At the very beginning, there was Ratopia. Then, there's ratology. In ratology, we observe whether psychotic and neurotic people could amount to something. Then came the spinal disc herniation and impingement, bringing forth the stage of physical disability. Could someone like me go anywhere or amount to anything is the question. After the official ending of the second psychotic episode lasted for five years, I am ready to move on to the next phase of Ratology- as the solutions unfold.
When going through one posting, I came across this word struggle...
Although many of them postings could be accounted for as some kind of struggling, I decided to take a look at how many times the word "struggle" and "struggling" occurred in my 1500+ postings, ended with me struggled only 42 (+ this one) postings, suffered and its variations in 44 (+this time) postings, both struggled and suffered in 6 (+this one) postings... in a few contexts... including contexts referring to the others...
Didn't struggle and/or suffer too much, I guess? 8-O lol
Though, gotta say, when rereading them writings here, at times, I did get into peeling onion kinda dasein moments.. 8-X
This past two months or so, every night, I have to fight this biggest struggle in my life... cutting pills (8-O lol)
The task of cutting a 50 mg pill into four is a daunting one...
Last night, I was trying to cut one whole pill into half and cut the other half into half...
Ended up, I must have cut the pill into the portion of 1:3 or so....
This has been frustrating to me because size matters...
Unfortunately, after all the pharmacies I visited in Taipei, I was about to come to the conclusion that... although everything is made in Taiwan, this is the only pill-cutting available in Taiwan... One day, I went with my parents to visit their friends... only to find them also having the same pill cutter at home... 8-O lol
I was so desperate that I was gonna tell people to mail me my pill-cutter in New York these past two days.
Then, early today, I went out searching for 洋菜, en route, I found this other pharmacy... the only pharmacy with more than the blue kind of pill cutter.
What is even better... I tested it out and cut a pill right after I got home... Though it would never be a perfect qua... really worked much better than the blue one.
If there is anything that makes this trip of mine drastically different from any other trips I have done so far... it would be... avoiding stairs... And, as a result, taking detours....
Sometimes, such inconveviences do have their upside... for example, otherwise, I would not have the opportunity to release the lotus lantern the other day.... (and this is sort of like what you call... looking at the bright side of life... 8-O 8-X)
In terms of public transportation...
I love taking buses... as opposed to taking subway/metro....
Two reasons...
Although it is much faster, most of the times, to take subway, you get to see more of the city with buses.... slow and stop.... in New York, in Taipei, in Shanghai and in Seoul.... and even in airports... 8-O
With the buses, there are, most of the time, far fewer stairs you have to manage....
All of these cities I mentioned above have disability access....
However, the design is universally stupid at times.... leading me to the conclusion that... either them people doing the designs must not be physically disabled or this world is designed not for people with physical disability.... For instance, them escalators... a lot of cities have only escalators going up but not going down.... a real killer for people with knee problems...
In addition, there seems to be an assumption that all people with disability uses wheelchair... and only people in wheelchair could be disabled?!
I am not gonna make you believe that I can not do stairs at all....
I can force myself to do a few stairs but I have to do it slow... one stairs at a time... if necessary. However, the revenge of my body is very scary... if it feels that I overdo it....
The New York subway system just celebrated its 100th anniversary not too many years ago... I can understand why there are relatively fewer disability access... This is part of the reason why I used to use buses to go places....
However, with them newer subway systems in Taipei, Shanghai and, perhaps, Seoul.... I have a problem with disability inaccess kind of design...
For these cities, you might be able to find elevators to go down to the metro station in case all elevators you find only go up... except for... there is no guarantee that the elevators could be found.....
Worst of all, after all the detours you have taken, circling around like a dog chasing its tail, when you find that elevator of you life... it might be out of order.... and... you have to restart your search... all over again... Sometimes, you might as well walk to the next subway station.
At times, you come across situations within which... just when you are praising to yourself... "How wonderful! There are escalators going both up and down!" You find yourself in front of them stairs... and.. many many stairs... This is especially traumatizing on days when your body is in the piece-of-crap shape.... 8-O lol
The second day I got to Seoul, I was shipped me out to explore.... Seoul.
