Movie Monday: A Quiet Place

While my husband and I were on vacation recently, camping in Virginia, the beginning of the week was a bit too cold for sitting around a campfire and relaxing outside. One evening, we went into town to see a movie (once we figured out that the "late" shows in this small, rural town were at 6 pm!). We saw A Quiet Place, a unique, captivating movie that defies categorization.

Jon Krasinski (who is well-known for playing Jim on The Office in the US for many years) and his wife, Emily Blunt, star as a husband and wife, Lee and Evelyn (though I didn't know their names until just now). They are living with their three children in some sort of post-apocalyptic world, as the film opens. Noah Jupe plays their preteen son, Marcus; Cade Woodward plays their youngest son, Beau; and Millicent Simmonds is magnificent as their deaf teen daughter, Regan. It becomes obvious from the first scenes that the dangers in this new world are some sort of terrifying creatures that hunt by sound. The family takes great pains to stay silent, first at the deserted store in town where they are restocking supplies and later at their home on a farm. They are all barefoot and have even covered the paths they walk with sand so as to muffle the sound of their footsteps. Fortunately, they all know sign language because of Regan, so they manage to communicate. Right from the start, though, you notice that Evelyn is pregnant, and thoughts of a crying baby (not to mention giving birth) in this silent world add to the growing tension, even before you completely understand the dangers.

Watching this movie is a unique experience. For most of the 90 minutes of the film, it is almost entirely  silent - no dialogue, few background noises, no music. You quickly acclimate to the family's silent communications, but the suspense builds as you grow to understand what a single noise could mean. On IMDb, this movie is listed as Drama, Horror, Sci Fi, and Thriller, and that sounds strange but is pretty accurate. I've heard it called a horror movie (my son was surprised that I wanted to see it), but it is as much a family drama. The tension lives up to its thriller moniker, and once you get a glimpse of the creatures, you immediately understand that they must be some sort of alien thing, hence the sci fi tag. But this movie is far more than the sum of its parts. Krasinski wrote and directed as well as starred in it, and the full cast listing includes just six people (and "man in the woods" is not on-screen for long!). To create a film with essentially just five characters and all that silence that is so compelling you can't take your eyes from the screen is quite an achievement.

As for the scaredy cats wondering if this is too horror-ish...I don't normally like horror movies, and I loved this movie. However, while it is a (very) quiet family drama delving deep into these few characters' lives (I cried at one point), the suspense and tension are high throughout, and there are a few gotcha moments that made me scream and grab my husband's arm! It doesn't take much after all that silence to feel alarmed, especially when you know the new baby will be coming soon. The few glimpses of the creatures are pretty gruesome, though the movie only gets a PG-13 rating, and there is little gore or on-screen violence (but what you imagine off-screen is enough, when it happens). In short, we were both spellbound for 90 minutes. We've told our sons they must go see it!

A Quiet Place is still in theaters, and that's definitely the best way to see it, if you can, on the big screen, with silent people around you. Chewing popcorn sounds frighteningly loud! Click the Fandango link below to find theaters and times near you - maybe you have a local recliner theater like we do. It is due to come out on DVD, Redbox, and Netflix on July 3, 2018 (link here and below to pre-order the DVD).

Disclosure: I paid for this movie myself. My review is my own opinion.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Look up theaters and times:

Weekly Inspiration: Find Your People

I have often written here on the blog about the importance of connecting with others like yourself, dealing with the same issues. Besides my own blog posts, I also wrote an article for the ProHealth website called Birds of a Feather: The Joys of Community, about the benefits of connecting and how to find others, even if you can't leave your house (that article also chronicles the start and growth of my own local group).

In addition to the tips I included in that article on finding others, I wanted to tell you about another resource. #MEAction is a quickly-growing patient advocacy group that was started as a result of Jen Brea's wonderful documentary Unrest. The #MEAction staff has been working hard to bring people together from all over the world, and one of their efforts is this list of Facebook groups for ME/CFS. There are over 100 groups listed there now and the list keeps growing! These groups offer a wide range of options to connect with others - some are regional, offering you the chance to not only interact online but to maybe get to know people locally, too, and some are focused on a specific audience, like Pregnancy and Parenting, Military and Veteran's Families, and Caregiver's Support Group. There are over 100 to choose from, so browse through the list and join the groups that are right for you.

This is a great way to get to know other patients and to relieve that loneliness and isolation that are so common in chronic illnesses, especially ours which leaves so many bedridden or homebound.

Join some groups today and find your people!

Two Surveys - Help ME/CFS Research from Home!

There are two online surveys for ME/CFS patients currently open for participation - this is a great way for even those who are homebound to help move ME/CFS research forward - even from your bed!

