Friday Tidbits: It's the Little Things in Life

The first hyacinths - with the lavender bush coming to life...

It was quite the adventure that I had the other day.  Amazing what can happen when one's able to venture out of the house NOT via ambulance!   

It's been recovery period around here, as I'm sure readers are tired of hearing ad nauseaum, but this was almost incredible, even for a highly seasoned CFIDS/CFS/ME and fibro specialist like me.  (After 38 years of this junk, I think the word "specialist" can safely be applied to me! Joking!!!) I hadn't yet recovered from my hair appointment three weeks ago (and I barely made it to THAT if anyone chose to recall and I hope you don't want to: YOU need a life!) so yesterday started a bit ... shall we say, "strained'? 

You see, my driver's license expired back in October just as I was busy with that newly-developed hypothyroidism, and the pneumonia no one had spotted for months and then discovered only when doing a routine x-ray before taking me in for the emergency gallbladder surgery.  (Don't worry: they took a day off for the IV antibiotics to kick in before surgery: they're not barbarians, after all!)

Now why, one may ask, would someone who no longer drives, doesn't even go down to the kitchen for months on end, have need of a driver's license?   Answer: why, because it's almost un-American to NOT have a driver's license.  As if those of us who are chronically ill don't already feel like disenfranchised citizens things are just made worse by not having a driver's license.  Its as simple as that.  It serves as identification for just about everything done in person.  It's uses are mammoth.  Furthermore, by not having a valid license, it seems to be that you've simply given up all hope of every being well again.

So, Tuesday started out a bit tense (HAAAAHAAAAA she adds hysterically) - ohhh, only about a 15 on a scale of 1-10. (Potetic license).  And since today's Friday, I think I'll resort to bullet points.  Besides, I'm lucky enough to be sitting up at all.  Someone, please come over here and just shoot me!  Now!  Quickly!

• Mood: lousy.  Hubs, who normally has the patience of Job, just exuded the kind of attitude that made you KNOW things will go wrong, which rubbed off on me.  This, on the one day of all days, when I needed someone positive to be helping me, not someone ignoring the fact that I actually needed an ER instead of going to get the stupid license.  Part of me was seriously afraid they'd take a look at me and my banged-up self with black and blue marks on my forehead, hands, etc. and turn me away, just as Qantas at first refused to allow me to fly one leg of my journey to Oz because I looked THAT bad!  (Long story I'll spare you!)  PLUS, I hate being late - it makes me crazy to see lateness in anyone around me - and this was much more than "just late"!  
• Hubs and I have different visceral reactions to the DMV (for you non-American readers, that's the Department of Motor Vehicles) - like two totally different planets "different"!  Hubs started his driving "career" living in an area where one to two days were necessary in order to get through the lines, etc., and come out with any hope of a license.  Getting your licence new or renewed in NYC is a total nightmare.  Mine was a fun experience in Virginia where you ran into people you'd not seen in ages.  

A happy aside and since my mind's going, I'm not about to edit this and risk losing this funny memory!  As a neophyte, I asked my boss for a half of a personal day in order to get my New York driver's license. Understand, my boss despised allowing anyone using their personal days and would interrogate you about it, which was actually illegal.  Well, when I said that I needed to get my license, he said, "heck, take the whole day off.  In fact, if you can get it done in less than 2 days, I'll take you out to lunch." Understand, my boss was a man of his word and I got to choose. I chose the "Playboy Club."  The look on his face: priceless!  And how he hated taking a young woman about his daughter's age there and offered me ANY other place, but I do have that "stubbornness" about me.  And why was I so stubborn about this?  I wanted to see those Bunnies close and personal, especially since Gloria Steinem had famously infiltrated her way into a job there in order to write her infamous article on her experience.  I even used one of GS's essays as an example of a persuading argument when I taught writing.  

So: hubs: DMV bad.  Me: DMV (in Virginia) a friendly place PLUS in NYC I got a very interesting and great lunch out of it.  (And yes, the NYC DMV has to be experienced to be believed!)  OK ... back on track!

