It's just like me to.....

...go a month and a half without writing except this is the first time it's happened since I started. I, through everything try to find humor in every situation but lately it's been hard. I, just this once will throw myself a pity party here. Invisible illness week has come and gone but for some reason I am hoping this blog will get my whining over with so I will find the humor again that has been so absent from my life.

I have pretty much isolated myself from alot of friends and family because of this "invisible" pain. So, maybe answering these questions will bring back that 50/50 Nyn that I have been looking for.

30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know

1. The illness I live with is: Chronic pain after having a rib removal from Thoracic Outlet syndrome. IP
2. I was diagnosed with it in the year:2006
3. But I had symptoms since: 1995
4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: Being proud of myself for living with this horrific pain instead of feeling shame because I have it.
5. Most people assume: That they could live with the pain I do and still hold a job and do things.
6. The hardest part about mornings are: Getting past the part where I wish I didn't wake up.
7. My favorite medical TV show is: Scrubs (see I still have some humor)
8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is: My computer since now I know that other people suffer in silence as well.
9. The hardest part about nights are: Wishing I was the old, fun me instead of just wanting to cry and go to bed.
10. Each day I take 6-8__ pills. (No comments, please)
11. Regarding alternative treatments I: have tried everything I have heard of and will continue to do so forever.
12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: Alot of times I wish for visible so I wouldn't have to feel shame when people look at me like nothing is wrong since I look fine.
13. Regarding working and career: Things become much less important when you are trying to just make it through a day in the least possible pain.
14. People would be surprised to know: How hard it is to get dressed and leave the house. They would also be surprised to know that I could cry all day if it was allowed.
15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: How nothing material seems important anymore.
16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: Live this long without commiting suicide. I am proud of myself for every day I make it through.
17. The commercials about my illness: OMG they make it seem like if you take any pain pill you will be able to function which is so absurd.
18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: wearing a bra and doing anything without thinking how bad it is going to hurt me and for how long.
19. It was really hard to have to give up: Helping out the family financially and having to rely on others.
20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: lol, trying to find anything that makes me feel better.
21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: Turn it down. It would be too hard to come back to.
22. My illness has taught me: That people are so judgemental and argue over the most mundane things.
23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is: "But you did it last year or last week". Every day is different with pain levels and none of them are good.
24. But I love it when people: My daughter always puts a pillow under my arm because she knows.
25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is: Steven Hawking.. "You can be physically disabled or mentally disabled but not both. People won't put up with it". It keeps me from losing my mind.
26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them: Just do what feels right to you and don't be pressured into trying to do to much.
27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: I have become much more philosophical and aware of the "big picture"
28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was: My husband and family have done way more than I could list.

I will keep the promise to myself to keep writing here.
Nyn

Dear Door to Door Salesmen...

It's time we talked. I am so tired of standing there with a towel on my head (because you ALWAYS come right after my shower) trying to figure out what the hell you are talking about because In my head I am trying to think of how to get you off my porch.

Window salespeople. Really? Today you offered me 20% off. It's the middle of Winter and I do NOT want my windows ripped out while it's snowing. Not even for 20% off.

Religion people. I have talked to God and were good. I'm not sure what kool-aid you wanted me to drink but I am positive that God didn't drag me to the porch so that I could read your pamphlet. He knows I hate the cold and would have come with a better approach.

Oh, but every once in awhile you catch me in a good mood like the day I was at my brother and sister in laws house by myself and you talked me into letting you in to show me how you could clean their stove. My brother is convinced you are coming back to steal their TV. PLUS, I forgot about the part where you could have been a mass murderer. You won't catch me off guard again. Unless you will clean my bathroom...

Then there are the teenagers who come after it snows to shovel for me. See, this is the reason I keep answering the door. I love the kids who are willing to put in some hard work for a couple bucks. These are the kids who will grow up to be great people because they are starting young. I just hope in 10 yrs they have moved away from the door to door aspect and aren't knocking on my door trying to sell me lawn fertilizer in February.

If only there were door to door Chocolate salesmen...If only
Nyn

I really need to start that "Bucket List"

So you know that whole "Well behaved women never make history" saying? Well, I am thinking of taking that to a whole new level... because of Bill Clinton.

No, not because of that whole blue dress incident, but the fact that he had two stents inserted into his heart arteries today. I have to tell you that Mr. However old he is, is in much better shape than me and his heart is giving out. I am screwed. Anything that hasn't been surgically removed from my 44 yr. old body was either fractured or broken when the semi hit me. I think it's time I start thinking about making the history books.

Let me see, I can no longer do anything athletic, so thats out. My cooking is at 5th grade level at best, so the Food channel isn't calling. I want to say I am a great Poker player, but...some people would differ.

Then there is criminal activity, but with that 50/50 factor that hovers over me, the chance of getting away with robbing a bank is minimal, plus I would never last in prison. I am too high maintenance and I need lots of pillows to sleep with.

While I am trying to figure out how I will make History before my ticker gives out, I will focus on the fact that I only live 2 blocks from the hospital, so thats a plus. But if I have to go there I am taking a fake drivers license belonging to Hillary Clinton so that I get the best possible care while I am there. I will make MK dress up like the Secret Service and demand that after they fix my heart... they give me LOTS of pillows.

