• I Didn’t Take the Test Apart

    I am sick. Oliver, our youngest, tested positive for rhinovirus last Sunday, and I was the lucky recipient of his germs in the household. Nobody else was as fortunate.

    And I don’t know what it is about colds, but this is not the first time that I have completely lost my voice in the last year, even, when I was sick.

    And because I read that the new COVID variant, ‘Cicada,’ is spreading, after a day of feeling awful yesterday, I broke out one of the COVID tests we keep on hand. Because yes, we still occasionally test when one of us is sick.

    And as I stood there waiting for the test to develop, I second-guessed myself. Had I used enough of the test liquid before I inserted the swab? Had I done the twirly thing in my nose enough? I even found myself, once I was sure the time was passed enough, pushing some more of the liquid up from the bottom of the test.

    And with that, I was re-living the massively anxious pregnancy test years all over again, when I’d wonder if I’d used enough urine to make the test work right.

    So, I went to Facebook and posted this:

    “My potential childbearing years (only counting from marriage on) were 2005 to 2014. But only having a tubal in 2014 didn’t stop me from being paranoid clear through 2024 or so.

    And because the majority of those years were before digital pregnancy tests were not cost prohibitive….

    There is a very specific type of anxiety that arises whenever I have to do a COVID test.

    And I know very well to not even bother going to get Jared to ask him if he sees what I see, because my eyes and brain are VERY well trained to see a second line that is not there.

    Because I think I see one.

    I’ve held my phone flashlight up to it to try to see if that makes it appear.

    And it takes all my restraint not to take the test apart to see if I can see a line that way.

    Whoever came up with the mechanism for COVID tests was NOT sensitive to a couple of generations’ worth of us who did this countless times, trying to will a second line to appear.

    Just saying. 🤣

    And 2026 me can be mildly amused but early 2006 me would have been severely distraught that this is a way we have to routinely test for sickness.”

    I’ve spent a good portion of this week monitoring my analytics: a fruitless exercise, much like taking pregnancy tests apart. But I went to look 24 hours after the post, and apparently I’ve struck a chord with over 12,000 other women who’ve probably taken tests apart or begged their husbands to see a line that isn’t really there, too.

    I’m not used to writing things that people listen to. Or maybe I’m not used to using my voice in ways that are both constructive and vulnerable. I frequently write vulnerable things, but I am equally likely to yell in writing about the injustices than to find something to laugh at. And, now that the years are past, it is easier to see the humor in the very real anxiety I still feel about pregnancy and COVID tests.

    While I’m not really thinking I have COVID, I still wish I could will a second line to appear. I suppose that anxious urge is literally never going away, even though I am almost a year post-hysterectomy.

    And after 48 hours squeaking as I talk, I am ready for my voice to come back.

  • Maybe Recliners Aren’t the Be-All-End-All

    I have severe scoliosis. As in– I started wearing a back brace at age six, wore some variation of said brace through age 13 (think hard plastic shells molded from a cast of my whole torso, made every few months as I grew)…..it was not fun times.

    And at age 13 when I had surgery for an 87-degree curve, I really hoped that was the end of it. I grew from five foot six inches to five foot seven and a half inches in 10 hours. True story.

    But….life happened, four pregnancies and three healthy boys happened, and here I am at age 46 with a secondary thoracic curve that has to be at least 45 degrees in addition to the original lumbar curve, which has settled also at 45 degrees or so.

    Suffice it to say between the curves and rotation, my whole skeletal system is a mess.

    For the past six years, we have loved our Kirkland Signature leather electric reclining couch. We now are at Costco all the time, but we actually scored our couch at a local salvage store for $250, brand new apparently. When we bought it I thought we’d be doing well to get six months of use out of it, and here we are six years alter, and it still works.

    I have been in physical therapy now for months, and after last week’s session I decided I might be done with the couch. I’ve known for a long time that it was not good for my back, so I decided to just take the week and sit, when I sit, in this straight back cushioned rocking chair with the pillow, as pictured above.

    And…..something minor-miracle-wise, happened:

    I found myself sitting less. A lot less. I started getting back on my stationary exercise bike daily. I found myself sitting to do what I was going to do and then getting back up to resume household tasks as needed. And my mental health has been better on the whole, as well.

    I did not realize that what one sits on can literally make a change in lifestyle in the span of a week.

