Tuesday, January 6, 2015

As another year begins, Lupus, RA, pain, and trying to put those aside to be able to do something Outstanding!

An odd title, to say the least. But, everything about me, that I do, say, feel, see, is always "odd".

I've finally moved stuff around today, and got my stair climber exerciser in my Living Room. I put the stationary bike in the bedroom, because I desperately need an "entire" body workout starting today.

I've allowed myself to eat way too many things I should not, sit on my butt and find other things to occupy my time, and make excuses for not exercising. Thus now I "feel" the weight, see it, and I can tell that due to first of all getting lax on the walking, the weather being too cold, and lack and laziness of going through every day and every meal, mad and disappointed that I am honestly not able to eat as healthy as I usually do. The dentures are truly a huge hindrance depending on what you are trying to eat, thus as I said in a Facebook post, the very things that I loved and are healthy, I now cannot eat... like apples, fresh veggies... and the other things that are low in calories, high in nutrition, and don't let you get saggy and baggy...

Holidays are always difficult. There are so many goodies out there to temp everyone, between, cakes, cookies, candy, and the rest of the things... that temptation gets the best of us. Then, when you can't eat everything you are used to eating... (and you would be totally shocked at what some things are that I can or can't eat with these stupid things in)... then you really just get to the point of not caring what the heck it is... food you just see as food... and the rest of the time you are fighting to keep the stupid bottom denture in or trying to keep them from rubbing a sore spot in your mouth.... and so forth.

So, the entire thing I was SO HOPING would be out of my face by Jan 2015... and yet I am still facing the mess... and not anywhere near through, and certainly not anywhere near wanting to drop that kind of cash into a damned dentists or anyone's lap for sure...

Why does that type of stuff have to be so freaking blazing expensive???? I mean I realize they have an office, and employees and equipment, but hell I don't know many people who could REALLY AFFORD to have this mess done completely and have the "dime" to drop on it all at once... and I look up and it's almost 5:00 pm... where the hell did this day go to????

More to come tomorrow... Off and out for now...

Sunday, January 4, 2015

How "Autoimmune and/or other Chronic Illnesses" seem to "slow you down to a snail's pace"

Lots going on here, there and yonder...mmm one of those "Texas" words "yonder"??? I have people especially ones in California ask me where "yonder" is??? Well, in TX, it usually means in the direction you are pointing! LOL!!! New word for today....  "lollop"... to "loll" around for short... or to be a bit in a lounging position and it can also mean to "bob" up and down.... I had heard this one and have used it so not really "new" to me, but it puts it in my head to use it more... I am in the process of finishing paying bills, cutting out coupons, and trying to NOT feel BAD!!! I woke up about 4 am with the worst headache, and my stomach was upset.... plus I just have no energy for some reason... and of all days... even though it is sunny outside, the wind chill has to be COLD as heck! Oh, another word I had tried my best to think of last night, and I could recall several words that kind of meant the "same" as what I was trying to come up with. Finally I got the Thesaurus out and looked up "neutered", "watered down" and so forth. Then the word I was looking for hit me... CENSORED... I think something due to me NOT censoring my writing there are times some may get offended by what I say. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not going to poignantly come out and write something meaning to piss someone off or upset them on purpose. But, if I begin censoring my writing, it is no longer what I want to say. It has made me wonder why I don't get as much traffic to my blog as I want. I realize that "links" back to other sites help immensely, to get your rankings up as far as SEO goes for sites and search engines. But, it is not even "strangers" that maybe "googling" a certain type of blog, or illness, and then they come across a link to my blog or facebook page etc. It is more about wanting ALL of those that spend time here at Facebook, Google Plus, and other places they may find out about me being a writer and published author that I am interested in. I seem to never get feedback. No matter if I write about my own health issues, about the other places I am a strong voice as far as advocacy, activist, and ambassador on, or if I am talking about my own latest catastrophic event of the day, I never get many replies back, or more comment is what I mean on the blog in itself. Does that mean people don't like it so father than say something tacky to me, they just don't say anything at all. Or is it I do hit the nail on the head for many, yet they just don't find it necessary to submit a comment on whatever subject matter I may pick for the moment. Well, unless something ridiculous happens this year of 2015 I plan on posting MORE blog posts, and working on both books daily, as well as learning a new word, getting back to my exercising since I have kind of flaked off the past several months. I do lots of running around since Jim is not able to go out, or clean, cook etc... so I get lots of "exercise" with all of that, but I need to be back on the stationary bike, out walking daily or trying once again to use my stair climber. Me and that thing have hell, but it is mainly because my feet want to slip and slide all over the place. That does make it difficult to exercise on when you are constantly having to reposition your feet.

