I liked Amanda's idea of choosing a general theme to describe what's moving her this Monday, so I jacked it -- but at least I am honest about my thievery!

In the wake of a miserable last week, I've decided to give in and surrender to the forces beyond my reach that wreak havoc in my life. I've come to the conclusion that sometimes it's better to actually lose the war because in doing so, one is forced to come to grips with one's weaknesses and limitations and to find a way to work with, through, or around them. Such is the case with my cluster headaches and seizures. And so, Brain, you win this time! With white flag in hand, I surrender to the power of your electrical impulses. For today, at least. . .

White Flag by Dido




Sweet Surrender by John Denver




Surrender by Elvis Presley

Random Thought #1

Do you ever have days that start off perfectly fine -- Mary Poppins-like in fact, kind of "practically perfect in every way" -- only to have them go dreadfully wrong only a couple of hours later? Yesterday was like that for me.

I was on the ball and ready to conquer the world starting just after 3:00 a.m. In a couple of hours I managed to answer the business email, sort my personal email for answering later, complete the Monday meme posts, scoop the litterboxes, brush two of the four longhair cats, unload the dishwasher, get a new load of laundry started, and harvest my crops on Farm Town. James Brown's song "I Feel Good" was the anthem of the day. Then a single phone call brought it all crashing down around me.

I wasn't really paying attention to the time, but I think that it was shortly after 9 when Betty's estate attorney called. Evidently, he received a phone call from one of the daughters of Betty's deceased husband because she, after a single visit to Betty in the 8 years that she has lived at the board and care facility, was concerned that I might be mismanaging the trust. I don't think much of anything could have shocked me more than that phone call, but I do know that it's been a very long time since I was as angry as it made me!


This individual has no real relationship with Betty, has not bothered to check up on her except for a phone call last Christmas when she told the caregiver that she would come to visit but never showed up, and now, out of the blue, is "concerned" that her care is not being managed well? Where has this person been all these years? In a neighboring city, certainly not too far away to demonstrate this "concern" by visiting Betty to make sure that she is being well cared for. Last week was the first time in eight -- count them, I said E-I-G-H-T, years that Betty's caregiver ever saw this person! How's that for "concern"?


Random Thought #2

After yesterday's "excitement," I've had a headache that doesn't want to give up the ghost and die. I know it's because the anger is still seething in the pit of my stomach, bubbling to the surface every now and again to remind me how utterly brutal people can be. I can't place the blame for this one on The Brain; nope this misery is my own fault. At least the headache is not one of the Chiari types, so I am left to conclude that this must be the kind of headache that "normal" people get, LOL.


Random Thought #3

Surgery update (yes, Aunt Nola, this is for you): Next Thursday, the 27th, I am scheduled to have the thyroid surgery that should have happened last November but didn't because my pre-op blood work showed an elevated white blood cell count that turned out to be an indicator of the very nasty cold that made itself known on Thanksgiving. I have the pre-op appointment on Monday and barring any WBC issues, I will be AWOL for one day next week. Unless I have a seizure or some other Chiari related complication, the surgery is supposed to be out-patient. I am going to discuss with my doctor the possibility of having it done under a local instead of a general anesthesia as this significantly increases the likelihood that I will get to go home on the same day. Besides, how cool would it be to lie awake on the surgery table while a surgeon slashes a hole in your neck and takes out half of your thyroid gland? Sounds awesome to me!


Random Thought #4

Classes begin next week, and I feel sad. No school for me. I'm retired, remember? No animated discussions about censorship in the public school classroom. No more interesting essays defending the First Amendment as it applies to websites with disgusting content. No more introducing the uninitiated to John Milton's Areopagitica or John Stewart Mill's On Liberty. No more poring over the ALA's list of banned books to see which ones we've read. No more. No more. I'm sad.

And did I mention that I'm pissed off, too?

Tired and REtired accurately describes me for the past couple of days. No sitting around munching on bon-bons and watching soap operas all day here. So much for the glory days of retirement!

Despite really looking forward to the Thursday Thirteen meme, I just didn't have time to get to it today. Not that this is necessarily bad; it just means that I'm having another good day and have the energy and concentration to get some more work done. I might could get used to this!

The visit with my wunnerful wunnerful neurologist, Dr. S, went well. We're changing my anti-seizure medications again as the Dilantin has never really reached the level in my blood stream that it should in order to work effectively. Instead of continuing to increase the dosage of a drug that just ain't cuttin' the mustard as my Grandma used to say, I'll go back on Topamax. I did have some issues with Topamax causing brain fog a while back; however, I'm no longer teaching and required to have unfailing mental acuity on demand. I'll take a bit of fogginess over clusters of seizures any old day. Besides, Topamax has three delightful side effects from which I gained some additional benefit in the past and hope to see again:

• it causes weight loss
• it is also used to treat and prevent migraines
• it will allow me to stop taking two, possibly three, additional medications

The next couple of weeks will be challenging as I take both the Topamax and Dilantin until I reach the previous dosage of 100 mg of Topamax twice daily and start to wean off the Dilantin. Been there, done that -- at least half a dozen times -- and will survive it once again.

Post about 5 favorite things from the past week. It can be anything that tickled your fancy: favorite quotes, posts, happenings, scriptures, recipes, pictures, great internet finds, etc., etc. Be as detailed as you like, the more detail the more fun for those of us visiting. Susanne, the hostess, just asks that it be kept family friendly. Click here to play along with us.


