On Snakes and Sticks



Spencer found a snake, at String Lake, after eating cake, it isn't fake, he's super great and my best mate!

At the start of 2014 I did something SO STUPID! I realized I was turning 39 in February, which meant the big 4-0 (GASP) was hovering just a short year away, this thought caused a momentary midlife meltdown (which in the future will be referred to as MMM, which is similar to M&M's just minus the hard candy shell, meaning it melts in your mouth AND in your hands). It is, I confess, a luxurious thing, my melting down instead of my boys; so I was selfish, I decided I needed some pampering, and allowed myself five minutes to bask in my MMM.  BUT during that five minutes I decided that before I turned forty I wanted to do something “life affirming??!!” (Good Grief!!) Top of my list of course was to eat an entire house-made hot fudge Sundae from the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory in San Francisco. So, I figured in order to balance it out, I’d better take up running again, something I hadn’t done since college. As you can clearly see, the boys’ melting down doesn’t have nearly such catastrophic effects on my life as MY melting down.

Another shot (this one taken right before Spencer FLUNG the snake at me).
String Lake, Grand Teton National Park 2009

I have been running since late January. I am up to 45 continuous cough filled minutes. It would not be an exaggeration to say that usually while running I am experiencing hallucinations from sheer dehydration as I stagger incoherent along the park trail, a Hansel and Gretel pattern of sweat marking my progress in the 98 percent wretched Texas humidity. The sweat makes my eyes sting, (keeps me alert) my fair complexion burning with heat until I am red enough in the face that Louis, a sweet senior citizen who runs 8 miles a day (without even breaking a sweat) and also a volunteer fire fighter, felt it was his civic duty to stop me in my tracks and make sure I wasn’t experiencing chest pains (we’ve become very close over the last few months). Yes I am that runner. The one someone should blog about…(well if SHE can do it…ANYONE can!)  Needless to say, it was during one of these hallucinating-sweat-blurred-vision-states  that I came around the bend and noticed in the foliage up ahead a python; his diamond head raised and hissing, just waiting to strike. OR it could have been a stick. I continued forward, counting every ragged breath, knowing I was on mile two of four but comforted that Louis promised to start chest compressions if needed when he found my catatonic form on mile three. As I raced towards the snake, the rational dime size part of my brain said, “Joanie it’s just a stick. It’s not a snake. Simmer down!” But, then the part of my brain (the right side?) that likes drama said, “NOPE this is freaking TEXAS! Everything’s bigger in Texas! And probably someone’s viper or anaconda or boa constrictor;  the family pet, has escaped and been living on squirrels, feral cats and the bodies of reluctant turning forty runners who have passed out on the side of the trail from Texas induced humidity dehydration.”


We are fans of fishing....the guy next to Spencer caught this shark. My boys are DRAWN
to anything dangerous, which means that Spencer tried to help him get the hook out
and almost lost a hand. Oceanside California, October 2010

 

As I continued my approach, my mind ran wild with possibilities; "would it strike fast? Does the hospital have an anti venom regimen? What if I can’t identify the snake? And died a painful if not IRONIC death because how many stupid episodes of something like “Man Verses Wild” or “Weird True and Freaky” on snakes have I suffered through with my boys? Would Louis see the puncture wounds and know to suck the venom from my leg? (Why don’t I ever shave??? Poor Louis!) Dang! My phone is in the car, how can I call 911?  I guess I could draw 911 in the dirt or I could start a signal fire by rubbing two sticks together and do SOS puffs of smoke? (I moaned out loud at this plan because then I’d have to take off my shirt to make the puffs and then everyone would know I was still working to lose my “I’ve had three babies belly” and yes I know my baby is twelve! Stop judging me! I’m about to die from a snake bite! Have a little compassion already!) Then I started wondering about the cost of anti venom care… And do they charge you for an ambulance someone called when they saw your SOS fire, but by the time it arrived you realized you had just been scraped by a stick? How much does it cost to be life-flighted? Where would the helicopter land?  And what if they have to fly in the anti venom from India on a plane and it’s diverted because of thunderstorms and that twelve hour window is blown? Wait! Doesn’t Timmy down the street have a python we could milk?”All these thoughts were racing through my head as I ran alone on the asphalt trail; heartbeats pounding in my ears, getting closer and closer to the snake stick. And in the overcast haze, in the shade of the trees in the moist dirt with roots reaching up like arms from the grave I couldn’t tell what it really was.

