“Spoonie Gift Guide” @IrreverentGal https://medium.com/@IrreverentGal/spoonie-gift-guide-9fbfe59e5fbf
My Dr is a bully.
“Which Doctor?” You ask. All of them. Here’s why…
I’m a 38yo disabled woman. I’m fat too. I’m also far from being a complete idiot. So when I was going through one of the worst times in my life and lost 300lbs in a year not one Dr gave a S**+. My hair was falling out, I would pass out where I sat, and I’m stunned any of my organ systems are still functioning. Like anyone who loses weight that quickly, I went from being a new “lowest adult weight” to slowly gaining back half of what I had lost. This still meant that I would now be really fat again. I am not sure anyone should be surprised about that. Everyone knows if you lose a bunch of weight in a very short amount of time that you’re probably going to gain rebound weight.
At least I thought medical professionals would know this…
So here I am, struggling with my weight and I can’t even get decent medical care of other issues basically because I refuse to have a weight loss surgery. Hear me out though as I have sound reasoning. I try to get in at least 30min of exercise a day and I shower twice a day. This, especially in the warmer weather, still doesn’t prevent getting a rash. It’s similar to getting jock itch only lucky for this diabetic gal, I get it under my boobs and every skin fold. Totally easy to clear with medical treatment. Here’s the tricky part… My Dr refuses to treat it unless I get gastric bypass. I refuse to have gastric bypass because I don’t need more skin folds that aren’t being treated. If I could afford to pay for the skin removal surgery then I would definitely be interested but I don’t have $30,000-$100,000. Most people don’t. I could stop all exercise which would decrease the amount of wetness in any and all skin folds but last I checked, not exercising was really bad.
So when does a Dr overstep their bounds? Did it start with the half-assed exams so they can be fat-phobic but say they tried or does it happen when they demand you get gutted before they will treat you? Keeping in mind they are putting someone with bad lungs at risk for fungal pneumonia. Something that on its best terms has a 10% survival rate.
Fat shaming and wilfully low IQ.
I really don’t appreciate it when everyone that crosses my path is suddenly a medical professional. I’ve spent most of my adult and teen life at 250lbs. I was born with poorly functioning lungs and several other health issues.
At the start of puberty, I began to gain my weight faster than anyone eating and moving like I was should gain. I went from WELL under 100lbs at 10yrs old to watching the scale climb.
I found out I have a Metabolic Syndrome which includes Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and a pancreas that will overwork no matter what I do. Insulin, in and of itself, makes you gain weight. Having to then prevent potentially deadly low blood sugar levels, even if you’re not hungry and ate 5min ago only adds to the problem.
People assume if you are overweight and diabetic that you ate a poor diet first and then became diabetic. While that is true for some people it’s not even close to all of them.
I also have bad lungs. The Prednisone therapy needed to keep me breathing also causes weight gain. People still assume I must live on junk food. I can’t stand the stuff.
I was very ill 6 yrs ago. Over the years I was in and out of the hospital trying to get my lungs back on track I went from 250 to North of 500lbs. I stopped looking at the scale at 500lbs.
I credit a bad divorce and family stress for my loss of over 250lbs. I am, however, at 350, 100lbs larger than when I started, I would like to get back to 250lbs.
I’m not ashamed of myself. I eat a healthful diet and exercise as much as I can while caring for my elderly parents. I am however incredibly embarrassed FOR ALL of those people that feel free to criticize me. Clearly, they have a VERY limited understanding of how the human body works and it’s pretty obvious they aren’t capable or willing to know any better. That reading a patient leaflet is beyond them or their willingness to know what they are talking about, let alone picking up a medical text.
They rely heavily on the media to tell them that anyone who is overweight and diabetic MUST have done this to themselves and of course they think we’re idiots. If they could grasp such a limited concept then we must be stupid to not understand that it’s “ONLY” about calories in and movement to erase said calories.
Somehow it’s never about genetics. It’s never about medical conditions. After all, if it were, wouldn’t the media and everyone who isn’t a Doctor but IS somehow a perpetually thin, “expert” on the subject of fat, stop blaming everything on fat people…? (Of course not. Shame sells and so does superiority.)
If you try to insult me under the guise of helping me lose weight. You are an idiot and you must think I’m an idiot If you think I believe a near or total stranger gives a crap about my health.
