When I was in second grade, our school yard had one of those old-fashioned merry-go-rounds, a metal circle with handle bars. You ran alongside it, and when you hit the perfect speed, you’d jump up and hang on.

Most playgrounds don’t have these anymore. That year, I was idly sitting on it during recess, reading a book. The football team came out to practice on the field adjacent to the playground. They decided I looked like I needed a little fun, so they began spinning the merry-go-round. Naturally, with six athletic teenage boys putting their muscle into it, I spun very fast. My book went flying off the bumpy metal wheel as I hung on to the handle, bracing my feet against the opposite bars in hopes of being able to ride it out.

But I couldn’t. Even though the boys stopped running and backed away, I couldn’t hold tight enough and flew off, landing in the gravel.

It could have been worse. Nothing was broken. I skinned one side of my leg and arm, a mass of blood, dirt, and gravel. The boys were terribly sorry and tried to hand me my book. I got tons of attention I neither needed or wanted. Shortly after, this merry-go-round was removed. I was blamed, and this ushered in a rather unhappy period of that year.

The way our world has spun since Elizabeth had to go on full-time anti-seizure mediation has been just as sickening, and I definitely feel the fear of a terrible crunch at the end. In this week’s whirl, we got our three-month supply of medicine only to open the box and discover the generic instead of the brand name.

Our neurologist had absolutely insisted we not do this particular medicine in generic, as we had done for the first month. The FDA only requires a generic dosage be within 80-125% of the correct amount of the brand. For a tiny girl like Elizabeth, getting 80% of the lowest dosage that she’s already on, since she is so small, means she may get seizures. Which means we’ll think it’s not working even if it might be. And of course, that she might have something happen to her, the always-fear when seizures are present for anyone.

To add to the fun, the suspension that the generic drug sits in as a liquid (she’s too small for any pill dosage) is seriously inferior to the brand name, making it appear like sour milk. We are quite certain that the cloudy liquid and the thick white chunks are not the same dosage, so we had to be super-vigilant about shaking it very very well. And even then, it seems like the bottom of the bottle is not the same color as the top.

We confirmed all this with our pediatrician yesterday. I ran to our local Randall’s, which had filled our interim prescription correctly with the brand name, and they delivered the bad news: since we had three months of generic from the mail order, the insurance wouldn’t cover it. We’d have to pay $186 a month for three months to get the brand name.

Upon calling the neurologist, we learned she had forgotten to uncheck the generic equivalency box. Her mistake, they were sorry. $600 sorry?

In more urgent news, all this delay meant we were OUT of medicine. Tick tock. This is an uncommon drug as a liquid and not stocked in most pharmacies.

Let me tell you, if you are ever in any sort of medical bind, I hope you get a pharmacist assistant like Cecilla at our local Randall’s, who, despite the fact the error was the doctor’s, and despite the fact that a mail order place got us the wrong medicine and it wasn’t anything to do with her, spent hours on the phone, negotiating with the insurance, putting in a medical emergency override, and getting us the rare brand name drug for $25, all within 16 hours.

I know most of us are at the mercy of doctors, insurance companies, and drug policies. But sometimes, people in the system do stand up for you. And sometimes, it’s not even the people you think it will be.

Elizabeth has gone 8 weeks without a seizure. We hope that means the drug, our second one to try, is working. She’s been to Magic Camp, finished her Pokemon game, and kept her nose in Gail Carson Levine books all summer. She just finished second grade. Our merry-go-round has been about as traumatic as that ride I took at her age, and the consequences have been, like mine, minor compared to what they could be. We see parents of children with heartbreaking problems and count our blessings. Certainly right up there on that list is Cecilla, who helped make sure that as the world started spinning out of our control, that we got the care we needed.

Take Cheez Whiz. It is not cheese. If it were cheese, the package would just say “cheese.” At most, “cheddar cheese.” Or “American cheese.”

But no. Cheez Whiz, in addition to its aberrant spelling, also packs on the modifiers. “Processed cheese food product.”  There’s no hiding the fact that it’s made of chemicals in no way resembling the version solidified from the bodily fluids of a cow.

