Pushing for healing.

Shoulder still isn't well enough recovered for me to type much, so I've done another video in the meantime.  Heads up: I'll be doing more on diet, nutrition, etc soon.

Thanks for listening. :)

Risk for Redemption.

I played a bit with the idea of composing an audio/vid for myself, just something to remind me that there was, in fact, a time when I felt like a normal human being, when pain was minimal and sometimes absent, when I could behave normally, when restrictions of body (and now spirit and emotion) hadn't taken hold.  I know I used to feel better and actually participate in L I F E.  But for the life of me, my mind edits at will and separates the now from the then, the me I became and the me I once was.  So to keep it all in perspective... I made an audio movie with pics ranging from 8 months ago to 4 years ago, before this big crash in everything that is 'my life' and 'me.'

I was hesitant to upload it here (still am), but a friend of mine said "Do it.  Put it ALL out there, and to hell with what anyone thinks!"  It feels odd to see my own face all over this video, but... it's mostly for me anyway, something I can look at and recall that L I F E was there in me, and maybe.. just maybe... I will start believing again.  enough of the typing... arm aches horribly.

The compilation set as a reminder of where I once was in my L I F E and H E A L T H, remembering a healthier, happier me... taking a risk for redemption of myself, an apology to tell the woman I've become.... 'I'm so sorry I let you down."

Experiment #1...

Until my shoulder heals and typing is no longer painful, I'll be making these audio entries.  This first one is only an experiment, but I'll be making more soon with an actual message. lol  ;p  Thanks for hanging in there with me.  xo

What if...

What if I said I wanted to pour my heart and soul out to you?  What if I could, even for a very short time, find such trust that nothing, absolutely nothing would be off limits in what I could share?  What if I didn't hold back, didn't keep my entire heart's secrets walled off from the rest of me, and expose every one in such detail that it took your breath away?  What if... I told you a secret you'd never forget, no matter how hard you tried?

What if you could be surprised at the stories I hold inside?

What if I told you that I've never trusted a soul 100% in my life but that I'm willing to now?

What would you ask me if you could ask me anything?

What if I told you that you'd be surprised at who I'm talking to, and would you want it to be you?

Post-Surgery Pain and the Damaging Effects of Indifference.

This is difficult.  Post-surgery for frozen shoulder and minor rotator cuff tear and I'm feeling like hell.    It will take a long time to recover and regain full use of my left arm, and dammit but it hurts to type.  I almost decided to do an audio blog but not enough privacy the last couple of days to do that.  So I'll make this just a quick check-in.

I'm not sleeping, mostly getting up several times a night to move my arm, elbow... to alleviate what pain I can.  This is often a tearful process.  I don't know when the big crash will come, but it will.  A human being simply can't withstand not sleeping like this.  On Wednesday, then on Saturday... things will change and hopefully for the better.

Sleeping on my side after this kind of surgery isn't the best idea, and it creates a world of pain, swelling to an unhealthy level in my arm.  This became the catalyst for ordering one of those Tempur Pedic beds.  NOT the cheapest thing in the world, but a very necessary one at this point as the healing process is going to take a long time.  So be it.  It's adjustable so I can support the back of my legs and have the back of the bed upright to manage sleeping without being on my side.  Saturday, a Laz-boy chair will arrive, and mostly for the same purpose.  As it stands now my options are to sit straight/upright or lay in a flat bed.  Both options mean pain and swelling.  But hey, those recliners are awesome and it's not like it won't be fully enjoyed way beyond the shoulder healing.

I suppose at this point I'm just rambling, but everything I am is consumed with the pain and trying to work past it without taking the powerful pain killers I was given.  The side effects sucks, and that means I'm making damn sure to take them sparingly.  But either way, my point is basically that I'll be dealing with this for a while and probably not making a lot of sense when I post.

There most likely won't be daily entries for a while, but I will try my best.

Post-surgery with all it's unbelievable pain has opened up a part of me that I really would rather leave closed, shut away, and ignored.  That echo chamber of the past and present merging in unsettling ways rumbles below the surface, always, making itself known at the darkest of hours and experiences.  I find myself unsettled---not just my circumstances or thoughts.  In the wee hours, especially when awakened by the almost ceaseless pain, true anxiety sets in and grips me.  Most of the time I can overcome it and get past it's frightening messages.  But then there are times when it takes hold and I find myself incredibly vulnerable and needing a strong, positive presence to jerk me back into a brighter reality.  Things is... I have no such strong, positive presence.  Yeah.
What to do with that.

As you guys know, indifference has been my companion.  T's indifference rears it's true self amidst the pain that really feels as if it's going to rip me apart.  You see, the first part of knowing how to squash pain naturally is to avoid stress at all costs, because stress destroy's the body's own ability to send much-needed pain killers to it's needed location.  Over time, especially in the presence of AI disease and fibromyalgia.... the breakdown of this mechanism is swift and brutal, leaving me without any natural defenses.  This sucks.

I've been brought to tears by the sheer intensity and duration of this pain, and the fibro is in a massive flare-up now, adding wide-spread, diffuse pain to that of the post-surgical.  While it's nothing to brag about, I will admit that I've been brought to my knees by the force of it all, crying so hard I felt as if my head would explode.  Late at night, when it's at its worst T will simply get up, stand there... and say nothing, do nothing, offer nothing.  I've had to tell him it's best he stay away rather than bring that indifference to the already miserable situation.

