Ground lost under my feet?

Well… I did not loose my job. Not in this round anyway. I got hired as the fourth of eight in my department, and the one hired before me, and the one hired as number six lost their jobs last week.

I did not get the job I applied for at my former employee either. So I have applied for a couple others.

There are quite a few things I don’t understand about this, and I see that I am naive, and have had a rather easy career.

I have a few new things to think about. It disturbs my balance, I have lost my sleep. I find that old patterns of thinking and feeling are coming back, and all my strategies for coping sort of escaped out the window.

It is temporary. There are more important things.

 

Keeping on being happy

New Year Fireworks, Athens (Photo credit: RobW_)

I am basically happy. I used to be:

• sad
• unmotivated
• stressed out
• desperate
• impatient
• worried

Those feelings used to own me. It is not like that anymore. I don’t go around all day with a big smile or anything, well, maybe some days. 🙂 And I feel good and calm. What used to cause real anxiety, worry, and upset me, doesn’t make me drill down into chaos anymore. I am more like “oh well, how do I solve this?”

If you have followed my blog from the beginning, you’d know I was quite intense and energetic. I posted almost every day, and I had a lot to say. I never really planned it, but writing turned out to be my breakthrough. Writing about all those bad things, made the symptoms disappear. It was probably not the only thing happening. I am not sure. At one point I felt finished. My deep dive into bad emotions and even worse memories was done.

I have been ok since then. Almost all the time.

I am very grateful that this happened.

I started thinking about next year today. What hopes I have, what I wish for to happen. I think I will put together some new years resolutions, not like the usual ones, but some thoughts on how to grow. How to reach my goals. How to continue having control and be at peace.

Thanks for reading everyone! 🙂

Planning for good things to happen

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am really happy today (too), however, a bit scared.

Last night I managed to enter next years cycling event, it is really huge, for a small country. The second largest race in the country. I got the opportunity, and signed on and paid and then I had to breath a bit… Almost 100 kilometres mountain bike race, together with 13000 others.

This year, I had to miss out, because of all the pain in my neck and head. I am still not all that OK, but better. It felt really bad to miss it, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to prepare. To busy at work, to many things to think of, and no time for training.

So this morning I have been thinking of plans again. One of my great readers commented once on another of my planning post: ”Man plans, god laughs”. I admit I am a bit like that, I make plans. Now that Christmas is getting closer, I use a planning tool, to put everything in, so that I don’t forget. It doesn’t always work out as planned… I also like to make plans at a personal level, like I planned to quit heavy bad sleeping pills after last summer. It worked.

So now I wish I can make a plan all the way forward to the bike race in June next year. I need to loose some weight, I need to put workouts into the everyday schedule, I need to increase the amount of kilometers on the bike. I need to take great care of my motivation and dedication, if those two are not fed, they vanish.

I wish I could plan for the winter to stay away too, this morning we had 2 degrees C. But that is probably too much to ask for?

How are you about planning?

Living life inside a bubble

Bubbles. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have been humming the Coldplay song for some days now. I guess that what is to come now, for the next few days, are so weird and strange that living in a bubble suits me just fine. An I certainly hope that bubble-life ends, on Tuesday night. When everything is ok, my daughter is well and happy, and I can breathe again and feel ok.

The more you have to wait, the worse? I think that is the case. My daughter has been waiting for more than a year for this procedure. Her life has been on hold. Instead of being a happy young girl, her life has been controlled to every last bit by pain, by weakness and by all the consequences of her situation as a whole. And I have been on the same wave, in a way. We are so close, so everything I feel, she feels, and when she is tired or in pain, I feel it too. If not, I certainly feel that she is feeling like this.

Deep down, I wish that after this, she can go back and be a normal (whatever that is) young woman, studying, working, partying, dancing. Worrying about what to wear or makeup or something girlish like that. But she has been through so much, that the whole perspective on her life has changed. Her experiences has made her a very compassionate and caring person. She has a level of insight both to her medical condition, and to the mental challenges that follows it (and all other stuff related to growing up) that I can only admire. So “normal” will never apply to her.

In so many ways, that is good. At the same time, it is so complicated.

Hopefully all bubbles will burst for both of us on Tuesday. Hopefully, life on hold, waiting, will be over, and she will have a heart that works like mine. Cured. Well. Healthy.

Totally new perspectives!

Thanks everyone :)

I LIKE you too!
It has really been very interesting to see how this blog developed. It grew fast, and really a bit faster than I ever imagined that it would. The idea was that I was writing for me, for my own therapy, and it worked. I am very happy about that! And I am very happy, that what I have put in here, has been of help for others too.
And I am very very happy that I have gotten to know YOU.
Thank you, every one of you 🙂

How are you?

Well, how are you there? 🙂

How many times do you ask people this during a regular day? And do you ever take the time to listen for the answer?

I know, it is just a way of saying hello, really. It doesn’t require an answer. So when people answers, it sort of takes away focus from what you were really going to say. Being a “foreigner” I always try to think of something to answer, like “I’m fine, we had a wonderful holiday and everyone is healthy”.

Just before the weekend, I bumped into one of my British colleagues, and went like “Hi! How are you? It’s been so long.” And he started talking about his cancer.

I knew he had been away for some time, and he has had cancer before. Didn’t know he was getting worse again.

