How to find "Center" - Deal with "Disappointment" - and Feel Like You are "contributing" to Life, when AI illnesses try and take over...

Not overly thrilled this morning. My Pug woke us up about 4:00am sneezing! I bet she sneezed 25 times. I got her over to me, and pinched her nose really softly, covered her up and started rubbing her head and neck. She finally stopped sneezing for a bit, then began again. I decided to just wrap her up and put her out on the sofa, and I would stay out there with her. Then of course my other one Bubba, was crying, he wanted out there with us. So, I got him, and wrapped him up in the bends of my knees like he sleeps all the time, and FINALLY they both went back to sleep. I tried to, but then I thought it appeared to be getting light outside, so I went to get up. Then headache and nausea hit me all over again. So, I went and got the last little drink of "coke' (the original full Coke will most of the time help my headache and also settle my stomach some). I didn't have much left, so then I poured me a glass of green tea, and debated about getting back on the sofa. I had been on the run yesterday part of the day, and it was also my Orencia day. Not sure if some of that made me fatigued and not feeling well or what. Anyway, I went in the afternoon around 3:30 om and had my hair trimmed back up so it would style correctly. And she sprayed a bit of some kind of hair spray on it. I don't use much hairspray and the one I have I use mostly because I love the way it smells. But, whatever she used, really got to me. Even though she didn't put much on, right away I began to feel the headache and of course then the nausea coming. There are certain smells, even in really good perfumes and so forth, that just don't settle well with me. I guess due to having migraines all my life, and now that my stomach really acts up so much, the combination of the two just put me in a fluster last night. Then the dogs, didn't help.... having to tend to them... just like kids at times, I was up a couple of hours getting them settled back down. Now today I feel like I am paying for it. For some reason, and I am not really sure exactly why, I am just having a heck of a time "dealing" with life in general. Not feeling well makes it worse of course, but I am not really depressed, but I am just not really thrilled over anything at this moment. I think I got bummed a bit about the weather being so crappy and we didn't get to go to the Casino last Sunday, may be part of it. Plus I just feel as if everything I attempt to do, either takes me forever, or like a shower, sometimes by the time I take one, get out, dry my hair and get dressed, I feel worn out and it seemed to take 8 times longer than it used to. I think I was hoping for 2015 to be so much better than the past year. And for sure, it is nothing like 2014 at this moment. But, I believe I thought I would have MORE GOOD days, and less bad ones. I think I was wishing for the entire ordeal with the wreck to be over and done with. The thought of having to drag out this "lawsuit" crap another almost year, really is not settling well either. Even though it does not actually in many ways effect our "daily" lives, it does in others. I feel we are in a "holding pattern" not knowing what will happen if anything, wanting to get the mess over with and not have to even remotely think about dealing with a trial... that could drag things out even longer, and the longer that drags out, the less our lives feel any type of "normal" to me. Even though it has probably been more of the "economic state" of our nation that has effected Jim's clients, in many ways, I know we are losing a couple of clients more than likely due to some ways all of this effected how Jim tries to work. With all of his own pain, and dealing with his balance, he can't drive, and who knows when he might, if ever, along with all that faces us both, it just feels like we are totally unsettled every day that dawns. I REALLY wanted us to go to Vegas for our wedding anniversary. That will be in April on the 6th. It will also be 10 years of Dad's passing away on March 27th. Time flying by also really is getting to me. Each day that I don't feel well, means another day I don't get to live my life to the fullest I want to... (wow, I just have this eerie feeling of deja-vue) like I've written those exact lines before, in the exact place... wow that is a strange feeling for sure... each and every element of our lives have been ripped, torn, mangled, and we try every day to find some kind of "normal" again. Yet, there is not one thing normal about life for us really whatsoever. I am truly pissed at myself, because of all the things I've wanted to do in 2015 the number one was to finish writing my 3rd book. I find myself, either not having the time, getting interrupted with other stuff, then it takes me forever to get to where I left off, and when I finally do get to write, either I feel what I am saying is boring as hell, it's not how I want it to come out, or I am all over the place, rather than focused, or I am either too tired and fatigued, or I have a bad headache, or a flare going on... the list is endless. What makes that worse, it ALL of it sounds like an "excuse" for not getting the book written. But, when I look around at our home, all the things we need to finish, that we have not been able to, from painting the outside to finishing the floors in the bath and kitchen, to completely doing the laundry room walls, to remodeling the music room... a billion and one things we want to do, yet one or both of us physically are no longer able to do.

