Hurry up and wait...

Here we are, hurry up and wait with SSI. They keep asking for more information by X date, then schedule MD appointments two weeks away. I must say, the guy handling my case is very polite and considerate for someone who will probably be declining my initial application for disability. After that, I'll have to get a lawyer involved who will then take 1/3 of the past income due for their services. Well, better 2/3 than nothing, but it still irks. How many people apply for disability or workman's comp who are really perfectly healthy and able to lead a normal life but who just want to sit on their butts and do nothing?

When I look back now, it's hard for me to believe that I used to be hyperactive. Now the closest I get is when  I empty out the dishwasher and restock it. After that I'm exhausted. I can't even contemplate working a 1 hour day, let alone 8. I've been told I shouldn't even worry about it but I fret nonetheless and have little else going on to keep me occupied. Did you notice how little good TV there is? That leaves the internet. I also recently got a device called Roku, which is supposed to allow you to project your internet stuff on your TV set. I'm going to give it a try and see what happens.

This past week I have been off all natural remedies because I spent the weekend before last sleeping about 12 to 20 hours a day and feeling crappy while I was awake. This was due to herxheimer, or die-off, reactions because, I think, I have been taking too much of the remedies without a break. I found out that natural remedies actually work better if you take time off from them periodically, unlike pharmaceutical meds which require you to continue taking them nonstop until the prescription runs out.  So I will be taking the remedies Monday through Friday and taking the weekends off so I'm not sick and exhausted all the time. This may mean that it will take longer to treat my conditions, but at least I won't be mistaken for a zombie in the apocalypse.

One good thing--even without the remedies, the skin parasites continue to die and come out of my skin. I would be more grossed out by it if I hadn't had to deal with it for years now and if I hadn't been a nurse and compelled to see all sorts of things that make this seem like small potatoes, relatively speaking. I can only assume that, if the parasites are dying, the lymes is also dying, since the same antibiotics that kill the parasite's vital bacteria also kills lymes. Also, my mental status and vision have been slowly improving over time and, while still not perfect, are much better than six years ago when I moved in with my elderly father who had to take care of ME instead of the other way around.

I have already started taking the teasel root, andrographis, and cat's claw elixers, along with a detox blend obtained from the same company. The teasel root and cat's claw are being tested for treatment of lymes and found to be promising. I am also taking Microlactin and Sea Buckthorne daily, with 4-8 ounces of colloidal silver twice a week. I think this is a potent cocktail.

It's funny--I've seen commercials for a special on the History Channel about the potential for pandemics to wipe out large segments of the world's population at one time. This makes me laugh because they talk about how any disease could be anywhere in the world in 8 to 24 hours. That is what I've been saying about the black fly that bit me and gave me the skin parasite. These flies are already in Africa, South America, Central America, the Carribean Islands, and the Middle East, so they're telling us that "we don't have that here"? BULLSH*T. The medical community doesn't want us to find out that it's here, it's in all our living and vacations spots, and anyone can get it. Remember how they denied HIV and AIDS for so long, calling it the "gay disease" or the "drug abuser's disease" until some hapless housewife acquired it from a roaming husband? It's the same thing here. Imagine the panic if people found out they could acquire a skin parasite that could potentially blind them over time and there is no cure for it? The only thing that helps is the same medication given to dogs to prevent heartworm and which I also used to keep the parasites from reproducing and spreading more than they already had.

Well, already tired and need to take a break from typing. I will continue later when I feel a little more alive.

Phew! Close one...

Phew! My area of the Northeast dodged a bullet with Superstorm/Hurricane Sandy and the Noreaster (why call it that when it comes down from the northwest to the southeast?) Looks like the Witch of November came early for the Great Lakes!

Here we had a lot of wind (must have been politicians nearby) and rain but no power outages and only one large tree limb fell but didn't hit anything. At least some of the nearby cities got a good washing. New York got flooded, of course, and the subways are full of water. Maybe if this happens a few more times they'll actually consider building monorails instead of trying to maintain a system that is going to suffer every time a superstorm+ hits. If you consider that hurricanes are the planet's air conditioning system, as things get warmer, we'll get more and more of them.


