What Do You, The Readers, Want To Read?

Are there any particular subjects or questions about my life with RSD or in general that anyone would like me to address on my blog in a post? Nothing is off limits, so if you have ever wondered about anything or have a particular topic of interest, let me know. You can e-mail me if you are shy! I know a lot of you prefer communicating with me that way, and that is totally fine. Looking forward to keeping you happy!

A Tribute

A tribute to my couch buddy, my healing angel, my fur baby, Shorter, on his second birthday! Thank you for all of the love and healing joy you have given me! I LOVE YOU!

Overcoming Chronic Pain

Here is the text from my crazysexylife.com guest blogger post. I highly suggest joining this healing playground!!!!

Overcoming Chronic Pain

"Hello, Happy Healers! My name is Maria Mooney, and I am a proud, mostly raw, vegan graduate student munching and working my way toward a clinical M.S.W. in mental health therapy. Did I mention I also have a rare, progressive neurological disease, which has no known current cause or cure? It’s true! I have been blessed and cursed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), also known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), a progressive neurological disease with the main symptom being chronic, burning, stinging, shooting neurological pain. Lucky me, all four limbs happen to be affected, with the most disabling pain in my lower legs and feet, and I daringly fight each day for my mobility. While many people diagnosed with RSD/CRPS are forced to use wheel chairs, crutches, or other mobility enhancing devices, I have evaded the aforementioned and even obtained a 4.0 GPA in my first year of graduate school with Kris Carr’s raw, vegan diet, strong opiate medications (a.k.a. “leg juice”), a strong support system, and an even stronger desire to live a joyful, fulfilling life.



I picked up Kris’ documentary, Crazy Sexy Cancer, during my first hospital stay two years ago, and quickly followed suite reaping the benefits of a diet high in anti-inflammatory fruits and veggies and low in inflammation causing animal products and processed foods. This is of infinite importance for an illness where incredible swelling, which I have little to none of, is a major symptom and mobility/spirit stealer. It also provided me with a sense of empowerment that I could make a significant and strategic difference in my health, despite the grim prognosis. I could beat the odds!!!! Not to mention, it has kept my weight low and healthy, which plays a vital role in allowing me to, well, stand at all! Think about it, the more weight a set of painful legs and feet has to bear, the worse the pain will be.



Rewind to several years ago when the first signs and symptoms of RSD/CRPS developed, I was running 40+ miles a week for a division one university and was perpetually in motion. You couldn’t catch me in one place for very long, and if you did, you better have been able to keep up with me as I moved onto the next location. As the symptoms progressed, the amount of time I could stand lessened until it became a few excruciatingly painful minutes, and not long after, I fell into a deep, reactive depression. A depression I now know is very common and quite normal for those experiencing chronic pain, but the stigma around mental illness affects a suffering individual’s access to care and, ultimately, his/her right to happiness. Chronic pain has the ability to wipe out any sense of self you possessed before and replaces it with a never-ending black hole of self-loathing and a clear disdain for life as you now know it. This is when we must enlist the help of a knowledgeable professional to bring us back to center and point us in the right direction of health and happiness.



Two years of intensive mental health therapy later, I possessed the proper and effective coping tools to deal with my altered existence, but it wasn’t until I freed myself of the notion that life is supposed to be “perfect,” without pain and suffering, that I began to really live. Once I embraced pain in my life, I could sit with it, feel it, be it for some time, ultimately, let it go, but most importantly, LEARN from it. The pain no longer had the power to ruin my days and make my decisions for me, and with that, I closed out fear and opened myself up to the healing powers of love in all of its splendid forms. Most importantly, I opened myself up to a love and acceptance for my unique, empowered self as I am in this moment, and I saw my disease as a vehicle for my personal growth and development. I discovered I have something to offer this world.



A friend once told me I was a special and unique individual, a single unicorn among many horses, and cleverly used what I have now termed the “unicorn analogy.” The unicorn analogy celebrates our individual uniqueness and our ability to understand that we are special, no matter what illness or burden we carry, no matter what size or color we are, and what infectious power comes with this realization. Each one of us is one of a kind, an alluringly beautiful creature, strong, wild, fierce, and impossible to tame with exceptional endurance, perseverance, and wisdom, might I add? A symbol of hope, love, and faith with an unconquerable nature! Did I mention beauty?! Inside and out. With a sharp wit that only a lucky few possess, my friend once uttered with the best of intentions, “Feel lucky you are a unicorn. They put down horses with bad legs.” And, to that, I say, “AMEN!” Embrace the uniqueness in you and share it with the world as part of your healing journey, your illness evolution, and you will touch the lives of others while self-actualizing, personally developing, and healing yourself, mind, body, and spirit. I can guarantee it. And, isn’t that the purpose of it all?



Happy Healing, Unicorns!



