Bitchy McBitcherson's Blog

Tag: pain

  • Cars that pass in the night

    Late last night I was driving home on a surface street, but one with a 50 MPH speed limit.  As I approached an intersection I could see that something was going on.  There were cars pulled to the right, and several people standing in the fast lane, some waving their hands to signal cars coming right at them to move over.  As I slowed for my turn, I could see the problem, a dog lying in the road.  I turned so my car was perpendicular to the lane, blocking it from oncoming traffic and putting on my hazards.  Pissed off oncoming traffic was slightly more interested in moving over to avoid slamming into my car than they were in just moving around the people waving at them.  The young woman was frantically calling animal control.  I tried telling her they wouldn’t help, but she didn’t understand.  She though that they would send a doggy ambulance of sorts.  I got out, wanting to encourage somebody to give the dog a ride to a 24 hour emergency clinic I knew was nearby.  I couldn’t put the dog in my car, it already had a dog in the back who did not have the temperament to make that workable.

    Unfortunately, the dog stopped breathing, before such a plan could be put into action.  While the young crying woman had a more and more frustrating conversation with animal control, who was, of course, not set up to do anything quickly about this problem.

    I got out of my car to find a beautiful female German Shepherd lying in the road, a motley crew strangers standing around her, several crying. I turned her collar until I could find tags, so the owner could be called.  A couple of the people had seen the dog running in the road, terrified.  They pulled over and tried to get her to come, but she was panicked.  They were there trying to save her when another driver didn’t see her in time, and despite slamming on his brakes, hit her.  Another was walking his dog and was standing there with his dog, helping to block traffic.  Soon a person from nearby homes joined us with a STOP/SLOW roadwork sign and a reflective vest to put in a little time to making things more visible.  Cars continued to speed past us, faster than the speed limit, aggressively swerving at the last minute but making it clear they were not pleased at being inconvenienced.

    We got her name off the tag and talked to her about how good and beautiful she was, and waited for the owner who had been reached with that number on her tag.  He had just walked in the door and discovered her missing, and then the phone rang…

    He pulled up to the intersection and came over, already crying, but hopeful.  She was gone, but it didn’t stop him from falling to his knees and begging her to get up.  He was lost and didn’t know what to do.  The young woman explained that she had tried.  That they’d stayed with her.  We helped to load her into his trunk.  He apologized to her for having to lift her unceremoniously.  I told him that we could still take her to the emergency vet nearby, that they could arrange for cremation.  He asked if I was sure they were open, so I called them to verify.  They were.  I described where it was. He thanked me. He still looked shell shocked, so I asked if he wanted me to meet him at the vet so he wouldn’t be there alone.  A look of sheer confusion passed over his face.  It was clear that he wanted to take me up on that offer, and that every bit of social training had taught him to say, “No, that’s okay. I’ll be fine.”  “I’ll meet you there,” I said.  “I’ll pull around and you can follow me to the hospital.”

    She had jumped the fence of the 4th of July, panicked by illegal fireworks.  He recovered her on the 4th, but something had made her jump again.

    The group of strangers dispersed into the night, and I pulled my car around in front of him and led him to the pet hospital.  We went inside to get employees to come help us.  I got some paper towels to do a little bit of cleaning of the blood on his car, just so that it wouldn’t be staring hard at him in the light of day.  I waited while he filled out paperwork, and told them he wanted a wooden box for her ashes.  He told me of the three wooden boxes he had at home, all German Shepherds, but the others had all passed from old age.  There was another German Shepherd waiting at home, who would be so confused when she never came back.  He said goodbye to her, and then said goodbye to me, hugging me tightly and thanking me.

    Then I drove home with Mindy in my car, to be greeted by Watson at the door, and soon the sound of foster puppies wiggling in their crates filled my ears.

    RIP beautiful girl. I’m so sorry you didn’t make it home safely.  I know you were loved.

