Hello World

My back pain is subsiding again, as is the crazy all over body pain. Since it's the weekend I'm gonna go overdo now, which sadly for me means vacuuming the house. Oh, strange new world that has such appliances in't!

A rant about insurance companies . . .

well just mine. How is it that in the same 24 hour period I can have to learn about and absorb the following:
1) My insurance company has sent my ob/gyn a list of patients who did not act on their mammogram prescriptions, along with instructions to call said patients and guilt trip them, and
2) I will have to decide how much I can afford (out of pocket) I will be willing to pay for acupuncture just because the acupuncturist (who is smart and knowledgeable) is not credentialed in a way my insurance company recognizes.

Okay, before I go any further I need to caveat: yes, mammograms are good for everybody. Yes, there is always a chance that people who aren't D.O.s or M.D.s might be incompetent. But somehow that doesn't mean much when right now at this the technologically advanced 21st century of medicine, I still can't walk in the morning and I missed two days of work. To a closet puritan like me, that's egregious to put it mildly.

Since I like to keep my rants brief and since computing bothers my back, I'll close now. I do feel better. Thanks blog.

Dear Blog,

Sometimes I truly wish that you occupied that place in my life you used to, back in the day. But I've been thinking this morning about how different things are now than they used to be back then, and I think sometimes that my new life just doesn't allow for the kind of emotional engagement you used to make me want to commit to.

Another big problem is that you represent for me the kind of engagement that requires (at least in my mind) some optimism and psychic wherewithall that I just don't have right now. I fear that if I feed you too many posts I'll have to face the cringing whiny pessimist you reveal all too clearly to me that I've become.

And, yes blog, I know that this state and status is temporary. I know too that it's created and fed by chronic pain and things like looking at my fingers and finding out that somewhere along the line two of them have become misshapen by arthritis. See what I mean about whiny?

So, it appears that for now the options are clear:
a) stop blogging-whiny little bitch
b) blog and whine and blog and whine with the full speed ahead narcissism I know I'm fully capable of
c) blog about the positive aspects of having chronic pain and my active search for help from various medical and "pseudo" medical"
d) replace "positive" (above, c) with negative, even though it becomes a restating of a).
e) lay off blogging for awhile
Which will I choose? Who knows? For now, I gotta go cozy up to my Saunders Lumbar traction machine.
MNYAGG

My Thoughts on Having a Wedding . . .

1) It still scares me, but much less than it used to.
2) I'm pretty darn excited that I'm gonna do it.
3) I can't imagine making all those wedding planning decisions because it took me I dunno maybe a year to decide on the paint for my upstairs bedroom. Also I've never been a bride at a real wedding before, much less a frumpy middle aged one.
4) One thing I know I want -- kazoos for everybody.

In short, my thoughts on the reorganization of SUNYIT

There are some great opportunities for humor in my work place; let's face it sometimes we laugh to avoid the alternative. In this the first throes of my school's restructure, I feel like going to work is almost surreal. There are all the everyday things like what will I do when I actually need some more chalk (insert legal pads, insert dry erase markers, insert staples), and there are the more abstract things like wow I felt bad for the adjuncts I talked to yesterday who somehow hadn't been told that they actually have two mailboxes now, one in an at that time yet to be disclosed location.

So for many agita seems to reign supreme at the SUNY Institute of Technology, whether it be about the semantics of our new transitional place of work or about the political intrigue that inevitably accompanies such an undertaking. As for me, I seem to be turning to the sense of humor that has gotten me through so many things, as evidenced by the following email I sent to the print shop last week asking for copies of my syllabi. The recipient's name has been left out to protect his/her anonymity. It went like this:

Subject: Knock, Knock . . .
(and in the body of the text): Who's there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange you glad the faculty are back to drive you crazy?

Okay, so it's not that funny in the retelling; frankly it wasn't that funny to begin with. But it is my hope that this semester I can find some way to step out of the line of fire from people who might (understandably) get worked into a lather at the drop of a hat. My students just don't need an hysterical teacher.

One of the things I'll be doing to relieve stress is attending the following events at The Other Side on Genesee St. in Utica next door to Cafe Domenico:

Wednesday, September 15, 2010, 7:30 p.m. The Imagining America series that brings in scholars from Hamilton College into the city to give talks, Chautauqua-style, from their areas of expertise, especially the humanities and arts. The 3rd season is to be launched with a talk by Peter Cannavo, associate professor of Government, titled "Green Citizenship: Environmentalism and Civic Virtue in an Age of Oil Spills and Tea Parties."

