Living Proof

Rainy, dreary, foggy, unclear. It’s been like this for a bit... I haven’t been updating this site because my dad is sick right now and in the hospital. The family and I have been huddling around dad’s bed smiling so he can’t see the many tears held back for him. While we know the diagnosis and grim news, dad smiles, with hope, because some of the ‘truth’ has been hidden. But, I do believe in miracles and praying for one right now. I haven’t been able to write or think for the most part. My mind’s been so occupied. I guess if it was sunny outside, it would seem as though the weather was mocking us in some twisted way. If you could say a prayer for my dad and ask for a miracle somehow, we’d appreciate it. I miss that crazy Italian telling us awful politically incorrect jokes and stories. It’s strange, after a year of being ‘out of it’ and not himself, while at the hospital this past week, his positive spirit came back somehow. I can’t explain it. We all said, “He’s back!” But while the ...

All throughout my life I’ve always enjoyed seafood, especially shellfish. As I’ve written before on this blog, my father owned a fish market at the South Street Seaport in NYC and brought home every type of fish you could imagine. Wednesday was our seafood night. We had everything from calamari, clams and spaghetti, shrimp, lobster, crab legs - you name it, we had it. Every Christmas we heed to the old Italian tradition of The Feast of the Seven Fishes. We still do it, however I tend to steer clear from it these days. About ten years ago, my sister started developing severe allergic reactions to seafood - mostly shellfish. Symptoms varied from rashes to face swelling, which is an indicator of a possible anaphylactic shock, which could be deadly. Soon after, I began to notice every time I ate shrimp, lobster or crab, I would get hives inside my mouth -- nowhere else. I quit shellfish immediately, but was able to still eat clams and mussels. No one could figure it out. Some would assume ...

Yesterday I received a comment on an older post of mine entitled, “ Trying to Eliminate Anxiety & Stress ”. It read, “I'm a mum of two, under two & I have been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and postnatal mood disorder. I'm so freekin frustrated by my stupid symptoms that come on completely out of the blue and leave me completely exhausted and unable to keep up with my kid. I'm only 26 so I feel like I should be able to keep up, but these disorders have claimed my sanity!! It took 5 months for a diagnosis after I eventually asked if it could be anxiety they agreed....so I am now convinced drs know very little!! Anyway sorry for the rant but I'm glad a came along your blog and now don't feel as alone.” I can totally feel her frustration about the lack of understanding from doctors and psychologists. It took me over twenty years to find the right psychologist to start making me feel better, but through coping skills. Doctors aren’t magicians. They’re suppose...

The other morning I was fumbling around on my iPad scrolling through my Twitter timeline and saw an interesting quote from an “author unknown”. It read, “If you carry bricks from your past relationships to the new one, you will build the same house.” I can’t tell you how many times I have done this in the past and should have looked back (hindsight 20/20 type of deal) and said, “Not again!” Instead, I ran around the same mountain over and over and over again. It’s like the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I do believe Einstein quoted that, but someone challenged me on that insisting that it was Benjamin Franklin. Anyway, all of these quotes and sayings are very inspiring and rings true on many levels, but how many people will listen and actually put them into reality? Sometimes I read a quote and nod in agreement while being in an opposite scenario. I’m human, but I’m a human who makes mistakes and ‘tries’ to learn from the...

If you can't view the video, click here . Back in 2007, I had made a Youtube video called, “Suicide Prevention”. Although the video is more on the darker side, it does send a positive message. It got almost 100,000 hits, full of comments from kids all over the world trying to talk other kids out of suicide. Definitely read the comments on the Youtube page itself. It's disheartening. The video lets you travel into the mind of a deeply depressed person, so you’re going to see some disturbing images. Between the images and the lyrics to the song, you can actually feel the sadness that some kids go through and what some adults go through ...as well as what I went through. When a person with depression goes into (what I choose to call it) , their dark side - they drift into this deep hole of insecurities, self-loathing as well as resentment for everyone around them, including the one who broke their heart. As adults, we never think seriously enough when a teen (whether our own kid...

