Begin Again

Artwork by Flora Bowley

The urge to get back to blogging has been nipping at me periodically for some time. The desire to write and get back to this space of mine, to explore and share my spirituality and life through words. This popped up in my social media feed earlier and felt like an artful swift kick in the ass to stop finding excuses not to blog (or paint) or worry about how... and just begin again.

I'm not going to lie friends. This past year has kicked my ass something fierce. Here's the super condensed nutshell version.

I turned 35 in February. 4 days into March I was in the hospital for what presented as a possible heart attack. After a week of waking up with vertigo, shakes, nausea, and complete panic that would last all morning and in to the afternoon, I realized it was anxiety. Called my therapist as soon as the revelation hit. Started waking up within 3 hours of falling asleep shaking and in panic mode, could not go back to sleep. For an entire week.

Somehow, I didn't completely lose my mind. Acorn got to watch a loooot of Super Why. (I've switched to using a nickname rather than my son's real name. And now hate Super Why.) My Doctor gave me Lunesta. Which got me about 4 - 5 hours of sleep. Still shaking in the mornings. We tried Lexapro, but it made me so sick after two doses that I ended up hospitalized for the 2nd time in a month, this time due to dehydration.

My doctors basically told me, I'm a woman of a certain age now, so it's likely just hormones and nerves. I said, the FUCK it is.

I got myself in with a psychiatrist who has been wonderful. We found a very mild med that works well for the anxiety. But, while we did so, I continued to see my therapist. And ALSO, got myself in to see my gastroenterologist to check for ulcers or other digestive issues that can flare and cause anxiety (especially while sleeping), had a full hormone panel run (everything is perfect. So FUCK that hormones theory), and went to see a sleep doctor.

Who immediately told me it's sleep apnea. But they couldn't get me in for a sleep study until the end of June. This was early April. I called a different sleep doctor.

He also told me it's sleep apnea, but elaborated on believing so not only because I snore and was waking up panicked, but because not a single sleep medicine would keep me out, and most wouldn't put me to sleep because I'd snore myself awake just as I was dosing off and that was it. I was up. He set me up with a home sleep study 2 weeks later and it was confirmed. I have sleep apnea.

I'm still on my Buspar for the anxiety to help my nervous system calm the hell down from this ordeal, and I've been on CPAP for 2 months. Let me tell you, the difference in how I'm feeling is pretty tremendous. I could climb a mountain! And have, a few times since.

Not terribly big ones, mind, because I've got a 4 year old in tow, but still. Mountains. ;)

P.S. In addition to not using my kiddo's real name anymore, if you scroll back through older entries all of my photos are probably telling you they're private. I won't be showing his face here much, either. That's just how I'm choosing to roll from here on out and it was easier to make my photos private en masse. At some point, I'll go in an change the privacy settings on the ones I'm cool with sharing. But tonight is not that night.

Race for the Cure

Yesterday morning, I woke up before the sun to go downtown and do the Susan Komen Race for the Cure. Now, I'm not a runner or a morning person but this was something I felt I needed to do. It took me nearly a month to manage to get the day off from work but I argued that it was for a good cause and eventually won the day.

This was my first ever 5k, so I didn't know what to expect. I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people there and by the emotions all around me. I choked back tears nearly a dozen times as I listened to folks talk before the horn blew and the race started. But once it did, those pesky tears dried right up!

just a small portion of the crowd.

And in impressive fashion (at least to me, as someone who never runs) I ran about 1/3 of the race and power walked the rest. My best mile time was 12:40 and my slowest was 16 and a few seconds. Not too shabby!

crossing the finish line!

As I rounded the corner at the end, I saw a certain bearded fellow grinning at me from across the finish line and booked it for that last 200 feet. The feeling I got from actually doing this and then finishing it was amazing - I'm so proud of myself! It's a little weird, with my legs being as sore as they are today and my shins saying 'ouch!' but I could see this running thing maybe becoming a hobby. :-)

In the Darkness

In the darkness, the nightmares come. The things that scratch and chase, the feeling of unease and fear. The ghosts of the past, the pain and occasionally, death himself appear in the nightime carnivalesque horror show of black, grey and red. I fall and run and scream and yet I am never far ahead of my pursuers.

In the darkness, there is unfathomable sadness. I ride the waves of the dark seas, curled up and lonesome in my tiny vessel waiting the approach of an unseen shore. The cloak of depression wrapped tightly around myself, the only thing I know for sure to be real.

