You have GOT to be S**ting me...

The dentist visit I wrote about last time was bad, did you know it got worse.  Nerve damage.  Specifically Trigeminal Neuralgia, type 2 if I understand it correctly.  Unrelenting, God-awful pain 24/7.  The dentist said that was what was wrong, but I wound up with a referral to an endodontist, who said the tooth was good and referred me to the ENT, who gave me prednisone to no avail.  Then while at my GP for the blood pressure med I take, I told him about it.  And here we are.
600-800mg Advil every 6 hours and 100mg of neurontin.

Im hoping that this will ease up and go away, if not forever then for a really really really long time. It can. Otherwise Im in for hell for the rest of my life.  They call TN the suicide disease.  On a day I forgot my meds, I see why.

But seriously, a filling ruined my face.  You have got to be shitting me.

But it would seem it happens from time to time.


I won the crap lotto.  Why is it I can't win the powerball.....

Spinning From The Dentist and Other Medical Adventures...

There is no end to the suck that is Meniere's.  A dentist appointment, which normally sends me into a panic attack anyhow, set off my vertigo and left me with a horrible case of BPPV that lasted weeks.  To top it off, the magic didn't end there as I was enveloped in a horrific jaw pain that the dentist, an endodontist, and the ENT can't figure out.   Im still in pain with a few days of 800 mg advil and the last few days of prednisone left to go.  My family doc is going to see me this week and we get to have a chat about why I have to see him twice a year now for stable BP (this costs money you know) and what he recommends about the jaw.  Since TMJ isn't covered by our insurance, I have to pray he calls it something else or they will "retro" reject the other visits.

I already owe almost 1100.00 for the colonoscopy (thats after insurance), and who knows how much for the dental visits that keep me ready to scream. Or grind my teeth, which might be the problem anyhow.



What the heck are we even paying premiums for if we have to pay so much for everything anyhow?

Next time no filling, they are going to have to pull the tooth.

Yay we have insurance!  BOO that we can't afford to use it!

House Acquired. Mission Accomplished, sort of...

Its been a while since I posted.  We finally found a house that we adored.  It is perfect for us, well perfect in that it met both size and cost requirements.   Things are looking pretty good.  Then I went to the dentist, and then I had several vertigo attacks in a row.  Oh and then we found termites the inspector said weren't there.

So we acquired a house.  We are still in the "cant have kids yet but the clock is ticking" land.  Uncertainty has fallen upon me as the vertigo has returned once again.  It was triggered by dental work, and now Im dealing with BPPV.  Thats where head position triggers a short, but uncomfortable spin.  It makes lots of things difficult. Imagine not being able to look up or down for weeks. Yea, its like that.

So we have a house.  Whoot!!  

Im hoping that everything else settles down and the house is a blessing not a chore.

So my mission was to find a house, have a family and live happily ever after.  So part of the mission is accomplished.  We just need kids to complete the mission, right?

House Hunting: Part One Our Economic Recovery after Meniere's

A dear friend sat me down and did the math with me.  Now that I'm working full time again (finally) Don and I can afford a house.  It will literally be cheaper than rent, and good lord, we can afford a house!

Our path to even this point where we are even thinking about a house, has been long and hard.  When we first got married we made good money.  I made a LOT working at two fire stations, and we were doing quite well. But when you lose a job, you lose a lot more sometimes, like insurance.  Although we had some disability retirement and disability insurance (NOT the same as Social Security Disability), we still went from making 60,000 a year between the two of us to far less than 30,000.  It doesn't seem like much, but when you half your income AND have no health coverage AND have new health expenses you didn't have, things get tight QUICK.

Thank God I found the job I have now, and was promoted. I thank God every day.  We don't make what we did when I was working at the fire station, but we are getting there, slowly.  And we have some things paid off now too.  So we are in good shape again, financially.  It's about time.

So once we realized what we were paying in rent we could do even less and get a house, well we have started looking.  Our economic recovery after Meniere's has been slower than I'd like, but it could have been worse.  I also thank God its been on the good side of bad.

Looking for a house when you know you have serious balance issues is a chore.  So far everything we've liked online has been under contract or not good for the kind of loan we are going for.  But I look at all of these houses and wonder, can I make it up the steps?  Is the bathroom designed to keep me from falling our of the shower? Do I need to factor all of this in, or do we add rails and handicapped bars later?  Lots of questions you know. LOTS.

Its exciting to be looking for a house. Very exciting (and scary).

Only Skinny People Think I "Choose" to be Fat.

    I'm about tired of reading about the obesity epidemic in this country and seeing comments that range from just mean to the "fat people choose to be fat".  Let me set the record straight.  I did not "choose" to be fat.  I did not wake up one morning and decide that I wanted to see how far I could push my body weight wise, and I did not elect to become as heavy as I have gotten.  It is one of those things that happens over time for a number of reasons that are not especially under my control. Let me lay it out for you.

