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Diary of a Mad Cow, Part VI: "Raging Bull"

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Old 08-30-2014, 11:56 AM
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Worthy suggestions Cow. Unfortunately, its the motor neurons itself located in my brain stem and spinal cord which are failing to connect and transmit to the respective muscles. Polio the viral infection wiped out many of these motor nerves in select groupings. Surviving polio, my body adapted selected nearby motor neurons and these did a kind of double duty. In effect, they are now closing up shop and retiring. As they drop off, the respective muscles weaken and atrophy. So, anything done to the muscles themselves although interesting is more like arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while taking on water. Its the neurons which are sinking me. What I need is an infusion of specifically tasked nanobots hahaha....

A few years ago I could walk on crutches like non-stop 10 - 15 mins. Before that even father. And I could do this many time throughout the day. Now, I'm down to less than 60 seconds and this in real pain as well. Naturally this means more wheelchair in my life. I also don't recover quickly. Its doing a number on my ego.

The worst is I know all about the intellectual-ego games being played out in my mind, and as I de-construct them, I'm discovering a new level of apathy which has surprised me to be truthful. As I retrospect thru this mess, I'm opening doors I had thought were permanently closed and forever locked. I grew up in abuse and dysfunction. Its a classic strategy abused individuals shut down and dissociate from hurting memories and past scenarios. Re-visiting these closed off experiences is like living in a haunted house with a flashlight that long ago expended its last hope in the darkness of my psyche.

I appreciate your considerations on the POOR ME situational aspects, goes without saying your words of sorrow for me are not unappreciated. I'm as yet unsure of how I can best decide to meet my challenges, and this stalling is creating despair. For myself, despair is not a poor me trip. I'm not saying you are suggesting i'm tripping. I'm thinking your simply saying the situation is one of sorrow. In this I am in agreement.

(((Cow)))
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Old 08-30-2014, 12:42 PM
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Okay, now I gonna total annoys you, like people sometime lovingly annoys me, by suggesting bunch of stuff you assuredly already looks into, cuz you very smart and is probable total up on latest research and stuff. But since I also has brain issue and does lot of research, what the hell. Has they consider HGH? Or L-dopa? I assuming you has look into all various supplement and nootropics available. Many is only available via overseas pharmacy but legal to import. Here is somethings to read:

In early 1998, we began administering human grown hormone to patients with post-polio syndrome. The results have been nothing short of dramatic. Typically patients who have been experiencing progressive decline in muscle function have experienced not only stabilization, but also actual improvement of muscle strength.

T.N. is a 65 year-old-gentleman who sustained a fairly advanced case of poliomyelitis at age 22 years. He was hospitalized for 4 months spending most of that time in an “iron lung.” He was then on crutches for 3 years. Thereafter, he was never able to run or go up steps without at least some difficulty and had been left with some fairly severe weakness of the left leg. As he stated: “I was steadily losing strength and had other problems until I started growth hormone injections nine months ago. My overall strength has improved for the first time in thirteen years. One thing I notice most is the ability to get up from a chair without difficulty. My stamina has increased to the point that I can get through a large airport without resting several times.

Acetyl l carnitine increases the effects of nerve growth factor 100 times when in NGF’s presence. It supports the expression of nerve growth factor receptor sites, which nerve growth factor acts on to promote healthy neurite and dendrite outgrowth. Acetyl carnitine arginate mimics the effects of nerve growth factor itself. The two supplements act synergistically.

Uridine is another supplement that has been shown to support neurites and dendrites during growth and development stages in vivo orally. It has been shown to stimulate neurite-dendrite outgrowth in older animals, too, while supporting their mental abilities
As for old wound resurfacing. Ha ha, Robot! No door ever permantent close and lock in subconscious! I still has molestation dream 40 year after fact even though I is total therapize up one side and down other and in my waking mind, I serious not give a crap about it anymore --never think about it! But oh, the subconscious mind, it never forget just where all the terrors and traumas is hidden, and it just have to go over there and poke at them.

I understand despair is not same as "poor me." One is simple factual emotional condition of person, and other is the attitude of person about fact that they in that emotional condition, yes? Personal, I has lot of "poor me" moment. I not proud of all of them, but most, I think, was well earned and nothing to be ashame of.
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Old 08-30-2014, 05:23 PM
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Hi Cow and friends,

I've been reading along but not posting much. Spent the better part of the month on vacation, which made not drinking much easier. As in, didn't even think about it. I've also hesitated to really "post", fearing I'm not quite in the same place as all you wonderfully courageous and strong folks. Back to that in a minute...