I decided to go to Seoul Station because something told me that it is where I could find the tourist information booth to get a tourist map...
Seoul Subway Route Map
All that I had... a Subway map in Korean, a language I had no idea about, and the only thing I knew... when I get back, I have to get off at the Sunae station and I have to transfer from the yellow line to the orange line at the Suseo station.
Arriving at the Suseo station, I saw escalators and I was overjoyed... So I followed the sign trying to get to the orange line... except for... at some point... I found myself circling around as if I walked into... 鬼打牆....
"Where is the elevator? There is the sign saying this is how I get to disability access... but how come all I see are the stairs?"
Seoul Subway Wheelchair disability access
So I spent the next 5-10 minutes looking until I came to the conclusion... the devise shown in the following picture is THE disability access... and there was no other disability access...
Ended up, there are many of these kind of disability access all over town...
Since I spoke no word of Korean and many Korean don't speak English, provided I am not on wheelchair, I had never used this... wouldn't be difficult to explain to the station worker my condition anyways...
So, I climbed up... one step at a time... like everyone else... I guess.... 8-O lol sigh...
While trying to drag my big fat butts up them stairs, the thought that I might have to climb all those stairs for the next few days started to form a nightmare... one as scary as the nightmare on Elm street...
"It can't be... that's gotta be a different way around..."
Ended up, since one could also transfer between the yellow and the orange line in Dogok, after I eventually got to the orange line, I got off at Dogok.... in search of more accessible disability access... It took me a whole lot of sign following and walking around and around... till... voila... I finally found it... the escalators of my dream... which run both up and down.... (speaking of... I have a dream.... 8-O lol)
It was not until a bit later did I realize that... inside of each every station, there is a map outlining the blueprint of the station... It shows you where you are, where the stairs, escalators and elevators are... sometimes even toilets... The only problem I had was... this map is only available when you are inside of the station but not on the ground level.
Subway station Map
I find this map extremely useful. The only recommendation I have is to make it available is to also make this map available at the ground level entrance. This is so that people with disability knows what to expect once they set off with their stair climbing mission whether going up or not.
In addition, one scary thing about them stairs towards the metro is that, first, they are huge stairs, second, the subway could be as deep as something like 6 floors below the ground level, and, at some locations, the exits/entrances are not connected. As a result, if you enter the station through an entrance without disability access, you are doomed....
One night, due to circumstances, I took the "non-disability-accessible" entrance after a long day... The problem was... there were only two options... Keeping going down or try to see whether I could walk back up.... By the time I got to the subway, my body was already in the kind of shape I was when I just got injured. I was so in pain and I could barely move. You see, if the station map was available, this could have been avoided...
Since I started feeling something was coming down the second day, sometimes I wonder whether my sickness later might have something to do with the fact that the entire body, from neck down, was inflamed. If I knew for sure that the elevator going down was only a block away... I might not have to go through my entire Shanghai trip later sick like a dog.... Just an hypothesis, though....
Since I was such a determined traveler and since I did not have much more time in Korea, despite the severe pain and physical condition, I was out and about again the day after partially because I had totally ran out of Korean currency and needed to go into town to exchange more money... Though I moved even slower and with a cane. I kept on moving forward.... 8-O lol
Somewhere over the Internet, I learned that the "black market" kinda money exchange places in Ming-dong area give you the best deal. Since I hadn't had the chance to check out Ming-dong (明洞), I decided to go to there that day....
When I got off from the dark blue line at the Ming-dong station, I went to check out the station map to see which direction might have disability access. Unfortunately, I did not find any sign of elevators or escalators going to the ground level.
Without hesitation, I hopped onto the next train to get off at Nam Dae Mun (南大門), thinking... that... what is the likelihood that they would haveno disability access to the ground two stations in a roll...
So I took the escalator all the way up and I exited the subway gate. After I circled around like a doggie for a while, I came up with the conclusion that... oops.... on a day when I could hardly walk on flat land, I landed on a station without any disability access to the ground level.
I went to speak with this ticket agent, who told me that... "This is an old station. No. We don't have elevators going to the ground level. However, it is not too far. Only one floor."
I looked up... and pondered to myself...
