A Creative Pull

Published on December 10, 2025December 10, 2025 by Mary GelpiLeave a comment

Someone, I think it was Picasso, said that you cannot conjure up inspiration yourself, you can only hope that it finds you working. This says to me that in the arts, no matter what field you’re enjoying or pursuing, for money or no money, you have to be tuned in to a certain frequency so that when creative, organic ideas come buzzing around, they have a place to land. So many times I sit down to write one thing, and an entirely other subject reveals itself, at which point I start seeking out a whole different answer than the one I’d planned. Probably because the one I planned was trash, and this new idea found someone with a pen to paper, fingers to keys—then the magic happens.

I don’t call it “magic” in reference to the work produced—it actually feels like a magical process that a person can tune in to some vibrational frequency where pure, untethered creativity abounds and can attach and stick- if you stick with it. I often feel more confident about the new paths that reveal themselves while I’m onto something entirely different, because it’s almost something that can be viscerally felt, in the chest maybe: this idea, or shift.

Lately I’ve felt real “movememnt” inside of me; I have no idea what else to call it. It feels like this excess, internal energy, but it doesn’t have a way out. SO sometimes it’s angst, which is just absurd. It is however the reason I organized the spice cabinet recently, which was fine, but I know it wasn’t “it”. Duh. When I started this blog more than ten years ago, I was trying to make it easier, funnier, and with optimism to convey everyday life with ME/CFS. For whatever reason when I go to write now, sure I can do the same thing, but some other pull brings me out of it, maybe because I’ve beaten to death the quotidian life with illness topic. Maybe I let this blog be what it’s always been, and follow this magnetic pull, or push, to move onto some other creative endeavor.

It doesn’t mean I would stop writing—it’s my true life love and companion and I don’t mind sounding like a loser in saying so. But in so many ways it’s saved me from my very own stupid mind. I am best mentally when I’m creating, thinking and spitballing new ideas. And the thing is, there is still so much left to do, reveal, and chase in the mecfs realm, I don’t at all feel finished with the subject matter, trust me. But there is this internal draw to elevate this topic somehow. Maybe that means a new home to explore the ideas I’ve done here, a new means of getting it out to the masses, or even a few people, as long as it’s accessible by all. I only know I’ve really fallen off the wagon in this little corner that always felt like home, no matter who’s home I was living in! There’s been many, let me say.

The other confusing part is that there is SO much left unsaid, so many rocks to overturn and so much fight left to fight. I don’t at all want to turn my back on any of that. But why do I keep coming back here to write, only to turn to my notebooks where I write pen to paper and not a person can see? For one thing, I happen to like hand writing. There’s always the possibility of writing and taking a photo of it? But is that going backwards? I don’t know. Maybe I just fell off the horse for too long and it’s too late to get back on. I’m still writing to myself in my head all the time. But it ends up as scattered ideas in one of my three notebooks floating around the house and nothing is sequential or tied up with a bow and that, my friends, is one way to write, but I don’t think it’s any way to “be” a writer.

Why am I putting these self-conscious, disoriented thoughts out on the blog? Because my smaller self would have me write them in a notebook, where I’d likely reach no better resolution, and no one would know what’s happening on the other side of this thing. Is it me or do blogs feel outdated? I actually like hand-writing things because SO FEW THINGS are hand written anymore! I wrote a check the other day and felt straight out of the late 90’s. It was great! I’m a romantic, and nostalgic, what can I say. I’d love a real land line.

I’m not against technology although of course I fear how fast it moves and whether I can keep up in a viable, important way. I know I want to continue to reach sick people in an easy, honest way—I want to provide a departure from the horrors of a new doctor, the unsolicited advice, the online hold music at Walgreens, and anything that comes in an envelope from insurance and you can be sure it’s not good news. I think it’s important this community always be moving, be talking, making space and making noise for our very existence to be known. I have no intention of abandoning purpose there.

I’m just wondering if this blog should be left alone as a relic of its own time, and the next “creative spark”, whatever it may be, might find a spot in its place—a more modern place that is just as far-reaching.

Let me emphasize, this is not a good bye letter, not at all. Not that anyone is reading because I’ve abandoned this thing way too many times. If anything, it’s hello, because I thought I would get into a routine this summer and write write write all the way home. Maybe I will do that. But I have to mention this inexplicable tugging from I don’t know where, asking still to pursue these ideas, but possibly change up the form, escalate the medium. It doesn’t help that WordPress is completely updated and new and CONFUSING AF. And I’m tech savvy, for a girl and all. (Ha.Ha.)

Anyway this has always felt like a place to tell the truth, and if I didn’t have it, than to write things out and find it. It’s sort of amazing how writing can get you to answers. Mostly I think, it slows things down, and when we are still enough, we do get to our sought after answers. Or at least think to rephrase the initial question differently. No, no, for now this is just a hello and here’s what’s what letter, which of course, I don’t know yet what the what is. Why would anyone read this? My God.

For anyone who’s felt a little lost in their own life, aimless with where they thought their skill set might bring them, you know the constant hesitation and uncertainty that follows you like a shadow. I’m continuously letting myself down by letting this site get dusty and only once in a blue moon filling it in with what’s new. That’s not what a good blog does, and I like to do things well! If anything, I can do better. And that can easily start here, and maybe even stay here— who knows where it will end. Hopefully in a place that feels meaningful, enthusiastic, and mostly, like this blog, like home.

I posted a few of the drawings I’ve been working on when I decide to distract myself from writing instead. I’ll say, putting pen to paper for any intention feels good. If you’re in bed, I suggest this book, which teaches you in 6-10 steps how to draw hundreds of different flowers. (Shop around online, you should be able to get it for around $20) I’ve been enjoying it a lot. I also think it would make a great gift for anyone stuck in bed, stuck in life, whatever they are. There’s a real enjoyment that comes simply from drawing a flower, and I highly recommend it.

Well, until next time, which I hope is very soon….Signing off. Happy Holidays :)

Health, Happiness, Movement

What’s River Doing?

Published on August 14, 2025September 4, 2025 by Mary Gelpi1 Comment

OK, once again I’ve abandoned this platform for far too long and confided most of my writing to notebooks, again. But how could I resist this? A few weeks ago, I found this Victorian looking, hard-canvas notebook with The Very Tired Woman, A Series engraved on the front. As you’ll see, I had sufficient reason to spend the $14.99 on it in a novelty gift store.

How could I resist it? I felt like Ariel discovering treasure like the snarfblat and the dinglehopper. I had my eyes on some earrings, which immediately felt frivolous and useless after spotting this gem one shelf over. It sounds ridiculous, and it’s difficult to convey how much I love a new notebook, but I feel something akin to hope when I find one. I wonder what words will fill it, and if they’ll be happy or meaningful or amount to revealing some greater truth I’d otherwise never stumble into. Maybe I’m a little too romantic about the whole thing, but the feeling is so palpable, it’s almost paranormal. A future will unfold on these smooth white pages, and it’s as if the notebook already knows what words will fill them. I know, I know, it’s just paper for the love of Pete.

To top it off, I bought a Signo Uni-ball pen, micro 207—which writes with thick ink and a smooooth application. It’s therapeutic writing or drawing or doodling anything with it. The cherry on top.

In any case, if I die and people, or A person wonders where the writing from 2021 to 2025 is, it’s in a scarce series of notebooks in no particular order or categorized system so, let’s assume nothing too exciting has happened. UNTIL NOW.

What’s insane is that I started this off with a damn photo of a notebook, when SOMETHING TRULY AMAZING HAS HAPPENED.

We got a cat!!!! Kidding. Yes, it’s true. Finally, after three and a half very long years without a wagging tail or enthusiastic greeting every time you walk through the door, WE. GOT. A DOG! A puppy. And she’s, well, you guessed it: Perfect.

If you aren’t new here, you know that Monty, my black lab of 15 years, was an incredibly intrinsic part of my life. Intuitive, adaptive, forgiving, unconditionally loving, and a source of constant, tangible joy. Not even just for me. That dog made a lot of people smile and laugh, and I felt within the space of my heart some kind of warmth when other people pet him, threw him the ball, or my brother Nick sarcastically asked “Can you tell Monty to stop breathing on me?” He was such an incredible gift and teacher for me, even in losing him. I learned and grew through the grief. I felt immense joy and pain, but I didn’t suffer the way I feared I would when he was still alive. Mostly, I think, because of the wealth of gratitude I felt for ever having him at all, I could not be too far gone over his departure. He added so much life to my own, I’d do it all over and over again without question. I still think of him quite a lot, and I still smile at our memories and time together. If you’re not a dog person, this will all sound insane, and that’s OK. You’ll get there.

ANYWAY…

This is little River, at 8.5 weeks old. She’s a mini golden doodle, the only black girl of the litter, and I’ve no doubt she landed in exactly the right hands. Even though somehow when it came time to make the 4 hour drive to meet and purchase her, I actually worried. (Idiot) What if we don’t like her? What if she’s not as cute as the photos? (We’d only seen three.) I’ve never had a small dog, and I admit with a ginormous amount of shame that I used to be prejudiced against them! (Like I said, Idiot!) I’ve always been a black lab girl and drawn to large retriever types. I have no idea why I panicked really. I’ve only been wanting another dog for the last THREE AND A HALF YEARS.

Keegan and I packed a bowl for water, a towel, and nothing else. We woke up early and completely neglected to puppy proof the house at all. There were still ant traps on the floor when we returned! We mostly just…went for it. A long, anticipatory four hours later, we pulled up to a park, somewhere near Roosevelt, Utah and there she was, laying in the shade under a tree— a woman waving at us. This was it. I was in a daze. I’d wanted this for so long and now it was hard for my brain to wrap itself around the reality.

We were out of the car quick, me immediately picking her up like Simba from the Lion King. I couldn’t believe how small she was. Keegan asked questions to the breeder as I examined this new creature like a foreign object. I kept noticing how tiny her little needle teeth were when she yawned. I thought What if I step on this dog? Did that happen sometimes? But I thought better of it and didn’t ask. Keegan paid cash, and 10 minutes later, we were on our way home—a 3.8 pound puppy immediately asleep on the towel between the center console and Keegans leg. She slept the whole way home. That was that. Life would never be the same. And it isn’t. It’s better. The best.

A puppy is an amazing presence to be around. It’s such a fast and fleeting time, but full of happiness watching them grow and run into things. A puppies clumsiness must be one of my favorite things. Dogs in general have always supplied me with a certain sense of joy and love in a cove of my heart reserved for K9’s and K9’s only. I thought all the love I had for Monty might magically transfer onto another person, but no. I am a dog lover through and through, and an actual piece of me is made just for them. As soon as I held her, that small but immensely charged space began to slowly fill. There’s just nothing like it.

In case you’re wondering, no, we did not pay $3,500 for her, which appears to be the average going rate for golden doodles these days. It’s insane. I kept thinking “Monty was $100!” Times have changed, I’m older now, life flies by when you’re sick and surviving. We did get a hell of a deal on her. And I found her in the classifieds just like Monty. Now that I’ve gotten to know her, I’d pay a million bucks for her! If I HAD a million, I mean, or even a thousand at that. But she’s priceless of course. She is a hilarious puppy. Watches TV, approaches any dog despite their size or general vibe of hate towards her as though they’d be immediate friends. She does that head tilt thing a lot when hearing a noise she doesn’t recognize or you ask anything with an inquisitve tone. I eat it up. It’s hilarious and fun and wholesome. The whole energy of the house has changed.

There’s so much I want to say about the whole experience, but I think I’m well beyond the recommended word count and who cares what I think, puppy pictures are better! So enjoy some cuteness. For now it’s safe to say, I’m tired (she’s an early riser) and re-learning how to do life with a puppy, but I am so incredibly grateful for this new gift, and that nook in my heart reserved only for dogs has filled up again. It’s an incredible feeling. Until next time…

Health, Happiness, and Here’s What River’s Doing…

Strega

Published on April 17, 2023April 23, 2023 by Mary GelpiLeave a comment

I’ve just finished reading the most beautiful novel, Strega, by Johanne Lykke Holm. I am stuck in it. And on it.

