#Feelthebern (but not the supporters!)

I’ve not made it a secret that I’m a Bernie supporter #feelthebern. But my gosh I can’t say that I’m a Bernie supporter supporter. (Dear friends and relatives excluded of course. It’s the FB & commenter masses I’m referring to here).

Bernie has made it CLEAR that he wants to keep things as upstanding and civil as possible in the political arena. He calls Hilary Clinton Secretary of State, so Secretary Clinton. He shows her the respect she deserves. He doesn’t do any crazy name calling (like other candidates I could name…)

Let me make this clear, There is NO NAME CALLING. OMFG I can’t STAND the name calling! On the progressive side OR the conservative side. It is disgusting and appalls me that human being do that to each other. I’m fine with disagreeing but name calling? I mean come ON how OLD are you??? Bernie supporters calling Secretary Clinton $hilary? Really? Would Senator Sanders do that? If you profess to believe in his ideals, how can you possibly do that?? Obummer? Drumpf? (I admit I fell for that one, but it made me feel bad when I did it) Libtard? Republc**t? NO NO NO NO NO. >.<

And the horrific vitriol I’ve seen in comments sections between democrats when it’s Senator Sanders vs Secretary Clinton. There are some civil discussions but many devolve VERY quickly and there is a not insignificant number of those that are Bernie supporters starting things and stoking the fire. (Yes, plenty from the Clinton camp as well, I fully admit that.) I am appalled. I’m not ashamed to be a Bernie supporter, but I am NOT one of those types and NOT like that. I am FOR HIS ideals, certainly not for his supporters’ ideals. Not when they behave so appallingly. What is going ON! I expect that from Trump supporters (he seems to glory in it), but Bernie is a different kind of candidate. I thought people liked him BECAUSE of that. What is going on?? I am horrified and appalled and so incredibly disappointed in the human race sometimes. At least the progressives anyway. I thought better of them, I thought they shared my ideals. What happened to communication and discourse? What happened to listening? Why is it always my way or the highway? Of course I want my candidate to win, but if he doesn’t, then I will do what i can to make sure his ideals don’t get lost (which means we will need a progressive in the White House.)

When I see this hot mess going on I just want to yell STOP STOP STOP, this is not what Bernie stands for! Debate is fine, but debate the facts in a civil manner! No name calling, no swearing or threatening (threatening, really? REALLY? GRRRRR). Post the facts and your civil take on them and let the real things speak for themselves. Don’t call people names or disrespect the candidates (especially if you are trying to convince people that your side is right). Sure I’m not a fan of Secretary Clinton, but I’m not going to call her names or diss her. And whoever becomes my president will have my respect as my president. GROW UP America! This is the political system you let yourself get, it is going to take a grass roots movement and people paying attention at the LOCAL levels to change it.

I know I am trying to learn more about what is going on locally so as that moves up the chain, my views and ideals or more represented. I’m just lucky I live in a blue state.

Okay there is my rant for 3:00am. This has been rattling around in my head for weeks (well before the whole Nevada thing) and it sometimes keeps me up at night, so I had to write it all out. I’m impressed if you read it all, but i certainly don’t expect you to, lol. Just mostly doing it for myself.

Have a good night all! To those that got this far anyway, hehe. (Although probably day by the time you read it, lol).

Health issues part 4

Posted on Facebook February 14th, 2016.

Here’s another long post attempting to catch folks up on my health stuff. Feel free to skip cause it’s probably very boring, lol. But I do know that some of you are interested. And I love you for it! ❤ (And I seriously do NOT blame those of you who aren’t. I promise!)

(Bah I wrote this in google docs and FB stripped all of my formatting. Boooo)

I started working full time again (off disability) the end of December. And then there was a 2 week break for the holidays. So really I started January 4th. And it has been hard. Harder than I thought it would be. The days are so long and by the end of the week I am in so much pain. I’m slowly getting used to it but it was horrible at first. 😦 For everyone who suffers from chronic pain, my heart is with you. omg. Ugh. Anyway With PT I do every morning, working 8.5 hours & then getting home to do normal family household chores & dinner (thank goodness for Dream Dinners!!) there is just no time for much of anything else. And I just can’t be on my computer, it hurts too much (I’ll explain that more further down.) But I MISS you all so much. SO much it hurts. I think about my friends and family on here and I tear up. I hope you know you’re in my thoughts. I miss my Twitter friends too. But it’s hard to say all this in 140 characters and lots of those friends are not on FB, so I don’t know how I’m going to reach them. Anyway I’m getting way off topic here, lol. Just know I miss you like CRAZY and think about you all the time.

So I’ve been away from my home computer for weeks now. I had such a big setback musculoskeletal-wise about 3 weeks ago now and I was so scared. Scared it was all starting over again. The pain, the hardly able to move. The pain.

I started having a bad pain in my back. In my right shoulder blade. Not a horrible sharp stabbing pain, but a very painful constant ache. Even pain meds barely touched it and the PT that I do every day didn’t help at all. It started getting real bad on a Friday and the next Tuesday I had an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon so I held on until then. But that weekend was hard. Hard and scary and hurty.

That appointment was to check on my shoulders (with the rotator cuff tear in the one and the whatever-issue in the other) and see how the cortisone shots were going. Just before then I was looking forward to the appointment to tell the Dr how pleased I was at how well my shoulders were doing. After that I couldn’t wait to see him and desperately hope he could do or tell me something, anything about what was wrong with me. So we met and he was pleased with how well the shots were doing (as much as he could tell with the pain in my shoulder blade being so overwhelming and me so frightened) and then looked at my back. He said I was having a back spasm in that muscle. And wrote me a extra Rx/Referral for an additional type of PT to what I’m already doing. And as much as that sucks to have a back spasm, I was so relieved that there was an explanation. Lots of people have those and those can be fixed. It didn’t help fix it right then, but at least I had a name for what was wrong and that took away much of the fear.

