Author: Emily

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Things I’ve Learned on My Alaskan Adventure

  • Alaska (at least Southeast Alaska) is not a giant piece of land completely made of ice, like we were taught in grade school. (You know, Seward’s Icebox?)

  • Not all Native Alaskans are called Eskimos. In fact, the Southeastern Alaskan Natives are the Tlingints.

  • Fish & Chips and Clam chowder at a small lunch kiosk on the dock in Ketchican, Alaska is d*mn good!
  • There’s something inherently beautiful about glaciers and the waters surrounding them. Oh, and it is possible to sail a huge ship through some narrow passages and still be maneuver around glaciers.

  • And by the way, Tracy Arm Fjord is not, in fact, an arm. A fjord is long, narrow inlet with steep sides, created in a valley carved by glacial activity.

  • Glaciers have a blue tint to them because that’s the only color that glaciers can’t absorb. And because of that, I think Crayola should come up with a “Glacier Blue” crayon …

  • I now know the five different Salmon species just by looking at my hand.
    • Thumb = Chum Salmon
    • Index Finger = Sockeye … as in “Poke your eye out with your finger”
    • Middle Finger (or tallest finger) = King Salmon, the biggest of the salmons
    • Ring Finger = Silver Salmon
    • Pinky = Pink Salmon.
  • And now you know them, too!

  • I can officially say that I’ve seen a Black Bear with her three cubs and that bears can’t read.

  • We’ve also seen American Eagles and I think I finally understand the metaphor about the strength and beauty of a “Soaring Eagle.”

  • The Filipino-American population in Juneau, Alaska is so big that they have a whole “square” called “Manila Square” dedicated to them.

  • This is probably why the number of Filipinos working on the cruise ships in Alaska greatly outnumbers that of all other nationalities (60% of the staff on our ship alone were Filipino).
  • This includes a Filipino Executive Master Chef and Executive Sous Chef … who were kind enough to create off-menu Filipino dishes. Like pancit. And Topsilog. And Adobo. Yummmm!

  • Skagway is actually spelled Skaguay … but only because the postal office didn’t like the way it was spelled.

  • Skagway was known as the gateway to the Klondike because this was the first stop for most people seeking gold in the Klondike. And from some of the stories I heard (“Soapy” Smith, the thousands of horses killed in stampedes) there were quite a few things people would do for a Klondike Bar … of gold, that is.

  • According to our tour guide, Skagway is a one-horse town. And it apparently likes to hang out in front of the Bonanza Bar & Grill.

  • It’s possible for the U.S. Coast Guard to airlift a critically ill passenger onto their helicopter (on our “Day at Sea”) without officially landing on a cruise ship. It may take more than 30-minutes of practice (and circling the ship) before actually airlifting the person, but it’s doable. (The passenger, thank G*D is now stable in a hospital in Alaska … at least as of Saturday afternoon.)

  • Using the Medical Clinic on the cruise ship (for a pretty big bug bite that caused major swelling and erythema to the surrounding tissue) is much cheaper than seeing your doctor at home; especially for those of us that lack health insurance.
  • There’s not much you can do in Victoria, British Columbia when you only have four hour to spend there between 7:30 and 11:30 pm on a Saturday night.

  • It’s a good thing we didn’t discover the 24-hr Buffet until the last night. Otherwise I would have gained even more weight than I already did …

  • Sometimes all-inclusive vacations (like cruises or other specialty resorts) bring out the worst in people. I think I’ve seen and encountered more rude passengers with an odd sense of “entitlement” on this trip than I’ve had in other vacations past.

    Just because pretty much everything is included on the ship doesn’t mean that you need to take all of the cookies or sweets. Or that you have to be incredibly rude to the crew members who are there to serve you. Don’t think that just because you worked hard for this vacation, you should be waited hand and foot … these staff members are working just as hard for a vacation of their own as well!

