Monday, August 15, 2016

My Mental and Physical Health

I was thinking about stopping blogging but instead I think I'd like to switch the focus to being more about jewelry making and Etsy stuff and less personal life.  That being said this post will be about my personal life because I need to ... vent isn't really the right word, just process what I'm dealing with, I guess.

If you haven't been here from the beginning you might not know about me not being able to walk for nine months for no apparent reason when I was in college and then ultimately having to do a hardship withdrawal from school after having daily seizures.  This post tells about that.  Since that time I was diagnosed with celiac disease and stopped eating gluten.  I still get sick from time to time, most recently September through December of last year.  Even after being able to hold down food again my energy level never returned to normal.  I am exhausted constantly, sleeping a minimum of 12 hours a night and still waking up tired.  Because of this I had to quit my retail job and the last day I worked was in August last year before I got sick.  I applied for disability but I was denied because "there is a cure for celiac disease" (there's not) and I won't be unable to work for over a year (It's been a year this month.)  I was trying to find a place to move with Jordan closer to my parents because I am super tired of not having our own bathroom and kitchen.  We live in sort of a boarding house and there is one shared kitchen and five shared bathrooms for 30+ people.  The kitchen is on the first floor and our room is in the basement so I haven't had enough energy to go up there and cook since before I got sick in September.  Anyway we couldn't find a place in our budget in the small town and then I got glutened so we had to renew our lease here.  For the first three days since accidentally ingesting gluten I had my normal symptoms of not being able to keep food or water down, low fever, and a seizure.  The next day my stomach was actually feeling mostly better but by the end of the day I stopped being able to walk.  This is the first time I've been unable to walk again since 2011 and it is incredibly frustrating.  Jordan bought me crutches and a wheelchair on Amazon (Prime is a lifesaver) so I can get around our room and get to the bathroom by myself.  Our house is full of stairs.  To get out of our room and to the bathroom I have to go up two stairs.  I can use the crutches to skip the first step because the second step has a lip on it that trips me if I do both steps.  It is very frightening and dangerous and that's what I have to do every time I have to go the bathroom.  Even worse is that I can't leave the house, which is kind of ironic since when I could walk I left the house as little as possible.  I am going to have to get groceries very soon and eventually I'll have doctor appointments to go to and I don't know how to go outside right now.  There are between 6-8 concrete steps out the back door (never counted to be honest) and I don't have enough upper body strength to get up them with my crutches.  Jordan has been sick recently and can't carry me up that many stairs.  I also can't send him with a grocery list for me because Safeway stopped selling all of my main staple foods and I'm currently unable to cook, so I would have to go myself.  I would order groceries through Amazon but I have food stamps and very little money in savings, which I don't want to have to spend unless necessary.

This is all very stressful.  I have anxiety and depression and when I get glutened my anxiety and depression go into hyperdrive so I either sleep all day, have trouble falling asleep because my brain won't stop being anxious, or don't want to sleep at all despite being exhausted because the fever dreams have been horrible.  To make matters even worse I'm nearly out of Prozac and haven't managed to be awake during the day to call in the refill.  So I'm just trying to keep my mind occupied for the most part with Netflix, Youtube, or Etsy.

This post is more for myself than anything.  I kind of just needed to get my frustrations out.  So thanks for reading, if you did, and I hope that you are able to enjoy the outdoors and life's everyday wonders.  I'm still remaining mostly optimistic and have definitely kept my sense of humor.  I just hope I can walk again in less than nine months.

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