snowballing
monday, april 15, 2019


every time i start to make progress, especially when it comes to my health and work outs, something gets in the way.

and i'm getting really fed up with it.

by mid-april, i expected to be consistent for more than a week or two. but nope, it's always something. this time, though, it's something that was supposed to improve my life: my blood pressure meds. seriously, my blood pressure hasn't been interfering with my quality of life except when storms roll in: elevated blood pressure definitely makes my storm headaches worse. that said, i otherwise functioned fine, got through my workouts (even walking) fine, and the headaches weren't daily and usually not persistent. my problems with the bp meds and diuretic are an ongoing, daily thing.

i started with just the bp med, and developed edema. this is not uncommon, apparently, which us why they usually prescribe a diuretic or some kind of bp/diuretic mixed medication. i never mentioned the diuretic when i told me current doctors which bp med i was on because the previous office didn't mention it to me (hopefully they'll have my records soon to help in the future). the only other time i've ever developed edema was when i was in my early 30s and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. diuretic fixed it, and even when i was off the diuretic later and not on bp meds, i hadn't developed it again until now. i'd been on the bp med for about a week. called the doctor, she prescribed a diuretic, and i expected that to take care of the problem.

not only has it not taken care of the problem 100%, but i'm tired all the time and having difficulty getting through not only things i continued to do for the last three years without problems (dancing when doing dishes is something i've been doing for years before my routines were eaten by life's chaos), but also through my lifting routines. and not in a standard "this is hard" kind of way, but in a "this is exhaustingly difficult" kind of way. so the drugs that were supposed to help improve my quality of life are doing the exact opposite. they're making it harder for me to do the things i've been doing just fine without them. i stopped lifting for two weeks to give the diuretic, but i still have swelling and pain. i called it in, but i'm ready to just stop taking them. if something that's supposed to improve my quality of life is making it worse, then why keep doing/taking it? i'll wait for a call back and see where the doctor takes it, but yea, i'm annoyed.

i'm trying to take some comfort and peace in my garden, but that's barely started, and we just got hit with another snap of cold at night (days are doing fine). until those warmer temps stay even at night, my peppers won't sprout. in the meantime, my tomatoes are starting to come up. the black cherries and tomatillos are still does, as are my sugar babies, but my cucumbers just sprouted. just hoping the turn in weather doesn't kill them: we had so many issues with that last year. things would get growing, and another cold snap would wip them out. i don't have the seeds left to play this season. and it was frustrating to have to restart the garden every couple of weeks. with everything else going on right now, i don't need the added aggravation.

i've also hit a frustrating realization that nothing i do makes us better financially. i've been trying to get a novel into an agent's hands with no luck. i've been trying to get my channel to 1000+ subscribers for over a year also with no luck. i know i save us money for taz's care, but we're always on edge, and i want to do more. and i already know the damn survey shit would drive me absolutely bat shit crazy. i do reviews on a couple sites for the makeup i talk about on my channel, and i have to make an effort to do that. i WANT to do these things because i love doing them, but they do cost: time, money, creativity. i'm still not in a position to get a job: my son will still need me to be here when everyone else is working.

so, i'm annoyed, frustrated, and very, very tired. i know my mood will improve when my health is better, and i'm no longer dealing with swollen ankles and sore legs and feet. and the garden will do what it will do, and some kind of harvest will come, good or bad. as for the rest, i'll go back to ignoring it when everything else is less aggravating. it's that whole snowballing thing: one thing goes wrong, it's easier to see other things going wrong, and as you find those other things, even things not really going wrong start looking like they're going wrong. it does eventually pass. for me, a good start would be not feeling uncomfortable and tired every night.