The Inter-Body Exchange Program
You - Have wanted to be able to "lie around all day" like me.
You - Are envious of people with chronic diseases who don't have to work anymore.
You - Wish you could get paid for not working the way people on Social Security Disability do.
You - Wish you could get "free" money.
You - Wish you could catch up on all your favorite sitcoms.
I - Want a break from the 24/7 pain, fever, horrific headaches and constant "sick" feeling.
I - Want to be able to get out of the house for a change and do something fun.
I - Want to have enough money to buy food for a change.
I - Want a break from medical and other creditors calling me all day every day, sending me threatening letters, and the desperate fight to keep my utilities from getting cut off, my car from being repossessed and my house from being foreclosed on.
I - Want to get out from under the criticism and negative scrutiny of others.
I - want to be able to put in an 8 hour day at the office without experiencing horrible pain and sickness after just one hour of being out of bed.
Here's your chance. Limited time offer (I'm sure you will change your mind quickly after the exchange occurs).
With the "Bodily Exchange Program" you will exchange bodies with your assigned partner and experience first hand what it is like to live in a body with a chronic illness and "be on the dole" of welfare.
You will get to lie in bed or on the sofa instead of going to work. You will get "free money" that won't be enough to even pay for housing and utilities, much less buy food or medicines or go to the doctor, but it's "free" (oh, you did pay into that system all those years you worked, but never mind that).
Your exchange partner will have the "pain" of going to work each day and having to "earn a living". It's unbelievable, but most people in our program would give anything to live in your world and have to deal with being healthy and having to work even for just a few short days.
You, yes you, can experience all this, first hand! What an incredible learning opportunity. Get credit from your university for this program if you are a student.
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Wanted - People for Chronic Illness Inter-Body Exchange Program
- By SickOfBeingSick
- Posted August 22, 2009 at 7:55 am · 21 replies
- In How my disease has changed my life
- Shared with the public
21 replies
- Oldest first
- Newest first
- By angel75
- Posted August 22, 2009 at 12:25 pm
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I thought this was very good and the next time somebody makes a joke even in jess i would like to give this to them. I'm so sorry for your pain and mine and everybody else's pain on this site.
sam
- By gt4990
- Posted August 22, 2009 at 3:17 pm
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THANK YOU THIS WAS GREAT!!!!!! Hope u do not mind me copyin ginto my daughters carepage......so many can realate and need the chuckle
- By SickOfBeingSick
- Posted August 22, 2009 at 6:10 pm
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Thx Angel75 and GT4990.
Anyone who wants to is free to copy away and distribute anything I write here on this site as they please (for non-commercial purposes, of course).
Cathy
- By Tamyra
- Posted August 23, 2009 at 9:57 am
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Cathy ,
That is really good. The other thing they could have is my handicap parking sign. I would love to not have to watch over my shoulder wonder who thinks I should be parking somewhere else. :-) Thanks for the a smile for with my morning coffee.
Love and Light,
Tamyra
- By snuffle
- Posted August 23, 2009 at 5:37 pm
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I love this. It's too bad that there are so many people attending "tea parties" that just don't get it.
- By margaretha
- Posted August 24, 2009 at 12:49 pm
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Thank you! This is so good - as you said we could use it, I've put it on my blog (http://itsalwaysteatime.blogspot.com/). If you don't like it, let me know. I hope to get enough energy soon to translate it into Swedish and put it on my Swedish blog too.
Hopefully some of the "Yous" will find it there and read it!
Margaretha
- By SickOfBeingSick
- Posted August 24, 2009 at 11:21 pm
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Margaretha,
Your blog is absolutely beautiful! I'm so proud that you enjoyed my writing enough to place it on your blog. Gives me more encouragement to write that book. I would love to see it in Swedish, since I enjoy foreign languages. Let me know if you do translate it.
Yes, hopefully some of the "yous" will also see it!
Thx,
Cathy
- By margaretha
- Posted August 25, 2009 at 4:20 pm
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Cathy,
You should definitely start that book - you have the gift to put your thoughts on paper (screen)!
I've started to translate your post - but since our medical systems are so different I need to figure out how to word it. I'll let you know when it is done.
I hope you're doing fine today - as fine as possible!
Margaretha
- By SickOfBeingSick
- Posted August 25, 2009 at 6:43 pm
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Hi Margaretha,
Feel free to modify however you need to when you translate. I understand that a lot of it wouldn't translate exactly, especially given different types of medical systems.
Also, for what it's worth, authors who translate fictional literary works in an exact, formulistic manner are a pet peeve of mine! I can understand adherence to the exact meanings for a non-fiction work, but for fiction, the work loses a lot when the translator is rigid and refuses to embellish.
Just because a phrase is beautiful in one language but ugly in another, doesn't mean that the translator can't substitute something equally beautiful with the same approximate meaning in the target language.
Writing has been very therapeutic for me lately. I would love to put together something in a form to be published. I need that healthy body exchange for a couple of months to get it done!
Or, maybe medical science will come up with a full-body transplant sometime soon :) LOL.
I'm having a pretty good day today - hope the same is true for you.
Cathy
- By SickOfBeingSick
- Posted August 25, 2009 at 6:47 pm
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Tamrya,
Yes, I can relate. Just because I can stand up on my two feet, doesn't mean I can walk across a huge parking lot! Sometimes I'm tempted to carry my cane, not because I need it, but because I don't feel like weathering the glares I sometimes get when I park in handicapp parking spots.
Cathy
- By hobo
- Posted August 25, 2009 at 8:49 pm
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This is great, Thanks for sharing.
Let us know when you get that book writen.
