Any Tips?

Oh wow. Seriously. I'm looking for tips. I have a dilemma, and it's beginning to overwhelm me right now. I'm just so tired lately. It's a different tired. I think. I don't know anymore. But I think it's different, because I want to sleep. It's all I want to do. I think usually, or at least more prevalently, when I'm tired, I just feel exhausted, but I couldn't sleep if I wanted to. No, this is different. It's not like I'm sitting down and dozing off...but I do want to just do nothing. Got my "food money" today. Had a nice shopping list I made myself make last night, because I'm trying to minimize the running out the last two weeks of the month. Usually I'm rarin' to go. I mean, it's the only real shopping I get to do, lol! Plus I've been low on stuff, and eating lots of unhealthy stuff, and my stomach is starting to act up. I woke up at a decent hour, and mentally wanted to go (mostly to get it over with!) but my body seemed to be saying to take it slow. So I convinced myself I would go out & get breakfast (which as it turns out they didn't have, because, as I found out a couple hours ago, I looked at the wrong chain's website) and bring it home & eat it. My thinking was maybe I just needed some fuel. So I went out, in SWEATS (gasp! No really, that's a big deal for me, my Mom, bless her, brought me up with a healthy sense of vanity, lol) and NO MAKEUP (I at least always wear eyeliner & lipgloss) cuz, after all I was just going to a drive-thru...but like I said, I went to the wrong one, so at a loss for another option, I gave in, swallowed my vanity and went to the grocery store in the same parking lot to get some breakfast food of some kind. I realized I might as well pick up the double gallon of water they wouldn't have at the health food store-ish place I'd planned to do my grocery shopping at, and then figured I might as well get everything I could get there...Then I came home to resume the rest of my plan, but nope. Can't seem to get back out. I did fill out some & fax some forms for my attorney & e-mail them, but for the life of me I can't get my butt out either to the laundry room, or to the store. I just want to go to bed. (Granted, filling out those forms really kicked my butt, Dysautonomia I guess? I felt like I couldn't breathe, and it didn't let up until I reclined my recliner ALL the way back and lay there for awhile. It's like...an anxiety attack I guess is the best way to describe it. But anxiety attacks don't get better just from lying down, so it's gotta be that. Man, I wish I had a doctor that treated just that....

So I don't know if keeping up with all the doctor's appts is wearing me out, or if it's tapering off the medicine that was causing the anemia, or the sudden shift from summer to full-on winter weather or some of all of the above but it's getting old! I'm trying to spread things out and simplify wherever I can and keep organized but....I'm getting overwhelmed! On the days I have doctor's appointments especially (I usually try & run an errand or two while I'm out) I am just desperate to get home and get in bed! My kitchen actually smells from the dishes not being done and I got tired just now doing one so I could have bowl of soup...cuz I'm suddenly freezing, and somehow spending $40 at the store didn't get me anything microwaveable and slightly healthy. I just microwaved it, reclined to write this in my chair while it was heating up, and now I don't even wanna eat it, I just want to go lie down and take a nap. Maybe I will save it for later and take a nap, call it a day. After all, I WAS thinking earlier how I can't wait for it to be time for bed so I can go to sleep and forget about getting anything else done...Maybe that's the answer? I have a doctor's appointment early tmo afternoon, but I can probably find something to wear amongst the clothes I still haven't put away from last time I did laundry, lol. Sigh...Strangely I'm calm lately though. Thank goodness for small favors...
But anyways, yeah, what do you guys do when you feel like a soggy vegetable?

Fabulous Article on Pacing

Although I just tried it, and all that happened when I decided to stop after 20 minutes or so to rest, is that I ended up feeling too tired to get back up! Ah well, I did clear up the living room and some of my room. But what I really, really need to do is vacuum...if I want to sleep in that master bedroom. (I sprinkled carpet powder on it a few weeks back, and if I don't vacuum it up first it's likely to make my allergies attack.) Hmm...Little Engine that Could is playing in my head...(I think I can I think I can...) While I attempt to convince my body it wants to get up, here is a great article from the amazing Adrienne Dellwo on Pacing for CFS & FM, which in truth, is a good idea. After all, that's how I got enough dishes done last night to eat breakfast AND lunch in, woohoo! That and a glass of wine...lol. While you're there, check out her articles on Stress, Acceptance, and Grieving for those with FM/CFS! I wish I could have found these articles a couple of years back!

I feel like I'm working as a Professional Scheduler.

I'm writing to stall on doing the dishes. No, not really. I just had some lovely, salty, Onion Soup. Sooo good. Now I'm just in my recliner, letting it digest a bit & making sure my heart's not going to go tachy before I go piss my body off by doing some dishes. Okay, I guess I should be more optimistic. I'm going to set a timer for 10 minutes, so maybe I won't get to that point. (But still get to the point where I have dishes to eat on &/or cook with!) I hate dishes these days. I didn't used to, before I got sick. I actually used to go to guy friend's houses who'd had frat parties and clean up for them, it was like a compulsion, ahh, you have company and your kitchen needs cleaning! Must fix! (Thanks Mom, ya clean freak, lol!) So letting that go has been HARD. But I feel so overwhelmed lately...Hey at least I'm getting other things done!

