Emily M. DeArdo's Blog, page 21

Friday with one quick take

I have one quick take this Friday. There are no pictures. But right now, there’s a sleeping Patty in her crib and I’m sitting next to her writing this. I have also read Green Eggs and Ham twice to a captivated audience.

So, yes, this is a pretty good Friday. :)

Have a great Fourth of July!

Summertime

View from my office/library

It’s been an unusual summer here in Central Ohio, because it hasn’t been very hot. I am not complaining about this, mind you, just noting that it’s been rather cool (70s and low 80s) and….well, enjoyable. We could use some rain. Clouds billow up and then fizzle before we get any of the rain the weather folk are saying we’ll get. But since it' hasn’t been too hot, the lawns look OK. I haven’t driven out by the fields yet to see how the crops are doing. (Where I live used to be a corn/soybean field.)

This month has been a little weird, in that I haven’t done a lot, but I feel like I have. My body has been sort of vassilating between being cooperative and energetic, a nd being a pain in the butt. So Friday I said, well, screw it—and stayed up until almost 3 AM reading An Echo In The Bone and doing cross word puzzles and taking a bath at midnight. Because, why not?

Slept better than I had in a long time.

That’s one of the benefits of adulthood—doing things like that. You can stay up on Friday night as long as you want, because no one will tell you to go to bed. I remember when I was in high school I used to love to stay up late in the summer. I didn’t have a TV in my bedroom but I turned the radio on to the local ABC station and listened to Rescue 911 or syndicated Seinfeld. (I really miss falling asleep to music or the radio. And I’d stay up until 4 or 5 AM and just read or write or putter around my room. I’ve always been much more of a night owl than an early bird (which is why I’m writing this as 12:12 AM. :-P)

I’m also writing just to check in and say hi! :)

Patty turns one on Wednesday and I cannot believe it. This little sprite has given so much joy to so many people over the last 12 months and I cannot wait to get to meet her. I want to smother her with kisses and tickles and stories. Is it weird that I’ve been thinking of songs I want to sing her? :) I do. I don’t have any nieces or nephews, so I’m turning all my pent-up auntie urges onto Patty and her siblings.

That’s really the highlight of my summer right now—getting to meet Patty. July is a tangle of doctor appointments and one really long day at OSUMC for the annual clinic testing extravaganza, but at least things are open now so I can go to Barnes and Noble and read and have a London Fog latte, and go to the local yarn store and get some good yarn, and/or go to the French cafe for a wonderful lunch. There are things to look forward to even in the insane all day jaunt that is annual testing.

(Speaking of knitting, I owe you a long update, but I have a CASHMERE BLEND yarn skein now and it is going to make the most delicious project. Stay tuned.)

But right now it’s almost Patty time and I am super excited about that. And of course I’ll tell you all about it!

Letters to my 14 YO and 23 YO selves

Me at 14, right after eighth grade graduation.

We’re doing things a little differently today! Instead of normal quick takes, I’m giving you two letters that I wrote to myself at different ages.

Emily Stimpson Chapman is running a contest on Instagram to promote her new book, Letters To Myself at the End of the World. To enter, you write “letters” to your younger selves about four topics—so far, they’ve been on The Church and holiness.

I’ve really loved doing this and I thought I’d share my letters with those of you who might not be on Instagram!

I’m posting them in “age” order, so the one to 14 year old me, on the Church, is first.

Dear Emily, 

You just graduated from eighth grade. You’ve spent your entire life surrounded by Catholics, by people who believe what you believe, and live how you live. When you go to high school, that will change. 

Within your first month, you’ll be asked if you’re “saved” at the lunch table. You’ll answer that you’re Catholic, and everyone will look at you “like you have lobsters crawling out of [your] ears.” You’ll be told that you’re going to Hell because you’re Catholic. (Don’t worry. In the midst of all of this you’ll make wonderful, lifelong friends!) 

You’ve never heard any of this before. You’ve never been told that your Church is wrong, that what you believe is false or silly. 

You have two choices—you can be embarrassed by your faith and hide or, or try to change it. Or, you can delve into its richness and find out what you believe, and why you believe it. 

You’ll choose the second option. You’ll get the family bible out from under the glass-topped coffee table, and you’ll read it, and the big beige Catechism. You’ll stick post-it notes inside to mark pages (the start of a life long habit that will set you up well for majoring in the liberal arts). And in all of this reading and debating at the lunch table, you’ll fall more deeply in love with the Church. 

The Church is not perfect. You know this. You’ll meet plenty of imperfect people, even criminals, in the church. You’re not perfect yourself. ;-) But you will never leave it, because where else would you go? 

You love Mary and the rosary; the rosary, in fact, will become your life line (Literally, at times. Seriously). You love the Eucharist so much it can make you breathless at Mass. You love the saints, the sacraments (even confession, which you’ll learn to like more!), and the liturgy. You cannot image giving up any of this, or thinking that any of it isn’t true. 

Most of the people in your life will not be Catholic. You will be, in some places, the only Catholic they’ve ever met. You will have to talk about the church over taco salad at your office (it’s always over lunch!). 

