Tripping, Tipping on Tips...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...Too many places online tell you that no matter how shitty the service is that you MUST tip! I don't agree!

If a waiter or waitress wants to keep their customers, keep their job and keep their employer in business they need to do their damn job!

I've gotten really tired of the, "but I'm OWED a Jooooob!" whine by whoever is making the current whine. I've served at counters. I've done my time at fast food. And garnered tips! which is harder than hell! I've served bar at pizza places! I've sold jewelry on commission. I've had some pretty crummy jobs to make ends meet and to help pay my way through college and I get that waiters and waitresses don't get minimum wage. Thus it behooves them to serve their customers.

Because you want to know a secret? Lean closer....MOST CUSTOMERS FEEL DAMN GUILTY IF THEY DON'T TIP! So if we aren't tipping, there is a good reason! And it's not that our panties are in a twist, or that we're in a bad mood! Normally it's that we've gotten such crappy service that we just can't justify laying down any more money we really can't afford to reward such crappy behavior. I don't reward toddlers' crappy behavior; why would I do it with adults? They don't learn from it either.

So here are the rules I learned from my Dad about tipping (this was a while ago, but my income hasn't gone up since 1996, so my tips probably won't either. Your income probably does, so you can adjust for income!)

Excellent service:
20%+
Fair service
10%-15%
Borderline
5%
Maitre de: (bribe for seating)$50+ depending on snoot factor of place and maitre de
Note: doesn't normally work for females, females either have to dress the part, or end up by the kitchen door, or equivalent. just sayin'
Chefs or Bus boys 5%
Bellhops $1-$10
Maids $5-$20 depending on length of stay
Bar waitresses the change from next closest denomination or 10-20% of round
Hairdressers, box people, door men, valets $1-$10 depending on location

VERY BAD SERVICE, so bad you want to tell them you would have tipped, but their service sucked!!  $0.01

But nowadays I always feel like everyone has their hand out for a handout. I'm on a fixed income and I compute a tip into the cost of my meal when I go out. But it also means I go out much less frequently. Those dollars are hard to come by in my life.

So when that time is ruined by shitty service. I don't take it quietly, or lying down. I only have about 4 or 5 restaurants I can even still eat at with my medical conditions anymore since most of them use food with additives or preservatives I can't physically eat. So the few I CAN eat at, I work into my schedule selectively.

I know I'm probably a dinosaur. But this dinosaur has a very limited food supply and a limited budget like the rest of the world is coming to, and gee, maybe if more people valued their pennies and realised that the single penny they saw on the table was actually the message of one MIGHTILY PISSED OFF customer, they might mend their service and keep their restaurant, their job, and the economy going.

I've been told by friends of mine that women are the WORST tippers so they get the worst service. Especially women in SUITS. It always makes me giggle. Because I would probably be one of the better tippers, if I'm treated decently. But when I'm ignored or treated rudely, watch the f* out! I will be in your face. I will take my cane and my drink up to the drink station and fill it. I will tell your manager I had a crappy meal AND I will report it on the website. Because I am just THAT fed UP with SHITTY service. So the next time you think you have this little old lady with the cane in the corner with her book pegged. Think twice! of course, they might be spitting in my food? who knows?

just my 1 or 2 cents of a tip...ped off goddess....

Yuletide Cheer and all that stuff...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I love the holidays. I love entertaining and seeing my family and having people over. I always have. But I don't like the drama. I really just want everyone to get along and have a life supported by loving people. My mom was a drama Queen. She was in a tizzy any time we had people over and would clean a clean house for days. ;P

 I SO wasn't going there. I was informed by my soon-to-be-ex many years ago that I was turning into my mother. I would get all tense before we left to go anyplace and scream and have fights...I then realized it was because I was always ready 30 minutes early and he was always 30 minutes or more late and didn't have his stuff together. So on top of doing my stuff and being disabled and feeling like crap I'd be trying to organize his at the last minute and get the kids moving, because they knew that the time stated meant 30 minutes or more late, and it was ALWAYS more stress than I wanted to deal with. LOL My daughter still fudges times with us both to get us going "on time." She's starting to realize that I'm actually getting ready at the time she says and now am considering HER late. LOL My son...well...we're always walking out the door while he's still brushing his teeth or getting his coat or something 10 minutes after it was time to go and waiting for him outside.

But all of this aside, making food for people I love and seeing them enjoy it. Being able to give them some small gift of my heart even when I'm broke. Letting them know I thought of them and love them and welcome new members to the family table. No matter when the holiday is celebrated.  (and no matter how many pain killers I need to swallow to get through the day!) I'd almost  prefer Christmas or a Yule celebration in July...just to divorce it from all the rest of the crazy of the season and get the family together for some gathering time to bond in a time less fraught with stress for all. But then employers don't give time off for the Summer Soltice do they? and when you are baking and sweating it just doesn't seem as fun to get together with family as when you can go sliding through the ice and snow.
from the puzzled goddess shivering under her nice warm blankets on this Christmas Afternoon.

Why the Garbage and Litter people?

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

Civic Dr. in Gresham, Oregon
 

 This is symptomatic of a growing problem I see everywhere and hate. Our beautiful scenery despoiled constantly by garbage and litter.

I had just gotten off the light rail MAX train this particular evening following a mother and her two children and watched her throw the farthest away white sack out into this field right in front of her children as if it was the proper place to dispose of the garbage. As if it was the proper thing to be teaching her children. As if she wasn't two steps from crossing the street and half a block from a garbage can where it could have been thrown away correctly. And I could do nothing. I and my walker This is shared space of us all and they are trashing MY living space and it PISSES ME OFF!

I'd really like to see a few more littering tickets written and the laws enforced. Maybe then some of these people would get the point that their careless disregard for their environment is sickening and they are polluting the world that others have to live in.

From a pissed off goddess on a soapbox....climbing down...

Catz Daze

This is Aria. She likes to be under the covers. And when she's not, she likes to attack feet!

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me..

But woe betide any human subject who wakes her furry butt up!

or not...some are just curious...

But Aria has one MAJOR kitty trait...

and can't help looking into the well, or laundry machine as it were to see if Lassie might have fallen in.

She just HAS to sniff out any possible place a D.O.G. might be.

And her human sister has one very Human trait....throw the cat down the well...

And some get pushed in by a helpful sibling who just can't resist....

HELLO? Any Doggies down here?

until Mom has pity on them and lets their poor, beleaguered, neurotic furry butts free.

 And you thought helping someone recover from surgery was all fun and games,  huh? Work I tell you, it's all work!
from the goddess of puzzling kitties....

Things my Father taught me...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...going introspective as I and my daughter visited my parents' graves last month. I try to make it a habit to visit their graves at Willamete National Cemetery on my Dad's birthday so it's a happy memory, not a sad anniversary, like a death anniversary. I want to think of them as they were while alive.

