Just watch it. You have time. You'll have a way better weekend if you do.

When the little angel was a baby, we lived in This Old House. If you're new here, you may not know that This Old House was a beautiful Arts & Crafts with a screened-in porch in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City. It was built in 1921. It had push-button light switches that sometimes threw sparks, it was not ducted for air conditioning (making my home office nearly unbearable in the summer) and it had decorative metal grates with holes big enough to pass my fist through, lovely as they were.

While in the throes of postpartum something, I became convinced that snakes could climb up through from the leaky, Silence-of-the-Lambs basement through the ductwork and slither out the very large grate holes into my daughter's bedroom. Every time I looked at those grates, I had to push the thoughts away, but it was hard. It was so hard. These thoughts, I now know, are called intrusive thoughts, and they are closely associated with anxiety disorder, OCD, eating disorders, and psychosis. I still have them from time to time, but they are much lessened after medication and meditation and all manner of my managing-my-anxiety-disorder daily rituals.

I feel a kinship with Stephen King. Here is a man who must suffer, as I do, from intrusive thoughts.

I first read PET SEMETARY in high school, and then I thought it was a horror novel. I've been rereading it this week, and I now understand it is a book about grief. A parent's grief.

I got the ebook copy, and there is a foreward in this version written by King in 2000, in which he admits something very similar to what happened to Gage in the book happened to his own son (almost) when his own son was two. He wrote:

"But a part of my mind has never escaped from that gruesome what if: Suppose I hadn't caught him? Or suppose he had fallen in the middle of the road instead of on the edge of it? I think you can see why I found the book which rose out of these incidents so distressing. I simply took existing elements and threw in that one terrible what if. Put another way, I found myself not just thinking the unthinkable, but writing it down."

What would King have done with my grate snakes?

And what is a parent to do with the fear that comes of losing a child through any manner of preventable horrors? What would we do, what lengths would we be willing to go, if we thought we could (fix them) protect them from everything?

When my girl was two, a co-worker told me about a little girl he knew who swallowed a great deal of water while learning to swim and dry-drowned. I didn't know such a thing existed, and I immediately suffered a solid week of nightmares and became terrified of letting my daughter in the water, even as I was insisting she learn to swim. This week, she's at horse camp learning to walk and trot and canter, even bareback, and each night as I lie in bed next to her as she drifts off to sleep, my mind tries to send pictures of all the awful accidents that happen in barns, even though I myself owned a horse for three years in my childhood and took almost exclusive rights to the hard and personal care of him, picking his hooves and brushing him without tying him up and walking carefully around his back away from the hooves that could go misplaced even though that dear, sweet horse would never hurt anyone intentionally. As much as I loved my horse, and as much as I love to swim, I've never lost a healthy respect for either large animals or water, as my brain easily produces full-on, Scorcese-directed mind movies of all the horrible ways to die dealing with either. 

I've learned at 40 that the best way to deal with intrusive thoughts is to bat them away like horseflies. Letting them rest even a minute allows them to bite and gather until the only way to break free is to flail in the most embarrassing and overwrought way when I can't take it for one more minute. I've had minor breakdowns from my intrusive thoughts probably a dozen times over the course of my life, and it's never been pretty. I'm not proud of how I've turned my fear into anger and stabbed out at those around me. I'm trying to learn to handle them better. My intrusive thoughts are merely the worst possible course of what if, and a life well lived is a life spent in the now, breathing deeply and remembering that no matter what, I can get through it, and it probably won't even happen. I can't worry about the bad thing happening until it does. The ironic thing is that sometimes when the bad thing happens, it's a relief, because there's no more anticipation of the bad thing; there's only dealing with it.

I think that I can make these decisions, because I have to in order to manage my anxiety disorder. The truth, though, is that our subsconscious minds decide things, and then our frontal lobes take credit for them. A study done in 2000 found:

Participants in the study were asked to make a decision about whether they would use their left hand or their right hand to press a lever.  By using fMRI scans of the brain’s activity, the researchers knew the participant’s decision by analysing the activity in the frontopolar cortex of the brain.  This information about the participant’s decision was available up to seven seconds before the participant had “made” a conscious decision.  The researchers used the information from the scans, to predict with success, the 36 participant’s decisions before they had consciously made them!

What does that mean for someone with intrusive thoughts? What is really more frightening than imagining you've lost the ability to control your own mind? In PET SEMETARY, as Louis Creed drives to his son's grave to do you-know-what, he thinks:

"He supposed he had known that he would do that, but what harm? None."

Because, of course, subconsciously he'd already decided to hop on the Micmac Indian train and ride it to the end of the line.

Brain research is fascinating, but it also brings into question the moral compass, free will and how easy it would be to slip into distressing thought patterns. I know, in my rational mind, and I'm sure I knew then, that it would be really hard if not impossible for a snake to climb up two stories of slick ductwork, and quite frankly, if a snake wanted to eat my baby, all it would have to do is climb the stairs. Heaven knows the basement door didn't really shut. That my brain conjured this elaborate lie out of turn-of-the-century grates still amazes me.