1. This week, I'm grateful for my baby sister and America's Got Talent. I've had a week full of seizures, most of them worse than normal, so I haven't been feeling as optimistic as I usually do. In fact, I slept away much of the week as always happens when The Brain takes charge. My sister called me yesterday to check in and knowing how much I enjoyed Britain's Got Talent, she asked what I thought of this season of America's Got Talent. Well, D-U-H, I didn't even know that it was on! After we finished chatting, I visited the NBC website and got caught up with the show. I have two favorites so far: Barbara Padilla, whose YouTube videos have the embed feature disabled, and




2. When the Amazing Egyptian Dude was acid washing, cleaning, then refilling our swimming pool on Sunday, he sent me to Home Depot for some additional supplies. Since the pool supplies are in the garden center, it provided me with the perfect opportunity to look at house plants. I was thrilled to find a new orchid plant for just $6.98!



3. Camry has fully recovered from her spay surgery and is back to her old tricks. Having had cats all my life, I know that they are fascinated by bags and boxes. Camry takes this fascination to the level of an obsessive-compulsive disorder, though! No box, no bag is safe when Camry is around.


Typically, we reuse the plastic shopping bags for the trash cans in the bathrooms and bedrooms. But after seeing Camry's latest misadventure, I'll have to remember to cut the handles so that if she grabs one, she doesn't become entangled in it.

4. My brother-in-law makes some mean felafel so when he made a huge batch on Wednesday and shared a freezer bag full of the raw mix with us, I was a quite the happy camper. Egyptians eat felafel any time, but it's especially popular as a breakfast food, like this:


Clockwise on the plate, starting at 9 o'clock is felafel, tomato, gargeer (I think this is watercress in English, but I'm not sure), parsley (beneath the gargeer), pickled turnip, and chili peppers. A dish of tahini sits at the center of the plate.

5. I am really looking forward to tomorrow! A local Shakespeare Company has a summer stock type show season at a park on the beach. Attendance is free, and the park has a picnic area. Ever since I had the brain surgery, we haven't gone. I decided that we will go this year and invited one of the Third Grade BFFs and spouse, along with some other friends and family to join us. I'll do my best to remember to take the camera along with me and get some shots of us as we picnic and enjoy Julius Caesar.

To see other entries or play along, visit here.


1. If you could turn back the hands of time to correct one wrongdoing, what event would you choose and why?

I wouldn't want to turn back the hands of time to correct a wrongdoing because in doing so, I would also erase the lesson that I learned from the mistake. Do I regret some things that I've done? Of course, but I learned and moved on, trying never to repeat them.

2. Are you one for tradition? If so, what traditions do you strongly believe in? If not, what makes tradition hypocritical?

Traditions are the threads that join the panels of our lives together and without them, we're frayed and fragmented. Traditions provide us with continuity and a sense of immortality. I believe in and celebrate traditions wholeheartedly! The types of traditions that I believe most strongly in are those that are unique to every family -- things like eating certain foods only on specific special occasions. As wonderful as I think they are, though, traditions can become hypocritical if nobody knows what they mean, how they started, or why they continue. A really good example of this is found in Shirley Jackson's short story, The Lottery.


3. You were taking part in an event and you had to crossplay, who would you crossplay as and why?

I have no clue what crossplaying is, so I guess I wouldn't do it.


4. If you only had one day left to live, how would you spend your last day? Would you be tempted to live fatally if you knew you were to die the next day, and if so, what extreme measures would you take?

I'd live my last day the same as I would every other one. The only thing that I might do differently is to add an extra prayer or two.


5. What are your top five sinful materialistic items, ones you'd expect from others including those closest to you? Why are each in the position they are in?

I'm not sure what a "sinful materialistic item" is, nor do I get the second half of the first sentence. I was doing okay with this meme until now! I don't think I have any "sinful materialistic items," unless you count my cigarettes. . .


6. I am...tired but can't sleep because I woke up from a bad dream.

7. I feel...inspired to do something remarkable today.

8. I see...my computer screen and a cup of coffee on my desk.

9. I need...very little to make me happy.

10. I love...little baby ducks, clovers filled with luck, slow-moving trains, and rain
I love little country streams, sleep without dreams, flowers that bloom in May, and hay
And i love you too

I love leaves in the wind, pictures of my friends, birds in the world, and squirrels
I love coffee in a cup, little fuzzy kittens, iced tea in a glass, and grass and i love you too

I love honest open smiles, kisses from a child, tomatoes on the vine, and onions
I love winners when they cry, losers when they try, music when it's good, and life
And i love you too

**I borrowed the lyrics for Tom T. Hall's song, "I Love," and changed them up a bit.

11. I wish...that I could control The Brain instead of It controlling me.

12. I think...; therefore, I am.

13. I hear...dead people. No wait, I see dead people. I forgot what I hear.

14. I crave...mangoes in the summer.

15. I fear...bridges more than anything else.

16. I hope…For love, joy and laughter
I hope
We'll have more than we'll ever need
I hope
We'll have more happy ever afters
I hope
We can all live more fearlessly
And we can lose all the pain and misery
I hope, I hope

**I agree with the Dixie Chicks' lyrics for "I Hope."

It's been a few days since I had the chance to do anything but my regular memes, so it's time for me to play catch up. Let me tell you what's going on in my world.

Betty's condition is improving. Because she can't eat by herself, a feeding tube was inserted through her nose and into her stomach. Even though she was seriously drugged for the pain, she didn't like the tube and managed to pull it out a couple of days ago. Rather than put it back in, the vigilant nurses have been feeding her whenever she's awake and alert. It worked like a charm. She is now alert and talking, which means that she will be moved from ICU to a regular room once the chest tubes are removed. That should happen today or tomorrow.


