Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Why Pain-Free Days Aren’t Really All That “Free”

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I have been having a few pain-free days lately (although I’m terrified to even write this, lest I jinx it somehow. It’s hard not to be superstitious when you’re living with something as unpredictable as a chronic illness). I’m very grateful, and very appreciative for these days, but I’ve stopped announcing them to the world at large, because people who aren’t sick just don’t get the fact that starting to feel good after m-a-n-y days of being in pain is just as difficult and disorienting as it is when you start to feel bad after a handful of days of feeling good. And when I try to explain to anyone else why I’m kind of weirded out by a feeling-good-day and don’t know what to do with it, as much as I know they want to help, I cannot “just enjoy it.”

The best example I can use to explain what this is like is the time when I was a senior in high school and Hurricane Hugo came barreling through Charlotte, where we lived at the time.

There was the period of hurricane, which was scary and destructive.

And then the hurricane passed.

But then there was the aftermath.

Just like when you make it through yet another pain cycle.

And since the hurricane metaphor really works for me, I’m gonna keep on going with it to try and explain how living with a chronic illness is similar to living through some sort of natural disaster.

1. First, you must survive the hurricane/pain flare-up.

“When you’re at the end of the road
And you lost all sense of control
And your thoughts have taken their toll
When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul

Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn’t pass
Nothing’s ever built to last
You’re in ruins”

“21 Guns”, Green Day

2. You must figure out how to transition out of existing in crisis/survival mode.

“Find me in the river
Find me there
Find me on my knees with my soul laid bare
Even though you’re gone and I’m cracked and dry
Find me in the river, I’m waiting here

We didn’t count on suffering
We didn’t count on pain
But if the blessing’s in the valley
Then in the river I will wait”

“Find Me In The River”, Delirious

3. You  must make sure that the hurricane has truly passed, and that you are not just temporarily in the eye of the storm, with more devastation on its way.

“I know what you’re thinkin’
We were goin’ down
I can feel the sinkin’
But then I came around

And everyone I’ve loved before
Flashed before my eyes
And nothin’ mattered anymore
I looked into the sky

Well I wanted something better man
I wished for something new
And I wanted something beautiful
And wish for something true
Been lookin’ for a reason man
Something to lose”

“Wheels,” Foo Fighters

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Um, I’m Not Sure They’ve Really Thought This Whole Thing Through

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So my brother and his wife are having a baby in a couple of months-YAY!

But I wonder if they’ve really considered the long-term ramifications of this decisions, in that they are bringing an innocent, defenseless child into the world who will have no choice but to be related to me. And  I really think we all just need to stop and take a minute to discuss exactly Why I Should Never Be Allowed To Be Anyone’s Aunt, as evidenced by the following data that I’ve been carefully collecting over the past 37 years.

1. My favorite word in the entire English language is “ass”.

2. When my husband goes out of town I stop eating, having  judged the whole process to be “unnecessary” and “frivolous”.

3. My preferred method of dealing with recalcitrant electronics is to run them over with my car.

4. If it weren’t for my husband, I would totally forget the need to wear pants.

5. When faced with more than 3 choices of Ranch Dressing at the grocery store, I am immediately plunged into a full-blown, existential crisis.

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Well, I Suppose That’s One Way Of Dealing With Change

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As we all know by now, Apple has once again set the technology world afflutter with the unveiling of the iPad. (Important Side Note: Dear Steve Jobs-Next time you need to name a product, you might want to invite a woman or two to be part of the naming committee, just to make sure you get the female perspective on these things. Just saying.)

A couple of days after the announcement I was out to lunch, and I heard a couple of woman discussing this latest technological innovation.

“I wonder what kind of impact this will have on the publishing industry,” said the first woman. “I wonder if  we’ll eventually stop having print books because everything has gone digital. Or if we’ll still have libraries anymore.”

“Well,” replied the second woman thoughtfully, “hopefully I’ll be dead by then.”

Because Sometimes, You Just Cannot Escape The Golf

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So last week I was visiting my parents, and one evening we were watching a golf tournament on TV. I believe it was called the “Whatever The Hell Was On The Golf Channel At 8:00 Last Friday Night” Open.

I don’t really remember a lot of the details but I do remember that they were playing at Torrey Pines, because whenever they would cut away from the “action” of the match (and I use that term here in the loosest possible sense of the word). they would show all these breathtaking aerial shots of the course and its surrounding area.

