De Pain, De Pain!

Anybody remember the old tv show, "Fantasy Island", with Ricardo Montalban? (Gotta love that guy; what an actor! He did such a good Khan.) If you remember the show, remember the little guy running around the island at the beginning of the show hollering, ‘De plane! De plane!” as all the guests get shuttled in for their fantasy filled island retreat. He’s running around in my head these days shouting “De pain, de pain!” but this ain’t no fantasy I’m living, and it ain’t no retreat.

Nope. This is real life. And anyone who has lived very long has met up with pain of some sort somewhere along the way. If not, they are either very lucky or living a very shallow life.

I should be doing all kinds of things right now. I need to get some snail mail done. I need to do laundry. I need to think about what all needs to be taken care of before we go on a trip next week and get that done too. I have all kinds of online work I could be doing.

But right now my body isn’t cooperating too well, and my brain isn’t focusing. Instead, there are thoughts and emotions swirling around in there like debris in a hurricane. Getting blown around, sometimes violently, sometimes a little calm in the eye of the storm, then right back to wildly whipping in the wind. It’s bad weather inside there folks.

I’m tired. Pain is fatiguing for one thing. But I suspect even if I were healthy, it would still be a battle right now to try to do everything I’m doing. I’m in transition. I’m trying to hang on. I’m looking and looking, trying to see that light at the end of the tunnel.

I know I’ve got more things to do than I can possibly get done. Too bad. They need done anyway. "Pare down your responsibilities," you say? Sounds like good advice, now just tell me what in Hades I can stop doing?

The farm chores? I’m hanging in there until such time as Jess can retire. Oh, he could retire now, but neither one of us are too eager to live on social security. Which brings up the internet work. The more I learn, the more there is to do. At some point I can outsource some of the work, but for now, it’s just me having to do it all.

Quitting just is not an option. This is the only way I can see of earning a living.

Now there are all kinds of ways to make money on the internet. And there are also many ways to lose your shirt to scammers or just not knowing or understanding what you are doing. Some ways of earning money fit my personality better than others and it’s taken time to figure out what those are. All of this takes time, both to learn how to do things and for a business to grow and make money. I am fitting more and more pieces together and feel the scales should tip in the next few months, maybe even weeks.

But again, it takes time. Time, it’s always a factor!

Maybe as much or even more than time itself is being able to USE the time. Being able to focus, to work without fatigue or pain clouding your brain.

But in the meantime, I am working as hard as I can. You can’t see the effects, unless you count the fact the animals haven’t keeled over and died from starvation, or we aren’t running around naked because I do eventually get around to washing clothes, or. . well, just don’t look at the house. There really is a limit to how much I can manage.

Time, time and money. One can always use more of both.

I’m spending money to go to the Fibro Clinic again. I need to be able to work longer hours. I need to banish the fatigue more often so I can get more work done and be able to exercise. I need to have my thyroid hormones regulated and other body functions put back to rights as much as possible. Until this happens, the fatigue prevents me from getting anyways near as much done as I would like or need to do. And it messes with my metabolism, making it nigh impossible to lose weight.

It’s all depressing too. I really don’t eat that much junk. Ice cream on Friday nights. I buy a big bar of dark chocolate as my main treat, and it usually lasts for two weeks. But the weight just keeps hanging on and I need to do something about that too. So it’s off to the Fibro/Fatigue Clinic, and hope they can help me get my body working as near optimum as possible.

Regular doctors can't take the time and/or don't have the specific knowledge to deal with the whole spectrum of problems that can be mixed in with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, not to mention an obscure problem like thoracic neuralgia. Insurance won't compensate them for the time they'd have to take with one patient to deal with it all and really understand and listen. Would government run health care be better? Not bloody likely. I have a friend in the UK who has fibromyalgia and can't get the health care she needs, and waits months to get in to see specialists.

No, I'm thinking it wouldn't matter. For such specialized health care, you're going to pay out of your pocket no matter what kind of health system is in place. But I need to function better, to be able to do more. So there we are.

Time and money. Never enough of both, ha!

I just have too many things in flux right now. I’m working on my health, I’m working on a new career, I’m working on just hanging on until I can get to the next level in so many different areas in my life. I’m looking forward to a housekeeper, and paying someone else to do the drudge work like directory submissions and other stuff needed to keep websites running and building traffic.

For now the guys are both working at their own full time jobs. (I think I’m working at 2 or 3.) But they are away from home, and I am here.

I hope I survive.