But then it doesn't.

Writers observe things, details. Details make the story interesting. But they also lead to the what ifs, and sometimes those thoughts are better off dead. 

In preparing to write this post honoring my friend and activist/entrepreneur, Katherine Stone of Postpartum Progress, I searched my gmail, which has also archived my old hotmail account, to see when we first found each other. I dug up an email from Katherine dated April 15, 2009, which would've been a few weeks after my daughter's fifth birthday and about a year after I started getting help and taking medication for my anxiety disorder. Katherine wrote:

This Mother's Day - Sunday, May 10 -- Postpartum Progress will host its first annual Mother's Day Rally for Moms' Mental Health.  Each hour, on the hour, for 24 hours straight I will post a different "Letter to New Moms" written by survivors of and experts on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

That email signified just one of Katherine's countless efforts to make moms suffering from mental illness feel more normal. I did write that post, and Katherine and I have written for one another on the subject of maternal mental health again and again, knowing we can prop each other and even strangers up over the miles with our voices. 

The first time I remember clearly having a long conversation with Katherine in person was at Type A Mom in 2010. She was a little intimidating with her long, red hair and tall, lanky self and these totally adorable sparkly heels, which she later said her kids bought her. The kids and the shoes stuck, because it's important to remember even people who present as physically beautiful and loomingly tall and effortlessly stylish are people with insecurities and doubts. It's easy to meet people at blogging conferences and think they are perfect, but nobody is perfect, and everyone has her struggles. Katherine embodies that dichotomy for me.

Here is this person who looks completely pulled together but who is so willing to share her pain in order to make the rest of us sitting around in our yoga pants and flipflops feel human again. For that, Katherine, I salute you.

Last year, while covering the Olympics at BlogHer, I had to come up with a group of bloggers who fought for their dreams, and the very first person I thought of was Katherine, who said:

I always felt I needed to do something meaningful with my life but continually struggled to figure out what it was. Then I was struck with postpartum depression and I had this gut reaction – the kind that nags at you that you can only ignore for so long until you must act – that I needed to help other women. It's hard to imagine something so awful could lead you to your avocation, but it pushed me toward focusing my life on being a voice for suffering pregnant and new mothers.

It's been my great pleasure and honor to watch Katherine over the years blossom and grow and fight to become the owner of the most widely-read blog on PPD in the world. Thank you, Katherine, for all that you do. You are amazing. Congratulations on ten years at Postpartum Progress.

I felt silly going to the doctor. While I was in the ultrasound room, though, with the lady checking all along the big vein or artery or who knows what from my groin to my ankle and frowning and highlighting things and thumping my calf and listening to my pulse, my heart raced and I had to consciously breathe. So even though it will be a needless expense, maybe it wasn't a needless expense. 

In the end, this doctor trip was more for my anxiety disorder than my leg, though. No blood clot. Just #catastrophize.

I have, however, run 11 miles since the doctor, so there's that.

In mid-April, I ran a half-marathon. A few weeks later, I developed a stress fracture. Since then, I've been building back up from that. I had a boot for two weeks, then I got out of the boot and was only able to run a mile and that mile gave me pain, so I cut back to an even more conservative plan that had me building up from three cycles of 9 minutes walk/1 minute run to today's final six cycles of 5 minutes walk/5 minutes run. After a rest day tomorrow, I should be able to run three miles for the first time in more than a month on Friday. I want to get going again. I've signed up for another half-marathon in November. I'm tired of babying my feet.

Except now my calf hurts. And my friend and co-worker Diane just got diagnosed with a blood clot. And all I can think about is that this a blood clot, even though when I used my foam roller, my calf was ridiculously tight, and there's every reason to believe I've been overcompensating on that leg whether I realize it or not. And when I found a lump in my breast it hurt so bad the day before the mammogram and not at all the day I was cleared as "normal." And the lump in my leg throbbed until it came out and I discovered it was a harmless lipoma and no other lump in my leg (and there are many) hurts because I assume now they are all lipomas.

So I'm going to my doctor tomorrow morning to have what is in all liklihood a muscle sore from being really worked again after a month or so of lighter workouts checked out to make sure I'm not going to drop over dead. Because that is where my anxiety goes -- straight to dead. Rational? No. Logical? No. But if I let myself think about a blood clot for more than five minutes, my chest goes tight and I feel like I can't breathe, and then I wonder if it's a panic attack or a pulminary embolism from my blood clot that I probably don't have. And even if I do have one, Diane has one and is most certainly not dead, and I won't be dead, either, because I will take the medicine and everything will be fine.

So far, the tightness in my chest has not been a pulmonary embolism. It is totally anxiety, which can be a tremendous bitch.

But I'm going to the doctor, more for my anxiety disorder than for my calf. This is what I do now, at forty. I do not try to convince the anxiety disorder that things are no big deal. I just go get facts, and most of the time, things really are no big deal. But I no longer wait around to see if the cat throwing up means anything special or if the lump in my breast is a cyst or breast cancer. I just go and let a professional person tell me what is the what.

Then, on Friday, assuming there is no blood clot, I'm going to RUN.

