The Reluctant Mermaid

one woman unwilling to swim in the same direction as the others

3/28/08

"Adventures" in the rainforest

My sons school put on their annual fundraiser night "Rainforest Adventure Night" which is an odd way of saying "Kids Jacked Up, Running Around Like Banshees Night". Whatever... for $7 bucks Sage and Iris got to spill popcorn on someone else's floor and that's just about priceless to me.

So- intersting stuff going on. I'm planning a huge event for Thursday... "Stroller Speed Dating". You get a scorecard and you get to "meet and mingle" with 20 of our best strollers. We act as "matchmakers"- you get to assess the "compatibility" of the stroller that best suits your needs. You also get free stuff... like food from Whole Foods, gift bags with stuff from Uppa Baby AND one person will win a Stokke Xplory! WHOA! It's being covered by a local paper (ya free press) too! This is my biggest event of the year and I'm freaking FREAKIN' about it... why? Because I'm injured. Because I'm ALWAYS injured. I'm a walking injury... an injury waiting to happen... in fact, two minutes before I grabbed aRed Bridge and sat down to write this- I had a comical, "stop-action" style fall after stepping on my sons Dinosaur mountain thingy and I'm now bruised all up the inside of my right arm, and I landed HARD on my right hip... ya, the one with the arthritis in it. And also on my right heel... the one that has a raging infection in it, requiring a four-times-a-day antibiotic and an actual vascular ultrasound because it's so badly infected....
and you know what I've noticed? Besides the fact that my son came hurling to my rescue- so sweet and concerned... asking me over and over again if I was "gonna make it"... what I noticed is that every single thing that happens to me- happens on my right side. Weird. From my right molar- with all it's "botched root canal leading to oral surgery leading to massive pain leading to eventual loss of tooth" to my Thoracic Outlet Syndrome in my right shoulder, to the arthritis in my right hip, to the massive back surgery I had 3 years ago going in from the right, to my right knee now giving out on me (thanks mom and dad for THAT one...) to my right heel being so dry and cracked that I ended up with a raging infection. And tonight- I fall completely on my right side? What gives?
Anyways- just saying....

Also- I ran into an old friend at the Rainforest "Crazy-pants" night... she was walking with a cane. I poked her to say hello and asked "what's up with that?" and she said "MS".... I was stunned. I didn't know what to say. She's MY AGE... she's my age and she has a lifetime to face with MS. Incidentally she also has Celiac! It was when she had the endoscopy to "gold standard" diagnose the Celiac that they figured out the MS. When she woke from the endoscopy- she couldn't feel or move her legs... just like that two diagnosis's at once.
Well... I didn't know what to say about the MS but I sure as hell knew how to talk about the Celiac. So I gave her my # and told her to call me... she's newly diagnosed and feeling overwhelmed and hated the slimy rice pasta (she got the wrong brand). On my way out I spotted her and her family having the "rainforest meal"... chicken nuggets. Oh my... first of all, as far as I know there are neither chickens nor processing plants in the rainforest. And even if there were- I doubt that they would be served up with a pile of Smiley fries and ketchup. Second of all- I couldn't help but notice that she was sitting there... eating them... the breaded, gluten-filled nuggets. God do I hope she calls me! I want to help this poor girl...

Have a wonderful weekend....

2 comments:

Schriftstellar said...

1. Good, good luck with the speed dating (and try to take it easy!)

2. We need to talk, girl...my whole right side's a mess, too! Maybe it's a YA DUUDe thing (or, you know, not.)

3. I've heard that gluten sensitivities can aggravate conditions like MS (and CP, too, for that matter.) Wonder if that's true.

audrirene said...

See things aren't THAT bad, you are still the sweetest angel around making sure everyone else is okay! Yes, I am sure you could teach her a whole lot about the no-no's of eatting. Once you know how to avoid, you realize no food is worth pain later on. MS-how sad. I have a friend our age who found out she has glacoma. We aren't old enough for all this stuff!

Good luck with the speed stroller dating. Sounds like a fun event! You sure are good at that kind of stuff. :)

Hmmm, very strange about every thing happening on your right. Maybe there is something to that? Take care so you heal!