I Have a Dream

I'm no Martin Luther King Jr., but I have a dream.

My dream came the night of the news that the California Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage.

In the dream, I was a minister officiating at the wedding ceremony of two 60-something men. Both were balding and had gray hair. The event took place in the rural Midwest, and their friends who attended the ceremony were decked out in full hunting gear.

I don't know the dream's reason for the guests' choice of attire, and I sure can't picture a real-life same-sex wedding taking place in the rural part of any U.S. state at this point in the development of civil rights, but dreams aren't always logical. It sure did feel holy and joyful, though, when I pronounced the loving couple married.

May my dream come true soon for same-sex couples in all 50 states.



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An Author's Humanity

Earlier today, I looked at the properties of a Word document—a book chapter—that I'm editing. In the Author line on the Summary tab, I expected to see the physician author's name, followed by his string of advanced degrees, as is usually the case with these kinds of files.

Instead, it read simply: Dad.

I love that. He must've written his chapter on his home computer while logged in under his identity rather than one of his children's identities. He's somebody's dad, someone whom I picture having experience taking tender care of a child who's special to him. It reminds me that he's not only an emergency-medicine expert who often holds patients' lives in his hands and whose writing has often been published, not only someone of high social stature. He's also someone whose work I need to treat with respect just because he's a regular person too, a person with feelings.



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China Quake and My Authors

The massive 7.9-magnitude earthquake in southwest China that killed at least 10,000 has me worried. China is home to 6 of the many authors for whom I do ESL (English as a second language) editing of the manuscripts that they want to submit to U.S. medical journals for publication.

I have e-mailed all of them expressing my concern and asking that they write back to tell me whether they and their family members and colleagues are okay. Their replies are starting to come in.

Baojun in Hebei (aka Hubei) writes:

It is indeed that our Chinese are suffering an very heavy situation. The earthquake happened in the 14:28 p.m., and at that time, we are working in the building. Our city is about nearly 1,000 km far from Wenchuan in the Sichuan Province, the center part of the earthquake. During the earthquake happens, we felt the building shaking, but it is not very terrible. It lasts for about 2 or 3 minutes. At that time, we all rushed out. Half an hour later, we returned to normal work, here in our city. We got the latest news that the death number is increasing; they mainly locates in south part of china. Our government are gaining all the Chinese's efforts to help the people in the center of the earthquake. I am heard that there are at least 10 medical rescue team and nearly 200 medical rescuers are sending to the earthquake center.

Ting-Ting in Shanghai writes:

The earthquake happened in the Sichuan Province, where is far from Shanghai, but some high buildings in Shanghai had some shake for several minutes. No any damages occured in Shanghai, while reported nearly 10,000 people died in the Sichuan Province. The damage and injury is believed more severe in the central site where the communication way had brokened.

I'm still waiting to hear from Hongliang and Ke-Rong in Shanghai, Yixin in Beijing, and Tak-Chuen in Honk Kong.


Updated 5/14/08 at 12:49 a.m.: If you would like to make a donation to assist survivors of the earthquake, you can do so by mailing a check to the American Red Cross, making sure to write China earthquake victims on the check's memo line. I spoke with a Red Cross representative yesterday by phone, and he said that it will be a few days before the agency can get set up for accepting donations made by credit card that are specifically intended for the earthquake victims. He asked that meanwhile, checks be mailed to this address:

MMMMMMAmerican Red Cross
MMMMMMP.O. Box 7089
MMMMMMWashington, D.C. 20090-7089



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Miracles Do Happen

This weekend, I have seen a miracle unfold, and it has filled my heart so much that I am overwhelmed with relief, happiness, and gratitude.

I've written here about my very bright 13-year-old son Neil, who has severe attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) and depression. I've also written that mine is the House of AD/HD, because I am now officially the sole person in this household with a current population of 6 people, 3 cats, and 1 dog who does not have AD/HD. (And we're not too sure about one of the cats.) AD/HD (not severe but the mild inattentive type) has recently been diagnosed in my 6-year-old, Jared.

