Re: Parathyroid tumor?
Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2003 4:00 pm
Hi Joy,
This would be wonderful, thank you!!!
What I have so far:
on 8/3/03 3:45 AM, Joy Lucas at joy.lucas@ntlworld.com wrote:
Mmmm, this could be hard for me to answer, but here's what I think I see:
I don't think she is at heart a workaholic. What she *wanted* was to stay
home with the kids -- and have several more, LOL! Of course I did not know
her before her kids were born (smile), and she only got to do the "home with
the kids" thing until I was about 2 (that's when my father entered law
school and she bought and ran her brother's business to pay the bills). But
we are a very "family stories" kind of family, so I was sort of raised on
tales of my parents' pasts -- with all the complicated combination of
accuracy and not that such stories carry!
I would say that she is (and always was) very conscientious, a very hard
worker. She is (and always was) very "interactive", interested in people
and their stories, interested in (groping for the right phrase)
understanding things, knowing how they work, and a sort of "fix-it"
approach. In school she was in "every" committee, president of her class,
"class poet", played fiddle weekly in a dance band, and *looooved* to party!
For most of my growing-up years, my parents had frequent parties -- small
but *very* lively, the same group of close friends, who all (from
observation) really enjoyed having a good time. (In a white collar/college
student, hardworking sort of way.)
To counterbalance the "party" theme, I'll note that she also did (and does)
hold close to "the rules" -- morality, truthfulness, doing what's needed.
She has always been (I would say) a bit naive, which I'm not sure how to
explain or describe right now. She is (and always was) very idealistic (I
should describe that more, but can't think how right now).
Over the past years, tho, she has also become *extremely* irritable, can fly
into a (literal) rage over what I would call trivia -- someone moved the
scissors, something didn't get put back, a phone message wasn't delivered...
(Sepia, Nux, Lach?) When she's feeling well this isn't so marked, but when
she's feeling poorly and anything goes wrong, look out!
My guess is that this is not how she started out, but developed from decades
of overwork (then) and frustration (now). She can go on, and on, and on,
and on, about how if you tell somebody (e.g. the housekeeper) something
*nicely*, they won't remember. So "you have to be mean!", by which she
means, e.g., This is where the scissors go. Make *sure* you put them back.
If you don't, I'll be SO ANGRY, I'll be looking and looking, wasting my
time, and you just HAVE to put them back. EVERY time..." Etc. She used to
this sort of thing even when I was a kid -- there was no such thing as a
"quick reminder"... I've always felt that sort of approach backfires,
because one sort of goes deaf as a survival mechanism... I've tried telling
her that sometimes "less is more", but she insists that No, if you tell
someone something nicely, they won't hear you at all. (Argh...)
Sudden thought, that goes nicely with the feeling (delusion!!!!!) of herself
as a "wallflower type" (NOT!!!); something about not feeling heard/seen.
Mmm, I've tried to think about this...
Backing up a bit, there is quite definitely a strong miasmatic weakness
(speaking of self-cancelling phrases).
Father died from alcoholism (huge h/o grief w/in him, I would say);
One brother was also alcoholic and died early
The other brother (syph?) was a truly brilliant man (mathematician), but
never had much of a grip on "reality", never coped very well with the world
and recently died from an unknown illness. He had cut himself off from all
of his family decades ago, and I'm sure that was painful.
There was much that was good in her childhood, and I think she would deny
that there's pain there, but my sense is like yours, that there is. She's
talked about her father taking her taking her around with him to bars on his
drinking rounds, showing her off. (This is as a little kid; she loved it.)
Her parents were moonshiners in Chicago during the Prohibition (is this
US-cenetric history that I should explain?) She talks about how
periodically there would be banging on the apartment door in the night, and
someone would rush to pull the plug in the bathtub to get rid of the
"evidence" (yum!). Once her father was being arrested (for moonshine) and
she threw herself between him and the police, (age 6ish, she says?) yelling,
"No, you *can't* take my father away! I cause him *enough* trouble
already!" A cute and funny story, but well...
But I don't know if I know much more...
*Maybe* the predominant sensation is something like nostalgia? It feels
that way to me, and when I've asked her, If you could get rid of the
doorbell, the phone, the stacks of mail, the clutter, and do *just* what you
want to, what would it be? She answered, on a few occasions and without
hesitation, "Working on my baby books!"
She is a photo fanatic, and some years ago started organizing decades worth
of photos (and home movies) into beautifully and whimsically laid-out
albums, marked by years, pages arranged by themes (people and/or times
etc.), pictures artfully clipped and arranged, interspersed with little
sayings she clips from magazines, etc. Can't recall examples, but they're
either to-the-point relating to the person in the picture, or just funny
little sayings or jokes -- really fun to look thru! The picture and
clippings are in tray after tray, spread out over several tables in her
"workroom", and apparently this is what she does for a few odd minutes
before she goes to sleep -- at around 2:00 in the morning, then gets up at
7:00 briefly to set breakfast out, then rests until 9:00.