I was broken-hearted and horrified to see what happened to Seaside Heights
in New Jersey. I went there when I was a child with my family and the pictures are just stunning. Most of us who grew up in central NJ had Seaside as a part of our youth.

The Funtown Pier is just gone, the
rides in the drink, all except the
ferris wheel and a roller coaster. The carousel I'm used to is gone, along with its pavilion from the looks of things. It's so sad.








The Casino Pier broke
off and the roller coaster and a couple
of other rides are sitting on the bottom
of the ocean. Fortunately the 100 year old carousel survived the onslaught.
The mayor says they will rebuild, so we can only hope. Surprisingly, Wildwood piers survived without a burp, but they get rebuilt periodically. I don't think Seaside Heights piers are rebuilt that often.

My sister in NJ lost power for about 3-4 days but no problem here. However, I may still invest in a small battery generator just in case...

You know what I hate about insomnia? YOU CAN'T SLEEP, THAT'S WHAT! And, to add insult to injury, you finally get to sleep for an hour or two and suddenly your cat pounces onto your cuddle pillow, purring furiously and squirming around in his best "draw me like one of your french girls" poses while demanding to be petted without mercy.  *sigh* I guess I should be happy he's finally getting comfortable enough to do it, but I was so comfy and sleepy, and now I can't sleep again. It's partly the Lymes and partly the anxiety about not having a job or an income anymore and being disabled. Reality can really suck sometimes.

Since I'm awake anyway, I may as well address an issue close to my recliner-ridden heart. Here it is.

AN OPEN LETTER TO HOLLYWOOD

Dear Sirs,

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? Do you think the American public is stupid? How many times do I have to watch the same episodes of "American Justice" relabelled under another series title? Do you think we really needed six seasons of "Jersey Shore" to inform us that our collective culture is in the chamberpot? And why do we need a whiny, rude, unimpressive Sherlock Holmes and a Dr. Watson who is a cypher in "Elementary" when we have Jeremy Brett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Basil Rathbone and their associated Watsons to compare them with?

What happened to a full season of a series every fall? We used to get 26 episodes a year with one set of reruns. Nowadays, everything seems to be working according to the British model--a short burst of episodes which are then played to death until someone sees fit to have mercy on the poor fans of the series and create another short burst (a la "Sherlock"--2 years, 5 episodes per year. Shameful)  Meanwhile, we don't even have quality reruns of classic shows to watch on channels like TVLand. Whither "Dick van Dyke" or "Carol Burnett"?

While some shows are critically acclaimed, do we really need another rehash of "Battlestar Galactica" when "Eureka" could have gone on a few more seasons? Why is Joss Whedon now considered a genius for "The Avengers" when he was no less a genius when Fox killed his series "Firefly" by playing musical chairs with it in the schedules? It was a cult classic whose following only increased each year. Instead we get series about people, frequently privileged ones, behaving badly and serving as a lousy example of humanity on the back burner. Those aren't "Real Housewives" in any of those states--they're self-absorbed, greedy, manipulative wenches who should be beaten around the head and shoulders with their designer shoes. You want "Real Housewives"? Come to my house and run a vacuum. That's reality, honey.

Speaking of reality, let's get back to quality tv, huh? There are so many  competitions anymore and reality shows like "Bad Girls Club" feature people behaving badly as a form of entertainment. Great. As Rodney King once said, "can't we all just get along"?   Like I want to watch mean people verbally abusing and physically beating up on less-mean people every night. If I wanted that, I'd put on my braces and go back to high school. And people wonder why we have a problem with bullying behavior nowadays?

Now, don't get me wrong--I love having many, many stations from which to choose when I want to watch TV. While growing up, I considered myself lucky that I lived between New York and Philadelphia, so we had channels 2, 3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11, and 12. Smorgasbord! Nowadays we have hundreds on cable. So why is it so hard to find something good to watch? Even the documentaries are lame anymore! Is is any wonder that people are turning off the TVs and tuning in to Hulu? I just recently subscribed to Netflix, which means that I can get rid of my last premium channels, which show the same crapola over and over again all month for $12/month, and watch any movie I want for $8.99 a month, and I don't have to wait for another premium channel to finish running a new release movie before I can see it on my own set.

