This requires a separate entry all its own.
Dear friend John died yesterday. He'd had a long battle with cancer.
Duane & i were so honored to be able to meet them in person (online friends) & have a lovely visit with them last summer.
We so enjoyed meeting them. They are both very fun people & we were so pampered with their Southern hospitality.
Please keep dear friend Dawn in your prayers. The coming weeks are bound to be very difficult for her.
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Duane arrived yesterday & hung out with Sis #3 & friends until i came. We had a lovely dinner. He is off today to do the Coronado Bay Bridge Walk. Hopefully i'll have some lovely pics later. (Duane has the camera). The Coronado Bridge is so high that the shadow of it can be seen on the satellite picture on Google Maps.
Yesterday started out hard.
I'd been doing fine on Friday evening. But Saturday AM i was exhausted (non-restorative sleep is one of the ugliest things about CFIDS). I had a "mini-meltdown" as i couldn't see how i'd manage 2 more days. I also beat myself up for being a "drama queen" but in being honest to myself later, the "drama" was all within me. I went somewhere by myself, cried a bit, & came back.
I also requested to work with a specific Teaching Assistant for the first round (we are an odd number of folks, so that each time one student has to pair with a TA). I had been concerned that my extreme fatigue & energy deficit would effect another student. I asked this TA (with whom i'd briefly spoken of my issues previously) if she was good at guarding her own energy. She said that she was.
However, my concerns were overstated. As soon as i felt myself in "therapist" mode, God's healing energy filled me for the work. (Well, in the class they say "universal energy," but i know from whom it comes.) Also when the TA worked on me she did some energy work, & i was ok for the rest of the day. I also rested for a while at lunch.
I don't know why it is that i can utilize healing energy when i work, but i'm unable to draw upon that regularly to function. Will have to revisit that at a later time.
I do believe i was correct in assuming that i could handle this class because i've had it before.
There are a couple of changes to what i was taught 4 years ago, & i find that requires much more energy & focus from me. This has helped me refine what i learned before. While my technique was correct, my use of it was more mechanical & i was using too much pressure. It has also helped me to understand a bit better what we are doing & why. I've moved into a more intuitive use of this than what i had before.
This is set up so that if you sign up for the next class & make a deposit at the end of this class you receive a considerable discount. However, i don't know when (or even if) my energy will be better. I know at my present energy level i could not handle a class of this length & intensity if i was covering new material.
So, i'm soon off to start the next day. I woke with a migraine, so i'm hoping that it will soon relent with this work. :)
I'm excited to see the pics Duane gets.
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Two days done, two days to go.
I was pretty exhausted after lunch today, but then we did some work on each other (this is a "hands on" class) & i felt much better & managed the rest of the day.
Duane will be down tomorrow & we go to dinner with Sis #3, F, & some of their friends. Sis & i had dinner together last night, too.
Someone i know is here as well. She is in the CST II class (more advanced). I've traded with "C" a couple of times in the past. She seems excited to see me, but i'm afraid the feeling isn't mutual.
Our energy levels do not match at all, & when she worked on me, i found that she didn't listen to my needs.
Her energy simply makes me tired because there is no way for me to enlighten her to my exhaustion. She just doesn't "get it."
One thing i find when i am being worked on is that i need the therapist to work SLOW. That is the only way my body accepts the work. If it is not done that way, it just is not effective for me. I've been amazed at the number of people i've had massage from who work at a break-neck speed. What they are doing at that speed is sports massage, & that is not appropriate to most of the population!
I told C over & over as she worked on me that i needed her to slow down. She kept justifying her speed by saying, "But you need so much work! We have so much to get done, if i go slow we won't cover it all." But the fact is, i'd rather have 1/4 of me get work done that is effective than to have all of me "done" but with no effectiveness at all.
