Pastel in a Brilliant Life

This has been the strangest time. Seriously. My creativity has been in the crapper. My hormones are raging out of control and so are my migraines. So I basically feel lousy all of the time. I remember reading years ago in my book on severe adrenal fatigue that all it takes is a major crisis to knock you right on your butt and completely drain your reserves. For someone who has no reserves, that really messes you up. It helps you discover problems you didn't know you had. Like you needed that, right?

Anyway, you probably noticed my lack of blogging, reading, and commenting. My focus is still lousy. I have considered posting one of those "I'm taking a break" blogs, but that feels like quitting and I don't want to do that just yet. Matter of fact, I almost had a Thursday post a couple of weeks ago. I had several things jotted down, but it just never came to fruition. This is what I mean about my inability to focus.

I have also started writing a book about my health experience, which includes my dad's adrenal breakdown when I was a kid, and might end up including other people's health issues if I was really involved in them. The book is all about how I fell through the floor (lost everything) and is written from the perspective of a regular person. Not a medical journal. Not a doctor. I am not out to sell anything, tell you one way is better than another, etc. This is just my story and my goal is to share it and possibly help someone else from falling through the floor. My secondary goal is to use it to launch my Forging Hope Project. Yeah, it all circles back to being an instrument to help other people. The mission is to assist other people in their journey from illness to wellness.

In other news, I got a military ID card. My stepdad is retired military and we jumped through those hoops to prove that my medical problems today date back to before I was 21 y/o. Yeah, that was fun. While I was in Ohio dealing with my dad while he was still alive I was also calling all of my former doctors digging up any and all paperwork from my childhood. Anyway, we found some. On this one application with symptoms it said in my own hand (I was 13): headaches, nausea, aching in bones and muscles. That was a bit of a shock to read. Anyway, we gave it all to my current doctor to read over. She then submitted a letter to state that she believed that the roots of my current problems began in youth. It was clear that it did. She did. So, after the military sent back the letter saying that it needed to be rewritten in their format (and it was), I was quickly approved.

This means that I cancelled my old insurance (which sucked). I am now on Tricare and am part of my parents' plan. My Rxs are cheap. Yay. I am on a copay system. I can actually get testing and stuff done. Anything done at the base hospital will be free (I think) or very inexpensive. In other words, I can actually get some forward momentum on getting some of my health issues solved. This is such a blessing.

I am now in the third phase of SSD approval. This is when I am most likely to get approved. For my area, we are looking at about 10 months before it comes before the judge. That is how slowly the system is working. Some places it is as long as three years. So, I will keep my tongue in my mouth and not complain. When you win, they backpay you in one lump sum. The irony will be if they take so long that I will be able to work by the time they get to my case. That, of course, will be thanks to the military insurance assistance. I will have financially broken my parents since 2006 and I will just be getting well by the time my case comes up. lol.

I am not sure what I think about that.

I have been watching MY NAME IS EARL on DVD. It is hilarious. It is about this bad dude who wins a scratch off lottery ticket and immediately gets hit by a car. In the hospital he sees Carson Daly on TV talking karma. He says that he thinks he has this good life because he believes if you do good things, good things come back to you. Well, that is when Earl make his list of every bad thing he has ever done. He is certain karma is out to get him. He has to fix things or karma is going to kill him. While he is doing the first good thing, he finds his winning scratch off. The rest of the show is him doing the things on his list. H-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s.

That cracks me up.

I try to laugh a little every day.

I guess that is all I have for now. Oh... I did get an IPod at long last. Love it. Still not real sure what I am doing. It has face chat on it. But I have no idea how to work it and don't know anyone else who has face chat. Now *that* is funny.

