Is there even a comfortable position for people with inflamed kidneys? I’ve not found it.
Because I am now predibedic, I’m going to ask my doctor for the DEXCOM system. I’m a 7 but it’s still a problem and we want it worked on.
Faith Magdalene
Category: I’m only human
Hormonal Shift. Spinning Wheels.
Lord, iI’m having hot flashes again, several an hour. And I’m itching. And I’m even more fatigued. I sure hope I don’t go back to anger overdrive because I stopped using Delta 8. I won’t be medicated nice anymore.
I was at a restaurant the other day and a woman said she was tired and asked if she could sit on my lap. I told her the chair is one of necessity not of convenience. She apologized then went on. I was highly irritated!! Perhaps more than I should have been. Even now it still sends me! I guess I’m just over here chillin’ sitting down resting.
Hopefully during this particular hormonal shift of hot flashes I’ll get to bypass the worst of my attitude and just stick to the physical thrashing of Menopause!
People do not get to put down life changes just because of medical difficulties.
I think I understand something about my wheelchair. I’m proud to use my manual wheelchair because I SURVIVED to use it. So in my head it’s a symbol of strength, not weakness. But to most of the world I’m just handicapped.
Maybe I’m just a girl in a wheelchair at a Vietnamese restaurant whose lap you can sit on if you’re tired?
I wish that hadn’t hurt so bad. There’s a lot of prayer to be done. I have to let this go.
Faith Magdalene
Something About Van Gogh
I have something to tell you about my dog Van Gogh. I sent him back bc of his behavior. It’s been bad since we moved here. He’s been fighting with ALL the dogs here, and winning, but still starting fights.
He jumped the mailman unprovoked one time.
Scared a little girl
He growled at my caregiver twice, snapped at her and seriously tried to bite her, all in the same day.
Tuesday he ferociously barked at a dog he previously whipped. The owner quickly moved away but that wasn’t good enough for Van Gogh. He began to wrestle hard with me to break free out of his harness. Then a cat popped out of the bushes to run away from the barking and commotion. Once Van Gogh saw the cat he struggled more and was free.
Van Gogh was angry and out of my control. I didn’t know him any more. I haven’t known him for a week. He’s not acting like the dog I adopted. The honeymoon was over!
The behaviors, specifically the aggression is frightening. When he jumped at the mailman there was zero warning at all, none! He looked at him, growled and jumped. Had he not been on a leash the mailman would have been bitten.
When Van Gogh ran away I immediately called the rescue center I got him from and told them to come get him. I knew he was coming back home because early on when we first moved here I began to teach him how to get home by smell, just in case we ever got separated.
After he fought me I put on lavender perfume and went downstairs. There he was! Wild eyed. Not sure if he wanted back on the leash, but he came anyway.
In the past week he’s peed on me, my wheelchairs, the bed. I just can’t do it anymore! He hasn’t been the same since I move here.
Before this happened I stayed in prayer for a week trying to figure out what to do about him. Then Tuesday he went and fought me to get out of and out of his harness! That was the last straw. So, Van Gogh is gone as of Wednesday morning.
The bruises he left on my leg and chest are quite large and deep! It’s ugly what happened.
I am relieved. I am saddened that it didn’t work out but I’m relieved that it’s over.
Faith Magdalene
Lupus: Destruction. New Home
Evevn though I’m not over here actively dying of kidney disease I’m kinda flipping out about it. With Lupus the most precious organs you have are the kidneys, lungs and heart. Lupus is going to attack them!
The only thing wrong with my heart is the right branch bundle block and the left bundle block. No artery disease. No failure.
I have three times tested for difficulties with my liver which means I’ll soon see the specialist.
Things are yucky right now. Day after day of yuck. Lupus rolls through damaging whatever is in its path.
Thursday is the move! The place I’m moving to has an entire care system. They have :
- Independent Apartment Living (me)
- Assisted Living
- Nursing Home
There’s a transition program in between Assisted Living and Nursing Home but I don’t remember what it is.
I llike the idea of being set up with a very nice health system on the side of town where a big part of my support system lives.
I hope things go well here. I’m looking forward to a new home.
Faith Magdalene
April 4th. Hope.
I was able to get the new apartment but I no longer believe this is going to stop because I move. It’ll just be on a different playing field.
My new home will bring better neighbors than the horrific individuals I live by right now. It has a more home like feel to the building instead of here which looks like an institution with long, horrible hallways that get worse with each step. It’s truly Stephen King.
At the new place I’ll have to work on the legal aspect of things. I’ll start a new page of my life, where he’ll mess around and find out.