I'm horrible at telling people that things aren't working for me. We stopped trading because our schedules didn't match. I was relieved. Someone today, learning she was from OC, asked if she was a good therapist because they needed someone they could refer to. There just isn't a good answer to that. First, i don't think she is a good therapist because she works much too fast. But more important, i don't think she's a good therapist because she doesn't listen.
I hate saying that because i feel so critical.
And i've mixed feelings about the "doesn't listen" stuff.
About 3 years ago i had someone come to me for massage. She has Fibromyalgia. She wanted deep work done. I felt very strongly that we should not do deep work. I tried & i tried to talk her out of it. But she insisted that was what she wanted done.
I try to honor folks for knowing their bodies. I encourage people to listen to what their bodies are telling them. And, "the customer is always right." Every part of my therapist self was saying this is a bad idea, but i gave into her pressure & did as she asked.
I contacted her a couple of days later about a different issue, but asked how she was doing. Horribly, she replied. She felt better for an hour or two & then much, much worse. It wouldn't work for her, she said, & she wouldn't be returning.
I was incensed! I felt that in fairness she should at least return & allow me to do the work i felt we should have been done in the beginning. There are modalities that are very appropriate & effective for Fibromyalgia; deep work is not. I felt it was completely unfair that she would hold me accountable for something she insisted that i do!
So, if i had refused to do that work in the beginning, she probably would have walked out & refused to let me work on her. But, as i did the work she asked & she didn't have the result she desired, she wouldn't return. I couldn't win. Either way i lost a client.
It did teach me. I have a policy that i simply won't do deep work on a Fibromyalgia patient, especially not the first time out.
I do still want to listen to my clients & to honor their feelings & desires, but i will never again go against my strong gut feeling as a therapist. I might lose a client over it - & i would/will feel badly about that - but i won't compromise what i know to be right.
Anyway, those are the things that have come up for me emotionally this weekend. It isn't as big a deal as this makes it sound. I do just hope that i can come up with a polite but non-critical way to tell her that it just doesn't work for me. (Of course, part of me says that what my criticism is based on is from a year ago & maybe she has learned . . . but part of me says that such thinking falls into the "fool me twice" category.)
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Well, it is official. This is the week we switch from the "winter car" - Duane's Subaru - to the "summer car" - the Honda. Because of gas mileage. Although, Duane's Subaru has been getting an average of about 30 MPG, & currently the Honda just got 31.65 MPG. But that was almost all city driving. I'll have to check again in a couple of weeks to be sure it goes back to "normal" - about 38 MPG - when we're doing freeway driving again.
The conference center where i will be this weekend is an older place with a lot of quiet walkways between the buildings & a lot of water. Duane took these 4 years ago when i was there (he joined me the last day/night as he is going to do this time). Even at the time i thought the place was rather over-priced. I'm not staying there this time. There is a Motel 6 in walking distance (it is "Hotel Row" there with lots of hotels, but most are too far away to walk).
But, just to check, i called this place to check their price. They quoted me $150/day, if i want breakfast $160/day. Parking is $12/day, & if you want WiFi, it is an additional $10/day charge. I think this is outrageous. I remember the place, it is nice, but NOT high end & i see nothing to justify these high costs. (I found later that they should have only quoted me $110/day, but i still think this too high.)
The Motel 6 is $50 for Thur, $60 for Fri, &65 for Sat (they charge a bit extra for Duane to stay). Free parking & WiFi. Of course, the reviews of this place are very mixed. Some folks hated it so much they went elsewhere & others really liked it. And someone did have their car broken into. As the Honda doesn't have a trunk & everything in it is visible to anyone walking by, i'm not planning to leave any valuables in it & what i do leave i'm going to cover over so that it looks "junky." I don't want someone to break into our car thinking they'll get something great just to find my dirty laundry. I'm trying to take all things into account & plan for the weekend without stressing/worrying irresponsibly.
