A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

I just realized that I haven’t posted here in just over a week. But this time it’s not because I’ve been particularly out of sorts. I haven’t been quite as cheerful as has been the norm lately, but I think it’s had a lot to do with the sinus infection I’ve been contending with. That, and not having learned that I have to stay completely away from alcohol if I want to be in the best possible mental state until this past weekend. Not just one or two drinks here and there, but no drinks, ever, period.

Anyway, I went back to the doctor for my follow-up today, and he was happy to hear that I was doing so much better. I had a few minor things to discuss with him, and the sinus infection, but other than that I could honestly say that I felt great. He upped the dose on my Ativan so it would be more effective against insomnia, gave me some antibiotics, and told me to come back in four months. It’s good to know that, barring any major episodes or other health problems, the monthly visits are over for now. I like my doctor and all, but I’ll be glad to see less of him!

So now I’ve just got to work on getting my life back to some resemblance of normal. I’ve made progress, but there’s lots left to do. I still have a ton of laundry to catch up on, and I hope to get that done this week since it’s supposed to be warm, dry and sunny. I also need to do some serious cleaning and organizing in my office. My document management system leaves a lot to be desired. Well, actually, it’s pretty much nonexistent, unless you consider a zillion piles of papers in no particular order a document management system. It’s going to be interesting trying to sort through it all and deciding what to file and what to trash.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print, for now anyway. But I’ll try not to let another week go by with no posts.

It has been a long, long time since I’ve truly been myself. As a matter of fact, I was beginning to forget who myself was. I stayed pretty much constantly stressed and depressed for a good two or three years. It was getting to the point where completing the simplest of tasks was kind of like trying to read CAD drawings – easy for some people, but more or less impossible for me.

The past couple of weeks have been different. I can’t say I haven’t been grouchy on occasion or had any bad days, but for the most part I’ve felt great. I’ve actually been willing to get out of bed in the mornings, and I’m starting to catch up on the housework. I’m easing back into my writing and blogging work, and I feel confident that I’ll be back to making a decent income soon.

I was beginning to lose hope that I would ever be able to truly enjoy life again. And I had my doubts that medication would help, seeing how I had tried a number of different meds to no avail. But it definitely seems to be making a difference, and for that I am thankful. I’m finally starting to feel like my old self. It’s good to be back.

Friday before last, I went to the doctor for a follow-up on my new depression and anxiety meds. I told him they weren’t doing much good, and he upped the dosage on the Pristiq and referred me to the mental health place.

Well, I’m happy to report that the higher dosage seems to be doing the trick. I’ve felt better for the past week than I’ve felt in years! I actually feel like myself again, in a good way. Woo-hoo!

I had to take Pumpkin in for a checkup this past Friday in the same office with the pediatrician, and she passed with flying colors. I still hadn’t gotten a call about my appointment with mental health, so before we left the office, I asked the receptionist if they had contacted them yet. She pulled my file and saw that they hadn’t, and I told her that the medicine seemed to be doing its job. So she said they wouldn’t make the referral, and to just come back for my follow-up next month. Cool.

One thing I will need to talk to the doc about if it doesn’t get any better is insomnia. Since shortly after they upped my dosage, I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping. I just don’t seem to get sleepy at night. I’ve always been a night owl, but lately it hasn’t been unusual for me to lie awake until 4:00 in the morning. And it has made no difference whether I go to bed early or late. And this morning, I woke up around 6:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep, after only sleeping for maybe 3 hours.

I know that I need to get more sleep than that to remain healthy, so I’ll talk to him about it. Hopefully he can give me something (or even recommend something natural) to help me get the sleep I need without adjusting my dosage back down.

Pumpkin and I saw our new family doctor for the first time yesterday. We had actually seen him before when he subbed for our old doctor, and between my impression from those visits and good reports from other patients, I decided to get all of us started going there when we got Medicaid. Unfortunately, he’s a very busy guy because he’s so well liked, and this visit may very well be our last for a while if we don’t get to keep our Medicaid.

Anyway, he did a brief checkup on Pumpkin, and said I needed to get an appointment for a well child visit with the office pediatrician this summer for her. I also talked to him about the trouble I was having getting Medicaid to cover her allergy medicine, and he said he would do his best to get them to cover it, but if they wouldn’t he might have to try something new. Bummer, because the stuff she’s on now (Allegra), is the only thing they’ve tried her on so far that has actually worked. And I do hate to mess with a good thing.

Then it was my turn. I was kind of dreading it, because I figured he would start fussing about my weight and tell me I needed to try some new diet pill, and although I know it’s true, it wasn’t exactly something I was in the mood to hear. I was there to establish myself as a patient, but I also needed to talk to him about my anxiety and try to get something that would actually help with it.

