Identifying Sensory Overload - and how to deal with it.

Even had I NOT been an organized person, going to 13 years of sleep-away summer camp would have ensured it.  Here hubby and I are passing the experience on to our kids.

Before I forget: I'd love it sooo very much if you could go to my Facebook page and 'like" it.  You don't even need to be enormously enamored of me: it's OK...just "like" it, PLEASE!  Of course I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't actually like it - huh?  Ha!)  But I do need at least 30 people who "like" it (that's hitting the big thumb next to the image where the photos "icon" is up top) in order for me to get any sorts of stats from Facebook! 
This is the link. 


Pretty please!  I hate to beg but have decided that I can handle it if it gives me an idea of the number of readers going through that site and will perhaps give me a better handle on what my readers really do want to know! :) Thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who have already liked it and I'm sure wonderful things will happen to you if you do: Karma!   And tell your friends if you have many of them, which I'm sure you do!  OK...enough degrading of myself! ;)


Now onto the subject at hand, dealing with yet another aspect of CFIDS/ME, fibromyalgia and its other goodies.
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Organization!  A decluttered house where there aren't too many items not needed, ridding my life of the things that don't serve a purpose.  These are the mighty and lofty ideas, desires and dreams I engage in these days:  well, if truth be told, I have actually done so for decades.  The crazy part is that I was actually BORN organized and one who decluttered, with the exception of the books in my life. (Would YOU throw out your friends? Aha! Point taken!) Everyone simply must have something that drives the partner in a marriage mad and these are pretty much the two biggies: the organization - hubby's downfall - and the house bursting at the seams because of books everywhere one turns, my downfall.  Oh, and photographs.  Oh, and the boxes my beauty products come in.  (See: I do like to be fair!)


But now that I live with my fibro-brain I find that organization is not just a help but is key, especially the older and sicker I become.  If there were only one thing that I could change about my family, "organization" and "decluttering" would probably be among my top picks.  It frustrates the heck out of me that no one seems to "get" just how much of a problem this is for me, how literally sick I get from the sensory over-load and how often I burst into tears from it - tears that lead to anger because I so detest them.  To me they are a signal of defeat and I absolutely cannot tolerate defeat: that's quite a slippery slope to doom as far as I am concerned.


When I do walk into my closet, for example, and see a mess, my brain short-circuits and I'm totally defeated.  To make things worse, with a mess I can't see what is right in front of me, big or tiny.  If things are moved around in the medicine cabinet, for example, or too many items have been stuffed into said medicine cabinet, I cannot for the life of me, literally, register that which is right in front of me because my brain fries.  Suddenly, nothing makes sense and I'm blinded.


I'm so adamant about the need for everything being in a proper place, and not having clutter, that I've used the "blind" analogy to my family for decades: I try to press upon them that were I blind, everyone in the family would KNOW that things need to have their assigned places and everything would actually be returned to its proper place, no one even questioning the necessity.  And yet, no one understands that I'm handicapped by messes and really and truly cannot see what I'm looking for if there is a mess.  Even on a "good" day this is a problem, but on a bad one?   It becomes a complete lost cause making me go downhill even further and faster.


The sensory overload not only triggers migraines, but in milder forms, more confusion, a sense of being overwhelmed and unlike the "old real Irene" who was almost manic for organization.  I now immediately start to shake, break out in a sweat, need to fight useless tears because several things happen: I can't begin to know how and where to start cleaning a mess, my body is too weak to clean up a mess and my brain can't even begin to understand where or how to start.  Imagine how frustrating this is to a person who, for example, used round plastic thingamabobs (much like the ones found in clothing department stores that are used for sizes) which I would slide on a rod of each child's closet and each thingamabob would be a marked stating the day of the week said outfit would be worn.  Oh, I wasn't a fanatic about it: the kids had choices, but there was always the system in place for most days.  Talk about cutting back on morning drama!  Each child had two weeks worth of outfits hung out for them.  It was survival: in order to be a half-way effective mom, I needed to keep things organized (each child was also color-coded with bins for shoes, school work, the toys that belonged to each child individually instead of them all as a group.)  


