Evil Virus of Doom...and other things.

Just a short post today.

Alex and I have been plagued with some terrible virus for the past week. Alex came home Friday with 104 temperature, and Saturday she had a terrible sore throat. I also started coming down with it on Saturday, and Sunday, Mother's Day, we were in the ER getting strep tests.

Luckily, they were negative, but that did not stop the horrible and searing throat pain. We were both unable to eat more than a few bites for three days, and Alex's fever stayed in the 103-104 range for three days. Finally on Thursday it broke to under 100 and stayed there, and I was able to start eating again. She has been fever free for 48 hours now, and can talk and eat with ease again.

All Alex could eat was Popsicles for two days.

Alex has never been so sick in her 8 years. It was very scary for me. She would not eat, could hardly drink, and did not say a word for three days. As most know, Alex is a talker. She talks NON-stop all the time. Yet nothing but head nods and shakes for three days. The few bites of food she would eat I had to feed her like a baby bird. She was so weak she could hardly sit up, much less feed herself.

Jack was very kind, he pretty much ran the house for the week. I was in bed for two days, only getting up to use the bathroom. He cooked and did dishes and got us anything we needed. It was very nice.

I did the dishes and ran the vac today, for the first time in a week, and tomorrow I am going to cook a real meal. We have been living off of broths and soups, as it was so painful to swallow anything, and we are all ready for something more substantial. So I intend to make steak tacos, and I have a giant seedless watermelon in the fridge chilling for dessert. I have been craving the melon like crazy for the last couple of months. I blame it on longing for Summer. ( Try not to gasp in shock over the fact I am longing for Summer lol ) It is the middle of May and we have had a few nights of upper 30's and low 40's. In Florida. I am still wearing jeans most of the time. My shorts sit in the drawers...waiting to see the light of day.

In other news, there are two weeks of school left, and even though we were so sick, it was nice not having to worry about living life by the clock for the past week. Sleeping when we wanted, waking when we felt like it. No rush to eat dinner and do dishes, or make sure laundry was done for the school week. I am really looking forward to a couple of months of that.

Also, we have been given a mediation date with Jack's former employers. It is set for the second week in July. Of course, I can not give any detail, but hopefully this hellish 2 year period of doom will all be over soon, in our favor. Jack had a doctor visit this week and the doc said he should have a fusion. Jack told him " No, thank you." The doc also told Jack that he was a record breaker. The Doc had never operated on one person 4 times in a row in such a short amount of time. Hell of a thing to be a record holder on, eh? There will be no more surgeries unless the alternative is to end up in a wheelchair forever. They keep hacking on him and he is still not fixed, and he is just done with it. There has been no improvements,  so now he just wants pain management and to settle, so we can move on with our lives.



So hopefully, soon we will come to the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel we have been navigating.

Source

Hmmm, what else?

Oh yeah, my birthday! I turned 34 on May 4th, and my Mom and older kids surprised me by taking us all out to dinner at Outback. It was scrumptious, and it was nice to be gathered with my family. The only down side was it was graduation weekend for FSU and FAMU, so the place was packed and very loud, which made talking almost impossible. One we got back to Mom's, I saw that she had made me one of her delicious cakes, which I adore. They also got me a humorous birthday card, with a sexy shirtless guy in it, and he sang happy birthday to me, but you had to rub his abs to get him to do it, and he was ticklish, so he giggled while he sang. It cracked me up. All in all, it was a very nice birthday, the best I have had in a very long time. I still smile when I think about it.

Mother's Day was a wash, due to us being sick, but Saturday, the day before, Jack made a great dinner and did the dishes, so it all worked out. He and Alex also got me a card each, and Alex also made me a handmade card. They both made me cry, they wrote such sweet things in them. It warmed my heart. They drive me crazy sometimes, but I know they love me, and I love them.

I think that is about it for now. My "short" post ended up being a little longer than I intended, but a lot has transpired since I last wrote lol.

So I will end  here, and I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

P.S. I am still looking for questions for my 'Ask Me Anything' segment. I only have a couple, and I am really wanting to do this. So please, send your questions in. Click the graphic in the upper corner of the left sidebar to be taken to the post with the details! Thank you! :D

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Haunted at Planet Buddha!

