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I am always clearing my throat. Damn near constantly. Ever since i was a teenager, i’ve had a chronic itch/tickle in the back of my throat. If i don’t clear my throat, my voice breaks and sometimes just doesn’t work. Clear throat, voice comes back. Very simple. I suspect it’s an allergy thing or a post nasal drip thing, or just another Lindsay’s body is just wonky thing.
I haven’t given it much thought, not in a long time. But a while back, someone said to me, “you should get some lozenges, so your throat doesn’t get raw.” That confused me: why would i need lozenges? Oh yeah, the clearing my throat thing that i do all the time. I explained that it wasn’t a cold or a nervous habit, just that if i didn’t do it, i’d lose my voice.
Since then, i’ve been relatively self-conscious about it. More aware of it. More trying to not do it. More apologizing to the people around me for it – even to my husband, who i’m sure is well used to it after 8 years together.
I can definitely understand how my throat-clearing might be seen as annoying to those around me. But feeling guilty about it won’t make it go away, won’t change anything. It’s something about me that i’ve not yet figured out how to change, if that change is even necessary. While it may be annoying to some, it’s not actively causing harm to anyone. Sound familiar?
This is and is not an analogy; i really do have to clear my throat more than a dozen times a day (it’s generally worst in the morning). We all have our oddities, our idiosyncrasies. And we sometimes get distorted notions about how much these things impact the people around us. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. The ones that do, we might need to look at more closely. The ones that don’t, we need to recognize that they don’t, and move on.
I am cross-posting and emailing this =everywhere=… so apologies if you end up seeing it more than once. 
[Find out more about National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week and the 5-day free virtual conference with 20 speakers Sept 14-18, 2009 at invisibleillnessweek.com. If you are interested in blogging a post like this one please go here: http://invisibleillnessweek.com/?p=2301]
30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know
1. The illnesses I live with are: endometriosis and fibromyalgia. These days, the former is not a daily problem, but the latter is a daily problem more often than not.
2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: endometriosis can’t really be diagnosed without a surgical procedure to go in and see what’s going on; my last surgery was in 2002. My fibro was diagnosed in 1998 or 1999, i can’t recall.
3. But I had symptoms since: with both endo and fibro, it’s hard to tell when the symptoms started. My periods have always been painful, and they started when i was 13. I remember feeling a lot of general aches and pains since i was a child, but those could have just as easily been caused by the sort of childhood i experienced. The fibro really ramped up when i was 19 and in college, where the pain started to become drastically disproportionate to my experiences.
4. The biggest adjustment I?ve had to make is: honestly, i’ve had these things for so long, i don’t remember living without them. So the adjustments weren’t how i lived with them, but rather how i lived with other people while living with these conditions. Learning how to ask for help was a pretty big one for me.
5. Most people assume: … i have no idea. I can imagine that strangers might assume that any external signs of problems (the occasional limp, awkward gait or other signs of pain) might be due to my size… but that could be me being sensitive about my weight. I can imagine that some of my family might assume that i’m overreacting or being too sensitive… but that could be a misinterpretation on my part. I can imagine a lot of assumptions, but honestly i’ve found that it’s better for my emotional well-being if i don’t take the opinions of strangers into account, and if i recognize that family members still love me even if they don’t always understand what i’m going through.
6. The hardest part about mornings are: wanting to sleep more, but having to get up because it hurts too much to stay in a horizontal position.
7. My favorite medical TV show is: non-existant. I don’t watch television.
8. A gadget I couldn?t live without is: the computer. Since going out is both mentally and physically uncomfortable, it gives me other means of connecting and communicating with the people i care for.
9. The hardest part about nights are: falling asleep. Sometimes it’s hard to find a comfortable position, and i =have= been able to pull my back out just by changing positions in bed.
10. Each day I take __ pills & vitamins. (No comments, please) – it varies. When i was in my “pretend i’m a guinea pig” phase, the number was anywhere between 5 and 20. Currently, in the morning i take omeprazole for the perpetual heartburn, vitamin D, lysine (if my mucous membranes are feeling raw), omega-3 oil (if my aches and pains are particularly bad), and evening primrose oil (if i’m feeling hormonal or crampy); in the evening, i take one 50mg tablet of Elavil (generic: amitriptyline) to help regulate my sleep cycles and treat the sleep disorder issue that plays chicken/egg with fibro.
11. Regarding alternative treatments I: have tried damn near everything, because for ages it was impossible to find a doctor who didn’t say, “oh, just lose some weight and you’ll be fine.” Some of the more notable experiments include: massage, chiropractics, yoga, exercise, a variety of different types of diets, 5-HTP, cayenne, glucosamine (don’t try that one if you’re allergic to shellfish, yikes), magnesium, probiotics, the guiafenesin protocol, turmeric, yerba mat?, and a score of other things i’m forgetting.
12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: i honestly can’t say. On one hand, a visible illness might make it less necessary for me to constantly explain myself; on the other hand, an invisible illness means that i am less externally defined by a projected image of =any= sort of illness. In this case, if either side of the visible/invisible fence seems greener, i can assure you that i know exactly what it’s being fertilized with.
13. Regarding working and career: i don’t have many options. I need some kind of job with low/minimal physical requirements. For the past decade or so, this has translated into tech support jobs. Currently, i’m between jobs, as outsourcing is the bane of my existance.