  • But overall, we’ve meet some really nice folk … both crew members and passengers alike. If I could, I’d definitely do another cruise to Alaska again. Maybe this time we’d head further north towards Anchorage … and spend a few more days inland, discovering more of this beautiful State instead!

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Ghostly Thoughts

I have ghosts in my head that keep telling me I’m a failure.

Amazingly, this feeling of failure has nothing to do with my inability to have children. Well maybe indirectly, anyway.

No, this feeling of failure has to do with everything that has happened since losing my job this past May. And with what has transpired since.

You see, I had this wonderful blog entry scheduled to post today; anticipating that I’d be busy in Seattle (thanks to the generosity of my parents) trying to board a cruise liner for an all-expense paid cruise to Alaska. It talked about how lucky Hubby & I were to be able to have had a wonderful (albeit hectic and financially difficult) summer this year. And I also wrote how I was looking forward to starting my new career path in Clinical Health Care Education. And how excited I was that Hubby & I decided to stay in Chicago rather than moving back to Suburban Detroit.

Except something happened this past Friday to make me scrap that post. Without going into much detail, Hubby & I were forced to reassess whether or not we were making the right decision to stay in Chicago. It affected us so much, that we were willing to lose the security deposit on the lease we just signed for an apartment and move back to Detroit.

We knew it would be financially risky to stay in Chicago. However, when we sat down to discuss the pros and cons, our guts told us that moving back to an economically-challenged state (with incredibly limited job opportunities for Hubby) would be the wrong thing to do. At least in Chicago, we knew there was a demand for talented people like Hubby … even though it might only be contract or free-lance work.

As Hubby & I (once again) discussed our various options, I found myself spiraling down uncontrollably. Suddenly my feelings of inadequacy and incompetence started to resurface. And it was perpetuated by this feeling I’ve had since this past May …. that, since *I* was the one to lose a job, I was a failure.

I was a failure because *I* moved us to Chicago for this “incredible” job opportunity … and then lost this job.

I was a failure because *I* encouraged Hubby to quit his full-time job in Michigan and go “free-lance” so that he could realize his dream of working for himself. But since I no longer had a job, I couldn’t support his dream.

I was a failure because *I* wanted to move to Chicago order to provide some distance away from all the bad Infertility memories we had in Michigan; all in an effort to help us move forward in our lives. Except now, we were on the cusp of moving back to Michigan, back to the same house that held such bad memories.

So yeah, the way that I see it … I just plain and outright, failed.

What’s worse than this feeling of failure is the self-doubt that has now crept in to my head.

These same ghosts, hence forth known as Ghosts of Failures Past (GFP), are now telling me that I’m not going to be able to hold any job down.

It’s as if my GFP decided to team up with my Ghosts of Failures Future to give tips on what to look out for if I started to travel down the road of “failure” once again.

And that no matter how excited I am to start my new job … new career, I should just expect to fail again. After all, wasn’t I so excited to move to Chicago for an incredible job opportunity?

Yes, I realize that this makes no logical sense. And I realize that I shouldn’t base every future experience on all horrible past experiences. But I do. And I am. And it terrifies me.

Despite the (relatively large and indescribable) hiccup that happened on Friday, Hubby & I have determined that we will stay Chicago. For now. While I’m incredibly happy excited relieved that our decision is final, I’m now incredibly scared that I might just screw up again.

I know Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” And I’ve tried to ingrain that quote in my mind; believe that, without a doubt, I am the master of my own perceptions.

But when it’s your own “Ghosts” that are the cause of such inferior thoughts … how do you counteract these thoughts?

Perhaps visiting Seattle, the city where Hubby & I have dreamed of moving to, will keep me focused on moving forward.

Perhaps breathing in some fresh Pacific Northwest mountain will help clear the ghosts from my head.

And if it doesn’t, I’ll be making some serious phone calls to Dr. Peter Venkman to do some serious Ghostbusting.

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Related Post

Emily wears the color of her emotions

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Practicing What I Preach

Click on the pic to read other 2010 selections

Dear Curious,

Thank you for your comment on my previous post. As always, I welcome any responses to what I write. To me, any response means that I’m effectively getting my words out into the world.