<3 Maria"

There Is No Day Like Today

**Fixed my Twitter link on the right of my blog. It should work now!

**Read this before you eat: GO VEGAN THIS THANKSGIVING

Today is considered a day of thanks, but I reserve each day of my life as my own personal "Thanksgiving" because of how richly I have been blessed. Even my shortcomings, failures, and “curses” are looked upon fondly because of the opportunities they have provided for personal growth and expansion. I could write a list longer than anyone, even my devoted followers and supporters, would be willing to read, so I will just name a few like I do each morning when I wake and each evening before rest.

Today, I am thankful for:

-My incredible, devoted, unconditional support system, including Shorter!

-The finances to have health insurance, medications, organic/vegan food, a working automobile, and an undergrad and a grad level education, including books, laptops, and all of those expensive supplies.

-MY JUICER!

-AND, I am thankful for all of ME! Often, we leave this one out, don’t we? I am thankful for my intelligence, strength, wisdom, empathetic nature, kindness, compassion, resilience, and health!

I have mentioned this before, but let me stress it on a day when more people are in the mindset to be grateful. GRATITUDE IS MY BIG SECRET. It is what keeps me positive, hopeful, happy, resilient, etc… When you are focusing on the positive in your life, there is no time to focus on the negative. Unfortunately, because of years of learned behavior focusing on the negative, it may take just as long to relearn how to view the world in a positive, grateful light, but there is nothing more worth it. I promise. Fake it ‘til you make it! In this case, practice makes perfect, and there is no day like today, Thanksgiving, to start.

GO FORTH AND BE THANKFUL!

Happy Healing!

P.S. My birthday is tomorrow. Big 25!

MY CSL POST IS UP!

What an incredible honor this is!!!!! Please, take a look at crazysexylife.com! I want to thank everyone at CSL for believing in my message and believing that it is alignd with theirs. Awesome! Quick! Go read! Let me know what you think fellow RSDers (and readers!)!!!!
Overcoming Chronic Pain

Lunatic Doctor

Hello, Happy Healers!!!


I had yet another disturbing appointment with my spinal cord stimulator (SCS) pushing, ego-centric, poor bedside manner possessing, lunatic of a pain doctor. According to him, my pain would be exactly the same if I had no pain medication AT ALL. Excuse my words as I prefer loving language to hell-raising rants, but what the heck is he thinking??!?!?! His one and only, selfish goal is to constantly threaten to take me off of my medications so I will be scared into agreeing on the SCS, the only way he makes the big bucks, and all I am to him is a big, fat dollar sign. When he sees me, he hears, "CHA-CHING," and then he comes off of his cloud 9 when he realizes my father is with me. He cannot bully me into anything when I have an advocate, especially a father, in the room. As we were speaking about, more like I was defending, my need for my current medication regime to continue reaching for the stars, I decided to crack a little joke laced with some sarcasm. I said, "Maybe I am too ambitious!" He replied, "You probably are." Uhhhhhhhhhhh?! I got my refills and left... and that isn't even the half of what went down. I basically begged for my meds saying, "Finals are coming up. You can't just take me off of my meds!"

After that mess, I headed to my fave natural market to get some goodies.



Rant over. Thanks! Moving on... My blog post for crazysexylife.com will be posted TUESDAY!!!! I am so thrilled!!!!
It looks like I will be seeing Dr. Schwartzmann in Philly at the end of January, and before that, another pain doctor close to home. Let's hope he is a keeper because this is getting OLD!

Finals are coming up. Here is a stack of articles I have to study for one class plus seven 40+ page chapters!



And, my lovely buddy.



My doting daddy took me to the new Urban Outfitters that opened near my home to birthday shop, and I picked out this outfit in the ten minutes I could stand. The line was looong and painful, but the treasures were worth it! Look at those sparkly, blue shoes!!!!




Happy Healing!!!!! Eat your veggies!!!!

Crash

I hope this post finds all of you well! I have been fighting a bit of what I call "a crash" for the last two days. My body received the memo that midterms are over, I handed in my paper, took my exam, gave my presentation, and that the baby is no longer in my care for a few days, so it decided to shut down. Chronic illness is a cruel mistress in that way. It communicates to you exactly what it needs in the form of pain and pure exhaustion, and you better obey... OR ELSE! Needless to say, I have been obeying, but never missing a meal, making sure to get in my green juices and an overkill of fruits and veggies. I am drinking organic green juice (spinach, cucumber, and green apple) and eating organic dark chocolate as I type!

Onto exciting news, I was asked to be a "guest blogger" for the crazysexylife.com blog, which is a TOTAL honor! I am in such great company with the experts who have written before me. I finished the post this morning and sent it over to be reviewed. Let's hope it is up to par!!!!!

Here are some photos from the past few days of Shorter and Addie. The nut butters were brought home by my dad for me this morning along with a fridge full of fruits and veggies! YUM!

GLIA Cells The Cause Of Chronic Neuropathic Pain + Sequins...

