A Proper Update

I feel guilty that so many friends opened that last post looking for an update on my medical questions, only for me to say, “I don’t want to talk about it.” I really was overwhelmed with, shall we say, unproductive feelings. Even now as I try to draft a better response, I find myself rambling and ranting and sounding angry.  

The bottom line is that the new doctor told me I do not have any endocrine problems, and he said this within like two minutes of meeting me. He is sure because I don’t have a main symptom—nausea and weight loss—so there’s no way I have the problems I’ve been pursuing since January. 

See though, my previous doctor in South Texas said that these problems manifest in a variety of ways. That it’s difficult to diagnose, that you have to carefully consider several factors and take your time. I saw her in person, then virtually, over a four-month stretch, and she felt strongly that I should pursue this and told me to see a doctor in person.  

Then that doctor walks in and reverses her diagnosis in a minute. You can see why I was confused and frustrated. 

He said a few additional things that spun my head around even more, and since then I’ve done a little research, and turns out he’s probably right on some of these. So, I’m working on looking past his dismissive and condescending attitude and trying to learn from him.  As I mentioned earlier, he’s rerunning a bunch of lab work, probably just to placate me, but I’ll take it. If the labs all come out negative, I will rethink.

Breath in, breath out. 

Proper(ish) Travel Descriptions

We’ve enjoyed driving through the south this summer, despite the fact that we’ve been going in the wrong direction and feeling that oddness every mile. It’s our first southern summer on the road, so we’ve seen blooming magnolias and blooming crepe myrtles‚ not the trimmed-within-an-in-inch-of-their-lives type of crepe myrtle I grew up with, but the big kind with beautiful bark. We saw live oaks of varying sizes, but still live oaks. How can you not love them.

We crossed the Mighty Mississippi River. We stopped to make lunch at a random boat ramp, at a county fairgrounds, at the last campsite of Robert E. Lee before surrendering.  

What I’ve enjoyed the most have been the old barns of southwest Virginia and central Tennessee.  They’ve been sitting on their hillsides for so long that they seem like they grew in place.  Add in the beauty of rolls of hay left symmetrically in hilly fields. The calm of cows standing in ponds in the heat, swatting their tails. We’ve enjoyed travel days of not much else, which I’ll take.  

Although, Alabama alarmed me when we drove through a couple of towns of a type I didn’t know existed. American Village is one, established in 1999, with the goal of the entire town to evangelize patriotic, drastically conservative values.  We drove through another almost all-White wealthy town that seemed like its highly manicured goal was to keep out the riffraff.  Now, I didn’t know such places existed, I have to admit.

We enjoyed our stay at a brewery in Alabaster, Alabama—the folks running the place were friendly, and locals pulled in right off work to get dinner at the food truck in the lot with us. 

Now, Louisiana I love, although we’ve stayed there only a handful of times. I feel like it’s one of the last bastions of unusual culture in the U.S.. Even just driving on smaller roads, you notice fewer Applebees, more signs for Skinny’s Place, Lil Boo’s, Bogue Chitto Boys (whatever that might be). It’s true that it’s hard to tell if houses have been hit by a hurricane or are just dilapidated through time, and maybe I’m confusing a rural poverty I’m not familiar with for interesting culture.  I like seeing small houses on stilts, though.  And when people walk down the middle of the road and don’t move for you until the last minute because it’s their road and they’ve been walking it all their lives. 

So what’s the difference between rural poverty in Louisiana that I find inviting (aren’t I the obnoxious tourist?) and rural poverty in Texas that makes me afraid?  Guns, maybe.  Race? Or, I should say, racism.  I feel even more afraid thinking about that rich town in Alabama. Maybe it has to do with some people wanting to control others and some people wanting to be left to themselves.   Seeing as how I’m not from here, I’ll leave it at that. 

Now we’re here in East Texas with its own vibe. We were here first during the Clinton/Trump election when a local Trump rally drove through the campground, and now, as another election looms, right behind us a couple has draped a huge Trump flag across the front of their RV.  Tracy and I both remember the time we were chased by dogs here while riding our bikes, how scared we were.  We joke about our favorite sign by the campground advertising propane and dirt—if you’ve got something you need to hide, they’ll help you bury it or burn it, whatever gets the job done.  Okay, we made up that last part, but it fits the area. 

We have a while to find things to do here in East Texas. Perhaps boudin, crawfish, and, good tacos. No, I have definately not lost my appetite.