Calibers...

I've been rereading Toni Bernhard's book again, How to Be Sick from a Buddhist perspective.
Such an excellent book, with practical tools that work, at least for me.

I need to recalibrate. 

"Recalibrate." 

Interesting word. 

calibrate (v.)

"determine the caliber of," 1839, verb formed from caliber + -ate (2). Also "determine the relative value of" different parts of an arbitrary scale (1869). Related: calibrated; calibrating.

caliber (n.)

"inside diameter of a gun barrel," 1580s, from French calibre (by mid-16c., perhaps late 15c.), often said to be ultimately from Arabic qalib "a mold for casting." Barnhart remarks that Spanish calibre, Italian calibro "appear too late to act as intermediate forms" between the Arabic word and the French.

But English Words of Arabic Ancestry finds that the idea of an Arabic source "comes with no evidence and no background historical context to support it. It is far more likely that the word was formed in French" from Medieval Latin qua libra "of what weight" (a theory first published 19c. by Mahn), from fem. ablative of quis (from PIE root *kwo-, stem of relative and interrogative pronouns) + ablative of libra "balance" (see Libra).

Interesting.
I'm redetermining my balance.
I have felt too weighty on the side of desire for another to understand my ongoing chronic-illness path.
It's still here.
I'm still doing it.
I still live in 12-week cycles, divided into 6 weeks each. 
And I am wearied.
Who wouldn't be? 

Sometimes, when I mention, say, that I took a bath,
I get a response like, "Wow. there's no way I could get in and out of a bathtub."
I typically just say, "Showering is difficult for me."

Or that I drive at night.
"Wow. I can't drive at night."

Or that I ride a bike.
"I wouldn't have enough energy to do that."
I seldom respond with how hard it is to get out the door for a bike trip -- the struggle, even just to get dressed, not to mention all the biking gear I require, packing my food, water, pills, etc. 

 
Sometimes when I've communicated my struggles, or some sort of endeavor to communicate them, I've gotten the "growing-old-isn't-for-the-faint-of-heart" response.
I usually don't say anything, or I gesture in agreement.

But my illness has nothing to do with growing-old symptoms.

I'm sorry folks can't do things I do - like bike and drive and take a bath.
But when they tell me about cooking and cleaning and shopping and socializing and working, etc., I don't respond with, "Gosh, I wish I could do that." 

Sometimes I feel I should say more to educate someone.
But that's not my responsibility.
And I don't have the energy to put into it; or rather, my energy needs to go elsewhere. 
Nor am I going to be so presumptuous as to think they need my education. 

Where am I going with this?

Carol you are trying to put into words, some things that bother you.

Oh damn. I forget to charge my head lamp. 

Bathe, cut, feed, brush...

 I've not fared well since the beginning of October. The fatigue, the utter fatigue. 

There's a song with the line: "cause you had a bad day...." I don't know what the song is about, but that one line makes me think of folks who have an occasional bad day. When I heard the song last week, I chuckled and thought, My line would be, "you had a good day..." simply because my "good" days are rare, without a perspective shift. And yes, I'm well aware that "good" and "bad" are relative adjectives. 

I do my fucking best to stay thankful and find gratitude in the smallest of things. So, any critics and folks who want to give a "change-your-outlook" spiel, shut-up; that's how I feel right now.  

I feel that very few people really understand what it is like to live with such deadening fatigue. It's like my body is not getting its juice, and perhaps it's not. Perhaps my adrenal function has become so suppressed, that...well...it just doesn't have the juice. I wondered yesterday, If and when I get another MRI, I wonder how shrunken my adrenal glands will be?

I no longer have the severe heaviness that I once dragged around, which was also hard to describe. I no longer live with knots that move around on my wrists and hands, or with the feeling of heavy sand moving like mercury in my forearms. I no longer have the inability to make a fist with each hand. And I've had strength enough to cut my own fingernails since the beginning of 2019, or was it 2020? I've been able to lift my arms all year long, every year, since 2017. I could list other symptoms that have improved and even disappeared since the end of 2016. Such bizarre symptoms they were. Some symptoms are still odd, like the tenderness on the crown of my head that radiates outward. That started sometime after 2016, but I don't know when. I still have dizziness regularly. Tender palms and soles. Digestive issues. Shortness of breath. Weakness. Cognitive dysfunction. And the overwhelming fatigue. Most nights I sleep sitting up, due to stomach issues - one of the gifts of steroids. 

Where am I going with all this? 

My mind and thoughts and feelings swirl. I want to convey to any readers the overwhelmingness of it all. The day-in, day-out, 24/7, struggle. I want to be heard, not advised. I want to be seen...

Today, my goals are...to bathe and cut my nails. That's it. (My last bath was last Thursday; confessions of the chronically fatigued.) Other than bathe and cut, I'll feed myself and take my supplements and meds (which I take 5 times a day, every day). Every day, I chart how much prednisone I take so I know how to titrate up and down. I make notes as to any activities I may have done that day and how I'm faring. I've done this for almost a decade. 

I've also read today and will read some more. I've already napped. It's 4:55 PM. I'll get my teeth brushed at some point. Tonight, I may watch more CSI Miami reruns. My new motto is, "What would Horatio do?" 

I've not been able to cycle much lately, inside or outside. Outside, it's hard due to the cold. And my big toes are becoming numb more often than they used to. After all, I do have nerve damage, and I live with pain, a mostly low-level ubiquitous pain. 

In my head, I can hear the critics. Aw Carol. You have a husband and a house and food and clothing. You get a disability check. You don't have anything to complain about. You should be thankful for all that. You aren't a single mom or have a partner that beats you or berates you. Your material needs are met. You can drive and ride a bike. So shut up. You have no idea what it's like to really suffer. 

Okay....

Feel where it comes from...

What am I to do with my self today?

Up until 3AM last night. 

I completed Part 3:4 of my story.

 
I feel blue.

I cannot write to impress. I feel a little of that coming on. 

I cannot write to explain. Don't even try to explain. 

And you don't need to make up things based on probably-what-happened if you can't recall what happened, exactly. 

You can share the bits and pieces you do recall. 

And there is no guarantee that that recall is accurate, but you are being honest in that that is how you remember the situation. 

I think you do want people to grasp the enormity of it all... 

And the entrapment... 

It is another world. 

So ALL So everything. 

Sealed so nicely...this gigantic bubble, spherical in shape. 

More like a spaceship than a bubble. Nowhere else to go. 

That's how it was.
Inescapable delusion, believing any choice outside the household was tainted, wrong, impure, ungodly, 

It's like my fishbowl poem. 

Anyway, I'm really tired after the weekend of travel.
And having all my bowel trouble.
And not eating well.
And not vaping.

 
All these "nots."

But there was so much that was so wonderful about the weekend.
And, Carol, you were able to do...to get Kate, etc.
And you are glad you did it.
And you got all unpacked last night.
And you got to see the slide show of Patagonia. 

So, what to do today?
It's 2PM. You need to wait until at least 3:00 to eat. At which time you need to do a smoothie, seeing as you didn't drink it yesterday. So maybe today...just a smoothie and a salad. That is all. Though toast would be nice. But you ate what - 4 pieces of bread and 3 waffles and 4 spring rolls this morning at 2:00 AM? 

For today, simply ask, What's next? 

And do that. Do what mindfully enters your mind...not what reactionally enters.

