Did I mention Depression sucks? Sucks the life out of me, sucks the life out of my spouse, my children. Sucks like a hoover, cleaning my life of joy, of energy of pain free existence. I am in the midst of an exacerbation and I wonder if I'll ever get out of it. I'm so tired of being tired. I see glimpses of the black fog lifting, only to have the blanket flop across my eyes again. I will prevail.

I have weathered a week at work on half time rations. I spent a lot of time today sleeping. About an hour spent lying in the hammock until the bugs and the dogs became too obnoxious to let me lie in peace.

Another week or so of half time, then up to six hours. I'm getting stronger and longer every day. The shortest of money is a little annoying, but hey, we've got a roof over our heads. Food is plentiful.

Life is good.

I'm back to work tomorrow. Half time for two weeks as I get my strength back. I've been doing simple things. I feel as if I'm picking up a little more energy each day, though I feel tired today. I weeded and mulched a little in the garden yesterday. No small accomplishment as the grass keeps asserting a more tenacious hold upon what used to be a lot of cultivated ground. I mulched heavily around the lupines, in the hopes of giving them respite from the grass. I want them to take hold. I want a lot of lupines like my grandmother used to have.

Pole beans and the second planting of peas are rising through the ground. So much more needs to be planted. We'll see what happens. Erik is ready to dig at my request, but today does not feel like the day to do it, for me.

Hooray for being off nasty drugs.

I took the last of the Rifampin Tuesday. Hoo- fricking- Ray! Today I had a clearing treatment with my acupuncturist. I felt so calm, so peaceful afterwards. So much more myself than I have in a very long time. After some shopping and lunch I came home and took a nap. I'm still god awful tired, but I feel a glimmer more of me in here than there was, and this is reassuring.

Enough. Words take energy I don't feel like devoting.

Yesterday was a big day out. Lunch with a friend at A&W then off to another friend's house for a bird walk, a little PT and girl talk until after ten p.m. Today I am pleasantly tired, though not overly so. This is a drastic improvement.

The garden is languishing. The witch grass is taking over. I've managed to uncover some struggling lupines near my established plant. A row of snow peas is pushing it's way up toward the fence to support it. I have so much more I would love to get into the ground. However, I need Erik for ground breaking. He's splitting and stacking two cord of wood to dry for next year. It really needs to be done, so the garden must wait.

The sun is shining and the wind blowing. The hammock chair beckons. I am outta here, baby.

Two weeks are left on the medication. I've had a wicked bad last couple of days. Muscle spasms, myalgias. Took some extra anti-spasmodics and not I feel dizzy and sleepy. It made driving an hour to the dealership where I have the major work done on my car especially interesting. Compound that with a non-functioning driver's side windshield wiper and the fun just accumulates beyond belief.

Things seem not worth the effort. The boys are both home and I feel so small . I've never been more aware of my sons' vitality. They feel like giants. The house feels so small. In a few weeks they'll be off to Maine to work on their father's cabin. I'm sure I'll miss them then.

Sorry-there's no life with which to write and none worth writing about.

I've three weeks left on the Rifampin. I have had three fairly good days in a row. Today is okay. I know if I pushed myself it would turn into a bad day. I've been very good at not pushing.
Hooray for me.

I think one of the reasons contributing to my improved health is the possibility that the worse of the bacterial die off is over, therefore relieving me of nasty endotoxins building up in my system due to the cell death. I also suspect that the recent spate of sunshine is also contributing to my improved mood and energy.

I don't seem to have much wherewithal for the writing of blogs or commenting, and so I shall close.

Sure Signs I am Losing IT a Little More Every Day

I talk to my four year old, fifty odd pound Labrador Retriever as if she were a four year old child. Not that I would leave my four year old child outside to gnaw on bones in twelve inches of snow, wearing only what she was born with. I don't think I did that with the boys, at any rate.