If “You’re fat!” is your go to insult. You are an idiot. If you are delusional enough to think for even a nanosecond that I don’t know I’m fat or how to eat correctly and exercise…. YOU. ARE. A. GIANT. A-HOLE. *AND* AN. IDIOT.
You however, you ARE NOT, a Doctor. Let alone a Doctor that specializes in metabolic disorders. Please practice your pretend medicine elsewhere. Better yet, don’t. If you still wanted to play Dr at my age you should have tried harder in school.
If you actually are an M.D. but you do not specialize in Genetic Medicine and Endocrinology with an emphasis on Pulmonology and nutrition then again, you are also under qualified to have much, if any discussion with me about my weight. Should you do so, I will now assume since you’ve interrupted my life and taken such a great deal of concern in my health, that you are now my Doctor and will provide all treatment, foods, gym memberships and medications free of charge. After all, why else would you give away your services to begin with if you hadn’t planned on seeing this through?
If you simply continue to insist on being wilfully ignorant and rude with your assumptions then I reserve the right to assume that even though society has deemed you fit to serve on a jury and operate heavy machinery, you are lazy, wasting your potential, and wasting your time as well as mine.
You are fully capable of knowing the truth but choose not to.
How to get a good Middy haircut or baby or any you wish
Must have information….
This image is a little crooked but we can’t complain, just thank the wonderful gal who uploaded this gem of a book. Thank you wherever you are. Okay so as you may know I attend cosmetology school. I’m also mildly obsessed with vintage hairstyles, fashion, and makeup. I’m hoping that with the combination of my interests I could help someone out in obtaining the perfect haircut for recreating vintage looks. These tips could actually be used by anyone who wants a little help in communicating with a stylist. Lack of communication is the biggest hurdle in not getting the cut a client desires. The breakdown can be either in expression or listening. Second biggest problem I’ve seen is clients wanting a hairstyle not a cut. I don’t know how many times I see a client bring a photo of a hairstyle they’d like in and they have the same haircut…
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I had a nightmare: on the Duggars, Christianity, and abuse
This is all too common and it must stop. The abuser is the one that caused harm. The abused is not being abusive by telling their experience even if that causes those who were complicit to feel guilty for their part in the matter.
“I had a nightmare,” my father-in-law says, his voice hoarse and weak after a stem cell transplant for lymphoma. “That Rod climbed through the window of my hospital room and attacked me.”
He and my husband are chatting on Skype, something they never used to do until his father got sick. In any other context, it might look like redemption: a son and father healing a rift. But already, I am suppressing an urge to yank the laptop from my husband’s hands.
Rod was a felon my husband’s parents invited into their home for a faith-based Restorative Justice program. A felon who manipulated my husband into playing the “wee wee game” with him in the bathtub, amongst other things. The “wee wee game” is exactly what it sounds like: genital fondling.
My husband combs his fingers through this curls, a tic he acquired ever since he landed in the hospital…
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My parents health.
My mother has been bedridden for almost 5yrs. Though I’ve spent decades of my life in therapy trying to find a way to have a healthy relationship with my parents over the last few years It has become clear that’s impossible.
My father has an abscess between his butt cheeks. I haven’t seen it but it’s apparently the size of a potato. It’s bleeding and it’s probably caused by the fact that he quit showering regularly years ago and refuses help.
Both are unstable people who have a lot of health concerns yet neither are on medication for any of these things. I’ve been trying to get my father to any Dr for 2 weeks now but he just threatens my physical, financial, emotional, security along with what little way of life I have left. I can’t be homeless and use my insulin or c-pap.
He hits my mother and I but she covers for him. I recently caught a glimpse of her photographing injuries he caused her only to hear that the family had been told that I had done it. Only in the last 2yrs did they really say what they felt about me and to put it mildly, if I were as crazy as they insist I would either be dead or, since she insists I’ve been homicidal from the moment of my birth, I would be waiting for the clock to strike 12.
If you ask them, to hear my voice is me brutalizing them. I won’t be quite though. They both desperately need medical attention. Despite the fact that they have repeatedly called me every crass or demeaning thing you could think of and not a day goes by without a reminder that they hate me and never should have had me, I don’t want them to die. Almost even worse, I still love them.