Feel what it comes from. 

Feel where it comes from.

 

Feel where it comes from... 

The other side of the story...

I just started reading Robert Kennedy Jr.'s new book, The Real Anthony Fauci. 

Just my confession of reading it may land me in the cohort with anti-vaxxers.
I confess I am one of the unvaxxed when it comes to Covid.

I'm unvaxxed when it comes to other vaccines too.

The possible risks, for me, outweigh the possible benefits of any vaccine on the market.

Am I an anti-vaxxer? 
After all, I chose to not vaccinate my children who are now 31 and 33. 

I made that choice partly because of my own health issues when they were born and growing up: asthma, sinusitis, systemic candida, hives, an overresponsive & depleted immune system. 
If they inherited any of my auto-immune tendencies, I wanted to do all I could so that the buck stops here. 

I didn't trust the vaccines; at that time vaccines contained thimerosal, a mercury offspring which is considered safe.

I didn't allow our children to get amalgam fillings, which also contain a type of mercury considered safe. 

I breast fed and allowed the kids, for the most part, to self-ween. 

My daughter at 2-1/2 years old; my son at 2 years old. 
I didn't give them pharmaceutical antibiotics even though they had ear infections as toddlers.

My son had his first antibiotic after some oral surgery when he was around 8 years old and then again when he was around 14 years old after he ran into a barb-wired fence on a 4-wheeler.

My daughter had her first antibiotic around 19 years old when she got a bad case of bronchitis.

Where am I going with all this?

Ahh...Kennedy's book. 
As I read the Introduction and first chapter, as my manner is, I wrote some thoughts in the margins.

Could this corruption really be?

I thought of The Way and the corruption that I didn't see while in The Way.

I thought of my ex-mental health therapist and his outright lies and character assassination of me.

I thought of my own encounters with the medical industry and my own medically-induced illnesses from mercury leaching from dental amalgams to cobalt and chromium leaching from my defective hip implant.

I had a hard time wrapping my head around the malicious intentional deception, especially of The Way and my ex-therapist. 

I still have a hard time wrapping my head around malicious intentional deception.

But I am no longer naive. 

I thought of the contaminated albuterol and when I called the pharmaceutical company and asked, "Can pseudomonas cause pneumonia?" 

The answer was a definite, "No." 

Either the woman outright lied or was misinformed. 

This was before the days of internet. 

I thought of the "DDT is Good for Me" campaign, and Rachel Carson.
I thought of the tobacco industry.

I thought of super-bugs and antibiotic resistance due to overuse.

I thought of "follow the money trail;" lots of money in big pharma.

I don't necessarily believe in an organized evil cabal that is trying to rule the world.

To organize such a takeover would be a feat. 
But evil cabals have exacted their horror multiple times in pockets and swaths across the globe throughout its history.

I believe that nefarious political, business, medical, cultural movement leaders have always existed, and that includes now.

Corruption, especially of the powerful, is not a new phenomenon. 

  

And that context, an exposé of the evil system (so to speak), is not my main interest in this book.

I'm interested to learn the other side of the Covid story.

And this book has much of that story in one place, instead of having to search and ferret out articles online, which I have also done. 

Kennedy has source notes, so I can look up where he got his information.

Kennedy is considered one of the so-called "Disinformation Dirty Dozen." 

High times: "Rock me Mama..."

Hubby's and my son got married this past weekend.

It was an incredible and high time.

I'm still processing it and holding it all in my heart with deep gratitude.

More good memories for the bank.

~*~

At the reception...

Son and I danced to this song...

Outside with a fire roaring in a giant stone fire place...

In our beloved Blue Ridge Mountains...

Giant halfmoon looking on from the heavens...

Light-lanterns...

Amongst the trees...

Some of their fall leaves still hanging on...

A hundred dear friends and family cleared the stone-paver patio dancefloor...

Son twirled me and dipped me and held me closely...

As we sang together smiling. laughing...
Eyes and hearts filled with gratitude...

I've always liked this song...

Now I love it....

~*~

Due to schedules, Hubby and I had to drive separately to Georgia for the wedding and festivities.
The route is a four-plus-hour drive from our home in Winston-Salem, NC, to Blairsville, Georgia, through the heart of the Blue Ridge...a gorgeous drive.

On the drive over and down I stopped in Morganton, NC, to bike the Catawba River Greenway. 

So glad I did.
It helped my body, mind, and soul; and I was happy to see a black snake on the Greenway.

It was rather cool, so I was surprised to see him/her. 
I'm sure she was on her way back to her warm underground earth-dwelling. 

I rode my bicycle, Bleu, into the dark and then back to Sir Edward the Explorer and then ate my picnic supper via light from my headlamp while I sat, legs dangling, on the edge of Edward's open back-hatch. 
A routine we often engage on my day-trip bike rides. 

I arrived at our Georgia rental cabin Wednesday night around 11:00 PM. 
Lights lit the big wooden porch which was accessed via a ramp, instead of stairs. 
I really appreciated that.

On the roof-covered porch are a grill, two cushioned rocking chairs, and a pentagon-shaped picnic table with attached benches.

I walked into a piney-wood, lamp-lit cabin with contemporary instrumental music playing...

"Wow...."

The cabin is located on a mountainside in the woods with a beautiful view.
The cabin's name is Wolf's Den and is located at Paradise Hills Resort Farm Winery.

Delightful, restful, peaceful. 

It rained hard Wednesday night.

Thursday was damp, cool, and foggy.

Edward and I went exploring.
Drove up to Blood Mountain, about 20 minutes from the cabin, where the Appalachian Trail crosses the winding mountain road.

Then we drove another scenic route to Helen, Georgia, a little mountain tourist town with Bavarian street names.
Helen is known as Little Bavaria. 

Wedding festivities began Friday evening.
And continued into Saturday night.

It was an experience like no other.
I know that may sound overboard, but it really left Hubby and I somewhat speechless, in a good way.
The weather was even perfect for all the festivities.

Though it was a bit blustery on Saturday.

But the wind calmed in the evening for the outdoor gala.

Tall heaters were placed strategically amongst the outdoor tables. 

And throw blankets were available to whomever needed one. 

The whole experience was glorious...
I don't know if I've ever felt such gratitude...

And satisfaction, for lack of a better word...
I think Son summed it best in a text...
"...the whole experience blew our minds. The amount of love shown to us is truly humbling..."

On my drive back to Winston on Sunday, I decided to jump on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville and drive it to the NC Highway 421 exit on the east side of Boone. 
I regularly drive that route (421 to that BRP entry), so Edward knows most of it well. 
He could probably find his way without me! ;) 

On the way back, I decided to stop in at Mt. Mitchell.

And so glad I did...

Among other folks, I met a couple who had grown up in Young Harris, GA, the town Son and fiance got married in just the day before. 

And I was able to hike the Balsam Nature Trail, a short 3/4-mile hike through a balsam forest where scents from Fir and Spruce filled the air.

And it was glorious...

~*~

I think with the wind chill, the temp was in the high 20s on Mt. Mitchell...

Majestic and humbling...

From the summit: 6,683'Mt. Mitchell. 4:00PM. 11/14/21.
Hawksbill and Table Rock in the distance.

From the summit: 6,683'. Mt. Mitchell. 4:00PM. 11/14/21.

