Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Dear Emily Post: Once Again You Have Failed Me

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

While there are many things I can’t do (math-especially word problems, logic puzzles, anything involving a car other than driving it, computer programming, and, oh, I’m also missing whatever gene it is that enables you to operate electric can openers), one area in which I truly excel is that of the hand-written thank you note.

I was trained exceptionally well in this art by my mother, who explained that a graceful and elegant thank you note included the following aspects:

1. It was written by hand.
2. It mentioned, by name, the gift you received, and
3. It specifically described the manner in which you were using and enjoying the gift.

I paid attention whenever my mom talked about the rules of etiquette while I was growing up, because etiquette was a subject her family took very seriously-to the point of having etiquette-related discussions and practice lessons during their dinner hour. It must have been quite a shock, then, for her to end up with a daughter like me. (See: “The Word Ass, My Deep And Abiding Love For”)

But I did take her thank-you note lessons with me when I moved out on my own, so that by the time my husband and I got engaged and began to receive wedding gifts, I had honed my gratitude expression skills to Olympian heights. I had all thank-you notes written and ready to send BEFORE THE CEREMONY for every gift received before the wedding (and yes, I am STILL extremely proud of that, even thirteen years later, SHUT UP!)

But the gold medal, the jewel in my gratitude crown came three weeks after the wedding, when sadly, my husband’s grandfather passed away. As the family were all standing in the receiving line after the wake, I was introduced to one of my husband’s parents’ friends who said excitedly, “Oh, you’re the one who wrote that charming thank you note!” And I was so, SO excited, as if I actually had just won a gold medal in a hotly contested Olympic event, and had just stepped onto the platform to watch the American flag rise to the tune of “The Star Spangled Banner”, because, OMG! My thank-you notes and I had a fan!

(Yes, I know, I’m a sad, scary woman. I can already hear my sister-in-law snorting at me from two states away.)

But now I’m facing a challenge that was never covered in my personal etiquette training, which is the fact that we were recently gifted with a…toilet. A slightly used toilet, at that. I’ve never been in this situation before, and so I’ve spent a very large amount of time and energy trying to figure out exactly what the hell the correct response is to such a gift.

Because first of all, if I tried to use The Three Rules Of Thank-You Notes, well, then, er, you can see exactly where THAT would go-all my hard work and the reputation I’ve built up would go right down the…um, never mind.

Also, it doesn’t help that I’m still a little hazy on just how, exactly, we became the recipients of such a gift. I seem to remember my husband arriving home from work one day with a boxed-up toilet in the back of the Explorer, and joyfully announcing, “Guess what? [A guy from work] gave us a toilet!” It was really hard for me to share in his excitement because, 1-that was really weird, and, 2-I didn’t know we needed a toilet, and 3-did this guy just happen to have an extra toilet just lying around the house, and then one day he was all, “Hm, I wonder what I should do with this?” And then thought something like, “Extra toilet? I know-this would be perfect for the Ryans!”, and 4-EEWW, MY HUSBAND JUST BROUGHT HOME SOMEONE’S USED TOILET IN OUR CAR, AND NOW MY OCD HAS BEEN TRIGGERED SO BADLY THAT I WILL PROBABLY JUST DIE, RIGHT HERE IN THE GARAGE! I HOPE THE TOILET WAS WORTH IT!

Also, I know how things can sometimes go around here, and I was really afraid that this toilet would turn out to be exactly like The Horse Poo Episode of a few years back. (Important Side Note: And while we’re on that subject, earlier in the week my husband turned to me and asked, “Do we have any plans for Saturday?” “No,” I answered, wondering what cool thing he might be planning. “Why?” “Because I think it’s time to put in another order for some poo,” he replied.)

But happily, my husband was just as eager to install the toilet as I was to not have it sit in our garage for months and months, and so it has happily taken up residence in our bathroom and begun to perform its duties. (We shall not speak of its predecessor, which as of this writing still does reside in the garage. But I’m sure it is actually just moments away from being dragged to the curb by The Person Who Wanted A New Toilet In The First Place, And Who Is Not Currently Suffering From A Chronic Pain Disorder And Chronic Fatigue Like Some Other People Who Live Here, If You Get My Drift.)

Meanwhile, I’m just gonna have to hope that my husband was adequately able to express our thanks and gratitude to the toilet’s former owner because, honestly, hell if I know how to do it. But, in a fitting and ironic conclusion to this story, I will most likely be spending this weekend up to my ankles in s*&%.

