The Evolving Pathway

So this last 9 days has been about recovering from 3 days out in the forest, camping on some phamily land and enjoying the company, music, and sharing food, laughter, and good medicine. However, the yellow flies bit the heck out of me, and I still have itchy bites that are taking their time healing. I’ve had to actually “pop” a few and get the pus out so the itching stops. I think it is going to be a while before I chance it out in the forest again for a while…… 3 days of fun and more than 3 times as many days to recover. Yay Fibromyalgia!!! *sigh*

The first two days home I mostly slept, with attempts to bring my gear in from the car a bit at a time, and then when it was all in, getting it cleaned up and reorganized for next time. Slowly I have been recovering, but I haven’t gotten any real energy back yet and I’m not sure that I’m going to. Not taking my vitamins every day doesn’t help any, but I have this memory that doesn’t hold on to much any more so forgetting to take them is a frequent occurrence. Notes don’t help, either…. they got misplaced or moved and that does it for that. Over the last few days I’ve managed to get some things done around here… one morning I cleaned up the kitchen, took the plants from there outside for the summer, and put up a bamboo blind to try and cut down some of the sun that is coming in; another morning I was only able to do a couple of loads of laundry and I was wiped; today Chris helped me to put up 3 bamboo blinds outside, and I rearranged and cleaned up the porch area, getting it ready for the 3-shelf planter and the plants that Mom is giving me (she and Dad sold their house and are moving to a much smaller place, and she doesn’t want the responsibility of caring for them anymore), as well as going through some more of my camp stuff and re-organizing it (I’m founding out a little more each time I camp what is really needed and what is just extra weight), and that is it for today. I am now officially wooped, although I feel “the day isn’t even 1/2 over and already you are wiped?”, but that is how I feel every day and it is something I’m getting used to. One of these days I”ll accept that I do the best that I can each day, and if it is “nothing” in comparison to what others do, then well it is alright because to me it was a Great Something, and I’m grateful that I had the energy to do even that.

No new word on my Disability claim (I started it almost 2 months ago, filled out all the paperwork, had my psych evaluation and my physical evaluation) – I know it is a waiting game. I expect to be denied, and then we will appeal. If I am denied again, I’ll appeal again, because I cannot work (hell I can’t even get through a day at home with no other responsibilities than to care for the home itself) and our household certainly needs the money. I am grateful for a home, transportation for Rob to get to work, and the ability to pay our utility/grocery/gasoline bills/needs, please let me state that first. I am also grateful that I am not more ill than I presently am (things could be a lot worse, I know). I am definitely learning how to live life without money, and frankly, it isn’t so bad — I’m very much aware of what is important and not important in my life (hence the massive purging of STUFF that I’ve been doing over the last 6 months or so), but I would like to be able to attend some of the events that happen in my life without having to worry “are we going to be able to make the mortage or the car payment if we do this?” I suppose that eventually even that will disappear as either I will no longer have an interest in those things because I know in advance I cannot afford them, or our lives will change in such a manner that the means to be able to attend will make itself available. We’ll see.

Enough for today.

I’ve been totally messed up still these last days. I have a call in to my doc ’cause she asked me to call today, and there’s good news and bad news. Good news is the pills for RLS work, bad news is not long enough (only about 3 hours). More bad news, my mind is thinking a mile a minute about books I’m reading or movies I’ve watched (I just finished the book New Moon again and am starting on Eclipse again, and Rob and I watched the original the Day the Earth Stood Still and the 2009 Remake last night – the remake was excellent – Keanu Reeves does aliens very very well lol) but I can’t get my mind to SHUT UP long enough for me to drift off – in fact I find my eyes opening and I’m staring off into space thinking. What a waste of the rls medication when I could be sleeping! Then, when my mind DOES shut up my legs and arms start going like there is a slight electric current running through them and I have to move them to get it to stop but it never really stops and sometimes it just gets worse and worse until I have to actually get up and move around and then I’m dead tired but moving around – sometimes I feel like a zombie – a member of the living dead – walking around this house. Hopefully things will be worked out soon and I’ll be able to go back to living, but right now I feel like I’m just existing. I have no desire to do Anything but try to sleep, and I’m afraid that if I attempted any physical activity at all I’d be dead-tired before I even started (very very frustrating).