The Waterboys?!? I KNEW I loved you crazy little bovine! No one seems to know them, but Whole of the Moon best song ever. I believe I was about 12 when I first heard it, but it still moves me deeply. Of course cowsadore the moon!

I feel so proud of you Cow. You have done so well and I may catch hell for this, but I see your "slip" as a *blip* in the bigger picture. I'm in awe of your progress, including giving up the caffeine! That is a huge struggle for me.

My drinking. This is where I feel a decent deal of shame. Nothing "bad" has really ever happened to me. No trip to the big house, never have driven drunk, never have vomited, fallen down, made even a SLIGHT public spectacle. I'm a total health food NUT by day, never miss my hour of exercise at 5 am, blah blah. But night? I often drink three glasses of wine. Sometimes more. This is not something that makes me proud! :/ Caffeine whole other story.

So, while in the high mountains of Arizona and Utah, no prob. Coming back to my real life... I HATE saying this, but my kids, husband, and having to organize family life, very much a trigger.

This is likely causing Cow and friends to doze off, but will close with kombucha. Best thing ever!! My daughter even drinks it every day. Does anyone remember when GT Dave made a mistake with the shipping and they were shipping out drinks that had some pretty decent levels of alcohol? They removed it from all stores and I was going INSANE!!! In many states now there is now a label that you need to be 21 to buy. I believe it's safe but lawsuits and all...I think the green one tastes like freshly mowed grass, cow, but that makes sense you love it. I recommend ginger and citrus.

Sending lots of love, so thrilled with your progress and true bravery in sharing.
Xox yellow
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Old 08-30-2014, 06:11 PM
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Doze off? My dear Yellow, may I just says, once for all, to everybody, that we ALL benefit here, from the TRUE sharing of other. If people had share truth to me about they still using and still having stuggle, I would never have feel so much alone like I did when I first start posting here. Is like, WTF?! THIS IS ANONYMOUS ADDICT FORUM SO WHY IS EVERYBODY HIDING! For long time I thought everybody here was feaking sober and living life of bubbles and cakes. Would has mean so much to me if people would has just come forth with truth of where they at.

So, how does you feel about those 3 drink a day? Is a problem, or is okay? I try many MANY years to does that, but would be all I think about, and always I would escalate. I health nut too, otherwise. I spend crazy monies on bone marrow broth but was drinking ton of booze. Health nut and alcoholic not mututal exclusive. Oddly.

Yes, green kombucha is maybe least tasty flavor but total most nutricious by far. Check labels. It also got chorella and spirulina in it. So you has to decide what most important to you.

Waterboys. "This is the Sea" --maybe best song ever. Yellow, please keep bring you voice here. Is helpful to me, okay?
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Old 08-30-2014, 06:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Cow View Post


how does you feel about those 3 drink a day? Is a problem, or is okay?



Why yes, it is indeed a problem! I will tell you more about it tomorrow. Nighty night dear Cow.
Xox Yellow
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Old 08-30-2014, 07:39 PM
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Hey Cow, thanks for being annoying though all the same, okay?

Yeah, there is a lot out there on the fringes of medical science. HGH has its proper uses of course as injections for children with growth issues from select genetic disorders; Adults with HIV/AIDS wasting away of muscles... and a few other examples easily googled.

As for the mechanical issues of the aging of the motor neuron itself, HGH hasn't proved to be directly effective against PPS. For now anyways, pace management still remains the most effective action plan. This management is all about not exerting the neuron past muscle fatigue/pain.

The neurons of mine which are shutting down are doing so naturally from over-use which has resulted in advanced aging. The neurons polio actually wiped out are long gone. The ones now complaining were never directly effected by the polio virus. They sprouted newly out to take over from the ones wiped out. Trying to get these sprouted units working beyond their natural endurance is unlikely and problematic.

To be sure, no known direct procedure is effective against PPS. Pace management itself is really just a fancy way of saying "less is more" and yet I was never good at following doctors orders anyways for what are to me obvious reasons hahaha.

For me, I've no intention of fading into the grey night all comfortable in-trapped by layers of managed care. I'll be more a shooting star all burnt out and spent against the blackest of black nights. Do or die has always been more fun, more livable, more desirable, and dare I say it - more responsible to who and what I am. A winner!

I just got too now quickly slay me some serious Monsters of the Id. No small feat this...

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Old 08-30-2014, 08:47 PM
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Yellow, welcome, I eager to hear you story.

Robot, "Pace management" sound like "hospice" to me. Has you try all nootropics? They does increase neuroplasticity. What about dopamine?

