfully ignorant, stupid, hateful people out there in the world, and reacting to and responding to them and their words has been a source of stress, disappointment, and sadness for me through all this. I've always been taught and pretty much live by the idea that it's easiest to be kind, even to those who are not, but not everyone shares this idea. To the people who are politicizing this virus, I wish they would just stop. This isn't about them and their haircuts or their political agenda; it's about the health and well-being of everyone around us. Be smart, be kind, wear a mask...that's not too much to ask, yet somehow for some people, it is. Somehow encouraging people to behave a certain way for the health of others is infringing on their rights as human beings. Unfortunately we can't parade scores of ignorant people through our hospitals just to prove that this virus is real, that people are sick and dying and are losing their family members. Somehow I hope that they learn trust us those of us on the front-lines and do the right things to keep everyone safe. That's my hope.

Cooper and Kiki on the porch

Right now: I'm sitting on the front porch with my dogs lying on a blanket next to me. They're kind of snuggling, but as usual, Cooper is resistant and is as far away from Kiki as the edges of the blanket will allow. Such a stubborn little old man. I'm watching the finches nervously approach the bird feeder and listening to the hummingbirds trilling along on their merry way. Such a wonderful sound, and truly the sign of spring in these parts. There's currently a mama junco sitting on 4 eggs in the nest she built in the branches of the christmas tree we have sitting on our front porch. I'm watching my neighbors walk their dogs and push their children in strollers, enjoying this sunny day. It's a beautiful day, and I'm so fortunate to be able to sit out here and be a part of it. Perhaps later I'll venture back to the garden shop to procure some perennials. Or maybe not. I'm perfectly content listening to the wind in the pines.

That's all from me, I hope you all have great weekend ahead of you! Try the Dalgona coffee, you won't regret it!! :)

Staying Home: Part หนึ่ง

In case you're wondering, that funny little symbol in the blog title is the Thai numeral for 3. :) Going on week whatever-this-is of staying at home, here's a little update on the daily going's on around here.

What I'm drinking: I've started drinking black coffee. Weird, I know. I never thought I'd be a black coffee drinker, and here I am. I'm still in the early stages and luckily Simon and our roommate Eli are coffee snobs, so I'm drinking some pretty good stuff. I don't forsee me ever being a Folgers black coffee drinker, though...hahaha! My friend Jan also gave Simon and I some Celestial Seasonings Ginger + Probiotics tea, and it's so good!! I drink one cup a day and hopefully that will keep all the bad things away.

What I'm watching: Years ago for Christmas my parents bought me season one of Six Feet Under, an HBO show about a dysfunctional family who runs a funeral home. I never did get around to watching it until just recently. The show takes place/was filmed in 2001, and it's been fun to see all the familiar things from that era...the outfits, the hair styles, the accessories, the music, the cars, the flip phones, and the cultural references. You can definitely see how Six Feet Under laid the ground work for Michael C. Hall to become the character of Dexter for the Showtime series...he plays a toned down but still conflicted version of Dexter in this series, and as of yet, has not actually murdered anyone. One of the characters, the teenage daughter Claire, drives an old hearse as her personal vehicle, which I think is pretty cool. It also got me thinking...what a great camping vehicle an old hearse would be! Plenty of room in the back for a mattress and whatnot. Just jack that thing up, put some burly tires on it, and boom...instant adventure vehicle. I'm surprised we don't see more hearses hanging out in the woods...perhaps people are weirded out by sleeping in a spot that had previously been occupied by dead people. I'm not going to lie, I did a used vehicle search and you can get an older model, low-milage Cadillac hearse for around $4,000, just in case this idea piques your interest. I could probably even hook you up with a few outfitters who would love the challenge of converting a hearse to a camping vehicle. :)

