Limes with Orange

Sorry for my delinquent posting of late. It's partly because I'm still kind of recovering from the sleep restriction therapy and the ensuing week long migraine. Then, to top it off, I got a migraine on the day of my doctor's appointment so that's been rescheduled for February. (Which is maybe just as well, since I can't really try this approach again until after my math students finish final exams at the end of the month.) But also partly because my online time has been spent gaming of late. I've realized that I only have so much time that I want to allot to online activities. So if I'm gaming, I'm not blogging and vice versa. (And this game has led to much drama on the forums, which is draining and just downright silly... it's just a game, people! But I digress...)

I also haven't been doing much paid posting of late. Partly because of my health and other commitments, partly because most of the opportunities don't interest me. But I just had to share this little piece of paid-posting irony: I didn't check for new opps yesterday because I'd slept particularly badly the night before. And guess what opp I missed out on...

Help Visitors Get a Good Night Sleep!
Discover the ultimate cure to insomnia, with this Sleep Deprivation CD

Are you kidding me?! Oh well. *sigh*

Labels: blogging, health

Well, my sleep restriction therapy went by the wayside on day three of my migraine (that Christmas day headache was, in fact, the migraine coming back and setting up camp for the rest of the week). I have an appointment with my sleep doc on Wednesday, so I'm just going to wait and talk to him before I try anything further.

As my last post of the year, I had been planning to post a 2007 "Hot vs. Not" List about my random opinions, such as:

Friends you can make films with... HOT
Friends who only know how to gossip... NOT

Intelligent and entertaining independent films (Walk All Over Me)... HOT
Yet another Hollywood sequel or remake (Spiderman 3, Pirates, etc.)... NOT

Evan Biddell, fashion designer who won Project Runway Canada... HOT
Elina Viola, local fashion designer... NOT

Bob Rae, politician with a brain and a heart... HOT
Stephen Harper/George W. Bush, politicians with neither brains nor hearts... NOT

And so on and so forth...

But I really can't be bothered with such trivialities right now. So let me sum up 2007 on a personal level: I overextended myself for people who weren't worth even extending myself for in the first place and my health has been declining all year as a result, but thankfully these people are out of my life and I'm working hard at getting my health back on track. My various and sundry opinions about pop culture, politics and pugilism will have to wait. (Okay, so I've got nothing on pugilism, but doesn't it make for an intriguing triple alliteration?)

I'm hopeful that if I can avoid toxic people and keep my health as a priority, 2008 will be a much better year. So I guess those are my two main New Years resolutions. And resolution number three is to finish the second draft of my feature-length screenplay (my film work being necessary fodder for my mental health). Now excuse me while I continue to hibernate in an attempt to recover from this sleep stuff and the mother of all migraines.

Labels: bush bashing, fashion, health, odds and ends, pop culture

All I want for Christmas is a good night's sleep.

Haven't managed to duplicate my success yet. Slept for 5.5 hours each of the last two nights, but not straight through. Migrained yesterday, but think that was chinook not sleep restriction. Still headachy today, though.

Labels: health

I slept for 5.5 hours straight last night! I hope this is actually the sleep restriction starting to work and not just a fluke. I guess we'll see tonight.

Labels: health

So much for bone-deep-exhaustion theory. Felt so much like Lupus fatigue that I expected it to act same way and not go away until I slept. Not so much. I guess pendulum can still swing back from bone deep exhaustion to overtired and wired.

Total hours slept: 5 out of 6.

According to book doc suggested (read in overtired state in wee hours of the morning), if I can maintain 85% sleep efficiency for 2 wks, I can up my sleep time even if not sleeping for full 6 hours. Decided that 5 hours is close enough.

Labels: health

So very, very tired. Don't know how I'm going to stay up for another 4 hours. Not worried that I'll be overtired again... have gone way past that to bone deep exhaustion. Quite hopeful that if I manage to stay up until 4:30, I'll actually sleep for the full 6 hours. Fingers crossed.

