She did it! She did it! She won!

Quit of being fired... ***FINAL Update 3/31***

All I have to add is YES!!!

Unrelated to this thread, I have discovered that many employers are simply unfamiliar with the law when it comes to their disabled employees.

I ran into that problem and had to fight like a m*****f***** for my rights. Not bitter, just resentful that I had to educate my own employer about what my entitlements were. Laws are what you elect your politicians for--know where your lawmakers stand on issues important to you.

FOR STARTERS if you have Migraine Disease--and even if you don't, I feel quite certain you know someone who does--consider signing up for the email updates from the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy (link left too). They're working like mad people to give Migraine its fair share of federal funding for research, to improve education into this tremendously disabling disease, and other things that we may never know of because, well, they're just humble like that. :)

Be aware of your rights when the boss tries to talk you into quitting so he or she won't "have to fire you."

Must go, stress is killing me. My disability for April, that's normally direct deposited, isn't there. Can't deal, been stretching food, ears are exploding again, hearing now down in both ears, more severe weather tomorrow...

But a ray of sunshine in the battle. Whitney, you're my hero. *hugs*




On Twitter--Parin Stormlaughter

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Magic Pill! Magic Pill!

Doesn't exist, I'm afraid. It is a genuine myth.

Some myths are in fact real. Magic wands do exist. Magic music is real. Magicians are real. I will forever be in love with the world's most fantastic magician, my walking god. Not to scandalize anyone but that's what they call him, his friends do. Someday...

But a Magic Pill for chronic illness is a myth.

I read an article on About.com's Adrienne Dellwo's Fibromyalgia & CFS Blog about the mythical Magic Pill. About.com doesn't participate in free linking to articles or I'd point you there.

It caught my eye because I'm again looking at the real possibility that I may never get well, healthy the way I was Before. I wrote here about discovering that my energy frequently flows in a homolateral pattern and backwards from the normal way it should be flowing. Energy flows and moves around just like blood circulates and air is respirated. If an energy body establishes an incorrect flow as a compromise to keep the rest of the bodies going then making a lasting correction is difficult, the way Donna Eden explains it.

I'm on a clear quartz diet for now. Clear quartz is what the Crystal Healer told me to start with and it always makes me feel better. He told me to keep clear quartz with me at all times. I'm drinking clear-quartz-charged water, wearing clear quartz, and only adding wearing labradorite because it really, really helps my thyroid.

After September 11th, the news media reported that everyone was going to have to learn to live in the New Normal. New security rules, new awareness levels, new ways to be.

I'm going through another phase of finding my private New Normal, I guess. It's discouraging. I had another combination Meniere's/Migraine attack yesterday along with the tornadoes and cold front. Still dealing with the depressive dip that I get with Migraine attacks.

Chin up! Clear quartz is really, really pretty and sparkly and inexpensive. The cluster at top of this page is quartz. Quartz clusters are beautiful in the sunshine.

Someday I'll be beautiful in the sunshine again.




On Twitter--Parin Stormlaughter

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Gads! I'm Homolateral! or No Wonder This is Taking so Long

"If this has been going on for a while, your body isn't going to want to stay this way [in the corrected state]. The body wants to revert back to the pattern that's been sustaining it, even if it's not for its highest good."
Donna Eden, Energy Medicine the Essential Techniques dvd, on retraining brain energies


I'm...uhm...homolateral. It explains this energy mesa I'm dancing around on top of, and why I've been taking three steps forward and three steps back for several months. And I'll bet this is why I don't seem to have a "hand of preference" for crystal work. And why some other incorrect energy situations exist in my energy body.

My energies don't seem to be crossing from my right brain hemisphere to the left side of my body, and from my left brain hemisphere to the right side of my body. At least, the flow doesn't stay "fixed" even though I've fixed it over and over and over.

All sorts of nerve impulses travel from your brain on one side to your body on the other side. A stroke in the left side of your brain can cause paralysis on your right side, for example. I'll bet everyone remembers the picture of the nerve pathways of your optic nerves, an X as seen from overhead. Your body energies do the same sort of movement from one side of your body to the other, as I am learning.

If you routinely continue to push yourself once you've run out of steam, or if you become chronically stressed, your energy body sort of "burns" into itself a wrong compromise of running the flows up and down vertically instead of moving the flow in an X pattern or figure 8 pattern like it should normally.