What I'm reading: I started reading a book called Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar. I snagged it out of a lending library at the hospital during a relatively slow night on our unit. It's a book about our complicated relationship with our hearts, which is both an organ, a muscle, and very affected by emotions, different from our other organs. I was particularly fascinated by the chapter on Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, also known as broken-heart syndrome. I remember years ago when I was in my early 20's, enduring heartbreak after heartbreak, hoping someday either I or the men I was pursuing would get our shit together. I asked my friend Pritish, who was a medical resident at the time, why our hearts hurt when we're sad. I knew there had to be some sort of physiologic explanation for it, because the ache was so intense and so very real. He didn't have an answer for me. It's also entirely possible that he might have known, but just didn't want to get involved in the sadness of a broken-hearted 20-something, which is understandable. It wasn't until years later that I first heard about Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, because I was caring for a patient who had been diagnosed with it after the death of her spouse. Apparently during intense sadness and the adrenaline increases that go along with it, the heart actually physically changes shape and balloons into the shape of a Takotsubo pot, which the Japanese used to trap octopus...it's wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy is typically temporary and resolves within a few weeks, but during the acute phase it can cause heart failure, arrythmias, and even death. The symptoms of Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy mimic those of a heart attack, including chest pain and shortness of breath, both of which I had personally experienced during periods of sadness following breakups. I'm not trying to say that I had Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, but the symptoms were very much there. So there you have it. A broken heart really is and can be just that...a broken heart.

What I'm reading

What I've been working on: I started training Kiki with a shock collar. It kind of breaks my heart, but it's something that I've been considering for quite a while, and we had an incident the other day that convinced me that it was time. Since we've been social distancing, I've been trying to get in at least a 3 mile walk everyday, and Kiki comes along. I prefer to walk her off-leash, as it's just more pleasurable for the both of us...she gets to tear around and sniff, and I don't have to wait for her or try to keep up with her. She typically sticks pretty close and most of the time she comes back when called. There's a road that we walk along that has a few houses on it, but otherwise is pretty open and wild. There's one particular house that has chickens, and we've walked by this house tons of times and Kiki hasn't paid the chickens any mind. Well, the other day the chickens were closer to the road than they typically are, and she took off after them. No amount of yelling at her or calling to her could break her focus, and I was worried that she was going to catch one and kill it, or even worse, that the owner of the house would see her going after his chickens and shoot her. Growing up in farm country in Minnesota, farmers were known to shoot dogs who came onto their property and chased their livestock, that's just how it was. As I chased Kiki across this farmer's property, I was worried about her getting shot, but I also worried about myself getting caught in the middle of it as well...it's just not a safe situation for anyone. I finally caught her and that has been the end of the off-leash walking. We've gone on three walks now with the shock collar and I've used it to correct her a few times. She's a smart dog and she's been really responsive, and she's starting to respond more readily to my voice. There are still times when I struggle to break her focus, and we'll see what happens when I start trying her off-leash again. I've determined that it's going to be a while before I'm comfortable walking her off-leash near the farmhouses though, so I'm going to start off-leash training out in the woods. She loves to chase birds and squirrels, and we've been pretty lenient since we got her about letting her chase them, so we'll see if I can start having success with calling her off of those before we delve into chicken territory again. She's a cattle dog and she loves to chase, that's just who she is and it makes me sad to take that away from her, but she needs to be safe and listen to me. If you've trained your dogs with shock collars or have any other advice for me regarding chasing, I'd love to hear it.

