After having spent the last six months with such an unpleasant bout of sciatica that I had to get myself a cane in order to stay upright, I went from being just a bit pudgy … to be a LOT pudgy! *cough*

This morning, I sat in my nice warm waterbed, and made a grocery list for the next week: rutabaga, turnips, carrots, diet dressings, salad veggies … etc.. I was determined that I would spend a while taking off some of the “extra” that was making my clothes look more like body paint than I’m comfortable with. (We’ve all seen the ladies who wear spandex on wayyyy too much personal span! *cringe*)

Anyway, feeling very confident in my decision to unpack some of the recent filling … I got up to face the day with determination and a sense of purpose …

… however, the first thing I saw was the dining room table … and that photo above shows what was on it: an entire tray of donuts from one of my favorite donut shops! These donuts leave the chain donut shops looking like yesterday’s leftovers. I hadn’t had any of these wonderful donuts since I had an office in Wells, ME … which was near the wonderful restaurant that makes these little beauties.

There was a note next to the donuts, written by my son Darian; it said: “Someone needs to put these away. Have at! :o)” Images of turnips and rutabagas faded from my mind like snow in July. My only concern was which one I should eat first!

Okay … so, I’m still going to diet … but it’s just been put off for a couple of days … and will last a bit longer than it would have before today! My baaaaad!

It was nice to experience Homer Simpson’s idea of a perfect Christmas morning … even it was in the middle of June! :o)

When I wrote the last post regarding my phone conversation with Dr. Rutledge, I said that I would be posting my own opinion in a separate post. I waited a while to do so, because I wanted some time to pass between the hype of the moment … and I also wanted to have time to mull it all over again before giving my own impression.

The entire situation has left me with a very bad taste in my mouth … and among other things, has taught me that whatever is hidden in the fine print is what you want to read first … before you read the stuff that seems too good to be true (and most like is.)

Now that it’s over, I can say that I found Dr. Rutledge to be an intelligent and solicitous individual. He sounded quite genuine in his dismay at what was happening, and I do believe that the distress was not feigned. He tried very hard to explain his own personal position, and I felt as if we both had an excellent opportunity to express ourselves without holding back.

My own impression … I believe him when he says that he never set out to deceive anyone, or with the idea of selling Wellsphere. He also insisted that the entire Wellsphere company felt the same way. I believe that he might not have had those intentions himself … although I’m not quite as charitable when I think of other people in the company. On this score, I give Dr. Rutledge a “maybe” … I do believe him when he tells me about his own personal intentions, but when it comes to a blanket explanation for the entire group at Wellshere … then no, I don’t believe it.

When pressed on whether they had removed all of the material they were asked to removed, I was confused, because his initial response sounded disingenuous. He said that the material had been removed from their server … and it could well be that it was – however, Bongi mentioned that his information was still there, although he’d made the same request as the rest of us. Also, the careful wording made me wonder if he could be “Jesuitizing” … perhaps the material was removed from the server, but there might be backups someplace? Else, why would he have said that whatever someone did at a later time, without his knowledge or consent, would be out of his control? When pressed further, he told me that there were “no copies”. Could be true … at least as far he knows, and might not be, too. Sites like that generally back things up quite often. Again, on this subject, I give Dr. Rutledge a “maybe”.

Although I stressed that as long as he was associated with the people at Wellsphere, his reputation would suffer the same damage overall, he still continued to defend his own, and their, position.

I also encouraged him several times to give the public an explanation – like he was giving me over the phone, but I got the impression that they were not going to do so. That left me feeling frustrated, because all of the angry/distraught/upset ex-Wellsphere people deserve an explanation … a public explanation. Those who are still with Wellsphere deserve one too. It made me feel as if either the head honcho thought he was so clever he could just pull it off without a word, without an explanation, without an apology … but I don’t think that’s going to happen. The situation might have toned down to a general roar, but the Medical Blogosphere has a long memory … and it’s not going to completely go away. A public word could have helped in that department, depending on what was said.

Finally, my own gripe was not quite the same as most other people’s. The sale of Wellsphere and all of the angry Twitters gave me the courage to speak up. The problem is still an issue with me. As far as I can tell from a casual visit, Wellsphere is still encouraging “Mavens” to “help” people with their health questions. What is a Maven? As far as I could tell, anyone in the Medical Blogosphere whose blog they liked, and who wasn’t practicing professional medicine (not nurses, doctors, etc.)

