Just Read This on Boston Craigslist

I lived in the Boston Cambridge area for four miserable years, (for grad school) and I was constantly made hash of by creeps, so I can identify with this, but if I could I would send an email of thanks to the woman who wrote this protest to let her know she's amazing and makes me have faith in humanity, at least the humanity of Boston, again. Thank you, anonymous woman.

To the shitstain who made a woman cry on the T - w4m

"You got up right before the Stony Brook stop and said something in a low voice to the woman next to you. You exited the train and she burst into tears. I asked her what you said---and in between sobs she goes, "he said 'Have some respect for yourself and lose some weight'".

Oh shit, you said that to a complete fucking stranger, an innocent person trying to read a book on her ride home!!! Yeah dog, you sure did, and then you turned heel and walked off like the miserable coward you are.

You publicly humiliated another human and made her cry. How truly fucking horrifying of you. She was totally stunned, and devastated. . .is that what you wanted to see happen? Are you that much of a nightmare that you are PLEASED by making people cry? Total strangers even? I don't think I can fully express to you what an absolute skidmark you are, but here goes:

You: blond, slicked hair, hipsterish. You manage to be both tasteless and sanctimonious, and something tells me you brag about loving Bukowski even though you only made it 80 pages deep into Women. You definitely think you're smarter than everyone, and you love reflective surfaces. You work in design/tech/oh wait, who cares, you don't fucking matter. You treat women like garbage, but don't worry---we hate you. You have a stank on you, and a lot of us can smell it...truly a dookiestain made flesh. You don't have an original thought under that stupid haircut. You are a straight up fucking bully, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Bullies are the absolute worst.

The thing is, part of you knows this, and you're upset that no one treats you like the special snowflake you believe yourself to be. So you say horrible things to strangers in public to make yourself feel better. Stop being such a fucking bully and shitting on other humans just because your wounded-ego feels like taking a dump. No really, just fucking stop.

Any of my fellow feminist vigilantes who might be reading this: keep an eye out for a white dude, around age 30, who looks like a wacker version of Macklemore, if that's possible. Make sure you remind him of his insignificance.

And to the woman to whom this human diarrhea pile directed his steaming ego turd: keep your head up girl, it's not even about you. I hope it didn't ruin your day. "

 

Also, a Crohn's update: I had an x-ray defcography last week to find out why it is so hard for me to deficate. Dr Mulhall's nurse called me yesterday and said that the test, which took 3 and a half hours, showed that I had multiple abnormalities in my lower bowel, including a recticele, strictures, large internal hemeroids and some kind of abcess. Unfortunately, Dr M wasn't in last week, and I couldn't get an appointment to see him until September 12, my late stepfather's birthday (RIP Lloyd). But the nurse said she'd put me at the top of the waiting list because she felt that I needed to see the doctor sooner than that to get a plan of action going to correct these problems, which said to me that I am going to need lots of surgery. I dread surgery because I am slower to heal when I am on biological drugs like Remicade. There is always the chance of complications with surgery, of infection, of dying on the table, and I have a teenager to raise, so I can't shuffle off this mortal coil yet. 

But today, as Dr Cargill was removing some anal skin tags that had become inflamed from my rump, I was reminded that the first rule of dealing with Crohns, for a Doctor, is "try to avoid surgery." Because Crohn's patients make a lot of adhesions and other problems out of scar tissue from surgery. Plus, Dr C told me that Dr M is the quarterback of my team, and that I need to wait to see what play he was going to call to help me feel better in the future. So I shouldn't worry and fret about it now.  I am trying to heed his advice, and the advice of his lovely nurse Lisa, and just take deep breaths and wait to see what Dr M and I can come up with to treat my Crohns.

Remicade and Side Effects Thereof, and Menopause

First, a cute kitten video, just because...kittens! https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eZzn0Zi1Kc0

Now, I'm going to write an update on my Crohn's, how it's going and what is going on with the upholstered belly.
But first let me state categorically that MENOPAUSE SUCKS.
Since I began taking Remicade about 7-8 weeks ago, I have had so many hot flashes that I am surprised that I haven't melted into a puddle of grumpy fat.
The flashes come on me all of a sudden, and then I feel like a baked potato in a microwave, being cooked from the inside out, as sweat pours off of my face and chest. I also have night sweats, which, in conjunction with hot flashes, leave me feeling like I'm living in the third ring of Hades.
I also have constipation, belly bloating (more than I already had with Crohns) and I'm very emotional, often vacillating between wanting to hug everyone and cry and wanting to punch people in the face and cry. Nightmares and insomnia are also not helping me maintain my equilibrium.

