CRASH

I knew going into the season working Scarby that it would be a long road, and that I would need to be extra careful to get appropriate rest, since I was going to be on the go for 75 days in a row, with no days off.  As it turned out, my schedule at faire the last 2 weekends of the season (this past one, and the coming one) are "breaks only" schedules, because my boss's sister-in-law is helping her with breakdown and hauling everything back home on Monday or Tuesday. This is excellent, as it gives me closing weekend to play with my bestie, assuming that she makes it out, at least Saturday & Sunday, plus part of Monday, and it gives me a chance to go run amok with Angela as she's  planning to be out & kiddo free on Monday. 
Throughout the season I've been trying and adding to my yes/no list various scents.  I've found several wonderful new things, and a lot that I LOVE in the bottle, but they just aren't wonderful on me. I've tended to have one on my left wrist and one on my right.  One day a couple of weekends ago, I had on Sun and Thunderstorm, and my boss suggested I mix them together. I wasn't crazy about it, but it did give me the idea to find a water scent to mix with the Sun, and I started sniffing the scents until I found the right one, and Liquid Sunshine was born. It's sweeter and more floral than I've been wearing, but it's garnered compliments from all but one person, and she's not a fan of the floral scents to begin with. The first weekend, we sold 8 drams of it, so this past weekend I got to mix up a vial sized bottle of it for sale. I know that at least 4 drams sold, but beyond that I have no idea.
On Sunday morning when I woke up, I knew I was going to have to choose between lasting a whole day out there, or going to work Monday morning (yeah, like there's actually a choice there). When the boss told me that there wasn't enough business for them to need me, even for breaks, I packed up my cooler, and headed home. Yeah, it was bad, I was POOPED, and by the time I got home, I fell into bed for a short nap before I got up and did as much of my household chore for the week (cat cages) as I physically could.  I slept another 9 hours and managed to drag myself up and to work, only to discover that my computer is DEAD. Yeah, it was a rough couple of days, but today's severe weather has completely missed us, and it doesn't look like anymore is on its way, so we're all safe, dry, a comfortable temperature, and ready to face another day!

Looking Forward

Tomorrow I start my first FULL week of work in 4 months. It will be broken up by a couple of appointments, one set prior to even interviewing for the job, and the other the result of Friday's appointment with Texas Workforce. On Tuesday, I expect to lose 2-2.5 hours, hopefully not more than that, and since I'll only take a 30 minute lunch tomorrow, Weds & Friday, that will make up an hour and a half of it. Thursday I expect to lose another hour, which, after taking only a 30 minute lunch will work out to only losing about half an hour. I am also going to see if I can go in about ½ hour early every day after tomorrow, which should more than make up for my lost time.

This afternoon I took a dear friend shopping so she could get a few things for her upcoming trip to PA and a visit to her children & grandchildren. I have avoided the mall for so long that I'd forgotten what a nightmare it can be! Too many kids (and adults) with no respect for anyone, including themselves it seems. We had to use a regular dressing room because the handicapped stall was occupied. Once my friend was settled into a regular room, which, thankfully (and Kudos to JCPenney for providing them) was large enough to accommodate her power wheelchair and give her space to try on what she needed to try on, I saw 2 women, who appeared to be mother & daughter, and 2 kids, around 9 or so, come out of the handicapped stall and meet up with a man who was waiting outside the dressing room area. SERIOUSLY??? You are all 4 able-bodied. Only one of the adults was carrying anything that appeared to have been tried on, the other woman and the 2 kids were empty-handed. I would say JCP, you need to mark your larger, handicapped stalls as such, because clearly, based on the traffic I saw entering and leaving the stall over the 45 minutes or so I was waiting for my friend, there are some seriously either STUPID, INCONSIDERATE people out there. Since there was space in the regular stall for my friend in her chair, the 18x18 stool, and my fat ass, with enough room for me to move around and help her as needed, you dopes can certainly fit 2 slim women into one, since only one of you is trying anything on. Also, please note that there is a nice couch in the dressing room area, where your friend/mother/sister can park herself and your 2 children, so that someone who REALLY needs the space has access to it. I would also like to give Kudos to JCP for having plus sized mannequins in their Women's department as well. Granted they aren't as plus sized as I am, but they are definitely somewhere in the neighborhood of a 14 or 16, instead of a size 6 that has a size 14 outfit on and all tugged and pulled to give the appearance of "fit", which does not actually show the true fit on a plus-sized gal!

