The Seated View

Sometimes, it is necessary for the universe to give you hints of such magnitude and frequency that even someone like me hears it. The combination of holding forth at HealthCentral about giving it a rest when you need to, being called on not practicing what I preach, having less pain when I sit still (who'd have thunk it?) and Carrie's post about actions and consequences laid the foundation. Then I got all self-referential in my last post and put in a link to the description of my injury of six months ago to let potential new readers know how monumentally stupid I can be. I decided to read the post. Just for fun. And realized that I am in the penultimate stage of a very familiar process, in which I put being useful and busy above my health and inevitably cause myself an injury. I also realized that as I haven't yet healed from the last injury, another injury in the same place now might take me out completely and for a long time. Maybe even be permanent. A nd i...

As Carrie pointed out in a comment to my last post, I may know the theory of listening to your body, but am occasionally somewhat slow to learn the practice. It happened again. Out of the blue last Tuesday – well, maybe not completely out of the blue, as I’ve been somewhat busy - my right elbow started making noises uncomfortably close to those it made back in January and minute by minute, it crawled up my arm, immobilizing the entire area from hand to shoulder. Fast on the tail of that was half of my palm going numb and some time in the past week, it's occurred to me to be surprised about what you can get used to. Six months ago when all this first happened and parts of my palm started getting all tingly and numb-ish from a trapped nerve in either my elbow or shoulder - or, as I'm a bit of an overachiever, perhaps both! - I was utterly and completely freaked out. Just think of how many times you palm touches something in the course of your day and i...

My latest post for HealthCentral: "'You have rheumatoid arthritis,' your doctor says. Now what? Being diagnosed with a chronic illness can be a relief because finally, you know what's wrong. It's also scary and overwhelming - a new lifelong companion has been found, one you didn't invite and don't want." You can read the rest of the post here .

I don't remember a time when the dining room table wasn't there. I t is made of solid oak, standing firm on two solid legs, a bridge between them. The grain of the wood is cut in swooping curves inviting the hand into a caress flowing from top to bottom and down over the softly carved feet, like a small summer wave caught in wood. Paradise for a child, the source of endless expeditions into mystery lands, each leg the tallest trees in the jungle, the feet a ramp for small toy cars, the entire underside of the table a cave of safety and excitement. A new generation discovers The Underside One of my earliest memories is of playing under that table while my mother sewed clothes on the top. Or maybe it’s a compilation of many memories - when I was little, the sewing machine often stood on one end of the table, down by the window to our stamp-sized backyard with the small apple tree and my mother often sewed clothes for me, clothes for herself. The steady sound of the S...

To start this month's random link-o-rama off right, click here for a video of Gary Kasparov and the flying penis. Depending on how puritanical your employer is, this may be very NSFW. My favorite moment is when the bodyguard gets ready to throw himself into the path of a speeding…. flying penis? Apparently wheelchairs are enough of a vehicle that you can get charged with impaired driving . Horses are vehicles, too. Who knew? Placebo for kids . There's just so much wrong with this that I don't know where to start. This is new book that is being very well-publicized called Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions . It's got a website and everything and I'm not exactly sure what I think of the concept. However, I will refrain from judging something I haven't read, except to say if it's the taste of millions, it’s hardly unique, innit? Some time ago, Donna from Million Dollar PetPix Time Capsule sent an e...

This one happened on its own - no human manipulation of waterdrop involved.

Not too long ago, I had a nice little rant about pedestrians and their walking incompetence, in which I did not include pedestrians while they are behind the wheel of a car. Because then I would never have stopped writing. Suffice to say that the amount of moronity (is too word) displayed in walking is often carried over into driving. O n Saturday, around two o'clock, I got an overwhelming urge for plums. I'd already been out twice - the first time immediately after getting dressed when I ran up to the Farmer's Market to get strawberries and blackberries, hair still wet from my shower and by the way? If you have never tasted an Ontario strawberry in June, put it on your Life List. There is nothing better. While I was there, I got sucked into buying cherries and gooseberries, then made myself stop with the fresh produce and go home for breakfast. Later, I went out again to rent a couple movies, came home, fed the cat and was about to make lunch when above-men...

Earlier this week, Dave the Wonder Repair Guy came to do some repairs on my wheelchair. While he was here, I asked him to take my old wheelchair back to the shop, where they could take the parts they could use and leave the rest for scrap. It's been standing unused in my storage room for coming up on two years, the seating in my new chair is so substantially different that I wouldn't be able to use the old one without extreme pain and although I'm halfway convinced that now that I've let go of it, I'll need it at the latest next Monday, I'm re-organizing my domicile and I need the room. It was perfectly logical to let her go. And yet, it broke my heart. Which is an overused cliché, but my heart ached and my stomach felt hollow and I'm pretty sure those symptoms qualify for the description . I first got the chair in March, 1996, right after I’d moved into my own apartment. Yes, I didn't leave home until my early 30s, because finding an apartme...

Nope, that's not reading. ‘riting and ‘rithmetic, but reduce, reuse, recycle. Pardon me while I get on a soapbox . A few weeks ago, I was at a meeting of the local Neighborhood Association (I am the rep for my building) and one of items on the agenda was a presentation by the city's Solid Waste Management Department to provide information about the city's new initiatives to reduce and divert garbage and the three Rs have been much on my mind since. Earlier this year , my friend Andrew and his family went to somewhere in the southern United States - North and South Carolina ? Florida ? The details are vague to me. However, he told me something stunning and it has stayed with me since: wherever this mystery location was, there were no public recycling containers. Only garbage cans. And just imagining throwing things that can be recycled - pop cans, water bottles, newspapers and magazines - into the garbage makes my insides cringe and scream Nooooooooooooo!! Rec...

Found this one at the fleamarket. Alternate title: Sorta Creepy.

The other day, I meandered into the clinic for my shot and had a chat with one of the nurses. Specifically, I had a chat regarding the examination tables in the clinic. Not that they are any different than examination clinic in any other doctor's office or hospital in the city. In fact, I didn't know there was an alternative to the 5-mile high fixed table o’ torture until I for a mysterious administrative reason had to sign in at the MS clinic across the hall for an appointment with my rheumatologist. In there, all the examination tables were adjustable ! Blew my mind. Anyway, just as you send your car (or wheelchair) in for annual maintenance, it’s a good idea to take your body in for a check-up and this involves a Pap test. Not that I want a Pap test - I've yet to meet a woman who thinks that particular medical procedure is a hoot - but it's generally a good idea. Except for the inaccessibility of the 5-mile high fixed table o’ torture to someone with...