In the darkness, the bats fly through the blackened sky, silhouettes amongst the moon. Dogs bay in the distance, rustling in the bushes; a goblin or something worse lurks unseen and watching. And yet, when I look skywards, there among the all encompassing inky blackness of the sky; there are stars. Balls of burning gas light years away, bright beacons of hope.

In the darkness, I wind my way through the thorns and twisting paths to the land of the Crone and of the dark goddesses. Seeking wisdom and guidance. 'Do not fight the Dark', is all they say, 'for it has different lessons than those of Day.' I am comforted in this darkness and lean into in, letting it envelop me and breathing deeply, allow the truth of this place to overtake me.

In the darkness, there are dreams. I fly high above the Earth as a bird, swim deep beneath the seas and discover its mysteries without fear of suffocation. I find the strength to turn and face the things of my nightmares, to plant my feet firmly and hold my own ground. The colors of the world return, vivid blues and greens shining like gemstones. There are battles won in the darkness of my dreams.

In the darkness, the blackest seas end and I find there The Black Wolf waiting for me on the shore. The sadness doesn't dissipate, it shifts and changes broadening into something profound. Placing my hand on his warm fur, I allow the Black Wolf to lead me further inwards; into the grotto of myself. I surrender to the feelings and experience them without reservation until I become numb. Until the pain and the sadness has ended. The Black Wolf nudges me forward from my hibernation, wet nose bringing on the pins and needles of emotion. I emerge from the cave into the arms of the Torch Bearer, renewed and refreshed. In the darkness of depression I find solace in myself.

In the darkness, I watch the bats dance among the twinkling stars with childlike elation. These creatures of the night have always meant so much to me for reasons I cannot fully explain and my heart soars when I see them. The goblins rustle in the brush and I offer them beer and bread to keep their tricks to themselves. I sit quietly in the darkness, listening to Mother Night and her creatures. There are songs that are only sung here, in the darkness.

In the darkness, I am challenged.
In the darkness, I discover truth.
In the darkness, I am renewed.
In the darkness, I find hope.


******

I was diagnosed with depression in my teens after being dragged unwillingly to a hosital and beat myself up for a long time because I felt broken. I felt like there was something terribly wrong with not being care-free and happy all the time. Like the darkness was a blight and a mark of shame to be carried with my head down like a giant cross on my back. I self hurt for nearly a decade, letting the physical pain distract from the anguish of the fighting within myself. The years passed and I finally stopped fighting the cycles, I let myself be carried out to sea and allowed the black waters to wash over me. In time I dragged myself ashore, with battle scars aching, triumphant and finally able to accept the darkness within myself.

I find happiness and warmth in the light, I find comfort and renewal in the dark. They both reside inside of me and in all of us, each having a unique cycle of their own. Depression is a part of me, but I no longer suffer from it.



******

A gift of sorts to you, my loves. This song is like pure fucking magic and I belt it out while spinning 'round feeling weightless, dark and super nova beautiful.



ETA: Thank you for your concern dear ones. I no longer self hurt and right now I'm in a good place. This post started as me pondering over what to write for this week's Pagan Blog Project post for the letter 'D' and when I thought about doing a post on 'Darkness' the words just came tumbling out, like a confessional of sorts. I was initially going to write about 'Deity' or 'Diana', but as you can see, my heart had other intentions.

A Few Things

First, I'm officially an Auntie for the very first time! On March 28, 2011 at 5:54pm my kid sister (seriously, we're ten years apart) gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl; Khloe Aiden!

While I'm 800 miles away and unsure when I'll be able to make it back home to New Jersey to meet her and give my sister the biggest of hugs, I'm a bit in the thrall of baby magic. Joe is heading home on a business trip this weekend and will be bringing the first official package of spoilage to my wee niece. He'll have a hard time fitting clothes in his suitcase after he puts all of the baby stuff in it. :)

In less happy medical news, my eye is acting up once more. It's feeling goopy and I'm having blurred, nearly double vision from it so I'm off to visit my friend the eye doctor for the first time since January. While that's good, the loss of vision is troubling and I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed that it's something that can be cleared up, is not a new outbreak and is not serious. If you'd be so kind, send some good thoughts my way this afternoon.

Update: I don't want to taint to joy of my niece's birth with ugliness and bad news. For an update on my condition, please see the comments.