The Church is your home. It’s your family’s home—generations and generations of Heilmanns and Dorrians and Ireardis and Corrados, back and back and back, to Ireland and Germany and Italy and Scotland. It’s *you*. You are welded to its body, grafted into it—and it will feed you forever. In every moment of your life, it is home. You will weep in pews. You will rail against God’s designs there. You will rejoice. You will cry from happiness. You will be filled with thanksgiving. You will ask why. 

Everything, everything is laid bare at the altar. It’s your strength. Never lose it. 

Love, 

Emily

To 23 year old me, about holiness:

 

Seven Quick Takes--Summer! (And a book sale!)

-1-

Well kind of summer? It’s rainy and 67 right now and it’ll be in the fifties tomorrow. So, summer! :) But I remember Memorial Day weekends when I was a kid where it was in the 50s but DAGNABBIT WE WERE GOING IN THE POOL. :-P So this isn’t too unusual!

-2-

From the blog this week:

COVID, antibodies, and transplant life. I wrote this post as a response to an op-ed in the New York Times, written by a kidney transplant recipient. Essentially: context was vastly missing.

-3-

Last Friday it was gloriously sunny and warm, and I had a B&N outing and lunch with one of my best friends from college, Liz.

Oh yes. Books were bought.

Liz and I met my freshman year—she was a junior. Liz basically changed the course of my life.

I had entered college as a Middle Childhood Education major. The problem was, after my classes started, I realized that I didn’t really want to be a teacher, because our classes weren’t about teaching. They were about writing culturally-sensitive word problems. And I was like, wait a second here, this isn’t what I thought I’d be learning about.

So I was sort of stuck. Enter Liz. Liz was one of the chairs of our college’s College Republican chapter, and my freshman year of college was also the year of the 2000 election. So there were lots of campaign activities, like door-to-doors and phone banks, and fun things, like campaign parties. But if we wanted to go to the parties, we had to do the grunt work, according to Liz. So, because of Liz, I did grunt work and went to the first debate watch party, which included the governor and other statewide office holders. I loved it.

That night I decided to change my major. And the rest is history. So thanks, Liz! :)

We hadn’t seen each other in almost a year and a half, so I was ecstatic to see her and talk books and all sorts of other things. We had a great time and I’m so glad that we can do things like that again!

-4-

So let’s talk about the books: Hamnet is amazing. If you like Shakespeare I highly suggest you read it. Knowing at least a little bit about Shakespeare’s life helps when you read this. It’s beautifully written and a book to savor. I haven’t started The Shadow of the Wind yet, but Liz recommended it so highly that I had to get it. :) I adored Project Hail Mary—I had read The Martian and I love Weir’s combination of space, science, and humor. Even if you don’t regularly read sci-fi, I think you’ll love this novel. And finally, Hidden Valley Road is the story of a family that had 12 children, six f whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and how this ties into research on the illness and how this family lead to important breakthroughs in treatment. It’s a lot like the book Under the Banner of Heaven.

-5-

Ave Maria Press is having a Memorial Day Sale!

You can pick up Living Memento Mori for 25% off and FREE SHIPPING! Use the code REMEMBER21 at checkout! If you haven’t gotten a copy yet, DO IT. :) And it also makes a great gift!

-6-

Here’s your weekly Patty—she’ll be eleven months old on Sunday!

Gosh I cannot wait to see her and snuggle the bejesus out of her. :)

-7-

Any plans for this weekend? Share in the comments!

COVID, antibodies, and transplant life

Vermeer, “The milkmaid”

There was an op-ed in the NYT today, written by a kidney transplant recipient (Her name is Candida Moss), who has found out that after both COVID shots, she does not have any antibodies to the disease in her body.

After being vaccinated, I was given a spike protein test to see if I had immunity. When I learned I had developed no antibodies, I felt sick to my stomach: How will I persuade others to continue to be careful? How many vulnerable people don’t realize they aren’t protected?

Sigh. OK. It’s time for me to do some brief transplant talk here. This was originally a twitter thread, but now I’m expanding it because I think more people need to be aware of things.

Let’s focus on this paragraph, and then I’ll give you some background.

Until recently, immunocompromised people were excluded from studies of the mRNA vaccines for Covid-19, but data from clinical trials is beginning to emerge. A study of fully vaccinated kidney transplant patients published in April by researchers at New York- Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center revealed that 75 percent of kidney transplant patients studied did not develop measurable immunity after both doses of the vaccine. A second study published by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers in May found that only 54 percent of fully vaccinated organ transplant recipients studied had antibodies. The numbers are different, but both studies showed that immunocompromised people had significantly reduced responses to the mRNA vaccines.

(emphasis above is mine)

Transplants work because we have medications that suppress the immune system. That’s the basic science behind transplant. We take organs from donors and put them in recipients’ bodies. We want to get the closest match possible for the best chance of success, but even then, medications are needed to keep the recipients’ bodies from figuring out “hey! There’s something here that does not belong!”