~*~

The sun sets on 11/14/21.
Views from the Blue Ridge Parkway...

Just north of Mt. Mitchell...

~*~

9/17/21: Prompt: What is the vision...

 9/07/21

Prompt from the book Cured: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing by Jeffrey Rediger, MD:

What is the vision I have for my life -- something so inspiring I would sacrifice immediate pleasure to attain it? What will help me to attain that? What might prevent it?  

Today, 9/7/21, I cannot access a vision. 

My symptoms of weakness -- cognitive and physical -- are strong today. 

I feel my greatest vision for my life has been to raise healthy children -- physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, soulfully. 

Most days I feel I've accomplished that.

Occasionally I recall these lyrics from an old Way Productions song....

 

Sometimes 

I forget that I've been given 

My life's dream. 

Peaceful days 

With Jesus Christ alive inside me

Life supreme  

And now

I love the life I'm living  

Where I know that I know 

It's Christ in me

But because I'm no longer a Bible believer (though some days that wobbles), I change some of the words...

Sometimes 

I forget that I've been given 

My life's dream

Peaceful days 

With Breath of Life alive inside me

Life supreme

And now

I love the life I'm living

Where I know that I know 

It's Life in me

That said, what are some of my dreams?

To ride my bike across the USA and ride into the serendipitous encounters that help me realize even bigger the deep connection between us humans and with all of nature...rocks, plants, animals, sky, soil, rivers, oceans, sands, fungi, mycelium, the heavens: stars and clouds and rain and hail and snow and rainbows...interconnectedness. 

I experience that now, on a small scale.

And if I were able to ride my bike all the way across the US, these experiences would still be on a small scale, just more of them. 

Maybe I'd see interconnectedness larger? 

But then, maybe not. 

I do see it biggly now.

And I experience it in my own little world, which is big to me. 

Well that's just one dream, not "some..." 

It was fun to think about...

But I'm still feeling the symptoms I've been having all day...

On this September 7, 2021... 

I want to be a peacemaker...

Recently I've been thinking about the term "likeminded, a term I do not use because of decades in a high-control religious cult which used the term often and in a way to keep followers loyal.

But I think I understand what folks in other genres are communicating when they use it; ie: having the same or similar values, and perhaps some (many?) use it as having the same/similar thoughts, ideas, solutions. 

I've thought about a replacement term for me. Perhaps "like-souled?"

I think our "minds" live through our whole bodies & radiate outward as well. The "mind" consists of thoughts, feelings, emotions,  intuitions, cellular memories, & more.

I ask myself, So Carol, how is "mind" different from "soul?" 

I think part of my answer is origins, a space from which all living beings (& perhaps inanimates too?) originate...a primordial oneness, in a sense. 

But then, What of the Hitlers in the world? Am I really like-souled with them? 

I must confess that, Yes. Somewhere I am.

Hmmm...

What could be some other possible replacement terms for me? Like-pathed or like-planed or like-winged...?

Sojourners together...

And perhaps I can grow beyond the distaste of the word "likeminded" & learn to use it soulfully.

Somehow this ties into the subject of polarization and separation.

I like the term "compassionate curiosity."

I want to be a peacemaker...

Uncorked

 Prompt: Uncorked

~*~*~

If I scramble the letters in the word "uncorked," I come up with "rock nude," which brings to mind skinny dipping in Lake Hickory as a teen. We dipped at night. I really don't like skinny dipping. I'm not much of a water person. 

But ooh if I had gills...

As a little girl in the bathtub, I'd swoosh my washcloth around under the water, like it was a friendly eel.  I pretended I was a mermaid, in the bathtub and in the swimming pool. I didn't like diving into the water, but I loved swimming under the water. It was quiet, mysterious. I'd think, If only I had gills.

How fascinating it would be to have 'gills' again, like when I was in my saline womb-room before being born, uncorked into the oxygen-laden air. With gills I'd be able to swim as long as I desire in the depths of the sea, able to breathe, able to see with my rod-adjusted eyes all the mysterious life forms. 

Ahh...life forms. I recently read about viruses and how life on earth could not exist without them.  Viruses are abundant in the ocean and gobble up toxic bacteria so plankton can do their thing helping to provide up to half or more of the oxygen us land animals breathe. Humans have identified over a thousand viruses, but there are probably millions-billions, most of them nonpathogenic to mammals. Symbiosis.

If I scramble the letters in the word "uncorked," I come up with "dune rock," which brings to mind Hubby's and my annual trips to Florida. We always stay at the same place in Daytona Beach Shores, directly south of Daytona and about six miles from the end of the peninsula. 

We ride our bikes directly from the building where we stay, down Peninsula Avenue or sometimes down other roads, through the quiet neighborhoods, through the little community of Wilbur-by-the-Sea, then through the little community of Ponce Inlet, then to the end of the peninsula at Ponce Inlet Park where stands Ponce De Leon Lighthouse within a historical village of rich history. 

We ride our bikes on the boardwalks through the low dunes out to the wide beach.

We ride our bikes out the cement jetty-pier that extends into the ocean. At the end of the cement, jetty-rocks stretch out to the sea where the Halifax River meets the Atlantic. 

The largest sand dunes I've visited are in North Carolina, on the coast, at Jockey's Ridge State Park. Giant dunes where hang gliders sail. Giant dunes that shift with the winds. The top sand is hot, but dig a little, and one's feet can feel the cool. 

Yesterday I read that lots of viruses live in the sand in the oceans (more so in the shallower waters) and on the beaches. I wonder how many live in the dunes?

Halifax on the right...
Atlantic on the left...

From the jetty pier...
Lighthouse and dunes...

~*~*~

Three different pieces about our symbiotic relationship with viruses (in the order that I read them):

Why the world needs viruses to function

Viruses in the sea 

Without Viruses We Would Not Be Alive 

~*~

An asthma story...

I regularly think about my asthma days

Part of the recent recall is due to the Rona

How she can invade the immune system

Catalyze respiratory symptoms

And anosmia

I consciously notice my ease of breath

Inhale...

...Exhale

Most days without any struggle 

At all

I intake aromas

The scents so distinct

And I recall the years and years

I could not smell

I recall the decades I struggled

To breathe...

~*~

A night in December, 1993
12:00 AM. 

I sit on the edge of our king-size bed. 

Naked. 

My body drenched in sweat.

Wheezing. 

The feeling of drowning in my own fluid. 

Heavy elephant on my chest. 

Exhaustion from the relentless monster which so often visits in the wee morning hours when I'd awake  in the throes of yet another asthma attack.

This attack comes on the heels of two bouts of pneumonia in the past three months. 

I refuse to yet again go to the hospital. 

I know the hospital routine; it can't do much more, if anything, to help me.
If this attack is like my others, it will subside in a couple hours.
Hubby has already given me an injection of epinephrine.
I've taken my other asthma meds. 

I have a home nebulizer. 

But this attack seems to be hitting with an even more veracious vengeance than the usual.
I tell God, I'd rather die than go to the hospital again.
I am so tired, so very tired. 

I pick up the phone. 
Should I call Diana? It's so late. But she's in Nevada at the Navajo conference, so it's earlier there. She told me to call if I need her. 

I call. Someone answers.
I muster the ability to ask for Diana, and she is summoned.
I hear her tender voice...

