Yet Another Misdiagnosis

Years ago, my primary care physician looked at my x-rays and told me I had degenerative joint disease in my hip. Yesterday, when I saw an Orthopedic Surgeon to discuss possible hip replacement, he told me that I didn't need one. All I've got is bursitis. He gave me a cortisone injection, and said that I should be fine in a few weeks. I wish I had known that ten years ago.

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 

SOME THINGS IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME TO LEARN

1.  It took me 45 years to figure out the ultimate response to people who say mean things to me:  "I don't give a shit what you think.  Your opinion means nothing to me."  If I had been taught that as a kid, and learned to say it with confidence, my first 30 years would have been very different.  There are things that were said to me in my youth that still hurt me to this day.

2.  It took me 40 years to figure out that all love songs written by men are actually about sex.

3.  For 50 years I thought my loyalty was a good quality, and I was proud of it.  Then I found out that strong loyalty is considered a character flaw, a weakness, because it means that I am willing to follow (or believe) blindly and not use independent critical thinking or reasoning.  I was very disappointed to learn this.

4.  It took me until 11th grade to figure out that bullies are testing us to see when/where/how we will stand up for ourselves.  One of my bullies actually said that out loud while tormenting me, "Why won't she stand up for herself?"  My junior year in high school, I got into a fight. I won the fight. All the bullying stopped. I was raised to "turn the other cheek." "The bullies are looking for you to get all upset.  If you don't react and walk away, they will get bored with you and go pick on someone else." This philosophy is totally wrong.  If I had known that ignoring them was the worst thing to do, and fighting back was the best thing, I would have fought back once at each school that I went to.  It would have made a fundamental difference in my school experience. Keeping my head down and being afraid makes you a target. Being a coward makes you a target. Holding your head up an behaving with dignity earns you respect. Standing up for yourself earns you respect. 

5.  For girls, when living in a dormitory, never invite a guy to your room for any reason, unless you want to have sex, because that's the only thing the guy heard.  ANY variation of, "Would you like to come in for a drink, coffee, to watch a movie, etc., etc. are ALL a euphemism for "Let's have sex." If you don't want to have sex, stay in public, and say good night at the car.

6.  That every woman wearing a hairstyle that seems impossible is actually wearing a wig or hairpiece. I had no idea that hairpieces were so prevalent. I wondered for years how they did that, and why I couldn't do it with my own hair. 

7.  If somebody doesn't like me, then no matter what I do, it's going to be wrong or not good enough.

RELIGION, INTOLERANCE AND VIOLENCE

Stop and think for a few minutes about what you think God is. Think about the all-power that God is supposedly capable of. Now, what ever makes you think for one second that there is more than ONE?  

There is one, and only one God. 

RELIGIONS are policies that man has made up as a means of paying homage to God.  Each culture has their own name for God, their own version of the Bible, their own Commandments, their own methods, prayers, songs, churches and leaders.  It's all regional and cultural, and it's all MAN MADE.  Just because you call the Power that created the Universe by a different name, doesn't mean that it's a different Power. Why isn't that glaringly obvious? 

There is no "one true religion."  There is no "My God and religion are the correct one, and everyone else is wrong." That's BULLSHIT.  That's MAN'S EGO. That's CONCEIT. 

To kill other people because "God told me to," or "because you follow the wrong religion" is INSANITY, pure and simple. Mankind is slowly going insane, and using religion as an excuse to justify their insane behaviors is how to not take responsibility for one's own actions. 

People have created their religions to control the masses. Then, they distorted their religions over the centuries to use it as a justification for bigotry, small mindedness, ego, greed and hate. It is not "God's Will" for any raving lunatic to go to any public place and kill people. Not now, not ever. Anyone who tells you that is insane. Do not follow the teachings and leadership of insane people. Use your REASON. No sane person blows themselves up for a cause. No sane person sets off explosives in a public place to destroy total strangers. No sane person shoots into a crowd of innocents - FOR ANY REASON.  There is no SANE reason to do anything that cold, heartless, mean and evil. Humanity's ego, greed and selfishness is driving itself insane.  I see no hope.  Perhaps a meteor that destroys all living thing on Earth so the planet can start all over would be a good thing.

A Brilliant Idea