Hollywood, wake up! You're losing your audiences due to crap programming! Pull your heads out of your Nielsons and give us quality TV before we all move to Canada!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Back again, after an illness-induced hiatus. Seems I acquired some ailment which included palpitations with runs of tachycardia (fast heartbeat which is felt in the chest with occasional thumps), increased fatigue, shortness of breath, and dry cough. This has actually been going on for about 3 weeks, with one weekend spent sleeping a week ago. I've been taking colloidal silver 4 oz 2x/wk and am now taking something called sea buckthorn oil, which seems to be working on the problem. As an article stated:

"In the 12th Century BC, the ancient Greeks in Eastern Turkey turned their horses out to die after a battle. They were shocked when the horses came back days later rejeuvenated with shining coats. The miracle was traced to the sea buckthorn plant."

Worth trying, no? I think so. I even got the facial cream, which comes in a little squirt bottle, but a little goes a loooonnnnggggg way. I've been putting it on my skin wherever there are inflamed areas or open lesions and they seem to be healing more quickly. So far the palpitations seem to be lessening and I'm feeling just a tad stronger. I read where I should take it for 30 days at 2000 mg dose twice a day. 

I'm trying to stay stress-free while waiting for SSI disability while watching my resources dwindling away. There are other things I have to do as well when/if I get the energy. I signed up for Netflix on my computer so I'm not at the mercy of TV programming and, at 8 bucks a month, I may even cancel Encore, which rarely has anything interesting on anyway and is 12 bucks a month. During one good day I signed up for LifeLock (remembering that my crappy ex used some of my address and job info to create a bogus identity a few years back, probably to open fraudulent credit cards. Thankfully, it didn't impact me any since it wasn't in my name or use my SSN, but I filed a police report against him anyway. Bastard.) I checked my credit report ("Good"--Yay!) and discovered that I can get things from Amazon Prime that are cheaper than the store and in larger quantities than the store carries (6 pound bags of "Sugar in the Raw"! WOOHOO!  I love that stuff). Next I'm going to back up my data with Carbonite so, in case my laptop gets swiped, my data is still intact.

One thing I have to do is get my old computer reconnected to the internet and the printer. My printer driver won't work on my laptop (I didn't ask for Windows 8. I liked Windows XP better, especially the windows browser) so I have to keep the old machine to print things, but when I got the new work computer installed years ago, the sysadmin messed up my internet on the old machine and now it won't connect. After years of working with linux, I'm better at using Konqueror than windows interfaces, so I'm at a loss right now.

It's always something...

BTW--OMG, Joyce, you actually remember when the two of us used to sit and watch "Swamp Thing" and chuckle over Dr Arcane? THAT IS SO COOL! And you're right, they both have that same appeal. Also, did you know the Zorro with Duncan Regehr is on DVD? I just might get it--that was fun to watch and he was sooo cute!

I'm baaack!

Thought for the day: There are few things as distressing as transferring money into checking to cover bills when you have no money coming in.  I really hate this economy. Thanks to many different entities, including greedy-assed bankers and short-sighted politicians, I was let go from my home-based job because a) we got sabotaged in testing (I truly believe this--the person who tested our product deliberately ran it without a vital component so that we grossly failed--when the product was run correctly, we came out near the top of the ratings) so many of our customers dropped us, and b) some of our customers are looking for cheap products instead of good products, which will bite them in the ass eventually but not soon enough to help the company. This sucks moose through a straw. So now I'm applying for SSI, since I still can't work outside of my home and I'll be on the government dole, something I do not enjoy.

