Wordless Wednesday (well not my words anyway) .... Music from the dead!

The Walking Dead does a lot of things well as far as a television series goes. But over the years one thing I have noticed that they do really well is the music. It sets the mood and gets stuck in your head .... and introduces people to artists and genres that perhaps you wouldn't otherwise think of exploring. Below are some of my favorites.

Season 1



Space Junk - Wang Chung








Season 2








I will save seasons 3 & 4 for another Wednesday. For more fun Dead stuff visit my Dead page which I am updating now that the semester is over and I have some free time I would like to spend in a brainless fashion!

Medical Monday ..... what do you do for you?

It's Monday, which means we're starting the week off with some positive motivation:

"It’s not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority. It’s necessary."

What are you doing to take care of yourself today?

SLE Lupus Foundation Facebook Status

Once again I have been missing. I have been busy and overwhelmed, and exhausted, and lupusy. But mostly busy.

In June my Nana passed away. I have mentioned her often in this blog. We referred to her as the Queen Mum because she loved everything English. She and I would talk for hours about religion and mostly my complete misunderstanding of it. I use her in my class discussions to highlight the battle women had to go through in the workplace and that we all have to thank strong independent women like her for lighting our path. Her sayings still play out in my mind everyday - when I want to throw in the towel I hear her tell me I have had my self-pity and it is time to move on; or when I didn't understand why my life had taken a turn I didn't expect she would tell me everything happens for a reason and I will understand it someday if I take the time to look back. More often than I want to admit she was right.  There was always a place at her kitchen table and a cup of tea ready if you needed it. She taught me about opening my door to others even if I don't think I have enough for me. She taught me about faith and hope and strength and understanding. She was my idol and my moral compass. I will miss her more than I can even think about and not a day has gone by that I have not thought of her and the hope that wherever she is, she is happy and proud.

That was the beginning of my summer. Then there was the wedding trip to Chicago - and the 7th birthday water park extravaganza in my backyard, teaching three classes, working, and keeping things afloat on the homefront. Soon I will be on vacation, but even then I seem to need a vacation from my vacation when I get home.

 
 


Shedd Aquarium



Chicago from the Shedd Aquarium



The Wedding Fountain



My Boys - Walking to the Adler Planetarium



So the quote from SLE asks what are you doing to take care of yourself today? I am going to talk about what I have done to take care of myself this summer!

I get a massage every month! This was an AWESOME Christmas present. My Aunts got me a gift certificate for a massage. I had never gotten one! Now I go every month. For one hour a month I am just relaxed. Then I hit traffic on the way home and I am tense again - but for 1 hour I am not. Everyone should do it.

 

The massage helps not only with my mental relaxation, it is great for the fibromyalgia and lupus. My doctor had been telling me for years that massage and yoga would be good for me. I wish I had listened sooner ..... I am working up to the yoga!

 

For the most part I have stopped commenting on the news that makes me angry. I still keep myself well informed and I most definitely have opinions - but I have stopped sharing those opinions with everyone who posted a comment on a news story. The news just makes me so sad these days. The death toll on my homepage everyday makes me want to hide under my covers and not leave the house.  So for my sanity I am taking more news breaks so that I can feel a little more in control of my surroundings - even if I'm not.

  





The Boston Skyline from the plane ... almost home.



 

I took a cake decorating class. Friends and family are probably sick of looking at my cakes but I love them. And I am AMAZED that I made them. I kind of took the class as a joke. I never imagined that I would actually succeed at making my own frosting and decorating a cake. It is just so outside my comfort zone. Baking and cake decorating are very precise art forms ... and I am kinda all over the place.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have the most wonderful husband who has set up the most tranquil backyard for me. I can lounge in my lounge chair under the pine tree in the shade and hang out with my son while he tinkers in the garage. All of us doing our own thing but doing it together.

 

I have managed a day at the beach, a day at the zoo and time at the library.

 

It has been a very busy summer with lots of things that I have been able to do for myself in between all the craziness that is my world.

 

But the biggest thing I have done is decide to go back to school and get my license in mental health counseling. It isn't that I don't like my job or that I am planning to move on, but I think it is always good to have a plan B. I am really nervous - I have not read a text or written a paper in 10-years. I am pretty sure I am going to like grading papers better than I like writing papers! But I think that when you stop learning your brain dies (I don't think this is actual scientific fact - just an observation).

 

And for me, I will once again try to keep up with the blog (no promises).

 

So, the SLE Foundation asked what I do for myself and I have shared. Feel free to share what you do for yourself. It isn't just if you have an illness that makes your life complicated. Everyone needs to take time out to take care. Don't forget to do that and enjoy the rest of the summer!