So I had a PT appointment that Friday so I only had to wait a few days to see her & hopefully have her help with this new issue. (/sigh at something else wrong. Ugh). And in the meantime I took a long hard look at my work station. I knew it wasn’t anything I was doing at home because I haven’t been doing anything at home. And my work station recently got changed to a sit/stand station which was supposed to help. So I started really paying close attention. And I noticed that when I’m sitting, and have my monitors at the correct height for my neck, my arms are too high. so when I adjust for where my arms need to be, my neck is looking down, which is bad for the neck issues I have. Gah! And for those of you that don’t know what a sit/stand station is, the monitor and keyboard are attached. They move up and down as one unit so they cannot be separated. There is some room for adjustment of the monitor, but I had already had it as high as it could go. When I am standing, the difference is worse. 😦  I told Don about it and he came to my desk with a measuring tape to measure the difference to see if maybe there was something he could do. When I’m sitting, the distance is over 8 inches off and when I’m standing it’s 10 inches off. That is not a little bit!! I’m not built for corporate america! 😛

By this time it was Friday so I had my PT appointment and my therapist worked hard to unknot me and give me the right exercises to fix the weakened muscle (she’s the best). So new exercises. Yay. (Can you feel my sarcasm? lol.)

I’m finally feeling better. Almost at my new my new normal, which is always a low level of pain that gets worse throughout the week and works on fading over the weekend. Long weekends help, but the pain is always there. 😦 Who knew that this would happen at only 46. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it and not be mad about it all the time. But I suppose that’s for therapy (and not the physical type, lol). At least I’m not as low and depressed and lost as I was. I’m grateful I’m out of that deep, dark hole. /shudder. That was awful. My sense of humor and empathy and positivity is back. Probably less strong than it was, but at least it is back! I mentioned in one of the comments on Facebook that I try not to feel too sorry for myself, but I also give myself permission to be mad on occasion because this totally sucks! So after I dwell and whine for awhile I get myself out of it and move on and then I can function again for awhile. It’s a cycle for now, heh.

Oh, I forgot to mention how I’m going to get relief at work! I spoke to my boss right away once I figured out what the problem most likely was and she said they have a “tall person kit” for the sit/stand workstations and she ordered one asap. It should be in next week. That will make a huge difference I’m sure. I seriously have the best boss ever. She is doing everything she can to help and I am beyond grateful for her.

As for home, Don is doing his best to come up with different configurations of how I can move stuff around on my home desk so I am comfortable and my arms aren’t too extended or are too high. My desk isn’t adjustable but we put an adjustable stand under my desk and lowered my chair (and took off the arms) and so we’re seeing if that will help. I also might have to just get a whole different desk. Ugh what a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS!! I tell ya, it’s hard not to QQ moar and ask why me all the damn time.

Speaking of Don, he is just absolutely THE BEST! I am such a physical mess and I can’t do anything. I can’t lift over 10lbs, I can’t walk on uneven surfaces cause I can’t look down, I can’t drive too far away cause it kills my neck, I can’t take the stairs very often cause looking down; I can’t do much of anything so he has to take up the slack. He does all the heavy lifting and brings in all the groceries, even if I’m the one who went to the store. He doesn’t let me lift anything. So I feel pretty much useless around the house, but he makes me feel loved and cherished and tells me over and over that I am doing my best. I have such a good man. ❤

Hmm, I think that about catches everyone up with what’s going on. If you made it this far, I am impressed! Like last time, you get hugs next time I see you if you read all this! ❤

Love you all so much! With us trying new desk configurations I will try to get back on my PC. It’s hard when I’m hurting, but I hope-hope-hope-hope that things will get better!

Much love, many hugs and even some kisses!! ❤

RIP David Bowie (Part 2 – Grief and closure)

Posted on Facebook February 11th, 2016.

I have been absolutely torturing myself for the last 2+ weeks listening and watching all things David Bowie. All of his amazing (and some puzzling!) music and art and interviews – and I even bought a little black book of quotes. (Had to wait until payday to buy some biographies – which is tomorrow, heh). I’ve been in tears almost every day going to and from work listening to his music. I’ve been in tears AT work listening to interviews. Why didn’t I pay this close attention before he died? Why did I wait until now? Why wasn’t I following his FB page? Why hadn’t I been on his site for the past 20 years? Why don’t I have all his albums memorized because holy cow they are AMAZING! Not just the hits, but almost all of the songs. His vision was absolutely incredible. Normally I don’t have a lot of regrets but man-oh-man this one is getting me. David Bowie meant SO MUCH to me. The music of the 80’s was so very important to me and he’s the one who made it happen. Why didn’t I follow him closer?

So I’m trying to let go of the “why’s” since it’s too late for any of that and just absorbing as much as I can. And I still couldn’t figure out why I was torturing myself so much with it all. And then I had lunch the other day with a dear friend. She loved David Bowie too and was also sad about it. It was amazing to have someone to talk about it with who understood it with me. She told me something that put it all into perspective for me. She said that everyone grieves in their own way. And that even though he was famous, because he was an artist he puts himself out there, so you get a feel for who they are. So you absolutely grieve for them when they are gone. She said it way better than I just did but yeah. This is how I am grieving for the loss of an amazing human being who meant something special to me. And I felt better knowing that. Thank you Sally, you don’t know how much that helped. ❤

Poor Don has been amazing trying to keep up with my crazy moods. He listens to my stories and all the nuggets of information I hear about and race to tell him with good humor though. I have such a great husband. Last week he bought me Labyrinth (I can’t believe we didn’t already own that movie. Although I bet we have it on VHS in a box somewhere come to think of it..) and listened to me as I went on and on about all the little things I was learning about the extras from the Blue Ray. He even saw something on MTV and recorded it for me. 5 Years of David Bowie or something like that.

So I watched it and afterwards they (MTV) played a bunch of his videos, including the last 2 he made (I assume). Lazarus and Blackstar. Whew, talk about closure. Very creepy videos and you can definitely tell he was telling people goodbye. I mean just the title alone. The weird thing is though, all of that gave me a feeling of closure. I’m not quite as obsessed as I was and I’m feeling like I’m able to let go a little bit more. It’s still so sad and I will continue to listen to his music (cause amazing), but I have my own life to live and my own dearly loved loved-ones to love and hold tight. Time to move on I suppose. But what a strange few weeks I’ve had.