That compromise, according to Donna Eden, is hard to overcome.

She says that if you don't feel like you're getting everything from the energy exercises that you feel like you should be, if the basic "cross-over" exercises seem to make you feel more tired, it could be that your energy body has deeply set itself into a vertical, homolateral flow pattern.

And I was afraid I was getting sicker.

Donna Eden's Energy Medicine Kit, where I began with her system, has a brief mention of this phenomenon and an exercise to overcome it. But it wasn't until now since I've started to dig into this energy medicine deal that I've found a further explanation of it that makes sense to my own poor, tired, ragged energy body. I'm reading her 10th Anniversary Edition of Energy Medicine, Balancing Your Body's Energies for Optimal Health, Joy, and Vitality, (c) 2008 Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. I'm studying the dvd produced as a visual aid to accompany it Energy Medicine The Essential Techniques, (c) 2008 Innersource www.innersource.net.

Now, I understand. Nothing is an overnight solution, not for me. There does not appear to be any overnight solution to my energy body woes. Is there an overnight solution to any of my situations? Doesn't seem to be.

I am going to have to practice this "fix" daily, several times a day, and reinforce it with changes in how I move around, for a while. I'm bummed because I wonder if this damage is permanent?

Is my energy body just ridiculously fragile? Has it been heinously abused? Will I ever be right again? Was I ever right to begin with? XD

I'm glad that her energy medicine system can run concurrently with everything else I'm doing. I have no plans to talk to my docs about stopping any of my meds. I'm just trying to regain function right now. Having an hour here and an hour there where I can blast out columns for these blogs, sharing all this with all of you, isn't functioning. I'm progressing but so slowly that I'm getting discouraged.

I want a life again.

The other night I dreamt that I was attending some sort of social function with prominent women business leaders that I won't name. I looked mahvelous dahling, and was at the top of my game. Not like old times though. This dream was of better times to come. Emotionally I awoke exhilarated.

Wish fulfillment dreaming? Oh sure, probably. I miss the days when I could handle business social functions with aplomb.

But it showed me that I still want to, that the desire is still in me.

Figure 8s. Gotta make figure 8s. That's one of the ways energy moves through your body as a whole, through limbs, through organs, according to Donna Eden. Make figure 8s with your body and it reinforces the energy crossover flow fix.

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

On Twitter--Parin Stormlaughter
Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Putting Our Heads Together Poetry Contest 2009! Deadline 4/17/09

Now this is down my alley:

Putting Our Heads Together Poetry Contest 2009!

Teri Robert, the USAs Number One Migraine and Headache Patient Advocate, has this information on her Heathcentral MyMigraineConnection site.

It's a poetry contest!

Click on the links at the bottom of Teri's page for more information.

Self expression is crucial to my being. Cannot WAIT to get started writing.

Actually, I've got one started already...something that happened Monday morning of this week...wrote about it in metaphorical poetry form. :)

Just a short note today since this month-long attack is still in progress. Complicating it is a geomagnetic storm in progress. Just got an automated phone call from Spaceweather.com about it. Solar flares, solar storms, geomagnetic storms--all consistent, non-stackable, stand-alone triggers for me.

Will post about that in a day or so when this subsides. Off to take more meds and crawl underneath rocks before the pain gets too bad again.

Write poetry! Feel better! :D



On Twitter--Parin Stormlaughter

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

In Order to get Your Comment Published on SWC

This is the sort of post I hate to write: Short, scolding, and in the midst of a Migraine attack; however, it must be done.

In order to get your comment published on either of my blogs

• Leave off all URLs. The odds of getting a comment published here that directs traffic to another site are slight. Not completely outside the realm of possibility, but almost. Know too that I check the blogs of commenters with whom I am not familiar whose usernames link to their blogs. It is nothing personal if I do not post a comment due to a blog. It could be someone's comment on the blog that caught my eye rather than the blog content.
  
• Check spelling and grammar. Compose your comment on a blank word processing document ahead of time, for example, and then copy and paste. I write. I am painfully familiar with dramatic license and other techniques to heighten tension and emphasize points. If you are not familiar or so trained, don't try it and complain that I won't publish your comments.
• Leave off unsupported science, "weasel wording", and testimonials about doctors, treatments, and protocols. Refer to this list's first bullet if you wish to support your science with a URL.
  
