Nan
Mistress of Lather
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- Oct 24, 2015
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- Currently Smoking
- Nada - I hate being out of weed, LOL
Hi, peeps! Harold & others have told me over & over I needed to come check this forum out, but for one reason or another, I've been dragging my feet. Weather has changed again & for the last few days I've been house-bound, so I took the opportunity, based on another new friend (912GreenSkell's) urging re the new Dragon strains! Rowr! They sound awesome!
I've been enjoying reading in the Medical section, still learning to navigate but must say. You guys have a ROCKING medical forum! What a delight to find good, solid health info from other patients! Yay! I look forward to learning like a sponge here & also contributing to the community from some of my own experience.
I struggle with fluoride poisoning (thanks, docs), muscle spasms & fibromyalgia, pain from an incredible number of old fractures (9 in neck/spine), osteoarthritis, and degenerative disc disease. Oh, yeah... and the "brain farts." Some days, more like "brain fog." Still, I'm in much better shape than in 2010...
When I was young, my work was training horses. That ended in 1983 when a drunk in a 3/4-ton pickup hit me from behind (and I wasn't in the road!). It was at this time that I discovered MMJ. Self-defense, really. The care I had received in/out of hospital was deplorable, about what you'd expect from the VA. After 8 months in bed, I was back after it but could not continue horse training & turned to working as a legal assistant. Sedentary, stressful, inside work. Yuk. I couldn't have done it if not medicated morning & lunchtimes. Still, I got along pretty well for several years, still breeding Arabians at home.
Years later, after my son was born, and now a single mom, I started my own transcription business from home... quit the hospitals & lawyers. It was awesome to have so much time with my son & his school was just 3 doors down the block. Being the only "employee," I was constantly working to keep the # of minutes down on my dictation banks. In my workaholic fashion, I was running on coffee, Diet Coke
and lots of processed food (delivered to your door from Schwann's). My only joy was my son, and my grow closet in my office, which gave me sweet-scented promises of pain relief & sleep.
The business became successful, but my health was not so lucky. I remarried. Stress began in that relationship & my health began to decline. I was so tired, I could hardly drag myself around. I developed insomnia, then was diagnosed with fibromyalgia (after about 14 docs told me it was "all in my head" and nearly had me believing it, too).
From there, the road was downhill. I began taking muscle relaxants, and eventually was up to 16 different Rx meds. And feeling worse than without the meds. Due to the nature of computer work, the 3 fractures & nerve damage in my neck led to chronic migraines, sometimes lasting 6 weeks or longer. But, I soldiered on... keeping a barf bucket beside my desk in my office. One of my clients was a doctor (anesthesiologist/surgeon) who ran a chronic pain management clinic. I was impressed with some of the methods he used for treating nerve issues, including RSD and referred pain, so I consulted him on the issues I was having. Ended up having him do rhizotomies on my C-spine to try to control the migraines. After the surgery, I got to know the challenges of withdrawing from Oxy/MSContin... "Oh, yeah, and quit your job - that kind of work will ruin the surgery."
Well, that was impossible, eh? So, I kept on keeping on, like a robot, cranking it out.
Then came the day I got up to find a SWAT team at my front door... and got arrested. The compassionate cops threw me upside down into a corner of my entry, traumatizing my old neck injury. I was threatened that they'd charge me with RICO & I'd lose my house, business, and my son to Child Services, etc. When I got my breath back, I had a few choice words for them... and for once it worked. I shamed them for taking my medicine, beating me up, etc. It was a 95F day out, but I was wrapped up in sweats with my long fuzzy winter robe, shaking with cold & pain & outrage. Eventually, some cops higher up the food chain came & actually listened as the rest of the team tore through my house. In the end, I was charged with possession of more than 5 lbs. but less than 50, still a felony. But the fellow who took me to jail was a sweetie - he took cushions off my sofa to pad the hard seat in the back of the patrol car. When I arrived for booking, the poor lady couldn't spell the drugs I was taking, so I had to enter my info in the computer for her. The whole time, she kept saying, "You don't belong here..." Yeah, but in Texas... at that time...