When I joined, I was encouraged to answer questions in the “general health” community. I tried replying to things that I knew from personal experience, but my conscience bothered because I know full well that my own experience may not be another person’s … and I could do a tremendous amount of damage. Unlike WebMD, there was practically – as far as I was able to tell, no oversight of the responses Mavens were giving the public. More questions went unanswered than were dealt with by Mavens, and far fewer were fielded by physicians. And even then … practicing medicine online is a very dangerous thing to do, no matter who or what you are.

Had I followed the request I got each time a Wellshere email appeared, I would have been pushing … trying to accumulate enough “answers” (dangerous or not) to hit the magic number of 50 … at which time would be transformed into a “Top Maven”. Yet more reason for the poor ignorants who came looking for medical advice to think that I was a safe person to give it to them!

The entire scene was competitive … the more you did, the more you advanced. This is not an environment that promotes “health” … far less common sense.

Dr. Rutledge told me that it was expected that no one would do more than they were qualified to do where questions are concerned … however, when I asked him about the oversight for all of the questions, he didn’t have an answer.

I think I can guess the answer … there just weren’t enough people dealing with the situation, and at the very least, things got badly out of control. Inviting people to ask questions of the Mavens in different communities (Chronic Conditions, Mental Health, Men’s Health, Digestive System … about 25 in all in the Health section) and then not providing oversight … or direction … or review by someone in medicine … was not only dangerous, it was also criminal. Making it competitive by promotions in rank was an exacerbation of the existing condition.

And so … my take: Dr. Rutledge appears to be a very nice person to speak with over the phone. I believe him when he says that he, personally, had no intentions of ever providing more than a good, helpful site for people to frequent, but I’m not sure I believe that he really thought that all of the “Mavens” were not overstepping their bounds.

That’s a lot of trust … if it were safe to do that, then since I’m in ESRD, I should be able to give medical advice in my nephrologists’ stead, eh?

Imagine the medmal lawyers rubbing their hands together in glee!

To sum up … I don’t think this is going to go away. We may not be Twittering about it all the time anymore, but it was a painful lesson in trust for all of us. We’ve been through a lot as a community … from the injustice done to Dr. Flea, all the way to pulling together after an impostor broke our communal sense of trust. We’ve seen blog scraping, trolling by rabid, cynical medmal lawyers (anyone remember Matt? *cough) … and we’ve survived all and continued to grow.

We’re not finished yet … and we’re wiser than we were.

When I first woke up this morning, any part of me that was sticking out from under the covers felt … frosted over. Now, that’s not new, since we’re in an old, drafty house, and have no regular heat … and – we’re in Maine … so, I didn’t think much about it, except to make a quick decision to not get up yet! ;o)

Anyway, a few minutes later, Doug and I were re-awoken by water dripping onto the shelf at the top of our waterbed headboard … and it was dripping long, loud, and fast! Ugh! Without thinking, I grabbed the little bucket that I always keep at the bedside, and tossed it to Doug (thank God I hadn’t had any queasy problems overnight, or he’d have gotten a real surprise!) and he quickly put it under the waterfall leak.

He wondered aloud if the pipes in the bathroom overhead had frozen … which I doubted, because they’re in the middle of the house, and although it goes below 40F (4.4C) in there, it seldom freezes.

Doug got up post-haste, threw his clothes on, and gingerly ventured out of the bedroom. Not only had the bathroom frozen, but the kitchen pipes were all frozen solid too. The sink has an irritating hot water leak which splashes all over the place, and it had also frozen, leaving the sides and bottom of the sink cased in a clear, lumpy sheet of ice. Apparently, the kitchen had gone well below freezing overnight. Brrrr!

I decided to blog about it … and that’s when I realized that I didn’t have any internet … *sigh*. Right about then the phone rang … it was my husband’s place of work putting off his return for yet one more week. He’s only worked about 4 days since two weeks before Christmas. So now he’s home until January 26 instead of the 19th.

Blog Friends, I lay back on my nice comfy waterbed and started laughing! Hey! What else can I do?

Anyway, the pipes are thawed, although I doubt I could do dishes or laundry, because those are separate from the sinks. Miraculously, nothing burst! Yay us! The wood stove has warmed things up enough so that I can’t see my breath anymore, although my hands are still cold, and I’m sure the rest of the house is still geezely uninhabitable a bit, ummm … frosty. My internet revived when the modem and router were reset … so no harm there, either. Except for an icy mess and a cold, rude awakening, we’ve had no permanent damage this time.