After a long silence, I finally posted over at Planet Buddha!

I want to thank the people there for being so patient with me while I try to scrape my wits up out of the hole they have been hanging out in for over a year. They are amazing.

"I have never been much of a "seer" when it came to ghosts. While almost always aware...almost always being able to feel, and sometimes hear...there have only been a dozen or so times that I have ever laid eyes upon a ghost. The first time it ever happened, I was a young girl, and my great uncle passed away. I loved him dearly, and he visited me for a while. You can read that story here. A doorway was opened, and it led to those other viewings, but it has never came easy for me since the first time......"

Continue reading post at Planet Buddha..

What do you want to know? Ask Me Anything!

Good afternoon folks!

I am excited to bring a new segment to Tales of the Wolf Queen!

It's called ASK ME ANYTHING!

Yesterday, I asked over on the FB Fan Page for my readers to submit questions about anything they might want to know about me. It can be anything. Mundane questions like what is my favorite song, book, movie, color, and things of that nature. They can be of a much more personal nature. They can be intellectual questions.Anything goes!

I want to let you guys and gals ask me anything, so you can get to know me better. I find in my own blog reading, I want to know as much as possible about the ones I am really interested in. I figure there must be others out there who wish they could ask their favorite bloggers a few questions, so I am giving you all the chance to do just that with me!

Here is the deal. If you are on Facebook, then head over to the Fan Page for the blog and look for the ASK ME ANYTHING Picture pinned to the top, and submit your question in the comments. You can also message me on Facebook and submit your question that way.

Alternately, you can email me HERE if you like. Just type "ASK ME ANYTHING" as the subject.

I will also be linking this post to the ASK ME ANYTHING picture over on the sidebar.

Once I have several questions collected I will answer them in a blog post!

That's all there is to it!

So, don't be shy, send in your questions! I am really looking forward to answering them!

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Breakdown...

I have been on an emotional roller coaster for the last week or so.

To start with, as most already know, I am bipolar, and I was hit with a pretty rough down swing.

I spent way to much time in my own head, which is a dangerous thing at times. I started looking at everything and everyone with bitter and jaded eyes. I felt very alone, and unloved. I started comparing what I did as a friend and what other people did as a friend, and felt that most of my "friendships" were very one-sided. I felt that I was the one doing all the work, and when I needed people, no one was there. Not that I ASKED them to be there, mind you. I just thought everyone should telepathically know that I was losing my shit and needed someone to fix me, help me, save me, take care of me for a change. So I went on a 4 day social networking silence...waiting to see when someone would notice.

No one did.

Or rather, no one came forward and said they did, until after the fact.

Then, I had an ugly public meltdown on one of my social networking pages. That is something I do not do very much...and I was horrified after the fact. I felt so very foolish. I tried to do some damage control, but there are still a couple of people who are making their displeasure known. I apologized, and there is not much more I can do about that.  As I said in my apology, even the strongest stone can crack under the right amount of pressure.

I cracked.

It all just got to me. I was lonely, upset, scared, and overwhelmed. We have been in one of those " Omg, what are we going to do until the next check gets here, bills are piling up, our supplies are dwindling, I have to have all of these tests and I have to wait until we have the gas money.." periods. It sucks. ( No, his check has not gotten here yet. We still have a week to go. It is not going to be pretty. It sucks when one simple thing will fix it all *money* and that is the one thing we do not have, and neither does anyone else.)

I tried to talk to Jack...but that is not any help, as he is mired in the same crap I am. Only his mental state was a little worse, since he is the one who has always provided for us, and he feels like a failure. I needed to be reassured, but so did he, and we just did not have anything left to give each other in the way of comfort.

Feeling upset about our current situation got me to thinking about all those people who said "If I can help, let me know!" Yet, when I finally stuffed my dignity in a corner and asked, of course there was no help from those people. I will not go into my feelings on that, because none of them are nice. Or particularly rational.

The next step in the downward spiral was to become angry about everything my friends did.

