laceblade

If you don't follow me on Twitter/Tumblr, then fyi that yesterday morning, I fell down walking on some gravel on my way into work, & tore the shit out of my knee. It was bleeding so much that I went to the ER so they could clean it for me.

It was kind of hilarious...I called my boss and was like, "DON'T FREAK OUT...how do I get to the ER?!" lmao.

It was funnier at first when the pain messages weren't going to my brain at all.

Now it's very slowly healing, & throughout the day the band aids I wear rub on it, and it just hurts.
I have an affected limp currently, to try & lessen the bending of the knee (& therefore the rubbing of band aid on to rawness).



I forgot how much acute, all-day pain takes out of you.
Currently, it sucks, but it almost makes me sit back & realize how much less pain I'm in now than I was in before my surgery.


(She says, having spent the last 8 hours constantly feeling about to hurl with "pukey reflux pain.")

I keep wanting to blog about what happened in the massage appointment I had last week & being unable to do so. So here are my tweets, along with tweets today about my acupuncture appointment.

Massage Appointment
(This is the second massage I've had. I have a lot of upper back pain. I believed this is b/c I have, as they say, a large rack.)
Massage this morning! "The reason this is painful is b/c you don't breathe deeply enough/from the right place."
CAN I JUST HAVE ONE BODY THING DONE RIGHT? CAN I BE DOING ANYTHING RIGHT? JFC.
So now, in addition to feeling anxious about when I eat/what I eat/how much I eat & how much pain it's going to cost me...
...I can also feel anxious LITERALLY EVERY TIME I DRAW BREATH that I'm not doing it correctly.
In conclusion, fuck everyone, & fuck everything.
But hey, now I can articulate what it is I like about makeup? It's something related to my body that I feel like I am "doing correctly."
And I give absolutely zero fucks about how un-feminist that makes me.


Acupuncture Appointment
So, Acupuncturist got all, "Wow, even when you follow your diet, you still have pain? What's different on days when you have pain?" with me.
She got all bent out of shape when I said, "It's chronic pain. It's much better than it was. I don't expect it to ever go away."
& wants to sell me more pills next time.
That's 3/3 with medical professionals this month. SOMETIMES PAIN IS MEANINGLESS & WON'T GO AWAY. SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT IT.
Sometimes people are already trying as hard as they fucking can, in every fucking way. Back off.

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I feel angry, all the time.

[Ironic use of icon because drinking from a straw causes me unbearable pain due to inhaling air, & I don't drink milk!]

I have a busy day today, and I expect it won't be until I've actually tried some recipes that I fully form an opinion about the book.

In the meantime, I'll copy/paste the impressions I tweeted this morning.

Verdict on the acid reflux cookbook: My reflux is way worst than the majority of people's. I guess I knew that, though. #lolsurgery

In general, portion control = huge (knew that). Author thinks tomato & etc. are okay in small portions & prepared certain ways. #SKEPTICAL

Author recommends lifestyle changes I've already implemented, some unknowingly - like taking a walk after lunch, making lunch biggest meal.

Author says repeatedly: people become anorexic or develop disordered eating habits due to fear of pain. #hahahasob #wishidreadthisawhileago

IN SUM: Ready to try some recipes in the coming weeks. Glad I have other cookbooks that explain HOW to cook b/c this one really doesn't.

There are a couple of lifestyle changes I hope to implement immediately/this week: We don't have a kitchen table in our apartment, but I'd like to stop eating dinner on the couch. I can either eat on the white chair (very upright) or standing at our breakfast nook counter.

Elaborating on one of the tweets above: I started taking a walk every day at work back in February, when I had returned to work from medical leave. This is in part because after my surgery, my body literally had to learn how to eat again, with a newly twisted stomach. I knew that walking aided in digestion because every time I ate something, I would pace around the rooms of my parents' house, either reading while walking or playing my DS.
I continued this when I returned to work because of extreme pain.

