things to avoid

Tomorrow morning I'm scheduled to have injections in my knees. I've had trouble and a lot of pain with them for quite a while and they're sort of keeping me from doing some things, so I'd like to fix this. I've been through lots of tests (x-rays, MRI, etc), and a lot of PT. The PT was hardcore and I went twice a week for several months, 1.5-2 hours each time. Each session consisted of workout, e-stim, ice, sometimes ultrasound. It really only gave me relief for approximately 15 minutes after each session. That's frustrating. So after seeing a surgeon who forgot about me (that's a whole other strory), my NP referred me to this clinic.

My diagnosis, by the way, is that I have arthritis in both knees, and bone spurs, and a floating piece in the left knee. It's not good, and there's no clear treatment for this. My NP suggests I might eventually need knee replacements.

So we start with injections, either of cortisone, or SynVisc (not sure which it will be, and some of the decision depends on insurance), which is a fluid replacement. And here's the thing: I am terrified. Each time I think of this, I start hyperventilating, and I'm not one for over-dramatizing this kind of thing. In fact, nothing makes me happier than to be able to breeze through any procedure like a normal person. But I'm not. Because of this vasovagal...situation. My blood pressure drops, and so do I. The worst case scenario here is a seizure. I've been able to avoid them for about 10 years because I've been so vocal about what my situation is, about making sure I'm lying down for any procedure, about stopping anything that triggers the symptoms (and yes, they are triggered often, but I can often stop the seizure if I stop the procedure. The last time the symptoms started up was at the ophthalmologist's office last month). And something that is 1.) new to me and 2.) takes more than a few seconds, and 3.) hurts 4.) is an injection (though in general, injections don't bother me, and I'm injecting MYSELF weekly) and 5.) has to be done TWICE is a perfect storm for a seizure.

I don't talk about this much because there's no real way for me to convey how awful the seizures are without sounding melodramatic. That link above describes it as a "feeling of impending death" and that's no exaggeration. They are not only incredibly painful and something I have to wrench myself out of, they are so devastating that I am not able to walk for several hours, and it takes at least a few days to fully recover (which makes sense if you know that your entire body has SHUT DOWN: heart stopped, breathing stopped, etc). In addition, they tend to freak out everyone in the vicinity, and it doesn't matter what kind of medical professional they are - it freaks everyone out, and often they respond by getting annoyed (true). And I've never gotten through one without throwing up at the end. So it's just something to avoid at all costs, for everyone's sake.

Ideally, I shouldn't be driving myself to this appointment, since I don't know how I will respond, but I really can't ask someone to come with me. I'd love for it to just go smoothly, and to leave feeling pain-free for the first time in a long time. That's the goal. And I will do just about anything to avoid a seizure: stop a procedure in the middle, be very explicit up front about what I need, drop to the floor in any public place if I feel the symptoms coming on, so I'm hoping that I can just get through this without the symptoms rearing their ugly head at all. I've been able to for the past several years, and I've had some icky procedures, so...here's hoping.

UPDATE: Made it through. He injected one knee only, and it wasn't too bad. Not comfortable, but not painful, per se. The use a portable ultrasound to find just the right place. If it wasn't me on the table, I'd have been totally into watching the screen (that's the irony of this disorder: it's made me miss some cool shit). The lightheadedness and preliminary symptoms started at the end of the very quick procedure (it's amazing that you can get so lightheaded while lying down), and because I'd warned him, I just got to lie there until I could reasonably get up. If I get relief for more than a few weeks, even months, he'll do the right knee. Right now it's feeling very very strange. Like it's hard to bend my knee. I also got a prescription for a knee brace. So that's that.

part-time OCD?

Jessica Alba, quoted in Elle, says "I have OCD when it comes to eyelash curlers. I'd curl my eyelashes every 5 minutes if I could". That...trivialization of an actual disorder, and making it into something you joke-yet-brag about, something you actually see as a charming quality in yourself, both baffles and annoys the shit out of me. And it seems like almost everyone I know does this with SOMEthing. My contention is that if it were truly something that were an actual fear or phobia, you would neither joke nor brag about it (just like I don't go around saying, "Oops, there goes my depression again! I'm so depressed! Ha ha!" Yeah, doesn't work, does it?), but instead either try to conceal it, or try to fix it. It's soooo strange to me.

