What’s that old saying?

I heard this first in relation to soldier’s comments about what it’s like to be in a war:  “Hours and hours of pure tedium, punctuated by moments of sheer terror.”   I’ve heard it kicked around in different forms for years.   I was just thinking that it describes my relationship to work – hours and hours of doing boring stuff, punctuated by moments of total stress.

I guess stress is a wee bit better than sheer terror, but it doesn’t do my body any good.  I suddenly have a dozen things piling up on me, and am behind on all of them.   Well duh.  I should have been more productive two weeks ago. 

When will I learn?

First Nice Day in Ever

Everyone here has a major attack of spring fever.  After Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when it literally rained all day and all night,  the long-promised heat wave is finally here.  It’s Friday, It’s Spring, it’s 80 plus degrees, and it’s Bike to Work Day.  I drove to the gym at 7, drove home, changed, drove to the doctor’s office and the lab, then home again in time to actually ride my bike to work by 10:30.   I was happy to be able to do it, although I got passed by a couple “real” bikers.

Since I was 2-1/2 hours late, I can’t blame the employees for bailing out early, or not showing up at all, as they have already started to do.  I have a hair appointment at 4:15, so I’m really not in a position to say anything.  But I’m going to be looking at time sheets Monday morning to see who actually was honest about it.  I don’t mind if they go enjoy the sunshine, but not at my (our) (the company’s) expense.   And if there’s no one here to answer the phone but me all afternoon, I’ll probably be pretty crabby about that.  

Especially if the afternoon pain routine continues.  I saw the neuro. this morning and she says I am at the maximum dosage for my main pain med, Lyrica.  But she suggested a change and increase in dosage of the other one I take for pain, which is actually an antidepressant.   Apparently antidepressants are known to help with neuropathic pain.  Or else they just make you so happy you don’t care so much.  I dunno.  Whatever works.  Trying to enjoy life while in constant pain sort of sucks.

Tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful as well, so I hope I will have the energy and enthusiasm to work on planting up some annuals in the pots on the deck.  And taking the dog to the beach.  And shopping for a hot tub.   First the SO was all gung-ho on getting the tub, now he’s starting to think that we should do the bathroom remodel first, since the tub will sort of be in the way for getting materials to the bathroom area.   Logical to wait, but I want it naaaaayyyy  owwwww.  Wah.

Slacking

In the seven work days since I’ve been back from my trip I have probably put in about seven useful hours and 40 hours of puttering, surfing, or just plain aimless wandering. This is a very typical pattern with me. I only respond to crises, only know how to work when there are deadlines hanging over my head, with huge painful consequences for not meeting them. There are things that I can and should do right now. I need to work on the College projects, even though other people are drawing them, I am responsible for the paperwork side of things. I’ve been asked to work on designs for more small, affordable houses that can possibly be factory built. This should be fun. But I’ve not been motivated to start.

Instead I have worked on reorganizing the 450 images in my Webshots directory according to subject matter and location. Yeah. I’m nuts. I just feel like doing mindless crap. With even the smallest challenge I begin to feel stressed and overwhelmed. I guess I just need some down time. But I can’t keep getting it while I’m on the clock at work.

I’ve been trying to wrap up the details of my mom’s accounts. And there are penalties and tax consequences for having left them sit so long. I don’t really know WHAT the consequences are because I get conflicting information from the bank that had her money, the large investment house where I want to move it, and my personal tax accountant. Most disturbing is that he doesn’t seem to have a clue. Very worrisome. I guess I’ll just deposit the money and see what the IRS has to say about it. Should be interesting. But that mess is now down to one account that my brother has to still close out, as it was in his name. Then we can total up the money and split it. Maybe we can just do it anyway, and assume he’ll keep what he gets from that account. We will still have the house to try to sell. But there is no point in that right now, either. The real estate market in Ohio is not exactly hot.

Well, I’d better get myself in the shower. I have therapy in less than an hour.

Putting Myself First

I never thought I had a problem with this concept.  I’ve always felt fairly selfish, actually.  I’m not a single mom with two kids killing myself working two jobs just to stay ahead of the bills.  I pretty much do what I want, when I want to.    But with my current need to rehab my leg, I’ve found that I don’t “have time” to exercise as much as I would like.    Trying to get to work by 8:00 and coming home at 5:30 was making it impossible.  I was just too tired after work to do anything consistently.

Since I have physical therapy every Monday and Wednesday morning anyway, I decided to try to work out at the gym on Tuesdays and Fridays before work.  This means rolling out of the sack by 6:30, getting there by 7:00 for a one-hour stint.  I can still get to work before nine, which is when my partners seem to wander in anyway.

It means I will have to work until 6, take a shorter lunch, make up hours on evenings and weekends, or go to less than full time salary.  I really hate to take a salary cut, because I feel like I’m the only one being honest, while my partners, or at least one of them, is getting paid to read the newspaper until 6 pm.  But as SO said, I have to do what I feel is right. 

This is only the second week of this regime, so it’s too early to say whether I’ll have any luck sticking to it, but I have to try.  I am disgusted with the fat I see on my body, and frustrated with the slowness of the rehab process.  I still limp when I try to walk at normal speeds, and as far as running – I can gimp down the hallway for a bout 40 feet but only in the most tortured and twisted looking way.   But it’s something.   The PT encourages me to be patient, saying that “it takes a long time.”  But in my mind it’s BEEN a long time.

 

Running out of time

That could be the story of my life. There is a new craze to describe your life in six words – I guess that is only four words… how about “never enough time, want it all”? I better think on that a bit more. Anyway, tomorrow morning we drop off the big dog at puppy camp and head to the airport bright and early.

