Dreading the dew point

September 14, 2011

I normally post in the evenings, but this morning I’m so anxious, I figured it was time to write earlier.  It’s mid-September and after some lovely cool days, today the temperature and the dew point are both up, which means my pain is too.

Now, on a different day, this might not be so bad.  It’s going to be hard for me to walk, so on a different day I would drive to work.  I also have plans after work, and I’m stubborn and refuse to miss them, so I’d drive there too.  Then afterwards, I would drive home.  In between, I’d stay off my feet as much as possible.  It wouldn’t be ideal, but I’d make it work.  After all, this is why I bought a car.

Unfortunately, today is not a typical day.  Thanks to city construction in my neighborhood, there are very few parking spaces for a whole lot of cars.  That means that if I drive to work, I’ll lose my parking space (which is already several blocks away), and when I get home, I’ll have to park so far from home that I may not feel up to walking it.

There’s no good answer here, just uncertainty, frustration, and pain.  Wish me luck.

 

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1 Comment | Expectations, Frustration, Pain, Parking, Rants, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

City living: good or evil?

September 11, 2011

Now don’t get me wrong, I generally love living in the city.  It has so much to offer.  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t days that are incredibly difficult.  And in all fairness, if I lived in the city but had a driveway, this wouldn’t be an issue.  Sadly, I don’t have a driveway, so the next few weeks are going to be very difficult.

 

Last year I got rid of my relatively-young-but-laden-with-problems car.  I thought about not getting a new car.  For the first time, I was using public transportation to get to work.  I could walk to the grocery store.  I could use Zipcar for trips outside of the city.  But now matter how many work-arounds I considered, I always got stuck on what I’d do on the days I couldn’t walk even the two blocks to the closest Zipcar spots.  What then?  I’d be stuck.  So I got a car.  3 weeks later, someone crashed into it while it was parked.  It was totaled and I couldn’t drive it for 3 weeks while it was getting fixed.  Just a couple weeks after it came back from the shop, it got stuck in the ice that had formed where I’d parked, so I couldn’t drive it for about a week.

 

Now, the city is doing construction in my neighborhood, so from 7am-7pm I can’t park anywhere near my apartment.  Depending on which notices are correct, this will be for 2 or 3 weeks.  I’ve been asking friends if they might have an extra space in their driveway that I can use.  If not, I’ll park in another neighborhood, then walk or take the bus home, and go back every few days to move my car (they ticket if you stay in the same space for too long, even when it’s a legal space!)  I just have to hope that I don’t need the car for the next few weeks.  Lately, I’ve been driving to work more than taking the T (our subway) because I’ve been having fatigue and/or pain.  I really hope that stays at bay for a while.

 

I love living in the city overall.  I really do.  But I have to ask myself: why did I buy a car if I keep having weeks at a time that I can’t even get to it?

 

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1 Comment | Frustration, Intrusions, Limitations, Parking, Rants, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Planning for the unpredictable

September 10, 2011

The air is cool and clear, the sun is shining… it’s a gorgeous day here in Boston.  It’s a day to be outdoors!

So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when my friend called me up and asked if we could switch our plans from being indoors this afternoon to taking a walk around a pond.  It’s a great idea, actually.  I bet it’ll be beautiful, and I’ll love watching her little girls run and play.

I give a lot of credit to my friend.  She was very careful to make it clear that we could stay closer to home or do something else if I didn’t feel up to this.  She’s really great that way.  We’ve been friends a long time, and she “gets it.”  The problem is, I want to do this.  And I do feel up to it right now.  I just don’t know how I’ll feel afterwards.  I might be completely exhausted.  And I have plans to celebrate a friend’s birthday tonight, something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.  So if I walk around the pond, will I be too tired later for anything else?  I won’t have much time to rest in between, unfortunately, because of how things time out.

I’ll just have to take a chance, and try to do both, and hope I don’t regret it later or tomorrow.  I hope this works out!  It would be so nice to be able to predict these things, but that’s just not possible.

 

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Leave a Comment » | Decisions, Expectations, Frustration, Limitations, Rants, Raves, Support, Symptoms, Thoughtfulness, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Bodies going bezerk

September 6, 2011

Any day can be unpredictable when you’re dealing with an autoimmune disease, but some are worse than others.  My guess is that today’s problems are worse because of my meds, but it could be the conditions themselves, or the weather, or just randomness.  Who knows?  I sure don’t!

A dog accidentally scratched me the other day while we were played.  It left a mark, but didn’t break the skin or anything.  The next day, there was a small bruise.  Today there are 5 bruises, some large, and they’re blue and sensitive to touch!

Sunday night I got what I thought were 3 mosquito bites.  The next day there were at least twice as many.  Today there are even more!  Maybe they aren’t mosquito bites after all?  Maybe my body is telling me something?

And then last night pain set in, along with some swelling.  Great.  It hasn’t gone away yet.

I was doing ok a few days ago, and now my body is going haywire.  I don’t know what caused it.  I don’t know when it will go away.  In the meantime, I’m treating myself to a night of tv and unproductive web surfing.  Productivity can wait until I’m feeling better.  Tonight is about relaxing.

Leave a Comment » | Expectations, Frustration, Isolation, Limitations, Medication, Pain, Rants, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
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