Mother Effing Chihuahuas

There are a couple of Mother Effing Chihuahuas that live down the street from me.  

I need to pause here for a moment to clarify that I don't think all Chihuahuas are of the Mother Effing variety.  I had a Chihuahua mix and he was a delightful little guy. But the ones down the street are most definitely Mother Effing Chihuahuas. Mother Effing Chihuahuas belong to a lesser class of demons.   

You can determine if the Chihuahua you are interacting with is in fact a Mother Effing Chihuahua if they rush out into the street like a small furry biker gang and pick a fight.  Or in keeping with my original metaphor, they act like hell spawn. I don't know if you have ever been jumped by a Mother Effing Chihuahua biker gang, but I have. Twice.  The first time resulted in spraining the middle knuckle of every finger on my left hand.  I'm a southpaw, so I can't say that was a convenient outcome.

The second time I got jumped was day before yesterday.  A little, black, fluffy, Satan in disguise rushed out at me and Luna, my Great Pyrenes mix.  

Normally this causes something of a kerfuffle while I wrest Luna past as she is bouncing in joy and delight at the sight of another canine.   

But, the day before yesterday, we were testing walking in the snow. I have only lived in a place that frequently snows for a little over a year, and Luna wasn't part of my family last winter, so we needed to do a test run.  I say "we" but really it was for me.  The test was really to see if I can stay upright while walking in snowy conditions, because she clearly had no difficulties.  Luna loves snow. Walking in the snow makes her face light up with joy. Being in the snow is a peak self-actualizing experience for Luna.

Luna

She continued to have no difficulties as I noted with alarm that we were walking on an icy patch.  Icy patches are not good for self-actualizing in measly two-footed mammals. As I was attempting to get somewhere with more traction, a Mother Effing Chihuahua, Mini-Satan (that's his street name), attempted to pick a fight, snarling and growling at Luna and I.  Luna, with four on the floor, kept her footing as she began the joyous bounce of delight.  I promptly landed on my ass.  And for a little extra oomph I had enough momentum to bonk my head too.  

Luckily, my pony tail and the hood on my coat padded my head and middle age has added some extra padding to my booty, so there was no long-term damage.  My ego remained intact, too because no one else appeared to be around besides Mini-Satan.  And honestly, I feel like it is entirely reasonable to have some difficulty around demons, even of a lesser class.  

To her credit, Luna stifled her joyous bounce to sniff inquiringly after my health.   

This was at the beginning of the walk, but I'm no quitter, so after some quiet cursing (On my part, not Luna's. She swears much less than I do), we carried on.  

We went on a walk again today.  I went on a route that is completely lacking in Mother Effing Chihuahuas.  I'm no quitter but I think knowingly tangling with a demon, lesser or no, is living a mite bit too dangerously for me.  

Perspective or Watching My Husband Summersault Down A Cliff

Top of our cliff looking down

As a preface to this post, it is important to note that my family and I lived in a house situated directly adjacent to a cliff.  And not the bottom of said cliff, at the top of this cliff. I was initially hesitant about buying a property that included a cliff but I really grew to appreciate it. It came with great views and was a great place to chuck yard debris.  

In August 2017, on one of the hottest days of the year, I walked out in the backyard and approached the edge of the cliff to see my husband, Aaron, disappearing over the edge hanging on to a rope with a hastily tied knot.  The knot promptly untied and he went arse over tip down the side.  As he was summersaulting down the side of the cliff I said "I thought that might happen."  Simultaneously, he was fearing for his life and wondering why I was so nonchalant about his demise.  

My lack of concern was really adding insult to injury because he had spent the day dealing with backed up plumbing.  In addition to a cliff, our home also had a plumbing system with a habit of flooding the basement bathroom (you can read about our plumbing saga).

The attempted climb down the cliff was in pursuit of our Shop Vac, which he had dropped when attempting to dump the water he had vacuumed up dealing with the plumbing fiasco.  

So, Aaron is contemplating his imminent death after a day of vacuuming toilet water from the bathroom for roughly the 249th time, he is at least happy that he won't be dealing with plumbing ever again.  He is, however, very miffed that I didn't express any alarm.  

Before you assume my lack of alarm was because I was expecting to cash in on his life insurance, let me explain.  I had something that my poor husband was lacking.  That something was perspective.  I could see very clearly that he was going to do a complete backward summersault and then come to a stop on a ledge with a cushy tangle of English Ivy and a nice stump acting as a railing. (His landing was a little sideways, so I gave him a 9.5!)

Creek at the bottom of the cliff.

