Patient

This is me. The face of the overscheduled housewife. The mom of a gaggle of kids and the wife of a skilled and highly regarded surgeon. I have the brown eyes of my dad and my son, Mike. The smile of my mom. And her sadly slowly disappearing eyebrows. My hair is, thanks to my incredible colorist and a chunk of money and time every six to eight weeks, remarkably the same as a blend of my kids'. It's wavy in the back from the crown down and I have to straighten it or it kinks right up. My ears are pierced and have been since I was in fifth grade and got them pierced at Two Plus Two in Hawthorne Mall. I have some make up on. This is what you see when you meet me on the street or at school or the rink or the store. This smile, this face.

What you don't see here is my fever of 99.2, my swollen jaw that prevents me from having a descent dinner, a swollen knee that keeps me off the floor with the little kids and from moving more than a snails pace around the house. You don't see the upset stomach I've had off and on for literally years that has stumped all the GI doctors and annoyed me to no end. Or the costalchondritis that causes swelling of the connective tissue between my rib cages making it painful to breathe, lay down, wear a bra, twist my torso, bed over or even sleep (because I can't lay down without being in pain).You don't see the lumpy bumpy scarred abdomen from four major surgeries. What you aren't seeing is that I have lupus. 

I was diagnosed with lupus, formally Systemic Lupus Erythematosis, on October 13, 1983. I was eleven years old, it was Columbus Day, cold fall weather, and I felt horrible. Like I had the worst flu ever. I didn't want to eat or do anything, just sleep. I couldn't roll over if I laid down-- my joints were so swollen and painful. My fingers didn't-- couldn't make a fist. My knees didn't bend to allow me to sit criss-cross. My mouth barely opened and, odd of them all, my tongue and lips would swell. No rash, no noticeable fevers. But I left that appointment where I saw a lot of doctors in the room at once (hindsight: they were residents) with a single prescription for prednisone. A day later, I swear it was that quick, I was better. But that was a tease because the year before had been a slow decline and the thirty years ahead would be nothing short of a really rough ride. 

That's my dad and me in my hospital room about a week after that initial diagnosis, if I remember right. We are next to a big get well card that the whole sixth grade class had made for me. 

So I have lupus. I'm still alive, right? Yea... But (and you saw the caveat coming didn't you?)... some "life." Living with lupus is interesting. Some people have really very tough battles with kidney failure, nervous system involvement, pericarditis, aseptic necrosis of joints from the steroids (which, by the way, can happen from so little as a few DAYS of use. I've been taking them basically for 30 YEARS.), osteoporosis at a very young age (in your 30's). Some people get away with pretty much no symptoms aside from the occasional joint pain. Others struggle until their immune system finally does in every organ needed and they die. Yes, people with lupus die, and myself and my friends with lupus live every day with that fear that the one day of feeling like crap is going to lead to that final downward spiral to their grave. It's a looming sense of "the end is near" and it puts the saying "carpe diem" into a bit more perspective. 

Lupus in Latin means wolf and the disease is called lupus after the rash that many people (not me, thank you God) get which looks like the bite of a wolf. The wolf has become a symbol of sorts to many people with lupus. For starters, they are strong, and lord knows to get through the day (get through MY day?!) takes strength. The rely on each other-- no way can I do this alone. I have my pack of friends and fellow "lupies" who I lean on. My village who comes to my rescue. Wolves are nocturnal.... now this is a bit of a sore subject with me because I love to be outside. I love the beach, the sun and the fresh air, but I am sensitive to the sun and it's only gotten worse over the years. When I am in the sun without protection of SPF 1,000,000, a hat, long sleeves, etc, I wake the next morning feeling like I've been hit by a truck. I am like a wolf in that the only time I can go out is when the sun is low in the sky or the moon is out. I have a friend who has recently been battling a horrid flare of her lupus and she uses the hashtag #strongerthanawolf a lot in her social media. Right now, I feel like if I were a wolf, the pack would leave me behind because I'm the one limping along. (You can read more of her blog at www.highheelsandtrainingwheels.com and you can follow her on Facebook, too. I'm not that fancy... yet!) 

I am patiently dealing with my lupus on a day by day basis. It comes into play not in literally everything I do each day but much of what I do and has come to be an unconscious routine. Apply the sunscreen. Take my meds. Take my vitamins. Get to bed at a reasonable hour. Delegate and plan and be organized so I don't get stressed out because the stress with flare up the lupus. I take each day as it comes (for the most part) because at a moment's notice, all hell could break out and my energy level drain completely, or my jaw swell, or my thumbs swell, or the whole thing spiral out of control. I know I have a serious illness. Of course it scares the shit out of me. But I'll be damned if I'm going to not enjoy the time I have here. 

