Killing Painkillers

Killing Painkillers:

Major Pain, reporting for duty.

MS comes with it. Neuropathy, muscle pain, spasms, tingles, burners, zingers, and aches, in varying strengths and lengths and in any area. I chose to battle the sudden onslaught with muscle relaxers and a narcotic pain reliever.

With my background of helping nursing students through anatomy and physiology, and my degree focusing on anthropologic sociology of health and wellness, I am not a good patient. I’m an aggravating, semi-demanding, know-it-all with only my survival needs mattering in the maze of the modern-medical complex. I came armed with knowledge and particular questions and an attitude. I’m not the average patient (no one is), and patronization pisses me off. “I’m not… You will… and I need” is my modus operandi … It is not pretty. I had to eyeroll him once when I showed him a trick with reading the MRIs …

Dr. “Oh wow, how did you do that!” …

Me: “First you do this then click here and roll your wheel…”

Dr: “Huh! I learned something new… I never knew about that”.

Me: *smirk* “I told you before; I do this for a living.”

When you get in the rhythm of neurologist visits, it’s every month until they get a diagnosis and get you on meds. After that, it is every six months…”Howdy, hey, how’re you doing, uh-huh, uh-huh, here’s six months of refills, see you later, bye”.

Well he can’t give a six month refill on a narcotic, so on our last visit in January, he gave me one more month Rx of the narcotic and six months of an anti-seizure drug commonly used to treat nerve pain. Supposed to be taken strictly, regularly, and without stopping unless talking to him first, this medication is well known to me. I have been warned, and I’ve seen it make people cuckoo-crazy.

I refuse to take it; I’m not in that much pain, right?! I split up the narcotic pain medication to make it last, and it helped dull everything and let me relax enough to sleep, yet it added to tiredness, and could jack-up the digestive system. Also, the wasteland epidemic of hard-addicted people it has left in its wake.  For certain it helped, I was more than grateful to have it, however MS is one big side effect, and adding new side effects to it doesn’t help me.

I’ve been building a life-long habit of NOT taking the medicines prescribed by my doctors, unless I feel I’m in desperate need. As I have said before, I’ve maintained a scant conventional medicine cabinet. I will, however, use near surgical precision with the medications I deem worthy of accepting. More often than not though, I’ve been heard to say: “Aw, naw… I ain’t taking THAT shit.”

I don’t function well without the muscle relaxers. The way MS affected me, damaged nerves lead to periods of spasms of confused muscles. Allowing them to chill out enables me to move more fluidly. The stumbles and falls are a direct result of those confused muscles (temporarily) unable to operate my personally learned balance.

I can only describe it as like being a toddler again, learning which muscles turn and balance. Reorientation is what I’m focused on trying to do. Now that I feel that have stopped the barreling train of damage my body was inflicting on itself, I’m going to try to start backing it up. I’m still not in remission, it’s still pretty bad, but I’m not getting “worse”.  The relaxers are enabling me to reconnect with the world and relearn balance, and I feel I have tweaked the amounts and scheduling to their most beneficial, and am near religious about Copaxone, and feel it is finally holding me steady.

I’m fairly proud to announce that I’m on zero pain medications. I haven’t even taken an aspirin in a couple of weeks. I do experience the pain, but I have begun to learn my limits. I just can not push myself as physically as I have been able to.

I told my sons I have been lucky to have lived this long with my particular super-human abilities, and now I’m like the rest of the mortals. Along with having already been in a better position than most to absorb the changes brought on by MS, I have learned to use natural means, stretching, semi-meditations, and good old rest to deal with pain when I experience it.

Furthermore, since taking the last of the narcotics, any side effects that came with them have vanished and I feel ten times better by that alone.

Maybe it’s because Spring is here, happy equinox everybody! That may have bearings on the up-tick. A combination of new resolve, sunshine, and plain old fashioned taking it. Sounds like a plan to me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Her

She is waiting..somewhat impatiently.
She's been around for a while. She lives in a novel I've been slowly tapping away at.

Many overlooked her as a mere woman until she allowed a portrait to be painted.
In the portrait, she displayed her prize.

Cojones

Just spit it out Sarah. Are you woman enough to take the balls out of your mouth?

No, I don't think so.

Is it somehow okay for this horrid wreck of a reality show whore to say out loud that the elected President doesn't have the Cojones for fill-in-the-blank.

Is it somehow okay because it is a foreign word... does it make it politically correct?

Go ahead, Sarah. Say it in English. Since it is the preferred language (nay, OFFICIAL language) of your darling posse party of tea leaf readers, go ahead...

Look him in the face and tell him HE doesn't have THE BALLS.

I dare you. Who has the biggest balls of them all?