Macy's "rewarded" me for paying off my credit card balance (never behind, never delinquent) in full...by closing my account. Classy. My favorite part is that there's still $300 of "available credit" (significantly down from what it was) on my closed account.

pros n' cons

On the one hand, I'm tired of having to care about someone else's industrial, ugly-ass carpeting that someone cheaped-out on because it's just going into the tenants' unit, and running to clean and scrub and clean each time the cats throw up on it, and having to keep multiple types of cleaners at the ready, and having to live in an apartment that isn't INSULATED, such that I pay through the nose for heat, and have to keep it at a level that isn't even approaching comfortable in the winter (keeping it at 60 degrees STILL costs a few hundred dollars a month) and where the kitchen gets down into the 40s because the door in there has a huge gap that lets the outside in, while said landlord makes over a year of relentless and noisy cosmetic fixes to the exterior of the house and his unit, and throwing money away each month on rent, and having to wash every single spoon and dish by hand (and not very well, I might add) and washing clothes next door like a college student while the majority of my friends (if not all of them) take their washing machines and dryers and dishwashers and warmth for granted...

...on the other hand, I can move whenever I want without having to wait for the economy to turn around. And paying exorbitant property taxes, and having to buy things like hot water heaters and new roofs. And that is nice to know.

thank you Dan Savage

...for articulating, once more, something I feel.

In answering the question of what are the barriers to legalizing same sex marriage, he cites two things. Here's #2:

"Second: all those quiet, timid, and cowardly NALT Christians out there who support marriage equality but have allowed their conservative coreligionists to hijack Christianity. ("NALT" stands for "not all like that," the phrase you hear from liberal Christians whenever you bitch about conservative Christians, i.e., "We're not all like that!" Yes, yes, NALTs—we know. You're not all like that. Don't tell us. Tell Tony Perkins, tell the pope, tell Maggie Gallagher.)"

NALT Christians. That about sums it up.

you're off the hook!

I hear this isn't "depressing"

http://cuteoverload.com/

yep

do I belong?

Here are some little-known facts about me (alert the media!), of questionable interest:

• I love when people refer to pizza as "pie"
• I am a fruit whisperer. I can tell by looking at it if fruit will be good (though apples are often deceptive, and I stay away from ones I haven't picked myself, or close to it)
• I want a horse and a pool, and neither for status
• I used to love rosemary and now I hate it, like something just turned off
• I don't like perfumes or colognes (for the most part) and the first thing I do when I get fashion magazines is remove the perfume samples
• I can't stand fluorescent lights and most overhead lights
• I have uncanny voice recognition, but may have to meet someone a few times before I remember them (bad facial recognition). I recently found out my sister has the same problem
• I have been a gay rights advocate since I was a child
• I will stand up to anyone, anytime. I have no fear of being harmed
• I am not afraid of the dark or being alone in rural areas
• I have no phobias that I know of, and find it strange that almost everyone I know seems to have at least one that they think of as an integral part of their self, and not something they could rid themselves of
• I love bad childrens theater
• I think Wes Anderson can do no wrong
• I don't like when icons are bastardized (eg, Bert and Ernie gay jokes)
• I don't like intentional waste, like food fights, trebuchets that launch pumpkins, and pies in the face
• I can't stand watching people be duped, like "Punk'd" or "Candid Camera", or The Phil Hendrie Show
• I can't "tune out" extraneous noise, like relentlness Christmas carols or leaf blowers. And I hate noise pollution
• I do not understand hitting the snooze multiple times. Use it once (or not at all) and then get the hell up

Many of these things contribute to my feeling that I just don't belong here. Aside from the realization that the majority of adult life is disappointment, I think I just think differently. And I'd rather not for the most part, though when it comes to things like, say, phobias, I'm proud I don't think myself cute because I screech like a 
howler monkey whenever I see a spider (I do not). Like:

• I hate Christmas music and Christmas. It's a ruse, an excuse to try to outbuy others, and if you at ALL believe in Jesus (I do not), the holiday as it's celebrated in this country is an affront to the story of his birth.

• I hate noise pollution, as I said, where most people can tune that shit out ("what leafblower? Oh, I didn't even notice until you pointed it out")

• I need moving air in cars, whereas most people like to drive with their vents on OFF, in all types of weather. That seems SO strange to me.

