This was done on May 3rd, after receiving some beautiful free seedlings from a wonderful lady at my fellowship at an Earth Day event. The kids had been there as the sole representatives of their Navigators USA Chapter, spreading their knowledge about compost.
It was a warm, sunny weekend and the plants seemed happy to get into the ground. First, L helped me make a list of what we had and a few things we still planned to get, and make a general plan. We used a little bit of basic knowledge about companion plants (like cucumbers and sunflowers, corn and beans), and about keeping tall things from shading low things, except maybe the lettuces that might like it a little bit shady at times, but otherwise didn't stress it a ton. I've read more since then about the soil qualities and nutrients that the plants I have enjoy, and worry that maybe I should have grouped them like that, but I've also read that there are a million gardening charts and you can make yourself crazy with them. Better to just get the stuff in the ground, I'm thinking.
From the previous post on filling the bed, it was mostly full. I just used bagged garden soil massaged into the native soil around where the plants were going.
The rear portion is lettuces, then a collection of three tomato plants lined with Thai basil, an empty spot where some peppers will go when they've sprouted, and those sticks are two lines of corn and beans. There are also some marigolds in there along the edges. It's a bit tight, yes. But this is how it is in the city. The plants will just have to learn to be cuddly.
Lastly, on May 4th I gave everything a good soak and mulched with grass clippings.
Garden Bed B is in the center of the three, more or less in the middle
of the yard. It gets a bunch of morning sun, a bit of shade in mid
afternoon, and then late afternoon sun until dusk. It started like this on May 4th -
Then I put the guinea pig cage stuff in the bottom.
Covered that with some grass clippings my friends L and G were lovely enough to scavenge for me from a relative's neighbor's curb (feeding a garden > rotting in a plastic bag).
Then the remains of a bag of topsoil.
And a big layer of scavenged native soil from the concrete. See the rest of the walkway and the patio showing up in the background?
Another bag of topsoil and a bag of garden soil massaged into the mix.
And then it got planted! In the front third I planted cucumber and sunflower seeds. In the middle third (divided by some zinnias) are tomatillos, and in the rear third (divided by more zinnias) are onions. I believe the onions are red cabernet onions, though there may be a mix in there, according to the wonderful woman from my fellowship, who gave me all these seedlings for free. Of course I, not knowing anything about anything, got 22 tomatillo plants, since there were tons and no one was taking them, only to find out later that they get as big and bushy as tomatoes. My mom, who has a green thumb and I actually trust to transplant, is going to try to take some when she comes to visit next weekend. Oh! And there are also some green onions in there which are growing quite happily from little butts of green onions that I saved from what I got at the grocery store and used in a recipe, and then randomly stuck in the ground.
Who doesn't love babies?
The kids and I are so tickled over these little baby sprouts we just spotted in our egg carton seed starters (cardboard egg cartons filled with dirt). Beets, cucumbers, and a sunflower!
The kids also have some little tomatoes in these "grow your own" pots they got from our aunt and uncle last year. How fun! It's been about two and a half weeks since they planted all the seeds and started diligently watering and watching.
Many, many updates are long overdue, and perhaps if I get time I'll share them all, BUT that's not the purpose of this particular post. Sometimes I'll think of blog posts to make with specific purposes, but then get overwhelmed with the fact that I haven't been updating, and there is backstory, and I simply don't have time for both the backstory and the specific purpose. So I put it off more, and of course more time doesn't come to deal with more backlog of thoughts, and the problem snowballs.
Long story short, since the last series of somewhat routine posts -
I started going to and getting involved with a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. It is/they are awesome. I met some friends. They are also awesome. In February we moved out of the apartment in the suburbs of Hampton to a house in the city of Norfolk. Guess what? It's also awesome. I'm keeping busy. Homeschooling is happening. Projects are everywhere (if not mostly in my head). I've been painting a little, writing a little, baking a little, cleaning a lot, exercising not so much.
However, since updates were not the purpose of this particular post, let me get to that particular purpose.
We have a yard!
And I'm starting a garden in it!
