I feel OK today.

 For the first time in over a year.

That's not to say I'm 100% OK either. I feel like maybe im at 70%. 

Since the last update, i got off the gabapentin completely which was not hard or scary as the pages i was googling made it sound. Probably because I was never past a half-dosage and I don't think i even took them for a full month, but the doctor still advised me to taper off. While I was doing that i was reading internet horror stories, and i wasnt feeling well. I think i took a day off of work to sleep, but it wasnt bad or hard and I was clear-headed again in a few days. Honestly I haven't done anything but work and move things and shop for things in a year now so I probably could stand a few more days off. 

Except that I have bills to pay and I can't afford days off. I've used up all my paid time off awhile back mostly for appointments with the painters and other workers and helpers to get my house back in some shape so I could go home.

So after i was off the gabapentin it turned out this weird pain in my back on the side was what i believe was probably a kidney stone, so i took it easy because everything hurt to do once my brain started working right again, drank a ton of water and in a couple of days it must have passed because I just felt ok again one day and I was ready to start living life again when I got a sinus infection almost immediately and I felt crummy for over a week with that.

Had Thanksgiving in there, but i was feeling a little off and just happy to be home regardless so i made some turkey and trimmings for myself and just stayed home and enjoyed the holiday for the celebration of living in my house, not being scared of my stuff.. at least not the stuff in the house right at the moment... and my heart seems to have stopped doing weird stuff while I was on the gabapentin not focusing on how scary that is that my heart was racing for no reason several times a day.

I dont know that that medicine did anything much for my nerves but it did seem to give me a month off of my own life where I was checked out enough not to worry about everything. Even if it was artificial, and even if i had to stop taking it because the brain fog was getting worse and i couldnt work like that. it was nice to relax a minute, and i think my heart calmed down just for time probably. Might have been the pills but it didnt come back after, which is what i was most worried about when I stopped taking it.

In that last week i think the gabapentin was actually making my anxiety worse, my emotions were sort of all over the place and i was having real trouble focusing on anything to the point where I had to stop exercising because my brain couldn't do dance aerobics and working got hard. It was just time to get off them. I don't know how people take high dosages of that stuff for long periods of time, but it certainly wasn't good for me.

But i got a lotion warmer. It started getting colder and putting lotion on was unpleasant so i got a warmer for something like $18 and putting lotion on is awesome now and i feel like it absorbs in better and im using a lot more. and it feels like thats soothing me more too. I got a lotion that doesnt seem to be irritating me but ive found in the last year the best thing to do is rotate lotions. I am sensitive to some lotions even before all this, but im using ones ive been able to tolerate. even some oils which have never been a problem after a few days or a week or so dont soothe me anymore so i need to change, but the sensations are changing and i believe lessening, which i think is slow healing. and i seem to be able to use the lotions longer before i have to switch them out. its all great signs i might return to normal one day.

I got a back massager cushion. one of those shiatsu roller ones with heat, and i find if i spend 30-45 on it that also gives me some noticeable improvement, so Im off the gabapentin and im just doing more massage and hot baths and lotion.

My sinus infection seems like its clearing up. I did a covid test just to be sure it was ok to go visit people since its Chanukah now and im negative so going to visit friends tonight. I still dont have clothes really. Started fresh with new, or new to me clothes only in the house. Ive since brought in a few items from the garage that i was wearing and not reacting to in the apartment last winter when I started fresh there.. i think i contaminated stuff in the summer after i had a failed attempt at moving home, so I started over again fresh besides the bed, which I only ever wore one pair of pajamas in and never contaminated them. thank goodness. because i didnt have to buy a third bed.

