A CFIDS/fibro-Friendly Beauty Line

My latest planner workhorse, it's taken me to a lot of places and  has room for a few extra products in the  detachable pouch on the left side.
 

If I had to pick one beauty product line for the foreseeable future, especially one for my funky CFIDS/ME/fibro skin, it would most likely be a hard choice between Chanel and Trish McEvoy.  Chanel is famous, a true class act.  In the end, however, I think it would be Trish McEvoy who'd win out.

Each and every time I use her products, I have at least a nanosecond where my mind says, "this beauty line is really pretty darn perfect for those who have CFIDS/ME and fibromyalgia."  Truly!  Our skin is just so finicky and unpredictable.  Yet I've been using the line for ten years, at the very least, and have never had any skin problems with any of her products.  (Knock on wood: I can't afford any more bad skin reactions for a while, thank you very much!) 

Trish McEvoy is rightfully famous for three areas in the beauty industry: her incredible brushes and her unique and ground-breaking planner system, the "Makeup Planner" systems.  Furthermore, everyone also agrees that a huge part of the reason for the Trish McEvoy line's success is that her husband is a dermatologist.  Combine the science of dermatology with the creativity of a makeup artist and you come up with a pretty amazing line of products, from skincare to cosmetics to fragrances.

I must admit that I'm very partial to brushes in the first place and the TM brushes are amazing. They're always well-balanced in the hand and put makeup on very nicely. They're incredible for the "blend, blend, blend!"  The brushes with the lucite handles are almost works of art.  And the travel-sized brushes in the smaller planners are pretty decent as well.

But I do think that what Trish McEvoy will always be best known for is her unique makeup planner system.  I must say that over the years I've bought several of the limited editions of the planners, as well as the traditional ones, from the smallest sizes right through to the mid-size planners and even one of the large ones.  (BTW: the smaller ones make for great Christmas presents for a special daughter or friend.)

I return to these planners over and over again, especially if I'm forced to travel anywhere. They are such a great answer to an easy way of using fewer "spoons" and fewer "health credits," whether it be for getting ready to go out your door or packing for a trip. The makeup can be moved around from one planner to another. You can reorganize any of the planners to suit a short trip or a decadently long one, from one season's colors to the next. Sometimes I get flashbacks of coloring and organizing toys in kindergarten and think to myself that these planners are the adult equivalent of those early years.   Fun!  Great fun!

I'll revisit Trish McEvoy in the future (please! someone remind me if I forget!).  If I were to describe all the products in her line it'd be such a long post that I KNOW I'd end up chasing away even my most loyal and diehard readers. Her brilliant, beautifully designed brushes alone are a post unto themselves.

As I looked over my collection of Trish McEvoy's products and compared it to what is currently in the stores (available at Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and at Saks Fifth Avenue). I noticed that one product I love, the "Beauty Booster" moisturizer/primer that really and truly worked (even lifted!) appears to have been discontinued or changed formulas.   Don't you just hate it when a favorite product is suddenly dropped?  However, I saw a couple of skincare products that I'll read up on.  If the reviews pan out, I'll give them a try.  Knock on wood, but Trish McEvoy hasn't let me down yet!

In the meanwhile, I hope everyone's enjoyed the beautiful autumn weather this past weekend. Yes, the temperature changes are a bit rough on us. Our symptoms worsen with the changing seasons, but the beauty out there, even if it's only looking out of our bedroom windows from bed, is worth it in so many ways, or so I hope!

So, here's to all feeling their best, only better. Ciao and paka!

Another example (and view) of the "Planner Makeup System"

Please not that I do not have any financial compensation in any way for anything on any of the posts on this blog!  Everything is my very honest opinion.

Roads Traveled and Not Traveled

Little Irene really ticked off about the big fuss made for kindergarten graduation when there was still so much more work to get done before getting to the PhD studies.

Last night, as hubby (and I?) watched the summer season's first episode of "Grimm," my mind started wandering.  I couldn't help thinking about how much my world has differed from the time I started thinking about what I wanted to do in life vs. how my life has actually turned out.  It's definitely been a mixed bag, as I think it is for everyone. I truly believe no one comes out of this life unscathed (perhaps the only thing I took away with me from my class on Emerson) - it just depends on how much "scathing" we happen to experience.

I well remember that as a four-year old, I wanted two things.  I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would go to college one day - and proceeded to inform my high school next-door neighbor of my intentions.  She had a good laugh and from that laughter she practically rolled down the hill we lived on.  

But I was also aware that our family was pretty hard off financially  - both of my parents arrived in the States a few years after WW ll ended - and consequently my other "goal" was more of a dream than a firm "this IS going to happen."

