Tag Archives: surgery

The Pizza Burn

Posted on August 23, 2025 by rachelmankowitz

I’ve been waiting for my appointment with the oral surgeon for most of the summer, ever since he decided that there was something he could do to deal with my recurring infections (caused by the original oral surgeries, two and three summers ago), other than more cycles of antibiotics. He’s come up with a few different explanations for the infections over time: that the screws they used for the implants way back when (three years ago) were too porous; that the original bone loss left pockets where food could get stuck; that it’s all my fault.

            I was worried that this would turn out to be yet another involved, painful, expensive procedure, but instead the doctor told me it would just take an hour or so, while they took some skin from the roof of my mouth to fill in the vulnerable area, and there would be no extra cost. And, the doctor said, the pain wouldn’t be too bad, just like “a pizza burn.”

            I haven’t had much pizza over the past eight months, since I’ve been on Zepbound and certain favorite foods have become unfriendly, but I vaguely remember burning the roof of my mouth a few times and not being traumatized by the experience.

            Most of the anxiety came before the procedure itself, of course, because it was all unknown. I was relieved when I found out that I wouldn’t need to do all of the medical checks I went through before the two big procedures, because it would be a much shorter, less involved process, and only require twilight sleep instead of full anesthesia. But I still had two months to wait and worry before the appointment, and I’m very good at anxiety.

“Me too.”

Finally, on the day itself, we had to take a car service to the doctor’s office, because I wouldn’t be allowed to drive home, and even though Mom would be with me for moral support, she can no longer drive. And, of course, I was about as anxious about the car service as the procedure itself, because I’m not so good with strangers, in small spaces, early in the morning, or ever. But when I got to the office, the doctor’s assistant welcomed me, and she has been the reliable, friendly, down-to-earth face of the practice all along, so that helped calm me down. A little. She brought me into one of the regular exam rooms, where the light fixtures are covered with happy clouds in a blue sky, which also helped. And then I had time to get anxious again while they set up around me. My x-rays were loaded onto the screen in the front of the room, making me look like a very scary alien, and then my charts came up, saying that I had been told to “aggressively waterpik” (which was news to me, because I was sure “assertive waterpik-ing” should have been good enough). And then I saw the words “arm restraints” pass by quickly on the screen, and I, of course, had to ask what that was about. It turned out they were going to be restraining my arms during the procedure, to prevent me from, I don’t know, punching the doctor or trying to scratch my nose.

            Then they took my glasses, so I couldn’t read anymore, which was a relief, and they put on the automatic blood pressure cuff, and the pulse/ox monitor, and then the oxygen mask, which made my nostrils feel cold and sore. And then came the needle. They had to use my left arm, for choreographic reasons, even though the good vein is clearly on my right arm (I get a lot of blood tests), which meant they couldn’t find a good vein in the usual places and ended up sticking the needle into the back of my left hand, which hurt more than pretty much anything else the whole day. And then there was nothing.

            I came to while they were removing the different monitors and restraints, and telling me that everything had gone well. Then they walked me to the recovery room (pretty much a closet with two places to sit) where Mom was waiting for me, and then they gave me instructions for how and when to change the gauze pads, and ice the wounded area, and let me go home.

            Half of my face was numb for the rest of the day, so I was only allowed to eat pudding (yay!) and cold soup (eh, not so much), but I wasn’t especially hungry anyway. On day two, I was allowed to rinse with medicated mouthwash and as much warm salt water as I could ever want, but no brushing or aggressive waterpik-ing, yet. And I could chew again, though I still wasn’t eating anything too complicated. By the end of day two, the pain was actually worse, and the swelling had started to kick in, but not so bad that I had to fill the prescription for opiates; I was able to make do with Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen.

            Day three was a rest day. It was sort of a delayed reaction to the procedure, as if I’d been the one doing the surgery rather than the one sleeping through it. The doctor called to check on me towards the end of the day and seemed pleased with my report. I’ll see him next week so he can marvel in person over what a great job he did (he likes to marvel at his work like that, unironically), and hopefully, once this short recovery period is over, I will be done with the infections, and maybe that will mean that I’ll feel better overall (since cyclical infections can’t be helping my overall health), though there are no guarantees.

            The thing is, I’ve been really, really tired this summer. I’m always tired, to be honest, but it has seemed worse lately, and I don’t know if reducing the frequency of infections will make much of a difference, or if whatever underlying disorder that has been causing all of my symptoms is ever going to resolve. No further diagnostic progress has been made in the past few years, despite visits to geneticists and neurologists and neuromuscular specialists and rheumatologists, etc., and all kinds of tests and treatments along the way.

            At the very least, I’d like this one procedure to have been successful, and for that to mean a somewhat less crowded year of doctor appointments ahead. Though it would be really nice to feel like a healthy person for a little while. Weird, but nice.

“Weird, but nice? Welcome to my life.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?        

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The Next Phase

Posted on May 18, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            My allergies have kicked in big time, and the most likely culprit is all of the maple trees right outside my window and the thousands of seed pods they send raining down to the ground. The wheezing came out of nowhere one day last week: I heard this strange sound, like someone crying or screaming from a distance, and it took me a while to realize that the sound was coming from my own throat. Somehow all of the allergens have chosen to bypass my nose, and mostly my eyes, and lodge themselves in my throat where I inconveniently need oxygen to breathe. Sleep has been tough, and the allergy meds I take day and night are not helping much, but it is sort of fun to sound like Darth Vader every once in a while; it breaks up the monotony. Not that there’s been much monotony lately, to be honest.

I wonder if the mask would help me breathe better (not my picture)

            This past week Mom and I went to see a cardiac surgeon to find out the next steps for dealing with her damaged mitral valve. I was very nervous about the appointment, we both were, in large part because there was so much we didn’t know. We spent about four hours at the hospital on Monday and met with the cardiac surgeon and then with his colleague who specializes in cardiac interventions other than surgery, and the plan going forward is to have a minimally invasive procedure (sort of a combination of an angiogram and an endoscopy with mitral valve clips thrown in), in the hope that clipping the mitral valve (rather than replacing it) will be enough to mitigate the damage. The doctor explained that at this point about fifty percent of the fluid leaving Mom’s heart through the mitral valve is going into the left ventricle, which is stretching it out of shape and wreaking havoc. The clips will close the holes in the mitral valve, at least partially, to redirect the fluid to where it belongs. This less invasive procedure will only require one overnight stay in the hospital (as opposed to a week in the hospital and then two weeks in a rehab facility after the full surgery), and recovery will be minor.

