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A secret ambition resurfaces
I’m not exactly sure of the year, but somewhere around 18 years ago, after I had finished library school, I took a class at Otis College of Art and Design (formerly the Otis Art Institute) on how to write a children’s book. I took that class at that specific school because I had met the… Continue reading
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This day in a lifetime past…
This morning when I clicked on Facebook, I got one of those updates about what I was doing on this day in various years past, and it shocked me. Since my lipoedema went rampant and provoked the accompanying lymphedema, it has felt like an unending state of being that has surely lasted decades. But 10… Continue reading
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Navigating sensations
On a medical drama I have been binge-watching the past few nights, a character made a statement that has been revolving in my thoughts ever since: “Pain is in the body,but suffering is in the mind.” Is it truly that starkly divisible? My answer is, I’m not sure; but I think it’s more complex than… Continue reading
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The mental state
I found a quote from someone who was suffering from Parkinson’s. Although that and lipedema are very different fates, I found an affinity with what she had to say… “[Parkinson’s] can affect much more than the body. It can bring anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and apathy. The apathy is particularly strange. You can find yourself lying… Continue reading
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Healthcare vs. insurance
And now that I am healing up satisfactorily, there is no time to sit back and enjoy that, because I am being bombarded with messages from my insurance—Medicare and Blue Shield (PPO). I went online this week and tried to decipher them, and also tried to understand the policies and the logic behind them. People… Continue reading
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Healthcare via social media
Here is what happens when doctors remain uneducated about your specific condition for more than 85 years after the first mention of it in a medical journal: You start taking advice from people on Facebook. Lipoedema was first mentioned in medical journals, as far as I can discover, in the 1940s. And there is some… Continue reading
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The long slow road to healing
I’m still here, still spending most of my time on my reclining sofa with my legs up, still tired, still frustrated and kinda bored. It’s been about three weeks since I left the hospital, but I am far from past this episode. After a week of talking about it and promising to come but not… Continue reading
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Terrible horrible morphs…
…into uncomfortable and annoying. I am continuing to blister and peel, the red has further decreased and become more pale, and the heat is mostly gone from my leg; but the nurse from the hospital visited today and opined that there was still infection happening, so she has called in another prescription for antibiotics (a… Continue reading
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The terrible horrible continues…
…and grows exponentially. I just wrote a letter to the hospital’s Grievance Committee about it, because they responded to my evaluation of their services that original day in the ER by attempting to exonerate themselves from all responsibility and I am appealing their decision, so parts of this are taken from that letter, since I… Continue reading
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Terrible, horrible, the third chapter
I have limited energy, so I’m going to get through this as fast as possible. I remembered on Wednesday (when I was feeling worse) that while the firefighters and I were waiting around for the large gurney, one of them commented that they had a unit called Advanced Practitioner Team who would visit and assess… Continue reading
About Me
I started this blog to talk about a genetic, fibrotic fat-storing (some say autoimmune) condition called Lipoedema, which is something I began to experience in my 60s, although some see early onset at puberty, or post-pregnancy, or at menopause. The other “L” condition from which I suffer is Lymphedema, as a common secondary effect of the fibrosis that blocks lymphatic drainage. Despite the fact that one in 11 women suffer from lipoedema, most doctors have never heard of it, so on top of the pain and embarrassment of this extremely obvious malady, millions of us are out there being fat-shamed for a condition that isn’t contingent on diet or exercise for its growth. This blog was intended to share my reactions.
I have, however, reserved the right to discuss “other stuff” here and, increasingly, since January 20th, 2025, that is politics, because what else, after all, are we legitimately obsessed with in this age of fascism in these United States of America? So while the “theme” of this blog may be confusing, it is my blog, where I can talk about whatever I wish. You are not constrained to read the parts you don’t like. But I feel compelled to write about them.
