Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

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The Chocolate And Radish Experiment

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A few months ago my Partner-In-Crime, Lynne, told me about a study detailing the Chocolate And Radish Experiment (carried out by Roy Baumeister, Ellen Bratslavsky, Mark Muraven, and Dianne Tice), in which a group of  researchers set about exploring a person’s capacity for willpower and self-control by pushing those abilities to their limits.

This was interesting to me because, as a chronic pain patient, I need a level of willpower I never could’ve dreamed was possible just so I can bear living each day with unbearable, debilitating pain. As a matter of fact, my fellow sufferers and I have pretty much elevated willpower into our own personal Super Power.

I need willpower to help me get up and face the day, even when I’ve woken up to day number 847,000 of my current pain cycle.

I need willpower to help me continue to take my meds, exercise, stretch, meditate, take a hot bath, lay on an icepack, track my symptoms, do some EFT, increase my Lyrica, decrease my Lyrica, go to the chiropractor,  and all the other things I do to support my body, even when none of them seems to be doing a damn bit of good.

I need willpower to help me stay on the couch, breathing in and out, when all I really want to do is run shrieking down the street, tearing off my clothes and ripping out my hair, and then throw myself in front of a bus.

I need willpower to challenge the thinking of my Pain Brain, which attacks me at my lowest and most vulnerable to shriek at me that I am just a burden, a weakling who doesn’t contribute anything at all to my life or the life of those around me.

And, ironically, willpower is what I need in order to finally surrender my bracing-against, “I-will-bend-you-to-my-will!”, pushing against my pain (which makes it a billion times worse), so I can relax a bit and get a touch of ease and relief.

However-and unfortunately, this is something that we sufferers are EVEN MORE familiar with-eventually, willpower gives out. That’s what these researchers wanted to explore: what is involved in exercising and sustaining willpower, and what happens when willpower runs out.

“In the first part of the trial, Baumeister kept the 67 study participants in a room that smelled of freshly baked chocolate cookies and then teased them further by showing them the actual treats alongside other chocolate-flavored confections. While some did get to indulge their sweet tooth, the subjects in the experimental condition, whose resolves were being tested, were asked to eat radishes instead. And they weren’t happy about it. As the scientists noted in their Journal of Personality and Social Psychology paper two years later (PDF), many of the radish-eaters “exhibit[ed] clear interest in the chocolates, to the point of looking longingly at the chocolate display and in a few cases even picking up the cookies to sniff at them.

…After the food bait-and-switch, Baumeister’s team gave the participants a second, supposedly unrelated exercise, a persistence-testing puzzle. The effect of the manipulation was immediate and undeniable. Those who ate radishes made far fewer attempts and devoted less than half the time solving the puzzle compared to the chocolate-eating participants and a control group that only joined this latter phase of the study. In other words, those who had to resist the sweets and force themselves to eat pungent vegetables could no longer find the will to fully engage in another torturous task. They were already too tired.” (Emphasis mine.)

This is pretty much the essence of what it is like to live with a chronic illness.

But please know that I am absolutely not saying that we’re the only people who feel pain or experience stress-not at all. Holy cow-we all have to eat radishes, all the time.

It’s just that when you live in such a constantly impaired state, this process and its affects are exaggerated to the most extreme degree possible. And you rarely ever get any relief, or at least, not enough to ever really be able to replenish yourself. Plus there’s the added discouragement of having nothing external to show for all the superhuman effort you’ve put forth in surviving days upon weeks upon months in unrelenting pain. It’s not like we  ever win a gold medal in the Holding Your Shit Together Olympics. (Although we TOTALLY should. We can teach the world a thing or two about marathons and other Olympian Feats.)

Plus, there’s the fact that one of the causes/effects (of fibromyalgia, at least) is that you spend your nights experiencing what is laughingly called “non-restorative” sleep. Which means that the things that is supposed to help us heal is just another agony to be endured (EVEN IN SLEEP, THE RADISHES FIND US.)

I know that this is kind of a bummer of a post (YOU’RE WELCOME!), but it will not surprise you to learn that I’ve been in a pain cycle that’s lasted for almost 3 months now. This sucks enormous donkey balls for many reasons, but one of the worst is that when I’ve been so strung out for so many days in a row, some of the metaphorical chocolate chip cookies I use to help myself feel a bit more comfortable start to turn into things that feel like radishes instead. Even my snark-my saving grace-runs out (damn you, fibromyalgia.) (See-I’m too exhausted to even rant in capital letters anymore.)