I’ve found, in this year, two months, and twelve days since Elizabeth’s first seizure, that I’ve been guilty of modifiers. “Seizure disorder.” “Seizure-like event.”

Tiptoeing, as it were, around the thing I’d rather it not be. Seizures. Epilepsy. A life-long battle. No cure, in our case. Hard to treat.

The meds aren’t working. Elizabeth had another big one today. She was hysterical, the Keppra doing it’s job of scrambling her emotions, making her react strongly and violently to everyday events, so a big one like this sent her over the edge. Sobbing, gulping, having trouble breathing because she’s BEEN TAKING THE MEDICINE EVEN THOUGH IT’S YUCKY AND WHY IS THIS HAPPENING ANYWAY?”

We had tried easing the misery of the foul-tasting liquid. First with the extend-tabs, which were too big, and she choked. Then we tried to get the crushable pills, but the penalty for the doctor writing the Rx “dispense as written” made them $461. How are people supposed to do that? So we’ve continued the liquid, Elizabeth cheerful about it, finding ways to squirt it in the pocket of her cheek to minimize the taste.

But tonight she couldn’t walk, couldn’t get off the bed, too dizzy to move, completely distraught until she started throwing up despite the anti-nausea meds. All the side effects and none of the benefits.

“Why didn’t it work?” she asked between big heaving gulps of air.

I couldn’t tell her. I had no answers.

I can pile on the modifiers, try to change the way it sounds, put a spin on it. But that won’t change anything. A seven-year-old is afraid. And we are too.

For the past two days, we’ve been snagged in a sea of health care red tape. Only one pediatric neurology group exists in town, so we have to play by their rules. They won’t see her until March, and that’s only if they’re willing to make an appointment, as right now our pediatrician hasn’t jumped through the proper hoops.

Last February, when Elizabeth had a grand mal, followed by a day of dizziness, inability to sit up, stand, or walk, we ended up going back to the hospital when we could have simply done outpatient testing at one-tenth of the cost. But Circus Oz came to see the patients, so if you ask Eliza, she would tell you, “IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!” Missing school for a week? Not so much.

She’s back at school today despite three episodes that can’t be classified for certain without tests. Her pediatrician thinks they could be halo-vomit-migraine patterns, but they could also be seizures with traditional post-seizure side effects. Meanwhile, Elizabeth goes merrily on her way, choosing between braids or headbands, hoping her heart shirt matches her sparkly jeans, and wishing her math homework wasn’t quite so hard. She has trouble concentrating at times and deals with pains, both real and phantom, most every evening and night. She sleeps in troubled bouts, and if she gets too stressed or deals with too much static in her brain, will simply fall asleep wherever she is (sometimes even on the bottom step of the staircase if climbing them seems too much trouble.)

Specialists are hard to come by, and it seems more would-be doctors are shying away from fields that require too much bureaucracy, or ones where it can be hard to keep the clinic in the black, with all the staff required to keep the forms moving. And at times like this, when we’re unable to treat a second-grader who might embarrass herself in front of her class at any moment by falling down and throwing up, it’s frustrating to feel that the system doesn’t work even for upper middle class families with good health insurance. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be if we were poor, although I guess we’d just park ourselves at the hospital and let the bills fall where they may.

She’ll hop off the bus shortly, thrilled to have seen her friends, bummed that she has to do homework again after two weeks off, and hopefully without any trouble this day. She doesn’t always realize when she’s having illness-related problems, when one day she can add triple digits and laugh about how easy it is, and the next will lie on the floor and cry over seven-plus-eight. That’s the job of those of us around her, to keep her calm and safe and hopefully get answers when answers can be determined, and solutions when solutions can be found.

I’m not sure what we’re owed from our health care system or what we should even expect. Maybe I want too much. But to see a doctor, one who has trained and has as much information as anyone might, seems the most basic of services. So today, that is what I fight for: an appointment. And let the answers fall where they may.

We went to Canada since it is illegal for these two wonderful people to get married here in Texas or, for that matter, the majority of this country.

