Little Miracles

May 1, 2022

At my first MRI with Polyclinic, they asked if I would like to listen to music, which I declined. The scan wasn't very long, and I'd had an MRI once before. They gave me earplugs and headphones to muffle the sounds of the MRI machine (the noise would be deafeningly loud without them). I sort of enjoyed listening to the various beeps, taps, and buzzes at a reasonable volume. The nurse that helped me said I could leave my wedding ring on, which vibrated pleasantly with the rhythmic sounds of the machine. 

We didn't really know anything at the time, so this MRI seemed like a precautionary measure, taken in order to rule out anything serious.

 I was rather optimistic and chipper, so I commented to the nurse after my scan that the machine's noises sounded like dub-step music. He laughed and agreed, although he'd never heard that before.

"Most of the time," he said, "our patients don't know what dub-step is."

My subsequent MRI's were done at Swedish, where music was not offered. I didn't really care at first, until I had to do a head and neck scan with spectroscopy, which meant I had to stay still inside that loud, claustrophobia-inducing machine for over an hour. My neck was already perpetually stiff, so laying on my back with my head in one position for a long time was uncomfortable. They told me through my headphones how long each image would take, but not how much longer I would be in there. This time, the machine reminded me of an old computer perpetually dialing up the internet.

I didn't think to use the bathroom beforehand, so I had to pee like a racehorse by the end. I was too embarrassed to squeeze the little rubber pump they give you in case of an emergency. 

Several weeks ago, my oncologist Dr. Graber asked if my surgeon had mentioned the "spot" on my post-surgery MRI. Confused, I said no. I remembered Matt telling me that right after my surgery, Dr. Cobbs had told him that nothing about the T-word had changed. 

"There's what we call an enhancement," Dr. Graber said, "Which could just be a leaky blood vessel, or an indication that the C-word has spread." 

I was kind of annoyed, but I was also just tired of thinking about things. So it didn't bother me as much as it normally would have. 

Maybe it didn't work the first time, but I tried to use positive thinking anyway. At night, I vividly imagined the doctor telling me that the spot had disappeared.

My last MRI at UW only lasted 20 minutes. After I undressed and put on their loose pants and a gown, they had me wait behind a curtain in stall number nine. At first, I had the sheet open, so the staff walking down the hall towards me would sometimes make eye contact. I would think they were coming to take me back to the MRI room, but they would just pass me. That was a bit awkward, so I drew the curtain closed. 

 After this mini-bout of boredom, a nurse with an Australian accent came to administer my IV. It was more painful and took longer than usual. She asked if there was any pain where the IV was.

"Only a little," I said, thinking that the job was done.

 "Let's try that again," she said, and took it out in order to poke me on the other arm. The imperfect IV left an obvious yellow and blue bruise on the skin above my right elbow.

The Australian nurse took me to a seat near the MRI room where I waited a few more minutes. Another nurse led me into the room, where upbeat music was playing on the speakers. She asked me what kind of music I would like to listen to, and I was happy to get that question.

"Something relaxing," I said. 

They played calm, meditative music while the MRI machine rang and banged in the background. Although the music didn't completely drown out the noise, it was nice to hear the music between the machine's less palatable sounds. I tried my best to meditate one more time on what the radiologist would say. "We can't explain it. The spot has disappeared!" I imagined the relief that Matt and I would feel; the confirmation that our positive intentions had worked.

After eating some food in the cafeteria, Matt and I made our way to my next appointment with the radiologist. Her name was Dr. Halasz, pronounced like "Alice" but with an H at the front. After knocking gently, coming in, and introducing herself, she addressed the scan. 

In short, the spot had disappeared. She showed us some images of the scan right after my surgery next to the scan I had just had. She pointed out the spot on the left, showing a cross-section of my brain from above. A small dot, lighter than the tissue around it, connected to my T-word with a faded line. In the image on the right, there was just a dark and empty space where the spot had been. 

She said that they couldn't figure out why it was gone.