I really like the idea of an urban homestead, however, this is not our forever home. We don't own it, and don't even plan to rent here longer than a year or two, so I'm hesitant to do too much to set up "home" here. Gardens are good, though. They are as cheap or expensive and as simple or complex as you make them. In late winter, when we knew we would be getting a yard for sure, I was really excited and gung-ho about doing research for what type of garden was best and what type of plants I wanted. I already owned the books The Urban Homestead and The Backyard Homestead. I had all the pins on Pinterest. But I quickly got overwhelmed.
Guess what? There is information out there! And some of it is conflicting! There is no one best way to grow things! It's kind of confusing! So by the time we moved, unpacked, settled, and got back into some sort of a routine, as lazy and half-assed as it is, spring was upon us and I'd gotten scared and mentally pushed the garden thing to the side.
Then suddenly, it got warm. Like, high 70's warm. Trees, flowers, and grasses started popping out, telling me about how wonderful but generally inedible they were, asking wouldn't I like to plant them some friends? I couldn't procrastinate any longer. Either I was going to have a garden or I wasn't. I had wanted to make raised beds out of freebie materials, like pallets, from craigslist, so the next delay was in carefully combing through the ads once a week. Eventually we ditched that plan when M told me that the pallets I eventually settled on wouldn't fit in the back of the car and would need to be busted up first, which would result in a lot of lost wood and crumbles. Rather than continue to spin my wheels thinking of the next best freecycled, loosey-goosey, slap-it-together, hippie garden plan, I showed M the raised bed plan in The Urban Homestead and put him in charge of the building with real lumber and tools and all. Which he did for me Sunday.
Look how lovely!
I now have three 4'x8'x8" raised beds. We only sunk one in the ground at first, because I was being non-committal about where I wanted the other two, despite trying to carefully observe the sunlight patterns in the yard. As soon as I realized the size of the project I'd asked for, I asked my friend L if she'd like one of the boxes to be dedicated to her. I'd realized I might have bitten off more than I can chew by asking for three!
With the challenge of the building material for the raised beds out of the way, the next issue is figuring out how to fill these boxes. Again, I've read all kinds of things, and while I'd like to do this "right", I'm realizing that there isn't really a "right" way. However, getting worried and scared into not doing it at all will for sure result in garden failure. This is all going to be a big experiment, and we'll see what, if anything, comes of it. So I'll be taking notes here on the blog.
Garden Box A
I started on filling the first box, box A, on Monday. It is on the southeast edge of the yard along the fence that divides our yard from the neighbor's, and is probably the sunniest spot in the yard. To fill it, I first scattered the contents of the guinea pig cage (soft wood and paper bedding) on the ground, and took out the shiny print paper after I took the picture. It didn't take up nearly as much space as I was hoping.
I started scraping dirt off the cement walkway and patio in the yard, which we suspected might be a little larger than they appeared and largely covered with leaves and dirt. I don't have a wheelbarrow, so I started with using a cardboard box as a cart.
Isn't that the most pathetic thing?
It turns out an empty trash can does the job much better.
We've had a compost bucket, which at one time was an Ale Pale of M's, filling with kitchen scraps for about two weeks. Though the contents were not even close to composted, I decided to mix that in with the dirt and grass roots I was dumping in the hole. A lot of happy earthworms joined in. I'm sure it will compost-in-place in no time. I hope? I really have no idea what I'm doing.
It turns out the walkway and patio that are covered in dirt are much more substantial than they appeared at first! Also, all the soil that covers them is from composted leaves that had been left to sit there, so it is just lovely. I scooped up as much as I could on Monday before it started to rain. For a short time the kids joined me, using the box as their cart and me using the trash can, and we played archeology, trying to discover the edges of the ancient concrete.
It's supposed to rain most of the week, but hopefully there will be some time in there to finish up.
I wonder if there is such a thing as medical office ptsd and if so, what kind of studies have been done on it. I realize as a health care professional that offices and hospitals have to be set up in certain ways for functionality, but I realize as a patient who has been through some kind of traumatic shit these places makes me feel like I'm going to vomit until I pass out. I certainly don't feel in control of my own health care destiny or decisions about me or my care.
Sub-thought - Healthcare providers - If we want to improve the way we care for people, and genuinely improve people's health, why not start with empowering them to do so. Don't put them in their underwear and make them sit for 20 minutes. Don't make your intake forms so complicated that they are intimidating. Make people feel valued and in control from the first second. They will do more for themselves to keep in good health, better respect your instructions, and be less likely to blame when things don't go as planned
Sunday morning I stood up in front of my Fellowship, lit a candle for myself, and explained that four years ago at that time, I would have been part way through a ten hour brain surgery to remove a massive brain tumor. This was the first anniversary year when I truely felt like celebrating. This September 22nd was more of a second birthday than just a bittersweet reminder day.