Furthermore, I resent the inordinate amount of time I waste each day to keep finding things all day long...and I'm talking about easy things such as the remote, cell phone and two pairs of glasses that keep getting lost in the bed linens!


Going one step further, when I get a migraine and need to take a med to smash that sucker out of oblivion, I often cannot even realize what needs to be done.


Many, many years ago, when my children were young, I once came down with a monster migraine while hubby was out of town.  Somehow I had the wits to call the kids' babysitter, a mother's helper almost, except that L started out with helping us when she was only 13 years old.  At that age and with my young "babies," I didn't leave her alone with the kids but she certainly spent a great deal of time at our house just helping me keep up with the three little rascals, playing with them in our tiny yard while I fixed dinner and so forth.


On this particular evening it was rather late to be calling anyone and I certainly didn't want her walking over to our house in the dark, yet I'm still not sure what it was that actually made me call her: it was just so out of character for me.  Yet there must have been something very off in my voice that made her realize that I was really sick.


"Are you having a migraine, Mrs. X?" she asked?  "Is your head hurting?"


I was too ill to answer and so by now 14/15-year old L kept on with, "Mrs. X.  You're having a migraine.  Walk to your bathroom.  Go to the mirror!  Are you walking to the bathroom?"


L commanded me through the paces of getting me to my migraine medication, knowing exactly where it was located in my bathroom, picturing in her mind where it was in my medicine cabinet, on which shelf, how many bottles from the end of which row, down to what that bottle looked like and how to open it.  


I've written before that back then the migraine medications were not especially effective, but the med I did take, thanks to our teen-aged L, was enough to keep me out of the hospital and my toddlers safe until hubby was due home.


If you need to convince your family or your roommate or whomever of the importance of keeping things organized, putting things back after they've been used, everything having its proper place, feel free to use my cautionary tale to drive home your point.  (However,  at the moment I feel like a fraud/failure writing this as our house is in such flux right now that NOTHING can be found nor are we even sure if we even own a lot of things any longer!  Darn you, remodeling!)


Just as a glare can trigger a migraine, so too can a brain short-circuited from seeing a mess.  Of course, the reverse is true too: nothing puts me in as good a mood as seeing a clean and decluttered room with everything in its place.  And in an emergency, having things in their place can be crucial.


On that day, L won her stripes and I never worried if I needed to leave the kids alone with a very mature 14/15-year old if I needed to run a quick errand.  We were all lucky to have L as our official babysitter as she grew up into a young lady who eventually left home to go to college and start her own family and when we see photographs of birthday parties she helped me manage from becoming total zoos and photographs in which we celebrated many other milestones of our lives, we remember her fondly.


Perhaps that should also be a tip: find yourself a L.  But I can tell you from experience, they are hard to come by!


And I am now going to go play one of my mind-games: I'm going to go directly back to my bed, but on the way I will put 10 things away.   I like the game, "The Power of Ten," since it's about the only way I can get anything at all done these days.  And since I had the audacity to write it down here, I must carry through!  Sometimes I think I'm my own worst enemy!


But to sum up:

• Being organized is key to keeping you from totally going nuts.
• Owning less rather than more is especially important to "our" lives and getting through them.
• Everything in its place is a downright birthright - not to mention an important survival strategy.
• Playing mind games that work for you gives a huge heads up.  (More on that in a later post!)

I hope everyone is feeling as well as can be, only better!  Happy weekend to all!

Spring and the CFIDS "on/off" Phenomenon...

Our baby weeping cherry tree made it through the non-winter.

It's spring and that alone puts me into the best of moods.  My legs are killing me and I am thrilled about it!  Why?  Well, this past week I made myself run out (metaphorically speaking, of course - I actually practically crawled down the stairs) to take a few pictures with my iPod of the bulbs coming up.  Oh what freedom!!!  I've not been out of the house for weeks - months even, canceling doctors' appointments right and left - and then worried I'll be dropped by my doctors for being so "irresponsible and/or for wreaking havoc on their schedules.

