Lame back and whatnot

There are so many times that I feel like I’m losing the things that are most important to me but I forget that I am given so many other blessings in its place. I have been fighting against every medical issue I have been having for the past year and it’s just leaving me exhausted and heart broken.

I was focusing on things in my future that I cannot control and forgetting about the blessings I have in my life now. I’m praying that I can start telling the difference between what is important enough to keep in my life and what I can get rid of.

I have been working with a pain management doctor and he wants me to start getting epidurals! That seems so ludicrous to me. I’m really hoping that they will actually help, because I’m running out of options to get rid of the pain.

I also pray that if they don’t I will be able to let it go.

I’m scared. I’m tired of feeling weak. I’m drained from fighting a battle I have no control over. I need to put it in the Savior’s all-knowing hands - I am trying to wait on the Lord. I am so grateful for the atonement. My daily life has, for some reason, forgotten to include it.

I am so thankful for being able to remember that I have that sound tool to use when I am either not in control or shouldn’t be.

Get Served.

Guess what!

I got a new calling in my ward. I am very excited about this! I used to be over the Relief Society activities and I had no co-chair, no board, and no room to do the activity in and basically zero attendance. It goes with out saying that I was becoming very frustrated with the way my calling was working out. But, lo and behold, I will now be doing a calling that I think will work just swelling for me. I am over setting up service opportunities for the sisters in our ward. There is no designated day for it, no criteria to follow, no one to try to sync up schedules with, and no one to try to please besides those we serve. I am so grateful for this opportunity! Service really makes everyone’s lives better! Especially with the holidays coming around the corner; there seems to be more softened hearts willing to help and more people being open to receive help.

I am really humbled that my ward created this calling for me. I feel like this is something I can flourish in. I also think this will be an awesome way to bond the Relief Society together. I’m sure you will hear all of the dorky little things I will think of in getting the girls to be involved.

Any ideas?

The Memory of Zombie

You should try this on your blog page too. What you do is take a random word and make a list of memories or things that you think of when you hear the word. Today my word choice is zombie.


The walking Dead is an awesome post-apocalyptic zombie tv show that stars survivor Rick Grimes, a sheriff deputy, who tries to save a small group of survivors that include his wife, son, and best friend. I own the first season and I LOVE IT!! The second season starts on Halloween and I cannot wait to see it. It is one of my favorite shows and the makeup is really amazing. The plot is even good, which goes against the normal zombie-cheese-fest criteria that most zombie plots follow. (It doesn't hurt that this show stars one of the hawties from the film Love, Actually.)

I have some weird obsession with the zombie. If I had to be a classic monster, zombie would be at the top of my list. I love them. I find the metaphors for them to be limitless. I love that you can take the monster and make them funny, terrifying, sad, or even on the rare occasion relatable. Sometimes I’m overly tired. Sometimes I’m so hungry that food is my only thought. Sometimes all I want to do is fit in with the masses. Sometimes I feel brain-dead. Zombies – I get it.


Woot.com has a daily deal that is normally a very good price. Every day their deal changes and it is only sold with the limit of product that they have on stock. Woot.com also has a t-shirt-woot. Local artists sell their shirts for one day and coming off the profiteer or the person stuck with a few hundred t-shirts in their design. Their shirts are my favorite things to look at. Most are very witty and creative. This one has been a favorite of mine for a while.

Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Pure genius. Need I say more?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (spoiler alert) may have been a best-selling novel, but the story/writing was nothing to write home about. I did however read it, and love the little pictures that are drawn throughout the book. Yes I am bias because of the zombies that it definitely puts on display, but I also really appreciated the fact that Mr. Wickham was left at the end of the novel, legless and eternally attached to his zombie-bride Lydia. An ending that Jane Austen most likely would have never agreed to, because she is a lady, but I think in her heart of hearts she would have given a nod of satisfaction to the dirt-bag’s ignominious end.

