wink ;)

My son, having fun with the pressure washer. (Taken with...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:07:16 -0700

My son, having fun with the pressure washer. (Taken with Instagram)

Normally, Lissi sleeps on the ground. Sometimes she decides to...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 23:14:46 -0700

Normally, Lissi sleeps on the ground. Sometimes she decides to sleep on her bed. Tonight, I guess she didn’t like either of those options. (Taken with instagram)

OK. This kit is pretty darn impressive. (Taken with instagram)

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:45:13 -0700

OK. This kit is pretty darn impressive. (Taken with instagram)

See this new red 2x4 LEGO brick? Cal says it’s “the...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:19:51 -0700

See this new red 2x4 LEGO brick? Cal says it’s “the first ‘regular’ LEGO that they’ve gotten in a kit.” (Taken with instagram)

chronicillnesscat: [Image: 6-piece blue colored background with...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:15:55 -0800

chronicillnesscat:

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat with blue eyes. Text reads: “”Well, if you’re tired why don’t you sleep?” Would never be awake.”]

I’ve gotten this increasingly more, where I’ll make some thoughtless little comment about being tired, or I’ll complain or say something about being tired, and people will be like, “Go to bed then!” And will proceed to shout at me in all caps to go to bed over and over again until I go ‘invisible’ so they think I’ve left whenever I say anything because apparently being awake when I’m tired isn’t good for my health or something?

I don’t think they understand that I am literally always tired. I am tired when I wake up, and I’m tired when I go to sleep, and I’m tired the entire time between those two times. If I slept whenever I was tired, I would never be awake. Might as well be comatose.

Enlightenment

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:39:43 -0800

texburgher:

All life is suffering.

Attachment is the root of suffering.

It is possible not to suffer.

If you are a robot.

a.k.a. Asimov’s Four Noble Laws.

"For the chronically ill, details are all. To cope with chronic illness means to routinely scan..."

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:00:43 -0800

“For the chronically ill, details are all. To cope with chronic illness means to routinely scan minute bodily processes. Attention is vigilantly focused, sometimes hour by hour, to the specifics of circumstances and events that could be potential sources of worsening. There is the daily quest for control of the known provoking agents. Enervating decisions must be made about when to initiate or terminate an activity, when to move from baseline medication to second-level drugs, and when to seek professional help. And all this occurs in the context of active lives that are filled with the same pressures, threats, vagaries, and exultations that make of normal living such a ‘blooming, buzzing confusion’ [James] Is it any wonder that exhaustion is one of the common shared experiences of chronic illness?”

- Arthur Kleinman, The Illness Narratives (via shanghailil)

chronicillnesscat: [Image: 6-piece blue colored background with...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:54:22 -0800

chronicillnesscat:

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat with blue eyes. Text reads: “What doesn’t kill you, makes you wish it did”]

I love this blog because people always say “I know how you feel” but in reality they don’t. People here actually do.

I know suicide is a “permanent solution to a temporary problem”. But what do you do when your problem is chronic? I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease at the age of 14 in January of 2009 and I’ve had fourteen surgeries, I currently have a temporary colostomy, I’ve had over 20 kidney stones, no medications work for me, I’m chronically anemic. To top it all off I already had clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder. This is going to sound terrible, but sometimes I wish I had an illness that would either go away, or just kill me. Anything but living like this for the rest of my life.

marco: I have some very creative fans. (And so did he.) I love...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:50:10 -0800

marco:

I have some very creative fans. (And so did he.)

I love how it comes with the beheaded noggins of defeated opponents/incompetent employees.

Snow! (Taken with instagram)

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:18:13 -0800

Snow! (Taken with instagram)

My little girl lost her first tooth! (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:53:16 -0700

My little girl lost her first tooth! (Taken with instagram)

Taken with instagram

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:42:37 -0700

Taken with instagram

The Ambien Walrus kept making me forget if I’d taken my...

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 01:04:53 -0700

The Ambien Walrus kept making me forget if I’d taken my meds yet, so I finally broke down and got one of these. I’m officially OLD. (Taken with instagram)

The kids left me a message in the hallway. (Taken with...

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:53:53 -0700

The kids left me a message in the hallway. (Taken with instagram)

supermodelrevealed: Exactly Mr.Question mark. Exactly.

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 07:58:48 -0700

supermodelrevealed:

Exactly Mr.Question mark. Exactly.

Vacations

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:33:01 -0700

thecrippleblog:

I like traveling. It’s always nice to break out of your usual routine. Whether its seeing new places or visiting old friends, a change of pace can do wonders for your mental health. I recently went to visit my best friend for his dirty 30. My home town basically looks exactly the same so it was refreshing and nostalgic. I had a great time seeing everyone but of course I am very relieved to be home. Traveling when you have the kind of disability that I have tends to take a lot out of me. While the trip was good for my head it was really tough on my body.