The big thing to worry about in transplant is organ rejection. Basically, the body knows that my lungs aren’t mine. We have to trick my body constantly into accepting these lungs as my lungs. So, normally at the outset of transplant, and for the first few years, we need to have a higher dose of medication to “fool” our bodies. For example, when I first had my transplant, I was on 40 mg of prednisone. Now I am on 5 mg of predisone. That’s a big drop in terms of suppression, and that’s good. The higher your immunosuppression dose, the more likely you are to get random bugs that are floating around, because we’re tricking the system in such a huge way.

The farther out a person is from transplant, the less suppression medication you are usually on, and that makes a difference in how “aware” your own innate immune system is. Also, the farther out you are, the chance of rejection drops. Now that I’m 16 years out, we still, of course, think about rejection, but the bigger health issues are the things caused by my medications (see, my diabetes, skin cancers, etc.). It’s not so much the fear of rejection.

This plays a big part in how someone might act and what decisions they might make. We don’t know how far out Ms. Moss is, so that’s key context that is missing in this story. If she’s one year out, that’s vastly different than if she’s 16 or 20 or 25 years out.

Key takeaway: Rejection is the big scary thing in transplant world.

(Also that study she mentions for kidney recipients? It’s twenty eight people with an average age of 66. So……)

So, that brings us to COVID. Bad COVID is basically end-stage CF. That’s a problem. It’s not fun. That’s why I got the vaccine.

Lungs are the only organs that are continually exposed to the world, because, obviously, air. That doesn’t happen with hearts or kidneys or livers. They’re protected from these things. So the fact that she’s a kidney recipient immediately changes the discussion, because her risk probably isn’t as high as mine is, because of the nature of our transplants. (I’m guessing, and I’m not trying to diss her.)

So, if you had a lung transplant in the last year, WOW. I know someone who did, actually. That person’s team probably wants him on lockdown, because not only are the immunosuppression meds at their highest (usually), but also, the body itself is weak. I was very weak post transplant. I needed to work! I needed to eat and get strong! So that plays into as well and makes the risk of COVID (or anything, really) more likely and more devastating, because the body isn’t in a place to fight off anything. It’s low on resources in every way. So a person who is only a year post right now is probably living in a very small world, out of absolute necessity.

This is also what makes us different from other immunocompromised people, a fact that Ms. Moss doesn’t talk about. Remember the key takeaway? Our risk when we get sick is also rejection of a vital organ we need to survive. Our doctors have to balance treating us with also keeping our transplanted organs happy. That’s a fine line to walk, to put it mildly.

That’s not the case with other people who are immunocompromised due to cancer or pregnancy or other things. This was never mentioned, and it’s a big point.

Onto the third point: Vaccines and antibodies.

When my team first talked to us about the vaccine, they told us that they had no idea if we would get any protection. Immunocompromised people hadn’t been studied. So the fact that, according to the article, 54% of transplant recipients that have gotten the vaccine have antibodies, is not a “just” situation. That’s a huge good. That’s great! That number makes me really ecstatically happy! YAY!!!!!! Some of us—actually a majority of people studied—have protection! YES!

And then, we get into the “feeling” weeds, where the author just….sigh. Well, I’ll let you read it.

The vaccine passport on my phone is comically meaningless. Yes, I’m vaccinated, but that doesn’t actually protect me. Thankfully, I have been able to spend the pandemic working from home and shielded from danger. Like everyone else, I nurtured dreams of socializing, travel and seeing relatives I have not seen in over a year. I am tired of my apartment. I feel guilty for forcing my immediate family to continue distancing, but the mortality rates for people like me are high. I’m delighted for friends and relatives who have more freedom, but I feel stuck. I’d like to go back to February, when I thought that vaccination meant safety, or even March when I knew others would wear masks at the grocery store.

Here’s the issue. She mentions nothing about what her doctors are telling her. She might not have to continue to force her family to distance. Have they been vaccinated? My parents have been. I’m allowed to interact with them. (I was before anyway) I will see relatives next month. Yes, mortality rates for people like us are high, but that’s also one of the risks of post-transplant life in general. To live 16 years, like I have, is ground-breaking. I’m not just saying that to be make myself sound awesome, it’s true. There really are not statistics for people who are more than 10 years out.

She says she feels “stuck”, which, OK, but again, this is something she needs to talk to her doctors about. Maybe she has, I don’t know, context is missing from so much of this.

Also, “shielded from danger”? Hon. You can die in the tub, falling out of bed, or walking down the street.

The pandemic exposed society’s ageism and ableism, with many people in the beginning months arguing that only the sick and the elderly were at risk. I thought we would learn to be more thoughtful about accommodating the vulnerable. But the invitations to large gatherings that I receive, which omit any reference to safety measures or remote attendance, feel like conscious avoidance of any disparities.

Oh, good grief. Seriously? If we were more thoughtful about accommodating the vulnerable, everyone would be forced to get flu shots every year. People would stay home when they’re sick, and not send their children to school sick. Etc. Let’s stop acting like the pandemic exposed things we didn’t know about how vulnerable populations are treated. We’ve known these things forever, they are not new. She’s lucky she could work from home during the pandemic. The lack of being able to work from home and having accommodation is what made me leave my job.