RIP David Bowie (Part 1)

Posted on Facebook January 23rd 2016.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile, but I’ve been working so much (being out on disability was hard cause being hurt sucks, but can’t say that having time to do things sucked, heh) and then I’ve been taking up all my spare time with reading. I haven’t even been logging in to my computer. Crazy weird.

Anyway I wanted to talk about the passing of David Bowie. His passing meant something to me on a personal level. His was the first 80’s music I ever heard.

I grew up in a small town (ie – not trendy, lol) where my folks listened to country western music. And I listened to it too. In fact, I still enjoy that kind of music from that era (70’s & early 80’s) from time to time. Any newer and I don’t like it I’m afraid. Twang, blech.

It was the early 80’s and I had just started high school. I was quiet and shy and nerdy and had no fashion sense or musical taste. (My world was pretty small.) My best friend at the time, however, did. I tried so very hard to be like her. She was beautiful and confident and BOY did she know how to go out and grab what she wanted. The complete opposite of little mousy me at the time, heh. But that is a story for another time. Anyway I remember vividly her calling me on the phone and having me listen to a song. She was SO EXCITED to share it with me and couldn’t wait for me to hear it. So she played it for me over the phone from her record player (I assume it was a 45). The song was “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie. That was my first introduction into 80’s music.

I listened to that song over and over and I was so excited with her. It was WONDERFUL. So DIFFERENT than what I was used to hearing. That song started my love affair with 80’s music which has lasted to this day. 80’s is still my most favorite music genre and it started with David Bowie. And of course I had to find and listen to all of his other music. Ziggy Stardust on up.

When the internet was first born and the World Wide Web was getting its feet under it, David Bowie was right there at the beginning. He had his own site and if you joined it (there was a fee. Not huge but not nothing either), you could have your email address be something like LisaJensen@bowie.com or something like that. Plus a bunch of other cool stuff that I don’t remember anymore. I didn’t sign up for it back then (I think it was the early 2000’s) but I wanted to really bad. I wish I had now of course. He was a visionary. I remember thinking how smart he was for starting that up.

I am so sad that he’s gone. Sad that his creativity and vision is gone. Sad that one of my heroes, the one who leapt me into the decade I was supposed to be in is gone. I’ve been listening to his music on my way to work every morning and I’ve been tearing up every morning too. The passing of a legend and he meant so very much to me. With all the concerts I’ve been so since I became an adult, I can’t believe I never went to a David Bowie one. I’m super bummed I never got to see him live, never got to be in the same place as him for a moment of time.

Rest in peace David Bowie. Your struggle is over. May the heavens be filled with your wonderfully unique sound and maybe we’ll get a chance to hear it in our dreams on occasion.

Health issues part 3

Posted on Facebook on September 9th, 2015.

Gosh I haven’t updated on what’s going on with me in too long. Oops! So strap in, here we go again. 😛 lol

I saw my Dr the end of August (been seeing her regularly the whole time I’ve been off work) and she saw something in the way I described my pain & how I was using (or not using) my right arm & what she saw when she did her exam this time that triggered her to send me to get another MRI (I’ll get to that in a little bit). I figured eh why not. It will probably be a waste of time and money (and stress since those things are crazy scary!) but how silly would I feel if we missed something, so I figured we might as well. And since I was kinda scared about it, I got something to take for the anxiety and my wonderful husband would drive me. Turns out the day they could schedule me I had a PT appointment too, so my awesome Mom took me to that appointment since I had to take the first dose right before my PT appointment. LOL I am so lucky to be surrounded by wonderful people. ❤

Anyway, all that notwithstanding, my disability time is up and it is time to go back to work. My Dr is amazing and is in touch with all the other people I’ve been working with so the plan is for me to return to work on September 10th (I’ll pause for the rejoicing from my coworkers now, lol) with light duty. I can only work 4 hours a day for awhile (I think it will be 4 weeks or so) and I can’t lift more than, umm, 10 pounds I think? Or push or pull so many pounds either. Luckily most of my job doesn’t have me do too much of that and the short term disability folks worked with my supervisor (all done via HR & legal systems & whatnot) to make sure those limitations can be accommodated and they can, so I go back to work tomorrow. :O

The pain isn’t gone, not by a long shot, but the good news is it is SO MUCH BETTER than it was. My Dr said that I might not ever be pain free anymore, but with all the PT I’ve done and the things I’ve learned I have so many more tools to deal with the pain that I did not have before. So I am going to be way more regimented about how I do things now. I have very specific exercises to do to give my neck a rest and a stretch and I’ve learned a LOT of self discipline to do them while I’ve been off, so I plan on carrying that through to work with me and make sure I keep doing them. I NEVER EVER want to be in that much pain again. Part of the problem was there was no relief from it. Laying down didn’t help, sitting on the couch, standing up, nothing helped! As I said before, I was using the wrong muscles and that exacerbated the problems already there. Now that I’ve retrained my brain to use the right ones, the pain has significantly lessened and now I am working on strengthening them. It is a slow process though. I keep pushing myself, and my body keeps telling me in no uncertain terms to slow down! You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced muscle spasms down your neck and into your shoulder. 😉 I’m also learning about pain (as I mentioned earlier) and reading up on pain management and meditation. All that will help me long term I am sure. So while I get pretty down if I let myself think about it too much, I am glad that it’s better than it was. I still can’t drive very far or for very long and sitting someplace that is not in an office-type chair (like at a restaurant or kitchen table) for over an hour is torture after awhile, but I’m hoping as I get stronger that will go away. I hope so anyway. My son and best friend live in Portland and I HAVE to be able to go up there and my bliss is at the coast and I have to get there too. I’m a slooooow healer so I haven’t given up hope. 🙂

Anyway, I had my MRI a week ago and it went without a hitch. I was medicated so no anxiety there. In fact, I think I dozed off a few times cause I remember twitching myself awake a couple of times. Oops! I still think it was a waste of time, but /shrug oh well at least I wasn’t scared this time, lol.