Okay, I have done a couple of the "new" items on the agenda, and I stopped a moment to say hello to all. It is hard to believe the holidays are already past, the new year is here, and once again it is back to the "farm" to hitch up the mules, put the crops in order, get kids back to school, and put noses to the grind stone hoping for a better 2015 for many of us.... take it one step at a time, one breaths space at a time, one day, one week, one month... all at a time... slow down, stop. and try your best to "accomplish" something even if it a new word daily, that you can be proud of for 2015... read a book, write a novel, crochet, paint, learn to play an instrument, go back to college, or just spring clean your home and throw away everytthing that has NOT BEEN USED in a YEAR! I have figured out, if something is lingering around my home, whether in my closet as clothes, or dishes, or whatever might be "building up" and not being used... throw it in the recycle bin, take it to Goodwill, give it away, have a garage sale, but take your home to an entire new level... for me that does mean a great deal of getting rid of stuff that is just that stuff that sits around and is either already worn out, or I will never use, or was meant to do one thing or the other but I never got to it... and I am bound and determined, that I am GOING TO PAIN MY KITCHEN and have a new floor put in. IF it "hair lips" Harry as the old saying goes - actually it is "if it hair lips the Pope"... and I am not sure why, but that is how it has been said for eons... I already have colors picked out, and they have an already "pre-cut" cabinet top that is not all that expensive that should replace mine hopefully quite easily... so my hopes are that at the very least I get a "new updated" kitchen, floor to ceiling, and we get the outside of the house painted... of which I can do most of it myself, but I am just so slow, it will take me quite awhile by the time I sand down all of the old paint (Lord I bet there are 5 layers of old paint) on my cabinet fronts. Someone before us never scraped or sanded anything. and then when we got here, it was a hurry up, had our lease on our apartment ending, and did not want to pay another month's rent if possible... so there were somethings we had to kind of just "do half azzed" at the time, in order for us to move in that fine Winter of 2006, which we almost froze our butts off... Lord it was a cold winter that year. Jim was redoing our hardwood floors, and we were concerned about whether that coatings would dry on them fast enough for us... we really needed to scrape those cabinet fronts and doors, but time made us just get it painted and cleaned up so we could get moved in... wow, how the heck we made two huge moves, including coming to Amanda's wedding the Summer before we moved here, then Dad's funeral at the 3rd month of 2005, then we made the major move to San Pedro CA, and withing 3 months were on the road again for a long haul to Ennis....we got here on December 19th, 2005... Amanda had just had James on the 6th of December, and they all came up, well at that time it was Heather, James a new born, Amanda and Jimbo, then Jason and Danielle I believe both came over... I know Jason did... anyway down memory lane... due to me knowing what I could get accomplished then, compared to how long it takes me to accomplish anything now... is like a very long, long distance... Anyway, off to take meds, eat a bowl of cereal or something, and possibly get some writing done.... ;) ,

Covers I am working on for my Two New Books

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

New Year, New Ideas and hopefully a New Me in many ways... or getting back to the Old Me one of the two...

I had basically stopped thinking about playing songs, drumming and so forth after Jim's accident. At that time we did not know if he would even be able to walk, but less play the guitar. But such as all of the other miraculous things that he continues to do as he heals... brought me to a place today... that I want us to be playing and singing, as well as writing our own music again. This song hit me as I came home from the market... I have heard it several times, and just absolutely loved everything about it... so I came in and Jim grabbed his guitar, and I grabbed a mic... and we practiced and then recorded it!!! For me I was desperately wanting to know if the dentures changed my voice as far as singing. I know at times speaking they have... and I hope for the better once they can "pin down" the bottom ones.. So below I will post the lyrics...





