acceptance

Mid November update

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As of right now, we are keeping our heads above water. Life has settled down since the last time I wrote. Alex is more stable. He has been seeing a therapist which is something he was vehemently against in the past. So that is a step in the right direction I guess. He has been a man of few words, at least with my husband and I anyway.

My brothers and I started the process of cleaning out our parent’s house. What an overwhelming task! The one time we got together we barely made a dent in everything. I’m not sure when we are going to be able to get together again to go through everything.

In the meantime, Paul and I rented a huge dumpster for our own house. We got rid of the couches the dogs chewed up among other things. We are not going to be leaving a huge mess behind for our children to clean. It feels good to purge, clean, and declutter. Today I dropped off a trunk load of previous treasures to the thrift store. Some of the items I got rid of were gifts from Alex’s old girlfriend. It was time as they broke up over a year ago. And guess who ended up working at the thrift store and taking in my donations?? Alex’s old girlfriend! I wonder what she thought when I was getting rid of the stuff she gave me, like the cat cookie jar. Or the dress I let her borrow to wear for my daughter’s wedding. In an odd way, it really felt like closure to me.

My husband just accepted a new seasonal position doing tax work. He also decided to start a new career this year. Right now he has been diligently studying and learning everything he can.

I started taking medicine for high blood pressure. I feel old now that I am into my 50’s. But most of the time I don’t care as much about things that I used to think were important, so it evens out.

My daughter’s first marathon

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Just a follow up from a couple weeks ago, my daughter Angel finished her first marathon. She did an amazing job and I’m proud of her. I am joyful that she achieved her goal.

I experienced a wide array of emotions on marathon day. First of all, pride. Angel was training for the big day for months. She was very disciplined and serious about her training, at times turning down fun activities that interfered with her training schedule. She avoided all alcohol. She counted calories; making sure she was eating enough which properly fueled her body and gave her strength. She thinks that is where I went wrong when I was training. I ate when I was hungry and didn’t eat when I wasn’t.

I felt a lot of anxiety for her during the training process. I feared injury, but mainly I feared she would be victimized as a beautiful young woman running alone on long, lonely trails and through sketchy neighborhoods. I feared she could be hit by careless drivers which almost happened to both her and me.

I felt relief in the dream lived. I already completed multiple marathons and finished that goal. It was not something I always wanted to do but never achieved. I have no regrets except that that part of my life is over.

I felt sadness, especially when I saw mothers and daughters crossing the finish line together. I wanted to be that mom. I wanted that to be us. Angel and I did run a few of the same races. She was just beginning as I was coming to an end.

I felt envious of all the support she received from family and friends. Most of the time, and for my first marathon, my only spectator was my husband. He was an amazing support person. Some of Angel’s friends drove for hours to see her cross the finish line. It’s a reminder of what I didn’t have. I never received the support of my parents, although I used that to be the parent I always wanted for my children. It’s a part of giving what you don’t have, but knowing what you would’ve wanted to create something wonderful out of nothing worth passing down to the next generation.

I miss feeling young, strong, and important. I received a lot of attention for my accomplishments. Now I’m just a has been with a collection of medals hanging on the wall. It shows where I was and where I now am. I’ve come to accept that and have moved on to new dreams and goals.

I feel satisfaction that my daughter decided to follow in my footsteps. She finished her first marathon in her 20’s whereas I was in my 40’s. I am excited to see where she will go with this. It’s exciting to be a part of what inspired her. In some ways, through her, I am still experiencing it. Being a spectator is more difficult than I expected. The path of a participant is clearly marked. But as a spectator, it is not clear about where to go or when they will be there. The tracking app was not working for the marathon so we had to wing it. Then there were closed roads down unfamiliar streets. Marathon traffic. Finding a place to park. An inability to find bathrooms or food/drinks. Long walks carrying lawn chairs.

I miss the lifestyle and comradery of the running community. I miss the friendships strengthened and formed over a common passion. Those were the best years of my life. Overall, I’m happy my daughter decided to choose the same path I did. She is able to carry on some of the goodness in me.

