Catgirls, comfort food, books and other good things

I am sick.

That’s a reality which I have never really faced totally until now. I always knew I was unable to walk or losing function or going to die….someday, or someday…..soon. But not today. And so I never dealt WITH today. I am sick today. I am sick tomorrow. I will ALWAYS be sick.

Right now, I am damaged both physically and mentally. I hope that if I allow myself to take care of myself and allow others to help, both of those might be better. And that is a good thing! I have a hard time asking for help because it seems to me that people’s generosity already far exceeds my worth. But if you know how to help me, or want to help me, mentally, physically, I dunno, telepathically! I am asking for help, for me. Because I don’t want to be broken anymore.

This is what makes me happy. It hurt to write and do them, yes, but soon I won’t be able to remember that. And to have this picture, to be able to see these postcards going out to where they CAN make a difference: where they can help. That matters.

I expressed some of my feelings yesterday. I, in no way wanted anyone to feel guilty, what I expressed was the mental issues faced by a single person, Elizabeth, who has growing mental/brain problems, including emotional lability and loss of memory. She is in pain, she sometimes takes things personally that are not personal. And every weekend, even if five people told her Monday and Tuesday how much they liked her postcards, she or rather I, would not remember what postcard they are talking about. And three days later by Thursday/Friday, I would not know that there had been ANY positive feedback. And yet, I go on. Because it is a GOOD IDEA. Postcards rock!

So, right now, my entire plan of recovery is a) try and not push myself more than 110-140% instead of the 200-225% I normally do each day. And b) to try and FIND good things, remember good things. In fact, what I think about to sleep are my kitten. I don’t HAVE a kitten. But I pretend I do.

Okay, here is something I got from Veralidaine which I actually told her, “Hey, as my cousin, if I don’t get this, I will writhe in the agony from not having it!” until she emailed that she got it for me. It is a Rubber Stamp from Stamp Oasis of the Amazon Woman! We tried it in all colors and Green is best so far. It rocks. Normally I don’t say, “Hey, I got this from this person because every gift and everything that people do for me is special.” But since I basically exploited her for it, I wanted her to at least get credit for my emotional family blackmail (welcome to the family Veralidaine!). I love my wild Amazon woman with wild hair, and her bow.

The first thing to do in trying to get better, according to the EFM plan, is to try and escape your PRESENT life. Because if you are like me, I am so over committed that can I even admit openly, “Sorry, I am sick, I can’t do that appointment?” No. So I am running away. Okay, since it snowed again, I can’t wheel away so I am mentally running away – it is the thought that counts!

First off, I would like to spend some time with my books and my bed. This didn’t happen today, but I hope it will. I want to just have a day where I get up, brush my hair (who wants bed hair, really?), and then grab the hospital tray, fill it with manga (the pictures are nice to look at!) and head back to bed. Of course, that is usually when home care tries to come and get you out of bed or decided to wash your cutlery by dropping it from five feet if the sound is right (how CAN they wash stuff so loudly?).

I have always had a love for books and I used to walk and read at the same time. I used to bicycle and read at the same time. For some reason, when walking I would always stop about 2 inches from a pole, then see it, go around and continue reading. People would come up to me and say, “I saw you reading and walking….and you are still alive!” like it was the most amazing thing in the world. I don’t go anywhere without a book. And this picture right here is what I looked like from grade 5 to finishing my doctorate. This image is from a great shitajiki board that I plan to have framed because it is so me, overflowing with books. I got this from David, who sells Shitajiki (pencil boards – laminated art basically to put between stationary sheets) from $6 to $25-$40. What he sells goes to fund the Japan Cat Network, which can be helped here. David let me know that this board was available as it is a rare board, and he thought it suited my personality (am I that transparent? YES!). As an aside, if you have a bottle of Revolution, the cat medicine, can you please ship it to me, at

Elizabeth McClung
P.O. Box 2560
Port Angeles, WA
98362

This is the current number one need for David (costs more than cat food for him) and I will pay for shipping of any bottles airmail, or registered to him. He cannot get it in Japan and his kittens need it. He built an extension on his house so now he houses 75 cats in his home until he finds homes for them. I think he has seven kittens right now. I like kittens. He writes me emails and one of his kittens imitates him and hits his keyboard so there are random letters. I don't mind at all. That is what I think about when I go to sleep to stop having nightmares.

