Having just had knee replacement surgery, I was unprepared for another surgery so soon! But life gives us answers we don’t want sometimes, and this past week (birthday week by the way), I spent in the hospital having an emergency appendectomy. Your pain is not real! Have you ever had laparoscopic surgery? A lot of …
I love Jim Gaffigan’s bit he does about people asking to try on his glasses. They put the glasses on and then, astonished, they say, “Wow, you really are blind!” The comment is meant innocently enough, but it feels icky. During my monthly “therapy session” at the hair salon, my stylist/therapist and I were discussing …
You probably think this song is about you… I’m thinking a lot about vanity lately. Carly Simon’s voice keeps ringing through my head telling me it’s true… I am vain. I don’t like to think of myself as vain. An exaggerated sense of self-importance is an unattractive human trait. You might ask what’s got me …
When I was a child, my rural-Arkansas-born parents gave me and my siblings the gift of experiencing the world! My dad was in the Air Force and we traveled, moving every 2-3 years, sometimes to foreign countries. It all seemed normal to me then, but looking back, I realize how incredible it was. My parents …
I have a love/hate relationship with pharmaceuticals. I don’t really hate them. They are absolute miracles in most cases. But with chronic pain like arthritis, I think we can do better. There has to be a better way than exposing yourself to serious long-term side effects daily. Thank goodness the anti-narcotic movement has led doctors …
My formative years were a weird dichotomy of first traveling the world and delighting in new sights and cultures, to life in rural Arkansas. For most of my life, I have believed that the years my dad spent in the Air Force were the best and the years in rural Arkansas left me wanting. But …
Years ago, when I was a young adult, fit and beautiful and newly married, newly graduated from college and embarking on a professional career, I remember a discussion among my co-workers about housework. I casually said that I never vacuum the carpets because it hurts my back too much. This statement was met with outrage …