I opened up the bathroom door...and found this reptile relieving himself
Love that Logan @ Jackson Wyoming 2009

Well you will be happy to know it wasn’t a rare horned viper, and that Louis didn’t have to risk razor burn to his face from my stubbly leg hair. But, on mile three of four I started thinking about my tendency to see snakes when there are only sticks.  Now, to be fair, I have had to suck a lot of metaphorical puncture wounds free of venom in my life. I’ve had snakes strike out nowhere and had the carpet pulled out from under me so many times that my rug burned knee jerk reaction now is to expect the worse. It’s an act of self preservation. If you are expecting a snake but it’s really just a stick then think how relieved you will be when you’re not life-flighted? AND, conversely, think how mentally prepared you will be (always always always protect that vulnerable heart) when it IS a snake and you ARE life-flighted.

But here’s the trick. It’s exhausting thinking there are snakes everywhere, even if in reality there are. It’s exhausting living your life with your boxer gloves held in a protective stance up to your face. It’s exhausting to operate in fight or flight mode all the time. (NOT to mention the whole cortisol hormone reaction which packs pounds around the middle when the catalyst for activation, i.e. stress is added to the mix… which I don’t think I have to point out that the side effect of unfair weight gain CAUSES stress, especially when put in a potential SOS fire building situation). I am tired of my sympathetic nervous system being SO sympathetic and just automatically triggering physiological changes; racing heart, rapid breathing, adrenaline secretion, so on mile three of four I decided that before I turned forty the real life affirming thing I needed was to figure out a way to have a life I WANTED to affirm (i.e. one filled with joy instead of anxiety), to start to see sticks again instead of snakes. OR to see stick AND snakes but be ok anyway.  

Alex posing behind a shark egg sack...this is what his embryo would look like.
Lego Land Sea Life Aquarium, 2010

Especially because Alex, (bless his heart) often struggles with making out the true shape of things. Only he takes it one step further than my dementia (seeing snakes where there are sticks) he takes a half truth, twists it, makes it into an undisputable fact, infuses it with a cocktail of highly explosive emotion and a catalyst of anxiety and mistrust and BAM! You not only have a snake instead of stick, but you are suddenly wading through something that looks like a scene from and Indiana Jones movie, knee deep in reptiles instead of walking through a forest. For example, Alex broke his arm, and when the Dr. went to take off the cast, his arm still hurt. She assured him that while it still hurt, the bone had healed. She showed Alex his X-ray as proof, however, Alex saw the space in his wrist between bones where the growth plate was and deduced that his arm was STILL broken AND that Drs. (obviously) were liars. This argument continued AT LEAST three years. ***As a side note, when you have a child who sees doctors regularly, this can be problematic and or potentially embarrassing when for example your son finds out his scout leader (and I should mention family friend) is also a doctor and refuses to go to scouts and when finally prodded enough to attend, yells during a pack meeting at his leader “YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A LIAR!! ANYBODY WHO LISTENS TO YOU IS AN IDIOT!!!”

Alex loves to go rafting at String Lake, the glacial water doesn't stop him from paddling around. Wyoming 2009

I often thought about Alex while reading The Hunger Games. In the story, one of the heroes, Peeta is injected with something called Tracker Jacker Venom. The venom, specifically engineered to target the part of the brain that generates fear and creates terrifying hallucinations, is used to hijack memories as a form of torture. A memory is called up by some sort of stimulus then venom is injected and the memory becomes subconsciously associated with fear and pain as well as being perceptibly warped. Afterwards, the brain records the memory in the altered form creating an effect which can never fully be healed, but treatment includes recalling the memory and attempting to associate it with positive emotions. The venom of autism –or at least how it manifests itself in Alex’s world- has altered my son’s memories, caused him at times to live in a state of terrifying grief, and the complication of perseverating causes him to replay those memories -digitally re-mastered in 3D- time and time again.

The boys climbing the jumping rock, right before taking the plunge! Wyoming 2009

 

Snakes instead of sticks. It’s the forest we live in. BUT, now that I’m almost forty, and with the clarity of thought that comes from being a runner (insert maniacal laughter) I’ve accepted that part of being an advocate for my child (which aren’t we all advocates for our children) means that I cannot afford to be so caught up in my own painful memories, my fight or flight response, so distracted in fleeing that I miss an opportunity to help my children fight the good fight, reclaim their happy memories and find peace.    
  

I am absolutely lousy at selfies, but took this shot right before going running 
because I was trying to see if my friend thought I should keep the jacket.
(Then I realized who wears a jacket when running in Texas?) March 2014

 

 So I’m working on it, one sweaty baby step at a time. I can't say that I have all the answers, or really any answers: diaphragmatic breathing, positive self talk? I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to get there, but I have a direction, and I'm moving forward. Plus, I’m thinking the next time Louis checks my heart rate I’m going to ask him to help me come up with a detailed plan of action; I’m pretty sure that in volunteer fire fighter classes they have a segment of time dedicated to mental health; or maybe I can just ask him to carry a stun gun to deliver a jolt to my heart to revive me during the times when life and not just dehydration renders me catatonic