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    • A Teacher Tale: The English Teacher Who Hates to Read Aloud

      Posted at 11:31 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 23, 2021

      If I were to open my MyChart app for you, you’d see a scary list of my illnesses:  ulcerative colitis, fibromyalgia, Ménière’s, and IBS–to name a few. And while they sucketh harder than all marathons ever run collectively, most of my chronic issues are hidden beneath my cracked wide-open and bleeding (thanks visible psoriasis), painful to the touch most days (thanks invisible fibromyalgia), and purple-then-blue-then-white-then-red (thanks visible Raynaud’s) epidermis. 

      But if you were to open my classroom door and stay for a while, you’d see another of my afflictions (and I’m not talking about my very visible llama problem). While it doesn’t cause me any physical pain, the emotional distress it inflicts upon me makes me feel embarrassed and like a failure.

      You’d expect this funny, vibrant, spunky, whimsical (if I do say so myself) English teacher to be downright eloquent, a blonde version of John Keating in Dead Poet’s Society, but, y’all–I. Hate. To. Read. Aloud. In. Class. Because. I. Fuck. It. Up—-so hard. 

      https://media.giphy.com/media/vX39PBHlKLVcI/giphy.gif

      Why?

      1. I read ALL the time but–to myself. And while my dad read the funnies out loud to me as a child, I don’t remember other adults consistently reading texts aloud to me. I might be misremembering, because my brain is fickle, but I’m fairly certain that by middle school, we did most of our reading for English class by ourselves. What does this boil down to? I haven’t heard a shit-ton of words that I would recognize in print ever pronounced. So throughout the years, I made up my own pronunciations. Yeah, I used to sit with a dictionary to look up a word’s meaning, but I never bothered with the pronunciation. It’s a whole hell of a lot easier now to stop and have Google’s online dictionary pronounce schadenfreude for you than it was in the 90s because a hardcover Webster’s Dictionary lacked that feature. I’ve blundered through words like caste, propitious, and scythe because I’d never heard them spoken only to have students correct me. That shit’s embarrassing. And it happens all the time. Once I even had a parent call to complain that I didn’t pronounce yeoman correctly while teaching The Canterbury Tales for the first time. Sorry that I’m not fluent in Middle English? How often is that word used in casual conversation? Also, get over yourself. I can’t ever get ahead of myself either because the curriculum is always changing. Next year? I get a brand-new curriculum (woohoo?), meaning new literature and an unexplored minefield of words I’ve never heard spoken.
      2. Y’all. The amount of Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, and Spanish that is embedded in the texts that we read throws me for a loop as well. This Midwesterner who relocated to the deep Cajun French South only knows how to say bonjour in French. I can read some Greek, from studying abroad, and am even better at reading Russian (thanks college), but pronouncing Greek and Russian words? Nope. I bombed every Russian oral exam. Last year I taught The Odyssey, and I told the students, hey, I’ve never taught this before, there’s a lot of Greek, let’s work through this together. And it took us several rounds to remember how to say Telemachus, Antinous, Aeaea, etc., correctly. We just finished Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize Lecture “Hope, Despair, and Memory” last week, and I know I mispronounced every single thing in Hebrew and several allusions–despite looking up how to say them beforehand. It takes time to commit how to say previously unknown words to memory. 
      3. There are just some words I can’t say. Like magnanimity. Despite listening to how to say this word on repeat, I can’t say it. I go all Nemo trying to say anemone and start thinking about magma and then the Magna Carta, and now I’ve exposed you to the rabbit hole that is my brain. Sorry!!!!
      4. Fibromyalgia. Most of the time, my fibro is invisible, but I struggle with cognitive function and brain fog if I’m in a flare, making my fibro finally visible. It’s worse in the morning and at night. What’s it like? Not being able to pronounce words that you know how to say. Slurring your words when you’re reading or talking when you are dead sober. The inability to find the word you want to use, even when it’s staring you dead in the face. Transposing letters in words. Saying one word when you meant to use a different one. Not being able to form a sentence period in the morning when you’re supposed to get students excited about literature and the kids look at you like you’re stupid when language fails you. And now that I’ve written this, I wonder just how much my fibro prevents me from mastering numbers 2-3.
      Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

      So how does this English teacher who hates to read aloud because she can’t spoken-word well cope? She relies heavily on audio versions of texts, and when she can’t find audio, she explains herself and asks for a little grace. 

