Life, love and Depeche Mode

Life has been kind of crazy lately.  Let me share some snippets of my crazy with you....

Unfortunately, last Tuesday I had the misfortune of having another Angioedema attack.  Its the first time since last June that I have had one, but still -not a nice way to wake up at 430am on a Tuesday...  Angioedema is a strange beast.  I have it in my gastrointestinal track so my intensines swell up and I get fluid in my abdomen.  Its ugly painful.  I would rather go through labor without benefit of pain killers...

This time, we got a hold of the doc first thing and got seen then scheduled for a transfusion of fresh frozen plasma...  Doesn't hurt, shortened the intensity and the duration -hey, WIN-WIN!  Except...   Now, I can't donate blood for a year.  And I am occasionally waking up with weird thoughts.  Can I blame them on the "donor" who gave me their plasma?  If I wandered around telling people my weird thoughts, could I eventually figure out my donor?  Uhm, would I want to?

I got called by the Red Cross a few days after the transfusion to get me to participate in a blood drive.  Prior to all of this, donating blood was a huge milestone for me.  I have been donating since my early 20s.  But I got way too fat to donate at the mobile drives and then was too anemic after the birth of my son in 2005 to donate.  Eventually, my weight was down and the anemia was better and I began donating as frequently as I can.  Anyway, I asked the caller if  I was eligible to donate after the transfusion and the volunteer said, "Well, its not a blood product."  Um, yeah - it most definitely IS!  I got asked by a guy at the bank who made the plasma.  My response?  "Um, pretty sure it was God."  I am feeling particularly snarky since the transfusion -must mean I am feeling better...  Or something was mixed in... or my donor was on some other med that is passing through the blood stream.  Yeah, that's it...  And I don't know why but I kept thinking of the movie PET SEMETARY while I got the transfusion....

The other downside of the whole attack thing is that I become a finicky eater and I am exhausted.  Which brings me to major bad news of the week for me...  I hit the 300 lbs mark again at my TOPS weigh in.  Dang it.  I just bumped right into it, but still - the finicky eating and the lack of energy just means I am in no way interested in working out.  I am also not interested in laundry, naughty cats or children who don't finish their homework when they say they did, but that is not related to the attack, unless its true that stress triggers the attacks, in which case -HOOK UP THE PLASMA IV now!  But the finicky eating -body thinks it won't get food again and shuts down...  Argh.  My life is a see-saw. 

I am not happy to see 300 again.  I am not sure who was more bummed, me or our weight recorder, who just kept saying, "I'm sorry".  Me too, but I ate my way here, it will have to be me who sends that hideous number into the past...  I was hoping it was never in my future...  And I guess its not -its my present.  Time for a reboot of the mental system.  It would help if this infernal rain would stop.  I appreciate the green result, but yipes.  We get one gorgeous (but cold) day and then rain -again.  I think the exhaustion I feel is some bizarre sense of depression.  Definitely need some sun...  and to win the lottery...And I am going to try to make sure that next Tuesday's weigh in does not let me see 300 again...  I hate that number. 

My children have all had their birthdays for the year -whew.  Them getting older means I am older too.  And borrowing their headbands means you can see the grey to prove it...  On principal, I am refusing to dye my hair.   I think the grey hairs should be looked at as badges, showing how much I have invested in my family.  Besides, I tried once to color them and the dye never worked...  Why waste my time?

My poor husband -I asked him once why he doesn't do the romantic overtures he did when we were dating and he said, "Why?  We're already married."  True.  I still do romantic things for him -I think - but I have grey hair, rarely shave my legs, live in my sweats and I am tired all the time.  Oh, and I don't save the snarky just for my blog.  Who do you think gets the better deal?  I am guessing it depends on the day....

So what does all this ranting and weird stuff have to do with Depeche Mode (I will assume you all know who they are)?

They sing a song called "Blasphemous Rumours".  This wonderful song, is the soundtrack to my life...

Listen to Depeche Mode here -with lyrics

I think if you don't look at your life with a little humor, you are going to be in a padded room, wearing a nice coat with the sleeves in the back -and then you have lost more than just your mind, you have lost everything....

It's like deja vu all over again!

So, I have never really considered myself to be all that attractive.  I am not hideous, but I am not really much to write home to mom about either.  God bless my husband -aside from dealing with all the craziness that is me, he also thinks I look well enough to marry.  But a strange thing has started to happen to me lately....  and I am not sure if its because of how I look (good or bad) or because of how much I talk (always a possibility!) or if its because something about what I have said or done has stuck with people...

There is a big cheap market I like to shop at here, that is huge and non-descript and pretty anonymous.  Most of the time if I run in to someone, its someone I know from our church, the kids' school or bunco or something.  But a couple of days ago, I was getting some granola or something and this woman asks me if I had seen something.  I point her in the right direction, made a comment on what she was buying and she says, "I remember you.  You look good.  You have lost a lot of weight."   I could not place her.  The filofax of my brain was flipping but nothing stopped...

She said she worked at a local home improvement store and she remembered me from carding me to verify my signature on my credit card.  She said she told me the driver's license picture didn't look like me and I had to explain that I had lost about 150 lbs since the picture was taken.  She remembered -and now all this time later, still knew who I was....

Today I was in a megamart, finishing up my grocery shopping, when a woman stopped me with an enthusiastic, "Hello!"  She explained she knew me from church and from my involvement with our mass.  "And by the way," she said, "you look amazing!  How much have you lost anyway?"

I was floored.  She looked vaguely familiar, but not enough that I would have known her on the street -obviously! 

How is that when we are feeling our weakest, feeling we look our worst, people surface and tell us these amazing things and share with us how we have made a difference in their lives.   Apparently the Megamart lady even told friends in another state about me.

There are people out there who pray for me, who talk about me with positive energy and strength.  Wow, I actually INSPIRE people.  And those people are amazing to share that with me because they always seem to cross my path when I am having the least amount of confidence possible in myself.    Simple gifts like that is how I know that, for me, God exists.  There is a force out there, looking out for me when I have lost focus and faith in me.

I feel flattered and overwhelmed by the support that this means is out there for me.  I have AMAZING friends -people who have loved me unconditionally through some very rough times and they continue to love without question.  And when I cannot figure out why, they are quick to tell me to remove my head from my nether regions and to get a grip.  And I have these people whose lives I have, in my humble opinion, merely brushed up against, and they too cannot help but cheer me on...

I need to remember that when I cannot have faith in myself, others have unequivocal faith in me. 

And who am I to question that kind of wisdom?