We’ve been away 3 weeks. I’ve never been more anxious to sleep in my own bed. But first, a recap:
Michigan:
Chicago and BlogHer ’09:
West Virginia:
Family Is Hard
July 29, 2009 by 43 Comments
Family is hard.
We’re in West Virginia visiting and I think we’ve fought 90% of the trip. Granted, we were recently in Detroit and we fought there too.
Several weeks of family and I’m realizing the stark differences in the way my husband and I were raised and what we find “normal.”
For instance, in Detroit my mother would happily give my kids cake for breakfast. To me- this is entirely normal.
Going on a boat ride with my uncle, where he has a beer and the kids sit in ill fitting life jackets- totally normal.
Here in WV, my son touched a gun, was shown the closet where guns are kept, and family wants to take him for a very slow ride up the mountain in the back part of a pick up truck. My husband thinks this is all normal.
To me, it’s not only abnormal, but unsafe.
Family. Is. Hard.
I feel like I am a visitor in a foreign land and every time I question or shake my head at a “custom” I am told I have disrespected the elders. Apparently I don’t “trust” and should just let things go.
I spend my visits here usually in a semi-state of panic the entire time. Because if I open my mouth I’m distrusting and rude, and if I keep it closed my kids are put in situations I, as their mother, am uncomfortable with.
I am the mean helicopter mom. I am the party pooper. I’m the big jerk who thinks family would put her kids lives in danger.
It’s a complicated conversation here. And there are no winners.
It’s not as if I seek out to ruin their “traditions” or fun, or they seek to make me have panic attacks and fill me with anxiety.
It just is.
I can see why this country is so very deeply divided just by visiting other parts and talking to people who live very different from myself. It’s not as simple as “what you believe” and what I believe. It’s strangers in a strange land. It’s cultural. It’s akin to showing up in China and expecting nothing but hamburgers and apple pie.
I’m doing my best to be respectful and thankful that my children get to experience many different cultures. However it is hard.
I do not understand the way of life here just as easily as I don’t understand the way of life in Iran or China. That doesn’t mean the Iranians and Chinese aren’t amazing people, with amazing lives and stories and traditions.
I’m stepping out of my comfort zone today to go camping. In the rain. I expect to encounter about a million things my husband finds “normal” and I don’t. I expect to have anxiety, I expect to be unhappy. I also expect I will have a good time. Hopefully.
Family. Is. Hard.
So I Was Talking With The White House…
July 25, 2009 by 44 Comments
The White House came to BlogHer. They are not fooling around about wanting to hear from the people on health care.
I know you are probably already shaking your head at me.
They aren’t really going to care what I have to say.
They don’t really take our ideas and do anything with them...
The best example of just how serious this administration is about hearing from you that I can give- When Loralee from Loralee’s Loony Tunes told her health care nightmare of a story to Senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett (and we all sobbed) she also explained that her husband is a conservative and afraid of “socialism.”
Loralee continued to share and continued to tell Ms. Jarrett that her family, her own husband, isn’t buying the White House rhetoric.
Valerie Jarrett and Loralee’s uber conservative husband have a call scheduled for Monday.
Yes, the President’s senior advisor wants to talk to him. Personally. She wants to talk to EVERYONE who thinks like him, to SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT.
Which brings me to YOU. The White House isn’t kidding. They aren’t paying lip service. TELL THEM WHAT YOU THINK about their health care reform plan and if you DO NOT LIKE IT give them your ideas.
I’m sending your feedback directly to White House staff. Leave me a comment. Email me (erin.kotecki.vest@blogher.com) and make sure your story and your voice and your ideas are heard.
*photo curtosey of Rick at Tiny Prints
Next Year
July 22, 2009 by 10 Comments
…or maybe 2022.
She’s pissed I’m going to BlogHer without her.
Unfiltered
July 21, 2009 by 13 Comments
My kids sometimes say the most amazing and insightful things. They know when I am sad, happy, stressed. They pick up on the vibe of the house and speak about it without a filter.
If they see someone different from them in the store or at the park, they blurt it out or mention it in passing, but it’s never censored.
I envy them.