I remember in a vague, hazy way waking up post-op, somewhere between the OR and the ICU. I imagine the way I felt was similar to that of how a newly born baby must feel. My head was heavy, swollen, and mangled. My lungs were wet and I coughed and struggled (though I've never seen a new baby reach for the stethescope of a nearby staff member and put it on her chest). I felt confused, overwhelmed, and angry. Most of all angry. I had been pulled from this glorious sleep and forced into the light and told to be alive and fight for myself. No machines would do it for me.
So, despite the anger, that's what I did. Like a baby, though in a much abbreviated and significantly more aware way, I learned to swallow my food, to speak in an understandable way, to focus my eyes, to walk and move my arms and legs smoothly, to pee on my own, to think and process and pay attention.
I won't deny that there have been days in the last four years when I questioned whether it was worth it to have had surgery, and worth it to fight. The last four years have undoubtedly been the most difficult of my life. I feel and think differently than I did before surgery. After the obvious recovery issues that everyone could see on the outside (those survival type skills), there has been so much recovery to do on the inside. Additionally, where recovery has not and will not be possible, I've had to learn and develop adaptations. The chronic issues that have ensued following surgery have not assisted in this process.
At four years post-op, however, I know it was worth it to fight. I will never be my old self, but, despite the changes and my limitations, I am learning to be okay with the 'reborn' me. I'm now becoming comfortable with knowing my true limitations. If nothing else, I can laugh at my downfalls. Sometimes there is nothing else that can be done. Not everything can or even needs to be fixed. I said it myself the night before surgery, "It just is, and it's great." (In hindsight, I laugh when I remember how I prefaced that thought with regret over not having had a "spiritual epiphany".)
Things currently stand at a happy, though maybe a little bit unsure, place. I've been off all medications and following the "just be okay" plan for about a year now. I was so delighted in August when I realized I'd gone a whole year without one single doctor's appointment. Whether it's truly a good thing to have gone this long without seeing any sort of medical professional for anything is a bit questionable, but I enjoyed the brake anyway.
I continue to be plagued by headaches and realize that chronic migraine will be a forever part of my life. I wake up most days with a headache to at least some degree, and will feel it come and go throughout the day. The frequency of my true migraines varies significantly from week to week. Some weeks will have three or more migraine days, some just one or even none. When I have a true migraine I will sometimes take a Motrin or Tylenol, but other times just wait it out. Once recently, I was desperate enough to take a percocet. I don't get any sort of aura that a migraine is coming, but do have the classic sensitivity to light and sound. I get confused and "fuzzy headed". Afterward, I get a postdrome where I am exhausted and somewhat useless. Sunlight seems to be a significant migraine trigger. I try to keep sunglasses on my vampire eyes as much as possible.
On the plus side, being able to keep a decent attitude and maybe even a little bit of a smile through such significant pain is an awesome skill worth having and developing. I like to think it makes me a little more of a better person.
In my last post, at three and a half years post-op, I happily declared myself cured of autonomic neuropathy. It turns out, this isn't quite true. While my symptoms continue to be significantly improved from when I was on migraine medications, and I'm sure I no longer qualify as POTS, I'm also sure that I do have autonomic issues. The heat and sun of summer brought a relapse of many symptoms, including not just increased headaches, but also dizziness, exhaustion, weakness, temperature intolerance, and nausea. For many weeks, I was again unable to exercise due to plain exhaustion like cannot even be described. In the future, I'd like to live somewhere cooler and more temperate, but I doubt that will ever actually happen. I have no idea where the best place for me would actually be.
I try to stay relatively well hydrated to help with the dizziness. It is nowhere near as severe as it had been, but I caught myself squatting down in the kitchen while making breakfast a couple times in the last few months. If I can get myself to exercise, it helps with the exhaustion, but sometimes I just have to wait the exhaustion out. It's kind of a vicious cycle, the exercise vs sleepy weakness. I know that, even without my autonomic issues, I will always require more sleep than most people since having had brain surgery. At least now I'm usually good with a stable 8am wake up time, and no longer fall asleep anywhere and everywhere.