I have every intention of living quietly. I pray for peace. I pray for wisdom and the right words at the right time. I pray for prayer. Yes, that I remember to keep praying because it is my lifeline, my hope.
The scenery will change, and I need that. The neighbors will change, and I need that. But there’s nothing that says this guy is going to let me go this easily, just move out. He thinks he owns me. He harasses me daily. He has harmed me daily is all I can say. This man is either going to harass me there or I’ll never live in that apartment at all due to violence on my person before I get there.
I’ve asked for police help and got hung up on. #RafaelSanchez is someone here in the city I tried to contact, with no success. But that’s all here not at the new place. It WILL be different there. It’s not hopeless. The move is a positive step towards figuring out what on earth is going on with this person who has been openly stalking me for a year now.
I know two things
A person trying to be helpful gave me a word to describe my situation. I thought it was legitimate and not a delusional disorder for the love of Pete! The man contacted me via social media and said it’s gangstalking. I thought he was trying to be helpful.
Here’s the two things I know for a fact!
1. My upstairs neighbor started harassing me by stomping on the floor, then his behavior escalated. I’m afraid of him and his two friends. He’s stalking and harassing me.
2. None of this is about art sales, as was suggested. Art is helping me survive it, like it has helped me survive so many other things.
Art is my go to coping skill. When stressed it’s natural for me to produce more artwork and post it right in the middle of the ongoing issue. These are my coping skills. I’m taking a Saturday crochet class. Pray for me. Lol. I’ve got to learn.
Faith Magdalene
A Little Light
The phone rang and it was Mark. I thought, how strange but I picked up. He said, “XYZ Apartments Called. You’re at the top of the list. They said to call them.”
I was thrilled and very pleased with my God because at the very moment of the phone call I’d been packing my apartment. Yes, pulling art off the walls and packing to move. I knew in my heart I was going somewhere. I didn’t know where but I did know He wouldn’t let me down.
Ì was packing when I got the call for the interview which is next week. The move would be at the end of next month. This gives me time to buy a bed in a box and get rid of this horrific hospital bed that failed in several ways. I’m ready for one mattress on a metal box spring. Easy! I found one that’s 18 inches off the ground. The idea would be storage.
Even if this apartment slips away, my application has been approved by two other complexes. There’s light at the end of this tunnel.
My CNA will help me pack. We’re going to use moving bags, totes and only a few cardboard boxes.
Faith Magdalene
Joe Schmoe has Passed Away
Joe fell asleep in death in my arms at age 16, from kidney failure, and other complications. He was a good boy.
Today is a bad, bad day.
It’s Just a Foot
I owe you an apology. Please, wake up, I owe you an apology. I said it was just a foot and not worth dying over because I didn’t understand. Tears swell in my eyes. My lips begin to trimble as I stand before headstone after headstone. Wake up! every Granny, aunt, uncle with a leg, arm, hand or foot they let get too bad until it was too late and tell them I was wrong. It’s not just a foot is it? No. Not when it happens to you. Instantly you understand your humanity.
The wind hesitates. I pretend to breathe. I owe you an apology.
I didn’t know the brain would need to rewire. I didn’t know the fear you’d live in of another amputation, or of physical therapy.
“She’s your nurse” doesn’t contain the impact a stranger has of touching every inch of your body at all times, of dangling fingernails over all your belongings leaving nothing untouched, feeding garbage food you can barely taste because life itself is stale.
Sweetheart wake up. Wake up. I touch another headstone. I didn’t know it would be this hard.
For the living
I’m colder than I’ve ever been. I’ve felt more pain and fear in the last 7 years than the previous years of life. Only 2% of the time do I think to myself, I should have died. Most of the time I’m happy I made it but I’m in the crowd that has to say I was wrong to pass judgment on people who couldn’t see the amputation through. It’s not just a foot. I was young. I didn’t know what I was saying. Who am I to say who does or doesn’t have the strength to endure an amputation?
Faith Magdalene
Tea and Snuggle Strength
Joe is a guardian cat. A watching feline. A gentle whiskered friend whom I adore. It’s just that sometimes the psychosis pushes me away from him a little, away from people a little. I want to isolate.
I have to force myself to accept this new mental weirdness and fear. I wear paranoia. I’m dripping in it. I only know to fill my cup and clean my paint brushes. Art it out!
Covid-19 handed me a fever high enough to leave permanent hallucinations and damage, for which I feel shame. But my cat Joe still finds me palatable to love and be seen cuddling, openly. His love gives me a little more strength to keep going.
What goes in your cup of trials and stress to dilute it so you can do one more day ? 🙂
Tea cup art by Faith Magdalene Austin