Monday, February 14, 2011

The Realms within Creative People - The Dark side?

Down a couple of lines I posted about the"Dark Side of Creativity"... but not because I feel creative people are more dishonest, I feel creativity, high intelligence, etc... people with these gifts in many ways do show an "oddity" that surrounds them, much more than others. Anyone, that paints, plays music, writes, is a very deep thinker, has an aptitude to be genius, etc. more over shows to have emotions, and deep seated realms that usually give them the talents they have. I can say that will all honesty because with my creative talents come also very at times a darkness that evolves within me. Those are the times that my writing is at its best. Although it does not mean what I write is "dark or evil", actually it is usually just the opposite of being filled with horror etc. But if you look at people like DeVinci, writers like Twain, William Blake, Silva Plath (who wrote dark also), Tom Robbins, songwriters such as Kristofferson, Willie Nelson - often seem to not "fit in" socially among some, many of our singers, actors, actresses, bands and band members (who have even some killed themselves) like Jim Morrison... Within the realms of the artistic nature, are some things that some may deem as evil, but that is what makes that person the creative artist they are... of course that does not mean just because we are writers, poets, song writers, musicians, painters, and so forth, we are going to knock our self off... just that many of us find ourselves not "fitting in" at times with the what is ever considered the "norm" for society. We tend to be almost anti-social, kind of rebellious, not going for what "normal is"... which is a good thing...

Valentine's Day and Celebrating my Birthday Tomorrow

Lots of things are going on this week. Some of them are good, for a change. We are celebrating Valentine's Day today, and I was almost a Valentine's baby, since my birthday is tomorrow. We went to the casino in OK yesterday to celebrate both events. We have been going to Winstar lately, in Thackersville, OK, rather than making the longer trip to Bossier City, LA. The drive to OK is not nearly as long. You can be there with light traffic in about an hour and a half or so. Where as the trip to Bossier - Shreveport is more than almost 3 hours, depending on traffic. I thought about staying overnight, but after all day there, and then the line for the buffet being hours long all day long, I with my blisters on my feet after not thinking to put socks on over my hose since my thigh high boots are a little big, my feet are really hurting. The price I usually pay for even a day trip the next day or so. I am sore all over, worn out, and feel drained. But, with the Lupus, Sjogren's, Raynauds and other immune issues that is typically what happens. Never the less, the trip was good. I had a great time!!! I think all of us won a little, or at least won enough that we broke even. I have not counted up yet, but I think I may have won a little over what I took. That is a good thing. There were a couple of machines I got on later in the afternoon that I won two of the small jackpots on. One was like about 45.00 and the other 20.00 or so, then I won several of the bonus rounds, which one was 35.00 and then several of the 10.00 and 20.00 bonus rounds.
Being Valentine's day and everyone talking about it on Facebook, made me think about how the day is celebrated around the world in different countries. Interestingly enough, many other countries do celebrate the day for "lover's" when I did a Google search on it. They do some of the same things we do, and some do other really awesome things also.

I have a couple of links I will post with this to see how others celebrate.
http://www.novareinna.com/festive/valworld.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day

It is really interesting to know so many share in this day for lovers. :) I also thought about the vintage Valentine Day cards that my Dad has back from when he was a young boy in elementary school. He kept a couple of his cards from back then, and they are so delicate and ornate. Back then they were truly spectacular, with almost a lacy dye cut look to them. I looked up some on Google and never thought about them being antique, but they have to be around 80 years old. Dad would have been 88 I believe this month, on Ground Hog Day, and he got these when he was fairly young in school, so I know they have to be about that old. I need to get them and put them in my cedar chest for safekeeping to hand down to my kids for them to keep also.

I can remember all of the years that this week meant snow skiing in either Santa Fe, NM or in Pagosa Springs CO! Each year for the week of my birthday, we went snow skiing. That was our vacation and celebration of my birthday. Also, the tradition of my birthday cake is a heart shaped red velvet cake. My Mom has made one just about for every birthday I have ever celebrated. Probably other than the few years I spent in Seattle she has kept that tradition from my very first birthday. :) I have always looked forward to that cake each year. It became a tradition that I truly enjoyed. :)

Since my 50th birthday last year was not so pleasant, with me actually not just in the hospital, but in surgery for my birthday in 2010, it was very important that this one be special... almost extra special. I hope never again to spend my birthday or any day that ill, and on the edge of being not even here again. It was a scary time in our lives that I pray never is repeated.

I wish all a wondrous Valentine's Day also.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Weather, Winter, Cold & A first for many in Texas!

As we endured a wondrous balmy 70 degrees last weekend, as of Monday we went to freezing ice, and now temperatures well below freezing with wind chills at 3 degrees and even down below ZERO! It is not a pretty picture as we watch the idiots in Dallas on the freeways. They decided the roads were good enough to go, and they are quickly finding out the bridges and overpasses are covered in black ice as 18 wheelers, along with cars and trucks slip and slide all over into ditches, and stuck over the medians. It is wild. We also shall not even see temperatures above freezing until probably Saturday. We are under a very hard freeze warning, along with a wind chill warning, and expectation of more ice and snow on Thursday and Friday. It is far from what we saw this past weekend. Of course we are also looking to endure state wide of rolling black outs from Oncor. We can possibly expect our lights to go out for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour per our local news channels. People are calling in and reporting they have been without power for more than an hour. We do not have enough power to carry the entire state of TX, since even down at Brownsville is right at the freezing level.
Our other huge ordeal is the fact that we have the Super Bowl in Dallas in the new stadium on Sunday, which is a huge thing for Dallas and the Metroplex area. It appears we will have "nice" weather and be in the upper 50's by Sunday for the game! I guess most will consider that a heat wave on Sunday since our temps are at about 16 degrees here, with a wind chill of 3!!!!

