About Me

Hi there!    I decided to start this blog one day when I was lying in bed composing blog posts for my family blog in my head and everything I had to say was about illness and/or a general gripe.  Blech.  Who wants to read a family blog like that?  So here we are.

I'm not going to do the whole drawn out description of my diagnosis.  Everyone has a long story about a doctor or three who didn't think there was anything wrong and here we are with an auto-immune disease.  It sucks, I'm going to skip it.
The down and dirty is that I have some combination of inflammatory, screwed-up, immuno-supressed, depression and anxiety inducing "conditions" that make me want to hide in bed more often than not. I've got doctors. I've got therapists. I've got a loving family. I've got thoughts to share so I'll do that here. You're welcome to read (why else are you here?) or not (it was nice that you stopped by this once).

Contact

If you have any questions or need to contact me, please email me at myimmunesystemhatesme at gmail dot com.

Hibernating...

This is one of those fetal position type of weeks.  I thought I was doing great, I had a great week last week.  I got exactly what I wanted for my birthday which was to sleep in and then take a nap and then enjoy an evening with close friends.  In retrospect, all that sleep might have been a warning signal for a healthy person but I love sleep so much I never recognize it as a warning for trouble ahead.

I enjoyed my birthday thoroughly.  My dearest friends Amy and Mike came over and cooked dinner and brought a cake covered with extra extra butter cream (which I have been eating all by myself all week) and their kids entertained us greatly with their antics.  Little kid antics are the best when yours are semi-grown and you aren't responsible for the naked-but-for-adult-flip-flops-and-sunglasses two year old.  In fact, you get to a point of encouraging the most outrageous of ensembles. 

The next day was fine if I remember correctly.  A nice family day with Matt and Zack. 

Monday...Matt worked late and so Zeke and I were on our own but he's currently growing an inch a week so he mostly just sleeps.  I decided to flip around video-on-demand and for who knows what reason I chose to watch a special on social anxiety and I shit you not it gave me a panic attack and I've been wanting to hide in bed ever since.  I'm trying to fight it but my first thought to every.single.thing this week is "I'm going to be in bed".

I'm in the fetal position this week.  I'm not sure what would help.  It gets worse every time one of my boys asks me what they can do to help - they're awesome at taking care of me - because what I want most of all is to be left alone behind a closed door to hibernate until whatever this particular mess is passes.

If you need me (and please try your best not to) I'll be that lump under the covers in the middle of my bed.

afm

(Yes I have a therapist.  Yes I have a med doc)

Let's Try This Again...

Hello.  I've been blogging since 2006 when I had little kids that produced funny stories for me to tell on our family blog on a daily basis.  I've enjoyed blogging and typing the words that jumble all around my head pretty much constantly and then a year ago a few things happened that sort of threw a wrench into my desire to share.  First my kids got to the tween ages when all their stories were the sort that might invade their privacy and would definitely earn me the scorn and eye rolling of a typical adolescent whose Mom discussed how cute he is with his first girlfriend.  Then I shared something on our blog that defined the core of who I am and I got some backlash from my FIL who expressed that he was disappointed in "how we are choosing to raise our children".  I composed long posts dripping with sarcasm and "how dare yous" and indignation and kept myself from posting them in order to "keep the peace" and then POOF I lost my will to blog.

It's been about a year and a half and I miss it.  I miss talking to the blogosphere no matter if I have a thousand people listening or no one.  But I can't get past the fact that my stories, as they relate to my kids, are maybe no longer appropriate?  Maybe.  I still have lots to say.  Maybe more about me and who I am besides just the Mom.  I have loooads of opinions.  Oooh boy are there opinions. 

And so, I'm going to give this blog thing another whirl, but this one isn't about the kids.  This one popped up as a need for me as I look at turning 39 and feeling as though there's someplace I want to be by the time I'm 40.  I don't know where that is and I'm not one for making big declarations like resolutions as I'm also a self-saboteur.  I'd rather check some things off AFTER I accomplish them.  I'd like to talk about current events.  I'd like to mock the idiots of the world and learn NOT to mock the idiots of the world.  I don't even care if you're out there listening.  I just need to talk.

For today...I'm working on that general idea list of things that I want to be different by the time I'm 40.  As I was reading the internet (as I do almost constantly) I found this article/blog/letter and I love it:

A Letter to My Kids Because I'm 40 and That's Old...

Yes I know I said that this wasn't about the kids, and it's really not.  It's more about where you are right now, in this moment.  My favorite section is "Simmer the hell down" which reminds me so much of something else that makes me smile, Jenna Marbles' "People who need to pipe the fuck down":

Enjoy...