Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Stop Calling Me Shirley!

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So I have to go on an airplane in a couple of weeks, and I am totally freaking out about it.

Because despite the fact that yes, I KNOW it’s 2011, and we have left all the magical, superstitious thinking of the Dark Ages behind us, and now worship the god of science (well-SOME of us do. Others of us, we still kind of like it back there), I do not believe that planes can actually fly. I believe that it is all a giant illusion, and that the illusion could burst at any moment-PROBABLY a moment when I’m on a plane-but I don’t know what might damage this illusion, so I don’t know what to do or what not to do to ensure that my plane doesn’t fall out of the sky while I’m on it.

So airplane travel is just a tiny bit stressful for me.

And yes, all you Science People, I can hear you all out there gearing up your three-dimensional, interactive presentations to explain why, yuh-huh, it does TOO work, but let me remind you that I am married to an engineer. And even he doesn’t try anymore. Because if it were just a matter of more information and having something explained to me in a different way, I would not still be having this problem.

I’m also concerned because this will be the first time I’ve flown since I got sick, and I don’t know how or if it will affect my fibromyalgia. So when I had my latest appointment with my fibro doctor, I decided to bring this up (read as: desperately beg for reassurance that I will be all right)

So when I asked him if flying might cause me to have a flare-up, he said (and I SWEAR I am not making this up): “Well, an airplane is a pressurized tube.”

And I thought, “Huh-that doesn’t actually help me at all.”

(All right, I confess-the first thing I actually thought was, “Wow-that sounds really dirty!”)

But I was really confused, because that didn’t really seem to me to be an actual answer. So then I wondered if it was maybe some kind of Zen thing, like when I went to the acupuncture guy and I asked if he was going to try to get me to stop taking my medicines, and he said, “No one tell you stop. No one tell you continue. You follow path that unfold for you.”

So then Fibro Doctor continued, “…so unless air somehow gets into the cabin, you shouldn’t have any problems.”

Now, see what he did there? I was so SO close to feeling reassured, but then, perhaps in an effort to “touch all the bases”, he tried to reassure me by referencing the possible sudden loss of cabin pressure. Which would most likely occur as a result of an equipment failure or something blowing out a window (the horrible causes of which are too numerous to list here). Which would mean that the plane was crashing. In which case, I wouldn’t give a crap about my fibromyalgia pain.

Now I L-O-V-E my fibro doctor. Because besides being a really fantastic doctor, he is also a really cool person. Like, part of me wishes he weren’t my doctor so that we could hang out and I could invite him to all my parties. (If I ever gave any. Which I don’t. Because I am a cranky hermit. But that’s an issue for another day.)

But I think that doctors lately are so concerned with giving us a complete and truthful answer, that my doctors at least are overinformationing me. I mean, I appreciate the fact that you are trying to educate me and help me take responsibility for my own health care, but I don’t always need to know the worst possible thing that any given condition might be. Really-there are times when it’s okay to hold some stuff back. I promise I won’t be mad.

So I guess this has really just been a very long way of saying that despite my many attempts to be reassured, I guess I won’t actually know what will happen until I’m there, on the plane, in the air. And yeah, so that’ll just fold right into my super-relaxed personality as an anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, manically-tendencied, graspy, controlling first-born. Sure. No problems there.

GAH!

10 Things I Will Not Be Doing Today

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1. Re-shingle the roof, single-handedly, or as part of a team.

2. Suddenly realize that golf is actually a rich, complex, multi-layered test of both skill and artistry .

3. Run anywhere, not even towards a soda fountain filled to the brim with the ice cold elixir of life, Regular Coke.

4. Attempt to explain to anyone between the ages of 14 and 18 why verbs are so foundational to both the written and spoken language.

5. Humor anyone who implores me to, “Say something in Spanish!”

6. Heal myself of fibromyalgia using only the power of my mind.

7.Cease to be afraid of snakes, either real or imaginary.

8.Receive a download of all the government’s secrets, thereby becoming the Human Intersect.