14. People would be surprised to know: i don’t really know how to answer this one.
15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: …? No idea how to answer this, because my invisible illnesses have been with me for 15-20 years.
16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: walk a mile without needing a day to recover. Amitriptyline has done wonders for me.
17. The commercials about my illness: are things i’ve heard people complain about, but don’t often see (that whole “don’t watch telly” thing). I have seen one commercial for Lyrica, i think. It involved a woman writing something in a diary at one point, and i remember laughing (sarcastically, mind you) at the beautiful and regular handwriting: i know a lot of people with fibro who can barely write legibly because it just hurts too much.
18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: … there was a very long period of time between the onset of symptoms and actual diagnosis, and an even longer period of time between diagnosis and successful treatment. So i’d be talking about missing things i haven’t been able to do since high school. I guess i’d say i miss riding my bike, but that has more to do with my not-bike-friendly locale and less to do with my ability to actually ride a bike.
19. It was really hard to have to give up: the friends who didn’t understand that no, i really DID want to hang out with them, but was feeling too ill to go out that night… or the night after that, or the night after that, or the night after that.
20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: knitting and crocheting. Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes my hands make funny rice krispy noises when i’m doing it, but it makes me feel productive and useful. I can’t clean the house, but i can make hats and afghans that will keep the people i love warm.
21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: start the morning with a good jog through the neighborhood, meet a friend for coffee at a nearby cafe, take a 5 mile hike through the woods with a picnic lunch, take a stroll through a museum or art gallery, clean the hell out of my house, have friends over for dinner, and go to bed to have gymnastic sex with my husband before falling into an undisturbed and restful sleep.
22. My illness has taught me: how to live with it instead of around it. It takes up a lot of space, and living around it means barely living at all. Living with it means i have to make a lot of sacrifices and compromises, but i’ve learned to be okay with that. For the most part. It has also taught me that health is neither a guarantee, nor is it a moral issue. Chronic conditions are NOT some form of cosmic punishment. 
23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is: (i have to pick ONE?) I dislike anything that someone says that either directly states or implies that fibromyalgia is something that you can “think your way out of”. This isn’t mind over matter. This is an honest-to-goodness real and valid physical condition with real and actual neurological components. Just because YOU haven’t done or read the research doesn’t mean it isn’t out there or that it hasn’t been done.
24. But I love it when people: understand that my not being able to keep up with them isn’t in any way indicative of how much i care for them.
25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is: “This, too, shall pass.”
26. When someone is diagnosed I?d like to tell them: “You are NOT ALONE.” Invisible illnesses are incredibly isolating, as is pain itself.
27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: how many other people i know who have similar conditions.
28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn?t feeling well was: … there is no One Thing. It’s all lots of little things. My husband does a wonderful job at so many of these things, describing them and listing them is a post unto itself.
29. I?m involved with Invisible Illness Week because: i think it’s important.
30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: hopeful that you might understand me better, worried that i might scare you off, and terrified that you might think i was making any of this up.
I’ve just come back from a bit of traveling, and several things happened that i want to talk about here. This is going to be a very long post.
First things first: i’m very protective of certain aspects of my private life: there are some stories that are not mine to tell, and for those situations, i will be as vague as possible. There are other situations where i am protective of the people involved; regardless of whether or not i have valid reasons to be posting about the situations involving them, they would most likely not appreciate seeing their words or actions posted on a public blog (even if it doesn’t get much traffic). In those latter situations, i am going to try to address them from the viewpoint of how their words or actions impacted me, rather than speculation on their motives.
For context, a brief overview of my travels: took a plane to Detroit, MI, to spend a few days with my husband’s family; took a train from Ann Arbor to Chicago to spend time with my own family; returned home via plane from Chicago to Atlanta. I left Atlanta on September 2nd and returned September 10th.
I got to the Atlanta airport with oodles of time to spare. One of the things about traveling with chronic pain is making sure you’ve got more than enough time. I once found myself dreadfully late for a flight – i literally ran from the security checkpoint to the gate, and it caused one of the worst flares i’d ever had. Completely ruined that trip for me.? So i get to the airport at least 1-2 hours early, and i make sure i’ve got something with me to help pass the time (book, game, etc).
Situation #1
While waiting for my flight to Detroit, i sat at the gate for about an hour before my hips started to ache. So i stood up and found a wall to lean against. While standing there, another woman came by and stood about 10 feet from me. She was standing just fine, no fidgeting, nothing. About 10 minutes later, an airport employee came by with two wheelchairs, both intended for some people who were getting off of the plane that was to arrive shortly. He left them there and walked away. Five minutes later, this woman was sitting in one of those wheelchairs. When the plane arrived, the airline employees had to keep someone waiting on the plane while they found another wheelchair, which delayed boarding for the next flight. When that was finally allowed to occur, this woman allowed herself to be wheeled onto the plane first – ahead of everyone else.
This put me into a rather uncomfortable situation. I had seen the entire thing, but there was a lot i didn’t know: did she have any kind of invisible illness that created a valid need for that wheelchair? Had she requested a wheelchair already, but not been able to get one until then? Or was she taking advantage of the situation? I wanted to go to her and ask her those things, but i felt it was not my place to do so. I could have gone to one of the airline employees at the gate and informed them of the situation, but without knowing whether or not she had valid reasons for use of the wheelchair, i didn’t feel like that was the right thing to do. Looking back, i’m still not sure if i should have reported the issue or not.