My only alternative is to throw everything I know at my ailments and hope they die before I do. Fortunately, due to my research, I know that much of what I'm taking should kill both the lymes bacteria (at least 3 types--oh, joy) and the bacteria that the skin parasite (morgellons/river blindness) need to reproduce and digest their food, which happens to be ME! Currently, I've found that Colloidal Silver is a real winner, with only one drawback--it causes periodic die-off (herx) reactions which can be debilitating for days to weeks, depending on the volume of the bacteria killed. In fact, I just had a bad one today, sleeping for 12 hours straight and unable to get out of bed even for a class I had paid for (fortunately there are make-up classes later on, when I might actually be able to make them).  This is no fun, I assure you.

NOTE: Parts of my blog will deal with my illnesses and how I have been treating them in hopes that others suffering from these illnesses can benefit from my experiences, since medical resources refuse to acknowledge morgellons as a disease entity (in fact, they have denied that many illnesses, including cancer, may be caused by parasites or baterial/viral infections) or that river blindness my exist in the US (since there is no immediate cure, they're probably afraid of a panic if the news got out).

Just to clarify what I said above, colloidal silver is a liquid that can be created using a colloidal-silver generator, which is much cheaper than buying it pre-made. Some people believe that you can turn blue or gray due to it, but they were taking silver SALTS, not colloidal or ionic silver, which is clear with a Tyndall effect--that is, when you hold the glass containing it up to the light, you can see a rainbow effect in the fluid (very pretty but subtle). The water may look a little grayish but it won't tint your skin--I've taken this stuff off and on for years and I'm still the same pallid shade I've always been (except when the oncho/morgellons was really bad, then I was bright pink due to massive skin inflammation due to an allergic reaction to the worms). I take about 4-8 ounces of colloidal silver twice to three times a week, since this stuff doesn't leave the body for a few days. I even combine it with regular water and add a flavoring like MIO or iced tea mix because colloidal silver alone taste a little brackish, like mineral water or water from a can. Actually, the amount you take matters less than the amount of bacteria that dies off at any given time. The toxins released by this die-off causes the herx reaction, which ends when the body eliminates the toxins, however long that takes. I have noticed a profound improvement over time in my condition but the herxes can still be nasty.

This may sound uninteresting to some, but here's the thing--colloidal silver is a great--and natural--antibiotic, antiviral, antiparasitic, antiyeast treatment. Basically, if it's not a part of your body, this stuff can kill it. Another wonderful addition to natural health is coconut oil. This stuff has medium-chain lipid (fats) which are good for your heart and health, contrary to older medical studies. New studies claim that asian countries that use coconut oil for cooking and cosmetics have the lowest cardiac problems of any country in the world. Personally, I use coconut oil on my skin when I'm sitting at home at night rubbing dead parasites out of their nests (sorry for the gross-out factor, but that's my life anymore). You can also eat this stuff, which is largely tasteless, colorless, and odorless, as well as being a liquid at room temperature. I get mine from Amazon (I love Amazon Prime--I tried the one-month free and I think I've already saved a ton on shipping alone. And it's two-day shipping, so I get it really fast! I would recommend it to anyone who uses Amazon a lot.) This stuff is also antiviral and antiparasite. Also, it cleared up my nephew's acne (for as long as he remembered to take it) so it's also antibacterial. You can cook with it like any oil or lard and it will be good for you!

Well, away from medicine for a while. I've found that one good thing about not working is the decreased stress level, which helps the body to use its energies and resources on other things, like killing off invaders. One bad thing about not working is not having an income, which causes stress. You can't win some days.

While I'm  home, I'm working on a few things. I'm taking courses at home that will enable me to regain my nursing license and start a "new" career (I let it lapse because I thought my most recent job would be the one I'd stay with. Will surprises never cease). I've also started investigating the "spiritual" side of life (not religious, spiritual. There's a big difference.) by researching and taking classes. More on that later.

I've also started this blog, partly to stay in touch with people and as a form of at-home therapy, but partly to share what I've learned as I've gone through life and had to deal with the adversities I've encountered. I really want to help others who have similar problems. It may work, it may not, but you get nowhere if you don't try.

Talk to ya later!

YES!! IT PLAYS!!

