5 Months and Counting

For those of you who have followed me for some time, you know that the biggest event in my life this last year has been the shingles, the complications, the hospitalization, and the battle with the drug that was supposed to be helping me get better. I have missed a couple of months of updates, so I thought I should get back to it. I use the date of my hospitalization as my update day because that was truly the moment my illness changed from something I could handle to being a family affair. No longer was I fighting alone. The steady stream of visitors to my hospital room made by illness all too real for me.

I am somewhat sad that there are even still updates to be given. I thought that this would be FAR behind me by now, but when I look at how sick I really was I have to keep reminding myself that I am doing FANTASTIC compared to the expectations and the projections for where I would be right now. Thinking of the positive gets tough sometimes, but for the most part I'm doing well.

There are some days I am lucky to get through the day, and I thank my wonderful husband for picking up the slack in those moments. I come home from work, literally sit on the couch, and I don't lift a finger for the rest of the night. He cares for the dinner preparation, the clean-up, and getting the girls ready for bed. I take care of resting so I can go to the job I love the next day. It sucks that I can't do it all, but really who can? I just have to think through my energy levels a little more than I used to. Exercise has been fairly non-existent, though I do try to hop on the exercise bike a few times a week. Sunday I rode five miles (27 minutes), and that felt nice. The trick was that I knew I didn't have to do anything the rest of the day, so I could expend all the energy I wanted.

I'm not quite sure why my energy levels are so low. I am convinced that there is more to my illness than simply shingles. We were looking at possible lupus in January because of strange symptoms, then this hits in March. Hmmmmm.... No, I don't think this is a coincidence. Unfortunately I don't have the money to doctor hop, so I won't be finding out for awhile.

I'm grouchy today. Very grouchy. I wanted to say that being able to teach makes everything else okay. It's not true. There are frustrations with the job that I didn't anticipate. I love the job; don't get me wrong. I think it's human nature to want the next big thing, though. So, even though "back then" I would have been happy just to teach, today I want to teach pain free. I want to be able to run. I'd settle for power walking today.

Daniel has been sneaking out to go running. I caught him today, though. I've suspected for a couple of days because he's not good at hiding things. I got home from work and he was still in his running clothes. I was excited to see him getting out there again. Let me rephrase that. I was THRILLED to see him back to the activity that he loves. He said he hasn't told me about running because he didn't want me to have hurt feelings. I appreciate that, but I really do enjoy hearing about his achievements.

So, there's not much to update. The truth is that this has turned into more of a rant, and I apologize for that. Hopefully next month there will be some improvement to report. The pain makes me grind my teeth still sometimes. My goal for the next 30 days is to figure out how to make the shooting, excruciating pain a little less often and severe.