I am a perfectly healthy, able, strong woman who just happens to have some wires a wee bit crossed in the head. Hey, let’s face it, we ALL have a few wires crossed somewhere, so don’t laugh too hard or too smugly there, bucko.

Mine are the type that makes it so my body is a bit like a terrible-two toddler at times. (Hah! But I can still make it say that three times out loud – I just checked – so nyah! Well… I could today, anyway. And that’s all that counts.)

Basically, over the last dozen years or so, I’ve been told that:

• I absolutely, unquestionably, have fibromyalgia (FM).
• I absolutely don’t have FM, I have multiple sclerosis (MS).
• I don’t have FM or MS, I have myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
• I don’t have ME, I have FM and MS.
• I probably don’t have MS, but I might, and to proceed as if I do.
• I probably do have MS, but to proceed as if I don’t.
• I don’t have MS but I have an as-yet-unnamed disease that is much like MS and will be diagnosed once the medical profession and research catches up.

I’ve been told all of these things (and then some) by well-respected, fully accredited, doctors. Sometimes, two or more different variations from the same doctor, during the same visit. Seriously.

I won’t tell you what the doctors have been told, under my breath, as I’ve walked/cried/gimped/laughed/stormed my way home after these closed door diagnosises, but I’ll give you a wee hint: it, too, was a two-letter acronym, the first of which was “F” and the second had none of the rest of the alphabet in common with their professional posits.

The first few years I struggled to get a definitive answer because that’s all anyone seemed to be focused on: naming it. Not that I was any different – I was under the naive impression that something need only be identified and then it’s simply a matter of following standard protocol. Once I finally clued in that health care isn’t any more logical or efficient than public education, and that the “system”, at least in my circumstances, was making me sicker, I said to hell with it and avoided doctors like the plague. (Hah!)

I got a lot better. Whaddaya know? Then I was in a car accident and damned if I no longer had a choice – I was back in doctor hell and stuck under the spotlight that I’d finally gotten good at avoiding. Grr.

I almost got sucked back into the “gotta get a diagnosis” pit, but I managed to pull out. Raw and frustrated – and, yeah, bitter – my medical history was asked for yet again one day, and I blurted out, “Maybe FM, maybe MS, maybe fricken’ Rubber Chicken Disease, for all I care at this point!” It made the person laugh and not push further, which was a nice change, overall.

Months later, similar situation, and I found myself unthinkingly saying the same thing. On my old blog I used to call it WTFII (Whatever The Fuck It Is), but I could hardly use that in polite company, and the Rubber Chicken thing had a weird kind of charm, somehow. I had NO idea why the words popped into (and then out of) my mouth, or even what the hell it was supposed to mean, but interestingly no one else did either and it didn’t seem to matter a lick. It pretty effectively conveyed that, yeah, if you want to be technical about it, I have a “dis-ease”, but as for what it’s called – does that part really matter?

It came back to mind when I was trying to come up with a name for this new blog. The LAST thing I thought I’d EVER want to call it is something related to a fact of life that I spend a lot of time and effort trying to work around, deny, or ignore. But I was killing time in a hobby shop one day while the kids were at a nearby wallclimbing centre, and I found myself staring at a huge big wall devoted to, of all things, rubber chickens.

What the hell is a rubber chicken supposed to BE, anyway? I thought to myself. There’s no denying their existence – people buy them, and if you say “rubber chicken” I suspect an image and the general gist of the term is fairly widely understood, but… I mean… like… what the hell?!?

Just as unclear and varied as what rubber chickens are supposed to be and do, is how people are supposed to react to them. Or, wait… forget how people are supposed to react… how they DO react!

Personally, I’ve never really gotten the whole idea of it – are they magic tricks? Comedy gags? Puppets?

Do they have any kind of a purpose?

Are they supposed to be scary? Funny? Simply bizarre?

The more I thought about it, the more suited it seemed.

So I have Rubber Chicken Disease (RCD). It’s all of those things, and more.