• free-floating anxiety drives me nuts, but people seem to embrace it, like the phobia thing ("Facebook can see me in my underwear" - those kinds of things)

• I don't think all children are magical. Some children are dicks, like some adults are dicks. I like kids, but I don't assume they're all magical beings. That said, I'd defend any child with my life (even the dicks), and would never - and have never - keep my mouth shut if I saw a child in danger or need

• I think most religions and religious practices are, at best, somewhat dangerous (with pure and good origins), and wonder why people who think god is speaking to them aren't considered psychotic

• people who are "afraid of conflict" drive me nuts - man the fuck UP

• ditto people who "won't discuss politics or religion"

• life isn't necessarily good, even if you've shilled for this company by buying their t-shirts and baseball caps. Life is complicated and often shitty. Occasionally it's transcendent and beautiful. Why should we dumb it down?

• things I don't like that others find hilarious or fascinating: Family Guy, The Onion, South Park, Jackass, vampire movies/TV shows/books (ditto zombies), Glee, Desperate Housewives, Gray's Anatomy, There's Something About Mary, Chelsea Handler
  

• I doesn't understand how coffee is a morning drink (or a drink at all, really) - so harsh, and the aftertaste is instant and horrible. I love how coffee smells and like the idea of it, but that aftertaste keeps me from drinking it

• I don't drink or do drugs and don't understand the need to. Most alcohol tastes like floor cleaner and beer tastes like liquid bread. Wine? Grape juice is better. Ummmm...?

I'm thinking this list makes me sound curmudgeonly and/or like I'm autistic, though honestly, these things seem reasonable to me.

Like I said, I don't feel like I belong here.

paralyzed

I have been such a stalwart supporter of therapists, despite the fact that I have yet to find one that's effective for me (and going through the getting-to-know-you process multiple times, only to find that they're going to be ineffective, is heartbreaking) and don't currently have one. But every time people say, "oh therapists are the craziest people out there", I've defended them and refuted that contention. I've believed and I've respected. But now I'm really wondering. In addition to my own disappointing experiences, and therapists that make it all about them (which really surprised me), K's visit, though I love her, makes me look self-confident to the point of cockiness. I won't list or specify, but we're talking about paralyzing beliefs about her appearance and her abilities or how others perceive her that are so out of the realm of reality that if she weren't a psychologist, I'd be strongly suggesting she get into therapy pronto (she already is). And hanging onto useless fears like those of flying and spiders (a big pet peeve of mine in general), things that serve noone and can be turned around (I am proof). She is one of a series of disappointments for me, people who I've always admired for their skills or accomplishments, who are now mired and twisted in seriously hindered situations or thinking. Super-talented friends and family who have given up, not for lack of talent, but because of a feeling of entitlement or laziness or drug use (though in her case, she's very successful career-wise, but I'm talking about personal stuff). Friends with debilitating medical issues that they refuse to address just out of stubbornness. Who just have given up on turning those situations around, but yet I'm expected to try to become a new person, someone worthy of society? I'm supposed to think I'm the shit when everyone else is allowed to bury themselves in doubt? I think that BLOWS. I want heroes, people I can look up to. And I want it for them too. Not people who are flawless, not comic book heroes, because those don't exist in real life, and have never interested me, but people who, though struggling, are progressing and using their talents and skills in ways that honor what they have. And not people who are becoming more and more (almost visibly) tangled in knots of their own making, and further from their gifts.

approaching the park

Last night I had a dream, or a dream-state type of thing, since it seemed to me that I wasn't asleep yet, that I was in a car and approaching an amusement park, a big one, like Disney World. And you see the park come into view, and it's a magical vision, it really is. This is something I've really experienced, as have many people. When you see the tops of the roller coasters and the other rides, in colors and shapes that aren't usually seen on regular old buildings. There's no way to not be excited about that. And I realized, as I'm dreaming this dream, that even as a kid, that view was immediately tainted by the knowledge that the reality that what's about to happen is never as good at that approach. Because as cool as the park actually is, there are the crowds and the crowds and the crowds (something that may not bother other people, but does me), and the neverending lines, and yes, some of the rides are worth a wait and the anticipation might even makes it better, but 45 minutes better? An hour better? 90 minutes better? Um, not really. At that point, you're really just cattle (one of many mooing, migrating, consuming cash cows). That's a serious buzz kill for an adult, let alone a kid. Maybe other kids just don't notice, so taken are they by the magic, and I was and am so much of a fussy little thing that I couldn't just enjoy it? But theoretically, and semi-practically, I love amusement parks. I love fantasy and color and rides. The things that are spooky and those that are unintentionally spooky (all animatronics). The food. The characters and the parades. The souvenirs you have to choose so carefully. And I would always make a beeline to those revue shows, the cheesier the better, and I'd wish I were up there, singing patriotic songs and smiling so hard that my face might break.