And God Laughs
I told God my plans and He laughed. So now I am living, laughing, and loving according to His Plans.

Notes from the Box Piles


I am officially moved into my new apartment that I am sharing with my mother, and the apartment is awesome. However, moving is perhaps one of the most frustrating and exhausting processes on earth. We have boxes stacked in every room in the apartment except the bathroom, and our goal is to have everything unpacked and put away and organized by Christmas. What is scary to think about is the fact that I could literally throw away every single box I have that is still packed, and other than missing my journals, I  would have every single thing I *need* and could replace anything else easily. Needless to say, as I unpack I am very carefully sorting through items and either donating or throwing away any items I have not used in the past 4-6 months. Possessions have never been a big deal for me, and I am driven in life by making memories and interacting with others, not with acquiring things. I am actually most happy when I have just the basics that I need and a few wants.
So when we moved into the apartment we apparently forgot to make some sacrificial offering to the toilet gods because on the second day the toilet made a strange sound and then proceeded to do a very realistic impersonation of Old Faithful. Water was not running over the edge, it was erupting from the toilet. Before I remembered the wall shut off valve it had flooded not just the bathroom but the entire hallway. Maintenance showed up 30 minutes after we called carrying nothing more than a plunger. Um, Dude, we're gonna need a bigger boat. An hour later, the toilet is precariously "fixed" and he has made an attempt at the flood with a wet dry vac and we go to bed with fans blowing in the hallway to dry the carpet. I am especially thankful that I choose to get carpet without padding to make it easier to maneuver my wheelchair because that makes this mess a lot less of an issue. Three days later I have prayed over the toilet and flushed it, and it is refilling when I hear a sound that I can only describe as the sound one would expect to hear if the bowels of the earth opened up and proceeded to suck down Niagra Falls as the toiled completely drained of water. Apparently somewhere along the six stories of pipe there was an obstruction, and that god awful sound was the sound of it breaking away. Either that or the toilet gods decided we had paid our dues and removed the curse. I still pray before I flush the toilet and try not to get too close to it unless necessary.
Amidst the chaos of moving I also had my follow up appointment for the Botox injections to determine how well the first round of injections had worked and plan for what the next round will target and such. It was a very short appointment, which frustrated me as I drove 90 minutes each way just to talk to the doctor for 5 minutes - no exam even. I am getting new braces made as my old ones never fit right and now totally do not fit right since I have achieved a more normal position and the ability to have my legs positioned and held in even more normal positions. This time I am getting KAFOs, or Knee Ankle Foot Orthotics, because when I stand and walk I lock all of my joints for stability. The problem with this is that I have joint hypermobility and to lock my knees I actually hyper-extend them which is causing pain and throwing me even further off balance. So the KAFOs will provide the locked knee support without allowing me to hyper extend my knees.
Right now I am temporarily set up with the internet running from the main phone line in the middle of the living room because the phone guy failed to install phone service in all of the rooms of the house when he came out, and the soonest they can come back out is Tuesday. So my internet access is still limited as it is a hassle to finagle it out here. Which is okay because I have not been feeling up to doing much more than working with my mom on a box or two a day and then resting. I don't know if I have some sort of infection or if the dysautonomia is just warning me that I have been pushing too hard for too long.
I will try to update from the box piles again soon, for all three people reading this LOL :)
2 comments:

1/3 checking-in.

Thanks for the update - although your tweets help me know you are still among us online.

Progress. Incremental but meaningful progress.

Hope you found a different orthotist, but I support the idea of KAFOs. Hugs, Barbara


random thoughts from me for you...
I saw a sign...
cute bunnies for sale...
Why can't I buy the ugly bunnies? or are the ugly bunnies free?
Who determines if the bunnies are cute or not?
yeah.... tooo many thoughts for one silly sign!
2/3 checking in and glad you and your mom are trudging... along gosh I hope that's a word? !


Job 8:21

"He will fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy."



