It's My Birthday

Well, it was.  Yesterday.  I just didn't get this post written last night.

I didn't even think about the fact that it was my birthday until afternoon.

I began the day exhausted.  That fibro-fatigue that just leaves me feeling so drained that just walking to the kitchen for something to drink feels like a 10-mile hike.  I took Isaac out to pee and went back to bed.  I got up a few hours later, took Isaac out again, fed him, fixed myself a protein shake, and went back to bed.  It was about 1:00 pm before I actually got myself moving.  Then I moved all the way from the couch to the bathroom, where I spent half an hour soaking in a hot bath, trying to loosen up my stiff and painful joints.

After my bath, I took Isaac out for a two-mile hike.  It was while we were hiking that it occurred to me that it was my birthday.

For the most part these days, my birthday is not a particularly special day to me.  A couple friends wished me happy birthday on Facebook.  That's it.  No gifts, no cards, no phone calls.  It's OK.  I'm used to that.  I think it's because I don't have any family anymore and I don't have many close friends. 

And you know, holidays are similar.  I don't get a lot of Christmas gifts or do special things like have a big dinner for Thanksgiving.  If I want something special to do, I do it myself.  Like last Thanksgiving, I volunteered at the soup kitchen and last Christmas, I made myself and Isaac and Cayenne a special breakfast.  So if I wanted something special for my birthday, I would have done something special.

But I went on a trip out of town last week and I decided I would consider that my birthday gift to myself.

I'm not depressed about the fact that no one is throwing me parties and baking me birthday cakes.  I'm just explaining why I didn't even remember it was my birthday until mid-afternoon.

So while I was hiking with Isaac, I thought about the fact that it was my birthday.  And I wondered if my mother thought of me at all that day. 

I thought about that fact that, 43 years ago, my mother might have been in labor with me.  I mean, obviously at some point on the day I was born, she was in labor.  But I don't know if she had a long labor or a short labor.  So when Isaac and I were hiking at 3:00 pm, I didn't know if my mother would have been in labor at that time or not.  I know that I was born very late at night, just a few minutes before midnight.  It was my mother's first pregnancy and birth (as far as I know).  So it probably was not a very short labor.  She was probably in labor at 3:00 pm.  But I don't know for sure.

I started thinking about what I do know about my birth, as well as about all the things I don't know.  I know my mother had spinal anesthesia for my birth.  I know that in those days, women labored in one room, then were moved to a delivery room, which was similar to an OR, right before the birth.  I know that unlike epidurals, spinals were given right before delivery.  That's one of the reasons epidurals are used now instead of spinals. 

I know that my father was not allowed in the room for the delivery.  When my sister was born two-and-a-half years later, my mother had a natural birth and one of the reasons she chose a natural birth was so that her husband, my father, could be there for the delivery.  Apparently fathers were only allowed if women had natural births and if the couple had attended Lamaze classes together during the pregnancy.

Was he allowed in the labor room, before she was moved to the delivery room, before she got her spinal?  I don't know.  Probably not.  I think visitors were usually not allowed in labor rooms back then but I don't know that for sure.  What would it have been like for her, in labor, all alone?  She was 22 years old, I think, when she had me.  And she had not taken any kind of prenatal classes.  She would have known very little about labor and birth.  She would have been unprepared to deal with the pain.  And remember, she wouldn't have gotten the spinal until the last minute.  She would have felt all the labor pain.

My mother told me that the maternity ward was really busy the night I was born.  It took them a long time to move her to a patient room after my birth.  They didn't want to bring her the baby - me - until they moved her.  She kept asking, then insisting, that they bring her the baby.  Finally, they did.  I don't know how long that took, though.  What did that mean to her, and to me, being separated for those first hours?

Oh, I don't think that moms and babies must be together immediately after the birth in order to bond or anything like that.  I know even adoptive moms and babies can bond.  But still, what did it mean?