I like cats, I think a lot of people do. If I see a cat, I want to pet it. Sadly, having a device with many wheels in which tails might be run over make cats run FAR away from me. And they don’t respond to peanuts! So I rarely if ever get to pet a cat, much less a kitten. If I had it to do over again, I would definitely pet a lot more kittens and spend more time in pet stores (whenever I ever passed one, I would go in and look at the kittens and trying to convince whomever I was with to get one!).

Now, before we move on to more cats (and catgirls!), I have a tendency as does Linda to read a book until it is very late at night. And I certainly don’t regret it at the time as the writing is very good and MUST be read, but somehow hours pass and then people expect me to get up the next morning – what is that all about? Hey, I was doing important reading! Actually I was doing that reading that gives me a hum inside, a sort of connection to myself, to part of myself I didn’t know, a vibration of pleasure as each word and image erupts in my brain – when the writing is very good.

Okay, on to things like catgirls, because what would be better than finding yourself on a desert island than with catgirls? These catgirls who can seem to find an abundance of very nice ripe fruit for you. This seems very pleasant indeed. Except of course then there is the world with the cute fox girls too! Oh to choose, that would be very hard. I love this picture, and I love these two fox girls. They seem so genuinely happy….and they have bushy tails! Yes, I really am that simple.

Of course, I also love this picture called three sister, with two cats and a cat girl. This is sort of taking ‘talk to the animals’ to the next level – be one with the animals. Who wouldn't want to be a cat; sleep a lot and own a human that does what you want and feeds you when you want.

But being one with animals, I would love to do that: to have animals come to me. In my local area while I wheel around I have seen squirrels, raccoons, two owls, one in flight right above me, otters, seals, baby seals, and a bald eagle. Which isn’t bad for a 1 mile radius URBAN area, I also see deer when I go to get my wheelchair refitted. This is one of the reasons I came back to Canada, I missed the animals. Unfortunately, they don’t leap on me as in this picture as after seeing the weight of some raccoons around here (the urban ones can be seriously large!) I think they might tip me over backwards in my chair. I have never seen a fox or cougar, though cougars have come into town only two blocks from me – I just never SAW them. I mean I have seen them in a cage but these are wild cougars, and I think that would be pretty cool. I also like how here they tranquilize them and then ship them up island. They don’t kill them or anything because hey, they were here first, it IS their island after all, we just built a city in the middle of one of their paths. So why should they be punished? Yes, surrounded by cougars would be fun, if I had on my “Please don’t eat me” spray that day!

Okay, another thing you can do to try and be less insane and more happy is called ‘retail therapy.’ If you have never HEARD of this, then please, allow me to instruct you, just remember to bring your credit card. Linda and a few others say I have the ability to make them wear things they might WANT to wear but wouldn’t. As for me, I am just, “Hey you look great in that! Why would you NOT get it, as $25 for looking great, and feeling great great for the next year.....BARGIN!” As for me, I tend to try and NOT spend as when I feel I am out of control I buy things to feel in control. But I haven’t bought anything in the last day or two, and considering how not so healthy in the head and out of control I am, that is VERY good. So I will try and find something for $5 on Amazon to be shipped to me and buy that as a reward, maybe a manga, then I can combine books AND shopping retail therapy? I am curious, am I the only one who does this. I know, I also do the ‘cleaning’ thing when things are out of control but when you want to get better, how do you do it. For me, if I am supposed to try and GET better and try and BE better, then I should really try and do things which respect me. I have my two pairs of jeans, but a book, something to do which is NOT work. Or some hand lotion so I stop accidentally ripping my very thin skin. I don’t know. It seems if I CARE about my body, then maybe I will care about me. And accept that I am SICK and need caring.