            But there’s something so un-reassuring about the image I have in my mind of the mitral valve clips: I keep seeing tiny wooden clothespins, like the kind that hold laundry on the line so it won’t blow away in the wind, but the doctors say it’s worth a try and could reduce the symptoms of fatigue, shortness of breath and heart palpitations to a more manageable level. The problem is that Mom’s mitral valve isn’t just damaged in one place, it’s more like Swiss cheese, so there’s a fifty/fifty chance that the doctor will go in to do this procedure and on the spot decide it’s not working and we will have to go ahead and schedule the full heart surgery after all.

(not my picture)

            I feel a little better knowing the steps involved in all of this, even if we end up having to go the full surgery route after all. The worst part was not knowing and leaving it all to my imagination, which is vivid. The doctor made sure to say that the chance of death from the minimally invasive procedure is about 1%, which is close to the risk from, say, going for a walk on a spring day. The full surgery’s risk is at about 5%, which is higher, but not high. I’d prefer zero risk and full recovery, but I understand that I’m being unreasonable.

            The cardiac surgeon was pretty optimistic about the success of the full surgery, and said we could just go ahead and do that if we wanted, but as soon as he used the words “heart lung machine” in describing the surgery I came close to having a heart attack myself, so I’m happy that we’re starting small. The ultimate decision to try the less invasive procedure first, of course, was Mom’s, but I think a small part of her was disappointed that she wouldn’t get to stay in a hotel (pardon me, a hospital) for a few weeks, with room service and house cleaning and varied and interesting company.

I think this is more evidence that Mom has reached the second phase of retirement. The first ten years were about making up for lost time, doing all of the projects and trips and socializing she didn’t have time for while she was still working, and the next phase looks like it’s going to include more pampering and siestas. I guess I’ll need to look into getting the co-cop to agree to a pergola in the backyard, and maybe a hammock, so Mom can get her moments of nature and her rest at the same time. If all goes well this summer, this second phase of Mom’s retirement could be even longer than the first, and filled with good health and relaxation, and time to build more happy memories with her grandchildren. And a dog. There really needs to be a dog.

Not my dog, but just sending this image out into the universe

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Mom’s Surgery

Posted on January 13, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            As expected, I spent the weeks leading up to Mom’s second hip replacement living in existential dread, afraid she would die on the table and I would be left alone in the world with no one to fight off the gardeners trying to cut down my paw paw tree. And then, as everyone around me seemed to know it would be, the surgery was successful and Mom came through with all of her humor and energy intact.

            The days leading up to the surgery were full of worry, both because of the pre-surgical clearances coming down to the wire, but also because Mom’s hip was deteriorating incredibly quickly and she was struggling just to get from one room to the other, especially after the ban on NSAIDS was put in place five days before the surgery.

            I filled the time preparing: filling the freezer and the pantry with prepared meals; organizing all of the random crap in the apartment that might get in her way when she came home with the walker; carrying boxes of books to the thrift store, and bags and cans of dog food to the animal shelter; and finally replacing the old crooked bookcase with a new, slightly crooked bookcase (put together by moi – which explains why its wonky), so that she wouldn’t be toppled by falling books and sent back to the hospital.

New bookcase, before the wonky drawers were put in.

            We still have new rugs waiting to be put down, after we removed the un-cleanable rugs from the last months of Cricket and Ellie’s lives, but I’m going to wait on that until Mom’s walking is steadier and she doesn’t need the walker anymore; hopefully the neighbors will be patient with the uncovered floors for a bit longer.

            The need to clean has been profound since losing Ellie. When both dogs were still here I didn’t mind a few extra boxes here and there, but in the quiet I keep wanting to clean and find order and make things neat, as if making the apartment more orderly will heal the grief (though it doesn’t really work).

My Ellie

            It was so strange to be in the apartment alone. For two days it was just me, no Mom, no dogs, and I don’t know how to describe the stillness in the air. I kept hearing noises and thinking Ellie was coming back down the hallway after a midnight snack, or Mom was getting up in the middle of the night for a midnight snack (Mom and the dogs seemed to have a club I was not invited to). But no one was actually there.

Thank God, the surgery itself went well, and now that Mom’s back home, everything feels like its back to normal, where the noises around the apartment are real instead of phantoms, and even on pain meds and using a walker, she’s more energetic and busy than I am, always texting with someone or planning something. I think the lesson here is that I am a very boring person on my own.

            Next up is physical therapy and occupational therapy and nurse’s visits and keeping track of all of the post-op medications and worrying about something else going wrong. But Mom is in a surprisingly good mood so far, and I’m feeling hopeful again.

            Oh, and we got a note from the board of our co-op saying that from now on there won’t be a pet fee charged each month for each (or any) pet you own, so when the time comes I can clearly get as many dogs as I can fit into the apartment. Five sounds like a good number to me. It’s possible that Mom will disagree, so, shh, don’t tell her.

“One dog is always enough.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Oh, But There’s More

Posted on December 16, 2023 by rachelmankowitz

            As if things around here haven’t been dramatic enough, Mom finally went to see a new orthopedist in November, to check on the pain in her left leg, and the new doctor confirmed that the left hip is now at the bone on bone stage and needs to be replaced, like, now.

I keep having flashbacks to two summers ago when Mom had her right hip replaced, and ended up needing a second surgery six weeks later to fix the mistakes of the first surgery, and then had to be hospitalized again a few weeks later when fluid filled her lungs as a result of the two anesthesias. I spent that whole summer feeling like the world was crashing down, and now, after losing two dogs in two months and with Mom going in for surgery again, my existential dread is back in the danger zone.

And then came Covid.

The day before Ellie died, Mom and I went for our yearly Covid shots and quickly forgot about them in our grief. Within a week I had what I thought was a cold, and it made sense to me that I would get sick given how awful I felt at losing Ellie, so I didn’t question it. Though I do remember thinking, huh, this is the first cold I’ve had since before the whole Covid thing started.

When I finally had the energy to go out and do my chores I wore a KN95 face mask, thinking I just didn’t want to spread what was left of my cold. I went to the drug store and did some food shopping, and then I went home to take five naps. The symptoms of the cold (sneezing and coughing and nausea and feeling like my limbs were about to fall off) seemed to be over, but I still thought I should wear my mask when I went to teach the kids, just in case.