On the Seventeenth through Nineteenth Days of Hallow'en...

I'll start off this post with an update on my eye as I had my follow up with the doctor this morning. The outer most layer of my eye is healed, which is great news. Unfortunately, the eye drops I'm on, while healing the infection, have caused inflammation in the next layer of my cornea. This is causing continued photo sensitivity, some goopy grossness and a thin layer of film to keep developing that's obscuring my vision. Unfortunately, I can't quit the eye drops that are aggravating but healing my eye just yet, because the eye drops to soothe the inflammation are steroid based. Steroids in my situation can cause the lesions to open right back up and even flourish if not kept in check by the original eye drops. I also have to be seen fairly frequently to make sure the lesions don't begin to re-open and we don't have to start back at square one.

So, a mixed bag of news from the doctor this morning and I'll be continuing to fight this thing for a while longer.

Oh well, enough of that hum drum though and on to the fun stuff!

Over the past three days of Hallowe'en I've...
Gone on a walk in the park to see the leaves starting to change.

Painted some pumpkin folks with Joe.

Watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time this season. I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I have seen this movie, I love it. That being said, Lets do the Time Warp Again!

From the bottom of my witchy heart...

Thank you. All of you.

Simple words could not have expressed how much your comments on my post the other morning meant to me. With the addition of a group of you spreading the word and having complete strangers come to my aid, I was even more at a loss for words. The outpouring of love, sentiment, caring, selflessness, encouragement, healing and energy has left me speechless and more than a little humbled.

I am in awe of this circle of spirits I've landed in. We are spread throughout the globe but the compassion and care we share for each other makes it feel as if there is no physical distance between us at all. If I could hug each and every one of you, I would, right now. We could probably break the record for the world's largest group hug if we were ever to gather in the same place at the same time. What a spectacle that would be!

Your efforts to help me are felt and appreciated more than I can express. You've given me encouragement, hope and the energy to keep on doing what I love and not let this thing get me down right now. If there is a silver lining to this, it is in knowing how many people I have at my back to hold me up when I begin to falter, both here and at home. I am a lucky witch to have the husband, family, friends and community that I do. I used to say, if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have none at all... but that sentiment is changing, rapidly.

All that said, there is still a battle in my cornea to be fought and won. When I saw the doctor Sunday afternoon, he drew me a diagram of the offending outbreak. The bad news is there are a lot of tiny lesions in the area of my iris. The good news however, is that they are not near the area of my previous outbreaks and shouldn't reach that portion of my eye if we are pro-active and I heal fast enough meaning, no new scar tissue near my pupil. In fact, the buggers aren't near my pupil at all, for now.

He put me on a different medication than I generally use for this, a gel that is less toxic and abrasive to the eye than the drops I used for the 6 months I went through this previously. As far as I'm concerned, if it's better for my eye, I'll take it. The side effects read that they were mild; it may cause blurred vision (well, there's gel in your eye so that's a given), mild irritation the first time you use it and mild redness. All fair enough. I spent the $200 on this tiny tube of gel and proceeded to use it, only to wake up on Monday with my eye the purest red I've ever seen and nearly swollen shut. Turns out, I'm in the 2% of people who are allergic to the stuff. I'm back on my original eye drops, threw away the $200 bottle of gel and have gained my first ever medical allergy.

On the plus side, my eye is a little better looking than it was on Sunday now and I look like I have pink eye instead of the zombie rage from 28 Days Later. My eye still stings, is hateful of the computer and any light source at all and is far from healed, but any improvement is a good improvement in my book.

I'd like to leave you all now with a photo that our favorite neighborhood Old Bagge, Linda, suggested I post. This is my 'heart stone' set out on my altar:

It is an unassuming hunk of rock, neither smooth nor overly attractive, just a big old piece of salt and pepper quartz. The special thing about it, to me, is that my lovely Joe grabbed it when I was saying goodbye to my favorite spot of the ocean before we moved to SC and didn't present it to me until after we had settled down here. On top of all that sentiment, it's the rough shape of a heart, hence it being called my heart stone.

I've been focusing my need to heal on this lovely stone, collecting the energies being sent to me in it to take as I need, either by holding it or in conjunction with a wee bit of candle magic and the use of that huge quartz point to channel and magnify it. Linda, in her infinite wisdom, recommended that I post a photo of my healing stone and let you all hold the image of it in your minds and send your energies directly to it, so, here it is.