There is of course, comfort food! And who hasn’t a favorite dessert or recipe that is favorite comfort food. One of the things I am sad and frustrated about is spending an afternoon making Lasagna from scratch including the red wine & meat sauce (actually port works great if you have some left over after Xmas! Expensive but GREAT). Then laying out the layers, and the cheese. Yum, who can not love hand made lasagna? But of course, I would end up passed out and in the hospital if I tried to do that now, if I was lucky. So that is stolen from me. I still have things I can eat – I like Fiddle Faddle, a candied popcorn to munch on while watching a TV or anime show. I just need to first watch a TV or anime show.

Of course, I know that a lot of my readers are able bodied and also dog lovers, and knitters and crafters, and actors, and do all sorts of things so do for you, what you need to in order to feel that glow inside. For me, it was a run along the waterfront, a 10K course I had plotted out along the cliffs on a sunny day. I remember running in a running top with short sleeves and people looking at me like I was nuts (I used to have high circulation before my disease so I warmed up quickly as I didn’t have body fat). So go and play with your dog/s (but wear trainers/running shoes for goodness sakes! Girly fashion taken too far!), finish that knitting project, and whatever you need to get rid of the blues and show that you care about yourself, and life. Because that is what I am trying to do.

Finally, FANTASY. I was going to talk about the M word – masterbati… But I decided to just say FANTASY instead. Isn’t that a nicer word? Well, lets say that Linda reads HER romances (and thank you for those who bought them for her, she has devoured them over the holiday and is on her last one so I will have to post some new ones tomorrow!) and I read mine. Mine involve girls like this in my bathroom in the morning. Oh yes! You want to use the toothbrush…help yourself, I think I am going to have it bronzed after you leave anyway. Oh my, while I would throw her out of bed for eating crackers (hey, those crumbs hurt!), I would throw myself AFTER HER. In a FANTASY way of course.

I’m trying to let you know that no, I’m not better and I am learning that physically and mentally I will never BE better. I will be sick and sicker. I do need people around me all the time because I do repeat conversation, I do get lost in my apartment, I do get ‘confused.’ And yet, even though I have no idea what day it is, I can write this blog. I AM trying to stop being in a head space where dying sounds good, and I am trying to find a way to deal with this physical pain until I can get better meds. And I am trying: I am admitting that I NEED help. That yes, I will ALWAYS put anyone else first. But maybe, I need to accept that I don’t have that luxury anymore, or that some or many of the people want me to be there for them, yes, but only as I am safely able to do so. And that they would rather see me as mentally stable and physically healthy as I can be (in order to enact my new crazy plan) than to exhaust myself to the point where I go, to use a Welch saying, “Away with the fairies!” ("the elevator doesn't go to the top floor.", "doolalee", "Tup", "There are splinters in the windmill of my mind")

Thank you for your concern. Thank you. I have a particularly taxing medical test tomorrow which will leave me drained and nauseous all day but I will be trying to take care of myself and even (GASP) letting others take care of me. I might even try this radical plan until Linda and/or Cheryl declares that I am sort of sane. Thanks for being with me, on the downs. And so here I am, trying to find a way up.

Blackberries and summer: an hour of illness forgotten

When I lived in Los Angeles, there was an amusement park called Knotts Berry Farm which I and friends went to, and at one point actually had been a berry farm (now it is roller coasters). However when summer came and I went up to see my grandparents in East Sooke on Vancouver Island, then it WAS time to pick berries. My grandfather, no fool, would use us kids to worm into the center of a blackberry patch saying, “Oh, scratches are a PART of blackberry picking, that’s why they taste so good!” My grandfather had a Victorian view of “use those urchins and their small nimble fingers!” Still, the blackberry jam and fresh baked pies were worth it.

So every year we have been in Victoria, except last year during the “medical testing marathon” we have picked blackberries. Before I moved to the UK, I would give half of what I picked to my grandfather and grandmother, who couldn’t get out anymore, so that summer would come to them: because what is summer without blackberries?

I said something to Linda during our recent Hell Week, one late night, likely between seizures when I was wearing the eye patch and had eye lock, stuck staring on a piece of ceiling stucco. I said or slurred that we should go blackberry picking. I guess this what I meant about living and choices. I can’t stop feeling crap, can’t stop the fact that I used to walk, used to feel my legs: not years or months ago, but weeks ago. Can’t stop that, can, maybe, with the support of a medical team and a transport team, can go blackberry picking, can have that bit of summer.