      As a teacher, talk about your own struggles, issues, illnesses, etc., to normalize that it’s okay to discuss things that society would rather see swept under the rug. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “Hey, Mrs. Ram is struggling today due to a fibro flare, so please excuse her as she tortures your eardrums while she reads this aloud to you.” 

      And answer their questions if they have any, and move on. Some of them will judge you, no matter what you say (or in my case how you say it), but you’d be surprised how forgiving students (and people in general) can be when you’re honest about your own limitations and invisible battles you might be fighting. 

      Posted in education, fibromyalgia, meniere's disease, teaching, ulcerative colitis, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged english teacher, fibromyalgia, invisible illness, reading aloud, teachers who curse
    • A Plea From a High-Risk Friend–Please Stay at Home

      Posted at 10:20 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on March 21, 2020

      Please stay at home.

      Your friends with underlying conditions, the immunosuppressed, and the elderly thank you for your efforts. 

      I am an immunosuppressed 37-year-old mother with underlying conditions–high-risk alert right here. Please stay home. I can’t help that my body attacks itself. It’s been this way since high school. Please help me out by staying home. 

      I know it’s not any fun, and you’re concerned about free will, your rights being limited, and a litany of other complaints—all of which might make you angry. But please set emotions aside for the time being and focus on facts and logic.

      As an English teacher, I teach my students to get their information from reliable, unbiased resources and to ground their arguments in facts, data, and logical reasoning. I also teach them to get information from experts. And while emotion is a powerful argumentative tool, it is, in fact, weak on its own. Even though emotions are real and important, they can mess up judgment. 

      Ignoring the CDC, WHO, Dr. Fauci, and governmental recommendations are illogical choices because they are the experts providing facts. 

      And here’s a fact, one that I’ve already stated. I am one of those people they consider high risk. Why?  

      I have three autoimmune diseases. THREE! 

      One:  Meniere’s disease. 

      Two:  Ulcerative colitis 

      Three: an undiagnosed disease my rheumatologist monitors me for

      Number two concerns me particularly because I was hospitalized for it in February. My colon hates me. This flare, unfortunately, coincides with a pandemic. Lucky me. 

      Because my colon is broken, I am on two immune-suppressing drugs. TWO! Prednisone, which I’m on for two more weeks, and tacrolimus–an organ transplant rejection medicine. Prednisone, an anti-inflammatory, is bad news according to the CDC. I get to take these drugs during a pandemic. Lucky me. 

      Also, those malaria drugs that doctors are testing as possible treatment for coronavirus–guess what? I’m allergic. Last year, I was prescribed hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) for autoimmune disease number three and broke out in hives six weeks into treatment. So again, lucky me. (I want to reiterate the term “possible treatment.”)

      Please stay at home because it shows empathy–which is ONE thing that we need more of in this world and another thing that I try to teach my students. This pandemic isn’t about you–it’s about all of us. 


       

      ONE final thought:

      Please stop sharing coronavirus information via memes and unverified Facebook posts. Consider the information’s source. I am readily reading my doctor friends’ Facebook posts and trust their expertise, but if I were to share that information to you, then you share it to Facebook Karen, then Facebook Karen shares it to Facebook Chad, then how does Facebook Chad know an actual doctor wrote that post? In this scenario, the information is accurate, but lots of posts shared this way are fake or spreading wrong information–with no way to verify the author’s authenticity. Before hitting the share button, confirm the post’s reliability. Try to share information from trusted sources instead of second hand. 

      Posted in meniere's disease, ulcerative colitis, Uncategorized, writing | 3 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, coronavirus, covid-19, highrisk, ibd, immunosuppressed, invisible illness, meniere's disease, pleasestayathome, politics, ulcerative colitis, washyourhands, writing
    • An Ulcerative Colitis Tale: What I Learned During My Hospital Stay

      Posted at 2:54 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on February 8, 2020

      Hey! For those who missed it, I spent three nights in the hospital due to an ulcerative colitis flare. 

      I’d tried telling two different doctors at various times throughout January that my medicine stopped working, but nobody listened to me. 