It is about 1-1/2 hour drive down tomorrow AM, but there is also traffic to plan around. I've driven in San Diego during rush hour & it is not fun. So i'm going to leave about 6 AM tomorrow. I'll probably arrive way early, but that's better than being rushed.
Duane read me "Jeep Stories" from online this AM & i read him "Cat Stories" from Jessica's blog, & we both laughed a lot.
Need to go. I'll be very busy the next few days.
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Well, we own a Jeep. :) Duane is so excited & i think it is hard for him that we'll be away all week. I think now that it is really his he wants to try it out.
At my strong recommendation, he did have a local garage "vet" it. They said that if it was a "reasonable price" (which it was) they'd recommend it. Much relief to me.
This is the week i'm going to be in San Diego from Thur thru Sun doing a re-cert class. I'm rather anxious about having the energy, etc. Plus there was so much to be done on leaving home for 6 days/5 nights instead of our usual 3/2. But i'll get to see my sis some & that's always a plus. :)
Guess i'm in the mood for some more old pics.
With some visiting cousins (& my sisters) when i was about 14.
Sis #3 when she was small, maybe about 4? I always thought her a very beautiful child.
Have i shown this before? I think i was 20 when this was taken. Right before i married the first time.
Color in these old pics isn't so good.
Hope y'll have a good week. :)
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A few of my dad thrown in, too. :)
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Thank you for the support in the last post.
Mother's Day grief for me is not & has never been about not receiving cards or gifts. Nor has it been not wanting others to celebrate it. I'm not offended by it. It is simply the deep ache of knowing that i will never be called "mama" & now the thought - i'll never be called "nana" either. It has always been a difficult day for me as well, as i find it very difficult to desire to honor my own mother. I've sat in too many services where the wonderful & selfless acts of our mothers is extolled, as well as "God choosing the perfect mother for you." Between the two - desire to be a mama but knowing i never will be & the feeling that i don't have one & never did, it is just a not fun day.
Pamela of another blog wrote a guest post here: A Non-Mother's Day. As always (she's guest posted here several times), what i find most distressing & telling is the many ugly comments which follow. (Tho, to be honest, these comments have many more replies from people who understand than those who don't. Some of her guest posts in the past have been filled with really ugly responses to her sadness.)
In case there is any misunderstanding, my sadness is not wanting to remove the honor from other women, or being offended that others have this honor, but simply that God will not "bless" us with children & the sadness that i will never have that joy. (Please, if you are visiting, don't tell me i could "just adopt." We have been down that road as far as we can & we are not able. There are reasons we can not; that is not an easy road.)
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Even as i was in shock about the Trooper, i knew that something would work out. It just is that our budget is rather tight right now & the thought of additional cost of repairs or replacing it - the idea that it wasn't good for much more than scrap - overwhelmed me. Frank fact is that my body doesn't handle stress at all right now, & it flattened me. All week long i've struggled with the aftermath of that stress.
Honestly, after the first thought of "We can't put more money into this vehicle than it is worth" i realized that it might be worth it to put in the repairs. We won't be able to replace the car for less than a couple of thousand. If that amount would keep the Trooper going for us for another 4 years or so, it would be worth it. But it would also be a gamble that something else bad didn't happen to it & need even MORE money thrown at it.
The timing has worked out well, ultimately. Duane has long wanted a Jeep. We've debated the pros & cons of this.
Duane decided to go see our neighbor who has a Jeep Wrangler. His granddaughter has been driving it for a couple of years, but is soon to go to college. Turns out that he had just put it up for sale a couple of days before. Now, personally, i don't think this is our best solution. But i think it is a "good enough" solution for now. The Jeep is a '95 & is an automatic transmission (i haven't any regard for automatics, whatsoever.) Its engine isn't all that strong. It is a 4 cylinder & doesn't go over 60 MPH, tho we won't use it for highway driving, so that's not an issue. But it wouldn't be able to tow much (because it hasn't room to haul stuff we eventually would want a trailer). And, of course, it will be cash out of pocket. (I'm kind of sad to see that money go to a vehicle when i'd much rather put it toward remodeling the upstairs bath.)
