The Sluggish Recovery
I’ve still not recovered capacity after a heavy last week, which is becoming something of a theme over the past several years.
Wednesday I had to get up early to head all the way across town for a pulmonary function test as part of the ongoing sarcoidosis diagnosis, to which I arrived early so they moved up the appointment, which lasted about a third of their estimated time, which meant nearly two hours until my scheduled ride home.
After initially calling to see if they could reschedule and being told they could but there wouldn’t actually be an ETA, I fretted for ten minutes and then cancelled the ride and took the long, exhausting transit trip back across town.
Almost out of cat food and with Amazon not being able to deliver for days, I had to take the bus to the only nearby store with the right kind in stock, and had a minor autistic meltdown when they didn’t have Apple Pay and the store app was fighting my attempts to add their own branded “pay” mechanism. By the time it got sorted out, I’d missed a bus and the next one was running late and my nervous system was so overcharged that I walked all the way home instead of waiting.
Thursday morning I had to get up early for two different telephone appointments: one to talk about prospective robotic surgery on my bladder, the other to try to qualify again for energy assistance before my next electric bill.
Then I got thrown a huge curveball by Social Security, who denied my claim for “non-medical” reasons before I’d even finished the online application. I spent the afternoon finishing that up and submitting it, and printing out materials to mail in, because obviously I’d be requesting a reconsideration of the denial and wanted to make sure all the relevant information on the application was on file before doing that.
That night, I almost fell asleep in my chair watching television at around eight-o’clock, something that never happens.
Friday I almost fell asleep in my chair watching television at three-o’clock on the afternoon.
Sunday I chose to get up earlier than normal in order to go watch the moving of The Belmont Goats from their home since November 2018 to an adjacent plot. Although I didn’t participate in any activity, by the time I got home after walking to the store and then hopping the bus, I barely had enough in me to make and eat lunch during an hour of television and then fell into a two-hour crashnap.
That night, last night, sometime between eight- and ten-o’clock, I noticed a weird flickering at the right edge of my vision when moving my eyes back and forth. At first I thought it was some elongated floater but then it started seeming more like a flash than a flicker, so I closed my eyes and moved them. It’s definitely a flash. I also had an abnormally long bout of tinnitus in my left ear.
This morning I emailed my optometrist to ask about the flashes and whoever is covering messages replied saying to call the eye care advice nurse, who then said I should make an urgent care appointment, so now I have to head out tomorrow for an eye exam.
Just two months ago I had an eye exam as part of the sarcoidosis diagnosis and came up clean. I’ve basically been spending today trying to move my head instead of my eyes because worry-brain is concerned that every time I trigger the flashes I’m making something worse.
Yesterday I got to thinking about a post of mine from last June where I detailed how I was not regaining capacity between minor or major crises, and how since around 2017 I’ve just been growing more and more impaired.
Today I am exhausted and sad and sluggish and mostly feel as if I am trying very hard not to have something else break, which I don’t really have the resources to try to do. Being autistic and dyspraxic already comes with a ridiculous amount of needing to manage one’s resources.
I’m feeling like it’s not just that I am out of spoons but that supply chain problems are preventing me from finding any more. Or, maybe, I need to look to other cutlery to describe what’s happening.