      For a week before I was admitted, my doctor’s office ghosted me. I called. I emailed. Nothing. No answer. Radio static. (Long story here. If you want more details, call, text, or inbox me.)

      I felt like Demi Lovato singing “Anyone” at the Grammys.

      Turns out, shocker, that my colitis had spread further into my colon, and I needed a blood transfusion to replace the blood I had lost. 

      Because. Nobody. Listened. To. Me. Seriously. 

      Ugh.  

      But I won’t get into the entire story right now because:

      1. I’m still really upset.
      2. it should have never happened.

      Because. Nobody. Listened. To. Me. 


      Enough of the negativity. Here’s what I learned during my hospital stay.

      1. Beware the pretty pills. My nurses ooohhhhhed and awwwwwed over a lovely, jade-colored pill, presented to me in a tiny plastic cup. We never get to see colorful pills! Look how pretty! They said. All we ever see are plain-colored pills! Considering the sheer number of medicines overwhelming my system, I missed all the warning signs that this “pretty green pill” was the Green Fairy in Moulin Rouge. After achieving mind-blowingly high status twice in four hours, I, slurring my words, accused the nurses of slipping me roofies and refused to take more. Unfortunately, my mother called both times I was baked, and I had to hang up on her. Sorry Mom! Also, if you texted me while I was drugged, and I promised I would steal you some roofies too, come see me later. (Just kidding!!!!) kylie(gif credit)
      2. If you spill your water all over your bed, you don’t get a new bed; you get put on a puppy pad.  I felt properly shamed. Don’t worry. At least they didn’t try to stick my nose in it . . . IMG-3067
      3. Teacher expectations are ridiculous. Sorry. Here’s the negativity again. What was I doing before getting a blood transfusion? Typing up emergency lesson plans. Posting student instructions on Google Classroom. Trying to line up a sub for the next day–while I had IVs in both arms. Just to make sure my students weren’t given short shrift by my emergency absence. How insane is that? Read what I just wrote again. Insane. Utterly insane. If you are outside the education field, I don’t think you’ll ever understand the pressures that teachers face. My absence also created more work for my immediate grade level team members, and thank you, 8th-grade team, from the bottom of my heart for helping. IMG-3058
      4. I am officially a vampire. I’ve got someone else’s blood running through my veins! Call me Bill Compton! Edward! Dracula! Bunnicula! Waiittttt. Why are the great vampires all dudes? I need to rectify this, Le-stat! You can address me as Rampire. It has a nice ring to it. (My brother, on the other hand, thinks this equates me with a mosquito, not a vampire, and I’ll need a reinforcement coven to convince him otherwise.)vampire(gif credit)
      5. Never doubt the medicine of a good laugh. Two of my friends came to visit, made me laugh the entire time they were there, and brought me this hysterical card. IMG-3083My bestie from high school sent me these flowers with this funny card. IMG-3065C57F1915-7247-4A06-B492-E77A5159C50CAnd the Facebook-requested memes and videos brightened my days. Here’s my favorite gif that I received during my stay. IMG-3064(Sorry not sorry for the crass humor. This is hilarious.)

      And while humor helps, what happened to me is no laughing matter. If you suffer from any illness, whether invisible or visible, you are your own best advocate. You are the only person who knows what the pain feels like, and if doctors aren’t listening to you, keep speaking up–even if it feels like nobody is listening to you. 


      (I respect all doctors, and I am not doctor bashing here, friends. This came down to ineffective communication within a doctor’s office and between doctors’ offices and medical bureaucracy. What happened to me could have been prevented. I’m just relaying how unnervingly unheard I was.) 

       

      Posted in chronic pain, teaching, ulcerative colitis, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, chronic illness, chronic pain, hospital, hospital stays, humor, ibd, inflammatory bowel disease, invisible illness, poop jokes, teacher, teaching, ulcerative colitis, writing
    • A Poem About Ulcerative Colitis: The Ouroboros

      Posted at 2:01 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 18, 2020

      What does ulcerative colitis feel like? Here’s my best poetic attempt.


      twisted under blankets to smother

      the bushfire 
      raging through the
      death adder
      hissing 
      flicking its forked tongue
      fangs
      puncturing smoke and blaze
      scarring its wake vermilion, bitter, black
      sloughing its cinders
      a phoenix-masked ouroboros

      twisted under fire blankets aching for the rain


      As always, invisible illness only remains invisible unless we talk about it.  I hope all my fellow chronic pain sufferers find their rain soon.