• Please don't ask me to marry you, bear your children, attend your function, remind me that I'm the anti-christ, or anything of those natures through comments. I am unlikely to publish complaints that I've deleted a comment without responding either.
  

All comments on my blogs are moderated and will remain so.

I will continue to use Wikipedia at will. It is a starting point for research, not any sort of definitive answer.

I have been rubbing my forehead with the massage end of my rutilated quartz wand for all the day that my forehead hasn't had cellophane tape on it. Not only are the nerves in my head inflamed and painful to the touch but I've got a twitchy muscle that's uncomfortable. Fine with me if it looks weird to have a piece of scotch tape on my forehead. It makes the muscle quit twitching and feel more comfortable.

I'm drinking amethyst, moonstone, green aventurine, rose quartz, and aquamarine/heliodor/snow quartz-charged water. Folklore has it that this combo will improve my patience. I believe I need to drink more of it.

The hearing in my right Meniere's ear has just gone down by about 50%. The tinnitus I live with 24/7 has vanished too. Rotational vertigo is imminent.

Pounding pain has begun above my left eye.

Good night. Thanks for reading.





On Twitter--Parin Stormlaughter

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary or The Great RoundUp Overreaction

“Mary, Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?”
Nursery Rhyme


I sat outside for about half an hour at 6:00AM this morning in shorts and a spaghetti strap top. Today’s high should soar toward 80 degrees.

Mom’s lettuce, spinach, and radishes simply were not fazed by the 3 inches of snow that we got last Sunday. The wild garlic has come up. The trees are all budding and the cedar in the backyard is giving us all pollen fits. The whole backyard is greening up nicely.

All the birds are here. I listened to mourning doves, woodpeckers, the ever-present mockingbirds, and cardinals singing away. Yesterday I watched a squirrel dig up and eat iris and jonquill bulbs that have divided and divided and divided over the last 40 years. I haven’t been down to the little creek but I have no doubt that the crawdads are crawdaddin’ away.

Oh yeah, things are living back there just fine.

See, there was this deal about the yardman spraying the place with the horticulture chemical RoundUp…

After seeing large areas of the yard not curl up, turn brown, or die, I did more inquiring into this chemical spraying. I carefully grilled my poor Mom, who never had a chance.

She simply does not really know what the yardman sprayed in the yard. She saw him spraying a small area, but never actually asked him what chemical he was using. She told me to call him if I was just dead-set on finding out. No need to. Really, she might consider asking for a refund if part of the charge for the work included chemical spraying for unwanted plant killing because the yard is growing!

He did spray, and he used some chemical that I could taste and smell. It did trigger a Migraine attack that seems to have morphed into the annual March Migraine, and the stress of the whole thing set off a mild Meniere’s attack. But no chemical burns, no new illness, and no dead weeds.

I just don’t think it was RoundUp after all. And after we considered it, Mom doesn’t really think it was either. She assumed it was RoundUp, but there just isn’t any evidence that whatever was used actually did any damage to the weeds. Heck, it may have been fertilizer.

My mother, with her green thumb that goes all the way to her elbow, broke off several branches from her tomatoes back in November and stuck them in a pot of dirt. They’re blooming. She gets this botanical talent from her mother. There is a story of my grandmother sticking the dead stem from a rose blossom into the ground and a rose bush springing up from it.

If I were to let my highly overactive imagination run free, I could picture my Mom, by sheer force of will, overcoming the effects of lawn chemicals. Or, maybe the man did spray fertilizer.

All things considered, it seems to have been much ado about nothing from merry Contrary Mary here.

Just waiting now to hear the wood thrush. It winters-over somewhere other than around here but about this time last year, I heard it. I had hoped and dreamt that I would hear the sweet flute-like song again before I died. It had been many years since I had first heard it at Payne Lake State Park out camping with my folks.

Oh…the windows are open here…and I just heard it! I heard it! Just for a moment, but I heard the wood thrush!

Going to listen and dream now! :D




On Twitter--Parin Stormlaughter

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Urgent: Contact Your Congressional Reps about Migraine Treatment Funding!

Below is the text of an email from the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy (AHDA, link left also) sent out today. If you have not already signed up for their email alerts, what are your waiting for?? (Link on left also.)