She says she can't get to bed before 2:00 a.m., because it takes that long
to finish dealing with the stuff of the day, and then deal with (she lists)
shutting the windows, locking the doors (reasonable enough), getting the
next morning's breakfast started (she does a somewhat elaborate "breakfast
drink"/healthy stuff for my dad), picking up (it's a big house with a lot
going on even with us kids long gone!), and maybe she does some of the mail
then too, I'm not sure.
Hm, maybe she *is* a little obsessive, as I think about it! She subscribes
to I think she said eight health newsletters, which she says she can't bear
to cancel any of, yet she doesn't find time to read more than a snippet here
and there of any of them. She insists that she' gotten *wonderful*
information now and then from each of them, which has really helped her, and
she wants to give up the *other* stuff, not her newsletters, yet she's
drowning in them... And they get *incredible* amounts of junk mail, which
she says she just *has* to give at least a quick look to, or she'll throw
away something important. (*Maybe* that's true, but...)
It varies. When she's doing well, she is pretty energetic in that she seems
to be feeling well, chats easily and happily, gets around okay, mood pretty
good. On the other hand, she has gotten *much* more frail over the past few
years (I assume that's to do with worsening osteoporosis). She has a very
marked sideways curve to her spine, as well as being rather bent forward.
She used to love brisk walks, but walking isn't very easy any more.
Her face tends to be puffy, esp. in the morning or esp. when she is not
doing well. (Presumed kidney weakness, and her mother died (age 90) of
kidney failure.) Coloring on the sallow side, tho that's variable.
Sometimes she appears slow, and I would almost say stuporous (that's too
strong a term, but sort of like that), and other times she appears really
pretty well. I'm not always sure what's making the difference -- sleep?
food? stressful events? supplements???
She very seldom gets sick. She's had a very occasional flu-type thing (2 in
the past 3-5 years?), but nothing else comes to mind.
She says she is extremely overacid. I'm not certain what that's based on
other than home saliva test kits, on which she is overacid off the scale. I
don't really know anything about lactic acid metabolism???
Let me know what else might help, and thanks so much! I've definitely been
in an "I give up" frame of mind about this, but can't afford that, argh...
Best,
Shannon
This would be wonderful, thank you!!!
What I have so far:
on 8/3/03 3:45 AM, Joy Lucas at joy.lucas@ntlworld.com wrote:
Mmmm, this could be hard for me to answer, but here's what I think I see:
I don't think she is at heart a workaholic. What she *wanted* was to stay
home with the kids -- and have several more, LOL! Of course I did not know
her before her kids were born (smile), and she only got to do the "home with
the kids" thing until I was about 2 (that's when my father entered law
school and she bought and ran her brother's business to pay the bills). But
we are a very "family stories" kind of family, so I was sort of raised on
tales of my parents' pasts -- with all the complicated combination of
accuracy and not that such stories carry!
I would say that she is (and always was) very conscientious, a very hard
worker. She is (and always was) very "interactive", interested in people
and their stories, interested in (groping for the right phrase)
understanding things, knowing how they work, and a sort of "fix-it"
approach. In school she was in "every" committee, president of her class,
"class poet", played fiddle weekly in a dance band, and *looooved* to party!
For most of my growing-up years, my parents had frequent parties -- small
but *very* lively, the same group of close friends, who all (from
observation) really enjoyed having a good time. (In a white collar/college
student, hardworking sort of way.)
To counterbalance the "party" theme, I'll note that she also did (and does)
hold close to "the rules" -- morality, truthfulness, doing what's needed.
She has always been (I would say) a bit naive, which I'm not sure how to
explain or describe right now. She is (and always was) very idealistic (I
should describe that more, but can't think how right now).
Over the past years, tho, she has also become *extremely* irritable, can fly
into a (literal) rage over what I would call trivia -- someone moved the
scissors, something didn't get put back, a phone message wasn't delivered...
(Sepia, Nux, Lach?) When she's feeling well this isn't so marked, but when
she's feeling poorly and anything goes wrong, look out!
My guess is that this is not how she started out, but developed from decades
of overwork (then) and frustration (now). She can go on, and on, and on,
and on, about how if you tell somebody (e.g. the housekeeper) something
*nicely*, they won't remember. So "you have to be mean!", by which she
means, e.g., This is where the scissors go. Make *sure* you put them back.
