The Proctology Salute!

The Proctology Saltute! I saw this on the sidewalk as I was leaving the grocery store and couldn't resist it, sorry! LOL!

Imsomnia 070814-15

Insomnia 070814-15 (click image to view larger)

When I picture my days and nights, I imagine working hard, accomplishing great things, loving, traveling, writing gardening, doing art, walking running biking visiting and then sleeping the sleep of the justly tired, peaceful happy sleep. I do not imagine sitting all night (literally) in a stupor, too agitated to sleep and too tired to accomplish anything meaningful, and laying about exhausted and sick during the day. Not do I imagine wasting time sitting on the toilet unable to pass anything but having to try and try because I uncomfortable with needing to go. The day dribbles away, wasted by long phone calls from distant relatives, nurses, people wanting to set up appointments. I’m so far behind on things that need attention that I fee like someone treading water and becoming too exhausted and chilled to keep my head up and sinking slowly deeper. The best (and worst) laid plans of mice and men gwyn aft awry or gwyn aft entirely.

A Reason for Hope: Blue

A Reason for Hope: Blue, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. An artpiece for Vera House.

Death, Pain and the Sliver

Sunday, at Grandbaby boy's birthday party, I was walking barefooted on Henrietta’s deck and got two large slivers in my foot, one fairly shallow and one deep. Biker Buddy dug them out with his jackknife. (I write this as I walk around the block.) He was very gentle, but it still hurt, and I cried out, much to his distress, several times. China Grandma and China Aunt laughed and laughed, not meanly, but sympathetically. My foot hurt all night and the next day, too. Biker Buddy refrained from saying I told you so. He had warned me against going barefooted on that deck, but I persisted.

I continued to go barefoot afterwards, too, but walked more gingerly. I like going barefoot.

Last night, lying in bed beside Biker Buddy, I asked, "Do you know what I was thinking about when you were digging the splinters from feet Sunday at Henrietta's?"

He said, "No," of course, not pointing out, as he might have, how he could not possibly have known what I was thinking.

So I told him. "I was thinking about my death," I said. "I was thinking about pain." I told him that my parents were stoics, and that I grew up in a culture where bravery in the face of pain was highly valued. I had my teeth drilled without Novocain, even when the dentist struck a vein. My parents were stoics until their deaths, with a few notable exceptions.

But I am no longer a stoic and I am no longer brave. Something happened that turned me into a wimp. Now, I am afraid of pain, very afraid, and because of that, I am afraid of dying. I am also a bit afraid of death, but that is another matter.

I wondered aloud to Biker Buddy as we lay in bed together, if the thing that switched me from stoic to wimp was my fibromyalgia pain. I am in pain constantly, a pain I have to live with, day in and day out. I try not to complain about too much. Other people get tired of hearing about it.

And they say horribly mean thoughtless things, like it's OK to have pain if you have it every day, because you get used to it.

NO, you don't get used to it--I don't anyway. It hurts. It still hurts. It hurts day in and day out. It hurts just as much today as it did yesterday (although it ebbs and flows, rises and falls, it is always with me.) When the pain is at a certain level, it is just as painful as it was 20 years ago. Maybe more so.

I get tired of the pain, it wears me out, is stresses me; it makes me grouchy and irritable. I don't sleep well, and that makes my tolerance to pain and irritation worse.

Sometimes I feel almost OK. When I am doing art, writing a story, working on a poem, having sex, exploring and discovering, I can forget the pain for a while. But when I stop, when I lay down at night, there it is, still with me.

"I don't think dying's going to be much fun," I say to Biker Buddy. Understatement of the day.

"No," he agrees, "I don't expect so."

"Or getting old, either," I add.

"No," he agrees sadly.

"But we have right now, and we have each other," I say. I wrap me arms around him, and he his around me.

"I love you, Biker Buddy," I say. He says he loves me and gives me a squeeze and we drift off.

I’ve made it around the block. As I walk up the driveway, a series of explosions dog my steps. Bomb bags. Yesterday, Piano Boy came downstairs from cleaning his room, all excited. "Look, Mom, look what I found!"

He waved them by me so fast, I couldn't see what they were and dashed outside.

A few minutes later, he returned. "They aren't as much fun," has said, sadly, "as they used to be."

"One of the trade-offs of growing up," I replied. One of the many small deaths on the way to extinction. Now every time I go outside, the little bombs blow up under my feet. Bang, bang. BANG. Guess I'm still alive.

* * * *

This is an excerpt from the first (or maybe the second) journal I kept on my new Ericsson computer, yesterday and today. You can view the unexpurgated and unedited version of this journal entry here and another portion of it here.

Photo by Mary Stebbins Taitt, in Piran Slovenia at an old graveyard. Click to view larger.

Evolving Love Notes #2

Here is another in the evolving love-note series. Click to see larger. See an earlier version here.

My brain tumor

I got the MRIs, finally, after many delays, to transfer them to my new doctor, and here is a shot of my brain tumor.

I've been away, cleaning my Mom's house, and now I am going camping at the Pinery for the long weekend. I will not be posting again 'til after I return.