The thing is, when you ask a smiling happy question, you don’t expect other answers than the happy smiling ones. And you are not prepared for anything else.

I think he appreciated that I took time to listen. It reminded that I should always be prepared to care.

Hope you have the opportunity to show someone that YOU care today 🙂

Good :)

The one we saw was all black, and very beautiful! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had a real good day yesterday 🙂 My daughter and I went out paddling, for two and a half hours. She loves it too! We went around this island, I didn’t think it was going to be so hard… When we got back, we checked the GPS, to find we paddled 10 kilometers… Last bit was by will, and only that. We had quite a few laughs though, and wildlife was nice to us as well. We saw seals, large birds, mink and some fish jumping. Mind resting experiences. Helps insomnia!

As we got back, we could hardly move, soar muscles all over. But today it’s ok again. Pain is not too bad either, just a slight headache, not devastating. Got the results from the MR and X-ray today, there are some slight damage to one of the joints in the neck, but nothing that should cause my severe pain. So I guess I will let the (former gorgeous, but now only evil) physiotherapist to beat me up once a week.

Today is just lazy. We’ve been evacuated from work because of a huge fire in a building close to ours, so I have been working at home. I find that so much more efficient. I can do stuff without being interrupted, answer e-mails, cross out some to-do’s. Hardly any phone calls, or corridor talks. Good!

Pulling hair

From the boat trip. I am so lucky having this outside my doorstep!

I twirl a few hairs round my finger. Pull. No, nothing happened. I grab some more hair, pull. Still nothing. Realize that even if I had bigger biceps, this thing of pulling myself up by my hair is not going to work.  And my hair would look even more chaotic! But don’t blame me for not trying!

The pain is not constant; usually it gets worse in the afternoon. Right now, (early in the morning) I feel that there is “something” in my ear. A tiny bit of aching. Later today, that tiny pain in my ear, will find its way to communicate with a nerve point in my forehead, and one almost as far back as my neck. Then all three will party for some hours, and try got get closer together, squeezing the left side of my head so that it feels like a half-deflated beach ball left behind after a sunny day. The worst, is that the pain drains me from energy, I kind of feel like that beach ball. And however much I try, I haven’t found enough self control or calm to sit it through. It’s more like: Painkillers, NOW!

Weekend has been ok, I guess. We went out in the boat, fishing, and caught mackerels, about 40. As some were just babies, and we don’t really like eating mackerels that much, we put them out again.  The tasty fishes stayed away, we didn’t get enough for dinner. But it was a sunny day, maybe one of summer’s last ones. I enjoyed being there with my husband. Saturday we went shopping. He made a stupid remark, which put me off the whole shopping thing. I really need some new stuff, but husbands and shopping are not compatible. Shopping and I is not good either, so I need to take advantage of those rare moments of shopping inspiration!

I’ll try to go to the gym today, I have an appointment with my darling daughter. If the weather is good, we are going paddling instead. There will be quite enough time spent in the gym as the darkness and weather gets worse. So I’d like to be outside as much as I can till then.

Thanks to every one of you, commenting to make me feel better! I appreciate it so much, and it feels good to have somewhere to be out there, even when I am not feeling well. Thanks!

No, not good, not at all…

sternocleidomastoideus muscle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The nerves of the scalp, face, and side of neck. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An MR machine is not like on “House”, where the patient has lots of space, light, and seems to have a good time. It’s NOT! I think today, that my nose was two centimetres from the ceiling of that very noisy machine. I did have the alarm thing in my hand, but the thought of not doing this now, and use months thinking about doing it again, kept me from pushing the button. My neck was locked in a bracelet, and I had bell shaped hearing protection over my ears.
I cried a bit.
Then I had to do x-ray.
I cried driving home as well.

Earlier today, I went to physiotherapy. He (the gorgeous looking one) is not as optimistic as he was after the first sessions. Most of last week went by trying to ignore pain and headache. Think I succeeded, in a way, but it makes me so tired.
Instead of beating up all those sore points where the muscles and the nerves are attached at the back of my scull, he worked on all muscles around the clavicle and the sternocleidomastoid muscle. This is one of the most important muscles in the neck, sort of goes from the clavicle to the ear. Apparently mine is extremely tense and strung up, he had problems trying to get hold of it at all. I was in so much pain I had to get his hands off me a couple of times.
I don’t really like to be touched, I think. He worked so close to my throat, that I found myself trying to avoid it, and him, by clutching my legs to the bench, and sliding my upper body to the side. Hanging on by my feet and some stomach muscles I didn’t know I had. Tears streaming, and my top was wet all through from cold sweat.
Right now I wonder if there is something wrong in the upper part of my vertebrae too. I, and the doctors and therapists have considered all of this to be consequences of a whiplash after the unfortunate crash between my head and a brick wall while cycling. (USE BIKE HELMETS, I did!!) My current diagnosis is cervical headache, and it is only on the left side. Now I am not sure. There is something wrong with my C1 nerve, for sure, but all these f***ed up muscles too? My physiotherapist says that time has made it all this painful. Right now, it feels like my left side has been hit by a bus, it aches in my arm, shoulder, all muscles around my clavicle, my neck feels swollen. To top it up, my headache is out of this world.
I think I’ll allow myself one tiny little depression tonight, grab some painkillers and go to bed.