So pretty much the only thing I’m up for doing these days is sitting on the couch and watching reality TV on TLC and the Discovery Channel (last night: “How Booze Built America”). And there have been lovely chocolate chip cookie stand-ins like Coca-Cola and regular M&M’S, and I have finally figured out the combination of meds I need in order to get some sustained relief from this pain. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been able to write again the past week or two. So life is looking better by the minute.

In an ideal world I would have something insightful and lightly humorous to conclude with here, but all I’ve got right now is a Pain Brain that is trying to convince me that this piece is totally stupid and dumb and not worth posting, so I’m going to hit publish really fast and then go learn about rum and the American Revolution. (Rum? Or whiskey, maybe? Clearly I need the wisdom this show is offering.)

And in case you’re in the middle of running your own marathon today, for whatever reason, this is me handing you a cup of water (or rum), and cheering you on as you pass by.

 

 

Cranky Fibro Girl And The Hostile Takeover, Pt. 2: A Place To Hang My Head

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So when last we left the spellbinding story of my Gallbladder Adventure my husband was transporting me to the Emergency Room so that, OMG! THE PAIN! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!

So we finally got there, just in time for us to…hurry up and wait.( FYI-apparently midnight Saturday night is the primo time for visiting the ER.) But happily, between his iPod and his Blackberry my husband was able to entertain himself. And I passed the time by hanging out in the hospital bathroom.

Now, I must tell you something about myself. (YOU: And this is different, how?) And it is that I have a MAJOR problem with germs, real or imagined. And I am S-E-R-I-O-S-L-Y OCD about this.

For example, let’s take the “towel situation” here at home.

We of course have dishtowels here that we use to clean the kitchen. But I am only able to use them if I am the one to take a clean towel out of the drawer and if I am the only one use it to do the kitchen chores. Once I hang it over the handle of the dishwasher I physically cannot use it anymore. I just can’t. Because, even though it is just the two of us here, living together in the bonds of holy matrimony for fourteen years and germ-ing it up together, if I even TRY and touch the towel again, or look at it, or stand on the same side of the kitchen as the dishwasher, I can feel in my nervous system each individual germ marching up from the towel onto my skin, cheering and chugging back some beer as they prepare to have their raucous way with my body.

So needless to say, public bathrooms are kind of a problem for me.

But people, on this night I was SETTING UP HOUSE in that hospital bathroom. If I could have, I would have moved in an air bed and a La-Z-Boy, because that’s just how much time we were spending together, that bathroom and I.

(And have I mentioned yet that I was wearing my jammies, my jammies that I dearly love, my jammies that have gotten me through so many bad days over the past 3 years, my jammies that are like a second skin? In the public bathroom? Touching Public Bathroom Stuff? AND I DIDN’T EVEN CARE? That is what pain can do to you, my friends.)

However, three-and-a-half hours later and four visit to my new little hidey-hole later I was starting to feel some relief, so I decided to tell my husband that we could go back home. But then, suddenly, I heard, “Ryan?”

And let me tell you-if a multitude of the heavenly host had suddenly descended from the sky in that moment and started serenading me, it would not have sounded sweeter than the sound of someone calling my name, telling me that I was next.

So I burst out of the bathroom and my husband booked it down the hallway in order to let The Name-Calling Man know that, “Yes! I am here! Please take me back to a room and heal me now!”

So I blissfully (if somewhat hunchback-edly) followed The Wonderful Man Who Called My Name back to the treatment rooms, right into Room 7, my new home away from home. And once I changed and got into bed I was finally able to…hurry up and wait some more. (Unexpected Bonus Information I Received While In The ER: Apparently walk-in patients come third, after people who arrive in ambulances and people who are complaining of chest pains. Whatever.)

However, the representatives from Admission, And How Will You Be Paying For This? could not have shown up more quickly, offering me the soothing panacea of approximately 8 trillion forms to sign, plus explaining, in loving detail, the entire history of hospital policies and procedures since the beginning of all time. Like I wasn’t in enough pain already.

Thankfully my husband was there to perform the role of Someone Who Was Actually Listening To What They Were Saying, and he didn’t seem to hear anything sketchy or objectionable.

