Meta Watershed

GINNY BATES, BOOK TWO: HOME MOVIES

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:40:00 +0000

Here's a new scene from my Great American Lesbian Novel (first draft), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.

Early Winter 2021

Another holiday season without Chris was perversely harder on Myra and Allie than the first yartzeit had been. Myra said it was because it was becoming normal to never hear Chris's voice; even Lucia seldom asked about her any more. She said death was a fucked way to organize the universe and she could have plotted it much better on her crappiest writing day.

Allie just went silent. She began coming over after breakfast every day, sitting at Myra's second worktable to read Chris's journals in the original as Booray created an annotated index. She filled sketchblocks with partial scenes and minimalist renderings of Chris that were quite unlike her usual rich detail but even more haunting for their swift precision. Mrya and Ginny talked privately about Edwina's distance from the project, which seemed indirectly imposed by Allie. Myra asked Allie one day if things were okay between her and Edwina.

Allie's eyes were flat as she answered "What do you mean, okay? We not fighting."

"But are you talking with her about what all is going on inside you? Cause you're pretty much not with me" said Myra.

"I don't know how to put in it words. Except I wasn't ready to be without Chris, and I'm still not" said Allie. "And from here on out, the ante goes up to unthinkable stakes, and I can't leave the table."

"Wasn't it Luisah Teish who first said 'What don't kill us makes us stronger'?" ventured Myra.

Allie's smile was acid. "She fulla shit on that one. Being gutshot a slow but certain end."

Myra went cold. She put her hand on Allie's. "Are you saying you're gutshot?"

"Not yet" said Allie.

After a long silence, Myra said "Change is sometimes veined with hope and joy. What Margie and Frances are bringing us this spring -- "

"I know" said Allie. "I'm counting on it."

After that, Myra's grief shifted into worry about Allie. That is, until her former lover Mimosa died suddenly from an aneurysm and Kate Bean was diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer. Myra and Ginny flew to San Francisco for Mimosa's funeral the second week in January, and the day after their return, Myra sat in a waiting room with Kate's son Rafe and the sister who was one of Myra's more hostile exes as much of Kate's intestines were removed.

"I don't understand it" Rafe kept saying, "She's the healthiest eater I ever met."

Bodies offer possibility, not justice Myra thought to herself.

The next week, Beebo began peeing on Jane's carpeting in odd corners. The vet said his kidneys were in trouble and every morning Myra walked over to coax a dropper of a new medication down his throat. She whispered to him "You tell me when this isn't okay any more, I'll listen and help everybody else hear it too." He purred and eventually began eating the expensive canned food they switched him to. Myra bought flats of it to stack in their storage room and put all their cats on it as well.

The day before Ginny's 65th birthday, Ginny was painting upstairs while Allie was in Myra's study. Myra baked a cake made mostly of almond flour and bright orange organic egg yolks. She drizzled it with honey, and was pressing halves of succulent dates onto the sticky top when the phone rang.

Five minutes later, she emerged from the elevator and sat down woodenly in Ginny's work chair. Ginny hadn't registered her arrival. Myra looked at the pots of pigments -- heavy on the greens, this one, but that was no clue as to subject matter, not with Ginny -- before saying expressionlessly "Myra's dead."

Ginny didn't respond. Myra said in her cutting-through-the-fog voice "Gin!" When Ginny looked at her, Myra fancied she could see faint swirls of green among the blue smudges in Ginny's eyes. "Myra has died" Myra said.

Ginny looked confused. Allie's voice came from the doorway: "You ex, Myra?"

Myra gazed at her own palms. "Yes. Heart attack yesterday. She was my age, you know."

"Son of a bitch" said Allie as she came to Myra. After two beats of hesitation, Ginny wiped the painstaking accumulation of color on her palette knife into a rag and came to embrace Myra as well.

"Bad year to be one of my exes" said Myra distantly. "Maybe I should send out a warning, time for a check-up, y'all."

Allie laughed, which brought a little color to Myra's face.

"Her memorial service is Sunday" she said. She and Ginny had planned to spend the weekend at the coast, but Ginny swiftly said "I'll go with you, of course."

"No" said Myra slowly. "I'd rather not." She met Allie's eyes and said "Will you finish the cake on the counter and put it away? I think I'll go call Nancy in the bedroom."

Three weeks later a package arrived for Myra. It had been put together by the 40-something tattoo artist who had been Myra Two's lover for a year, and contained yellowing photos, a few copies of Myra's books which she had not given Myra Two, and a roll of Super 8 film.

Myra looked through the photos sadly. "My god, we were so young" she said.

"Who is this in the liplock with Myra Two?" asked Ginny.

Myra glanced at it. "No idea. I guess the new girlfriend thinks all fat dykes in Dickies are identical."

"What's the movie of?" daid Ginny, picking up the yellow box.

"Probably of a march or demo, Myra used to take her camera to events where she hoped we'd get into it with the pigs" said Myra, leafing through her old poetry volumes, hoping for a comment in Myra Two's handwriting, but there was nothing, not even underlining. Ginny had found a faint ink notation on the side of the box: "August 5th -- that's your birthday, is this a movie of some birthday party? We need to get this copied into a format where we can watch it!" she said with growing excitement.

"I think Gillam has a Super 8 projector, actually" said Myra distractedly. She'd found writing on the back flyleaf of one book, but it was some other woman's phone number. Suddenly she looked at Ginny in horror and snatched the film box from Ginny's hands. "Oh hell, I remember what this is!" Her face was going a dull red.

Ginny looked at her in swift comprehension. "Myra, please tell me you didn't make a sex tape with this woman." Myra's silence was answer enough. After a few seconds, Ginny asked "Is there audio on these things?"

Myra shuddered involuntarily as she stood and went to the hidden safe in her study. "Blessedly no" she said over her shoulder.

"Do you think that's the only copy?" Ginny called after her. Myra's step faltered for a moment before she left without answering.

A week later, on a morning when Sima was at Annie's and Myra was sleeping in from late-night editing, Ginny set up Gillam's projector in the spare bedroom and finally figured out how to thread the film correctly through its tortuous path. She closed the blinds and locked the door before pushing play.

At lunch, with Allie, Edwina, Annie, Sima, and Margie also at the table, Ginny said calmly while sprinkling cayenne on her baked squash "I watched that home movie. Of you and Moyra."

"You what?" hissed Myra.

"What movie?" demanded Margie, but Allie shook her head at Margie briefly before returning to glare at Ginny.

"I took a calculated risk" said Ginny. "It would eat you up, sitting there in the safe, someone needed to move it from the unfettered swamps of your imagination. So I was going to tell you what I'd done immediately. I figured if it upset me, I'd make sure you didn't have to deal with a scrap of it and I'd get clear to stay listening to you." She paused to swallow a mouthful of broccoli raab. Allie said to Margie "Myra and her ex who just died filmed themselves messing around after Myra's birthday party way back when. Myra got given the film yesterday." Clearly Myra had discussed it with Allie, and it wasn't news to Edwina, either. Margie and Sima goggled, however.

"So?" Myra said to Ginny challengingly, her chin thrust out.

"Not what I expected. Kinda sweet, actually -- although there are sections you wouldn't want to watch" she said in an aside to Allie, who registered horror at the very idea. Annie muffled a giggle. Ginny continued "It's you, but it's not the you I know, Myra. Not the woman I trust and love, only flashes of her trying to come through. I was fascinated. I think you will be, too. I left the projector set up in the guest bedroom."

Margie glanced at the ceiling overhead as if a living writhe of celluloid might find a way through the acoustic tiles. Myra stood stiffly, plate and silverware in clenched hands, and said "We are not okay about this."

"I'll do whatever work is required" said Ginny equably. "Turn on the little lamp for a minute before pushing the play lever."

Myra headed for the elevator. After the door shut, Margie breathed out and said "Destroy that and any cinematic efforts you two may have created before time comes for me to administer your estates, that's all I ask."

A week after Valentine's Day, Booray had his day filled with classes and meetings, so Myra and Allie were alone that morning in her study. Myra went downstairs for a ginger ale. She stood on the stairs a minute, gazing through the rain-streaked windows at the bench where her mother had some sort of spectral link. Ginny was vacuuming at the front of the house, and the kitchen already smelled of the tomato soup Ginny had started for lunch.

Back in her study, she looked over Allie's shoulder at the charcoal sketch she was making of Chris making the "okay" sign with a wry grin. Chris had always folded her first two fingers over her thumb pad instead of only her forefinger for this symbol, and Myra had never gotten around to asking her why. Allie was capturing it perfectly.

"I been thinking" said Myra, settling into her chair. Franklin had joined Keller on Myra's desk, which he always did when the vacuum was running. Aliie continued licking one fingertip to smear shadows into her drawing, but she swiveled her chair to face Myra.

"We had one ginormous bolt of luck, you and me. I mean, I bought the lottery ticket but it was really both of us won. But what we did with it was be smart, not keep testing our luck. You got art training, I got therapy, and both of us squirreled away enough to keep us comfortable forever -- well, Ginny did it for me but I picked her to help me make those choices, I'll take credit for it that way."

Allie raised her eyebrows as she looked directly at Myra. She had a dark smear on her lower lip.

"Weve kept taking risks, Al, but never stupid ones, so I don't think of it as gambling. It's never been for the thrill of it, either. It's been to keep doing the gods-honest right thing. And we've got good lives as a result, which is lucky only if you favor the power of serendipitous catastrophe over the strength of human will and intent." Myra returned Allie's slow smile and added "A delusion, that human will thang, but I'm hanging onto it for now."

"Okay by me" said Allie.

"Chris...you know how utterly, passionately I love her, how I revere who she -- was" said Myra with a deep breath. "But I have to admit, Al, I'm stronger than she was. Don't know how or why, I just am. And so are you."

Allie didn't answer. There was no argument on her face, however. After a minute, Myra said "She'd kick my ass if I started living hunkered down now. And she had those steel-toed Red Wings."

Allie laughed in abrupt release. She said "I keep hearing the Wicked Witch of the West saying 'The last to go will watch all the others die before her.'"

"Yeah, well, Judy Garland was already on drugs by then" replied Myra. "Addicts got to keep they minds focused, you always say."

Allie looked at her sketch, then put her name and date at the bottom before turning to a fresh page. "You still mad at Ginny for watching that movie without asking you first?"

"A little. I know I chose to live with her and I know she can't help being someone raised by Helen and David, but I slept most of last week out here on my daybed. Rattled her good and gave me some fresh air" said Myra.

"Edwina told me" admitted Allie.

"Listen, soon as the roads clear, let's go to Colville and spend several days. Fish early, stay at a nice motel and eat out instead of cook, and pound out the final outline for this book about Chris. No children or granchildren, just us originals. Before spring hits and everything changes."

Allie said "I'll talk to 'Wina. They any salmon running this early?"

copyright 2009, Maggie Jochild

HUNGRY

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:24:00 +0000

(Maggie Jochild at Bean Hollow Beach near Pescadero, California, i980)

HUNGRY

When Liza found out I had lost 85 pounds over the last two years without knowing it, certainly without trying to, she instantly said "No wonder you write about food all the time.' Indeed.

I have been starving in many ways. Fat people are as often malnourished as thin folks in our culture, especially if they are lower income and urban. Post surgery, my electrolytes were persistently abnormal, and they began giving me daily potassium and magnesium sulfate. The surgeon put me on a 2200 calorie diabetic diet -- I don't have diabetes but good insulin control promotes wound healing. I listened to my own cravings and for the first few days of eating solid food I stuck to veggies, cranberry and orange juice, and potatoes plus bananas with every meal. I couldn't get whole grains or avocados, the other items I was jonesing for. The kitchen dutifully limited my carbs but I never reaxhed my calorie limit.

After a week, when I began hard-assed physical therapy, my craving switched to protein and milk, and I ordered accordingly: I was starting to replace muscle. I asked for a comsultation with the hospital dietitian. When she arrived, I told her I wanted to know how to best address the specific malnutrition I had been living with for more than a year, assuming I could afford to buy fresh produce and seriously complete grains as I prefer in my diet. I also asked for a print-out of what I'd ordered through the meal service the past week with nutritional breakdowns I could study.

She had no idea what to do with me. She agreed that living as I had been on a poor person's diet, I should have gained rather than lost weight (my saving habit, I bet, is my inisitence on brown rixe/whole grains). She kept trying to turn our discussion toward calories instead of nutrition. Turns out the kitchen did not keep or report patients' daily meam records, and in the end, she urged me to go on an 1800 calorie a day diet, even after I flatly reminded her that 95% of all weight-loss diets fail and I had only become fat after I began dieting as a young adult.

I told her I loved my body, and after how it had just pulled through for me, ill-conceived calorie counting was not going to be how I rewarded myself for living. She left after giving me a print-out of a diet that relied heavily on white flour and caffeine as "snacks".

Fortunately, just as she was leaving, the Good Doctor came in. He recognized her and asked me how the visit had come about. I explained I'd requested it and gave him a thumbnail of what she'd said. A very nondemonstrative young man, he leaned over me and touched my arm to say "For countless reasons I'd ile to see you thin but PLEASE don't consider dieting, not for months until you are healed." Yet another reason why we call him The Good Doctor.

I stopped dieting during the same general stage of my life when I stopped hurting others via sexual messes. My weight plateaued for a decade, until my orthopedic disabilities drastically altered my mobility and I began living in pain. I gained to another plateau -- partly because in the advice of every expert I consulted, I returned dairy products to my diet. (Kinda need that calcium and minerals when bones are going whackamole.) I'd been the same size for a decade until this recent change.

The second oncologist who saw me this hospitalization, the one called in when pathology of my removed appendix revealed an occult carcinoid tumor, was wise enough to do an exam and take a thorough history of me despite the tumot's clean margins and staging indicating that carcinoma was neither a metastasis nor had it metastasized itself. She understood my level of weight loss, unintentional though probably the result of bowel strangulation and malnutrition, still warranted investigation to consider the idea of cancer elsewhere. In the end, she reassured me that as far as she could see, I had totally sidestepped death. Her face was so delighted: I bet she doesn't get to say that very often.

In contrast, I still remember the sneer on the face of the white gay male physician I saw at the free clinic in San Francisco in 1981 after having been flattened by fever and severe shortness of breath for a week. I was 25, unemployed, and broke, but my roommate Renee finally got me dressed and walked me two blocks to the nearest clinic in the Mission, paying the $12 office visit demand herself rather than let me waste precious oxygen answering their income questions. She also came into the exam room with me, thank g*d, because before even taking my temperature or listening to my chest, that doctor said "So, how long have you been overweight?"

I gaped at him, wheezing audibly. Renee said "She's not here for her weight, she's here because she's burning up with fever."

He turned on her. "Clearly her main problem is obesity, that's what we always see in here." At that point I was at most 25 pounds above the "ideal average" for my height, thick with muscle from walking everywhere.

Renee was slight but a working class Jew who was well-versed in fat liberation. In fact, she was who introduced me to the theory, and I'll love her forever for that fact alone. We shared our household food and she regularly ate circles around me. She stood up and raised her voice to demand that I be examined and treated for what was wrong with me, not given a lecture about obesity. An x-ray revealed advanced pneumonia, and a sputum culture eventually diagnosed me with Valley Fever. Antibiotics cured me and I avoided doctors for a long time after that, until I got insurance and searched until I found physicians I trusted.

Renee and I were in the habit that year of putting Alix Dobkin's latest album XX Alix on the turntable every evening when we got home from our respective jobs or meetings. One of my favorites was the haunting "Separation '78", which begins
Liza, you look more like your mother every day
Counting your calories, my how your body's changed

(Yes it's the same Liza as in my opening paragraph. We were not yet friends, although it's hard to see how we missed connecting back then it seems to have been an inevitability.)

Alix and Liza were lovers who became founding figures in lesbian-feminism, and because Alix's songwriting was frequently autobiographical, Liza's life was very public even when it wasn't through her own art and publshing. Liza was zaftig, buzzed her hair, defied fashion constraints -- including those dictated by dykes -- and had been a role model to me for years by 1981. I understood damned well that if Liza was paying attention to how she ate, it was in no way an attempt to be the kind of slender sex object dictated by heterosexual norms.

I also knew -- all of us who followed Alix's music knew -- that a couple of years earlier, Liza's beloved parents had been killed together in a freak accident. My own mother was still alive, but I felt keenly the poignancy of Alix telling Liza she looked like her mother. Our generation was mother obsessed, positively and negatively. Even more evocative was the fact that "Separation '78" is a love song written about their break-up, again very public. I wept the frst time I heard Alix sing the chorus, with melancholy and hope interlaced:

Going our separate ways
We're on our own
Trusting that only love will come between us

Thus, you can perhaps imagine my shock when I attended a live concert by Alix that year and from the all-lesbian audience came a chorus of boos when she sang her opening lines above about Liza. Alix was visibly startled but far too professional to drop a note, even when boos broke out again at the next verse

Everyone's noticed your new grey hair
Clearly, my darling, I put some there
And my head is carrying its own share
We're an aging pair

After the concert, I talked with one of the women who had booed (not a friend of mine) who said any reference to weight loss was fat oppressive and the grey hair lines were age oppressive. I argued vehemently that noticing changing bodies is not inherently oppressive, and in particular we had every reason to trust the process of Alix and Liza as individuals. Or, to quote a remark Maria Limon made last week when she visited me in the hospital, "Can we just put down the pitchforks?"

I don't know anybody who thinks completely rationally about eating. Or money. Or sex. Do you?

