Leap Year Expectations

The dog woke me at two this morning, and I lay in the dark for half an hour before giving up and turning the tv on to bore myself back to sleep. My head hurt too much to play a game on the phone, and my brain wasn’t working enough to get out my laptop and write. Even now it’s a struggle to remember what I was going to write about from the beginning of one sentence to the next. I need to keep my expectations low otherwise I’ll get too frustrated to be of any good to anyone today.

As I lay in the dark four hours ago, I couldn’t help notice how quickly the dog settled back down, particularly compared to myself. My wife beside me hardly stirred, told the dog to go back to her bed, and resumed her sonorous sleep as if nothing had happened.

Jealousy is an ugly thing, especially in the predawn hours.

It took me about an hour to drift back into a light slumber until I woke for good at five, taking the dog and the laptop downstairs with me. I half expected the dog to want to go back up after she’d eaten and been outside, but she climbed into her favorite chair and went back to sleep. Even after I bundled up so I could go back out and sit on the porch to watch the snow fall she remained in her chair; normally she’s at the door, eager to get out as soon as anyone even moves in the general direction of the door. But, she’s getting old and doesn’t like the cold. I don’t think she liked getting snowed on while doing her business, gave it serious pause for thought before leaving the sheltered porch for the yard.

As I struggled into my thermal over-pants and fleecy jacket, I kept tipping over and tripping on my own feet until I just sat down before I did myself serious damage. As it is, I think I hurt my right foot and my left hip feels like I’ve walked ten miles. But I really wanted to sit out on my dark porch and watch the snow fall in the aura of light cast off by the street lamp on the corner. I find it meditative, especially when I’m still waking up and the sun hasn’t yet risen.

But not for me today. By the time I got myself situated and prepared for the cold, it had stopped snowing. Which brings me back to keeping my expectations for today low. Very low indeed. Which is funny, because as I lay between sleep and slumber a few hours ago, I remembered that today is February 29^th, a theoretical free day that comes once every four years. A day out of time, it seemed. Full of a different kind of potential than other days I’ve lain in bed, contemplating what lay before me.

So far, it’s just like other days. I got out of bed because my pain wouldn’t let me stay in one position more than a couple of minutes. I’ve fed the dog and taken her out to the yard. I’ve wandered into the kitchen twice and back upstairs once, only to find I’d forgotten what I’d been after. I’ve taken my thyroid meds and probiotic, waited the requisite hour, and taken my first round of antibiotics. I went to make myself a cup of tea, plugged the kettle in and got so caught up in wondering what kind of tea I wanted that I neglected to turn it on. I was back in the living room before I realized that I’d walked past the tea cupboard without making a selection and getting the cup set up, which led to the realization that the water was going to stay cold until Lyme brain got it together and turned the kettle on. So I turned the kettle on, came back in here to write while it boils, and now that it’s done I remembered I still haven’t chosen a tea.

Definitely just like all the other days.

Anniversary Ramblings

5 a.m. Today my wife and I celebrate ten years together. Or I should say that today is our anniversary; whether we celebrate or not remains to be seen. Two weeks ago on Valentine’s Day, I’d remembered what day it was when I’d gotten up. But by the time my wife woke up, I’d forgotten and instead of feeling romantic was busy getting ready and running late for an appointment. Not a pleasant way to wake up on any day.

If I can keep my pain under control, I’d like to get out of the house and do something with her this afternoon. Putting things off until evening carries too much risk these days. And since I’m off to bed at seven o’clock, four seems like eight used to when I enjoyed a normal sleep pattern. And since my wife lost her job, both our afternoons are free. As are most of our entertainment options.

Last Thursday, I pushed it and went to a late movie. And paid for it with unmanageable pain for three days afterward. Maybe not a movie today then. I don’t think there’s anything out that we really want to see anyway. I’ve got no idea what to do for our anniversary, though. Or what time she’ll be getting up. Our schedules have us going in opposite directions, with her waking up just as I’m heading back to bed for my first nap. I suspect she’s just settling in to sleep when I wake for the day.

I suppose our anniversary following so closely on the heels of a spectacularly flat V-Day leaves me lots of room for improvement. Just about anything, short of waking my wife by clanging pots and pans together, would be a better way to wake up than her hurried and harried wife cursing my ineptitude as I try to get dressed in the dark, with no balance or fine motor coordination.

Dinner out would be nice, too. We’d talked about driving up to Seattle to see some friends, but I think I’ve forgotten to send the email. I’d like to do something to show her I love her, something outside of our normal routine. I’m pretty lucky she’s stuck with me through all of this. She puts up with a lot. And I mean a lot. Even before-Lyme, I was difficult to live with. Now, she never knows what she's going to wake up to. But she keeps waking up next to me, or at least in our bed while I'm down suffering on the couch with the dog. And I know she'll still be with me when I'm healthy again. 

* * * *

8 p.m. I may have remembered it was our anniversary, but I forgot it was Tuesday, our weekly gimp night where a bunch of us with chronic illnesses & our significant others come and eat and watch tv. Right now, they’re downstairs watching some singing show; I’m on overload and it seems like the tv is just shouting at me. Plus, a storm front has moved in and my pain has not been well managed today.