( I don't hate anyone, but the rest is fitting )

"Look at that bitch, always taking a nap and laying down every time he/she gets a hangnail. Oh you have a migraine? You have cramps? You have to study? You have to go grocery shopping? You sliced your hand open on something? You have the flu? You are in the hospital? Well TO BAD! I sit here no matter what I feel like, I AM HERE, why can't anyone else suck it up and be here when it is so obvious that I am losing my mind, even though I have not said a single word about it to anyone, can't they read my silence as something OMINOUS"?

Yeah. Can we say ridiculous? I was angry at other people for taking care of themselves, just because I am always here, no matter how bad I feel. Very stupid thinking.

Then came the getting  pissed off at my family. "Why do they only call when they want something from me? When they want me to fix something, or get them something, or do something? Why can't they ever contact me just to make sure I am not dead, to see if we need anything ( and actually help us with something, instead of just saying it out of social obligation. ) There is a lot of truth in that, but my Mom will call if she has not heard from me in a while and check on us.

So I started looking for the negative in everything, and we all know where that gets us.

No where.

Once I made my problems known in my meltdown, I actually got a lot of support. As one friend said, "if you need to talk, then LET ME KNOW." Well there is a novel idea. Instead of stewing in silence, I could say "Hey, I need some love here."

The next day, I was embarrassed at my outburst, and I read everything over again, and saw the love that is there, if I only reach out and tap into it.

It was a hard and embarrassing lesson to learn.

I then made the comment that I wished therapy were free...and a friend asked me if I had medicaid, and if so, then therapy was available. I had never thought of that. So yesterday, after talking with that friend, and another new friend ( whom I find myself liking more and more every time I talk to her)  who is also in the process of seeking help, I made a couple of phone calls after looking in my provider handbook and seeing they do indeed offer mental health help. I called two of the four therapists in my network. One I did not like the vibe from, and the other, after first asking  me if I were suicidal ( I'm not ) told me half her staff was out sick, she was swamped, and could she call me back today. I said yes, because even in the short amount of time we spoke, I liked her, so I am waiting to hear back from her.

I need outside help, and I am not ashamed to admit it. I need someone else to examine my brain instead of just me. I know what is wrong, but I can't fix it alone, and neither can well meaning friends, as willing as they are to let me bounce things off of them. I need to learn how to handle all of this mentally, and I probably need my meds looked at and possibly changed. It has been a long time since they have been adjusted.

I just can't do this alone anymore. My mind is twisting bad things into monumentally horrible things. I have enough going on in my life, the last thing I need is to sabotage myself on top of it. I have to learn how to not shut down, and how to not look at innocent things as the enemy. Yes, I am lonely, but if I keep this up, I will be truly alone, and I do not think I could handle that.

So that is what has been going on in the last week. SO much CRAP stuffed into a few days. It was not a good time to be in my own mind. It is like a bad acid trip...normal and innocent things look like big scary monsters and bad things that want to hurt me. I hope that this therapist wants to work with me. I am looking forward to it...to letting someone outside of all the crap I am going through ( who has no emotional ties to me ) help me look at things more objectively. I feel it can really be a lot of help.

That is what I am hoping anyways. That is my plan.

Well, there it is. That is what I have been dealing with, and I hope it is all over soon.

Have any of you ever had episodes like this? What did you to do deal with it? Did you seek outside help, or struggle through it alone? If you have any tips, please let me know in the comments!

Until next time....

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Sometimes...

Sometimes I feel empty...even on the best of days.

Nothing is exactly wrong, but nothing is exactly right, either.

Perpetual limbo is it's own special kind of hell.

Sympathetic murmurs and pity filled eyes everywhere I turn.

Surrounded by loving well-wishers.

Even while appreciated, words no longer help.

We still feel alone.

Avoided like lepers.

No one wants to be around the downtrodden.

Two tired and weary faces mirrored in each other across the dining table.

Looking for hope in each other's eyes, but finding only the same exhausted defeat.

Backs turned towards each other in the night.

Clutching our pillows; silent tears slipping down our cheeks.

Hoping not to wake the other as we plead silently to the Universe to answer our call.

Yet we each feel the shaking of the bed, as suppressed sobs wrack our bodies.

We each pretend not to notice, trying to preserve what little dignity the other has left.

Fake smiles and false laughter to reassure our reason for existing that everything is okay.

Hearts shattering each time her tiny requests have to be answered with "I'm sorry, but no."