I'm in mid-stream here. I'm hungry for protein as I write this but probably won't go make the tuna sandwich I really want because my pain pills didn't come and that trip to the kitchen might as well be a hike up Bernal Hill used to be. I'll nurse my cranberry juice and wai till morning. At least Ihave this link to you all, typed in my bed on a netbook Liza bought for me and arranged for Maria to bring me in my isolation. Some empty spaces do get filled with just what we need, sometimes people listen and stick up for you and tumors get found in time and love lasts. Let's keep talking. As they say in the crip community, "Not dead yet."

> (Publicity photo for Dyke: A Quarterly, circa 1976; editors were Liza Cowan, left rear, and Penny House, front second from right; also in right front is Alix Dobkin; photo courtesy of Liza Cowan)

DIARY 7 NOVEMBER 2009

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:43:00 +0000

(Westward IV screen shot)

In my e-mail today is an offer from Sandlot Games to pre-purchase the upcoming release of their game Westward IV for half-price. These folks already have my business for several reasons: They have equal or almost equal numbers of available heroines in a variety of races, classes, and body types (yes, fat heroines); they deal with historical realms but frequently contradict the white Western take on how things went down (though the Westward series is terrible about ignoring theft of First Nations territory); the action increasingly relies on smarts and cooperation as much as "battles"; and, thrillingly, the last release Tradewinds Odyssey had a small positive lesbian subplot written into one of the sequences. Now, the opening line of the blurb for Westward IV refers to the villainous railway owner as "patriarchal". Sign me up, kids. Pretty soon they'll be offering women-only vegan collectives who are fighting the criminal justice system and power-sex conflation.

Last night I watched a rather timely PBS Empires episode called "Holy Wars" about Salah Al-Din and his reconquest of Jerusalem during the Crusades era -- his decision to not slaughter or terrorize the Christian population made him a legend among Islamic and Arabic nations, but cut him no respect from the bloodthirsty Christianists of Europe. Like Bushies, they viewed compassion and respect for others as a sign of weakness.

When you have a nation (and city) where prevailing values are adherence to authority, a narrow and base-emotion definition of patriotism, and limited funding for "social" issues, internal violence will be the norm, not the exception.

Dinah finally left my immediate presence for a couple of hours to sleep, which I take as a sign of healing on her part. I'm still not sleeping more than a few hours at a stretch, related to pain. I myself sorted through some of my feelings last night with Martha, mostly having to do with being at the literal mercy of anybody who walked into my hospital room and having little room to say no or insist on autonomy. People think giving advice to those who are ill, pushing them to "do what's best", telling them stories about their own medical experiences or those of their friends & family, and/or generally assuming their thinking and decision-making is somehow impaired even in areas it is clearly not, are all manifestations of caring instead of actually simply being roadmaps to the advice-giver's own emotional blocks about what is going on -- i.e., "here's my difficulty with your difficulty, since you're lying there unable to get away or go find other resources, let me demand you deal with my difficulty right now". No wonder we can't think rationally about a simple health care plan, when we're all so bollixed up with panic about ever being truly sick and helplness ourselves.

Work on it, people. Work on it with each other, that's all I ask. Just like you work on your crap about brown people with other white folks, and your shit about women with other men.

Dinah has discovered the yellow "FALL RISK" bracelet from the hospital that I ripped off my wrist I got home and thinks it is a great toy.

My stamina is still so hammered, typing this much leaves my fingers trembling to the extent I have trouble keeping them in line with QWERTY. I guess I'm done for the time being, need to go lie down again. Dress your children in bright colors, not camouflage, and remember what Mark Twain said: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

PERSONAL UPDATE 5 NOVEMBER 2009

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:31:00 +0000

(Maggie and Nilmoni cropped from larger photo, 1958 Kolkata, India)

Too long for Twitter, again: Dinah prowled and wailed every half hour all night long. I'd call to her and she'd come at a trot, need extensive contact to stop vocalizing. I had an endless fount of reassurance. I can hardly take in how painful this separation must have been for her. Finally, mid morning, she slept on my chest and then slept two feet away on the bed. Whenever I noticed her eyes opening, I'd tell her how much I love her, need her, missed her.

I found a long-lost cat toy near my bed, which nearly broke my heart -- I can imagine her trying to bring it to me, only to remember I was gone. We played with it for a while. Also have had regular dispensing of treats. Despite her food bowl being empty, she's not lost weight, and she's eaten from the refilled bowl but not ravenously. I think she figured out the big bag of cat food here by my desk was not sealed tight and helped herself, which is a relief.

Early afternoon the news about the shootings at Fort Hood broke into Rachael Ray locally and I followed that off and on, except when KBH or Chris Matthews were on the screen. I can't access wifi in my bedroom on my little netbook and don't have a cord to reach into my study where my main PC is, but at the moment the solitude -- or rather, being alone with Dinah -- is still an enormous pleasure. I need to sleep and dream a lot more. Scenes from Ginny Bates, past and not yet written, keep breezing through my head. They are some kind of palate cleanser for the hospital experience, I think.

I am lucky as Myra (the main character based on me in Ginny Bates, who wins the lottery as well as love). I know much of my luck has faces, names, heartbeats. I am reminded of the poem by my bed, written about in a post of mine at Meta from March 2008:

THE UNDERTAKING

The darkness lifts, imagine, in your lifetime.
There you are - cased in clean bark you drift
through weaving rushes, fields flooded with cotton.
You are free. The river films with lilies,
shrubs appear, shoots thicken into palm. And now
all fear gives way: the light
looks after you, you feel the waves' goodwill
as arms widen over the water; Love

the key is turned. Extend yourself -
it is the Nile, the sun is shining,
everywhere you turn is luck.

(by Louise Glück, from The House on Marshland)

(Dinah above my computer, May 2005)

[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

HUBBLE THURSDAY 5 NOVEMBER 2009

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:05:00 +0000

(Supernova 1994D in Galaxy NGC 4526)

Every Thursday, I post a very large photograph of some corner of space captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and available online from the picture album at HubbleSite.

BRIEFLY IT ENTERS, AND BRIEFLY SPEAKS

by Jane Kenyon

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . .

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .

I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . .

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills. . . .

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden. . . .

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge. . . .

I am the heart contracted by joy. . .
the longest hair, white
before the rest. . . .

I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow. . . .

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . .

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name. . . .

GOING HOME TODAY

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:10:00 +0000

(Mary Jo Atkins Barnett and Maggie, 1955, passport photo for going to India)

When I woke up from the RT shakiing my shoulder at 7 a.m., the Roches were singing in my head "We're going away to Ireland soon" with muted glee. It's been three weeks today since I was admitted, and I cannot account for a lot of that time. My Narrative has defiinitely been interrupted. A lot of memories wade in and out like scenes from a bad 60's "message movie".

Everytime I think about getting out of here, my chest relaxes a little and I breathe better. It will be hellishly hard on my own but no one will be opening my front door without my choice, and no more small talk, which is to conversation as WalMart is to small town main street commerce. Pajamas and keyboard, that's enough for me. (grin)

One thing that has emerged as my attention returned is that my attraction to folks who are looking for a place to tell their troubles has spread up and down the hall, apparently. I'm a better listener than I am storyteller, but at home I have a stopcock to control who dips into my well. Yesterday I earnestly told Erlinda, the tech of techs, how much everyone here admires her quick learning and leadership. She was clocking out for the day, but stayed at my bedside for half an hour to tell me what it was like raising her three abandoned nieces the past 9 years. Honestly, it's a tale I'm honored to have heard, altered my appreciation for others ever upward -- but what is it I do that inspires others to confide in me? In Erlinda's case, I wanted to hear. Otherwise, I am not even watching the daily reruns on cable of "Grey's Anatomy" -- my own body and midstream ordeal is swallowing the lion's share of my focus right now, and as Stuart Smalley would say, "That's okay."

Yesterday as I was warshing up (as one tech says it), I examined the altered corpus Maggie carefully. The blown IV sites and JP drain scab will go away entirely, I think. But the contours of my front are permanently rearranged -- large capstone bulge gone, everything listed to the right, and a wicked ruck from just below my breasts through my navel like the Hayward Fault when viewed from Mount Diablo. There'll be no problem saying "Yep, that's her" if I wind up mangled on some CSI slab.

Surgeons go directly to the source of an issue and tend not to deal with the aftereffects. This is seen as more efficient, as all versions of Henry Ford compartmentalization are now revered as most productive. I always question this ethic but especially now, as I hear the muttered resentment techs have toward nurses (who say "call a tech" for ass wiping) and the sullen obeisance nurses display toward doctors who breeze in and out far more obliviously than even the most gritty TV drama depicts. When we added making a profit to the work of caregiving -- and especially Reagan's permission to be greedy as an America ethic -- we created the monster that our government is currently too feckless to tame.

Thanks to Jill Cozzi, by the way, for reminding me of the excellent meaning of that word, feckless.

In contrast, a Quaker man, Sean Carroll, is arranging for a CarShare to get me home after my discharge today, since he doesn't own a vehicle. He's already done all the shopping I need to be safe-ish at home , except for the correct size diapers, which will arrive via FedEx tomorrow -- although at least 1/3 of all American women weigh 200 lb. or more, this hospital doesn't stock diapers that go beyond that size, nor would they research finding them for me. Thank g*d I was alert enough and able to get online to meet my own basic dignity needs.

You know, lesbian-feminism of the early 1970s is where I first encountered the concept of political correctness, and it's never been a joke to me. At bedrock, political correctness is about striving to express respect and kindness according to cultural values which may vary from the ones you were raised with. Respect, privacy, pluralism: arch enemies of the fear-based Right.

I don't know why, but for the last 24 hours a particular memory has been popping into my head, as it did just now. It's my first memory, and occurred when I was around one year age. We were living in Kolkata and I was out for the day with Nilmoni, my ayah. We were in what my mother called a rickshah, which was in fact a horse-drawn cart with a single horse. We turned into a street clogged with a mob. Nilmoni began shouting at the cart driver to get us out of there, but we were already being surrounded and horses have to be turned, there is no reverse gear. I was in her lap, held tight, and she put one hand over my face to block my vision. I tugged at her fingers ineffectually, then discovered if I opened my eyes I could see between her slightly spread fingers. I went still, watching with interest.

The crowd was all Indian, which was normal to me, I thought I was too. It was all male, and they were angry, but I wasn't worried because I was with Nilmoni. They were holding aloft, above their outstretched arms, two items: a round of bread and a man, passing them toward one side of the street. The man was struggling, wild-eyed, shirtless. It was intriguing to see an adult passed around as easily as I was.

At the side of the street was a two-story building with outside stairs to an upper landing. The stairs had no railing but the landing had a wooden frame around it. A rivulet of the mob swirled up the stairs and the flailing man was passed upward from arm to arm. Someone on the landing had a rope which was tied to the porch. As the man reached the landing, the other end of the rope was knotted around his neck. With a roaring surge, matched by Nilmoni's shrieks at our cart driver, the shirtless man was thrown over the railing in a small arc. He slammed against the side of the building and a seond later reached rope's end. He scrabbled frantically at the stucco wall with fingernails and feet to find a purchase. Before he could, our cart finally turned out of view. I tried to turn my head to watch but Nilmoni held me fast.

I didn't understand what had happened, and there is no negative emotion in this memory, only excitement about curious adult behavior. It is vivid -- the bright sun with dust in the air, hoarse shouting, Nilmoni's smell, and the look on the face of the shirtless man, his dark sweaty skin and the visible ribs on his torso. Years later, when I was six or so, I began telling my mother about the memory to ask her what it all meant; I thought of it often. She sat down heavily in her kitchen chair, her face horrified, repeating "My god, my god."

She knew the incident. Nilmoni had told her about it when we got home that day. They were both reassured by their belief I hadn't seen anything, and did not want to discuss it with me. Mama said the man was from the untouchable class, still a strong practice in 1956, and he had stolen the round of bread.

Now I have two versions of the memory, my original and the unspeakable horror of what actually occurred as Mama gently explained it to me later.

Sorting out this cacophony we call life takes up all our time. I'm going away to Ireland soon, will be home tonight, and can resume my sift in solitude. Aching, incontinent, exhausted, in a mess of a house, but with just me and Dinah to accommodate. There is peace and wonder to be found in any situation, even death, they tell us. I'll write again as soon as I can.

The Roches singing "The Troubles" in 1983

[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

LOLCATS WEEKLY ROUNDUP 1 NOVEMBER 2009

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:37:00 +0000

Here's the weekly edition of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts.

Sunday Morning Maggie Jochild Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Wendel) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:50:00 +0000

Three Items

1. Maggie's using Twitter.

@jochild

that is

http://twitter.com/jochild

to post updates.

She says "I can manage 140 characters."

Her Twitter feed is totally worth reading. She's a poet, right? She gets a LOT into her 140 characters. *smiles*

2. Maggie probably won't be discharged today.

At the moment from reading the orders the Fill-In Doctor has left, it appears Maggie will not be discharged till at least tomorrow. We believe (but don't know for certain) that Good Doctor will be back tomorrow. Good Doctor is the one who has been standing up for Maggie.

Her physical strength gets stronger day by day. No matter when she gets discharged, going home will be very very hard. She will endure and survive; it is what she does.

3. We still need to raise $1500 (or more); we just have to see.

Maggie's Binder, a device she wears around her entire abdomen and back in order to keep the surgical incision from coming open, which makes it DAMN difficult to do many ordinary functions (as the Binder goes WAY up almost over one's ribs and down low to the bottom of the lower belly thus leaving one's entire middle in a splint) which means for the next two months Maggie will not just have big difficulty, pardon me, cleaning herself after using the bathroom, but she'll also find it difficult to sit up straight to use the computer (her little Netbook is different, and no, her work software won't load on her Netbook), to walk through her apartment to put away food or cook a meal, or any of the basics of life. She can lie down; she can prop against some pillows; with difficulty she can turn over. She can NOT ever ever ever put any fracking strain on her abdomen. At all. Or she might (literally) find her guts all over her bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen floor.

Thus DME (Durable Medical Equipment) for rails on her bed, rails in the bathtub, a higher toilet seat, and much other stuff. Maggie will need enormously higher quality food than she can usually afford (her regular food budget is $140 per month; yes, seriously. If you've ever had a meal or even a meal for two that cost $140 or more not including booze, raise your hand. Look around. Notice that over 80% of our readers have their hand raised. Thank you. Okay, put your hands down please.) and more medicines than she normally can afford (at best she can maybe afford $10 in generics per month plus another $10 in OTC medicine. That's on a good month. The rest of the time she goes without and suffers. I who have health insurance -- and I complain about my prescription drug copays -- pay about $120-150 per month on average for prescription drugs (which I must have or I'd be in the hospital or dead or unable to work and then in the hospital and then dead; like in the same situation as Maggie, so poor I'd be absolutely fucked plus pain beyond compare from the lack of meds... Most likely I'd end up, well, let's not even go there. *shudders*) Some months I pay $200-250 if I get extra sick or the doctors want me to try something new. The retail price of the medicines is around $2500-3500, I'm not certain; I've never really checked because the most I ever pay for a drug is $50, most are either $5 or $25. And being in the upper-middle class I can afford them.) Maggie will need cab rides to visits with her doctors, physical therapists, x-ray examinations on the surgery, at least some of which she'll likely have to pay for in cash as there's no way her Medicare will have come through by then. (We're working out how to pay for these services but some of them don't look good; if we can't pay for them it may be she'll just do without if we don't raise the money... which is how we got into this mess in the first place.)

Bottom line, we still need to raise much more money for Maggie.

My request is that folks subscribe, that is commit to a monthly amount via PayPal of $200, $100, $50, $20, $10, $5, mix and match. Or you can go to Meta Watershead and in the top right corner, hit the Donate button with any amount for a one-off donation. At Meta the Subscription buttons are also there for $5 to $10 monthly, to $20 or $50 a month, and for a number of you, $100 or $200 a month.

A choice: If you're choosing between a one-off donation of $50 or less and a subscription of any amount, please go with the subscription. What, huh? It's simple, really. We'd much rather have the certainty of knowing Maggie can count on that amount from you, even if it's only a large cup of Starbucks cappuccino or a dinner out. Or maybe a dinner out for two. *smiles* The reliability of being able to trust the subscription in the months to come means much more than a larger one-off donation now. It means stability. It means knowing Maggie has her bills paid every month. It means cash-flow.

Speaking of cash-flow, frankly the present-value of a smaller subscription over time is MUCH less to you than a really big one-off donation now. Now obviously we'd love for you to make a big subscription (don't kid yourself; feel free to subscribe to those $100 and $200 buttons, that's why they're there. I and I think two other people are on the $200/mo subscription. Plus I made additional donations every month.) but we're cool if you don't. What we're saying first is that the present-value to YOU is better if you give less each month than if you dig really deep and make a one-time really big donation. Plus that way you get to keep all that interest till PayPal sends whatever the amount is off to Maggie.

From our point of view, a bunch of monthly subscriptions means we can all breath a little easier knowing each month isn't a scramble for Maggie to survive financially. (And yeah, we've applied for all the various financial aid programs, federal, state and even local, but it's going to take at least half a year for them to kick in, and that's assuming all goes well. We have this on good authority from the financial aid/social worker at the hospital Maggie's in whose job it is to get this aid for people.) So for now, y'all... we ...are everything Maggie has financially.

Thus, from two and a half weeks ago until we reach whatever the financial goal turns out to be, $4,000 or a bit more (and we're just not sure yet; ye Gods how I wish we were) what there is is for me to ask you... Please:

Please reach out for Maggie. Step up and make a monthly subscription: $200, $100, $50, $20, $10, $5, or jumble them as you wish.

Your generosity to date has been overwhelming. Not just with money, but with your good wishes, with people offering to help -- we have one person running errands in Austin, y'all have donated not one but two Netbooks (and maybe a third, not sure yet) and we're still figuring what to do with the extra one, and most of all your heart in being there, talking to Maggie on multiple blogs and emails blows me away.

