Laura Bradbury's Blog, page 10

The Word Warrior Mantra

This is my mantra and the mantra of my badass tribe of writers founded at last year’s wonderful SIWC Writers’ Conference (listen to my keynote speech here on my “Press” page all about how, after a decade of false starts, I finally became a writer who FINISHED and PUBLISHED books). We call ourselves the #wordwarriors – we feel the fear and write anyway. Join us on Twitter!

Badass Surrender

Last Monday I was sitting in a doctor’s office at the Liver Transplant Clinic in Toronto, listening to the hepatologist tell me that although a transplant would probably be in my future and was still the best case scenario for me, I was still “far too healthy for a transplant yet.”

My first instinct was to argue my case.

I had ample ammunition to do so. My recent MRI showed that my PSC is progressing fast and that my bile ducts are sick, sick, sick. I have cirrhosis. I have a fibroscan score of 22 which means my liver has the pliability of a crusty, deflated football. I have to take antibiotics every day to ensure that the cholangitis infection that has now taken permanent residence in my bile ducts is kept  at bay, and a different type of antibiotic to control the suicidal itching. Most of all, my PSC guru in Calgary told me in his peppy Australian accent when I saw him at the end of November, “Well Laura! I think it’s time to get you a new livah!”.

Since my PSC diagnosis in 2012 I have had to fight, fight, and then fight some more to access the best care. PSC, like other “orphan” diseases, is so stupidly rare that most doctors I come across in Victoria have only experienced a couple of other PSCers at best.

Funnily enough, the third book in my “Grape” series which I am writing right now (entitled MY GRAPE YEAR) is about breaking rules. The thematic resonance with my present battles are unmistakable.

Contrary to what many people seem to believe, I did not get to Toronto by luck or by the benevolence of a medical fairy godmother / concierge service.  Rather, I accessed Toronto by offending doctors, becoming that pain-in-the-ass patient that makes medical assistants and nurses roll their eyes, refusing to take no for an answer, and nagging, pushing, and trodding (repeatedly) on the toes of the medical establishment. When the full extent of the parlous state of hepatology in British Columbia finally sunk in about six months after I was diagnosed, I made a conscious decision to discard my upbringing of being polite and not offending anyone. My survival trumped the need to be “nice” by a long shot.

I became a put-yer-dukes-up PSC badass. I did my research as though my life depended on it, and it actually (scarily) did on several occasions. I learned that Toronto was a world leader in living donor liver transplants, that they did the biggest volume of this very specialized type of surgery in North America, and depending on who I consulted, perhaps the world. I discovered that in over 700 surgeries they had never lost a donor and that doctors from all over the world flew in to learn how to duplicate the success of their program. Unfortunately nobody has a crystal ball to see into the future, but I felt with Toronto I was getting my best chance of getting through to the other side of this whole PSC thing.

Yet, after all that, at my first doctor’s appointment in Toronto here was the hepatologist telling me that maybe it wasn’t time for a transplant after all? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?

My first instinct was to do what I had been doing for the past twenty-four months, to fight back. Yet about half way through that appointment, when the hepatologist was explaining the risks associated with transplant which, make no mistake about it, are substantial, it dawned on me that his arguments against transplant right now were not without merit.

Throughout that intense week I lost count of the doctors and specialists I consulted (not to mention the vials of blood drawn from my veins). The Toronto specialists were, without fail, kind and incredibly competent. Some felt I was ready for transplant right now whereas others thought it could maybe wait a while longer.

The upshot was that all the people I saw were going to meet with all my test results and make a collective decision about my case. My knee jerk reaction was to feel frustrated and impatient with this difference of opinion.

Then, I thought about it some more.

Having my case debated by so many experienced doctors in one room was exactly what I had been fighting for. They were all world leaders, their collective knowledge and expertise was mind-blowing. They were going to try to make the best decision for me and the fact that there was a difference in opinion meant that my case would be looked at in detail.

Surrender seemed like the most unnatural thing for me to do, but as it turned out surrender was the most badass choice I could make right then.