Matt and I smiled behind our masks and shot quick but knowing looks into each others' eyes. I was shocked by the results, not only because they are what we had hoped for, but because she used some of the exact words I did in my imagination. She also said that there was no change in the T-word.

Around two weeks ago, Matt exclaimed to me that one of the tulips in our garden had two buds. I looked outside our kitchen window to see a single green stem split only a couple of centimeters below two well-formed florets. The twins bloomed with elegant yellowish-white petals a few days later.

He told a friend at work about this, who said that it was a good omen. My sister and a friend said the same when I posted a picture on social media. I'd never heard that before.

I don't think I'm very superstitious, but it's an interesting coincidence that it happened just before my scan. 

Maybe the spot's disappearance is a small thing to some people. Maybe it was just dumb luck. But Matt and I have chosen to believe that we witnessed a miracle... one of many to come.

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Cake

March 26, 2022

My parents came to town to visit yesterday. I asked them to come after my surgery/biopsy so that they could enjoy the beginning of Spring here, but also in case I was dealing with any bad news.

I was able to put on a pretty happy face when we went to eat dinner with them at the Airport Marriott they were staying at. I did my makeup for the first time since the surgery and wore my long hair down, styled in waves, covering the shaved spot and big scar on the back of my head. 

There was hardly any parking when we arrived, so we parked in the back of the hotel. I didn't have the energy to walk all the way to the front, so I called my dad and asked him to come find us and open the door. He wasn't finding us, but I finally saw the sign by the door that said "Push button for assistance"  and the door just opened.

The food took a while to come, so we talked and laughed quite a bit. Matt enjoyed hearing funny stories about me as a child. We never seem to run out of things to talk about. By the time the waitress finally dropped off our check, my body, mind, and head were extremely tired. My dad was buying, so Matt took me home.

The next morning, we picked up my parents and brought them to our house for lunch. They had taken a walk that morning and enjoyed the blossom show that the Seattle area offers this time of year. Matt made my dad a turkey sandwich, and I made my mom an egg salad with celery, avocado, and cheese. She said she loved it. Whenever we go to Utah, she makes yummy vegetarian food and makes sure I'm generously fed, so it was nice to finally return the favor.

There's a popular cake shop in Georgetown Matt loves called Deep Sea Sugar and Salt. It looks like an older house, green, with a bay window on the second floor. "Cake Shop" is written in plain letters underneath. There is usually a line out the door. 

This place is so popular that you can pre-order slices online to reserve the flavor you want. It was Matt's idea to do this so that my parents could try a fun place while they were here. Although I planned to go, I was really tired after lunch, so we decided Matt and my dad would pick it up while my mom and I stayed home.

I was thinking about taking a nap, but that wasn't how it went. Through tears, my mom told me my dad has had a really hard time. 

"He's always had a soft spot for you, because you remind him of me," she said in that sad, halting way that is so familiar. 

"I know," I said. 

"He was so sure you were going to be fine," she said.

Will I be fine? I'm trying to tell myself yes, which is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I am still trying to believe it because I don't see any other way to survive.

"Honestly, every morning morning feels like waking up to a nightmare," I said. 

When I'm dreaming, it's a different reality. The fact that I have a brain T-word and the C-word hasn't entered my dreams yet. I hope it never does.

When I was a toddler, I complained to my parents that my head was hurting when I watched TV. For some reason they were worried that I might have a brain t-word. My Mom says that was one of the only times she's seen my dad cry. 

I just needed glasses. 

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Matt and my dad came home with three slices of cake: lemon, nine-pound chocolate porter, and chocolate blackout. We put them on plates and passed them around in the living room, each of us trying the different flavors. 

The lemon had a tangy injection of lemon curd in the middle. I thought it was better than the lemon cake we had at our wedding, but it wasn't my favorite. The chocolate blackout was good, but the nine-pound chocolate porter was the best. It's Matt's favorite--dense, and impossibly moist. Chocolate at its finest.

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When crying kept me from sleeping early this morning, I looked online for the answer to a question that was weighing on my mind. If I die, what will it look like? According to my sources, I will just be tired a lot because of the pressure on my brain. It doesn't sound like I will lose my mind, thank God. Most likely, I will get tired more and more until one day, I will slip out of consciousness while I'm sleeping. 

