Tough, and Tired

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

“How long has your leg been hurting?” the technician asked me.

“Years,” I told her.

“No, seriously,” she said.

“Yes, seriously. My calf for over ten years. My thigh for a few years now. The last couple of years really bad,” I said.

The technician continued walking down the hallway and didn’t ask any other questions.

I didn’t know how else to answer her. I wasn’t getting an MRI because of an isolated incident, like a sports injury or something along those lines. I was getting an MRI because the pain in my left leg is no longer limited to my calf. The pain now extends to my left thigh. 

If you follow me on Instagram (@wendykennar), you may remember I posted a picture from an MRI a little more than a month ago. That MRI only looked at my left calf and knee. Apparently, my calf looked okay (whatever that means), but my knee is in bad shape. 

The scan hadn’t looked at my thigh, though the pain was there as well. At my follow-up appointment, my rheumatologist did some strength tests on my thigh. She pressed and squeezed. Everything hurt, and the left thigh is definitely not as strong as the right. This, apparently, was the evidence she needed to order the MRI of my femur.

It’s not easy living with a chronic illness; a chronic illness that causes chronic pain. And it’s really not easy to advocate for myself. But that’s what I had to do in the form of several emails before the appointment with my doctor. I had to keep asking for this second MRI; after, of course, I politely expressed my displeasure that the first MRI hadn’t included my entire left leg. 

My pain has intensified and spread. I told my doctor I was experiencing more difficulty in my daily tasks —getting in and out of the car, climbing the stairs at home, making dinner. I was struggling just to make it through the day. 

I am taking more medication than ever before and not feeling any better.

I’m not one to complain. In fact, I have often been described as tough and stoic. But really, I don’t know how much longer I can put on the brave face. I hurt. And it’s utterly exhausting to hurt this much and not feel like anyone is doing anything to help me feel better.

And now all I can do is wait. Wait to see if the MRI provides us with any answers about why the pain has worsened and spread. If so, this might mean a change in my treatment plan. Or, as tends to happen with me and medical tests, results come back in that “okay-enough” gray area. And then we’re left with trying to make guesses about where we go from here and what we try next.

Going There

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I’ve had Katie Couric’s memoir, Going There, on my to-be-read shelf for quite a while. It’s a heavy hardcover book, though now a paperback version is available. 

I knew of Katie — her first husband’s premature death and her resulting advocacy on behalf of cancer and early screenings. I knew of her time on the morning show Today, and her historic role as the anchor of the CBS Evening News. 

The book goes there.

But it goes much deeper than what I already knew. 

It gives readers a chance to see things from another vantage point. What is it like to witness a historic event, 9/11 for instance, and then have to report on it while simultaneously trying to process the horror and make sure your loved ones are safe? 

Katie Couric goes there, too.

There are so many moving passages, so many “wow” scenes. But some of the parts that most touched me were somewhat unexpected.

“I called the reporter at the Washington Post who’d edited my father’s obituary. ‘I wanted to let you know my mom died, and I’d love to have an obituary for her,’ I said.
“‘Well what did she do?’ he asked. ‘Tell me about her.’
“The question caught me by surprise.
“‘She did everything,’ I replied. ‘Raised four kids, who all went on to be very successful people. She was the heart and soul of our family. She was ahead of her time, volunteering at Planned Parenthood. She worked at Lord and Taylor in the gift department; she arranged flowers for weddings.’
“I’ll never forget the sound of silence on the other end.
“That’s when it really hit me, how undervalued mothers are in our society, especially the full-time kind. I was incensed that somehow my mom’s accomplishments, her amazing life, were deemed not worth writing about.”

“When all is said and done, though, I am my mother’s daughter, becoming more like her by the minute: when I neatly peel a pear and present the girls with the tidy slices on a china plate, or when I fix them lunch and declare, ‘A sandwich always tastes better when someone else makes it for you.’ Or when one of my children feels slighted or wounded, and I rear up like a Kodiak bear on its hind legs, ready to maul whoever’s crossed her. My mom may be gone, but her essence is very much alive in me.”