They took my warm clothes & gave me surgical scrubs & a thin blanket, on a yoga mat on a concrete floor in a room with 32 beds and 43 girls, most in for drugs or prostitution or theft. I swear, those girls took care of me. They gave me their blankets & helped me get comfortable. We speculated it would be 2 weeks or so before I'd get out... I was already in trouble, having missed 2 rounds of meds. Then, they called my name & I was released on bond. I spent 2 years calling in every Friday before they dropped the charges.
And from that day, I resolved to become a medical marijuana activist.
So, I sprang for another light rig & CO2 unit, fans, the whole thing & was back growing 2 weeks after I was out of jail. Never had any further issues with the law. So, rocked on 6 more years, until I reached a point when I simply could not get out of bed. My liver was tanking, with enzyme levels off the charts. Rx review indicated that "Oh, DUH! We've had you on Celebrex & Vioxx at the same time. We're not supposed to do that." And I began to see with new eyes the clusterfuck that is the deathcare industry in the USSA. I knew the only way I was going to get better was to study up & learn to help myself.
Step one: Get as far as possible from the Association of Medical Assholes. But this is not easy & must be done in stages, especially with that many meds. Baby steps. I had so little energy, but still had to cover the house payment & bills. But I needed TIME. So, I sold 1/2 my business & tried to keep the other 1/2 going. Started studying FM & its origins & how I had managed to get myself into this fix. Hmmm... NutraSweet (aspartame), Jalapeno flavored Cheetos, junk food, and all those Rx meds. At this point, my husband had been laid off his job of 15 years, so it was more stress. He'd starting drinking pretty hard & decided to become abusive, since I was no longer bringing in the bucks.
In 2001, I was unable to sit long enough in front of a computer to make enough money to pay the light bill. I was so humiliated to have to investigate disability, to say, "I can no longer support myself." But I swallowed my pride & made the application. To this day, I am the only person I know of who was granted the disability pension without a fight. Maybe they're still digging through the 2' thick pile of x-rays & bone scans & other medical history.
Flash forward, past the divorce, to retirement on the cheap in the hills of East Texas where I became "the goat lady." I had learned that a short-chain fatty acid in goats' milk retards the progression of FM, so we got 6 little Nubian does & a buck. The move & all had taken a toll on me, but hearing those happy voices anticipating their breakfast was enough to get me out of bed in the mornings. Carrying buckets of grain & bales of hay (or parts of bales, in the beginning) helped build my strength back up. I'm sure a lot of it was the fact that we grew about 80% of what we ate. We'd buy coffee, flour, sugar, etc., but most of our meat & all of our veggies, we produced ourselves. I got out Gran's recipe box & we cooked everything from scratch.
Soon, I was splitting firewood for the wood stove in small batches, instead of paying a high school kid to do it. As I got more "able," we bought Boer goats for meat and llamas to guard the herd. I reconnected with my childhood roots living in the desert canyons of Arizona & New Mexico on the Navaho & Apache reservations. Started doing "crazy" things like wild-crafting herbs for medicine & food, making bread from acorns & hickory nuts, homemade wine, etc. When I'd shear the llamas, I'd card & spin their wool & make blankets, etc. on my antique floor loom.
Although migraines were still a challenge, I managed to get the FM into remission through diet, exercise, & eliminating all those Rx meds. Canna was a big part. I had a 20' shipping container "barn" where I had my 2-room setup. I was homeschooling my son by then & he wanted to travel outside the US, so we sold the farm & took off for Oz & SE Asia. We spent 4 years traveling, then the FM began to creep back in, so we returned to the US for a rest. I saw that as a form of defeat or giving in to the FM, but it was a blessing in disguise...
In 2008, I met my life partner and moved to Alabama, complete with goats again, to a small farm not far from Mobile. I became a member of Alabamians for Compassionate Care. We got an organic garden going & I was making goat cheeses & ice cream... Chickens for fresh eggs & meat. We had pigs, a pack of hounds, too many cats, a donkey, and a racoon. My health rebounded & life was good.