It’s amazing how people don’t take you seriously once they know that you have anxiety disorder of some sort, especially doctors. It then becomes a matter of ‘maybe it’s just in her head’ type of thing and while that very well may be the case, they dismiss a lot of things that shouldn’t be overlooked. Yesterday I had an appointment with the allergist. The past couple of years I have been experiencing many reactions from certain foods and products. I experience “physical” side effects, such as bleeding blisters inside my mouth if I eat shrimp, bananas, mangos, berries, apples and sometimes avocados. Sometimes I’m able to eat them, and other times I develop these awful reactions. In recent days, I developed lip and mouth swelling from eating fresh water fish. Nuts and seeds gives me an asthma-like symptom. So all of these foods, which are healthy are out of my diet, leaving me to eat other things that may be not so good for my waistline. I used to love eating cereal with berries or a ba...

Maybe it’s because the holidays are over, or maybe it’s because it’s getting bitterly cold out there (as January should be), or maybe people are suffocating from the lack of sun and not getting a sufficient amount vitamin D. Whatever the reason is, I’m noticing a lot of cranky little critters running amuck. I had to take a ride to the grocery store the other day to pick up a few things and the place was just swarming with people. I had to go into the aisle where they had the Progresso soups and wait on a line to just see what was available. There was an employee stocking more onto the shelves while some customers were grabbing what they wanted. One lady grabbed a can of soup, looked at it and then put it back down on a lower shelf. The employee looked at her with such intense rage and screamed, “What the hell are you doing lady? Can’t you see I’m stocking these and you’re placing them in the wrong sections!!!?? Now put that back in its right place! I’m sick and tired of customers not...

The one thing that would throw me off the edge and possibly have my face on the front page of the news for murder is if my kid committed suicide over a bunch of reckless idiots bullying my child. Some would say that it would have been my kid’s choice. But what if the torment was so great that every single day of her existence was lived out of fear and the thought of a million malicious and vile words being thrown at her, where she had to just end it all to stop it? This beautiful girl, Amanda Cummings from Staten Island did just that. She was only 15 years old. She literally threw herself in front of a bus two days after Christmas. The awful part is - she was injured at first, but then died this past Monday. She suffered. I can’t even wrap my mind around the agony she went through with the verbal abuse, and then to had suffered so much physically. I can’t wrap my mind around the agony that her family is going through. Her mother wrote on her Facebook wall, “This is to all you evil son...

The hypochondriac was a regular in the emergency room -- so much so that when he didn't show up for a week, the staff took notice of his absence. He finally did show up again, and one doctor said, "Long time, no see. Where have you been?" "Sorry I couldn't make it in," the hypochondriac said. "I was feeling sick." There are some people in my life who think all my medical issues, ailments and whatnot are ‘all in the head’ - that I’m a hypochondriac, and although that may very well be true, I still plan on engraving, “I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK” on my tombstone. For instance, one night I had chest pains. It felt like what everyone described it as: an elephant sitting on your chest. Then, the pain radiated down from my jaw (a known symptom) and straight down into my left arm. Of course this all seems to happen at midnight and Madelene hops into her jeans and carts me off to the ER. Being in a constant state of hypochondriacal alertness, needless to say ...

Just like Valentine’s Day, I sometimes feel like New Year’s Eve is somewhat a forced holiday. It’s meant to rise up sales of restaurants and bars, and have people celebrate irresponsibly and kiss an unnecessary amount of people after the ball drops. I remember as a child my parents would hold these huge New Year’s Eve parties and when the ball dropped, every single adult wanted to give me these big wet & sloppy kisses. I ran like hell before the ball even made it down to “5”... But the one thing that gets me is all of those resolutions, and most of all, the expectations. They all lead to one thing: disappointments. My sister put it well while talking with her daughter. She said, “What’s your ‘goal’ for 2012?” Doesn’t that sound so much better? I think goals are so important - to dream about what you want, desire or to become. An unmet goal sounds so much better than a failed resolution. Many resolve to lose weight or exercise more. Why on the first day of January as you’re sitting ...