Swamped

I've been away for a long time dealing with my mother's house and estate. There was no internet there.

I am back.

But I am swamped and it will be a while before I can return to regular blogging.

Murphy and the Pollyanna Man

I made myself a nice homemade stirfry for lunch and went out to sit and eat it at the camp table I'd set up on the edge of the driveway. As I went out, one of my favorite symphonies came on the radio and then the man two houses away came out and started vacuuming his car with a very loud vacuum cleaner.

Murphy, I grumbled to myself. The noise really bothers me, and there was a nice symphony inside. The noise set my teeth on edge and tightened my shoulders and neck.

But eventually, the man stopped vacuuming and peace returned. I thought of how if a good symphony comes on while I'm inside, I happily enjoy it. It's probably random and not a plot against me. And I was out numerous times before without having to hear the vacuum cleaner.

And that reminded me of the Pollyanna Man who used to live with us at the Lake House. Whenever anything bad happened, he'd always say, "Well, it could have been worse. " No matter how terrible something was, he always said that. Some pretty bad things happened and we used to laugh at his Pollyanna attitude. But why not? What's so bad about always expecting that you're getting the universe's best, rather than it's worst?

And I think how so many people these days don't know Pollyanna and have never read her book. It is actually a pretty good book--I liked it.

I had more to say on this topic but no more time to write right now. Except this: when I went back out to eat the rest of my lunch, hoping for peace and quiet and sunshine, a man came out on one side with a chainsaw and another on the other side with a lawnmower and when I went back in, there was some horrible music playing. Round two: Murphy 3, Pollyanna, 0. I guess it could have been worse. There could have been a nuclear holocaust outside. Remember: things can always get worse.

On the Wastebeds

I found this. Really!

On the wastebeds, near the old cars, above the State Fair parking lot, on the slag cliffs.

Really.

It's a rubber mask, very lightweight, and next time I go back if it's still there, I hope to put it in a plastic bag and take to the Heidelberg Project.

It's not something I personally have a lot of use for, but I found it interesting.

I have to hurry, before the nettles get too deep and it gets too hot to walk on the wastebeds.

Small murphyism: The phone didn’t ring all day. But when I was filling shampoo bottles for my upcoming trip and a big blurpo came out all over my hand and the bottle, the phone rang. Of course. Murphy.

click to view image (by me) bigger.

Not Quite the Inquisition

There is a form of abuse called Gaslighting when the abuser does everything in his power to confuse the abusee. It was made famous by much discussion and counter interpretations of the story, "The Yellow Wall Paper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Yesterday, I was confused.

I went to my new sleep doctor, doctor Policherla, having been told I would be there for a brief consultation, and then I was subjected to nerve conduction tests because I had no reflexes at all in a routine reflex check. I was told the test was nothing, that it was gentle, that it was just a little tingle. I told them I had had it before and found it terrible, and they said Dr. Policherla was gentle and it wasn't bad at all.

It was HORRIBLE!

It was 45 minutes of receiving electrical shocks and my whole body convulsed and it HURT. It was not gentle (although the technician seemed to want to be gentle and to be apologetic) and it was NOT a little tingle. It hurt. A LOT! Just like last time, with Dr. Michael Bome.

I cried several times and afterwards. I called Keith on the cell phone and asked him to come over, but he didn't make it until it was over (or else they wouldn't let him in.)

On the way home, I was asking myself if there was something wrong with me. Am I much more sensitive to pain than other people? Am I a total wimp? This because they had told me it wouldn't hurt. I was feeling really bad about myself, and then I remembered Tom telling me about it. He described it like the inquisition, like medieval torture chambers. I was happy to remember that. I felt a little better about myself. And a lot worse about my doctors, who lied to me, telling me it wouldn't hurt. They have a sign up in their office about trust. How can you trust someone who lies to you? I think what they did was abusive. It would have been much less so if they were honest about it. Apparently, to qualify as "gaslighting," there has to be malicious intent. I'm not positive about the motivation of the staff at Policherla's lying to me, but my guess is so that I wouldn't leave. (maybe they never had the test themselves and don't know). I'm not sure if that qualifies as malicious or not, but it was still lying.

The artwork I made to represent the experience is not nearly as ugly, confusing and horrible as I felt during and after the experience. I couldn't make it ugly enough. And I don't really have time to be doing artwork or blogging. (Click the image to view it larger).

The problem is, I have neuropathy, or nerve damage, especially in my legs and feet, like a diabetic. Three different people asked me yesterday if I had diabetes. But I've been tested for it several times and the results were negative. But I do have a problem with sugar. Dr. Beeai suggested it might be a form of hypoglycemia. Whatever it is, I wish they'd figure it out before I end up losing my feet and legs like a diabetic. I hope it isn't some horrible debilitating or worse yet, fatal disease.

I have new tests set up in this never-ending cycle if tests and more tests, none of which have been helpful so far. But they have been expensive. I need to make phone calls and set things up. And I need to prepare for my trip and the Memorial service etc. I've "wasted" (spent) too much time on this already!

I will be away through the 15th probably, and off-line most of the time I am gone. Probably no blogging between now and then, or very little.