...and so it continues...

It isn't supposed to be like this, you see...things are supposed to be so much better now. And I want to cry, because they're not, and it seems so unfair, because they aren't perfect. My shiny, happy, easy time only lasted what seemed to have been such a brief moment. I knew I was playing the odds, I did. But waking up in the morning, full of energy and life, it was *so easy*, and it made me hope against hope that maybe it would continue to be that way.

I felt so alive, and so *good*. The sun didn't hurt me. Most of the major pain, it wasn't there. I kept hoping that was going to be normal...That maybe *I* was finally going to be normal.

I guess nothing lasts forever, huh?

They've diagnosed me, at long last, with Rheumatoid Arthritis, which isn't altogether surprising, when you figure in lupus and fibromyalgia. The lupus, as it turns out is very nearly completely in remission. But I'm going to be playing a round robin of new medications, and it's making me sick again. Plaquenil, which I've already started and is making me both dizzy and nauseous around the clock. Flexeril, which is making me sleepy as all hell, and I don't like at all. They want me on Methotrexate, which is a cancer/chemotherapy medication and if I can't talk the doctor out of it will simply make me yet more nauseous I'm sure, and since my Topamax already makes my birth control unstable, Methotrexate is incredibly dangerous for me to take. Methotrexate causes both birth defects and/or spontaneous abortion in women. It's *not* a good drug for any woman who is fertile to be on, which is why my neurologist doesn't want me taking it, but the rheumatologist knows that he's put patients on that mix before with no problems. My instinct tells me all his patients who take the mix have been either past child-bearing age, or male. In both those cases, it wouldn't be a problem...*sigh*.

And the really sad part is, because of all the stress, I just get more and more tired and more depressed day by day. All I want to do is sleep, and not have to deal with any of it. And I'd been feeling so good, and now I just want to give up again. Why can't I just wake up one morning, half the size I am now, and healthy? Is that too much to ask, to be normal, and healthy?

I got into it about my weight with someone recently, because his 'opinion' was that it should be pretty simple. I have two options as he sees it. I can either eat less, and exercise more, that's pretty simple, right? Or I can go and have the weight loss surgery, and take care of my problem that way. Either way would solve my problem.

The trouble is that I actually do eat pretty healthy, and I do exercise. Yes, I could probably do a little more than I do, but overall? I do not spend my days laying on my bed eating ice cream and potato chips, and drinking Pepsi, while having someone hand me junk food and watching soap operas. I get up and get what I want to eat, and I exercise. I take care of myself.

So I fear, greatly, that if I have weight loss surgery...what if it doesn't work, because I actually *am* already eating healthy, and it won't do me any good? If it cuts my calories down, but because I've already *done* that, it isn't going to do that awesome result that so many heavy people get? Then what? I've let someone do surgery on me, for no end result?

And being told by someone who doesn't actually have a weight problem, *and* who hasn't got physical restrictions limiting him from doing more exercise, and who can eat anything he wants, and does, majorly hurt me. Because it made me feel awful, about myself, and about everything I've done to get to where I am now. And as someone who couldn't walk from the living room to the car, I know what a major fucking deal it is, the fact that I can walk to anywhere I want to go. I might not get there very fast, but I can get there.

I own two canes, and I actually still *need* to use them, sometimes. They aren't here for decoration, or as toys because I just want them for my personal entertainment. That's what 'disabled' means. It means that it sucks to be me, and I have to cope with that, even when it isn't convenient. It means that some days, I'm going to be dizzy, and unbalanced, and whether I like it or not? Whether I'm heavy or skinny? I'm still going to need a cane. Because that's just how it is.

And I wonder sometimes, if he thinks that my losing weight is some kind of choice, and that if I really wanted to, I could just...write out a little plan, and hang it on the wall, and follow it, and it would just fall into line. That weight loss works that way, in some kind of "I want it this way, and if I would just have enough determination, then I'd be thin" sort of reasoning.

