Blog My Mind

"Hi Jill, this is awkward, but according to Ancestry DNA, you may be my 1st cousin. I was born in Minnesota and I was adopted into the Carroll family as a baby in 1962. My name is Cathy Jones." A picture of her was on her Ancestry page and it was like looking at a photo of my mother. She and I both have mom's nose. Sorry, sis! There was no mistaking she was my sister. Before I took time to think, my fingers were flying across the keys replying to her message. "Oh boy. Um. yeah. So my mom lived in Minnesota and gave up a baby for adoption, I believe in 1962. I think we might be more than cousins!" I waited impatiently for a reply. They were the longest hours of my life. Did I scare her off? Was she freaked out at finding a sibling she didn't know existed? I had about 20 years to get used to the idea I had siblings out there. She had no idea. Meanwhile I waited for my dad to get home from his day of volunteer work clearing hiking trails. I paced his house as I...

Where to start? Which beginning? The very beginning in 1958? My first knowledge of it all around 2000? Oh, the skeletons just be falling out of our family closet. In the late 1990's, my mom had hinted for a few years that she had something she needed to tell me before she died, which wouldn't happen for another 20 years, but good on her for her forward thinking. Apparently the 1995 film, Bridges of Madison County got her motor going and she decided she didn't want to die with secrets. Finally, one day I walked into their dining room in their Tucson house and she said, "Sit down, I need to tell you something." "Before I married Eddie, he got me pregnant. He told me he'd taken a job in California and was leaving the midwest. I didn't know if he was coming back, so I chose to give the baby up for adoption." The only sound I heard was the sound of my world crashing down around me. Eddie was my half-brother's father. He and my mother were married ...

June 30, 2022, I walked out of a rheumatologist's office for the last time. On my way out of the building, I threw the referrals to neuropsychology and dermatology in the trash. For those of you unfamiliar with rheumatologists, they graduated at the bottom of their classes, use a dartboard as a diagnostic tool, and refer you to other "ologists" so they don't have to treat the mysterious disease known as autoimmune disorder. In the last 18 months, I've been to a gastroenterologist, cardiologist and pulmonologist. I've had chest x-rays, a chest CT (urgently because my sudden onset of shortness of breath could have been a pulmonary embolism), nuclear stress test, pulmonary function tests. I've been to the ER with chest pains and shortness of breath, only to be told I was not, in fact, having a heart attack, so go home. Great. Thanks. Nice to know I'm not dying, only wishing I was. Oh, and blood tests looking for everything from Lupus to systemic inflammat...

Do you ever wonder how we as a species, or even a society, will continue to exist? The amount of sheer idiocy I see on a daily basis makes me lose complete faith in humanity. A simple, quick trip to Target to get laundry detergent had me shaking my head, and remembering why I hate to leave my house. DD the Wonder Dog was in the car so I wanted to make it quick. It was only 68 degrees and I had the back windows half down and the sunroof open. But in the People’s Republic of Federal Way, you never know when someone will be standing at your car, tapping their foot awaiting your arrival so they can point out how you’re abusing your animal, while feeling good about themselves in the process. I know DD plans to call the ASPCA to complain about riding on 4” memory foam and getting a treat for “guarding” the car every time I return. I’m clearly a bad dog mom.  I digress. I walked down the laundry soap aisle…Arm and Hammer, All, Gain, no Tide, which is what I wanted. So I turned the corner...