Tag Archives: exhaustion

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Another Day in the Life… It’s Good to Laugh… at Yourself.

Well hello there… how have you been? I can’t believe it’s been almost two months since my last post. Well, actually I can, I just don’t really want to. Where have I been you ask? I have been traveling through the land of Myself, specifically the area of “Feeling Sorry For”. I don’t really recommend this place, but if you have to go there try not to stay as long as I have. I had been given ANOTHER f’ing diagnosis with no cause or cure and it just put me in a downward spiral that left me feeling like WTF?! Instead of taking this news and putting more emphasis on managing my health I basically went on strike. I stopped doing anything related to all these fun and fabulous no cause/ no cure conditions I have. Literally, cold turkey. No reading, writing,  journaling, looking at my blog, exercising… yeah, I showed… ummmmmm… myself? Yeah, that’s it! I showed MYSELF! Dumb, dumb ,dumb…. I went on strike and who exactly was impacted by this? Me. Oh and by the way… Essential Tremor, this is the newest addition to my list. If you have an uncontrollable shaking of your head or hands then you may want to look into this. I guess having an invisible disease, the thought was… I should have something that folks can see, yeah let’s make her head shake (it’s really more like a nod). Ahhhhhh, someone up there has a sense of humor, I’m just trying to find my way to see the lighter side of this.

On the more sunny side of this place I have been in for the past month, I have been watching my diet. I was also diagnosed with gall stones a couple of weeks after my Essential Tremor diagnosis so I had my gall bladder removed last week. Finally a problem that has a solution! Yes, it meant having a body part removed, but I am really hoping that this resolves a lot of my GI issues I have been dealing with for a long while. In watching my diet, the last few weeks I have been drinking protein shakes as a meal replacement for two meals a day. Incredibly, this has helped a lot. It seems like the only time I feel somewhat okay is when I drink the shakes. Food and I are still having a love/hate relationship. I love to eat, but the food and my body hate each other. This is really uncool, can’t we all just get along?

I have rambled a bit, but what really prompted this post is this funny (well, funny to me) thing that happened yesterday. My first instinct was to tell my husband, but he’s on a short trip away and I didn’t want to intrude on his time away. I would have texted him, but I don’t have the patience to type this into my phone (another device I have shied away from lately). Anyway! Back to my story (I am so easily distracted!). I have been trying to lose weight, the real reason for the shakes… yesterday I am in the bathroom weighing myself and I saw the number on the scale and I was like “What the hell?? WOW! No way I lost that much weight!!” Seriously, I’m standing there and my weight has dropped like 5 pounds overnight. At this point I’m trying to figure out how this could have happened… could it be real? Then I look up (since I’ve been looking down at the scale this whole time) and realize I AM HOLDING ON TO THE TOWEL BAR. Yes, as I’m quite sure you can all relate, standing up sometimes is challenging without some help. Well, don’t weigh yourself while doing this or you’ll go through this same fun experience. It’s like winning the lottery (okay, granted a small one – not the Mega Bucks one) and then waking up and realizing “Nope, still not a millionaire”. At this point I gently let go of the towel bar and the little scale thing moves, moves, moves to that point of reality. I have just woken up. I started laughing and thinking, oh man, I gotta tell my husband this one! I can see him shaking his head at me as I write this. I’d like to say lesson learned, but I’m afraid I’ll probably do that again, so I’ll just say it’s good to laugh at yourself everyone once in a while.