    So, the couch is posted on Facebook for giveaway, and we will find a better recliner for my husband, who legitimately does need one since he sleeps out here in our living room occasionally.

    Yes, we are a couple that does not always sleep in the same room, and no, there is nothing wrong with our marriage.

    I suppose that is another post, though.

  • It’s Just a Toe

    On January 21, I had a permanent matrixectomy on my left big toe. And for eight weeks and two days, I completely avoided posting any public pictures of that toe– it was gross.

    But Friday morning, March 20, I woke up and saw when I looked at my feet that there was no 1/2 inch square scab in the bottom left hand corner as had been there the night before, when I went to sleep.

    So, bored on Friday afternoon, I took the above photo with my phone, and captioned it this on Facebook:

    “It took 1 day shy of exactly two months for my gimpy toe to have the 1/2 inch square scab to fall off, apparently in one fell swoop overnight. My toe feels no different, and I didn’t feel it happen, but my big toe looks so weird without a nail or anything there even though I’ve known for 2 months this was the goal.

    To me it looks like I just have pink fingernail polish on that one toe.

    I spared y’all all the photos I took of the gore as it was in progress over the past two months— it was really gross especially about the 2-week mark. But I couldn’t resist this one.”

    And I thought nothing more about it, until I saw on Saturday that the post had 20k something views.

    As of this writing, Monday afternoon March 23, that post has had 73,212 views.

    The lone negative comment was that I needed clean my shoe, which if anybody knows anything about Birkenstocks, that is a nonissue.

    And honesty time: Had I known that that photo was going to go mini-viral: I would have gotten out the good camera. I would have trimmed on that second toe which is not quite straight with its nail, where the right side of the nail skims upwards slightly. I would have gotten the green strap from my physical therapy off the coffee table behind my foot. I would have probably, yes, worn different shoes or better yet, no shoe at all.

    It’s just a toe, people.

    But it is pretty funny that a stadium or two’s worth of people find it fascinating to look at a toe without a toenail.

    I posted the following as part of the comments:

    “Since people seem to like this post, the back story: This toenail had been giving me ingrown problems at that top left corner since I was 13 years old, and had become fungal to the point it had stopped growing over a year ago. It was so thick that I could no longer cut it at all myself. At age 46, I said enough and went to the podiatrist for a matrixectomy. I did try the prescription anti fungal lacquer and Vicks and ketoconazole cream prior to giving up. 

    I am extremely squeamish about people messing with my toes and especially my toenails. I told my doctor about my phobia, and she was very compassionate both with local anesthesia and patient with me. My doctor was great, and the whole procedure after insurance (admittedly, we do have good insurance) cost about $346 out of pocket. 

    I took Tylenol for the first two days but after that needed no pain meds, and I did have to wear flip flops (not these Birks) in the dead of winter (procedure was January 21) for a long time, and in awkward social situations at times. 

    But, for a lifetime of not having to deal with that toenail anymore….100% worth it.”

    Thankfully, most comments have been kind; a few people have shared their own feet or tips for future use as my foot settles.

    But really, people. It’s just a toe.

  • More Spilling Over

    In 2001 or 2002, I found a video of another girl engaged in acts with him, filmed from his vantage point. It was filmed in the house of his, the house I was in when I found it. The girl appeared to be about my age, and she had my hair color. He didn’t appear but I heard his voice. 

    That is why I think there might be video of me out there somewhere. 

    There were other patterns, with me, back in the day. He interrupted movies we were watching at the oddest times to guide me to his bedroom. He always, always had either the “Sleepless in Seattle” soundtrack or Elton John’s “Love Songs” CD playing when we were together in his bedroom. Usually things went on just long enough for the entire CD to play. The decor of the room, in retrospect, was nonexistent, which would have made the setting unidentifiable. There was literally nothing on the walls, there was no headboard on the bed, there was literally nothing about that room that had any personality at all.

    And I had no idea at the time, at age 20, that music could be used for grooming. It worked; for the rest of my life, I will think back to that time whenever I hear any one of those songs. I have spent the past 26 years doing my very own desensitization therapy of sorts, listening to those songs over and over as I am able to handle it, to be able to listen to any of those songs without throwing myself into a melancholic, longing funk. 

    And that’s all I have to say about that, today.