Friday, November 30, 2012

Saturday Centus 135

Holy cow. Who wrote that prompt? Talk about difficult tense.

Dark poem.

I was just in that mood.

Mostly because of the tense issue.  But I think I hit 110 words exactly.   Small consolation for some sub-par writing.

Other valiant souls have tried this prompt here.

Sigh...


We are bound together forever
by the cord that once connected us.
When you fall, I fall.
Your pain is my pain.
And it screams silently inside my heart.
I am exhausted from the effort of wanting to save you…
…depleted by my inability to let you go.
Drained dry by fear and imagination
By memory and projection
I pace the floor at night
I’m a deer caught in the headlights…
Of your addiction.

Reading the scrawled words in the back of my notebook surprised me.  I thought I had known suffering.  You’ve been gone almost five years… and now I finally understood the phrase, ‘a deer in the headlights’.
 
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I've been threadened...

...and frankly...

I was scared.

It happened because I'm polite.

And I don't like to tell anyone I can't understand them.

As a consequence...

...and quite often, actually, at the nail salon, I kinda/sorta just smile dumbly and agree without really knowing what the actual question was.

You'd think I'd know better.

After all...

I'm a Mom...

...and a Grandma...

...and I learned really quickly with all these kids to NEVER EVER EVER answer 'yes' to any question I didn't totally comprehend.

BUT...

...now that I've been threadened I will be more careful to not just answer blindly.

Or would that be dumbly?

Either way...

There I was...

Sitting in terror while my usual pedicure lady gave me a pedicure around my wounded toenail (that terrifying story linked here and p.s. these are soooooo not my own, personal feet)...


When the other lady that's not my usual pedicure lady came up and peered at my face and asked...

Okay.   I don't know what she asked.  I didn't understand.

I smiled at her.

She asked, "You want something something something?" again.

I nodded at her.

She asked again. "You want something something something?"

Finally I just said, "Sure, no problem, yes."

In about 10 seconds she was back with a spool of thread.

Hmmm...I wondered if maybe she had been asking me if I wanted to watch  her mend something.

She did want me to watch her mend something...

...only the something was my eyebrows.

See?

Threadened.

She took a long piece of thread of the spool and started whipping it around in the air.

"Wait, wait, what are you doing?" I semi-shouted in panic.

"I fixing  eyebrows.  Your's are very bad."

"So...you're saying this is a discipline thing?   You're going to punish my eyebrows with thread?"

"Awwww, you too funny!" she said punching my arm.  "Isn't she too funny?" she asked the usual pedicure girl who quickly agreed.  "Oh yes, yes, she is too funny."

Funny or not, the thread thing continued.

And I'm not totally sure how she did it.

She kept crissing and crossing the string and then capture deviant eyebrows in their depilitary lasso.  I think you can see the whole procedure if you click on this picture. (and p.s. these are soooooo not my own, personal  eyebrows)


A pull, a tiny pinch...goodbye errant hair and time to move onto the next victim.

It felt weird.

It didn't really hurt.

It wasn't as relaxing as a hot stone pedicure or eating chocolate.

But after a few minutes when she asked, "Do you want me to something, something, something?", I made her clarify until I understood.

Apparently people get threaded all over their face, arms and body!

"Why? and... ALL over their body?"

"Yes, yes," she got very excited, "It make you very smooth.   Very, very smooth."

She didn't say this in a threadening tone of voice or anything.

She said it nicely.

But I declined her kind offer.

She didn't have nearly enough thread in that teensy spool to make me 'very, very smooth' all over.

So, really.

Why bother?

Right?

I hope you didn't feel threadened in any way by the silliness of this post.

Hee hee.
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Thursday, November 29, 2012

Painting and Pinning for the Letter B

It's the letter B this week.
 
I have several B's.
 
The first is a double B.
 
And, no, that's not a bra size.
 
It's this cute little sign.
 
 
8" x 8"
 
And now I have a quadruple letter B to share.   I didn't make it, but I love, love, love it!

It's a Beautiful Bedspring Bulletin Board!
 

