How Necessary Are Those Robots

You know the ones! Each time you call a company for any reason the phone is answered by a robot! You are then given the option of pushing 1 for English or 2 for Other Language. THEN the fun begins. And I say fun only because I would be banned from the internet for the rest of my life and the next 5 lives if I ever said the things that go thru my mind and sometimes trip out across my tongue when I have to deal with these robots. “Please choose from the following options” never seems to cover the option I’m calling about. And has anyone ever noticed they NEVER give the option of speaking to a representative? It takes hours of frustration and begging and nearly selling my soul to finally get across to the robot that when I’m saying “I want to speak to a representative”, what I actually mean is “I WANT TO SPEAK TO A REPRESENTATIVE”.

I’ve spent the past month having this argument with my cable company over the WiFi in my apartment. Each time I call I am informed “We don’t show an outage in your area”. I tell them there is no outage in my area, just in my apartment, and they inform me that they don’t understand my answer — because it isn’t one of their programmed options! Of course it isn’t. It would take hours to listen to all of the possibilities if they were all programmed in, so why not just a single “What is your problem?” and let you explain? Or “how can we direct your call?” But that would probably require human interface and that is asking too much in this day and age of computers and robots. Hmmm, I wonder what would happen if I just bark the next time? Unfortunately, I’m sure there will be a next time.

Maybe I should start answering my own phone that way — at least the spam calls I am receiving on a minute by minute basis lately. “You have reached the telephone of so and so. If you are calling about health products push 1 now. If you are a political party, push 2 now. If you are calling to sell something that was not ordered, push 3 now. If you are a nosy neighbor calling to complain about the noise, pust 4 now. If you are still on the line just hold for as long as you like and maybe the call will be answered in the near future. I suggest you don’t hold your breath while waiting though.”

MY three kids a few years ago! Sometimes I think it would be nice if we could go back to those simple days again. No robots back then.

Y’all have a good week!

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Inside My Brain Cell

I speak frequently about my last remaining brain cell, the result of having advanced MS.  Lately I’ve been wondering if that is still viable, since I’ve been having a series of small strokes.  These itty bitty strokes are the reason for my absence from blogging lately, since my brain, already jumbled from the MS now seems to be even more confusing becajse of the “brain farts” as I have called them in the many years that I’ve been having them.  No, they didn’t just begin recently, just seemed to accelerate and add a new dimension.  This time my speech was affected,  It’s back now and almost normal — I think, but for a few days I had to really work at forming each word, slowly, carefully, sounding it out one letter at a time, learning the basics all over again.

It only occurred to me while emailing my friend, JeanneMarie of http://womenwhothinktoomuch.wordpress.com this morning, telling her some of these things, that I am able to share some of these feelings while others who have had them might not be, so I could possibly help someone by posting this.  Most of the people who have strokes, whether major or the minor ones like mine, are not able to describe the feelings they have during the episodes.  I’m not certain I can either, but I want to try.  I also want to urge you to call for help immediately if you suspect you are having an episode like this.  It’s a “do as I say, not as I do” type of situation, since for reasons of my own I have chosen to never visit our local hospital or any doctor affiliated with it again.  

Okay, headaches sometimes accompany these episodes, but don’t always lead the way.  I do always feel light headed, dizzy, buzzing in my ears and there is a very strange sensation that just can’t be explained.  I just can’t find the right words to describe the sensation I feel just as this one hits and I know it is time to get to a chair or bed right now before I hit the floor.

Somehow I don’t think I’ve actually said anything, but hopefully something in here will help someone a little bit,  Or scare you silly.  Just keep in mind that today you can survive anything if you catch it immediately, call for help and follow the doctor’s orders.  A good diet can play a large role in your recovery.  And don’t discount the healing properties of a good nights sleep!  I would even say the old apple a day can help because of all of the wonderful vitamins and minerals packed inside each of those beautiful little globes of natural energy.

I’m Still Alive

There was some doubt recently as to when or whether this would be true for very long when I began having another series of minor strokes, but even though they continue I’m still beating them.  This time they took my speaking ability for a little while but ya just can’t keep me from talking for long when my mind is made up that I have something to say.  For that matter, I’m gonna talk even when I don’t have all that much to say just because no silly brain fart is going to tell me what to do!

Okay, now you might have noticed the prominent orange in the opening photos. You may have forgotten this, but October is MS Awareness Month and orange is our color, so once again I’m flying my logo, created for me by MichelleMarie, my friend and fellow blogger of http://tellmeaboutit.wordpress.com.  I am forever grateful for this gift from her.  The orange rose was a give from Paul Militaru, a wonderful photographer from Romania which incidentally is the home country of three of my grandchildren.

I had hoped to do some research and quote some statistics about MS on this beginning of the month, but the best laid plans in my case often go astray, or whatever the word for wrong is.  I know the word but not the spelling and my spell-check just gave up the ghost where that particular word is concerned.  Ya know ya just did a real job on something with your spell-check throws up its hands and gives up.

Okay, even though I don’t know the numbers, what I do know is that MS shares this Awareness month with Breast Cancer, and they get most of the publicity.  I also know that the number of people affected by MS worldwide is much larger than the number of people affected by Breast Cancer.  MS is considered an orphan disease, one seldom mentioned because there is no cure and not a heck of a lot of funding, although that is beginning to improve.  There are some new protocols out there that are helping a lot of the people affected by this disease.  I’ve had it since age 11, and now 64 years later it is getting worse each day.  Unfortunately I’m unable to take the disease modifying drugs because my system has a weird habit of causing side  effects that I would just as soon leave rather than take chances with, so I’ve lived a long time with it now and I can live with the fact that some day it just might kill me — in about 25 or 30 years from now.  Since I really don’t want to live more than another 20 years though, I can live with that!  My mom and grandmother were both 96 years of age when they passed on, and that sounds like a good round number to me.

Okay, I just put a new battery in my Dell laptop and it’s beginning to bounce all over the place, so someone is trying to tell me it’s time to shut this down for today.  I have some serious naval contemplation to do tonight, as well as more decluttering, (huge sigh), a never ending ordeal.  So y’all have a good night and remember to say “hello” to the disabled person holding up that line you are in.  They  aren’t enjoying it any more than you are.