"Should I get back and take the subway all the way to the next stop Seoul Station or should I try to climb up since I am already in a piece of shit kind of state anyways?"
Well, following the rationale that I was already in pain and already in the piece of shit state, I decided to start bringing myself up with both arms and, of course, both legs... one step at a time... painfully...
Many subways must have come and go... because I can't quite tell you how many bunches of people had past me by...
Some look at me with curiously...
Others wanted to offer help except for... I was not even sure how they could help me.
At some point, the ticket agent appeared next to me... and I wonder whether it was because some passersby might have told him about the apparent struggle of this strange creature....
"I didn't know that the stairs are so difficult for you! Let me help you!!"
Before I could respond, I found him pushing me up from the bottom up... all that I had to do was to move my legs up... It felt as if we flew all the way up them stairs.... In no time, we were up on the ground level inside of the Nam Dae Mun Market.
I thanked him, thanked him and I could not have thanked him enough.
To this day, when I thought of that ticket agent and the strange scenario, I remain to be thankful and will always be.
After all these time, to be honest, I don't even recall what it might have felt like when I could do stairs with so much ease.... until that day.
At one of the entrance of Nam Dai Mun Market, I thanked this life-saver of mine, I rested my body a bit. And, I kept walking on... backwards to Ming-dong after the interesting detour.
Isn't life funny? You can run but you can't hide. I took a deliberate effort to get off at a different subway station. Yet, them stairs..... I still can not escape.
It sort of reminds me of that story.... This servant saw death in the market, with a strange look on his face. The servant went home and asked the master for one of the fastest horse so that he could go as far as he could to avoid death. Later that day, the master bumped into death and complained...
"Why did you do that to my servant?"
Death replied with something like... "I was just surprised to see him here because I shall catch him tonight in the far-away land!!!"
At the same time, shall I have not taken the detour to Nam Dae Mun, I would not have had the chance to encounter that wonderful man and the experiences of flying up to the ground! 8-O lol
I did not really get to take the local buses in Korea this time.... mostly having to do with the fact that I don't know the language and the city. One of my greatest regrets, I guess, in my trip to Korea.
In Shanghai, it was much easier for me to learn to use the bus system... mostly having to do with the fact that.... though I am not very good with simplified Chinese and I also don't know the city, at least, I am half-literate... and it makes it much easier for me to navigate all around town.
Another reason why I decided to take it to busing is that...
Although there surely are elevators available to go down to the subway stations, the apparently visible elevators are not really all that easily accessible.
The day I got to Shanghai, I transfered to the subway after getting off the maglev. After asking around, the officers at the security check told me that I would need to ask one of the transit people to take me down to the elevator because these elevators were locked.
I had to swipe the card at the entrance first before going back out to take the elevator.
I had thought it was because that was a special station.... because that's where people taking maglev would get off...
When I went out another day, I asked some volunteers whether there are elevators available because I have physical disability and I have problems with stairs.
While one of the ladies told me... "No," this guy from a distance somehow overheard our conversation and replied...
"Yes. You see that elevator over there... that is the elevator going down to the subway."
So, happily, I got to the elevator, I pressed the down button and waited for the elevator to arrive like a good girl.... under the Shanghai heat...
I waited a bit and a little longer but did not really hear any movement...
This is when I saw this red button.... Apparently, you have to press the red button to contact the workers of the station.
After pressing the button, someone spoke to me over the speaker phone.
"Hi, there, sorry... I have problems with stairs and need to use the elevator."
"Wait a minute and someone will come and get you." So the person replied.
Someone eventually came up with the elevator.
Inside of the elevator, I asked the lady who came to get me... "Do I need to trouble someone to come to get me every time?"
Apparently... yes...
Since I am very vain and I don't really like to trouble others because I am "handicapped."
From that day on, I decided to take it to the bus instead...
Well, I might have gotten lost a time or two... essentially... thinking I was walking north... ended up I was walking towards the west.... but, by the time I left Shanghai, I was already able to get to specific destinations by bus.
One of my proudest achievement this trip, I guess..... 8-O lol
Well, if the purpose of locking the elevators down is to deter people from using elevators, I guess... the purpose is served.