 

 

Literature Tuesday ..... The Rise of the Governor & Lord of the Flies

I am back! It has been a long few months. The holidays and the winter cold I got after the holidays really took a lot out of me. As much as I wanted to write a blog I had neither the time, energy or ambition to do so. I actually just deleted all the posts I had started and failed to finish (since most of them were no longer relevant).

But I am back! I feel the spring coming on - we just set our clocks ahead and it is now still light on my way home from work. The winter blues are fading and everyday I feel a little more energetic. So lets be hopeful and see if I can keep up the momentum and begin to blog more regularly.

So ....... literature (one of my favorite subjects).

What seems like a very long time ago I wrote a blog entitled: What is literature? The purpose of that blog was to just make a statement about the fact that what is junk to one reader (dare I say - 50 Shades of Grey) others think is fabulous.

For my recent birthday my 6-year-old picked out a Walking Dead gift basket .... it included action figures, a tee-shirt, a hand-made birthday card with a picture of Rick Grimes on it and a book. The book is "The Rise of the Governor" by Robert Kirkman. It is not a great piece of literature .... it will not go down in the annals of Tennessee Williams or Kerouac or Steinbeck but it kept me enthralled. I am of course a HUGE fan of the Walking Dead (I think I may have mentioned that a time or two). And the book is a prequel. I am not going to go into what the book is about (I have some Dead fan friends and they have not read it yet) but I will tell you the end stunned me. I find it astounding that in a genre where I have read some of the comics and watched every episode of the television show I was still completely surprised by the unexpected ending of this book. It was so good that I read it in 24 hours, went to the store, purchased the next book "The Road to Woodbury" and finished that in 24 hours (just for disclosure - the Rise of the Governor was better - but both were good).

What makes "The Walking Dead" like crack .... the story. I can't stress enough that neither the comic, nor the show, nor the books, nor the "Talking Dead" (the talk show about the Walking Dead) are about zombies. All of them are about the people and about the human capacity to accept horror and stress and tragedy. I like to compare it to "Lord of the Flies."

Both stories are about what happens to humans when there are no rules. When there is no authority. When there is no governance or structure or hope. Sure, one was written in the 1950s and was about prepubescent boys and one is about the end of the world as we know it because of a zombie apocalypse. But in the end the stories are about power and evil and the ability of good and hope and innocence to overcome.

The Walking Dead it is about how good people lose their sense of self through loss. The hero of our story Rick Grimes goes from a sheriff who would help anyone, anywhere, anytime to someone who won't even help a lone hitchhiker trying desperately to survive (which he doesn't). It is the loss of family and friends that creates a cold hard character who only looks out for himself and his immediate family. It is a lot more complex and deep than that - but this is a simple blog and not a place where I can detail three seasons of a television show (but for some fun take a look at my page Lessons I Learned from the Walking Dead). Rick is still our hero - but certainly not the man he had been. If you follow the Lord of the Flies connection, Rick would be a combination of Ralph and Simon (to the point that Rick hallucinates as well - haunted by his dead wife and best friend).

Now fans of the show know that The Governor is the anti-hero. He is the evil of humanity all wrapped up in one character. Power hungry, violent for violence sake ... a narcissistic, egocentric, sociopath. The book chronicles how he became that way. How a regular guy in real life became evil in the face of the unthinkable. It is the story of anyone of us - we could all become The Governor in the end. If this were the Lord of the Flies, The Governor would be Jack Merridew. And while the television show seems to be about how Rick comes back from the abyss to rejoin humanity I anticipate that good will win and the character of The Governor will not see the light of season 4 (this is not a spoiler - just my opinion).

So while this is not a summary of the "The Rise of the Governor" it is a recommendation. If you would like things a little gory and a little horrific it is worth the price of admission. If you are already a Dead fan it is a must! I am looking forward to more of these novels coming out because I have to admit, as much as I like the story I am not a big comic book fan. But I suggest you read it after you look in the mirror - because The Governor, he really could be any of us.

 

 

 

 

On another note .... as I was looking for photos for this blog on AMC.com I saw a comment that asks the question: "Do you think Rick is still in the coma and this is all a dream?" Interesting question. Dead fans feel free to leave your thoughts on this one!

 

Medical Monday ..... "This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."

I have to admit - my only experience with schizophrenia comes from watching episodes of "Law & Order." I have been very fortunate that this disease has not permeated its way into my family or my home. We have also not had to deal with Bipolar Disorder or any other serious mental illness.