But honestly, I don’t have a friggin’ clue as to what I signed that night. I would’ve signed anything they wanted if it would’ve made the drugs come a little more quickly. So it is entirely possible that a hospital representative could appear on our doorstep one day bearing proof that I accidentally signed away my husband’s flat-screen TV. (Although I really hope not, because I have no idea how I would explain that to him. The surgery card only goes so far.)

But finally, FINALLY, once the nice bureaucrats left, and once I’d completely abandoned all hope of any pain relief ever, in this lifetime or the next, there in my doorway,  shimmering in the glow of a glorious golden light stood the ER doctor or, as I preferred to think of him, The Man Who Could Get Those Drugs A-Flowing.

To be continued…

Thursday Thirteen #18: 2006 In Review

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2006 In Review

January1. The War Of The Rodents Begins

“You know how sometimes in life you start out with these great plans, and then unexpected things happen and you find yourself in a place that you never could’ve imagined? Well, that is happening to me now. But not in a misty, nostalgic, “oh, look at the funny twists of fate” kind of way. It’s more of an, “I wonder how I could erase certain parts of my memory without causing myself actual brain damage” kind of way.Because, through no fault of my own, and totally against my will, I am becoming…an Expert In Rats. Believe me-I have fought this tooth and nail (no pun intended). But these people keep on foisting off all of this unwanted knowledge on me, and unfortunately it’s the kind of knowledge that really sticks with you.”

2. The Name Of My Blog Is Born

“So last weekend my husband and I were at dinner with 3 other couples, and during the course of the conversation the woman next to me informed me that I was going to, and I quote, “H-E-double hockey sticks.” Oh, and not only was I going, but so was my husband. Oh, and not only was he going too, but the fact that he was going was also my fault.

Of course I couldn’t think of any snappy comebacks in the moment, but here are some responses I’ve come up with since then.

-“What?!”

-“Ah, yes, my powers are growing. I must be sure to use them only for good, and never for evil.”

February

3. We Begin The Process Of Divorcing Our Bank

“I decided that I was tired of paying the old bank every month just for the privilege of keeping my money there. So I found a new bank that doesn’t do that, which is very nice. Unfortunately, the new bank is located directly across the street from the old bank, a place I’ve frequented for the last 6 1/2 years, where, in the immortal words of Cheers, “everybody knows my name.”

So instead of being able to drift quietly away into my new banking relationship, letting my old bank have the time and space it needs to mourn the end of our association, I am forced to flaunt my new financial partnership in full view of the bank with whom I’ve just broken up.”

4. I Publicly Embrace My Fear Of Talking On The Phone

“I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there just are not words to describe just how much I love my BlackBerry.

But anyway, the point of all of this is that now I can stay in constant communication with all the people I like without actually having to speak with them on the phone. Because, and this has been a deep, dark secret of mine for a LONG time, I am a “phonophobiac”. Yes, that’s right. I am afraid of calling people on the phone.”

March

5. We Join Forces With The Gamers

“Recently my husband has been excited to find some new friends with which he can play video games. While I am an excellent wife and companion in many ways, I do not share his enjoyment of gaming. So it has been good for him to connect with others who do.

Last weekend one of The Gamers arrived at our house and announced: “I just went to Blockbuster and found The Best Game Ever! You’re a samurai, and you wake up one day, and all of your body parts have been stolen. You have to go out and fight the bad guys who took them so you can like, get your arms back and stuff!”

May

6. We Attempt To Keep Tender, Growing Things Alive

“Up until a few years ago I used to go around bragging all the time about how I had a “black thumb”. Unfortunately it was true that I was spectacularly unsuccessful in keeping alive plants, flowers, and a beta fish. But I never realized just how weird it was that basically I was saying, “You know, I just want to tell you how excited I am about this special talent of mine where I am really good at killing living things.”

Looking back now I really don’t know how my husband and I ever had enough confidence in our abilities to take in and nurture living creatures other than ourselves, given the fact that every time he goes out of town on a trip he has to sit me down, look me in the eye, and remind me to continue eating while he is gone. Or the fact that once my husband was in serious stomach pain for like 5 days, and it wasn’t until the day when he could no longer stand up straight and was walking around the house bent over at a 90 degree angle and I could actually physically overpower him and force him into the car that he went to the doctor to get treated.”

June

7. My Blog Turns 1-Yay!

“Unfortunately I was a little too miserable to notice before, what with the sinus pain and pressure, and the White Hot Nail Of Agony piercing my eardrum, and The Doctor Who Did Not Believe Me, but last Monday, June 12th, was the one year birthday of my blog!”

