My back, which has been causing massive amounts of pain for 15 years now STARTS the day almost painless. As I stress it, it gets achey, and I still can't do much, but this weekend I did housework at a consistent (tho slow) pace. That might not sound like much, but it is better than I have done for ages. It has been feeling so painless lately that I have finally canceled my one remaining narcotic scrip. I havent been taking them anyway, but the scrip was always there is a way of getting through the pain, thinking if it gets too bad, I can always fill that scrip.
Thinking about going back to karate soon, and fully participating. That might be a bit soon and a bit overambitious, but I am still just thinking about it.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Bitch Bitch Bitch (political post)
It isn't a word I use a lot, except when my hand is firmly intertwined in Bastet's.... well, never mind that. I don't use it as a descriptive term, nor do I use it as an insult unles it is appropriate, and then, almost universally to describe a male behaving in a petulant, jeuvanile manner. (ex. "Stop being a little bitch about it"!)
When used as an insulting comment about a woman, it usually means one thing: Agressive Woman Who Won't Change Her Mind When She's Told. In that I absolutely love intelligent aggressive women who are not intimidated by me, I hardly consider that a slur.
I know women who bear the title proudly, who court the word and use it as a badge of pride.
If Hillary Clinton wants to get elected president of the united states, she CANNOT run from that word, or that concept, she has to OWN it. She has to smile to herself, and to everybody else, be proud every time an insecure male idiot refers to it, or a jealous woman spits it at her.
Because she is a bitch, by the definition I am using, and I think it is a pretty accurate one, close to what people really mean when they use it.
Hillary DOESN'T know her place, and she shouldnt. She is, at the moment, engaged in the process of MAKING her place. And she had better own the word that best describes her.
When used as an insulting comment about a woman, it usually means one thing: Agressive Woman Who Won't Change Her Mind When She's Told. In that I absolutely love intelligent aggressive women who are not intimidated by me, I hardly consider that a slur.
I know women who bear the title proudly, who court the word and use it as a badge of pride.
If Hillary Clinton wants to get elected president of the united states, she CANNOT run from that word, or that concept, she has to OWN it. She has to smile to herself, and to everybody else, be proud every time an insecure male idiot refers to it, or a jealous woman spits it at her.
Because she is a bitch, by the definition I am using, and I think it is a pretty accurate one, close to what people really mean when they use it.
Hillary DOESN'T know her place, and she shouldnt. She is, at the moment, engaged in the process of MAKING her place. And she had better own the word that best describes her.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Where, oh where, has my week gone?
Sooooooo, it turns out that I am missing 7 days from my life, five in one chunk, and two in another. Here is what happened:
I went to the E/R and got medication that lowered my blood pressure. And I don't remember the next 5 days. I only understood this last night, when I took my family out to dinner and we talked. Turns out I was a complete (tho nonviolent) asshole. "Grumpy" is the word my very pleasant and nonjudgemental wife used, which, coming from her, is a very severe statement.
I realized this was happening almost immediately (from my perspective, anyway) and wanted to go off the med the next day, but since I was scared to death of ... well... death, I kept taking it. From my perspective, I kept taking it for two days, but from the perspective of everybody else, it took me 7 days. I then called the Doc and asked if it was dangerous to stop taking the med suddenly, and they said I needed to keep taking it and the "side effects" would eventually subside. Now, judging from the number of pills that are left, I stopped taking the med about two days before I 'woke up'. After talking with the doctor, I took another dose, and lost the next two days.
While I was out, I drove, talked with people (including my oldest and dearest friend, on the phone, for a few HOURS) and nobody but my wife noticed that anything was wrong.
I have stopped taking that med. This condition is terrifying and very hard to deal with.
Under normal circumstances I am a VERY controlled person. It does not always seem that way because I am vehement and loud, but it is true. Even in the height of anger or depression, I always know what I am doing. To spend LARGE chunks of life out of control is horrifying, like living in a nightmare.
I went to the E/R and got medication that lowered my blood pressure. And I don't remember the next 5 days. I only understood this last night, when I took my family out to dinner and we talked. Turns out I was a complete (tho nonviolent) asshole. "Grumpy" is the word my very pleasant and nonjudgemental wife used, which, coming from her, is a very severe statement.
I realized this was happening almost immediately (from my perspective, anyway) and wanted to go off the med the next day, but since I was scared to death of ... well... death, I kept taking it. From my perspective, I kept taking it for two days, but from the perspective of everybody else, it took me 7 days. I then called the Doc and asked if it was dangerous to stop taking the med suddenly, and they said I needed to keep taking it and the "side effects" would eventually subside. Now, judging from the number of pills that are left, I stopped taking the med about two days before I 'woke up'. After talking with the doctor, I took another dose, and lost the next two days.
While I was out, I drove, talked with people (including my oldest and dearest friend, on the phone, for a few HOURS) and nobody but my wife noticed that anything was wrong.
I have stopped taking that med. This condition is terrifying and very hard to deal with.