Fast forward a few days to situation #2.
A member of my husband’s family was involved in a situation whereupon a child was to be born and ultimately given up for adoption. My husband and i had very strong opinions on the matter that we tried to keep to ourselves – it was not our decision to make; ultimately, the best thing we could do was be supportive and available. I admit that i did not do so well with the availability bits in the past few months, mostly because i didn’t think it would go well if this person and i got into any in-depth conversations on the matter.
This child was born while i was in Michigan, and i was present during the birth (not in the room, mind you – i was sitting with other friends and family in a waiting area). This was incredibly distressing for me: sounds of labor from one direction, sounds of mothers with their babies from another direction (there was a class or meeting being held in a nearby room). All around me, pictures of babies. Reminders of what i lost, and what i will most likely never be able to do or have. I tried my best to be calm, and stepped outside for cigarette breaks when i found myself losing that calm.
(As a side note, my uterus decided this was just the right time for me to go menstrual and hormonal. I do not appreciate its sense of humor or its sense of irony. Either way, it gets no love from me.)
On one hand, i was glad i was able to provide support for my loved ones. On the other hand, it hurt me in ways i’ve not had time or space to process, and i don’t know what the recovery from that will look like. It might involve quantities of rum, it might involve tears and hitting pillows, it might involve lengthy diatribes here or with other family members. Whatever that reaction will be, i know that i cannot have it until i feel safe to do so. And right now, there’s just too damn much going on for me to allow that level of breakdown. So it sits, and it waits. It’s not going anywhere.
Situation #3
One of the older members of my family (read: not of my generation) felt it necessary to let me know that they thought my husband was having a negative impact on my life, that he was holding me back or stifling me. That i was letting his opinions carry more weight than my own, and that his decisions about our life and lifestyle were more important than mine.
There was also some discussion that perhaps i should start thinking about what i wanted to do with my life, and that it would be a disappointment if i reached 40 (i’m 33) without having figured out what i wanted to do. No pressure or anything.
I do not think i handled this conversation particularly well, perhaps because it caught me off guard. I felt that it was presented in a way that left me no way to respond without sounding like i was making excuses. I ended the conversation by stating that i have been trying to figure out What To Do With My Life on and off for years, and that i had been heavily focusing on these things within the last few months – and that this trip was to have been a vacation from that process.
This hurt. It hurt a lot. Prior to this, Ben and i thought that these folks understood our lifestyle, that they understood our reasons for our particular choices. I say “these folks” because there was implication that other members of my family felt as they did. So this is not a “shoot the messenger” sort of situation. I’m feeling hurt by all of them, in varying degrees.
Given that contact between me and other family members tends to be sporadic at best, it feels as if there is little interest in keeping up to date with who this Lindsay person really is. I do also recognize that there is more than a little responsibility for that on my shoulders. There are some aspects of my life that i don’t discuss with them because i don’t want them to worry, or i don’t want to come across as a hypochondriac. I don’t talk about my fibro with them because it just not fun to talk about; i don’t want my letters to them to be all about my aches and pains. I don’t want to talk about my body issues with them, because i have trouble talking to my husband about them, for pete’s sake. It’s easier to write about these things semi-anonymously on a blog than it is to discuss them face to face with people who’ve known you for any length of time.
Situation #4
The setting: a high-end brass and ferns restaurant (you don’t have to dress up, but reservations are recommended if you hope to get a table when you get there). It was not my idea to go there, but one of the family had been raving about it and pushing the issue a bit. So reservations were made a day or two in advance and we (me, my brother, his girlfriend, and our parents) all met at the restaurant for dinner at the time of our reservation.
More information about the setting: i was told it was not an overly loud place, and that the noise levels wouldn’t interfere with conversation. I did not find this to be the case, and was regularly asking people to repeat themselves. I got tired of that (as did they, i imagine), and just accepted the fact that i would miss half of what all was being said. Also: the chairs were excruciating. My hips were yelling at me within five minutes of sitting down, and my back starting complaining within 15 minutes. So the discomfort i experienced was audible, physical, and emotional (which i’m just about to get into).
I decided to splurge a bit: i wanted to get ribs. I love ribs. Love love love. We have them relatively often at home, because one of the nearby grocery stores sells them in bulk ($15 for five full racks of ribs, yes really). They’re ludicrously cheap, and the bones make excellent dog treats. But since i hadn’t ordered ribs in a restaurant for several years, i couldn’t remember the size of a full rack, and was debating between the full and half rack order. My father told me to just order the full rack, and if it was more than i could eat, i’d have leftovers for lunch the next day (which is exactly what happened).
When the food arrived, my plate was put down second. My stepmum looked at it, then looked at me and said, “Moooooooo!”
Yes. She mooed at me. Really. I don’t recall if i’ve ever had that happen before.
My reaction: i blinked. A lot. Partially to attempt to cover up the shock, partially because my stomach immediately cramped up and i was trying to not vomit on the table, and partially because i recognized that this was One Of Those Moments. I knew that no matter what i said, i would think about it later and wish i’d said something else. So after a second or two, i responded as politely as i could, “No, i don’t think these are beef ribs.”
(As luck would have it, my husband chose that moment to send me a text message telling me he loved me. He is made of awesome and win. I responded by texting him back and telling him that i had just been mooed at, and he responded by asking if there was an alien takeover. “Do we have a foot-hold situation?” I snickered to myself and resolved to get through dinner as quietly as possible.)