So I get a call yesterday morning from my doctors office. I was trying to sleep as I hadn’t slept well (see messages about my Dad – <hugs!>) and I looked at my phone in puzzlement wondering why they were calling. I don’t have an appointment until the first of next month, why are they calling? So I answer & they tell me they have my MRI results. Oh yeah, ok what’s up? I have a torn rotator cuff. WHAT?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I was so completely convinced that there was nothing wrong with my shoulder that I was gobsmacked. I’m still stunned. UGH! I go back to work TOMORROW! They tell me I’m to see another Dr & they will be in touch to set up an appointment. So they called later that afternoon and I have an appointment the end of October. GOOD GRIEF! I am so freaking bummed. I’m too young to be falling apart this much. 😦 Sad Lisa is sad. So I’ve been having a major pity party for myself for the last 36 hours. 😛 Why couldn’t this have been caught earlier? Although my physical therapist said many of the exercises we’ve been doing are the same as would be for rotator cuff injuries, so at least there is that. But ugh, there is just too much going on and my brain can’t take any more bad news.

The good stuff is I got all my errands done earlier (I wanted a shiny clean truck for tomorrow, lol. Vain much? Hehe), and my stuff is ready to go for my first day back to work tomorrow. I am really looking forward to seeing everyone. I have missed my friends terribly. So many things will be different I hear, but I know how to find you all! It will be great to catch up on what has been going on.

Once again, if you’ve read all this, I will give you a hug next time I see you! If I won’t see you, then it will have to be a virtual one, lol. Thanks you guys for listening and being here and being so incredibly supportive and loving and amazing and wonderful. It has meant SO VERY MUCH to me! I love you! ❤

Health issues part 2

Posted on Facebook June 27th 2015.

Something that’s really GOOD that’s been going on is I started doing yoga at the beginning of May (2015)!! My dear friend Michele is a certified yoga instructor (and personal trainer) and has started doing personal (kinda – more a person with a couple of friends) yoga class. She wants to bring yoga to people who don’t think they can do it. And she is amazing! She is an incredible teacher and she sees where my limitations are and has me do just what I can (and shows me modifications if I can’t get into the right position). And lets us know what we are working towards. And she sees it as long term. Like she’ll say “We’re going for this, but that will take probably 6 months to get to, we’re going to start here” and that’s what we do. When I’m done with yoga I don’t feel drained or sapped of energy or wiped out at all. I almost feel energized afterwards. It is so awesome!!

The only bad thing is that since I’ve been struggling with my neck so much is it wasn’t helping my neck at all. Some of the positions were a struggle even. And my Dr said no yoga for now. So I don’t get to do yoga until my neck is all better. Booooo!! I’ve lost almost 20 pounds too (I’ve been laying off the candy and eating much different since my stomach has been so jacked up – which is contributing to weight loss I’m sure, heh). Darn.

But that was supposed to be good news, not more depressing news, lol. I love yoga and am looking forward to when I can do it again. It was really great! And my friend has started up a studio in Corvallis out of a martial arts studio. Her business is called Inner Strength Yoga (From Pose to Poise) and she wants to bring yoga to everyone. I highly recommend!! Inner Strength Yoga

Health issues Part 1

I am posting stuff that I posted to Facebook to my blog since a lot of my Twitter followers either don’t follow me on Facebook or don’t have Facebook accounts & I want them to know why I haven’t been around much on any social media or games. It’s been a helluva past 9 months so far. 😦

This was posted to FB on June 27th, 2015.

This has the potential to be a looong post, so strap in if you’re going to read it all. 😉 It’s been a long time since I’ve updated folks on what’s been going on and it’s about time I did. I’ll use the medicated to heck and back as my excuse. lol

So last I wrote I had seen a GI Dr and she gave me a medicine to take every day (due to the fact I no longer have a gall bladder) and it has made a huge HUGE difference. I’d say my stomach issues are probably 85% better (although I’m having a bad day today, ugh). Since it’s not all better I’m probably going to have more tests to find out what else might be wrong, but for the moment, I’m happy that things are so much better.

Once I start finally feeling a bit better, I wake up one morning the end of May and I hope in the shower to go to work and my neck (the right side of my neck, shoulder and shoulder blade) starts hurting. The longer I’m up the worse it hurts. I go to work and by the time I get home, serious ouch! When I wake up the next day, I can’t hardly move. I’m able to see my Dr that day and she thought the same thing I did, I’m having a muscle spasm in my neck. So I get pain meds and a muscle relaxer. By this time it’s the weekend so I have the weekend to get better. I take my meds and I’m able to move more by Monday so off to work I go.

My Dr said if I’m not significantly better in a few days that she will want me to see a physical therapist. Since I wasn’t significantly better, but I was a bit better, I called & said if I could be on muscle relaxers and pain meds for another week (PT is spendy and we have enough medical expenses right now & I didn’t want to add to it) and she agreed. So I had an appt for a week later to see how I went.

During that week, I steadily declined. By the time I got home from work, I could barely move or do anything at all. I did everything with my left arm since my right side hurt so much. I decided then that I would do whatever my Dr suggested with regards to PT & whatnot. Clearly this was a bigger issue than I had hoped.

