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(From a long time ago but still funny IMHO  –  LadyMac)

Have you ever noticed what our schools actually teach our children? If they learn nothing else, they learn save paper. Yes, you heard me right. Any parent can tell you the one thing they get snowed under with, is paper!!! And you wonder why trees are endangered? It’s perfectly clear to me.
See, my daughter has learned well, and it’s not just using the paper that I’m talking about. Kids have to bring home and present the parents with at least 30 sheets a day!!! Anything less is just shameful.
How can you argue? So, when my daughter walks in the door, this “pile” suddenly appears on my desk. Now mind you, it’s MY fault that my desk is located right next to the front door, and is the central receiving area for everyone and everything!! But this pile takes precedence over anything else that may or may not be going on. And as a parent, I want to see what my child is doing……..who wouldn’t? But the timing might not be optimal.
She’s insistent that it’s all important and it has to be done “right now”! Now, when you tell your child to do something you expect them to do it right then, so trying to say what they have can wait is a losing battle.
So much for authority.

I start flipping through this pile, reaching page 8 and desperately wanting a paper shredder. Nothing but Ads, with one piece of school work mixed in to throw you off track !! Buy this, earn the school money by buying something no one ever needs or would want. And those Pizza drives? Enough to put anyone in the hospital for a week!
Now, we all want to do our part. We know that our taxes are not nearly enough to pay all those salaries for all these top notch teachers (yeah right). But I do mind having my child try to shame me into something I don’t want, all so she can win some great prize.
Yeah, I’ll buy $300.00 worth of pizza’s so my child can WIN that very same walk man that I could buy for $9.99 at K-Mart. Do they really think we are that insane?
NO, they know we are not. But they do know we cannot stand the sniveling of a child wanting to come in first for there grade and win the “big” prize.
Competition is good, but what ever happened to limiting that to sports?
The solution:
Send the child to her Aunt, she buys her everything anyway!!
Problem solved, for this week. Or is it?
Now that we can’t reach Auntie by phone (after all she does work), we have to sulk around the house until she can be reached. This means we can’t start on something as UN-important as homework. We’ll spend the next two hours calling Auntie every 2 minutes to see if she’s home yet.
So I go about my daily routine, waiting patiently for the daily crisis to be over and having Auntie say she’ll buy the pizza’s. Our next problem arises when Auntie will only buy $260.00 worth of pizza’s, she has to buy some from the neighbor child too, to keep things fair.
Fair? What’s more important here, your niece graduating from Elementary School, or the neighbor kid winning a walk man? Shoot, I’ll buy them both one!!! Thinking I’d at least keep my sanity. Wrong.
The next two hours are arguing over the remaining $40.00 worth of pizza. I’ll agree these make great Frisbees, and our dogs won’t ruin them as quickly. But is that worth $40.00?
I guess so……….poor dogs.
Four hours after arriving home from school, we are finally ready to start homework. Oh yeah?
A child can find 5,000 reasons to stall on this task. And to further raise your blood pressure, it will now take an additional 4 hours to do homework (that I’m assured of by teachers shouldn’t take longer then 20 minutes……TOPS!).
Let’s start with math.
I’ll always remember my father telling me “You may not be the brightest kid in the world, but you have more common sense then all my friends put together”. This has gotten me through life, believe it or not. But math I was smart in, I was a straight “A” student in math even. The only A’s I ever got in school.
What planet are these teachers from anyway? Have you looked at the books your child is learning from? And where did they transport my daughter to during class, since she obviously didn’t hear a thing!
I have to cry foul, I never learned the language your planet speaks and cannot figure these math problems out. I can’t even read the problem!!! This is 4th grade math?
In desperation, I send her to her father for help. Why I do this, I’ll never know. But someday, maybe?
After an hour of those two yelling at each other, she comes back over to me, *sigh*.
Ok, we can do this. After all, how many ways could there be to add, subtract, multiply and divide?
Don’t ask, it’s always fatal.
So I tackle the problem, again. Common sense tells me these people are idiots, and in two minutes I could do all 50 problems. But, that’s not good enough. It has to be done their way.
I struggle, and I’m having such a hard time I decide to send out an SOS to my son, via the internet. He asks what the problem is, so I type it out in great detail, leaving out nothing!!
His response: “Huh?”
Great, my genius son (who took after me and got straight “A’s” in math) can’t figure it out, now what?
Mom: Let’s start with an easy one. We’ll start on this page. Ok, what’s 3798 + 1645 ? 
Child: 4000 
Mom: HUH? How did you get 4000? 
Child: 3 +1 is 4, so it’s 4000 
Mom: *sigh* Front end estimations? Ok, but did you know that using that “great” logic isn’t necessarily going to be anywhere close to the correct answer? And why doesn’t it say here that’s what they want? 
Child: Mom, it’s going to be the right answer, trust me. 
Mom: THEN WHY DID YOU ASK ME IN THE FIRST PLACE?
So much for common sense, or even logic!!
This goes on for the next two hours or so, until all 50 questions are done. After 4 years of stressing how important homework is and it HAS to be done, I’m ready to shoot myself for teaching her that lesson. She won’t go to bed until it’s all done!!
I don’t even ask what other homework she has and try to get her off to bed without her noticing. Never works, but I agree to get up early and work on it with her. And I always end up having to write an excuse letter.
After all, we all have our limits, and at midnight, I turn into a pumpkin!!
This year, it’s 5th grade. Wonder what I’ll learn !!?!!

