Dragon*Con Parts Ways With Accused Child Molester

Me and Ron Glass at my first Dragon*Con

I've been an attendee of Dragon*Con since 2007. It's one of my favorite weekends of the year. I've heard all about Ed Kramer in the past. For those of you who don't know, Ed Kramer is one of the founders of Dragon*Con. He's not be involved with the con for over 10 years, but he has gotten money from the con because of the way the corporation that puts on Dragon*Con is set up. Also, he's an accused child molester.

Even though he's never been convicted, many people find it upsetting that an accused child molester may be getting any money. Every year, right before the con, there would be calls for boycotts of Dragon*Con. Earlier this year, the boycott actually got some traction. I know a few people who said they would never attend Dragon*Con because of it.

I decided early on not to boycott. I knew that Dragon*Con didn't want to be associated with Kramer but there were legal obstructions that kept them from breaking ties. Today, the great news came out that Dragon*Con had restructured and Ed Kramer will no longer be receiving money from the con. There was a buyout, which I'm sure will still upset some people, but I think it's great that Dragon*Con has now gotten the child molester off of their back.

I'm already really looking forward to the con. I'll be part of several panels through my favorite track, the Kaleidoscope track. I'll also be marching in the parade and cosplaying everyday.

You can read more about Dragon*Con's restructuring at their Facebook page.

Trying Out ABCmouse.com

Emily's home page

I've been seeing commercials for ABCmouse.com since Emily was small and we started watching cartoons. But I didn't think to try it out until now. We were watching TV before church and I saw another commercial and decided to go to the website.

Since they were offering a month for free, I decided to sign Emily up. We didn't get a chance to check it out until after church, but she was hooked right away. She wanted to keep playing the games, but we took a break to go to the movies and take a nap.

So far, Emily is having a lot of fun. I’m not sure how much she is learning yet but we’ll see how it goes. We have a month for free and I’ll give updates as the month goes on.

Has anyone else used ABCmouse.com? Did your kids learn a lot?

Cosplay Plans - Dragon*Con and Beyond

I've always loved costumes since I was a child. I got really into cosplaying for conventions when I was in college. I’m not the best at sewing, but I still manage to make and get some interesting costumes.

I usually go to a few conventions a year. We always go to Dragon*Con in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend. I plan on wearing three costumes over the course of that con.

Friday, I think I’m going to wear my American McGee’s Alice costume. It’s a costume I bought to wear to Mad Monster Party this past March and it’s a lot of fun to wear.

American McGee's Alice

Saturday is parade day, so I’ll be in my Kaylee costume. I’ll be wearing the blue jacket that Kaylee wears in the pilot of Firefly. I would love to be in my Kaylee Layer Cake dress, but it’s falling apart and I just don’t have the time to fix it before Dragon*Con.

Kaylee

Sunday, I’ll be in my Snow White costume. It was a lot of fun to wear last year because the little kids at the con loved it. I just need to take the velvet sleeves off because it gets way too hot in downtown Atlanta at the end of summer.

Snow Whites

After Dragon*Con, we will be heading to Disney World for Emily’s 5^th birthday trip. Disney has Halloween party that I’ll be attending solo because Todd doesn't think Emily would stay awake to get our money’s worth out of. For that party, I’m going to be wearing my Petit Charat costume. I wanted to stay away from Disney costumes and I wanted something I wouldn't roast in. I want to go on the rides, and I should be able to fit easily on the rides, even with a tail.

Petit Charat

I’m not sure if I’ll dress up for Halloween. I didn't last year because I was a bit costumed out. If Emily wants me to, we may both dress up like Snow White.

For next year, I hope to have the time to be able to re-make my Kaylee Layer Cake dress. We are already planning on attending Mad Monster Party in March. Emily wants to come with us, and wants to cosplay. She requested that she and I dress up like witches, while Todd dresses like a monster. But Todd had a great idea. He suggested that Emily dress up in a clown outfit like the little girl in Halloween 4 and Todd could dress as Michael Myers. We actually have a picture of both in our hallway and when Emily saw it she wanted to do it. So I’ll be looking for clown costumes this Halloween.