  • Whole Lotta Nothing

    Ever the one to jump on every trend that goes by (if you can’t hear the sarcasm here, you should probably go read a different blog), I decided a while back to give The Whole 30 a try.

    Well, not exactly.

    I’d seen it mentioned approximated 19208934293859048549 times on Facebook, and somebody had asked one of my facebook friends that was on it a very basic question, so in a moment of Let Me Google That For You, Moron, I looked it up and answered, so I was aware of it. I didn’t really care.

    Then I read an article, The Boy With a Thorn in His Joints, and suddenly I became interested in… something. The article definitely doesn’t talk about The Whole 30, but it talks about food and joint pain, and well, I’ve got a whole lot of joint pain, going back three decades. More distressing to me is the level of chronic pain my daughter is in. Since The Whole 30 is basically an elimination diet (although it allows a few things I think we probably should have tried to give up too. Anyhow, knowing it is easier to get people on board when there is a website with instructions, I presented The Whole 30 as the plan to my family, and we agreed to do it. It took a while to get started because we needed to try to find 30 days when my husband would be in the country. This is more difficult than it seems like it should be.

    Yesterday was day 30. My husband ended up unexpected leaving the country on day 28. See? More difficult than one might think. He made it through day 29 via snacks brought on to the plane, and then just tried to do his best on the final day.

    So – how was it?

    I totally want to be typing about how much better I feel. Unfortunately it just isn’t true. I feel better than when I eat like crap, of course, but I don’t feel any better than when I eat my normal version of “good”. Over and above how I normally prefer to eat, the major differences were giving up dairy (I’ve never done that before), giving up gluten (I often avoid grains, but have never worried about small amounts of gluten in things), and giving up soy (which I never really paid attention to, but is in fuck all everything, ugh).

    So, now we start adding things back in.. One thing at a time, to look for a reaction, treating it more as an allergy/intolerance elimination study. Today is the first day that I can add something back in, and… I just don’t care. I mean, I am super glad it is over because it is a major inconvenience to avoid all gluten and soy. but today I mostly just feel like crap, so I’ve felt decidedly disinterested so far. Definitely not the less pain, more energy feeling I was hoping for.

  • The Post I Didn’t Want to Write

    When last we spoke I said, “Tomorrow I’ll try to explain what is prompting me to share this now.”  That was more than two weeks ago, and clearly I failed to explain on “tomorrow”, but I did try.

    I tried, and tried, and kept on failing.

    Yes, I have also been busy, but let’s be honest, I have some major avoidance issues.  I really didn’t want to write this, because I don’t want it to be true.  Strangely, no matter how long I procrastinate, and no matter how well I avoid, and no matter how little I speak of it, it is still true.

    Every day I wake up, and it is still true.

    Even now, I am sitting here staring at the computer screen and I don’t know whether or not today is the day I keep writing.  I don’t know if today is the day I share what is going on in my life.

    It isn’t even really what is going on in MY life, but like most humans I am selfish and I see the universe in terms of how it impacts me.  There are several people who are impacted far more by this, but it is my impact crater that I keep picking at like a festering wound.

    My father has been really… sick?  Is that what we call it?  I don’t know.  Injured?  My father can’t walk right now.  He is mostly stuck in bed, and he gets muscles cramps that sometimes have him crying out it pain.  Sound familiar?  Well, if you read my last post it does, and it is causing me some really severe stress and flashbacks, which is just annoying self-indulgent bullshit because he is the one with the big problem right now.

    My dad was the center of my universe when I was little.  Then I got older and realized he was a fucking idiot, and then I got older still, and realized he’d gotten a lot smarter as I matured.  I hope some day my daughter thinks I am smart again.  I don’t think he was a great dad. I think he was too lenient and too easily manipulated by people he loved, namely me, but he was pretty good.  I think he is a very good man.  He is more tolerant and more forgiving than I am.  He is extremely smart and has a quirky sense of humor that was the source of plenty of embarrassment when I was a teenager.