I find myself weeping at the ends of passages in books I've read before. It doesn't seem to make much to make me cry the last few days, what with my body aching all over and a compromised ability to do much of anything. I had to split a batch of bread into two sections because I couldn't handle four loaves worth of dough. I do the dishes in fits and starts. They get done, but the effort is draining.

I am so grateful that I am not working in the next couple of months. Granted, a full paycheck is a beautiful thing, but the ability to concentrate upon my work does not exist. So a little disability income will come our way. I'll take advantage of the disability insurance we wisely took out on the house loan and the cars. We won't be rolling in dough, but we'll be okay. And if this everloving snow ever leaves the ground, I'll be able to work a little at a time in the soil and raise some vegetables.
I am so fortunate to deal with this illness with a roof over my head and a supportive partner. Thank God for large favors.

Snow Snow Snow

The back yard. The tree is skewed because of my perspective. Quite frankly, it suits for the time and mood. I'm a little off kilter from upright and uptight. A tilted, heavily snowed upon fir seems somewhat appropo at this time.

I've finally, after four different stints as an office nurse figured out why it does not suit me. It is demoralizing to deal with that many people, mostly by phone in my case, and not have the one on one interchange, face to face, that makes healing possible. I only help towards healing people by sorting through them and assigning a priority to thier need to see the physician. Surely, I do offer advice that may or may not be taken to help make their situation more tenable. But I do not have the opportunity to look them in the eye, touch them with permission, and allow some sort of healing energy to flow between us.

Healing is as much for the healer as the person petitioning for health. The dispensation of medications is no substitute for the energy exchanged between the two beings involved in the transaction. Whether as a nurse, a Reiki practitioner, a meningeal care practitioner or massage therapist, it is the interpersonal exchange, the hands on that recharges me even as I am giving something that will hopefully benefit the person with whom I work. That is not the case in office nursing for me.

The other thing I find most noxious, and true of the office in which I am currently employed, is the emphasis on numbers. Numbers of patients seen, financing from the government, money in, money out. There are times when I long for barter and a more defined exchange of energies: here's a chicken for your pot, some vegetables, an exchanged service- that used to serve as payment for services rendered. Perhaps I am over romanticizing it. Conversely, the system in which I am currently involved depersonalizes the exchange by involving dead presidents. I need to make my way out of this system and find a hybrid more suited to my style.

No News is Good News
I haven't heard from my doc. In fact, I've made an appointment for tomorrow since he hasn't called. My extension of time off depends on him approving it as he had originally opted to have me out until April 7. I'm not healthy enough to go back, in my humble opinion. I feel a touch better energetically today, but toddling out into the yard with the dogs resulted in shortness of breath within fifteen minutes. I still cough if I talk much, but hey, there's naught but the dogs and me here, so it's not that much of an issue.

It's crunchy and blustery here. Sleet blankets the ground. The temperature must have risen a bit since the eves are dripping. Stick around long enough, everything changes.

I could write of my frustrations at being home and with low energy. Why bother.
I could write of the poncho I'm thinking of knitting. But I don't have the ambition to find the knitting book with the pattern. Still, it would occupy me.

I must be feeling somewhat better. The Young and the Restless are starting to annoy me. They were my escape when I would return home after a day's work at the salt mine. Now, not so much. This is a good sign.

I'm off to do the taxes now.

• HIV negative
• good range on the immunoglobulins
• ESR normal
• CBC looked like a viral something or other had been hanging out.
• CXR WNL
• Now we get to do a d-dimer and look for the possibility of pulmonary emboli. After all, I have bilateral knee replacements that may be showering me with the little buggers.

So how do I feel about all this? A little nervous. A lot incredulous that this could even be a possibility. and somewhat patient.

Thankfully, Ceredwyn has made it her mission to entertain me. Last nite we dined at Chez Alexander. She said it was lamp chops done in an Indian fashion. However, in the darkness of the house, the back lit chop looked like a flattened rat, being applied to the pan by the stump of the tail.