Teri Robert PhD, the USAs Number One Migraine Disease and Headache Patient Advocate along with Megan Oltman of Free My Brain From Migraine Pain, one of my Migraine blogging compatriots (all three links at left also), met with members of Congress last week to discuss the serious issue of Migraine treatments. None of the treatments currently available are harmless and there is no cure for Migraine, a genetic disease that has made Yours Truly disabled and retired that way--for now.

It is WAY PAST TIME for the National Institutes of Health to properly fund research into safe and effective Migraine Disease treatments. If you think Migraine is a non-issue since the advent of triptans then read this about Imitrex, the flagship triptan, and tell me if you still feel that way.

I've sent my email. Click on the link and send yours today. The AHDA website will automatically determine who your Representatives are based on your zipcode so you won't even have to try to look it up. You'll have a place to add your own information and message to your Representative and the AHDH has generously programmed thousands of characters, so you'll have room.

I'm battling a Migraine attack right now. I've staved off treating it with meds for two days but the time has come, the Walrus said. I hope what I've written makes sense and that all the links work but forgive if they don't and please let me know.

I borrowed a computer to make this urgent post. Now, I'm going to take meds, crawl underneath rocks, and pray. Yeah, with all my crystal and mineral specimens on me, I feel like a reptile. :3



From: Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy
Subject: We Need Your Help
Date: Mar 2, 2009 2:12 PM
One voice can make all the difference!
We Need Your Help
It's time to ask the House support fair funding for research on headache disorders

Take Action!
Ask your member of the House to sign the "Obey/Tiahrt letter."

Dear AHDA advocates -

The moment has arrived for you to contact your members of the US House of Representatives to take action for increasing National Institutes of Health (NIH) research on headache disorders.

Please go to the AHDA website as soon as possible to send strong but focused emails to your members of the House with just a few clicks. (http://www.allianceforheadacheadvocacy.org/)

Publicly funded research is the key to fundamental discoveries that accelerate drug development and expand the field of headache medicine. However, the NIH has never provided adequate funding for research on headache disorders. Currently, NIH expenditures for headache research are less than $13M annually, comprising less than 0.05% of the NIH budget. Meanwhile, headache disorders cost more than $31B in the US annually, including 9% of lost labor productivity, and result in more lost years of healthy life every year than epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and ovarian cancer combined. As a consequence of insufficient research, only two innovative drugs have received FDA approval for migraine treatment in the past fifty years.

We are requesting that the US House and the Senate each include language that prioritizes research on headache disorders with the fiscal year 2010 appropriations bills for the NIH. At this particular time, we need our members of the House to sign a "Dear Colleague" letter that they received last week.

The AHDA website simplifies contacting your members of the House with the right message at the right time. You will also be able to add a brief personal statement to your members of the Houseif you wish.

The more emails that members of the House receive from constituents right now, the more likely they will act upon this issue. You CAN make a difference. Let Congress know you care now.

Also, right now please forward this email to everyone you know that also cares about someone suffering from migraine or other headache disorders.

Through collective advocacy we will improve the care for individuals with headache disorders. Thanks very much for your help.

Best regards to you all,

Robert Shapiro, MD, PhD; Burlington, Vermont
William Young, MD; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Brad Klein, MD, MBA; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Teri Robert, PhD; Washington, West Virginia






On Twitter--Parin Stormlaughter

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Twitter-pated or Hashtags in a brick

I'm Twittering now, Parin Stormlaughter.

Maxjerz, my bud in Migraine Advocacy (link on left too), suggested hashtagging Migraine twitters #Migraine and I'm there.

Oh, and #bhamsnow for our once-in-a-decade snow event for tomorrow. Imagine--we might get an INCH of snow. XD

Maybe someone will start #Menieres or something...#vertigo...#tinnitus...

It may be several MONTHS before I can get a computer that will get internet, still borrowing Libchik's for that. (Of course, not being on the internet but once a week or so might be the best thing for my head in the last ten years.) Twittering by cell phone will help me keep up with my Migraine and Meniere's buds in the meantime.

Love, love, love technology. Imagine Twittering about drinking aquamarine/heliodor/morganite/lithium quartz-charged water...the incongruity of it all...

Maybe I'll Twitter about growing natural airborne sourdough or the trials of removing cotton seeds from the boles by hand. Or dreams--got a column in the works about dream analysis.