I finished it days ago but my mind still feels trapped in the delicately told domain—A fantastical, once celebrated Hotel secluded in the mountains above the mysterious town of Strega. It’s called The Olympic, where nine 19-year-olds will supposedly be taught how to be turned into proper maids, women, eventual wives and mothers. Three older women mentor the nine, but the story is told through the perspective of Raphaela, a girls whose voice is haunting and lonesome but immediate, succinct, and deeply resonant. I read it in two and a half days, and I’m not exactly a fast reader.

Of course, the ostensible “plot” of the novel is not exactly what pulls you in, although even on its own, with only average prose it would have this capability. Truthfully it’s the one-of-a-kind style in which it’s written, translated from Swedish in fact, that makes it compulsively readable.

The story is told with incredibly ornate, impossible detail. It’s as if muted dead flowers mixed with a tray of metals and crystal diminutives and fragrant oils, inside a strange, old and deviant hotel came alive to hint at its past and warn of the future. Nearly every sentence feels like it took everything from the writers fastidious mind to form itself, and then it took more. And that’s how it reads too—as though the words via some supernatural force possessed someone into airing them out, refusing to be ignored before materializing through bleeding ink on a fresh white page.

The fragility and uniformity and meticulous measure with which each sentence offers itself becomes a quieted mediation, edging toward prayer and mercy, on lonliness, on the unbound love of female relationship. On autonomy and community. But the text isn’t lonely itself, it’s merely strange and dark and unflinching. It reaches out and resonates with the readers own memory, reminders of ones own loves and losses, and maybe most of all, on that undefinable nature of meeting someone and knowing them before they even open their mouths to speak.

Like most books I finish, I felt a total void afterward, because the author pulls you in deep, with mysterious descriptions that somehow poke at something in the depths of you. Places in the body you hardly knew were there. And the dream-like writing, which sometimes snakes into the “everyday descriptive” sort, is done so seamlessly—It’s as if a Murikami novel and a Wes Anderson film had a baby. Of course I had to restrain myself from underlining every other passage of words because they’re so immediate, I swear I smelled rose water the whole time. You’ll get what I mean when you read it. And you WILL read it! You simply must.

Even the cover, smooth matte black with beautiful gothic flowers…it makes you want to go back. The book itself feels like some secret treasure. I keep it in my bag, and I don’t really know why.

Here were a few of my favorite passages…don’t worry, no spoilers.

“I longed for my own room, the locked door, my little cell. I was a lonely person, I had been alone all my life. One is alone even in the company of ones mother. One speaks, and it echoes inside her.”

“The sky laid itself over me like a horse blanket.”

“We came from various places, but were of the same age and mind. None of us wanted to become a housekeeper, and none of us wanted to become a wife. We had been sent here to earn our keep, to become people of society. We were daughters of hardworking mothers and invisible fathers who slunk along the walls.”

“But I did as they had asked of me. I liked being an obedient daughter. It felt like being held by a beautiful patent leather collar.”

“Across the street from my sisters apartment is some student housing. I used to hang out there, by the main entrance, staring at anyone who walked by. They were all carrying bundles of books and wearing those sand-colored wool sweaters, you know, the ones one imagines smell like horsehair or a run ruined by damp. When I saw them, I wanted to spit, but I didn’t, out of self respect. …From my seat on the living room floor, I could see my mother walk u. She had cut out an ad from the newspaper. She called to me, as if I were on the other side of a frozen lake.”

“The tar burned into my lungs and into my fingertips. If you can’t give your body the good stuff, give it the bad stuff.”

“I called them the ghost rooms, not because they were haunted, but because rooms unvisited by humans simply begin to attract evil.”

My favorite one…

“Our parents were all deluded about the fact that the the world had changed and would not go back to being what it once was. They did not believe in a future without the good woman and her duties. They wanted to prepare us for a life where we would care for child and home, where we would stay with one man, no matter who he was, where our hands would repeat the same movements. At the hotel, our hands always repeated the same movements, but this was no place for a good woman.”

“There was something serious and industrious about her forehead.”

“Did you see him, she said during intermission, the murderers face?” I shrugged and bowed my head to hide my blush. I had an urge to put a curse on him or stab him with my knife.”

“I sat up with a jerk, suddenly wide awake. It was as if my body knew something that the brain hadn’t registered. I took out my lighter and quickly crossed the room. Held up the little flame above the beds and counted.. [all eight girls] Cassie was gone. I rushed over to her bed and tore the covers off, my hands searching the sheets, as if she might appear there, doll-size, hidden under the pillow.

…The bed was otherwise untouched, as it had stood since early morning, when the sun billowed in through the window like flames. I crawled across the bed and pressed my my hands to the wallpaper above the headboard, convinced for a moment she had been swallowed by the wall. I walked over and shook Alba. I whispered I can’t find Cassie.

…Her bed stood in the middle of the room, perfectly arranged, like a crime scene.”

Flipping through the book now I simply want to write out chapters so you can swallow them whole. In actuality, the chapters swallowed me whole. But I was ripe for it. I love when books take you that far away from a weekday afternoon.

In other news, this is the third day in a row where I have felt crashed, weak and heavy, and I have to consciously work hard not to fall victim to the fear that my entire health is going down. Crashes happen. I probably pushed it too hard last week. I have to believe that one more day of rest will be enough to pull my out of it. I also have to believe if I still feel this way tomorrow, that’s OK too. I just have to take it easy. So why not wax poetic about a book I love so much it feels like I’m holding a secret treasure, just flipping through the pages.

All will be well, and worrying, as they say, is like a rocking chair: It gives you something to do but get’s you nowhere. I guess that’s the things about to-do lists, they always wait for you until tomorrow. But it’s my sisters birthday, and birthdays don’t wait! I’ll plan for the best. Until then.

Health, Happiness, Stregaaaaa

Thank You Merric, My Eternal, Reliable, Recommender of Incredible Books ;)

A Little Older Now

Published on April 6, 2023April 13, 2023 by Mary Gelpi15 Comments

A little while ago I was haphazardly complaining that I couldn’t believe how old, number-wise, I was. I didn’t really feel older. I still feel like an idiot kid figuring it out litrally (said with accent) every day. My cousin Brenda piped in with something that should have been obvious. “We’re all getting older Mary. You’re not suddenly older than us!”

What a self-evident, seemingly obvious take on things. I had it somehow in my mind that only I was getting older, while everyone else stayed the same age. She was right, we were all looking the same, while somehow kids were growing and seasons continued to change and evidence of time past surrounded us wherever we looked. I guess that’s all to say, It’s been a while. I’ve missed you. How’s things?

I had no idea how to re-enter this little world I created so long ago and then took a sudden hiatus from for what, two years? Was I doing other important things? You could say that. (I wasn’t.) I was just living, plain and simple. The way people in picture frames and advertisements live. In some sacred moment— without a history of the last 10 years. No memory of being consumed by illness. Nothing lost. All I could ever need, I have. I’m just a smiling girl in a picture, no past—inhabiting ‘the eternal present’ as Tolle calls it. I erase it all.

The taking. Of friendships, relationships, autonomy and money and time. The leaking. Into every corner of my foolish little life. The waiting. In line at the pharmacy. In the first room at the doctor. The exam room at the doctor. On hold with the pharmacy. On hold with the insurance. On hold with the doctors office. And the loss, naturally. The loss of self to something I thought stronger than me. Of livelihood. Of growing into something impressive. Of opportunity. Of ways to make a mother proud.

There had to be a reconciliation with all of all that. And in truth, I might say that every day is exactly that. An eternal letting go, surrendering to what was and is real, all the while continuing to move forward. Embracing what is real and true by the ever changing second. Not to grieve the same things twice. In order for Life to overcome loss. To give what used to be taken. To have gratitude while I wait, because hey, at least I’m able to be here in the supermarket and wait on two feet. Not for long before it hurts, but I am somewhere. I am not a living couch.

This all points to my life now and how things have changed. When I look back at the move to Colorado, I see just how much of an insane shit show it was. We left with high hopes that Rocky Mountain air and crisp clear Colorado water could do nothing but help me. I’d have to feel better here, right? Wrong. It’s all too hilarious that I moved back into my childhood home, but moved into the basement. (It’s a finished walk-out OK!?) Every 36-year-olds dream. I did my best.

Looking back now from a stage of much higher functionality and a new, certain “availability” of health, I see how bad it was. My memory fills with images of me crawling up the stairs to the kitchen, on four legs like a monkey, because I was too weak to walk on two feet. Dizzily stumbling to the bathroom every morning, squinting in pain. Clothes all over the floor and Monty’s chew toys, because there was no energy in me available to do unnecessary things. Multiple Zooms with multiple doctors—zero real answers or treatments. A constant shortness of breath. A darkness under the eyes.

I rarely, ever left the house. People thought it was because of Covid. For me it was just life. For so many with chronic illness, quarantine was simply life as they already knew it. Covid was nothing but an interesting reminder that other people were also at home on a Tuesday afternoon. (Plus a whole lot more. We’ll get there.)

The truth is, I am very, very lucky. I write that with a strong knowing that it’s not even fair, what I’ve been given, because it’s what everyone should be given: a knowing, caring doctor. An MECFS specialist who treats exactly and only that. Proper healthcare. I can hardly convey how stark the contrast—visiting 6 different doctors in New Orleans to address eight different issues and dispense twenty medications, compared to one, bright, excessively knowledgable doctor, in charge of all my medicine, who knows so much more than me about this disease—which, it should be said, is how it should be. The patient shouldn’t have to wonder if the doctor has ever heard of her disease, let alone whether she says its name out loud. That is, if she even mentions it out loud at all. It’s always a gamble. Tell them or don’t tell them? Don’t. Unless they say it first.

Imagine. This will be a time in history, one day, when we look back and say “It was a gamble to even say out loud the name of your disease in the presence of a doctor. It meant they likely wouldn’t believe you. Which meant they couldn’t or wouldn’t help you. Which meant, well, here’s the number to a therapist, in the end. One day in the future, we will look back at this reality in awe. Shock. Shame.

With a lot of luck, but mostly hard work and some gambling on the part of my sister, she was able to arrange an appointment with Dr. Yellman, of the Bateman Horne Center in Salt Lake City. It’s only four hours from here, so even when I have to go, it’s a beautiful drive. I think most ME patients would be eager, health-willing, to drive for days to see this kind of doctor. Like I said, I’m lucky as hell that I got in, and I am far from the most deserving. I’m constantly grateful to have him on board and also a bit woefully heartbroken that so many sick people don’t have this access. To those I say, please hang in there. We will get there. There’s work to do. There’s so much work to do. But we can do it.

I should perhaps clarify that no, I am nowhere near perfect health. What changed is that my specialist is treating all kinds of things that a regular PC doc wouldn’t. Medicine like Cromolyn for Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Pyrodistigmine for POTS, electrolytes and compression leggings for all parts dysautonomia. (That last bit is the easiest change you can make right now. I’ll post the leggings I use. That and at least one liquid IV a day.)

I still crash. Push and crash as though I haven’t learned this lesson a thousand times. But my crashes are less extreme, and a lot less long. This last month reminded me I am very very far from invincible, and it still doesn’t take so much for me to overdo it. I still need to be cautious with myself, but it’s difficult when I feel energy not to want to run outside and jump on the roof of my Toyota Camry and, I don’t know, sing Taylor Swift at the top of my lungs. Why? Because I can is all. That’s it really.

There is plenty more to say, about everything. We’ve got two years to account for! But mostly, I’m still me.

