Posts Tagged With: chronic illness

I Am Saying What I Need To Say

Last week I almost DROPPED my Blog altogether due to legal advice given to me.  It appears that social media is hindering those of us with Disabilities.  Apparently if those of us with Disabilities (as if we asked for them) use the internet and “look capable” than we must be able to ….FILL IN THE BLANK HERE… Needless to say I was NOT a happy person.  This Blog has become a Community for me.  Not only have I been able to Say What I Need to Say BUT I am opening up a place for others to join me.

THIS IS NOT JUST MY BLOG.  THIS IS OUR BLOG.

To be honest, I am not ready to write about last week’s awfully traumatic experience (for me) just yet.  I am worn out from wrestling with myself about the entire subject.  The best part is:

I WILL CONTINUE TO SAY WHAT I NEED TO SAY AND I WILL NOT HIDE.

I have found that music is incredibly healing and I feel a need to Share another song that has meant a lot to me on my journey with chronic illness over the years.  Thank you John Mayer for this song.  I heard your words loud and clear and I continue to HEAR them.

Here’s John Mayer’s song, “Say What You Need To Say”.  Also as an added bonus it looks like this song/video was made for a movie in 2007 called “The Bucket List” with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson.  I hope you enjoy the song as much as I do.  It is definitely one of my theme songs.

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Looking For People Who Have Both Multiple Sclerosis and Lupus

I’m on the Search.

I’m ready to have more people in my life again. For awhile, I had to really stay extra focused on a small group because it is actually tiring to deal with people, even though one of my biggest passions is connecting with others.

I’m looking to expand my community. My first mission is to find people to connect with on my Blog. I really get so much from all of you. My next mission is to find people who have chronic illness. It really helps to connect with people who are going through similar circumstances. I have had the privilege of connecting with people with chronic diseases already and it has helped immensely. I continue to look forward to finding people dealing with them. I’d also like to dig a little deeper and continue to connect with people who have either multiple sclerosis and lupus. Everyone I have connected with with those specific diseases has helped me in such powerful ways and I thank you all for that. This next part of my mission seems to be the most challenging.

**I’m looking for people who are experiencing both multiple sclerosis and lupus at the same time.**

I have a real need to connect and relate with people lately. I, myself, have been in support groups in the past and am currently a part of a spiritual support group that has had a profound effect on my overall wellbeing and I am forever grateful for that.

I used to be scared to find people who had similar issues because either I didn’t want to admit the truth to myself, I didn’t want to suddenly take on their unique issues, just wasn’t ready to express myself yet or felt like I couldn’t and that it all had to be kept a secret. I have learned over the years that it is a truly powerful experience to connect with others who have similarities with feelings and experiences.

I am really looking for that now. I have yet to find someone who has both MS and lupus and I know these people exist. I have read about them all over the internet, I have heard about them from my doctors but I want to talk to them directly. Oh and I left out one other part of my mission of human connection. I also want to connect with people who have more than one chronic illness. There seems to be a whole other section of issues and similarities with those who have multiple confusing diseases that they are trying to juggle at once.

So please, if you are someone who wants to connect, feel free to comment on my Blogs or email me from a link on my “About Me” Page. If you are someone who has any of these specific layers of human connection please feel free to do the same. I’d love to have a dialogue with you of some sort. And…if you are someone with both lupus and MS–someone like me–I highly look forward to connecting with you in some way. I think I have the case of needing to fill in the blanks and find more of an identity. One of my biggest confusions is deciphering between which symptom belongs to which disease such as fatigue, pain, stiffness, brain fog, etc. It drives me crazy!

That’s what’s been on my mind lately.

I hope this finds you all well and that we can connect soon.

That seems to be the theme. CONNECT CONNECT CONNECT.

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Stream of Nahleen-ness

*Today is Monday.  Yippy Skippy.

*I wish I felt better.

*I want MS and lupus to leave me alone.

*Cleo’s cute.

*I like Corey.

*Sleep seems to help me mentally and physically these days.

*Why is it that any hope and positivity I seem to have seems to either go away or be masked by worsened physical symptoms and discomfort?  Why do these “negative” thoughts have so much power?  Why can’t my hope be more powerful?  What are “negative” thoughts?  What makes them “negative”?  Why am I obsessing over “negative” thoughts?  What about hope?  See there I go again!

*I’m glad we took out the wedding quilt my Mommy-in-law made and are using it.  It’s comfy and it feels like she’s hugging me.  My Cleo Kitty really likes it today and it’s her new favorite place.

*I think I like the new Norah Jones CD.  I feel conflicted.  I can’t make up my mind.  I like the music.  I like her.  I can’t seem to put them together for some reason.

*On the music note, I am now a BIG fan of Gotye.  Have you all listened to his music?  His music video for “Somebody I Used To Know” blows my mind.  You gotta check it out if you haven’t already.

*I wish I could be as creative as the Gotye music video I posted above.  On that note, what am I waiting for?  What holds me back?

*I’d like to get out of my way more and be more of “me”.

*WHO AM I?

*Why am I me?

*This Blog makes me feel like I need to get a life.

*Thank goodness for AC.  Helps me even out my temperature.

*’Tis the season for me to start to take on the weather as my nemesis as if it is out to get me.  Like it is trying to make me suffer with the heat.  Like it knows and cares about me enough to single me out and take me on and make me feel worse with MS heat fatigue.  As if it’s sunnier on purpose because my lupus gets worse.  As if I’m that important.

*It would be nice to control the weather.  I have a thermostat to control the AC and the heat a bit.  Why not the weather as a whole?  Again, if only I was that important.  EGO!

