springtime at the lee

well, i’d like to say that we survived the winter, but i’m not sure as that’s much of an accomplishment this year!  all-in-all, winter was gentle as a lamb (pipes only froze once and we never got more than 8 inches of snow in a single storm).

spring has been slow-creeping for sure.  all of my friends say that we didn’t really get a true maine spring, but since i’ve heard that for the past 3 years, i’m not sure i’d recognize a true maine spring if it bit me in the face.

i do know though that after a week of rain about 2 weeks ago, the whole of mount washington valley and the lake region decided to explode to life.  in the beginning here at the lee, we got daffodils (and one rogue iris), snow drops, a blooming magnolia (nothing like down south) and some peeps of green in the grass, and then all of the sudden this past week, the grass shot up, the forsythia bloomed, the trees all budded, and a carpet of white and purple violets bloomed on the footpath.

i was very thankful i’d gotten in several good days of yard work before everything came back to life.  i managed to pull up my bodyweight in very invasive bittersweet (so tenacious that the weeded piles will root if you leave them too long), and i weeded all of the two-years-neglected beds around the house (ever seen a rock wall with bangs?).  my favorite part of the whole process was the treasury i unearthed in the process.  favorite finds included a coconut, a stash of budweiser cans from the 1953 addition to the house (some things never change!), an easter egg with a tiny vial of fools gold inside, and an inordinate number of hot pink toothbrushes (who knows!).  there’s also an old bed frame, a trash pile full of ancient glass bottles, a claw foot tub, and an animal’s grave stone (i bet sweet ol’ red was the best dog a girl could have!).  i’m sure i’ll keep finding treasures for many years to come.

inside the house, i’m pleased to say that stephen and i have moved from our winter loft bedroom over the wood stove back into our sunny back bedroom.  we desperately need curtains, but for now, we’ll have to be content with morning sunburns and waking at 6am. we’ve had a couple of fires in the wood stove over the past month, but all in all i’m happy to put it to rest.  i’m sure i’ll be itching to light the stove back up come october.

our other spring household updates involve critters.  we’re currently cat-sitting a delightful beast named momo.  he’ll be with us until his moms come back to maine in september, and then i’m sure we’ll get a cat of our own.  we had a huge problem with squirrels coming out into the house recently, but since we got mo, i’ve seen neither hide nor hair of them.

june 6 will see the arrival of 6 chicks:  2 black australorps, 2 golden-laced wyandottes, and 2 silver-laced wyandottes.  they’ll live in the house in a rubbermaid tub (with a cat-proof lid!) for the first 8 weeks or so, and then they’ll have the run of the yard, plus a fancy coop on the end of the sheep-shed.  here’s hoping we don’t have a fox problem!

personally, early spring has been the calm before the storm for us.  in june, stephen’s work is restructuring, and although it will mean more money and weekends off for him (yay!!!!) it will most likely be a stressful new arrangement to get used to.  my life has been full of days at birthwise.  i work 20 hours a week as the assistant academic director, and i now teach professional midwifery 1 and 2, writing for midwives, childbirth education, and lab work for midwives.  i’m also tutoring and guest editing for the school’s journal, midwifery matters. (i escape whenever i can for sweet sunburn rides in tylerthebruce’s convertible, and evenings are usually a painful countdown to 5pm frontporchigans with the gang.)

on may 23rd, i finally take my narm exam and will become a certified professional midwife.  maine just passed licensure legislation, so i will also become a licensed provider in both maine and new hampshire.  after that, i’ll be able to open my practice.  i’m having my thyroidectomy a month later on june 21st, so that will put the brakes on things for just a bit, but we shall see.  i’m dying to buy the lee, but it may be january instead of this summer, as we’ve got a wacky summer ahead.

i’m headed to england in august to attend a dear friend’s wedding, and i’m sure i’ll need to trip after my recovery is over.

that’s about it for what’s going on around here.  mostly, the plants are just taking off, and we’re spending time with friends and enjoying fresh air in the house.

to be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

lepidoptera

in the deepest, oldest bits of your brain, sits a cluster of neuronal nuclei charged with the maintenance of homeostasis in your body.  blood pressure, blood sugar, pulse, hormone levels–these wee clustered cells monitor all of it in a constant attempt at balance.  not enough glucose?  make her hungry and tell her liver to start divvying out glycogen stores!  body too hot?  dilate her capillaries and make her skin sweat to dissipate some heat!

measure, adjust, measure, adjust in a never-resting and never-ending (until it ends) cycle.