I think people who don’t have to deal with a disability have a hard time understanding why those of us who do need a vacation from our vacations. My life is easier to live when I’m at home with all my equipment tat allows me to take care of my physical needs. From commodes to shower benches there are things I need that can’t go on vacation with me just to have a semi normal life. I was gone for 8 days which was enough to screw up my insides so that I felt weak and sick by the time I made it back home. I hadn’t taken a decent shower in those 8 days because I had no way to do so, nor did I have what I needed to void my bowels well enough to avoid getting a blockage. Not to mention the place I stayed at had steps up to the bathroom so I couldn’t pee without some one helping get up there. It was harder to dress, eat , pee, sleep, pretty much live while I was away from home. And it always is.

I think this is why many people with disabilities stay home a lot. It’s not because we don’t want to be out and about, it’s just harder for us to be out and about. For example, how many able bodied people have to figure out how they can use a public bathroom? I know I do, and sometimes I can’t, the bathroom is either too small or has no where for me to set stuff. This is exhausting to do on a regular basis. I get tired faster than most because I have only my arms to do my whole day with. Anything that adds to this has to be worth the effort.

My best friend’s 30th birthday certainly was. But I need a couple days to recuperate. Hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon. Unfortunately life doesn’t like to wait.

frageelay replied to your post: In a few hours, my wife starts work again. She… Is there any...

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:31:04 -0700

frageelay replied to your post: In a few hours, my wife starts work again. She…

Is there any way to get an aide through health insurance?

I’m in the process of applying for Social Security disability benefits. I’m only at stage 3 of what is universally acknowledged to be a long, tedious process.

Step 1: Apply

Step 2: Fill out tons of paperwork

Step 3: Wait. And then wait some more.

Step 4: Get rejected. (Standard Operating Procedure. Happens to everybody. Deters most applicants.)

Step 5: Appeal the rejection. Lots more paperwork. Mountains of it. (If you’re still trying at this point, you must really be desperate. Now we’ll actually consider your case.)

Step 6: Either get accepted (Yay!), or GOTO Step 4 (Ugh!)

In the event that I get SSDI benefits, I plan on using them to hire someone to help me/us out. I don’t know how long it’ll be before that can happen, but I know it won’t be soon. :/

In a few hours, my wife starts work again. She works for the school district, so she’s had...

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 04:32:43 -0700

In a few hours, my wife starts work again. She works for the school district, so she’s had summer vacation with us, and it has been terrific. I’ve been slowly but steadily getting worse since the beginning of 2011. By the end of the school year, I was well past the limits of what I could handle.

But then summer started, and my wife was around to help, and she picked up the slack. Yay! She really is all sorts of amazing.

But. She goes back to work in a few hours. (Our kids start school a week later.) She won’t be able to pick up the slack any more. And I’m doing worse now than I was when the summer started. I have no idea how to make this work.

I’m pretty scared. Like, terrified, really.

philnoto: Oracle 1989-2011 - My first job in comics was...

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 01:51:24 -0700

philnoto:

Oracle 1989-2011 - My first job in comics was creating covers for DC’s Birds of Prey and and over the the course of 24 issues I drew this lovely lady a lot. And then I did some brief interior work on the Cassandra Cain Batgirl and finally did the first run of covers for the Stephanie Brown incarnation. They’ve all been great Batgirls much like Steed’s partners in the Avengers. I’ve done numerous pieces of Babs as Batgirl more so for the retro iconography and the aesthetic look of the black, yellow and red then her actual persona as Batgirl. Honestly in terms of fictional characters, I always just considered her to be Oracle. I, like many others, am very sad her to see her go, but if there’s anyone to keep her spirit alive as Batgirl once again, Gail Simone is the one to do it.

A tribute to Oracle: The story of the first Oracle standalone story

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 01:42:53 -0700

dcwomenkickingass:

This week, in Batman Inc. #8, we saw what it is likely, after twenty two years, the final appearance of Barbara Gordon as Oracle in DC Comics for the foreseeable future.

In the New 52, Barbara Gordon will be a young woman just out of college who is once again Batgirl. She will, according to what DC has told us, still have been Oracle. She is, of course, still Barbara Gordon and she may still do some of the things that Oracle did. But she won’t be the same character she’s been. This post and the others in this series are not to debate Barbara Gordon’s becoming Batgirl again. These posts are to pay tribute to her persona of Oracle and give the character a send-off into the next phase of her existence.

Oracle has been written by many of DC’s writers over the past two decades. I asked a few of her creators and editors to share some thoughts about the character. The first piece is by former DC editor and writer Scott Peterson who wrote the very first standalone Oracle story 17 years ago in Showcase ‘94. (Scott recently wrote about how Cass Cain became Batgirl) The team he worked with would later help develop Birds of Prey, Oracle’s primary title over the last decade and a half. Scott tells the story of how he came to write that first Oracle story and, shares for the first time, some of the thumbnails for the story drawn by artist Brian Stelfreeze. Scott’s story begins below.

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