*sigh* I feel so ‘out of the loop’ with this whole online blogging thing. I have links that I used to read so avidly and I still love to visit, but I feel…removed…from them and from everyone. I want to leave comments but everything I try to say ends up sounding contrived and forced, and I feel so dumb because it has been so long since I have been to most of those sites. I guess it really doesn’t matter, but I can’t help feeling a bit guilty. Hopefully the energy will come back. I feel the depression sinking its teeth into my brain once again, but I am fighting it off as rabidly as a bull terrier with a half dead squirrel. And the difference is, this time I really WANT to beat it…

Penned by: Tricia | 8 Comments »

Who in their right mind would find this an appropriate display? I mean, just as a matter of human decency, of respect for people who suffered and died in just that way. Not to mention that fact that they are perpetuating stereotypes and untruths and glorifying death and suffering in their hapless attempt at “good fun.” Give me a break. This is just about as disgusting as people who put lawn jockeys out in their yard just to be cute and without knowing or caring about any of the deeper meaning behind them.

(more…)

Penned by: Tricia | 7 Comments »

I suppose it is very wrong of me to have neglected this blog for so long. Especially as some of you may have been waiting for the results of my visit to the neurosurgeon. I don’t really have any tangible excuses except for the usual busy at school, busy with the kids, and kind of trying to recover from said neurosurgeon’s words.
Not that it was anything too staggeringly earthshattering. Basically…the neurosurgeon stated that every doctor I had seen was wrong. I DO have a mass inside my brain, but that it appears to be an incidental finding, i.e. it is something that has been there for a long time, possibly since birth. Furthermore, he thinks that this thing is NOT causing my headaches, and in fact I do not even have hydrocephalus. I do appear to have enlarged ventricles, but again he attributes this to something that is a long-standing-possibly-from-birth-and-therefore-not-harmful thing. The mass is indeed in the path of my first and second ventricles in my brain, but he pointed out an itty bitty passageway around the mass that he was positive that fluid was finding its way around. And since my third ventricle is not enlarged, this is why he is sure that I do not have excess fluid or pressure buildup.
Well, as you might imagine, I was greatly relieved to have this news. Even elated. But, in a way, I felt slightly adrift in a strange sea. You know, KNOWING is better than the unknown, so with this news, the possibility that I KNEW the cause for my headaches was gone, so now its like going back to the starting line, and still these headaches remain. I am definitely seeking a second opinion, just to make sure, because it is a bit odd that all these other doctors think one way, and this one doctor does not, but like I said before, this is why I am not a neurosurgeon.
So for now this is where I stand. Not facing surgery or anything worse. Happy for now. But still with headaches. I have learned to kind of ignore them as much as possible and go on about my life. Which is extremely full enough as it is. School is going pretty well, so far I have A’s in every class, even Visual Basic, which was the one I was worried I might get lost in, but my background in teaching myself html and cgi and some php has really been a help for me. Not that the languages are all that similar, it’s just that previous knowledge has put me into some kind of “programmer’s mindset,” or at least that’s the only way I have of describing it. But whatever it is, I am grateful for it, because I think if I was having any trouble whatsoever in my classes, I would definitely be the worse for it, seeing as how most of the time I am doing my homework after 10pm. :LOL:
Anyways, it is starting to look as though my blog is nothing but an interview other people blog. And still two more to think up and type up in between everything else. It’s a darn good thing that no one is really reading me anymore then, isn’t it?? :biggrin: I won’t even say this time that I will be making efforts to write more. I’ll just do what I can. Plus NaNoWriMo is coming up again next month. I HIGHLY doubt I will win this year either, but I had so much fun that I will be giving it a go again.

Penned by: Tricia | 7 Comments »