Wipe the slate clean

YEAH! It's a NEW YEAR!

What would you do if you had no pain or health concerns, no money constrictions?
Think for a moment...
What do you really want to do?

AHHH! I've turned into my grandmother!

I wake up every morning and the first thing on my mind is a cup of tea.
I walk down stairs, get out my painkillers and make a delicious cuppa.

When I was a child and I stayed over at my grandmother's house, I use to think it was peculiar that anyone would get up and take painkillers before the day even started.

As a child I had no concept that pain was something that you could awake with every day. I had no concept that there were conditions that caused you to be in pain. I wish I had asked my grandma why she took them so I would know what pain it was? I often wonder, as I take my painkillers every morning, if she had the same pains as me?

Tinnitus embarrassing teens

I'm not much fun at parties

Apparently I talk really loud at parties according to my teenagers. That is caused by the constant ringing in my ears. (It is really embarrassing to teenagers who don't give a damn that you have tinnitus or that they may get it soon if they keep listening to loud music on earpieces)
Standing at parties, in the festive season, increases my pain. You are not a very good party guest if you are in pain.

Sitting for too long at parties makes me really stiff and I cannot get up out of the chair. This is not a good look in one so young; it seems to be accepted in frail 80 year olds but not young robust people.
I end up being the kitchen staff as constant doing and moving works best for my body. If I join in a conversation it is not very long before the pain makes me need to move on and I look quite rude and uninterested.
I use to love to dance at parties but now know that if I do my pain will be extremely bad for 3 days after.
I and many others in pain, may be the one offering you the hors d'oeuvres, making a pleasant comment and moving on. But only if the plate is not too heavy!

I started this blog back in April 2007 when I did not know the full extent of what was wrong with my body. I was searching and angry. So what has changed??
I am rushing out the door to do a hundred things for Christmas but will be thinking about this so I can post it here. In the meantime I hope your Christmas is not too hectic and you get to share the love.

Disability Blog Carnival #77 is up NOW!

The question is who inspired you?

in·spire 
1. to fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence: His courage inspired his followers.
2. to produce or arouse (a feeling, thought, etc.): to inspire confidence in others.
3. to influence or impel: Competition inspired her to greater efforts.
4. to animate, as an influence, feeling, thought, or the like, does: They were inspired by a belief in a better future.

I am inspired by that person who is worse off than me and who just picks themselves up and gets on with it. The homeless guy selling 'The Big Issue' Magazine on the street corner in Sydney, Mahatma Gandhi who stuck to his ideals even when imprisoned, those who endured physical and mental and spiritual hardship like those at the concentration camps of Auschwitz. I suppose the theme here could be perserverance through adversity. 'Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.' Dennis P. Kimbro

Psychiatrists believe that Who inspires you most suggests not only what you are able to acknowledge within yourself, but also the scope of vision you hold as possible in your own life. From an article by Matt Laughlin.
I suppose the people who inspire me encourage me to perservere and carry on because I realize the difficulties that people endured are much more severe than the physical grumblings of my body.
Disability Studies, Temple U.: Disability Blog Carnival #77 is up NOW!

Coping with disease

Most people would not cope with what I cope with on a daily level. They attend the doctor for a sore ... (Fillin the blank). I am sore all over. My stomach does not ache but that is about the only part. My breasts do not ache but the muscles above them do. Occassionally I feel the anger about my situation bubble to the surface but what does that achieve? I already attend every kind of doctor known to man and have searched for many years for help. I mostly accept this is my lot. It is a sad kind of acceptance.

I'm not alright

Sometimes I get so sick of pretending that everything is alright.
How are you? Good, good, How are you? Good thanks!
Well guess what I am not good. I am in constant pain and living on pain killers and still I feel pain and sometimes I can't even walk up the stairs and my hips ache all the time and the muscles in my upper arm are swollen, my eyes are dry and my tongue is burning, I drop things, I can't chop the veges without difficulty and everything seems like a struggle but I go on pretending that everything is alright.

Why? Because people do not want to know.
Who am I pretending for? My family, especially my kids and my mother.
Hi, how are you? Fine thanks for asking.

Eye check

I have a healthy macular, at least in my right eye. Because of Adies Tonic pupil in my left eye the camera could not see into it and the photograph was just grey on the screen. This was quite a shock in contrast to the orange image of my right eye next to it.

My right eye is aching alot lately and I am not sure why. Just another thing to go to the doctor for.

I have also found a place called Pupillize where there are quite alot of others with Adie Tonic, apparently we are all one in a million.

Lately

Learning more about Sjogren's

Doing this

Reading this
and

Good News

What I did today

learn share help sweep cook visit smile kiss ask answer listen search find clean iron give away grow phone talk hope wish drive write read