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When I added “pain” to my list of needing to write about, it was for a different pain. So when another ‘pain’ monster re-appeared, I remembered it was already on my list :\

Yes I was feeling T.N. zaps, but thankfully very weak. I was certain that this time it wasn’t the fault of M.S. but an infected tooth. Going to the dentist, who in general like contorting your mouth and face into extremely ‘painful’ ways, scared me to death. I knew I needed antibiotics, but needed the proof too.

The technician was very good to me, she understood the issues I have with the T.N. and together we put the x-ray film (the size of a football) in my mouth. I was thankful at this point that I had taken a small amount of pain meds before leaving the house hehe, the first one had no issues, I was surprised. Then she said ‘I need a second one too’. I cringed but knew I could do it again.

I was very uncomfortable reclined in the chair, so I sat up and turned to the side so my legs could hang off the side. In walks my dentist and I started to lift my legs back on the chair, he said not to bother. My one tooth is cracked in TWO places and yes there is an infection in there. This indeed was the best news I could get . He gives me a script for antibiotics, a copy of the x-ray and the phone number of a practice that specializes in oral extractions,” that tooth has to come out”.

Really I should throw a party and celebrate HAHAHHA. I called and schedule to see a doctor (no idea who and don’t care), first for a consult and then schedule for the extraction, yeah! It will have been seven days into my course of antibiotics I’ll have my consult and I’m betting they’ll want to do the extraction the following day which would be perfect IMHO.

So I’m being very careful, not to cause a full blowout of my T.N. If I can make it through to the day of surgery with just tiny zaps now and then life will be great. I already know things could get worse, I’m already increasing one of my meds to help balance things out (fingers crossed). I’m hoping things remain quiet, I’m hoping the oral surgeon knows about T. N. and can assure me things ‘could’ go surprisingly well.

But I also have my neurosurgeon in the loop, if I need to see him quickly I can. Being a repeat patient does have it’s benefits HAHAHA, and that’s sad. Trying to remain upbeat and stress free, but everyone knows remaining stress free (no matter who you are) is only seen in fairy tales. And being able to bear the pain is doable, as long as it’s weak, please let me be lucky and the tooth solve all of my problems!

Years ago, with my first T.N. breakout that landed me in the hospital for a few days. They did send me by ambulance to a dentist up the road who had the rotating arm and didn’t require any torture. They said everything was good, no infections, so M.S. was to blame for the T.N. outbreak. My dentist here now has that same rotating arm and they didn’t use it on me because it’s “not as accurate” as the torture x-rays. And I’m thinking, could it have been an infection on and off for the past 6 years that’s caused this hell? The affected tooth does have two cracks in it. Is it possible that I’ve been able to keep that infection down to a minimum all those years?

One can assume that maybe it was just the one crack that was a problem before, and this second crack is more recent? I know it couldn’t be that simple, after all that is how my luck runs. But you have to admit it does make you go “HHHHMMMmmm”.

 

Adoptions

Adoptions have changed drastically over the years, for the better in many ways. If you were born before the laws changed then you are out of luck, you have no rights. I do understand the want to be private and unknown, out of shame or pressure, or for many other reasons. But is it ever going to be okay for the ‘child’ to know?