I wish now that I'd asked my mother more about my birth.  It just never seemed important before and now it's too late to ask her.

Paying Off Debt

I came by some extra cash recently.  It's kind of an interesting story, maybe I'll tell it later, but for now, how I came by it isn't really important.  I have some extra money, which is a real rarity for me, and had to decide what to do with it.

Funny how you can think your basic needs are pretty much met, and then you get some extra cash, and suddenly you come up with a really long list of things you want/need to buy.  Way more than you can possible purchase with whatever amount of money you have.  And it wouldn't matter how much you have, either.  If it was $1,000, suddenly you'd have a list of far more than that.  If it was $5,000, you'd have a list of more than that.  People are greedy, I think.  We always want more.  I try really hard not to, but still...

Anyway.  After I'd discarded the ideas of going on a shopping spree and taking a vacation (well, it's fun to dream, isn't it?), I decided to purchase a few items I really do need and to pay off some debt.  I was nearly debt-free until last fall when I had to have extensive dental work done.  I now have a Mastercard and a Care Credit account to pay off.  Last month I paid a little more than the minimum payment due on my Mastercard and realized that about half of what I paid was just going to interest.  Oy.

But I also owe my mother some money.   A couple years ago, when she was still speaking to me, she loaned me and Mike some money to put a new transmission in my car.  She put it on a credit card (because my credit sucked then, at least it's a little better now; back then I would not have been able to charge my dental work myself) and Mike and I agreed to make the monthly payment.  Which was just $30 a month.  Well, you know how many months it takes to pay off a transmission at $30 a month?  Yeah.

So as of this month, I still owed a little over $400.

I decide to use some of my  new-found cash to pay off that debt.  It might have made more sense, financially, to pay off the credit card with the ridiculously high interest rate.  But emotionally, even spiritually, it made more sense to pay off the loan from my mother.  Because it keeps me tied to her.  It keeps me connected to her every month when I write that check and address that envelope.

And I knew it was the right decision because I felt such a lightness when I came to it.

I thought about writing her a letter to include with that check.  But I didn't know what to say and I felt like writing that letter would take a lot of time and energy and I wanted to do it now.  I wanted to send the check and sever that tie.

But there was a song that came to mind while I was writing out the check, so I wrote down some of the lyrics and sent that with the check.

" You cannot measure what it takes to mend a withered heart.
They'll tell you at the onset everybody does their part.
I did my best to follow the calling of my soul.
But it's like that first guitar I played,
at the center is a hole,
at the center is a longing
that I cannot understand...

But if music be a boulder, let me carry it a long while.
Let it turn into a feather, let it brush against my smile.
Let the life be somewhat settled with the life that song has made.
Let there be nothing I am longing for in some plan I may have made,
in some story quickly written during a long forgotten time..."

I don't know if the lyrics will mean anything to my mother.  But it doesn't really matter.  I've let go of something.  That's what's important.

The Call That Almost Came

Friday, I was having lunch with a friend at Subway.  I was in the middle of eating my sandwich and simultaneously explaining how if he'd just listened to my advice a couple months earlier, he would not be dealing with a sticky situation he was now facing at work.  I was trying to be diplomatic about it and not to say "I told you so," but really, I did tell him so.

My phone rang.  It was in my purse.  I was holding Isaac's leash and also eating, which takes two hands.  Plus I was in the middle of my "I told you so."  So I let the phone call go to voice mail.  No one ever calls me anyway.  I figured it was probably Time Warner trying to sell me cable again, even though I've told them about a hundred times that I do not want cable and that I do not even own a TV.

After lunch was over and I'd gotten Isaac loaded in the back seat, I sat in my car and dug out my phone and looked at the number.  The area code was the one for the part of the state where I'd grown up, where my mother and my sister live.  I have a good friend who lives there, still, as well.  But I didn't recognize the number, not really.  You might remember that not too long ago, I'd deleted my mother's and sister's numbers from my phone.  Well, I thought it might be my sister's number but I wasn't sure.