It didn’t help that no one else at the table seemed to have any reaction; i will admit that i was so stunned that i didn’t think to observe the people around me immediately after the mooing. But no one said anything. There seemed to be a bit of a pause while folks were waiting for my response, but that could have just as easily been them waiting for their own food to be presented to them.
It also didn’t help that the rest of the dinner conversation rotated around diets and a “funny” story about a small child reacting to fat woman getting out of a pool (“She’s BIIIIIG!”); i responded by saying i didn’t find it particularly amusing, but was informed that the funny thing about it wasn’t her girth, but the child’s reaction. I think my eyeball twitched a few times at that, but i don’t recall responding out loud.
I have already relayed the moo story to several friends, and the best response suggested would have been to wait a few seconds and then respond, “Woof.” Perfect on SO many levels, and i plan to burn that into my brain in the event that anyone should ever moo at me ever again.
I have dealt with a LOT of my body issues over the past decade or so, but the hardest one has always been dealing with people who feel compelled to remark upon what i’m eating, or how much i’m eating. The minute someone says anything even remotely derogatory or disapproving of the food in front of me, my stomach clenches up and it’s a fight to get (or keep) anything down. It’s the hardest one to work on because i never willingly put myself in that kind of situation, and most of the people i choose to associate with during mealtimes are the sort who would never have that kind of reaction towards me or my food.
Honestly i’m still in a bit of disbelief. It felt incredibly disrespectful and demeaning, and i really don’t want to think that was what was intended. This is not someone with whom i have always had a good relationship, but i thought it had improved in recent years. I don’t know if i need to re-evaluate that. I don’t know how to respond to them right now, and i imagine it’s best that i don’t respond to them for the time being. I know that my family tends to interpret radio silence from me as a sign of anger or hostility; while that hasn’t been true for many years, it just might be true now. I think i’m more hurt than angry, at the moment.
Summary: when a vacation requires time to emotionally recover from it, it no longer qualifies as a vacation.
After spending a few days in Michigan, i took a train from Ann Arbor to Chicago. It was delightful; as we were boarding, i found myself towards the tail end of the line. This meant that by the time i got on the train, there were nearly NO available seats in the first car… but the second car was delightfully empty. It did fill up a bit, but it was very quiet, and i had a front-row seat (which meant i could stretch my legs quite nicely).
It was a 5 hour train ride, and my camera’s batteries died after 2 hours. Guess how happy i was about that? Peh. I wound up taking about 130 pictures on the train, and only six of them came out. I’m actually rather pleased about that number, given that i was taking pictures through a window that was scrungy on the outside, and the train was generally moving at 79 mph (standard for long distance passenger trains, if i recall correctly). These aren’t the greatest pictures i’ve ever taken, but they’re the best of that bunch.
And without further ado… pictures behind the cut!
Continue reading Vacation, part 2: Transition via Amtrak
My husband’s parents are way too cool to refer to them as “in-laws”. In any case, i was hanging out with Ben’s folks for a few days – and how cool is that, that i can go hang out with them by myself? I didn’t get as many pictures as i’d wanted to, but here’s what i’ve got.
Pictures behind the cut; normally i do batches of photos in gallery style, but i want to add commentary, so they’re posted individually.
Continue reading Vacation, part 1: Michigan bits
One day, when i was in kindergarten, i was playing “house” with some dolls. I remember my teacher coming up to me and asking me about it.
“Are these your babies?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to have babies when you grow up?”
“Oh, no. I can’t have babies.”
“Why not?”
“Because i’d die.”
And thus began my long school career of initiating parent-teacher meetings. I had a lot of strange ideas about babies when i was a child. Nothing pertaining to where they came from, at least not that i could recall.
All of my dolls were blind. They couldn’t see anything. I remember being very affected by Mary’s blindness on Little House on the Prairie; it might have been that, or it might have been that i needed coke bottle glasses by the time i was in second grade.
But from a very early age, it never occurred to me that i could have children. Later, as i went through a lot of anger (and a lot of therapy) towards my mother regarding the way she had abused me and my brother, i decided that i would Never Have Children. If my mother couldn’t control herself around us, as her mother before her couldn’t control herself, then i decided i didn’t want to risk continuation of the cycle of abuse.
Fast forward to one of my boyfriends. He said out loud that he didn’t want kids, but he got all squishyfaced around kids, and a lot of the things he said indicated he actually did want them. Since it was a really fucked up relationship, i interpreted it to mean that he didn’t want them with me. One day, while helping some friends move, i felt a strong gripping pain in my abdomen, waves of nausea, and long story short: my first miscarriage. I wasn’t certain about it at the time, having nothing to compare it to. My period was generally regular, but it was a few days late. So if it was a miscarriage, i wasn’t far in at all.
Fast forward to another boyfriend. We never talked about it directly, but he had told me that his previous girlfriend (who had died in a tragic accident a year before i met him) was infertile as a result of an accident she’d had when she was a teenager. The way he talked about it made me think he didn’t want kids. One night, after we had sex, i felt a strange glowing feeling. The next morning when i woke up, i felt very different. As the days and weeks went by, i realized i never felt alone. There was always the presence of a little girl with me. I realized she was my unborn daughter. I could feel her with me from the moment she arrived.
