Acronym Overload

My grandniece, Isabella, has an impressive vocabulary for a twelve-year-old. She and her mother, Pam, went to see the new super computer that her father, a Burlington, VT police detective, will be using in his investigations. Pam posted on Facebook that as they entered the police department, Isabella noticed a bin labeled OIC (which means Officer In Charge). She asked: “Daddy, why is there an inbox for Opioid Induced Constipation? Do police officers have a lot of trouble with that?”

After I picked myself up off the floor, it dawned on me that there’s been an explosion in the use of acronyms lately, especially in the field of medicine. They’ve been proliferating at such a rate that a lot of them have multiple meanings. As long as we’re going to have more than one usage, we might as well have one of those relate specifically to seniors.

Take for example the popular term NSAID. You probably know that as NonSteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug (like aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen). For me, NSAID means No Sense Asking—I’m Dieting. I need to practice that reply when I’m offered second helpings. And desserts. And, sadly, a glass of wine.

Those who have heart issues will be familiar with ECASA (Enteric Coated Aspirin), one of the medications my husband carries in his travel kit. An equally useful translation at our age is Every Calorie Adds Some Adipose. That’s the fat around our bellies.

ICS (Inhaled Cortico Steroids) are a lifeline for anyone with asthma. In our house we call ICS Inhaled Cat Stuff. That can be anything from their hair to dander to litter than has hitched a ride between their toes and landed on our bed. For people with respiratory problems, our ICS makes the medical ICS a good item to have handy.

Women my age are frequently prone to bladder issues and the advertising community has a field day with the acronyms for what ails us. I’m willing to bet that OAB (OverActive Bladder) and LBL (Light Bladder Leakage) began life on a storyboard in some agency creative’s office. In the age of gluten intolerance, OAB must also stand for Oats And Beans, two fiber sources to substitute for wheat. For many women, LBL means Laughter Brings Leakage. So does sneezing.

My favorite bladder-related acronym is BBS (Bashful Bladder Syndrome), an apparently common anxiety disorder also known as paruresis. This seems to be the opposite of a leaky one. Folks with BBS just can’t go if anyone else is around. I feel bad for anyone who has trouble peeing when they feel the urge; (I can pretty much pee on cue). But I love the phrase so much I’m not going to make up a replacement definition. Wikipedia has a list of déclassé nicknames for this condition, so you don’t need one from me.

“Syndromes” is a word that pops up frequently in these disorders. In addition to Bashful Bladder Syndrome, You have IBS (Inflammatory Bowel Syndrome) and FMS (FibroMyalgia Syndrome). Or as, I prefer to define the latter two: Inhale, Breathe, Snort (how I clear my sinuses during allergy season) and the self-explanatory Feline Mothering Syndrome.

“Disease” also appears in many conditions that are familiar in senior circles. First we have CAD (Coronary Artery Disease), not to be confused with CSD (Cat Scratch Disease), whatever that is. I’ll leave CSD alone, but I’m changing CAD to Check And Double-check. Did we turn off the appliances before we left? Count cat noses? Close the garage door? Then there’s GERD (Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease), or as I think of it: Gotta Exercise, but Rarely Do. That one was a no-brainer.

The final medical acronym on my list is EDS (Excessive Daytime Sleepiness). I was surprised when this turned up in my research. It’s such an appropriate phrase for seniors (well, for me anyway) that there’s no way I’m going to tinker with it. I get sleepy after lunch, during excessive heat (like the past few days) and when I’ve been reading or typing for more than twenty minutes.

That puts me at three for three right now. On that note, I think I’ll grab a cat and go take a nap.

Creepy, Meet Sleazy

Some of the items in the news last week were downright creepy. For some reason they’ve brought out my sleazy side. When I tell you what they are, remember that I did not make these up. Therefore, I feel that I shouldn’t bear the full blame for the raunchiness of my reactions. You be the judge. Or not, if you’re easily offended.

