coffeebarconfessions

Last night I was hell bent and determined to get to bed before 2AM. Although it's not even Valentine's day yet, Phoenix is already warming up. This winter had me on a luxurious "sleep until 11AM and still walk or run with the dogs five days a week" schedule. It's been stressing me out horribly, to know if I want to keep up the exercise I have to get my routine turned around, or come April's 100 degree heat all my progress will melt away into utter oblivion. Of course good intention always has to marinade for a while with me, before motivation to change my evil ways finally sets in. In other words, I'm remarkably skilled at procrastinating until the very last minute that I am staring failure in the face. That's often, not always, but often when I will get my act together. So of course I try to go to bed early last night so I can get up before noon and exercise before it's too hot and...can't sleep. By 3:30AM I gave up and started writing this bl...

For a long four months things seemed to be getting better. At first it was very hard to halt the chariot of destruction in my life. It took continued re-routing, self pep-talks and blatant scare tactics, but I somehow convinced myself that my reaction to life was my choice. That admission affirmed tantrums, meltdowns and anxiety freak-outs were now obsolete, since to choose to behave that way is simply insane. I reached new levels of health under this fragile new government of myself. Things were going swimmingly over here, in positive attitude land. And then one day the rage came back. Was it inevitable? Is it impossible to simply do away with the emotional reaction to my life's circumstances by just not thinking about it? It worked for a while, why did it stop? Because I had a health issue rear its ugly head? Or does part of this inter-related world of weird illness encompass the rage? Quite frankly, I could sit here all day and ask chicken or egg questions, and never get an answ...

...with a heaping side of anger. That pretty much describes my state of mind right now. It's amazing, how quickly four months of determined progress got swept away in the blink of an eye. I'm still not quite sure how it happened. It started with a scaly rash on my forehead. Then the boil appeared between my nose and eye. Then another boil. Then an itchy, swollen eyelid, which quickly turned into two lizard-textured ocular skin flaps. Four more massive boils appeared on my face and before I knew it, the texture of my skin rivaled puffy, flaking 40-grit sandpaper.  This hostile takeover has taken about a week and a half, but have I seen a doctor yet? When I finally relented and called my dermatologist yesterday the receptionist apologized profusely for not being able to squeeze me in immediately, and recommended I go to urgent care. I suppose when I laughed and told her I have chronic illness and don't get too hyper about health problems, it earned me a "difficult patien...

It's no secret how I feel about modern medicine. While it has saved my life more than a few times, when I got sick with something no doctor understood, modern medicine's apathy almost took me down. Hindsight is so clear, and looking back nine years later I can contribute a significant amount of my suffering with chronic illness to a lack of medical acceptance. Being sick sucks. Being sick for a lifetime sucks harder. And being sick for a lifetime, and nobody believing you, well, it doesn't take a genius to point out that's like taking a slow boat ride to crazy. For so many years just thinking about the way doctors dismissed, degraded, belittled and judged me used to send me into an epic meltdown of Chernobyl proportions. Luckily my heart and soul have healed a little, and my mind is determined to evade negativity, so I can now talk about it without anger-hives breaking out all over my face. It's what happened, and getting all hot and bothered over a past I cannot ch...

When I got sick in 2005 my doctor insisted was there was nothing wrong with me. Seeking a second, third, fourth and fifth opinion didn't change my non-diagnosis, despite my worsening health. After a ridiculous breakdown I was finally given two diagnoses of exclusion, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. Little good it did, however, because I was told there was no way to treat those illnesses. Once again I was sent home with a patronizing pat on the head, except for this time it included the terrible advice to learn to live with something that was in the process of ripping my life apart. I guess it was progress, but it sure didn't feel like it. The people I came across who didn't think I was crazy, because they too had been sick with something mysterious at one time, all knew the answer. One lady had a parasite, so she insisted that's what was making me sick. Another person had a candida condition, a different one Lyme  disease, and about 75 people a thyroid proble...

One week into my little New Year's resolution action-plan to revitalize my life, and I've erased four marvelous months of progress. Just gave it away, like there was a never ending supply of changed behavior sitting in my closet somewhere, and all I had to do was go grab more. I feel silly, more than a little greedy, and altogether certain the only way I can regain my lost ground is to get back on the horse of determination. It's nuts, how quickly expecting measurable improvement knocked me on my ass. Allowing the tiniest seeds of discontent to blossom for just a second sent me into a full-on meltdown twenty minutes later. And then they just kept on coming. Before I knew it, everything was wrong, bad, awful or terrible. Like, everything . Clearly my grand plan to ignore any and all unhappiness, for fear of sinking into the miserable pit of despair, is the only state of mind I can exist in. Perhaps I should think it's odd all this upheaval was accompanied by the familiar...

As I'm doing yoga this morning I started thinking about how far I've come with my practice. I've done it intermittently since high school, but a year or so after getting sick had to stop. Of course I can't remember now if it was pain or fatigue that ended my affair with Downward Dog, but assume it was an awful combination of both. After gaining 50 lbs. of toxic disease and drug weight, spending day in and day out feeling like a sausage about to burst from my casing, and hurting so bad death was a welcome notion, I started doing yoga again. Heavens to Betsy it was awful! Not only did I already hurt so bad I could hardly move, I was so damn mad I couldn't do what was accomplished with ease in my pre-sick years, it made me angry and depressed to even try. Luckily I can laugh at the irony now, because the whole point of yoga is to accept ones natural limitations, and instead of reaching for someone else's ideal, celebrate the peace of what is now. I guess I had a lo...