I hate to say it, don’t know how to say it, except to say it. I finally lost Monty, which I came close to thinking would never really happen. It was exactly a year ago next weekend. I’ve so much still to write about it, and him, and the whole thing. But the most I can say for now is that yes, it was very hard. But I realized that my fear of losing him was actually worse than the loss itself. When the time comes, you know. When you’re close with another soul like that, you know. Monty chose when and where, and I was simply there to pet his velvet ears and take in his smell one last time. OK, so I’m crying now. That happens sometimes and it’s OK. I think how wasteful all that fear of losing him was, when he was panting directly in my face!

Dogs are incredible teachers. Monty was next-level, and what he gave to me, in nearly every category of life, was precious. I really cannot believe how lucky I was to have such a dog as my own. It was a gift and a privilege to have him. I will never forget it.

It’s been a crazy two years. But I’m still here. Still Surviving. And Monty? Well, he’ll live forever ;)

Health, Happiness, Hellos & Goodbyes

Lost & Found

Published on June 23, 2021June 23, 2021 by Mary Gelpi8 Comments

But First.. Lost

I don’t remember what I did for Fathers Day 2020. Or Memorial Day or Cinco De Mayo or my brothers birthday. Much of the first half of 2020 feels like one long blur. Like a panoramic photo taken with the camera in motion. This is mostly because I was living what felt like the same day, every day, over and over. Each morning and the fallout that followed felt like an impossibly perfect cutout of the day before.

I can remember specifically the day before Mother’s Day, because my mom, who insists every year that we buy her absolutely nothing (a request that, every year, we reliably ignore) actually asked for a present this time: that I take a shower. Not because you stink, she assured me, I just know how badly you want one.

We both had to laugh at the request. Despite it being a painstakingly long shower that required way more effort than it warranted, and left me out of breath, I delivered. I owed the poor woman at least that much.

For all I cannot remember, the discouraged, scary and exhaustive moments stick out like thorns in my mind. I remember just how much I wasn’t doing–which was a lot. I practically memorized the lines on the ceiling. I remember how much help I required and how much I hated asking for it. I remember the enormity of things to figure out on my plate, and how impossible it felt to get any of it done.

Every morning, I remember dizzily staggering to the door to let Monty out, just so I could turn around and clumsily zig-zag back to bed and collapse like lead onto my bed. That was about as much as I could muster that first hour of waking. Summoning the strength for the crawl I’d have to make up the stairs for a coveted cup of coffee required a mental and physical preparation that you’d give yourself before running a marathon. Every morning was a marathon.

Once upstairs, I’d sit with my coffee, look at a sudoku puzzle in the paper and haphazardly scribble in a few numbers. Then the post morning crash would settle in like a fog. It seemed like I woke up just to begin a slow decline back to where I started.

Monty would loyally follow me back down the stairs. Back to bed, back to life from inside a window. He’d lay beside me and sleep, but was on all fours as soon as I started to gently kick the sheets off. I felt terrible for the life he wasn’t living, on account of me. I felt terrible in general, for all the things I wasn’t doing. But mostly, in a word, I was simply<em>lost. I felt as though I were floating in the middle of the ocean without a speck of land or answers in any direction. I can’t remember ever feeling so lost.

An exacerbated number of symptoms seemed to swallow me whole, and a new set emerged that we couldn’t completely explain: A strange and unprecedented struggle to take a full breath. To breathe without having to think about breathing. An ulcer that would cause extremely painful episodes— where I’d lay on my left side, eat a handful of Tums and say the Hail Mary until it’d finally subside. I’ve never eaten so many Tums in my life.

I felt so far away from actually living. I rarely knew what day it was, or cared. Tuesday, Saturday, Memorial Day, it all felt like the same stretch of time. It didn’t matter. Time lost its urgency and importance. Sometimes it felt like it hardly passed at all.

Other times I felt I could watch it fly right past me. As humans, of course, we can witness the literal time pass. I’d watch neighbors go for walks and mow their lawns, usually in awe. I watched family bolt up or down the stairs to retrieve something, without a second thought. My aunt Amy’s energy seemed supernatural. Holidays and birthdays would come and go, but I remained stagnant. I did my best to keep up with friends back home, but talking on the phone really exhausted me. There were signs and sounds of life all around me, but so little of it left inside. It’s hard to believe that was just one year ago.

On top of my excessively depleted state, we had moved to a new place–meaning I would require new, local doctors to continue treating me. It meant starting over, and having no idea where to begin when the doctor inevitably asked “So, what brings you here today?” That *task* alone was one of the most psychologically exhaustive and traumatic events in recent memory.

Every part of it was problematic, of course, because ME/CFS is a <em>multi-system </em>disease, meaning it requires a multitude of doctors to address the various issues it causes. It felt like failure, again and again, being rejected by doctors who wouldn’t even agree to see me. Can I blame them? Maybe not. One look at my health records and it’s understandable why the average doctor would scare off easy.

A few of them, including an overly-confident son-of-a-nutcracker, yelled at me. He said the doctors who had put me on pain medicine had actually put me in a Prison. I remember him pointing his finger accusingly straight at me, chastising me as though I were a child who’d done something terribly wrong. I walked to my car shamefully and lost it in the drivers seat for a good twenty minutes after that appointment. I was never going to convince these people to continue to regimen I was on. If that were the case, I was about to begin suffering a lot more than I already was. I felt so afraid of how much worse things could get without the appropriate care. The ulcer flared in response. A wind pushed me out further into the sea. Directionless.

The night after that appointment, I laid awake and replayed his words in my head. It struck me that the guy had it completely backwards. The pain was the prison. The pain caused immense suffering, left me at times incapacitated and unable to do simple things. It kept me indoors. The medicine is what freed me from some of that extremely restrictive pain. It allowed me some functionality and a semblance of livelihood.Some of my energy could restore itself once my body (and mind) weren’t consumed with fighting pain 24 hours a day. How could a pain doctor have such a concept so blatantly reversed?

The worst part was knowing that it didn’t matter. Whether I was right or the doctor was wrong, the battle wasn’t one I could win. He had the power, and my disagreeing with his professional opinion wouldn’t change the outcome. That’s a lot on a patients shoulders. If you’re unable to convince people of the help you need, most detrimentally doctors, you’re not going to get any. I was stuck. Lost again.

That doctor was adamant that a spinal chord stimulator was absolutely my best option—something that both of my doctors at home completely disagreed with. Wasn’t a piece of machinery inserted into my spine just as much of a prison, in the context of his metaphor, as oral medicine? It surprised me that someone who called himself a specialist couldn’t see any of this.

More and more the conditions of my life felt further out of control. I saw life around me, and I felt the tiny seed of my life that once was, but it was all totally buried by layers of circumstance beyond my fixing. The psychological damage was hardest to address, and I struggled to summon the energy it takes to keep your mental health in check.

This is where a little thing called support made such an immense difference in my life. While people around me helped in my search for answers–which on it’s own is encouraging itself–I was constantly offered a hand, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, and extremely positive words. Not out of touch words, but reminders that I was not alone, and in the meantime while I tried to find my way out of the hole, family and friends and extended family were looking out for me. Even if I couldn’t see a way out, people like my mom would gently remind me that we’d always come through in the past, we’d always found our way out of the hole and we would do it again. Even if that meant one day at a time–which is basically the only way to go when you’re in survival mode.

I clung to those small whispers of hope and reminded myself I had emerged out of these hole before. I had to work hard to mentally process each day and not become buried by the story I told myself. It’s very easy to see the world as conspiring against you. I remembered the words of Paulo Coelho: “We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.” Despite the strong tendency to mentally unravel, I had to believe those words and sentiments like them. I would see the other side of this, I just had entirely no clue how.

Then again, we rarely ever do.

It was sometime in early June when extremely promising news arrived, thanks to a gargantuan effort on my sisters part that finally materialized. She’d managed to get me an appointment at the Bateman/Horne Clinic in Salt Lake City. This clinic specializes in ME/CFS, meaning I was finally going to see a doctor who I didn’t have to prove myself to as though I were fighting for my life in front of a judge and jury. It meant getting the care I so desperately needed. “July 13th!” my sister enthusiastically beamed over the phone. “You’re in.”

And just like that, I was found. I could see land again.

Could it be that simple? Well, It should come as no surprise, but it’s pretty incredible what a a doctor who specializes in the disease you have can do for a person. Imagine being diagnosed with breast cancer and being sent to dentist after dentist, each with conflicting advice but all sharing one thing in common: they simply don’t know how to help you. You’re in the wrong territory, and you can almost feel it as soon as you walk in the door.

Securing that appointment with Dr. Yellman of Bateman/Horne is ultimately what and who is responsible for me being where I am now physically–alive and actually feeling alive. I cannot believe what the quality of my life was just a year ago, and how much progress I’ve been able to make. It only reinforced to me that so much of the suffering caused by ME/CFS is completely unnecessary, because a lot of it comes down simply to access to the right kind of help. Most people don’t have it, and the fact that I can count the number of ME specialists in America on one and a half hands is one big reason why. If the remaining doctors haven’t even heard of ME/CFS, or worse, have drawn the wrong conclusions about it, you might as well be a cancer patient seeing a dentist.

It’s no wonder millions of people are struggling, mentally as much as they are physically, because we’re simply lacking appropriate and accessible resources.

It doesn’t have to be that way, and it’s something I plan to work hard on fixing. To conclude, for now, I should emphasize I am not cured, by any means. It still takes a lot of medicine and methods and monitoring to keep Humpty Dumpty together again. I still crash, battle migraines and pain, and my energy envelope is still not in large supply. But a lot of my health feels like it’s in my hands again, and the rest of it lies in the hands of a doctor who I trust implicitly– not in the guessing-disguised-as certainty from doctors who simply don’t know better.

I will write more on the major things that helped bring me back to life in the follow up. But I just want anyone out there to know who is severely struggling right now, you may be by yourself, but you are not alone. You may be 36 and living in your parents basement (ahem) but your life can still be meaningful and happy. Sometimes it can be hard to keep up your willpower to live when you have to fight so hard for it, and ‘living’ isn’t giving you a whole lot to hang on to. I’m just here to say, hang on. Not only can things change, the way we see ourselves and what’s achievable in our lives can change. All of these things matter. I don’t pretend to cIaim they’re easy, only that they’re possible.

Keep on keepin’ on. We’ll get there.

Health, Happiness, Alive Again

P.S. This young old man says hi…

Colorado, Crashed, Covid, Catastrophe

Published on May 12, 2020 by Mary Gelpi1 Comment

It’s hard to know where to start.

I kept thinking things would get better. I would get better, then I’d write. I’d take a shower first. I’d wait until this migraine subsided. I’d pack a box. I’d unpack a box. And then and then and then. And now…

Now, things are worse than ever! So much has happened since I wrote here last. Now I’m sitting in our living room in Colorado, soaking my infected toe in an Epsom salt bath. I’m icing my head because I’m still stuck in the migraine cycle. I’ve only eaten an apple with peanut butter for dinner because my stomach ulcer went from mild to angry in the last month and I don’t want to upset it. I am weak, heavy, and ridiculously short of breath. We having fun yet?!

I knew the move would be tough. Moving is hard, regardless. Moving when you’re sick is really hard. Moving followed by a severe crash and a world-wide, viral pandemic? Well, that’s just good ol’ fashioned fun.

Remember when we all thought 2019 was such a crap year? HAHAHA.

Matt and I packed up my moms Hyundai in March and drove from Louisiana to Colorado with Monty in the backseat and lots of road trip food. We took three days getting here and it was a pretty fun voyage, except for that part when we almost died on Red Mountain Pass because it’s an insane pass. Four days after arriving, the world turned upside down.

1-3 — That Red Arrow is the Part Where You DIE

But things are such a mess on top of that, I barely even think of the damn Covid! No, that’s a total lie. I worry like hell about it, it’s just that the list of worries is extremely long right now.