She’s getting invited to things, and that’s great. If she does not feel comfortable going, she needs to say that she does not comfortable going. One of the big things you learn in post-transplant life is how to balance living with risk acceptance/avoidance. There are things I try not to do now. I avoid indoor malls at Christmastime and in the winter. I try not to fly in flu season. I’ve always been very conscientious (or nuts) about wiping down every inch of my space on an airplane, drinking water copiously, and traveling with masks in case someone is sick on the plane. If it’s really hot, and the UV index is high, then no, I don’t go to the Harry Potter fair with my friends. I stay home. It’s a balance!

I was hoping we’d get context and more fact-based stuff here, but we didn’t. We got a lot of feelings and that’s fine, because feelings are valid, but at the same time, there’s the balance here of risk that all transplant recipients have to learn to balance, because either extreme way is pointing toward insanity and bad consequences. Her talk about danger and risk of death seems to be overwhelming to her, which is concerning. Yes, we shouldn’t act foolish, but at the same time, risk is inherent in daily living. Each person has to decide for herself what her own acceptable level of risk is, and go from there.

Weekend Quick Takes!

-1-

Doing something a little different and giving you weekend quick takes! So enjoy!

We’ll start off with a Patticake photo, per usual….

Taking a nap on her mom’s lap in the yard.

(For new folks, Patty is my cousin’s girl and my goddaughter. She is not my child. :) )

-2-

I wrote an essay earlier this week about risk and medicine and…well, things. Sort of COVID related, but it’s more like things I’ve noticed with COVID and….well, thoughts. So take a gander at it if you will. I guess I could call it a “long-form” piece?

-3-

I’ve started working on this Moonwhistle Shawl from Drea Renee Knits and oh my goodness, I adore it.

Ignore all the ends! I’m also fairly sure the bit on wonkiness on the left side will ease up post-blocking.

Here are the yarns I used: Light blue is Wool of the Andes worsted in Whirlpool; Dark blue is Swish Worsted in Marine Heather; and the color change ball is Chroma Worsted in Drawing Room.

This is a pretty easy knit, in that I think I’d great for learning color work, and it’s simple. It’s all knit stitch (garter stitch) and slipped stitches, and one M1L (Make one left), which is explained in the pattern. One of the great things about Andrea’s patterns is that she explains everything, which is so great, and she lists the skills/techniques you need before you buy the pattern, which I WISH all designers did! If you want to check out the pattern for Moonwhistle, here you go.

One of best parts about the design is what she calls the “tweed” sections—where you work with the color change yarn. Oh my gosh this is so fun. So I am addicted to this and am trying to not knit all day, but it’s hard not to when a pattern is this great.

-4-

Reading: The Hour of the Witch, Drums of Autumn, and the last book in Alison Weir’s Tudor Queens series, Katharine Parr: The Sixth Wife, which then led me to go back and re-read the entire series, so I’ve read Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen, and now I’m on Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession. The great thing about Weir is she’s a historian first, so her books are all informed on the latest scholarship, which in the case of Katherine of Aragon, Ames it pretty clear that she was not lying to the king about her relationship with Prince Arthur. (Yes, I’m a British history nerd, sorry.)

-5-

I don’t really need a reason to re-read any of the Outlander books, but I’m doing it because I’mw working on my new project! Presenting….

There is so much good Catholic stuff in the books and even the TV series, and I’ve wanted to do a deep-dive into it for awhile, so I figure now is the time. So I’m re-reading all the books and making notes. I’m also trying to marshal my thoughts on organization—by book, by theme, by….? But anyway, that’s what’s going right now in my research. Very excited for this.

-6-

No movie reviews this week (did you like that? Because I liked doing it), but I’ve been watching some opera. I do love opera. I sort of wish I would’ve loved it more when I was younger, because my voice teacher is an opera singer who now sings with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. But alas. However, I am classically trained! So I love watching opera—I find it much easier to watch than to listen to, if it’s a new work. Once I know it, then I can listen to it. I have quite a few operas on DVD because of that, as opposed to CD recordings. So I pop them in when I’m knitting (or really any time, I don’t need an excuse.) . This week is was La Fancuilla del West.

-7-

And finally, the Ohio bishops have reinstated the Mass obligation, beginning the weekend of June 5/6. Has your diocese re-instated the obligation yet?

Anddd if you’d like to learn more about the basics of Catholicism, check out my ebook, Catholic 101! :)

Prudence, Acceptable Risk, and Medicine

I’ve been debating this post for awhile, but I think the time has come for me to just write and get on with it. Also, this is gonna be long so settle in.

This is not about the COVID vaccine, really. The COVID vaccine, to me, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the deeper problem, which is that we, as a people, do not know how to make prudent choices, or define acceptable risk for ourselves and our families.

This will be in two parts: This one, and then a piece about the moral/religious side of things.