    He never for a minute believed I was inherently less intelligent, capable, or valuable because I was a girl.  His belief was strong enough that I was baffled when I started school and discovered that other people thought differently.  His belief was strong enough that I assumed he was correct and those people were missing out.  He bought me my first computer (and more after that), and taught me how to program in BASIC.  He gave me my first text adventure game.  He taught me how to drive. He taught me that I couldn’t catch AIDS by hugging his cousin Tommy.  He taught me how to mess with a new device and figure out how to use it.  He taught me how to RTFM, and then how to trust my instincts in the many cases where the manual was written by drunk orangutans.  If I’ve ever helped you to troubleshoot any kind of problem, then my father has touched your life.

    I’ve spent months crying daily, multiple times a day.  I’m exhausted.  There is so little that I can do to help, and that is frustrating.  I hate not being able to DO much of use.  I also feel guilty, of course, because I think that if I had been there at the beginning, I might have been able to be an advocate in a way nobody else could.  I wasn’t.  I may never get over that, but I need to stop dwelling on that, because that certainly isn’t useful either.

    What I can do right now is swallow my pride and discomfort and ask people for donations.  He is at the point where he needs to be able to do some of what he knows is right, whether the insurance company is on his side or not, and that takes money that we don’t have right now.  I hate that I don’t have it to give him..

    So, that’s what I am doing.   I have put up a page on YouCaring.  I’m asking for help, because I can’t do it alone, and because I won’t let him do it alone.

    Please read the details and consider donating if you can afford to, or sharing the link with others if you cannot. I really appreciate it.  If you’d like to send a check so that no money is taken out in fees, contact me for an address (it will be mine since he can’t just run to a bank right now, but I can take care of depositing it for him).

    DavidRamstad640

    https://www.youcaring.com/DavidRamstad

    I guess today is the day.

  • The State Farm Thing

    On Friday night I was driving on the freeway, with my daughter in the passenger seat, in stop and go traffic. The vehicles in front of me stopped. I stopped. The driver behind me didn’t stop. Well, he did stop, but he did it by running into us.

    I was driving a compact SUV (2006 Ford Escape Hybrid). He was driving a midsize SUV (2006 Nissan Pathfinder).

    He jumped out of his car almost immediately, stopped to pick up a hunk of his car and came up to my window. I was feeling a bit shaken and scattered, and was concerned about my daughter, so it took me a bit of fumbling to get the window down. The first thing he wanted to know is if we were okay. It took me longer to ask the same question of him, and while his immediately hopping out of his vehicle was a good indication, and my distraction over my upset daughter played a part, I am not proud that it wasn’t the first thing I wanted to know from him.

    We agreed to pull over before exchanging information. He gathered some more bits from his car off of the freeway. I put on my signal and had to wait and wait for enough of a break in traffic to move over two lanes and pull up onto an island dividing the long exit lane from the freeway. He followed me over. A police officer stopped to see if we needed an ambulance. We said we did not. The officer said he was on his way to a call so he could not fill out a report, but he would have a trooper come. It was raining, so began to exchange information inside the Pathfinder. We traded insurance cards. We were both with State Farm, but with different agents. I began to type his information into my phone. He was writing mine on a scrap of paper. Then a man from FIRST knocked on the window. He wanted to know how much longer we would be and if the cars were drivable. I said mine was. The driver of the Pathfinder said he didn’t think his could go very far. FIRST asked if we needed an ambulance and again we said no. He asked us to exit the freeway and exchange information in a hotel parking lot toward the top of the ramp. The exit lane was moving along at a good clip, and he said he would block traffic when we were ready to go. We gathered up our own insurance cards, and agreed to meet up in the parking lot.

    FIRST blocked traffic and then followed us to the parking lot. The drive to the parking lot convinced the driver of the Pathfinder that his vehicle was not really drivable, and FIRST called a tow truck for him. We again exchanged cards. He had lost the scrap of paper and needed to start all over again. I double checked the information I had put in my phone, and took a photo of his insurance card. He made some comment about his lack of technology. We traded drivers licenses next and I typed in that information and took a photo of it too. I also took a photo of his license plate.