She, and I love all of you so much, are so deeply moved by who you are and what you are doing to help her. As a group of people and as individuals you have really stepped up. You amaze me; you inspire me. Thank you for the gift you have been, and for the gift and contribution you continue to be to Maggie. I honor you for who you are and for the difference you make. Maggie is alive and getting better each day and it would not have happened without her friends and all of you being the difference in her life. Thank you for being you and for loving one another.

Every religion has some version of the Golden Rule. You my precious readers and friends, are living examples of how both the Practice of spirituality and the Golden Rule are designed to work on the ground. The Blessings of the Gods on each and all of you, your families, loved ones, and those with whom you work and associate.

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:22:00 +0000

(Trail through grass, photo by R. Planck -- my current desktop image.)

In the house of long life
there I wander.
In the house of happyness,
there I wander.
Beauty before me,
with it I wander.
Beauty behind me,
with it I wander.
Beauty below me,
with it I wander.
Beauty above me,
with it I wander.
Beauty all arround me,
with it I wander.
In old age traveling,
with it I wander.
On the beautiful trail I am,
with it I wander.

In the culture of the majority of my ancestors (Scots, Welsh, Irish), today is the New Year. Here in Central Texas, it is Dia de Los Muertos. Since I am bound and cannot go even to Friends Meeting, I am repeating the Dine morning prayer to myself and contemplating the treat of a bagel for brex. If they'll let me have it and if it comes with a schmear. Onion or garlic if I'm very lucky.

I was at Shungopovi for the Antelope Dances the last time I spoke with my mother. I camped on Second Mesa and had to drive a ways to find a phone to call her. Something unexplainable happened that day at the dances; I try to write about it but can't tell it right. The next day I went to Canyon de Chelly, and the following afternoon she died in the blink of an eye, finally having escaped my tether.

I don't know the connection yet, but since awakening that old Alix Dobkin song "OKOY" has been playing in my head:

Maybe time alone will soothe our bones
And clo-o-ose the wounds

I'm angry that I don't have the language of my ancestors, maybe Gaelic has tenses or vocabulary to tell the stories lodged in me. I'm angry at how far the the edge I slid, toward my mama and brother's path despite swearing to myself (and Martha) that I would not. I'm angry that my values and choices mean poverty in this culture, and that poverty is not simply limiting but interpreted by institutions and much of Christianity (founded by a man who chose poverty) as dishonorable.

I'm angry about Steve Gilliard's death on a whole new level, as if he were my little brother.

I'm right at the edge of being able to go home and fend for myself. A man with whom I sat in Friends Meeting here for decades, Sean Carroll, contacted Jesse to help me in town. He has been shopping for the DME, household supplies, and good food I'll need to return home -- using money y'all sent. He doesn't own a vehicle but keeps borrowing one or arranging for CarShare to run errands, and has offered to be my ride home when I am discharged. He is bedrock that arose from the waves. He keeps thanking me and Jesse for the opportunity to be of service.

I know how he feels, that's the thing.

I'm terrified about how hard the next two months of recovery will be, even as time and good will closes the ruptures of this year. The only way to face it, this new year, is to remember I walk in beauty and to rest in the altered manner taught to me yesterday by Heather the PT -- who also grew up poor and decisively called me on what Mama always said: "Use it up / Wear it out / Make it do / Or do without." A bad adage when it comes to bodies, although the poor and working classes often have no choice about it.

I just stopped to order breakfast -- yes to the toasted bagel with cream cheese.

I am the only person left to tell the stories of my people in a way so they quilt together with your own stories. I was born and raised to do this. I'm not done yet. Narrative may be our most persistent delusion, but it's how we recognize one another in the dark and this introvert really does want to be with you all, as long as I can have a room of my own too. More to come.

[Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog.]

LOLCATS ROUND-UP HALLOWEEN 2009

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:50:00 +0000

Here's a special edition of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts.

PYA: SCRAP FROM THE FUTURE

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:40:00 +0000

SPOILER ALERT!!!

I've written a scrap of action from my sci-fi novel in progress, Pya, that will take place several months from now in the book. If you don't want the unfolding of the narrative to possibly be ruined for you, don't click on "Read More" below.

And Blue, it's not bad news, I promise.

To begin reading this sci-fi novel or for background information, go to my Chapter One post here. To read about the background of the first novel, read my post here, which will also direct you to appendices.

For more detailed information, posted elsewhere on this blog are:

Pya Dictionary from Skenish to English (complete up to present chapter), with some cultural notes included
Pya Cast of Characters (complete up to present chapter)
Map of Pya with Description of Each Island
Map of Skene (but not Pya)
Map of Saya Island and Environs When Pyosz First Arrived
Skene Character Lineage at Start of Pya Novel
Skene, Chapter One (With Cultural Notes in Links)

Pyosz would ever after remember that first night with Maar in flashes of pure sensation, not in clear chronological order. The most vivid was opening her eyes to the light of one and a half full moons silvering the new wood floors around her bare iron bed, pooling in her second-story room through her generous Dvareka-facing windows. She was ravenously exploring Maar's melt with her wide mouth and vigorous tongue, but even the flood of her own pleasure could not keep her from looking to watch Maar's surrender. Maar's knees were bent so she could lift herself to Pyosz's demand -- as if that was necessary -- and cords of muscle in her thick thighs were visible in Pyosz's periphery. Her head was arched back to the mattress, her mouth open for one shrieking moan after another. Through Maar's red thatch, Pyosz could see that Maar had hands clenching the iron rails of the headboard for traction.

Later, they guessed this is how the headboard weld was rattled loose from the bedframe.

Pyosz's second most intense memory was when the bed fell. She was on her knees, Maar behind her and in her, thrusting with a throaty yell at each push. Suddenly Pyosz was pitched forward at an acute angle, and she put her palms flat against the wall to hold herself back from it. She barely registered the crash, though later she would mourn the deep gouges left in her precious floor from the bedframe edge. She gasped only "Don't stop."

Maar closed the brief gap between her and Pyosz, and continued with measured abandon, trusting Pyosz's powerful arms to keep them both on the sloping mattress. When they both reached temporary release, they climbed out of their crevasse, laughing hysterically, and pulled the mattress flat onto the floor before flinging themselves back onto it, now flat but drenched in sweat.

Qala and Lawa downstairs and at the other end of the house, however, were awakened instantly by the crash. Lawa said "'Did a tree come down?" Qala pulled on pants as Lawa rushed past four curious katts to the front porch. Before she'd crossed the main hall, she heard the thumping from above and returned, scarlet-faced, to tell Qala "It was them" with a jerk of her head upwards. They decided to make tea and toast, talking over the intermittent sounds from Pyosz's part of the house. Clicker the kitten begged for a treat and Qala gave her a sliver of cheese as she remarked "She'll do the milking, nothing stops her from that, but they'll be worthless otherwise tomorrow."

"Not just tomorrow" agreed Lawa, grinning. "Good thing Maar has the day off."

"Remember that night in my little room off the Lofthall office?" reminisced Qala. "I fell off my cot more than once."

Giggling, they returned to bed for a few more hours' sleep.

When Pyosz's alarm rang, she and Maar had dozed off in a tangle of limbs only 15 minutes earlier. She struggled upright, then turned to meet Maar's kiss. "I'm going with you" said Maar hoarsely.

"You don't have to, my darling, you can sleep until -- " began Pyosz. But Maar was trying to find her otos, and Pyosz realized they could not separate, not right now.

Because of Maar's help, despite the heavy yield from a maximum number of does who had just kidded and the new lovers' easy distraction into passionate clinches, they were done before full light. As Pyosz led the swollen herd and frolicking kids to pasture, she turned to Maar and said "I've always wondered why this is called a kissing gate." They found a place to lean safe from Molars' reach, though not Killer's bewildered scrutiny. By the time they were done, the sun was over the horizon.

Pushing her cart down the streets of Koldok side by side with Maar was a thrill for Pyosz. Kolm took one glance at them and began laughing. "Finally" she said. "Does this mean we'll have Thleen among us permanently, then?"

"It does" replied Maar fervently. They took extra cheese and yogurt with them, and stopped at the grocery only to deliver bread, no shopping. Still, it was enough time for Gitta and another customer to grin at each other knowingly about the new couple.

Lawa was in the tillage when they climbed up from the dock. She called out "There's oatmeal and sausage on the aga." Qala had also vacated the house for the orchard. Pyosz and Maar ate heaping plates but did not linger to even rinse them afterward. Qala had to scrub the oatmeal pot half an hour after lunch to get it clean. Her grumbling was mild.

copyright 2009 Maggie Jochild

I"M USING TWITTER

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:35:00 +0000

Posting small updates throughout the day on my Twitter account, URL to the right.

The Invader (the sleep-destroying night tech) upped her ante this morning at 3:00 a.m., wearing perfume so strong it left me coughing.

UPDATE: Just spoke with Dr. Brode. He didn't mention discharge, again urged me to DC my Foley (told him I was considering it) and work hard at gaining endurance. For sure I will. So to me sounds like I'm here for today but the Evil Caseworker has not been heard from yet. Will she work on a Saturday, I wonder?

DANGLING ON FRIDAY

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:40:00 +0000

In the sci-fi novel I'm currently writing, my main character Pyosz has a growing love interest, Maar. I'm having a lot of fun shaping Maar into my own heart's desire. I've been aware that my buddy Blue, who is avidly reading/living each installment of the book, also has a desperate crush on Maar.

Blue called me yesterday to chat. After medical updates, amid kid interruptions on her end, I told Blue that Pyosz and Maar have been popping into my dreams, asking for action to proceed. I wondered if I could discuss a future plot point with Blue. I could hear the eagerness in her voice as she said "Absolutely."

So, in a serious tone, I asked if I should allow Pyosz and Maar to become fully lovers before Maar is tragically killed by leviathans (the monsters in my made-up world) or if it would be less cruel to have her die after they have shared only a kiss.

There was a ghastly silence over the phone. I couldn't keep from laughing, and confessed I was messing with her. Blue almost shrieked in relief and told me if she was near me she would smack me in the head for that. We laughed and laughed -- AS IF I'd do anything to my heartthrob Maar.

I can tell the lack of privacy and autonomy here, not to mention the constant doubt about whether I will be discharged before I can quite be safe on my own, is rubbing me raw.

The tech who comes at 3:00 a.m. to take my vitals throws open the door with a clatter, puts on the brightest light, and sings to herself loudly (and offkey) the whole time she is nearby. If I don't yell after her, she leaves my tray table (with phone, water and call button) out of my reach, the lights on and the door open. But when I do remind her, she acts offended.

I've tried to remind myself if how bored she must be, what the circumstances she might be contending with to make her so utterly devoid of empathy. Almost all the other night techs and nurses go out of their way to not awaken patients. However, at this point I simply hate her. I want her to never enter my sphere again.

There are too many people out there doing as much as they can to help me for me to actually feel sorry for myself. I have been saved in a spectacular fashion. But today is a hard day.

Yet another new PT just came to give me a workout. I'm now sitting up on a bedside toilet, waiting for lunch. I'm dizzy and sweaty. My abdominal binder is not in the right place and hurts a fair amount, but there's no point in trying to adjust it until I am prone again. I'm pushing my endurance as far as I can, to build it back. The PT says she will be back this afternoon to work on getting me to the point where I can wipe myself. Whether I can or not, no matter my endurance, it seems at least 50/50 that they will discharge me today -- the Good Doctor is off and the Evil Caseworker is seizing her chance.

We'll never have universal dignity and respect for individuals in our world until safety and well-being are uncoupled from income and class. Today I am sick and tired of being an object lesson. I want to lie down in the arms of someone who knows me and weep until I fall asleep, secure and seen.

Here's the nurse with a pain pill and lunch (fried fish, cornbread dressing, carrots). That will have to do for now.

"Mama's On The Job"

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Wendel) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:55:00 +0000

The Nursing Home reviewed Maggie and said "No."

The Good Doctor is now (there was some question) IN CHARGE of Maggie. This Good Doctor makes the decision as to if/when Maggie will be discharged. Earlier today, while the Nursing Home was still up in the air he said, "If it were up to me you would not be discharged." Heh. Good things come to those who wait.

Once control of Maggie reverted back to the Good Doctor, i.e.: once the Nursing Home was no longer an option and thus the only option was keeping her in the hospital v. discharging her to home/the street, the Good Doctor took firm control and wrote orders consistent with his speaking earlier today (and the days before.) The wonderful part of this is, before it could have just been talk -- who knew, really? It isn't as if shining on a poor fat female patient costs you anything. To the contrary, with hospital finance breathing down his neck, the Good Doctor is putting his professional self at risk when he steps up and insists Maggie be cared for as if she were rich and had insurance. In doing so he demonstrates the value of the Hippocratic Oath. He's putting himself on the line for Maggie; she's a real person to him.

The Good Doctor wrote orders: 1. Maggie is to stay in the hospital till at least Friday (which not only means she can continue to get better, it means she can relax for a few days without worrying where she'll wake up the next morning); 2. Maggie is to have two (2) physical therapy sessions a day (double what she has now); 3. PT is to continue to note her ability to perform the functions of daily living (as she can't be discharged in the Good Doctor's view till Maggie can perform the functions of daily living...He said to her this morning, "I know you can't perform daily functions yet. If it were up to me you would not be discharged." And then everyone got the word it IS up to him *laughs* But really, thank the Gods it IS up to him. Just like University Hospital being on ER diversion, the Good Doctor being responsible for Maggie may well turn out to be one of those key turning points which we look back at and say, "This, this right here, this saved her life and/or made a HUGE difference in the final outcome"; 4. Reevaluate on Friday to see how Maggie is doing.

*is oh so happy*

Maggie requests a reliable person to run random errands in Austin; if you're that person, please contact Jesse Wendel.

Maggie's Mama has come through. 'Cause this morning we were damn sure either Maggie was going to a BAD nursing home (the one they were trying to send her to really blew; it was -- and is -- especially bad for bed sores and pneumonia. Not to mention it keeps screwing up patient meds and can't quite keep the sheets clean and sterile. All this according to the latest report I've read/of which I have a copy.) But charity-case Maggie wasn't good enough for the nursing home.

Or Maggie was going to be kicked out of the hospital entirely like to her home or the street and they didn't care where, which, given she can't even climb into bed after getting out to use the toilet and she doesn't have a bedside toilet, would have been an utter disaster. But that didn't happen either. We didn't (quite) panic. We kept cool and waited, waited for a miracle.

The closest we came to doing something is a) prepping y'all to make phone calls (thanks y'all) and b) when the Good Doctor stopped by yesterday while Maggie was on the phone with Liza, as Maggie got off she said, "That was Liza, a friend of mine from back East. She's checking in for this large group who want to know how I am." The doctor went, "Huh?" Maggie smiled and said, "Yeah. I'm a nationally known writer and blogger. People all over the United States are trying very hard to find out how I am. It's a really big deal." And then she dropped it and moved the conversation on. However, Maggie reports, she could see it got through. That was yesterday evening. And now today we have this. To be fair, he's always been the Good Doctor, being wonderful with Maggie, standing up for her. But in the last couple of days he's really come around, taking a clear stand for her in a way which he was not three or four days ago.

Maggie's in the hospital till at least Friday. *smiles -- is happy*

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog.

Maggie Jochild Wednesday Quick Report

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Wendel) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:20:00 +0000

Fast report.

This may be the only report for today, not sure…

The hospital has asked a not-great nursing home to accept Maggie; the nursing home is evaluating her (either via a records review or perhaps in person, we’re not sure) which will probably take the rest of today and maybe even into tomorrow. Till we/the hospital get a yes/no on accepting Maggie from the nursing home, she’ll stay in the hospital. The odds are well into the 90th percentile she’ll be discharged, either to the nursing home (if they say yes) or to her home/the street (if the nursing home says no) within at most 24 hours of the nursing home saying one way or another, which could be as early as later today but more likely will be tomorrow morning.

While Maggie has half her stitches out and healing continues to go well, and while this morning she managed to get OUT of bed on her own, she could not get back IN to bed. In no way can she perform on her own the tasks of daily living. We now know who has the discharge authority yes/no over Maggie. We are sure he is under enormous pressure to discharge her from the financial people, even though she is clearly not ready to be on her own. Even so we are NOT going with the massive phone call storm to the hospital (which I mentioned over at DTWOF), at least not yet. We’re still waiting to see what the nursing home says; Maggie being accepted to the nursing home is the best bet.

Thank you for the emails and subscriptions. Please keep them coming $200, $100, $50, $20, $10, $5, mix and match. Maggie told me ten minutes ago to tell you how much she loves and appreciates you. And that she’s getting better each and every day. Later today she’s got a big PT workout. She has faith everything will work out.

For folks whom have asked about applications for welfare, Medicaid, and so on, good news (although it will take quite a while.) All of those applications are in or in the process of going in for Medicaid, welfare, and other appropriate programs.

The first time through, everyone gets turned down. But on the second application we are told, Maggie should be approved without much trouble.

The hospital is working closely with the person handling Maggie’s finances while she’s in the hospital, to see that this happens successfully. (It’s the only way for the hospital to get paid at all. They have a good track record with this as their own self-interest is at stake, so I’m quite optimistic in the long run.) In the short-run, Maggie has no money, no job till she’s well, so for the next two months we and the donations we raise for her are ALL that she has. *sighs*

Next time some damn Republican banker tells me that donations are the answer instead of government aid, I’m taking him to Austin and showing him Maggie as exhibit A. After two weeks of asking and begging and with Maggie being relatively well known nationally as these things go, we’re still only at half what she needs. And now the Republicans & Sen. Joe L (Ind-CT) are trying to blow up the Public Option on Health Care. Arrrrrgh!