I had some real excitement on Thursday afternoon with my retirement paperwork. In the midst of Betty's illness and my going back and forth to the hospital, I received a letter from the retirement agency indicating that they had received my application and asking that I contact the university's HR department to request that they not remove me from the insurance roll while the application is processed. So on Wednesday afternoon, I did as instructed. Much to my surprise, I got a response from the HR person who helped me take care of the retirement paperwork indicating that the university can't do what CALPERS had requested. It took several phone calls and faxes for me to learn that although I should have been removed from the insurance roll on July 1, a mistake that I made has worked in my favor. Because I turned in the application paperwork directly to CALPERS, the university doesn't know that I am retiring; therefore, I am still on the books, so to speak. No lapse in insurance coverage, which the only reason that I took an early retirement in the first place! Big sigh of relief.

The sorry state of my state has gotten worse. I didn't think it was possible; I was wrong.

• California still does not have a budget.
• We have no money to meet our financial obligations and such a bad credit rating that borrowing is not a possibility.
• Unemployment is now just above 10%.
• Our sales tax was recently raised to help raise funds but since so many people are worried about losing their jobs, they are not shopping enough for it to do any good.
• We're in the third year of a drought so bad that water rationing will likely happen before the end of summer.
• Just yesterday, I heard on the local news that the consistent increase in water temperatures on our side of the Pacific Ocean have made 2009-2010 officially an El Nino year. Rather than go into all the details now, I'm going to use the Thursday Thirteen meme to talk more about El Nino and its effects on the Golden State. Let's just say that it gets really ugly around here when El Nino pays us a visit.
• Our fire season, which normally starts in September and goes through October, has started early. The dry brush, thanks to the drought, on the hills and mountains surrounding Los Angeles, coupled with the outward sprawl that occurred over the past decade, has set up ideal conditions for a far more threatening fire season than normal. It doesn't surprise me that the hills have started burning three months earlier tha usual.

My headaches seem to be under control for the time being. This is a very good thing. Does the absence of headaches mean that everything is well and good? This is my life, peeps -- nothing in it is well and good at the same time! The stress factor is currently high and with stress comes headaches, seizures, and eczema. It's been several days since I had a headache, but The Brain doesn't like to play understudy to my life for very long; therefore, It makes its presence known through seizures. Thankfully, the four that I've had in as many days haven't been too bad. Now the eczema, my body's stress-o-meter, isn't doing as well as the headaches and seizures. I'll save you the gory details and say only that my hands are covered with a rash and blisters that itch like mad. And now, add to the seizures and eczema a sciatic nerve issue that is giving me grief at the area of the right hip. Yesterday was w complete waste because the pain was so bad, I used a couple of Naprosen to help me get out of bed and later, off my chair. In spite of all this, things could be so much worse.

Here's wishing everyone a great weekend!

And...here we go!


1. When I heard that I needed brain surgery, I did lots of research before making a decision to go ahead with it.

2. Prevention is the best medicine.

3. It's late, but I don't sleep much anyway.

4. Even on the worst of days, I try to remain positive always.

5. My eyes have seen beauty in the most unusual of places.

6. "Go ahead, make my day," she said strongly.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to hearing that an elderly friend who was hospitalized last night with pneumonia is doing better, tomorrow my plans include a trip to the hospital to visit my friend and Sunday, I want to recover from Saturday's family gathering at my house!

I've spent much of the day on the pity pot thanks to a paralyzing headache that started shortly after 7 this morning. The Amazing Egyptian Dude woke up much earlier than usual and told me that he would be going to the business as soon as he finished drinking a cup of coffee. I had been up for a couple of hours already and laid down on the couch for a short nap before class.

I don't know how long I slept before that familiar brain freeze type pain struck on the right side of my head. That's the kind of headache that makes moving next to impossible. Although the oxygen tank was right beside me, I couldn't get up off the couch to turn it on or to put the cannula on. I just lay there, frozen in time like the Lady of Shalott. Then I heard the Amazing Egyptian Dude! He hadn't left early after all. When I get these headaches and need to get his attention, I whistle; he's got some significant hearing loss and would never hear me if I tried to call him with words because the pain is so intense that barely a whisper comes out.

I whistled and waited.

And I whistled and waited.

And I whistled again.

Nothing.

I could hear him across the room but just couldn't muster the strength to do anything else to get his attention. It took several attempts, but he finally came over to check on me. Turns out he had heard me from the beginning but thought that I was dreaming and making noises in my sleep, so he decided to hang around to wake me up for class!

Cafergot and oxygen later, I could move at least. The pain had dulled to a livable level but the time that happened, it was too late for me to go to class. Besides, I try not to drive on headache and seizure days.

So I missed my class today, The Brain bit me in the butt big time, and I am frustrated as all get-out over the whole damn situation. I've never been "normal," but this level of uniqueness is really getting to me. I want to be in control of myself for a change instead of taking the passenger seat to The Brain and its electrical thrill seeking.

I miss me. I miss my life.

Is that the sound of the wahmbulance I hear in the distance?

I don't mind Mondays, usually, but I'm not looking forward to the start of this one. It's shortly after 3 a.m. here in delightfully cool Southern California, and I have been awake since just after midnight. I want to sleep -- I need to sleep, but I can't. It's probably because Saturday and Sunday were seizureful days, which means that I got plenty of sleep on both. Still, with everything that's going to start happening here in just a few hours, it would be a good idea for me to have a little sleep under my belt. So what's going to happen in my world today?

