Ouch!

It's good to get out of the house once in a while.  The girls and I went to get bird food today, and then to Wal-mart, and then the Salvation Army, and then lunch (Chinese), and then the grocery store.  It's a long day, but as long as we've driven twenty minutes to get to that small city, we may as well run all the errands.  Gas is sure expensive. 

Going shopping is sometimes a bit of an adventure.  I found the city easily enough, but then the girls had to tell me which way it was to the bird food. Then after lunch I turned the wrong way and had a bit of trouble getting home.  I'm so glad our vehicle comes with a compass.  I'm also glad the girls are getting old enough to help me find my way around.  They even help me find things in stores--sometimes it takes me forever to locate something on all those shelves, or even find the right section in the store.  It's a nightmare if a store moves, or if they remodel.

I live in a big rectangle.  Maybe twenty miles across.  There's a major highway, a state line, a county line, and another major highway.  As long as I stay in there, I can only get so lost.  But the small city is south of the county line.  I used to always stay on one highway through town, but I was always getting lost when I left that road to go to the butcher's, so I've learned a new way to get there, and I've been trying to learn a couple of the main streets south of us.



And then when we get home, I've got all sorts of groceries and things to put away.  I don't usually think of it as a disability, but I'd sure have had a hard time getting groceries today without the girls' help.  It's not that I'm sick--I did some weed-pulling yesterday, and I hurt my back.  Once I started weeding, I just couldn't stop myself.  You'd think I would know better than to do this to myself, but it happens all the time.  I often try to split up a job like that into lots of little pieces--pulling up a couple dozen weeds a day for a month isn't as likely to hurt me as doing it all at once.  Anyway it was good to have the girls to lift bags of pet food and gallons of milk today.  I've been in a fair amount of pain off and on.  I hurt myself once this morning reaching all the way down to the dining room table.  That's just not good.

I paid one of my daughters a dollar apiece the day before yesterday to get big rocks from all over our 'island'--behind barns, by the garage, by the back door.  Yesterday I had the girls take turns placing them around our bird bath for a rock garden.  We already have a rock garden around our deck by our front door.  The reason we have so many rock gardens is that you can't kill a rock.  I don't have a green thumb.  I have the black thumb of death.  Now that I think of it, I think my substandard visual skills probably have something to do with this--I can't tell plants apart, so I don't often know which are weeds and which are plants.  I also might not recognize visual signs that the plants are doing well or doing badly.  Too bad--I'd love to fill the house with plants. 

At least I live in a house surrounded by nature.  Sometimes I see houses in the city and I wonder how people can stand to live like that. :)  Many people say they're happy there, and I have to believe it.  Growing up, my family lived right at the edge of town, and I used to look longingly across the open fields.  In fact, although it was forbidden, I started riding my bicycle out there as a teenager.  Probably lucky I was never attacked by a serial killer or something.

I love my island.



And I am not looking forward to the day after tomorrow.  It seems my husband is going to be able to take me to see the social security doctor after all.  I'd be stupid (I think) to pass up the opportunity after filling out all that paperwork.  But I hate seeing doctors.  I am so tired of trying to figure out how to convince some doctor that I have CVID.  The two 'gold standard' methods of diagnosis are the blood test showing a low antibody count and failing to develop immunity from a vaccine.  I've already got medical records showing these things.

Last time I saw a social security doctor, he didn't even bother taking another blood test.  All he tested was my blood pressure, which doesn't have anything to do with anything that's wrong with me.  At least I (probably) won't be sick Thursday.  Wait, what am I saying?  Maybe it would be better if I were!

It's just that it's nearly impossible to advocate for yourself when you're really sick.  It doesn't really matter--I haven't been able to convince people whether I'm sick or well.  I suppose I'm usually extremely sick by the time I drag myself to the doctor, and that's frightening.  It's scary to be fighting for air and to have people telling you you're not really sick at all.  You can't argue much because, after all, you're fighting for air.

I've been told that I'm suffering from clinical depression, that I have subconscious anxiety that manifests itself by causing breathing problems, that I'm angry and that's why I'm breathing so hard....

Maybe it's a sign of good mental health that I don't want to see another doctor again as long as I live.  Or maybe it's PTSD--one criterion is that the PTSD patient has to have believed that their life was in danger when they were being traumatized--being deprived of sufficient oxygen might qualify.  I've had nightmares about being trapped in hospitals.  And public schools.



And now that I've finished my do-it-yourself psychoanalysis, it's after dinner and there are chores to do and I haven't played the piano yet today.  Gotta go!