However, it will give us a vehicle that we can drive. It is 4WD, so we don't have to worry about that. And, in my mind, it will give us the chance to see if we really want a Jeep or if the idea is better than the reality. If we find that it is what we really want, eventually (in a few years) we can replace it with a more powerful, more useful vehicle.
What is funny, we've known for some time that a large portion of the vehicles up here are Jeeps. But for the past couple of days it has seemed that 50% of what we see on the road are Jeeps (this IS an exaggeration) & that half of those are Wranglers.
Dear friends Jessica & Jerry - (please go visit her new blog His Scribe, she's writing about their love story & about her cats; i love her stories) have a ritual about "snug bugs" instead of "slug bugs" (Jes, you need to write about this).
Duane said, "We've got to come up with a rhyme for Jeep to use when we see them."
Until we started reviewing such words. We came up with asleep, beep, bleep, cheep, cheap, creep, deep, eep (a form of "eek"), heap, keep, leap, peep, Philip, reap, seep, sheep, sleep, steep, VIP (as in "veep"), weep, none of which he liked. I was very tired & rather silly & kept saying "EEP! A JEEP!" & laughing myself silly (you had to be there, oh, no even that wasn't much help because Duane didn't find it funny at all). Duane was sorry he started this. I've now been banned on rhyming words with Jeep on threat of having to walk home. :(
Duane is also sorry he suggested the name "Philip" (pronounced in the French manner of "fileep") as he does NOT want that the name of his Jeep. (I think it is too late.) LMSS (laughing myself silly)
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The CFIDS Association recently published an article about handling fatigue/energy expenditure. The suggestion was to picture your energy like a bowl of polished rocks & that when you used the energy, it was transferred out of the bowl & no longer available. I think they had another suggestion, a possible visualization, as well.
Well, i've decided not to have it be theoretical. I took $6 in quarters & literally have transferred them away as i spend my time. I did it yesterday. Some things "cost" more than others. I probably won't keep doing this literally for too long, but for now it is a good daily reminder of how i spend my time & energy.
That said, Duane & i need to clean out/organize the garage today. That will probably use most of my $6!
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Oh, P.S. - Blogger won't keep me signed in & nothing i do has changed that. At some places i've had no trouble posting comments, but the blogs with multiple choices for sign in won't post my comments & they simply disappear into the ether. For those blogs i can only comment as "guest" or "anonymous" & if anonymous is not allowed, i can't post at all. Just letting you know. If i used to comment at your site & am not doing it now, this might be why. Or if i forget to sign the anonymous post, it might have been me. :p
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The Trooper hasn't been running well since we had it worked on 3 weeks ago. I took it back today; it was not good news. It was going to take $800 just to diagnose the problem (most likely meaning that it would need a new transmission). Then parts/labor??? We just spent $300 getting it legal to drive, now this. I freaked. I totally freaked. The car is worth maybe $1000.
Duane was off the hill & i left the Trooper at the repair place. Dear friend David saw me waiting for the bus (Duane's car was at the Sheriff's station, he'd gone with some other SAR folks to a funeral). He gave me a ride to pic up the car.
I then went & got some Mother's Day cards (5 - 3 mamas/2 grandmas). I've never had a hard time with that before, but i've now spent most of the rest of the day crying. It didn't help that when i finally said, "I've got to just get out of the house" & went to a restaurant to read & be at peace i had to listen to a conversation of a new father about his daughter who is 2 months old & what joy he finds in parenthood. Nor did it help that my niece announced on FB that she got to hear the baby's heartbeat today. (Although she said "babies"? Is she having twins?)
I don't handle stress very well these days. I am totally, completely drained of any energy.