 
I fasten things to it with safety pins!  
 
I had wanted to sell these on my Etsy shop but Etsy won't let me AND at the quantity I buy them they are too pricey.   I'm debating painting this oil-rubbed bronze, but for now I'm liking it just fine in the natural silver color/

6 B's for me this week!

 
As for the little sign...no stencils. No stickers. No vinyl.  Handpainted with my own layout.

You can see other signs in this series by clicking on 'Painted
Alphabet' in my sidebar.

Thanks for stopping by!

To visit other links to the letter "B", just click here.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Alphabe-Thursday Letter B


Good morning class. Welcome to round six of Alphabe-Thursday!

Today we will be bellowing about the beautiful letter:


Please link directly to your Alphabe-Thursday URL (if you don't know how to do this let me know!) and please continue to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can visit more if you like, of course.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by the following Thursday morning, please let me know!

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find you easily otherwise.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you as quickly as I can.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit at least 10 other students (perhaps the 5 students before and after your post). The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Please bring your best letter B now!
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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Story-Time Tuesday - If Good Health was Easy...

I'm making myself write this story.   Partly because my Naturopathic Doctor just published a very interesting book and I want to share it with you.   Partly because I'm pushing myself to write more.   And partly because I think this story might be YOUR story.  And sometimes reading makes pain hurt a tiny bit less.  This story will be pretty candid...I'm not attempting 'the glass half full' philosophy here.  I know it could be worse. 

I'm using the Story-Time Tuesday format for this and each week I will be doing a giveaway for "A Different Kind of Medical Care" but Dr. Tina Marcantel. 


You can read about this book by clicking here.

Giveaway Information:   Enter to win a copy on this post today or you can purchase at that link.   10% discount code is 'healthy1'.

I will have Mr. Jenny select a random number from all the comments on this post.   Feel free to enter any time before Monday.

Winner will be announced next Tuesday along with the continuing story.  Autographed book will be mailed out on Wednesday!

The winner of last weeks book is this comment:

Ms. Asaid...
So many of these symptoms sound exactly like what happened to me, when I was on medications that my body couldn't seem to process like it was intended to do!


Congratulations, Ms. A!   If you could e-mail your snail mail address (jennymatlock at cox dot net with the words BOOK GIVEAWAY) and I'll get the book out to you  before Friday! 


Jenny Matlock
 

PART FIVE - IF GOOD HEALTH WAS EASY, EVERYBODY WOULD HAVE IT!


Within a few days we were at the new doctor’s office.
 

I had been physically sick with anxiety in the hours leading up to the appointment.
 

“Will she help me? Will she hurt me? Will this just be a dead end? What’s the point?”
 

Unanswered questions that tumbled in chaotic repetition through my pain-pill addled brain.

 

When we were kid’s we learned fire safety as, ‘Stop! Drop! And Roll!’ During especially severe pelvic and leg bone cramps, I would mutter that to myself as a distraction. The bone cramps did that to me. Literally. The attacks would be so sudden and so intense that I would stop whatever I was doing, drop whatever was in my hand and drop to the floor where I would writhe and roll about in pain trying not to scream. I didn’t always succeed in the not screaming part…especially awkward while in public or in close confines such as a car.

 
My poor husband would turn pale, try to rub my head while I shoved his hand away, get me cold washcloths or whatever he thought might help. Nothing ever did. Usually partway through the bone cramps my heart arrhythmia would get involved and by then I’d be praying that a heart attack would kill me.


On the way to the doctor’s office for that first appointment, I had an especially horrid cramp in my pelvic bones. By the time we got there it had subsided, but I was left shaky and weepy and sweaty. My skin was a lovely, flattering greyish green and my clothes were damp and wrinkled.

During those months I could not get in or out of the car unassisted. Mr. Jenny helped me out and then helped me walk inside. I was in my early 50's but I felt like I was 95. And NOT a young 95! I was shaking with exhaustion by the time we traversed the short distance to the office door.

Mr. Jenny helped me sit on a long, plush couch. I closed my eyes and just cried while he checked me in.
 