Next update no later than tomorrow; sooner if there’s a major change. In the meantime, please contribute $200, $100, $50, $20, $10, $5, or in any combination.

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog.

Swapping Class Lessons

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:30:00 +0000

Entitlement is a concept which has been misunderstood and criticized in feminist/liberation ideologies. It’s an attitude we are born with, as is altruism, but just as altruism has been distorted by American mythology into “self-sacrifice,” entitlement has become conflated with selfishness and arrogance.

An authentic sense of entitlement, however, is not selfish. If you believe there is enough to go around for everybody (which is possible when capitalism and Christianist lies are snipped from your brain,) and if you have achieved enough emotional maturity to love yourself/your community without depending on power imbalances for security, expressing entitlement is an act of mass social empowerment.

Unfortunately we have meager examples of what this actually looks like in our current government or pop culture representation. Those of us trying to define it for ourselves -- say, a fat crippled family-less poor dyke currently receiving high-level care as an indigent -- must stay in continuous conversation and exploration with those we trust to keep identifying the next best refinement of definition.

And of course the major obstacle to clarity about entitlement is class conditioning about which America is in deep denial.

I have been/am being kept afloat daily by a network of middle-class institutions, working-class smarts, and a few specific individuals who will not let go my hand.

One as you all know is Jesse Wendel, raised middle-class Mormon who used the military to escape LDS paranoia and family violence. This is not the most obvious ladder to use, but someone who can manage to stop panicking at the sounds of hounds in his own head long enough to carefully select the next solid-looking hummock can pick his way across any bog. Plus there is a basic Mormon value of service to the deserving, and if you buckle that onto a new template of who is “deserving” you get the Gilliard kind of liberal that Jesse is. His instance of my value was in my head when I finally staggered to the phone last week in the middle of the night and gave myself up to the machinery of possible public humiliation and loss of autonomy. I left the Gillchrist Peninsula; I hitched a ride west from the 9th Ward, into the care of strangers. But I knew Jesse would find me wherever I landed, and I acted like I mattered to everyone I met. To do so meant completely betraying my class training and my families’ choices.

Equally crucial has been Martha Chesnutt, my friend since 1980, who is handling all the finances and working on getting me disability long-distance from Atlanta. Martha and I lived together years ago and she has been the older sister I would have chosen for myself. Our ancestors arrived in North America via Jamestown, and our shared southern roots are tangled. Her line had been as consistently owning class as mine has been poor. But we came out into the crucible of lesbian-feminism where, despite revisionist rhetoric to the contrary, many of us learned to deal with class and race in a way I do not see being done as well now.

Martha is a class ally to me whom I trust more than anyone else on earth. She’s done the work, keeps doing it, translates across the boundary as earnestly as I do, and for over a year she paid my rent, until her own difficulties kept her from doing it any longer.

Martha and I also bore witness to one another as we each in turn fell in love with and partnered to women who, despite all efforts, became abusive. We stayed close friends as these long-term lover relationships degraded us and challenged our ability to self-love. Imperfectly, mentally, we figured out how to just have faith in one another despite watching the other make self-destructive choices. We somehow kept returning to “any difficulty I have with your difficulty is still my difficulty.” The friendship survived where all other connections did not.

I can tell Martha anything. However I use this gift sparingly, because I see the wound in her when she faces some of my reality.

Martha has refused to ever give up her sense of entitlement. She blazed a trail in that regard and continues to often take a machete to the underbrush a few yards ahead of me.

I once wrote in an essay that I felt like my family and I had been left for dead. I still feel that way about them – I mean, they are all dead now.

But because I’ve chosen to reassess every class lesson handed on to me by my people, rejecting toxic beliefs for those of the middle and owning classes where I could see the sense of it, I’m the survivor.

About a month before I called the paramedics, Martha said to me, with all the courage she could muster, that she was afraid I was repeating my mother’s pattern of hopelessness about individual survival. It was an extraordinarily difficult talk, but I have to admit the seeds she planted helped me call those paramedics instead of dying alone.

Thank you, Martha, Jesse, Liza, Genia, Kat. Thanks for getting close enough to see/hear my truth and letting me see yours so I might learn from it. Thank you out there who believe I matter.

And thank you to my family, for taking me as far as they could before their own sense of shame dragged them underwater.

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog as dictated to Jesse by Maggie.

Maggie Jochild Still In Hospital Monday, Barely

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Wendel) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:05:00 +0000

Windows Netbook Donation Needed. Financial Donations Report!

Just a quick report as I’m in so much pain in my right hip I’m not at work today (this was written Monday afternoon, even if I’m posting it Tuesday morning.) Hurts to sit up, hurts to write. Hurts to do anything but sleep.

Maggie was NOT discharged over the weekend. One of the great things about the hospital she is in, is they apparently are big believers in what is called the TEAM Concept of Care. This means that in this hospital -- the best surgical hospital in Austin where the rich folks go for their surgeries if they don’t fly in their G-Vs to Houston -- unlike all the other hospitals which are not nearly as highly ranked nationally (oh yes, this hospital is NATIONALLY RANKED; what, you thought I’ve been pulling your chain, polishing your knob, yanking your Petunias, these last 10-12 days when I’ve told you Maggie is in the BEST surgical hospital in Austin? Oh, say it isn’t so Gentle Reader…)…unlike the other, not nearly as highly ranked nationally hospitals, the hospital our dear Maggie Jo lies recovering in, does everything in TEAMS. A Team consists of everyone involved in the medical care of a patient, plus a representative from the financial side of the house. Everyone gets a fairly equal voice in what should happen. This method of care compares to the less successful hospitals (so far as patient outcomes go) where the Doctors and the Finance People (and more and more it’s the Finance People) make the calls on what happens. Not so in the nationally ranked facility where Maggie is working so hard to recover.

That Maggie is working SO damn hard impresses the hell out of everyone. Today for example she walked 50 feet with a walker, her PT person right next to her to try and stop a fall just in case, but she made it! Totally wiped her out, she told me as 50 feet is an amazing (and very tough) distance for her to walk… Her stitches remain in (nope, the surgeon changed his mind last Friday and left them in. And today he decided to leave them in till at least Friday this week) with the Binder which is like a large corset still constricting her abdomen tightly keeping the surgical site intact, the stitches from coming out, and everything all good and clean and perfect.

Because Maggie is working so goddamn hard, because she’s working harder -- in the judgment of her nurses and the PT/OT and respiratory folks – all of the aforementioned TEAM members and even some of her doctors are all LOUDLY saying, do NOT discharge Maggie. Why, they say?

“Maggie has no support, no one to take care of her. If we discharge her for, let’s face it, financial reasons” -- and they glare at the financial guy who is pretty much coming around to see things from our side anyway, but they still glare at him we’re told – “we’re only going to see her again inside days to a week when her sutures come loose, the incision bursts open (the surgeon gets all stuffy at this point), she gets a massive infection and that’s if her insides do not spill out all over the floor, and of course with the massive infection she’ll get an even larger fever and become dehydrated. Hell, she isn’t even able, no, scratch that, she is UNABLE to even get in and out of bed by herself let alone make it to the toilet. Without any money to hire a nursing aide, no charity bed for rehab for the hardest working most deserving patient any of us have seen in forever. How can we possibly expect Maggie, with a Foley Catheter in place no less, to take care of her self all alone? It’s impossible! Hummph!”

This opinion is slowly gaining weight in the TEAM approach. *smiles*

On the other hand, finance still wants her out, although he’s being less adamant about it all. That said, there is a genuine, real chance Maggie may be discharged Tuesday. No promises or predictions one way or the other. It could go one way or the other. *sighs* I’m not going to panic. We will see and what happens will happen. But I think (and hope and pray) we have enough medical weight on our side, that with the TEAM being pretty damn pissed off at this point about Maggie’s overall condition, that a discharge won’t happen till Maggie’s truly ready. Furthermore, Maggie is ready to very respectful and appreciatively, strike, should anyone try to kick her out before her body is at least able to handle the basics of living alone: getting in and out of bed without ripping her stitches out (including NOT straining her abdomen which her PT person insists upon, as does her surgeon); since she doesn’t have a pull thingy above her bed to haul herself in and out of the bed with, that will be hard; cleaning herself; going to the toilet. Also walking to the kitchen; watching back from the kitchen; making a meal; feeding the cat; going all the way from her bedroom to the front door, getting groceries, taking them to the kitchen and putting them away before the cold stuff rots, then getting back in bed, all without falling over and hurting herself or ripping out her stitches or splitting open her abdomen.

If she can not do ALL these simple acts of daily living, she can not go home. Are they going to send her to live on the street under a newspaper? Seriously; what do they intend to do, send her to die, now that they have saved her life?

As she keeps telling people, “I live with a cat but she can NOT change my Foley.”

Financially Maggie and I and Martha (who is handling the money) deeply appreciate the money given so far. We are roughly at half-way. So far slightly under two-thousand dollars have been donated. We need to raise four thousand. $4K allows Maggie two months off work, the medicines she needs, some healthier foods, some (but not all) of the durable medical equipment she needs such as a pull thing above her bed. Plus paying rent electric, water, food, cat food, taxi rides for outpatient, a little home health care, and so on. The absolute bare minimum with zero margin for error and no reserve (and ya always need a reserve; this number doesn’t have one) for the bare minimum she’ll need if everything goes perfectly (and there are always fuck-ups (this assumes no fuck-ups at all) is $4 grand cash in emergency donations/additional subscriptions. It does NOT include any subscriptions/donations existing prior to Wednesday 12 days ago when Maggie went to the hospital. We’re assuming all of those remain intact. If any of those get canceled, we’ll need more money. On the other hand, half way there, pretty much. So hey, far out and good work everyone! And we have a little room to breathe. It isn’t as if we need to have all the money tomorrow. We needed a bunch of money last Friday as we thought she was being thrown out Friday or Saturday, which would mean we’d have to hire a nursing aide right then as we had no bed for her and there was no way she could go back home. So we were going to put her, well, never mind. The point is, we now have a little more room. So please, take a deep breathe, congratulate yourself and everyone else on the great job we’re all doing so far.

Then, dig down and please donate more. We’ve got $2,000 and change to go. *laughs* If you haven’t donated yet, heh, opportunity! We're asking people to contribute from as little as $5 to $10 monthly, to $20 or $50, and for a few of you, all the way up to $100 or $200 a month.

Coming up still today, another post from Maggie. It’s amazing. I think one of the best pieces of writing she’s ever done. (I feel like a link in a chain, smuggling the writings of a renowned Russian writer out of the prison camps to the West. And honored to take her dictation.)

Ahhh… Maggie needs a Netbook Computer. She has NO Internet access. Getting her a Netbook so she can surf, email, and write whenever SHE wants to, not have to write by hand and then dictate to me, is able to check in on her friends and their posts, can check in at GNB and Meta when she wants… She’s cut off from her WORLD. It would mean the world to her if we can get her access restored.

Can someone please, please, pretty please with love and strawberries and real sugar on top please donate an inexpensive Microsoft compatible Netbook to Maggie? (Not even a laptop. She doesn’t have the strength to hold a laptop.) It needs to be SO light that really only a wireless-enabled Netbook will do plus also a Netbook is the right form factor. Even a very light-weight laptop would be too big; she wouldn't be able to balance it, and a telephone would be a new OS to learn plus you really can't browse on them. She needs precisely what I'm requesting and not anything else. Please.

Note: I don’t mean to offend any of y’all whom are huge Mac fans. -- I’m writing this on a MacBook and can hardly stand the wait till January for the new Apple Tablet, but that’s not important right now – I also don’t mean to offend fans of other OSes such as various Unixes. The thing is Maggie only knows Windows. Period. Full stop. In her current mental state -- able at her current best to think two perhaps three hours ahead when she isn’t physically wiped out which is much of the time, and she can handle perhaps five minutes ahead then -- I am NOT absolutely NOT pressing her in any way not critical to her health. An OS holy war is not critical to her health. OS discussion ends here.

Maggie needs a Windows-version Netbook computer. Having one will give her autonomy in a major way. This will make an ENORMOUS difference for Maggie in her physical recovery as well as her mental recovery (having to work with the keys will help her physical recovery; working with the thinking and writing and her peeps and writing again will deeply assist her mental recovery.)

If you can donate a Netbook, please email Jesse Wendel.

Thank you.

Again, please donate and get your friends to donate. Please contribute $200, $100, $50, $20, $10, $5, or in any combination. If you have a blog or know people with blogs, get the word out about Maggie. Link, link, link.

Anything I can do to help get the word out, be in touch.

Thank you all so much for your support. And bless all of you for that support. You mean the world to Maggie and myself.

Knowing you are there has on many a day, gotten me up and out of bed, I tell you true. Often it seems strange to me that me, big bad-ass Jesse, who walked through the toughest ghettos in the United States for almost a decade with nothing but a med kit, backboard, oxygen bottle and defibrillator, and a gurney. And my 90 pound gurrrrl partner (who could kick YOUR ass any day, twice a day on weekends, three times on pay-day weekends) could be brought to bed by pain. But it never, ever, ever stops. Even when I take LOTS of drugs, even then it doesn’t stop; it is simply overwhelmed and then the drugs usually overwhelm me also. It’s impossible to find positions not also painful. The best is this wonderful chair at work. In it I can sit for many hours and work and work and work. At home on my bed I’m able to roll this way and that, and to watch comedy shows which by making me laugh, reduce the pain. Sometimes I can sleep and then I don’t hurt, briefly, till I wake up, which I do every three hours around the clock to take pain meds. No, I don’t set an alarm. The old meds wear off and that wakes me up.

Here’s my point. In the midst of this, especially in the last two and a half years since my friends and I started Group News Blog, some days what has got me up when normally I’d have stayed in bed and wept, stayed in bed and tried to sleep, stayed in bed and watched television, or stayed in bed and read or done anything but moved a fraction more than I absolutely must (on what I call a BAD pain day, like today for example when I didn’t go to work as it felt as if someone had stuck a steel bar deep into my right hip and was bouncing bouncing bouncing up and down on the bloody thing with the blunt end quivering deep in my hip bone to the point where the scale I balance on is overdosing my meds v. screaming) and on some days precisely like today when normally I’d simply stay in bed and weep and pray for the day to end, on some of those days over the past two and a half years I have gotten up because I knew YOU were there, waiting for me to write, waiting for me to post, even just waiting for me to go check the PO Box and pick up a letter I knew was coming. So I got up and got to it. Sucked it up. Because of you.

You readers are the gift who quite literally, day after day after day, I get out of bed for because of you. If not for you, just as years ago when I was suicidal, then it was my four children whom I lived for, now I get out of bed and go enter into life because to do otherwise would be to fail to serve you.

The last eight to ten months (since shortly after the inauguration) have been very hard for me, physically. And I’m not fully back by any means.

But with Maggie needing me, with readers from GNB all of a sudden writing me and my needing to write them back, with other GNB writers suddenly writing again and the blog starting to pick up again (as I’ve said all along it would start to do about a year before the 2010 election) and with the joy of my writing posts for GNB all of a sudden descending upon me like grace from above, like how I feel after a wonderful bicycle ride with my daughters or son, I can only say that for the last eleven to twelve days, as totally wiped out as I’ve been each day, as utterly drained as I’ve been each day, I’ve been more ALIVE this past almost two weeks than at any time in the past eight to ten months of lying in bed in pain. Now I’m up and about (and in pain) but at least I’m about and out in the world (and in pain.) The fucking pain part does not change. But at least I’m out and in the world and alive.

Thank YOU (all of you, but I really mean YOU, the one reading this right now) for the wonderful gift to me which you are. And for everything which you are to Maggie, and for all which you do to her.

Speaking of which -- because this is how all posts right now must end, *smiles* -- please subscribe/donate to Maggie as much as you can afford: $200, $100, $50, $20, $10, $5, mix and match.

Also, I request you, Gentle Reader, donate a Windows Netbook for Maggie within 24 hours. Contact Jesse Wendel.

Thank you.

Oh yeah… Within a hour, a post from Maggie. *grins*

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog.

Shabbos

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:40:00 +0000

“Once, in Israel, God appeared in the doorway, and we were sore afraid.”
Annie Dillard

Let us now set aside
our profane belief
in corpus control
and embrace sacred humility
With yeast and egg
seed and must
Let us bow our will
to that power beyond our texts:
How our mucus membranes
will repair themselves
Flesh will knit
oxygen will
hop the metro of our corpuscles
It takes dozens of muscles
tiny or bovine, from may regions
to evacuate our bowels
an expertise we possess at birth
Let us mumble our ignorance
Of bile and synapse
Why some tumors are checked
How our watery sacs constantly
adjust valves to keep us
one step shy of liquid or
sicca again sayonara
We are deluded
We are sore afraid
Let us join fingertips
with the love we can only express
by life itself
which is another word for love.

© 2009 Maggie Jochild
October 23, 2009, 8:20 pm

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog as dictated to Jesse by Maggie.

“This is Las Vegas. We have our own way, and we just let people be how they are.”

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:30:00 +0000

This statement was given to me by Grace, Nurse of Nurses, here in the PCU. To be honest, Grace, or Amazing Grace as we call her behind her back, is one of two Nurse of Nurses here. The other being Extraordinary Emily. But for today I am blessedly in the hands of Grace for a third day in a row, sandwiched between two nights under the care of Ray-Ray, Grace’s best friend and the kind of man you wish was your own best friend.

But I digress. Easy to do here in Vegas.

The PCU is a netherworld between ICU, where gossamer threads of mortality are nearly visible in the always florescent glare and must be brushed by as delicately as Shelob’s Lair, and “The Ward,” the rest of the hospital. (In my Tramadol soaked brain I just commented “Ward, I’m worried about my beaver,” cracking myself up.)