Thank you all again, for being the magical, wonderful, loving souls that you are. I love each and every one of you, truly.

A request for healing..

I'm not normally one to ask for healing, much less for myself, but I could use all the love and strength of dear friends and new friends and even strangers alike at this point.

Those of you who have known me for a long while will probably recall that about a year ago I woke up one morning with an eye that was red, goopy with yellow grossness and felt as if I had a rock lodged under my eyelid. I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with ocular herpes, part of the strain of herpes that is responsible for canker and cold sores. That doesn't sound too bad, until you realize two things - you're getting canker sores in your eyes and it's incurable, just like all forms of the disease. It can lay dormant in your system until it is triggered by something and let me tell you, the list of triggers is a mile long. It can get angry over anything. For me, the main culprits seem to be stress, smoke (which means I can't step foot into most eating establishments or bars in the south), dry eye and my hormones.

To tell you how bad this thing is, not only is it extremely uncomfortable, but each outbreak leaves permanent scarring in your eye. Mine happens to form right at the edge of my cornea, so each new piece of scar tissue could very likely take out a wee bit of my ability to see. Too much scar tissue can lead to blindness. If it were just discomfort I'd be ok with it, but having the fear of going blind looming over me for the rest of my life does not a happy girl make.

After the diagnosis, it took us 6 months to beat the infection down to the point where it would stay down. We had a few false successes in there, when the doctors would look at it and see that the lesion was healed over and new skin was there. We'd wean my eye off of the drops and things would be great for 3 days to a month before it all came bursting out again. Finally however, we managed to get it to go back to sleep and that lasted for nearly a year.

Until today, when I woke up and it is as bad and painful as it when I first went to see the doctors. It's a Sunday and anyone who lives in the South knows nothing is open ever on Sunday, but I managed to get in touch with a doctor via his emergency line and he is making a special trip out to meet me because this stuff is serious once it erupts.

Despite my apparent calmness through text, I am a bundle of awful emotions right now and going through the grief, anger, fist shaking, depression, frustration and all the other nasties that come along with this nonsense that comes with this sort of thing all over again. I don't want to lose more of my vision, I'm an artist and that thought terrifies me to levels of fear I didn't know my soul was capable of knowing.

So, what I'm asking is to please send me any strength and healing you can muster up for me. Light a candle, say a blessing, take a moment to revel in your own healthy beautiful eyes.

I'll let you know what the doctor says and keep you posted as I tackle this demon again. I'm not about to let this turn into a medical drama blog, but I'll sprinkle updates in with my cheerier stuff and the hell am I letting this keep me from 31 days of Halloweening.

Work in Progress Wednesday - Casting Out a Cold

Happy Wednesday, lovies! I hope you've all been creating and doing wonderful things! Let me know what you have in progress either in the comments or on your blogs. If you blog, share the link in comments so I can be sure to visit you!

I've been struck down by quite literally my 6th serious cold in the past 6 months. This time my husband caught it too and we spent an ever so romantic evening last night lounging on opposite ends of the couch sneezing, wheezing, sniffling and sipping tea. We went off to our day jobs feeling equally crummy but something odd happened when I came home... he is barely stuffy, runny, wheezy or sneezy. It's as if he wasn't ill yesterday at all.

I, on the other hand, can barely breathe from my simultaneously stuffy and runny nose, have quite the raw throat, am coughing, red nosed and generally worn out. Also, my sinuses are being effected a bit too strongly by gravity and leaning over is putting far more pressure on the front of my face than I'd like.

I have imbibed more than a dozen large mugs of tea, most stirred with copious amounts of honey and lemon. I've sprinkled cinnamon on top of a few cups of the herbal stuff when I wanted something less bitter. I've been consuming food as usual and resting whenever possible, but I know from past experience that colds tend to linger with me for what feels like an eternity.

Tomorrow I have the day off and plan to get plenty of rest, rejuvenation and tea interrupting only to make a trip for fresh chicken soup and to ship something out. Friday, however, I need to be up and out of the house at 5:00am and as such need to be feeling well enough for a solid night's sleep. I'd also like to be healed enough to make it through my final marathon shift before the new availability I submitted goes into effect and still have enough energy to go to Apple Fest in NC this weekend.

So my dears, I'm asking you all... what do you do to cast out a cold or to gain yourself a few hours of relief?