Once he stopped rolling and regained his composure, he located the Shop Vac and three of its four wheels.  The fourth wheel was lost forever more to the English Ivy.  He carefully picked the rest of the way down, walked across the bottom of our property and climbed up the trail we had on the other side of our cliff.  He appeared just in time to be introduced to the plumber who had recently arrived to assess the situation. 

The plumber was very alarmed to learn Aaron had just fallen down a cliff and was also confused by my lack of alarm.  The plumber also lacked perspective. He calmed down when I explained about the soft landing.

Several hours later, it was my turn to be panicked.  We were luxuriating in the shower with our fully functioning plumbing when my husband said "Look at what I found in my butt, honey!"  I was completely lacking in perspective because I wasn't wearing my glasses and all I could see was a darkish blob. My initial response was some level of alarm, after all, nothing good comes out of someone's hind end!   My alarm dissipated when I realized that he had a stick and a couple leaves, which he had picked up during his tumbling exercise.   

Our perspective is one of the keys to understanding emotional reactions.  I had zero panic about Aaron's fall because I could see from my vantage point at the top of the cliff that he was going to have a soft landing after a short tumble.  Aaron experienced complete panic because he was the one tumbling down the side of a cliff.  The plumber had mild panic hearing about it because it sounded terrible but Aaron was not obviously injured. 

When feeling panicked, or anxious, or overwhelmed, etc., checking your perspective can shift your emotional experience. Getting a new perspective on your situation isn't always easy but is certainly more feasible than mid-summersault down a cliff!  

    

Tipped Straws

We were in the car after making it through a Taco Bell drive through.

My sweety

I know, gross.  But my husband had been sick and when he is sick he wants to eat the grossest, greasiest stuff he can get his hands on. 

I didn't part take of this feast because I have allergies, and Taco Bell grosses me out too much anyhow.

We got back on the freeway, heading home after a trip to the Emergency Department to ensure that he didn't have appendicitis.  He didn't, he had some horrible intestinal virus that did a convincing job of acting like appendicitis.

As we drove along, he tipped the straw of the iced tea towards my mouth so that I could have a slurp. 

With that small movement, much of my stress faded away and I felt completely loved. 

It has been a tough run the last few months.

Without going into excruciating detail, we have had the loss of beloved pets, a sick & mentally ill family member who has been a danger to self and others, some work related crises, my daughter started middle school, family conflict and etc.

Oh, and all this was happening with Lyme Disease and our treatment ever present in the background.

It has really sucked. 

But what has made the sucking bearable is the small things like a straw tipped towards my mouth.

Napping with the critters on a Saturday afternoon.
Can you find all 4?

Or laughing hysterically when we really didn't have any business laughing.

Or napping with the dogs and cats on a rainy afternoon. 

So very many things can go wrong all at once, it is easy to lose perspective.

It is easy to focus on all the things that are totally going wrong versus the things that are totally going right. 

Certainly, all the things going wrong needed some attending to.

But having that as my primary focus would have crushed me. 

I could be flattened by depression and anxiety right now.

I continue to get up every morning and enjoy my life because I remember that my life is more than the stresses, the pressures and the responsibilities. 

I certainly don't enjoy every moment of my life, because like I said, we have had some serious sucking around here.  And, sadly, there are somethings that are unresolved and I am fairly certain will create more sucking. 

However, I do very much enjoy my life because I remember all the parts that make up my life and while I am aware of all that sucks, it is not my focus all the time. 

So find your tipped straws people. They are there, I promise. 

$11.00 an Hour?!

"$11.00 an hour?!"

This is what I said to myself in shock and horror after I finished calculating how much I made per hour.

Because I own my own practice as a licensed clinical psychologist, I am not an employee and I don't have a consistent salary.  So, I had to do math to figure out my average income per hour. I charge the same no matter what but the reimbursement varies based on a bunch a factors that are too boring to discuss in detail here!

The $11.00 per hour discovery sent me into a huge career crisis. I really expected that my bottom line would be better.

Me and the guy who balances the checkbook.

I was horribly disappointed and was in a huge funk all day long.

When my husband got home from work, I told him about my shocking discovery.

He looked at me like a deer in the headlights.

He has a work flow for these situations- situations where I am really confident and he knows I am way, way off base.

His first step is cringe, inwardly, because he doesn't want to alarm me, especially when I am already upset.

His second step is to identify the problem while also complimenting me.

In this instance it looked something like "I appreciate your work on this and you are very cute, but that can't possibly be true."

I can get indignant and generally I insist that I am right.  I'm also a pretty confident person and sometimes this backfires.  In this instance, I was relieved because, $11.00 an hour with a doctorate is absurd.

If I insist I am right, he tries steps 1 (deer in headlights) and 2 (identify problem and provide compliment) again.