    Our condition was not serious enough that it warranted Emergency Room care. We attempted to go to Urgent Care on Friday night, but everywhere was closed. I did email my State Farm office on Friday night and provided them with the information and the photos that I took. They were amused by the photos, since they were “not necessary” but I’d rather have that info on a photo, in case I copied down something incorrectly.

    On Saturday we spent the first part of the day in Urgent Care. Then we got a prescription filled, and then I went to bed. Saturday and Sunday was mainly about sleeping and resting. State Farm called and left me a message on Saturday. This was based on the other driver’s claim. I did not take or return the call as I was not feeling well enough.

    On Monday, I did take a call from State Farm. She was was following up on the Saturday message. The claim from his side already had a claim number and they were accepting all responsibility on the claim, so I just needed to decide where I wanted to have my car repair work done. I got information on how to look up their preferred shops, as that would be easiest for securing payment of the repairs, and told her I would call her back with my choice, and got her contact information.

    I also spoke to my insurance agent’s office on Monday. They confirmed that they would be handling the medical portion of the claim.

    Most of Monday was still spent sleeping.

    On Tuesday I selected a conveniently located body shop from the list and called and left a message about my choice for the State Farm person who was handling the auto claim. After close of business for the insurance company on Tuesday, the body shop called and told me that they had received an assignment from State Farm to give an estimate on the repair work and wanted to let me know when I could bring in my 2005 Toyota Prius.

    Umm…

    Okay. We do own a 2005 Toyota Prius, which is also insured by State Farm. This was annoying and a bit strange, but it seemed within the realm of a clerical error. I told the body shop that I would contact the insurance company and they said they would be in touch when they had the correct assignment from them.

    On Wednesday morning I called the woman who was assigned our claim and spoke to her in person. I explained that the body shop called and they had the wrong car down as authorized for repairs. She was surprised and asked which car it was, and I told her it was the other car on the policy, the Ford Escape. She said that she would get it straightened out at the body shop.

    Soon after, another woman called from State Farm, about the medical claim. She wanted to go over all the information of what my coverage was and assure me that everything would be handled.

    Thirty minutes after that, yet another call came in from State Farm. Like everybody else, this woman’s words were polite, however her tone and manner were different. She began by asking my about injuries. I gave her a surface answer and then interrupted to tell her that somebody had already spoken to me today to give me all the details on the injury claim. She said that was fine, she was calling about the auto claim. (Okay… then why ask about the injuries?) She then begins asking about the accident, wanting a description of events. This conversation is NOTHING like any of the other conversations have been. This is probing and adversarial in tone. I describe the events to her, and she is asking for details like how many lanes there were and exactly which lane we were in.

    Then she gets to asking what car I was driving. I tell her. Then she wants to know if the Toyota Prius was involved in an accident on the same day. I assure her it was not. She tells me that I can file another claim for my Ford Escape, but that they would not be covering that without an investigation. She the begins to go into details on how I need to get my car inspected. What for, I want to know, to prove that I am not lying about what car I am driving? She assures me that she did not say I was lying, she is just saying that there is “a dispute of the facts”.

    Right.

    I ask her who is disputing the facts, and she tells me the other driver is, and I tell her that I don’t believe her. I tell her there is no way that the other driver told anybody that he hit a Toyota Prius. That makes no sense, how could he just happen to claim he hit a different car that I happen to own. It is obviously some kind of clerical error in pulling up the policy. She says, that she was told by the claim adjuster that there is a dispute in facts and they have opened an investigation. She begins to tell me about how to get my vehicles inspected.

    I explained to her that I would not be getting my vehicles inspected because I challenge the very notion that there is an actual dispute of facts. I tell her to speak to the other driver.