I got thinking about the eulogy I gave for my dad at his funeral. Up until the last minute I wasn't sure I was going to but it just felt right. Dad's world had narrowed so much in his last years as his health failed and he wasn't working. He seemed to retreat more toward the past and family became ever more important to him, and I've come to understand that. The family I love and the things I had left undone for them became much more important to me after I had a heart attack scare a few years ago. I now know that my dad was told that he had a limited time to live because he had congestive heart failure and was trying to set things up so that my mom would be in good shape to be covered and okay. He always cared for her in his quiet way.

But back to the eulogy...the one huge lesson I remember from my dad is that you can learn just about anything you want to do from a book. And he put that into practice most of his life. He never let the fact that he didn't know something stop him from trying to do it. It was just one more challenge he hadn't learned about. I think some of that attitude came from his life's career (and one of mine) which was as a computer systems analyst. Which, if you are a good one, means that you intimately understand all the processes around the computerized systems you are bringing into being so that you can streamline them, design the correct supporting data structures and implement the training necessary for all people who are impacted by the system. To do this you have to have a deep understanding of the business process you are automating. Books can definitely come into play in this process. My father in fact possessed a business degree, as do I. His was in Management I believe, and he had certificates as a Data Wiring Operator (early computer programmer), and Systems Analyst well before colleges or universities offered the degrees as well as classes in COBOL, FORTRAN and a few other languages like me. My degree is in Project Management (probably following in Dad's footsteps...we were both Aries! And I wrote code in even more computer languages than he did. LOL and ended up a Systems Analyst and Computer Network Project Manager.) My Dad had also worked as a Draftsman and worked on a graduate degree in Engineering which he had never had the time to finish with his growing family.

But my Dad also was in the Air Force during the Korean War as part of the DEW line as a control tower officer and pilot. And when he got out he built a mobile home for he and my mother, and my older brother and sister, from scratch. Then a site built home...by reading about the codes and looking at blueprints and doing the wiring and the plumbing and the metal work and the rest of it pretty much by himself, or with his wife and kids help. As one of his kids I can attest to it. He had an almost endless belief in his power to learn anything, and he could. He passed that on. Before I entered high school I sweated pipes and soldered them and wired the electrical in our house and helped put up the sheetrock and do the taping, did the rebar and helped pour the cement, placed pier blocks and did rough and finish framing. The only thing I never did was lay carpet. (Thank you, God!)

 I really hope I've passed on this same type of belief to my children. I think I have. Because when something new comes up as a question that needs to be solved or done they don't necessarily turn to a book, or Mom or Dad, but the computer comes out, the internet is fired up...google is queried and youtube's brain is sucked dry. And low and behold the answer is found and the project is accomplished! So Thank You Daddy, we love you still and we appreciate your legacy!

from the puzzled  goddess of knowledge....

I don't have any close friends anymore, but I somehow always have conversation...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I meet the most interesting people on the transit system, but then, I find people fascinating. I almost feel like I'm having too much fun when I commute, that it should be more of a hardship, like for my early twenties son.

 I feel so sorry for him. He invariably gets these half, (or totally) potted older women who stink to high heaven of booze, body odor, cigarettes and gods know what else that INSIST on sitting in seats next to him. And then edge closer and closer pushing their elbows and more of their bodies into him as the ride goes on. Anyone who knows him knows he's REALLY fastidious about his personal appearance and cleanliness, and then he gets the same migraines from toxic volatile chemicals as I do...and having someone shove it constantly under your nose...UcK!

But he and his sister are probably right that if he said something, being a white male in his 20's, a member of the "privileged class," that a whole scene would be started, and he would NOT come out of it well. I don't really understand why it should be so different. Though I do know it will.

 I can watch it play out in my head like one of those TV shows about moral choices and watch the strangers react badly to him when he is the wronged party.

It's taking liberalism and Political Correctness too far. Don't Get ME WRONG!
 I AM THE POSTER CHILD FOR PC AND LIBERALISM.
BUT NOT. I REPEAT. NOT---
WHEN IT VIOLATES COMMON SENSE!
And that is where that pendulum is starting to swing, both ways--- liberal and conservative, both are violating common sense and common decency, compassion and empathy for their fellow human beings.

I didn't mean to start this to lecture, just to update on how many interesting conversations I can have on the transit system going to appointments now that I had to get rid of my car.

A good friend of mine from college, Rory A. Miller, who writes the Chiron Training blog, as well as many excellent books on the subjects of martial arts and responding to violence, used to tell stories about riding the Trimet buses over school breaks and living homeless on Portland streets, and he'd make all of us see the humor in the situations that really weren't that humorous at all. But he has a special way of looking at things. I remember his slightly warped view of life as I look at my new world through my cloudy-mist eyes and talk to the people in it.

I met an older black woman who was so stylish she put me to instant shame. The turban was a kicken' 1930's look and the raccoon long coat draped over her shoulders set off her black pantsuit and leather alligator shoes. It all looked vintage. But vintage with style and flair. When I complemented her outfit we hit it off immediately, and we got to talking about our lives and her loves and her man that was still coming around looking for, "somethin', somethin'. You know how those men are. He cheated on me, but it may be worth it just to sample it again before I kick it out. Opportunities don't come by so often anymore at our age." We laughed so long before she got off the streetcar... We were like young girls being naughty in the corner and embarrassing the poor boy sitting across the aisle. I then, of course, being totally oblivious to his blushes got off at my stop 5 minutes later with my walker and a small chuckle. Bet he never makes the mistake of thinking old ladies don't giggle over old men. LOL


And then there was the young man in his late twenties or thirties buried in a book talking about sailing around the world. He thought it would be amazing to build a boat and do it. I could see the spark in his eyes. Maybe a Thor Heyerdaul, who knows?

There were the Water Engineers from England, the World Championship for track and field? I believe, where I was at the correct time to meet the families of the Australians, Germans, and some of the English, and the young Spanish émigré who thought Portland was the most accepting place she had ever lived though she laughed and said she would remember my description of being, "self consciously weird." That it fit quite a few of the Portlander's she had met...others just reveled in their weirdness. lol

I thought I would read many more books while riding transit, and I do keep a book or two with me. But far and above more interesting are the people and their stories and their lives.

....reflections of a puzzled goddess...

passing of a friend and companion...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I hate being this cliche. EVERYONE blogs about losing their animals. EVERYONE blogs about losing family. I think I did that too...maybe. That one hit much harder, for longer, and still hits on a daily basis so maybe I didn't...I don't really remember right now.  But EVERYONE blogs about their dead pets...I'm going to too...

She was named Shadow. My husband called her Shallow kitty and taught her how to speak on command.

It was very weird. She's been trying to convince him for the last 16, almost 17 years, that he REALLY likes cats better than dogs...REALLY.  No go.  I called her kitty rat, and bitch-trichs, and bitch-kitty, and the black bitch. (You had to be there. LOL) SHE WAS the top of the ALPHA pile in this house and knew it. We  were all her slaves.