Unfortunately, the only good part of watching this tournament was kind of wrecked by the fact that the sports announcers felt they had to fill up every single non-playing moment with something to say, a behavior that can quickly become excruciatingly tedious when combined with a “sport” which breaks down into approximately 0.000025% Actual Expenditure Of Energy and 89,000% Walking Grimly To Another Location.

So during one of the cutaways anchors Kelly Tilghman and Nick Faldo were chatting briefly about the course and how beautiful it is (and it really is, as much as it pains me to use that particular adjective to describe anything golf-related), and Kelly asked Nick, “So out of all the courses you’ve played in the world, how would you rank this one?”

“Hm,” Nick replied thoughtfully. “On a scale of 1-10? I’d give it an 11.”

“So,” Kelly said, “eleven would be the best, right?”

Did you hear that?

That is the sound of a century of progress smashing face-first into a giant brick wall.

Books Are My Boyfriend, Ed. 5: The One Where My Parents Will Never Ever Let Me Live This Down

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Those of you who have been reading me for a while are no doubt well acquainted with my stormy and tumultuous relationship with the game of golf. And how much everyone else around me seems to love it. And how I, do not. And how I live for opportunities to mock this fine sport. And so, for what I am about to tell you I can only plead prolonged illness and pain meds, plus my obsessive fascination with my new iTouch which, to my possible downfall, has an app for the Amazon Kindle and a one touch “get books” setup.

So the other day I was browsing the pages of books available for the Kindle, and somehow my eye was caught by this book called The Downhill Lie by Carl Hiaason. Now normally I would’ve run as quickly as I could in the opposite direction once I figured out that this book was about golf. But I kept seeing things like, “Humor!”, and “Funny!”, and, “One of the two most hysterical books ever written about golf!”, and so I was totally sucked in. Because you know that I CANNOT resist The Humor.

And then I came to the chapter titled, “Toad Golf”, in which Hiaason describes the unusual circumstances that began to bring him back to the sport after a thirty-two year absence.

“The next time [I swung a club] occurred one night…when my best friend and fishing companion, Bob Branham, called to report a disturbing infestation. The culprit was Bufo marinus, a large and brazen type of toad that had invaded South Florida from Central America and proliferated rapidly, all but exterminating the more docile native species. The Bufo grows to two pounds and eats anything that fits in its maw, including small birds and mice. When threatened, it excretes from two glands behind its eyes a milky toxin extremely dangerous to mammals. Adventuresome human substance abusers have claimed that licking Bufo toads produces psychedelic visions, but the practice is often fatal for dogs and cats.

Which is why Bob had called. Every evening a brigade of Bufos had been appearing outside his back door and gobbling all the food he’d put out for Daisy, his young Labrador retriever. It’s probably unnecessary to point out that while Labradors possess a cheery and endearing temperament, they are not Mensa candidates in the kingdom of canines. In fact, Labradors will eagerly eat, lick or gnaw objects far more disgusting than a sweaty toad. For that reason, Bob expressed what I felt was a well-founded fear that his beloved pet was in peril during these nightly Bufo encounters.”

So Hiasson, as any good friend would do, goes over to Bob’s house to see what he can do to help.

“When I arrived at his house, the onslaught was in progress. A herd of medium-sized toads hungrily patrolled the perimeter of his patio, while one exceptionally rotund specimen had vaulted into Dixie’s dish and engulfed so much dog chow that it was unable to climb out. It looked like a mud quiche with eyeballs.”

And so, what to do?

“Bob and I were discussing our limited and unsavory options when I noticed a golf bag in a corner near the back door. We had a brief conversation about which of his neighbors was the most obnoxious, and then I reached for a 9-iron. Bob chose a 7.

Before the PETA rally begins, let me point out that the adult Bufo toad is one of God’s sturdiest creatures. Bob swears he once saw one get run over by a compact car and then hop away. I have my doubts, but in any case we purposely picked lofted clubs to effect a kinder, gentler relocation.”

And then you know what happened next.

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Twue Wuv, Or, Dear Princess Bride: You Still Rock After All These Years

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So I’m a little torn over how to start this post.

On the one hand I could talk about how my husband and I were watching this week’s episode of “Castle”, and how the case he and Beckett were working on brought him back to his lost love, “the one that got away”, and how even though they still had feelings for one another he happily watched her get married to another man, and it was so beautiful, blah, blah, blah.

OR I could open with the session I had with my coach this week-where this conversation actually started-the session where the only thing I had any energy left to discuss was a dream I’d had the previous evening. A dream in which the “dream me” was visited by The Boy That I Was Totally In Love With All Through High School.

I was kinda reminiscing, and talking about the last time I actually saw him (gasp…choking) 19 years ago, at a party for a fellow classmate who was in her summer of being a debutante.

