Sharethis: Early flu season _ what you need to know - EarthLink - Health News

Good article from Lauran Neergaard of the Associated Press.

Lauran Neergaard's good reporting
Early flu season _ what you need to know - EarthLink - Health News Source: enews.earthlink.net
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.

H1N1 is here...I mean, right here

Libchik and Aikichik both tested positive for influenza at the doctor's office yesterday. The doc said it meant that they both had H1N1. They're both taking Tamiflu now and were given strong cough medicine.

They're so feverish that the ambient temperature goes up tremendously when they're in the same room.

H1N1 is overwhelming the university they attend. No doubt that's where they were exposed.

Take care, everybody.



Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Update: Squirrely Hit Counter

Sick threat of harm from some demented mind or another. No more hit counter.

********************************************************************

Please disregard the hit counter. It jumped more than 8,000 hits in about 36 hours. That's got to be a mistake. I'll reset once I talk things over with someone who can explain how this happened.

Thank you. Carry on.



Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

When Enjoyment is Nowhere on the List

"Yes Mother, but how will you benefit from all this?"
Recent observation by Libchik


Happy Full Corn Moon! I'm full of Migraine meds and about to get horizontal but I wanted to share some thoughts first. Once I hit the sheets I might not get back up until Sunday.

The other day, Libchik and I were making some plans. She and I worked and talked, planned and compromised, and reached a viable solution.

At the end of our discussion, she commented that everyone would be pleased with the solution we reached--except me! She said that I had not included myself and my own needs anywhere in the complex. She also scolded me for never including myself. It's nothing new.

I'm hearing this EVERYWHERE. People keep telling me that I should begin to consider myself before I consider others. It is foreign to my nature though. And that self-denial is my nature is borne out through my birth chart. I was born so "others oriented" that I have no internal mechanism for self-promotion even when I need it.

The ability to deny myself serves me well in my belief system. I was a Secular Discalced (meaning Barefoot) Carmelite for some years, and Discalced Carmelites are a penitential order. We thrive on penance. A Carmelite who doesn't might reconsider his or her vocation.

But a prime directive for us is to never take on penance of our own volition in the absence of approval by a spiritual director who understands the penitential vocation. I haven't had a dedicated spiritual director since my friend and formation director died. I was so crushed by her death that I voluntarily withdrew from Carmel.

All that to say: I should probably listen to all the people in the last 3 or 4 years who have told me that I should loosen up and get my mojo back. It was surreal to hear my adult daughter adjuring me to think of myself, when I know I've spent the last 42 years thinking of her and her sister, and my parents and ex-husband, and the job I retired from on disability pension, and the showbiz public, above all else.

I've said this several times over the last 8 or 9 months, that I must learn how to relax and let my hair down. And for sure it will be a learning event because I don't know what I like to do. I have no idea what I enjoy. Not a clue of what's fun to me.

Well, I know I feel gratified by a number of things but Libchik told me that gratification wasn't the point of pleasure. Experiencing enjoyment is the objective of pleasure. If I'm knocking myself out to solve problems and plan events for others, it's nonsensical to omit myself but I do it anyhow.

Baking that poppy seed cake and feeling the satisfaction after so many years of not having the capability to cook triggered a confusing cascade in me. Honestly, I believe I did feel pleasure. I was proud that I had come far enough to make the attempt to bake again. The cake turned out just fine and it was delicious. My mother enjoyed it. I was gratified that I could accomplish it but there was more to how I felt. I may have--enjoyed it?

What else does one do to figure out what's fun? I won't be climbing aboard the Great American Scream Machine roller coaster at Six Flags, that much is certain. But what other things are fun for a person with no vestibular function whose chronic illnesses are triggered by so many things she can't keep up with them all?

Growing mushrooms? Reading a sensual piece of fiction (or non-fiction for that matter)? Getting hot and sweaty with an agreeable guy? Where do I find an agreeable guy who is ok with my chronic crap?

I'm so trained to perform music that I never learned to play for fun. I was quite glad to find that I could still knock out songs on my new guitar but I can't say it was entertaining to me. My mother asked me to plan a time to play the piano for her sometime soon. It will certainly be gratifying to see her enjoy it but it won't be anyone's idea of fun but hers.

I'm going to cry now. I have to find pleasure but I don't know where to look. Actual me-oriented pleasure and not gratification from service. Maybe that's a start--have I been substituting gratification from service for self-indulgent pleasure?

I wonder if anyone has published a workbook to guide the servile back into the real world? How would I even look that up on Amazon?