I always dreamed of traveling and I do think that's one reason I became such a bookworm so early on.  The armchair traveler: the easiest and least expensive way of exploring the world.  And I think I did inherit some sort of a "travel gene."  Our family did a lot of traveling along the eastern part of the States, but the immigrant's way. Rarely did anyone stay at a motel.  You had immigrant friends in Cleveland, so you explored everything between NY and Ohio.  You had friends in Florida?  Ditto!  

But I had bigger dreams and higher aspiration than to "see the USA in a Chevrolet" as an old commercial beseeched us.  The only problem?  I didn't know how we'd pay for college, much less travel?  (What four-year old thinks this way???)   

Back in the day, as they say, you needed money to travel The World, LOTS of it - or you could become an airline stewardess, a very glamorous job when air travel was so exclusive.  The problem with being a stewardess, however, was that in the days of what would now break a bucket load of laws, there were incredible restrictions to being a stewardess - and I never thought I could achieve them.  Among many other requirements, the stewardess was beautiful, her figure was to die for, she had "class" galore and needed at least a second language.  I felt I had only one thing going for me, the second language bit, and after my Villa Maria Catholic boarding school I just might have been able to figure out the "class" thing - "might" being the operative word - but the rest...?

Thankfully, the world started changing - as things do - and I changed too - as one does.  Flying started to become an "affordable luxury" and as our family assimilated into the great American middle class, travel around the world also became a not-so-impossible dream.  And one fine day I met hubby, a person who rarely, if ever, met a challenge he didn't love, who'd already spent a summer backpacking his way across Europe, often sleeping in parks when he couldn't afford a youth hostel.  My biggest travel dream came true when we flew to London for our honeymoon.  

Since then, I've been more than fortunate: I've traveled aboard to more places than I could have ever imagined - WAY more than I could have imagined.  Anyone who's read much of this blog knows I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia just last month, despite this DD.  

I'll let you in on a secret.  Until two years ago, I'd never even HEARD of Kuala Lumpur and had no idea that Malaysia was even a country, much less knew WHERE it was.  (Shame on me: one of my favorite novels of all time is Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice, which started its story in what was then known as "Malaya.")  And I wasn't alone.  Every single person I spoke to - after my son started to try to figure out a way to go there to study - would ask me, "where is THAT?"  When we were at the "major medical center," which was VERY international, I never once came across anyone who knew where KL was.  The only person I spoke to who knew?  My cousin in Russia when we spoke on Skype!

There's a saying which has become a cliché: be careful what you wish for.

And there's the rub.  I never specified, growing up, that I needed my health too.  Health?  That was a given.  We may have been poor, but everyone I knew had their health - in spades!  I always thought the expression, "if you have your health you have everything" was a saying that the rich made up to make us poor people feel better about our lot in life.  (Skeptical little creature, wasn't I?)

And so, with each overseas trip we ever took, I never even realized at the time that it was harder to get myself together to go on that dreamed-of destination that I'd read about in books.  And with each trip, it became more difficult to  actually DO things once I got to my destination.  I really slowed hubby down, but he just assumed all women were slower than men.  (Hubby must be forgiven: it WAS the '70's and a very different world gender-wise.) When I arrived home, each trip forced a longer recovery time on me, though we were very good at coming up with excuses as to why each was harder.

Not once did hubby suspect that anything was amiss.  I looked healthy.  I was active and went to a gym every other day at a time that no one really went to gyms.  We were in NYC, so this was a new trend, especially the yoga classes.  (I told you the world has changed but you doubted me!  Admit it! ;)) 

I well remember barely making it home, just a few short blocks, but having to sit down somewhere at least twice on each block, sweating, panting, unable to catch my breath, desperately trying not to pass out.  Yet we saw this as normal, thinking that I was simply "adjusting" to the whole "exercise" movement (four years of adjustment?). We conveniently overlooked or forgot that I walked miles each day in college and was never out of breath, running across our infamous university drill field numerous times a day - or the thirteen years of summer camps in very primitive conditions and much physical activity, with me always the best runner and swimmer in my age group.

We conveniently forgot or didn't understand that the flu that initiated this illness of mine started a series of events that looking back on were ever so obvious that something was amiss - like ending up in the hospital.  Just weeks before I met hubby, just a few months after "that flu," I was hospitalized for colitis.  We blamed all the antibiotics I'd been on because of all the secondary infections I kept adding on to that initial flu as it grew more complicated every day and as I passed out every day from that "ground zero" illness, thinking, "mind over matter" and "no pain, no gain."

Over the years I had incredible (to me) opportunities to travel.  At first, each trip was something we saved up years in order to do.  Eventually, we became more financially secure (thanks to REAL jobs) and after about 15 years into my CFIDS/ME/fibromyalgia, insomnia, each trip eventually reached the point where it was not frivolously taken.  We were finally noticing a pattern.  We also finally had a diagnosis, though we had no idea what to do with it: no one really did.  

