Platypus Journey

Thursday, April 12, 2007

4am... sleep eludes

This is Spike...


Well, I thought I'd just post a little progress. And a great big whine... 4 am, and there is no sleep...

I'm down to 40/40/40 as of yesterday. I took a 5 day break from my 5 mg weaning schedule, which I really needed. Yesterday is the first day I felt like a human in a long time, but of course, at bedtime I hit a wall so hard I had to be helped to bed. Again.

So. I saw Dr. L yesterday, and he was pretty grim. The high levels of steroids are starting to cause damage. I am cotrtisol resistant, and the sinus infection is eating my brain again. Can't really wean until the infection is gone, infection is getting worse, and I have to beat the ENT about the head and shoulders to make her understand the grave and serious nature of this. But I have to contine to peck awy at this until it's down. One of the dangers is that I'll need to stress dose, which will throw my completely off again. And this last weekend I sooo wanted to stress dose. I can feel my body screaming at my kidneys to try to force them to force the missing adreanals to do something... phantom limb pain...

I see the ENT tomorrow. Not sure what's gonna happen, but Dr. L said I have to push. I hate to push. But I also hate to end this jouney because of a stupid sinus infection. Not how I want to die, by the way... But new pockets of puss are forming, need sinus surgery to debreed my sinuses, need IV anti-biotics since I've been on oral antibiotics for so long that I'm in danger of destroying my stomach... Even taking the extra yogurt and live active acidopholis and lacto-bacilli... I don't want the explosive bloody diareah... I've already got 2/3 of that as it is....

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Weaning is hard!

"meaning of life" done with marker and watercolor. The rose is iridescent, which doesn't show up here.
Some people say everything gets written down in the Big Leger, while other people say that life is a series of lessons, and we are both the teacher and the student. As we go from life to life, we have different lessons to learn and teach, and this is meant to represent that.

I've believed in reincarnation since I was seven. Worked it out on my own, since my parents were atheists, but they sent me to an Evangelical private school, Alma Heights Christian Academy.

Yup, they had their hands full with me...

My wean is going very hard. I think in part because the sinus infection from hell is back. I have to call the ENT tomorrow first thing and find out when I'm scheduled for sinus surgery. Not that I want surgery mind you, but my cheek is so swollen that it's affecting my vision, and yippy, I have "new pockets of puss" forming. At this point, I think it is appropriate to say several bad words, really loudly. Repeatedly.

I'm now down to 45/40/40 and I have myself scheduled to wean again tomorrow morning. Today was the first day I felt half way decent in a week, so I think I'll put off weaning until Tuesday, and give myself one more halfway decent day. I've been sucking down so many zofran, I wonder if I was masking a little AI in the proess. 'Cause without it, I'd have been barfing for sure.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Spring Cleaning





Since today's post is about Spring Cleaning, I figured it would be fun to show you some pictures of my massive reclamation project to reclaim some personal space in my house. And I thought I would share my work-space with you.

The first pix is my current work space. The other two room shots show my progress at about the 80% point.

And the 4th picture, the painting, is a called "The Studio."

I don't know about spring cleaning.... Never really understood that concept, but I was raised by wolves.

What I've been doing lately is clearing out, cleaning out, getting rid of things I have no use for anymore. And it is Spring.... So I guess, this is the first spring cleaning of my life.

So far this year I've completely reclaimed an entire room from being a soul eating pit of clutter. It was so overwhelmingly cluttered that we would open the door, shudder then quickly close the door. No way to even know where to start. But that room is now my studio/craft room. I just decided that the far corner would be the perfect place to put my work table.

I literally carved a path to the back corner, stacked stuff on other stuff, hauled a work table up from the basement *(at 4 am no less!) and just went one piece at a time until the room is mostly done. I did NOT do this as a marathon cleaning/organization session. Instead I did this in chunks of 10 to 15 minutes at a time. Sometimes I went longer, but mostly it was little tiny sessions that got it done.

I had wanted to paint the room before I put it together, but that was not going to happen, not this year anyway. And I wanted a place where i could be, that was just me.

It's funny. When I started cleaning and organizing that room, I was not paralyzed by the clutter. I was not owned by it, It had no power over me. It still has no power over me. And that amazes me. It's only been since my BLA that I've felt this freedom, and I'm not sure where it comes from. I haven't had a High since the BLA, and I'd had plenty of Lows before, so I don't think it's connected to that sort of cycle.

The next/current project is laundry. I think I have about 8 loads that need to be folded, and there are probably 5 or 6 more loads that need to be washed. Think I need to go through and weed out some fabrics????

I still have so many boxes to go through though. Condense and condense and condense.