Today is...

... a high pain, low spoon kind of day. It's one of the days where I don't want to even move. A day where moving takes more out of me than it's worth. My back is in pain, my left shoulder is in pain, my right hand is in pain... I had a list of things to do today. Things that are not going to get done. So what will get done today? I'm reading an e book I checked out from my local library via OverDrive , which I am reading on my phone, and making pizza for dinner. I got dressed (kind of) just because it is cold in Alaska when you aren't in a nice warm blanket but I'm not bothering to do my hair today. I'll have to use an extra spoon tomorrow to get the extra knots out but it saves me a spoon today that will be used to read (swipe on my phone) more pages of my e book. The pizza will be one home made crust for the adults and Bobali crusts for the kids to make their own pizzas (saving spoons right there while making the kids very happy; win/win).

[insert stressed vent and whinge here]
Helping D with his leg takes some of my spoons every day but there is no way around that. The fact that I've been trying to get a job for the last close to 5 weeks without success is weighing on me too.I filed after three weeks for unemployment... They are still deciding whether I am under a penalty for "voluntary quitting' a job. I had a student worker position and graduated from my degree program.As a non student I could not hold a student worker position so I do not see how this is not understandable, how it needs checked into, or how I can be penalized for leaving the position... I am basically being punished for obtaining my degree. My bills are behind and I am stressed out which is making everything worse because of this unemployment debacle. 

With issues like this I understand why so many people that are unemployed are depressed which is supposedly a reason to not hire someone. I worked my ass off to get my degrees. I got them with several honors designations. Yet I cannot find a job and I cannot get help to pay my bills until I do. I know that the VA will work with me and Wells Fargo if it comes down to a foreclosure issue but that doesn't make me feel better about it. What happens if I cannot pay my electric and our heat gets turned off? What happens if the gas gets turned off and we can't cook anymore? What about our phones... how would I get called in for interviews for a job? Our internet... how would I find and apply for jobs? It is worrying, it is stressful, and it is depressing. My pain level makes it more depressing. I go back and forth between wondering why I even try to do anything, why I even continue to exist and wondering if putting myself in more debt to do a graduate degree program would be a solution. It would get me pell grants and student loans, maybe a scholarship. So financially we would be doing better... but taking out all of the loans will bite me later. Since one of the jobs already said I was overqualified as a reason not to hire me, the higher degree could do more harm than good. If I did a JD program, I would have better chances but then I would need to take the LSAT with costs hundreds of dollars too... I just feel like right now I can't win and I'm running out of options.

I have considered starting a YouTube channel but I'd need to look decent when filming so a bra, doing my hair and maybe even makeup... That will take several spoons all on its own. I did have ideas though: planner use, college tips, social commentary, book review... I guess time will tell.

Thanks for reading. I hope I'll be feeling more positive soon. I don't want this blog to be all negativity. I just needed to get some of that out of my head-space, ya know?

Fitness and Accountability

So I've been doing this challenge with a friend:


When I did a challenge before, I lost interest but so far I've made it through the first 7 days and kept up with it. MVD posts every day and tags me in it and I reply when I've finished the day's challenge.

I don't let my bad days stop me either... On days that my joints were too poorly, I postpone and do that day's the next morning and the correct day's that evening. Yeah it doubles the amount I have to do but I space it apart and so far it has worked out.

Because of this accountability being there and making a difference with me keeping up with is, I made a Facebook community to keep accountability here as well. So far so good... I've posted a few times since. :) If you found this place from somewhere other than the FB community, you can find me there by the name Constant Spoon Borrower. It doesn't have the best search topics linked, I don't think, but the limit of topics they have or nothing frustrated me after a while.

A note on "people in your 'age group'..."

Just because people in my age group do or don't do whatever thing should not have baring on what medical professionals say to me or what they are willing to do for me. Because of past experiences, it takes a lot for me to go to a doctor. When I do, I am there to find out what the problem is and fix it. I am not there to be cool. I am not there to get drugs. I am not there to treat one symptom and ignore the rest because 'the medication for that will make the other problem not be a problem'.

Seriously. It took me years to get a simple pair of glasses for my astigmatism because the optometrist kept saying how people my age never wear their glasses so she only wanted to give me reading glasses. For people that don't know reading glasses aren't made the same as regular glasses. This means the didn't work nearly as well as they should. Also because of the type of work I do, I read a lot so the reading glasses were on my face most of the day... so why not have the correct Rx,am I right?

I talked about the experience I had with the audiologist last post...