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Parin Stormlaughter has shared: Five Minute Global Prayer: Send and Receive Healing Energy this Friday | Dancing with Pain(R)

Five Minute Global Prayer - Send and Receive Healing Energy
Five Minute Global Prayer: Send and Receive Healing Energy this Friday | Dancing with Pain® Source: dancingwithpain.com
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.

Venusian Pleasures - Poppy Seed Cake

stormlaughterIcon_lock "Oh help me. I'm floating in cinnamon, nutmeg, almond, & poppy seed pleasure. I should say "join me". :)"
Me on Twitter


Never mind Neptune. More delicious delights have my attention right now.

My mouth is numb, comfortably numb. I just consumed half my daily calories with Neufchatel. Then I had another piece.

I'm drying petals from a blossom of Ryan's Rose so the kitchen is filled with the rosy fragrance. Couple that with this cake's sweet cinnamon heat from the oven and this domestic goddess is reborn.

This is where my Venus finds her voice.

Poppy Seed Cake
Inspired by a recipe from Gail Gand

1 1/4 ozs culinary poppy seeds
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/8 cup corn oil
1/2 tsp vanilla flavoring
couple of drops of almond flavoring
1 cup self-rising flour
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch grated nutmeg

Soak poppy seeds in milk for 1 hour. Set aside. Grease and flour a loaf pan and set aside.

Whip egg and sugar until fluffy. Drizzle in vegetable oil, vanilla, and almond flavorings. Sift together flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add to batter alternately with the poppy seeds and milk.

Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake at 325o for 45 minutes to an hour or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Top warm with cream cheese, butter, honey, or ice cream.


Notes: Oh heavens, what pleasure. Use evaporated milk in this recipe if you wish and you can save your regular milk for drinking. Consider trying Homemade Vanilla Flavoring and Vanilla Sugar for desserts like this. Be sure not to use more than a couple of drops of almond flavoring because it can easily overpower this delicate cake. Original recipe made 2 cakes and this recipe doubles flawlessly. Fill the room with the fragrance of roses (or if you're adventuresome, serve with tangy, fragrant rose conserve) to go along with this delight. The cake is moderately sweet and always unfrosted.

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Venusian Pleasures - Homemade Vanilla Sugar and Vanilla Flavoring

Vanilla Sugar

Place 2 lbs granulated sugar in an airtight canister and label with ingredients and date. Bury a whole vanilla bean pod in the sugar. Shake the container every few days. Let steep for 2 months. Use in any recipe calling for granulated sugar as well as in coffee and tea. One pod will flavor three changes of sugar (6 pounds in all) but use only 2 lbs at a time or it'll be a year before the sugar gets flavored. You can then use the pod for things like puddings and mead.


Bourbon Vanilla Flavoring

Split 2 vanilla bean pods and scrape the seeds into a pint of a bourbon that you like to drink, then add the pod halves. Cap tightly. Shake bottle every month or so. Let steep in the back of a dark cabinet for about a year before use. Marvelous in things like eggnog, hot toddies, and bourbon-soaked cakes. Two pods will flavor 2 pints of bourbon. Just refill the original bottle once you've emptied it. Discard the pods after the second batch. Very nice gift.



Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Hades Neptune

I've written ad nauseum about my doubly Hades Moon: the Moon in my birth chart is in the sign of Scorpio and is sextile Pluto in Virgo.

I've now found, reflected in my birth chart, a good explanation of my astronomical, comical, and utterly stupid sensitivity to life. In the course of reading up on the various subjects I'll be working on in Transpersonal Studies, I've found that analyzing my own birth chart is providing me with some insight into how others with some of my problems have coped with them. At the end of the day, the things I've found in my birth chart back up my and my docs' beliefs that I'm not making up my health problems. My spine issues are there too and an astrologer commented that skeletal things should very gradually increase for me as I finish growing up.

The term Hades Moon comes from a book of that title by Judy Hall. She should write about all the planets that aspect a Hades Moon. My Neptune is also in Scorpio and it conjuncts my Moon in Scorpio and both are sextile Pluto, god of the underworld. Neptune conjuncts my Descendant axis giving it substantial "weight" in chart synthesis.