But if nothing else, I've always been stubborn and always hard on myself.  Sick?  Yes...but nah, not REALLY!  So in the '90's, visiting most of Europe or the two trips to Russia and the Ukraine once the Soviet Union fell apart, or taking my three trips to Australia, there were family reasons for me to go.....the list is long.  But each trip cost me, and the price for my last trip to Oz was two years in bed. 

So, here I am, 38 years later.  And I still cannot accept that I'm ill.  

Perhaps if this wasn't such an invisible illness, I'd have an easier time accepting it.  Perhaps if I'd known from the first days that I was sick and not lazy, I'd have been able to adjust.  Perhaps if I'd known that having three 10-lb. babies in three years was a bit over the top, and had taken it a bit slower, I'd have been spared the degree to which I'm so sick now.  Perhaps if we'd known what we were dealing with early on, I could have spared not just myself, but my family, too, a lot of grief, a huge understatement.

In the end, I have to wonder, did I achieve what that four-year old was determined to do and had the chutzpah to dream of?  Yes, I did get my university degrees, though not the PhD I so badly wanted.  And I've traveled more than I could have dreamt of, even further than Dorothy did to HER Oz.

And I ended up with a life I never dared dream: a husband who loves me and whom I've loved since the first moment I laid eyes on him (yeah, yeah, corny), a best friend of 42 years who is so wonderful that I feel badly that everyone in the world doesn't have this fantastic a best friend in their lives, and the biggest treasure of all, my three beautiful, kind and giving children who, despite putting much grey in my hair, have made my life rich beyond any measure.  (As she madly knocks on wood and does the Russian "tphoo! tphoo! tphoo!")

The only thing I would have changed?  Perhaps I should have added the "good health" clause.  

But to put a positive and yet very realistic spin on it all, I have to wonder what incredible things may not have occurred had I remembered that clause.  And that's my other pastime when things get especially bad.  I really, really have to work on seeing that things are what they are, the past can't be changed.  

Consequently, to stay relatively sane, I start to look at all the little roads that may have not been traveled had I stayed healthy.   And as we all know, the road not traveled, the harder road, is really the one that makes our lives richer.  Harder, yes, but hopefully, much more rewarding in the end.  Or so I sincerely hope!

What do you think?   Given a chance to change the course of your life, knowing what you know now, would you have gone along the road you were fated to go?   In Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" and in the M. Scott Peck's famous book, The Road Less Traveled, we are given choices, whereas in real life, we with CFIDS/ME/CFS, fibromyalgia and the plethora of complications have been thrust upon us...it wasn't a choice.  But looking back, do you think that there was some purpose that this often nightmare road was the fated and destined one?

Just thinking.

And I do hope everyone is feeling their best today, only better!

             ************

And please don't forget to sign up for the Subscriber Giveaway. ;). In my more insecure moments I worry no one will end up making a comment and the Giveaway will be a flop.  Hubby says not to be so hard on myself, but..... Make your comments for the Giveaway  on the post here (hit this link!)  Good luck and thanks for stopping by and reading!

Will I Ever Accept My Reality?

In my wheelchair in Amsterdam, I never noticed the awful color of my lips, my hubby's signal as to how I'm doing! 

How long exactly, does it take to recognize and realize that one is sick?   And I mean truly, life-altering sick, not just getting laid up in bed every now and again?


It's been well over 35 years that I've been ill.  Unfortunately, I suppose it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that somehow I am pretty slow in the understanding of consequences with this illness.  Somehow I keep thinking that tomorrow I will wake up and be back where I was in very early 1975, running around with my course work, teaching, dating, going to parties, planning my future as to whether I should get a PhD or go to law school, agonizing only about how I would leave so many really incredibly fantastic friends, ones who later proved to be worth much more than their weight in gold when I became so sick.


I can't seem to recognize the reality of my "life style," and yet my hubby and I could never count all the hospitalizations I've had over the years.  Heck, there was one year alone that I spent more days in the hospital than I did at home.  There hasn't been a year at all since 1975, I don't believe, without a good lengthy and serious hospitalization.  I can't even remember the names of all the doctors I've been to nor the names of many of the medications I've been on and there have been times when I've been on 25-30 different meds at one time!  And before anyone expires from seeing that number and thinking I've gone to quacks, let me assure you that I've seen the best except in those cases when I was told that I should save my money and energy because there is nothing that THAT particular specialist could recommend or improve upon!  (HOW depressing is THAT???)


I am still on such a vast number of medications that literally half of my carry-on bag on the plane was filled with said medications, and that was with packing some of those plastic amber containers inside one another like little "Matryoshka" nesting dolls, the smaller ones inside larger ones, tripled up in quite a few instances in order to save space.  