Labels: health

Only day four and I'm feeling rebellious about this whole program. I keep reminding myself of the stats: sources vary but it's generally reported that 60-75% of people who complete this program become normal sleepers (my expectations are not quite that high) and 85-100% of people reported improvement in their sleep patterns (I haven't read any of the papers themselves, so I don't know how significant the improvement was). And if my numbers are a bit off, blame it on lack of sleep. (That statement might not seem ironically funny to you, but in my current state I think it's a riot!)

Total hours slept: 5.5 out of 6 (Getting closer! Once I'm sleeping for six hours straight, I get to increase my time spent in bed. Interestingly, I couldn't bear the whole yoga/warm bath routine last night and decided to skip it. Will go back to it tonight to see if numbers go up, down or stay the same before drawing conclusions.)

Labels: health

Doesn't anybody make yoga videos or meditation cds for sarcastic, cynical people? I am already so sick of these people who sound like a new age Mr. Rogers on Prozac. How exactly is that supposed to relax me? I just end up wanting to punch them all out. C'mon... I mean, aren't people like me the sort of people who need this crap the most? So help me out and give me something I can actually tolerate watching/listening to. Ack phbbtht!

Oh yeah, almost forgot... another whopping 4.5 hours of sleep. Woohoo.

Labels: health

As I suspected, I was overtired by bedtime last night and couldn't get to sleep. As per the doc's advice, I didn't stay in bed tossing and turning but got up and watched TV for about half an hour then tried again. Still the usual hour to fall asleep. Woke up wide awake only one and a half hours later. But eventually slept soundly for the next three hours until my alarm went off.

Total hours slept: 4.5 out of 6.
Symptoms: Dry eyes getting drier; IBS acting up; difficulty concentrating; headache (but no migraine yet... touch wood).

Labels: health

Staying up four hours past my regular bedtime last night was not a problem. In fact, it still took me an hour to get to sleep even though I did an evening yoga routine, took a warm bath, drank Sleepytime Tea, listened to a guided meditation CD designed to put you to sleep and had the essential oil of vetiver in my humidifier. All in all, I only managed to sleep for four out of my six allowed hours.

Tonight, I want to go to bed now and not wait another two hours. But I'm afraid that two hours from now, I'm going to be at that overtired point and still not be able to go to sleep. Can I just fast forward to when this therapy starts to work?

Labels: health

Tonight I start my first day of sleep restriction. This is the latest attempt to combat my chronic insomnia. My typical sleep pattern involves over an hour to get to sleep, then I sleep for 2-3 hours (if I get 4 hours in a row I consider it a victory), then I'm awake for a minimum of half an hour but usually more like 1-2 hours, then back to sleep, etc. So it takes me 12 hours to get a "full" night's sleep and I'm still exhausted. And that's with the help of medication and regardless of how tired I am when I go to bed.

Needless to say, I would like to be able to sleep through the night and be able to do it without meds. So I'm going to give this therapy a try, even though I'm dreading the first couple of weeks because I know I'm going to be incoherent at best and flaring and migraining at worst (at least I hope that's the worst case scenario). I probably won't be blogging during the initial stage of this treatment, unless I get the urge to chronicle my experience. If that does happen, be prepared for a certain level of incoherency for which I'll apologize in advance.

Wish me luck!

Labels: blogging, health

My Lupus is currently flaring so I may or may not get around to updating this blog for a while. I have other things that will take priority in those brief moments that I have energy, so I'll only be updating here if my energy actually outlasts those other priorities.

Labels: blogging, health

I wasn't planning on posting anything right now, because I'm getting ready to head out the door. But I just read this ridiculous article in the Globe & Mail that claims "using cannabis even once can significantly increase a person's risk of suffering from a psychotic illness later in life." This report, published in a British medical journal, was based on results from seven previous studies on the long-term effects of marijuana use. So this isn't even an actual study using standardized procedures to determine if there is any causal relationship between cannabis and psychosis. This is simply going back through old studies hoping to find sufficient evidence to back up something that I think they've already decided would be a convenient truth. I see this as "Reefer Madness" based on the fact that several British politicians recently admitted to having smoked pot in their past.