I also continued it in part to encourage some meditative time on my own part during the work-day (meditation has been recommended to me to reduce stress and anxiety - things that both cause and are resulted from chronic physical pain).
Lastly, walking midday is nice because my work environment has no natural light. My cubicle is cozy because I've decorated it with anime pencil boards and various buttons, but there's no beating natural light.

Rather than make me unproductive, I usually return to my desk quite focused after a walk!

ANYWAY. This is all to say that I'd like to try taking a walk in the evenings, too. Maybe not immediately after dinner (on a typical night, I watch 1.5 hours of evening news: CBS then PBS), but after that would be fine.

The book confirms a lot of what I already knew about exercise: Moderate exercise is good. Intense exercise that gets you panting ends up triggering reflux.
I'd still really like to try biking. I joined our city's community bike-share program and then we had a summer of unbearably hot temperatures and going for a bike ride sounded like torture.
I've been busy lately, but I'd like to at least try this before the bikes get taken away for winter.


Recipe-wise, I think I'll be starting with some of the salad recommendations. A lot of things in this book look like they're beyond my current skill level; the author assumes that people know how to cook/have a lot of time to cook.
Rather than make my own ~chicken stock from rotisserie chicken leftovers~, for example, I'll just....buy some already-made organic chicken stock and dilute it with water.

The book does stress organic foods, which is something I've mostly switched to anyway, as I live close to a grocery store that emphasizes the same.
Lately, a lot of things I've read about GERD point to processed and chemical-ized food as a problem.

Obesity is a huge contributing factor - reflux is becoming much more widespread as people become bigger - and in my own case, the switch of my reflux from "minor annoyance" to "unbearable pain" was likely caused by significant weight gain that I had a few years ago.
However, due to the severity of my GERD, we already know that weight loss alone hasn't/didn't fix it.
It sucks that fixing the cause can't be the cure. That would be much more simple.

The author of this book wants people to make lifestyle changes to avoid taking medications like proton-pump inhibitors, and treats surgery as an ultimate last resort.

I've already had the surgery, and I'm not going to spend time wishing I had known about some of these rules before the surgery: I don't think using the recipes in this cookbook would have helped me.
But it helps me in feeling better about having had the surgery because I'm no longer on any medications for reflux, although I probably have more Tums than I should ^^;

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The book emphasizes throughout that many people become anorexic or develop disordered eating habits due to fear of pain. Rather than make me feel sad, it just makes me think, "Oh thank God, it's not just me."

I feel a little inspired to write this post because today was a bad pain day.

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There is this thing that I have noticed.

Many people will ask how I am doing with regard to chronic pain/etc. in light of the surgery I had in January. I don't really mind this, and my stock answer is to truthfully state that I have much less pain than I used to, and I no longer have to take any medications. Unfortunately, the diet is still restricted, but at least now when I follow it, I very rarely experience pain.
Smaller portions/more frequent meals are hard to get used to, but I'm managing.

For most people, that is enough information, and the conversation ends there.

If I haven't talked to someone in a long time, they might want to know The Surgery Story, where I talk about how my stay in the hospital was akin to an alternate Hell dimension.


But in each of my social circles, there is a person or two who will wait to catch me alone, and then say something like, "But how do you really feel?" or "But what does it feel like, when you have pain?" or "Do you really have some pain every day?"
To the latter question, I usually cheerfully say, "Yes, but it's way less agonizing than it used to be!"

What is up with this reaction? Is it like, people don't know what else to talk about so that's how they try to get closer to me? Is it a fascination with the glamor and horror of chronic pain?

I don't get it. I assume that this doesn't only happen to me; I'm wondering what other people think of this type of conversation.
For the people with whom I have it, they are never malicious, in fact sort of the opposite. I just never know how to respond.

I've always kind of ignored George R. R. Martin because, until a few months ago, I'd never read anything by him. I knew of him as Author Who Hates Fanfiction and Gets Harassed by Readers to Write Faster.

