The past six weeks or so have been very difficult around these parts. This week I crawled under a rock and went into hiding in most areas of my life, I haven’t been writing much here because I haven’t felt like there was anything fun, exciting or interesting to share. I don’t want to come here every day and say “yeah, life still stinks, everything hurts and I feel like crap.”

My body is very unhappy with me, the usual aches and pains have intensified as the fibromyalgia intensifies everything. The rheumatoid arthritis making my joints achy, hot and swollen. The recent stress and fibromyalgia making my muscles tight and sore. And add to that I’ve been feeling depleted and empty lately. I don’t have very much energy for myself or for others. I’ve been doing my best to stay present for my family. I know it’s a challenge for all of us. I haven’t been doing anything for myself – no knitting, no sewing, hardly any reading. I also had to quit training for the marathon…

All of this is also very disheartening for me. I don’t like feeling this way. I saw my rheumatologist this week and he mentioned my “lack of enthusiasm”. Well of course I’m not very enthusiastic – I feel crappy and I know he can’t offer me anything. “Off the record, just expect that this is how things will be.” Right, because at 34 it’s oh so comforting to think that for the rest of my life I’m going to be on this crazy roller coaster ride with my body!  The way he put it I may as well just hang it all up because it’s not going to get any better, unless they come out with some great new treatments.

I was telling someone not too long ago that receiving a diagnosis is difficult and that grieving is a part of the process. Right now I’m struggling with the Acceptance stage of grieving, I feel like I’ve slipped back into the Anger and Depression areas. Any bargaining has been taken away by my doctor and denial has been taken off the table by my body so I’m floating in a strange place of being angry and depressed while moving towards acceptance.

So as I told a friend earlier this week I need to come back out of hiding and fake it ’til I make it. I bought some yummy yarn today so hopefully that will pull me out of the knitting funk but only after I get 2 huge class projects done for my summer school classes. Oh boy…

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s a five minute brain dump. This week I wrote until my thoughts felt complete, for now…  Link up at all.things.fadra

I read a book today. I literally read a book today from start to finish, I read Estrella’s Quinceañera by Malín Alegría. It was a great story about a Mexican girl about to turn fifteen and dreading the quinceañera her mother was planning for her. Go read it, it’s great. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside – especially the parts about the crazy Latino families that reminded me so much of my own crazy Latino family. The tias and the tios, the cousins, the grandparents, just all of it. I’m not Mexican but I could relate to her story.

One part that stood out to me:

I used to think that I had to hide different parts of my myself from everyone, only showing people what I thought they wanted to see. I used to think my happiness depended on my never disagreeing with anyone. But what I’ve come to realize is that you have to be yourself, because you can never be anyone else. If people truly care about you, they will accept all the different pieces and parts of you and love you for exactly who you are.

 This is something I know I’ve struggled with throughout my life. I’m getting better at it now that I’m an adult, but there are still some things I won’t say, some things that just wouldn’t be “socially acceptable”, comments that I can’t make because I’m not sure who will get offended.

Sometimes it’s hard to be bi-cultural, with a foot in each world and trying to figure out how to marry the two. The thing that I’ve hated the most in my entire life is to feel like I have to defend how I am and who I am to anyone. The point is I’m me, no one else but me. And sometimes the things I have to say may ruffle some feathers. And I’m okay with that, really, I’m okay with that. And like some lines of one of my all time favorite songs say:

It’s begun… I’ve started training in earnest. Kick-off for the Summer 2011 season of Team In Training Silicon Valley/Monterey Bay chapter was on Saturday. There were a ton of people there all preparing for this endeavor.

On Monday I went to the walking group at Fleet Feet Sports in Menlo Park. My good friend has been going to this group on Monday evening and has been asking me to go with her. I went a few weeks ago but then I couldn’t go because I got sick. This past Monday we walked approximately 3.25 miles. It included some gradual inclines, mostly on asphalt but we did walk out in “nature” for part of it. We walked through some trees, over a creek and it smelled so… natural. Not at all like it smells when walking out in the city.

Some notes to myself:

• Make sure to wear athletic, moisture wicking socks or else there will be at least one blister the next day. 
• Make sure the phone is fully charged so that I can use the MapMyWalk app on my iPhone to log the workout.

This afternoon, Mr. Bubba and I went out for a walk, using Map My Walk I had mapped out a 3.4 mile loop starting and ending at our house. We set off and we completed a 3.47 mile loop in just over one hour. It’s a 19:17 minute/mile pace. That’s okay, we’re not necessarily going for speed, at least not yet.

