Apathy...did I mention that it sucks?!?!?

v  Oct 31/2014

Waking up.  I hate it.  Worst part of the day.  I am sore, rigid, everything feels stiff, and although I have been asleep for 7 hours, I feel exhausted.  My feet feel like they have walked hundreds of miles.  But.....I HAVE to go to the washroom. 

Actually, it is good that my bladder wakes up about the same time every morning.  It is like my natural alarm clock.  Sometimes the only reason I actually get up. I guess this is the, Acceptance, stage. 

I also need to get up to get my medication into me.  This will help all the aches and pains, and get my mind active again.  So, I do get up, have a tea and toast, take my pills, and head right back to bed.  I usually don't get up again for about an hour.  I look at it like having two mornings per day.

This past week, though, that old beast called, apathy, set in again.  I try to explain it to others, but it is hard to really understand.  People assume that means I am depressed.  No, depression is quite different.  It is dark, reaches deep, and envelopes you. 

Apathy, is not like that.  I have previously described it as, "emotional flat lining".  I feel like I am not sad, nor am I happy, I just....am.....nothing.  When I am feeling like this, I don't like to carry a conversation or engage in any type of thinking that would require concentration. 

That doesn't sound too serious, does it?  Well, to me it is one of the worst symptoms to deal with.  I have zero motivation.....zip....nada.  I recently got back into my art work, and writing, and crafting.  I have a new dog to take for walks, and friends who want to get together.  But I will not "feel" any of it.  I want to do these things. bit I just have no interest in doing so.  Does this make sense?

So after my two mornings, I get showered, dressed, and sometimes put on makeup.  Then I sit.  And nothing comes to me.  No desire to move.  My care partner is wonderful for trying to help get me motivated, but it just isn't in me sometimes.

One thing that I have come to depend on is the fact that "this too shall pass".  Eventually I will pull myself together, gather my wits about me once again, and kick apathy to the curb.  How long it takes, is still up for debate.  This is day three, Halloween at that.  Soon I will be "ooing and awwwing" the wee trick or treaters.   It will feel like a chore, but perhaps it will jump start my emotions, so that I can feel again tomorrow.

In my mind, as I sit and write this, I am encouraged.  I have had no motivation what so ever to blog, and well, here I am, doing just that.  Perhaps the apathy is lifting once again,...Tomorrow is a new day, and I am actually looking forward to it.  The flat lining may be ending....or it may not....but tomorrow will come regardless.  That, I can count on....and perhaps I will even enjoy it.

Sometimes ya just gotta laugh...

Oct., 2014

Sometimes, you look back, and you just have to laugh.  Well....the week didn't start out that way.

I woke up, as I usually do and stretched in bed for about 10 minutes.  Then, as always, I slowly got up and sat on the side of the bed until the room stopped spinning.  Well....it didn't stop this time.  I got into a standing position, and used my hands against the wall to keep me in a standing position.  I felt like I had a hang over, but didn't have a chance to enjoy the party first.

I walked to the kitchen, literally banging off the walls, door frames, and furniture.  I reached the dining room table, and plopped...literally plopped down onto the nearest chair.  What the heck was happening?

Throughout the day I continued to experience this spinning of the room, upon sitting, standing, or laying down.  It reached a point where just moving my eyes to a different position would send me into spin mode.  There was something wrong.  My wonderful, loving caregiver helped me to the car, and we drove to the Urgent Care.  Diagnosis.....Vertigo.  Vertigo, on top of the balance issues of Parkinson's Disease.  Wow, this was going south...real fast.

To reference my Movement Disorder Specialist...my life with PD would be slow.  Well, heck, life with Vertigo and PD was at a total stop.  I took my medication as prescribed, and walked along very cautiously trying not to bend down, or make a sudden movement.  For the entire week, I did this well....well enough to make it through the day.  Soon the spinning in my head lessened, but had not fully disappeared.

By the end of the week, the walls were caving in, so I decided to take a walk.  Autumn is my favourite season, and I had yet to walk around the block taking in the different hues of yellow, orange, and burning reds.  I decided to take Bella, my wee Yorkie, with me.  Around the bend of the second block, everything went awry. 

I was walking with Bella across a patch of leaves that lay on the sidewalk in a little pile where water had saturated the ground.  The long and short of it....I fell......I lay sprawled on the ground, and Bella's leash was not in my hand.  Now....it is well documented by my sons, that I fall in slow motion.  They laugh and tell the tales of mom's falling while a deep slow voice is saying, " N...o....ooo...ooooo".  Cute. ( They watch far too much TV.!)

So, back to my walk..., I recall my foot slipping across the wet leaves.   I let go of the leash as I knew I would need my hands to support my fall.  I remember thinking...my butt is going to hurt!!  But in some twisted manner....literally, I managed to go forward, landing on my knee, and falling to my right side, onto my elbow with my shoulder into the fence.  Some how, I slipped ..forward?!?  To this day, I still can not figure out how I landed in that position.


Then....Bella!!  I glanced over my shoulder to see her running in the middle of the road in circles!  This big pink handle was chasing her.  You see, Bella's leash is one of those with the pull back tension spring which had suddenly kicked in and was headed right back to her..  With all of her little might, Bella was determined to out run the handle

So, there I lay twisted on the ground, while my Yorkie was running in circles, for her life.

If anyone saw, they obviously were too embarrassed for me to help, or....couldn't stop laughing long enough to lend a hand.

I managed to get to my feet, pants covered in mud, knee bleeding, and began to chase the handle of a leash, that was chasing my Yorkie.  Each time I tried to step on the handle (remember, I still had vertigo so was having difficulty bending down), the handle would stop initially, but, Bella would run, and the handle would slip from my foot, sending it flying again....and, sending Bella, running like heck, again.

Although it felt like hours of running in circles after the leash,  that was after Bella, I managed to step on it and bend over to pick it up.  All without falling   We limped home, Bella damaged for life, and myself, trying to figure out how I had slipped..... forward.??? .

Well, Bella was not scathed....she continues to enjoy her walks.  And me....Vertigo has calmed and I have learned that I should never leave the house without my trusty walking cane.  When I look back....I just have to laugh.....at myself, and my beautiful little Bella who was  running for her life..