Author: Katie

It has been a bit since I actually published a blog.  I have written a few.  I have even finished one.  It just didn’t seem worth it.  After all, I am editing this entire thing with the intent to weave it together into some kind of cohesive whole.  That is a huge task.  I  can’t believe how much and how long I have been doing this. I have never, ever been so regular about a diary than I have about this very public one.

I mean I have diaries: tons of them.  They are filled with poetry and anguish, and hormones and tears and all sorts of things I had before Prozac.

Yeah, well… I still have some of those things post Prozac.  I think at this point I am often too tired and too jaded for those things.  I suppose we all are after a certain age.

But, lest I go off on a tangent here…. (I never do that!) I should actually write the blog post I meant to when I came downstairs and left the bed with the sleeping dogs and sleeping husband and my white noise machine and my earplugs and my pillows just so…..

Good grief! I sound so neurotic.  Oh yeah, I am. Oh well.

What I meant to write about is the fact that I broke my vow to not go into a hospital.   Before this last 24 hour episode, I had not been in a white, sterile, prison with bad food, people trying to find my non existent veins, ask me questions, follow me to the bathroom and all the rest,  for 20 months.

This past Saturday I had to face the fact that parts of me are still falling apart and that I needed help.  I went to the fancy, doctor owned 24 hour ER down the street out of fear of  the pandemic (Covid) and because I am blessed with amazing insurance.  I had a CT scan and the doctor said it was up to me but he recommended I be admitted for observation, comfort care and further testing. I almost told him to stick it and that I was going home, but the idea of having to come back or go through the regular ER, probably full of patients with the plague, made me go ahead.  From the fancy ER they can admit you straight to a room in the hospital of your choice.  You get picked up by exhausted ambulance drivers and they drive you to your overnight accommodations and you skip a lot of trouble.)

It took hours for all of this to transpire.  I was in pain, sick, and nauseas and on the verge of a panic attack the entire night.  And of course, I never slept.

I will not go into detail, but sum it up by saying that the surgery I had in 2017 that led, 24 hours later, to emergency surgery, really screwed up my innards. Nothing is in its place and nothing works normally.  The last consult I had with the gastroenterologist ended with him saying, ” I think it may be best to remove your colon entirely.”

As shocking as being told such a thing was, this past Saturday night, I was ready to go for it.

Lately I have been fighting repeated infections and repeated issues of the nature I mentioned above.  The chase one another.  The medicine that fixes one makes the other flare and so on.

I have been unwilling to even acknowledge this is happening.  I go through each day sucking down whichever pills or what-have-you that are appropriate and I just keep moving.  I work from home, like we all do now.  On the days I don’t work, I find plenty of things to keep me busy.  I talk to my kids on the phone, I cook, I clean, I write, and I exercise until I am really tired.  Sometimes I dream of a simpler time.  A time when I could wander through discount stores looking at stuff just for the hell of it: I miss that.  But we all miss things we used to do before the pandemic.

Oh, and I read the news.  But, that gets depressing quickly so I try to pull myself out of it and read about royalty and movie stars I have never heard of and special interest bits.  Or, I really extend my mind and watch a BBC show about a bunch of young people competing to be make up artists with a contract to a major company or something… .  It’s terribly important.

I spend in ordinate amounts of time talking to my dogs and my cat.  They like it:  I think. I also talk to my husband a lot when he has headphones on or he’s looking at his iPad. (If he isn’t working at his desk and is “available” he is usually with his iPad).   He doesn’t really hear everything I say.  That’s ok.  He doesn’t understand why I have so much to say.

All of this babble is my way of saying, I DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT MY HEALTH AND I DO NOT WANT TO GET LOST IN THE RABBIT HOLE OF ONE DOCTOR, ONE DISEASE LEADING TO ANOTHER DOCTOR AND ANOTHER DISEASE AND FINDING THE NEXT BEST THING SO I CAN GET FIXED.

I don’t know if I feel this way because I am battle worn and have PTSD or if it’s because I now fundamentally believe that I can’t get fixed and that the Almighty and I, in concert, are the only ones that can truly have an effect on my health.

And that, dear reader, is why it has taken me so long to write this damned blog entry.

I am scared.  I was hoping to keep up this charade of the new me; a lot leaner, much more fit, streamlined for the rigors of 2020 and able to put up with just about anything.