And then TPTB decided to stage the dog and pony show that was BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Having worked in the oil & gas industry (metallurgy lab), I knew how to read an ROV screen. When they were trying their "Top Hat" show, I noticed the X & Y coordinates made a mighty leap from time to time. The site being shown was actually 2 sites, then 3. I began to investigate. My horror grew as everyone I talked to about it just seemed to blow it off. Then came the day I was in the pasture when a badly repainted Coast Guard plane came down & sprayed me & the goats. First, I was scared, then furious, as my skin began burning & we ran for the shed. I did the best I could to get whatever it was (CorExit) off their coats with the hay from the barn, but had to run to the shower myself. Finally, got them all bathed but then thought, "the pasture's all contaminated & so is the garden!" My best goat had a miscarriage 3 days later. Her twin had her babies on time, a month after, but one of the twin boys had a deformed mandible. (Can you read the writing on the wall here?)
Throughout this, the smoke from the Gulf came straight over our place on the prevailing winds. I would pass out if outdoors more than 20 minutes. Feeding & milking & gardening became impossible. There was a rainbow film on our rain barrels, and even on the cars in the morning dew. Every time we had rain, it got worse. The garden plants got holes in their leaves & began to die. I resolved to GTFO there.
We breathed that toxic soup (said to be "fine" by the lying EPA). Yeah, 33,300ppm methylene chloride, 28,700ppm hydrogen sulfide, and a whole salad bowl of heavy metals, etc. I started selling our furniture, cars, & my silver ingots to get tickets & a grubstake. Hubs quit his job at the shipyard where he was Chief of Pipefitting. We developed a horrible chesty cough that nothing would relieve. In the mornings, we'd take turns hacking & spitting black stuff & blood into the sink. Soon, I could hardly breathe or walk more than about 100 yards without panting. I can't really describe the awful pain in our lower legs from heavy metal poisoning. My body swelled up until I was 230 lbs. My partner got thinner, developed tremors & started fighting in his sleep. I didn't sleep. If lucky, I could snatch an hour or so in the recliner, but it hurt too much to lie in the bed.
To this day, I have no idea how we managed to tie up our loose ends & drag 7 suitcases with our wordly trash through 4 airports to arrive down here. In the capitol city, I spent 2 days in bed, not even feeling well enough to eat. We made it up to our little fishing village at last. We dragged ourselves out for a walk to see the beach. Just sat on the rocks & watched the surf pound, listened to the absence of noise & drama. And a magical thing happened... Within 3 days, that cough that had plagued us day & night just up & left on its own... thanks to the salty sea air & pure winds off the antarctic. We were charmed & we stayed.
It has not been easy. Hubs' pension of $75,000 became $13,000 when we got the check.
Sure, we'd figured in the early retirement penalty, etc., but the figure we were expecting was close to $60,000 - enough to get a few acres & house & start over. Not. And no point
So, we bought a small lot in the woods, cleared it by hand & are building a house by hand. No electricity, no running water (have Redneck Rain Trap), no neighbors. We stayed in 9' x '9 bed/living/kitchen the first summer, renting a cabana in town during winter so we could keep warm. And we've added a room every year, so that now we have a little 20' x 20' house with kitchen, bath, living & bedroom... Pretty much finished outside, but just getting started on the interior. This year, we put in the fireplace and 6 weeks from now will be our last "migration" back to the woods. I have enjoyed 2 nice seasons of growing under our lovely sun here. Sure looking forward to getting back out there to peace & quiet. I don't like the noise & dust of town.
Best of all - getting the new greenhouse up, I'll be able to grow my meds year-round and won't have to do without ever again. And I won't be hearing a SWAT team at my door, either.
So, that's my long-winded intro, folks. I'm here to learn & get this FM whipped back into remission again!
I have not kept up with new MJ strains since about 1999, but am looking forward to learning. I have to do all-natural, low/no tech here. All I have to work with are sun, rain, & compost. We even had to make our own soil because it was all sand. Now that the hard part's done, I want to catch up on all the new strains I've missed out on (strainwhore alert!) :smoking:
Since 2008, I've been working with Pehkuruder, and have added some others to my permanent medicine chest down here. This year, I'll be doing a repro for a Canadian friend, but will find space to fit a few things in for me as well. Looking forward to trying out some high-CBD gear I've been blessed with by friends. Really looking forward to running Flo in the GH again! My last one was still producing buds at 3 years of age! Hoping the strain available is still the old Flo.