You do everything you can humanly do and then you have to do the hardest thing of all – relinquish control to the experts you have gathered in your corner and, even more importantly, to what I have come to think of as “The Great Mysterious.”

So this week here I am, back in Victoria (where it is not -19 C, hooray!), practicing badass surrender to the best of my ability. While I wait for the decision to be made in Toronto I am feeling a very curious and unfamiliar feeling of peace. I have no idea how long this astonishing (for me) state of zenitude is going to last, but it has made me realize that I must become better acquainted with this whole badass surrender thing. It may just have the potential to be one of the most powerful weapons in my repertoire.

 

 

 

The Flotilla of Doubt

This has been the oddest New Year for me. I have never in all my life been poised to embark on such a vast sea of uncertainty.

I have absolutely no idea where I will be when Dec 31, 2015 rolls around. Very ill? Very healthy? Somewhere in between? With a new liver? With my same, sick liver? Dead? These are all distinct possibilities.

I incorporated a New Years ritual suggested to me by one of my favorite fellow PSCers into one of my regular beachcombing excursions at the dawn of 2015. I wrote down all the things I was worried about on little pieces of paper (biodegradable paper, of course) and sorted them into two piles:  1) Things I Can Control, and 2) Things I Cannot Control.

The Thing I Can Control pile contained precisely three pieces of paper.

The Things I Cannot Control Pile was a mini Everest.

I filled my pockets with Things I Cannot Control and walked down to the beach. When I got to one of my favorite outcropping of rocks I read each one out loud, crumpled it up, and threw it in the emerald-green waves. Here is a random sample:

That they will find liver / bile duct cancer that would mean I am not eligible for transplant.

That some other health issue will crop up that will mean I am no longer eligible for transplant.

That I will fail the psychological component of the transplant testing and they will take my incapacity for denial and dark humour as signs that I am, in fact, clinically insane (and therefore, no longer eligible for transplant).

That I will die during the transplant surgery (my doctor took great pains to drive home the point that 10-12% of people do not make it through the actual surgery itself).

That if I survive the transplant surgery my body will try to reject the new liver.

And so on and so forth…

Soon, there was a flotilla of Thing I Cannot Control papers bobbing around in the water. I began to climb towards the next beach but, when I looked over my shoulder, I saw that instead of floating out to sea the Things I Cannot Control were hugging close to shore, following me like an attacking fleet from the Napoleonic wars. I grabbed a nearby piece of driftwood to splash them away.

“Go away!” I shouted. “Shoo!” Sweat broke out on my forehead. These Things I Cannot Control were stalking me. I wanted them GONE.

I scrambled across the rock, hopped down onto the next beach, and found a bigger piece of driftwood. I lay in wait for the flotilla to come around the curve of the rock.

I waited there, with my driftwood weapon poised for battle, for several minutes before I started to feel like a complete dork. The flotilla still did not round the corner of the rock as expected. Where had it gone?

I hopped up back on the rock where I had thrown the papers to get a better vantage point. My eyes scanned the green waves but the Flotilla had simply vanished.

Where had they gone? Had they sunk? Had they floated off in another direction? One thing was certain, they had disappeared.

And then, on the top of that rock at my favorite beach I experienced an overwhelming wave of peace. I was going to be okay. I didn’t know how, or what path would take me to okay, but I knew I was going to be okay.

Now, while Dread and me are childhood friends, I have just met Faith in passing. I would describe her as a “recent acquaintance”.

My knee jerk reaction was to doubt my moment of grace, to try to explain it, to shoo it away just like my paper flotilla of uncertainty. As much as the Things I Cannot Control were scary, daring to have faith in the unknown was weirdly even scarier.

I know, deep in my soul, that learning to have faith – even when all signs point to the contrary – is one of the lessons I am supposed to learn in this lifetime. To have faith when there is no proof to support it. To have faith that all is unfolding as it is should. To have faith that everything makes sense on some higher plane that my human brain is simply not equipped to comprehend.

Yet Faith still scares the bejesus out of me.