1. Camry's spay appointment begins the day and boy, am I glad for this one! I have to drop her off at the clinic before 8:30. She will stay overnight, and I'll get her tomorrow morning. That should also give me time to find the lizard that she dragged into the bathroom yesterday. My cats are all indoor; they never, ever go outside. Is it any wonder, then, that I freaked when I saw a rather large lizard, with only a stump of a tail remaining, trying to escape from Camry by hiding under the bathroom rug?! What I want to know is how in the hell did a lizard get inside my house?

2. Once Camry is dropped off, I'll come home and toss in a load of laundry. I had planned to do some over the weekend, but The Brain had other plans for us. I don't know why the Amazing Egyptian Dude thinks he needs socks, anyway. Dude, you come from the desert -- put on a pair of sandals like me!

3. If I don't have any seizures between now and 10:30, I'll head up the freeway to my dad's house for a brief visit and to take him out for lunch since I didn't get to do it yesterday. To avoid the traffic that heads my way starting around 3:00, I will be back on the freeway and returning home right after lunch. If the seizures continue, though, I will be staying at home, probably doing what I ought to be doing now, which is sleeping.

4. The Amazing Egyptian Dude's niece is, at this very moment, in transit from Cairo. She called about 45 minutes ago to say that she is currently in Amsterdam awaiting her connecting flight to Los Angeles. Her plane should land at LAX around 3:15, so the Amazing Egyptian Dude will take my car and go back up the same freeway that I took to my dad's house and pick her up. By the time she gets through customs and collects her luggage, they will get back on the freeway at prime traffic time. This will give me ample time to change the sheets on the bed in the guest room and get it ready for her. And when that is finished, I will cook something for dinner.

In keeping with the whole Egyptian concept of hospitality, the whole family will be going to airport to pick up the niece, everyone except me, that is. I seldom go to the airport unless I'm the one who'll be getting on or off a plane. As soon as they arrive at home, it's customary to have a meal waiting for the traveler. Everything that Egyptians do involves food of some kind. I'll have to figure out something to cook that will feed everyone, probably pasta and salad. We'll see.

At some point in the day, I need to head over to the college to buy my textbooks and pick up my parking pass because tomorrow is the first day of summer school!

We have a family owned and operated business that keeps us pretty busy. Each of us takes care of a certain aspect of the business and together, we keep it running fairly smoothly most of the time. And then, there are those days when The Brain gets in my business and prevents me from taking care of business, thus adding stress to everyone else's business. Such has been the case for the past two weeks.

Iman, our newlywed daughter, takes off every other Friday because her Awesome Egyptian Dude, has the day off from his job. (Note that my Egyptian Dude is Amazing, hers is Awesome.) Under normal circumstances, this isn't a big deal because I am in the office picking up the slack that her absence leaves. But when The Brain asserts its authority, things get really interesting on these Fridays. Like yesterday, for example.

The day began with a headache. Not a bad one -- certainly not bad enough to cause me to test out the newly acquired oxygen tank, not even bad enough for me to take more than 2 Ibuprofen to knock it down. The dull thumping was definitely something I could deal with, and deal with it I did. I processed orders for shipping, answered telephone calls, and shuffled paperwork all around for several hours without incident. The Brain maintained its presence but instead of taking center stage, played overseer to my activities from behind the scenes; however, The Brain couldn't be without the spotlight for very long. And so it was that during a phone conversation with my favorite aunt, The Brain, flipped the switch and sent a jolt of electricity through my body. Thankfully when the seizure came, I was not the one talking; I was listening. When The Brain decided that playing shock therapy was no longer fun, the usual coughing fit began.

A cough, cough here. My aunt began to sense that something wasn't right.

"Your headache isn't making you cough like that, is it?" she wondered.

"No," I answered honestly. "My headache isn't that bad, really." My family worries too much about me, and this call wasn't about me, no matter what The Brain thought. My aunt returned to the conversation, and The Brain returned to the coughing.

A cough, cough there. And my aunt pauses. "Are you sure that you're ok?" How do I tell her, without freaking her out, that I had a seizure? She worries enough already and, like my other family members, knows that stress is the typical trigger for my seizures. If I tell her that I had one while she was talking to me, she'd end the conversation, worried that she had been the cause. "I'm fine," I reassured her. But The Brain had other ideas.

Here a cough, there a cough, everywhere a cough, cough. "Carleen," my aunt said nervously, "something is wrong! Why are you coughing so much?"

"It's nothing, really. I had a seizure, and the coughing is The Brain's way of letting me know that it's finished. No biggie," I told her. A seizure that is followed by so much coughing is one that requires a nap right away, and I knew that; however, I was not about to cut off the conversation and leave my aunt worrying.

I fought the need to sleep and finished the conversation. It was mid-afternoon and I knew that if I took a nap at that point, I wouldn't sleep at night. The Amazing Egyptian Dude, who had wandered in and out of the office during the whole thing, packed me up and took me home as soon as the call ended, hoping that I would give in to The Brain's demands and sleep.