I just can’t.  I can be all of those things: leaner, more fit, careful diet, and the rest, but I am still me.  I have a really broken body.  And if I want to keep going I have to keep pushing myself to doctors’ appointments where I have to be active and in charge.  There isn’t anyone else to lean on here.  It’s all me. I have to be organized and ahead of things: write down the questions and keep the answers, tell dr. whosit what dr. whatsit said and remind dr. fullofhimself that I have a brain and can read (but in a nice and non confrontational way).  Oh, and I need to remember it is ok to fire Asshole Mysoginistic Doctor who thinks he is god or at least remind him I don’t want to be called “sweetheart” and  “dear” and he can stop touching my leg.

I still can’t get over the fact a doctor (that I kept seeing!) slid his hand inside my pants and rubbed my hiney and I let him do it.  No, wait, that happened with two doctors.  Maybe getting older is a blessing…

Whatever.  I have to do this again.

I cannot expect to stay in some sort of health stasis.

I think this means I am going to have to do what I know I need to.  I gotta work on the PTSD thing.

I am going to make a promise here.

I think I might actually follow through if I write it down here… pubically… (ha! did you get what I did there?)

I am going to find someone (a therapist type person) with whom I can work on the PTSD over hospitals, doctors and the rest and see if I can’t deal with it a bit better.

I might as well get started.

In a few hours I head to an infusion center for a shot in my leg that I have to stay and be monitored for because I once had.. you know.. not breathing.. happen.

Ok. that’s it.

 

I have had some rough times.  If you have read this blog for any length of time, or you know me personally, you know that.  I spent the years between 2011 and 2018 in and out of the hospital, struggling with a variety of ailments and with a snowball effect of one autoimmune or primary immune disease causing another.

But the really good news is that since January of 2019 I have not been hospitalized.

I have not been going to the ER on the regular either.

I have reached a sort of tenuous equilibrium.  I realize it could fall apart but I try to keep it going each day.

I have learned a lot.  The list of things looks like this and they are in no particular order:

1. Eat carefully and keep losing weight.  (I have lost about 100 lbs. )
2. Stay sane.  (This is a tough one because I am a worrier.)
3. Exercise.
4. Have fun.
5. Love and accept myself for who I am and how I look right now.
6. Be patient with my body when it doesn’t act normal, ever.
7. Let G_d in and remember I am not alone.
8. Don’t let Covid 19 and the quarantine that knows no end get me down.
9. Don’t let the sad state of affairs in our country get me down any more than I can handle.
10. Remember to be grateful for the wonderful things.
11. When I am in pain, acknowledge it but don’t freak out.  Realize that it will get under control in some way and that going to see a doctor in any setting probably won’t fix the problem.
12. Let myself off the hook when I need to rest.  (This is a tough one.)
13. Try to maintain some sort of sleep hygiene.  (A work in process.)
14. Figure out who I am without children around.
15. Figure out where I belong as a functioning adult with her own life.

I think that is enough.  I will say that sleep is a big problem just now.  I have always had insomnia but lately I am losing sleep entirely about two nights a week.   I am going to try some pre sleep meditation podcasts.  I am willing to learn how to hypnotize myself if that is possible.

I  guess the point here is that I have come to realize that the only person driving the me – bus is me.  That is not to say that G-d isn’t there.  G-d is on the bus, with the bus, around the bus and watching me drive.   But I believe we have the gift of free will.  Very often we either misuse it and blame the consequences on the Almighty or don’t get what we want and blame that on the Almighty.  Neither of those options work for me at all.

I believe the Almighty is right there, listening and hoping I will  tune in on His/Her Divine channel so I can listen to what it is that is best for me.  If I do, I will notice a few things: Life is endlessly complicated and endlessly beautiful.  It is up to us to take responsibility for every single thing we do.  Like I always say: there is no such thing as black and white (and I mean this on every level) everything is a shade of gray!

There are no absolute answers .  We just have to take responsibility and go through each day with what we are given.  Even when it is a bad day . Even when it is painful or scary.

The only way for me to fix myself is to care for my body the best that I can.  I am done being angry for being sick and I am done hoping it will go away and I am done wishing I can go away and I am done whining into my spilt milk.

I am in charge.  I chose to take care of this body no matter what shape it is in.

That is the only way forward.