I do have a sewing machine and I hope to be able to learn how to use it. Once I do, I’ll be able to make even more costumes for both me and Emily.

The Headbutt of Doom

My beautiful, pain-causing child

I have a four year old daughter who tends to be a little rambunctious. This is pretty normal for kids her age, but I'm not a normal mommy.

Last night, I was laying in bed and reading a book. Todd and Emily came in to check on me because my pain levels had been a little high because of the thunderstorms we'd been having. Emily climbed into the bed, launched herself at me and her hard, little head collided with mine.

The pain level jumped up to migraine levels. When I have a migraine, it's not just about the pain it's about the auras and my brain feeling fuzzy. I feel much stupider when I have a migraine because my brain just doesn't work as well.

Emily knew what she had done right away and started crying. I snuggled her and told her it was okay. And while my pain levels were through the roof, it was just an accident.We stayed in the bedroom and played some video games until I was time for her to go to bed. Thankfully, Todd did most of the bedtime routine so I could stay seated.

Just before bed, Emily gave me her Captain America doll. She wanted to make sure I had someone else to

snuggle with. I already have two stuffed animals that are mine. My Pooh Bear from when I was a child and Chronic Pain Bear, who was another gift from Emily.

I spent the rest of the evening in bed, reading on my Kindle. Todd would check on me every once in a while. I'm feeling a little better this morning but the pain is still pretty high. I'm muddling my way through my work shift and feeling very thankful that I work from home.

Happy 4th of July!

Summer Fun!

Happy Independence Day to all my American readers!

We generally don’t do a lot for the 4th of July. Todd has off from work but I’m working a normal shift today. And honestly there is something I’m more excited about today.

99 days from today we will be heading to Disney World. We haven’t been since our honeymoon and I've been looking forward to taking Emily to my favorite place since I found out I was pregnant.

I’ll be posting more about Disney later. I hope everyone has a great holiday today!

My Chronic Pain Journey - Part 2

Pregnant with Miss Emily

This is the second post on my chronic pain journey thus far. Click here if you want to read the first post.

After I had gotten a handle on my pain, I went through some big life changes. I moved in with Todd, and then a year later we moved down to NC. We got married, honeymooned at Disney World a year later and 3 months after our honeymoon, I got pregnant.

A lot of people told me that their migraines got better after they got pregnant, but mine never did. The first trimester was not pleasant because of extreme nausea on top of my normal pain. The second trimester I felt ok, and I was even able to attend Dragon*Con eight months pregnant. Once we got home from Dragon*Con, I started feeling bad. I was getting so big that it hurt to move and my migraine pain levels got higher.

Finally I gave birth to Miss Emily via c-section on October 17, 2008. It took some adjustment to parenthood, especially since I suddenly became a stay at home mom when I got laid off. I did suffer from postpartum depression, but I was able to get help for it.

Life went on for a couple of years and my pain didn't change. I did develop a few other issues like very bad eczema and IBS, but mostly I was able to cope with it all as I went back to get a 2nd college degree.
Things took a turn for the worse winter 2010. I lost two days that I can’t remember at all – it was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. When I was able to start remember, I was very paranoid. Nothing in my house looked familiar and I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye. Todd says that I was awake during those two days but I was really out of it.

We dropped Emily off with friends the day after Christmas and Todd took me to the ER. They ran a bunch of tests on me and I was admitted to the hospital. The only thing they could find is that there is a mass in my brain that got inflamed. It went down so the doctors said it wasn't cancer and I hadn't had a stroke.