The first is sponsored by the excellent Massachusetts CFIDS/ME and FM Association and is a VERY brief survey on patient experience with commercial medical insurance companies - it is just a few questions (with room for explanation, if you like) and literally took me less than 5 minutes to complete.

The renowned Leonard Jason at DePaul University has already contributed a lot to knowledge of ME/CFS through his studies, and is now conducting one on Abnormal Response to Physical and/or Cognitive Exertion in ME and CFS Patients.  This is a longer and more in-depth survey, but Dr. Jason understands our limits and has designed it so that you can work on a bit at a time and save it to finish later.

You can do your part, right from your own couch or bed. Check out those two surveys today to help keep ME/CFS research moving forward!

TV Tuesday: Good Girls

As regular readers know, I enjoy watching more girl-centric TV shows when I am on my own at lunchtime. My latest obsession is a new NBC show, Good Girls, about three suburban moms gone rogue. It's a unique plot with a great cast, and I am loving it.

Christina Hendricks, well-known for playing Joan on Mad Men, is Beth, an overworked mom of four kids who has devoted her life to her family. In the first episode, she finds out that her husband's been having an affair with a woman at his car dealership and that his midlife crisis has cleared out the family's bank accounts so that they are now in serious debt. Beth's younger sister is Annie, played by Mae Whitman who is known for her role as Amber on Parenthood. Annie is divorced and shares custody with her ex of their young daughter, Sadie, who dresses like a boy. Her dad and his new wife have threatened to sue for sole custody, so Annie is also in dire financial straits, needing to hire a lawyer to fight for her daughter. Rounding out the trio is Ruby, played by Retta (best known for her role on Parks and Recreation, though I know her from The Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce). Ruby is happily married and has two kids. She works at a diner, and her husband works as a security guard, so their money is already stretched thin, but now their daughter needs an expensive medication for her kidney disease. These three very desperate friends decide they are desperate enough to do something crazy - rob the grocery store where Annie works. As you might have guessed, nothing goes according to plan, and their one night of crime turns into much, much more.

This is such a fun show. It deals with some serious issues and family drama but mostly in a light way. The women's escapades - which grow out of control into something they never envisioned - provide plenty of suspense but also lots of laughs as these normal moms try to act tough. I love all three of these actresses, and they are great in these roles, playing off each other. It's wonderful to see a show like this that puts a spotlight on women's friendship (even though they are leading a life of crime). There are always surprises in every episode, and I look forward to watching each one.

Good Girls is currently airing on NBC, Mondays at 10 pm Eastern, but I don't watch anything live anymore! Nine episodes have aired so far, and the tenth and final episode of season 1 airs next week. I am up to #7 so far and still loving it. All episodes from season 1 are available On Demand if you have cable or on the NBC website for free. It is also available on Amazon for $1.99 an episode or $16.99 for the entire season.

Finding a Doctor for ME/CFS

I have had a LOT of requests for this information recently, on how to find a doctor to help with treatments and which doctors are experts in ME/CFS. I've been working on a book, Effective Treatments for ME/CFS: Our Experiences (which will hopefully be published this fall), which includes a section on finding doctors. What follows is from my first draft, but I think it is fairly complete - I've shared this with people in different parts of the world and gotten feedback and added to my lists. You can read more about Effective Treatments for ME/CFS here on my blog at the link.


What follows is excerpted from my upcoming book, Effective Treatments for ME/CFS: Our Experiences (© 2018 Suzan L. Jackson). Please don't reprint it without permission, though feel free to share this post with those looking for a doctor. And let me know in the comments if you know of other doctors with expertise in treating ME/CFS that I have not included here.

" You will see that there are some treatments discussed in this book (and on this blog) that you can try on your own, things involving diet, supplements, or other do-it-yourself approaches. However, for us, the most significant improvements have required the help of a doctor – either for prescription medication, expertise, labwork, or supplements that have to be ordered through a compounding pharmacy (which also require a prescription). The very best situation is the kind that we are now in: we travel about once a year to see one of the top ME/CFS experts (about a 2-hour train ride away for us) who helps us with specialized treatments, and we also have a local primary care/family doctor who understands the basics about ME/CFS and is willing to help us with treatments she is familiar with and also follow us for basic medical care.

Primary Care Doctor

Finding a local doctor who is willing to help you can sometimes be challenging, but it is well worth the effort. At the start of my illness, it took me a full year of seeing various doctors to find a new primary care physician who knew about ME/CFS – as I explained in Chapter 1, she is actually the first doctor who immediately recognized that I had ME/CFS, after a year of other doctors saying, “I have no idea what’s wrong with you.”