Between heaves of tears and labored breathing I tell her I don't understand what is happening.
Why have I become even worse the past few months?
Why do my medicines seem to not work at all?
Why does nothing seem to be giving relief? 

Diana listens and responds gently, as always.

"Carol, it may sound odd, but can you try to embrace the attack; not fight it?"
But then I am giving in....that's not right. How can I give in?

She asks my permission to try some distance healing using a Buddhist technique. 

Diana is my homeopath. She is from Great Britain and trained in Great Britain.
She now practices from the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.
She is a true healer. 

I love her deeply.

I give her permission.

We hang up.

Heaving and sweating and willing to give up my ghost...
I pick up the small, amber-colored glass bottle of albuterol, the medicine I use in my nebulizer. 

I look at the bottle and whisper-groan, Why aren't you working?

I unscrew the lid and squeeze the bulb pulling liquid into the dropper stem.
I squeeze the liquid into the bowl of the nebulizer's hard plastic medication cup which is hooked with a tube to the nebulizer unit.
Wheezing, sweating, trembling...
I add the saline solution.
I screw on the top of the medication cup which has the mouth piece attached to it. 

I turn on the nebulizer unit. 

It starts its mechanical low guttural hum as mist undulates out of its two open ends like a dragon exhaling smoke left over from fire.

I look at the dragon and think, You haven't been helping me at all. Why?

I don't put it to my mouth. 

Instead, I just hold the neb-cup in my hands for comfort as it makes its mist.
My naked body leans forward, elbows propped on my thighs -- the normal position when one's respiratory system is struggling for breath while its filled with fluid. 

I sit. 

Exhausted, struggling, heaving, sweating. 

Trembling, in part, from the epinephrine.

The cup mists as the machine hums.

I close my eyes and try to embrace the assault upon my body.

My mind and heart fall in with the heaves and violence.

I feel almost as if I am dreaming.

An image enters my mind and space. 

I am cradling an infant sized "blob" of black viscous goo. 

I feel I should let it go, but I have affection for it. 

It feels part of my identity.

I hold it debating what to do with it. 

I decide I can't kill it. 

I place it in an [imaginary] waterless, glass, tabletop aquarium which sits atop the bookshelf next to the nebulizer.  

In my mind's eye, I watch it ooze around

Suddenly the blob wildly attacks the side of the glass, but it can't get out.
It spreads its blob, violently sticking to the glass like it is trying to escape.
In my mental-body-heart space, I react, frantically pulling out a [imaginary] pistol.
I must kill it!! I must kill it!!!
I shoot it, dead.
The gray-black, gooey, sticky blob slowly slides down the glass.
Dead. Lifeless. Shattered glass all around.  
I feel sadness...and at the same time a sense of relief.

The blob is like my mucous. 

Thick. Sticky. 

Its violence like my asthma attacks. 

Relentless.

Its violence like my self-hatred.

The asthma attack calms shortly thereafter.

I wonder if the more-than-imaginary-very-real 'vision' is due to Diana's distance-healing practice.

Whatever happened, the attack is relieved. 

And that's what matters at the moment.

Over the next couple days I have some asthma attacks, but they aren't so violent.

I continue to hold the neb kit in my hand for comfort as it mists; I do not inhale. 

I look at the albuterol bottle wondering if my issue might be the brand; I've not used this brand before.

Within a couple days my pharmacy calls.  

The albuterol has been recalled for possible contamination with pseudomonas. 

A couple months later a friend brings me a (US News and World Report?) magazine.
The story: Over 300 people dead from contaminated albuterol. 

The article states the young, elderly, and those with compromised immune systems were effected. 

I think, Who the hell else would be using albuterol in a nebulizer? 

To think, I may have been on that list...

Had I continued to inhale...

~*~

I previously wrote about part of this night here: surrender.

~*~

Note: It may not have been US News and World Report; I searched the internet and could not find an issue with the story. I recall the story being the cover-story of the magazine, but maybe I am incorrect about that. I did find references/articles in Wall Street Journal and New York Times. There may be more online, but I don't feel like searching further. This link, from the Free Library, states the following: 

Until January, 1994, Copley Pharmaceutical was a major supplier of albuterol. Copley's product was distributed under its own name as well as under the brand names Aligen, Astra, Geneva, Goldline, Harber, Major, Moore, H.L. Moore, Qualitest, Rugby, Schein, and Xactdose.

In the closing days of 1993, Copley recalled four batches (44,000 vials each) of its 20 ml. vials of albuterol because of "microbial contamination." On January 6, 1994, the recall was expanded to include all 3.7 million bottles of the drug the firm had ever made...

I had the Goldline brand. I was not part of the class action suit, but that's another story.

Expectations: Yard treasures

Prompt: Expectations

*~*

In the past week the cicadas seem to play a different drone. 

It's a lower pitch and sometimes softer.

Like they are reminding us that we are approaching the far side of summer.

Their music starts early in the day.

At least I think it must be cicadas, and not tree frogs.

Though tree frogs can make lots of different sounds.

But they usually don't start their conversations until late in the day, toward evening. 

This afternoon, as I meandered in the back yard up near the woods, I heard an odd sound.

I followed the sound and saw a tiny area of grass trembling.

I cautiously approached.

The sound was from a bee which appeared to be investigating what looked like a cicada, which wasn't moving.

I didn't want to disturb them, so I marked the spot with a small clump of dead grass leftover from mowing. 

Hopefully I'll remember tomorrow to go check it out. 

This morning, I found two treasures in the yard. 

Two feathers. One from Hawk. One from Blue Jay.

One of the hawks that frequents our yard, I have named Cyrus. He looks so regal as he stands erect upon his perches: various branches of a few trees and the upright old wooden pole that is part of the stand that holds wires where blackberries once grew.

Multiple blue jays frequent our yard; I have no names for them, other than Blue Jay.

I found the blue jay feather first and poked it in my hair, in the back, where the comb-latch that keeps my hair in place as its pulled back in a ponytail.

When I found the hawk feather, I put it in the same place. But I could no longer feel the blue jay feather.

So I retraced my steps using my hawk eyes to see if I could spy the blue jay feather.

But, I didn't find it anywhere.

Where would you like me to put you? I ask the hawk feather, thinking I'd put it in the ceramic toothpick holder that sits on my kitchen windowsill of treasures. The small holder is filled with unpopped, colored popcorn and holds other feathers I have found.

I want to stay outside, Hawk Feather replies.

Is here okay? I ask

Yes, it answers.

So I place Hawk Feather with the large pine cones that sit in a black-wrought-iron-wire bowl, which sits on a small circular mosaic-tile table top supported by curved black-wrought-iron legs. The small table stands outside just to the right of our front door. 

I make my way into the house.

About an hour or so later I take down my hair. 

To my delight, Blue Jay Feather falls out. 

With its agreement, I place it in a nest that holds three small ceramic speckled eggs. The nest sits upon the bottom of a small Lenox salad bowl that's turned upside-down on the countertop in the bathroom, so that the bottom of the bowl becomes the top. The nest and bowl are part of my bathroom gratitude altar.

Blue Jay Feather is happy and so am I.

Catching up: Epidural and me

Prompt: Catching up

~*~

Forgive me please, fellow writers. 

I am in Week Twelve.

It is my 34th time living through Week Twelve.

These 12-week rounds began in December, 2013.

I used to call Week Twelve the "dreadful Week Twelve."