Just as we find ourselves in a rut, in the same old place we have tried NOT to be in, to break old habits, like for me, POSTING HERE, and just putting a link from here to Facebook. Not writing it all in Facebook. That is not how I want to do things, yet old habits just don't go away overnight. Plus "this" also is something I need to put in my book. It is how every aspect of daily life is totally surrounding, or surrounded by something to do with autoimmune illnesses. Either physically, mentally, emotionally, somehow, someway, I feel these diseases rule over my way of living. People can say, "just put that aside", do some Yoga, don't worry as much, blah, blah blah... you can bet that is all wonderful advice, but not easily followed when you have chronic illnesses and chronic pain. They are like a "plague"... they just don't "shoo" away like flies off of a pie. They mix you up in a blender, or roll you around like dice, then spill you out all over the floor and you are trying to pick up the pieces and put them back together again. Believe me, Humpty-Dumpty has an easier shot at it, than the majority of us with any type of autoimmune disorder.

I can go from feeling like a thousand bucks, to feeling like a penny in the middle of a busy road. Ran over time and time again. Worse? Not even knowing why? The illnesses, medications, new symptoms, your mind playing tricks on you? Maybe you are finally just going crazy, and insanity will be the "new black" (or possibly going to the "nuts house" in your little black dress!)

Often times I want to act as if certain things in life don't really upset me, or make me feel disappointed. Yet, inside I realize that is not true at all. I am totally disappointed with so many small things in life, that I would feel as if all I did was whine, mope, fuss, gripe and bitch if I was show to how I truly feel in regard to our daily living.

I find myself disgusted with our world in general. I am also very sure I am NOT THE ONLY one either! All over this nation, and our globe something horrible is happening. People are more disgusting everyday. When you turn on the nightly news, and 90% of it is "bad", how can you not be effected by those things? I know that as population grows, of course it seems that we have more bad than good in life. The needless shootings, looting, those taking advantage of our elderly, poor, and people that may lack the education... war, let's face it, whether (and I am to the point of being sick of hearing "boots on the ground") but if they are or not, we are still very much in a constant state of "war". Hell, we are at war all too often with our very own nation. Rather than work together for the common decency of everyone, the greed, the power hungry, non caring, lack of any morals, and horrid attitude many have for their own kind, humans, is purely disgusting. We wage war right here in our streets... What makes that even worse, is often times it is family members that take their own flesh and blood, then kill themselves. I have heard suicide defined as being a very "selfish act". I didn't understand that until over the past twenty years or so of my life. Or course it is a very selfish thing to do. If you have parent's, spouses, friends, brothers, sisters, and other family members that love you; then you decide not to deal with life anymore, and you "leave" this world in a manner of taking your own life, you have now cheated all of those that love you. No longer can they see you, talk to you, be around you... you have taken away something that was so precious to them, YOU! So, it is a very horrible way to do those that love you. I know with suicide victims, often times those people are not considering that they are being selfish, they just want to end what pain they are in.

Wanting to try and Give You an Update

Of course many of you already know about all that has taken place with myself and my husband, the accident, DC and the entire gamut of the past three weeks. What began as something so wonderful, was so abruptly ended in such a disaster.

I, nor honestly any of us really know what the hell happened out there coming into Dallas on I-45 a couple of weeks ago. There were three vehicles, 2 of which claim that "saw" it all". One man that says he "saw" from his own front porch what He thinks he saw, yet in the blink of an eye, it seems almost impossible for anyone to have just "happened" to have walked out at the exact time that something like this was taking place. It cab happen, and I understand that. But, the odds of something like that happening, and then between "hearing" and turning around to also "see", as I said odds are what you saw and/or heard were more than likely two different things.

I also know there was people that told myself and the gentleman that was at the time helping in in D.C. after all this took place, that my husband was NOT at fault. As a matter of fact, we both were told by the same "trauma" unit physician about the wreck itself, as much as they knew then, the injuries, how many and what "type" of vehicles were in involved. The details were very specific at that time, even down to all of the injuries they thought Jim had, and there was a long list. So, whomever this Doctor was (and I have his name) and also the name of the nurse who called the first time. As I said they repeated the list of injuries, the information about the accident and even went so far to say that it appeared an 18 wheel tractor-trailer that "ran into the back of our car.

Well, in the first place, lesson learned, get a lawyer immediately, if is it fairly bad accident and even if no one was injured, just get one. Secondly, do NOT wait the "10" days for a police/accident report to be "ready:". If you have to CALL three times a day every day until you have it in your hands. That bull about "10 days" was bull. My own insurance company and the others involved in the accident had much quicker than we were told it would be ready.