However, you don’t necessarily need a local doctor like mine who is already familiar with ME/CFS – what you need most is an open-minded doctor who is willing to listen and learn alongside you. Our pediatrician was a great example of that. She knew nothing about ME/CFS before my sons got sick, except that I had it. When they became ill, she gladly read all the information I gave her about the disease, listened to the recommendations from a top expert (now retired) we went to see, and called another expert to ask questions about a treatment we wanted to try for the boys. Over time, she became something of a local expert herself, just through her willingness to listen and learn. We’ve all run into arrogant doctors who dismiss you if they’re not familiar with your condition. If you encounter one of those, don’t go back.

You need a doctor whose attitude is, “I don’t know much about ME/CFS, but I am willing to learn and help you as best I can.” They are out there – it just may take you some trial and error to find one. You can do some upfront screening by calling potential primary care doctors and asking if they treat other patients with ME/CFS.

With a complicated, long-term illness like ME/CFS, it is very important to have a good relationship with your doctor, to feel like you can talk openly to him or her and to know that he or she will listen to you. If your doctor is unfamiliar with ME/CFS, share the CDC and Solve ME/CFS websites with him or her as a starting point. That last article I listed (on page 23 of the pdf) on the previous page for family doctors is also a great introduction.

ME/CFS Top Experts

In addition to having a local doctor – both for certain ME/CFS treatments and to follow your general health and well-being and take care of other medical problems – you should consider seeing a doctor who has specific expertise in ME/CFS and is up-to-date on the latest research. There aren’t a lot of these around, but it is worth traveling to see one of them, if you can manage it. They are all accustomed to working with patients long-distance, via e-mail and phone, after an initial in-person visit and with intermittent in-person follow-up visits.

The following are considered the top experts in ME/CFS – they may not all be accepting new patients all the time, but it’s worth a phone call to ask. Sometimes, a doctor whose practice is full may agree to take on a new patient if they fit into a research study the doctor is currently conducting or participating in:

United States:

Dr. Lucinda Bateman and staff – Bateman Horne Center -  UT

Dr. John Chia – Torrance, CA

-->Theresa Dowel, NP (Nurse Practitioner) – Four Peaks Clinic – Flagstaff, AZ (she studied under Drs. Montoya and Chia)

Dr. Kaufman & Dr. Chheda – Center for Complex Diseases – Mountain View, CA

Dr. Nancy Klimas & other doctors – Institute for Neuro Immune Medicine – two locations in FL

Dr. Susan Levine – NYC

Dr. Jose Montoya & his staff at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA

Dr. Ben Natelson - NYC

Dr. Daniel Peterson – NV

Dr. Peter Rowe – Johns Hopkins, MD (pediatric – hasn’t been able to accept new patients for many years but you can sometimes get in as part of a study, and he is happy to talk to your doctor by phone or e-mail even if you are not a patient)

Dr. Kogelink and staff at Open Medicine Institute in northern CA

All of the above doctors work closely together to coordinate on the latest treatments for patients and participate in ground-breaking research, so you will get similar treatment approaches from all of them. All have been working in this field for a long time and have treated many ME/CFS patients.

Canada

Dr. Ian Andrew Hyams – West Vancouver

Dr. Byron Hyde – Ottawa

United Kingdom:

(Note that it is harder to get real medical treatments for ME/CFS in the UK currently because the NHS prescribes exercise and therapy as the only approved “treatments” for ME/CFS; however, the NHS is currently (finally!) revising these treatment guidelines since the faulty research they were based on has been debunked. So, hopefully, things will improve soon for UK patients, but for now you need to go outside the NHS and/or advocate even harder for yourself to see specialists, as described in the treatment chapters, to treat one aspect of ME/CFS. Some of these doctors work both within NHS and in private practice – you need to see them outside the NHS for them to be able to offer real medical treatments for ME/CFS.)

Dr. Bansal – St. Helier University Hospital – Carshalton (may be retiring from clinical practice at the end of 2018 to focus on research)

Dr. Sarah Myhill – Knighton

Dr. Vinod Patel - Warwickshire

Dr. Nigel Speight – Durham (pediatrics)

Dr. William Weir – London

Doctors at Breakspear Medical Clinic - Hertfordshire

Other Europe:

Dr. Kenny De Meirleir – Brussels, Belgium

Gottfries Clinic – Mölndal - Sweden

Australia:

Dr. Christabelle Yeoh – Central Coast of NSW

Doctors at CFS Discovery Clinic - Melbourne

New Zealand:

Dr. Rosamund Vallings – Howick, Auckland

Other Doctors Who Treat ME/CFS

These doctors are sort of a second-tier of experts. They are not personally involved in the research or with other cooperative efforts in the field, but feedback from patients has indicated that they know how to treat many aspects of ME/CFS effectively.