Oh, I knew I'd get sick, real sick, from the trip, but it was all so abstract until the time came to pay the piper. Somehow, I kept thinking, in the dark recesses of my mind, that surely I exaggerate my illness - though whether it's because I've been told so by society for so many decades, because early in life I learned that I can overcome anything I set my mind to do, whether it's out of sheer conditioning, or even stupidity, I'm not sure.  Perhaps it's perverseness because my family is always giving each other looks when I come up with a great plan or because I just want to shock the hell out of everyone who's written me off, or perhaps it's because of my family's tendency to treat me alternatively with kid gloves or to dismiss my plans.  Whatever it is, I still cannot believe that I am really and truly ill.  


I also know that I spend entirely too much time very angry and disgusted with myself, wasting precious energy. After all, I look like everything I've always abhorred, the lazy person.  Worse, I can't do the things I love to do. Just today I spent way too much time trying to analyze how I would wash a wall that is all mirrors and the only thing that made me realize how stupid the move would be was NOT because I came to my senses but because I realized that the painter who took down the wallpaper in the hall will need to plaster up and sand down some huge cracks and gouges, thus rendering cleaning of the glass wall a, well, extremely idiotic move!  I spend too much time silently angry with my family as well, feeling as if they cramp my style, especially when they point out the signs that indicate that I'm not doing well.  I hate that they just might be, or are, right.  


And, of course, they're right - that's what makes it all so frustrating and truly maddening!  When ever-annoying hubby tells/begs me to stay in bed and not do anything, there is a perverse part of me that wants to rebel.  I HATE being told what to do, so hubby tries not to "warn" me, but some days I suppose the temptation is too strong and he goes against his best instincts.  I mean, I really hate any limitations.  Looking at a profile of what someone described me as on Classmates.com, I was delighted to see the main characterization as "gutsy." I'm quite proud of that description!   I was a tomboy who actually jumped off one-story buildings quite frequently and would get so disgusted with my poor younger brother because he objected! (What a killjoy!   Hummm...he also didn't want to shallow-dive off a fishing pier where I then was almost paralyzed from a misjudgment in how deep the water was - only inches - again, what a killjoy!)


But as disgusted as I become with the "guidance limitations," I must admit that this week I've almost passed out dozens of times, quickly grabbing hold of any near-by furniture, or a wall, as I see stars, then blackness, my head spins, my legs start to melt, I feel my blood pressure dropping and I break out in a sweat, getting all clammy.  It's very annoying because I would really like to unpack my bags.  This is usually a two-year project - REALLY - and I gave myself a two-week deadline this time.


And we SHALL see.  I am, after all, on a self-improvement quest this year.  I've had it with doctors at the moment and am determined to live life MY way this year and darn the consequences. I want liberation! I crave liberation and darn it, I deserve liberation.  I'm so tired of counting and analyzing each step I take and though I do want to do a lot of the things that do help me, I'm mighty tired of marching too often to other peoples' drums, especially since I've practically pioneered this darn illness.   Few know the poop that's coming down the pike for them because so much of it IS so phantasmagoric.  Oh, I can just hear shrinks galore saying things like "delusions of grandeur" to the other side of the darn spectrum, "she's sooo in denial" to everything in between.  It's rather scary putting your thoughts out there because there are so many "shrink" type people who will just love to analyze what we write in our posts when they have little more to do than clean out their bellybuttons on listless weekends.


And yet I look at those coming down with CFIDS/ME/fibro and its myriad of complications, especially the young "kids" in high school and/or university, and want to scream at the top of my lungs and shake some sense into them and say, "look at me and do NOT do what I did!  Take a page out of my book.  Do you really want to end up like me???"


How I wish I could shake sense into them! If I could, here are some points I'd like to make:


1. Do not overdo at all.  This is a cardinal rule.


If you are in school, do not force yourself to go to classes and finish your degree(s) "on time" or even early.  I do not know what my rush was all about other than I had tunnel vision, school cost money I didn't have, so I took too many courses each semester in order to finish early.  One Vietnamese accupressurist who did some of the most gifted work I've ever witnessed and experienced made an interesting observation about six months after seeing me weekly, a man of VERY few words: "I never meet someone so dead who still alive."  Did I mention that he spent approximately six years in a Vietcong prison under some of the worst conditions imaginable?  (I only know this because people like to tell me things and I'd be asked, what did so-and-so tell you today?  I heard him TALKING to you through the wall!")  He also pointed out that I was never able to do much with the degrees that I'd earned, due to my illness.  I sort of screwed myself big time, in ordinary parlance!


2.  Today we KNOW that the best way to beat this nastiness is through rest, pacing, lessening the stress load, etc., but the more you do during this "window of opportunity," the less the chance of overcoming this nastiness.  This is tough love talking here, reality!

