The Sickest Trifecta Of All

As you will see below, I had a post in the hopper which I never finished, along with a couple of recipes that never got reduced to writing. I apologize, but as you probably know by now, things have gotten crazy here in Orlando.

I cannot adequately put into words what is in my mind and my heart. I lived in Orlando for 23 years before moving slightly over the border into Kissimmee, and the area of town that was hit (SODO, south of downtown Orlando) is one I have frequented often for doctor's appointments and access to Orange County Juvenile Court. Robert and I have always known that one day a terrorist act would occur in the Orlando area, primarily because of its proximity to Disney and Universal, the centers of the Tourist Capital of the World. We suspected the target would be Downtown Disney, or as it is now known, Disney Springs.

But the shooter went one step further, committing a horrific terrorist act directed at all of us "American infidels", but which also targeted a specific minority group, our brothers and sisters in the LGBT community. I also do not think it was coincidence that caused him to time the attack on what appears to have been Latin night at the club. So, as I have previously noted on Facebook, this bastard hit a sick trifecta, indulging all the hatred in his wizened little heart.

I am not going to get involved in the great political debates raging out there over the President's choice of words or the true definition of assault rifle or the never-ending battle between the Second Amendment and gun control. We have been at war for 16 terrible years and we all know who is directly responsible for this attack.

I am deeply disappointed in the quality of the investigations by the FBI regarding previous reports concerning this bastard, but right now I do not feel the public knows enough to come to any definite conclusions. I do feel the FBI and DHS need to take a good hard look at the shooter's family, but I am stating the obvious, I know.

I cannot tell you how weird - terrible weird - it feels to have my adopted hometown as the focus of so much attention by the entire world. Over the years as each terrorist attack has occurred on both American and foreign soil, the world, including those of us here in Central Florida, has turned its attention to those locations with outpourings of support and assistance. While it feels good to have that positive energy directed here, it also feels bad. We are no longer the happiest place on earth; instead, we are the site of the worst shooting massacre in recent American history.

In personal news, I have spent the last two weeks bouncing from one doctor to another, and all I can say is that once this disability hearing is over, win or lose, I don't care to ever see any of them again. Just yesterday I had one scold me because "others are much worse off than you - it's not like you have cancer" and the other scold me for going to see a specialist instead of my putting all my eggs in his broken basket. Let's just add to this mess that I have an appointment with the individual handling my disability claim, and right now I have absolutely no faith in him nor his firm. And that's enough bitching from me, except to say I hope I can make the appointment, which is in Winter Park, as the President is coming to Orlando that same day, and you can't get from Kissimmee to Winter Park without driving through downtown Orlando. And there you have it.

I have been knitting, at least when the weakness and electric shocks in my hands permit it. Very therapeutic, although my brain is still so scrambled I have had to do an inordinate amount of frogging (rip it, rip it - get it?)

Previously:
This is fibromyalgia:

It takes me a full hour to get ready to leave the house. We're not talking pantyhose and eye make-up here, folks - just the basics. Tee shirt and a clean face. In the old days, I could zip through that routine in about 15 minutes. Back then I didn't have to stop every few minutes to sit down, or move to another room because the one I was in was too hot or too cold. I didn't have to turn the lights on and off because they were alternately too bright or not bright enough. I didn't have to debate the relative merits of ibuprofen or more Baclofen because I am wincing in pain. Life was simpler then.

No, this is fibromyalgia:

I am so tired that I can hardly keep my eyes open during tai chi class.  We are working through an intricate form and my feet are heading out into all the wrong directions, and my arms hurt while I am extending them out.

Then we walk outside and my right front tire is flat and Carmen and I both remember hearing a very loud noise and it seems that someone may have punctured my tire for what reason? I don't understand random acts of violence; I associate them with the pathological little shits delinquents I used to represent when I was in private practice. Anyway, I have a triple-A account, and I start to fumble in my purse to retrieve the card, and I must have looked like a deer in the headlights because the next thing I know, Tony has changed the tire for me so I didn't have to wait for someone from AAA to show up, and I'm on my way home. I am eternally grateful.

But the depression I've been keeping at bay manages to break through my feeble defenses and I'm heading into the dark places in my head where the specifics are lost in a thick gray cloud of smoke while a fibro-fog has descended on all my senses. I am suspended somewhere in the space-time continuum and now I can't sleep, even though I am so tired it hurts to be awake.

By 3 AM I am desperate so I take 2 Advil PM, but my body fights the blessed relief and it is well after 4 AM before I start to doze. And so I finally sleep, so long that my morning is lost and I am still dreadfully tired and that brings us to now. My emotions are all over the place and I do not have the strength to stand up while I take my medication. I feel too shaky to walk downstairs for a cup of coffee - I don't trust my balance on the staircase. The electric shocks are back and my fingers jerk uncontrollably while I try to scroll down my iPhone screen. It hurts to have the iPad resting on my legs while I type this, so I am putting it aside for now except to say my wonderful son got the coffee for me. It's 1 PM and I'm thinking about taking a nap.

When I was still going to work, the insomnia killed me daily. I could not choose to stay home in bed, and although I took shameless advantage of all the sick hours I'd accrued over the years to come into the office a little later, that simply was not an option on a court day, and depending on which judicial genius was assigned to our division we could be spending 8 mornings out of every 10 in court. During those terrible dark middle-of-the-night hours I would experience one long panic attack because I knew my mind would not be clear come morning. My arms ache just thinking about having to lift my boxes of files onto the belt of the screening machine. By the time I got to the courtroom ... well, never mind. I'm not helping myself dwelling on all that. Even office days had become terribly painful, because my head would not allow me to move efficiently through the stacks of papers, and all I wanted to do was crawl under my desk and sleep. It hurt to sit. My hands were practically useless operating a keyboard.

Just that my last 2+ years with DCF I fought the FMS so hard but I just kept becoming more befuddled and more ineffective.  Most of my colleagues were utterly wonderful in helping me, while a few chose to stab me in the back.

But that's okay too. Karma, baby.

Chicken Fried Steak and Fluffy Tortilla Hummus Roll-ups - another time, perhaps.