This is what I have been up to lately:

Writing a social welfare policy paper and putting together a presentation for the same class, awarding myself for finishing a coherent policy paper with coffee and fashion magazines, making copious amounts of green juices to fuel me through social welfare policy, dense readings, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather outside with Shorter, doing my Christmas shopping early before the lines become too long for me to stand in, and purchasing a perfect-fitting, cropped sequin blazer that I L-O-V-E...

I had an awesomely successful appointment with my rheumatologist yesterday. I presented him with a cutting edge study found by my father in Scientific American magazine that proves GLIA cells are the route of chronic, neuropathic pain involving the immune system like I ALWAYS suspected, lovelies!!!! The research article mentions certain non-opiate drugs being tested for use, and my rheumatologist put me on one on the list that is available now and harmless. Woohoo! Obviously, I took myself off of the plaquenil. I wasn't getting enough benefits compared to the side effects (terrible acne!!!). If anyone would like a copy of the article, and you cannot find it, shoot me an e-mail. My wonderful father scanned the article onto his computer at work and sent it to me :-)

Happy Healing!

One Of My Most Important Lessons

Just a quickie post here while I break from writing my stinky policy paper:


Love is a term that usually describes any number of emotions and experiences related to a strong sense of affection and attachment, but for me, love is a decision that can be made and turned on and off with the ease of a switch of a light. Over the course of my illness, namely the last five years, I have learned MANY, MANY important lessons, but the last major theme in my illness evolution has been unconditional love. I have ALWAYS held a strong sense of unconditional love for my close friends and family, but for others, for strangers, for aquiantances, you could say the love was conditioned. If you aren't the type of person I want to surround myself with, I was indifferent to you and your experiences, and I tried my best not to be in your presence, ever, due to my empath ways of sucking up other individual's negative energies (outside of my social work and volunteering world). In my spiritual growth, it dawned on me that it is just as important, if not more important, to actively love EVERYONE, even those you are not particularly fond of or who have done something to render them someone to avoid, just as you love your beloved **fill in your most loved person here,** because those are the people that need your love the most... and when they are particularly troubling, love them more. I guess this is what Jesus was teaching? But, for the first time, it is truly applicable to my spiritual journey, and when you live this way, your stress levels go down, too, because you are not spending your time in anger or frustration or hatred toward others. You just love them, help them, do things for them that will aid in their personal development. Yay for continued personal development and self-actualization!!!!! It is a yummy thing!

Gross Paper Writing Weekend

Before I put my nose in my books, here are some precious pictures of the "turbo tot" so easily enjoying a box in the living room. Shouldn't life be so beautifully simple and engaging????

<3

Here are some fun pictures from the last few days. I have an exam tomorrow and a big paper to write this weekend, so I will update soon. In the meantime, happy healing!

Training For The Next Big Thing

**Enjoy these pictures from yesterday!


A lot has been going on lately in my little world. Namely, modifications made in treatment plans, doctors, and field education. We have found some great doctor options after doing (on my dad's part) extensive research talking to old colleagues and friends (he was the VP of a large hospital for most of my childhood). We have some connections to Schwartzman and Miller in Philly, so that is one of our options minus the 3+ year wait. Now, it is time to make the appointments for consultations in their offices versus sitting on that papered table. I want that power differential to be minimized, and I plan on going in to interview THEM and see if THEY are willing to partner with me and help me manage this disease. I'm considering outpatient ketamine, but it terrifies me based upon my last experience with the inpatient ketamine. Oh well, I'll do what needs to be done. I was an athlete, we push the boundaries of pain and discomfort, and that is basically how I treat my life with this disease. I am training for my future, so I constantly act as if I am training for some big event, pushing the pain boundaries and treating my body like a temple and the vehicle it is for my victory. Right now, I am getting my body ready for whatever treatment is next by adding extra green juices and tweaking my diet, stretching, and strengthening routines. Over the next pain boundary is something worth pushing for, and that is why I am as mobile as I am today.


My daddy's birthday is today! Happy Birthday to the most wonderful man in the whole wide world!!!! I love you soooooo much!

All The Right Friends In All The Right Places

The day started off in a questionable state, but a change of my fentanyl patch set me up for a productive day, if you can get past the other side effects, which seem like nothing when the pain is FINALLY being somewhat controlled. Fighting with power point (and winning), completing a presentation, juicing with extra spinach, taking a ride with my mom to do some birthday shopping (for me!), eating pomegranate seeds by the fist full, steaming artichokes, snuggling with my pup and burrying my nose in his soft, sweet smelling fur, counting my MANY blessings, and counting them again, writing a letter to god asking him/her/it to heal me each filled my day with small victories. Isn't life just extraordinarily beautiful when your pain is somewhat controlled? The fog lifts, and you can see clearly, even if it is just for a few hours. I'll take it :-)

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with my current pain management doctor for refills and medication adjustments until I find a new, compassionate, empathetic doctor worthy of my time and effort. My dad was the VP of a hospital for most of my childhood, so he has inside men in the medical field, old friends, working on project doctor search for us.

Happy Healing!