The Zombie Walk downtown. October 25th is Zombie Day and there is normally a Zombie walk somewhere. You dress up and you walk. There isn't much to the event. They normally have a map that you can follow and then people normally hang out at various spots; clubs, Diners, Walmart...

Resident Evil and The Clock Tower. Both are Play Station games that are chuck-full of murderous attacks, creepy music, and hauntingly graphic zombie creatures. I could never play the game because it made me too nervous to actually succeed. I normally sat on my friend Jenny’s couch, holding a pillow close to my face, and watched in terrorized awe as she passed level by level.

Face-Off is a reality tv show where special effect makeup artists compete to be given a very prestigious career and paycheck. Each episode is interesting even to a person that doesn’t really care about that kind of thing, like me. They really are artists. My roomy Logan has a dream to be in special effects make up and she specializes and makeup and prosthetics. Right now she is making a mask mold for a zombie clown. I hate that thing. It is the creepiest creation she has thought of in that very mysterious, yet creative, mind of hers. Logan is a natural talent with these kinds of things. I hope she gets all she desires in a career.

The song Zombie, by the beloved Cranberries, is loved by many. I fell in love with the lyrics that seem to desperately cling to your bones. The bitter-sweet distress of love and war are encrusted jewels that decorate the lyrics of that beautifully written cry. If you love that song you should check out Jay Brannan’s cover. I’m not really a fan of this semi-pitchy singer, but his covers are really brilliant.

New additions

The fall season is near and besides the promise of beautiful scenery, comfortable clothes, and awesome sleepy nights when my room is actually cool from the night air, it also has brought some unexpected additions to my life. I have invested in some lovely toys, luxuries, and gadgets that are making my life more comfortable and enjoyable.

I bought a bed. Hallelujah!!! It's a queen-sized comfortable bit of a heavenly cloud that I float upon every night (and sometimes during a daytime nap) into a beautiful, rest-easy, peaceful sleep.

My bed has become the new hangout spot in my apartment. We have recently gotten rid of a television that took up way too much room in our small living room and wasted hours upon hours of needed time to do something else that may actually help me progress in life. It seems that we now waste hours in my bedroom; talking, watching movies, or listening to music on my awesome bed.

Speaking of music...I finally started using iTunes. I cannot believe how long it took me to find a true romance with that exquisite piece of technology. ITunes has become my new obsession…and money pit.

I got a new desktop and desk at a very reasonable price from the ever-monopolizing Wal-Mart. I have a secret, I love Wal-Mart! I know that I’m supposed to hate it, but I can’t, not when it brings so many great toys into my life at prices that I can actually afford…or excuse. With the luxury of owning a desktop my writing has already taken flight and I have started printing chapters of my novel to be edited and reviewed.

My book is something that I want to share with the whole world through publishing so it seems so odd to me how protective I am of my little chapters that are being viewed for the first time. I love them. They are very personal to me. I’m worried that they will not be received well. Either way, It’s the next step and I’m moving forward.

Opposition has also reared its ugly head in the changes of the season.

Two weeks ago I found out that there was nothing that can be offered to me medically and that I need to wait another year to see if my nerve damage will repair itself. Surgery is not an option. Waiting is mandatory and not even a guarantee. I have been having a rollercoaster of emotions about this. The 5 stages of grief have been very prominent in my life since that day at my neurosurgeon’s lab #12, when I sat on a crinkly paper-covered medical bed and sobbed while my angel roommate asked all of the questions that were running through my mind, but I couldn’t choke out. My emotions have been so out of control with this and I have found myself questioning many things in my life. My faith has been wavering in the quality of my future, with normalcies, with dating, with someone being able to love me, with marriage, with children…I have been hanging on though because I know that eternal blessings won’t be held from me because I have a lame leg.

I lost 6 complete chapters to my novel. Amongst finding this out I had many un-ladylike words that flowed out of my mouth and many unneeded tears that came from an angry and exhausted mind. That was a low blow.