Here on the PCU we are one firm step up from the ICU toward the remainders of our days but still dealing 24/7 with heavy damage done to us by other human beings or organisms which lack negotiation skills. Grace tells me she has three patients besides me and I’m the only person on the entire floor who is coherent. Which makes me something of a road-side attraction. In the midst of my extremis I’m having some profoundly human connections here in Vegas.

I saw half my abdominal incision today, about four inches of it. It’s grotesque but I touched it gently and reminded my belly I love it, all will be well someday. I did that for my Mamma after her surgeries, and now must love my self without her here.

Except, of course, she never left me.

More stories to come but hydrocodone, heparin, Protonix, potassium, mag sulfate, and levaquin await.

Thank you for being mine out there.

This post is about Thursday, October 22, 2009. Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog as dictated to Jesse by Maggie.

One Week After Emergency Abdominal Surgery Maggie Jochild Is Still In Intensive Care

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Wendel) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:20:00 +0000

Donations Desperately Urgently Needed or
Maggie May Be Sent Home, Tough Luck
Instead Of Surgical Rehab As Needed

Bottom Line:
Maggie Desperately Needs
YOUR Donations Now
For Reals, No Kidding
This One's for All The Marbles

The alternative is Maggie may literally be kicked out of the hospital with a big surgical incision in her stomach which isn't anywhere near healed, unable to walk (even to the kitchen or the bathroom) and sent home. If this happens her surgical wound WILL split back open, become infected, and if we're really really lucky, the worst that will happen is Maggie will get sent back to the hospital where it will all get fixed.

Those of you whom remember Steve Gilliard remember that he was out of heart surgery, was talking and recovering, and then the hospital pushed his fat black poor ass out of its expensive ICU bed because he had no insurance, threw him to a non-monitored cheap-ass ward bed...where Gil promptly got a major infection which killed him, even after they returned him to the ICU and did surgery to try and save him again.

If the hospital had only kept Steve in the ICU for another week he'd likely have lived. If he'd had insurance -- if someone would have PAID for that expensive medical shit -- then Gil would for sure have been left on the ICU no problem. And in the ICU a) he likely wouldn't have caught the damn infection to start with, but if he had, b) they'd have been all over the damn thing within 3-6 hours of it starting and BOOM, knocked it on its ass right away. 'Cause that's what they do in ICU, catch 'em small and knock 'em down. Instead, Gilly was on the ward, they missed it for days, and by the time they caught it it'd spread all over his body, thus he died.

We talk (more or less privately) how Gilly's death was partially caused by racism. Let's be even more blunt. It was caused by classism. If Steve had been a black man with money, a fat black man with good health insurance and a decent job, he'd likely have lived. He died because the hospital was not being PAID to give a shit.

We are facing down the very same problem with Maggie. It's the money, stupid.

Maggie is alive. And dead broke.
We need your help, for reals.

Maggie is in totally wonderfully amazingly health (with respect to her recovery that is; I'm not comparing her to an Olympic champion) in one of the best major surgical recoveries I've ever seen.

If you'd asked me two weeks ago if what has just happened could happen with Maggie would happen with Maggie, I'd have told you not only no but hell no, and listed 20 major problems which no doubt would go wrong during any major hospitalization/surgery time frame for Maggie. Yet here we are.

Two ways it all can go:

1. Get Maggie into a good Long Term Acute Care / Rehab facility.

a) This will require both a charity bed from the facility and/or donations from various sources in Austin. We have LOTS of sources working to make that happen. If any of you have high-level contacts in Austin who might be willing to help, please email me directly.

b) We'll also need SUBSCRIPTIONS & DONATIONS from y'all. Thousands and thousands of dollars both in ongoing monthly subscriptions and current immediate donations. Both are needed. If you need to choose, I'd prefer you choose to subscribe for a monthly lessor amount. How much you subscribe for monthly is your business. The current highest monthly subscription Maggie receives is $200 month; two people currently subscribe to Maggie at that level. Furthermore, both of those people sometimes donate additional sums when money is short. Money goes to the very basic needs of life: food; Maggie's food budget is $160 per month. Rent. Water and electricity, Internet, cat food, medicines (prescription and OTC), clothing. The pure basics.

2. The bad route: Maggie gets sent home alone to heal.

a) In rehab yesterday (Thursday) it was a triumph when Maggie stood for ten minutes immediately next to her bed WITH TWO PEOPLE HELPING HER. She is unable to walk to the bathroom ten feet from her bed. (She uses a rolling toilet next to her bed with two attendants and a nurse with her at all times as she's backing out a big one. The attendant rolls away and cleans up the toilet afterward. As for peeing, she still has in a Foley cath.

Question: At home, when she can't get out of bed without help, how is she to crap, pee, cook food (when she can't stand), wipe her bum, keep her incision clean (no attendent is going to come to her home for a home health care visit; she has no insurance and no financial aid or support to get a home health aid.) And so on and on. She's recovering wonderfully but she will need massive support and assistance around the clock for the next 3-8 weeks depending. (I'm not yet clear myself, nor are the doctors. The best numbers I've been able to get are, three weeks to two months of FULL-TIME care depending on how she does, part-time support for several months afterward.

Bottom line: She either gets #1 above, the Charity Bed or she'll become a lying in her own sickness infection case and the only question will be, will she become to infected to quickly to dial 911 in time? As part of #1 above we'll need enough donations from y'all to keep her home handled, lights on, cat taken care of, all the basics. If we can manage the basics for her then we're good.

Moving on...

Even though it is way early, because there's such a concern about money, her surgical team is removing her surgical staples TODAY (Friday) while she's still in the ICU Stepdown with ICU Nurses 24/7, Internists and Surgeons doing rounds twice a day, the entire intensive care setup but with the focus on rehabilitation, not purely on critical care.

Maggie has a history of her abdominal surgical wound breaking wide-the-frack open -- technical term: dehiscence -- and taking months, infected, pain-filled, pus-dripping agonizing months to heal. *shudders* Throughout the last two weeks, much much more than dying, dehiscence and cancer have been Maggie's major fears.

The good news is Maggie had Cancer. Because she was accidentally taken to the rich people's hospital in Austin -- the indigent people's hospital was on ER bypass when she called 911 -- she got the best surgical, anesthesiology & OR Team in Austin in what is without question the best hospital in Austin. And the #1 surgical etc. team (as I just said) decided her case was interesting enough to take it on themselves.

Came the day before her surgery when her surgeon asked her if she wanted a "surgical weave" to hold the abdominal organs in place afterward or not. The benefit would be it would allow him to do an appendectomy as well; the problem is, it would cost an extra twenty-thousand dollars. Maggie told me "I looked him dead in the face and said, 'Use the surgical weave and do the appendectomy. That's one less possible emergency abdominal surgery I'll never have to have. As for the $20 grand, it's fine. I'm dead broke and am never going to be able to pay for any of this anyway.'"

"The surgeon blinked for a moment, then started laughing, caught himself -- it was as if he admired my guts -- and said, 'Alright, we'll use the weave and do the appendectomy.' And walked out of the room."

The surgery happened. Along with all the stuff which saved her life, an utterly routine appendectomy took place. In addition, an utterly routine D&C took place, as Maggie's had long-lasting issues with cervical cysts rupturing. The question for 20 years has been, should she get a total hysterectomy to avoid the substantial risk of cervical cancer. One of the major questions considered in this surgery was, 'Should we do a full hysterectomy?' A GYN/Oncologist was brought in on the case precisely to answer that question. After doing a full work-up on Maggie, talking with the primary surgeon about the seriousness of the primary surgery -- it was a MAJOR threat to her life and time-of-surgery, e.g.: how long she was under anesthesia, as well as length-of-incision, e.g.: if a total hysterectomy had been done the surgical incision required would have been triple its current size, the dehiscence Maggie is worried about (which has not yet happened) would have been flat-out unavoidable, infection would have set in, rehab would have been measured in six months to a year... and that is if she had lived to get off the table, given the longer OR time and the additional insult to her already badly damaged system.

Maggie and I decided against it. Her surgeon, and her GYN/Oncologist recommended against it. What they did suggest instead was a full D&C during the surgery along with a biopsy, as well as an examination of the uterus and other reproductive organs, visually (if possible), by touch, and through biopsy.

What you need to understand is Maggie has had cervical cysts rupturing every few weeks/months for decades. The pain is a 9 out of 10 with 10 being screaming then dropping to the floor writhing banging your head trying to knock yourself out. Nine is just short of that, all you can do NOT to totally lose it.

I speak as someone who has gone all the way to 10 more than once. Dropping to the floor, first screaming, then sobbing in agony. Almost everyone around me getting away from me. One good friend came over and helped me to my car; I drove myself, somehow, to my doctor's office where I stumbled in (without an appointment; ha!) and they instantly took me back where I was seen within 90-120 seconds. Hours later I was in the hospital being admitted by a neurosurgeon for the next four days, emergency neurosurgery two-three times, morphine drip, unable to form words of more than two syllables or speak past a four-year old level...for four days due to the pain.

THAT is a 10 (in case you're ever asked how bad it hurts 1-10.) If you can talk about the pain while you're in the pain, it ain't no 10. *smiles*

Maggie's been living with a 9 for 2 to 3 days every few weeks to a month for the last 10-20 years. Plus the fear of cervical cancer. With no health insurance, she's had NO way to find out; she's simply had to ride out the pain with Advil, and ride out her fears alone.

The physical examination during surgery was unremarkable. Which is good. Of course, it's the biopsy that tells the story. Two days ago (Wednesday) the biopsy of Maggie's D&C came back. Nada. Nothing. Clean. Her GYN/Oncologist came by and explained... as Maggie told me, he said this means because Maggie is in menopause, she in no longer a cervical cancer risk. She made it through the danger zone and out the other side. Done, complete, fini.

The biopsy results also came back Wednesday from the appendectomy. Remember, the routine appendectomy that almost didn't get done and only happened because Maggie insisted they spend an extra $20,000.00? Cancer. Malignant cancer. The Oncologist came by... as Maggie told me, he said you got lucky. The margins on the cancer were clean. That means we got ALL of the cancer. It didn't spread anywhere. It was just growing there in your appendix. Because we took out your appendix, the cancer is all gone. You don't need any special treatment, any checkups, nothing. It's handled.

Maggie told me, "I pushed for being treated like a rich person. 'Twenty-thousand dollar weave & an appendectomy.' That's the price-tag on my life. Well, one of them."

Had Maggie NOT had this surgery, she would have died, three different ways that I am SURE of, and that's just so far. My guess is, by the time this all gets sorted out, between her doctors, nurses, rehab team and myself (as a retired paramedic) we'll come up with six to seven certain issues which would have killed Maggie for sure over the next five years, another five to ten which might have killed her over the next five years, plus another ten ranging from would have for sure to probably to would have/might have got around to killing her 5-25 years if the other shit didn't get her first. *smiles sweetly*

Shorter me: Rich people live longer than poor people. Maggie Jochild is a brutal demonstration. She would have been DEAD RIGHT NOW (within a week of when she called 911) in an ugly, ugly way... from gangrene/peritonitis of the bowel/abdomen. Followed by lots of other crap shortly thereafter, ranging from heart to appendix to cancer of the appendix to other abdominal organs being strangled to hernia's rupturing to the stomach literally exploding to intestines dying to kidneys dying.

Maggie was a dead woman who could barely even walk. Now she's going to a Nursing Rehab facility IF someone gives her CHARITY, if y'all can cover her personal expenses so she still has a home and a cat to come home to afterwards.

They treated Maggie like a Rich Person (she says; I say, like someone in the middle to upper class), someone like me or Sara or Evan or Jen, someone with INSURANCE.

If they'd treated Maggie like someone with no insurance she'd be dead right now. If she'd waited one more day (maybe), two more days (for sure) to dial 911, she'd be dead.

If she had insurance she'd have been seeing her doctor all along and ALL this crap would have been caught 8-10 months ago and NONE of this would have happened. Or to the extent that it did happen at all it would have been caught early on, the surgeries would have been done early, and Maggie's life would never have been at risk. As it was when they put her under last week, there was a VERY real chance she was not going to wake up. I placed the odds at 80% survival which means there was a 1 out of 5 chance of on-the-table mortality. If she'd not been in a Rich People's hospital -- simply because the poor people's hospital by the grace of the Gods was on ER diversion that night -- I'd have given her 60/40 maybe even 40/60 odds depending on who was operating and who was doing anesthesia. As it was, instead of a 60% chance (3 out of 5) of dying on the table, it was 4 out of 5 of her making it in the Rich Person's hospital, and she wouldn't have even had that risk, not anywhere close, perhaps 1-100, if she'd had health insurance all along and had been being treated properly from the jump.

But Maggie's dirt poor. So she's screwed. What she needs now, desperately, is money. Her food budget for an entire MONTH is $160. Seriously. Her entire MONTHLY budget, rent, medicine, cat foot, electric, phone, water, everything...comes to $1200 bucks per month -- and she doesn't always hit that. When she misses and me and her other close friends can't make it up, she goes hungry. Yes, you know someone who goes without food on a routine basis because she has no money. And yes, she almost just died because she didn't have the money to see a doctor.

About half of her monthly income comes from GNB/Meta Watershed donations, the rest from her work as a Medical Transcriptionist. Due to her many disabilities, working from home very part time is all she's been able to do for quite some time. (And yes, I am working on the design of a company in which Maggie would be able to be able to make a real living, have insurance... but starting a start-up is tough anytime; it's especially hard at the moment when I'm wiped out physically myself. *sighs*) For the next 4-10 weeks here, she won't have any income from her work. We need to raise roughly $2-3K (obviously more would be better) to fill in the gap; the extra goes for extra medicines she must have, plus additional medical supplies, and healthier foods during the healing process.

Any donations or monthly PayPal subscriptions anyone is willing to make to help us support Maggie Jochild, are most gratefully appreciated. (None of the donations go for administrative expenses with the exception of PayPal transfer fees and the like. All of us supporting Maggie are donating our time and efforts completely, our phone costs and so on. We're not recovering costs.) Like many of the completely poor Maggie has no one else whom to turn; we are her insurance, we are her support system.

Please help as much as you can. The hospital has saved her life. Now let us help her financially so that she still has an apartment to return to when she gets out of rehab, so that her cat has food to eat, so that her electricity is still on and the water still flows. The doctors and nurses have taken care of Maggie's internal organs. It is up to us to finance her voice.

Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance

Not Being Insured Will Probably Kill You

1. A post from Maggie will go up by Saturday morning.

2. Here's a poem Maggie "wrote" days ago, working on passing gas:

Forgive me
For not eating the plums
That were in the refrigerator

They looked so cold
And delicious

But if I had
My stomach would have exploded.

Apologies to
William Carlos Williams

Go to Meta Watershed and SUBSCRIBE or DONATE for Maggie.
Do this now.
Please.

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog.

Maggie Jochild Sunday Weekend Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Wendel) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Subscriptions & Donations Absolutely Still Needed

Maggie is doing really well, even better than yesterday.

I have a full report from both the morning, swing, and overnight shifts for Saturday/Sunday morning. Just took the Sunday morning report minutes ago at 5:10 am CT/3:10 am PT. (I'm on PT out here in Seattle.) As of right now, all of Maggie's vital's are fine. Her oxygen is 96% (compared to 92% a day ago.) Her BUN and Creat are also fine. She's peeing (which she wasn't a day ago, or only barely) at about 30ml's an hour v. input of 150ml's IV fluids.

Maggie was VERY dehydrated when she came in. Folks -- including myself -- were perhaps a touch slow in figuring that out, only getting clear about it yesterday in ICU Stepdown. Makes sense however, as her damn bowels were all caught up and strangulated off in the hernias. So no matter what she poured in, only some fraction of it was able to get through to her body, resulting in dehydration. As I said, she'd lost 87 pounds. That should have rung loud bells for all of us but didn't. We were all busy thinking about the surgery and her vitals were inside normal limits. Well, it caught up with us yesterday. NOT to say that her vitals are off; they are not. However she's taking in 150ml of IV fluids an hour and didn't start peeing till swing shift Saturday which is when they increased her to 150ml/hr from where they had her. Before then not only was her input less, but the lack of pee was perhaps justified due to anesthesia. Afterward everyone -- and by everyone I mean the internal medicine/ICU doctor -- woke up and figured out the dehydration, upped her fluid input, and "poof", till she started getting above 30ml/hr which is "acceptable" output. Which means her kidneys are working okay, which is always one of the first big steps after any surgery and for sure after major surgery such as this where the bowel and everything in the abdomen was involved.

Maggie is getting unlimited ice chips for comfort (as the inside of her mouth is still very dehydrated) and will be till she can start drinking. She won't be allowed to drink till the NG tube comes out, and that isn't going to happen till her bowel opens up which hasn't happened yet at all, not even passing any gas. This is normal after surgical shock. I remember after my recent colonoscopy where my colon was completely clean ('cause of all the cleansing stuff I had to drink prior to the procedure) my colon was quiet for at least 24 hours and perhaps as much as two to three days before starting to come back towards normal. And that was after something simple, just a fiber-optic scoping of the bowel, not something where the entire abdominal cavity was opened and the bowel was actual run through the surgeon's fingers and inspected, repaired as needed, and packed back in place with mesh to hold everything where he put it. *smiles* Point being, anyone's bowel would likely be quiet for a few days after such treatment and this is to be expected. I expect to start hearing some bowel action within the next 48 hours.

The abdominal drain is almost done now, very little still coming out and no signs of infection. Her lungs are absolutely clear. She's been sleeping both when I called in during swing shift and on the over-night, which is really super good. The more sleep the better.