In other news, I think it's time for a haircut. It's longer now than it's been since about 1977 or 78. It's lovely, but it's starting to get on my nerves. I know that I want it long, but I have no idea what I want to do with it, and I do know that the longest layers are about 2 inches too long and keep getting caught in my shirts and under my arms. Perhaps over the holiday weekend I'll find an inexpensive place to have it cut… if I can find the cut I want. The last time it was cut was May of last year, so it's gotten quite long. I've also started having some almost hive or rashy discomfort on the back of the right side of my neck and my right shoulder. It's that sharpish stinging sensation sometimes caused by freshly cut coarse hairs. Typically for me it signals the possibility of a fibro flair, but I suspect that this time around it may be a reaction to the mousse I've been using when I scrunch it and let it be wavy, so I'm going back to straight with the shine serum and will see if that alleviates the problem.

Now off to bed with the kitties, 6 comes early these days

Fibromyalgia & The Spoon Theory

Several years ago, I read this, found it to be a great analogy for my Fibromyalgia, and then somehow lost the link and forgot to go back and find it again. http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/BYDLS-TheSpoonTheory.pdf
As much as I would like to print the entire text here, copyright restrictions prevent that. The author suffers from Lupus, which is also a disease whose patients often look perfectly healthy. She came up with this analogy when she was trying to explain her Lupus to a good friend, who did know the medical definition, but had trouble grasping the reality of living with such a disease.
Now, I've never bothered to count my spoons, but I learned long ago to listen very carefully to what my body is telling me, lest I use that last spoon before it is time to crawl into my bed for the night.
I'll start at what I believe is the beginning of my life with Fibromyalgia. In 1997, I had graduated from college with my shiny new Bachelor of Arts in History, and absolutely no job prospects within my field, as I'd already figured out that I am entirely too independent of a thinker to last in a classroom. I was working for a dairy transportation company, in their payroll/HR department. When my insurance kicked in, I made an appointment with a doctor that I knew and trusted, for a complete physical. I was tired all the time, had a constant headache, the back of my neck and between my shoulder blades hurt most of the time, my lower back felt like it was on fire by midafternoon, and my knees had been bothering me more than the usual arthritis that I'd had for several years. I was honest with him and told him that I was taking ibuprofen like candy (as Tylenol, aspirin, and naproxen don't do squat for me), just to keep the pain under control. I realize that I am truly one of the lucky ones. I had a doctor who not only acknowledged the disease, but recognized it without an endless stream of tests and failed attempts to treat other things. He looked at me and said "well, most of these seem unrelated, but when all found together, they are typically a relatively recently recognized disorder called Fibromyalgia" Initial treatment was either Amitrypteline or Nortrypteline, which I took in the evenings before bed, to help me sleep through the night, as his belief was that at least part of the problem was a lack of restful sleep. Those worked for awhile (one stopped working, so we went to the other). I also discovered a year or so later, that I am indeed VERY lucky, because there are a lot of people who are totally disabled by this disease. In the years since my diagnosis, I have been on a variety of therapies, which have included Ambien, Ambien CR, a couple of antidepressants I can't even remember the name of, something for Restless Leg Syndrome, and now I am on a generic form of Wellbutrin SR 150. The Wellbutrin is the only thing that has worked for me long term, and for now, I am able to combine it with OTC sleeping medications to get the rest I need. Ambien worked for less than 6 months, Ambien CR worked for less than a week (yeah, I fell right to sleep, then woke up in about 3 hours, exhausted, but with my brain racing so I couldn't sleep. The RLS drug also woke me up.
Fibro affects everybody differently, and there is no right or wrong therapy, it's a matter of what works best for the patient involved.
My biggest issues are:

1. Inability to sleep well and STAY asleep—my brain races ninety to nuthin for HOURS unless I have something mindless to settle it down. Currently OTC sleep meds, Claritin D (for my allergies), and a handheld solitaire game work pretty well. I also have a "sleepy" mix on my iPod of some of my favorite tunes and songs by musicians and friends, as well as just simply soothing songs & tunes
2. Brain fog – this is sometimes due to the lack of restful sleep, and I'm very aware that it is intensified if I don't get sufficient rest. I have to make more notes in order to remember things,
3. Getting sick more easily – As a child, I was rarely sick, and even after I was grown, until I started suffering from the Fibro, I was generally healthy. I do realize that poor sleep contributes to lowered immunity. I try to avoid people who are sick, and I use a combination of natural products to ward off the multiple respiratory infections that I used to get at least several times a year, and I've not had one turn from a congested nose into an infection in a year and a half
4. Getting fatigued more easily—Again it goes back to the sleeping disorder part of this, and this is a big part of the Spoon Theory. If I use up all of my spoons, I know I am going to be in trouble. I know just how far I can make my body go before it will turn on me and shut down for days.
5. Constant aches and pains – Fortunately, I have been managing the disease relatively well, which has greatly reduced the aches and pains I get, and my Fibro related pains have yet to be enough that I need prescription painkillers.
6. Gastro-intestinal issues – I have always been something of a picky eater, but in the last few years, I have also developed a bit of IBS or something. I've learned which restaurants I can have beef, and which ones I need to stick with chicken, a salad, or an appetizer if I want to finish my meal before I am hitting the ladies' room.

