"Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out." James Bryant Conant

I spent most of the day like that picture, pouring over some old charts and getting some practice with discharge summaries. Now, my neck is all out of whack and I have a screaming headache.

I should be in bed by now. Class starts early tomorrow, and I'm going to try to get some more practicum hours after that.

The last few days have been hard physically. The weather has been damp and unpleasant and my body just doesn't like that sort of thing anymore. I'm also kind of tapped out mentally. I've basically been doing a full 9 - 5 day - or longer - and honestly, I can't really handle that yet. I don't know if I ever will be able to do a regular work week. I start to drag around 1:30 if I start at 9. It's worse if I have to interact with other people. Conversation is one of the most taxing things for me.

I know, talking to people doesn't sound like it's that big a deal, right? Well, it's not. At least not for normal people, but I'm still trying to "pass" as normal, so it takes quite a bit out of me. I guess because the regular pace of conversation is sometimes faster than my brain can find words. I think that's probably the crux of it - the word-finding part. But it's not just the word-finding it's the finding and then speaking. Sometimes I have the word but I just can't get it out.

And then there's the pain portion. Think about how difficult it is to think straight when you have a headache. Now consider what it would be like to have that headache all the time. That's what it's like living with chronic pain. It's always there, even when it's not really bad, it's still on the radar, still consuming energy. It's rather like a trojan virus on a computer, just taking up space, hogging the hard drive so your computer can't think anymore. That's what chronic, even low level, pain does to the human brain.

So it's an effort to be present and communicate and interact and live a normal life. It's exhausting, and by the time I'm done at 4:30 or 5, I AM DONE. I don't want to talk to anyone else, not my husband, not my family, no one. I don't want to talk on the phone. I don't want to participate. All I want is to veg out and either read or watch a movie or make something. Although, even that is dependent on what else I did during the day. I have a limited tolerance for reading and writing activities now and limited ability to focus visually.

I'm still struggling with all this trying to understand how to balance everything and figure out what it means to be brain damaged or disabled or whatever I am now.

Giving Up

WTF? Someone helpfully removed some viruses from my computer and now several vital functions no longer work. Like copy and paste. I can copy but I can no longer paste.

Oy.

So, I give up. Suddenly everything is a fucking CHORE. Nothing works well or correctly. Things that took one step now take four. And even then success is only a slight possibility.

There's already enough crap going on in my life. I don't need things to be more difficult than they already are.

My car is making horrible noises.

My water heater just crapped out, leaking all over the floor and spewing hot water out of the emergency hose.

I think my practicum boss was annoyed that my husband came to bring me lunch. (He came from the warehouse and was dressed like one of our "clients".)

I have heartburn.

There are three pages of work waiting for me and I'm not doing it.

C. is working tomorrow (into Friday) so that's two fewer days he will have to get the house ready for this weekend. We're supposed to have guests on Sunday and he promised he would take care of the house.

My sleep has been awful. I can get to sleep but I can't stay there. The last several days have been rough. I'm definitely not getting enough sleep or at least not long enough stretches of sleep. C. says I'm waking up about every 15 to 20 minutes. Ugh.

I don't think any of this is ever going to get any better.

I will always feel overwhelmed. My house will always be trashed. I will never be able to find anything. I will never get a good job. I will always be in pain and not feel like myself. I will never get a good night's sleep.

(Sorry, it's a bit of a pity party again. I'm just feeling like things look pretty dismal tonight.) It's the rain. I blame the rain.

Duh. I Am Smart.

"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)

Last week I gave a presentation on Gifted Girls in my Lifespan Development class. My opener was asking the class to name some geniuses. They did exactly what I wanted and expected them to do and came up with several dead white males. I wrote them on the board as they called out the names and misspelled three out of five.

At that point I figured I should probably leave out the part about actually being a gifted girl.

I'm struggling at this point with being a smart person with a retarded brain. The work for my classes is piling up and I am, frankly, overwhelmed. Between regular school work and getting enough hours for my practicum and dealing with Gram and my own health crises, there isn't enough time or energy left over for anything else. Sometimes there isn't enough time or energy to even complete those things.