My Week, A La Twitter

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1. Health, or Whatever Passes For It These Days

March 22

3:44 PM Dear fibromyalgia: Why do you continue finding new ways to make me suffer? What did I ever do to you?

March 24

8:47 AM When your doctor tells you he can work you in to aspirate your swollen knee, do yourself a favor and do NOT google “aspirate” ahead of time.

8:51 AM I’m sure the imaging people hear all kinds of dubious excuses , but I really DID have to call out sick from my mammogram today.Honest.

10:34 AM Went to the doctor for my knee, came out with a diagnosis of high blood pressure.

10:34 AM Also: last month doctor said it was best not to take pain meds if at all possible; this month he said I can take up to 6 a day. WTF?

11:03 AM So now I have to figure out how to go low-sodium. I wonder if there’s such a thing as low-salt salt?

March 25

11:24 AM Now that I have to monitor my sodium intake, I’ve discovered this: the world is not made of atoms; the world is made of salt.

2. The Cats, and Other Assorted Wildlife

March 22

7:45 PM After all these years I really should’ve known. Tigger didn’t want me for affection; he wanted me for food. Silly me.

March 25

5:03 PM Tigger, I’m going to have to stop referring to you as “The Smart One” if you continue to eat your own hair off of the floor.

March 26

8:03 AM I would really like to think that my life has a larger purpose than simply that of being Servant To Their Mighty Royal Feline Highnesses.

March 28

10:17 AM The ants are now swarming across the kitchen floor. Perhaps it’s time to move and just let them have the house.

3. Miscellaneous

March 23

1:45 PM Oh, Twitter “group” organizing option, how you do captivate and seduce my pink, puffy, OCD heart!

March 25

2:51 PM Am tattooing this to my forehead: “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.” — Charles Dickens

March 28

10:20 AM Well it’s taken a while, but happily I no longer want to punch all the characters from the “Dollhouse” in the face at the end of every show.

11:34 AM Oh Russell Stover Chocolate Maple Cream Easter Egg, once again I have succumbed to your siren song.

I Can Haz More Medical Problemz?

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

When my brother and I were growing up, my mom used to joke that he ought to have his own Frequent User Pass to the emergency room, since she ended up having to take him there so often. That’s how I’m feeling right now about every single one of my personal health care professionals, because I have to spend so much time in their offices these days. It’s a good thing I only have 2 tutoring clients right now, because managing my health care situation is a freaking full time job.

Fortunately, I have found really good doctors in all of the areas in which I need assistance. Unfortunately, none of them are near me, and none of them are near each other, either. So if you imagine Georgia as the entire Southeastern United States, then, say, on Monday, I will be seeing a doctor in Florida, on Tuesday I will have to go over to Tennessee, and on Thursday I will need to be up in North Carolina. If I could figure out how to get some kind of “frequent driver miles” deal, like people have with their credit cards and airline miles, we’d probably have enough points for round trip tickets to Hawaii by now. Not that we could actually go, since I can’t really travel much farther than my own living room right now, ON ACCOUNT OF ALL MY FUCKING HEALTH ISSUES!! It’s a vicious cycle.

So anyway, I had to travel to Metaphorical Alabama yesterday, since my left knee apparently thought it would be a good idea to spend the past week turning itself into a liquid pool of raging fire, and my pain management strategy of stabbing it repeatedly with a very sharp knife really wasn’t working all that well for me. So I went in to be seen for my knee, and I came out with…a diagnosis of high blood pressure. Which was weird, but kind of a relief, since I’d spoken with my doctor the night before and he’d mentioned the possibility of “aspirating the knee”, which I made the mistake of googling, and which turns out to mean something like, “sucking out the offending fluids with a syringe.” Which is attached to a needle. Which HURTS. But taking a pill? Hell, yeah, that’s easy. I’ve actually done that once, or twice, or eleventy thousand times before.

The high blood pressure thing wasn’t totally a surprise-it’s been slowly creeping up on me over the past couple of years, and there’s a long history of it in my family. But it still sucks. And after I recovered from the giddiness induced by Not Needing To Be Stuck In The Knee With A Giant Needle, I started contemplating how this new medical condition just provided further evidence of my epic failure as a human being. Because that’s what I do. Because deep, deep down inside I know that if I could just figure out how to “be better“, then none of this stuff would have happened to me. Because, as we all know, fibromyalgia, and sleep apnea, and high blood pressure are all questions of morality, and are personal judgments on your particular worthiness as a human being. And a heaping scoop of inner-directed loathing, topped with some intense self-hatred makes everything better.