9.Finally unlock the secret to successfully baking desserts that include Cocoa powder as one of their main ingredients.

10. No longer need to be reassured that, upon stepping foot outside after dark, bats will not swoop down upon me in order to nest in my hair.

(Inspired by this post.)

Top Three Reasons Why It’s Really Really Good That My Husband Gets Home From His Week-Long Business Trip Today

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#3-I received approximately 79,000 phone calls from what appeared to be 3 individual charities, and instead of just ignoring them, I developed a new hobby whereby I picked up the calls, hoping for a person on the other end so that I could yell at them to STOP F’ING CALLING ME ALREADY!!!!

#2-Total food consumed during his 5-day absence:

3 bananas
4 yogurt cups
1 12-pack of Coke
1 box chocolate Graham Crackers

#1-My biggest goal for the week: To learn how to manipulate 2 separate kitty “fishing pole” toys, in separate hands, at the same time

Further Proof Of My Awesomeness

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So as you probably know by now, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, I work with a fantastic coach, Lynne, every week. And if you know anything about coaching, you also know that one key aspect of the coaching relationship is accountability.

However, me being who I am, the kind of things that I need to be held accountable for are not things like, “Let’s set some goals to help you move forward on this project.” No, my accountability issues lie in the area of Things That I Am NOT Allowed To Do. As in, “No, you may not read any self-improvement articles while spiking a 10 on the pain scale,” or, “No you may not use exercise as a way to punish yourself for your imagined transgressions.”

But now my accountability story has taken yet another unexpected turn. Because now, in addition to reporting on what I’ve done (or not done) that day, I must also perform an, “Am I lying?” check-in each day.

As a former “Good Girl”, you can imagine how stunned I was to discover that I am, in fact, a lying liar-pants of lies. Especially when it comes to my declaring to the world that, “I’m fine.”

-Suffering with a 2-week long migraine that shows no signs of letting up? “I’m fine.”

-3 weeks into an especially compelling obsessive-compulsive episode? “Fine.”

-4 days in a row of being at an 8 or more on the pain scale, but too afraid to take my pain medicine? “No really, I’m FINE.”

And people believe me, because I am THAT good at this particular lie.

But not anymore, because people have finally caught onto the game that I’ve been running. It’s one thing to be able to lie by omission, but now Lynne and my husband know that they have to ask me specific questions, such as, “Where is your pain level right now?”, and “Have you taken your medicine today?” There’s enough “Good Girl” left in me to not be able to lie in the face of such specifically directed questioning.

This has also been good for our marriage because, for reasons I don’t entirely understand, if my husband is not here in the evenings, I feel that it’s unnecessary for me to eat. This is very weird, because if you met me in person one of the first things you would notice is that food and I are obviously on extremely good terms. I haven’t figured this out yet, but it does lead to some interesting conversations, like the one we had the other day as he was on his way out the door to play poker.

My husband: “So what are you going to eat for dinner?” (Once again, he has learned that he must inquire as to the SPECIFIC DETAILS, or else I will find a way to lie about it.)

Me: “Oh, I’m so excited. I knew you were going to ask me that, so I figured out a plan while you were on the way home. My plan is, I can have the leftover lasagna for dinner.”

My husband: “You do know that you actually have to EAT the lasagna for this plan to be acceptable, right?”

Me: “Dammit.”

Just like Ozzie and Harriet, no? (Or at least, Ozzie and Sharon.)

I Don’t Think They Make A Pill For This

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Because I have always felt so much physical pain so intensely, and so often, I’ve never believed the people who claim that women get some sort of amnesia which allows them to forget the pain of childbirth, and go back to do it again. But I’m starting to suspect that maybe this actually is true, because I seem to have a similar type of amnesia myself entitled, “Hey, Now That Everything’s Kind Of Stabilized For Me, It Must Be Time For Me To Take It Upon Myself To Do Some Unsupervised Screwing Around With My Medications.”

This particular mental tic shows up once every three or four years or so, usually after I’ve been through an extended period of feeling good after a really horrific period of physical and/or mental hell. It’s almost like the hellish times are me in my “right” mind, and the happy times are when I’m mentally skewed, because it’s as if feeling good triggers some kind of mental defect that renders me utterly incapable of making the connection between the fact that I’m feeling good, and the fact that I’m taking my medications. It’s like a switch gets flipped in my brain that not only completely erases this thought from my mind, but actually prevents me from even being able to think it. Also, I completely forget, every single time, that this Never. EVER. Ends. Well. For. Me.

I’m getting better, though. This time I caught myself after only two days of what I referred to as, “my experiment”, and realized that I needed to cut it out and go back to the way things were. But still, I feel like every single politician who’s chosen to have an affair, or every executive who’s decided to steal from their company because, “Things will be different for me. Things will be different this time. I won’t have to face any consequences for what I’m doing.”

I’d label this as the definition of insanity, but I’m afraid that it might literally be true in this case, and I don’t think they make a pill for that.

I’ve Been Tagged Five Times For The Same Meme, But People, I’VE GOT NOTHING LEFT!

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As you may have gathered from my title, I keep getting tagged for the “25 Random Things About Me” Meme that is currently making the rounds of Teh Internetz. However, given that my whole entire blog is pretty much devoted to mocking the randomness that is me, I am seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel here, trying to come up with something new to say. It is not going well (Ex. “My favorite musical interval is the 6th.”)

But, let’s see what I can do.

1. I am TOTALLY OBSESSED with the number eight.

2. No, seriously-OBSESSED.

3. My first name, (Jennifer) has eight letters in it.

4. My maiden name also has eight letters in it.

5. I was born in October, which used to be the eighth month of the calendar year.

6. But then they messed things up by sticking in July, for Julius Caesar.

7. And August, for Augustus.

8. Stupid Roman emperors.

9. And, I was born on the 8th day of the formerly eighth month.

10. I always wondered how all these personal facts came together in such a cool way for me.

11. My best guess:

12. I am possessed of wicked cool supernatural powers, which apparently manifested themselves before I even entered the womb.

13. Shut up-there are TOO magical powers!

14. Hello-didn’t you notice the title of my blog?!

15. My passionate love affair with the number eight has manifested itself in other ways.

16. More specifically, it has taken the form of a particular OCD behavior.

17. For as long as I can remember, whenever I hear people talking,

18. Or am reading words on a page,

19. My mind is constantly rearranging the words and sounds into groups of eight syllables.

20. When I shared this with my first psychiatrist, he thought that was really cool.

21. It’s actually kind of a pain.

22. I also collect 8-syllable words.

23. So far I have have…wait for it…EIGHT!

24. desafortunadamente, neoimpresionismo, neoimpresionante, totalitarianism

25. electroencephalograph, institutionalization, indefatigability, rhinotillexomania

Why I Should Probably Not Be Invited To Your Next Party

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These days when I’m not on Facebook, I’m over on Ravelry.com, “a knit and crochet community”, seeing as how knitting is my new obsession dearest love.

The other day as I was perusing the message boards I came upon a thread asking the intriguing question, “Has anyone knit the Clapotis?”

Naturally every time I saw this, the only thing I could think was, “That sounds like an extremely painful STD.”

Which was fine to think, but then an important gateway guarding the flow of action between my brain and my fingers broke down, and I actually wrote that on the message board.

(Important Side Note: For which I totally blame the Prednisone. Or actually, the fact that I’m slowly getting off of it. And my system is punishing me for taking away its PRE-SSSHHHUUUSSS!!, because without it I am Cranky McBitchyPants, but as soon as I take my ever-decreasing dose I am In Love With The Entire World. Well, except for the part that projectile-vomits all over the hallway and then wants to sit in my lap. That part’s a little hard to take no matter what I’m on.)