C. and my therapist both think I should speak to my profs about this issue. I'd rather eat a bug.

I've already been late with several assignments this semester. I HAVE talked to them, mostly about the Gram and health issues and they've been very understanding but I do not want to have to go to these people and tell them that now I need MORE help and more time and more exceptions because I'm retarded.

I know, the term "retarded" is not in fashion any longer. Well, I'm taking it back. At least in terms of learning disabilities and developmental delays. Really.... "retarded" is the best term in these cases. "Retarded" means "slowed". "Developmentally delayed" means the same thing as "retarded". Duh.

There really isn't an appropriate term for what I am. Brain damaged is, I guess, the best word for it. I do have brain damage, but that still isn't really descriptive or remotely illuminating, especially in my case where the damage may be, largely, invisible.

I'm ok in class. I can keep up and participate in discussions and I'm sure no one knows there is a problem. Until I have to write something on the board and they see how bad my spelling is. They don't see the typos and rewrites and hours of not being able to concentrate at home. They don't see how after I'm "on" in a class or at work I just collapse at home, barely able to form a sentence.

I don't know how to be both smart and brain damaged. For me, and I think for many people, those two things are mutually exclusive. You can't be both smart and retarded. It just doesn't work like that.

Except for situations like mine, when it does.

Happy Meat

"The true object of all human life is play." - G. K. Chesterton

Today's been difficult all around, and I was looking for something completely different to write about when I, inexplicably, found this.

Happy Face Lunchmeat!

I think smiling happy bologna might just make everything in my life OK again.

Sometimes you find exactly what you need, when you need it, ridiculous as that thing may seem to others. Really, humor goes a long way and I'm smiling right now. Just like that highly processed nitrate-filled mystery meat.

Yeah.

:)

Hell is Where The Heart Is

"I am my own heaven and hell!" J.C.F. von Schiller

I'm in the hell portion right now. Haven't written here for over a week due to time constraints, exhaustion, depression and flat out laziness. I swore I would do this every day. HA! What are promises for but to break, eh?

All hell is breaking loose everywhere I look. Gram's condition is worsening. Now we know she does not have congestive heart failure, but rather, liver failure, most likely autoimmune hepatitis. Which makes me wonder about my high ANA levels over the summer. No, it wasn't Lupus, but dang, could it be AIH? It's genetic, you know.

Doc appointment in November will involve questions to that effect.

Meanwhile, I'm late with everything. Ended up in the hospital with chest pains, and think I may fail out of grad school. Oh, yeah, and I still haven't filed my student loan. The screw up was a communication one, I'd called in August to see if I had to do anything, unsure as I was, whether loans were for calendar years or academic years. Since NO ONE is EVER in any of the offices at the school I left a message. No one called me back, I assumed everything was ok.

Never assume.

So I scramble. I fail to log practicum hours. I get no sleep. I minister to the sickly grandmother.

I get no sleep.

Did I mention I get no sleep.

I can't focus worth a damn, and really need about a week and a half with nothing stressful. Honestly, I think I'd be ok if I could manage that.

I also need to apply for unemployment again, and continue to gather my medical records for my stupid lawyer who has done LESS than my last stupid lawyer who I fired because he wasn't doing anything. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

This is why I didn't write here. Nothing but bitching. Nothing illuminating. Nothing helpful. Nothing uplifting. Just crap crap crap crap. But, sadly, that's what it feels like at the moment. An overwhelming pile of endlessly generating crap.

It I didn't have stress, I'd have nothing.

I had a brilliant quote about despair but since my husband "fixed" my computer and cleaned off all the viruses and trojans and evil things, well, nothing works.

Before it was slow, but at least it did what I wanted it to do. It's some sort of trade-off I supposed. Now when I can't do what I need to do, at least I do it faster.

I am tired.

God, how often have I written that here. The "flu" or whatever it was that knocked me on my ass on Monday really just sucked all my energy. I feel like I'm drugged all the time. Is someone slipping me a Benedryl without my knowledge? That's what it feels like. It's almost too much effort to get up and walk across the room to answer the phone.

I was supposed to go out with friends tonight. That went south. I was supposed to drive to my Uncle's house and stay there tonight so I'd get an early start for the art jurying tomorrow. Yeah, that's not happening either. I don't even WANT to do the jury thing now. I just don't care. I want to SLEEP.

I want to sleep for hours - days if necessary.

