More trite tidbits

My head has been in a strange place, recently. 

I’ve decided i like the doc i work with.  It took a while to come to this conclusion because she is hard to read.  But after two years now i think i “get” her better than before and am satisfied.

She recently suggested i not come to OC weekly anymore.

Wow.  I don’t know exactly what was behind this suggestion, but it is powerful – and negative.  I understand why she might say it – the prep and coming down every week adds a lot of difficulty to my life.  However, i gain a lot thru it, too.  (I’ve had friends make this suggestion before and i’ve always rejected it out of hand.) 

It feels like giving up coming to OC is, well, giving up.  I’m a bit dismayed the doc suggested this for it feels like she’s saying she doesn't think she can help me.  Certainly, in the two years i’ve been working with her my functioning has decreased.  There is no where in bb that i can do the work i do in OC, so, essentially i would be giving up working.

Now, if it comes to this there will be compensations.

It might happen for reasons entirely unrelated to me.  Duane’s job has been, um, flakey, for a while now.  We are hanging on reasonably well and continue to enjoy our lifestyle with little change.  However, if the job ends and Duane ultimately ends up doing something else, life will become very different.  The only reason this works now is because we come down together.  I cannot drive myself, and i can’t stay in OC for five days at a time.

So, if i no longer came to OC, i would be looking at doing things differently in BB.  I might raise chickens.  We could get a dog.  I would be better able to come to OC on weekends for family events (maybe).  I would have to structure my life more for some functionality, because right now my life is pretty unstructured and i don’t feel like i accomplish much.  

But i’m still hoping for more functioning – i’m not ready to give up yet!  I had improved functioning on some supplements last year (but my energy went up – and crashed – like a rocket).  I need to titrate the supplements for a slow, steady increase.  I’ve also heard of a couple of different treatments to try.  I discussed them with Duane and he is willing for me to give them a try.  I also try to balance my talking of this – no one wants to hear of my woes over and over, and i certainly get tired of talking about it.  Yet it so impacts and impairs my life – it is hard to ignore. 

So much more has happened.  We’ve had a very early spring.

I had another s.ei.zure a couple of days before i had company arrive.  That was a disappointment.  OTOH, i didn’t injure myself too much this time, only bit thru my tongue.  It happened in the shower again, when i was stressed and had not had enough water.

My parents and both sisters were out for a short visit the second weekend in April.  It was a good visit, but difficult, too.  One of my sisters sees most attempts at discussion as confrontation, and the rest of us were walking on eggshells not to cause problems.  This trip was for the celebration of my parents’ 55^th wedding anniversary and none of us wanted to do anything that would injure our reason for being together. 

(My family - Duane, his parents, my parents, and my sisters.) 

Recovery from this visit underlined how much i’ve lost in functioning.  Even during the visit i was stuck in a recliner for a couple of afternoons; i could not do much at all.  My body just would not cooperate. 

A lot of other things have happened, or my brain has been focused on weird stuff, but that will wait for another time.

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Travel?

Duane and i had an interesting experience on Saturday. 

He'd gotten one of those things in the mail promising airline tickets and hotel stay (and food, too), if we sat thru a 90 minute presentation.  I don't usually go for these things, but we've never done one before.  So we went.

It actually was a really great opportunity for travel.  I told him his parents should have come instead of us.  They like to travel and do quite a lot of it.  They've taken an Alaskan cruise and gone to Italy and Ireland.  

But travel is really not in our future.  I have a difficult enough time with our 2 day trip to OC every week.  I've wondered what will happen when there is an important funeral back east - at this point i can't imagine going.  

Still, at the end of the presentation the gentleman (salesman) offered what was really quite a good deal.  I sent him away so i could talk to Duane about it.  I asked if he would like to travel, if i'm holding him back, if i should try harder.  He kind of laughed and said, "I'm actually stressing because we have to take this free trip in the next year."  I laughed and laughed at that, and then we laughed together.  No, i'm not holding Duane back.

Part of me would like to travel, but the fact is even before i became so limited i wasn't much of a traveling person.  Yes, i have wanted to go to England - but i wanted to LIVE there, not just visit.  I wouldn't mind going back to Portland, or Montana/Wyoming/Colorado, or visit New England during the Fall, or just bop around the South - i've lots of memories there i wouldn't mind revisiting.  But i really can't do that these days, and i am rather a homebody person.  The truth is, i wouldn't want to visit those places, i'd want to live there, and i can only live one place at a time!

The gentleman could see early on that he probably wasn't going to get anywhere with us and didn't put on a lot of pressure.  He did say he feels sorry for us.  He told us that he lives in a million dollar house in Irvine and drives a Lexus, but that traveling is what makes life worth living for him and we can't imagine what we are missing.  Although he then admitted that if we don't desire to travel then we really aren't missing anything.

The fact is, we feel sorry for him.  That he has all those things (and is stuck in Irvine) but lives to travel is sad to us.  There are a lot of people in the world who endure, hang on, survive until they can escape from their every-day life with a week or two of vacation.  We are quite happy with our every-day life and have no need to escape.  Really, why would i want to spend a weekend in Arrowhead or in Yosemite when i can have the beauty of the mountains here at home and the comfort, too?  I can see some benefit from travel, but i also see a lot of benefit from being happy at home.  

My family traveled a lot when i was a kid.  It wasn't bad, but i kind of feel like i've left bits and pieces of me all over the country, and i have a longing for many things that i can't have all at once, anyway.

I've very intense, poignant memories of many things from my past.  Some times i see or remember something that brings these memories back so clearly in my mind that i can almost cut myself with their sharpness. 

One such memory is of the dogwood and redbud looking just like this in the Spring in Tennessee and Kentucky.  I don't know why it makes me ache so, but it does.

Another is of waiting for the bus along one road that looked just like this when i was seven.  Those colors and the memory also makes me ache.  I could go on and on with such memories, and they are precious to me, but i could never relate them to another person in such a way that would impart 1/100th of their import, meaning, and how heartrending they are to me.  

So, the very good thing that came out of this was that Duane and i enjoyed a day trip together on Saturday, and had a good meal together at a nice place after the meeting.  And we found, again, how compatible we are in that neither of us is deeply longing for something but unable to do it because of my limitations.

Frankly, we probably should have taken the very last (cheapest and least time-involved) offer because it was transferable.  We could have given it to Duane's parents or mine, or one of our siblings.  If we were able to travel in the future then we could use it too.  (One week a year for life.)  But on the other hand, our bank account really can't handle a hit on it right now.

And, i don't ever, ever want to attend such a thing again.  Not even for the freebies offered.  I don't like sitting thru something like this knowing i've no intention of buying.  (Yes, many, many years ago i'd sat in some of these with hubby #1.  I didn't like them then.)  Duane and i had not done this before.  I'm not regretting it, but i definitely don't want to do it again.

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