Now, I don't know if it's because I'm depressed and apathetic or I subconsciously don't want because I know it'll exhaust me & make my back hurt, but I haven't managed to do them in weeks. I was going to have someone come do them, but I was feeling too sick to even deal with that, and then when I felt a bit better there were other more important things to spend that cash on.

Everything is a mess. Got my files from my attorney, all over the living room, plus books I sold the shelves out from under, lol. Files I was scanning all over the office area off the living room. Dining table has all kinds of random stuff. My room, ugh. Clothes & papers. Mostly clean clothes. Folding & putting away clothes kills me, I think I finally figured out why, it has to do with holding up my arms to fold & hang. I can't keep up with it. I think I'm going to move into the Master Bedroom, AGAIN, told my Mom sorry, if you end up here, I'm staying in there this time. (I started getting comfortable TWICE and then she came to stay for a bit and left.) That room is bigger, has 3 more windows/lots of light, whereas my room is kinda cramped, and I noticed when I was sleeping in there it was easier to keep them both clean somehow (maybe it was just because the bed was made in the other room? I dunno. Less stuff ended up on the floor, therefore it was more open looking & you could get around in it. Plus, on days bed is more comfortable than the recliner, I won't be sitting in the dark, I'll be stuck in the (now) most nicely decorated room in the condo, with lots of light and airy-ness.

I sent the paperwork back to the new attorney. Woke up way too early, anxious, so I started making phone calls. At least half a dozen later, I'd booked appointments for pretty much every week in November. 2-3 of them. (Thank goodness for my phone syncing with Google Calendar!) Oh, this is going to be fun. (Not!) Worried though, because the really important ones aren't until later in the month, and my appeal is due before then, so I probably won't be able to submit any new evidence from them. Maybe I can convince the Internist, who I'm seeing sooner to send me for some of the tests I wanted to get from the specialists. Well, hey, at least all the appointments will keep me busy and around people, maybe that will help my (since I got sick and broke) yearly holiday blues.

Kinda bummed the PT won't be until mid-November, my trapz are really making themselves irritating. Maybe when I see my PCP next week, I can convince her to let me see their Chiropractor in the meantime. (She'd told me to see how PT went first, but that's over a month away, and my first appointment with her for the referral for that was another two weeks back! 6 Weeks is a bit much to be in pain nearly every day and getting worse, no?)

Figured out for sure what the whole PMS angry thing is. Ever see those commercials for PMDD? Yup, totally what I have. The most surprising thing when reading up about it, was that I'd thought it was like a PMS Depression thing, but the most apparent problem seems to be...ANGER! So right on with what I've been experiencing. I was just fuming for hours yesterday, just like the day before, but worse. I didn't think it could be that time yet, but I checked my nifty new Period & Ovulation Tracking App, which I downloaded mostly for this reason, and yup, actually, almost on the dot, a week away. I think realizing that helped with the anger a bit, but the apathy is tough. I don't feel that bad and I was thinking I should totally try and go play some pool for a couple of hours (the great thing about pool is you can sit down between shots!) and see if I could hang out with the guys I met there last week, but even though I feel slightly crazy spending so much time alone I couldn't motivate myself. I'd also contemplated starting the gym again (I don't think I went the entire month, except for the massage machine, ugh, what a waste of $20!) super slowly though, but then I realized, I'll probably work up more of a sweat tidying up here, even if I split it up, and I know that will cheer me up to have the place presentable again. So I'll push myself on that instead of socializing or the gym....

Oh, but yeah...PMDD. It was hard to see what the treatment options were. I'm already on anti-depressants so...I think I saw one study about alprazolam, but it wasn't very specific. Maybe the OB/Gyn can help with that. Oh wait, that was the one appointment I didn't get to make, figures, they referred me back to my old PCP clinic, where the receptionist transferred me to a nurse, who NEVER answers, and rarely calls back. (Which is why they are my FORMER PCP) Oyyy. Pretty sure another November appointment though. I really hope I can keep up. I got exhausted just making the appointments today, I ended up going back to sleep around noon and waking up at almost 3pm! (Because my PCP was calling me back, they messed up and wrote my female well-exam results on the wrong chart so had to check where they were supposed to write the Ultrasound for, and then also wanted to tell me they faxed my Rx for the PT, which the PT scheduler insisted they needed, and my PCP's office insisted they didn't, lol. Hoops, hoops, and more hoops!)

So that was the day, today...Guess I'll write another post to update about my appointment Wednesday, not sure I said much about that, either that or I forgot some things....