I am sorta but not really ready. I think I have all the medical records and information and forms gathered. I have my e-tickets and my e-reservations. I have my mapquest directions to anywhere we might try to drive. Our vacation pictures are on my thumb drive, as are the estate records I need to review with my brother. I have 200 songs on my new iPod Shuffle. What did we ever do without computers? Less. Less is more. A lot less in my life right now would be a lot more satifying for me.

I said sorta ready because there are still more clothes than will fit in the suitcase, and the ongoing crises at work await me. This time I’m stressed because I’m afraid some stupid thing I forgot to do will blow up and my partners will need to bail me out. I guess it’s time to get over there and start triage for then next 9 hours or so.

It’s All in my Head

I’ve been working like crazy.  I have a lot of things running through my head that I’d like to write about, but I’ve been too busy to stop and write them down.  To date I have survived three crazy deadlines, but still have two more to go.  By the end of next week all should be sort of caught up.   

Then I have to go for another chemo treatment.  Since I had another relapse after the last one, I’d thought the medical consensus was that it wasn’t working.  The rheumatologist called me yesterday and said she’d consulted with another rheum. at the University and he said maybe the chemo was to conservative and that’s why I had the relapse.  So the new plan is to hit me with another, stronger dose of chemo instead.  I can’t say I’m really excited, but I did agree to it.  I like walking.  The last doses didn’t have many side effects – I was weak and tired for a couple days after – so hopefully this won’t be too terrible.  But I did schedule it for Friday again, so I can waste a weekend rather than take two more days off work.

Speaking of wasting weekends – it’s five pm on Saturday and I’ve been in the office since ten.     We did have a nice leasurely time waking up this morning, followed breakfast without rushing and a romp in the yard with Big Dog.    But I have SO much work to do before this project goes out to bid – Monday morning.  Ack.   I’m going to take some stuff home, hope that SO has dinner going – then come back to the office as long as I can stay awake and relatively pain-free.

 The best news of this week was that a major project came in under budget.  We were really sweating it because it is a very public project and there has been a lot of public controversy – in the City Council and the newspapers about how much the city should or should not spend for this building.  Luckily for us, construction activity has slowed way down, and contractors are worried about having enough work, so we had eight contractors all feeling very competitive.   And even better than the low price was the fact that it came from a contractor that I really respect and enjoy working with, and I know he didn’t bid low with the intent of screwing us later.   I felt like dancing when that number came in!

The only other news of note lately has been that the big important doctors back east that I had intended to consult with in April are having scheduling issues.  I’m still going on the trip, since several friends have already planned to meet up there – based on my trip!  Just don’t know if the medical part is going to work out as planned.  Sigh.  Why does my life seem so complicated?!

Friday Frenzy

I’m in that “Stop the world I want to get off” mode this week.   I was having some serious hang-over problems from the sleeping pills I was taking in order to counteract the insomnia that comes with mass doses of steroids.    The first half of the week was lost in a fog of staring into space waiting for my brain to reboot.

So I’m done with the steroids as of today, and the relapse was halted fairly quickly, so that was good.  But physically I think I’m back to where I was a month ago, maybe.   No cane or crutches or ankle brace, but still walking with a pronounced limp and foot drop. 

Enough medical crap, really.   Being sick is my second full-time job.

The workload  in my real full time job has exploded exponentially.  I thought I was getting things pared down to a manageable level, but suddenly there are ten projects all with deadlines in the next couple weeks.   I have NO idea how I got into this.  I was feeling like I wasn’t really carrying my share of the load around here, so I took on whatever new things came my way – and also ended up taking on some “helper” roles on projects that one of my partners was overloaded with.   Net result is I will be working this weekend, and working my butt off all next week.

The step-kids and step-granddaughter (Will I ever get used to just saying “my granddaughter?”  Probably not.) are coming up for a visit Saturday afternoon and going out to dinner to celebrate SO’s birthday and their anniversary, which is the same date.   I have to get him a present before his real birthday which is next week.  Yikes!

When I got home last night, his ski clothes were laid out ready to go somewhere.  What a surprise that was.   In the seven years we’ve been together, he’s never been skiing without me.  He doesn’t really have close friends of any sort, so I was surprised that he had made plans to go with a guy he used to work with.    I am always encouraging him to do more  social things, more fun things, not just always grinding away on errands, projects, chores and to-do lists.     But I still have to admit that it stung a bit to have him going skiing, when I have not physically been able to go this year.

I found a lot of unreasonable (?) resentment bubbling up, along the lines of, “I put off having a life for years while you were too busy working, and now that I’m sick and can’t do things, you’re not working and going off and having fun.”   I kept that to myself, of course.

I was the number-one cheerleader encouraging him to get out of the rat race and have a life for awhile.  It’s certainly not his fault that my body pooped out the same time he quit his job.  And it was lucky he did quit at that particular time, because I needed to be taken care of – especially in the chauffeuring department.

Ah – relationships!    

Brain Dead

It’s Sunday evening and I’m here at work half brain dead.   I didn’t get down to the actual work of this project until the middle of the week, and was interrupted by the need to do employee performance reviews most of the week.  So I was here for six hours yesterday, and close to eight today, and I still have miles to go before I sleep.

I wish I could get better about doing my work before the last minute, but that just never seems to happen.   Some people say they work better under pressure.  I guess I would say I ONLY work under pressure.  If it’s not a crisis I just don’t do it.   I dislike this about myself but apparently not enough to change.

Back to work.