Month: July 2024

It would seem I have run out of patience for being under the weather.  Somehow, years of being sick has piled up on me in a cummulative fashion and I just go nuts now when I have to be quiet.

I had sinus surgery five days ago and I have zero tolerance for the fact that my nose hurts, it’s stuffy, I feel exhausted and I can’t really go anywhere.  I don’t remember being this way in the past.  In fact, in the past I think I sort of sank into feeling crappy and just got through it without thinking too much.

I don’t know what the difference is.  Maybe I was stoned?  Maybe I was so tired I couldn’t fight it?  Maybe I didn’t have this feeling I have now of urgency.  I always have a feeling of urgency.  I have to do everything just in case I am completely taken out and don’t ever get better again.

That is the crux of the problem right there.  I do feel there is a guillotine hanging over me and that I have to squeeze everything I can out of each day, each moment, until that thing falls and hits me, I know not where, and stops me in my tracks.  I realize that sounds dramatic and I don’t mean to aggrandize my situation, but I just never know what is around the next corner.  I guess no one does, but with me, the nasty surprises have sort of piled up.

This brings me to a point I know I need to address.  I am a big believer that any and everything can be improved  when it comes to one’s mental/spiritual state.  It is just like anything else; it takes work.  I decided a while back I needed/wanted to put in the work to get rid of this guillotine feeling, which I think is based in medical trauma, by working with a specialized therapist.  I started that and it was really good and then found out that the therapist was not on my insurance.  Since then I have spent quite a bit of time seeking out someone new and had no luck.  I need to call my insurance and ask for a list, etc. and I have been putting it off. Why have I been putting it off? It has felt like too much.  I just reach a point where more doctors and more insurance and more phone calls overwhelm me even when I know it is in my own best interest.

Human nature is a strange beast.

The good news here is that I am writing! I am writing here and I am writing on my novel and all of that is just flowing.  I can’t complain.  At least some part of me is working!

And for those things I am really most grateful.  I will take it! Any progress is good progress.  Any forward movement is not backwards movement and it is not standing still, which is what it feels like right now with my stupid nose and sinuses.  I am standing still with my achy and stuffy nose, just waiting to be able to take off again.

For now I will have to find patience and be grateful for the mental energy to write and to think.

 

 

 

So, a lot of stuff has happened.  I just have not felt the urge to write.  I don’t know why.  I have been reading and researching things for my novel but when it comes to actual writing: about myself or about my fictional characters, I have been frozen.  It is frustrating.  I have heard of writer’s block but until now I had never really experienced it.  It is unbelievably irritating because I have always been the sort of person who believed that if I just pushed harder, things would get better.  That does not seem to be the case here.

The more I push, the less I actually manage to get onto the page. I begin to wonder if I was ever really a writer after all.  Maybe I just made all of that up.

I have been pushing and writing on my novel daily but writing here, writing about myself has just seemed really unattractive.  I just feel bored with the thought of detailing my ongoing health crap.

Things are better than they were this past year with the pneumonia and Covid but certainly not perfect.  I guess they never will be.  In the next week or weeks I have to have my rechargable battery for my spinal cord stimulator replaced.  The battery is in my right hip, just above my butt cheek:).  I have had this one five years so it is about to go bad. Apparently the new one will be easier to re-charge so that will be great.  I just am not looking forward to it.  I will have to sit on ice packs for a couple of weeks and it will definitely hurt.

Beyond that I continue having issues with my nose and nosebleeds.  I am looking at more surgery there and I just don’t want to do it.  The inside of my nose is a nightmare.  I have to have part of it cut out because the surgery in May where the doctor went in and blowtorched it didn’t seem to work.  However, even getting the damaged section removed is no sure bet that the nosebleeds will stop so I am loath to do it.  Yes, it will stop some of the problem but it will not stop all of the problem.  So… ugh.

In other health news my insurance situation is better but I am still fighting to get my prescriptions and afford them: welcome to the USofA.

That’s my health news.

Beyond that I have family news.  One kiddo and spouse moved out of state and one kiddo and spouse are moving into our house.  It should be interesting.

In terms of things horrifying and interesting we had a dog incident for the record books a few weeks ago.  I had a friend come to stay with her two dogs.  One of the dogs is a really small, long haired chihuahua.  For some reason Barkley, our golden, thought the little dog was not a dog, I mean, it came bouncing through the house and he came through the back door without any introduction so that is my fault.  Well, my golden, Barkley, who is a good boy, put my friend’s dog in his mouth and started to EAT HER.  It was a BAD SCENE.  He did drop her when we told him to but this resulted in a nightmare visit to the ER vet and surgery and a nick to her liver and cost me a great deal of $.  Fortunately the sweet little dog is OK.  I felt awful!  My friend’s dog is so sweet and cute and I was so excited to have her here and then what happens?  My freaking dog eats her!  OY.  What an adventure no one needed.

Barkley’s new name is Killer.

None of the ER vets could believe a golden retriever had snapped at a little dog like that.

Nothing like keeping things interesing, right?

So, I have been doing a lot of reading about the Taos area and its history and that his helped jump start my writing.  I am just slogging on and challenging myself to keep going whether or not I think it is good. Writing fiction is a lot harder than writing this sort of personal narrative.  I have been a vocacious reader my whole life and I am tough on the people’s material that I read. That means that I expect a lot out of my own writing. I am constantly thinking that it is too simplistic or something.  I have to set that aside and just go for it.

I think that is a good lesson for life in general.

I keep thinking about the word: resilience.

A friend of mine who I meet with periodically to talk about my spiritual well being tells me sometimes that she sees me as being particularly resilient in the face of my health challenges.

For instance, last Thursday a week ago I had the worst nosebleed I have ever had.  It gushed for over a half hour.  I did not want to go to the ER.  I finally got it to stop but I felt kind of light headed.  So, I am having surgery on Tuesday.  I don’t want to do it but I don’t see any options.  Between then and now I have just kept going and exercising and working on stuff.  I mean, what else do you do?  I can’t sit around and wait to bleed.  I refuse to be held prisoner by my own defective body.

I will get my parts fixed as best I can and just keep going.  That is all I can do.

It doesn’t matter if I am down for a bit.  I just have to pop back up and keep on.  I refuse to be defeated by a bloody nose, a battery in my hiney, an achy back or anything else.  I might just have to temporarily slow down a bit.

Other than that, careful or I’ll run you down