Need to finish the column about castor oil packs for painful gallbladder...they work for me and they're more relaxing than the Valium I take for tinnitus and vertigo. Oh just give up now! XD Picture the sensuality of floating in a pool of warm, golden, sleek and slippery, slightly nutty-fragranced oil and that's not what a pack is like, but I've got an active imagination. I want to share the non-drug things I'm doing for pain relief that actually work for me. Yep, even careful usage of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines following the label directions exactly can exacerbate headpain. I need to save all the pain meds I have to stop the worst pain I have right now which is from Migraine. Maybe OTC meds should be listed as headache triggers??

Speaking of which--the cold-core upper level low that's supposed to bring us snow has triggered a Migraine attack which has just gotten started. My right arm is feeling funny and I'm seeing flashbulbs, and I'm nauseated. That funny-feeling-in-my-right-arm sensation has preceded basilar-type Migraine attacks in the past so I may go ahead and medicate this now instead of trying something else first. Gads, I hate Migraine.

heeheehee...maybe I'll Twitter about how I'm keeping stored emergency water fresh by using it on a rotational basis to cleanse crystals. See, if you then use it to water plants, you've gotten three uses out of it, and four if you water vegetables that you eat. Hey, we're under water-use restrictions. They hit us with huge surcharges for usages over a certain number of gallons per month. And my mother's lettuce and radishes have already come up. Poor things might freeze under snow but she doesn't care. She'll just plant more. She saves seeds so she's ahead no matter. She is Thrift Personified. There is a true story of the clean, never-used Kleenex in the pocket of her gardening jeans that got washed and dried...she carefully unfolded the washed Kleenex--I'm not making this up--laid it out to dry and then used it.

Until I can borrow this computer again, I love you all.

~The Incongruously Sparkling Daughter of Thrift Personified.

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Too much death: Please, get checked for cancer

Short column. I'm overwhelmed right now. Too much sadness, too much sickness, and now more death.

Got a call from one of my father's side cousins today. Her mother, my father's next-in-line sister, had two more hours to live, she told me the doctor had just told them. My aunt is in inpatient hospice. Nine days ago, she suddenly refused food and water. She's got metastasized breast cancer. My cousin said not to even come down today because they're already covered up with more people than they can handle.

My father died of metastasized prostate cancer last May. His sister, by now, has probably died of mestastasized breast cancer. Please, please, everyone who reads this: get checked. Get treated. Please live.




Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

"You better run, you better take cover..."

"...where beer does flow and men chunder..."
Land Down Under, band Men at Work



*retch* *chunder* *[insert vomit synonym of choice]*

I'm on a borrowed computer for now. I may be on borrowed time. :p

My mother had some heavy yard work done this morning in the backyard. She and I were looking at the finished yard after the men had left and she was telling me that we should never have to worry about weeds in the backyard again, because they had sprayed the whole place with...

Roundup. Roundup. Roundup.

Men sprayed my entire backyard with Roundup.

(I can smell and taste nasty chemicals now.)

This is a perfect example of how lack of knowledge and incomplete communication can kill. My mother never uses chemicals of any sort in her gardening, not even chemical fertilizer. Just...read....

I was horror-struck. Mom asked if I thought the Roundup would kill the ivy growing on the trees and I told her it might kill the entire tree too. I told her we might not have any living thing left there as a result of this spraying. We have all sorts of critters back there--turtles, scorpions (one crawled into my father's work boot one time), lizards, snakes, chipmunks, squirrels, and hundreds of birds. There's a family of raccoons next door. Maybe not anymore.

I'm ill, emotionally and physically ill.

Mom said that she told the man she didn't want anything poisonous back there. I told her that sure, he probably got all the poison ivy and poison oak. She said that no, she told him nothing poisonous. I asked if she told him no chemicals and she said...nothing.

This is going to trigger--and it has already begun--every symptom I ever have. Might create some new ones.

Roundup.

Please, for the love of the Earth and everything on it, don't buy or use Roundup. I believe it works by sterilizing the soil to a certain depth so that nothing can grow. I don't believe that dirt treated with Roundup can ever be rehabilitated to make it arable again. And then it gets into the ground water, and then animals drink it, and then...


Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Mother of all board crashes or Life in a flash drive

*sigh*

The slugs that have been pulling the dead donkey that is now a Toshiba paperweight finally dried up and died. Libchik's DBF said it was the mother board, something about the A side I think...it's no longer supported by Toshiba so yeah, time for a new computer.