I hope that you have found something here to entertain, inform, or in some other way enlighten you. I do try to please.


image found at www.heartit.com

M is for Memories

*I read over my last blog and decided to tackle just one topic. All of you said to go and just spend quality time with my dad. Focus on the good stuff, i.e reminiscing over the good times. I was set because I had a plan. I got thrown for a loop when I saw my dad for the first time. He looked really sick. Grey. Thin. Frail. However, I bulked up my internal reserves and pushed through. I don't think I have shared this, but I have my father stuck in my brain at 45 years old. I know that it is unreasonable, so it is always a shock when I see him and he doesn't look 45. Since I am in my early 40s, this is particularly unrealistic, but I can't help it. Each time I see him, I go running to the mirror, because he is OLD, and that means that I am OLD, and it makes me look for signs of aging anywhere and everywhere. Eyes, eyebrows, frown lines, hair. Yeah, I am a girl. This time I got sucker punched and couldn't make the trip to the bathroom. I had to sit down. Anyway, I made it out to see dad every day but one. *It quickly became frustrating for both of us. The thing is that I don't think my father suffers from senile dementia. I don't think that that his memory issues are a result of the cancer. I think that adrenal episode that he went through back in 1978 did a lot of damage. He didn't get migraines. His symptoms are different than mine. But the whole thing is otherwise the same. Except for this: he was in a chronically stressful situation at work that finally brought him to his knees. It took him about a year to get over it by living in a non-stressful environment and taking a boatload of vitamins. I lived in a stressful situation for three years (clearly I have a harder head and didn't really understand what I was doing to my body and my recovery time) and five years later my adrenal gland is still barely hanging on. *Fast forward for my dad: that one year plus the year or so of chronic stress has wiped about forty years of his memories. How do I know this? Because all of this reminiscing that I was looking forward to in order to get me through this enormous heartbreak was denied me. Instead it became an exercise in frustration and irritation. I would say something like, "Dad, do you remember the time I learned to drive the stick shift car and I kept stalling it out in the driveway? It was hilarious. Even the neighbors came outside to watch the show." And he would say, "No. I don't remember that." And I would say, "You were the only one brave enough to come outside and get in the car with me. That was until I shook up your insides sufficiently that you couldn't stand it anymore. Remember now?" He now gets agitated. "No. Don't remember that. I drop it. So, I would pick up another one. And it was always the same. No. Don't remember. No. Don't remember. Finally, I asked him what he remembered. It was precious little. Not enough to converse about. *However, he seemed to remember a lot about his childhood. Well, that was a good thing because I had a bunch of old photo albums from his apartment that needed labeling. Well, that got old REAL fast. It didn't take long at all. He always recognized his father and brother and my Uncle Jerry. After a while, I got good at recognizing them, too. I was more interested in his grandfather, grandmother, uncles, and aunts. He didn't do so well there. And after about a day he was tired of that. Unfortunately there were three boxes of pictures. So, what I hoped would lead to lots of stories of his childhood was just another annoying project. He was frustrated because there were people he felt like he should know. And then there were people that when I found his dad's obit that he didn't know at all (like an uncle), he was super annoyed. Mostly it was really hard to know that my father forgot just about all of my childhood and young adulthood. *That being said, he remember just about every episode of the Dukes of Hazard. So, we watched TV. And then it occurred to me that was what we did most of my childhood. All of the vacations that I tried to get him to remember, the activities I was involved in, etc. Well, they just didn't take up the same amount of time as the time spent in front of the TV. My dad loves me. With his whole heart. I know that. And I love him. With my whole heart. But he will never really know me. And I will never really know him. He spent his whole life keeping the world at bay and he succeeded. *There is a lesson here. And I don't think we have to look too hard to find it. *If you are a friend of mine, keep telling me about our shared memories. *I don't want to forget you or what we have. This blog is becoming more and more important by the day. I don't want to forget my life. Even if I have to read it like I am reading about someone else. I figure the only plus side is that all of those people that make you have to scrape out your brain because they end up doing something mean in the present, and you can't quite shake them because you have ties to them. Well, you might forget them entirely. There is always a silver lining. I have been listening to the ACM Awards on and off. I did catch Sara Evans and her new song. I kinda think that it might be off of the Country Strong soundtrack. Don't quote me on that. I am going to look for a video. That song was pretty awesome and hits the spot for Inspirational Music Sunday. Maybe by next weekend, I will have the MTV part rolling, too.