It was truly dreadful.

But the dreadfulness has eased up in the past year.

For that I am thankful.

But, it's still rough.

Mainly the exhaustion-fatigue, or fatigue-exhaustion. 

Today, I tried to approximate how Week Twelve feels now compared to pre-dreadfulness. 

Maybe it feels like Week Eleven.

No. Like Week Six used to be? 

No. Week Six used to be worse. 

Perhaps, maybe, it feels more like Week Ten?

Hmm. I think that is the closest, maybe.

Week Ten.

The fatigue-exhaustion is physical and cognitive.

I have low-level pain all through my body, right underneath my skin.

But it is the exhaustion-fatigue that is the biggest challenge. 

I've told my neurologist that I don't have brain-fog; I have brain-mud.

And sometimes my brain feels like scrambled eggs, which happens mostly starting during Week Eleven.

I'm so used to these cognitive states. 

I observe scrambled-egg state with curiosity and a type of fascination.

Brain-mud makes observation an almost inaccessible activity. Observation is way off in the distance somewhere while brain is stuck in mud.

Today, as I tried to access my brain status I thought, 

My brain doesn't feel like mud.

Maybe it feels more like silt; if silt is slicker, less dense, than mud.

That I am here tonight, at the writing workshop, during Week Twelve, is evidence, of improvement.

I just never know if any improvement will actually stick. 

So I let go of expectations about outcome. 

Next Tuesday, August 10, 2021, I'll get another stick, another puncture.

Epidural Number 35.

And begin the cycle again. 

Sweet relief, hopefully, awaits me again for Round 35.

We've become friends, Epidural and Me. 

On hold: Trust the process

July 14, 2021  

Prompt: On hold

~*~

A quote by Jeffery Rediger, M.D., from the book Cured: 

   

"Whenever I ask people to start 'at the beginning,' they tend to go back to the same place: not when they were sick or back further to when they were diagnosed, or even further back to when they were healthy. They go back all the way to their childhoods. I don't have to ask them to. Something in them knows intuitively that the true roots of their stories are there. And no matter what the disease process is, it's always about the story."  

This is the path I am currently on.

A path to allow early childhood memories to emerge.

A path that has many blanks.

Part of my re-quest, as I call it.

A quest again into wholeness. 

A request to any gods there may be for guidance. 

Since I first delved deeply into mind-body medicine in the early 2000s,  I have been met with an abyss of sorts, when it comes to parental and familial memories. Though this abyss appears black, and sometimes dark gray, it isn't hollow, like abysses are supposed to be. It isn't a never ending hole. It is solid, like there is nothing to even step into to explore. At least with a an abyss, one can step into it, even get pulled into a vortex. At least there is movement. 

So I've really not been met by an abyss.

But it's not a wall either. 

It's more like a solid nothingness. 

It's an odd feeling, this lack of memory when it comes to my parents. 

I spoke about this with Dr. McColloch, the best psychologist whom I've ever been to. I wish he hadn't retired. I wish a lot of things. Dr. McColloch knew me well. I saw him weekly, and sometimes more, from middish-2000 through 2004ish. Then I saw him off and on as needed through 2013ish. 

I think Dr. McColloch was the first one who brought up the word "neglect."  

In one of our sessions he asked, "Do you realize that you are a victim of neglect?" 

I firmly and adamantly retorted, "I am not a victim of anything. Besides, everyone is neglected." 

He responded, "No. They're not. Not everyone is neglected." 

I think that's all we said about that in that session. 

I considered what he said over the subsequent days, and then we explored the issue. The evidence was there from memories I did have and in my symptomology. Yes, everyone to some degree encounters neglect, but not as a pattern during their developing years. Neglect is a type of emotional abuse, where (in maybe a twisted but understandable way) the neglectee feels that they'd prefer some sort of physical abuse just to know that they matter, that they exist. 

It's not about blaming my parents; I don't. I do not believe the neglect was intentional; it was circumstantial. But that didn't matter to the little, developing person of me. It had an effect on my wiring; which is true for all humans and maybe all animals. I am human...and animal. 

I had wondered about sexual or physical abuses: could it be that my little mind had blocked any memories of that? When I asked Dr. McColloch, he said that he didn't think so, from all I had shared and from my behavior patterns. And I thought then (and still think) he was correct. 

On my current request, I've decided that whatever I need to know will surface when I need to know it. 

I do the work, and then trust the process. 

If it were only that easy. 

Chain reaction: C-4 sever, wreck #3

July 7, 2021  

Prompt: chain reaction 

~*~

Anxiety.  Often the end result of a chain reaction. Triggers, sometimes unconscious, cause dominoes, until I wonder, How the fuck did I get here? Why do I feel this way? 

It's like bouncing around in a hall of mirrors, or in a structure surrounded by water which reflects off itself reaching into an ocean of lunacy. 

The third bad wreck. I've written about it numerous times. I think about it almost daily. My husband, John, and I regularly mention it, amazed how Mom and Dad continued to thrive afterward.

I would say it was the worst of the three bad wrecks. 

But, the first bad wreck, when Dad was in a coma and had Jesus come and tell him to wake up. Seems about as close to death as one can be. That was before he and Mom started the family.

And, the second bad wreck, when Mom was unable to recall our, her children's, names; unable to properly care for herself, even though she was in her thirties; and had to endure multiple rounds of shock treatments, in the 1960s. Seems about as close to lost in a house of mirrors as one can be.

July 5, 1983

I stand in the industrial kitchen at the long, shiny, steel counter that is held up by steel legs and has a steel shelf underneath where giant steel pots and pans and bowls are kept. On a big wooden cutting board, I am cutting vegetables fresh from the garden. Joe stands across from me, doing the same. We both work in Food Services, in The Way Corps, at the Way College in Rome City, Indiana.

"Something is really wrong," I say to Joe.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"I don't know. Just something feels wrong. I've felt it all morning."

"Have you spoken in tongues about it?" he asks.

"Yes. All morning," I reply.

Speaking in tongues is perfect prayer. It is the spirit praying for whatever the need may be, since as humans we can't begin to conceive of the multitude of needs on any given day in any given moment.

A few hours later I am summoned to the head office where leadership informs me, "Your brother called. He needs you to call him right away. Your father has been in a wreck."

I call Ted and he tells me.

"It's serious. Dad's paralyzed from the neck down. Doctors say it's a C-4 sever. He's at Baptist Hospital in Winston." 

I don't leave Indiana right away. Instead, I tell the leadership what has happened. The whole campus lifts Dad and the family in prayer. I take a walk around the hill. There are small, empty alcoves in the sides of the hill for stations of the cross that, I think, once housed statues. Remnants of the previous residents of the property, the Sisters of the Order of the Precious Blood, a Roman Catholic order of nuns. 

But The Way isn't Roman Catholic and teaches that Mary worship is idolatry and that so-called saints which people pray to are false or, at worst, devil spirits, and that praying to them opens the door for devil spirit possession. I am a Way believer, so I know not to pray to these idols. But I do think about what I've heard of the Sisters that once lived here and how this property offered healing with its mineral springs, which are no longer used. 

God...

Jesus didn't go to Lazarus right away.

He waited three days. 

I don't know what to do.

Should I wait?

Should I go?

I choose to wait. A couple days later my brother calls and says I should come home. So I go, fully prepared to heal Daddy. 

