This just keeps getting better and better

Happy day! My leg hole has MRSA!

Listen here you nasty, sneaky little bacterium of doom -- you will NOT prevent my graduation. You might delay it (what else is new?), but you will not prevent it.

*rather loud string of colorful metaphors*

Enough is enough

I would love to have a few days to work on this dissertation. On Feb. 2 and 3 I had a horrible muscle spasm that nearly made me throw up. On the 3rd, my doctor was out of the office, so I saw his partner who gave me 10mg of Valium to take three times a day -- with my 5mg Percocet. So, needless to say, I have done nothing but fall asleep in my chair for days. And I still have pains. Not as bad, but still enough that I can't concentrate on shit.

Oh, and it turns out the Valium and antidepressants (I've been on Zoloft since the Wreck) don't generally mix well. I literally bawled my eyes out Friday night because I was missing brisket and potentially chocolate creme pie at a church Valentine's banquet. Yes, I hate Valentine's Day, but I love brisket and chocolate pie! Mom and Dad, bless 'em, bought me Woodie's BBQ (nummy ribs and pulled pork) and a chocolate pie on Saturday. And on Monday, my doc told me to double my Zoloft.

AND I have a minor surgery on my leg tomorrow because one of my Wreck scars has been seeping goo for months.

FML.

I just want to freaking graduate! It's been EIGHT EFFING YEARS!!!

Meh

Hopefully the pain specialist can figure out why I've been having all these new and interesting (she said sarcastically) pains and spasms over the last year, especially in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully it's not autonomic dysfunction resulting from the Wreck, as my GP thinks.

Edit:Turns out, Medicaid doesn't recognize the need for pain management. The place that called me said they would give me their "special self-pay rate" of $325 per visit, due in full at the time of my visit. Oh, and I get to drive 45 miles one-way in a van that maybe gets 15 miles to the gallon, with gas at $3.59 per gallon. Did I mention I'm only getting $672 per month in federal supplemental income -- assuming, of course, that the government doesn't default?

Guess who's not going to get pain management.

A New Disability History

I have four books on disability that I am currently reading through. I had to order these books -- all of them -- through interlibrary loan because neither of the two public libraries nearest me had ANY of them. I think I will have to talk to their acquisitions person about not only not having these particular books but NO disability books at all. NONE!

The book I'm currently reading is a collection of essays called A New Disability History edited by Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky. I've been keeping track of passages that catch my attention for various reasons. Here are ones I've recorded so far:


"The elision of disabled people from the historiography also surely reflects the 'existential anxiety' that disability often evokes. A considerable literature in psychology verifies that the presence of individuals with disabilities stirs dis-ease in many individuals who view themselves as normal. A more recent literature in cultural studies of disability strongly suggests that those nervous reactions stem from more than individual temperament. To a significant degree, they arise from the most basic of modern, and particularly American, cultural values and social training. Americans often perceive disability – and therefore people with disabilities – as embodying that which Americans fear most: loss of independence, of autonomy, of control; in other words, subjection to fate. The culturally conditioned psychological response to disability may help explain disabled peoples’ [sic] absence from historical accounts. That which we fear, we shun.” [Longmore, PK and Umansky, L. 2001. Introduction. Pp. 1-29 in Longmore, PK and Umansky, L. (editors), The New Disability History – American Perspectives. New York University Press, New York. Quote pp. 6-7]

"The natural and the normal both are ways of establishing the universal, unquestionable good and right. Both are also ways of establishing social hierarchies that justify the denial of legitimacy and certain rights to individuals or groups." [Baynton, DC. 2001. Disability and justification of inequality in American history. Pp. 33-57 in Longmore, PK and Umansky, L. (editors), The New Disability History – American Perspectives. New York University Press, New York. Quote pp. 35]

"Just as the counterpart to the natural was the monstrous, so the opposite of the normal person was the defective. Although normality ostensibly denoted the average, the usual, and the ordinary, in actual usage it functioned as an ideal and excluded only those defined as below average. 'Is the child normal?' was never a question that expressed fear about whether a child had above-average intelligence, motor skills, or beauty. Abnormal signified the subnormal." [Baynton, DC. 2001. Disability and justification of inequality in American history. Pp. 33-57 in Longmore, PK and Umansky, L. (editors), The New Disability History – American Perspectives. New York University Press, New York. Quote pp. 36]


Feel free to discuss any of these as you like. I will post more as I gather them

Remembered in Bronze

Here's a case in which I doubt my friend/sister Beth would say, "Screw Bronze!"

Professor Stephen Hawking will have a bronze statue cast in his honor and placed near his office in the Cambridge University Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. The artist has not given a date for when the ten foot statue will be finished and set.