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Wild Olive

Wild Olive

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Creative Victory

This is Me

I am a thirty year old enigma who has defied every expectation ever placed upon me and refused every definition created for me. My greatest passion in life is to make a difference in the lives of children with special needs and their families. As a special education teacher I broke all of the unwritten rules to make sure that my kids received the services they needed and had a right to receive. I have never been so proud to be reprimanded before in my life. Now, due to unpredictable twists in life, I am learning first hand what life is like when you rely upon a wheelchair for mobility. I am a medical puzzle with the pieces slowly being identified and put together, and my medical bills alone could fund a small nation. It takes a village to keep me alive. :) However, I am not defined by the genetic misspellings. I am a teacher, a daughter, an aunt, a friend, a dreamer, a reader, an amateur photographer, a writer, an advocate, a star gazer, a world changer. I am stubborn, situationally shy, quick to use humor and wit to make others laugh or cope with a situation, sarcastic, fiercely independent, giving, compassionate (sometimes to a fault), protective of those I love, defiant of arbitrary boundaries, perfectionistic, self conscious, self assured (yes you can be both!), articulate and occasionally dramatic. And that is just what I could fit in two sentences! :)

Who's On First, What's On Second, I Don't Know! (Third Base!!)*

Simple Vocabulary Definitions for those who may not speak fluent medical :)

Undiagnosed Progressive Neurological Disorder- This is the diagnosis that is believed to make everything else fit together. It explains my frequent infections, my muscle weakness and dystonia, my dysautonomia, my cardiac issues, my inability to regulate blood pressure, my dysphagia, my ataxia, my severe fatigue, my extreme nausea, my gastrointestinal dysmotility and IBS like syndrome, my unbelievable migraines, my sensory changes in my arms and legs, my vision issues, my hearing loss (so much for blaming medication), and so much more. Going back to infancy and childhood, this would explain the severe apnea, the significantly delayed motor skills, the reason why I could never keep up with my peers in physical activities, the neurogenic bladder, the malfunctioning thyroid, and my frequent illnesses and vomiting. This is the diagnosis now being used since the DNA testing for Mitochondrial Disease came back odd and I can not afford the expenses of a workup at the Mayo Clinic. We are treating symptomatically.

Pan-Dysautonomia- "Pan" means that it impacts many different systems of my body, "dysautonomia" is a failure of my autonomic nervous system or the part of my brain that does all of the automatic things that do not require conscious thought like telling your heart to beat, regulating your blood pressure, adjusting your body temperature, maintaining balance in space, digesting food, hunger and thirst, etc. It is believed that I have had this from birth based upon my history of symptoms, including severe life threatening apnea as an infant, but the cause remains elusive at this time

Dystonia- abnormal muscle tone and spasticity, including painful spasms, that primarily impacts my feet and lower legs and is now starting to be a problem in my back

Ataxia- difficulty maintaining balance and coordinating/executing movements

Dysphagia- difficulty swallowing due to any number of causes including muscle weakness and poor muscle coordination

Adipsia- the absence of a sense of thirst



Other Medical Issues- Lupus Anticoagulant (autoimmune disease that causes me to tend to form blood clots and has already caused two deep vein blood clots and one mild stroke), Migraines, unknown connective tissue disorder, abnormal gastric motility, allergies, history of v-tach and severe sinus tachycardia, changes to my echocardiagram that include leaking valves and a new murmur, low blood pressure, ataxia, untreated PFO (small hole in my heart that increases the risk of stroke), chronic lymphadema in my left arm, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, Narcolepsy/Idiopathic CNS Hypersomnolance (believed to be a result of the dysautonomia and my brain's inability to regulate the sleep/wake cycle), mild hearing loss, malformed optic nerves, polycystic ovarian syndrome, pernicious anemia, vitamin deficiencies


* Title comes from an old Abbot and Costello routine that I chose to memorize in 6th grade and absolutely love.

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