My last post did not mean to belittle Cancer as a disease. And yes, I realize that I was a bit over the top and melodramatic at the end. I truly debated as to whether or not I should respond to you. But then I thought that I should really practice what I preach.

And what I’ve been preaching lately is that it’s better to educate others about Infertility than perpetuating a myth.

In this case, it’s the myth that Infertility is not a disease, but rather just a “condition” that is a result of a “badly dealt hand” in life.

Or as Margaret Wente’s editorial in The Globe and The Mail indicates, “Many things in life are deeply unfair, and infertility is just one of them … … [In the] meantime, record numbers of people are embracing childlessness out of choice. It seems that one person’s deep unfairness is another’s blessed liberation.”

So, as an RN Case Manager … who has not only taken care of many Cancer patients at the hospital and has followed up with them on an ongoing basis after they’ve returned to their homes … let me take the opportunity here to dispell this myth.

1. Let’s first get our definitions straight.

Condition: a usually defective state of health (from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

Disease: a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms (from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

Cancer: a term used for diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues (from the National Cancer Institute website)

Diabetes: a group of diseases characterized by high blood glucose levels that result from defects in the body’s ability to produce and/or use insulin (from the American Diabetes Association website)

Infertility: a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse (as defined by the World Health Organization, as stated by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine website).

2. Now, let’s discuss the difference between a condition and a disease.

Many diseases started out as a being known as a “condition.” Diabetes was a “sugar condition.” Asthma was a “breathing condition.” It’s not until science began to do more research to determine the reason for its abnormal patterns in functioning that a condition came to be called a disease.

To me, this is why giving voice to Infertility and educating the general population is extremely important: so that more research can be done to discover how to effectively and consistently treat Infertility. And when I mean “consistently,” I mean that there should be a specific pathway (or guideline to follow) for treatment of Infertility. Much like there are standards of practice for treatment of the various types of Cancer.

3. Now let me discuss why I think all diseases aren’t fatal, as you’ve indicated.

Eczema isn’t fatal. Scleroderma isn’t fatal. Diabetes isn’t even fatal. What’s fatal is what happens if appropriate treatment is not carried out. That’s when other health conditions (or comorbidities) can add to the complications involving the disease.

Going back to Diabetes: If a Diabetic’s blood sugar isn’t controlled properly, then this could lead to diabetic nephropathy — or kidney disease. This is caused by the kidneys working overtime to filter out protein from the body. Continued overworking can cause kidney failure which could, again if untreated could cause toxicity in the body, ultimately leading to death. But would a pathologist consider diabetes as the cause of death in a situation like this? Likely no; it would most likely be kidney failure as a complication from Diabetes.

Now, substitute diabetes in this situation with, let’s say … pancreatic cancer. Again, pancreatic cancer could more likely be the complication in a fatal situation such as this.

4. So now let me talk about why I think complications from Infertility can be fatal.

First there’s the idea of an abnormal reproductive system; which, like most diseases, could be caused from a variety of different sources. In this case, it’s during any part of the reproductive cycle. But just for sh*ts and giggles … let’s say that — in determining the cause for Infertility — the woman discovers that she has Ovarian Cancer. Or we find out that the man has Testicular Cancer. Then I could logically assume (as you’ve pointed out) that Infertility can be related to Cancer (or vice versa, for that matter) and any complications that result from Cancer can be fatal.

Or … how about this? Let’s say, in the quest to have a child, a woman who has put her body at risk to become pregnant is suddenly more at risk during her pregnancy because of Pre-ecclampsia. And suddenly it becomes evident that a choice needs to be made as to whether to save the woman or her baby? I know women who have tragically been through this. And I hope, sometime in your life that you might have some empathy for them …

5. And finally, speaking of sympathy … I must point out that sympathy for my Infertility is not what I’m asking from you … or from anyone.