Unfortunately, the longer you go sick, the harder it is to overcome this illness and that's why it needs to be nipped in the bud.  When Ampligen first came out, there was a reason for the five-year cut-off date.  It's believed that once you've had the illness too long and too severely, you're dead meat, so to speak.  My analogy, though a bit flawed, but enough to give you the idea of what I mean, is that I am the patient who got polio before the vaccine.  No amount of help cured the polio victim.  But though we still don't have an ME vaccine, we do know that with proper rest, for as long as it takes, CAN work to get you back to pretty much normal.  I've seen it happen: not often, but in the cases I've seen, the attitude was the very opposite of mine: total dedication to selfish resting, no helping anyone, no exertion of any kind, total devotion to self and determination to getting better and screw anyone else out there.  It's not easy and at the time it took a lot of selfishness because NO ONE was advising the amount of rest and relaxation really needed and the amount of devotion to it.


3.  Tiny CFIDS/ME factoid:  I also found it interesting that the further you get from the equator, the higher the incidence of CFIDS/ME/fibromyalgia.  To me, this reinforces the "overdoing" concept.


I was shocked the first time I heard this, in a jewelry shop in Amsterdam, of all places, because the lady waiting on us asked about my "condition," since I was in a wheelchair and the shop WAS teeny tiny, to put it mildly.  The first part of the surprise was that she knew as soon as she saw me that I had ME. Her sister had it too, quite a bad case of it at that.  I find it amazing how often we in the CFIDS/ME/CFS and fibro community can recognize one another. I'm convinced that we must give off some sort of signals, looks or even ME pheromones to those in the know!  At any rate, hubby, who's quite a bit more in tune with these things than I've been at times, had quite the discussion with the woman and I learned so much that day. To be frank, at first I thought the woman was a bit nuts but hubby assured me that this was indeed one very much-discussed consideration at the time. There is a theory that the colder climates make for less rest than in warmer one. That is, living in colder climates produces more Type A personalities because in hot climates it's believed that the heat zaps one of the energy to overdo. Interesting.  I also think that was the day that made me realize it was indeed OK to use a wheelchair if I needed it. I finally made peace with it, not feeling quite as much the fraud, the person begging for attention, all because I got validation from someone in the oddest of places and circumstances.


But what I haven't made peace with is KNOWING just how sick I'll be from anything I do...  I just have no radar for it and certainly no tolerance for it.  I suppose it just goes to show us how much our youngest years influence our lives and then how much society influences that "baggage," be it good or bad.


And so, I doubt that I'll ever truly come to believe that I'm really sick.  I'll play-stop to a certain degree to make my family happy or to stop them from saying the same message in a thousand different ways, "but mom!  You knew what would happen!"


Ah, but do I really?  I think not.  Had I known I'd be this sick from flying to Malaysia would I have done it?  Well, I didn't believe I'd get THIS sick (after all, it's been six months since my last hospitalizations - I was on a good roll! ha!) but yes, you can bet your sweet bippie I would have gone anyway!   Because really, I have a hard time believing that when all is said and done, I have anything truly more seriously wrong with me than a weak will.

Three beauty tips as I run off...

When Cabbage Patch dolls were all the rage, building a make-shift home for them . The "little" one I'm flying to see is sitting next to his sister, who helped me get organized and packed.

And I'm on my way out the door in just a couple of hours on my wild adventure to Kuala Lumpur.  I've lost count of how many times I've "yelled" and "screamed" - "I don't know how I'm going to do all of this!" as I tried to do the simplest of things and would break out in a sweat, shaking and so forth.  On the other hand, I try telling myself that the worst part of anything I ever do is getting to and out the door and that's almost accomplished.

Because I'm not sure if I'll be able to post anything while I'm gone - leaving the blog without its mom is a bit frightening - I realized, "Oh wow, I can always make comments in the comments section of this post and on my facebook page (see side for addresses) as well.  And if I get desperate enough, or the separation anxiety gets to be too much, who knows, I may even tweet!

But here are a couple of CFIDS/ME/fibro tips just as I'm heading out the door:

• I ran into a couple of red and hot areas on my chest doing a trial run yesterday morning and the Green Balm I described ages ago really worked well.  Check this link for my earlier review.

• I was upset that I wouldn't be able to take my huge pot of Chanel bronzer on board because of the TSA 3-1-1 restrictions, so I put a bit into a tiny pot.  If anyone could be in love with a product, this would be it. I absolutely love the way I can contour with it.  I don't use it as a makeup base, just as a cream bronzer and it blends beautifully.  It can be found here .