Nyn

The thing about Fate...

...It's kinda hard to figure out and I've been thinking about it alot lately. Is something you did wrong at one time (or alot of times) determine your fate or can you change it?

Does anyone really go through life unscathed? After everything Tiger did for Golf has he locked in his fate because of his personal life? Or if someone mismanages money wrong when they are young are they destined to be poor? Does someone who has Chronic pain and spends all of their time trying to convince people that they really are in pain ever get any enjoyment out of life because they are exhausted worrying about how other people feel about them?

There are people who commit suicide because they are ashamed. And there's the people who blame everyone else and become bitter because they are ashamed and then there are the uplifting stories about people who have risen from the ashes and became better than they ever could have expected. What is it that makes one person decide that there is no hope for tomorrow and the person who can't quit tomorrow because they know what they have left in them? Have we not all been at the bottom?

I know I will never give up trying to grab the golden ring and believe me there are days I'd like to shove the ring up someone's .... because my body hurts to bad to move.

So Tiger and all of the other people who think that one thing or one period of times decides your fate. It doesn't. I write on this blog not knowing how much pain it will cause me tomorrow. I refuse to let my past determine my fate. I may not have changed golf and I may never be the CEO of a fortune 500 company but the great thing about tomorrow is....I will do the best I can and hope nothing but good things for all the people who are also trying!
Nyn
Ps.. Nothing personal Tiger, your just holding the headlines now :) Oh, and John Edwards...Well, I just am trying so hard to think of something nice to say about you and, well.. Maybe tomorrow.

The thing about blogging...

After you blog for awhile and belong to Blogher and E-How, is it just me or does everyone start to think about how everyone else is doing some days?
I have read that all human DNA is only separated by .10% which pretty much makes us all the same. Maybe that is why I get the feeling after reading other blogs that we are, well, friends.
I wonder every day how Anissa (Hope4Peyton.org) is doing, and wish her husband could update more. There is Ree (The pioneer woman) that I have to check on the ranch from time to time :) There is the gay fathers with their little adopted MaKenzie that I adore as well as the American woman working for the embassy in Sudan (Facts are strictly optional) that is hysterically funny and I always hope she is finding the wine she needs to function over there. Anyway there are more but the point is that we all write at Blogher for the same reason when it comes down to it. Just to know that our lives matter and our opinions and no matter how different we are or the paths we took to get here, each one of us brings something to the table that the rest of us are looking for.
Everyone who has emailed me and the friends I have made seem just as important as the friends I grew up with. You make me smile and appreciate how I get through my life the same way that I wish nothing but good for everyone's blog I read.
So while it is amazing how many strangers have come together to help Anissa and her family get through this I guess it isn't that hard to believe since we have, you know, about the same DNA.

Are we Complacent as a Nation? History says No

Look up complaceny in the dictionary and you will find.
1. A feeling of quiet security while unaware that danger is lurking.
2. Smug Security.
This Nation was built on change and growing and finding the unknown from the start. So it seems now with all the jobs being lost that people feel like it was a given that they would always be, well, complacent.
As an example we need look no further than the steel industry. Workers all accross this country lost what they felt would substain them for a lifetime and yet the likes of Pittsburgh and other great places pulled themselves together and created new ways of making money because thats what our minds were built for. Change and growth.
So when I watch the news today I see Haiti at their lowest, brought to their knees by nature. I also saw a woman who owned 3 car dealerships that Chrysler has closed causing hundreds of people to lose jobs. This is a terrible time for many of us but I think all we have to do is look at history to know that we will learn and rebuild and help each other in times of crisis.
There are stories of Paula Deen who changed her life in her mid forties. There are people who have lost everything only to invent something that has made them rich. Even stories of the ones who end up helping people after suffering a loss of their own. I think we all need to be reminded of these stories that uplift and remind us that there are many things left to accomplish.
I have had alot of money and I have had no money. I have had good health and now I cannot work but the one thing I have always had is hope that I never become so complacent that I stop trying.
Nyn

What Coffee Really Stands For

We all have this thing in common called coffee. We meet under the pretense of "Let's have a cup of coffee" or when we don't want an evening to end someone will suggest "grabbing a cup of coffee before we go home". I tend to think all of our great memories somehow revolve around that perfect cup.

I can remember being in my early teens and going to our next door neighbors with my mom. She would always have a pot on and we would sit for hours talking and I remember never wanting those evenings to end...Just one more cup?

I have my Grandmothers cup that she always had coffee in. I had to have that cup when she died just short of 100. It never fails to remind me of something she said when I look at that cup.

I am right now drinking out of the first coffee cup that my husband bought me. After 17 years so many things have come and gone or sit in a jewelry box but this cup is a constant in my everyday life. Makes me smile. When I visit somewhere that I don't want to forget I always buy a coffee cup ensuring the memory will never go away.