I hope this is many years off, but it's something I wanted to know. It actually brought me a lot of peace, because I've always said that's how I'd prefer to go if I had a choice. I'm not as afraid of death as I used to be, but I don't want to suffer. Ideally, it will happen when I'm old, laying in bed next to Matt.

I should probably ask Dr. Graber if this is correct considering my type of t-word, but it's not something that is easy for me to talk about. I mean, we're talking about death here. And I'm only 37!

I know people get c-word much younger, or even die. Two friends from my high school had young children diagnosed with it. One of them is still alive. The other is not. 

Years ago, I heard that Alisa, a friend I had growing up, had been diagnosed with Leukemia. Although I was shocked and saddened when I heard, I think that part of me didn't believe it. I hadn't talked to her in who knows how long, and after moving to Spokane and then Seattle, it was something I knew, but didn't think about often.

A few months ago, I was going through an old box of notes that I had taken home from my parents' house. They were mostly the kind we passed to each other in class or in the halls as we laughed and socialized between middle school periods. Many of them were from Alisa, A.K.A. "Al" or "Slimey". Most of them addressed me as "Sexy". Several of them said nice things about me, like that she thought I was pretty, and that all the boys liked me. 

When I visited Salt Lake not long after, I asked my mom if she could text Alisa's mom so that I could get Alisa's number. A couple of days later, as I was about to leave for the airport, I found out that she had passed away. She was a year or so younger than me.

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Part of what is hard is that I feel like life just got started for me. After many years of fairly short relationships, I moved to Spokane for a fresh start, and then to Seattle. Matt and I met a few years ago, but we just got married last Spring. We bought a house in the suburbs at the end of August. We wanted to start a family. 

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Jazzing

March 22, 2022

Last night, Matt and I discussed whether I would be okay at home alone the next day. I had no idea how I would handle it, but there was a chance that debilitating anxiety would take over and render me unable to take care of myself. Being home alone made that a lot more likely. He decided to call in sick. 

I took half of a Benadryl to address the itching on my incision and help me sleep. It did, but I woke up again at about 4:30. Matt gets up for work around that time, so he talked to me. 

The anxiety was back, but this time it came with nausea. It was so familiar, like an old friend you always hated. It had been over 4 years since I felt that--about the same time I met Matt. I took half of an Ativan and the other half about thirty minutes later. 

Matt suggested we sit on the front porch. Feeling the fresh, chilly air and watching and hearing the birds sing helped. We have only been together about four years, but he knows me really well. It might have been the Ativan, but I finally started to calm down. 

After coming inside, I called Jordan and told her over the phone. She was pretty calm, although I heard her voice crack a couple of times. Alli was the most emotional of everyone I told, even my mom. It made sense because not only are we close, but her best friend recently lost a sister. She has always been there for me, talking me through moments of sadness and anxiety. She has been there.

I knew I had to tell them at some point, and perhaps I should have called, but I drafted a text to tell everyone else in the family. I fell asleep as Matt watched tv. 

Later that day, Matt and I took Ruby on a walk in the neighborhood. We then went to Clark Lake park, a five-minute drive from our house and one of my favorite places to go since we moved. There is a lake, and plenty of forested space to roam and look for birds. It's a great place to forget your worries.

It was a shoulder-warming, gorgeous day. There were lots of ducks in the lake, including American Coots and what we identified as lesser scaups. We hadn't seen either of those before, and we're always happy to see something different. 

Walking along the boardwalk that goes through a grassy marsh, I heard a splash in the water. It's usually pretty quiet out there, barring the occasional bird call or frog croak. I had heard the splash once before, and both times I assumed it was a big frog or toad jumping into the water. Matt searched with his binoculars and found what he called a "swamp rat" (lol.) 

"What?!" I said incredulously. He pointed it out, and I looked through the lenses. I saw a big head and fur, and the animal was munching on some grass and then slipped back into the water. His tail was difficult to see underwater, but I was pretty sure of what it was. 