•  PCOS, or Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome, I didn't choose to have a problem that makes losing weight almost impossible.
• Genetics, yes the old stand by of millions like me, some where in the programming I was made to put on pounds for a crisis.
• Stress.  That is the crisis my body loves to react to.
• Additives in our foods that make them addictive.  Food companies do this so we eat more and thus buy more of their savory or sweet concoctions. Those additives may also, according to some studies, help the body hold on to fat because of how it is processed. 
• Grief.  I already know I am a stress eater, but I did not know until I lost my mother that I would eat when I was sad too. 
• Corn.  This sounds stupid, but there is a school of thought that the very same grain they use to fatten up cows, also fattens up humans because its processed into everything. 

    I could go on listing my "excuses".  That's what everyone calls them.  Everyone is quick to point a bony finger in my direction and tell me how its my fault I don't join a gym or get a personal trainer.  I cant afford one, so its my fault I don't walk more.  No one wants to hear about how painful it is to walk more than a couple hundred feet. I know the extra pounds doesn't help it, but the root cause is a car wreck I was in years ago compounded by 11 years of ignoring the pain to be a firefighter. 

    Oh there is the "you need to use some willpower".  I have none.  There its settled.  I eat when I'm sad, I eat when I'm lonely, I eat when I'm nervous, I eat when I'm bored and I eat when I'm stressed.  I feel ashamed of it, but I have done this since I was a little kid.  Some people reach for booze or pills, I reach for snacks.  I don't even buy sweets or snacks for the house anymore. I try to reach for "healthy" stuff when I get like this, unfortunately some of the healthy stuff like carrots causes some GI issues, so we have stress related issue. 

    There is are the "dieters" that swear by one diet or another.  Believe me I've tried about everything I can afford. Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast, prepackaged plans, the lemonade diet, the cabbage soup diet, diet pills, HGC, low fat, low carb, low calorie, Ultra low calorie, oh the list goes on and on.  I stuck with the prepackaged plan and Weight Watchers the longest. I even lost weight at one point in the changes weight watchers made on their plan, but they tweaked it, and I never had success again.  It is impossible to stick to something when you fail at it.  At Weight Watchers I consistently averaged 1/4 lb a week. I was paying 40 bucks a month to be miserable, and only lose 1/4 lb a week.  I need to lose about 150 lbs.  That's three years, and 1440.00 of membership money.  Oh and the naysayers accuse me of cheating or doing it wrong.  When I swear I am following it to the letter, I'm called a liar.  Or my favorite part of the meeting is when there are these women whining just joining to drop five pounds and they make some snotty remark to the big girls like me about how easy it is to lose on Weight Watchers and I should be proud of the 1/4 lb, its not their five this week, but its still 1/4.  Or they ask, as many close to me have, "What did you do wrong this week?  Did you eat a cheeseburger or ice cream?"  Have you ever thought for a moment that I'm actually doing the program and my motivation wanes after six months with no results despite diet and exercise? And yes, we have had the thyroid checked, it was fine. And my cholesterol and BGLs are too, so there.

    I could go on.  But no, I don't choose to be fat.  I don't choose to feel lousy and look like a hippo.  I don't choose to be stared at or snickered at behind my back or even to my face. I don't choose to spend more money on clothes because "extended sizes" cost more, or to find nothing in my size at the goodwill ,EVER.  I don't choose to have aching joints, a throbbing back, and other weight related physical ailments.  I don't choose to be discriminated against because I'm not attractive. I don't choose to forgo the swimming pool because of how people react to a "big girl" in a swimsuit, or choose to pay 150 bucks for the only thing in town in my size at a specialty store, because Target doesn't carry swimsuits for big girls that we can actually wear. I don't choose to have low self-esteem because everyone else seems to have a major issue with my weight.  I don't choose to go shopping alone, no one wants to be seen in the "fat girl" store with me except my fantastic hubby, God bless him.

    Maybe if you took the time out of your day that you spend judging us fat girls, and you simply gave us an understanding hug, or said a prayer for our happiness, we'd all feel better about everything. 

    I did not choose to be fat.  It has been the result of many factors.  I choose to give up, but in the face of constant failure and ridicule I do not have the drive to push through the unbearable pain and do anything else.  The battle is pretty much over.  I've begun to accept that I will never be "thin" again, and my weight will haunt me for the rest of my life, however short or long that may be.  My tears are no longer for myself, they are for all those that can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that I'm big.  

    Yes, this is not especially about Meniere's, but since I was diagnosed and was unable to exercise as much, I gained 70 or so lbs. People sometimes treat me like I'm ignorant or some sort of lazy slob because I'm big.  I'm none of those.  I didn't choose this, and if you think for a moment that all of us "big girls" choose to be big, you have a lot to learn about the world.  A lot indeed. 

I am more than I look like now...

