Monday, November 15, 2010

A day in bed, a shrinking zebra, and a Halloween kitty

I spent all day in bed, exhausted and fatigued.  I have finally come to the conclusion that I have CFS/ME.  I was sick for a month last December and after I got over the illness I haven't been the same since.  There are days I'm so tired I can't stay awake more that 15 minutes.  When I try to read I see the words blur before my eyes then I'm waking up with a book on my face.  Sometimes lifting my soda can hurts so bad.  When it doesn't hurt it often is exhausting.

I have to admit, I didn't think that CFS/ME was much of a big deal until I got it.  I thought it was basically lazy people.  Now, since I've learned about fibro and CFS/ME in the last couple of years I know that my previous assumptions are untrue.  Knowing what something is and having the illness are still two different things.  I remember when I was sick the doctors didn't know what it was.  They assumed (as did I) that I had a bad sinus infection.  They did a catscan of my head because I wasn't getting any better.  The catscan revealed no sinus infection.

I've decided I need to do something about my weight.  The first thing I'm going to do is to concentrate on my eating habits.  I've started a blog, The Shrinking Zebra, to chronicle my weight loss journey.  The first week I'm just recording what I eat without changing anything.  I plan on loosely following Weight Watchers to start with.  I'm actually pretty excited about this.  I can see from the three days I've recorded my food intake that my eating habits are out of control.  I'm proud of myself for my determination to change this.

To end this blog I want to give you all a smile.


Niki in her Halloween princess costume

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Stressors

“Stressors”
Nov 07, 2010
10:01 am

Lately I’ve had lots of problems with pain from my pelvis down and then both hip joints.  My thighs feel a bit swollen, my calves more swollen, and my feet are really visibly swollen.  I don’t know if the problems with my legs and feet swelling are fibro, but I suspect it is, or at least has something to do with it.  The problem with this hypothesis is that fibromyalgia doesn’t cause swelling.  The swelling isn’t immediately visible, except for my feet, but I can feel my legs and feet swelling and it hurts badly.  Perhaps I’m wrong and this has more to do with Ehlers-Danlos.  I don’t know.

I’ve been having a really hard time staying positive lately.  DH’s mom was in the hospital with congestive heart failure and now resides in a nursing home.  The doctors don’t think she has very long.  DH’s brothers are setting off to hitchhike to the next state over to live.  They are bringing some of their pets with them while they hitchhike.  DH is worried (as well as myself) about them, especially because they are taking their animals and that may keep them from getting there safely.  I wonder if anyone will pick them up, what with three adults and two or three cat carriers.  DH is really scared for his brothers, especially for my BIL#1 (Brother-in-Law #1).  DH and BIL#1 were very close growing up.  I’m really worried about my DH, too.  Needless to say, my stress levels are very high and that’s not half of my stressors. 

Cox Hospital roof from the waiting room. This is where my mother-in-law was.
Sometimes I wish that I could really tell people how I am or what I think.  When someone asks “How are you doing?” they do not want an answer to that question.  When someone asks me that question I say “I’m alive.”  Sometimes DH and the kitties are the only thing keeping me sane.  I want so much to contact all my friends on Facebook, Twitter, and snail mail pen pals.  Unfortunately I do not have internet at the moment and I do not have a way to read or respond to my texts since my phone is broken.  I hope that my friends don’t either forget me or not care to be my friend still.  I guess I’m extra sensitive that people may not want to be my friend anymore, because my mother (the evil bitch that she is) always made sure I had no friends.  If I made a friend she would either go straight to my friend to get them to give up on my friendship, or she kept telling me that they didn’t like me.  So, because of that, I didn’t really have any friends growing up.  I have pretty bad social anxiety, plus I can’t leave the house often because of my pain.  My friends online and  my pen pals really are good friends and I don’t have to go somewhere where my anxiety makes me miserable and I don’t have to worry about not seeing my friends from the increasing pain levels that keep me home most of the time.  I have wonderful friends that I meet online or through the mail and I couldn’t find better friends if I combed the country and including a few foreign countries.  I wish I could at least get stamps.  I miss my friends so bad.  The problem is lack of internet, phone, and stamps.  I have no way to communicate with the outside world, save occasionally going to Wal-Mart with my DH.  This would be where I’d...