It had to have been funny for any neighbors looking out and seeing me getting down on the ground for some close shots, in something looking suspiciously close to a nightgown.   Actually, it must have been interesting to see me at all. I am the "phantom neighbor," sort of like during my kids' high school years, by which time this horrid illness had become so severe that I became the "phantom mom."  There were rumors that I existed but no one was REALLY sure.

Anyway, the next day after my "photography" adventure, I happened to glance out the window (I should try to do that more often) and noticed that the trees were in bloom and hoped against hope I'd be able to "run out" again for ten minutes within the next day or so, before all the blossoms disappeared.  Three days later, I was ever so pleased with myself because I was able to do so and even stick to my strict limit of ten minutes and no more.

And wouldn't you know it, but just as I laid down on the ground, hubby dearest arrived home - in the middle of the day, for just long enough to cut the grass and run back to work. This NEVER happens!  I was, simply put, BUSTED!   Fortunately, my red face made hubby refrain from lecturing, though since then every once in a while he mutters "ten minutes, huh?" -  just loud enough for me to hear.

My family laughs that my life is either "off" or "on," with no in between and I'm beginning to see that they are right.   "On" means going on for hours, though it rarely happens anymore.   But there are at least two reasons for this "on/off" phenomenon.

First, it is really hard to change gears with this DD, CFIDS, CFS, ME and/or fibromyalgia with all its complications including migraines, SEVERE insomnia, nausea, eye vision problems, falling down, ulcers in the mouth which often make it impossible to even swallow water, speech impairment, memory loss that is more like amnesia than just bad memory, swollen lumpy nodes.  When you are finally well enough - angels singing Hallelujah! - to take a bath you then stay in way too long and pay for that for the next few weeks - if you're lucky.  When you're lucky enough to start to wash your face you start with soap, then a cleanser, then an exfoliant, then throw in a facial mask treatment for good measure and keep going because who knows when you'll be able to wash your face again?  You start a book and just can't put it down - because you can't change gears and because tomorrow you won't remember anything read the day before.  You play a mind game and force yourself to dust and declutter your nightstand and soon you're dusting everything in sight.  Your adrenaline has kicked in to assist the painkillers and if they happen to FINALLY work and vertigo doesn't start in, nausea, along with a dozen other possibilities, you become unstoppable.

Your cautious, "know-it-all" mind tells you to stop because IT knows perfectly well the price that will be paid, but your brain is damaged and can't turn off. If someone interrupts,something weird happens to your head, your blood sugar, your momentum and you are startled so badly that a migraine starts. The crazy list goes on and on, of examples and consequences.

Secondly, I've learned that pacing myself simply doesn't work - for me, that is.   Everyone is different.  It really doesn't matter if I spend five minutes doing something or five hours doing something - the end result is the same - and that is, that you'll always be in worse shape the next day or the third day after, for however long the fates have slated, I suppose.  That is why I so often go "all out" if I can manage to drag my body out of bed. And as long as I'm not standing still (because my BP plummets even lower and very quickly) but moving or sitting down on a stool I keep inching along - I become the Tasmanian devil.

I rarely disclose any of this because...drum roll, please...I am sick and tired of the "advice" I get from people who really have no clue, including doctors, about how I need to learn to pace myself, or I must make an effort to push myself,or I must learn how to NOT push myself, etc.  I rarely hear what I need to hear, what pretty much all of us need to hear: listen to your body and LEARN FROM YOUR BODY what's best for you.

So, getting back to my capturing pictures of my garden, I did the mature thing and took 10 minutes worth, washed off and got back into bed.

But now I'm too exhausted and in too much fibro pain, shaking, fighting off a migraine, with blues that are felt down to my very ankles from the awfulness I feel, unable to understand the simple concept of even how to wash my hands with Dove, much less wash my face. There are other symptoms which I'm not really registering, being so good about denial.  Pain killers are no help.  This is disheartening because washing my face at least once a day is one of my New Year's resolutions and I'm doing the best I've done in at least 15 years.  I'm ticked off that I didn't work out there until I dropped.   At least something would gotten accomplished - more than neighbors seeing the mystery woman ambulances appear for every once in a while. (LOL!??)

