I'm doing it! I kept the law! I don't have to go to jail! 😃
I haven't had any more ice cream at all this month. Funny how laws work in my mind. The coffee I did really well with, but after about a week I super stressed and started hitting another half cup, and now I'm back to two. The 2 servings of veg per day has been a joke. I'm too tired to even make a salad, it's all in the fridge getting gross. I did manage to get some servings sprinkled around over the last 20 days, but honestly, I'm doing worse than usual with veg.
The severe fibro flare continues. My rib cage (costochondritis) is so bad that I'm now officially dx'd shortness of breath by pulmonologist. No asthma, no COPD, just literally unable to spread my ribcage enough to max to full lung volume, and no control forcing it out since my entire rib cage is a giant charley horse.
I've gone through some dandy flare ups but this summer is taking the cake.
I decided not to let that stop me. I'm at least able to pull 67%-80% breathing function on a standard PFT in allergist's office depending on which allergy season we're in, and I know kids with CF handle a lot lower than that, so as long as my O2 is in the 90 percents, I'm ok.
Massage kinda helped for a very short while, but I think going for rigorous deep tissue might've been a mistake. I may go for lighter next time. Trying to force muscles to respond and comply can backfire, and it sure did this last time, felt kind fluish for a few days. I'm too tired to handle more of that. I just need a half hour of someone being nice to my back this week, give my shoulder blade a nice Thinking of You card and maybe say howdy to the ribs and chat a little bit about whatever.
Other than some other very stiff joints that I have to warm up and stretch a little every day, I seem to be in good shape. I'm keeping up really well with the major parts of the housework, picking kiddo up from school, kinda getting supper fairly regularly.
I've written before in past blogs about the one step forward, two steps back feeling. Working so hard to gain a few inches, or even microns, and then stepping up for others and losing all that. In fact, watching yourself slide back past yourself and off a bit of a cliff.
I had one vicoprofen left from last year's double surgery (knee, wrist). I just took it.
I had a pretty good wellness check, considering some past history, but there was substantial fail in a couple of areas. I'm obviously controlling my diabetes pretty well on paper, but I'm also obviously overwhelmed with enough stressors to chuck my entire 5 year Plan out the window and just let the lipids take over. I mean, it's not horrible, 205 total cholesterol is pretty good for me when you look at my entire history, and I'm actually pretty proud of finally nailing my triglycerides down to absolutely normal, but now it's time to nitpick over my coffee creamer kind of stuff.
8 1/2 years ago I was freefalling after my old doctor had abandoned her practice months before, and I finally very gratefully crawled into another doctor's office in another town after the clinic mailed out a list of who would take over her patients. I was all but crippled, miserable, barely handling my life at all, and the new doctor had me turned around in 5 months flat. He got me off my old inhaler, diagnosed what the previous doctor neglected, rigorously oversaw med changes and reductions, and my life changed almost like magic. It wasn't magic, of course, and it was very hard, actually. Grueling.
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*two days later*
That pill was nice. It wearing off in the middle of the night wasn't. Oh, well.
Part of my original strategy, when I decided to change my life, was very slowly applying new 'rules' and 'laws' to my life. Like, making my bed. During my worst couple of years, I just never made my bed. One day I decided if I do nothing else, I will make my bed look nice right after I get up. That is such a habit nowadays that I never miss doing it, and it's done without even thinking about it. Takes about 10 seconds.
And then I'd add another thing the next week. Something easy, simple, and taking very little time. Step by step over time, I have developed several areas of my house that stay fairly picked up and even clean.
So even though I feel like a big part of my life has backslid, several areas are really holding their own integrity fairly well, thank goodness. However, I really need to get back on the track I was doing so well on before we got house bombed with kiddo and mama moving in (which I actually enjoy, it's nice having people around on my worst depression days), so I've decided I've gotta get back on some new rules and laws.
This week I had a wellness check with my doctor, and even though I'm 6 pounds down from last wellness check and my blood pressure and glucose and especially A1C are better, I'm still obviously slipping. I'm not sure how many years it's been since my last wellness check, but in 2011 when this doctor turned me around, I lost 50 pounds and my glucose went even lower into the 90s. Since I'm creeping back up from that (again, even though it looks like I'm better than last wellness), my doctor is getting firm again with me about diet and exercise. I'm working on a more comprehensive health history on my spaz blog, hopefully out in the next few days (it's massively boring, lol), but short story is I am sliding back into diabetes if I don't stop this now.
