Mirena and Me

Here’s a likeness of the little baby that was inserted by an MD into my nether regions 2 weeks ago. I hope it is as nicely centered in my uterus as the one below is centered here on my blog.

I finally found an OB/GYN who I like, amazingly in the same practice as the asshole who did a vaginal ultrasound in January and failed to tell me that I have a fibroid tumor embedded in my uterine lining which was causing me to lose copious amounts of blood for 5 months.

I have now been off of my oral progesterone for 13 days. Not a day has gone by in the last 3-and-a-half months in which I didn’t bleed, but it is GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME.

I have woken up 2 mornings in a row with color in my face (sort of).

I have gone on 3 hikes this week (including that crazy big hill on Rattlesnake Knob—vigorous!) in which I did not find myself gasping for breath.

The Mirena IUD is made by Bayer, the same company that manufactures my cat’s flea medication and your favorite brand-name aspirin.

When I visit my family in Germany, traveling from the airport or train station, we always go by the Bayer plant in Leverkusen, on the Rhine River.

I feel so global. Where was my IUD manufactured and does it have traces of flea poison alongside the miniscule amounts of progesterone that it administers to my uterus at regular intervals?

I tried to look for the IUD strings last week, but I could not find them. At which point I was already having intense pain on my R ovary and bleeding heavily. In my panic, I called “Dr. L w.” I was sure my IUD had migrated and was already perforating my abdominal wall and was about to emerge from my nostrils, but “Dr. L w” assured me that we will look for the strings together on my upcoming 7-week follow-up appointment.

Looking up my cookie with an OB/GYN to find the strings of my Bayer-engineered IUD?

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Music Monday–not that Elvis, this Elvis

‘Cause somewhere in the “Quisling Clinic”
There’s a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes

I want to bite into those words and hold on with my teeth

I didn’t know Quisling (how’s that for an infamous eponym?) and had to look it up. I thought the word was quizzling, which I quite like. It would be akin to quizzical, like Joan was quizzical, studied metaphysical, but more like puzzling, like he puzzled ’til his puzzler was sore.

Here:

The sky had been cloudless and full of sunshine, so the afternoon’s quizzling rain made no sense to Jeannie Bright, Holden Elementary’s amateur weather-girl.

I’d love if each of you leave me a sentence with your particular interpretation, especially since my sentence is a rather piss-poor example. It’s hard to make up a good definition for quizzling!

(I won’t even tell you the other lyric I’ve had wrong all these years, but it’s when Elvis says “she takes all the red, yellow, orange, and green” I thought it was she takes all her radio unguent creams…

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Music Monday–I don’t feel so bad now in the car, I got the radio on

We went to Crane Beach on Friday, which entailed about 2 hours, 15 minutes in the car each way (we stayed overnight). Not bad to get to an ocean beach (compared to 12-14 hours, one way, from Kent, Ohio where we used to live).

I’ve written about this before: kids in the car on road trips. Of course, they’ve graduated from singing songs at the top of their lungs to us playing CDs to them feeding songs through the car stereo via iPod. Not so much the radio on, but it all works, it’s fun, and it’s All-American.

Current Top Ten Road-Trip Songs (in almost no particular order):

ONE

This works especially well because we have to drive on “128 when it’s dark outside” to get to or home from any North Shore beaches. A classic.

TWO

“swear it had the power to repair itself”:

THREE

How can you go wrong with Lucinda covering Gram Parsons? We all belt along with Lucinda and we sound real good.

FOUR

You already know how I feel about Woody and Songs to Grow On. My dad used to sing this to me.

FIVE

This made my top ten Beatles’ songs on our Christmas card last year, so you know it had to make this top ten list, too. Hubby says it’s a bit obvious, but I told him baby, you can drive my beat up old mini-van and baby I love you

SIX

Who says you can’t dance and drive at the same time? Safer than texting!

SEVEN

The Man in Black. ‘Nuff said.

EIGHT

I sure can’t choose a favorite Hank Williams song, but I do have a 2-disc CD compilation that I play ad nauseum on car trips. Not a song about the road, but all of Hank Williams’ songs are road songs.

NINE

Switchin it over to AM, searching for a truer sound/Can’t recall the call letters, steel guitar and settle down/Catching an all-night station, somewhere in Louisiana/ It sounds like 1963, but for now, it sounds like Heaven

TEN

Would any top ten music list be complete without a Wilco song? Well, no, but you’ll have to listen to “Passenger Side” on your own because I wasn’t too happy with the youtube versions. Instead, you get J. Richman and the Modern Lovers again. This is sans the intro which is half the reason the song is so good. Gotta find that intro by your lonesome, too.

ELEVEN

It goes to eleven? I tried to find the scene from Spinal Tap in which Michael McKean sings “All the Way Home,” but could not.

Postscript: I am well aware of the lack of females representin’ here. Chrissy Hynde “Middle of the Road” was a thought and Aretha is good music in (and out of) the car, forever and always. I love my Mahalia in the mini-van, Sweet Honey, too…you know I may need another top ten road-trip songs some day. I am an American after all.

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Music Monday–Rain

It was only a matter of time. I am not sure how many days in a row we’ve had rain. I know we’re on at least Day 992 of overcast skies. I used to think that New England was really sunny compared to Northeast Ohio, but that only lasted about 4 years. Since March of 2005, it’s just as cloudy here, I swear.

I am generally thankful for cooler temperatures because my body is happier when it’s below 85 degrees outside; but finally, yesterday, I’d had enough. One crabby pre-teen, one crabby teen, one crabby me. One of the annuals that I bought and planted only 2 weeks ago has drowned by the roots in spite of my water-dumping efforts to save it. My flowers are blooming, but how? Can’t bike. Can’t hike. Can’t walk. Can’t garden. The sodden temperament of my household needs something to kick it out of its current state, only there’s not enough energy to be summoned from anywhere to make the necessary change.

No matter. Life goes on and we’ll soon have record-breaking temps and sunshine the Valley over, sending me indoors yet again.

I love this song, with its trippy ’60s sound and quirky but classic Beatles’ harmony. John on vocals so it’s not completely “moving in the positive;” always an edge to his voice.

The video is punctuated with commentary by George Harrison, which is both odd and funny. The Fab Four are dorky, young, and beautiful, a bit more staid than when performing their usual antics in front of the camera.

P.S. I have a vague awareness of a Broadway show about the Beatles and I know it’s called “Rain,” but that is NOT in any way related to this post, ‘kay?

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