However, now my thighs are killing me too and I'm LOVING that!  This is the thing to have happened to me in ages:  the wonderful hurt a normal person gets after a period of slacking off and then doing a good work-out. It hurts but it's the "good" kind of hurt that I remember from 37 years ago, which so rarely happens anymore.  And who knows...I might even be able to add riding on my exercise bike for two minutes every few days soon.  I've still not given up my dream of going back to taking very elementary horseback riding lessons, though I fear I've jinxed myself by revealing that dream here. (And yes, of course I've knocked on wood and done the "Tphoo! Tphoo! Tphoo!" bit. I'm a supertitious Russian/Ukie by blood after all!)   But I am definitely going to TRY to keep up my attempt to record my garden's progression.   We all do so much better when pretty things surround us and we all feel much better when we see that we've actually achieved or accomplished something, be we sick OR healthy.  I know, clichés, but true and very well worth keeping in mind.

Happy Spring, everyone,
Upa (aka "Ира")

Finding needles in haystacks while dieting.

Eating my way through England in the late '80's.

If ever any of my three (charming) kids to look at this post, a massive cry would arise, I just know it.  You see, they already think that I'm an eating well/healthy eating crusader, as well as a believer that food will cure all. Well, I'm not - not really.

...Although there IS my constant threat/dream to start a demonstration in front of every supermarket in the US with young women, mothers, grandmothers of the world united, carrying placards that declared that 95% of the food in said stores is dangerous to our health.  Hugely dangerous!  But I'm coming perilously close to digressing, and that's for another post, so on with it!  

I'm always amazed at how much healthier I feel after I've been eating well.  Actually, perhaps not "healthy," but instead how much cruddier I feel after eating "well" for a while, then sneaking in one of my "forbidden" foods and suddenly feeling incredibly worse...migraines, brain fog, huge pain, and the myriad of other symptoms and problems which then come out in spades and/or are intensified.  

I suppose the first time I really and truly noticed this was back in the early '90's.  I'd gone on a diet determined to lose the fat and poundage I'd put on after seeing a CFIDS specialist (one of a few already and one of many to come) who thought regular steroids would be the answer.  I'd made peace with the decision and since I was already bathed, dressed, made up and out of bed, hubby and I decided to stop by a department store on our trip home in order to buy some clothes that would fit me once I put on the inevitable at-the-very-least 20-pound weight gain I have always gotten from just one shot of steroids, as in the occasional bout with poison ivy or other nasty thing deserving steroids.  

Well, to make a long story short, my CFIDS, ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, migraines, insomnia, and so forth, symptoms got no better.  In fact, I would say that they got much worse.  And I did not have a 20-pound gain but a 40-plus pound weight gain.  Putting on all that weigh made it even harder to move around, the pain got much worse.  The migraines were so bad, in fact, that I was in the ER just about every week.  

In those days, the "best" treatment for migraines was a DHE-45 IV drip in the ER which took a couple of hours to administer.  It worked like a charm but was a pain because I have a phobia of needles and a good "stick" is hard to find.  But the ER docs got to the point where they could take one look at me, talk to hubby and immediately see if a quick Demerol shot would work or if I needed the dreaded DHE-45 infusion.  

I thought my migraines would be a cinch to deal with once Imitrex came out, in shot form.  Holy cow, was I ever wrong.  The migraine would go into stratospheric heights and knowing I sounded very crazy I nevertheless couldn't stop screaming from the worsening migraine that the Imitrex induced.  Then after about 6-8 hours, if I were lucky, the migraine would magically go away.  Too often, however, the migraine did not go away and I'd need a second shot, screaming, sweating, shaking, trembling...it was a sight out of "The Exorcist," minus the head turning. 

Back in the late '80's, the migraines had become so bad that my first lumbar puncture was done.  When elevated proteins were found in my spinal fluid, everyone scrambled about getting me scheduled for a CT scan, others were trying to figure out who would be doing a removal of my brain tumor because that's what an elevated protein level in the spinal fluid meant back then, whereas hubby worried how he'd miss his young wife and how he'd manage life with three little children who had no mother.  It was a scary 24 hours until everyone found out that there was, indeed, no tumor in my brain.  

