Life keeps on lifing

Coco crossed over the rainbow bridge and it hurts so much, a couple new biopsies, battling health insurance denials and fascism, pessimism for the win, and some good news, too

Hey folks. Eeeesh, it’s been a minute, eh? I keep meaning to write, but life keeps happening and it’s been making writing challenging. If you’ve been around here for any length of time you know Coco, our rescue mutt and my absolute best friend and the sweetest cutest goodest girl in the whole wide world.

Well, Coco died suddenly and unexpectedly last month and I am absolutely devastated by it. Just crushed. I am still wading through grief and while trying to stay afloat in these waters fed by the tears of all those who’ve lost their furry best friends, words are hard to find.

I will write about her soon. I am so grateful to her for so much. I love and miss her deeply.

Coco Pants. Rest in Play sweet girl.

Atop that, the descent into authoritarianism in the US has been fast, but the pace is increasing with alarming and violent force. It is very strange and terrifying to be living through such times. It is hard to keep up with the awfulness, and to know what to do to stand up against it, especially when you’re dealing with other life shit too.

I know we’re long past expecting decorum and civility, but the absolute lack of humanity continues to shock me. I hope it continues to shock us all. It is not okay. We are not okay.

I’ve also had to undergo some additional cancer screenings the past couple months because of some genetic findings when I was diagnosed with breast cancer (Lynch syndrome, for those in the know). I had an upper GI endoscopy and colonoscopy in April, and dermatology screening in May. Both led to biopsies, in my esophagus and on my low back, respectively.

And just…guh.

Screenings are whatever…until they find something! And biopsies will forever be worrisome and take up a significant chunk of brain space after my breast biopsy proved cancerous. Especially because as I awaited that biopsy, I was optimistic! The odds were in my favor! I’d get a call saying PSYCH! All good! Go back to your regular life!

But nope. Cancer. The big C. So friggin shocking.

The kicker is that it was so unusual for me not to be worried. So unusual for me to expect the best (and most probable) outcome. Look how that worked out! Lesson learned. Long live worry and pessimism!

So I was worried and pessimistic for these most recent biopsies and neither were cancer.

Point proven.

Coco living her best life, up until the very end.

I am grateful for that, and also would like to not have more incisions for a while. I’d like to go more than a few months without new stitches and new restrictions. I’d like to catch my breath so I can keep fighting for things to be covered by my insurer (United Healthcare, you may have heard of them). I’ve won two appeals in the last couple months, which is relief, but it’s also very very wrong that I have to keep appealing denials of care that are clearly covered by our insurance plan.

Navigating health insurance is so damn stressful. It’s challenging enough to have cancer and surgeries and radiation and procedures and the life disruptions that come with all of that, but health insurance is a whole different beast. It is unbelievably complicated and adversarial and difficult to figure out. With cancer care there are always large sums of money hanging over your head with ominous fine print that says you may be responsible…

It is a constant weight you can never put down.

Health insurance is not at all patient-centered, at least not in the US. That mans that no matter how wonderful the health professionals you work with may be, seeking and receiving care cannot be patient-centered, either, no matter how much we tout patient/person-centeredness. Instead healthcare is insurance-centered. Or policy-centered. Or health-system centered. Or bottom-line centered. And it makes the pain pain harder, you know?

All this to say, life and death, and health and health insurance bullshit, have kept me from writing, although it’d probably help a whole lot to just write.

Sigh.

There has been good news, too, of course. Life is rarely all ever one thing.

My diagnostic mammogram at the end of May, my first since I finished treatment, came back clear. That was an immense relief. We got that good news just three days after Coco died. We needed it. We desperately needed good news. I don’t know how we would have made it through more bad news. I don’t know if I could have made it through more bad news.

I also visited my mom and brother in early May. I got to meet my bro’s rescue kitty (a feral kitten, now domesticated young cat, named Scampi) and rescue doggo (a sweet beagle named Sadie who needed to be rehomed). I love visiting northern Michigan. The trees, the lakes, the rivers, the dune grass. The breweries, and pizza, and everything dipped in ranch.

Dune grass in Frankfort on Lake Michigan

In early June I was fortunate enough to go on a Casting for Recovery fly fishing retreat for women in treatment or recovery from breast cancer. I’ll write a whole ass post about it sometime because it was such a wonderful, healing, restorative retreat. I’m sure the fact that I even want to write today, after months of not wanting to write at all, is solely due to my time there, and the women I spent my time with. Also the couple few dudes who were guides our last day (my guide’s name was Kyle, my brother’s name!), the horses, the dog Bowie, the fish, the birds, trees, the pond, the river, the goats and mule. And the incredible food. The food was amazing, folks. So damn good.

I loved all of it, but my favorite part of the fishing was just standing in the rushing river in my waders and boots. I might get waders and boots just to stand in the middle of rivers and not fish. It was so peaceful and so alive, all at the same time.

And, just last weekend, I got to commune with my community at our local No Kings rally. It always feels good to be around few hundred good folks fighting for humanity, for science, for public lands, for equity and equality, for clean air and water, for healthcare, for housing, for coming up with solutions for all the ways our climate and communities are challenged and changing.

I’ve caught up with some old friends and colleagues in recent weeks, too. People who give me hope. People I am stoked to work with to build something better, whether that is in our communities, our education for health professionals and the public, our ways of doing pain/health research, our professional pain societies, our healthcare system design and strengthening, or our academic journals.

There’s much work to be done. Sometimes that overwhelms the hell outta me. (Who am I kidding? It often - maybe even always - overwhelms the hell outta me.) I keep reminding myself I don’t need to do all of it right now. Hell, I don’t even need to do all of it. I just need to do the thing in front of me, and I just need to do it for a little while.

Today that was to just sit down and write for a bit. And look! I did it!

I already have my next post in the works, too. More regularly scheduled proramming so-to-speak. It’s tentatively titled Propofol Dreams and Paper Drape Nightmares. I’d love to hear your guesses as to what it’s about ;)

I hope you all are doing as well as possible in your corner of the world. There’s a lot of scary shit going on in a lot of places, sending you all love and strength and solidarity.

As always, thanks for being here. Please give your pets pats from me.

North Fork of the South Platte River, where the Casting for Recovery fly-fishing retreat was held