Sleepy narcotic hazes that never fully stop the pain.

Bodies that work against us, making each movement a Herculean effort.

Positive thoughts and affirmations becoming harder to maintain.

Sleep is no reprieve.

Reality becomes the nightmare, for the nightmare is the reality.

Endless days running together.

Time drags on.

Sometimes I feel empty...even on the best of days....

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On the road to a diagnosis...

I met with a neurologist on Wednesday thanks to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

The following is what I wrote as a Facebook note for my friends and family, and I am going to share it here with you all as well.

I met with Dr. Maitland and a group of five medical students . After asking me several questions about my symptoms and my problems, he had me leave the room and he talked to Jack and Alex alone for about 30 minutes. Jack told me that he asked him and Alex several questions about what changes they had seen in me, and things they had noticed. The Dr asked Alex was Mommy acting strange, and her answer was " Mama talks funny, and she falls a lot, and she drops things all the time. Her hands are bad, they do not work right."

After Jack gave his account of the things he has noticed, I was called back into the room and I was put through a series of physical tests. I had to do what I call 'drunk tests." He made me walk in a straight line, and touch my fingers to my nose. He had me get up and down from a chair many times, and I had to walk up and down a short flight of stairs several times, with a strapping young medical student there in case I fell. He was very attractive and I thought about flinging myself off the stairs just so he would have to catch me, hehe.

I had to "high step" which was pick my legs up as high as I could, with my knee towards my chest, several times on both sides. I learned today that with Parkinson's, one side  of the body is usually worse than the other, and my left side is much worse than my right.I was afraid that today would be a "good body day" meaning I would not have as  many problems as I do on other days, but luckily  it was not a "good body day" and my speech and motor skill problems were very apparent.

I then had to walk around  a little carpeted track, that has slight hills ( speed bumps ) and slight dips in it, and he watched me as I navigated the track several times. He said that I overcompensated on the hills, picking my legs up higher than needed, and I was not gauging the depth of the dips properly, I was trying to brace myself to step down way too soon.

He let me rest, and gave me some water, and then made me do the whole process over and over, about ten times. I was exhausted and shaky as a newborn colt, but he told me that the symptoms presented better when the body was pushed into being tired, the problems became more apparent. He was right about that, by the time we got out of there I could hardly speak, and my legs felt like they were going to give out. They STILL feel like that, hours later.

He had me lie on a table for about 20 minutes, so he could see the full body spasms and jerks that happen from time to time, and my body did not disappoint, it happened several times. He checked my reflexes and I told him I was very sensitive to touch. When he hit my left knee, I almost took his head off, my left leg flew up in the air. Alex thought this was hilarious. He moved to the side of me when he did the right side, and the reflexes there were not as overly sensitive as the left.

He had me toss a beach ball back and forth with him a few times. I missed it twice  and got smacked in the face with it. I thought it was closer than what it really was. The same issue I had when navigating the dips in the track, I thought they were closer than what they were.

The Dr. asked me a ton of medical history questions, and questions about my parents and grandparents. They had me bring in samples of my writing, and since I am a paper hoarder, I still have reports I wrote in middle school. I had plenty to show him from way before my symptoms started ( 2007 ) and  some after, and then he had  me copy a paragraph from a book in cursive and longhand. He spread all of these papers out on a long table, in a timeline, and called the students over to look at it. I could not hear all of what he told them, but what I did catch were things like : See how smooth and flowing her earliest papers are, and as she progresses, the letters are not formed properly, and writing is shaky, and smaller." Once he got finished, she turned to me and told me that in Parkinson's and some other nerve disorders, handwriting was a huge indicator that there is a problem. The writing becomes messy and the words get smaller, because it is harder to control the pen or pencil. He showed me that my handwriting today was half the size it was when I was in middle school, and much messier now than it was back then.

