Hello my zebras and spoonies! Thanks for coming and visiting with me today.
So, last week was a long one. Sunday was Halloween, you know on the 31st and I had a fantastic holiday. Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year and I was low on spoons and I decided to push it anyway and I did the whole thing. Got into costume and make up and passed out candy for several hours. Then we did a dinner and some scary movies after passing out candy. That came at a price; because that’s the thing about having a chronic illness. You don’t get to just do the thing. You usually do the thing and then you get to spend some undetermined amount of time paying the price for doing the thing. For me, it’s been most of a week, and I’m still kind of gimping on into recovery but at least I’m mostly functional at this point. By overextending myself, managed to send myself into a mast cell flare. On the upside it didn’t lead to any kind of anaphylactic reaction. Just kind of all around: “symptoms that suck.” So at least there’s that.
This week was also difficult for me because it was the birthday of a friend of mine and this is the second year that I have celebrated his birthday without him. He committed suicide two years ago and it has been difficult. So yeah. This week has been a lot of dealing with chronic illness. And a lot of dealing with grief. Because this time of year is still hard and I imagine that it is going to be for a really long time. Well, probably always.
I also have a really long adulting “to do” list that I keep not managing to get accomplished. I keep trying to remind myself that it’s nothing time sensitive and that it is okay to postpone things in order to take care of yourself but I have this evil little gremlin in my head is saying that when you procrastinate, it means that you are lazy and that resting in order to get better and recover means that you were lazy. I mean, it’s total complete bullshit, but unfortunately, that’s the stupid little imp that talks in the back of my head that I have to deal with.
Back in 2006, I had a injury to my shoulder that was work related. I had a six inch separation; a dislocation of my shoulder that has led to chronic problems and every time I need to have my treatment plan adjusted, it is a big go around, because it’s workman’s comp. I’m back in that cycle again, I need to have my pain management care plan reevaluated and it’s just been complete total pain in the butt to get everything lined up just to get back into the specialist that’s been seeing me and that doesn’t help life at all. Because well, I’m struggling to get all of that. You know, all those little hoops jumped through. I’m still going along with not well managed pain which is just awesome.
One of the awesome things about American health care is that you get lots of medical bills when you have chronic illness and about four or five years ago we had this weird snafu with the people who handled our medical insurance and lots of claims were waylaid and disorganized and we are still chasing a lot of those down and I got to spend some time doing that. And that’s one of the things that I’m giving myself grief about not following up on.
I totally slept through my mammogram appointment. Can’t say that I’m really sad that I missed it. But it’s also kind of important, you know, preventative medicine is better than having new problems. I have an appointment next week for my endometriosis. I will be seeing a new doctor which is a good thing because I am looking for a second opinion. But changing to a new doctor is a difficult process and very anxiety provoking.
My week has been kind of tough. I hope that things have been better for you guys. I hope that your symptoms have been stable. I hope that your holiday went well. Don’t get me wrong. Well, this week has been frustrating. Overall, I feel like I’m doing okay, just tired and taking things one day at a time. The way that life deals things to you, it’s it’s hard to say what’s gonna be around the next corner. You just got to keep shuffling forward, whatever that looks like. And whatever that means for you.
So yeah. Go get a nap and until I see you next time, you guys take care of yourselves.
Zebra Pig 