Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

It's just an ad, not a taunt

I swear, this ad pops up on every page I visit. Ok, I can see it on the sports section...sports fans are outdoorsy. And people who check the weather do so because they are going outside, maybe?

I'm sure it has nothing with my Goggling "solitary cabin no people" as if Googling makes wishes come true.

Snakeheads keep coming back

I will, too. Eventually.

Life is, anyway

Life is good.
Life is good.
Life is good.

I'm standing in the "Life is Good" section of the card store when my phone beeps. I flip it open to read the text message from my sister:

Hoss was sobbing when I left just now that he wants to go home. This seriously sucks.

My sister and I, we've laughed at every funeral we have ever attended. I have no doubt that if one of us were in the psychiatric hospital, the other would be making completely inappropriate jokes and we would both be laughing.

I can't think of a way to make her laugh right now.

I'm looking for cards for my nephew. I can't believe how specialized the card selection is, and I even take a picture of the guide tabs for "Menopause," "Divorce Announcement," and "Stay in School," all on the same rack.

Yeah, it's not that funny.

At the bookstore, I'm looking for Spongebob comics. When I check out, I do consider that I'm screwing with their "customers who like this" statistics. People who bought Understanding the Mind of Your Bipolar Child also bought Pro Cycling.

They also bought a hidden picture book, in hopes that it will distract the eight year old in the hospital, and a Bill Bryson book, because he's funny as hell, and maybe that will help the adult remember that life can be good.

Too terrible

Several years ago I had to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test as part of a job application. I'd never heard of it before, and most of the true-false statements had me saying "What the hell...?"

The one I really remember still is I sometimes have thoughts too terrible to tell.

As soon as I read it, twenty untellable thoughts came to mind, but I wasn't sure if I should admit that, and also, who was the judge of too terrible? I'm pretty sure I said false, and I got the job, so I suppose I passed the test. Years later I met a psych major who told me that the point of the MMPI wasn't to see if you answered correctly, it was to see if you answered sanely.

Anyway, this song isn't really about Alice or her restaurant.

The phrase thoughts too terrible to tell has stuck with me, and I have this mental image of a big metal box with clasps and a padlock, and that's where those thoughts get filed. And really, what's in there aren't necessarily my independent thoughts, but rather things I've seen and heard that I wish had never crossed the threshold of my brain.

And sometimes the terror is only in the context. If I'd read about severely emotionally disturbed kids and what their families go through a few years ago, I'd have thought, gee, that sucks, and moved along without considering the terrible thought file.

The last few weeks, I've been doing a lot of reading about mental illness in children, particularly bipolar disorder, and I'm not even bothering to close up the lid on the terrible thought files because I'm in there too often.

So my nephew, the eight-year-old second grader, the Wii master, hockey fan, math whiz who finds great humor in Spongebob Squarepants, was admitted to a psychiatric hospital last night.

My sister sounds less freaked than I do.

Now the longer I leave my box open and the more I dig through the files, I realize that we did not reach too terrible...but terrible enough from where I sit.

Please read this

My sister's blog.

You know how when you're a kid, you can beat the crap out of a younger sibling on a regular basis, but nobody else on the playground better try?

It's been killing me that I can't stand up to whatever this problem is that's affecting Hoss, because it's hurting him, my sister, and the rest of their family.

She's got it under more control that I can imagine, though. Not that I won't help wherever I can...but she doesn't need her big sister to fight her battles.

Alice's Restaurant

Back when I went to the doctor in August, I didn't go in thinking I had a thyroid tumor. I went in because I had a lump in my throat, and I often felt like I couldn't breathe.

After the surgery, I had this strangling/suffocating feeling, but I wrote that off as scar tissue and post-op weirdness.

I had a physical a couple weeks ago with the doctor that first found the thyroid mass, and I did mention to her that I must not be back to normal yet, because although I swallow better, I sill have chest tightness and throat constriction.

She suggested Prilosec.

Funny thing is, in August I thought I had gastrointestinal reflux or an ulcer or something. Perhaps I was right, and the plum-sized tumor was just a red herring.

I haven't been sure if the Prilosec is working...I'm falling asleep better most nights, but I'm still feeling a little short of breath. This morning I forgot to take the Prilosec, and after my so-irritating breakfast of an english muffin and cottage cheese, it felt like an elephant was standing on my chest.

I'm guessing that's a clue.

You know how Alice's Restaurant has a long story about Arlo getting arrested for littering, with Officer Obie and the 8x10 glossy photographs and the Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, but it's really about the draft?

I'm not here to talk about my ulcer medicine, I'm here to talk about my nephew.

He just turned eight. He's smart as a whip, engaging and funny, but for several years, he's had behavior problems in school.

At first, it looked like he was too smart and stubborn for preschool.

Then, maybe ADHD.

Then, maybe an anxiety disorder.

And you don't want to slide the bar all the way over to bipolar, but you can't say it won't turn out to be that in the end.

He has a counselor, a psychiatrist, concerned parents, and now that he's in public school, a bunch of teachers and administrators that have to try to help him (and mercifully, they seem to really want to.) I think they'll be adding a neurologist to the team soon, because even with the counseling and the medication and the other counseling and the other medication, something ain't right.

It's cool when a doctor can look at an ultrasound and say "hey, that's not supposed to be in there," and take it out. It's even cool when they say "take these pills for three months and see if you feel better," if you aren't feeling that bad in the first place.

It is so not cool to have no way of knowing what will help and what might make it worse besides trial and error, and that's what's happening with my nephew. I'm not blaming the doctors, that's the nature of the beast, but what a beast it is.

Yep, right around the corner, spring is