Anyhow, my files are on a flash drive and I've borrowed Libchik's computadora until I can get one.

Here's to a better--2010! XD



Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, or Are you the real thing?

"Are you for real?"
The question guys most frequently ask Yours Truly.


It appears that Oprah Winfrey is going hormonal again. If you missed the recent episode with Suzanne Somers (and I did--I've missed every episode of The Oprah Winfree Show ever shown!), then you might be interested in the Newsweek review of it. Unfortunately, Newsweek isn't offering free linking to online articles or I'd point you there. But, I've read it and it was interesting.

Bottom line: Newsweek assessed her TV show as not fair and balanced, but her concurrent Oprah magazine article on the same topic as far better.

But what were they about? Bioidentical hormones compared to conjugated equine estrogens (CEE) and synthetic conjugated estrogens (CSE) for women in menopause, either natural or surgically induced.

I am most assuredly not as studied-up on bioidentical hormones as Suzanne Somers and Oprah Winfrey. I wouldn't dream of giving anyone, male or female, any opinion about the state of his or her own hormones. I just learned from reading around today that even without hormone or estrogen replacement, a woman's body will produce a small amount of estradiol through her adrenal cortex tissue whether she has any functioning ovaries or not.

I'm writing this article mostly to gripe about--marketing and words.

I had a TVH-BSO (total vaginal hysterectomy-bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy) in 2004. Gone were the evil ovaries that patently and categorically refused to give me peace. In the month leading up to my surgery, I did intensive reading and pondering about post-surgical ovarian secretion substitutes. Only for my own self did I do this, so don't anyone run to a doctor and say "Well, Parin Stormlaughter said such-and-such was the best..."

Anyhow...

Conjugated equine estrogens are made from the urine of pregnant horses--mares. The drug industry calls them the "natural" estrogens. Synthetic conjugated estrogens are made from plants and plant extracts and the drug industry does not consider them to be natural.

Please take a moment to glance at this chart from the Premarin website. Notice the page is entitled "Common Alternate Estrogen Replacement Therapy Products in the U.S." Notice that in the URL string it's "synth". Is that short for synthetics?

Ladies and gentlemen (and guys, I hope for the love of the women in your life that you're still with me here), there is nothing synthetic about a yam. Or soybeans, unless they're genetically-modified soybeans and that's for another column...

In my opinion, there is nothing more naturally human or "real" about equine estrogen nor anything "synthetic" about plant-based estradiol. There, I've said it.

There are arguments to be made on both sides. One could validly point out inconsistencies between people who eat horse meat but refuse to take CEEs. One could validly point out that putting a yam through the processing necessary to conjugate an estrogen is about as far from the tuber as you can get.

I see both sides. I am repelled by the thought of putting anything derived from mare urine in my mouth, which is what one does when taking Premarin. I try to be consistent, though. I'm repelled by the thought of ever needing a pig valve for my heart for example, and someday I may be faced with that decision depending on how my mitral valve prolapse goes.

I don't use placenta products on my hair. There are all sorts of skin care products that use what they euphemistically call "DNA" in their products designed to be absorbed through skin capillaries. I'll eat a burger now and then but I could easily be a happy lacto-ovo vegetarian (and was for a few years).

I'm a true child of the land. Horse manure makes marvelous compost (although really, chicken manure is better if you can get it). My sister-in-law was a state champion equestrian in her teenage years. She and I used to ride, she on her rescued thoroughbred racehorse who had fractured his leg and would have been destroyed if she had not taken him in, and me on her old childhood quarter horse. The quarter horse retired to the loving home of a child with skeletal difficulties where he made the child's life bloom--that's a story I want to write someday. Love, love, love horses.

I guess I'm complaining that mare-urine-derived estrogen does NOT seem more natural for humans than plant-derived estradiol. Sounds like a marketing strategy designed to pull in people who otherwise have no opinion but feel like "natural health" is better than synthetic health. Gripes the left side of my behind to see marketing strategies of this sort.

I use Vivelle-dot, whose estradiol is derived from yams. I had nearly completed very early menopause when I had my surgery at 43 years of age. When I started Vivelle-dot, I was suddenly in a world that I never knew could be so...even. Any menopausal woman needing to feel better deserves to, and I'll stand right beside you on that.

