Modem Problems

My modem is dying. I unplugged it all night after it dialed ceaselessly for four hours late yesterday with me doing all of the 'reset' things to no avail, and it connected this morning but I don't know for how long. Since I still have no voice with this cold, my husband will have to make the call to Bellsouth, my server, and he may not until it starts dialing endlessly again. They have a way of testing them on their end. That's how I ended up getting this one when the old one died. Bottom line...if I disappear, I could be a few days missing while the thing ships.

Promise

The betrayed women sit
on my street corner.
Nails ragged.
Lipstick smeared.
Eyes puffed.
Labels jut out from their collars
like flags, marking them
untouchable.

The sky turns scarlet
and you kiss me.
Your words become as wee birds.
They sing promises to the rising moon.
My legs lift up to greet you
and I'm lost in the great web
of want.

I hope those birds still perch
on my bedpost come morn.



Pris Campbell
©2009



Published in Durable Goods Two, a mini-print.
Aleathia Drehmer, Editor

To see this with art on my website, go HERE.

Information from the International Fibro/ME/CFS group on Facebook

The site offers this information to freely share.


Fibromyalgia can affect every aspect of a person's life. While neither degenerative nor fatal, the chronic pain associated with fibromyalgia is pervasive and persistent. FMS can severely curtail social activity and recreation, and as many as 30% of those diagnosed with fibromyalgia are unable to maintain full-time employment. Like others with disabilities, individuals with FMS often need accommodations to fully participate in their education or remain active in their careers.

Fibromyalgia is often referred to as an "invisible" illness or disability due to the fact that generally there are no outward indications of the illness or its resulting disabilities. The invisible nature of the illness, as well as its relative rarity and the lack of understanding about its pathology, often has psychosocial complications for those that have the syndrome. Individuals suffering from invisible illnesses in general often face disbelief or accusations of malingering or laziness from others that are unfamiliar with the syndrome.

Common symptoms of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome:

Pain - The pain of fibromyalgia has no boundaries. People describe the pain as deep muscular aching, throbbing, shooting, and stabbing. Intense burning may also be present. Quite often, the pain and stiffness are worse in the morning and you may hurt more in muscle groups that are used repetitively.

With FMS there are 18 tender points that radiate pain on a daily basis.

Fatigue - This symptom can be mild in some fibromyalgia patients and yet incapacitating in others. The fatigue has been described as "brain fatigue" in which patients feel totally drained of energy. Many patients depict this situation by saying that they feel as though their arms and legs are tied to concrete blocks, and they have difficulty concentrating, e.g., brain fog.

Sleep disorder - Most patients have an associated sleep disorder called the alpha-EEG anomaly. This condition was uncovered in a sleep lab with the aid of a machine that recorded the brain waves of patients during sleep. Researchers found that the majority of fibromyalgia patients could fall asleep without much trouble, but their deep level (or stage 4) sleep was constantly interrupted by bursts of awake-like brain activity. Patients appeared to spend the night with one foot in sleep and the other one out of it.
Sleep lab tests may not be necessary to determine if you have disturbed sleep. If you wake up feeling as though you've just been run over by a Mack truck—what doctors refer to as unrefreshing sleep—it is reasonable for your physician to assume that you have a sleep disorder. Many fibromyalgia patients have been found to have other sleep disorders in addition to the alpha-EEG, such as sleep apnea (as well as the newly discovered form of interrupted breathing called upper airway resistance syndrome, or UARS), bruxism (teeth grinding), periodic limb movement during sleep (jerking of arms and legs), and restless legs syndrome (difficulty sitting still in the evenings).

Irritable Bowel Syndrome - Constipation, diarrhea, frequent abdominal pain, abdominal gas, and nausea represent symptoms frequently found in roughly 40 to 70% of fibromyalgia patients. Acid reflux or gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD) also occurs with the same high frequency.

Chronic headaches - Recurrent migraine or tension-type headaches are seen in about 70% of fibromyalgia patients and can pose a major problem in coping for this patient group.

Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction Syndrome - This syndrome, sometimes referred to as TMJ or TMD, causes tremendous jaw-related face and head pain in one-quarter of fibromyalgia patients. However, a 1997 published report indicated that close to 75% of fibromyalgia patients have varying degrees of jaw discomfort. Typically, the problems are related to the muscles and ligaments surrounding the jaw joint and not necessarily the joint itself.

