Nice to find an uncracked pedestal

When I was a child, I had a book of Norman Rockwell’s illustrations art that I used to joyously pore over. I remember even doing a report on him for school, and I had to make sure he wasn’t too much of a commercial artist to qualify.

In my previous life before motherhood and medical school, I actually went to art school and was a portrait artist. I could never even begin to touch the hem of Normal Rockwell’s garment when it came to the emotional quality he could bring to his faces, much less his exquisite technical skill. I never, ever mentioned being inspired by him in art school, however. No one else mentioned him either. I was busy discovering other portrait artists like Francis Bacon and Sigmund Freud.

There is a Normal Rockwell exhibit at a nearby art museum, and I really want to go. I was listening to a story on it on my local NPR station (you guessed that I listed to a lot of NPR already, right?) and I was stunned and impressed by their coverage of his dedication to civil rights. I was also stunned and disgusted by their explanation why none of his pieces depicting civil rights for African Americans were ever in the Saturday Evening Post; they had an official policy that blacks could only be portrayed as servants: waiters, housekeepers, etc. This was in the 1960’s.

(Another example of very institutionalized racism, and why I had the “there is no such thing as a race card” this very morning. Before I heard this story.)

I am looking forward to seeing the exhibit, especially two pieces that I had never heard of until they were described on the radio this morning. It used to mildly annoy me when they did stories about art on NPR and tried to describe the works, but I am so happy they do, now. (Obviously, it is beneficial to the visually impaired, also). Here are internet versions of two of the pieces at the exhibit: (click to embiggen)

“The Problem We All Live With”

This piece depicts four federal marshals escorting a black six year old girl (SIX!) to school in Louisiana. All the white parents pulled their children out of the class, according to the coverage. There is a tomato smashed on the wall behind her, as if it just whizzed past her head. And, the N word is emblazoned, lightly, on the wall above her head.

The second piece they described: (click to embiggen)

“Southern Justice” (Murder in Mississippi)

This hair raising image depicts the shootings in Mississippi during the civil rights era. I am fairly sure they are the shootings that lead to the movie “Mississippi Burning”. Only the blood on one of the victims is in color, and the rest of the piece is in black and white. According to the radio story today, he actually purchased a pint of human blood to make sure his portrayal was accurate.

It’s nice to find out more about someone I love (and may have been a little embarrassed for loving) and be even more in love with them.

White fat, black art

A Canadian friend recommended the show White Coat, Black Art from CBC Radio. I have enjoyed several of the shows. There’s one on burnout, which is supposedly worst in ob/gyn. She wanted me to listen to the show on obesity. (Link to mp3 of “Fat Doctors”.)

I was kind of napping while I listened, but I played it twice and I think I got most of it. I think they thought they were showing “both sides of the issues” by having advocates for bariatric surgery, and someone who lost weight through diet and exercise. But, it was a very judgmental show. No one argued that not all obese people need to be fixed, either with surgery (which they started the show with) or diet and exercise, which the other two segments suggested.

I was struck by some of the people in the support group. Like, the one who was talking about how you could never tell a heroin addict to just take it 3 times a day in small amounts, but we expect people with food issues to self regulate food consumption. I am happy the doctor at the bariatric center emphasized that no one chooses to be morbidly obese, and no one gets morbidly obese by making poor choices.

I also kind of related to the doctor at the end who talks about being overweight and struggling with weight loss and her self image, which I am sorry to say. I feel a lot of self hate and guilt (and I have gained even more weight. I am afraid to weigh myself.)

I loved it when she said she secretly thinks “I would hate to live like that” when people give her weight loss advice and discuss strict, boring diets. I admit, people tell me about getting their “butts kicked” by their spinning instructor, and it makes me wonder if sedentary life isn’t worth it. But, I felt better about myself when I was in better shape. I like many types of exercise. It doesn’t hurt to fit in my clothes, either.

I guess it made me feel a lot of self hate, but I didn’t realize it at the time, because I am surrounded by that attitude constantly. I was just reading a maternal mortality review (pdf) today, and they were analyzing trends of BMI and maternal complications. But, I know this is a multi faceted issue. Obese women get more unnecessary interventions, including more inductions and more cesarean sections. And, the maternal mortality rate is much higher for African American women, who are more likely to be obese when of childbearing age.