So I see the Dr and tell her what’s going on. She is concerned and talks me in to making a PT appt (I told her I was already on board with whatever she wanted to do since the previous week was such a failure, heh). She takes some xrays of my neck and what she sees concerns her. She says I have what looks to be a compressed disc, or at least a pinched nerve. So she reiterated that I need to do PT and I got prednisone for the swelling (which causes/contributes to a pinched nerve), a pain killer that works specifically on nerves and to continue with the main pain meds (the other one takes awhile to get into your system) and the muscle relaxers. HOLY MOLY the prednisone SUCKS!! Oh the headaches I got every day!! Ouch, ouch, OUCH!! Blinding headache for the 7 days I had to be on it. Yikes! I could barely tell my neck hurt anymore because of the headaches, lol. Luckily it was only 7 days so I kept my “eye on the prize” as my Mom would say. 🙂

Oh and I forgot a crucial part. My Dr took me off work for up to 6 weeks. I’m grateful I get the chance to heal, but kind of freaked out about it too. And the paperwork, whew! But my boss has been AMAZING and so incredibly supportive. I am grateful for where I work that I can take the time to heal and not have to stress about other stuff. I want to say grateful again, but I’ve said it too many times already, lol. But I truly, truly am.

So I had a week until my next Dr appt and in that time I made an appt for PT and was able to get in to see her 3 times before then. She does an evaluation and gets a feeling for what’s going on and her evaluation definitely tells her I have a pinched nerve. I still can’t believe how easily she was able to lower my right arm, lol. I had a hard time describing my symptoms at that moment due to the blinding headache I had, but she got the gist of what’s going on and I saw her 2 days later for our first real appt.

PT was both amazing and different (and harder!) than I expected. I’ve done PT at least 3 other times in my life and it’s always been hands on manipulation and sorting out the bones and muscles with massage, heat and a few other things. This time, she showed me some exercises that I need to do. She said that I use the stabilizer muscles in my neck and shoulder blade instead of the big muscles that are supposed to be used. (I forgot what those were called. But like I don’t use my trapezius in my shoulder blade and whatever the big muscle in your neck is called – those kinds of big muscles). And my stabilizer muscles aren’t cut out for that kind of work. So she gave me a couple of exercises to work on at home (which I did) and when I saw her again, we went over them again and she added some more, this time I have an adorable tiny baby beachball as part of it, lol.

So PT is going reasonably well and I see my Dr again. Oh, I forgot that I got the official results from my xray and what it said sounded scary! “Moderate to severe degenerative… blah blah blah. So I’m anxious to see the Dr and have her explain that stuff to me. When I go in, we go over the results and she said there are a few concerning points in my neck that signal a potential herniated disc. And one of the things I didn’t understand meant “Bone spurs”. Like multiple ones. In my neck. 😦 Gah! So she is very concerned now. She said I likely won’t need surgery now (!!!) but it is VERY likely I will need it in the future. What?! OMG. She also wants to do an MRI. So she got everything started to get that going and took me off work for up to 3 months now. I’m hurt much worse than I though. I knew I had neck issues (for a long time now) but I had no idea it was so bad. 😦 She said to continue with PT and the meds and I see her again in 2 weeks.

I’ve been doing my exercises and seeing the PT and one of the times (after she added some more stuff) I started getting waves of muscle spasms in my neck. I saw my physical therapist 2 days later and we had to back way off from some of them. She said the prednisone is leaving my system now and some of the swelling that had gone down is probably back up, so we needed to go easier on the neck stuff. That seemed to work as the spasms have subsided. She also taped me up 2 times and MAN that was lovely! It offers some decent support and I really liked it! The first time I was ify, but the second time I wanted more after I had to remove it LOL.

So inbetween those times I get a phone call from a Dr office. It was the Clinic saying insurance has approved the MRI and would I like to schedule it? I was like wow that was fast (only took 2 days I think, crazy) and she was all you wanna hear fast? I have a cancellation at 4:15, do you want to come in today? (This was at like 3:30, on Wednesday the 24th). So I was all, uhhhh, I guess? lol So off I go to get an MRI. Not thinking anything of it. Don asks if I want him there and I was all nah I’ll be fine. It’s no big deal, I know loads of people who have gotten MRI’s.

So this is my very first MRI ( looking at my cervical spine). And I hope it is my LAST!! I am not claustrophobic at all, but HOLY COW is that thing scary!! I had my arms squished in to my side and I had ear plugs in and it was still LOUD and cramped and ridiculously scary!! And I had to be in there for 30 minutes!! I had no idea it took so long. Oh my gosh the noise! I closed my eyes and did my slow deep(ish) breathing and tried to go to my happy place, lol. I was pretty shook up when it was done. I am so glad that I didn’t know anything before hand or had time to look in to it at all. I wasn’t nervous going in to it and I did’nt have time to think about it or get nervous. WHEW! Now I know I’ll be all kinds of nervous next time, but at least I didn’t know this time, lol. So I’m glad that is over and they said they’d have the radiologist read it on Thursday (my bday, heh) or Friday and my Dr will get results Friday or early next week. I haven’t heard anything yet, but I assume some time next week.

So there is my tale. If you made it to the end, I am impressed! I’ll give you a hug next time I see you (assuming I know who all reads this, hehe).

Thank you all for being patient with me as I’m not on here very much (my PC time is very limited and I’m using my left hand for doing a lot of stuff). I don’t even hover over my phone much as that hurts my neck too. But I do think of you guys and Don keeps me in the loop with many of you.

Love you guys!! Take good care and I will talk to you all as much as I can!

❤

Losing My Religion

So here are my thoughts on the whole religion thing.

I grew up going to church. My folks worked & did not go (my Mom was more in to it than Dad) but they made sure that we did. It was a normal church, nothing special. But it was clear at my young age that it was super clique-y. I was a very shy child and this never sat well with me. We were made to go & so I never really learned anything there, so I can’t really speak of any messages or anything. Just something we (my twin brother & I) had to go do every Sunday. When we were old enough to say we wanted to stop going, we stopped.

My Grandma was very religious but she had some strange (to me) beliefs. She thought (keep in mind that this is a memory of mine when I was pretty young and we never really discussed it when I was older so I could have it all wrong. But it is what I remember) that anyone not going to her particular denomination of church wasn’t going to be saved (and therefore was going to hell). And Christians were taught that if you weren’t “saved” then you were going to hell. That always bugged me. Like a friend of mine has said, what if someone had never heard of Christ? Why would they have to go to hell just because they never heard of him?