"It's a beaver!" I exclaimed. Neither of us had ever seen one in the wild before, and I had always wanted to. We were thrilled.

Nature has always been soothing to me. It almost doesn't matter what I'm doing--I will stop and watch a cat, bird, or even a squirrel if I see one. Usually, I get at least one weird look from a person (which I don't mind.) It's one of the things that will get me "jazzing." If you haven't seen Disney's Soul (which you should, and I don't consider myself a Disney fan), Joe Gardner considers Jazzing to be what he does when he plays Jazz on the piano... forgetting time, place, and everything else in the world because of that thing he loves that puts him "in the zone." Seeing that beaver brought me to that place of joy in my heart that is beyond time, even beyond life. 

Needless to say, it was just what I needed today. 

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The Unpicked Apple

 

A Ripe Apple, deep red

Unpicked, drops into the dirt,

Spoils, Decays, and Rots.

I wrote this Haiku in January. I was struggling to find meaning in my life, which happened to flip a massive bitch recently. So, this blog will do the same. I will now tell a more current story through my journal entries. 

March 21st, 2022

The doctor just told me I have the C-word. Brain C-word, to be exact. Type II Astrocytoma. This type is not benign. We knew this was a possibility, based on a number of CT's, MRIs, neurosurgeon and oncologist visits. We knew it was near my brain stem, and thus inoperable, which was devastating. But for about a year, the doctors had told us that they didn't know what it was. 

It was "not typical," according to Srinivasan, a neurosurgeon my doctor had sent me to after my first MRI. We saw this as a good thing, and even though I shed some tears, we decided that our only choice was to stay positive and expect the best outcome. 

Whatever this was, it was causing what is called a Chiari malformation. My cerebellum is swollen, so it extends farther than normal into my brain stem, causing a restriction of spinal fluid flow. This was causing my new headaches. After a lot of thinking, we went ahead with the surgery to address these headaches by removing some bone in my C1 to create room for my spinal fluid to flow. To perform a biopsy on the area of concern, they had to make a small hole in my skull, so we did that at the same time. 

Since we previously melted down after reading some MRI results, we asked the doctors not to release my biopsy results online. We decided to believe that the results would be negative and speak with Dr. Graber when they came in. Since Srinivasan had told us it could be an "inflammatory response," we believed that's what it was. Together and separate, we imagined the relief we would experience when the doctor gave us the good news.

After the surgery, my oncologist Dr. Graber specified to his nurse that he wanted to see me in person. Positive thoughts or not, I understood the implications and immediately freaked out. Matt calmed me down by saying that the doctor probably just wanted to look at my incision. 

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Our positive intentions had been wrong. I tried to harness the tears and focus on what the doctor was saying, but my mind was hurtling through a minefield of fears and confusion. It helped that the bottom half of my face was covered by a mask, but most of my emotions showed through my eyes. Dr. Graber spoke calmly, but I broke into small sobs as I asked certain questions. There were times that he seemed to see my sadness and try to finish his thought before I started up again. I apologized multiple times, to which he replied "Why?" He encouraged me to let out my emotion. I don't think he knew what he was asking for.

I collapsed into Matt's arms as we sat down on the couch just outside Dr. Graber's office. 

"What are we going to do now?" I asked.

"We just keep going," Matt said. 

He helped me get myself together just enough to make it to the car. When we got there, I pawed around for my phone, which wasn't in my usual jeans or jacket pocket. 

"I must have left it in the bathroom," I said, too exhausted to get upset. I knew that Matt would go find it for me. He grabbed his "screened for COVID" sticker out of his pocket and slapped it back onto his hoodie.

The parking garage was dark and gloomy. In the safety of our Camry's space, I wept without control. I didn't realize that there was an older man in the car directly facing us. 

It felt like the longest wait of my life. He left his phone with me so that he could call it if he found mine. But there was only silence.

I felt miserable as I wondered what was going on. I waited a few minutes, and then called my phone. No answer.