I'm also gaining weight at an exponential rate, so now I am this huge, fat, grumpy, red-faced sweaty old woman with tight clothes who people would do well to avoid. So that all makes me depressed, which leads me to my other complaint, which is that my doctors seem not to know which of my symptoms are side effects of the Remicade and which are menopausal. The crazy OB/GYM that I went to see wanted to do what most male doctors want to do with women undergoing the change, which is put us on hormones and anti depressants and breathe a sigh of relief when we get cancer from the hormones so they don't have to deal with us anymore, now that we're no longer able to produce children and be all young and sexy and obsessed with pleasing men. Most of the women I know who are my age or even a few years younger find that they could care less about sex and about their demanding portly husbands and rude teenage children. (I must note two things here, first that my son Nick is not a rude teenager, exactly the opposite, actually, and he's also still quite compassionate and always gives his mom a huge hug and kiss every day. Also, my husband says that I am not fat, grumpy, sweaty and red faced to him...he still sees me as his frisky wife, just in slo-mo).
I am fortunate in that my husband, since his prostate removal, could also care less about sex, and is actually acts more like a teenage girl than I ever did. He's also got diabetes, so he's working on his diet, finally, by eating a protein rich diet and doing some exercise and only drinking one or two beers a day/night. So he's undergoing a manopause transformation by losing weight.

Meanwhile, next week is my third or fourth (I can't remember, another great menopause symptom, forgetfulness) Remicade infusion at the beautiful Day Surgery Center at St Elizabeth Hospital in Enumclaw. Seriously, I highly recommend this place if you're going to have any kind of outpatient procedure at all, because the nurses are wonderful, the DSC is small and new and appointed with nice chair-beds, regular beds with air conditioning and even lunch service. It's sort of like going to a very clean spa staffed by nurses and doctors.
But the problem is that after each infusion, I feel like I am pregnant, and while I'm nauseous, bloated, fatigued and constipated and I am more importantly unable to deficate for at least 48 hours. This is particularly frustrating because Remicade is supposed to ease my Crohns symptoms enough that going to the bathroom is easier, not harder. I have to strain and push like I am going through labor every single time I'm on the toilet. I've also got something akin to interstitial cystitis, because I get up every two hours in the night to pee, and if I try and wait to urinate, I am incontinent.

Sounds like loads of fun, doesn't it? The only good thing about the Remicade so far is that I've only had two short, mildly painful flares since going on the drug. That's a vast improvement over having three or more flares a week that were always 6-8 hours long and hella painful. My gastroenterologist, Dr Mulhall, is finally back from whatever emergency was keeping him away from his practice. So I've been to see him, and last week I called in hopes of talking to him about my symptoms on the phone. His nurse, whom I left a message with, didn't call back, but I hope to hear from them before my infusion on the 29th. Oh, and I have discovered that the Nortryptaline that I was taking before bedtime doesn't work anymore, instead it makes me constipated and anxious. So I've stopped taking it in hopes of some relief. I have to keep my spirits up, though, and not fall prey to depression and anxiety attacks, or I will end up on more anti-depressants with their nasty side effects of even more weight gain.
I am still exercising 3-4 times a week for at least an hour, and I just read a great book about going through menopause called "The Madwoman in the Volvo" that was pretty funny but somewhat unrealistic in its solutions for the average middle aged woman. (Most of us can't afford to have a maid come in to clean, or to get a divorce and remarry someone more exciting who cooks and dotes on you 24/7. Nor can I afford fancy getaway weekends, parties, spas or rehab. Considering I don't drink or do recreational drugs, I think I don't need to worry about the latter.) Still, the parts about having to care for your family and also care for your aging parents who do crazy stuff really resonated with me. Unlike Loh, the author, I don't have a fancy background and tons of freelance jobs to fall back on, nor do I have a ton of well connected friends who send work my way or a father who has a bunch of bank accounts with money saved in them for me. I don't write books, either, and I only did stand up comedy for a brief period of time in the 1990s. So I have more reasons to kvetch than Loh does, yet I would say that I am not nearly as bitter or mean as she claims to be, and I would never consider leaving my husband and son in a fit of pique.
However, I am hanging in there, and I hope that this summer will be a good one. We're taking our annual drum and bugle corps trip to Portland, Oregon, with it's annual Powells City of Books pilgrimage for me, while Nick is taking a computer coding class at a local community college. So here's to a hopefully cool summer and a few months without pain and strictures and other Crohns problems.

