And the verdict is…

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

Aspergers.

My daughter officially has an Aspergers diagnosis. This is in addition to her already diagnosed learning disabilities and we still have to keep treating the inattention problem which, although no longer considered ADHD because part of autism is inability to focus, still has to be addressed.

This is why the long blog silence since my last post. I needed a few days to grieve really. Somehow hearing the words out loud and having forms that declare it officially is very hard. I know she is still the same kid as the day before the diagnosis and she is much more than the sum of her disabilities, plus now she has access to much more help than she did before. All that doesn’t mean I can’t be sad about it.

And now I’ve had my few days and I’m ready to get to work.

BTW: We haven’t told her the label yet, just that the experts have decided she needs more help.

So, now I get to negotiate a bureaucratic labyrinth to access the monies, support, and therapies that are now availble to her and to us as a family. Sing with me now:

Forms on white paper with fonts in Times Roman,

Clerks with loud voices whose mouths are a foamin’.

Money from min’stries, tied up with red strings.

These are a few of my least fav’rite things.

But do it we will, and this is my promise. I am going to do everything within my power to enable her to lose her diagnoses by the time she is 18. Because I think with our growing knowledge of the brain, that, that is entirely possible.

I would love to hear your shouts of love and support as we embark on this journey and please share any success stories you have. I need to find the things that work.

Posted in Dark side of the Moon, Mothership | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Happiness is…

Posted on May 5, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

…the new Alexander McCall Smith novel “The Miracle at Speedy Motors” (the latest installment in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series).

Comfort food that’s guilt free.

Posted in Leaves, Sun | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Zappass

Posted on May 3, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

So, my car has taken to giving me a quite large, very painful static electric shock EVERY SINGLE TIME I exit. “Oh, you’d like to get OUT? ZAAAPPP!” It’s no longer a Passat it’s a Zappass.

What did I do to deserve this kind of punishment? I took it in for a $500 repair job just two weeks ago. Its fluids are replenished. I even emptied out most of the garbage that had collected in the back seat. And this is the thanks I get.

Yet, more evidence there has been a coup d’etat conducted by our technology and we just never noticed. You can’t tell me that Stephen Harper isn’t in automaton. It explains everything including why WordPress insists on changing 8 + close bracket to 8) .

Thank God I don’t have a GPS. Or an immobilizer! If this is what it does on it’s own fuel (funded by me of course) I can’t imagine what chicanery it would get up to if I would send reinforcements in the guise of other technology.

But what if I park beside a bait car? Will they talk? Will they compare notes? Will I be in for untold misery?

We must plan a counter-revolution. Someone get Neo on a secure line.

Posted in Aliens and uncharted planets, Big Bang, Minor notes in the celestial chord, Observatory, Sun | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

10 Things

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

In random order these are the things occupying my brainspace and time:

1) My daughter has just finished her full-day speech-language assessment, the last component of the larger assessment to determine if she is on the autism spectrum or if there is a different diagnosis that better describes her symptoms. We find out her diagnosis on Tuesday. The frustrating part has been these endless assessments since she was in pre-school. The system is (pretty) good at DESCRIBING the problem and not very good at all about knowing what to do about it. The best we can hope for is a diagnosis that comes with enough $$ attached to it. So, we end up in this bizarre situation of hoping for the worst diagnosis because that gives us enough system resources to actually deal with the problems. Come on Autism! What a crazy world we live in, no?

2) Iolanthe is almost ready to go. I have a photo shoot on Sunday. My costume is about halfways completed. My Gandalf-esque wand has finally appeared. I know the music, the words and most of the dance steps (I’m sorry Carol, my dance brain map has withered in my long performing hiatus). I continue to develop the character of the Fairy Queen who I’ve grown to like a lot. I will miss her when this is all done. The orchestra surfaces on Sunday for that most awfully named rehearsal–the sitz probe. I mean really, who came up with that name? We open May 14th and I think it will be a pretty decent show, if I do say so myself, (which I just did). Get tickets! I like to perform for PEOPLE not empty seats.

3) My home office is a mess.

4) My work office is a mess.

5) I need a file clerk. Or at least channel one. Maybe I’ll inject some collagen into my lips and talk in a funny accent while channelling a millenia old file clerk. They must have filed scrolls and parchments and whatnot right? At least that will make it fun. PLUS, I can acquire a cult following which would be a great revenue stream for me.

6) My floors need mopping (at home only, I have a carpet at work).

7) My dog (Labrador-Retriever cross, 1.5 years old) won’t stop chewing any blanket that goes into her kennel. We even took the dog cushion that used to live in the living room and put that in her kennel thinking that since she had never chewed it, she would leave it alone, but no, that morning it had a hole chewed in it. AARGH!