When she started going downhill a few years ago the kids convinced me to take in a stray feral cat a friend of theirs had saved. He has a personality and is the most intelligent cat I've ever met. And he ended up outweighing Shadow cat by about double, but he always kowtowed to her Attitude. They somehow thought he was a female originally and called him Lilly. He's been renamed Leon... Or Lee-Lee.

Then 6 months later a little runt of the litter was brought to us by neighbors to try to save. My mom in law saved her. We named her Mystique and she adopted my son.

She doesn't weigh more than a minute and always sneaked around under queen Shadow's radar.

 The dog and the fixed male cat were a whoooole 'nother story. They were ALWAYS on her growl screen.

I think we would have had our Shadow kitty for a few more years, but I let a teenager put the flea treatment on the animals this last time.

We order the same brand for all of them from PetMeds. One size for the little kitty. One size for the bigger cats. And a different one for the dog. I kept the flea treatment for the cats in the bathroom, and the one for the dog in the livingroom. But the teenager hadn't ever gotten out the treatment for the animals before, and I didn't double check the tubes.  You can guess what happened. The little cat got the correct dosage. The bigger cats got the dog flea treatment.  It took me over a week to figure it out. I didn't clue in until I went to get the dosage for the dog and realized that there was only one tube left...there should have been 3.

I'm told that was the beginning of the end for our older cat. The younger male has seemed to shake off any ill effects, but Shadow kitty always was asthmatic and wheezed. That got worse. She got infections. Her feet broke out in open sores and we tried to treat them.

4 months later as things just won't heal for her she was worse and then 8 months later and she had open sores on her back that we were told were cancerous and tumors growing on her sides and the back of her neck. She pulled out her own claws and took out her own eye.

I've never hated the fact that I was poor more in my life as I held my loving friend and watched her suffer this last month. I treated her feet and back and looked into euthanasia and realized that my budget just doesn't stretch that far right now.

I can't even afford a doctor visit for my kid, let alone for my cat. What a way to make you feel like you are one of the absolutely disenfranchised.

I finally decided to bathe her today. She didn't much like baths, but she'd had many of them throughout her life with us. I was hoping being clean would make her feel better; instead I have the guilt of knowing I brought about her final convulsions and seizures that led to her death. At least I was there and holding her...but I wish I'd been comforting her...not making her do something she disliked as her last memory.

My daughter tells me I should take heart, that now she's with our old dog that she used to get into trouble with and she's pushing chocolate donuts off the table so that he can scarf them down when no humans are watchin'.  I can only hope they stay that happy.

from a goddess who misses her kitty...even though she didn't much like anyone...

don't take my energy...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I am, as those overly PC people put it, "differently-abled." I've railed against it, against my genetics, against gods, and all involved.

Most people don't get it because it's invisible. Over the years I've commiserated with others in similar situations because they too, understand...that's why I'm frustrated and get pissed off when they blithely steal my family's spoons. Yes, I consider it a theft. Because otherwise I was in an untenable situation and would look bad...

So it was that I use energy I and my family didn't have to waste on somebody that KNOWS how little we have because they are in the same boat, or look like awful shirkers who leave these poor people stranded alone to pack up all by themselves.

It is worse because my husband has now joined the ranks of the uncontrolled diabetics again (no insurance), with other problems that go with it like high cholesterol and high blood pressure and his sleep apnea. He's losing weight. But somewhere recently he lost his backpack that had his diabetic blood sugar monitor in it, and half of his medicines and of course we can't afford to replace it without insurance. A doctor visit alone to our doctor is well over $200, but it's getting critical.

So I've been rationing his energy, like I ration mine, like I ration that of the rest of my family...others think of it as how many spoons they have to get through a day. It's a good analogy to get the point across. Your energy is finite and people who have an energy reserve don't get that...but people who are disabled themselves SHOULD!


I've had to tailor my family's life to our reality. It used to be what do you want mommy to do, this school thing with you, or a movie with the family over the weekend? A family night? or some one on one time? It was always mommy and always an either/or. Now it's daddy as well, or both.


I ration my energy day to day. I ration my husband's energy. I ration my family's energy.


I even explain to people that we make choices between what we can do and what we can't based on the disabilities and amount of energy it takes to deal with it.


With small children and disabilities we found we couldn't event. We especially couldn't autocrat as we loved to do. I stopped going to most events and my husband went alone to some of them. I stopped cooking at events. We stopped putting up an elaborate period camp. All of our activities got rationed. Saying "no" became a hated skill I had to learn for my sanity and my family's ultimate survival.

We went to few events, even fewer activities because my disabilities made daily life a chore and just living it to raise children took all my energy.

Now my children are old enough to be a help. We are learning how to streamline our SCA lives to sometimes be able to still be able to afford the energy it takes to go to and sometimes even to run events, but I need my entire family's energy to do it for us all to get there and we plan our vacations from the everyday grind of pain and "can't do thats" accordingly. We all pitch in to make it work for our family.


Now, there is a down side that I have found with our love of our new group. My husband hasn't learned the ability to say no, and I find myself feeling responsible for people who are availing themselves of our too finite family energy reserves so that we are left with less than nothing when we return home. It will really mean fewer events for us, that's the bottom line.

I can't allow my husband, who is our only almost able-bodied bread winner at this point, to cripple himself like this for multiple days on our return from what is supposed to be a "fun" event. As a family, we can't afford it. Individually, he can't afford it, health-wise.


I can't afford it, selfishly, when he is my only support for transport, and the only support for transport for his disabled mother as well.

Don't get me wrong. We had so much fun with our friends at this last event, but we knew our limitations, and the limitations of our conditions and didn't even do our normal volunteering. My husband didn't fight; crap, he didn't even marshal. That should have clued people in to just how messed up he was. He went to bed just after dark on Sunday. This, from the man who like the night owl he is, normally helps me greet my pain filled dawn.

He's only like this when his diabetes is messed up like it was this last weekend and the injuries are stacking up from the weather and the packing. I doubled my meds. I'm not supposed to, but I can't pack otherwise, and I was relieved it only took us about 4 hours to pack our own stuff up. We woke up and immediately got to it like we normally do, all of our family pitching in and doing what we can. We even ate as we packed and just got it done. I was thankful to the bit of help we got to fold up the one tent and tote the couple of heavy things I can't lift. It was all of about 10 minutes to help us finish up or so I would guess. I probably made it longer trying to get in the way and bend over myself, but for some reason people kept being concerned I'd faint on them or some stupid sh*t like that. ;D (Thanks Aislin for the assist folding the tent!)

I had to think long and hard why I've been so upset the last few days while we've been recovering and pretty much bed bound. And I think it was so hard because the next 2 hours was spent packing up a camp with only half the people who had shared it helping after they had made an INCREDIBLY slow start to their day and it had put them way behind everybody else. I found it hard to not feel resentment as the kids all sat in the car and Mom in that camp did most of the work, disabled as she is.