• I was also mourning not being able to take my Bioderma micellar water, but after a sloppy job of putting on mascara, a swipe of a couple of Q-tip moistened with the Bioderma got rid of everything.  I also had a very dry and sensitive area on both cheeks and nothing helped. When I took out the Bioderma to take off everything I'd put on it (serum, etc.) the dryness disappeared. AMAZING!  And so I found room for a decanted tiny bottle of the the Bioderma and it'll be with me on board - if the TSA guys don't get upset with how much I crammed into my 1 quart bag.

Hope everyone stays as healthy as can be!  Must run - well, "run" CFIDS/ME/fibro-style.  :)


(Did you enjoy this post?  Please subscribe to my blog and you'll never miss anything.  It's easy: see the directions on the right hand corner of this page.  And BTW: I'll never sell, share or rent your contact information.  I don't even know where to find it, so it's a firm promise!) 

Priorities in family, health and beauty...

My "little boy" is getting married!

I seem to keep putting off the completion of my eyebrow miniseries but really, it ended up having too many loose ends for me to publish it just yet.  I am, however, surprised that these posts appear to have a high readership and I'd like to thank you all.  However, there's so much I have for the subsequent eyebrow post(s) that I'm trying to cut it back a bit and chop it into smaller posts.  And, of course, what further complicates getting the series done - with no other posts breaking up the series - is that I keep getting sidetracked by other CFIDS/ME/fibro issues...or just life!


On Saturday I'm planning to get my hair done again and was (selfishly) disappointed that Lan's away.  I'm concerned that the new person won't be able to do my brows and lashes successfully and of all times to not get the person who knows you???  You see - and oh how much I'm afraid of jinxing myself (KNOCK ON WOOD!) - but I'm about to go on a HUGE trip, something I would never in a million years have imagined doing at this point in my life. 

There's been a hurt and sadness deeply rooted in the last few years.  I, at some point, really and truly suddenly realized, more or less out of the blue, that traveling will no longer be in the cards for me: that I'd never get to climb to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, that I'd never get to Alice Springs, nor would I be visiting St. Petersburg, or my cousins, for that matter, when the 2014 Olympics in Sochi start, so close to where my cousins live.  To show you how badly I do when traveling: hubby and I decided to do the simplest of vacations a few years back at a resort in Arizona that even had horse-back riding.  Well, it was a disastrous seven days, with me as sick as the proverbial dog, with one health problem after another: I broke out in angry red hives, I broke a tooth biting into my room service hamburger, and I've long ago suppressed all the other things that went wrong.


And yet, just as I had, in the last few weeks, resigned myself to the fact that there wouldn't be any more "exotic" vacations/trips for me, I was told by my middle child that he's getting married and soon AND in Kuala Lumpur.  And though he never expected me to be able to be there, worried about my health, I, in turn, couldn't imagine NOT being there.  So, in a frenzy, hubby spent a few days trying to locate my passport (remodeling strikes again!) as I tried to figure out which route to take, the dates involved, which airline(s) to use, how to swing it all financially. Finally, after a couple of days and nights of no sleep (what else is new, right?) my brain finally gave in, turned off the malfunctioning sleep switch and I was able to take a nap.  When I woke up, hubby had found the missing passport (it was exactly where I told him it would be!) and had booked a flight for me for my trip.  We both knew that every bit of damage done to me in this latest adventure of mine will well be worth it.  Besides, I would never be able to live with myself if I didn't do this.


And this SHOULD be quite interesting.  I'm traveling alone, since there are a few serious family crises/issues that need addressing (Murphy's Law!) plus hubby is not able to leave work at the moment.  Consequently, I'll have to rely on the airport people to meet me at each gate with a wheelchair and to get me to the connecting flight in time (with no time at duty-free shopping?  Just kill me right now!).  Hubby bought me business class tickets because we know that this will be a major shock to my system (I'll be running on adrenaline, which has not kicked in yet for the packing...). I'm just so weak and lethargic, my voice a croak, my muscles aching and so forth, but hopefully business class will make things go a bit more smoothly.


In general, CFIDS'ers shouldn't even be flying much at all and I have long wanted to post on this topic alone, but I'm still doing research.  Going by past experiences I know that this trip will keep me in bed for a couple of years since each time I've done this sort of insane thing, I've returned home with some new sort of nasty "thing" that no one could have foreseen and run down beyond comprehension.  But I don't really mind: it's always wonderful to spend time with my children, no matter where they may be in the world! (That sounds as sappy as an answer in a beauty contest!  Sorry!)


So, my boy is getting married and I cannot imagine not being there!  (I just had to repeat that because I'm still trying to get used to the idea!)