Sorry for the outburst, but I had to buy a new DVD/VHS recorder because the old one didn't play my BBC DVDs due to format changes. The new one plays my Sherlock dvd and I am a happy camper. Although, now, I want to play my new Avengers dvd that arrived today, along with my 100 count Slim Jim box. I'm not a great meat eater when I'm sick (or even when I'm well. I'm what George Carlin called a "fussy eater"--shorthand for "big pain in the ass") so I can at least get some animal protein if I don't feel like eating much.

I watched Iron Man 2 the other day and agree with one critic--it was embarrassing. A drunk Iron Man is the last thing I want to see. I'm actually even enjoying the ads for the various products being offered. Silly.

(Jeopardy music playing)

OK, finished the movie. I enjoyed it. Being a long-time comics reader years ago, I always wondered how they'd choreograph a major battle scene from the comics on the big screen. Now I know, but it was confusing and it was intense. And I still think Loki is adorable--evil, but adorable. And I'm not even a fan of bad boys!

Gonna be a short one today. I'm still Herxing and am exhausted and sort of spacy.

I was just sitting here watching "Battle: Los Angeles" for the nth time (I love this movie) when I decided to call my friend Pete and mention something to him. He's a hard-core Republican, I'm a disgruntled Democrat, so I wanted to tease him about Romney's quote regarding why don't airplane windows wind down like car windows do, which I thought was hilarious. Pete thought it was less so, but we continued to talk and started discussing the who will be better for small business and the trickle-down theory, along with the fact that the wealthy don't seem to be creating libraries and parks, etc, like Carnegie, Rockefeller, et al used to do.

Then Pete asked who the pig-tailed country singer was who had given away all his money when he was wealthy (Willy Nelson). I mentioned that he was back in the game again by producing bio-diesel for trucks. Pete said that he heard that the exhaust from the used oil smelled like french fries or, if your fuel came from a fryer in chicken joint, fried chicken. Maybe it would smell like cod down south. I remarked that it might be bad for someone on a diet, except that smelling it might actually make you LESS hungry. Could you see it now? "Hey, Bob, I'm on a diet. Willya rev up the truck for me again so I can get a good whiff this time? I gotta get into a size smaller next week."

"Captain, some dangerous non seqitors have been sighted! What should we do?"
"Phasers on fabulous, Mr Sulu!"

I suppose I should warn anyone reading this blog that it's gonna be weird. Mainly because I am. I've been weird all my life and, frankly, just learned to embrace it. The ADHD is part of it, but I just never really saw eye-to-eye with my peers growing up. I only had a few close friends and they were the unusual ones too. Got bullied a lot in high school  because of it. Looking back, I don't mind too much anymore because I believe that, after death, we are reborn into new bodies in order to learn things we can't learn as spirits. I also believe in karma, which means that those people who bullied me in school or have otherwise been not-nice people will probably come back as cockroaches. *squish*


My sister has a signature file that says something like "Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind". Using that logic, anyone who thinks I am trying to hurt or insult anyone with this blog obviously doesn't know me at all and, therefore, doesn't matter.  I have a button somewhere with the latin version of "Screw 'em if they can't take a joke", which basically matches my philosophy of "Don't take life so seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive anyway." So there. Nyah.

Mmmm...lo-cal ice cream bar--breakfast of champions. And that's because I feel sorta nauseous today. That happens when I'm having something called a Herxheimer reaction, or die-off crisis. I had a pretty good day yesterday, so I can pretty much predict that the next day will be crappy. Okay, let's all sing along with me...

           "I feel crappy, oh, so crappy, I feel crappy and snappy and blah!"

That used to make Dad laugh when I'd sing that on my bad days. I miss him. He was so supportive of my attempts to get diagnosed and treated and he, at 90 years old, used to take care of me--that's how bad it was. I promised him that I'd write a paper about my condition so that others wouldn't have to suffer like I've had to because of the ignorant boobs in the medical profession who A) can't differentiate Mononucleosis from Lymes Disease, and B) don't want to admit that a skin parasite found in third world countries like Africa, Mexico, and South America could possibly find its way into the USA. Sure, no such thing as tourism or illegal immigrants or international trade could possibly be responsible for a little black fly ending up in New Jersey, the swampland of the East Coast, right?  Pardon me while I clean up the sarcasm off the floor before it burns a hole in my downstairs neighbor's ceiling.