Still, I thanked the ocean for taking care of my Things I Cannot Control for me. I wouldn’t say my Flotilla of Doubt had transformed into a Flotilla of Faith yet, but it was a start.

 

 

 

We Have A Gagnant!!!

Sorry I am a few days late in announcing the winner to my latest “Christmas in Burgundy” contest. My trois saucisses have all been home from school and chez Germain has been even crazier than usual.

This lucky person (who happens to be a femme) has won a free week in her choice of any of our Burgundy properties, to be redeemed whenever. Pretty sweet, n’est-ce pas?

And all she needed to do to enter was write a review for My Grape Village on Amazon.com . Thank you to the many lovely people who wrote reviews for my books and continue to do so. It is so appreciated and I read every single one.

So without further ado, the name of our gagnante is KAREN MACINERNEY of Austin, Texas!!!!!!!!

Congratulations ma belle! For the rest of my tribe, stay tuned, I’ll be concocting another contest soon!

 

 

 

Lovely New Review on Chouette France Blog

Definitely check out Jacqui’s blog “French Village Diaries” if you need a recommendations (or twenty) for the best books about life in France. Jacqui is a voracious reader of this genre and a thoughful reviewer. I subscribe to her blog feed and reading her posts and book reviews are always a treat.

And today is a great day to check it out, as she reviews MY GRAPE VILLAGE. Just click here to travel to the French countryside without even buying a plane ticket! 

 

Flashback Friday – Christmas 2008

I was going over my old blog and found this post of the Christmas jaunt we took to Colmar, Alsace in December 2008 when Clem was under a year old. If you are in France during the Christmas season and can make it up to Alsace do not miss the Christmas markets and celebrations up in this unique corner of France. Stunning and makes for fantastique memories.

French Christmas Food & Wine Porn!

 Some Christmas french food & wine porn for this festive season from My Grape Village. Enjoy! 

*****

The presents were quickly disposed of on Christmas morning. Charlotte and Camille ripped off the paper and squealed over their stuffy puppies and Polly Pockets. They ate a prodigious amount of papillottes and their enjoyment of the day didn’t seem to be at all affected by the torn wallpaper on the walls or the ugly floor tiles. The tree and the decorations and the fact that the Père Noël came during the night, drank all the ratafia, and ate the papillottes made it a perfect Christmas in their eyes. A big Christmas was fun, but a modest Christmas had its rewards too. Fewer gifts made us aware of what was important, and increased our appreciation of what we did have.

Stéphanie told us to be at her house by 11:30 for the apéritif. She would not hear of me bringing anything to contribute to the Christmas meal. When I asked Franck why she was turning down repeated offers of help he said that it was her pride as a hostess to do everything herself. I wondered briefly why I had never seemed to possess that particular brand of domestic pride.

Tom and Lola greeted us at the door, jumping up and down and telling us about the presents Père Noël had brought them. The most popular was Lola’s stand up microphone. The four cousins rushed upstairs to her bedroom try it out. By the time Thierry had poured us each a flute of mousseux the strains of very loud but out-of-tune voices floated down the stairs. We were the last ones to arrive, There was Steph and Thierry, Thierry’s parents, his aunt from Dijon, Franck’s parents and of course La Mémé, equipped with several exquisite shawls to stave off drafts despite the roaring fire. We caught up with Thierry’s parents and his aunt and Stéphanie passed around homemade gougères – crunchy on the outside and rich and airy on the inside – made with Mémé’s recipe.

Eventually Steph went back in the kitchen and André went to help her. I was shooed away. We were told to sit down at the table, stunningly decorated with tones of red and gold, and an abundance of freshly picked holly.

Steph handed out the plates, beginning with Thierry’s aunt and Mémé and then moved on down the line in order of age. On each plate were two artfully arranged slices of foie gras, two slices of toasted brioche, and a scoop of fig jam.

Thierry busied himself with filling our glasses with a dark yellow Sauternes, perfectly chilled.

