JanuaryIn the first month of the year, I
saw my endocrinologist and got great news. My thyroid looks like that of a normal person's! This means that my medicine is doing the job right. I also give myself thyroid massages about twice a week, and I suspect that may have helped, too. I was so, so happy to start the year off with just the two of us--DH (darling husband), our cats, and myself. In November we got a new kitty named Katya, who we fell in love with immediately. She enjoyed her first holiday season very much. One of the posts I did in January, that I was fond of, was
Happy Monday! Let's do our ABC's!
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| Katya |
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| Me |
February
In February my estranged father
had a birthday, I reviewed the book
How to Be Sick by Toni Bernhard, and I reviewed various
OTC topical pain relievers. I got to go to Hobby Lobby, a crafts store, in another, bigger, town. It was awesome. I got some material and scrapbooking pages. The only bad thing about Hobby Lobby is that it is a really expensive place. For Valentine's Day, DH got me a whole bunch of stuff, and I loved it (and still do!). I was so thankful to have our house just to ourselves and our kitties.
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| Me |
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| Hobby Lobby |
March
In March I posted
awareness ribbons, I
began the Behind the Blogger Challenge, and my
best friend had major surgery. Of the
Behind the Blogger Challenges I did in March, some of my favorites were
Day 1,
Days 2 and 3, and
Day 7. In March we endured a lot of rainy weather, which was very painful on my joints. I had many flares, with only a few days in between each flare. I was still so happy to not have anyone living with us anymore, and still am happy about it.
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| Me, in a pale and in a painful flare |
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| Me, feeling half-way decent |
April
April came and went so quickly this year. I planted my seeds for my garden and experienced many flare days. I felt like I was the poster child for "but you don't look sick!" in April. Unfortunately, whether I look sick or not, I am. I found a group on Facebook that month that I felt like I belonged in, and loved the Sisterhood I found there. I gained the experience of meeting others whose beliefs are different than my own, as well as similar to my own, so I think in that respect it was also a good thing. I love knowing how others believe, whether it's religion, politics, or something else. It exposes me to new ideas and challenges what I believe. I learned a lot from my Sisters in the now defunct Facebook group,
Covered in Light. The group disbanded a couple of months later, and I lost touch with many of the sisters, since I didn't have as much in common with them anymore, but I learned a lot from these fine ladies. In my blog, I did the
Behind the Blog Challenge and reviewed the book
POTS: Together We Stand Riding The Waves of Dysautonomia by Jodi Epstein Rhum with Svetlana Blitshteyn, MD.
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| Me |
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| DH and me |
May
May was another month full of severe pain. I flared a lot, but I tried to keep a positive attitude. Still, I was very frustrated with the pain, as there was no end in sight, or any relief to look forward to. I wrote about it in the entry
Will there ever be some relief?, explaining what it is like to go through constant, severe pain. I won quite a few things in blog giveaways, and I read a lot, including
The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It's a huge, but interesting, book. DH's inguinal hernia got a lot worse, and I worried about him a lot. He had a bad abscess in his mouth at the same time, so they couldn't do surgery because of infection risks. I realized I'd lost enough weight I could fit into some of my old clothes, which made me very excited, to say the least. I gave a lot of thought to PCOS and babies, and wrote about it in the blogs
Fertility and eating healthy, and
PCOS and Aldactone. I
finished up the Behind the Blogger Challenge and celebrated
Memorial Day by remembering my Grandpa and Grandpa Ezra.
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| Me in my favorite shawl and trying out some new make-up |
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| Me in a flare, smiling despite the pain :-) |
June
Katya had her first birthday, and I had my 31st. My birthday went well, I enjoyed it, and got to spend the day with my DH. I started
getting back into crocheting. I wrote about
how I feel when people try and be PC about disability. The summer was getting very hot already, and I kept forgetting to water my seedlings, so they died soon after they sprouted. Usually I do better than that, and plan to do better next year. I
started wearing my Medical Alert bracelet, the third one I've had since I got my first one 4 years ago. I took pictures to show off my most recent finished crafts, my
Togy [dog] stitch and my
religious embroidery.