Other common symptoms:
Chest pain, morning stiffness, cognitive or memory impairment, numbness and tingling sensations, muscle twitching, irritable bladder, premenstrual syndrome and painful periods, the feeling of swollen extremities, skin sensitivities, dry eyes and mouth, dizziness, and impaired coordination can occur.

Fibromyalgia patients are often sensitive to odors, loud noises, bright lights, and sometimes even the medications they are prescribed.

Aggravating factors - Changes in weather, cold or drafty environments, infections, allergies, hormonal fluctuations (premenstrual and menopausal states), stress, depression, anxiety and over-exertion may all contribute to fibromyalgia symptom flare-ups.

NOTES:
Did you know?????...
Florence Nightingale was probably the most famous non-royal person of the Victorian period. She helped develop modern nursing.

By 1896, Florence Nightingale was bedridden. She may have had what is now known as chronic fatigue syndrome and her birthday (12 May 1820) is now celebrated as International CFS Awareness Day.

As usual with fibromyalgia the amount of co-morbidities (other diseases) is high and may confuse the diagnosis. The fact that she developed her fibromyalgia after an apparent infection trigger made it called chronic fatigue syndrome and the infection itself is being accused of the symptoms. A recent biography cites brucellosis and associated spondylitis.

NOTE: Please invite everyone, our goal is to make it around the world and create an awareness so that FMS CFS and ME are not the invisible illness, or the illness that when you mention it you get asked questions that are too complicated to explain in a passing conversation..

YET ANOTHER NOTE: This is a Worldwide Event and can be celebrated at home or by contacting a local group. We are trying to create an awareness of the DATE and ILLNESSES; INTERNATIONAL FIBROMYALGIA AWARENESS DAY / CHRONIC FATIGUE / ME DAY

Please check out the LINKS which might lead you to a group in your area or just pass on the awareness to your friends... The pictures have added insight to many as well.

OUR VOICE IS POWERFUL!!! (On May 12, 2009, we started this virtual event with a goal of being heard around the world and we did...
"IT IS AMAZING TO SEE IN SUCH A SHORT WHILE...JUST HOW WE HAVE UNITIED PEOPLE FROM ALL ACROSS THE WORLD!!! WE WANT TO SHOW JUST HOW BIG OUR VOICE IS...AND BY ALL MEANS TO ANYONE WHO IS FROM SOMEWHERE NOT ON THE LIST...FEEL FREE TO POST ON THE WALL WHERE YOU ARE FROM AS i DO BELIEVE HAVING FOUND SUCH A HUGE VOICE GIVES US ALL A SENSE OF UNITY AND A FEELING OF HOPE!!!
The places are: All of the 50 states of the U.S.A.; 7 out of the 10 Provinces of Canada; District of Columbia; Federated States of Micronesia; Puerto Rico, Australia; Central America; South Africa; Japan; Italy; Scotland; United Kingdom; Portugal; Barbados; Norway; Sweden; Spain; Glasgow; England; Ireland; New Zealand; Wales, Isle Of Main."

Special book offer from Lummox Press

This came in the morning email from Lummox. It's a really nice offer. If you want a signed copy, leave that in the ordering instructions when you're on the Lummox site.

IF YOU WANT THE BELOW SPECIAL WHEN YOU ORDER YOU NEED TO ASK FOR IT!

Pris

From Lummox:

Hello again

Just a quick announcement I forgot to mention in the October newsletter. What with the holidaze and all coming up, I thought it might be nice to offer you readers a little deal: anyone who buys one of the following titles will also get a free Little Red Book to go with it (but you have to buy it from Lummox). Sea Trails with Hesitant Commitments by Pris Campbell; The Riddle of the Wooden Gun with Bone by Todd Moore; Down This Crooked Road with Any Abyss Will Do by William Taylor, Jr; and any of my books with The Hunger by RD Armstrong. If you buy a copy of The Long Way Home, I'll send you a LRB of your choice. This offer is good from now until Dec. 15th. Poetry makes a great gift.

--
Raindog
Lummox Press

Thank you Helen Losse for this wonderful review of my book, Sea Trails.

