Annoyance

I was originally going to title this post "Heartbeat," since it was a palpitating heart that led me to the doctor's office, then the ER, then an overnight stay in the hospital. But the over-riding emotion that I carried during the entire ordeal was annoyance, hence the new title.

You know that quick fluttering that you feel in your heart sometimes? You are sitting quietly or driving and suddenly you can feel your heart beating; it feels fast and loud, like it is trying to make its presence known. Then it returns to normal; the whole episode comes and goes so quickly that it barely registers because you have already moved onto the next thought. Heart Palpitations are listed as common symptoms of peri-menopause, anxiety, or a reaction to caffeine, so when they occur, I don't usually think anything of them.

Two weeks ago I was sitting at my desk in my home office prepping for classes. It was a Tuesday, my long day. I begin my teaching day on the campus five minutes from home and end it late in the evening an hour away. I had not planned to split my days between two schools again; last year I commuted 3,000 miles just between campuses. That number doesn't reflect regular commute from home to any one campus. But this semester's schedule for the school close to home meant that if I wanted to teach another class, and maintain my income level, that I would have to split one day a week.

I really, really didn't want to work that day; it was post-Labor Day Tuesday, and who wants to work that day? I call days like that double Mondays. I was working away, prepping for that day's lessons, when my heart started beating fast and hard. Mind you, I had finished my workout nearly two hours before and had my usual cup of 1/2 caf coffee much earlier in the day. I paused when the feeling didn't pass quickly. The heavy heartbeats faded, but I was puzzled, so I checked my pulse. Thirty-five beats in 15 seconds didn't seem okay, but I didn't feel any other symptoms. So I tried to concentrate on work and take lots of deep cleansing breathes.

I didn't have a sense that anything was seriously wrong, but this was annoying. I know the symptoms of a heart-attack, and my feelings just didn't fit the bill. My arm didn't hurt, no pain in my neck, no pressure or pain in my chest, no dizziness or short-ness of breath. About 45 minutes into this I went downstairs and took on aspirin, just to be cautious. I did some quick research online about causes and ways to stop this nonsense. The causes didn't fit my perception of my life, but the quick cure of bearing down and trying to blow my nose while I held it closed didn't stop the annoyance.

I went to the school, thinking that movement might help. I took a power walk across the campus (another suggestion for stopping heart palpitations). The local paper was scheduled to come into my classroom that day, and I wanted this annoying feeling in my chest to stop so that I could focus on what needed to get done. I spent time in my office doing deep-breathing; one theory I had was that I was over-reacting to something subconsciously and that I needed to breath my way through the stress. I moved myself into the program office to sit quietly in the presence of the program assistant to help get myself out of my own head. That didn't work either.

I knew it was time to get some help when I could barely focus as I wrote on the board in preparation for class to begin. There were still no other definable symptoms beyond the heart racing that would ramp up then slow down, except now my heart beat was visible from the outside; when it started pumping hard again, I could see my chest moving with each beat; I looked like a cartoon character whose heart tries to beat out of his chest as a pretty woman walks by. I chose to ask advice from two colleagues. I think I said, "I am having heart palpitations and they won't stop." One woman offered to step into my class for me, and did almost immediately. The other sat with me while I called an advice nurse, then drove me to the doctor's office.

Through all of this I was really most frightened by the idea of having to cancel my classes. I didn't like the idea of having to go to the doctor (or have someone drive me), have a fuss made over me, make my students worry, or have my evening students show up to school for nothing. I found the entire scenario annoying, something that I vocalized to anyone who asked how I was feeling. Later in the doctor's office I had two short bouts of dizziness and experienced a little shortness of breath.

When I was first hooked up to an EKG machine, it only registered a faster than normal heartbeat, not the racing I had been experiencing. I mentioned this to the nurse; she had me sit up and lay back down. Sure enough, my heart took off racing again, and she was able to get a reading to show the doctor. The doctor showed it to a colleague who suggested I go to the ER.

A bit of comedy ensued between the decision to send me to the hospital and the actual arrival of the ambulance. First a nurse came into the exam room with an EKG machine and told me to take my blouse and bra off, then put on the top-only paper gown so she could hook me up to the machine. Then another nurse came in and said I didn’t need to be undressed, so I put my clothes back on. Then another body entered the tiny room and said I needed to be undressed up top. Ultimately they found a way to let me keep my clothes on and still attach wires to my chest, but each time a new medical personnel would walk into the room their reaction to me was of confusion. They had heard what my heart was doing so they expected to see a pale, ill looking woman. Not me. I was sitting up, making conversation, laughing and talking about feeling annoyed. They looked quizzically from me to the monitor and back. The readings were not good, yet I seemed to feel okay. When my heart would ramp up for another race, I would close my eyes and take long slow deep breaths until I felt my heart reset itself. Mind you, it didn’t reset back to sinus rhythm, but back down to 140 beats per minute. My normal resting heart rate is 68-72 beats per minute.

