I Have To Get A Job

Here I sit having worked freelance for the last year (+1 month) and I feel the fulcrum is cresting, it is giving way, it is folding in on itself. My husband looked at me last night and said, "It's time to get a job". So there it is...this heal-rest-restore-rejuvenate and then move on with my life phase is coming to an end. A year is really more than most could ever hope for. Not that there haven't been ups and downs and all arounds during that year, but still. I have been truly blessed to have been able to take this time and not work a regular job. I pined and whined and cried for this option, this elusive opportunity, to be mine to take when I was so sick and working so hard and we were still living off credit cards. And I got it. And now it is coming to an end, and I am overwhelmingly conflicted.

On one hand it is time to organize myself and execute a job (or career) search and move forward. Maybe I have to bite the bullet and take a lower paying job for more hours to get off my feet and into a chair. Maybe I have to go back to school to gain a specialized skill. Either way, the time is now. I owe it to my husband and I owe it to myself. I owe it to everyone who has stood by me these last few years for countless hours as I bitched and moaned about how horrible I felt and tough my life was. I owe it simply because now I can. I can choose what I want to do and how I am going to be successful doing it. And I can choose this on my terms and make it work. My life is a bit of a blank canvas. With the same hard work and determination and passion I have applied to all my successful endeavors sum-ing these last 33 years, I can achieve what I set out to achieve.

Which is why on the other hand I am scared shit-less. I am feeling weepy and pitiful and sorry for myself and like a complete victim. When I think of looking for a job I get woozy and dazed. And the anxiety shoots through the roof! I feel like I do eventually want to get a darn-near full-time job but I am still a long way from there. I am just getting my pep back, and am still sleeping 9+ hours a night, and still have bouts of very mild insomnia that I am quickly able to rectify with my flexible schedule. I still have unmanaged pain and unstable symptoms, and I really want to take Spanish II next semester on Tuesday & Thursday during the day. And I feel panic cold fingers of gripping fear at the thought of managing Fibromyalgia and work and my life. Oh yeah, and my happiness, too.

I suppose the truth resides somewhere in the middle, as it usually does. Let the extremes fall off of either end and absorb the two middles into one. The most progressive schools of thought for any ideal would be represented this way. But I digress... What I have been able to do is schedule an appointment with the career center at my community college to utilize their services. That is next week. 'Till then I have a little thought brewing in my mind. Maybe next time I will know enough to share.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

Ready To Crash

Okay I have had enough and I am ready to crash and burn. My mom's surgery went well, she is recovering nicely, but the toll that took on my life is absurd! Back and forth for that while trying to study for my final in Spanish, and the puppy is sick as well... All way too much for a girl with Fibromyalgia! I feel spent, exhausted with a side of anxiety thrown in, my back hurts (sacroiliac) constantly since I don't have time to do my exercises, my marriage has been ignored for this last week, the house is a mess, our finances are in shambles and I have spent more time than I would care to admit cleaning up dog shit!

A few years ago I would have been ecstatic to have the problems I have now. I was in such constant and writhing pain and the thought of doing anything listed above was so far out of my reach, let alone pouring it all into the same 5-day period. I could barely work, was a terrible wife, an inconsistent mother to my dog, a very lackadaisical caregiver to myself and hoped and prayed I would some day just be well enough to participate in life again. And here I am. Sadly that does little to cheer me up. I do feel a deep relief to have climbed out of the dark hole of hell but this sudo-better place I am sure feels like some limbo-merged-purgatory. Neither here nor there, not too sick to function, but certainly not healthy enough to accomplish normal expectations (you know, like working full-time!). And I am angry and frustrated to still be here. IT IS SO MUCH FREAKIN' WORK TO MANAGE THIS ILLNESS! I still feel there is an undiscovered root cause of this and if they could just find it and fix it then things could return to normal.

If I was a whole woman I could do much more to get us out of this financial hole my diseases have put our family into. I could inspire creativity and hope in both my husband and myself. I could manage my sleep-diet-exercise-stress-hormonal balance ball evenly instead of each day resembling a water-balloon fight! I could work a normal job, for crying out loud! And care for children and beautify homes and faces and smother myself in puppies every day. And I could travel the world and see all of its abundant mysteries and provocations and journal a life less ordinary in order to heal hearts and in turn heal but a small part of the world. And I could...embrace the world..because it truly is my oyster...I think.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

Why Am I So Bloody Slow...?