I can honestly say of all the years of living in TX, I never have seen it get this cold, with these wind chills. Or at least not in our area around Dallas. It does get very, very cold in Amarillo and the panhandle. I have been in Amarillo in February when the wind chills had to be very well below zero! That wind would cut through you like a knife! by the time you got out of the car, and got into the bathroom, you were almost too cold to even think about peeing!

We are looking at possibly more snow and sleet on Friday! Snow, oh yes, it is so pretty and so awesome in the late evening when everything is so quiet!!!

So as today would have been my Dad's 88th birthday, and the ground hog saw no shadow thus we should get an early Spring time coming.

Hard to believe Dad has been gone now for 6 years....

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

It's been awhile! I am here and hopefully back

Well, I never thought it would be so long before I got to my blog again, that I might not be able to find it! alas, here it is the New Year, ringing in the pain pump now in place, and the medication almost where it needs to be dosage wise. Of course I realize I will never be completely free of pain. But, compared to oral pills, and all else endured for far too many years for the chronic illnesses and pain, I would highly suggest a pain pump to anyone who was in my place, or many are already worse. It is quite a lengthy process to just get to the place of having a "trial" time. Fortunately for me, I went in thinking I was going in for my trial, but due to my doctor already having known me for over 5 years, treating me, and knowing my total history, they already had the pump approved, and at the hospital in November a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. I made my decision on the gurney while waiting for the OR room to be set up. Actually, we had figured as much due to what the nurses had told me while they prepared me for the surgery. Sure enough my personal representative from Medtronic was there to get me ready as far as understanding the entire situation. My doctor was more than ready to go right on and put it in, rather than have to do a trial, then in a day or two, re-admit me, and then do the surgery. So, since I was already ready to get this thing started, as the song goes, I went in and came out with yet another hunk of metal in my body. This one hopefully like the knee replacements that shall give me tremendous relief from the far too many years of chronic, daily pain. The kind of pain that has ruled over my life for at least 15 years, and that I have tried everything known to man, woman and alien to help me. The list is endless of doctors, therapies, medications, physical therapy, magnets, rubs, TENS units, injections in my various joints and back, way too many CT and MRI scans and enough Xrays that I should have an eternal green glow at night!
 The number of doctors I have seen was too large to count on fingers and toes! From over the counter remedies, to anti-seizure medications, to NSAIDS, and narcotics... the list of pills are endless also.The day I shall always feel lives in infamy for me, is the day I was visiting my current pain specialist and his words were "time to think about a pain pump!" I almost hugged him! Five years ago, when I first went to him, it was because my still PCP had already suggested highly it was more than time for a pain pump for me.

I was signing papers, watching DVD's, reading everything online I could find, and just trying to hurry up the process. It took of course getting insurance approval, then several visits of talking about it, telling me about the first part, which was a psyche evaluation, that was truly more due to insurance, than my doctor. But, I had it done, and was ready for the next step. Well, by the time his nurse got all done with my insurance, they had basically said there was no need for a trial on me, and go ahead!

Now I had a couple of small setbacks, the first of which was one of the horrible "spinal" headaches that is caused by having a lumbar puncture not seal up as it should, thus the loss of spinal fluid messes up the balance, and the headache in sues.  Of course I developed the damned thing on the Saturday, after coming home on Friday from the hospital! We basically knew the issue, and after calling my doctor, we did have to make a trip to the ER to get my severe nausea and vomiting stopped and then I was told to drink as much caffeine as possible. For some strange reason for many, a spinal headache can be stopped with enough caffeine. I went back to Dallas the following Tuesday, still with the headache, but it was somewhat better than the weekend. They scheduled me for what is called a "blood patch" to seal it off, but said if I continued to get better, and was careful, I may not even need the patch. Thus true, I did everything I was told, and it sealed on its own. A couple of weeks later, I began to feel a knot coming up on my back by my spine, where the incision is for the catheter that was put in to the pump and then attached into my spine. come to find out, it is a fluid buildup that does happen, and it is called a seroma. Luckily, it will finally go away on its own since it stopped growing and began showing signs of going down. We did not want to take a chance to drain it and cause a possible infection.

Thus even with those two minor issues, and then the weekly trips to Dallas to my pain specialist for weeks and weeks, we have finally about gotten my dosage of medication in the pump where it needs to be.

I went in yesterday, and he refilled it, with a higher concentration of medication, which means not having to go as often for it to be refilled! I have already seen so much getting better... no more side effects from the oral medications, it is a relief not to worry about those pills, making sure I take them right, making sure I fill them when i needed to and so forth. I was a little bent out of shape because the pump shows a little with my shirt off. But, that I was told would happen due to my slender waist. And I surely am not going to put on any weight, so it will just have to stay showing and turn into a conversation starte...LOL, probably.
I am thrilled to be back online, and hope that with this pump life gets a great deal better this year. I still have hurdles to jump, but this year one huge one I have cleared hopefully for a long time to come.