Blackbeard Pirate Festival - Hampton VA - Day 2

By far, the Blackbeard Festival is our favorite of the annual fests around Hampton Roads. It is the only one that can get me out for at least 2 of the three days.

The scene is free, literally. No admission tickets needed, and plenty of free parking right smack dab in the middle of it all.

Loads of fest-y food and drink, and best of all, places to sit, eat, drink and be merry.

This is very attractive to my tribe. Who likes to stand and juggle a gyro and a beer? Not us.

Hampton Police force also does a fine job of being lenient, and inconspicuous. Translate that as being a very low-hassle event.

This year I went out adult-style on Friday, then took the younger of my boys on Saturday. 

The brat turned on his old mam and tried to capture her at the point of his blunderbuss... earning the ire of her dastardly dark side, conjured up and evident in her meanest pirate face.

"GGRrrrr YAR! I'll butter me homebaked bread with the marrow from yer bones, ye turncoat."

Teeth: Tools yer mama told you not to use and then uses herself to chew through the restraints, or tie on a motherly leather wristlet.

 Pirates take pictures, too.

Last year I took these shots of a van that I fell in love with, because I figured, 'that's dedication'.

Yes.. that is a ships wheel affixed to the steering wheel.

 This year I find out it belongs to The Brigands who had entertained us greatly last night, and again today (in a more intimate setting 'unplugged' style)

So... I bought a CD for a tenner from a beautiful lass, I believe was named Baby-Punch McGee which helped them gas up their brilliant land yacht to head off on more piratey adventures.

Meanwhile... at Pirate's Cove...

it was dinnertime...

The best was watching the kids swordfighting and then dancing in the round in front of the Bunch of Grapes Tavern at Pirates Cove.


Wild little heathens... it was great.

The dancing was the best, and I will tell you why...

The young lady is trying to get the kids to dance in a circle, but they won't get it together when the music starts.

It quickly progresses to a free-for-all of movement and screamy fun. I love looking at the different body gyrations they are so joyously going through.

Even the pirates had to get into it...

And yea, oh yea they lit up the bridge 'waterfall' of sparks

Yo Ho Ho.. Until next year mateys!

Blackbeard Pirate Festival 2010 - Hampton, VA I

Yarrrr!
Pirates have again taken over Hampton, Virginia... 'tis expected and well received by the natives (many of whom are pirates disguised as office personnel and laborers)

This year, they are here to celebrate the 400th birthday of the Citie of Hampton.

I went to celebrate busty wenches, grog, and sea shanties. And to buy a sweet leather wrist gauntlet complete with celtic knot... I intentionally didn't buy the second so I have to go back tonight to get it ;) my other wrist is quite jealous and will drive the car.

Besides I have a sneaky feeling (hope, is the word) they will light up the bridge tonight, as they didn't during last night's fireworks.  I see the black under the bridge... hmmm.

Some photos from last evening:

The Brigands from New York entertained heartily while I swilled Loose Cannon Hop3 IPA for a decent 4$ a cup, bought from some lovely and busty wenches at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern. Please tip your wenches. The captain-in-training here had just been trying to pick up rocks with a hook-hand. I missed the shot. "Yar, it's damned difficult to pick up rocks with yer hook."

A lovely tree to camp beneath.

Sirrah...Dinna eat the baby!!

Ahh. Now that's a good pirate. They're just sharing a drink.

I love being down by the waterfront, any day, any night.

"Hear the bells ring as the tide rigging sings

It's a son of a gun of a chorus"~J.Buffett

It's a Pirate's life for me.