Then usually I am ready to hear his input.  My husband explains his understanding of the situation, in this case where I went wrong with the math.

Usually I argue a few minutes (or more but I don't want to admit that, shhhh!) and he tries again.

(I'd like to take a minute here to express my thanks to the Universe that my husband is so patient!)

Eventually I can see the situation more clearly. And over time I have learned I have some persistent blind spots.

Math for example.  Despite doing poorly in nearly every math class and never, ever being able to balance a checkbook, I always assume my calculations are correct.

And then I make assumptions accordingly, which is why I had a career crisis.

I know I am bad at math, yet I frequently assume that my numbers are correct.  This, by the way, is the definition of insanity.  Doing the same thing over and over, expecting the outcome to be different.

I have finally learned to ask myself  "does this seem reasonable?" when I get some ridiculous number. Because this is the definition of good mental health, when you constantly run into the same problem, figure out different behaviors!

Don't get me wrong, confidence is a good thing. The answer isn't becoming insecure about myself in general. 

The answer is to pay attention to the feedback you are getting from the larger world.

Every action has a reaction. This is true of physics and this is true of behavior.

If I consistently screw up math it makes sense to change my behavior.  With math it is to be skeptical of my answers and ask for someone to go over my numbers.  (And also to brush up on multiplication tables! No, that's a lie, actually learn my multiplication tables!)

If I experience the same problem over and over in different contexts, that doesn't mean there is something wrong with everyone around me.  It means I am doing something to elicit a consistent pattern of responses from those around me.

I once knew a medical doctor that had the exact same complaint about every medical practice he had worked at. I don't remember the complaint, but he had worked at four or five medical practices across two states. The only consistent factor was him. This suggests that it was his behavior that was the problem, not the medical practices.

There are exceptions to this rule, I am sure, but it works as a good basic guideline.*

We all have blind spots and we can identify those blind spots when we take time to process the feedback we get from life, be that a calculator or loved one!


*individuals in abusive relationships need to ensure that the feed back they are getting in genuinely from many sources, not just their partner because abusive partners engage in gaslighting, which seeks to make the victim question their grasp on reality in all areas.  More information is available here.

Dingy Whites: Or How We Are Shaped By Our Beliefs and Expectations

Do you remember this commercial?

I do.

Only I didn't remember that I remembered it until I was folding laundry.  

That's because of these shirts.  The shirt on the bottom is one of my husband's thermal  shirts that he has had for a while. The shirt on top is brand new.

I cringed when I saw the old shirt because it was just so gross and embarrassing. 

I pointed this out to my husband and he shrugged.  He's not the kind of guy that cares about clothes.  

He works from home so he mostly wears thermal shirts and fleece pj bottoms.  Getting "dressed up" involves blue jeans and a clean t-shirt.  

Then I got to thinking. Where in the world did I get this idea that bright white clothes were even a thing?  Why was I embarrassed by a shirt?    

80's commercial television, that's where.  

I was a kid in the 80's and I wasn't even paying attention to detergent commercials.  

But they were there, establishing a set of beliefs I didn't even know I had.

The belief that dingy whites are gross and embarrassing.

Admittedly, this isn't that big of a deal.  I can either get over it or I can start using Oxydol.  

However, our underlying beliefs and expectations about ourselves and the world we live in are a big deal.

These beliefs and expectations shape how we feel about ourselves, other people, our homes, our jobs, our country and our world.  

If I have the belief that other people are mostly out for themselves; self-absorbed jerks who don't care- then my interactions with others will feel hostile.  I will interpret the unfriendly cashier at the grocery store as being intentionally hurtful. 

That is the kind of stuff that ruins days.  

If I approach that same situation with the mindset that everyone is just doing the best they can, then I interpret the behavior of the grumpy cashier much differently.  Changing my expectation changes how I interpret the situation. This allows me to see that the grumpy cashier is tired and having a bad day.

This applies to each and every interaction we have, including our interactions with ourselves.

If I believe that I am stupid, then I interpret the mishaps that occur every day, such as losing my keys, as evidence that I am stupid. 

That is also the kind of stuff that ruins days.  Give it enough time and those kind of thoughts also create depression and anxiety.   

If I believe I am capable, then I interpret those same mishaps much differently. Losing my keys is just something that happens and I don't devote much emotional energy to it.  

This sounds fairly straight forward, right?  

Unfortunately, like my unhappiness with dingy whites, many of our beliefs are unconscious.  They were "programmed" into our brains before we even started Kindergarten.  We are constantly receiving messages about what to believe and expect.  

If our beliefs and expectations are not healthy or are not accurate, it creates a lot of distress.  

