A New Season

We’re just two days shy of the third anniversary of Governor Kulongoski’s announcement (on November 13, 2003) that he was asking for the resignations of several members of the Oregon State Board of Higher Education (OSBHE). Also part of his action was to express a desire that former Governor Neil Goldschmidt be appointed to the OSBHE and installed as its president.

That Fall day in 2003 was one that not only changed the lives of the Board members involved, but mine as well; as a staff person in the Oregon University System Chancellor’s Office, the OSBHE was my direct employer. On that fateful Thursday, I was attending the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education in Portland, and I heard the news, first, as a “rumor.” Somebody mentioned to me that the Governor had “fired the Board of Higher Ed,” which, of course, was unbelievable; no chief executive in our state had ever done such a thing since the department of higher education had been established in the late 1920s. I knew all of the Board members quite well, and there had been absolutely no behavior on their part that could, or should, have led to such a wholesale action by the Governor. The Board members were, all, dedicated public servants, doing the best job they could for higher education in the State.

However, as the course of the day wore on, the information became increasingly more clear. I went to my room in the Hilton late that afternoon, watched the early edition of the evening news on KGW, and discovered the rumor was actually fact. There were a couple of main topics with my dinner companions that night: speculation about what this action would mean for Oregon higher education, and a rather wild story about a recent internet dating experience of mine. We entertained ourselves quite well over that meal, as I recall, with lively conversation on both topics.

Of course, the next few months brought about many changes for the higher education landscape here. New Board members were appointed, and the Governor got his wish by having Goldschmidt elected as the president. However, the Portland media broke the story, a mere few weeks later, that the former Governor had had a sexual relationship with a 14-year old girl during the time he had been mayor of Portland years ago. Amid huge headlines, he resigned in disgrace and Kulongoski himself assumed the role of Board president for a couple of months. The Oregon University System Chancellor resigned, after less than two years on the job, upon assessing the political environment and reading the handwriting on the wall regarding his future. The Board, at the direction of the Governor, started a process (billed as a study to examine the “structure and function” of the Chancellor’s Office) which ultimately resulted in the elimination of the Office of Academic Affairs (and the jobs of the Vice Chancellor and several staff, including me).

My life has really not been the same since that day in November 2003. I was thrown completely off-balance and have been struggling to regain it ever since. I have gone on countless interview trips, and had two “interim” positions at Oregon community colleges, of course, but have had neither predictability nor stability in my life. As the current calendar year begins to fade away, the new job search season begins again for me. I hope to secure a permanent position in higher education (somewhere!) by next June 30.

More Amazements

I’ve written previously about holding a 6-hour-old infant in my arms in January of 2004. I’d never experienced anything quite like that before. That little one is almost three years old now, and I had an opportunity to spend just a little bit more time around her yesterday. What a delightful person little Gracie is! Especially great were the hug and kiss I got when I departed her grandmother’s house. Wow.

Prime Time Wisdom

The popular TV show Grey’s Anatomy is filmed in Seattle, and maybe its Pacific Northwest roots are part of the appeal for me. (This season the show made a move to 9:00 p.m. on Thursdays, so it is on ABC an hour before ER airs at 10:00 p.m. on NBC; I tape them both and watch them on the weekend). Aside from its obvious (and frequent) quirkiness, the show has real and touching moments that occasionally tend to unearth some truths about life and relationships.
 
Last Thursday’s Sometimes a Fantasy really caught my attention. Most episodes are filled with several different story lines, with some, not uncommonly, continuing from week-to-week. And the story of Izzie’s loss resumed this time. She had fallen in love with a heart-transplant patient who had asked her to marry him. However, shortly after he popped the question (and after Izzie had made an ethically-questionable call about his care), he died. Izzie’s story was juxtaposed with one about Megan, a young girl who came to the emergency room with multiple injuries. Although she was bruised, beaten, scarred and had stapled a wound on her arm with an office stapler, she claimed to feel no pain. The ultimate diagnosis for her was “chronic insensitivity to pain.” (Who knew there was such a thing!?)

