Thoughts on surviving tiny struggles from afourytale

I haven’t written in a while, mostly because I was surviving the end of the school year with my kiddos. Two weeks jam-packed with field trips, award ceremonies, performances and all kinds of things needed for the kids classrooms, which meant last-minute trips to the store on more than one occasion.

To top that off, it was the two busiest weeks of work. I was on the phone non-stop with several projects that needed to be completed and just tons to do. I know, better to be busy.

Sprinkle in a little bit of illness. My baby girl got sick. She was ill for the entire last two weeks of school. We thought she got better and then sure enough she missed the second to last day of school as we trekked back up to the doctor. And still she got worse, with her fever finally spiking to 104.4 on Father’s Day morning as she moaned and complained of stomach cramps. She and my husband spent Father’s Day in the ER making sure it wasn’t her appendix. Which thankfully it was not. She just has an infection, but yesterday the new meds made her sick and she threw up in the car on the way home. Today will be spent tackling if we can find her new meds that won’t upset her stomach so badly.

I am still sick and have been going to the doctor since April to get a diagnosis. I have two more doctor appointments this week to continue to narrow down what the heck is wrong with me. My blood work is already showing that I am in menopause or “premature ovarian failure” which I didn’t even know was a thing – fun though, exciting stuff for a 36 year old. I have started “hormone replacement therapy” at least that is what they call it.

My tests also indicated a hyperactive thyroid and now they are just trying to figure out what kind of hyperactive thyroid I have.I know that may not sound so bad, but some days it feels pretty yucky because I don’t feel the same as I did six months ago. Constantly hungry, constantly light-headed and dizzy, constantly sweating, constantly burning up from the inside out like I will spontaneously combust on the spot, easily distracted, more tired than I have ever been in my life, and weak – when I go up the stairs I am winded and asthmatic. Plus I am gaining weight instead of losing it. The one awesome side effect of hyperactive thyroid and I don’t have it. I have the rest, but no weight loss – the menopause made sure that couldn’t happen.

I just have a really hard time not being able to do the things I have normally done with ease in the past. And the irritability – goodnight – that is through the roof. My patience is one of my best qualities and it is gone baby, flat gone. I have none – not one ounce. Sorry to those of you around me who have experienced that.

On Friday, I had a little bit of a pity party, well because I was tired, more than tired, I was irritated, overwhelmed, beaten down, and just done with everyone being sick and us being so busy I couldn’t see straight, plus I am human and sometimes we just need to complain – even when we have it pretty darn good.

I made the mistake of telling someone about how I was feeling. That is never a good idea, unless you are telling the right person and also that you are ready to hear someone else try to give you a pep talk – which I wasn’t. More anger and frustration ensued. I know they were trying to help, but it was the last straw because I didn’t want help – I was having a pity party.

Things are better now, pity party over; attitude on the mend. One thing that helped was, at the doctor’s on Monday I ran into another mom at the elevator. She is standing there with her daughter and I with my entourage of 4. She asks if the boys are twins. I let her know that they are to which she says, “I have three-year old twins, too, And another daughter. I have four kids.”

To which I reply, “Oh then you know how it is. You are always traveling with a posse. It is just a little bit of craziness to go anywhere.”

To which she replies, “Oh, no I wouldn’t know; I still don’t go anywhere with all four them together.”

This was just a good reminder that we are all doing the best we can with what we have been given. Each one of us fighting our own hard battle and while some seem harder or more extreme than others, and they might truly be – things can be worse than what some of us are battling, but our own battle should not be discounted or scoffed at.

Whatever you are fighting today is your battle, it has never happened to you before, it is uniquely yours. We need to remember that it is okay to be weak some days and know that to set it all down for a brief moment will only make us stronger when we pick it all back up again. We cannot judge how each of us tackle and handle our days; because we are all different and have unique circumstances that cause us to navigate our own personal circumstances our own best way.

Keep fighting,

M