Finally, the phone buzzed. He had found it in the doctor's office. The office had closed, so Matt talked a security guard into letting him in. When he came back, I saw that his COVID sticker was upside-down.

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About ten months ago, Matt and I were visiting Magnuson park as a recently married couple. It was one of the first hot days of Summer in Seattle. While in the car, I felt a dull pressure in my head, kind of like what you feel when you need to pop your ears on the plane or in the car. 

As we walked along the sidewalk, we saw people playing around on the beach and in the water of Washington Lake. We came to a wooded area to look for birds, and I started to experience something I had never felt before. Looking at a bird, I noticed a foggy, wavy spot on the left side of my field of vision. As we walked and looked around, it grew, becoming a crescent with jagged edges that were constantly moving and flashing. Bewildered, I stopped and told Matt, who became concerned and suggested we walk back to the car. He held my hand as he led me there, and we drove home. 

From that point, often when I had just woken up in bed, I felt a pounding headache that moved from the back of my neck to the front of my head. It would pulse a few times, sometimes eliciting a shout of pain, and then disappear. But then the visual disturbance from the park would appear. It would last about fifteen minutes, and then fade away. I would sometimes experience a version of this when I crouched down or looked up too long.

I made an appointment with my neurologist, Dr. Nago, who medicated me for migraines but seemed concerned about these new headaches. He told me to get a CT scan. At the time, I was just following orders, knowing that they do these things to rule out anything serious. When Dr. Nago called me after the scan, he said that they saw something. He wasn't sure if it was a "shadow" or something else, so we scheduled an MRI. 

Although I was told that someone would call me the Monday after my MRI on Thursday, no one did. I called, but Dr. Nago was on vacation, and after multiple calls and a message on Mychart, another doctor finally messaged me back a week after the scan. "MRI showed nothing acute such as bleeding or a stroke. There are some findings that are similar to what the CT showed. A follow-up with Dr. Nago is recommended to discuss in details about these findings and next steps."

I talked to Nago, who sent me to the neurosurgeon Srinivasan, who sent me to the oncologist Graber, who after surgery and a biopsy told me I had the C-word.

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I promised my Mom that I would call as soon as I knew, so on the drive home, I called the house.  The freeway was noisier than I expected, so it took all my energy to force out the words. Matt helped. 

My mom was audibly emotional, but said "I believe in miracles."  My dad sounded calm and sweet, but he feels far more than he shows. 

After the call, my body filled with anxiety. The initial shock had faded, but calling my parents had made it real. 

The C-word is not supposed to be for me. It is supposed to be for stories you hear about other people.

When I met Matt, his dad had lived with both lung and prostate C-word for over ten years. While we were together, his Mom contracted ovarian. Sadly, Matt's father passed away a couple of years ago due to complications. But he was 75, and his Mom is now 78. I'm only 37. 

Maybe I came too close. It happened to Matt's dad, his mom, then me. I believe that if you think about something a lot, it will manifest. The law of attraction. Thoughts become things. 

My thoughts became darker as night came upon us. 

"You don't have to make your mark on the world, or impress anybody. There's nothing you need to do to justify being alive," Matt said, reading my mind as he usually does. 

"You're not here for the world. The world is here for you. The trees, the birds," he said. 

I cried, tears tumbling off my cheeks as his own made soft, slow trails down his sad but determined face.

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Graveyard Tripping

     

          The training was carried out in a large room in the back corner of the workroom floor. Windows lined the walls, offering a panoramic view of the hundreds of cubicles outside. A black and white clock hung in the center of the back wall. I made a point not to look at it often so each hour between breaks passed quickly. Because we took breaks at the same time, my classmates became familiar and occasionally some of us would have short, hushed conversations on the outskirts of the workroom floor. It was more social than I would be for years to come.

     Training on a computer program was silent, solitary work, but at least my mind was occupied with new information. Black and white, scanned examples of mail pieces appeared on the monitor, then disappeared after typing the correct code. If you were wrong, the program told you. Each lesson was a bit more challenging than the last, and we would have to pass a final test to move onto probation. Sometimes the trainer would interrupt our independent work to go over questions and coding rules. One day, he told us that a rule we learned on the training program had been changed. We were told to disregard the rule in favor of a new one, but not until after our final test, when we would be cut loose to code “live mail.” He said this about several other rules by the time training was over. The program was way out of date. They haven't updated it since the eighties, I thought.

