I am CURSED!

Seriously. After I wrote that last entry, the occasional cough I had since going to the barn at the Stock show? Suddenly decided to morph into pneumonia. OF COURSE. Right after I get my bodybugg and start logging my food and getting real time information on my calorie expenditure. Right when I start feeling like I'm going to make some forward progress.

Some would just shake this off as a random illness. I do agree its random alright, but its my history to be derailed by illness/injury out of my control. Another setback in a life filled with setbacks. I didn't used to be this pessimistic, did I? Is it depression? Is 7 months of chronic pain? Is is because all the crappy parts of life keep flagellating my already raw abraded skin down to the bone?

Last summer, when I'm finally feeling better and able to work in my yard and exercise more*? I break my leg and dislocate my foot. WHILE I'm working in my garden. A break severe enough for the ortho surgeon to say he hasn't seen a break that bad in 10 years, and never from a fall. More like a car accident, or a motorcycle accident.**  A break severe enough that I'm STILL not at work or back at school, and still suffering from nerve damage. Insert "GRRRR" here. No more gardening for me for months- cursed!

Last spring, when I finally find something to get excited* about, enrolling in massage therapy school, and I'm enjoying it? I get sick. Then a little better. Then sick again. Then better. Then sick again. Bronchitis. Then Pneumonia. Finally, my doctor says no more massage- just watch for a few weeks. Apparently I'd miss a day, then return back to school and the massage would dump all that illness out of my lymphatic system and back into my blood stream, and I would get sick again. Fever for 3 days. Then better for 2 days. Massage school doesn't want you there with a fever. Learning massage therapy is equal parts lecture and hands on learning. By this point I have missed so much school, the enrollment director and I decide that I should drop out for now, and re-enroll next session. You know, the one that started in August? Oh, wait, that's after I broke my leg and I wasn't even walking without crutches at that point- cursed! Another "GRRRR" here.

I could go even further back, and remember that last February when I had an asthma attack that turned my lips blue and sent me to the ER clinic after a co-worker doused himself in cologne. Or mention the emergency gall bladder surgery the day before I'm supposed to return to work from my bereavement leave, or the pneumonia I went home from the hospital with after losing my daughter.

Setback after setback. I KNOW, the advice is just to pick myself back up and keep going. But after 3 years and no steps forward, and many backwards, there must be something better I can hold on too. Because just picking myself up and continuing on is just not inspiring at all. I'm finding myself filling with panic at the thought of being back at work in less than three weeks, and I'm too weak right now to walk to my mailbox. I'm on a nebulizer, for fucks sake. My biggest fear is that I will have an asthma attack now, when I already have so many drugs on board (antibiotics, solumedrol, advair, and the albuterol in the nebulizer) that the inhaler won't work. My smaller dread is the number on the scale, because I know that the big honking doses of steroids I've had have plumped me right up. My "fat" clothes? Do. Not. Fit.

So, I don't know. The alternative to picking myself up and get back on track is? Not to do it. I can safely say that I'm not ready to do that. If I didn't want to try for another baby so bad, then I would just give up. I wish I had more reasons to want to go on, get healthier, but if I'm honest, I really don't have any right now. The part of my brain that calculates stupid shit figures that I should at least outlive my dog, then I could die. Dying of obesity related complications, in my current deteriorating physical health is almost a given. Unless I fall and break my neck. But I'm cursed. I fully expect to die a lingering, painful death.





*As prescribed for depression! Proof that I was trying!

**By the way, when I rode motorcycles? Only one accident- I separated my shoulder when I laid my bike down at about 30 MPH. Always wear your helmet, boys and girls.

En Fuego!

My outdoor fireplace...i should light a fire more often. I think I enjoy my chimenea more than I would an indoor fireplace. Easier clean up, and less anxiety about setting my house on fire. We roasted marshmallows and cuddled up to this one cold night. I really enjoy this.

What a life..

Optimism Begins to Return

I made it to the gym tonight, but all I did was swim 10 laps, and do some stretching in the jacuzzi. It took me 16 minutes to backstroke 10 laps. My entire body is exhausted now. I may just hit the pool for awhile until I get motivated to do more. I on disability until March 18, and I'm really beating myself up about the fact that I could be at the gym for several hours per day. I would love to say its cuz I'm so busy with other things, but I don't think sleeping until noon counts as busy. I was up reading until 5am, so that might be why I sleep too late.

I'm optimistic that my motivation is about to get better- I finally broke down and spent my meager tax refund on a BodyBugg. I think it will help me get a real idea of what my calorie burn is, and help hold me accountable for logging my intake. Since I was sedentary after the leg surgery for so long, I think I've lost an incredible amount of muscle mass. I thought that with my mom gifting me a gym membership that I'd be working out more and rebuilding that muscle mass, but its coming along much more slowly than I want, of course. I think the calorie counters on the gym equipment and available online are not accurate for me and my post-injury status.

So I'm excited, and I keep checking UPS to see where it is. It should arrive tomorrow. I'm going to struggle with not staying up all night to read up on it- and I have TONS of things to get done tomorrow and the next day. So wish me luck with finding balance between setting up my new toy and taking care of my obligations! Plus add in the attraction of all 11 library books I have checked out, and I'm trying to get done reading them before they are due- I'm already turning in "I am Number 4" 5 days late. Ooops!

Anyways, all this to say that while I'm not particularly excited about returning to work, I am looking forward to earning money again, to put towards IUI. I lose the weight I gained with the leg, and the additional 30 pounds the RE wanted off so I can start a last ditch effort to have a baby before I get too old. My ovaries are approaching 41, so its getting close to do or die time.