Jack of all Trades

When I went to college way back in 1986, I went in thinking I should take every class related to my major and then some. Because I was going into commercial art (that is what graphic design was called back then) and it was a given that anyone with a commercial art degree was hired on at an advertising agency, I decided to learn everything I could about Advertising. I acquired a minor in Psychology, and took most of the Sociology classes as well. I took creative writing, theater, every fine art class they offered, marketing, advertising (I, II & III), broadcasting, photography, journalism, and communications. 18 more months and I would have had three more degrees (BS degrees in Fine Art, Psychology/Sociology double major, and Industrial Technology with an emphasis in Secondary Education [I kinda wanted to be a high school shop teacher, too]). As it was I decided not to go that extra year and a half, and got out with my Bachelor's in Communication Arts with a Graphics emphasis, Associates in Commercial Art and a minor in Psychology with an emphasis in Personality Theory. It only took six years! :P

Then reality hit and I realized an Advertising Agency was not going to hire me. Two reasons: looks and family. There are very few Advertising Agencies in my home state to begin with, and basically the only way to get in is be a model yourself or be related to someone in upper management. So I got a job at a local newspaper instead. Now while in college, I also worked as a graphic designer for the University, tutored and ran the Mac lab, and did graphic design for college groups, clubs and organizations. With that experience and the degrees, I landed a pretty good job, really. Newspapers in my state also double as copy/print shops with in-house graphic designers. In this case just myself, but it was a big step from entry level.

My position included all graphic design for independent projects outside of the newspaper itself, all design jobs for the offset press, one big yearly magazine for the rally, a quarterly gambling magazine for Deadwood, the snowmobiling tab that ran weekly over the winter, and the weekly Sunday giant shopping inserts. I learned so much at that newspaper. Their system was so dated when I got there! I was used to working on Macs, but they had nothing but an old Compugraphic system they had invested heavily in just one year before Macs took over the industry. Compugraphics are like working without a monitor. You have to think in points, do everything in your head and hope it printed right. They were barely a step up from typewriters and line tape. Graphics were clipped out of huge clip art books and waxed into place. The dark room was the heart of the business. Invaluable experience, believe me.

Eventually the family that owned the paper sold it to a big corporation and they updated everything to the latest Macs. My job was expanded to include ads and I was then able to learn QuarkXpress and scanning (which was new).

After that job I worked for a while as an in-house designer for a print shop. While I worked there I taught myself PhotoShop, specifically, photo manipulation. Now you have to understand that when I was in college, Aldus reigned supreme: PageMaker, FreeHand and SuperPaint. Quark and PhotoShop didn't start to hit big until just after I graduated. Then I got stuck in the time warp at the newspaper. But I was young and caught right up.

Eventually I landed a job with a screen shop that did decals and stickers. I had drafting experience from high school and my Industrial Technology classes. Who would have thought those would help me land a job? Again, the company was still pretty much old school. They had just bought their first two Macs, but most everything was still done by hand. First an illustrator drew the design; the line art was then made into a positive on clear film; with rubylith and an exacto knife process/spot colors were cut out; half tone screens were used for shades and gradations; the rubylith separations were then shot and made into positives; color separations were then ganged on large sheets; cut lines and registration marks were added by hand and eye; the large sheets of positives were sent to be burned onto screens as negatives; and, finally, inserted in presses. Some presses were hand run and some were giant machines. All positives and negatives were done in a dark room with a giant stat camera (which caught on fire sometimes). We also ran die cutters, sheet cutters, stampers, sorters and packaging machines. Again, a wealth of knowledge to be soaked up. Eventually color separating and stripping was slowly relegated to the new machines. FreeHand was the main software we used. From that job I became a FreeHand Guru. We also used PhotoShop and Illustrator. I excelled at that job.

