Sarah Nigbor

As the saying goes, according to Sandy Ellis’ letter to the editor this week, “inquiring minds want to know.” She is speaking about the Journal being behind in publishing River Falls police reports.

I am all for transparency. It’s a cornerstone of journalism: to shine a light on issues important to a community. So I need to be transparent with all of you, dear readers. Even though Sandy kindly says I am surely not to blame for the police reports being behind, that is not true. I am.

Why am I writing about this? Some may say who cares. Well, I care and others do too. I have fielded questions, so I felt it was worth explaining.

First off, River Falls Police Chief Gordon Young and his staff are amazing at getting me the incident report each week. Faithfully, without fail, it usually comes on Tuesday mornings, unless the chief is out of town. Then, it’s my job to go through the list, determine which reports to request, send the list off to the capable and friendly Kim, Tricia or Ailene, who then send me a report for each incident requested. They too are excellent at their jobs and provide the information in a timely, organized manner.

This is different than how we receive reports from Prescott, Ellsworth and Pierce County Sheriff’s Office. That is not saying it’s bad, it’s just a different system. Those reports come to me (or I go to PCSO to get them) in the form of a blotter, which lists more details about incidents than just listing when and where they occurred. If an incident needs expanding upon, then I write a full story. For example, the high speed traffic stops in Ellsworth in last week’s edition.

When I receive the reports from RFPD, they are anywhere from three to 20 pages long per incident, depending on how complicated it was. It’s my job to muddle through the pages and condense it down to about a paragraph for the police reports in the paper. It takes some time to do, though I’ve gotten faster at it over the years. We receive more reports from River Falls than Prescott or Ellsworth, because the city is about four times the size of those municipalities.

Why did I fall behind? This is not a pity party, but an explanation.

I was diagnosed with acute iritis in August. This is the inflammation of the iris, or the colored part of your eye. It causes severe irritation, watering and decreased vision. I felt like someone was grinding sandpaper in my eye continuously. I could barely keep the lid open and when I could, it was a blur. I could hardly see. This was accompanied by fevers and the worst headaches I’ve ever experienced. I wanted to cry, but didn’t dare because that irritated my eye more. Somehow I made it through getting the paper out that week after a trip to the ER. I’ve been on steroid drops for weeks (it started out at one per hour, all day long) and my vision is almost back to normal, two months later.

I was referred to an ophthalmologist, who was determined to get to the root cause of the iritis. After going through my medical history, she felt blood tests were in order. Inflammation markers came back high, along with some other results that indicate either severe infection, inflammation or a possible autoimmune disease. This could be the reason why I have had shingles multiple times (which is rare), why I’ve had inflammation in my knee, ankle and eye and often have swollen lymph nodes. I will be seeing a rheumatologist at Mayo in Rochester soon. I had to stop Googling what my test results could mean because I was not liking what I saw.

I feel like I sound like someone’s great aunt Myrtle reciting my medical woes, but that’s not my intent. I fell behind in police reports because there were some days I was so sick, I could barely get out of bed. Some days are good, others not so good. They’ve been better lately, but it depends on the day. At any moment pain and inflammation can flare up somewhere in my body and I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. One day I slept for almost 21 hours, which is astounding to me.

I am getting caught up on the police reports and annoyed that I fell behind. I believe they should be published in a more timely manner and am working toward that again. As my grandpa told me when I fretted about things, “You can only do your best, and that’s all anyone can ask for.”