IBS Flares Again

Coming onto four weeks now that I've been having near constant tummy pain. There is some ebb and flow throughout the day; it just comes back so frequently it may as well have never left. It seems likely that I ate something I shouldn't, or in a bigger quantity than I should have, and then the stresses of life started tag-teaming in once that particular trigger had passed through my system. 

Well, one stress in particular. The events of January 6th seem to have had a significant impact on my stress levels. Both my husband and I were a bit tense between that day and inauguration on the 20th. But now that date has passed and I am no longer stressing about the state of the world quite so much. 

Instead, I'm stressing about my pain. I know I shouldn't do that. I know I should try something other than thinking about it. But it's really hard not to think about it when I lay myself down to go to sleep. During the day, I can find distractions. There are things to do that can pull my attention away from the burning pain lodged in my abdomen, like exercise or television shows or video games - even writing. 

Not so in bed, where I usually fall asleep by breathing and not thinking too much. And, to be honest, I'm not that good at falling asleep even when the IBS isn't flaring, so when I add that to the IBS pain that lights up my nerves as much as a spotlight in my eyes would. . . I find it extraordinarily difficult to fall asleep. 

And when I do get to sleep, with the help of a rotating variety of over the counter medications, I don't sleep very soundly. I've determined this by two observations: 1) I wake up exhausted, and 2) my husband, who on weekends will generally wake up before me, told me I was moaning in my sleep. 

Pretty much, I don't want to go to a doctor, because I've already been diagnosed with IBS and I've been told what they can and can't do (spoiler, mostly can't) for me. I'm reading a book on managing IBS, and I hope I can get something actionable out of that. 

I'm really tired of being tired all the time. I have motivation for this pain to be over. IBS is not a psychological disorder, but it can, along with other diseases, be affected by stress and anxiety. I'm not sure what I'm stressing about. Unless it's just that I'm stressing about the pain because I'm in pain, which would be just perfect. I honestly feel like I'm too tired to be stressing though. The stress could be caused or exacerbated by the sleep situation. 

Maybe if I try really believing that the pain from IBS is neither harmful nor a harbinger. And if I try trusting that if there is something really wrong, my body will tell me with more than just pain. 

On the plus side, the nausea has been decreasing this week, so I think I have turned a corner. I'm just on a slow slope back to my normal. If I pretty much have to figure out how to manage this on my own, then I might as well see what I can try, beyond dietary adjustments that have been somewhat helpful. 

I also have a cold of some sort, which can't be helping things. Especially because I was pretty much ignoring the cold in the hopes it would just go away, but my husband insists on me acknowledging that yes, I have a cold, and I should, like, treat it and stuff. :)

Book Progress - At Last

I was already thinking that my book might not get published in 2020 when the pandemic started. Yes, that was well before I took my trip, let alone started working on the book, but I knew that the pandemic was the kind of thing that could suck my energy and attention. 

Then my mom died in November, and I hadn't even finished writing up the first draft of the book. Old me would have seized on the opportunity to panic and procrastinate. And I wouldn't just have put it off, I would have tortured myself by putting it off, thinking over and over again about what I should be doing. 

Instead, I extended myself some grace in these trying times. I worked when I could, and I got the draft done before the new year. Ambrose read and commented, then I revised. Then he read and commented again, and I revised. The words are ready to get into a proof copy. 

I had planned on getting the photos done over winter break, but that didn't work out. However, they are done now - I got them done over the weekend, and Ambrose reviewed the captions. So, I'm actually making progress at this point, and I am confident the book will be published before the end of February. That's still a pretty quick turnaround in the publishing business - less than a year from trip to publishing. 

My next step is to place the photos in the large print Word document. Then I'll work on the cover, once I know what dimensions are needed for the large print (which I'll determine from the number of pages). Then I'll change the font size and rearrange everything for the standard print in another Word doc, and then I'll fix up the Kindle edition. It's all pretty mechanical from here until we get the proof. 

In years past, I've avoided the step of ordering a proof copy, but I decided last year that no matter how late I ended up being in my publishing schedule that I would order a proof. It's just easier to catch typos in hard copy, and I don't want to have to republish (again) after I've already ordered copies for my family!