The authors said people diagnosed with mental illness prior to their participation were excluded from their research. But did they actually bother to test the people who participated who had yet to be diagnosed. Because a lot of people who have some symptoms of mental illness will use cannabis in an attempt to relieve them, but they haven't actually been to a doctor about those symptoms and therefore haven't been diagnosed. But the study doesn't count that... because it's not an actual study! It's report based on several different studies that had several different parameters and objectives.

Aside from the fact that it's an obviously biased report, it's just plain bad science! So please, don't believe everything you read. Find out the actual facts and reach your own conclusions. Because this report is just a bunch of B.S.

Labels: health, rant

As I promised in Here's What Happened, a photo of my poor beloved Honda named Newt... post drunken idiot schmucking into it:


And what you can't see... all of the other wheels are pointing straight ahead, which this one obviously isn't (can you say "bent rear axle," boys and girls?). Plus there are scratches all along the side of my car where the other car dragged against it for a while.

I still don't know if I'm getting any compensation from the insurance company even though it happened over a month ago. And I fear that my dear sweet car may be a write off, because the door doesn't seem to be closing properly... not a good sign in a car with unibody construction. But I'm waiting for the estimate until the insurance company rules yay or nay, because Newt is obviously not driveable at the moment and towing it back and forth from the garage is not the way I want to spend my time or money (or more accurately, my limited number of CAA tows).

The lack of a car is wreaking havoc not just with my daily routine but also my health. You can't see it in the photo, but Newt has tinted windows. And no, it's not to look cool, it's to protect me from the sun because exposure to sunlight triggers Lupus flares. Needless to say, taking the bus leaves me a little overexposed. Especially because (a) the buses in Calgary don't run often enough and they don't run on schedule, so there are often very long wait times involved and (b) for some reason, even though Calgary is probably one of the sunniest cities in Canada, they don't believe in providing shade in their bus shelters... the roofs are clear plexiglass! What the frack?

Anyway, I'll be very glad when this all gets sorted out. And fortunately, my Dad has stepped in so I'll be able to cope even if the insurance company shafts me. But I'm still crossing my fingers that it'll all work out all right.

Labels: health, newt, rant

A fellow Lupus patient pointed me in the direction of a really good way of explaining what it's like to live with a chronic illness. It's a personal essay about The Spoon Theory (FYI: the link is to a pdf file) from the site But You Don't Look Sick. I figured this was as good a time as any to post it... having just segued from several days of Lupus flare into a week long migraine. So if you read this essay, you'll understand what I mean when I say that I'm a little low on spoons at the moment.

Labels: health

There's a firestorm already started in the comments for this post about Bush's latest veto on stem cell research. I've been weighing in on this one (on the pro side for embryonic stem cell research funding, for those of you who don't know me well enough to know that's obvious). Check it out. Maybe even join the debate.

read more | digg story

Labels: health, news, politics

My grandmother was diagnosed a while ago with macular degeneration. She has always loved to read, something that she passed on to me, so losing her eyesight is particularly devestating. My grandmother was also recently diagnosed with Lupus, which I have as well. Unfortunately for her, the main drug used to treat Lupus (Plaquenil) is contraindicated for people with macular degeneration. But I recently read something very interesting relating chronic inflammation to macular degeneration [Macular Degeneration: Types and Risk Factors, The Eye Digest].

The reason I find this interesting is that Lupus is an autoimmune disease with chronic inflammation. Is there actually a connection between these two diseases? I would really like to know. I hope someone somewhere out there is studying this. Because I don't want to end up with macular degeneration like my grandmother. I truly can't say this with enough emphasis: I couldn't bear to go blind.

Labels: health

I don't know about you, but I'm officially sick of blogging about blogging. So, with it being lunch time and all, I think it's time to give food some thought. I was on CookingSpot.com, checking out the recipes and currently have my mouth watering over Blue Bayou Stuffed Mushrooms. Unfortunately, I don't have all of the necessary ingredients on hand, so that one will have to wait. One thing I like about this website is that it has a category for Vegetarian recipes that has all the subcategories like appetizers, main dishes, soups, etc. And if browsing categories is not your thing, it's also searchable. Very handy. If only all recipe sites were so helpful.

P.S. Seriously, I want those mushrooms. Where does one buy Creole Seasoning Rub?