One shaky foot at a time.

Over the last year we (my husband and I) have been in the process of becoming empty nest’ers.’

I say it has been a process because last August both of our children moved but we kept another one in the nest on reserve.

Our daughter moved back to her University where she had gotten her degree and after a two year hiatus decided to take them up on the offer of a free ride Master’s program.  I am so happy she did this.  Her life is going  well on all fronts.  I really think she has flown away for good this time.  She is the sweetest of the sweet and calls every day, which I love.  Normally, she comes home a lot and stays for a week or more between semesters.  With Covid that is no longer possible due to exposure risk for me.  However, she is not alone.  She has a lovely boyfriend and her sweet dog.  I know she is okay; I just miss her.

Our son, who is five years younger than our daughter, moved to a city four hours away to attend a technical college.  His girlfriend moved with him.  They have made their own nest and are surrounded by family.  I have one of my (two total) cousins there.  She is like a sister to me and she and her husband, who has a vast family in the area, have welcomed the kids in an amazing way.  He is comfortable and tells me he will not be coming home.  He lived with us for twenty years (almost) and was ready to fly under his own power.  I know he gets homesick, especially now, but he is doing well.

However, the nest was still not empty completely, which has been a blessing.  My cousin’s oldest daughter (she has four kiddos) had lived with us before but this time she had to stay longer due to all kinds of circumstances in her life.  It has been so nice to have another kid around. We refer to her as my niece.  She hasn’t complained about being indoctrinated into our family idiosyncrasies but has embraced them. In fact, our kids have readily been calling her, big sister, even to the extent that they argue with her. She has been nice to talk to and advise and talk girl stuff with.  She spent months studying for the  LSAT exam and applying to law schools.  She was successful and will be moving in a few days so she can begin law school at the very beginning of August.   I am proud of her.   I will miss her and I hope she remembers to call “home.”

So by the end of next week, our nest will be completely emptied.  I don’t know what to think.  My identity has been very much wrapped up in being a mom.  I guess that won’t change.  However, I do have a little job and my writing to keep me busy.  I am hoping with all the spare time and energy I can commit to more of the things I would like to do.  I am just a bit  scared.

My husband is an introvert and I am…. not.  He is not a talker unless it is a subject where he has some interest.  He is also not an active listener.  I don’t mean that as slander.  I mean it as fact.  We are very different and communicate very differently as well as approach things differently.  I am afraid all of these differences might become overwhelming with just the two of us stuck at home all the time due to friggin’ Covid.

My husband has many, many more pluses than minuses.  In fact, we often have fun together.  It just has to be the right circumstances.  I just wonder who will listen to me when I want to jabber in an illogical fashion?  I used to just call my dad or my mom or my aunt.  I can’t do that anymore.  They are gone and the telephone in heaven is not connected to my cell network.

I  sometimes  feel so lonely at home.  Now there won’t be anyone to talk to at all.  My husband functions on logic and I just don’t.  I never will.  I don’t even want to.

It is going to be a long, hot summer.  I am going to do a lot of yoga with Adrienne on YouTube.  She reminds me to breathe deep, find my center and ground myself.  I need those reminders and I need the physical exercise.  I don’t have too many opportunities to walk in the heat of the summer.  Life will continue on and I will be fine as long as my kids are fine and my husband is both healthy and employed.  We are so very fortunate.

I just have to learn to internalize my external ways of speaking and wanting to be reassured that someone is completely focused on what I have to say.  At the end of the day it is sort of selfish if you look at that way.  But, it is also very human.  And, I am: Very human and very fallible.

I ask G-d for strength and help and stamina on this new journey.

 

 

 

It is almost June.  Quarantine for the Covid crap started back in March, (second week of). At that point in time I thought it couldn’t last too long.  Well, the joke is on me.

So, how do I, and others like me, move on without being able to move out?  How do we make peace with a world, a country, where everyone is just going on about their normal business?  They are not going to wait for this monster to go away.  In fact, we, the infirm,  are the problem children here.

I had a doctor’s office tell me I would HAVE to come in after June 6.  They would  no longer be doing telemed  visits after that time.   The lady on the phone said if the Governor of Texas said it was ok then it was ok.

I hope the doctor will have a better answer for me when I speak to him, but to be told that repeatedly was very upsetting.

