BIG NEWS!

I have some major news. As you all know, in December of 2012 I was diagnosed with a brain disease called Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD). In January of this year, my regular neurologist told me that something wasn't adding up about my condition. CBD is normally fatal within five to six years of the onset of symptoms. I began noticing symptoms annoying enough to go to a doctor and complain about them ten years ago (2007). Not only am I not dead, I'm still able to walk (with a walker), eat and swallow without a feeding tube, talk (albeit with a slight slur), I am neither paralyzed nor bedridden. So, something was amiss. I was referred to a different Neuro-Muscular Movement Disorder Specialist (it takes 9 -12 months to get an appointment with one, as they are in short supply) and got in to see him November 27^th.

Drum roll, please...I do not have CBD. I've got standard Parkinson's Disease.

This is huge. Here, I was expecting to die next year. We'd come to grips with it emotionally and worked with, and around, this expectation for five years. Parkinson's ISN'T fatal. It's annoying as hell, and disabling, but it won't be what eventually kills me in some unknown year in the future. And there are also seventeen different medications and treatment options for managing it. So, off to the labs for more tests, MRIs and blood work to make sure that I don't have any other treatable issues that may be contributing to my symptoms, such as ruling out the possibility that I'd had a stroke. (Most of my symptoms are on my right side.) Once they can get me to where I'm in less pain and not as weak, I'll need to start taking walks and doing physical therapy.

This means that things that I'd stopped doing, like annual mammograms and physicals, I need to resume doing. I figured I'd done my last renewal of my ID, voted in my last election, anything that only happens every four years. It is a big mental adjustment to suddenly have a future. Ten years ago, when the doctor told me that I'd need a hip replacement when I'm 60, I told him that I wasn't going to ever see 60. This is a very weird feeling. 

Hugs for Everybody!

Book Recommendation

I highly recommend the following book for anyone who has been abused emotionally and/or physically by a controlling parent, spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend:

POWER: Surviving and Thriving After Narcissistic Abuse: A Collection of Essays on Malignant Narcissism and Recovery from Emotional Abuse by Shahida Arabi.

After a lifetime of emotional abuse at the hands of my mother, and 30 years (on and off) of therapy, I finally understand my mother, her life and my life.  Her behavior has never made sense to me.  Now it does. This book changed my life and helped me to do what I should have done decades ago, which is to wash my hands of her completely.  I can't recommend it enough.

An open letter to book authors (of fiction)

Dear Book Authors,

I read a lot.  Different genres.  Fiction and non-fiction.  One thing that I see a lot in books is this over fascination and/or obsession with beauty. The characters are described using every possible synonym for beautiful.  The authors go on, and on about how breathtakingly gorgeous these people are. Male fictional characters only interact with beautiful women. The only plain or average women are on the side of the bad guys.  The protagonist never has a relationship with, or even has casual sex with, a normal looking woman.  She's always tall, thin and gorgeous with perfect skin.

Child, please. ENOUGH already.  Nobody looks like that in Real Life. In a normal room full of 35 (for example) people, there may be one or two pretty, one beautiful, and a couple of handsome guys. But it won't be 20 out of 35, for crying out loud! Everyone else will be average. Normal. Real.  I realize that it's a male fantasy, but come on already.  Every one? Really? If men only ever slept with tall, skinny, beautiful women with perfect skin, the species would have died out long ago because there are so few of them outside of Hollywood, and they've all been augmented or airbrushed. Most guys would never get married because they couldn't find the "right" woman.

Some authors add the word "fit" to the list of adjectives as a subtle way of saying "not fat."  But a woman can be fit and healthy and not look like an Olympic athlete. She can run marathons and still have some body fat.  She can work out and eat right and still have some curves. Singer Madonna works out obsessively.  Her ex-husband said she was like "a tough piece of gristle" to hold. Do you really want that?

Just once I'd like to read about a character that falls in love with a female character who looks like a normal person. Is that really so much to ask?

Sincerely,
An Average Looking Avid Reader