United States:

Dr. Dale Guyer – The Guyer Institute – Indianapolis, IN (I’ve heard of him from other patients but don’t know anyone personally who has seen him for ME/CFS)

The Holtorf Clinic - multiple locations, including Southern CA, Atlanta, UT, and Philadelphia.

Dr. William Spurlock - Dallas, TX (note: you may see that Dr. Spurlock has been disciplined by the Texas Medical Board for ordering “medically unnecessary tests” and using “medically unproven” treatments for ME/CFS – ALL ME/CFS doctors could be said to do this, since there are no FDA-approved treatments for ME/CFS currently and treating it effectively requires ordering tests and using treatments that are officially unproven for the condition. I know that he uses many of the same treatments as the top experts listed above, and I personally know of patients who’ve improved with treatment from him – even one young woman who fully recovered.)

Dr. David Systrom - Brigham & Young Hospital - Massachusetts - focuses mainly on treating OI and exercise intolerance - very knowledgeable in those areas

Dr. Amy Yasko – Maine (her expertise is broader than ME/CFS but the treatments she focuses on are applicable to ME/CFS)

For all locations, check these doctor databases/lists, keeping in mind that the level of expertise of these doctors might vary widely, but they all say they treat ME/CFS – some may specialize more in fibromyalgia, so read their information and call with questions for any potential doctors you are considering.

#MEpedia: http://me-pedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_MEpedia#Clinicians

Doctor Database: http://fmcfsme.com/doctor_database.php (not currently available?)

List of ME/CFS Doctors & Clinics – top experts and second-tier ME/CFS doctors are mixed together on this list (mostly US and Canada):

http://www.cfstreatmentguide.com/doctors-and-clinics.html

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Roadmap for testing and Treatment (scroll to the end of the document for a list of ME/CFS Doctors and Clinics:

https://sites.google.com/site/cfstestingandtreatmentroadmap/

UK – List of Physicians Trained to Treat ME/CFS from Dr. Myhill’s website:

http://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Practitioners_trained_to_treat_CFS

The Australian ME/CFS Good Doctors List

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/australian-me-cfs-good-doctor-list.6021/  "

Weekly Inspiration: You Deserve a Break Today!

My husband and I just returned last night from a week-long camping trip to Virginia with our pop-up camper. We had a few hiccups (including the weather in this incredibly cold spring we are having!), but overall, we had a good time. It was a nice, relaxing, quiet getaway with lots of time spent outdoors, which was just what I needed. As I explained in this article on The Restorative Power of Nature, being outdoors is very rejuvenating for me, and plenty of scientific studies bear this out. Spending time in nature (or even looking at photos of nature) has been shown to have all sorts of positive physical effects on the body, including improving the immune system! Many years ago, I also wrote this post on The Joy of the Outdoors, about how spending time outdoors brings us joy.

Our camper at dusk - home away from home!

This very cold, wintry spring we've been enduring made me feel even more desperate for a little vacation. For me, it was mostly about feeling overwhelmed by my normal daily life. With limited time and energy and necessary naps every day, I have been juggling two blogs, support groups both online and locally, a growing freelance writing business, plus all the normal, necessary stuff related to maintaining our home, helping our kids, managing bills and medical care (a full-time job in itself!), and just the daily maintenance tasks of life. No wonder I have been feeling overwhelmed and worn out! Those are my issues, but maybe for you it's more a matter of feeling bored and sick of the same old thing every day. Whatever your situation (unless, of course, you are fully bed-ridden), we can all use a little break from our normal lives once in a while and a change of scenery - it really is rejuvenating!

Enjoying an easy paddle on a quiet afternoon.

While our relentless and successful search for Effective Treatments for ME/CFS has helped me improve to where I am today - able to hike or kayak (with a heart rate monitor and staying below my limits) for an hour - we never stopped traveling or camping, even during the worst years of illness, when both of my sons and I all had ME/CFS pretty severely. For tips on how you can manage a getaway, check out my article on Travel Tips for the Chronically Ill and this post on Camping and Enjoying the Outdoors with ME/CFS. Both include lots of helpful tips on managing to get away for a bit. Camping works for us (with the accommodations mentioned in that post above), but for you, maybe it's just a couple of days in a hotel or a rented cabin (there are some inexpensive ones in many state parks, often with lovely views and some with handicapped access) that feels more home-like. Or maybe it's just an hour with a friend or family member driving along the back roads for a change of scenery or even lying in your yard, garden, patio, or deck outdoors instead of on the couch. However you define it, just getting away from the same old, same old can help revive your mental health - and a dose of nature helps even more.