The ambulance was manned by two lovely young guys who weren’t the least bit hard on the eyes. In fact, once I was strapped down to their gurney (giggle), my heart never returned to the uber-high rate again; it remained annoyingly high, but not dangerously so. The individual who sat in the back with me answered many of my questions about potential causes (hypo-thyroid, hyper-thyroid, anemia) and long-term fixes (ablation). The doctor and paramedics agreed that the heart-rate was not dangerous, but the possibility of developing a blood clot after 24 hours of this and the clot leading to a stroke was a concern.

We rolled into the ER at 4:10 which was quite a shock given that I had left work just after 1pm. It would seem that time goes by much faster for the patient than the waiting family. I can’t honestly say that I was a difficult patient, but I made it very clear to the doctors who treated me that I was annoyed and wanted to return to work. They, in turn, made it very clear to me that I would not be stepping foot on either campus again until the following week.

Apparently while I was off work my colleagues diagnosed me as being overly stressed, but the doctor who oversaw my care in the Cardiac Care Unit (I was in the same area as ICU patients; how annoying!) was adamant that stress was not the cause. My own GP seems to believe that stress added to the issues and the cardiologist I saw this week explained that they could find no organic reason for the sudden onset of Atrial Fibrillation, so they have to assume that it will come back, and yes, I need to reduce my stress levels.

In the ER, I was given three IV doses of a beta-blocker to help my heart return to a normal beat. When that didn’t work, they gave me an oral dose. A few hours later my heart reset itself to sinus rhythm and has been there ever since. Blood tests and an echocardiogram were run the following day before I was sent home. Ultimately no cause was found.

So now I am taking a daily dose of aspirin and a damned beta-blocker. I am too young and healthy for this. Side effects include dizziness, digestive problems, low heart rate and depression. And annoyance. I have given up all coffee, sweets and cut alcohol consumption down to one glass, two times per week. I increased my exercise regime from 4 days per week to 7. I had already reduced my workload for fall; instead of teaching 110-130% between two schools, I am teaching 89% and am taking it down to 75% in spring.

Both my GP and my cardiologist are willing to let me try going off the med (properly supervised of course) in about six months time, so long as I have no other episodes and the lifestyle changes I have made have some time to take effect.

Until then I will likely remain quite annoyed.

How long has it been, exactly?

I purchased a new computer sometime in the last few months (notice that I don't remember when).

I have been slowly integrating passwords and frequently used urls into the new system and browser so that my regular online movements are usual for the new software/hardware. Apparently time passed much more quickly than I realized, because when I decided to visit this blog, my computer responded in a fairly ignorant way. It not only didn't recognize the first words of my blog url, it didn't automatically take me to my space in space.

Is it really the new computer's fault that I was temporarily lost on the Information Highway? Not at all. It is all on me.

Looking back, I notice that there is more than one post relating to balance. Balancing my various lives has proven to be challenging, and a consistent theme in my life.

I am finally beginning to see that the problem with balance is directly related to over-scheduling, and not to a lack of work on my part. I have set myself up for too much work and too little time. I spend my semesters planning and grading and commuting, so much so that I spend my short breaks attempting to reconnect with my loved ones, and then I plunge headlong back into an overwhelming schedule.

Can I change this pattern? Perhaps.

I have made some very conscience decisions about my schedule for this fall. I made them part-way through an overloaded summer. Are the planned changes enough? I don't know yet.

The proof, I suppose, will appear, or not, in future blog postings.

Checking Out the Other Side of Town

Lately I have been exploring another side of town. I'm not referring to East or West Petaluma, but the non-auto paths that have grown up here in the last dozen or so years.

I have driven on nearly every road in this town. Other than a few missing toddler months and most of the years between my eighteenth and twenty-eight birthdays, I have always lived in Petaluma, so I have been to most streets and most neighborhoods at one time or another.

But these paths are from a different side of town. The side of town that isn't noticeable unless you are on foot, the side of town that I normally ignore when I am driving around looking for a new address or a garage sale. They are marked by greenery, the trees, shrubs, grasses, flowers. And they are beautiful!