Item one was a report on the first successful penis transplant. Or perhaps the first one that those involved decided to distribute to the media. In no way do I mean to minimize the importance of having a functioning member for men who’ve lost their original for some reason. It’s just that—as I’ve already said—I found this story too creepy even for me.

The transplanted penis came from a cadaver, giving new meaning to “a stiff one.” Of course, that makes sense. Finding a living man to part with his own willy out of a spurt of generosity is too remote; it’s not like you come with a spare. By the way, in preparing to write this post, I searched for slang terms for penis. I hate using the same word over and over; it’s boring and bad style. The Online Slang Dictionary gave me well over 100 ways to say schlong, most of which even this raunchy blogger had never heard.

Back to the news. My immediate reaction to the transplant was “Eeeuw!” I told my husband about it on our latest drive to Providence. “As a woman, I can’t imagine letting a man put that thing inside me! It was dead, after all.” Mumbling sounds from Jagdish; I didn’t ask for clarification. I continued. “Nope. I’d say: ‘Look. I’ll just give you a hand job. But wait a minute. First I need to find a latex glove.’” This had both of us laughing so hard, I almost swerved into the lane next to me.

Before I leave this topic, a survey of hands please. How many of you have heard the term ‘zubra’ for said piece of equipment? Who thinks that the person who submitted ‘Russell the love muscle’ to the Online Slang Dictionary was named Russell? Did you know that a ‘chubbie’ is not a fat one; it’s a semi-erect one? Finally, a ‘tallywacker’ is not only slang for a dick; it’s a length of rope that shepherds use to count sheep. Makes you wonder what the shepherds are doing with those sheep in the dead of night.

Moving on to other news. Live with Kelly informed us of a company that’s making beer from bellybutton lint. Double “eeeuw!” It’s the 7 cent Brewery, located in Australia. No surprise there. Apparently, they culture yeast that they glean from the lint harvested in local navel gardens. They unveiled their brew at GABS, the Great Australian Beer Spectacular. Kelly and her guest cohost sampled the beer and proclaimed it drinkable. Yeah, right. Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi.

I told my husband about this on that same drive to Providence where I informed him of the successful winky transplant. Then I wondered out loud. “I hope they don’t get that lint from the same corpses where they get the donor wieners.” Triple “eeeuw!” I know folks often think of hot dogs and beer together at summer barbecues and baseball games. But this is one combination just too gag-inducing to swallow.

Take it easy. I’m already on my way to wash my mouth out with soap. Then I’ll probably have a glass of wine. But it will be awhile before I consider having a beer again.

Rebel without a Cause

I’ve always featured myself to be a bit of a rebel. I’m not sure when or how this self-view started. The first example I remember is in picking the college I’d attend. My sister went to Douglass (then the women’s college of New Jersey). Seven years later, my brother enrolled at Rutgers (the men’s college). The next year, everyone assumed I’d go to Douglass, especially when I was early accepted, even though I didn’t apply for that. I played the rebel and picked Pembroke, the women’s college of Brown University.

By my senior year at Brown, my contrarian tendencies had fixated on motorcycles. I wanted to buy one when I had enough money. That would be a long time off, but it turned out it wouldn’t matter. I visited a store and discovered that I was too short for even the smallest machine that was available back then. My feet didn’t touch the ground when I straddled it as though stopped at a traffic light. When I leaned far enough to one side for my foot to reach the ground, the bike fell over.

While my family might have considered my next phase rebellious, my peers would have seen it as predictable. I became the family hippie. My hair was so long I could sit on it and I wore Jesus sandals that laced up to my knees. That wore thin after awhile. Besides, I was working in Manhattan for what was then a Big Eight accounting firm. CPAs didn’t approve of Jesus sandals.

Now that I’m retired, I’ve started to think fondly about becoming a rebel again. The problem is that I don’t have a cause to protest against. I don’t even have a flag to fly to advertise my rebellion. Let’s face it, when folks reach my age, there’s a fine line between rebelling and being an eccentric old coot.

