My Chronic Life

This Saturday is a very important day for me and for my church. We are having our annual Single Mothers Appreciation Day where we pamper the mothers, provide childcare, lunch, chair massages and more. We also get to share the Gospel with them and their children. The women who attend love it. We have a lot of women return year after year.

The problem for me is that I am not feeling well. I’m getting really bad stomach cramps that I’ve had before which caused me to be sick for days. I needed an antibiotic and couldn’t eat much or move around.

My friend and I run this ministry. I can’t be sick! I’m praying that this is just a fluke and it will be over soon. I have a feeling that this may be have been caused by something that I did by accident this morning.

I take two pills before breakfast and dinner for my stomach. This morning I think I took those pills twice! I’m praying that this mistake will run it’s course and be over with very soon. I take so many medications and even though I keep them in pill sorters I often get mixed up about what I’ve taken or didn’t take.

If I tell my doctor I sure hope he won’t send me to drug rehab thinking I did this on purpose! But believe me these aren’t the kind of pills that anyone would take as a “recreational drug”.

I don’t want to be a doctor, nurse, medical tech or anyone who works in the medical field now. I was happy when I was able to work as Social Worker for a home health agency way back when, but things have changed a lot since then and we have our government and health insurance companies to thank for that.

You see when I was able to work outside my home, Medicare actually paid for medical care that allowed a doctor to stay in the examining room with you for a while. S/He would be able to ask you a lot of questions about your health condition. S/He would be able to help you prevent medical conditions from occurring. You could stay in the hospital when you had surgery, especially if you were elderly and frail and had no one to care for you at home. You could get home health care if you lived alone and couldn’t for any reason, do your own insulin injections. The agency could provide a home health aid for you to help you with your personal care if you needed assistance, a social worker if you were depressed or dealing with stress and/or a nurse to check on your wound care id you were diabetic, or if you needed IV treatment and were too sick to go out daily to get it from a clinic.

Now you’re lucky if you spend more than 10 minutes with your doctor. There’s more out-patient surgeries that used to be done in hospital. If you can’t bathe yourself, too bad, you can either try sponge baths, hire someone or not bathe. If you’re sick and need IV treatments you need to find transportation to the clinic that opens at 6AM for patients. So sorry if you’re weak from the infection.

It’s a sad state of how things are now. It must an awful feeling for many in the medical field who are really concerned about patient care to know that their hands are tied in so many things they want to do.

I’m blessed because I have doctors that care and go above and beyond and because of the type of health insurance I have. I see how difficult it is for others especially the elderly, people without insurance, people with multiple health problems and those who have Medicare or a Medicare HMO and for anyone who has Medicaid.

I pray that our next president will do something to make changes in health care in the US.

As I posted earlier I hope to add a little humor to this blog along with the medical information I usually write about. I hope that I at least get you to chuckle a bit or even smile. I’m not looking for big laughs here.

Here’s some of my survival tips for brain fog:

• Act like everyone else is forgetful and you’re the only one that knows anything.
• Add some dell memory to your diet
• Talk like you’re on heavy medication. Tell people that you’re on pain medication because you have this odd disorder no one’s heard of. But say it all jumbled up.
• Say, “What? I can’t hear you.” when someone asks you a question and you can’t remember the answer. You can blame it on water in the ears.
• Tell people that you just woke up and haven’t had any coffee yet.
• Bump into things and walk like you’re dizzy. Then say, “I’m dizzy.”
• Compliment people. That always makes them forget (hah, forget!) if you’ve said something wrong or can’t remember something important, like their names.
• Get away as fast as you can if you’re asked a question, you should remember the answer but you don’t. Say later on that you had a restroom emergency. No one in their right mind would ask you for details on that excuse.

Try to find humor in everything. Laughing is good for you. And it sure makes being sad or angry a lot less desirable.

There are many different types of hernias. The most common are in the abdomen. They can be unknown or can cause severe health issues. Some hernias are congenital, which means that they are present at birth. Some are caused by childbirth. Some are caused by diseases like the coughing that accompanies COPD.

Depending on the severity will go the treatment. If it does no harm, a hernia is left alone. If it causes pain and other complications, surgery may be necessary. It was common for hernias to be treated by the use of a truss or a corset but now that has been shown to be pretty much useless. If you ask someone who wears one, they may tell you different however!

If you feel an unusual pain, see of feel a lump or have trouble swallowing please visit your doctor.

I take one of my medicines for Myasthenia Gravis every three hours. What I do is break up the many pills I have to take so that I can take a few of them during my three hour time frame. It’s a lot easier that way because I’m not taking like ten pills right before bed then.