On the other hand, when I was lucid enough to think, I was furious with everyone. I didn't have a diagnosis yet as to what was wrong with me, but I KNEW that something serious was going on.  How was it, I wondered, that the elevated spinal fluid would scare the heck out of doctors one day and not be a sign of anything wrong the next? Come on guys, use the brain God gave you, the logic college taught you, and the physician's training medical school gave you.  There IS some sort of problem.  It's not just a yes or a no!  

But everyone was happy, other than me, of course.  That was the infamous year when I spent more days in the hospital than at home, popping in and out of hospitals as if they were my home away from home.  Hospital dietitians particularly got on my nerves because they kept trying to trick me into diets I'd long ago surmised did not influence my health.  I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule, but one the whole, I've found that most hospital dietitians are the most ignorant group on God's good earth when it comes to food.  Think about hospital food for a moment and you'll understand what I mean.  

At any rate, getting back to the steroid fiasco, I stopped the shots and was determined to lose the 40 pounds I'd put on, not an easy feat.  For some reason, regular weight goes off rather well with determination, but steroid weight gain is almost an impossibility to get off.  It takes me at least a couple of YEARS to budge even 20 pounds.

But I heard about a new diet on one of those evening magazine shows and decided I had nothing to lose but weight, so why not try it?  

It was called "The Monignac Diet," "invented" by a Frenchman who worked in the US for an extended period of time, had a history of extra poundage he wanted to lose, and was horrified by French young ladies who spent time in the US and came home fat.  Nutritionists and dietitians around the world were divided on the efficacy of the diet, most very much against this new-fangled concept of a glycemic index, but given my opinion of nutritionists and dietitians, I thought that was reason enough to try it.  

The diet basically divided meals into ones which were fat/protein or carbs.  Never could the two groups meet. Furthermore, carbs were divided into "good" carbs and "bad" carbs.  There were also some "no-no's," such as sugar, corn products, potatoes (a killer for me since I consider potatoes "Russian/Ukrainian penicillin").  This is all a simplistic explanation, of course.  This was also my first venture into the low-glycemic world.  In fact, Montignac is now, after his death, known as the "father" of the glycemic approach to diet, eating, weight gain/loss, health and so forth.

Well, it was a surprisingly easy diet to stay on.  I lost 20 pounds but then hit a plateau - a plateau I could not for the life of me get myself off of.  

One night, complaining about the darn plateau, observant hubby suddenly said, "you know, you haven't had a migraine since you started that French diet."  I looked at him as if he'd suddenly grown a monstrous second head but I often give him that sort of look.  

"Think about it," he said.  This time he got a dirty look.  One of my hobbies is thinking...was he actually telling me to think when he's always telling me to think LESS???

Suddenly I jumped out of bed and ran to the dresser where we kept all of my migraine meds, including the dreaded needles.  My supply of needles looked full.  I checked the date on the Imitrex - and it was expired.  WAY expired!  I looked at the rest of my migraine arsenal and everything was old. 

This was way too easy.  Hubby said, "I think you may have lost only 20 pounds but more importantly, you lost your migraines too."  That was such a corny statement that he got another, deserved, "look" from me.

Not wanting to leave things well enough alone and being a contrarian, or just a person who likes proof, I looked at him devilishly and said, "I want a burger."  You see, bread, a carb, and beef, fat/protein, mixed together were a definite no-no.  Hubby looked at me as if I were nuts but knew arguing would do no good.  I finally ate my hamburger with extreme relish and got my migraine, in spades.  Too bad I hadn't planned things out: the migraine was one of my better ones and because the meds at home were all expired, a run to the ER was needed.

It took me some time to accept the reality that I had hit a cure for my migraines.  This was really huge.  As a child I got bad headaches but my mom believed that children don't get headaches, they just caused them - in adults!  I learned great coping mechanisms, one of which was washing floors, de-waxing and waxing floors on my hands and knees whenever I had a "headache" coming on.  I didn't even realize I was doing this but always had incredibly sparkling floors. 

