Week 160

Written By Krista Harrison

March was a surprisingly challenging month in our house. I last wrote the week the R01 went in. Some of the to-dos I tackled in the subsequent week was taking Smitty, our nearly 15 year old cat, to the vet: she has a mass in her belly with a prognosis of weeks; I declined to learn more detail.

I’m writing this sitting on my bed with the increasingly-fragile Smitty. She’s spry enough to hop up on the bed, but she seems uncomfortable. She’s getting thinner and her hair is falling out on her hips and legs. I’ve been bringing food and water to her, as she’s coming downstairs less frequently. Last week I got her a pet warming pad, which we placed under her current bed in the bedroom window seat that gets morning sun; that’s where she’s spending most of her time. She’s laying between my torso and laptop, her legs over my left wrist, which is where she has spent countless hours since I got her at the start of grad school in 2008. I thought a kitten from the local rescue would mitigate the pain of 8 am biostats classes three days a week the whole first year (I was right). Despite all the beings in my life who have died so far, this is the first time since childhood I’m witnessing the daily functional decline and debating how miserable she could be. Every time I pass through the bedroom, I check to see if she’s still breathing, and since she is, I scratch her chin and breathe in her smell and feel her softness on my face; I say I’m sorry and thank you.

I’ve also been upskilling in neurodiversity. Theo’s an awesome, sweet, curious kid who probably has some learning differences that we are starting to identify. We’re in that stage of trying to learn new vocabulary, find ways to get assessments to put names to what’s going on, and ultimately to advocate for what will help Theo. To be clear, we’re trying to stay ahead of the curve of “real” problems – we don’t want to wait until he dislikes a teacher, school, or is behind in learning. I debated sharing this before we have answers, but one of the things I use these missives and my website for is normalizing regular hardships, showing a broader range of what faculty life as a researcher might look like. I’m finding that, like grief, I’m incredulous that people don’t talk about stuff like this all the time! And, of course, what I learn is that, like the Dead Dad Club, there’s no reason to talk about it until you’re a member, and then you start finding your people and words to describe the experience. So I’m happy to share things if/as things are relevant to individuals.

Unsurprisingly, in mid-March I succumbed to all the sickness going around Marin (result of R01 stress running into dying cat stress running into parent upskilling). There’s been some particularly sticky cold going around that seems to involve a lot of congestion and lasts for 2+ weeks and it went through our whole house. Combined with the time change and ongoing bouts of rain…we’ve been quite crabby.

I staged a quiet rebellion. For a few weeks I slept in, did fewer workouts, and canceled meetings to take naps. I did not catch up on all the work stuff. This week I took a few days off without really warning people. Sometimes I just don’t have enough bandwidth to plan the time off I need. This time, I discovered things I could string together into PTO: Friday was Cesar Chavez Day, Monday was my birthday, Tuesday I had canceled meetings as I was scheduled for jury duty (subsequently canceled), and Wednesday I decided I wasn’t a necessary attendee at any meeting…so I just put up an away message. In this mini-staycation I slept in until Theo woke up (note: he gets up at 7-7:30; we normally get up at 5 to get workouts in beforehand). I got in long bike rides, hikes, or runs in the sun. I’ve been working on my memoir. It’s amazing how un-stuck I got when I actually listened to my body about what it needed for recovery.

Let’s be clear: I’m still behind on plenty of work, especially anything involving logistics, and procrastinating on things I don’t yet feel energy to tackle. But I have faith that giving myself this recovery time will mean that energy will return, potentially next week.

Ramadan Mubarak, Chag Sameach, and Happy Easter to those celebrating!

Interesting things on the interwebs

Krista Harrison
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Week 156