    We go around and around and eventually we hang up, and I am just shaking with anger. I am in pain, I am on medication, and now the insurance company that I have been insured by for over 20 years. Yes, I’ve had my auto insurance with them for more than 20 years, and they have my home owners insurance too, and in that time I filed one single claim when somebody hit my car in a parking lot and didn’t leave a note (I am not 100% sure I actually filed, I might have been too worried about my rates going up, and that was at least 15 years ago and I just can’t remember what I decided to do). Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there, my ass.

    She calls back more than an hour later and tells me that she has spoken to the other driver and “NOW he says that the other car was a Ford Escape.”

    Sure. NOW he says that, indicating that BEFORE he was saying a Prius and that it simply was not State Farms fault.

    I say bullshit.

    And here is the thing.

    There are two ways that the wrong car ended up in the system, and neither was by their other driver saying that he hit a Toyota Prius.

    Either:
    A) because we share the same company, it pulled up all of our details when they typed in our insurance info, and a slip of the mouse or whatever, managed to select the wrong car – and then never went over the info with the driver in a way that included mentioning the type car because it was such a straight forward case.
    B) he gave them the wrong policy number because I gave him the wrong card causing them to pull up the wrong car and then never went over the info with the driver in a way that included mentioning the type of car because it was such a straight forward case

    Now, I agree that B is a possibility. While I am 100% certain that I gave him the correct card the first time I handed him the card. I absolutely checked to make sure I did. He managed to lose that info and had to start from scratch when we moved to the hotel parking lot. We were both flustered and time number two I was just handing him back the card, and I probably didn’t really look at it again first. So, I could have given him the card for the other car. He was coming to realize how screwed up his car was and he might not have thought about the fact the car listed on it was the wrong type of vehicle. We were two people who were stressed after just being involved in an accident. That is possible.

    What pisses me off is that as soon as this problem appears where they have it assigned to one car, and I say it is another, they opened an investigation against me and started treating me as an adversary. That was their first step. A quick phone call to the other driver to just say, “Hey, by the way, did you rear end a car, or an SUV?” would have resolved it right away.

    The claim representative that I called back about the problem didn’t tell me she was going to need to check with the other driver. She didn’t tell me that there was any problem at all. She told me she would fix it with the body shop. Then she went and called the investigation department so they could start questioning me in depth about an accident that wasn’t even my fault.

    I also admit that it might be she was only following procedure, and if that is the case I am not one tiny bit less pissed off at State Farm, because then their official procedure sucks.

    I am not with a different insurance company, hoping to screw State Farm. I am in a state with NO Fault Personal Injury, so I can’t sue their other customer for pain and suffering. I am a State Farm customer too. I don’t care who first filed the claim, they should be treating each of us as covered and cared for customers. They make commercials claiming personal service and that it is about more than just a 20 page obnoxious full of fine print and loopholes policy. They claim it is a company that cares, so how about they make THAT their policy? Because a HUMAN looking at the situation, and treating both parties in the accident as valued customers of State Farm, would have thought that a clerical or some other mix up was a more likely explanation than insurance fraud. Seriously, they can see my record, because I am their customer too. Yet, their first reaction was to assume a person who had been paying them for 20 years without filing any suspicious claims was suddenly going to try to work some bizarre scam by which I substitute a compact SUV that is less likely to have been badly damaged and in which the occupants are less likely to sustain serious injury when being hit by a midsize SUV for the compact car which got listed by the computer as being in the accident.

    They just opened an investigation against me, looking at me for insurance fraud while I was trying to recover physically and mentally from being in an accident. An accident that wasn’t my fault. An accident that their other policy holder had already accepted full responsibility for.

    I’m pissed. Also, I’m still in pain. Also, my daughter is still in pain, more pain than me actually. Guess what upsets me even more than me being in pain?

    So yeah, I am just in an all around bad mood. There has been a lot of shaking and stress and crying this week. I am so tired and so far behind on everything I was supposed to get done this week, and I still need to keep dealing with getting the car repaired, and with finding us a doctor if we are not better by Monday.