8. Things are frustrating at work because my projects aren’t coming together in the seamless way I had planned. But, I have to remember it’s the same thing every April/May. Wrenches get thrown around willy-nilly. (I had to change my 8 from and 8 + bracket to an 8 + period because if I did the former it changes it automatically to this 8) . What the hell? Technology running amok I tell you, what more proof to do you need?)

9) I want coffee.

10) I want to go to the gym. Since the Sun Run I’ve fallen off the exercising a bit and I actually miss it. Hah! I’m looking forward to doing more than running though let me tell you.

And that’s 10!

What’s going on with you? Tell me your 10 things (or 5, or 20, or 13, it’s really up to you.)

Posted in Aliens and uncharted planets, Gravity, Minor notes in the celestial chord, Mothership, Observatory, Stardust, Vernal Equinox | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Twister for the Brain

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

Buckle up. This one will require you to twist your brain into knots. It may be a bumpy ride.

I am fascinated by yesterday’s post about Guilty Pleasures when I saw how much guilt we have around food. This isn’t the first time I’ve oberved this. Meg Fowler did a List of Shame over at her website a while ago, and probably about half the responses centre around food (this is borne out by my own and other responders’ lists). 50% of the guilt we carry around is food-related. Isn’t that amazing and exhausting at the same time?

I recently read a review of one those books that discuss the The French Paradox (sorry, I’m not sure which of the books it was). You know the French Paradox: why is it that the French, known for eating food that is supposed to be bad for them, are thinner and generally healthier than we North Americans? I think here is the crux of the matter: a group of French people and a group of North Americans were asked for their responses to various foods. To the words chocolate cake the French responded “Celebration,” the North Americans responded “Shame.”

That isn’t the part that’s going to twist your brain up. But you’re going to have to follow me on a bit of a circuitous path here.

I have developed a passion for brain science as I have children with learning disabilities. Last week I attended a lecture by Howard Eaton about the Arrowsmith programme that he offers at his school. The Arrowsmith program is one of the only programs in the world that is about REMEDIATING learning disabilities. You read that right. The majority of children attending that program for 2-4 years (depending on the severity of their problems entering the program) once re-integrating into the public school system will not only NOT need extra resource time, they lose their special-needs profile altogether. It’s like intense physiotherapy for the brain. The key word is NEUROPLASTICITY: the ability of the brain to change, to re-wire, to re-map. The key phrase

Things that fire together, wire together.

So, I was so hyped up after this seminar I couldn’t sleep so I pulled out my copy of “What the Bleep do We Know” and watched it. (Now, to be clear, I’m not a wholesale subscriber to what’s laid out in this film. I think when you include an ‘expert’ who is channelling a 35,000 year-old mystic, that there’s bound to be some problems with your credibility. Nevertheless…) There is a whole section in that movie about the chemistry of emotions in the brain. Here is my lay-person’s understanding of what they discussed. The hypothalamus continually releases chemicals in response to our emotional states. There is a different chemical ‘recipe’ for every emotional state. These chemicals are attracted to our cells which have docking stations on their surfaces for these chemicals. If we are continually releasing the same recipe the cells will actually ADAPT to make more docking stations for THAT PARTICULAR RECIPE. Following me so far? So, for instance, if we are angry a lot, we will actually start making a cell that has a biochemical tendency to prefer the recipe of anger.

Here is the mind bender. Dr. Joseph Dispenza D.C. who is elaborating on this says something like:

We will seek out the situations that give us the emotional chemicals that our cells need.

Did you get that? We will actually SEEK OUT the situations that give us the emotional chemicals that our cells have adapted themselves to need!

So, here is my mind-bending question of the day. What if we’re not actually addicted to Big Macs and ripple chips with dill pickle dip (mmmm, ripple chips with dill pickle dip)? What if we are addicted to guilt, and we are just seeking out the things that will give us our guilt fix? It’s not that we’re enjoying the guilt, we have developed a biochemical need to experience guilt. And we’ve developed our preferred means of acquiring that guilt. (Remember: things that fire together, wire together). I need guilt. My preferred method of guilt delivery is a Big Mac. Instead of fast-food think of it as fast-guilt.

I challenge you to an experiment. Choose an emotional state that you find yourself in frequently, preferably a negative one, since those are the ones we ultimately want to change. Why do you perceive that you are frequently in that state? If anger, maybe you perceive your family is doing things that frustrate you. If it’s guilt, maybe you’re not sticking to some self-improvement plan you set out for yourself. Now, decide that for today you are not going to respond with the same emotional response that this situation normally triggers for you. Now, observe what happens. (I know I should now sign off and let you tell me your results, but I’m so excited by this, I’m going to tell you what I think is going to happen, thus ruining any credibility my little experiment will bear. Ah well, there goes another Nobel Prize. Don’t look if you want to see if your experience squares up with my bet).  