The main reason I've skipped the proof order step is that shipping takes so long. Yeah, Prime two-day shipping does not apply to print-on-demand author copies. I don't want to wait once I'm ready to publish. But it's worthwhile to avoid obvious and/or silly typos - like last year when I forgot to remove the part that read [insert distance here]. 

I'm hoping to get the proof ordered by next week. All I need to do is get my butt in the desk chair and hunker down like I did on Sunday to finish writing up all my captions. Oh, and I need to pick my front and back cover photos! That's usually something I do pretty early in the process, but for some reason, not this year. 

I'm also thinking about refreshing my About the Author page, maybe adding a photo. And I want to start including a list of additional works as well. I mean, this is the 10th Hike with Me book. Anyone who buys it should know there are more!

Spitting in the Right Tube

I had expected to get another nasal swab test when I went in for mandatory Covid testing at work. Surprise, surprise, we have switched things up! 

This time, we got to do a self-administered spit test instead of the nasal swabbing. It makes total sense to me, because the nasal swabbing requires the use of health care workers who could be doing something more useful than swabbing nasal cavities all day, and rather than 2 at a time, they can go 10 at a time. But it was still a pretty surreal experience, more so than the swabbing because it lasted so much longer. The swab was step up, pull down mask, get swabbed for 10 seconds, done, out the door. The spit test is different. 

The classroom's normal desks had been cleared out to make room for stations set up at folding tables. There was a set in the center of the room and then tables all around the walls. The windows, those leaning ones that seem to be found in most any school building, were cracked open despite the chill in the air and the rain pouring down outside. I was directed to the far table by the windows by the room's sole attendant, dressed in blue PPE of some sort and, like everyone else, wearing a mask. At my table (and every other table), a placard was taped to the wall, providing instructions. 

I read them through once, to make sure I knew all my steps before I got started. Not that I expected there to be any gotchas on this particular test, but you never know when you might run into your own incorrect assumptions. First, sanitize, easy enough with the provided sanitizer, sitting on the window sill next to a box of tissues, leaving the table itself absolutely clear for easy cleaning between testers. 

Next, caps off both the tubes, and then, the first fun part. Forcefully push the ribbed end of the collector straw into the little tube. No, a little more forcefully, almost got it, whatever you do don't let it pop out of your hands and fly around the room... got it. 

Then, just make yourself salivate. Standing there, in a repurposed classroom, with no food smells to be found, with 6 to 10 other people, all but one of whom are also trying to jumpstart their salivary glands, yes, you'll find it easy as pie to get those juices flowing. I mean, I didn't. And at least one other guy was vocal about issues. And one guy thought he was done, but the attendant said it was too foamy and he needed to collect more non-foam. It's just not as easy as it sounds. 

I kept putting my mask back on between collection attempts, though I saw others keeping theirs off for the duration of the testing. There wasn't a specific protocol about that, and I figured they are probably just letting people do whatever since we have all averred that we are not currently symptomatic just to get into that room. 

I did, after a couple of attempts, manage to get it about halfway filled. And then I stood, with my eyes closed, and tried to think of appetizing food smells. Pizza, hot and fresh, with stretchy cheese and too much grease. French fries, golden and glistening, salt crystals catching the light like little diamonds, fresh out of the fryer, crinkle cut so they have a crispness to the outside and pure molten potato on the inside. Strawberry ice cream on a hot summer's day, looking so soft and gooey as it melts and begins to drip dribble down the cone to your hand... 

The meditation on food didn't really work for me, but I did eventually fill the collection tube sufficiently to pass muster. I had to tap it a lot to clear the bubbles, but I got that spit. 

I'm not really looking forward to the next one, but I'll be better prepared.

Maybe I'll wear some eau de bacon

On Monsters: Emotional-Physical Connection

When we experience emotions, we react physically. It could be argued that the physical state of the emotion is the emotion, but I won’t get into that here. Here, I want to look at what can happen when an emotional state that we don’t like gets tied to physical feelings that we do like. This is one of the ways that our monsters feed, by creating a feedback loop that pushes us to seek out (or simply not suppress), emotional states that don’t benefit us. It could be that those emotional states hurt ourselves or others, physically or emotionally. It could just be that they don’t create anything positive in our lives, perhaps contributing to the kind of inertia that can prevent us from doing what we really want to do. 