Relaxing with a book while dinner cooks on the campfire

So, this past week, we enjoyed a quiet, restorative getaway. We just drove a couple of states away (south!) to Virginia, with our pop-up camper (home away from home), and stayed in two lovely state parks in the southeastern part of the state. Nothing fancy or expensive, but it was just what I needed. We spent a lot of time reading and relaxing, took short walks according to my limits, enjoyed campfires, and explored a few small towns nearby. When it got really cold and our camper's furnace broke, we went into town to buy a space heater, and on one cold evening, we went to the local movie theater instead of sitting by a campfire. We just relaxed and took things at our own pace (my husband is quite happy to also take a nap when I do every afternoon!). It was wonderful to be totally unplugged - no internet, no social media - and to be away from my ever-growing to-do list.

And now we are back home - it was great to have my couch back last night! And I feel refreshed and ready to tackle all my to-do's anew. Everyone deserves a break, no matter how you define it to fit your needs.

Sunshine selfie, from a bench during a short walk.

Scholarship for Young Person with ME/CFS in NJ

Copyright: ktsdesign / 123RF Stock Photo

The wonderful NJ ME/CFS Association has an annual scholarship for a young person with ME/CFS (who lives in NJ) - and the award has been increased for 2018! 

Here are the scholarship details on their website.

This is a great opportunity!

ME/CFS Treatments & Blog Updates

It probably seems like I haven't been posting much here on the blog lately, but I have been working hard behind the scenes to update older posts - mostly those about treatments for ME/CFS, since they are the most popular - and to make it easier to find what you need when you visit the blog. Here's a quick recap.

I added two new pages to the blog - those are the tabs that run across the top of the page, just below the title and description of the blog, and are always there, no matter what posts you navigate to (there are also pages for TV and Movie Reviews, for fun!).

• Our Story - a brief essay describing our own story, how first I got ME/CFS and then my two sons also got it two years later, and our challenges and progress through to today, with links to more information where appropriate.
• ME/CFS Treatments - this is mostly a reprinting (with some updates) of one of my most popular posts. It provides an overview of ALL the treatments that have most helped my sons and I over the past 15 years, with links to more detailed blog posts within each topic. You can use this page as a roadmap for your own treatment, using the tips there and making sure you are treating all aspects of ME/CFS. Thanks to these treatments, my oldest son and I now live active, almost-normal lives again (my younger son recovered fully from ME/CFS after 10 years of mild illness).

I have also spent a lot of time updating older treatment posts, again focusing on those that have been most popular over the years. I started this blog in 2006, so a lot has changed in that time! Sometimes I rewrote the post to update the information or explain it better and sometimes - if the post was still accurate - I added an addendum to the end with any new developments and an update on our own use of that treatment. Here are some of the posts I have updated:

• Orthostatic Intolerance and ME/CFS - OI is an integral part of ME/CFS and all patients have some form of it - this post explains what it is and how to diagnose and treat it. It is very treatable and often dramatically improves all ME/CFS symptoms!
• Heart Rate and Post-Exertional Crashes in ME/CFS - a topic closely related to OI, this post explains how you can track your heart rate and use that information to avoid post-exertional crashes.
• The Methylation Cycle: Central to ME/CFS - an essential topic for all those with ME/CFS, about how to improve methylation, a process related to energy production, brain function, hormone production, and ability to detox that is dysfunctional in those with ME/CFS. Lots of ideas here on improving methylation, and many of them you can try on your own.
• Vitamin B12 and ME/CFS - this topic is a part of improving methylation but is complex enough that it needed a separate post! I explain why we all need B12 supplementation and the various options available.
• Treating CFS Sleep Dysfunction - one of my oldest treatment posts, and one of the critical steps to treat first. This is about how to actually correct the sleep dysfunction at its root so that your sleep is normal, natural, and refreshing every night, not about using sedatives to mask the problem.
• Immune System Abnormalities in ME/CFS - not updated recently (because the information is still up-to-date), but an essential one to read first so you will understand the following treatments for immune system dysfunction, which are absolutely critical to improving with ME/CFS since it is at the heart of the disease.
• Low-Dose Naltrexone Update and Dosing - one of several simple, inexpensive treatments available to help normalize your immune system.
• Imunovir Update and Inosine - another cheap immune system modulator that has greatly improved everything for us - inosine is sold as a supplement, so you can even try this on your own.
• Increasing Glutathione in ME/CFS and Related Illnesses - another thing that helps to normalize the immune system, but it is also essential for energy production, detox, and more. It's a naturally occurring compound in our bodies, but people with ME/CFS just don't make enough of it. Post includes lots of options for increasing glutathione and was just updated this week with news of a new nasal spray!
• Treating Yeast Overgrowth/Candida - a common problem in ME/CFS patients because of our immune dysfunction, this can make you feel terrible though you may be completely unaware that you have it! Lots and lots of options for treating.