It bothered me most because, while I don't mind helping, I expect EVERYONE to do what little bit they can if I am going to be using up energy my family doesn't have to spare, and I felt like my husband and I and a few others were paying the toll so that the disabled gentleman in that camp could overuse his own energy and enjoy himself that weekend. We paid HIS price. My husband even warned him not to pack so much and was ignored and we still paid his price. As well as the price for the non-disabled people riding with him who could have been helping but sat in the car instead for various reasons. They may have been valid reasons beyond getting food; I don't know. I just know that energy was fading fast that would have been conserved if there had been more help and more fellow feeling.

Courtesy requires that people not be able to say things when they are so angry they are being abused and they feel they are being taken advantage of. That is wrong. It is discourteous to us all to take advantage of us by relying on our courtesy and goodwill to do your work.

A two hour drive home took 5 hours because of the stops we had to make to calm the spasms of pain my husband was having ,and I was in no shape to drive because I'd had to double my meds to "help" pack up when I went beyond my limits. I felt absolutely helpless. I didn't have anything I could medicate him with and I was too medicated to drive. All we could do was wait for the muscle spasms in the back and shoulder to lessen enough for him to drive again.

Then he had to race the clock to get home to help a disabled mother try to get a battery for her car working so she could see a doctor. He ended up back out on the road, muscle spasms and all.

So...I need to get this said. I may be seen as the wicked witch of the west or of the local area. But, I did my volunteering in the background and what was within my energy to do at the event, or would have been, based on what my family packed and what we knew we had to do.

I've had 2 eye surgeries in the last 4 months and have been fighting medication changes that are swinging my blood pressure and blood sugar up and down, and I'm lucky if I can bend over without fainting. I make us pack only what we need. My husband didn't volunteer to do the things he loved because he hurt himself helping people a few days before the event and knew that packing up and slogging in the mud would be too much for our family energy to absorb.

As adults we make those decisions daily, and yes, we made the decision to help the pople we did, because their being left behind to do it on their own would have reflected badly on our own group and ultimately, on us. So we made the choice not to look like slackers who had no conscience.

But they, as well, are adults, who have been disabled a long time. Long enough that they should know their energy limits and not ask others to give them spoons. Aislin doesn't have many spoons to spare. I don't have them and my husband doesn't have them to give. We were put in a position to be made to look bad if we didn't and that's what made me upset.


Many people in our group are disabled. We seem to have an overabundance of "differently-abled" who need to steward their energy wisely and, as such, we need to help each other as a community, but we need to NOT count on abusing that help. Because those of us that help are giving up our energy and spoons and future days of being able to take moms to hospitals and go with kids to events at their schools to you too! These are things that have been missed...


I recognize it when I have to ask for help, and I sure don't expect to receive it. I am amazed and humbled by the willingness of our members who can give of their help and do, but expecting the help is an abuse that will see the help drying up and blowing away for everyone.

Why am I cowardly bitching here instead of in an open forum where I can be answered face-to-face, or in a one-on-one meeting where I can address the problem diplomatically with the major individuals involved?

Mainly because of my old nemesis, disability. I can't string sentences together and when I have an issue to address when I am upset the ability regresses even further. My IQ drops by 20 to 50 points and I spend many minutes fighting the fog and being frustrated and losing the point of the whole exercise, and by then, so has the person I'm trying to confront. So I have found that writing, with the ability to stretch it out, find the right word, and ask for the person's feedback, can actually facilitate one-on-one communication for me. It is still just as hard for me to confront someone as it ever has been. I still need to get my courage up so I'm not walked over and then I need to find the words so that I can hope they'll understand my feelings, and not just blow it off as unimportant. Because if I sat down and took the time to draft it out and write, it was majorly important to the future of that relationship.

from the goddess who has been hibernating with her god for 2 days recovering...

Eye again...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

No, that is not a pretty starry planet...that is the starry form the retinal scarring took in my eye as of last February. The picture was kindly supplied by Casey Eye for me so I could show the few people who are bored enough to read my blog what it looked like. ;D

The next one down is what it looked like in November. Uveitis and the associated infections have definite effects on the retina of your eye, and in this case on the pupil and iris. It actually scarred the pupil and built up scar tissue that glued itself to the lens.

I've also had to have all the explanations made to me about the swelling (macular edema) in the back of my eye, and they take pictures in cross sections across the plane of my eye socket to keep track of how swollen it is compared to what it should be, or what it was the last time.

This one with the colors is almost like a thermal shot showing the swelling as higher topography across the back of the eye in November. And then a cross section through the actual swelling.

They did the same cross sections in December before they did more of those lovely steroid injections into my eye socket.

You remember. The ones that carried a risk, but that I didn't realize would CAUSE a cataract. Gee! Learn something new all the time...and doctor, why didn't we go with the systemic steriods? I still haven't gotten a good answer on that one.

These pictures in December were just before shot number 3, or was it 4? The cataract was now bad enough that everybody is pretty well admitting they can't see squat through it.

Got the good news on the 9th or so of February when I started writing this that the eye doctors are willing to totally disregard all their own guidelines for macular edema and go ahead with the lens replacement for my cataract after only 2 months of the swelling being reduced in my eye.

My surgeon obviously is worried enough about the edema coming back quickly that she scheduled me for as soon as I could clear my schedule...she wanted me in there the next week.

Somehow it's not as reassuring as I would like it to be. But I guess they are realizing that if they can get the lens replaced while the swelling is quiet at all that then they can keep injecting the steroids into my eye socket as much as they want without further damage to the lens...the synthetic one won't cloud like my real one is what I've been told.

The cataract has gotten bad enough that there is only one machine they can photograph the back of my eye with, and it's the new machine that is only available up at Casey Eye Institute itself. The doctors can't even really see to the back of the eye much any more, and they are even admitting it to me. ;) Go figure. More later....I've actually done it...

from the goddess who sees....

Totallus...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I was told that I had to post. Something about keeping people updated and making people feel like I'm including them in my life...Not that I don't want to include people in my life, but I just don't dwell well on stuff. That big white wall of Dodge Ram pickup truck I still see in my head every time I close my eyes...yes, I totalled my van, or rather, I had some help totalling my van.

I was doing great in the snow, I LIKE driving in the snow, even nowadays...I kept from taking my pain meds, so I'd be alert and was taking it slow and steady and this NICE (heavy sarcasm here) young man, decided that he needed to lose control of his pickup that was travelling in the opposite direction. He SAYZ he was going about 25, like I was...my airbags and body bruises and memory think more like 45. The impact from the front even crumpled the doors down the side of the car, and you can't see it, but the whole engine compartment is askew with the hood sticking out on the driver's side weirdly.

If it had been a sedan that had spun out I could have steered and avoided it. As it was, I avoided his truck cab. But it was the choice of his truck or the oncoming traffic...so I chose the white wall of his truck and I remember making the choice consciously and how time suddenly speeded way up again. It sucked. Until I made that decision, while I was maneuvering and avoiding traffic I had all the time in the world.

