Home Sweet Almost Home

It used to be that when I visited my hometown, I automatically felt like that was home. Now, it's the people that make it home much more so than the places. Spending the night with my folks consisted of small conversation and watching an episode of NCIS New Orleans off their DVR. They weren't on their devices playing Words with Friends, I guess that's an improvement!

Getting my life back on track so fast has been good. I was able to take on all my financial responsibilities and have asked them for nothing. I don't need their advice and when I do tell them about what's happening, they just ask, "are you still working out?" When I tell them about being in a flare up, they look genuinely concerned, but know they are powerless as they watch me pop my pills throughout the day.

We are such different people and my recent experiences are helping me to not have any expectations but to just accept them for who they are. I know they love me in the way they know how. I am loved unconditionally by many and they are as much my family as the one that raised and judges me.

Last night I attended one of my favorite GA meetings. It's a meeting Sporty and I started in my hometown about five years ago. It's a really strong meeting now and there were a lot of familiar faces and many new faces. After I spoke, some people shared that they'd heard about my story in the rooms or that they were at my five year pinning last summer or that they too had the possibility of facing prison. So many of us connected by our pasts and now our recovery. I am so blessed to have found this program and that my story can help others. Everyone's story has that capability, I am not special or unique, I am merely an example of someone who continues to seek hope in the face of adversity. Recovery has given me that tool.

That is why it's okay that life with my family does not need to be perfect. Life is not perfect. My hope is not to change my parents because that is out of my control. My hope is to continue to build my family of choice to be the people that make home feel like home and feeling loved feel like love. I love my family and I know they never doubt that. I love all the people I consider family - even some new ones that I met behind the fences. My hometown may no longer be home, it's truly where my family is that I am at home.

Officially a Flare

I heard from my docs today. I'm officially in a flare - a fancy way of saying that my chronic health condition is acting up. Well, we king of knew that, right? I was already feeling yucky before the flu shot, so perhaps the flu shot was the last straw. The good news is that my doc put me on a high dose of prednisone yesterday and I'm already starting to feel better. I got a good night's sleep and I can function today. Prednisone is like a devil in a white dress... it makes you feel great, but it's really an evil medication. I was once on it for nearly six months. I'm hoping to be off it after just a week and not have to taper the dosage or anything. It's a good goal and my docs are on board with it. I can live and work through mild pain and inflammation, just not the extreme that I was suffering. Too long on prednisone and I'll get "moon face" again - definitely not something I want ever again --- a round face that literally is shaped and bloated like the moon!

Tonight is my last class before a weekend reprieve. Sporty, T.S., and I are headed to our hometown for the weekend. I will celebrate Yom Kippur with my family, attend a G.A. meeting, spend time with Sporty's family, and hopefully see a bunch of my friends as well. It'll be a quick couple days, but it's the first time I am leaving my state while on supervision. It's that reality that I am not quite free to live my life, but I am so grateful that I was given the permission to travel home without any suspicion. I wish I was feeling better, but it doesn't have to be perfect, what matters is that I am going. I'm worried more about the several hour drive, than being there, but we have several stops to make along the way, so I'll get out and stretch, so that will help.

My weekend is not exactly a break, however, as I have two papers and a major presentation due next week. I will be trying to find time for reading, writing, and preparing. Once I am back at school, I will have two days of late group meetings to make up for the inability to meet over the weekend - Monday and Tuesday meetings going to 10pm - because my professors like to put us in group projects. I love collaborative projects, but finding times for everyone to work together can be difficult. I'm all for great technology - like google docs and others online that allow us to edit same documents in real time - but people like to meet, and they seem to see me as their lead. They are all just out of undergrad and not as familiar with the writing protocols or technology. I'm trying to pass the agency on to them, but they look to me to delegate. It's okay, they are incredibly intelligent capable people!!!

For me, I am getting to be creative in my work in several ways. In one presentation, I am using Prezi, which I enjoy so much more than PowerPoint. It makes it so much more fun in preparing for presentations. I am creating graphs/charts with lots of data (which I enjoy). I'm also getting to use my legal brain now and then, which can be fun. I'm really enjoying school.

So, being in a flare sucks. It's hard to sit for a long time in the uncomfortable seats usually available. It's also hard to stand sometimes. It's hard to type sometimes. It's hard to lie down at times. Well, sometimes anything can be difficult. Yeah, flares suck. But, I am not letting it slow me down, because I not only need to do my work, but I like doing my work. Isn't that what we all want?!?!?

An Offender in the Classroom

There is an offender in the classroom. Everyone sits around the table, talking about what causes crime, why people commit crimes, how to best understand the dilemma of criminal justice and we talk about person "x" - those people, those juveniles, those 'others' who have gone through or who will go through our systems of justice. I'm likely not the only one. Sure, some others have gone to court for traffic violations. Perhaps, there are some who faced the realities of our criminal justice system when they were young, or by watching family members stand before the court and/or hugged them goodbye as their family member left them for prison. There are a million reasons these incredibly smart colleagues of mine chose to seek graduate study in criminal justice.

I see everything I learn from the lens of an offender. I see it from the lens as a recovering addict. I see it from the lens of someone who still knows so many people who are away and who talks with other women facing the reality in the future. I'm not just a researcher, I am one of us, one of them... My professor said to a fellow student tonight about conducting research, "the women are all on probation or parole and you are not," and I am sitting in my chair thinking, "well, for me, I am!" I am on supervision. I am who we study. I am also the researcher. I can separate my role of researcher from the research I am conducting, but it does not change my identity. I am a felon who is on supervision.