It's hard to imagine when you look at me now that I've ever done the things that I talk about having done.  (It was hard when I was healthy for people to imagine that I have ever done the things that I have done too.)
I get the "you are full of it" look a lot, and on occasion people actually call me a liar to my face.  I don't have a good enough memory to lie for one thing, and for another, what good would it do me?

To look at me now, you wouldn't imagine I've ever been SCUBA certified, been to more than two dozen states, served my nation, fought fires, been to college, gotten a Master's Degree, obtained certification in aircraft rescue, ever weighed less than 150 lbs, once had hair down past my butt, once rode every roller coaster I could, had ever seen me run a mile or leg press over 400 lbs.  You wouldn't know by looking at me that I was ever anything other than what you see now: a very overweight almost middle aged woman with a bad back and balance issues. All you see now is me shuffling when I first start to walk because my feet hurt so bad, or you might see me unable to keep my balance on uneven ground.  All you see now is someone that gets tired quickly because her brain has to work overtime to process movement now that her ears don't work, and you might even get frustrated when she can not hear what you said properly.  (I assure you that my making light of the hearing distortion is my way of dealing with the fear I feel at going deaf)

You can not even begin to process how hurt and angry I feel when I'm reliving one of my adventures in a funny story and I'm made to feel as if I'm dishonest.  It happens a lot.  It is as hard as someone questioning your intelligence because you can not spell or do advanced math due to a learning disability.  (Too bad I cant show off that IQ test to prove folks wrong, and to let the numbers show that I am in fact a genius. But who's counting?) 

I lived a LOT before I got sick.  I did all kinds of cool stuff, and am thankful for it.  I relive many of those fun and adventurous days because I can not do those things anymore. My new normal, as it were, will not allow me to SCUBA dive again, or ride roller coasters or fight fires or be more than I am now.  It is hard to be a shell of the woman you once were, and have people call into question your honesty when you are reliving a moment in a story from your past. I can not carry around those memories in a jar to show you, nor can I carry around a notebook full of affidavits to prove that I am who I once was. 

All anyone sees now is a fat, somewhat obnoxious woman who talks in excess about things that no one believes.  They don't take time to see the scars on her heart and the knicks on her soul from every time she set out to help her fellow man only to be called a liar afterwords.  No one bothers to wonder why this woman lives in the past because they don't value her enough to listen close enough to hear the pain in her words as she remembers who she once was and can no longer be.

If I have become arrogant and a braggart it is because it is how I have been shaped by those that insisted on telling me my best was never enough, my truths were untrue, and that I "had no reason to live".   I always knew that my best was good enough, my truths were infact true, and I have every reason in the world to live. I had something to prove, I proved it over and over and over, then no one believed me.

So no, I am not a liar.  I may not look like much, but this broken messed up body has seen a lot in its 36 years.  I will no longer tolerate those that can not see fit to give my truth a chance.

Walking Away for the Last Time

Yesterday was my last day at the school with the kiddos.  It was heart wrenching.  I had one kiddo hurl him self on me, sobbing, begging me not to leave.  Others drew frowney faces on my good bye card with the plea that I stay. 

It was a really hard, tear filled, afternoon.  I cried and cried with the kids. 


I know Im doing what is best for my hubby and I, but its so hard.  It angers me that in order to have health coverage, EVEN with the laws in place, I have to break 10 kids hearts and take a job that is outside my scope of education.  I have to walk away for the last time, from a career that I tried so hard to build back after my time in the fire service. 

I met the folks I will be working with and Im sure that I will have no problem at my new job getting along.  Everyone seemed to be really cool and seemed to be laid back.  I got good vibes there.

I'll never have another chance at teaching.  The "career" hopping appearance I have now will forever prevent me from ever even getting an interview.  (I know because changing careers once was enough to do that, twice is a death sentence as far as they are concerned) 

I have officially walked away from what I spent thousands of dollars and several years to train and educate for.  This would never have happened had I not gotten sick and lost my job and insurance.  I wouldn't have had to make this tough decision had we had access to affordable health care.  I could have stayed until there was a public school job, or just stayed and done what Im good at, what I trained for and what I love.

I made a huge sacrifice for what we needed.  My heart aches, and Im a little bitter about seeing those kiddos cry and cry because I had to leave. Please forgive this sad rant.  I will heal and the kiddos will too, but right now as I am sad about leaving. 

Im SO thankful, at the same time, that I will finally have insurance.  I just wish it hadn't been so hard to obtain, and so heartbreaking to leave.

Maybe I will really have a lot of time to spare at the new job.  They keep telling me I will.  And if I do, well I believe that it might be just what I need to perhaps write a book... I've been talking about writing a book forever, so maybe I can actually do that...


None the less, I am standing on the brim of a glass that I'm trying to see as half-full, trying not to fall in for I know not if I can swim in what ever lies between me and the bottom.