At the same time, how on earth would could one spend all these times and using all these words talking about subway elevators/escalators? On a second thought... well... at least I am not talking about the disability access to toilets, right? Or... maybe I should consider it..... 8-O lol
One thing differs this trip from my previous trips is that....
I spent a whole lot of time looking for disability access... escalator, elevator, or taking detour... 8-O lol
One day, I was stuck at a subway station in Seoul because there was no elevator going to the ground... The gentleman working at the booth found out I was having so much problem bringing myself up them stairs, he graciously pushed me all the way up through all those stairs till I was up to the ground...
I was and remain extremely thankful to him because, otherwise, I might be struggling to get up till the day break next day.... 8-O
At the same time... a different definition of getting a lift... I guess... 8-O lol
Today, I read that time magazine has listed Farmville, a game I have been playing on facebook, as one of the 50 worst invention.
Interestingly, last night, I was pondering to myself about this thing I would call... "Virtual generation atypical antipsychotic medication"... or facebook games such as Farmville.
Cafe World
Or other online games alike.... that are...absolutely brainless, not all that exciting and involves this mechanism called click till you die... 8-O lol
I don't know what other people get from playing these games...
One thing I do know is that...
The what would otherwise be considered as boring tasks: cooking them dishes in Cafe World, growing crops in Farmville, collecting bonus/rewards through news feeds, sending and receiving gifts to facebook friends etc... definitely helps to slow and calm me down....
And, I thought, over a month now on 25 mg Seroquel only, my head somehow kept on getting clearer and clearer... In addition, after an entire year of struggling, now I finally could really read. I now also feel more like I am in this world... (though... no doubt, I am still psychotic and my body could do things as abnormal as could be, which I have become accustomed to after these past two years...)
Maybe... part of it is the contribution of the "virtual generation atypical antipsychotic medication"? 8-O
How does it work? I am not even gonna further entertain it since it defeats the purpose of having total concentration in brainlessness. 8-O lol
Does it really work? How is it even my business anyway since my business is to find ways to live and..... especially when different things work for different people and the effects might even vary within the same person?
It is some time and the duration of time for some significant benchmark in my life.
It took me 3 years to get my junior and senior high school diploma.
I went to Taiwan university for 3 years. Afterwards, I spent 3, in retrospective, interesting time in Vancouver, BC.
The most haunted 3 years in my life so far... would be the last 3 years minus 2...
I have not looked back for the longest time since, I guess, I always knew that, when the time comes, I will look back. Before that, let me keep going while trying my best to smell the roses along the way.
Sort of like how the song went... "人說這人生 海海海海路好行 不通回頭望 望著會茫"... You might get too dizzy when looking back...
Today is the day for me to look back after paying St. John the Divine a visit earlier in the afternoon.
Somewhere in the afternoon of June 19th, 2007, I was in a meeting, eating a piece of raisin bran cookie. The chair collapsed into one piece right underneath me.
The breaking point that set off a journey-- continuing-- into total physical disability and eventually mental disability with pains, struggles and sufferings as the collateral damages.
After I got home that night, my mama was really upset...
"Thank God it was me who took the fall. Not anyone else at the meeting."
Gotta be Percocet talking... or my sheer ignorance about what is yet to unfold...
In retrospective, if the fall would have taken the same amount of toll on anyone else, I should have let someone else from outside of the college to take the fall so that they can get both worker's compensation and sue someone's behind... which I am not going to name, for negligence. 8-O lol sigh
A toast to the past and treat the not so easy past you would like to let go as a really bad hangover.... 8-O Nothing really to be proud of but that I know... bad hangovers... 8-O lol 8-X
So... 以茶代酒... I raise my cup of chamomile and lavender tea for a toast to a past I am forgoing.... especially the discard-able part of the past 3 years... the pains, suffering and struggles, which I am, maybe, finally, acknowledging... not to mention the cold air, esophagus spasm, the running a train station in my head and all other mental and physical conditions.
I am done suffering.... so suffering... go away.. go away... bad bad bad... go away... 8-O
My life from now on has to be simply joyful and happy since I think I am very much done with my quota. 8-O lol
God bless me, my house, all my family and all my lotteries. 8-O lol
For ordinary people, disability is an abstract concept. A concept is something that comes into your head and goes away when out of sight, out of mind.