(Some of these stories y’all have heard before, but they’re illustrative, so they’re coming up again.)

The first thing we need to talk about is the fact that hospitals are busy every single day of the world.

With COVID, people seemed to be shocked that people were living and dying in hospitals every day. People were in ICUs! (insert running around screaming gif here)

Folks. Yes. People are in ICUs every day. People are in hospitals every day. Hospitals, like all other things, have cycles—there were times when I was on the floor and it was pretty empty, and there were times where almost every single room was full. But yes, there are people in ICUs every day. There are nurses and doctors who work specifically in ICUs. These folks have jobs because ICU specialists are needed on a regular basis. (1)

I understand that many of you do not have the intimacy with hospitals that I have. But a lot of insanity was caused by the breathless reporting about ICU statistics and “people are on ventilators!”

Folks, I was on a ventilator for almost two weeks. Yes. It happens. Some people are one them for a lot longer. But this is not new. This is medicine. This is life. This is—often—death. People die in hospitals every day. In fact, whenever I drive by the former Resort, I think about that, and I pray for the people inside. It’s not just COVID that kills people, although you’d be hard pressed not to think that these days.

(We’ll come back to media coverage in a bit.)

This leads me to my second point, which is that….

Every single medical intervention has risks associated with it.

This includes the Tylenol you take for your headache, the Motrin for your PMS cramps, as well as interventions like being on a ventilator. Every single thing you put in your body can cause an adverse reaction, as anyone who has ever had food poisoning knows.

Life has risks. Driving to work has risks. Getting out of bed is a risk! Taking a shower is a risk! Everyday, we do something that might cause our demise, and most of the time we’re OK with that, because, life. (Drinking too much water has risks!) But when it comes to medicine, all of sudden we lose the sense of acceptable risk.

An example from my life: I lost my hearing because of ototoxic meds (Meds that are toxic to the ear’s hair cells). The choice was, destroy lung infections and stay alive, or not destroy lung infections and hasten death, but then have my hearing be fine. Now, at the time these medicines began to be given to me IV, we didn’t know about the ototoxic nature of them, and now doctors are more sensitive to that. (Yes, once again I pave the way for others!) But all that being said, the choice is—do you want to fight infection, or have great hearing. In my case, it was fight infection—even after my hearing had begun to deteriorate. (2)

Now, the other thing to do, if we know that certain meds or treatments are not good for us (or just cause bad outcomes) is to ask if there’s anything else that can be substituted. I have also done this, because there are some meds that just mess up my body. I have a gimpy right knee now because I walked too far on it when I was on a particular med. So now when I have a sinus infection we use something else, but it has the same risks associated with it, and now I’m just insanely careful when I’m on it (like, I sit on the couch for two weeks careful). But to not treat the sinus infection could—and probably would—lead to lots of other issues down the road, requiring stronger meds, and possible surgeries and hospital stays. no fun thank you.

When the idea of transplant first came up, I was scared at the idea of such a big surgery because I’d never had surgery before. My transplant ended up being my third surgery ever. (3) A lot can go wrong during surgery. I could’ve rejected my lungs immediately. I could’ve died on the table. But at the same time, the only way I was going to survive was to get the surgery (and this was assuming a donor was found).

So, there were risks to transplant, and there were risks to life without it. I made the choice to accept the risks and go forward. Not everyone does that. It’s their choice.

But with transplant comes other risks, mainly the one that I have a compromised immune system and am more susceptible to things (like, um, COVID!). But even within that, we have to look at choices.

Some people post transplant are afraid to open their windows if the grass is being cut. (I’m not kidding) They never go back to work because they’re afraid of infection. Etc. etc. I was never like that, because the point of a transplant is to live your life, while not being stupid (like, tanning—big no no for us, or drinking a lot).

What I’m seeing with the COVID vaccine is people saying, “But there are side effects!”

Yes. There are. They may happen to you. This is the case for everything. single. thing. Read a box of Tylenol some time. Heck, ladies, check a box of tampons—see all the Toxic Shock warnings on them? Yeah. Everything has side effects. Too much sun? You burn. Drink too much? Hangover. Etc. It’s the circle of life. When people just say SIDE EFFECTS! it doesn’t resonate, and it doesn’t come across as a good argument because everything does. (4)

For example: anti-emetics (aka, anti-nausea drugs). One of the most popular anti-nausea drugs is Zofran. Lots of people like it. It’s great. It is not great for me because it makes me throw up; ie, it causes the exact thing it’s supposed to prevent. This also happens with my mom and my sister. So we cannot take zofran.

But that doesn’t mean that I go around saying Zofran is terrible no one should take it there are SIDE EFFECTS!

Zofran is bad for me, but apparently it is great for many other people.

Now, yes, you might get the vaccine, and you might have side effects. It may even be prudent for many people, who are not as an especially high risk of COVID, to delay taking the vaccine. I can see that.