Labels: food, health, odds and ends

Well, I'm supposed to be at the opening night gala of the Herland Film & Video Festival tonight. I'm not there, thanks to a Lupus flare. Having a hard time finding my happy face at the moment.

Labels: film, health

The lure of sites like Post Secret and Hidden Lives has made me realize that the way I project myself to others is somewhat misleading. I mean, I know we all keep parts of ourselves secret and I know we all feel like the world just doesn't understand us sometimes, and that's part of what I'm talking about but not all of it.

I write a lot of fluff on this blog. But if you read between the lines, especially my poetry and the music that I talk about, you might see that the fluff is simply a costume that I feel comfortable wearing in front of others.

No, I didn't write about Virginia Tech even though I'm working on a film to commemorate the Montreal Massacre that happened almost 20 years ago and that I still remember like it was yesterday. I don't write about a lot of what's going on in the world even though these issues are ever present in my mind and weigh heavily on me. I can't even bring myself to write about Canadian poltics much of the time because I get so frustrated that I become incoherent. I vent about President Bush's foreign policy by posting cartoons and clips from The Daily Show, not by offering up the deep political analysis that I know I'm capable of.

Why? I'm not entirely sure. I think it's partly because of my health. That I want to seem like a happy person because I really feel like a burden and I don't want to inflict my burdensome self on someone else. And I think it's partly because of my art. That when I talk about these things in every day life, I'm less likely to have passion to unleash when pen hits paper to write a poem or a script.

Since I've mentioned my health, I'd like to take a moment to talk about it. I've mentioned before that I have various health conditions: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, secondary Sjögren’s Syndrome, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis with intermittent Hashitoxicosis and the occasional bout of IgA nephropathy. And let's not forget the migraines.

A lot of people compliment me on the positive attitude I have towards my life. Not to say that I don't actually possess a certain amount of optimism, but I feel anything but positive on the inside most of the time. It's not that I'm repressed or trying to be fake, I just can't stand talking about it anymore.

My rheumatologist likes to show me off to her residents as an example of someone whose lab results indicate that I should be non-functional and yet I "present like a well woman." What I can't bring myself to say to her is that I present that way because I have completely changed my diet, my lifestyle and my goals. I am incapable of holding down a job that requires regular hours. I need a minimum of nine hours of sleep a night which is very tricky as I am also an insomniac. It takes me at least one hour (if I'm lucky) to fall asleep. I'm thrilled if I sleep for four hours in a row; two and a half to three hours at a time is more likely. And then I have to try to fall asleep all over again.

I wake up in the morning feeling like I've been hit by a train and it takes a good hour for my morning meds to kick in, but because of the assortment and timing of my meds I can't actually take them all right away. So I'm not really functional until around two hours after I wake up. So there goes more than half of a 24-hour day. Then I need to take breaks every couple of hours so I don't hit the wall of mental and physical fatigue. Needless to say, this is very limiting.

I used to dream of competing in the Olympics as a member of the Canadian Three-Day Eventing Team until I developed my first autoimmune symptoms at the age of 19. I'd hoped that I would eventually figure out how to manage them and still compete, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Then I went to vet school. I figured if I couldn't compete, I could at least treat the top-level event horses. But in my third year of vet school, my Lupus took over my life and I needed to take a leave of absence. I was never able to go back.

Last year, I became involved in the film community here in Calgary. I was working as a freelance writer, text editor and graphic designer at the time and I come from a theatre background, so this wasn't much of a stretch for me. I threw myself into it with abandon because it had been so long since I'd felt such enthusiasm for something, anything. And I've recently realized that I have to accept that I will never be physically capable of directing the feature film that I'm writing. I'm not coping very well with that conclusion.

I hate it when people ask me how my health is because good days are very few and far between. Basically, I struggle with my symptoms every day but I get sick of hearing myself talk about being sick and I also get sick of lying and saying I'm fine.

I hope this doesn't sound like a pity party and I really didn't mean to go on about it for this long, but I guess seeing another dream elude me has been a little too much to bear.