For people living with non-progressive disability, disability is a way of life that comes with a whole bundle of packages.
In addition, even you are disabled in your own way, sometimes your understanding of others could only go so far because... I can only draw references about your plight from my own experiences. The experiences I have no idea about which I have been taught to be awful... all that I could do is to assign an empty awful tag and act accordingly. For instance, I don't know what is RSD but since the lady seems to suffer a lot based on her report, it's gotta be awful. However, this void tag and response could only go so far because, in split second, the label itself turn void and you forget what the label might entail. At the same time, when she started to talk about pain and mobility issues... that I can connect with and now there comes a more meaningful sense of awfulness.
Also, after a certain point and million a time, you stop trying to explain because all starts to sound like simply an excuse to yourself.
The adjustment to disability itself is a process developing along with the actions and reactions in time and the context provided.
A common theme emerging.... from comparisons between incidence and indicators to indicators
Can't quite name the core yet though all others seem to interlinked to the core.
Yet, I have the feeling... almost time to see the regression line... if you know what I mean...
At the same time, what would be the implication of measurement and evaluation here? A gateway towards compassion? (A category might or might not link to the core.. pondering)
Another interesting thought... if I have so much problems doing thing as a result of my problems, why don't I simply stop trying? (I didn't just think of that... 8-O lol)
A final note about my postings
Again, 99% of the times I have no idea what the heck it is in my head and that is coming out of my mouth, since I have been trained to not give a rat's ass about the products of my existence, my suggestion would be for readers to not quite care about my blah blah blah for fear of "the shining" effect. 8-O lol 8-X
Sort of like what they say about emerging and forcing...
Also kinda like the constant updating process of this post... what exactly are my thoughts trying to convey? What do I care if not how could I care? For... in time, it shall emerge... I guess? 8-O
What would be interesting to see though is... if theory is a process... what's your theorizing process?
During the procedure.... I started feeling pain on my knees and other parts of the body...
At certain point, it felt as if the cells all over the body were about to explode and extremely uncomfortable...
In any case, the scan was done, I got my films and walked out of the clinic....
Again, both my knees and body were not happy and I limped around like a big bad bug.... one step at a time... tried to move forward....
At the earlier part of the day and later part of the afternoon, the problem was primarily concerning movements with pains manageable...
At some point and even later in the afternoon, I started feeling the nerve pain to grow....
It started as the sparkles along your spine...
You feel it...
You cope with it...
In no time, you realise that the pain has taken its own life and taken a toll on you.... locked down all capacities sparing you one and only one task to perform...
Thereafter, I realised that this was actually very much similar to how the pain had emerged the day of my accident on June 2007...
Despite the fact that I hate taking pain meds, I had to ask for pain killers to get some relief from it.
They say that it is impossible to get pain during or after MRI scans....
They say that the pain you get might have something to do with your being anxious or being claustrophobic except for the majority part of my body was on the outside and only knees in the cylinder...
They say there ain't no scientific reasons about it.... what occurs again and again to me...
I gladly accept their opinion except for... as I was struggling to get to the office after the scan.... I can't help asking this question again and again....
I am dragging my body trying to move forward...
I do need to stop every other steps...
I am really here observing what is going on with my body and I assume other people could see it as well....
I am in this state and I am "being here"... Yet, they say there ain't no reason such shall occur.... thus, it ain't possible for such state to exist.... thus... I can't be here?! (OMG... So based on this reasoning... I exist not.... 8-O lol sigh)
Yet, there ain't no scientific explanation to the state I am in....
Scientific minded experts.... how could it be so?
Can somebody tell me? How could it be so?
I will work on recovery again and I possibly will use my cane for tomorrow...
Yet, all that I have to go through.... unfounded, unscientific and unexplainable... How could it be so?
In any case, in case you are another confused soul not understanding why you experience intensified pain and disability.... and, in case, you have tried all your might to figure out whether there exist someone else on this planet with similar experiences....
Like how the song goes as well as the curious dasein it tries to describe... I can't tell you why....