I’ve been organizing things around the living room, since Ellie’s death, so when I got home from teaching that day and was too tired to move from the couch, my eye caught on a box of Covid home tests across the room and I thought, huh, maybe I should just check. I don’t know why this thought didn’t occur to me before I went out, but it didn’t. Honestly, I’d taken so many tests over the past few years, each time I had a bad allergy day or heard about someone who’d gotten Covid, and the tests had always been negative, so it just seemed like a science experiment, and a way to use up the leftover home tests now that they were a month or two out of date.

I took the test, and it was positive. So I took another test, and it was positive too. Then Mom took a test and she was positive too, and I felt like shit. I wrote to my boss to let her know I had Covid, expecting her to be in a rage that I’d been so stupid to not think of taking the tests before coming to work, but, of course, she was kind and just asked how I was feeling and what she should teach when she subbed for my class.

I have never missed work since I started this job. It’s a very part time job, so that’s probably not as big of an achievement as it seems, but to me it’s a big deal, because I am often very, very tired and I always impress myself when I get up and out and actually manage to drive safely and even teach. I had on my KN95 mask for the two hours I’d been at school with the kids, and most of my symptoms were already gone, so, fingers crossed, I didn’t get anyone sick. But even knowing all of that, I felt like a mass murderer (I’ve been watching the news a lot, and the way the world seems to think every Jew is killing people just by being Jewish has hit me hard. My father made it clear that, as a female, I was the cause of all evil in the world, and now large swaths of the world seem to think that being born Jewish makes me the cause of all evil too, so…I’m feeling it).

I don’t know where I got Covid from, and the fact that I gave it to Mom, who was already suffering with her hip pain, just sucks. But we spent the next few days at home, rescheduling Mom’s pre-op testing appointments, and hoping for the best.

            And now that we’ve both been feeling better, at least Covid-wise, I’m back to grieving for Ellie, and being consumed by the news about Israel, and worrying about all of the doctors’ appointments coming up, and having nightmares about what will happen during the surgery, and after.

            In normal, and even not so normal times, Mom does everything she can to make things easier for me, often too much. But she won’t be able to help with anything for a while – not cooking or cleaning, certainly not errands and laundry and food shopping; and there’s no dog to help lift my spirits and put things in perspective, and it’s so dark and it’s getting cold and the world is such a scary place and…

I know I’m supposed to be an adult, with all kinds of inner resources and strengths to manage things like this, and I’m doing my best, watching as many Christmas movies as possible to distract myself, and taking each challenge one at a time, but I’m not okay. I want Ellie back and I want Mom to be healthy and I want the war to be over. Now.

The stuffed animals are keeping the dog beds warm.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Asking For Help

Posted on November 12, 2022 by rachelmankowitz

            This past summer was very difficult, with Mom’s two surgeries and one of my own, and it became clear to me that my reluctance to ask for help when I needed it – or even to accept it when it was offered – made things much harder than they had to be. I know that there are people in my life who would be happy to help me, and who have offered to help many times, but I always say something like, no, I’m fine, thanks anyway.

“Sure you are.”

I knew some of the reasons why it was hard for me to ask for help: it’s embarrassing to try to explain what I need versus what other people expect me to need; I’m afraid of being judged for the things I can’t do; I don’t believe I deserve help; I’m afraid of what I will owe in return; I often have no idea of what kind of help would help me; and, often, what I really need is so much bigger than what people can give me: I want to feel safe and loved; I want to pay off all of my debts; I want to be healthy and have the energy to go to work more often; I want to be published by a major publisher; I want a house with a yard, and ten dogs, and a horse; I want children. And if I can’t have what I really want, whatever I get instead ends up feeling disappointing, no matter how kindly and generously it is given.

            So, I said no to the offers of help this summer, whether they were offers to make meals, or give rides, or just be a supportive listener; even though I was terrified while Mom was in the hospital, and for the first few weeks after she came home. I worried that she would die, and then I worried that something would go wrong and I wouldn’t know how to help her, and then I worried that something would break in the apartment and I wouldn’t know how to fix it. Through all of it, I just kept saying, No, I’m fine, thanks anyway.

I’ve been practicing my asking-for-help skills with Mom for years, because she always wants to help me and never judges me for being needy. And I’ve learned that when what I ask for is impossible (aka, take out your magic wand and fix everything, Mommy), she will search for ways that she can help that I couldn’t have thought of myself. And more often than not, that help is what gets me to the solid ground I need in order to take the next small step by myself. But that practice hasn’t translated very well into asking for help from other people, maybe because I don’t trust them to help without judging me.

“I will always judge you.”

When I told my therapist about this essay, she told me that I was conflating two kinds of help: practical help and emotional support. But for me, those two things have to come together or else neither one really works. Emotional support feels empty without some kind of practical help that gets me over the void in my own abilities, and practical help feels unsafe and alienating if it’s not accompanied by emotional understanding and sympathy for why I need help in the first place.

To be fair, to me, I’ve gotten better at asking for help than I used to be, and to be fair to other people, there have been plenty of times when I have received meaningful help, without being talked down to or treated like a lesser being. But I never expect it to go that way.

I was reading a scene in a Rhys Bowen novel recently, where the protagonist had injured her collarbone and needed help carrying her bag up the stairs (needless to say, this was not the dramatic peak of the novel), and she wasn’t embarrassed, or feeling guilty, or trying to muscle through it. She just asked for the help she knew she needed and moved on. And I was gobsmacked! This otherwise unimportant scene stayed with me, because I kept asking myself how it was possible that she didn’t feel embarrassed, and didn’t imagine that she was exaggerating her injury, and didn’t see herself as a failure for needing support. I take all of those feelings for granted, as the cost of living, but wouldn’t it be amazing not to feel that way?

“I always trust you to help me, Mommy.”

I was almost done with this essay, I thought, when another facet of this fear of asking for help came up; one that I hadn’t recognized before: I had to reach out to my dentist, between appointments, because one of my bottom teeth was loose and causing a lot of pain. I’d been putting off calling her, telling myself that I’d just seen her recently, and she knew my situation, and there was no point in being dramatic about it, and the pain wasn’t so bad. But Mom, who knew how hard I’d been working on this essay, told me that I needed to ask for help, and I felt sufficiently scolded to push myself to reach out to the dentist. The dentist called me right back and said she wanted to fit me in for an appointment as soon as possible, because she’d been worried about that tooth since my last visit, and she already had a plan for removing and replacing it. I made the appointment and then grumbled to myself about the unfairness of life, and how annoying it was that she’d called back so quickly and already had a plan in mind. And I realized, that’s why I didn’t want to reach out to her in the first place: I didn’t want to know that my lower teeth were in such bad shape, so soon after the trauma of replacing the upper teeth.

