Pain I’ve Been Living With…

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!  :)

Religionuts Further Atheism: Agree with Christian Fundamentalists!

The best thing for atheism is fundamentalist religious people. Atheists should be promoting this behavior everywhere and anywhere they can.  The more people see these kinds of statements and attitudes, the more they will turn away from religion.  I say rile them up and really get them going:  Agree with them!!!

The Door Knocker Saga- Experiments with Missionaries.

I’m eating my Frosted Krispies, and Vic says he sees two well-dressed ladies walking up our street.  “They’re door-knockers”, says I.  Vic says he thinks they’re wearing too brightly colored clothes to be door-knockers, but I think he’s confusing the door-knockers with the Amish or some shit.  We get out the binoculars we use to spy on our neighbors and Vic confirms that they are indeed knocking on doors.

“Get the atheist bag” I tell Vic.  We pull out our best atheist propaganda.  I am actually excited, and in my awesome rock star black and silver leopard jammies, I start dancing in our living room.  “I hope they stop here, I hope they stop.  PLEASE knock on our door.”

Here they come, walking up the driveway!  Yes!  I open the door.  (Remember, I’m wearing my rock star jammies, my tattoos are hanging out, my mascara is smeared, my hair is all over the place.  Generally, I look awesome.)

“Hello!”

“Hello!  I am here today to talk to you about the world, do you think it’s going to get better?”

“Well, how do you mean?”

“Most people in this area were raised Christian, were you?  I’m assuming you were.”

“Actually, no, I wasn’t…”  (This is the truth.)  Pause…

“So, do you know the Lord’s Prayer?”

Here, I decide to lie.  I know the Lord’s Prayer.  Not because I’m religious, but because I have this damn good memory, and I used to take people with disabilities to church when I worked on Sundays if they chose to go…

“Um… No, can’t say that I do.”

Her spiel is ruined.  She doesn’t really know what to say.  She even says to me “Well, I guess I can’t ask you THOSE questions, then…”

I reach out my hand, which has the atheist propaganda in it.  On top is the Freedom From Religion non-tract called “Why Jesus?”  Her eyes light up:  “Oh, you DO believe in Jesus!!!”  I look at her face and really slowly and drawn out I say “Nooooo”.

She stares at the propaganda but won’t even touch it.  She says she’s done a lot of research, but if that stuff says there is no Jesus, then she can’t take it to read it.  She asks me to just tell her what’s in there.  We tell her she can read it herself.

Then Vic ruins my fun by getting curt and telling them to get away from our house and keep their silly superstitions to themselves.  Dude, I could’ve done this all day.  Wonder if they’ll ever come back?

Go lord it up in someone else's lawn, freak!

Sunny’s Great Adoption Experiment: Volunteers???

August Berkshire’s piece on abortion at the Minnesota Atheists webpage is getting some talk, including this recently made statement:

Also, every person is not born solely for their own salvation, but also to help bring the living to God. So by taking their life, you also cut off ANY opportunity they have to bring love and peace to others.

This is coupled with a video PZ posted that I found shocking, although I’d say I probably could have guessed what was coming:

Glad you’re still here.

I’d like to announce Sunny’s Great Adoption Experiment:

IF you identify as Anti-Choice instead of Pro-Choice, then please proceed:

-I challenge you to adopt at least two children who do not currently have families to live with.  Two children is a very small number, close to average, actually.

-Because of this small number, in addition to your two adopted children, I would like you to open your home as a foster parent.  This would usually only be one child at a time, so that would only be a total of three children.  That is not too many to take care of, and since there are so many of you anti-choicers, you should have this abortion problem solved in no time!  (If you’ve already adopted and are fostering, good on ya, and keep it up.  Proceed to the next step!)

-Of course, you can continue to keep your home open as a foster home as long as you see fit.  It seems there are always children in need of a loving, supportive environment.  Once both of your adopted children are grown and out of the house (hopefully by around age 18, but you never know), I’d like you to volunteer your time to a program such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters.  That way, you will be able to continue to influence children’s lives and have a positive impact on them!

Three easy steps!  I’ll outline them again in case it was too wordy for you:

-Adopt.

-Foster.

-Volunteer.

So, let’s try this experiment, and see how it works for you.  We’ll be able to cancel out all of the abortions.  (For the record, I’ve had a TON, so we have a long road ahead of us!)

Go ahead, put your parenting skills where your mouth is!  I didn’t get any takers for my first Great Amputee Experiment, I’m assuming not enough people read the post?  I hope I get more volunteers for this one.

Adopt! Foster! Volunteer! Feed Me!

Sunny’s Great Amputee Experiment: Volunteers??

Why Won’t God Heal Amputees has some great information and video that will tell you why god is imaginary.  It’s pretty fun and there are good points.

In spite of all of this information, I was told today on the Minnesota Atheists forum that god actually does heal amputees, and thus I have offered up a challenge to that person and anyone else who agrees with him or her to take part in my Great Amputee Experiment.

If you are a christian, and would like to prove that god does in fact heal amputees, sign up here, and I’ll help you out with that.  I will admit, I don’t have any practice cutting limbs off of people, but I’m sure I could figure something out to assist.  Then I’ll pour you a cup of coffee, we’ll sit together, and just wait for them to grow back in, no worries.

This guy must not be praying very hard!!!