Much like I envy my Grandfather, who can grab me by the cheeks, look dead into my eyes and say “Erin, I don’t like that hair color. Change it.”
While I do speak off the cuff a lot, I have dipped my toes in this whole “you don’t get to know everything” arena. I’m liking it, and I’m hating it.
Certainly, more recently, I’ve let you back in to my health issues and it makes me hate that I’ve held back so much these past months.
As we all head to Chicago, I’m reminded again- by YOUR strong outpouring of support and well wishes and crass butt jokes- that THIS is why we blog.
This is why I blog.
This is why I have attended BlogHer since 2006 and am now an employee.
I get to see you. I get to hug you. And more importantly, I get to thank you for listening and being a friend.
See you in Chicago.
Spilling My Guts
July 15, 2009 by 87 Comments
crossposted at BlogHer.com
It’s after midnight here in Michigan, where I am visiting with friends and family. Surrounded daily by love and attention and support.
So why am I awake and crying?
Because for many months I’ve been hiding my health issues. Ok, maybe hiding isn’t the best word. But since about …oh, last year Christmas I’ve failed to mention to you – the people whom I tell EVERYTHING- that I’ve been sick.
So tonight I’m awake and crying because yet ANOTHER symptom has appeared in this long and exhausting road of “I’m getting old and my body sucks.”
Tonight my mouth is covered in sores (sexy, I know…stay with me it gets sexier) after months of vomiting and several weeks of rectal bleeding.
Yes, I said rectal bleeding. And get used to it, because I’m going into more detail.
You see, back when I was *just* feeling sick and puking ocassionally, I didn’t bother to see my doctor. After all, I’m a puker. Two glasses of wine? Puke. Nasty smell coming from the trash? Puke. Weather turns and it’s cold and I don’t have a jacket? Puke (I’m not kidding, the cold makes me puke).
Then this started happening more and more often. Sometimes just a gag. Sometimes just in the morning like I was pregnant or something (no, I’m not) and sometimes just over-all nausea with zero puke…I thought, huh, that’s weird. Oh well.
And I went on with my normal life.
I saw many of you as I traveled, and threw up in your conference hall bathroom. I went out with many of you to dinner, and threw up in the restaurant’s toilet. I even walked down some streets with some of you after a night of fun and drinks, and threw up in a trash can while you weren’t looking.
For some reason, I thought this was fine. For some reason, I did not call my doctor. For some reason, life just went on.
Until…
I didn’t see my doctor until one day I went to the bathroom and instead of pooping a blood clot came out. Then another. And then a few more.
Then the next day it happened again. And the next day…again.
Nothing can get you calling your doctor faster than blood coming from places it shouldn’t.
It was 2 weeks before I could get an appointment, and the nice nurse said “well, you know, if it gets worse feel free to go to the ER…”
Uh, thanks.
Of course that doctor had to refer me to another doctor who had to refer me to one more. They ran the usual test. Blood work was fine. Urine was fine. And that’s when you start to think YOU are the crazy one and maybe this all just is normal and life should just go on and you should quit your bitching.
Then finally we had a test that came back abnormal.
It was a fun one. The doctor stuck his hand up my ass- the rectal exam.
That test confirmed I was bleeding. It wasn’t much to go on, but hey…at least we were getting somewhere.
From there I saw the Gastro doc, who looked at me and my chart and my tests and my symptoms for all of 3 minutes before ordering two rather invasive procedures. I didn’t argue. When you are bleeding out your ass and feeling sick, you just don’t argue.
Mind you, the soonest I get to have any of these tests done is August. Because nothing says “health care in the US sucks” like waiting 6-8 weeks for tests you could probably use yesterday.
As the weeks drag on and the tests are done and we wait for results…I still feel like crap. Of course, on again, off again feel like crap. Some days I’m puking, some I’m just quesy. Some days I’m bleeding a little, some days I’m not bleeding at all. Some days I feel fantastic and consider canceling all the tests ordered.
Then there are days like today. I just threw up in my cousin’s bathroom, put canker sore medicine in 6 different spots in my mouth, and wiped my ass to find pink and red dots.
When I finished, throat raw, mouth numb, and ass hurting…I sat down on this bed and began to cry and write.
