UGH! Been feeling pretty crappy lately

I have to vent. I am up late tonight because I am not feeling well at all. I actually had to call off from work, which makes me mad. I have not felt good for over a month now. I don’t really want to talk about my symptoms at this point. I did go see the Dr when it all started but I have not improved. I was supposed to go back last week but I put it off because I hate going. I will need to see the Dr this week. I have been so tired, my allergies are acting up bigtime, and I am wheezing which is not good for sleep (specially when I am already anxious because I feel like crap). I am just so sick of it! I need to get better because school starts in less than a month and I need to be in top form. I have also been crabby lately and I have not felt like myself. I hate it. UGH!
 
I am just ready to attack all my health problems. I have chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, and depression. I also have allergy problems. I think what I have going on now is all part of the chronic fatigue thing – my immune system is not what it should be. I also am overweight, I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life. I have learned to deal with the depression. The fibromyalgia doesn’t bother me that much anymore. It is the damn CFS and allergies that are bringing me down. Yeah so when I am really, really tired all the time, the depression starts bothering me. I also need to attack my weight problem too. I know I will feel a little better if I were lighter – it is not the cure all though. I want to concentrate on fighting the CFS and my allergies. If I start feeling better, more energized, then I can battle the weight problem. I just don’t know what can be done about CFS – there is no medication that will make me feel less tired all the time. I tried taking vitamins but they do not help that much.
 
I wish there were some miracle drug or supplement. I am sick of being exhausted. I can’t live my life on will power all the time. I really have to push myself to do anything because I only have a few good hours a day. And by few I mean very few – like 3. So I constantly have to juggle what I am going to do in my good hours – how am I going to expend that little bit of energy that I have. If I have to work then forget about it, I have no choice in the matter. The energy is expended at work. The rest of the time I am running on shear will power – that is me pushing me to get shit done. I don’t always succeed. Plus, if I push too hard in one day, you better believe I pay for it the next day. That pisses me off because there is so much I want to do. So much I have to do. I am sick of feeling this way. Sick of battling. What pisses me off even more is that very few people understand how it feels to be like this. They think you are lazy, or crazy, making stuff up, or just don’t deal with being tired very well. NO, CFS is a debillitating illness. I know the difference between being just normally tired and being CFS exhausted. There is a difference. It sucks to have to explain this to people all the time. I just want to feel better – I want to have the energy that a regular person has. I envy those people that say they only need 5 hours of sleep a night and they are fine (I don’t really believe them though). Oh yes, and this is not a weight thing. I was not fat when I was diagnosed with CFS and I felt just as bad, in fact worse because my fibromyalgia was at it’s worst then (I felt like an arthritic old lady – like I should be hunched over a cane with curled hands – and yes it was that bad!).
 
So I need to attack these health problems of mine. I need to get my butt to the Dr’s with my list of complaints and really stay on him until I feel better. I am sick of this!!
 
For more info on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome:
 
 
Published in: on August 3, 2008 at 1:57 am  Leave a Comment  

Saginaw Zoo and yet another birthday party!!

Yesterday, my parents, my brother and his woman, her mom (Grandma Tammy) and my 3 nephews went to the Saginaw Children’s Zoo. It was actually little Alex’s 2nd birthday,  so we went to celebrate that. It was nice, and we all had a good time. Well, I don’t think Alex was feeling his best yesterday but he had some fun. The Saginaw Children’s Zoo is a nice little park. They don’t have a lot of exotic animals but the flowers were great. There is also a carosel and a little train there. My older nephew, Lil Kenny, was going nuts over the train, "When we going to ride on the train?" He loved that. I should take him to Greenfield village.
 
The grandmas packed a lunch, so after an afternoon at the zoo we all sat in the picnic area and had lunch. That was really relaxing. It was nice to hang out with both my parents – Daddy wasn’t working for a change. I had forgotten how nice a picnic can be, hehe. Again it was making me want everyone to go to one of my favorite places, Greenfield Village, and have a picnic. Check out my pics I uploaded. While we were eating lunch, the zoo’s 2 peacocks came over by us and I got some really pretty pics of the pretty peacocks.
 