Those are just the posts that I have updated most recently. For a full overview of all the treatments that have helped us and how they fit into the bigger picture, visit that new tab, ME/CFS Treatments.

Thanks for your patience as I try to keep everything up-to-date here and make it easier to use. It's been 12 years and 1269 blog posts, so that's a lot to keep up with!

Movie Monday: Ready Player One

We enjoyed a rare treat this weekend: we got both of our college sons, my father-in-law, and my husband and I together for dinner! We met at a restaurant in our sons' college town. After dinner, my husband, our older son, and I walked to the movie theater (our favorite recliner theater) to see the much-anticipated Ready Player One. The three of us all read the novel (my review at the link) when it first came out, passing the book around the house with "you have to read this!" so we have all been excited to finally see the movie adaptation. Of course, the book is always better, but all three of us thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

Tye Sheridan plays Wade, a seventeen-year old boy in 2045 who lives in "the stacks," a huge trailer park outside of Columbus, OH, with beaten-up trailers literally stacked up on top of each other (we're not sure why they added one year to the date or changed the location from Oklahoma for the movie - that's Hollywood, right?). In this near-future world, life has become so challenging that people spend most of their time in the OASIS, an online virtual world created by multi-millionaire programmer James Halliday. When Halliday died, he hid an Easter egg (a secret hidden in a video game) in OASIS, accessible only with three hidden keys. Whoever finds the egg first will inherit not only Halliday's wealth but also his ownership of the OASIS.

It's been five years since Halliday's death, and no one has found even the first key yet. Some people have lost interest, but Wade, or Parzival as his avatar is called in the OASIS, is still looking. It's common knowledge that Halliday was obsessed with 80's pop culture, from his own youth, so Wade has become an expert not only on Halliday's history but also 80's music, movies, TV shows, and video games. His best friends in OASIS (whom he's never met in person) are Art3mis, played by Olivia Cooke, and Aech, played by Lena Waithe of Master of None fame. The three of them, along with a couple of other friends, work together after Parzival finds the first key and eventually meet in the real world. Of course, there are bad guys here to fight against - an evil corporation that wants to control OASIS so they can add advertising and monetize it.

This is a fun, rollercoaster ride of a virtual adventure! Watching it unfold on the big screen was a very different experience than reading the book but just as captivating. Here, many of the 80's pop culture references are visual and auditory, so you have to watch and listen carefully (I think I would probably pick up on a lot more references watching it a second time), but it has that same fun feel to it, with a mix of retro and futuristic. The scene that takes place within the world of The Shining was one of our favorites! Although half (or more) of the story takes place in virtual reality, you don't have to be a video game fiend to enjoy it - it's just a suspenseful mystery adventure in a different kind of visual environment. Of course, we liked the book better (isn't that almost always the case?), but all three of us thoroughly enjoyed the movie and left the theater with big smiles on our faces.

Ready Player One is currently in theaters - look for a recliner theater near you!  It is due for DVD and streaming (Amazon) release in July 2018. Or if you'd prefer, you can read the book first (it was my favorite book read in all of 2012!)

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Book:

Weekly Inspiration: Living in the Moment

It's been awhile since I've written a book-inspired Weekly Inspiration post, which is odd since I read constantly, review books for a living, and have a book blog! I am definitely past due for a bookish post.

Last fall, I finally read Before the Fall by Noah Hawley, a literary suspense novel (my review at the link - no spoilers) that I had given my husband the previous Christmas. It was an engrossing and gripping story that was part mystery and part character study. It begins with a small, private plane crashing into the water between Martha's Vineyard and NYC. Almost all of its eleven passengers dies instantly, except for a man named Scott and a four-year old boy. Scott finds the boy in the water and saves his life by swimming to shore (he used to be a competitive swimmer). The rest of the novel follows the investigation into the crash and goes back to before the crash to look at what led up to it from all the different characters' perspectives. It's a good story and quite captivating, with the mystery of what or who caused the plane to crash, but I also enjoyed the chapters following Scott and the boy post-crash, as they struggle to cope with what happened.

Here, Scott muses about life and living:

"He tries to exist solely in the moment he's living, a man driving a car on an Indian summer day. ...Life is made of these moments - of one's physical being moving through time and space - and we string them together into a story, and that story becomes our life.

...Because what if instead of a story told in consecutive order, life is a cacophony of moments we never leave? What if the most traumatic or the most beautiful experiences we have trap us in a kind of feedback loop, where at least some part of our minds remains obsessed, even as our bodies move on?"