Dominant Allele: Wild

I wanted to take a moment to put down a little groundwork.
My parents grew up poor... My mom's parents lived in a 200 year old, two room, hand-hewn log cabin with no running water or electricity. This was in depression-era Appalachia.
Their people had already been there a while. When the brand new American government began scouting into the savage wilderness past the Eastern Piedmont, and making records of what they found, my family was already established out there, A mixture of displaced Ulster Scots living and making families with the indigenous who had been there forever.
I can finger my direct line here. Grandpa was a coal miner, he brought his family (mom was 6) down from the mountain to work industrial jobs in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cleveland. He went back after his children were raised, literally, and economically. The mountains were in his blood, he despised the city life. He wanted to move back and be where he belonged. I am lucky to have been able to be there with him and Granny often. He died when I was 26.
Granny moved down here 11 years ago. I go back to see the ones that are left. There are many relatives my age there, but I'm afraid we don't have much in common anymore. They have been mutated by Coal Industryopathy, Wal-Martiopia, Oxycontinuity, and Ritalinability. It's pitiful. sorrowful.
... And
My dad's family are from the swamp. We are connected to the family farm in Murfreesboro NC...still the same last name...we don't live there. The direct line leads to slavers granted land from King George. My dad's family line weren't the ones who inherited the farm.
Swamp dwelling, small farming. Dad grew up terribly poor, joined the army before he was legally able by lying about his age...he did it so the family had one less mouth to feed. He sent his money home. He killed so he wouldn't be killed in Vietnam.
I never knew my grandpa, he died before I was born. He was a bootlegger, painter, farmer. (my mom's side all made 'moonshine' but more for home use. Uisbaugh.) Almost the entire Vaughan clan lives hereabouts, I don't have much in common with many of them because they all chose to make 'better' choices than bootlegging and are very good and comfortable American southern baptists (many have WalMartiopia and Changeophobia)
I do have a point...
My mom and dad and their parents all went for a piece of the American dream that came pounding on their doorsteps during the age of depression and post war ApplePieNess.
They raised me and my younger brother to want to have all the trappings they were able to now buy. They had a good healthy McCarthy education, It was so much better to have a choice of shoes to wear than to be barefoot by necessity. They, too could have the comfortable homes and lives that they saw at the picture shows and later on television, Plenty of easy food... leisure time.. well mannered children.

Have you ever tried to dress a monkey?

Mom must've had it tough. Though she tried to put the frilly-bottomed tights, and patent-leather shoes and pretty bows on her fair-skinned little girl, I ran through the earth and everything in it with no regard for convention. Temper-tantrums and willfullness that would, today, have gotten me on some prescription regimine. If I couldn't have my way, there wouldn't be a way...if she locked me in my room for both of our sakes, I would turn out every drawer, relieve the bed of its sheets, mattress and box-springs, and pound the floor with my heels, then fists. I remember distinctly the day she had to physically force me on the school bus as a first grader. I braced myself, foot and hand at the bus door, while everyone watched, I hollered like a banshee. Damn it all...she got me on the bus.
Slowly I conformed enough to function.
I even started to mimick some of my peers, I learned I was supposed to pair off and make a family when I was old enough. I learned a lot of things. I tried to be what I was supposed to be.
It didn't work out so well, most of the time. I was miserable, unless I was doing what I wanted. Mom was miserable, unless I was doing what was expected. Everyone else was miserable when mom is miserable.
We fought and argued so much. Dad and bro ducked for cover.
I made bad mistakes to gain what I thought was freedom.
My wild nature makes me unsuitable for anything less than true freedom.
Some social mutation cause an allele to show up in the industrial age. Some kind of conformity gene, coding for civilization. It's phenotype glossy, and modern, alluring.
In my parents it is dominant.... but I think both are carriers of the recessive WILD gene.

oooops

I am so lucky. My phenotype is wild, uncivilized, heartpoundingly so. I have to be true to myself. I'm in the process of cracking off the burnt crust of being held too close to the bling.
They don't like it very much, but I'm only truly happy when I'm running wild and free.

I am getting closer to the jumping off place... so close.

Anyone want to jump?

Barefoot Artist

I have only begun calling myself 'an artist' rather recently. I had this silly idea that to call yourself an artist meant that you painted for a living.

I have probably made less than $100 off of art. I don't know how to sell it. I can't translate it into a price. I've been asked, "How much do you want for that?" and my answer usually is, "uh, I dunno...what do you think?"

I can calculate how much the materials cost, but I don't. I can calculate time and put a price on it, but it seems wrong. So I end up giving away many pieces as gifts along the way.

Solstice coming up, no problem...the picture you like is probably going to be along, birthday maybe.

I set up to travel with my supplies, and do go out in the field often. Sometimes just on the floor of a friends house...

I have a very modest workspace in my suite on a little butcher block table next to the window and a minifridge.

Often, a painting gets frustrated with me, and we are at odds. There is always a stack of canvases in progress, some abandoned.
Some just waiting for me to get finished with washing clothes...

Some...drawn and painted from photo shoots.

Some while I'm watching a DVD of Dave Matthews and get inspired *pause...

Some while my mind is wandering...

Some to show unforgettable moments....

Some to show forgotten spans of time...

Some to show athletic concentration...

Some to show athletic exhilaration...
Some to show encounters with nature....

And...yep...Fruit. This one is called Grapes of Wrath, and was made while I was on the phone for the last time with a woman that had called me friend and I her...She was jealous and selfish, and she was yelling at me for forty five minutes. I let her have her say, all the while silently painting...
Anyway...I love art, and I do make art works so I am an artist. I love it so much, I made another one...looks just like me...
Thank you, my friends for encouraging me, and thanks for stopping by.
Tchuss,
Darla Vaughan