Holiday Hangover

Thanksgiving came and went, emotions settled down for the time being and it was now time to focus on Christmas.  I usually cannot CANNOT wait to decorate for Christmas.  It is traditionally, for me, the day after Thanksgiving.  That's right.  While everyone else is waking and shopping and standing in mad lines I am busy getting my Clark Griswold on.  This year I was in bed.  I shopped on Black Friday for only the second time ever.....from my bed.  I know I told you I spent 2 weeks stuck in bed already. When that time was up  I was ready to get out of my room and do some moving. It was crazy how much muscle I lost!  I was incredibly weak. One of my first outings was to the grocery store.  The kitchen and pantry really needed a mother's lovin after me being out of commission for so long.  My husband went with me.  I did good.  Making it all the way to the check out line before I gave out.  My body was locking up. Knees, hands, motor skills, speech, and this feeling that I get where it feels like the air is being squeezed out of my lungs with every breath I take.

When I was pregnant, I had this fear of my water breaking in public.  I just knew with every forceful kick that it was going to happen and I was going to be so humiliated and left feeling obligated to pick up the carpet cleaning bill somewhere. I'm sure you ladies reading will know exactly what I am speaking of.  Holla.
Well, not like celebration holla.  Just like a Word Up.
I have that fear all over again, but this time it is with shakes, with my speech that so easily becomes slurred, the absent mindedness.  I'm scared I'm going to be mistaken for the town drunk or the town junkie.  See, when I am having a "moment" it would be easy to compare me to such.  My brain is telling me to do one thing, but my body is doing something completely different.

Back to Christmas time.  I made it to the kids functions. I even managed to take some pretty snazzy pics of them for our Christmas cards.  If I know I'm going to be busy I will allow myself downtime. You may see me walking around at school, at the ball fields, at the store.  You may even see me cleaning my car, grocery shopping, or pulling weeds.  It would probably be easy for you to even pass judgment on me and say that I look well and that I don't look sick.  The battle is on the inside of my body.  I do what I can when I can for as long as I can.  I am learning to balance rest and activity, but during the Holiday months I was still trying to understand this lesson.   My tree was in my living room, undecorated until a week and half away from Christmas.  That was a long time for me. I honestly cannot even remember decorating the house or even shopping.  Baked goodies didn't get made this year.  No peanut brittle, no pretzels dipped in chocolate, no sugar cookies. Not here.  What I do remember though was painting wine glasses.

For several years I baked and decorated cakes.  I enjoyed it so much.  I've always liked being artsy and creative.  As I fell more and more ill I was also becoming more and more busy and I was not able to keep up.  My hands and back and legs would hurt too bad.  Believe it or not it takes strength to do cakes.  It also take a mental toll due to the concentration.  I just could not do it any more.  I slowly faded myself out only to do the occasional cake here and there now.  My kids do not even get my decorated cakes.  Kroger cupcakes it is these days.  Oh and there is the always delicious Baskin Robbins cake. Jussssst in case anyone ever needed to know that for any reason.

Painting glasses was so enjoyable due to the fact I was able to decorate and expel some of my creativity without the pain.  We retreated to the deer lease for a weekend where I painted the whole time while watching red birds.  I stayed just enough busy doing so until the hand and brain shaking started to get worse.  Now, I don't know how many of you know this, but you have to have a steady hand to paint, just like decorating a cake.  It's not rocket science.  It's simple math.
They call it brain shivers.  The shaking I can feel all the time.  Like a constant vibration.  Then there are the times where I shake and twitch and it's noticeable.  I will sometimes in public sit on my hands when it starts. For the life of me, I cannot remember Christmas Day, (begining of Alzheimer's)  and New Years was spent at home with the kids waking me up just 5 minutes before the countdown. Whew. Things by this time are really starting to catch up with me. It is so frustrating to have chunks of memory just vanish.  I do remember that I had to quit the glasses.  It was okay.  I had bigger plans.