Camera
weighing heavily in hand
longing for the
perfect shot
yearning to capture a butterfly
floating delicately on a flower
holding breath to capture the hummingbird’s faerie flight
balancing luck and patience
focusing life’s lens
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
At age
two, my son asked for drums. We purchased a cute plastic set that he played
like a pro. Paul also latched onto a harmonica at the same age, dancing around
his room playing a singsong tune. He asked for a drum kit around age six. Tight
on space, we purchased a Yamaha keyboard, found music lessons that combined
singing with playing to temporarily satisfy his musical urge. His instructor,
during her summer camps, encouraged her students to add another instrument to
their playing skills. Paul asked my brother for the forgotten snare drum
sitting in his closet. Every year, the subject of a drum kit surfaced. Because of
space limitation, Paul ended up with both a bass and electric guitar. Although
he enjoyed both, he still longed for a kit. By his fourteenth birthday, we
decided to get rid of our guest room and fill it with drums. From the first
second Paul held sticks in his hands, he played wonderfully. Before we knew it,
he picked up a second kit, filling the smallest room with double bass beats and
practicing with Neil Peart on loop. The summer he turned fourteen, Slipknot hit
San Antonio with the Tattoo the Earth tour. My son, now thirty-six and an audio
engineer, still prefers the music from that one crucial year when he’s looking
for “comfort music” during a rough day.
Always curious, Paul
dipped into recent brain studies searching for neurological reasons for music
and genre preferences, discovering that most men’s “go to” music stems from
what they listened to at age fourteen. For women, it’s age thirteen. Over the
years, my husband’s purchased everything ever produced by The Beatles and Rush,
the two groups he listened to endlessly as he entered his teen years. He picked
up both bass and guitar during those years and serenaded his way through high
school with “Blackbird” or “Fly by Night.” What did I listen to at age
thirteen? The first 8-track I ever purchased was Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection. My comfort music,
though, doesn’t center on a single performer or group. My mornings during my
early teen years found me listening to KTSA as I dressed for school. Evenings
our family played my parent’s records on the stereo, so Pete Foutain, Buddy
Rich, or Chet Atkins entertained us. By nightfall, my radio played classical
music. When I’m feeling down now, I’m just as likely to listen to Lizzo for a pick-me-up as I am Elton John.
However, over the years I’ve rarely purchased my own CDs, and my iTunes is
almost empty—except for Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and James Taylor—all favorites
from the year 1970.
I leave with the
question—What is your “comfort music”?
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
Another day of death
in the US. As of this morning, more than three-thousand American citizens have
died from gun violence within the last twenty-five days. No one speaks about
the 1,716 suicides already in CDC record books. Forty mass shootings along with
six mass murders skyrockets our death rate to unspeakable levels. Gun violence
since the beginning of 2023 has left another 2,250 injured.
But we’ve got fucking
“thoughts and prayers” to speed us through the stages of grief that dog our lives
daily. We race, as a nation, though Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and
Acceptance within hours of the latest killings. One scene reporters offer
proper indignation as law enforcement representatives recount another atrocity
that should propel us into anger and action, but doesn’t. Memorials spring up within hours. Maybe if we
rush through to Acceptance we can avoid the tremendous losses each family
faces—injuries that may require lifelong medical needs. The death of your
friends, your brothers and sisters, your parents, your spouses, your children
wrapped up and tucked away within a news cycle because it repeats again
tomorrow.
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
In my forties, my
cholesterol levels climbed dramatically. Lipitor entered my life with extremely
successful results for almost ten years. Then, we gradually shifted into a
negative relationship. Mornings found me hobbling on my feet as I walked across
what felt like gravel. Eventually, my legs ached like I’d run a marathon.
During a visit with my sister, she witnessed my morning muscular performance
and warned that she’d had a similar response to her statin. I called my doctor,
stopped Lipitor, and began to cycle through every statin on the market. Each
one caused the muscle aches. Some did it after a few months while others hit me
like a semi-truck within a few doses. Each year, the latest PA tried different
medications on the market. Non-statin drugs barely impacted my cholesterol levels.
Eventually, it was decided we’d wait for a new generation of drugs to try. Of
course, insurance never covered any of them. Who can afford to pay $500-$1,000
a month? I would laugh, and laugh, and laugh whenever the pharmacist quoted the
prices.
About midway during
my fifties, one of the PA’s asked me about my energy levels. Was I tired a lot?
I wept tears as I laughed at that question. What teacher isn’t tired? She added
another test to my annual bloodwork, and it turned out my thyroid needed
nudging. Levothyroxine entered my life at that point and worked perfectly for
me.
When I changed
doctors last December, and he saw my high cholesterol levels, he insisted I go
onto a statin immediately. I told him about how I’d taken Lipitor for years
before having side effects, recounted all of the other statins and cholesterol
reducing drugs I’d tried with the muscle side effects. He simply said, “Statins
can cause muscle damage in people with an underactive thyroid. Your thyroid
problem is why you started having side effects to the Lipitor years ago. Now
that it’s taken care of, you should be able to go back onto a statin.”