For starters, I am a walking catastrophe, it’s almost hilarious. Except that it’s pitiful. In fact I’m more of a sedentary disaster, a truly rare breed of human catastrophe usually only found in the state of Florida. Kidding. You get the idea, I’m about as useful as a trashcan lit on fire right now. A waste of oxygen! And there’s already so little of it in Colorado, as my Uncle Tom says, ‘It just don’t be right.’

On top of that there’s a lot of stress and exhaustion in trying to find doctors who will continue treating me, (so far a disaster), praying my toe doesn’t fall off (another day, another story), praying Monty’s toe doesn’t fall off (another day) regaining some functionality (I Just. Want. To SHOWER.) and finding a way to adjust to all this change without blowing a gasket. The move. The covid. The lack of rain in Colorado (Boohoo) I’m trying hard to trust it will all work out. I know so many people are trying to do the same. It ain’t easy.

I wish I could remember the last time it was this bad, that way I might recall some pointers on how in the hell to get through it. You always forget how debilitating this thing can get. But I know the answer, even if I can’t feel it intuitively. One foot in front of the other. Such a simple idea, so hard to implement. It’s *litrally* all I’m capable of for now. So it has to be enough, even if it feels insanely insufficient.

Suvival Mode–that’s how a crash goes. Feeling guilty about what I’m not capable of is no help. Just survive the day. Or the moment. And keep moving forward.

Lately much of my life has been reduced to one breath at a time, especially because so often I feel like I can’t even take a full one. The mind tease has been that all the worries condense and implode on my psyche and it’s too much. Too heavy. Feels impossible. This all becomes elevated when you’re too weak to brush your damn teeth. Inevitably, I lose it.

So I have to slow my brain down. Do something to break up the hardened cement of reality in my brain. Sometimes I say some Hail Mary’s, just to interrupt the cycle of overwhelming thoughts. I remind myself, I don’t have to solve every problem in this moment. In fact, that’s not even possible.

I lift my weary head, and make the next move. This is where having a dog is truly therapeutic. Just going outside and throwing a ball for Monty can help dry up my mind when it’s under water like that. Sometimes it’s just a few steps to the sink to wipe my face. Other times to a book, or sudoku, or funny videos of animals or people falling down. Yesterday it was yelling at Covidiots on Instagram. Real helpful for everyone! Or I reach out for help when I can’t do it on my own. And I’m lucky as anything I have help to reach for.

As I was doing this the other night, (trying to calm my spinning brain) (and crying) I saw Eckhart Tolle on my nightstand. I remembered he would say that’s all there is anyway—this one breath, this very moment. I was stuck, anxiety-ridden, about a future I feared but didn’t exist yet. I opened up to a bookmarked page that said this:

There is always only this one step, and you give it your fullest attention. This doesn’t mean you don’t know where you’re going, it just means this step is primary, the destination secondary.

Admittedly, I have no idea where I’m going, or how I’ll get there. But I know the only accessible piece of life is right now; the only place we have any power. So maybe all of this is just a supersized lesson in expanding my consciousness! Just great. But sometimes I think I could go on less conscious and that would be fine too. God? That would be fine.

Keep moving Mary. That’s what I tell myself. Even in the depths of despair or discouragement, I try to remember that I’ve been through insanely hard times before (Basically the whole year of 2006 comes to mind) and I can do it again. I remember that others have endured way more than me and emerged. I have to believe that all of this will unfold into something larger, better, and something that makes sense.

Most of all, I try to reassure myself that no matter how painful or difficult things may become, they’re still possible somehow. Frequently solutions arise I couldn’t have planned on or thought of. That’s the beauty of having been through such painful times in the past. They don’t become easier, you just know, by some means, you’ll find a way through this one too.

I mean that or you die–either way. JK. Do I have to keep saying JK? Probably not.

Just keep moving forward. Every night before bed, I hug my mom goodnight, then Monty and I clunk down the stairs to my room and I think Another day down, we made it. One more shit-show crossed off the calendar with a Red X. It’s very hard to stay “present” during a time when there are so many unknowns. I realize we’re all facing our own personal uncertainties, anxieties and issues right now, within this larger…catastrophe. Yet all we can take is one step at a time.

For me the quarantine hasn’t been so rough, because I’ve been living what feels like a quarantined life for a long time now. I’m a pro! Being stuck at home is nothing new for me (or most chronically ill people) except now I’m in a different state, and I live in my parents basement and there’s a lot more hand-washing. I realize just how excessively pathetic that sounds, and that’s because it is. But it’s also kind of funny, I think.

LIVE! From My Parents Basement! That’s a show I plan on ‘producing’ soon. Soon, soon…

Anyway, it’s taken too long to write this. And there’s still so much more to say and catch up on. Stories about the move and the ridiculous drive Matt and I made here and quarantining with my 90-year old grandma! All in due time. There’s plenty of it, and we’ll get there.

Besides, I know who you’re most curious about anyway. And I can assure you, he seems to be adjusting just fine…

1-1 1-2

Hang tough yall. We may all be in different kinds of hardship soup right now, but we are in it together.

Health, Happiness, Humanity

*P.S. I dedicate this to my mom, my hero, a little late for Mothers Day, who has seen me through some of my toughest moments and hardest days lately. (Weak gift, I realize) You are a rock, and I know we’ll make it through this the way we’ve made it through everything else– One shit show at a time. Thank you for making me shower. Thank you for everything. Love you a LOT.

2020 Hear Me Roar! Or Meow, Just Depending on Things

Published on January 3, 2020January 3, 2020 by Mary Gelpi1 Comment

Even if the Holidays are officially over, (although Mardi Gras is just around the corner) there’s nothing like the mood set by a lit Christmas tree in a dim living room. Monty is sleeping beneath it, his long breaths almost in sync with the fade on-off feature of the lights–it all sets quite a scene. Like a Norman Rockwell painting in here.

There’s something about quiet nights like this—just the dog, me, and the glow of the tree, that I feel I’ll remember for a long time to come. Maybe it’s this hidden fear that it’s all about to change, which is true, it is. You always end up missing the ordinary things.

I’m trying to ignore this headache and concentrate on the smell of the fern. It’s not really working, the headache tends to win out a lot. But I’m enjoying the atmosphere nonetheless. This has been quite the Giving Tree. I only watered it once!

I say it every year, I know, but the Holidays still thrill me because people do nice things for no other reason than “Hey, it’s Christmas” and it’s always been one of my favorite things, ever. I’d been attempting to get a Christmas tree since Thanksgiving weekend but my health wouldn’t cooperate. Two weeks before Christmas my stepdad Marc showed up out of the blue at 2 pm, knocked and swung open the door jokingly singing some Christmas tune. He had a 10 footer in his truck just for me. What a gesture!

I named her Carol and we put her in the corner and she has been a real treasure. It was all the gift I needed really. Kidding—it’s about having family and friends to share Carol with, and having them here was great. Of course, it came at great risk.

A week before my brother and his family of five in tow were to arrive, their oldest came down with a stomach bug. Then the youngest. And on and on. One by one, each day, another would vomit. Another bit the dust. My mom and I would dart our eyes back and forth with news of the next man down, calculating their arrival date in our heads. Then on Friday, my brother Nick finally succumbed to it–they were arriving Monday. The ominous question no one wanted to entertain entered the conversation. Was one dang Holiday worth the rest of us barfing all night? Of course it was! It’s Christmas for Gosh sake!

Who could do without these cotton headed ninny muggins?

We justified it. We convinced ourselves. No, they wouldn’t be contagious by Monday. Couldn’t be. We’d wash our hands. We’d drink hand sanitizer and bathe in vinegar. Many people convinced me with enough handwashing we’d be in the clear. My mom was more skeptical, but eventually she said a bit defeated What can ya do? If we get it, we get it.

Well, at 1:30 am on December 28th, we got it. Or, I got it. Snuck right up on me. I puked so much tinsel I thought I’d puke again. And I did! It wasn’t tinsel, it was kale, I just thought tinsel painted a more festive image. I cursed Christmas, just for a moment, but then thought eh, what the heck. They’re worth it.

Luckily the same fam who gave it to me, took care of me just as well. I thought Jeesh, being sick is so much easier with people around! That thing knocked me out. Since everyone left three days ago, I’ve spent every day in bed with a weighted exhaustion and deep ache in my bones. BUT, today was the first day I woke up migraine free and my old lady bones had calmed down at least a little. Progress!

I was thinking how it’s difficult to be in a position of needing help. Chronically that is. A stomach bug leaves, but this chronic illness stuff, it will ware you and your loved ones out. The idea of being a burden is a constant fear I fight. It’s so reassuring to know your own autonomy and be able to rely on yourself. Losing those capabilities through illness is hard to know what to do with. Asking for and accepting help was more difficult than I expected, especially when you were once so independent. One of the tougher lessons in all of this, I think. But, it becomes easier when you stop resisting it. What you resist, persists, as they say.

Once you start to release the idea of your self that doesn’t quite exist (healthy, reliable), you ease into the reality of being just the human you are. (A wasteland) The best way to handle this is with humility and gratitude. No one likes to help an ungrateful pain in the ass. But someone who is aware of what they require, can reach out for it with grace and acknowledge those who help them with humbleness, is more likely to receive kindness. People are more apt to tolerate and even enjoy your pain in the assness. That’s where being sick surprises me. It can bring out incredible things and open the door for doing good– not just in yourself but in others too.

Speaking of doing good, I wanted to end on a note about advocacy. Namely, what an absent advocate I’ve been this last year. I was sort of on a role, going to D.C., circulating the petition, begging for signatures like a desperate vacuum-cleaner salesmen. Do those still exist? Sending thousands of pages of names and stories to the NIH. Then what?

Besides spending the first three quarters of 2019 in the physical state of a trashcan lit on fire, it was more than a lack of physical health. I lost my footing. You have to find a very particular headspace with ME advocacy, and I sort of lost myself. I became discouraged at the federal responses, the intolerably slow pace of things, and increasingly saddened hearing the repeated stories of such insanely debilitated people being dismissed, doubted, and deserted by the medical world. Shamefully I admit, it was just easier not to fight. At times I thought What am I doing? Is this going to achieve anything?

You can’t unring the bell, is the thing. Once you see how bad it is, how desperate this situation is, it feels negligent not to fight to try and change it. There are no guarantees in advocacy. But like always, I know inside it’s better to try. Maybe it won’t make a difference today, but our collective efforts are going to change things eventually. All a matter of when.

In the meantime, the fight is infuriating. You have to remain hopeful despite receiving responses from the NIH, like the one below, that tried very hard to list all the ways they were getting serious about MECFS, and even included a Press Release from 2015 to prove they meant business! Effectively their letter said this: We. Still. Don’t. Get It! Orrr, maybe they do get it, in which case their letter said this: We. Still. Don’t. Care! But thanks for writing us, and sending that cute box, haha! What a crock. You can (click) and read the letter below, or someone can make a fart sound and that would effectively be the same thing.

This letter can suck it.

Best be summed up

With a fart sound.

Their response wasn’t infuriating because it didn’t include a promise to immediately allocate $100 million bucks. (Although, that really would help us out GUYS) It was immensely tonedeaf but most of all it just didn’t hold true. I read the words over and over, grasping at vague promises and past “efforts” trying to convince me that they really do care. OK, great. But you can’t just take their word for it, so when you do your due diligence and learn things like NIH funding dropped 25% since 2017 for MECFS research— it’s easy to think OH What in the name of SAM HILL HELL ARE YALL THINKING? Ahem, excuse me. Like I was saying, proper headspace.

So, you get it. It’s tough. But the work is too important. I’ve seen what this disease has done to countless strangers, I’ve lived what it’s done to me, and I continue to watch what it’s done to my mom and most recently my sister. I just wanted to remind myself here at the beginning of the new year, and the twelve or so readers, that this fight is desperately still in need of all our help. It’s absolutely clear the NIH won’t act without a lot of outside pressure and heat and noise; I believe we can bring it.