From there I went from the boonies to the big city. Fairly quickly I landed a job as a graphic design instructor at The Art Institute. SCORE! It only lasted the one semester, but that was a blast! I totally want to do that again. :) While teaching my one class, I also got a job working for a screen printing/embroidery company that did clothing and merchandise. Again, FreeHand reigned supreme, but I learned to design for different types of screen printing, pad printing and embroidery.

I eventually left that job to take a position with an electronics buying group. I was back using QuarkXpress and PhotoShop, but it was there that I learned how to use PowerPoint. I bolstered my basic graphic design skills and learned to design logos, faxing campaigns, conference building, presentations, catalogs, technical writing, and took a stab at management.

From that point I worked with a lot of start ups sprinkled with some established mega companies (PricewaterhouseCoopers and Houston Chronicle). All those positions drilled branding into my head. I branded companies from the bottom up and was the company brand watch dog at PricewaterhouseCoopers. At the Houston Chronicle it was back to learning about black & white. So many mistakes are made there. Printing black & white is a whole different animal to printing full color. I also learned web design. I can't and have no wish to develop a website, but I can design one with all the right colors, images, text and navigation. Making it run/work I leave up to the experts.

What's my point? Well over the last several years I've been getting a lot of flack from the design community and potential hires that I need to pick a specialty. Why? I personally feel my experience makes me a better designer and better employee. No one is perfect, but I can nip many problems in the bud before they go into production. Why should I limit myself to "Logo Designer" when I can do so much more than just that? Some people are afraid to call me a production artist, as though that may offend me. It does not. I am a damn good production artist. I'm also a good designer as well. Again, why can't I say I do all of that? When did knowing the ins and outs of your chosen profession become a liability?

Now I know I will never be a Design God. I'm good, but not a God. I've met some Gods. I think, however, that, with my experience, I can help mold future Design Gods. I mean where do you go from here? I'm getting tired. My eyes aren't what they used to be (too much staring into bright lights over the years). The tendons in my hands are creaky. I'm into middle age and feeling it (if not showing it). I believe it is time I went back to school and got my Masters in Fine Art so I can mentor/teach the Design Gods of the future.

Healing

So... back where we left it. In the hospital again, but via the ER. PIC line inserted so antibiotics wouldn't destroy my veins like they did with the infection after Leel was born. Even so, and right up to the end, a decidedly green discharge never really went away after that. But, anyway, back on track.

It was time to make some harsh decisions. The most obvious decision was for Brian to take Family Leave. Problem is that means leave without pay. We figured we needed about $3000 that first month to pay our bills and buy essentials. Now the evening I lay on the gurney bemoaning my life in the ER, I had called and dumped the whole emotional package onto my sister, Sherry. She may have called mom after that, I don't know for sure. But mom called and said straight out she'd pay for our expenses if Brian took family leave. What could I do but agree?

I mean we thought of flying this relative or that relative out to help us, but either they had their own familial responsibilities or were simply still in school. We figured we needed two months with Brian home, minimum. We just did not know how long the healing was going to take. A month had already gone by with little to no healing.

So Brian took the time off. Now, in case you are not aware, his taking that time off added another bill we had to pay. The money normally taken out of Brian's check every week to pay for the company provided insurance, we had to pay instead. Thankfully, Brian's parents also helped us monetarily every week. The cash they gave us went straight to groceries and gas for the trips to the Medical Center to get checked by my doctor once a week.

Brian's parents also went so far as to fly his brother in for a few months to help. Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication and misunderstanding so his help did not materialize. Mark did watch the kids for us a couple of times. And he helped his parents watch the kids for us as well. Leel had just turned 3 and Runa was, of course, a growing baby. Being older parents, our kids' grandparents are even older. Our two were more than a handful for them.

So the vast majority of dependence was thrust upon Brian. He cooked, cleaned, took care of the kids, dressed my wound, helped me in the shower, carried everything, and was generally my loving, compassionate, adoring husband through it all.