YOU GUYS, I DID IT! I can hardly believe it. Click here if you want to read about it. This isn't really a running blog and I don't do timed splits or personal records or tempo run reviews. I mostly just try not to pee myself too bad while running. 

I used to see them, the slow runners. I used to think I could beat them up a hill. I used to think they were at the beginning of the run. So slow.

I've been training for a half marathon since last July. It began with me thinking I should just add a block each time. Then I realized to make it up some hills I needed to shorten my stride. A lot. An embarrassing lot. There were some days when I was working my way up a hill and understanding that I looked ridiculous but I was eleven miles in, and the short stride was the only way I was making it up the hill.

Sometimes we see people going slow and we think they're just starting, but really they are eleven miles in.

I've learned not to judge the short stride.

Since I last wrote, my formerly obstructed and now poor UTI-inflamed cat turned my basement into Shark Week. He came home on Friday night having peed on his own at the vet's after they removed the catheter. Yay.

Friday night: happy

Saturday morning: happy

Saturday mid-morning: straining and crying. And LICKING LICKING LICKING. The vet closed at noon, so we got there as fast as we could -- surrounded by at least eleven dogs of various sizes lunging at one another while their owners feigned ignorance. The vet said he was okay, because at the time, he was prancing around, hopping on things, acting fine. 

fine, for like five minutes

Until we got him home and the vet closed.

Before I put him in the basement, he peed blood in five different rooms. Then when he was in the basement, he just let loose like Jackson Pollack. I couldn't even be upset about that, though, because watching him cry broke my heart into itty bitty little pieces.

Sunday: more of the same

On Sunday afternoon, the little angel went out with a friend and I dragged my PARKER CLEAVES manuscript downstairs to the plastic-covered couch from 1998 and sat down with a blanket. Kizzy was in my lap before I could even arrange myself. He was like a baby who didn't feel well and just wanted to be held. He slept on my legs for three hours until I could barely move, my legs were so stiff. I just kept thinking what if this is the last time? Most people's heads probably wouldn't go there, but most people haven't had our backstory with cats. I remember realizing it was the last time with Petunia and Buttonsworth and Bella as their eyes got hazier and hazier.

Last night drug on forever. This morning, we got the girl on the bus and stuffed Kizzy in the cat carrier and went straight to the vet. We'd both promised each other we weren't going to pour money all over this if it wasn't going to improve, but when we got there and Kizzy had already peed blood all over the carrier and the blanket and then, inside the room, the table and the sink -- all while looking at us with eyes perfectly clear and intelligent and not dead-looking -- we just agreed when the vet said he wanted to keep him overnight. I begged for stronger antibiotics and painkillers, which he is getting. 

So there he is, again, spending another night in the cat hospital. This time there is no catheter, but there is pain medication and steroid antibiotic and more of the prescription C/D food he has started eating at home. The vet warned us he wouldn't go from totally inflamed to normal in twenty-four hours, and the fact that he's peeing at all is good.

I drove back home and walked inside and hoped Sunday afternoon wasn't my last cuddle. I've been trying to practice denial all day -- some people are so good at that, and I am just not -- but it's not really working. I'm glad he's still alive, but I'm worried about what happens if he doesn't respond to the new antibiotics. It's all I can think about in the back of my mind while my brain processes emails and story ideas and headlines in the front. 

I hope that wasn't the last time. I do really appreciate everyone who shared their stories here or on BlogHer -- hearing that this has happened to other cats around this age who then went on to live years longer is really encouraging. I hope Kizzy gets to join that club soon.

Though I had a cold, I was going strong on Monday. I did seven loads of laundry and accomplished a ton on my work to-do list. On Monday night, the little angel ended up in my bed coughing in my ear from 3-6 am. On Tuesday, her cold peaked, and I kept her home from school. On Tuesday night, I finished the second draft of PARKER CLEAVES despite the onset of a sinus headache. On Wednesday, I was sick but not too sick to go for a jog at lunchtime. I thought I might be able to ride out this cold like I have the last few.

On Wednesday night, I took a turn for the worse.

Yesterday was rotten. I worked from the couch. 

This morning, I got the little angel on the bus, emailed my co-workers, and went back to bed. 

My house is filthy. We didn't clean last weekend because of Thanksgiving travel, and then we put up the Christmas tree and scattered glitter and fake pine needles all over everything. Then Beloved went on a business trip on Monday and between being sick and being alone with a cat determined to knock everything off the counters and a kid trailing snotty kleenexes in her wake, I was in survival mode. 

Today, I'm having to admit defeat. I can't clean. I can't work out. I can barely function. I'm in my pajamas hammering away at my to-do list as best I can.

In the past, I might've forced myself to rally and do what I'd planned to do, anyway. That just keeps me sick longer, though. I really want to kick this cold and get on with my life. So I'm going to stay in my pajamas looking like death warmed over and move back to the couch and shut my eyes to the grime and the running shoes and the ironing piled on the dining room table. Sometimes taking care of yourself can be really hard to prioritize, but I'm really going to try, and then maybe next week I can take the world by storm.