If you listen to people they can tell you where their best coffee experience was. There is just something mesmerizing about it. It is the one thing we have in common with people from all over the world, and I for one am thinking World Peace if we could all just sit down for...a cup of coffee.
Nyn
Ps...It's also "the best part of waking up"

I Need Cookie Rehab ASAP

Am I the only one having a Christmas cookie meltdown? For days I have been wondering around the kitchen snacking on things I wouldn't normally give a secong glance at. My evening coffee seems like it is missing something. Something round containing sugar and flour and possibly peanut butter with a kiss on top.

I finally realized my addiction tonight when I was really thinking of dipping an Andes mint into a jar a peanut butter (only chocolate I could find). I didn't dip. Then my son Adam came in and said "Why are there no cookies made?" and he isn't even a sweets guy but X-mas cookies have him in their clutches now as well.

I've decided I am going to make some tomorrow.Pop tarts just aren't doing the trick. I think the way to go here is weaning off, not going cold turkey. Yes, that totally makes sense, whew, I don't need rehab after all.
Nyn

Dear 2010....

Listen... no really, just focus on me Miss fancy pants 2010. I did the obligatory New Years Eve rituals. I ate pork and saurkraut. I toasted you at midnight and kissed my husband. I told my kids I loved them. I made resolutions and promised to be a better person and celebrate you for twelve whole months.
So maybe you didn't get the memo that this was to be a great year for me because in the first two weeks you have turned my 16 yr old from a sweet girl into the spawn of satan (thanks for that) and if that wasn't enough today you decided to have the cop pull me over (touche, nice one)and then after I crawled into bed for 3 hours, woke up feeling a tad better only to discover that you BROKE MY DRYER (now I am pissed).
IT's kind of like getting a new boss thinking things couldn't get worse and then finding out she was your nemisis in high school. BACK OFF 2010 because 2009 forgot to tell you a few things about me.
I have no in-between, none. I do the doormat thing for only so long and then I snap. So the gloves are off and your going to lose. I decided that as the cop had his lights on and I made him follow me to WaWa (same place 2009 made my pants fall to the ground) before I stopped because I needed a pit stop there anyway.
So send whatever you deem necessary because this year I am finding it funny and you can't ruffle these feathers. I just hope when my family sees me on the front page getting hauled off to jail they get alittle chuckle in the sign I am holding that says "BRING IT 2010....WHAT ELSE YOU GOT"
NYN

I would call it stalking

Probably a bad title since I am talking about my son Adam and I think he just calls it...fact checking.

Adam takes my 16yr old Caity to Starbucks, well, alot and from what I gather he is quite in love with the drive through girl. This has worked well for Caity as she has been getting alot of Frappacinos lately so she's not complaining but says his method of picking up girls needs work. Adam was all kinds of excited yesterday because he found her facebook page (stalker) and he wants to check her out before he will proceed. Then I started thinking about his friends and how they all interact with women and it's just pathetic but the girls do it to.

Awhile back MK and I had met Adam and his friends and their parents at a pub and as I looked around the table they were all texting and checking facebook on their phones and when they did look up it was to say that there wern't any available girls even though 25 cuties had walked by the table. Then I would watch the tables of girls and they were doing the same thing. If they all would have put down the I-phones and looked up there could have been some connections but these days you need to have a good group of friends and cute pics posted from cool parties and beach pics from last summer and then just maybe someone new will friend you. (that and if 10 of their friends say they can)

I would like to think that meeting total strangers was fun when I was dating but then the ones I could have weeded out early would have made life easier. Hmmm I wonder if by the time my daughter is in her early twenties maybe she will check a program to also see what her children would look like with someone on facebook before she...friends them?
Me personally, Mk just buys me a drink and tells me I am a cutie and I am going home with him. No facebook page needed.
Nyn
Ps.. The Starbucks girl would be a lucky one if she gets "friended" by my Adam :)

Strong women just get stronger

As I have been thinking about my personal goal for the new year, every scenario I conjure up requires strength. Lots of it. Whether it's the strength I will need when someone crashes into me while I am driving as I am a magnet for that, or dealing with parenting issues (give me strength) or those funny, want to stab myself, family issues (give me strength). I realized over the holidays that the older women in my life not only have it but share it without knowing it.
My mom has just lost 65 lbs and I walked in yesterday to the poster women for "Chico's". She had on jeans with heels, highlights in the hair and some kick ass jewelry. She was having a mango rum drink after cooking a New years day feast for everyone...she just keeps getting stronger.
We were at my mother in laws last week and celebrated her 80th birthday. Now before I get to the "strong" part I do need to mention that while cooking a ham for us she may have set the oven at 500 degrees when she meant to set the timer at 5:00, those pesky 5's. Anyway so she proceeds to tell us that she was going to get the Ab Rocket lounger because she NEEDS to work on those abs. OMG Joan, exactly what are you going to do with rock hard abs??? We decided we don't need to know we just need to keep checking on her to make sure she isn't stuck in it and can't get up...she just keeps getting stronger.
So me, Nyn, it's the new year and I am headed to the gym. I use the pool for exercise and to get stronger but mentally I need strength. Not to keep going to the gym but for when the 50/50 factor kicks in and some idiot slams into my car while I am driving there...strength to carry on and if I am correct....to look good doing it.
Happy New Year
Nyn