I have learned over the years what my biggest triggers to a flare up are:

1. Being overtired (DUH, right?). I try to get at least 6.5 hours of sleep as a minimum. Ideally, I like to get about 8-8.5. Unfortunately, in my current situation, that doesn't happen very often, because no matter how early I shut down my room, the rest of the house doesn't shut down until at least an hour later, sometimes more.
2. Stress. When I get stressed, my brain goes into hyperdrive and thinks weird, insane, or incredibly negative thoughts. It keeps me from concentrating on anything, and it causes me to go through spoons at an alarming rate. Sometimes it's extraordinary stress, like a death in the family. Other times it's what seems like normal, everyday stuff like traffic.

My management techniques:

1. Take my medication. It helps me to stay awake better during the day, so my brain will shut down and go to sleep at night. The side effect of it is that it's an anti-depressant, which does help keep my moods on an even keel
2. Downtime. For years I lived by myself, and now I live in a house with 3 other adults and a teenager. Sometimes there is just too much activity for me to deal with. It is never my intent to offend anyone, however I know that I NEED my downtime in order to function effectively and conserve spoons. There are evenings that I come home (after I've been gone for almost 13 hours), and just close myself up in my bedroom. My health MUST come before my tendency to try to be social and nice to everybody
3. Regular bedtime & bedtime routine, which lets my brain start shutting down before it's time to actually sleep.
4. Reduce stress, which I can sometimes do, other times I have to just deal with the stress. I've made some great strides in this area in the past couple of years. I've eliminated a couple of people from my world who do nothing but suck energy away from me and drag me down. I have been burned by various people in recent years, and to that end, have decided that it is all about ME. My health and wellbeing are my first priority. I am no longer putting myself second in order to put everybody else first. I realize that it sounds selfish, and for a long time that bothered me. Until I realized that by and large, that's what many other people in my world do, and it's really OK for me to do it too.

I have recently started a new job, which I'm pretty happy with. I like the people, I learn something new at least every week, and I no longer think "well damn, do I REALLY want to get up this morning". I earn a decent wage, and by and large, I don't feel a lot of stress or tension in the office. One of the best things about it is that I work 4 10 hour days, instead of 5 8's. I LOVE having a 3 day weekend every weekend, especially during Scarby season, because it does give me a day to get some stuff done, and get my bag packed for the weekend at faire. This week there are several things on my agenda, and I'm hoping that by getting to bed early tomorrow night, I will wind up with enough spoons to get the majority of it done on Friday.
At any rate, I just wanted to share a bit of information about what it's like to live in my body, with Fibromyalgia. I will get some links posted later, when I'm more awake and functional..By the way, I feared, earlier today that this was going to be a zero spoon day, but I managed to have a small one left by the time I crawled into my bed.
Thanks for reading ya'll

Busybusybusy

This has been a busy week, thus far, yet somehow I just don't feel like I've accomplished much to speak of, and that's annoying and frustrating. I've fallen into a vicious cycle of not sleeping properly at night, which leaves me very sleepy during the day, and then I fall asleep in the afternoon, which then keeps me from sleeping well that night and I'm stuck in that mess. Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that I don't do enough up and moving about throughout the day, and I'm working on that. I've also taken a couple of Candida overload kinds of tests which indicate that I am probably suffering from a proliferation of candida in my system, and likely have been for a VERY long time. The following is a list of issues associated with it:

• A bloated abdomen and/or abdominal pain
• **A slow and foggy mind
• A white coating on your tongue or inside your mouth
• Anal itching
• Chronic sinus problems
• **Constant fatigue
• **Feeling old and worn out
• Food cravings (especially for sugar) and **food sensitivities
• Hair loss
• **Headaches
• Heartburn, indigestion, and/or gas
• Herpes
• Intimate yeast infections and/or itchy skin rashes
• Mood swings, **memory or concentration difficulties
• Premenstrual symptoms
• Red, itching eyes
• **Sensitivity to molds, dampness, environmental pollution, cigarettes, and certain smells
• Skin fungus infections – recurrent ringworm, athlete's foot, tinea cruris (jock itch), or nail problems
• **Sore muscles and joints
• Urinary tract infections
• **Waking up tired
• Weight loss or gain
• Worried and depressed about always feeling lousy

