Well, hosted another successful Freethinking Camping this past weekend. (Our THIRD ANNUAL! Go us!)
A friend gave me the most excellent present ever, a Placebo Band! I put it on, stood in the middle of the circle in my wrestler stance and said “TRY to knock me over!!!” No takers. I knew the band would keep me standing.
Apparently the bands makers are out of product right now, but as soon as they have more, I’m so there!
I found out that one of my clients at work wanted to send a Father’s Day card to his dad, who is ‘in heaven’.
Mr. Hollow Earth thought of the idea of a helium balloon. I didn’t think of it because I’m not as smart or as sweet as Mr. H.E. :) We set out over to the dude’s house, helped him write a letter on some tissue paper, wrote on the balloon so they knew who to deliver it to when it got up there, and then outside we went.
He let it off and yelled “I love you, dad!” We were all yelling and clapping and saying stuff to his dad. Once it got so far away that you could barely see it, he yelled out “He got it!” Success.
All in all, it was an amazing day. It feels good to do something for someone else even if it’s not what you believe in, you know? And who knows, maybe some other dad will find that note and it will brighten his day. Or a whale could choke on it or whatever.
A warm welcome to my friend, Blonde Nonbeliever, as she joins the blogosphere. Many happy posts to you, my friend, and may “Mabian” creatures never darken your door step… :) (This is my blogger toast, FYI.)
Week Wack is was a weekly feature at my blog where you can learn a bit about me aside from my Big A existence; sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always real. I’d like to resurrect it… It’s almost Easter, why not now? :)
I just remembered this… I got lost in a Kmart once with my sister and we had our mom paged… She wouldn’t come get us because she was embarassed that we had her paged… 
I woke up this morning and my pain was pretty intense. It wasn’t like when it was at it’s worst, which was almost exactly 1 year ago, but it was still pretty bad…
I don’t talk about my health problems very often for a few reasons. One is, nobody likes a complainer. Two is, I’ve sort of learned to just deal with it and have accepted it as part of me and part of how I will live now. Third is, I look okay to the outside world, so there’s nothing visible that cues people to ask about it.
It seems like it is getting to be closer to the time that I have to explain what is happening, though, because some people just don’t get it. Like if I don’t help lift some heavy items at work I get snide comments like “Don’t exert yourself…”, and things of that nature. So I am thinking I will also start sharing this at work a little more.
(Just an FYI- I have left a lot of my doctor visits and treatments tried out for the fact that they didn’t work and it is fairly tedious/boring… I have visited numerous doctors and tried many things, they even tried ultrasound on me which made things WAY worse… And don’t suggest any of that new age BS, don’t you dare!) :)
In December of 2009 I started getting pain. It felt like a heart attack, and at first that’s what they were checking me out for. Turns out my heart is fine, and I don’t have any other health problems. They told me I probably just had some kind of virus and it would go away. It never did go away.
In March of 2010, it got significantly worse. I spent about a week in bed, and felt absolutely useless. The pain was so bad, I felt for sure that I was going to die. I was very relieved when the pain subsided enough to be up and about. But the pain never went away. (This was the only week of work I’ve missed for illness since 2009. I made a conscious decision to live with this instead of letting it get me down.)
The doctor’s diagnosed me with costochondritis, and told me it should go away in 2-3 weeks. It never did. So they finally sent me to a rheumatologist, and they tested my blood. I have all of these ‘type-markers’ for some pretty nasty things, like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, lupus, and even rheumatoid arthritis. The thing is, at this point it basically seems like I may or may not get these things, and no one is really sure how I will progress. I have been advised against giving blood (which I’d already read about before the doctor told me) since there has been some speculation that certain auto-immune disorders are actually transmitted through blood. I would never be able to forgive myself if it was my fault that someone else had this pain.
This brings me to the one glimmer I’ve had- I received a letter from the Mayo Clinic- they are apparently looking to study these type markers and how they progress. I am hoping that, at the very least, that I can help other people so that they might not have to go through this.
I’ve found a website that pretty much outlines what I am going through. It looks now, to me, that my costochondritis is chronic. In the last 6-10 months, I have also added joint and muscle pain EVERYWHERE in my body to my list of symptoms. I feel like each little joint is assaulting me and trying to make me feel miserable. It is very tiring to have chronic pain. Your body is always holding out against it, and it is a constant battle. Another symptom, that sucks, is I sweat so much because I am in so much pain and my body is working so hard to push me through it. It is embarrassing when people comment on it, especially because I can’t help it.