A different path

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It’s that time of year again…Father’s Day weekend. This year I really lucked out and found a rather generic card. It said something like ‘Ears to you, have a great Father’s Day’. On the front of the card was a picture of a beagle with big ears. I sent it off in the mail yesterday and now I’m done.

It really doesn’t bother me as much anymore that I don’t have the kind of dad I can buy a heartwarming inspirational best dad ever card for. I mean, it sucks, but I’ve accepted that.

Instead, I’m going to put the focus on what matters the most and that is the family I built. I’m going to celebrate the day with the father of my kids. It’s also my son’s birthday on Father’s Day, but we’ll be celebrating that another day.

There is a time to let go and accept what is. It’s not what I would’ve chosen if I had the choice. And when I had the choice, I took a different path.

Life as I know it

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Whew, it’s been awhile which hasn’t been my intention. I was meaning on writing earlier this week, but the dogs jumped the fence and ran away. I had to focus on the problem at hand instead. Thankfully Paul got tags for the dogs with their name along with our address and phone number. We received a phone call several hours after the escape from a farmer who had one of our dogs. Paul went over to pick him up and figured the other dog was nearby. The farmer lived along 150 wooded acres and took Paul with him on his 4-wheeler to search for an hour with no results.

Paul and I both spent a good portion of the day each driving around aimlessly searching, asking people we saw on the road, and driving with our windows down and heat up listening for the stray bark. I was searching for a good picture of our last missing dog, joining groups for missing pets, and just made a post as darkness was quickly approaching when the doorbell rang. Someone found our second dog walking on the road toward home several houses down. It was strange because when our second dog came home, the dogs snarled and fought with each other. Another crisis was averted, but the day was pretty much shot. On a good note, we were grateful to see the kindness of strangers.

Last week I had my follow up endoscopy and my doctor appointment this week. The good news is that my ulcer is gone, but my colitis is still here. They gave me another medicine to try and if things don’t get better in the next two weeks, they are going to put me on a medication for ulcerative colitis. So far no improvement. I’ve been gaining weight like crazy and nothing fits which has not been pleasant.

Arabella also had her doctor appointment and will need to get her tonsils out. The recovery period for her will be two weeks. A lot of people have been telling me it’s a hard surgery for adults. It will be nice to be able to mom her again though.

Yesterday my mom came over for a visit. This week my dad fell and my mom called 911. It took three men to be able to lift him up. My mom showed me pictures of his bruises from falling. She also showed me pictures of his bedsores. I think he needs to go into nursing care, or at the very least they should have a health care worker come out to the house. I told my mom that and asked her what she was planning on doing. I asked my mom several times, but she didn’t even acknowledge that I was speaking to her. She kept saying how hard her week has been and how she is having a hard time. She said she wasn’t invited to visit her sister down in Florida, although her other sister was invited.

I think something needs to be done. But my parents are still ‘competent’. Thankfully my brother Mark and his wife Carla will be visiting my parents this weekend. I’m hoping I can talk to them about the situation and try to get the ball rolling to come up with a plan. Otherwise, Paul and I will be going out to talk with them soon. But even that is complicated with Arabella’s surgery coming up and Paul possibly being out of town for a business trip. Not to mention that my parent’s are the guardian of my disabled brother. It’s just one big mess.

But other than all that, things are going fairly good. I am almost finished with my memoir. I’m planning on getting a couple more tattoos. Next month Paul and I have a trip planned to Hawaii and I’m getting close to crossing off visiting all 50 states off my bucket list. I am happy where I am at in life. Things aren’t perfect, such as with my own health struggles, but I’m adjusting. For the time being, I am not in crisis mode and I’m going to enjoy it as long as it lasts.

What a week already!

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Where we left off last, I was preparing my house for a Bunco party. It was a successful night and I even won by being the biggest loser. Ha!

Then the next day we were hit with some bad news. Arabella did not make it into mental health treatment court. I’m not even sure why. You would think after 5 inpatient hospital stays, several months in outpatient, several months in residential, multiple mental health issues, a dozen therapists, suicide attempts, and self-harm wounds that will forever scar her body would be enough to qualify someone for mental health treatment. But apparently not!

