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.