The family joke has always been that Neil was born a cranky little old man. He's always been way too serious and very crabby and has never seemed to find much joy in life. Even the staff psychiatrists, in meeting with my husband Ed and me about Neil during Neil's hospitalization in the children's psychiatric unit of a local teaching hospital back when Neil was 8 years old for a reassessment of his diagnoses and medications, said, without being privy to our family joke, "Well, it's not psychiatric terminology, but Neil ... Neil was born a little old man." It's always been thought that his depression stems in part from anxiety. When he was in first grade years ago, his very experienced teacher told us that she thought that Neil would be the first first-grader she'd ever see have a heart attack, because he was extremely anxious when he and his classmates were asked, at the beginning of that school year, to walk over to a classmate and introduce themselves.

Late last week, Neil and I got into a ripsnorting argument. And in his anger and his upset, he finally blurted out what he's been holding in all of these years: Besides being depressed, he has always been anxious about just about everything. He constantly worried that "something bad" would happen to Ed or me or Jared or all three of us. He worried about his interactions with other students. He worried about his homework. The poor child was anxious about absolutely everything. And despite living in a family in which everyone talks about feelings in an effort to understand them, Neil has always kept his feelings inside. He thought that he was abnormal, he told us after the fight; he thought that not very many people have depression and that not many are anxious all the time. We were floored, because we're always talking about depression, for which I take medication, and other mental health disorders and their effects on people's lives. He apparently just couldn't get past his own feelings of shame and differentness to really have taken in what we'd always been saying. (Yes, Neil knows that I talk here about his achievements and his difficulties, and he says that that's okay with him.)

We got him in to see his therapist (the one who also monitors Ed's, Neil's, and Jared's AD/HD meds and my depression meds) on Friday after leaving a frantic call on her answering machine. Neil had come across to us as being so depressed that we were scared for his safety. (That poor boy, thinking that he had to handle this all by himself! Imagine how much worse it would be for him if he had parents who ridicule psychology and deny that there are such things as mental health problems.)

The therapist revised his diagnosis to generalized anxiety disorder and major depression (in addition, of course, to the AD/HD) and prescribed Lexapro, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). He started taking it this weekend and will be gradually increasing his dose of that and weaning himself off of the Wellbutrin that he's taken for a few years for his depression.

Lexapro is prescribed both for generalized anxiety disorder and depression, whereas Wellbutrin treats only depression. That the Lexapro works for Neil makes sense logically, because one of the reasons those with AD/HD can't control what they focus on is that their bodies don't use the natural neurotransmitter dopamine efficiently, so they don't get a reward of mildly good feelings for focusing and completing tasks, something that those of us without AD/HD do get. Though there is no antidepressant yet that works directly on helping the body handle its own dopamine better—and research has shown that a low level of dopamine is a big contributor to major depression—Lexapro (and some other SSRIs) help the body use its own serotonin, another neurotransmitter, better. And when the serotonin system is working well, that helps improve the function of the dopamine system.

Just since Saturday, since Neil began taking the lowest beginning dose of Lexapro, we have seen a huge change in him. The one of our sons who pretty much never smiles is smiling frequently—and genuinely, not just molding his face into a position that he knows it's supposed to be in occasionally to allow him pass as "normal."

What broke my heart is that this boy, whom I've wanted his whole life to hug much more often than he permits, sat down on my lap tonight and hugged me and let me hug him—for a good 15 minutes! He must have needed so much more touch from us for years than he ever got before now. It wasn't that we didn't offer it to him; he just couldn't bring himself to seek it out or to sit still for very long when it was offered. This boy is the little engine that could, continuing to chug along despite such a painful emotional life and despite all he's had to go through as we tried to find the ideal educational situation to accommodate his AD/HD.

I cried when I held him, both with joy and with a desire to go back in time and take away all of the pain that he has had to live through. That there is a medication out there—and someone who knows to prescribe it—that can allow my child to experience "everyday" happiness that the rest of us take for granted is truly a miracle. Parents aren't supposed to have favorites, but I know that in a way, I admire Neil's accomplishments more than his sister's or his brother's because he has always had to work so much harder for them. Neil has the intelligence and the potential to make some great contribution to the world as an adult. I have always felt that in my very body. When the obstetrician held baby Neil up so that I could see him right after he was born, I truly felt the earth shift on its axis, something that I did not experience with either his older sister's birth or his younger brother's birth. Now it is possible that he may actually enjoy it when he makes that contribution. And it is possible that he may also have a significant other and several friends around to share that enjoyment, because he will be a pleasure to be with.

God, I love that child!