I am very cynical of the system. A person could threaten to harm themselves or others and still not get the mental health treatment they need even if they do want it. How messed up is that? Arabella will get two years probation and after completion her felonies will be removed from her record. Within the next week, we will be transitioning her home from jail. I’m not sure what this is going to look like. The DA wants her to go to therapy. They can go ahead and court order it then. I’m not sure if my daughter will even have insurance when she gets out since the renewal date happened when she was in jail. Then there is probably a 6 month waiting list just to see a therapist. At this point, I’m not sure if she even has her doctors or can get her medicine. After 5 months in jail, I’m sure it’s going to be a mess.

In other news, our cat took a turn for the worse since his appointment last week. He stopped eating and grooming himself. He spends most of his time sleeping or crying. Today he has been hiding out in the garage. I’ve been checking in on him every couple hours to see if he’s still breathing. I think I’m going to have to make an appointment to put him down this week. It’s a hard decision. I’ve been in denial that it is time. At this point, I don’t think he is going to get better.

For some good news, my son decided to go back to tech school. Classes start this week. He dropped out a couple years back and it was really hard for me because I felt like he wasn’t living up to his potential. Then at 21, he received the rest of the money we saved up for him in his college fund. With that money, he bought a sports car. Now he wants to sell the car and use the money to go back to school. He is finally starting to mature and grow up on his own without me having to nag him to start getting his life together. Through it all, we’ve had a pretty good relationship.

I’m thankful to be close to my kids in their young adult years. Arabella and I don’t always get along, but I think she knows we care about her and are willing to support her through hard times. I’m sure it will be a rocky road, but I’m doing the best I can. I feel like emotionally I’m doing good but physically my body is a wreck. I have a follow up appointment with my doctor this week so we’ll see how that goes.

It’s been awhile

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I know it’s been awhile. I’m going to try to get on here at least once a week for now until life settles down a bit. I’ve been doing pretty well considering how chaotic my life tends to be. I no longer wake up every morning with this feeling of overwhelming dread. I actually sleep fairly well at night too. I even dream and most of those dreams are not nightmares. Maybe being medicated isn’t all that bad.

Things have been going well since we last talked. We celebrated Angel’s 25th birthday by going sailing and anchoring out to swim during the day and having a party at our house at night. It was relatively drama free which is a plus. I have been busy helping Paul with work and then we took some friends out for the weekend on the sailboat. Today was my first full day at home in over a week and then tomorrow we are heading out to a resort a couple days for our 26th wedding anniversary. So far it’s been a good week. Tonight I am going with Angel, Lexi, and Alex to watch the Barbie movie. My son’s girlfriend is obsessed with Barbie so he wants to go along too.

The only bad thing that happened was that Paul had an accident on the sailboat when I wasn’t with him. He threw a spinnaker out in front of his sails and a storm popped up out of nowhere. Everything was whipping around in the wind and Paul ran out to grab the spinnaker line without his gloves on. He ended up getting 2nd degree rope burns on his hands. Then one of the lines went into the water and got wrapped in the prop causing the engine to stop. His hands had to be wrapped up like a mummy for awhile but they are healing nicely now. Thankfully everything ended up working out okay in the end.

Other than that, everything has been going well. Who knows, next week might be a different story. In fact, it will probably be. My mom’s 75th birthday is this weekend. She wanted me to throw her a party but couldn’t decide what she wanted to do until a week before her birthday which really doesn’t give me any time to plan things especially since I will not be home. Not a lot of people can go last minute. There is usually a lot of drama with the extended family.

My dad was back to urgent care this past week. He has another bladder infection and then he fell a couple days later. My parents insist on staying in their house and that they don’t need any help. It’s been stressful but at this point they still are competent so I am just waiting for something to happen. My mom has been rather harsh with my dad and my dad because of his own behavior has been ostracized from most of his family which adds another layer of complication to the situation. My parents are also the guardians of my brother Matt. I think everything is going to fall on my shoulders because my other brothers live far away.

Arabella goes back to court again next week. I’m not sure if she will be coming home or not. She has been in jail for 4 months now. Then several months ago I signed up to host Bunco next week. That’s bad timing because Arabella may or may not be going to court that day and in the evening I will be having 16 people over at my house. But my attitude throughout everything is that life goes on as normal, or as much normal as I can muster anyway.