I never know if I will be hot or cold, or if my feelings of hot or cold will correlate with actual ambient temperatures. Wearing layers helps.
I get nauseated pretty much every day, most often in the 10am hour. No amount of small, frequent meals or high protein snacks seem to help. I've started chewing ginger candies, which does help, but it's frustrating to feel so bad so much of the time. My entire GI system in general is kind of a mess. Restaurant food, in particular, seems to make it unhappy. I keep my bag stocked with a good supply of Immodium, Pepto, Tums, etc. If you're ever not feeling well, I've got you covered.
The most frustrating "invisible" type thing for me has been the slower processing of my brain. I can't keep track of things the same way I used to. My memory is notoriously terrible. Worst of all, I've been having trouble from time to time with word finding. Matt says that sometimes in conversation the responses I give don't always make sense. I've had a couple upsetting moments when it was difficult to read out loud to the kids. I'll stumble over words, or the words seem to move around the page, or I'll see them and know them but can't get them out. There was one particularly scary time when I lost my words while talking to the kids, and as I tried to stumble for them I just couldn't find them. I had a general idea of what I wanted to say, but no idea how to get the words to come out. It was terrifying. Matt looked worried and asked if I was okay, and all I could do was shrug. Luckily that's only happened once.
Still, I feel so much less intelligent. My vocabulary has suffered in general. I can't concentrate long enough to read a book. Many things I do learn, I don't retain. I'm happy for the internet being there to let me look up random things whenever I need to, and not judging me that they are things and words I should know (and do somewhere deep down).
Being deaf in one ear is both not that bad and worse than I could have imagined it being. The white noise hiss in the "dead" ear is forever present. I can't handle a bunch of other ambient noise. Even the hum of the dishwasher is upsetting when I'm trying to listen to a conversation or TV. I'll generally try to avoid noisy places like busy bars or restaurants. All the noise is so disorienting that I begin to feel confused and dizzy. Being unable to locate sounds can be upsetting as well. Still, I can talk to people, hear the world, and listen to music, so it's not that bad.
My left eye is holding on and stable as far as I know. I've been a bad
patient and not been to see Dr L. I still use Refresh Plus eye drops
between 1-3 times a day, and thick, nasty ointment at night. It sees fine (with glasses) and doesn't usually hurt or burn toooo much, so I can't complain. I hate the gold weight and the tarsorrhaphy, but it's better than the terrible pain of a slowly dying eye, or a corneal transplant.
My face is what it is. This has been the hardest emotional item to tackle and get used to as being the new normal. I hate pictures of myself, and cling to any I have from pre-op. I'm sad that a lot of the people I now know never knew my "real face". But, no one treats me differently, despite what I see as an obvious, disturbing crookedness. I guess I can see this as a good thing. Anyone who is going to judge me by my lopsided smile and confused eyebrows (yay sinkinesis!) probably isn't someone worth getting to know anyway. I may not be beautiful in a scientific way, but great personality traits like being lighthearted, caring, and a bit of a bad-ass are even better, right?
The most important thing is, that at four years post op I am the healthiest and the most at peace that I've been since this whole ordeal began. I'm no longer angry. I no longer question whether it was worth it to fight. It just is, and it's great. I do question what my next MRI could potentially show, but I also know that if I have to I will be able to fight again, and it will end in just as much dance party as I had by myself last Sunday.
Of course, there would be no celebration without my amazing support system. I could not ask for a better husband, parents, and family. Co-workers and friends have been incredible in supporting and remaining confident in me. I'm lucky to have added, over the past 6 months in particular, to the people I can count on in times of struggle, and I'm looking forward to many more celebrations in the future.
I've gotten off the posting habit. Oops. But I have good reason, I swear. I've actually been interacting and spending time with actual, real, face-to-face human beings! I've gotten involved with some great activities and have even made some friends, and have been, for the most part, generally enjoying life. I've started exercising again, baking bread, occasionally reading and painting, and spending time with my family doing game nights and movie nights. The blog is always in the back of my mind, though, and I hope to work back into my schedule some time to post at least semi-routinely. I'm not out of ideas, information, and updates to share!