Certainly 54 years after the fact, does one still have to hide? How can knowing the child destroy your life today? I’m a mature adult and so are your children…………AND… most likely your grandchildren. Right? Yes??

Today I’m just angry and needing to vent. For decades I’ve wanted desperately to reach out to my birth parents. I wanted them to know I was fine and had no ill feelings for the decisions they made more then 5 decades ago. I wanted the chance to learn who ‘my’ birth parents were. Maybe a picture, a first name, anything. Why are they so afraid ?

My birth father did speak to the adoption agency  several years ago but my timing was horrible and he couldn’t deal with it then. I was hurt more by not knowing if there was anyone else in his life to lean on at that moment since I knew he needed someone. I cried for hours, I was helpless and could do nothing when I felt he could have used ‘someone’ to lean on the most.

His son was dying of cancer, I had always known he existed from the non-identifying information the adoption agency gave me. I could do nothing and at that time it was not a good time, I totally understood. The agency couldn’t find my birth mother.

Two years later when I found out my Ex had cancer and everyone else in his immediate family had cancer, I was freaking out. My son now had cancer on both sides of the family and I’m thinking “he’s screwed”. I pushed the agency again to see if they’d contact him again and ask if anyone other then the son I knew about, had cancer, or M.S. or anything else that maybe I should know about. He did provide answers and I’m eternally grateful for the info he shared. Oh, and BTW he has a daughter 3 years younger then me.

The agency said he asked about me but I do not know if they told him anything or not. I asked the agency if I could send him a letter, believe it or not they have to ask him if I can? It’s not like they would be giving me his address or anything, *sigh* I just wanted them to send a letter from me. They told him I wanted to send a letter thanking him for talking to the agency……….WHAT??? That isn’t what I asked for, f#ck.

So here I have sat for 5 months with no chance at all of having my birth father read the 17 page letter I prepared for him. And, if he felt it was okay, there was a letter for my sister that he could read and pass along if he wanted to. Words cannot express the hurt I still feel inside. I lost a brother to cancer who most likely never knew about me. My sister, well I guess that chance is gone too. I fear my birth father will never want to know me at all, and that in the long run leaves my sister from knowing she has an older sister. I know we are only related on our fathers side, but we are related, she IS my sister, he IS my father. Yet I’m the one who feels punished, for life.

Why do I want to reach out to him then? As I said above, he is my father and I want the chance to know him, to let him know a bit about my life . To say Thank-you for giving me life. For giving a couple who couldn’t have kids the chance to have them. To let him know I’m not angry with being adopted.

But most of all, above all else, I want to say  “I love you dad”.

 

Sit back and relax folks, this is going to take awhile 🙂

TV has come a long way and for those of us who were baby boomers we have seen the changes first hand.  Black and white to Color, rabbit ears to cable.  All of the programs have been from news to some of the greatest TV shows and movies.

We grew up with Opie, Barney, Aunt Bea and Andy. We learned valuable lessons from each show and dealing with real everyday problems endeared them into our hearts. Then there is Lucy, who has never had a day like hers ? We could relate to her and laugh with her. Didn’t matter if you were young or old, you watched those shows.

Have you ever compared the way it was in the 50’s 60’s and 70’s? It wasn’t a perfect time in our history, BUT many still didn’t need to lock their doors, kids could walk to their friends house “alone”. I won’t claim that crime did not exist, but it wasn’t often major news events happened.

Now crime is incredibly high, you have to lock your doors just to walk to the mailbox and back inside. No one has ever stated the obvious reasons for the change, upbringing!. We were punished when it was warranted and sometimes that did involve a spanking. Now you cannot spank or yell or anything and the kids know it so we are screwed! We all grew up being respectful, honest, helping thy neighbor and treating ourselves in a humane way. If we messed up we got a slap and spent time in our rooms reflecting what put us there.

Refill your drinks, go to the bathroom, there is more to come still!

I do understand that advertising “pays” for our news people, and for maintaining and updating how we receive television. But what I will never understand is why network executives feel that “every” viewer of any show gets up to PEE during every commercial break! I know people who do need to pee ‘often’ but NOT during every commercial break!

They try to make us all nuts. Shows are on a very low volume so you have to turn the sound up to unreal levels, then a commercial comes that blows you out of your chair and destroys the speakers in the TV. Am I wrong?? I think not.