I didn’t look around. I just sat there hoping to die.

 
“She’s not gonna help me, she’s just gonna hurt me more,” I whispered to

He hushed me.
 

If you know anything about me, the fact that I easily followed his direction is an indicator of how badly I felt at that moment.

 
A woman’s voice called my name a short time later.

 
I cried harder when Mr. Jenny helped me to my feet.

 
I hobbled the short hallway back to the exam room and sank into the chair.

 

I can tell you today, years later, what the doctor looks like and what her offices are like, but that day all I could truly do is sit in the chair, crying. I was hopeless, helpless, broken.

 
Mr. Jenny and I have talked about that visit many times. To be honest, I don’t remember much of it. I had done all the paperwork prior to the visit from home and answered a multitude of questions.

The only thing I recall clearly is looking into the very kind golden-brown eyes of the doctor and feeling afraid.

 
She felt like my last hope.

 

That probably sounds dramatic. It probably IS dramatic, but I was truly at the point where I couldn’t keep living as I had been. I wasn’t sitting around thinking…hmmmm…pills or razor blades. I was just praying to die…in a passive way…that wouldn’t make my family feel bad…and wouldn’t actually hurt me.


The Doctor asked a few questions and then left the room. She came back a short time later with a large glass filled with some milky liquid. “Magnesium,” she said before we could ask the question.

“Let’s start with the magnesium and potassium. Let’s get your heart issues and the bone cramps under control.”

We left her office over an hour and a half later with a big shopping bag filled with at least twelve different bottles of supplements and support potions. The bag also contained a flat blue box filled with small empty vials for saliva testing, an order for precise blood work, and a diet listing specific foods and where to buy them.

Once all the testing came back, we would jointly develop a plan to improve the quality of my life.

 
I don’t remember this first hand. I remember the kind eyes, crying in the office and drinking the milky liquid.

 
My husband tells me that during the exam he learned my blood pressure was quite low, I had extreme dryness in my ear canals, that my heart arrhythmia was quite possibly caused by hormone depletion leading to marked magnesium/potassium deficiency. She told my husband that many of the problems I currently had were decades old. She talked about estrogen imbalance and cortisol production, and yeast overgrowth (okay, this is probably way TMI but yeast overgrowth is not necessarily yeast infections. I had never had one of these infections in my life) caused by the surgeries, illnesses and related antibiotics over the years.

 
While we were waiting for the tests to come in, I was to follow an extremely limited diet (Candida diet), take all the supplements EXACTLY as ordered, minimize and try to eliminate the use of narcotic painkillers and I was supposed to rest, rest, rest.

 
She told my husband which supplements might help with the bone cramps, which support mixtures would probably make me feel sicker before they made me feel better, and gave him multiple pages of instructions.

 
I’m sure if I had been able to look beyond my own suffering, I would have seen a scared, bewildered husband. It makes me sad to this day to think of all he suffered with my health issues.

 
We went home and organized all the bottles on the kitchen counter.
 

We read the saliva testing instructions together.

 
Mr. Jenny scheduled the blood tests and went to the store.

 

I lay on the couch waiting for the next bone cramp attack and for the arrhythmia to start up again.
 


TO BE CONTINUED NEXT TUESDAY


Part one - linked here.
Part two - linked here.
Part three - linked here.
Part four - linked here.

PLEASE READ BOOK GIVEAWAY INFORMATION AT THE TOP OF THIS POST.
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Monday, November 26, 2012

In a world filled with unaccountable people...

...I just need to say, "It's really, really NOT my fault that I gave an innocent man a heart attack over the weekend!"
 
Mr. Jenny and I made a big step last week and traded his fancy, schmancy older car in for a pick-up.
 
White.
 
White pick-up.
 
In Arizona.
 
So when Mr. Jenny said he'd meet me curbside at the busy grocery store this weekend, we went there in our new ride.
 
The store was insanely busy. 
 
By the time I was done grabbing the final few items I needed I was pretty frazzled...

 
...and so...
 
...when I gave a strange guy a heart attack...
 
I was truly, truly not responsible.
 