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| Me kissing Katya |
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| Niki and Katya cuddling on the clothes hamper |
July
My POTS became a huge problem for me as the hot weather kept getting hotter. I stayed inside for the most part, but even with the air conditioning on, some places in the house were hot. I
made a no-sew fleece blanket for my best friend who was having surgery months ago, and finally put the picture and instructions up. I talk here about
my pen peeves concerning bipolar. I write about a natural remedy for pain relief I use
here, and you can see an awesome picture of thyroid art
here.
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| Niki |
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| Me |
August
My little girl,
Niki, turned three years old at the beginning of August. My pain continued to grow more severe, and I had
many flares. I got
strep throat, something I've caught a lot as long as I can remember. My
symptoms of severe fatigue were back, along with grogginess, and sleepiness. It frustrated me a lot because I felt like was passing me by as I tried to put together a coherent sentence and keep my eyes open and not crossing. It frustrated me even more when people made jokes about something they don't know anything about, and said they wish they could just sleep all the time. I just wanted to (and still want to) be awake! Unfortunately, this is an ongoing problem.
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| Me |
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| Me |
September
In September, I admit, I was already looking forward to the start of the holiday season--Halloween. I did a lot of reading that month, though one book was so boring it felt like it was never-ending. I started studying PCOS in depth. I knew some about it, but decided it was time I knew a lot more. Because of my Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), I started getting more depressed, which is normal for me in winter. I used
graphics I found online to explain dysautonomia, while another graphic
lists the symptoms of POTS. I also write about trying to decide
whether or not to write my abusive father, or if a relationship online is a good idea.
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| Niki |
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| Me |
October
I was so exited about Halloween this year. The kitties got all dressed up, Sterling was a Zebra Lone Ranger, and Niki and Katya were both Princesses. It was awesome. I continued my reading and studying about PCOS, determined to find a way to lose weight despite my PCOS, among other things. I got a lot of reading done. I read a lot of WWII books this year, and the biographies I'd read about the Holocaust had really touched me, as they would anyone who wasn't made of stone. My pain continued to be severe, and I flared a
lot in October. I shared Halloween cartoons/comics
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here. On Halloween I
shared my favorite Halloween movie, Garfield's Halloween Adventure.
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| Katya playing |
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| Niki playing |
November
November was a month of many flares and a lot of pain. In fact, I'm not sure there were any days in November when I
wasn't in a flare. My POTS was still not under control, and still isn't. I had "
baby fever" like you would believe, and still do! I spent a lot of time working on my
spirituality blog, and writing my pen pals. Some letters were almost a year late, and I understood when one pen pal told me she needed someone who writes more often. She was an awesome lady, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up a little when she told me, no matter how much I understood. We had a lovely pork roast for
Thanksgiving dinner, with potatoes, carrots, and onions. We also had rolls, and a friend brought over three slices of pie we split, as well as a serving of something Jim ate the next day. I was studying PCOS still. We were the recipients of good will this holiday season, and tried (and still do) to pass on the good will. November was Epilepsy Awareness Month, and I informed people
what seizures and epilepsy are,
what to do in case of a seizure, and two pages of graphics explaining epilepsy that can be found
here and
here.
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| Me |
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| Me with "baby fever" |
December
This Christmas was a good one, much better than the last two years. We didn't have much money, but having my family close and safe with me over the holidays meant more to me than anything else. Not that having more money wouldn't have helped, but I was happy to have my family. December was a month with a
lot of pain, I had four flares that month. That meant for the majority of the month I was in a flare, with only a couple days in between flares, at most. I love Charlie Brown's Christmas, but I missed it this year. Fortunately,
I did get to blog it. One of my favorite signs of the season are Christmas Trees. We put up a little one this year, so when the cats knocked it over, it wasn't such a big deal. I also
blogged a bunch of Christmas tree pictures, because what is December without Christmas trees? I spent New Year's Eve with DH and the kitties, though we had friends stop by during the day. When it struck midnight we kissed, and have hopes for a better 2013.
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| Our Christmas tree |
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| Me in a Santa Hat. Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! |
Which leads me to my next point. We have no gas money to even get to the grocery store to buy food, though our food stamps came in today. It's 2:23 pm and I'm getting hungry. Fortunately I have soda and another Powerade Zero in the fridge (not much else is in there!) so I can fill up on liquids. There's been a lot of times in the past few years that I've had to go hungry, and the best thing I've found to keep hunger pains down is to drink lots and lots, to fill your belly with liquid.