But I do also want to put up a picture of me I took today, along with a "Happy New Year" to everyone out there.
As we close the door on 2014, many of us close it on a year of health problems, uncertainty as far as our nation, and our world. We close it on doctors, medications and insurance companies, on pharmacies, all of the ones that have not worked to help us before the new dawn of a New Year. Many of you know the trials, tribulations, and the entire host of issues for myself and my family. Never starting on on January 2014 could you have convinced me that year would be filled with such as a entire realm of horrors, from my own illness, to Jim's nightmare of an accident, that has left us still grasping at which place we may turn as we wander through almost blindly the days and nights of what is still considered unknown. Yet, through the loss of his own use of his legs, the pain, the massive damage to his spinal cord and body, it still is healing as we know. How much more will that be after March 26th, 2015 we are not sure of... it maybe that he still has healing through years to come... or it could be that after a year has ticked by, what he has in healing will be what we must accept as the most there will ever be. Don't get me wrong, we are both extremely thankful and feel blessed he has the abilities he has now. Never did we expect he would leave the hospital walking on a cane, and using a wheelchair only when he would have to do a great deal of being up walking and on his feet. Which honestly, we have been able to avoid the wheelchair all but about maybe 3 or 4 times since he got home. Yet, the sad part of that is that he does NOT get out much. He does NOT go to the store, or get out and ride around with me during errands or even leave the house much at all. His essence of leaving the house, is usually standing on the front porch and the occasional stroll around our yard. So, for that it is saddening to see him struggle with having to almost be cooped up constantly in this tiny home of ours. Then of course we have endured the months and months and more months of my loss of all of my teeth to Sjogren's and all of the evil things it does when you least expect it. It has been a mixed journey for me... one of great disheartened days. knowing now I must find a way to adjust to dentures, which I will tell you right now is NOT an EASY FEAT!!!! IF I have learned anything from this past year, it is to NEVER ask for anything expecting to get it. YOU MAY GET IT, but NEVER in a way you imagined. I prayed all my life for "pretty teeth". Which I meant more like having the money to get braces and have my own teeth "fixed"... yet I now have "pretty teeth", but they are artificial in nature, and are hard as hell to get used to. I STILL cannot eat many things I love... from lots of fresh fruits, to some things you would never think would be difficult to eat, are almost impossible for me. I still learn something new everyday about how to maneuver around eating with the things in my mouth. Plus I still have "miles" honestly to go before they are completely finished. Health and money have kind of put a "damper" on me finishing them up. So, I am still incomplete when it comes to my new pretty teeth. Alas, as others think, and some don't think this way, but I try not to wallow around in self pity and the "why me" stuff. Yet, when it seems around every twist and turn of the day's beginning to the day's end something off the cuff happens, it makes it extremely difficult to think "positive" thoughts, and keep the light of faith and hope burning brightly...
So, I wish for everyone near and far, whether friend, neighbor, family member or stranger that 2015 brings in truth of good cheer. I wish for all to have a much healthier 2015, and may many of us go into a state of "remission" from these horrid illnesses that haunt us day and night. May we find our insurance and financial woes all the better, and may somehow, someway, new ground be broken for less cost in medications that we desperately need. May the "rich world" of corporations and big business, stop for a moment, put their greediness aside and see that we as human, and chronically ill humans need to be able to afford the often life saving medications we need. May we grow stronger in our advocacy and voices. May we find our family and friends bonds ever more full of honor and strength than ever in the past. May we find a peace in our minds and hearts that can surpass the highest comet's tail, and rain down upon us, the "reign" of a new dawn, and of a healing of souls all over and around our globe. My hopes are that men and women put down their weapons, be it guns, words, swords, and vengeful ways... may we life each other up and not strike one another down with the raw wounds that hate, greed, and jealousy all so often leave behind. My hopes are that I am able to pen the greatest book, I have ever pinned yet. May my body, soul, mind and spirit allow me to finish what I have began now for several years. Yet, always "life" somewhere gets in the way.... so my entire wish for my own personal days in 2015 are to be filled with "the voice", "the muse", the talent of writing what my heart and mind want to tell everyone... May we lift one another up tonight at midnight and wish all of this and much more for all in 2015... Rhia


Here are the Lyrics to the song that brought me so much inspiration today....