    Oh yeah, and I can’t sleep properly and I’m having nightmares.

  • Open Letter: Homophone Edition

    Dear Deer,

    The truth is that I like you. I do. When my daughter claimed on the week that we moved here that she saw some of your type running around the neighborhood, I did not doubt her. She has her shortcomings but taxonomy is usually not one of them. However, as long months passed and I saw no sign of you, I did somewhat wonder about her sighting.

    Tonight when you suddenly appeared while I was out on my dog walk, I was a little startled. I am not sure why I would be. Having deer suddenly wandering across the path that runs along our backyard and through our neighborhood while I am walking 70 pounds of muscle, prey drive, and energy on a leash held by a sore hand, attached to a sore arm, attached to a sore shoulder, chest, back, and neck is really the exact sort of “Fuck You” I should expect from the universe at this point.

    So, my dear deer, when I say please go the fuck away, try not to take it too personally. Also, come back in about two weeks.

    Thanks,
    -Me

  • just call me hostile

    Hi.

    I am cranky as all shit, and on drugs. If you say anything that even remotely has a whiff of advice about it, I will lose my shit. You might think that I appreciate your wisdom, but you would be very wrong. Seriously, I am not even slightly fit for human interaction and I used up all of my patience dealing with medical people today. What I want right now is a Vosges Mo’s Bacon Bar and to be left alone. Oh, and dinner at Porterhouse Bistro, except with a restaurant buy out so that nobody else is eating there.

    Friday night we were on our way to the kid’s show (she is on light board). We were making our way to the theater in rainy stop and go and crawl and rush and creep and go and stop traffic. The car in front of me stopped. I stopped. The driver of the Nissan Pathfinder behind me was looking away in hopes of changing lanes, and utterly missed the lack of continue to go.

    BANG

    Ugh.

    Cranky.

    The first thing I did after making sure that Z and I were OKAYish, and the other driver was okay and not a hit and run sort, was twitter “Car accident. Fuck.” which wasn’t really about being geeky. I didn’t have time to call A yet, and my tweets go to both his cell and computer, so it was the easiest way to try to quickly give him a heads-up. It had the rather strange added side effect of telling 50 other people about the accident almost as soon as it happened.

    The guy was polite, a bit overly chatty, licensed, and insured. To illustrate the overly chatty, I can tell you he has three daughters in their 20s, he recently was laid off, and he was on his way to an AA meeting. Police stopped by, FIRST stopped by. Actually, FIRST blocked traffic enough for us to make it off of the freeway and into a parking lot, so that we could more safely exchange info. That was also as far as Mr. Pathfinder could drive. His transmission was not behaving normally, and it looked as though his radiator was cracked, but they could not look inside to see because the hood wouldn’t open anymore. He also had several chunks off of his car that he gathered up off the freeway, like sad toys, and tossed into his backseat. He requested that FIRST call him a tow truck.

    We decided not to do the ambulance thing, for reasons that I am not going to to bother justifying, but there are reasons and I stand by them. As we were close to the theater, and I needed to figure a bunch of things out, I went ahead and drove there and let the kid do the light board thing.

    I sat in the parking lot and looked things up on my phone and made some phone calls. I put in a call to her orthopedic sports medicine specialist back in California, and was able to exchange messages and he wanted her to have x-rays done. I tried to look up urgent care information, but the phone is very limited. The show soon ended and we made our way home. She was hungry, so she had some dinner, while I found the closest urgent care that accepted our insurance and verified that they offered x-rays. Some do not. By this time I was definitely experiencing pain. I had not immediately following the impact. My intention was to go ahead and get us both checked out, although honestly, had she not been hurting, I would not have bothered to go just for myself.