            I keep wanting to believe that asking for and receiving help will be some kind of magical elixir, where the pain disappears and life feels easy; that is often the kind of help I’m craving. But if getting help actually means having to face the harsh realities of life, the ones that I can’t handle on my own, then no wonder I’m reluctant to ask for help. Maybe putting off asking for the help I know I need allows me stay in La La land for a little while longer.

“I like La La Land!”

            I have no idea how to overcome this desire to stay in La La land. Intellectually, I know that I have to, but I also know, deep in my body, that I’m not ready. I think part of my belief that I can’t get the kind of help I want from other people comes from knowing how hard it has been to give myself the compassion and support I need when I’m struggling. I figure, if I can’t give that to help myself, why should I believe that anyone else would be willing or able to give it to me?

“Oy.”

            If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Oral Surgery, finally

Posted on September 3, 2022 by rachelmankowitz

            After Mom’s emergency second hip surgery, to revise the hip replacement that was put in two months earlier, my oral surgery was rescheduled to late August. I already had my medical clearances in place, and all of the medications I’d need for before and after the surgery, and the oral surgeon had already given me a rundown of what to expect after surgery: like, bleeding from the nose, swelling of the sinuses, bruising on my face, and a possible lisp because the temporary (3D printed) implant would leave a small space between the device and my gums. Oh, and I wouldn’t be allowed to blow my nose, or accidentally sneeze, for three weeks, because that would make the swelling worse.

“I know how to avoid sneezing.”

            My biggest fear leading up to the surgery itself, though, was the anesthesia. The surgeon had told me that they wouldn’t decide until the day of the surgery whether I’d be getting sedation or general anesthesia. He was voting for general anesthesia, because it would make his life easier, but I thought sedation might mean I could avoid having a foreign object shoved down my throat, so I was hoping for sedation. When I finally spoke to the anesthesiologist, a few days before the surgery, she told me that I’d have a tube down my throat either way, to protect my airway, and that general anesthesia would be better for the surgeon and easier on my throat. And I’d be unconscious when she put the tube in and took it out, so that might mitigate my fear of choking. I hoped she was right.

Then she asked me, with no warning, if I had access to an adult undergarment, i.e. depends, because if not they could supply one for me when I got there. What?! She said that I might pee under anesthesia and everyone would prefer it, including me and the staff, if I didn’t leave a puddle.

Eek!

First of all, no, I don’t have adult undergarments hanging around on a shelf – except for Cricket’s adorable pink reusable diaper from her incontinence episode, which would just about fit over my hand. Second, how did no one think to mention this to me ahead of time? Or maybe they kept it quiet because they thought this would be the deal breaker. As it is, the adult undergarment became my number one preoccupation for the whole weekend leading up to the surgery – who cares about pain! What if I pee on myself?!

When I met the anesthesiologist in person, she was lovely and friendly and way too energetic for someone who was about to put me to sleep. She gave me the adult undergarment to change into in the bathroom, under my loose clothing (aka pajamas), and then I was whisked into the surgical suite, where my legs were wrapped in anti-blood clot sleeves, and monitors were attached to my fingers, and my hair was covered with a surgical bonnet so it wouldn’t get sticky (?!), and then a needle was put into the back of my hand, and then I have no idea.

I woke up in the same room, with the same people removing the things they’d attached just seconds before (though I found out later that five hours had passed). Most of my thoughts when I first woke up, strangely enough, were in Hebrew. Where’s Mom? What happened? When can I go home? I couldn’t actually speak yet, because my mouth was filled with gauze, and my throat was rough, and I had ice packs wrapped around my face, but I found myself translating everything into English anyway, as if they could hear me and answer me. The closest I came to being able to communicate was a grunt or two and a thumbs up or down, though as I was leaving in my wheelchair the surgeon decided to give me a fist bump.

I don’t really remember the trip home, except that Mom brought out her rarely-used walker and our neighbor, the nurse, to help me walk from the car up to the apartment. I spent the rest of the evening in front of the TV, changing out the bloody gauze until my mouth stopped bleeding (mostly), and going to the bathroom every twenty minutes (I couldn’t find an explanation for the excess peeing online, especially since I could barely sip enough water to take my pain meds, but it receded along with the excess bleeding).

I didn’t sleep much that first night, because my nose kept running – the surgeon said it was fluid from my sinuses, and blood, rather than traditional snot, but either way it made it hard to breathe – and I had to refreeze the ice packs for my face constantly, and my mouth hurt, and every time I moved my head it all hurt even more. I was able to take the dogs out the next morning, though, wearing a loose face mask to try and cover my swollen cheeks, but I managed to forget my house keys and had to ring the doorbell for Mom to let us back in anyway.

The pain was so much worse than I’d been expecting, so I had to give in and take some of the oxycodone I’d been prescribed, but mostly I survived on ibuprofen and ice and the coziness of my puppy pile.

To make things worse, it turned out that my Mom, who had been having trouble breathing over the weekend and assumed at first that it was just an allergy thing, went to the doctor on my first day post-surgery and started treatment for a possible case of Pneumonia. The next day she went for a chest x-ray, which ruled out pneumonia, which meant that on my second full day post-surgery I was driving Mom to the emergency room so they could rule out a blood clot. She stayed in the hospital overnight, getting all kinds of tests, and was told that she had fluid in the right lobe of her lungs and some kind of hardening of the lung tissue, which would be investigated further with a Bronchoscopy (under general anesthesia, a week later, just to keep things fun).

The next day, while Mom was still finishing up her tests at the hospital, I drove myself back to the surgeon’s office to have my temporary implant put in. By then my cheeks were starting to deflate and had turned all sorts of interesting colors, but my face mask allowed me to feel largely invisible, until I had to take it off to be examined by various assistants. There was a lot of sitting and waiting, between examinations, and then the surgeon screwed in the temporary implant, using what seemed to me like a tiny Allen wrench. He made sure to tell me not to swallow anything during the procedure, which was helpful, because when he was finished screwing everything in place there was still one tiny screw sitting on my tongue.