Growing up, my uncle was always a bible-thumper. Fire & Brimstone and all that. God is scary and vengeful and he didn’t talk about a loving or merciful God. And he was CONVINCED that D&D was of the devil and tried numerous times to scare us off playing. He’d talk about people throwing a D&D book into a fire & it screaming. We all laughed it off, it was so absurd. Luckily, my parents were fairly progressive and open-minded and did not take anything he said for anything, so I happily played D&D, lol. But he was our favorite uncle (aside from some quirks, lol) and so the bible thumping was always around.

When I was a teenager, me & my girlfriends found another church that we liked better. It was a Pentecostal one. It was *very* different than what I was used to. It was one of the poorer churches and in a not-so-awesome neighborhood but everyone was open & friendly & giving & kind. The girls had to wear dresses & the boys had to dress nice too (unlike the previous one, which I think wanted to be more “modern”). But the atmosphere was so much more alive. People would start “speaking in tongues” and the singing was more boisterous and energetic. I did a bit of research on the whole Pentecostal “speaking in tongues” thing. I understood it to mean that one person speaks in his/her own language and everyone else hears it in their own. So the Pentecostal way always made me pause. It never felt right. And if our pastor had guest pastors over to speak, when the “speaking in tongues” started, our pastors would mimic bits & pieces of sounds of what the guests were doing. So that felt pretty darn fake. I heard (right as we left that church) that the pastor at the time we were there took all the offerings & went on a trip with the money. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that they never came back from their vacation. However I was a teenager, so wasn’t privy to all the ins & outs of religious politics. Now this was a very poor church with poor folks going to it. And they took offerings ALL THE TIME. It was insane. Another thing that this church did was to defame other religions. We watched a movie once that talked about the “evil Mormon Church”. Now at the time, I did not remember that’s what it was about. But below, you’ll see when I realized. And at the time, I was uncomfortable and didn’t really pay attention to the movie. I remember getting a “this isn’t right” vibe, but I was young & sheltered and didn’t really understand what I was seeing, so I shrugged it off as “this doesn’t affect me so meh”. I think the movie was called “The Godmakers” or something like that.

Here we come to the next church I became interested in. The LDS Church. While I was never baptized, I went to this church for a long time. Even though I don’t go any more, I still have warm-fuzzy feelings for the LDS Church and the members. Everyone was always kind and warm and open and loving and just wonderful. The spirit in their eyes & hearts is awesome to see. (Not everyone is like that of course, but lots were. Certainly more than I saw at any other church I had attended). When I started dating my husband, he was LDS and we’d spend hours and hours and HOURS talking religion. He was way more worldly than me and had investigated many other churches, so we had long & fascinating conversations. Many, many of the things he (and the church) believed in were beliefs I already held! For instance, I’d always believed that God is one being, his son Christ is another *separate* being and the Holy Spirit is separate again. But they all share 1 purpose. Even though it appears I was taught otherwise, I never bought in to it apparently. I always that that was funny & awesome and I really felt at home in the LDS church. For a while.

One of the things that I found over and over with all the religions I’d been a part of is their viewpoints on guilt. So many things are wrong and you should feel guilty/bad for doing them. Or even thinking about doing them. Sex before marriage is wrong, sex at all is bad unless it’s to make babies, no alcohol, no caffeine, no smoking, not eating too much, no heavy music, no swearing, no personal liberties, no D&D, no education, no questions, no, No, NO! STOP IT I AM DONE! That sort of NO all the time breeds several bad things. First of all, it breeds incredible closed-mindedness, which I think is inherently bad. And all that repression breeds tons of other social issues. People are able to feel pleasure and have fun for a reason, and denying that for such silly reasons breeds craziness (imo of course. I think all the sexual repression is taking a bad toll on society, but that is a whole nother topic). I understand that going the other way is also bad for society, don’t get me wrong. Society can’t function if everyone is an alcoholic drug user watching pole dancers all day. But honestly, all things in moderation. And really who would do that? Not very many people. It’s not religion that keeps people from behaving in less-than-stellar ways. And if you fall off the moderation wagon (man I wish I could control my weight better, gah!) then there are other repercussions that will (hopefully) bring you back. But guilt and fear and hell aren’t one of them. Not for me anyways. I was SO TIRED of feeling guilty for going to concerts or wanting to drink with my friends or swearing here & there. My friends took me to a bar for my 21st bday and I had a glass of milk and gave a friend the free beer they gave me. And I was so bummed that I did that. I see no problem with having a drink. Maybe I’m justifying, I don’t know. I just know I was tired of the guilt all the time. I can’t believe that a deity would care one way or another the little ins & outs of daily life like that.

And let’s not even get STARTED on all the Leviticus stuff. Good GRIEF I don’t even know where to begin when people start throwing that in other people’s faces. I have several very, very dear friends who are gay and I don’t believe for ONE SECOND that they are bad people or going to hell. And any god that would send them there is NOT a god I want any part of. At all. I had someone close to me (ugh) discussing gay rights and gay marriage and I don’t remember if it was him or his friend who said (they were against it for religious reasons) something like “if you see a child going off the correct path it’s your job to correct them, right?”. The HUBRIS of that statement enraged me. Just enraged me. Grr I’m getting all worked up just remembering it again. What if I don’t believe in YOUR god? Does that give you the right to judge me and tell me what I can or can’t do?! To discriminate? From something I don’t even believe in? For something that doesn’t even affect you?! And if you think about it, there are more non-Christians than Christians in the world. Right? AND all this “sanctity of marriage” bullcrap is just that. Bullcrap. Marriage has been used as a CURRENCY for WAAAAY longer than a covenant. People using THEIR religion to tell ME what I can or cannot do is such a hot button topic for me. I could make a blog post just on that! Heck I probably should have, lol.

So anyway, I came up with my own philosophy. Make your corner of the world a better place. If everyone does that, then WOW can you imagine how awesome that would be? I don’t need the carrot of heaven or the stick of hell to MAKE me be a good person. Be good because it’s the right thing to do and it feels good. I care, genuinely care and love my fellow human beings (well, with obvious exceptions of course). Remember Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. “Be Excellent to Each Other”. PERFECT!