So after we got up, around noon from our hell night (many seizures, brain damage, stopped breathing), and I got the limbs moving, the pain killers maxed and the clothes on. With the ambi-bag, oxygen and some containers packed we headed out. It was partially sunny and there was a patch by Linda’s workplace she had scouted. Some of the patches were only available to able bodied people who could clamber but some where an obsessed person in a wheelchair could force their way into the thick barbed vines of the blackberry bushes. We weren’t the only one with this thought as the bushes were full of birds, enjoying the ripe blackberries too high to be picked.

The secret to blackberry picking is that if you HAVE to pull, it is going to be sour, a ripe blackberry will fall with a slight tug, however an overripe blackberry will let your fingers squish in and stain them. The purple hand is the sign of the blackberry picker. Linda got a head start and already had a full container when I caught up with her. She pointed out that I had brought the PERFECT goth shirt, my “Berry Fairy” t-shirt. I was the also the ‘lucky spotter’ as being eye level to a dog, I mean having a low eye level meant I could see under the broad leaves to the clumps of ripe berries behind. So as we moved along I often played spotter while Linda and Cheryl picked.
However, I picked too, since I was able to push myself amongst the thistles and the blackberry vines to start to fill my own container. So yes, I guess “Wheelchair blackberry picking” is another sport/activity to add to my list. For me it meant that for a hour or so, I felt like it was a year ago, when all that mattered was the wheelchair, and my will of what I wanted to do. For me it was summer, a “normal” summer. For those who have had the idea of “normal”, 'routine' or 'tradition' taken away by disability and/or disease, you can know what it means to do something as if the disease has gone away, to do a bit of routine that had been taken away and be free, thinking nothing of it. The greatest blessing I get are the minutes or hours when I forget; forget that I need to regulate my blood pressure, my oxygen, my energy, my medication, the time until sleep, the temperature, and the rest I need to stay alive. Instead, I had a whole hour when I could just BE.

Here we have the other part of the team, our summer berry pickers, showing three of the five containers we picked and the badges of honor: the purple hand! And the OTHER badge of a berry picker on Cheryl, the purple stain near the mouth! On the way back to the car we saw a bush just full of birds, here is a red breasted (er….bird?), along with another bird in the lower right corner. I have a theory the birds come to eat the overripe berries to get drunk from the fermentation. That why they keep sitting there looking spaced out. Blackberries bring out everyone.....except the bears, thankfully, at least not today.

Of course, I did pass out soon after we finished our picking, and had to be pushed back to the van and wear the eye patch.

I do wear my eye patch now on a nearly daily basis so if you have some cool eye patch or know where one can be found I would like to know. Since by afternoon or evening in my left eye the entire world turns blue or there is just garbage coming in (sparkly!) or the eyes don't coordinate and there are two worlds and trying to do anything makes me look drunk as I tell Linda, “Stop that……BOTH of you!” So my time of forgetting my condition, of just being in a wheelchair was over but I had done it, summer had come and blackberries had been picked. That night I enjoyed a blackberry thick milkshake.

I also worked some on the postcard project and here are a small fraction of the ones I finished.

I hope they are speeded on their journey, and arrive when a smile is needed most.

The evening turned into something else, something I'll talk about later (and today was the recovery). This post, like that hour, is about the time I had when my only limitation was where my wheelchair could go.

Screw Bronze isn’t going to be a fantasy disability blog, but there is so much ugliness in my life, so many hours of the raw and the painful. And that kind of brutality is only going to continue and increase, so today I choose to focus on two different hours, my “fruits of summer.” The hours which include the berry picking, getting my chair in there and getting a few scratches and embedded thorns as well as the postcards; my other garden, a little less wild, but still work in finding and picking the perfect one.

I hope that whatever your condition, your stress, emotional or physical, that you were able to have that hour of “forgetting” of just being. I know it doesn’t come often, but when it does, it sure is nice, to just have the smell of blackberries, the sound of happy birds, the fingers stained purple, the insults to Linda and Cheryl that there seems to be “more eating going on than picking!”

I hope you had your own "hour" this weekend.