And burning with curiosity about these little Dragons... :dragon1: I've always had a soft spot for Dragons. Could be my snake/lizard medicine, eh?
I've been enjoying reading in the Medical section, still learning to navigate but must say. You guys have a ROCKING medical forum! What a delight to find good, solid health info from other patients! Yay! I look forward to learning like a sponge here & also contributing to the community from some of my own experience.
I struggle with fluoride poisoning (thanks, docs), muscle spasms & fibromyalgia, pain from an incredible number of old fractures (9 in neck/spine), osteoarthritis, and degenerative disc disease. Oh, yeah... and the "brain farts." Some days, more like "brain fog." Still, I'm in much better shape than in 2010...
When I was young, my work was training horses. That ended in 1983 when a drunk in a 3/4-ton pickup hit me from behind (and I wasn't in the road!). It was at this time that I discovered MMJ. Self-defense, really. The care I had received in/out of hospital was deplorable, about what you'd expect from the VA. After 8 months in bed, I was back after it but could not continue horse training & turned to working as a legal assistant. Sedentary, stressful, inside work. Yuk. I couldn't have done it if not medicated morning & lunchtimes. Still, I got along pretty well for several years, still breeding Arabians at home.
Years later, after my son was born, and now a single mom, I started my own transcription business from home... quit the hospitals & lawyers. It was awesome to have so much time with my son & his school was just 3 doors down the block. Being the only "employee," I was constantly working to keep the # of minutes down on my dictation banks. In my workaholic fashion, I was running on coffee, Diet Coke
and lots of processed food (delivered to your door from Schwann's). My only joy was my son, and my grow closet in my office, which gave me sweet-scented promises of pain relief & sleep. The business became successful, but my health was not so lucky. I remarried. Stress began in that relationship & my health began to decline. I was so tired, I could hardly drag myself around. I developed insomnia, then was diagnosed with fibromyalgia (after about 14 docs told me it was "all in my head" and nearly had me believing it, too).
From there, the road was downhill. I began taking muscle relaxants, and eventually was up to 16 different Rx meds. And feeling worse than without the meds. Due to the nature of computer work, the 3 fractures & nerve damage in my neck led to chronic migraines, sometimes lasting 6 weeks or longer. But, I soldiered on... keeping a barf bucket beside my desk in my office. One of my clients was a doctor (anesthesiologist/surgeon) who ran a chronic pain management clinic. I was impressed with some of the methods he used for treating nerve issues, including RSD and referred pain, so I consulted him on the issues I was having. Ended up having him do rhizotomies on my C-spine to try to control the migraines. After the surgery, I got to know the challenges of withdrawing from Oxy/MSContin... "Oh, yeah, and quit your job - that kind of work will ruin the surgery."
Well, that was impossible, eh? So, I kept on keeping on, like a robot, cranking it out. Then came the day I got up to find a SWAT team at my front door... and got arrested. The compassionate cops threw me upside down into a corner of my entry, traumatizing my old neck injury. I was threatened that they'd charge me with RICO & I'd lose my house, business, and my son to Child Services, etc. When I got my breath back, I had a few choice words for them... and for once it worked. I shamed them for taking my medicine, beating me up, etc. It was a 95F day out, but I was wrapped up in sweats with my long fuzzy winter robe, shaking with cold & pain & outrage. Eventually, some cops higher up the food chain came & actually listened as the rest of the team tore through my house. In the end, I was charged with possession of more than 5 lbs. but less than 50, still a felony. But the fellow who took me to jail was a sweetie - he took cushions off my sofa to pad the hard seat in the back of the patrol car. When I arrived for booking, the poor lady couldn't spell the drugs I was taking, so I had to enter my info in the computer for her. The whole time, she kept saying, "You don't belong here..." Yeah, but in Texas... at that time...
They took my warm clothes & gave me surgical scrubs & a thin blanket, on a yoga mat on a concrete floor in a room with 32 beds and 43 girls, most in for drugs or prostitution or theft. I swear, those girls took care of me. They gave me their blankets & helped me get comfortable. We speculated it would be 2 weeks or so before I'd get out... I was already in trouble, having missed 2 rounds of meds. Then, they called my name & I was released on bond. I spent 2 years calling in every Friday before they dropped the charges.
