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Health Update in Three Parts: Two

Picking up where I left off in a previous post:

Of course, this was life-changing for me, because I was experiencing things and learning a lot that went unnoticed before, much of it damaging for my health or of loved ones. I’ve been able to really explore those, without the luxury of therapy because of financial reasons, but I’ve had successes and am again finding “my voice” again, after embarrassment and shame at my situation was the microphone I communicated through for so many years.

I’ve made great strides towards my emotional growth in overcoming the depression that has been worsened since my debilities and other health issues that prevent me from being able to provide income to help my family during an extremely expensive time. (College, high school senior, high school freshman, plus too many other things. You get me.) Much of this I credit to Chooch, who supports me unconditionally, and then makes sure I catch my bullshit when I’m blinded to it.

All this even after I learned about “Counting Spoons,” but have only recently been able to put them into practice and stand by the boundaries I’ve set with others and with myself. If it’s negative for me or those I love, I try to understand it and heal it. If I am unable, I move on, because I recognize as a human, I cannot fix everything for everyone, regardless of my overwhelming need to.

I evaluate, I learn, I adjust expectations (to a point, and in scale with the same considerations granted to me on an individual basis), verbalize my line in the sand long before it can get crossed and therefore, is not my fault when people trash it and my trust in them is lost. People have themselves to watch out for, after all, and to assume we have mutual goals and want to get there the exact same with others is the definition of insanity, I’m beginning to believe.

Although much of this is new to me, it isn’t new to this blog. I actually posted about it over a year ago, and what I called “hope fatigue.” I didn’t even remember writing or posting it until I searched for the Spoon Theory link, but I’m happy to say that I’ve continued following the beliefs listed there. But again, I don’t remember writing or posting it. Fascination doesn’t begin to cover it, but if nothing else, I think that it also helps to demonstrate my neurological state then and now.

I’m shocked as I read it at the number of errors in the post (left uncorrected, because this blog is my memory bank and this matters to me), but primarily because I’ve wasted so much time learning and re-learning (and re-learning, based on some of the 40+ posts sitting in the Drafts folder) the same lessons, over and over and over and over with the same issues and people.

So BAM! While I’m smack in the middle of facing and accepting my handicaps/disabilities/Health Blahs, I’m hit again with more knowledge on how dumb my dumb brain truly has been and how excellently (HA!) it performs when being that dumb.  I am constantly reacting and off balance, not knowing if and when I could live this life by my standards again, rather than compromising with every person that crossed my path, whether I was being obviously taken advantage of or not.

I also chose to embrace my health FAIL and to test those limits, then define them, then accept them and adjust my expectations of myself, with the same kindness I grant others, regardless of how they treat me or my loved ones. We are human, after all, and each of us are flawed, and it’s really pretty simple, in practice.

The testing process was immensely humiliating, in front of friends and family. I kept over-extending myself while testing limitations and failing, then picking up the pieces, examining them again, discarding what didn’t work and keeping what did, and tried again. But all of it was with the feeling that I was on the outside looking in, rather than a person even involved in the interactions. Everything was muffled through the meds and Fibro Fog.

So, with Nucynta, I’m happy to report that I’ve (we’ve) benefited already from that effort, just since the first of this year. Yay! But I also truly discovered how lost I was in the medication, far far more than I ever thought. *hiss*

Sadly, my body simply can’t tolerate the Nucynta, or at least it in combination with other medications. After my visit a few weeks ago with my Rheumatologist, I’m now off of it with the next script. The negative health effects were too drastic and the fatigue and weakness had worsened. It did provide a measure of pain relief, but not enough for what my body went through trying to shake myself into movement. It felt literally toxic and I had constant nausea and an inability to eat more than a few bites of anything, therefore my blood sugar was in turmoil. Unacceptable with summer and my son and nephew visiting and the other awesome things we have planned!

More in the final post, Act 3.