Faith, hope and love. These are the keys of life. So far I have stepped out in Faith to share Hope and Love with children living in unimaginable poverty through Compassion International and I have been richly rewarded. So far I have held to my faith that God will provide for me, and every need has been met. He somehow made it so that I have an extra month of my most expensive prescription, and this is a prescription that I can take half dose and still be safe so I have a 4 month supply. Loaves and fish. Almost all of my prescriptions have excess pills with about a month extra. The prescriptions that I do need are very reasonably priced, and I was able to cut the costs of two of them by calling other pharmacies because Target price matches. My doctor allowed me to call and request an antibiotic for a sinus infection without having to pay for an office visit and also agreed to switch a medicine due to side effects trusting me. Love has been poured out to me abundantly, and I have had amazing support. By taking my medication as prescribed and dealing with the sleepiness, I am obtaining results that make the dystonia tolerable. Faith, Hope, and Love.
I will write another post soon, after I send out letters to my Compassion kidlets, about other aspects of life but I wanted to get this update on here.

My COBRA insurance coverage ends on February 29 - as in Wednesday. I have been praying, my family has been praying, my friends have been praying, and quite possibly soon my sponsor children will be praying. I was notified today that my Hearing for Social Security is scheduled for May 21. While that beats 9-18 months, it sure is not the outcome I was praying for. I had so hoped and believed the judge would just look over the mountain of papers and make a (positive) decision. What is a hearing going to do? It is teleconferenced so the judge will not even see me in person so "the big show" will be shoulders and chest in a wheelchair. I can do a 360 for full effect if that makes him happy. I guess by May I have to shave my legs so I can wear a skirt because I don't think Federal judges are down with blue jeans. My other hope of Medicaid is still closed due to lack of funding. This is Michigan. We probably will not have funding again for a few decades. Stupid auto industry, who needs a car anyway? Actually, that is the problem. So now I am stepping out in complete blind faith that God will provide for my every single need as He promises in the Bible. It may not be how I expected (oh it most certainly is not how I expected) and it will be in His perfect time (which seems to not be synchronized to my watch) but He will provide for me. I wish I could say how, but I have no clue. I wish I could say when, but my calendar is full of empty boxes. All I know is that it will happen and I choose to have faith in the one who created me and has promised to never fail me. I wonder if wheeling over to Canada to buy my prescriptions is a part of His plan? ;)

What happened to my head?
    a) The aliens returned and placed a probe inside
    b) The barber cur it a little too close on top
    c) I am a star in a local reenactment of a great battle in which the cripple always gets shot first
     d) I am having a 72 hour AEEG to try and catch my brain hiccups to figure out if they are seizures

When asked by an annoying woman in the elevator who just stared at me and asked "Oh My God What Happened to You?" I was tempted to go with A. Instead until noon on Thursday I am wired for sound. I wonder if I can tweak these things to get a decent radio station since we live in the last thing to pass as a city before God Forsaken nowheresville. We hit the event button twice, so hopefully we caught something already. Although it would be my luck to wear this darn thing for 3 long days and have a big episode as we are taking the electrodes off. I loved the instuctions that came with the hook up - don't shower while having 28 electrodes attached to you and a battery box recording them. Um, duh! If it itches (if? if? it started itching before she was done putting the leads on!) don't scratch. Right, cause in my sleep I can control that. That is why for sleeping purposes I get to add a snug knit winter hat over top of the ensemble. Do not stick anything sharp under the bandage to scratch your head. No chewing gum because it makes a nifty pattern on the EEG.
The one direction that has me a little perplexed is the fact that I am not supposed to use my cell phone except on speaker phone or text. Apparently the phones can interphere with the wires and electricity. Now I thought cell phones and their electromagnatism were deemed safe, yet I am being told not to put them near my head because they will scramble my brain's electric signals. I may rethink how often I use my cell phone!
The ditz who hooked me up yesterday had a philosophy that tighter was better for wrapping my head. I have deep red marks under my chin from where she put the chin straps. However, like a winter hat that is a size or two too small the bandage slowly crept upward trying to pop off my head. The suggestion from their office of sticking a nylon over it did not seem like a good idea as I have no bank robberies scheduled this week, so my poor mom had the job of carefully removing what was still on my head and then rewrapping the whole thing. Her chin straps are not gagging me so right there is a huge improvement. All the leads are covered and attached, and I have my trusty hat.
Thursday morning my mom has a DR appointment at the same office building where I need to go get fasting labwork done, so I may venture out in my new look to get labs done and then go out for breakfast. Breakfast is the easiest meal to find a vegetarian option in most restaurants. For fun I could decorate my head with stickers, because at this point dignity is a mute point. Thursday afternoon is dedicated to removing the leads (I have a solution to remove the adhesive that is holding them in place) and then washing my hair 3-4 times to get out all of the sticky conductive goop. Thank God I cut off the 11 inches when I did to donate!! I will be using the cheap shampoo to wash that many times and not my fancy organic expensive shampoo.
Until then I am wired for sound and my head is nice and warm!!