KEEP everything! Every note, every receipt.... parking, eating, anything... keep each & every receipt. At the time those things do not seem all that important, but that night I took a fall at the very hotel we stayed at, I kept all of my receipts from both. I did not know that I maybe needing medical attention or how badly I was injured etc. Actually I thought I just had a cut all the way through my lip and a scratch or two. Now, I am dealing with an infection and dry socket from a tooth that had to be pulled, along with now I have a chip in the tooth next to the other one, and my lower right hip/back is just giving me the blues as far as pain. Of course do I know that it is he fall? Well, speculation. But, I was not having issues with any of that until about 7 days later. Then it started acting up. Even an any kind of fall, or accident sometimes it is a week or more before all that is really wrong. So, never get up from a fall, or any type of thing such as that, and completely think oh "I'm okay"... you may think... but bruising on the inside, especially deep so nothing "feels bad, or looks bad", until it has had time to manifest itself in the right manner,

For the most part right now I wanted to let everyone know, that as lousy of a time this all is, right now we are just trying our best to put one foot in front of the other. When something such as this takes such a toll on your life... nothing I don't think every truly returns to what you thought was "normal again".
No matter whether an accident, or a chronic illness, anything that "moves" your life in such a dramatic way, forever more gives you a different vision...

I am still not near the place I am really comfortable to write about all of it. I am just trying as I said above, to keep my ducks in a row! I have several things "due" like my Mom's tax form, that I GOT to get done and in the mail by Tuesday, or file an extension...a which if I have to I will..

I also have some "brain fog" type mess happening to me... I think honestly what I need to do right now, is get off this computer, fix me some breakfast & watch a couple of movies for now. I am feeling lousy and my mind does NOT work, when I feel physically crappy... so I maybe back on today and I may not be. Also, don't panic if you happen not to see me post etc this weekend. I do have to finish those papers and get them in the mail, plus I have several other things hanging over my head I just need to get done and off my plate, When those things bothering me, I am never going to put my head back on straight. Plus whatever is going on with my lower back and hip are not helping things at all. I can barely sit HERE when I         KEEP TRYING TO FIND SOME WAY it does NOT hurt to sit. So, I am off for a bit today.... and I will sign back on and talk more once some of this stuff is off my shoulders,..

Mother Natures Wrath- Greatly Shadows our own pain

As the pictures came rolling in one by one this morning of the Nation of Haiti, and all that no longer exists for one of the poorest nations in the world, it puts our own pain and suffering into perspective, as that horrific disaster continues to wipe our hundred’s of thousands of innocent lives. Mother Nature spares no one... from the youngest of infants to the eldest of elders, body upon body, sheets, plastic, or whatever they can find to cover the dead over, while the ones that have been released from the mortuary to their loved ones... and are laid to rest by their own families having to dig the graves. Many thousands will not be claimed, since it is very probable entire families are wiped completely out, thus mass graves, one today of 7,000 people was dug and they brought corpse after corpse laying them to rest together forever, not one living to be able to tell of the horror that was in their hearts during those devastating minutes when the Earth literally shook so hard beneath their feet, it knocked down 4 and more story buildings, obliterated the Embassies, schools, hospitals, houses, stores, sending every stone to lie upon the ground like an atomic bomb had hit the entire 1 million plus people, and the Capitol of Haiti. These people already know daily struggles and suffering. Many of them already living in cardboard boxes, in small shacks on the mountain sides, now not a one standing. Often many of those millions living off of less than 2.00 a day for an entire family. Now, the most valuable thing there is no longer monetary, but life saving water and food.

There are visions of children injured wandering around as they pass those not so fortunate laying covered up around their feet. The injured sitting in the street, some not able to walk, no one to help them, for those that walk by, cannot even help themselves. I cannot begin to explain in the depths of my heart, just how fortunate I feel. Even though we suffer from Chronic Illnesses, Pain, and so many hardships, nothing compares to what those Haitian survivors are dealing with. Homes and all wiped away. Many of their loved ones dead, or buried beneath the massive piles of rubble. No shelter from aftershocks that range sometimes over 5 on the Richter Scale. No clean water, no food and n0 fuel to go and be able to get supplies. As many countries including our own US go hurriedly to help, it will be lifetimes for some of those before they will ever see what seems like home. It is a day of sorrow, it is a day of bravery, it is a day of sacrifice, of humbleness, of mourning for those that lost their lives, and even more grief for those surviving knowing all too well without medical assistance, water and food, they may die also.