Soon as I got home from the zoo, I had to hurry up and run over to my sis-in-law’s house for yet another birthday party. OK all these kids need to quit having birthdays! Quit growing up, dang it!! My sis’s kids, Robbie and Ryan, were both born in July too. That is 4 nephews with July birthdays. Craziness! I took a few pics there too, check ’em out in my albums.
 
It was a fun day yesterday but it wore me out. Today I am exhausted.
 
Published in: on July 30, 2008 at 7:50 pm  Leave a Comment  

Queen Anne’s Lace

 
Love this weed! Check out the album I made of my nephew’s 2nd birthday party. All kinds of fun with the kiddies.
Published in: on July 27, 2008 at 11:24 pm  Leave a Comment  

Health Care, Health insurance

Here are 2 great articles about the state of the United States health care system. Health care in America, to me,  illustrates just how much we are becoming a country of ‘Haves’ and "Have Nots’ and it is just sad and ridiculous.
 
 
 
From the first article:
 
"America spends more money on health care than any nation in the world, even outspending countries that provide universal health care to all residents. The U.S. spent $2.3 trillion on health care in 2007, but 47 million Americans had no health insurance and the nation’s overall health status lagged behind many other countries, according to the National Coalition on Health Care."
 
That is just f—ing sad. The United States (we) spends all this money on health care and not all people are covered/have access to health care. How crazy is that? We all think/know doctors make a lot of money but I contend the real money makers in health care are the insurance companies. Every year what they cover gets less, so the people that have coverage are feeling the pinch. The poor people that don’t have coverage, the really feel the pinch,  have to pay more and more because health care costs keep rising due to hospitals and Dr’s having to make up for their losses, which in turn is due to greedy insurance companies wanting more and more discounts and covering less and less in health care. It is a vicious cycle. It needs to change because the way the economy and the job market is, we are going to have more and more people in America suffering without health insurance.
 
Also from the first article:
 
"The system is totally broken for the working poor," said Zyniewicz, chief medical officer at Emergency Health Partners, which runs the ER at Mercy Health Partners’ Mercy Campus. "The uninsured get charged the full cost of health care, while people with insurance are charged less."

Hospitals and clinics often charge insurance companies less for medical services because insurers insist on paying discounted rates. Health-care providers cannot offer the same discounts to uninsured patients because it would be considered insurance fraud, according to several local doctors.

 
This is just ridiculous! When are American’s and American politicians going to wake up? Something needs to be done about this. Put politics aside, put all talk about big government aside, and start working on a solution to this problem – whether it be a Universal Health plan/system, or just a complete over haul (with tough regulations) of our current health care system. We need to quit listening to insurance companies telling us that universal coverage won’t work – they are just trying to scare us because they want to keep the gravy train rolling. People are suffering needlessly, people’s lives are at stake. We have the money and resources – let’s do something about this problem already! If you read the articles you will truly see what a joke and embarrasment our health care system has become.
 
Published in: on July 27, 2008 at 12:01 pm  Leave a Comment  

Great Quote

"The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don’t dare reveal." Elia Kazan

I like that quote. It is so true too. To really be a great writer you have to go to the depths of your soul and pull stuff up that most people don’t think about, can’t handle and would never admit. Psychology is like that also. I often times think I reveal too much in these blogs but in truth I am holding back. I would really like to cut lose and just write, write, write but I don’t have the time and energy right now. I guess I am not brave enough either. I guess some subjects aren’t fit for a blog. Well I will explore this idea as I go along. Write what I feel for that day. There are plenty of topics, that is for sure.

I could keep a diary but I am such an attention whore – I like to have an audience, or at least feel I have an audience. Who knows if anyone ever reads my blog.  Yeah, who knows who reads your blogs – it could be anybody.  It could be someone trying to cause you trouble (or someone who is curious and/or nosy – that would be my kind of person) so I guess you should never reveal more than you want to deal with. I like lead my life like an open book. I try not to keep too many secrets (like everyone I have at least one or two) or tell lies so I don’t have to go around scared about how people may see me or find out about me.