My wife and I ended up having a late breakfast at our favorite diner after my morning nap today. I must have been on a carb high, because we ended up going to a furniture store to look at a new couch. We’ve been looking for a while, since our current (inherited) couch has become downright painful for me and I’m supposed to be resting most of the day and I’m not supposed to spend all day in bed. Which pretty much leaves the couch. Except, I can spend just about five minutes on ours before I start to shift and fidget and generally annoy my wife until I call it quits and go to bed, feeling (and sounding) like I’m about eighty as I go. As I have tonight. Actually, tonight I didn’t even try to sit. My left hip hurts so bad it’s making my cervix contract, my heel pain hasn’t gotten any better since I resumed the bart-oriented meds six or seven weeks ago, and the electric pains running through my fingers could go away forever and not be missed. The Lyme pretty much guarantees I won’t even remember it at all.

But it’s been a pretty good day. After trying out a few different options, my wife informed me that we weren’t leaving the store without a new couch. Not literally; it’ll arrive in about four weeks. I’m happy with the one we chose, but I worry that it’s not a financially responsible decision. It was on sale, though. And if I factor in how many trips to the chiropractor, lmt, and acupuncturist my current couch leads (or should lead) to, it doesn’t seem so bad. A decade is a long time. Something to celebrate. By going to my comfy bed early while my wife and the gimps watch junk tv on uncomfortable furniture downstairs.

Return

My morning routine was significantly interrupted a couple of months ago, not by my illness or any other tragedy but by our adopting a dog. We started out just fostering her, to save the life of a sweet animal who lives to love and protect her people but whose age makes the local shelters put her in the “unwanted” class, immediately slated for the big sleep.

To be fair, the bitter cold and my growing intolerance of it had already put a significant dent in my favorite predawn routine of sitting on the front porch for hours, contemplating the mysteries of the universe as I listened to the leaves rustle on the ground, the rain on the street, the rail and river traffic just a couple of miles to the south. And my own secret negativity, left unchecked and unexpressed, coupled with mounting language issues, prompted me to stop my blog over a year ago. At the time, material concerns took over and any intellectual umph I may have been able to gather needed to go toward fighting with the disability insurance company. I simply had no thoughts fit for broadcast.

This morning, in the grip of a migraine on top of the searing hip pain and all-over muscle ache that are my constant companions, I sought refuge on the porch, bundled up and stayed out after taking the dog for her postprandial constitutional around the yard. I thought perhaps giving up cigarettes was finally catching up with me and the nauseating pain in my head might be helped by a quick smoke. It wasn’t, and I’m still waiting for my pain meds to kick in.

Which brings me to my semi-epiphany for the morning. I’ve gotten into the habit of listing all the things I need to take care of on any given day as I wake up and have the one espresso I allow myself anymore. Most of the time I’m carrying over tasks and chores undone from the day or even weeks before, each time feeling the same anger and disappointment with myself for becoming such a slacker, for being so unreliable, for starting each day with hope in my heart that it’ll be different, only to crash and burn late morning and become completely useless for the remainder of the day.

This morning on the porch I decided that instead of listing chores, I would focus on the things for which I’m grateful at the moment. That I still have a porch to go out and sit on, for starters. That somehow, money continues to come (sometimes just in the nick of time) and we’ve yet to miss a house payment. That my daughter is healthy, happy, well adjusted, and getting ready to fly the nest soon. That my wife hasn’t tired of watching the woman she loves be sick and in pain all day every day for the past I can’t remember how many years, knowing that it’ll continue for years to come. In all likelihood, my wife is probably just as tired as I am that I’m still sick, but she hasn’t left me and that’s saying something if the rest of the folks in my Lyme support group are anything to go by.

I still have friends who care and reach out to spend time with me, even when I go for months withdrawn into my own bad attitude. I even have friends who turn to my wife & me for help, when I wouldn’t have thought we were in a position to help anyone other than ourselves. (My counselor and naturopath both think we’re crazy to let a friend stay with us for a few months while she gets back on her feet—they’re worried about the toll the added stress and disruption to my routine will have on my health, which has stalled if not gotten worse in the past few weeks since she’s been with us.)

Later this week I have a coffee date with my old boss, whom I would love to work for again. I had a semi-waking dream last night that she offered me a job and I was healthy enough to accept. I wonder if wanting to work is a symptom of a greater illness. I didn’t want to take a leave to begin with, put it off until my health issues began impacting my work, my reliability and accuracy began to suffer. It’d be no different if I went back now, would be worse since I still only really function from about five to eleven in the morning. After that, I can’t hold onto a thought long enough to bring it into action and am good only for resting, watching television, yarn projects or rereading books I’ve already forgotten. (I must say, having Lyme disease certainly has saved me a ton of money on literature, since I’ve been able to make my way back through my personal library and have yet to remember enough of a book to not enjoy rereading it.)

I spent too much of yesterday feeling sorry for myself for not being healthy enough to go back to work, for not having the stamina to accomplish more than two or three “chores” in a day—even when those tasks don’t involve physical exertion as none of my chores do anymore. Phone calls exhaust me. Maintaining a positive attitude exhausts me, even before I was daily confronted with a vortex of negative energy.

But, even though I’m still nowhere near where I was before I got Lyme, my mental faculties are picking up a bit and when I’m on I’m on for a little longer than I was this time last year. I haven’t struggled to find the words for these ramblings as often as I was doing only six months ago, and for that I am grateful. I know I’ll fade quickly today, can feel it happening already even though I’ve been up for only two hours. The pain is just too great today, despite my breathing and meditation techniques. I may not do any chores at all today, and will probably feel all the worse for it tomorrow. Obviously, I’m still working on accepting my current situation without rancor. I suspect this is my life’s task.