Category: ragdoll rambles

Still The Worst Time of My Life

I’ve been back in the hospital since Friday morning with complications from the surgery. Essentially, the necrotic (sp?) appendix has caused further complications, problems that most people don’t have during such a routine operation. Because of the disease, my organ tissues are sensitive, and because the appendix stayed in my body for so long being so rotten, my bowels have simply stopped working.

Graphic, I know.

1. We came back into the hospital on Friday morning after I threw up on Thursday night and then again in the AM. My body was retaining so much water that my legs were three times their normal size and my scars were so swollen and bloated they were poking out of my legs.

2. Unlike the first hellish visit, we managed to see a doctor after about an hour. They put a tube up my nose and down into my stomach because while sitting on the bed, I “projectile vomited” (as the RRHB) said pure green bile. Seriously, it looked like grass.

3. The NG tube started to suck up everything left over in my stomach: essentially any and everything I hadn’t already thrown up based on two days of eating “normally” out of the hospital.

4. They need to give my bowel a rest, which means no food or water. That’s been since Friday. It’s now Tuesday.

5. The doctors keep saying to be patient, that it’ll rectify itself and get better but we’re still here waiting for my bowels to work.

6. First it was 24-36 hours, then Tuesday at the latest and now they just don’t know. More tests today, I guess.

7. The surgeon who came in this morning said that he’s not surprised there are these complications. I asked him, “but I am going to get better, right?” Yes, was the definitive answer but I can’t say that I am not terrified every single moment I am spending in this hospital.

8.They’re desperately trying to avoid more surgery, which I can understand. I don’t want more surgery. But I also wish that everything with my health wasn’t so bloody complicated.

9. Lessons in it can always get worse, I suppose. And we’re clinging to the positives. Piles of gas in my belly means pain but also that things are working, but not completely. Piles of antibiotics means that they are killing the infection but also my poor tummy. There will be a lot of restorative yoga and healthy eating when I get out of here.

10. Still a rotten way to spend a birthday if you ask me.

I Had The (Worst) Time Of My Life

It all started off so well. My dad surprised me at the cottage. My RRHB’s van broke down so the tour was cancelled. Plenty of people were around for my birthday and I had managed a delicious dinner with veggies and herbs from my Recession Garden. And then it all went way, way down hill from there. I’m unwell, so here’s the list, and here’s a warning that it’s a little graphic:

1. I started throwing up at about 10 PM. We were up at my aunt’s cottage, the elder generation imbibing, and I went back to my grandmother’s cottage because I was feeling so unwell. And then I couldn’t stop throwing up. My brother took me to the Campbellford hospital around midnight, and I spent many hours barfing and being in massive amounts of pain. They couldn’t figure out what’s wrong: ran some blood tests, did an x-ray, and made me feel a bit better by the time I left. 

2. We got home from the cottage (on my actual birthday) and everything started up again, well, actually, I didn’t barf again, so that was something. But I have never experienced that much pain in my life. Not when my tragic hip was acting up, not when I had hip surgery, nothing was like the pain in my stomach. It lasted all night.

3. The next morning my RRHB called our family doctor, whose offices are at Toronto Western. She saw us for about 30 seconds before she sent us down to Emergency.

4. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. While we waited almost three hours to make it to the “Rapid Assessment Zone.” The ER doc called my Super-Fancy Disease Doctor who also works out of the Western. He told them to do a CT scan. That’s when they discovered that my appendix had ruptured. Numerous doctors came by then: my SFDD, a few interns, a different ER doc and a surgical intern who told me they don’t usually operate once the appendix has already ruptured; they treat you with antibiotics and see how you do. That’s when I asked for more morphine.

5. The actual surgeon came to see me and said with the Wegener’s being active and with the suppression of my immune system, they can’t leave the organ in my body. So, surgery is back on. 

6. Surgery is scheduled for “as soon as possible.” They prep. I pee. And have more morphine. My RRHB calls our loved ones and let’s everyone know what’s going on. 

7. I go under the knife at about 9 PM on Monday night. The day after my birthday. I never like waking up from anesthetic. Oxygen up the nose and three incisions are my presents. 