I just wanted to pound my head against a wall. Why now? Why now? Why couldn't this have happened before we sunk $300 into that car 3 weeks ago? (I'm keeping the Simple Dollar principles firmly in my head: the $300 is sunk money; don't throw more money at the problem.)
Ultimately, we had them put more transmission fluid in the vehicle & i drove it home. Which made it clear to me that this car is about kaput. It strained on the hills - & believe me, the ones i had it on were minor.
We were hoping this car would last at least 2 more years, but were hoping more for 4. We really can't afford to replace it. Lord knows what we will do.
Yeah, i know, time will work it out. In a few weeks' or months' or years' time it won't make any difference. Why get all emotional over something that can't be fixed? Take a deep breath & keep on going.
Right.
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Duane took this from the top of the Pacific Crest Trail today. You can see how much snow the ski hills still have (tho it is melting off fast). The range behind our range has the highest peak in So Cal, Mt. San Gorgonio. We travel along the base of those mountains & then cross the Onyx Summit pass to come into Bear Valley.
This pic shows both ski hills, Summit most easily seen, Bear Mountain off on the left. Sugarloaf Mountain is not visible in this pic.
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I don't know what is going on with me.
Yesterday i walked into the edge of a (metal) doorway & scraped my arm. Happy to say that the moisturizer i use did a good job with it & today it is almost undetectable.
Today i drove to Long Beach; the drive was just awful. Lots of tailgating, people cutting me off, then coming to a complete standstill from 70 MPH. Heart attack city. I came within inches a couple of times of hitting someone or being hit.
The migraine was back full force today, too.
Then we stopped for food before going "up the mountain." I stepped off a curb & fell, scraping up my feet & knees. This is more than yesterday's mishap. I applied the moisturizer, but when i got home i applied myrrh oil too. Tonight i may utilize the Manuka honey, as well.
We stopped for gas. Duane needed something from the driver's side (i was riding passenger) & i whacked myself in the eye on the turn signal. It was then i decided to continue being a passenger (i usually do the mountain driving). Duane has let me know, too, that when i go to town tomorrow, i'm welcome to take the Trooper (which finally has current tags) rather than his new Subaru. !
I've got a lot on my mind, skipping here, there, & everywhere.
It is cold, now that we're home. When we crossed the pass from the valley south of us the temp dropped about 8 degrees, down to about 35 F. I don't think we had snow here at home, but we could see where it had fallen on Sugarloaf & the ridge. I'm ready for some warmer weather at home! It doesn't have to be as hot as OC, but lows in the upper 30s & consistent highs in the 60s would be welcome.
I've had this page - CFS & Fibromyalgia Rating Scale - open for some time now. I wanted to record it. Up until three years ago, i've fluxuated between the 60-70-80 rating. In the past three years, i would say that i've been consistently at 40, but in the past 3+ months i've been running between 20-30-40. Twenty isn't that common for me, but 40 is not consistent thru the week. To claim it is to be overly optimistic.
That site also has an interesting article called "Finding Your Energy Envelope" under the Library section. I think i would be most likely to "pay" out my energy in coins for a visual. I think the article presents it as a virtual/visual tool, but, in the beginning at least, i think i need it concrete enough to do it in actuality/reality.
Part of the reason, i think, i'm having a harder time today is that i had my lovely "high" of passion/love of life yesterday. I'm so happy that it came naturally for me (as opposed to the past when i would refuse to allow myself to love life unreservedly). But it does exact a high price from me in energy used, & also, i hesitate to say it, but in internal (or external ?) opposition. Part of it may just be that it has not been natural for me before & so to balance it i have a day a bit more like today when i'm struggling. (Yes, i'm feeling very lonely & longing for more human contact, to be encouraged, & feeling sorry for myself or something.) But it is possible - i'm not big on "spiritual warfare" or devil stuff - but i'm simply saying that it is possible that what i'm experiencing is an attack from "the enemy."
I don't know, i just know i'm struggling a bit more today with more than being clumsy.
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