Years ago we would have conversations with our daughters about sex, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and the rest. My wife would say, ‘back in our day we did not have to worry about dying from having sex’.
Now, with COVID-19 leading the pack, I can remember a time when we did not have to worry about dying from shaking hands……..
I post about my past and what I see in the present. I post what I have done and I try to post what I feel. That is what we all want to read: feelings. Experiences. Humor and all the rest.
I have learned a lot. I have forgotten way too much. I regret little but would like to change the past if I could. But I learn.
I mentioned I have been in Management of Sales – Service – Marketing for decades. A post or two will jab at bosses and managers that knew nothing and the ones that were great. One of the worst managers I ever had taught me the most. He mentioned that he had to change the way he thought about many things. His mother was struggling to live and suffering for a long long time. He would visit her regularly and help where he could; no matter how inconvenient.
Eventually, he began to talk in terms of ‘having to see his mother’, of responsibility and burden. He told a number of us that it wasn’t until he realized this might be the last time he could talk and laugh and remember with his mother, that everything changed. He did not HAVE to visit his mother, he was given another chance to. Every one became precious.
As a member of a fitness gyms over the years, I took Yoga, Pilates, and martial arts training. I tried for years to meditate as suggested by all. I simply cannot stop my mind and concentrate on nothing. My brain does not shut off at night when I want to go to sleep. I could not focus long enough. Then a fill-in Yoga instructor that was not very good at all suggested that the idea is not to block all thoughts and make your mind blank……
But as thoughts and ideas come acknowledge them – and then let them go. “I know you are there and I will think about you later” kind of a thing.
Great advice from the places I would expect it the least.
Sure enough, as the years passed the allergies and reactions changed. Some triggers no longer caused days of panicked suffocation brought on by these asthma attacks. A number of the allergens would start to cause breathing problems but I learned if I could remove myself from the environment or place myself in a calming mental state and focus on breathing properly I could stop the attacks from getting worse.
Eventually I reached a point where the severe attacks were rare. I could manage to do most of the things I needed to do and new friends had no idea that I suffered from bronchial asthma. As these things shifted I started to have sneezing fits in the place of attacks. I would walk into a room or go outside and breathe in the cold/hot air and start sneezing out of control. It was not unusual to sneeze 30 – 40 times in a row. Sneezing five times in rapid succession is exhausting. By the time I hit 30 I was helpless. My body temperature would raise dramatically and I would break out in a heavy sweat. Now, even those symptoms are gone.
Nowadays there is politics in everything. There was back when I was born, too. Politicians decided to make possession and use of marijuana a crime similar to use of narcotics and psychotropic based drugs. This allowed US law enforcement agencies to arrest and imprison ‘specific groups of radicals and dissidents’ who were known to use marijuana. In my pursuit of life, liberty and health, I was made a criminal by my own government for using something in my own home that I could grow in my back yard! Marijuana has been used throughout human history and there is no evidence based reason for a Schedule 1 classified drug. This year the WHO (World Health Organization) suggested rescheduling use of marijuana to delete its schedule 1 classification. https://www.icci.science/data/files/ECDDcannabisoutcome.pdf
My state of Ohio passed a medical marijuana law a couple years ago. You are required to be approved for a number of medical conditions by select certified doctors in the state. Once approved you will be issued a medical marijuana card that can be used in Ohio. I applied for the card and easily qualified for intractable pain. Late last year the first dispensary opened in Ohio. There are no dispensaries anywhere near me and the program is way behind schedule.
As a young adult I thought marijuana would be legalized very soon. I kept thinking this as I saw friends, family, classmates, teachers and every class of people destroyed by alcohol, sleeping pills, tobacco, sugar, salt and a million other things that seemed far more dangerous and showed little or no benefits. Years went on and no change in political attitudes, though there was a clear change in social views. I would just like to be able to use marijuana as a medication and no longer be a criminal by the time I die.
Then I would like to see the thousands of people with criminal records for non-violent use be freed and their records expunged. If it is not asking too much, I would like my country’s politicians to be governed by facts, science and compromise for the common good. I may not live to see that one.
This is a continued story and will make more sense if you start with the first post: https://midimike.com/2019/01/25/a-long-road-with-an-end-in-sight/.