As time goes on and my family has to go on about their business, I wonder how long I can stay inside.  We know more about the disease’s transmission’s patterns now.  We know that it takes direct exposure and it travels the best through droplets and needs a fairly large quantity of droplets, a sustained amount, to actually infect another person.  However, we also know people can carry the virus and have absolutely no symptoms.  This means we can do all the fever checks we want and still have no idea someone is sick.  The mask is the best prevention and a lot of folks just won’t wear one.

There just aren’t any guarantees.

So at what point does a person like me just loosen up and go out?

How do I keep an ounce of sanity and remain well?  I am finding coping mechanisms as I go.  I join my faith community on Friday nights for a half hour or more on Zoom.  That helps.

I talk to friends online; that helps.

My husband and I went to an Airbnb in the country for a few days; that was awesome!

I am trying to hang on to the awesome and let it carry me through the depressing part.

It is best to live one day at a time and not think about the future just now.

I talk to my kids on the phone almost every day.

We are going to see my son and his girlfriend from a safe distance by renting an Air bnb near them  for a couple of days.

We just have to do what we can.

When both kids move to new apartments, we will just move them and I will stay masked on the sidelines or maybe not go at all.

And I do yoga and BREATHE…

I try to remember what great privilege I have.  I have SO much.  I just pray for patience and guidance and above all: for others.

So, to all you fellow home bound folks and the people stuck with them:

Just Breathe!

 

 

 

Every time I turn on the tv, which is usually a mistake, I hear someone say the words, “The ‘New Normal’ “.  I don’t think that is a very apt phrase at all.  It is pithy.  This is not normal at all.   I don’t think labeling it as new + normal is going to make it any better.

Instead, I am concentrating, or trying to, on any little sparks of light that provide evidence of when this long, dark period of pandemic might be over.

I understand that it may not be totally over for years.  If the virus mutates we will have to have scientists that are faster than the mutations themselves, re-design the vaccines as we go.   That is a very tall order.

What I am waiting for is decent testing and good, life saving treatment.  A vaccine would be the real icing on the cake.

For me,  personally, that is what it will take in order for me to resume the life I once took for granted.  Otherwise I will need to continue as I  do now: I live life in the shadows and in perpetual stress over exposure: And you know what?

IT SUCKS!  AND I AM TIRED OF IT.

But I think everyone out there is tired of this too.  Some folks are so tired of it they have decided to pretend it isn’t there anymore.  We can call this attitude one of assumed ignorance or we can  call these people by the moniker: covidiots.

I understand why they want to act like it is all over!  I get it!  I also understand why they want to get back to work.  But as I have said before, it is a bad idea. The death toll and infection rates continue to climb.

So, I don’t get to play pretend with them and neither does my family.

There is no “New Normal.”  There is just the same damn thing.  At least that is how I feel.  I am struggling to feel normal at all.

This is getting old.  It hasn’t been fun or exciting in some time.

I am fortunate.  I can work from home and so can my husband.  I can face time my kids.  My husband and I are even getting away to a house in the remote countryside for a few days of renewal.  It will just be us and a pool and nothing else.  I can’t wait.

But in the meantime, as we move through another week of quarantine, all I can do is pray for patience and pray for those on the front lines and pray for those in the labs trying to stop this beast.

As to those I have labeled covidiots, I will pray for them too.

I can’t tell you how many half-assed unfinished pieces of writing I have floating around in my laptop.  Some of them are unfinished blog posts that fizzled out and stank so bad and I couldn’t bear for them to see the artificial light of cyberspace.

And then there is the novel.  The novel is grand in scope but scares me to death.  What will happen?  How do I fill in the middle?  I have an outline but what if it totally sucks?  Maybe I should just leave it at page 60 where it is and let it die.

Oh, and then there is the cook book.  It is pretty personal.  I am writing it for my family.  It started out with the title Recipes From My Head.  My kids seem to have flown the coop for good and they both wanted the recipes they grew up with.  The problem is that I don’t really use recipes and neither does their dad.  Dad is too busy to comply but I am writing it and then I came across a whole slew of my mother’s best recipes, which, not surprisingly, are not very exact but I can read and translate them.  I pretty motivated to do this because I don’t want them to all scatter and fall apart.  My deadline for this effort is by the holidays of this year.