I have come to the point of acceptance towards a lot of difficult situations in my life. Not that I agree with the poor decisions of others but more in the way of it is what it is. The best I can do is to be mindful of that and prepare myself for what is yet to come. I’ve survived a lot of difficult circumstances so right now I’m feeling confident I can handle whatever life throws at me.

Just a few more fireworks

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Tomorrow Arabella goes to court. I thought maybe she would be getting out of jail tomorrow, but now it’s doubtful. Again, I am anxious about her being in jail and about her coming home. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. On one hand I really miss her and on the other hand she is more volatile than a mid-July storm. I want the quiet boring life, but I’m afraid it is much too late for that.

We went up north for the fourth. Alex brought up a couple of friends the first night and the second night they wanted to stay again but we had family time in mind and there was some conflict about that. We came home for the 3rd and quickly cleaned to have people over for live music at night. It was all very last minute but we had a great time. By the time the actual 4th rolled around I was exhausted. My insomnia kicked in big time and physically I felt miserable. I’m too old for a 5 day holiday weekend.

At the last minute, my son had some friends over to light off some fireworks on the 4th. I told them it was okay but they had to shut everything down by 10. They started at 9:15 and at 9:30 the next door neighbor came out and started yelling and swearing at them. He said his baby couldn’t sleep and they had to work the next morning. Then Paul got upset and kicked everyone out. There was a lot of conflict between our son, ourselves, and our neighbor. Everyone apologized and it gave us a good opportunity to work things out, but it was stressful.

We are having problems with our 17 year old cat. It is getting close to the time where I need to think about putting him down. It’s a hard decision to make. My parents aren’t doing well either. My dad is still in and out of the ER after his surgery and can’t take care of himself all that well. My mom is starting to get dementia. To be honest, she was showing signs for over a year now. But I really didn’t want to accept it. Maybe she was just stressed out or tired. Then this past weekend, she told my niece she forgot how to use the oven and asked her for help so she could make French fries. So my parents are stumbling along with my dad being the mind and my mom being the one who can still get around. Very soon there will be some more hard decisions to make.

Meanwhile, Paul had an emergency at work that was very stressful but turned out okay. At times, we are completely overwhelmed. The doctor increased my anti-depressant and insomnia medication. The last several days I’ve been sleeping better which has really helped.

It’s my birthday this week, the big 49, my last year in my 40’s. We just found out that a friend of ours was in the ER the same time I was. Except she got bad news. Stage 4 lung cancer that went into her brain. She is my age. She just got her PhD a few years back and was starting to live the life she wanted and now this. Life sure is fleeting. I feel bad because although I am going to be okay, I haven’t really been enjoying life much lately. Sometimes I just muddle through and that’s not living life to its fullest. But for now I guess it’s good enough.

Hanging on

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I reached the end of my rope yet somehow still kept hanging on. An ambulance ride to the ER, two MRI’s, an EEG, and 25 vials of blood later nothing can be found wrong with me. I’ve heard that stress can kill you and boy did it do a number on me. I am feeling better, back to myself again. Or back to some sad version of me anyway.

My dad had his surgery, spent the night in the hospital, and was back in the ER the following day. But things have settled down. My brother Luke was in town and stopped by for a visit. It’s good to know we are on the same page. Our mom is starting to slip mentally. We are not sure what to do about it. She is not taking good care of our dad. But our dad made his own bed through a lot of bad decisions and has to live with that. We are going to play things by ear. Kind of like a watchful waiting.

Meanwhile, we are starting to prepare for Arabella to get out of jail. Yesterday we invited our old friend over whom we haven’t seen in over 10 years and told him our daughter was accusing him of raping her as an infant. It was a difficult but necessary conversation since Arabella spoke recently of contacting him when she gets out of jail. We know he didn’t do it. Come to find out he now lives a block away from us. I did a Google search on him and it pulled up his full address and phone number. If I could find him in two seconds, I know she will be able to as well. She could even walk to his house to confront him. We had to warn him. He had no idea why we would reach out after all these years. He thought maybe we were offering him a job or something not telling him he might have to watch his back and possibly file a restraining order.