We waited until Steph and André were seated at the table and then Stephanie said “Bon alors, Joyeux Noël et bon appetite!” I scraped some foie gras on a piece of toasted, buttery brioche, topped it with fig jam, then washed it down with the beautifully paired Sauternes. The foie gras was silky smooth of my tongue, enhanced by the sweet pops of the fig jam and the honeyed richness of the Sauternes. They mingled together to form a holy trinity of yum. The table fell silent for several minutes as everyone relished this first sublime bite of the holiday meal.

We talked about preparing the foie gras which Stephanie had done from scratch this year – well not completely from scratch – she hadn’t force fed a goose but she did bought a freshly fattened goose liver and prepared, deveined, marinated and cooked it herself.

“Do you like it Laura?” she asked. I knew I should feel guilty about the force-fed goose, but all I could think of was how it was so incredibly delicious.

“C’est délicieux,” I answered. Why did nothing in Canada taste this satisfying? Why were flavors never quite so carefully and artfully matched? Here on my plate and in my glass was the perfect harmony of sweet and savory. The crunchy butteryness of the brioche and the syrupy fig jam highlighted the savory onctuousness of the foie gras. Individually all these things were delicious, but married together they were sublime. There wasn’t a lot of the food on the plate but because it was so perfect it was all that was needed.

We took a good hour nibbling away at the first course. The children came down and they all ate a full plate just like the adults, all except Lola who was turning out, much to the despair of Franck’s family of gourmets, to be a picky eater. I wasn’t sure if my kids realized if they were eating fattened goose liver or, if they did, whether they would even care.

Without me realizing exactly when or how, their eating habits had improved drastically since we moved here. They sat down to eat three proper meals a day and a snack when they got home from school around five o’clock. There were still a few things they didn’t like, spinach for Charlotte and brussel sprouts for Camille, but they would try more or less anything else, mainly because the kids around them had to try everything too. Also, I believe the fact that most things they tried actually tasted good inspired them to be adventurous.

Charlotte and Camille proclaimed that the foie gras was delicious and declared it one of their new favorite foods, then asked if they could go upstairs to play. The cousins disappeared again, and Steph and Thierry and André took their time doing the dishes from the first course while Steph periodically checked the oven.

Finally she removed what had been in there and the house was filled with an irresistible smell. It was a chapon – a rooster castrated at a young age – filled with a chestnut and pork stuffing.

Stephanie served this with a side of chestnuts for anyone who wanted them. I had grown up in Canada seeing chestnuts cover the sidewalk every autumn but I had never tasted them before or, indeed, ever seen anybody eat them. It was in France that I first discovered them and realized how much I loved their earthy taste and texture. Stéphanie also served her bird with a reduced jus from the cooking. Thierry, meanwhile, had taken out several bottles of Hospices de Beaune wine and served one that was a Pommard premier cru.

He gave it to Franck to taste. Franck swirled it around in his glass, sniffed, and swashed it around his mouth and proclaimed it perfect. No one rushed on to anything else, and each plateful was just the perfect amount of flavors to savor without overwhelming the palate.

I thought back to our Christmas dinners in Canada. They were joyous affairs, but it was always such a race to get everything on the table at the same time; the turkey, the stuffing, the brussel sprouts, the scalloped potatoes, and the green beans. Everybody filled their plates and rushed to the table to eat before it got cold (which it inevitably did). The flavors were good, but there were too many of them at once, and the whole thing was over far too fast. Afterwards, everyone sat back with prodigious stomachaches and a kitchen full of dishes to clean.

The protracted nature and the small portions of meals in Burgundy meant that everything was properly savored. It forced everyone to slow down. Slowing down while eating, I realized now, was key to true appreciation and enjoyment of food. There were no distractions apart from the flowing conversation.

After the chapon came a trou normande in the form of a lime sorbet with strong alcohol poured over it. This was, according to French belief, the secret to digesting well and making more room in our stomachs for the cheese and dessert courses.

The fromage platter was massive, and included a truly pungent and perfectly oozing “Ami de Chambertin, a half round of Cîteaux, and a crumbly and salty Cantal sheep’s cheese amongst other offerings. Here too, the different textures and tastes of the cheeses riffed off each other creating an amazing taste experience. For the wine, Thierry served another Pommard from les Hospices that was groaning with ripe fruit flavours and structured tannins – absolutely the perfect foil to the cheeses.