And diabetes makes everything else harder by default.
So my new Law to kickstart this back on track thing (laws are such a huge thing with me that I never break them once I think of them as Laws, kinda like how I've never cheated in Monopoly), is Only One Pint of Ice Cream Per Month.
Ice cream has become a very weak spot this summer, a major fail area.
And two rules (rules are breakable once in awhile) is only one cup of coffee a day (I go through this constantly, but my creamer is a problem, and I'd rather cut coffee than cut creamer), and 2 or more servings of vegetables a day the rest of August. I have been slacking off down to 1 a day, if that, and even though I'm fairly consistent because I love brussels sprouts 3-4 times a week, I'm filling up the rest of the void with ice cream and caving to a cookie here and there. It's really hard not to do that with extra people around and packages of cookies and cupcakes all around me. My doctor, who is about my age, totally validated me by responding that people half our age have no clue how much older people handle, since we are twice their age with half the energy and three times the daily pain still handling all the same stuff.
YES! My doctor totally gets how hard this is.
So I have one new Law and two new Rules for August. One pint of ice cream a month, 1 cup of coffee a day, and at least two servings of veg per day.
And then I asked myself, apparently during the worst depression week of the entire summer, What do I want, and How badly do I want it, and What am I willing to do to get what I want?
I want my house back. At least the parts I have designated as 'mine'. I have a scant 2 feet of counter space in the kitchen I don't let anyone else put anything on, and that is my 'desk'. I keep a planner there, my shopping list, my meds, and incoming mail. It is my organization center. It had become very piled up again with me quickly shoving my own things over from other areas to make room for other people for various reasons on the kitchen table where I still try once in awhile to bring my laptop. Today I got that counter space cleaned off again. I have my organization center back.
Maybe every week or two I'll ask myself those questions again.
We made it through the big double birthday week last month, made it through mama's big surgery last week (sinus, hope I never ever go through that 😖), and now we're doing a 4-day weekend with kiddo between summer school and regular school.
I haven't been saying much, but I'm in my worst fibro flare all year, and everything is very hard 24/7 for days and days, and I'm still keeping up better than I have in years past. It's very important to be able to be part of my family's lives, so back to the rules and laws before I backslide and forfeit what I've managed to regain over the last 8 years.
Ran into a purview with a much more extensive list of blogs than I have. All this time I've been trying to reign it in, apparently I could have been reaching for the most blogs award. And that was just on blogger.
My bits of 'me' time are very squished between large 'their' times, daily expectations for smooth gear works, and random spontaneous daily rhythm explosions that seem to knock the wind out of my sails.
I know, I know, I'm the one who committed to this venture. The random, bless their souls.
I kept running into a couple of women in Walmart yesterday, which was a real feat since I was whipping through and they were a tad large and slow, but I noticed they congenially rattled the entire time, and I kept wondering why I don't have someone to just rattle like that to. I'm guessing they were related and probably never had other friends, who's to say, and I'm slightly unkindly basing that on their appearances, but that kind of thing doesn't bother me personally. That's just the way society works nowadays. Anyway, they discussed every tiny little bitty thing in the most congenial fashion, and I got a vivid picture of a couple of mice going about a day together doing their little mouse thing while the world flowed unheeding around them. Well, except to take their money at the end.
I don't know that I've had a soul to talk to on that level in my entire life. Not one soul on this earth knows me well enough to just blabber away about every little food item we might put into our mouths, which is odd considering I've professionally cooked and have been a bit of a foodie for years at home, and now I'm redesigning my lifestyle around not being able to eat mainstream foods.
It was hard not to be jealous. I told myself not to think about it and moved along.
I think that's why I've talked to myself so much on blogs for so many years. And journaling for years before that.
Today feels tilted. I don't know if the world feels the same way because I'm staying off twitter.
I feel like there was a change in the Force.
More timelines collapsing, maybe. Coalescing.
Or maybe the relief from millions of victims as they see results against the kinds of perpetrators who destroyed their own lives, too.
I know I'm too touchy about this subject, and difficult to be around when it's on my mind, which I'm sorry to say is nearly always. I've met a few people whose stories were horrifying enough to wake me up early on, and I've not slept well since.
I stopped sleeping completely the year I got away from my first husband.
Those who know don't sleep.
No one ever asked whether a severe sleep disorder might have anything to do with memories.
I know it spills over and I have to pull back.
