attack of the voices

not feeling well.  two of three kids are sick, like fevers and wicked cough kind of sick. struggling today.  my voices informed me that Hubby is a better mom than I have ever been.  he cleans and keeps up with the housework that I have never ever been able to.  there is no searching through piles of laundry to find school clothes anymore.  the longest the dishes have been behind was one day and that was due to sickness.  somehow he can do everything that I couldn't when I was the one home all day.  that was the last and most devastating of a string of attacking thoughts.  and now I'm going to go cry to bed and hope tomorrow sounds less painful in my head.

balancing the f-bomb

FAT.  Yep, I said it, the f word. It has been a long time since I have really exercised.  I have long felt that my body deserves to be punished and usually when I exercise it is with the intention of punishing myself for something.  I listened to my doctor and to my husband and even to my body and reserved the exercise.  Unfortunately I haven't felt stable enough to trust myself to exercise alone so my exercise has been limited to using the eliptical occasionally while watching football with Hubby. 

I think I'm starting to come into a place where I want to work with my body.  I am starting to see a difference in my motivation to exercise, to be healthy not to punish myself.  This is a good thing and a nice shift.  I'm also a little afraid of the exercise program that Hubby and I are about to begin because though I genuinely desire health this time around, I'm also genuinely very discontent with my body.

Here are the steps I'm putting in place to help guard myself.  I am NOT weighing, measuring or taking before and after photos.  I'm only exercising with Hubby, no sneaking it in after he goes to bed.  That way I can stay accountable to him and he won't have to forbid me from exercise again because I was burning far more than I was consuming. 

I feel fat.  But more importantly, right now I don't feel healthy.  I feel like I have gone the other extreme of hurting myself by not fully taking care of myself.  Instead of hurting my body, I'm just ignoring it.  That's not healthy either.  There has to be a healthy balance, a balance that neither abuses my body nor neglects it.  And someday, I'm going to find that balance. 

sick list

1. I LOVE my doctor! It was so nice to see my own doctor. I haven't seen her since this whole sickness began.  I have seen another dr in the practice, talked to yet another dr after hours on call, and then saw yet another dr at urgent care over the weekend.

2. anti nausea medicine is the bomb!

3.  percocet is my best friend right now

4.  today is the first day since Thursday that I put on "real" clothes not yoga pants and Hubby's t-shirt

5. pleurisy SUCKS  (it's an inflammation of the lining inside the lungs)

6. I'm really looking forward to having a long enough attention span again to really blog

still alive!

I've been laid out this week with a wretched virus.  My temp has ranged between 101 and 104.5.  Today my fever finally broke.  My headache is gone.  The backache that rivaled labor pains is gone.  The coughing so hard that I nearly throw up is still there.  And new today to the mix is a wicked sore throat and swollen glands.  Fun times, not so much.  My darling Hubby drove me to the doctors yesterday when I was too sick and weak to take myself.  He really is a good man.  Anyway, the short story is that I'm still alive but also still very drained.  That's it, no words of wisdom, or inward struggles to relay or even stories about my kids. 

I've been sick.  It sucks.  I'm exhausted and heading to bed.  Sleep sweet blog land friends :)

it's like a really bad cold

Have you ever had a cold that you just can't shake.  Day after day the coughing, sniffling, headache keep coming.  There are days that the cold saps every ounce of energy you could possibly have and you lie in a heap on your couch with a box of tissue and try to will yourself up to do ANYTHING.  There are days you have a burst of energy and grocery shop, clean the kitchen and tackle the laundry.  At the end of the day you're exhausted and realize that maybe it was a bit much to try to handle with an impaired immune system but you DID it, you tackled your day.  Some days it just slows you down.  You still accomplish a bit but have to sit often to recoup or to cough up a lung. 

Sometimes you feel the cold coming on and you start getting extra rest and extra vitamin c in your system.  Sometimes those preventive measures help and you don't get knock down, drag out sick.  Sometimes it doesn't matter how much prevention you have done, you still get hit with the full force of the bug and it incapacitates you for any length of time. 

A couple of years ago I got swine flu.  Talk about a NASTY sickness.  It came on so suddenly.  I went from a scratchy throat to a raging fever and aching body in less than 12 hours.  The fever hit quickly.  I was in the waiting room at the hospital to hear how my dad-in-laws surgery had gone when I realized I felt like I was on fire and my head was feeling heavy.  Hubby confirmed that I needed to leave the hospital and not see dad because I was definitely running a fever.  No amount of prep could have stopped the sickness that raged in my body during that time.  After the fever and aches had gone, they left my body with a deep, consistent and painful cough.  The doctor told me it could take 12 weeks for the cough to leave.  Twelve weeks?  That is THREE MONTHS!  I was coughing for about 9 weeks.  I was weaker than normal and easily tired.  And do you know what?  Not one person told me to just get over it.

Depression is a lot like having a cold that just won't go away.  There are days that it kicks my butt and I lie on my couch willing myself to get up and do something but I can't.  There are days when I feel good.  I'm motivated and get a bunch done but go to bed so completely exhausted and wonder if maybe I overdid it.  There are days that it slows me down but I can push through it.  Unless you have dealt with the depths of depression, you will never fully understand how crippling it can be.  Yet I hear so often that someone struggling should just get over it.  If it were that easy, those of us who deal with depression would leap for joy and never be under its crushing weight again!