*Seriously though, the weather makes me angry when it affects my symptoms and makes me feel worse.  The fatigue, aches and stiffness are not fun.  And it plays with my head.  Or I play with my mind is more like it.  My symptoms start acting up and then I think “Oh no!  Something’s wrong.  I’m getting worse!” and then I wait it out, I put on the AC more, I go into darkness away from the sun, I exercise, I distract myself with something I like to do and get even a little bit out of my head and then I’m like, “Oh.  It was the sun and heat”. I especially notice it when the cooler seasons come rolling on in and it occurs to me that it REALLY was the sun and the heat.

*Still, though.  It sucks big time.  The weather affects me so much!  Stupid weather!

*If there’s an event going on outside I probably won’t be able to go because the sun affects me so much and then the heat along with it.  I hate missing things.  I hate being left out.  I like being social.  I feel like I’m going to lose all my friends and family because I couldn’t be a part of whatever it is.  Yet every time I don’t go and push it on my body too much I do end up thanking myself in the end and usually physically feel better.

*Stupid MS and lupus!  Go away!

*So I’ve found for the first time ever in dealing with my chronic illnesses that first of all I can sleep better and sleep more.  That’s already amazing.  And now I’m finding that getting more sleep lessens the pain I’m feeling and of course the fatigue.  Also amazing.  Sooooo, I’m trying to get over my ego and my stubbornness and let myself sleep more.  I have not ever been a really good sleeper so I have years and years of sleep catching up to do.  It really okay just to sleep.

*Speaking of that, will I ever catch up with me?

*I feel like there aren’t enough TV shows and fictional books out there about a character with a quiet/invisible chronic illness such as MS or lupus and there needs to be more.  Sure there are those really visual illnesses such as AIDS and cancer and not to belittle those but what about the OTHER illnesses that no one understands (even those with them)?  What about the every day lives of just trying to get up?  Just trying to take a shower?  Just trying to eat?  Just trying to get though a day, an hour a moment?  Is this my next calling?  Should I develop this idea?  Would anyone pay attention?

*Do I even have the energy to write a whole book?  To produce a whole TV show?  These are things I want to do still and yet I don’t know how I would have the stamina to do them.  Perhaps I need to break them up into smaller pieces and do one thing at a time.  But I have limitations and things will probably go slower than with someone who’s healthy. Then again so what?

*I’M SO TIRED OF LIMITATIONS!

*I’m so tired of all the self care I need to do for me, of all the time it takes up.

*Then again: I’M SO GRATEFUL for self care and to be doing these things for me and to be feeling better.  I’m so happy to just look up at a sky and to keep it more simple and to love my Cleo Kitty and to laugh and giggle and to just be.

*I want to be a smurf.  They are who they are and they’re given names for their personality.  As if it’s that easy.  But why can’t it be that easy?  I’d be little and I’d be blue and I’d go get into trouble and Papa Smurf would ALWAYS save me.  How cool would that be?  And I’d go around singing:

“LA LA LA LA LA LA LALA LA LALA LA LA!”

 

****DEDICATED TO: My cousin Brian Knight who passed on too quickly 6 years ago due to yucky cancer.  He was quite the talented writer and would send his friends and family frequent Random Thoughts emails about everything from his health struggles to baseball.  His insights were funny and profound.  Thank you Brian.  You are quite an inspiration to me.  I miss you.

 

 

 

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Not a Happy Nahleen This Morning

I am so not a happy Nahleen this morning. I feel awful. I tried a new blood pressure medication yesterday–ONLY ONE PILL–I will NOT be taking that again.

I feel weak, depleted, achy, stiff, my body temperatures are going hot and cold, and I really feel like I’m getting the life sucked out of me. I’m trudging through muck and I feel like my hands are stuck to a stringy glue-like substance and I’m starting to lose touch with me.

I’m so frustrated and powerless. I had plans for a Physical Therapy appointment and I also had a commitment to fulfill for tonight. Both of these plans will now have to be cancelled for today…because of my body’s reaction to ONE PILL of a line of blood pressure medications that I previously struggled with six years ago. So I got to wake up off and on all night with my body feeling so “weird” and was given a chance to reminisce about those horrible days of trying crappy medications to take care of an issue that had nothing to do with my chronic illnesses. I think what was happening back then was that my multiple sclerosis and lupus (didn’t know I had lupus at the time) were feeling very overwhelmed by any new medication because I was taking a very strong injectable medication for my MS and they were especially unhappy with BP medications so my body went into purge mode. I remember all too well that I was starting to feel lifeless, like the medications were sucking the life out of me.

I have been currently taking a blood pressure medication that has actually worked out but my doctor insisted on raising the dosage by adding another medication and instantly my mind went into RED ALERT. I figured that I’d be okay this time because both my MS and lupus are being treated and I’m no longer on the injectable medication. WRONG. Turns out my body rejects diuretics altogether. No more. All done. I tried it for one day. My body hates it, doesn’t want it and it is all done.

I agree. I hate it, I don’t want it and I’m all done with it too. I will be calling my doctor today to let him know I’m not taking it. It has been a long time since I woke up feeling this physically crappy. Turns out I like my body much more without this new poison. Hey, at least it helps me have perspective that I don’t need to feel this crappy (and I haven’t FOR A LONG TIME NOW I GUESS) and that I want my previous body back–you know, the one from over 24 hours ago that hadn’t taken this stupid medication yet.

So today I will be resting, drinking lots of water, hoping my body can rebuild and repair itself and will do my best to have patience. It’s time to be gentle with me and to remember that I’m not the same person I was mentally or physically six years ago and I can get through this one thing at a time.

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