Musings of a Louisville St. Louisan

The Hippo When you are a person who suffers from a chronic medical condition you carry it with you where ever you go.  It's not like a library book where you check it out and return it on it's due date or a daycare that you can just drop off and pick up at the end of the day.  It is something that travels with you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Even if you are in remission, there is always that nagging worry that it will come back some day.  You are never free from it's burden.  Even if you have an disease/condition that is not physically obvious to other people, it is always glaringly obvious to you.  Like Sting, every move you make, every step you take it is not only watching you, but living and breathing inside of you.  (And it also knows when your smiles are fake as a result of the pain.) Chronic conditions can make new situations very uncomfortable.  If you are restricted with what you eat, you are waiting for someone to invite you to a restaurant y

  There have been many news stories and blog posts about the event that will down in infamy for 21st Century America.  If you speak to people who were alive when JFK was shot or when Pearl Harbor was bombed, they can tell you the exact time and place they were when they heard about it.  If you would have been on Facebook yesterday, you would have seen that many Americans could tell you where they were to the place and time when they heard about planes crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 (learning later that the Pentagon was hit and a fourth plane missed Washington D.C., crashed into a field in PA).  I personally was on my way to Dr. Crisope's Church History class during my sophomore year in college.  One of my friends came up to me as I was walking through the quad and asked if I had heard what happened.  When we got to class we learned more about the events.  Classes were cancelled for the day.  Most college students would have been ju

Alexandria Playing Outside With Her Peoples The month of August has already passed and I only posted one blog during that time.  Aside from the major recovery I had to go through from the triathlon I completed in July, I had another quandary to solve.  And yes, if you are wondering, it does involved one little blond haired girl named Alexandria. Sometime at the beginning of the summer my husband and I realized it was taking longer and longer to put our dear, sweet daughter to bed at night.  We went from being able to just lay her in her bed and close the door to having to lie on the floor until she's almost to asleep.  Anyone who has heard my stories of Alexandria's sleeping habits the first year of her life would not be surprised of this, however this parent was a wee bit perplexed.  A short summary of those habits are:  she didn't sleep.  She didn't sleep through the night until she was 8 months old, my husband had to rock her to sleep (sometimes it would take 2

September is the official month for Interstitial Cystitis (IC) Awareness. According to wikipedia , IC is, "is a chronic condition and diagnosis of exclusion of unknown cause characterized by bladder pain. It may be associated with urinary urgency , urinary frequency , waking at night to urinate ( nocturia ), and sterile urine cultures ...Recent studies have revealed that between 2.7 and 6.53 million women in the USA have symptoms of IC and up to 12% of women may have early symptoms of IC/BPS. Further study has estimated that the condition is far more prevalent in men than previously thought ranging from 1.8 to 4.2 million men having symptoms of interstitial cystitis."  I am one of those million women. Back in January I shared about what a day in my life looks like.  You can read about it here .  It's not pretty and yes, it is painful and very real. I am meeting more women who have IC symptoms, have been diagnosed or know someone who has been diagnosed. Edu