     After training, we were put on a 90-day probation. Perfect attendance was required. That meant we wouldn’t pass if we were late, even once. No exceptions. We had to reach a high average typing speed and accuracy by the end, based on random samples they took of our work. We weren’t allowed to listen to music. Phones were to be turned off. No talking.

     Needless to say, it was hard to remember during probation which rules we’d learned that we needed to forget. Many new scenarios came up which were never addressed in training. They had taught us nothing about deciphering handwriting, much of which was impossible to read. Sometimes the lines were all squiggly. I imagined an old woman addressing a letter, struggling to steady her gnarled, trembling hand long enough to form each letter. I wondered how many of these letters reached their destination.

     I thought my sister's wedding was on one of my days off, but because our schedule changed from week to week, I messed up and hadn't submitted a schedule change request in time. I was strung out. After all this work and perfect attendance, I thought I would have to choose between keeping my job and attending her wedding. My mother convinced me after much debate to ask my supervisor if they would make an exception despite their policy.

      Howard, my probation supervisor, had chalk-white hair and a cantankerous look on his face. My heart pounded as I approached him in the back of the training room, full of empty chairs. He scoffed when I called my oversight "an honest mistake." But it turns out there was an exception to the rule, and in his great mercy he allowed me to start my shift that evening instead. I would be there for pictures but miss the bouquet-toss, cake, dancing, and farewell.

      Although relieved of the burdensome choice on my shoulders, I had no idea how I'd get through it. I'd never worked a graveyard before. Mormon weddings are exhausting, all-day affairs that start early in the morning, and I'd had to leave the reception to go straight to work, and then work another full shift the next day.

      I shared my plight with a few friends as we sat around the table for "hookah night." My friend Gale, a shy, nerdy hipster who also worked at the REC on an earlier shift, offered me an Adderall. It was just one of a variety of controlled substances he had at his disposal, but he truly adored this one. He often went on about how brilliant it made him. I knew he didn't have a prescription, but I didn't care. Coffee wouldn't get me through the whole night, and if my evil overlords were going to be so inflexible then I'd get through it by whatever means necessary.

      I accepted Gale's offer, and he told me that just a half or even a quarter would make it easy to stay awake through my entire shift. He explained how to carefully open the capsule, split the tiny foam-like balls, ingest a portion, and put the capsule back together.

      I decided to take it just before leaving the reception--that way it would take effect by the time I got to work. I went upstairs, gathered my change of clothes from the bridesmaid's room, took a picture with my chunky baby nephew, and said goodbye to my family. On my way out, I ran into Sister Kiisel, a member of the Mormon ward I grew up in. I smiled big and hugged her tightly. "How are you? Thank you so much for coming; it's so great to see you!" I said with remarkable warmth.

      In hindsight, that enthusiasm wasn’t warranted. Nice lady, but we were never particularly close, I'm not big on hugging, and I have social anxiety, especially with people from my past that I haven't seen in a long time. The Adderall had kicked in.

      On my drive to work, I entered a fantastic euphoria. I felt noble, inspired, and superhuman. What I was doing was incredibly brave. I didn’t just think but knew that I could change the world. The emotions were so intense that I began to cry tears of joy and gratitude. I acted on an impulse to call my oldest sister. She didn’t answer, so I left a long message expressing my deep love and empathy for what she was going through. It might have been weird. We hadn't talked much lately, but she was in the middle of a contemptuous divorce.

      I thought the pill would make me feel energized, but I had no idea I would get so high, let alone peak as I left the reception. Thankfully no one seemed to notice, and I got through the night shift like a champ and then some. As Gale promised, I was faster, more efficient, and more focused than usual, but the best part was that for the first time in a long time, I enjoyed working. It was a successful coping mechanism, but not the only one I’d try.

