Life Lately

So my life lately has been pretty stressful. I know, I know, I'm not the only one dealing with stress. I don't even think that I have been dealing with any more than the average person. I do, however, think that for me, I've been dealing with a lot. A lot of it is really personal and I don't blog about it (and no, that doesn't mean my marriage is in trouble - "personal" means anything that I don't want the entire world to know about).

I honestly can't remember the last time I didn't have something going on, or somewhere to be. Even the good things that happen are still things to handle in life. All stress is not bad. So I cherish the rare moments when I am doing absolutely nothing. Like one afternoon last week, C wanted to go outside and swing. I had approximately one million things to do, but I agreed because I knew I needed a break. I also know that moments like that her will not last forever. So we went outside and I pushed her in her baby swing, then I sat in the big swing while she went up and down the slide. The weather was perfect and it was so quiet and peaceful. Of course, it only lasted a little while - before I was ready, it was time to go back inside and cook supper and deal with everything else awaiting me.

My husband has been really great in the evenings lately. He's been coming home earlier and cooking supper for me a lot of nights. Or cooking with me. Its such a huge burden off my shoulders to not have to cook supper every single night. By the time I pick up C from her grandma's and get home, its close to 6pm. I try to have her bath done around 8, and I like for her to be in the rocking chair with me by 8:30-9. Which means I have 2.5-3 hours every evening to spend time with my daughter, get supper on the table and then cleaned up, feed all the animals (we do this as a family but it still takes a while), and do a few chores around the house (so I don't spend my entire Saturday cleaning). It doesn't sound like much to me when I type it all out. But trust me, it is overwhelming some days. And since my kid still hasn't learned how to put herself to sleep yet, I have to rock her every night. Which is really not a big deal. What is a big deal is the fact that I can't just rock her until she falls asleep and then lay her down. No, C has to be rocked for quite a while after she falls asleep. If that doesn't happen, she will wake up when you lay her down and start screaming. Since we're not fans of the Cry It Out method of "sleep training," we won't let her lie there and cry. I might get lucky and be able to lay her down by 10, but sometimes its closer to 11pm. After that, I'm too exhausted to do anything else but go to bed.

So yeah, my evenings after work are pretty stressful. Not that I'd trade any of that, though. I truly love my life and we all know how much I love being a mother. C does complicate things, but its a welcome complication. I'm not even complaining about all this, either. This is just my life right now. Its hectic and stressful, but full of love.

Weekends used to be my downtime. I used to spend Saturdays lounging around the house with C, and Sundays after church the three of us would just sit around the house again and just be together. Lately, there has been something going on every weekend, though. I have had a baby shower (or 2!) or a wedding shower or a birthday party every Sunday for a while now. In fact, I missed one yesterday (though I did drop off a gift).

I would love to say that my calendar is not so full for the next month or so, but I can't say that. I guess its a good thing that I'm so busy, though. It means that I have a lot of people who care about me enough to invite me to events, right? ( :

Yesterday, I took a day off, sort of. My girlfriend and I went to a spa in Raleigh to get massages. The spa was having a 1/2 off sale, so we got a great price on hour long, full body massages. DH, C, and I went to Sunday School yesterday morning, and we skipped church so that we could all eat lunch together. Terrible, I know. But I had to leave at 12:30, and DH wanted us all to eat together; can't argue with that! C had a fun day with her daddy, and I left for the big city.

The massage was absolutely wonderful. Apparently I carry my stress/tension in my shoulders; they were pretty knotted up and I didn't even realize it. I've had a full body massage done before, but it was nothing like this one. I could feel my muscles loosening up over the hour. It was awesome. I even had hot stones put on me - a first! Afterwards, they gave my friend and I "special" water - its just water with citrus fruit in it, but it felt really special. I didn't want to leave that place.

What's interesting to me is how thirsty I've been since the massage. I expected to feel a littler thirstier than usual, but I have been basically guzzling water. The only other downside of the massage was that I am apparently allergic to the oil that was used on me. I itched and itched until I was able to wash it off last night, and today I'm still a little itchy. Totally worth it, though. If I ever go again, I'll take some allergy medicine beforehand, and drink a ton of water, too!

I know this post is not all that interesting, and I apologize. If you've made it this far, congratulations (haha). It helps me to type things up, though. If you have made it this far into all my rambling, you will now be rewarded with some things that are slightly more interesting. I'm a riot, huh?

But, seriously. Two major things have had me super stressed lately.

One - I lost my engagement ring on Saturday. :( I took C and my 8 year old cousin to a festival in town Saturday, and at some point during that day, among 10,000+ people, I lost my ring. I managed not to lose my wedding band and my other ring I always wear, miraculously. It was so stupid and totally my fault: I took my rings off so I could put sunscreen on C's face. I put them in my jacket pocket, and I told myself I'd put them right back on. Well, I didn't. And then I got hot, so I took the jacket off and put it in the stroller. I didn't give another thought to my rings until hours later. Its embarrassing to even think about all that, and typing it is painful. I can't believe I was so careless and stupid. I will be 30 next month and I have never lost a piece of jewelry (except for a necklace that broke while I was running once). When I realized my rings weren't on my fingers, I panicked. I grabbed my jacket and found 2 of them. I looked all over that stroller, and traced back everywhere I had been all day (which was not easy, considering the number of people that were there).