As hard as today felt, I'm wondering if a million people wept seeing that in the news, because they know the millions more out there still in the hands of the uncaught have a chance now to see real justice. What is justice? FREEDOM. Freedom from harm. Freedom from fear. Freedom from the peer pressure of having to feel sorry for the ones who have made others miserable, even unto death.
Sometimes the first fresh breeze of a really big storm feels a little heavy, like the rain is coming, borne on a front of thundering Hope.
Hear, and attend, and listen, O Best Beloved. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.
The contracts have been met, measured, documented, and judged by a Court of Law.
Relief is on the way for many millions. This is only the beginning.
So next thing coming up with psychologist will be one of my dad's favorite words- unnecessary. I am so messed up by his constant inferences that word looms over that I have changed it to another word.
I automatically count things. I first noticed this in the fourth or fifth grade. My dad found my homework irrelevant. I started counting everything.
breaths
drips
patterns
things that moved or I was moving on, like stairs
things in pictures
how many times something happened
At what number does something become relevant? At what frequency of existence do we find relevance?
Homework had always been important when it was reading and arithmetic. I had always warranted the attention when homework was happening. He butted in, took over, assured me of the importance of reading and basic counting.
After third grade, that was all over. Making proper change and being able to read were enough for him, and after I learned these things, he took me under his wing and taught me the difference between necessary and unnecessary. Like free will. It didn't exist. And the way killing puppies over and over was cheaper then having a dog spayed. As long as I could properly wield a broom I'd always have a job, but anything beyond was utterly unnecessary compared to knowing every bible defense against all the dark arts that would flay us blind.
You wanna know something really messed up?
There really are dark arts out there flaying children alive.
Sadly, that's not what my dad was preparing me for. Years of husking corn by the bushel, perfectly sweeping the carport and back porch, tending farm animals and pulling weeds, pitting fruit and picking rows and rows of beans, milking goats, sheering sheep, pushing cattle through corrals...
What most prepared me was his cold approach to butchering. We dismembered and ground up beloved pets and ate them.
And now, all grown up, I'm not at all surprised that adults all over the world practice the dark arts and do horribly cruel things to children.
My homework was less necessary than saving money turning a light bulb off. This happened many times through the years even into college.
I was the first child. I knew by the fourth child that every jot and tittle has relevance to the whole. Science backs me up.
Every microbe on this planet is relevant. Every human is relevant. Every moment of anguish for one anguishes us all.
I know why I came back to win. Because we are all necessary.
The balance and counterbalance, the relevance of magick is that sooner or later it really does come back to bite.
I look back on my sad childhood now and understand I learned the principles of moralizing vs morals. I learned the difference between delegating definitions and living them. I learned that every moment I spent with my dad was absolutely necessary, because I learned so much.
Parties are fun. This weekend was very party. Best part was quiet house while party was elsewhere. 😄
I'm remembering now why I came back. I knew since I was young that I'm incognito this go-round. That word popped into my head out of the blue one day and I instantly knew that was me. Incognito. I was pretty young for a word like that. I had to go look it up.
I know who I was before. Well, I dont have a name to put to the memory, but I have a few details surrounding my very sudden death in an explosion. I remembered all this while I was a toddler, and the memory has stuck with me all through this life. I'm incognito. They can't find me this time.
I have begun the process of discussing this with my psychologist. He must think im a mess sometimes. He doesnt seem nervous when I get weird. I hope he's one of the good guys because I've never told anyone this stuff before. It will be interesting to see if my history of synchronistic cosmic target hits him before I wind up with another diagnosis.
In the meantime, the pain is ramping up enough again to spike my blood pressure, so I'm back on a pain control regimen.
I came back to save people. Many of us came back to save people. We're starting to remember. We know why it's so important. And we'd do it again, and again, and again. We are here
So a few years have passed, the big splat is over now, and all I wanna do is just flop on my face and let the rest glide over. The big ol' world keeps turning and I'm in my cave not being that much a part of it nowadays.
I guess I just needed to know I could do it. I know I needed to try or I'd have died very miserably. But yeah, I just needed to know I could. So many alternate timelines have been discarded along the way.
That kind of bothers me sometimes, that opportunities walked right up to my face and said hi and I just stared back and then turned away like they were nothing to me. No one ever knew why I didn't jump on all the things I could have. Well, they might think they know, because I blabbed so much, but no one really knows.
Sometimes the microcosm needs to take precedence over the macrocosm.
And now it's time to look back on the looking back. I did a lot of delayed processing. I didn't imagine what it might be like to look back on the looking back. Now I'm processing the processing.