Even though I still appear ‘happy’ all of the time, it has changed my life significantly. Where before my husband and I could go out and look for geocaches all day, I can maybe do 1 now. I get tired so quickly and have to go to bed extremely early because of my fatigue from the day. I can’t lift things the way I used to be able to, even lifting up my laptop is something that can give me a significant amount of pain. Putting on shoes and tying them is hard and always wears me out. Taking a shower is exhausting, having to have my arms up to wash my hair is very difficult. Driving sucks because you have to have your hands/arms up on the steering wheel. (This is why I bought my Mini Cooper… If driving hurts this bad, you may as well be doing it in an awesome car…) :)
Again- not many people know this about me, because I hate to complain to other people, and I know they don’t like it. I don’t want to be ‘that person’ who is always bitching about some health problem, or whatever. But at the same time, I am going through something very real, and doing it with a smile on my face every day. (I have to say, it did help me greatly once I decided to just live with this and that it was going to be a part of me now, instead of constantly fighting it or trying to understand it.) I think it would do people some good to remember that you really have no idea what other people are facing, even if they appear to be chipper and full of energy! :)
Posted in Experiments
Tagged chronic, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, costo, costochondritis, fibromyalgia, hurt, lupus, mini cooper, pain, rheumatoid arthritis, study, type markers
Okay, I WON!!! :)
I won the chef’s table at FACES Mears Park. (This is a great place to eat, btw, if you are ever in the Twin Cities area- it is awesome!)
I get to take my husband out for his birthday, and then 8 others. I used my Spock logic and chose the people who helped me get the most votes- I figured that was the best way to be fair.
Posted in Especial Blog Days
Tagged chef's table, facebook, FACES Mears Park, food, vote
So, I know, I know- I haven’t been posting on here. I can’t help it- my job is crazy busy AND I’m trying to finish school. (3 more classes if anyone is keeping track.)
I thought I’d share this book I ran across on Amazon the other day:
What’s the LEAST I Can Believe and Still be a Christian?
It’s FREE right now if any of you are hankering to download your very own copy…
This of course prompted much hilarity on my Facebook page, and we started a series of ‘What’s the least you can do posts’. It was great fun. Here are some of my favorites:
What’s the least I can do and keep this job?
What’s the least I can do and still keep my dog alive?
What’s the least I can do and still keep mySELF alive?
What is the least you can do to still be considered hardcore porn?
What’s the least I can eat without being hospitalized for heart failure?
I also had to share my FAVORITE review of the book, which I find so blissfully ignorant that it makes me giggle every time I read it:
” Do not believe everything you read. If you believe the Bible is the inspired word of God and nothing should be changed, then this book is not for you.”
I of course wrote my own review and said: Take a little of your own advice, buttercup!
Well, I’m going back to college. It’s either the smartest or the dumbest thing I’ve ever done- I guess we’ll find out soon!!
Today was a very snowy day here in Minnesota, pretty crap. I park in the pay lot that is close to the buildings, and when I walked back to my car, I saw that a lady in a Kia Soul was blocking the only way out, and the man who usually works in the pay lot booth was trying to push her out by himself.
I also saw a young man, probably early 30′s, who looked very fit and strong and he saw us, too. I thought for sure he’d stop to help, but he just walked over to his car and got in.
I’m thinking, “Wow, genius, none of us are leaving if we can’t move her!” So I yelled to the guy if he wanted help and he yelled back that it would be nice. I was helping push, but it just seemed like we needed one more person. Meanwhile, the dip shit who won’t help is sitting in his car, waiting to pay and leave. Again, it’s very obvious she is blocking the ONLY way out…
Finally, another guy comes up from way behind the line up and helps us, and with the 3 of us, we get her car pushed out. We are happy and start to run back to our cars, and I take another look at the jerk who refused to help- he was wearing a priest collar!!! He’s a priest!!!! Lol. Probably praying for God to move the car or something…
(On a side note, I’m super glad I bought my Mini Cooper, because I was seriously considering a Kia Soul at the time as well. Gary (my beautiful, beautiful car) had NO trouble plowing through that mess today. He’s a real champ.)
Posted in Freethinker Musings
This is a fun new feature at WordPress- check it out! My blog did better than I thought it did, so that’s cool.
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 21,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 5 fully loaded ships.
In 2010, there were 43 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 236 posts. There were 35 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 16mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.
The busiest day of the year was March 23rd with 174 views. The most popular post that day was Sit Tight While the Reps Grab Their Binkies!.
The top referring sites in 2010 were networkedblogs.com, rpc.blogrolling.com, facebook.com, waywardskeptics.blogspot.com, and en.wordpress.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for brad pitt, monkey, panda dog, planet, and rabbit.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Sit Tight While the Reps Grab Their Binkies! March 2010
3 comments
Animal sex as a Valentine’s treat. January 2009
12 comments
Godless Brad Pitt July 2009
12 comments
Week Wack: Hey, animal sex people! June 2009
12 comments
Planet Atheism March 2009
17 comments
Posted in Especial Blog Days
Everyone should buzz on over to check out Blue Collar Atheist, where you can check out the new book “Red Neck, Blue Collar, Atheist: Simple Thoughts About Reason, Gods and Faith”! I know it’s on my Amazon wishlist, and now it can be on yours, too.
While I’m at it, why don’t you also check out: “The Atheist Camel Chronicles”.
You know you have gift cards burning a hole in your pocket; go grab a couple of super funny books while you’re at it! :)
Posted in Atheist News