And from that day, I resolved to become a medical marijuana activist.So, I sprang for another light rig & CO2 unit, fans, the whole thing & was back growing 2 weeks after I was out of jail. Never had any further issues with the law. So, rocked on 6 more years, until I reached a point when I simply could not get out of bed. My liver was tanking, with enzyme levels off the charts. Rx review indicated that "Oh, DUH! We've had you on Celebrex & Vioxx at the same time. We're not supposed to do that." And I began to see with new eyes the clusterfuck that is the deathcare industry in the USSA. I knew the only way I was going to get better was to study up & learn to help myself.
Step one: Get as far as possible from the Association of Medical Assholes. But this is not easy & must be done in stages, especially with that many meds. Baby steps. I had so little energy, but still had to cover the house payment & bills. But I needed TIME. So, I sold 1/2 my business & tried to keep the other 1/2 going. Started studying FM & its origins & how I had managed to get myself into this fix. Hmmm... NutraSweet (aspartame), Jalapeno flavored Cheetos, junk food, and all those Rx meds. At this point, my husband had been laid off his job of 15 years, so it was more stress. He'd starting drinking pretty hard & decided to become abusive, since I was no longer bringing in the bucks.
In 2001, I was unable to sit long enough in front of a computer to make enough money to pay the light bill. I was so humiliated to have to investigate disability, to say, "I can no longer support myself." But I swallowed my pride & made the application. To this day, I am the only person I know of who was granted the disability pension without a fight. Maybe they're still digging through the 2' thick pile of x-rays & bone scans & other medical history.
Flash forward, past the divorce, to retirement on the cheap in the hills of East Texas where I became "the goat lady." I had learned that a short-chain fatty acid in goats' milk retards the progression of FM, so we got 6 little Nubian does & a buck. The move & all had taken a toll on me, but hearing those happy voices anticipating their breakfast was enough to get me out of bed in the mornings. Carrying buckets of grain & bales of hay (or parts of bales, in the beginning) helped build my strength back up. I'm sure a lot of it was the fact that we grew about 80% of what we ate. We'd buy coffee, flour, sugar, etc., but most of our meat & all of our veggies, we produced ourselves. I got out Gran's recipe box & we cooked everything from scratch.
Soon, I was splitting firewood for the wood stove in small batches, instead of paying a high school kid to do it. As I got more "able," we bought Boer goats for meat and llamas to guard the herd. I reconnected with my childhood roots living in the desert canyons of Arizona & New Mexico on the Navaho & Apache reservations. Started doing "crazy" things like wild-crafting herbs for medicine & food, making bread from acorns & hickory nuts, homemade wine, etc. When I'd shear the llamas, I'd card & spin their wool & make blankets, etc. on my antique floor loom.
Although migraines were still a challenge, I managed to get the FM into remission through diet, exercise, & eliminating all those Rx meds. Canna was a big part. I had a 20' shipping container "barn" where I had my 2-room setup. I was homeschooling my son by then & he wanted to travel outside the US, so we sold the farm & took off for Oz & SE Asia. We spent 4 years traveling, then the FM began to creep back in, so we returned to the US for a rest. I saw that as a form of defeat or giving in to the FM, but it was a blessing in disguise...
In 2008, I met my life partner and moved to Alabama, complete with goats again, to a small farm not far from Mobile. I became a member of Alabamians for Compassionate Care. We got an organic garden going & I was making goat cheeses & ice cream... Chickens for fresh eggs & meat. We had pigs, a pack of hounds, too many cats, a donkey, and a racoon. My health rebounded & life was good.
And then TPTB decided to stage the dog and pony show that was BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Having worked in the oil & gas industry (metallurgy lab), I knew how to read an ROV screen. When they were trying their "Top Hat" show, I noticed the X & Y coordinates made a mighty leap from time to time. The site being shown was actually 2 sites, then 3. I began to investigate. My horror grew as everyone I talked to about it just seemed to blow it off. Then came the day I was in the pasture when a badly repainted Coast Guard plane came down & sprayed me & the goats. First, I was scared, then furious, as my skin began burning & we ran for the shed. I did the best I could to get whatever it was (CorExit) off their coats with the hay from the barn, but had to run to the shower myself. Finally, got them all bathed but then thought, "the pasture's all contaminated & so is the garden!" My best goat had a miscarriage 3 days later. Her twin had her babies on time, a month after, but one of the twin boys had a deformed mandible. (Can you read the writing on the wall here?)
