Slow Food Nation and Life With an Unusual Disability

So Sorry To Hear (4.00 / 2)

that your ability to enjoy and participate in the conference was made far worse than it should have been based on your condition.  I'm sure you've thought of this in the past, but if there's any way you could alert any organization in advance whose conferences/meeting you're planning to attend so that they might be able to mitigate matters ahead of time (instead of trying to react on the fly), it might work out better for all concerned, especially since they would be able to train their staff and volunteers to handle it.

I remain amazed generally at how much you're able to accomplish given the circumstances you have to face every day with the migraines.  Just don't let yourself become a "victim", because then they would begin to define your entire existence, rather than merely being a part of what you are.  In the meantime, I hope they improve soon; maybe getting back home will alleviate them somehow.

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by: The Maven @ Sun Aug 31, 2008 at 16:09:19 PM UTC

Thanks. Nothing seems to do much (4.00 / 3)

for the migraines so I don't have much hope in them getting better. Maybe some day I'll have a baby to get rid of them. But I don't want a baby! Not now anyway. And it's not 100% assured that the baby idea would actually work in getting rid of the headaches.

Re: alerting conferences in advance, I've done it before. Typically they tell me "sorry there's nothing we can do." Yesterday I was resolving my own dilemma by laying down on 3 empty chairs with my eyes closed. I have very little shame at this point and if I'd thought of it I could have brought my eye mask that I use on planes (particularly the ones with TVs that play garbage during the entire flight) and used that. But the usher was extremely hostile to this, yelling at me again and again for laying down on the chairs.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Sun Aug 31, 2008 at 16:15:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Though I Certainly (4.00 / 2)

don't know the relevant specifics, but is your condition, however unusual/unique, potentially covered by the ADA?  If so, waving that in their faces might provoke a somewhat better response than "sorry".  One would hope that so long as whatever you're doing to cope with the migraines doesn't actively interfere with other's ability to fully enjoy their experience (e.g., laying down over multiple chairs if the event was standing-room only), these folks would simply leave you to your own devices.  But I happen to have a strong libertarian streak in that regard, so what do I know?

One thing that seems clear to me, though, is that you probably ought to carry your eye mask around pretty much anywhere you go just as a regular accessory ("keys, check; wallet, check; eye mask, check").

In the meantime, as always, feel better.

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by: The Maven @ Sun Aug 31, 2008 at 17:53:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Sorry you had to go through that... (4.00 / 2)

I think most people mean well in their clumsy attempts at accommodating people, but then again there are always the idiots like you mentioned above...

I have one myself - a slight hearing problem, courtesy of the meningococcal meningitis that paid me a visit 10 years ago (and landed me in the hospital for 5 weeks...).

I hear well enough on the right side, but that damned disease killed the nerves in my left ear.  Sometimes, when I explain this to people?  Their 'solution' is to scream into the same ear that I just told them doesn't work too well.

What I try to do is face, or at least get onto the left side of people I'm talking with, so I can have my good ear towards them to hear what they're saying.  The 'dance' we do on that is sometimes very amusing...

The latest clumsy attempt to 'accommodate' me at work pissed me off, though - the "Safety" coordinator feels that I should carry a huuuuuge beeper (remember those?  heh...) linked into the fire alarm system whenever I'm at work, which will vibrate whenever the alarm goes off.  The problem, of course, is that I can hear the friggin' fire alarm fine just like everyone else.  My attempts to explain this were unsuccessful, though...but I solved the problem my own way in just turning off the beeper and throwing it in my locker, where it will stay until I leave this job, whenever that happens...

The scene was somewhat surreal, though - here I am talking with somebody at a normal conversational level, and they're telling me things like "since you can't hear...".  Who said that?!  The whole time, I felt like saying - "I hear you right now, what would ever lead you to believe that I can't hear a fucking fire alarm?"

Bah...

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by: JayinPhiladelphia @ Sun Aug 31, 2008 at 17:29:52 PM UTC

How disappointing (4.00 / 3)

the very trailblazers of the modern food movement cannot seem to grasp that artificial light has REAL biological effects and natural full spectrum light is as important to our well being as the food, water and air that we ingest.  

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by: dewey of the desert @ Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 03:30:42 AM UTC