Life in progress

Daily Archives: May 23, 2014


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS May 24/14

It’s time again for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt! It’s been a week of having and lacking for me. It’s a condition that follows us all throughout our lives: the haves and have nots. If we’re lucky, neither stays with us for long. No one wants to be wanting, and yet if we had everything we wanted all the time, we wouldn’t know how to appreciate it.

This week your Prompt will be “with/without.” Choose one to write about or include both. Write about any subject you wish, as always.

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at the prompt page in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Let’s have lots of participants again this week. Try it, it’s fun!

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and paste the following: This post is part of SoCS:  https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-2414/  The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. Have fun!


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Psychosomatic or Real?

Since my fall on the ice just before Christmas when I received a concussion, I’ve been having pain in my right shoulder. It wakes me up at night, has caused weakness in my right arm, and is generally a pain in the ass upper body.

So about three weeks ago I finally decided to take it to the doctor. He ordered an x-ray and an ultrasound and two weeks later I called him back because I hadn’t heard anything. His secretary said the tests showed there was nothing wrong.

But it still hurt. I made an appointment to see him.

As it turns out, I have a slight case of arthritis between my collarbone and my shoulder blade. (There’s another one of those rocket scientists at work here – not sure if it’s the secretary or the doctor, but I suspect it’s the doctor. He’s always been a bit of a twit.)

The point is, since I found out what the problem really is with my shoulder, it’s been feeling better. Is it possible to be given information that there’s nothing wrong and believe it so much that the symptoms go away? I think it is. But in my case, I’m sticking with the belief that now I know it’s not the joint, I’m no longer afraid of doing more damage. Muscle pain I can live with. I can stretch through it and I can work through it. I know now that if I use my arm more and re-build the muscle, my condition will improve.

I also know I am susceptible to psychosomatic disorders. When I get stressed it affects my skin. I itch. And no matter how much I know this to be a fact, and that there is really nothing wrong with my skin, it happens.

I posed the question above, is it psychosomatic or real, but is a psychosomatic illness any different than a real illness? They say attitude can help with the symptoms of sickness – it works both ways. It’s not all in your head. But some of it is. The mind is a powerful thing.

Have you ever suffered with something you knew was psychosomatic, and yet it persisted?