In order to get my engines revved up, yesterday and today I've been reading as much as possible on making travel easier, as well as "stalking" YouTube.  I'm following advice from Ruth the model, Sali Hughes of The Guardian, makeup artist Lisa Eldridge, as well as others: they are now my guides, my inspiration in all things packing and beauty.  And perhaps the best of their tips: how to do a great DIY beauty routine on long-haul flights!   Considering I have twelve time zones to get through, I have a feeling I'll be able to do several treatments.  But packing?  That is going to be a challenge since I freely admit to the universe: I am an awful packer.  My son immediately notified me that I can buy anything and everything I want/need in KL...having traveled with me too often and knowing just how much luggage I can lug around, often borrowing parts of others' suitcases. (Sadly, true!)


And there are so many things to take care of, as a person with a chronic illness.  Although I have an almost pathological fear of flying, for the first time ever, I'm actually looking forward to the flying part of the trip because I look forward to the DIY beauty routines.  I may even get adventurous and fool around with makeup, who knows? (Joke at my expense!)  Though I am a bookworm, I've never been able to read on a plane, not even the truly awful magazines my daughter seems to buy in bulk for travel, which take very few brain cells to comprehend. I feel as if I'm in a straitjacket when flying so I have high hopes for the DIY spa experience to make the time go by faster.  And I'm now carefully selecting/packing/agonizing over what should be in my carry-on (all meds, of course, but which skincare products, which cosmetics?), what is the proper size of the check-in bag and its weight, questions like "do I actually lock my suitcases since they need to be inspected along the way," yet it's scary not to lock them?  I'm also trying to figure out exactly what the restrictions for carry-ons in general are all about.  And I must not forget to pick up the letter from my doctor explaining to customs which medications I'm on and why, in order to not get thrown into a prison, never to be seen again. I also have to figure out how to give myself the HGH shots.  Eek!  I've never done the whole process myself: the few times I did the injections, the needles were already loaded. Plus I need to figure out how to carry my meds refrigerated for such a long time and distance. Finally, I have to make sure that I have enough meds to get me through the time away: some prescriptions will most likely end on a day I'm away, so we need to work with those concerned in order to insure that I have the doses needed.


So, getting back to hair, lashes and brows.  Although I don't have an appointment with Lan, I do have an appointment with someone else to do my brows and lashes.... And I truly need this: a) to deflect from my age spots (hyperpigmentation)  and b) I don't know how much makeup I'll be able to handle in KL - it must be murder wearing full warpaint in an area where the temps hover around the 100 degrees mark (we ARE at the equator, after all) with very high humidity to boot. I most certainly need those brows and lashes darkened in order to not scare any child unfortunate enough to cross my path.


I have a week before I'm off, so if anyone has any brilliant ideas to make this trip safer, easier, even feasible (!) please let me know.  The airlines change policies so often that it's hard to keep up. I worry about the water factor. I used to bring an entire carry-on with water and when I finished that, I'd then start asking the flight attendant for water. I actually had one refuse me water, saying I'd had two people's quotas!   So, there's a concern for you!  CFIDS/ME and water, after all, go hand in hand!


Another part of me fears a repeat of what happened at my daughter's college graduation.  Just as the class was coming in, accompanied by absolutely beautiful and stirring music -  I was being carried out because I kept sliding off the chair and "semi-passing out" (the HGH approval was moving very slowly though "the systems," the "t's" not yet crossed the "i" not yet dotted, so I was basically dying at that point and had to be hospitalized as soon as we got home).  I remember thinking the whole time, "at least it's just a graduation ceremony and not her wedding!"


Because of this fear, I'm arriving in Kuala Lumpur almost a week ahead of the wedding so that my long-haul plane ride will have been forgotten and my witty, charming self will shine through! ;)


If I can figure out how to blog from KL, I hope to give tips on traveling, or keep you up on events as they happen.  And I cannot believe I'll actually be in Communist China for layovers...in Shanghai and Beijing.  How I'd love to run out of the airport building and just take in the atmosphere for an hour or so, remembering very well when Nixon and Kissinger made the monumental steps of "opening" China.

Even when you're extremely sick with whatever kind of illness, it's difficult to give up those activities that you loved and learned as a child and have developed marvelous muscle memory for.  I love adventure, I love learning, I love people watching and I love my family.  It's difficult to come to terms with the fact that your can't do all the things you love any longer, just because of a lousy illness, or if doing them, doing them only in "heavy" moderation.  


But you know what?  Sometimes it just gets to be too much, all this hyper-vigilance over ourselves.  It gets to be a pain having to factor in what was eaten, what was said, monitoring anxiety levels, predicting pain levels, noticing every bit of minutiae which, as it so often turns out, is NOT minutiae at all but can often be the most important part/factor of your life, the one worth living for.  Because as I wrote in my previous post, I don't want to live in a cage, even if the cage is gilded.  To me, if the event is humongous enough and if it's well worth the price, I'll gladly pay later for all I've gone through.  And for me, my son's wedding is definitely worth the price, even halfway around the world.