And let me tell you something. Apparently, The Clapotis? Is no laughing matter. Because except for explaining exactly what a Clapotis is (“a wide scarf/small shawl knitted on the bias with columns of dropped stitches that make waves on the purl side of the fabric”, in case you were wondering), no one has written anything else on this thread. And not only that-I’ve managed to shut down communication on the entire board.

Apparently I need to be a little more careful the next time I Use My Powers.

Just In Case

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This past weekend my husband had to go out of town, and since I haven’t yet reached the point in my recovery where I can stay by myself for extended periods of time, my parents came to stay with me.

We started talking about all the TV shows we love to watch, and how glad we are that the writer’s strike is finally over and there are finally new episodes for us to watch. And then suddenly, in the tones of someone undergoing an exhaustive cross-examination at the hands of a crack prosecutor, my mom announced,

“And I already know which shows I’d pick if something happened, and I was only ever allowed to watch 2 shows for the rest of my life.”

I totally understand this behavior, this compulsion to try and anticipate every possible situation one might encounter in the future, and then formulate an appropriate response and/or defense strategy. I myself am quite skilled at it.

Not surprisingly then, many of the sessions with my coach involve the two of us delving into my extensive library of Scary Stuff I’ve Made Up In My Head and attempting to clear out this dense cloud of thought forms.

In one particular session we were having a hard time breaking through, so in an effort to make her point my coach asked, “Well, do you worry about having to learn Braille, just in case you ever go blind?”, thinking that surely, this extreme example would help me to see how irrational I was being.

But apparently she had forgotten who she was talking to, because OF COURSE I said, yes! “Yes, I worry about having to learn Braille, just in case I go blind one day.” Because…doesn’t everyone?

Sometimes, I even scare myself.

I Think The Universe Might Be Messing With Me

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As I believe I might’ve mentioned here once or twice, I have worked tirelessly through years of living with depression, only to emerge, hopeful and blinking into the sunlight, to discover that now I have to learn to manage an anxiety disorder. (As I am trying to make this a mostly-family-friendly blog, I’ll just go ahead and censor my reaction to this little discovery.)

You wouldn’t really know it unless you were my husband, and had to listen this every time you came to visit me in my office: “Oh my god, you did NOT just throw your dirty socks on my office floor, did you?! Oh, the pain! The burning! I’m m-e-l-t-i-n-g…”

I used to think that this was just one of my, um, “personality quirks” until I went to a new therapist and had to fill out an anxiety assessment. As in, “Does your need to clean interfere with your daily life?” (My Response: None of your damn business!) Also, there was an entire section that dealt with one’s anxiety in dealing with “fecal matter” (hm, can’t wait to see what kind of spam I start to get now), which made me feel a lot better about the fact that in 35 years I have never once changed a diaper, and as God as my witness, I NEVER WILL!!, bonding with any future nieces and nephews be damned!

The main way that this disorder manifests for me is that in my mind, whenever I’m reading a book, watching TV, listening to the radio, or listening to anyone speak, I am constantly counting the number of syllables I hear and gathering them into groups of even-numbered words that add up to eight syllables (as in, eight one-syllable words, two four-syllable words, etc.)

So I’m on this new medication to help ease all my symptoms of anxiety, and I’m eagerly awaiting the day when my mind will once again belong to me rather than my OCD thoughts, and then we bought the game “Brain Age” for the Nintendo DS. It’s this little regimen of activities to help enhance your brain function, and do you know what one of the training exercises is? That’s right-syllable counting.

Someone is actually lauding my crazy-ass mental disorder as a skill to be devoutly desired and actively pursued. In a competitive, timed game that rewards you, the quicker and more accurate your syllable-counting skill becomes.

Somehow, that just doesn’t seem right.

But of course I played it, because who wouldn‘t leap on the chance to actively flaunt what is, (unfortunately, in this case), the one thing they are best at in the whole entire world.

When you finish the test they rank your ability in terms of things that move, like a person walking, a bicycle, etc.

Can you guess what my speed was?

ROCKET. SHIP.

I can’t decide whether to celebrate, or to ask for an increase in my meds.