      rain-863339_1920

       

       

      Posted in chronic pain, poems, poetry, ulcerative colitis, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, chronic illness, chronic pain, ibd, inflammatory bowel disease, invisible illness, poems, poetry, ulcerative colitis, writing
    • Mrs. Ram’s Jams New Year’s Resolutions for 2020

      Posted at 12:02 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 11, 2020

      It’s that time of year! With our holiday travel, the new decade ushered in, and my 37th birthday (yikes!) over, I’ve found a moment to jot down my goals for 2020.


      1. Stop referring to myself as “Mommy” when conversing with Little Thing. 

      She’s seven. This is going to be a long-overdue, hard habit to break. Considering I’ve mostly conquered my spacing twice after a period at a sentence’s end habit, this resolution is attainable.

      baby yoda

      image credit


      2. Spend less time on social media. 

      Last month, I read Digital Minimalism:  Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport, which calls for deleting social media apps and points out that when Apple created the iPhone, the company never envisioned it becoming a pocket-sized, distracting mini-computer. While I won’t be deleting Facebook and Instagram, I do agree with his underlying argument. I’m monitoring my activity closely, even deleting distracting Facebook notifications and turning off email notifications.

      twitter-292994_1920 (1)


      3. Manage my stress better.

      A. My ulcerative colitis is barely managed right now. My medicine stopped working, and I’m a week out from an IBD specialist consult with a John Hopkins’ educated gastroenterologist. My UC stresses me out, and stress triggers flare-ups.

      B. I’ve got a new curriculum for one of my classes, and I have two preps. I’m existing like a primitive amoebic blob with mush for brains, crossing my pseudopods, I mean fingers, and hoping that everything works out in the end.

      C. My school district is building a new middle school, relieving overcrowding for my school and a neighboring one. To staff it, they’re taking teachers from both schools. What does this mean for me? Who knows, but it’s freaking me out! No matter what, it’s the last year I’ll be working with some of my coworkers, furthering my anxiety. 

      This all boils down to I’m a nervous wreck, and I need a way to cope. I’ve tried anxiety medicine before, but my fibromyalgia causes me to have exaggerated side effects with lots of medications. (For example, I tried to take half of a low dose muscle relaxer with my UC medicine last weekend, my rheumatologist assured me it would be okay, and I was a wet-noodled narcoleptic the next day.) I’m going to find some books on managing stress and look into therapy.

      elaine

      gif credit


      What are your 2020 resolutions friends?

       

       

       

      Posted in chronic pain, fibromyalgia, parenting, ulcerative colitis, Uncategorized, writing | 4 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, kids, new year, new year's resolutions, new year's resolutions 2020, parenting, teaching, writing
    • IBD: The Only Things I Can Eat Without Feeling like Death

      Posted at 12:17 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on June 22, 2019

      sliced boiled egg on white plate

      Photo by Mona Sabha Cabrera on Pexels.com

      I need to vent. This isn’t some tragic “woe is me” post. Like I keep saying, I’m just trying to be honest about my experiences with chronic illness.

      I’ve been limited in my food options for years now kudos to an extremely touchy stomach, but due to my recent ulcerative colitis flare and the medicine I’m taking, my diet is even further reduced. I wanted to write some snarky rhyming poem about the things I can’t eat right now because I miss being able to inhale whatever I want. But that list is as long as Rural Route 1, and the only good rhyme with “no gluten” is “highfalutin’” (I guess I could rhyme it with “tootin’–but that’s the obvious choice when you’ve got tummy issues.).

      Here’s a list of what I’m currently, barely, tolerating:

      • White rice (Thank heavens for jasmine rice.)
      • Eggs
      • Ripe bananas
      • Overly cooked plain green beans.
      • Mushy zucchini
      • Boiled/sauteed spinach–no stems
      • Natural peanut butter
      • String cheese–one serving daily
      • Gluten-free bread
      • Gluten-free pasta
      • Potatoes
      • Tortilla chips
      • Thoroughly masticated almonds
      • Cooked carrots
      • Meat and fish
      • Add-ons: olive oil, vinegar, salt (a minuscule amount), basil, oregano, and ginger

      That’s. It. Anything else makes me regret eating it later. Garlic? Forget about it. Onions? You jest. Tomatoes? I’d need an intestine transplant.