Then there are the shows that come on every weekday evening, ya know, late night shows. If these shows are to be on every weekday evening, why are they in “repeat” mode every other week? They are not alone, drama’s are in the same repeat for no real reason. It’s bad enough we only get maybe 24 new shows a season?

During November, December and January you expect repeats. You may not be pleased with it but it’s easier to deal with since, logically, everyone celebrates one or more holidays during this time.

But as soon as it’s back to ‘normal’ TV we have the super bowl, which isn’t a problem since 99% of the population probably enjoys the commercials, even if they don’t watch the game.

I was always under the impression that ESPN was started to showcase SPORTS! Those that really had to watch sports could subscribe to the sports channel. Just like with HBO we should have ESPN 1 ESPN 2 ESPN 3 ….. etc.. you get the point. This would make the world a happier place to live in. But………..

Since I know we are DOOMED to watching football, or some form of sports, “every” weekend, is there a written LAW that says they cannot start playing two hours earlier, better yet four, then they do now ??? The world knows come Sunday evening there will be nothing normal so many do not plan on being home, or if they are they are watching another TV station for news and entertainment. But if they like the late night drama on the only station that seems to do football on Sundays you are screwed! Sure set the recorder to record the show, but you best tape the news too so you can see the ending of the show.

I thought the DVR’s we all use now were suppose to know the show hasn’t started yet so it doesn’t start to record until the show is actually starting. Guess Tivo is really different and if you are in the city you are all set. But if you live in the middle of nowhere you have to record the news too. Is this really fair? People are going to watch TV on the internet, then where will the networks be?

I’m not sure how things work in Europe, but the shows at least are mostly  commercial free, or very few,  lucky blocks. And thank God for letting their programs run on U.S.A. television. You know, sometimes their U.S. news is better then ours. And even if cars are not your thing Top Gear will have you laughing. Top Gear, news, Star Trek TNG, and X-files are really the main shows I watch there. Thanks BBC America!

More and more people are watching TV on their computers, but still you cannot escape commercials 🙁 The really annoying and loud commercials I do my best to not buy their product or go to their restaurant. You can get more customers with candy, not blowing out their eardrums. Who is responsible for regulating television? It certainly is NOT our highly over paid government !

I just have to wonder.  Never use to have trouble completing tasks, well maybe back in my school days but that was different, how many kids do you know who like homework or clean their rooms?

 
Fast forward to today, I have twenty + things to write and post here and completing them is suddenly a challenge?  My brain is okay, it functions properly so that’s not it.  I think part of the problem is I get called away from my computer for whatever reason, then being physically to tired to do much typing.  Just like now, my weak side is exhausted for NO really good reason it just hurts.  Typing one handed works, but painfully slow and my brain is already ten papers ahead of me!

 
M.S. sucks, nothing I can do about it, it will never leave me.  What I really need is a tape recorder for my brain, anyone have one?  No,  talking into one will not work it’s always noisy around me.  But my best stuff is locked into my head in bits and pieces and when I can get them in order I cannot type fast enough to keep up.  Frustrating.

 
I get side tracked to easily.  While typing this I remembered 5 other things I need to get done tomorrow so I got a head start.  Shouldn’t be a big deal but it takes me away from the task at hand, and  I added another paper to the list of things I want to write about.  I know the problem, as I write a word or phrase will set off another thought, and that thought is something I want to write later on, it takes me out of my groove having to stop and write down that thought.   I also think I want to post things I’ve written in the past so they can all be here, but not until I run out of other things to write about, if that’s possible  hehehehe.

 
I’ve turned into my mother somewhat.  Opinionated and cannot tolerate being treated like i’m an idiot.  Yes I have M.S. , it is incurable but that doesn’t make me stupid!    I cannot tolerate when a simple yes or no answer becomes a hour long speech having nothing to do with the questioned I asked.  Having an incurable disease does not mean I’m suddenly brainless!!

 
For the record I’m up to 27 papers  in my count.  I’m telling you I have some good things in my head and no head foreman to keep track of it all!  If my left side wasn’t so weak all the time I might be able to keep up LOL.  I’m sure before my next paper the count will go way up, it’s a good thing I like writing.  And that  last word there made me think of another one LOL.

 
Help?