How do I remember to take my pills every three hours? sometimes often don’t. I may remember when I start to feel my eyelid drooping or wonder why I’m feeling weak. It’s not because I look at my watch though. That’s because I can’t see the hands on my watch. My lovely, wonderful Mickey Mouse watch!

And I really can’t set my cell phone alarm because it’s not like I know where I’ll be all the time when that alarm goes off. I’m thinking of looking at some new pocket watches. I bet I can find one with hands large enough that I can see. This may help me and add to my quite unusual fashion sense.

photo credit: Mykl Roventine

I’m not sure what’s been causing the latest issue I’m having with severe dry eyes. I’m going through one whole tube of artificial tears, sometimes even starting another one. I’m already on Restastis, taking Folic Acid and Fish Oil, but my eyes are are still bone dry. They actually hurt and feel like there’s sand in them.

This isn’t a new thing for me. I was doing alright for a while though and thought my Opthamologist had solved the dry eye issue as much as possible. I have tear duct plugs in each eyes so that the tears remain in my eyes instead of draining out. With the combination of medicines things were pretty good. But for about a week or a little longer it’s gotten worse though.

I know that I need to call for an appointment but I’ll do my home remedies while I’m working on my Single Mothers’ ministry scheduled for May 3rd. My doctor is one of those that you only dream about or see on TV. He treats each patient as an individual and spends at least 20 -30 minutes with you. That’s unheard of now a days.

Because of this, he’s booked solid. And when you get an appointment you have to wait for hours to see him. I just don’t have the time now. So I’m using the artificial tears (without preservatives), taking my medicine and supplements, resting my eyes often and putting warm compresses on them while I rest.

If this doesn’t clear up after May 3rd, I’ll be making an appointment. I forgot the latest things that’s going on. My eyesight is terrible. My cheater glasses are now a 2.75…horrors! This may be due to the increased dryness. But I’m not a doctor. I only play one at home.

photo credit: daksha

My family and friends have noticed that my stress level has been increased a great deal in the last few weeks. I have a big responsibility at my church coming up. It’s a Single Mother’s Appreciation Day. My friend and I share getting this ministry off the ground each year. It’s a lot of work to do and with the day approaching, it gets more stressful.

I had a migraine this week that lasted for two days. I know it was related to the stress I put on myself. Instead of accepting that things get a bit frazzled now, I began to worry. That same day that I felt like I was going to explode because I got a late start to my day and thought of all I didn’t do, I got the migraine. See how it works?

When I told Darlene, my friend about what happened we decided that we need to call each other when things are feeling like they’re piling up on us. We can talk about it, spend some time together relaxing with some iced tea on the patio furniture at another friend’s house and re-focus.

I’m still working on giving my worries and problems over to God as he is the one in control.

I’ve read about work at home jobs for people with disabilities. There are many possibilities out there like selling on eBay, blogging, being a virtual assistant, selling term insurance, telemarketing and much more.

I’ve posted about this before here so I hope you’ll take a look. I’m learning about more opportunities and know you will too.

Remember that keeping active when you’re sick or disabled can help lessen Depression, keep your mind off of your physical problems and help you to gain confidence in yourself.

I have an opportunity to take part in a treasure hunt. Staying healthy often means finding things to do that make you happy. Well I have a chance to do something new and exciting. PayU2Blog and jewelelegance.com are running a treasure hunt where the winning prize is a 14k God Anklet.

Some other things that make me happy are diamond pendants. If I could have a few of those I’d feel great! Just kidding…or am I?

Every once in a while I watch Celebrity Fit Club. This show really aggravates me because I just can’t imagine people losing that much weight in that short of time and doing these really difficult fitness routines but still having the energy to go out to bars, have parties, get drunk, stay up at night talking and acting like fools. But, that’s just my opinion.

I guess being on television, having an ex-Marine (oops I don’t think there are ex-Marines!) yell at you like you’re in boot camp, having to show your before and after body shots and weigh in may play a bit of a factor in their desire to lose weight.

I remember on one of the shows the old American Idol host, Brian Dunkleman saying at weigh in that he though he had gained weight because of muscle growth. I thought now this guy is smart! I can use that excuse the next time I go to the doctor and my weight is up instead of down.

Seriously, I’ve been told so many times about yoga that I’m going to give it a try. Since my foot and knee problems have now put an end to my walking, I have to do something to keep active. I have to try to lose some weight. And since there’s no Non-Celebrity Multiple Chronic Illness Fit Club, I’ll be doing it on my own, thank you very much!