I met today with a new therapist and am so encouraged by our connection and her understanding. Things will get better. I will continue to believe that.
I continue my struggle with IBSD but I am reaching out for a doctor as I don’t have a gastro one here. I realize that I also am missing all the doctors I had before. I must find new ones.
We are currently sheltering from the new covid strain and quite a few people here have been sick. We all wanted so much to see things as normal and that is not happening. It can be so tiresome and depressing.
Crash and I remain here working through each day. He is my companion and solace.
Last week was stressful. At my age any medical issue makes you immediately think “this is what will take me out!” The system for getting medical issues resolved is wonderful here. Saw a nurse practitioner on Monday. Got results from that on Tuesday. Heard from a referred physician on Wednesday and had an appointment on Thursday. I had to wait til the next week to get some testing done but now know that I have several small kidney stones. I haven’t had any of those for 50 years! Oh well. That’s life.
Knowing what is wrong has relieved my stress and now I just need to move on. The hardest part about most medical issued is the not knowing. When you have discovered the problem then it is easier to accept and keep going.
This has been a challenging week. On Monday I fell tripping over Crash. Flat on my back. I seemed to be ok but had muscle pain. On Friday afternoon I got extremely fast heart rate and ended up going to the emergency room. I was transferred to the heart hospital and spent the night.Diagnosis is either atrial fib or SVT. Basically there is a place where heart rate is controlled that is going awry. On Wednesday I will have a outpatient procedure that will hopefully fix the problem. Please keep me in your prayers and thoughts for a good outcome. May each of you have a blessed holiday and I will post again soon.
This is the view from my apartment. It is wonderful to look out and see the rolling hills. I have lots of sun and being a SAD person it is important to me. I have morning sun and nice shade in the afternoon to sit out on the balcony. This is really wonderful. I will be spending time outside once I get the balcony organized.
Austin is now at Level V for the new covid and so we are having to be especially cautious. There have been people getting the variant. Most of them are not seriously ill but who wants that. I am not sure we will ever be free of this virus or some other one that shows up.
Mother nature is not happy with us. We have raped the earth and now it is fighting back as it has done several times in the past. If only all those naysayers would begin to realize that this is a crisis that could do away with the human race.
At my age I am sure that I will not be around to see the end result (which I hope good) but I am concerned for the grandchildren and now great grandchildren. They deserve a better world environment.
Today things are better. It is easy for them to be better as several days ago was really awful. My IBSD was so bad that I had a panic attack which I haven’t done for years. I am sure that all the changes in my life brought this on and my comping skills were at the bottom. I did take things into my own hands and go to the doctor and now things are leveling off. God willing, I will continue to improve.
It is so nice have have this space to share something that I can’t share with many. It has been a safe place for me for quite a while. Thank you to all of you who have been so supporting and kind. It is a blessing to be able to share here.
Today I discovered that my apartment will not be ready until the middle of June. Just another setback. Since I have to move from here by May 30th I will have to move in with my daughter and her family. Everything will have to be packed and stored until I can get in. Just another aggravation and more time to wait.
Waiting is not one of my strong suits. I am so anxious to have this journey completed and I pray that it will be an end to the moving. It will be so nice to be somewhere that I can meet people and have things to do. This year+ has certainly been a trial and one I hope will not come again.
Finding a new path for all of us after this covid crisis has certainly tested everyone. God willing we will be able to gradually move forward.
For some reason it has been very hard for me to write. It is as if my brain has gone on vacation. In some ways it worries me. Has all this stuff over the last year changed my ability to think? It is a scary thought. One that is particularly frightening one for me. I have worked with families who are suffering through family members with dementia and their pain is great. I hope as things settle I will feel more myself.
I hope that it will only be a few weeks before I more to my next destination. It will be so wonderful to feel that I can plant my feet and settle into a home. The apartment is being worked on at this time and I can move as soon as the work is done.
I have been trying to get some things cleaned up and sorted for the move. That means sorting my husband’s things and deciding what to let go and what to keep. It is going well with some moments of sadness.
Hopefully I will get back to my regular writing schedule in the near future and actually have something interesting to say.
Grief is a funny thing. Some people think it follows the pattern of acceptance by Kubler-Ross. That pattern was actually developed about acceptance of a coming death. In my mind grief is different. Having run two years of grief support group and feeling my own grief I think it is much more erratic. It comes and goes like the waves of the ocean. I am certainly feeling that. I can go along just fine and then suddenly something will trigger tears.
We can’t run away from grief. Instead we have to go through it. We have to experience it. Hiding from it or trying to deny it doesn’t work. It can take a long time. Sometimes people have no idea what to say to us when we have a loss. Some comments can be upsetting but we just have to understand that most are well meaning.
It has been and will continue to be particularly hard due to the circumstances we all find ourselves in. Covid doesn’t allow us to do normal things that help us accept a death. Funerals are done with few people or put off until later.
In my case there is also moving to another city away from longtime friends. Being with family has helped but I am not in my long-term home and things are not as usual. I reach out by phone and electronics but it is not the same. I am lonely and missing my place in things. It will get better when we can be with people but for now it is hard.
My faith helps and I find myself leaning on God for support more than usual. I guess loss makes us reach out and understand what is important to us. God is my rock that I stand on.
We all grieve in our own way and I will move through this and find new friends and people to do things with. Being able to go to church will help. Life does go on.
The last two days have tested my ability to cope and pushed me as hard as I can be pushed. I have had to rely on just asking God to be in charge as I was in overload. This request put me in the right place with reliance on God changing my focus completely.
Yesterday my daughter told me that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Fortunately she does not have the aggressive version so the doctors feel there is reason to expect a good outcome.
Today the physical therapists came to see my husband and wrap his swollen legs. They told me after seeing him that one leg was infected, he had a fever, very low blood pressure and probably needed to see the doctor. Shortly after that the primary nurse called and said she was coming to check. It turns out his leg is fine, he has no fever and there is no issue. Problem solved. I am so glad that she determined all of that and cleared everything up.
For me getting the fact helps me to get things into focus. It is so easy to have events shake us up and send us into a tailspin. It is best to let yourself feel those moments but let them sink in and wait for the panic to subside and reality to push itself forward. The unknown is the most frightening. If we can hold off until there is time to absorb and get settled then being able to cope can arise and put your mind into a much better place.
Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we work our way through all of this.
Christmas is coming. Do you believe it? Maybe this year we will be forced to think about what it means instead of stressing out about details. We never seem to get our priorities right. I just can’t get started. Today I realized I have not even heard a Christmas carol. I usually hear them riding in the car to shop or visit but I haven’t been anywhere.
Sometimes I wonder what we will talk about when this disease is relegated to the back pages. I guess we will reminisce about the year 2020.
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