I listened to the voice mail.  It was about 90 seconds of loud static.  I could not hear anyone talking at all.  Just scratchy noise.

I drove home.  I felt anxious.  I got in the house and got out my address book and looked up my sister's number.  Yep.  It was her number.

But no message.

I didn't know what to do.  I felt like I needed to do something.

I checked my email in case she'd tried to contact me that way.  She hadn't.

I thought about what she might have been calling for.  I didn't think she was calling just to chat.  She hasn't spoken to me in more than a year.  Really, the only reasons I could think of that she would call me were if something bad had happened.  Something she felt was so important that she thought I should know.  She'd call me if our mother died.  She'd call me if something happened to one of her children, although since they are all young and healthy, it would be more likely that something would happen to our mother.  She might call me if our father died, but I'm not sure about that.

Those are things she'd probably feel I should know about, but do I feel I need to know?  I guess I'd want to know if something happened to one of my nephews.  One of them is a Marine.  He is stationed in the States, he's not doing anything dangerous (as far as I know), but what if, say, he died in a plane crash or something?  Would I want to know?  Would I go to his funeral?  Yeah, I think I would.

Would I want to know if something happened to my mother?  I really don't know.  Would I go to her funeral?  I don't think so.  Would I mourn?  Well, I guess, in a way, but you know what?  I already have mourned her.  I've mourned her a lot.  But how do I feel about the thought of not knowing?  It's hard.  Hard to explain and hard to live with.

I thought about calling her back.  I emailed a friend for advice.  Then I called Mike and asked him what he thought.  I think I expected him to tell me to call her.  He'd always encouraged me to try to maintain a relationship with my mother and my sister, at least up until all that stuff that happened in November of 2012.  He seemed to respect my decision, and to agree with it, not to get in touch with them after that.  But it was their decision, really.  They un-friended me on Facebook, they chose not to call or email or anything while I was in the hospital or after I got out.  But anyway.  I think I expected Mike to tell me to call her back.

He didn't.  He said something like well, I could call her back if I wanted to, but if it was really important to her, she'd probably call again.

And he's probably right.

So I didn't call.  I had all this nervous energy.  I took Isaac for a long, brisk walk.  I washed the dishes and cleaned my kitchen.  I finished an article I'd been working on.  I took Isaac for another walk.  I paced around the house.

It's been two days.  She hasn't called back.

Who's in Your Contacts List?

A few days ago, I was going through my phone, deleted contacts that are people I rarely or never call and that I didn't think I needed to keep in my phone.  Like the general surgeon that did my breast biopsy last May.  If I need a general surgeon again some day, I'd probably go back to him, but I'm not expecting to be calling him any time soon.  I have his number in my address book if I need it.

And I decided to delete my mother's number and my sister's number.

They have not spoken to me since November of 2013.  I don't expect they will wish to speak to me any time soon.  Or any time distant, for that matter.  Maybe my sister will call me to let me know when my mother passes away or something, but she is not expected to die any time soon, either, as far as I know.

I have their numbers, and their addresses, in my address book, if I need them.  But I don't need them in my phone.

I have considered deleted them from my contacts before, but kept putting it off.  Not because I thought I might want to give them a call one day soon.  Just because, I guess, it's hard to sever those ties.  It's hard to acknowledge that they've been severed.  But now it's done.

And you know what? 

I think I'd like my contacts list in my phone to be full of people I like and respect, people that like and care about me.  I have two contacts in my phone clearly designated as emergency contact people, but really, I like the idea that if I was in a serious car accident on the way to tutoring tomorrow and the paramedics picked up my phone as I was being rushed to the hospital and just pressed "send," my phone would dial someone that cared about me.  Someone that would care that I was critically injured.  Someone that would ask, "What can I do to help?"

