Dancing with My Disabilities!: Michael Jackson~We Are The World

Blog Title: Dancing with My Disabilities! This blog was I Already Gave My Right Arm to Be Ambidextrous prior to Read My HIPS, which is now Dancing with My Disabilities. I am doing some renovating and will begin blogging for the New Year 2024. Please be patient, and please continue to support this blog as well as my other blog Chronically Mommy, which is also being renovated to be more up to date. Pass this information on to anyone that you know may be interested in knowing...To be continued...

Dancing with My Disabilities!

Title: Dancing with My Disabilities! I had my shoulder and both hips replaced, and I am changing things up a bit on this blog! I began belly dancing in 2010! Yes, you read that correctly!! I am going to be blogging about my experience as a woman with several joint diseases and conditions who had her shoulder and both hips replaced who now belly dances, dances hip hop, performs, teaches dance to children of all ages and abilities, teaches belly dance fitness classes to adult women, teaches chair belly dance movement classes to people with mobility issues and disabilities, and takes a Pure Barre class as well! I still have pain, but I want to blog about how I have fun too! Please read Chronically Mommy (chronicallymommy.blogspot.com) for info on health/pain and being a mom to a 13-year-old son. I have avascular necrosis in my shoulders, hips, and knees, psoriatic arthritis, axial spondylitis, Sjogren's, fibromyalgia, hEDS, POTS, MCAS, vascular/ocular/hemiplegic migraines, pseudotumor cerebri, trigeminal neuralgia, occipital neuralgia, endometriosis, and chronic shingles. I found out that I have autoimmune arthritis in my cervical spine and a bulging disk in my lumbar spine. Fourteen years ago, my spine orthopedic surgeon told me I had a small amount of inflammatory arthritis in my SI joint. The question was if the spinal involvement was due to Psoriatic Spondylitis, which is a more severe form of Psoriatic Arthritis or is it a new diagnosis of Ankylosing Spondylitis? Now, they have an updated term, Axial Spondylitis, which fits my symptoms and diagnostic proof. Whatever the diagnosis, the treatment will remain the same. I had my left hip replaced in 2003; my right shoulder replaced in March of 2010. I gave my right arm to be ambidextrous! LOL! Lastly, I had my right hip replaced on May 10th, 2012, and I began belly dancing two years prior to my right hip replacement surgery. Yes that's correct! I began belly dancing in 2010, just after my shoulder replacement, before my son was born. I performed for the first time in 2012, five days prior to my right hip replacement surgery. Pain is still another part of my life. It is just a question of when, where, and how much, but I would like to use this blog to write about my experience as a woman with several joint diseases and conditions who had both hips and a shoulder replaced and now spends her free time dancing, teaching, and performing! I began dancing with a troupe in February of 2014, Seshambeh Dance Company. I now take a Pure Barre class on Monday mornings, teach ballet, tap, and creative movement on Monday evenings to children of all ages and abilities, take a hip hop class with all adult women on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, teach a belly dance fitness class on Thursdays to all adult women, and teach a chair belly dance movement class to people with mobility issues and disabilities as often as I possibly can. Join me in my journey! At times, I take 16 to 20 pills a day. I give myself an injection each week on Fridays for my autoimmune/autoinflammatory arthritis diseases. Just when one thing is doing better, something else goes downhill! My attitude, however, is always going uphill! I am 49 years old, have been married for 24 years, and my husband and I adopted Mick in Dec. of 2010! I have a lot on my plate right now, but I take it one moment at a time. I believe that God will never give me more than I can handle. However, I do need to learn to ask for help sometimes instead of always doing it by myself!

Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone, help.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me.

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I've never done before.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these daya are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me, help me, help me, oh.

Showing posts with label Michael Jackson~We Are The World. Show all posts

Monday, September 5, 2011

You are not alone. I am here to stay...

"Lyrics bring tears of joy as well as tears of loss. The rhythm and the beat infectious; I can be distracted from my chronic pain. Use the lyrics and music to embrace the pain and my chronicness. So, my assignment, should I choose to accept it (totally did) is to think about a personal playlist (while Apple works on the imoodpod): what songs inspire, elevate mood, give a shot of energy? And, why these songs – what about those lyrics, that singer/songwriter, band – speaks to me? By sharing – my songs of inspiration, mood improvement (or reflection), anthem(s) to my chronic illness(es), get-me-moving-beats – with other folks dealing with chronic illness(es) and chronic pain, I can open up new worlds of lyrics, musicians, musical styles." This was my entry for the PFAM blog carnival.

I immediately thought to use Michael Jackson for my artist of choice and choose a few of his songs that I feel represent what is going on in my life right now. Michael Jackson suffered a lot, and although he was a public figure, he was a very private person. He suffered from pain. He had trouble sleeping, lost a lot of weight, had what many believe to be arthritis and lupus. He also had a skin condition called vitiligo. He very well may have also been dealing with skin and hair conditions due to the lupus and arthritis as well. We lost a very talented artist, a legend, and someone that we should have probably been spending more time listening to his lyrics than focusing on what he was wearing or what he was covering up under his clothing, his masks and his sunglasses and hats. Who cares about all of that? How the hell did that affect any of us?

We need to Heal Ourselves so we can "Heal The World",

Because "We Are The World"!

We all "Cry"!

We have to start by looking at the "Man In the Mirror" for everything, helping ourselves, others, asking for help, opening up to others, etc.

Many times, all we want to say is "Leave Me Alone!"

"Don't Walk Away"! I'm not done yet. Michael Jackson has always made me feel like dancing. When I was 10 years old, I had a hope chest full of pictures of him because I wanted to marry him, sadly that dream has dissolved...

Michael Jackson has made me feel like dancing, has given me ideas for the best Halloween costumes, has caused people to memorize his dances (ummm, Thriller ring a bell?), and people know his songs from when he was a little tike~ABC as easy as 123...

He has a following that no other musical artist has, was a humanitarian, a father, a dreamer, sensitive, a poet, a loner, sad, likely depressed, in pain, suffering from chronic pain and chronic illness, suffering in silence, alone, and like many of us, afraid to talk about it and wanting to be left alone and instead considered odd and different and weird. Had he stood up for himself, admitting he was sick, becoming an advocate and an activist for those with chronic pain and chronic illness, would it have changed his life at all? I would have to say yes. I don't know for sure, but if you are suffering in silence, don't. Today, you are "gonna make a change for once in [your] life, [it's] gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference, gonna make it right..." Tell others about your health problems, educate them, people jump to conclusions many times and make assumptions because of ignorance and lack of knowledge. It is up to you to let them know about your chronic illness and pain.

"You Are Not Alone." I will always be here to blog for all of you!!! I love you all. Hugsssss!!!

It's Time You Understood.

I want you to understand that your arthritis is not the same as mine if you tell me "I have arthritis too in my knee sometimes." That is not what I have. I have autoimmune arthritis. I have fatigue, pain, and stiffness in every joint in my body, take very serious medications like biologics which is in IV form every 4 weeks at the hospital's infusion center and chemotherapy pills. The type of autoimmune arthritis diseases that I have affects my eyes, my lungs, my heart, my skin, my ligaments, my tendons, my salivary glands, as well as my joints. Please visit www.causes.com/WorldAutoimmuneArthritisDay to donate $5 for the cause.