I am afraid I may get passed over for a residency spot because I am obese. Spots are competitive, and are based on interviews and personal interactions with people on the team at the site. I know some people don’t think obese people make good doctors, some people think a person who is forty and obese may not be a good investment for four years, since I may succumb to some sort of fat complication, die young, and be a waste of their training. And even more people have unconscious negative reactions to fat people. We do worse in interviews, period.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation. It was definitely worth the listen and gave me a lot to think about.

Fertility is unfair

I have a good friend who is getting surgery right now. A very, very wanted pregnancy that she paid dearly for, injected herself with hormones for, got eggs harvested for, got embryos transferred for and went on bed rest for, and it ended up implanting as an ectopic pregnancy. She will most likely lose a fallopian tube.

All four of my pregnancies were unplanned. All of hers have been a struggle. All of the fear and frustration I have felt trying to prevent pregnancy she has felt from the opposite side, probably multiplied by a million.

Fertility is incredibly unfair.

Please send her good thoughts.

Still injured and busy

I still have a busted finger, even though it is feeling a lot better. I am also swamped with various things going on in different aspects of my life right now. So, I am going to throw up some links for your reading pleasure.

Jennifer Block of Pushed Birth, one of my favorite writers, has written about two of the stories I wanted to write about, so I can just link to her. She covered Dr. Christine Northrup’s wonderful article about reclaiming our birth right. I have been a fan of Dr. Northrup since before I had kids or was interested in medical school, and as a mother and future ob/gyn, I adore her even more.

The other story is about a woman being forced to travel 300 miles to get her VBAC attempt. An attempt at a trial of labor should be offered to every good candidate for a vaginal birth after cesarean. This recommendation is found in the same ACOG (American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology) Practice Bulletin (#54, to be exact) that hospitals, insurance companies physicians point to when they deny women the attempt. Nice selective application of the care standards. In fact, the recommendation to offer the option to most women is a Level A recommendation (based on good scientific evidence) while the recommendation to have physicians immediately available for emergency surgery is a Level C recommendation not based on evidence, but just ACOG expert consensus.

Hmm, I seem to be typing a lot anyway.

OK, keep that story in mind, because it has intersectionality with another issue I want to talk about.

But first, don’t forget to check out the SEIU site story about the woman who was told to be sterilized by her insurance company because of a prior cesarean!

OK, now to the intersectionality issue. The story at the SEIU site and the second link at Pushed Birth have something in common – people attempting to force women to do things with their reproductive organs against their will. If you followed the link about the woman who has to drive for her VBAC attempt, the pregnant protagonist has “Enter your body without my permission? Sounds like rape to me” on her car, and Jennifer Block chose that as her post title. There are good posts on the subject of using the term “birth rape”. Some people have a problem with that term, thinking it is somehow unjustified for the victims to appropriate the term rape.

I also was involved with a discussion on female genital mutilation (FGM) on a website recently, and many commenters criticized people who drew parallels to routine male circumcision. Like I do in this post. They think this somehow diminishes FGM.

On that same site, someone was complaining recently about a friend whose wife has a disassociative disorder (I swear I am going somewhere with this), and was accusing many other people of trying to claim they also have a similar mental disorder when he didn’t deem them properly diagnosable. Someone else on the board tried to compare that to the “understandable” anger of mothers of autistic children who get angry at people who are “socially adjusted” and still claim to be in the autistic spectrum.

OK, my point. (Ow, my pointer finger. Must go back to hunting and pecking with my other fingers).

My point is that there is definitely room for nuance when someone is discussing the particular hardships of one’s own or a loved one’s particular issue, whether it be sexual assault or autism or FGM or whatever. People should get individualized attention. Hijacking is not always appropriate. For example, when I was involved on the post about FGM, I honored the original post, and at the end of my comment, I linked out to my post about the intersectionality with all genital cutting, and didn’t try to hijack the conversation to be about routine newborn circumcision in the developed world when the original post was about repairs of FGM preformed in developing countries. The post I linked to (linked above) is ALSO about FGM in developing countries, and then goes into the ethical and practical problems of condemning only one type of genital cutting (although FGM is easily arguably worse in many ways) when almost all of the arguments against it apply to all genital cutting, including that of intersexed or ambiguously sexed children, and are hard to convincingly apply to just one type of genital cutting.