So how can you figure out your unconscious beliefs and expectations?

A good place to start is to be aware when you have an emotional reaction to a situation that is stronger than seems reasonable.  

Going back to the dingy whites example, it was weird that seeing the difference between the two shirts made me feel embarrassed.  This prompted me to spend more time thinking about where that feeling came from.  

Or if you are consistently feeling disappointed, you might want to check your expectations.  Feeling frequently disappointed is a sign that your expectations are too high.  Adjusting your expectations can dramatically improve your emotional experiences.

Also, the books When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life and Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy are helpful in identifying and changing underlying thought processes that are not helpful.  

Therapy is also a valuable tool in learning more about your underlying beliefs and expectations.  Most primary care providers can make referrals to good therapists in your area.  

Thoughts underlie our feelings so it is important to figure out how to wrangle them.  

For my part, I've decided the whites are just going to be dingy because I don't want to spend any more time on the laundry than I already do!  



  

Heartstrings

Husband & I
Watercolor painting
by S. Clark, February 2016

Intertwined heart strings-

We learn this life together

for love unending.  

View of the End

I've lived through some large projects.

Like getting my doctorate.

That took 5 years after I got my bachelor's degree.

I knew the classes I needed to take, the number of clinical hours required and the steps to write my dissertation.

It was all mapped out and I could see older students complete the steps I was headed towards.

It was a pretty long time but I could see the end the entire time.

I've lived through an intense physical ordeal.

My pregnancy.

I hate to constantly be bringing that up but it was a very defining event that tested my husband and I to our cores.

That was 9 months.

I knew what to expect for each trimester, knew the approximate stage of development of my baby and knew the tasks we needed to complete before I gave birth to our daughter.

Nine months is a long time to be nauseated and vomiting but it really wasn't all that long.

I could see the end the entire time.

I've met major financial goals.

We went deeply into debt during my pregnancy.

Our choices were to pay off the debt or go bankrupt.

We opted to pay off the debt and it took 4 years.

I knew what our monthly payments were going to be, I knew the things we would have to go without and how much we would have to work.

I could see the end the entire time.

I've even battled major depression, many, many times.

More times than I can remember, actually.

There are many unknowns with mental health treatment you would think I wouldn't have any sense of when I would feel better.

My depressive episodes mostly showed up in winter and were gone by spring.

I always knew if I could make it to my birthday in April, everything would be okay.

Even if I had a depressive episode that didn't fit the pattern, I always knew it would go away.

I always had ways to ease the burden; medication, therapy, and gardening.  

I could even see the end of my major depressive episodes.

But now,  we are in the midst of all this Lyme treatment.

There is no map, there are no people who have had the same treatment plan, and there are no timelines.

Everyone with this disease responds very differently, so the treatment plan and the length of treatment evolve as you go along.

I despise the lack of a definite series of steps or timeline.

I cannot see the end of this.  It is there, somewhere, murky and in the future.

I'd rather know that this was going to take 5 years with a predictable end point, than have a bunch of unknowns for 3 years.

I find security in the known.

Most people do.  Humans don't generally appreciate the unknown.

I've had many clients who would rather stick with an uncomfortable known that try for the possibility of a better life because the unknown is so terrifying.

Only by walking with them into the unknown are they willing to give something new a try.

I've walked the path of healing with many people and can assure another client that I have seen good things happen.

I ask them to have faith in me and in the process that it will be worth it in the end.

And now, here I am walking the path of healing with no end in sight.

Photo taken by S. Clark

I have to have faith that there is an end even if I can't see it.

Faith is not my best skill.

I'm more of a see it, touch it, test it kind of girl.

Life has an amazing way of giving me an opportunity to learn skills that I am lacking.

Which is what I tell myself when I am dealing with something I don't want to do!

That, and I often remind myself of a quote from Elizabeth Kublar Ross,

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

I am a beautiful person in the making.

Thank you life.

The Struggle Before the Flight

from http://bohemianwornest.tumblr.com/search/butterfly

Imagine a chrysalis, you know, the cocoon thing that butterflies come out of?  

You're in a garden and you notice that one is is partly open and you see a butterfly struggling to get out. 

You watch for a while and it seems to be making very little progress.  

You are worried about the little guy, what if it never makes it out?  

What if it dies?  

So, you carefully peel back the chrysalis and the butterfly is finally free.  You expect now it will fly away.  

You leave, happily assuming that you have helped nature along a little bit.

Unfortunately, you haven't.  

Instead, you have eliminated an experience that the butterfly needs in order to be whole and functional.  The butterfly's struggle is a necessary part of its development.  Without fighting its way out of the chrysalis, it loses its opportunity to gain the strength necessary to fly.