When I got home, I wrapped my face in ice again (they gave me a cool little headband that wraps around my head, with pockets for the ice packs, which was much more comfortable than holding ice packs on my face with both hands), and I watched the recording of my online Hebrew class a day late, so jealous of everyone on the screen. Mom came home with updates on her hospital stay and then it was nap time, for everyone, puppies especially.

“Sorry, Mommy. No room for you.”

Each day the pain and swelling has receded a bit more, and I’ve started to figure out how to chew with my new teeth, and how to deal with the temporary lisp (ignore it). The freezer is filled with bought and homemade soft foods, like soups and casseroles, and, of course ice cream, so there’s a lot to look forward to. And when the permanent implant comes, in a few months, it’s supposed to fit better than the temporary one (eliminating the lisping issue), and be made of stronger material (to allow me to eat more than just soft food), so if I can make it through the next few months with some self-esteem left, I should be okay long term.

And pretty soon, I’ll be back in front of the classroom, with no time to worry about how weird I look or sound, because the kids will have so many more important things to focus on, like: He pulled my hair! She stole my favorite pencil! Can I go to the bathroom, even though I just went five minutes ago and I’m definitely not looking for an excuse to wander around the building, please?!

Wish me luck!

“Are you going away again?!

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Jury Duty

Posted on August 20, 2022 by rachelmankowitz

            When I first received a jury questionnaire in the mail, back in the spring, I wrote in the space provided about my various health issues and why it would be difficult for me to manage a full day of jury duty, let alone several days of a trial, and asked to be excused. When I didn’t hear back from them with a request for more information, I thought I’d done enough to be let off the hook. But the jury summons came anyway, on the same day that I’d gotten clearance from the Pulmonologist for my oral surgery, and the summons was dated for the week of the surgery itself.

“Oh, come on, people!”

I was able to postpone the summons for a few weeks, but I didn’t even try to get out of it completely; partly because I felt guilty trying to get out of jury duty, and partly because I didn’t want to go through the humiliation of trying to prove to my doctor that my disabilities are significant. I’d gotten out of jury duty a while back with a doctor’s note, when they were going to send me to Brooklyn (an hour and a half trip each way, by train, in the summer), but I had a doctor I trusted back then, and I knew for sure that I wouldn’t have been able to handle that trip, no matter how hard I’d tried. But this time, it was different, or I kept thinking it was.

            I told myself that I’d only have to drive twenty minutes each way, because the court complex is nearby, and I knew the route, and even if the weather was disgusting, I’d be inside most of the time, and sitting. And then my surgery was postponed too, with jury duty coming first instead of second, so I really didn’t see any way out of it.

            One of the more stressful things about jury duty, in my area at least, is that instead of being told to come in on a specific day, you are put on call for a week, meaning that every day at five o’clock you have to check the website to see if your number has been called for the following day. But I was lucky, this time, because when I checked the website the Friday before my summons week, I found out that I was being called for Monday, which meant I had the whole weekend to prepare: do the food shopping and the laundry, take extra naps, fill up my book bag with all of the things I’d need, and thank god I didn’t have to wait until five o’clock each day, for the rest of the week, to find out if I’d have to go in the next morning.

“But who’s gonna take me out to pee?!”

            I feel like I should be one of the people who is actively interested in every part of the justice system, and in doing my civic duty, and I keep thinking that I should use jury duty as a way to research future novels and learn about police procedure and all that. And, beyond that, I feel like jury duty is an obligation, like voting, and I don’t want to be one of the people who lies to get out of jury duty and then laughs about how juries are all made up of the stupid people who can’t get out of it. But I don’t have much energy, and I have a lot of social anxiety issues that make things like this ten times harder than they should be, and, whenever I’m near a police officer or inside of a court building, I think I’m going to be arrested.

            My mom has only been called for jury duty once in her life, and, so far, I’ve been called five or six times. I don’t know how I got so lucky. The first time I’d just graduated from college, and I was really nervous, but also kind of excited. I went through the voir dire, where the lawyers ask potential jurors all kinds of questions to see if they’ll be a good juror for the case, and when they asked if I’d ever been the victim of a crime, I had to say, uh, yeah, and the guilty party got away with it. I thought about saying no, just to see what it would be like to be chosen for a jury, but I’m not a good liar. Another time, I vaguely remember that we were given damp sandwiches and bused to another location that looked like a repurposed elementary school, but I was scratched, again, when they got to the victim-of-a-crime question. There was another time when I had to call in each day, for a week, to find out if they needed me, and they never did. That was probably the worst.

“Waiting sucks.”

            Even during my short stints at jury duty, though, it’s become clear that the lawyers just aren’t as interesting as the ones on TV, and the cases aren’t as dramatic or convoluted, and there’s almost never a twist ending, which is just disappointing. Instead it’s a lot of sitting around and waiting. If only I could bring one of the dogs with me for company – though there’s a very good chance that Cricket would get me arrested.

            I should have asked for a doctor’s note, because I’m just so tired all the time, and because Mom was still recovering from her second hip surgery, and because the dogs needed me, and because I needed to keep the apartment relatively livable, but I was too chicken. So I went.

            I packed diligently: phone, phone charger, jury summons, extra mask, book to read for fun, book to read for serious, notebooks and pens, oatmeal in a thermos (with a spoon), gingerale (in case of nausea caused by anxiety), and wet wipes.

            I got to the courthouse a few minutes early and found a seat in a corner of the central jury room, which was, thankfully, well air-conditioned and big enough to leave room for social distancing. Most people wore face masks, even though we were allowed to show our vaccination cards to get out of it, and after a little while of sitting there and staring around the room at each other, we watched a few videos: about jury service in New York and about implicit bias (how we fill in a picture when it is incomplete, based on assumptions that may not be true). And then we waited. A bunch of names were called while I played with my phone: sent an email and a text, did some water sorting and some Duolingo. And then we waited some more. I finished reading my book-for-fun (Rhys Bowen’s God Rest Ye Royal Gentlemen) and another group of names were called, and then we waited again. My phone was running out of power, but I was too scared to go wandering around looking for a place to charge it, so I got some writing done, and read some of the serious book (Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God), and then some more names were called and then we waited again. It was getting close to lunch time by then, and my neck and back hurt, and I was wondering if we would be sent to a cafeteria or let out for the hour and a half for lunch, and wishing I could go home and take a nap. And then my name was called. A whole group of us were led into a smaller, less well air-conditioned room, and I was really worried that we would be sent to do a voir dire right away and miss our lunch break altogether, and my headache would keep getting worse and I’d end up crying, or yelling at someone, or getting myself arrested, somehow. And then a non-descript man came into the room with a big pile of papers and told us that the rest of the cases for the day had been settled, and we would be going home early. There were quite a few hoots and hollers and Praise Gods and then we were called up one by one to get our printed sheet confirming that we had completed our jury service. And that was it.

