So, this is what I look like when I wear my mask out in public. I call it my ugly mask, because I feel like a freak with it on. But I do know that it is worth it if I get to do the things that I want. It is easier to just stay home and not do anything at all, but I have kids want me to be a part of their lives, so I am willing to look like a freak if it means I get to go out and do things.

Today is a sad one for me. I feel like crying. I have felt foggy all day and I waited too late to eat my breakfast and so my blood sugar was low, and thus, I ate too many carbs for breakfast. I started feeling pretty bad... like I had a hangover. I checked my blood sugar and it was 174, two hours after eating breakfast. Now, I know that the American Diabetes Association wants post meals numbers to be 180 or below, but I feel better when I am at 160 or below. So even though I was a bit over my personal target number I was still in a safe range... so that wasn't why I felt like dog shit.

My daughter wanted to run to Wal-Mart to look for a blouse to wear to the St. Patrick's dance tonight so I went out. It was while I was sitting in the van in a fog, feeling bewildered that I thought it might be from some recently exposure. Once dd got in the van, she helped me figure out where all I had been. I honestly couldn't remember where I was yesterday and Monday. Which should have been my biggest tip-off. I couldn't remember anything. On Monday I had a team meeting with my son's case manager, PSR leader and their boss, about if my son would still be allowed to stay in the program that allowes him to live in his own apartment. The problem is that there is a mold problem in the building he lives in. I can smell it the second I walk in the door. They have air freshener plug-ins in each apartment (except my son's) and up an down the hallway, trying to cover up the smell. So for a person with MCS, it was pretty rough. I had to deal with the mold AND the air fresheners. I wore my face mask, but I think that it can only do so much. I sat in there about an hour and a half. Plus, I think that my car is leaking exhaust again...

All this to say, I at least know why I feel so bad. I don't know why I get so upset when I figure one of these things out... I just get so frustrated when I am reminded of my limitations.

Frustrated and sad.

So I spent a good portion of today on the phone trying to find out why my son is having so many problems at his new apartment. He has bipolar1 and ADHD and moved into an apartment that has a small amount of support for people that have mental illness. I won't bore you with all of the conversations that I had, but both his case manager and the lady that leads the classes he is required to attend for four hours a day in order to live there, think that we may have underestimated his life skills. So they think that he may do better in a facility where he can have more help. Where he is living now is #3 in a four level program. So he is one level away from being ready to go out on his own. They think he needs to go back down to level one, which is a lot like living in a psych ward. I think that based on the little that I know, he needs to move down to #2. Honestly I am not sure. There is no set parameters of what abilities fit at which location. I plan to ask about that. John's case manager, Robin is going to suggest a meeting of she and the other lady that works with him, me, John, and the head of this department. I think it all comes down to this: if he wants to live there, he needs to start doing what is required of him or he needs to move to a different location. He got pretty defensive tonight when I spoke to him about it. He wants to stay there. In his favor, I did find out today that Robin has not been working with him as much as she does the other clients because of a billing issue. The boy has lived there a month, and she has not helped him like she was supposed to, but she had no problems writing him up for infractions. So I am frustrated.

I am heartbroken because I am starting to think that he may never be able to live on his own. When you have a baby, you have dreams and thoughts of what he or she will be like as they grow older, things they will accomplish. I feel like I am having to give up those dreams. I know that there are new ones to take their place, but it is still very sad to me. It reminds me of the poem "Welcome to Holland".

FWIW... once you get to the point that you don't crave carbs anymore... don't give in and think that it is OK and you can eat them. IT IS A LIE!!!! I fell off the wagon and it is like having withdrawl all over again. This is worse than when I quit drinking and doing drugs. It does help that there isn't very many sugarey junk in the house. But I am still restless and just want to go in there and eat half the fridge. The only thing that is keeping me going is knowing that I was able to get past the cravings before and that I lost 7 lbs by eating better. So I guess that I am going to just grit my teeth and hang on.

Well, I finally got to use my new face mask. I bought a mask from "I Can Breathe", a compnay that specializes in face masks. Their design is pretty different too. I feel like I look like I am wearing a basket muzzle for a dog. But it works very well. In my last post on Friday I mentioned my MCS, and how much I hated it. I left for the day soon after that post and I went to tag my car. One of my stops was the DMV. Apparently they use some kind of a scented product for a cleaner because as soon as I stepped in there I could smell it. My friend K, who was with me even commented on it. So I decided that I didn't want to suffer and that I would rather be stared at and put the mask on. The teenaged girl standing with her mom at the window next to mine kept looking at me, but the adults in the room didn't. I resisted the urge to explain why I was wearing it, and instead focused on getting the check written so I could go home. Let me tell you that once you have been using one of the masks, and you have the chance to breathe fresh air... the moment you take the mask off it is bliss!

Well today I yet again HATE having MCS. Multiple Chemical Sensitivity sucks. So how evil is it that a person is made sick by scents... but we become super sniffers. I can smell a scent much stronger or sooner than normal people. So I get the joy of betting exposed quicker and for longer periods of time. YAY... not! Today I was getting on to my daughter, Bailey because she used a new hairspray that triggerd me. And then all of a sudden I noticed an orange/rosemary smell. And I thought that she had sprayed some new perfume or something. It turns out that the scent was from the carpets being cleaned in the apartment downstairs. I called my landlord to ask if it was going to go on for very long, and I am glad that I did. They are going to shampoo another one in my breezeway, one on the same level as my apartment. The perfume is sure to come in under my door since my weather stripping is not very good. Asit is, I had to close my patio door... no more fresh air for me for a while. Actually I am just going to leave for a while since I have errands to run. But when I leave I am going to have to wear my ugly face mask just to walk to the van. It isn't their fault... in fact I think that the scent is pretty. Too bad I will probably be triggered by it and will feel the effects of it tomorrow or Sunday. Did I mention that I really hate having MCS?
God bless you and yours
Deb

I'm baaaaack!

Well, it sure has been a long time since I posted on here. I originally had this blog as part of an assignment for my college English class. I was required to write in it so much that I kind of got tired of doing it, so I think that is why I stayed away for so long.

But now I find that I need some place to vent my frustrations and "someone" to talk to about what is going on in my life. So that is what this is.

Right now the most previlant thing in my life is my trying to control my diabetes with diet and exercise. I was diagnosed in September of 2010. My A1c was at a 7, which is the magic number that doctors use to decide if a person is diabetic. I just had another test on Feb. 22, and it was down to 6.8 which is technically not diabetic, but close enough that I still consider myself diabetic. The last five months of my life were probably the most stressfull since my husband died five years ago. Yes, even my cancer diagnosis and resulting hysterectomy wasn't this stressfull. God must have given me a special kind of calm. But I digress. I had a falling out with my best friend, my daughter's birth mother found us and started a bunch of crap and my son who has bipolar was hospitalized and was really becoming a handfull. He just moved out a couple of weeks ago, into a special apartment complex for folks that have mental issues... so he is getting some help and I am getting a much needed break. So, all this to say it has been a very stressfull time in my life. I eat when I am stressed and stress also causes blood sugar to go up. So it was a double whammey for me.

I found a great, online calorie counter/blood gucose tracker that has been wonderful for me. It is at www.livestrong.com and I plan to keep on using it to help me keep track of my eating.

So, yeah. I am hoping that this is a start to a new way of dealing with my issues.