The local bicycle committee has been working with the city planners to create and lengthen these paths that connect the two (often rival) parts of town. There is more to be done, but eventually several parts of the city will be connected by paths built exclusively for walking and biking. I’m usually quite critical sharing the road with bicyclists, solely because that particular set of drivers doesn’t share well. One if 25 bikes will obey the local stop signs and lights when we meet at an intersection. This creates dangerous situations for them that it seems motorists like myself are blamed for. But on these paths, the bikers are far more considerate. Some call out from behind in plenty of time before passing by; others simply try to ride around without startling anyone. I don’t mind sharing this side of town at all.

I can walk from the farthest edge of town to my neighborhood with only an occasional foray onto paved streets. I can walk by creeks and parks, over bridges, through gardens, under redwood trees, next to rose bushes, blackberry bushes and buckeye trees.

Recently I came across a man dressed in red, white and blue, digging in the dirt just off the path. He had witnessed a squirrel being hit by a car and had opted to bury the poor thing instead of leaving it out for the elements and other passing cars to destroy. It was a nice gesture; a bit creepy, but nice nonetheless.

This other side of town is a quieter place to visit. I can walk as briskly or slowly as I please. I am only pushed by my want of exercise or pulled back by my fatigue. It is a part of life that is easy to forget exists. Walking in my own neighborhood, I get caught up in perceived necessities: cooking, cleaning, grading, and organizing. Walking my dogs in the neighborhood or downtown, on the sidewalks as cars move past, feels much more manic. It is a feeling of mania that I couldn’t see clearly until I was away from it.

Right now I only walk on the path, me and my dogs and occasionally my husband. It is my time to meditate and nurture my body, and of course exercise my dogs. But it might someday become my own bike path to work, a way to gear up and wind down. I'm hoping to be a regular visitor to the other side of town.

Come on in 2013, nice to see you

Twenty-thirteen is my year. Yep, all mine, all about me.

This is no arbitrary, end-of-the-year-hopeful-resolution-filled thought. There is some real logic at work here.

To begin with, my favorite number, or more accurately my lucky number, is 13. I have had many, many lucky Fridays that took place on 13th of the month. Even at the end of a really bad week, if that Friday is a 13th, all the bad stuff falls away and I am left with calm and better luck. Often the one parking spot that is available, and clearly left for me, is numbered 13, and when I return to my car it is always unscathed and un-ticketed. The very few times I have played Keno and won, there was a number thirteen involved. It only follows that an entire year devoted to my lucky number means that the year will be bring me much luck.

Additionally: I have a new writing project that I am excited about, and that I seem to be able to work on. I conceived of the idea on 12/19 and have written over 2100 words thus far. Considering how very, very blocked I have been creatively, this is a fabulous sign.

Even more: Prop 30 passed in California this year. One of the results is an easing, of sorts, in my chosen profession. One of the schools that I am most anxious to work for has a full-time, tenure track opening. And the campus is only 10 minutes (in traffic) from my house. I am quite qualified, and despite the competition (and there is a great deal), this is my year so my shot is better than in the past.

Ever the realist, I expect that while 2013 will follow-through on its promise, 2014 and possibly 2015, will likely be challenging. I am quite ready for the challenges; having lived through some awful stuff (like 2007, the year everyone died), I know I can get through the next round of crap intact and stronger.

I will greet 2013 much the same way that I have greeted the last several years, in front of a fire pit burning in the new and out the old. This year's flames hold great promise.

Twenty Years

My Gram died on December 19, 1992. Last night we gathered to honor the woman who raised me. She has been gone for twenty years, and in getting ready for the evening I realized how much of her is still with us.

We recreated some of the foods she used to make at the holidays: Sandwich Loaf, Shrimp Cocktail, Stuffed Eggs and Potato Caramel Cake. It wouldn't be a celebration without highballs and Korbel Brandy. About a dozen family members gathered to eat and drink and share space with memories of her.

Her teddy bear and baby doll were on display as well as pictures of her as a very young girl, her wedding photo and several snapshots from various gatherings. A few afghans and potholders, a baby blanket and a needlepoint picture were all around us as is a portion of her spoon collection. The highlight of the evening were her opera dresses.

Beginning in 1967, Gram and Sonny had season tickets to the San Francisco Opera. Each year for ten years, she made one gown to wear on their first night of the season. We put three on dress forms, I wore one, and few other pieces were hung around the house.

The pictures don't do these pieces justice. The black crocheted dress has pearls embedded throughout; another has sequins. Each was a work of art. The hours and hours of work, the absolute attention to the most minute details and her ability to create are truly awe-inspiring.