My Coach: “…(silence)…What?!”

Me: “You know, debutantes. ‘Coming out’ to society, and cotillions, and all that stuff.”

My Coach: “I thought all that stuff was made up.”

Me: “Oo-h no. It’s real. I mean, I was never a debutante, but yeah, it’s a really big deal down here in the south.”

My Coach: “I don’t know how to talk to you anymore.”

Which is what she always tells me, laughingly, when I make her head explode. Which, as you might imagine, is a pretty common occurrence.

So then I just started rambling on with some stream-of-conscious memories, and as soon as I said, “Yeah, he was really smooth-he really knew how to work a room,” she said, “Um, yeah, he wasn’t into you at all, was just full of shit. He just knew all the magic things to say to keep the girls interested in him. Because guys are not complicated. If they like you, they ask you out.” Which actually made me feel a lot better. I didn’t have to worry anymore that maybe if I had just done something differently, or somehow been able to be different, then this situation would’ve turned out differently. And that was a huge relief.

My Coach: “Almost everyone has experienced a strong first love, and experienced it not working out and then having their heart broken.  So he was a dick, I’m being totally un-coachy and un-politically correct here, and, moving right along, what else is going on?”

Me: “Well, my 20-year high school reunion is this year, and I’m not sure whether or not I’m going.”

My Coach: “Well it can be fun to go and see people like that, because maybe they’re all bald and fat now.”

Me: “You know, I did see a picture of him a few years ago in our alumni magazine, and he actually is.”

My Coach: (bursts out laughing) “That’s so funny!”

Me: “While I, of course, have become more striking with every passing year.”

My Coach: “I KNOW!”

And truly? Can you put a price on that kind of friendship? I THINK NOT.

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Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky On Depression

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Stanford Professor Robert Sapolsky, posits that depression is the most damaging disease that you can experience. Right now it is the number four cause of disability in the US and it is becoming more common. Sapolsky states that depression is as real of a biological disease as is diabetes.

Hm-maybe I can start letting myself off the hook.

Battered And Bruised

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So I have all these ideas for like three different cool posts but unfortunately, even though the spirit is very willing, the flesh is weak.

I have been spiking numbers higher than 10 on the pain scale for the last handful of days, so all of my time has been taken up with managing the pain, as well as all of the mental and emotional stuff that comes up when your whole world has shrunk down to, “OK, what’s going on in my body right now?, and “How can I make myself feel a little more comfortable?”

Thankfully I have very effective pain meds, a comfy  bathtub, and tons of great support, with people who check in with me many times a day to see where I am and what, if anything, they need to do.

Also, The Most Awesome Husband In The Entire World got me an iTouch for Christmas, and so now I pretty much have my own portable, hand-held, all-inclusive personal entertainment center with me at all times.

I said when I converted this site over to Cranky Fibro Girl that I would be writing about (in addition to tons of other things) my whole life experience when it comes to living every day with a chronic illness and chronic pain. And so this is a part of it, unfortunately. Days where the whole world shrinks down to, “What can I do in this minute to help myself feel a little more comfortable?” Not “better”. “More comfortable.” Because from this place, better is as far away from where I am as the moon is from the earth. And just about as impossible to get to right now.

So if anyone feels inspired, I would really like to request some gentle healing vibes/energy/prayers/thoughts sent my way. No specific outcome needed-just support and love and relief.

Thanks.

Jenny

Of Soccer Cleats And Panda Heads

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So the other night I was just hanging out and daydreaming in my office when I heard my husband yell out, “DAMN PANDA HEADS!!”

And so of course I ran out into the living room to see what was going on, because…um, What?!

When I got out there I saw my husband standing on the balance board for the Wii Fit, doing one of the training programs that involves you standing  in the middle of a soccer field, attempting to head butt all the soccer balls that various people are throwing at your face.

Now, I am the first to admit that I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER about athletics. So much so, in fact, that during my high school graduation ceremony (I went to a private school so my graduating class was somewhere between 60 and 70 people), the headmaster would call out things like, “And now, everybody who has ever participated in the drama department, please stand.” I guess he was trying to emphasize how well-rounded and prepared for college we were, along with showing  just how much our education was  worth all of the tuition money that our parents had forked over  for so many years.

So eventually he got to, “And now, all the people who have ever participated in any of our sports programs, please stand up,” and I am telling you the God’s honest truth here-I was THE ONLY PERSON IN MY ENTIRE GRADE who remained seated. A fact of which I am still inordinately proud.

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