I did fall asleep, but not before an amazing thing happened. In Greek mythology, Zeus gives birth to his daughter Venus in a most unusual way: fully formed and already an adult, Venus emerged from her father's head. I am now convinced that The Brain studied Greek mythology a little too much in college because,


after intense labor that included four more seizures, a Diva was born yesterday. Why? Because The Brain is convinced that it's

First, I have to say that I have the most amazing neurologist ever! Not only did she squeeze me into her tightly packed schedule, but she did so on her own time. When I got to the clinic today to sign in, the receptionist was confused because Dr. S, according to the schedule, was not in today. Following the instructions that Dr. S emailed me at 8 last night, I was to tell the receptionist to call upstairs for her. When Dr. S's assistant didn't even know that I was coming in, that's when I knew what this wonderful physician had done for me. I wish that everyone had such a caring physician!

Because I didn't want to take up too much of her time, I made a list of symptoms on the notepad on my marvelous iPhone. Dr. S read the list, asked some questions, checked reflexes and so on, and then told me what she thinks the problem is. She is pretty sure that I am having clusters of cluster headaches with a few migraines thrown in for good measure. So what do we do for them?

First, I will be adding a new medication to my ever-growing pharmacy. I've forgotten what it's called, but it's a medication commonly prescribed for high blood pressure that also works well for migraines. My blood pressure is fine, so that's not an issue. I'll start on a low dose of 40mg twice a day. The pharmacy in her clinic didn't have the med; however, the one closest to my home does. The Amazing Egyptian Dude will pick it up on his way home.

Second, oxygen. Oxygen, says Dr. S works wonders on cluster headaches. Soon, the pharmacy will deliver an oxygen tank and mask to my home. Then the next time I get a cluster headache, I am to use the oxygen for up to 30 minutes, and it should solve the problem.

We shall see.

• Gawd, the heat is back! Camry, the otherwise loveable kitty, is in heat again. This time, though, she's gone beyond the chirping of a week or so ago and has moved up to the full on cat calling. She rolls all over the floor, yowls at my feet, and walks with her hind end up in the air as if it's on display for every Tom in the household. Unfortunately for her, the only Tom is Marlowe, who was neutered several years ago and would rather play chase the mouse than set up house. I keep telling myself that it's only a few more days until her spay appointment, but I don't know if I can last that long. I had completely forgotten how utterly obnoxious female cats in heat can be!



• The Brain is still throwing its weight around. I spent much of the weekend fighting off headaches. Sunday looked really promising, as I didn't wake up with a headache as I have been; however, the headache's kissing cousin showed up after I had been awake for about an hour. Same thing on Monday. I woke up with a headache shortly after one, had a seizure at 1:24 a.m., then another at 3:48 a.m. Although I had been headache free since about noon, another seizure came at 7:16 p.m. You know, The Brain is beginning to remind me of those crazy dictators in North Korea and Iran -- throw its weight around long enough to make me nervous, then slink away to watch the worry that follows. Thankfully, Dr. S will be on call for a week starting on the 19th, and that's when she's going to do her best to squeeze me in to see her.
  


• I'm not a big fan of Western movies. Never have been. I wasn't inspired to watch them when, as a kid, I learned that the Red Ryder Round-Up, the annual rodeo in my dad's hometown of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, was held in honor of Fred Harman, an elderly man I knew who also happened to be a famous author and illustrator of a comic book series of the same name. Heck, Mr. Harman's creation has maintained its fame thanks to one young boy's obsession with getting a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Still, I wasn't interested in watching cowboy movies. Even when John Wayne filmed The Cowboys in Pagosa and my grandmother called to tell us that she had lunch with him, I wasn't really interested in seeing the movie. I've seen it since then, though. Anyway, the only Western movie that I can honestly say I feel is worth watching is Lonesome Dove, based on Larry McMurtry's novel of the same name. I saw the movie when it first aired on television, then bought and read the book. It was every bit as awesome as the movie. So when I learned that a 20th anniversary airing of Lonesome Dove was on this weekend, I watched it twice -- between naps!
  


• I've been itching to change my blog template and design. I really want a 3-column design that has the post portion sandwiched between two sidebar columns, but I haven't found one that I like yet. If only I weren't graphically challenged, I'd design one myself! Alas, until I overcome the challenge of the puny-pixelled or win the lottery and can afford to pay for a customized one, the quest for a freebie continues.


• Am I the only one who thinks the whole David Letterman vs. Sarah Palin, et al is ridiculous? Considering that the economy is floundering, we're fighting a couple of wars in foreign countries, North Korea is issuing thinly-veiled nuclear threats, Iran is in an upheaval over the possibility of a rigged election, and we can't figure out how to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable medical care, don't you think that Governor Palin's rhetoric would be better served addressing some of these issues instead of a couple of jokes made by a late night talk show host? If this is a taste of what's to come should she become the Republican front-runner for the next presidential election, I want to buy stock in the production company that handles the soap opera version!
  

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I have survived the day so far. My neurologist is wonderful, I swear. I got an appointment with her on July 22, the soonest one available, but I emailed and asked if she could get me in sooner. Because I'm not really a complainer, she knows that if I want to be seen, I'm miserable.

Part of the problem I've been experiencing with the headaches is that I have medications for each of the different kind that I get. Over the past week, they have been alternating from one type to the other which makes choosing the proper medication at the correct time difficult. The end result is that I suffer because when the Ibuprofen doesn't work, I don't know which medication to take.

I've been given the go-ahead to skip the Ibuprofen and go straight for the Cafergot. It's straight caffeine and works on "the hair of the dog that bit you" principle. Now you'll know why that idiom just had to be on my list, LOL! Dr. S said that it won't hurt me to have a couple of doses more per day than the bottle says. She asked if I wanted something stronger for the pain and when I said that I did, she knew that I was in trouble. Peeps, I am so afraid of using pain killers that I have had 6 major surgeries without ever using anything for pain besides Tylenol or Ibuprofen.

