May Update

May arrived with showers instead of flowers. I hate this weather. I have nothing noteworthy to mention and to repeat a litany of my aches and pains will bore you. I'll spare you this month.

Plans for May:

•     Get back to the gym.
•     A trip to St. Louis Zoo may happen as well. Madi is coming to see me and we may run over there. 
•     Go South for a few days at least, maybe to Atlanta and then to the Gulf. 

Fingers crossed on that last one. I need some sun and some warm weather. I could also use some warm sand against my feet. 

I'm fairly disgusted with all my writing attempts. I've been unwell for most of 2020, and the start of 2021 does not bode well. I'm so tired of being sick, tired, and in pain. Bad enough to feel bad but the exhaustion that comes with autoimmune disease is simply miserable and hard to bear.

Mike has started his third week of employment with Amazon. I'm so proud of him for stepping out and doing this. If you have read this blog, you know he has some medical issues and some learning issues that make it hard for him to employ. And finding employers willing to work with his hearing problems and learning problems is very difficult. They usually just fire him rather than trying to work with his situation. This driving job seems to be designed for him. Prayers for him in this job. 

Sarah is in Ohio. I no longer get to see her unless I go there, but they have no place for us to stay and I can't afford hotel rooms. I get messages from her now and then, but that's all. I'm trying to ignore the intense pain it causes me. I thought it would be different that when she was in Arkansas, but it isn't. 

I have been doing the housework better. I found a video on YouTube that showed me an exercise for my lower back that really seems to help. It isn't a cure, but it helps lessen the pain. It also clarified for me, where the pain is located. My SI joints seem to be the problem =  sacroiliac joints.

I'm trying to watch my diet again. I lost 20 lbs last year before Covid lockdown. I gained it back plus. Going barefoot aggravated my plantar fascitis, so I now have to wear shoes constantly. But I can walk again. Another good reason to get back to the gym. 

For several months, I've been cleaning out rooms and closets, but I haven't gotten rid of nearly enough junk. I'm considering storming a room at a time and emptying it and then putting only necessary items back in it. I'll put everything in boxes and then decide what goes to charity or the dump. It would make it easier in the event I actually decide to sell the house. I keep thinking it is the best solution now. I have nothing left to hold me here.

That's May in a nutshell, I think. I am trying harder to come in and update this blog regularly. It seems I've lost my desire to write much of anything. I find life more pain than not and no one wants to be bombarded with reports of that all the time. 

If you're still a reader of this blog, thank you. And I'm sorry if you get tired of my whining. We all want to be heard, especially when we're in pain. When I look back over this blog, I see there has been a lot of pain. And loss. And I'm no hero. 

Have a good week and be blessed. While you're at it, bless someone else.

Cleaning Closets & Coming to Terms

Ah, children! Fall arrived with a whisper. The days gradually cooled, and the nights became cooler. The last month I've had so much pain I hardly noticed. 

But yesterday I woke to find I had so little pain that I felt refreshed. That allowed me to get small things done. Yesterday was a good day. 

This morning, I woke hurting all over and found a light rain fell during the early morning hours, explaining why I felt so bad. It's taken hours to feel functional, but the sun is shining now, so  I'll take it. 

Mike came over to do his laundry and is napping on my sofa. I didn't realize how bad his sleep apnea was until the weekend trip to Ohio. He's worse than me, I suspect. 

I'm coping with the stresses of Sarah being gone, but it has been difficult. The house is simply hollow without her, and I have times when I hear her down the hall or I feel that I need to get her to bed. That's probably the worst.  

I'm isolated to an extreme degree. No one comes here, but Mike and I can't go very many places with my suppressed immune system while Covid is still a genuine threat. I want to go to church so bad and may try this weekend. It isn't just the virus. I have trouble sitting or standing for long periods. My back and legs are still a problem. 

I have figured out what is causing the severe leg pain. My hips and legs have hurt so bad for months now and I've tried everything to get relief. I could barely walk most days. This week, I went into commando mode. The doctors keep blowing me off, so I used one of my topical meds that I don't use often. There is risk associated with Diflonec, but my pain levels became unendurable. So, I started plastering my hip and lower back with this medicine. 

Hips are difficult to medicate this way. Unlike knees, the hips are deep in the tissues and are a socket in addition. Getting topical meds to the affected areas is nearly impossible. In the past, I found that by putting one foot on a stool, the rounded part of the hip joint is more pronounced. So, I propped my foot on the toilet and put the medicine on and all around that area on each leg. I also do the area to either side of my lower back, closest to the hip. I have been doing it three to four times a day and wearing a Diflonec patch on my back at night. The pain is better, but at some point they're going to have to look at this for a better solution. Or I'm going to be in a wheelchair in terrible pain.