“Sometimes I’ll post a video in Instagram of me showing off my garden’s bounty — makeup-free, bedhead, still in my pajamas.
“Once someone commented, ‘Wow, she got old.’
“And all I could think was Aren’t I lucky?”

“Everyone has a story. I encourage all of you to preserve yours so that it can be cherished by those you love for years — even generations— to come.”

Mochas, Candles, and Pain

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

What they saw?

A regular customer. The woman who always orders a small mocha — hot (if it’s cold outside) or blended (if it’s hot outside).

What they didn’t see?

Me, carefully holding my cafe mocha, slowly walking back to my car, thankful that my sunglasses covered my teary-eyes. 

Because I hurt. And because I was sad that I hurt this much. Again. 

I had woken up that morning after having a fitful night’s sleep, filled with strange dreams. 

I dreamed I was telling someone (not sure who, in my dream I didn’t actually see anyone else) that my husband and I met in high school (true) and were high school sweethearts (not true — we were classmates in the same English class junior year). I told this invisible person that my husband and I have been married twenty-three years (true).

I also dreamed that I was doing some physical therapy. I had to sit in some sort of chair and use my legs to push the chair back. But there was resistance, which made pushing the chair difficult. When I woke up, my legs felt like they had gone through a workout. And in the midst of all that, I saw a monster truck. (I told you — strange dreams.)

After taking my son to school, I went to Trader Joe’s. The benefit of going on a weekday, shortly after 8 am, is it’s a whole lot less crowded. Fewer people means shorter lines, but also less exposure to any germs (even though I continue to double mask when shopping). But the disadvantage of going to Trader Joe’s on a weekday, shortly after 8 am, is that I don’t have anyone to help me shop, or load the car, or bring the bags into the house, or put everything away.

Which means I was hurting and feeling kind of down and that’s when I decided to head to our neighborhood cafe and get a mocha to bring home while I wrote. 

The mocha didn’t lessen my pain. Neither did the scented candle I lit (Black Cherry Merlot from Bath and Body Works) or the flowers I had bought at Trader Joe’s. 

There’s really only so much I can do in terms of managing my pain. 

So in the absence of true relief, I try to pay attention to the “little things,” the things that bring me joy, or peace, or comfort. 

Readers, what “little things” bring you joy, peace, or comfort? 

Book Lovers

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Book Lovers by Emily Henry will always have a special place in my heart.

It’s the book I bought while on our family trip to Maui. I still have the receipt tucked away inside the front cover.

Plus, I had very much enjoyed Ms. Henry’s first two books, Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation. In fact, I was reading People We Meet on Vacation during our Maui trip.

But back to Book Lovers. There aren’t many books that I give a 5-star rating to on Goodreads, but this was one of them.

Here are just a few of my favorite passages:

“As different as we are, the second we start unpacking, it could not be more obvious that we’re cut from the same cloth: books, skin care products, and very fancy underwear. The Stephens Women Trifecta of Luxury, as passed down from Mom.
‘Some things never change,’ Libby sighs, a wistfully happy sound that folds over me like sunshine.
Mom’s theory was that youthful skin would make a woman more money (true in both acting and waitressing), good underwear would make her more confident (so far, so true), and good books would make her happy (universal truth), and we’ve clearly both packed with this theory in mind.”

“I sip my ice-cold drink and bask in the double-barreled serotonin coursing through me. Is there anything better than iced coffee and a bookstore on a sunny day? I mean, aside from hot coffee and a bookstore on a rainy day.”

“Libby and I used to joke that Freeman Books was our father. It helped raise us, made us feel safe, brought us little presents when we felt down. 
Daily life was unpredictable, but the bookstore was a constant.”

“As soon as the library’s automatic doors whoosh open, that delicious warm-paper smell folds around me like a hug, and my chest loosens a bit.” 

“This, I think, is what it is to dream, and I finally understand why Mom could never give it up, why my authors can’t give it up, and I’m happy for them, because this wanting, it feels good, like a bruise you need to press on, a reminder that there are things in life so valuable that you must risk the pain of losing them for the joy of briefly having them.”