EXPERIMENT SPOILER ALERT:

My bet, is that four or five OTHER situations will arrive somehow that trigger that emotion.

That, as unbelievable as it sounds, is YOU SEEKING OUT your emotional fix.

I’m still reeling from that realization, and what that means.

So, how do we change it? You know what? I’m not sure. But I do know it’s possible BECAUSE the brain is plastic. It can be re-wired and re-shaped. Here’s my non-expert views on change:

1) I think awareness is the first step. To be able to say, “Wow, I just totally did that to get my guilt fix.” That is huge.

2) Here’s the major obstacle to success. Withdrawl hurts. There’s now way around it. It makes you feel icky and out of sorts. The only thing you can do is recognize that that’s what your experiencing. Here’s another twister for you. Enjoying your guilty pleasures without the guilt just the pleasures and perhaps your desire for these illicit goodies will vanish once they’re not guilt-inducing anymore. And pleasure (I’m theorizing) might be a great antidote to withdrawl symptoms.

3) Re-mapping the brain takes focus and energy. For instance, say a person lacks the ability to find the main point of a paragraph. (That is one of the dysfunction the Arrowsmith program tackles.) Developing that skill to an average level can take three years of attentive building of that brain map, working for one school period a day, five days a week. You have to go into the areas of weakness and strengthen them. Likewise, the more we re-channel our energies into happiness and peace the better our brains will get at it. The more our cells will adapt to have docking stations that prefer those chemical recipes. (God, I’ve suddenly become a proponent of The Secret. I totally did not see that coming.)

And now, amazingly 1,177 words later I have totally exhausted everything I wanted to say about that.

I’m signing off to re-map my brain and re-jig my emotional chemistry. I dare you to put THAT on your to-do list.

But seriously, let me know what you think. Did it blow your mind as much as it did mine?

Posted in Aliens and uncharted planets, Big Bang, Leaves, Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Guilty Pleasures

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

I’ve been thinking about the idea of qualified and sanctioned. Who gets the right to tell us what things to like and dislike? Why are these experts more qualified than our own nose to sniff out what we like in terms of our art, our food and our experiences? So, I smell another list. These are the things that are SOOO GOOD, even though they’re unsanctioned by experts and (supposedly) SOOOO BAD.

Here’s my starter list (and I will refrain from justifying my choices, because the fact that I like them is justification enough, so there):

  • Mr. & Mrs. Smith
  • Joe vs. the Volcano
  • Coke and Orange Slurpees
  • Rippled chips with dill pickle dip
  • Gilbert & Sullivan (speaking of which, have you got your tickets to Iolanthe yet?)
  • Big Macs
  • (and, in the spirit of fair competition) A Wendy’s Bacon Big Classic. Oh, and I nearly forgot their cheese and bacon baked potato
  • My Mom’s French Fries
  • Gwen Stefani’s “I Ain’t No Holleback Girl“
  • Warm Croissants with butter and strawberry jam.
  • Tim Horton’s coffee
  • Irish Chick-lit: Marian Keyes is my favourite (she uses my favourite Irish insult ‘Gobshite’ with panache–that wasn’t a justification, I just wanted to write it down because it makes me laugh)
  • Less Than Perfect (cancelled now, but I enjoyed it while it lasted)
  • Mushrooms Neptune from the Keg with warm bread and butter
  • Butter
  • In pyjamas by 8:30 pm with an evening full of sit-com watching ahead
  • Lying around on Saturday morning with the newspaper and a ceramic mug full of coffee
  • A steak dinner, ooh or roast beef. mmmm beef
  • Those twirly cinnamon sticks of sugary nothingness from Taco Bell/KFC
  • Penne con salsiccia from Romano’s Macaroni Grill
  • really good choirs, especially if they’re a cappella

Okay, I know you’re chomping at the bit (or perhaps your own guilty pleasureful fast food hamburger) to let me know of your guilty pleasure list. So….GO!

Posted in Leaves, Observatory, Stardust, Sun | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Of Governmental Paperwork and Screaming

Posted on April 27, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

Guess what I’m working on this afternoon?  To encapsulate my mood on the task before me, none could come closer to a more accurate description than my favourite Robertson Davies, pardon me Samuel Marchbanks.