We were also going to drive to Cape May tomorrow night for dinner (we'd be in Philly; it's half-way there) but I don't know if that's going to fly either.

Sleep is what I need. Although I wouldn't mind several days by myself at the beach, keeping my own hours, getting some work done undisturbed.

Sadly, that will never happen now.

The Book of Job, er, um, The Book of Lor

"What am I? Job?" - Me

Ok, I know the grammar isn't correct. I don't care. I say it all the time anyway.

Let's just recap: Wed I ended up in the ER and was admitted to rule out a heart attack.

Thursday, I slept since I didn't sleep more than 45 minutes during my overnight stay in the hospital.

Friday, I had a stress test all morning and came home to find that my Gram had to be taken to the hospital to have fluid removed from around her lung.

Sat, was spent mostly recovering from all the nonsense.

Sun, I fell up the steps when racing to Grams room because she buzzed for assistance.

Monday, Therapy appointment and class (they were both OK, but I was stressed because I had a 10 page paper due and was NOT done - I got an extension, thank God.)

Tuesday, had an interview w/ the insurance adjuster regarding the August accident, then had a Doctor's appointment, on the drive I started shivering and couldn't stop. I offered to just go home so as not to contaminate the office if I had the flu. Got home and, again, couldn't stop shaking and shivering. Crenshaw bundled me up with about five blankets and I eventually fell asleep on the couch. Gram's aide was really worried and took my temp and wanted to send me to another Doc or the ER but I felt so crappy I didn't want to move.

I slept it off for a couple of hours, still have wicked body aches and headache and am just BONE TIRED and kind a shaky, but we did a nasal swab that came back negative for flu so I guess I just have something that resembles the flu but isn't.

Either that or I'm one of the 30% of people who test negative when they really have the flu.

Either way, I'm staying warm and hydrated and taking Ibuprofen and going to bed early. Naturally, I didn't get done anything that I needed to do today. I'm going to try to catch up for a couple hours right now because, thankfully, I am starting to feel a bit better.

Not sure who will drive me to class tomorrow. I might have to recruit the man for that detail.

Seriously, though, is the universe testing me or something?

"You're Fired!"

"Getting fired is nature's way of telling you that you had the wrong job in the first place." Hal Lancaster, in The Wall Street Journal

I've never really gotten fired before. That's not really the correct term. I was "replaced". It's like the Brits saying "made redundant".

The fact is I was supposed to start teaching an online class last Tuesday, couldn't get logged onto the ANGEL platform, support techs didn't return my phone calls requesting help and then everything went to hell in a handbasket with my in the hospital and my grandmother, etc.

Or course, no tech support is available over the weekend so I had to wait until this morning. I made several calls and left messages and several hours later the Director of Distance Learning called to tell me I was no longer "on" that course.

"Well," she said, "there was nothing loaded in that module."

Duh. Yeah. That's because I couldn't log in to load it. Nor could I access my email. On top of that, the ANGEL system wasn't recognizing ANY of my email addresses which would have allowed me to change my password and gain access.

It's a blessing. Really.

Ok, so there's the absolutely no money coming in issue, but really, I didn't have time to devote to teaching this class. I'll be lucky if I can get all my work done for the classes I'm' taking.

(I got an extension for the paper that was due today. Interestingly enough I didn't see anyone else handing anything in...nor did she mention that it was due. Did everyone else just send it to her via email? Hmmm...)

Tomorrow: meet with Insurance Adjuster regarding fender bender from August (I need to give a recorded statement. Oy.), chiro, then home again, home again, to bang out the two papers that are due on Wednesday.

Losing last week really hurt me in terms of getting all my homework done. I sound like a seventh grader - "homework".

It's bedtime. I've got a busy day tomorrow. Oh, yeah, and I also have to apply for unemployment. We'll see if they deny me this time. I'm sure they will but this one I will definitely appeal.

Impossible Tasks

"Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working." Anonymous


I don't know how I'm going to get everything done that needs to be done. This "new" course is killing me. I still can't get online to load the course I'm supposed to be teaching and none of the ANGEL techs have called me back to help me. They are going to fire me and I think, on one hand, it will be a blessing. I've essentially given up on teaching it.