I cry because I’m tired, and I cry because I don’t know what I’m dealing with. I cry because I’m afraid it’s something simple, like an infection or some “stress” induced illness. I cry because I’m afraid it’s something not so simple, like Celiacs or Crohn’s or Cancer. But mostly…I cry because I’m really freaking tired of feeling like crap, and I’d like that to go away now…please.
Which leads me to why I am finally blogging about this…and why I hesitated to tell you.
First of all…do many people really want to say “Hey, so…guess what…I’m sick and bleeding out my ass!!!” to the entire world? Yeah, not so much. Also, I didn’t know what to tell you. For all I know it’s all in my head and I have a bad ‘roid from pregnancy flared up and pissed off. Sarah knows what I mean, she recently blogged about having a colonoscopy and had the same hesitations I did,
“I’ve been having some strange digestive issues of late (last couple of years) and finally there’s started to be a small (very small) amount of blood so the docs want to check it out (obviously). It’s funny because no one ever talks about this subject, but once you open the door, everyone has some stories. How can one not laugh at it all though.”
But as time marches on, and more and more tests are ordered, I realize it’s been this community that tends to remind me I am not alone and that they too may have some information or knowledge to share.
Over at Post Cards from Yo Momma I found this gem:
“Dad took me to lunch afterwards. All in all, the procedure itself was a breeze. I just wish that bitch with the needle had told me how much it would burn. They did warn me I might feel light headed after the IV meds kicked in, but that turned out to be a sensation I found surprisingly enjoyable. I bet my hiney was the cutest one all day.”
I bet my hiney is cute too!
I also bet it won’t be the one shaking it’s ass ontop of a table at BlogHer.
Yes, this means at BlogHer ’09 in Chicago I won’t need to hide. I won’t try to quietly puke in the bathroom if I need too, and I won’t need to explain to you why I may or may not be having that 2nd glass of wine. If I get up at lunch or dinner or breakfast and excuse myself I can actually say “I don’t feel well” not “I have a phone call, let me take it outside.” It will be nice to NOT hide.
Which means from here on out you get to join me in my journey. It might be too much to hear…I mean, really- who WANTS to know that much about my ass and my bowels? Or it may be just what was needed, because you too have had similar symptoms or you too know someone also undergoing some tests.
On August 4th I’ll be sedated and doctors will drop a camera down my throat and into my stomach to look around.
On August 11th I’ll be sedated and a colonoscopy will be performed.
And I’m going to tell you ALLLLL about it. From the prep to the diagnosis and all the whining and complaining I will do in between (because you know I will).
In a few weeks I will blog my endoscopy. Then I will blog the prep for my colonoscopy (which, dude…clear liquids, enemas, drinking gallons of some crappy mixture..all accounts indicate it’s hell) and then the procedure itself.
By the end I hope to have some answers, and if not…at least I’ll have you.
Other bloggers talking stomachs, butts, and gastro excitement:
Contributing Editor Erin Kotecki Vest also blogs at Queen of Spain blog
An Open Letter to iCarly
July 13, 2009 by 124 Comments
Hi Carly (aka Miranda Cosgrove),
It appears you are my son’s very first crush. He’s 6.
As a mother, I, of course, have some concerns. But overall, I’m ok with you being the object of his desire.
He seems to think you are prettiest and funniest girl on the planet and even drooled (no really, with real drool) when he saw your DVD on the shelf at the store.
You are the reason his father taught him the phrase “humminahumminahummina,” and for that, I apologize.
You’re a web chick (in theory), you don’t wear revealing clothes, you seem, by all tabloid accounts, to stay out of trouble.
On camera you stick blueberries up your nose and make chicken soup in a toilet. What 6-year old boy wouldn’t love you?
However, and this is a big however…if you go all Britney on me…I will be forced to ban you, your show, and your network. Harsh, I know…but in this day and age I just can’t risk my little guy’s heart and mind to the wiley ways of a wayward girl. He’ll get enough of that in his real life when the time comes, this I am sure. Hell, he gets enough of that from his own mother. So he really doesn’t need it from the fictional female he adores.
In short, don’t disappoint me. Please.
No pressure, really.
Xoxoxox,
Erin
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