I’ll do my best to stick with it and continue to try and be creative and positive throughout this fight. As always, I’m open to ideas! The petition is still live and well, but I’ll work on new ideas of how best to work with it.

Being shown and gifted so much kindness in my life, I think the best possible way I can pay it forward is to remain dedicated to this campaign, regardless of how little I think it may matter on one day or hopeless I may momentarily feel. At heart I believe the change we seek is possible. And Monty does too.

Health, Happiness, and the Roaring 2020’s

The In-Between

Published on December 9, 2019 by Mary Gelpi2 Comments

I’ve been writing at my typewriter way too long. Something about that bright red device with such mechanical three-dimensional features allures me to the window. It also helps that it produces something tangible at the end. Something I can read and underline and scratch out afterward. But it’s made me abandon my place over here! I’m pretending you care. At any rate…

It’s the mooooooost wonderful tiiiiiiiiime of the yeeeeeeear. I sing that around my house when I get a burst of energy. It makes Monty all feisty.

Christmas, finally! No wait, this year flew by. I think. Yeah, it did. It’s funny how most conversations are like “Something about time.” “Yeah, and something else about time!” “Not to mention the weather…” “Oh yeah, and the WEATHER!” Weather and Time, making conversations since the beginning of…well you KNOW!

Today my friend Matt and I are going to get a Christmas tree. And Monty too, if we can fit him in the trunk. Whoa, I meant to write truck. He’d never fit in the trunk. Anyway it’s really not a great Christmas-getting-tree day. It’s warm and soupy outside.

I should try and embrace it. I don’t think Colorado sees humid, soupy days in December.

Meantime I’m prepping myself for Christmas week. I so forward to this week where most the family reunites and we cram as much doing and going and seeing and visiting into one week and make a bunch of magical memories. Then at the end of the week everyone goes home and back to life as usual and I’m left with a body that feels like it’s been bulldozed for the next three months, at least. Sometimes I fear I’m becoming a human Kathy cartoon.

The point is, I know there’s a better middle ground where I can plant my feet. The problem is it involves more saying no. Saying no means missing out, and missing out is really depressing when your family is finally in town but an arms length away. I’m the youngest, so I especially never want to miss out. It comes with the territory.

I think when you’re sick this long you forget what this need to Go and see and do and lunch and dinner and friends! and the zoo! and the park! what’s next?Let’s go!What’s next?Let’s go!– feels like. Wait no, that’s wrong. You do remember the feeling, psychologically–you still have it in fact. You just can’t deliver on it and you haven’t in a long time. That pace of life becomes slowly unfamiliar. And unsustainable. Suddenly you’re surrounded by people who wake up in the morning and put on their pants and go and go and go, and it’s a stunning reminder of what physical health allows. But you just can’t go at that pace, at least not very long. And not without paying.

As a person so physically limited, I live in a fantasy-land where everyone meets up and says “Hey do yall want to just hang around here and play cards and watch movies and throw the ball for that dog who we all love and adore so much and also discuss and agree about the direction the world is taking? Sounds good, I’ll get the hot chocolate going. Elf starts in ten.”

NEVER

GETS

OLD

A fantasy, of course. Healthy people want to go and see and do, and they should be allowed to do as they want and not feel like they’re leaving a soldier behind. But it’s just tough when you have sick family members and big groups of people. Each person needs what they need, and we have to learn to compromise where we can. The truth is, well, it sucks. I want to be able to do all of it. But then nobody, really, can do it all.

Ah wonderful, now it’s raining. Real great Louisiana! Wait, last Louisiana Christmas for a good while. Soak it in. Soak all that soupiness in. One moment, I need to turn the AC on.

It always helps me to break up the time I have with my family around Christmas into really small pieces. I try to recognize the specialness of moments (within the moment) and almost freeze-dry them in my head. Take a detailed note of everything and put them in my pocket for later. I have a few of those “nuggets” in my mind from the past that I’ll always hold onto. But it’s not easy. I’m constantly fighting between what the heart wants and what my crap body can handle.

Sometimes we concentrate too hard on making big plans and doing big things, one thing followed by the next and the next. We could probably stand to slow down and smell the poinsettias now and then. But too, it’s nice remembering some of the best parts are in the prepping of the big thing, or the resting afterward, or story time before bed. All the little in-betweens.

Since I can’t keep up with it all, as my body proves to me year after year, I will try and be highly awake for all the smaller, do-nothing moments. Take little snapshots along the way of enjoyable times, even the quick ones, give them a name and collect them like pebbles. It helps to write, of course. Then when your memory fails you, you can read a list of the happy moments you had. It’s about the little things, so they say, so it helps to capture and really treasure those as much as you do the big ones. You don’t always have to make it to the zoo to make a memory that lasts.

Then again, going to the zoo is really freaking fun.

What do I know? I’m still working this out. But it’s on my to-do list this year: Keep it simple. Let people do what they want. Enjoy the time I have with whoever’s around me. It’s obvious and yet, none of these things are done easily in practice. I challenge us all.

You know last year it was my goal to write shorter blogs but more frequently? I totally failed! That’s the nice thing about years, a *new year* always shows up. But usually I’m too weak to move by then. KATHY CARTOON! Ack!

Health, Happiness, Keeping up

Turning It Off

Published on October 29, 2019 by Mary Gelpi

We All Fall Down. The Stairs. Sometimes.

Published on October 9, 2019October 14, 2019 by Mary Gelpi1 Comment

This all feels like some cosmic joke as I write this, but the sh*t show must go on. I wrote this piece intending to pay homage to the last month, which has marked an unexpected bump in my functionality. All due to a small but sufficient amount of useable energy I encountered, as if finding money in the street. Look energy! Pick it up!

For nine months, this invisible life force–something you almost can’t really know you have until you lose it–has eluded me. And then, subtly and seemingly out of nowhere, it flipped on inside me like a light switch.

For the last month I’ve been hard at work on an important story about the opioid crisis; the data driving it, the policy, and the affect it’s having on millions of chronic pain patients. I’ve felt compelled to write it and share a side of the narrative that’s gone missing from the national conversation. The point is, I felt functional enough to devote myself to this article in a serious way. Almost every day for two weeks week, I put on real pants and drove to the downtown coffee shop, the one with terrible art work on the walls and unforgivable price tags, where I’d work for hours at a time. Most of you know 2019 has been a garbage pail of health issues, not really allowing exertion like that on my part.

The joke is, I’m trying to write a piece on how great I’ve felt, in one domain anyway, and I am continuously interrupted by how terrible I feel due to one of the more severe migraine cycles I’ve had all year. Also the ice pack strapped around my head keeps dripping water in my eye. Just great.

Despite the newfound strength I came into, my physical symptoms persisted. Migraines, face pain, POTS, cystitis, the badder disaster–all alive and well. The catch? Having this new, albeit small and yes, limited, amount of energy on board has been a game changer in terms of dealing with all the pieces that go into life with chronic illness and pain.

Finally room opened up in my brain and body for a resilience to deal with the symptoms proactively, or distract myself from them (insofar as possible), or just enjoy the rare freedom you feel when you finally have a choice in how you’ll spend even 1/3rd of your day.

The relief it’s brought has left me in tears of gratitude. Not a relief of pain, but of burden, of carrying this heavy, physical weight around for so long. And finally taking it off.

It feels almost impossible to convey how much more tolerable the experience became, finally having some amount of energy inside to help take it all on. It’s still a difficult and daily battle, but when you suddenly don’t feel the active force of gravity working against your every move, well, that helps.

What doesn’t help? Falling down a flight of stairs at your cousin Kenny’s house, the night before his moms funeral. Wait maybe that’s the joke. You know, this story is just so Gelpi.

Dammit.

As you can see by his face

So, maybe my month of reliable energy has begun to wind down. I’ll go out on a limb and say that becoming entangled with an industrialized fan on the steep fall down the stairs and breaking that fan with my face at the bottom, did not help. I had grill marks on my face people! Like some piece of George Foreman meat! Good Lord.

The point in all this was to pay homage to feeling GOOD, and the things you get to do when you’re not stuck in a dark HOLE. And so it shall remain. I’ll tell the Tumble-Down-Kenny’s-Basement-Stairs story soon, I swear it. I’d never hide such comedy gold.

It doesn’t easily escape my mind how bad one day in August was, just two months ago. I couldn’t lift my arms above my head, the weakness and heaviness and dizziness were relentless. My entire head throbbed with pressure, and I felt a total desperation wrap itself around me, barely able to keep my eyes open laying on the couch. I feared the physical feeling of that day would never end. And then less than two months later, I end up here…

Some friendly competition, ahem

Fourth Quarter Photo Op

The Blue Demise of Miles…

So loud, out like a light

Attending a Saints game with family and friends, yelling in the Dome to throw the Cowboys offsides, and most importantly, enjoying the hell out of myself. How could such a transformation occur in such a short time?

I can’t know. I stopped taking one of my anti-vitals. My mom prayed a novena for me after an especially bad few weeks. I pray my Hail Mary’s every morning, waiting for my head to calm down. All I know is the very terrible day in August did end, and for a while at least, I’ve been gifted with enough energy to participate in my own life. I’ve paid a price for things, but at least I did something to pay for. Most of 2019 has felt like a constant hangover without a sip of alcohol.

I just want to remind anyone who’s sick and in a crash or experiencing a rough patch to hang on. I know how desperate and forgotten and isolated it feels. How insufferably long the time can take to pass. (Trust me, this is the first time in 9 months I’ve had some level of functionality) The truth is we just can’t know the future. But given a chance to play out, turning (inward) as a spectator to our lives when we can’t participate in it firsthand, it will usually reveal some incredible grain of truth that will make life sweeter, easier, and closer to whole. At the very least, it will make us hugely grateful for the tiniest of things–and it’s hard to be unhappy when you harness true gratitude from within.

So what does the letup of a nine-month crash finally allow for? Well, really dumb but fun stuff that makes me happy. Like a few weeks ago when I gave Monty a bath. We came inside and I brushed him while watching college football. I noticed the little pile of hair was becoming pretty dense and also that it seemed it could be arranged, as if I worked at it, I could shape it into a smaller, furry replica of Monty. So that’s what I did…

And YEAH, I’m proud of my work, mkay? It took some real finessing. As you can see, the first few editions were not quite right.

You can call this a waste of time and probably not be wrong. The thing is, when you’re feeling well enough to exert yourself in creative ways beyond just surviving, nothing feels like a waste. Things take on a new lightness and enjoyability. Even bathing the dog. Of course Monty was a wonderful and willing model. Speaking of which…

Monty’s good looks should have been earning us money ages ago. Thanks to the Aunt Becky scandal, I learned that “Instrgram Influencer” is a real thing and decided Monty needed to be one. We haven’t turned it into cash yet, but we do get a discount on merchandise from these brands that saw his picture and posted them on their pages. So yeah, we should be earning hundreds upon hundreds of dollars any day now.

throwtheball — This is what Monty thinks 23 hours a day.

Anyway, I’ve done more than make small, furry replicas of Monty and model him in bandanas. I finished The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which had me enamored for three days straight and I need more Hemingway to read. I’ve continued to work painfully slow on completing sudoku puzzles, as well do a lot of swimming because it’s October and 93 degrees and that’s just, you know, reality now.

In the end, yes, I fell down Cousin Kenny’s stairs. But you know, the fact that I was well enough to be at Kenny’s in the first place, and subsequently do acrobatics with a fan down his stairs–well, that says something. Something good, believe or not.