This is the first paragraph of a wonderful review written by Helen Losse, author of Better With Friends and the Poetry Editor of the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature


It's hard for me to envision a book of poems as a "page turner," but Sea Trails: Poems and 1977 Passage Notes by Pris Campbell is just that. The narrative is about a trip, taken by the author and a man called R, aboard a small boat named Little Adventure. Included within the 100-page volume are not only Campbell’s original notes and recent poems, written 30 years after the trip, but also, for those of us who are undereducated in nautical terms, a glossary of boating terms and asides, such as “How to lay a trot line for catching crabs” (p. 42) — woven into the body but printed on a gray background — along with maps, and a few well-placed black and white photos of the author in her younger days. There is even an entry called “While We Were Gone,” that lists news about Elvis’ death and the launchings of Voyager 1 and Voyager II (p. 88).

Click HERE to read the entire review. And buy Helen's book. Purchase information is on the list at Rank Stranger Press. I've read really good things about her book and am ordering it today!

Thank you Scott Owens

Since I can't get out to do readings (dizziness, loss of voice, etc), Scott Owens kindly agreed to read poems from my book when he has the opportunity over the next two or three months. Last night he took open mic at a Hickory reading for 10 minutes and sold three books. Scott, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

By the way, Scott has a new book coming out in the spring that can be preordered at The Main Street Rag under upcoming books. His current book, The Fractured World, published by Main Street Rag as well, is selling hand over fist. I love that book.

Lummox wrote me to tell me that SUNY (State University of New York) in Buffalo just ordered copies of my current book, Sea Trails, and the chapbook, Hesitant Commitments, that he published earlier. I don't have any idea how they stumbled across it, but I'm grateful.

Being a good blogger

Recently Robert Brewer posted the characteristics of being a good blogger. Among them were...blog regularly, even if once a week; try to find a theme for your blog so readers will have a feeling for what to expect and return.

I've decided I'm a terrible blogger:-) I've been running this blog for years and even though I do disappear at times I manage to get back once a week, but I have no theme. I play here. I post whatever comes to mind, be it music, a book recommendation, an art link. I'm all over the place.

I used to post more of my poetry but with more and more journals not accepting any poetry found on the internet already I've finally caved on that one and don't post it often. Only if I don't plan to submit it or else to a journal that doesn't mind.

I should start digging up older published poems, but my next book goal is a collected 'best of' poems, so I want to keep the poems to myself before the book. When I worked for the two years on my current book out, Sea Trails, I only submitted and published three of them. I kept the others under wraps. This book was and is special to me. It's the story told in prose (log notes and musings) and poetry of my 1977 trip down the east coast in my 22 footer. That journey was a turning point in my life. The tumultuous relationship with my sailing partner (husband for a moment in time after) only accentuated the fact that despite the despair of a deteriorating relationship, the sea...nature gives us its arms and welcomes us. A love such as that never abandons us. The sea fills me. I couldn't let go of those poems until they were ready to come together as family in my book.

The book can be ordered at www.lummoxpress.com. Click on my book cover and you'll go to a paypal site but if you scroll down you'll also find some of the poems in the book, and comments. Of course I wish everyone would read it, but..

So, I'll go on being a 'bad' blogger and hope some of you stick with me!

On a different note, late breaking research indicates the strong possibility that a retrovirus may play a large part in the illness I have. This is the first real hope for all of us in the history of this illness. More work is yet to be done and then possible testing to see if any existing antivirals will work to either eradicate it or at least moderate it. I can no longer remember being well. I want to remember again.

Jim Knowles wins the Poetry Superhighwy Contest!!!

A group mail came around yesterday from P.J. Nights, co-editor of From East to West. I was thrilled to see this. Jim has been an online friend for several years and a fine poet!

PJ's letter:
Ofttime contributor to our zine and onetime reader at an East/West event at the North Star Cafe in Portland, ME, Jim Knowles has won 1st in the lucrative Poetry Superhighway Contest with the following poem (a sonnet? ya!)



Breccia


A ship, they said: an island's more the case.
One touch of lips that tore four souls apart.
The clock has stopped above the campus lawn.
What matters most can hang you from a chain.

Three sets of feet were splashing in the foam.
Above canals, the windows cut the sun.
And there you are in photo number three.
You started skidding sideways on the road.

He leaves a candle where the future died.
There still are things that he can never say.
That grey flypaper will not let her go.
But nothing here exists that won't be gone.

The rubber mask, the hiss of oxygen.
Outside the silent river rumples by.


Jim Knowles (c)2009