Andrea Wilson Woods' Blog

Note: I haven’t written a personal blog post* in over sixty days so I feel out of practice. Hopefully, I won’t disappoint you.

I am always on a quest for everlasting peace. I believe if I can find peace then the rock of pain that sits on my heart will disappear. Perhaps peace would pose as an angel, fly in with her white-feathered wings, and lift the pain away. Or maybe peace would be a bad-ass biker, ride in on his Harley, and drive right through the pain. There might be a way for peace to drop a bomb and blow up the pain until it becomes only miniscule pieces of dust in my blood stream. I don’t know because I don’t know what peace looks like.

However, I am getting ahead of myself. First I must explain the rock. It appeared when my sister Adrienne died on October 9, 2001. Even though the rock weighs me down, I barely notice the dull ache anymore. It’s amazing how much we humans can tolerate. How much pain we can tolerate. Sometimes, I’ll feel a sharp stab in my chest and I imagine it’s the rock shifting the way tectonic plates do. Occasionally, the rock feels lighter as if my heart is pushing it up, demanding that it roll on to another organ. Give me a break says my heart I’ve been carrying this burden for years. [insert sitcom laugh track]

The lighter feelings occur when I confuse moments of happiness with peace, which I seek everywhere. In things, in my pets, in people, even places. Oh I know a new dress won’t bring me peace, but for a few seconds when I look in the mirror, I feel good, sometimes beautiful, which is progress. When I hug my English Mastiff Winston so tight he might break (except a 110-pound woman cannot break a 175-pound dog), I feel joy. He loves me no matter what, and you can’t say that about people. Ahh … people. Boy do I seek peace in them. It’s unfair because if you give me a little happiness even for a few hours, I will mistake it for peace and not realize it. And when this inequitable transaction occurs, I will want it to happen again. And again. I will want your company the way addicts want their drugs. Their high is my peace.

Clothes, animals, friends, family—they will never bring me peace. It’s too big of a task. It’s too much to ask. I envy religious people because their faith seems to give them peace. But prayer does nothing for me so I figure god doesn’t have much to offer me either. If god exists, he’s in the people category, and I’m asking too much of him. Or her.

The only time I find the kind of peace I’m looking for—that everlasting peace that sets my heart free is when I am at the ocean. It sounds corny especially considering I’m not a “beach girl.” I’m an okay swimmer who gets seasick on ferries. I don’t own a pair of flip-flops; hell, I don’t even like flip-flops. Therefore, it’s a mystery why the ocean calms me from the inside out. Maybe it’s the sound of crashing waves beating the shore. Maybe it’s the scent of salt in the air. Maybe it’s the feeling of sand between my toes. Maybe it’s the sight of seagulls and perhaps pelicans if I’m lucky (they’re my favorite bird) flying over the horizon.

Whenever I am at a beach, I inevitably walk along the water, pick up random shells, and lose myself in my thoughts. If I go with others, I often stray away forgetting that I’m with them. Something magical happens when I am listening, smelling, touching, and seeing the ocean. The water washes right through me and takes the rock of pain with it. I don’t hurt when I’m at the ocean, which is why I insisted on spending my birthday last year at Huntington Beach. I wanted to have a good day. A happy day. A peaceful day. And I did.

The neverending search is over. I found my everlasting peace. Now all I need is my house by the sea. In Gold Beach.

AWW — XoXo

*I currently write the president’s blog for my employer TGIC Importers. Read From Alex’s Desk.

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10. You watch Lifetime movies.

9. You like Lifetime movies.

8. You watch Lifetime movies even when you don’t like them.

7. You record Lifetime movies.

6. You watch enough Lifetime movies to know that the ones on the Lifetime Movie Network (LMN) are always better than the ones on the regular Lifetime channel.

5. You get genuinely upset when your cable provider has a dispute with LMN, which seems to happen every six months.

4. You know what Pick-a-Flick Fridays are.

3. You IMDB the actors in a Lifetime movie because they look familiar only to discover they have been in other Lifetime movies that you have already seen.

2. You watch two LMN movies in a row and don’t realize you have already seen both of the films until the end of the second one, yet you don’t care that you have wasted four hours of your time on a Friday night.

1. You lie down, watch four Lifetime films back-to-back, and after eight hours you cannot recall the plot of any of the movies. Oh—and you forget to eat. Or you eat an entire bag of chips. Or a pint of ice cream. Or both.