What I really want is empathy. And that would mean that I’d want the understanding from others that Infertility is a disease and it deserves to be recognize. It’s not something to be swept under the rug or ignored.

And quite frankly, I would hope that a person with Cancer would also want empathy rather than sympathy. For me, someone who is sympathetic can only “feel” pity and sorrow for someone’s misfortune. While a person who is empathetic has the ability to recognize, comprehend, perceive and directly feel the emotion of another. Seriously. I’d rather have someone recognize and comprehend how difficult it is to be in my situation than to just simply say (perhaps in their head), “Too bad, so sad.”

So here’s one last set of definitions.

Sympathy: the feeling or mental state brought about by such sensitivity (from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

Empathy: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner (from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

So hopefully you now have a better understanding of why I wrote my last post.

I’m not asking for more recognition than what Cancer, with its multitude of community support, already has. I’m just simply asking for recognition.

And finally … just so you know. I am a survivor of Infertility … not because one of my parents suffered from Infertility (because my Mom did ) … and not because I ended up having children (because I didn’t) … I consider myself a survivor because I was able to sustain years of treatment for Infertility and came out the other end of a verrry long tunnel with my dignity (relatively) intact.

Best of luck in wherever your life takes you,
Emily

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I’m A Survivor

I am a Survivor of Infertility.

It sounds rather silly, given that I have nothing visible to show for the years I’ve been diagnosed with this disease. (Well, except for the added weight gain from all the medications … but that’s beside the point.) But it’s the truth.

It may sound strange to the average person that Infertility is considered a disease. After all, most people are rather inclined to think that it’s a “condition” rather than a disease. There’s even been debate that Infertility is considered a “lifestyle choice.” But we’ll get back to that one later.

Much like Cancer is a disease (an abnormal growth of cells which proliferate in an uncontrolled manner), so is Infertility. And I can even have the World Health Organization definition to back me up.

And much like a Cancer patient who has successfully completed treatment for their disease, I can also say that I am a survivor.

*****

I know, I know … I’ve made multiple comparisons of Infertility to Cancer in previous posts. And just so you know, it’s not as if this comparison hasn’t been made by other Infertility bloggers and/or other health care providers in Reproductive Health in the past.

Believe me, as an RN who has taken care of her fair share of Cancer patients, it’s not one that I do lightly. I do so, only to showcase the lack of support and education that Infertility receives when compared to Cancer.

If you’re like most people, the news of a family or friend recently diagnosed with Cancer will trigger a sense of empathy for that individual and their family. For me, it’s always been an immediate “That’s horrible!” or “How sad” statement when receiving the news. Then, the next time I see the individual or one of their family members, I might briefly ask them how they’re doing and how their treatment is coming along. And I’d make it a point to ask how they’re coping with everything. I do so knowing that I’m offering them an opportunity to let out some of those difficult emotions that come along whenever someone is going through a stressful situation.

For me, that’ how *I* like to offer my support. But others could likely offer to send a card, call the person, and/or offer to run some errands for them. And yet others will offer their unsolicited advice about how their “third cousin” beat by “sniffing glue” (or something just as odd). Either way, Cancer elicits that feeling of wanting to help a person out because … “G*d forbid, if something like that happened to me, I’d hope someone would do the same.”

Now, take this same situation, but substitute Cancer with Infertility. What immediate emotion would that disease trigger? Would you feel empathy for the woman? Would you feel more empathy for the woman, than the man (if that’s the case), perhaps thinking that Infertility is strictly her diagonsis? Would you send them a card?**

And the next time you see that person or couple, would you ask how they were doing? And how they’re coping with the disease? Would you ask them what kind of treatment they’re receiving? Would you offer to run errands for them, knowing that their lives have been tied to a specific minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour time schedule? Would you offer them unsolicited advice on how they should “just adopt” or “just relax”?