8. The next morning the surgical team comes by to see me. He’s excited: “Your appendix was BLACK! BLACK!” There was some pus on my liver and leakage all over my bladder. This was what was causing the pain. When the head surgeon came to see me later on that evening, she said that my organ was “terrible.” That it had actually turned gangrenous, built a wall around itself, but was leaking, and the pain not being in the typical place confused everyone. What saved my life? My SFDD telling them to get a CT scan. That’s why he’s SFDD. 

9. I spend a miserable night in hospital next to a snoring and painfully uncomfortable old guy and get no sleep.

10. They send me home (it’s now Wednesday) and it’s marvelous to be not in the hospital. I’m bloated, in pain, and myriad other things but at least I can watch TV and walk around when I feel like it.

Happy birthday to me.

My Recession Garden

My Recession Garden looks nothing like the one from the White House (thanks to @kattancock for the link). First of all, it’s a lot less organized and doesn’t come with a beautiful plan with lots of walking space. Instead it’s a lot of messy overgrown plants beside some plants that just haven’t grown well (yet). My cucumbers have started to flower, as have my cocozelle zucchinis (I had to look them up; I planted a mix of summer squash and didn’t know what’s what), and I have some baby beans sprouting which left me with endless joy this morning.

I spent a few minutes searching through Epicurious for recipes using summer squash because I think we might be inundated in another few weeks. So if anyone has tried and tested veggie recipes for zucchini, cocozelles or other summer growers, holler back. But so far we’ve eaten our own lettuce for weeks, starting off with arugula (which was delicious and has prompted RRHB on more than one occasion to say how much he loves it), then moving on to my own mix of red leaf lettuce, drunken lettuce (isn’t that an awesome name) and two more that I can’t remember off the top of my head. I bought more lettuce seeds yesterday to keep replanting (I already ripped out my arugula and spinach and have started second crops). And we tried our rapini but I let it grow for too long; it was inedible.

Up next are trying to save the tomato plants given to us by our neighbour — even though they’re in separate pots and are not being watered with the same frequency as the rest of the garden — they’re still developing blight. Oddly, the plants that I bought from the nursery are absolutely disease free so I’m not sure what’s causing the problem.

Here’s my complete growing list: cucumbers (two different kind of slicers), yellow cucumbers, nasturtiums, sage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, bush beans (three different kinds), summer squash (three or four different kinds), lettuce, rosemary, french taragon, oregano, thyme, basil, garlic, onions, carrots (just planted), radishes and some hot, spicy peppers. So far, the only “crop” that failed has been the rapini — but in its place I planted some melons and I’m afraid they haven’t even sprouted yet.

I keep saying it to many people: I am really not a fan of gardening, but I sure do love to eat my own vegetables. I also love to share. And swap. What about you other recession gardeners out there?

Also, I posted some Recession Garden photos up on Flickr.

Random Thoughts for a Monday Morning

The weather reports on the CBC keep telling me it’s going to thunderstorm this afternoon but it’s brilliant and sunny out right now. I believe in the sunshine even if the CBC doesn’t. Of course, I’m only saying that because I don’t want to get completely soaking heading home tonight. Here’s a little rambling list for today:

1. Started and abandoned Dorothy Allison’s Trash. Her writing is powerful, personal and honest but the content of the short stories really didn’t interest me at all. As I said on Twitter this week, I really like where she writes from but not what she writes about. I did, however, find both introductions incredibly inspiring, and how her writing gave her a power she never expected to have in her life. Also, Cavedweller and Bastard Out of Carolina are two of my favourite books.

2. Am now feverishly reading The Winter Vault to be finished by the time Canada Day kicks up so I can finish my Canadian Reading Challenge. Then I’ll need to decide what to read for the 09-10 challenge. All Poetry Edition? New Releases? Backlist Frenzy? Anyone else have suggestions?

3. Our garden has exploded. Soon we’ll have about a half-dozen cocozelle zucchinis, beans, basil, and cucumbers (well, they’re flowering so that’s something). We’ve been eating our recession garden lettuce for about a month now and I’m about to start brown bagging my lunch every day if only because I’m working my butt off to get more of our house renovations paid down.

4. Speaking of which, I hope most of you are around late summer-early September because we’ll finally have a housewarming party almost five years after moving in. Trust me, it’ll be worth it. My house is gorgeous these days.

5. Feeling diseasy is intensified when I’m covered in hives from a strange allergic reaction to the sun. It only happens on my arms (well, sometimes my legs) and I’ve been sitting at my desk itching for the past five hours. Argh.