Dessert came sometime after, along with a vin de paille from the Jura, a sweet intensely yellow wine that used half rotten grapes that had been aged on hay. Its richness complimented Mémé’s two “buches de Noël”, one mocha, one chocolate. Next came a praline kouglouf made by Franck’s father, served with the tiny china cups of strong espresso and bowls of papillottes and clémentine oranges.

As I was unpeeling my second orange the conversation ranged from wine to the best markets in the region. Thierry’s father, nicknamed “Le Cadou” so insistently that I had never learned his actual name, was a loyal attendee of the Friday morning market in Nuits-Saint-Georges where he went without fail to visit with friends and his favorite merchants and to buy whatever struck his fancy. Franck’s favorite market remained the Monday morning market in Louhans that featured veal’s brains and chilled white wine for the traditional pre-market breakfast. Mémé had always liked the market in the nearby town of Chagny. I argued for Beaune even though Franck’s family didn’t like the fact that it had seen an influx in tourists over the past decade during the summer months.

I glanced at my watch for the first time that day. “It’s ten o’clock at night!”

Indeed, darkness had fallen over the vineyards behind Steph and Thierry’s house a long time before, but somehow I didn’t have the impression of time passing. We had been at the table for almost twelve hours.

“A perfect Christmas Day,” Franck said, rubbing his stomach and reaching across the table to caress my palm.

 

I’ll Take A Personality Transplant, Please…

Every morning since being diagnosed with PSC two and a half years ago I wake up thinking, “I totally cannot handle this. Life gave this disease to the wrong person.”

I often joke that what I need even more than a liver transplant is a personality transplant. Like most jokes it contains an uncomfortable dose of The Truth.

It’s not that I would wish this shitty auto-immune disease on anybody else, or because I harbour some sense of superiority that makes me think I deserve better. It’s not even because of the exquisite irony that I manage four vacation rentals in the french vineyards and am the wife of a Burgundian and can no longer touch a drop of wine (but somebody up there certainly does have a twisted sense of humour). Rather, I yearn for a personality transplant because most of the time – especially on days like today when I have medical stuff looming on the horizon and am frankly not in a felicitous mental state – I feel woefully ill-equipped to deal with this disease.

Through the PSC community I have come into contact with people who possess a deep, unshakeable faith that they will be fine in the end. I’m always amazed by this. Have they always had this certainty? Where on earth does it come from? More importantly, I’d like to order some of that please.

I’ve also come into contact with people who are brave…like, superhero brave. They endure painful treatments and what would for me be torturous uncertainty with a kind of nonchalance that an olympic skier would feel going down the bunny hill. They say they never feel scared and, stranger still, I suspect they are actually telling the truth. I’d like a piece of that too.

There are also the people who just “carry-on” in the best of the British tradition and decide that they are not even going to really consider themselves as being sick at all, even when diagnosed with things like liver cancer. They just think “Crikey. That’s a spot of bother.” Wow. Yes, I’ll also take one of those. 

Then there are those lucky, lucky souls who seem to have been born without the worrier gene. When I ask if they worry about cancer, post-transplant rejection, etc. they answer, in all honesty “no”. When I ask how…why…how the hell they DO that, they say, “I decided there was no point to worrying, so I just don’t.” What!? You can actually turn off that switch in your head!?

So there’s the zen buddhas, the biblical matyrs, the superheros, and then…there’s me.

I am such a hypochondriac that Franck actually had to ban me from watching medical dramas like ER, House, and even Gray’s Anatomy a decade ago. My suggestible imagination meant that any illness I saw on-screen would manifest itself immediately in my body as symptoms, which usually culminated in a deeply humiliating ER visit within a few hours. When I was diagnosed with PSC one of my first reactions was “Goddamit! I forgot to imagine that disease. That’s why I got it!” Clearly, I also have a bit of magic-thinking craziness going on in this head of mine.