My husband pointed out that he has spent most of his adult life surrounded by Gram's handiwork, but until the dresses were out, he didn't realize how talented she was. Afghans and potholders are crafts; her dresses are truly art. They are machine quality; each stitch is perfect and exactly like the one before and after. It had not occurred to him that people could create that caliber of work by hand.

I spent a few weeks thinking about what to put out, and a few days gathering items from various parts of the house to display. This morning I thought of several more that I could have included. Gram is everywhere.

I have struggled to write about her. One of the pieces of advice that I was given when she died was to use writing as an outlet for my grief. It was really good advice, but not some that I could follow. I have written about many parts of my life since them, but none has done more than mention my grandmother.

I was waiting for the blessing of distance from the grief. But now the grief has become part of me, as all grief eventually does. I realize now that I live with Gram everyday.

We use her potholders; I pass one needlepoint picture multiple times a day. I am sitting on her favorite living room chair as I write this, her couch is on my left. Her china closets, sewing table, knick-knack table and coffee table are within easy reach. I sit on her dining room chairs to eat dinner. When she died I was living in the house she raised me in. I am wearing her favorite earrings, and I often wear her amethyst ring. At least one painting in my house hung on her wall. Two sweaters that she made, that I will likely never wear, hang in my closet. Hand-me down knick-knacks are all around. And of course, I still hear her voice in my head.

She has been physically present since her death, yet it took me twenty years to see it. I was waiting for perspective; looking back waiting for the haze of tears and grief to clear before I could write about her. I have been looking in the distance for something that is much closer. It's no wonder I haven't been able to focus on a moment of a feeling, I have been looking too far beyond the obvious. I have been straining to see in the distance that which is close at hand.

Waiting

Fiscal crisis are the norm all around the country. In California those of us who work in education are anticipating the results of a ballot measure on the November election. For many of us, I would guess that the passage or non-passage of this particular proposition is nearly as important as the presidential race.

If the measure passes, the community colleges will be able to avoid cutting more classes. If it does not pass, the cuts will be devastating to the education of thousands and thousands of students. The reduced class offerings also means layoffs for faculty and staff: a lot of unemployment.

The signs of waiting vary. One school has created two different schedules for spring classes. I haven't heard the particulars yet, but it would seem that we will be given tentative schedules with the understanding that big changes may occur after the election; in other words our classes come with fewer guarantees than usual. Usually we know before mid-October what we are teaching in January so that we have plenty of time to plan and order books, etc. For adjunct instructors, the possibility of a class being cut or taken over by a full-time faculty member is always a possibility until 2 weeks into the semester. Although historically this a rare occurrence, without passage of this tax measure, we could order our books and begin planning in earnest only to find out that no books or syllabi will be needed.

Perhaps the most telling sign of waiting is the types of job openings at this level. There are small surges in schools advertising for adjunct positions. So far there are no postings for full-time positions. None. Even the adjunct positions are vague about start dates and often include language like, "as needed."

I wonder if the measure passes if the collective release of breath will stoke the embers of dying hiring committees enough that a sudden surplus of full time openings will become available. I can actually imagine the hiring frenzy once departments all over the state have the ability to loosen their fiscal belts enough to take in full breaths. Once the oxygen flows to the collective brain power will they begin to fill the void left by retirements, cuts and natural attrition?

From one fiscal point of view, hiring part-time employees is far less expensive than full-time tenure track. We earn considerably less per hour, often contribute, unpaid, to committees and have access to fewer, if any, benefits. We are not required to work unpaid, but many of us attempt to step into the void left by hiring freezes and staffing cuts because we genuinely want to help our colleagues and our students. If we are hoping for full-time work down the road, the committee work looks great on a resume.

The other, more realistic but less discussed, fiscal perspective is that without dedicated, full-time employees completing the work of the college, a great deal of work left undone has negative effects on students. This is as true at the staff level as at the faculty level. Lost or unseen information creates an often unpredictable, and always negative, impact. Losing any students within the system is harmful, for the student and the college.

The landscape of higher education is in the midst of a mutant evolution. Evolution occurs as a response to a change, a mutation. The financial needs of colleges are changing as the funding mechanism changes. California can no longer guarantee open access to higher education; that legacy is about to be taken off life support. One result of the fiscal changes at the community college level is a shift in priority towards students who are focused on specific goals: vocational training, graduation and transfer. The local community college will no longer be the place to go when you want art, jewelry making, dance or exercise classes; personal enrichment and lifelong learning will no longer be viable or supported goals. If you can't make up your mind what to major in, you better get out now. Too many units means you aren't able to register for classes because you clearly aren't goal oriented enough to be here.

