#bed-ridden

It started with agony that could not be compared. With my starting to lose the ability to walk at all. With my losing the ability to crawl up the stairs. With my losing the last few threads of what was left of me.

2017 was the year I stopped being able to walk. To use my legs. It was the year I had to get a stair lift. The year I had to get a “real” and “proper” active wheelchair – something that caused a lot of pain, difficulty, complications, and tears. The year I found out I had been suffering an elusive condition for the last 19 years and it had impacted greatly upon my Fibromyalgia – something no one had ever heard of, called Hemiplegic Migraine… and I found that out on what should have been my late grandfather’s birthday.

This was the year my best friend left for South America, and was no longer here. This was the year I went completely numb and unable to feel anything touching my skin or pain from the outside. This was the year I could no longer stand for a shower or get into the bath. The year where gaming became more and more elusive because my hands and focus no longer worked properly. The year Fatigue came to over-run and ruin my life. The year PIP decided to decieve and scheme and refuse to even acknowledge the difficulties I have by outrightly lying about me in their reports. The year I was betrayed by my own therapist, just the third time we had met, and after waiting over a year on the waiting list to see her in the first place.

This was the year I learned you can lose your life without ever having to actually die.

I started 2017 with the ability to shuffle with walking aids and go for a shower… And I am ending it without the ability to walk or properly move my legs, wearing a catheter, permenently in a wheelchair, unable to go to the shower or get into the bath, barely able to leave my room, struggling to move and sometimes even breathe.

2017 was the year I think I truly died inside.

It started with hardship and loss. Went on to destroy what was left of me and my body. Ended with trauma and being near-bedridden.

On the bright side, I also ended up getting 2 graphic card upgrades and end the year with the GTX 1070 8GB OC. I was also introduced to several amazing games – in 4K High/Ultra, too – and got a Lenovo YogaBook – which is terribly fun to have.

And I got to see The Last Jedi… So at last one good thing happened.

    ~ Happy New Year ~

    ~ 2018 ~

What’s a girl to do when she has the flu?

I’ll admit that this hasn’t been the easiest of weeks for me and I apologise now for the fact that I’ve hardly been much of a visible presence on my own blog, let alone the blogs of others. The truth is that I have not been feeling well since last Saturday (April 5th) and I am fairly sure that I have succumbed to some sort of virus.

It all started rather innocently when I ventured to my local…

Marcel Proust, The Fugitive, translated by Marcel Proust, p. 536.

New Post has been published on http://www.deafcube.com/2013/08/25/they-dare-take-the-moral-high-ground-on-what-has-happened-in-syria/

They Dare Take The Moral High Ground On What Has Happened In Syria

Funny how the Americans can get away with using Chemical weapons. And they dare take the moral high ground on what has happened in Syria. They’re doing it again, only by stealth and by proxy this time. – The two incidents can hardly be compared! These poor children are suffering the ‘after effects’ of pesticides used to destroy vegetation where the enemy was concealing itself. In Syria chemical attacks are deliberately targeting humans. We should also not forget what cruel and barbaric soldiers the Vietnamese were and why the US military did what they did at that time .

Generation Orange: Heartbreaking portraits of Vietnamese children suffering from devastating effects of toxic herbicide sprayed by US Army 40 years ago

They were born decades after American forces had sprayed the herbicide dioxin Agent Orange in South Vietnam, but some children living in the region today continue to suffer from the horrifying effects of the chemical. New York City-based photographer Brian Dricscoll traveled to Vietnam to document the everyday struggles of third generation Agent Orange victims battling dozens of serious ailments, physical deformities and mental disorders. Driscoll was inspired to take up this difficult topic by his uncle, a Vietnam War veteran who may have been one of estimated 2.6 million U.S. soldiers believed to have been exposed to Agent Orange in the 1960s. Deformed: Nguyen and Hung Vuong Pham, 14, and 15, await their daily bathing in the Kim Dong district of Hai Phong, Vietnam. Their days are occupied watching people pass by the front area of their home Lost generation: Third generation Agent Orange victim Nguyen Pham, 11, deaf, blind and cannot speak has been bed ridden for a great portion of his life; a makeshift wheel chair for a victim of Agent Orange, in the Phuong Son district, Nha Trang

Perpetual suffering: Former Viet Cong soldier and father, stands behind his son Nguyen Van Dung, 12, at home in the Kim Dong district of Hai Phong, Vietnam. Nguyen is tied by the hands because he compulsively tears at his own face

Innocent: Huong Nghiem, 8, third generation Agent Orange victim, is being held by her mother in the door way of their home in the Tran Cao Van district, Hoi An

The American photographer traveled to Hanoi and tracked down a group of young Vietnamese whose health has been ravaged by the chemical, the site Feature Shoot reported. For three weeks, Mr Driscoll made his way south through remote villages, ending his journey in Nha Trang about 640 miles from the capital. During his travels, Driscoll got to meet and take pictures of teenagers and children as young as 5 suffering from debilitating conditions, among them Nguyen Pham, 11, who is deaf, blind and mute. The boy has been bed-ridden for most of his life. Agent Orange is the combination of the code names for Herbicide Orange and Agent LNX, one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its chemical warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. In the course of 10 years, American forces sprayed nearly 20million gallons of the chemical in Vietnam, Laos and parts of Cambodia in an effort to deprive guerrilla fighters of cover by destroying plants and trees where they could find refuge.

Daily torment: Nguyen Quang, 11, on his bed at home in the Kim Dong district of Hai Phong. Village leaders believe most of the children to be third generation Agent Orange victims due to the commonality in mental disorders and physical deformities

The forgotten: Suffering from a distorted reality, Nguyen Tran Ho, 11, gazes out from his bed (left); Thom Le Pham (right) gives a look of despair at home in the Benh Vien district, Danang Vietnam

Heart-wrenching sight: Phirum Ung, 5, third generation Agent Orange victim, naps in a hammock at home in Beng Melea Province, Cambodia. Most days are spent with his mother pan-handling at the Angkor Wat Temples

Family: A mother of an Agent Orange victim at home in Kim Dong district of Nhat Tan, Vietnam

The chemical was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. It got its name from the color of the orange-striped 55-gallon barrels in which it was shipped to Asia. Jeanne Stellman, of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, estimated that up to 4.5 million Vietnamese were living in the 3,181 villages that were directly in the spray paths and were potentially exposed to the herbicide. According to the Vietnam Red Cross, about 1 million Vietnamese have been affected by Agent Orange, including 150,000 children suffering from birth defects, CNN reported.

Shadow: Le Sinh, 14, Agent Orange victim, looks out from the lanai at home in the Benh Vien district, Da Nang

Shocking figures: The Vietnam Red Cross estimated that about 1 million Vietnamese have been affected by Agent Orange, including 150,000 children suffering from birth defects

Bucolic setting: The house of Nguyen Pham, 11, an Agent Orange victim, in the district of Chi Linh, Vietnam

One day at a time: A mother at home cares for her child who is affected by Agent Orange. Quang Ninh district

The U.S. government, however, has dismissed these figures as unreliable and inflated. Among the illnesses contracted by people exposed to the dioxin are non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, several varieties of cancer, type 2 diabetes, soft tissue sarcoma, birth defects in children, spina bifida and reproductive abnormalities, to name a few. Earlier this month, the Association for Victims of Agent Orange in Ho Chi Minh City has filed its fourth lawsuit against American chemical companies that produced Agent Orange.