Help???!!??


P.S.  I went back and made a few changes to the original post.  My brain was definitely way too fogged up this morning when I typed it out.  Apologies to all.



(Did you enjoy this post or find it helpful?  Subscribe to my blog and you'll never miss another post again! It's easy!  See the directions in the right-hand corner of this page.  And BTW: I'll never sell, share or rent your contact information.  I don't even know where to find that info, so that's a firm - and easy - promise!)

Beauty falls: why I just HATE standing in line...

About the time of the fall...

This has now become, with the passage of time, such an un-PC moment, that my hubby and I still laugh about it.  Heck, we still laugh about it because it was also just so plain funny.


Back in the early '90's, hubby had the opportunity to speak at a conference in London.  Given that my most favorite city in the entire world is London, I wanted to do all I could to ensure that I'd be able to go with him. We'd basically never before traveled anywhere without our children, but for London, I was quite willing to parcel them out to various friends for about ten days. (And yes, they had to be GREAT friends to take on any one of my wild bunch!)


The tricky part, of course, was for me to stay well enough to travel, to actually look good enough to travel (many years later Qantas tried to refuse me entrance on the Sydney to Townsville part of my journey because I looked THAT bad), and to keep my body out of the hospital.  Easy task for some, but not for me. In addition to that, I had to keep myself well enough to fly on my own.  The "house rules" were that I wouldn't fly on the same plane as hubby since I've always had a completely irrational fear of planes.  My thinking was that in the unlikely event that a plane went down, the kids would have at least one parent left. Of course, the rules changed if the entire family flew: then we'd all travel together.  I felt that should the worst happen then, we could simply all go down as a family unit and, hopefully, have a jolly reunion on the other side.


Evidently, patient hubby and I had a wonderful ten days in London.  Because it really was a hardship (understatement?) on my mind and body, I don't actually remember anything at all of the trip but one thing...


We were starved and I'm extremely indecisive about what I want to eat if I get too hungry.  (More on that some other day.)  Loving hubby sighed, knowing what was coming and we finally agreed we'd eat in the hotel's little cafe.  We arrived at said cafe and stood at the entrance talking about this and that while waiting to be seated. Finally, very verbal hubby glanced in my direction - and realized that he'd been speaking to himself because I had disappeared without even a polite warning.


Surprised, he looked around, thinking I'd run off to the ladies' room and then happened to glance down, and there I was, crumpled at his feet.  I'd rudely passed out without a word of warning.  As hubby tried to get me to my feet, the maitre d' came running up to us, absolutely shaken up (I suppose they don't normally have patrons passing out on a regular basis!) apologizing profusely that he'd made us wait for him for so long - even though it hadn't been long at all - and directed us to the nearest table.  


In the meanwhile, I really, really wanted a cigarette - actually, I needed a cigarette.  I had suddenly started smoking just months ago, for three months actually, and then quit abruptly because it was all just so messy. However, when my doctor finally realized that the reason why my pain medication intake had gone down so significantly in the three months I'd stopped smoking (though we were all at a lose as to WHY I was suddenly able to take so much less medication) only to suddenly rise back to its normal amount again after I quit, he thought long and hard about which was the lesser of the two "rotten situations to be in" and decided that I should go back to smoking. In fact, he actually said that he never ever thought he'd encourage a patient to smoke, and very likely never again would need to give such advice, but I was a pretty desperate case. I really hated going back to that mess but was happy to have some pain alleviated, so back to smoking I went. I also worried about the example I was setting for my children.  But the kids were old enough that they understood mom's need for smoking so that became a non-issue.  They looked upon my smoking as a medication and not a vice and humored me when I would tell them to please leave the room if I were smoking, even as I kept air filters going on in my bedroom 24/7.  Of course, the funniest part is that I am allergic to the smell of smoke and there is only one brand of cigarettes that I can actually tolerate before IBS starts in - be it me smoking or anyone else.  Such a prima donna!


So, before the maitre d' could seat us, I said, "but is this the smoking section?"  The British are always so exquisitely polite that I really didn't want to put anyone out.  This was also at a time when Europe still looked at us Americans like crazy people because we were so uptight about the whole smoking issue.  A very distinguished professor even said to me, when I asked if he minded if I had a cigarette, that we Americans were so determined in setting the world's value system.  Couldn't argue with that - especially with such a wonderful Oxford accent!  

The maitre d', with the sweep of his hand, gracefully shifted his body to another table and swooped up the ashtray from that table, placed it on ours and answered my question as to whether or not we were in the smoking section by saying, "it is NOW!"  


That fall makes my list of my top five best/favorite falls of all time.


(Note: I'm no longer smoking!  But I still think this was a hysterical incident. It was a different time re smoking.)