1. I had epilepsy when I was a kid. From the ages of 4-17, I took phenobarbital 3 times a day and went in for the occasional EEG (electroencephalagraph). As a kid, I thought it was cool to have a bunch of wires glued to my head. One day, at the age of 17, I was told I didn’t have epilepsy any longer. That was even cooler.

2. From 2nd grade through 8th grade, I was a cheerleader. Actually, I think I was considered a “mascot” in 2nd-4th grades, which meant that I dressed like a cheerleader and acted like a cheerleader, but the difference is that I would occasionally get thrown up into the air by the “real” cheerleaders. Or at least that’s the way I remember it!

3. I had a funky appendix once. When I was 14, I woke in the middle of the night screaming in pain. Although my parents rushed me to the hospital, the doctors in the emergency room didn’t know what was wrong with me. They didn’t suspect appendicitis because I didn’t hurt in the normal place for that. Many hours of pain later, they finally decided to go in and do exploratory surgery. Turns out, it was appendicitis, but my appendix was in the wrong place! It was attached to my backbone apparently. Luckily, they found it in time before it burst.

4. The “biggest” natural disasters tend to occur wherever I happen to live. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but at least two of the “biggies” occured where I lived. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake happened while I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area and Hurricane Katrina happened while I was living here, just north of New Orleans. If I ever move to your neck of the woods, you might want to stock up on emergency supplies.

5. I was severely attacked by a trained guard dog when I was 17, but now I love dogs more than just about anything. The attack happened in my neighborhood. Here’s the story on that. A new family had just moved into our neighborhood, so I invited one of the kids who was about my age to ride bikes around the neighborhood so I could show her around. We hopped on our bicycles and had ridden about 1/4 mile when I pointed out one of the nicer homes in the neighborhood. “That”, I said, “is the [name intentionally left out] house. And those are [blank's] dogs, Kaiser, and …” I never made it past that, because Kaiser, one of the two trained guard dogs (Great Danes), broke his metal chain, jumped over the six foot electrified fence, ran in front of our bikes, came around the back of my bike to my right side, grabbed my arm, and pulled me off my bike and to the ground. He then dragged me about half a mile down the road, threw me into a ditch, and proceeded to eat his way through my arm and back. The poor girl who was riding with me (in this brand new neighborhood of hers) was standing in shock next to her bike, not knowing what to do. Luckily, a few minutes later, an older gentleman who lived nearby happened to drive down and saw what was happening. I really don’t know how he separated me from the dog, but somehow I ended up in his car, and he took my mangled body home. From there, my brave mom rushed me to the hospital. I’m not quite sure how she managed to calmly get me there when my arm and back looked so terrible, but she held up nicely. Although I spent a few years being terrified of dogs afterwards (even teeny tiny ones), I eventually got over it, and I’m a huge, huge fan of dogs now. Go figure. A few scars can’t stop me!

6. I’m an absolute NUTCASE about the color purple. But you probably already knew that. What can I say? I like it – a lot. That’s all there is to say about that.

7. Speaking of nutcases, I’m a wee bit on the paranoid side. Maybe that’s because of the disasters I’ve been through (see #4 above), or maybe it’s just that I like tinfoil hats, but if I could (in other words, if my family wouldn’t completely disown me), I’d build myself a nice underground bunker and stock it with a few years’ worth of food, emergency supplies, weapons, and ammunition to get me through any disaster that might arise. As it is, I have a meager supply of “stuff” that should get us through at least a couple of months, should another disaster strike.

So that’s that. Now you know more about me than you’d care to, I’m sure. And now it’s time to pass the torch, and tag 7 others. Hopefully, they won’t hate me too much.

David Harry
John Mueller
Judith Lewis
Melanie Phung
Julie Joyce
Lisa Roberson
Dianne Aull

Just a few days left before the first recipient of Project Jump Start ’09 is chosen! If you haven’t yet let me know you’re interested, there’s still time!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: appendicitis, cheerleader, David Harry, Dianne Aull, epilepsy, food, guard, John Mueller, Judith Lewis, Julie Joyce, Lisa Roberson, location, Melanie Phung, metal chain, New Orleans, pain, San Francisco, scars, surgery
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from popofatticus

Every day this week, I’ll be posting based upon a random Flickr image that inspires me. Here’s one now.

Is that a cute pic, or what? It reminds me very much of my 2 year old granddaughter. She’s at that stage of blooming independence in which she wants to do things for herself without any help from us old fogies. If I attempt to help her put on her shoes, for example, she’ll say “I got dis”. Sometimes, she does “have it” under control, and other times she still needs my help. But her confidence in her growing abilities is fun to watch.

I, on the other hand, am regressing as I age. Rather than growing in independence, I’m becoming more dependent. I now have to depend upon reading glasses to read things. I now have to hold on to things (chair arms, tables, whatever) to go from a sitting to a standing position or vice-versa, more and more frequently. And the worst of it all is that I am losing my memory quite significantly. This is the ultimate in dependence. I can no longer depend upon my own mind to remember things the way I used to do. When it comes to memory, I can no longer confidently say, “I got dis”.

So, what’s an aging brain to do? Give it some help, that’s what! I use Google Calendar and my smart phone to help me remember most things. I can just record a thought on my phone in case I get one of my cool ideas and don’t want to forget it 10 minutes later. I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t hook up my brain to an electronic memory machine sometime in the future, but for now, I simply let online calendars and smart phone gizmos remind me of the things I need to remember, so I can continue to say, “I got dis”. Technology FTW.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: affiliate network, assistant, chair, forward, pain, SMS, Twitter, virtual assistant
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1. Tasted terrible while smoking it
2. Made me sick as a dog about an hour later
3. Left an aftertaste that got worse and worse

Needless to say, I’m still a FORMER smoker, so I guess some good came out of last night, but I still feel bad that I was a jerk. I need to make up for that. We’re all human, and we sometimes cause pain, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make things right. So, I’ll be humbly attempting that for some time.

Morals of this story:

1. Don’t be a jerk.
2. If you are a jerk, make up for it.
3. If you smoke, quit.
4. If you quit, don’t light one up.
5. If you smoke one after quitting, you’ll feel pain.
6. If you feel pain after you’ve been a jerk, you deserve it.

Update: If I’d had electronic cigarettes to lean on back then, this might not have happened. Smokeless cigarettes are amazingly good at helping a smoker quit. Sure, there’s no scientific evidence to back that up. That’s just my own personal opinion, as I watch the rest of my household use them now (years after this post was written) to stop smoking. Great invention!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: being a jerk, pain
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