Over the Edge

Extra points if you upload a video of you performing your song! –WEGO Health

I was slightly annoyed when I read these words by WEGO Health on day 11. Hadn’t I already stretched myself incredibly by writing a song?

But it haunted me for the rest of the challenge. I began to think, “The song’s written. Why not perform it?! Have you got the guts? Go on, over the edge with you.”

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It Took a Village

The applet required to produce an image for today’s prompt does not run on an iPad. (You may know that I’ve been participating in this blog challenge from London by pushing an iPad to the hilt.) I wish I had known that before the effort I expended trying to make it work! To make matters worse, the owner of the website concerned discourages teachers from assigning his application as homework:

Finally, and with all the respect due to teachers, whom I revere and consider to be the underpaid champions of our future: I wish you wouldn’t assign Wordle as homework. It results in angry emails to me from kids and (especially) their parents, who are understandably frustrated when they can’t get it to work, and feel under the gun to do so.

–Jonathan Feinberg, blog.wordle.net

Oh no! I had to think of something. I was not going to get blown out of the blog challenge on day 30!  Continue reading →

There was paper everywhere. My entire living room was carpeted with test results from the previous two years. I stared at them, uncomprehendingly at first. But after I’d looked back and forth between the tests and Dr. Teitelbaum’s book for a whole weekend, I began to understand how I was going to treat myself. I wrote my protocol down on yet more paper, ordered the first set of supplements and emailed a few questions to the good doctor. The next phase of my recovery had begun.

RELEVANT REALITYNIBS LINKS: Dr Oz – Treatments for Fibromyalgia – Oprah.com and Should I Do Chelation for Heavy Metal Toxicity?

WEGO PROMPT FOR THIS POST: In this day of micro-blogging – brevity is a skill worth honing. Can you tell a story and make it short and sweet? What can you say in six sentences. Check out some here: http://sixsentences.blogspot.co.uk/

This is post 29 of 30 in the Realitynibs.com series for WEGO Health’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge 2012

Recover. Renew. Redo!

RELEVANT REALITYNIBS LINKS: About Realitynibs.com

WEGO PROMPT FOR THIS POST: Give yourself, your blog, your condition, or some aspect of your health a tagline. Make sure it’s catchy!

This is post 26 of 30 in the Realitynibs.com series for WEGO Health’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge 2012

She didn’t know it but being followed around by a private detective had changed her. So when at 9 years old she was awoken by a thunderstorm in the night, her first thought was not, “It’s raining.” Instead her instinct was to assume that the light flashing through her bedroom was from a man trying to kidnap her.

Her fears were confirmed by a screeching, squeaky sound. The man had obviously grabbed little Chianugo from next door. The toddler was crying in his arms while he searched the bedroom for Bola so he could kidnap her too.  Continue reading →

Please see a picture of M2 at the bottom of this post!

It’s hard to believe that there was a time smartphones did not exist. Although it probably would not have made much difference during the first year or so of my CFS experience. Not too long after I was able to enjoy reading again, I was also beginning to spend more time on the sofa than in bed. Then somebody gave me an iPhone.

The words that accompanied my gift seem surprisingly prescient now. My new device was apparently intended as a contribution to my healing. Soon, tracking my daily blood pressure, temperature and weight became a fun game because, well, there was an app for that. I even got to see graphs on my phone that showed the overall trends of my progress. I had access to email, bills and Facebook in the palm of my hand without having to leave my sofa. In those days quite frankly, I often couldn’t leave the sofa or talk on the phone. This meant that my iPhone was my main means of social interaction.  Continue reading →