So on and so forth

 

I get these messages.

I get it. I really do. As I might have, in my past, being equally guilty of these kind of projectional questions to friends who were ill.

Following are the questions, followed by the real questions friends/acquaintances might be covering up.

"You must be better by now". i.e. for gawd's sake if you're not, stop malingering.

"Still your legs?" i.e. that's a hell of a long time to have your legs betraying you.

I've stopped explaining it's my entire body and its innards and I must have a world record for lack of sleep because, you know, disbelief reigns if I even mention it.

Because I've been so long on the medical treadmill and all the tests, some are giving up on me. I hear that. I don't dare ask for more that 1 item on my grocery list to be picked up. This week it was bread. I wanted to get two loaves but didn't dare ask as my friend who volunteers for me has massive handicaps of her own and is in constant pain.  I am feeling like my own nuisance that I wrote about.

I am so grateful to Daughter who comes in faithfully every couple of weeks - she's living way off, 2 hours away from here. That's 4 hours of driving plus picking up items for me, bank (cash) groceries, library, drug store at times and driving my car to make sure it's running. Other essential errands. And she has her own medical challenges (MS).

Grandgirl can hardly wait to get here in a few weeks so she can help me negotiate my life.

• There is so much wrong with me that for the first time I'll list everything here:
• Weekly lab work due to high potassium levels and monitoring of 50% under-performing kidneys. My doc calls me "the pin cushion." Funny not funny.
• Extreme pain due to arthritis in my back exacerbated by a bad fall about 6 years when I was concussed after a spine shattering fall on the ice. 
• Pulmonary vascular disease in my legs.
• Far too frequent high blood pressure bouts and breathlessness  due to elevated something (forget what). Creatin? Not sure.
• Occasional white light blindness when my chronic anaemia kicks in for a go at me and my iron plummets.
• Far too many hospital procedures, I've had it up to here with tests which basically show nothing can be done. 
• Blindness in my right eye brought on by one terrible procedure where because of my kidneys I couldn't get an anaesthetic. Ophthalmologist baffled.
• I can't lie down due to terrible pain. I have morphine but am reluctant to take it due to developing an immunity and also I don't want to feel half-corked.
• At night I try to lie on my bed with 3 pillows for a couple of hours but give in and go to recliner where in a pretzel-like position I attempt sleep, usually failing. This has been going on for three months.
• Due to unseasonable and awful record breaking heat here I had to suspend physiotherapy as it would have been dangerous. Old women are at mortal risk in this heat as their hormones have reduced sweating ability. And no, our province is not equipped for heat like this, thus no air-conditioning. Thanks once again climate change.
• Every expenditure of energy is an effort due to the afore mentioned challenges. The Spoon Theory holds fast for me.
• Doc has been ill and my meds  have been screwed up. This takes a huge stress toll on me, explaining it all to the pharmacist who is now God. When one is exhausted, stress is like the final straw. I am sure I whimper now and again.

So one long whingey whine here. I'm truly having a terrible day and this might cheer you up, thanking your stars that things looks a bit sunnier for you. Far too many of my blog friends stopped writing when they were ill. I understand that. I miss them. But I also miss the absence of how they were dealing with it. Or not.

And no, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," by Monty Python is terribly unhelpful unless you're a saint.