Labels: film, health, odds and ends, writing

Here's an interesting idea. This legal site that's trying to educate people about mesothelioma has tried to make the site more interesting by including medical humour and information about bizarre diseases (like WALKING CORPSE SYNDROME or BLUE SKIN DISORDER). Personally, I think it's a great idea. I would love it if the Lupus Foundation—and the other medical sites I visit frequently—were to use this approach.

They've got cartoons:


And jokes:

A young doctor had moved into a small town and was setting up a new practice. He had a new sign painted and hung it in front of his office, proclaiming his specialties:

"Homosexuals & Hemorrhoids"

The town fathers were greatly upset with the sign and asked him please to change it. The Doctor was eager to please, so he put up a new sign:

"Queers & Rears"

The town fathers were really fuming about that one, so they demanded that the Doctor come up with a decent sign that would not offend the townspeople. So the Doctor finally came up with an acceptable sign:

"Odds & Ends"

I think it would be even better if the humour could be more focused on the disease in question, but there probably aren't a whole lot of jokes and cartoons about mesothelioma. Go figure.

Labels: health, humour, odds and ends

Normally when I talk about scripts on this blog, I'm referring to theatre, film or TV. This time I'm talking about medical scripts, as in prescriptions.

I had a migraine all last week. Well, technically it was two migraines but since I was sleeping when the right-sided migraine ended and the left-sided migraine began... well, I count that as one looong mother of a migraine. And I'm almost out of the good migraine meds; Maxalt is the only one that really works for me and it happens to cost about $20/dose. So that's a lot of money that I ingested last week. And I work for myself and don't have a drug plan. Kinda sucks.

Does anyone know if Canada has anything like this prescription drug card? It sounds amazing. It's free, activated instantly and offers discounts of up to 75% off all FDA approved Drugs (at participating pharmacies). Only in America, you say? Pity.

Labels: health

"When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name."
~ T.S. Eliot, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats"

The topic of pets has been cropping up a lot in my life lately. Well, I guess it always crops up a bit for me… whenever people find out I studied veterinary medicine, I usually end up fielding questions about health or behaviour or sometimes just trivia.

At the moment, I'm getting worried that my cat Emma (immortalized in my Meerkat post) might be developing diabetes.

You see, my old cat Ferdinand had diabetes. She (yes, her name was Ferdinand and she was a female cat... long story, 'nother post)... anyway, she was the first case I diagnosed all by myself when I was a vet student. Dubious achievement. My suspicions were based on a change in her urinating habits and the fact that she was quite overweight (a definite risk factor for diabetes in any species). Well, Emma is also quite overweight (my bad) and has recently been exhibiting some odd urinating habits… as in, she does it right OUTSIDE the litter box. Fortunately, I keep a plastic sheet under the litter boxes so there hasn't been an issue with cleanup and stains, but it's still a pain in the... neck.

I haven't figured out yet whether this problem is behavioural or medical. I'll need to check the sugar levels in Emma's urine to determine that. Hopefully I'm wrong. But if I'm right, hopefully it's non-insulin dependent diabetes. (Ferdinand was insulin dependent and she deregulated—meaning she switched from insulin dependent to non-insulin dependent, which I believe is unique to feline diabetes—so her next insulin injection led to an insulin overdose. I don't want to go down that road again.)

But I found this site that offers natural pet remedies. They have an herbal treatment for diabetes that looks interesting. I'll have to do a little research on the ingredients, but I'll admit I'm intrigued.

Not to neglect my other cat, Tobi (though she tends to stay hidden when guests are around and has developed a nickname of "the closet cat" because she spends so much time in—you guessed it—my closet), I also checked to see if they have hairball treatments. Tobi has a marked tendency for hairballs and she's a very picky eater and hates every hairball treatment I've ever given her. And when I feed her food that's supposed to reduce the number of hairballs, her coat ends up looking scraggly and she starts to lose weight (which she can't afford, because she's quite skinny already… not apparent in her picture because she's quite fluffy… usually).

Anyway, the site didn't have a treatment specifically for hairballs but they did have this dietary supplement that looks promising. I think I'd like to give that one a try.