I also think if you have this amazing religion that you are excited about and love, then your attitude and behavior will bring people in who want what you have. They will ask about why do you seem so at peace (or whatever) and you can tell them all about it. They will be drawn to you. I think that is what will encourage folks to find religion. Not guilt and damnation and hellfire.

Some friends of mine go to a church that I would have been very drawn to had I not given up on the whole religion thing. They preach the love of Christ and their fellow human being. And being open and accepting and non-judgmental and all that stuff. It is awesome and I love it so much and I love that they talk about it and share their viewpoints on it and everything. It makes me happy there are religions out there that promote that sort of thing and I just eat it up. It’s great and makes me happy.

To maybe wrap this up, I am not anti-religion. I’m not religious myself anymore, but I am happy as punch that those around me have a religion that gives them peace and comfort and all that. It just turns out that it’s not for me. For the most part I am happier and less conflicted than I before I finally gave it up. Although around the holidays I get a little angsty sometimes. I mean Christmas and Easter are very specifically Christian holidays and I can get down at those times. It’s all very complicated. Like most things, lol.

So to really wrap things up, I DO believe there is something out there. I just don’t think it is what those around me think it is.

Childhood issues are still an issue

I should start this out by saying that I feel I had a wonderful childhood. I have parents who love me and did stuff with me, I have a twin brother whom I got along with just fine, my Dad took us to the coast all the time for camping (and once in awhile the mountains), I have pretty much mostly fond memories of my childhood. But there is one, huge black mark on the whole thing.

Growing up I was terribly shy. Ridiculously shy. The best days were when I could just get through the day & have nobody notice me. I was horribly teased and mocked throughout school. I was spit on, chased home; mercilessly teased. I even had a girl want to beat me up. WTF?! I still don’t know why.  This was all through grade school, junior high (the WORST) and the first 2 years of high school.  I was made fun of and actively looked-for to be mocked.  I was hated; and to this day I don’t know why. And it was by the same group of people. The jocks & cheerleader types.  I just wanted to be left alone, be ignored, sink into the woodwork. But they would seek me out for torment.  I was hated and I will probably never, ever know why (I know I said that already, but man it bugs me!). Maybe because I wasn’t one of the “pretty” ones. I was always tall for my age (ended up being 5’9″ /sigh) and not super skinny (I wasn’t fat back then, but treated as if I was for some reason. Probably because I was so tall) and a wallflower. I guess with all those combined I was just too easy of a target to pass up.

I always had a fantasy of confronting my bullies once I was all grown up and more self confident. And then I saw some episode of some daytime talk show stuff several  years ago where that is what they did, people confronted their bullies. Do you know how the bullies responded? “Get over it, it was a long time ago.” Wow I had no response when I saw that. I was heartbroken. I mean if there is no remorse, no empathy, no nothing, what’s the point? I was stunned. Crumbled my little fantasy I’ll tell you that! To this day I’ve not attended any of my school reunions. That’s probably a big reason why. Not to mention the fact those people hated me in high school, why would I waste my time hanging out with any of them now?

I must say though that I am loving the anti-bully stuff I’m seeing. In fact when my son was picked on I talked to the school and put a stop to that RIGHT NOW. And they worked with me and bent over backwards to help. Pretty much taking the other kid out of the class my son was in and never having them in the same class again fixed it, thank goodness. But I was NOT ABOUT to let that happen to my kid. It sucks when you don’t feel like anyone is on your side.

Growing up I had a few passions. The first one was horses, but since I grew up middle class in the middle of a town (not a big town, but certainly not the country) horses were way out of any realm of possibility for me (although I did end up getting one when I was an adult, which I’ll blog about some day 🙂 ). But the real passions of mine (vs the daydreaming one) back in the day were books and gaming. I read voraciously  Mostly sci-fi/fantasy and, as I was a teenager, loads of romance books, heh.  I was a fairly normal teenager, I liked the boys, and a few girly things and did my hair/makeup and stuff like that. But most of my time was spent reading or playing games. I’m old enough that the first system we had (besides Pong, which we actually had) was an Atari.  Now I could go on & on about how much fun we had with that and all the cool games we played, but that’ s not the point I guess, lol.  If we weren’t playing Atari, we were playing D&D.  Ah yes, the original Dungeons & Dragons. So much love for that game!

Games and nerdy things were my thing and there were very few of us like that. So those of us like that had a bond. We were all picked on and teased and felt like outcasts. So we bonded and were a team. There was very little competition in the ranks because we saw where that came from and we were so against that sort of thing. So I found a group like me and was finally able to have some freedom from the school oppression feeling.

Fast forward many years. I am happily away from school (would NEVER EVER go back) got married, had a kid, have a good job, worked hard and just have generally enjoyed my life post-school crappiness (with a few scars and issues it seems though, heh). Through my life I have always played games. It graduated from the Atari of course. We had all the latest consoles and when PC’s became the thing (had a Commodore 64 & then Amiga before our first “PC” pc, lol) we got that too. So games were always a thing. We played boardgames and D&D still (back then, not-so-much anymore) too, but as technology improved we moved more to consoles & PC gaming. When Diablo came out, we’d have LAN parties and our friends would bring over their PC’s & we’d group up & play. Same for D2 and Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights. Those are my favorite types of games. So it was always about cooperation and playing together. That’s what drew me to those types of games and it’s the sort of gaming I prefer. I am the OPPOSITE of competitive. (To really explain this, lemme give you a quick example. We have poker nights at our house and it’s a $5.00 buy in. There are times when  hubby & I win ‘big’ and times when others win ‘big’. However, my favorite nights are when everyone leaves with about the same 5 bucks they came in with.) So I’m all about cooperation and teamwork. I hated the first person shooters and when the lan group moved on to those, I stopped playing with them.