I can only tell you.... you are not alone.... that's why there are things called outlier analysis, I guess.... 8-O lol sigh
The good thing about deadlines is that it forces you to get things done.
I would have loved to get a better work done on the proposal I just finished... but, in a state incomprehensible to myself, in the process of going in and out of dasein moments, and, in a condition I consider as plausibly still too well drugged that the motivation thing is hardly any place to find.... and the lacking sense of urgency in life....
Whatever it is...
Miraculously... I just sent out the absolutely perfectly flawful study proposal.... to the teacher...
I have no idea how it was done...
It feels as if the head gets a command somehow and started executing the task called typing...
And, now... the system resets... nothing in the head...
Or, maybe, even in the moments of typing, there was this feeling of nothing much in the head as well... Speaking of da Goddess of language and the fountain of speech... 8-O lol
I have the idea that it is not really the quality I would like it to be.... because it could be better and, perhaps, it could always be better... 8-O 8-X
Then, I thought of what they say about a dissertation... you can't have a perfect dissertation anyways otherwise what are you and the rest of the academics gonna do with their time? The best dissertation is the one that is done even though, afterwards, someone like me might be quite confused why it was even done....
And, I thought of how I felt when I struggled to get the homework for the law class out... when I could not read and could not think...
And... the one thing I find comfort in... Dweck's theory... again... the effort... including the attempt you have to put forth to make an effort when that attempt itself is big.... 8-O lol sigh
Although I have mostly forgotten what he wrote exactly in his books.... one thing I remember.... so much spoken although nothing much seemed to have happened...
In addition, I do recall the struggle between his maid and the... chicken?
Someday you feel tired... you wonder whether you could make it through...
And, at that point, you hear this song playing in your head... repeatedly....
And, you say to yourself... Let me go out to face the world.... and get some smiles....
Then, you come out of the dasein moment... the tragic... the struggle... the whole world closing in... and the blah blah blah....
And, you ponder... through what?
When I see you smile
Sometimes I wonder How I'd ever make it through, Through this world without having you I just wouldn't have a clue
'Cause sometimes it seems Like this world's closing in on me, And there's no way of breaking free And then I see you reach for me
Sometimes I wanna give up I wanna give in, I wanna quit the fight And then I see you, baby And everything's alright, everything's alright
When I see you smile I can face the world, oh oh, you know I can do anything When I see you smile I see a ray of light, oh oh, I see it shining right through the rain When I see you smile Oh yeah, baby when I see you smile at me
Baby there's nothing in this world that could ever do What a touch of your hand can do It's like nothing that I ever knew
And when the rain is falling I don't feel it, 'cause you're here with me now And one look at you baby Is all I'll ever need, you're all I'll ever need
Chorus
Sometimes I wanna give up I wanna give in, I wanna quit the fight And then I see you baby And everything's alright, everything's alright
Although I have no idea whether this is going to be the last September 11 that I live in New York, I still remember the shocks, sadness and many other sentiments and experiences I had on September 11th as a New Yorker...
So I got home, after the whole day's trip into pain and more frantic pain, I stopped a bit to do a bit more of my exercises while watching with mama on NY 1 a program about September 11th... and the pain and more pain associated with it... especially the pain of the survived...
An alternative hypothesis to explain the unexplainable intensity of pain.....
What it be like... pain and pain?
Anyways... I have given up pretending that I am normal...
Revisiting that not so distant part of the past, you have to ask yourself.... Since we all struggle in our capacities, what could be more important than life itself?
I don't live in a vacuum--- of course, money matters.
Although one of my childhood dream was to own a share of Berkshire A, today, I sold my sole share of Berkshire B to cover my expenses.
It took a lot of processing time for me to hit the sell button.
You see, when the market is all rosy and seems to be going upwards, you would like to keep it longer to see it rise along with the wave of the rising tend.
When the market is down and like many others struggling to rise from the low end, you don't want to sell it because you know that historically.... the current price is not at the peak point.
There will never a good point to sell it.
Yet, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.
After I hit that sell button, all competing rationales dissolved because it was a point when arguments turn nonsensical.
This might sound as if the processing time involves only the time approaching the sale...