AWW — XoXo

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Most Americans spent this weekend celebrating Thanksgiving, which means eating turkey, watching football, and visiting family members whom you rarely see. However, I look at Thanksgiving as the 20-mile marker in a marathon. My muscles throb and my joints ache, but I am in the home stretch toward the end of that terrible time between summer and winter. You see, fall is my least favorite season.

One factor is that my sister Adrienne died on October 9, 2001, but even before I lost her to cancer, I often found myself depressed after my birthday (i.e., August 15) until around December 30.* The leaves may change colors, but the days shorten, the weather chills, and the holidays begin. When I walked into Michaels last week, I saw the Christmas decorations and heard The Nutcracker piping through their speakers. Seriously? We haven’t even passed Turkey Day yet.

Given my hostile reaction and less than festive spirit, I examined what bothers me about the non-stop holidays throughout this season:

• I like dressing up in costumes, but Halloween was Adrienne’s favorite holiday. Enough said.
• I love pumpkin pie and stuffing, but Thanksgiving holds no sentiment for me. I also hate to cook.
• I like decorating a tree and receiving gifts, but Christmas began losing its magic when my mother told me that I needed to wrap my own presents. I was ten years old.

I’ve thought about the many autumns over the past 25 years, and my mood has always dipped significantly with some exceptions. The fall of 1990 was one of the happiest times of my life because I had just moved to Los Angeles to begin my first year at USC. The fall of 2006 I married and started graduate school within a two-week period—a joyful yet stressful time.

I find it interesting that my “happier” autumns relate to school, and I am an excellent student. As a teacher, however, I dreaded returning to the classroom. I didn’t want to become “Miss Wilson” again—the mean lady with two primary rules: work and respect. The stern woman with the loud voice who had to repeat herself a minimum of three times hoping that the students listened at least once, or their parents might blame me for not giving specific instructions. I only taught to be on Adrienne’s schedule; I never expected to be good at it. Even though I like kids, being a constant disciplinarian exhausted me.

I also don’t like fall because as a child I never wanted the summers to end. I loved staying out late playing under the streetlight in our cul-de-sac. I loved swimming at the local pool and at Kerr Lake. I loved my birthday even though friends often missed my parties because they were on vacation. I liked playing baseball with the boys, basking in the sunshine, selling lemonade, and living for another day of adventure. Summer meant freedom. Why would anyone want it to end?

I wondered if I had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I know someone who moved from Connecticut to Los Angeles because he was diagnosed with SAD at a young age. He needs sunshine more than he needs seasons. I may be sad, but I don’t believe that I suffer from SAD because I can tolerate winter under certain conditions.

• I don’t mind dealing with low temperatures in Mammoth because I like to ski—the only purpose for snow.
• I found my dream house during the coldest, wettest, nastiest weather in Gold Beach, Oregon, and it hasn’t deterred me from wanting to live there one day.
• My husband and I went on our honeymoon in Australia during the end of fall. I wore my black wool peacoat everywhere, and the chilly air and cloudy skies didn’t bother me except when the rain ruined our photos.

Besides the above anecdotal criteria, I don’t have many SAD symptoms including oversleeping and overeating. In fact, I can’t sleep right now without medication and I continue to lose weight despite forcing myself to eat. It’s simple: I don’t have SAD, but I feel sad because this time of year sucks. I am counting the days until New Year’s Eve.

AWW — XoXo

*I realize that technically autumn begins with the autumnal equinox and ends with the winter solstice, but I define my “Funky Fall Blues” by my own dates. As my ex used to say about Adrienne and me, “They play by their own rules.”

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You know you are desperate about your medical condition when you not only publicly advertise it, but you also hope that a reader, a friend of a reader, or a random stranger who stumbles across your blog is an excellent diagnostician. That’s right. I’m paging a real-life Dr. House. I sure hope he or she exists.