In the end he only had to take two months off. I wore the wound vac for only one more month after that. Once we figured out how to the dress the wound and get the wound vac to work right, it really started to heal fast. We took extra care with the drape so it touched as little skin as possible. The home health care nurse came by three times a week. Before she would arrive I would take the vac and dressing off, take a shower, use disinfectant soap (given to me to prep for the initial surgery), spray and scrub the area with wound prep, wipe the whole area down with rubbing alcohol to both disinfect and get the old adhesive off, and lay out on my bed with wound draping under me in case there was leaking. I still had issues with infection in any tears or blisters. But the extra care kept it in check so the wound could heal at least.

Turns out I picked up one of those super infections from the hospital. I'll probably carry it for the rest of my life, unfortunately. Course that means I get infection very easy now and the kids are prone as well. It will probably be what kills me in the end.

By mid May I was finally, officially, healed. Well, not healed, healed, but at least the wound was closed. I still had problems with internal pain for another year on occasions of when the kids would get rough or I strained the area over lifting or reaching. Thankfully, it has been almost a year now since I've even had that pain.

The outside remains largely numb, however. I doubt I will ever get feeling back. The scar is wicked, of course. Over 8 inches wide. It looks like a big mouth. I've talked about making it look like a giant zombie mouth with icky teeth and blood for Halloween, but that may be too much for some people. Still, it is a thought.

My poor mother and step dad took a major blow to their retirement for us. This all happened in 2010 so the economy and stock market were still tanked, and they "borrowed" the money from their 401K. The fees and taxes they had to pay in 2011 were astounding! It seems like highway robbery to me. How can they do that to people during a recession who probably need that money to survive? I know Brian's parents took a hit as well for us. Most likely his sister and brother as well. We also got some unexpected help from some of my other relatives as well. I don't think they will ever know ho much that meant to us. We'll never be able to pay them back; although, we will try.

Our friends stepped up as well. Keeping us from going crazy locked up in our apartment and helping out during the first trip to the Hospital the week after Runa was born.

They say you don't know who your real friends and family are until a crisis. We are happy to say everyone passed with flying colors. Thank you all so much! So, so very much!

Nowhere to go but onward

So I left the last post with a bit of a cliffhanger. Brian said it was decidedly anti-climatic. But then that is because the story mostly centered around those several hours in the emergency room. Brian also was a little put out with me for not talking about my feelings with him way back then. I'm pretty sure I did try, though. I don't seem to talk well anymore, however. If I ever did. I think winning debate in high school was a fluke. But I'm pretty sure I did try. I'm actually pretty big on sharing my feelings. It is something I have to keep in check, actually. I am your stereotypical open book, over sharer and TMI type of person.

I also think Brian may have been a little hurt that I did not continue on because he played a large roll in my recovery the next several months. I would have been put out, too. I may have felt worthless and adrift, but I don't think he ever did. If anything, I think he felt more needed than he ever had before and he was completely up to the challenge. Or at least seemed to be. He was, for lack of a better cliche, my rock through the whole thing. Not that we didn't have our stress filled yelling moments, but, for the most part, we came together as husband and wife in exactly the right way.

From this point on, if you have a gentle disposition or stomach, you may wish to have someone else read it and summarize it for you. There is more than a little gruesome detail coming up. Also, I suggest you do not do a browser search for would vac, either. I just did and really wish I had not! You have been warned.

So I was admitted into the hospital for the third time. This was one month after Runa was born and there was very little, if any healing done at this point. Well, I should say the lining of the abdomen and all inside there was good, as far as I know. I was not in any danger of having my innards fall out or anything. But the wound was very deep and wide even so. I have photos, but, again, I won't share in this case, because they are wicked. To give you an idea, you could put both hands into it completely up to the wrist even a month after the surgery.

Ok, I am going to back it up yet again. Sorry. Bear with me.