Under normal circumstances I am a VERY controlled person. It does not always seem that way because I am vehement and loud, but it is true. Even in the height of anger or depression, I always know what I am doing. To spend LARGE chunks of life out of control is horrifying, like living in a nightmare.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Headlines I'd like to see
Dick Cheney sodomized with a rusty wire whisk by angry waterboarded ex-detainees
Micheal Mukasey reveals garden-gnome ancestry 'no, I didn't do it on purpose!' mother retorts, 'I was just plantin' potatos and 'ee snuck up on me. And he didn't have a condom'
Secret Origin of Humanity revealed! Aliens return to earth to harvest republican conservative brains. Xenospokesman Louboo Smarmeling tells us that "It is a culinary miracle! When we first terraformed your puny little planet, we were thinking 'apetizer', but when we came back to see if you were ready yet, we were surprised! You humans, especially you conservative republicans, have the best tasting brains of any known world, and we have sampled many"
Micheal Mukasey reveals garden-gnome ancestry 'no, I didn't do it on purpose!' mother retorts, 'I was just plantin' potatos and 'ee snuck up on me. And he didn't have a condom'
Secret Origin of Humanity revealed! Aliens return to earth to harvest republican conservative brains. Xenospokesman Louboo Smarmeling tells us that "It is a culinary miracle! When we first terraformed your puny little planet, we were thinking 'apetizer', but when we came back to see if you were ready yet, we were surprised! You humans, especially you conservative republicans, have the best tasting brains of any known world, and we have sampled many"
Friday, November 9, 2007
I promise, this is the last time I will moan whine and complain
and if you believe that, I have a really cool commercial property for sale, runs from new jersey to new york.....
Since a few weeks ago, I have gone from elated to miserable, from very very sick, to amazingly healthy, from very encouraged about my future, to checking out prices at crematoriums. Life is giving me some choices (which is rare in and of itself) and some of those choices aren't all that bad, given certain assumptions.
The Numbers:
Best case: I can live a normal life, die of old age. 2% probability, and 'old age' is defined as 70.
Worst case: My brain explodes before I am finished writing this. .003% probability. (Okay, I made that one up. :-)
If I do Nothing: in three years, I have an 89% chance of still being alive
In 5 years I have a 70% chance of being alive, but with a 30% chance of suffering a debilitating stroke.
in 11 years, when my son turns 18, there is only a 22% chance that I will be a normal, functioning 55-year-old man. There is a foggy probability melange that mixes death, severe disability and systemic organ failure that is so dismal it doesn't bear repeating here, not if I actually want to function for the rest of this day. Let me put it another way: 20 years of uncontrolled stage 3 hypertension is pretty much a death sentence. Melodramatic? yes, it is. but the numbers don't lie, and they lay out a neat probability line for how my health future looks.
I realize I am obsessed with this, probably obsessed with it beyond all proportion. It is almost impossible to work out proportionality when, on one side of the ledger is EVERYTHING and on the other side is.... well..... everything.
This is mortality, closing in. I have expected it for years, but I am now FEELING the crush of it. My nemesis has a new name (hypertension) which replaces my former nemesis (asthma), which was far more annoying, but a tad less deadly. Of course, the asthma isn't gone, it's just getting it's clock ceaned by the sheer brutality of death from uncontrolled hypertension. Blindness, diabetes, heart and kidney failure. Slowly.
The doctors I have spoken to are split evenly (2 against 2) that my hypertension is a lifestyle problem, or an endocrine problem.
I hope the two on the lifestyle side of the argument are wrong, but I suspect they are not. I am beginning to believe I need to fundamentally change who I am to beat this.
And fundamental personal change is a mystical thing.
Historically, I adapt quickly and well, but this bump in the road is rather large. We will see. Less optimism than in my last posts, but the despair I felt after my last e/r visit (which I have not yet written about, the despair was THAT bad) is receeding.
Since a few weeks ago, I have gone from elated to miserable, from very very sick, to amazingly healthy, from very encouraged about my future, to checking out prices at crematoriums. Life is giving me some choices (which is rare in and of itself) and some of those choices aren't all that bad, given certain assumptions.
The Numbers:
Best case: I can live a normal life, die of old age. 2% probability, and 'old age' is defined as 70.
Worst case: My brain explodes before I am finished writing this. .003% probability. (Okay, I made that one up. :-)
If I do Nothing: in three years, I have an 89% chance of still being alive
In 5 years I have a 70% chance of being alive, but with a 30% chance of suffering a debilitating stroke.
in 11 years, when my son turns 18, there is only a 22% chance that I will be a normal, functioning 55-year-old man. There is a foggy probability melange that mixes death, severe disability and systemic organ failure that is so dismal it doesn't bear repeating here, not if I actually want to function for the rest of this day. Let me put it another way: 20 years of uncontrolled stage 3 hypertension is pretty much a death sentence. Melodramatic? yes, it is. but the numbers don't lie, and they lay out a neat probability line for how my health future looks.
I realize I am obsessed with this, probably obsessed with it beyond all proportion. It is almost impossible to work out proportionality when, on one side of the ledger is EVERYTHING and on the other side is.... well..... everything.
This is mortality, closing in. I have expected it for years, but I am now FEELING the crush of it. My nemesis has a new name (hypertension) which replaces my former nemesis (asthma), which was far more annoying, but a tad less deadly. Of course, the asthma isn't gone, it's just getting it's clock ceaned by the sheer brutality of death from uncontrolled hypertension. Blindness, diabetes, heart and kidney failure. Slowly.
The doctors I have spoken to are split evenly (2 against 2) that my hypertension is a lifestyle problem, or an endocrine problem.
I hope the two on the lifestyle side of the argument are wrong, but I suspect they are not. I am beginning to believe I need to fundamentally change who I am to beat this.
And fundamental personal change is a mystical thing.
Historically, I adapt quickly and well, but this bump in the road is rather large. We will see. Less optimism than in my last posts, but the despair I felt after my last e/r visit (which I have not yet written about, the despair was THAT bad) is receeding.
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