Oh, I remember fondly the days when selecting a Medicare Supplement was my biggest worry. Oh, those were the days. Tongue firmly in cheek. So, it is inevitable that life keeps on coming with new and more complex problems. I think God is trying to tell me something. Trust Me, trust Me...... And I am trying. I am. I know that all things will work together for the good, are working together for good, but I am the kind of person who feels squeezed by situations and decisions and things I would rather not do. Stretch and grow, stretch and grow.
It seems as though the theme going through my life these days is medical. Mom's type 2 diabetes is back with a vengeance. This is mainly because she is not capable of monitoring her own diet and she no longer does what we would call "exercise" at 97 years old. Mom ended up in the ER on Saturday afternoon and I had to go pick her up. An aide panicked and called 911, even though this aide had spoken with me and Mom was not showing any signs of distress. Mom is starting medication tomorrow to control the blood sugar. We have made plans to move her to a new place that will take better care of her and won't pull the panic button so quickly and make her ride in an ambulance unnecessarily. But, getting her moved is a complexity. She has stuff and it will require a mover to get her to a whole different town. The thing I know I am supposed to learn from this is to share the responsibility, share the load.
And then there is my own health. I really need a knee replacement, but instead I am doing physical therapy and it is helping. I am able to move a little better. But, scheduling the appointments is a pain. And I need cataract surgery. I am legally blind in my left eye. I have scheduled the surgery, but it interferes with my plan to babysit my grandchild. Only for a couple of days, but I feel as though I am letting people down and that is hard for me. I am a co-dependent caretaker by nature. I need to trust that the PT will work and someday maybe I will be able to get the surgery. I need to recognize that I am not superwoman and my bionic eye will just have to be fixed. It is not my fault. And additionally I have to decide to be forever nearsighted or forever farsighted after the ataract surgery. I have done a lot of back and forth about it. Right now I am thinking farsighted.
And then there is my weight. I have always had trouble with my weight. When I was a kid I thought I was the fattest kid in the room. (Looking back the the photos, I really wasn't, just a little chubby from time to time.) This was an image that was re-enforced by my mother who referred to me as "the big fat sister." As a young adult I took up running and gave up sweets and lost weight and became dare I say, thin? Then I married, stopped running, ate food again and put weight back on. Over the years I lost and gained and with every loss, I gained more. Most of the times I lost weight, I was trying to lose at the insistence of someone else. Maybe he would love me if I could be thin again. And I was angry. On my own now, I am working at the weight loss thing again and I am winning. It is easier to lose weight when I am doing it for me. I have found that the key to losing weight is acceptance of feeling hungry. Not terribly hungry, not famished, but, a little on the edge of hungry. It is easier to live alone when I end up a touch crabby from time to time from the hunger. I hope this time, I will win, I will become the person I feel like I am inside. Anybody who doesn't love me, fat or thin just misses out on knowing a great person. I don't have to be thin to be loved a accepted.
Putting it all down here has taken away the power all of this has had in my mind. It had become a giant weight on my back. So, moving Mom for the third time in 4 years won't be a piece of cake, but I have siblings. So, PT is having a positive effect. Somehow the cataract surgery will happen. I have lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks and although I won't even start to feel normal until I have lost at least 50 pounds, I have hope. If only losing were as easy and fast as gaining can be.
Weight hanging over my head, that is how problems feel. But, really, they are just complexities in life. And wouldn't life be boring without complexities? I would really love to find out, but for now, I will work with the lessons that are set before me. God is with me. Soon, I will look back on today and all of these problems will seem like a piece of cake, or maybe a bowl of kale.
It seems as though the theme going through my life these days is medical. Mom's type 2 diabetes is back with a vengeance. This is mainly because she is not capable of monitoring her own diet and she no longer does what we would call "exercise" at 97 years old. Mom ended up in the ER on Saturday afternoon and I had to go pick her up. An aide panicked and called 911, even though this aide had spoken with me and Mom was not showing any signs of distress. Mom is starting medication tomorrow to control the blood sugar. We have made plans to move her to a new place that will take better care of her and won't pull the panic button so quickly and make her ride in an ambulance unnecessarily. But, getting her moved is a complexity. She has stuff and it will require a mover to get her to a whole different town. The thing I know I am supposed to learn from this is to share the responsibility, share the load.
And then there is my own health. I really need a knee replacement, but instead I am doing physical therapy and it is helping. I am able to move a little better. But, scheduling the appointments is a pain. And I need cataract surgery. I am legally blind in my left eye. I have scheduled the surgery, but it interferes with my plan to babysit my grandchild. Only for a couple of days, but I feel as though I am letting people down and that is hard for me. I am a co-dependent caretaker by nature. I need to trust that the PT will work and someday maybe I will be able to get the surgery. I need to recognize that I am not superwoman and my bionic eye will just have to be fixed. It is not my fault. And additionally I have to decide to be forever nearsighted or forever farsighted after the ataract surgery. I have done a lot of back and forth about it. Right now I am thinking farsighted.
And then there is my weight. I have always had trouble with my weight. When I was a kid I thought I was the fattest kid in the room. (Looking back the the photos, I really wasn't, just a little chubby from time to time.) This was an image that was re-enforced by my mother who referred to me as "the big fat sister." As a young adult I took up running and gave up sweets and lost weight and became dare I say, thin? Then I married, stopped running, ate food again and put weight back on. Over the years I lost and gained and with every loss, I gained more. Most of the times I lost weight, I was trying to lose at the insistence of someone else. Maybe he would love me if I could be thin again. And I was angry. On my own now, I am working at the weight loss thing again and I am winning. It is easier to lose weight when I am doing it for me. I have found that the key to losing weight is acceptance of feeling hungry. Not terribly hungry, not famished, but, a little on the edge of hungry. It is easier to live alone when I end up a touch crabby from time to time from the hunger. I hope this time, I will win, I will become the person I feel like I am inside. Anybody who doesn't love me, fat or thin just misses out on knowing a great person. I don't have to be thin to be loved a accepted.
Putting it all down here has taken away the power all of this has had in my mind. It had become a giant weight on my back. So, moving Mom for the third time in 4 years won't be a piece of cake, but I have siblings. So, PT is having a positive effect. Somehow the cataract surgery will happen. I have lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks and although I won't even start to feel normal until I have lost at least 50 pounds, I have hope. If only losing were as easy and fast as gaining can be.
Weight hanging over my head, that is how problems feel. But, really, they are just complexities in life. And wouldn't life be boring without complexities? I would really love to find out, but for now, I will work with the lessons that are set before me. God is with me. Soon, I will look back on today and all of these problems will seem like a piece of cake, or maybe a bowl of kale.