All of this denial came to an end, however, when I went blind in one eye for a few days while in my second pregnancy. It was a migraine equivalent seen at times with women who suffer severe migraines.  I argued with my neuro-opthomologist that I don't even get mild headaches when my hubby came out a state of shock and said, "You ALWAYS get headaches!" Was I complaining but not hearing nor registering those complaints? 

After challenging the "French Diet" a few times, I realized that for me, at least, this was one answer to my migraine problem.  I've had good years and bad years as to how well I stick to this way of eating.  At the moment I'm not doing too well because of too many reasons to bore you with at the moment.  

But how incredible was the luck that led us to this "cure"?  Had we not been using needles back then and had Imetrix not intensified my headaches before ridding me of them, the connection might not have been made. Today, with a medication in pill form that works like a charm, I'm not as invested about avoiding the foods and eating patterns that lead to a migraine.  Pop that pill and forget about what harm I may be causing myself due to side-effects not even yet imagined.  However, now that I've put this in writing and told so many about it, perhaps I've finally given myself the push I need to get back on the French diet band wagon.  

Goodbye to my wonderful potatoes, my wonderful Russian/Ukie cure-all for a while.  Perhaps I'll have some mashed ones tonight as a farewell, right before I have a piece of sugar-laden cake for my wonderful daughter's birthday.  It's tough to say goodbye to those "poisons."

Loving my wonderful Kindle....

In front of Big Ben: badly centered!
Amazon.com has simply got to be one of the greatest places on-line, perhaps even on earth. And here I speak mostly about books, although as I get used to the 
idea that Amazon has expanded into almost everything short of booking (ha!) 
flights to the moon, I'm begrudgingly accepting the shared wall space with 
"other things" <snarl here, please> when I go to their main page. 
I've been in love with Amazon since the late '90's, feeling extremely guilty 
because our town has a truly wonderful independent bookstore, a dying breed. In 
fact, if I can, I really try to buy locally as much as possible across the line.  
And local independent bookstores should definitely be supported. 

Plus there's nothing like getting to know your indie bookseller. Talk about 
recommendations! I well remember the wonderful years when I took my Christmas 
list up to "Words and Music" and Alan, between other customers, spent most of 
the day helping me pick out the perfect book for each person on my list. One 
year his enthusiasm for Angela's Ashes, a brand new book no had heard of as of 
yet - for my very Irish fellow CFIDer from our St. Louis days - knew no bounds.  
It was a very hard sell, but he was HOW right?

As I've become sicker and sicker I turned to Amazon more and more often. And 
when you are a severe insomniac, it's great to be able to shop in the odd hours 
when the world sleeps. 

When Strand Bookstore in New York went on-line, I also ordered from them by the 
huge - and heavy - boxful. They have the most incredible stock. What an 
unbelievable bookseller - I have been known to be the last customer out, with 
sales personnel literally pushing me out the door while hubby pulled. I make NO 
apologies...the store is incredible and when you first walk in, there is so much 
there that your brain simply fries. You need to allot much time for Strand. It 
takes a while for your brain to come back to normal. My notebook of books 
already read is almost a necessity, I find, because my brain never quite makes 
it back to normal after walking in.  On-line is definitely the way to go.

But all along the way I've been falling more deeply in love with Amazon...it's a 
growing love affair.

So when the age of the Kindle came, I was extremely torn. To say I love books? 
Oh, I don't even know how to convey to anyone how much. But the house was 
getting squeezed by them and since I could never part with any books no matter 
how lousy, and because there were no more areas in the house to build more 
shelves, Kindle started being forced on me. It was a matter of "buy more books 
but get rid of the same number of books in order to have some semblance of an 
orderly house," or resort to Kindle. 

Heresy! I was very conflicted. But any time there was a discussion of the new 
Kindle from BookSpan to Charlie Rose to "Good Morning America," my ears were 
glued to what was being said. 