Results suggest that dopamine activates Hh signalling (through inhibiting cAMP-dependent PKA activity) to promote the expansion of the pool of progenitor cells and allow motor neuron generation in two different contexts: embryogenesis and adult regeneration. More importantly, this data opens the possibility that this pathway can be modulated with agonists in order to promote or enhance neural regeneration in other vertebrates
Also, if you does excercise in very cold water pain is gonna be, well, it gonna suck from fact that you in fricking cold water, but from neuron point of view it can make good changes. I put my head under icy water every day for 2 year and it help my seizures dramatically. Cold shock, is help to regenerate. Has you look at research for this?

Fooooo. Okay, I not gonna say anything else, cuz I know you on top of it. I just has to try, cuz I wish to help you. But I know from experience, is futile wish. Please not stop talking to Cow. We can talk about philosophies or medical or poetries or sadness of our failing health. I just has really miss my Robot, okay?
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Old 08-30-2014, 09:34 PM
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Cow, did the sliver of Valium help your brain chill? I tell you, body chemistry is so tricky. I had some lidocaine yesterday and today was bad for me. black bad depression drifting over me. It will be gone tomorrow or in a few days. I don't know why this happens to me. but it is interesting to me that we all can have such different reactions to chemicals. I get bad reactions to valium too. Also black depression after even one.

Robbie, I'm sorry you're going through this. I'll hold a good thought for you.

I hope to rally tomorrow as I have much to do.

Love from Lenina
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Old 08-30-2014, 09:40 PM
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Originally Posted by Cow View Post
Fooooo. Okay, I not gonna say anything else, cuz I know you on top of it. I just has to try, cuz I wish to help you. But I know from experience, is futile wish. Please not stop talking to Cow. We can talk about philosophies or medical or poetries or sadness of our failing health. I just has really miss my Robot, okay?
(((Cow)))
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Old 08-31-2014, 01:41 PM
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Oy. A massive storm just crashed into Manhattan and I have to walk 1/2 a mile to speak at an AA meeting. I'll be drenched. There will be no one there -- good or bad? No matter. How are you, Cow?
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Old 08-31-2014, 01:52 PM
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bunny, good for you! YAY. I will be back there in a few weeks. can you please see to the weather? I want a nice, autumnal experience as opposed to the hot time in the city.

thank you.

how is our Cow? I'm fretting and stewing about having to spend time in the Midwest with my husband's family. they are fabulous. but I don't want to be social.

XXOO Lenina
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Old 08-31-2014, 01:57 PM
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Lenina, I'm so sorry to hear about your bouts of black depression. Individual brain chemistry is so tricky, isn't it? I hope you are feeling better today, able to accomplish all you set out to.

Cow, I realize you have no memory, so I will refresh a little. I, like you, drink cold pressed organic green juices all morning long. I then switch to solid veggies and some kind of grass fed protein for afternoon/evening. (Please don't forget all the LEF supplements. Ha.) I think I get enough vitamin A/K/everything in diet to splurge on other flavored Kombucha. You are absolutely correct in that it IS lower in sugars and higher in other all-things-good!

My drinking being a problem. Yes, several reasons why. I did not drink really AT ALL until I had children. (Even though I spent years living in wine country. I was "too pure" for that! Looking back, it's laughable.) My ADD brain needs everything very organized. I'm very visually oriented, and anything out of whack sends me to crazy town. Problem being, I'm not particularly a natural at organization. So, I have help. I'm lucky in that sense. I think I'm also easily "stressed". So, while normally I am very pleasant by nature, when stimulus gets to be too much, I am raging BITCH. I know I can't say that, as well as ****, which btw I don't get either. Sorry for that, D!

I started drinking a glass of wine a few nights a week when kids started school. My previously quite selfish life was disrupted, (imagine!) and I felt really overwhelmed by it all. I liked to "play" and do all the fun stuff, but I remember thinking some days, "When in the WORLD did I agree to THIS?" Being a real *ADULT* was beyond hard, let alone *fun*. I believe it was Courage (someone please remind me why we call her SB), with the Talking Heads cover? Exactly my thought. All this considered, I like to "be the best" at everything I do, and the fact it all wasn't coming easily as many things had…I was not happy.

I am by nature controlling esp with myself and environment, so, I kept to 1-2 for a few years. It's when the kids who go to a very TOUGH school started bringing home homework, and I would go cross-eyed just looking at it. On top of all the activities, I felt bombarded psychically. I drive them to school 35 minutes each way, and by the time we did/do get home around 5:30 every evening, just YUCK. Maybe easy for *normal* people, but not ME.

Several years ago I realized three glasses, spread over the course of the evening, *helped* more than one. It made it all bearable. (Let's be honest here. I pour large glasses, but always tried to make sure there was "a little" left. Denial. And at times I would/do take it further.) I realized it was a problem for many reasons, but one being that I was trying to get rid of whatever might be left so I wouldn't drink it. I'd dump it down the sink, throw in trash, etc. When I found myself digging through the recycling, or walking across street in the dark to where I'd literally "ditched it", uh, yeah, problem city!