There is so much work for this semester. All my classes demand several papers or projects and I have my practicum. All that along with my grandmother and trying to help out with her and my rocky marriage and my "old" health issues including the brain thing... and now I have a new one - high blood pressure and I just don't know how I can do all this.

That being said, I don't know what I can "give up". Oh, you have to cut back. Slow down. Calm down. Relax. Yeah, right. What do I give up? The schooling that will (hopefully) allow me to get a job I actually CAN do? My marriage? My family?

Clearly I am ready to give up my so called job teaching. In the grand scheme of things the whopping $2000 I would get for the course probably isn't worth the hassle, but then again, it's not like there's any other money coming in. So tomorrow I will dutifully call the techs AGAIN and try to log on. At this point I can't even log onto my school email to see if I'm fired or not. Ha! The bitch of it is, I called and logged in on Monday and then the next day - POOF! Gone again. It is insanely frustrating and just shouldn't be this difficult.

Clearly I have also given up on my health. I'm beating myself up. I eat crap. I don't get enough sleep. Essentially I have NO down time or hobbies or fun.

Fun? What is "fun"?

Actually that's not entirely true. I snapped like a twig yesterday and made my husband take me to the Bloomsburg Fair. I love fairs. Don't ask. It's geeky, I know, but I love the Americana aspect of it, and I'm addicted to Kettle Corn. We went. We had a really wonderful time. I tried not to think of any of the crap in my life and it was a much needed break.

Now I'm paying for it. Now I have a paper to write for tomorrow. I SHOULD be going in to my practicum site but I may end up staying home tomorrow and writing instead. I will never catch up. NEVER.

This is not healthy. My BP is still sky high. I mean that and I mean that it is high constantly not just when I walk up and down the stairs. I know I need to start walking again but I can't for the life of me figure out where I would squeeze that half hour into my already crammed schedule.

On a potential positive note, I am starting a diet tomorrow. Ugh. "Diet" what an ugly word. But I'm doing it, and I'm doing it, like I do everything else, hard core. There is an enormous box of Medifast sitting on my kitchen table and I am committed to doing it for the month of October. We'll see how I do. I hope to drop 10% of my body weight and that losing it will bring down my BP.

I know it's a cop out. I should be eating real food and not relying on shakes and bars and crap like that but in reality it's about the only thing I can manage at the moment. Shakes and bars I can eat in my car on my way to and from classes and practicum and doctor's appointments. The plan allows for one "Lean and Green" meal each day which is comprised of a serving of lean protein and three servings of green (or approved) vegetables. So there will be some real food in the mix.

The sad fact is that I feel like crap and everything is starting to slip. I'm getting more and more sloppy with school and work and, honestly, just about everything. I'm TIRED. Truly, profoundly tired, and I'm not sure how long I can keep all these balls in the air.

What I Learned Today

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." Vernon Sanders Law

There are things you learn, factual things, snippets, items of information, and then there are things you know with your whole being. The space between the two is vast. Today I had a fact cross over into a knowing.

I know my grandmother is going to die.

Until today this existed for me as a fact, but, this afternoon as I watched her lying in a hospital bed, looking so, so small, her legs and arms so frail they reminded me of the bones of sparrows, I knew she was mortal, and she is dying, and, while that will be difficult and sad and painful, it will be ok.

I wonder now if I am a bad person for writing that. That isn't a question, just a statement.

When I finished my stress test, I called my mom at work and was told by her coworker that she hadn't come in today, that she had, in fact, called in and, "said something about trying to get her mom admitted." When I'd left for the test, everything was business as usual, not so now.

She hadn't called me. When I called home, the line was busy. I drove right home, and, seeing her car still there, parked around the block to allow space for the ambulance.

A few hours later she was, once again, having fluid removed from around her right lung. They took out two litres, with more left to go. She stopped them at the 2L. She was crying a bit at one point and it was one of the hardest things I've had to see. I was with her, standing in front as she leaned on some pillows so they could stick a catheter in her back to release the fluid.

She's home now, and she ate a good dinner, and is asleep, and all is well again, for the moment. But I know she is going to die, probably sooner than later. It's inevitable.

I also learned that I am not taking care of myself, in a number of ways. I looked like crap today at the stress test, and as I looked at the other people sitting in the row of chairs, IV ports taped to their right arms, I though, "my God, I look like I live in a van down by the river." (I was wearing a KU t-shirt, a black hoodie, and grey yoga pants and sneakers, a combo that doesn't necessarily sound that bad, but it was, it WAS.)