Kiki getting some morning sunlight, waiting patiently for her walk

What I'm cooking: With the collaboration of our roommate Eli, we've been trying out at least one new recipe a week. I think we're about 70-30 with regard to success and failures. Our first big success was a Khao Soi curry recipe, which is a style of curry noodle found in northern Thailand. Simon and I had it there during our trip and it's so amazingly good. I have a Thai cookbook that I've literally never opened and we delved into it and lo and behold, the Khao Soi recipe was so incredibly easy and so delicious! So that was a winner. Another time we made homemade pizzas with homemade dough and we all picked our individual toppings...those were fantastic. Just a couple days ago we made a shwarma chicken pot pie, using marinated chicken thighs that we got at Trader Joe's. Let me tell you, it was absolutely amazing and it took an act of willpower to not just sit down and eat all of it right out of the pie plate. I made chicken meatballs the other day and finally got to use my meatball scooper. From start to finish, there was very little touching of raw meat and the entire process time was cut almost in half. Winning! One of the failures has been a batch of pancakes that were crazy salty due to a measuring spoon mishap. Another failure was a batch of pasta I made using some house-made nduja sausage from one of our local restaurants. It was my first time using this type of sausage and come to find out, a little goes a loooong way. The pasta turned out so greasy and rich that I honestly couldn't eat it. Simon and Eli did a good job of mostly finishing it off. We're coining these mishaps "failures moving forward," because we're learning from our mistakes and are committed to trying again, rather than just quitting all together, which sometimes is the easier route. It's been great trying all these things out together; it's made distancing that much more bearable.

Nduja pasta...better luck next time!

In the cooking vein, I've started going through all the Rachael Ray and Food Network magazines that I've been stockpiling over the years. I'd earmarked a ton of recipes in them and then just stashed them away. So now I'm going through all of them, tearing out the recipes that I want to make, and putting them in a binder for easy access later. For the past couple months, I've been craving pasta like nobody's business, so a vast majority of the recipes I'm saving are for pasta. Also, staying true to my midwestern roots, I'm a huge fan of the one-pot recipes. Anything that requires multiple steps to both prep and then prepare are uninteresting to me. However, I'm more than happy to eat futzy recipes if someone else is willing to make them for me.

What I'm growing: I've recently added to my indoor plant collection, and everyone is still alive! It's a miracle! Even my rehabbed orchid still looks amazing. It turns out that I've been under-watering my plants, which has never been an issue for me before. Typically I water my plants pretty much to death, so this is a new chapter in my plant rearing. So far so good!

Easter cactus that I've managed to keep alive

New traditions: Pretty much every morning, Simon, Eli and I get together for coffee. We all sit at the table and work on whatever projects we have going on. Eli typically writes, Simon reads the news, and I randomly do one thing or another. It's hard for me to sit and focus my attention on any one thing, but I'm working on it. Sometimes we sit and talk and I really enjoy those interactions a lot. It's been nice having a third perspective in the house because there's so much more to talk about. Not that Simon and I would otherwise have nothing to talk about having exhausted all conversations in the 13 years that we've been together, but it's nice to have a new perspective on things. We've also started doing Sushi Sundays. We don't do it every Sunday, but most Sundays we get sushi take-out from our favorite sushi place in town. It's been pretty wonderful and it's a great way to finish off the day. I'm so thankful for the local businesses that continue to offer take-out.

Care packages and coffee from friends. :)

Simon: He's having a good day today, and says that today is the best he's felt since he first started getting sick. He joined me on my walk with Kiki this morning and did the whole thing with us. Typically he starts out with us and then turns around early so as not to wear himself out. He's still pretty tired and takes multiple naps a day, but overall the fevers and the body aches are gone. I'm hoping sometime later this week or early next week I'll be able to move back into the bed and life can resume. Thanks so much for all the kinds words we've received, the offers to bring us things, and thanks for the care packages. You guys have been so great and supportive and have made this process easier not just for Simon, but for me as well. It's been hard not just being apart from him but worrying about him as well. I'm thankful for the times I've been able to get out and clear my head.

What I did today: I had breakfast and coffee and then Simon and I took Kiki for a walk. She did well but still went after a squirrel. She's getting better though. Then I came back, and gave Cooper a bath in the sink. There was much less screaming than the last time, thank goodness. Then I took a shower, and put on real pants. Plans for the day include a live-streaming yoga class and virtual happy hour with a friend this evening. Perhaps I'll get around to another episode of Six Feet Under and put some of my recipes in the binder. But we'll see, don't want to get too ambitious. ;)

Stay well, stay healthy!