Next is the children’s book.  I have been working on it off and on for several years.  You wouldn’t believe it but I have an illustrator who has hung in there with me even when I let it sit for a year or more.  I really want it done.  Right now, since I am in Covid prison, I am re-drafting it and we are sending back and forth.  I am also trying to recruit a third reader.

One more thing: I want to turn a lot of my blog material from way back in 2013 until now into an actual book.  ( I have mentioned this before but I now see a way forward.)  There is a lot of stuff that will not make it into the book.  It is painfully horrid to read some of it.  But, there is stuff I can re-read and stand.  Some of it I think might be good or useful to others.  I want to edit all of that, write bridges between the sections (I guess chronologically) and just go for it.

So, it looks to me like I can keep myself busy for some time to come.  Between writing and doing my 15 hours a week online tutoring and trying to take care of a big house and lots of pets and daily (makes me happy) calls with my kiddos; I can do this.  I can go out and walk… the doctor just told me to wear a mask even walking outside (crap).  Oh, I am applying for adjunct jobs just in case there is a fall semester…  But, all in all, I can survive all of this shit just fine.

I just don’t want anyone to get sick.  I don’t want the world to come crashing down like it is and I really don’t want to be depressed, angry or feel like I am going to jump out of skin because the weeks keep passing and I can’t tell what day it is.

I have walked until I enflamed my knee and every other lupusy joint in my body.  I have finished binging on Star Trek.. (live long.. and prosper) to the horror of my fellow inmates.  I have baked way too much… I’m stopping… I promise.  I have made to do lists that I sometimes follow.  I have even cleaned out corners of the house I had previously pretended didn’t exist.

But what I really struggle with is why are there so many mixed messages out there?  I guess I know why.  We are a large and very diverse country and our federal government is definitely not at its best right now.  We hear one thing from the top health officials and in the same breath we see leaders that dismiss expert opinion.

We see state governments trying to respond in a no win situation.  People need money to live but going out to work will end up killing more people.  These are all bad choices.  I find myself getting angry and sad that our country cannot find a way to cooperate and attack the problem as one entity.  It is very personal to me because, well, you know, I don’t want to die.   I will be stuck in my house until there is a treatment, at least.  My husband will be stuck with me.  My poor niece is stuck with both of us until she moves away for law school:  Even that is messed up by this.

We all have lives to get back to.  We would all like to actually have lives… and livelihoods.  We are a wealthy country and Texas is a very wealthy state.  Why are we in this mess?

I won’t harp on this anymore.  I am just chasing my tail and the dogs look way more cute when they do it.  I am just frustrated and I miss my family.

Hell, I even miss the grocery store.

I am sure I am not the only immune challenged freakoid who feels this way.

This blog entry is trending hard toward half assery.

I had better stop and not go any further into the country of Whineland.

I just pray (and I really do pray) that all my peeps are safe and healthy and that all of the first responders get relief and rest and don’t get sick themselves.  I pray that all of the fine minds focused on how to stop this mother ducker will come up with a way.  And I pray for everyone… all of us… globally.  Wouldn’t it be cool if this pandemic is what brought us together as a planet?  What if we suddenly realized that being human was enough and that national borders and all of the other man made distinctions we have created are just B.S?  If that happened and Covid 19 is what made it so, I would welcome wearing the stupid mask while I walk.

I know, I am a hippy dreamer.

But, it nevers hurts to dream.

Stay well.

 

 

 

 

I find the whole Coronavirus scare interesting.  I really don’t know how to react.

I know I should be a bit freaked out but I really don’t feel that way.  For one thing, I know that my infusions keep me pretty healthy.  For another, I know if I am going to get exposed and die from this nasty virus, there isn’t much I can do about it.

I don’t mean to sound  morbid and I don’t plan on running around in crowded places touching as many surfaces as possible and then rubbing my face.

I just mean we take precautions, we do what we can, and then we sit and wait.

I have been on a ventilator before.  I don’t want to do that again.  It was awful.  I remember bits and pieces of it.  I definitely remember the day they took the damned thing out. It was horrible.

But, I probably won’t be one of those so unfortunate souls.

I am very touched by my husband and my daughter’s concern for me.  My husband brought the whole thing up way before I even verbalized anything about taking precautions.  He was irritated that someone at his job who was young and unthinking announced, ” I don’t see what everyone is so worried about.  The only people that die from it are the elderly and the immunocompromised.”

