Author Archives: Tessa

About Tessa

Teresa (Tessa) Smeigh at 60 plus is still going strong despite her disabilities affecting both physical and mental abilities. She has bipolar disorder (mental), Fibromyalgia (nerves), degenerative disc disease (spine), and arthritis (joints). Her new journey's include Diabetes controlled by insulin. She is also working on 2 fiction books (mysteries). The books will probably never be finished. She keeps her blog filled with useful content, occasional devotionals (She is a Christian), stories and poems. Plenty to keep you busy. She has also been interviewed by blogs and had other posts published on many different blogs. She is from Southern, NJ. Her family and blog keep her busy.

The Lottery Ticket – Part 2 (written 8/12/2012)

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This piece follows “The Lottery Ticket”.

The Lottery Ticket – Part 2

The ticket flutters in the wind, Tim’s mouth is opening and closing, but he’s unable to form a single, coherent word. One-way flight to the moon?Is this for real? What a strange lottery!

The news announcer expectantly glances around the crowd waiting for someone to yell that he or she has won. Except for the crowd muttering to itself, silence reigns.

Tim finally breaks his reverie and yells, “I won!” The crowd swarms around him, pressing in.

“Out of my way, out of my way,” the announcer says as he tries to get to Tim. Slowly the crowd parts and he eventually makes it to Tim’s side. Someone tries to yank the ticket out of Tim’s hand. The cops begin moving the crowd back, using force where necessary.

Tim swallows nervously and eyes the crowd.. This whole experience is surreal. Is he dreaming?

“Ladies and gentlemen may I have your attention please?” The crowd begins to quiet down and look expectantly towards the announcer.

“Sir, what is your name?”

“Tim Ryan. Is this a joke?”

“No, sir, it is not a joke. Lunar Landings is offering this once-in-a-lifetime prize to help populate their new development on the moon. The prize includes the one-way shuttle flight to the moon, a job at Lunar Landings, plus your own house. The only requirement is that you must stay with the company for at least 10 years and if you decide to return to earth you will have to pay the cost of the return ticket.

Tim grins. A job, a house and his ex-wife and her mother far, far away. What could be better?