Notes to self from today’s walk:

• Make sure to use the restroom before setting out
• No walking in jeans

It’s a learning process. I’ve walked approximately 7.81 miles so far this week. Taking it in little chunks feels much more manageable than thinking about the whole marathon all at once. I’m hoping that all this walking and getting out to move will help me feel better also in terms of feeling burnt-out like I have been.

So, I’ll just go get more ice and I’ll definitely be having some ibuprofen at bedtime tonight.

How about you? What are you doing for fitness or exercise?

Often times if things aren’t on the up and up, I won’t come post on the blog. I don’t know, I guess I have a thing about not being too negative here and of course, being careful about what I put out there on the Internet. I’m not sure though, if I don’t post about the difficulties and the challenges am I still being authentic? Am I keeping true to my voice when I don’t?

So, here goes… it’s all about keepin’ it real.

I’m tired. Both literally and figuratively. Just yesterday I tweeted that I feel depleted and empty, which continues to be the most accurate assessment of how I feel.

My body is unhappy, I don’t think the bronchitis is completely out of my system. I’m still having breathing problems. I had a chest x-ray earlier this week and didn’t hear back from my doctor, so the assumption is that no news is good news. However, I’ll be calling again in the morning. Along with the breathing problems, my joints and my muscles are achy. Stress is assaulting my body.

Stress is depleting my energy. I don’t have it in me to deal with anyone else’s problems. I barely have the energy to deal with my own stuff – my health, parenting, end of the kids’ school year activities and so on. I really don’t have the energy to deal with what’s going on with anyone else.

I keep trying though. I keep trying to be proactive with my health. I keep trying to be patient and present for everyone who I have to be those things for. I keep trying to meet my obligations and there are some I’ve had to set aside but it will work out. I know that as long as I keep trying then I’m still doing ok.

It’s when I stop trying that I worry. I’ve been in the deep dark hole of depression before and it’s an awful place to be. So even when I feel like I’ve been feeling the past couple of days I know that as long I’m still seeing at least the tiniest bit of light at the end of the tunnel I’m still doing okay. Some days I have to look a bit harder than others.

So my husband and kids got sick on their Spring Break, you know what that means right? I got sick the day they went back to school.

Problem is, I don’t just get a cold. Since the medications I take for RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis) are immune suppressants I get really sick. This time it was bronchitis, thank goodness it was JUST bronchitis. I had pneumonia in 2008 and in 2009 I was hospitalized for 3 days with pneumonia and they think H1N1. Luckily, 2010 only brought bronchitis and so far 2011 has also. Okay so I still feel like crap when I have bronchitis but I’m not as miserable as when I have pneumonia. Even though I drink lots and lots of water, I often end up getting dehydrated.

A good thing about all this: my primary care provider knows me well enough that I can call her on the first day of my respiratory symptoms and she knows it’s time for antibiotics. 5-day Z-pack to those in the know or Azithromycin to those of you who don’t need antibiotics regularly.

I know, I know… I shouldn’t have antibiotics prescribed willy-nilly, it’s going to create resistant bacteria, yada, yada, yada. Well guess what, I’d rather have a Z-pack than another 3 days in the hospital being pumped with 6 different antibiotics via IV because I didn’t get a Z-pack soon enough to knock the bug out of my system before it got nasty.

When I was hospitalized in 2009, I had seen another doctor because my primary care doc was out of town. She didn’t think there was anything too bad going on, gave me the z-pack after a quick listen to my lungs – which I think she did begrudgingly in the first place. The day after I finished the z-pack I was spiking a 103 degree fever, I was lethargic and couldn’t breath. The result was a 3-day hospitalization for pneumonia with dehydration.

I think I’m the expert in my terms of my body and my health, I’m glad I have a primary care doctor who listens to me and is on the same page as I am.

Now that I’ve made sure I’m not going to expel a lung every time I cough we’ll be back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I may have Spring Fever… I’m not really sure what the symptoms of what everyone calls Spring Fever are but my version of Spring Fever is that I want CHANGE! I actually want to change everything.

I want to change my physical appearance – lose weight, cut my hair, clear my skin, and who knows what else.

I want to change my physical space including shampoo the carpets in all the rooms, declutter EVERYTHING (watch out anything that I may consider clutter, you may find yourself homeless pretty soon), move furniture around, get slipcovers for the sofas.

I want to change lots of other things in my life. There’s a part of me that is excited about the possibilities of change, the opportunity to look at many areas of my life that are taking my attention and focus and really looking at what I want to keep or get rid of it.

Right now I’m taking the chance to look at everything and say Yes or No, consciously. And I’m looking forward to exercising my No muscle plenty during this.