            It had rained at some point while we were deep inside the court building, far from any windows, but the air outside still felt wet and thick as I walked across the street to my hot car, but…I was free!

            But even as I was driving home, hours earlier than expected, I wasn’t quite able to process what had happened. Time had slowed down so thoroughly in that big, isolated, jury room, with all of the empty spaces filled with anxiety about what might happen next, and not trusting myself to know how to answer the lawyers’ questions if I was called in to try out for jury and worried I would end up on a five week trial because I was too scared to say no. And then, suddenly, I was free, and I was still awake and aware enough to drive home without needing to pull over to rest, and even though I was a little bit shaky with fatigue, I was actually okay.

            And then I was home. Mom and the dogs met me at the door and I was able to take a nap in my own room, with puppies for company, and eat whatever I wanted to eat instead of whatever I could fit into a thermos. It wasn’t the easiest day of the summer, but it wasn’t the hardest one either, after all. All summer long there’s been one challenge after another, and even if it hasn’t been easy, each challenge has been met, somehow. And even though I’d much rather not be in survival mode endlessly, it’s good to know that if I need to survive, I can do it. I just hope I won’t get another jury summons too soon, and Mom won’t need another new hip for a while, and things will start to calm down a little bit.

But…I’m not holding my breath.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Cricket’s Struggle

Posted on August 6, 2022 by rachelmankowitz

            Cricket had great plans to help her grandma with her exercises after hip replacement surgery back in May. She also planned to be the heating pad after each workout, and she was going to bark Grandma awake every hour or so to walk up and down the hall, and then bark her Grandma down the stairs and outside, once she could go without the walker, and she was going to remind her to bend her knees instead of bending at the waist to put on the leashes, and she was going to sit on Grandma’s lap to keep her from lifting her knee too high, or crossing one leg over the other.

Cricket, the guard dog

            Alas, right from the beginning, Cricket was told no. She was told no when she tried to sleep on Grandma’s hip, to keep it warm; and she was told no when she tried to guide Grandma’s walker down the hall; and she was told no when she woke Grandma up at six o’clock in the morning to go for a walk.

            It was devastating. And to make matters worse, a stranger came into the apartment, called a physical therapist, and Cricket was told that she was not allowed to stand next to him and bark her critiques of all of his work. Instead, she was sent to bark in Mommy’s room with that other dog. Nothing could distract Cricket from her work of barking, though, since it was the only thing she could do to make sure that Grandma survived her physical therapy session with that STRANGER!

Cricket and that other dog (aka Ellie)

            After two weeks, a new physical therapist came, a woman, and she took Grandma for walks outside, without Cricket. She took Grandma to the garden and watered and weeded, without Cricket. She even took Grandma to the car, to practice sitting down and getting up again, without Cricket. And there were new exercises for Grandma to do, in the living room, that required Cricket to be SOMEWHERE ELSE. 

“This is unacceptable.”

            But finally, after what felt like years, Grandma could go for walks again, and hold the leash again, and the stranger didn’t come to the apartment as often, and Cricket could finally relax. But then, disaster struck, and Grandma left again, to the hospital, Mommy said, for what felt like forever!

            Mommy said that Grandma was on the phone, but the phone didn’t have a lap; and it didn’t smell like Grandma, and it couldn’t hold a leash, and it never gave scratchies.

            And then Grandma came home, and Cricket was thrilled, but Grandma started to say no all over again. No to sleeping on Grandma, no to walking in front of Grandma, no to holding leashes and sharing snacks and having cuddles. No to everything!

            And then the physical therapist came back AGAIN! And Cricket was trapped in the bedroom with that other dog AGAIN, with only Mommy there, giving not enough treats, while Cricket knew that Grandma was in the other room with a STRANGER.

            Clearly, more barking had to be directed at Mommy, to make her do the right thing, aka get the stranger to leave so that Cricket could be in charge of physical therapy. She could get Grandma in shape in no time! But no, no, no, no. All the time, no. When Cricket woke Mommy up at six o’clock in the morning, no. When Cricket barked at Grandma to share her snacks, no. When Cricket barked at Ellie (aka that other dog) to tell her to start barking too, no. Everything was no!

“Why is it always no?”

            But Cricket is confident that, one day soon, she will get a yes, and then another yes. She will get her lap back, and she will get her Grandma-walks back, and she will get her life back. In the meantime, it’s no, and can’t, and don’t, which is an awful, terrible, horrible disaster. But one day soon, things will get better. Cricket is sure of it. All it will take is persistence.

Ellie’s not so sure.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Oral Surgery, Interrupted

Posted on July 23, 2022 by rachelmankowitz

            At my most recent visit with the dentist, about a month ago, I finally asked her about the oral surgeon’s recommendation that I get a full implant to replace my upper teeth – with screws in my cheek bones to stabilize it – and the dentist said it was the best option for me, despite the cost. She said that I will lose more teeth, more rapidly, in the near future, because of the progression of gum recession and bone loss. She was definite, and the hygienist, who I’ve been going to for about twenty years (she worked with my previous dentist too), agreed with the dentist’s assessment, and said that I’d be in good hands with this particular oral surgeon. My mother had also done her research, with friends in the dental field and of course on Google, and she felt that this was the right plan too. And, Mom said, as a result of my father’s death last fall she would be getting a larger social security check from now on, so, in a way, my father would be helping to pay for it.

            I was still scared, though, of the cost of the procedure and the radical nature of it; but I was more scared of not doing it, or of not doing it in time, and losing more teeth without having something to replace them.

