Omg Stop please just STFU… I missed my solitude!

 

Feeling Attacked

I feel attacked by all sides. There are a couple of coworkers who believe they have the right to boss you and speak to you however they choose.  If you stand up to defend yourself, they have to be the offended party.  One is so ridiculous that she called me out in front of my boss and ended up looking worse for her actions. She thinks she is the only one who works, the only one who does anything, yet at 1:00, she is finished with her patients, and can wander the center socializing.  Leaving me to fend the from desk and count and deal with the last patients, and anyone else that may come in.  I am tired.  My boss may go on leave for 3 month which will be hell because this person believe in her tiny mind that she is the person that should be in charge. 3 of these things are kinda the same… NOT

Long time

 

Sorry I have posted, and this is mostly inner purging… I am feeling the inner most blackness that I have felt since C died.  I can’t explain why, my life is good.  But I do not feel that way.  The pain in my back makes me feel desperate and in tears. My job is frustrating and exhausting.  I live under threats that my job may be taken away at anytime.  Everything just seems hopeless.. They keep saying they are doing something for my pain, but unfortunately to take pills all day is not the answer.  I have to live.  I have to function.  I feel if I didn’t have my children and J, it would be better not to be here.

After sometime, I decided I need this place again.  My health is not what it was. I am struggling again just to maintain the norm.  I can only dream of retirement in approximately 6 years.  I am elated that J is now working so that maybe I can step away from all this stressful job stuff.  Maybe one day I can get some rest and be free of all this.  Tired of fake people, drama, being blamed for everything and not be recognized when I do well.  20 years is a long long time to be with someone and not even an thank you from them Woke up so dead tired and was not even up to coming into work, but my sense of obligation made me.  Good thing too, my coworkers’ mom is in the hospital again. Having only 3 workers it is stressful on us.  Outside order is due again by the 1^st and I have no time to look up the items to get the quotes.

I realize I haven't posted in a long time.. so much has happened, the surgery the weight loss, health issues, J's immigration stuff, my daughter finding out she's deaf, the death of a couple of my cats. Life has been full out running to the max. And I am so tired... I can't seem to get this across to anyone. But, I am tired. Tired of waking everyday and forcing myself to go to work, forcing myself to work and coming home and just not feeling like its all worth it somehow.

Long time no see

J and I just had our 3rd wedding anniversary.(5 years together). Happy happy happy. Something I haven't had in a long long time.

I even took out my clay again and started sculpting. Horrendously, but its a start. It makes me happy, my creativity is coming back. Now if I can just maintain health and stay away from the arthritis pain in my back I will be good!

What 's Mine is mine, What's yours is yours...

I have a coworker who has personal space issues.  Consistently I can be working on something and she will take it from my hands asking is it hers?  She also allows her messiness from her desk to spill over onto mine. if we are busy, working on patients, her work from other patients ends up on my desk. (Thus the snatching)  But I have put her stuff over and over back on her desk and pointed out that she needs to keep her stuff to her desk and let mine be.   Another day I had left some change and 2 dollars in a drawer in my desk that I left unlocked by accident.  The next day I came in and she starts telling me I should lock my desk since I had money there.  So I asked why she was even in my desk to begin with.  She stated she was looking for tape.  So I said ok, so go ask your lead for the keys to the supply cabinet and get some for your self, and anything else you might need.  Don’t go rummaging through my desk, I don’t like it.  I can’t seem to get it through to her that the end of her desk is the end of her area.  I am at a loss, I like the woman but at the same time there is constant loud chattering while we work and she is constantly drawing my attention away from work I am doing to work she says she needs help with or doesn’t know how to do (although she has been working at the job for at least 15 years).  I am getting frustrated and am afraid I will get angry with this person but have no clue about how to maintain a professional working relationship with her when she can’t be professional.

My choice to be numb or not...

Sometimes I find myself struggling with the desire to want to post here, the logical thoughts floating in my head, the others just dredging the bottom.  But often when I go to write, all I can hear in my voice in my head is blah blah blah blah….and more blah.  Sigh (blogger’s block?)