And…. I’m very, very emotional and my thoughts are all over the place. Yesterday I was so upset at my continued illness and the fact that Richard and Robert have to deal with all of this – especially Robert. They both work so hard, and are such good people – they don’t deserve to have a crazy person in their lives like this. I was at the point of walking away – going for a walk into the woods and not coming back – and just letting my life end however it may. I’m so tired. My whole life I’ve kept going and going no matter what. I’ve taken care of myself or made sure that I was taken care of by one means or another, and I was tired of always having to be the responsible one for myself – having to be the one that comforted, or helped, or lifted up or took care of the problem. I didn’t want to do it anymore, and I was on the verge of actually getting dressed to go outside and walk and walk until I couldn’t walk anymore, when Robert came into the bedroom and put his arms around me and I just started sobbing and couldn’t stop – and I told him everything. Everything I was feeling and thinking – about his deserving more, about Richard deserving more, about how I just wanted to walk away and cease to exist. He comforted me and told me I wasn’t going anywhere and that he was happy with me and I asked him “right you’re happy with someone who is either sleeping or crying all of the time” and he said yes and wouldn’t let go of me but just held me until I started believing him. What a horrible, horribly bad day yesterday was.

Today I’m better, a little. I still didn’t get more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep, and right now I’m so tired but my legs and arms have the underlying current and I know I can’t sleep. I’m waiting for my doc to call me back, as I called her like she asked me to but of course she is busy so couldn’t answer her phone. That is alright – she will. And I’ll tell her everything, and hope that she says something that makes sense to me.

I was feeling better today, and was doing a through things around the house – here and there – picking up and cleaning up and trying to get back to some semblence of life after the last week of no sleep and wishing I hadn’t thrown the methadone away and being so very, very grateful that I had. I had done a load of laundry and emptied the inside trash cans and taken the trash out to the outside cans, and I noticed that the folding chairs we had set up were full of water (having been inundated with rain for the last several weeks) and so I took them and turned them over so that they could drain and dry, and I noticed underneath one of them that there was a wasp’s nest, and automatically I came inside the house and got the wasp spray and sprayed the nest, and as I was doing so I saw that it wasn’t empty, that it had four of the small holes covered over, and I knew that I had killed for baby hornets, and for some reason the realization stabbed me in the heart and I felt guilty and horrible and a murderer, even though I know what a danger the insects can be. I tried to brush it off but the feelings overwhelmed me and I just burst out into tears.

When am I ever going to get my emotions under control again? Will I ever be able to.

So for that last several weeks I’ve been in a relapse and it has been like starting over, but I think that perhaps Doc has come up with a good med regimen for me. We shall see. I’m on day 2 no methadone. That is on my own – not through her. I need to get off of this stuff – it is bad enough I have to be on the cymbalta and prozax.

I got the things I have made so far up on E-Bay. Here is the link if you are interested:

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/merenwentari_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ

I cut out the main pattern from the pattern paper today for the tunic/skirt/pant/scarf set. Right now I have sizes 20W – 28W, but after I get done cutting the individual patterns on pattern paper and then get at least one set (20W) done, then I”ll go and get the smaller patterns and do the same thing. This set can be made out of so many different fabrics, and the cut it pretty universal, so I imagine once I get started it will go well. I’m also going to get a Cape pattern that I like and see about selling those in different fabrics, as well. One never knows what will go well.

Richard went home from a week’s vacation here at the house. He was awesome to have home, and seemed to totally understand the disabilities that have come to have to live with. I am so blessed to have him and Robert in my life.

I’ve finally let go of HAVING to stay in this house. As time has gone on and I’ve been going through my recovery and in trying to find a new path for myself, I find that I am not going to be able to fulfill the optimistic dream I had for myself when I first fell out in February. That is alright, though — I”ll do what I can and get through it all and as long as I know that I am doing my BEST then I am not going to beat myself up (which I am SO very good at). I’m not looking forward to moving down to Fort Pierce, but at least we will be together, and I’ll make it a point to come up and visit Mom and Dad at least once a month. Perhaps in the future they will follow us wherever it is that we end up going. I sure hope that is the case.

That is it for today.