This other incident may just be because it is the VA... or I may just have terrible luck with trying to find a decent doctor.After many visits to get tests done to try to figure out why I was having troubles breathing (though I did tell her every other symptom I was experiencing to try to get myself straightened out...) to include an asthma test even though I told her it wasn't asthma and didn't even produce the same type of breathing problem as asthma. I got an answer of ' we don't know what was causing that problem, none of the tests found the answer but in you x-ray to check for pneumonia, we discovered you have a fractured disc, a curve in your spine, and degenerative disc disease' and when I asked about the knee pain I had been having for years (I was willing at that point to believe the other joint pains were vitamin d deficiency and would improve) was told 'the pain medication for your spine will take the pain away from your knee too so we won't examine that'.

I didn't go to be filled with pills and avoid finding the cause of the problem. I went to find out what was wrong and, if possible, to fix it. Ah well. Apparently I am a clone of people 'my age' and can't think for myself and want to fix problems to improve my life... nope, I must be doing it to be cool.

But ya know, when I finally got a correct pair of glasses and could see I was so happy I almost cried.I just need to be strong and persistent. Forget stereotypes, be you and help you because for the most part, no one else is going to.

Feelings of loss

So I know I'm terrible at posting on a regular basis but I've been trying mostly to stay positive with this but sometimes you just have to get things out that aren't. And I just need to be real for a bit. One of those things for me that I fight with constantly is feelings of loss.

My hearing has gone down from when I was in high school. This could be because of the excess fluid build up my ears perpetually have (and have had for as long as I can remember), all of the severe ear infections I had when I was younger, shooting various weapons when I was in the military, RA, the quite infrequent raves/concerts I used to go to... I dunno, a combination there of.

Whatever the case, it is a fact of life for me. It is very frustrating to not be able to hear my kids talking because it's a pitch I can't hear anymore. That is really frustrating but it isn't something that feels like a loss in my life because I can communicate with them whether they talk louder or write stuff down.

What feels like a loss is that I love music. I love to sing, I always have... but... I can't read notes. I have always instead relied on learning the music by hearing it. As of my last hearing test (with a doctor I refuse to see again... more on that later) I was exactly on the line of bare minimal acceptable for 4 decibels in one ear and one in the other. I had been hyper-focusing to even get that much... It is hard to learn music and harder to hear if I am singing it right. It is infuriating and sad to me. I don't sing in front of people anymore, ever, because I don't even know if I sound like I can find a note to carry let alone if I can carry said note. At this point I am so self-conscious about it that I don't even do games like rock band anymore.

*

*

*

*

*

About that doctor... So this was probably 2 or 3 years ago now but it still feels as insulting as it did that very day. I went in to the place talked over the initial paperwork and did the screening. He had answered questions about how exactly hearing aids would work with glasses since with my astigmatism, my optometrist has as of yet not found a rx for contacts that wasn't still epic levels of blurry. We discussed my being a veteran and the poor quality of hearing protection the Army provides. It seemed to be going fine.

And then the time came for results. He went over them, said I was on the line not below it so I did not qualify for hearing aids, which is fine because I knew where I was at with my hearing abilities. It was immediately after that that it went down hill. I was basically told that I need to stop blasting music in my ears and causing my own hearing to diminish because hearing aids aren't something to get to be cool and only help my ears to hear rather than fixing the damage.

Can you imagine that? I had talked to him about my military background, my ear infections, and my excess liquid in my ears and rather than just saying my hearing isn't at a point that hearing aids would be helpful, I get told that I am damaging my ears on purpose to "look cool" by getting hearing aids.  was stunned. And the funny part is that the ear that had worse hearing is the one I never put earbuds in/ headphones on.

Because that office was the only one my insurance covered, I just didn't go back. I know I probably should go and see about a new evaluation but it's been a tarnished experience for me. I have considered another place since my insurance changed. The new place is an ear, nose, and throat place so they can actually evaluate the shape of the ear, check for swelling, blockage, etc rather than just the amount I can hear... I just don't want to go through that again. A younger more fragile me would have thought that maybe the guy was right and I was just making shit up but this me that lives with pain and hearing loss daily says that guy can shove his unprofessional opinion up his a$$.

Don't let people bully you. Even if they are "professionals".

Stolen Spoons and finally some spoons to spare

Sometimes I have worries. Worries that I can't even voice. Sometimes I can't voice them because other people will blow them off and other times I can't voice them because some people would use them as an excuse to harass rather than reassuring. I know this from experience.

Worries like this wear on me and steal my spoons. I know this happens but I haven't found a way to deal with it otherwise. As a lifetime bottler, I know that it isn't good for me or anyone else and have even said so to a dear friend recently.