Change is change, the colleges we know today are vastly different than what they were a few generations ago. Santa Rosa Junior College is called a junior college because at one time there was a distinct kind of school that needed that label. Ultimately the concept became obsolete and the community college became the new label to fill the new needs, a response to the changes. Community colleges now are shifting their focus from communities to students. The name, the label, may not change, but how the system caters to students is and will continue to change.

In the meantime we wait to see how those changes will play out. Wait for November. Wait for the election results. Wait to see which changes will occur and which will be left behind.

The Pain of Attack

This week I learned that I am the target of a formal complaint, my first, by a former student. This is an adult student; I teach at the community college level.

The attack seems to be aimed largely at who I am as a person; that my open and honest personality is being perceived as inappropriate and offensive. This despite the fact that I am honest from the first day of class about who I am and how I teach. This despite the fact that on more than one occasion I reacted to this student’s concerns about the way a particular subject was being handled in the classroom and immediately took steps to validate not only his viewpoint, but the potentiality that his viewpoint was silently shared by one or more classmates.

He was offended by the fact that I claim “fall in love” with my students, and so take steps to set boundaries. I ask students to address me by my title (Mrs. or Ms.) and last name, not my first name, the more generally accepted informal manner of instructors at this level. He was offended by the fact that when he expressed concern over subject matter and how it was handled in the book we were reading, that his classmates didn’t agree with his viewpoint. He felt that I allowed a disrespectful atmosphere to be created because they did not agree with him. When I then opted to allow students to forgo of a viewing of a video that someone who shared his viewpoint might find offensive, and at some point in that offer that I made eye contact with him, he was outraged. He left out the part that I made eye contact with most of the students hoping to let them know that they would not be penalized in any way if they weren’t interested in the video that was scheduled to play that day. He did, however, leave out the fact that I sought him out separately to further validate his feelings and thank him for bringing the subject up.

He was offended that he now knows that I was hurt as a child, although the specifics of offense were not discussed, and that I was abandoned by my parents. He was offended that I used humorous stories about my family to teach lessons on paragraph structure or literary character development.

He accused me of not being sensitive to different learning styles, while openly pointing out that I had used discussion, power point, writing and videos in my teaching. He feels that I need training in sexual harassment, sensitivity training and to learn more about teaching to different learning styles.

The kicker here is that he is a good student, not someone who blames me for a bad grade. He didn’t feel the class was academically rigorous enough. Of course it wasn’t; he really didn’t need the class academically, but the school requires it. He did learn, his writing did improve and he did earn a very high grade. I suppose in his mind, his view is made more valid by the fact that he earned a high grade.

It is difficult to react appropriately to a complaint about my personality and personal style. Initially I was concerned that if a student thought my personality was inappropriate, then I would be reprimanded by my superiors and potentially fired. When I first read the letter of complaint, I felt the need to apologize for the way I presented and supported the material. I’m not sure what is sadder: the fact that this student chose to attack me, or the fact that I felt the need to apologize for being me.

Last week two current students pulled me aside to speak privately. One thanked me for sharing my personal story about returning to school. She has been working for years towards transfer to a UC and when I spoke about graduating with my AA degree and walking in the ceremony a full year before I transferred to a four year university, she realized that she too needed the validation I spoke of. She is very grateful; she says that she is inspired by me and my story, and she has since shared my story with the people in her life. Another student, the same week, thanked me for sharing information about my dysfunctional family because she sees many similarities between her situation and mine; she feels connected to the course, more than she usually connects in school. That connection is likely going to help her succeed now and in the future.

So why does this one complaint bother me so much? I suppose it is because it dances dangerously close to the buttons that surround my abandonment and abuse issues. Reacting to pain as a child tended to lead a question by my parental units about what I had done wrong to provoke the hurt. The assumption seemed to be that I had done something wrong and deserved to be hurt, or that I brought the pain on myself. Being blamed for the wrong done to me seems to be a running theme from my childhood. I spent my entire childhood, and an oversized chunk of my adulthood, wondering what was so fundamentally wrong with me, something I was so blind to that I couldn’t change, that would cause my bio-parents to leave me, or other adults feel that they could assault me without consequence.

A colleague pointed out that intelligent people tend to try and understand what part of a difficult situation they actually own. I have gone over and over the time spent with this student in my head, but it seems that the only thing I could have changed that would have made this student happy was myself. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.