My Everest…

Today I am just puttering around the house doing my regular routine, cleaning up a bit and making dinner trying to be aware of how I am feeling and to be honest I am starting to feel a little bit tired.  But I am pretty much ready to have a rest and I turned around and see something I forgot to do.  In my mind you say it won’t take long to do! So you go ahead and do it and that little thing just seems to push you over that fine line of balance and you go from being ok to hopping just over to the shit I have done too much! Yes? Well just so you know it happens, and it happens a lot!  How do I deal with it?  I rest a lot, and hope that when I wake up in the morning that you haven’t flared up.  Or like I have also called it, checking to see if the pain train comes by.  You don’t want either but sometimes it’s unavoidable and you just need to ride it out until you are feeling better.  Tomorrow is another day where we can go on climbing up Everest and we can always ask for an assist if we need one.  No shame in that ever! 

I need to admit that during the 4 months from getting my HD ‘reveal’ to seeing the Dr I went into something funky to say it was depression I wouldn’t be sure but I felt the need to control something.  My feelings were out of whack and all over the place.  Seeing myself put into a tailspin and back on this directionless journey unknowingly I turned to a place of comfort, a place we all know quite well, Food! It’s always there and when you get upset or sad about something it was there to comfort me in the times I needed it the most.  Unfortunately for me it’s not just the salty snacks I lke the sweet ones too so double whammy.  Who’s to blame?  Duh! I am, chief baker and grocery shopper. Until a week before my dr’s appointment I met up with a friend and we were talking about her mom being ill, how I was doing, and it just popped out my mouth.  I just said something like well you know the snacks are tasting really good these days.  I was looking out for dairy because, dairy and me don’t tend to mix.  But could I have been in denial these past few weeks? Months?  I mean over the holidays people usually do gain weight but was it just creeping up on me and I didn’t even acknowledge it ? Yes I guess so!  Ok, no more wallowing in that bucket like my friend said “I have seen you pull yourself out of weight gains before”.  Uggh I hate this !!!  Here we go again!  

Anyone who has ever had an injury and has gone through the recovery process has been told by their doctor, chiro, or physio…..”Listen to your body”.   Like wow really does it talk to you?  What does it say?   Sometimes I regret asking because I really don’t want to know the answer!  It’s a very tricky thing for me because with my condition I didn’t know how far I could push it.   I learn more every day…(even years later) but a lot of the time my body just feels tired. There are days that I would love to sleep all day.  That’s not in my nature to do so I wake up and move and do stuff.  I learned to schedule my activities during the morning and early afternoon, because afterwards I get tired and I need to rest, so evenings are usually not anything too exciting.   However, if there are things to do in the evening then you plan for that.  If you don’t then, you are pushing into that envelope of the bear and flare situation.  We know that is not a fun time.  I am still learning to live with it however, there were times when my body tricked me into thinking I was going to have a heart attack.   I had symptoms of severe chest pains and everyone knows you don’t play with that!  Went to the hospital, was monitored and sent home with meds and was referred to a cardiac specialist.  Thank you body!  Now I know that my heart is in good shape and probably won’t be having a cardiac event anytime soon. Things like that and other odd things have sent me to urgent care but now the dr’s know about the Central Sensitization diagnosis and I feel that they don’t take my body seriously.  So now we see the problem here: The drs say “listen to your body” , you listen and it sends you to the hospital because you are in pain.  Logical yes?   Then the dr at the hospital look at you as if you are full of shit and faking something and you are just looking for meds.  So I am Damned if I Do and Damned if I don’t .  So do I listen to my body or not?  With its malfunctioning alarm system and all, it’s a hard call some days!  If Huntington symptoms come into play one day I think it might be a hot mess.  But I don’t need to worry about that right now.  I will call on my Everest support personnel for that one !