I am not made of a set of rules though I am very rule bound.(I find myself resenting many times rules put in place to placate other people)  I adapt as best I can to the environment I find myself in.  I have trouble dealing with changes but I do the best I can to accommodate my abilities to the situation I find myself in.  I choose to not be mean and cruel.  I choose to try and treat people the best way I possibly can, in the hopes that someday, I might be treated the same.  All this sounds so determined, and yet I find myself struggling everyday to try and keep a smile on my face. J is one of those things that keep me smiling even though life is rough sometimes. J is my shelter from the storm outside.  The tough exterior I don’t have naturally.  It’s strange depending on someone again, but it feels natural and right.

  I met someone today I hadn’t seen in many years.  Her daughter grew up with mine and she stated her husband had died (the year before my ex!) He was a very happy business man, very healthy.  A chiropractor, and yet a heart attack took him away from his wife and 2 daughters. She told me his death was devastating to her and she made it through only with the help of medication.   Funny how these things contrast to my own situation where the death of my ex was freedom from abuse and the stifling control that crippled me as a human.  Because of that freedom I was able to seek help in health and let go many medications that numbed my heart and clouded my thoughts. She has remarried but is not the same happy person I remember.  She told me I looked great,(funny how the difference again shows up) and that I seemed happier.  She couldn’t believe it.  I told her I too had remarried, and she said it must be doing you a lot of good then. I couldn’t agree more.

D^&*nd if you do, Numb if you don't

Some days it feels like D#@# if you do, D%^& if you don’t.  I am still having pain issues with my SI joint but at least I can walk now most days without too much pain. (But, sometimes!!!!)  I have much hope that it will eventually diminish so I can live a semi normal life, that is, if I ever had one to begin with. Pain and stress do not make good bedfellows. I am told losing weight might help…

I started using a Cpap machine last week for my sleep apnea.  Hurrah for Darth Vader.  I have in my sleep taken it off without knowing it because at times with my stuffy nose I feel like choking.  I am told if I lose weight, it might help…I am also told surgery might help but I can not take the month off to get it I will need yet, it takes so long to build up time, and I have to have some time off here and there for misc. reasons. Grrr

My blood sugars from my diabetes have been pretty good, and my energy levels are better than they were.  I am no longer anemic.  My diabetes too might go away, if I lose weight… My chiro has tried a cold laser treatment for diabetes on me and so we will see what the results are in a month or so when I go back for the A-1C.

I want I need… I want to lose weight, I need to lose weight.  To lose weight I need to exercise more.  To exercise more, I need to have some control over the pain levels I am dealing with now (not!) I am eating less, pushing away, not eating chocolates 3 times a week, not snacking as much (I do have to have some sort of snack to keep my blood levels but not eating as much).  Not eating a carton of sour cream for my calcium source (And have been told this is better since dairy can hurt arthritis?!) I am not asking for ice cream. (Though it is still winter and the heat hasn’t shown up yet!) Sweets really aren’t my downfall. I limit pasta, I limit potatoes though they and I have a love hate relationship : I love to eat them, they love my thighs, I hate my thighs, therefore I should hate potatoes But I can’t/ don’t/ won’t… its genetic  LOL

I am told I might be able to get bariatric surgery but I have to over qualify to get surgery approved.  Lovely BCBS is well known for not approving this surgery that literally could save my life. I have been told this is the lazy person’s way to lose weight by someone very close to me.  I am in such pain at times, it just frustrates me to tears.

My daughter has been struggling with hearing issues. It has come down to if the doctor would bill my insurance policy (which takes a large chunk out of my 2x a month check) to pay for aides for her to hear, and let me pay the difference out of pocket , she can get the aides she needs.  For some reason the private ENT’s around here will not bill the insurance.  Now, if I had 4000 to give them upfront, why couldn’t I just go and buy them?! And if I can’t use my expensive insurance which I must carry as a full time employee, what good is it?! Needless to say the past few weeks have been stressful and mind-numbing. We are looking into a children’s medical help service, and should know next week.

