a little tarnish to the shine

I've been too busy, and too tired, to write. Not in the blog, and not my book. Truth is, I am beginning to despair a bit, and I didn't want to ruin the flow of the past few awesome weeks.

A few things have been happening. One is that extreme tiredness is creeping back into my being. I just got off the antibiotics this past Thursday (three days ago). Antibiotics alone can make one tired (and they did, actually), but the days before that were also *very intense*.

I attended a birth of the nurse who I mentioned in a previous blog entry... here. It was a **beautiful**, miraculous birth. The miraculous part of it was that although it was started as an induction, it turned out to be 100% natural.The induction was at 38 weeks, started in the normal way, which is without medicines at first. It is with a balloon. When the balloon falls out, it means that there is a certain amount of dilation, and the next stage can be started. In this case, when the balloon fell out, her body took over and it was a totally natural birth thereafter. Amazing, and rare for an induction.

It was not a particularly long birth (although very arduous for me)-- I was with her for about 5 hours before the birth. It was after the birth that rattled my logical world... the baby was born with Downs Syndrome. Apparently the mother knew that there was a chance of that, but she didn't share that with me. I didn't have the breadth of brain-spectrum to process this possibility, yet there it was in front of me-- the possibility-- in life form. He is a beautiful baby, without a doubt. But clearly Downs.

I stayed with the family for a longer-than-average-time for me after the birth. We had a lot of staring at each other speechless, holding the baby and each other's hands, talking about the birth and what was going on individually during certain times of the birth process for her. She cried scared, sad tears. This is her fourth child; she'll have a whole laundry list of things to worry about and take care of for this special baby, as well as her other three young boys. She has good support, and an amazing, loving husband who has strong Emunah (faith). He told me that he feels blessed that Hashem chose him to be the caretaker of this special soul. Amazing.

So how does this relate to me on a more personal level?
PTSD came around and bit me in the butt. I think the whole issue of having surprises happen at the hospital, crying about something out of our control, fear. I don't know. All I know is that it started that day.
The next day it (the PTSD) got worse, unfortunately. We threw a birthday party for Ya'akov, my son who is now 11 years old. I had promised him a special cake, in the shape of a "Magen David"; the star of David, with two triangles. He wanted it to be mixed chocolate and vanilla batter, so it would show the star points nicely. OK, I can do that.

But, I couldn't. I had had a birth the day before which shook me up quite a bit. The rest of that day was beyond difficult with scheduling issues because my babysitter canceled. So, the next day (the day of the party) Robert made the cake. Perfectly. it had two different flavored (and colored) batters, and chocolate and vanilla icing to match. It was beautiful!! His first birthday cake ever. So I was off the hook for that. Good thing, because I was unable to get out of bed. Robert also went out shopping for the party stuff, and some food for Shabbat (we were expecting a big crowd of guests).

The boys (Ya'akov's friends) started streaming in, and the noise level rose....and rose... and rose. It was unstoppable. I had to hide. Back into my room I went. I got to get out of the house and ferry Dov to his soccer practice, then to a special exam in his school, the go out again to pick him up.

Even though I did escape during parts of the party, I was exposed to lots of noise. So much so, that my nervous system started really freaking out. *Really* freaking out.

I HAD to spend *all Friday* in bed. Remember I said we had guests? Well, I couldn't really visit with them at all on Friday. I needed just to sleep and sleep and sleep. My nerves were literally jangled from first the birth, then the party. PTSD was raging. I needed my ear plugs and white noise just to calm down enough.

Robert did all the cooking. Hero Robert! I did contribute one side dish, and also our guests contributed a side dish and lovely desert, but Robert cooked the rest.Thank Gd. Did I mention I slept all Friday?????
I hadn't needed to do that in a long time.
I hadn't felt PTSD in a long time. All Shabbat I was suffering from noise levels, but I was present for most of it.

In short, I am still way tired now-- I think I am back to needing lots of sleep again. My pain levels are higher now than they have been since I started the Lyrica. My nerve pain has returned these past few days; I wonder what, if any, the connection could be with the PTSD? My thigh joint pain is strong, regardless of getting the all-clear from Prof. Meller. It is also hard to experience the nerve pain after being [mostly] released from feeling it for some time now. It is bad.

Do I contact Dr. D again and talk about upping the Lyrica... again? I am already on a pretty high dose.
Kidney pain, and returned pain from my mesh surgery from last July.
Not a happy camper.
Actually sort of despairing.