Call it woo, call it weird, call it whatever you want. I know what it was. She left me 5 weeks later, on Christmas Day. The relationship did not survive my breaking the news to my then-boyfriend. I hadn’t told him about my little girl up until that point – i wanted to be sure.
I’ve had endometriosis since i was 15. My first surgery was when i was 19, my second surgery was when i was 26. The first time, they didn’t have as good an idea of what to look for, and so they thought there was nothing there – they were only looking for “gunpowder burns” – little black spots. By the time i was 26, a lot more was known about endometriosis and they lasered off about a dozen dime-sized nodules of the stuff. That’s a lot of years’ worth of internal scarring.
I just turned 33 this year. Women with endo who wait until their 30s to try to have children often find they have a great deal of difficulty conceiving.
And that doesn’t even begin to touch the fibromyalgia issues. I’ve read conflicting things about that; some women find that being pregnant relieves their fibro symptoms, others find that it makes them hella worse. Every pregnancy is different.
There’s a lot going against me, with the idea of having kids.
Right now, i’m not opposed to the general idea, but i recognize it would require a LOT of lifestyle changes. First off, i’d need to have a job and insurance. We wouldn’t be able to keep all of our pets, and given that we think of them as our children? Giving them up would be hell for all involved. I don’t even like to think about it. We’d probably want to move back up north, to be closer to family; that, and i don’t want any child of mine to come within 100 yards of the GA school system. There’s just SO much involved.
So this has been a really really really hard year for me. One of my husband’s brothers, he and his wife are very pregnant, and i plan on being SuperAuntie with that child, letmetellyouwhat. I’m already making something for the wee one, something that’s a bit of a family tradition with my peeps. (No spoilers on what it is.)
That’s been hard, but the idea of being able to spoil their child rotten is a mild comfort in that area.
What hasn’t been easy is that another family member is in a relationship where there is a child on the way. I’m not giving details because if you’re not aware of who, you don’t need to be. It’s not my information to tell. But they have decided to give that child up for adoption. That has been hell in a handbasket. For the most part, we have tried to be supportive because it’s not our decision. We have some strong feelings on the matter, but right now the right thing to do is keep those to ourselves and be there for this person.
If we were in a position to do so (me with a job and not so many fur-kids), i would be offering to adopt that child in a heartbeat. But we can’t. And a similar offer from another family member has been rejected. And it hurts. It hurts so very much, i haven’t been able to bring myself to talk about it.
My husband is scared to try to have kids with me. Endometriosis is not supposed to be even close to a fatal condition, but due to medical neglect like wtf, mine very nearly was. I’ll spare the details, because that’s a whole other post. Oftentimes, i put up a front of being intentionally child-free, because it hurts to much to think about being child-free because my body just won’t let me. I live vicariously through people’s pictures of their own children, i look at baby pictures with a mixture of adoration and envy.
With my niece/nephew on the way (i don’t know when the due date is), it’s brought a lot of this up to the front of my brain. Before this, it was something we just didn’t talk about. It was too scary to bring up out of nowhere.
It’s still scary. And it hurts for a whole lot of reasons, most of which i’ve already talked about.
I’ve compared notes with a lot of people who have fibro. One thing we all seem to have in common is that most of us have had mononucleosis at some point or another. This might strike some as No Big Deal, right? Well. From Wikipedia (link):
“Most people are exposed to the [mononucleosis] virus as children, when the disease produces no noticeable symptoms or only flu-like symptoms.”
I had a rather remarkable case of mono. I caught it during the last week of junior year in high school, which means i’m amazed i passed my finals. I fell asleep before, during and after each test. The teachers could barely keep me awake. After school ended, my stepmum took me to the doctor, and my doc was very concerned because my spleen was three times its normal size – she didn’t need to do an ultrasound, because she could feel it. Normally, it’s tucked away nice and neat behind the ribcage. For a month, i was not allowed to lift anything heavier than a paperback book. I was not allowed to move too much. I pretty much slept for three weeks straight, so that was no big deal.
I can’t recall exactly when the fibro symptoms started ramping up. I remember hurting a lot as a child, but i also remember getting beaten a lot as a child, so the pain i remember could have just been soreness from that mess. The first time i recognized abnormal pain was when i was in college – woke up one morning, tried to go to my classes, and halfway through the quad it felt like someone had suddenly broken all of my toes.
I’ll spare the details of my fibro history because it’s tl;dr, even for me at this point. Fast forward until about 20 minutes ago.
Poking around my google reader, came across a link to an article about vestigial organs. I was bored and couldn’t think of anything else to do, so i clicked it and started reading.
A new study, published in the journal Science (as of 2-3 days ago) has found that the spleen (*cough*points up*cough*) actually has a purpose: storing monocytes. According to the article, monocytes are “white blood cells essential for immune defense and tissue repair.”
Emphasis mine.
My mind is reeling about this, but there’s currently SO little information out there about this. Hell, the article was only published a few days ago. But i’ll definitely be looking for more information about this one.
Let’s be fair: the same conclusion is tested and proven in virtually every column or article that features the word “study”. Any article that mentions both evolution and body image means that Ben and i are both going to have a field day.
This article is like a grown up version of “Highlights For Kids”, except it’s “how many things can you find wrong with this article?” I was going to start out by asking “How many things are wrong about this article? I’ll give you a hint: there are # sentences in it.” But then i realized i’d have to count the sentences, and it’s already done enough damage to my poor brainmeats.