So now im home and i know that its nerve damage, i still think some of my stuff is/was/may or may not be contaminated and i just dont want to take the risk of having to move out again so im not bringing any old stuff back in the house. its all in temporary closets in the garage along with the dressers i havent decided if im going to repair and bring back. may as well rethink the furniture now. but i brought back the headboard which I'm so happy to have. it feels so much more like home in there. My headboard is a shelf and the cats sit on it and look out the window and of course i can put my things on there i like to have in bed.

i got a replica of my quilt i had to throw out. it wasnt precious or anything but i spent a long time looking for one i liked and i was sad to have to get rid of it. got new sheets and even though I think i could bring my winter comforter back in... because it was on a high shelf in plastic the whole time. Probably never got touched by the flea spray ever, but its in the garage now and I'm just making do with the cheap comforter i bought when i moved into the apartment at least for now.

I hope to heal my skin and then try to bring my clothes back in.

Maybe get carpet and then worry about new dressers after I have wall to wall carpet again and some clothes to put in them. 

I have some clothes. got a sale at old navy and got a bundle of basics. workout clothes and pajamas cause thats really all need. its enough for working from home and going to Jazzercise. which i havent been doing because I've not been well since i stopped goign because i couldnt do it for the pills, and then the kidney stone and then the sinus infection.

but i have been doing it since 2002 and i always go back so i trust myself to do that.

In fact, im ready to start my January diet now even though its not even christmas yet. I mean first off im Jewish, second off i cant drink right now because alcohol makes my nerves worse. I can look back and spot the worst days Ive had since this began pretty much correspond to having drank the night before. I didnt see it clearly at all back then. It was just maddening id feel good enough to maybe celebrate something a little bit and the next day would just be the worst suffering. felt like I just was never going to be ok. I couldnt put it all together but now that I have im not going to be doing much Xmas or New Year's partying. and this year im working early the next morning both days anyway. 

I think excessive sugar consumption does it to me too which is my #1 bad habit and coping mechanism. But i havent been able to stop that, im just taking it down a notch.

So im ready to workout again. well i feel that way today. 

Hoping im finally ok to go forward and live a life. 

It's been over a year since i sprayed the spray trying to make my cats more comfortable because they were so miserable being flea infested, and ruined my life and so many of my things and my body for i dont know how long. 

But today im hopeful I'll make afull recovery.

looking at my $$$ and thats going to take a long time to make a recovery too. 

I moved out this time last year so its pretty weird. With covid and living alone and working from home its like no time has passed. Where i am at right now is where I expected i was at last year before I got worse and had to move out. I thought when I sprayed the original stuff and had the original reaction, that id clean everything and id have to throw out some things and then id just rebuild and it would cost more than i wanted to pay but i'd move forward and that'd just be a minor disaster that happened.

Its like a weird time warp being home now and still not being ok and still not having my house back together, and its been so long i dont even really know exactly what ive lost and what I havent.

I'm just sort of waiting till spring now and hoping i heal enough i can reclaim my clothes from the garage and maybe even my washer/dryer which ive decided not to replace yet because they work fine and i like them and i'm just sort of banking on the idea that if i wait long enough this stuff will lose potency if its still in the machines or any of the clothes ive kept.

It has to, right? eventually?

Meanwhile I need to heal, so im doing laundry at a laundromat.

Got new white sheets. i love white and ive hated that ive had so few clothes ive been doing my socks and other whites in with the colors and my whites are dingy. i dont know why but that makes me really unhappy. So now i have white sheets and shirts and dish towels and socks and theres enough whites to do a white load with whitener and my whites are bright again. 

So that makes me happy.

For some reason living in a brown apartment with dingy whites was so awful for me.

I live in a white cottage and i just love how bright and white everything is. 

My job is both a drag and a blessing now because i dont have to go anywhere or look like anything. i still dont really have clothes. and they have me waking up really early before the sun to do the early shift. theres no work which is boring for me but ive been able to use that time to get a lot done. Online shopping, i found my current sofa and got my area rug and the new bedding, the old navy sale which has basically completely outfitted me in this move back to the house. I just spend all morning web surfing, researching and ordering and then what i need is coming to me. 

i get off early too which was great when i was working out. Keeps my hormones in check and my body working correctly and my mood as elevated as it can be. Its always been better for me than pills and I need to get back to it asap. 