Sunday, 9/19/10 6:30-8:30 p.m. Climate Change Forum with Ken Mazlen. Cal Ken, 734-9076 for more information. This forum will be held regularly on third Sundays each month.

There are a ton of things to do at The Other Side, so if you want to either escape or engage check it out. Personally, I plan to do both.

In other news: Coming soon to the Factory Times Issue One, an in depth article about SUNYIT's restructure. I don't know about you all, but I can't wait. Jess, I'm gonna need that game night to start SOON.

Coming soon to MNYAGG: what do students in Dr. Murphy's business communications and creative writing classes say about the new "system" at their school?




Subject

Chronic Pain

Yep, that's me sometimes. And sometimes it's because of the aforementioned title. If you know me more than casually, you know that I live with chronic pain from what I sometimes call the triumvirate of evil: fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and osteoporosis. I know the last ailment in that group is supposed to be painless, but I think it's responsible for the weak hollow feeling that I swear resides in my bones and not in my muscles.

And if you know me in person, you know that while I do talk about pain, sometimesit seems to me ad nauseum, I am also loathe to accept it, to call it for example "my pain".

But it is my pain, and chronic pain changes the way we live our lives. The facts are these: one, while there are places in my body that always hurt every day (neck, lower back and feet) there are also places that hurt intermittently; two, if I talked about pain, that would seem to me linguistically imprecise because it's the combination of types of pain(s) (stinging, aching, and sharp) that really kicks my butt, so to speak; finally, the problem of pain is, for me, compounded by things like my hands and feet don't work in the morning, so I stumble around and drop things a lot.

What I'm doing about it:
Well, I get a Boniva shot every three months. I take Zyflamend, CoQ10 and calcium every day and even tried Savella until the side effects became unbearable. I take ibuprophen and acetaminophen together when it's impossible to function without it. I stretch and try to do yoga, but I've given up walking for now because it makes my legs hurt too much the next day.

What I'm going to do about it:
I'm going to start acupuncture and in November I'm going to a neurologist my rheumatologist is sending me to.

I have recently learned that even though I thought bizarre cross doctor situations were little more than fodder for internet discussion groups and lifetime movies, you can (well, I can) become embroiled in some ridiculousness. My general practitioner, I found out recently, does not believe in rheumatologists or fibromyalgia. So I was treated to a lecture, just what I needed. My rheumatologist's physicians assistant seemed cranky at best the last time I was there a month or so ago and blamed everything on the "fibro". Everything that is until we got to the part where I said my feet won't hold me up first thing in the morning.

What I feel about writing this right:
Yeah, I feel like a whiner; I admit it. I would like to be the same woman who was able to ignore chronic pain for the 15 or so years I've had it, but it just didn't hurt so damn badly then. Maybe all that "ignorance" is part of why my pain has now become so hard to manage.

Why I'm writing this right now:
Well I was hoping that maybe someone would do a google search, see this blog, and read this and get some information about what I'm doing to keep afloat.
Murf

Essay: The Love of Old Houses

I went back to work yesterday, that is to do the teaching part. I was worried that I would fall apart if somebody expressed his/her condolences. And by mid morning somebody did. And it was okay. And it made me think, really think, about that word that Mark Doty uses as the centerpiece of "Essay: The Love of Old Houses", the word "dwelling".

This one word with its multiple meanings is a source of comfort for Doty as he mourns the death of his longtime partner Wally Roberts. Published in 2002, the poem has been a source (no pun intended even though the book that contains it is titled Source, honest)of comfort for me as I've transitioned from west to east, from one old house to another, giving up so much and acquiring so much in the process.

The problem for me is that "dwelling" also means thinking too much when I stay in my dwelling too much. And that means hashing and rehashing all the sad and frustrating things that have come down the pike over the last few years.

But guess what?

I made it.

I talked to approximately 67 students in the course of nine hours, and we had a blast.

I went home and reread a letter from a student thanking me for all I'd done for her and remembered how easy and natural it was for me to help shape her education and how lucky I was to be able to do so.

If this post seems scattered and disorganized I guess it's because it's one of those times when I can't really tell you how I feel in words. If you want to know how sad and hopeful I feel, you should probably read Doty's poem. Heck, I think everybody should read it at:
http://books.google.com
Have a good one!

MNYAGG