It wasn't REALLY my fault.
 
I saw a white truck at the curb...
 
I opened the passenger door...
 
I started to throw my purse into the front seat...
 
...and then I glanced up...
 
...to see a very, very astonished man!
 
His mouth was open in a perfect oval of shock and surprise.
 
And he WASN'T Mr. Jenny.
 
"Ummm...Ummm," I blurted.  "Wrong white truck!   Sorry!"
 
See what I mean?
 
I'm not accountable for scaring this guy half to death!
 
Right?
 
I can see him now telling the story, "So, yeah, this crazy looking woman with her hair all sticking up burst into the cab of my truck...I was sure it was truck-jacking...I mean...she was scary looking!"
 
Not.
 
My.
 
Fault.
 
I cannot be held accountable for scaring the poor guy.
 
And, geez.
 
What was he thinking anyway?
 
Buying a white truck in Arizona?
 
D'oh.
 
Sigh...
 
 
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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Saturday Centus - I finally understood...

Jenny Matlock

Welcome to week ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIVE of Saturday Centus.




The prompt this week is, "I finally understood the phrase 'a deer in the headlights' "
Number of words: Up to 110 (including the 110 words of the prompt).
Style of writing: Any
Pictures: Any additional you want to share

The regular restrictions apply: PG, no splitting of the prompt, play nicely and visit the other entries, any style or genre of writing you prefer. Please display my link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.
E-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.
 
Feel free to link up anytime between now and next Saturday.
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Friday, November 23, 2012

Alphabe-Thursday Letter A

Hooray!   It's A time!  I was going to expand my horizons and do different crafts each week...
 
...but...
 
I thought of two phrased I wanted to paint...
 
So I did.
 
This may, or may not, be a round of Painted Alphabet but I'm hoping I can come up with new things.
 
We shall see.
 
Anyway.
 
Ahem.
 
The letter A....
 
A
 
 
It's silly but I dunno...I still like it.   15" x 16"
 
and...
 
 
5" x 16"
 

This last sign isn't on Etsy because it's a custom, custom sign I painted for our middle Grandlittle.   She just turned nine.  This is the song I've sung to her since she was a baby!
 
 
  
 No stencils. No stickers. No vinyl.  Handpainted with my own layout.

You can see other signs in this series by clicking on 'Painted
Alphabet' in my sidebar.

Thanks for stopping by!

To visit other links to the letter "A", just  click here.

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Thursday, November 22, 2012

A Thanksgiving Memory


It was early morning. It was that tingly cold that makes you put on your warmest slippers and flannel robe. As I headed downstairs I cursed my attraction to century-old farmhouses. Although we had tried mightily to seal old glass windows and run heating vents through almost petrified wood beams, the upstairs was always chilly, and even more so in late November with an early cold spell bringing snow and wind to upstate Ohio.

On the way to the kitchen I turned up the thermostat several notches. I turned on the kitchen light and the golden tones of the wooden cabinets and floors glowed. The double window over the kitchen sink reflected a light glittering of snow dusted pink, rose and gold from the first rays of the Eastern sun. The gnarled ancient apple tree branches silhouetted against the pale lavender morning sky cast their charm over me as they always did.

The pilot light on my old, white enamel stove was out again, but I struck a match and the burner glowed warmly in the still chilly kitchen. I checked that the oven pilot light was working and turned that on as well. In deference to the early hour I had left my cast iron skillet, biggest roasting pan and a basket of onions out on the counter the night before.

The refrigerator supplied the butter, celery and a fat turkey ready to be stuffed. Very soon chopped onion and celery were simmering away in butter and their savory scents perfumed the kitchen air. This was the smell of every Thanksgiving past in our family. It was the same scent I anticipated each year when my parent rose at dawn to begin the preparation of our childhood feasts. I can remember laying in my cozy bed and smelling Thanksgiving as it drifted through the house. I hoped my children were having those same feelings on this day.