LUKE BRYAN LYRICS

"Roller Coaster"

She had a cross around her neck
And a flower in her hand
That I picked from the side of Thomas Drive
On our way to the sand
We found an old wooden chair
Still warm from the sun
Pushed it back, gave me a kiss
With Bacardi on her lips
And I was done

[Chorus:]
And we spent that week wide open
Upside down beside the ocean
I didn't know where it was goin'
Just tryin' to keep my heart on the tracks
I should've known that kind of feelin'
Would last longer than that week did
Blown away and barely breathin'
Sunday came and it was over
Now she's got me twisted
Like an old beach roller coaster

The rest of those days
Turned into long crazy nights
When the music got loud
We'd sneak away from the crowd
Under the boardwalk lights
And with all the things we said
What I just can't get past
Is the way we let it end
Now I'm wonderin' where she is
Knowin' I can't get that goodbye back

[Chorus]

She's like a song playin' over and over
In my mind, where I still hold her
I had the chance and I should've told her

When we spent that week wide open
Upside down beside the ocean
I should've known where it was goin'
Still tryin' to keep my heart on the tracks
And I should've known that kind of feelin'
Would last longer than that week did
Blown away and barely breathin'
When Sunday came and it was over
Now she's got me twisted,
Yeah, I'm still twisted
Like that old beach roller coaster

Like that old beach roller coaster




Thanks to vmh1205, Daisy Garcia, pamela, Caleb DeChand, Tyler for correcting these lyrics.




Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Christmas Eve 2014...

Well, I am not sure what to say honestly when it comes to the reflection back on 2014, how I feel about the holiday season, and just how quickly it has seemed to "pounce" upon us.

From my "up" moments of being in Washington D.C. in March this year, to the tragic call from my daughter on the 26th of March telling me my husband had been in a very bad car accident with an 18 wheel tractor trailer on his way to the Airport in Dallas to fly out and be with myself and his Mom...

From there, this year has been filled with so many up's and down's.. either I am not well and are having flares, or the entire ordeal with my teeth and the Sjogren's, it seems we just never had a "break" of good luck any where we turned.

Of course I cannot say that entirely, because we are blessed that Jim survived the accident, and even though he is considered "paraplegic" he can walk with a cane. He still has many issues, including balance issues, but still he for the most part can get around with a cane, unless it is somewhere big or if we are going to do something in Wally World, which is a huge building to try and walk through with a cane.

But, between his plight and issues from the wreck, and then the Sjogren's literally eating my teeth away from the inside out... and the "forces" that are waxing and waning back and forth over the settlement of the accident, of course our finances are also worse than tight for sure.

We have been able to scrape by, but with some issues he had with a change in some main lines where the "servers" are that "host" the clients websites he has, we may have lost at least 2 clients, which were the two that usually were continually wanting updates and so on, thus those were the two that brought in a bit of a salary, although small, but yet better than nothing for sure. Now we are looking at the fact if we lose them, we really will be in a bind financially. They took away the medical benefits Jim was getting while he was in the hospital. Get this, they took MY OWN disability and counted it towards "income" for him... and then when we are probably 300 percent under the poverty line, they said my check was like 12.00 a MONTH over the limit thus they dropped his medical coverage. So now he also has no medical coverage at all. That means any doctor he sees has to come out of our pockets, and they are getting more empty by the day...

I also realize we certainly are not the only people in TX or in the nation that are fighting back hard times as far as finances. Many have been out of work so long, or have had to go through what savings they may have had to just live. So, I am not complaining for just my family, but for the many others out there with either the same or worse circumstances.

My "hopes" are for the coming 2015, to be even a better advocate, and good more activist and ambassador work through the charities and non-profits that I truly believe in. I know for many people, now days it is difficult to know where you might like to donate, and wonder if your money truly goes for the purpose intended.

My Mom is a very good example of someone that is not sure where to donate to. It gets to the point that she gets phone calls every day almost from one or more places asking for donations for "this, that or the other". With things in the world as they are now, even though we hate to think so, there are people out there, who take advantage of either elderly folks that may not understand what they are asking about, or they do give and then have their identity stolen, and so forth. I have had to warn my Mom time and time again to NOT give to anyone that is soliciting over the phone or knocking on her door. We even have a sign up on her door, plus I have put one on mine also that says NO soliciting, and that means don't ask about "lowering" utilities, or getting donations, or "insuring your water pipes" (now that is one I cannot fathom anyone falling for), but constantly somehow they have her name down and probably know she is up older and think that the can finagling her into giving out information that they can use for their own gain.