As soon as we called the oral surgeon to say yes, the process started to move forward at high speed. The office manager at the oral surgeon’s office had to do a credit check to see if I qualified for a loan, and then I needed to go into the office to sign the loan papers, and get x-rays and a lot of pictures of my smile, and intra-oral pictures to cover every centimeter of my mouth, so that the surgery could be planned out and the temporary and permanent implants designed. The doctor’s assistant, who did all of the pictures, some even with her cell phone while I used the retractors to hold my mouth open, also gave me a rundown of what to expect after the surgery: a lot of pain (with a prescription for Percocet, just in case), and bruising on my face for ten days to two weeks, and oh yeah, it might be difficult to get used to eating and talking with the temporary implant (the permanent one would come in three months and be made of less bulky and more long-lasting materials), and I’d have to be on a soft food diet for the whole three months to protect the temporary implant, and probably not eat much at all for the first few days while my gums healed, before they could even put the temporary implant in place.

I went home with a gift bag (a Water Pik, signed loan papers, cough drops, and colorful plumes of paper), and a lot of fear. I knew I had to follow through with this, not just because of the loan papers, but because this would be my best option to feel like a viable person in the future, but I had a lot of nightmares: teeth being pulled out of my mouth with rusty plyers, monsters shoving things down my throat while I’m under anesthesia, etc.

“Monsters?”

A day or two later, I got an email from the Anesthesiologist’s office telling me what I’d need to do for medical clearance before the surgery: I’d need an EKG and blood tests and an overall exam from my primary care doctor, and an okay from a pulmonologist. But my primary care doctor didn’t have any appointments available until the week after the surgery, and it took a while before one of the schedulers at her office offered to let me see the nurse practitioner there who had an opening. And then I called the office of a pulmonologist I’d seen five or six years ago, for shortness of breath, and his scheduler said he didn’t have appointments available until October.

So, back to the primary care doctor’s office for a referral to another pulmonologist, and, wonder of wonders they had a name ready and he had an appointment available within an hour. And he was lovely. He read through my test results from five years ago, and checked my breathing, and took a short history, and gave me his okay for surgery. He told me that he’d had a similar situation where he’d needed pulmonary clearance for surgery, and they wouldn’t take his own medical word for it, so he’d gone to the pulmonologist I’d seen before (the one with no appointments until October) to get his clearance done.

            After that, I was finally able to take a deep breath. It seemed like things were going to be okay, and there were even nice people in the world who understood what I was going through, and then I got home and found a jury summons in the mail, for the week of the surgery.

            Really God? Really?!

            I had to email the jury commissioner’s office directly because the only postponement options offered online were for during the school year, and luckily they were able to give me a new date in August (by which time my bruises would, hopefully, be less visible).

            At the same time, I was preparing for the trip to the hospital in Philadelphia (which turned out to be a virtual visit at the last minute, thank God), and worrying about whether or not to take the next semester of my online Hebrew class over the summer, knowing I’d have to miss a couple of class sessions, and possibly stay off camera for a few others, what with bruises on my face and lispy, awkward speech. But the idea of not having those classes, and only having the pain to look forward to, seemed too awful, so I stuck with it. And then I needed to go for a Covid test and pick up the meds from CVS that I was supposed to start three days before the surgery, and…

And then Mom’s hip replacement popped out. Her hip had been sore for a few days, but the doctor wasn’t worried and just recommended more rest. But when I came in from walking the dog’s Saturday morning Mom said, “I have some bad news,” or something equally as understated, and she told me she could feel something protruding under the skin and she was ready to throw up from the pain. I raced around looking for the doctor’s phone number, which was probably in plain sight somewhere, and eventually found it online, and the doctor said to call for an ambulance and go to the emergency room. The dogs barked up a storm from behind my bedroom door when the paramedics arrived, but Mom was really calm and just needed some help getting her shoes on before they guided her down the stairs in a wheelchair and out to the ambulance.

“Why can’t we go with Grandma?”

The ER was crowded with Covid patients, so I wasn’t allowed to go in and had to wait for news at home. And I still wasn’t allowed to go in later in the day, after they’d decided to transfer her to the hospital in the city where she’d had the original surgery, so I had to drop off her clothes and phone charger with a very nice security guard, without seeing her at all. And then I went home and called the oral surgeon’s office and left a message (it was the weekend) telling him that I would have to postpone the surgery, which was supposed to have taken place that Thursday. And then I had to sit and wait.

Up until that moment I’d felt like I was on a speeding train with all of the doctors’ appointments and the upcoming oral surgery and jury duty and then getting Mom to the emergency room and bringing her clothes. And then the world just stopped, and all I could do was sit by the phone.

“I’ll sit with you, Mommy.”

But Mom’s second surgery finally took place mid-week, and it went well, though the surgeon sounded more humble on the phone this time around, explaining exactly what he’d done to make the hip replacement more stable. And then I heard from the oral surgeon’s office manager that my new surgery date wouldn’t be until late in August, dangerously close to the beginning of the synagogue school year (though I’m hopeful that with the latest Covid sub-variant going around, I will be able to wear a mask in the classroom and not feel too self-conscious).

Now that Mom’s home, and safe, I should be feeling better, but I’m afraid of what will happen when the world starts moving again and I have to rush to the drug store, or see doctors, or go to jury duty, or prepare for my own surgery, or go back to teaching in the fall. I feel like a stopped clock that has to be reset, and my arms will flail out of control as I start to speed forward through the hours again. But for now, there’s a calm in our house, as Cricket climbs back up onto her grandma’s bed, and even lets Ellie sit nearby (though not for long); we can all breathe a sigh of relief, knowing we are home, together, where we belong.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Looking for Butterflies

Posted on June 18, 2022 by rachelmankowitz

            Sometime in the midst of prepping for Mom’s hip surgery, Duolingo announced that I was in the running for the semifinals, of something. I spend some time every day on Duolingo, practicing my Hebrew and French, learning Spanish or German or Yiddish. I’m sure that part of my language learning adventure has been about wanting to feel smart and impressive, but first and foremost I’m fascinated by what languages can teach us about who we are and how we understand ourselves. I don’t practice each language every day, some days I do a little of a few different languages, some days I do a deep dive into one of the languages, sometimes I just do enough to keep my streak alive for another day.

            But then there was this tournament. It wasn’t hard to get into the semifinals: I just had to do the same number of lessons I usually do every day. And even getting into the finals didn’t take much extra effort. But once I was in the finals I started to feel pressure to spend hours each day earning points, by studying old lessons and learning new ones. By then, Mom was home from the hospital, and struggling. I was basically on call 24/7 to make sure she took the right medications, at the right times, and had enough to drink and food, if she could stand to eat, and I was also taking care of the dogs and the apartment and the laundry and the shopping.