If it was that simple, I'd weigh about a hundred and fifteen pounds. I have determination in spades, what I don't have is a body that cooperates, and actually does what it seems as though it would logically do, in spite of what I put in, or take out, or exercise, or anything else. I can eat 600 calories a day. I can eat 2600 calories a day. I can, and have, followed x, y, z diets, to the letter, and the end result is still the same, every time. My weight doesn't move. I just don't know why :(

And now I'm more depressed than I was when I started writing this. I was rather hoping that the process of writing it was going to make me feel somewhat better, for working it out in my head, but it doesn't seem to have. So I'm going to go, and work on my never-ending homework, and then read a novel, where make-believe people solve make-believe problems, in some other world, that isn't mine, until I fall asleep.

Goodnight, internets. I hope that someone, somewhere is having a better night than I am.

All the freaking changes and a stupid migraine.

The amount of crap I've done and changed in the last couple of days has amazed even me. And it's not that they're bad changes, most of them are both productive and good. But they're still yet more changes. Comcast has gotten zee boot. Or at least, they'll have gotten the boot in another couple of days. I went with AT&T for the phone and for internet, and I killed the cable television entirely. Not like I ever turn the stupid thing on. I cut down services on both cell phones, (Danny you 'tard why on earth didn't you cut the text messaging down if the phone wasn't in use?), and I cut it down on my other one as well. Cut the Netflix account as well, I never have time to watch the movies. It's on hold, actually, in the hope that perhaps within three months I might have time to watch movies again at some point. If I don't have time again then, I'll cancel it outright.

Moved the furniture around. Again. Loaned the LCD television/5-disc changer and small surround sound system to Danny and Mona for a while, as again, I don't really have the time to watch anything, and they needed one for their room at his parent's house. He says I can have it back once he can save up enough to buy one for his room, which is fine, it isn't as though I'm using it right now.

I spent half a damned day on the phone with contractors, service people and Social Security and it's cohorts the other day, setting up various services, and letting people know that I'm working, planning out some things, and lining up assistance. I'm looking into going back to college as well, if I can get it lined up for online courses. School will also take a bit of pressure off me for work if I can get into the right programs with grant money. If everything lines up correctly. If, if, if. So sick of if, and maybe, and possibly.

So tired of jumping through hoops, and government programs, and difficulties. Wish I was normal, and things could be simpler. Wish I could work a normal job, and have a normal life.

Waiting on yet more blood lab results again. May yet have the world fall out from under me if some of that lab work comes back the wrong way, and I'm terrified, honestly about that. Not as terrified as some other people may end up being, but scared just the same.

Evidentally, the things that cause an enlarged liver? Are not things I knew anything about, and I'm not very pleased with what they were testing for, and if those tests come back positive, I'm going to be a lot less pleased yet.

We shall see. Waiting to hear back from the doctor's office now. At least if they come back and I'm sick with some of those things, it isn't going to be *me* calling around and doing the notifying of other parties. I'll be not-so-happily handing over the names and contact information to my doctor, to notify the health department, and they can handle that shit from there.

Danny and I were both completely sexually clean when we were with each other, so if I suddenly test positive for something that's made me sick? It didn't come from me, or from Danny. And with my already compromised immune system, treating me is going to be a massive bitch.

Meh, I got off-track. Back to changes, and all the stuff I've been doing this week. Oh yes, working my ass off, literally as it turns out. Hit the scale, and I'm down seventy one pounds, total, since October third of last year. That's quite a bit. And I'm kind of amused at myself, since I honestly haven't really done anything at all to have lost that, except not be eating anything except what I choose to eat by myself. Nobody to eat *with* anymore, and that seems to be the difference.

Guess that's good for me? But I'm pretty pleased with it. 'Chelle actually just gave me several pairs of jeans that are three sizes smaller, and I needed it, because those are once again bagging on me, and those are the ones that I couldn't get pulled *on* six months ago. I'm happy with my jeans.