(i wonder if the hypothalamus is ever jealous that, despite its foundational control of the entirety of our body’s functions, its moniker merely notes its relative location…)

one tiny but critical subdivision of this already tiny of this hypothala-nuclei-cluster, the “paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus” has an even tinier subdivision, a bundle of  parvocellular neurosecretory neurons (small, neurotransmitter-secreting nerve cells) that use chemical signals to control water balance, adrenal activity, and micro-level, full-body, cellular metabolism.  (nbd)

the parvos have nuclei (big fat bodies) in the hypothalamus and long axons (think loooong neurotransmitter super-highway tails) that dangle down into the hypophyseal portal system where they use capillary beds to pass notes (chemically speaking) to the pituitary.  the parvos notice an imbalance, then they tell the pituitary, via blood-borne chemical signal, to tell the organ in charge of the balance to hop to it.

we are, essentially, a giant game of telephone.

one particular chemical released by the parvos is thyrotropin-releasing hormone (trh).  when the brain is feeling a little low in the hormones it needs to keep up good healthy metabolic function, the parvo cells pick up on this and send electrical signals down the length of their axons, which, at each of their terminals will release a pulse of trh, a ridiculously simple chemical made of only three amino acids.  the trh, which only “lives” for 2-3 minutes, travels through the primary capillary plexus to the neighboring pituitary gland.  specifically, it goes to the anterior (the front bit of the) pituitary.

the pituitary is the body’s switchboard.  it doesn’t know when a call needs to be made (like the hypothalamus does) but it can connect the two parties who need to talk.

in response to the trh from the parvo cells of the hypothalamus (who say “brain needs more metabolic power!”), the anterior pituitary crafts a message to the thyroid using thyroid stimulating hormone (tsh).

so trh says “hey pituitary, you need to tell the thyroid to get to work!”

and then in response to that message, the pituitary says, “hey thyroid, get to work!”

so cascading down out of the anterior pituitary comes this tsh-message to the thyroid that it needs to up its game.  the tsh travels through the bloodstream to the thyroid, a small, butterfly-shaped organ draped over the front of the larynx.

tsh receptor sites in the thyroid receive the message and tell the thyroid to pull tyrosine and iodine from its pantry shelves and stick them together to make T1.  two T1s are then joined to make a T2 (ad nauseum), and then 80% of the time, two T2s will join to make a T4, while 20% of the time T1s and T2s will join forces to make a T3.

T3 and T4, triiodothyronine and thyroxine, are then secreted by the thyroid into the bloodstream and carried to every cell in the body.  once they permeate all those little cell membranes, they head to the mitochondria where they (somehow catecholamine ….something something glycogenolysis) help the krebs cycle happen more quickly.

remember that nightmarish, million-step process from high school bio whereby your mitochondria (cellular powerhouses) take 1 glucose (add oxygen) and turn it into 36 ATP plus waste water, CO2 and heat?  yep, that krebs cycle.  without t3 and t4, your little cellular powerhouses turn to molasses factories.  and then you die.

yay t3 and t4!

so what happens when you yank out the organ that makes them?

apparently you get them from a bottle.  every day.  for the rest of forever. and it’s just fine.

and there dangles, alone in the dark, with no one on the other end of that phone, an oblivious pituitary who will keep chattering away to a thyroid that’s no longer there.

our bodies are SO weird yo.

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on june 21st, 19 hours and 4 minutes after the summer solstice,  i’m having a total thyroidectomy at maine medical center.  my doc who, despite having the most painfully scottish name evar, is a 60-something american dude, tells me it may take around 3 hours.

i’ll be under general anesthesia (thank gawd), and will say bye-bye to a meticulously loosed organ through a 6-8cm incision in the front of my neck.  if all goes well, my surgeon will leave my laryngeal nerves and parathyroids undamaged.

if i sustain injury to laryngeal nerves (only 2-3% chance!).  look for lots more blogging, because i’ll be the most opinionated mute you’ve ever met.

i’m first up for surgery that day, so if all goes well, i’ll get to go home either late that night or early the next morning.  i’ve already told my family no one is welcome in the recovery room until i’ll fully back in my right mind.  they especially aren’t welcome with any recording devices. (“is this reeeeeeal life??”)

in my convalescence at the porch, i’ll have a super-fun liquid diet and won’t be able to shower, so be warned if you come to visit, it might not be pretty!

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one of the most interesting things about this whole experience has been (from the perception of a holistic healthcare practitioner) experiencing the total lack of integrative medicine in standard surgical care.

i feel incredibly confident in my surgeon.  he addressed my concerns with information.  he answered my questions with facts.  he does 200 of these surgeries a year with only a 1% complication rate.

he didn’t ask what my diet was like.
he didn’t ask what my stress was like.
he didn’t suggest dietary, movement, or lifestyle changes.
he didn’t ask about my thoughts or fears.
he didn’t talk about best approaches to healing.
he didn’t ask if the financial prospects were daunting.
he didn’t talk to me about support.

these are things that a midwife notices.  i can’t imagine offering care to someone without discussing these things.

but then again, i don’t see 30 “patients” (patient: n.-latin-suffering) a day in rapid succession.  i have the luxury of 6-page intake forms, 2-hour initial visits, and 1-hour appointments.  (and for all my trouble, i’ll make in a year what this guy makes in a month).  i acutely feel these different worlds colliding, and i am gaining a deeper understanding of the reasons why we are so unwell.

all of this being said, i’m tremendously thankful for surgeons, and as an herbalist, i do understand that a poultice won’t heal a severed limb.  all practitioners have their place in the chain.

oof.

so in the mean time:  stress relief, dark leafy greens, blueberries, a daily multi, turmeric, fish oil (but not too much), chats with pals, walks, research, vitamin e oil, water, and some sweet medicine making so i’ll have all the skin-healing salve i can handle.

to be continued….