Yes, OK, if the paramedics happened to dial my auto mechanic, he probably would not drop whatever he was doing and rush to the hospital to be with me.  But you know what?  I'm scrolling through my contacts right now and this is what I see. 

The number of a good friend, one of my designated emergency contacts. 

Isaac's vet, who, by the way, will provide any necessary emergency medical treatment to Isaac even if I am not available to hand over my credit card at the moment. 

A friend. 

Another friend. 

My primary care physician, who, I bet, would at least make an effort to contact an emergency contact person on my behalf. 

Isaac's trainer, who would come and pick him up if I was critically injured and unable to take care of him. 

A friend. 

A good friend, my other designated emergency contact person. 

Another friend. 

And another friend. 

And another friend. 

My psychiatrist, who, I think, would also make an effort to contact an emergency contact person on my behalf (if anyone actually got in touch with him, that is; his office staff these days is not so hot). 

My dog walker, who would come and feed and walk Isaac if necessary. 

Another friend.

Cayenne's vet, who is a wonderful, caring man and would board both Isaac and Cayenne if necessary while I was in the hospital with critical injuries.

And then there are a few other numbers, my auto mechanic, my pharmacy, my insurance agent, the county welfare office (who I am certain would be of no help in any kind of emergency), etc.

But this is a revelation to me.  I never thought about it until now.  I want my phone to be full of numbers of people that care about me.  People that would care if I was being rushed to the hospital, half dead.  And you know what?  It is.  It mostly is.

How awesome is that?

And I will continue to delete the numbers of people that wouldn't care.  Because those are not people I want in my life.

Now.  Take a look at your phone?  Who's in your contacts list?

Got a Christmas Card from My Nephew Today

I sent Christmas cards to all four of my nephews.   I did last year, too.  I didn't expect to get cards from them, because they are kids and they are boys.  Well, I guess two of them aren't technically kids anymore, one is a Marine and the other has finished high school, but they are still like teenagers.  I don't expect them to send me Christmas cards.  But I send cards to them.

My youngest  nephew, I think he's in second grade now, loves to get mail.  I used to send him coloring pages and stuff a lot.  I was sure he would like to get a card, and I'm not sure if the older boys care about getting cards or not, but I wasn't going to send one kid a card and not send cards to the others.  So they all got cards.

I guess the other reason I didn't really expect to get cards back is because I didn't expect to get cards from my mother or sister (and I didn't), so I didn't expect my sister to encourage the boys to send me cards.

But I got one today from my youngest nephew.  My sister addressed the envelope for him.  I think sending me a card was probably his idea, not hers.  He wrote the message inside the card himself.  I don't think he even asked for help with spelling words, because there were a couple of things misspelled.

He said, "Dear Aunt Kelly, I miss you very much. I got the letter you sent me in the mail.  Sincerely," and his name.

I cried.

Isaac looked concerned and came over for a hug.  Then he looked around, spotted his Nylabone toy that looks like a stick, and happily pounced on it.  Yes, sometimes Isaac pounces on toys.  Much like a cat.  Only much bigger.  It's cute.  He brought me the toy.  He often thinks a toy of some sort will cheer me up.  He's usually right.

Two years ago, I got to spend Christmas at my sister's.  It was so much fun being with my little nephew then.  He had some "reindeer food" to sprinkle outside in the yard for Santa's reindeer.  It was really oatmeal with a little glitter mixed it.  I took him outside to sprinkle the reindeer food.  Christmas is just magical for little kids.  I liked being there for that.

This year I will be spending Christmas alone, with Isaac and Cayenne.

My nephew's card made me cry.

Heard from my Mother Today... Sort of

This is probably gonna be one of those long, rambling posts and I'm not even sure why I'm posting about it, except that I want to tell someone, and no one is here to tell except Isaac, and he's not particularly interested.  He got a new bone today from the farm supply place, which is the only place around here that carries his brand of dog food, and he's busy chowing down on it, making a big mess on my living room floor.