It doesn’t help that I weigh more than is healthy for me, and so it’s easy for me to go off into the magical thinking that says that, if I could’ve just figured out how to stay thin, then I wouldn’t have any health problems. So I was hanging out in this story yesterday when, much like Saul of Tarsus, I was knocked to the ground by The Blinding Light Of The Universe Laughing Its Ass Off At Me. Because, HELLO, HAD I FORGOTTEN WHO I WAS?! I have always had health problems, since the moment of my birth. They started with a belly button that refused to heal and eight weeks of colic, and have continued apace right up until this very moment. As a matter of fact, I believe I spent all of grades 1-4 in my pediatrician’s office, being treated for one, unending ear infection.

Which doesn’t make this any easier. But it did at least snap me out of longing for the Imaginary Good Old Days of never being sick, and allow me to start pondering what’s next: finding out if there possibly is such as thing as low-salt salt.

My Twittery Week In Review

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Fur Babies

March 17

8:04am Dear Tigger: Despite what you apparently believe, my office isn’t a playground for the expression of your wanton appetites of destruction.

3:48om Dear Pip: Despite popular belief, the guest bathroom counter does not exist solely for your barfing pleasure.

5:41 pm Dear Bailey: Despite what you may believe, splaying yourself across my desk while I am working will NOT result in an extra can of cat food.

March 19

7:34am Dear Bailey: Why do you think I want you to sleep on my pillow, next to my face, right after you’ve barfed all over the living room? I don’t.

March 21

5:20pm Pip, It’s creepy enough that you lick the top of my chair and rub your face in it in ecstasy. Could you at least wait until I’m OUT of the chair?

8:22pm We just bought a new kind of cat food, and now I cannot stop giggling over the phrase, “meaty bits.” Because I am twelve.

Wild Kingdom

March 17

8:09am I’m pretty sure DH’s wedding vows included “dealing with all bugs”; how did I get stuck with clearing the ant infestation from the tub?

March 18

8:26am Ants are attempting hostile takeover of tub. Baths are cornerstone of my fibro management program. This is going to end badly for someone.

March 19

11:42am Conflict Escalation Update: The Bug Guy has returned to unleash a massive blitzkrieg against the ants in my tub. Don’t mess with my tub!

March 20

9:14am Am worried by my joy as ants perish in the bathroom. Apparently my inner Genghis Khan is coming to the fore.

In Other News

March 15

12:31pm Have finally located some Thin Mints! This day just keeps getting better!

March 17

9:11am It’s official: I’m a knitting school dropout. My inner “Good Student” is not taking it well at all.

11:18am Mint /chocolate levels are restored to acceptable levels. But, I’ve learned there’s a GS cookie WAREHOUSE nearby. How strong can 1 woman be?

March 18

10:55am Running out of things to do to avoid having to schedule my first mammogram.

March 20

9:51am Note to self: Reading self-improvement articles when you’ve hit a 10 on the fibromyalgia pain scale is a REALLY bad idea.

4:12pm Just picked up replacement mirror for the one I broke by whacking it into the side of the garage. ‘Cuz I drive reel gud.

March 21

12:30 pm DH learned newly turned patch of earth is not final resting place of possibly murdered next door neighbor but prep for a tomato patch. Whew!

The Week In Review, Brought To You By Twitter

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Knitting

March 10

4:26 pm My inner nerd is experiencing a severe identity crisis due to my need for remedial work in my sweater knitting class.

4:59 pm Bad: fibro flare-up today. Good: Am thinking that pain-medicine-intoxication will TOTALLY “spice up” my remedial knitting work.

March 12

11:39 am Sadly, not even pain meds PLUS Mark Harmon PLUS Mint Milanos can ease the pain of 20″ of off-white garter stitch.

11:40 am Is there such a thing as “sweater rage”? Because I seriously think I have it.

March 13

10:19 am Am wondering how many more physical ailments I’ll have to develop before I finally admit that the sweater knitting has defeated me.

12:11 pm My Embarrassingly Obvious Yet Hard-Won Insight of The Week: Hobbies should not drive you to any form of substance abuse.

Life’s Little Pleasures

March 8

5:32 pm Going out to locate some Girl Scout cookies. I think Thin Mints would help cure an earache, don’t you?