“When do I leave?”

~~~~~~~~~

Tessa –

Advocate for mental health and invisible illnesses, also a devout Christian

Author – http://www.finallyawriter.com (this blog contains my old work mostly although occasionally I do add something new here), new work is mainly on this blog http://www.tessacandoit.com

 

Mom’s Memorial Bench – 10/05/13

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Mom's Memorial Bench

Taken by Teresa Dean Smeigh

I am fairly sure I have mentioned the loss of my mother in October 2013. Hard to believe so much time has passed.

Mom suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for approximately 30 plus years. My Dad was her sole caregiver.

Anyhow they just put a fairly new park in our township and they were offering benches with a memory tag (white card in center). Dad wanted one for mom and had the card read her name and date of birth and date of death. It happened that we were given the spot near the gazebo which is the nicest park of the park.

Love you and miss you Mom. You will never be forgotten.

Tessa

Nightmares – 2015 originally

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Every night or nap I have terrible nightmares. Sometimes really evil feeling ones that scare the hell out of me and wake me up and I am afraid to open the door because I might not find that life exists outside that door. There are regular ones and ones that are even happy.

Now I have had bad dreams all my life, but they seem worse now and I wonder if it has to do with all the medications I take. Psychological drugs and pain medications do tend to bring on different types of dreams I understand.

However the ones the ones that bother me most I hesitate to mention. They are horrible, sometimes violent dreams where he, my ex-husband, becomes a real monster of a person. Is my self conscious playing with my feelings and turning them into these horrible nightmares that I have at least one of these a day???? Sometime I can’t tell even if it is real until I wake up. If he reads this or my kids I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but it is affecting me strongly. My therapist has no real idea other than that I am working things out in my head. My marriage was over 20 years ago, ENOUGH ALREADY!

Tessa

Needle Phobia…March 7, 2015

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Queen Anne's Lace

Photo taken by Teresa Dean Smeigh

 

I can’t wait for Spring, hence the picture. It counteracts the snow yesterday although there is still dirty snow around here.

I wanted to talk about my needle phobia. As a small child they had to chase me down the hall to give me my immunizations and the monthly antibiotic for the mouth infection. I had tonsillitus every month.

At 18 or 19 years old I had fallen carrying a bottle, smashing the bottle in my hand. By the time my dad got me to the Emergency Room I was infected. They cleaned out the glass and wanted to do a tetanus shot. I freaked out, yelling and screaming. My dad says, “Haven’t you grown out of  that yet.” Uh no I haven’t I wanted to shriek.

At 30 my dad took me to same day surgery and while he was waiting with me they came in with a tray of needles and I froze. I can’t scream again. I embarrass the poor man all the time. So I zipped my lips shut. No sound reached him. I was so happy.

AT around 40 something I fell and needed a tetanus shot. I didn’t say a word.

I now get 2 or 3 injections of Lidocaine and a slight steroid at the rheumatologists every 3 months and I don’t scream at all. They say exposure makes you used to it since I am 58 now and finally stopped screaming over needles.

Today’s visit I got 2 injections into my trigger point in my knee and hip. OUCH!!! My Fibromyalgia is just getting worse and he has nothing left to try. He will only give me 60mg and I have to get the other 30mg from my Psychiatric nurse who prescribes the extra 30mg for my psychiatric problems.

Please excuse any mistakes found. I have a new keyboard and it sucks so far. I hope I get used to it.

My son did drive me, for inquiring minds that want to know.

Tessa

Snow Therapy…March 5, 2015

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Snow @015

Photo belongs to Teresa Dean Smeigh

This is the snow at 3:00 PM. Still snowing now.

The snow was supposed to start around  2 AM, but at 6 AM or so it was still raining. We thought they screwed it up again. My son went to work only to be sent home again a couple of hours later.

I looked outside off and on, or should I say every time I woke up. Finally I realized it was snowing like crazy. I had a therapy appointment today and so I called the office to see if anyone was there. No one was so I left a message and worried. They called and said they were open, but they wouldn’t penalize anyone for not showing up due to inclement weather. Thing was I needed to go.

My dad said absolutely not (I am 58 years old not 2) and my son said I wasn’t to drive (who’s the mother here?). Finally my son said he would drive me. I am glad because I hate driving in snow.

I showed my therapist this blog. I started it partly for him and partly for me and to also help me remember my life because to be honest I don’t remember much of my childhood and he is interested in how my childhood helped create the me that I am now.

I trudged through the snow back to the parking garage and we left and decided to pick up something to eat while we were out.

Almost an hour since I took the picture and it is still snowing like crazy.

I need to go to tomorrow’s appointment because it is with my rheumatologist and I am in severe pain. My Fibromyalgia is getting worse despite the Cymbalta.

Soon the men will have to shovel again as it was piling up as they were shoveling.

Tessa

Snow, sleet, and ice – enough already… (this was from March 3, 2015)

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This is a bad time of year for me anyhow as the seasons affect my moods. I would just stay in if I could, but I have so many doctor appointments that I have to go to and now they are predicting another big storm, including more ice. I have trouble walking without ice to help me fall.

I have had 2 major falls without ice and both of them I ended up falling face first and managing to miss hitting my face. I am lucky. Just cuts and bruises and pulled muscles to add to my Fibromyalgia pain.

Back to the ice. We still have ice from the other day and what melted earlier today has now frozen up again. We still have snow so this can go on forever as it is, but they are predicting more ice with this new storm tomorrow.

Tomorrow, of course, I have an appointment. I need this appointment as it is the one with my psyche nurse and we need to discuss my medications and she is only there one day a month. Please pray that this stupid storm waits until I get home. This is one that I have to park in the city parking garage and walk half a block to the doctor’s office. Besides having trouble walking, add in the ice because they hardly shovel the walks and I have to get across a busy street without a light to help or even a cross walk. Then I get to climb to the 2nd story . Get to go to the same office on Thursday for my therapy appointment.

I guess I am whining. I am pretty angry right now with the weather and how I feel. I need warm weather and sunny days.

Wish me luck!

Tessa

Hugging – from 2015

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I have a deep aversion to hugging anyone. My therapist wanted me to start journaling (4 years ago LOL) when I first started seeing him regularly, weekly at first but then loss of insurance and then lower income forced me to go every other week. He wanted me to work on my issues from my childhood. I don’t particularly like writing about my awful childhood. I would not want to relive it for anything and believe me my life right now is not a picnic.

I was in either the 6th or 7th grade when I laid down the law on my parents. “Do not touch or hug me, DO NOT!” I shrieked at them and I know they were hurt and appalled. I can see that now, but then all I knew is that I didn’t want hugs period. They did what I requested and no more hugs or arms around my shoulders or whatever. No touching. Except for spankings on the few occasions I did something wrong LOL! That was rare as I was a “Goodie Two Shoes” though.

Working through my therapy when I first discussed this with my therapist , I wasn’t really sure why I did that. To be honest I still am uncomfortable with hugs though, but have grown up enough to handle it without hurting peoples feelings. I have even been able to initiate a hug.

My thoughts on this are that I found touching/hugging to be something that is part of the intimate part of life and therefore I should not be touched by anyone that I am not intimate with. Is this the definite reason? I don’t know, but I do know that hugging an intimate partner does not bother me at all. It is a comfort. I know they say that hugging is supposed to be comforting, but I just don’t see it in certain situations. It is just one of my idiosyncrasies. Certainly not the only one, not the last one either I am sure.

Is this what you are looking for Doc?

Tessa