I should probably link the article in question, and give some idea as to what’s so Oh Hell No about it: Evolution produces more ‘beautiful’ women: Study shows attractive women have more children. Interestingly enough, that’s not the headline i saw in the link (i know, space-saving measure and all that), which was: “Studies: Women getting prettier.”
So my initial curiosity about the article was “O RLY? How does that line up with the ZOMG OBESIPANIC *FLAIL*?”
But oh, it’s so much worse. So, so, SO much worse. And here comes the break down…
Recent studies found that, evolutionarily-speaking, women are growing more beautiful while men are remaining their same scratchy, hairy primordial selves, according to a report in The Sunday Times.
That’s the second paragraph/sentence in the article. I find it offensive because on one level, it lines up the socially acceptable “men can be ugly, women have to be pretty” double standard; it plays directly into the war of the sexes: men are primitives, women are the ornamental bastion of society. If women are around for decoration and men are still working out which end of the stick to stab the mammoth with, who’s actually building this civilization?
Further, a study from the University of Helsinki found that beautiful women have more children than their less-than-blessed peers.
Sure, if you’re Angelina Jolie. But what explains Octomom?
I don’t follow the news much, but it was hard to avoid news about “Octomom”. In fact, i distinctly recall seeing an article that existed for the sole purpose of comparing Angelina’s visual appearance to that of Octomom Nadya Suleman, noting their similarities. Now, the idea that this article existed is offensive on so many levels that it’s a whole other not going there. Honestly, i think both women have issues; one’s are written off or seen as idiosyncratic (maybe because she’s rich and famous?), and the other woman’s issues are thrown at her with a dehumanization that makes me nauseated.
For instance, the University of Helsinki looked to a 40-year study of 1,244 women and 997 men from the U.S., which included photos of the participants’ looks as they aged and taking note of how many children each had, with lovely ladies bearing 16 percent more babies other women.
First things first: 2 thousand people (out of a current population of 307,010,000) is barely scratching the surface. In my own family, we have pictures of my father’s grandparents (or great-grandparents, i can’t recall off the top of my head). So that’s four or five generations right there. Just a little math here: if you divided those ~2k people into 3-4 generations, and assumed that you had pictures of entire families for accurate comparisons, you’d have roughly 500-650 families… out of 307 million people? That isn’t even 1%.
Some other questions raised here:
- What was the method of selection for the photographs?
- What areas of this rather large country did these women come from?
- How many different races and nationalities were represented?
- By which society’s (and era’s) standards were these men and women judged?
Obviously, the criteria is sexual appeal as evidenced by sexual activity, this reduces the study to the shocking revelation that people who get shagged more often tend to have more children – finally disproving the long-held myth of cabbage patch babies.
Next up:
Kanazawa’s work, the Times reports, found that attractive parents were more likely to bear daughters, suggesting that the human DNA was programmed to do so.
Last i was aware, the gender of the child was determined by the male’s genetics, not the female’s. Extending that, we have the idea that: men who choose attractive women as mating partners are more likely to produce female children. Many cultures deem it emasculating for a male to fail to produce male offspring. Honestly, i do find that fascinating, especially when you start getting into topics such as royal heirs, female infanticide and societal demands upon women’s appearances.
And the cherry on top of the sundae mess that is this article:
Researchers also found that both sexes agree women are more visually pleasing than men, according to the Sunday Times.
We needed a study to support that?
When it comes to men, researchers found no notable difference in the number of off-spring by hot or homely men. Because let’s face it, a man’s looks are second only to success. Don’t believe us? Ask Donald Trump. Or Howard Stern. Billy Joel. Ozzy Osbourne. Woody Allen. Kid Rock. You get the idea.
Donald Trump has a very publicly disastrous love life. Ditto Howard Stern, he and his now ex-wife got together before he was successful.
The thing that’s really offensive about this? Aside from Donald Trump, they’re listing artists, and then going on to imply that their success is the only thing attractive about them. We’re supposed to believe that the only thing to find attractive about Billy Joel is his money? That is the direct implication of the article. Ask Tori Amos about that – she has commented about the appeal of Billy Joel at some length – and not because he makes a lot of money. And how many supermodels has Billy Joel dated? Must only be because of his money, right?
Ozzy Osbourne is a rock culture sex icon, and has been for almost 40 years. For a lot of people, he is the physical incarnation of the rock and roll credo Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll. Note that “shitload of money” is not part of this credo. In no part of the song Crazy Train does he mention the ticket prices.
Woody Allen is almost in his own category. Jokes are written about why Woody Allen has sex appeal; he’s a different sort of cultural icon. He is the guy who is charming and appealing in his insecurity, anxiety and quirkiness – not despite them. This is the foundation of his entire career. Have you ever seen a Woody Allen movie? This is what they’re about.
The idea of someone thinking Billy Joel is an ugly man is just bizarre to me. He is a handsome man, and he is a musical genius. I think that might have some appeal to some people, just maybe. He’s passionate. He is driven by his conscience and his sensitivities. He has spent a lifetime creating beauty. So obviously the only reason anyone would ever want to shag him is because he has money? This is akin to saying Nelson Mandela shook Paul Simon’s hand in the hopes of getting campaign contributions.
Frankly, even the proposition that these men are appealing for no other reason than their financial success, and that this is presented in the article as an unquestionable fact with which the reader must automatically agree, is indicative of a deep sickness in our culture.