March 10

4:24 pm Still can’t find any freaking Girl Scouts! Am soothing my grief at the absence of Thin Mints with some Mint Milanos.

March 14

10: 57 am To the Girl Scout Troop in front of Kroger: Don’t try to foist off your inferior cookie selections on me-it’s Thin Mints or nothing at all!

Comment received on blog post from earlier in the week: “Interesting that while your area appears to have a deficit of Thin Mints, my daughter’s troop has a surplus. I’d offer to send a few boxes to you, but I suspect that would be like offering some Jack Daniels to an alcoholic.”

Miscellaneous

March 11

9:31 am Am starting my own drinking game based on number of times per day I have to yell, “Hey-that’s not a scratching post!”

March 13

8:54 am The bug guy is coming to spray our house this morning. This is the start of our 6th year together. Does that mean I need to get him a gift?

4:47 pm Can’t stop thinking that freshly turned patch of earth is where next door neighbor killed and buried his elderly mother. Damn NCIS!

March 14

4:03 pm Just attempted Dance of Shiva vertical arms, and have now impaled myself on my own elbows.

The Perfect Finish To The Weekend

March 15

1:10 pm Just returned from lunch where I heard a story that started with, “One time my mother shot a deer in the ass.” More on that later.

Dear All The Birds Currently Flying Around In My Backyard

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Image courtesy of Free Foto.

Hello, and welcome.

I realize that we are all pretty excited about the return of spring, the chance to frolic in the birdbath, and the opportunity to make new little baby birds.

But I would really appreciate it if you could reign in your enthusiasm enough to STOP ACCIDENTALLY COMMITTING SUICIDE BY YOUR KAMIKAZE-LIKE SMASHING INTO THE MIDDLE OF MY OFFICE WINDOW, AND THEN FALLING INTO A LIFELESS, PATHETIC HEAP ONTO THE SIDEWALK.

This is really starting to bum me out, and it’s not like I don’t already have a lot on my place or anything, what with the whole living with a chronic pain disorder thing.

I really don’t like having to have a dedicated “Dead Bird Removal Tool” living in our garage.

So if you could maybe tone things down just a bit, that would be great.

Thanks so much,

Jenny

Just Another Manic Monday

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A good friend of mine sent me an email last week asking me some questions about a great product she’s created which helps people who are having trouble with their body image. I really wanted to give her a well-thought-out, helpful, insightful answer, but I haven’t quite been able to yet, as I explained in my response.

“I just wanted to let you know that I got your email-as a matter of fact, I was reading it on my Blackberry as I was on the way to the freezer to get some more Thin Mints, and so I was all, “What? Body Image? La la la la la, I can’t HEAR you!”

“And then, surprise! My husband decided at the last minute to got skiing this week with his dad, which meant that my father-in-law came down to stay with us Friday night, and of course the guest bathroom is all torn up because last summer someone was all, “Hm, I think it would be a really good idea to completely redo this bathroom,” and then someone else was all, “No, I have a BETTER idea-I’ll contract a painful chronic illness which will suck up all the available time and energy in our lives!” So my husband was like, “Well, we’re gonna have to let my dad use our bathroom,” and I was all, “ABSOLUTELY NOT! I AM NOT SHARING MY BATHTUB WITH ANYONE. YOU JUST CALL HIM UP AND TELL HIM THAT HE WILL HAVE TO STAY DIRTY!!” Because I’m all hospitable like that.

“And then I’m having to do all this remedial work for my sweater knitting class, which is really hard, and which is causing me to have a huge identity crisis, because, OMG!, I’m not the best student in the class!”

“And now the ants have started taking over our kitchen, which means that I am constantly having to massacre them with Windex, because even though I am all about supporting wildlife, I MAKE AN EXCEPTION WHEN IT’S SWARMING ALL OVER MY KITCHEN COUNTERS.”

“And so basically I have been exerting every last particle of my will towards the goal of not actually eating my entire house, as well as driving all over town, because, hello, Where are all the damn Girl Scouts and their cookies when you really need them?!”

“So I haven’t really felt like I was in the best place to offer insight on this issue right now, except for this little nugget: Keeping Thin Mints in the freezer=really not as effective a barrier as one might hope.”

“So, how are things with you?”