Anyone in a warmer climate looking for several (semi-permanent) house guests? *innocent blink*

Last week, a friend (whom I promised not to name) made a deal with me. The person would go have a medical test done that had been put off for a while – if I wrote a blog post. It was specified that I was to write a good blog post. Well, it’s certainly going to be a blog post, but I don’t know how “good” it will be. ;o)

I know that my long pauses between posts must make it seem as if I’d quit blogging … but I haven’t. In previous posts, I’ve commented that when “situations” are current, I find it difficult to blog. It’s far easier for me to write about things that happened a long time ago, and which have known outcomes. I guess it’s all part of how close you’re willing to let people come when you’re actually experiencing the situation.

Those of you who’ve been reading this blog know what happened at this time last year: my oldest son went missing, my computer died, we were burglarized twice within two weeks, I was in the hospital for almost a week due to some nasty gut problem, and my identity was stolen. That’s it in a nutshell, but nowhere near the entire scenario.

Last fall’s unpleasant events didn’t stop with the new year. Like the proverbial snowball, the issues just kept getting bigger, and picking up momentum as they rolled along. I began to write about things as they stand on several occasions, but it was always with the thought that things would eventually settle down, and that I’d be able to see at least some of the ongoing issues come to some sort of conclusion. That hasn’t happened. I find it really challenging to write about things that are ongoing … because it’s sometimes too hard to write objectively about something that you’re living every day. I didn’t want to write about what was going on, but I also couldn’t focus on casual posts while I was mired down … so I waited.

My friend maneuvering me into this position has made me do a lot of thinking. and I’ve decided that I should at least try to start writing about some of the ongoing situations. I figure that if you already know about what’s going on, there won’t be a reason for me to keep to myself and not blog, right? I will write about one of the most difficult issues in my life … if I can get that written out, then who knows what will come next … *cringe*

Okay – here goes …

Whenever I’ve blogged, I’ve been very careful about what photos you see of my home. The reason for that is that my home was here before the US became a nation, before Maine separated from Massachusetts, and before the Berwicks separated from Kittery. It’s ooooold! At one time, it was in the center of town, right near the corner church, almost directly on the main crossway. In the time since Berwick was settled, it’s gone through a lot of changes. The center of town moved three miles southwest, and became a quaint little village on the shore of the Salmon Falls river … and the old center eventually became a collection of farms, mostly dairies. This house was no exception. Doug milked cows twice daily when I met him … and he did it every single day of the year. This city girl learned a lot about farming. While I loved being in the country, being part of a working farm is another story completely. Culture shock hardly begins to describe it …

The first years here were a challenge. My father-in-law was born in 1914, in what became Doug’s and my bedroom. When I moved in with my three children – and one soon to come – I was shocked to see that the house was stock full of someone else’s belongings. Since we were only supposed to be there temporarily (until we built our own house somewhere on Doug’s parents’ vast expanse of fields and forest) I was asked to not bother the stuff that didn’t belong to us. All but three of the rooms, not counting the bathroom, were full of stuff … some all the way to the ceiling. Every cupboard, every closet (both of them), every little nook and cranny, had the abandoned belongings of people who died long before I married Doug. As the years went by, and it became apparent that we were not going to be leaving the farm any time in the foreseeable future, I got permission to open up the rooms in the rest of the house; our family of six needed room to finally be able to settle in. We put loads and loads of old furniture, knickknacks, cooking utensils, a foot powered Singer, dishes, rugs … on and on … into the attic, and slowly, over a number of years, we got control of the entire house.

Well, control might be too strong of a word, and might leave you with a false impression. It’s never been a comfortable place, my adult kids swear it’s haunted, and the disasters we’ve had in here, mostly due to the age of the house, and the poor repair it was in, are more than enough for several lifetimes. We were treated to everything from burst pipes (almost yearly), to rats falling through the ceiling on to my face in the dead of night (at least 4 times) … to parts of the house slowly caving in … ad nauseam … it was an absolute nightmare.

Twenty-nine years later … we’re still here.

I won’t go into a lot of detail about the house itself, except to say that I never tell local people where I live. Just imagine a house that’s well over 300 years old, which has had almost no maintenance in about 50 years, and you might begin to get the right impression …

Heating this 10 room monster is practically impossible. About 15 years ago, I translated a book from French into English for a Canadian company, and with the money I made, we bought a new furnace. The old one was a menace … it would make loud, rumbling “BOOMS”, covering everything in the house with soot with each new blast. The new one ran a lot quieter, and also kept us a little bit warmer … with the accent on “little”.