That passage really struck a chord with me with respect to living with chronic illness. It is very easy to fall into that trap he describes in the second paragraph, where we become obsessed with the trauma we've experienced. It may be the experience of our illness itself, suddenly having our lives come to a halt and losing things that we enjoyed doing. And sometimes, even after we've accepted the physical limits of the illness, we still become stuck on the emotional traumas - family that abandoned you when you most needed them, friends who you never heard from again, and other personal slights. Those have certainly been the toughest traumas for me to move past and stop obsessing over (and I'm still not 100% of the way there).

I love that first paragraph, too, though. It is something I write about often here on the blog, especially in my Weekly Inspiration posts - the focus on moments of joy and living in the moment. I love how he says we string these moments together and that becomes our story.

I want my story to be moments of joy and existing in the moment I am living, rather than about brooding and obsessing over the past.

How about you?

TV Tuesday: The Resident

Even though we still watch (and love!) Grey's Anatomy and don't really need another medical TV show, during the doldrums of winter TV, my husband and I tried The Resident, mostly because we both love the main actor, who played Cary on The Good Wife (and, I just discovered, Logan on Gilmore Girls). We have some complaints about this new medical show but are still watching and enjoying it overall and plan to continue.

Matt Czuchry stars as Conrad Hawkins, a third-year resident at sparkling, expensive Chastain Hospital in Atlanta. This is not the gritty public hospital filled with drug addicts and gunshot victims we saw back in the days of ER! In the first episode, idealistic new resident Devon Pravesh, played by Manish Dayal, starts at Chastain on his first day as a doctor, working under Conrad. It's a tough first day, and Devon quickly learns that Conrad is brilliant and cares about his patients fiercely but has little patience for following the rules. Nicky, played by Emily VanCamp, is a very intelligent and caring nurse who works with them, and Mina, played by Shaunette Renee Wilson, is an arrogant but highly skilled surgical resident. Heading up the hospital are star surgeon Randolph Bell, played by veteran actor Bruce Greenwood, and a bevy of other high-profile, very wealthy senior doctors. All is not as it seems at beautiful Chastain, though, and we see in the very first episode that Bell has developed some sort of tremor in his hands, which he is hiding - and still operating on patients, to their detriment - in order to save his reputation and career.

Much of The Resident is like any other medical show - different patient cases each week, with a few longer-term patients we see again, taken care of by a group of very attractive doctors, with some sex and scandal thrown in to keep things interesting. The difference in this show - and the thing that bothers us about it - is that the residents, nurses, and other underlings are all the good guys, and the senior staff at the hospital are all, to a person, evil and obsessed with maximizing profits, their own shiny reputations, and remaining powerful and wealthy. Really - every single senior doctor is evil. We get the point the show is trying to make: that sometimes hospitals, which are supposed to help people, are too focused on profit, especially in this time of privatization, to the detriment of the patients they are supposed to be caring for. But, every senior doctor? There's not a single doctor in charge here who wants to do what's best for his or her patients? It's kind of hard to swallow. Still, we are now up to episode 9, and we are still watching and enjoying it. The rest of the characters and stories are compelling enough to keep up tuning in each week, and Czuchry and the other actors are very good.

The Resident is a FOX show, currently airing on Mondays. We watch it On Demand. It looks like it is also available for free on Fox's own website, though as of today, the first four episodes are only available there if you are a cable subscriber (it asks you to sign in with your cable password) - the next 5 are available free to anyone. All of the episodes are also available on Amazon for $1.99 each or $19.99 for the whole season (so, you could pay for the first four and then watch the rest free on the Fox website).

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Weekly Inspiration: Spring Cleaning for Your Spirit

Happy Easter! Happy Passover! Happy Spring!

After four snowstorms in March, I am REALLY appreciating the first glimpses of our late spring here. Seeing those first flowers blooming, hearing the birds singing outside, and reveling in these rare sunny days with blue skies fills me with joy.

This season of renewal and hope is the perfect time to pay attention to your emotional and spiritual health. Living with chronic illness, we tend to focus on our physical health, but our emotional well-being is just as important in how we feel overall and how we experience life. This article I wrote was published on ProHealth last month, and is reprinted with permission here, in its entirety - Happy Spring!

Spring Cleaning for Your Spirit

(published on ProHealth March 17, 2018)

Though many of us living with chronic illnesses can’t manage a thorough spring cleaning of our homes, we can all undertake – and benefit from – a spring cleaning of our spirits. Think of it as a mental health scrub, clearing out the old “dirt” in our minds, like resentment, envy, anger, and loneliness, and replacing them with healthier feelings like joy and connection. Stress and negative emotions can actually make us sicker physically, so this is a worthwhile pursuit for both mind and body. What better time for a mental clean-out than this season of renewal and hope?

Here are some ways to get started:

Release old feelings of bitterness, resentment, and anger.