----------   ******** Beyond Christmas Eve*********-------------

Try December 30th 2014 - and beyond....

I figure if I want to get much more in BEFORE 2015 Rings in, I had better get these fingers to moving a bit faster. Probably more like pull my head out of my butt, and out of the 29,000 other places it is, and try to put down something that may make some sense out of my own life, and possibly others...

Not one of us is a "mind-reader", a "fortune teller", a "profit" (or I guess I am not sure about that one, I feel the Lord could actually send a profit down anytime he wanted to)... but when I talk about the word "profit" I am more meaning someone who tries to deliberately con someone out of money telling them they can "read their tea leaves" or follow the life lines on their hands... or read the Taro cards... and it is NOT that I don't believe that things such as that or people such as that can exist, it is more that I feel there are not near as many of these types of "world palm readers or fortune tellers" than they try and allow themselves to be. Each of us have our own unique ability to "feel" when something is right or wrong I think. Whether you truly tap into that ability is where the hairs split, as the saying goes. You can take that pathway and follow your gut and heart, and learn a whole lot about yourself and your fellow man and woman. Or you can choose to put on blinders, have tunnel vision, and only see what is directly in front of you. To me, that is not really a great way to live. Of course it is a frightening thing to "feel" something, or to "think" something about your life, or a loved ones life. But, it does not always have to be in the "blackest of black ink darkness".

You may find yourself, if you open up thinking about the "awesome" happenings in life... yours, family's, friends... or even strangers on the street. My family on my Mom's side have that type of "uncanny" ability to feel almost too much at times. My Mother really has it, yet she does not open up a great deal and talk about it. Yet, there are times something really strikes her in a dream, or as a feeling, and she does what I do, calls and checks on whomever it is she is overwhelmed with in the dream.

I've ran into more of a "night terror" wall, when it comes to if I wanted to call it a "dream world". I began trying to research the issue as to why almost every night of my life, I have a propensity to have not just night mares, but more what I call night terrors. Many nights, I wake my own self up. Either the night terror carries me to a place that I feel I am suffocating, or I am being "flogged" not exactly by a "strap" but more of a flog with words. It usually has to do with people in my past. Either people I went to school with, or have known from various jobs in my life. When I first finally got completely out of the abusive in every sense of the term, relationship with the "2nd" jackass I had been married to for far too long, I had them nightly. I almost could not lay my head on a pillow and try and sleep. For I knew in my dreams he would come after me in one way or the other. Usually through a window, with a knife, sometimes trying to run me over (which he did try in reality a couple of times)... just horrid night terrors that I thought would never go away.

When I decided while I still lived in Seattle, to venture out on my own, have my own apartment, take care of myself only... I thought the nights would be worse with terror. Yet, it seemed that I overcame them for the most part. There was something about living completely alone, and taking care of just me... that settled my unsettled soul. I could sleep like a baby, but just had hell working due to all of my health problems. Thus, as the health problems grew worse, even then the night terrors seemed to have died down a great deal.

As the tides of my life once again changed, moving fore and aft, to the South, then the North, from the East to the West... it seems my life has always been one that I must "Roll with the Changes"... Maybe that is one of the reasons I love that song so much... because all my life I've lived through a dichotomy ... where one part of me, seems to move one way, yet a portion of my life tends to be in another dimension. That may sound all too profound to even comprehend, but I've been called both a dichotomy and a conundrum .... which I used to really be pissed about. I took both as a huge insult, thinking that people saw me as some kind of "nut" who could not get their life straight enough to stick to the program I guess you could say.

I was very wrong in that thought. As the years have went by, I am truly both of those words and so much more. I can parallel a shooting star and head in a very straight and narrow path, or at times, I can be in all different paths, much like a comet's tail that tends to "flare" off in different directions, yet all at once. That portion of me reminds me of a huge firework exhibition, where some of them go straight up into the heavens, and then come down in a fountain of color. Sometimes red, green, pink, blue, purple... every color in the rainbow...

