It's what the doctor ordered
Apparently, it’s possible to be “sat down” while you are already “sitting down.”
I was doing my normal routine of bouncing between the bed and the sofa in the middle of the night. I started this routine one treatment ago. As I struggle to get comfortable during my night’s rest, I find that the firmness of the sitting room sofa perfectly complements the softness of my side of the bed. Well, I had success getting about 2 hours of sleep on the couch before it was time to do the dance … you know the move back to the bed. I awoke on the couch, and got up to move back to my bedroom. As quickly as I arose, I was on the floor, breaking the fall with my right hand. It all happened too quickly. I stood up, and contemplated that I might be dreaming .. took a few steps, and it was clear that I was a bit disoriented .. dizzy even. I slowed my pace, and struggled down the hallway to the bedroom, watching carefully with each step. After finally making it to the bedroom, I quietly re-entered the bed.
What is this? This is not normal.
Maybe a good night’s sleep is all I needed. That’s it. I’d awake and all would be well.. No such luck! Aware of what had happened the night before, I slowly rose and sat on the edge of the bed for a minute before walking to the restroom to brush my teeth. As soon as I got to my feet, my head felt like a fishbowl. I sat back down, and grabbed my phone to call my doctor. But before I did that, I thought back to the day before. Had I done anything to bring this on myself? Let’s see. I’d taken my normal 3.5 mile walk in the am with Theo, eaten the same diet (actually more clean than most days), drank a gallon of water, and introduced no new meds.. I could safely say, that it wasn’t my fault! Ha.. funny how that happens, right? Why are we always first to self-impose blame whenever anything is wrong? When in doubt .. blame one’s self because if something happened, we MUST be at fault. I shot a text to Katherine (my nurse navi) and waited for her to respond. She listened to my symptoms and conferred with the Doc. Sounded like low blood pressure, which is a common side effect of the clinical trial meds, He asked me to monitor my blood pressure and REST. Cool, I can do that , but wait.. I don’t have a blood pressure monitor.
Now if you know anything about teenage college students, you know that they aren’t typically bright eyed and bushy tailed at 9am .. especially during quarantine. But you don’t know MY DAHKI. He was eager to safely take on the task for his momma. (enter sarcasm) He got a monitor from Target in no time. I popped the batteries in, connected it to my phone (this thing is fancy) and was measuring my blood pressure no more than an hour later. I sent the stats in and received a call from Dr. Shahin to follow up. REST was the prescription.
I wasn’t used to resting.. I had a routine. Wake up, walk 3.5 miles, shower and transform into Mrs. Parker, the homeschool teacher. How was I going to manage? How would Sydney manage without me? Just fine.. that’s how she managed! Turns out that if you sit down for a minute, everything won’t fall apart. Your family probably will be able to function just fine without you managing every single detail. Especially during this time, when things are .. well, different. Allow yourself to go off schedule for a day. Hell, allow your kids and spouse to go off schedule too. It’s ok to eat cereal for dinner one night. The house will not fall down if the recycling isn’t neatly arranged in the bin. Maybe you can go as far as leaving a dish in the sink overnight (well, maybe a spoon) If we’re honest, we’re all just hanging on .. trying to sanely and safely make it out of this thing. And guess what guys .. there are no gold star awards being given for Quarantine Parent / Spouse / Friend / Person of the year. So relax, do what you need to, but perfection shouldn't be the goal.. it just isn’t feasible in an infeasible situation.
♥️ T
