CRAZY CAT LADY

AND DAMN PROUD OF IT

by Heidi Johnson-Wright 
(from the EarthBound TomBoy files)

A multi-level tower greets those who come through my door.  Toys made of foil or fluff are strewn across my floor.

You might call me a crazy cat lady.

I suppose I am one. And a bit of a novice, too. While I’ve loved animals my whole life, I was certain I was a dog person. Until two fuzzy feline sweethearts came into my life three years ago. Two kitties -- a mother and daughter – who lived on the streets and needed a human mommy.

It didn’t happen overnight. There were many days when I admired them from afar. 

Then my husband and I tendered some kitty treats, and a bond began to form. 

We weren’t certain if either of us had allergies. So we started out with the rule that we wouldn’t allow them in the house beyond the front room. Then the rule quickly changed to “in the house but not in the bedrooms.” That rule didn’t last long, either.

Now three years in, the only forbidden zones are the cupboards containing household cleaners and the stove top. (OK, the inside of the refrigerator is off limits, too.)

So why the change? How did I become someone who never imagined being a cat mommy to a woman who does hours of online research to find the best cat harness?

Perhaps it links back to my disability. I developed severe rheumatoid arthritis back in grade school. The disease quickly became a juggernaut of severe joint pain and destruction. It has since resulted in two dozen major orthopedic surgeries, followed by months of torturous rehabilitation.

Do you know what it’s like to spend months on your back – your body aching from constantly maintaining the same position -- forbidden to enjoy the simple luxury of rolling onto your side?  

I do. I know what it feels like to lay in a pool of my own sweat collected under my lower back, unable to get air against my skin to evaporate the moisture.

It may sound like a small thing, something you could simply distract yourself from noticing. I assure you it is not. Because when your whole world consists of you in a hospital bed, you literally ache for the simple pleasures we often take for granted.

And I remember all of it: every miserable detail, even the sleepless nights from 40 years ago. Nights and days when I thought: “If only I could roll over for five minutes. If only I could lie on soft sheets. If only I could have a few moments of relief from these aches that never end.”

Perhaps that’s why – if you visit my home – you’ll see comfy cushions and baby blankets throughout my house and soft dish drying pads lying around my patio. I understand such things may label me a crazy cat lady. I proudly cop to that label. 

But don’t forget there’s more to the story. That cushions and blankets and pads symbolize a reduction in suffering. The reduction in suffering that tantalized but evaded a frightened young girl in a hospital bed. The reduction in suffering that I am determined to provide to my fur angels.

Am I a crazy cat lady? You’re goddamn right I am. 

http://earthboundtomboy.blogspot.com/ 

 

THE REALITY OF PAIN

THE WHITE NOISE THAT WON'T FADE AWAY 

BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

I live each day with a rotten reality: I will have pain every waking moment until the day I die.

Until they put me in the crematory and reduce me to a five-pound cardboard box of ashes, I will always be in pain. I’ve known this for a long time, but somehow putting it on paper makes it more real. And a little more frightening.

Rheumatoid arthritis cleaned my clock – plain and simple. When it made its arrival my fourth grade year, my disease spread like wildfire, decimating joints from head to toe. By the time I graduated from high school, I had both shoulders and both hips replaced. Both ankles were permanently fused in place. My hands and feet were destroyed.

From the moment of my diagnosis, I battled not just physical pain but also anxiety and depression. I didn’t know that’s what my emotional suffering was called, or that it was linked to fear of my own mortality and anguish at my body’s disintegration. But I certainly understood what it meant to live in a constant state of fear. Even everyday things like meeting new people made me sick with dread. My finger joints were swollen and inflamed. If someone grabbed my hand to shake it, my knees nearly buckled from the pain. My stomach knotted when I knew I had to climb stairs, taxing my already painful knees and ankles. I held a bottomless pit of despair inside me which I tried time and time again to blot out.

The domino effect of the RA’s destruction was more than any kid could be expected to cope with. Yet no one – no medical professional of any stripe – ever suggested to my parents that I could benefit from talk therapy or even pain management skills. That’s astonishing given that folks in the health professions have long been aware that living with chronic pain makes someone susceptible to depression.

The reality is that virtually all forms of arthritis bring chronic pain and are incurable. They attack, destroy and stay put until they’re good and ready to depart. My disease departed when I was in my early twenties. Although I’ve not had any active RA since Wham! was in the Billboard Hot 100, the damage to my natural joints has been devastating and permanent. I still have to depend on those joints every day to pull on a shirt, walk, stand up from a chair -- anything requiring movement. Even the gentlest of activity taxes joints that have been weakened from the damage done.

It’s like a wooden house whose interior support beams have been chewed through by termites. The termite swarm may depart, never to return. Yet at any time, the slightest stress on the damaged and weakened support beams may cause parts of the house to come crashing down.

Most days, my pain is like white noise. It remains at a level which I can mostly tune out. But some days the pain ratchets up. Like Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attraction, it will not be ignored. 

I do not write this blog post to elicit pity. I write it out of solidarity with anyone else who must live each day with a painful, irreversible reality. I write it for those who wake up each day, put their feet on the floor and move forward even when they’d rather crawl back in bed and pull the covers over their heads. I write it for those who must accept what seems like it cannot be accepted.

You are stronger than you could ever imagine.

http://earthboundtomboy.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-white-noise-that-wont-fade-away.html