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Another Side of the Family

My daughter, Becky, traveled out of state with her husband and daughter recently to see her father, my ex-husband, who will soon undergo kidney transplantation because he has polycystic kidney disease, which took the life of his sweet mother, Kate, nearly a year ago. Even though the visit was for a serious reason, it presented an opportunity for capturing some great photos, which Becky has shared with me:

My granddaughter, Ana, almost 1 year old	Ana meets her Great-Grandpa Don; she was given her middle name in memory of her Great-Grandma Kate
Four generations (left to right): Becky's Grandpa Don, Becky and Ana, and Becky's dad

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Mean Girls Among the Ligustrums

Blogging friend Imperatrix has posted about her favorite childhood imaginative play with her sister. That made me remember a drama that my own sister and I used to enjoy, one that eventually came to include playing a trick on our younger brother ... until he caught on.

My sister is 2 years younger than me, and our brother is 5 years younger than her. I don't remember how old we were when this drama was popular, but our brother was at least old enough to be able to handle a full-size (as opposed to toy) broom.

Our dad had built us girls a one-room playhouse in the backyard. We'd play Lost Girl, a drama of our own making, taking turns being the girl in question, with the other sister being the kind woman who lived in the [play]house in the imaginary woods. The story line invariably was that Lost Girl found herself without family because of some vague catastrophe, then wandered in the woods until she found Kind Woman's house. Kind Woman would take her in, and they'd have a wonderful life. (Yes, we were wishing for parents other than our own, but that's another story, a long, somber one for another time ... perhaps.)

One of the tasks of that life involved sweeping up the house. When our brother was old enough to play with us but still gullible, we'd let him be Lost Boy, sibling to Lost Girl. Kind Woman would send him out to hunt for food for the new little family, while Lost Girl helped around the house. Then when he returned with an imaginary catch, Lost Girl and Kind Woman would go outside of the house to prepare the dinner, and Kind Woman would request that Lost Boy sweep the floor.

Kind Woman and Lost Girl had plans other than food prep—nefarious plans—on their minds. They knew that the back wall of the house had been formed by placing two large sheets of plywood horizontally parallel to one another. Furthermore, they knew that there was a hairline gap between the two sheets. So while Lost Boy was sweeping inside the house, Kind Woman and Lost Girl picked waxy leaves from the long, towering row of ligustrums behind the house that camouflaged the chain-link fence on that side of the yard.

And then they did their evil deed: They fed those leaves, one by one, through the gap in the playhouse's back wall.

Lost Boy, being very young and gullible, couldn't figure out how those leaves were working their way through the back wall and onto the floor. He just kept sweeping, getting more and more aggravated, but he was determined to do his part to keep the house clean. I think that it took him a few reprises of Lost Girl to figure out the mystery. Lost Girl's and Kind Woman's eventual inability to stifle their giggles probably hastened his epiphany.

Amazingly, my brother is now one of my best friends, despite years of such suffering at the hands of my sister and me. ;-)



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Reading: Getting a Round Tuit

These books are in my stack of "just started" and "want to find time to get to":

• The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama



• The Bush Tragedy, by Jacob Weisberg



• Dreams of My Father, by Obama



• Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir, by Jennette Fulda, one of my favorite bloggers, found at Half of Me



• The Liar's Diary, by Patry Francis



• Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's, by John Elder Robison



• Open Your Heart with Gardens: Mastering Life through Love of Plants, by Carolyn Haley, a copyeditor colleague of mine



• The Scent of God, by Beryl Singleton Bissell



• Souvenir, by Therese Fowler (and copyedited by me)

Let's see now: I should get round tuits for all of these once my 13-year-old gets somewhat used to the hormone swings of adolescence, my 6-year-old gets older, my 1-year-old granddaughter stops charming my socks off, and my husband and I aren't both working 7 days a week, with me working for both his business and mine. ;-) Not that I'm complaining—it's all pretty darn invigorating! But I used to have more time for unpaid reading for pleasure and edification before I was self-employed.

What titles do you have lying around to read, and when do you think you'll get a round tuit?



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The Fat Lady Has Sung

At long last!

America has a presidential candidate who got there by being honest, by being intelligent and thinking for himself instead of being a puppet through whose mouth advisers speak, and by not stooping to play dirty politics. (Has Barack Obama brought up Monica Lewinsky and the likelihood that Bill Clinton, who, by many accounts, is still an unfaithful husband, will be a loose cannon and a liability? No, but Hillary Clinton has—go figure.)





Rock on, Obama!



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