It takes me forever to get anywhere, to get up and out the door. So many distractions and things that need to be done. I am running a bad habit of being un poco late to important places. Work...doctor appointments...you get the gist. It slowly dawned on me over the last few days as I have been envisioning my life with some part-time office job, that critical opportunities are standing between me and success. I sleep 10 hours a night. That is just what my body requires. I can go a few nights in a row on 8 and maybe 1 night of 6 or less and still remain equipped. But if given the option I will pass out for 10 hours. My body just takes it. I believe I am still healing and need that sleep. How can I decide my body is getting the sleep it requires on 7 or 8 hours when all my evolutionary signals are blaring and clanging to get that 10 a night?

I am still a bit underwhelmed when I get up every day. Not like before, complacent dread, but more like passive boredom. I am still searching for that all-elusive compulsion to jump out of bed every morning and go take on the day! But if I step back and keep a stock-market mentality (overall up with a few down dips here and there, current economic crisis not withstanding), the direction I am moving is certainly up. I have a lot on my plate this next week. Mom's surgery Tuesday & Wednesday, final on Thursday. Goin' to Tucson on Saturday for work. And I am just recovering from that last go-to-L.A.-twice-in-one-week flare-up. Oh boy...

Thanks for joining,
Leah

The Freedom To Be

I am becoming accustomed to a freer, more joyful energy since my husband stepped his foot out into the unknown and started to find his own way. I am being re-introduced to the man I married again! Theory hypothesized and tested, people can weather marriage like a storm, knowing the stormy time will not last forever (even if it seems to go on for a really, really long time). One day you will walk in sunshine again, hand in hand, if you work hard, give it your all and don't accept defeat. Those are actually pretty good qualities to live by in all areas of your life...

How many children are told by their parents that they can achieve whatever they want in life with not much more than a decision and a whole lotsa hard work? Is it even half the kids that are growing up in the USA today? I see a large faction of society in the States that are complacent with the station they were born into. They never move far from home. If they travel, it is usually the same destination annually (God bless the time-share!). Their parents live near by, as do their children and grandchildren and families plant deep, generational roots within a community and tumble in this turnover perpetually. Occasionally, a person will pop out of this order and feel the need to march to the beat of their own drum. These are the people that cities collect. The offbeat, the misfits, those not content with a ready-made life. People that are searching and have not yet found what they are looking for. Those that like to share their time and space with strangers. Always, and lots of them. They have found anonymity in the thick of the masses, they have found the freedom from judgmental and gossiped observation required to feel themselves. They have found their individuality, finally comfortable with the skin they are in and the space they take up on the planet, smushed up around dozens of others.

Living in bohemian, eclectic and unique San Francisco is an entirely different experience from living in the valley of heat and sunshine wrapped around a convincingly lovely facade. We mingle amidst east to mid-west transplants here, retired folk, snow-bunnies and resort hoppers. Where I live now is Agrestic perfect. So tidy and clean. Such a vast space was once upon a time a developers dream project, and they have done well. We now live in the land of flower-encrusted gated community signs and sweeping, smoothly pathed avenues adorned with fountains flowing on every corner and labeled-tree-species dividing every median. And I really like it! I am not in an "exciting" phase of my life right now. Those were my coming-of-age years in San Francisco. I am in a rebuilding phase now, and I relish the quiet and warmth. The peace and ease. The people are pleasant. The weather is pleasant. The cost of living is damn pleasant (after San Francisco's prices, for sure!). And pleasant will not get me by for the rest of my life. Oh Lord no. But while I am still healing from a whopper of a cluster-fuck of disease, I am getting along quite nicely here.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

Mind-Body Connection

When rage comes up toward others because of their own dysfunction it is extremely difficult to let it go. The real problem is their reaction to their perceived environment, be it greed, lust, liquor or fear. So logically you cannot own their behavior and transfer the reaction to yourself. But damn, it is so hard not to! And boy, am I ever full of rage for certain people that exist in my life right now!