 

Where to start? Six years ago I had incredible pain, thought it was a bad tooth so I went to my dentist. After x-rays we knew it was not a tooth, my dentist told me to go to my neurologist and tell him I needed medication for Trigeminal Neuralgia. WHAT ???

My neurologist had a P.A. who was nice enough but you could not ever hear a single word she said. She prescribed a drug to help me deal with the problem. The drug was normally used for epilepsy and my face was having seizures. Stupid P.A. had NO clue how to prescribe medications and started me out at to high a dose which cause me to not to be able to walk at all and the pain was still horrible.

Things got to the point where I went to the ER. My neurologist would not see me, his PA kept giving me the wrong info. I KNEW WHAT WAS WRONG! No one would listen, even those in the ER were skeptical and I just laid there in pain. One would think morphine would kill any pain……….WRONG! I was released from the ER, they didn’t know what to do and could not listen to me for advice (I’m only the patient), so home I went with a Rx for pain pills. Felt like I was in a time warp back to when I was diagnosed with MS…..finally after the same routine in the ER. Why is it one has to go 3 times before getting help? *sigh*

My third day in the ER the doctor working called my neurologist who SWORE he’d come see me in the ER after he was done with his patients in his office. LOL does one need to ask? The ER was full, I had to lay in a bed in the hallway, hospital was full and had no available beds. My father-in-law went to see his doctor and told him what I had been through for the past 3 days. An hour later I had a room.

Now my family doctor has to deal with me, and thankfully he knows to listen to me (he was the one who diagnosed the MS). As best as I, could, in-between shocks, I told him what was wrong. I have T.N. (Trigeminal Neuralgia), he had never heard of it which I fully understood. He left telling me he would spend the night studying T.N..YES, there is a God.

In the morning a very nice lady came to see me. She introduced herself and explained she was with Hospice. (BRAIN doing overtime, HUH?) Surely I wasn’t dying, was I? She told me she spent a long time talking with my doctor about my situation and he was at a complete loss as to how to stop my pain, could she help? No one knows pain better then those who work with hospice, they are the best.

We both agreed the epilepsy drug was the right course, I couldn’t handle what I was given and she wanted me to try a different drug, still for epilepsy. I said I’d do anything!! She said I needed to start the drug slowly (that is where the PA screwed up) and would take a few days to get the dosage correct. Finally someone who now fully understood what was going on. Should note that the hospice nurse also had to read up on T.N. to be sure to give me the proper drugs. She came and checked on me every day, she didn’t have to do it wasn’t in her job description, but like my family doctor they were both learning a lot from my case.

When my daughter came to visit me in the hospital she brought a registered letter, this came the day after I was admitted. The letter was from my neurologist stating he could no longer see me as a patient. Like I’d ever want to go see him again to begin with?

That was in May of 2005, and I was released after a week, knowing how to schedule my drug increases for when or if ever needed until the problem could be solved. It took several months, but I finally got an appointment with Dr. Benjamin Carson at Johns Hopkins that September, ten days later I would have a surgery to help stop the shocks. He is a wonderful caring person. His PA is a dream too. Now that I was in the system if I needed him again I could call her and get an appointment ASAP. And I did 05, 06, 07 and 08. Now 3 years later I may have to go back? NO! I’m doing everything I can to not let it get any worse. I’ve always babied it. Eat on the right side only, take gabapentin 3 times a day and one aspirin devolved by my left cheek nightly.

When I had my port put in this past November 2010 I was given a teylenol/oxy drug for pain after surgery. I never took more then 2 pills one the day of and one the next day, this thankfully left me several pills left over. They work wonderfully for my bad knee and when my knee gets really bad I’ll cut one into four, and just that one tiny quarter of a pill does wonders. Still I never took them on a regular basis. I have been taking that quarter of a tab daily for a couple of days now and it really really seems to be helping. Thinking I’ll contact Dr. Carson’s PA for a prescription so I won’t run out, but I’m not in a rush to contact her.

I’m also waiting until I get my MRI done May 5th so I’ll have a ton of information should she need to contact my local hospital for a copy of the MRI.. All of my doctors know how I am with drugs, I don’t like them so I never abuse them. So when I call asking for a particular drug they know I really need it. The epilepsy drug I still take 3 times a day although recently I increased one of the doses and hoping I don’t have to increase any more then that. Rest is the key and I know that but going to bed before 1:00AM is hard to do most days but I think it’s time to start trying for midnight…… starting on Monday.