So, he we had: Megan, dramatically physically damaged, who claimed to “feel no pain.” And Izzie, who stood immobilized outside the hospital, unable to motivate herself to return to work, when asked where it hurt, said “everywhere .”

The array of possible human experiences always tends to amaze me. In this dramatization, one person feels immense, debilitating, chronic, paralyzing pain, and the other, none at all.

During the operation on Megan, the surgeon observes that “everybody wants a life without pain. What does it get you? She needs to be on a poster somewhere to remind people that pain’s there for a reason.”

I know, I know. This is a TV show. But the writing this week seemed incredibly good…and provided a degree of wisdom than one typically does not encounter during prime time.

Of course, these observations extend my previous commentaries. You know that I think about pain a lot ; and an episode of a medical drama focusing on the topic is bound to attract my attention and dwell in my thoughts. Six days ago, in an attempt to address my chronic myofascial pain issues (including my long-standing chronic lower-back pain), I allowed a doctor to inject me 19 times with small amounts of Marcaine in my first major attempt at trigger-point injection therapy. Although I experienced some short-term relief that day, by the evening I was back to “normal.” And, as my back pain has been the predominant factor in my existence the last couple weeks, I drove to Eugene to see my chiropractor on Friday.

If “pain’s there for a reason,” I ask, “what is it ?”

I struggle with this question.

More About Pain

A recent article in Time magazine addresses The Mystery of Pain. (Of course, we’re talking physical pain here, although, I believe, emotional and psychic wounds can lead to just as much distress as physical ailments do.) This piece was of interest to me because physical pain has been an ongoing nemesis in my life…for almost all my life. For the timespan of most of my twenties (about seven and a half years), for example, I experienced daily, often-times debilitating, headaches. And, it was during these years that I began to cope with periodic lower-back pain as well. I ultimately interpreted both of these physical conditions as reactions to the overwhelming stress in my life at the time, namely finding myself in a marriage that was the completely wrong place for me to be. When I left that relationship at about age 30, I was able to turn around the crippling nature of these physical conditions, get myself off the medication (Valium) I was using to cope, and make some progress in the areas of physical health and emotional growth. (The obvious smack-in-the-face exception is the fact that I moved directly from being addicted to Valium to a lifestyle of alcohol use and abuse, and that subsequently took a few more years to overcome.)

There have been some small portions of my life where I have lived relatively head- and back-ache free, but those times seem rather a dim memory. I continue to cope, the best I can, with daily pains in these parts of my body, and succeed pretty well most of the time. They have become, simply, conditions I have learned to live with.

But, I have aged. And I’ve not acquired the ability to get rid of chronic conditions, but, rather, seem to be an unwilling “collector.” I am not one of the people identified in the Time article who has a deteriorating body and is asymptomatic. Nope. When something is “off” with my system, I feel it, often times, it seems, with a higher degree of intensity when compared to others. I have recently written, for example, about my diagnosis of Chronic Myofascial Pain. This is a condition that dominates my awareness in terms of the feelings (or lack thereof) in my lower extremities all-day, every-day. I’ve apparently not yet made significant-enough progress in my learning curve about this condition, given that my attempts at self-treatment have yielded virtually no change. The bottom line is: I live with these chronic pain conditions everyday AND try to be as functional a human being I possibly can at the same time. I find this pretty challenging.

The writer for Time asks “why does the same problem hurt one person and not the next?” Good question! I often wonder this myself. He suggests that we consider three factors: the “pain-inflammation connection;” “neural blockades;” & “depression and hormones.” Although I’m sure that the inflammation connection is a large part of my physical stuff, the relationship of depression to pain, of course, intrigues me. That has to be part of my dynamic as well, given my propensity to perpetually struggle with my emotional health. I’m convinced, in fact, that if I could find the right something (drug? herb? sleep potion?) to help me with chronic depression, then these other ailments would not loom as large for me as they currently do.