My original idea for today's blog was to briefly research some mental health issues, the treatments and medications because of last night's episode of The Walking Dead. I know, sounds really weird but bear with me.



http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead

 The underlying idea behind the show is the zombie apocalypse. With me so far?

For the 1st season the indication was that in order to become a zombie, you needed to get bitten or scratched by a zombie .... still following me?

The last two episodes indicate that this may not be the case ..... 4 people have died and become zombies without being either bitten or scratched .... and this is where things stand.

In season I, our illustrious crew had visited the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia to try and find out what was causing all of our dead to begin walking and feeding on us .... they found no answers "It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal {or the wrath of God?} There is that." 

http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead

And yet you are probably still wondering what in my brain has connected this somehow to mental illness. Well it didn't, not exactly. I started thinking about the move to pharmacology in the treatment of mental illness. Which as always leads me to think about the dangers of modern medicine: are the cures worth treating the disease? It made me think about pharmacology in relation to mental health because I had just heard a report about a Tony Award Winning Play "Next to Normal." which deals precisely with this issue.

I want to make it very clear that I am in no way saying that I think people with mental illness in anyway resemble zombies from horror movies. My question is, what kind of damage do we do to our bodies by trying to find cures for everything .... including our mood.



http://www.nexttonormal.com/news

 The National Institute of Mental Health lists the following as treatments for Schizophrenia:

Chlorpromazine

Haloperidol

Perphenazine

Fluphenazine

Risperidone

Olanzapine

Quetiapine

Ziprasidone

Aripiprazole

Paliperidone

I began to start looking up side effects and came up with things similar to this (which are the listed side effects of Aripiprazole):

Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); abnormal thinking; chest pain; confusion; fainting; fast, slow, or irregular heartbeat; fever, chills, sore throat; increased sweating; involuntary movements of the tongue, face, mouth, jaw, arms, legs, or back (eg, chewing movements, puckering of mouth, puffing of cheeks); loss of control over urination; loss of coordination; muscle tremor, jerking, or stiffness; new or worsening mental or mood problems (eg, anxiety, depression, agitation, panic attacks, aggressiveness, impulsiveness, irritability, hostility, exaggerated feeling of well-being, inability to sit still); one-sided weakness; seizures; severe or persistent restlessness; shortness of breath; suicidal thoughts or attempts; swelling of the hands, ankles, or feet; symptoms of high blood sugar (eg, increased thirst, urination, or appetite; unusual weakness); trouble swallowing; trouble walking; unusual bruising; unusual tiredness or weakness; vision or speech changes.

And I have to wonder what medications like this are doing to us as a whole. How many people are misdiagnosed and take medications they do not need? How many people take medications the wrong way? How many people don't tell their doctor about the side effects they experience? How much does this alter our natural course of evolution?

That last question is really the one that gets to me. By finding treatments for everything under the sun, from lupus to cancer to heart disease to thin eye lashes to erectile dysfunction ..... are we creating a situation where natural selection can no longer occur? Are we creating a race that can't defend itself against disease because we have medications that do it for us? And what happens if we can no longer have access to those medication? I know it sounds cruel and mean and heartless - but are there things we are not supposed to cure? Are there diseases and birth defects and disorders that we are supposed to just let be so that our species can create defenses for them naturally - either through natural selection or adaptation?

Are we creating our own extinction event?

blogs.cdc.go

For this blog I seem to have more questions than answers, because for this one I am asking the big questions. I seem to be doing that a lot lately. I pondered these questions all the way to work and when my computer finally turned on and I clicked on the Internet to check my calender and e-mail my newsfeed had this headline glaring at me: 10 Overhyped Health Products. According to US News & World Report, these things include: antibacterial soap, toothbrush sanitizers and multivitamins. All things that have been heavily marketed as absolutely necessary (I have always been against antibacterial anything - we need to get sick every once and awhile in order to build our immune system). This of course led to another article about herbal medicine: 4 Herbal Supplements Your Doctor Hates (needless to say I did not get a lunch break because I took it when I got to the office and read all this stuff).

None of these articles got rid of my morbid fascination that we are creating a race of humans that can't adapt.

None of this research made me feel any better about the treatments we use for mental illness.

None of my pondering convinced me that a zombie apocalypse is completely impossible (improbable yes - completely impossible I'm not so sure).

None of this ultimately made me feel any better.

I think good television is when it makes you stop and think. Makes you want to go out and learn something new. Creates conversations people would not otherwise have. Makes you look in the mirror and say what kind of person would I be. I think "The Walking Dead" can do all these things (once people get past the fact that it is about zombies). It reminds me of "Lord of the Flies" in a way ..... but I think that is a topic for Literature Tuesday.