Yet, in reality, it took months if not years for me... including them days and nights of either having too many or close to no thoughts.... to gracefully accepting that "hitting point."
Consider the dealing of the issue about whether the permanent damages to my knees might be compensated or not as part of the preparation or vice versa...
In either case, although it takes work, I don't really know what the work entails....
For either case, I am gradually learn to cling to one principle...
Getting all upset is harmful to my health and stupid, especially if these are things I can get upset not about....
What you have. You have.
What you are supposed to let go. Let go.
Easy to say then done especially when I have no inkling what the hell it means to let go. 8-O
So says the Chinese... preparing for the rainy days.... consider it is raining now and thank God, I guess, other than some minor inconveniences... it ain't feeling quite that bad... 8-O lol
And, what is wrong about selling investment to cover tuition as well as room and board? I think it might have something to do with the sin called pride.
(I think this might be another one of those posting that will give me the.... "How did I get here?" kind of feeling tomorrow morning....)
Most of my thoughts seem really meaningless to me especially in the face of life and death as well as the knowing that there are so many people out there struggling to live--- though I won't really say that there ain't no struggling thing in my department.
So I thought...
If I have a choice-- a choice allow me to decide whether to invest all my delusional moments into love or fear, I would choose love.
Of course, such is a non-sensical thought since there ain't no nothing called choosing or customise your own delusions even if a consumer society as such. 8-O lol sigh
I spent a majority of today trying to defrost the freezer with my mom....
Finally, after a whole lot of struggle with the glacier, we were able to get all them ice out and clear up a whole lot of space for the storage of food.
After I got the last chunk of ice out, I happily announced to my mom...
"Never done so much housework in my life... Now I can go get married..."
Mama responded...
"Absolutely true that you have never done so much housework in your entire life.... and you were already marriable the day you learn to cook beef with the oven."
(This writing is cross-posted in my other blog Disability in Ratology.)
Since I am still catching up with my literature review about disability and so on, I yet have to write up my notes for some of them articles I have read...
In the meanwhile, I think I am to post the following two links...
I came across this discussion topic on the website of spark people titled "All in you head."
Interesting enough, it does give me such a sense of relief to be reading through my own experiences in someone else's words. It is because it does give you the feeling that I am not along in this reiterative process of pondering whether all the pains and difficulties in mobility are but psychogenetic and root in nothing more then the tofu in my airhead.... 8-O lol
The process of sharing helps the reloading or reflection on myself.
The reactions from the others give me a sense of hope-- the wishful thinking that, even though I am struggling to find meaning about the same-old-same-old minor inconvineinces I have encounted so far, perhaps, the words could somhow be useful for someone else....
Another link I recently discovered was the invisible disability advocate, with the main purpose to educate people about the paradox of how people could look good but not feel so hot.
The irony I see in my recent engagement with online support group is that... when I first started with my graduate education, I was doing research with this professor in the counseling department. Among all them projects I was involved in, one eventually was finally published last year--- almost 1 decade later, with the topic being the use of online discussion forum as a means of providing social support.....
Following is a posting I made this Wednesday for my private blog... It sort of documented my recent encounter with esophagus spasm and dry mouth....
Like what I always say.... I have no idea why I have to go through the things I have to go through in life.... Yet, in retrospective, I do see how my own action have an impact on the outcomes.... 8-O lol
In addition, after I tossed and turned for a few hours in bed, I eventually got up to take a Clonazepam.... unfortunately, it took this pill much longer a time to put me to sleep then usually....
Go to sleep drafted on Wednesday, April 8, 2009
I have never known how difficult it could be to fall asleep....
Yes, it is true...
I have lived through nights of sleeplessness....
I have lived through them nights of sleeplessness.... so many a night... and... within which I were haunted by the ghosts of my own delusions.... and the associated delusions concerning death...
Yet, what has been happening to me nowadays is something different....
What I have been experiencing in recent days are the extreme of physical discomfort.... the inability for me to swallow--- even my own saliva, the dry mouth.... so dry that it feels as if my mouth produces no saliva at all, the ensuing sense of anxiety.... especially the tension resulting from the bodily discomfort and the inability to fall a sleep....