They didn’t want a kid, let alone an imperfect one but I’m way more often than not, generally glad to exist. I did however quite therapy. At least for the time being. It makes my father dangerously paranoid that I might talk about him or something and I haven’t been able to find a therapist that supports my decision to do my best to remove myself from their lives.
I don’t know how to handle this. I can barely leave my own room for fear of injury and I can’t find help because it’s always the two of them against one.
I want them to have happy lives too but I am not sure I’ve ever seen them happy. I don’t know what that means for them.
Way back in the day…
When my mother first started working at Southwestern Bell as a telephone operator around the beginning of the 1960’s they were trained in some seriously strange s#!t.
They were first told of the heroic women that stayed with their posts to the death. They were killed by fire, flood, and just about every act of God you can think of all while trying to alert not just the authorities but the public as well. Many saved countless lives.
Then, in small towns at least, they were given a protocol for disaster alerts. In the event of a serious emergency they were to get the usual first responders in the field then phone medical doctors, and lastly they called veterinarians. Apparently, back then in a pinch anyone with a basic understanding of somethings anatomy was better than no one at all. I have no clue if this was ever implemented but in a way I suppose it doesn’t surprise me. In a time when kids weren’t allowed to use the phone because it was supposed to be for emergencies but with shared party lines there were always old people gossiping and the operator knew all because she could listen in. Well I guess why make a distinction between Dr’s? Also and to be fair, if I lived in a town with nothing better to do and was expected to give up my life to connect calls, I think I would listen too. While it’s hard to imagine anything more boring, I suppose being a woman in the 60’s and treated as such would be enough to make anyone want the gossip going around town.
Elder care while being disabled.
As most of you know, I’m disabled. I have been officially so since the age of 20. What most people don’t know is that I’ve been doing my best to help my elderly parents for the last 14 years.
It started when my mother’s kidneys began to fail. At the same time my father displayed signs of dementia and was the 3rd member to be diagnosed with diabetes. Both have suffered from depression and delusions since my childhood. They are manipulative, deceitful, both physically and emotionally dangerous to themselves and others, and worst of all they will cover for each other time and again for reasons as small as watching another person suffer.
Most people assume every child is either born to parents that love them or then given up for adoption if they don’t. That is sadly not the case. In my almost 38 years as their child I’ve been physically injured, was called a “stupid fucking cunt” for the first time before my age reached double digits, and have contend with my mother’s lie’s and my father’s beatings. On rare occasions they would swap roles but if all else failed, they made sure to find some means to maintain control over my life.
When I was in 2nd grade I told my teacher. Instead of calling the police she called my parents. It was so much worse after that and did not improve when they sent me to see a therapist that just happened to practice in the finished basement of his house. I told my parents what he was doing but they ignored me. They did finally walk in on him with me on his lap crying and the lights out except for his computer monitor. The entire ride home I was accused of being the one who seduced him. I didn’t know what seduced meant until after that night any more than I knew what a “cunt” was around the same time.
Though I digress…
The easiest was always a financial hook. How do I prove abuse if they will remove their name from my lease and make sure I’m homeless before I get my address out? Same for utilities, a phone, and even a car. If they co-sign or help provide these things they look great, but they were always a tool. I wanted to go to college in state but out of town so they threatened to pull all of their “help” if I even tried. Crap like that continues to this day.
When their house was hit in the Joplin tornado 5 years ago they moved into the house they decided I was to rent from them several years prior so they could have cheap homeowners insurance. I’m now threatened near daily with eviction. My rent is $500. They won’t take a cheque nor issue me a receipt. I’ve called the police but to no avail, or at least not really. My father was arrested for choking me but of course has an insane reason as to why he did so. They even called the police on me claiming I threw peanut butter at my father. However when this call was made I was running to beat Hell, screaming for help, and trying to avoid my father’s grasp at all costs. I still don’t know why he lost his mind and came at me. He choked me a second time and he swears I was threatening him or at times he says he was defending himself but just like the time he kicked me in my stomach, I was simply just there. For the stomach, I was trying to wake him because my mother needed him. The second choking I was only trying to get down the hallway and he turned around and snapped.
It has now been 5 years since either have taken their antidepressants, at least 4 since my mother had any medical care. Over a year since my father has been on his diabetes meds or thyroid pills. I’ve never been able to get a Dr to test for why his memory is failing. They refuse medical help but I’m not sure they are actually competent to do so.
