Thinking about how to think

December 13, 2011

Do you think?  Do you use your brain?

I used to believe that if I didn’t have a job, my brain would atrophy, that it would grow weaker and weaker and turn to mush.  Then when I quit my job a few years ago, I found out that I was wrong.  I wasn’t using my brain in the same way, but I was still using it.  I was volunteering and reading and having deep conversations with friends and acquaintances.

This time it’s different.  This time I feel lousy.  I watch a lot of tv.  I read less.  I talk to people less because I don’t feel up to it.  I can’t volunteer.  And to be honest, a lot of the time I just don’t want to think.  It feels like too much effort.

But then over the last few days I’ve really used my brain and it feels GREAT!  First, I read a book (well, listened to the audiobook) about the dumbing down of American women.  Men are being dumbed down too, I’m sure, but this book focuses on women.  The author made a lot of great points and really got me to think about things.  It was wonderful.

Then today I helped a friend with some basic accounting.  He started a small business and didn’t know how best to keep track of his income or expenses.  Since I’d done some accounting before, I volunteered to help.  Last week got organized and I showed him the basics.  He entered all of the data into his system, and today I showed him how to do the rest.  It was so wonderful to be using that part of my brain again!  I hadn’t thought about anything accounting-related in years (unless you count my own finances, which are sadly very simple.)  Every now and then we came across an issue that I wasn’t sure how to handle, so I had to think, to reason it out, and to come up with a solution that was easy for my friend to continue in the future, made good accounting sense, and of course was straightforward and legal.  It felt so good!

I’m still going to watch way too much tv as I sit on the couch feeling weak, but I know that I also need to find more time to really think  about difficult situations, to reason things out.  I’ll have to start doing crossword puzzles or sudoku or something.  It really doesn’t matter what I do, but I have to use my brain.  I’ve only been out of work for a couple of months, but I can already feel the decline.  I hope we can all find things that work for us, things that make us think!

 

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2 Comments | Expectations, Isolation, Job, Limitations, Raves, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Prednisone boobs

December 12, 2011

They should add “boob growth” to the warning label on Prednisone.  It can’t just be me.

This is just plain wrong.  Our society seems to think that women should aspire to have the largest breasts possible, but that’s just absurd.  I will never understand why women get risky plastic surgery just to get bigger boobs.  And why is there so much pressure on a part of our body that we can’t control naturally?  It makes no sense at all.

When I was in high school, my bra size was a very natural 34B .  This worked for me.  I could go bra-less if I really wanted to, and I could easily wear a strapless.  This was good.  Near the end of high school, my period got so heavy that one day I passed out from the loss of blood.  The doctors put me on birth control pills to regulate it.  Of course, if they had tested me they would have discovered that I had PCOS, but I had a crappy 1990s HMO that didn’t bother with silly things like thoroughness.  But that’s a story for another day.

Suddenly, because of the Pill, my size went up to a 34C.  This was surprising, but not too bad.  I knew that I was too large for my petite frame, and I felt awkward about it, but what could it do?  Eventually I got used to it and I stayed a 34 C for many years.

Then several years ago I went on Prednisone.  I’d been on it before, but this time, for the first time, I gained weight.  I grew in my stomach, my ass, my thighs…. and my boobs.  I flew past 34D so fast that I almost missed it, then landed on 34DD.  Well, that was weird.  It was also uncomfortable.  I was annoyed, but glad that I hadn’t gotten any bigger.  I was shocked to find this size laid out on store racks when I was in London around that time; over here it’s much harder to find.  Still, there are some stores that sell it for prices that won’t break the bank, and occasionally I can even find one that isn’t black, white, or beige (though I still miss my collection of pretty colors, lace, and satin from back in the days of 34C.)

After a lot of hard work, I managed to lose most of the Prednisone weight, but my boobs didn’t shrink.  When I went on Prednisone again earlier this year, I gained back all of the weight and them some!  I’m too fatigued to exercise, so I’m not losing it at all now.  Still, I had accepted the temporary (I hope!) weight gain for what it was, and I was ok with it, until my bra size changed again.  I thought 34DD was difficult, but now I’m a 34F!  That is just wrong, so very very wrong.

They’re heavy, really heavy.  My bras are huge.  The straps pull on my shoulders.  Shirts are hard to fit (because of our society’s ideal of big boobs, shirts are designed to make small women look bigger, not to make big women look smaller.)  The bigger they are, the more they sag.  If you’re big, you know about boob sweat.  If you’re small, be glad you don’t know about it.  (A smaller friend of mine thought I was making it up, until she got pregnant.  She immediately told me she was grateful for the smaller boobs she’d always complained about, and was glad when they returned.)  And then there’s sleeping.  They really get in the way when I’m trying to sleep.  I wake up during the night sometimes, because I’ve rolled over and my boobs have gotten in the way.  It’s harder to breathe (though that could be the extra weight in other areas too.)  Men stare at them more, and those probably aren’t the men that I want attention from.  And then there’s sex.  With others or by myself, it is just wrong when a boob is too big to fit in a person’s hand.  Boobs are an important part of foreplay and sex (at least, they are for me) and it’s much harder to do what I want to be done when they’re so big that they can’t fit in a hand!