This is the first summer I’m not really looking forward to. Life just has been way too serious lately and not very much fun. I’m not sure what life is going to look like when our daughter gets home. Plus now we have legal expenses and medical bills when I’d rather use the money for travelling.

On a good note, my husband, Angel, and Alex really stepped up when I was sick. I have a core group of people who are pulling for me. Through all of the stress, Paul and I are working together to keep our marriage strong. Although I’d rather not struggle at all, it helps to have a partner to go through this together. I’m not very hopeful for my daughter’s future, but we are doing everything we can to support her which I can say no matter what happens we did all we could.

We might have to put down our cat in the near future. He is around 17-years-old and is not in the best health. I know, I know…not a lot of good news, but that’s life. I’m just glad right now to be feeling better. What a wake up call. I thought I had MS. I had visions of myself spending a good chunk of the rest of my life in a wheelchair. It was terrifying and I can’t imagine having serious health issues. I think it opened my eyes in a new way to the suffering of others. It’s scary when your body doesn’t do what you want it to do. I couldn’t trust myself. I had to cancel the motorcycle class and I’ve decided to let that dream go.

I’ve been trying to deal with my stress in a healthy way. It got pretty scary when what was once working no longer seemed to work. I think I’m back on track again. We’ll see what happens.

Breakdown

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I think it started with the Mother’s Day letter I got in the mail Arabella sent me from the mental hospital. It was a well written heartfelt letter telling me what a great mother I am. When she called me later that afternoon from jail I was looking forward to talking to her. But since she wrote the good mom letter her mood had changed to me being a bad mom. The contrast from the letter to the phone call the same day I read it was from day to night. She accused my husband and I of horrible things to the point where my husband walked away from the call and I stayed. She blamed us for being shitty parents and that is why she is in jail.

It was that day I decided to let it go. I had to accept she is never going to change. Everyone had been harping on me to let go and let God. I don’t understand how people can find comfort in God. Although I loosely believe all I seem to find is anger and pain. I made the choice to let go and I stopped caring. I had finally reached the end of my rope. I drank more than I ever drank in my life. I just didn’t care. I didn’t even want to live anymore. I struggled with insomnia and nightmares. I woke up exhausted and my body ached.

Arabella called me about her delusion that an old friend of ours sexually assaulted her. She asked me what I thought of it. I asked her if it was possible she was delusional to think our friend raped her while she was sleeping as a child. She said what I was saying was correct, he didn’t rape her as a child but as an infant. She said she was planning on finding and visiting him when she gets out of jail. My stomach dropped. We have to find him before she does. He is in danger.

Meanwhile, my mom cancelled my dad’s surgery. I don’t think she wanted to take care of him after the surgery because she had plans for an extended weekend away to celebrate her sister’s birthday. She asked if I would take care of him. I told her I was busy. I had to work Friday and Saturday then had plans on Sunday to watch Angel complete her first half-marathon. Afterwards, Paul was going to show me how to do some paperwork for our business and we had some things we needed to do around the house because come Monday he was scheduled to work 9 days straight. It’s the busy season for our business.

My mom left anyway. On Saturday my mom asked if I could take care of my dad. She said he wasn’t able to carry food with his walker. I replied if dad needed me to help him give me a call and I would try to figure something out. I felt a tremendous amount of guilt. That is when the tremors started in my arms. My mom never responded to my text but decided to come home early. She posted a picture of herself at home that evening on her BeReal looking disappointed.

The next morning I started having tremors in my hands, face, and legs. I was having a hard time walking. I hadn’t been feeling well and had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for later that afternoon. My son insisted on taking me after he saw my tremors. At the doctor’s appointment I was tremoring pretty badly. The doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She ordered a MRI and took 15 vials of blood. I didn’t bother trying to hide how stressed and depressed I was. I was always mistrustful of telling the doctor about the severity of my anxiety and depression and that I have PTSD. I was afraid I would be committed and medicated. But I no longer fear that because with my daughter I realized how much of a joke the mental health care system is. I did relent to being put on anti-depressants though.