Where I'm At With My IBD

First of all, I have to say that I am so sorry that I've been away from this blog for so long. I have been wrestling with my Crohn's and with getting medical insurance and landing on the tables of two new doctors, Dr Brian Mulhall, who is my new gastroenterologist (and a total hottie, not that I noticed) and Dr Tanya Wilke, who is my new Primary Care Physician, or PCP. Dr Wilke is also pretty awesome, a nice young gal who doesn't throw around any BS about my weight and assume that everything "wrong" with my health is somehow related to my size.
She is aware that I don't have diabetes, or high cholesterol, or hypertension (high blood pressure) or cancer, or any of the other ills that are said to be caused by being 110 pounds overweight.
She is also aware that I work out at least 3 times a week at a local gym, that I can't have dairy, eggs, nuts, onions, garlic, green beans, strawberries or oatmeal in my diet, because they cause me to have a flare and/or an allergic reaction that makes me stop breathing. Dr Mulhall is also aware of these allergies and he and I have talked about how difficult it is to eat healthy when I have Crohns and allergies. My Crohn's goes crazy whenever I eat raw fruits or vegetables, and there are veggies that, even cooked, (broccoli and cauliflower are the two that spring to mind) make my intestines go crazy and cause me pain and suffering in the bathroom. Doc M has asked me to try being gluten-free for a week, to see if that helps any, and though I managed three days, I was sick with some kind of flu, so my gut was a mess regardless of what I ate. And I wasn't hungry, so it wasn't as much of a problem to try and find gluten free foods that don't also have dairy or eggs or nuts in them.
Anyway, Dr Mulhall had recommended that I start on a new steroid that was specifically for IBD called Uceris, but my new insurance won't pay for it, and it costs $50 per pill, so two weeks dosage would run around $1,600, which is just not affordable for a family living on one income like ours. However, when I went to see Dr M last, I had the flu and I was so ill that I could barely sit up, so he just threw a lot of things at me and then recommended that I go home, drink Nyquil and get some rest and wait until I was well to even attempt to try any new medications. Then, while I was recovering from the stomach flu and an upper respiratory infection that followed close on its heels, Dr M had a family emergency and his nurses said he would not be back for three months! And instead of leaving another gastro doc to take over his patients, he left us with a nurse practitioner.
After going to see the nurse practitioner, and expressing my deep loathing of all the side effects of steroids that I ALWAYS get when I take them, (including weight gain, which doesn't come off as easily as it did 30 years ago), she agreed that we should get started with the process of getting me on Remicade, which is where Dr M said that my "plane was eventually going to land." However, I've had to have blood tests to ensure that I don't have tuberculosis or Hepatitis B, the latter of which I was vaccinated against in 1995. Apparently, vaccines don't always last, though, so my blood showed no immunity to Hep B, and now I have to go in and get the three shots to vaccinate me, and since my bloodwork was inconclusive about TB, I have to have a chest x-ray tomorrow, too. Ugh.
But! I have hopes that I will, before the end of March, be infused with Remicade at St Elizabeth Hospital. Here's hoping that it works, and doesn't make me paralyzed, like it did my brother, or very allergic, as it did a friend of mine.
Meanwhile, I have been reading lots of size positive blogs lately, and this one came up today on Facebook, which I found fascinating. http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/sex-in-a-fat-body/
Also, this is about the kerfuffle with Target phasing out their Plus-Sized Clothing Dept (and do not get me started on Old Navy being sizest jerkwads when they opened a store in downtown Seattle, and I was turned away at the door because the clerk standing there took one look at me and said "There's nothing in here that will fit you. Move along.") http://jezebel.com/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-targets-plus-size-sect-1535188141?utm_content=buffer7e6a7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer