Happy 4th Of July and Start Of Summer

Today it's the 4th and we like to celebrate it. Fireworks, water, alcohol, food on the grill, and being outside is the idea for the day.

My roommate and I are going to dine-in with burgers and such from Red Robin because we live in an apartment without room to grill. We are thinking of riding our bikes down to Coyote Point and spying on the fireworks across the Bay around the area by the Harbor around 8pm.

Are you going? Where do you go to watch?

Remember to keep your pets indoors and comfort them if the fireworks are too much. They shouldn't be outdoors for any reason! They won't understand our celebration but can pick up on our excitement.

As you can see I do love my GIF files. Lol!

I hope you have the best 4th with friends and family! Since it's a long weekend cycling will be in our plans quite a bit. 

I am going to have both of my knees replaced on August 26th so I only have so many days to ride until I'm laid up recovering. I look forward to it because I have a deformity in my knees called "Windswept Knees" which will be fixed along with the replacements. Just as I'm social online about my biking and life so will I be about the surgery. More later, this is a holiday.

Have a great weekend!

Happiness

Happiness

Happiness is emotional

simple in its beginnings

endorphins fill my brain

muscles relax

others tense

pulling at the corners of my mouth

sounds escape my lips
as childish giggles.

Happiness is addictive

good times amplified

one beaming smile

spreading across many faces

we feel giddy

makes us fall in love

it makes the world go round

it’s better when shared.

Happiness is temporary

we’d like it to last forever

still, it leaves us

without warning

but when we least expect it

someone smiles

and it reminds us

that it’s just around the corner.

© Rebecca Sanchez 2018

Happiness never lasts but that doesn’t mean we’ll never be happy again. We never know what will make us smile. Open up and be receptive to happiness in any form. How are you doing? Have a great day!

Want to read more of my poetry? Capricious Poet.

How To Make Tea With Pot

If you have some shake or pot to make tea with it’s a good way to get your medicine without smoking it. It’s not liking making regular tea so please pay attention to the instructions or you will not be happy with the results.

Learn how to make weed tea in just a few simple steps.

If you have never tried weed tea you may not get what you were expecting. Making marijuana tea takes time, technique, and prep work. The most time-consuming step is extracting the THC from the weed.

THC is not easily soluble in water alone, but with added saturated fats like whole milk or butter the transfer can occur just add heat and time.

If learning how to make marijuana tea is new to you, you should know that its effects are likely to be equal to that of eating marijuana. Marijuana tea produces time-released body high that has a mild effect, but can potentially last for hours.

Some variations of weed tea are better tasting, and some are more potent. So, depending on your preferences decide which recipe will suit you best.

How to make weed tea the super stoney way:

1/2 cup of marijuana leaves
4 cups of water
4 oz of whole milk
2 tea bags of your choice
4 oz of pot butter
honey

1. Grind up your marijuana leaves. Put in pot, add water and bring to a simmer. Let simmer on low for 15 minutes.

2. 4 oz. of your favorite premade pot butter.

3. Melt your 4 oz. of pot butter and mix it together with 4 oz. of whole milk. SLOWLY add this mixture to the simmering pot of weed tea to avoid curdling of the milk. Put in your favorite tea bags and simmer for an extra ten minutes.

If you think that the texture or taste of the weed flakes in the marijuana tea will bother you, you can extract them by using a strainer, or by using a cheesecloth to separate the materials.

Quick marijuana tea recipe: 

• whole milk 
• tea bags 
• marijuana 
• water 

1. Grind up 1/2 gram to a gram of marijuana buds per cup of milk. Add 1/2 oz of water per cup of milk.

2. Bring to a simmer for up to 25 minutes to allow THC extraction. Pour into a container, add a couple tea bags, and honey if you wish.

3. After about 6-8 minutes, remove tea bags. If you think that the texture or taste of the weed flakes in the marijuana tea will bother you, extract them by using a strainer, or by using a cheesecloth to separate the materials. You can also strain your weed tea in an old pair of pantyhose.

Notes:

The effects of weed tea can take 30-60 minutes to take effect, and when it does it may only be a mild high.

You may have to stir your drink occasionally just in case the mixture starts to separate. A straw will easily solve the problem. Drink it all down.

Cheers to you and I hope by now you are holding a nice glass of hot or ice cold pot tea with pot butter in the fridge. Now, make your favorite space cake with the leftover pot butter and invite your cool neighbors over for a “high tea” like they do in the UK!

Keep On Bloggin’!

Making Pot Butter

Once you learn to make good pot butter you can make any kind of food or drink with pot in it and be successful at getting enough medicine in your food so that you don't have to smoke. If you don’t like to, or can’t smoke there are ways to get around it they just take a little time and care.

To Make Pot Butter

Making pot butter is the core of most marijuana food recipes. Pot butter is the essential ingredient that gives the high in marijuana food, so take your time to learn and make it right.

There are a couple different ways to make pot butter, however, all ways to make marijuana butter are pretty basic.

Pot butter ingredients:
3 sticks of unsalted butter, not margarine!
1/2 oz. or more marijuana leaf, less if using buds.

Suggested tools to make pot butter:
1 Double broiler, or 2 pans one smaller than the other
1 large bowl
a strainer
a grinder
a cheesecloth or an old pair of pantyhose.

Making Pot Butter Fast

1. Prepare marijuana leaf or bud. You can crush or grind your marijuana leaves using a clean electric coffee grinder for ease, or you can do it by hand with a bud grinder or with your hand. The more the leaf and bud is ground the easier it is for THC extraction.

2. If using two pots, add water to the larger bottom pot and put your butter in the smaller pot. Set the small pot in the big one and heat on low until butter is melted.

Caution: DO NOT BURN THE BUTTER-LOW HEAT!

3. When the butter is completely melted add your prepared marijuana clippings to the pot butter. Let cook for up to thirty minutes, remembering to stir every five.

4. Remove the bud butter from heat and let it cool until manageable (about twenty min). Now pour your fresh pot butter through the strainer into your large bowl, this removes the big pieces of the marijuana leaf.

5. More extraction for a nice buttery consistency.

If you have a cheesecloth handy this step is easy. If your butter is still hot wear gloves. You do not want to burn yourself. Soak the cheesecloth in the butter, and squeeze into your small bowl used for storage. You can repeat this process to remove more of the marijuana remnants if you feel it is necessary.

If you do not have a cheesecloth then we would recommend using an old pair of pantyhose. Cut the foot off the pantyhose and carefully pour your marijuana butter mixture in and squeeze over your small bowl.

You're done! Cover your small bowl and place in refrigerator, or now that you have made pot butter you should try it in one of your favorite recipes that requires butter, like brownies, cake, or cookies to make your very own space cake.

How did yours turn out?

Now go to the last article and make some pot tea to enjoy before summer is over!

Keep On Bloggin’!

Poop On Your Cell Phones

By now most of you have heard the facts about flushing the toilet without shutting it and the waste that gets spewed all over your bathroom stuff in there but what about something we carry in our hot little hands all day and take everywhere? Our cell phones.

You know you take it everyplace you go. There was a good article recently that said with all of the choices that we have at home to get online or do searches with that cell phones are at the top of the list. Not home computers or tablets, cell phones. I hear a lot of people complain about trying to read the small screens and use the tiny keyboards but it’s becoming a well-known fact that we use our phones more than any other device, especially at home.

When you consider those facts it may not be a surprise to you that our cell phones could be harvesting E. coli and infectious diseases from bathrooms, dirty hands and who knows what else.

You hold it up to your face, use it while relieving yourself, take it into public bathrooms, play with it while eating, take it to hospitals, your car and handle it all day. You may wash your hands but after that, you pick that dirty cell phone right back up again.

NED University Journal of Research did a study in 2012 and published a paper on this subject. Here is what they found.

Mobile Phones: Reservoir Of Infectious Diseases In University Premises
The objective of this study is to find out the level of contamination of mobile phones used in University premises. These mobile phones could be a reservoir of pathogenic microorganisms and can also contribute in the spread of infectious diseases among the users in different environments. During this study, 367 mobile phones of teachers, students, non-teaching staff, medical staff and canteen staff of the University were screened in order to check the presence of different microorganisms including normal flora and pathogenic species. Isolated bacterial species were identified by the standard microbiological methods and biochemical tests. Eight different commonly used disinfectants were tested by Agar Well Diffusion method to find out the effective disinfectant for the cleaning of mobile phones. 98.6% of the total mobile phones were contaminated with bacteria. Overall, 250 (69.0%) samples were contaminated with different members of coliforms group of bacteria. 5% Acetic acid solution and Dettol (4.8% Chloroxylenol) were found to be active disinfectants against bacterial isolates. Presence of coliforms and other pathogens on mobile phones indicates the potential unhygienic conditions in university staff and students. Incidences of infectious diseases are greater in those people who use mobile phones for more than two hours per day. This is an alarming situation which can result in an outbreak of diseases on university premises.

Or at work, or in the home, it’s no wonder people get sick so often. I never gave this much thought myself until I was watching Anderson Cooper on TV and he discussed it. It makes sense even if you never considered it until now.

When asked if they wash their hands 95% of people said they did it regularly but obviously they aren’t telling the whole truth. Men’s hands were more contaminated then women and men wash their hands less when exiting restrooms. I don’t think I have to point out that people with dirty hands have the most “poop” on their phones.

If you stop to think about every place scientists have ever turned up fecal bacteria-grocery store carts, swimming pools, fast food restaurant soda fountains and kids’ play areas, ATM keypads, your purse, your washing machine, prewashed salad greens, food court trays, and pretty much everything in a hotel room, it makes it hard to lay your hands on anything again.

You know what to do about this because (if we ever learn to develop it,) it’s just common sense. Wash your hands, disinfect your cell phone with wipes, don’t share your phone especially with sick people, and keep your phone away from the bathroom.

A little cleanliness never hurt anyone, even when dealing with technology.

Keep On Bloggin’!

Results Of My Eye Operation After Two Months & Three Days

I went to see Dr. Lam (my Ophthalmologist) on March 14th to find out how my eye surgery finally turned out. She did two operations on my right eye on January 19th. Even though I couldn’t tell I had a cataract the new lens in my eye surprisingly improved my eyesight and that was an awesome side effect.

Dr. Lam told me the second operation would really be difficult to pull off because a Macular hole is hard to close and there could be a lot of complications involved. She told me ahead of time that the gas bubble might not do the job, said to keep my head down, follow her instructions, use the eye drops as directed and keep my fingers crossed. I not only did that, but I prayed that my eye would respond to the treatment.

When Dr. Lam came into the examining room that day with the images of my inner eye she was really pleased. She showed me the images and it was amazing! The Macular Degeneration that caused the hole had disappeared! The before and after pictures were striking as the gas bubble had worked and the hole was gone. My doctor and I hugged as she congratulated me for following directions. Of course, I was lucky to have her as my doctor she was very good at her job and I thanked her.

I wasn’t sure if it worked or not before this last visit and was worried because I could still see the kink in a straight line when I used that eye but my doctor explained that it would take awhile for the damage that the hole had done to clear up and because we treated it so fast there wasn’t much damage at all. I can surely live with that and it saved my central, hell, it saved my vision in that eye!

I’m so happy to say I’m back and ready to write! My eye surgery worked and I’m thrilled! Besides that, I’ve missed my social networking, writing and reading your blogs!

Keep On Bloggin’!

Update. 

Unfortunately, although I did everything right this failed. I had to have it done again immediately. Again, I beat the small odds that it wouldn't happen again, yet I can't win the lottery or anything else for that matter.

My retina finally stayed down. I can see but the middle of my vision is damaged making it hard to read at times when I really notice it. My good eye is really bad now with floaters that are in the way of my vision. I don't write as much because of it. Lucky for me when I ride my bike outside and look around it's still beautiful.

In the next 4 short years, my life went to hell. My favorite aunt and mother died. My brother didn't tell me my mom was dying until it was too late for me to see her! Afterward, I got no closure. 

My roommate lost his permanent job, I lost my alimony and rent/bills kept going up. I gained a lot of weight and suffered the worst depression of my life. I lost my savings accounts which dwindled to nothing paying bills beyond my means. My health was on the verge of completely failing. I had nowhere to retire.

Don't Wait For Someone To Save Your Ass

You know, the only one who cared to save me was myself? I looked in the mirror one morning (opiate addicted, depressed, and fat) and "something clicked". I think it was self-preservation fighting its way through the fog because I was truly, finally, and thoroughly disgusted and embarrassed at what I saw looking back at me. 

It took one millisecond at a time because real change happens slowly and is full of pain when you are alone.

I did many things (I've already written about on Bike With Bekkie) to get to where I'm at today. Without daily exercise, something I could do that made me feel better, something that I enjoyed-I wouldn't have made it. Especially over the long haul because it's been over 3 years now. It wasn't easy, the changes I made were depressingly slow but once I gained momentum it's all good habits now.

Once you reprogram your thinking and acting it becomes your way of doing. So make it good. I was in a very dark place. 

I may not have much (a bicycle and a car are about it) but from my bike seat, things look a lot brighter now. The world is still turning, the sun is still shinning and me, I'm still in it to win it!

Today is good. Thanks for reading!

My Three Month Hiatus

It’s good to be writing again! I can’t even think of the last time my personal life made it hard for me to write. I’ve been blogging since I left AOL all those years ago. That’s a long time!

My website “Bekkie In Wonderland” actually started on Windows Live Spaces around 1990 something. I can’t think of the specific year now. It was a very rough looking site compared to what I have now at Blogger and when I remember those old posts I want to blanch with embarrassment over my writing skills. We all have to start somewhere though.

Windows Live was a good place to meet people and I met many of my online friends there. Friends I still have to this day (along with all my newer friends here at Blogger.) That was Windows Lives' heyday before they started dropping all kinds of services until they were down to Messenger, profiles and Spaces.

Then Windows Live informed us that they were dropping Spaces in 2009. They offered to transfer our sites over to Word Press and I agreed. I started a Word Press account and waited for my site (and work) to show up. It never did.

I licked my wounds and started blogging on Word Press. Hated it! I like to have my animated gifs and Word Press wasn’t having it. Also, I was using Windows Live Writer (I’m using it now) and although it worked with Word Press too, I just didn’t like the fit. (I've since given it up, MSN dropped Windows Live Writer in 2011 or so.)

It was the best thing that ever happened to me in my blogging career because in 2009 I wrote my first and last blog of the year on Blogger. My writing and my website have improved greatly since those fumbling early days and I have a website that I’m actually proud of now on Word Press. So where have I been lately?

In January of, 2012 I had a change of eyesight and found out I had developed an ocular hole in my right eye. Everything turned out fine but it was hard work and a frightening experience. I worked very hard to get that hole closed after surgery.

The end of November I noticed another change of eyesight. It was disheartening to say the least. I got pretty depressed and quit writing. I knew the hole had opened again and I’d have to go through it all again. No surgery is a piece of cake.

When I went to see Dr. Lam she told me that it had indeed opened and that I was one of 6% that had it happen again. She was surprised it had happened so fast. I had surgery again before Christmas.

I was so worried about my eyesight. I don’t need to really say it but eyesight is so precious. Losing it even in one eye is not an option I wanted to explore anytime soon.

After the gas bubble got smaller I began to be able to peek over it. I saw black and white spots all over the place. Even though it was one eye I could see them with both eyes. I decided it was better than being blind, and thought they must be permanent.

Last Monday I went to Union City to see Dr. Lam with a heavy heart. My eyesight seamed worse and the spots were everywhere I looked. I sat in silence during the ride soaked in my sullen thoughts.

Not only was the hole gone, but during surgery my doctor removed the tissue that was pulling and causing the hole to return. She also told me that the spots were only temporary caused by the gas bubble rubbing against the iris. (I didn’t have spots at all after the first surgery.) The nurse had tested my eyesight early in the visit and I was told my eyesight had actually improved.

I was dumbfounded. Then I experienced extreme happiness for the first time in what seemed like forever! I even let out a whoop while still at Kaiser. I’m keeping all my digits crossed that the hole doesn’t come back again. Did I tell you my eyesight is better? What an emotional merry go round I’ve been on in the last year.

The sight in my right eye isn’t perfect but I can see. If I’m looking at a line with that eye it will have a kink in it and words can swim around but if I’m patient I can read it. Also if a person is far away or the light is dim, one side of their face looks like a monster. (Yeah it’s hard to explain.) Actually my brain lets me see fine with both eyes. I feel like I won the eyesight lottery!

I will be posting regularly now and things are getting back to normal again. I really enjoy working on this website and I’m happy to be back. Thanks for all your support through this and I hope you will come and visit me soon.

Back, to Wonderland!

Keep On Bloggin’!

Eye Will Be Offline Having Surgery

I like to try to blog once a week or more but recently I haven’t been blogging at all. This is because I found out more about my serious eye problem and need an operation right away due to Macular Degeneration.

There are two kinds of Macular Degeneration, wet and dry. The dry form is by far the most common type and doesn’t require surgery. The wet form is much less common, but it comes on more quickly and can become severe. Lucky me because I have the wet form and I am not a brave person.

The dry form accounts for 9 out of 10 causes of Macular Degeneration. It develops slowly and causes central vision to become dimmer or more blurry over time. It usually doesn’t cause severe vision loss unless it turns into the wet form.

The wet form accounts for only about 1 out of 10 cases of Macular Degeneration. It can cause serious vision loss within months or even weeks. People who have the wet form have the dry form first.

In either the wet or dry forms of the disease, one eye may seem to be affected while the other remains unaffected for a period of time. During that time, the healthier eye may compensate for the affected eye. However, in most cases, if one eye is affected the other eye will develop Macular Degeneration in time, too.

My eyesight has been pretty good for this aging Hoosier. Anything up close is blurry without drug store glasses but I still have good vision when looking far away. I had no vision problems that I had to worry about and sometimes still could see close up on a “good day.”

About a month ago I noticed an eyesight change. My eyes seemed to be growing more tired while watching TV, reading, blogging, etc. I could still see just fine but questioned my vision change. Since it wasn’t something I could put my finger on, I chalked it up to my eyes getting worse with old age. Vision changes can hide a serious problem so I decided if it got worse I’d go to the doctor.

One night when my eyes were really bothering me I put my hand over my right eye; no problem my sight was fine. Then I tried the left eye….OMG! I could see with it but I noticed right in the middle of my sight I could see a problem. Especially when looking at a straight line, I saw a kink in it. Also when looking at a person’s face the left side of their face looked distorted. I had no black spots in my vision and I could still see fine at night but obviously, there was something seriously wrong.

After going to my doctor he referred me to an Optometrist who told me that some of the vitreous gel in the back of my eye turned to fluid and that was why my vision had changed. He said it was due to old age, told me not to worry about it and referred me to a Retina Specialist Dr. Lam. This is when things got serious; I got my diagnosis and she said I had to have surgery as soon as possible.

This last Monday I had 3 appointments to get set up for my surgery which will be January 19th and I just got a call from Kaiser today ( telling me it will be at 1PM.) 

I wish they would put me to sleep for the operation but I have to be awake and this will be the first surgery I ever had like this. I am petrified at the thought of being awake during the surgery and just hope they have some strong-ass medications so I’m not at all aware of what’s going on!

I don’t know how my sight will be when this is all said and done but sight is one of the most important senses we have. I would rather lose a lot of other functions than my sight. Even one eye would be acceptable to me. My grandmother (bless her lovely soul) lost an eye to cancer and took it like the trooper that she was. She was no young lady either; in her 70’s when it happened. She was awesome!

Some Facts About The Eye

♦ The retina is a thin lining of nerve tissue on the inside back wall of the eye. The macula is the center of the retina. It is the part of our vision process that makes possible recognizing faces, reading, and driving a car.

♦ Symptoms of wet macular degeneration may include loss of central vision and visual distortion. For instance, a straight line may appear wavy or a small object may seem to be farther away than it really is.

♦ Macular degeneration doesn't cause total blindness. Peripheral vision may not be affected, but central vision, which is used for activities such as reading, watching television, and doing close work, is.

Then there’s the after eye surgery torture! OMG! I have to use this therapy device that keeps my head pointing down for 10 days OR MORE. That’s 24/7 folks; eating, watching TV, going to the bathroom, riding in a car, or anything that keeps my head in this face-brace control in a face-down position. This is to keep the gas bubble on the healing surface of the retina.

Bedtime will be fun! I need sleep so I have to sleep (if I ever sleep again) on my stomach with a board-thing stuck between the mattresses holding the face-brace contraption on it so I can keep my head in it. I can only sleep cross-wise on the bed or at an angle. So comfortable.

They think they have a plan so you don’t go completely insane. The face-brace contraption comes on this folding chair (like a desk in grade school) that has a built-in table and a two-way mirror. They expect me to spend most of my time in it so I can watch TV, read, (oh my aching back) and try to eat with my face down like that. I’m sure straws will be in order.

24/7 For At Least 10 Days! 

If I don’t use this stuff and keep my head just like they tell me then the gas bubble they inject into my eye will not float to where it belongs and fix my eye. If I screw it up, I get surgery again, mess up my sight more plus all the costs that aren’t covered by insurance.

Oh, did I mention that my face-brace contraption (and comfort items) costs $20/day (at least) and my insurance (Kaiser) doesn’t pay for it? Wave bye-bye to aftercare.

Freaking Out Now

I have always been an artist and my love of beauty, hell my love of life has everything to do with what I see! Then there’s “Blu” my beloved sports car that I adore driving! I almost lost my license in 2010 due to a medical problem....

How am I going to blog and be online? Not easily even with a two-way mirror, I’d say. As you can tell it’s going to be hard to use my computer AT ALL. Bummer! My computer is not a laptop. Big sigh! Being busy getting ready for this has put me behind in my writing. Something I miss when I can’t do it.

I really shouldn’t be whining; I mean it’s not cancer or other painful, horrible and fatal diseases people get every blink of an eye. It’s just another crisis in the life of Rebecca Del Sanchez and she’s had so many recently. I don’t use my blogs to complain but it’s time for me to have a good year. I just want to enjoy my life as much as I can. 

It feels like a huge boulder is on my chest and if that bolder was just a bit smaller, well then managing it would be a little easier and I could catch my breath for once.

Dr. Lam assures me that she’s done this surgery many times before and as a team, we can do this. I just worry if it’s so important to keep my head like that (and the gas bubble stable) that I should be in the hospital a few days afterward. You know how it is these days everything is outpatient! Organ transplant? No problem, have you in and out in a day! Yes, you can wear your 5-inch heels when you go home. Tee hee!

Today I’m just trying to chill out and prepare for Thursday. I am taking a break from being online until my procedure is done and heals. I pray my sight is at least this good when I am finished so I can come back and do all of the many things I enjoy doing and get my head out of that torture device.

Pray for me if you will and I’ll be back ASAP!

Update: The first surgery failed! I had to have it done again right away. Positioning, gas bubble, everything. Finally, it worked.

Keep On Bloggin’!

Tastes Like Chicken

Human tongue on the hospital canteen menu?

A human tongue has been served up in a hospital canteen's chicken risotto and bosses figure it was accidentally dropped into the food by another doctor.

Slovenian officials are investigating after a doctor complained about a strange piece of meat on his plate. The doctor insisted it was not chicken and after some intense bickering it was sent away for tests and found out it was part of a human tongue!

I guess that answers the question that "everything" doesn't always taste like chicken!

Inspectors have closed the canteen in Izola, southern Slovenia, to review hygiene standards. A hospital spokesman insisted: "I can say clearly that we have never used patients' parts in any of our dishes."

Bosses believe that another doctor could have unwittingly dropped the tongue in the food after treating a patient. This begs the question…Slovenian Doctor, why are you even carrying around a human tongue specimen in the canteen area of the hospital in the first place? Gives me the creeps! Thank heavens I don't live in southern Slovenia!

(And yes, this was a true story in the sense that it was in a newspaper article I saw online.)

Keep On Bloggin'!

Alice In Wonderland Syndrome

I picked Bekkie In Wonderland for my website name because Alice In Wonderland is not only a book I'm fascinated with but it seemed a name like that for my site really captured my offbeat creativeness and personality. Just like my own little Wonderland in my head and heart! Then as I did more research into the book, the author and other things Wonderland I found many fascinating things connected to it all. My mind can do wild and wonderful things for me, but sometimes it can seem like I'm under the Red Queen's decree, "Off with your head!"

I'm sure we all have had these days, and as I was searching the web today I found a real illness named after Alice In Wonderland! It doesn't sound like any fun at all in this case! At About.com this is what I found and it's called Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.

What Is Alice In Wonderland Syndrome? Imagine this: You're hallucinating, and you know it. Time is messed up. First, time seems slow, then it seems to be speeding up. Even more noticeably, when you look at your body, it seems to be morphing. You're getting smaller. Minutes later, you're growing larger and larger. Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is a rare form of migraine aura. The most distinctive symptom is this type of metamorphosis, a distortion of body image and perspective which migraine sufferers know is not real. This can occur at any age but is more commonly experienced by children.

This syndrome was first described by C.W. Lippman in 1952 and named such by J. Todd. In his 1955 article, the syndrome of Alice In Wonderland was written about in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. He named it for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.

Carroll is known to have had bad migraines and it's thought that much of the imagery for his writings may have been inspired by his own migraine auras.

The idea for the name of the syndrome comes mainly from the opening scenes of Alice in Wonderland. After Alice falls down a rabbit hole and lands in a hallway she finds a bottle that says, "Drink Me," which she drinks that causes her to shrink. "I must be shutting up like a telescope," she said and so she was, now only 10 inches high! Later, she eats a piece of cake that says, "Eat me," that makes her grow. "Curiouser and curiouser," cried Alice. "Now I am opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye feet!" (For when she looked down at her feet they seemed to be almost out of sight they were getting so far away.)

These are textbook migraine symptoms and describes the Alice In Wonderland Syndrome well. Lewis Carroll used his strengths and weaknesses to his advantage when he wrote his books and throughout his life. Along with this, he had other fascinating characters in his books that have very interesting backgrounds like the Mad Hatter. But that my friends is yet another blog.

Keep On Bloggin'!

Migraines And Migraine Art Drawn By Patients

By Sarah Chapman

Those of you that have experienced real migraines know that the terrible side effects can make normal functioning in daily life hard, if not impossible to deal with.

Classic migraines start with a warning sign called an aura. The aura often changes the way you see things. You may see flashing lights, or temporarily lose some of your vision, such as your side vision.

This is what an aura is like to one migraine sufferer.

You may also feel muscle weakness on one side of your body. You may have trouble talking or feel depressed and irritable. You could feel restless.

Auras last about 15 to 30 minutes and may occur after, before or even overlap the pain of a migraine itself. The head pain of a migraine may occur on one side of the head or both sides.

Common migraines don't start with an aura. They last longer and interfere with daily activities more than classic migraines. Usually, these are on one side of the head. The pain can last from 4 to 72 hours.

A person having a migraine may have trouble eating normal foods they usually like or keeping food down during an attack. Light and sound bother them. If you want to know more Migraine Action is a good place to start and get help if you need it.

Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice In Wonderland had classic migraines. He also had a syndrome named after him because he suffered from a very rare type of migraine aura called Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.

Now doctors are finding out that by looking at drawings done by patients having classic migraines they can learn a lot about these terrible headaches and get an insight into what migraines might be like to each patient. These stunning pictures are from different artists who experience migraines.

 

Classic migraine art takes place during the aura which changes the way a patient see's and feels things. Doctors are continuing to study this type of art to better understand migraines and how patients feel when they have one. This way new and better migraine medicines are being made to relieve the side effects of auras and migraines.

Only 1% of us escape headaches altogether. 16 to 17% of people get a migraine headache sometime in their lives. There are over 20 million migraine attacks happening every day. Some migraines are mistaken for sinus headaches. (These numbers change each year.) 

People with migraines will look at these pictures with recognition, as they know how they suffer. I hope migraine patients get some relief from these studies that are being done. New therapies are being discovered every day.

I find the art troubling yet it's beautiful too. One can pick out similar threads that each patient feels in the artwork.

I am lucky to be in the small percentage of people who don't have headaches often and I've never had a migraine that I know of. When I do have one it makes me miserable. Mine are usually from my sinuses.

The holidays are here and there's no escaping them so I hope no one is having headaches of any kind right now! Enjoy your Friday!

One more example of aura's from a patient's point of view.

Understanding My Coma

Sometimes someone is so ill they are put into a coma to save their lives. That is what happened to me. They said I had two seizures before getting to the hospital (one in the ambulance) and my left lung was filled with vomit and had collapsed. I was spiking a high fever and phenomena was setting in. The Doctor's decided that a coma was the best way to save my life. I was put into a drug induced coma. Luckily I never needed a ventilator after they cleared my lung out. The important thing is the fact that I was put into a Coma and how it helped and effected me.

Someone who is in a coma is unconscious and will not respond to voices, loud sounds, or any sort of activity going on. Not even intense pain will bring forth a response. The person is still alive but the parts of the brain is functioning at a low level. It is working to keep your organs going and such. (Fingers crossed.)

I can tell you from first hand experience that you can't hear people when in a coma like some believe you can. Reading to someone in a coma from a book is just for your own comfort not theirs. All I remember from being in my coma was my never ending, very strange dream that I had.

My dream was unlike any other dream I ever had while sleeping normally at night. The dream was probably based on my brain reacting to the seizures, fever and trauma. It was very eerie, not unlike being in Wonderland itself. I would of never known I had passed away nor that I had a had somewhere to go back to. I dreamed about people in my life, and some that weren't yet or at all. I wish I could of recorded the imagery it was very spacy kind of creepy yet very comforting. Then I woke up. I was totally freaked out until I realized I was awake.

My dream drove me to question what really happens when you die? If I would of passed away would I have dreamed until the very last brain cell gave out? And then what? For me, being so close to death was not an empty time where I couldn't remember and ever since then it's caused me to rethink my prior beliefs. But to what?

Then there's the way I have felt since being out of the coma and hospital. As soon as I came out of the coma and the doctors started telling me what happened it was hard to believe it was so serious because even with the tubes sticking out of every orifice and then some I felt surprisingly well. I even left the hospital faster then they wanted me to. I really shocked my doctors especially since they still can't find out what caused all this to happen!

I remember reading stories about coma patients who claimed that being in a coma 'reset' their brains and bodies in a new way that hadn't been expected. I felt this way too and after having people who knew me well tell me I was like a 'new person' I decided to look into this. Unfortunately for me I couldn't find much. Most of the articles were just about comas and were all very similar. People awaking from comas did not feel this way, often having to relearn even the most basic of functions. I had been extremely lucky!

People may emerge from a coma with a combination of physical, intellectual and psychological difficulties that need special attention. Recovery usually occurs gradually....patients acquire more and more ability to respond. Some patients never progress beyond very basic responses, but some can recover full awareness. Regaining consciousness is not instant: in the first days, patients are only awake for a few minutes, and duration of that time awake gradually increases. In reality, the coma patient awakes sometimes in a profound state of confusion, not knowing how they got there and sometimes suffering from the inability to articulate any speech, and with many other disabilities.

This is unlike the situation in my life where I awoke from my coma and was instantly able to continue my normal life. When I woke up I was up for good and didn't relapse back into unconsciousness. I was very blessed and haven't doubted that for a second since. I was anxious to walk, speak and do everything I could to go home from the hospital. The doctors where very surprised at my state after being on death's door. I was not confused in the beginning but I couldn't remember anything that happened to me and had to be told what transpired that week and why I was at the hospital.

This is a statistic that really freaked me out! The most common cause of death for a person in a vegetative state is secondary infection such as pneumonia which can occur in patients who lie still for extended periods. For me I got pneumonia right away from swallowing my vomit and an ultra high fever so I was very lucky I had the best staff working on me at Kaiser. They saved my life.

So what I did find out after researching this is that I'm a lucky person to have come out of it like I did. It was very hard on my body and I took a month to recover from all of it fully. Even the day after I came home I felt so much better than I had in years! I couldn't put my finger on it but when other's noticed it too it confirmed what I had thought had happened. I was somehow a new person! I even looked better and I couldn't believe it.! A lot of my old pain was gone and my wrist I pinched a nerve in before had healed! The numbness was gone and I could touch type again. It was like a miracle! I felt so well that I was being more active than ever before this happened to me! What a great feeling!

From what I could tell the odds had been stacked against me. The fact that I didn't go into a coma on my own and they induced one is like arguing apples and oranges. A coma is a coma and they are very dangerous. I had several medical problems that alone could of killed me, but no. I had my dream during these goings on that helped me out a great deal. I think it helped several things for me. I know that the coma reset my brain not unlike an electrical circuit can be reset and in this case it helped me. Everyone knows the brain runs on electrical impulses. I can guess that shock therapy probably works on the brain this way as well. I do feel the two day Coma helped send me to a time before some of my injuries, before I felt so bad, it went back to a happier mental pattern in my life and all I can say is I'm super lucky and it's very awesome! I am thankful to God that I'm not learning how to tie my shoes again or walk. I am truly blessed and will not squander this new chance I have been given!

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