My huge yellow-ware bowl, used only for preparing food in massive quantities, easily held all my bread crumbs, bread cubes and spices - pungent sage and black pepper, the coarse glisten of kosher salt, the soft, enticing smell of the marjoram. All of the scents combined in that big yellow bowl…ahhh, the fragrance of memories. Soon the onions and celery were tender and the chicken broth warmed and the dressing became moist and aromatic with their addition.

The kitchen had become warm and wonderful and soon the stuffed turkey was in for its long roasting time. The extra stuffing was in its buttered casserole with a scoop saved out inside my little pink stoneware bowl. Now it was time to make some coffee and then start the dinner roll dough rising, time to make the pie crust so it could chill for several hours, time to start chopping vegetables…

But first… a fresh cup of coffee and cream and a small pink bowl filled with stuffing needed to be eaten in front of the big windows overlooking the stark sculpture of winter apple trees and the rosy morning glow of the sky. The house was quiet, the wooly throw was warm on my lap, my children were safely asleep upstairs.

Later the house would fill with relatives and laughter and teasing and conversation. Pies, mashed potatoes, the magnificent turkey, flavorful stuffing, yeasty warm dinner rolls, and homemade jellies glistening like jewels would fill the table.

But for now, my coffee was perfect, the stuffing was savory, memories of all the Thanksgivings that had come before warmed my mind. This moment and this magic was my Thanksgiving.

.....

I still have the giant yellowware bowl. It sits on my counter filled with fruit and random bits of lifes overflow!

Have a blessed day of Thanks, my friends, whether it is a holiday where you live or not.

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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Alphabe-Thursday Letter A


Good morning class. Welcome to round SIX of Alphabe-Thursday!

Afterfive rounds, you'd think I'd be getter bored with this...but NOT YET! I guess my attention span is longer than I actually realized.

I look forward to seeing what you have to share...and I want to thank each of you personally for participating. Sometimes life feels so chaotic that I like the steadiness of one little thing I can depend on!

Today we will be sharing all aspects of the letter:



Please link directly to your Alphabe-Thursday URL (if you don't know how to do this let me know!) and please continue to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can visit more if you like, of course.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by the following Thursday morning, please let me know!

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find you easily otherwise.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you as quickly as I can.

I also want to mention that sometimes when I visit wordpress blogs the only way I can leave a comment is by using an e-mail address DIFFERENT than the one I have linked to blogger. I wish I had more suggestions to help make visiting easier for this issue.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit at least 10 other students (perhaps the 5 students before and after your post). The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Please advise us what your A post is, by linking now:

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Never say Never!

"Okay, Dad. I'm just gonna warn you. You're going to want to bring your nitroglycerin on Thanksgiving."

I said this in a very sweet voice, so I was surprised when there was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the receiver.

My Dad, bless his soul, is closer to ninety than eighty now...

...and I was trying to be a considerate daughter.

"What did you say," he blurted out finally.

"I said...you're probably going to want to bring your nitroglycerin on Thanksgiving so you don't have a heart attack."

After a few moments more of silence he finally asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Because," I explained,  "This year I am using disposable plates, cups, forks AND table coverings. No china. No matching glasses. No silverware I drag out once a year. I'm tired. This house is really small. The kitchen is microscopic. I'm just going to make it easy on myself this year."



"It's about time!" my Dad said loudly in reply. "But I thought you said you'd never use paper on Thanksgiving."

"Well, Dad. I guess I should never have said never. This is the year...so bring your nitroglycerin along!"

I hope your Thanksgiving doesn't require nitro.

Or even aspirin this year.

I'm going to try out the philosophy that it's not about the china and the linens...



...that it's about the fellowship and family...

... I'll have to let you know how that goes!

To those that are celebrating on Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving Eve, dear friends.

Clink that good china for me!

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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Story-Time Tuesday - If Good Health Was Easy

I'm making myself write this story.   Partly because my Naturopathic Doctor just published a very interesting book and I want to share it with you.   Partly because I'm pushing myself to write more.   And partly because I think this story might be YOUR story.  And sometimes reading makes pain hurt a tiny bit less.  This story will be pretty candid...I'm not attempting 'the glass half full' philosophy here.  I know it could be worse. 

