From the Lab Rat’s Desk October 26, 2007

Today I went to the consulate with all the paperwork, they were very helpful and in two weeks I can pick up my new passport. The whole lot photos included was cheaper than paying the Canadian authorities for photo ID and this well do equally well and allow me to leave and come back out of the country a little something I’ve been unable to do for a long while now.

I am sick and tired of giving money to a government which abandons me whenever I have a need and leads me to live in fear, fear of poverty, (too late for that one) fear of homelessness and fear of being deported because they suddenly take a dislike to immigrants. I may even move back. I had to buy some kind of photo identification and since the passport of any country will work, maybe that mugger in some twisted way allowed me to have one choice in my life – not to give the bastards one more dime.

I am still looking for any improved housing, but so far there is little on the far horizon and nothing in the foreseeable without further loss in quality of life. My best bet is to hang in and try to not slip further down into the abyss ogf red tape and contempt.

One thing I do know, I could not have made it through the past few weeks without the help of friends and family. Thanks to them, I am feeling a lot less frieghtened and I once again feel like part of humanity having once again established to the standards of public and bureaucratic acceptance that I am Aletta Mes, I exist and I should be welcome in any country of the world that accepts Netherlanders. ATMs again say hello to me, now just the bus pass to go, literally and figuratively.

Apparently I can expect some help from my Member of Parliament’s office with the victim’s fund claim (hopefully it is not just another empty promise), and a few other forms await my attention.

From the Lab Rat’s Desk, 01-08-2006

Happily my sister is taking a vacation this week. I am getting very cranky with her lately. Especially when she is trying on the latest in sell-from-home cures. Am I out of line or should my sister know that this is a neuro-degenerative diseases and not an auto-immune disease by now. After all I was diagnosed quite a few years ago with Shy-Drager Syndrome, which is not by anyone’s definition auto-immune. She’s a nurse (last working in neuro) for Pete’s sake. On top of that she’s trying to foist me of on some naturo-homoeopath, having completely forgotten (apparently) the oh so many years of me trying to cope with being ill with every “natural” remedy known to man any of them requiring religious dedication, discomfort and self-discipline and nothing worked — JUST WHY WOULD IT NOW? Obviously it was unreasonable for me to enquire for some published research papers on the benefits of the trolley full of remedies put before me.

OK, I’m an ungrateful bitch to be so cold about this latest attempt to “help” me, I must have over-reacted, feeling she was lording herself over me when she became irate at my insensitive tongue in cheek responses about homoeopathic remedies. I understand the precepts of homeopathy, I also can find nothing written about it in any accepted journals giving it respectability. When my dog lay dying a couple of years ago, and there was nothing to lose, his vet gave him these magic homoeopathic potions, they did not help my dog either. I don’t want my sister bilked out of her good money which she needs to raise her six kids, most especially I mind if it also will do no good. I really think they prey on emotional relatives to save their dear relatives for the rather reasonable sum of $”whatever”. It is so unfair. On top of it now she’s all upset because I flatly refused to have anything to do with the whole catalogue of remedies unless “I could first discuss it with my doctor”. Suddenly the bottles were put away and the brochures put back, and everyone shook their heads with that “well, we can’t help her if she does not want to be helped” look. I am skeptical and I read, there goes the 20% sugar pill effect.

I wish she’d understand that when I tell her I’d be happier with a big ol’ chunk of dutch cheese, she’d believe me. After all I mean it in earnest. I really love my cheese, and the calcium is very good for me and the only source of salt I can tolerate is in cheese. Calcium is actually known (researched and everything) to be good for you. So is chocolate, and cheese cake. The social aspects of eating a lovely lunch together once in a while will do me more good than this elixir and that pouch of “essential” salts. Uncanny how hostile everyone became when I mentioned wanting to first discuss it with my doctor (who, by the way, is very open to alternative medicine – the kind that has some proved benefit).

That was all a lot of negativity to deal with, so I really did become mighty cranky and was happy to get a swift ride home. the best part of my day was stopping in to Zeller’s with my sister and doing a little mindless browsing, and finding just the right yarns to finish crocheting a new shruggy for Maya (her birthday is next month, three year old). It is not some small miracle that I can crochet for some three years I could not hold anything very well a crochet hook least of all. I love to knit and crochet, have done it my entire life (legacy of Catholic girl’s school), a stroke therapist told me it was easier to relearn what we are passionate about. Obviously I really find painting, yarn crafts and hard writing more important than doing dishes, feeding myself and brushing my teeth. That I could re-learn any of it shows me all hope is far from lost. That shruggy may take me ten times longer, but I am so glad I did not give it up. I do it all differently, I prop myself up for it, sometimes I use painter’s tape to secure the implement of choice to my hand, I am slower and sloppier, but I’ve gotten over being far from perfect. Settling for being as I am has been very liberating, whether further improvements are ever going to be possible or not.

I don’t know what the rest of you think about it, everyone is entitled to come to their own conclusions, but I do not want to be experimented on with stuff no-one has done even the basic research on. I proudly announced to her that I’d tried creatine and was planning to give it another run, just to be fair as there are some encouraging articles on the subject, too bad the creatine was not in their repertoire or I could have picked just that to “try” and everyone might have been a little happier with me. Putting coming appointments on my screen saver is working well for me as a reminder system, I very nearly did forget, somehow I thought it was July all day today. Temporal distortion another one of those bizarre brain things.

OK, I’ve frittered away enough time tonight to take a deep breath and write my sister some pleasant note about hanging out with her. Sigh…diplomacy is exhausting, but if I piss of the relations they are going to wait until I am fully mute and put me in a home. We do what we must first order for the organism is to survive, the second thing we need do, is remember why it is worth surviving.