I love cell phones. First call I made was to my hubby. After 17 plus years it just seems the natural thing to do. He was absolutely wonderful, but it drove him nuts not to be there to take care of everything for me. Him and my sister. She called every half hour until I agreed to go to the emergency room to be checked out. I swear to God, no lie. Every half an hour. My mom had NOTHING on her when it comes to persistence.

The accident was before dark but I ended up spending 3 hours on Tuesday night on the side of 99E in the snow, with no heat or light in my van waiting for the tow truck. The kid in the pickup got to drive away. Hooray for me.

R met me in Oregon City to get me home from the tow yard, but the traffic advisories said no to going up to see my doctor at OHSU at the top of the hill, suckage. So we stopped at an emergency room on the way home. By that time it was about 10pm and even with my normal load of meds I couldn't lift anything with my right arm, couldn't walk on my left leg and was so stiff that R said I was walking like I was over 100.

They took some scans after we realized that I couldn't lay back and support my head with my neck. All the muscles in my body decided it was time to rebel on me. After telling me I had some good bruises and strains and sprains and giving me some IV pain meds I was sent home to the Gorge, on the closed I-84. Three hours later we made it home coming up SR-14. I finally crawled into bed at about 7am and got a call from my car insurance company at 8am. I wasn't coherent enough to answer. So here's the scoop, the pictures and what went down.

I've slept for 2 days straight. I still can't lift much with my right arm and my bruises are a colorful addition to the winter white of my skin. I've had ice on my left knee for 2 days on and off and have been pretty much taking my pain meds and muscle relaxants with some anti inflamatories. I figure by tomorrow I should be able to go back to some of my PT routines and my chi-gong.

I'm going back to bed to nurse my poor abused body...happy new year to all...

from a puzzled goddess who wishes she could get her van back

Of favors and Being the inspiration...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I have been my fighter's inspiration before. I've made a favor before, and had it hang on his belt. He fought for me in a Crown. I watched him lose in two rounds, and then I commiserated with him over his loss. I knew much less of fighting then, having never marshalled or gotten into armor myself.

We went through a breakup as lovers do... I then had it given back to me and told that maybe I should give it to my new guy.... ? That was such a classless comment that I wondered why I had ever given out a favor in the first place.

It's also probably the reason that I've resisted making favors for any of the people that I truly love that I play with in the SCA that I should proudly ask to display my favor on their belt, arm, around their head, or neck....or anywhere else we deem appropriate. ;D

That new guy, became my husband of the last 17 years and my lord and the general guy that I consider an inspiration to live with. I took a favor and tokens class at Sport of Kings this last year given by Mistress Cymbric of the Isles, OL that totally rejuvenated my interest and love for the thought of being an inspiration and giving a symbol of that. But, since I absolutely suck at hand work, and it takes me forever, the real favor, a torse for my lord's helm is taking longer and longer it seems, but since his new helm THAT I BOUGHT HIM LAST YEAR is STILL not riveted so that he can wear it! I'm probably right up with his schedule. ;D

But my sweet daughter did her father proud and gave him a very meaningful favor full of symbolism to wear on his arm while he is fighting, it includes one of the first beads that she has made as a lampworker that was in his colors. It also includes two coin blanks for him to be placed on his eyes at "death" to pay the ferryman to cross the river. Such a creative addition to a favor! And each element has a symbolism to it that she explained at the firelit ceremony where she presented it to him.

I had to make do with a temporary favor to let him know how close he held my heart as he fought in Crown lists that day and how close he holds it every day. The picture at the beginning of this post was taken by Talon in the SCA who caught us as King Cedric was giving his invocation, and we were seriously considering the duties and responsibilities that go along with the wearing of the crowns of AnTir.

I'm still working on that favor. I'm still proud of my lord and the chivalry he shows and the love he shows for me daily, let alone the love and enthusiasm he has for this organization and it's ideals and fun. The group that is forming, it's people and our emerging traditions are just as inspiring to me as my husband is in everyday life. ;D

from a goddess who is inspired

Bitchology...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
I had a great time last night, and last weekend, the weekend before, and the weekend before that...

All this summer socializing packed into a few weekends of seeing people I'd known for years and finally catching up because we all are in the right place, and space, at the right time.

We've made time to spend with family, and time to spend doing what we love in the current middle ages.

I also have been lucky enough to make some new friends that I'm coming to cherish as marvellous people who accept my slightly *cough* ascerbic wit, and my emerging compassion and can seem to understand that I'm trying to meld the two with the wisdom I've had to cultivate.

I don't think it's that I wasn't compassionate when I was younger, at least I would hope not. I would hope that it was that I was young, and arrogant, and being young and arrogant I was correspondingly impatient with the perceived weakness of those around me.

One of my best friends made the comment last night, "wow, S... is being more compassionate than I am, when did that happen?"

I understand that most people might have been insulted by this, but in my group of friends I was known as a tough bitch goddess who told it like it was...it was the only way I had learned to survive. I was brutal sometimes in the way I stripped people of their most cherished illusions, but the friends who stayed...mostly, loved that about me and the fact that, when they got inside my heart, I was this giant marshmallow who had a love and loyalty that stretched pretty much forever. I was the chief, I was mom, I was doomed to not be weak. Not even in my own mind.

That perception has changed over the years and it's only now that I'm working to rebuild my self image, but long term chronic illness has a tendency to do that in your life and this post is not about that struggle, or not entirely. ;D

Then another close friend told my daughter that I once was going to write a book called, "Bitchology." It sounds like something I would have said, but the title was probably all his, 'cuz he's a hell of a lot cleverer with words than I am. ;D

I think I could have made the book a hit...I think I could still make the book a hit! It's a great title! There is something to be said for being a bitch. My daughter has been gifted that title by my friends and she preened under it, and they praised her saying they were glad she knew it was a compliment.

And I think it is, because I think sometimes in this world that being 'bitch' is just another word for being a forthright, alpha female who can hold her own in the world. It will cause her problems. It already has.

But I would say much better bitch than victim if I have the choice between the two. Those were my choices, not my daughters', but I could only raise her as I knew to be raised as a female. She was a "girlier" girl. And she didn't have the sports opportunities that I did. She is so much more organized than I ever was and so much more her own person. I was very dependent on my friends' opinions, my family's opinions, everyone's opinions... but my own.

Seeing friends from long ago and seeing glimpses of our faces from long ago in them, I see the continuity and the beauty.

Being with old friends I just plain had fun catching up and hearing about all the stuff I haven't heard and where they've been and what they've done...even if they've blogged about it...It was still better to hear about in person.

ta ta from the goddess of bitchology

Chickening out for dinner...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

For some reason if you add chow mein noodles and chicken and cashews to a salad...I like it better lately. I'm not sure my kids do, but what do they know? I'm the one that has to try to cook in this heat. And they're always the ones who complain I'm trying to overfeed them.

So I thought I'd share a recipe I just came up with that tastes pretty good. It's for a large group of people....but it should scale down just fine....next time maybe I'll add pineapple to it though....