The neurologists weren't able to do anything and again the drugs they gave me didn't work. The medicine actually dried my skin out that it made my eczema even worse. It took a long time for me to recover. For months, I would have trouble finding things in my house because everything still was unfamiliar. But it subsided as did the things I was seeing out of the corner of my eye. The headache pain was still there.
The doctors weren't able to figure out why I had this mass in my brain, but it wasn't hurting me anymore. Todd had a theory that it was stress that caused it because I was really stressed out about school right before the episode.

Things got back to normal for the most part. I finished school and I got a temp. job doing filing. It was soon after I went back to work that I started having panic attacks. This was due in large part to the behavior of a family member. I cut that family member out of my life and saw my doctor. I was on antidepressants for a while, but I was dumb and stopped taking them.

I was good for about a year. I got a new job working from home and my pain levels were staying about the same. But this past spring, I started having panic attacks and high anxiety again. There was no good reason for it, so I ended up back on anti-depressants. This time, I’m not going to go off them because I feel much better now.

Even though I am able to live a fairly normal life, I still have the pain. It gets very bad sometimes but usually I can cope. It will be ten years with the same headache next month and I've resigned myself to the fact that I’ll probably have this pain for the rest of my life. But I’m not going to keep it from letting me live my life to the fullest.

My Chronic Pain Journey - Part 1

The Face of Chronic Pain

The thing the makes my life the most chaotic and the most challenging is my chronic pain. I've been dealing with this pain for nearly ten years and it’s been quite a journey. Because this is a long story, I’ll be writing up two parts.

As a kid, I was pretty healthy though I did have a tendency to be overweight. I did start having medicine allergies pretty early on. I’m allergic to a bunch of medicines, most notably amoxicillin, ibuprofen and aspirin. But all that was going to change in my mid-20’s.

I had gone to a local water park with a friend from college in August 2003. I got really sick afterwards, including an ear infection. My doctor kept telling me that I didn't have an ear infection over the course of a month until I ended up in the ER. Finally I was diagnosed with a bad ear infection and was given medicine. I got better, except for having permanent hearing loss in that ear, except for a headache that lingered. I've had that same headache for nearly ten years now.

The next nine months were some of the worst in my life. I was in and out of the ER because the only thing that helped my pain was heavy duty narcotics. I was also in and out of my doctor’s office as we tried ever headache / migraine medicine on the market. None of the medicines worked long term and most of them gave me bad side effects thanks to my sensitivity with drugs.

I also saw some specialists. The neurologist that I saw thought I was making it up, but gave a name to my condition – Daily Chronic Headaches. Though I think daily chronic migraines is a better label since when my pain gets bad, I get migraine symptoms like auras and brain fuzziness. I did get MRI’s and CAT Scans, but they didn't show anything which is probably why the neurologist was less than sympathetic.

After a while, I started having rebound headaches from the narcotics I was getting in the ER. I was really depressed, and my doctor tried an antidepressant. It didn't help because my depression wasn't chemical; it was because I felt I was in a hopeless situation. My doctor even tried changing my birth control but nothing helped.

During this time, I was working a full time job, though I did have FMLA so I could take time off if my pain was really bad or if I needed to go to the doctor. I was also just starting to date my now-husband, Todd. It was a long distance relationship and we managed to make it work despite my chronic pain issues.

I went to visit friends over New Year 2004 and I had one of my worst migraines to date. We had gone to the Hard Rock Cafe in Detroit. It was very loud, but what set off the migraine was the smell of raw onions on the plate across from mine. Todd ended up driving me home through a snow storm, and I ended back in the ER. I went and saw my doctor afterwards and he told me that I shouldn't go into noisy places anymore.

This pissed me off – I was 26 years old! I wasn't going to live my life hiding and decided I needed to take control of this pain. I started a pain journal and began finding out what my triggers are for me. I found ways to cope when the pain got high, since no medicines work, and I started coming out of the fog.

I was able to manage my pain even though it was and is still there. And I've been able to do things like go out to eat, go to noisy concerts and even have a baby. In the next post, I’ll talk about chronic pain and pregnancy, as well as my brain issues.