“But we’re so easy!”

            And, at first, the extra time spent on Duolingo was a relief, a chance to think about something other than life and death and pain and all of the ways I was failing my mom, and all of the ways I was failing in life overall. I won eighty points with one lesson – I must be a genius!!! But as the week of the finals went on, and the pressure grew, I was on my cellphone so much that it kept running out of power. I usually don’t notice how much battery is left on my phone, I just put it on its charger when I go to sleep and it takes care of itself, but now it needed to be charged multiple times a day. I was doing Yiddish lessons in between trips to the laundry room, and Spanish lessons while the tea was steeping, and French and German when I had free time and would normally be trying to write, or read. Every time I saw my name fall down to, say, twentieth place, when only the top fifteen would win, I felt like a failure. I had to push harder, do more, and win! I didn’t even know what I might win if I made it into the top fifteen, but it said that the top fifteen would be winners and I wanted to be a winner!

“I’m already a winner.”

            The dogs handled the early days of Mom’s recovery really well, thank God. Ellie was her usual sweet self, sleeping on the floor of Mom’s room, sending good vibes throughout the day and night, and knowing to come to me for food or trips and let Mom rest. Even Cricket did better than I had expected. She (mostly) listened when she was told to stay off Mom’s lap, or away from her feet when she was walking slowly down the hall. There was one bad night, though, when she didn’t listen. I found out in the morning that, using her good leg, Mom had kicked Cricket off the bed, and Cricket flew across the room, losing her tags halfway across the floor (I reattached the tags the next morning, pressing extra hard with the plyers so that at least if she went flying again she’d still have her identification on her).

“Harrumph.”

By the weekend of the Duolingo finals, Mom was starting to feel better, not needing me to be on call as much, and my obsession with my placement in the Duolingo rankings became constant. By midday, Sunday, I was in 16th place, one spot away from the winner’s circle, but the whole thing was becoming tedious and I was starting to hate learning languages, which is not like me at all. The only time I could get any perspective was when my phone ran out of power and I was forced to take a break while it was on its charger. I was still able to walk the dogs, and clean, and cook, and make tea when necessary, so there were a few minutes here and there when I wasn’t on my phone, trying desperately to keep up, but not many.

            By early evening I had made it into thirteenth place and I thought it was safe to take a break to make dinner, and eat dinner, since the competition would be ending at 11 PM. But when I looked at the rankings again, an hour later, I was back down in sixteenth place. I sat with Mom in the living room, supposedly watching TV, but really trying to earn enough points to get back into the winner’s circle. It was about 10:40 PM and I was still about one hundred points from fifteenth place – winner! – when the battery ran out and my phone shut off. I had seen the warnings that I was low on power, twenty percent left, ten percent left, but I was too busy to stop and charge it, and I was sure I had enough to make it through the end of the tournament, and I was wrong.

At 10:40 PM, I knew that even if my phone charged quickly, I’d still be too far behind to make up the points by 11. Each point I earned would be matched, at least, by the guy in fifteenth place, and he would always be at least a hundred points ahead of me. I wasn’t sure if the people ahead of me in the rankings had more free time, more competitive spirit, better strategy, or if they just had Duolingo Plus, the paid version, which makes it much easier to earn a lot of points at once, but I knew I was out.

            So, I finally let go. I put my phone on its charger, and took the dogs out for their last walk of the day, and brushed my teeth, and tried to accept defeat. Some small part of me felt guilty for giving up, telling me I could have switched over to the Duolingo site on my computer and at least tried to earn the last one hundred, two hundred, three hundred points, however unlikely success might be. But I didn’t do that. I just made my overnight oats for breakfast, took my evening meds, and watched the clock as the last few minutes ran out on the Duolingo tournament.

            I was already planning this essay by then – because the extremeness of my behavior around this meaningless tournament worried and intrigued me. I could stand back, finally, and wonder if I was specifically vulnerable to this obsession because of the helplessness of watching Mom struggle to recover from her surgery. Or if maybe there’s something in my brain in general that can’t tell the difference between what’s important and what isn’t important, and I truly believed that winning this tournament could change my life in some significant way.

            Mom had a much better way of distracting herself. For Mother’s Day, before the surgery, when I was searching through Amazon for something Mom might like, I found a butterfly kit. I’d never heard of such a thing, but Mom loved the idea, and then spent half a day looking for the right one (not the one I’d found), and it arrived a few days before the surgery. She set it up in her room, and read diligently through the instructions for how to take care of the caterpillars, and their habitat. Luckily, there wasn’t anything I needed to do for them while Mom was in the hospital, because I was too busy cooking and cleaning and freaking out, to have made sense of more instructions.

            And when Mom came home and was dealing with all of the pain and discomfort of recovery, she watched the caterpillars creating their chrysalises, and she fed them and cared for them, and when the butterflies started to emerge, Mom was starting to feel better, and by the time Mom was ready to start walking outside with the physical therapist, it was time to hang the butterfly habitat outside on a tree, and open the zipper, and let the new butterflies find their way out into the world.

            The metaphor of the whole thing really resonated, for both of us (though Mom was disappointed that the butterflies flew away so quickly after their transformation). The presence of these creatures, transforming in her room, gave her something hopeful to look at every day. Even if she never intended the butterflies to be such a clear metaphor, some unconscious part of her brain knew what she would need and sought it out.

            And, for whatever reason, my mind sought out the Sisyphean task of trying to win a Duolingo tournament I could never win.

            There was such relief when the tournament was finally over, even though I’d ended up right outside of the winner’s circle in sixteenth place. I was able to look away from my phone again and realize that Mom really was feeling better, and moving better, and ready to make her own tea again, the way she actually liked it. And I was finally able to go back to my other obsession: watching endless episodes of Murder, She Wrote, and basking in Jessica Fletcher’s ability to decipher clues and solve murders and believe in herself despite constant criticism. In a way, Jessica Fletcher is the butterfly version of my caterpillar self, and watching her gives me hope that someday I might come out of my chrysalis and really be able to fly.

            At the same time, Cricket started to realize that her Grandma wasn’t in as much danger anymore, and decided to resume her regular habits: including her insistence on sitting on her Grandma’s lap and barking her demands as persistently and loudly as possible. She made it clear, in her own way, that there was more to life than winning a Duolingo tournament, or even watching episodes of Murder, She Wrote, and it would require me to get up and take her and her sister outside to look for the butterflies.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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