Mystery solved

*UPDATE 10/8/09* OMG. I called my doctor with questions today, and she flipped out because the nurse gave me bad info. She said that, yes, CMV does "reactivate" but that doesn't mean you get sick again. She has no idea why I was told what I heard yesterday. The real issue? Vitamin D deficiency. I'm on a prescription supplement for the next 12 weeks. I'm very, very relieved, but also? PISSED OFF!

I am now utterly mortified by what I wrote below, but I'll leave it so you can make fun of me.

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I really should be going to bed now. The little one had a night full of bad dreams and finally had enough around 5 a.m., when she demanded to go to the kitchen and play with paints. But I kinda need to write this down, so that I'll come back to it and remind myself that I have some serious work to do.

I've written numerous times about what I believed was anemia (see here, here, and here). I have these "episodes," as I like to call them, where I suddenly feel very tired, like lie down on the floor tired, often for days or weeks at a time, accompanied by a vague nausea. Since I was told I was anemic around a time that this happened, I always assumed that subsequent episodes were anemia as well. Turns out the first one probably didn't have anything to do with being anemic.

In the summer of 2001, back when I was still a lowly optician, I became strangely ill. I kept having a recurring low-grade fever, that would arise for a day and then go away, and then come back again. Headaches. And the most god-awful fatigue. Back then, my husband and I only had one car, and he used to pick me up from work every day. And I can remember getting in the car, and just collapsing in tears because it had taken so much effort just to get through the day.

I had a great doctor back then, and when I told her what was going on, she gave me the biggest round of tests I have ever been through, but we came out with an answer: cytomegalovirus mononucleosis. CMV mono is caused by a different virus than the usual "kissing disease" mono (that's Epstein-Barr), and nearly everyone has been infected with it at one time or another, but not many people get sick from it. Except those with compromised immune systems, such as AIDS patients, and, apparently, me.

There was and is no treatment except rest, and I was out of work for six weeks. Six weeks of ungodly boredom, and a stupid determination to get things done even though I was supposed to do as little as possible. I would feel marginally better one day and decide to do laundry or go for a walk, and then wouldn't be able to get out of bed for the next three days. I think I read the entire internet and saw every episode of Charmed, ER, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer that existed up to that point.

Going back to work was hell, because you don't just wake up better one day. You take an average of how you have felt over the last week, and if it is above a certain level, you go, "okay, better go ensure my continued employment now." But I got better, eventually, and forgot all about it.

So the other day, as my bloodwork is all coming back normal, my husband says, "What about the CMV - could it be back?" And I went, "Nah. Impossible. Once you're done you're immune, like chicken pox."

Wrong.

CMV is actually related to the chicken pox virus and other herpes viruses and, like them, cycles through periods of dormancy and what is called "reactivation." In reactivation, the soul-crushing fatigue and nausea return, as well as other symptoms such as headaches. The only treatment is rest.

I never knew this. No one ever told me that once I got this virus that I would be living with it forever, that those weeks of weakness (I remember one day not having enough energy to pick my feet up when I walked; I would shuffle from the couch to the bathroom and back, very, very slowly) would return to haunt me over and over for the rest of my life. Anemia or a thyroid problem or vitamin D deficiency, all those things I thought this could be: those are treatable. Endable. This isn't.

I'll grant you, there are plenty other chronic diseases one could have, and I'm damn lucky to have this one. Many, many people have it much worse and I've met some of them recently, breast cancer survivors I wrote about for my magazine job. Those women deal with a hell of a lot worse, and do it with grace and aplomb, so believe me, I do have some perspective.

I was talking with my husband about it tonight, and when he asked what the treatment for it is, and I said "rest," we both laughed. I'm a mom with two small children and a job as a monthly magazine editor. I don't get to rest. Taking a week to stay in bed isn't an option. The only thing I can do is to create as much of a buffer as I can, by being as healthy as possible. I have to eat better. I have to start exercising. I have to lose weight. Those things are the only hope I have of fending off the worst of the reactiviation episodes. And that may not even work. And I've never accomplished them before, despite years of good intentions. But it's all I have.

Off to bed now.

*WWTID?

Question.

This quilt?

From The Bitchy Stitcher

(it has been bordered with a dark purple to match the background of the center squares, and the backing is the same).

What color thread would you use to quilt it?

*What Would The Internet Do?

To clarify

About the Ikea quilt: it's the mom's reaction that was disappointing, not the 2-year-old's. C'mon, y'all. I'm not THAT sensitive!

Thanks

Thank you all for your comments the past couple of days - they have been incredibly helpful. I do know that tears of joy and gratitude are not why I make quilts and not why I want to give them as gifts, but to have that happen THE VERY FIRST TIME I GIVE ONE AWAY (and with a quilt that was rather special to me, since it was my first to machine quilt as well) just stuck in my craw. This commenter had the best idea yet: ask if they want one first. Oh, yeah! That would have been smart!

Now, I am about to start production on the November issue of the magazine I work for, so let me blurt out a few thoughts:

1. Oh, hey. Third handbag for grandma:



2. I'm thinking of doing a block swap, though I'm still trying to figure out how it works. Ever done one? Was it worth it? Would you send my block back to me with tire marks on it if my seam was a wee bit wobbly?

3. I'm thinking of trying a Lone Star quilt from a Moda Chic or Treat jelly roll. Someone should probably talk me out of this.