- By stutower
- Posted August 25, 2009 at 11:18 pm
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sign me up baby! I'm good for a 6 to 8 week stint without pain, or even the rest of my life. so coma on kiddies sacrifice is my middle name!
- By destiny07
- Posted August 26, 2009 at 10:57 am
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sick of being sick,
i've been saying the exact same things for many many years to friends, family and doctors. i must admit that i've never taken the time to write it all down and you did a fabulous job.
it is indeed rediculous the amount of people that just i run into that comment on my pain. people can see how much pain i am in by looking in my face or just into my eyes. this one woman, looked me right in my face and said why do you bother staying alive if you are that much pain?! wow, i don't know! why do you bother staying alive if you are that rotten and non-understanding of a person?!
i'm sorry (NOT) that i have to come outside in order to get some things done and be aroung some of you "healthy" folks on very few ocassions but i deal with it, perhaps you should learn to deal with it as well!
we all need to go back to being toddlers and beyond that when at least i learned, "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all!"
thanx for being out there and for writing that down. as i've always told other people, i'd trade with you for even a day. i even told one doctor once, he'd be crying like a baby after a half a day in my world. lol (no, he didn't like that at all)
- By Mand61123
- Posted August 26, 2009 at 12:44 pm
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ha ha ha i love it!! I'm in!!!
funny when i was well i used to love my time off now everyday i wish i could be back at work. I love how those comments are thrown around "oh you must love it, it's like a permanent holiday" if only eh!
Thanks will share this with some of my friends give them a laugh to :)
- By SickOfBeingSick
- Posted August 27, 2009 at 1:18 am
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Hi Snuffle,
Yes, the tea parties have been getting to me, too.
For anyone outside of the US, the "tea parties" are a series of protest events going on in the US right now. One of the things they are protesting are programs like food stamps, Medicaid and other medical welfare programs.
Cathy
- By margaretha
- Posted August 28, 2009 at 6:30 am
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Cathy,
The post is up on my Swedish blog ( http://bastmattan.blogspot.com/).
I too find writing therapeutic - but I've finally realized that I don't have the energy to anything beyond blogging.
Oh, don't start me on poor translations!
I'm resting on our tiny verandah today, hoping for dinner to make itself!
Take care,
Margaretha
- By spiritlove
- Posted September 9, 2009 at 5:43 pm
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PERFECT! All so true.
Thanks to some recent treatment, i'm doing quite well. Find myself wondering when I'll hit the wall of relapse.
Our neighbor, a surgical nurse, is constantly saying "funny" things. Today it was so nice I was able to clean house I could come up and do hers too!
She always tells me how great I look, even as I am telling her it's not a good day and I can't go.
Don't you love the "If you'd just get out you'd feel better crowd". Get out of what, bed maybe!
Thanks for sharing this gem.
spiritlove
- By SickOfBeingSick
- Posted September 22, 2009 at 4:07 am
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Hi everyone. I've been snowed under with a part-time work project where every ounce of my energy was eaten up by the project along with a related decline in my health, and I never got back to a lot of people who took the time to respond to what I wrote. Wish it didn't take so much out of me just to even work part-time for a short period :( But at least the money will be great :)
So, it's a little late, but - hobo - thx for the compliment.
Stutower - You're signed up! LOL :)
destiny07 - I can relate to everything you said. Sorry you've been through the same BS that I've been through :(
Mand61123 - Yeah, I'm ready for my "retirement" to end, and to return to my previous job, instead of full-time being sick and dealing with insurance, doctors, etc! Got you on the list, too :).
Margaretha - Saw your Swedish blog. Actually managed to read enough of it to figure out where your translation was! I love languages, but have trouble learning them now after repeated meningitis. I used to instantly memorize anything I heard or read in a foreign language. I picked up pronunciations and accents almost instantly.
Shortly after having meningitis, I tried to learn Gaelic and couldn't understand why I couldn't "get" any of it, or remember or pronounce anything from it, until I figured out the extent of the language, comprehension, memory and learning damage. At least I'm improving. I was doing better on your blog than the last time I tried my mind at something in a foreign language.
I'm waiting for dinner to make itself, too. I'm starving but exhausted and wish I had a frozen dinner to shove in the microwave.
Hi Spiritlove - Glad to hear your health is improving! Don't you just love all these people who think it is so easy to get well? Just a little exercise, or diet, or positive thinking or a few herbs or supplements. As if we haven't tried all the obvious things already.
I went out this weekend with some friends. Nothing strenuous, I stretched out on their sofa most of the time. Was great to get out, see everyone, but by the time I got home, I was in tears. More than 24 hours later, I still haven't recovered. My well-meaning friend told me my physical health would improve if I would just spend more time with friends and get out more! That comment was so hard, because I desperately want to do just that, but can't!
Oh well. I guess I need to stop expecting people to understand something completely outside of their experience, and just relate to them on whatever other common ground we have.
Cathy
- By ACCPatient
- Posted September 22, 2009 at 9:43 am
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Bless your heart! Even through all the pain and suffering you have been able to maintain your sense of humor and loving spirit! God has blessed you and hopefully you will become stronger everyday with the knowledge you are gaining from suriving your illness. Reading your comments brough back strong memories of the time I spent lying in the house suffering. My cancer, which was inoperable and found at stag IV is now in remission and I am back to work. Mircles do happen to those of us with an open heart and mind. Sounds to me like you are on a path of healing. My prayers are with you.
- By paldotty
- Posted September 22, 2009 at 5:41 pm
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Beauyfully done!...and sums up perfectly. Ah! the frustration of having to constantly explain yourself! Best wishes and good luck...Paul xxx
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