I was also the youngest person sitting in that row of chairs.

I wouldn't let anyone I love treat themselves like I've been treating myself. I wouldn't let them eat what I eat. I wouldn't let them be as inactive as I am. I wouldn't let them feel as bad as I do. I would take care of them.

I need to take care of me too.

To ER Is Human

"Over the years your bodies become walking autobiographies, telling friends and strangers alike of the minor and major stresses of your lives." Mayilyn Ferguson

After days of recurring chest pain, shortness of breath, racing pulse, and high BP, I finally went to the ER. They ran a host of cardiac tests, gave me some Nitropaste, a shot of Morphine, and decided to keep me overnight for "observation", which apparently means warehousing me in an uncomfortable bed while half a dozen nurses talk, LOUDLY, right outside my room.

It is entirely impossible to sleep in hospital.

When I finally decided, at three fifteen, to stop trying to sleep and do some reading (I'd thought ahead and brought a book) five minutes after I cranked the bed to its upright position and turned on the light, the power went out.

Yeah. Blackout at the hospital. Emergency lights were on in the hallway.

Found out later that the hospital was having a new computer system installed so they cut non-essential power for two hours during the night shifts.

Can you believe they do not have 24 hour room service in hospitals? Really. Savages, all of them.

On the good side, my heart does not appear to be damaged. On the bad side, my doc is blaming the whole incident on "emotional stress and musculoskeletal pain".

So, my pain was caused by pain. Well, that clears it up nicely, don't you think?

As for the emotional stress, well, that's a shocker. Stress, I'm not stressed. (Insert hysterical laughter here)

At 6:30 I began fasting for tomorrow's stress test. Even though the doc told me there was nothing wrong with my heart, he still ordered a stress test. Hmmm. CYA? Or are we perhaps not so sure? If there's nothing wrong with my heart, why do I need a stress test?

One of the doctors in the ER launched into a speech about how I just had to let things go and relax. Ahem. He was Indian, and proceeded to tell me about the rampant poverty in his "part of the world." I nearly grabbed him by the tie and asked, "So what are you saying, that all the shit that's going on in my life is my fucking KARMA and I should just 'let it go' and accept it?" I should have told him I was moments away from violating my vow of ahimsa and bitch-slapping him.

Forgive me for being stressed and concerned about a nearly impossible schedule, no employment, looming foreclosure, my dying grandmother, my failing marriage, my laundry list of health problems.

Oy.

When I told him I had a brain injury, this same doctor said, "Really? How do you know?" I almost slapped him again.

I know that people who didn't know me before the accident usually can't tell that I have anything wrong with me. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. That doesn't mean I don't have problems. No doubt most of the people he sees in the ER can't spell their own names, however, I was incredibly annoyed by his question.

"Did you lose consciousness in the accident?" he asked. Duh. YEAH. And then I let loose with the list of issues resulting from the injury: aphasia, concentration difficulties, executive function problems, personality changes, vision changes, a Central Auditory Processing problem, oh, yeah, and, by the way, my IQ dropped two standard deviations. "Yeah, Doc," I wanted to say, "I know you know what that meas. Luckily I was smart to start with so I'm still probably as smart as you are now." Ugh.

See, that's my anger management problem - also one of the many MTBI symptoms. Well, that one might be a sign. You know the difference, right? Symptoms are self-reported, "signs" are observable by others. Thus, my anger could be considered both a sign and a symptom.

So I spent the night on the Cardiac Floor listening to the loud nurses talking about glitter tattoos and how one of them has ducks and her ducks are so fat this year because they're eating all the bugs, and there are so many bugs this year that the ducks aren't bothering to eat any of the duck food because they're just eating the bugs. This, loudly, at four in the morning, is not what you want to hear while trying to sleep in a profoundly uncomfortable bed, which is stuck in the upright position, so you're curled up like a lima bean in the valley of the bed trying to find a position that both blocks your ears and accommodates the cardiac monitor and the IV line and the O2 getup.

For tonight I think that's probably enough bitching from me. Bed is calling me. Tonight, I'm getting some sleep. 6 am is gonna come mighty early.