The changing of the season has also brought some loneliness. I have missed some friends in my life that have very obviously moved on. I pray that I can move on soon. This part has been the hardest pill for me to swallow. It’s so hard for me to see that someone else’s caring doesn’t reflect my failures or successes.

With the scales equally level holding good and bad changes, I have found that life goes on. My book is flourishing and growing into a strong work of art. My bed has comforted me after a long day of tears and also supported me after a night of laughter and adventure. Music…music, I cannot express my love for the music that has been surrounding my life with its wonderful bounties. It nourishes my soul and I think has been the most healing cast that I have ever used.

As for writing, it is something that I want to do for the rest of my life. It will always be there for me. Writing and I are endlessly attached to eachother.

bed side bad manners

I have been in and out of doctor’s offices, labs, and special practitioner’s offices all over the valley since last November. Its exhausting going from place to place and trying to remember everything that you need to bring or try to persuade another office to fax to the current location you need it at. I found out quickly that I need to make copies of everything possible so I could have it on hand or at least call someone before my appointment took place to make sure they had access to what they needed. Amongst my cane, that I have to bring with me everywhere, I have a list of items I carry around with me to each appointment.

Of those items is an eight pound binder, full of paperwork and analyses, is one of the many joys I haul around. Juggling a cane, a purse, the loathed eight pound binder (that I cradle to my chest like a baby), a mri films folder (that is as big as tv-dinner table tray), a placard with a time limit on it for parking, and my shaking debit card; held out reluctantly for the next abusive swipe through the very number-crunching-addictive key pad that demands my $40 co-pay for each appointment…even if they are in the same building…on the same day.

Though the painful testing, the restless nights full of questions, and the slowly growing bowl of knowledge that is passed from doctor to doctor like a party-mix, I find that there is something that is constant amongst the ever-changing procedures and unfamiliar hypotheses that I hear though out my visits, and that is the repetitive statements that are used by everyone in the doctor’s office no matter if they have met with you a hundred times or the first time when they pass you in the hall. I have a sneaky suspicion that there is a little man running around the office holding que-cards or speaking into a secret two-way-radio, giving the workers the same lines to say over and over.

There are things that I don’t want to hear when I go in for an appointment and yet they are the things that I hear numerous times no matter where I go. I’m sorry that I have to share them, because they are annoying, but I fear that if I don’t jot them down they will circle in my head, on a skipping repeat, like a broken record playing a Nickel Back song. (Which of course sounds the same from start to end anyways.)

I now type down some of the monotonous statements that crawl under my skin, hoping that they will be removed permanently and the little guy holding the two-way-radio will know that I’m on to him. Well little man, I am onto you! Please be more creative in the future than sticking with the following:

Please have a seat; we will be with you in a minute.
This may hurt.
Are you able to walk?
Who is your insurance again?
I’m sorry, I’ve been running late today.
Our machine broke this morning.
Please fill this out.
Please fill this out again.
We lost the paperwork.
I’ll need a copy of their papers before we begin.
You have so much damage we don’t know where to start.
I will need a copy of that.
Have you already had__ insert a test the doctor gave me last week here ___ test?
You will have to meet with Doctor__insert anyone else here___before you meet with me.
We will need you to have a follow-up appointment with me.
Does this give you more pain or less pain when I poke you?
You have a lot of weakness…that is just not a good sign.
This does not look good.
Do you remember any trauma before this happened? Any at all?
Your reflexes are not good.
Well that’s no fun, is it.
I need you to sign here.
Which leg is it again?
We are going to need to reschedule.
I’m going to advise that you see another doctor.

And last but not least…
It’s good to see you again, (doctor looks at my name on the folder of freshly copied documents) Sahara, what is troubling you today?

sleep tight...and confined

For a creating writing class, back in high school, we were asked to write a structure poem. We needed to place the words in our poems in very distinct patterns so the form of the poem matched the expressions in your poem. I wrote this:

Uncomfortable

IHAT

ESLE

EPIN

GINA

SLEE

PING

BAG!