So it is with people.  

It is not uncommon for me to meet with a new client who is seeking treatment because they are experiencing high levels of stress or anxiety or depression.

Further investigation reveals that this person, most often a women, but sometimes a man, are stressed, overwhelmed and in a chronic state of panic because they are constantly bailing someone, or several someones, out of trouble. 

Not the kind of trouble that happens because life is hard and stuff happens.  

The kind of trouble that happens when someone is constantly making bad choices.  The kind of trouble that happens with a drug, alcohol or gambling habit.  Or the kind of trouble that comes from being consistently irresponsible. 

Consequently, the helper is overwhelmed and their emotional, physical and financial resources are depleted. What little they do have gets quickly used up by those they are helping.  The help they provide others means they have few resources to help themselves.  

Why? Why would someone consistently bail their loved one out of such irresponsible behavior over and over again?  Especially as such a cost to themselves?  

Codependency.  

Codependency is a state of being or a set of behaviors found in the partner or family members of people with addiction, mental illness or other extremely dysfunctional behaviors.  

Wikipedia actually has a good definition:

"Codependent relationships are a type of dysfunctional helping relationship where one person supports or enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency, the most common theme is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and identity."

A codependent person will, time and time again, bail their loved one out of dealing with the consequences of his or her choices.  They do this because they are caring people who want the best for their loved one.  They genuinely don't want their family member to suffer.

BUT...a codependent person also does it because they are anxious. 

The thought of their child or sibling or whoever out on the streets or hungry creates so much anxiety that they fix the situation.  

I get that.  

There is very little that is more distressing than having a loved one suffer. It is harder than our own, personal suffering.  

Despite the anxiety inherent in not fixing the situation, it is important for the growth of the other individual to not be bailed out.  They need the opportunity to grow.  

Yes, opportunity to grow.  

I realize that this might be counter-intuitive but there is a segment of the population that won't learn to make good decisions until they have had to suffer the consequences of the bad decisions.

Now, I am not talking about turning away your daughter who got laid off after 5 years of employment.  Nor am I saying that you shouldn't buy groceries for the struggling single parent who is really doing the best they can.  

What I am saying is that if there is someone who consistently makes poor decisions, you are not doing them any favors by fixing the situation. Because they never face the consequences of their choices, they continue down the same path protected from learning that those choices cause problems.  

If you are working harder than the person you are "helping" it is not actually help at all.

Like helping the butterfly, codependency appears as help but removes the opportunity others need to learn and grow.  

Give your loved ones an opportunity to grow.  It is worth it in the long run.  

Faith Renewed. Hope Reinstated.

Sunny Clark

July 14, 2012 at 5:40pm · 

Given all the things that have happened, especially in the last couple of years, I am having a hard time hanging onto the idea that being a decent person gets you any where....

So said I in a Facebook post in July 2012.  Facebook added this nifty "On This Day" thingy and it shows you all your posts on that day in previous years.

I made the above post a year after learning that my ex-husband did NOT take my name off the mortgage 6 years after our divorce and he stopped paying said mortgage driving my credit into the ground.

Thus rendering my current husband and I unable to buy a house and move out of the trailer park.

Nothing against trailers or trailer parks.  I really liked my trailer, we just wanted more elbow room and didn't want to hear our neighbor's phone ringing.  

We figured out a work around, which you can read about in detail here.  The short version is that we got a legal separation two months after the above Facebook post.  

We got our house 5 months and 17 days later.  

View from the deck of our house!

 Faith renewed.  Hope reinstated.  

It is a handy reminder, because right now I am tired and run down.  Treatment for Lyme doesn't have a specific timeline.  I like timelines, I am good at meeting goals.  I am not so good at taking it one day at a time. 

Photo taken by our daughter at the courthouse
on the day we filed to legally end our separation.

The two years or so it took from learning that my name was still on the mortgage to moving in to our new home was agony. Mostly because I was learning to take it one day at a time and have hope that everything would be work out.  

The Facebook memory reminded me that life obstacles that have no definite end, do actually end and everything does turn out okay, even if it is not how you originally planned.  

Faith renewed. Hope reinstated.  

Sometimes you just have to wait for it.  

Sunny Clark

July 18, 2014 · 

We made it to the courthouse today! By Tuesday or Wednesday next week we should be legally reconciled! 

Trail Magic

Over the past several months I have been reading memoirs of individuals who have completed a thru-hike, which is what is it called when someone hikes the entire length of the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail or the Appalachian Trail. Each trail is a couple thousand miles long, give or take a few hundred. These journeys take months.  I've only day hiked, so this is not something I know about first hand.