PS – I’m not getting rid of the blog, it’s still a lot of fun for me but I might change some things (design, etc.)

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s a five minute brain dump. Link up at all.things.fadra

A friend and I were just on the phone and we were doing one of the things we often do… we were complaining about our weight.

Photo from stock.xchng

Just yesterday we saw each other for brunch, she’s a teacher and is finally on Spring Break so we took advantage of seeing each other. Anyways – I digress… at some point during brunch I said something along the lines of “looking like a beached whale” to which my friend responded “well, you don’t look beached” which thankfully means I look like a whale in the ocean… I guess! She did mention porpoise but I’m not sure which would be better.

You have to understand that this is probably my very best friend in the world, the one who loves me no matter how crazy I am, the one who is Godmother to both my kids, the one who signed my marriage certificate, the one who I can call at 2 am just to complain that I’m awake again, the one who got me a gift certificate to acupuncture to thank me for editing her Master’s thesis even though I made her cry, the one who understands my sarcasm and will laugh at me and with me when I laugh at her. Yeah, I think you get it.

Last night I went with her to a walking group that she’s been going to regularly because of course, our whale conversation let to us both talking about doing more to lose some weight, get fit, tone up, etc. She regularly goes to Pilates, Yoga, and walking and still weighs ___ – you didn’t really think I would tell you, did you? Let’s just say we both weigh more now than we did when we had full-term babies living in our bodies.

So last night we walked 3.4 miles. I’m hoping that there won’t be any issues with my joints and with my feet considering that the last time I tried to take up walking I ended up in a boot cast. Which reminds me… I’m signing up for Team In Training again and this time I’m determined to actually do it. I don’t have any plans to end up in a boot cast again before we even start the official training.

So, I bet you’re wondering when I’ll get to the hoarding part of the story.  My friend, I’ve got to think of a nickname for her since I won’t reveal her name on this here blog or tell you exactly where she works or even what her Twitter handle is, was on her way to Pilates class today and she called me using her bluetooth, that I finally paired to her phone for her yesterday, and we were talking about body stuff again. I sent her a text early this morning complaining about how I gained a pound between yesterday and today. We got into the conversation about how our bodies seem to be missing the message. We don’t need to keep storing fat because we are NOT going into starvation mode anytime soon, obviously we feed our bodies regularly, we drink plenty of fluids and have consistent access to food. So as we were laughing at and with each other we realized that our bodies seem to have a hoarding problem, hoarding fat just in case we need it someday. We came to the conclusion that in case of an emergency we’ve probably got the 3 days worth of food handled just in terms of the body fat we’ve accumulated. My friend says she may be covered for a month. Our bodies seem to be overdoing the whole emergency-preparedness part of the plan.

And then we came up with the million dollar question, we know that there is an increased risk of health problems with belly fat but what about butt fat? Is there an increased risk of anything from carrying fat in the rear? Does anybody know?

Also, any tips for this arthritic girl to be able to shed some pounds in a way that won’t hurt me? I can’t swim so that’s out of the question and I’m trying the walking thing again. I’d like to use the workout DVDs I own but I can’t make it through Level 1 of 30-Day Shred without collapsing and calling Jillian evil within about 10 minutes. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE Jillian Michaels, I think she is amazing and I would absolutely LOVE to train with her but I’m also afraid of Jillian breaking me and do consider her evil when I’m a few minutes into one of her workout videos.

There are several things that I’m thinking about right now as I think of how to finish that phrase…

I just placed ANOTHER order at Jimmy Beans Wool for more yarn… now keep in mind I have at least 6 other knitting projects on the needles, there really could be more but I was just doing a quick count on my fingers trying to remember. I placed an order for a particular yarn for a specific project, I also added in two skeins of yarn that were on sale and another 2 skeins of yarn because I like the color. Why?

I have two shawls that I’m dying to cast on. One that I have to wind the yarn for and one that I need to wait for my yarn to come in. Now, you do realize that I do have at least 6 other projects, that I can remember, in progress. Why am I adding two more shawls to the list?

I also already got two packages from Jimmy Beans Wool this month! Do you see what I mean about having a problem???

Let’s not talk about all the other things that I appear to keep piling on to my plate! My guys will be on Spring Break starting this coming Thursday and will be back at school on May 2nd. That always means I’ll be busier connecting with them taking advantage of the fact that they’ll be home.

I need to start putting down the spinning plates and exercise the use of the word NO. Well, that and find a personal assistant that would be willing to volunteer their time (yes, that means no pay) so that I can knit all day. Know anyone that fits the bill?

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Link up your post at all.things.fadra
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.