Money issues prevent so much. I want to make more money but I can’t change jobs.  If I change jobs I could be moved anywhere in the County, longer traffic times, longer stress, bigger phone bills, more care wear and tear on our only vehicle… If Jeremy starts work, the same can happen;  no one at home when the kids get home, one car until we can get another, and double stress.  What to do?

 

Mind numbing machines

As every month I seem to be adding to my list of ailments, I must first brag on something, I had been essentially crippled by leg and back pain and neck pain and migraines for going on 2 years now. Last week that's all started to change. Now I am a skeptic when it comes to Chiropratic treatment, but I do have to say that the Chiropractor I am seeing for treatment has done more for me than anyone! My G.P. would only prescipe muscle relaxers and pain killers, half of which I am allergic to. Believe it or not,I can now walk without a limp! I am almost pain free! Shameless plug of Dr Meineger: (Miracle Worker!!!) http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/dr-meiningers-back-neck-pain-blog/9ad21aea4185c8c1c942d9a5cc8aa6d6

What can I say, pain cripples more than your body. It stops you from actually living. It sucks the joy from your life. It keeps you from fully enjoying your family, taking walks, having energy to enjoy life. It robs you of comforting sleep. It makes you nervous and irritable.

Being pain free in less than a week with only mild muscle soreness, has taken me by pleasant surprise. Total praise for the Dr.

Stressors, Holidays, Sickness, Relatives and Numbness

Sigh, it has been a while that I have posted. Several things have happened mostly good, some scary,. I have been extremely busy at work with the H1n1 vaccination program. There are many nights we have had to stay late to accomodate all the people since everyone is getting scared that they will get this. Alot of people have already had this awful mess and don't even know it. Others get it and they are on respirators. The degree that this disease hits people is so varied that many doctors can't/don't/won't say its the swine flu. The other downside is that the testing for the virus is so expensive, they'd rather treat than find out definately if it is or isn't. Although Jeremy and I and the kids may have already contracted it at the beginning of the school year, I got them all vaccinated with the live virus nasal spray and when the injectable came out I also got it. Having Diabetes and Asthma I was not eligible to take the live virus nasal spray, so they (my family) got it easy. Somehow the thought of having to be in an ICU unit on a respirator didn't appeal to me. So many people are scared to take the vaccine. Scared they will get something else from it.

I get really worn down with people not wanting to take this vaccination or that vaccination because they feel it may cause autism. Even though all tests have proved otherwise and the People who did the MMR scandal in England have since recanted their findings. As an Autie, I was born way before thimeresol even existed. It runs in my family, it seems to run in Jeremy's as well. Vaccines do not cause my autism or anyone elses in my family.

Cancer is another thing that runs in my family. My father is battling his third year with NonHodgkins Lymphoma, my maternal uncle Sonny died with melanoma. My grandfather died of heart dsease and colon cancer. My children's father C died of lung cancer adenocarcinoma, and he never smoked or anything like that, he was just a brickmason and builder. So I am preocuppied with getting cancer screenings and watching out for my own health. I am also watching my own children carefully and trying my best to make sure they don't get sick from anything.

Health issues remain a concern for me and I recently had to have a CAT scan and an ultrasound. First they thought I had pain from a kidney stone, so they did a CAT scan, did not see any stones there, but they did find I have arthritis in my spine.... and a cyct on my liver which after having the ultasound is thought to be benign. I have to go back in May for another ultrasound just to check it. All the pain in my hips and back have been coming from the arthritis. Even the bursitis I have was caused by the arthritis. So now I have arthritis in the spine... great. Now what?

Holidays are around the corner. We just got through a family meal for Thanksgiving. Then my children spent a four day weekend with the family of their father and Jeremy and I had our own Thanksgiving meal to ourselves.

Saturday after Thanksgiving, Jeremy and I went to the tree farm in our area and got a lovely frasier fir which is now set up in our kitchen window. The children had to help me decorate it as I have not been well with a sinus infection and just haven't had much getup and go lately.
But that magical day for children is almost here and we are trying the best we can to prepare for it.