You see, I am a very large woman. I've been averaging around 333lbs for the last five or six years. One of the main reasons the incision fell open is because of the weight. However, it is also very likely the drain was not put in the right place when they sewed me up. When I had my first c-section with Leel, there was a lot of drainage for several days. This time there was very little. Because of that, I opted to have it removed as quickly as possible, too. A good half a day or more before they would have taken it out normally. See, I got a bad infection in the drain after Leel, so it was kinda a knee jerk reaction on my part to have them pull it as soon as possible. Course, as the doc said who took it out (ok, an intern took it out, but under supervision of a doc), no sense leaving it in if it is not draining. Yeah, the interns. Gotta love teaching hospitals.

So, anyway, even though interns flocked to my room to see the wound both times I was in the hospital, it was actually not considered an uncommon problem in large women who have abdominal surgery. And there you go. So, again, from the beginning, sorta, the fluid built up in the wound and kept it from healing. A week after the c-section (I'd been home three days) they noticed fluid coming out of the incision and realized it was not closing on the left side. They sent me home with packing supplies to deal with it myself. Then I noticed the other side was draining, too, so a week after I was released from the hospital with Runa (about a week and a half after her birth), I was back in. They cut the incision back open (it had healed a bit, sporadically, along the top), then scrubbed the inside down to get circulation going and ordered me a would vac.

Ah, the wound vac. How I loathed that thing. It is a wonderful invention, mark my words. It increases healing time exponentially! But... well, I'll get into that in a bit. So I was eventually sent home three or four days later to await a home health nurse to attach the vac to me. I really liked the woman they sent me. She reminded me of a very serious Tyler Perry. I wanted to tell her that, but was afraid I would offend her. Unfortunately, she was never really able to get that damn vac attached right. She didn't go deep enough with the packing, which was a real issue with my doctors. You have to keep the wound packed from the bottom up so the wound heals from the bottom up. If you don't pack it right, tunnels and pockets can be left behind in the healing which would require the whole thing be reopened again to start from scratch. She did try though. There was some weird thing where the maker of the vac could not demonstrate the machine with the nurse on a patient, so all instruction was by phone.

The biggest issue was with the tape. The tape, or drape, is very important so the vac maintains a seal. What is the point if the thing doesn't hold the wound closed, right? Problem is I am allergic to adhesive and my skin is very thin on my abdomen, so there was tearing, blistering, rashes, etc. It was terrible. The thing had to be redone every other day. Unfortunately, the nurse's solution to the abdomen damage was to add more tape. Oh, the horror stories I could tell about that. Anyway, about two weeks later I got infection in the blisters on my skin. The infection eventually moved into the wound which gave me fevers. So back to the hospital I went, only this time, I had to go through the ER. You know how great that experience can be. So we are basically right back where we ended the last post. Considering, I think I am going to have to leave it here yet again. Sorry about that.

I do want to reiterate, however, that there was very little to no pain in the wound itself. All major pain I suffered during the aftermath and months of healing was all from the tape associated with the wound vac. All of it. When I was shuddering with fever and pain in the ER, it was all the wound vac pulling on me. I couldn't take it off even though the drain bin was full of fluid and puss (sorry for the visual; it kinda looked like strata, though). To this day I have no feeling in the scar or area surrounding except a little spot on the right side. Small blessing, eh?

Well, sometimes small blessings can add up to a whole lot. :)

