As Real As It Gets

Inspirational song: I'm On a Boat (The Lonely Island)

I had to write a text late in the day to my dad to explain why I couldn't take his call this morning, or return it for pretty much the entire day. I started my day showing a house to clients that I adore (when dad called), and I immediately raced to a different town to set up an open house that ran very long. Like the one in Fort Collins a few weeks ago, it was a mad crush. It felt like hosting a very popular party, with a whole lot of people who were interested in talking to me. Several times I had to use my phone as a hotspot for my computer, so I could look up information and add new prospective leads to my database. By the time I headed home, I had 4% phone battery, and no way to recharge it (I really ought to find the car charger base). Once here, I immediately plugged in and started running comps while I waited for enough of a charge to call back the client who already wants to put in an offer on the house. Holy cow, I told my father. I'm a real realtor!

It was marvelous finally getting my eastern region clients into a house. We've been talking about what sort of new place they wanted for weeks, but it wasn't until today that we stood inside one and discussed the merits of a home. Now the real fun begins. We get to repeat this action over and over, until they find the perfect spot. Do not mistake anything I have said for sarcasm. I seriously can not wait. I had such a sputtering start to this career. It feels pretty damned good to be doing it for real.

But that open house, though.

I saw the photos last night, and was floored. When I saw it many months ago, it was in shambles. The man who did the renovation work did an outstanding job with it. Not even the same house. The best part was where he knocked down the wall around the kitchen, opening it up to the living room and front entry, so you can stand at the pale gray and speckled granite peninsula, and look out over the sculpture garden park across the street. The weather was slushy and sloppy, so we couldn't tell what the view of the mountains was from that spot, but the general consensus was that it would be lovely on a clear day. I spent nearly three full hours standing in front of the sink, with dozens of people swirling around me, all talking pleasantly to me and smiling about the gorgeous house. I felt like I was hosting the best party in town. And right as it was supposed to shut down, my phone rang. Even though it was an unfamiliar out of state number, I had just enough sense not to ignore it as an assumed telemarketer, and I leaned away from house hunters to hear someone tell me he wanted to write an offer right then and there. I was thrilled and terrified and at a complete loss for words because I was so tired and not only was my phone battery nearly dead, so was my physical battery. But I managed to push out a couple coherent sentences and a promise to call as soon as I had a charger. This is a go! So now we're working on making a strong offer and getting the details organized. I barely have the spoons left to sit up right now, but I am finding the will to keep going if for no other reason than because I can finally see the fruits of my labor are in sight.

Done for Now

Inspirational song: Mixed Emotions (Rolling Stones)

I've had one of those mixed bag days. Information and activity heavy, and I just don't know how to process everything. I started with a good, long visit with my doctor, followed by a good, long visit with my massage therapist, sprinkled with work, and relaxation, and long, less-good conversations. I think I'm just about talked out. I have a few photos I've collected over the last days that never made it here, and I'll throw them in this space and go decide whether I'm going to hold on to tonight's dinner or let it go. If I'm lucky, I'll get some sleep tonight before I head up north to hold another open house tomorrow (in a stunningly gorgeous remodel -- I wish I could share the pictures I've seen so far, but they are owned by someone else). If you can spare some, think happy thoughts for me. I don't have many left for myself right now, and I have to save them all for tomorrow.

Hello, Sweetie

Inspirational song: Boomerang (Absynth Quintet)

Melody Pond got her brain wired in correctly this morning. All the plugs run to all the right pumps. She is no longer frigid. She is warm and welcoming. And I've been in her three times today. Wait, does that sound bad? Too bad. I've waited all of my adult life to have my own hot tub on my own back porch, and I'm going to take advantage of it at every opportunity now that I have one. It was purely coincidental that I had to wait until I was in middle age with a diagnosis of lupus to finally justify the effort and expense (albeit greatly discounted in this case) of acquiring and running one. If this doesn't help significantly with my constant pain, nothing will. Or maybe that isn't the case...

I went to a local film festival tonight. I had memories of South Park running through my head at the idea of attending a small town in Colorado film festival, specifically of Eric Cartman insisting that all independent films were essentially about gay cowboys eating pudding. Tonight's offerings were far more interesting. The first very short film was a memory piece called Pondwing, by a guy with local ties who also worked for Skywalker Ranch for a while. He talked about finding a pond on the ranch that reminded him of his grandfather's spread in North Texas, and tied it charmingly to the scene in Empire Strikes Back with Luke's X-wing fighter crashed in the swamps of Dagobah. When he appeared at the front for questions, he cited his biggest influences in film making as Ray Harryhausen (of the Sinbad series and the original Clash of the Titans, both of which I loved as a child) and a professor at CU named Stan Brakhage (whom I adored as a freshman in his intro to film studies class). The next film was an animated music video called Boomerang, by a man who lives in/near Humbolt County California, which I have been told is somewhat of a cannabis growing hub. The film and the song were phenomenally good, and I hope to be able to download the song sometime soon. And then the themed films for the night appeared.

