I have taken medical leave from work so that I might swallow some things, chief among them the dysautonomia and continuing to adjust to the new medications (for fainting and for evening out blood sugar). I also had a very difficult circumstance that has made swallowing just about everything all that much more difficult.
My chief aim for the next three weeks is sleep.
I want to be as well-rested as possible when I return to work, so that the boundaries I have been working to set might have the best possible outcome. Right now, I am just too tired for most everything.
However, next to sleep, I want to look at the things I can change during this time. Today, I made two small steps in my home that have to do with getting ready and one that affects my activities at both home and work.
My Dresser
I pulled everything out of my dresser, made a pile for donations, and put back the remaining items in order of importance for getting dressed. The top drawer is now filled with the things that are essential, so that I can just open the drawer and pull them out. The second drawer, has that which I can grab easily while not looking so I can decrease the amount of bending over (decrease dizziness and possible fainting). The third drawer is those things I use less, and I have vowed to only open it if I am actually sitting on the floor.
Bathroom Mirror Cabinet
I keep my make-up brushes, mascara, and toothpaste tube in a plastic cup-like container on the lowest shelf. With a great decrease in small motor skills, I have gotten to the point where I knock it over nearly every darn day. That makes a mess, usually the also knocks over whatever is on the edge of the sink onto the floor, and I get dizzy or faint retrieving everything. Plus, if there has been water in the sink, the brushes get wet and I cannot use them until they dry out. So, first, I moved a coffee cup I had spared from a closet cleaning because I couldn't bear to give it away (a beautiful one with a Chinese dragon on it). [Why people give coffee cups/mugs to a person who detests coffee is a mystery to me.] The coffee cup is quite heavy, so I will not be knocking it over.
Second, I dug through all of the travel containers I somehow have managed to accumulate to choose ones to use in the bathroom cabinet. For one, using them makes the three small shelves less crowded, giving me a better chance of grabbing what I need without knocking anything else over. Using them will also help with the fact that my weakening hand strength makes holding things more difficult. All of them, even filled, are not too heavy for me to easily pick up, use, and replace.
Third, I purchased a small "make-up" mirror that has a wide bottom. Because I cannot see very well, the mirror of the bathroom cabinet is too far away to use to put in my contacts. Three times now, I have broken the small mirror I use, leaving shards all over the floor until I could clean up the mess. The one I chose is more of a travel mirror, but it has a single piece plastic bottom instead of two pieces that act like a sort of like the legs of a tripod. Having separate pieces made it easier to slide off the edge of the sink where I rest it. This one has a bottom that is an inch and a half wide and is quite sturdy. The only better option would be a rubber one.
So, I now have a much, much greater chance of getting ready for work or church without fainting and without breaking things or otherwise creating a mess!
Internet
My other change for the day was that I gave up my battle with Verizon. Seven months is long enough to have poor or absent DSL service. I am not sure why it worked for well over six years and has now become such an issue. I have called and called and called, staying home from work for many service appointments that did not change anything. I have been calm. I have raised my voice. I have cried. I have begged. I have worked my way up the food chain. I got the personal cell phone number for a local technician. Enough is enough. So, I called Cox to order the more expensive cable Internet service. This also means a costly service call. However, by tomorrow evening, I should finally be able to Skype again, watch videos on-line, and most importantly, work from home if I can win that as a "reasonable accommodation" at my job.
I have not worked from home unless I didn't need to connect to our server in months because of my crappy Verizon service. If I could work from home one day a week, I think that would make a tremendous difference for me with regard to fatigue. This is the first step toward accomplishing that.
Of course, I realized, rather belatedly, this means I have to recreate my resume website since it is hosted on a free service through Verizon. "Manna" had recently found a free website service with Microsoft that will not matter what Internet service I have. It also allows more free storage for the PDFs of my writing and design portfolio items. This evening, I got all the pages set up, the photos added, uploaded all the PDFs to my online folder, and began linking them. Tomorrow, it should be completed before the Cox serviceman comes.
Is that not a day full of accomplishments, even though I slept until well after noon?
How else might I make my home safer for me and easier to accomplish the things I need to do?
All day, I have been thinking about a bit from the Book of Concord as I worked and planned. It is from the Large Catechism, a favorite part of mine where Luther suggests that if you are not hungering for the Lord's Supper, you should place your hand beneath your shirt to see if your heart is still beating. I had not remembered this very important reminder that comes next:
Therefore, if you cannot discern this, at least believe the Scriptures. They will not lie to you, and they know your flesh better than you yourself. [BOC, LC, V, 76]
The "this" he is talking about is a warning about how our flesh will steer us wrong, embroiled in sin as it is. The Scriptures will not lie to me. Lately, I have been amazing things I should get tattooed on my forearm so that I might remember them. This definitely should come first, before even my beloved "I am baptized!" and all that means for me. The Scriptures will not lie to me.
I am not one for anthropomorphism and usually jump all over my writing students for ascribing human actions/emotions to inanimate things. Chief among my pet peeves is "This paper/report will state/show/tell..." The paper cannot do anything. Only the author. Yet, as Luther teaches in the previous part on Baptism, the Scriptures are and can do all that God is and does. That is why they are the Living Word. That is why they actually can and do speak to me. What they speak is the Truth. This I know. This I cling to. But what I need to remember is that is that they also do not lie. In other words, I shall gain no false guidance or assurance from them...only from this world.
The Scriptures will not lie to me.
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!
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