I don’t see a day very soon that this issue will change here, but we can keep working toward that goal.

I had canceled the event due to rain, but at the meeting time, a rainbow appeared, so I un-canceled it.

 I got to meet people I’d only known through my web site.

Big sisters light candles too.

The park at Palmer Events Center with its amazing lighted fountains was an ideal location — serene and beautiful. We will definitely meet here again next year.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

I suspect most of us who attend class reunions find this to be true.  Last weekend I went to my own 20th high school reunion in the little town of Archer City. Of the 31 people in our graduating class, 18 of us attended.

I was nervous all out of proportion to the event, partly because I had missed the 10th reunion, and partly because I’m anxious about anything Archer City-related. Like most people who blow out of their small towns as a teen, I felt beyond my element, strangely separate.

Looking across the cafeteria (which was almost completely unchanged–it still had green linoleum and the SAME water fountain from when I first arrived there in second grade, 1977), I really did get the sense of my personal history.

Tressa walked in, my best friend in elementary, a natural fit since she lived next door. We so often got tangled up crawling through the barbed wire between our properties, that our dads made a gate for us. We recalled our many exploits — trying to make a waterbed out of trash bags, throwing rocks over the garage and accidentally knocking the window out of my mom’s car.

Michelle arrived, carrying her four year old. She moved to AC in 8th grade and became a new best friend as she lived in bicycling range. I knew her house better than my own (SHE always had strawberry Haagen Dazs ice cream in her freezer) and we were notorious prank callers.

When my family moved into town in 9th grade, Darci and Trisha became my friends. We often spent Saturday nights out on one of their trampolines, and as we got a little older, boys would come by to visit us in the night (ha, our parents might be reading this!)

Angela also arrived in time for high school, and by virtue of our many debate trips as extemporaneous speakers and a mutual love of drama (the acting kind — okay, all kinds), we became best friends. There was virtually no boy-disaster I didn’t call her up about, and she is probably the most complete repository of my life secrets as we have kept in touch in the intervening decades, easily taking up the confessionals even if years pass between the times we can get together.

Despite all this, the majority of my social life was held elsewhere, as I dated outside of my hometown. I had learned the hard way that what one boy said about me could discolor everyone’s view, and that in a town that small there is no escaping a mistake — one you actually made or one that was made up.

But my senior year I could not resist one of my “own kind,” a boy from Archer City, and ended up attending events (oh those Shack parties) with my own high school classmates. I learned in that year that all my silly hangups were unfounded, and I truly did feel I was part of everything around me. (Of course, 20 years later half the class now knows — thanks Gary for hosting the reunion after party with a whole lotta beer – exactly why I was late to Mrs. Campbell’s class every day after lunch.)

But none of that stopped me from diving headfirst into the vastness and anonymity of big-university life at UT, a decision I will never regret, and one that definitely ensured that I could never go “home” again. But I feel a little better about where I’ve been and how far I’ve come.

If a high school reunion has anything going for it other than finding out who is still skinny, who still has hair, who got rich, or who married the bad boy, it’s exactly what Nelson Mandela says–you can see exactly what made you who you are, and how the very thing you ran from is exactly what got you where you are today.

View the entire gallery of reunion images at http://www.deannaroy.com/photogalleries/achs/

Classmates who didn’t get a copy of the group picture at Gary’s can email me at deanna@austin.rr.com. I’ll send you the file to print yourself (or if need be, I can mail you a copy.)

I was 20 weeks pregnant. I’d just taken a half day off at the high school where I taught. As I walked away, my newspaper staff was making a big chart on the board, and all my students were placing bets on whether I was having a boy or a girl. I was instructed to call the room after my sonogram, and they’d be there to answer and announce the winners. Many a Dr. Pepper was riding on the outcome.

My husband John came out of the coffee shop with bottled water just as they called us back. I commented as I stepped on the scale that lately I had felt skinnier, which I thought odd. I had been so concerned about it that a few days ago I’d gone to the nurse’s office at my school to be weighed.