My problems began in mid-February when I first experienced tailbone pain, or in medical terms: a dull ache in my coccyx. Let me make some things clear:

• I did not fall down
• I did not slip on the kitchen floor
• I did not suffer an injury in a car accident
• (And my favorite) I did not sit on a hard surface

I ignored the pain because it was intermittent even though I was experiencing another issue: bladder problems. I alluded to this “infection” (I couldn’t come up with a better word) in my EMAO blog, but I didn’t want to give out the details. Tailbone pain is one thing, but a constant need to urinate falls into the TMI category. I wasted hundreds of dollars on tests, unnecessary medications, and time at the urologist (Dr. U) that I will never get back. After two months, Dr. U threw his hands up in the air and proclaimed, “Your bladder is functioning normally—maybe it’s related to your tailbone pain”—a theory that he had initially dismissed.

My regular chiropractor has always believed that the problems are related since there are nerves from your tailbone that extend to your bladder. However, he doesn’t have any answers either. Unfortunately the two issues gradually became worse as time passed. Instead of counting how many days I didn’t experience tailbone pain or urinary problems, I started counting hours. I was thrilled when I managed to have no symptoms for 36 hours during my 20-year high school reunion weekend (i.e., June 25 – 26). Maybe it was endorphins, alcohol, or lack of sleep, but I felt like a normal person again. I wasn’t running to the bathroom every 20 minutes and wincing when I sat down.

By August, the pain had worked its way up my sacrum; I cried during a yoga workshop that required a lot of sitting. I found a new primary care physician (PCP) who said that I must have injured myself (ARGH!), and it would take 18 months to heal. I insisted that I didn’t fall down. I once hurt my tailbone in high school, and I distinctly remember how it felt. Of course Dr. PCP “proved me wrong” when an x-ray showed no crack in my tailbone. I asked for a referral to an orthopedist (Dr. O).

Just to rule out a “girlie” diagnosis, I had my annual exam with my OB/GYN in September. At that time, I requested an ultrasound to see if the ovarian cysts that had been present the year before were still there. The answer: Nope. Good news, of course, but still no answer. While I was waiting to see Dr. O, more problems arose over a two-month period:

• I lose weight at rapid rate without trying. (See After EMAO for weight and body measurements in July.) By October 8, I had lost 10% of my overall body weight. People thought I wasn’t eating because I was depressed, but I love food. Although my appetite has lessened, I force myself to eat three meals a day. My weight has stabilized at 107 pounds, but the last time I was this small was before puberty. I am still within a normal weight range for my height (5′2.5″), but with my medium, muscular frame, my current weight is not normal for me. The only people who think I look “fabulous” right now work in the entertainment industry. I no longer act, yet I am finally the size that every casting director wanted me to be. Sigh.
• I start acquiring bruises all over my legs and occasionally on my arms. I bruise more easily than most people do, but it’s getting ridiculous. New bruises appear every day, and I have no idea what causes them. As a test, I lightly flicked the side of my ankle three times using my thumb and middle finger. Sure enough, a faint bruise showed up the next day.
• I begin experiencing “night sweats” (gross), which is odd since I am normally cold. To combat the sweats, I keep the central heat lower than normal, remove clothing throughout the night, and throw off the blankets. My husband tells me all the time that I hog the covers, but now I routinely wake up with only one layer covering my body. I should be shivering, but I’m not.



• I have difficulty moving because my joints hurt. Almost every day, my hips, knees, and legs feel as though I have run a marathon (and I know what that is like). For example, I was working on a project on the floor (sitting on my knees of course) for about an hour. When I tried to stand up, I couldn’t move. I held onto a bookshelf for support, and I swear it took a full minute for my legs to cooperate. I feel as though I have the bones of someone twice my age.
• I tire easily, but I have never been someone who feels fully rested due to my insomnia. However, this newfound fatigue is affecting every aspect of my daily life. I have an ongoing list of things I must do, and some days I spend so much time trying to get comfortable that I don’t do anything. My new self-esteem rules are if I get one thing done—good, two things—great, three things—outstanding.

Armed with my medical history and current symptoms, I thought Dr. O would blow me off. However, he surprised me. Dr. O believed me! He even agreed with my chiropractor that the tailbone pain and the urinary issues are related. “Absolutely! No question, ” he said. The other symptoms concerned him so he ordered an MRI and a bone scan. The MRI was normal except that it showed inflammation around my tailbone. (Shocker!) The bone scan was normal as well (e.g., no tumors, no bone deterioration). Given all my symptoms, my past health history and my recent health issues last year, Dr. O referred me to a hematologist/oncologist whom I will call Dr. Hemoc. I see him next week.