Now the fun part: evolution. I know wikipedia isn’t the best resource, but work with me, here:
Two major mechanisms determine which variants will become more common or rare in a population. One is natural selection, a process that causes helpful traits (those that increase the chance of survival and reproduction) to become more common in a population and causes harmful traits to become more rare. This occurs because individuals with advantageous traits are more likely to reproduce, meaning that more individuals in the next generation will inherit these traits.
This is the context that brings the article to some Next Level shit. The simplified (read: no sleep) version is this: being unattractive is harmful to the species on a genetic level.
But waitaminit… look at lower back problems. The human species is prone to lower back problems. Our spine is poorly suited to our posture and our activities. This is why lower back problems are as common as they are. Evolution is not a well-polished, robust design process that systematically removes negative traits over time. The most we can say is that it reliably reduces traits that result in pre-reproductive death: do you die before you get to shag? If yes, then evolution will take care of that. If no, it’s a great big shrug, maybe.
Whether aware of it or not, most people talk about evolution as if it were “intelligent design”.
BUT:
The other major mechanism driving evolution is genetic drift, an independent process that produces random changes in the frequency of traits in a population. Genetic drift results from the role that chance plays in whether a given trait will be passed on as individuals survive and reproduce.
So let’s see… a study that focuses on less than 1% of the population of a single country… an article that does not define the methods of selection OR the standards by which the people in the study are being judged… and the complete failure of that article to even come close to mentioning that attraction is subjective.
It’s just insidious. And we have the audacity to wonder why people have body image issues?
This is more of a mental bit than a body bit, but it’s my blog so nyer.
I’ve found myself falling back into a mindset of “don’t want to be all interferey”. Don’t want to impose, don’t want to push where i may not be wanted, don’t want to stick my nose in where it might get something stuck up it. Don’t want to overstep boundaries.
What this looks like, how it plays out, is that i rarely speak up, rarely comment on other people’s blogs, journals or facebook entries. Don’t talk much in online chat rooms. I see people i know on facebook and hesitate to add them. I have become a lurker. It means i don’t participate in what’s going on around me, and it’s especially dumb because i put myself in those places and then get a bug up my arse because a community hasn’t magically sprung up around me (or if it has, i’ve effectively put myself on the sidelines of it).
Part of the problem might be that i’m imagining stricter boundaries than are actually there. I assume that people think, not necessarily the worst… but not necessarily the best, either. Somewhere in between.
Part of that honestly boils down to self-esteem issues. It occurred to me as i was lying in bed this morning that it may be as “simple” as a fear of rejection. A fear of being told off. A fear of not knowing how people might respond to what i would say. A fear of misinterpretation, misunderstanding and/or miscommunication, perhaps.
The end result of all of this is that i become more withdrawn, more isolated. That isolation negatively reinforces the idea that i should just keep to myself. Decidedly not too brilliant of me.
The other night, i startled Ben by stomping on the ground and saying “BASTARD! HA! GOT YOU!” I triumphantly flexed my muscles (complete with “hrrr” noises) and then realized Ben was looking at me funny. He hadn’t seen that i’d stomped a cave cricket, so i explained to him what had just occurred. He was talking to some friends online, and said, “the girl who’s not afraid of anything, yet is terrified of cave crickets, just killed one.”
A brief tangent, just to clear something up here: my feelings about cave crickets are not entirely rational. I don’t like things flying up in my face. I don’t like things coming too close to my face. I don’t like my dogs licking my face. My personal bubble is relatively small around my body, and disproportionately large around my head. Cave crickets are, as Ben once described them, the self-feeding popcorn of the insect world. Their primary reaction to a threat is to bodily fling themselves up at its face. This is decidedly Not Cool in my book. I can walk face-first into a spider web and be kind of eugh for a moment, but if a cave cricket jumps up at me, it’s run around and scream like a nelly bitch time. And then i’ll probably need a long, exfoliating shower to adequately rid myself of the skin crawlies.
The idea that i’m seen as fearless grabbed a cup of coffee and found a seat in my brainmeats. I’ve been told that this is the aura or attitude that i tend to project; like many other opinions other people have about me, it baffles me. I’m so far from fearless. I’m afraid of so damn many things, i feel limited by my fears.
I’m afraid of rejection (and it’s cousin, abandonment). I’m afraid of being disliked. I’m afraid of conflict. I’m afraid of making bad decisions. I’m afraid of running out of time. I’m afraid of a whole lot of things. I’m afraid of Changes; to clarify that: i am not afraid of the results of changes, but of the process of changing (insect metaphor time: i’m more afraid of the what’s going on inside the cocoon than i am of the butterfly).
With a lot of my fears, i tend to face them fairly head on. Stare ‘em in the face and get it over with. If there’s gonna be conflict, let’s get it out and over with sooner rather than later. If there’s gonna be change, let the change begin so we can be done with it ASAP. If you dislike me, don’t make any false pretenses – just tell me so we can both move on. So it’s not that i’m fearless. I think it’s more that i’m not afraid of facing the fears that i do indeed have.
Ahh, and it occurs to me that part of that might stem from a desire to have some control over the situations causing (or coming from) the things i fear.
But i want to go back to this fear of interfering, because that’s what kicked this off, and i need to look more at that. Well, not just look at it, because looking only does so much. I do enough looking, and don’t do enough doing. What i need to figure out is how to get the hell over it.
