Ah yes, the amazing disappearing Mindy. I've not been so blog oriented lately. I'm trying to find a job and feeling slightly pigeonholed by my past 5 1/2 years at my current job. I feel like I would have been better served by working in a field that would line me up for a future career. It seems like I'm shooting off in a million different directions and can't hone in on one specific route. I talk and talk, but can't seem to discover any viable solutions.

Do I:
Open my own boutique, online or physical.
Attempt to sell my art online.
Focus all my attention on school.
Transcription from home.
Go back to retail...?

I'm very torn and feel like I wasted my best years at a job that has left me frazzled and unfulfilled.

Oh and P.S. I turn 29 tomorrow.

I know I haven't been around for a long time. I moved recently, to a fantastic new house (I promise to post pictures as soon as I finish unpacking) and it took me a while to get my net reconnected. But in the meantime, I've had some struggles.

I know that most of you reading this are going to know that I've been having some health issues, and I just kind of wanted to address this up front, because this is going to have to become a major focus of my life so I can try to get well again.

I've suffered from arthritis my whole life, winters have always been painful for me, but it's always been manageable. About 5 years ago I had a bout that was so severe I had to go to the ER, but I was better in a couple of days. Well this winter I've been in a state of constant flaring for nearly three months now. To explain how I've felt to be under this much pain is difficult. Imagine having the worst cold, or a flu for about three months. That constant aching, that constant brain muddle, the sense of just not being quite right, and being tired all the time. This is what I've been struggling with. The problem has been, my inflammation was out of control. I couldn't move my arms, my hands were locked in, and my feet were so swollen I could barely wear shoes. It was finally necessary to get into a rheumatologist. I went in and have been receiving a barrage of tests. Deep medical history, 15 vials of blood taken at once, x-rays, intense muscle stress tests, it has been a draining and scary process. Lots of potential disorders were bandied around, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sjogrens, SLE, Raynauds. All autoimmune disorders, and all very likely since autoimmune disorders run in my family. My mother, sister and I all have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is a genetic thyroid disorder. So we all have hypothyroidism, which is part of my severe weight gain over the past 6 years. (Thyroid controls your metabolism, your energy levels, and is essential in mood stabilization through B-vitamin absorption, without it you become lethargic, start gaining weight, lose your hair, and generally develop depression.) My sister also suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and Sjogrens. Sjogrens causes every moisture creating part of your body to stop functioning properly. She is incapable of crying at this point. She has to use eyedrops all day. It damages your eyes and sinuses. My brother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis several years ago, and he has the disease pretty well under control, but he still flares periodically, and that is scary as hell to witness.

Finally all the tests were done and I came back into the office to get a really crappy answer, I have two conditions working in tandem right now. Antiphospholipid syndrome is basically a disease that cause hypercoagulation. It opens me up to the risk of blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, edema, etc; and actually explains the reason why I've had two miscarriages, if I ever get pregnant, I might be a high risk pregnancy. But luckily, it seems very mild in my case, and I just take a baby aspirin every night. The other condition isn't as clear cut. Undifferentiated connective tissue disease. And as the name suggests, it's a very nebulous diagnosis. It's little like a timebomb. It can develop into any of the disease I mentioned previously, although in my case, my body has more lupus like symptoms. Or it could become mixed connective tissue disease, which would be several disorders working together. Like possibly lupus AND sjogrens. Or, the third case scenario is that it won't progress. That we caught it somewhat early in the midst of a massive flare, and we may be able to manage it.

I had to start taking meds for it, and all the meds that are used for autoimmune disorders are nasty beasts. They have varying degrees of severity when it comes to side effects, and also varying degrees in cost. One of my sisters meds that she gets once a month costs her $450 out of pocket.

They started me on the most common jumping off drug, Plaquenil. Plaquenil is primarily used as an anti-malarial, but it has disease modification factors that inhibits your immune system from attacking your joints, tissue, muscles, organ, or nervous system. It is generally well tolerated and can be used for several years without worry of toxicity. I started it and was getting ill within two doses. I had severe stomach cramps, I had to be near a bathroom at all times, I was waking up several times a night to dry heave in the bathroom. It was debilitating. I was on that for a month and a half, and I lost 20 lbs, I also was so exhausted and still in so much pain that I ended up in the ER again. Finally the doctor decided that I wasn't tolerating, it wasn't getting easier on me, so I was taken off that.

I had a two week gap where the doctor conferred with other rheumatologists about the next plan of action and I could detox from the plaquenil. The idea of prednisone was bandied about, but it is a steroid and as such will make you gain weight and can put strain on your heart. I decided to stick with the pain for the time being.

