NEW ENTRY

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I am overwhelmed. If there was a day I am full of emotion, it’s today. Life has been too much and I am having a hard time taking it all in. Everything from health to finances has been difficult. I often wonder why it isn’t just one problem we have to deal with, but a mountain of them. Yesterday I went to the pain management doctor and he about came out of his chair when I told him my Rheumatologist was going to keep me on one medication and add another. He didn’t like the idea of me being on both simultaneously. It gave me a lot to ponder as I knew something wasn’t “right” with me.

This feeling is the same one I had before my last flare. Maybe the thought of another flare put me in a foul mood, I don’t know, but I do know the mood is lingering. I keep thinking I’m more tired than usual but that would not explain the lingering rain cloud over my head. I tried hard today to be positive, until this……

……. a flat tire…..

We just started a layaway for our kid’s Christmas and now I wonder if we will be able to pay it off at the rate we are going.

I made a phone call to the pharmacy on Tuesday. I asked how much I’d be paying out of pocket for my medications once my high deductible insurance turned over. We recently paid off our van, but between the increase in our mortgage payment due to tax increases and my medication, we will see no difference in our monthly budget. We will still be broke. I looked forward to a tax refund but that will be paying for our mountain of medical debt and spacers for my oldest son. We just can’t seem to get ahead. I know we aren’t alone. Many people struggle to get by from month to month, but I wish this was the only thing that kept me up at night.

Sometimes I lie awake listening for my son in the next room. I worry about him seizing more than I admit. He was approved to get an Embrace watch but they keep pushing the date back for it’s arrival. It’s supposed to alert us to a seizure by using an app on our phone. I will breathe a sigh of relief when it comes for many reasons, but nighttime seizures are a fear (for many with epilepsy). He is so poorly controlled right now that any help we can get monitoring his seizures will help us determine how to treat him and how he is responding to that treatment.

On top of his difficulties, my health has declined shapely this summer. I know I am sick, I can feel it in more ways than one. If I don’t take some of my meds, I feel like I have the flu. I am tired and depressed. I keep praying and working with my doctors to get me the right medication to help with all my symptoms. One thing is certain, RA will not steal my voice.

Writing is all I have right now. I don’t work, and I am grateful for that, but it is difficult to be a one income family with extensive medical bills. I hope I can make something out of our difficulty. That is what I am about, making something wonderful out of the worst of situations. I am going to keep trying and I am going to keep praying for the ability to write pieces that will help others feel like they have a common ally in this world. It’s this girl. I’m right there struggling with you. Maybe we will see something great together.

*d*

I have decided to pick up and write during highly emotional times for me and see what comes spilling out. I will update this post with those thoughts as they happen. I will do mimimal editing to protect whatever voice I use while writing. Understand, what comes out of me during a highly emotional moment may not always make sense but I want to share those moments. These are moments I believe we all have. My hope is to put into words some of the issues we all experience yet rarely escape our lips.

Entry 1: Written while thinking about how I was going to move past my diagnoses of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Fibromyalgia. I have been experiencing pain I had not expected. I am experiencing an RA flare and I went downhill very quickly. I can’t get around in the morning without assistance because of the severe pain I experience specifically during the morning hours. I am struggling to find purpose in the addition of this disease on top of already having a special needs child with his own complex diagnoses. ~

A diagnosis makes me think about death. I can’t help it. When the name of disease dropped from the physician’s lips, I immediately thought about the worst case scenario. I worried about every unfamiliarity, drug, and all the new phrases thrown my direction in a language I didn’t understand. I didn’t just cry, I wept. My tears came from such a deep place inside me that it almost felt as if a piece of my soul were escaping with them. Days were blurry. All I remember is the hurt I felt after knowing nothing will ever again be the same. There will be things that will no longer be able to be accomplished, words that will now remain unspoken, and dreams that will now have to be relinquished. I was in mourning, yet I was very much alive. Mourning my life while I was still living was a contradiction. I struggled with all things and I wanted to give up on finding myself again.

Then creeped in a small glimmer of light. It was hope. It was the knowledge that life is not over but still meant to be lived. I could not live my days as if it were already gone. If I kept choosing to mourn life, I had already given up on hope. So I chose hope. I chose faith. I chose to live. I chose to use those words that choked meaning out of my life to find a new purpose.

I see who I am. I see who I was. I had to change. I wanted to stop distracting my life with things that kept me from fulfilling this life. When life changes so dramatically, the span of a lifetime shrinks. There is no forever, there is only today. There is today to make a positive change in the lives around me. There is today to show others love. Death usually stirs up these same feelings in so many people but after waking away from the casket, much is forgotten. What changes are made are often temporary and life goes back to the same distractions taking away from a life rich with meaning.

Fear of death also ruins many things. Death hurts. It especially hurts when we have loved the deceased so much. To avoid that deep anguish, we pull away to protect ourselves from feeling that way again. But pushing away others to avoid future pain limits the joy that should be experienced now.

I have been depressed, have had panic attacks, and worried myself into distress over the unknown of diagnoses and of life. In essence, I robbed myself time to trust, the ability to have faith, and additional moments to love.

I essentially drew myself so close to the only dark spot in my life that it shrouded every last bit of light. I decided to hide in the only dark corner and hold onto my fear. I also hid there alone. I wanted to stay in my pity and cry about how unfair life had become while refusing help. It felt good to finally take a hand and say, “I can’t do it alone.”

Asking for help is a hard thing to do but it is a freeing moment. I didn’t have to stay alone in my dark. I could embrace those trying to pull me into the light. In the shadow of life is no place to be. When facing a challenge, go where the path can be seen, don’t walk in the dark. Choose to press against that darkness and love despite the hurt. Pull those hands close and love those who follow you anywhere. A lifetime of love is worth any eventual pain. Pain is better handled when leaning on love. No diagnosis or pain is worth giving up this life. It may make it harder. It may be lonely but run toward the light. Run toward love, don’t stop living because of one speck of darkness.

*d*
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