The first was from an 18 year old who lives in a neighboring town called Bulletproof Karma, about a man whose aggressively growing brain tumor was stopped and shrunk with CBD oil and a clean diet. The second, longest feature of the night was called Rolling Papers, and it followed the entire first year of legal recreational pot sales in Colorado. It was absolutely fascinating. It centered around Ricardo Baca, the head of the cannabis department for the Denver Post, and his staff of pot critics, investigative journalists, photographers, and columnists. It talked about city council meetings, hyperbole in the press, state issues like Child Protective Services, competitions, lack of regulations (at the time) for edibles, and even an extended act set in Uruguay where cannabis was nationally decriminalized and regulated that year. They had specially branded sets of rolling papers printed up and set on each seat in the venue as handouts, and I grabbed a couple extras to give away to friends and family. I can't use them myself, since smoking anything at all is frowned upon for lupus patients. But I came away with an altered perspective and a lot of food for thought. All in all a very productive evening.

Spring and Chill

Inspirational song: Stone Cold (Rainbow)

The purpose of a hot tub is to provide warm water in which a body can rest. I thought it was, anyway. Maybe there's a new sort of cold therapy fad I wasn't aware of before now. For two days we have been trying to get the hot tub set up and running, and for two days we have met with utter failure. Yesterday, it was set in place, filled, and turned on. It started tripping its circuit breaker as soon as any piece of equipment cycled on. So today we drained it, and the Mr went through piece by piece, figuring out where it went wrong. It came down to the heating element, and after calling around, we found a store in town that carried exactly what we needed. So the heater coil is now new and newly installed, and the circuit breaker stays on when everything is running. Except there is no heat. The water has stubbornly refused to warm beyond 53 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if we could remember where my stepmother packed the owners manual before we left Georgia, but we haven't a clue where it is. We've looked online, but this tub is not brand new, and the manuals we've found are for newer models. For now, all I have is a big cold pond. So I've named it Melody. (If you know who Melody Pond is, award yourself 50 nerd points.)

I can't seem to get warm today. Last night we failed to turn the heat back on in the house, and we are in the middle of one of those cool Colorado spring weeks. I woke chilled, which isn't unusual when one wakes in a room that was almost as cold as that spa water (warmer by about 4 degrees). I haven't been able to get comfortable ever since. Here it is, the end of April, and I'm wearing long underwear under my clothes (top and bottoms). I was as active as I could make myself be today, running in and out of the house, helping outside, going on errands. It wasn't that I was so motionless that my own body heat shouldn't have kicked in. But no matter what, my feet feel like I've been running through snow, and I spent all day complaining about it. I can't decide which is worse, having hot flashes as a woman who never sweats, or freezing no matter the activity. I think maybe the worst part is not being able to find a happy medium, but instead swinging wildly from one extreme to the other.

The good news is that I am one day in on a two-to-six month journey towards improvement. I started my new lupus medications today, which require a long, slow build to full potency. They put me on one of the anti-malaria drugs that oddly also helps with lupus (and they really don't know why). We always laughed at drug ads that use phrases like "this is thought to work on the neural pathways that control pain." They have no idea what the drug does, but it seems to make patients complain less, so they make money on it. Woohoo. Ah, well, if it ends up helping in the long run, I'll stay on it. It would be better than taking pain pills that make me loopy.

I am not sure why I agreed to come outside on a night like this. I've been freezing all day, the air outside is distinctly crisp and cool, and yet here I sit, a blanket around my shoulders, in front of the fire pit. And for all that I have three layers wrapped around me, that man is in shorts. Something is not right with this picture.

I Have That Power

Inspirational song: Gentleman's Excuse Me (Fish)

I feel like I'm dancing a minuet. I take a couple steps forward, a couple steps back, and a couple side to side. I can't tell whether I'm making progress or making busy work.