I haven't heard from my mother since November of last year.  That's when she got angry at me because I said something on Facebook about how I didn't think my nephew should be left alone with my father, since my father was so abusive while I was growing up.  My parents have been divorced for many years now, but for some reason it still upset her a lot that I would announce publicly that he was abusive to me.  Apparently in her head, somehow, the abuse itself is not such a bad thing but talking about it is just terrible.

So she hasn't spoken to me since then.  Neither has my sister.

A couple years ago, the transmission went out in my car.  Transmissions, as you might know, are really, really expensive.  Mike and I didn't have the money to get a new transmission at the time.  My  mother was speaking to me back then, and she loaned us the money to get a new transmission.  She didn't actually give us cash, but let us put it on her credit card, and we agreed to make the payments. 

Well, before I moved out of Mike's house, he was taking care of paying all our bills.  I don't mean he was paying all the bills with his money.  I was contributing financially, as well.  But he sat down each month and wrote out the checks and made sure they got in the mail on time.  He did the bills, he mowed the lawn and shoveled the snow, fixed the leaky roof, etc.  And I did the laundry, the dishes, the cooking, and took care of that cats.  That's just how we divided up the labor.  So he made sure my mother got a check every month.

When I moved out, of course, I had to start writing my own checks and paying my own bills.  Only I had forgotten all about the money we owed my mother.  That probably sounds stupid, but I just hadn't thought about it in a long time because Mike took care of it.  I handed him one check every month and he took care of all the bills.  So when I moved out, I started getting my own bills in the mail and I've been paying them... but my mother never sent a bill.

A couple weeks ago, I was talking to a friend that needed to take her cat to the vet and was short on cash and I was trying to brainstorm ways she could get the money.  I asked if a family member could loan it to her or if perhaps a family member could let her use their credit card and then she could make the payments.  And that triggered my memory and I thought about the money my mother loaned us for my transmission.

So I called Mike and asked him if we'd finished paying for that or not.  Of course, we hadn't.  Transmissions are expensive.  I asked him if he'd been sending her money since I moved out, and of course, he hasn't.  He said he thought since it was my mother and my transmission, it should be my responsibility.  Well, I think that's reasonable, but I wish he'd said something about it to me when I moved.  I had no idea how much he'd been paying each month or how much was still owed or anything.  He told me how much he'd been sending her each month, and took a guess at how much we still owed, but he wasn't sure of the remaining balance.

I feel bad about missing a couple of payments, and I immediately sat down and wrote out a check.  I also wrote a little note, apologizing for missing a couple of payments and explaining that I hadn't realized Mike wasn't sending them and he hadn't realized that I wasn't sending them, and promising to send them every month from now on.  I also asked her if she could please let me know the remaining balance.  It was a short note, and I didn't include any personal information or chitchat in it, but I tried to be friendly and polite.

As far as I know, my mother doesn't know I've moved.  I haven't talked to her since well before the move.  Maybe she reads this blog and then she'd know, but otherwise, I don't think she would.  The address on the check I sent her was my old address, because I had just gotten new checks right before I found out I was moving, and I'm still using those checks because I didn't want to pay for new ones when I'd just bought some.

Today I stopped by Mike's for something, and I had a couple pieces of mail there.  The post office is supposed to be forwarding my mail, and they usually do, but occasionally they somehow miss a piece and it goes to the old address.  One of the things that was there was a letter from my mother.  She didn't have my new address, if she even knows I've moved, so she sent it to my old address.

I opened it right away, curious about what she would say.  Well, she didn't say anything.  It was a typed up statement, listing all the payments Mike and I have made and showing the remaining balance.  That's it.  No "here is the information you requested" or "thanks for the payment" or even "please make sure you pay on time from now on."

Maybe I should be grateful she didn't say anything hurtful or mean.  I guess I am grateful for that.  Maybe she was just practicing the whole "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" thing.  I guess I'm not surprised she didn't include a note.  I guess I'm just disappointed.