So now I am happily caffeinated, headaches under control for the time being, and waiting for Dr. S to squeeze me into her schedule as soon as she can. I should be bearable again soon enough.

• Ok, so I'm not having much fun these days what with The Brain asserting its authority over everything I do. In fact, I'm becoming downright nasty to deal with, and the Amazing Egyptian Dude isn't quite sure what to do with, for, or to me. It's hard to tell which one of us is more deserving of sympathy at this point, LOL! Even in the worst of times, I'm usually not grouchy or negative because I see no sense in making everyone around me miserable, too. But the frequent headaches are taking a toll on me, and I am thinking it's probably time to change my name to Oscar.
• Since I don't really want to be Oscar, it's time to make an appointment with the neurologist. Either I need new meds to deal with an old problem, or I have a new problem that the old meds don't treat. The Amazing Egyptian Dude is insisting that I request another MRI just to make sure that the brain patch is still intact; I, however, am not interested in increasing the likelihood that I will glow in the dark before long from all the radiation. Alien glow or not, it's obvious that something is up, and I need to get it checked.
• The blogosphere is an amazing place. Never in a gazillion years would I have expected such an outpouring of support and encouragement from people whom I've never met! Thom, Rosidah, and Sherlock -- you make my day! Not in a Clint Eastwood way, mind you; I mean in a wholly positive way. Between headaches, when I have a clear enough head, I'll try to catch up with my blog reading and leave comments for everyone. Without fail, I find encouraging comments from one of you and don't feel quite so bad at not having the strength to catch up completely.
• We'll have a guest soon. A niece is coming from Egypt to spend the summer with us. She's a couple of years older than our daughter, has been here twice before, and speaks English well enough that we don't need to babysit her. She'll go between our house and the brother-in-law's house, but I expect that she'll end up staying here more often because we have two spare bedrooms and the in-laws have none.
• I finally rescheduled the surgery to have the right side of my thyroid removed. Lucky for me, it's scheduled for August 27, which means that I have to rethink my vacation plans. I'm supposed to go to Texas so that my aunt, sister, and I can make a road trip to Florida to visit two more aunts. I'm trying to get the surgery moved up and figure that since I had to reschedule it from last November, my surgeon ought to work with me on it. We'll see what happens.

Here's wishing for a mostly headache free day because my To Do list is getting out of control! :)

After a rather nasty seizure last night, I crashed on the couch until the Amazing Egyptian Dude came home. I visited with him for a few minutes before falling back to sleep, and he left me there, zonked out and blissfully unaware of anything except the joy of an adventure in Lullabye Land. Because I need a "nest" of pillows to properly support my neck and prevent headaches, he doesn't like to leave me asleep on the couch unless I fell asleep there after a seizure; then, he won't wake me for anything.

It's currently 4:17 a.m., and I have been awake since shortly before 2. If you've read my blog before, you'll know that this isn't anything unusual for me. Except that today it is -- it REALLY is! I would have stayed asleep had it not been for the fact that an unusually loud and unfamiliar sound woke me up. It took me several minutes and opening the back door to finally figure out what it was:





I'm not afraid of thunder and lightning but living in Southern California does make me unaccustomed to hearing and seeing it. The sound and light show continued for a good 30 minutes and at one point, the thunder was so close, so strong, and so loud that it rattled the windows in my house! Interesting, during the entire performance, not a single drop of rain fell!

This is earthquake weather, peeps, I'm tellin' ya!

Way back in the day, I began this blog as way to distract myself from the daily ups and downs of living with a degenerative illness that sometimes knocks me soundly on my butt. It took some time, but it has now become a much enjoyed part of my daily routine -- except on the days when headaches and seizures plague me like they have for most of this week.

I have made a conscious decision to avoid life on the pity pot. In this regard, I am absolutely Stoic. We often associate a lack of emotion with the Stoics, but these guys were far from emotionless; they just chose to avoid emotionalism through the use of logic, reason, and reflection. Like the Stoics, I know that I have no control over Chiari or what it does to me; however, I do have control over how I deal with it. I can make a conscious decision to perch perpetually on the pity pot, or I can choose to plop on the pity pot only as needed and to work with what I have and who I am now to the best of my ability the rest of the time. I nearly always choose the latter.

This past week, however, has seriously tried my determination to avoid feeling sorry for myself. I've had the hurts-to-breathe headaches every single day since Sunday. Thankfully, the medication has helped to bring them under control fairly quickly; however, they are so debilitating that it's hard for me to clear my head of the fog they bring and to focus on tasks. Add seizures, which I had on Tuesday and Wednesday, to the mix, and I become a real mess, really quickly.

To deal with the down time, I've learned to write my meme posts way ahead of time whenever possible and to schedule them to go live on the appropriate days. This makes my blog look like all is peachy keen in my little world, even when I'm curled up in a fetal position on the couch trying desperately to make the world go away. Unfortunately, what I can't do is respond to comments from the couch. And that is the whole purpose behind this post.

Peeps, it's been a miserable week, and I haven't been able to respond with any regularity to your comments. I am truly sorry. I know how important comments are in the blogosphere, really I do, and I appreciate every single one that is left for me. Please don't think that I'm not grateful or that I am ignoring what you have to say; this is not the case. If I don't reply to comments, it's because I'm looking for the toilet paper while I sit on the pity pot or because I'm playing roly-poly on the couch and haven't found a way to uncurl myself and still breathe.