What's With the Title?

           In the postal world, the term "semipostal" refers to a special kind of stamp. They cost a little more than a regular stamp, but that extra portion goes to a good cause. For example, one of our semipostal stamps has a picture of a sad-looking old woman on it. This is the Alzheimer's stamp. People called it depressing, including me. My favorite was the "Save Vanishing Species" stamp, which had an artist's rendering of an endangered Amur tiger, the extra funds going to the Multinational Species Conservation Fund.
           Most people haven't heard the term semipostal, but they have heard of going postal. It's a reference to several incidents of violence that were carried out by postal workers in the '80s and '90s. The first happened in August of 1986 when a disgruntled postal employee opened fire in the Edmond, Oklahoma post office where he worked, killing fourteen coworkers, wounding six others, and then pulling the trigger on himself.
          The Oklahoma Historical Society describes the shooter as "a socially inept loner." A former U.S. Marine who had trouble keeping a job, he had already threatened revenge against his superiors, twice. They had issued "verbal discipline" the day before the murders, and one of them was the first person shot to death that morning.
           These days, massacres like this are common. But several violent incidents within the postal service followed, and that's how the phrase came to be.
           The reason I have called my blog "Going Semipostal" has nothing to do with violence, but a lot to do with mental health. There have been many times during my tenure with the postal service that I've felt like I was losing my sanity. I can't blame it all on my job, though. I've struggled with anxiety and depression all my life. The job, coupled with personal problems, just amplified the struggle. I have gone semipostal at least a dozen times in my career. 
           So, let's get to it already. The insanity continues in my next post. Subscribe to be sure you don't miss it! 
       

The wRECk

       

      “It’s not too bad,” Heidi said. “It’s a lot of typing, but you get alternating five and ten-minute breaks every hour.” 

       Heidi was a friend and former coworker who now worked at the Remote Encoding Center. Breaks every hour sounded pretty sweet. Besides, I was 25 and my parents had been badgering me to get a job with health insurance before I got kicked off their plan. 

       The application was horrific. I had to dig up outdated addresses, employment dates and contact information for every job I’d ever had. All the forms had to be completed online and then again on paper, and the instructions threatened that if any part was left incomplete, I would be disqualified. After finally getting through that, there was a waiting game of a few months, then a series of clerical tests, a drug test, a background check, an interview, and fingerprints. 

        The official title of this position was Data Conversion Operator, or DCO for short. Here's how it was expained. All the postal mail goes to a Processing and Distribution Center, where the addresses are scanned by computers. If the computer can't decipher the address for some reason, a human at the REC reads it on a computer screen and directs it where it needs to go. 

       I got the job. After orientation, our trainer gave us a tour of the place, taking us first into what they called the “work room floor.” It was filled with tiny cubicles, about a third of their normal size. They were arranged in long, uniform rows, each one labeled with a letter and number. Employees sat motionless in their chairs, staring dully into their computer screens. No one spoke a word. The only sound to be heard on the floor was constant, rapid typing on a sea of computer keyboards. My stomach turned.

       I was glad I wouldn't have to deal with customers, but this job looked boring as Hell. I subdued my inner hippie by telling myself I’d stick it out for a few months to save money, then find something more interesting.  

       Rule number one on the work room floor was "no talking." If you wanted to socialize during your thirty-minute lunch, you'd better be ok with showing everyone your mashed up tuna sandwich swimming around in your mouth hole too. As for breaks, forget about it. You'd have a talking-to if you went over five minutes, so if you tried to talk to someone you'd be looking at your watch every five seconds and then have to cut them off mid-sentence to scurry back to your computer.
         Working at the REC was a lot like riding the bus in Seattle. Most people avoided eye contact, their headphones tuning them out of the world and into their iPods or phones at all times. There were even mini cubicles on the side of the break room where you could eat your lunch while staring at a wall. I only did that if it was one of those days where I couldn't stop crying.
        
        So, how does a young woman with a history of depression and anxiety cope with a place like this? Stay tuned to find out (scroll up and enter your email on the right in "follow by email")!