Probably the most well known of these books is Wild, written by Cheryl Stayed.  It was turned into movie starring Reese Witherspoon.

I've read more and more of these as my level of activity has gradually decreased.

The irony is not lost on me.

I'd blame Kindle Unlimited for suggesting books similar to ones I've already read but I started reading them in the first place.  It is not like Kindle is holding me hostage until I've read a certain number of trail books.

A day hike in May 2010, it ended up being uphill.  We carried
our then 3 year old daughter most of our way.

I'm probably living vicariously through their ability to walk 20 or more miles a day.

All the authors describe their joy at the discovery of Trail Magic.

Trail Magic happens when something good is bestowed upon a thru-hiker, such as a cooler of soda and candy bars sitting by a stretch of dry trail miles from civilization.

At the top of the 3 mile uphill hike!

Or when a day hiker gives all their left over snacks to a hiker who has been subsisting on ramen noodles for weeks on end.

Or someone offering a ride to the nearest grocery store to get resupplied.

Most Trail Magic focuses on food, water and shelter because thru-hiking strips life down to those bare essentials.

Trail Magic is really the result of simple human kindness but the boost of morale and energy it gives thru-hikers is magical.  Those bestowing Trail Magic are known as Trail Angels.

All thru-hikers believe that Trail Magic is vitial to completing a thru-hike.

Here's the thing though, I think Trail Magic happens in everyday life too.

When the person a head of you in the grocery store line, with approximately 500 items, lets you and your 5 items go ahead?

That is Trail Magic.

When you thought you had 8 loads of laundry to wash, dry and fold but it turns out there is only two because your insomniac husband did laundry while you were sleeping?

That's Trail Magic.

When someone lets you go through a 4 way stop first, even though it is clearly their right away?

That is Trail Magic, too.

I think that it is harder to see, though, because life off a trail isn't stripped down.  It is complicated and busy and full of other humans.

Humans preoccupied with their complicated and busy lives.  Humans who are hurting, who in turn do hurtful things.

It doesn't mean the magic isn't there.  It just means that you have to be looking for it.  It is not going to be as obvious as a red Coleman cooler in the middle of a desolate trail.

My husband and daughter on a day hike in
August 2009

And, the more you look for it, the more you see it.  The more you see it, the more you keep looking for it.

It becomes a great positive feedback loop.

There are still hurt humans out there hurting more humans.

But I have a nice cushion of Trail Magic to buffer me from the negative that happening in the world.  It keeps me from becoming cynical and negative.

Cushions are good.

We all need cushions because life, like walking a 2,000+ mile trail, is tough.

And it encourages me to put good out in the world. When I go through life with positive energy, people respond to me in a much more positive way as well.

That encourages me to put out more good.

It is another one of those positive feedback loops.

I supposed we could call it Life Magic.

I prefer Trail Magic, though.

Life is a journey, after all.

My daughter and I during the same day hike, August 2009.

Tattle Tail Tale

The little dog, Bella, came into my bedroom and looked at me meaningfully.  Bella is a Dachshund-terrier mix and is prone to giving me meaningful looks.  This happens frequently because it usually signals that she has to go to the bathroom.  She is a small dog with a small bladder and I spend an inordinate amount of time hanging out in the backyard waiting for her to

The look of concern:
"Why are you letting him eat my food?"

do her business.

Bella also has meaningful looks because as a terrier mix, she has ideas.  Half the time I have no idea what she is talking about.   Sometimes she is so frustrated by my idiocy that she whines and paws at me. Other than going to the bathroom, her bright ideas include charging out the door into the street, charging into the backyard to kill the chickens, charging into the room to chase the cats or charging into a litter box to have a little poop snack.  She's very confident.

I generally prefer my dogs to not have ideas.  I like sort of stupid dogs that mostly sleep or hang around looking for belly rubs.  My big dog, Kona, who is a St. Bernard is such a dog.  She has a rumbly tummy and a bit of fluff in her head like Winnie the Pooh.  (I wrote about Kona here). Her main ideas comprise of where to sleep next and looking for food.

Bella, resting after a hard charging day!

This time Bella was taking no chances.  After looking at me meaningfully, she started to walk out the room.  Then she stopped and looked over her shoulder to make sure I was following her.  She did this several times as she led me down the hall.  It was just like Lassie! Only this time I wasn't being led to little Timmy who was stuck in the well.  Nope.  This time she walked right to Kona and tattled on her.

Kona sleeping on my husband's back.

Kona, true to form, was munching on something.  Unfortunately, this something wasn't an approved dog item.  It wasn't even an unapproved human item.  As a tall dog, Kona is fond of snagging items off the kitchen counters.  She has consumed a lot of unapproved human items. We usually put stuff on top of the refrigerator but our friends and family often forget.  Kona has had way more than her fair share of pizza and breadsticks.  Kona was happily grubbing on a plastic bag!