Now why my brain takes me off on several courses when I write, I guess is only something another writer, author, will understand. Many of us multitask in our daily lives. We deal with jobs, bills, kids, hobbies, houses, and so forth. Often juggling several different items at once during our daily jaunt through out what we call life. Yet, for a writer, it is sometimes what is "multitasking" in our brains. For myself, I may write a line or two, when something else hits me, just due to what I had put down the sentence before, thus I am off on another pathway through the minds of what many deem as insanity. Maybe to be a true writer, you must deal with the insanity before you can sanely write.

As I think about and write about the things I want to have in my next published book, I find myself getting lost in the circle of the ring of infinity. Where one thing may end, yet another begins at that particular jumping off spot. Such as I maybe penning something down about a particular autoimmune disease or symptom, yet that takes a turn, and around the next bend could be something "related" but sounds completely different than a "stuffy old autobiographical" book that has already been written, just out of a different mind set than another illness/author may write it. That does not mean that ANY book, about how one lives through these chronic illnesses that have captured our lives, bound us down inside of our homes, minds, and it seems the only contact we have with the real world maybe social media.

When I was listening to Laura Hilldebrand speak about her biography she wrote, about someone else and she also took me to a place in writing that I never quite thought about before. No matter if we are writing fiction, a novel, a movie script, music, or a biography, a "piece" of you flows through those words. You find a common ground between who or what you are writing about, and lace it between the person you are, and the outcome is a pure mixture of both... your view point about someone else, yet through the eyes of someone who has also gone through the hills, valleys, the darkness and light, the favorite inter-sanctioned places that whom you are writing about has been. You relate, you can empathize, your individual yet, duo of souls can dance together, in a seamless binding of what pain, power, gain, richness, poorness, and all that have motivated one soul to do well to another. If in your own heart you know "It is well with my Soul"... a Baptist hymn from a long time back, then you have meshed all of your own feelings, with someone else.

This may also mean about the way you write your own "auto-biography". As you pen those words, the ones that tug at your readers heart strings, gives them the emotions, the good, the bad, the unthinkable, the peaceful... all you have wrapped up in that book binding it is a gift that shall mean a hundred different things to a hundred different people that reads it.

I ran into a really "terrible" but in all honestly excellent way to explain what I mean. I made a post on social media, Facebook. My intentions were to absolutely honor the person that I was speaking of... for he had passed away extremely suddenly and was one of "us"... with Lupus, with RA, Sjogren's and he suffered from several vital organs that were all involved with the illnesses. So, I was posting something from one of the organizations that I am an Ambassador for (Platinum Ambassador now)... a portion of a newsletter that was sent to me, from the Foundation to pass on freely to social media, friends, emails, wherever I might like and to whom I might want to pass onto... I had just "pulled" the entire "newsletter" from my email and made it a graphic basically. There were no "clickable" links posted with it. Of course the Foundations name etc was on it... a portion of the article was commending not just myself but all of the North Central Texas Regions advocates, activists, Ambassadors etc. for getting several more of our Congress people on board. We felt this was an incredible feat since we had mid-term elections that "hit" us in losing several that were on our "Arthritis Caucus"... and were "helping to advocate" for us from the Federal Congress. Well, when I "cut it out" and copied it into a .jpeg it never dawned on me that on the very bottom of the newsletter it had a "donate now" button on it. I really did not pay it much mind or give thought that someone would misinterpret what I was trying to say.

I had been trying to say that our "fallen Advocate" would want us to push forward, to be proud of what we were and will accomplish. He would not have wanted us to wail and loose site of what our "jobs" were all about... which was advocating to win the fight against Autoimmune and Autoimmune Arthritic Illnesses. Thus to me, posting that newsletter, that actually came out the same day he passed away to me was "honoring" what his wishes would have been. Well, most of his "advocate" and volunteer work was done with one non-profit, charity. So, someone got the "impression" even though I carefully worded it that I DID NOT MEAN monetarily, but more in our advocacy work he would be sad if we didn't show what strides we made... thus having 5 new Congress People on board for him would have been as his saying "Onward and Upward"... but of course SOME PEOPLE have to READ things into what was posted and think that I meant for people to "give" donations in "His name" to this particular Foundation. Which happened to be the one he did most of his volunteer work for. Which that NEVER even entered my head... I meant in "heart and soul" type of work not anything that had to do with making a "donation" in his memory anywhere, unless that is something personally people want to do... then that is between them and their own hearts... not for myself nor ANYONE to decide. Well, it got back to me very quickly, of course.