I wish there was ssome magic pill to take away the pain of the fibro and the arthritis and just geive me the energy to live a normal life. Instead, I am numb mentally, tired and in pain. What more can someone ask for?

Sometimes Goodbye is a Second Chance....

 A Second Chance…. This has been ringing through my brain the past couple of days and I have sat down at least four times to write this post and haven’t found exactly what I wanted to say.  I guess just making myself write will make it come out eventually and of course, spell check and edit are my best friends. <grin> Cut and paste are their first cousins… lol

Dealing with the loss of my ex has been at most strange and sometimes strained.  The affects of his life/death on my children are evidenced in their reactions to even some of the most mundane things and yet in other situations, it seems exaggerated or clowned. My ex was an extreme person.  He could be extremely nice, brilliant, or extremely dangerous in his rages.  I do not want to delve deeper into explanations, just understand that life at home was at best difficult.

Anyway, back to my subject.  I had a dream about my ex.  In my swirly dream state I had encountered my ex who had returned from the dead to a state much like the months before he had gotten sick.  Life had continued just as if he had died, I was still married to J, etc.  But C had somehow come back; still oblivious to his cancerous condition, still in refusal to go visit a Dr.  And although my ex and I had been separated for 2 years, I never wished for him to go through having terminal cancer.  I was trying to convince him that I knew he was sick and he needed to see a Dr.  He shook his head no, and he told me this was my ”second chance” and then he disappeared. His goodbye indeed was my second chance. This puzzled me.

What could that possibly be saying to me?  What is it I need to do better?  I’m already working on my health; I’m already doing more around the house and with my kids.  J and I are perfect.  How do I make this time better? I’ve decided I need to do some more inner thought on this and get back to who am I and who is it I want to become.  What I was before C, what I was after C and what I am now with J seem to be completely different people.  Some things are forever lost, some never reached their ultimate achievement, fizzling out and fading away, others still are so far out of reach. I have so many I wants, and I’d like to do, and so many things on my wish list that financially I just can’t reach, it seems dismal and disappointing.  But at the same time, I look at myself now, and I feel so much more; mentally and physically stronger.  So many things that I just let go when I left C, refusing to believe I could actually do them.  So many times, I told myself I’m too tired, too exhausted (I really was, anemia does that!) and just numbed my mind with TV and video games and my beloved sofa.

Before, I’d just walk downstairs and be out of breath with my heart pounding. Now, when we went to Cumberland Island after my surgery, I walked a 4 mile walk in a day.  I was tired, but not so much that it wasn’t a normal tired. Yay! I can walk across Walmart without feeling so overloaded and tired I have to leave without getting what I went there for.  I am still recovering, still making small gains, making small goals, learning so much.  Life now has so much more to offer me. I am: able to pay my bills without having services cut off; able to get more physical exercise with less sleep during the day; able to eat less and be more healthy; able to spend more time with my children without running them out of the room while I sleep; able to go places and have a vacation; able to get some of the things done I have always wanted to do; able to actually enjoy being with another person (not something that comes easy for me.)

 

So I guess my second chance is really still developing who I am.  At least that’s what I think, but your comments are always welcome!

 

Tonight I have been up and down like a yoyo, my energy has just left me like a stone. I am grumpy even surly at times... almost manic...
maybe just overtired....

So...

Here I am 4 weeks after my surgery... I have to say I am feeling "much better now" although I still have some pain if I sneeze, cough or go over bumpy roads. Never the less, after day one at work I was shocked to find I wasn't as exhausted as I thought I would be. I did take my afternoon nap to reset (My way of coping without having a meltdown) so somethings haven't changed.

I did find on my vacation last week that I was finally able to walk for more than a 1/2 mile and not have Tachycardia and breathing problems! I do still have some mucus problems from the breathing tube from surgery.

I had a couple of scares during my surgery, my nurse was an idiot. She gave me a dextrose bag (I'm diabetic) instead of ringerslactate. Needless to say my sugar shot up and I honestly thought I was going to die. No such luck folks, I'm afraid you and the world are stuck with me (at least for now!) A quick insulin shot and the bag changed to the proper one made quick work of it and I was feeling much better later that evening. Also had a minor reaction to my pain meds as I am allergic to codeine. I got to get straight morphine tabs...