I was then given my next med to start, methotrexate. Methotrexate still kind of scares me. I'm now officially on chemotherapy medications. They are toxic on your body and I have to get my blood tested every two weeks. Being as it a chemo med, I'm also losing more hair than I already was, I joke that I'm going to have to start wearing crazy wigs to cover up soon enough. I'm taking prescription strength folic acid for my hair, but it still falls out like crazy.

The truth is though, I'm really fucking scared.

These meds are a little easier for me to tolerate, I take 6 pills all at once, one time a week. For the next 12 hours I'm supposed to stay home in case there are side effects, which can strike at any time. For my combination of conditions and meds, there is a serious fear of pulmonary embolism, which is a blood clot on my lung. And I in fact spent 6 hours in the hospital two weeks ago getting checked for the possibility of one. I got a CT scan which is now my least favorite medical procedure and tons of blood work, ekg, x-rays. Luckily I came back clean, with just a painful tear in the chest wall around my heart. Muscle tears are possible with UCTD if you're flaring, because everything is strained.

So now, I'm confused, sad and stressed out. Medical bills are starting to stack up at a phenomenal rate, and being as desperately depressed with my work situation is just making things worse. I feel that I need to change my job, to save my life. And I'm being told this by family and friends every day. I'm just scared to not have insurance, because I'll be under care for this for an unknown period of my life. It could go into remission or it could advance.

I want to work with a personal trainer who works with people with chronic disease, but that's really expensive, but I know that losing weight would make my life a WHOLE lot better.

But more than anything, I just want to feel the sensation of energy again, the rush of joy with accomplishing something big, I want to feel creative and work on my art more, I want to just not be so scared and alone.

I'm really sorry to dump this out, considering this blog has generally been a pretty lighthearted affair, but I really needed to get this off my chest for my own piece of mind, since I've barely spoken to anyone about this, and not many people know what I'm really going through. Just know, I love my friends, and I love being around you. I want nothing more in the world than to be with the people who lift me up, and make me feel good, laughing and taking my mind off of things.

I love you, whoever manages to read this whole mess.

Peace,
Mindy

Some people might not know this about me but I take in pure breeds and give them a weave and then tattoo eyebrows on them...

Yeah, learn their names cause you wanna.

I am so going to pimp out a couple of things here.

Firstly. Simplify Media is an amazing company. They make it possible to share your itunes library with any of your friends you'd like to. I had some technical issues with my version when it first started and it was addressed by non-other than the co-founder Paul. He helped me through it, and I got a peek at his collection, which, while in my uber-music elitest ways was a little lacking deserved some props. Down load this bidness right now! Come find me, savascha, and listen to my music!

And secondly, I know I haven't been around to post much, things have been a little hectic in my life lately. One of the reasons has to do with my other blog I'm working on. Welcome to The Vadge Blog. The brainchild of my dear friend Oval Office and I. We have a very talented crew of sass-assy ladies working with us, and are going to take the leap to a full fledge website soon, with links, and things to buy and everything. It's vadgetastic!

Alright, I promise a real update soon, but in keeping with tradition, here's a lovely video. It's business time, ladies and gents...

What if company meetings were like a blog comment free-for-all?

You know who I miss? I miss the guy who lives in the apartment behind mine who likes to wear nothing but a bra and panties and eat giant bowls of cereal. Oh partially naked guy, I won't be able to see you again until the leaves fall from the trees... and no longer obscure my view... I hope you still live there by then.

Oh Daniel!

Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter Fame hits Avengers' Dame Diana Rigg in the face with a condom!

I wouldn't have believed it until I saw it myself. Oh Mrs. Peel, you poor poor woman.




Thanks for the tip Niki!

In my mind, I wonder what Amy Winehouse sounds like when she speaks...













I like to picture her sounding like Kat from Miami Ink...





But In reality, I bet she sounds more like a British Fran Drescher... I don't know why...

Not that there's anything wrong with Fran Drescher... Right?

I really want to thank everyone being so nice about my Gramma and getting in touch wit h me. She is amazing, and we hope she'll stick around a little bit longer, but that if she is in a lot of pain she can go quickly.

She grew up in Duschesne (an unpronounceable Utah town name) and work in a local hotel as the general assistant/go to girl. She met my grandfather, who was 25 years her senior there. She was 17 when they got married, and alone and pregnant she moved to Salt Lake City to wait for Grandpa to finish building Strawberry Reservoir. She had to deal with burying three babies, and it took her several years to have my mother, and another 8 year for my uncle Joe.

She has worked her entire life, she's never once thought of not working. Her children were instilled with that at a young age, my mother started dancing professionally at age 3 and was making all her own money by the time she was 11. My uncle did odd jobs and saved every dime. I think he still is.