Okay, so I’m guessing that most people would answer “No” to those questions. Except maybe for that last one; because — believe me — I still get lots of incredibly insensitive “a$$vice” thrown at us on a daily basis. (Of which my response to those Infertiles who also deal with this situation … this is the perfect opportunity to educate others out there about how Infertility is a complicated disease with multiple layers of emotional struggles that can’t simply be “fixed” by just relaxing or adopting.)

Anyhoo …

As I said, I’m guessing that most people would answer “No.” And the reason is because Infertility is something that no one really wants to openly talk about. It’s the pink elephant in the middle of the room that people speak through it (rather than directly at it or about it). Even those individuals or couples who are diagnosed with it find it incredibly difficult to share. As stated in the recent SELF Magazine article, “Infertility is where breast cancer was in the 1970’s — completely in the closet.”

So this is where I, once again, emphasize that talking directly about Infertility is important. Giving Infertility a voice is essential. Educating others about Infertility is critical.

Why is this necessary? Because one brave and educated voice can spur a thousand other brave souls to tell their Infertility stories. And those courageous voices can turn around and educate their family and friends about the disease. And those family and friends can then tell their friends, and so on and so on … therefore creating a network of support.

And from there, maybe … just maybe, Infertility can receive the recognition as a disease that it needs. Maybe then, Infertility will elicit an empathy similar to that of Cancer.

*****

One last thing, and then I’ll wrap this up.

Yes, I do understand that Cancer is a “life or death” situation; and that receiving treatment determines whether or not a person survives. But let me ask you this? Isn’t Infertility a “life or death” situation when it comes to a child’s life? Isn’t receiving treatment for Infertility also determine whether or not a child survives?

For those affected by Cancer (whether as an individual, or a family member of the individual), the life of a loved one is on the line. For those affected by Infertility, the life of their child … not to mention their individual livelihood to sustain life through their own genes … is on the line.

And finally … for my “Living Child-free after Infertility” self, let me throw one more thing your way. What kind of sadness do you feel for a person with Cancer who has decided to stop treatments? A person who knows that his/her options are severely limited?

Would you respect the choice that he or she made; knowing that they gave considerable thought about their decision? Would you still respect their decision even though it might not be one that’s necessarily “conventional”?

Now … once again, substitute Cancer with Infertility.

Can you see now why Infertility is not a “lifestyle choice”? (Told you I’d get back to it … )

I don’t mean to come off as sounding like I can’t get “past” my own infertility (like Andie would think of me; as evidenced by her response to Pam‘s February article in FertilityAuthority.com). I don’t mean to sound as if any non-Infertile who reads this is an “ignorant fool” who doesn’t know me or my problems.

I simply write these feelings — these thoughts of mine — so that maybe … just maybe, a person (or two) can learn from them.

*****

My name is Emily … and I’m an Infertility Survivor.

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Related Posts:

Emily outs her secret

Emily asks people to pledge

A follow-up to this post

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** Seriously, though … Have you ever seen a greeting card for Infertility? I think Hallmark needs to get right on this. Pronto.

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Pledge Needed

If you have a moment, please watch the video below and then click over to the RESOLVE website to read about what you can do to raise awareness about Infertility.

Here you should be able to find the link to the SELF Magazine article that I talked about in my previous post.

As a person who is living Child-Free after Infertility, I think it’s extremely important for both the general population and the Infertility Community to be aware that Infertility is a disease that cannot be simply “cured” by Assisted Reproductive Therapy (ART), pregnancy or adoption.

Infertility is a disease that affects the livelihood of 1 in 8 American couples. And most of all, not all Infertility stories are are success stories.

Regardless, I believe that every Infertile — including former Infertiles (those who have now become parents) — should voice their struggles (or past struggles) to others. The only way for Infertility to have a VOICE is to speak about it, loudly & proudly.

We should not be ashamed of what we’ve been through. We should no longer hold our struggles and emotional pain internally.

We should no longer keep our Infertility a secret …

So while you’re on the RESOLVE website, I also encourage you to take the pledge.

*****

And now a message from the Executive Director of RESOLVE