Throughout this, the smoke from the Gulf came straight over our place on the prevailing winds. I would pass out if outdoors more than 20 minutes. Feeding & milking & gardening became impossible. There was a rainbow film on our rain barrels, and even on the cars in the morning dew. Every time we had rain, it got worse. The garden plants got holes in their leaves & began to die. I resolved to GTFO there.
We breathed that toxic soup (said to be "fine" by the lying EPA). Yeah, 33,300ppm methylene chloride, 28,700ppm hydrogen sulfide, and a whole salad bowl of heavy metals, etc. I started selling our furniture, cars, & my silver ingots to get tickets & a grubstake. Hubs quit his job at the shipyard where he was Chief of Pipefitting. We developed a horrible chesty cough that nothing would relieve. In the mornings, we'd take turns hacking & spitting black stuff & blood into the sink. Soon, I could hardly breathe or walk more than about 100 yards without panting. I can't really describe the awful pain in our lower legs from heavy metal poisoning. My body swelled up until I was 230 lbs. My partner got thinner, developed tremors & started fighting in his sleep. I didn't sleep. If lucky, I could snatch an hour or so in the recliner, but it hurt too much to lie in the bed.
To this day, I have no idea how we managed to tie up our loose ends & drag 7 suitcases with our wordly trash through 4 airports to arrive down here. In the capitol city, I spent 2 days in bed, not even feeling well enough to eat. We made it up to our little fishing village at last. We dragged ourselves out for a walk to see the beach. Just sat on the rocks & watched the surf pound, listened to the absence of noise & drama. And a magical thing happened... Within 3 days, that cough that had plagued us day & night just up & left on its own... thanks to the salty sea air & pure winds off the antarctic. We were charmed & we stayed.
It has not been easy. Hubs' pension of $75,000 became $13,000 when we got the check.
Sure, we'd figured in the early retirement penalty, etc., but the figure we were expecting was close to $60,000 - enough to get a few acres & house & start over. Not. And no point
So, we bought a small lot in the woods, cleared it by hand & are building a house by hand. No electricity, no running water (have Redneck Rain Trap), no neighbors. We stayed in 9' x '9 bed/living/kitchen the first summer, renting a cabana in town during winter so we could keep warm. And we've added a room every year, so that now we have a little 20' x 20' house with kitchen, bath, living & bedroom... Pretty much finished outside, but just getting started on the interior. This year, we put in the fireplace and 6 weeks from now will be our last "migration" back to the woods. I have enjoyed 2 nice seasons of growing under our lovely sun here. Sure looking forward to getting back out there to peace & quiet. I don't like the noise & dust of town.
Best of all - getting the new greenhouse up, I'll be able to grow my meds year-round and won't have to do without ever again. And I won't be hearing a SWAT team at my door, either.
So, that's my long-winded intro, folks. I'm here to learn & get this FM whipped back into remission again!
I have not kept up with new MJ strains since about 1999, but am looking forward to learning. I have to do all-natural, low/no tech here. All I have to work with are sun, rain, & compost. We even had to make our own soil because it was all sand. Now that the hard part's done, I want to catch up on all the new strains I've missed out on (strainwhore alert!) :smoking:
Since 2008, I've been working with Pehkuruder, and have added some others to my permanent medicine chest down here. This year, I'll be doing a repro for a Canadian friend, but will find space to fit a few things in for me as well. Looking forward to trying out some high-CBD gear I've been blessed with by friends. Really looking forward to running Flo in the GH again! My last one was still producing buds at 3 years of age! Hoping the strain available is still the old Flo.
And burning with curiosity about these little Dragons... :dragon1: I've always had a soft spot for Dragons. Could be my snake/lizard medicine, eh?
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And way to keep swinging when things get tough
TO AFN BRO 
for the big intro. 
Letting all that emotion turn into FUEL for my determination to get healed! 