• One more thing: I don’t know if this is a symptom, but I crave protein all the time, which is ironic since I don’t eat red meat or pork. However, I now consume some form of protein (e.g., turkey, chicken, eggs, legumes) with every meal. I used to snack on sugar-free Popsicles at night, but my new guilty pleasures are raw cashews, turkey jerky, and organic peanut butter out of the jar. Non-stop protein!

For now, I avoid sitting on my tailbone at all costs and carry my coccyx cushion whenever I must sit. At night, I like to read in bed so I recline on a heating pad that I turn off as I fall asleep. (I did burn myself once though.) I lie down on my side on our couch. I take painkillers when absolutely necessary, but I don’t like to because 1) they don’t help much, 2) they make me sleepy, and 3) they make me constipated (more TMI). Sometimes, a heavy dose of ibuprofen helps with the joint pain. I take vitamins and prescription medication daily, but that TMI is reserved for a licensed physician!

While I appreciate sympathy, I don’t need it. I want answers. Having run a disease-based nonprofit for eight years, I possess some medical knowledge. I have researched my symptoms, but there is no diagnosis that seems to fit all of them. Of course, Dr. House would know which ones to rule out, which ones caused the others, etc. Hopefully, Dr. Hemoc will run dozens of blood tests that will crack my curious case. Otherwise, I might end up on Mystery Diagnosis, which is not how I wanted to make my television debut.

AWW — XoXo

P.S. I beg you to share this post with any doctor whom you trust. Thank you!

Posted under Health | 7 Comments »

I reread my last few blogs, and I decided that I must lighten up. I always have a dozen blog topics swarming in my head at any given time so I chose something light and fluffy:
I ♥ hearts. Love them. Obsessed would be a more accurate word. And like many things in life, my love of hearts began when I was a child.

Don’t get me wrong. I was never one of those girls who dotted her i’s with hearts; that practice seemed too cute, too girlie for the tomboy in me. Not to mention, it’s just bad penmanship. However, I adored Valentine’s Day, which is strictly a popularity contest in elementary school. I didn’t care so much about how many valentines I received (okay, I cared a little), but quality ultimately trumped quantity. Did I receive a valentine that included a lollipop? More importantly, did my best friend, the boy whom I had loved for years, give me his heart? Back then, I read too much into an artificial holiday. I blame the hearts.

Another experience that added to my obsession was touching a real heart. One day in either fifth or sixth grade, our teacher announced that we were going to see a cow’s heart because the cow had recently died. All I could think was Poor Cow and Yuck! I hated science. When we lined up for our turn to touch the heart, I dreaded it. The organ was as big as my head. Our teacher encouraged us to stick our fingers in the aorta. Being a good student, I did as I was told. I was shocked that my finger fit, and when I pulled it out, a glob of clotty blood followed. I gasped, but then I wiped my finger on the heart, which was covered in fatty tissue.

The man who brought in the cow’s heart also showed us a human heart, and that experience was far less exciting. The human heart was not fresh; it had been stored in a scientist’s lab for too long. When the man presented it to the class (we were not allowed to touch this heart) it looked like a bad piece of chicken—a huge letdown after the cow’s heart. I knew we were not permitted to, but I wanted to watch the beating heart pump blood. I wanted to see the muscle that supports life. I wanted to touch the organ that represents love.

Even though they don’t look like much, by high school, I was drawing hearts in my binders whenever I was bored in class. Small hearts, big hearts, shaded hearts, half hearts, broken hearts, hearts with arrows, hearts with eyes. If I could insert a heart into my abstract doodle, I would. The heart sketches continued throughout college; in fact, the thing I enjoy most about looking at my old notes is counting how many hearts I drew and seeing how they differed. It didn’t matter who I was dating at the time, the hearts were never related to a specific man. For me, they have always represented all types of love.

Even though I couldn’t care less about Valentine’s Day anymore, I still ♥ hearts. (I adore Jim Dine’s heart art.) I still draw hearts. Simple ones now. Nothing fancy. I like getting the shape perfect. I also like hearing the heart beat whether it is from a strenuous workout, an echocardiogram, or a simple stethoscope. One muscle—without it—we cannot live. No wonder I ♥ hearts.

AWW — XoXo

P.S. I can’t remember the last time I drew a heart, which tells me how much my ♥ hurts right now.

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