“Nope, you’re growing plenty!” the nurse said, jotting down the number. I felt relieved and sat on the exam table. She pulled out a Doppler to get the baby’s heart rate and I automatically tensed. She had struggled with this at both my previous visits, so when she kept moving it around and around and found nothing, I didn’t worry as much as I might have.

“No worries,” she said. “We’ll see it during the sonogram.”

But when my doctor arrived seconds later, rather than after what was normally a lengthy wait, I knew something was wrong.

And when his first words were, “Try not to worry,” this set my pulse flying.

He immediately flipped on the machine beside us and laid the sonogram paddle to my exposed belly. He grimaced as he worked, and John held my hand tightly. I was already crying, but not really noticing as the moment was so intense, so long, so agonizingly slow.

Finally the doctor said, “There’s no heartbeat.”

The rest of the words sort of slurred in my mind. The baby was measuring out at 16 weeks, so had died shortly after the last visit. I remembered that sonogram so well, his heartbeat and the shifting of his shoulders making us realize he was alive, so alive, and going to be with us soon.

The rest of my story is well documented on the site. You can read it here.

So much has happened since then. My life has gone in many new directions. I quit teaching. I had surgery to fix my uterus. I had two lovely girls among complicated pregnancies where I lost other babies. 

But today is about little Casey, the reason my Facts about Miscarriage web site exists. It has been a long labor of love, at times causing me great anguish, but mostly being a source of strength and pride and comfort for both myself and the wonderful mothers who come here–this site takes 25,000 hits every day. 

I am doing a number of special things to commemorate this day.

Early this morning, I created a Facts about Miscarriage Facebook Group that women may join so that we can create a community of women united in our losses, to tell our stories, leave our pictures, and find each other. If you belong to Facebook, join the group and invite others. If you don’t belong to Facebook, take a look at it. It’s sort of a “myspace” for grownups, with fewer glitter graphics and pounding music, but all the utilities for sharing as much, or as little, of your life as you like. Feel free to friend me there.

I will also add to my Miscarriage Sympathy Card series. The first one was a baby sliding down into clouds. This new one will include Casey’s sonogram. A third one, later this summer, will include Elizabeth and her angel twin Emma. To check on those, you can always follow this link.

Hug your kids today. Some of us never get that chance.

It makes you question each religion, every set of beliefs. Maybe the science types are right–it’s all just dust and atoms, chaotic and non-linear.

But faith has its place, and we cling to it out of desire and need. Only through God do we dream of meeting our loved ones again, so loss becomes our salvation.

I tell this regularly to people dealing with unspeakable grief. We must strengthen our faith, not lose it. And Faith is key, especially right now.

My long-time friends’ daughter Cordelia Faith lived for three months and three weeks. We will miss her, most especially her parents and twin sister, all our lives.

Rest well, sweet Corey.

Cordelia Faith

March 14-July 5, 2007

On top was a pile of medical things. I went to the file cabinet to see what folders already existed. Under medical, I found a packet rather unusually titled “old stuff.”

So I pulled out this folder to see what might be inside.

A medical bill. No surprise. Several, in fact. I scanned the list to see what they were for.

• Prenatal 1-3
• Antepartum Care
• Mycoplasma Culture
• Prolactin
• TSH

Right about here I realized what I was looking at but read on, much as someone might rubber-neck a car accident.

• Lupus Anticoagulant
• Prothrombine time
• Thromboplastin

I knew the date I would see. May 1998. These were the tests they ran to try and figure out why my baby had died. They didn’t figure it out then; I’d be pregnant with Emily before we understood the reason. If there should ever be a reason for something like that.

Strange I would come across this bill the same day I set Baby Dust aside, the first draft done, a whole trove of stories just like mine contained within its pages. Maybe Casey needed me to remember that they were little people, not just graphic incidents, or maybe he wanted to remind me why I was qualified to write it at all. Or maybe he just wanted to drop in, to show me he knew it was a big day, and to sprinkle me with luck as I start to send it out to agents.

Doesn’t matter. I can make it anything I want to be. And I choose to get dusted with hope.