This leaves me with the dilemma of being blown off, seen as someone blowing things out of proportion, seen as trying to get attention, etc.... Or, talking to someone that with take my worries to other people and just keep bringing it up over and over.

I can feel unimportant or like I opened Pandora's box on my family...

And so I keep it to myself. Then worry steals my spoons. I think it is the best option for me but it isn't a great one. I borrow enough spoons without the ones I borrow being stolen from me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That being said, I took time off of work and haven't done as much so I have more spoons lately... well for the next day and a half anyway.

That's all for this post guys. Have a great Thursday.

Someone I know said they don't understand why people don't talk about their health or mental health problems...

I had a short answer that I gave her but I have since thought about it more. Sometimes there are things I don't talk about. With anyone. Those things are not always health related but some things are.

My reasons are varied. Sometimes it's a sense of self-preservation. Sometimes I don't want to upset other people. Sometimes I don't want people to think I'm just after the attention it could bring. Sometimes I am uncomfortable with things about me, myself. Sometimes I don't want people to feel obligated to help me, pity me, helpless to do anything that helps me, etc.

Some things about me that I don't typically talk about and why are...

1.  I'm bisexual and polyamorous. For a long while I kept it to myself because I wasn't comfortable being who I was. I also kept it to myself because a lot of my family would react poorly. It wasn't that I thought they would, I knew they would. You see my grandfather was gay and I saw how my family reacted to that. It was funny to me when my grandfather's answer to how he could be gay and catholic involved 'love thy neighbor like thy self' but the fact that the argument of that and other arguments were a repeated scene in his time with us made me feel kind of pushed away. It was a feeling of either something is wrong with me or was seen as wrong. I fought who I was for many years before accepting who I am and simply keeping it primarily to myself.
2. In my history, I was a victim of abuse. There are many years of my youth I have blocked out. I remember enough to be content with the memories I do have. Self-preservation.
3. I was a self-injurer. This stemmed mostly from my past, a misguided method of coping with it and the resulting depression I was dealing with while I kept it all to myself. I have overheard people around me (including at my current work place) talking about how it is 'suicide light' and only attention seeking and they laugh. I never sought out attention. I tried to hide it as much as I could. I was using it to cope with what I was going through so I didn't go to the point of killing myself. As you can see, there are several reasons behind my silence on this issue.
4. My joints... they suck. I have a healed fractured disc, a curve in my spine that I didn't used to have, and degenerative disc disease that's been diagnosed. I have decreased range of motion in an ankle because I got 'several moderate to severe stress fractures' that the military took almost a year to figure out - at which point it had healed itself incorrectly. I have joint problems throughout my body at this point in my life. Between my symptoms and my family medical history, I have good cause to believe it is Rheumatoid Arthritis. (I know many people with a diagnosis take self-diagnosis with more than one grain of sand and tend to scoff at those who diagnose themselves but keep reading and you will see why I choose to not seek a medical diagnosis...) I looked into potential treatments to see if there was anything I could do without having to pay a specialist I couldn't afford and I looked at the medications currently available and their side effects. With my family history (lung,heart, cancer, etc problems are fairly prevalent) I could not find any medical treatment that was worth the risk of taking it... For me personally that is. I then found out that my grandmother's doctor said her cancer was brought on by her RA meds. That only cemented it further that they were not for me. I would rather be relatively healthy and in pain sometimes than dying but not in as much pain. For the most part Ibuprofen and Tiger Balm help, even when my lungs are inflamed. This I keep to myself mostly because there is no sense in whining about it. What good would that do? None. Also, I get tired of repeating myself to tell people 'what happened' when I wear a brace (or multiple). I don't want people to think they have to do things for me, I don't want them to feel helpless to help with the pain, etc. I try very hard to not show my discomfort or pain. If I am limping it's serious. 

I get that she thinks there needs to be more awareness on some issues and some health problems and for people to realize that it isn't made up and it does affect more than one person but I see both sides of being vocal and have chosen in the above and other areas of my life not to be. It is because that is what is right for me and my life and situation. I could go further into it, list more things I keep to myself, or go into my husband's health issues but I think my list displays enough as it is and my husband's story is his own to tell - even when it overlaps with my own.

It took me a few days to write this out but there it is.

It was a wash

Well, in a way. I wasn't 100 % but I thought I'd walk for a bit at lunch. Maybe go to the closer park and hang out watching the inlet. Seemed like a good plan. But then it was raining... and my umbrella was at home.

Planned to walk the dog we were pet sitting tonight. A long walk was in mind... then she got picked up a day early.

Ah well it gave me enough spoons to make hamburger buns from scratch tonight to go with the sloppy joe mix I had cooked in the crock pot.