I went to the rheumatologist for the first time this afternoon. At first, as I tried to give her my medical history, she stopped me on two separate occasions, to say she was confused about why I was talking about my lupus diagnosis. The second time she explained that she had lab results with a negative ANA. I was eternally grateful that I had planned ahead for this possibility, and I presented to her my printouts from the first two blood draws, with positive ANA and strong positive Smith antibodies. Things went smoother after that. She did take me seriously on the things I reported, which was something that had caused me great anxiety in the weeks leading up to this visit. I worried that she would say that she didn't really think it was lupus, and maybe I should just go home and wait until things change. The page full of symptoms, of which I checkmarked 80-90% of them, be damned, if I hadn't had those blood test results, I might have realized my worst fear. That was the good part, that she accepted that I was really in the club. The sideways steps were that she needed more fluid samples from me, and that the chest x-ray she took was really more for a baseline view, not diagnostic of the problems I've been having, that I told her about. The backwards steps were that she sent me back down the chain of command to the GP for the chest and lung pain, and for several of my symptoms, she said that they weren't really in her purview. In fact, there were several things I brought up that she said she didn't think were lupus at all. Does this mean that there are indeed other diseases yet to be discovered? I shudder to think.

After a full 24 hours without power, we were back on the grid in time for me to shower before Rotary, which was a positive outcome. The upgraded panel is a work of art, compared to the pile of shredded cheese that the old one contained. There are no more spliced wires inside the box, and there is an actual main breaker that turns off power to the entire thing. Welcome to the 21st Century, Park West. We've been waiting for you to join us. Unfortunately, somewhere in the long afternoon of hot tub installation, some junction might not have been properly made, and it was only after a half-tub of water was put in that we learned that something keeps "nuisance tripping" the breaker for the tub. So tomorrow we get to find a way to drain that water back out (storing it if at all possible, so we aren't wasting like 300 gallons of the stuff), move the tub to have better access to the back side (it should not have been so close to the wall to begin with), and start over. Maybe by tomorrow night I'll be able to sit outside in warm water and enjoy the cool spring nights.

Make It Fast

Inspirational song: In the Dark (Billy Squire )

I have eighteen percent battery on my phone. Somewhere in my darkened house is my car charger, but I couldn't tell you where. I've been reading a book most of the day, and for the last hour or two I've been doing it by flashlight. The few candles burning are insufficient to illuminate a page. I figured if I was to blog, it was now or never.

Today is the day we finally got around to replacing the horrifying electrical situation in this 56 year old house. The power has been shut off at the box since quarter to nine this morning, and the job just keeps getting more complex. It has been peaceful around here without the hum of electrical motors, but I shudder to think of all that ice cream I brought back from Oklahoma sitting in yet another slowly warming box. As long as I get a warm shower tomorrow before Rotary, I suppose I can handle an evening without power. A brief but violent storm brushed by just as the very last glimmer of ambient light faded, and it was almost like losing power due to weather. Odd that I don't mind it either way.

I'm being beckoned to fetch and carry, since I am armed with the flashlight still. I can only hope I have enough battery left to publish, post, and share. And then I will play like it's olden-times in the dark.

Undaunted

Inspirational song: Run Runaway (Slade)

A few times lately, I've tweeted links to this blog, along with the hashtag "lupushurts." That particular hashtag doesn't have a whole lot of activity, and I can't quite figure out why. I would think that people in my situation would say that phrase a whole lot more often. I've said it out loud a couple or three times so far tonight. And it is the awful truth. I tried to return to a vaguely normal routine today, and I failed miserably. I had a rough morning, I had to struggle to get myself in gear to drive over half an hour to get a haircut, and just sitting in the chair talking to the wonderful stylist was an ordeal. I looked a whole lot better, but I came home tired and out of spoons. I lay down for a nap, and just after I woke, I heard the Mr running around and swearing. (More on that later.) We spent the dark part of the night trying again to figure out which circuit breakers cut off which lights and plugs, and that took all of my reserve energy. By the time we were done, I was huddled under a blanket, crying about how my chest hurts too much even to want to finish the bowl of Braum's peppermint ice cream that he had brought me. (I am specific as to brand and flavor to convey just how extreme this breakdown has been, if I had to struggle with eating the best flavor of the best brand in the US, that I had to haul home in a cooler from Oklahoma, then you know it was bad.) I've had increasing problems with breathing for the last fifteen-plus years. I remember clearly a long period where I would lie on the couch and complain about the feeling of concrete in my lungs on a daily basis. But I never really communicated just how bad this all freaking hurts. I don't want to end up taking daily painkillers. I certainly don't want to take opioids (with their side effects). But I need to find a way to make the horrors of breathing ease off. I have tried doing breathing exercises to stretch out my lungs, hoping to get even to half of my former capacity. All I end up doing is making my heart race and my lungs hurt, and I stop and feel sorry for myself. So when I say #lupushurts, this is the main thing I'm talking about. It's convincing myself to take another breath, every single time, even when it hurts.