I've really gotta get better. This stuff is screwing with my perceptions of my universe.

Eh.
More time resting. A little more energy to give over to the tasks of daily living. Fold some laundry, cook some food, do some dishes. Sleep some. Read a lot. Sleep some more. Nothing much to say other than I am behaving myself.
That's quite a lot for me to say.
A good day.

I'm starting to settle into the idea that this is a new and different phase with my body. I tried to self massage today, just to get some tension out of my upper body. My breasts feel flat and lifeless, my skin saggy and my muscles lacking in tone. I was able to lay there and think," ah, this is what it feels like to live in here and be sick."

I'm in a place, today at any rate, where I can observe what it's like to live in here, at least today, under these circumstances. I don't have the energy to hate that I am as I am at this point in time. Rather, I find myself thinking of the gentleman from whom I gained TB exposure and I am able to think, " what a crappy existence he has" It's the drug, I know it's the drug. And the infected tooth that's finally gotten the third phase of root canal and now the dentist wants to put me on a course of antibiotic for that. Shit. I think I'll have Erik pick up the bots and keep them on hand while I wait and see what manifests with this tooth. I think I should have followed the impulse and had it pulled back when it's neighbor fractured and had to be evicted. Hindsight is a beautiful thing.

My big accomplishment for the day? Finally getting the backsplash,where the dogs have their water, washed. I still have to wash the fire extinguisher washed that hangs on the wall, but at least it doesn't look like the mud puppies live there any more.

I had a friend visit last night. Her comment on the way out? "When is Erik going to do something about the floor?" She was observing the linoleum in the kitchen on the way out. I wish I had thought to say, " He's too busy worrying about and caring for his wife. You idiot!"

It's a floor. It works for now.

Losing focus. Time to rest. Perhaps I could commend resting as my accomplishment and not some random cleaning

The good news: I am being taken seriously as a sick person and not as a manifestation of depression. The bad news: I am still sick. And tired. And too much of a stoic for my own good. Too much of a self doubter.
I think I finally got it across to Erik today that being raised by a schizophrenic well known in the county in which I grew up has made me very self conscious about people perceiving me and how they interpret my mental illness. I was nervous about the doctor's visit, worried that I wouldn't be taken seriously- particularly when I saw the encounter form read,"Depression." Erik was my rock. I have some wonderful support from friends and co-workers. I feel less embarrassed and ashamed of the fact that I am ill and out of control of what is happening with my body.

So I'm off work for two weeks at this point. I'm feeling relief that I'm being listened to. And I am ready to rest.

I am feeling less suicidal today. Not much better other wise. Still febrile, still hacking crap from my lungs. Feeling very supported by others and feeling stupid to need the support.
How's that for gratitude?

Life sucks. I wish I were dead and no longer having to deal with any of the shit of the day to day. Verbally abusive patient? Not dealt with. Gave a verbal notice of May 1. Did have the patient's doc approach me at lunch time about the way patient treated me and the other employees of the practice. Was able to obtain agreement that said treatment is untenable. Having rescinded my resignation- yet. Supposedly we're going to work on a policy and patient is to be warned by M.D. at next visit.
Why is it so hard to get people to treat each other decently?
I am so tired. I have to go to sleep. Life still sucks

I'm feeling a little better than I did yesterday. That's not saying much. Now instead of pissing my pants when I cough, I shit them. Yep, it's time to get back into life with Depends. I am behaving myself for the most part. I've rested today. I've knit a little. For obvious reasons, I have placed a load of laundry in for washing and drying. Two, actually. One was dire necessity. The second just because it needed to be done. Bryan brought down a lovely loaf of homemade bread. And some of Gwynneth's birthday cake. Which I enjoyed immensely. Now back to tea and Benedryl.