But to say a la Chicken Little that you won’t take it because SIDE EFECTS, and that’s your only argument, is not…a great one. If you say, “I won't take it right now because I might get pregnant and we aren’t sure of the side effects of the medication on pregnancies,” that’s prudent and valid. But if you just say “side effects!!!!!!!!!!!” it doesn’t come across as a reasoned argument.

Sometimes side effects are just going to happen as a part of the acceptance of risk thing. See, losing my hearing. See, chemo side effects. See, “I’m on prednisone for the rest of my life because I need to be and that leads to many things that are not great but I’d rather be alive.” For me, getting the COVID vaccine made sense because if I get COVID, that’s not good at all.

(Now, obviously, sometimes a side effect becomes not a side effect—like thalidomide in pregnancy—and it becomes a “feature not a bug”. That’s completely different than what I’m talking about here. And even that drug has good uses! Just not in pregnant people!)

For you, it might make sense not to get the COVID vaccine, or any other vaccine (like my sister can’t get the regular flu vaccine because she’s allergic to eggs). And that’s fine. But what’s happened is that everything surrounding COVID has become political. So we’re not really working from a clear choice here—we’re working from one that’s clouded by politics and all sorts of other things.

And this is what is lost: the idea that we can make prudent, acceptable risk choices for ourselves without being screamed at or told that we’re being idiots or saying that others are idiots for doing x, y, or z.

I make acceptable risk choices all the time, without even thinking about it, because after 16 years of transplant life, I know. That includes hugging my parents even before I got vaccinated, because hugs are good. (And yes, my parents mostly stayed at home before getting vaccinated—dad works from home). I’ve spent time with my friends in their houses! Because my friends know that if they’re sick, they shouldn’t invite me over, COVID or no COVID!

I have friends that don’t get flu shots. So in the winter, I tell them that if they’re sick, I will not be around them. It’s pretty simple. I don’t yell at them. I just state that if they’re sick, we’re not going to be hanging out. This is a choice they have made, and in turn, it affects a choice that I make. We both do risk assessment for ourselves.

But for some reasons we can’t do that with COVID.

People look at COVID and they see the death tolls and the case numbers every day and they think that it’s the worst thing ever. But there’s no context to this. It’s like if all you did was watch the news, you’d think that we’re all going to be eaten by sharks, or shot up outside the gas station, or kidnapped, or die in a plane crash. This is because the news reports the newsworthy, which is not, you know “1,000,000 in the metro area got home safely from work today!”

(NOTE: this is not to diminish the death toll from COVID. Most definitely not.)

But at the same time, with COVID especially, it’s giving us a twisted picture. We’re seeing “a patient left the hospital after a month today and everyone clapped!” “A person was on a ventilator for two weeks and came off of it and went home!”

This happens every day and it ties back to point one. Yes, it’s a great day to get the ventilator out, trust me. :) It’s a great day to go home after a month long hospitalization, of which I have had a few, because, you want to go home and take a real bath! (And, yes, I was also on the local news after my transplant because I was the first one at my center. You can actually find this on Youtube. No, I will not link to it. :))

But when that stuff is being covered daily, it gives the impression that this is the rarity, and it’s not, if you look at case numbers versus deaths. (Again, see note above.) Most people who get it will go home, or not be hospitalized at all. That doesn’t mean that the losses aren’t sad, because they are. But it does mean that by this sort of coverage, we’re skewing people’s perceptions of real risk. Again, it would be like if the news were doing stories about a person who came home from work safely every night for a week. It would make us think, gee, it must be really dangerous to drive to and from work!

You can only make an acceptable risk evaluation when you have the information in front of you without '“passion or prejudice”, as someone once said in a movie.

And you also have to trust your doctors. This is the final point:

a lot of people do not trust their doctors or the medical establishment.

I, for one, do trust them because my life depends on it. The very few doctors I have had in my life that I did not trust were overruled, thankfully, by doctors I did trust—or I had a come to Jesus meeting with them and said, hey look. (Or I went behind their backs and got information from the Pulmonology department, who is the apex doctor in my situation). I’ve had shitty doctors. My parents can tell you all the stories of the shitty nurses and doctors we’ve encountered.

But my “team”—my transplant pulmonologist, my transplant nurses, and etc.—I trust inherently. I’ve had the same therapist since I was 17—that’s 22 years! With these folks, I can get good information and decide what to do next.

If you do not trust your doctors, then…you’re sort of screwed, honestly. You need to find one you do trust, who also isn’t a charlatan who just tells you whatever you want to hear, because that’s not useful either. (ie, one who says that you can treat T1 diabetes with essential oils—no, you really can’t.)

Without trustworthy people, you can’t make good decisions because you don’t have all the information.

I don’t think that COVID is helping us trust the medical establishment more, as a whole, because we’re getting crazy messaging from the CDC and others in government that seem to contradict themselves many times a day. But at the same time, it’s a little bit like Congressional popularity: most of the time, people have a really low opinion of Congress as a whole, but they love their local guy.

We need to “love” a local doctor. We need to find medical people we trust, and can help us make appropriate decisions for our health and the health of our families. That’s one reason my parents got the COVID vaccine—because of me!