It is incredible the difference in my severe, constant, unrelenting nausea since I became vegetarian and nearly vegan (I love honey butter on bagels and there is chocolate). I used to have to take an anti-nausea pill, an acid control pill, and a pill to empty the contents of my stomach rapidly anytime I ate anything. Now I take them as needed. I can go days without needing anything for nausea except for a pill at bedtime. I am actually getting protein into my system again, and vitamins that I was seriously deficient in because I was existing on so little. However, discovering that the key was to eliminate all animal proteins was not made by any doctor. The doctors kept saying that it might be food allergies, or all neurological, or the result of Gollum (the microadenoma on my pituitary gland), or medication effects, or to just wait 3 months and come back (my favorite - lets do nothing and see if anything changes!). I put the pieces together and it seems that for some reason my body can no longer tolerate or process animal proteins. I have gone vegetarian once before, for a summer, and I have been vegetarian long enough now that once again meat actually smells repulsive. I have no moral issue with you eating it, and I am not out to buy vegan faux leather costs more than the real thing shoes any time soon, but I will stick to my meatless barbque ribs. Thank God that vegetarian comes prepackaged and microwaveable because when I developed the issues with animal proteins I did not simultaneously develop the ability to cook. I look at the raw Tofu and other weirdly named vegetarian proteins like Quean (making things up here) and Waegan and laugh because I have no idea how you take that stuff in the package and make it edible. I then move over to the vegetarian chicken breasts marinading in sweet and sour sauce that you microwave for three minutes before eating and am back in my territory. I do have one question though. If we never established what part of a chicken was the nugget, what exactly is a vegetarian chicken nugget made from?

I grew up where you lined your boots up outside the classroom in elementary school and somehow never came home with the same pair. Elementary schools had sleds as playground equipment. I could playoutside for hours in the snow. The worst part of winter and playing outside was always the bundling process, especially when you had a grandparent or parent who thought that anything not covered by at least two layers would fall off. And it would never fail, the moment the last snap was done and the scarf tied you suddenly and inexplicably had to go to the bathroom even if you just went 5 minutes prior.
So I know cold and I know bundling. These skills have come in handy in what I have come to think of as Survivor Woman, Bedroom of Death. We live in an older apartment building that is heated by a boiler system, and my bedroom is as far away from the boiler as you can possibly get. The vents in the living room are closed and it is still warm while my bedroom could serve as cold storage. I half expect one morning to wake up to a few Penguins from the local zoo just hanging out. So each night the challenge is to dress in enough layers to make it through the night without waking up violently shivering and aching from the cold. Layer one usually consists of something like thermal pants, a long sleeve t shirt, and socks. Layer two is then fleece pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. Gloves are kept next to the bedside and a hat has been known to make its way into the ensemble. By the time I am done I look like the kid brother from A Christmas Story "I Can't Put My Arms Down". I am also not ashamed of busting out the footie pajamas and even wearing a layer under those.
Hopefully my bundling days will soon come to an end as I finally broke down and ordered an electric blanket. I used to have an electric mattress pad which was wonderful but it was broken in one of my moves, and they are more expensive than the blankets. I just hate spending money on something I will only use for a few months out of the year. Then again, hypothermia sucks.