Chicken Oriental Salad with Cashews


Number Of Serves: 16 Serve(s)
Preparation Time: 30.00 min
Cooking Time: 55 min


Ingredients

1. 8 lbs of frozen skinless chicken breasts
2. 0.5 t of vietnamese or chinese ground red chili garlic sauce (chilis in vinegar)
3. 1 c of Kikoman soy sauce
4. 1 T of Black Bean Sauce
5. 1 T of Hoisin Sauce
6. 1 t of chinese hot mustard
7. 0.5 t of ground ginger
8. 1 c of dried minced onion (1/2 c. if using fresh)
9. 0.25 c of Newman's own Lowfat sesame and ginger dressing
(may leave out, doesn't really add much)
10. 2 c of oiled, salted cashew halves and pieces
11. 16 oz of bag dry chow mein noodles
12. 3 oz of dry, candied ginger, sliced finely
13. 2 lbs of salad mix
14. 0.5 head of green leaf lettuce
15. 2 ea of tomatoes
16. 2 ea of kiwi
17. 1 ea of cucumber
18. 0.5 med of green pepper

Procedure/Direction:
1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Mix soy sauce, chili sauce, minced garlic, black bean sauce, hoisin sauce, hot mustard, ground giner, minced onion and newman's dressing if using it in a small bowl.

3. Spread chicken breasts in single layer in two roasting pans and baste with sauce, careful to scoop onions onto chicken for flavor. Baste both sides of chicken before inserting in oven.

4. Put into oven. Cook 25 minutes. Turn chicken and switch racks that pans are occupying so all chicken cooks thoroughly. After about another 30 minutes chicken should be thoroughly cooked, juices should run clear. Cut meat into cubes and store the chicken along with all pan drippings in a large bowl in refrigerator to cool.

5. Prepare salad. Peel kiwi fruit and slice into thin rounds or strips. Peel cucumber, or not, to taste and slice into thin strips for color. Sliver the candied ginger. Mince the green pepper. Wedge and chop the tomatoes.

6. Layer salad and chicken into large bowl in an attractive manner with chow mein noodles and cashews. Add the kiwi, cucumbers, sliced ginger, green pepper and tomatoes and enjoy.

May be served with or without additional Newman's Sesame and Ginger dressing. I didn't think it needed it particularly.

Cuisine: American
Type(s): Barbecue/Grilling , Brunch , Main Dish , Meat , Poultry , Salad , Side Dish , Low-cal , Vegetables , Favorites , Original , Low Carb , Family/Historic

Author: Sondra Prowett
Source: Original

this recipe was produced using: Recipe Manager - Your Cooking Companion


Of course the 3 or 4 recipes I've read that are similar to this use tea in them somehow, but the last time I tried that it just tasted like I was trying to eat aromatic dirt in my salad...maybe I should have soaked the chicken in the steeped tea? But the recipe called for actually putting the TEA LEAVES in the salad. I'll never figure this stuff out. Oh well, just gives my family more to scratch their heads over as they catch me going down for the count.

For those in the know...they are taking bets now and tilting me in general directions of soft areas to land, "just in case." Sheesh! no respect!

That's the world right now for a puzzled goddess whose headed off to dream land. zzzzzzz.....

Levelling the energy

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

This is pretty stream of conciousness. It's the morphine and the temperature of 102....it tends to make me free associate weird thoughts...

People talk about energy levels all the time as if they understand them. As if energy would miraculously appear out of thin air and pump them up and they could go on and do more and be more. The say things like, "I'm getting my second wind." Or, "I hit a wall." I drink in the chi of the universe. Feel the energy flow....

Most of the energy flow I feel is right out of my body...and of course it bites me in the ass on the way out.

I remember my disability insurance company trying to send a private investigator to investigate my claim quite a few years ago. It was soon after my dad died. Karmic timing as usual.

It was laughable in retrospect. At the time, I found it far from funny that this physically active 20 something single guy who had never had kids, a college education, tried to be supermom, been a computer professional, or been any kind of professional for that matter since he couldn't even keep a scheduled appointment, was the one that was putting the hammer of judgement down on my life.

He looked around at an overweight mom, who barely had insurance to pay for her medication to keep her disability under control and her meds that would keep her alive, that couldn't do much housework and had 2 children under the age of 7 in an apartment 1/3 the size of the house they had lost in the bankruptcy the disability had forced them through. The apartment might as well have been used to shoot a scene from "Cops" in it. A husband that was fighting his own disability issues, but working full time.

The investigator met with me once or twice and cancelled one appointment. Then told the insurance company I wasn't cooperative and obviously wasn't disabled because I wouldn't meet him on 2 hours notice when he rescheduled an appointment in a town 10 miles away and I couldn't drive. But I was a flake in his mind because I had broken teeth and couldn't afford dental insurance and spoke of only having so much energy in a day to get me through.

When you look ill, or run a temperature, people expect you to go lie down. When you look....say it with me....JUST FINE! People make all sorts of judgements. They'll expect you to remain self-sufficient and when you aren't, they'll ask what they can do to help, but God forbid you actually have worked out an answer or call on them for help. That's when the excuses come out.

I guess I've been lucky? I can count the times my immune system has been healthy enough for me to run a temperature in the last ten years on my fingers. You'd think, because it's so rare, that I would immediately lie down and try to get better. Wrong! If I'm running a temperature I'm actually probably in BETTER shape than I am normally, at least my immune system is fighting.

I was running a temperature of 102-105 degrees the 10 days we had to move out of our home while it was being foreclosed. I didn't have the luxury of checking into the hospital. Luckily, my sister and niece helped my husband and I a bit and my parents watched our kids a bit or we would have lost everything else we owned. No one else could help. I still remember how dark that time was. I was very bitter about it for a long time. I felt like I had failed my family, lost our home, and lost all our friends all at once. I collapsed into bed in the den of my parent's home for about 3 months after we loaded up and moved all our stuff and got through the bankruptcy hearings. I don't remember much from that time but physical and emotional pain.

I'm only dwelling on this now I think because I'm trying to put things behind me and move on with my life. The bitterness is doing me no good. With the new meds, I'm out of the pain haze enough that I'm thinking again so I'm remembering more than just the day to day which makes me sad for all the people that I thought I knew. Because I'm dealing with the pain clinic again, I'm required to go into therapy, again, even though the therapist doesn't seem to think he has much to teach me. I'm sure there is...I've had 47 years to screw up this psyche...there's got to be something in there for him to fix! He's another one that I want to introduce this book to tho'. He seemed so absolutely floored that I could speak coherently and string two sentences together. And if I'm what he thought of as being a very cognizant and highly intelligent patient who had all my faculties....I'd hate to see what he deals with the rest of the time.

There are so many holes...so many holes were the pain has eaten through my brain and the cobwebs just can't spin to close them fast enough.

I'm running temperatures again, which means my immune system is the healthiest it's been in a year or two. Viva narcotics! I had so adapted to living with the pain and the lack of energy that I had forgotten why I wanted to live a life.