6. Newsweek has 50 books “for our time.” I’ve read 5. Obviously, I’m not very timely.

7. You know what still makes me laugh? Thinking about The Hangover three weeks after seeing the film. That and my 3-year-old nephew rapping.

Short and sweet today friends. Short and sweet.

My Plastic Life

We watched a documentary over the weekend about plastic bags. For the most part, I’d like to think I’m a responsible shopper — I tote around a canvas bag wherever I go, we use those giant recycled plastic ones at the grocery store, and we attempt to recycle everything we possibly can. And yet, the facts from that one-hour doc were so upsetting that I’ve been thinking about it for days. Canadians use 6 billion plastic bags a year, and less than 1% of these are recycled or reused. The rest go into landfills. And this got me thinking about My Plastic Life, how much of the stuff I use on a daily basis and make a list to see where I can cut back and/or down:

1. Plastic bottles for shampoo, conditioner and body wash. Last year Zesty took me to Costco around this time and I bought a MASSIVE bottle of shampoo that I used for about ten straight months. Considering that’s one bottle versus many smaller bottles, maybe I’ll have to see if I can tag along again.

2. Plastic water bottle: this is already reusable, so I think I’m okay there.

3. Plastic wrap for all of the fruit & veggies from the grocery store, the farmer’s market, and from Whole Foods. Everything I pack a lunch in is plastic, but reusable, so that’s something, but still — I haven’t even gotten on my bike yet and I’ve already used plastic every step of the way.

4. Water bottles and plastic bags all strewn on the side of the road (when I started this post the garbage strike hadn’t even begun; now it’s even worse). None of these are directly my fault but I’d never really LOOKED before. Now I notice them everywhere.

5. Plastic hair clip.

6. I’m sure there’s plastic in my keyboard. What else is it made out of?

7. My phone too.

8. Plastic water glasses and container (both made in China) for drinking water at work. Again, I use these everyday and have stopped buying water bottles altogether. Do I get a pat on the back for that at least?

9. Whew. Wax paper for my bagel and a brown paper bag. Both of which can go in my green bin.

10. Plastic pens.

11. Wait. My glasses are also plastic.

12. And so on…

I’m not even at 11 AM and I’ve already used plastic in every single inch of my daily life. Where do I start? And how do I make a change? The #1 thing I’m going to do is start taking containers to the farmer’s market instead of just bringing my cloth shopping bags. But that’s such a small change — and I’m afraid it simply won’t make any difference whatsoever.

Anyone else have suggestions? How do you work on cutting excess plastic out of your life?

To Be Or Not To Be

Thoughts of BookCampTO are still funneling around my head, and one in particular — Mitch Joel (@mitchjoel) (much quoted and oft-called upon) after stating a very obvious fact that authors should come to their online presence with a strategy and not feel they need to jump into every social media avenue available to them, said something akin to: “What does it mean if you’ve only got three followers on Twitter? You suck.”

By definition then, little old me with my barely 130-odd followers, sucks. My teeny little book blog has never exploded or made me rich. It’s never gotten me a book deal. I barely have 6 followers (I think). So overall, does my online persona suck balls in his eyes? Is audience the only thing that matters? Is my platform over even before it began? I was having a crisis of online consciousness after hearing that because deep down I’ve never put the words up here for anything other than the pure pleasure of typing one letter after the other.

Maybe that’s short-sighted of me. Another friend at BookCamp TO mentioned that she was going to spend the good part of the upcoming year just ‘getting her name out there.’ And I do recognize the importance of putting yourself forth as an expert, as someone with valuable opinions to share, as someone with thoughts that are worth expressing, and I did some of that this weekend.

However, I’ve been hiding behind a “pen name” for years, never wanting my online life to converge with my offline life. I enjoy the bliss of anonymity. But it’s been years since I published anything under “ragdoll” — it was a holdover from the years of recapping at Television Without Pity. And then came the Boss From Hell incident where I did a lot of complaining after I lost a job I wasn’t all that fond of anyway. The need not to get sued (as dooced was no longer an option) was foremost in my mind. Now my online life and offline life are so mixed up there’s no easy way to keep them separate.