Here’s hoping the recovery isn’t so bad. I write this as much as a reminder to myself as to others, of how fleeting all this is. That idea used to frighten me, as though nothing were solid and reliable. But now I find it revealing of a truth that’s freeing, a relief. This was always temporary. Changes can come hard and fast, but looking with creative eyes and a depth of perception, we can often find that they’re in our favor. We have to stay awake though. Give life a chance to show you how things turn out. As the adage goes: In the end, it will all be OK. If it’s not OK then it’s not the end. Cheesy, yes, but I can be on board with the idea. So march on soldiers. As always, we will get there.

I’ll just take the elevator wherever we’re going.

Health, Happiness, and the Bruise on my Thigh Has Given Me Three Butts. Three.

Navigating Healthcare When You’re Chronically Sick *and a Chronic Pain Patient (1)

Published on September 6, 2019September 6, 2019 by Mary Gelpi4 Comments

When I say the seven days of last week were the epitome of an absolute disaster of epic Murphy’s Law proportion, I’m not exaggerating. I am psychologically traumatized by the amount of roadblocks that emerged in just trying to carry out seemingly easy decisions the doctor and I agreed on.

It’s hard to convey how defeated it feels to be so desperately reliant on a health care system that appears to lack any incentive to see that you’re taken care of. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps is a phrase I’ve heard all my life. There was a time when that was possible and I had no excuse not to be totally self sufficient. But that all changes when you lose the reliability of your body. It’s like trying to beat a video game with a broken controller in your hands.

I feel trapped. Chained to a medical network where in every domain outside of actual face time with the doctor, I am a policy and not a patient. Whether I have access to what is necessary to maintain any health seems to have become almost anecdotal.

My time and energy are consumed by the position of full-time liaison, constantly navigating the logistics between the doctor, the doctors own front desk staff, the pharmacy, the insurance company, and adjusting to the perpetually changing federal laws that affect the dispensing of my medications. Maybe it’s this easy to fall because there are so many gaps between doctor and patient, and they’re widening all the time.

See? Here I am enjoying myself at the urologists office.

I can’t remember when this part of life with chronic illness became harder than managing the physical illness itself, but that’s where I am now. I’m also realistic and understand that in the context of a multi-systemic disease like M.E., a lot of my time will go to doctors and exams and bloodwork and prescription refills and pickups and insurance appeals etc. etc. etc. That’s simply part of life when you’re sick and I accept that part. (See photo)

What I struggle with is the fact that maintaining my healthcare has become a battle. Keeping up with the aforementioned aspects of my health between doctor appointments is a fight, as constant and reliable as the disease I wake to everyday.

This probably all sounds generic and obvious to say; But I’m not actually referring to the conventional financial or accessibility issues of our system. I have health insurance. I’m not talking about having an inadequate plan or the absurd price of prescription drugs or the lack of access to good doctors. On the whole I have great doctors. So why, when it comes to that crucial part of fulfilling the medical plan that a doctor and I have decided is in the best interest of my health, am I met with constant resistance from the moment I step out of the exam room?

That resistance fought me at every turn, every day last week. Beginning Monday, the said battle of having my health needs met ensued due to simple administrative mistakes, systemic gaps, and changing federal laws that made shitteth hitteth the fanneth. I will share how the system tends to fail with the slightest pressure, but first I think it’s important to explain my current state of health and why I require the doctors, treatments, and care that I do.

I am writing about this not to pettily vent or point an ambiguous finger—believe me, I’d rather forget it ever happened. But last week was not a fluke. This happens constantly, and it will happen again. But if a chronically sick person with good health insurance and good doctors has to fight this hard and often lose when it comes to basic needs– like prescription refills and scheduling timely follow-up appointments– something is broken. Maybe by highlighting how laws, policies and medical personnel affect the health of an actual person, it may somehow in the end help fix or improve them. Maybe I’m dreaming.

**State of the Human**

Most are familiar with my physical circumstances. Quick status: I’ve been fighting a chronic disease that lacks treatment or cure since I relapsed a decade ago. As a result of many things going awry in my body, I am in pain all the time. Without precise disease treatment, the best we can do is manage the many symptoms of M.E. In my case, fighting chronic pain is the hardest part.

In both legs I have something called small fiber neuropathy. This is a deep ache, basically everywhere there is skin, and typically a burning in my feet and calves, especially if I stand for more than 15 minutes. My feet often get physically hot and sometimes swell, as though I were some pregnant broad, but nope! All of this began around age 25, when the restless leg syndrome also worsened at the start of my relapse. It’s like an electrified current running up and down both legs that won’t turn off.

Untreated, my legs ache and burn constantly, but worst of all, they make sleep impossible. At best it comes in one to two minute fits and bursts before the pain wakes me again. Imagine being pricked five times by a safety pin every 90 seconds throughout the night. You’re getting there…

Beyond my legs is my head. Or my brain I should say, because that’s where the pain feels like it’s emerging from. It’s as though my brain were swollen and pushing against my skull from the inside. It’s a chronic pressure and pain with very frequent migraines. Five years ago the pain moved into my face—not an acute pain, a widespread pressure pain like a tension headache, but beyond my forehead it extends to the top of my head, down to my cheeks, jaw, and even my mouth sometimes. On bad days it’s just my whole head.

Some other treatments have included steroid injections in my head and back of my occipital nerves, as well as lidocaine injections in my face to help control/ disrupt this pain.

See those little bee stings? Those are injection sites. Is it fun getting shots into my temples and face? No. But neither is 24/7 pain, so a few seconds of needle pain is nothing in comparison.

Perhaps underscoring my head pain are the issues with my neck. I’ve had a “bad neck” the way a seventy-five-year-old has a “bad back” since high school. There’s a good chance some of these neck issues are driving the head and face problem, but we’ve not been able to land on anything definitive. Trust me, we’ve tried, and we will continue to. We’ve spent years and years searching for answers, visiting doctors, & trying a lot of techniques—from chiropractors to physical therapy to acupuncture/cupping to two weeks of ketamine infusions (That’s a story I’ll tell soon because…Damn.)

Lastly I’m dealing with chronic interstitial cystitis pain that resurfaced in December with an infection. We treated and “cured” that with antibiotics, but the pain and symptoms of IC decided to stay. In July those symptoms worsened drastically and have added to my pain load. I am hoping and praying and trying a lot of remedies (including homeopathy) to get the IC under control, but it’s not been easy. I didn’t know it was possible to pee more than 30 times a day but guess what? I think I hit 40 once.

We recently had my MRI’s looked at by an M.E. literate 3rd party who pointed out abnormalities on my brain stem and cervical spine. One included a minor CSF blockage and bursitis on five disks. These structural issues would likely explain a lot of my pain problems and may even be responsible for other symptoms like those from dysautonomia.

Some of these abnormalities can be fixed with surgery, but I have to see a specialist who would decide ultimately the best course of treatment. If it meant the possibility of an end or improvement of this pain, I’d go under the knife tomorrow. I’m ready for my life to start in so many ways, and I do believe we will find an answer to all of this. In the meantime…

Due to this constant high level of pain, I see a specialist and take prescription pain medicine, as well as undergo nerve blocks, trigger point injections, and live with an ice pack on my head to help find relief. This combination of treatments help keep my high level of pain down to a more manageable one so I can have some quality of life. I have not changed the medicine in eight years or the dose in more than four. Want to see what I look like after a nerve block?

Sexy….

Right?

Creepy, I know.

I’ve provided my situation regarding pain because this is where most people have a strong opinion one way or another, and more often it’s that you’re just being weak, don’t really need it, or you’re treated like an addict. Often that attitude comes from front desk staff or a pharm tech filling my Rx! I wish this perception would change and that people understood there are millions like me; prescribed to this medicine for the reason it was created: to alleviate physical pain. We take it as prescribed and there’s no misuse. It’s a matter of livelihood. That’s. All.

Having to rely on medicine to evade my natural state of pain is not something I’m happy about or proud of. I’m also aware it’s not a ‘solution.’ But I do know my life would be unequivocally crappier and less functional if I had to face the world fighting such a high level of pain 24/7.

For that reason, I’m grateful for my doctor and for medicine that provides some relief. Until science catches up with understanding my disease and treating it, this allows me not to be tortured at all times. I don’t think that’s anything we should have to feel shame about.

There, now you’re caught up…on one part of the battle ;) More on last weeks clusterbiff and how to prevent it, coming up.

Health, Happiness, & a 10 on the Pain Scale

Summer Part 1: The Bill Always Comes

Published on August 5, 2019 by Mary Gelpi4 Comments

**The Summer of The Winter of Our Discontent**

There’s this key moment in Sudoku, when you find a clutch number that gives way to the others and begin to just fall into place like a waterfall. Much like the card you play in solitaire where you know you’re about to crack it. I had just written in a 6 I’d been trying to find for way too long. So began the waterfall, and I filled in the other boxes proudly– possibly smugly because this puzzle felt like it was out to trick me personally and now I had it in my hands! Until I didn’t, and in slow motion realized I had two number 7’s in the bottom row, and I just wanted to hit myself.

I tried to work backwards to fix it, but it was irreparably blown. I blew it. So, there went the last two weeks.

Of course, I’ve been up to other things. It’d be funny if after a month break all I had to show for it was a failed puzzle. Can’t all be winners.

For starters, summer reading. In July I was booklets after finishing Killing Commendatore, and sad I didn’t have more Murikami to lose myself in. Finally I scanned my own bookshelf for unread potential treasures and picked up Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent, which doesn’t sound like much of an apropos Summer read, but it’s just that. It’d sat idle on my shelf for years, even though that white house on the cover had caught my eye a thousand times. I had no idea the brilliance I was missing! It’s like suddenly realizing an old painting in your closet is worth some absurd amount of money. Once I dove in I didn’t want out, which surprised me when it shouldn’t have. It’s a classic, what did I expect?

The book was written in 1961, and given the passage of time I expected a natural disconnect. I’ve been so wrapped up in modern fiction– for too long probably. Yet somehow the America and the People and Assumed Human Decency that Steinbeck depicted 60 years ago were all completely recognizable today. You wouldn’t have to drive long before finding a sister town to “New Baytown”or look very hard before confronting modern replicas of his primary characters. Ultimately he tapped into the problems, desires, personal demons and moral choices most all of us face at some point– it’s just astounding to me that Steinbeck unearthed such deep, quiet struggles and could discern which ones were engrained in us and would stand the test of time.

Maybe that’s a litmus test for what makes a book a classic; if the suppositions and ideas can weather the decades and remain solidly true, unbothered by time, then you’ve got yourself a winner. I guess that’s pretty obvious, but it felt remarkable to come across.

The book reads a lot like a memoir of protagonist Ethan Crawley, who is so likable, in the first place, it’s hard to put down. I felt a relief knowing there was someone else who felt these ways –about money and politics and social hierarchies and expectations. He makes a joke out of probably 85% of his replies, and rarely does anyone get it, or choose to acknowledge it with a laugh anyway. That felt… familiar.

I feel similarly when I watch SNL sketches that crack me up. It’s not in the scene itself, but in the imagining of the writers who wrote the sketch, and knowing that real people out there recognized absurdity the way that I do. It’s easy not to feel seen in the world, but knowing other people see things the same way you do, even perfect strangers, feels like the twin brother to feeling understood. One scene in the book hammered this feeling in…

Crawley and his wife have been invited to another couples house to discuss “business”, i.e. money, but they have to go through the obligatory song and dance first. That means a formal serving of tea and then petty small talk. Everyone sipped tea and each delivered some anecdote on the subject of tea. He’s bored to tears. When it became Ethan’s turn to chime in, he brought up Danny, the town drunk, and a terrible nightmare he’d had about him. I laughed as he described feeling his wife’s quiet anger that he didn’t keep up the supposedly pleasant tea talk, and now everyone had to comment about a despairing subject. I wonder how many pleasant bouts of small talk I’ve Debbie Downer’ed with an some morbid comment that I found funny? Probably too many. Anyway, it’s a perfect scene.