Some of this goes back to the idea of “other people’s opinion of me is none of my damn business” thing. Most people are not going to just come out at tell me what they think of me, especially if it’s something negative (i imagine that if/when that sort of opinion is going to be voiced, i’m not likely to be around to hear it). So not only is this sort of thing just not likely to happen, i need to stop acting like i’m two seconds of opening my mouth away from it happening.
Like most of other fears, i think this one comes down to just facing it and pushing through it. Start commenting, start interacting. Just bloody well DO it. And if bad stuff happens, then it happens and i’ll deal with it and it won’t be the end of the world. One or two unpleasant situations aren’t worth sacrificing all of the potentially awesome interactions and experiences of which i’ve been depriving myself.
Like getting into a swimming pool, there are two approaches to this: the slow easing in (complete with eep and aaah noises), and the Cannonball Depth Charge. While the latter conjures amusing Calvin & Hobbes memories, i don’t think it’s the way to go. It’s not sustainable, long term. It’s harder to ease into it, because as i’ve already mentioned, i’m a rip-the-bandaid-off kinda girl. But i think easing into it is the better idea, because i’m not just easing myself into it; since this is primarily about my interactions with other people, i need to keep in mind that while i’ve made up my mind to be more interacty with the people around me, they haven’t been privvy to that internal process.
I think i’m about done for now. I’m tempted to post this to my facebook & livejournal, just as a heads up kinda thing, but i recognize there’s also some desire to give explanation for my lack of interaction. I want to let people know that no, i haven’t been avoiding them in particular, i’ve just managed to avoid myself into a corner.
And on that note, i’m going to try to get some sleep. Yay for wonky sleep schedules!
Went on a wee errand today, to pick up dog food, tea and some tortillas. I’ve learned that tank tops are the best thing to wear when getting dog food, because i can saddle the 15 lb bag of dog food on my shoulder and let my back carry the weight, instead of my arms. Yeah, we did get a laundry/grocery cart a few months ago, but one of the wheels is so incredibly borked, and not easily replaceable. So we shoulder the dog food and use a backpack for weekly grocery runs.
Anyway. I’m not here to talk about dog food. But i mention it as a “yay me” side note because, well, yay that i can do this. Makes me feel a bit more useful/functional than i generally do, with that whole fibro thing.
I’m here to talk about spit. Yes, really. Saliva. I think it’s the grossest of all the bodily fluids. Seeing people spit will make me nauseated faster than seeing blood, urine, pus or vomit.
Minor not-quite tangent. When i was growing up, my grandma always kept packs of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum around the house. Said she needed something to “wet her whistle”. I associate that smell and taste with her, with comfort. So naturally, the first time i smelled it after she died, it was incredibly bittersweet.
The medication i take (amitriptyline) for my fibro has some side effects, but the one that bugs me the most is dry mouth. I’ve taken to keeping gum (usually fruit-flavoured) around the house, but i also keep some wintergreen mints for when my jaw is bothering me. One night, in a spot of really bad heartburn, some internet research indicated that the best remedy was my own saliva.? I’ve had heartburn issues since i was 10 or 11.
I’ve always been thirsty, and was mildly infamous in my teenage years for being able to drink an entire can of Mountain Dew in 15 seconds. (Now, i know that the thirsty thing is supposed to be one of the symptoms of diabetes, but i’ve been tested regularly for it, have never come close to having those kinds of blood sugar issues, and it does not run in my family.)
As i was riding home on the bus today (see, there totally was a point to my mentioning that), i reached into one of the grocery bags and got out a piece of gum. Fruit-flavoured. I’d also picked up some spearmint-flavoured mints, instead of my usual wintergreen. I like the Ice Breakers brand, and they don’t usually have spearmint, so i snagged it on a whim. Haven’t cracked it open yet.
It got me thinking about my grandma, and a silly phrase popped into my head: We are a people of inadequate saliva.
Silly, but it occurs to me that the body is a whole thing, it’s all connected. It’s not like i’ve ever compared notes with friends about their freaking saliva production. But if i’m just not making enough of the stuff, maybe that would explain the long term heartburn issues. Since it also plays a vital part in the digestive process, it might also explain some of the other stomach issues i’ve had over the years.
It would also explain the peeling that goes on inside of my mouth. Saliva lubricates the inside of the mouth, and the inside of my cheeks chafe and shed from rubbing against the edges of my teeth.
…
Okay, so this is the point in the post where i got distracted by looking up “inadequate saliva production” on google. And i read through a whole bunch of stuff about Sj?gren’s syndrome which sounds incredibly suspicious familiar.
I started wearing contact lenses in high school, but had to stop wearing them less than a decade later. The ophthalmologist determined that my eyes were too dry to wear contacts – my eyes weren’t producing enough tears to lubricate the lenses or flush away build-up caused by wearing contacts. My only options, he said, would be to wear glasses or to use eyedrops every 3-4 hours.
Other symptoms match up; i’ll spare the gory details, but let’s just say i’m a rather dry individual, and my fibro symptoms ease up in the southern humidity.
I’ve done enough research to know that medical research on the ‘net is a dubious activity. There’s lots of information out there, just enough to be dangerous. I may have a fair match of symptoms with something, but without blood tests to confirm or rule out something, all i’m doing is creating a whole lot of What If scenarios.
But on the other hand, it does mean that the next time i have medical insurance (and a job to pay for the medical costs, whee), i think i’m going to ask my doctor about this.
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