Statins reentered my
life with a low dosage of Crestor, the statin that I’d responded to in the past
within three doses. No aches. No walking on gravel. When my cholesterol levels
dropped, but not enough, my doctor upped the dosage. I’ve been on this level
now for six months with absolutely no problem at all. Yesterday’s bloodwork
will tell me how well this amount is working to drop my levels, but I’m
optimistic for improvement.
I wonder about who
find themselves suddenly having side effects to a drug that worked for years.
My hypothyroidism triggered the muscle pains with the statins. Fixing that
problem, hopefully, will allow me get a handle on another medical issue that I’d
given up on.
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
I didn’t meet a new
doctor today. Instead, my “original” new internist decided not to retire yet.
He is the physician who treated my mother as she progressed from Stage 3 to
Stage 4 and finally Stage 5 of Huntington’s disease. Every appointment he spent
time with not just her, but with me as well. He checked with me on my emotional
and physical demands as caregiver. Whenever I left messages with questions or
needs with his nurse, he personally returned the call, speaking first with Mom
and then with me. We weren’t his first Huntington’s disease family. Because of
that, he prepared us for the tremendously cruel course that lay ahead for us.
For my new readers unfamiliar
with Huntington’s disease, it’s a rare, inherited disease that progressively
causes degeneration of nerve cells in the brain. There’s no cure. There are
limited treatments. This disorder brutally steals every facet of the patient’s
life. It destroys a person’s ability to walk, talk, and think. Victims often
choose suicide before the illness progresses too long. Because muscles no
longer work properly, many people with HD aspirate food, water, or medication
and die from complications stemming from pneumonia.
My mother went into
the final stage of HD. She could no longer swallow. She starved to death.
In the ten years
since Mom’s passing, I continued going to my own physician since my visits
comprised of one annual physical. Every time I drove to that office on the
other side of town, I’d pass Mom’s doctor’s office just five minutes from our
home. Last year, when my medical needs shifted to more frequent follow-up
appointments due to new medications, I decided moving to a doctor closer to
home really made sense. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I learned Mom’s
internist still took new patients. Then disappointment hit when he announced
his retirement. I don’t know why he postponed leaving, but am thankful to have
a longer connection with someone who helped me through my hardest years.
.jpg)
Edna Thompson Abrams August 2010 (Mom)
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chpman
About a year ago, I
changed my primary care physician. My previous doctor, one of my college
roommates, had a practice on the other side of town that over the years became
a life-risking drive depending upon the time of day of my appointment. Sometimes
the half-hour trip to her office turned into a nightmarish two hours of stopped
traffic due to accidents on the highway. Then after my last visit, my car ended
up being shoved from the rear (no damage) by an inattentive driver.
After that
experience, I decided to change to my mother’s internist. His office, walking
distance from our house, means my blood pressure checks out normal at each
visit! Having gone to a doctor who used PA’s most of the time, I now see the
doctor himself at every visit. Because he cared for Mom through all of her
Huntington’s disease with constant grace and consideration, my appointments
with him so far have been less stressful than if I’d changed to a totally unknown
doctor. In June, I injured my wrist when I tripped doing yardwork. He checked
me over, ordered X-rays, and scheduled me with an orthopedic specialist to give
me feedback on the arthritis in my wrist. He informed me that he was retiring
within the next few months and shifting me to one of the other doctors within
his group.
Tomorrow, I will meet
my new internist. The group has several doctors within the practice, and my
retiring doctor said he matched me with the person who’d give me the best care
for my needs. A quick online view shows she’s young with training in India,
England, and the United States, just like my current physician. She focuses her
care on thyroid, cholesterol, and hypertension all the issues that plague me at
this point.
My mission for
tomorrow is to begin a new path for better health. Wish me luck!
.JPG)
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
Amazement fills me
whenever I listen to the latest recounting of the adventures of my Travel Bug
friends. Even during the worst part of the pandemic, pre-vaccination, they
insisted their psychological need to experience new and different places
outweighed any risk they’d get from contracting COVID-19. Flying to Guatemala
or Iceland, Croatia or Morocco these friends determined their experiences with
an illness (many became extremely ill several times) outweighed the depression
they’d deal with by staying home.
As the ultimate
introvert, watching these friends and family members engage is high risk
behaviors found me hitting the “unfollow” button on Facebook. That way, I didn’t
read about the two weeks one spent in the hospital or the months and months of
illness due to long COVID a half-dozen friends now deal with daily.
When I think back to
the few vacations we’ve taken over the last forty-four the years, the memories
glow soft and warm. Each experience nestles snugly within me. Do I find myself
compelled to plan another adventure anytime soon? No. I delved into the costs
of a hypothetical trip the other day and realized that my budget can’t absorb
that kind of hit. Our appliances are old, and our air conditioner approaches
the “ancient” status. Getting infected with the Travel Bug right now would mean
I’d have to return to work—something I continue to avoid for a second year.
