Katikam

About Me

I was born in Hungary, childhood in Belgium, but I\'ve been a typical Americans for more than 40 years! I\'ve had many different occupations, sales clerk, fry cook and finally completed college and grad school and did anthropology, teaching and translation. I\'ve been reading some of the posts on this website for a while and my heart goes out to all of you suffering and being so brave out there. I\'m working on my pain. I\'m 70 years old and I\'ve had back problems since age 23. I relied on a wonderful chiropractor for decades but finally that didn\'t work anymore. I\'ve had a surgery for spinal stenosis a year and a half ago, it helped some for a few months, but the pain is getting worse and there are days it seems to attack my body from head to toe! Apparently I have arthritis in every one of my disks --or at least what remains of them.... I got used to my other ailments: atrial fibrillation since age 13. I\'ve had several ablations to try to fix the problem but they didn\'t work. I\'ve gotten used to it though, so I\'m not complaining. I also have a whole orchestra made up of violins frequently tuning its instruments in my ear --tinnitus-- but I\'ve got used to that too. It\'s just the back (and legs and feet and arms) that bothers me. I\'m taking Vicodan but I don\'t like it because it keeps my brain from working properly (or maybe it\'s old age!). The good thing is that I have people whom I love dearly and whom I love. Two daughters and one granddaughters and a lifetime partner, oh, and a dog! I\'ve been suffering for decades from depression and PTSD from a bad marriage that ended in the seventies, so I\'m taking antidepressants (Sertraline/Zoloft) and try my best to keep my sense of humor. My mother who was the bravest woman I\'ve ever known asked me to remember her laughing. So I figure if I can laugh a few times everyday, life is worthwhile.