It's hard to stop wanting some things, even when you know darn well you're never going to get what you want, you know?

Embarrassed to Be Seen with Someone with a Service Dog

I've never had this problem.  Or maybe some people do prefer not to be seen with me with my service dog and I'm just oblivious to it because, well, I don't really care.  But mostly I assume that if someone needs a service dog or a wheelchair or a cane or hearing aids or an interpreter or whatever, that should be just fine with everyone around them because, well, why wouldn't it be all right?

But this is an issue I hear about kind of often from other people that have service dogs.  Their mom or their sister or their girlfriend or whomever wants them to go to the grocery store or out to eat or someplace with them, but does not want them to bring their service dog.  They are embarrassed about being seen with someone with a service dog. 

And  yes, in some cases, those same people are embarrassed to be seen with someone that uses a walker or a wheelchair or some other assistive device.  Someone recently talked about her girlfriend wanting to go to the mall, but wanting her to leave her walker at home because she was embarrassed to be seen with someone that wasn't elderly but used a walker.  Apparently she thought only elderly people should use walkers.

This type of thinking really confuses me.  Apparently a fair number of people think like that, but I don't get it.  Why wouldn't you want your girlfriend or your family member or whomever to enjoy their trip to the mall with you and be glad they had a walker or whatever device they needed that would allow them to do that?  Why would you prefer they leave the walker at home and get tired out or maybe even fall and hurt themselves?  And I'm sure it's not that the girlfriend wanted this person to get tired out or fall and get hurt.  But if you don't want that to happen, why wouldn't you welcome the walker or whatever other device would help prevent that from happening?

When you go into a grocery store or restaurant with a service dog, you often get some attention.  I guess that embarrasses some people.  It doesn't embarrass me, but I don't really like it, either.  I would rather people leave me alone. 

But the attention isn't usually that bad, and people aren't paying attention to whomever I am with.  They are looking at my dog, and sometimes, at me.  I doubt they even notice my human companion, they are so busy looking at the dog.  And sometimes people do ask me questions, like if I am training Isaac for a blind person or why I have a service dog, but they don't ask questions of my companion.  I deal with any questions or comments as needed.   My companion doesn't have to deal with them.

I guess I don't see why someone should care if my service dog is with me, because it doesn't seem to me that it affects them very much.

Another Poem: On Family and People that Don't Understand that Depression is an Illness Like Any Other

This poem was written almost ten years ago, when I asked my family for assistance while I was applying for disability and had no income at all.  I was afraid I was going to end up homeless, living in my car or in a shelter.

Letter to My Sister

You did not visit me in hospital,

did not send get well cards

or vases of flowers.

That’s OK; they wouldn’t

 have let me keep the vases anyway.

You say I have been sick long enough.

You do not say that to our grandfather

as his Alzheimer’s progresses.

As his mind becomes a sieve,

as he no longer recognizes you or your children,

as he becomes incontinent,

you love him.  You are patient,

you cook his favorite foods,

even though he no longer remembers

he loves  them.  Even though

he no longer remembers he loves you.

But you have decided

my illness is not an illness

but an indulgence from which

I should simply abstain.

My mind is not a sieve.

It holds on to everything.

And yet, I am not sure

I can recognize you now.

Do you remember how I walked with you

as you labored on a salty summer night,

brought you herbal tea and a birthing ball,

sat by your hospital bed those long and lonely hours?

Oh, I do.

I went alone to the emergency room.

No one sat by my bed

as they emptied my stomach,

as they fed me thick liquid charcoal

that stained my hands and my lips.

No one walked with me

onto that locked ward.

You tell me I have been depressed long enough.

You sit beside our grandfather

on the porch swing,

hold the cat for him to pet.

You are tender, soft.

You tell me it is enough.

I will wait alone on the food stamp line.

I will put on another sweater,

and turn down the heat.

I will take my turn

cooking pork chops and potatoes for Papa.