Anyway, my point is (sore), finally, that it is not necessary to diminish other victims’ experiences or identification with a form of oppression or disease or disorder or diagnosis in order to support people who have a different, more accepted or more typical association with that disorder, issue, disease, diagnosis, etc. I don’t think my dad, who was in a wheelchair for 12 years, benefited at all if I railed against people with silent appearing disabilities who parked with Handicapped parking passes. I don’t think non verbal or other more “typical” autistic presenting individuals benefit if we diminish autistic identifying (and/or diagnosed) individuals who more easily pass as neurotypical. I don’t think victims of sexual assault benefit when we say victims of “gray rape” or “date rape” or “birth rape” can’t say they felt assaulted and sexually violated and raped.

I was “gray raped”, and I still don’t feel like I can say I was really raped or even sexually assaulted in that instance, because I don’t want people to tell me to get over myself, I don’t deserve to be in such a serious category. This is not the same thing as criticizing people for saying they were “raped” by paying money to the IRS or at the gas station. That is diminishing rape. But am I? Some people say yes. Some people say I am diminishing rape by NOT loudly identifying my acquaintance lack-of-consent sex as rape. It’s hard enough for me to talk about.

And I don’t think I’m wringing my hands and saying “Oh, but what about the menz?” when I point out it’s awfully hard to successfully tell cultures in other countries to stop cutting the girls’ genitalia but please continue cutting the boys.

Can we talk about the ways our problems intersect without diminishing each other?

Boo boos

I have various ailments and boo boos right now, but the newest, most painful one is my smashed left index finger. It has been deliciously breezy in my area the past few days, which I normally adore. However, our front door is susceptible to being suddenly slammed by gusts of wind on blustery days.

My left index finger was a victim of one such gust yesterday. It is bright purple right now. I am not sure how the distal phalange (the bone in the tip) could have survived the smash. My finger got squeezed sideways mostly, so I am hoping I may save the nail. For a clumsy person, I have surprisingly never lost a nail, and I don’t want to.

So, anyway, it may be hard to tell, but this is affecting my typing. There are lots of things I would like to write about, and I can’t get to all of them, as usual. My smashed finger will slow me down even more.

Wish me swift healing.

I love it…

…when I guess the Mystery Diagnosis. Too bad this is a sad one: Angelman Syndrome.

I was especially saddened by how the mother was dismissed and ignored at first, then blamed, then turned down by a specialist because her insurance wouldn’t cover even investigating what was wrong with her seriously ill infant, with no referral or hope. She eventually had to go to an ER in a public hospital hours away(!!!) to get someone to diagnose her baby with a severe genetic disorder. Did I mention that this woman HAD insurance?

Edited to add: I went to a health care rally yesterday, and was amazed at how many of the antis thought things like this were a shame when you asked them. But, then they would start yelling about how the constitution doesn’t really mean provide for the general welfare, socialism, and killing seniors, and pretended that they weren’t just fighting for the status quo. I hope to have time to post more about my confrontational day yesterday, but I have a busy day today.

That felt like shit

I usually don’t post about my personal life on here. There’s several reasons for that. But, sometimes being fractionated doesn’t feel good. I think many other people may be in a similar situation. So, I am writing about this on here.

I just got off the phone with my home loan company. When we bought this home, it was always a seller’s market in South Florida, and real estate was the only intelligent investment left. We bid on our house within hours of pictures going up on the realtor dotcom site. Home buying was a full contact sport, with just as many speculators and flippers searching for homes as there were people looking for a place to live.

Even though it felt weird and almost fraudulent moving into a house with the price tag we qualified for, we didn’t commit fraud to do it. We moved into a middle class neighborhood into a modest 1,400 square foot house. We moved as far west as we could and out of Miami Dade county into the neighboring county to find a less expensive neighborhood. Trust me, I scoured the home prices on every home in a neighborhood with A schools, and this was the cheapest one within an hour’s drive.