To my surprise, he said not a word about my weight. Maybe it’s because my vitals were good. He listened to what I had to say about what was going on with me and what my old doctor had tried, and after my brief overview he proceeded to describe my entire situation to a T. Thoughts bouncing around in my head when I try to go to sleep, difficulty remembering things because I’m so preoccupied with the things that are stressing me out, the whole nine yards. All I could do was sit there nodding my head, because he seemed to know exactly what I was dealing with.

He put me on two new medications: Pristiq to be taken daily, and Ativan for breakthrough anxiety and trouble sleeping as needed. And then I’m supposed to go back in a month to see how those are working out.

I really hope we still have our Medicaid by then. That’s the only type of insurance we have any hope of getting right now. Hubby definitely needs it at least until he gets his back straightened out or gets his disability, and I’d like to be able to get on the right medication while we’ve still got it. And even though Pumpkin is pretty healthy overall, she could certainly use a thorough checkup.

Rearranging the living room! All I can say is it’s about time.

Well, actually, I’ve got a whole lot more to say about it. For one thing, the timing could have been better. Here’s how the whole thing came to fruition. Hubby went to the chiropractor last week, and they said that his back was improving and he could start doing a little bit. A couple of weeks ago, they told him not to even do so much as wash a dish. So that was good news… sort of. The problem is, when they told him that, he took it as permission to do anything he damn well pleased. And after sitting around for so long, he wanted to do all sorts of stuff.

The first thing he did was push mow the yard, since the riding mower is out of commission. Then he decided to clean off the front porch, which was a huge mess. Then he decided that since I wasn’t motivated enough to have already started on it, that he would start on the spring cleaning. And the first thing he wanted to tackle was the living room.

I had actual paying work I could have been doing, but I knew that he was overdoing it, and I wasn’t about to let him do it all himself. So on Monday, we got started. The living room was pretty messy, and it took a while just to get it straightened up. The carpet was ridiculously dirty, thanks to my barely functioning vacuum cleaner. It took him a while, but he finally got it to work reasonably well, and I did the vacuuming. And then he said it was time to rearrange the furniture.

As much as I wanted to rearrange, and as many times as he had planned to help me do it and then changed his mind, I tried to talk him out of it. I knew he didn’t need to be moving furniture with his back just finally starting to heal. But he wouldn’t budge, so once again, I figured the best thing I could do was help. So I did.

The living room looked great. But by the time it was all said and done, I felt like I had been to the gym and made the rounds on all the fitness equipment they had. And I knew if I was that tired, it couldn’t have been good for him. So when he mentioned doing some more cleaning on Tuesday, I begged and pleaded with him to take a day off. It wasn’t easy, but I finally talked him into it.

It’s a good thing I did. Yesterday, he was really feeling it. He kept wanting to do stuff anyway, but I put my foot down. And I know he had to be hurting, or he wouldn’t have listened.

He seems to be feeling even worse today. He’s hardly mentioned doing any more cleaning, and he sat around all morning playing video games. I wish he would learn to pace himself. I was actually relieved when his mom called and asked him to come over and sit with his grandpa while they went to town. Now I have the house to myself for a while. After I get a few things done on the computer, I’m going to get to work on the kitchen. Hopefully I’ll be done with it by the time he gets back, and he won’t decide to move on to another room.

So in a nutshell, I’m delighted that we finally got the living room rearranged. It’s got a lot more space, and looks 200% better. But I wish Hubby would have done it when his back wasn’t in such bad shape. Now I’m going to have to push myself to try to get the whole house cleaned up as quickly as possible, because if I don’t, he’ll be right back at it as soon as he starts feeling a little better.

Anybody out there ever experienced the joys of having thrush? It’s like a yeast infection, only in your mouth. It’s pretty icky, and hella painful. Unfortunately, I’m dealing with it right now.

I woke up a couple of days ago with a sore throat, headache, and a ton of phlegm. I figured it was from spending too much time at my in-laws’ house the day before, because they all smoke like freight trains and I’m allergic to cigarette smoke. So I lay around most of the day, telling myself that I was going to put my foot down next time Hubby wanted me to go over there with him.

Then yesterday morning, I woke up with an even worse sore throat, and what felt like blisters on the roof of my mouth. Hubby took one look with a flashlight, and I could tell by his expression that it wasn’t pretty. He said I definitely needed to see the doctor, and that my throat was covered with blisters.

When I got up and tried to eat, I found that swallowing was extremely difficult. I tried taking some medicine – sinus pills, a couple different types of pain meds, even some all natural vitamins – but I could barely swallow them either, and one of the pills got lodged in my throat and wouldn’t budge for what seemed like an eternity. As soon as the office opened, I made an appointment.

The doctor first did a strep test, which came back negative. She then did a yeast culture, which would take 2-3 days to come back, and went ahead and gave me meds for both strep and thrush. She told me to start the thrush medicines first, and I did. Within hours, I saw an improvement. Hallelujah!