And I Haven’t Even Taken Any Pain Medicine Lately

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Nineteen years ago last month (!!!!) I attended my first official outing as my husband’s (then brand-new boyfriend’s) girlfriend, when I went to the ceremony in which he would be presented with his Eagle Scout award. I was pretty anxious about this whole situation because it involved going to a Catholic mass, and I myself had never really ventured outside the protective bounds of my safe little evangelical, fundamentalist Protestant world.

Being the sensitive guy that he is, he picked up on my nervousness, and also being the kind of person who likes to poke people in their vulnerable spots with hot, flaming, pointy sticks tease, he took advantage of my unfamiliarity with Catholicism to sort of “build the suspense” as it were, and allude to the fact that there was going to be A Very Special Surprise at this particular mass. Unfortunately, he was quite young, and hadn’t ever learned that there were people in the world who considered the Catholic Church to be the demonic offspring of the Anti-Christ and The Whore Of Babylon, and so was unaware of the increasing psychic burden he was placing upon me.

By the night of the ceremony I was completely freaked out, so I asked my mom if she would come with me, and she said yes. This was pretty hysterical now that I think about it, because if ever there were two “Good Girls” who would do anything to keep the peace and make sure that everyone liked them, it would be us (“What? Oh, you need some naked maidens to lie down on this altar up here, right underneath all those very large knives? Yeah, okay, sure. Where do we change?”) (So the moral of this story would be, Two Good Girls=No Protection Whatsoever Against Imagined Incursions By Hostile, Alien Religions.)

As it turns out, the Very Special Surprise ended up being nothing more than “The Blessing Of The Throats”, where they put two holy candles on your throat and bless you as a sort of a protection against getting sick, which, given the events of the past year, is actually pretty tame. (See: “Stool Transplants”, or, “The Horrifying Last Resort Treatment For C DIFF Which Thank God I Didn’t Have To Endure, But Which My Doctor Thinks Is Hilarious To Remind Me Of Every Time I Go In For An Office Visit, Even Though I’ve Been Free Of The Disease For Over A Year Now.)

But I am happy to report that everyone survived this incident completely intact, and he and I are getting ready to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary, and he has continued to be involved with Scouting over the years.

The reason I am bringing all of this up now is that he recently received the latest issue of “Scouting” magazine which has been lying on our kitchen table all week. It features a cover story entitled, “Camp Cooking Winners,” but every time I walk by I read it as “Camp Cooking Wieners“, which is no surprise, because despite my chronological age (thirty-six), I’m pretty sure that internally I’ve never gotten past the age of twelve.

However now that I am (allegedly) a grown-up, I feel a certain responsibility to “walk the moral high ground”, as it were, and refrain from even the thought of sexual euphemisms when it comes to an organization that deals with young children. I told my husband that I could feel the eyes of the Troop Leader featured on the cover following me whenever I walked by, silently condemning me for my improper behavior.

“Well if it really bothers you,” he said, “we can just turn the magazine over.” Which he did.

But unfortunately, this didn’t help at all. Because the entire back cover of the magazine is a full-sized ad which proclaims,

“NUTS FOR SCOUTING!”

Sometimes The Universe Winks At You

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I had to go to the doctor today and get my medications adjusted, as the past two months have pretty much felt like one, giant panic attack. As I was sitting in the waiting room, pretending that I was not seconds away from jumping out of my own skin, I was happily distracted by the woman across from me who suddenly asked, “Now, why are you taking off your clothes at the doctor’s office?’

I looked up, expecting to see a mother talking to a child, a situation which I could totally understand. As legend has it, as a toddler I myself was wont to throw off all my clothes at the slightest provocation, whenever I wanted to underscore a Very Important Point I was trying to make with my parents, such as, “Look at me!”, or, “Hey, I’m naked!”, or, “I would like some French Fries, please!’

However I was quite surprised to see that it was not a child, but rather a man in his 70’s or 80’s who was being asked about his sudden urge to unclothe. From what I could see he had entered the doctor’s office wearing anywhere from 7-10 shirts all at once, and was now delighting in deliberately removing them, one by one, and then folding them carefully and precisely into a pile on his lap.

That in itself was pretty funny, but the best part of the whole situation was the look of utter and absolute glee on this man’s face. It was as if he just couldn’t believe that he lived in a universe where he got to wear ten shirts at a time, and then remove them all in front of other people.

I couldn’t help but feel that this was a little gift for me from the Universe, just it’s way of saying, “Hey, don’t worry, we’ve got your back. You’re gonna be just fine.”

Either that, or the Universe really wants to see me naked.