I need a vacation, how about you?

Do you know that overwhelmed feeling you get when a job is just so huge, and you don't know where to start?  That's the way I've been feeling about blogging.  So much has happened that, when I think about writing, I just feel swamped, like there's no possible way I could get it all down… so I don't write and get even further behind.

 

I've decided not to even try to give a blow-by-blow account of the last couple of months.  Instead, here's a TV-style montage of the high(low)lights:

 

Feb 10: Mom had her other knee done (knee replacement) despite my disapproval and misgivings. You may remember that she had a "cardiac event" when she had the first knee done six months ago, so needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to another nail-biting surgery.  Not to mention, on the purely selfish side, I wasn't ready to do that level of care-giving again.  Thankfully, other than an episode of chest pain the day after surgery (that turned out to be nothing at all), everything has been going well with her recovery from surgery.

 

In other (crappy) news, though, she has been diagnosed with stage 3 kidney disease.  This is on a scale of 1 to 5, where level 5 is the full-out deal with dialysis.  This is on top of a degenerative spinal condition, bad knees, hypertension, and diabetes on a short and obese person who refuses to make any lifestyle or dietary changes to help her conditions.  I am pretty much resigned to the fact that her health is going to deteriorate much faster than it needs to, just because she's stubborn.

 

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Feb 25: Mom has a post-surgical check up.  Her knee is doing fine, and her coumadin dosing is good.  Of course, there has to be something wrong.  Her blood pressure was stupid low, like 90/60.  They checked it again about an hour later, and it had dropped to 75/50.  They gave her a chance to hydrate and eat to see if it would rise; if it didn't, they weren't going to let her leave the hospital.  Luckily, though, it turned out that her post-surgical lack of appetite and painkillers seemed to be the culprits, and her blood pressure improved.  It was quite scary though, at the time.

 

Feb 26: I was mugged at gunpoint at 7:20 am, as I was walking to my car to go to work.  I don't think I even have to describe how shook up I have been.  This is the second time I've been mugged at gunpoint, once at night a few years ago, and now in broad daylight.  Any remaining vestige of "innocence" has been shattered: there is no safety anytime; bad shit happens all the time, whether it's day or night.

 

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I don't have a specific date—because I honestly can't remember—but I realized that my cycles have never truly normalized since my miscarriage last January.  I'm sure my weight gain and PCOS aren't helping, but it's been frustrating to go back to having mega-cycles of 60+ days.

 

I have just about decided to stop trying to conceive.  My head and body are both not in great places, and TTC just isn't what I need to be focusing on right now.  I even let my membership to you-know-where expire a couple of months ago, for the first time since I joined a million years ago, if that tells you anything.  I had even put down the thermometer, until I realized that with my cycles all wonky, charting was the only hope I had of having an idea of when I might expect to start my uncontrollable bleeding again.  So I went back to half-hearted charting so I can at least semi-predict my periods.

 

I don't know; I'm all messed up.  There have been some isolated moments of happiness, but they have been few and far between.  Another reason I've been hesitant to blog is because if I'd been writing how I truly felt for the last year, my friends would have me on a suicide watch.  Not that I would, but the deep depression would be so obvious that people might THINK I would.

 

I don't know "me" anymore.  I don't feel comfortable with my friends anymore, or in social situations.  I feel like I don't know what to say, how to act, what to feel, even with my closest and dearest.  Imagine the social awkwardness of adolescence, but paired with the knowledge of an adult of how much life can suck you dry and spit out the husk, and it comes close to how I feel with people now.

 

I find myself just wanting to be alone and at home more and more, but I force myself to socialize with my friends.  And then I realize how sad it is, that I have to "force" myself to be with the people I love.  But I know that if I do, 90% of the time I enjoy myself, and it's worth it.  Have I mentioned how screwed in the head I am?  I know that it's a mix of trying to find "me" post-M, and the whole "there was a gun in my face and holy shit I could have died," and that it will pass, but right now I can't deny that I am fucked up.

 

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And that's enough.  We go forward from here.