Truman got worse after the trip to the vet.  The slight head tilt that had been present at the doctor was now an exaggerated head tilt, and he dragged his right ear on the ground as he stumbled in circles.  It reminded me of Cozy’s last day.

Our vet went out of town after the appointment, and she left me with the phone number of an emergency backup vet.  We called her animal hospital, but she was also unfortunately out of town.  We tried the place they offered as their backup, but that doctor was out at that hospital, too.  We kept getting passed along from animal hospital to animal hospital in search of a veterinarian that specialized in rodents.  I ended up speaking to five different doctors along the way.

Each one gave different advice.

All said that the most likely scenario was that the upper respiratory infection spread to his inner ear or brain.  One said they would have never treated the infection as aggressively as our vet, and another said they would have treated the infection more aggressively than our vet.  One thought that we should add ear drops, and another said that ear drops could be toxic.  They each had different opinions on how long we should give the current antibiotic before switching it.

I added in the opinions of every commenter on every guinea pig website that listed a similar situation, making lists of possible solutions as well as lists of dangerous solutions.  The two lists often overlapped, with one site stating it was the only way to cure wry neck and the other stating it was a surefire way to kill your guinea pig.

I spent most of Friday a complete wreck.

I didn’t know if I should stick with my vet’s advice, especially since I hadn’t seen her since he took a turn for the worse, or if I should take the advice of a different vet who could only see us early Saturday morning.  He wanted to switch the antibiotic to something much more aggressive.  It felt like there was no good solution.  Either I would have regrets that I didn’t follow my vet’s advice, or I would have regrets that I stupidly waited and wasn’t aggressive enough.

It made me wonder the intelligence of internet research and second opinions.  These things that were supposed to be empowering me were only making me feel like shit as I doubted myself.

We couldn’t make a decision, so our lack of decision became our decision.  We hand-fed him yesterday, and used a syringe to give him water every few hours.  We let him have as many alfalfa cookies as he wanted.  He mostly didn’t move, but would lift his head from time to time to eat.  We have another appointment set up with our normal veterinarian on Monday morning.  All we can do for the next day is give him love and beg him to get better.

He’s my baby; my furry companion.  My office mate and daytime friend.  He’s my banana-sharer and alfalfa cookie begger.  I need him to be well.

I have been waiting to turn 42 since I was in middle school and read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Deep Thought, the computer in the book, works on the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, and after many millions of years returns the answer: 42.  The problem is that we don’t know the question.

Get it?

It’s impossible to know the question AND the answer.  We don’t get our cake AND get to eat it, too.  We don’t get to have all mysteries solved and know how to steer our lives toward fulfillment.  We just get this one chance, here on earth, to not muck up things too badly, enjoy our experience, and be okay with the fact that all will not be revealed while simultaneously still trying to reveal it.

And one time — one time only — we (hopefully) get a chance to actually be 42 for 365 days.  I’m about to start that journey.

It’s the first time in a long time that I don’t mind aging a year.  I’m not really great about my birthday and turning older, and I generally get melancholy before, during, and after.  But I’m really looking forward to being 42*.

This past weekend, we celebrated my birthday early at the beach with ski ball and amusement park rides.  I read 9 comic books while sitting on the sand, listening to the waves.  We ate French fries and Nic-o-bolis.  A birthday well-marked.

The day itself will be a chance to just step back and marvel at the fact that I am here at all.  That 42 years ago, anything could have happened.  But I did.  Isn’t that so weird?

*Luckily, I am also looking forward to being 44 for the symmetry of that number, so it’s not as if it’s all downhill from here.

It’s not as if Lena Dunham is the first person to point out that women have a problem with apologizing too much (“I am a woman who is sometimes right, sometimes wrong but somehow always sorry.”), but she is the most recent person to bring it up and push it back into my mind.  Every time I hear it, I start noting how often I say “sorry” in conversation.  Not changing anything; just noting it.

I tried searching my email account for the term “sorry,” and thousands of emails popped up, though the apologies were sometimes real and sometimes not mine.  It was easier to do a search on my blog for the term because it only brought up my own posts.  215.  I didn’t look at all 215 cases, but I did notice in the handful that I looked at that I often apologize for my opinion.  Sorry that I feel this way on my own blog.  So 216 cases in about 3,200.

It’s interesting; it’s something I notice a lot in other women, but miss that I’m doing it, too.  I know I am because when I read articles about it, it feels very familiar, like slipping on a well-worn hoodie.  I’m an apologizer; it’s how I pave my way through life.  I apologize for not understanding and needing to ask follow up questions.  I apologize for interruptions.  I apologize for asking anything of anyone.  And I apologize for stating how I view the world.

