*About Me*

I never know what to write in the "About Me" section of profiles. I don't feel that I can give an accurate idea with only so much space to write it in. I am such an eclectic blend of odds and ends that I don't feel I can give a good synopsis of myself. So I am going to utilize the more generous space here and give a more realistic rundown of myself, just in case you care to know.

About Me

I was born at an early age, conceived at an even earlier age to badly matched parents. (I was born in the same hospital that my neurologist is in and where I get my Tysabri done each month, and where I hope to die, finding that to be a fitting end to a unremarkable beginning.) My father is a dry alcoholic and my mother is a hippie -- she still wears the same bell bottoms that she wore eons ago, which pisses me off that she can still fit into them and my jeans from high school. My father walked out on us just before my 15th birthday and did his best to make us fail, refusing to work and continually dragging my mom back to court to reduce his child support. His side of the family, while "worrying" that my mom would keep us from them, turned their backs on us and took his side, believing that he was too sick to work (he has allergies) yet it was okay for him to attend any/all singles events possible. My mother, in an inspiring act of strength and determination, went back to school to become an RN in her late 40's. That woman struggled and did her best to keep it all together for us while trying to make a better future for us all. She worked full time and went to school full time to support 3 girls that their father was doing his best to not support. I didn't appreciate the sacrifice she was making then, being a teenager and not understanding the difficulties of trying to make ends meet, but I do now. All of us are close to our mother, often forgetting we have a father, and rotate around her like planets to a sun. In fact, when I was diagnosed with MS we couldn't figure out where it had come from because there is no history of MS on my mom's side. When my dad told me he had several cousins that had had MS (now all deceased) we all yukked it up that we had forgotten that he had contributed to our genetic makeup, believing that my mother was asexual and had budded us off herself. Now our current goal is to get the oak tree to come back to the acorns because she lives 2.5 hours away from us, and that is unacceptable.

My diagnosis came out of the blue for me. Knowing now what I overlooked then, I can trace the beginnings of it. I have always been a happy person by nature, so when I had depression and anxiety pop up almost overnight in my early 20's it was baffling. Suddenly I was having panic attacks, which I think are one of the worst things a person can have, and problems with "the blues" that I had never had and couldn't figure out why I was feeling that way. I had no idea there were medicines to help with those things, so I suffered for years with it. In my late 20's I started having extreme abdominal pain and it was discovered that I had endometriosis. By the time I finally went to the doctor for the pain, my left ovary had failed (being so diseased) and my right one was getting there fast. The odds of my ever having kids was slim to none and the doctors were worried about my having any healthy eggs to make healthy kids with. I was given a few months to try and get pregnant (if that was a high priority with me, which it wasn't, I never really wanted my own kids, I wanted to be a foster parent and adopt an older kid) so I married my husband because we had been together for 1.5 years and were trying to see if we could have kids so marriage seemed natural if you are trying to have a kid with someone. After 6 weeks of wedded bliss I had to have a total hysterectomy due to increasing pain that lasted all month with no respite, so I raised the white flag and I am so glad I did! I no longer live with that pain and have no period; all win/win in my book. The only downside was that I felt guilty about getting married and taking away his chance to ever have kids, which led to my first nervous breakdown. They are not called nervous breakdowns anymore, as I'm sure you all know, being so much more informed than me. They are now called "Major Depressive Episodes." All I have to say to that is, ya think?! I didn't eat and barely slept for a week before I totally broke down. Then I was introduced to psychotropic meds and I was able to get back to life, them bringing my anxiety and depression under control. That is why I take offense to people who criticize those of us who need these meds. They need to walk a mile in our shoes to see what life is like without them, and then tell me what I should be doing. If I did not have these meds, I would not be alive. Life would not be worth living. Maybe that is survival of the fittest and nature's way of weeding me out, but I am not ready to be weeded yet. I am a proud taker of psychotropic meds and will tell anyone who is having similar problems to look into them. They are here for a reason. There is no need to suffer in silence. There is a big difference in needing them and abusing them. I have been taking Xanax for almost 7 years, and my dose has never increased. I have decreased the night dose due to other night meds, and under stress I may take an extra dose, but I am not giving hand jobs for it -- and that is the difference between "need" and "addiction."

My MS next showed itself by making parts of my legs numb from time to time, making shaving them uncomfortable and thus giving me a good reason to go au natural. I also started to need naps more often, which was really odd for me. I am a high energy person, high strung and not needing tons of sleep. Then one summer (so obvious now!) I had to take naps every afternoon and it continues to this day. At first I thought I was just being lazy and couldn't figure out why all of a sudden I had this overwhelming need to nap each day just to get through the day. But if I didn't nap I would get clumsy, once falling over a foster kid and spraining my ankle. The final straw was falling down the front steps on an icy day (barking out "F*CK!" for the neighborhood to hear) and the resulting ON and numbness in my left leg. And that was the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it and you know the rest of this story, it probably being similar to your own. So lets skip to more interesting stuff.

I have a deep love for the printed word. I have kept a journal since the 2nd grade and still write off and on depending on my hands and patience -- writing being so slow I prefer to type out what I gots to say. Books are my passion and I mainly read historical non fiction because I am that much of a geek. Sometimes I venture out and read fiction, and right now I am counting down the days until the 3rd Eragon book comes out. Christopher Paolini is lucky it is so soon because I gave serious thought to driving to Montana to have a long talk with him about what is going on in those books. I will read anything about any topic and have read on such a variety of subjects that there is no rhyme or reason to them. Anything historical non fiction is good to me, and that encompasses a lot of subjects.

I live in Nebraska. I do not live in a cornfield. I do not live anywhere near a cornfield. I detest the notion that the Midwest is all cornfields and nothing else. That we are stuck in the middle of nowhere, or when people are shocked that we have a clue about what is going on in the world or are educated and informed in general. There is no invisible fence around the boundaries of Nebraska that shocks the sh*t out of us if we try to leave, we are allowed to roam out of the state into other states and countries. We have libraries, museums, and such in our cities (yes, there are cities and they are not in the middle of a cornfield), we even have gang problems. I am not a small town type person -- I can't live where there is no pizza delivery, it is so unnatural. I also believe that it is not about where you live but what you make of it. I don't need to live in a crowded, polluted city to be informed, and I do not assume that people from less densely populated states are uneducated. Whew! I feel better having gotten that off my chest! Moving on...

I hate, in no particular order, CATERPILLARS, rude people, rhubarb, my pointy nose, the smell of old lady makeup, cherry flavored anything, the fact that at 34 I still have freckles, long walks and getting caught in the rain, a messy house, too much perfume/cologne on someone, not enough deodorant on someone, rough or itchy textured clothing, people invading my personal space, this weight from the steroids that I can't get rid of, and not having anything to read.

I love, again in no particular order, books, bananas, hamsters, the color blue, ripped up old jeans (I am a child of the 80's), slippers, coffee, music of all genres, my truck, handicapped parking, craft stores (they suck the money out of my purse but I love them anyway), Hello Kitty, writing, blogs of all kinds, the comments left on any blog -- they are usually more fun then the blog, painting even though I have no talent for it, my dog, cold winter days, the Muppets, my Nintendo DS, all my Nintendo systems in general, antiques -- especially old books, junk jewelry and a cold dark bedroom. I could go on, but those are the major joys of my life.

I would love to continue but the other occupants on this house have woken up and have diarrhea of the mouth, so I will have to finish this on another day.