8. My Brother Gets Married

“So after sleeping for 16 hours, and then laying on the couch for the rest of the day after I got up and staring at the ceiling, I think I have finally recovered from the wedding. I know that as Americans we like to think we are on the leading edge of everything. But speaking as someone whose brother just married into a Polish family, when it comes to wedding receptions, we Americans have NOTHING on the rest of the world!

That was absolutely The Most Fun I have ever had at a wedding reception, and I only wish I had known just how much physical endurance it was going to require of me, so that I could have been preparing for it with a very strict training regimen over the past year.”

August

9. My Podcasts Are Born

“And lo, the heavens did open, and the angels did descend and pour forth their heavenly songs, because today, I created a Podcast. ALL. BY. MY. SELF!

To give you some idea of the magnitude of this achievement, just imagine if a rock, which moments before had been totally inert, suddenly came to life and began to expound on the principles of Quantum Physics in four languages simultaneously. That’s a pretty good metaphor for what happened here today.”

September

10. I Embrace My Inner Grammar Snob

“Apparently my powers have some limits. Because today, I broke my website. And you know what did me in? Pride.

And if there is anything that I am prideful over, it is the correct use of grammar and my own personal correct-grammar-using-abilities. In other words, I am a Grammar Snob.”

October

11. I Discover That Yup, I Was Right. I Really Don’t Like Coffee

“Back when I was in high school peer pressure was easy to spot, and there were always very clear-cut reasons available to me for saying “No”. Smoking? Um, no thanks, on account of all the cancer and all the death. Drinking? Hm, think I’ll pass as I have no desire for my parents to kill me for engaging in such behavior. Sex? I couldn’t stand anyone else’s children; I certainly didn’t want any of my own.

But by the time I finally finished school, got married, and entered my thirties, I began to relax. Surely, I thought, the time of being scorned for being “different” had passed.

Oh silly, naive woman.”

12. The Bank Divorce Continues

“Tomorrow we are going to break up with our bank. And I can’t wait!

Earlier this year I wrote about how I moved some of our accounts over to a new financial institution. Because, as I said, “I decided that I was tired of paying the old bank every month just for the privilege of keeping my money there.” More and more our monthly statements were starting to look like this:

Monthly Service Fees:

Driving past our building on the way to the grocery store: $3.00

Breathing air: $5.00″

December

13. My Secret Identity As A Witch Is Discovered

“My husband and just went to the grocery store to buy some dessert. As we were standing in the ice cream aisle, perusing all the choices, we heard the high-pitched sound of a little boy talking to his dad. Neither one of us really paid any attention to it, until we noticed that it wasn’t stopping. So we both looked up at the exact same moment, just in time to hear him yell, “The witch, daddy, the witch!” over and over again. And he was pointing? Directly at me.”


Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

(leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

I’m It

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Sparky, of “Philly Transplant”, just tagged me for the following meme:

The Rules:

Each player of this game starts with the “6 weird things about you”. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says “you are tagged” in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

I didn’t know how I could possibly pick out just six of my, um, “eccentricities”, so I decided to ask my husband what he would choose. So here is his list, about me.

“Well, you need to start with your toes,” was his first thought. Oh sure, Mr. “I-Have-Beautifully-Formed-Arches-And-Perfectly-Sculpted-Long-Elegant-Toes”, point out my completely flat feet with toes that curl under why don’t you. It’s not like my self-esteem has taken a big hit with that whole witch thing or anything. [Read more…] about I’m It

Keyword Roundup

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I am just loving my new blog tool, Hit Tail. It’s providing me with tons of data about my blog, which of course I am just passing right along to my engineer husband (AKA, “Someone who actually knows what to do with scientifically gathered data”.) And then that leaves all the fun stuff for me, like today’s Top Ten List:

The Top Ten Funniest Keywords Or Phrases People Are Using To Find My Blog On The Internet

10. using your witch powers

9. ostrich vomit

8. cat poo in tub

7. dirty jobs hippo

6. mike rowe tooth

5. benign wart on head

4. rats in our house

3. neon orange bug

2. naked vacation

1. ryan is a poo

Blog Carnival: Carnival Of Family Life

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Today’s edition of the Carnival Of Family Life is being held at Play Library.