But vacation was heaven, paradise, and Jeremy was wonderful, helping me with everything. He wouldn't let me do much at all. We went to Cumberland Island, Tybee Island and Savannah before making the long drive back in stormy weather.



I am still feeling the loss of Soli though and still feel her around a lot lately!

The Tybee Island Swings have a wonderful memory for me and Jeremy.

My sweet Soli...

Passed away on Sunday.  She died in Jeremy’s arms. She had two cancerous tumors that finally got the best of her. It was very fast and we just weren’t ready for her to go.

 

Soli of all my cats was the one most like a dog.  She would come when called.  She would chase a ball.  Of the four rescues we own, she was the most kitten like, though we never really knew her age.  She had soft dense fur, as soft as a rabbit, and we often teased her that her mother was a rabbit. She was very ego maniacal, always the center of any attention given, always first in line, though often it was for things she didn’t like. She was always the first for beautiful photos.  She always had to be next to one of us when sitting down.

 

Her beautiful blue eyes still haunt my restless sleep.

numb and sleepy

So now on my growing list of health ailments I am going to have a consult with a ENT for sleep apnea and surgery for my horrible monthly ailments. Evidently the previous surgery didn’t work as planned (I would have to be that 10% wouldn’t I?) and scar tissue has made the bleeding condition worse by trapping part of it inside.  Lovely…

If the anemia wasn’t bad enough to make me tired certainly lack of oxygen in general along with sleep problems have generally made me a zombie.  Numb?  You bettcha.  No oxygen in the blood, no oxygen going into the blood, physical fatigue from poor sleep… just one big circle….

Hopefully the surgery will alleviate further problems. Have to say I am scared though, and really can’t quite put my finger on why.

I had a horrible horrible dream....

The other night morning I a dream I could not bear. What I mean was that this night for me was absolutely horrible. Every so often despite taking vitamins, I was awakened with an excruciating leg cramp which despite pinching the nerve at my nasal fold at the top of the lip it would not let go, and when it finally did, it left my leg sore and wrecked. I fell into a fitfull sleep and then it came... the horrible nightmare.

My ex died nearly 1 year from next month. I dreamed that I was in a situation in my kitchen with my ex, at the time he had me cornered in the kitchen with a butcher knife in his hand. After so long of being kept awake and after so much bullying, I felt my spirit resign and I begged him to either stop it once and for all or kill me because I could not continue to live like that. (This really happened in real life, and was the end of our relationship) But the difference this time in the dream was that C went to stab me and my youngest child got in the way trying to defend me, and he stabbed him through the heart killing my son instantly. I remember the rest of the dream as if I were in a fog just making myself go through the steps, arraigning his funeral and picking out what I would wear and what he would wear. All I could think was that my baby was gone, I felt like I was crazy....

J says I woke up screaming, its been about 4 days and it still invades my thoughts. I had to call my son who was visiting his sister just to reassure myself.

Sometimes things aren't always as they seem

People try and win your trust.  It’s a human nature thing that often ends up stabbing you in the back.  What’s not normal human behavior is the turning of the person in order to be able to stab you in the back.  Let me explain a little better.  I believe it is in the nature of people to help themselves, then help others (if at all). 

Standing on someone's back, someone who is not as capable as yourself, or someone you see as lesser because of education, to raise your own status just seems wrong.  I mean who really gets up in the morning and says to themselves, today I am going to screw this person over?  Today I am going to take a resolved issue and reopen a wound.  Today, I can make someone else's life a little more miserable. Today I am the glorious king of the world and you: you are a beneath me peon.

What kind of person do you see in this type person? Is it just something that as an autie I can't discern? Am I too trusting?  Should I be more standoffish and not open? The conflict confuses me.

I want to be able to trust but at the same time I no longer want to trust people.  Trusting just gets you hurt in the end.  Trusting ends up with you on the chopping block waiting for the cleaver to fall.  Trusting ends up with the knife in your back with no idea where it came from.