Now, the **-ed items I've always attributed to my fibromyalgia, but I wonder now whether the fibro may be a symptom of the candida overload? I'm working on adding more raw foods into my diet, because I know I feel better when I have more of them, and I'm working on some research to see how to adapt my diet without totally depriving myself, which is always my downfall when I try to change my habits… I feel deprived, so I cheat, and then I give up. Giving up the Dr Pepper will be one of the hardest things for me. Candida feeds on sugar, so I have to get off the sodas, because I HATE diet sodas (unless they are properly spiked with Captain Morgan), and I am not sure that something in the formulation of them doesn't trigger (at least in me) a physiological (or psychosomatic) hunger or feeling of dissatisfaction and need to eat more to be sated. There are all sorts of Candida Cleanses out there, but virtually all of them involve becoming nearly vegan, and I loves me some MEAT! I have also read several articles that state that 70% of the diet should be raw food. I'm not sure I can convince myself to eat that much raw stuff…. I love salad, but eventually I get tired of chewing it! I'm going to aim for 50% by this time next week, and be more careful with what the other 50% is.

Other news in my world, the unemployment world is still sucky, and today it got a little worse, because I got notice that I owe the State of Texas all of the unemployment I've already collected, because they've reversed the decision to pay me, based on the phone hearing that was held a couple of weeks ago. I am NOT happy about this, because I feel that the company did not provide me with notice that there was an ongoing problem, and they misrepresented themselves in the hearing. I've appealed the decision to the Commission, but that's a written appeal, and they will review the previous hearing. I've not heard back yet whether or not they are going to listen to it or not. When you add up the wages I've lost and the money the state wants back, I am down 32% of my annual salary in just 10 weeks! My frustration mounts every day that passes and I don't hear back from the hundred (literally) or so contacts that I've made thus far. I did finally get a response from the interview I had in June, and another candidate was selected. I am not surprised, as the interviewer indicated to me that she was looking for someone with more contract analysis experience, whereas what I have is essentially review. I have also found that one that I applied for I am not being considered, and frankly, that doesn't come as a huge surprise, as it is a company with whom my former employer has done significant business, and I suspect that they picked up the phone and called someone over there who dislikes me. The lesson from that little bit is: focus on contractors that don't have long history with the former employer. There are a couple of others that show they are still in review, so maybe something will pan out there soon. I do have an appointment, FINALLY with a staffing agency over in Ft. Worth that did send me on a couple of interviews before I got the last job, but they were all 40+miles from where I lived in Arlington. Those same areas are closer to 15-20 from where I live now, so perhaps it will be a productive agency for me.

This weekend will begin the big EBAY selloff of stuff. I've got garb that I bought on impulse and shouldn't have because I won't wear it, I've got miscellaneous antique and old stuff, Christmas ornaments, a pretty good variety of stuff. I won't get rich, but hopefully I'll keep a roof over my head until I have something more steadily coming in.

Off to bed, another long day tomorrow starting with a trip to see a friend in the hospital.

QUACK QUACK

This is a bit of a rant about my temp roomie's new doctor. My comments are in purple For several weeks now, she's been having some pain and swelling in one of her small toes, and yesterday had an appointment with a doctor to see about that and to try to get a new script for the 3 allergy meds she's been unable to get since the script ran out several months ago. The doctor told her that: 1. the toe is probably a muscular/tendon thing that's relatively common in people who have worn poorly fitting shoes for any period of time (she did as a child), and the only cure is to have surgery, and take ibuprofen or tylenol for pain. I think a podiatrist is probably better able to accurately diagnose a foot/toe thing, I also think that telling her to not wear shoes if she can avoid it, but not offering any real relief from the problem is a crock of shit 2. her sinus problems/headaches (which respond to meds like Claritin-D and Advil Cold & sinus) are allergies, but rather migraines and gave her a prescription for Matax, which the pharmacy dispensed 4 instead of the 10 that the doctor prescribed, probably due to limitations on her plan, hell, my plan would only allow me 9 a month, and I'm not sure I could get them all at once. umm, yeah, responds to sinus medications, history of severe allergies that require not 1 but 3 medications to control, sound like a migraine to me! 3. she has all the symptoms of her hypoglycemia turning into diabetes, so in a couple of weeks, on a Saturday morning, she has a fasting bloodtest scheduled.I lived with a diabetic mother from the onset of her diabetes until her death, she is NOT exhibiting symptoms of high blood sugar. I told her that she has symptoms of depression, fibromyalgia, and possibly a sleep disorder, all of which I do or have lived with for about 10 years. Her response was "the doctor said yes, I have those, AND those are all signs of diabetes." WTF????? I think tonite I'm going to get her to let me check the trigger points for fibro and see what happens.