When my colleagues learn about my history, which will occur at some point (I am not living the double life anymore), I often wonder what kind of reaction I will receive. Will they look back on their discussions and think about the assumptions they made over the prior weeks? Will they feel less comfortable with me because of my background? Will I become an n=1? (One of my professors referred to me last week as an N=1). N=1 means refers to sample size and we as researcher always try for as large a sample size as possible. A sample size of 1 is not at all generalizable - it's one person's story and cannot be explained for anyone else in society. It's once you study a large group of people that you can see patterns and start to understand behaviors...

Anyway, as a convict in a criminal justice program, I am essentially an N=1 when it comes to white collar crime, federal prison experience, experience with federal prisons and chronic illness, federal supervision, felons and graduate school, yadda yadda yadda... in fact, it would be difficult to find too many other "N's" that would be in similar situations as me. Sure, we can study women with white collar crimes, but it would be much lower for those with chronic illnesses as well... in fact the "N" would make the study non-generalizable because you want studies with thousands of similarly situated people if you can... that leaves us with more qualitative research methods, which I enjoy anyway. Plus, my own background can come "into" qualitative research methods moreso than quantitative research methods - I can reveal my background - which is important because I need to reveal it so my research is not criticized for lack of disclosure.

I suppose, this all comes down to the reality that as an offender in the classroom, and as an offender who is a researcher in criminal justice, there is a constant reality of knowing who I am matters when in comes to the work I do and how I interpret what I am reading and doing. I will need to look if there is anything out there about offenders as grad students... if not....hmmmm

I'm so happy to be a grad student. I am learning so much. I have so much to give as well. I belong here still. So, glad I took the risks to get myself back in. Fear would only have stopped me from trying. Maybe my N=1 will help others and one day there will be 2, then 5, and maybe someday there will be 100, and perhaps a real study could be done about us - maybe one day my story won't matter because it will already exist. Something to ponder.

Pain in the Neck

As someone with a chronic illness with medications that result in my becoming immunocompromised, I'm always told how important it is for me to receive the flu shot. Last year, I didn't receive it, because Carswell could not answer the simple question on if it was a live vaccine or not (immunocompromised people cannot take live vaccines). So, they did not give it to me. I got through the season unscathed, amazingly, and now it it once again that time to make the decision, to vaccine or not to vaccine.

Honestly, it's a no brainer for me. If I'm allowed the vaccine, I'm all for it. My doc on Friday learned that I'm able to definitely take the injection, but not the nasal or other forms and so I received my flu vaccine in the early afternoon Friday.

Friday evening, the pain began. It started in my neck, then down spine into shoulder blades and across top of left shoulder. Movement could cause the pain to go as high as a 7.5 out of 10, and I know my pain. 

I've been really working on not complaining and working through pain, but when I could barely move my head Saturday, I knew something was up. It was even worse sunday. I kept trying to figure out if this was part of this "flare" that my doc was telling me about, but it didn't seem to fit anything from my past.

I happened to have a doc appt set up for this morning to get referrals scheduled (thank god) so I asked the doc to look it over. The tightness and pain was incredibly evident and he wanted to give me something strong for the pain, but all narcotics do are make me sick and I'm not able to take Aleve/Ibuprofen type meds. So, muscle relaxers were all he could do. He wanted me to sleep for three days, but I have way too much work, so the only drowsy pill is for nighttime, but today, the daytime pill did nil... Ugh.

Anyway, this is what's wrong with me (this time): since I am immunocompromised, my body reacted to the flu vaccine and thinks it has the flu. Soy neck, muscles, shoulders, are all in flu symptoms, even though I DO NOT HAVE THE FLU! Okay, even to me that sounds weird! I have no other flu symptoms at all, but my muscles are totally in spasms and tight and in protection mode - especially on the side the shot was given. It's rare, but with me, what else is new??

My doc made it clear that I am to still get the flu shot annually, but we will want to make sure I can take a couple days off after and have scripts ready beforehand in the future... 

I can see my request for time off now: "Dear future employers, please give me the next week off so I can recover from the flu shot to avoid the flu so I don't miss a week of work... Thanks!"

Such is life!

Be well and get your vaccine! Trust me, this is not likely to happen to you! 

Sentencing Guidelines

I'm on a group project looking at sentencing guidelines from a historical perspective, pros and cons, etc. - mostly from state perspectives, but I get to throw in some federal stuff. We present in a week and a half.

It's a great group. Very hard working and oh so young!! They are all just a few years older than T.S. I forget how old I must seem to them. They all look to me as thier leader and I try to look to them, but they are less than a month into graduate school and still scared. A feeling I do not share.

Anyway, I think our presentation is looking fabulous! Honestly, I'm learning a lot about how sentencing guidelines came to be. They started to stop the disparities that were occurring in sentencing based on race and gender, but the problem was that (and continues to be) that people are individuals. Ever since thier initial passage 20 years ago, they have gone through amendment after amendment as commissions and legislatures grapple with how mandatory or discretionary the guidelines should be.

Federally, we see the guidelines moving away from mandatory. In over 50% of cases, judges sentence below the guidelines. Drug related mandatory guidelines are reducing this November.  Sentencing guidelines results in overcrowded prisons and the inability for alternative programs to prisons being considered.

Problem is, there are still disparities in sentencing. In the end, I will need to answer, did sentencing guidelines fix the problems of race and gender disparities. The answer is no. People of color are still receiving longer sentences for similar crimes and women receive shorter sentences than men. If it didn't fix the problem, then we need to really consider a better way to fix the problem - perhaps mandatory maximums! Now, that's a concept!!!!