The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

The title of this post (and the book it is processing) is the Hmong phrase that in English would mean "epilepsy." The College Circle bookclub, of which I am a long time but in the last decade delinquent member, was reading the book by Anne Fadiman as its September choice, and so my dear friend Linda told me about it. She said she couldn't stop thinking about Karen and us while she read it. I had been wanting to rejoin the bookclub for my last year and the book provided all the excuse I needed even though I hadn't read it. But I devoured it afterwards, even once into the middle of the night.

Lia Lee's major seizure disorder has marked similarities to Karen's, from their inception during infancy (three months, 11 months) to the time frame (Lia is five years younger than Karen) to their seriousness (hour long seizures on occasion) and the kinds of medication regimines the doctors tried and discarded and then finally settled on (depakene), to the complications of events like pneumonia, and lastly to the negative consequences of brain damage. Before she turned five years, Lia had "the big one" as well as sceptic shock and is now (to this day) in a permanent vegetative state though she did not die as everyone had expected. Reading the book and seeing its lists of various drugs brought back a flood of complex, difficult memories.

However, there the similarities stop. Lia's case was complicated by the fact that she is the daughter of Hmong refugees from Laos who could not speak English, nor were they literate in their own language. The overwhelmed Merced CA medical community had no translators in its facilities in the 80s. Even more significant is the fact that the Lee family, like other Hmong, believe than an illness like Lia's is caused by an inauspicious event that angered the spirits though ironically its manifestations also signal how special the "falling down" person is because he or she has a direct connection with the spiritual world. Perhaps he (she) will become a shaman. Illness must be treated in a spiritual form of sacrifice to the spirits, not medicine (whose directions they could not follow in any case). And so the story becomes a case study in a tragic "collision of cultures," of cultural miscommunication at its worst though never with malevalent intentions. Lia's parents loved her dearly and took excellent care of her--Fadiman, who researched her story for years, makes this abundantly clear. Lia's doctors also cared deeply for her and made significant personal sacrifices for her. But the two could not express themselves in ways that the other could understand. Cartesian logic and eastern mysticism were at odds with each other and crushed a beautiful little girl, Lia, between them.

Lia's story is woven into the larger story of the Hmong's milennia-old cultural struggle for survival, their service to the CIA during the Vietnam war, their abandonment by the American government, their flight from the Communist victors of that war and their eventual resettlement in American, particularly coming together in Merced, a central valley California town that was already on the brink of economic collapse. It asks many pointed questions about immigration policy, medical education, cultural values and good intentions. It broke my heart. I found myself critiquing some of my own cross-cultural encounters with students over issues such as plagiarism to which we must enforce "compliance." Could I have approached the issue in a better way (via the questions of the medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman, for example)? But I stopped short of agreeing with Fadiman about the value of including sacrifices to the spirits into medical plans as a harmless complement that might allow the patients their dignity (and thereby might increase their compliance with the doctors' orders).

If you have time in your busy lives, I would strongly recommend reading this book. Lia will haunt you for a long time.

This is what I get for hurrying...

...forgetting to put up the picture. Now I really have to really scramble to get to work on time.

Sign of the Times

When this tree up the street begins to turn (you can see from the picture, it's been turning for a while), the others are not far behind. Yes, now even the calendar agrees that it is fall despite the unseasonably hot and dry days. It's supposed to get to 90 today, but a front is coming through and promises some rain. Hooray. I love fall, even though it presages winter. We're ready.

Of making many cat names there is no end

Ellen's cats (see her blog, Stranger in a Strange Land) are 7 month old sibblings (male and female), whom she named after sibblings from a science fiction film/series (?) she likes, "Fireflies," I believe. However, Karen took exception to the names....Here's the gist of my phone conversation with her after Ellen revealed Simon and River as the names and also after Karen had named them while they were still nameless. She had promptly picked Isabella and Isaac, which Chuck in turn promptly shortened to Izzy and Ike. (Now, you understand, that Ellen would never go to the off-beat when it comes to human children's names...she's all for the classic ones.)

Here is the gist of K's and my second phone conversation:

Mom: Ellen named her kitties.
Karen: Oh? Isabella and Isaac?
Mom: No. Simon and River.
K: What?!?? River is no name for a cat. How about Emma and Ed?
M: We already have an Ed cat in the family--Uncle Rod's cat, remember?
K: Well then, Simon and Samantha?
Mom: I like all your names, but Ellen gets to name her own cats. (We can call them what we want anyhow as long as we're not in Texas....)
Karen: I WON'T call the cats Simon and River. I know, I know. What about Buda and Pest? Budapest is German for Hungary and cats are always hungry. Simon can be Buda and River can be Pest.
Mom: Oh, that's good. Ellen says that River is the pest-y one. And Simon is the cuddly one.
Karen: (Softening her opposition) Well, ok. Buda and Pest can be their middle names. Simon Buda and River Pest. I'm tired. I didn't get home from work until 4:30 so I couldn't take an afternoon snooze. I yawned while I talked with Aunt Robin on the phone. Can we pray now?

It is Satisfying...

...to receive two ribbons at the Wayne County Fair, a blue ribbon for the sampler (or sampler set, I'm not sure because we couldn't get close enough and the women to received the pieces last Wednesday couldn't tell me yet) and a red ribbon for the Book of Kells illuminated mss. face plate to Matthew (peacocks). I myself would probably have reversed the ribbons just because of the difficulty of the Kells peacocks, but they were judged in different categories--having to do with size of the weave of the cloth, not against each other. The Best of Show was a circular piece of wolves (not a topic for stitching in my mind, but "'to each his own,' said the woman as she kissed the cow"--as my dearly departed mother-in-law was fond of repeating. Her quilts, by the way, might have done well in fierce competition). We will return after church tomorrow and if we get new batteries for the camera, I'll take a picture of the wolves for comparison sake.

In the meantime, a bit of nostalgia today with a home football game and great band half time show. Good thing we left when we were well ahead and didn't know we eventually lost!--our teams did not fare well today--Chuck may be razzed from the pulpit again tomorrow about Michigan's loss. There's still hope for Hope and Baylor playing tonight with Hampton supporters in the stands. We won't say it is the last time for the fair as I still have more free tickets that are part of the deal for entering something. Now--time to review tomorrow's SS lesson and get to bed.

Update: Sunday afternoon. Well, we’ll have to settle for one out of four…at least Baylor won. SS was great though ☺. It was raining as we left church, so we are waiting for a few hours for the expected clearing up and will go back to the Fair with Annie (our IV staff member).