The article concludes with the statement that “today pain remains a tantalizing mystery.” (Duh. You think?) For now, we are advised to “cheer up, pop an Advil, keep working, go to the gym, eat something and buy your spouse a present.”

Ohmygod. I certainly feel reassured about handling my pain now. Thanks, Time.

Hope

I have been posting entries here for nine months now. When I put together the first little note, last Thanksgiving Day, I wasn’t at all sure where I was going with this. I still don’t know that I’ve ever really defined a direction, but at this point, when I’m away for as much as five days now (the length of time since my last entry), I start getting a little antsy…thinking it’s about time to write something more. Besides: when that many days of living go by, a lot can happen. And, many things have happened in my life lately.

Some of the issues I talk about here come under the heading of random expressions of joy and angst. And, let’s be honest, in my writings I know I’ve focused more on angst than joy. But three days ago was my birthday, and though I was experiencing the usual self-reflection and anxiety about where I am at with my life (angst), there was some measure of joy as well. One of the best things to happen, mostly because it was so unexpected, was to receive a singing (“happy birthday to you”) phone call from friends in Portland. Although the day itself turned in to be one of my longest work days in a while, it was great to be remembered that morning.

I took the occasion of having a birthday, in tandem with working four-day weeks at the moment, to make an appointment with a doctor here for a check-up. I’ve written previously about the physical symptoms I’ve struggled with in recent months, speculating about such conditions as peripheral neuropathy and post-traumatic stress disorder. I know there’s a bunch of stuff going on with me physically that is not good. The stress I’ve endured the last two and a half years has taken a toll that I am aware of every single moment of every single day. And, the approaches I have used so far to address my symptoms have yielded only modest progress toward health. Through my chiropractor, I have used deep-tissue massage, ultra-sound, and chiropractic adjustment. I saw an acupuncturist for months, enduring the needles and moxibustion. I have continued on with the moxibustion approach myself, as well as frequent self-massaging of my legs. I take hot baths, and try to calm myself psychoacoustically. I read Pema Chödrön books and other spiritually-oriented tomes. And, I’ve just started reading Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping. With this last book, I’m attempting to get a handle on all the psycho-neuro-biological dimensions of the human experience and how stress has led to the physical symptoms I’m experiencing. The physician I was seeing in Portland was of no help in addressing my condition, although he agreed with my personal assessment of how I got to this point and provided some medication to help with my anxiety.

The first week I was at work here, I asked around for suggestions for local doctors. The second week I decided to make some calls. The first doctor had not taken new patients in five years, I was told. However, the receptionist for the second doctor took down some basic information and consulted with him. Yes, I was told, the doctor would see me.

My appointment was two days ago, the day after my birthday, at the end of my third week of work. I was nervous about pursuing this, but, at the same time, very pleased with myself that I was following through on my commitment to focus on getting healthy. This physician seemed to be quite perceptive about my condition, had a name for it, and expressed some confidence that we could find an appropriate treatment. This was incredible news! It’s his view that I am suffering from Chronic Myofascial Pain, which explains the ongoing weirdness happening in my extremities, especially my left leg and foot. Although I’ve got blood work ordered to rule out other possible causes, what I’ve learned about this condition so far is indeed a fit with the symptoms I’ve been dealing with. I’ve already purchased a “survival manual” for suffers of this condition.

After all the hopelessness I’ve felt having endured this condition for over 15 months, I’m now hopeful that I can actually, eventually, heal myself. Hope, especially around the time of my birthday, is quite-unexpected. (But wonderful: don't get me wrong!)

To round out this report of recent developments, I’ll mention that I attended the University of Oregonsummer commencement ceremony yesterday morning, as Beccalynn (Katrina’s daughter and Bryan and Tamson’s sister) is within a few credits of finishing her degree and decided to participate in graduation at this point. It was a beautiful day and I was delighted to be on hand for another rite-of-passage occasion. I’ve known Beccalynn since her late adolescence, and to see her now, married, the mother-of-two, and a college graduate, is another sign of hope for the future.

Wow.