I'm using the Story-Time Tuesday format for this and each week I will be doing a giveaway for "A Different Kind of Medical Care" but Dr. Tina Marcantel. 


You can read about this book by clicking here.

Giveaway Information:   Enter to win a copy on this post today or you can purchase at that link.   10% discount code is 'healthy1'.

I will have Mr. Jenny select a random number from all the comments on this post.   Feel free to enter any time before Monday.

Winner will be announced next Tuesday along with the continuing story.  Autographed book will be mailed out on Wednesday!

The winner of last weeks books is this comment:

Ritasaid...
I have fibro and arthritis and a few other things. Stress is just horrific on me, so I can relate to what you are saying. I'll be waiting to hear the rest of your story and I pray that your pain is at least tolerable now...or gone! :)

 Congratulations!   If you could e-mail your snail mail address (jennymatlock at cox dot net with the words BOOK GIVEAWAY) and I'll get the book out to you on Friday! Or even tomorrow if I get my house ready for Thanksgiving early by some miracle!



Jenny Matlock
 

PART FOUR - IF GOOD HEALTH WAS EASY, EVERYBODY WOULD HAVE IT!
 

The revolt started almost right away.  The hot flashes went to nuclear level.  I was the woman who would have ripped off her clothes in public just to cool off.   I was the woman who would dump water on my head and have the house so cold everyone was blue-lipped and shivering.

I kept reading about surgical menopause.   ‘Hot flashes are normal,’ I told myself.

I called the surgeon who said, “Hot flashes are normal.  If they get extreme call back.”

Extreme.  

 Oh.  Okay.  

I tried as hard as possible to reconcile feeling like someone is pouring boiling oil on you is normal.  “Not extreme.  Not extreme,” I told myself.

Poor Mr. Jenny didn’t say anything.  He was frightened of the mood swings, I suspect.   Or just afraid to touch a woman who would yell, “You’re too hot…get away from me!”  He figured out really quickly that I wasn’t complimenting him and/or flirting.   Sigh.

Then cold flashes started alternating with the hot.  I cracked a molar from my teeth rattling together.

After I had it pulled, I called the doctor back.

"Seriously?  Is this ‘normal’?   My teeth are chattering so hard I’ve cracked a molar…five minutes later it feels like someone is pouring boiling oil on me?  Is THIS normal?  Is THIS extreme enough?”

The doctor conceded that, “Yes, it might be a bit out of the norm.” 

He prescribed estrogen.  And Progesterone.  Patches.  Pills.  Nothing helped.  If anything, the hot and cold got more extreme.

He sent me to Tucson to a specialist who gave me some kind of awful injections that made me throw-up for days.

After the treatment I could barely move and my heart started feeling weird. 

I went to my family doctor.

“Weird how?” he asked.   A few seconds later he was doing a portable EKG.  “Wow, this is very unusual arrhythmia.   How long has this been going on?”

“Since you sent me for that hysterectomy,” I told him.   He dismissed any connectivity with a wave of his hand, and wrote a referral into a heart hospital for evaluation.

He gave me pills to help with the discomfort.

When my heart went into beating really slowly it felt quite painful inside my chest and when it was racing I felt like I was going to pass out, so even though the medication made me feel dizzy and sick, I took the pain pills

The heart hospital was puzzled.  They did tests.  They poked.   They prodded.  I wore an electronic tracking halter device for a week.  Nothing showed up.   They did more tests.  They made me wear the halter monitor for a month.   Nothing showed up.

I guess I should clarify here that nothing showed up WITH MY HEART.  

However, lots more physical symptoms decided to show up in my body.  My hair started falling out and my skin started aging rapidly.   The headaches grew worse along with the joint pains.   Tremors in my hands and arms made it difficult to even hold a glass of water.   I also began experiencing bone cramps…like Charlie horses inside the bones of my legs, spine and pelvis.  The bone cramps were absolutely excruciating.  I would wake up almost every night screaming even though I had tried drugging myself into oblivion with pain and sleeping pills.