Emily Post is Rolling in Her Grave, Vol 1

The usual disclaimer: Sorry if I piss someone off, it's not intentional and I'm really not speaking of anyone in particular (unless I'm referring to a particular incident in which case you will know exactly that I'm talking about you). There are exceptions to everything and I'm sure someone my age out there is perfect. God bless you and your perfection. Please, please, let me know how you do it. Til then... don't take it personally.

I am the only child of parents born in the early 40's: Dads carried hankies, moms wore stockings and manners were grilled into my generation like grease down the neck of a foi gras goose. We said please and thank you, wrote thank you notes, replied promptly to invitations, called any adult Mr or Mrs, and did what those adults asked without (too much) whining. We showed respect for our peers and our elders.

First up in my series of observations about our lack of Etiquette: Screen Addiction. (Or is it social media addiction?) 

When it came to screens, there was one: a TV. It was a giant box, often a stand-alone piece of furniture and the youngest person in the room was the remote, getting up to change the volume or channel as needed. sometimes we even had a black and white tv from the "old days" when mom and dad were first married. We had 5 TV channels and lived for Saturday mornings when we could flip between 3 of those channels and watch cartoons for three or sometimes even four whole hours at once.

We didn't dream of not talking to our friends' parents when we were at their home, and if you sat quietly, not looking at anyone in the eye at the dinner table, you were one of a few things: in trouble, sick, or sad. The internet was far from invented, handheld anything was a Walkman with cassette tapes and why on earth would you bring it to the table? You'd get shot! Yet someplace in between Carol Brady sighing "oh Marcia" and Ross and Rachel having a baby, it appears that a ton of these kids that go by the label Generation X (and I'm a Gen X-er) completely forgot those manners. Worse yet, they forgot to teach them to their kids.

 

 I love this photo because it describes so much of what I see lately. Dear God people, put down the phone and interact! I am probably pretty guilty of being on FB a bit more than I need to, falling asleep to surfing through Pinterest, or binge posting meme's, but there are few things worse than seeing a table with a family in a restaurant where they are all on their phones, completely silent. Not a word, someone has on headphones, the only time they talk is to the waitress. We have a rule in our family that there are no screens at the table. The kids have a bag of coloring books and the tools to color with rotate from colored pencils to crayons to markers. The coloring books rotate too-- I keep 2 magazine holders on the laundry room counter with a wide variety of activity books and plain paper in them for them to pick. The bag is a cute one from the dollar bin at Target. When it breaks like the first one did, we just pick up a new one. They are so used to this that they look at the kids with screens like something's odd with THEM. I have even had my kids ask me whey the other kids don't want to talk to their parents. I say I don't know and then go back to coloring Spiderman and chatting about hockey practice or who had the better game of four square at recess.

It does seem easy to entertain your kids at a restaurant with video games or other screen-intense thing so you can have a moment to talk with your spouse (or not). And I've done it twice I can think of-- once when, recently, my son kept interrupting me during an important conversation at breakfast where I had no other choice and had already searched the 400 page Chuck the Truck book for a maze that was easy enough for him to do yet hard enough to take him the whole conversation. The other was when we were out with friends and the other boy there was being mean to my son-- I did it because we weren't ready to go yet and he had basically crawled into my lap on the verge of tears. Both times, when we left, the kids said to me "That was just a special treat, right?" They know. Typically they don't ask for screens at the table. Or in the car (we don't have a DVD player in the car). They DO have iPods. iPod, not iPad. They hold a few TV shows, a few apps, and music and are kept aside for when we travel in the car for over an hour. Otherwise, outside of the house, it's all old school, all the time.

Perhaps my biggest complaint with screens at the table is that the kids are in your house, little, wanting to talk to you, wanting to be seen with you, for only so long. My baby has just really gotten the grasp of the word "No" and for sure has on her "sassy pants" and I realize she isn't the little baby girl she was a year ago. My middle guy will climb into my lap for only so much longer and my big guy I know is nearing the cusp of not kissing me in front of his friends.  And the dinner table is a place for conversation, for talking about our days, for planning tomorrows, for being together. Ok, I admit that the family sit-down is fast approaching extinction along with proper use of the word "well". We still manage a few times a week to gather all 5 of us and the kids and I aim for it every day we can. Even if it's pizza, the tv is off, the phones are on the island or turned face down, texts don't get answered. We are all present in the moment.

I'm trying to teach my kids that they need to know how to speak to each other, to Ed and I, to have simple table manners. How can your child ask you to pass the potatoes if you have your nose in the Huffington Post? Think how your parents would have reacted if you sat playing Minecraft while mom dished up the pot roast. I can tell you right now that my device would have been under a car tire faster than you could "like" a post about spending time with family! With all that we do as American moms these days, for the sanity of society, get the kids a restaurant bag and put phones in pockets or face down. I was wondering what the kids would do as teens... perhaps I will do another post in 9 years when I have 2 of them. Remind me to let you know what we do then, ok? Then again, they could just do what we all did: BE with each other and interact. There's a novel idea.