People die every day, COVID or not—and that you should realize that (memento mori, folks!) and use it as a catalyst to live your one life well. You are going to die of something. Let that knowledge encourage you to live well, make good decisions, and be prudent.

Footnotes:

(1) Yes, I’m aware that one of the big things at the beginning of COVID was worries about hospitals being overwhelmed. It was probably prudent to have shut downs in that time period, when we didn't have the information we have now, and when the risk of hospital overwhelm was real—and happening in some places. However, my point here is that there was breathless coverage of the fact that hospitals have full ICUs or have people on ventilators, which happens every single day, everywhere in the world. There was a clear exhibition of the fact that most people do not understand how hospitals actually work, and that people go in and out of them all the time without any fanfare.

(2) This is not a given. Anna Pavlova, the famous ballerina, contracted pneumonia, and was given a choice to have an operation that would remove her ability to dance, or die. She chose death, saying “If I can’t dance, I’d rather be dead.” She died of pleurisy a few days before her fiftieth birthday.

(3) The first one was a combo sinus clean-out and wisdom teeth removal, and the second was to place my port.

(4) Same thing happens when people toss around the words “toxins” or “chemicals” to just refer to every day stuff. There are chemicals in every single thing we eat, drink, inhale, and are. We are made up of chemicals. Same with “toxins”. Water can be toxic if you have too much of it.

Seven Quick Takes: Royal Wedding Cake, Patty, and movies!

-1-

OK because I am a Royal Family NUT (I am, if you do not know this about me), I was very happy for Prince William and Katherine as they celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary yesterday!

Look at this adorable video!

But something even better than a video? CAKE.

Namely, the groom’s cake that Prince William had at his wedding reception.

Courtesy of Darren McGrady, one of the queen’s former chefs (he also cooked for Princess Diana and Princes William and Harry at Kensington Palace after her divorce), shows us how to make it, and it’s FOUR INGREDIENTS!

(You will need a 6”x 2” cake ring, though. I’m getting this one.)

Happy anniversary, Your Highnesses, and many more!

-2-

Yesterday was also St. Catherine of Siena’s feast day, and you can read all about her in a post I wrote a few years ago!

-3-

Patty is TEN MONTHS OLD TODAY.

She likes to blow raspberries!

I mean how is this possible she’s so big, she is STANDING UP now!

She likes swings, baths, kolaches, most food, her siblings, and…food. :)

I swear when I see her I will kiss her face off.

-4-

I watched a few movies this week! I used to do movie reviews pretty regularly, so I’ll do a few here for you.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, based on the August Wilson play of the same name, is on Netflix right now, and was nominated for several Oscars, including best actress (Viola Davis as Ma Rainey) and best actor (Chadwick Boseman, in his last role). The play focuses on one day in Chicago in the 1920s, when Ma Rainey and her band are recording an album at the behest of her white manager. I learned, in researching this, that Denzel Washington has a contract with Netflix to produce all of the plays in Wilson’s Century Cycle (also called the Pittsburgh cycle) as movies for Netflix. The first one in the series was Fences, starting Washington and Davis, and was also Oscar-nominated, with Viola Davis winning Best Supporting Actress for her work as Washington’s wife.

Ma Rainey is an intense film, with the tension rising right from the start. Levee, played by Boseman, is a member of Ma’s band, but he doesn’t want to play her music the way it’s always been done—he wants to rearrange it and make it faster and hotter. He has a sort of jittery energy that parlays into deep pain and pathos as the story moves on. The other members of the band are older men, well-seasoned musicians who know what they have to do to get along in a world that’s run by white people. Their interactions make up most of the film and you can tell that the dialogue is adapted from a play, because it’s melodic, dense, and intricate.

Davis, in the movie for less than a half-hour, hits all the right notes (and I’m not trying to make a pun) as the titular band leader. When she arrives late to the session, the energy revs up, and so does the tension.

I don’t want to give away the plot, but the performances are searing. Boseman, in particular, delivered two monologues that are so wide-ranging in color and tone, and so intense, that you have no choice but to watch him. I really felt like I was in theater during those scenes. He really is the highlight of the entire movie.

The film won two Oscars, for costume design and for makeup.

Chadwick Boseman (Levee), front, with the band members (l-r: Glynn Turman [Toledo], Michael Potts [Slow Drag], and Colman Domingo (Cutter).

-5-

The Heiress came out in 1949 and stars Olivia de Havailland (Melanie in Gone With the Wind) in an Oscar winning performance. Based on Henry James’ novel Washington Square, The Heiress tells the story of plain, awkward—but very wealthy—New Yorker Catherine Sloper, who would rather spend time on her embroidery than on polishing her social graces. This continually frustrates her father, Dr. Sloper (Ralph Richardson), who cannot believe that Catherine is the daughter of his ‘perfect’ wife, who died when Catherine was small. (Of course no one can measure up to the picture of his wife that he has in his head). His casual cruelty toward his daughter is like a razor, cutting any self-esteem or confidence she has to shreds.