To me, my gramma was a second mom. My father left when I was 18 months, and I was the youngest of 6 children. My mother sank into a deep depression and wouldn't leave her bed for several years. Finally she did and decided to go to school. She became a paralegal by the time I was 6. Meanwhile, I was so small I needed care all the time. This fell on Gramma and Grannpa. I knew how to dial their phone number before I could tell you my own. Gramma would drop me off back at home, and I'd call her within hours begging to come back. We had special dinners together, peaches, toast, and chocolate milk every night. And we'd just sit and talk. I had my own drawer in her dresser that had all my treasures in it, my blanket, my costume jewels she gave me, cigar boxes of grandpa's to put special rocks and toys in. And when we slept I shared a bed with her, we'd fall asleep talking and holding hands. She'd tell me stories from memory, like Thumbelina, and Pinnochio. She is a very dramatic story teller.

Every morning we'd wake up with the train rumbling through Rose Park and we'd get up to go take care of her horses, Raffi and Sunshine. I helped with every aspect of their care and got to learn how to ride bareback. I fed the barn cats, and they would follow me all across the stables. I had my own dog, so to speak, Tiffany. She was a Keeshund, the most gentle dog on the planet. She was so well trained that she knew how to herd me away from trouble and bring me back to Gramma if I strayed too far. She always had pets, and taught me the love to be found in caring for something other than yourself. She owned (my brother know owns it, but she doesn't know) a 10 acre piece of land near Fruitland in the Uintahs. I spent nearly every other weekend there growing up. There was a tree fort, and a huge fire pit, and the river at the bottom of the pasture that had a sand bar. There were cactus's and juniper trees, and Indian paintbru sh. Red ground and beautiful blue skies. That was our retreat and our haven. I'm so grateful it will remain in our family.

When Tiffany died when I was 18, I was completely devastated. Raffi passed, then Sunshine. But we have her filly Dixie still.

The hardest part of dealing with gramma has always been "her episodes". She was not diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder until she was in her mid-50's. She had been self medicating by being an alcoholic. She would stop drinking, or later go off her meds, and would just deteriorate. She went through psychotherapy, and even electroshock until she was in almost her 60's. She had a tendency toward paranoia, and bouts of almost amnesia. She would be picked up by the police disoriented and confused. As her age progressed it became full blown dementia. She can barely contain any memories anymore, and what she does remember is confused and possibly untrue.

This is the worst part of watching her fade. She was the most active, lively, irrepressible woman I've ever known. She needed a fence on her land, she built it by hand. She got lonely in her later years, she dated a much younger man. She gave me my first bottle of hair color (officially a hair rinse) in the same color she's used for the past 30 years when I was 9 years old, an a le ather mini-skirt when I was 11. She loved listening to Cocteau Twins with me when I lived at her house for a brief time when I was 17 and had been kicked out. We would listen to them and just talk about life. She has always loved me as a daughter and I hope I am worthy of that lov e.

No matter what happens Gramma, I will always love you as my second mom and my first and most important best friend.

Funny thing, most people move to the world of online personals (oh I'll admit it) when they feel like they've run out of good chances to meet people in the "real" world.

I'm some times amazed and yet not at how quick the judgments of people are. Uploading a bad photo is like going out in public in your PJ's and curlers, what is the impression you're making. Because this is a world of snap judgments.

I know, because I do the same, "eh too bald, too brooding, too... Utah" I've noticed a remarkable trend in similarity, looks wise. And if all of these men who say they are into the outdoors and traveling the world and hot babes, but having a deep emotional connection... then why are they still online?

I suppose this is really naive of me... but I'm not going to date where I work, and frankly I don't get out as much as I do.

Beggars shouldn't be choosers, but still... Bareguyut69, I don't think it's going to work out.

I've never been a huge Daft Punk fan, they're entertaining, it's easy to dance to. It reminds me of too many alcohol fueled nights at Bricks when I was 19... but this song has been stuck in my head ever since I saw this first video.



But now we had to have a video fight off... fight...down? Uhm.... whatever, which one do you think is better?



Hard choice, huh?

Thanks for the tip Becca, Dan Deacon rules. He rules this fucking planet.

I am absolute smitten by this man right now. I've always had a major soft spot for magicians. I even had The Harry Black magic kit when I was a kid and never got very good at it. But I've always been fascinated by magic of all types, psychological especially.

Meet Darren Brown... ...an adorable British man who simply does the most amazing feats of psychological trickery.

Here's just a very very silly clip of his. Sorry, but I couldn't get an embedded version.

But then there's this amazing (looooong video) of his show called "Trick or Treat", which is basically an intense mind trip. In this one, a girl has an "out of body" experience with her own death simulated.