Work in Progress Wednesday

That's right, I'm making up my own weekly meme so I can keep myself on task with my creating. Give me some time and I'll make a fancy button to go with this but in the meantime, feel free to join me and share what you've been up to on Wednesdays. It doesn't have to just be art either, it can be anything! Decorating, Home Renovations, New Recipes, Fiber Spinning, Weight Loss... skies the limit.

I'm happy to report that I finally finished my goblin painting about an hour ago. He's dry and ready for you all to gaze upon his handsome green face:

This has been my most labor intensive watercolor to date, coming in at just around 7 hours. This is also the first time I've worked on a background and been pleased as can be with the results, normally I loathe backgrounds that I've created or I just work on the figure and block in background colors. If anyone is interested, Goblin Prints are in my shop, just waiting to be adopted!

I've also sketched out my next painting. Another watercolor, possibly with some colored pencil. We'll see how it goes. My scanner loathes, hates and despises scanning pencil sketches so I'm sorry about the shoddy quality of this. You can get teh basic feel of the painting though:

Other than these, I really haven't been up to terribly too much. Coffeebucks has me working a mix of evenings and 5:30am shifts that has completely screwed up my sleep cycle, so I've been doing a lot of cleaning and reading in between painting and working to stave off the urge to nap and exacerbate things. I'm a terrible sleeper. I have difficulty falling asleep unless conditions are absolutely perfect - pillow must be just so, it has to be cool, dark and quiet and for the love of the Goddess Joe can't be having a bought of restless leg twitches. Once I manage to fall asleep, I'm generally ok. Unless I wake up during the night and happen to see a clock when I know I have to be up before the Sun. Then I panic about having to be up soon and end up being completely unable to go back to sleep.

I'm hoping my schedule settles down or Hypnos takes pity on me and pays extra attention to me soon.

Less cycles and a disease

Let me tell you, some of the gynecology offices in my town are staffed with incredibly rude people. I haven't gone to the gynecologist in an embarrassingly long time and my newly developed cyst was the swift kick in the ass I needed to find a doctor and make an appointment.

I called around to a few of the highest recommended offices in my town to inquire about new patients and was hung up on, informed that no matter the reason they had no appointments until July and when I inquired as to other offices in the area to try I was given a lot of grief. The final office I called is the one I decided to go with as the woman on the phone was helpful, sympathetic, and incredibly knowledgeable. As an added bonus she even squeezed me in yesterday afternoon.

When I met the doctor I instantly liked her. She came in, introduced herself and chatted with me as a friend and not just a doctor. She interviewed me about my current condition, my cycles, pains that I have and when, mood swings I have and when they occur... she was very detailed, thorough and when I couldn't quite get the words out would ask me the same question in a different way to make sure she understood exactly what I was trying to get across. It's often hard for me to describe feelings of discomfort and pain when they aren't happening currently.

After the exam I was given two diagnoses, the first is that I very definitely suffer from premenstrual dysphoric disorder. The second and more upsetting diagnosis is that I have endometriosis. My case is classical, I have pains at all the right times during my cycles, tenderness in all the right places. It's incurable but it can be treated and blessedly, mine seems to be mild.

After discussing my options for treatment my doctor and I decided that the best route to take at this point is to put me on birth control which will reduce the frequency of my periods to just 4 times a year. It's a little scary to me, since I'm used to getting it every single month like clockwork, but if I don't cycle as frequently then I can't build up as much scar tissue from the disease. We decided on this because while I don't wish to get pregnant right now, I'd like to have children some day. The more scar tissue you build up, the greater your chances of becoming infertile are.

When the doctor diagnosed me yesterday, I took it very well. I didn't even flinch. In the last 24 hours I've retreated into my brain while I juggle several emotions; confusion, sadness, worry, anger. It's hit me that I have a disease that has no cure and that I will have this for the rest of my life. Treatments range from simply taking birth control pills unless trying to conceive or pregnant to surgical procedures involving invasive techniques and scrapings to a full hysterectomy. It's something that weighs heavily on me as a maiden woman who would like to bridge the gap to motherhood when the time is right. It weighs heavily on me as something that will be a part of me until menopause or the removal of organs.

I plan to spend the weekend in meditation and relaxation. Take long soothing baths and commune with the element that rules my heart, sit outside if the weather is mild and ground with Earth's calming steady power. I plan to think, create, sleep and to just make time for me and no one else.