Jack then asked him about my ability to type with no problems ( hands wise, I can hardly hold a pen to write anymore ) and why was I able to type and not do other things ( he was not asking to be nice, it bugs him to no end that I can type and not do other things...it bothers him that I am on the computer all the time. ) and the Dr. said a different part of the brain controls the movement of typing than it does with speaking or holding a writing tool. I did not have to squeeze anything or put much pressure on the keys, making it much easier to type than to write or do other tasks with my hands. Then he asked me if I had any trouble with typing, and I told him that I type between 80 and 90 WPM for years now, but over the last two years, my spelling has suffered, I type the wrong words even though I do not mean to. For instance, I WANT to type " I had a good time last night" and even though that is what I think I am typing, it is what I intend to type, what comes out is " I heard a grand itch last nite." Words that are correct, but not what I wanted to type and not what I thought I was typing. This caused him to write furiously in his chart.

Then Jack asked about my reading. He told the Dr. That I used to read ALL the time, for hours on end..two and three books at a time...and now I would read for maybe ten minutes and stop. This very stern and professional doctor ( who kind of scared me, he has no sense of humor ) turned to me and said in this strange and really gentle voice: " Do the words not look right anymore? Do you have  to read the page over and over to get it to sink in or make sense?"

Something in his voice caused me to get tears in my eyes, and I nodded and said yes, but I never mentioned it to anyone ( I was VERY surprised when Jack said that, I did not realize he noticed me not reading as much ) because I just thought my eyes were tired or something, I recently got new glasses.

This stern man, who had shown not one ounce of personality or even friendliness thus far, patted me on  the knee and said in the most compassionate voice " It's not your eyes honey, it's your brain..." and wrote for almost ten minutes in his chart. I was wiping tears the whole time. I am not sure why, but something in his voice and the fact that there was some unseen reason just struck me really hard and I got choked up. The fact he called me honey surprised Jack and I both, because before that, he showed not one iota of warmth or anything, so it stuck out like a sore thumb.

He turned to Jack and told him that one day I might not be able to communicate in any way other than typing,so he needed to not pressure me about it. I smiled and Jack was a little taken aback. Maybe now he will not give me so much grief about "talking" on the computer.

After that, he excused himself for about 30 minutes, and when he came back he told me he was in consult with another doctor and they watched the video of my session together ( I guess they fast forwarded a lot, we had been there for over two hours at that point..)

Then he told me he was ordering me a series of tests. He had the three MRI scans I had done a while back, but he said he wanted new ones. He ordered an MRI, with and without contrast dye...a CT Scan, a full blood work panel, and something new called a DaTscan...which he was all excited about. Apparently it measures the levels of Dopamine in the brain. It is a new thing, it has only been approved since 2011.

Once I have all those scans done, I have to go back and have a follow up and see what they say about my results. He told me that there was definitely something wrong in my brain, and he was not going to stop until he found out exactly what. He said way to many doctors were to eager to slap a Parkinson's diagnosis on a person because they did not want to go through the work of finding out what it is. MS and some other disorder that I now can not remember the name of closely mimic other nerve disorders,  so he had to weed out other things before he can say if I do or do not have Parkinson's, since Parkinson's is more of a "You don't have these other things, and we don't know what it is, so we call it Parkinson's.." as a catch all.  Parkinson's is what they tell you that you have when they can't diagnose you with anything else. He assured me he would rule EVERYTHING else out before we were through. He did say he would not give me any meds ( like the Neurontin ) until AFTER I have the tests done, because the different meds can  mask the symptoms in  the brain and nervous system...so I have to be "clean" until all the testing is done, and once he gets the results we can talk about medicine.

I was very scared when I got there, but I felt much better about him by the time we finally got through. He seems to want to help me, and he does not want to rush me along and slap me with some disease that I might not have.

So that has been my day. I am tired and shaky, but I feel good about my doctor, and his promise to not write me off, to really find out what is wrong with me.

If nothing else, the validation that there really is something wrong with me was worth going through all that...to know I am not crazy, and I am not making it all up. Jack has acted totally different with me. I know he thought I was telling the truth, but I also know he thought I might have been milking it a little so I did not have to do as much. Now he knows 100% that I am not milking it, I have a real problem, and now we will find out what it is.

I will update once I know more, after I have the tests done!

It was a very hectic experience, and I am still very tired today...I admit it. Next week I start calling to get all these tests set up, since we do not have a dime to our name for gas at the moment. I have a good feeling about it all, and I am hopeful that we will find out what is wrong with me soon.

So that is where things are for now. I will share my progress with you all along the way!

Have a great day!

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