I knew what an adjustable rate mortgage was. I was working, making a good income, and going to school to be a midwife. I thought I would be practicing by now. We refinanced to a flat rate loan with a higher monthly payment so we would have more equity paid in the house and wouldn’t get smacked with a balloon payment. Thanks to a loan / investment from my mother, we had a substantial down payment on the house and were nowhere near over our heads. Because of the crazy bubble, when we refinanced our house was worth so much more, we were able to bundle our car loan into it, and our car was paid off. We still had tons of equity.

Well, then the housing market crashed. I was in medical school and not a midwife, and had no income but student loans. My husband, a public school teacher, no longer could coach after school or teach summer school, since the school district has slashed both programs. Last I checked, our home has lost almost half its value. For the first time in ages, people are leaving South Florida.

I just fought off tears on the phone with a representative at my bank’s “modification” department. I was defending myself, telling her we didn’t have a “sub prime” loan that I knew of, and that we were hard working, honest people, not deadbeats.

I got an email from my uncle, (who has since died, may he rest in peace) making fun of people who were losing their homes. When I listen to the radio, there is a right wing talk show commercial (not listening to a right wing station, but I guess they advertise on there) in which the host screams “Got a sub prime loan? Pay it back!!” like people who are struggling are somehow to blame when the “free markets” these people say are the answer to everything are what put us in this situation, not poor decision making on our part.

Anyway, I have 11 pages of paperwork to fill out, and then a 90 to 120 day process to look forward to. We are not in bankruptcy or foreclosure. But, we have sacrificed everything to continue to pay this mortgage. We have been putting groceries on a credit card and are behind on other payments. We had to ask for help paying for a birthday party for our son.

Anyway, I am not looking for sympathy or a handout. I am looking to humanize the foreclosure crisis. I get furious every time I hear a news report about it discussing the banks. What about the homeowners? What about the real families whose lives were those so called “worthless” sub prime loans? When you hear numbers in the hundreds of thousands of loans that are in foreclosure when we hear these stories about these poor struggling banks…where are those moving vans going to?

Lightening it up

I am afraid my last post might be scaring people away, so I thought I would put up this Maxfield Parrish piece to clear the air.

I am in a much better mood today than I was yesterday, if you can’t tell. Things are brightening up all over.

Reply turned post, not a rant??

Francis Bacon

I had a lot of fun answering Shakesville’s question of the day about favorite artists. So, for the first time (I think), I am posting a non-ranty reply turned post. Here goes:

I share a love of Francis Bacon with Petulant. I also love Lucian Freud. I am a portrait artist (well, a rather dormant one right now, but dammit, when I grow up I will be a painting doctor, I swear!!) and tend to like other portrait artists.

From my romantic side, I also like Maxfield Parrish, Caravaggio, and Gustav Klimt. To tell you the truth, I am also a Norman Rockwell fan, and I am not embarrassed to say it! Well, maybe a little. He is an artist, not just an illustrator, in my mind, just like Toulouse Lautrec, who is also pretty damn cool.

If anyone wants to see one of my paintings, here is an unfinished portrait of my former roommate. See, I said dormant, and I meant it.

The KALI project

Apparently research has shown that studies with acronyms (ALLHAT, NHANES, etc.) are more likely to get published. Well, I have a tentative title / acronym for my study: The KALI (Knowledge and Attitudes of Labor Interventions) Project.

Kali is a Hindu goddess with a complex history. According to Exotic India:

“Kali’s nudity has a similar meaning. In many instances she is described as garbed in space or sky clad. In her absolute, primordial nakedness she is free from all covering of illusion. She is Nature (Prakriti in Sanskrit), stripped of ‘clothes’. It symbolizes that she is completely beyond name and form, completely beyond the illusory effects of maya (false consciousness). Her nudity is said to represent totally illumined consciousness, unaffected by maya. Kali is the bright fire of truth, which cannot be hidden by the clothes of ignorance. Such truth simply burns them away. “

Sounds perfect to me!