Books Six and Seven: "A Discovery of Witches" and "Shadow of Night"

This is a double-book post for a good reason. Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night are two-thirds of a trilogy whose final part hasn't yet been released. They are fantastic.

In A Discovery of Witches we meet Diana Bishop. She is an historian of alchemy doing research at Oxford. We soon learn that Diana is a member of a family of witches and that she is a reluctant witch. She uses her magic to fix a clogged sink or to repair a broken  washing machine periodically, but refuses to let her magic influence her work as a scholar. One day, she fills out a call slip for a manuscript that is unlike anything she's ever seen and is unwittingly thrown into an adventure that spans continents and millenium.

On the day Diana discovers the strange manuscript, she is being watched by the other player in this story.  Matthew Clairmont is an Oxford scientist studying DNA. He and Diana meet and quickly fall in love. Like Diana, there is more to Matthew than meets the eye. He is a centuries-old vampire. The facts of Diana's lineage and Matthew's status as a vampire mean their  love is forbidden by the terms of an  ancient agreement struck between the three non-human races/ As their love deepens, things start to happen. 

The story continues in Shadow of Night. After discovering that she can travel through time, Diana brings Matthew back to sixteenth-century England to try to find someone who can help her understand her growing magical talent. When they get there, Diana discovers that Matthew is harboring many secrets.

Part Harry Potter, part The Historian, these books are a fun escape. I am very excited to see how the story ends.

Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare

Last weekend I watched the feature-length documentary, Escape Fire:The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare. It was enlightening.  It talked about what was broken in America's healthcare system. The thesis of the film seemed to be that while systems are in fact to blame for the dire strain our healthcare system is under, it is us, the people of this country who bear the brunt of the responsibility.

How did I come to that conclusion? Because the film spent the majority of it's two hours enumerating the high costs and consequences of obesity related illnesses. All of the experts interviewed said that our systems need to devote more resources to helping people prevent costly illnesses like diabetes, strokes  and heart attacks. They were emphatic that we don't have a "health care" system, rather we have a "disease care" system that is reactive rather than proactive. One example of this was a woman who had uncontrolled diabetes and high blood-pressure. These unchecked conditions led her to undergo TWENTY-SEVEN different cardiac procedures that included stenting and open-heart bypasses. Twenty-seven. Unbelievable. Once she was seen by the Cleveland Clinic her chronic conditions were addressed. She required another bypass even after that.

I don't dispute that obesity is epidemic in this country. Two-thirds of us are over-weight or obese. Fast food is everywhere, even in schools. I also can't deny that the illnesses that result from obesity must be a drain on our healthcare system.

You may have sensed there's a but coming. There is.


BUT, there are a slew of chronic illnesses and conditions that are not triggered by lifestyle choice and which cannot be reversed once they manifest. Gastroparesis is one of them. More resources should be spent increasing awareness among the medical community of the impact of these poorly understood conditions. The chronically ill deserve compassion and appropriate care. Too often  we get brushed off, told it's in our heads when we have a defined illness.

So yes, doctors need to be able to spend more time with patients  Yes Medicare needs reform. Finally, yes society needs to address the forces behind our obesity problem. Don't forget the rest of us, though.

The Chronic Illness Clock: A Treatise on Waiting

In the last two years, my conception of time has changed dramatically.Before GP, my day was governed by mealtimes, commute schedules, TV shows and sports events. Now, my life revolves around med schedules, nursing schedules and when I need to take TPN out of the refrigerator.I don't need a clock to tell me when four hours has passed. My escalating nausea level does that for me. I don't need to know when typical mealtimes are, I no longer feel hunger. On the rare occasion that I do, the urge doesn't last more than about five minutes leaving me little time to actually act on it.

Other than the practical day-to day realities of time when living with chronic illness, time plays a huge role in my life with both illness and disability. At the beginning of my journey with gastroparesis, I kept waiting for this horrendous "stomach thing" to go away. That's why I didn't dash right to the doctor. No one thinks that a symptom like nausea will become chronic and will effectively ruin your life, Once I realized I needed help, time seemed to crawl. I was always waiting. Waiting to see that first clueless GI. Waiting for the things he told me to do to help me. Waiting to see the second GI. Waiting for the testing to be done and then the results to come back.

Even after my diagnosis, I was still perpetually waiting. Waiting to see the Motility Specialist. Waiting for the testing the surgeon needed to be done and results to come back. Waiting for surgery dates. Waiting to recover. Waiting to see if I had any improvement from a surgery. I'm still there when it comes to the stimulator. I ask myself daily WHEN will it start working? When will I be able to ditch TPN? If anyone could tell me that, it would make the huge changes I've been forced to make to accommodate the need for TPN worth it. All of this waiting has got to be worth something, If not, I'll feel like all of this has been a waste of time.

I'm tired of waiting.Get with the program body.