If you don't, I'll be SO ANGRY, I'll be looking and looking, wasting my
time, and you just HAVE to put them back. EVERY time..." Etc. She used to
this sort of thing even when I was a kid -- there was no such thing as a
"quick reminder"... I've always felt that sort of approach backfires,
because one sort of goes deaf as a survival mechanism... I've tried telling
her that sometimes "less is more", but she insists that No, if you tell
someone something nicely, they won't hear you at all. (Argh...)
Sudden thought, that goes nicely with the feeling (delusion!!!!!) of herself
as a "wallflower type" (NOT!!!); something about not feeling heard/seen.
Mmm, I've tried to think about this...
Backing up a bit, there is quite definitely a strong miasmatic weakness
(speaking of self-cancelling phrases).
Father died from alcoholism (huge h/o grief w/in him, I would say);
One brother was also alcoholic and died early
The other brother (syph?) was a truly brilliant man (mathematician), but
never had much of a grip on "reality", never coped very well with the world
and recently died from an unknown illness. He had cut himself off from all
of his family decades ago, and I'm sure that was painful.
There was much that was good in her childhood, and I think she would deny
that there's pain there, but my sense is like yours, that there is. She's
talked about her father taking her taking her around with him to bars on his
drinking rounds, showing her off. (This is as a little kid; she loved it.)
Her parents were moonshiners in Chicago during the Prohibition (is this
US-cenetric history that I should explain?) She talks about how
periodically there would be banging on the apartment door in the night, and
someone would rush to pull the plug in the bathtub to get rid of the
"evidence" (yum!). Once her father was being arrested (for moonshine) and
she threw herself between him and the police, (age 6ish, she says?) yelling,
"No, you *can't* take my father away! I cause him *enough* trouble
already!" A cute and funny story, but well...
But I don't know if I know much more...
*Maybe* the predominant sensation is something like nostalgia? It feels
that way to me, and when I've asked her, If you could get rid of the
doorbell, the phone, the stacks of mail, the clutter, and do *just* what you
want to, what would it be? She answered, on a few occasions and without
hesitation, "Working on my baby books!"
She is a photo fanatic, and some years ago started organizing decades worth
of photos (and home movies) into beautifully and whimsically laid-out
albums, marked by years, pages arranged by themes (people and/or times
etc.), pictures artfully clipped and arranged, interspersed with little
sayings she clips from magazines, etc. Can't recall examples, but they're
either to-the-point relating to the person in the picture, or just funny
little sayings or jokes -- really fun to look thru! The picture and
clippings are in tray after tray, spread out over several tables in her
"workroom", and apparently this is what she does for a few odd minutes
before she goes to sleep -- at around 2:00 in the morning, then gets up at
7:00 briefly to set breakfast out, then rests until 9:00.
She says she can't get to bed before 2:00 a.m., because it takes that long
to finish dealing with the stuff of the day, and then deal with (she lists)
shutting the windows, locking the doors (reasonable enough), getting the
next morning's breakfast started (she does a somewhat elaborate "breakfast
drink"/healthy stuff for my dad), picking up (it's a big house with a lot
going on even with us kids long gone!), and maybe she does some of the mail
then too, I'm not sure.
Hm, maybe she *is* a little obsessive, as I think about it! She subscribes
to I think she said eight health newsletters, which she says she can't bear
to cancel any of, yet she doesn't find time to read more than a snippet here
and there of any of them. She insists that she' gotten *wonderful*
information now and then from each of them, which has really helped her, and
she wants to give up the *other* stuff, not her newsletters, yet she's
drowning in them... And they get *incredible* amounts of junk mail, which
she says she just *has* to give at least a quick look to, or she'll throw
away something important. (*Maybe* that's true, but...)
It varies. When she's doing well, she is pretty energetic in that she seems
to be feeling well, chats easily and happily, gets around okay, mood pretty
good. On the other hand, she has gotten *much* more frail over the past few
years (I assume that's to do with worsening osteoporosis). She has a very
marked sideways curve to her spine, as well as being rather bent forward.
She used to love brisk walks, but walking isn't very easy any more.
Her face tends to be puffy, esp. in the morning or esp. when she is not
doing well. (Presumed kidney weakness, and her mother died (age 90) of
kidney failure.) Coloring on the sallow side, tho that's variable.
Sometimes she appears slow, and I would almost say stuporous (that's too
strong a term, but sort of like that), and other times she appears really
pretty well. I'm not always sure what's making the difference -- sleep?
food? stressful events? supplements???
She very seldom gets sick. She's had a very occasional flu-type thing (2 in
the past 3-5 years?), but nothing else comes to mind.
She says she is extremely overacid. I'm not certain what that's based on
other than home saliva test kits, on which she is overacid off the scale. I
don't really know anything about lactic acid metabolism???
Let me know what else might help, and thanks so much! I've definitely been
in an "I give up" frame of mind about this, but can't afford that, argh...
Best,
Shannon