As-you-know-Reader, Martin's epic, A Song of Fire and Ice, is getting turned into an HBO series, starting with Game of Thrones, and will start airing this Sunday.

The New York Times published a review [doesn't Arya look adorable/awesome?!] that basically purported that there is nothing in the series for women to watch - except for the sex, which is apparently thrown in just to make women want to view.

The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.

Understandably, fans have had a negative reaction to this review.
An example response is here, and also included are some links to other fan reaction.

But hey! George R. R. Martin decided to respond, too. His post is here. He opens by noting that he doesn't typically respond to negative reviews of his work, thereby setting up the post as Something Special.

But his big reveal is this.

I am not going to get into it myself, except to say
(1) if I am writing "boy fiction," who are all those boys with breasts who keep turning up by the hundreds at my signings and readings?
and
(2) thank you, geek girls! I love you all.

It's George R. R. Martin's big moment to acknowledge his non-male fans! To thank them for their support! And what does he do?! HE DEFINES THEM BY THEIR BREASTS.

And also refers to them as girls.

But, you know, I've read the goddamn books, so I am not surprised.

For those who can't read my access-locked posts, I have Weird Medical Things, and I recently learned that I can, in fact, consume decaf tea! This is really exciting for me, because I was previously limited to water and milk substitutes (rice milk, almond milk, etc).

Notes, and then some questions!

Note 1) I do actually remember that when this GERD thing started and I said I wasn't having caffeine, a couple of you told me that I could probably have decaf tea, as it's just herbs. I did appreciate the advice then, and now appreciate that you were right! However, I waited to check it out with the gastro-doc, first.

Note 2) I get that "decaf tea" is not really "tea," and blah-blah-blah, but for the sake of brevity, I will be referring to it as "decaf tea," as opposed to "tea-bags-with-herbs-in-them." Herbal tea! Herbal tea is the phrase I am looking for. (Thanks, littlebutfierce!)

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Questions!

When standing in a grocery store looking at the tea wall, I am unsure how to tell which teas are decaf and which are not. The boxes do not say THIS ONE IS DECAF! on them.

When a lady at a store told me which ones were decaf, she gestured randomly at shelves. I bought one called "Calming," but it doesn't state anywhere on it that it has caffeine.

The lady told me that green teas generally have caffeine, but when I look at those boxes, they do not say THIS ONE HAS CAFFEINE.


I'm not sure how to know this!
Some people have said that red teas and white teas are always decaf - but I don't think that tea boxes say "Colonel John's randomass assortment of herbs - A RED TEA" on them.

It is hard for the uninitiated! Is there some "help box" that I am missing? How can I tell what's decaf and what's not, or what's a red tea, and what's not?

This is why I'm starting with tea bags, btw, before I even attempt the wall of loose tea. Labels! I need labels!

A linkspam is being collected for people speaking out about Feminist's On-Going Disability Fail here. If you know of posts about the topic, submit them via comments so that they can be added.

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While we're at it, I recently very much enjoyed this post by sasha_feather about fat acceptance and Michael Pollan.

I would say it's not Pollan's attitudes precisely, but that he is uncritically adopting the wider cultural attitude of fatness as a disease. Several times he said that the Western diet is responsible for "heart disease, Type II diabetes, and obesity."

I have been thinking and thinking about this, and I need to think about it some more, because it's complicated and it makes me uncomfortable. ...

Also I think it's weird to pathologize a body type. Diseases are socially constructed; what is and is not a disease is not so easy to say. And I think it's weird to say that being fat is a disease. I think it's OK to say that some things associated with being fat are diseases, that being fat might make you more likely to have certain diseases, but even then you should remember that it is not a one-to-one situation and does not apply to everyone: it's only true at the population level, and association does not necessarily imply causation, either. It is more complicated than that!

It's a false equivalancy: people like to think that being fat means being unhealthy, automatically. They like to think that being thin (but not too thin!) means good health. Well guess what, that is not always the case either. It's more complicated!

In the comments, there is also a discussion about problematic things in the movie Wall-E.