So, here's to the end of the week:

I live with a degenerative and progressive brain condition called an Arnold Chiari Malformation. My Thursday Thirteen for today was inspired by Thom, who didn't realize that I had had brain surgery and dug around here to find out why. Here's a list of 13 facts about ACM.

1. Arnold Chiari Malformation is the medical name for what I like to call a brain fart. In a nutshell, people who have ACM have brains that are too big to fit properly inside their skulls. Although I like to think this is just because we're so doggone smart, medical evidence does not support this hypothesis. Because the brain doesn't fit like it should, the tonsils (foramen magnum) hangs down, outside the cavity of the skull, and into the spinal canal.
2. ACM is a real pain in the butt. . .er, head! The spinal canal is made just big enough to hold the spinal cord so when a protruding piece of brain scoots down in there, life can get really complicated. Things like killer headaches, dizziness, nausea, vertigo, tingling sensations, difficulty swallowing, double vision, difficulty hearing, balance issues, and insomnia are just a few of the symptoms that ACM triggers and that ACM patients deal with on a daily basis.
   
3. Size does not matter with ACM. Some people have very small protrusions and suffer considerable pain, while others may have a larger protrusion and never have a symptom. In my case, a chunk measuring 8 mm -- not really big, but definitely not small -- sits in my spinal canal. If it hadn't been for the fact that I suddenly began having headaches so painful that it hurt to breathe, I would have never known that I had a problem.
   
4. What comes out, can't go back in. If the brain breaks free of the dura mater, the protective membrane that surrounds it, it can never be put back inside. The solution to this problem is surgery. To allieviate the pressure that this piece of brain puts on the spinal cord, decompression surgery, typically composed of three parts (craniectomy, laminectomy, and duraplasty), is the most widely recognized treatment.
   
5. If undiagnosed and treated, ACM can cause paralysis or death. Dr. G, Medical Examiner, part of the Discovery Health Network's programming, had an episode about a young man whose ACM was undiagnosed and who died because the brain protrusion pinched his spinal cord.
   
6. No known cause or cure. Although many physicians believe that ACM is a hereditory problem, there is no definitive proof of it. Nobody in my family has the problem except me, but Julie Carter, a Chiari activist, and all three of her daughters have it. If you're a fan of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, you might be familiar with the Carter Family; they received a home makeover from ABC a couple of years ago.
   
7. Classified as a rare disorder by the Office of Rare Diseases (ORD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). What this means is that ACM affects less than 200,000 people in the U.S. population. Ok, so this just means that I'm special -- I can live with that!
8. I'm a Zipperhead! What's a Zipperhead, you want to know? That's the nickname that Chiari patients call a decompressed Chiarian. After the surgery, the back of your head looks like its been closed with a zipper, and that's where the nickname comes from.
   
9. Getting a diagnosis is not easy. Because ACM triggers so many different and seemingly unrelated symptoms, most ACM patients don't get the proper diagnosis for many years. This was my case. The problem was clearly present in my early teens, but I was shuffled back and forth from the ENT to the family doctor to a gastroenterologist. Back in those days, the MRI was not available and since it is the now the way that most people are diagnosed, I can't blame any of the doctors who treated my symptoms without getting to their root cause. I just had to wait until technology caught up with them.
10. Decompression surgery can alleviate some of the symptoms, but it doesn't solve the problem. Because of #4, surgery doesn't solve the problem; however, it did help to control the symptoms better. After I had surgery, the headaches occurred less frequently, which is good. I still have problems with double-vision, my balance is so bad that my neurologist joked how it's a good thing that I don't drink because I would never pass the standard police drunk test (heel-to-toe walking a straight line), my depth perception is so off that I can't see well enough to walk down a flight of stairs or even a curb without falling, and I have complex-partial seizures that come from the right parietal lobe of my brain. The remaining symptoms may sound bad, but I manage to live a relatively "normal" life with them.
    
11. ACM is more common in women than in men. I like to think that this is just because we're naturally smarter, so our brains are naturally bigger! It's not likely that the medical community supports my findings, though.
    
12. Roseanne Cash, daughter of country music legend Johnny Cash, is also a Zipperhead. She had decompression surgery in December of 2007. Maybe it was ACM that was causing her "Seven Year Ache." Ok, that was a very bad joke!
    
13. ACM is an invisible illness. Because people can't see the piece of brain that hangs out in the spinal canal, they often misjudge a patient's reaction to the symptoms. Our society is trained to look for visible symptoms of an illness -- watery eyes and sneezing for allergies, red bumps for chicken pox, coughing and a stuffy nose for a cold, etc. -- and when none are present, judgment of the patients who suffer from invisible illnesses tends to be rather harsh. Perhaps because my invisible illness involves The Brain, that most sacred of internal organs (muscle just doesn't sound as dramatic here, sorry), I am treated far more kindly than someone who has Lupus, for example. This is just plain wrong!

I hope that my list has enlightened your world. If you want to know more about ACM, my symptoms, or decompression surgery, there are lots of links in my sidebar.

If you'd like to join in on the Thursday Thirteen fun, click here.

I studied Spanish all four years of high school. Senor Munoz (sorry, but I have no clue how to get the proper tilde above the "n"!), who made learning the language fun most of the time, made it a point to teach us songs and phrases that we could begin to use right away no matter how little of the language we had actually mastered. And so, it is with a sense of profound gratitude to Senor Munoz that I shout, for all the world to hear, "Gracias a Dios que hoy es Viernes!" And in English --


What a week this has been. Let me say that again -- what a w---E---E---k!