The nurses are quite content with her progress and are not worried about anything.

Last on the medical report, Saturday day her GYN/Oncology doctor (whom Maggie used to work for many years ago) came in. He was in the surgery and said, after making crystal clear that it's the biopsy that matters and everything he's saying here ultimately doesn't matter worth a damn if the biopsy comes back with different results. That said however, he reports that during surgery Maggie's uterus and ovaries looked and felt absolutely unremarkable. And, again he emphasized, while that is all good and wonderful, we don't know anything till we have the biopsy results.

My point of view: I agree with him completely about the biopsy ruling everything. That said, in my experience with someone with Maggie's history of LACK of medical care, I suspect we'd have seen gross abnormalities if she had cancer. I guess it's possible she could be just getting cancer but I find it unlikely she could a) get cancer, b) get this abdominal problem and have it get so bad she has to have emergency surgery, and c) both at once while the cancer is not able to be detected visually or by touch in any way. I mean, I guess it could happen. Just don't think it's statistically at all likely. And of course, we'll wait for the biopsy results because as the doc says, the biopsy results truly are everything.

Thus ends the medical report. Shorter me: She's doing great. Really and truly great, and progressing very very well. How she is doing greatly exceeds my wildest expectations for her post-operative course to date. I keep adjusting my expectations upward and she keeps exceeding them. She's doing GREAT.

(Stories to follow. Good ones.)

Financially however she is not yet doing great. Let me be really blunt. She's going to be out of work at least a month, maybe six to eight weeks as she recovers. Yes, we've received some donations, even some very generous donations and both Maggie and I appreciate them more than I can say. However it's not going to be enough. Maggie is going to run out of money two weeks from now, three if she's very lucky. We need to raise thousands and thousands of dollars at least.

We're working to see about Federal aid, but even if we manage it -- which is NOT at all a sure thing -- it will take a while, and it isn't so much for financial aid as I understand it, but to get her a Medicaid card so she can have Health Insurance.

Bottom line: Maggie needs people to subscribe, to make monthly commitments of $200, $100, or $50. If you can't make a monthly commitment then please donate as much as you can afford even if it stretches you. It'll be good for your soul. *smiles* Really, it will be. Do unto others; helping the sick and poor; every spiritual discipline and religion says to take care of the sick, the poor, and has a version of the Golden Rule. And this is Maggie. She needs YOUR help. I don't care if it's $5, $50, or $500. I want everyone to donate something. It's for Maggie. Seriously.

Maggie's in the ICU Stepdown with at least five tubes in her. (She's been calling herself "Tube-Girl".) She will be out for at least 4-6 weeks. Like most working poor she has zero reserves. More accurately, WE are her reserves. PLEASE Subscribe to Maggie's Ongoing Well-Being (or at least Donate generously.)

Someone asked in comments if they could have Maggie's hospital info so they could send cash. Um, no, sorry. I spoke with Maggie about that specifically today -- she sends you her love and thanks you for your offer. To send Maggie cash please send a Check or Money Order made payable to Group News Blog, to Group News Blog, PO Box 809, Bellevue, WA 98009. In the MEMO field write: Maggie Jochild. Please do NOT make it out to Maggie. She has no way to get to the bank and, for now at least, we're not set up for items made payable directly to Maggie. Stuff for GNB we can transfer via PayPal to Maggie in moments and then transfer directly to her bank account. (The ideal method is PayPal donation direct to Maggie but whatever works for y'all.) At the moment we're assuming ALL donations to GNB are for Maggie (so even if someone forgets to fill in the memo field it'll still get transferred to her PayPal account.)

Okay, story time and some stuff Maggie asked me to pass on.

First, I've now read to Maggie every post and every comment (through Saturday am) posted at Meta, GNB, and DTWOF. Maggie asked me to tell you very specifically how much she appreciates your comments, she loves you all -- she's talking to you, yes you -- and that she IS hearing what you have to say. From me: she loves, loves, loves hearing from you. It is the highlight of her day. Even if you've already commented two or three times, don't hesitate to comment and to comment multiple times, to leave LONG comments telling how your day is going and what's happening. Talk as if you were sending her an email or writing to her. I will read them to her (depending on how she's doing.) I assure you that y'all are an enormous part of what is having her recover so fast. So comment, comment, comment away.

The night Maggie went into the hospital before she called me (moments before she called 911) she wasn't sure what to do. The pain'd been getting worse and worse for days but, well, she'd been through pain SO many times before and it'd always, eventually, gotten better. This pain however just kept getting worse. The question was, was it bad enough? She didn't know. So we're clear, we're talking pain so bad most people'd call it torture. Or'd be screaming. Or'd be unconscious already 'cause their body simply knocked them out. Maggie on the other hand, was debating if the pain was bad enough to go to the hospital.

THIS is what not having health insurance does to people. Both Maggie and I agree that if she'd had health insurance, if there was health insurance available for her, she'd have been seen and treated eight months ago and none of this would have happened. But I digress.

So there Maggie is last Wednesday night, in pain so brutal that she, a woman who routinely lives with pain so intense it sends her to bed for days, is now, finally, after days of unremitting and ever-increasing pain, is finally considering calling for help.

She does ask for help. She prays.

Maggie prayed and asked her Mamma -- Mary Jo Atkins Barnett (1927-1984) -- "Mamma, what should I do?"

"Instantly", Maggie told me, "instantly, the pain became intense, so intense there was no question at all, none."

"Mamma, you didn't need to shout."

Maggie picked up the phone, called me, called 911, left two weeks food and water for Dinah. Time for a hospital trip.

*smiles*

Two hours later I was talking with her in the hospital; she was telling me how polite and wonderful the paramedics were with her. Go Austin medics go! (I used to be a paramedic in Houston. Back in 1980. Scary damn place to medic.)

For those of you wondering, no, Maggie hasn't written any poetry that I know of since the operation, however contrary to all appearances, I don't always know. I heard her demanding a notebook -- which had gotten misplaced during the migration from her on-Ward bed pre-surgery to her ICU-Stepdown bed and where was her notebook?! Eventually someone brought her a couple of pieces of paper and promptly stuck her ice-chip glass full of slushy water and ice-chips six-inches up above her eyes on a tray over her. She found that completely unacceptable and was not a happy camper at all. All this yesterday in the hours immediately post-op when she was just getting settled in.

Maggie loves the nurses and they adore her. That said, it's worth one's life (or at least health) to tear one out on the nurses in a hospital. They literally hold your life in their hands. (Maggie has my permission to use me whenever she needs to dump an emotional upset.) Making friends with the nurses, telling them how wonderful they are, being genuinely blown-away by who they are... all these are obvious survival strategies (for someone who needs strategy.) For both Maggie and myself -- I say this for future Googlers -- it is plain and simply the truth. We (myself as a former medic) and at the moment, she as a patient, are simply blown away by whom Nurses are. They rock; they roll. They rule hospitals. Doctors breeze in and breeze out and yeah, they work their asses off in a different way. But it's nurses working double shifts while also raising three kids as single parents and supporting the Union and advocating for patient care and trying to get a special program off the ground for this, that, or the other thing. Nurses were two of the four instructors in my paramedic program and ran ALL the critical classes. They are amazing human beings and great people to have in your corner.

So I don't know if Maggie's writing at all. Don't think so. Don't think she has a notebook. She does love her nurses though.

There's this one nurse on the night shift, both Friday and Saturday night. (Night shift goes from 11pm - 7am.) The woman is in her late twenties, early thirties, part Cherokee and all East Texas with this beautiful lilting Texas twang in her voice. She keeps calling Maggie "Baby Doll" and "Baby Girl". Maggie LOVES it; cracks her UP. Every time I talk with either this nurse or Maggie now I'm dropping into my own southern accent from the seven years I lived in the South. Cracks me up also.

*laughs*

We be having a GOOD time.

That's it for now. We do need your subscriptions/donations to Maggie's financial well-being, really and truly we do.

That said, Maggie's good. Her health is on track. The nurses are great and cracking Maggie up. We be having a GOOD time.

*hugs* to all and please COMMENT, comment, comment for Maggie.

Thanks, y'all.

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog.

Maggie's Doing Great

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Wendel) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:50:00 +0000

Just talked with the Recovery Room Nurse... Maggie's doing GREAT.

She came through surgery like a champ. She's already talking. I should be speaking with her in another few hours.

Everything went well. Got out the hernias; fixed everything that needed fixing.

Looks to me to be about a five hour surgery, which is really flying. *smiles* Good for the entire team. Well done. And Hot Damn.

I'm so happy. Can't seem to stop smiling. Now Maggie has a decent shot at getting adequately older. *smiles* What a wonderful, beautiful gift.

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog.

Update Sat 10/17/09 1:00 am PT:

Just finished a 20-30 minute talk with both Maggie and her swing-shift nurse.

Maggie is doing really, really well. Her oxygen level is in the low 90s, her other vital signs are all good. She's not peeing very much yet but it's only about 12 hours after surgery yet so that's fine. The drainage from the the surgical drain looks good (no sign of infection at all) and there's precisely the right amount of drainage (not too much, not too little.) Her mood is good, she's fully present and oriented, for a woman in her early 50s twelve hours after major fracking (emergency) abdominal surgery, Maggie is in such good condition one might think she's a) 30 years younger, b) 200 pounds lighter, c) being watched over and protected by her (deceased) mother as well as other beings beyond our understanding (and in which many people do not believe), d) pick and choose any or all of the above plus more and similar possibilities, and/or e) the best surgical hospital, the best surgical team, best anesthesiology, OR nursing and OR team in Austin, has done some truly remarkable work.

However you want to attribute this. From the ER at University being on diversion so Maggie ended up here, to Maggie shifting her entire public identity by putting in her own NG tube, to the best surgical team deciding this would be an "interesting" case for them to take on, to the best anesthesiology team working with the best surgical team and then Maggie scaring the living hell out of them with her story of the anoxia she suffered in anesthesia in her last surgery, meaning that this time a BUNCH of the best anesthesiologists watched her like hawks all through surgery, all through the recovery room (where normally it's just Recovery Room nurses) and all the way into the ICU step-down unit till she was CLEARLY herself and fine. Plus the nurses hearing all over the place about the NG Tube to the point that it's this BFD (big fracking deal.)

Listen campers... I got on the phone today to talk with Maggie for the first time after her surgery, got her nurse in the ICU step-down, a lovely young woman. After I identified myself (there's a code involved which they verify against the chart; not just anyone can call up and crash the system) I asked for a report. She gave it to me and then, SHE told me about how Maggie put in her own NG tube Thursday. She told me that. Out of nowhere. Then she said, "When I grow up, I want to be like Maggie."

*grins*

That, my dears, is shifting one's public identity powerfully. No longer the poor fat broad, but the woman who is pure guts and courage to do whatever it takes while being wonderful to the people around her. That... that is Maggie. And these young women in their twenties and thirties are now so clear about who Maggie IS that the fat broad identity is invisible to them (except medically) that all they can see is a hero to live up to, someone who leaves people around them in better shape after every interaction. Which is the canonical definition of Nurse.

We talked till she got tired. We'll talk again in the morning.

A few hundred dollars came in today. We really need a few THOUSAND dollars (at least) in order to meet rent, electric, water, cat food, and other bills. PLEASE please please donate if you haven't yet done so. Subscribing (committing to a monthly $200, $100, or $50) is even better. That way Maggie is assured as she recovers of having her bills paid. This is going to be a slow, long recovery. Maggie's not great at asking for money, and while I have no problem with doing so, I'd like to just have enough coming in that it's done. Please subscribe to Maggie's well-being. If we can get Two Grand in monthly subscriptions we'd be in wonderful shape.

She wasn't quite in shape today for me to read her your various notes. I did make certain she knew how much people are writing to her and how much people love her. She got it COMPLETELY. She wants y'all to know she loves you right back. Really and truly she does. She was very moved and wanted to make certain I made sure you knew how much she loves you. So get it, dammit. *smiles* Tomorrow, depending on her condition, I'll take a shot at reading her specific comments and emails (we shall see) depending on how she's doing.

That's it for tonight. Keep your comments coming, as well as your donations. Even better, take out a Subscription on Maggie's Well-being. *grins* Give her the gift of six months or a year of recovery.

*hugs* to all. Goodnight.

Maggie Jochild to have Surgery Today

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Wendel) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:20:00 +0000

Maggie and Mary Jo Atkins Barnett, December 1956, at the British Embassy Christmas Party in Kolkata, India. photo from Meta Watershed,

Donations Still Needed

Maggie's surgery is scheduled for 7:30 am Central Time today (Friday.) It will last quite some time. I will likely speak with her for a minute or so, about 5:30 am just before she's taken to pre-op. If not, we talked at length Thursday.

For those of you new to the story, here is when Maggie was admitted to the hospital.

I hold Maggie's medical power-of-attorney, and also am acting as her attorney-in-fact, with her dear friend Martha Legare handling the money (at my request) as while I can do money issues, Martha's much better at that than I am. I do receive daily reports on where we stand financially. So first, before I get into reporting to y'all, I encourage everyone who has not yet made a donation or made a monthly subscription to Maggie, to please, please, PLEASE click on either the Donate button or a Subscribe button. If you're reading this on GNB, they're at the bottom of the post. If you're reading this at Meta Watershed, they're in the top right-corner of the page.

Maggie was in great shape on the phone. She's very much at peace with the surgery, very content that this is what is needed in her life right now. I am THRILLED at the hospital, the anesthesiology team in particular, and think the surgeon is probably pretty damn good, perhaps almost close to being as good as he thinks he is. *laughs* Mostly I'm glad she's in this hospital and not University hospital, as these folks are treating her like a real person and not like poor trash. What a gift it was to have University on ER diversion a few nights ago. Of such things lives are saved, no kidding.

One piece of really good news is due to the bowel being strangulated by the hernia, Maggie's accidentally lost a BUNCH of weight (87 pounds I think was the number) without noticing and is at her lowest weight in years; the bowel simply didn't absorb nutrition properly so its been having much the same impact as if she'd had one of those weight-loss bowel shortening procedures. Hot damn. The lower weight will make the surgery MUCH easier in oh so many many ways, from less need for blood, to faster surgical times (and thus less time under anesthesia), to faster healing times as there was (literally) less stomach to cut through, to making it easier for the surgeons to see the surgical field. Plus the less one weighs in general, the better one's vital signs and other critical internal health values are, both during and post-operatively. Shorter me: this is a good, good "bad" thing. Which obviously needs to be corrected as part of the surgery. But the weight loss is good for our team.

A doctor Maggie really likes and who likes her, whom she used to work for will be in the OR with her, will do a biopsy to make sure there's no cancer (we're not expecting any, but the doc is going to check.) The anesthesia folks will be watching like crazy, especially in the recovery room and the ICU -- she put the fear of God into them; she said his eyes got HUGE when she explained what happened last time with the anoxia -- so hopefully that'll go fine. I expect her to stay in the ICU for several days. She and I talked about what that is like, so she should be as prepared as one can be for that environment. *shudders* I don't like ICUs; the lights are always on, noise, lights and bells and buzzers. It's impossible to rest, however they are important and they do save lives. After she's done there she'll go to surgical step-down unit for another three to four days (I'm guessing) and then back to the surgical ward for another few days before being discharged. Again, the timing of all this is a guess and depends on how she does and how that hospital does stuff.

Mid-afternoon Thursday the nurse tried to put a NG tube -- that's a naso-gastric tube for those of you whom have never had one; it goes through your nose and into your stomach. You take it by quite literally swallowing the tube into your stomach, after it's through your nose, liberally lubricated. NOT fun and assured to trigger every bit of your gag reflex. I know this personally as part of paramedic training is practice inserting these through the nose and into each other's stomach, then inserting a big bolus of normal saline with a syringe down the tube into your classmate's stomach, then drawing it back out again, then removing the tube. And of course, having this done to you. As your classmate tells you "swallow, swallow, swallow, swallow" and shoves a fucking tube the size of the Lincoln Tunnel through your nose and down your throat. -- down into Maggie's stomach. "Swallow, swallow, swallow." Problem is, Maggie doesn't have a swallow reflex precisely. The nurse tried till the one nostril was all bloody. Then, check this, Maggie smiled, took the NG tube all lubed up, and put it down her own other nostril and right into her stomach. The nurse, Maggie reports, her jaw fell to the floor. By now Maggie's reputation on the surgical ward has magically changed from the fat broad to the women who put in her own NG tube. She says all afternoon long people were sticking their head in just to get a look at her, with awe on their expression. She says EVERYONE on the nursing staff is now in her corner. *grins*

Furthermore, the NG tube drained over 2 liters of bile and other gross stuff from her stomach, leaving her feeling really herself for the first time in perhaps a week. What with the hernia having strangled her bowel, everything was blocked all the way back up to her stomach, so anything that went in was just churning around and growing rancid. No wonder she was in so much pain. But now with all that crap out of there, and with the narcotics really taking hold, she's back to her normal self.

I and Maggie are both optimistic in a clear-headed way. That said, this is major abdominal surgery. It will go how it goes. Maggie is clear about that as am I. I am not saying prepare yourself for the worst, because I don't think that will happen, but at least take a moment and know that all outcomes are possible here both during and after surgery. Then breathe and expect that all will go well. That is what I believe, while knowing it is surgery and anything can happen. Life goes how it goes and we are not in control of anything. *breathes*

I will likely speak to Maggie just before she goes in to surgery and then not again till she's either in Recovery or the ICU. (It's possible I may not speak to her for a day or so depending on how she is doing.)