So, let’s look at a state of rage. 

Rage can feel powerful. The adrenaline flows, and our perceptions of the world change with that chemical influence. We feel clarity in the height of the rage. Rage allows us to lash out physically and verbally. There is a power in letting go of civilized restraint. 

What then, would be the responsible use of such power? A righteous rage could be posited. But that is not a monster. Because monsters don’t come when they’re needed or called. They are always there, and always looking to power up and take control. 

Is it our responsibility as adults to master our monsters? I don’t feel like I should use the term adult here, because it is clear that many people do not control or even acknowledge their monsters, regardless of age or supposed status. Awake? Evolved? Both overused. To attain self-mastery? Feels a bit pretentious. 

Let’s take a moment to work over some semantics. If one is unaware of their monsters, then they are Shadowed. An awareness of monsters brings one to the level of Caved. And that would make those who master their monsters Outsiders. This structure plays off of Plato’s cave analogy. 

Then we move to, the responsibility of Outsiders is to master their monsters. 

The responsibility of Cavers is to bring their monsters into awareness. 

The Shadowed aren’t aware of any responsibility. They act without regard to that responsibility, allowing monsters to run rampant as they please, thinking that it is merely an expression of their own personality, rather than a monster. They tend to be entrenched with and possessive of their monsters, no matter how much pain they bring. 

Are there people without monsters? 

There could be. I won’t say no to this, but I think it would be a very uncommon life that would result in no monster formation. No twists in the perception of reality, no painful coping mechanisms caused by pain? 

My husband told me about kicking the dog. Take the prototypical heteronormative family. Dad goes to work. Bossman yells at Dad. Dad can’t respond in kind to the bossman, so he goes home to yell at Mom. Mom can’t respond in kind to Dad, so she yells at Sonnyboy. Sonnyboy knows he can’t yell at Mom (tried that one before!), so he kicks the dog. 

Each one is taking in pain and passing it on. Does that make them feel better? Short term, yes, in the immediacy of the action. After that, not so much, as passing on the pain does nothing to address the cause of the pain. Without awareness, the vicious cycle continues, generation after generation. The monsters hurt us at the same time that they convince us they are helping us. Because that's the emotional pattern that we learned, imprinted from a young age, in this scenario. 

Back to the rage. By itself, it is simply an emotional state. It can exist without being a monster. In such cases, it is an emotion that is entered with control and used. Released. No exaltation of the emotion. No reveling in the high of it. A tool in our box. 

If your emotions are tools in your box that you use, then the monsters aren’t free to use you. Or use your tools. 

Monsters are malformed emotional patterns. Emotional patterns that do not feel good/enjoyable, but that we "can't" seem to avoid falling into. We fall into them because they are habits, and because we are unaware.

Is it the responsibility of Outsiders to help others to become aware of (their) monsters? 

We hold onto monsters, keep them fed and sleek, because we feel that they are a part of us, an integral piece of our personality without which we would cease to be ourselves. So we suffer. We feed ourselves to our monsters and wonder why we’re so tired. We make the same mistakes over and over, because that’s what our monsters have convinced us is the only way. As long as we stay Shadowed, they are unobstructed. They thrive. 

“That’s just the way I am.” 

“That’s just the way they are.” 

We infantilize others when we insist they cannot change. We infantilize ourselves when we insist we cannot change. Growth and change are fundamental parts of being human. We are born, we grow, we change, we acquire monsters and let them ruin our lives. Humanity!

Acting like there’s an expiration date on yourself (or others) for change, is a surefire way to never grow or learn again. 

To cut yourself off from The Experience of being alive. 

Monsters are a part of The Experience, but they limit us, by their nature. Monsters keep pulling us back to what we've done before, while there is so much more to The Experience, beyond the hamster wheels that the monsters want to run over and over again.