Bumper Sticker

Battlefield

Imagine looking out the window I looked in to take this photo. Gazing across the valleys and low hills of your farm, you see your corn fields being destroyed by 25,000 swarming men and boys in blue and gray, shooting muskets and rifles. Dead bodies and dying moans are obscured by the smoke and blasts of a dozen canons. One prominent rise is so drenched with the former contents of the mens' veins, it will be permanently renamed Bloody Hill.

Today, in 2010, the farm is as beautiful and peaceful as the day before that horrid scene, the first Civil War battle in the "the west," and, at the time, second only to the battle of Bunker Hill in casualties. The house still sits, 150 years later, simple, bright, cheerful, reflective.

Footnote: Where I come from (Virginia), Civil War battles were named after the locations: Appomattox Courthouse, Beaver Dam Creek, Fredericksburg. It's the other way around in Missouri. The city of Battlefield is named after this battle at nearby Wilson's Creek.

Deer Hit Special

I've been meaning to share this one for a while...During my time in Michigan this past summer, I frequently drove past an auto body shop with a unique offer. Note the "Deer in the headlights" in the bottom right corner of the sign!

Home, Sweet Someone Else's Home

My mother used to joke that when she got too old to live by herself, she would visit each of her four children for three months each year. At the end of three months, they'd be so tired of her, they'd pay her airfare to the home of the next child. At the end of a year, it would be time to return to the first child's home.

That pretty well describes my life since returning to the U.S. I arrived in March and stayed with my brother in Michigan for three months undergoing diagnosis at the University of Michigan Hospitals. In June, I transferred to Virginia and stayed with colleagues at my home church for another three months. Next I moved in with friends I've known since high school. Now I'm in Missouri for three weeks visiting a couple I grew close to while in Senegal (and whose daughter was one of my most delightful high school English students).

I'm very grateful for all this hospitality, and I'm thoroughly enjoying spending extended time with all these folks. In fact, I'd like to visit more family and friends, but it takes so long for me to recover from the exertion of travel that it's not practical at this point.

For now, I lull myself to sleep by repeating, "There's no place like someone else's home. There's no place like someone else's home. . . ."

Where Do I Begin?

With a 20-month lag since my last post, it's hard to know where to begin with this one. I'll take my cue from the King of Hearts, who gravely told the White Rabbit, "Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop." The salient beginning, in this case, was 15 months ago. As far as I am able, I'll keep the explanation uncharacteristically brief.

IN THE BEGINNING: In June, 2009, I underwent surgery on my esophagus, stomach, and gallbladder (the latter was removed). In what seemed at first to be an after-effect of the surgery, I began having frequent digestive attacks leading to considerable weight loss. I waited patiently for the attacks to fade (I was not unhappy to be losing weight), but they persisted until, after six months, I had lost 50 pounds, which even I admitted was too much. Then the vertigo began (weekly episodes of hours-long, literally sickening, room spinning), interspersed with a series of "visual anomalies" that I would later learn to call hallucinations (though not delusions--I knew they weren't real even while they occurred), plus short-term memory loss, extreme, variable hearing loss in my right ear, and other troubling symptoms.

I should point out that much of the time I felt fairly well, and was generally functional. But the various episodes grew more frequent, were completely unpredictable, and forced me to cancel classes again and again. It simply was not a workable work life. When I was referred for neurological evaluation, I decided to leave Dakar and return to the States for diagnosis.

MEDICAL LEAVE: On March 12, 2010, I flew to the States for a 3-week spring break that would become a 3-month medical leave and, finally, a year-long teaching furlough. Several months of testing led to the elimination of many concerns, including cancer, tropical disease, auto-immune issues (celiac, AIDS, etc.), and just about everything else anyone could think of.

AS OF NOW: I've been diagnosed with (1) Meniere's Disease, a little-understood inner-ear problem accounting for vertigo, variable hearing loss, and tinitis (ringing in the ears). Many other symptoms appear to be (2) stress-related, some of them apparently qualifying as panic attacks. In addition, I was recently diagnosed with (3) apnea and other sleep problems (I've been averaging 12-14 hours of sleep per day to get enough rest). After less than a week of treatment, I already notice a difference in my sleep patterns, thought it's too early to tell how much this will affect my overall health. Finally, in the past three weeks, I've had occasional new visual symptoms that (4) may be signs of a painless type of migraine.

GET WELL SOON: Though I want and try to accomplish other things, people keep reminding me that my main goal, my "job" really at this point, is to get well. Currently, that means getting lots of rest, and identifying and addressing stressors. It's been a one-step-forward, two-steps-backward process, with results too inconsistent to permit me to work. Though my weight has stabilized at a satisfyingly svelte 150 pounds, my stamina remains low and unpredictable, and I continue to have occasional activity-halting episodes of one kind or another without warning.

THERE YOU HAVE IT: My version of "uncharacteristically brief."