So here we are now in a word of MMO’s. I’ve always been drawn to them and wanted to play but didn’t make the leap until my birthday in 2007 (I think). Hubby got me & my son a WoW account. WOOT! I love that game SO FREAKING MUCH! Hubby joined up right away (son wasn’t really drawn to it, dangit) and it took us a full year to get to max level (70 at the time. Hit it about 4-ish months before Wrath came out).

So here we are playing this social game and enjoying the heck out of it. As we understood more about the game we started grouping more and figuring out the social aspect of it. Over the years I have gotten really disappointed at how it (the social aspect) has turned out. The amount of angry competitiveness is disheartening. All this ‘epeen’ gets on my nerves. (I have GOT to tell you one of these days how I found out what that word means. Hilarious story! I *heart* you Brandon!) “What’s your DPS, why aren’t you doing more, why are your healing numbers so low. How did you get them so high. Let’s vote kick the lowest DPS” And it goes on & on. And this isn’t sour grapes either. I’m seldom at the bottom of the numbers (healing is my typical thing, but I do DPS too) and I’m occasionally at the top. I’m happy as a clam to be smack in the middle.

As I’ve grown I’ve seen more & more of the nerd community and I guess the competitiveness was always there, I just never really saw it. Or rather it took forms that were unfamiliar to me. Who is the nerdiest of the nerd for comic books or games or whatnot. But the gaming community competitiveness is what I’m talking about at the moment and it seems to be from those same people who picked on me so mercilessly when I was growing up. I just learned a phrase the other day from “The Therapy Show” with Scott Johnson and his sister  (Wendy) called “finding the tip of the carrot”. I guess those people anger and upset me so much because of what I went through growing up. It didn’t make me a stronger person, but I suppose it probably made me a more compassionate one. But it certainly made me an impatient one when it comes to such behavior!

So what I guess I’m saying is my haven has been infiltrated by the jocks & cheerleader archetype and it makes me sad and a little bit angry. Let’s all get along for crying out loud!

Just to clarify, I’m talking the archetype. If you are a friend or acquaintance of mine and you used to be (or still are) a jock or cheerleader and are a nice, friendly, empathetic person, I am NOT talking to you or about you. Understood? Good. 🙂

Well thanks for listening. It’s been a very long time since I’ve written (I started this blog topic a year ago March) but I’ve been craving writing again, so hopefully I’ll do more. No promises though, but it’s nice to have a place to write what’s on my mind and be uncensored and do it when the feeling hits me to write.

Much love!

Social Media Break

Hey guys,

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I haven’t been around much in the social media space. I meant to blog about this weeks (gah months ago at this point) ago, but time always seems to get away from me.

So this whole break from social media is two-fold. The first is the time and energy it takes to keep up with everyone. It has been affecting my work (in a big way), and I need to own that and do something about it. I’ve been desperately unhappy there and Twitter was my solace. We just had our yearly reviews  and while I didn’t do poorly (I actually ended up getting a small bonus and a tiny raise) I also didn’t do as well as I  know I could have. Or as I have done before. I’m used to being a high performer. And while the job I’m in now is over my head (WAY over my head & I’ve been feeling pretty bad about all that & feeling like I’m a failure, but that could be a whole nother post, heh), I know that’s not the only reason I’ve not lived up to what I can do. I spend too much effort on Twitter (and various other forms of keeping in contact with people). I work at a desk, so it’s easy to have twitter in the background and keep an eye on it, but it’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to leave my desk until I’ve “caught up” from the day before. And that can take quite a bit of time (between working and keeping an eye on twitter I mean. Not just doing twitter exclusively).

I think one of the reasons it’s so hard is I follow too many people. I want to follow all of my PoH guildies AND all of the AIE people, not to mention all the random rest of the people that fall between those two. And I’m actively interested in how everyone is doing. If people are sad, I’m sad with them, if things are well, I’m excited, if someone is having a bad day, my heart goes out to them. I hate to say this, hell I hate to even think it, but I just follow too many people. And while I love people, I just can’t keep up with everyone and stay sane. Or at least get my job done. I think I have to trim down who I follow, but I have no idea how to do that. Especially how to do it without hurting anyone’s feelings when they see I’ve unfollowed them. Someone’s husband has me blocked (BLOCKED, gah!) and it kills me. Not that I’m planning on blocking anyone, but I don’t want to hurt anyone either. I know I’m too sensitive and my skin is much too thin. But how I deal/interact/connect with people is really important to me. YOU guys are important to me. For reals. How you are doing affects me and I think about you and care about you and love you from afar. ❤

The second part is about misunderstandings. Twitter has such a short limit that it’s really hard for me to get points across. And (as many of you probably know, lol) I am LOOONG winded. I take too many words to say too little I’m afraid. Even my engineers at work want me to learn to be consice, LOL. There are so many subjects I want to talk about on twitter. From politics to religion to everything in-between. And I try to contribute but it frequently turns out wrong. And one big one which I’ll name at a later date. It hurts when people think I said something I didn’t mean and either hurt their feelings because I was misunderstood. I like to think that most people don’t think I suck, but perhaps my thin skin or low self-esteem or whatever-it-is makes me think poorly about myself makes me think others can think poorly about me too. Weird phychology. I bet someone would have a field day with me. lol

Anyway now that I’ve *finally* gotten this written and out there (months too late though, gah!) I’m going to try to rejoin twitter (I got a new position in my company, will blog about that later, but SO EXCITED). I’ll try to post here for for the long and confusing things that can be easily misunderstood and keep twitter for what twitter is for. Support, friendship, commiseration and connection.

I know I’ve missed birthdays, tragedies, sadnesses, happinesses and I’m really sorry. I tried to poke my head in to twitter here & there but didn’t feel right about busting out with stuff normally until I posted this blog so folks knew what was going on with me. I’m really sorry I missed these things guys! My connection with you all is so important to me! I just needed to figure out what was going on with me and my work & stuff.

I love you guys, for reals. You are in my heart, even if you don’t know it. Much love and hugs!