Last spring I moved into a new apartment, with new roommates, and a new bedroom that made Harry Potter's under the stairs cupboard look like a master suite. I decided that I had to downgrade from my queen sized bed to a single, allowing some floor room to walk around.

I am a 27 year old women. I am a large lady. I am a 5'9 taller than average female. I sleep with pointed toes hanging off the bottom of my mattress and the tip of my head hanging off the top. I am also a sleeper that dares not to have any toe, knee cap, finger, or arm hang off the bed, into the vast dark abyss of the bedroom where the bedtime creatures could grab me, so all night I am confined on a 3'x6' cushy coffin.

I hate sleeping on my bed. It is uncomfortable and suffocating. I am trying, so badly, to afford the queen sized Malm bed frame and mattresses from IKEA. I dream of the leg room. I yearn for the movie nights, to be able to snug up with someone else. I crave being able to sleep with an elbow above my head without hitting my funny bone on the wall. It is time that I have an adult sized bed. It's time for me to be able to stretch as my heart contents. Its time for me to have a cool side of the pillow again...ahhh, the cool side of a pillow...how I have missed that sweet smelling, face comforting, gentle play in my hair from the chill thin air that washes over me and blows away any smoggy nightmares that may be looming.

Keep you fingers crossed for me that I can get a new bed soon. Because if I can't, I have a feeling that I will have some more broken dreams...and elbows.

Odd women out...

Last night I had an Epiphany.

My nephew Palmer always comments on my CTR ring saying things like "Mommy and Daddy are married" or "Is this your married ring?". I always give him a little explanation that I'm not married and that my ring is a church ring. Once I even tried to explain how my ring was not on the same hand as his Mommy and Daddy's ring was, but that didn't get too far because he was obviously more interested in my cane.

After dinner Palmer said "This is Auntie Rie's cane, this is how she walks", he then limped and gimped and hopped around the living room. He is adorable. I however feel not so adorable when I am limping around with my cane. I miss high heels. I miss being able to use stairs easily. I miss not having stares from strangers follow me when I walk around a store. I miss being able to play and jump and walk everywhere I wanted to go. I get down a lot because I think that no one will want to date a girl like me, especially with a cane, and I put myself down thinking that I'm alone for a reason.

We caravan to the Dinosaur Museum in Thanksgiving Point, it is awesome there, but I was exhausted by the time we left. My leg felt as though it was giving out and I was angry with the fact that I was tired at 8:30 pm. Some of my favorite people in the world, went home together. I couldn't help but notice that I drove home alone. I am single. Singular. I wasn't down about it - it was actually a beautiful drive with great music, I just realized I was alone but not lonely.

I finally understood what it means to be single. I am alone until I am married or coupled. Duh, why did I not understand that before?

It doesn't mean that I am not worth the love and attentions of someone else. It doesn't mean that I don't deserve an eternal marriage. It doesn't mean that I am doing something wrong. All relationships fail before you find the one you belong with. That doesn't mean that I'm a failure. It just means that I haven't found my single man to couple with.

Until I do, I'm happy to wear my church ring. I'm happy to have other emblems of a single life like less responsibility, enjoying parties that run deep into the night, random vacations, and having a girls night almost every night with my roomies. I'm happy to be singular which has synonyms such as remarkable, extraordinary, outstanding, distinct, and odd.

I know that I will have days that I get down about being single, I'm sure that the post-spinal surgery days will be a hard trial for me; but I'm grateful to realize that things work on Heavenly Father's time (I am so grateful that I didn't marry the man I wanted 10 years ago, 10 months ago, or even 10 days ago), that I'm never alone, that I am sealed to my family, and I am promised a family of my own one day.

Last night I made new goals in my life. I am going to work on me; feeling happier, stronger, healthier, more spiritual, and using my singlehood to the fullest. I'm going to drink it all in.