Unlike Lena Dunham, I’m not going to say that I’ll stop doing it because writing those words would necessitate another apology when I inevitably fail.  Because I know myself.  I mean, could I if I dedicated my entire being to the endeavour?  Probably.  But it’s not worth the energy expended.

Still, it’s an interesting exercise.  Go to your blog dashboard.  Do a search for the words “I’m sorry.”  Record how many times you’ve written that on your blog and note your total number of posts.  It’s eye-opening.

I was sitting in the carpool line, reading Simon Parkin’s Death By Video Game, a book that Josh got me as a tongue-in-cheek joke since — based on the percentage of my day that  I spend playing, making, or thinking about games — it is likely that when I kick it, my hands will be on a controller.  It’s a very good read, and I’m enjoying the way the chapters are arranged.  They each focus on a single benefit or detriment of playing video games.

But I wasn’t expecting infertility to crop up in a chapter titled “Hiding Places.”

Sometimes I unexpectedly encounter infertility in a book or a movie or a song — part of a plotline or a fact about a character — and it feels like coming across a cricket, always and wholly unwelcome.  Other times I unexpectedly encounter infertility and it’s more like a ghost, bittersweet to catch a glimpse of that world but also maybe a little… comforting?  I guess I only have warm feelings towards ghosts and the idea that we could have a chance to see someone again.

This encounter was more of the ghost variety.  I startled when the story started: “Ferguson and his wife, Sarah, had been married for seven years, and, during that time, had ‘never not been trying for a baby’.”  They experienced an ectopic pregnancy, and his wife lost one fallopian tube.  She remained in the hospital that night.

The part that gutted me while I sat in the car came next.  Parkin writes,

After the operation Ferguson wasn’t allowed into the ward to see Sarah, who needed rest.  In the chaos of the emergency, no one had taken a moment to explain to him why, as he puts it, he wasn’t going to be a dad any longer.  Instead, they sent him home.

Their chapter revolves around using games as a healthy escape; not as a way of not dealing with problems, but as a way to buy yourself time to think as you play, or to keep teens off unsafe streets, or to give people a place to escape to when the real world is unbearable.  The chapter also contains a discussion with a husband-wife team who describe video games as digital cathedrals, serving the same purpose — for some people — as awe-inspiring churches.

“Humans need cathedrals.  Or, at very least, they need somewhere to go for refuge, reflection, sanctuary and rest,” Auriea Harvey says in the book.

It’s a really gorgeous story, marrying processing infertility and video games.  Maybe it just hit close to home.

Sometimes I think the books we need to read work their way into our hands in random ways.  And sitting there, in a carpool line, reading about the Fergusons and thinking about figurative cathedrals, it was the ghost I needed to have come visit.

How do you feel when you encounter infertility in a book, movie, or song?

I haven’t yet read Daniel Raeburn’s book Vessels: A Love Story about their first child who was born still, but an interview I read made me place it on my to-read list because of a few ideas he brought up.

Fraternal Experiences

He and his wife processed their daughter’s death differently.  He states in the interview: “Even though Bekah and I went through her death together, ultimately we each had to survive it alone. We had twin experiences, but they were fraternal twins, not identical twins, so the differences between us were magnified.”

Fraternal experiences.  I really loved that because I don’t believe there are ever identical experiences; even the ones you go through together with someone else.  So many factors go into how we experience happiness or grief.

That is such a lonely idea, too, that we are the only person in the world who experienced life exactly as we’ve experienced life.  But it also highlights that idea that every person is necessary.  Every telling of an experience — even a common experience — important due to its uniqueness.

Defining Moments

For Daniel Raeburn, the issue wasn’t getting to a point where he could move on.  He was terrified to forgetting his first child, or not having the experience affect his day-to-day.  He says, “I eventually realized that I didn’t want to be free of Irene’s death. That the long-term struggle wasn’t to move on, but to hold on. To never forget.  I realized that Irene’s death did define our marriage, and that that was a good thing.”

I really love this way of viewing this situation, and how it explains that there isn’t a single way to grieve, a point where grief is done.  And that grief is not always a sad thing; that these sad moments aren’t always things to get through but sometimes things that we can use to state who we are and what is important to us.

No Advice

But the best moment comes toward the end of the interview when the Raeburns are asked to give other grieving parents advice.  The husband states, “None. My advice would be to not give anyone who’s grieving or mourning any advice at all. Just listen to them. That’s all you can do. Nothing can alleviate the death of a child. Nothing. So don’t even try.”

Perfect.