I’m thinking about just leaving the antibiotics be and continuing with the thrush treatment. After all, antibiotics can promote yeast growth, and that is what causes thrush. I believe that stress was what caused the whole mess in the first place, especially after reading the thrush article linked above. But whatever it was, I’ll be glad when it’s all an unpleasant memory.

I’ve heard many times in my life that exercise is good for stress. And I believe it’s true. Back when I was younger, and I exercised in a sensible manner, I felt better than I ever have in my life. But now, I just can’t seem to muster the energy to do it.

There’s no doubt that exercising would be a good thing for me. I could stand to lose a few dozen pounds for sure. I’ll probably end up with more stretch marks, because I didn’t do the whole cocoa butter stretch marks treatment thing when I was pregnant and gained so much weight. But it would be nice to drop a few jeans sizes, and to have some more energy.

But the main reason I need to try working out is to improve my mental health. I’ve got a ton of tension built up inside, and if exercise can help get rid of it, I should definitely give it a try. The other benefits would just be icing on the proverbial cake.

since my last post. If you’ve been reading my blog on a regular or semi-regular basis, you know that’s quite unusual. But I’m still among the living.

Things have been pretty crappy lately, but at least we’re getting some of the assistance we’ve applied for (and a little from some kind friends and family members). But my brain has been quite muddled. Hubby is applying for disability, and we also applied for Work First, a program that helps people who are between jobs. They made him apply for unemployment, which we were surprised to find out that he might actually have a shot at getting, but he has to go job hunting every week to qualify. Now, I don’t know how that will affect his disability application, nor how they expect him to find a job when the doctor has written him out of work. But whatever.

As for me, I’ve been under an insane amount of stress. In addition to depression, terrible memory, and a general mind fog, it has given me a wicked bad case of thrush. Ick.

I still haven’t gotten around to filing our taxes yet, but I’ve got to pull myself together at least long enough to get through that. We should get a respectable refund, and that would help tide us over until things get better.

So that’s what’s been going on in a nutshell. I have a lot of emotional issues that I need to let out, but I just can’t seem to find the words. At least I have Hubby around to hold me and wipe away the tears, and Pumpkin to give me a reason to keep on keeping on.

Life has been really, really sucky (for lack of a better word) lately. Hubby has been very sick, and we’re not sure what the problem is. The doctor called it chronic diarrhea due to his lack of a gall bladder and muscle spasms in his back, but neither of us is convinced. He’s had to miss a lot of work because of it, and I’m sure they’ll let him go when he does go back. They’ve already fired him once when he came back from being out with an abcessed tooth, but he talked them into giving him another chance. I doubt it will work again, though.

Whatever the problem is this time, he’s been in terrible shape. He’s been in lots of pain, and has spent most of the time lying around. He’s even had to get his brothers to cut and split wood for him, and it’s about to drive him crazy that he can’t do it himself. At least his brothers are actually helping this time. Normally they would make up some excuse and he would be on his own.

We’re seriously scraping to pay the bills, because his pay has been next to nothing. And I haven’t been getting much writing done, either. My clients are getting less and less understanding, and really, who could blame them? There are plenty of crooks and liars on the Internet, and they really have no way of knowing that I’m not one of them. Sure, I’ve been honest in my dealings with them for years now, but people can change. I know that from experience.

My nerves have been in a shambles. Sleep patterns have been erratic – one night I’ll be out before my head hits the pillow, and the next I’ll lie awake for hours wishing I had some good natural sleeping pills in the cabinet. And I haven’t been very good company at all. But I’ve got to find some way to pull it together and get some money coming in. I don’t have any choice, because Hubby’s future is very much up in the air.

Today I’m feeling better than I have been in a while, so hopefully I can get something accomplished. Or actually, a lot of somethings. I don’t mind being the breadwinner at all, but it’s just a matter of whether or not I can pull it off.

Hubby bought me a back massager for Christmas, and it does a pretty good job. I have a lot of back pain when I spend much time in front of the computer. It’s not so bad that I need to consider ankylosing spondylitis treatment or anything like that, but it does get pretty painful and cramped up. A real massage is much better, but when that’s not an option I can hook up my massager, kick back in the recliner, and get some relief.

I haven’t used it much lately, because I have been away from the computer for the most part. But I’m gradually getting back into my work, and the pain is coming back. So I’ll probably have to fire the massager up pretty soon.

I’ve tried to get Hubby to try it when he gets backaches, but haven’t had any luck. I mean, he’s taken it for a test drive just to see how it worked, but he hasn’t used it when he was really having problems. Maybe if I keep after him he’ll eventually give in. I know he bought it for me, but as far as I’m concerned, what’s mine is his.