I don't understand how there are people who don't know what strides this man has made in science. Did you read the comments section of the article? I present for your shock the first commenter, Mr. Keith Sloan -- "I wish I had a better understanding of what Stephen Hawking's has actually achieved. Okay there is theory of Hawking Radiation with Black holes, but I thought it was unproven and some experts completely be-little his maths/calculations. Stephen seems totally over rated when compared to say Newton."

A) I'll be nice and ignore your grammar (e.g., the possessive in the first sentence).

B) Not all scientists agree with each other, Mr. Sloan. In fact, your precious Isaac Newton had his deterrents (e.g., Robert Hooke, the father of microscopy and the man who coined the term "cell"). Half the fun of science is coming up with new, radical ideas, and just because Dr. Hawking's hypothesis is still being discussed does not mean he's overrated. I figure if you're going to put yourself on a first-name basis with one of the greatest minds of our time, the least you could do is be a bit more polite.

Or how about Mr. Ben Cossey who cuts to the chase: " . . . he's done nothing note-worthy and i find it a little insulting he gets a statue."

A) "I" is capitalized.

B) If he's done nothing noteworthy, why is he paid to travel the world to speak? Why did the Cambridge students set all this in motion? Speaking as a former university instructor and future university professor, there is no greater honor than to be told by a student that you are an effective educator. And I promise you, if you say he's getting special attention because of his disability, my 300+ pound wheelchair with my 130ish pound fat ass in it may just show your feet or knees some special attention.

Congratulations, Dr. Hawking. Thank you Cambridge students and Ms. Shepherd.

I'm paying HOW MUCH for this?

The last three days, I've had a care worker come to get me up who I have never had before through the agency I use while in Kansas (yes, I'm still here, hiding from huricanes). This woman used to work in a nursing home and for whatever reason decided she'd rather do home care instead.

Apparently, the reason was not to listen to the person she is helping and argue every little detail.

The first day was frustrating and took a while, but that's normal. Yesterday, after she left, I decided I didn't like her. Today, BEFORE she left I decided I REALLY didn't like her. It all boils down to two things: she doesn't listen to what I'm trying to tell her, and if she can't see it then it must not be true.

My big frustration yesterday involved positioning in my chair. I will be the first to admit that getting me in a position in my chair to where I can function normally (for me) is a royal pain in the ass. I told this lady this on the first day, but I also told her that with a bit of patience, it would happen. Silly me -- I forgot to mention listening to the person being positioned. Bad Dawn -- no cookie. When I asked her to move my left leg, I quite specifically said to please pull on my pants leg on the inside of my thigh. Instead, she first moved my foot (which did nothing for getting my hip comfortable), then she pushed on the outside of my knee joint. My left knee has next to no decent muscle or tendon holding the joint together, so it is very floppy. When you push on the outside part of the joint, my knee moves in but my hip and foot stay where they originally were, putting my knee at an angle it is not supposed to be in short of getting your butt kicked in a Vin Diesel movie. Needless to say, it hurts. That whole task ended with me calling to Mom (she of having JUST had a total knee replacement a mere three weeks ago) to have her get me comfortable.

Today's frustration involved underwear.

A) It is not comfortable to have the waistband of my undies sitting crossways on my anus in general (because they were pulled up on one hip but not yet the other), but it's freaking tear-worthy to have said waistband pulled forcibly across said anus because you're trying to "straighten" the waistband where it sits below the hip rather than pulling it up into proper hip position first. Loud, irritated voice winds up being heard because through the "straightening," I was trying to get her to pull the damned things up first. She kept saying to me, "I can see it's crooked. Just let me finish before I do what you're saying." My response was, "I can feel what this fiction is doing to my anus, so just pull up the underwear."

B) After peeing, when the left side of my underwear gets caught in the elastic band of my pants on the left side and thus come up crooked and giving me a wedgy, STOP FREAKING OBSESSING OVER THE FREAKING ROLLED RIGHT WAISTBAND AND STRAIGHTEN THE FREAKING UNDERWEAR, preferrably after the first time I tell you that's what's wrong.

And do you know she actually had the NERVE to ask me why I was so tense this morning!!!

"Because you won't listen to me!" I practically shouted at her. "I'm trying to make your task easier, but you just keep doing what you want to do."

"But I can see this roll here . . . ."

I surpressed the scream trying to boil out. "That is partly because my underwear is twisted to the left. If you could shift it to the right, it may help."

"I don't understand."

What is so hard about what I said to her, would anyone who's reading this PLEASE explain it to me?

At this point, Mom came in and got me positioned in my chair. Why am I paying $16.50 a hour to an agency when the person they send to help me can't understand "move my underwear to the right" and my recovering-from-surgery mother does the hard work???

Thank goodness my regular worker comes tomorrow.