Hitting Misery's Bottom

I have not as of yet come close to death. But I did have a similar experience. How so you may ask? How can any other experience be close to death? Well, let me explain...
A short bit of history first. By the time I met and married my one and only, we were both on the old side. Late 30s, though not being horribly old, is a little daunting when about to start a family for the first time. And, of course, having kids, planned for and trying not withstanding, happens when it happens. So it took a few years. I was 39 when we had Leel. Unfortunately I lost my job and my freedom when he was born. I started hemorrhaging early and was hospitalized for a month. In the middle of that month Leel was brought out a few months early. He was fine and has grown into a fine boy. I never once doubted I would recover as strong as ever and I did. You can't go through something like that without some lasting effects, but I, for the most part, ignored them and willingly shut myself and my son away for a few months until he was old enough to finally be introduced to the world.
So on to the second child. After two years I figured it was a no go. I had had three miscarriages before Leel, but nothing after him. My monthly cycle was all over the place and I just figured my body was done with making babies. Well, turned out life wasn't done with me quite yet. Now I was worried I would run into the same problems with this pregnancy that I had run into with Leel. Thankfully, the doctor I had was lovely and went above and beyond reassuring me this pregnancy would be absolutely normal. And it was. We did run all the blood tests and gene tests for downs and such anyway. I mean I was 42. But all seemed copacetic. Unfortunately we moved at the end of my sixth month and I lost that great doctor. Getting one to replace her turned out to be near impossible.
Even in a MUCH bigger city, no doctor would touch me with a ten foot pole. I was too old, too fat, too poor, too high risk, too too. And I was fully insured, but still no love from those who need to make a profit. Clinics won't touch anyone with insurance and medicaid didn't help either. I was getting to my wit's end let me tell you! Finally, at the end of my eighth month I found a doctor, a student doctor at a medical school, to deliver the babe. The stress by then was so bad I was starting to get delusional. I was getting PPD. Just when I thought I wouldn't be able to keep myself from taking a knife to my own belly, a date was set to have Runa taken out. Relief! Everything went pretty well. The epi was too low so the pain was a bit intense, but I can take pain. We are old friends. Runa was out and I was home and all was good with the world...
I thought. Then I noticed something weird with my incision... To make a long story somewhat shorter (in my dreams!), my incision fell open and I was immediately hospitalized again. I tried to stay above it. Not think about it. Pretend everything would be normal and that I could handle anything. There was no pain after all, just a gaping wound. No worries... The first problem was my newborn was not allowed in the hospital with me. The newborn was not a patient and there are liability issues if something happens to the child or I can't take care of her and so on. Thankfully, after a tearful night without her, the nurses let me know they would turn a blind eye to her being there. So, that was the first time I was hospitalized.
The second time is where the life changing experience happened. The vacuum used to keep my wound shut tore my skin and I got infection in the tears and blisters that eventually went into the wound itself. I was in such pain and wracked with fever as I laid in the emergency waiting room... waiting. After an hour or so I sent my husband, Leel and Runa home. After they left I wallowed in my pain and fever, and started to evaluate my current condition.
My husband was an over the road trucker. He was home six days a month. My recovery was going to take months. We had borrowed as much money as we could from everyone we knew to keep things together up to that point. I could no longer take care of my children by myself.
I could not take care of my own children.
I had failed. Somehow. Someway. I suddenly saw myself as separate from my family. I was without them and they were without me. I could not cook. I could not clean. I could barely get around. I could not drive. I could not lift my daughter (doctor's orders). What was going to happen to us? Being older parents ourselves means our parents are long retired and in no condition to take care of children (those who are alive anyway). Our siblings lived far away and had families of their own. I felt adrift. And my family felt adrift and out of reach. I felt that my role as a mother and care giver was done and, without that, what was there? My family, my children, needed me, but I could no longer care for them. I was a burden to them now. They would be better off if I were gone.
I had a breakdown of sorts. I hit a bottom of misery so to speak. When they finally got me on a gurney and started getting IVs in me and antibiotics, they gave me some pain killer through the IV that seemed to take me down, down, down to a dark, warm place devoid of worry (now I see what people see in pain killers...). My last thought was, "Yes. It is true. I cannot take care of my children. Face it and continue on." And we did. Runa is two and, except for a wicked scar as a reminder, I am, we are, whole.
PS: If you are the kind to like photos of this kind of stuff, I do have them. They aren't for the fragile of stomach (pun intended). I was going to include a photo with this post, but it only lets me put it at the top. I don't want to gross people out before they even know what the post is about.