I have good days and bad days. The bad days had way started to outnumber the good and when I was delegating most of my living...I didn't really feel like I was living... I don't wait to recover anymore, I guess that's the biggest lesson I've learned. It's the lesson my husband hates the worst. He considers it giving in. I consider it adapting to the new situation and moving on.

It's time to adapt to the new pain level and move on. Luckily, the current level of narcotics allows me a breather for awhile to do that....3 months ago I didn't feel optomistic enough to have that option.

Now it's off to see what my fever induced dreams want to tell me....
from the goddess of night sweats or day mares

It's all in your head.... Really!

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

Just Fine....

"Since family or friends cannot see the illness, how can it exist? And how can someone believe that the illness is real if everyone around them doubts or scrutinizes it?"

Same book, different quote. I lived this quote for so long. With every migraine, every paralyzing muscle ache I couldn't explain, until even I wondered if I was causing myself to feel the pain and started to blame myself for putting myself through this rats' maze of doctors, doubts, and debillitating illness. I thought I must be mentally ill or I wouldn't want to be sick like this, right?

I remember the same kinds of reactions when I was a kid and finally got diagnosed with a "nervous stomach." Now I just live on immodium, preperation-H, and peppermint tea. Then, I always assumed I was at fault, hmmm, I guess I kinda do now too, lol...guess I haven't grown up as much as I'd hoped, huh?

[if you have a little know illness or condition, and if the symptoms are not visibly apparent, the reactions you receive can change dramatically. "Those with hidden illnesses are often treated with disbelief and thought to be hypochondriacs, whiners, malingerers, or difficult patients," says Higgins. {Bejai Higgins} They can sometimes receive dismissive medical treatment. These discounting reactions from health professionals, and sometimes the patient's family and friends, can begin to generate self-doubt. Self-doubt, left unchecked, can lead to depression and isolation.]

Hmmm, that self doubt thing always sucks. I always have to wonder, do I REALLY want to spend the majority of my life in pain and struggling just to get out of bed?

.....HELL NO! Days like the last few are a good way to answer that!

I finally have a bit of pain relief with going back to one of the old anti-seizure meds I was on years ago that I became accustomed to (so it stopped working) and they added some slow release narcotics to the mix. While I prefer to be in control of the narcotic release so that I can use them only when I really need them, I have to say that I'm getting more done today housework-wize than I have done in months. But I have to constantly counsel myself to be careful, not to overdo just because the pain is in the background.

A good day does not mean a cure...all these litanies have now become part of my internal mantra, because otherwise I try to fight all those doubters and all those judging eyes and push myself WAY past what I should do and pay for it for weeks to come.

For years I listened to the people, and my own head that said, "if I think healthy, then I'll be healthy. If I don't think about my depression, it will go away." This may work to some extent to help me summon energy, and it's helping me do chiqong to try to get the nerve impulses rerouted around my damaged disks in my neck, but I also need to deal with the reality.

The years I've spent fighting this have actually made this so much worse and made my illness so much harder to deal with.

If the energy I'd put into pretending I wasn't in pain or was well had been put into healing or increasing my energy like I did very early on, before I stopped trusting myself, I might have come to an accomodation with this and been able to balance my energies instead of spiralling into depression and starting to believe the sarcastic and mean things that people whisper.

For some reason, the more things that you have wrong with your body, the less sick you are thought to be...somehow that's a medical community correlary. It holds true in the real world too. Maybe it's just that people expect lies to be complicated and so if you're really sick and it's complicated they think you must be lying? I don't know....just trying to think of some excuse for the crappy subliminal attitudes over the years. ;D

I've gotten to where I don't want to say much of anything to anyone because they'll have that long suffering look that says, "here she goes again, another laundry list of symptoms. What is it NOW?"


[They feel that the illness is their fault, and this is often a belief that is confirmed by others. Even their doctors can sometimes not locate a reason for their pain or discomfort or the array of symptoms they are experiencing. And sadly, sometimes their spouses do not and cannot understand the illness.]

The blame game and being at fault, oh boy do I understand that one! Wow, how many times have I offered to give my husband a divorce? Not because I hate him and our kids, far from it, because without having to deal with all the issues of my disability and medical problems their lives would be much smoother. Luckily, Rick is more understanding than I probably would be in his position, though I hope I would be better than some I've met. (Maybe I'm paying back Karma for being a judgemental bitch in another lifetime? hmmm?)

So often it comes down to a choice, would you rather mom did this, or that. Went to this game, or was with the family for a weekend. Medicated herself to attend your school concert, or had a family picnic with you? Did the laundry, or made a family dinner?

I and Rick have worked it out to a fairly good degree. And we are pretty well aware of the realities of living with this thing called disability that tries to suck so much life from our family. I am lucky in that we both believed in the vows we took. We're still waiting for the "in health" part to come around....

The kids have learned responsibility, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. They have compassion. They have also learned impatience for having this alien THING that takes over part of their family whether they want to allow it or not. But the kids actually get more quality talk time with me than I ever did with my parents. This may not be a good thing according to them. ;D They actually have told me that they appreciate me keeping an accomplishments/pain level chart up on the fridge because it gives them some idea of what I'm dealing with and they don't have to be detectives to figure it out.

In 1996, with a toddler and a newborn, with Rick being a house husband, having a doctor refuse to sign a return to work order for me was the worst wake up call I have ever gotten. It destroyed my sense of self worth. We lost our home, went bankrupt. I lost my career, my livelihood, my friends, my social life. Hell, I even lost the ability to balance a checkbook! (I still struggle with that monthly. No wonder they didn't want me managing multi-million dollar projects....hehehee!)

So much of my sense of self-worth was tied up in my career, and now I can't even solve simple problems in life without anxiety attacks. If I push to do more than 2 or 3 hours of ANY activity per day, I have to recover for multiple days....those are the ones other people don't see.

Yet there are still many people who are convinced that I can just, "get up off my fat, lazy ass and get a job and support my family, and I would be just fine." Yes, that's a direct quote. It was only said to my face once, but God, I've seen it in so many eyes over the years, heard it in so many questioning voices, in so many insincere offers of help....

The person who said that to me is reaping what they sewed. I personally am hoping that all of those that have had those kind of non-compassionate thoughts about a situation they really know nothing about don't ever have to live in this kind of agony to learn their mistake. I can't even wish this on them.

Our family time and leisure time has been totally hamstrung to cater to what mom has energy to do. I have to be careful and remember to not overdo things when I'm medicated because I'll pay for it with the exhaustion when I come down.

It's taken me years and I'm still only now overcoming the guilt that it was my body that failed my family this way and that I'm the one that has to be constantly accomodated.

Can we please go back to it being all in my head?

from the puzzled goddess of painful truth

Just fine.....

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

That which doesn't kill us?

I picked up a new book a few weeks ago. I normally refuse to read books about illnesses, etc. and the latest, 'new cure.' Been there, done that, and have way too many versions of that t-shirt.

I keep up with research in the diseases that I know are eating away at my immune system and other parts of my body and follow various newsletters over the internet. I gave up on books awhile ago, as the information lag behind the treatments I was already receiving was just too great.