The tremors turned into seizures where I was fully conscious. I started to think something was seriously wrong with me like MS. I had other symptoms too. My eyes hurt. They were blurry, puffy, and very sensitive to light. At times I had double vision. I stopped eating. Food stopped tasting good. I felt nauseous and my stomach was upset. I only ate a few bites once a day after being forced by my family. I couldn’t even be tempted by my favorite foods. I was still experiencing insomnia. I felt numbness and tingling in my arms similar to the feeling right before a blood pressure cuff is released. My body ached. I couldn’t focus on anything and the exhaustion was overwhelming. I struggled at times to think and speak. I thought my life was over.

My dad was in and out of the ER. One day my mom posted a picture of him on BeReal in the hospital in a gown on a gurney with a nurse taking care of him. I don’t know how I felt about my dad and the possibility of him dying. I can’t even remember the last time I saw him.

Thursday night Arabella called and said grandma was going to bail her out of jail if it was okay with me. We got into an argument. I felt angry with my mom thinking she threw me under the bus. I told Arabella she can’t get out because if she messed up again with the felonies against her it would mean prison. But she didn’t listen. Then I talked to my mom. My anger turned to worry. She was worried about my dad. She was worried because she thought my brother Luke was angry with her. She dumped her problems on me and I felt stressed.

By Friday morning of Memorial Day weekend my seizures got worse. I could barely walk. My mom texted me my dad was back in the ER. Then as Paul was checking on me from work, I had a huge convulsion where I fell to the floor. I hit my head on the refrigerator. Paul could hear me flopping on the floor. He called our son to come over and check on me. Alex found me convulsing on the floor. It wouldn’t stop and I had no control over it. Alex called 911 and told them to please hurry. He talked calmly to me, patted my arm, and told me I was going to be okay.

I could hear the sirens getting closer. The next thing I know there are a whole bunch of people in my house. They gave me a shot of Benadryl, but the seizures still didn’t stop. They strapped me in a chair and put me into a gurney then got me into the ambulance. They gave me another shot, this one was painful and the seizures stopped. They tried to put an IV into my arms but they both collapsed. They were talking about my veins out loud and I thought I was going to throw up. They finally got an IV in my hand. I felt tired and dizzy as I watched the traffic behind us as the ambulance took me to the hospital without the sirens on. I watched for my son’s car but couldn’t see him.

The next thing I know I was in an ER room. A few minutes later Alex and Lexi showed up with Angel and Dan. I could tell my kids were frightened and crying. Paul left work early and was on the way. My best friend works in the hospital and soon she was on her way too. They set me up to get a MRI right away, but the seizures started up again. This time they put me on a strong anti-anxiety medicine. Paul arrived right before they wheeled me into the MRI. I was in and out of dreams. I heard loud noises. My family went to the cafeteria and waited. They thought it would take a half an hour and it took two hours. They thought maybe I would die. At the end I was awake. I felt a lot of pain in the back of my head. I was becoming restless.

The doctor came in after everything was done. He said he was puzzled by my condition. The MRI turned out fine. I didn’t have a brain tumor and it didn’t show up anything concerning. They told me to contact neurology after the holiday weekend and sent me home. The seizures continued. I imagined my life in a wheelchair. I wanted to die. I didn’t want to be a burden for my family.

My daughter cancelled her plans for the weekend including going out of town for a friend’s wedding. She worked out of my house. She did the cooking and cleaned my house. She wouldn’t let me be alone for one second. She didn’t let me walk alone. My son helped out with appointments and wouldn’t let me leave his side while he was with me either. My kids really stepped up. Even their friends offered to help. Arabella didn’t know anything about it. Even my dad called several times to check on me which was puzzling because of our relationship. In those ways, it brought us all closer.

For the first few days everyone was amazing. They treated me like I was on my deathbed, all hugs and love you’s. Everyone thought I could die. Then they became desperate. My husband was sobbing because he felt helpless and didn’t understand why I was suffering the way I was. He never cries. He became a Google doctor. He thought maybe this was a side effect of my sleeping pills. He wanted me to stop taking them. So did my son. His girlfriend and Angel thought it was dangerous to just stop taking my meds. They were discussing me like I wasn’t even there. No one knew what to do.