I would scream until I grew hoarse…and then the cramps would go away for a few hours or a few days.

The doctors scratched their heads.  They increased the pain medication.   They send me to a rheumatologist and another endocrinologist.

It seemed that each week the symptoms got worse with test after test yielding no information.

The heart doctor suggested we shock my heart to re-start a healthy rhythm, my main doctor ordered more painful tests at a neurologist and my OB/Gyn surgeon suggested I try yet another, stronger,  hormone patch.

I lost my life.

 
Almost literally.
 
The bone cramps and pain and heart arrhythmia showed up day and night.  I actually feel clammy even now writing this at the remembrance of that level of agony.

I recall sitting at our Accountants office with several people and my husband when I got a horrible bone cramp.  Mr. Jenny saw me turn white and he started to help me out of the chair.  Yeah.  Not a cool thing in a business meeting.   With my husband’s help I stumbled out of the meeting and into the hall.  I yanked open a closed door and stepped inside.  I tried to muffle my screams of pain into my arm.   Mr. Jenny tried to help but there was nothing to be done.  The cramps were a roller coaster ride through hell until the pain released you.  Minutes passed.   My hair was dripping sweat and probably sticking straight out.  I could barely walk.

The secretary came to the door and knocked.   When I was finally able to look around I saw we were in a storage closet stacked with paper and files. 

Ummm… awkward.


With wide eyes the secretary asked, “Are you okay?” 

“Actually, I’m not,” I replied. 

We went home.

Please remember I’m not telling this to boohoo.  I want to share this INFORMATION with you.  This is just an example of how awful my life had become after the hysterectomy.  Even on the ‘good’ days when it didn’t feel like my face was getting smashed by a hammer and my heart was ticking away fairly well, the bone cramps were my nemesis.   They came at will and they owned my life.  Some days I would be screaming in pain ten times…other days it might only be a small pelvic cramp.

More time elapsed.   More pain pills.  More sleeping pills.   More tests.   More poking and prodding and wracking up zillions of dollars in medical testing.

I tried everything that every doctor told me to do with no improvement.

I finally ended up ‘off the medical grid’ with anyone I prayed might help me.   My husband called those practitioners ‘voo doo’ doctors.  Perhaps they were, but I didn’t care.   I was so desperately in pain I tried following every lead to every strange person that might heal me.    The quirkiest among them, perhaps, was a tiny, little French woman who had me eat primarily liquefied watermelon juice. 

 
I’m not denigrating ‘voo doo’ doctors.   I saw and experienced some pretty freaky stuff including levitation (or maybe I was just hallucinating from all the pain and sleep pills I was taking to survive).  Some of these ‘cures’ actually did help for a short time.

But after an hour or a day or a week, all the symptoms returned full force.

My health continued to decline until one fateful day I consented to go a pain clinic.

The doctor at the pain clinic dismissed the heart arrhythmia, dismissed the cold and hot flashes, dismissed the tremors and the headaches and said, “Aha!  We can help with your bone cramps and joint pain!”   He talked a lot about … well… a lot of stuff but I was in such misery I could barely hear anyone talking to me.

The new doctor decided that I need some nerve testing on my spine before they could make recommendations.  

To be totally candid, even after years of being poked, prodded and tortured I wasn’t prepared for the pain level of the spinal testing.  At one point during the procedure the bone in my thigh started cramping.   “Don’t move,” the tech cautioned.  I bit into my forearm trying to hold still.  Yeah.  That test still gives me the heebie jeebies.

After the test, I was injected with something to block all the pain from my waist down.  A few minutes later I could feel the bone cramps but the level of pain was reduced substantially.

After sitting in recovery for an hour, I got up quite gingerly to find that things didn’t hurt that much in my pelvic bones and legs.

Sure I still had hand tremors and the nerves in my face were jumping and my head was exploding, but some of the pain was gone!

I was so happy.

I remember smiling broadly at Mr. Jenny.  Sure, I still felt awful but it was a BETTER awful.  I grinned like a fool all the way home.

I think I was even grinning in my sleep until around midnight when the nerve blocks wore off.