I had the worst symptoms last Thursday night....
What I ate for dinner was one of the cup a noodle with some mushrooms....
Thereafter I had a beer and a strawberry Margarita along with 4 pints of hot water while hanging out...
After I got home and before I went night night, I put the dissolvable tooth whitening strips of Listerine.... In other words, I went to bed with them Listerine whitening strips still in my mouth waiting to be dissolved and broken down by my saliva...
Then, the next thing I realized was that..... it was 2 o'clock in the morning and, after I got up, I found myself lost the ability to swallow even my own saliva.... Worst of all, I was having trouble breathing through my mouth... It was then did this thought occurred to me... OMG... I could die in suffocation here along in my room and no one would even know about it...
I struggled and finally swallowed down one of my Naproxen.... The pill immediate relaxed my neck area and I finally could swallow again... although still having to deal with the increased heart beat rate as well as the unbearable dryness in my mouth...
Regardless, I went back to bed since there seems to be two options only I saw... I go to bed and wake up the morning after or I wake up not....
Apparently, in retrospective, I did fall asleep and I did wake up....
Following are a few of the options that I entertained:
The chemical in the whitening strips might have built up in my mouth and caused irritation
I have become allergic to something (e.g., alcohol, shrimp, wheat)
I drank too much liquid and the water built up in my cells such as those in my throat... or water intoxication
I might have experienced an anxiety attack or panic attack
Or, the combinations of more than one of the above
Friday night was a good night since I had no trouble at all falling asleep...
Saturday night... I think I had some problems falling asleep again but not so bad... some sensation of dry mouth, maybe...
Sunday night... maybe a bit of dry mouth kind of problem....
On Monday, I went to see my doctor... and we came to the conclusion that it might have been the Listerine strips that got my throat totally irritated... Yet, that after noon, against her advise, yours nothing in the head decided to get another kind of extra powerful tooth whitening strips...
Then, Monday night, again... I had great discomfort and difficulties falling asleep... First, it felt as if I was having difficulties swallowing and there seems to be something stuck in my throat... After I got up and moved around a bit, I went back to lie in bed... only to find myself being attacked by dry mouth... and dry throat.... So dry that I felt the lining of my throat was touching each other and rubbing against each other.
I got up again and again only to find myself still being attacked by da dry throat and mouth...
Yet, I decided to not take additional pills instead....
Eventually, I fell asleep and woke up this morning... spending the entire day feeling still sleepy...
In retrospective, I think what happened since Monday night might have something to do with the Crest Advanced Seal whitening strips... It is because I was able to feel their after effects all the way into the later part of the day on Tuesday even though I applied the strips later in the evening...
Given that I have also been feeling gas coming up through my esophagus, I decided tonight that.... Maybe what I am experiencing have something to do with this thing called acid reflux...
I was going to hold it though the night to see whether I am going to experience the same thing tonight without any further intervention...
Yet, I decided to take two of the Tumbs.... for... it ain't making sense for me to kill myself over some stupid and methodologically unsound experiments... 8-O lol
Let's hope and pray to God that I could finally fall asleep.... once for a change.....
Last note... perhaps... something else in the equation... da prune juice might also be part of the equation since I am trying to use it to help me with da constipation department.... (8-O lol oops... did I say it? lol)
And, God... let me fall asleep for once... tonight... shall you exist and shall you be listening... in addition to letting me find a husband soon... 8-O lol sigh... (Think this is quite funny for me to be still thinking about finding a husband while under-going the given condition.... 8-O lol)
Whit
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Whit sounds like wit and according to dictionary.com, it means
a particle; bit; jot (used especially in negative phrases).
I have changed not a whit. I do...
A dream: Backpacking
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On my way back from NYC to Taipei in April, I managed to get myself an
extended layover (over 2 weeks) in Japan, landing at and exiting from the
Narita Air...
Ratprincess in Technology not lost?
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Given my sick-in-the-headness, sometimes it's hard to trust my LTM. Did
Ratprincess in Technology really exist or was it my false memory?
As I was marv...
Traces of the past
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A link I found that has been live online from the Down with Meds age.
Apparently, the past has always been there whether I knew it or not.
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