This isn't a terribly cogent political diary but rather merely an update, and my apologies for that. I'd expected by now to have had skull-base surgery to remove a tumor, but in the tradition of keeping simple things complicated, we've had to move through Plans A, B, and C all the way down to Plan P: Patience and Probability.
The past year, I've been grappling with a health slide precipitated by a pituitary adenoma, a noncancerous tumor in the part of my pituitary gland that regulates ... well, just about everything, as it turns out. My immune system crashed, and I've wrestled with just about every infection, virus, retrovirus, fungus, and metro-retro-strepto-klepto bug known to humankind. Except liver flukes. But it's only October, so there's time.
Though I haven't been active here (or in my "real-life" community), I'm still lurking and staying involved whenever possible. So don't tase me, bro, I'm sticking around.
And now I'm asking a big favor: I've lost my voice; would you phone bank for me over the next few days to help us win great blue stuff in North Carolina and all across the nation?
When I saw many of you in Las Vegas in July, I was probably giddy with Diet Coke and optimism about an upcoming surgery. It was hoped that removing the tumor would be a fairly simple procedure and I'd be back to my usual annoyingly intense self soon. But a structural malformation in the base of my skull and the lining of my pituitary gland that complicates things. When you add that to a compromised immune system, the prospect of removing the tumor comes out to a long and complicated experimental procedure that presents an unacceptable surgical risk of consequent meningitis and/or other infection. Which would be far worse than any metro-retro-strepto-klepto bug for someone in this autoimmune situation.
I have an amazing medical team, several members of which came to the meeting with the world-class neurosurgeon to spend two hours debating and discussing possibilities. But we all came away knowing surgery's just not an option.
There's a lot of good news: That this isn't cancer, and the tumor hasn't grown in the past year. And that I really do have an amazing medical team on my side. And that I have a tremendous community that has provided support you wouldn't even believe. My primary care physician and infectious diseases specialist have stepped up to provide "medical detective services" and rigorous case management. That came in handy a couple weeks ago when I was attacked by dogs that had zipped through the neighborhood on a Miller Lite's Sorority Dogs Gone Wild in the Burbs event that was apparently publicized by dog whistle. Thanks to the docs, I was pasted back together without incurring massive infection, and I'm now in Week 3 of rabies vaccines.
Surreality knows no bounds sometimes. It's a puckish life, but someone's gotta live it.
A year ago, I was working two jobs and was active in my political community. Over the fall months of 2009, though, I became increasingly unable to keep up with the things I took on. Fortunately, others got the work done. I became a helper, showing up when I was well enough and staying home when I wasn't.
ANYHOO ... we're facing a tough situation here in North Carolina and across the nation as we fight to win midterm elections. There is some crazy, crazy stuff going on on all levels -- from school board elections to judgeships to state representatives to Congressional seats. It all means we have to work harder to overcome the crazy and get our job done.
I lost my voice about a year ago. Occasionally I have it back for a few days or weeks, thanks to the miracle of botulism toxin injections in my vocal cords. But more often than not, I'm silenced -- which brings joy to the hearts of many ... but makes phone banking a wee bit impractical.
So I need to ask: Would you phone bank for me? Would you log into the Organizing for America site (or any site that provides virtual phone lists) and sign in to make phone calls into my area of North Carolina? We are facing some totally crazy county commissioner races that are the linchpin for whether Wake County Public Schools will be resegregated by socioeconomic status and race or whether some sanity will prevail and our children won't suffer when county funds are tied up in a Dickensian Bleak House civil rights lawsuitapalooza rather than being focused on educating the children of Wake County.
Just visit this site, sign up, and sign on to the virtual phone bank or Neighbor to Neighbor.
Everything you need to know is there: scripts, talking points for local races, the whole enchilada.
Be my voice and the voice of so many others of us who are having to sit this one out or make some significant revisions to our involvement.
And if you're someone like me, who is feeling rather guilty about not being full force this year, tackle what you can whenever you can and realize you're part of a mighty force that you can count on. I am able to work about 8-10 hours a week at a local arthouse cinema, and I've been inviting candidates to the theater to talk after issues films, I put together a film series for Great Schools in Wake to raise awareness of the need to elect county commissioners who won't destroy 30 years of voluntary desegregation in our public schools, hosted Rock the Vote and several other organizations to present information after issues documentaries such as "Gerrymandering" and "11/04/08." I hosted a watch party for President Obama's webcast last week, and we've run canvasses out of our theater lobby so that I can train canvassers and be their support without getting out on the streets myself.
There are a million ways to be involved and that can help even voiceless people like me make our voices heard.
Don't give up. I'm going to be really pissed if other people give up while I've fought 2010 and its onslaught of cerebral haywirification, locusts, ground-nesting hornets, feral dog attacks, systemic candidiasis, bleeding out inside an MRI machine run amok, and that time I was so cognitively impaired that I made chicken soup out of a plastic bag of chicken (bag included), a jar that was filled with bay leaves (yum ... jar ...), and a jug of yellow Gatorade --- only to find that others who were NOT having to send themselves iPhone reminders to eat, pee, and sleep so they could get through a political conference just gave up. It would hardly be fair. And unfairness makes me depressed and fiesty at the same time. And that is not pretty.
So. To recap: Go to Organizing for America and sign up to do the stuff I might be doing if I didn't sound like a cross between Harvey Fierstein and Joan Rivers after a weeklong cigar-smoking binge.
I promise I'll take back the reins of phone banking as soon as I can. Really. Honest.
And thank you.