• Furthermore, there's just something about not having a driver's license that makes you feel as if you no longer belong to American life.  There's a completeness that's missing, almost as bad as not having a job to feed yourself or have a place to live.  And we Amercians ARE pretty helpless without our licenses.  Our public systems of travel, apart for a handful of cities, don't exist or may as well as not exist. So, though I don't drive, in an emergency, I CAN!
• Fun fact and good to know: in at least our state (and I think it's like this is most states).  there is a grace period after the license expires.  Luckily, in our state it's a 6-month grace period.  Note, you can't drive with an expired license, but you don't need to retake the tests.  I see this as an example of how the powers-that-be do realize that things beyond our means can take place.  And I absolutely could not afford to let my license lapse.  Starting the whole process again (the written test and then the driving test) wasn't going to happen any way in my lifetime.
• And as Murphy's Law commanded, I was barely able to stand up in order to get to the bathtub, do my makeup, etc.
• Hubs was "losing" it when it came to getting me out of the house and tensions were beyond high. He'd worked hard on getting all my documentation ready in these days of heightened security and needed to even order a new Social Security card for me.  It wasn't enough to remember your number as was the case (I think) in the old days.  They wanted the actual card.  I mean really, my library card (long lost) had more substance than a card little more than a thinnish piece of paper given to me many, many moons ago, somewhere around the time Noah applied for his boating license (probably at our "local" DMV, where applications for boating licenses swelled the number of people there.) 
• But luck finally came our way.  The license process went quickly, especially as a handicapped person (aren't they sweet to "upgrade" my status to "handicapped"? I wouldn't have argued "dead.") And most important to us females, the picture turned out to be the best ever.
• While reading my favorite blog, A Model Recommends, the night before going to get my renewal, I kept forgetting that the next day hubs and I were aiming to get that albatross renewed.  When I started doing my face that morning, my year and a half of following Ruth, the model, paid off.  The dreaded picture: it didn't look like the "escaped from a secure institution" because we were reminded to stay away from that, thank  you very much!  Furthermore, I exaggerated all my makeup for the photo.  Also, thanks to Ruth, I was able to narrow the appearance of my nose with contouring and highlights.  I'd even conquered the dreaded hooker lipstick look that haunts me.  Best of all, as my own worst critic, I think I actually looked younger in the new license than in the old one, taken ten and a half years ago!  GO skincare and makeup!  (Now I just need to work on some fast developing jowls!)  Crazy lady that I am, I was so relieved and thankful once I got home that I thanked Ruth on twitter AND on her site.  Fear not: she already knows I'm not batting a thousand.  And she is such a nice young lady (need we say gorgeous as well?) that she seems to care!  The Patience she must have!  (As I knock my head against keyboard realizing how CRAZY I DO sound!)
• It was incredible leaving the house because the weather was perfect blue skies with clean crisp air at 80 degrees with hyacinths and daffodils up already.  The tulip leaves making their way towards the sun enlivened me.  Of course, then that Up, Up, Up spirit of mine (totally fabricated and forced) had a price to be paid as soon as I walked back into the house, not even waiting for the usual one or two day later malaise, etc.  But some things, as I often say, are just so worth it.
• And finally, I met our new neighbors with their three children which inevitably brought the sights and sounds of 30 plus years ago when *I* was the new neighbor with the young husband and three babies.  Now our family is one of the oldest in our little neighborhood.  As I type away in what used to be my baby's bedroom, many memories come flooding back, triggered by the children's shouts in their backyard or out on the sidewalk with other neighborhood kids.  "Mrs. Neighbor" and I talked for a while, even sat on my front steps (front porch furniture not out yet) as I told her some of the history of our houses, just as the neighbor on the other side of my house had done so with me when we moved here over 30 years ago.  And sweetly, she put her phone number in my cell so that in case of emergency... Oh she has NO idea, poor woman! 

Who knew so much could be accomplished in one day?  I am in more pain than I could have imagined and feel as if every cell of my body is glued to the earth.  In fact, I feel as if I've moved to a HUGE planet where the gravitational pull flattens you.  But it'll eventually turn into a good memory, or so I most sincerely hope!

As always, hoping everyone's feeling their best, only better.  Ciao and paka! 


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Note: I made a mistake.  It's the passport which is renewed every 10 years.  Our driver's license is renewed every 5 years. I knew something was off with that sentence but thought it was the grammar.  Thanks to the reader who jiggled my memory.

Spring and the CFIDS "on/off" Phenomenon...

Our baby weeping cherry tree made it through the non-winter.

It's spring and that alone puts me into the best of moods.  My legs are killing me and I am thrilled about it!  Why?  Well, this past week I made myself run out (metaphorically speaking, of course - I actually practically crawled down the stairs) to take a few pictures with my iPod of the bulbs coming up.  Oh what freedom!!!  I've not been out of the house for weeks - months even, canceling doctors' appointments right and left - and then worried I'll be dropped by my doctors for being so "irresponsible and/or for wreaking havoc on their schedules.

It had to have been funny for any neighbors looking out and seeing me getting down on the ground for some close shots, in something looking suspiciously close to a nightgown.   Actually, it must have been interesting to see me at all. I am the "phantom neighbor," sort of like during my kids' high school years, by which time this horrid illness had become so severe that I became the "phantom mom."  There were rumors that I existed but no one was REALLY sure.