I realized they hadn’t ‘fixed’ anything, they’d only ‘hidden’ it.

I cried my pillow soggy that night.  I begged my husband to kill me.  I’m not even using dramatic license here.   I got on my knees and begged him to kill me.

He did.

The end.

Okay. That was funny...right?

 Ha!

He didn’t really kill me but I was furious that he wouldn’t. 

When we returned to the pain clinic the next day they were happy.   “This is good news,” they said, “We’re just going to cut a nerve or two in your spine and you’ll feel a lot better.”

“Ummm…”   my husband and I said simultaneously.  “Ummm….cut a nerve or two?   Is that a good idea?  I mean…ummm…”

“Oh yeah.   We do it all the time…blah, blah, blah…let’s schedule this for next week…blah, blah, blah…”

I didn’t hear a word they said.   I was stuck on the word ‘cut a nerve or two in your spine’. 

I finally interrupted the doctor.  “Look, I have kind of a weird medical history of surgeries and procedures NOT going as planned.  My body is wired wrong or something.   Couldn’t this get really screwed up?”

“Not to worry…we’re good at what we do (and admittedly they were quite highly recommended) and the risk of permanent paralysis is low and…”

I walked out of the examination room.  I’d like to say I strode out with great determination, but the truth is I hobbled out in great pain.

Mr. Jenny joined me in the car and we just kept looking at each other.  “How did this happen?  How did I get here? I can’t let someone cut nerves in my spine.”   I was crying hysterically.  

I cried all the way home.

I couldn’t stop crying.

I googled for answers on the internet…crying.

I made myself sick crying.

And then I got ticked off.

Really, really ticked off.

My life was gone, everything hurt almost all day…every day, I was depressed, I’d physically aged about 10 years in a period of months…

I was mad as hell.

It was pretty dramatic at our house that day.  

And…to be honest…there was a lot of swearing.

I grabbed the car keys and told Mr. Jenny I was going for a drive.

I drove about a half a mile and went into a natural grocery store.   This store had a huge selection of homeopathic and naturopathic remedies and medicines.

I went up to the health desk.  I’m sure I looked like a mad woman…grey faced, shaking in pain, crying my eyes out.

“I need help!   I need someone to help me!”  I think I yelled it.   I think I scared the kind woman behind the counter.

She came around toward me and gently took my hand.

“What’s wrong?  What can I help you with?” she enquired.

I babbled and cried and sobbed and told her all my physical symptoms.   She gave me Kleenex and listened intently.

“I don’t think I can help you,” she finally said in a quiet voice.  “Go next door and talk to the owner of the nutrition store.   She is really good with issues like this.”

I gathered my soggy Kleenex and walked the short distance.

The owner came to help me right away.

I cried and cried and told her all of my physical symptoms.   She guided me to a small in-store book section, and started handed me various books.

After I had four in my hands she stopped and looked at me.

Really, really looked at me.

“Have you had a hysterectomy?” she asked in a kind voice.

I told her the surgical staple story.

“So…they removed both ovaries?” she clarified.

“Yes, they did.”

One by one she took each book back.

She held up a finger to wait and disappeared for a brief moment.

When she came back, she handed me a business card.

“Call this doctor,” she said firmly.  “Call her right away.  I think she can help you.”

I drove the brief distance home to find Mr. Jenny pacing in front of the house.

He started to yell at me for running off and worrying him.

I told him the story of the health food store people.  I showed him the business card.

“Great, just great,” he said.  “Another ‘voo-doo’ doctor.”

We stared at each other for a few long moments.

In that moment I realized that I wasn’t the only one that had lost a life.   My husband had lost his best friend and companion.  Even though I was the one suffering the physical pains, he was suffering just as much.

“Should I make an appointment?” I asked him through my tears.
 
“Yeah, make an appointment,” he said hesitantly.
 
To be continued next Tuesday.

Part one - linked here.
Part two - linked here.
Part three - linked here.

PLEASE READ BOOK GIVEAWAY INFORMATION AT THE TOP OF THIS POST.
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