Julie and Julia

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

A few days ago, I was blindsided by the news.

Julie Powell had passed away.

I admit — my knowledge about Ms. Powell was largely limited to what I had read in her memoir, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, and what I had seen in the movie adaptation starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. 

I remember leaving the movie theater with my husband, and trying to decide what to go eat. (There really is no choice —  after watching the movie, you have to go eat.) I also remember my husband telling me I should start a blog, too.

At that time, my husband knew I enjoyed writing. He knew I wanted to write more. But he also knew that between my teaching career and our young son, there wasn’t a whole lot of extra time left for my writing.

But, because he knows me so well, my husband also knew that if I had a deadline, a self-imposed assignment, I would do what I needed to do to complete my assignment. 

That was the start of my first blog. A blog I called “Wendy’s Weekly Words.” A blog I published on Wednesdays to keep the W-theme going. A blog that was all over the place in terms of what I wrote about. 

Still, it got me to prioritize my writing time which got me writing on a regular basis. It led me to my current blog; the blog you’re reading now, which exists on my own website. 

And it all started from a movie that only existed because of the book that came before it.

And that’s the full-circle of this — words have power. The power to lift and inspire and encourage. 

The power to see a story unfold on-screen and think, maybe I could do that too. 

Julie Powell’s story did that for me. 

Rest in peace. 

Writing Out the Storm

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

There are some people who see little value in re-reading a book. After all, the world is full of books. There will never be time to read them all.

I am not one of those people.

One of my most re-read books is Barbara Abercrombie’s Writing Out the Storm: Reading and Writing Your Way Through Serious Illness or Injury. (Barbara holds a special place in my heart. You can read my tribute post, For Barbara, by clicking here.) 

Inside my copy of the book, is a print-out of a short email exchange between Barbara and me. I had written Barbara, thanking her for writing the book, and letting her know it had helped me put my thoughts on paper. That email was dated 2012.

This paragraph is taken from the back of the book:

“This powerful and deeply inspirational handbook is for anyone coping with serious illness or injury — be it theirs or that of a loved one — who wants and needs to help themselves through the healing process. Offering her own experiences with breast cancer, as well as stories from other authors who have suffered from illnesses or severe injuries…”

Though I have read this book several times, highlighting passages, marking pages with sticky notes, each read feels like a slightly new read. Each time I turn to this book, I’m surprised when a passage sticks out, a passage that in all my other reads had never really stood out to me before. 

That’s because I’m different. The book doesn’t change. But I do. Each time I read this book, I am a slightly different version of myself. And each time I read this book, I find writing prompts and quotes that speak to me and serve as inspiration in my writing. 

This time around, these are just a few of the sentences that jumped out at me.

“Once you’ve heard the unthinkable, you know it’s possible to hear it again, or worse.”

“I’ve stopped fighting the diagnosis. I now fight the disease.”  

“I suppose it’s easy to be courageous when you don’t know you are doing so.”

Readers, I’m curious. Do you ever re-read books? Let me know in the comments. 

Love and Saffron

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

My latest fiction read was the delightful novel Love & Saffron: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love by Kim Fay. 

It wasn’t the food element that drew me in. I was intrigued by the setting — Los Angeles and Washington State in the 1960s.

I picked up this book because it is a story of female friendship. And most importantly, I picked up this book because it is a story told through letters. 

(Many of you may not know, but I have a pen pal who lives in Japan. We have been writing since 1993! While we do occasionally send an email, most of our communication happens through hand-written letters. Under my bedside table, I have a box where I keep all her letters.)

Here are just a few snippets from the novel to share with you:

“Los Angeles is such a varied place. There are foods from dozens of countries at our Grand Central Market alone, and there is a different country in every corner of the city. At the risk of sounding like a shill for the tourism board, Armenia, Italy, Poland, Portugal, India, Greece, you name it and you will certainly find it here.”  (This passage was taken from a letter dated September 30, 1963, but I think it is just as true for 2022.)