And I won't criticize you for what you choose. We all have very important decisions to make about our bodies. I'm there.

Be aware that drug-industry generated labels may or may not conform to your own beliefs. Read, study, ponder, sift it all through your belief system, and be able to explain your decision if you are challenged. Keep up with the latest information.

And know that the Sparkling One will be here to share what gripes the left side of her behind. It's big enough for plenty of things to gripe it, that's for sure. :D

The answer to my most FAQ is yes, I'm very much as I appear to be. If you like me on the outside, you'll love me on the inside. Dadgum head in the beehive...must be Valentine's Day in the air.




Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Out there: Beats "What's your sign?" as a pick-up line! :D

3/7/09 Edit to remove expired iCopyright link.

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In Japan, you are what your blood type is.

Heeheehee.

I was in my teenage years during the 1970s. The '70s saw the Ecology Movement (which I still actively participate in), discos (I suavely buffaloed my way past the waiting line into NYC's Xenon disco in 1979 XD), and the Sexual Revolution. Ah, the days of the cheesy, corny pick-up lines!

Used to be people would start conversations by asking about astrological signs. And since you're wondering...I'm Sagittarius, Moon in Scorpio with Gemini rising. My biggest deal is Mercury, which is associated with my rising Gemini and also is in my sun sign of Sagittarius. I can't slow my brain down long enough to learn to be less HIGH STRUNG...wait...is that actually right???

I've seen reporting on this Japanese blood-type movement before today but this article is particularly good. It describes how personalities and blood type have been linked.

No one wants to be stereotypically pegged, but, uhm...I'm A neg and...well...the article has me pegged. Both of my excellent Assistant Offspring are O neg. They're both generous and can be stubborn, but then, isn't eveyone like that at times?

Guess I need to get an English translation of one of those ten Japanese best-sellers and read more about it!

Actually, I'm a proponent of some aspects of blood type revelations for nutritional and stress-reduction because they work for us. Before anyone has a coronary, I ONLY follow naturopathic physician Dr. Peter D'Adamo and the Right4YourType system. He has published peer-reviewed articles and lectures on blood type and health. In the past he had been granted stage II US Federal funding for breast cancer research using--and I'm not making this up--escargot. Don't know the outcome of his research but the concept is interesting, to me at least.

I fully understand that snails for cancer simply will not make sense to anyone not familiar with Dr. D'Adamo's work. He's onto something though to be into Stage II funding for research. I've got an article started about blood type and health. Hope to have it up soon.

Dr. D'Adamo's work has been very good for us. For example, if you're an O, you may feel better if you exercise every day until you're sweaty, if you eat more lean red meat, and you should be aware of autoimmune diseases. I need to BOLO for heart disease and cancer and find gentle ways to relax and exercise. Anyone can get any disease (well, I would never have had prostate cancer because I'm a GIRL and I won't have any reproductive system cancers because I've had a complete hysterectomy), but Os are more likely to need more intensive management of autoimmune conditions and As are more likely to die of any cancer they develop, according to Dr. D'Adamo. In other words, if I do develop diabetes I should be able to do nicely with diet and exercise. If an O develops cancer, surgery and/or conservative measures should cure him or her completely.

Strenuous exercise triggers Migraine attacks consistently and has triggered Meniere's attacks at times in me. If my two aikidokas (students of aikido) don't get full, tough training sessions they get ungrounded and sick. More than a bite or two of red meat hits my gut and sits there like a rock until I'm ill. They don't feel like they've eaten if they don't have red meat three or four times a week. Grains help me feel good but make them retain fluids and gain weight. These are just our experiences--YMMV.

I know there is more to healthy life than any one isolated concept. Health isn't all about carbs, or all about trans-fats, or all about blood type. But knowledge of how your particular blood type can be a reflection of what makes you feel good and healthy can be "helpful and hopeful" and that's the only thing Edgar Cacye said his psychic readings were good for.

I'll add this: Type As physically react poorly to stress because we stay in a state of high cortisol all the time. I've had the two most stressful years of my entire life in 2007 and 2008, and now I'm disabled.

I had a big blood sugar crash this afternoon--that blood-sugar testing last Wednesday seems to have screwed me up and I haven't been able yet to get "right 4 my type" again--and I'm not going to write for a few days (or even check email) until I feel better. I need more turkey and good vegetable proteins, more plain yogurt and buttermilk, and that should square me away.