A few of my favorite passages:

“So many old and lovely things are stored in the worlds attic, because we don’t want them around us and we don’t dare throw them out.”

I don’t suppose there’s a man in the world who doesn’t love to give advice.”

(Ethan)”Is Marullo part of the group?”

(Wealthy friend) “Certainly not. He goes his own way with his own crowd.” (The Italians. Marullo is an immigrant)

(Ethan)“They do pretty well, don’t they?”

(Friend) “Better than I think is healthy. I don’t like to see these foreigners creeping in.”

Sounds familiar eh?

“There is no such thing as just enough money. Only two measures: No Money and Not Enough Money.”

“No one wants advice–only corroboration.”

“I always put it down to fact that a wife never likes her husband’s boss or his secretary.” “All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.” “Not only the brave get killed, but the brave have a better chance at it.” “For the most part people are not curious, except about themselves.”

I must have underlined half the book.

51lmTfDL9fL._SL300_

Next I read Hemingways The Sun Also Rises, another of the greats that’d been collecting dust not far from Steinbeck. When finishing it I wondered why I haven’t read more of the classics, because this was a damn great book too. There’s no good reason I don’t have more of them under my belt, except that I didn’t take enough literature classes in college I guess, and I hardly know what the real classics are. So, I’ve begun a list. Who cares. Anyway I won’t go so far into this one. As tribute to Hemingway and his distinguished, succinct style I’ll say this: The book is rather great and you should read it. You’ll have a swell time.

Especially if you love Paris, Spain, the Pamplona Fiesta, fishing, Bullfighting, and forbidden love. Hemingway was clearly a romantic. Did you know he was married four times? Only a true romantic gives marriage that many goes.

The passage that stuck:

“I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on. …You paid some way for everything that was any good.”

If that’s not the truth I don’t know what is.

I kept thinking about it’s application to health. That very often, when you have your health, it’s free. They say your health is like your breath–you don’t pay attention to it until you lose it. I think back on life before the relapse, and how I’d done nothing to earn my state of ‘decent’ state of health. I’d also done nothing to earn the relapse that eventually followed. It felt like someone at my door, come to collect a bill every day, when I hadn’t purchased anything. When well, I was getting something for nothing, without even knowing it. Once sick I had to begin paying for those somethings, and surrender what I couldn’t afford.

My hope, and I think my belief, is that it doesn’t have to mean the surrender of those things that matter most. When you’re forced to give things up, it feels just that way. But learning to live without them has been an ongoing lesson in letting go of what I thought I needed in order to live a life I liked. You end up finding a whole other you behind those old roles. It offered a strange opportunity to see my own self without these external identifiers. That allowed me to see the world differently too. I’m (still) learning it’s up to me, more often than not, how I choose to see both.

But, as the man said, you paid for anything that was any good. Many things that allow me to feel alive and good come at a cost. It’s like a tax on fun, in the currency of health. Actually I also pay the tax when I haven’t had fun. REAL COOL BODY THANKS. At any rate, I feel fortunate I still have people and places and experiences to (sometimes) overindulge in at all.

0-3 0-5

Like him. He’s worth it.

I imagine everyone has their respective “things” or indulgences for which a bill reliably comes. And maybe depending on what point we’re asked, during the playing or the paying, would we consider whether or not the juice was worth the squeeze. For me, mostly, paying the bill feels worth it when I’ve decided to splurge. Girls gotta live sometimes.

Health, Happiness, Paying the Tab

One Arrow Only

Published on May 8, 2019 by Mary Gelpi6 Comments

Want to hear a funny story?

Well first, some housekeeping. It’s been more than a while, I know. I feel like an idiot bear emerging from hibernation 3 months late and everyone’s like Dude, what have you even been doing? Getting crushed, that’s what.

A health update for 2019: mine is still mostly missing. Hate it when that happens! 2019 has continued to be a slow-rolling, sick train, punctuated by outings to every type of doctor, assuming I don’t call in sick to the appointment. Calling in sick to the doctor; what an absurd reality.

This elongated crash state feels like some kind of warped dream when I reflect on it. I would blame this on the repetitiveness of days that can start to feel indistinguishable from stagnancy. It feels like…

Screen Shot 2019-05-04 at 5.41.41 PM — After Day…

That last photo was on my way home from a cystoscopy, which they put you under for, thank Gawd. But I was a little…out of it. The procedure is supposed to help the interstitial cystitis, but low and behold, I still find myself having to pee like a racehorse a LOT, soooo, maybe it’s just taking a while to work. Here’s hoping.

As always the creative challenge of life with chronic illness continues. What a strange conundrum, living with a body that doesn’t know how to function as a body. So, what to do?

Reading Murikami’s 19Q4 followed by Killing Commendatore, which I’m sad to have just finished, have kept my imagination wild and busy, and I wish I could thank the guy personally for what joy he’s brought into my life. Reading Murikami’s stories doesn’t just give you ideas to reflect on–it’s a really involved experience just reading one of his books. It’s very involved somehow. As though a real exchange were taking place, but I don’t know how that is possible.

Before walking home from my parents some nights, I think of the characters inside the pages, waiting on me to get into bed and open the book so they can get on finding their way. It’s by far the deepest I’ve fallen into a body of work, fiction anyway, and I have absolutely no idea how he does it. I’m just glad to get lost in something so positive. It’s too easy to fall into counterproductive thoughts or habits when you’re so physically limited. So as always, it takes a good chunk of mental exertion to stay on the right side of the experience and to be cautious in how I tell myself this is all unfolding.

***

For no good reason at all, I get into bed at night and truly believe I’ll be improved tomorrow. I imagine all the things I’ll do. All the catching up and even what clothes I’ll wear while I’m busy bustling around the house. I can see myself cleaning out closets and on the phone, checking things off my list–Monty following me, room to room. I can envision it all, and drifting off, I always expect that tomorrow will be better. And yet for roughly 120 tomorrows, I’ve awoken to mostly a repeat of the day before. Oh real great Universe!

Now and then I receive some improved feeling that I’m finally rounding the corner of this thing and the worst is over. Perfect! Then either hours later or two days later, I’m paying a high price for what feel like very petty offenses. The invisible line of this thing– it’s the most frustrating part. It makes any kind of management of it feel impossible.

It’s like driving through a backwoods town in the middle of the night without any headlights on. The “warning signals” of this illness are meek and inconsistent. You have to pay such careful attention to what can be a trigger, but even still, it seems sometimes you crash for no reason, or have a full month of migraines for no good reason. It can be hard to see straight at all and you wish you could just turn your danged headlights on!

I am surprised this crash has endured so long. But maybe it’s silly to be surprised. It’s certainly worthless to take it personally, and yet it’s easy to feel that way. Waking up to the same fight day after day can easily fuel the ego, which will try to convince you of just that. That it’s personal and unfair, and going down that route doesn’t do one bit of good. I have to keep things straightened out in my mind and brush off ideas that are useless and untrue. Maybe the truth is simpler more often than it’s complex. As Tolle says, “It’s neutral. It always is as it as. Nothing more.”

The truth here is, this is the nature of the illness I have. It waxes and wanes, so there’s no reason to be caught off guard or believe I’ll never improve. The fact is this is a disease behaving like a disease. The physical toll and reality are hard enough, no sense getting hit with a second arrow, right? The second arrow is feeling bad about the first arrow. The first arrow is being chronically sick in the first place. One arrow only, please and thanks.

Defaulting back to simple truths is how I’ve been trying to handle all of this, psychologically, but of course it’s not always so easy. Actually it’s never really easy, but it is meaningful when I can find joy and purpose despite it. I’m happy to at least know what ideas and thoughts aren’t helpful to the situation and to vanquish them before they have a chance to take hold and grow. I’m happy to have the counsel and ear of my mom, who hears me out and comforts me when the struggle feels too big, without me barely having to say a word. Talk about gifts you cannot buy.

Despite knowing certain truths consciously, I find myself always questioning myself. I lay in bed thinking This is obnoxious. There must be something I can do. But some days really are just bed-to-bathroom days, and I have to be honest about what I’m capable of. My life feels split in two sometimes, because so much of my communication with people is through text. So I’ll be lying in bed feeling deadly, but texting smiling emoji’s with plenty of exclamation points to show my love and enthusiasm for other people, and I think how strange it is, the dichotomy of the life I project sometimes and the one I’m actually living. I imagine maybe everybody struggles with that, in their own way. We all contain multitudes.

The timing of all this is crappy, of course. There’s never a good time for a crash, I suppose, like there’s never a good time to break up. But there are worse times for each. Being this crashed in the middle of trying to pack and prepare for a move is like the timing of getting dumped on your birthday. Oh well. Even after birthday breakups, people recover. I think.

***

The story!

Last week I was tired of waking up and feeling like I was on my deathbed, naturally. So, I figured there had to be some good meditations on waking up and getting your body psyched for the day. Right now, waking up feels like I went to sleep by getting hit in the head hard with a frying pan, like the characters in cartoons. I’ve also been very weak in the mornings and getting out of bed has been really challenging.

So, I find a mediation easily on youtube, geared toward waking up and energizing the body. It’s 15 minutes. Great. I press play. 25 minutes later, I wake up to a commercial playing and realize the meditation meant to wake me up peacefully sent me back to sleep. Swing and a miss! So, I try another.

This one is also 15 minutes and looks promising. Energizing! it claims. So, I make it through the first 13 minutes. I’m having a hard time focusing because I’m really weak, I’m fighting the bone-crushing fatigue and my migraine is back. But on with the show. The woman guiding the meditation says to repeat the phrases she’s about to say out loud. OK… “Repeat after me” says the slow, assertive voice emitting from my phone. “I feel strong and powerful.” I can’t help but let a smile melt across my face. I say it anyway. “I feel strong and powerful!” “I feel energized and ready to take on the day.” My smile grows bigger. “I feel energized and ready to take on the day.” Now I can’t help but actually laugh. “My body is healthy and my state of mind is focused.” Ummmm…

At this point I am half repeating and half laughing, because I don’t feel these things the woman is saying, like at all. But the fact that it’s making me laugh feels like a success all on its own. A few minutes later, I fall back asleep. BUT, it’ a very peaceful sleep. So maybe it wasn’t a total loss. I imagine once asleep I was “energized and ready to take on the dream.” ;)

Maybe when I’m a little stronger it will work. I don’t think it will be long now, yet I still have no idea why I think that. Owell, it feels good to believe it anyway.

Health, Happiness, and I FEEL STRONG AND POWERFUL

Why Is It So Hard to Pee Into Those Urine Sample Cups?

Published on February 20, 2019 by Mary Gelpi8 Comments

Is it just me?

If it is, then I should feel pretty vulnerable and embarrassed after this. I’m sorry mom. I really do try and make you proud.

Is it just women?

It’s hard to say but I don’t think so. I do think requires more skill on behalf of the woman, I would think. Then again I wouldn’t know, I’ve never peed into one of those “specimen catchers” standing up. It seems like all you have to do is aim and shoot. Though I imagine splash-back could be a problem. Also I’ve heard dudes talking about the “split stream”, which would make producing a clean catch pretty tricky. But that happens to the lady folk too. So I’m a making a leap of faith in assuming I’m not the only one who has issues here. Right? Guys? Right guys?

I’ve had to give so many urine samples via those small plastic lidded cups over the last ten years, you’d think I’d at least have a technique mastered by now. But there’s just so little prediction in the direction that things will go once the golden exit begins.

You know the order of operations. First you go a little to see what direction your body has decided for the sample to go that day. Cool, you have a good idea. Place the cup in position. Aaaand begin. Aaaaand what is happening.

It starts to go awry when a renegade stream breaks off from the group for no reason at
all. Whyyyy. I can’t yell at my pee mid stream and direct it on where to go! It doesn’t respond to verbal orders or worried yelling. Why would half of this small waterfall decide to break apart from the its fluid crew and travel backwards? Return to the team you idiot!