I haven't had a seizure for two days, so my little world seems to be settling down again. The headaches, however, haven't quite finished reminding me that The Brain is in charge of things no matter what I think. All in all, though, I can't complain too much about The Brain's obsession with electrical surges; it is what it is, and I'll continue to muddle along as usual. So what has made me so thrilled that the end of the work week has come, at last? In a word, students.

If it weren't for the fact that I will soon be a retired educator, this professor is ready to throw in the teaching towel. Yesterday, my students, who have been working on a research paper for four -- count them, folks, FOUR -- weeks, should have had a rough draft of their essays ready for their classmates to read and critique. Between the two classes, no more than a dozen students actually had a draft for their group members to read. Many still hadn't completed the required research and had left their peers in the lurch, as they couldn't write a draft without the research that their group members should have collected and shared.

In all my years of teaching, I have never seen such a blatant lack of consideration for others as I witnessed yesterday. They have all known for four weeks that this assignment requires cooperation with one another and that if one member of the group fails to meet scheduled deadlines, the others suffer. Despite this knowledge, some of them decided that the undue, uncalled for, and unnecessary stress they placed on their group members was simply not as big a deal as their inability to conquer their procrastination habits.

Let's just say that I let them all hear my displeasure with the irresponsible behavior. It didn't help those poor students whose stress levels had risen to new heights, but it just might act as a wakeup call for the inconsiderate and irresponsible.

I may be shouting T.G.I.F. to the world, but I'm still a cockeyed optimist! Amen and Amen.

No smiles today, just frowns I've got.
It's time for a rest on the pity pot.

I'm sad, I'm cranky. It'll be a day or two
Of feeling down, of feeling blue.

This isn't just a simple mood swing,
It's an honest to goodness pity pot thing.

You must admit that I've earned this spot
Right up front on the pity pot.

It's just so hard to keep this smile.
I need a pity pot break for just a while.

So give me time to wallow a bit.
I know real soon that I'll get over it.

The clouds will part and the sun will grow hot,
And I'll jump right off this pity pot.

This morning started out right nicely enough. I woke up early, got everything ready to begin grading essays, and was all set to put the past few days' worth of seizures behind me. I had heard something on the news that I just had to share with the Amazing Egyptian Dude, so I got up from my computer desk and began to amble over toward the living room. Maybe half a dozen steps into the trek, and I'm hit with the headache -- the one that makes breathing painful and moving excruciating. It nearly always starts on the right side, as that's the side of my body that Chiari seems to like torturing the most.

I grabbed my head and wobbled over to the couch, where I collapsed in a groaning heap. Whether my cats can sense something is wrong or they just like me being a captive audience for their affections, I don't know; but just seconds after I got myself situated comfortably on the couch, I had one cat at my head, one on my chest, and another on my feet. I fell asleep that way. See when I get these pressure headaches, the only way to deal with them is to sleep them off. Although I did manage to sleep, I awoke with a headache and a droopy right half of my face. If you've ever seen anyone with Bell's Palsy, then you'll know what I mean by a droopy face.

The headache is gone now, but I am wiped out. I am confident that I've earned this break on the pity pot, and by golly, I'm going to take it!

I've come to the conclusion that I don't like my brain. My mind? I like it quite a bit, but the hard drive where my mind lives and the motherboard that operates it are currently on my sh*t list. BIG TIME!

I didn't have as many seizures yesterday as I had on the previous two, which is always a good thing. Still, although there were fewer electrical misfiring episodes, they happened -- four times to be precise. As a result, I spent much of yesterday trying to determine exactly what had triggered the power surges this time. And the more I thought about it, the more clueless I became.

If turning 50 in 15 days were a big deal to me, I suppose that I could attribute the seizures to a belated midlife crisis since I never really had one in my thirties. Remember folks, a midlife crisis happens at the halfway mark of life and although some of us may want to be around when we're 100, the mid-point for most of us occurs around 35. Besides, Dante Alighieri already set the bar for us way back in the day -- with the midlife crisis that led him to make that famous trip to Hell:

"Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost."
(Inferno I.1-3)

But to be honest, turning 50 doesn't phase me in the least. I got over all that age trauma when I hit 30 so that by the time 40 rolled around, I was happy to be alive and didn't care how old I was anymore! Hitting the Golden Years, I've discovered, is actually something to look forward to.

With age comes privilege. We tend to make excuses for the embarrassing behavior of "older" folks because, well, they're old; their biological time clocks are running in reverse as they make their way toward a second childhood. Don't you remember the Sphinx's riddle from Oedipus?

What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?

Man starts out on all fours in the crawling stage, learns to walk on two legs as he matures, and in old age uses on a cane for assistance, thus regressing or moving back to a period of reliance on others. Maybe when I'm 50, I can crank up the car radio when CCR's "Bad Moon Rising" comes on the oldies station and my daughter won't be embarrassed anymore. She can, after all, chalk up my rocking out while driving to old age instead of some pitiful attempt to be cool! But as interesting as all this is, it doesn't account for the seizures.

So if it's not worrying about old age, what has triggered these electrical surges in The Brain? Honestly, I can only say, "Beats me!" And the beat goes

on
and
on
and
on
and
on

Welcome to my world or as Alice Cooper would say, "Welcome to My Nightmare."