This day...

How are you?

That question is so difficult for me to answer.  For one, I want you to want me to really answer it, instead of giving the socially polite answer.  For another, I struggle to put into words how I really am.

How are you?

Well, I am on Day 23 of being off hormones and have learned that, amongst other things, they were helping to manage the chronic neuropathic pain in my pelvic region.  It is difficult waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Will I get a period again?  How bad will it be?  Once I start bleeding again, will I stop?  I just wish someone could give me an online of what's to come instead of just ... waiting.  AND I am deeply frustrated over the fact that my refrigerator is failing, as well as the ice maker and dispense being broken.  The temperature in the refrigerator has now dropped to lower than that in the freezer and my food in there is being frozen.  AND I now have two doctors wanting me to have another visit with a nutritionist, even though at least one of them is fairly certain what I am eating is what I should be eating (if what I say I am eating is what I am actually eating) and neither one of them seems to understand what it means when I say that I cannot afford a specialist visit if it is not dire at the moment, as in I have three upcoming specialist visits and those are all I can handle since I still have the hospital bill from the surgery that was supposed to help with swallowing and didn't.  AND Amos has created another hotspot on his side, which means I am constantly trying to redirect his attention away from it so that it can heal.  AND I am having contacts nightmares and so I spend my nights waking every two hours or so to swap out ice packs for the nerves on the back of my head and trying to calm down from either terribly frightening or terribly disturbing dreams.

Oh.

See?  How do I answer that question??

Noting just how little I have been playing with Amos (he prefers to snuggle and I tend to give into that desire), I started, on Monday, trying to take him on a little walk.  Me, my cane, and Amos.  Amos' idea of a walk is for me to carry him, so the first day I spent more time not picking him up, gently taking his paws off my legs, turning him around, and giving his little fluffy back side and encouraging push, than I spent walking.  Tuesday was not much better.  Today was the first day that he only asked to be picked up once.

Getting him to allow me to put on his leash is a bit of a challenge.  Once it is on, getting him outside the door is not.  Walking?  Well, I explained that difficulty.  Once we turn around to go home, the main problem is that he cannot get back fast enough so that he is pulling me the entire way, my arm stuck straight out like some sort of crazy scene from a comedy.

Walking means mostly that is all I can do ... or rather all I should do.  I become very frustrated with others tell me that I will feel better if I just exercise.  Riding on the recumbent bike is pure torture and my legs are the poorer for it.  Most of the time, the effort is not all that beneficial cardio-wise because my heart rate barely rises, even though I am sweating and shaking.  Taking Amos for a walk is good, but it is just one more thing that exhausts me.

This early evening, after a nap before and after the walk, I ventured out to start pricing refrigerators, especially since my online search was just not working out for me.  I had planned to go to four places (Lowe's,  Menard's, Home Depot, and Stucky's).  At Menard's, my second stop, I came up with the same two options that I had at Lowe's.  However, the Whirlpool (my current manufacturer) was a mere $997 ... a WHOPPING $402 LESS than list at Lowe's.

At first, I just couldn't see myself buying the same manufacturer, even though my trusted electrician firmly believes Whirlpool is the best refrigerator option.  Then, I kept thinking I should make my way to Home Depot before any serious thoughts of purchase.  But I came back to the shocking price.  It was $300 less than the list price of my current refrigerator was five years ago.  That, I got on sale for $100 off, so I still paid $201 more than what this new refrigerator will be.  The sale price kept screaming around my brain:

NINE NINTY SEVEN!
NINE NINTY SEVEN!
NINE NINTY SEVEN!

I decided, finally, that there was absolutely no way that driving out to Home Depot was going to get me a better price and, in talking with two different appliance folk, I am fairly certain that the LG and Whirlpool are my only options when it comes to finding: 1) a side-by-side; 2) 25-26 cubic feet; 3) ice in the door so there are more shelves in the freezer; and 4) glass shelves in the freezer.  My last desire was to have another cheese drawer (the LGs didn't have it).

NINE NINTY SEVEN!
NINE NINTY SEVEN!
NINE NINTY SEVEN!

I gave in to the screams and ordered the refrigerator, still bemoaning the fact that I only got five years out of this one.  There is, however, NO WAY that I am spending $525 to replace the control board in the hopes of getting it to stop making a freezer out of my refrigerator.  All that money and I would 1) have no guarantee of repair since I might also need to replace a sensor and 2) still have a broken ice maker.

The only quasi-good news about the purchase is that the extra shelves that I purchased for my freezer (all those ice packs) will fit in the new one.  They won't match exactly, but they will fit.  The bad new is that I have to take money out of retirement to cover the cost since I have already had far too many unexpected expenses this year.

After the very long day I had, I was talking with someone who had troubling news.  A loved one was raped.  Suddenly, I found myself becoming very, very, very cold and distant.  I worried ... greatly ... that my friend would hear the ice creeping into my being and be hurt by the voice that sounded so very stilted to me.  However, I tried to focus on sharing, were I the one hurt, what I would like to hear and have others do for me.

Still struggling with dissociation, I tried to keep ... well ... being a friend.  Suddenly, I asked if my friend would like for me to read Psalms.  I read picked two and then read a third one requested.  I almost wept reading Psalm 139, realizing that, once again, even I had underestimated the power of the Living Word.

I feel the robot, saying, "I am sorry that your loved one is hurting.  I am sorry that you are hurting.  I will pray for you both."  But I am sorry.  And I have prayed (and will continue to pray ... mostly psalms).

What heartened me is that, although I HATED realizing that I was dissociating, I did not (and have not) punished myself for that.  I thought briefly about Stella Young's TED Talk and her reference to the capabilities of our bodies.  I suppose you might say that this is more a capability of my mind, but my mind is a part of my body.  The anguish of a rape is not something I can remain present for emotionally, but I could remain cognitively.  For me that is what I could and did do.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.