I will put up a new post as soon as I have word, even if it's just a flash update I send from my telephone. Meta Watershed readers: I am not set up to do a telephone update for you; I need to be on a computer and tomorrow I'll be out and about late afternoon Pacific Time. GNB is likely to have the first word, possibly by up to several hours if the word comes when I'm at my own doctor's visit late in the day. If word comes earlier then there won't be any difference and both sites will post more or less at the same time.

This procedure is what needs to happen now and it's happening in the best possible hospital in Austin with a brilliant medical team. I am content, and so is Maggie.

Finally, thank you to everyone whom has donated so far. Please... Maggie is going to be out of work at least two weeks, perhaps more. We need donations or if you will, subscriptions. Please... give generously.

Thank you everyone,
Jesse

Maggie Jochild in Hospital for Major Abdominal Surgery

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Wendel) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:50:00 +0000

Maggie and Mary Jo Atkins Barnett, December 1956, at the British Embassy Christmas Party in Kolkata, India. photo from Meta Watershed,

Donations Needed

Maggie called me two minutes after midnight this morning my time, 2:02 am in Austin, Texas. She was in more pain than I've ever heard her.

Said she'd not been able to eat, drink for two days and was calling 911.

By grace, University Hospital -- a great hospital for emergency care, it's true, however it's the Medical School hospital and thus where all indigents go -- was on diversion for emergencies. Maggie was sent elsewhere, to what I consider a fine, really first-rate hospital, one where someone without health insurance would not normally have a chance of getting inside (unless they were visiting.)

They're treating her wonderfully.

Maggie has a MASSIVE hernia which has managed to wrap itself around ALL her various abdominal organs. Not only does this cause lots (and lots and lots) of pain, but it has clamped off part of her bowel thus impeding digestion. And done other damage.

There is no choice but for a highly skilled surgeon to go in, remove the hernia, repair any damage to the bowel (and other organs), and move everything back into place (the hernia having pushed the organs all around, as well as having caused damage.) While they're in there, they plan on taking out the appendix to prevent being required to do so at some later date.

The date and time of the surgery has not yet been set. I think Friday morning would be a good day to operate but it's purely a guess. If they don't operate Friday, they may well wait till Monday rather than operate over the weekend. Or not. *shrugs* That isn't a shrug of who cares. It's a shrug of not being able to predict the surgical team.

This is a major, major procedure which will take a while and require serious planning by the surgical team. Lots of things could go wrong.

If things do go well Maggie will be in the hospital for probably a week or a bit more, post op. I don't know yet if she'll be able to go home after that or if she'll need to go to a step-down facility. You'll know shortly after I know.

What I do know right now is this... Maggie's income is split between donations from readers of Meta Watershed & Group News Blog, and her work as a Medical Transcriptionist. She's on short-term medical leave of absence from her job, that is, while she won't get paid at all, she'll have a job to come back to. But she's not earning anything and she has bills she MUST pay.

Any donations people can make, either one-off or recurring, would be greatly appreciated.

Commentators: If I don't answer your comments right away it isn't that I'm ignoring you; it's that there's only one of me and I have a day job plus taking care of Maggie, plus I'm not well myself and must conserve what energy I have for my own work, doctor's appointments, and taking care of my family (which includes taking care of Maggie.) I'll reply to y'all when I have time.

The single biggest need right now is for cash, money, dough, coin. Maggie will be out (again, I'm guessing) at least several weeks and maybe more, perhaps much more. She has rent to pay, electric bills, phone bills, all of the various bills which still must be paid even though she's in the hospital. Please donate generously.

Oh... her cat is doing fine, and has a generous supply of food and water.

I'll update you more by sometime Friday, or in any event if there's a major condition change or if she has surgery.

Thank you in advance for your donations to Maggie, and for your love, care and concern for her. The donation buttons, both for one-off and on-going subscriptions, are in the upper right-hand corner of the page. Please give generously.

Thank you. (Keep breathing y'all. Keep breathing.)
Jesse

Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog.

PYA: CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

redredhands@sbcglobal.net (Maggie Jochild) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:52:00 +0000

To begin reading this sci-fi novel or for background information, go to my Chapter One post here. To read about the background of the first novel, read my post here, which will also direct you to appendices.

For more detailed information, posted elsewhere on this blog are:

Pya Dictionary from Skenish to English (complete up to present chapter), with some cultural notes included
Pya Cast of Characters (complete up to present chapter)
Map of Pya with Description of Each Island
Map of Skene (but not Pya)
Map of Saya Island and Environs When Pyosz First Arrived
Skene Character Lineage at Start of Pya Novel
Skene, Chapter One (With Cultural Notes in Links)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Pyosz was breathless when she finally jumped onto the Pomar ferry, but after a few months of being her own faryaste, she felt drawn to stand by the grizzled woman operating a lever which looked exactly like her own. Pyosz introduced herself and said "What do you do if the chain jams?"

"Radio for help" said the faryaste. One thing I don't have on my ferry, a radio thought Pyosz.

"What about if a lev jumped the barrier? How would you know about it?" asked Pyosz.

"Well, if it was one of the northern reefs, I suppose I wouldn't see it" mused the faryaste. "But it'd make a beeline for here, so I'd be aware of it soon enough. Presumably the Sigrist would radio me before then."

"But what would you do?" asked Pyosz.

"Get everybody into the cabin and hang on. Radio my family and tell them I loved them" said the faryaste, starting to look disturbed. "It hasn't happened in a long while, do you have some cause for concern I haven't heard about?"

"No, no" hurriedly said Pyosz. "It's just I get scared alone in my ferry, especially after dark, and I wondered if there was some secret tip you could pass on in case the impossible occurs in my kuono, like a freak high tide, maybe."

"I've heard they're drawn to motion, visually and by sound" said the faryaste. "But of course if you're in the water with them, you either make some kind of motion or drown, so that's no help, really. Aren't you related to the Sheng Zhang?" She looked extremely worried now.

"I am, but they tell me I have no concerns in my ferry. Please, don't read more into in it than that. Look, here we are, I'm off to see my cousin's new baby. Morrie Vaseo!" The last phrase was automatic, but she saw it land uneasily on the faryaste. She tried to look carefree as she strode past the empty children's playground, past a few picnickers and courting couples near the pond, and through the squeaky metal gates that separated Pomar Park from the bulk of the orchards and village adjacent. She turned left; Ehuy's family Manage was not in the picturesque region overlooking Pomar Lagoon, but next to the smelly and noisy warehouse and production bulidings.

Ehuy answered the door, and from behind her came the sounds of two children crying, a baby and a toddler, as if they were competing for volume. Ehuy looked exhausted.

"Oh, she'll be so happy to see you" said Ehuy, looking around at Ehall sitting on the floor and screaming. "See here, it's your cousin Pyosz come to visit from the new world, would you like to give her a hug?"

Ehall declined in favor of continuing her tantrum. Pyosz reached into her carryall and said "I've got dried figs dusted with sugar, and a toy for any child who comes to kiss my cheek."

Ehall was on her feet quickly, although she didn't manage to stop her wails until she reached Pyosz's knee. Pyosz bent to receive a mucousy kiss, handed over the figs and another wooden sailboat like the one she and Maar had given Thleen. Ehall promptly dropped the bag of figs, her fat hands clutching the sailboat in ecstasy.

"Would you look at that!" marveled Ehuy, leaning over to move the tiller and adjust the small sail. She picked up the figs and said "I hear you're making some good products there in Pya."

"It's kinda crazy, I know, bringing fruit to Pomar, but these are from an ancient tree with a singular flavor, I thought you might have a professional appreciation of them" said Pyosz.

"Pyosz, is that you?" came a voice from behind an alcove.

"I'm going to take Ehall outside for some fresh air while you're here, if that's all right with you" said Ehuy.

"Go for it." Pyosz said to Ehall "You can go sail that in the pond if you attach a string to it, would you like that?"

Ehall was immediately trying to get out the door. Ehuy had to force her into kiatu as Pyosz walked toward the alcove. A double bed was jammed into the space, a crib adjacent leaving only enough room for a single person to approach. Ngall was sitting up in loose clothing, the baby now feeding, with drying tears on its face.

"Oh, she's gorgeous!" raved Pyosz. "Mill said she looked just like you, and she's right. Here." Pyosz spilled out wrapped gifts on the bedspread, putting twists of tissue paper containing gold and silver eks on top of Omill's belly. Ngall had to wait until Omill was full before Pyosz could take her for burping and gooey compliments delivered into Omill's face. Ngall was visibly moved by her family's largesse.

"Abbo was here yesterday evening for a while, and when she gave me only her baby gift, well, I wondered" said Ngall. "Look, this is from Maar! She's as good a sister as Abbo is -- I shouldn't say that, but it's true."

"She's been at the abbas more than once in the last two days" said Pyosz. "She and Halling just had an intense conversation."

"Oh, tell me" said Ngall, her eyes on Omill but avid for news that didn't center around digestive tract issues. Pyosz recounted the story of that morning's sinning, speaking softly and gently so Omill didn't hear anything upsetting. Pyosz kept bending down to kiss the baby's wide forehead and sniff her hair. She felt chemicals surging through her own body, with a sense of intoxication.

"Tlunu's stodgy, to be kind about it" was Ngall's assessment. "Abbo had delusions otherwise, but Maar will almost certainly be the Sheng Zhang in Pya when emma retires. Both my emmas are grooming Maar for the position, although aggie -- Mill -- has trouble admitting it, because then she'd have to admit what a slacker Abbo is."

"Ngall, since it's just us here, I have to confess, I cannot for the life of me understand why Maar is with Abbo" burst out Pyosz. Omill blinked at her, and Pyosz realized there had been fervid disappointment in her tone.

"What do you mean, with?" asked Ngall.

"You know -- well, the're not partners, obviously, but lovers, however they define it" said Pyosz.

Ngall gaped at her. "They're not lovers. I thought you were close friends with Maar -- I mean, unless something's changed since the last time I talked with emma, which was yesterday. Yeah, they were involved briefly back when Abbo was still in high school, but she screwed that up very fast, and Maar had a doorway out. They're just friends --and work partners, of course, they work together well."

Pyosz gaped back at Ngall. "That can't be right..." Her mind was moving at lightspeed, going over everything Maar had ever said to her. She felt like the pulse in her neck must be audible to Omill, if not to Ngall. "She told me she wasn't available" she whispered.

"Well, it's not because of Abbo. Abbo's got a lover in the Lofthall here she's always shacking up with, and another one or two on Pya. I think she has some idea that Maar will eventually relent and they'll get back together, but from what I've seen, the Southern Wasa will go bone dry before that ever happens. My guess is that Maar was letting you know she's got her sib to raise, and that comes before all else" said Ngall. "Is she wet, her diaper looks damp from here."

Pyosz was have trouble tracking. In dumb slow motion, she handed Omill to Ngall, who pulled a diaper bag from under the bed and began changing the baby. "She's much more of a squirter than Ehall was, you have be careful when you first uncov -- oops, there she goes. Use a clean diaper to wipe off your shati, Pyosz." Pyosz dabbed at her clothing, handed Ngall the powder, and walked to the bath room with the dirty diaper to put it in the pail. When she returned, she said "Can I hold her again?"

"Of course" said Ngall. "So, you've been assuming Maar is off limits? I wondered what was going on, from what emma has said, Maar's over on Saya Island most all her free time."

"My dear cousin, I have been a complete and utter fool" said Pyosz in a low voice. "Which I seem to need to revisit every so often. Yes, I've been seething with jealousy about Abbo."

"And she's been seething about you, no doubt" said Ngall, laughing. "Abbo is always unhappy when she isn't the focus of everyone's attention, and she's resented your place with our abbas ever since you were babies."

"Is that why she seldom visits them?" asked Pyosz, briefly diverted. "Because it makes no sense to me, how she avoids them."

"Oh, it's complicated" said Ngall. "But I mean for my children to have their habibis, and the abbas are doing more than their share of making that possible. We can't go on living her indefinitely, me and Ehuy, not with a growing family. Her siba has the loft directly over us with her new partner, and she's been overt about her intention to inherit this Manage. There isn't another one available on Pomar, so if we have to move and commute anyhow, we're talking about relocating to Riesig. Abba Bux is scouting around for a Manage for us."

"That's wonderful news" said Pyosz. "Except for the part where you're not returning to Pya, of course."

"We've discussed that too" said Ngall, looking at her quizzically. "But that would mean you and I would still be separated, when you come back to Riesig, right?" When Pyosz didn't answer, Ngall said "So...Are you going to approach Maar now, then?"

"I can't. She flat out told me she wasn't available. I just misunderstood the reason why" said Pyosz. She cooed at Omill "Your cousin can be a cobbletop, yes, she can."

"Well, not at the moment. But she's clearly interested" said Ngall.

"If I haven't misconstrued that as well" said Pyosz. "Maybe it really is all about friendship."

"Or maybe she's hoping you'll wait for her. That would be utterly romantic, you keeping a dampered flame for her until Thleen is grown and then, flash, the two of you finally admit your passion for one another" said Ngall dreamily. Pyosz thought Guess who's body is awash in a hormone stew at the moment?

"Wait for her..." she repeated. In her mind, clear as cold water, she heard Prl's voice say Don't you dare. After a minute, she asked Ngall "How did Abbo screw it up with Maar?"

"Oh, well, she went off to flight school here after graduating high school, and in less than a week had begun an affair with another pilot. Not someone also in flight school, but someone older, barely within her sui, close to being scandalous" said Ngall. "But she didn't tell Maar, she let Maar hear about it through the Lofthall grapevine. And when Maar called her about it, she acted like Maar was being possessive, hinting that if Maar wanted to join in the fun, the other pilot was open to a three-way. Which is not Maar's style. Maar had already taken a lot of heat from my emmas about being a year older than Abbo, and she was never in love to begin with, so she told Abbo to go have fun, their affair was done. By the time Abbo got back at the end of the summer, Maar was having an affair with someone else, Uli, you know Uli? Everybody except Abbo and emma, Mill I mean, thought it was sorta funny. Emma though thought it was why Abbo turned in such a lackluster performance at flight school -- completely ignoring the fact that Abbo was consumed with another pilot's ginny the whole time." Ngall was highly amused. The reminder about Uli, however, and Maar's propensity for affairs in general, seemed to reinforce in Pyosz's head that voice telling her not to wait on Maar. Because Maar certainly doesn't wait on folks she thought. Not when it comes to sex.

Pyosz decided to shake off her distraction about Maar and keep focused on Ngall, not to mention the baby in her arms. They talked about Mchele Fair, Ngall expressing envy at missing how thoroughly Pya celebrated it; Ngall's labor; Ehall's reaction to a sib; and how ossified the ejida/huerta structure was on Pomar. An hour later, Ehuy returned with a sopping Ehall clutching her boat. Ehuy reported the string had slid from Ehall's grasp and she had dove in after her sailboat. Ehuy began running a hot bath, and Ngall started to look drowsy. Pyosz took her leave, promising to visit whenever she was back in Skene and to send copies of the photographs she'd taken of the new emma with Omill.

The same faryaste was on duty. Pyosz had hoped for a quiet ride back with time to consider the earth-shifting news about Maar, but the faryaste said belligerently "I hear there was an incident with a lev during today's sinning. What are you not telling me?"

Pyosz sighed. "Nothing. But that's what I'd say if I were keeping something from you, right? The fact is, I operate a ferry twice a day by myself and I simply wanted to hear inside information from a professional. I understand your paranoia, I have it myself."

The faryaste glared at her and walked to the other end of the boat. I've prodded the beach rubble with this one, for sure Pyosz thought.

Instead of going directly back to her abbas' Manage, Pyosz went downtown and found the silversmith shop still open. "I'm here to buy a service bracelet for a pilot" she announced. "Has to be Chloddia silver, and I need to look at all your available designs."

The smith began pulling trays from under the counter as she asked "Which pilot?"

"Sinner Maar, of Pya" said Pyosz. To her surprise, the smith said "Oh, yes, she's a good customer. In fact, she has full credit with us, are you putting this on her tab?"

Credit was extremely rare on Skene, and Pyosz had never heard of it being extended by a jeweler. She had a fleeting thought that she wished Prl had been here to witness this exchange. "No, I'm buying it as a gift, so if she should happen to come in for herself, please stall her somehow" said Pyosz. They began examining bracelets. Half an hour later, she arrived at the Manage just as a full table was sitting down to dinner. They talked about the baby and Ehall during the meal. After dessert of Saya figs, Speranz and Tlunu left to visit friends, and Xunu retired to her room behind the main house, citing the need to set her leraar records in order before the upcoming school break.

The rest of the family settled around the table with tea. Lawa opened Pyosz's logbook again and said "We've been going over this. It's a thing of beauty."

"We also fingered through that sample of clay you brought back from Saya" said Moasi. "I haven't seen finer. Emma could tell you all about it."

"She'd be so happy to have another keramiker in the family" agreed Halling. "I have something to pass on to you, with Moasi and Lawa's approval." She lifted a small, stained notebook from the sideboard. "This was Ng's. Whenever she had an idea for a design or pattern, she'd sketch it in here first, with ideas for glaze and form. It's her artist journal. All we ask is that you either hand it on to another family member when you feel done with it, or donate it to the Archives."

Pyosz had to lean to one side as she leafed slowly through the pages, because tears were dripping from her cheeks. "This is unbelievably precious to me" she said in a choked voice.

"I also have a lead on a wheel" added Lawa. "If I have your consent to barter, I'll try to get it down to a price that won't be exorbitant with shipping to Pya added on."

"Just don't finalize the deal before talking with me" asked Pyosz. "The rest of this week is Mchele Fair, and next week I'll be consumed with renovations, but call me whenever you want. So far Klosa hasn't located any kind of wheel on Pya, although she may turn up a kiln."