No one has ever told someone to just get over a cold.  No one says just get over diabetes, cystic fibrosis or cancer.  Why are unseen diseases different?  Why are depression and chronic fatigue diseases that that people should just get over?  The truth is that though the medication I'm on right now helps more than any of the others I've tried, it doesn't cure depression.  Thinking positive thoughts doesn't cure depression.  Wanting to be no longer depressed doesn't cure depression. And while there are things that help make it more bearable, and times that it isn't crushing my body and soul, I have never seen an actual cure for depression. 

This weekend my depression has manifest in sheer exhaustion.  Even thinking about doing something had me longing for a nap.  I don't feel sad.  It isn't an emotion right now, it is a physical sensation much equivalent to the exhaustion I experienced while my body recovered from swine flu.  My whole body feels heavy.  I just want to sleep for days upon end.  And believe me, I do want to "just get over it" but it doesn't work that way. 

my house is a cootie factory :(

My head and throat hurt really badly.  Blah.  I hate not feeling good.  And it is worse because my middle child is not feeling good either.  He is awake, throwing up.  Fast times at cootie high.

I understand the drill sergeant, task master that orange can be.  She's been beating me up pretty badly lately.  I couldn't stand up to her tonight at a Christmas party so she won and I had only coffee.  I was too scared to even eat the fresh strawberries.  Lame.

I had an interesting conversation with my mom today.  And when I say interesting, I really mean disturbing.  I need to process.  I am annoyed with her but even more so a little concerned at her ready acceptance of all things with out cross referencing her sources.  Pretty sure my head would have exploded if I hadn't had to cut the conversation short to go pick up my son from school.

And I got an update on my niece.  She is still at the hospital because she has refused to go home.  She said if she goes home, she will just run away because she will not live with her step mom.  So since she is a minor, they are keeping her, meeting with a social worker and trying to figure out what to do.  You know it is bad when you are halfway hoping that she will become a ward of the state so they will pay for her to go to the home for troubled girls (at least for a few more months until she turns 18). 

I'm very weary tonight. I'm feeling crappy.  I'm awake taking care of a sick kid though I'd love to be in bed myself right now.  I'm worried about my niece. I'm just weary.  I just want to sleep and sleep and sleep. 

the morning after

It is late afternoon and my throat still burns when I swallow, though not like it did this morning.  I had forgotten the morning after feelings.  The feelings of a sore and raw throat.  Knowing it burns because of my own actions not because I'm fighting a cold.  And mostly the overwhelming feelings of guilt.  Guilt that I listened to orange again.  Guilt that though I know what is truth, the words in my head are still orange.  Guilt that I know what I need to do but for some reason still act out compulsively at times.  Guilt that today I sat at MOPS and affirmed how important it is for moms to take care of themselves also all the while hearing the orange rant in my head insisting that I don't deserve to be taken care of. 

Will I ever get this?  Will the voices ever shut up?

orange rant

I am sorry for this, but I simply have to give in to a huge orange rant.  Sorry in advance for the bitching and moaning but if I don't get this out of my head and into the open, it will stay in my head and destroy me.

So I went to the doctor today for my physical.  Um, the scale read 1/2 lb less than last time but the new nurse rounds up instead of down so the chart says it is the same.  How in the heck have I had diarrhea for the last week (sorry for tmi) and barely eaten anything the past couple of days and the scale says the same freakin thing it did last time I went in???????  And why in the world would ANYONE round the numbers UP when weighing someone?????  My doctor didn't actually bring up food this time around.  She asked if I wanted to talk about anything else and like a good little liar, I told her no that I'm fine.  She brought up doing a bone density scan but I just had one last August that was ok so we didn't do it today.  I don't think insurance would pay for 2 in one year anyway.  

And then there was the stupid metabolic testing and fitness testing.  The guy typed in my height at an inch below what I actually am.  I mentally completely freaked out!!!!!!!!!  Seriously, that inch means a different way my body metabolizes, a different set of weight guidelines, and who knows what else.  For my body, that inch shorter at the same weight looks so much fatter in my mind.  I know, crazy, right?  That paper inch may not change how I look but it changes how I felt about myself.  I informed him, he remeasured me and corrected it.  Whew!  I did well at the squats, pushups and crunches.  That wasn't a big deal.  But then the waist to hip ratio? Oh yeah, I nearly cried.  Thankfully he wasn't dumb enough to tell me the numbers he measured.  But I had to have a measuring tape around my stomach, and it was a man measuring/touching me.  He wasn't weird or inappropriate, its just that a guy was touching me and measuring me.  I don't want to be measured.  I don't want to know that my body exists in numbers.  And I don't want a member of the opposite sex knowing those numbers.  Oh and my body fat percentage was not at all happy news to me.  Much higher than I like.   

I absolutely hate what I see in the mirror right now.  The closing my eyes in the shower trick hasn't kept working.  I am desperately trying to remember what it was I felt/knew last week when I discovered it.

now

I'd like to say that it is incredibly difficult to want to take care of yourself when for the past 2 months everything you eat, healthy or unhealty, no matter what time of day, makes you feel incredibly sick for at least an hour after eating.  My husband decided a pregnancy test was in order because of my extreme nausea, it was negative.  I am legitimately trying right now.  I am trusting God.  And I feel awful.  I'm tired of feeling sick to my stomach after every meal and snack.  I still eat when I am hungry, just saying it's been hard especially when I know I'm going to feel yucky afterwards.  Yes, I am eating.  Yes I still trust God is bigger than my battles.  No, I am not pregnant.  And, yes, I am going to see the doctor next week.  Hopefully this will pass quickly, it is making everything in life, including desiring to eat, much more difficult.