After enjoying some time with my folks, my incisions were screaming in pain (it’s hard to relax or move with all that screaming), I gave in and took some pain medication. I told my daughter this so she was aware and then did a few chores and went to sleep. I was KNOCKED OUT when all of a sudden I hear my door open, not open quietly mind you it was opened with purpose and my daughter comes rushing in and says to me, “Did you hear that? Did you hear that?”. Let me just restate… my husband is not here. My heart starts racing and I’m trying to wake up and this damn fog from the pain meds is holding me back… fear just grabs a hold of me as I try to be the grown up in the room. She continues on, “It sounded like a werewolf…”. Not what I was expecting. I am pretty sure I responded with something like… “Am I awake or is this a dream?”. Did she really say… werewolf? I think maybe she should not be allowed to watch that new Teen Wolf show. I mean, this can’t be a normal thing to rush in and ask in the middle of the night, right? Okay, so I’m pretty sure she didn’t hear a werewolf, but if there had been one, I would not have heard it (another reason why I don’t like to take meds that make me drowsy). So I’m like, “Why don’t you just sleep in here?”. Instead she takes the dog out of my room, goes back to her room and leaves me wide open for attack. I thought my solution was better. I’m completely freaked out, yet I’m so tired I just fell back asleep. Interesting experience, that’s what drugs do for you, put you to sleep so you don’t have to face the world… on that note, maybe I should ask her when she wakes up if that really did happen… but it had to because the dog was clearly NOT in my room when I got up this morning.

I bet when you decided to read this you weren’t expecting this! I hope I’ve given you a reason to smile today.

Stay super cool and remember… one day at time, one hour, one minute. I wish you all an awesome day of wellness and hope!

Tamiko

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Waiting… and Waiting…

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. This is what I am doing this week. I was the lucky recipient of the “oscopy” twins, one up and one down… on Tuesday… seems like  a long time ago, yet it was just yesterday (for me, I’m still up as you can see at almost 2am). The waiting before going in for the procedure was not fun. After drinking that yummy liquid, I thought I was doing alright when BAM! Nausea along with a nice little migraine followed by the chills hit me like a mack truck. I wasn’t able to finish all that stuff. It was lights out and pray for sleep. Thankfully when the nurse asked me “So, did you drink all the Gavilyte?”, I promptly answered with “Yes” and there were no issues as a result of my giving up on the strict instructions.The actual procedure was a dream, with IV in my arm and drugs streaming down the line… I was out. I woke up, got dressed and went home… I honestly cannot remember most of that day. All I know is I am thankful that I didn’t wake up during the procedure!

So, now I’m back to waiting. Waiting for the results of my stomach and polyp biopsies. I am going to stick with the assumption that everything is all good to go. Although at the same time I’d like to hear “Well, you have XYZ, which explains all the problems you are having with all the rumbling and tumbling in your tummy as well as the anemia.” I don’t have high expectations that there will be answers, it seems there rarely are… oh, other than “Well it’s part and parcel with Fibromyalgia… or Depression…” On those days, when I walk out of the doctor’s office, I mostly feel deflated and question my wisdom with going to the doctor in the first damn place. This last round has been fruitful, in that I know I have anemia which is a good reason for my exhaustion of late. What I don’t know is where the blood is going or why this damn flare is going on… and on… and ON.

Oh these are fun times, right? I am working as hard as I can at work and still feel like I should be doing better. It’s tough when you know you used to be so … well … good at your job. Yes, I used to be good at my job. I just can’t remember when that was. I believe it was about 3 or 4 years ago. I’m not sure. I know I have had bursts of goodness, but those are definitely few and far between.

ANYWAY! Here I am. Waiting.

Tomorrow’s going to be the day that I get my results back.

I hope.

Stay cool!

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Day 30: My Word Tree…

Today’s Prompt: Word Cloud. Make a word cloud or tree with a list of words that come to mind when you think about your blog, health, or interests.

Today is the last day of the WEGO Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge. I did it! As the final post, I have created this tree in answer to the prompt… enjoy!

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Day 28: The First Time…

Today’s Prompt: The First Time I… Write a post about the first time you did something. What is it? What was it like? What did you learn from it?