I've done no writing, focusing instead on getting rid of stuff. I have to work in small time spans and focus on a specific area, but I've cleared out some drawers. I must completely gut the closet in the spare room and organize that room. As I'm cleaning things in other rooms, if there is something I need to keep it goes in the spare room. I also need some shelving in there for my sewing and crochet items. At the moment, they're all over the house and I want them centralized. 

 I'm attempting to get rid of clothes I've finally decided I'll never be able to wear again. At some point, I have to just let go, give up. Things will not change. I'm never going to be a size 14 again. I'm never going to be 25 again. I'm never going to be me again. I have to learn to live with this body, this age, and who I am now. I don't like her much but, as I always say, it is what it is.

An unexpected disappointment came up this week. I brought my family dining table home from Mikes. We put it up but must not have tightened the leg enough. I had to move it and messed up the bracket. Getting a new one has proved impossible, so my only recourse is to have a metal worker create a new one. One is $125 and 4 is $150. Since I have neither amount, it isn't happening. I have to move it back to Mike's where he'll store it for me since he has room. I so wanted it up, but perhaps it is time to give up on it. Solid oak and 32 yrs old. No one is interested in it, and I have no family left to sit around it. I think it is one of the most difficult decisions I have to make. So many memories of meals, holidays, and game nights. I can get by with a tv tray but that table. We were so happy around that table. 

I suppose I should stop now. As I read back over it, I can't find anything that could interest anyone but me. And that's doubtful, too. I never thought of my life as exciting, but there was a place, a point in time, where things happened. Fun, exciting, and frightening. Life happened and I feel as if I missed it. I remember walking down streets in Frankfurt, Germany and feeling as if I was in a dream. I was, I think. Did it really happen? 

In case you had not noticed, I'm a mess. I'm broken in some way I can't comprehend. I can see it, and feel it. I'm not sure how or exactly where. I just know I have no way to fix it. 

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make the most of every moment, right now, while there's time. Living life on the ledge isn't always fun, but you'll make some wonderful memories along the way. 

My Week in Review

Been a long time since I posted here but I have so much news I decided it would be easier to disseminate. So for those of you still checking in, here we go. Monday has apparently become clean the house day because that will get me thru the week. Mike came and dug out the flower bed but I couldn't get to the planting because I was too tired after cleaning and laundry all day. I did put Castor beans in the ground. These will drive out the voles and moles, whose tunnels are causing a tripping hazard in my yard. It will take a few months but once they take root, those critters will head for daylight. This is an old gardeners trick. Tuesday.. funny, I don't remember a lot of it. I had a sleep doctor appt and that went well although, she said I needed to go to bed earlier so I don't need those 2 hr naps every day. She's probably right, but I've always been a night owl. If it wasn't for Sarah, I could sleep late in the mornings. 20 days of school left! I came home and spent the day reading. Sarah and I went to the grocery story after school, and then spent time doing her math homework. I was in bed by 9:30! Tuesday is the first day I've been on the computer for a week, I think. Wednesday I cut the yard, moved some edging stones around to the front to line the walk (I used the mower and trailer to move them, I'm not totally insane yet), and I was planning when she got home to get the seed in the ground! That didn't happen because the day caught up with me. I fell asleep in the chair for about a hour. I was still in bed by 10, though. I've also been walking. Went one day last week and couldn't walk .3 of a mile without nearly having to crawl back to the car. Both my hips were in agony. Upset me a bit because the future looked bleak. I waited and went back Monday and this time, I just walked around the small lake near the VA cemetery. The photo is a shot from the parking area, across the lake. I made it around 3 times but I had to sit on one of the benches each round to rest my hips. Went back Tuesday and made it 4 times with one rest, and that got me .5 of a mile! Yesterday, I made it .5 again with only one stop. So, maybe the future is not so bleak. Since my back injury and all the steroids they put me on, I gained too much weight! It will probably take a while to peel that back off. However, if I can keep walking, I might make a dent in it. The pain in my hips is probably a combination of too much weight, weak muscles from sitting around for 9 months, and the arthritis. The good news is, a short break between laps seems to make it ease up. So, I'm shooting for distance rather than speed. Once I can get around a half mile without stopping, I can try for more distance. There are benches around the lake but once I start hoofing around the cemetery, there are no places to sit... unless I pick a tombstone. There are some monuments with benches up on the hill but I'm nowhere near tackling that. So, now you're caught up for the week. We'll see how the rest of it goes.