well, i'm back. the heck with capital letters. wonder if there is anyone out there who used to read this. i think i'll change it. straight blog no pics. that's waht screwed me up last time.

this time it's going to be about living with cfs/me. one of thousands of blogs like that. but maybe it'll help.

it's been hellish lately with the pain. the fatigue is so much a part of me now that those few occasions when i actually feel like i could do something surprise me now.

the fatigue, it's like wearing a full pro football uniform, with all the pads and stuff, and then having to wear a suit of armour over it while i walk thru knee high mud and shoulder high water. lately it's felt like i'm dragging a sled full of cement blocks over sand.

been on cymbalta for the fm pain and depression, but am cutting down my dose slowly so i can find a generic whatever or even better get off antidepressents completely. i know its a chemical imbalance, but enough is enough. it's going to be difficult, but cymbalta is soooo expensive and we're down to just my disability pay and gary's 8-10 hour a week job. my insurance runs out the end of march so we have to shift to walgreens and their $4/mo plan. we are eating into savings/investment too. we figured that, but....

dealing with the cfs/me/fm is bad enough. but with my mom's terminal cancer, the lil sis's bizarre behaviour, which i think is ptsd from something i suspect she did awhile ago, and finding out who am i and what i do now, well it's a heavy toll mentally. and stress leads to a worsening of the me/cfs.

i wish someone in my family understood what is like, but unless you have it, it's impossible to understand. sue has fm, but she functions quite well. i don't think she's be diagnosed but she know the drill well enough to know. she's able to work, shop, take vacations, go horseback riding. in fact, if it wasn't for her depression (which she denies), she functions well.

i took the dog out for a walk. almost 2 blocks, then i left him in the house and went to the coffee shop for 1/2 hour. in addition to everything else, abe has severe separation anxiety. everyone tells me to take him back to the shelter, but i just can't do that. i feel when you adopt an animal from a shelter you make an unspoken vow to the dog/cat/... he's obviously been through a lot and giving him back to a shelter, well, i might as well just have him put down.

besides, he's like a service dog. gary says after a bad day, if the dog comes up to me, i smile and pet him. he does help.

well, hopefully no one is following this blog anymore, and i can just rant. time to knit before i tackle the daunting task of preparing a salad and making hamburger patties. (:-) it used to all be so easy before it got hard...