I will send your children birthday cards.

It will not be enough.

Just an Update

I realize I've done a lousy job of blogging this month.  I've had a lot of stuff going one, much of which I haven't yet written about here, although I plan to do so soon.  I've been busy, and last week I was sick with the flu all week, and I just haven't had the time, energy, or motivation for blogging.  I plan to do better next month.

So what's been going on?  In a nutshell:

• Mike and I separated.  That actually happened a couple months ago.  I just haven't been ready to write about it yet.
• I spent five days in the hospital after Thanksgiving, due to depression and PTSD.  It was a horrible, horrible experience, and I do want to write about it, but I've needed time to recover a bit first.
• My mother and sister are not talking to me.  They got mad when I mentioned something on Facebook about being sexually abused as a child and... well, I don't want to post a lot of information about other people here because I want to respect their privacy.  I'm comfortable talking about myself and my own experiences but I don't want to talk about other people without their permission.  The bottom line is that they are angry and not speaking to me.
• I've been doing some energy work, which, if you're not familiar with the concept, is a form of alternative healing.  It's actually helping a lot.  I have very little back pain these days and even my PTSD symptoms are better.  I'm loving it.
• Isaac continues to learn new tasks.  Currently, we are working on having him put clothes into the laundry basket himself when he takes them out of the dryer instead of handing them to me to put them into the basket.  I also want to teach him to retrieve my cell phone for me, but I have to find some sort of case for it first because I don't want him to slobber all over it in the process.
• We've been continuing to practice the Treat Toss, and Isaac can now do it with hotdogs, which I think is really impressive.
• I had the flu all last week.  I was sick for an entire week.  And I got a flu shot this year, too.  Blah.

I promise to get back to blogging more regularly.  So please stick with me!

Started Physical Therapy for My Back Today

It was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, and fortunately, the therapist only wants to see me once a week.  I have to do exercises at home but not that many.

She also told me some very interesting things.  She pointed out that the reason my MRI may not have looked bad is because for the MRI, I was lying flat on my back.  Well, my back doesn't hurt when I lie on my back.  It hurts when I bend and move in certain ways.  But they can't really do an MRI of you moving.  But that means that the MRI may not show how pressure is being put on a disc in the back when you move certain ways.

Does that make sense to anyone?  It made plenty of sense to me.  I came right home and emailed my mother, who works for an orthopedic doctor; in fact, the doctor that originally treated me for my back pain and couldn't figure out what the problem was works in her office. 

She did not seem to think I was making any sense at all and explained to me that they can't do an MRI while you bend over.  Yeah, I know that.  I wasn't trying to say they should have had me bend over for the MRI.  I was just saying that an MRI done in a position which doesn't cause pain might not show a problem that causes pain in another position.

She said that if there was a problem with my back, it should show up lying flat.  Well, it didn't.  And there is most certainly a problem if my back hurts so much I cannot bend over or lift anything.

But no, physical therapists don't know anything, do they?  The doctors know it all.  Even though that particular doctor said he had no idea what was wrong with my back.

Now I'm aggravated. 

Car Bingo

I told my sister I would make a car bingo game for us to play on the trip to the beach, to entertain the little one.  OK, it will entertain the adults, too!  Hey, it’s a long drive.

Do you all know what car bingo is?  It’s like regular bingo except instead of letters and numbers, the cards have pictures of things you might see while you’re driving down the highway, like a police car, a motorcycle, a gas station, etc.  When you see one of the items pictured on your card, you cross it out.  The first person to cross out an entire row wins.

I thought maybe I could find a car bingo game online that I could download for free, and I did find a few, but none that I liked.  Most of them seemed like they were designed more for driving around town than for driving on the highway.  They had pictures of things like stop signs, mail boxes, and schools.  I don’t think we’ll see many of those from the highway.  Also, some of them seemed a little out of date.  They had pictures of telephone booths, for Pete’s sake!  Are there still any telephone booths out there?  I guess there might be at rest areas but I figured we would not see many.