In addition to eating as much human food as she can get her paws on, Kona will also eat anything that smells like food.  Within the first three days of adopting Kona she threw up bits of an entire leather work glove.  Evidently, this particular bag had something delicious on it.

Bella sat on her little butt until I had retrieved all the pieces of plastic bag and scolded Kona. Then she charged off into another part of the house to complete other very important terrier business.

Silver Linings

Our Tiny Dancer in person- 1 week old

Saturday, March 14, 2015 marked the eight years anniversary out of a very dark cloud. Eight years past a battle for my life. My pregnancy seemed normal enough at the beginning. A plus sign showed up in the “indicator window” of a home pregnancy test. We weren't trying for a baby and I hadn't really expected to see a plus sign. My husband Aaron, who was my boyfriend at the time, went into a daze and repeated several times “What do we do now?” He was so shocked that he tripped three times in about three minutes and cut his foot! We were pretty stunned, but our desire to have a child had been steadily increasing over the time we had been together, making the plus sign a happy sight.

In my case the nausea started at week five, around the middle of July 2006 but it seemed like normal morning sickness. We went on vacation around week seven. We cut our vacation short because I was so nauseated that I couldn't get out of bed. I attempted to go to work around week eight and didn’t make it through even one day. I was throwing up so much I couldn't drive myself home. I pulled over in a parking lot about two blocks from the office and had a friend come get me.

That was the last thing I did until October of that year. My life became nothing but nausea and vomiting. I couldn’t even hold down water. I lost over seven percent of my body weight in less than two months. I thought I might lose my baby. I thought I might die.

I think I am ready to write about it. I wrote about it while I was pregnant and then I stopped. After my daughter Aden was born, I didn't want to speak of it, write about it, think of it, or remember it. I wanted to have my baby in my arms, drink water, eat whatever I wanted and never, ever vomit again. My little girl turned eight this year. She is a beautiful, glorious girl. She is smart, sweet, athletic and the spitting image of her dad. We had a celebration with our friends and family. Aden was really excited because she had a pool party and her best friend was there. She didn't understand how much of a celebration this really was for me.

Not only was this a celebration of Aden's eight years of life, it was a celebration of living through the trauma that was my pregnancy. It was not just a celebration of creating life, it was a celebration of not dying and not losing my baby. It was a war against my body as it turned against me. Any joy and excitement was stripped, replaced with fear, nausea, vomiting, helplessness and grief. It was a daily battle to survive and grow a baby. This battle cost me 9 months of my life, $43,000 in debt, healthy teeth, the ability to eat entire categories of food, future children and a whole host of other things have been etched into myself.

It is eight years past Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG). HG is a severe illness that strikes less than 1% of pregnant women. The Hyperemesis Education and Research Foundation describes HG as a severe form of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. It is unrelenting, excessive pregnancy-related nausea and vomiting that prevents adequate intake of food and fluids. If this disease is severe or not sufficiently treated, it includes: loss of more than 5% of pre-pregnancy body weight, dehydration and production of ketones, malnutrition, metabolic imbalances and difficulty with daily activities. It usually resolves by the second trimester but often lasts the entire nine months. This disease received a much needed increase in awareness when Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge was diagnosed. She suffered from HG during the first trimester of both her pregnancies. Thankfully her symptoms lessened during the second trimester of both pregnancies.

In the beginning, Aaron was the only light in the darkness created by HG. We had been together only a year when I got pregnant. He did the grocery shopping, cleaned the house, took care of the dog, paid the bills, took care of the details of my emergency medical leave from work, held my hair while I threw up, helped me take showers, and went to the store dozens of times a week to try to find something, anything I might hold down. He held me when I cried and cried and cried. When I joined an online support group for women with HG, I was shocked to find that many of these women were abandoned by their significant others; often emotionally and sometimes literally. I have very little memory of those first few months of my pregnancy other than unending nausea, vomiting and utter desperation. However, I did know that we would get through this dark cloud together.

Somewhere in the haze of the first trimester, when the disease was at its full power, we had an ultrasound. The doctor wanted to determine if I had a single fetus or multiples. Women carrying multiples have HG more frequently than women carrying single babies. This was not the case for me. I had one tiny baby dancing all over my womb. Aaron called it “Tiny Dancer” from then on. I hung on to the image of Tiny Dancer, because it reminded me I wasn't just sick, I was pregnant. I began to see a tiny sparkle of the silver lining.