Here's a swatch from the Karmic Insight Report (available from www.cafeastrology.com). Unfortunately, it's up to me to synthesize how this sensitivity manifests itself through the deep, dark, and secret Scorpio. This swatch just talks about Moons and Neptunes in a very general way:

The ability to empathize is a soul quality you have developed through many past experiences. Your psychic openness and capacity to "tune in" to what others are feeling is certainly a talent and a gift, but it can also make you vulnerable to your environment in many ways. You unconsciously absorb the psychic atmosphere and feelings of the people around you, so much so that you may be unable to separate yourself and distinguish your own emotions from other people's. You are thus susceptible to being manipulated, especially through pity. Allowing others to leech off of you emotionally, financially, or even psychically can be a problem for you. On another level, when you are not in balance you may manifest an over sensitivity toward chemicals, pollutants in your surroundings, or even prescription drugs, and an intolerance for any sort of noise, stress, or dissonance. You tend to take it all in, rather than resist or maintain firm limits. You have rather soft, permeable boundaries. When you get out of balance, however, you respond well to subtle therapies which affect primarily the emotional or subtle energies and thereby bring you into harmony. Beautiful music has a healing affect upon you, color therapy, aromatherapy, or simply being in or around water can all be very effective for you.

It is also beneficial for you to periodically withdraw for renewal. Going on spiritual retreats or visiting sanctuaries, even just being out in the wilderness, are quite necessary for you at times. You have a pronounced desire to escape or leave the world.

Night before last I had a dream that a man was leading an exploratory expedition to Neptune. I was following them psychically because in the dream, that was what I did for a living: psychic monitoring for NASA (don't fret--the Migraine attack that generated this weirdness stopped hurting last night). The most significant part of the dream was that I looked up into the sky and, in daylight, "saw" Neptune as the dot portion of an exclamation point formed by clouds also.

Dreams speak the symbolic language of the subconscious mind. Guess my subconscious is telling me to forget Venus & fix the Hades Moon/Hades Neptune conjunction Descendant first.

*sigh* I doubt that will be nearly as much fun as helping Venus have a good time. I've been recording my dreams since high school psychology class. Once I start dreaming about something, it's time to address it.

Balance...balance...Neptunium balance...water...wilderness...

Or I could just forget it and pull the covers back over my head. :)

Check out my "Reading Now" list. I'm about finished with The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine Aron, PhD, (c) 1996 Broadway Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036. I checked out both it and her The Highly Sensitive Person in Love from the library. Haven't read The Highly Sensitive Person in Love yet but I know for sure that I want to own The Highly Sensitive Person. There are a number of books addressing this trait and I've read several of them. Dr. Aron is Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) herself and has worked hard in this book to reassure us HSPs of our worthiness. Only a couple of problems with this book but the two primary ones are: she clearly states that Migraine is one result of not properly caring for your highly-sensitive self (Migraine is genetic--all the self-help books in the world won't make that gene go away). Second is her science on the physiological effects of long-term high cortisol levels and how to handle those effects; otherwise, one great book all in all. I recommend it. She and her husband crafted the studies that she conducted and she designed a questionnaire included in the book to help the reader get an idea of high sensitivity. Can't wait to start The HSP in Love even though Venus and I won't be bar-crawling as long as her father Neptune is standing in the doorway.

Libchik and I had a discussion about the differences between using psychological terms to describe a character trait and using astrological terms for the same trait. She's not sold on astrological birth chart information yet. Six of one, half a dozen of the other for my part. Psychological astrology (practiced by such luminaries as Liz Greene PhD. and Robert Hand) has already made the connection. Now we who come afterwards get to reap the benefits. :)

And I'm now at the end of my useful minutes. Gonna stretch out with rose quartz, idocrase, and Brandberg amethyst.


Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Venus in Aquarius in 10th House

Not back from break yet.

I need to do something about my poor, highly afflicted Venus. I'll never solve my 8th House Sun and Hades/Scorpio Moon unless I do, I'm about of the opinion.

A terrible rhyming couplet popped into my brain just then, but I won't share it. XD

Back soon. :-*


Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Short break!

Short break during the Cat Nights of Summer...yeah, Cat nights come after the Dog Days. :)

See you all soon.



Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Sharethis: Tool helps avoid seizure-inducing content on Web - EarthLink - Technology News

On Twitter, follow @namralkeeg to geek out with a true Migraineur.

And read this interesting article if you've got geekiness in you.

Tool for software developers that measures seizure-inducing flashing lights & color changes
Tool helps avoid seizure-inducing content on Web - EarthLink - Technology News Source: enews.earthlink.net
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.

New interpretation of my Sun in the 8th House of Death and Sex

Edit: unreal--I just discovered that my Venus conjuncts my Mars today. No WONDER! XD
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Heeheehee! This is funny! And accurate too!