Just to clarify for those who don't know, I contracted lymes in March of 1995 (my friends in the Lunatyk Phrynge will remember it as the week before the Balticon when our presentation, "The Masque of the Red Death" was totally dissed for an award even though we won awards for workmanship and some crappy costume by a friend of a judge won an award. That one still pisses me off. Three bad judges, three more cockroaches).  It was misdiagnosed and, therefore, never treated. By the time I was diagnosed with lymes it was 2007 and antibiotics wouldn't do any real good because the disease was so deeply entrenched. Then, on vacation in August of 2003 at the Jersey Shore, I was bitten by a black fly. No big news there, but about a week or two later I started developing red, itchy bumps on my arm where the bite was, which then opened up into non-healing sores. No doctor knew how to treat it, so it just spread all over my body. I even started to lose my eyesight at one point. I did lots and lots of research on the web until I finally figured out, through a painstaking process of elimination, that I did, indeed have lymes (this was years before my diagnosis) and that I had contracted something called Morgellon's disease, which accounted for the skin ulcers and visual problems and which had no cure. However, on further research, I determined that Morgellons and River Blindness have the same symptoms that I have and that River Blindness, otherwise known as Onchocerciasis, can be treated by tetracycline, which also kills lymes.

This is good, you think. This can be cured, right? Uh, no, sorry. As I said before, the lymes is deeply entrenched and, while a short course of tetracycline did save my eyesight, I couldn't find a doctor to prescribe it for me long-term and in high enough dose to make a real difference. After all, new lymes patients are treated by intravenous tetracycline, something that wasn't done for me. After much research and experimentation, and some advice from knowledgeable friends and relatives, I started basically throwing the kitchen sink of alternative medicine at these conditions. So far, they seem to be helping in the long run, except that they cause the die-off reaction that I mentioned earlier and the change is slooooow. So, to make a long story short (yeah, I know, too late), I'm herxing (as we call it) and tired and grouchy, etc, etc, etc.

Anyhow (one of my favorite words, since I tend to change topics often), here I am back at the keyboard, watching TV and hoping that my new dvd recorder will play my BBC dvd titles. The old one didn't but it was over 6 years old and I was told that some of the formats had changes a bit. I especially want to be able to watch "Sherlock" and "Mrs Bradley Mysteries" w/ Dame Diana Rigg of "The Avengers" fame (no, the old one, not the superhero one).

Actually, speaking of which, I just ordered the dvd of "The Avengers", which I haven't seen but I've heard great things about. I've already seen "Thor" and will buy it just so I can rewind Thor without a shirt and just about any scene with Loki in it. >drool< Hey, I may be middle-aged, but I know eye candy when I see it. I wonder where I can find a nice middle-aged viking...

Need some  rest right now, will be back. This beats just sitting in a lounger feeling rotten.

This is my first entry in my first blog and all I can say is HOLY CRAPOLY, BATMAN! I have been working all evening to try to create a website in the mistaken belief that I needed a website in order to have a blog. WRONG! I found this site after many hours of "download this, upload that, do you really want to do that, WHAT A HORRIBLE PICTURE I DON'T WANT THAT ON MY SITE!" I even got a new email address--which promptly supplanted my old email so that I can't access any of my previous mail. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! I feel like I've been electronically de-pantsed, if you know what I mean. I finally just got so frustrated that I just cancelled the entire thing, except for the domain name, in case I want to try this fiasco again later.

This actually wasn't a good time for me to be spending money on something like this anyway. I just had to lay out several thousand dollars in bills and rent, and with no money coming in, I just can't justify the cost if there is a free way to do this. Darn, I keep accidentally hitting the menu dropdown for some reason. I'm just not used to typing on a laptop anymore. I'm more accustomed to typing on an ergonomic keyboard. I'll adapt, I'm sure.

Hmph, I just did a preview of this and I noticed the time is off. It says around 1 am, I say it's around 5 am. Must be in another time zone or dimension, I don't know. Damn, hit it again. Gotta get some sleep sometime.