So I decided to make my own game and it turns out to be a lot of fun making it, although it’s also a lot of work.  It’s taking me a lot of time, which is OK because I’m having fun, but it is keeping me from getting much work done.  What can I say, I would rather find cute little clip art pictures of cars and trains and boats than write some articles about mold.  Go figure.

I’m going to print out the card and then go to the printing shop to get them laminated.  That way we can cross off items with a marker and then wash off the cards when we’re done and reuse them.  If anybody wants a car bingo game, just leave me your email and I’ll be happy to email you the document.  It’s in Mircrosoft Publisher.  Then you can print it out for yourself.

My Vacation Itinerary

Have you ever noticed how going on vacation is a lot of work?  Yeah.  It is.

Here is the plan.

Thursday

Pack.  That is not as simple as it sounds.  I travel with a lot of stuff.  I don’t take a lot of clothes; I don’t even own a lot of clothes!  It’s everything else.  I am on several medications for depression and my back pain, so those must come along.  I also take a lot of vitamins because I had gastric bypass surgery a few years ago, so those must all come along.  I frequently use protein shakes to make sure I get enough protein, so a container of protein powder and a shaker cup to mix them in will probably need to come along.  I plan to take my heating pad for my back.  I typically take some food with me when I travel, because I need to eat every few hours or else my blood sugar drops very low (reactive hypoglycemia) and I can’t eat things that are mostly carbs without much protein or my blood sugar drops very low and I don’t eat meat.  So I will probably take some protein bars and some soy milk and some almonds and maybe some other stuff to eat.  And I have to take my portable CD player and headphones and some CD’s to listen to because I have so much trouble sleeping at night, but I’ll be sharing a room with other people that presumably can sleep, so I need something I can do quietly without keeping them up.  I have to try to make all this fit into one suitcase.

I guess if I had my service dog already, he’d probably need his own suitcase.  I’d have to pack dog food, dog treats, dishes, a blanket for him to lie on and hopefully keep from shedding all over the hotel room, water to give him on the trip there and back, his leash, vest or harness, brush, plastic bags for picking up poop… I don’t even know what else.

Friday

Lug my suitcase out to my car, attempt to get it into the car without hurting my back too much.  Drive 2.5 hours to my sister’s house.  Bake a mess of banana nut muffins, per my nephew’s request, and figure out how to pack them so they will stay fresh and not get squished.

Saturday

Get up at the butt crack of dawn.  Lug my suitcase out to my sister’s car, attempt to get it into the car without hurting my back too much.  Drive 45 minutes to my mother’s house.  Move suitcase from my sister’s car to my mother’s car, hopefully without hurting my back too much.  Drive 11 hours or so to the Marine base.  Make multiple stops to eat/pee/let my seven-year-old nephew get out of the car and run around.  I’m tired just writing about it!

Sunday

Spend the day walking around the Marine base with my nephew.

Monday and Tuesday

One of these days we will spend at the beach.  At least, my sister tells me that is the plan.  I don’t tolerate the heat real well and I’m not sure I want to spend an entire day on the beach.  I may spend part of the day on the beach and part of it resting at the cool, quiet hotel.  Besides, I need down time.  Constant stimulation is stressful for me.  My little nephew is adorable and smart and fun… but he talks nonstop.  Sometimes I need quiet.  I don’t know what we will do on the day we don’t spend at the beach.

Wednesday

Get up at the butt crack of dawn.  Lug my suitcase out to the car, attempt to get it into the car without hurting my back too much.  Drive 11 hours or so, transfer my stuff to my sister’s car, drive another 45 minutes to her house.  Sleep.  Hopefully for a long time.

Thursday

Lug my suitcase out to my car, attempt to get it into the car without hurting my back too much.  Drive 2.5 hours home.  Collapse on the couch, probably for a long time.