4. My mom wants me to make two table runners for her, which I suppose means that she really is giving up sewing. She has macular degeneration, nerve damage and muscle atrophy in her right hand from carpal tunnel, and several other issues that I'm sure make sewing too uncomfortable for her.

But, of course, to me my mother is sewing. By which I mean, sewing, in some form, whether needlepoint or quilting or something else, has been her passion for as long as I can remember. It is what I will always remember about her, that and her wicked sense of humor, and the things I possess that she has made are incredibly precious to me.

So, knowing that she is really, truly giving it up...it feels like her life is coming to a close, and she is getting ready. But I'm not ready for that, and never will be.

5. And it turns out I'm not anemic. Which is good, but also kinda sucks, because I still have no idea why I have these episodes where I feel like death on a stick. Thyroid okay, hormones all good. Still waiting for results on vitamin D and Lyme disease!

Oh, and the new doctor? ROCKS! Love her. Wonder if she'd like a quilt? I should ask first, right?

6. Y'all are the best. Have I mentioned that?

A Sucky Day

For the last several days, I have been working my ass off to finish the Ikea quilt in time for its recipient's second birthday party, which was this evening. This would be the first quilt I have done completely from start to finish.

On Monday, I taped the backing to the floor, spread out the batting and laid the quilt top over that, pinning it all together with about 7 million safety pins. It was hard work, but worth it because it was a gift for a friend's child.

The rest of the week, I stitched in the ditch, the first time I have ever tried to quilt anything. I had a hell of a time with the thread tension, an issue which is still not totally resolved, and my lines aren't exactly always in the ditch. Wrestling the quilt through the machine and rolling and unrolling it over and over was a lot of hard work, but it was worth it because it was a gift for a friend's child.

The only part I couldn't finish was the binding. I trimmed the quilt and wrapped it up and brought it to the party. My friend helped her child open it, pulled the folded quilt out of the bag, never unfolded it to see the business side, so only saw the backing, put it back in the bag and never said another word about it. She had more to say about a toy cash register another person gave her daughter than about a handmade quilt.

I am so sad right now, I cannot even tell you. I put so much into that quilt, so much labor and so much love. And now, it sits here, waiting to be bound and I feel like I may just not even bother.

Have you ever made someone a quilt, only to wish later that you hadn't?

More fun than a lousy quilter should be allowed to have

Now, I know everybody is all upset about the Dude leaving Quilter's Home, and there have been declarations all over the 'net about how people will NEVER pick up another issue EVER AGAIN, but I'm asking y'all to at least take a peek at the December issue when it comes out. Not for me (even though I will have another article in that issue) but for Melissa Maher, Senior Editor - the last staffer who has hung on through all of the drama over there. Poor thing is busting her ass to get the December issue finished, despite everything that has happened in the last weeks, and I can personally attest to her extreme awesomeness in the face of adversity. She tells me that it is "up to the powers that be" whether the mag will even exist after the December issue, so do me a solid, y'all, and pick that one up in mid-November when it hits the stands.

Apparently, there is nothing more motivating to my brain than the prospect of being published. I have been despairing of late that I have no more original ideas for humor articles to submit anywhere, and thinking how sad it is to be washed up so soon. Then I get word from the editor at another quilting mag that she is also interested in my work! I was spewing out article ideas left and right after that, and now I have a list of 9 to start working on. Do I have other things I should be doing instead? Oh, yes I do. Will I be a good girl and do them? Fuck, no. Mamma's gotta make some money with the funny.

And while I am sitting at my computer, giggling to myself over my juvenile humor, I will also be waiting for my trusty UPS man to deliver MY NEW SEWING MACHINE. No, it's not one of them fancy Berninas or Huskerduvarnas, just a little better model of Brother. I'm hoping this one will be better for the machine quilting I hope to start this fall, and if not, I'm sure the video I take of me running over it with my car will go viral and provide me with a small measure of satisfaction.

Whoa!

This may only be of interest to me, cuz I'm in the magazine "biz," but I thought I'd share.

So, okay. For the past few months I have been exchanging emails with the editor-in-chief of Quilter's Home magazine, and that person was not, in fact, Mark Lipinski. Truth be told, other than his initial email to me after I sent him my first article, I have had no direct communication with him whatsoever. First, his managing editor, the lovely and kind Jake Finch, and I were doing the email/phone thang, and then there was nothing for several weeks. Then I sent Jake a "What's up" email and she dropped the little bomb that Quilter's Home had been "acquired" by New Track Media and she had been canned. A week or two later, I got email from the new editor-in-chief, Jan Magee, late of Quilter's Newsletter. Mark now had some new title, but I was given the impression that the mag was still pretty much his baby.

Now, Jan and I had been trying to get my contract for the second article, which is supposed to appear in December, squared away, and apparently my mail wasn't getting through, so I sent another copy to her via Priority Mail a couple weeks ago. Early this week, I sent her an email to ask if she had received it, and received a reply from some new person saying that Jan was no longer EIC at Quilter's Home, and that Mark would be handling everything from now on.

Mark posted this on his personal blog yesterday:

As of yesterday, I have resigned from my position with New Track Media and am no longer connected with Quilter’s Home magazine in any way. I am also discontinuing any involvement with Quilt Out Loud, QNNtv.com, and Quilter’s Club of America.

God knows what will become of the magazine now (though they really should give me a call) without that crazy dude at the helm. I'm betting it may just die away at this point, but one never knows. But I know the world will be a sadder place without a quilting magazine that regularly features a middle aged gay man and his dog on the cover of every issue.