After a while I decided to file a police report. It is highly unlikely that anyone even saw my ring. If someone did happen to see it, chances are they'll keep it or sell it somewhere. But I am hoping and praying that an honest person has it and turns it in to the police. I've called all the local pawn shops and so far no one has tried to sell a ring. Tomorrow through Sunday I'll have an ad in the local paper. I'm not giving up easily. I know its just a ring, but it really sickens me that I lost that one. All weekend I kept thinking about the night DH proposed to me and gave me that ring. I really love it. And no, it wasn't insured. We kept meaning to get all my jewelry insured, but never did. Lesson learned.

To make that situation even worse, while I was filing the police report Saturday, who do you think showed up to the police tent? My ex-boyfriend. The one I haven't spoken to since we broke up in 2005. It was just what I needed that day. Of course he laughed at me when he found out I had lost my engagement ring. I'm sure he was thinking it served me right! Oh well.

The other major stressful thing I've been dealing with lately is another weird health issue of mine. I think I've blogged about my weird issues before, last year when I was dealing with all my GI issues. Ever since I can remember, I've dealt with strange things with my body. When I was a teenager, my knees hurt so bad that sometimes I couldn't walk. I went to a lot of doctors and specialists and no one could find anything wrong with me. Eventually, the pain went away. Once, the skin on all my fingers peeled off. Several layers of skin, too, so that my fingers were so raw and painful I couldn't touch anything for weeks. No one ever figured that one out, either, but eventually the skin grew back and it hasn't happened again .

A few years ago, I had some intense shoulder pain. It prevented me from doing things I would normally do, but of course no one I saw could find anything wrong with my shoulder. I ended up going to a chiropractor, and I don't know if he helped me or if it was a coincidence, but eventually my pain went away. And then last year, I dealt with extreme stomach pain for months and months. I endured so many tests and the only thing the specialist could see wrong was severe reflux, which didn't explain all my symptoms. And then, suddenly, my stomach pain went away and I haven't had any since. Weird.

It was so weird to me that I saw my primary physician in December and told her everything, just to get her opinion. She had no ideas, but ran some blood tests, which all came back fine (of course). Since I was symptom free at that time, there wasn't much she could do. So I just waited until the next thing went wrong with me.

I didn't have to wait long, unfortunately.

Almost a month ago, I started having a pain in my tooth. I have pretty sensitive teeth anyway, and use toothpaste for that, so I figured it was just something that had irritated my tooth. After several days the pain got worse, but everything looked fine. Then the pain got even worse - it turned into a constant throb. Strangely, I was able to sleep at night and in the morning the pain was gone, but after an hour or 2 the throbbing would come back. I finally realized it wasn't my tooth, but my gum. And then in addition to the throbbing, it hurt to touch that part of my face, even lightly. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore (and Motrin wasn't helping at all), so I went to my dentist. Of course, he found nothing wrong. He even said my mouth was the perfect picture of health. He referred me to an endodontist, who also found nothing wrong. But they both agreed that I probably have trigeminal neuralgia. My symptoms are not typical for TN, of course, but both men felt that was the right diagnosis.

My dentist wanted to start me on a medicine to treat the TN. But you treat TN with anti-depressants, and I'm not down with taking them unless its absolutely necessary. All this happened last Thursday, and my dentist called in the prescription for me that afternoon. Then he left for a trip to Panama (how nice, right?). After a ton of research that night, I decided I wanted another opinion before taking any drugs to treat this condition. My dentist can refer me to a neurologist, but of course he's out of the country for a week, so he can't do it. I left a message with my physician to see if she'll refer me (even though she hasn't seen me since December and I wasn't having this issue then), but she's out of the office until tomorrow. The neurologist won't see me without a referral, either. So now I'm just waiting. As always.

Actually, the pain does seem to be going away, finally. It hasn't throbbed since Thursday. It doesn't hurt that much to touch that part of my face, though it does still hurt pretty bad when I press my lips together (like after putting on ChapStick, which I am addicted to!). Its so strange, this pain. From what I read, though, TN "flare ups" typically last from several days to several weeks, and then you go into a kind of remission until the next bout of pain. So if that's what I really have, I'm probably at the end of this pain cycle and will be pain free soon. Which means that by the time I see a neurologist, I'll be totally fine and that visit will be unnecessary, and he'll think I'm crazy. Like all my other doctors have thought.

I told my friend yesterday I don't understand why no one has referred me to a shrink yet. They all think I'm crazy since they can't find anything wrong with me physically. Some days I really feel crazy. Is all this random pain I have just all in my head?? I don't know. I might not ever know. *sigh*

So maybe now you see why I'm so stressed lately! Why I have nothing much to say on the blog. I just keep reminding myself that everything happens for a reason, and God's got this all under control. He's gonna see me through this mess, just like He always has. One day things will calm down and I'll barely remember this time in my life, I bet!!