Now I’ll be honest, if I manage to lose the Prednisone weight, losing it in my boobs wouldn’t be my first choice.  I’d like to lose it in my stomach first.  But boobs come second, even before my ass and thighs.  Those may not look good now, but big boobs are just inconvenient and annoying!  Damn you Prednisone!

 

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46 Comments | Educating, Expectations, Frustration, Rants, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Well hello bitchiness

December 11, 2011

This recent fatigue is really pissing me off.  Of course, I’ve been depressed too – who wouldn’t be after spending most of every day indoors?  So I’m angry and depressed.  Lovely.

Now, I won’t say that I was a cheerful person before the illnesses because (1) I was 12 before the CIs and (2) I wasn’t always pleasant to be around.  Still, I eventually got past my teenage mood swings, my depression, my hormonal imbalances, my angry outbursts, and whatever else, and I became a fairly happy person.  Sure, I got pissed off and upset, but only when there was a good reason to.  Then I’d address the issue and move on, returning to my usual cheerful state.  I didn’t even get PMS.  People (ranging from my mother to a gas station attendant who I saw often) told me that I was pleasant to be around and that I brightened their day.  I was happy.

Now I feel like a hormonal teenager again, but without the hormones.  I’m pissed off at people when it’s not their fault.  I’m hoping that
someone will ask how I’m feeling so that I can yell at them about how inappropriate it is to ask.  I’m aching to pick a fight with someone, anyone (but hopefully not with someone big and mean.)  I can hear myself being bitchy, and I know it isn’t right, but I just don’t care enough to actually try and stop myself.

I have no doubt that one day I will be happy and cheerful again.  I’m sure I’ll be pleasant to be around.  People will enjoy seeing my smiling face.  But until then, watch out.  You may want to steer clear.  Because I’m pissed at the way my life is going and I’m ready to take it out on someone.  It won’t help, but then, nothing will.

 

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4 Comments | Expectations, Frustration, Isolation, Limitations, Pain, Rants, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

A reading workaround

December 10, 2011

When I was 7 years old, my parents bribed me to read.

I had been asking them to buy me Uno (yes, the card game) and they said that if I read regularly for a month, they’d get it for me.  My mother made a chart and hung it on my bedroom door.  Every day that I did my reading, I got a star sticker.  I could read anything I wanted.  I think I read a lot of Ramona Quimby and Sweet Valley Twins that month.  Remember, I was 7 and this was the 1980s and…. well ok, I admit that now I read the adult equivalent of SVT.  It was fun reading!

At the end of the month I had enough stickers that my parents bought me Uno.  I also had a new-found love of reading.  Uno and reading – it was a good month!  Reading used to be a chore, and now I hated to put a book down.  I’d read after school.  I’d read at restaurants.  I’d read while I walked through parking lots (that one was discouraged.)  I’d read with a flashlight under the covers, long after I was supposed to be asleep.  Suddenly reading was great.

I read through the rest of elementary school and by 6th grade, I’d run out of books to try in the school library.  I made a good dent in the junior high school library’s selection after that.  I read through high school and college, and somehow I even found time to read in grad school (though mostly just on the long bus rides every day.)  I always have a book to read.  I have dozens of books at home, waiting to be read.  I go to the public library constantly.  No, I don’t read all day every day, but I do read at some point every day.  It’s rare that I go for a day without picking up a book.

At least, it was rare.  It was rare until a few weeks ago when the fatigue got especially bad.  Now, I’ve been falling asleep when I read.  I can’t get through more than a few pages at a time.  At night, I fall asleep before I even open the book.  I’ve spent 2 weeks on a book, a good book, and only got through 50 pages.

And then it all changed.  I got through another 50 pages of that book just this afternoon.  How did I do it?  I got the audio book!  I prefer to read, since I’m a visual learner, and I feel like I get deeper into the subject matter when it’s on a page in front of me, but an audio book is better than no book!  For a lot of people, audio books are much easier.  For years, I have had to simply not read large hardcover books.  Thanks to my joint point, I find them too heavy.  I did get a Kindle, but a lot of those books are expensive, and I can’t afford to buy all of them.  What to do?  Viola!  The library has audio books!  I just ordered two more audio books today!  [A shoutout to the Minuteman Library Network.  I go on their web site, pick the book, cd, dvd, etc. that I want, and it gets delivered to any branch I choose, all for free.  If only all other municipal services worked like this!  Plus, their staff is always helpful and pleasant.  I can’t say enough good things about our libraries.]

While I’ll miss reading, I have to admit, it’s nice to zip through a book.  I’m a very slow reader.  I may read every day, and spend hours at it, but it will still take me a long time to get through a single book.  Today, I listened to a big chunk of the book while I took a walk (and I walked longer because of it!), played solitaire on the computer, knitted another section of a scarf, made dinner, ate dinner, washed the dishes, and sorted through some junk on a shelf.  Sometimes I read while I eat dinner, but I couldn’t have read a book while I did any of those other things.

So this is my Ode to the Audiobook.  Having CIs sucks, and there are a lot of things I can’t do now, but every now and then I find a workaround, and it just makes things so much better.

 

** By the way, I’m not suggesting that anyone else bribe their child to read.  The same technique didn’t work on my sister.  I’m just glad it worked on me.

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Leave a Comment » | Expectations, Frustration, Limitations, Pain, Raves, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

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