Published in: on July 24, 2008 at 3:56 pm  Leave a Comment  

Stepmother issues…

 I have a very good friend – I will call her Pat. Lately she has been annoyed by her son’s stepmother – I’ll call the son Jon and the stepmom, Dee. Jon recently graduated high school and joined the armed forces. Well my friend Pat is annoyed with a lot of her family and also her son’s father and stepmother. Especially with them because Pat says that they always talked down about Jon’s idea of enlisting, saying that he could/would never do it, can’t handle it, etc. Now it seems to her that they are jumping on his band wagon, acting like they have been supportive all along. I told her that as far as that goes, Jon knows who has been behind him and who has not supported him all along, right?

 

Well she is really annoyed with the stepmom, Dee because she is always talking about how proud she is of ‘her’ son and goes on and on about how he joined the armed services. Pat says Jon does not even like his stepmom (that made me kind of sad). I guess Dee has put a lot of crap on her myspace about she is a proud soldier mom and even wrote a blog about that kind of stuff. Yeah, that would annoy me too. Even though I am a stepmom, I think you should be careful about claiming another woman’s child as yours. I do think that Dee crossed the line at putting all that kind of stuff up on her myspace. I guess I feel that, even if she considers Jon as her own and is very proud of him, out of respect for Pat she should tone it down a bit. Another thing that bugged me about Dee is I guess she told Pat one time that she should get Jon and his sister on Mother’s Day sometimes because she was their mother too. When Pat told me that I was like, “UM, NO! You are the mother and your kids should be with you on Mother’s Day, at least until they are 18 or so. Dee needs to back off and realize that and respect that.” I mean, geez, the nerve of her. I would never expect my stepson to spend Mother’s Day with me. He should be with his mother. Sure it is nice to be recognized on that day for your efforts as a stepmom but I don’t think it should be expected or seen as an absolute right. Well I basically told Pat not to sweat it – stop going over and looking at Dee’s myspace if it bugs her that much. Pat knows the truth and Jon knows the truth so why should all this nonsense bother her?

 

This is kind of a conflict for me, to tell the truth. I can see both sides. In my opinion, and this may be a little harsh, Pat as a woman who left her husband (he was abusive) and kids (she didn’t want to uproot them from their home and school) for another man, should been prepared for the possibility that there would be another woman, another mother figure in her kid’s lives. It is hard, I know. Especially when all parties involved can’t get along with each other. (Well to me it seems they get along better than most – I guess that took some time though. Both sets of parents did co-host Jon’s graduation party. That one intrigued me, after listening to all the bad stuff that has gone on between the Pat and her ex-husband.) But like I said in the above paragraph, stepmoms should be careful about claiming their stepkids as their own. That too is hard, because you don’t want your stepkid to feel unloved or not part of the family. I suggested that to Pat, that maybe Dee claimed Jon as her own because she was just used to trying to make him feel like part of the family- that she doesn’t distinguish between her own son and her husband’s (Pat’s) kids. Pat wasn’t having it. What more can be done? Pat is not an insecure person so I all I can do is tell her that as long as she and Jon and all those that care about her know what is up – know the truth, then that is all that matters. I mean Jon has already told his mother that he does not even really like his stepmom (I kind of feel bad for Dee but she has done her share of mean things to Pat). Let the stepmom make a fool of herself over a kid that could really care less about her.

 

Another thing, how likely is it that Dee is just putting stuff all over her Myspace to A)make herself look good, or B)is insecure about her relationship with Jon and wants to try to get closer to her stepson, or C) knows that what she has on her myspace really bugs Pat so she goes overboard with it, just to push Pat’s buttons (there are people like that)? I told Pat that Dee may just be trying to annoy her. Pat is thinking about that one, but overall she is just annoyed. I guess I did all I could do – just lend an ear and offer my perspective.

 

Oh boy, this is a topic near and dear to my heart. I have a lot to say about being a stepmother, as well as a lot to learn about the topic and how we all cope – both parents and stepparents – within blended families.

 

Step-parenting is a subject that has many sides and viewpoints, many, many stories and experiences. It is safe to say it is a complex topic with many different issues and sides. I have made kind of a study of the topic since I am a stepmother and I plan on going into psychology and will more than likely have to deal with these issues quite a bit. I will have to do more writing on this.

 

 

Published in: on July 24, 2008 at 3:29 pm  Leave a Comment  
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