This is another prompt that requires the functioning of my brain. It’s somewhat challenging as I have laid in bed thinking about this for a long while (in addition to the time spent thinking yesterday and last night and the night before). Hmmmmm, first time… how did I feel, what did I learn…

I was hoping to finish this post this morning, but I have not had any inspiration whatsoever. I simply can’t think of anything to write about. So! This will the the first time I have not had any inspiration to write in the thirty days I have been writing for this challenge. After racking my brain for something that I did for the first time, I just came up blank. Nada. Nothing. Zero. Pretty sad and frustrating.

Not a very exciting “first time” to share… what can I say? With that said, I apologize for this uninteresting post. I hope you come back tomorrow and visit.

What I will tell you about this “first time”, I am motivated to try something different, something new. Always gotta find that “hope” in a situation like this. I think it’s time to do some paper crafting and gathering my thoughts about some new goals for myself. I’ll have to come back and share what I came up with.

Happy Saturday!

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Day 27: 5 Challenges & 5 Small Victories…

Today’s Prompt: 5 Challenges & 5 Small Victories. Make a list of the 5 most difficult parts of your health focus. Make another top 5 list for the little, good things (small victories) that keep you going.

  1. Foggy Brain

  2. Depression

  3. Digestion

  4. Exhaustion

  5. Attitude

You’ll notice pain is not in my list of 5 challenges. I can deal with the pain, it’s all the stuff that comes with it that makes my life hell. Pain doesn’t feel good, it’s not a friend. But… it’s physical. I can work with it most of the time. What is difficult are all the side effects that come along for the ride. I think my list is pretty self explanatory. I’m sure those of you with chronic pain can relate.

Never good to dwell on the negative. So, let’s focus on the positive. What are my 5 most recent victories?

  1. Writing this blog. This is a huge victory. I’m on day 27 and I haven’t missed a day yet. How awesome is that?
  2. Digging into my digestive issues. Tests, tests and more tests. I haven’t given up, although extremely frustrated, I’m determined to keep going until I finally get some answers. My victory here is eliminating all the things I could have had!
  3. Accepting that my pain is at a point where I need to make a change. I’m making a change. Today.
  4. I made dinner… yes, it was only one time. This is a pretty big deal in my house for me and I did it, giving me a tad bit more confidence for the next time.
  5. I started making 1001 cranes… and I have an idea for the design.

Well, here’s to five more victories next week! Have a great week-end and remember no matter how bad things seem, you deserve a pat on the back for your victories big or small.

Stay cool!

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Day 25: 3rd Person Post… My challenging conversation with… my brain

Me: So… I am participating in this writing challenge for 30 days about my health. Today’s prompt is to write a third person post about a memory I have had. I find this interesting since you can never remember anything.

Brain: Really? You are going to put all that on me?

Me: Of course I am. You are responsible for remembering everything, aren’t you? Aren’t you the smart one? So far, just trying to remember a conversation to write about today is not really working out. What can you recall from one conversation you have had in the last 24 hours that would be interesting enough to share?

Brain: ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… welllllllll… thinking…..

Me: This is me waiting.

Me: and waiting.

Me: and waiting.

Me: and losing patience. I can’t wait all day, I only have today to write this post.

Brain: Give me a break! I work hard all day for you at your job and now you want me to keep working? When do I get to rest?

Me: You get to rest when it’s time to go to sleep. That’s when you are supposed to shut down.

Brain: That’s not fair! When you lay your head down to sleep, that’s when I go into action thinking about all the things that we need to do tomorrow and all the things we didn’t get done today. When else can I just sit back and do that? Other times of the day you have me working for your job or in conversation or doing whatever you need, always at your beck and call.

Me: Unfair? Seriously. If you don’t relax when the rest of my body is relaxing, it doesn’t work. My pain will never go away. I need to turn all the dials down. You really need to work with me here.

Brain: I’ll think about it.

Me: And you got me off topic. We are supposed to be remembering a conversation to share.

Brain: Wait, what? I forgot.

Me: … and that right there is exactly why you have been named “Foggy Brain”!