Anyway, the next day after my "photography" adventure, I happened to glance out the window (I should try to do that more often) and noticed that the trees were in bloom and hoped against hope I'd be able to "run out" again for ten minutes within the next day or so, before all the blossoms disappeared.  Three days later, I was ever so pleased with myself because I was able to do so and even stick to my strict limit of ten minutes and no more.

And wouldn't you know it, but just as I laid down on the ground, hubby dearest arrived home - in the middle of the day, for just long enough to cut the grass and run back to work. This NEVER happens!  I was, simply put, BUSTED!   Fortunately, my red face made hubby refrain from lecturing, though since then every once in a while he mutters "ten minutes, huh?" -  just loud enough for me to hear.

My family laughs that my life is either "off" or "on," with no in between and I'm beginning to see that they are right.   "On" means going on for hours, though it rarely happens anymore.   But there are at least two reasons for this "on/off" phenomenon.

First, it is really hard to change gears with this DD, CFIDS, CFS, ME and/or fibromyalgia with all its complications including migraines, SEVERE insomnia, nausea, eye vision problems, falling down, ulcers in the mouth which often make it impossible to even swallow water, speech impairment, memory loss that is more like amnesia than just bad memory, swollen lumpy nodes.  When you are finally well enough - angels singing Hallelujah! - to take a bath you then stay in way too long and pay for that for the next few weeks - if you're lucky.  When you're lucky enough to start to wash your face you start with soap, then a cleanser, then an exfoliant, then throw in a facial mask treatment for good measure and keep going because who knows when you'll be able to wash your face again?  You start a book and just can't put it down - because you can't change gears and because tomorrow you won't remember anything read the day before.  You play a mind game and force yourself to dust and declutter your nightstand and soon you're dusting everything in sight.  Your adrenaline has kicked in to assist the painkillers and if they happen to FINALLY work and vertigo doesn't start in, nausea, along with a dozen other possibilities, you become unstoppable.

Your cautious, "know-it-all" mind tells you to stop because IT knows perfectly well the price that will be paid, but your brain is damaged and can't turn off. If someone interrupts,something weird happens to your head, your blood sugar, your momentum and you are startled so badly that a migraine starts. The crazy list goes on and on, of examples and consequences.

Secondly, I've learned that pacing myself simply doesn't work - for me, that is.   Everyone is different.  It really doesn't matter if I spend five minutes doing something or five hours doing something - the end result is the same - and that is, that you'll always be in worse shape the next day or the third day after, for however long the fates have slated, I suppose.  That is why I so often go "all out" if I can manage to drag my body out of bed. And as long as I'm not standing still (because my BP plummets even lower and very quickly) but moving or sitting down on a stool I keep inching along - I become the Tasmanian devil.

I rarely disclose any of this because...drum roll, please...I am sick and tired of the "advice" I get from people who really have no clue, including doctors, about how I need to learn to pace myself, or I must make an effort to push myself,or I must learn how to NOT push myself, etc.  I rarely hear what I need to hear, what pretty much all of us need to hear: listen to your body and LEARN FROM YOUR BODY what's best for you.

So, getting back to my capturing pictures of my garden, I did the mature thing and took 10 minutes worth, washed off and got back into bed.

But now I'm too exhausted and in too much fibro pain, shaking, fighting off a migraine, with blues that are felt down to my very ankles from the awfulness I feel, unable to understand the simple concept of even how to wash my hands with Dove, much less wash my face. There are other symptoms which I'm not really registering, being so good about denial.  Pain killers are no help.  This is disheartening because washing my face at least once a day is one of my New Year's resolutions and I'm doing the best I've done in at least 15 years.  I'm ticked off that I didn't work out there until I dropped.   At least something would gotten accomplished - more than neighbors seeing the mystery woman ambulances appear for every once in a while. (LOL!??)

However, now my thighs are killing me too and I'm LOVING that!  This is the thing to have happened to me in ages:  the wonderful hurt a normal person gets after a period of slacking off and then doing a good work-out. It hurts but it's the "good" kind of hurt that I remember from 37 years ago, which so rarely happens anymore.  And who knows...I might even be able to add riding on my exercise bike for two minutes every few days soon.  I've still not given up my dream of going back to taking very elementary horseback riding lessons, though I fear I've jinxed myself by revealing that dream here. (And yes, of course I've knocked on wood and done the "Tphoo! Tphoo! Tphoo!" bit. I'm a supertitious Russian/Ukie by blood after all!)   But I am definitely going to TRY to keep up my attempt to record my garden's progression.   We all do so much better when pretty things surround us and we all feel much better when we see that we've actually achieved or accomplished something, be we sick OR healthy.  I know, clichés, but true and very well worth keeping in mind.

Happy Spring, everyone,
Upa (aka "Ира")