I'm sick. With a virus. I just spent time advising a friend on another blog about spewing her symptoms in public. Said it was ok. And I've spewed some on my other blog. but the fact that I feel responsible to my readers not to spew has caused me to censure my thoughts. The fact is, I feel like a piece of warmed over fecal material. I'm tired of feeling shitty. Pharynx ripping cough that has rendered my larynx inoperable. Dripping sinuses. Fever. It feels as if all I've done this last year or so is be sick. Fight off upper respiratory disease. Fight off tuberculosis. I've left my self care up to doctor's. I've not done the things that could enhance my health. I'm one hundred pounds overweight. I eat sugar. I don't exercise. I eat crap. I don't go to sleep when normal people say I ought to. I hate my job. I really hate my job. I keep looking like I do in the picture to the left and I'm going to be dead before I'm fifty four. The question isn't who cares? The question is, do I care? And if I didn't would I write about it? No. I don't think I would.

I am sick. Sweat pours off me in rivulets. I cough up carmel colored bloody chunks. I manifest a temperature of 101. I am an fm station.

I dealt with a verbally abusive patient yesterday. In twenty four years of nursing I have experienced more verbal abuse in the nine months I have worked at the Center than in the previous twenty three years, three months. I am seriously contemplating quitting after yesterday's encounter. On Monday, the practice leader will be telling the abuser's Primary Care Provider that he needs to give the perpetrator thirty days to find a new practice. If the doc refuses, I will hand in my resignation. I will not work for a physician who condones that kind of verbal abuse of employees.

'Nuff said

I grabbed a banana for breakfast today. This most phallic of fruits often bridges the gap between home and work for me. Usually eaten in the car during commute, today it fills the stomach while commuting from blog to blog. This is my third blog. I've two on xanga and the one here.

This is the inner work blog for today, I guess. I was going to write of how the pain in my body has recently migrated to my left arm and shoulder, but then I was distracted by the idea of illustrating today's blog with a picture of my bitten banana. The creative muse satisfied, I find myself no longer wanting to explore this pain that seems always in my body but not always in the same space or time. The pain has been with me as long as I can care to recall. A small number of days stands out as being totally pain free, but in order to acheive some of them, I had to master the fine art of divorcing my body. So along with divorcing pain, I divorced pleasure. We're all well reacquainted these days. I experience the whole gamut. I don't believe I fully appreciate the pleasure when it comes. I don't think I've ever fully appreciated anything until I've lost it. I think that's part of the human condition. One lusts after things unattained and rues things lost. Rarely would it seem the moment appreciated. Cultivate mindfulness and the rest will be attained. It takes a life time, but it can be done. Or so I've read.

"You know you want to," says my mind as I attempt to open the portal to this particular place in the blogosphere. I want to write something that will have meaning to the ones who read this. At this time, I am the only one reading this place and space. Only one other person knows I am here in this guise. Maybe she'll check it out, maybe she won't now that I've commented at her place, finally, successfully.
The thing is, though, I've advised her to take her time of illness and use it as an opportunity to do the inner work that seems so necessary to keep one's self from being stuck in a place of ill health. It is the inner work, I suspect, that determines whether one stays or goes from this plane of existence. It is the inner work that I am convinced I have come here to do.
A being of Light. A being of Love. A Be-ing. If my life is the dream I am dreaming somewhere else, then why would I need sleep to check back in with that life? Why can't I stay awake all the time and live this dream? Why must I check back in with that life that exists in a seeming state of creation? It seems to have a lot of twists and turns, unexpected rhyme, reasons not yet revealed. And yet here, in this life that is dream the very same things can be said. Is this proof that one exists on more than one plane at any time?

Here I am, Look at Me

So you want to comment on a friend's blog. Oddly enough, you can't unless you create a blog yourself. Nothing else seems to work. You buy into the concept that perhaps you could write in another place, under another nom de plume. It seems oddly satisfying and somehow just another extension of all the expressions of your selves the world has already seen manifest.

How am I liking it so far? So far so good.