The other side of this argument is that the screens are just far to interesting to put down. We aren't just looking at ads and videos of cats jumping into boxes, we're literally changing the world. Case in point, Egypt. Social revolution via Twitter. Second case in point, the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS, bringing awareness and raising money like wildfire for an illness few adults, let alone kids, new anything about until they were tagged and challenged. Hashtags, trending, viral videos, breaking news, shopping!-- we can find everything we need in the palm of our hand. The world is there for us to explore and I can read about how spiders are bigger in urban areas while I sit next to you on the couch so why in God's name would I talk to you? Are you going to tell me about the spiders? Probably not. But I can tell you things you won't find in the palm of your hand (though I bet you ten bucks you're reading this blog on your phone, aren't you? Hello irony!). I have facial expression and inflection of tone. Warmth, emotion, reaction to you. Sure we could DISCUSS the spiders but you'd have to put down the phone first.  And keep it down.

I read a book a while ago and I seriously need to revisit it: The Winter of Our Disconnect. It's about an Australian single mom of 3 teens who pulls the plug on basically everything for six months. It's non-fiction (my preferred genre) and as a writer herself, Maushart discusses both the pros and the cons of screen exposure. It's a fantastic read for anyone trying to gain better understanding the implications of being "plugged in." It helps you look deeper at the damage technology is making on our societal connections, especially our family connections. Radical unplugging is a concept I have toyed with since reading it and then I wonder... how could I? My cell is the number anyone who matters calls (like school!) or texts. I pay my bills on it and email mom pics of the kids. Heck, I wrote half the post about skunk smell removal on the Blogger App on my phone. It's my alarm clock, my calendar, my weather station, my music. My catalogs, my reward system for the kids, my camera, video camera, star chart, travel agent, diet log, pedometer, phone book, concierge, and coupon book. There must be a happy medium between current use of electronics and complete abstinence. It's a place I want to find and model for my kids as they inch closer to the age of owning a smart phone.

That said, we all should look to find the happy place with our electronics. Think about how your kids are using or not using them. When are we connecting, really connecting with family? What message does it send each other when we would rather stare at Facebook than at each other? I promise not to sigh too loudly when I see the kids engrossed in their iPads at the restaurant tables from now on if you promise to crack out the crayons more often, ok? Good. One step closer to a world free of (predominately) idiots.

Do you smell something?

My beloved dog, Odin, all 110# of him, gentle giant to one and all, is incredibly smart. Loyal, works hard to protect us by barking at birds flying by but also by running up to the unsuspecting electric meter reader man and insisting upon being pet by leaning on him til he practically falls over. Odin bows to the cats, whimpering a whine of confusion because all he wants to do is play. I suspect this is the same behavior that ensues when he attempts to play with the locals. And by locals, I mean the skunks. 

Several years ago we had a bit of a skunk problem in the neighborhood. We were even blessed with a nest of youngsters under the deck. I'm all for critters making their homes in our yard but after Odin got sprayed no less than five times in a span of about six weeks, I called in the exterminator. And the lawn guys to treat the grubs because that's their favorite food in the world and we had a lot apparently. Yay, skunk central. 

If I learned anything from that summer, and summers, falls and into early winters, it's all about skunk musk, removal and the general odor removal from the house. The nerdy scientist in me had to find out what the stuff was, how far it sprayed and, most importantly, what neutralized the hideous scent. 

If you've never had a dog or other animal (or self? Oh that'd be unfortunate!) sprayed you know it's not the same as that whiff you get passing by a dead skunk on the road. It's pungent, permeating and actually burns your eyes and throat. To hell with mustard gas-- skunk musk is the real weapon! 

So, Odin got sprayed last night for the first time in about 2 years. I know this because I was pregnant at the time, Ed was on ER call and of course not home. To bathe a dog of Odin's stature, it requires at the very least a stand-up shower with a removable sprayer, a prong collar and leash, and an adult to bathe him. When you're in such tight quarters with the hairy beast, you're bound to get wet, but you have options. Suck it up and wear wet clothes (that get skunky and hairy), change into a bathing suit (which will also get hairy and skunky and since you're either alone or with your spouse doing this, totally the easiest option. Not.), or strip down to your birthday suit. Option C, when 8 months preg, alone at roughly midnight, was my go to method. That's an image for the record books... I digress... The take-away message here is that if your dog is bigger than a cat and has to we washed in a tub, nudie up and prepare to have one very annoyed pooch. Do NOT risk your clothes. Trust me.