Things come to a head when, at a party, Catherine meets Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), a young man who takes interest in her in a way no man has before. But her father forbids her to marry Morris, saying that he’s only after her money. Is he? Or has Catherine found true love?

Again, no spoilers here, but De Havilland’s performance is incredible. I wish that it was in color so we could really appreciate Edith Head’s costumes, but they’re also gorgeous in black and white. I love De Havilland in Gone With the Wind, but I’d never seen any of her other movies, so I really wanted to see this one.

Montgomery Clift (Morris) and Olivia de Havilland (Catherine) in The Heiress.

-6-

A Little Chaos (2014). While going through my Netflix queue, I saw that I had this, and thought, eh, what the heck? I am so glad I watched it! Directed by Alan Rickman (who also stars as the French King Louis XIV), the story focuses on the construction of the gardens around the palace of Versailles. He chooses landscape architect Andre Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts) to supervise the planning. Surprisingly, Le Notre chooses Madame Sabine de Barra (Kate Winslet) as one of the designers, assigning her the task of creating an outdoor ballroom, with fountains and landscaping.

This sounds….like an odd premise for a film, right? But in Rickman’s hands it is enchanting. There are so many good actors in even small roles, including Jennifer Ehle, who plays one of the king’s mistresses, Stanley Tucci, who plays Duke Philippe, the king’s brother, and Helen McCrory as Madame Le Notre (McCrory sadly just passed away from cancer—you might know her as Mrs. Malfoy in the Harry Potter films) Watching Winslet and Rickman interact in a scene in the garden, where the mourning king is mistaken for a gardener by Winslet, is one of the best scenes in the film. (I mean, Sense and Sensibility reunion!)

Winslet and Rickman in one of the Versailles gardens.

I’d never seen a film that Rickman directed, and based on this he was delightful director. The film has a delicate storyline, focusing on love, loss, and relationships (with a gorgeous score). Schoenaerts, who I’d never seen before, is a wonderful actor. His scenes with Winslet shine.

(And gosh it made me miss Alan Rickman!)

Sabine de Barra (Kate Winslet) and Madame de Montespan (Jennifer Ehle) at Fontainebleau.

It’s a hidden gem of a film, really lovely to watch and think about.

-7-

And on that note—-have a lovely weekend! Watch some movies and read some books! :)

Seven Quick Takes: A Little Rambly

-1-

Hello, All!

It’s been a big week over here—my book is a finalist for the Association of Catholic Publishers’ Excellence in Publishing Award (General Interest Category!)

I am obviously very pleased and very proud about this. :) The winners are revealed in June so I will let you know what happens!

Of course if you have not bought your copy, um, do so! This is the Amazon link, but if you want to buy from a non-Amazon source, go here.

-2-

The other post from this week:

The Massive Birthday Yarn Along!

-3-

This week’s Patty:

-4-

OK so a little ramble on something that’s been bothering me.

I really, really do not like that we assume the worst of people in online discussions. If someone dislikes something, s/he is immediately a bigot or worse. We assume the absolute worst of people, and this has to stop.

One of the best pieces of homily wisdom I’ve ever heard is that we should assume the best of people until (and unless) we know otherwise. If a waitress is giving bad service, for example, she might be having a really crappy day. If someone is short-tempered, they might be feeling sick. Etc.We really should give people the benefit of the doubt and this especially applies to assuming that people are engaging in sinful activity (ie, being a bigot, etc.).

We cannot have discussion and the exchange of ideas if people are afraid to say what they think because they’ll be called bigots or haters or what not. Now, granted, some people actually are these things. But can we wait until we see the in the discussion instead of assuming it of people? Can we assume the best of each other and not the worst?

And yes, to reiterate the point: some folks are jerks and once we know they’re jerks, we can proceed accordingly. :) But until we know that….can we hold off assuming the worst of everyone?

-5-

I’m going to be a lector at my parish! I have my training after the 5:00 PM Mass tomorrow and I am excited. I’ve always wanted to be a lector and now I am! Yay!

-6-

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Culloden, which ended the Jacobite Uprising of 1745 and, essentially, ended the clans and Highland way of life. If you’re an Outlander fan you know a ton about Culloden already, but if you’re not, always a good idea to know more history!

(Also, Outlander fans, did you see that Book 9 is available to pre-order?!??!)

-7-

What are you doing this weekend? Is the weather lovely where you re? Spring is sprung here and I love seeing all the tulips, daffodils, crocuses, and trees coming into bud and bloom!

Living Memento Mori Is an Award Finalist!

I am insanely happy to announce that Living Memento Mori has been named a finalist in the Association of Catholic Publishers Excellence in Publishing Awards! Publishers submit books to the ACP and the finalist list was just announced. The winners will be announced in June.

I am thrilled to be a finalist (just like all the Oscar nominees say, it’s an honor to be nominated—because it is). My book is in the “general interest” category. Here’s the entire slate of nominees in the category:

You can see the entire list here, as well as click on links to find out more about each book and purchase it.

Thank you to Ave Maria Press for submitting my book! (And thanks to all of you for reading it! :) )