“Personally, I don’t enjoy the phone. It feels impersonal to me, which might sound strange since a voice in one’s ear is a cozy thing. But when I’m on the line, I can mend or play Solitaire, while with a letter I must pay close attention. There is unequaled satisfaction in composing words on a blank page, sealing them in an envelope, writing an address in my own messy hand, adding a stamp, walking it to the mailbox, and raising the flag. It’s like preparing a gift, and I feel like I receive one when a letter arrives — yours most of all.”

“I will treasure our midnight conversations, especially about our hidden selves. To think we are made up of so many different layers, and we may never meet all of them before the big sleep. I have been thinking about your comment, about how when we are very young we are so sure of who we are. I admit, there have been times when I longed to be fifteen again, confident that I knew absolutely everything about myself. But I prefer the viewpoint you have been pondering since Francis’s encounter with the saffron. The less we cement ourselves to our certainties, the fuller our lives can be.” 

Idiopathic

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Add idiopathic to the list.

The list of words doctors and nurses have used to define me and my health.

Idiopathic is a new one.I give the doctor bonus points for using a synonym, and one that is much more professional-sounding than the other words I usually get:

Weird.  (You can read a blog post from 2019 titled “Stop Calling Me Weird.”)

Unusual.

Mysterious.

Atypical.

Strange. (Click here to read my blog post from 2020 titled “Weird? Strange? No. It’s My Reality”)

Unique.

At last week’s appointment, the doctor told me the new symptom we were concerned about, the reason behind the additional lab tests, could very well wind up being idiopathic.

We’ll see. We’re waiting for additional lab results. 

And therein lies one of the great dilemmas I live with — do I want “something” to show up on a test? Something that might shed some light on why my body is behaving the way it is. A surefire sign that would explain why something is happening within my body and how we best go about treating it. 

Or, would I rather be told the tests were inconclusive? Indeterminate? Ambiguous? Unresolved?

Because I’ve heard those words, too. That just means nothing of red-flag magnitude showed up on my tests, which rules out quite a bit. However, it does not provide my doctors and me with any information about where we go from here. 

And therein lies the big conundrum in my life with a chronic illness. 

(Another word a doctor has used in the past.)

What We Carry

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

What We Carry: A Memoir by Maya Shanbhag Lang is one of those books that surprised me. I was not familiar with author Maya Shanbhag Lang, and I didn’t know much about the book other than the fact that it was a memoir, a story about a mother and a daughter.  

Now having recently completed the book, I realize my copy is full of sticky notes. 

How would I describe this book? 

With these adjectives — Touching, heartfelt, tender. Moving, affirming, empowering.

And by sharing these passages: 

“So it goes between us. Everything she does is for my benefit. This is what a mother’s love looks like to me. It looks like suffering.
“I accept it. I am about to become a mom three thousand miles away from her, in a gray, drizzly city that feels wholly unfamiliar. Soon, I will be the one putting my needs last. It helps to believe that somewhere in the world, I still come first.”

“It was a release to have her say what I could not. This was why I loved my mom, why I craved her audience, why only she would do. In life’s most difficult moments, there was no wall between us. She would never say, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ would never put herself on the other side of hardship. She came over to my side. She ached for me, felt for me. She received life’s blows on my behalf.”

“I took refuge in stories. Books transported me to farms and ships and castles. Even when bad things happened in novels, the events followed a certain logic. This comforted me.”

“Contemplating worse pain doesn’t lessen mine.”  (This sentence shouts at me from the page, because I have marked it with a neon yellow highlighter. While the author wrote this sentence in relation to the difficult relationship with her father, I find I need this reminder as it applies to my physical pain.)

“My assumptions of motherhood have been all wrong. I feared I was supposed to have all the answers. I didn’t know my daughter would help me find them. I worried she would be an obstacle to my dreams, not the reason I went after them. Zoe makes me want to be the best version of myself. That isn’t sacrifice. It’s inspiration.”