Although this is easier said than done, it is so important for our mental well-being. When corrosive emotions like these are held inside, they eat away at us and often make our physical symptoms worse. Just recognizing that the old anger you are holding onto is hurting you can be a step forward.

First, make sure you have fully acknowledged and accepted what you are feeling – denial is even more harmful. Writing can be very therapeutic. Try to write out your feelings – of hurt, abandonment, and resentment – to get them out of your head and onto paper. Be honest and allow yourself to grieve. Then tear up or even burn the paper, as a symbolic way to say good-bye. You can’t change the past – and you can’t change other people – but you can let go of old hurts. Your own response is the one thing you have control over.

Practice empathy.

We all want compassion, so begin by showing empathy toward others. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and really try to see the world from their perspective. When I did this with a family member, I realized that she sincerely thought she was doing what was best for me. She did see how sick I was, but she thought she needed to get my mind off it and cheer me up. Once I recognized that her intentions were good, just misguided, then we could start over from the same place of understanding, and I could explain how I experienced her actions and what I needed.

You can also empathize with other people’s difficulties. Everyone has challenges in their lives, and they are often invisible, like our illnesses.  By showing interest and concern about your friend’s child’s learning disability or your sibling’s divorce, you are not only showing them that you care, you are also modeling the kind of compassion you would like. Avoid comparing suffering – that’s a contest no one can win. Show others that you care about what they’re going through, and you will receive caring back.

Reach out and make the first move to contact family or old friends.

If you are feeling abandoned by friends and family, turn those negative feelings into positive actions. First, as mentioned above, recognize that their intentions were probably good – perhaps they were afraid of disturbing you or saying the wrong thing, so they said nothing and stayed away.

Instead of waiting for someone to call, reach out yourself to a friend you’ve lost touch with or a family member who has seemed distant. Ask how they’ve been and show genuine interest in their lives, as well as being honest about your own. Even a text message or a comment on Facebook could start the ball rolling. Some people won’t ever feel comfortable with your illness, but most want to do the right thing and just need some encouragement to re-establish a relationship. Take the first step.

Find your people, online or in person.

While our relationships with healthy friends or family may require some work to heal and find common ground, interacting with others in your same situation is immediately supportive. What a relief it is to chat with others who “get it”! Look for local support groups (search online for your illness and location or try meetup.com) or ask your doctor(s) to pass your contact information along to others with similar conditions.

Online, check Facebook for groups related to your illness or search for your illness + forum or discussion. Yahoo Groups, Groups.io, and Google Groups all offer a wide range of e-mail groups on every topic imaginable. You can even use online groups to connect with others who live nearby. Look for groups that have a positive tone, with supportive and kind discussions between members. Finding your people can enrich your life – we all need that sense of connection.

Focus on joy and gratitude.

Becoming aware of your mental habits and focusing on the positive (once you have dealt with the negative feelings openly) can provide a huge boost to your mental health. Try to notice your speech and thought patterns. Do you spend a lot of time complaining or feeling sorry for yourself? Do you think constantly about what you’ve lost?

Writing can help again here. Try some stream-of-consciousness private journaling. You may need to grieve first & accept those darker feelings so that you can release them. Noticing things that make you feel joy or gratitude can make you far more aware of positive aspects of your life. Keep a joy journal or write a daily gratitude post on Facebook or Twitter (I use #GratefulToday on Twitter). After a few weeks, you will find yourself just naturally noticing joy and gratitude more. Lots of small moments of joy can add up to a lifetime of happiness.

Get professional help, if needed.

If these suggestions seem insurmountable or you are struggling with intense anger or sadness that you can’t work through on your own, consider professional help. I have found counselors very helpful at two different points in my 16 years of chronic illness. Benefits vary by policy, but therapy is usually covered by health insurance. If you or your spouse works, check to see if the company has an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) – I used my husband’s EAP both times to find therapists with chronic illness experience who were a good fit for me. Psychology Today magazine also has an online database, as does findapsychologist.org. If you are unable to leave the house, there are now plenty of online therapists – search for “online therapy chronic illness” for options.

Spring is in the air, with sunny days ahead. Take advantage of this season of renewal to focus on your own spiritual growth. Sweep out the cobwebs of abandonment and loneliness, and scrub out the harmful effects of anger and resentment. Focus in on your own mental well-being and make a fresh start with relationships, old and new. Your mind and body will thank you.

Suzan Jackson is a freelance writer who has had ME/CFS for 16 years and also has Lyme disease. Both of her sons also got ME/CFS 14 years ago, but one is now fully recovered after 10 years of illness and the other is in college, with ME/CFS plus three tick-borne infections. She writes two blogs: Living with ME/CFS at http://livewithcfs.blogspot.com and Book By Book at http://bookbybook.blogspot.com You can follow her on Twitter at @livewithmecfs.