Jesus made the lame to walk. I can do the same, as long as I believe. Believing is the key. Dad will have to believe too. I know the devil did this to Daddy, to keep Daddy from the accuracy of the Word. The devil is always after the Word; his mission is to steal, kill, and destroy. 

Before I was relocated in May to the Indiana Campus, Dad had come to visit me for Parent's Weekend in April at The Way College in Emporia, Kansas. I was embarrassed when Dad wore his plaid golf pants to a meeting, the meeting where he signed up for the Power for Abundant Living Class. But it was fun when Dad and I went dancing together at a local pub. 

I had no idea that's the last time I would see Dad dance... 

Or wear the plaid golf pants...

I would say it was the worst of the three bad wrecks.

~*~

Nothing was working: Trash on the windshield, wreck #2

July 7, 2021

Prompt: Nothing was working

~*~

The first bad car wreck happened before Mom and Dad started the family. They landed in a creek where Mom had to use a straw to suck blood from Dad's trachea. She spit the blood in the creek. The ambulance whisked Dad away to the hospital where he underwent surgery. A metal plate was implanted in his forehead. He lay in a coma for three weeks until Jesus appeared to him under a lone tree in a field and told him, "It's time to wake up now." 

The second bad wreck happened around 1960. Mom was driving. My five-year old brother sat in the front passenger seat. One-year-old me sat in an infant carrier in the back seat, sucking my baby bottle. We were on our way to pick up my eight-year old sister at the movie theater.

"Ted, take off that football helmet," Mom demanded.

"No. Not gonna do it," Ted retorted.

Back and forth, back and forth.

"We are going to pick up Becky at the movie theater. Now take it off."

But Ted would not comply. 

All of a sudden Mom screamed, but not at Ted. The trash truck in front of us had malfunctioned, and trash came pouring out, covering our windshield. 

Another scream. 

We crash.

Mom is whipped forward and backward.

Ted flies into the windshield, making a giant crack in the glass with his football helmet. 

Mom manages to turn her head and look at me in the back seat. 

I don't have a face. 

She goes into shock. 

The truth was, I had a face. But my baby bottle had burst and my face was covered with milk and bottle debris. 

Mom stayed in shock. Whatever the wreck did to her, she couldn't remember our names. She was like a child unable to make decisions and care for herself properly. That's when she was first institutionalized, in the psychiatric ward at Emory Hospital in Atlanta. I don't know how long she was there. A lady named Katie, whom I have no memory of, helped Dad care for us kids. I feel sure Uncle Fred's family helped too. We didn't live far from them in Daytona. Fred was Dad's eldest brother.

After Mom came home, she still had trouble, especially with memory. So Dad and the doctors decided we should move nearer to her origins in North Carolina. Maybe that would help her memory come back.

So we moved to Hickory, North Carolina, around 1961. But Mom had to be institutionalized again. This time at Broughton Psychiatric Hospital in Morganton, North Carolina. 

I don't know how long Mom was in Broughton, but my older sister said it seemed like a long time. The family would visit Mom, and she'd show us the ceramic crafts she had made. 

Her mind found its way back; she was able to come home (at least) by the time I was four years old. I remember she had to wear a collar around her neck, an injury left over from the whiplash. She'd undergone electroconvulsive therapy both at Emory and Broughton. The shock treatments probably caused some of her memory loss, but they also helped her recover. Duality. 

Mom got a job selling Avon and then encyclopedias. By the late 1960s she was the top, national, Compton's Encyclopedia salesperson for five years in a row. 

In the mid-1990s I found Mom on her kitchen floor after a suicide attempt. I then learned the rest of the story about why Mom had been institutionalized back in the 1960s.

Until I was around eight years old, I slept with a baby bottle. I hugged it  for comfort as I fell asleep. I didn't suck the nipple; there was only air in the bottle, no liquid.  

Instead of a security blanket, I had adopted a security bottle. 

Choppy seas: In the creek, wreck #1

Penned June 23, 2021

Prompt: choppy seas

~*~

The story goes that Mom and Dad eloped. 

Mom's name was Flo Rae. She was the next to youngest of ten living siblings. Would have been twelve, but two others died young. A boy whose name was Timmy, I think. And an infant, who was just called "the infant." Mom grew up in Balls Creek, North Carolina, on a family farm. Her daddy, Ed, worked at the sawmill. Mom told me that one time John Dillinger parked in their gravel driveway. 

Dad's name was Albert Watkins, named (in part) after his great uncle, Albert Galiton Watkins, a lawyer and pro-confederate politician who served at least one term  in the US House. Dad was the youngest of three boys. His brothers' names were John and Fred. 

As I was growing up, Uncle Fred was my favorite uncle. He was a photographer and lived in Daytona Beach. He owned a Jaguar; and Aunt Lucille, his wife, owned a talking parrot that would sing Dixie. Aunt Lucille helped Uncle Fred in his photography business; she applied the paint touch-ups to enhance color in the photographs, before the days of real color photography. Fred and Lucille had three children -- Freddie, Linda, and Suzy, all older than me. I had a crush on Freddy. Linda and Suzie were on lots of Daytona Beach post cards made from photos that Uncle Fred took. Tourists bought the post cards. Linda looked like Cher, the singer. 

At some point Dad moved to Hickory, in his later teens or maybe early 20s. He and Mom met I don't know where. But they eloped when Dad joined the Coast Guard and was going to be sent to New York City. 

Story goes that after they eloped, they went back to Momma's farm house. Mom's family had a meeting discussing whether or not they'd allow the marriage to be. Mom and Dad were put in an upstairs bedroom while the rest of the family talked it out in the dining room. Mom took an empty drinking glass and laid the open end on the hardwood floor and placed her ear on the bottom of the glass so she could hear the discussion downstairs. My Grandpa Ed, who was apparently a man of few words, ended the discussion with, "They made their bed, let them sleep in it." And that was that. 

Mom moved with Dad to NYC and got a job working as a bank teller in the Empire State Building while Dad went off to help monitor the Eastern Seaboard during WWII. He was a radar operator.

When I look at their old photos, Dad was quite handsome and Mom quite pretty. Mom's hair was wavy-curly and dark. She was light-skinned with blue-grey eyes. I don't know if her curls were natural, but maybe that's where I got my wavy-curly hair. Dad had a lean, strong, chiseled face. He had dark hair, high cheek bones, dark olive skin, and brown eyes. Mom always said he was part Cherokee, coming from western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. But I don't know if that's the case. I don't know how much any of the stories are the case. 

After the war, Mom and Dad moved to Daytona Beach and lived there for some 15 years. That's where they started our family. All three of us kids were born there. My sister Becky. My brother Ted. And me. I was the youngest. 

I'm not sure if it was in Florida or New York where the first bad wreck happened, but I think it was in Florida. I think that's maybe when the shape of Dad's forehead and face changed, from less chiseled to more round. 

The wreck happened before Mom and Dad started the family. Story goes, when they crashed, they landed in a creek. Mom had to use a paper straw to suck blood out of Dad's throat. After the ambulance arrived, Dad was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery on his head. A metal plate was implanted in his forehead. He was in coma for some three weeks.

In my late teens I asked Dad about his coma. He said he had a vision just before waking up. He met Jesus in a field under a lone tree, and Jesus said, "It's time to wake up now." 