Another issue is that the majority of my friends/acquaintances are all, frankly, DRUNKS. Perhaps many will not agree, but it seems that a large majority of affluent women are alcoholics. (No, rephrase: Alcohol is so prevalent in this SOCIETY. Except in the state I currently reside, every damn grocery store has wine front and center, food is an afterthought!) SO, no friend of mine would ever think "Wow, Yellow really has a problem!" I KNOW I have a problem.

Now, being back in my "real life", my pattern seems to be this: 2-3 days no drinking, 1-2 days drinking. Back and forth. I'm working on this, but fear I'm not as genuinely motivated as I need to be. That's why I'm on these boards reading and just absorbing it all, while also feeling a little "unworthy." The majority here seem to have a much greater dedication. I'm getting there, hopefully with a modicum of grace.
XOX
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Old 08-31-2014, 02:44 PM
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Yellow, any addict worth they salt has spent ton of time in the dumpster. Here we has the big dumpster. I countless time in there with broomstick trying to snag loops of my trash bags, thinking if anybody come by, I pretend I sweeping up some mysterious fragments on ground or something, cuz, yeah, that would be total normal thing. Also, if you read my threads over past year you know I not getting gold star for "motivations" or "dedication." Is you plan to quit now? Or is you still mulling? You seem to has you multiple neuroses well understood, but, for me, that never make it any easier to get past them. I think maybe sometime, ignorance really is bliss.

Bunny, give 'em hell! What you speech about? I still hurting today so just spending time with heat pad watching tennis. Is rain out now, so maybe time for Cow to take nap.

PS. Why I call Courage as Bunny or Snarkbunny is cuz she use to have avatar that was cute little bunny, which I very much enjoy. But also, she very snarky to me, right off of bat, which, of course, make me like her very much.
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Old 08-31-2014, 06:08 PM
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Originally Posted by Cow View Post

Bunny, give 'em hell! What you speech about?
In NYC a lot of AA meetings are what they call speaker meetings, which means that at the beginning of the meeting someone speaks about their experience, strength & hope (or some other topic) for about 15-20 minutes. I've done it a few times. Tonight is usually a big meeting but between Labor Day and a massive storm there were only about 30 people there and no newcomers, even though it's a beginner's meeting -- I probably had the least amount of sober time in the room LOL. I can put out for a meeting -- that's why they ask me--but it's kind of gut-wrenching for me, and I always have a bad day or so afterwards. I can hear you, "so why you do it, Bunny, if it make you feel bad?" (But in purple Comic Sans). Because other people did it for me.

I hope you had a good nap, Cow. A good nap is a lovely thing.

Lenina, I'll work on the weather. Feel free to PM me before you arrive & I'll light you a special candle or something.
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Old 09-01-2014, 12:42 AM
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Sorry you were caught in a rainstorm, Courage!
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Old 09-01-2014, 12:49 PM
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Hi cow. How are things down on the farm?

Oh hey -- I'm looking for people with animal totems or familiar spirits for me to post about on the 24 Hour thread this week. Cow -- would you come by if I do a cow? Trach, I'm planning a turtle -- will let you know when, ok? Guineapig, we haven't seen you here in a while -- how are you?
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Old 09-01-2014, 01:00 PM
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Dear Cow, I'm also a big fan of The Waterboys: A Pagan Place, Fisherman's Blues, Something that is Gone, The Big Music.

Here's one by another band that you might like:
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Old 09-01-2014, 01:57 PM
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Hello cupcakes, I preparing to travel tomorrow. Up to cabin for week. Is maybe last trip of season. I wish to maximize time outdoors and away from phone/computer. Please understand if I not checking in so much. So, I not able to accomodate totem project, Bunny. Sorry. In good news, pain is little less today and I can move about. Thank God, cuz I have lot to do to get ready to leave.

My mood dropping steady over last couple days. Hope is not sign the MUBIS coming. Right now is just classic borg depressions and feel like I has nothing to say. Forest will maybe lift me, but maybe not, but whatever, I just gonna has to let it ride.

Kevin, is good song, um, maybe not for when you super depress. I think better go listens to some Wham now.
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Old 09-01-2014, 02:06 PM
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For the noble, respectable and self-doubting heroes in my world:



P.S. to Cow about the other one: I understand.
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Old 09-01-2014, 02:30 PM
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Cow, if you happen to be so inclined, please say hello to the trees for me, and the blackbirds and the owls and the stars.

Wishing you well,

K
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