Meanwhile, my mom went up north for the holiday weekend and left my dad home alone. My dad ended up falling in the middle of the night and calling the rescue squad. My sister-in-law Carla got into a fight with my mom up north. She screamed at my mom out in the yard, regardless of the neighbors around, for cancelling my dad’s surgery and not taking good care of him. She totally lost her shit and my brother Mark had to leave with her.

Arabella yelled at Paul saying he turned grandma against her. She said someone in jail might pay her bond if she does special favors for them when she gets out. My daughter could be showing up on our doorstep at any time. Without talking to me Paul asked my parents if they would take her in if she shows up. My dad went to the ER again. My mom told us my dad wants to die. Paul said to her well join the club. I thought my husband was going to have a heart attack he was so stressed.

I kept having seizures. Sometimes I felt like I wanted to die. At other times I felt a great amount of fear like I was going to be attacked. Any small thing could set me off.

They told me to get an appointment with the neurologist after the holiday weekend. The earliest they could get me in was the middle of July. They told me to call everyday to see if there were any cancellations. I was able to get in the end of the week. My husband raced me there like I was going to the ER. He was incredibly stressed and almost got into a couple accidents on the way. As I was sitting in the full waiting room I started having convulsions again. I started crying saying I didn’t want to do this anymore. They took me in to do an EEG right away. They also took 8 more vials of blood.

Although I didn’t get all the test results back yet, the nurse said she couldn’t find anything wrong with me. She basically told me in a polite way that it was all in my head. She didn’t think it was ALS or MS, she thought it was from stress. My husband was overjoyed exclaiming it was wonderful news. I was pissed. I felt like something was wrong with me. I felt like I didn’t have any answers. If it’s all in my head why would my body do this to me? I can handle a lot of stress. I felt embarrassment and hatred towards myself. I just wanted to crawl in a corner and die. My husband asked why I wasn’t happy with the news. Did I want to die? I told him spending the rest of my life with a serious illness is not how I wanted to die. I just couldn’t believe my body would betray me like this. How could I trust myself? I had to cancel my motorcycle class. I’m not even allowed to drive right now.

After the appointment, I started to feel better. I’m not going to die. I started to eat again. Every day I’ve been having some small tremors but nothing major. It was a very traumatic experience for my family and I. Through it we learned some important lessons. I really matter to my husband and two oldest kids. They will be there for me if I need them. It was a wake up call to find a way to de-stress. In some ways it was a positive experience.

I really hope nothing like this ever happens to me again. I just wanted to explain what happened and why I was gone.

Gratitude week 149

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments
  1. The first half of the week was unseasonably warm and sunny so we were able to get out and about walking on the area trails.
  2. We had a plumber come out again since one of our pumps was clicking almost non-stop. Turns out we had multiple leaking toilets and once those were serviced it fixed the problem. So, yeah, another home maintenance problem fixed.
  3. I’m also grateful we have a well and are not on a water line. Oh my gosh would that be expensive.
  4. Lunch with my friend Jen at a restaurant I’ve never tried before.
  5. My husband is going strong on his detox diet and is almost halfway done.
  6. We got a dumpster a couple days ago and not only is the future office painted but now the carpet is torn out. I did most of the work myself. Physical labor feels great and doing a home renovation project has always been on my bucket list.
  7. With the dumpster I’ve felt more motivated than ever to get rid of stuff and declutter.
  8. I’ve also been motivated to do a little redecorating. We bought our house furnished and I am satisfied with most of the decor. However, there are some things I really don’t like. The area rug under the dining room table is ugly, stained, and worn so I just ordered a new one I like.
  9. As strange as it sounds for someone my age, I feel like I am really starting to figure out who I am and what I want. I guess that’s the benefit of having adult children and a mostly empty nest. Most of my life I felt the need to be responsible for other people even people I shouldn’t have had that expectation for such as my mom and disabled brother. I’m done with that now.
  10. I’m grateful to have more time to volunteer. It has been a really enjoyable experience to help those in need. I volunteer through a program supported by area churches to give out diapers and kids clothing to families in need.