I worry and I ruminate. My mind gets stuck in painful thought patterns. I am vigilant about each symptom and fret about new ones. I wish beyond anything that I could just turn off that worry switch, but I have tried and tried and tried but mine appears to be welded in the “ON” position.

I get scared. Like really, really curled-up-on-the-bed-in-a-foetal-positon scared. When I’m like this, my mind projects terrifying films for my own personal viewing pleasure on a continuous loop.

I don’t speak the language of denial. I can’t pretend that I am not going through this. If I could, I would, but my powers of denial are puny.

There are so many people so much better equipped to deal with PSC than me – pretty much everybody, actually.

However, I have discovered a few arrows that I use again and again to help me fight the mental and physical impact of PSC.

One is my dark sense of humour that I share with Franck. There isn’t much we can’t joke about, especially if it is in bad taste. When the grim things get too threatening, we deflate them with our laughter.

Another is my need to create – write, paint, glue beach glass on wreathes…whatever takes me out of my own head for long enough to be able to take a breath again and re-engages me in life.

My defiance is one of my strongest arrows. I fall, often and badly, but there is something in me (what I call “my little spark of fuck you“) that forces me to pick myself up again.

Another arrow that I have found shoots straight and true is my need to connect with others, to listen to their stories and journeys and to share mine in all its rawness. This creates a net of support that makes me feel supported and I hope makes others feel supported as well.

It’s the same with parenting – I am good about reading with my kids, but lamentable at keeping track of the various lunch forms, soccer try-outs, and teacher’s gifts that come with their busy lives. I love doing crafts with them but am doing a far from stellar job of protecting them from swear words and age inappropriate movies.

With my writing, I appear allergic to plotting and formatting, but I have always had an ear for dialogue and an instinct for how to end a chapter.

I guess the hard lesson I’m learning is that going through life most of us feel ill-equipped. Bemoaning our shortcomings is a waste of time better spent on cultivating our strengths, even if they seem like meagre offerings.

This is far less messy than a personality transplant. Besides, if we had a different set of arrows in our quivers, we wouldn’t be ourselves anymore. That, I know, would be a terrible shame.

 

What is the Ban Bourgignon?

I have had many people ask me about the traditional Burgundian drinking song “Le Ban Bourgignon” that I refer to frequently in My Grape Escape and My Grape Village.

“What does it sound like?” / “When do you sing it?” / “How does everyone know the words?”

Sometimes a video is worth a thousand explanations, especially the one below. This was filmed in La Maison des Chaumes at the meal celebrating the baptism of our 13th century wine cellar under our apartment in Beaune. Oui, in Burgundy we baptize wine cellars just like newly born babes…but that is another post for another time!

That is Robert, who you will all become acquainted with in the upcoming My Grape Town, singing and you’ll spot Franck at the end of the table holding baby Clementine, me appearing from the kitchen (in a white linen shirt, of course), my parents, Martial and Isabelle, Franck’s parents and his aunts, Charlotte (“Marie” in My Grape Village, as two Charlottes were just too awkward for this here writer).

This captures pretty neatly the spirit of those long, raucous Burgundian meals that I love so much. Enjoy!

“Christmas in Burgundy” Contest

There’s nothing I love better than giving away time in Burgundy and allowing others to experience the magic of this special area of the world that I write about in My Grape Escape and My Grape Village for themselves. So, just in time for the giving season here are the rules for our newest contest!

Prize: One week at any one of our four vacation rentals in Burgundy, France (to choose / research / procrastinate / dream just go to our website www.graperentals.com)

How to Enter: Just write and post a review of my latest book MY GRAPE VILLAGE on Amazon.com (it goes without saying that you have to read it first!). Click here to do so.

Dates: This contest will run from now until Christmas Day

Rules & Regs: The winner will be selected in a random draw. The week is redeemable at any one of our four Grape Rentals properties, subject only to availability. There are no date or time restrictions (so you can go to Burgundy at Christmas, Easter, Passover, the Summer Solstice, etc.). The lovely people who posted a review before this contest was announced will also, of course, be entered.

Bonne Chance tout le monde!