Something didn't feel right

Penned June 23, 2021

Prompt: Something didn't feel right

~*~ 

Five years old. 1964. 

"I HATE YOU!!!" 

Pound! Bang! 

"I HATE YOU! HATE YOU!! HATE YOU!!!" 

Crack! Crash! 

Pieces of red plastic scatter the floor --remains of the the small, red, once-rectangular, toy gum machine. 

"I DON'T WANT YOU ANYMORE..."  

Exhausted. Crying. 

Upset that the toy is destroyed. It will no longer dispense the two-pack Chiclets. 

Momma looks on from the kitchen, standing in the doorway, dressed in a patterned dress, wearing an apron, looking befuddled like she doesn't know what to do. The apron is a half-apron, tied at her waist. White, edged with small, embroidered flowers and a crochet-laced trim. 

I sit cross-legged, curly headed, and bucktoothed on the dining room hardwood floor. Probably barefoot, wearing cut-off jeans for shorts and a tee shirt. 

I don't recall why I was so upset with that toy. But I killed it with a fury. 

Maybe I just wanted attention; I threw tantrums on a regular basis. Mom talked with Dr. Davis, one of our family doctors, about my tantrums. He advised to allow them and to not respond. Apparently it worked; eventually I quit kicking and screaming and killing inanimates. Maybe I just decided nobody cared, so why bother.

Six years old. 1965.

David, my new 6-year old neighbor, and I meet for the first time. I don't know where his 7-year old brother is right now. David and I stand face to face. Me, a tomboy with neck-length curly hair and buck teeth, wearing cut-off jeans and a tee shirt, barefoot. David, short straight hair and straight teeth.

I'm not happy with my new neighbor. He seems like a sissy. I lift my hand, palm toward his face, place my fingers on his forehead, and pull down ha-a-ard scratching his face with my fingernails; it draws some blood. He screams and cries. 

Yeah, he's a sissy. 

Our moms jump up and run right over; they'd been sitting in lawn chairs getting to know each other.  The scream ended the visit. 

I don't recall getting punished or ever apologizing to David. But maybe I was and maybe I did. We played together on a regular basis for the next six years.  I'd play at his house and drink city water. I swam in his pool, along with the rest of the neighborhood kids, as the neighborhood grew. 

Maybe I wanted to prove this was my turf. I'd lived here at least three years already. Maybe I was jealous because his family built a brand new house right beside ours. I'd played in the big sand pile that was used to make concrete when the builders were building it. 

Our house was built in 1930, not 1965. Nothing modern about ours. We drank well water. David had city water. David had a driveway and 2-car garage. We didn't have a driveway. We had a tiny ramp for a maybe-future driveway at the new curb that had been built when the dirt road had been paved. Mom and Dad parked our cars parallel with the new curb. The new curb that ended right at the end of our yard. It didn't go down the road until some decades later when the Abernethy's old house was torn down and new houses were built. 

I deemed David's family higher class than us. 

David's family had a little Yorkie that his mom carried in her arms or walked on a leash. We had a hound dog named Dan who was rarely, if ever, on a leash. Dan used to go hunting with Daddy. 

The same trajectory...

In my previous chronic-illness life, I developed symptoms in 1982. Symptoms were severe. Too much to list. In 1999, we discovered my body was holding high levels of mercury which can cause immune dysfunction. With my then-integrative-doctor's guidance and treatment, we got to work. It wasn't easy, but I made significant progress. In 2000, I developed a herniated disc which led me more deeply into the mind-body connection. The delve and practices worked; the herniated disc gave up its spasms and pain. By 2005, I was well enough to leave a toxic religious group and its doctrine to which I'd been loyal for 28 years. Leaving the group was one of the hardest things I've ever done. By 2010, I was well enough to take up backpacking. I set a goal that by the year I turned 60, in 2019, I'd fulfill my high school dream of thru-hiking the 2180-mile Appalachian Trail. Unfortunately that dream never materialized because of the next chapter.

The next chapter

In this current chronic-illness life, I developed symptoms in 2011, coinciding with some emotional trauma and a medication for toenail fungus. Again, symptoms have been severe. Too much to list. In 2016, we discovered my artificial hip implant from 2008 had been leaching cobalt and chromium into my body which can contribute to, and even cause, the nerve damage that was plaguing me. In 2016, I got the defective implant explanted and a new non-defective one implanted. My metal levels were down within two years, and I've made significant progress. In 2019 I began to develop shortness of breath, not related to the nerve damage. Doctors couldn't find a cause, other than maybe anxiety from an emotionally traumatizing series of events which had begun in February, 2019, and culminated (at least externally) in January, 2020. In May, 2020, I began having thoracic-back spasms and pain. (Also, I had shingles in October and November.) In February, 2021, the shortness of breath and thoracic pain worsened. By March, 2021, doctors had ruled out (with added tests and images) physical causes...so, in March, 2021, I began (again) a deeper dive into mind-body medicine on a re-quest (quest again) toward healing.

It appears, I'm on the same trajectory now as in my past healing journey...

• Emotional trauma
• Overresponsive immune system
• Diagnosis of disease(s)
• Begin medications
• Connected with good MDs
• Begin integrative medicine with  herbs, nutrition, mind-body work, education, journaling
• Discover heavy metal toxicity
• Remove the cause of the toxicity
• Help and allow my body time to rid the metal toxicity
• Symptoms slowly improve
• Physical symptoms unrelated to the disease(s) appear
• Approach the new symptoms as strictly mind-body
• The new symptoms disappear/improve
• Delve deeper into mind-body work with renewed hope that it may help the initial disease(s) that were in part caused by heavy metals and emotional traumas

In 2004, I got well from decades of chronic health adversities.
In 2021, the outcome remains to be seen.

~*~

Yesterday, 6/30/21

I load my schnauzer-printed tote bag, which I carry almost everywhere, with 2 books I'm reading and my journal, to take to my appointment with Dr. Smith who is my chiropractor, homeopath, nutritionist, and functional medicine doctor. I've been his patient since 2002. Currently I've hired him as my mind-body coach on my current re-quest; ie: quest again.

As I placed the books inside the bag, I thought...

I used to do this with Dr. Piva....

Immediately an image appeared in my mind. 

Me, 1999 - 2001, sitting across from Dr. Piva as he sat at his desk, unloading my books and journal and and then sharing with him what I was learning. Dr. Piva was my GP, osteopath, allergist, and nutritionist who was crucial in my past healing from two decades of chronic autoimmune illnesses.

My immediate thought following the image was...

I'm on the same trajectory...

Some weeks back I wrote, I have renewed hope. It's a hope I haven't had in awhile. This renewal has originated in part from again re-educating my self on healing, the connection of soul, mind, body. The books I'm reading now have newer research about our intricate human bodies; it's a subject that thrills me and instills awe and wonder and amazement...and hope. 

Back in 2000, after starting to journal and re-educate my self, this same thing happened...this renewal of hope. I state in my health story regarding that era in my life: I continued to journal and began to re-educate myself on healing. I began to have hope again.

I pick up my tote bag and go on my way to my appointment with Dr. Smith. 

And again I thought...

I'm on the same trajectory... 