Despite this, I felt unable to bond with my baby. My version of bonding was ensuring that I didn't die, didn't lose the baby and didn't hate the baby. It is difficult to say which of those tasks was most difficult. No baby equals no illness. Many women with HG feel resentment and anger towards the developing baby. Then they feel horrible guilt because what kind of woman hates her own child? My strategy for dealing with this was to hate my body and my malfunctioning reproductive system instead. If my daughter could have been gestated in another woman, that woman would have only a 1% chance of being sick because it is the mother's biology that causes the problem, not the fetus. It was my body that had the problem. It was my body that responded to pregnancy hormones as if they were poison. It was my body that was not suitable. This strategy allowed me to keep the feelings of anger and desperation separate from my daughter.


Medication for pregnant women is a problem. There was no medication that was known to help this disease that the doctor could say was safe for my baby. But by the end of the first trimester we were desperate. My doctor prescribed Phenergan, a medication used to treat allergies and motion sickness and stated that there probably wouldn't be any side effects that would harm the baby. However, there could be harm to the baby if I continued being dehydrated and malnourished. We decided the risk was worth it because I truly believed I might die if I continued with such severe symptoms.

Blessedly, the Phenergan eventually stopped the vomiting. The only side effect for me was incredible drowsiness. I slept so much that I lost a few months. The only thing I remember is Aaron waking me up to give me medication and spoon some food into my mouth. The nausea also lessened several weeks later but only if I took my medication exactly on time, ate only “safe” foods and didn't overexert myself. While I was not completely well, I was able to gain weight and regain some strength.

Sonogram from October

In October we had another sonogram to ensure the baby was developing normally. We received the happy news that not only did the baby look healthy, we were having a girl! The sonogram picture captured our baby girl's profile; she looked like her mama! And, I felt the baby move for the first time. There was a little bubble rolling back and forth across the inside of my abdomen. It was like a bubble of renewed hope and I caught sight of that sparkle again.

Glimpses of that sparkle is what kept me going. I carried wallet-sized pictures of the sonograms with me. I counted down pregnancy milestones such as having a “baby bump” or making it to 20 weeks. I celebrated small victories such as being able to sit outside or drink iced tea. I kept careful track of my baby's development and knew when she was getting eyelashes or developing hearing. Aaron and I became experts at manufacturing hope. I hoped that my symptoms would resolve by the end of the first trimester. When that didn't happen, I hoped that the medication would make me well again. When the medication failed to restore full functioning, I hoped what functioning I had was enough to get me through. I was simply determined to beat HG.

That was my life until my water broke around 6 am, March 14, 2007.

Had I not had HG, I might have contemplated alternative birthing options. HG removed all options, except delivering in a hospital. We thought I was strong enough to deliver without a Cesarean section, but that wasn't guaranteed. Many women with HG have C-sections due to weakness and malnourishment. I'd had 3 months to regain some strength after the worst of HG, but was by no means strong. I knew that HG would be directing my birthing experience.

Off we went, Aaron clad in his Homer Simpson pajamas. My contractions were slow to get going and after about 4 hours, we decided to administer Pitocin, a synthetic form of oxytocin used to induce labor. Then the contractions hit hard. I don't really remember much, except that all the information about handling pain I'd gotten from the child birth class was not enough to compensate for what my body had already endured. After an additional 6 hours of hard contractions, I had an epidural.

I started pushing at 11pm and I promptly vomited for the last time and cried. During the last part of my delivery, I said over and over “I am so done with this. I am so done with this. I am so done with this” as my mom, my mother-in-law and Aaron surrounded me. I was ready to have the final victory over HG and once they told me to push, I was going to push that baby out before the day was done. She was born 22 minutes later and the dark cloud we were living in disappeared.

Aden Elisabeth, born March 14, 2007 at 11:22 pm. 7 pounds, 7 ounces. 21 inches.

As I sit here writing this, I can hear the sound of my daughter laughing at silly cat videos on You Tube. Like her mama, Aden belly laughs until she can hardly breathe. When she is determined to solve a problem, she does not stop until it is done, just like her daddy. She loves hugs and hates washing her hair. She designs Lego projects in her imagination and makes them a reality. She loves science and nature.

It is hard to take a step back and see how this experience shaped me as a parent and shaped my relationship with my daughter. How much of my anxiety as a parent is because I almost wasn’t a parent? How much of my fierce protectiveness is due to the fierceness with which I fought for our lives? Are my hopes and dreams for her intensified because she is a battle hard won? I don’t have answers to these questions. What I do know is that this small girl, who was nearly the death of me, is now my life.

Watching her grow and develop into the amazing little person that she is today is a gift I didn't envision when I was fighting for our lives.

Best silver lining of my life.