I also noticed that they have a treatment for ear mite infections. Not that I need it now, but I seem to have a tendency to adopt farm cats who always seem to have ear mites when I get them. Tobi's ear mites were soooo bad that initially I thought she was hard of hearing. Then when the vet came (she did house calls… it was awesome), we cleaned Tobi's ears out together and ewww… q-tip after q-tip of black gunk. It sounds to me like this ear mite treatment would have worked nicely as a post-cleaning treatment as well, with its pain relief and healing properties. But the story has a happy epilogue. You might think that such an intensive cleaning would have made Tobi wary of having her ears touched or afraid of q-tips, but on the contrary. I think she felt soooo relieved afterwards that, to this day, she LOVES having her ears rubbed and her favourite toys are q-tips. Go figure.

Labels: animals, health

I was recently invited to read one of my poems at a Women's Open Mike Night in a couple of weeks. So I've been going through my poetry, trying to decide what to read and I've narrowed it down to five. This is one of the five. I wrote it in September of 1998, when I couldn't return to veterinary school because of my health. The doctors hadn't diagnosed me with Lupus yet, but I'd been feeling like hell for about a year and was seeing truckloads of specialists and having so many medical tests that my arms were like pincushions...

When your body betrays you
it leaves a mark on your soul
like a bruise
that slowly turns from
blue
to green
to yellow
as the injury ages
but never goes away

like a laceration
with jagged edges
that cuts too deeply
so that infection steals in
and creates an ulcer
that never heals

like an ache
that stems from deep within your bones
so that its very marrow
feels the pain
that keeps you awake
through the long deep cruel night
and you never sleep

like a scar
that grows larger
instead of shrinking
and the skin thickens
and people think that means it doesn't hurt
when it's really more painful
and it will never go away.

I believe I could do anything
if only my body
would stop the treachery
halt the treason
cease the betrayal
that makes me want to cry out
to the stars
and the empty
lonely
dark
space
and rage against the heavens
and beat against
the great flapping wing
that steals the breath from my lungs
until I drown
or choke
on the salt water
that is squeezed from my eyes
like blood from a stone.

cm
September 30, 1998

Labels: health, poetry

My big news: I'm in love... with my new humidifier.

You'd think I would have bought one before now. I mean, between having Sjögren's Syndrome and living in Calgary (dry skin capital of the world), my skin is doubly cursed. And my recent Lupus flare hasn't helped, either. Hence my proud new ownership of a warm mist humidifier.

"What the heck is a warm mist humidifier?" You might ask. Yeah, I asked the same question after I realized that it was very simple to say: "I'm going to buy a humidifier" but much less simple to choose which one. Google to the rescue. I came across this handy site: Hunter Carefree Humidifier Information. It talks about desirable humidifier features and explains the differences between warm and cool humidifiers, etc. Very informative. For example, if you have small children—which I don't (or I guess pets, which I do)—you should avoid the steam type of humidifiers... they can burn! Who knew?

So if you suffer from Sjögren's, dread the dry skin of winter or simply happen to be a resident of Calgary, I highly recommend a humidifier. My skin is happier already!

Labels: health

I don't remember if I've mentioned this here or not, but I ended up sinking into a major Lupus flare after filming this summer (pretty much all of September was a write off). Before this summer, I was finally feeling as though I had found a balance between my health and my life. But now that I've added the film stuff into the mix, I feel like I'm back where I started when I had to leave vet school. I bring this up now because I've had a very hard day, weekend, week, month... and I kind of feel like I'm at a breaking point. I'm realizing how important it is to have the support of family and friends but, unfortunately—good intentions not withstanding—they don't always help (except Mandy!).

But I did stumble across this new website called OrganizedWisdom.com. It's a place for people to come and share their health stories. Not to whine and complain but to share what they've learned, whether it be some sort of medical treatment or an inspirational life lesson. So far, no one has written a Wisdom Card on Lupus... so I think maybe that's what I'm meant to do.

What about you? I bet you have a story to share. So here's my challenge to you: Help others by sharing one piece of health wisdom at OrganizedWisdom.com. Not only could you end up making someone else feel better, but I bet it'll make you feel pretty good, too.

Labels: cool sites, health