My entry entitled, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, is a piece I wrote during a time when everyone around me was telling me WAY TOO MUCH about things I preferred not know about. Like, “Well since I’m here checking your basement for rats, let me vomit up every single piece of information I ever learned in rat catching school for your listening enjoyment.” Ugh!

Not So Much Funny As Cool

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, my husband and I live outside of Atlanta, in one of the many suburbs here in Northern Georgia. We do see a lot of wildlife here, but it is all pretty much what I consider to be Regular Wildlife. Things like dogs, cats, birds, squirrels (the bane of my cat, Tigger’s, existence), lizards, rats, and snakes. Anything else I classify as Exotic (what can I say? I’m a city girl.)

Once when he was mowing the lawn my husband found a turtle and called me outside to come and see it. I was fascinated with the turtle, and stared at it for a very long time, much like an infant who has just discovered that, “Wow! Not only do I have a foot, but I can put the entire thing in my mouth whenever I want to!” I insisted on taking pictures of it before we released it into the wild (AKA-the other side of our backyard fence), and I often wonder what happened to it and where it went after it left us.

However we do live next door to a great couple with a fabulous backyard garden. I refer to it as “The Corn”, because to me it is exactly like the magical cornfield in the movie, “Field of Dreams”: you never know just what might come walking out of there.

When we first moved into our house 7 years ago, before they built the neighborhood behind us, it was not uncommon to see the occasional deer amble by my window. And (and this is my favorite), there are rabbits that live back there. One of my favorite moments each year is the first time I see the bunnies again in spring. Unfortunately for my husband, this year’s moment occurred while we were talking on the phone. “BUNNIES!” I announced, causing him to temporarily lose all hearing so that the rest of our conversation had to be conducted via smoke signals.

I love the rabbits, especially when they come over to our backyard for a visit. So much so that all last summer I did nothing but watch as they devoured Every. Single. Hosta in our backyard. My attitude was not so much irritation as fascination: “Can they really fit an entire hosta leaf in their mouth all at once?” (Important Side Note: Yes, they can!)

So yesterday I was once again sitting in my office talking on the phone, when I saw something out the window that caused me to utter a very loud expletive. One that would have been appropriate if, say, masked intruders had suddenly entered my home and forced me, at gunpoint, to work on a math problem. Because all of a sudden, from out of The Corn there appeared…A Fox. A FOX! Right here in my suburban neighborhood!

It was so cool, and when I told my friend on the phone she thought it was cool too. But she lives in Colorado, and in my mind I imagine that (being part of The West) as a place where you can routinely find foxes ambling down the street, along with tumbleweed, coyotes, and men in chaps with big gold “Sheriff” stars pinned to their leather vests.

And the best part? She said that, to her knowledge, they are not carnivores. But they might eat rodents. And possibly even the occasional snake.

So there you have it. Our own little circle of life.

I Don’t Drink, But If I Started, This Would Be Why: Part 2

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The bug guy was here again today, to do our quarterly pest control as well as rodent maintenance.

As he was leaving he said, “Yeah, it’s a good thing we got the rat situation under control when we did because, you know what rats attract in the summer?”

He was laughing as he said this. My mind had totally stopped functioning, unable to imagine a new, potential creature-related horror.

Did I mention that he was laughing as he said, “I just love scaring you. In the summer, rats attract SNAKES.” [Read more…] about I Don’t Drink, But If I Started, This Would Be Why: Part 2

With Apologies To Dr. Seuss

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I do not like to smell you, rats,
nor hear your sounds-and that’s a fact!

I do not like to smell your poo,
or think of what you do for food.

I do not like to hear you scratch,
opening the crawl space latch.

I do not like you out-of-doors,
I do not like you in our floors.

I do not like to have you, rats,
and please beware-for we have cats!

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

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It was time once again for the bug guy’s weekly visit, and I am very happy to say that we appear to have turned the tide on the rodent situation. We may have lost many, many battles, but I believe we are finally winning the war.

The bug guy arrived at our house first thing this morning, so this time my husband was able to meet him. When my husband came back in the house he said, “Did you know [the buy guy’s] brother played football for Nebraska? And that he played in the National Championship in 1991?”

Um, no. Those are not the kind of special moments that the buy guy and I share. We have conversations like this:

“Yeah, once you start patching up the holes, you only start to see the small rats. They’re desperate for food, because they don’t have mommy and daddy around anymore. Because we killed ’em.”

So to sum up-my husband, fun guy to bond with; me, orphan-maker.