But this one is a bit different. And I've been approaching things a bit differently lately. It always seems like I have to once more let myself cycle down through the very depths of feeling like absolute crap and being in an amount of pain that is uncontrollable at an intolerable level before either: a.) I get up the gumption to tell the doctors that they better do something about it and we need to try something new, or b.) they notice that I'm particularly suicidal and decide we better do something different and try something new.

Why I'm in a different head space this time I think? is that the number of weird conditions that Western medicine doesn't really like to explain that are effecting my health are now being added to with all those sucky conditions of old age that Western medicine recognizes and seems willing to treat. The doctors keep shaking their heads and adding a new weird diagnoses for every 'normal' condition they add though. I'm up to 10 or 12 now that I'm fighting and trying to balance.

I pretty much try and only worry about the immune system ones that are actively trying to attack my organs and eyes and glands. And the ones that will actively kill me or really make my life go through major suckage by making things be amputated or worse if I don't keep them under control. You've got to have some priorities, right?

We have three or four names for the immune system crap. Chronic Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Myofacial Pain Syndrome, Hashimoto's thyroiditis....any others? Something else will probably jump on the band wagon. It's not like they have any great tests for these. They go on symptoms. So they theorize that my immune system decided sometime in my late teens or early 20's that it didn't like my body. Western medicine still lacks tests for most of these to find them before they start harming the body, and even after they do, they can only treat the symptoms.

Huh, makes me sound like I fit in with every other person in this book. The subtitle? "Unmasking concealed chronic illness and pain." Not that the pain is all that concealed...not from ME anyway! and based on how bitchy the family says I can get when I'm not making the effort to be nice...

Well, golly gee, Mr. Wizard! Organs being attacked and stopping working gets painful sometimes and when you don't have much of a metabolism because your thyroid barely works...and what does work seems to be under attack it's kinda hard for your body to function with what the diabetes leaves you....hmmmmm....I guess I just got no excuse. One of my new doctors didn't even look up what Hashimoto's was and what it had been doing to my endocrine system/digestive system before she decided that I make poor nutrition choices and have an improper diet.

Actually, I eat keep track of my diet better than most skinny people or dieting people I know. I eat 1000 calories less a day than I should to maintain my weight most days (to a diabetic a carb is a carb is a carb nowadays and I eat WAY more veggies than I EVER did before!) Yes, even on those awful days at Izzy's when I punk down the HUGE amounts of carbs because they don't have much on their menu but deserts that isn't loaded with preservatives and chemicals (and even those are borderline....yeah, yeah, you all know the rant...) I STILL manage on those days to come in under 12-14 carb units which is at the upper end of the scale of the diabetic diet I've been following, pretty religiously for, oh, about, 6 years. It's not like it's hard. At my size, I'm allowed quite a bit of variety to maintain my body weight and the big change lately has been the huge increase in fiber and veggies for me to balance all the weird things the meds are doing to my system.

But my Hashimoto's thinks I'm starving anyway.(this thyroid crap started back in about 1990 for my body, yippy yay!), but my diabetes thinks I'm not." And anyone who knows me, or has seen me eat knows I'm not starving ;D You'd be surprised that the meal I'm eating may be the only real meal of the day, but I do eat right.

....and the judgements? from other people? keep going on, and on. This woman was a doctor. What chance to I have against the judgmentalism of other people? I've gotten so tired of the lectures from the people who have all the answers because their brother's cousin's wife's aunt, or their family, or they... compassion is lacking in these people in that they even think to judge or lecture. This book is for people like them. And for me, to help me remember to take a deep breath and walk away. They aren't worth it anymore. My energy is too scarce. People who are going to judge me on whatever criteria they've made up in their head, for whatever reason, whoever they are, I can skip knowing.

Maybe if more families or friends or doctors read it, they would remember compassion when they were dealing with other people and stop judging. Maybe more relationships could be saved.

Recently I finally put my foot down and told the doctors I need better pain management. Yes, I look "just fine." I look like some healthy, middle-aged matron who has over-indulged all her life and is now paying for it.

Goddess, don't I wish. I see that judgement in the eyes of even my friends and I want to tell them to walk even a few hours in my shoes, let alone a few years in unrelenting pain that is blinding and doesn't allow thought. To add in my thyroid system that has been shutting down for years and struggling to have to place one foot in front of the other or bend over to pick up a paper dropped on the floor. I still do those things. It just takes a lot more time and a lot more effort and many more days.

I am digesting this book slowly, because it is written about people like me. People who don't want pity. People who are just tired of being judged. If I had a nickel for every offer of help I'd gotten from those same friends and family that then had some excuse for not being able to be there for me when I really needed it, I would have been able to pay for the specialist my neurologist wanted me to see in San Fransisco! lol

I can remember so well always running here and there to do this or that for this person or that and never having time to catch up on anything for myself...I still don't, but now I don't have any energy for anything for myself either, so it balances, sorta. ;|

There's a quote here on page 31 that resounded with me:
[ 'It is very frustrating when you are raised to be active, and you have talent, but you are no longer able to do the things that you enjoy.'
People with chronic illness or pain are survivors, and accepting limitations is in conflict with the code that survivors live by. No one wants to be sick. No one chooses to give up those things in life that bring joy. Yet at some point, people with chronic disorders need to learn to say no to many things that have always been part of their lives. Being told to look on the bright side by well-meaning friends and family members simply adds insult to injury. Positive platitudes and quick fix suggestions trivialize pain and symptoms and cheapen the impact of these difficult and relentless challenges.
Chronic pain is real yet it becomes difficult to talk to friends and family about it. Not only do people want to be free of chronic pain, they do not want to feel like a burden. "It's a large part of who I am. I just don't want to be pitied by my friends or to be known as 'the suffering one' to those I love or the people I work with,"...." Everyone becomes tired of hearing about how much I hurt, incuding myself! Some people think I am making it up or exaggerating my symptoms. But chronic pain is very real. Even the medical community doesn't always take my pain seriously." ]

I could so relate to this. I just don't want to talk about my health all the time. That's why this blog is about other subjects: my kids, tea, fashion, the sca, films, weird stuff, things that strike me as funny. Quotes from books I'm reading.

This book just happened to hit a particularly strong cord, and it probably doesn't help that they are changing my meds, and I'm feeling mental and whiny. It's father's day and these days, when I miss my parents I always realize how young they were when they died. I look at I and my siblings, my cousins and realize how young we all are for the kind of things we're already facing. I never expected to be under 50 and sharing the "old lady" symptom and medicine comparing conversations over the phone, you know?

Today I have to realize that my dad and my husband are probably the two people who have come the closest to understanding what I live with on a daily basis. I thought my dad was overprotective.....I think my husband is most of the time as well.

So, what does that say for my sense of judgement?

Probably means I picked the best possible father in the world, who I miss a whole lot today, and that I couldn't have married a better man, huh?

from a puzzled goddess who looks just fine thank you