I was afraid of speaking up at BookCampTO simply because I like being a little behind the scenes. I like thinking what I think and sharing those opinions with like-minded individuals who love me for who I am not what I do. Anyone who was there knows that I got over that rather quickly and couldn’t quite help myself but to open my mouth and let some thoughts spew forth. So maybe I need a bit of a retool, a bit of a rethink, maybe I need a 2.0 or a 3.0 version of myself that’s not afraid to step from one side of the internets to the other worried that people will find out that I type more often than I think.

But then, Sassymonkey’s intelligent and thoughtful post “Can’t we just stop with “right” and “wrong”” also got me thinking yesterday that maybe Mitch Joel, as smartypants as he is, perhaps spoke a bit too quickly — that there’s nothing wrong with having three followers if you’re happy and pleased with your online life. That if you enjoy using the technology and its ability to add value to your life, that’s all that matters. Not all of us are here to find a way to do much more than say what might be on our minds. Even if it is behind a cloak of a poorly conceived moniker that came out of hearing a truly awful Aerosmith song that was stuck in one’s head for far longer than it should have been.

So, I don’t think I’ll take the “ragdoll” off the site any time soon. I mean, truly, all I want to do here is talk about good books. And I think that’s probably okay, right?

BookCamp TO

Giving up a hard-earned Saturday isn’t always easy, and I’m so glad that the experience of BookCamp TO made it worthwhile. Billed as an unconference, Book Camp TO brought together a wide variety of bookish folks, some from the big publishers like me, some from smaller publishers, some writers, some marketers, the list goes goes on, for a day of discussion around the future of book publishing. In a way, I think it would be worthwhile for us to move past the idea that the future is coming and just accept the fact that the future is here. It’s not something we need to bemoan or begrudge, but look at and decide what we want to do in terms of what’s right for any particular author or business.

The biggest takeaway for me from the day would be a point that @janinelaporte made early in the day: “content is content and it doesn’t matter how you get it, just that you get it.” I’m in a unique position, having come up through the ranks of online vs. general publishing, accepting the fact that content is malleable has never been an issue for me. The fact that people can read in so many different ways isn’t a threat, it’s an opportunity, and ensuring that we figure out the right way for everyone to get paid, the possibilities are limitless. We spend too much time as an industry (forgive me, but it’s true) whining about the death of traditional publishing.

Again, maybe it’s just my sunny personality (not, yawn) but I’m really tired of all the complaining. Book sales are up in Canada. Anyone who takes the TTC knows that there are at least 7-10 people in each car with an open book on their laps (I am usually the only one with a Sony Reader). Mobile devices and downloadable reading applications are the fastest growing segment in that industry. Sure, we don’t have a Kindle yet, but even the hint of a story that Indigo intends to create their own device has me all atwitter. Never before in the history of the bricks and mortar business has such innovation made such evolution possible. We just need to get over the mindset that we’re in the book industry and not in the business of creating content.

That doesn’t mean that all of our authors are commodities, nor does it mean that books as they have existed will cease to exist, but simply that we need to explore the opportunities of doing things differently. Why can’t we celebrate this fact? Why are we always focusing on what we’re doing wrong and what we’ve lost (who actually misses that Globe stand-alone Books section please raise your hand?) instead of imagining all of the great stuff that’s going to happen once we make that simple shift in conception? Authors are important. Books are important. None of that is going to change by the nature of how one gets their content, whether it’s a mobile phone or a magazine. Whether they’re listening to it via an iPod or whether they’ve cracked the spine on a freshly bought tome from Book City. I want it all to survive. In fact, I’ve staked my family’s livelihood on that fact that it will — or else what am I even doing in the business in the first place?

I had so many interesting conversations on Saturday that trying to dispel them into one singular blog post might not be helpful, but for me, the best part of the day was hanging out with smart, interesting, intelligent people who all feel passionately about the survival of books in general. And if anything, I learned that my unique position: as an author, as a blogger, as a person who works at a publishing company, has knowledge that’s actually worth sharing. Funny thing, that.

Stunned And Stumped

We’re still missing our desktop. Luckily, a darling old friend has fixed it for us, but we forgot the power cord, which means we’re still on the laptop. That’s not a bad thing. But it’s strange to be so without what you’re used to. Freelance is piling up. Blog posts are piling up. Life is piling up. Today my electronic gadgets all died on the way home as I had just finished my book — that meant I had nothing to read while waiting and waiting and waiting for a Tamil-stopped streetcar. 