My husband jumped right on that and said, “Great. That happens to include my wife.”

Usually he down plays these things so I wasn’t expecting that.

After that conversation, or the next day, I came down with a virus that could have been flu.

Because I felt so crappy my family insisted I go to the closest ER.  I got checked out and was told my white cells (the ones that indicate the immune system is trying to stop something) was active (yeah me!) but they didn’t take a flu test!

I went to the dr. two days later and tested negative for flu but I had a nasty virus.   I missed a week of work and I hate missing my paycheck.

So now, here I am back at work and not doing much but hiding in my office.  Next week is spring break.

Who knows what will happen after that?

I would be a liar if I didn’t say I hope we have to work from home after the break.

This is crazy for everyone!  It isn’t just me!

Lots and lots of folks are scared.  It is the ultimate unknown.  No one can help but think of the Spanish Flu of 1919 to 1920.  I mean it was exactly 100 years ago.  My grandmother, who was a teen, lived through it.

She lived through all kinds of things in her life.  The Spanish Flu was just the beginning.

I guess I am saying that all kinds of people live through all kinds of things.  I don’t live in Syria.  My home hasn’t been bombed out of existence.

I don’t live in Haiti, where life is often very short and very difficult.

I don’t live on the streets in Austin, TX.  No, I have a house and two cars and lots of everything I could possibly need.

Even if I do have to isolate and stay home for a while, I may get a case of cabin fever but I am sure I will survive it.

I just have a hard time feeling like this is a life and death thing for me.  I think too many other lives are at stake for thousands of other reasons every day.

As I said, I don’t want to court danger in a stupid way, but I also refuse to become crazed with panic.

What are your thoughts?

Should people in my situation do more to protect themselves?  Should we not wait on the government to tell us what to do?

I don’t know.  I guess we will see as this unfolds.

 

 

 

I feel like I need to add a bit of a disclaimer to what I posted earlier this week.  I did not mean to sound like such a whiner.  I am still on disability and it does help out.  In fact, I can only work a certain number of hours and earn a prescribed amount of $ or I would lose my disability.

It is a catch 22.

I think I have explained that before.

I just don’t want to sound ungrateful.  A lot of folks cannot get disability when they need it and a lot of folks need to live on it and there is simply no way to do that.

It is a mess.

I am very, very, very fortunate. I am also blessed to alive. I know that too.

I will prevail over the nasty tooth fairy.  One way or another I will send the nasty little jerk packing.

A lot of the time just putting a virtual pen to paper makes night time goblins like him disappear.  They no longer have pull over my subconscious.  I have a feeling he will go screaming and cursing but go nonetheless.

So, that’s it.  I just wanted to clarify that I AM OKAY.

I just get frustrated like anyone.  And sometimes my frustration boils over and it feels, looking around me, like my frustrations are bigger and deeper and worse than my fellow earthlings.  However, that is a load of poo because I have no idea what they live through, none at all.

So, I take my own lot in life and go whistling along…..

 

Fade to black….

 

Throughout my life, I have had very vivid dreams (some would call them psychedelic).  The only time they went away was when I was drugged into a stupor and too sick to have an internal life. 

Now,  that I  am not too drugged; I am still kinda sick but at least my dreams are back. 

Last night I had one that is reoccuring but I have not had it for some time.  Let me wander off here and give some background: 

 I believe very strongly that our subconscious throws things we are having trouble with up at us during the hours we are asleep, as dreams, and if we can pick them apart, there is something to be discovered about our reality: good or bad or indifferent. 

The bad/scary dreams that reoccur, at least for me, do not go away until I figure them out and do something about whatever it is I am supposed to be learning from them, in my day to day life. 

Does this sound complicated? Strange?  Woo Woo? 

Welcome to my husband’s life:)

If I could draw or even put clip art into my essays this is where I would put in a picture of a very scary looking version of a Grimm’s fairy tale type elf, maybe like Rumplestiltskin, and just leave him here on the page, between the paragraphs. 

(Imagine a scary elf man with fairy wings here.  He is wearing a too tight t-shirt over a hairy paunchy belly that says, “I’m the effing tooth fairy. Get over it, kids.”  He has yellow, sharp teeth.)