    We decided to wait until A got home since I didn’t really feel like driving. He got home, we made our way to the urgent care place and had trouble finding it. We finally got there, and they had closed a few minutes earlier. I had misread their hours and they are only open from 6 PM until 9 PM. We went home so I could look up other places, but all of them were already closed. A few were open as late as 10 PM, but too far away for us to get to in time. At this point I was in a lot of pain myself, was tired and stressed and pissed and really just fucking hating being in Minnesota instead of California, where I would have been able to deal with this with so much less effort.

    It was a night of not going smoothly, from the new (no choice in the matter) health insurance website, to the car insurance website, to urgent care, to fucking everything. I just wanted to be HOME, and by that I did not mean the fucking rental house.

    Anyhow, we determined that it was definitely not an ER level situation and we did ice and some meds and some bed, with plans to do Urgent Care the next morning at the place that opened earliest.

    Which, is what we did.

    It took hours.

    A few parts stand out.

    The nurse handed me the thermometer and said “Just put it wherever it’s comfortable.” I kept my mouth shut, but Z and I traded looks.

    X-ray techs really rub me the wrong way. When Z was done with her set of films she came out and said, “So… radiology departments just universally suck.” I couldn’t argue.

    The doctor came in after looking at the x-rays and was concerned by something she saw on Z’s and wanted us to wait longer so the radiologist could review it before we left. The radiologist ended up clearing her, and all was well, but it wasn’t a very fun wait, especially for Z.

    Anyhow, x-rays showed no injury to the bones. It is all soft tissue stuff, and just needs time to heal. Ice. Muscle relaxants. Ibuprofen. Time.

    She has a lot of soreness in her neck and shoulders, as well as some in her lower back. I have some soreness in my neck, but it is really pretty good, as long as I don’t tilt it or turn it. I have more pain in my lower back, plus my arms, pectorals and hands hurt.

    When all meds are on board I feel pretty damn okay for about an hour, and then I want to sleep. Mostly we have been sleeping the day away, and drinking a lot of water because we feel very hot and parched.

    Unfortunately my husband goes out of town tomorrow. I’m really not looking forward to dealing with dog walks yet.

    So, yeah.

    How is your weekend?

  • Body Acceptance and Lack Thereof

    Part of the reason I wrote the fat post was because I really wanted to write this post, but needed those other thoughts out of the way first. Then my life got in the way and it took me a little bit to get back to this post.

    I don’t like my body. I do not have a warm relationship with it, and I am not very motivated to improve my feelings toward it.

    I get that YOU may believe that loving my body is a SHOULD so strong it is almost a requirement, but frankly, your shoulds hold more annoyance than interest to me. It is me, and my body. From my perspective our relationship should only concern you for the seconds you choose to expose yourself to my words. If it really hurts you to hear about my body hatred, or you feel that you must give me a pep talk. You might want to quit reading.

    The current source of our problem relationship has little to do with appearance. I won’t claim to have always been comfortable looking the way I happen to look. I won’t claim that I will age gracefully, and never even consider a visit to a plastic surgeon for some little bit of something. I certainly won’t claim that I do not have flashes of appearance insecurities, or worse. However, on the majority of days, I am fine with my appearance.

    I like the theory of body acceptance. Especially as the mother of a teenage girl, it is a big part of what I want to impart to her. It is made far more difficult by the fact that in all honesty I am so uncomfortable in my own skin.

    Literally uncomfortable.

    I have been in pain since I was 10 years old. Some days it is less, some days it is more, but I am always in pain. Chronic pain, they call it. Really fucking annoying, I call it.

    Yet, most days it isn’t really all that annoying, because I am so used to it. It is just a part of life for me. So, if it is just background noise, why do I hate my body? Most days I tend to ignore my body. I focus on the billion other things going on in my life and I don’t think much about the aches, except the brief instant it flares sharply as I change position. When the concept of body acceptance comes up though, I think about my body. Once I think about it, it all crashes over me in waves. The significance of our bodies is so much more than how they look to us, and it is sure as hell more than how it looks to others.

    Yes, I get it. I’ve heard it all. “At least you can walk.” “Look at all the things you can do.” “Look at your beautiful family.” “You should be grateful.”