Stress is the biggest aggressor for a flare-up. After a couple of hours of pent-up rage or anger my throat gets sore. My glands feel heady and I flash feverish. It feels scratchy to swallow and my head begins to ache. I used to refer to this as my "afternoon-flu", like it was an expected visitor, an old friend I knew was coming to visit every day right around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It was only a matter of days before I was glued to the sofa in a full-on flare-up. The never ending cycle of push-crash-rebuild-push-(not too sure if this is really happening but oh here we go aga..i..n...)-crash-rebuild-push...well, you get the picture. But now my life is pretty steady and stable. And I am not constantly on the brink of exhaustion from less-than-normal activity. But the second that rage hits its like it is right back to 2007 on the bottom floor of that department store. I am looking through a screen door of blurred vision and have a vice-grip headache squeezing my brain. My throat is inflamed and my body pulses feverishly through the Percocet induced complacency of total-body pain. Wow, have I come a long way, baby!

But I really feel, all of this pertaining to me and not any other Fibromyalgia patient, that there is an aspect of Fibromyalgia that is the result of an intense mind-body connection. I have always had hyper-aware senses. I notice EVERYTHING, to the point of exhaustion. I began self-medicating in my early teens as a way to escape this, among other dysfunctional behaviors. I was not given the skills to manage this intense gift in my formative years. I also genetically carry bi-polar disease (and that darn triglyceride malfunction!) and learned responses including manic-then-depressive episodes, throwing tantrums, irresponsible choices and fits of uncontrollable rage. I know full well that I was sick in my spirit long before I became sick in my body and can't help but conclude there is an inevitability there. A deep, unconscious connection.

Finding peace in my spirit is an exercise that is always practiced. Day in and day out, family and strangers, clients and co-workers. I must feel good to be me in those few private moments each day we all have to ourselves. Those few sacred moments before I fall asleep at night and the first few minutes I experience as I awake in the morning and assess my surroundings, realizing the life I have built for myself. It is there that anger and resentment and fear and regret build up into inner knots and hills and mountains in the pit of the stomach. And if you keep building these, everyday, in many different ways, then eventually that will become you.

The answer; live a life of truth, prideful humility, forgiveness and integrity? For perhaps it is in forgiving others that we become free, it is in humility we are recognized, it is in just and right behavior we are heard. So let me find my spirit, and dig that darkness out of the deep pit it is sitting in (a pit I try to keep empty, so as not to let it overwhelm my life), and forgive them for their shortcomings, and be the kind of wife my husband is proud to call his, and don't condemn them for their fear and anxiety and oppressive ways of living. And then thank God that is not me.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

Prescription Medications Good & Bad

I do not believe I have discussed prescription medications yet and have very definite opinions about many of the drugs the FDA has approved to treat Fibromyalgia, and others it is has not.

I currently take:
~Tricor (Hypertriglyceridemia)
~Neurontin (Neurotransmitters/Fibromyalgia)
~Welbutrin XL (Depression & Anxiety)
~Lexapro (SSRI Depression & Anxiety)
~Tramadol (Pain)
~Felxeral (Muscle Relaxer)

As needed:
~Xanax (Sleep & Anxiety)
~Valtrex (Viral Flare-Up)

...in addition to all the supplements (yes I know I am nuts!). In my opinion I am still on too many medications. The problem is that when I go off any of them all sorts 'o symptoms come flooding back. I took Lyrica and Cymbalta in the past and was not a fan of the side effects. At all. Neurontin is much better for low side effects but not nearly as effective in treating the pain. That is where the Tramadol and Flexeral come in. I am happy I have a non-narcotic way to treat my pain, but not happy with the amount of pain I still have remaining in my body. I was on Percocet and Vicoprofen for over a year and a half. I know the misery of relying on opiates for pain relief. Nausea, mood swings, constipation, need I go on? My newest problem is Sacroiliac Joint Disorder, where the joint at the base of the spine that connects to the hip freezes. I am stretching daily (3 times) and seeing a physical therapist. It hurts, it all hurts so much more with this pain sensitivity, yet is still getting better every day, I think.

Thanks for joining,
Leah