Another complication in this decision making was that anything mechanical, 
especially electrical, which includes clocks, watches and computers, seems to 
die on me, or at the very least constantly breaks down. Hubby still tells anyone 
who will listen about how Big Ben stopped for the first time ever on August 5, 
1976 on our honeymoon. Let's just say Big Ben was working when my new hubby and 
I sat down to have a late sandwich in a tiny square near Big Ben and fifteen 
minutes later he wasn't moving. 

I used to have three computers in my arsenal: one for in the shop being fixed, 
one ABOUT to go to into the shop to be fixed and one having arrived from the 
shop FINALLY fixed. My family will not allow me to even walk by their computers 
because suddenly their screens would start to do weird things. I've even seen my 
middle child see me coming, grab his laptop and flee. Putting the final touches 
on his PhD dissertation from our home, he was not about to risk losing precious 
data brought home from Australia. (Picky! Picky!)

So, why would a person with my history possibly want the hassle of a Kindle? 
Well, in order to keep buying and reading books, of course - silly! Our 
libraries here are very good and hubby makes frequent runs there weekly, but 
some books you just want to own and some books simply aren't instantly 
available. 

Furthermore, for many it is a wonderful way to go. Some of us have trouble 
holding a book, after all, and a Kindle really helps if you want to continue 
reading.

Thirdly, a real problem with CFIDS and Fibromyalgia is the cognitive problems we 
have. As much as I love to read - a wild understatement - I must admit that 
there have been times when I've forced myself to read, just in order to keep my 
mind from atrophying. I can't believe I'm admitting this, but there have been a 
couple of times when I resorted to harlequin romances...I needed to read because 
I love to and I needed to read to slow the brain deterioration process. 

I often call myself a "moody" reader but that's simply code for saying that 
there are times I can only handle this sort of book, other times I can only 
handle that sort. "Chick lit" one day, Nobel Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner the 
next. And when I read "Wolf Hall"? I love a really long book. But holding one, 
as I mentioned before, is a different story. Finally, being able to match a book 
to your mood in just an instant really helps that pesky "mood" problem.

Anyway, a few months into the second generation of my first Kindle, the 
inevitable happened. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or get mad at myself. 
Instead, I finally called the Amazon Kindle number to talk to someone and a few 
minutes later, talking to a really, really polite and kind young man, we 
realized that my Kindle was really and truly dead. Since the year warranty was 
still in effect (what WAS I thinking when I didn't buy the extended warranty 
with my history?) I was sent a new Kindle, free of charge. I just had to 
remember to mail back the old one within 30 days, which is not as easy as it 
sounds when you can do nothing, nor remember anything, yet ridiculously easy for 
the rest of the world. They even set it up for me by entering my old books into 
it and the heading on the top of the Kindle read "Irene's 2nd Kindle." Sweet!

Were we all in a group I might stop here and ask how many know where this is 
going! You may be right.

You see, the other night I received "Irene's 5th Kindle." To tell you the truth 
I was a bit uncomfortable calling about this fifth one...in fact, the warranty 
had run out. I knew the warranty starts anew with each new Kindle but I was 
just too plain lazy ("too sick" and "too tired"...remember our code words here!) to 
call and explain the dying process of my fourth Kindle. 

Finally, with the warranty over, I now had to choose from quite an array of new 
Kindles. Did I mention I have a hard time making decisions - a very typical 
CFIDS problem?  Well, finally Kindle number four died absolutely and completely.  
I was going to order a new one after much hemming and hawwing. But I wasn't sure 
that I'd be able to handle the library transfer and registration parts, so I 
wanted to order one from an actual human being. Amazon has them, you see...I 
suspect they're there to be amused by the senior crowd who have no clue as to 
what they are doing. 

I finally got around to calling. And in less than five minutes I was informed 
that by paying $60 I could have a brand new Kindle, the very one I was ready to 
put real money into. How amazing is that?

I must say that the support woman was a bit....shocked?...when she realized this 
was my fifth Kindle. I refrained from telling her about my Big Ben incident.

And England: I'm so sorry. I really didn't mean to hurt Big Ben. It was a 
totally innocent and unintentional act!  My sincerest apologies to all.