This morning, I woke up at 4:36 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. Good for the garden, because it meant I had time to head outside before getting the morning routine started, and water the plants with the rain barrel versus the hose. Bad for actually being awake. The day started and ended off in a haze… and now I’m sucked into the last episode of America’s Next Top Model. 

TRH Update: A List

How do weeks go by and have I zero time to update this space? Not having a computer complicates things because it means that I can’t sit down after dinner and write a quick post, and squeezing anything other than work into day to day life seems almost impossible. Here’s where I am lately:

1. Saw the kidney doctor lat week and he said two things: one, I have excellent blood pressure and considering I have barely exercised in the last six months, that was a relief; two, because there’s so much extra protein in my pee (gross, I know), I might have to take more medicine to stop it from mowing through my organs and causing even more damage.

2. One should never get organized for one’s taxes in January. One will lose half of the things one is supposed to bring with her to the accountant and then forget the rest. What does this mean? Going through all the receipts again to see what’s missing.

3. Our house is coming along swimmingly. My RRHB has built a deck off the back where a gross, disgusting, rotting mudroom used to be and I am spending every spare moment outside. Last Saturday I got up early (he was working out of the house) and spent every minute from about 8 AM until 1 PM in the garden and on the deck. Fresh air truly revitalizes.

4. Pigeon by Karen Solie is one of the best books of poetry I’ve read in ages. Her poems inspire a sense of wanderlust that I forced us to indulge in when we made a day trip to Point Pelee two weekends ago. Pictures are here. This would be book #26 for the year. I’m sorry the review is so short. But just know it’s the perfect book to read in the spring and her observations about how the modern world interacts with nature made my heart skip a beat.

5. I’ve also finished reading Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die (#27). The tale of a young girl who tries to kill herself only to discover that life can be redeemed at any moment was…okay. Certainly not my favourite of all of Coelho’s books that I’ve read, but I enjoyed thinking about how Buffy would play the lead in the film and how they’d adapt it for the big screen. The love story is sweet and he writes about mental illness with an alarming accuracy — it’s no One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but more of an exploration of how creative minds are sometimes forced into difficult situations when the normal limits of society cannot bind them. Maybe the idea of redemption was a little too obvious throughout the book for my tastes. But it’s apparently Coelho’s most autobiographical book, and the P.S. section at the back of my copy was fascinating to read in term of his own experiences with mental hospitals and the barbaric treatments he himself suffered. Also, this book is on the 1001 Books list, so I can add on to that challenge, which is good. I’m so far behind in my reading it’s actually shocking.

6. I’m halfway through Francine Prose’s amazing biography about Anne Frank. It’s coming out next fall so more on that later. As well, I finished what might be my favourite novel I’ve read so far this year, Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, but I want to write a proper post about it, so, again, more to come on that title too.

7. The week before I saw the kidney doctor, I also saw my family doctor about a world of issues. Mainly the fact that I haven’t felt like myself in months, the grumps have taken over, and maybe the prednisone crazies have stuck around in ways that they haven’t in over 10 years. That’s been part of my radio silence too — who wants to read about my sadness over and over again? There are far better things to do. Right now I’m just figuring my way out. See #8.

8. The garden. Wow, who would have ever thought that I would become a gardener. But there’s something magical about planting seeds and watching them sprout. Last year I tackled vegetables and this year I planted some flowers (none of which have started to grow beyond seedlings yet). I like to plant things with a purpose so a lot of them are either edible or have beneficial properties for birds, bugs and butterflies. More pictures to come. But what I do know is that taking a half-hour, an hour, fifteen minutes and spending it outside after a long day has made all the difference.

9. All of the meds have combined to make me more tired than I ever thought possible. The more I push through the exhaustion, the better I seem to feel, but I’m also irritable, grumpy, short-tempered and so fuzzy-headed that I can barely put a to-do list together. Anyone have any suggestions?

10. I’ve been obsessively using Purell these days. Not just because of the Swine Flu hysteria but more because I’ve picked up every single little bug that’s gone around. There were about six weekends in a row where I was either running a fever, barfing (that was a pleasant one), coughing, more coughing, wheezing and/or feeling stuffy-headed from various viruses.

11. Marley and Me is quite possibly the most boring film I’ve ever watched. Next to The Watchmen, where I fell asleep, in the theatre, right before the sex scene. Wow, that was a shocker to open up your eyes too. Also, Jennifer Aniston is orange. Throughout the entire picture.

Okay that it’s it — /babbling.