Ok, back to the main event here: 

The dream is always similar and last night it went like this…

I wake up one morning and notice one of my front teeth has fallen out.  I find it on the bed next to me. This makes me panic and call for my mom.  After I show her what has happened, I realized that a bunch more teeth on the bottom are also  loose and that several spots in my mouth hurt like hell.  

My mom starts thinking aloud (because that is how she thinks)  about which dentist to take me to. I grew up next door to our local dentist’s mom and for years and years I babysat his kids and he was my dentist. (This part is real.) 

For some reason I told my mom I didn’t think David (our dentist friend) could help me.  So mom, who I suddenly, in the ways of the dreaming, realized is dead, told me we would go to someone good in San Antonio.  We lived a bit outside the city in the hill country. 

After I remembered she is dead, and I am a damned adult, I started to lose more teeth and I felt really hopeless and depressed. 

So, next I decided to tell my husband, Stan, that I had a sort of emergency. 

Only then, (dreams are so damned weird) did I realize we were still living in New Jersey. Stan said I probably needed oral surgery and to go to one of the better hospitals and he would meet me later.  

Somehow my mom got ressurected, (She was very much alive and often with us in New Jersey) and she got all freaked out because we didn’t know which hospital was best there.  

I was freaking out too.  The longer we debated, the  more my teeth fell out. I could hardly talk without it being obvious and I was scared to death to open my mouth because more of them might just fall on the floor. 

Then, just as in the other hundreds of times I have had the tooth dream, I awoke or my brain overloaded, I don’t know.  All I know is that the issue was never solved. 

I woke up and ran my tongue around my mouth feeling for my teeth. 

They were all there. 

So, what does this stupid, anxiety causing, sweat through the sheets, dream have to do with my life? 

I think I know but I am not really happy about it.  

#1. I have Mommy issues:)   Yeah. No excrement, Sherlock!  I miss my parents and I miss my aunt and I miss being their baby.  I don’t like adulting without a safety net. For years they were not a safety net in the financial way.  Actually, it was the other way around. But, in the emotional sense, I was always welcome to call and talk about ANYTHING.  I got huge doses of nonjudgmental love from them all of my life, well, certainly from mom and dad, and I miss that. 

My job now is to do that for my children.  Again, back to the adulting thing. Damn. I have been doing it for a long, long time.  I am, after all, middle aged. But, I never felt really old until I was middle aged, sick, and had no parents: THAT JUST BLOWS. 

 

#2. I am responsible for part of the budget at home and I have always been more than ok with that.  I prefer to work. However, in 2011 I became so effing sick I had to go on disability. Well, guess what? Disability isn’t enough money to really make a difference.  I now have my second child in college. I also have a crap ton of medical debt and debt from child #1’s undergraduate degree. My husband earns a really great living. He is amazing and he brings home a great deal of bacon.  However, even he cannot handle all that has happened to us over the years. It is too much. So, I am now working a mere 15 hours a week as a writing tutor for the local community college. It is frustrating as hell. 

I am overqualified and ridiculously stupid with the IT I am supposed to keep learning.  It makes me want to scream.  

#3. Here is the real problem and the reason my teeth are metaphorically falling out in my dreams. 

I can’t hack it. I am tired and worn to a frazzle.  I have responsibilities at home. I am learning to let them go but for now I still have them.  We have four pets. We have a niece at home that I have been tutoring through her law school application process for months.  We have kiddos that call mom every day (which I am great with). And, I still have doctor appointments and procedures, even though I am doing better. 

It all feels like too much.  

I am barely able to pick up my feet on many days.  I dread the days I have to go to work. It isn’t so much the work as the getting up and getting there and getting home and being wiped out.  It eats my entire day and many days I barely make it. 

But, I have no choice just now.  

 

I am trying, with all the energy I can spare; to find a way to work on my own schedule. 

I have learned over the last year about the law school application process.  This is what I have been coaching my niece through. I am meeting with a friend of hers who has been through the process and has UT connections, next week.  Maybe I can find a few clients. These people pay a lot of money to folks for help and I can do the work… well. 

 

So, maybe something can happen there… I don’t know.  

 

I want to get a book published.  

I have lots and lots of ideas and plans but they go nowhere when I am operating at a low level….

What do I do about it?  

Do I just let my  teeth fall out? 

Do I see the dentist? 

Who is “the dentist?” 

G…d? 