One thing I’ve considered now and again is dying my hair a weird color. Not all of it. Just a big swath down the middle. Some older women can pull this off, especially if they have short hair, as I do. I never quite reach the point of doing this, because I can’t decide on the right color. Sometimes I think it’s purple; other times fuchsia. Maybe even orange. Then again, bright chartreuse could be an option. But never blue; that's an "old lady" tint. As you can see, crazy hair isn't likely to be my first foray into late-life rebel-hood.

I’ve also thought about getting a tattoo. This won’t seem rebellious to most people, since so many women who are otherwise traditional have tattoos these days. I’ve tried to make the case (to myself) that getting my first tattoo after age seventy would qualify as a contrarian act. That dog doesn’t seem to hunt. It may be because I’m not wild about the idea of getting poked by needles again now that I no longer need yearly blood work as part of my cancer follow up. But stick-on tattoos are a cop out.

The final idea I’ve come up with is to wear a long, dangly feather in one ear. This also fails to take flight when I remember that I have a short neck. And also now two cats who would almost certainly see this as one more toy for them to play with. For sure, a neck full of scratches and an earlobe stretched to within an inch of its life would push me over the edge into eccentric. If I’m going to wear that label, I’d rather do it because I’ve rescued six more cats. (Don’t panic, Jagdish; that’s not happening.)

It looks like I’m going to have to accept the fact that at this point in my life, I’m destined to be a rebel without a cause.

Mother’s Day Perspectives

This week, I decided to post on Sunday to celebrate Mother’s Day. My perspective on this day has changed over time. Since I never had any human children, for much of my life the focus of my celebration of this holiday was my own mother. She died the weekend of my fiftieth birthday.

The following Mother’s Day was a sad one for me. It brought home the realization that I no longer had a mother in my life. It affected me almost as much as her actual death had eight months earlier. We have just one mother, and when she is gone there will not be another. My father had predeceased her by twelve years, so I felt somewhat like an orphan.

For most of the years between her death and this year, I had feline children. The celebration of Mother’s Day in our household shifted to me as the mom to our cats. I received cards (with little paw prints) and flowers. It helped ease the sense of loss from not having a mother of my own anymore.

A year ago January, we said goodbye to our fifth and possibly final cat, Luke. I decided to spend at least a year catless, mourning him as he deserved. I wasn’t sure I would want to start a new family at this point in my life. When May came, there was no reason at all to celebrate Mother’s Day. The void in my life was as painful as that first year after my own mother died.

I had never given much thought to being a mother to my cats. I loved and cared for them deeply. I fed them, changed their water and their litter boxes. In their later years, I often dispensed medications or other treatments. Despite the cards and the flowers, I had never framed that attention in my mind as “mothering.” It wasn’t until Luke was gone that I realized that the mother role can have many definitions. I spent over a year not being a mother to anyone, and still, as always now, being motherless.

As January slid into February this year, I began to think about making a home for some rescued cats. Ones whose aging owners had either died or had been forced to give them up. I knew I wouldn’t want to start over with kittens; I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them without a home if they outlived me. I opted for senior felines who might have had a difficult time being placed.

We adopted ten-year-old Kallie in March. She’s a calico and tortoise combination, quiet and gentle. In fairly short time, she began sleeping with me, much as Luke had done once Pansy was no longer with us.

In April we added seven-year-old Stella. She’s what is called a torbie—a tiger and calico combination. She’s a talker and she’s as energetic as Kallie is calm. I’ve given them floral middle names, an echo of my other girls. They're learning to tolerate one another and I’m confidant they’ll soon become friends. 

They have once again allowed me to claim the mantle of motherhood. Jagdish asked what I wanted for Mother’s Day. I said just a card from them, and maybe a small bouquet of flowers from the supermarket. Yesterday, Fedex delivered two dozen red roses—a dozen from each of my new girls. Their greeting card (with cats on the front of course) thanked me for adopting them and giving them a good home.

As Mother’s Day 2016 comes to a close, I look back on my changing perspectives of what that day has meant to me over the years. Once again, I can look with a smile to what the years ahead will bring.

Kallie Jasmine and Stella Periwinkle, thanks for making me a mother again!

Love, Mom.