There are men out there doing gymnastics to get my attention. In vain, and I'm sorry. That's not what's funny or accurate. It touches my heart. Men touch my heart. Men, touch my heart. Or my hands. Or my ...oh never mind... XD

I recently received a new interpretation of my Sun in the 8th House of Death, Taxes, Sex, and other Metamorphic Processes. In my birth chart, that's the House where my Sun appears with my correct birth time. With the wrong birth time it was in my 7th House (and I believe I've figured out where the wrong time of 3:15PM instead of the correct 2:18PM may have come from--my dad the Navy CPO and our resident timekeeper. He always considered Daylight Savings Time to be the more accurate method of timekeeping--he called it "sun time"--and would frequently comment on things happening in "sun time" compared to Standard Time. He would have thought nothing of telling me that I was born at 3:15PM because it would have been what he considered accurate "sun time". Just a thought but I'll bet that's why. Of course, the 3-minute difference is another mystery. Maybe it was 3 minutes before I started breathing?).

Anyway...

I have recommendations now in the astrology department: Book called The Inner Sky by Steven Forrest, copyright 1988 Seven Paws Press, PO Box 82, Borrego Springs, CA 92004 (yeah, ninth printing!), and his online mostly computer-generated "The Sky Within" report. Get the report directly from his website www.stevenforrest.com. It's available other places but for more money ($20 at his website) and you'll get it by email much more quickly from his website.

I've ordered it twice, once when I thought 3:15PM was correct and now with the correct 2:18PM time. Some of the information didn't change (outer planet houses weren't affected by the time change). The most interesting change was how Venus, my correct "chart ruler", affects my 8th House Sagittarius Sun (before with the wrong time, my chart ruler was Mercury since I had Gemini Ascendant. Now, correctly, I'm Taurus Ascendant).

Steven Forrest's report suggests that sex is more important to me than perhaps I ever knew. Well, no one knows how important sex is to someone who has been a sworn celibate since March 15, 1991, at 7:00PM [but who's keeping up, right? ;) ].

Here's a quote from his report:

You have lessons here. Let's consider them.

With the Sun in the Eighth House, you can't learn what you've come into the world to learn without the catalytic effect of a lover upon you... and whether or not you and that lover are married is irrelevant. The point is that many of your deepest lessons lie in the steamy realm of committed sexual intimacy.

Hmmm...really?

Somebody else has been trying to convince me of that for not quite 2 years. Have I really got a "Somebody screw me PLEASE!! Right now!!" sign on my back?

I've indeed defined myself by sexual boundaries, but by being a sworn celibate. I've got a civil divorce (man, what an oxymoron) but in my belief system, I would need a Church annulment before I'd be free to present myself as "available".

I know I've been hiding behind that need for an annulment all these years. I wonder if I'm ready to look into it now?

What a scary thing to look into, getting back into the dating game. Can't think about it right now. Head is hurting way, way too bad.

There was a thread on a bulletin board about how a person "cured" his/her Migraine Disease by "getting laid regular". Sheesh. If that's all there was to it, no married folks would have Migraine. My ex and I were three-times-a-day folks and it didn't cure our Migraine--we're both Migraineurs.

If you have any interest in astrology and how your birth chart might shed light on your life situation, consider checking The Inner Sky out at the public library. Heck, public libraries are free. Free is good.

I'm not free. But I'm worth it. ;-*


Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Sharethis: Big decision? You may think best on sunny days - Behavior- msnbc.com

Interesting article about super weather-sensitive people like me. Migraineurs and Meniere's-y sorts are sensitive to quite a number of things.

Here's an unattributed quote from The Old Farmer's Almanac for Friday August 14, 2009:

When you shut out the sun from the window,
The doctor comes in at the door.

My mother always opens every blind and drape in the house every day. I go behind her and close them if the sunlight shines in because it's usually too bright for my eyes. She and I have been battling about open/closed drapes for many years, and I imagine we will for years to come. :)

Exquisitely weather-sensitive people more mentally "dull" on cloudy days - data mining
Big decision? You may think best on sunny days - Behavior- msnbc.com Source: msnbc.msn.com
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.

Horrifying Sharethis: What This Means For You - Physicians for Healthcare Reform

If you just must call me a roadblock to progress, go ahead. Give me the courtesy to do so straight-up so we can have at it.

No mistaking what's going on here. This woman was not denied life-extending treatment for cancer by her state-run health care system because of questionable effectiveness or unacceptable side effects or any medical reason. She was denied because it cost too much in the opinion of the officials that run the state agency, and she was offered hospice or physician-assisted suicide instead. I am not making this up.

Read the article. I invite comments if anyone is so inclined.

Anyone already enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, or other collective systems is already aware of the problems with covered procedures, treatments, and medications. Anyone who isn't and isn't familiar would be mind-boggled by it, completely mind-boggled.

If anyone is of the belief that state- or federally-administered health care is the answer, please tell me so I may disabuse you of that incorrect assumption.

Absolutely horrifying.

