Picking up the pieces

Did you ever know one of those people who just can't make a relationship work? Ii mean, they try and try, but it never works out and they end up alone and needing someone to help them pick up the pieces. And why do i have to be that person? Is it something about me that makes people younger and older think I have all the answers?

So I am used to this. I have been picking up the pieces after every relationship ends, and I have been taking care of two people all my life, but I just wonder if it will ever end, or will I spend the rest of my life taking care of them? One is my younger brother and I don't mind that. I am suppose to take care of him, but the other is my father, and isn't he suppose to be there for me instead of me picking up his pieces?

My brother called me today crying. He was all upset. My Dad's latest wife had left him. So I spent some time talking my brother down and getting him calmed down. Got him to a better place and so I had one crisis down, but another left to go.

So I suck it up and make the call to my Dad, and it actually went better than I thought. He talked to me for a bit. She rally did leave and it was over, and i guess he saw it coming because he sounded better than I expected. He is working and taking care of the farm. He swore to me that he isn't drinking, and he didn't sound like he had been, so I am hopeful.

I love my Dad, but I have known for years that he has problems, namely he is an alcoholic although he has been sober for years at a time, anything can set him off on a binge an usually the breakdown of a relationship is one of those things. And my grandparents ha always been there to me talk to him and keep him sober, or pull him out of a binge. Grandma's been gone for 7 years now, and he had his last binge not longer after her passing, and grandpa an I pulled him out of that, an then he met his latest wife. He did really good in that she kept him sober, and even when grandpa passed he didn't go on a binge.

This is the first time I am going to be on my own to keep him on the right road! I am actually scared, but at the same time, i am going through so much in my own life, I don't know how I can handle this. Of course my first thought, my first instinct is to push my problems aside and deal with this other crisis first, because it's my "duty". I hope i never leave my kids feeling like they have to clean up after me, or take care of me, or that my crisis are more important than their lifes.

Lord give me wisdom!!!

10am and I'm ready for a nap....

I get up as usual this morning to get the kids off and on the bus. Maeve is begging me to drive her to school. She made a present for her classes student teacher, her last day is today and they are having a party, and she didn't feel like she could get it on the bus.

So I got dressed and took Maeve to school. Of course we had to stop at Circle K for a Polar Pop on the way, but I dropped her off and then went over to CVS. I had some stuff i needed to pick up, and then while i was there i noticed that the gardening stuff was 25% off, so of course I had to look at that.

I stopped at two garage sales on the way home. The first one has this really nice white ornate shelf that i like an would look great against the walls in my living room, there are a tan color called "Moose Tracks" and white picture frames and shelves really stand out against it and look crisp and clean, and the shelf was priced at $3 but they said to make an offer, but it was just so heavy! My walls have trouble holing really heavy things even with anchors, so I just wasn't sure. I ended up passing on the shelf.

The second garage sell didn't have much, but i did find a nice top for Maeve, but I wasn't as pleased that i stopped at it as I was the first. It looked good from the street but once you got into the garage it was a bunch of knick-knacks and Christmas stuff and I was not in the mood for that. So I headed home.

I hung a new wind chime I got at CVS on my porch, and then decided to finally finish planting the flowers I got for Mother's day. each year a couple in our church that owns a nursery donates flowers to be given to all the mothers in the church, and they are always good quality flowers. Somehow this year, the flowers the kids gave me are all full sun flowers, and then my mother-in=law gives me her flowers. She says she doesn't have anywhere to plant them, but i plant mine in containers and she could do, but I don't push the issue, it's not worth it.

So now have four containers with flowers on my front lawn just beside my sidewalk. I am loving the way it looks, but now, here it is only 10am, and I am exhausted. I am ready for a nap!

i can't wait till all my blood work comes back and I go back to the doctor. I have been feeling this tired and lack of energy since the surgery last year, and this is not normal. I mean the whole time Brad and i were dating and until we had Tiernan I worked a full-time job and a part-time job, so this is not like me to be so tired and not able to do much! Sometimes I think it is the biggest problem, but then I also think it feeds some of the other issues, so i am looking forward to finding something.

I just want to feel like me again, not working two jobs, but having the energy to take care of my family would be nice.

Which way is up?

For years now, I have been so in tune with my own body. I could tell you when I was starting to get sick, I could tell you what each and every little pain was and when I was going to get a headache. I knew it. I understood it, and I had to. Starting at age 21, I was diagnosed with PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome) which is basically just a big pain in the butt, but it effects every woman who has it just a little bit differently so we had to learn, as women with it, to understand our bodies. To understand how the differences in hormone levels effected us each and how to make it all work better, or at least closer to normal.

2009 was a rough year, first emotionally because I lost my grandfather, and second physically because things started changing, and although it was acting different and causing me more problems, I could still explain them to you and tell you what was going on, why I was in pain and about how long it would last. I knew there was going to come a time that I would have to consider the hysterectomy, I had known that for a long time, probably since the first diagnose, and I was fine with that, I just expected it to be a simple fix. Take out the parts causing all the problems and I will be up and felling great in no time at all! Right?

WRONG!!!

Here it is a little over a year after the surgery, and I feel completely upside-down! I no longer understand my own body! I have no clue what it is doing! Everything I have known for so many years is gone and I am floundering in the same body but without the instructions!

Ever since the surgery I have been dealing with horrible headaches. I went back to the OB/GYN and she gave me estrogen, which is normal for most patients, and without thinking I acceped because I expected that, but then I had to remember that my body isn't normal, it has PCOS....which by the way, never goes away, yes I no longer have my ovaries, but everything else associated with PCOS still exists in my body, so they change the name to Androgen Deficiency or something else, but it all mean the same thing. So for me, the estrogen just made them worse, and so we added more estrogen and more thinking I was too low, which seemed only natural since my body has never had a normal level of any hormone, but it just made it worse and finally it came to a point that I lost it....I bottomed out!

I got so depressed from the headaches and the general not feeling right that I took to my bed for three days, and in that I forgot to take any medicine. At three days, I guess the estrogen was out of my system and I started feeling better. The lack of estrogen allowed my mind to clear enough for me to realize that something needed to change. I decided that I had to start taking charge again. I found a family doctor that I like and we are starting the process all over again from the beginning. We have discovered that the headaches are related to my blood pressure. I had preeclampsia with all three kids, so the effects of that are that I might start running high blood pressure now. Although my blood pressure still mainly stays in the normal range, when it does rise, I have headaches. So I am taking blood pressure medicine, although only a small dose, and I still have the k from the doctor to monitor it myself, to take an extra pill it it is high, to skip a pill if it is getting too low.

The problem for me is that this is a re-learning experience. I am having to re-learn my body, and it is not easy. I am still trying to figure out what high blood pressure feels like beside the headaches and what low blood pressure feels like so that I can get the medicine regulated. I have a home blood pressure cuff, and i take my blood pressure daily and multiple times a day, and slowly I am getting to understand it, and this is just the first step. There are still so many other issues to deal with, but taking one issue at a time, instead of dumping 50 medicines into my body for each issue at one time is much nicer.

The trouble is that I feel like I wasted a year...I should have been better prepared for this and I should have taken control sooner, but I didn't. I feel guilty about that, at the same time, I feel like everything is upside-down because I can't understand this new body yet, and it is not a pretty sight!

I must have a saint for a husband and cherubs for children, because how they have put up with all this, I have no idea! And it's not over yet!