But I HAD to share this article.

Ok, so I'm aware that this whole subject is really "out there" for some of my amazing readers. But I'm up for fun so hey, Handsome Man--what's your type? ;D



Note: Link to article will remain for one month, courtesy of iCopyright. If you want to read it here, read it now! :)

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Oh frabjous day! or Diabetes might be in my future but it's not in my present :D

They say that the waiting is the worst part.

You've had medical tests performed. The doctor says he or she will call you about the results. You go home and...wait.

BUT SOMETIMES YOU GET LUCKY and have a doc who's office calls immediately to discuss the findings. My doc's nurse called me today about the further diabetes testing that was done yesterday. Yep, called me today. The results made me so happy that I had a piece of toast with butter and honey to celebrate. I did!

Although they're not ready to say that I have not developed diabetes, at least I DO NOT need to take any action right now. Well, they want me to enroll in the cholesterol nutrition class. Something about my total cholesterol being 248 and my LDL being 167 seems not good to them. XD

That testing yesterday made me ill. Within 120 seconds of finishing that fizzy orange drink that tasted five times beyond way too sweet, full rotational vertigo started. I was nauseated. The nurse said I looked like I didn't "feel too good". I kept it down though.

Afterwards, the nurse made me eat a package of cheese crackers from the vending machine and drink water before I got up from having the last blood drawn. No scolding please--I bought Aikichik a nice Milo's lunch for giving me a ride and staying to keep me company (and I got a burger and fries for me--no drink) and I ate the fries on the way home. I haven't had french fries in more than a year.

I checked my sugar when we got home before I ate my burger. It was 69 and that's low. I ate my burger, took a nap, and when I woke up it had only gone up to 84.

The nurse had said to eat protein and protein and protein for the rest of yesterday but no more sugar (I looked at her in disgust and told her I didn't WANT any more sugar) so I ate eggs and chicken. By bedtime it was up to 117 and I was feeling better.

Yay. Nothing to do for my sugar but keep on keepin' on.

If my triglycerides were even close to bad (but they're wonderful) and if my blood pressure was close to bad (it's wonderful too), I would be more concerned about my cholesterol. No way am I going to agree to take cholesterol meds. We have no family history of heart disease and the strokes we've had are migraine-related, I'm quite certain. If my liver is naturally making this much cholesterol, maybe I need it.

Now I get to read up on crystals and cholesterol, liver function, and such.

Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! And thank you, Lewis Carroll, for providing my father with a favorite blurb to say at odd moments, "The time has come, the Walrus said..."

Who knows the future? Not me, but I'd give nearly anything... At least my tomorrow doesn't include diabetes, and for that I am grateful to God.



Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more powerful.

"The time has come," the Walrus said or "You've had a pleasant run!"

"...The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings..."
The Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll


If your father was diabetic, and his mother was diabetic, and your second child weighed 9 lbs 2 ozs, you'd know that diabetes was in your future. Somewhere.

*sigh*

I've got to go for a two-hour glucose test as soon as Libchik and/or Aikichik can get me to the doc's office, so the nurse told me today. My fasting glucose was higher than it should have been, so she said.

After we rang off, I quickly checked my sugar with the little cheapy meter I bought after my father was diagnosed. It read 86, and I had eaten already. I ate cottage cheese with a glass of milk and an hour later it was 102. Two hours later it was 126. None of these readings are bad at all.

So wazzzzup? They'll have to tell me, but something has set them off. Maybe it was the 3-month overall glucose level test that they did? It would explain why weight has been falling off of me. I've lost now 47 pounds and didn't gain any over the holidays.

If the time has come to address diabetes, I'm there. I can adjust what I eat. I'll find some sort of exercise although I haven't the faintest idea what--swim, maybe? Nothing to fall off of and can't fall down in a swimming pool. There are crystals that help with blood glucose levels too, and Edgar Cayce's readings recommended Jerusalem artichokes for diabetics.

I take things as they come. Nothing is certain in this world but death and taxes, as the old saying goes, and personally I'm not sure about death. I was a tax collector in my previous Federal incarnation so I've got that covered.

So if the time has come, then I can slay this Jabberwock too. Poor Lewis Carroll is doing gymnastics, I'm sure.


"He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll


Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more powerful.