~*~

Today, 7/01/21

Currently one of the books I'm reading is Cured: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing by Jeffrey Rediger, M.D., published in 2020. As I read this morning about our amazing bodies and how the immune system and nervous system communicate and what scientists are currently learning about psychoneuroimmunology, I got soooooo excited. (I first read about psychoneuroimmunology in 2000 in the book Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine by Candace B. Pert, Ph.D., published in 1997.)

As I sat cross-legged on the the floor, headlamp on my head, hardback book open in front of me, pages scribbled by my pen with notes in margins and paragraphs squigglied and sentences underlined... 

I stopped reading... 

Closed my eyes... 

And breathed in this new information letting it settle in my body and mind...  

Then... 

I lifted my arms into the air... 

Opened my eyes... 

Tilted my head toward the ceiling... 

And thanked whatever powers that be for this renewed hope...

I whispered aloud, "I'm on the same trajectory..."

I immediately called Hubby at work, knowing he may not be able to pick up the phone. But, he's the only person that would completely understand this hope and renewal as I felt it so biggly this morning. He's been with me for over 37 years. He answered and had time to listen and share and validate and rejoice in the moment with me...

I'm on the same trajectory....

In the first chronic-illness era (1982-2004), I got well...

Maybe it can happen again (2011 - ????)?

But even if it doesn't...

I'll have fun and rejoice along the journey...

~*~

Connection...

Some minutes ago, I powered up my laptop to compose some thoughts on life before the internet, before cell phones, before cordless phones, before central air. 

"Party lines" existed; one could listen in on their neighbor's phone calls. 

Folks opened windows for airflow through their homes; they could listen in on outside conversations and, Lord forbid, on inside talks if folks hollered loud enough and their windows too were open, or not.

We didn't lock the doors of our houses; anyone could walk right in. 

Anyway, when I powered up my laptop I discovered something I wrote a couple weeks ago about isolation and connection -- two subjects that tie right in with communication, now and past. 

I think folks were less isolated pastly than nowly. 

Life-past was lived mostly 3D, which of itself brings more connection; more senses are involved. 

~*~

June 15, 2020, thoughts...

Isolation

The marine vet

Raven Rock Overlook, 2019

He asked how I dealt with doing so much solo

How to live with a feeling of isolation

At the time I didn't have any concrete answers

Seems I may have said something about finding connection

Which I had found with nature

But now, I think I have a more concrete answer

Though part of it is embarrassing, but then not

Because I think it is probably an innate human response

Think Wilson in the movie Castaway

Some may say,

"Carol you haven't experienced isolation

You have a husband

You go out biking and meet people on your journeys"

These things are true

And I am thankful for them

I am married; I do not live alone

I often ride my bike and sometimes meet people

My isolation?

Around 2015 I had to, for the most part, drop our of social life

Fatigue was overwhelming

Due to my health adversities

Energy had to go into surviving another day

My isolation?

I've never met anyone, in 10 years, who has my medical condition

Which is a major factor in feeling isolated 

The closet have been folks with MS

But I don't have MS

And then, how many folks with MS ride a bicycle?

I've met one person  online

And he gets 'it' more than others, I think

'It''...how a person with atrophied muscles from inhibited nerve function

Can ride a bike

I used to feel I had to explain 'it' to everyone I met on the trail

And sometimes I did, if I had the cognitive function to do so

If not, I'd still try to have that conversation in my head

Probably more for explaining 'it' to myself

Processing

My isolation?

I left a cult in 2005

To which I'd been loyal for 28 years

To which I'd committed my money, time, soul, beliefs

Left behind those connections

But I found connections in the ex-and-anti-cult community

Some of those were reconnections with old friends

But then I left that community after I got falsely accused 

What a mess

I'd defended a guy on the anticult forum 

Who was falsely (or at least mistakenly) accused

I knew he was, because I was his supposed target for his supposed lies

Which weren't lies

Hubby and I even met 3D with the guy, multiple times

I later met 3D with the third party he had supposedly posed as in 2D

Which he hadn't 

Messy, messy

Later folks on a couple anticult forums were told I'd given the falsely-accused guy 

Access to the anticult's secret women's forum

And that I'd shared the women's secrets with him

I didn't do either of those things

I was guilty of telling the falsely-accused dude that a secret women's forum existed

Which I wasn't supposed to reveal

That was part of the agreement when a woman joined the forum

And I had hesitantly joined some months earlier

So I probably shouldn't have told the dude

But I did

I did tell someone on the forum I had done so

And asked their opinion if I should tell the forum administrator

They thought 'no'

And I agreed

So I didn't say anything

In hindsight

I wish I had

I also told the falsely-accused guy

That the guy who had falsely (or at least mistakenly) accused him

Had launched the secret forum for the women 

And that the launcher-accuser was the only male who had access

So the falsely-accused guy interpreted that as perverted

But I didn't think the launcher looked at the forum

Unless there was technical difficulty

I'm getting way off track here

Explaining back story

Which I'm not explaining well at all

It was messy and complicated

Soap opera style

Suffice it to say

I was kicked out of the secret women's forum 

And left the anti-cult forum

Outcast

From the cult

And now its anti-counterpart

Isolation 

Then I got involved in broader "cult-recovery"

With my then-mental health therapist

He called me an "activist"

I'd never considered myself an "activist" for anything

After two years

And still his client

He accused me of things

That I had no idea I had done 

Because I had not done them

But he was my mental health therapist

And I doubted my own perceptions

Could I actually be guilty of what he said?

He harmfully cut me off

Slash

After much deliberation and mental torment

And learning his behavior was a pattern

He'd done similar ten years prior

Before he had his counseling license

I filed a professional complaint

With his state licensing board

A year later

Therapist tried to smear my character online

Using outright fables based on my past

Which he knew well

Some people, many perhaps, believed him

Outcast

From the cult

From cult's anti-counterpart

And now the broader cult-recovery field

Isolation

But then 

Connection

One of Therapist's past clients contacted me

Therapist had harmed them in worse ways than I

They thanked me for filing the complaint

And following through

The ex-client was able to reconcile with a close relative

Whom the client had cut off

Due to Therapist's twisted analysis

And that made it all worth it

"It" being the complaint 

And the attempted smear

And all its repercussions

Internally and externally

But by the time "worth-it" had landed

Therapist's character smear of me

Had already done its damage

In the public arena

Fourteen months later I was a witness for the state  

At Therapist's state licensing board hearing

To which he didn't show

Another fourteen months later

Therapist's license was revoked

The ex-client again thanked me

Along with a few other folks

Who were privy to the situation

And who had experienced harm

At the therapist's emotional-lashings

And that was that

So, yeah 

I've had to live with isolation

At least the internal kind

And some external 

What helps me?

Let me list some ways...

Music and singing and dance

Connecting with the awe of nature

Befriending trees and wildlife

Talking life over with my self

Finding purpose in the smallest of things...

Like laying my parrot-print throw on the foot of our bed so that the parrots are flying out the window

Naming and talking with inanimate objects...

Adult Groot Art-o-mat block

Bicycles, Olivia and Blue

1999 Ford Explorer, Sir Edward

Rolling walker, The Phoenix

And (the most embarrassing) the bath back-brush

I haven't given the bath-brush a name. 

That feels I'm taking it a bit too far.

But who knows?

Whatever helps.

Almost daily, if not every day, I talk with

The magnificent creation of nature 

In which the circle of life happens

Expressing my deepest gratitude

Discovering connection is key...