Me? 

Do I even have any idea? 

 

 I don’t really know.  I just know that writing this down has forced me to be honest in ways I have been afraid to be honest.  

 

Now I am afraid to post it to my blog.  

 

Who else has these issues and is chronically ill/tired/over cooked? 

 

Any suggestions? 

 

Self help group? 

 

Primal whine? 

I dunno. 

I just hope I quit having the damned dream.  

 

 

I am not speaking metaphorically here.  I have a battery in, well… close to my lower right butt cheek.

I have something called a spinal stimulation device that includes a wire that runs up the inside of my spinal column and has leads coming off of it that has contact points where I experience chronic pain.  This device is powered by a battery that is buried under my skin and controlled via I Pod.

The original purpose of this device was to lower my pain threshold for my stupid, deformed pancreas.  It is always painful.  After I had the spinal stim device placed in May of ’18, it took quite a while to get it adjusted.  However, I did finally getting it working well and it has been a great help.  However, in order to get relief I have to run it at a level that I can constantly feel a “buzzzz” rushing through my system.  It is strange but whatever works is fine by me.

Because I am running the device at such a high level I made an appointment with the company representative through the pain care office.  (This was about four months ago.)  I asked her directly if I needed to have my battery replaced more quickly.  She looked at me like I had two heads and said, “No! It’s fine!  Those batteries are designed to go for two years at a minimum and usually last up to three.  Besides, you can just check it on your Ipod controller.”

So, I put it away in my mind and tried not to be too concerned.  Guess What?

It died about two weeks ago.  Dead as a door nail.  I called the pain care folks and they rushed me right in and said it was probably just a programming error.  I kind of knew at that point it was no programming error.  As soon as the representative ran his magnet near the thing in my hiney I knew from the look on his face my battery was d.o.a.

And I began to realize just how much pain relief the thing was actually giving me.  It isn’t 100% but it sure as heck helps.

I have been really, really irritated about this.  I know it wasn’t anyone’ s fault but it has just made me feel, all over again, how helpless I am over my screwed up body.

By the time I get the battery replaced this coming Thursday, it will have been off for three weeks and I have been in pain every single day.  Once the new battery is in, they cannot turn it on full speed due to swelling, so I won’t get the full effect for a while.  And, as a side note, I am upgrading to a rechargeable battery:)  This new one is smaller and  can last up to five years but I have to recharge it but putting on a magnetized belt that is then plugged into an outlet.

I can be a one stop charging station for my butt, my phone and my I watch!

So, yes, the point of all my kvetching here is the helplessness:  I live, day to day, with pain, fatigue and gastric issues that might keep someone else bed bound.  In fact, it used to cause me to run to a hospital.

I have just decided that I am not going to let it all  rule me anymore.  At least, not if I can help it.  But some days, I cannot make myself go… I am too nauseous or my legs hurt to much to  move or some such thing.  I try to just push and go but there are days I would rather not.

But, I fear that on any random day that I let myself rest, entropy might set in.

What if I never move again?

What if the pain and discomfort start to eat me alive again?

What if I reach for the pain meds again?

I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.

If I do those things: I’m dead.

And yet, if I don’t pace myself, I am making life harder for myself.  It is a perfect conundrum.

Over the winter holidays I was able to get out and walk and exercise a lot and I really enjoyed it.  I could push myself farther and farther and it felt good.  But I noticed I felt like my legs wanted to drop off of my body and my wrists and my fingers ached.  I could feel every joint as though someone was sticking needles in every possible place.

This pain usually signals a flair of lupus and means I should take some steroids.  I resisted.  Steroids bring their own issues.

After I started back to work this past week, I didn’t get to walk as much.

My bad joint pain disappeared.  I figured out that I had been doing exactly what tons of physical therapists have told me NOT to do: exercise on days back to back and push farther and faster too quickly.

In other words, I was doing it to myself.

So, I ran my battery too fast and it died.  I pushed my joints too hard and they screamed in protest.  I get all up in my head and worry about problems I cannot solve and lose sleep.

There seems to be a pattern here!!!!!!!

Hopefully, writing about it and ‘going public’ will help me remember the lesson.   I would love to hear if anyone who  reads this if they does anything similar.

Please, tell me I am not the only idiot that does this to myself:)

Ah well, who would wanna admit that!

Ha.