Obviously, things don’t get better from there. The cup can’t catch the rebellious run off and the original stream simultaneously because they’re too far apart, so now I have to guess which one has a higher volume and catch that one. And because I’m indecisive, I start to get a little panicky, I can’t tell which is better. Now I’m going back and forth with the cup between streams because I’m worried the collection isn’t enough, and I’m right. I often miss more than I catch in the chaos. Great. Now there’s pee in places I’d rather there not be pee. It’s just my hand don’t freak out. (I’m talking to myself now) I mean urine is sterile, so I hear. That was the whole point of those deep breaths I took before beginning the process. You can do this Mary, just pretend it’s a game at the carnival, you’re a competitive gal.

I liken the stress to that of being on a motor bike and panicking that you’re going too fast but in the frenzy you keep hitting the gas, gunning it, instead of the break. You increase in speed until you crash and your shoe flies off. That actually happened to my friend Cody and I once. My shoe really flew off!

Anyway I guess it’s just the stress of getting it right and knowing there’s a limited amount

of material to work with that I end up internally yelling with my head down “WHAT. IS GOING ON DOWN THERE?! GET. IT. TOGETHER!” It’s like yelling at some kids I’m babysitting who I can hear are misbehaving in the basement. I hope I’m not accidentally
yelling that out loud in the stress of those 30 seconds. I can just see the nurses faces upon hearing the racket inside the bathroom, shaking their heads in resignation, Where did we go wrong with our children?

Now I have to place the cup on the counter, but why is the counter always wet? Is that someone else’s renegade pee? Impossible to know. Also, eeeew. So I awkwardly wipe down the counter, (still squatting on the toilet by the way), place the cup down, screw on the lid, make sure that’s wiped down and examine my sample. It’s like I want the nurses to be impressed with it. “Wow, did you check out Gelpi’s specimen cup? Not even a droplet on the outside!” I realize they’re wearing gloves and couldn’t care less about any of this.

Then you open that little stainless steel door to drop off your cup, and you see all the other specimens. Woah! I’m always surprised by the array of yellow colors that make up peoples urine. It’s like 50 shades of pee in there! I can only hope mine is the right shade of neon.

This is clearly Ms Gelpi’s perfect clean catch. How DOES she do it!?

It feels like an unnecessarily stressful event that I’ve had to do so many times, I just can’t figure out why I’m not better at it. Is there some method I’m unaware of? I had to give a sample yesterday just like I did last week and the week before that and a month before that, for all kinds of fun reasons. And still, I entered that bathroom, wrote my name on the cup, took a few deep breaths, and once again the urinary chaos began.

At least this time I didn’t fall. Yes, that is a true and exceptionally unfortunate story. It happened in the E.R. and I’m pretty sure they gave me a horse tranquilizer or something close to it prior to calm down the excessive adrenaline. I was in SVT (Supra Ventricular Tacchacardia) and flopping around like a fish out of water. Then I was tranked and expected to give a sample without help! So yeah, I fell. Let that image settle in and make the rest of your day happy.

Anyway, maybe I’ll develop a better method over the next few months. Or maybe giving urine samples will always just be one of those things we all have to do that are oddly more difficult than they should be, like hanging curtains. Don’t worry, because I know you might, I’ll let you know if there’s improvement. Stay golden yall! (I had to)

Health, Happiness, A Clean Catch

Lost: Life Force. Answers to ‘Mary’

Published on February 11, 2019 by Mary Gelpi1 Comment

*I Wrote this last week. I’m feeling better now ;)

Universe, God, sky, grey clouds, screeching frogs outside– helllp meee. Someone drained my life force in the night, and now I lack the will power to even use an exclamation mark. Not sure what happened. But I couldn’t go on letting myself be buried by the wet blankets of my mind. I had to do something. Something positive, and fight back against the road to stagnancy. I felt like I was slowly turning to cement! Hey look there, I used an exclamation point.

Of course the weather is that in between weather that makes entire cities look like they could use therapy. Not sunny, on the cusp of rain but not raining, just a wet, grey, dish rag that drips sometimes and peeks the sun out in others and never definitively decides what it wants to do. So, can’t rely on the weather to help put humptey dumptey back together again. Find something else.

I would bathe but I don’t have the energy. My arms are getting weaker. I need to lay down again. I’ll try to think of good things.

***

OK, I’m back. It’s been almost two hours. I didn’t sleep. My willpower seemed to be dropping like a heartbeat beeping slower and slower on the heart rate monitor. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeep. She’s a gonner. It’s like all the feel-good, or feel-right chemicals in my brain have truly drained. The stuff that makes you want to go and do and play were drying up. Or already dried.

While I’m a little weak, a little dizzy, the residual migraine still thudding behind my eyes, it’s not my body making today so hard. Well maybe that’s the setup for this mindset, but it’s calming my frenzied mind when I have no physical ability to match it that feels impossible to do. Keeping your mental sanity while waiting on your body to come back to you is probably the hardest part of all of this—a challenge that needs constant knowledgable reminding about from people who know better. I’m amazed how easy it is to forget simple truths. Clearly I’m still learning. I guess that should probably always be the case, if only I were a bit quicker at picking these things up.

I feel the need to do so many things, but most of them aren’t doable right now. Then I feel doubly bad about not being able to do what needs getting done. I guess that’s why I’m sitting at this chair and typing, because writing is one thing I can do.

I have learned that you can fight back against days like this. Despite nothing sounding good—for example, no type of music sounds decent to listen to, and the idea of watching TV or a movie feels even more depressing. (During the day) Even reading the book I’m thoroughly enjoying (19Q4) doesn’t feel right. I read fiction at night. None of these give the impression they would fit. If I were healthy I would go for a run, or to the coffee shop, change up the scenery and get those endorphins going. But since that’s a no-go, it’s another creative challenge to figure out that comes with the territory.

Sometimes just admitting that you’re having a crappy or hard time helps create the tiniest gap between you and the experience you’re having. This is what Tolle teaches—finding space between you and the circumstance so that you might see it from the outside objectively and not get lost in it and take all of it personally. (The Why Me Route)

You can write it, say it, draw it, sing it, whatever it is. But transferring some of the weight onto some other medium helps prevents you from becoming tangled up and trapped in it—where every thought flowers at once and the idea of living the rest of your life frantically swirls around your head like a hurricane and feels impossible. The enormity of it all piles up because you think I can barely get through today…how will I ever get through the next three months? You start thinking 5 years into the future, your will power plummets, until something—in my instance, Monty scratching at the door— snaps you out of this useless futuristic angst and brings you back to right now.

All I have to do is survive right now. Which sounds easy but when your willpower is at a zero, it’s actually a praiseworthy task to achieve. I survived another day! I can’t survive anything 3 months from now, I’m right to think it will be impossible, because I can’t have a clue what will be in 3 months from now. It’s easy to think everything will be the same, and it might. Or it’s easy to see a dozen problems that all feel unsolvable. But all I have to do is look at the history of my life for proof that it can change in a snap, and 90% of the time, you don’t control the change, or predict it. You only go about figuring out how you’ll respond and adapt to it when you get there.

So how do I make now better? Unfortunately having a rebuttal for your mad mind doesn’t make it simply stop in it’s tracks and suddenly you’re grounded and fine. I’m not that good yet. Just knowing what’s helpful and what isn’t doesn’t immediately make you feel happy and give you your life juice back. But it might help slow that thought whirlpool down. It might allow for the smallest stillness to get through to you and allow the truth to calm your fast beating heart. Mostly it involves just having to live through the tension of the feelings and the knowing simultaneously that they won’t last. They may not even be true. As hard as it is to work against something inside you that feels like it’s actively dragging you down or drying you out, I know that trying anything is typically better than rotting on the floor like roadkill and trying nothing at all.

On my two hour break, I listened to a podcast called Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell. I highly suggest listening to it, but it surprised me how just hearing someone else’s voice and someone else’s story can help pull you out of the thought whirlpool of your own. It’s nice getting out of your own head and being exposed to what people before you have met and endured in their life. I listened to Sammy Davis Jr.’s story A Hug Heard Round the World and hearing of his life and challenges put things in perspective, at least temporarily. This is the importance and power of story telling, I think. It straightened me out for a while.

I also downloaded some foreign language apps on my phone a few days ago so I can start to remember and re-learn french. I’ve forgotten so much of it and I miss it. I plan to visit France for a while when I’m better, so I’d like to get back to moderately fluent. I can’t wait to sit on the sidewalk again, drink my cafe au lait at at a table with a white tablecloth, and write in a fresh notebook Well, I’ve finally made it back to Paris.

brasserie_restaurant_paris_france_cafe_table_dinner_seat-807694.jpg!d.jpeg

I didn’t want the invisible vacuum of thoughts inside me to win, so I had to fight back and share these crappy thoughts with you, sorry guys. I guess writing these thoughts out was my way to create the gap. The ability to step back and watch today unfold was my way forward. Otherwise I was slowly being swallowed and nobody wants that. This was my version of winning! Hey look at that, I used another exclamation point. That’s my comeback for today, using an authentic exclamation point. A sign of life. Beeeeep. Beep. Beep. She’s back people!

I think for now that has to be enough.

Health, Happiness, Surviving

Day 7: The Final Day

Published on February 4, 2019 by Mary GelpiLeave a comment

Day 6

Published on February 3, 2019 by Mary Gelpi2 Comments

*As a follow up, my mom convinced me to go to dinner that night even though I felt really rough most the day. I stood weak and wobbly at the sink brushing my teeth and was seconds away from calling her and saying I just couldn’t make it. But something told me to go, given that my mom is typically right, and we could always leave with the second car if I didn’t feel well enough to stay. Also, these people are basically family, and they’d be completely comfortable letting me lay on the couch while my parents and my brother Nick enjoyed dinner. (Nick was in town and it was his second to last night. Another incentive to go)

To my surprise, their energetic spirits, both of them, (my God-parents–Varney and Sweet Pea) seemed to rub off on me-on all of us. I did need to leave this house, even if it meant just being sick somewhere else. To hear other people’s voices and stories and hear my parents laugh and engage with the world outside the ol’ farm…to remove ourselves from the everyday, which is hard to do in our state. But it was clear we all really needed it. The energy seemed to flow through each of us and build as we interacted and laughed and remembered how much love existed between us that we just don’t get a chance to see very often.

I felt lucky remembering such amazing people exist and who we consider part of our family. It was a gift to be able to get together that night and be reminders to one another of what real friendship and love can do, even if you see each 3 times a year. Love and friendship don’t keep score of anything. Anyway, I’m grateful. You get it.

OK, Super Bowl today…

GOOOOOO SAINTS!

Day 4

Published on February 1, 2019 by Mary GelpiLeave a comment

Day 3

Published on January 31, 2019January 31, 2019 by Mary Gelpi3 Comments

OK, there’s a lot of crap in this piece that needs to be re-written or scrapped. Taking on a writing project in the midst of a heavy crash may have been a bad idea in terms of writings to share because than crap like this emerges and I told myself I’d stick to the rules. Even reading it now I can see how convoluted my mind way, how easy it was to stray off topic. I’ve begun to improve since Sunday, particularly cognitively, and the writing really does emulate what’s going on during fog. I had to cross some out because it just meandered and was so clunky and unclean, it was very far from conveying my ideas properly at all. Anyway, as uncomfortable as I feel posting writing I don’t like and probably 2/3 of which I would change, or burn, this was partially the point of the project. So just trust and let go. Besides, there’s like 11 people reading this. I think we’ll all be OK.

Anyway, hopefully I’ve written a little better for day 4, or perhaps I’ll have more crap to share! Either way, it might be enjoyable. Just let go Mary. OK, I’m going. So go then. I’m gone. So go! I’m going! Just. Press. Publish. You Nitwit. Alright, see you tomorrow.