Keeping Afloat

I can't say I'm the most positive person around, my wife likes calling me a debbie downer.  It's funny because, despite her accusation, I make great efforts to stay positive and not dwell on myself.  But right now I need to vent a little.  Maybe a l not.  I'm only human, I have feelings and emotions and pains.

For the past two or three weeks... maybe a month, I've not been well and the only thing keeping me going forward is knowing it could be worse.  And it looks like life is on a mission to make that as painfully obvious as possible right now.  I have two friends that have lost husbands, one with a daughter the same age as Nicholas.  One friend who was in the hospital for almost a week due to strong contractions and, basically, premature labour.  She's only 26 weeks along and very young and scared.  Someone who miscarried at 30 weeks due to shitty doctors (not in the US, no possibility for suing).  I could go on with what is going on around me and I do feel for these people and I know full well their situations are far worse than mine.

But I still have mine.



I have been in physical pain for several weeks.  Little background: I am always in pain, I have a bad knee and carpal tunnel and basically most joints in my body are messed up.  The pain is usually dull and spikes periodically but nothing some over the counter pain meds can't calm to a bearable state.  I have accepted these pains as just part of my life and while I do complain of them it's only to be a little whiny, to be honest, and usually just to my wife.  But for the past couple of weeks my 'bad' knee (the one that is worse than the other) has been hurting me a lot more.  I feel lots of pressure and at times it does look swollen.  Yes, I do have insurance but the treatment required for this pain is far more than what I can afford.  Surgery, physical therapy, no certainty that it would work, and ongoing treatment is just too much.  So I bare the pain.

I miss my wife.  This isn't new, she's not here with me so I always miss her.  But lately I find myself missing her more than usual.  I just long to hold her so bad!!  And she's been real sick, ended up in the ER, and it only makes me miss her even more.  This hurts and often brings me to tears in the middle of the day.

There are issues with Nicholas' schooling.  I feel trapped and like there is no hope.  I went to my nephew's high school graduation yesterday, had so many medals and things around his neck I don't know how he wasn't hunched over!  So proud of him.  But it was two hours seeing 750 kids that made it and the sudden realisation that mine never will.  Especially with common core taking into affect (that's another rant for another day).  That hurt.  A lot.

I've been having issues with the dead, which is bad because I have enough issues with the living.  My grandmother died shortly before Nicholas was born and I have never gotten past that initial pain.  It has never gotten any better, my pain has never eased.  But even through the pain I have felt her presence around me, I always knew she was around.  Then my wife came for our wedding and suddenly she was gone.  I haven't felt her presence since.  I feel like she doesn't approve of my marriage and I have upset her and that leaves me torn.  And in more pain.

Two years ago an aunt of mine died.  She was actually my mother's cousin but I always called her aunt. She was diagnosed with cancer and she died fairly quickly.  She was on the older end of life but still had some years left in her.   I am finding that I miss her more as time passes.  At first it was just shock and then I just felt real sad over it.  Lately I feel pain for her loss, I miss her so much more than before.  She lived in another country so I did not see her often or speak to her often so it's not like when I lost my grandmother who I saw pretty regularly.  I think it's because I am reminded of her every day.  I am friends with all her kids on facebook and every post of theirs is interpreted as a post about her in my head, even if the post has nothing to do with her.  Her husband died this year too and that was very sad.  And even though I know they are happy together now I feel the pain more than ever.

There are several other people who have passed throughout my life that I had gone through grief and acceptance and their deaths, while still saddening, no longer plunge me into the depths of despair.  But lately I keep thinking of these other people a lot and it's as if I am grieving all over again and I simply don't understand it.

This weekend an aunt of mine died.  The one I am a carbon copy of.  And since Nicholas has my face, the one I think about every time I see him.  She was old and it was her time.  But I am having a hard time with it.  She was in another country and, while I knew it was almost impossible, I held the hope that I would be able to see her again and that she'd get to meet Nicholas.

And we're almost positive I have narcolepsy.  It shouldn't affect me, it's just a label for a bunch of symptoms I have been living with for many, many years.  But for some reason it does.  And this, along with everything else, contributes to my ongoing battle with depression.

I am in severe pain both physically and psychologically and the only thing keeping me afloat is the constant reminder that it could be worse.  It could be much worse.