      More and more, looking at some food or even smelling it makes me gag, and the only thing that I can stomach reheated is rice.

      Next week, I have a conference in New Orleans for three days, and I’m more than a little concerned about eating (and functioning afterward) while I’m there. Convention attendees might question my sanity if they find me curled up in a food-induced ball of pain in a conference room corner.

      Not eating isn’t an option. I’m still starvin’, Marvin! It’ll be torturous to be in NOLA and not eat charbroiled oysters, a muffelatta, or a Lucky Dog.

      I miss real culinary delights. I’d move mountains for a slice of lasagna, a gyro with tzatziki, or my mom’s curry chicken salad.

      Food shouldn’t make anyone hurt. It’s a basic need and one of earth’s greatest pleasures. And it’s a damn shame that it can make some people feel like knives reside in their innards. 

       

       

      Posted in chronic pain, ulcerative colitis, Uncategorized, writing | 9 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, daily prompt, daily word, daily word prompt, dailychallenge, ibd, inflammatory bowel disease, inhale, ulcerative colitis, writing
    • Hello Ulcerative Colitis My Old Friend

      Posted at 11:41 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on June 7, 2019

      I had a colonoscopy today. If you’ve ever had one, you can sympathize with me–they’re the WORST (Okay. Okay. Maybe not the worst, but they’re damn god-awful.)  

      Why are they the worst you might ask?

      • You can only have a liquid diet the day before. I’m the hungriest person I know, and liquid doesn’t suffice. By ten yesterday morning I had a raging food withdrawal headache. Not to mention the non-solid foods that are allowed like chicken broth (sodium-laden with hidden garlic and onion), sodas (sugar bombs), and popsicles (frozen sugar bombs) I’ve eighty-sixed from my diet because my sensitive tummy handles zilcho processed foods. But I managed to choke down lime Jello and bubbly ginger ale all day (P.S. Little Thing couldn’t handle my dietary complaints yesterday because soda, Jello, and popsicles all day sound delightful to a second grader. Don’t worry, she got her Schweppes, jigglers, and ice lollies on, too.) And you know the worst part? YOU CAN’T DRINK, SUCK, OR SLURP ANYTHING RED OR PURPLE, the two best flavors of all things liquid or gelatinous. Sigh.
      • Your innards need to be vacant. Yep. No intestinal occupancy. I’ll keep this brief because, well, ewwwwwwww, but my doc told me to take 4 laxatives at 3 p.m. and then drink 64 ounces of Gatorade (not fruit punch, harrumph, but lemon lime) mixed with a bottle of Miralax over the course of five hours. Sounds rip-roarin’ doesn’t it? When you’re already feeling shitty, pun intended and hence the reason for the colonoscopy, this adds insult to injury.
      • A doctor puts a camera up your booty. ‘Nuff said. Thank the heavens you don’t remember this part because the anesthesiologist knocks you out.

      But all bad jokes aside, he did discover that I’m having my first relapse with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease, in twenty years. This flare feels a bit different because it’s a mild form (Mild my ass. I still feel wretched.) called proctitis, only affecting the rectum.

      colon

       

      Now I understand that I may have grossed you out and talking about poop and colonoscopies might make you uncomfortable but:

      1. A wise philosopher once said, “Everybody poops.”
      2. Ulcerative colitis isn’t a bad stomach ache, IBS, or annoying diarrhea. It’s a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (along with Crohn’s) that can completely debilitate its sufferers. In high school it made me severely anemic, and I almost had to have a blood transfusion. I know people who have had parts of their colon removed and now have colostomies because of it and others who are no longer able to work because of their symptoms.
      3. When you turn 50, you get to have a colonoscopy too.
      4. And as always, invisible illnesses only remain invisible if we don’t talk about them.
      Posted in chronic pain, ulcerative colitis, Uncategorized | 11 Comments | Tagged blogs, chronic illness, colonoscopy, ibd, inflammatory bowel disease, invisible illness, proctitis, ulcerative colitis
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