So, you wondered, why was the man swearing? Why is tonight's song "Run Runaway?" Because, while I was napping, gardening was happening. We bought three big tomato plants at Costco, and the man took the risk of putting them in the ground now, two weeks before it is classically safe to do so in Colorado. And while he was doing that, bringing the tomatoes around from the front porch where we'd left them yesterday, he failed to latch the side gate properly. He heard dogs bark at someone driving down the alley, but he realized there were only two voices defending our back yard. One was missing. Murray had seen a breach in the stockade perimeter, and taken advantage. He decided to wander down to the park by himself, without telling anyone. And by the time his absence was noted, he was nowhere to be seen. The man hopped in his truck and started driving in circles while I walked the alley and the street in front of our house. On one of the passes, I jumped into the truck and joined forces in the search. The man called animal control to see whether any officers had gotten a call about a dog in a wheelchair. The dispatch had not heard, but took our number to call if anyone let her know. We drove and panicked for another 20-25 minutes, before she called back to say someone had dropped him off at an emergency vet downtown. I called the vet while we raced downtown. "I believe you have our dog Murray. Murray is in a wheelchair." That's all the description I needed. He was there, with a bandage on the toe he scraped walking along the sidewalk and street by himself, enjoying the treats that the woman at the vet desk was popping into his mouth. The panic, subsequent drive in the strong afternoon sun, squinting down every alley, between every house, and the relief of finding him unscathed just wore me out. I tried to participate in life after that, but I didn't get very far.

Murray has his own Facebook page, Murray Undaunted. I suspect that today's adventure will end up there sooner or later, along with all his videos and musings. We might have to settle down a bit after the worry before the man posts Murray's review of his adventure. It's not easy keeping up with a fearless dog.

Slideshow

Inspirational song: How Can You Do It Alone (The Who)

Oh, right. It turns out that overwhelming myself by traveling and getting super tired is a trigger for that unkillable hydra, my new friend Demon Lupus. I spent most of the last two days too tired to sleep, and thus I have been weepy and weak. I just can't even. For two days now. I had promised while I was still in Georgia that I'd provide a slideshow of all our trip pictures, and tonight seems like the best night to do it. In fact, it sounds like the absolute limit of what I've got in energy reserves, while I wait until Tuesday to limp across the finish line and finally meet my rheumatologist for the first time. So yeah. Pictures.

It was kind of nice letting someone else do the driving to the airport. Also nice: not paying for parking.

Dawn from the plane window was pretty. Sleeping against the tray table was better.

At one point, he says, "Give me your phone." Hands it back, and says, "Memphis, right?"

Made it to Georgia just in time to see azaleas in bloom.

And knockout roses...

Dinner in a cool old downtown area.

A city center stage.

Old loops where people tied up their horses.

A tree grows in Douglasville.

This guy's lawn has hundreds of specimen plantings of day lilies. Very cool.

It's mine now...

Just had to figure out how to move it.

Give him a long enough lever and a place to stand,

and he'll flip the hot tub and move it.

"I always wanted to try a block and tackle system."

Little sister didn't enjoy seeing her house get emptied.

More roses, in the corner of Mississippi.

Specifically, in this corner of Mississippi.

I did not get to see Graceland.

It was this pyramid I saw from the air to verify that the previous photo (from Monday) was indeed over Memphis.

Crossing the Mississippi River for the last time in the foreseeable future.

We always seem to end up on the Mother Road.

There were a lot of beautiful sunsets on this trip.

Again, Mother Road.

It took Steffi a little while to warm up to me, but eventually she cuddled.

The view in Northern Oklahoma

Important errand to run before we left the state.

Lunch and three gallons of ice cream later...

There sure were a lot more of these visible on this trip than the last several times I made this drive.

Gee, I'm glad I spent money on compression socks. It hurts way more than I looks like it should. At least now I know I can blame lupus for this, or at least I think I can.

I waited for a while on the side of the road while somebody relieved himself. Turns out he was hunting for souvenirs as well.

He chose two to bring back.

Seems like a little malfunction here.

As Pike's Peak appeared in the distance.

And a full moon followed us in the mirrors.

Flaming off the gasses in Commerce City, and it just seemed way bigger than it needed to be.

We brought back way more than we expected to.

This stone-faced cat freaked out Athena and Murray.

I walked out back and caught him in the act... of unloading the hot tub without a single other human to help him.

And damn if he didn't succeed with ease.

The rug didn't look exactly as I remembered from childhood, but that doesn't matter. I'm still happy to have it in my house. And the cats think it's pretty spiffy too.