Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
To-do list: write publish a blog post shower and dress strip the bed and remake vacuum and dust bedroom put away groceries from yesterday prep veggies for cooking make vegetable curry make red lentil kale soup make spicy tomato chick pea soup put away clothes from laundry Reality: slept late wrote and published blog post […]
Read MoreFrankenstein legs, I call them, these long, slender appendages once a treasured asset, now stiff and unpredictable. Hunchbacked is my stance thanks to weakened back muscles. Cruella de Vil has nothing on me, my formerly auburn waves salt and pepper with a shock of white at the front. And when I speak there is hesitation […]
Read More“Was I right about the doctor?” the middle-aged receptionist asked cheerfully as I emerged from the examination room and waited for my next appointment. “He’s very good,” I agreed. I had hesitated to see one more specialist after a history of dead ends trying to get a diagnosis for what was clearly something wrong with […]
Read MorePain. I push against it. Challenge it, like a warrior intent on proving that I am indestructible, unwilling to flinch. If I ignore it, I tell myself, then it will cease to have power over me. Except, bit by bit it gnaws at my edges, tearing me down and just as I’m about to succumb […]
Read MoreWedged between one satisfactorily completed task and an overload of unfinished chores, I am a mess. We have decided to sell the house, and on the advice of stagers, are tearing everything apart, sorting into three piles: garbage, Goodwill, and keep/store. Purging, we are discovering, is exhausting. In order to do some touch up paint […]
Read More“Grandma, when will you be better?” It is 5:00 on a school morning, and I am sitting at my granddaughter’s bedside nursing her through a sore tummy. “Not sure, Honey.” “Oh,” she shrugs. She is four and has never known me any other way. Later, we snuggle up and watch Moana. “You are just like […]
Read More“I can’t process your application with the information I’ve been given,” the woman on the phone is officious, likely hates her job, I theorize. “Your doctor has only sent me four medical reports; there is not enough here to support an inability to work.” I might have guffawed at this. “I can barely manage day-to-day […]
Read MoreThe challenge, when dealing with a chronic illness – in my case ME/CFS – is staying positive. Momentary improvements in health are toppled by extreme crashes. It’s like living in an eddy where, every once a while, the current quiets and it feels as if there might be an escape, and then the weather shifts […]
Read MoreTravelling South in a forty-foot vehicle is not akin to driving in a car. Apart from the obvious size difference, there are other factors to take into consideration. For one, the dashboard heater has a lot bigger job to do. If you are like me, the idea of heading into warmer temperatures makes me want […]
Read MoreA forty-one foot Alfa See Ya sits in the driveway awaiting take off. Ric has had to get medical clearance after two heart attacks and triple bypass surgery in the spring. He has also had to get special licensing to drive our new soon to be home. We have purchased a mobility scooter for yours […]
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One Woman's Quest II 