I even allow pictures to be taken these days now, without yelling. It's kind of funny.

Okay, as I've got a rotten ass migraine, and I had to take some Imitrex, and I'm fairly stoned right now, I'm going to go and pass out for a couple of hours, and hope it passes so I can still work later tonight, because I need to.

Wish me luck.

Hip Hip Hooray!!!

That would be three cheers for my dear friend Melissa Gartenlaub, who called me earlier this evening to pass on some wonderful news. She is the mother of three gorgeous children, and called to let me know that her complete assface of an ex-husband wants to give up his parental rights, so that her new husband (who is awesome, btw) can adopt the kids. Hip hip hooray!!! Basically, assface just doesn't want to have to pay child support in any way/shape/form, and wants to know what he can do to get out of it. Hence, the adoption of the kids to the good guy. YAY!!!

Did you notice I'm excited for her? Because I am. Totally. That news actually improved what's been quite a shitty week for me.

In other news. Microsoft basically sucks major nuts. Evidentally, in spite of the fact that they *knew in advance* that our Xbox 360 had been opened in the attempt of repairing it ourselves, since they'd mistakenly informed us that it was out of warranty, they've decided that they refuse to have anything to do with repairing the unit. Because it's been tampered with. It's still in warranty, but the warranty has been voided due to tampering. And on and on and on. Danny spent like a half hour on the phone with a tech rep who you could just tell was thoroughly stumped about how completely screwed up the whole ordeal has been. So it looks like I'll be playing my PS2 for a while. Which is fine, since there are games I can play on the PS2 that I like, and it should be fine. But Microsoft has once again proven exactly how bad they suck. We're supposed to call back in 3 days to find out if they've resolved *their* problems, and tracked down what happened. Joy.

OK. Money problems suck, check. People who used to be my friends suck, check. My parents are bonkers, check. Well, to be fair, my parents are only bonkers because they're crazy enough to be trying to move about an hour from where they are, and get married, in the same ten-day time-span. Which by my reckoning makes them freaking crazy. We're still supposed to be going up there for the wedding, but we definitely won't be staying at the house. They've already got a complete houseful. It's a hotel for us. Whee.


Gas is ridiculous right now. It's over 3.50 a gallon, and that's for the cheap stuff. So I basically am staying completely put at home, because I'm not willing to pay to drive around. I love my car, but it's a complete gas-hog. The Saturn gets great mileage, but since we don't have a lot of money, I don't really want to randomly drive around in that either. But the not-driving thing might actually accomplish us being able to pay down some on our gas credit card. That'd be nice.

I hung curtains today, in my apartment. All by myself. Well, they're sort of pretend curtains, but they're doing what I needed accomplished, and I climbed up and down on a footstool to accomplish it, so I'm kind of proud. My balance is very wonky, so I was proud that I managed to get off and on the stool without falling or getting hurt or anything stupid like that.

I used to have a program called DietPower that tracked all my eatings habits and exercise and whatnot, but it was a strictly PC based program, and it's sorely out of date and wouldn't run on my Mac anyhow. I liked using it though, because it made it a lot easier for me to keep track of things. And while I was reading through a website on Fibromyalgia and weight loss today, I stumbled across a website called FitDay. What they do is essentially what my DietPower program did. But it's web-based and free. So I signed up, and will be keeping track of things for myself on there. I haven't decided yet whether or not I want to link my account there to this account, because I'm not altogether sure I want people knowing my weight and that sort of things on the internet. FitDay has a section for journalling, and I suspect that I'll be able to journal about my weight better on there than I can here as a general thing.

My cat does not like my new curtains, as they prevent him from getting into the windows. I'm not sure how long the curtains will survive, or whether he'll eat them. We shall see. But they're pretty and a dark purple velvet. I like them. (Yes, still proud of my accomplishment).

Ok, as a last thing. Hip hip hooray again for Melissa and her family, because that really did lift my spirits today, and I needed it.

See everybody later.