Oregon state-run health care offers patient "assisted suicide" instead of care
What This Means For You - Physicians for Healthcare Reform Source: physiciansforreform.org
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.

Editorial: "Healing" and "Management" of Migraine and Meniere's

I am such a permeable person that I commit osmosis against my will. I felt the recent world-impacting events in my physical and energy bodies before I ever found out what had happened. I absorb other people's states of being too, their emotions, their physical symptoms, brain waves, thoughts, impulses, desires....ok, maybe not everybody's and I promise I don't pay attention to them except to try to get them out of my own system.

The state of my energy body is my biggest problem, I am about of the conclusion. Energy bodies are like physical bodies: A person doesn't eat "once and for all" for example, nor wear a crystal for a time and fix an offending problem for good. Taking care of myself has become a consuming, irritating, boring chore that hasn't fixed a thing about me. I don't think I'm alone in how I feel about chronic illness and I don't see any brightness in tomorrow.

My energy body simply doesn't function properly and in that I'm including my entire system of nerves, spinal problems and nerve damage. Things that disrupt my energy system cause certain things to happen to me to which I'm genetically predisposed, like Migraine. Disruptions also trigger functional things that are intensely nerve-driven, like Meniere's Syndrome and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

The disruptions that cause problems for me seem to be energy-related themselves, like EMF waves, weather and other nature changes, astronomical events like normal Moon and Sun things, solar flares and such, and strange as it may sound, negative people and their own disrupted, scrambled energy systems. I don't generate energy properly. I absorb disrupted human and non-human energy sometimes without being aware of it--I've even pulled energy out of electrical outlets in an arc and no, not mistaking this for a discharge of static electricity (which isn't very useful to me, no idea why).

I feel the urge for a blog editorial coming on...about the difference between "managing" a chronic illness and "healing" the condition.

Medicine can only cure a few things. Most things that happen to people are defined as "self-limiting": Eventually, they go away by themselves (by way of death of the person at times). Medicine can improve the self-healing process by setting bones or performing surgery or prescribing drugs to accomplish various things and thanks be to God for modern medicine! But the human body is designed to heal itself when at all possible. Might not be possible to restore a body to its pre-injury or pre-illness state, but a human body is designed to fix itself up as best it can.

I'm going to state my opinion here: Chronic illness is a compromise between the illness and a body, to me. The body doesn't die right away but it doesn't heal itself either. The body exists in a state of semi-functioning, neither getting better nor expiring. Is it because the body doesn't know how to get well? No one knows. Is it because the body is doing something (maybe in normal homeostasis with no intent to stay sick) to exacerbate the chronic situation? Maybe in some instances. Is it because the chronic compromise is the furthest extent that the body can go in healing itself alone or with medical treatment? That very well may be.

My current energy body functioning seem to me, at this time in my learning curve, to be the best compromise that my body can devise to cope with onslaughts of skewed energy in order to keep me going.

I don't believe Meniere's or Migraine either one are self-limiting. I know that at this time no cure for Migraine exists. We have symptom relief, prevention, and management techniques. Meniere's may be the same but there is too little research for Meniere's out there for me to feel as certain as I do about Migraine.

Right now, we can alleviate symptoms, work on prevention (which I intend to also include both lifestyle/trigger management and prophylactic measures), and work for awareness and more and better research, data mining, things of that nature. Not much more can be done. Until and unless I can figure out a way to develop energy boundaries, I don't foresee that I will make progress in increasing my daily functioning. Symptom relief, prevention, personal self expression through awareness--none of those things are improving my functioning.

I have worked LIKE A DOG for years, and yeah call them decades, to try to find a way to live so that I'm not at the mercy of other people--their energies, their egos, their disrupted, scrambled selves--made great progress in staying right where I was and even reducing prescription medicine usage (and I credit crystal therapy and energy medicine), but my functioning is absolutely no better. None. Zero. Zilch.

I am so very pessimistic right now, and it feels unnatural and discouraging. But the more time I spend in the awareness and advocacy world, the more certain I feel that such industry-wide slogans as "working toward a cure" and "raising awareness" promote an illusion of virtually impossible outcomes. I'm just about to decide that concentrating on management techniques and self-help methods would be both more cost-effective and measurably more successful in reducing disability and restoring functioning than funding attempts to achieve things that medicine can barely do for any condition or any disease, dis-ease, injury, or malfunction regardless of the time, effort, awareness, research, and prayer.

Medicine has developed so few cures, no one ever talks about them. If someone will share with me a reason to work for a cure instead of working for better management, I'll most assuredly listen.

I want to be wrong on this. But I just don't think I am.

And this is the end of this Editorial.