Back to our topic at hand: Skunk musk. Skunk musk is oil based animal secretion. The offensive odor is caused by a variant of a sulfur compound, which explains the burning of your eyes and throat when you have the "pleasure" of coming in close contact with it. Knowing this, we are able to figure out how to remove the musk from the animal (easier if it's a direct hit to say, his face, than the global musk-misting) and to a degree, removing the lingering odor from your home, hands, clothes you were wearing when he came in the house and rubbed up against you... you get the picture.

Priority one is getting the dog to the bathroom. Lock him in there while you get your wits about you, wake your spouse (if they didn't wake up with your screaming and swearing), strip down, and gather your provisions. 

You will need (for a descent size dog):

• a restraining collar such as a choke or a prong and a water proof leash
• a stack of towels, one to put outside the shower, one for you, and at least 2 for the dog
• BABY shampoo (because your good Aveda stuff will burn his eyes and it's for blondes and he's a brunette)
• 2 buckets/pitchers/bowls/empty 2L bottles if you don't have a detachable shower head
• a bottle of wine

Get into whatever you are going to be wearing (or not) for this adventure, take a large gulp of that wine (you knew there had to be drinking involved, didn't you?), and put the collar and leash on Fido. Climb into the shower.

Take a moment to think back to chemistry-- remember how soaps are designed? They have an end that loves water and an end that loves oil. We have a lot of oil-based ick that needs to be rinsed down the drain. The key here is to locate the source of the musk on the dog-- find the wet spot. You might even be lucky enough to be able to SEE said spot. Get a handful of soap when you find it... whatever you do, DO NOT WET THE DOG (yet). DO NOT WET THE DOG.

DO NOT GET THE DOG WET YET!

The goal here is to not let the soap bond to anything but the oil of the musk. Yet. If you have that direct hit to the face/neck/side this will be easier than if your Newfie is down-wind of the mist of musk. Apply generous amounts of shampoo, and when I say generous, I mean like half the bottle if not more for the misted dog, and 2-3 handfuls to the direct hit. Work it in-- it will sort of lather up. Do try to keep it out of the dog's eyes because the sulfur will burn. Use baby shampoo because at least if it does get in his eyes, they'll only burn from one thing. If you have the misted dog, do your best to lather him up entirely without water. I usually just sniff around to see where it's worst because Odin has such an unruly thick coat that it would take a case of shampoo to fill the hair and a week of rinsing to get all the soap out. Do your best, use your good judgement.

Now we have a very soapy, interesting smelling dog on our hands and inevitably something you have to wake up to do in about 5 hours. Let's get going. Get the shower running on a warm water temp and start rinsing. Rinse until no suds come out and trust me, this can take a long time. It's essential though because if the soap stays, so does the oil and that stinky sulfur that is so awful in the first place. It will be one of two places-- the dog or down the drain. Pick one.

After a while you will have a clean dog that will probably not smell that horrid of skunk. It does not come out 100% and everything I've read says there really isn't a sure-fire way to neutralize the smell. Dry the dog off, finish the wine and go to bed. Clean the hair out of the shower in the morning. Address the stink anywhere else tomorrow also.

How to deal with clothing or furniture or carpet...

Baking soda. I swear by this stuff. It's the alkali to the acid, the gold standard of odor removers, cleaners, etc. Just search the web and you'll find a million uses for it other than making your cookies rise. For the clothing, if they can be laundered in the washing machine, add in a half cup (or so) of baking soda. (This works fantastically for removing the smell of vomit also, which any parent will tell you they have had to take care of at one point or another) This should do the trick. For carpet and furniture, sprinkle baking soda on the area that stinks and gently rub it in with your hand, like you would the carpet deodorizer powders. Let it sit for a couple of hours and do it's magic then vacuum it up. If the smell lingers still, I revert to a favorite old stand-by: Febreeze. No, I'm not getting paid to say that. It just works like a champ. 

Those are my methods. Now I'd like to discuss some other deskunking options...

1. Tomato Juice. The biggest problem with this is that you basically need to soak the dog in tomato juice which is a problem for many reasons: Who keeps that much tomato juice around? How much does that cost? How do you get the dog to lay in the tub full of tomato juice? What happens when he shakes? You see the problems? I have no idea if it's a good deodorizer. It very well could be, however practical it is not. 

2. Baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and soap. I'm not a fan of this method because I don't think well in a crisis or in the middle of the night when I'm woken up and definitely not when both occur simultaneously. This method requires measuring, making sure your hydrogen peroxide hasn't degraded into water, and repeating. If you get your proportions off, you can harm your dog. If it gets into his eyes, it can burn. So yet again, it may work but it's not my personal go-to method. Ever.

And remember, there's the final fix to your stinky companion: The groomer. The pro's have special shampoo and patience to removing the odor that no layman has. Leave the dog outside and take him to the groomer promptly when they open. No appointment available? Well maybe they'll keep him so you can go home and open the windows.