Gonna start my january diet monday i think.

Ive put on weight with all this emotional eating, working from home and not feeling right or well for so long now. 

I'm still not right. my stomach is weird about what and how much it will tolerate and i still feel like im vibrating inside a little bit, nowhere near as bad as it was last year but its not completely gone. I think i take alka-seltzer every day. feels like it. which does settle my stomach and i feel normal after that but I'm not 100% healthy and good to go at all. the sensations in my skin feel less like im being burned, not even like i was burned now so much as its tingly because its coming back alive I think. Thats how it feels anyway, but its not gone, just changed.  The spot that was numb has feeling now so i think its progress in the right direction.

I think time will heal me. Or at least heal me more than i am healed right at the moment.

My heart has stopped doing really scary things. but it still does some more mild racing. Its like i still have all the same symptoms but theyre all just more mild than they were before. 

For me that feels like I can be a person again going forward. I'm home and my debt i hope is manageable if i keep this job which I probably would have quit by now and found one i liked better or gone back to my own housecleaning business but I need the health insurance and the guaranteed income and the potential for all the overtime i want.

so im just gonna massage and lotion and take hot baths and pay my bills now.

and get carpet one day and figure out if i can keep my laundry machines and/or my clothes maybe next spring or summer depending how healed i am or how brave i am then.

and ill either get new dressers or repair my old ones which took a beating in the move out to the garage for the macho hubris of the guy moving them who damaged them instead of saying he couldn't do it or he needed help. 

but its okay because i was kind of thinking of replacing them before all this anyway. 

Now i have what i need at least for the moment, for the winter, in the house. I'm going to sit tight with what I've got and try to pay down some bills and then in the Spring i need to do another round of junk removal, because i replaced the bookshelf instead of bringing in the one the cat had peed on, and i have a few other things in the garage that didnt make it on the truck last time, as well as these dressers if i decide to dispose of them. 

and then i can hopefully bring my clothes back inside. 

I got rid of half of them, after the ones that were destroyed directly by the spray or indirectly by the washing machine that spread it to other stuff. Just seemed like a good time to declutter.

Honestly might keep the freestanding temp closets in the garage for occasional items. Its nice to have a ton of room in my closet. I'm hanging everything since i have loads of hangers and no dressers at the moment. 

I have so many shoes and theyre all outside and i dont go anywhere and i feel like when i bring the clothes back in, whenever that might be, I may do another purge and get rid of some more of it.

Cause my body doesnt fit in some of that now. 

So i guess ill spend the winter trying to get my body back for the clothes i aim to reclaim. 

I cant help but wonder if i lived with someone how differently this would have played out, or if i wasnt working from home, or if i never took the cats outside or if i moved somewhere else instead or i never moved out at all. etc etc etc etc etc and i know none of that is helpful and i couldnt have done things any differently or i would have. It wasnt like i wasnt trying to solve this every minute of every day from the beginning. It wasnt like i didnt try everything i could think of based on the info i had at that moment. It wasnt like i didnt reach out for help to everyone and anyone who might have been able to help me.

I've got to stay focused on going forward.

paying the bills, getting my body back, hopefully getting the rest of my stuff back

This nightmare isnt over but coming home a year later, all these holidays feel like do-overs and all the last year feels like a weird fever dream and here i am picking up where I left off, or where i originally expected to be leaving off when i had the reaction in the first place.

The whole time ive been working this stupid morning shift ive been telling myself ill get a later one next time we change. we change every 4 mos or so. But today im doing nothing, as usual for hours in the morning and even though I have nothing to shop for and no work-people to research or anything that needs to get done, i honestly like not working half the day enough i may just put in for this early shift again. 

That remains to be seen. 

The only thing better than working from home is getting paid to do nothing at home. Just have to be awake absurdly early. Not a bad trade-off i guess. 

Then im off early enough to do all the workouts i want to do.

To get my body back so i can get my clothes back.

I think if i have to buy all new clothes id be sad but not as sad as if i had to buy all bigger clothes.