They tell me daily how much they hate me. They claim to fear me but I have no idea why. They say they want me “gone” but know I have no place to go and they’ve interfered with my many attempts to get on the HUD list. They suggest killing myself several times a day and make it clear that I am in no way allowed to just leave. I am not safe here and I’m beginning to think there’s no way I will or could ever be safe.
Being disabled, I am not able to cover house cleaning for people that throw used adult diapers on the floor, leave rotting food all over the house, or worse, attack me for even trying to keep up. I cannot lift my obese mother. I cannot give them both a world where neither have to lift a finger. Hell I can’t even give them back the life they loved so much before they brought me into the world.
All I can do is keep trying to get away.
Age Difference
Now that I’m considering dating again I’m stuck in the strange world that all children of older parents are in. What age range am I looking at?
I was “allowed” to date at 14. By 16 I knew anyone I wanted to date or could hold a conversation with would go to jail if we dated, so I put my love life on hold until I was 18. It was then I discovered unless the guy 10 years my senior had age appropriate parents who spent time with him, well, we had little in common. So eventually I’m 23 they’re in their 40’s and it’s still a struggle to find common ground because they think their 20.
I’m divorced now and all I really know is no matter how reprehensible my parents can be, at 73 and almost 69, they are the best conversationalist (when they choose to be) I’ve ever met. They are well versed with what’s going on in the world, what has gone on in the past, and rather up on pop culture.
All of these things I would want in a partner because honestly, if you can’t just have fun talking about nothing, then everything else is pointless.
Let’s get very real here. Sex is awesome or sometimes fine but why bother building a relationship on it when you know that it’s also boring, ill timed, flawed in 100 ways by human error or outside sources? While efficient for procreation, the occasional caloric burn, or relaxant, it’s not what really makes a relationship. This is where being able to connect mentally and emotionally comes in.
My problem is that it’s nearly impossible to connect mentally to someone who can’t fathom that my grandpa was born in 1902, that I both met and remember him, and when I use a tiny word like “demise” I am not using big word.
Is this a geographical problem? Is this an age gap issue? Should I now consider dating men that are 60-90ish? If it’s location, how do big girls fair in other parts of the country? I’m right in the middle of this one and finding second date material is harder than panning for gold.
Any advice for a woman ready to give it another try? I still think dating sucks.
Paris.
I made my first and so far only trip to Europe six months after terrorists had shaken America to our core by attacking what ended up being three locations. Thankfully, and due to great heroics, the fourth plane never reached it’s target.
Clearly, the world had shifted and now, six months out I was about to make my first transcontinental flight. There were armed military forces guarding the airport and it wasn’t lost on anyone exactly how much time had passed. Six months, half of a year ago the Twin Towers in NYC had fallen, THE Pentagon still hadn’t finished their repairs and it made my stomach turn. I soon found out how much the world hurt with us.
I spent my thirty days in Europe mostly explaining I was no where near NYC. I live in the middle of my country. Everyone I met in every country was legitimately concerned. They were all afraid. If the U.S. could be attacked then no one was immune.
“Could you see the planes/towers/smoke/debris?” I told them no. The next question never was “Were you afraid?” because I can only assume by their fear they already knew the answer. The next question was always “How do you cope?” To be honest I didn’t know what to say really. I knew that The President and the government would do their jobs but that’s not what they meant and I, along with my country were still braced for more. If control and safety are an illusion, the magic was broken and the hardest realization of nothing being within our control or that it only takes a moment to flip everything you thought you knew on its head; Well I gave the only answer I could, “I trust it will be handled, I know things will never be the same, and I keep going because overall, it’s the only thing you can do.”
I had such a wonderful time in Paris. The city almost feels magical. More than a city for lovers. The artists, poets, chefs, and musicians fill every breath you take with creativity. It’s palpable. The fact that you’re walking paths so many amazing people have walked before. I very much hate that this happened to such an almost sacred place. A place much like NYC. A place with a heart beat and perhaps even a soul.
It’s not exactly an old notion or the first time anyone has said this but, when are we going to stop this? I want peace. I know too many people need to heal.
Our hearts are with you Paris. I know you will heal albeit not without some scaring. I pray for peace and stability in the world. I pray for Paris, just as those I met years ago prayed for America.
Irreverent Relevance 