    I can already detail out all the positive aspects of my body, and there are many. Certainly, I appreciate that things are not worse, and I know very well that they could be, but does it go so far as to wipe out the pain and frustration that is still there. No. Not for me. Have whatever opinion you have to have about my attitude, but it is mine, and I am not looking for your help or inspiration to change it.

    Then there are the surgical scars. Occasionally I happen to honestly and casually mention that one bothers me. This is invariable followed by somebody telling me how it doesn’t look bad, or is barely noticeable. The thing is, I do not mind the scars because I think they are ugly, or I am worried what other people see. They bother me because they remind ME of the physical, mental and emotional suffering that surrounded their creation. Also, they still physically bother me. My nerve regeneration is poor. I tend to end up with large patches of numb and tingly with occasional sharp pains. I can have those spots even when the scars are completely hidden from view.

    Now I am sure that many people reading this feel curious about the causes, background and nature of these pains and surgical scars. If you spend enough time with me over the years, you’ll hear about it here and there. The reason I am not detailing it out here, is that it just doesn’t matter where the subject at hand is concerned. What I am talking about is how I feel about my body, not the journey my body has taken to arrive at this status of under-appreciated anatomical structure.

    This week has been a marginal one. I’ve been able to get out of bed every day. I have not had to avoid any of the things I needed to get done. I was able to function physically. It was definitely not a pretty bad, bad, really bad, or seriously fucked up week. It was just one of those weeks where things were a step and a half above the I almost completely block it out I have so much practice level of pain.

    This week I was reminded at every move and twitch about the pain, but I wasn’t reminded with a chainsaw.

    Also, for anyone who would like to believe that any pain is caused by my being overweight, and would be solved if I dropped 50 lbs. You are wrong. No, I don’t need to detail out why. You just are.

  • Jaw Breaker

    Two nights ago, my friend’s dog tried to kill me.

    Okay, not really, but that is what I keep telling my friend because it is more fun that way. The dog in question is still very much a puppy, and was simply doing a puppy face nip and lick attack, only she did it by frantically (and impressively) launching herself from the ground – 5 feet into the air. I was caught very off guard and did nothing to protect myself, or correct her.

    She hit the underside of my jaw with her jaw wide open while I was mid sentence. It slammed my jaw shut, scrambled my brain and luckily the word she caught me on was such that I only bit a very small side portion of my tongue. She got me with a tooth on each side of the underside of my jaw, which is why I keep telling him that his dog was trying to rip my throat out. One side left a little pointed bruise and the other side had a pinpoint scratch surrounded by a welt. At first there was actually a visible pinch mark in the center too, where her teeth had come together in her nip. I had a headache for about 12 hours.

    I am not even a tiny bit mad at the dog. She was not attacking, she was just doing what comes natural and it hasn’t been trained out of her yet. I am not even a tiny bit upset with my friend. He only got her recently and legitimately has not had enough time to train this behavior out of her yet. He is aware, and is working on it. He also has every reason to expect me to be puppy savvy enough that he not have to be on his absolute top guard with her, it isn’t like he had her around a toddler (and he did correct her as I stood there too brain stunned to do anything but hold my aching jaw).

    The welt is gone, but that spot still hurts a lot, which was really starting to bug me. It is nothing. There is no significant bruising or sign of damage. Just a little red mark that looks like the end of very pathetic attempt at a zit. I am not one of those people that is usually oversensitive to pain. Because of various health conditions I’ve actually lived with pain every day of my life for over two decades, so why the fuck was I being such a baby?

    Today as I was washing my face I finally figured out what the problem was. She actually nailed me with that tooth precisely at the bad point in my jaw on that side of my face. That is where it had been sawed apart and screwed back together almost 15 years ago, and has always remained bone sore to pressure (have a matching spot on the opposite side, but luckily she didn’t tag it). So, it is still sore, but now that I realize there is a physical reason why it still hurts so much, I feel less like a whiny wimp.