Oceans of Tears

These last few days have been really challenging and I feel like I've cried enough to fill the whole Pacific Ocean. For starters I'm using Meg about 99% of the time I'm out of the house now. Which means people who know me, but don't know my heath challenges all scream "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!?" When they see me. It has been hard. Some people are placated with a simple statement of "I have a chronic illness." Or "I have an autoimmune disease." But others apparently need to know every single detail of my life and well being.

Rheumatoid disease... hell... ALL autoimmune diseases aren't known very well so if someone is genuinely interested I want to help educate them in a gentle way. But all that takes spoons. Many many many spoons.

I've also been craving a trip to the ocean. Fortunately I live only about 90 minutes from the sea. My husband, being the amazing man that he is, went out of his way Saturday to make sure I not only had a little time at the ocean, but that I got to stick my hand in it.

It wasn't easy, but he helped maneuver Meg down 3 wobbly gang planks to get me low enough to stick my whole hand in. It felt wonderful and made me so happy! I also felt like a poster girl for Rollator adventures. Go Meg!

The day that my spinal tap (lumbar puncture) was scheduled I went to Etsy and bought myself this little bracelet. I'm a huge fan of support in whatever form I can get it in. I could tell the spinal tap was going to be tough for me. I was pretty scared to get it done (apparently for good reason.) 

With chronic illness you need to be brave every single day. Some days just leaving the bed feels brave to me. And let me tell you that while I was having my spinal tap yesterday, 3 things helped me. 

1) My husband being there holding my hand. I don't know what I'd do without him. 

2) They asked me if I'd like some specific music playing... I chose ocean sounds and it was very relaxing and helpful. The seagull sound effects even snapped me out of a very hard/painful moment and almost made me laugh.

3) Looking down and reading these words on my wrist.

It was a very hard procedure with complications and unfortunately I'm also one of the 20% who get a nasty headache after. I was really hoping to skip that. Darn. I'm resting today, being brave and having kindness towards myself. And I'm leaning hard on my husband. Letting him comfort me, love me and dry my oceans of tears. I'll be stronger tomorrow. For now it's ok to just ride out the storm.