“It sounds like the worst time to weigh one’s desires, as a new parent, but maybe it’s the best, the most necessary. When tasked with caring for a human being, when asked to subsume one’s own needs, this is when we require a firmer grasp on ourselves. Rather than telling new moms to indulge, to do the frivolous activities women in movies do, we should say this: Find yourself. Gather yourself up before it is too late. You are at risk of getting buried. Maybe you’re already feeling buried. Do something that will solidify your sense of self, buttress your retaining walls. Don’t worry if it feels scary. It’s probably a good thing if it does. 
“Working on my novel for an hour or two restores me. I return home from the coffee shop feeling renewed.
“Perhaps this is what we should give new moms: A laptop and a cup of coffee. A notebook and a pen. Permission to dream.” 

“I thought this was going to be a dark and difficult time for my family, one of strain. It occurs to me that diamonds aren’t made voluntarily. What lump of coal would opt for so much time and pressure? It could be that what shapes us against our choosing is what makes us shine.”

“Alzheimer’s is devastating because it annihilates one’s story. It vacuums it up. Even the name feels greedy to me. What gets me is the apostrophe, that possessive little hook. It drags your loved one away from you. My mom no longer belongs to me. She belongs to her illness.”

Mr. Perfect on Paper

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

There aren’t many books written by an author who has earned a daytime Emmy, “and spent five years in rabbinical school before her chronic illness forced her to withdraw.” 

That author is Jean Meltzer.

(You might remember I raved about Ms. Meltzer’s first novel, The Matzah Ball, in a blog post from several months ago. Click here if you missed it.)

And as was the case in her first novel, Ms. Meltzer’s second book also features a main character who is a Jewish woman living with an invisible chronic illness. 

The book is Mr. Perfect on Paper. The character is Dara Rabinowtiz.  

Mr. Perfect on Paper was such an enjoyable read. Smart, funny, heartfelt. Plus, it gave readers a chance to learn about Jewish holidays in an easy-to-understand manner. Most of all, it gave us characters we cared about.

Here are a few of the passages I marked during my reading:

“He beamed as he entered, a bounce in his step, offering a hearty good morning to each person he passed. He was a champ at this. Faking it. Looking happy. Smiling through whatever pain was threatening to drown him.”

“There were days when Dara was so exhausted from her struggles that she could barely find the courage to get out of bed. It was then that her mother would show up, standing over her — and sometimes tearing off her covers — demanding that she fight. Fight, Dara. Her mother would repeat it like a mantra on her bad days. You’re allowed to be afraid, you’re allowed to be anxious, but you have to fight.” 

“There isn’t one way to be Jewish,” she said, finally. “Some people are very observant. Some people aren’t. Some people fall in the middle of the spectrum, or have different philosophies behind the reasons for their observance. Some people don’t do anything. When two Jews marry, they have to negotiate these religious choices. For example, will they keep a kosher home? Will they observe Shabbat? Will you cover your hair, or go to mikvah? Those are some of the big ones…”

“But,” Dara said thoughtfully, “you learn to live with it. The sadness never goes away. Maybe it never gets smaller, either. But after a time, you learn to hold both. You learn that joy still exists … there’s still laughter, and falling in love, and —“ she smiled, glancing down at the crumbs of her pizza “—there’s still jalapeño-and-pineapple pizza. You learn that good things still happen. You meet someone. You fall in love. Maybe you even get married. And when you walk down that aisle, you hold both. You hold the joy of the moment alongside your sadness for the one who can’t be there.” 

“But what I learned from this journey, from finding my real-life Mr. Perfect on Paper, is that love isn’t something that can be quantified on a list. Love is messy. And terrifying. It shows up when you least expect it, and complicates your life in every way. But it’s also … safe. And comforting. It allows you to be yourself completely, without judgment or fear, and it feels right. I don’t know how something so incredibly scary can also feel right, but I need to give this inkling in my heart —in my soul—a chance.”

“I know you think…because you have anxiety, that you’re not brave. But that’s not true. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, actually, and here’s what I want to tell you. Courage ins’t about jumping out of airplanes or building businesses from scratch. Real courage is showing up, even when you’re afraid. Real courage is putting yourself out there, even when you fail — especially when you fail. Courage is saying, this is who I am, standing up, allowing yourself to be vulnerable. And you are brave, Dara. You’re the bravest person I have ever met.”