The problem with this old house is that when you heat, you’re heating the outside. This house is so leaky that it’s hard to keep a candle lit. The new furnace did it’s best, but we were still very cold in here. Snow that came in through the cracks didn’t melt on the floor. I thought it was a terrible thing ….

… until 4 years ago. Our oil furnace was costing us over four hundred dollars for three weeks’ worth of oil. There was no way that we could continue to fork over that kind of money. Four years ago at about Christmas time, we shut down the furnace, and it’s been turned off ever since. The first year without the furnace, we had 1 kerosene space heater. The only way to get warm was to get right up against it – and burn on one side while freezing on the other. The second year, my friend Joanie gave us another kerosene heater, and that year we had two of them going. They didn’t do much overall, but we could go stand in front of them to warm up. Last year, we discovered that the reason Doug was so sick every winter was because of the fumes being given off by the kerosene heaters. We turned them off permanently.

About then, my oldest son acquired a wood stove from a friend who was getting rid of his, and with a lot of shifting things around, he installed it in the kitchen. It’s nowhere near adequate, even for just the downstairs, but when someone actually gets it going, the kitchen becomes quite warm, so we have one room we can take refuge in. The wood stove also has a lot of downsides: it frequently won’t get going, needs constant attention, is messy as the dickens, etc., but it’s much better than nothing at all.

We’re going into our fourth winter of not having central heat. The bathroom is often in the 40’s as a high … (try to take a shower in that!) … and sometimes it’s too cold to stick my hands out from under the covers to type.

But … there’s light at the end of the tunnel, after 29 years …

My oldest son is slowly, but surely, converting the old cow barn into a home. Once it’s done, it will be a dream house … and best of all … it will be warm! We have to laugh whenever we realize that moving into the barn is going to be a step up for us!

This is not the entire story, but it is a start. To not give anyone eyestrain, I will stop at this point, and share some pertinent photos. As the barn turns into a house, I would like to share the transformation with you. Now that you know that I live in the Munsters’ mansion, I no longer have a reason to be careful to not mention it.

So – there’s at least one reason that will never again prevent me from blogging …

Where to begin … ?

First of all, I want to share that I’ve had the amazing experience of growing closer to some of my blog friends even when I wasn’t actively blogging. Last November, I posted about online friendships … and life promptly went on to confirm my thoughts. Over the months when I wasn’t able to blog, I still chatted with some of you quite often … daily even. It’s been wonderful, warm and uplifting! Not sure what I would have done without the companionship. Thank you.

I guess the next thing I should share is just a bit of newsy stuff. The son who was missing last fall is home now, and seems to be pulling his life together. I guess that the problems he was facing last fall have eased, and he’s been able to relax just a bit. He just graced me with wild roses in a glass two weeks in a row. Motherhood has its perks! ;o)

Another positive event … a neighbor showed up about a month ago and harrowed our garden area. We have a garden for the first time in 3 years. I’m spending the better part of my time pulling weeds. The garden is between 8,500 and 9,000 square feet, and there’s mostly just Doug and I working in it, so the weeds are really getting ahead of us fast, but I think we’ll still have a decent load of veggies at the end of the summer. I hope to have time to make salsa this fall … mmmmmm …. I’ll blog about it, if I do. Also intend to post photos of the garden as the season progresses.

In another month, we’ll be heading for camp. I will be having quite a bit of company almost as soon as I get there, and I hope to have time to take photos and share the adventures with you. An old friend from PA and his family will be joining me for a few days, my dear friend Joanie and her Mum will be visiting me, and hopefully, a very good friend from my ministry days will visit for a week. I’m really looking forward to it!

Finally, a patient blog update. When I saw my primary care doc a few weeks ago, I found out that I’m creeping toward stage 5 kidney failure, and unless it bounces back up a bit for a while longer, I’ll probably have decisions to make about dialysis the next time I see my nephrologist. I knew it would come to this eventually, but being faced with the prospect isn’t quite the same as anticipating it from a distance. Things could improve again for a while … it’s a see-saw with a mind of its own.

In the next week, I intend to post some garden pics for all of you out there with a green thumb. Need some sunshine though … we’ve had a lot of roving thunderstorms. Think SUN! ;o)