The next post can be found here: https://midimike.com/2019/02/01/the-long-road-behind-continued/
I would never see these new friends again. I was a kid to them and although I had smoked marijuana for a long time, I had never gotten stoned. (I recall hearing a debate people were having years ago and someone mentioned that doctors should not prescribe pain killers for chronic pain because people would become addicted. The counter was that people did not feel the euphoric effects; it barely countered the constant state of pain. That is probably a crude analogy, but I knew others would laugh or be silly or energetic after smoking. I just felt ‘normal’ or calm).
Where young boys I knew wanted to get crazy drunk or party in other ways, I had the carry-over from my experience with medications and did not want to feel jelloed out, drunk or not in control.
For the first time I actually got ‘hi’. From that moment on I would feel the effects of smoking pot. I now understood why some of my good friends would smoke. There seemed to be additional benefits for me. Win – Win.
Symptoms slowly change as we get older. Early on I had forced myself into paying attention to my allergies. I watched what I ate and drank… What materials I was near… Where there any pets around?… Avoid dramatic changes in temperature, dust, exertion, perfumes, hairspray………………… carpet or drapes in my bedroom. Clean. Dust-free. That alone made me an unusual kid LOL. Eventually I could control the most basic triggers. I reduced the number of attacks and hospital visits. It also reduced the number of places I could go and feel comfortable. I could rarely visit with friends or relatives at their place and tried to avoid events or invitations if one of the many sources of my allergies could be present. Thinking just now, this might be an early influence that pushes me toward being introverted and wanting the life of a hermit. I thought it was 40 years of dealing with the general public in a sales/customer service role. Who knew?
The road has changed and the path is clearer. Now, where do we go next?
To be continued once more.
In the 1960’s as a preteen I started to develop allergic reactions. At first it was not obvious but when I was tested, (I don’t know if they still do it the same way, but when things got really bad I went to a hospital for an allergy test. They take samples of allergens (30 or so?) and place each one on a separate ‘pin” on a bed of nails. OK, I could not see it but that is the result. Each pin stabs you in the back with a sample. If that area gets red or irritated, they look up the corresponding pin and tell you what you are allergic to and what to avoid, etc.) they could not see an area on my back that was not welted up. The doctors and nurses jokingly said I was allergic to everything. So the road starts.
In my early teen years the allergies continued and reactions got worse. I started having breathing difficulties and was diagnosed with bronchial asthma (among other things – another story). If unfamiliar, from a child’s point of view it is like having an elephant sit on your chest while you are trying to breathe. Your air pipes literally swell up from the reaction to irritants and allergens. Restrictions in your throat cause a wheezing sound that can be terrible to witness. You can’t run, play, climb or laugh. They only make things worse. After an hour or so of this you start to get scared and that is when things explode. The fear causes panic so you can’t breathe. Oh, wait a minute; you already couldn’t breathe! The child is just not strong enough to lift the elephant off their chest. As it progressed I would be gasping for more than a day and would eventually pass out from exhaustion. Sometimes I would wake up doing much better. Some times not.
From what I have been told, the difficulty is not getting air IN to you lungs when having and asthma attack; It is that your lungs are full and you can’t empty them to get a fresh breath of air. So you get enough oxygen to keep you in a state of panic.
The medications at the time included prescriptions, injections and inhalants. I was given something that sounds like “phenobarbital”?? It made me feel like jello stretched in both directions. I admit it may have reduced the number of attacks but as a preventive medicine taken daily I could not take it any more. I felt like a zombie all the time and I hated not being in control of my own body. The other remedy was inhalants.
I am not sure if the inhalers you see today were available back then or if it was very expensive but they did have a product that I remember being called Asthmador? Not sure and not worth fact checking, lol. It was like incense that you would burn and drape a towel over your head so you could breathe in all of the smoke. I am not sure if it helped much at all, but when things got really bad I would use it. Things got bad more often. Molds, mildew, dust, pollen, animals, certain foods and more were everywhere and I was not really sure what to avoid. Middle of the night hospital runs to the emergency room were common. Missing school and activities became routine. I kept walking down this really long road and found out a lot about what was to come as I traveled.
To be continued.
See Part 1 by clicking here: https://midimike.com/2019/02/01/the-long-road-behind-continued/
MidiMike 