It is times like this that I long for "home," whatever and wherever that is.  No one to reach out to, to plead to, or talk to.  Not a parent, sibling, or best friend.  No one.  It's only when either by exhaustion or prescription intervention does the pain lessen a little, just enough for my mind to bring forth an image of a healthy, happy, joyful, fulfilled and pain-free me.  When I fall asleep... it sometimes carries me into dreaming, those thoughts.

My arm is in a lot of pain at the moment, so I'm going to sign off.  I hope that each day with willpower and physical therapy.. and even the weaker moments when I allow myself the prescription help to relieve the pain... maybe I'll get stronger, better.  I have 3 days of PT this coming week... and I pray it's the start to real recovery.

I need this pain to stop.  I really do.

Hopefully I can post tomorrow.

PS... I was amazed at how many page views Where Fireflies Dream received.... gave me a smile.

It's About Time.

When I first began blogging it was for one specific reason--venting.  I needed a place where I could get things off my chest that were bothering me so I could get on with life without cumbersome emotions or baggage.  I had ONE blog at that time.  When things got tough, and they often were, I would visit my blog and unload to my heart's content, not giving a single iota to being politically correct or holding back out of some delusion that I somehow had to be 'polite' here.  The venting would ensue, fall upon the screen, and I would be left to bask in the aftermath of some seriously epic purging of thoughts, feelings, and more.  In the end I would usually go back and delete the long-winded and emotionally-charged entries, knowing I could do so now that some time had past.  That blog still exists and I still post in it as often as possible, and I named it "All Things Ephemeral" for a reason, even if that reason no longer exists.  Let me explain....

A few years ago I made the decision to stop deleting the entries.  Being honest with myself I realized that I was deleting so as not to 'hurt feelings' of those I vented about.  No matter that I left off names and details that would give much away to the wrong set of eyes reading, I decided it was somehow 'impolite' to share even my feelings and experiences.  Boy, was that ever stupid.  I'm glad I came to my senses and stopped editing the content over some perceived butthurt it may cause someone else.  But, did I really stop editing my own entries after all?  Well, today I figured it was something worth investigating.

I often come here and stare at the blank screen where bits of my life would fall and wonder... "How can I actually talk about this?"  I know as I write just how much I'm holding back, even when I don't WANT to.  Still, the struggle to set myself free remains just that--a struggle, even today.  Even when I know the healthiest thing I can do for myself is write about it, get it out of my system, it's remains incredibly difficult just the same.

What I want very much to do right now is to take the first step in 'going there,' to talk openly instead of using a string of allusions to piece together a story that, when all is said and done, remains unclear and ill-explained because of that fear below the surface of truth.

A Bold First Step

My next blog entry will be in This Free Spirit, and I tell you this because it will ultimately be the first blog entry in many years where I hold little if nothing back.  With failing health I need all the help I can get to break the bonds of emotional servitude, and the first step is to open myself completely to the idea of 'almost' full disclosure.

Wish me luck....

Stop it!

I'll make this short as I've posted in my other blogs about everything that went on this morning.  Over all, I want to keep the blog contents on all my blogs to the subject matter for which they created.  Given that, the theme of the day is basically... the danger of indifference.

Short and sweet (no pun intended)... T knows I'm pre-diabetic, he's indifferent about my testing my blood sugar in the mornings as directed by my doctor, and he's gone as far today as to tell me just to skip today.... which he's done before.  But aside from testing my glucose each morning, he's often indifferent to the things I have to do to get my health back and to avoid pre-diabetes from progressing to full blown Type II diabetes.  W.  T.  F. ????

Due to some physical limitations of which the doctors are still looking to nail down a cause, cooking is pretty much impossible now.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE cooking, so this is not something I'm at all happy about.  But T says he likes to cook but is also honest about the fact that he would be more than okay (his words) to eat a can of raviolis for dinner.  *sigh*  I can't do that.  I didn't like or want to eat that way throughout my life, but I also can't afford to eat that way right now due to my health.

We've had the 'salad discussion.'  I LOVE salads and strive to have a salad every night before dinner.  T, knowing I have to make drastic changes in my eating, etc., due to being diagnosed with pre-diabetes, says having a salad every night would be 'okay.'  However, he buys salad vegetables, puts them in the fridge, "forgets" to make the salads, then gets testy when I tell him we need more salad stuff because the other has gone bad.  Following THAT exchange comes the blame, the passive aggressive type where he gets testy and oppositional about buying salad veggies stating... "I don't want to buy salad stuff because it doesn't get eaten and goes bad," he says with a scowl.

O. M. G.

So I explain to him WHY the veggies went bad and REMINDED him that I said we need to have one every night, or at least I do.  He says okay, buys more salad stuff, then... "forgets" to make salads.  It's been 3 days since he made salads for us.  I remind him and he sometimes forgets.  So I told him.. "Don't ASK me if I want one--just make it!"  It's been 3 days since he's made a salad.

This man, before I met him, didn't eat salads unless it came with a meal at a restaurant.  He didn't make himself vegetables and had canned soup every night and said he likes it.  Well, okay... if he wants to destroy his life, fine.  But don't play with my life too.

I don't want to be so sick I can't cook.  I love cooking, baking, you name it.  LOVE IT.  But I'm too sick to cook right now.  Just a fact.  And I'm supposed to be eating veggies every day.  So much for that.

But aside from the veggies/salad thing, there's the bringing home crap thing.  There's just a weird disconnection here with his insisting on cooking crap he knows I can't have or is exceptionally bad for me.

W. T. F. ???

I really really wish he would just freaking STOP IT.

Ugh.