And I "flew off the handle"... it hurt me so deeply that here I was trying to put something up "good" that this gentleman would have himself been so proud of in his memory, but just because I did not think to cut off the bottom that said "Donate Now"... and as I said it was NOT any type of link to click at all to donate a thing... but others got their panty hose in the crack about something that was supposed to be uplifting, kind and from the heart. NOT EVERYTHING in life has to be ABOUT CASH!!!! I think it hurt me that anyone would feel the "need" to ask me, much less even think that is what I meant. IF they would have READ MY POST, that went along with that graphic, they would have IMMEDIATELY known I was NOT ASKING FOR DONATIONS IN THIS MAN'S NAME!!! For no one... no charity, no non-profit, no where, no how, but someone had to "go there"...

Then once all was "explained" and said, done and as far as I was concerned over with... to CLARIFY things and not have any more WONDERING... I took down the graphic, left up the post with an explanation as to why the graphic was NOW by itself and took the "Donate now" off of it!!! Someone asked me why I "bowed down" to that crap....

It is not that I "bowed down" at all. What I did was STOP the stupid rumors coming from those mouths that did NOT have the courage to ask me. They went behind my back, told someone else, and then they had to come and ask me... Which was total nonsense. As I also put in the post, if for any reason, anyone has an issue with myself, my posts, or what my intentions are, ASK ME!! Don't beat around the bush, walk around the mountain, and get someone else involved in it. I could have answered the question and all would have been done... Now I am still somewhat perturbed... and I notice not many have said much on my Facebook page after that... well it could be the "holidays" and people are out and about .... busy... thus are not posting as much. But, I feel someone got the butt up over the dash board for nothing... and now they are trying to back track out of it.

Okay--------- to be continued

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

"Onward and Upward" A 2nd Very Grave and Close Loss of A Dear Friend, Advocate, and a Patient of RA, Lupus, and more...

I almost could not believe my eyes as I read on Facebook last evening, that one of our "own" - in fact a 2nd one this year we lost to these Autoimmune Illnesses. Anthony Hileson was only 62 years old. He had a terrible time with RA, Lupus, and other AI illnesses, along with the brain fog and more than that the extreme pain that comes all too often with these horrid diseases.

After our loss earlier this year of Ali, who was in her early 20's... now we are mourning yet another "victim" from these diseases.

I got to know Anthony through Facebook, and became close to him due to him being in the Dallas area, and he in fact was the one that told me about my now incredible Rheumatologist. He "referred" me to Dr. Q. as well always have called him online, and Anthony was also looking into getting a pain pump shortly after the holidays, which he had talked with me in length about since he knew I had mine.

We have met him once, in fact when I was seeing my Rheumatologist. Anthony was in the hospital at the time right there by the doctors office. So, Jim and I met him for a brief few minutes. We had also had several conversations on the phone.

He wanted so much to put in all he could to help the IFAA, and everything that was related to helping be an advocate and activist and volunteer again the Autoimmune Illnesses that have now taken his life.

He was a very spiritual gentleman, kind, and wished everyone well. Even when he was very ill, he always tried his best to be online to do his part.

"Onward and Upward" was a phrase "coined" by him. So, it is very appropriate that this graphic below express his deep love of advocacy and people. May you rest in peace, without any more pain, sorrow and loneliness Anthony. Your giving of self without any selfishness at all, just to be there for others will always be remembered.....

and if you care to see more about Anthony, you can find his Facebook page at:

The Arthritis Foundation and Our "Victory" from the 2014 Summit!

I am so elated to know my "voice" was in part what made the "Summit" on Capitol Hill a Success Story for Us as Patients, Caregivers and more, along with such an Amazing Success for the Arthritis Foundation!!!!!



It is with pride that I talk about my own personal story and share it through the Arthritis Foundation. I know in my heart they truly care about us as patients. I am so pleased to be able to help out. I am also so proud to be in a very "elite" group which is the "Platinum Ambassador's" for AF!!!!