FromThe Diary of Samuel Marchbanks:

 

Week 17, Saturday

Having averted my face from it for several weeks, I tackled the problem of Income Tax today. People of a mathematical turn of mind tell me that the forms are very simple if you attack them logically, but I am incapable of attacking an Income Tax form logically, or even coolly. Whatever my Better Self may say about citizenship and duty, my Worser Self remains convinced that it is a wicked shame that the government should take a big chunk of my earnings away from me, without so much as telling me what the money is to be used for. I know about the Baby Bonus, of course, but whose baby specifically, am I bonussing with my money? Probably a damp, sour-smelling baby which I should hate if I met it face to face. Whose Old Age Pensions am I paying?* Probably those of some lifelong prohibitionists, if the truth were known! People to whom I would not give a used paper handkerchief if I met them in the street are picking my pockets by means of this iniquitous Income Tax! The whole thing puts me into such a passion that I am incapable of adding and subtracting correctly. Clutching hands seem to snatch at me out of the paper until I scream and scream and scream.

* Ed. note (Robertson Davies, editor) Marchbanks has himself been an Old Age Pensioner for many years, and a recipient of the publication Especially for Seniors (circulation 810,980) distributed free by the Government of Ontario. Lifelong journalist that he is, Marchbanks attempted to contribute to this magazine, but after the rejection of two deeply-pondered articles–Make Friends With Your Bladder, and Rocking-Chair Sex for the Over-Eighties, he gave up in discouragement

Posted in Leaves, Minor notes in the celestial chord | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Starvation or Eating Disorder?

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

Imagine that you encounter a child who is suffering from malnutrition. In our western world of syndromes and isms, the child would likely be thought to have an eating disorder. My first questions would be: Does she have an eating disorder or does she not have access to food that she can stomach? Say, you then gave this child some food.  Of course you wouldn’t feed them a steak dinner. If a person’s been starved their digestive system wouldn’t be up to the task. You’d have to feed this child simple foods first–rice, broth, steamed vegetables. Over time you could work up to more complex, harder to digest foods. Say that the child puts on weight, related malnutrition disorders disappear, she begins to thrive. Now, would you say she has an eating disorder? She might need a modified diet, perhaps she never will be able to eat that steak dinner, but that is certainly not an eating disorder. That is a modified diet based on the child’s needs.

Likewise, if a child is anxious, do they have an anxiety disorder or is it possible they have real anxieties? I can imagine if I was working a full-time job and didn’t understand 75% of what was going on and had no social network to talk it through with I might be anxious too, worried that at any turn I might be found out and fired. And yet, that is a reality for the learning disabled and ADHD child at school 30 or more hours per week. If the child’s environment is modified to minimize or eliminate the sources of anxiety and the anxiety disappers is it still an anxiety disorder? Or is it simply a recognition that this child needs a modified diet to thrive?

And why is the system set up in such a way that it has to be disorder to get funding? I wouldn’t want to go through life with a host of disorders attached to my name like degrees from the University of Crazy. Introducing Betty Jones, LD, ADHD, OCD.

I call that Obsessive Disorder Labelling Disorder (ODLD). Maybe they can get some funding for that.

(Final note: I loved that when I first typed the tag bureaucracy, I typed it as bureaucrazy.)

What’s your vote? Anxieties or Anxiety Disorder?

Posted in Dark side of the Moon, Mothership, Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sun (Snow?) Run

Posted on April 20, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

I’m about to leave to do the Sun Run today. Snow is in the forecast! What fun!

I’ve been having some foot problems so I may end up walking most of the way. We’ll see how it goes.

Send me good wishes!

Update: Well, it didn’t snow, but it sure was brisk out. I ran more than I thought I was going to be able to. It wasn’t my foot that gave me problems, it was my left knee. I think the cold made it hard for my quads to stretch out so it pulled me knee in a funny direction. Anyway I probably ran (okay, let’s be honest, a slow jog) about 40% of the time which is not bad if I do say so myself.

I took me an hour and a half but I won’t have an official time until tomorrow because of all things I forgot to put on my fancy timing watch this morning. I think the biggest improvement on my time over last year will be the fact that I didn’t stop at the port-o-potty and have to line up for 5 minutes.

Update 2: Official time 1:26:24. Legs very sore today.

Posted in Aliens and uncharted planets, Minor notes in the celestial chord, Vernal Equinox | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

There’s a Chip for That?

Posted on April 17, 2008 by Tentative Equinox North

So, I pick up my mail from my mail drawer at work this morning. And a co-worker has very kindly dropped off my Sun Run stuff (we’ve got enough people for a team this year–go us!). I look at the envelope which contains the timing chip. This is what it actually says on the envelope:

Sex-F Div-some random numbers

Chip Code-more random numbers

What I read was:

Sex Drive Chip

Most of the time I begrudge the scanner that our culture of information overload has turned me into, but today I realized the comedic possibilities are endless.

See another good example of this ‘at first glance’ phenomenon from my brother.

Now, tell me some of yours. C’mon we’ve all done it.

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