"Did I hear you right, that Tu is going to be walking on stilts as part of a parade during your version of the fair?" asked Moasi. Pyosz told them stories about Tu and Pank's activities, eliciting much laughter. She segued into descriptions of the fair itself -- all second-hand and anticipatory, but it didn't feel that way to her. "Dodd's band will be competing for the black ribbon as Pya's favorite, and I predict they'll be using some of the music you've been sending her."

"What's the band called?" asked Moasi.

"Cawl Ffa" grinned Pyosz. This was the name of a popular bean stew, and referenced to Koldok's proximity to the Pea Pods. "I'm looking forward to the music as much as any part of the Fair, even though I'm a wretched dancer."

"You're what?" exclaimed Yoj. "You've been going to every dance they have there, right? Has someone criticized your dancing?"

"No, they've been extremely kind, despite my sending at least partner crashing to the floor" said Pyosz ruefully. "I may have inherited a propensity for working with clay, but I have none of your genes for grace."

"Nonsense" said Halling, pushing back her chair and standing stiffly by leaning on the table. "Yoj, will you provide us with some music? I refuse to allow my grandchild to remain ignorant of the joys of dancing."

"Oh, abba, it'll hurt your joints" protested Pyosz. "Plus, I'm a hopeless case, I truly am."

"It will loosen my joints, I haven't moved all day" insisted Halling. "Yoj, I didn't mean you standing in the corner singing, I'm hoping for a recording of a real band. With percussion."

"I get the turn with her after you" Bux said to Halling, going to clear chairs from the middle of the living room.

"Me next" said Qala. "You can warm up with me" Lawa said to her as one of Yoj's tapes began filling the room with the bars of a reel.

Bux bowed to Prl, who accepted the offer to dance, and they glided out beside Lawa and Qala. Pyosz felt sudden excitement at the slim hope that maybe she could shuck her klutz image. She placed her palms into Halling's gnarled hands, but Halling paused, looking down at the floor.

"You're dancing in those otos? They're the size of butter churns" said Halling.

"They're all I have on Pya" confessed Pyosz.

"Well, no wonder" said Yoj. "A beginner trying for agility in those would be like wearing gloves to dice garlic. Pull 'em off, sokken will do for now."

"You have beautiful zaoxue at home" remarked Prl, bobbing by with her emma.

"All right" said Halling, once Pyosz was rid of her otos. "You've got a visual mind, we'll approach this as geometry. We're going to make shapes and claim space in a series of planes."

An hour later, having moved through the attentions of each of her abbas and emma in turn, Pyosz was drenched in sweat but something inside had clicked and she felt as confident moving her body to music as she did milking or kneading bread. Not with as much expertise, still, but the confidence was the major barrier. She begged for a break, drinking down two glasses of cold Skene water from the tap, then bursting into a long bout of laughter. "They won't believe it's me, at the Mchele Fair dance!" she said gleefully.

"And you have new silks to wear" added Prl, her cheeks radiant as she, too, came for a drink.

Bux turned to look at Halling and said "Do you ever wear that blue outfit -- the one you say is too baggy in front?"

"No. It's in my press, wrapped in tissue paper" said Halling. Yoj stood and went to their bedroom. She returned with a slender box, which Pyosz opened standing at the table, her abbas looking on. The dubikun and hanshan under the aged paper were of opulent cerulean blue silk in a pattern of stars and phases of the moon. Pyosz gasped. She ran the silk over her hands, saying "How old is this?"

"Oh, older than Prl" said Yoj. "My aggie wove that silk, and Qen helped Bux stitch it for Halling."

"But it bloused in the front and sagged in the seat on me" said Halling. "Go try it on."

"I'm afraid it will rip with too much motion" said Pyosz.

"It won't" promised Yoj. "Not the way Rosz made fabric."

When Pyosz emerged from the bath room, they all exclaimed at the perfect fit. "She's got your height and bones" Bux said to Halling. "But your fleshly delights" replied Halling. "And eyes, to match that blue" added Yoj.

"Take lots of photos at the dance, or rather, have someone else take photos of you" pleaded Prl.

"Come back with me for the week" suggested Pyosz. "We'll find you a room and you can go to every event with me." She was quite serious, but Prl brushed her off. Pyosz noticed Halling rubbing her knees under the table, and she said "Abba, where's that liniment you use at night? Let me ease the ache I've caused, I have very strong hands now."

"You never caused me a single ache in my life" retorted Halling. "But I'll accept the massage, especially of my feet."

Pyosz rubbed every joint on Halling's body, working the herbal emollient deep into bone and tissue, until Halling was stretched on the couch asleep. She took a turn with Moasi as well, listening to Yoj and Bux reminisce about dances of the past, or Lawa and Qala making notes in her logbook about her tillage. She didn't want this to be her last night on Skene. Szebel's death reminded her that her own abbas were of the same age. When Speranz and Tlunu returned, however, and looked pointedly at the clock, Prl said "Let's go home. We'll be back after breakfast, we'll see you all then."

It was raining and windy outside. Pyosz hoped the rain had held off long enough for the Chloddia kickball championship to be settled. She shared an umbrella with Qala, who walked with her arm around Pyosz's waist. In the privacy under the canvas convexity, Qala murmured "Your Maar is most impressive."

"She's not mine, not -- Abba, I've been believing all this time that she was lovers with Abbo" confided Pyosz. "Ngall set me straight about it today. But Maar isn't free, all the same. Thleen has first claim on her."

"Which is just" said Qala. "Thleen has a need I hope you never have to feel."

"Oh, I'd never compete with Thleen. Rather, I want to meet her need as well. I can't believe how far astray my thinking about Maar has been, though" said Pyosz.

"Stakes were high, huh" said Qala. "I could have told you Abbo would never hold the interest of someone like Maar."

At the Manage, they gathered around the kitchen table where Pyosz ate more dried cherries, trying to contend with the bone-deep weariness she was feeling. They talked about Halling and Moasi, Ngall and her family, and people on Pya. At one point, Pyosz said "I have such strong feelings for Omill, even more than I felt for Ehall. Maybe because she resembles Ngall so much. I want to be close enough to see how she grows day by day, like my own future is at stake in it."

"It is at stake" said Lawa. "I don't think why we love the children who arrive in our family is completely self-centered, but ego is mixed in there. They're one of ours, you know."

"All decisions to have a child involve ego" said Prl. "That's a given. The question is whether it's balanced by other desires."

Pyosz looked at her with interest. "A question I guess you have to answer for each set of emmas coming to you for a Contribution."

"To the best of my ability, yes" said Prl. "I'm frequently wrong."

"It just occurred to me -- you must have knowledge about Ngall and Ehuy's children that no one else possesses" mused Pyosz. "Is it awkward when it's family coming to you for their children?"

"It has been" said Prl. "I was spared by the presence of fertile Y's with Mill and Dodd's families. And by the time Speranz and Tlunu applied, I had enough experience to not be swamped by emotion. But it was -- painful, I'd have to say -- with Ndege and Gerra. Their request came so soon after I began being Genist." Pyosz wondered at that choice of words, painful. She said slowly, with sympathy "Every social interaction you have, maybe every new person you meet, has a backstory none of us can share. It hardly seems fair to you, emma. I mean, what do you see when you look at, say, Thleen?"

"I had no role in her -- " began Prl, before stopping herself. Now that's interesting thought Pyosz, as Qala stepped in to change the subject. She and Prl began bickering gently about Tlunu's behavior that day. Pyosz lay her head onto her arms on the table. Within a minute, they heard Pyosz's breathing change.

"She's fallen asleep" said Lawa quietly. "Pyosz, honey, do you want help getting to bed?"

There was no response from Pyosz. Qala said to Prl "She's handling more of a load than I think we realize."

"What's up with her and that pilot? And now the pilot's child, more or less" said Prl without rancor. Qala considered, and Prl said "I saw you two whispering under the umbrella."

Qala decided it wasn't a secret Pyosz intended to keep. "She's thought all this time that Maar and Abbo were together. Still a couple, from years ago. Just found out the truth today."

Lawa and Prl looked at her in astonishment, then at Pyosz's sleeping head. "She must have been tormented" said Prl with extreme empathy in her voice.

"So does this mean an explosive love affair is about to begin?" wondered Lawa.

"No, because Maar has been unequivocal in saying she's not available for it" said Qala.

"Maybe in saying it, but longing leaks from her every pore" said Lawa. After a long pause, Prl said "Abba -- Bux -- told me that Sey has made an application to change her citizenship from Skene to Pya. She's planning to emigrate and take a job in Koldok, of all places."

Lawa looked furious. "Does Pyosz know about this?"

"Emma said yes. Said Mill had told her Pyosz doesn't care" said Prl.

"Do we believe that?" Lawa asked Qala. Qala's eyes had remained on Pyosz. "I believe whatever Pyosz tells me" said Qala. She finally turned her gaze to Prl, saying "Why would Sey feel the need to transfer citizenship? I doubt she's come into a new appreciation of Pyosz, she wasn't that sort to begin with."

Prl looked away. "Another lesson for me to learn about meddling, I suppose. I'll ask her about it tomorrow. I wish she were staying longer, not just for my sake but for emma Halling's. She's been distracted from her own grief by Moasi's visit, which is all to the good, of course. But then Pyosz and Moasi are both gone..."

"We'll step in" said Lawa firmly. Pyosz shifted, her neck now bent at an uncomfortable angle. Prl shook her gently and said "My darling, let me help you to bed." As they diappeared into the bedroom, Qala did the few dishes and Lawa looked in the larder, thinking about a special breakfast the next day. After Qala and Lawa left for next door, Prl read through the notes left by her apprentice, sipping more tea and savoring the idea that Pyosz was under her roof again. Half an hour later, the bedroom door opened and Pyosz, almost sleep-walking, said "Emma, are you coming in with me tonight?"

"Of course" said Prl, getting swiftly to her feet. "I'll be there as soon as I change into my schmatta." Pyosz stumbled back to her bed. When Prl joined her, Pyosz didn't reawaken but Prl heard from her the soft sigh she had always given as a child when she sensed her emma's proximity.

"She's good enough for you" Prl whispered to the back of Pyosz's head. "I can see that, and I want you to know it."

The next morning, breakfast was quiet. Everyone was up by 6:00, to spend all the time they could with Pyosz, who felt real grief at leaving this particular Manage behind again. Prl helped her pack her carryall plus a borrowed bag to hold all her new clothes, tucking hangers and small treats in among the garments. As she set the bag in the front foyer, a knock came at the door. She opened it to discover Thleen, bright-cheeked with excitement, and Maar behind her in a mustard-colored burzaka.

"I have a present for Pyosz!" announced Thleen, giving Prl a quick hug before rushing past her. "Wait until you're asked in!" yelled Maar after her.

"Come in" said Prl with humor. Thleen was already in Pyosz's lap at the kitchen table, her wet burzaka being ignored by both her and Pyosz. "We went shopping yesterday and -- oh, wait, look at my new shati" said Thleen, standing to pull her burzaka over her head.

"What a beautiful print!" exclaimed Pyosz. "I didn't know they made fabric showing kickball scenes. Which reminds me, who won?"

"Not the team I like" said Thleen, her face suddenly tragic. "But we got to have spun sugar and chicken buns at the game. Do you want me to show you the best play? See, there was this big player -- "

"Thleen, you have to be at school in five minutes" interrupted Maar. She said apologetically to Pyosz, "She found this and wanted to get it for you, and she insisted she had to deliver it herself."

"You have a surprise for me?" Pyosz asked Thleen, who pulled a small box from her pocket. She'd clearly wrapped it herself, and she couldn't keep from helping Pyosz now undo the string and open the lid. Inside, on crumpled tissue paper, was a tiny silver lighter that twinkled under the kitchen lamp.

Maar, her tone again apologetic, "I know lighters may not mean as much to you as they do to Thleen -- "

"Are you kidding me, I love it!" said Pyosz. "I come from a Lofthall family, I first flew in a lighter when I was a baby too young to remember it." She hugged Thleen exuberantly.

Qala said "I remember, Halling carried you to the jichang strapped in a yameen facing outward. She said your face got very serious when she started the engines, but as soon as she lifted off, you began squealing with delight. She toured the entirety of Skene, banking every chance she could so you had a good view of your home. When she finally landed, you wailed because it was over."

"I was nearly unconscious from worry" added Prl. "You didn't want to come into my arms, you wanted more flying, even though you'd filled your diaper and you urped on me a minute later."

"You could wear it as a necklace, or maybe an earring" suggested Thleen, tracing the intricate lines of the pendant with some cupidity.

"Oh, no, it's going to hang from the end of one of my dreads here at the front of my face" declared Pyosz. "See, I already have a goat and a sun, this will be the perfect third thing, to make it all balanced. Emma, will you get some silk thread to tie it on for me?"

Maar let them remain long enough to see the lighter attached, Pyosz demonstrating how she could make it soar by tossing her head. Then she rushed Thleen through hugs and out the door, saying "We'll have to run if we're to beat the bell." She called over her shoulder to Pyosz "See you at noon." A reminder which helped ease some of the misery of departure.

At 10:00, they walked together to the abbas' Manage, which smelled deliciously of an early lunch plus food to pack a hamper for Pyosz's return flight. Bux announced "We had a visit from Qoj this morning, and guess what? She's flying back to Pya with you for Mchele Fair!"

"Oh, glorious" said Pyosz. "Do her emmas know?"

"She made the decision last night and called them. They've already given her room away to Pank and Tu, but she said she doesn't care, she'll only be home long enough to sleep anyhow and the couch will be fine. Apparently Mchele Fair is something not to be missed" said Yoj.

"Well, and I think Uli is also a draw" reminded Halling. "What's that in your hair, child?"

An hour and a half later, Pyosz wept as she said goodbye to her abbas. Lawa, Qala and Prl insisted on carrying her bags and hamper to the Lofthall with her, where a lighter would take her to Yanja to rendezvous with the huolon. "I'll be hard to reach for the next several days, but Mill will always know how to find me if you need me" she told her emma. "And I'll call you all Shmonah evening, I promise."

The lighter stopped briefly on Verzin to pick up Qoj, which made Pyosz wipe her tears and focus on the flight ahead. Abbo was taking the first leg and asked Qoj to sit up front with her. Pyosz helped Maar make a nest against the window in her second-row seat, worried that she wouldn't sleep well enough sitting up, but Maar dropped off quickly as the huolon ate daylight. By the time Maar was awakened for dinner and her turn at piloting, it was full dark. Without being asked, Pyosz changed seats to where Qoj had been, sitting beside Maar in the front. She handed her second pillow back to Qoj, saying "If you feel like sleeping." Qoj wrapped her own manteau around her like a blanket and leaned back, eyes closed.

Once it had been quiet for a while, Pyosz leaned toward Maar and said softly "Be sure to tell Thleen that Halling noticed my lighter and thought it was wonderful."

Maar's face lit briefly. "She couldn't stop talking about you. And your emma."

"My emma was impressed with you both as well" said Pyosz.

They were silent for a couple of minutes. Maar cleared her throat and said "I have a big favor to ask of you. And I really want you to say no if that's your choice."

Pyosz nodded.

"If something should happen to me...I have a will and instructions all spelled out, but...I'd like it if you stayed in Thleen's life, made sure she kept connections to your family. I don't know how she would make it, without me, but she'll need your help to make it possible." Maar's face was grave and very pale.

"Oh, Maar -- this is because of the lev attack, isn't it?"

"Not entirely. I worry about it a lot of the time" said Maar. "But it's my worry, you don't have to take it on -- "

"Of course I'll keep her close" said Pyosz. "For my sake, as well as hers. We'll grieve your absence together every day. But that's not going to happen, I refuse to consider it a possibility."

Maar placed two fingers from each hand across each other in the symbol for luck. "You know, Pyosz...I was thinking about Tu and Pank, at the funeral, how elderly they are, and then I looked around at all your abbas...The bulk of your family, the ones you love most -- the truth is, 10 or 20 years from now, they may all be gone."

Pyosz felt cold at her core. "I try not to think about that. I want them to be around to pass on their love and wisdom to my children."

"That is to be hoped" agreed Maar. "What I mean to say is, when the time comes to let go of them, I'll be there for you. I'll share the load."

Pyosz slid her hand into Maar's. "I'll need you" she whispered.

They sat, hands linked, through another long silence. Pyosz thought about asking Maar how Thleen had been conceived, but decided to sit on that information a while longer. Eventually Maar said "What's in the wrapped bundles you brought on board, looks like plants?"

"They're a gift from Moasi to Tu. It's cuttings from the massive lilac bush on Motu Fling, perhaps older than they are. It's why Halling wears lilac scent. Moasi's sending them to plant on Herne Island" said Pyosz. Maar's hand felt different to her now -- now that it belongs in no shape or form to Abbo she thought.

She asked Maar "This may be intrusive, but how many lovers have you had? And how often have you been in love?"

Maar glanced at her, then in the rearview mirror. "Eight lovers. Never in love...with any of them."

"Eight in what, three years?" said Pyosz, shocked.

"Four years. My first was when I was 15. That's not so many" argued Maar. "Why, how many have you had besides Sey?"

"None" said Pyosz in a low voice. Now it was Maar's turn to be shocked. Pyosz decided she wasn't ready to confide to Maar how wrong she'd been about her and Abbo; not yet.

Maar said "Well, let me know if you have trouble with Sey once she gets to Pya."

"Thanks, but I can handle Sey" said Pyosz with a grin. "She knows it, too. I think her being afraid of my about-to-emerge adult power is part of why she ditched me."

"Moron" whispered Maar to herself, but Pyosz heard it and squeezed her hand. She wanted to take a nap. However, she forced herself to stay awake, chatting with Maar often enough to keep Maar alert as dawn hurtled in their direction.

© 2009 Maggie Jochild.