At the same time, trusting can get you happiness with the person you love most in the world, trusting can keep you in a job you love.  Trusting can create a nice world to live in.  Unfortunately, not everyone believes it.

Returning to the Same Old Numb

Wah,     having to return from a restful paradise!   But oh so needed as I was having some physical issue I believe were related to stress.   Weekend before last Jeremy and I sans children went to Amicalola Falls and I was unable to keep up.  Seems like my legs just did not have the strength to go further than the  ½ mile climb up the trail.  Very discouraging for me.  I was told by the nurses at work it could have been from Diabetes, Fibromyalgia, Anemia, Varicose Veins etc.  Since I have all those conditions, it was no surprise. 

But honestly the weakness in my legs scared me…. I had never felt them just suddenly feel like there was no more left in them.

Since we went on this 4 day 3 night trip, I feel ever so much more rested. But the return to work was an absolute beast.  Torture could not have been more appealing…

 

 

Studying in the real world: AKA Perpetually Numb ( old or just clueless).

Being an autistic, being closeted, or out in the open has its stigmas.  You either explain your oddness or you lie low and hope that you aren’t singled out for being too weird. But secretly, you wish to be anonymous, no one taking notice of you; such as no one disturbing your work, or staring at how you walk or try to engage you in social banalities that you feel totally helpless in. I myself often don’t know how to appropriately react in social situations. I hate changes.  New things just make me dig my heels in not to like them.  If there ever was an ugly duckling, that would be me.   Despite my getting along well (My own way of keeping peace) I am the red headed step child in a world of dark haired children.  Or the ginger child as South Park would have you to believe.   So perhaps between being autie and being red headed has me singled out to just being odd period. Who knows, maybe I am just weird. To thyn own self be true.  So do I really need to change? God, the C word, change!  It causes angst even in the typing.

 

I guess I have a hard time convincing myself that I am really all that different.  After all, I am human.  Human beings have lots in common.  So why is it that we pick out the different ones?  We attack differences much like the weak and sick chick in the hen house.  To make ourselves seem to be strong and equal we mask our true selves daily, pushing aside our social bumbling and our angst that challenge our daily existence.  Is it really so difficult to accept that someone is awkward, or clumsy or shy? Is there any normal person that you know out there that doesn’t have at least one of these characteristics? Imagine being a student who won the lottery of all the characteristics…

 

All my life I have been studious.  I love reading books, using computers, learning my obsessive subjects.  I have great difficulty learning something I find boring such as math, or programming or other tedious subjects. As an artie autie rather than a technical one, I have always had much more of a grasp for the arts both language and manual. I love to analyze things, discover the reason why things are as they are and why something works.  I do tend to overanalyze though and sometimes don’t know where to stop.  I realize that I could probably learn programming, but I seem to have a mental block atm. The block is like a dull ache between the eyes, that nothing can penetrate. How can I release that block?  How can I make myself be open to liking new things? Perhaps it’s just stubbornness…Red heads are good for that. Auties are notorious for that.

 

 I want to go back to school once my kids are older.  But each year that passes, leaves me more and more technology impaired and current world events and history changes in the maps etc that I just don’t have a clue.  How does one go back to a school to relearn things you haven’t thought about in over 20 years?  Is it really that important?  Why is it so necessary to take core classes when they have nothing really to do with what you are majoring in?  Isn’t that what high school is for?  And why can’t you just take the classes necessary for the field you need?  Presuming that you passed high school, you should have a good basic grasp of math and English and Science.  I thought high school was to prepare you for college. I thought College was to give you a career.

 

These days, more and more studying is done online.  I think I could do that since now my children are a bit older and have learned not to be interrupting me every 5 minutes.  But then again, my son (my last baby) does love to mommy me to death so maybe later rather than sooner.  I guess what I am trying to say is that perhaps the online experience would avoid having to be in a classroom dealing with social awkwardness, the age gap dumbness and the physical disparity, especially being the older student at school..